At Fort Payne, Ala., the first steps were taken August 21st toward the organization of a church.  It was voted to complete the organization as soon as possible.  Rev. Geo. S. Smith, recently of Raleigh, N.C., has gone to Fort Payne to take charge of the work.

NEW CHAPEL.

The Plymouth Congregational Church of New Decatur, Ala., aided by the American Missionary Association, is erecting a chapel which is to be used as a church until the congregation shall become larger and wealthier.  This church has been organized by Northern people who have gone to this new and growing town to make their homes.  It is connected with the Central South Association of Congregational Churches.

HYMN BOOKS WANTED.

The Plymouth Congregational Church of New Decatur, Ala., greatly needs hymn books.  It has a few copies of the “Songs of the Sanctuary,” but not enough to enable it to use them.  Any church having copies of this book which are not needed in its service could scarcely do better with them than to send them to this courageous little church.

From Crossville, Tenn., we have this appeal:  “It would be esteemed a great favor if some church could furnish our people with a donation of hymn books for church singing.  You may know of some church having a new supply of hymn books who would be pleased to give this poor flock on the mountains their old books.  If so, they would be thankful, and highly appreciate the favor.”

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VACATION AT TOUGALOO.

BY FIELD SUPERINTENDENT E.S.  HALL.

Awake?  With the “Rat-a-tat Quir-r-k, tat-tat” of the great crimson-crested woodpecker hammering just for noisy fun on the wide cornice of the “mansion,” with the summer sun shining in through the window, and the five o’clock bell pealing sharply from Strieby Hall, the seven sleepers would have to be awake and doing at Tougaloo University.

The mercury is passing the 72 deg. point at sunrise; but the morning, as the sunshine sparkles on the dewy grass between the wide-spreading live-oaks of the grove, seems as cool as a morning on the Berkshire hills.  The wide-rolling plantation fields to the west give no hint of the long hot mid-day hours when the cotton revels in a heat that sends all animate nature to the deepest coverts.

The Tougaloo grounds are a paradise for all feathered life.  The quail with their cheery “Bob White” whistle in the kitchen garden, following in plain sight the boys hoeing out the “grass.”  The blue-jays, martins and mocking birds render a trip to the Paris Exposition entirely unnecessary, if one wishes to hear all parties talk at the same moment and in unintelligible syllables.  Curious, is’nt it, that these shy denizens of field and forest are so bold, in term as well as vacation time, where these colored lads and lasses congregate, for people of a low, brutal nature, incapable of any spark of generosity or ambition, are no friends to innocent nature.  The papers that characterize the Negro as such, a creature unfit to live in a white man’s country, cannot be blinded by prejudice!