Notwithstanding the prevailing dullness of the weather during our Annual Meeting at Worcester, there was nothing like dullness in the meetings. Daily the capacious church was thronged with deeply interested listeners. The high character of the addresses, the absorbing interest of subjects discussed, the excellent music of the ample choir, the completeness of arrangements by the local committee, and their uniform courtesy and unremitting attentions, and last, but not least, the generous hospitality of the Christian people of the city, all conspired to make the occasion one to be long and delightfully remembered.
The American Missionary Association turns with fresh hope and new inspiration to the work of the coming year.
The fortunes of the freed people during the current year indicate a marked degree of progress. A healthy growth in all the branches of our Southern work is quite discernible. It is strikingly evident that the Freedmen are discovering the extent of the horizon opening up before them through our educational institutions. At one time, many of their leaders were attracted by the allurements of political preferment, and counted nothing so good as position in office, and many such, doubtless, there will be to the end of time. There is, however, an increasing number among them who are coming to realize that intelligence and character developed by Christian education have a commanding worth and solid value that cannot be conveyed by an appointment or imbibed during the sessions of a legislature. This good result has been hastened by Teachers’ Institutes, conducted by Southern and Northern educators, among the black and also the white citizens, sometimes large numbers of both classes mingling in the same convention.
Possibly never have our missions been more richly blessed by the outpourings of the Holy Spirit than during the past year. Whole classes in a school have indulged the hopes of a new life, and the rich experiences gathered during revivals have been borne forth into the villages and the country during the summer months by our students. Sabbath-schools have everywhere received due attention, and temperance work has been well sustained and productive of much good. Missionary meetings and societies have been encouraged, and the gifts from the hard earnings of the poor to the cause of missions abroad, indicate what may be hoped for when the colored people become educated and prosperous.