And while on this theme, we can hardly help referring to the false patriotism prevailing in a portion of our country where the colored people are still so generally proscribed. Were they not the loyal ones in the civil war? And yet they have few rights. This is their native land, yet they are denied suffrage. They are manfully trying for an education, but little encouragement do they get from those around them. Among the truest patriots to-day in our land are those teachers and preachers who have gone among this race to help elevate them, but they are still, as for these two decades past, ostracised by the whites, some of whom are altogether their inferiors, and who, if they themselves are to be elevated, it must, it would seem, be accomplished largely through the elevation of these colored citizens, by these same despised Northern teachers! No! A true American patriotism must not ignore these six millions for whose condition the whole people are, and have been, responsible. And if the Government cannot be induced in some form to give federal aid towards educating those needy millions, then surely the true patriot of to-day, whether North or South, will individually contribute to support such organizations as the American Missionary Association, whose object it is to help the poor and oppressed now among us, whether they be the freedmen, the Indians or the Chinese. FROM A SERMON BY REV. E. N. ANDREWS, HARTFORD, WIS. * * * * * FORTY-FIRST ANNUAL REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. GENERAL SURVEY. THE SOUTH. Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, gave evidence of a keen and just appreciation of the needs of a race just escaping from centuries of bondage, when he said to his son-in-law: “Thou shalt teach them ordinances and laws, and shalt show them the way wherein they must walk and the work they must do.”—Ex. xviii, 20. These freed slaves, under the leadership of Moses, needed instruction in reference to religious duties, the conduct of their lives, and the larger work that opened to them as _free_ men. This counsel of the old Midian Priest applies equally in its principles to the problem the A. M. A. is helping to solve among the freed men of the South to-day. This work must be fundamentally that of instruction. No revival excitements, no moral shocks, will effect the cure of superstitious ignorance which the social, political and religious forces of the past have united to make most dense. Slow and patient methods of instruction only can dispel this darkness. This fact emphasizes the importance of the EDUCATIONAL WORK in the South. The total number of schools planted in the Southern States is fifty-four. Six of these are chartered institutions, fairly entitled to the rank of Colleges. Sixteen are Normal and Training Schools. Thirty-two are common schools, scattered throughout nine different States. In these schools are 246 instructors and 8,616 pupils.