“A man had fallen into a deep, dark pit, and lay in its miry bottom, groaning and utterly unable to move. Confucius walked by, approached the edge of the pit, and said, ‘Poor fellow, I am sorry for you; why were you such a fool as to get in there? Let me give you a piece of advice: If you ever get out, don’t get in again.’ ‘I can’t get out,’ groaned the man. _That is Confucianism._ “A Buddhist priest next came by, and said, ‘Poor fellow, I am very much pained to see you there. I think if you could scramble up two-thirds of the way, or even half, I could reach you and lift you up the rest.’ But the man in the pit was entirely helpless and unable to rise. _That is Buddhism._ “Next the Saviour came by, and, hearing his cries, went to the very brink of the pit, stretched down and laid hold of the poor man, brought him up, and said, ‘Go, sin no more.’ _That is Christianity._”—_Rev. Canon Stowell._ THE INDIANS. —There are 296 church buildings among the Indians, including the “five nations.” —The religious bodies expended in 1881 the sum of $139,440 for education and missions among the Indians. —Out of the 260,000 Indians, there are 100,000 who have discarded blankets and are wearing citizens’ dress, wholly or in part. —The Ute Indians, who have steadily refused to send any of their children to school, now have twenty-five in the training-school at Albuquerque, New Mexico. —The Indian reservations include 155,632,312 acres, of which 18,000,000 are tillable. Already the American Indians are cultivating more than half a million acres of this land. —The Indian Mission School at Fort Wrangle, Alaska, in which Mrs. McFarland is teaching, has increased in numbers and interest the past year, and many of the pupils have become Christians. One of the oldest girls has been married to a Christian Indian, and gone as a missionary to Upper Chilcat, where they both are doing faithful service. Several more of the girls are prepared to engage in mission work in their tribes as soon as the way opens. —The Albuquerque _Morning Journal_ says: “The best thinkers all now agree that education is the true solution of the Indian problem. We have tried fighting them and feeding them, and both these plans have signally failed, but education, in the few experiments we have tried with it, has been thoroughly successful, and if we can establish and maintain schools enough to educate the children that are now growing up, our Indian difficulties will be at an end, and the coming generation of Indians, instead of being savages, to be hunted down by troops, or ‘corraled’ like wild beasts and fed at the public expense, will be peaceful and useful citizens.” * * * * * THE SOUTH. REV. JOSEPH E. ROY, D.D., FIELD SUPERINTENDENT. PROF. ALBERT SALISBURY, SUPERINTENDENT OF EDUCATION. * * * * * VACATIONING. PROF. A. K. SPENCE, FISK UNIVERSITY.