get my work along froo de day.
And I tinks and prays a heap about dat meetin' all day, I does."

How many of you at home do as much for your prayer-meeting as this
poor old colored woman? No dull summer prayer-meetings when church
members go prepared like this. I have said that these people have
ideas and can express them. At my last prayer-meeting before departing
for my vacation, one good brother prayed that the "Lord would bless
the pastor in his absence and continue to fill him up with new things,
so he can give them out to us." The pastor is filling up as fast as
possible.

One of the questions most often asked is, "Are the colored people
improving?" One has to say, "Of course they are." But are they
progressing rapidly? Yes and no. Yes, considering their antecedents
and present advantages. No, if one were to measure their rate of
progress by our impatience. The surest progress is not the swiftest.
Slow and sure is the rule by which we work. Statistics but feebly tell
the story of the improvement of the Freedmen since the war.
They can best testify concerning the advance who have been in the
field since the beginning of the work.

But even if it is slow, it pays well. There came into my church one
Sunday not long ago a poor old lady who was a comparative stranger in
the city. During the sermon she sat with mouth, eyes and ears open.
After the service she came to me and said, "I tank de Lord He bro't me
year. I done been gwine ter church dese fifty years, an I nebber heard
de tex 'splained befo." This old lady has since united with our
church, and when she is not there I know something serious is the
matter at her home. It is worth a year's preaching to have the
privilege of enlightening one benighted soul like this.

I called recently on an old gentleman who had become generally
disgusted with "dese yere churches roun year." I found him poring over
a big, well-worn Bible, the perspiration pouring down his shiny face,
and with a big pair of spectacles resting on the tip of his nose. With
an air of superior wisdom he surveyed me over the top of the
spectacles, and then solemnly stated to the few who gathered around as
I sat down on an old soap box, "Dat a preacher? I kin tell a preacher
the fus question I ask him." Then taking off the spectacles and slowly
closing the big Bible, he went on: "Now I'se gwine to put you all a
question" (looking at the others) "an den I'se gwine ter ask de
preacher, an I can tell wh