What is it?  It is to take to heathen mothers and sisters here in our own country the glorious news of salvation for them; to bring the light and truth of the Gospel to those who are groping in the fog of superstition and a wrong conception of Bible truth; to plant the Christian school; to establish the Christian home as an object lesson; to show mothers how to train their children to honor and obedience, to mingle with the needy and helpless, and by sympathy and tact secure such changes in the homes as will lead to their permanent improvement; in a word, to follow the example of our Lord Jesus, by living and teaching the blessings of intelligence and godliness among those in our home-land for whose improvement and well-being we are peculiarly responsible.  The American Missionary Association has ninety-four schools, and in most of these more women than men are engaged.  It is the duty of the missionary teacher to avail herself of every opportunity which her relation with her scholars affords, either in day or boarding school, to inculcate Christian truth, to warn against the evils which she finds common among the people, to teach by example and precept the living Word, as manifested in the life of Christ.  The wonderful change wrought in those who are brought under the influence of such consecrated missionaries, testifies to the value of woman’s work in missions.

But who are these for whom we are peculiarly responsible, and why is there so especial need of woman’s work?

They are our eight millions of negroes, of whom probably not more than one-fourth may be said to have felt the corrective influence of the Gospel upon their lives.  Perhaps only those who have come in contact with these people for the sole purpose of helping them to manhood and womanhood, can comprehend the tremendous incubus of bad habits, stunted growth, blunted susceptibilities, with which they struggle.  It is painful to note the limitations of those even who have had the best advantages.  Yet they are ever reaching upward, and the struggle is bringing out noble qualities of character, showing the possibilities of the race.  We have had a goodly recompense for Christian labor among them, and does not this increase our responsibility for the three-fourths that are yet to be helped to a good understanding of themselves and their duty toward man and God?  And no one will question that in the development of the best womanhood there rests the surest hope of the elevation of this wronged, and even now, greatly oppressed people.

But our woman’s work finds also its mission among the needy whites of the South.  It seems almost incredible that there should be found, within thirty-six hours’ ride of our Northern towns, so dotted with schools and churches and Christian homes, a section of our country where there have been in hiding, in the ravines and on the mountain sides, two or more millions of our American people, in gross