ignorance and superstition.  But such is the case, and as always, the women are the greatest sufferers.  Doubtless the Negroes have the largest claim upon us, because of their past history, their present wrongs, and their great numbers, which have become so startling as to make it imperative that we yield no jot of advantage gained, but rather increase our efforts every year for their intellectual and moral improvement.  Yet the work for the mountain whites is just now especially urgent.  A missionary of much experience expresses the view, that if we can bring the forces of Christian education to bear mightily upon these mountain people for the next ten years, they will themselves become a power as our allies in the great battles of the future against immorality and false doctrines.  A few weeks since I met in North Carolina near the Great Smoky Mountains a mother and daughter, the latter about eighteen years old.  A school for mountain girls had been opened there, and the daughter had attended the last year.  On entering she could not read a word, but now was in the Fourth Reader, and studying arithmetic and geography.  The rich, soft color that came to her cheeks, and the kindling light of her eyes, told of the brightness this school had brought into her life; this Christian school, for here too, she had learned the way of eternal life.  Even the mother’s eyes sparkled like stars as she looked with admiration upon her “learned” daughter.

But our door stands wide open also towards the Indians and Chinese, and all the arguments that appeal to us so strongly for the disenthrallment of women in heathen lands, appeal with equal, yea greater force for the heathen in our own land, whom the Gospel only can make free.

Such is our great and urgent call for work for woman in the field of the American Missionary Association.  Who should do it, and how?  Who but the Christian women of our churches, either directly or by substitutes?  Some can go, of those who have prepared themselves for the highest and best quality of Christian service.  They should be thoroughly trained and disciplined teachers, but not this alone.  Every teacher should be a careful and intelligent Bible student, able to instruct from the word of God, practical and earnest, self-sacrificing and co-operative, ready to do what seems most necessary, even though it should not call into action her finest mental qualities.  Let those who cannot go, send a substitute, but let none fail to seize the opportunity for a part in this blessed work, for the salvation of our country, and its protection as a Christian land.