Soon the matron’s room is a busy place. Girls in all the chairs and girls on the floor, all manner of rents and rips and holes to be repaired, and the motherly lady who has done the work many times for her own children and grandchildren, goes among them busy and patient, finds patches and pieces, gives a hint here and a lesson there, till the garments are whole again. When the morning’s work is done, the lawn in front of Virginia Hall becomes a gay play-ground. See-saws and jump-ropes, balls and croquet mallets are kept busy all the afternoon. A few fortunate girls borrow a boat from one of the teachers and row in the pretty creek. The boys come now and then to the edge of the ground and look rather longingly over the boundaries, but turn back and find a vent for their spirits in foot-ball and leap-frog and the parallel bars, remembering that Washington’s Birthday comes next week and it will all be common ground. The games last till the sun sends its last slanting beams over the creek and the lawn and the six o’clock bell announces that the day of work and pleasure is over. Before the shadows of night fall heavily, the school assembles in the chapel. The hush of worship comes upon the crowded room. The song of praise and voice of petition rise, and then while all heads bow in silent prayer the burden and pain and desire of 500 hearts are told to Him who understands. So another week ends; its record is made of success and failure, of work and sacrifice. * * * * * REVIVAL IN CENTRAL CHURCH AND STRAIGHT UNIVERSITY, NEW ORLEANS. W. S. ALEXANDER, D.D. We have occasion to bless the “Evangelical Alliance,” which, under the Divine direction, introduced the observance of the “Week of Prayer.” It has been with us every year a period of religious awakening. Its coming is anxiously and prayerfully anticipated. Through the month of December our prayer meetings were tender and earnest. The thoughts of the people seemed centered upon the longed-for presence of the Holy Spirit and the “Week of Prayer,” as the gate-way to a glorious experience of spiritual refreshment.