Of course I feel very sorry for our mission brethren, but I am glad Chinatown is in ashes. We were all getting sick from the impure air. Some of the boys had been sick for months on account, I think, of the filth surrounding our mission rooms, and I believe it was the Lord's will that it should burn, and besides I am certain that we can do a better work where we are. The Chinamen are driven from their nests, and I believe many will come to school now. They are disgusted with their idols, because they did not save them from the fire. About six Chinese women were driven out, so I will commence work with them soon, if possible. Then I find a good many little children, too, and I will try to get some Christian lady to teach them. I hope I may save the women. I could never locate them in Chinatown, and the Chinamen told me there were only two in town, but I find they told me an untruth, and I will now endeavor to reach them. * * * * * BUREAU OF WOMAN'S WORK. MISS D. E. EMERSON, SECRETARY. * * * * * "WHAT PROGRESS DO YOU MAKE?" PROF. CHAS. L. PARKER. In our letters from different parts of the country, the above is the oft-repeated question. My answer, which is the purpose of this letter, will not deal with statistics either of church or of school, for the best work done among the mountaineers is not recorded in the church books or school curriculums; it is the work accomplished in the lives of individuals and through them. Often these individuals are never known outside their own community. A little over a year ago, in company with a friend, I went to visit a Sunday-school in a mountain community way back in the "Ridges." The Superintendent, a man whom we had met before at a Sunday-school convention, invited us to speak. After the services we went home with him to dinner. His family consisted of a wife and five children. He deplored the fact that they had not better opportunities for education and better church privileges, so we suggested that, when the crops were harvested, he should move with his family to C---- to send them to school. The idea pleased Mr. W----, and in course of time he came. Mrs. W---- entered the school with her children as a regular student, being in some of the same classes with her little girls. All worked diligently through the winter, enjoying an intellectual feast, of which they had hitherto known nothing. It is unnecessary to say that the winter passed too quickly with them, and the time came for "making a new crop" all too soon. They left the school reluctantly and returned to the mountain home, taking with them a spirit of progress, which will make even a rugged fastness into a blooming garden.