It would avail little if here and there one in our schools might be persuaded to enter the African field. What could he do without the prayers, the sympathies, as well as the moral and pecuniary support of his race behind him? And what certainly would there be of a supply or of a succession of laborers, unless the churches were holding their members to the work and were pushing forward their children to offer themselves in its behalf? The churches alone can create a race sentiment broad and deep and potent enough to bear up an enterprise aiming at the Christianization of Africa. It is the Gospel, ministered by holy men, which unifies and exalts communities. It is the Church, as the centre and representative of divine power, which stands for God, and the word and the ordinances entrusted to her keeping are his only visible hold upon the world. If we would have Christian scholars in training for Africa—as teachers, as preachers, or as statesmen—they should come from homes and churches in which the spirit of Christ, the spirit of humanity, and the spirit of missions was as the breath of life. On the one hand, we want the churches as the inspiring and sustaining power both for men and money, and on the other, as the motive and model for the work we are called to do. Our missionaries need to live and move in an atmosphere of holy self-denial and charity, to be empowered by the prayers and godly zeal of the great brotherhood of the saints, in order to a full consecration. We can expect men and money for the work in sufficient number and amount only as the churches, like mighty reservoirs, gather and hold all their forces of brain, of heart, of will, of wealth and of learning, of piety and of power, for Christ. * * * * * AFRICA. * * * * * REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE. The report on the Association’s work in Africa, submitted to your committee, shows that the Mendi Mission has reached once more a degree of prosperity and promise. In its church, school and industrial work it has been prospered, and in the plan of preparing and using native helpers do we find the great principle of all successful schemes for disseminating the Gospel wisely adopted. Furthermore, the signal fact seems now already permanently established that the Freedmen are the providential missionaries for the dark continent. They endure the climate as Europeans cannot, and, as trained for their work in the seminaries of this society, they evince a capacity which fits them for a rare evangelical service in the land of their ancestors.