the demands of an exigency which could not be
met by the pre-existent ordinary agencies, this child of Providence was
born of God and the times. For the accomplishment of ends for which no
means had been found, its methods were providentially chosen by a
process of spiritual selection. Its agencies are the accretions of the
Divine purpose in its progress toward the salvation of the undermost,
and the edifying of the whole body of Christ. To the production of its
unique Christian institutions the exclusive devotion to the study of the
peculiar conditions of these entirely distinct communities was
necessary. There have been generated by this devotion and acquired
through the experience of nearly half a century a knowledge and skill
which claim for this Association the recognition of the world as its
foremost expert in the successful application of Christianity to the
solution of the most difficult race problems of modern civilization.

And yet in the accomplishment of this great achievement, loyalty to the
common faith and to our own polity, as well as to the teachings of
experience, demanded only the new application of the old prime factors
of God's own choice, the _local church_ with its evangelism and
Christian nurture.

In the work of this Association these two great agencies are uniquely
one. The pastor is often teacher and evangelist. The sanctuary is
school-house and mission station. At twenty-three points on the field
God has made of these twain--the church and the school--one. The church
is the unit of this unity. For while the church is generally the
offspring of the school, the school finds both its profoundest reasons
for existence and its highest consummation in the needs and ends of the
church. In it the work both of the teacher and evangelist co-ordinates
and culminates.

It will not be so very long before these schools and colleges will find
their chief sources of supply in these churches, which although now so
dependent, must ultimately be depended upon to maintain and develop
their own institutions. Even now it is to be remembered that the appeal
of this evangelizing church work meets with the wider and more popular
response from the giving constituency of the Association, while the
educational institutions are more dependent upon the larger gifts of
interested individuals.

Moreover, it is the church which opens the springs of the family life
from which the schools must draw their scholars. And it