I love to contrast my present condition with what it was a few years ago, and as I do so I do not forget the A. M. A., whose workers found me in the lowest depths of ignorance and helped me up. When liberated, soon after the surrender, I could not read a word and did not know a letter. I do not remember that I had ever seen the inside of a book of any kind. It was in 1867 that I learnt the alphabet upon the plantation by the light of pine knots. During the years 1868 and 1869 I was a rag-picker in the streets of Mobile. God has led me on, and now I am a student in Talladega College, and expect soon to have finished a course of study which will enable me to go forth to lead men to Christ and to teach them better methods of living. I speak of this contrast not boastfully, but humbly and with deep gratitude to God, who took me from the woes and degradation of slavery and has given me a double freedom. I am so glad for the schools the A. M. A. has in the South; I am so glad for what they have done for me. Through one of these schools I was led to Christ. Soon after that I felt called to the ministry; and in Talladega College I am permitted to finish a course of study, and to some degree equip myself for the work of life. All praise to an organization that seeks for poor, ignorant and sinful men, leads them to Christ, instructs them, and then sends them out to bless the world. A STUDENT. * * * * * OBITUARY. * * * * * MRS. H. M. STEVENS. Another veteran teacher of the A. M. A. has been called home to her rest. On the morning of May 7, at her home in St. Albans, Vt., Mrs. H. M. Stevens, known to A. M. A. workers as Miss E. M. Barnes, of Bakersfield, Vt., fell asleep after a severe and painful sickness of several mouths. Miss Barnes entered the service of the Association in 1865 and left it in 1882, to minister to her devoted friend and fellow laborer, Miss Sarah A. G. Stevens, in her last sickness. When released from this service of love her own health prevented her return to the Southern work. Her first year was spent at Arlington, Va. She spent six years in the Lewis High School, Macon, Ga., four years in the Le Moyne Institute, Memphis, Tenn., and her last six in Fisk University--seventeen years of devoted, earnest and fruitful labor in behalf of the colored youth in the South.