We are under great obligation to the Almighty, for the schools that have been raised up to us; where the young may be educated in a pure atmosphere, and from these schools many are going out to bless the world with a richer experience; a life more completely consecrated, educated, mentally, morally, socially, and physically. In the moral and social rank, we claim the pre-eminence for our schools and for our literature. There was, and there is, and there will continue to be, a need, for a people to do just this kind of work; and while we continue humble and obedient, God will use us to this end. “But if we forsake Him, He will forsake us.” If we turn aside to other Gods, He will cast us forth as a branch that is withered, and we shall be like other nations. _One of the most wide spread evils of the day_, filthy in all its make up, disgusting in the extreme to a clean, well-bred person, robbing men of their manhood, and of their mental and physical powers, is tobacco. Forty years ago it was considered ungentlemanly to smoke in the presence of ladies, but now, in almost every mode of travel, on the street, in the stores, and in nearly all public places, ladies and all are insulted by the filthy fumes of the pipe or cigar, compounded with decayed teeth, and the deadly Upas of the saloon, forming a drug that produces mental derangement, insanity, crime, pauperism, poverty and shortens the life of its victims. The use of tobacco is a bar to membership in the F. M. C. In this, she stands supremely above all other churches. She is doing a glorious work in making war on tobacco, and exposing its effects on the human system. It has been said that some of our preachers were raised up to make tobacco a specialty, as it occupied a corner in every sermon regardless of the text. Well, suppose that is true, is it not a fact that all reformers dwell on the thing that needs reforming? Perhaps this class of preachers are better acquainted with this evil in its length and breadth, and know by a blessed experience the source of deliverance from the habit, and all longing after the same. Such preaching is worth a great deal more than that from those who never knew by experience the power of the habit, and the virtue of the blood that cleanseth from all sin, and all desire for the unclean. _Fashion brings its devotees_ into servile compliance with its most debasing demands. Those that wear this yoke, are lost, to that which makes humanity lovely, good and beautiful. A remark so commonly made, “that you might as well be out of the world as out of fashion,” is true of this class. In adhering to this tyrant, millions of women and men have been ruined for life. Those that have labored to live so as to equal or go beyond certain others in matters of equipage, have been compelled to abandon, in order to meet fashion’s demands, the honest mode of life, and resort to fraud and speculation to obtain what their souls lusted after.