d convenience of the rooms,
the fine pictures on the walls, the beautiful desks and chairs for the
teachers, the elegant Steinway piano, the bell, and the handsome stoves,
were all noted and heartily commended.

The day passed off pleasantly with but one regret, viz; that Mr. Ballard
was not with us to share in our joy and to let us all see his happiness
in doing good to others.

* * * * *

TEN YEARS AT THE FRONT.

BY REV. STANLEY B. LATHROP.

The month of November, 1888, completed the cycle of ten years of my
active service in the work of the American Missionary Association. They
have been years of intense interest and great enjoyment. Ten years of
study, four in the army, and eight years of pastoral labor in Wisconsin
preceded; but of all these marked periods, none have been more truly
enjoyable and fruitful than these last ten years of preaching the gospel
to the poor. It has been my good fortune to visit at various times most
of the prominent points in the work of the Association in the South,
both in the colored and in the mountain white departments.

And so, from this decennial standpoint of experience and observation, I
want to put on record a few thoughts which have been simmering in my
mind.

1.--The vast importance and far-reaching influence of the work that has
been done. From all these schools and churches, scattered through this
Southland, there have come forth, year by year, hundreds of young
colored men and women, whose minds have been disciplined and characters
deeply impressed for a good life. Thousands have gone out to teach and
labor among their own people, with hearts aflame with true missionary
zeal. They have labored among innumerable trials and discouragements, in
leaky, rickety log-cabins, without desks, without blackboards, maps,
charts, or other educational necessities. They have been eager and
zealous workers for Sunday-schools, for temperance and righteous living,
even when oftentimes opposed by the old-time preachers and
church-officers of their own race, and sometimes opposed by the whites.
So the leaven has spread far and wide. A great work has been accomplished
by these schools and churches. These ten years have seen a most decided
uplifting of character and power among the colored race. They are
steadily acquiring property, building homes and improving their
surroundings. There are now over eighty newspapers published by colored
men in the former