to do, their part; but they cannot do ours. Just as there is a work which they can do better than we, so there is a work which they cannot do at all-the peculiar work of our polity. If we turn from it, it will never be done, and whatever of value, to the commonwealth and to souls, there is in it, by so much will Texas and the Church of Christ in Texas, be the poorer.

Besides this urgent opportunity in the cities and larger towns, there lies open to us the great Panhandle, larger than Indiana, and now traversed by railroads which are rapidly bringing in a large population— in good part from the North. We have recently opened a most promising work in Oklahoma. We felt, and rightly, that this could not be deferred--that it constituted such an urgency as demanded help even in this year of "no new work." If the Panhandle were a new Territory, instead of a part of a State, it would be seen at once to constitute just such an urgency. In all that vast region we have not to-day a single missionary!

2. Have we, as a denomination, the financial ability to possess this land? If we have not, there is an end of the matter. Certainly the American Home Missionary Society is guiltless. Its Secretaries know the greatness of the opportunity and its urgency. Most gladly would they plan to disburse thousands where now they can send but hundreds. Is the constituency of the Society as free from responsibility? That is a question to be answered by us individually-each as before that Christ whose stewards we are, and to whom account must be rendered.

THE SOUTHWESTERN SCHOOL OF THE BIBLE.

THE Southwestern School of the Bible, at Dallas, is the outgrowth, partly of the work of the Dallas Church, and partly of the demand for men suited to the very peculiar home missionary field which the Society has in Texas. In no other sense has it any relation to the Society. From the very first it has proved difficult to get a sufficiency of ministers adapted to the work. A few rare men are there, and have always been, from the northern seminaries, but as a rule the really desirable men refuse to go to Texas. The situation is peculiar, and ministers who do excellent work elsewhere often signally fail there. Four years ago a few of the Texas workers-men and women-began to pray to the Lord of the harvest about this dearth of suitable laborers. Soon a few laymen (all but one of whom were in profound ignorance of the prayer movement) felt the call to preach irresistibly laid upon them. They were all men of devoted piety, “having a good report of them without," and, in the judgment of brethren of experience, unusually gifted for service. But their circumstances and responsibilities required them to labor for a livelihood, and the nearest of our seminaries was more than one thousand miles away. What

was to be done? Here seemed to be a manifest answer to the prayer for missionaries, but how should they gain the necessary training? What could be done but to make renewed prayer to the Lord? In what seemed a way equally direct and wonderful the leading was given, step by step, which resulted in arrangements by which these brethren could receive a thorough Biblical training. The scheme of study includes, in part:

1. The testimony of Scripture to its own authorship, inspiration, and chronology.

2. The study of the books of the Bible in order. This includes the general contents and analysis of each book; its main purpose; the careful tracing of lines of truth having their bėginnings in earlier books; the discovery of new beginnings; the study of the types of Scripture; of the progress of inspired history, and the unfolding of prophecy.

3. The study of the progressive teaching of Scripture concerning God, including the personality, work, and attributes of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

4. A study of the great words of the Bible; e.g., Redemption, Propitiation, Righteousness, Justification, Sanctification, Glory, Salvation, Life, Faith, etc.

5. A study of Scripture teaching concerning spiritual gifts, and their ministry, including preaching, its object, material, methods, etc.

6. The teaching of Scripture concerning its own interpretation and application.

7. New Testament Greek as far as transliteration and the use of lexicons.

Already three of the students are in highly successful pastorates. More, much more, can and will be done as the Lord may give means for student aid, teaching, help, etc. Meanwhile, no one, evidently called of God, is refused. The readers of The Home Missionary are earnestly asked to pray for an ever-renewed anointing of the Holy Spirit upon teachers and pupils, and for his power to rest abidingly upon those already in the service.

THE CONGREGATIONAL METHODIST MOVEMENT IN LOUISIANA.

BY REV. C. I. SCOFIELD, ACTING SUPERINTENDENT, TEXAS AND LOUISIANA. JUST when it seemed as if our work in Louisiana must, for some years at least, be confined to the colored people and the Northern immigrants, a great door and effectual was opened for Congregationalism into the old South itself. The readers of The Home Missionary know the history of the Georgia movement of the Congregational Methodist churches which has brought them into the fellowship of the Congregational

churches of the whole country. As a consequence and direct result of the Georgia Union, the Congregational Methodist churches of Louisiana, located mostly in Central and Western Louisiana, sought the fellowship of our churches in the same region, and in August 1889, the WEST CENTRAL ASSOCIATION OF LOUISIANA was formed by four home missionary churches, one of them a colored church,-and twelve Congregational Methodist churches. This Association was formally recognized by the National Council at Worcester in October.

It is difficult to state strongly enough the importance of the opportunity thus thrust upon us. Here is a body of earnest Christians, to the manner born, who have accepted Congregationalism in all its implications and spirit, and who have the ear and confidence of the entire Southern community.

It would be beneath the actual greatness of this providence to think of it as an open door for Congregationalism merely. There is a grave danger that our people will thus dwarf it in their thought. But it is vastly more than this, it is an opportunity of national import, and one which ought to engage the sympathies of Christians and patriots of every name. It is the first real break in the wall of mutual misunderstanding and prejudice which has long divided the armies of Christ by North and South. If our people could but see this, and pour into this crevasse a gracious flood of confidence, sympathy, and material help, more would be done for the cause of Christ, and the settlement, too, of the portentous national questions than can be effected by a thousand Acts of Congress.

Here again, even so small a sum as $5,000 annually for a few years would give us a strong body of native churches, thoroughly at one with us, to be a power for all manner of good in this troubled land.

CHRISTIAN ASSIMILATION.-There is in the heart of every new-born babe in Christ a sincere desire to be free from all sectional and unholy strife. This desire and fact are cherished by our Southern people. A "No North, no South, no East, no West" church is the only one to nourish, properly, Christian babes. My conviction is that the association and assimilation of Northern and Southern white people are the more direct and effectual means through which we may reach the solution of the "Negro problem." If this problem is ever solved it will not be by legislative enactments, but by the King of kings through his agents, the living American soldiers of the Cross. The Northern Christian heart and the Southern Christian heart need to beat in perfect unison.-Rev. J. R. Hodges, Denison, Tex.

LAKE CHARLES COLLEGE.

BY REV. HENRY L. HUBBELL, D.D., PRESIDENT.

THERE is to be opened this fall a new college with an academical department whose field is Eastern Texas and Western Louisiana. This is the natural result of home missionary work and northern immigration.

This college is located at Lake Charles, the chief town in Southwestern Louisiana. The town is situated on the eastern bank of a beautiful lake, and on the borders of an extensive prairie and an immense pine forest, giving a healthful quality to the air.

Lake Charles, the home of the college, is a new and flourishing city, nearly ten years old, on the trunk line of the Southern Pacific Railroad, two hundred miles west of New Orleans and thirty miles east of the Texas State line, and at the southern terminus of the Kansas City, Watkins and Gulf Road, soon to be completed.

This city, the outgrowth of the lumbering and agricultural interest of that region, is the headquarters of northern immigration into Western Louisiana, and a good place for a college. Ex-Gov. McEnery, of Louisiana, well acquainted with the State, says that the beauty of the city and the surrounding country, the character of its citizens and the healthfulness of the climate, give Lake Charles unsurpassed advantages as a college-site. Many think of this whole region, especially of the Louisiana portion of it, as a country of "marsh and malaria." Fifteen years ago we thought the same of Florida; now we esteem it a health-resort. A still greater change of public opinion must come, especially as to Western Louisiana. A resident physician of Lake Charles, who has lived thirty years in the North and thirty years in Louisiana, says, "From reading and personal observation, I think the healthiest portion of the United States is from Houston, Eastern Texas, to La Fayette, La., and from seventy-five to one hundred miles north of the Gulf. The climate certainly has not its equal in any portion of the Union.

The entire country of Eastern Texas and Western Louisiana is yet to become the seat of great and wealthy States. Now is a critical time in its history. If an earnest Christian college had been planted when its inhabitants were but three or four thousand people, as Harvard was planted among the early inhabitants of Massachusetts and grew up with the people, then the case would be different; but already there are at least three quarters of a million of people there-a population larger than the State of Connecticut which has two colleges and a great University to meet its needs. A quarter of these are negroes, some Germans, some Italians, some Creoles, some the descendants of the Acadians of whom Longfel low wrote, and many thousands are from western and northern homes-all mingling with the still greater thousands of the southern white people,