Their singing they do with faces all smiles, and when the moment comes for distributing the text-cards and child papers full of beautiful pictures, their joy knows no bounds. These may be loaves and fishes for which the children come, and yet, like the multitude of old, they perhaps carry away with them something better. * * * * * ALABAMA. MRS. M. V. CURTIS, SELMA. Have I ever written for the MISSIONARY? Well, no; but then why not? since I have something very particular to say to my friends in the North; and I have neither head nor hand for all the letters I want to write; for there is the concert for August 30, (proceeds to be put into the winter’s supply of coal, this being the month when prices are down); and the “Harvest Home” (a literary entertainment to be given by our “Young People’s Guild” some time in October), to be arranged for; also some appropriate music to be prepared for the evening when our two “political refugees” are to lecture on Arkansas, where they have been teaching and traveling during the past two years. Why won’t it be a stroke of policy to let that press away off in New York do the work for me, for manifolding letters is not easy, and the inspiration is lost after the first recital? I wonder if my correspondents will not count this as an individual letter and send me letters in return. How I do wish that you all could have been of the number that gathered in our pretty church a week ago Sabbath night—our pretty church, with its white walls, its wood-work of rich yellow pine, exquisite with God’s own graining, and the crimson carpet for the two platforms, the walnut table, vase and bracket, all the gift of the ladies of the church. The night was matchless, and at an early hour a good audience had gathered (A. M. A. pastors have not always the encouragement of numbers). We had reached out into the homes through the Sunday-school children, and the result showed the wisdom of our course. After the opening exercises, Mr. C. read to an attentive audience, Mr. De Forest’s racy letter of his experiences in the theatres of Tottori, Japan. A quartet then besought us in song to “Tell it out,” this story of Christ, to the heathen, a sermon indeed in song. One of our young teachers read of the two _mice_ the little Sunday-school scholar brought as her two _mites_, for so she understood it. Another gave a crumb for the boys, found in the MISSIONARY; and when a sweet soprano and alto pled for Burmah, and Burmah herself seemed to speak in the plaintive strains, that were borne to our ears through an open window, the effect was impressive, and the surprise and pleasure of the audience was manifest. The “Little Zulu Band” sang a sweet song of the needs of Zululand.