house to attend our preaching services; and the next time I called on her, there were marked evidences of refinement and care in her home. A few weeks after, she came before our church, and related her Christian experience, and I baptized her. Now her home is clean and tidy, and a handsome family Bible lies on the table, and is frequently used. She is a lady and a Christian, and one who will exert her influence in the Christian society of South Omaha.

The church brought together the people there who had self-respect, and has united them as friends and brothers and sisters. In that town, where the roughest elements from the "wild and reckless West" often met, there were twenty-six saloons, doing a business of $50 to $100 each, daily, last summer, no church, and only occasional preaching. Do you wonder that a lady, without special strength of character, should become disheartened, careless? If you had seen the place and the society there, you would have wondered that a lady could live for a year in such a place.

But improvements in society are rapid there, and though it may never be a desirable place to live, yet by the grace of God there will hereafter be a Christian society, which people of pure minds and hearts can meet with.

In this city, there was a great deal of suffering during the recent storm, and it often happens that I have calls for help from those who are utterly destitute. Some families were found by some of the brethren last week living, or rather freezing, in tents, without coal or wood or food. The Baptist pastors here, and your missionary, have relieved a large number of suffering people.

The Beth Eden Baptist Church edifice is completed a model of neatness-and will be dedicated soon, free of debt, and without any appeal for money at the dedication. The earnest, loving pastor, Rev. H. L. House, and a loyal people, are happy.

Some thirty or forty of the Baptists in the northern part of the city, all of them a mile or more away from any Baptist church, will ask advice of the City Missionary Union concerning the organization of a new church. At the next meeting of the Union the church will probably be organized.

By the time my next quarterly report is required, I hope we will be able to report considerable progress in a church building at South Omaha.

Bohemian Mission, Chicago.

Rev. Dr. Haigh of Chicago writes:

Those who have watched with interest the

beginnings of this important work will be glad to learn that on Friday evening, February 3, six Bohemians were baptized by our missionary, Rev. L. Lanyi, at the First German Church on Huron street.

This church is now enjoying a precious work of grace, in which already a large number have been converted. On Friday evening their house of worship was filled with a solemn and attentive audience, to which the pastor, Rev. J. L. Meier, preached. The six Bohemian candidates, who had been brought from their distant homes in the omnibus kept by this church for the use of its mission schools, related their experience to a committee of the church, Pastor Lanyi translating into German. A part of these experiences was afterwards repeated and further translated out of German into English for the benefit of a number representing the Committee on of interest, and could not fail to impress those Foreign Population. These narratives were full who heard them with the intelligence and sincerity of the four men and two women who gave them.

At the close of the regular service Bro. Lanyi and his wife were received on their letters, and

the six who had related their experience to the Committee were received for baptism. Bro. Lanyi then read in Bohemian the account of the conversion and baptism of the eunuch, and prayed, after which he baptized the six in a manner most solemn and impressive, even to those who did not know a single word of the language.

The whole service was one of marked interest, when, as Dr. Parker anticipated at the Social and gave promise that the time is not far distant Union, letters missive shall be issued, inviting a council to recognize the First Bohemian Bap. tist Church of Chicago and of the United States. The friends of this mission may well "thank God and take courage."

Polish Mission in Detroit and Vicinity.

It is estimated that there are about 20,000 Poles in Detroit and vicinity, and that the num ber of Slavs in this country is about 700,000. For several months past Rev. Joseph Antoschevski, from Poland, has been laboring among

work is fully appreciated by the church and friends throughout the State. I hope the Lord will abundantly prosper this department of the great work of the Society."

This work could be duplicated continually in the West if we only had the funds to meet the demands.

-A good brother from a church in Nebraska, to which we made a donation to assist them to a house of worship, writes:

"The first of this quarter we were meeting in the court house, but the sawdust and tobacco on the floor prevented us from singing much. As soon as possible we moved into our new church building, where we now have service and Sunday school."

These new churches in the West ought all to have chapels, where the people could sing without having their lungs filled with the dust arising from sawdust and tobacco.

-The Baptist house of worship at Mickasukee, among the Seminole Indians, has been burned down. Rev. Daniel Rogers, our general missionary in the Indian Territory, writes:

"This is a great loss to the church. The crops among the Seminoles have been almost entirely cut off for the past three years, and the people are very poor. I do not suppose they are able to do anything towards rebuilding, except perhaps they might haul the lumber, which would be no small job, it being eighty-five miles to the nearest lumber-yard."

It would take about $350, with what the Indians could do themselves, to rebuild the house. Here is an opportunity for some of our strong churches, which wish to do something for the Indians, to help a poor and worthy people.

-Rev. G. W. Huntley, of North Dakota, says: "We need a dozen chapels built immediately. The cause in North Dakota is suffering because we lack houses of worship and have not the means to build them."

Many of the fields in the West are as needy as North Dakota, and yet many of our pastors think it is hardly worth while to take collections for the Church Edifice Department of the Home Mission Society.

-The colored church at Chanute, Kansas, which was aided a few years ago from our Church Edifice Fund, sends a contribution to aid other churches, and says:

"We are sorry that we are not able to donate

more, and, if you wish, we will send another collection in about three months. You were a friend to us in time of need, and we want to help your fund whenever we can."

-Miss Kittie Chauncey, of Gloverville, N. Y., sends a contribution designated for Church Edifice work, and writes as follows:

"A class of eight boys, from four to seven, which I have the pleasure of teaching in the primary department of our Sunday school, decided the first of September that, as a class, they would send an offering on January 1st of each year to the Church Edifice Fund. They began saving pennies, and now have $4.15, which they wish me to forward to you."

This gift from these little ones is highly appreciated, and will help to start a church in faroff Nevada, where now there is only one Baptist house of worship in the whole State. Soon we shall call on all the Sunday-school children to help build chapels in the West for churches and Sunday schools who now have no place in which to meet.

-There is a spot down in Gloucester County, Virginia, where the colored people are somewhat behind those of many other sections, in progress. Rev. Reuben Berkely went among them as a self-appointed missionary, teaching school during the week for a scant support and preaching to the people on Sundays. In this way he has succeeded in building up a small Baptist church, and commenced to build a chapel suited to their simple style. Of course the people had very little money, and the work soon came to a stop for want of material. A

good sister in New Jersey, hearing of their needs, sent us $50, asking our Board to make a gift of $100 to the church. The case was investigated, found worthy, and the donation granted at our last Board meeting. A check was sent on, and the hearts of the pastor and people made to rejoice in seeing their house advancing to completion. How often we could repeat this if we had funds enough in this department.

-Bro. R. R. Sadler, a missionary at Wayne C. H., W. Va., after giving a thrilling account of the trials of the church in meeting from place to place without any fixed home, and then relating how they were able to build by aid of a loan from our fund, says:

"I want to acknowledge our gratitude to the Loan Fund of the Home Mission Society, which enabled us to build. Some say it is a hum

bug; that money can be borrowed anywhere for less per cent., etc., etc. Let such try borrowing money on church property, and they will learn something. I have learned by actual tests, often made, that money-lenders have two objections to lending money on church property: 1. They have an aversion to distressing a church by foreclosing a mortgage. 2. Church property is, as a rule, hard to sell."

-Bro. Proper, our General Missionary in Kansas, furnishes the following items:

Thirty of our mission churches in Kansas, where aid is voted to sustain the preaching of the gospel, have no meeting-houses. One church has moved its place of meeting three times since its organization last July; another cannot have morning and evening services. churches meet in halls, others in school-houses, and others in rented churches.

Some

The money invested for preaching does not bring more than half the results it would if we had comfortable houses of worship.

Of the 107 new white churches organized during last two years but very few have meeting houses yet.

WOMEN'S SOCIETIES.

THE WOMAN'S BAPTIST HOME MISSION SOCIETY OF MICHIGAN.

President--MRS. L. B. AUSTIN, 96 Tremont St., Detroit; Corresponding Secrtary-MRS. S. A. GIBSON, 401 Lovell St., Kalamazoo. Treasurer-MRS. WM. A. MOORE, 1015 Woodward Ave., Detroit. Supt. of Mission Bands and Young People's Work-MRS. A. B. STEVENS, Ann Arbor.

QUARTERLY REport.

While we come far short of meeting the demands for earnest, consecrated service, yet we are encouraged in the advance made upon the unoccupied fields of our State. As we read of the cheerful self-sacrifice of our missionaries as they travel, in spite of cold, snowstorms, or mud, to meet their separate appoint. ments amid alternating encouragements and discourcouragements, we feel that to give sparingly or grudgingly to these laborers would be a sin unwil lingly tolerated.

One who has been two years on a new field writes: "I am still extending our lines; have opened one new field, where I have preached twice, and two weeks since went out and organized a Sabbath school of forty members, furnishing them with three months' supplies. They have long wanted me to go to them,

but I did not see how I could. I have also promised another regular appointment nine miles out, which looks promising. I am not likely to rest much on this field, with my four regular preaching places outside of the village. Thanks to His name, God gives the needed strength for the pressing work."

Another writes: "Our building, though unfinished, is of great service. Rev. Mr. Davis, pastor of South Boardman Baptist Church, is doing good work. Some of our incredible burden has been removed to his broad shoulders, and none too soon, for my own strength would soon have been exhausted by the hardships that seemed to be necessary to the prosperity of the cause. Now I am hopeful that God will build up this great field, and dot it with New Testament churches all the way from Reed City to Petoskey. We are about to organize a church ten miles from here. It gives us a heart-ache to see the whiteness of this great harvest field and the scarcity of laborers."

Our Society are hoping to take up mission work among the Poles. The missionary is not to confine himself to one place in his labors among this people. At Manistee there are six thousand Poles, and in Detroit there are twenty thousand, beside other places in the State where he would find work among his people. We feel that we ought to give them the Word of God and throw about them Christian influences.

Our work among the young people was never more promising than at the present time, and none can be more important. The rapidly increasing demand for Christian labor in our country will require earnest, consecrated, intelligent leaders, who have been educated in systematic methods of work.

A letter from Rev G. W. Huntley, dated January 6th, tells what Home Mission work is doing for our country. He says: "We have abundant reason to

thank God for the work done in Dakota. The unexpected has taken place. Last November sixty-four counties voted against the sale of intoxicating liquors. Prohibition has swept our country like our prairie fires in autumn. Cass County, the most populous in the Territory, carried it by four hundred majority. This new law has just come into effect this weekthe week of prayer. Fargo, with its ten thousand people, rejoices. Sixty saloons that existed here are closed. This is remarkable in a new Territory, where the saloon-keepers were the pioneers and whiskey had pre-empted its supposed rights, where the inhabitants are from every people under heaven, that in the first contest prohibition should be so overwhelmingly victorious. While we thank God and take courage, we expect the work is but just begun. 'Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.' To maintain our freedom from the saloon power and the drink demon will cost yet greater effort. But the idea that it was possible to have such a victory at the polls shows the worth of Home Missions in the West. Missionaries and mission churches have under God

wrought gloriously, and Dakota, not yet a State, is placed in the van, and leading older communities in ridding our common country of the saloon and its train of evils.

While laboring for this end the missionaries have also been loyal to the Master in preaching a pure Gospel and winning souls to Christ. The Gospel is the power of God to save, and must save our country. The church is the salt of the earth. We are planting it in Dakota. Here it must grow and flourish. Lately I have been hard at work in trying to complete the five new meeting-houses in process of construction. On December 11th, after many days of pushing the work, I preached the dedicatory sermon of the new house in Bottineau. Others will be ready soon to open, but we are having a hard struggle for means.

"We are having a glorious outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Mandan. Ten already baptized. We are still needing six more men for North Dakota. We are asking God to send them here. We must organize as soon as possible at Minot, a new town of eight hundred inhabitants, and growing. Good Baptist material there for a church. I am waiting for the right preacher for the place. The new year has come, and we expect a larger immigration to Dakota than usual, which means more work for the Home Missionaries. New lines of railroad are already projected, that means a new town for every six miles of new road, to call on us for church organization and means of grace. There is progress here, and to be living here at work for the Master at such a time as this is glorious."

RECEIPTS FOR THE QUARTER.

Eaton Rapids, $11.23: Eaton Rapids Band, $5.09; Big Rapids. $4.00; Alpine and Walker, $7.00; Miss S. Clark, Grand Rapids, $1.00; Rives Junction, $5.00; Ypsilanti, $3.00; Wheatland, $1.50; Tekonsha, $1.00; Bronson, 50c.; Howell, $10.00; Salem, $12.00; Northville, $5.00: Detroit, Warren av., B. H. $1.70; Ceresco, $10.00; Plymouth, $2.75: Ovid B'd, $4.99; Pentwater, $5.00; Hesperia, $1.75; St. Johns, $1.00; Owosso, $7.50; Shiawassee Coll., $1.50; Traverse City Y. L., $8.00; Thank Offerings, $24.79: Nowell, $5.00: Litchfield, $3.65: Allegan, $4.26; Schoolcraft, $1.60; Schoolcraft, Y. P., $1.00; Plainwell B'd, $2.00; Miss Mainwaring, $1.50; Deekerville, $2.25; Clinton Ave., B. H., $2.20; Evening Coll., Convention, $20.19; Tecumseh T. B., $2.75; Worth, $2.00; Highland P. G., $14.27: Coldwater, $8.62; Lansing, $10.97: Detroit, 1st German, $5.00; Parshallville, $9.00; St. Ignace, 50c.; Detroit, 1st, $51.63: Detroit, 1st Band, $3.06; Mrs. O. S. Geelly, $5.00; Mrs. L. B. Fox, $1.00; Mrs. W. C. Colburn, $5.00: Mrs. W. R. Harmount, $1.00; Mrs. S Grant, $1.00; Mrs. C. C. Bowen, $5.00; Mrs. L. B. Austin, $30.00; Mrs. Wm. A. Moore, $5.00; South Saginaw, $8.50; Lenton, $3.50: Tuscola, $2.00; Allegan, $2.19: Hudson, Busy Bees," $5.00; Perry Band, $6.55; Bay City, Tremont Ave., $5.00; Hudson, $4.00; Adrian, $10.00; Jackson, $6.54; Jackson, A Friend, $10.00; Parma, $3 00: Parma B. H., 50c: Pt. Huron, $10.00; Mrs. J. T. Thornhill, $10.00 Mason, $7.50: Three Rivers, $10.00; Galesburg, $2.30; York Y. L., $2.10; Eastport, $2.00; Cassapolis, $2.25; Detroit, 12th St., $4.42: Detroit, 12th St., L. Bearers, $2.50; Climax, $4.00; Mrs. Kent and Hulett, $1.00; Battle Creek, Independent B'd, $10.00; Lawton, $5.50; Grass Lake, $10.00; Rome 2d, $3.50; Detroit, 18th St., $8.50; Ganges, $10.00; Detroit, Clinton Ave., $10.00; Kalamazoo, $44.00; Greenville, $1.87; Owosso, $4.58; Milan, $2.50; Harrisville, $5.00; Romeo, $2.76; Plainwell, $9.17; Mrs. H. S. Pingree, $5.00; Bad Ax, $1.13: Bad Ax S. S., $1.87: Whitehall, $5.00; Sand Beach, $4.00; Litchfield, $3.95; Detroit, Woodward ave.. $26.62; Detroit, Woodward Ave. S. Y. P., $5.95: Coldwater, $5.00. Total, $681.70.

THE WOMAN'S AMERICAN BAPTIST HOME

MISSION SOCIETY.

President-MRS. THOMAS NICKERSON, Newton Centre, Mass. Vice-President-MRS. ANNA SARGENT HUNT, Augusta, Maine. Corresponding Secretary-MRS. M. C. REYNOLDS, Wallingford, Conn. Treasurer-Miss Margaret McWhinnie, 14 Tremont Temple, Boston, Mass.

Ten years ago, the Baptist women of New England undertook to lift up the standard of the Cross among the degraded, ignorant women of the South and West. For some years before this, the eyes of these women had been turned toward foreign lands, where, amid the dense darkness of ignorance and superstition, they had lighted many fires which were burning brightly for Christ. The plaintive cry which came to them from the women of Mexico, Indian Territory, and the colored women of the South, brought clearly to their minds the words of their divine Loid: "These ought ye to have done and not have left the other undone," and they hastened to carry the gospel to the women of their own loved land. During these years the women of the churches have given freely of their time and money for the furtherance of this work, and we say with gratitude, "What hath God wrought?" The work has been accomplished mainly by sending to these degraded, ignorant people Christian teachers. The first aim of each teacher is the conversion of her pupils. Beside the knowledge gained from books, these girls are taught practical housework, sewing, typesetting, etc., etc. Our Society is supporting seven teachers at Spelman Seminary, Atlanta, Ga., one at Beaufort, S. C., two at Louisville, Ky., two at Richmond, Va., two at Salt Lake City, one at Wayland Seminary, one at Benedict Institute, Columbia, S. C., three in Indian Territory, four in Mexico, one in Kadiak Island, Alaska, and one at Fresno, Cal.

The policy of the Society from its organization has been to keep out of debt. Although many urgent appeals have come to us during these years, we have for lack of funds taken up only what seemed most needful.

At this time, however, the Society is passing through a trying period in its history. Early in January, 1887, the school-house in Salt Lake City was burned. It was a wooden building, and the insurance upon it but $1,500. It seemed necessary in rebuilding to put up a brick structure. With much sacrifice the Baptists of Salt Lake City raised $500, and at our annual meeting, held in Providence, R. I., May, 1887, $500 more was pledged for this purpose. The building has been erected, but we found it necessary to pay a bill of $500 for stoves, seats, etc. We could not give up our work in this city of sin and ignorance.

In June, Union Hall, in Atlanta, Ga., was also burned. This was an old wooden structure used as barracks in time of war. It had been so arranged as

to meet the needs of the school admirably, but was insured for only $3,500.