PRESIDENT H.S. DEFOREST.

The thirteenth annual meeting of the Alabama Association was held at
Salma, March 30th to April 3d, when the floods were at their highest,
yet fourteen of our seventeen churches were represented. The
Sunday-school Association convened a day earlier, and one afternoon
the Woman's Missionary Association had a session by itself.

The opening sermon by Professor Andrews, was a powerful exposition of
Christian love, from the 13th of 1st Corinthians. One evening was
given to the higher, Christian education; one to three papers on "How
to Secure Homes," "The Home Indoors," and "Home Piety;" and the last
to three phases of the temperance question. Pastor C.B. Curtis, whose
church most generously entertained the Association, read a very
suggestive paper on "Self Support of the Churches," a pressing and
difficult question. Almost of necessity, when there is so much to be
done, and the resources are so small compared with the magnitude of
the undertakings, practical rather than theoretical questions come to
the front and engage earnest attention.

After a most satisfactory examination, six young men from the
Theological Department of Talladega College were licensed to preach,
and it is noteworthy, that, besides this latest gift of Talladega to
the ministry, eleven of the fourteen churches represented at this
meeting of the Association are ministered to by Talladega College or
its graduates. It is a wonder that some man wishing to put a
comparatively small sum of money where it would increase with a
compound interest of blessedness till the latter-day glories have
fully come, does not endow the chair of Theology at Talladega, and his
brothers take up the same line of usefulness till both {165} College