Rev. J. M. Hall writes from the Good Hope Station of a prosperous year’s work among the Mendi and Sherbro people. He says: “One year ago yesterday I took charge of the spiritual work at this station. We have had 48 eleven o’clock Sabbath services, 48 Sabbath night services, 40 Wednesday night services, 360 early morning six o’clock services, not including the class and children’s Friday afternoon services. I have received eight persons into the church, five on profession of faith in Christ, have baptized 25 children, and married one couple. I have traveled two thousand miles in search of medical treatment and in the interest of the mission, notwithstanding that I have been confined to my bed and room twenty-two times with this most dreadful fever. We trust that we shall by the grace of God be enabled to do more the next year if permitted to live. Our schools, both Sabbath and day, have been well attended. The work is certainly a great one and I like it more and more every day.” * * * * * The _Baptist Home Mission Monthly_ makes its appearance with enlarged form and new dress. Its first cover page is tastefully embellished to indicate the scope of work carried on by the Baptist Home Mission Society. Its twenty-four pages are packed with pertinent paragraphs, passages of Scripture, personals, pictures, poetry, there being over one hundred separate articles, items, etc., etc. It is edited with the pen, quotation marks being particularly scarce. Care, literary skill and discernment have been used in the selection and arrangement of topics, and wide range has been given in the discussion of matters relating to the world of missions. The work expended on this publication will stimulate other societies in providing missionary literature abreast with the demands of the age. We extend to our Baptist brethren our gratulations. * * * * * A PERMANENT NECESSITY. Temporary evils call for temporary agencies and remedies, but permanent conditions of society require permanent and adequate provisions to meet these demands. The confident prediction that the freedman would rapidly fade away before the superior white races, suggested to the humane that he should be made comfortable in some sort of field hospital while he lingered, and made ready, if possible, for a speedy departure to a more congenial world, where perhaps the conditions of life would not be so unfavorable for his continued existence. The figures given by the unsentimental census-taker showing that during the past decade there has been an increase of about 34 per cent. of this race in our population does not indicate that the black belt stretching along our Southern horizon is likely to fade away. The negro is here to stay, and in adjusting him to our natural life we are faced by a permanent, not a temporary problem.