3.  The colored people of America should be aroused to this providential call to this high mission in behalf of their fatherland.  We do not question nor minify their great duty and destiny in America.  Their warm affections, their easily kindled zeal, their gift of song and eloquence, will yet add an enriching pathos to our piety, and a wider range to our patriotism.  But this call to Africa, while not interfering with duty here, will broaden their vision and deepen their piety.  There will be a grand uplift to them in grasping and endeavoring to realize this great work.  It will raise them above petty ambitions, it will give a practical turn to their religious enthusiasm, and bring them into closer sympathy with Jesus Christ.  They have been in fellowship with Him in suffering, they may now be co-workers with Him in redemption.

But Africa, so degraded!  Why should her sons go back to her?  The Scot loves the hills and the glens whence his family came; the German never forgets the Fatherland; but what is there to awaken the love of the Negro for Africa?  Gen. Garfield was born in a humble home, and went thence as a canal driver, but when he became President of the United States he did not despise that humble home, nor the mother that bore him, lowly as both were, but at his inauguration he had his mother placed in an honored seat on the platform, and his first act after taking the oath of office was to step over, before that vast assembly, and kiss that mother.

American descendant of Africa!  The home of your fathers is humble and degraded, and you are elevated and refined.  Show that you are really great and Christlike by giving the redeeming kiss to Africa!

* * * * *

THE HOPEFULNESS OF INDIAN MISSIONS, AS SEEN IN THE LIGHT OF HISTORY.

BY REV.  A.F.  BEARD, D.D.

The contemplation of the past sometimes weakens the energies for action in the present.  But when the present is a consequence of the past, we can scarcely do our work rightly if we neglect the lessons of experience.

The history of missions among our Indian tribes has lessons in it which may be wisely heeded.

When the first settlers of this country left their ships, which had been freighted with the destinies of a continent, and faced the perils of a wilderness, they met at the outset a strange people.  No one knew who they were, nor how many; they themselves did not know.  They had no history.  They had become vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.  Ignorant as to the past, their theory of the future was vague and shadowy.  Their spirits would exist after death.  The heroic and brave and worthy would go to the happy hunting-grounds, where would be pleasant climate and fair weather, and where abundance would be exhaustless and satisfactions complete.  The unworthy would wander without in a state of misfortune and restless discontent.  For their religious ceremonies, a priesthood existed, and those who composed this were devoted to it from their childhood.  The howling dervishes of Turkey and the pagan priests of the South Sea Islands, may be compared with the pow-wows of the North American Indians.