e still demanded in order to put the work upon a proper and
permanent foundation. Buildings should be erected for the schools,
and this immediately. Also homes for the teachers, where model
housekeeping can reinforce the instruction of the schoolroom and
industrial class. Has not some friend, who reads these messages from
Porto Rico, the ability and desire to send a check to our treasury
at once, to put one of these mission schools in permanent quarters
and thus greatly reinforce the present work and secure its
permanency?

Little by little, as the evangelistic movements progress, chapels
will be needed for the accommodation of audiences that gather for
Christian worship. Here again is a large increase upon the demands
of Christian people for this new work of the American Missionary
Association.

Surely this little band of heroic Christian missionaries and
teachers who have gone out from their homes and from our shores,
responding at once to the call of the Master to enter this important
and large field, will not be forgotten by Christian men and women in
our churches. The work must not suffer. It should be reinforced
promptly and largely. In God's providence, mysterious and
incomprehensible, this island has become a part of our country. The
call now comes to occupy the field, not with armies and military
movements, but with the peaceful influences of Christianity. The
intellectual and moral quickening of the youth and children through
the Christian institutions planted among them, and the preaching of
the simple gospel of Jesus Christ to this destitute people, create a
responsibility which our Congregational churches must meet
courageously and generously.

* * * * *

FISK UNIVERSITY.

J. G. MERRILL, D.D., DEAN.

There was romance in its birth. Regimental bands headed the
procession; army officers, men of renown, North and South, gathered
in the hospital barracks; thousands of ex-slaves, were there. One
passion animated this dusky throng. To learn to read was the
ambition of the bright colored boy, of his sedate but none the less
eager sire, and of the veteran grandparent with white hair and with
eyes that must learn the alphabet by the aid of spectacles.

[Illustration: JUBILEE HALL.

Builded with money earned by the original Jubilee Singers.]

It was a moment of inspiration. The man to appreciate the hour and
give utterance to its meaning, was there. He had hardly surrende