Converging lines of providential purpose have met. In 1856 Burton and Speke began the first movement in the great line of modern discovery in tropical Africa; in 1858 they first sighted Lake Tanganyika. In 1860 Speke and Giant set out on the second expedition from Zanzibar; in 1862 they caught their first glimpse of the Victoria Nyanza. Thence onward moved the heroic procession—Sir Samuel Baker, Winwood Reade, Col. Gordon, Livingstone and others, till last of all Stanley emerged at the mouth of the Congo in August, 1877. A marked line of American convergence also began in 1856 with the first shedding of blood in the struggle with the slave power in Kansas. John Brown’s raid came in 1859. The rebellion began in 1861; the slaves were proclaimed free in 1863, and their education began almost with the war. Other societies have their own coincidences in this great work, but this Association having the distinction of opening the first school among the Freedmen, it is a matter of special interest with us that about one month after Stanley reached the mouth of the Congo, we sent out our first company of _colored_ missionaries to Africa, all of whom had been born in slavery, were educated since emancipation, and, moved by the love of Christ and of their fatherland, had gone thither to preach the Gospel. This is to us the beginning of the other part of the great work to which this Association is called, for Africa and for America. We have the appliances for the work in our schools, our theological departments and in our churches; in our experiences in tropical Africa of the terrible death-rate of white missionaries, and in the comparatively good health of the colored. Moreover, our decks are cleared for action by the removal of the debt that has so long hampered us. We can now handle our sails and our guns. May the winds of heaven waft us on our course! Then again we see a way of relief from the retrenchment enforced upon us by the debt and the hard times. Buildings were needed—some to be enlarged, others to be newly erected—but all such claims had to be sternly denied, much as it cost us to deny; but now, in the good providence of God, the generous benefaction of Mrs. Stone comes to our relief to supply just such buildings. The return of prosperity to the country encourages us to hope that the added expense in sustaining the enlarged work will be met. That return of prosperity—shall it be a curse or blessing? Shall it be the mad rush of muddy waters urged on by avarice and ambition, and bearing on its turbulent surface only reckless adventure, wild speculation, extravagant personal expenditure, unscrupulous public plunderings, ending at last and again in the dead sea of stagnation, bankruptcy, and, worst of all, in the wrecking of character, imprisonment, insanity, or suicide? Shall it not rather be consecrated, that it may be sanctified and perpetuated—like the beneficent waters of the Nile carried out