have never seen and cannot
understand. So we bring the youth out of these homes, cut off as far
as possible from their low surroundings, into our missionary schools,
where they are lifted into a purer atmosphere and are brought into
daily contact with refined Christian womanhood. Here mind and heart
and hand are trained. Not only do they learn habits of fore-thought
and industry, but by the blessing of the Holy Spirit very many of
them learn the saving power there is in Jesus Christ. Ten thousand
youth we have thus reached within the last year. Is it not a grand
work, worthy your heartiest support? There is encouragement in all
our fields, but especially now in what is accomplished for the girls
of the colored race. Their perils are peculiar. Your hearts would
ache could you know all the dangers that encompass them. They are
beset on every hand. Not a girl in our schools is safe. They, of all
others, are the ones that are tried, tempted, allured. Do they go out
to teach, they are watched, written to, harassed, and only as strong
in God's strength and deliverance can they escape. When you think of
the snares set for these girls, and that no father or brother may
even yet dare defend them, and when you know that there are
those--yes, very many--who, guided by Christian teachers stand firm
in the purity of their womanhood, clinging to the Everlasting Arm,
how plain it is that God has a plan, a purpose for this race, when we
shall have fulfilled our duty to them, and when their fiery furnace
of trial shall have done its work!

And these people are not in Asia, or Africa, or the Islands of the
Sea. They are within our own domain--ten millions of them--a constant
reminder of our duty, a threat of danger if duty is neglected. You
may say, what are ten thousand youth among ten millions? They are the
leaven, which, if a woman take and properly direct shall leaven the
whole mass. The American Missionary Association has these youth, and
through these, access to larger numbers. It has been no easy matter
to win the alienated Indian until he would give up his boys and girls
to our care; nor to break through the ignorant pride and reserve of
the mountaineers; or even to wisely direct the impulsive, selfishly
ambitious, undisciplined colored people. But it has been done. Our
school homes are there, upon the sure foundation of gospel, no caste
principles, and we need the help of every Christian woman in the land
to sustain what has b