This is a bare outline of our work. I presume many of you are saying. "Have there been no results during these last twenty years?" Oh yes, we have a bright side to the picture. When we are tired and discouraged, and wonder if harvest time will never come, we go to some of the pleasant homes where great changes have been wrought. We point to a scholar and tell her past history, and then thank God that the seed sown found a lodging place and good soil. In the cities when the large schools are, and where there are fair public schools--where there is constant contact with civilized life, many of the colored people live well. Yet there may be a neat, cosy home just across the street, and a few doors beyond, a wretched hovel. In the country, when the "Teachers' Home" and little school house are built beside their log cabins, they catch a glimpse of better things than they have known. The modest house, freshly painted, with the neat, cosy rooms inside--very simple and plain to us--seems like a palace to them. They begin to want the same. The children go to school and come home with wonderful things to tell. Faces and hands become clean, the woolly heads are more carefully combed, rents are mended, the girls put on clean collars. The missionary shows the women how to fashion home-made lounges and stools, they are covered with some bright calico, the floor is scrubbed white, and they begin to live. The teacher says that they must work if they want to have homes, money begins to be saved, and before you know it little frame houses are going up beside the old cabin. A good horse or mule, with a bright shiny buggy, takes the place of the old steer and cart. Yes, indeed, much has been accomplished. But we had very few workers in the early days among four million people, although just as many as could be supported with the means furnished, and to-day, among nearly seven millions, we have but 336 workers. Millions sit in darkness right here in our own land. A mighty work is to be done, and the work in Africa must be done largely by these people, too. We need more money; Christian men and women to go forth, and Christian men and women who are willing to send them. "The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that he will send forth laborers into his harvest." "He that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal." * * * * * REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. The information from the field, to which you have listened, explains to you the necessity for the organization of a Bureau of Woman's Work. It was organized in April, 1883, for the purpose, as was then stated: 1. To give information to the ladies in the churches of the variety of work sustained by the Association and to assist in devising plans of help.