There is a great gain, also, in Southern public opinion as to the capacity of the colored man and his possible future. This gain is seen in the better provisions for the colored public schools, in towns and cities. The schools of the A.M.A. are both object lessons and incentives for the education of the white as well as the colored in the public schools. The South is exceedingly sensitive as to the opinion of the North. A trifle of published criticism, for example, goes through the Southern papers with rebuttals enough to break down a national constitution. An imperfect and incorrect report of an interview, which lived just long enough to be printed, has been lately passionately confuted in certain Southern newspapers with a profusion of epithets which were out of all proportion to the harmless nonsense committed to the press by an untrained reporter--a new illustration of the extreme sensitiveness of the South to Northern opinion. Northern sentiment is often ridiculed, and frequently sends not a few Southern newspapers into spasms, but it is heeded. Let it be kindly and true, and pressed fraternally and constantly "In His Name" who came
"To take away transgressions And set the captive free."
THE VALUE OF PURE AND INTELLIGENT CHURCHES.
The extract given below has the true ring. It is from one of the pastors of the American Missionary Association educated at Tougaloo and Howard Theological Seminary. If sometimes our church work seems small and discouraging there are many things to be remembered. Many times we are told by the pastors of our churches "we could have larger churches and more of them if we would accept the standards of those about us." Moreover, some little church with fifty members may be doing more for the cause of Christ than some big church of ten times the number. But, read the extract:
"In the battle of Milliken's Bend, a color bearer was seen far in advance of his company. The captain shouted to him, 'Bring those colors back to the army!' The reply was sent back, 'Bring the army up to the colors.'
"Just so, in the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, and the South generally, our church is lifting up the standard, and although men are constantly trying to get the standard bearer to fall back to the army of biased, narrow humanity, the church ever shouts back the reply of the immortal color bearer, 'Bring the army up to the colors.'