world, awakening from the sleep of long and dreary centuries under the influence of Christian civilization, again demands the attention of the great nations of the world. Everywhere, east, west, north, south, it is being invaded all along the line of Cecil Rhodes’ great railway, stretching northward from Cape Town for three thousand miles, to meet the twenty-six hundred pushing down from the north,—from Senegal to Gaboon and from Gaboon to the Congo; on the shores of Tanganyika and along the banks of the Zambesi shine the lights of the gospel, which, wherever it has gone, has been the harbinger of a new and brighter day. Within the mighty domains of our own continent, upon the immense plains reaching from Labrador to the Pacific, upon the sterile coasts of Alaska, in the land of the Montezumas, in Central America, in South America, from Panama to Terra-del-Fuego, equally marvelous have been the steady gains resulting from a Christianity the forces of which, like the waters that enrich the continent, penetrate all the bays and estuaries of human society and influence all classes and conditions of men. Looking upon the transformations effected by the labors of a single century of Christian effort, one may surely say, “The peoples that walked in darkness have seen a great light; they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.” Equally wonderful have been the vast contributions of the church in America to the great causes of education, philanthropy, and reform, particularly in the line of educational work. The service of the church in the great cause of education has never yet been fully recognized. Men forget, when charging the church with hostility to human progress, to freedom of thought and action, that until within a period of seventy years nearly everything accomplished for popular education was carried out under the auspices of the churches rather than under the direction of the state. Until 1825, the state had done next to nothing even in the development of its common schools. In the great State of Pennsylvania, the system had no existence until the year 1835. Even to-day, among the four hundred and fifty institutions of higher education in the various States, nearly all owe their foundation to the energy and sacrifice of Christian men and women. The total gifts of the churches to the cause of education, still existent in plant, in grounds and buildings, or in the form of endowment funds, reach the enormous aggregate of nearly $350,000,000, while the total of gifts to institutions of learning, largely from Christian sources, aggregate nearly $10,000,000 per year. [Illustration: METHODIST EPISCOPAL HOSPITAL, PHILADELPHIA.]