I have not come at this late hour of the evening to enter upon an argument in favor of what I am sure every person within the sound of my voice is now thoroughly convinced of, but rather to express my gratitude and honor at the great work which is now going on in this country for a Christian education in the West and South, in which the American Missionary Association is so nobly taking the lead. I do not think you yourselves are entirely conscious of the sublimity of what you are doing and what you are helping to do. Why, take the $321,000 which, including the expenditure from the Stone fund, your treasurer reports you have expended during the past year: at the present rates at which the Government can borrow money, that represents the income of a capital of $9,000,000—the income of a capital which, I suppose, is greater than the entire aggregate of all the productive funds of the American colleges forty years ago, and which I know is more than fifteen times the entire productive fund of Harvard College as it was estimated by President Quincy in 1840. Gen. Eaton made an imperfect estimate of the amount given for education by voluntary contribution in this country, and in 1872 it amounted to $8,000,000 and upwards; in 1873, the last year before the great depression in business, it amounted to more than $11,000,000; and I am informed on credible and high authority that in this year of grace 1881, it will amount to more than $18,000,000—the income of a capital, at present rates, of more than $500,000,000—a vast national school fund invested not where thieves break through and steal and where moth doth corrupt, but invested in the patriotism and sense of religious duty of a Christian people. There is nothing in statesmanship, there is nothing in the opportunities for political effort, which the highest honors of the State can hold out to any of her public servants, which surpasses in dignity the opportunity to help and to bid God-speed to a work like this.