The “Mountain Work,” which the A. M. A. has undertaken in the South, has a tendency to make those who engage in it enthusiastic, and we in the field sometimes almost mistrust that even our well-informed officers in New York, with all their appreciation of the need and greatness of the work before us, are accustomed to make a discount of seventy-five per cent. on all we write them. On the other hand, we _know_ we have not been, and shall not be, able to make anyone who has not spent weeks here realize one quarter of the real needs of this field. One has to go into their poor homes and see them in sickness and in death; come into contact with them day by day, and feel the general intellectual and spiritual destitution; see some of them taking on noble, Christian manhood and womanhood, before he can fully comprehend the importance of the work. The A. M. A., burdened with debt and beset with calls from other needy fields, has been able, so far, to devote but a small sum to this work; yet the work has gone on marvelously. It has been clearly shown what can be done. I am sure the A. M. A. is ready to hear and heed the command of the churches to go forward, and even to take as a motto: _A Church and a School in every County in the Mountains_. It is with the hope of contributing a little to such a result that I give the following reasons why this should be done: 1. These counties contain from three to fifteen thousand inhabitants each--some of them even more. In most of them there is no day-school worthy of the name, no Sunday-school, no prayer-meeting, no educated ministry, no churches in which pure religion is taught or systematic work of any kind is done. The majority of the people are good-hearted and respond readily to kind words and acts of love. They live mostly in wretched, windowless log-cabins, and know few of the blessings of a Christian land, having no luxuries and few of those things which are generally considered necessities. Physically, mentally and spiritually they need teaching and elevating. For the sake, then, of the two and a half millions already here, there ought to be a church and a school established at once in the county seat, or chief place of every county. From these centers the leaven would work through the whole region, and other churches would spring up about them as they are doing in Whitley Co., Ky. 2. The population is increasing very rapidly. Even the high death-rate from poor food, insufficient clothing, wretched houses, lack of nursing and of competent medical attendance, cannot keep down the increase. The children can be readily gathered into Sunday and day-schools. Another generation ought not to be permitted to remain in the condition of the present and past.