Of these popular movements toward the Congregational way, that at Lowell is a typical illustration. Some of the colored people near this little hamlet desired to build for themselves a church. With infinite pains and self-denial and labor they gathered the material for a small, wooden building and put up the frame with their own hands. Being refused the official encouragement they felt they had a right to expect from their own denomination, they began to consider the whole question of church relations and polity, and made up their minds to become a free church. They held their services in the cabin depicted in the accompanying illustration, and sought to push forward the completion of their little and rude church building. A furious storm blew the frame down. With sore hearts they piled up the lumber neatly around the foundation frame and felt that they must give up their cherished hope of having a church edifice. Having learned of the Congregational way, which superimposes no centralized church government over the people and seeks to aid the poor rather than to oppress them, they organized themselves into a Congregational church, and were recognized in our fellowship by a council. Afterward they were visited by a representative of the Association, whose form is seen in the foreground of the picture of their ruined church. A cheering conference was held with them. In this conversation a single fact came out which shows something of the labor and self-denial in the movement. It was found that the young minister of this, and a similar body of colored people several miles away, although he was afflicted with an ulcerated ankle, which might well have laid him up in his house, had repeatedly walked seventeen miles over the heavy roads in order to keep faithfully his preaching appointments. The people were willing to do their very utmost. It is hoped, with the aid of our Church Building Society, that they will now be able to put up their little church building and prosper in their Christian endeavor of having a free Congregational church for their religious home. [Illustration: REV. A. W. CURTIS, D.D.] REV. A. W. CURTIS, D.D.