0 years old, who was
learning to read, came to the word "unbound" in her lesson, and
exclaimed, rapturously, "How good, to feel unbound!"

If the American Missionary Association, its work, principles, and all
that it represents, could be expressed in one word, that word would be
_emancipation_--deliverance from bondage, deliverance from caste
prejudice, from ignorance, superstition, and darkness. Its mission is
to preach the gospel to the poor, to loose the chains of the bound, to
proclaim "The truth shall make you free."

It was a little company of earnest men and women that gathered in
Albany, N. Y., in September, 1846, to form this organization. Its
early history was not only of works, but of "witness," fearless and
undaunted. It had a God-given mission, and this conviction sustained
its brave adherents during those years of severe trial and testing.
Yet all was not discouragement. Every year brought added strength in
numbers and in funds. Every year showed more plainly that the hand of
the Lord was in this movement.

So it worked for fifteen years, gaining varied experience in
industrial, educational, evangelistic, and church work, in methods of
administration, in wise use of funds. At the close of this period it
was conducting prosperous missions at thirty-seven stations in its
foreign field, and in the home field it had under its care 120
churches. Then came the rebellion and war, and the unmistakable call
of Providence to the rapid development of missions southward.
Immediately the Association, now encouraged and supported by all the
churches, moved in the wake of the Union army, beginning in 1861 to
work for the contrabands at Fortress Monroe, where 1,800 colored
people had sought the protection of the American flag. All its
varieties of experience and resources were called into action. It
became a philanthropic society to feed and clothe the suffering, a
Bible society to distribute the word of God. It became an industrial
society to help people to homes and teach practical farming, trades,
and housewifery. It established social settlements, with groups of
missionary teachers living in one household among the degraded and
despised people, to whom they ministered; an educational society with
its system of schools; a church society, seeking always the salvation
of souls and gathering of converts into churches.

Now it was that the wisdom, the heroism, the unfaltering faith of this
Association, strengthened by