"We entered three places--I suppose the people who live in them call them homes; each has two or three rooms, with one or more beds in every room, even the kitchen. If there were three rooms, one was window-less. A mother, with a three weeks' old baby, was scrubbing the stone steps. The babies were bound up like papooses, and the nurse had to unwind the little living mummies to care for them. "Later, returning to the Mission, we attended the 'Italian Mothers' Club.' How they luxuriate in their weekly treat! They sing, sew on garments which are theirs when completed, listen to talks from visitors and workers, and always close the hour with the Lord's prayer. Children cling to their skirts or lie in their laps as they discuss their personal problems, and all look up when spoken to with the never-failing Italian courtesy. "Some of the year's statistics are a revelation as to the work done: Dispensary treatments, indoor, 12,522; outdoor, 1536; new patients, 4649; operations, 329; obstetrical cases, 151; calls made by nurses, 3075. "In one week at the morning and evening clinics, ninety-seven patients were treated at the dispensary besides the vaccination cases." [Footnote: Woman's Home Missionary Society, Methodist Episcopal Church.] * * * * * "She was an epileptic. The sadness that is bound up in the word only those who have experienced it can know. She worked with her needle as long as she could. At the warning cry of one of the terrible attacks, her mother tenderly cared for her. "'There is only one thing that rests on my heart,' said the mother, as she lay on her death-bed. 'I am satisfied about everything else and ready to go, if only there was some friend to care for my poor epileptic girl.' "A friend promised to place the daughter in the Lutheran Home for Epileptics, and the mother died praising God for those who, in following His Son, had provided for those who were afflicted." [Footnote: The Women's Missionary Society, Lutheran General Council.] * * * * * Nowhere is the twofold service of the Mission hospital more needed than among the Negroes of the South, where the unsanitary conditions in and about the homes, and the widespread ignorance of the simplest laws of health are so pronounced. A number of the Boards maintain hospitals providing care for the sick Negroes and the training of colored girls as nurses for their own people. Among these MacVicar Hospital is outstanding in the character and efficiency of its service. This hospital is a department of Spelman Seminary, maintained by the Woman's American Baptist Home Missionary Society at Atlanta, Georgia. Its workers are members of the school faculty and they are paid from the school fund. A small charge, to outside patients, is made.