We are very proud of this book as being the first literary production in an African language of one of our graduates at the South, the Rev. B.F.  Ousley, now of the East Central Africa Mission.  The missionaries there have already reduced the language to writing, having formed a vocabulary of over three thousand words, and from it have printed a few books.  Among them, is the one whose title appears above.  It is a translation of “The Story of the Gospel,” in a little volume of two hundred and six pages.  We have read it with great interest so far as we have been able to understand its dialect.  Within our comprehension we find Jesu, the one word in all languages for all people, Simone Petro, Johane, Marta, Maria, and Lazaru and many other such proper names.  We congratulate our young people at the South that so soon they have a representative performing such literary work for the people of Africa.  Much of such work seems drudgery, but it is necessary to opening the light of life to the people who sit in darkness.  A booklet in the same language gives a catechism and some of the songs of the gospel, ten of which are translations by Mr. Ousley of some of the dearest of the gospel songs.

* * * * *

THE SOUTH.

* * * * *

WHAT I FOUND IN THE CUMBERLAND MOUNTAINS.

BY REV.  C.W.  SHELTON.

First.  There are living in this mountain country two millions of white people, until recently isolated from, and untouched by, the civilization of which we are so proud.  No centennial anniversary commemorates their growth in wealth and intellect.  As their fathers lived, so until recently, have they.  One hundred years have witnessed but little progress, almost no change, in their condition.  The open fire-place, the spinning-wheel and the home-spun jeans are familiar sights.  Forgotten by the rest of the world, they, in turn, forget that beyond these mountain peaks, marking the limit of view and generally the limit of interest, a nation has pressed forward to take its place among the foremost of the earth.  And yet no color line has excluded, no reservation boundary separated, this people from their fellow countrymen.  Their lack of energy and the stagnation of their minds, is the explanation of this condition of things.

Secondly.  I found this mountain people naturally American; in deepest sympathy with our free government; loyal to the old flag in the hour of its greatest danger; fighting, suffering, dying, that the Union might be preserved.  To one who has spent any length of time on our western prairies settled so largely with an emigrant people, the great difference between the American born and educated people of the mountains, and the naturalized American of the prairie, constantly emphasizes itself.  Here no new language has to be acquired, no new form of government understood.  A common interest, a common sympathy, a mother country, binds one at once to this people as it never can to the American importation which is found at the West.