There has been coming into our treasury during the last month a class of offerings for the debt, which have a peculiar and almost pathetic significance. They are the gifts from the Southern field—from the teachers and pupils in our institutions, from the pastors and people of our poor colored churches; one from a Band of Hope, one from a Sisters’ Benevolent Association. One Sunday-school agrees to take a monthly five-cent collection from its 200 members, and hopes to send $10.00 a month. The Avery Normal Institute at Charleston. S. C., and the Chattanooga Band of Hope gave each a holiday entertainment, and sent us, the one $38.60, and the other $50.00, for the debt, “as tokens of love and respect from a grateful people.” We believe the original suggestion was made by Rev. G. S. Pope, of Tougaloo, Mississippi. The amounts have varied from over one hundred to three dollars, and are accompanied with hearty expressions of kind and grateful feeling. A missionary, who has devoted the last ten years to work among the freedmen, writes: “I think the story of these Christmas gifts from the South toward the A. M. A. debt, ought to bring ten-fold from the North. I tell you, boys and girls here have given their five cents, dimes, quarters and half-dollars, who have hardly decent or sufficient clothing to wear.” One old and poor colored member of one of the churches said: “I will give a dollar for that, if I have to go without meat and bread for a week.” A teacher writes: “Would that the history could be written of every dime and ‘nickel’ of this offering, which comes from old men and women, youths and maidens, and little children in their rags, to the A. M. A., which God has ordained as a channel of blessing to the colored race in the South and their fatherland.” Such gifts are sacred, by the sacrifices of which they are the fruits, and by the spirit of loving devotion to which they testify. * * * * * PROVIDENTIAL PREPARATIONS FOR AFRICAN EVANGELIZATION. It is a significant fact that God moves His providences on parallel lines. One great event is made to match another. The supply and the demand spring up together, as the following circumstances, with many others, illustrate: In 1855, Mr. Charles Avery gave $100,000 worth of property to this Association, to constitute a perpetual fund for charitable use, in sending the Gospel and the blessings of civilization to the colored people on the continent of Africa. Almost simultaneously, Burton and Speke made known to the world the fact that the heart of Africa, instead of being a wild waste, possessed a wonderful lake system, a most fertile country, and millions upon millions of vigorous and interesting people.