PARIS, TEXAS.—“Our work is growing. The members are all doing nicely. All our meetings are full of interest. We are holding neighborhood prayer-meetings for those who cannot get to the regular prayer-meeting. One united with us last Sabbath by profession. Sunday-school is full of interest.” THE FREEDMEN. REV. JOS. E. ROY, D.D., FIELD SUPERINTENDENT, ATLANTA, GA. * * * * * GEORGIA. Those Atlanta Apples. Missionary statistics are sometimes thought to be dry. I propose to give some that all will concede to be juicy. In the good old Massachusetts towns of Amherst, Danvers, Lincoln, Newton, Norfolk, and Walpole, there grew last summer a choice collection of forty thousand apples. These apples were choice not only because of their beauty and flavor, but also because of their missionary destiny. Scorning to waste their precious substance in the cellars, and attics, and barns of a region already over-stocked by their orchard companions, they resolved to put themselves where they would do the most good. So by the aid of willing hands and generous hearts they found their way into eighty good-sized barrels, a goodly half thousand in each barrel. Rail-cars and steamers brought them to the sunny South, and they were soon provided with ample accommodations in one of the basements of Atlanta University. It must be confessed that when the barrels were opened some of the apples had a very green appearance, as though they had never been on a mission before; while others of them were blushing violently, as if greatly agitated by the responsibilities of their new vocation. Subsequent acquaintance, however, proved that these indications of weakness were wholly upon the surface, and that, with the exception of a very few who had been suffering from their long journey, the new comers were sound to the core and fully prepared for missionary service. This service, it must be added, was one which called for nerve on the part of the missionary recruits in proportion to their realizing sense of what they were coming to. Many times companies of two hundred each were summoned from the barrels and placed in long picket lines around the edges of a dozen large dining tables, one standing guard at each plate. But scarcely had this been done when two hundred hungry boys and girls and missionary teachers appeared upon the scene, and, after bestowing upon the red and green sentinels many a complacent smile through a long meal of meat and vegetables, finally attacked them with six thousand (more or less) sharp ivory weapons, and subjected them to that fate which other missionaries are said to have suffered among the Cannibal Islands. Others, after being flayed, drawn and quartered, were placed in boiling cauldrons, and their indistinguishable remains were afterwards served up on the same tables in sauce dishes or concealed under the crust of pies.