Good air, pure water and magnificent scenery, ought to have a good influence upon its people, and it may truthfully be said that Florence furnishes a good example to our race; her people are healthy, cheerful and hospitable. Some of them have nice homes, and there seems to be a disposition in all to improve their condition. To this end, they have societies, schools and churches, and, last but not least, they work. One of the additions to the town is a beautiful Congregational edifice, which is a little gem, and the people, irrespective of race, say that it is an ornament to the city; but, best of all, it is paid for. The A. M. E. and Baptist denominations have large and prosperous churches. The Sunday-schools of all the churches are well attended and in a flourishing condition. The educational work of the county is in full blast; the whites have good seminaries and normal schools and our people have good common schools. The school at Florence, under the management of Mr. Y. A. Wallace, is a centre of quite a number of schools taught by students of the Baptist Institute, Central Tennessee College and Fisk University. The great need of the place and demand of the colored people, is a good Normal school. These common schools would become feeders of this Normal school, and thus meet a great need of the county and do much good for the State. Another mark of progress may be seen in the effort some have made, and are making, to get farms. I am told that some of our people in this county have farms containing from ten to three hundred acres. The crops are unusually good this year. If we have rain soon we shall have fine crops of corn and cotton. With the church to Christianize, and the school to educate the people, and the plow to cultivate the soil, the county of Lauderdale may well be considered a power for good. * * * * * LOUISIANA. Lady-Missionary’s Letter. [Without designating either the lady or her field, we give a letter from a missionary among the Freedmen in a Southern city. These devoted women, for whom there is a vast work, under many discouragements and difficulties are carrying the Gospel of sympathy and comfort into the lonely cabins in the South, and helping in many ways our larger and more fundamental work. It would be a great mistake to withdraw needed funds from our teaching, and give them to the visiting missionary, but it would be a great loss in many ways, not to multiply the number of those whose mission is to visit the mothers in their homes, carrying the Gospel of cleanliness and thrift, and a knowledge of wifely and motherly ways, to those who are to shape so largely the next generation.—ED. MISSIONARY.]