A new administration was to be inaugurated in the Avery Institute. The way was found open, and the new Principal, Rev. S. D. Gaylord, one of the foremost educational managers of the interior, was greeted on the first day, the 29th of September, with an attendance of 258, which was an advance of 40 or 50 upon former opening days. The prospect was for a continued accession through the month. The _News and Courier_ gave a handsome notice. I found that the Avery was an occasion of city pride, not only on the part of colored but of white citizens. The authorities of Claflin University, at Orangeburg, S. C., have visited and complimented the institute, seeking to pattern after some of the methods. Prof. A. W. Farnham, who has been at the head of the Avery for four years, bringing it up to its high standard, will do a like work on a more general scale in the Normal department of Atlanta University. The Plymouth church, during the Summer, under the care of the pastor’s assistant, Rev. Mr. Birney, a former fellow-servant with the members, had been prospering. Under the lead of Rev. Temple Cutler, the church will enter upon a career of enlargement. The new principal and the Field Superintendent preached in the Centennial M. E. and the Zion Southern Presbyterian churches, the largest for the colored people of the city, as well as in the Plymouth. These three churches form the bulk of the constituency of the Avery. At Orangeburg a repeated visit and a preaching service prepared the way for the coming of the new pastor, Rev. T. T. Benson, a graduate of the Talladega theological department. A pleasant church and a rallying people were ready to greet him. On the way I stopped off at Chester, S. C., to visit my seminary classmate, Rev. Samuel Loomis, who, in ten and a half years, has gotten under way his “Brainerd Institute,” and has helped to plant nine Presbyterian churches within that county. Blessed is the man who is permitted to lay foundations in that way. At Charlotte, N. C., I ran out to visit the Biddle University, which is the principal collegiate and theological institution of our Northern Presbyterian brethren in the South. Rev. D. S. Mattoon, the president, is supported by Rev. Messrs. R. M. Hall and S. J. Beatty. Rev. Thomas Lawrence, of Penn., is to take the place of Rev. Dr. John H. Shedd, who has returned to his mission work among the Nestorians. The current catalogue shows eight students in theology, twenty-one in the college classes, and a total of 155. This institution is for males alone. Its mate, for females, is Scotia Seminary, at Concord. The glory of the Biddle is, that in these ten years it has planted a whole Presbytery of thirty churches in the region round about, besides raising up teachers and preachers for the regions beyond.