The Christian work, lately introduced and already done among them,
demonstrates that they are capable of a rapid and radical change, when
once the vivifying touch of the gospel has reached their hearts.

Instead of twenty Congregational churches among them, there is room
for a thousand, and instead of nine Christian schools, if there were
twenty-five normal schools, it would be only one to each hundred
thousand people; and if there were a hundred common schools, there
would be one to each three or four counties for models. There should
be one good college. If there were Congregational churches in this
region in the same proportion as in New England there would be a full
thousand. If they were in the same proportion as Connecticut, there
would be twelve hundred churches; as New Hampshire, thirteen hundred;
as Vermont, sixteen hundred.

Congregationalism goes to these people as the representative of pure,
intelligent and progressive Christianity. We can gather them into
schools, Sunday-schools and churches, anywhere where we can put a
Christian worker. Our only limit is consecrated workers and the
support for them. The field is as ripe this very day for a thousand as
for a score. But the school and the church must go together.

This is one of the richest of the mineral regions of the world. Great
forests of black walnut, poplar, and other valuable timber, are
awaiting the woodman's ax and the lumberman's mill. Railroads are
either built, building or planned for every part to carry away its
wonderful natural resources. The people are poor, but the land is
rich, and a few years hence will see wealth in the place of poverty,
in the hands of either the natives, or those who will have displaced