“To the praise of His grace, God has prospered the work of my hands as well as prolonged my days. At my own station (Cavalla) I have baptized 352 persons, of whom 187 were adults. In the Mission I have confirmed 643 persons. I have lived to ordain Deacons—two foreign, eight Liberians, four natives—in all, fourteen; of Presbyters, three foreign, seven Liberians, one Native—in all, eleven; or, altogether, twenty-five ordinations have been held. And at twenty-two places along 250 miles of what was, fifty years ago, a most barbarous heathen coast, has the Church been planted, and radiating points for the light of the Gospel established. Nine churches may be considered established and supplied with ministers of the Country. Besides schools, common and Sunday, we have a High School for boys, a Training School for young men, and an Orphan Asylum to take care of destitute children in the colonies. The Church and Mission by God’s blessing, may be considered established.” Meanwhile, the Rev. Mr. Auer, the only white missionary left after the Bishop’s withdrawal, had been even more busy than ever, with his American and native negro co-workers, in building up the waste places and planning for the extension of work; in preparing native candidates for the Ministry, in which Mr. Crummell was chief factor; in building new and repairing old school-houses; and in recruiting the ranks of the white staff. The strain had been too great, and he lived for less than a year after his consecration as Bishop Payne’s successor in the Episcopate. A few months later, Bishop Payne also died in his distant American home. Thus the Mission was left with only recently recruited white helpers; but these, with the fine band of negro clergy, catechists, and teachers, went steadily and faithfully forward. As Bishop Payne had so confidently declared, “the mission may be considered established”; and so it was. For two years, with many misfortunes, but always in the confidence of hope, the work went forward until, in 1876, the Rev. Charles C. Penick, D. D., was elected Bishop of Cape Palmas and, on February 13th, 1877, was consecrated in Alexandria, Va. He arrived in his new field in October, and, two months later, returned this message to the Church at home, which sounds discouraging enough: “I find the American Mission confusion worse confounded. The work here has been so long without any head that the disorder is very, very great. Every building connected with the Mission is tumbling to pieces. I can put my foot through the rotten floor in the room where I now write, and it is one of the best in the house, and the house as good as any in the Mission. Books are all moulded and bug-eaten to worthlessness; furniture eaten to honeycomb; records like autumn leaves, only not so close together; no school system, no educational system; not the first move towards self-support; many changes and old questions to be settled, and not enough clergy to form a court.”