How shall we see the vastness and urgency of the work for these races with such repugnances and disgusts meeting us on the very threshold? Moral ideas are of slow growth, and churches and communities turn to new objects of sympathy and labor reluctantly and sluggishly. While we hesitate and wait, the probability is that things will take shape and pass beyond our control; or, at best, that we shall but _partially_ secure results which are now fully within our reach. At this moment the churches of America hold the key to the conquest of this world for Jesus Christ! Will they hold it a generation hence? Not unless they take advantage of their position to win these races to God before they are absorbed into the world, and are thus lost as a regenerating force with which to elevate the unsaved millions of mankind. Suppose, in our supineness, we see the Chinese driven back into heathenism; the Indian turned over to the soldiery for extermination, or a deeper barbarism; the Negro wrested from his rights, and unlifted from his passions, weaknesses and enthralments of mental and spiritual darkness: is there any reason to believe that the opportunity will ever return when it will be possible for us so completely to control, guide and mould them as we now can? We are in jeopardy, therefore, of making the most fearful mistake in Christian ethics and in Christian practice. If these races pass from our hands uneducated and unsaved, the world will charge us with the commission of a crime against humanity itself. Now we can throw upon these fields, if we will, men enough to take possession of them in the name of Christ. Now, we can raise up _out of these races_ the laborers to carry our learning, our art, our faith, to all who speak the same tongue, and to all in whose veins bounds the same blood. To this work Providence manifestly calls us—to do it is to walk with God, we verily believe. But whether the churches see it, or _wish_ to see it; whether they are more ready to walk in their _own_ light than in the light which shines from heaven, I cannot answer. I can only say the sun shines, and we have the eyes to see. If we miss the Divine plan and method it will not be for lack of light, but the mistake will be none the less sad, and the misfortune to the world none the less direful, because the ages may not undo it. From such a peril may the good Lord save his people, and open their eyes that they may see! * * * * * OBITUARY. REV. SIDNEY HAMILTON DALE, pastor at Florence, Ala., died June 18th, and was buried at Talladega, June 25th.