VOL. XIII.

Only three months to the end of the fiscal year! The books close March 31st. Have you made your annual contribution to the work of the Society? Don't put it off until the last moment.

The Treasurer's summary of receipts and expenditures in each issue of the MONTHLY keeps our readers informed of the state of the treasury, in a general way. A more particular statement however may be given at this time. It is gratifying to report that the receipts for the eight months to December ist, for general purposes, were $29.533. 10 more than for the same period last year, being $169,860. 30. Over against this, however, is the fact that expenditures for general purposes have been $17,254.65 more than for the same period last year, the aggregate amount being $220,045.08; so that the net gain for the eight months was $12, 278.45. For the month of November, receipts were $5, 298.02 less than for the same month last year. The obligations maturing by April 1st are considerably more than those of last year; the total outstanding obligations being $181,203.95.

At the December Board meeting Rev. F. T. Hazlewood, D.D., of Lynn, Mass., was appointed Assistant District Secretary for New England, his service to begin January

No. I.

1, 1891. To New England Baptists, Dr. Hazlewood needs no words of introduction or commendation, for his record as pastor about sixteen years in Bangor, Maine, and about seven years in Lynn, Mass., is well and favorably known to his brethren, by whom he is held in high esteem.

This appointment is for the purpose of relieving our honored brother, Dr. Mason, of a portion of the labors and cares that have become too heavy for him. Dr. Mason

will still attend to the office duties as Dis

trict Secretary, and from time to time as may Boston. In his twenty-fifth year of service be prudent will visit churches in or around as District Secretary, he is entitled to the relief which this arrangement will give him in his large and important district.

The list of subscribers to the MONTHLY is much larger than ever before. It is a good sign that people are becoming more and more interested in Home Missions. Friends of the work who have promoted the circulation of the MONTHLY will please accept our thanks for their unrequited services. If any reader desires a sample copy for a friend, it will be sent on receipt of a postal requesting it, with address of the one to whom it is to be sent. Please look at the date on the label and remit if in arrears.

"I read the MONTHLY with increased interest from month to month. I was in At

lanta, Ga., in November, and was greatly pleased with a visit to Spelman and Atlanta Seminaries. The principals and president were very kind. A teacher had his singingclass in session and the pupils gave us several of their 'Jubillee' airs with stirring effect." So writes Mrs. F. C. Buckbee, of Owego, N. Y.

To whom can we send our religious newspapers after we have read them? This is a frequent inquiry. The direction that we give is this: Look over the list of missionary appointments in each issue of the MONTHLY and select the name of some missionary in a Western field to whom to send them. If what you send duplicates a paper he already takes, he will doubtless give it to some one where it will do good. It will be a very simple matter to send a postal to his address asking if he would be glad to get the paper for himself or his people.

Inadvertently, the resolutions of the Board concerning Dr. Simmons were omit

ted from the December MONTHLY in which they should have appeared. They will be They will be found in this issue.

In this connection it may be noted that memorial services for Dr. Simmons have

parts of the country. The Corresponding Secretary was present and participated in such a service at the church in Brooklyn of which Rev. W. T. Dixon, D.D., is pastor.

At Atlanta Baptist Seminary special services were held, at which the following preamble and resolutions were adopted:

WHEREAS, God in His all-wise providence has removed our beloved friend and brother, Rev. William

J. Simmons, D.D., LL.D., of Louisville, late District Secretary for the Southern States of the American Baptist Home Mission Society, and President of the National Baptist Convention of America; and whereas the example of his consistent Christian life, his industry in his efforts to promote the cause of Christ, and the vigor with which he prosecuted the last work of his life are worthy of our admiration and imitation, therefore, as a testimonial of our ap preciation of his life and labors, be it

Resolved 1, That this school and its faculty recog

nize that in the death of Dr. Simmons we have lost sentatives, our denomination and people one of their brightest lights, the cause of sacred learning one of its soundest scholars, and the world one of its best

a faithful friend, the ministry one of its ablest repre

His fervent, hopeful Chistian spirit was ever an inspiration to all with whom he was associated. To his bereaved family we extend our heartfelt sympathy and hereby direct the continuance to them of Dr. Simmons's salary until January 1st, 1891.

Benevolence.

Yale College received a bequest of nearly $500,000 from the estate of Thomas C. Sloan.

The rich Baron de Hirsch has sent $20,ooo to Montreal to be applied to the benefit of the refugee Russian Hebrews in Canada.

Mr. J. A. Bostwick, of New York, proposes to give one dollar for every two that may be collected toward the endowment of Wake Forest College, N. C.

James Stokes, a New York banker, has given $60,000 for the erection of a Christian Association building in Paris, a corresponding sum having been raised in France.

Mrs. Stephen T. Deblois has given $5,000 to the Young Men's Christian Association in Boston, in memory of her husband, who was for many years an officer of the Association.

The late Miss Margaret Lombard, of Springfield, Mass., bequeathed $40,000 to its city hospital, $20,000 to the Home for Aged Women, and $500 to provide fuel for destitute women.

Mrs. Priscilla A. Blake has given $1,000 to the Young Men's Christian Association of Bangor, as a nucleus of an endowment fund, the income of which is to be used for running expenses.

The family of the late John J. Joslin, of Troy, N. Y., has just given $20,000 to Colgate University as the beginning of the foundation of the Professorship of Christian Theology in the Theological Department.

At the recent meeting of the Board of Trustees of Princeton College, the gift of a commencement hall at an estimated cost of $100,000, by Mrs. Charles B. Alexander, of New York, was announced by President Patton.

Stephen Feltch, late of Wilmot, N. H., died recently, leaving a property estimated at

$50,000. He desires that the estate, at the death of his widow, shall be divided equally between the American Board of Foreign Missions and American Home Missionary Society.

Mr. Elliot F. Shephard and Mr. Augustus Shephard have given to the American Bible Society a fund of nearly $53,000, which they propose to raise to $100,000 in honor of their father, the late Fitz Shephard, the income to be used for the charitable purposes of the Bible Society.

At a meeting of the Trustees of Cornell University, Mr. H. W. Sage added $200,000 to his previous gift of $60,000 for the establishment of a Department of Philosophy. His gifts to the University now amount to more than $1,000,000. The endowment is about $6,000,000, and the income about $500,000.

The will of the late Franklin B. Jagger, of Burlington, Ia., has been filed. It bequeaths, among other amounts, $5,000 to the American Home Missionary Society of New York, $5,000 to the lowa Congregational Home Missionary society, $5,000 to the Iowa College at Grinnel, and $2,000 to the Public Library of Burlington.

The will of Martha H. Spencer, of Cushnet, Mass., bequeaths $5,000 to the Congregational Church in that town; to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, $2,000; to the American Home Missionary Society, $,000; to American Missionary Association, $2,000; to the Woman's Board of Missions, $1,000.

Wm. A. Slater of Norwich, Conn., son of the great cotton manufacturer who gave $1,000,000 for educating Southern Freedmen, has given $150,000 to endow a public hospital in his native city. He is estimated to be worth $20,000,000. Mr. William W. Backus, another wealthy citizen, is concerned in the hospital project, and will contribute $50,000 to it.

liamsville, N. Y., divides her estate, estimated The late Mrs. Helen M. Randall, of Wilat from $150,000 to $175,000, between a nephew, the Amherst Baptist church, the Baptist Church Edifice Fund, the Publication Society, the New York Ministerial Union, the New York Missionary Convention, the Cook

Academy, the Ministers' Home at West Farms, and the Baptist Union of Buffalo.

The will of the late Rebecca B. Wheeler, of Worcester, Mass., contains the following bequests: Worcester Academy, $5,000; the Young Men's Christian Association, $3.ooo; the Woman's Baptist Home Missionary Society, $1,000; the Home for Aged Women in Worcester, $1,000; the Baptist Theological Seminary of Newton Centre, $2,000, as a scholarship, the preference to be given to Worcester young men; Brown University, $2,000, as a scholarship; the First Baptist Church of Worcester, $1,000; Orphans' Home of Worcester, $1,000; the Young Women's Christian Association of Worcester, $1,000, and the Women's Baptist Foreign Missionary Society, $1,000.

Notes of a Western Tour.

BY THE CORRESPONDING SECRETARY.

(Concluded.)

ON TO OKLAHOMA.

From Denver, Colorado to Newton, Kansas, where I had to remain over night for the morning train to Oklahoma, was a twenty-four hours journey.

Some things of interest are vividly remembered: e. g., eating breakfast at La Junta, 5:40 A. M., the only chance for a morning meal; the enormous expanse of prairie, covered largely, east of La Junta, with sage brush; innumerable prairie-dogs sitting erect and unscared by the passing train which they seemed to regard with a dignified and philosophic spirit; here and there men fighting the prairie fires burning in the short grass; yonder a private herd of seventy buffaloes-the largest remnant of the millions that once ranged over this region; occasionally an emigrant wagon; widely separated residences on the prairies; herds of cattle watched by men in their saddles ; railroad towns that had a finished look and to which few save the ever-present commercial drummer seemed to be going and from which none but he seemed to depart. If the railroad had to depend upon local passenger traffic in eastern Colorado and western Kansas, it would be bankrupt in a month. We dine at Dodge City in an ordinary car fitted up with tables and stationary on

a side track. From Garden City eastward the country seems to be somewhat better adapted to diversified agricultural operations; but at least the western quarter of Kansas has a forbidding aspect to the farmer. With rarely any trees, and few water courses, but with wild grasses on which cattle thrive, it seems suited chiefly, if not wholly, for stockraising. Artesian wells cannot supply adequate water for irrigation. They are tapping the "underflow" of some streams for irrigating purposes, but this, if successful, can avail for but very limited districts. Hence it is not likely that western Kansas will ever sustain a dense rural population. Towns, ten or fifteen miles apart, will be found along the line of the railroads, and some of these, as the base of supplies for an extensive surrounding region, will contain a considerable population. At some of the most important we have Baptist churches that have been or are helped by the Society. An itinerant missionary, whose circuit should include a number of these smaller towns in each of which it would be impracticable to station a missionary, would do good service.

Central Kansas, into which we enter during the afternoon, shows thrift and promise of a good future. The larger towns and cities rejoice in street cars, electric lights and other modern improvements.

The

Early in the morning I took the train at Newton, southward for Oklahoma. route lay through a beautiful and fertile country. Passing through Wichita, the city of the famous "boom" and the equally famous collapse, there is seen at a distance the magnificent building erected in the palmy days for "Garfield' College”—an enterprise begun by the "Disciples". It stands empty. The State may purchase it for a normal school. It is a monument of educational foolishness. Brains is the first essential for a college, then books, then bricks. A good faculty and fair library in the old United States Hotel in Rochester, was a college that made its mark on its generation. Begin at the right end.

THE CHEROKEE STRIP.

Between Kansas and Oklahoma lies the Cherokee Strip, about sixty miles in width. What a contrast as we emerge from civilization into this country! Up to the very southern boundary line of Kansas, highly culti