By the time these pages reach our readers, most of our workers will
have resumed their labors in the South. Many of the ministers and a
few of the teachers have remained at their posts all summer, but the
schools have been closed. Work in the cotton fields has called for the
younger pupils, the summer schools have given employment to the older
ones, while rest and a change of climate have been required by the
white teachers from the North. But now activities will be resumed, and
we contemplate the work with joy and hope.

These workers, and others like them, are the hope of the South. They
go not arrayed and armed for bloody battle-fields; they go not as
commercial travelers to sell the wares of the North; they go not as
capitalists to start the whirling spindles or to kindle the fires in
the smelting furnaces; they go not as politicians to speak for or
against tariffs, nor to build up or break down parties. Their work is
quieter and deeper than all this. They reach the mind and heart. As
Christ aimed not so much at once to tear down or build up the outer,
but to reach the inner springs of the soul, so these workers aim to
make character, intelligent, pure, active, and thus to impel to all
that is noble and honest in life, that stimulates to industry,
economy, thrift--to making the home pure and all outer things
prosperous and right. But, as Christ was misunderstood and rejected,
so are these laborers ostracized. We rejoice to find a growing
recognition of their worth and work, and trust that the day is coming
when they will be fully appreciated and welcomed. In the meantime they
toil on uncomplainingly, and for their sakes and for the work's sake
we invoke, not perfunctorily but earnestly, the prayers of God's
ministers and people in their behalf.

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