There is a general feeling outside of, and it is encouraging to believe even in, the South, that a new state of things is desirable for that section of the country. No one who has seen its homes, schools, churches, industries (or want of them), its literature—in short, whatever at once marks and constitutes its civilization, and knows how meager and unworthy it is, but assents to the proposition that the South needs to be regenerated, and heartily wishes that “old things might pass away and all become new.” In one way or another, New England has supplemented her earnest wish for it with most earnest efforts to accomplish this regeneration. To say nothing of legislative attempts by the Government, thousands of missionaries, at an expense of millions of dollars, during the past fifteen years, have, with great self-denial and laborious effort, attempted the task, and the reports are abundant and uniform that these efforts are beginning to have their effect. Old prejudices are yielding; new industries and new institutions, the outcome of new ideas, are springing up; society is changing, and the country is beginning to put on a new aspect. Never before have the societies and laborers engaged in this work been so cheered and encouraged by the outlook. It may be well at this point to ask, toward what ideal we are working, and fairly to consider the forces that are co-operating with, or working against, us in this effort. The most potent factor in the creation of a new South must be, of course, the South itself, as of necessity she will be chiefly the architect of her own fortunes, good or bad. It would be unwise, and the effort would prove futile, to attempt its reconstruction by outside influences and agencies, in utter disregard of the fact that to her belongs the right, and upon her devolves the duty, as she alone possesses the power, of shaping her own destiny. This being the case, it becomes evident that the new South is not to be a New England in the South, and our Yankee egotism should not measure the progress made in that section simply by its observable approximation to Northern ideals. New England, as it is, could not have been built except upon New England’s hills, and we shall never see it in the cotton fields, rice swamps and everglades of the sunny South.