The greatest burden of the church now, is a debt of $1,200 which it owes to the A. M. A. We would like to pay this off, and no doubt the money would be of great use in some other department of our great work, but the people are very poor. They are willing to do what they can, but we find it hard to pay the interest on the mortgage. If any of the readers of the MISSIONARY desire to help a worthy cause, let them send their donation to Dr. Strieby, to be set to the credit of Plymouth church in Charleston. We have been revising our list of membership. In the spring we had a solemn renewal of fellowship, and from that renewal we made up our list. In doing this we were obliged to drop from our record twenty-five names. We number now, present and absent, 180; but, I am sorry to say, some of them who are in the city, and who solemnly covenanted to walk in the fellowship with the church, still absent themselves from all our services. Still they regard themselves as exemplary Christians, and resent the imputation that they are not living consistent lives. It is here, as everywhere, a few faithful ones are the bone and sinew of the church. I wish I could take you into one of our prayer meetings, such a one as we sometimes have, for they are not all of the same degree of spiritual fervor, but one of our good meetings is exceedingly enjoyable. The songs are so weird and the prayers are so fervent and frequent, and their attitude so devout—well, perhaps your fastidious taste would be shocked, but somehow I am drawn a little nearer Heaven here than anywhere else. I can’t help saying “Amen” down in my heart. And when they sing my body sways with theirs, just as the sailor rolls his gait with the motion of the deck. We sing a good many of the old time tunes, and some that have not yet been translated into written song. Our people sing their good old household hymns to these tunes. They have a happy faculty of adapting the words to the music, no matter what the metre may be. For instance, the tune in the Jubilee Songs, “I will die in the field,” is made to fit the hymn, “When I can read my title clear.” Sometimes the hymn is divided up, and the chorus sandwiched in between the lines most ingeniously. But, however incongruous it may be to the rules of music, it has a peculiar charm.