planted their
"church house," absolutely without intelligent Christian instruction
of any kind. There were hundreds of square miles without a church
building of any denomination. This little company had been stirred up
by God's Spirit, and were almost starving for spiritual food. There
was a pathos even in their peculiar mountain vernacular, as one of
them said to me, "I don't understand scarcely a word you uns say. I'm
too old to larn now. I'se done left. But I does want my chilluns to
know somethin'. I tell you, I'd sell my old farm down in the cove so's
to help my chilluns to know somethin'." What a tremendous appeal this
is from the very heart of our country! All they asked was one hundred
dollars, to help them build this Congregational "church house" by the
side of Hickory Creek.

* * * * *

While writing these "Notes," there comes flashing over the wires,
the news of this horrible crime committed upon the person of Prof.
G.W. Lawrence, at Jellico. I remember a conversation I had with Mr.
Lawrence during this campaign of which I have been writing. He had
just been offered an important and lucrative position as teacher in
the North. He was a young man of only limited means, and felt almost
that he _must_ go. I told him we could not offer him _financial_
inducements to remain, but it seemed to me that the Lord had called
him to that work, and I did not know where we could find a man to fill
his place. "Very well," he replied, "I will remain." The Christian
hero that he was, he went patiently forward in this self-sacrificing
labor. Now, he has fallen by the hand of a brutal assassin! This awful
crime emphasizes the importance of this work, and calls aloud to us to
send _more_ Christian missionaries into this field, until Christian
light shall displace the darkness of semi-barbarism.

* * * * *

Turning a moment from the field in which our missions are planted,
to that from which they are supported, I give three interesting
incidents. In a New England church two young girls came forward after
hearing the story of the A.M.A. work in the dark places of our
country, and pledged fourteen dollars, which they had themselves
gathered by the sale of articles which they had made. A good example.

Another little girl, not ten years old, had one dollar which she had
been saving for sometime. It was her total bank credit. When she heard
of our pressing needs, she slipped her dollar