hen
properly brought forward will make a meeting that for interest cannot
be surpassed. It is one of the strangest things in the world that so
many people have gotten the impression that a missionary meeting must
be dull, and that a missionary discourse must be uninteresting. It is
an impression that ought not to exist. Let sermons be preached. Let
the thrilling, soul-inspiring facts that go to make up the history of
missions be made known and the impression will soon be driven out of
existence.

Brethren, we invite you to glean in the great field of the American
Missionary Association. There will be rich returns for you and your
people and golden returns for us.

* * * * *

THE TEST APPLIED.

When Berea College was started, in 1858, its students were all
white. The following year the question was raised, "What if colored
students should apply?" One teacher voiced the sentiment of all when
he said, "If any one made in God's image comes to get knowledge which
will enable him to understand the revelation of God in Jesus Christ,
he cannot be rejected." The simple declaration of that sentiment had
the effect to make most of the students leave at the end of the term,
never to return. The John Brown raid, happening soon after, rendered
the school still more unpopular, and the war following a little
later, the school had to suspend altogether. But when the war ended
and, in 1865, the college opened its doors again, there being no
longer slavery, the question of color soon came up for consideration.

In one of the by-laws to the constitution of the college was this
statement: "The object of this college shall be to furnish the
facilities for a thorough education to all persons of good moral
character." Three colored youths applied for admission. On
examination they were found to be "persons of good moral character."
There was only one thing to do. They were promptly admitted. What
followed? There were at the time seventy-five students in the
college, and we are told, "the morning that those three harmless
youths walked in, half the school walked out."

But some one will say: "That was at the close of the war, when the
feelings of our white brethren at the South were naturally very
sensitive; that time, however, has passed away. We can now plant
schools and churches on an anti-caste basis, with open doors and
welcome hands for colored people, _if they choose to come_. No such
exhibition