id that you
were going to be free some day. Now let me tell you, if you do not
stop talking such talk you will be hung and nobody can possibly save
you. Let me tell you, you were ordained from the foundation of the
world to be a slave; that is your destiny."' He continued, 'Although I
never employed any of those boys as clerks, yet from that white boy,
who reported my conversation, I have bought thousands of dollars'
worth of goods since. I began by selling cakes on the railway cars. I
remember down in Tennessee about the year 1852 a man came and
preached, and was said to have abolition ideas. The white people took
him and hung him. Oh! children, if I only had had the privileges you
now have! I thank God for the American Missionary Association. It took
my children and made men of them. When I was a boy a good Christian
man taught me to read a little. The white people discovered it and
said, "You stop teaching niggers," and cut off his forefinger for
teaching us to write.'"

THE LOUISIANA ASSOCIATION.

BY REV. G. W. MOORE, FIELD MISSIONARY.

The Louisiana State Association held its twenty-sixth annual meeting
with the church at Thibodeaux, February 1-4. It was one of the best
meetings in interest and attendance in the history of the association.

The reports from the churches showed a steady growth and hopeful
outlook, in spite of the hard times. These churches of Southern
Louisiana are in the black belt of the State on plantations and in
towns adjacent to the large sugar plantations. Many of the planters
have become bankrupt by the changed conditions of giving up the sugar
bounty, while the poor colored laborers have been the greatest
sufferers.

The stories of their hardships and struggles in their efforts to live
and carry forward their church work are full of pathos, heroism and
self-sacrifice. Laborers have had to take fifty cents a day and board
themselves, to keep the wolf of starvation from their door, and many
of them are unable to get work at any price.

It was a revelation to the brethren to hear the report of Rev. James
Herod, of the American Missionary Association meeting at Lowell,
Mass., and of Mr. E. H. Phillips, of the Cleveland Christian Endeavor
meeting. It was the first time these colored men had been North or
East, and had come in contact with Northern civilization. First-class
trains, hotels and Christian hospitality from "our brother in white"
were all new to them.

Mr. Herod is a