I reached Little Rock, Arkansas, late one Saturday night and on Sunday morning found my way to our church service. Arriving a few minutes late, I found the service already begun. It was a fine looking audience and as quiet and orderly as any New England congregation. The service was well arranged and conducted in a very happy manner. The sermon was thoughtful, earnest and inspiring. The pastor, Rev. Yancy B. Sims, is a graduate of Talladega College and an honor to his Alma Mater. On Monday I visited, with the pastor, several of the homes of the people. What a contrast between these refined homes and the hut of the slave quarters of twenty-five years ago! The ladies of this church had just finished a silk block for a quilt which a home mission church in Washington Territory is making from blocks made in each State in the Union, with the hope of selling it to increase its fund for building a house of worship. It was a beautiful block of rich material and the most delicate workmanship. The faces of these ladies showed great delight in the thought that they were helping others who needed help. "Do the colored people vote here without opposition?" I asked of an intelligent colored man. "Oh, yes!" he replied. "And are the votes always counted?" "Yes, _except in a pinch!_" was the answer. This is much better than in most places which I am called upon to visit. From Little Rock I went to Paris, Texas. This growing city has a population of about twelve thousand, five thousand of whom are colored. Our pastor here is a graduate of Fisk University, as also is his wife. The need of our church work in this city and in the State is two-fold, direct and indirect. Our Congregational churches are quite as useful for toning up other churches and their ministry as in the direct work done by them. Dodds, Roxton and Dallas in Northern Texas were next visited, and in each a small church is established and doing a good work. At Austin, I found our Tillotson Institute rapidly filling with students--bright and earnest. A girls' hall is greatly needed here at once. This institution with its unlimited opportunities in the great State of Texas ought not to be cramped in any way, but to be given every facility. Who will give it at once what it so urgently needs? I found several intelligent people here greatly desiring a Congregational church in the city--the school-church being too far away to reach the mass of the people. Said an educated colored man to me: "Our most intelligent people cannot endure the ignorant worship of these old churches much longer. We want Congregationalism, but if we can't have that, we must look elsewhere. We must have something to hold our educated young people from falling into infidelity." And so they must, for that is a coming danger.