In every Southern State, in the cabins of the freedmen, in the halls of its institutions of learning, are to be found the A. M. A. teachers. Ladies of culture and refinement go from high social circles in the North to endure social ostracism in the South. During its twenty years of existence more than three thousand women have been in this service. Patiently they have toiled, never faltering when their homes and school-houses were burned over their heads, and have endured with Christian fortitude trials that might well have crushed their brave hearts. Our dark-faced sisters of the South to-day plead with us for love and sympathy, and for the boon of education. Men, both white and black, look upon them in precisely the same light as Turks and Hindoos regard the women of the Orient. The curse of slavery is still upon them. Is it not woman's work for woman to carry the Gospel of Christ to these despised ones? Equally pressing in kind, if not in degree, is the work among the Indians and Chinese, also carried on by the A. M. A. The work by women for women is especially emphasized by its "Woman's Bureau," which is giving efficient aid to the Society in "letting Christ shine among the oppressed and degraded of the sons and daughters of men." * * * * * CHILDREN'S PAGE. * * * * * SHOEBLACK JIM. In a small, crowded room in one of the rear tenement houses of our great city, where the sun's rays were never known to shine, or the fresh air allowed to penetrate, our little Jim lay dying. Months before, I one morning saw him standing on a street corner, with his shoe box strapped to his back, calling out in tremulous tones, "Shine, sir?" But the hurrying business men paid little or no attention to the pleading voice or frail form which was swayed to and fro by the bitter, biting December wind. As I handed him a picture paper, I asked, "Are you hungry, my boy?" I noticed the pale, pinched cheeks and the large brown eyes fast filling with tears as he replied, "Yes, miss. I've had nothing to eat since yesterday morning; but granny is worse than me; fur she's had nothing but a cold tater since day 'fore yesterday." "And who is granny?" "She lives in the rear alley on Mott; me own mother died over on the island, so granny says, and I guess I never had any father." "Did you ever go to a Sunday-school or Band of Hope meeting?" "Laws, no, miss! I've no time. I has to stan' around all day, and then sometimes gits only a couple of shines. Them Italian fellers, with the chairs, takes all the profit of us chaps. Granny says 'tis a hard world."