We write this to assure such friends that they need not be anxious on this score. There are no such anchors as institutions whose foundations are laid deep in the soil. Many men talk with less swelling pride than a few years ago of owning real estate, when the plain truth is that real estate owns them. So we are held, if by no other bond, to the educational and church work among the colored people of the South. But far more we are, and shall be, kept true to this as our main work by our ever-growing sense of its importance to the race so long oppressed, and to the interests of Christian civilization in our land. The river will flow on southward still. It may bend a little to the east or to the west, as Providence may determine; there may be eddies along its banks, and now and then a dam along the stream to concentrate its power; it may open, as does our own Mississippi, through more mouths than one into the Gulf; but its course for a generation to come is fixed, not by human resolution, but by the Providence which makes the water-sheds and water-courses both. To educate the colored people of the South and lift them to the elevation of a worthy Christian citizenship is our great work. So let the springs among the hills of New England, and the streams which water the prairies of the West, not fear to flow in as aforetime, only with a larger flowing, and we will pledge them that the work to which they are devoted shall go on till the end be reached. Meanwhile, let us not try to be a railroad, but a river—one of the rivers of God’s earth which flow into the sea of His great universal love and peace. * * * * * We call special attention to the account in Mr. Alexander’s letter of the work of grace which accompanied and followed the recent meeting of the South-western Conference, at New Iberia, La. Such records are rarer than they ought to be, and ecclesiastical bodies are often more careful to be “not slothful in business” than “fervent in spirit.” Pastor Butler, of the church in that place, writes that already fifty-seven persons have offered themselves for reception to its membership, and still more are coming. * * * * * CONGREGATIONALISM IN THE SOUTH. 3. Its Obligations. DIST. SEC. C. L. WOODWORTH, BOSTON.