one enlarged
collection would be given to the one society. For a time, a brief time,
spasmodic efforts might, as in former cases, result in some special
contributions, but the new experiment would certainly be more
disastrous, if it should fail, than those already tried, because it
would involve far greater interests.

It is not to be supposed for a moment that such consolidation is
contemplated in order that the churches may escape the large
responsibility now resting upon them; and if economy and efficiency are
the only objects sought, we fear the result would be disappointing. Such
an arrangement would not save in the number of workers in the field, and
surely it is not wise business management to leave great interests
inadequately supervised. Even if the consolidated society were divided
into separate departments or bureaux, the supervision could not be less,
if efficient, while the combination would be likely to lead to
complications, and would weaken, in the several departments, the sense
of individual responsibility and take away the impulse of historic life
and achievement.

More work well managed and vigorously pushed seems to me to be the only
plan that will satisfy the Christian conscience or meet the approval of
the Master.

3. The work of the Association extends to all races of men. This claim
is sanctioned by the fraternal agreement existing between it and the
American Home Missionary Society, by its own history, and by the needs
of the field. The agreement with the sister society says explicitly that
the Association is "to pursue its educational and church work in the
South among _both races_." The history of the Association shows that at
the beginning the populations reached by it in America were _all white_
except the Indians and a few colored refugees in Canada.

Its home missions at the North and West were among white people: and so
were they even in the South before the war. John G. Fee and his heroic
associates in Kentucky, and Daniel Worth and others in North Carolina,
founded churches and schools only among the whites. Berea College was
for whites only, at the outset. It was not till the era of emancipation
with its overwhelming flood of freedmen that the Association turned its
direct and almost exclusive attention to them. It heard the voice of God
in the tramp of these millions marching out of bondage into freedom, and
in that voice it heard the call to itself, providentially prepared for
t