3. I find an improvement of feeling among Southern people, both towards the Freedmen and our work among them. As the students come back from vacation service to our several institutions, they report this advance in good-will. The people are learning that ours is a philanthropic and missionary, and not a political process, and so their prejudice is abating. It is natural that some worthy people should feel a little chagrin at the slipping of this work out of their hands; but not a few of them are glad to see it carried on by anybody. They say, now that these people have been made citizens, they must be made the best of citizens. 4. I find that the school work is the almost indispensable prerequisite to the church work. It fixes the place. It draws out the material. It qualifies for church activity. It is no gain to the Kingdom for us simply to transfer the old-time church members to our system. Our work is to train up the youth, to develop intelligence, and to organize a fellowship of congenial material. A judicious man of another denomination, speaking upon this subject, said that the Congregationalists could afford to wait for the young; that his church could not wait. It is surprising to see how rapidly the young people come forward, for the mass of our congregations are of that class. 5. I find a philosophical reason for our call to the church work. This people have been taught to seek dreams and visions at conversion; to think that there can be no regeneration without a dreadful physical process of “coming through.” Now, there are not a few persons of strong minds and strong wills who say that they never can come through in that way. Some such have been delighted to find the quiet way of submission and faith. Some of the noblest natures now in our churches were of that sort. Happy have been the preachers and teachers who have led them in this way of peace. 6. I see a wise Providence in the opening of “Homes” for our workers. It was impossible to get board among the white people. The Freedmen had not the accommodations. It became necessary to provide “Homes” which should be the property of the A. M. A. They become castles of safety and abodes of comfort. They also bring to bear the example and influence of home, which is a valuable adjunct to the missionary scheme. 7. As the soldiers once took this country, so now the women seem to be taking it over again. In all our chartered institutions, men are at work, affording the masculine quality to the workmanship. But in all these, ladies are employed as teachers in the higher as well as in the primary departments. Many of the normal and high schools are under the exclusive control of ladies. In the earlier conflict their sex was their protection. In all the movement their patience and tact and heroism, and their loving devotement to the good of the people, have secured a crown of success. Our country will never know its debt to these patriotic women.