"MOUNTAIN WORK IN TENNESSEE."
By Editor
At the annual meeting of the American Missionary Association, Rev. W. G. Olinger delivered an address on the above topic, from which we take the following:— "My people are not a progressive people. Too many of them are satisfied to live as their fathers and grandfathers lived, in the same little old log cabin, where they and their fathers were born, cooking by the fireplace, with 'hog and hominy,' and the veritable 'corn dodger' as staple articles of diet. Fruit, which grows so luxuriantly for the planting and some care, is but little cultivated, they being satisfied with that which grows wild. They are slow to accept innovations upon the ordinary ways of doing things, any proposed advancement being styled 'Yankee notions.' Attempts at public improvements in the way of bridges, good roads, and railways are strongly resisted, and the only way to break these inherited prejudices is for good, earnest, progressive men from the North to come down and settle among us, and show by practical demonstration the advantages of good farming, fruit growing, improved stock, better roads, and bridges. When they see with their natural eyes, the more progressive ones will swing into line and begin to do likewise. "But I must turn to another and sadder phase of my subject. In many localities the methods of teaching—if, indeed, we may call them methods—are still in use which we employed fifty years ago. There is yet to be found the windowless schoolhouse, with its crude furnishings of slab seats, boards fastened to the wall for a writing desk, heated by means of a fireplace or a stove with pipe through an opening between the logs. This association has done much to better the condition of things along these lines, by establishing schools in various localities. "But I come to you to-day, and plead with all the earnestness I can command, and ask you to help us erase from the map the deep coloring which throws its dark shade upon us, and in its stead bring the light of prosperity, piety, and peace. I know of no field where the use of consecrated money, consecrated hearts, heads, and hands, will bring more speedy and grander results for good than the field that I have the high honor of representing before the American Missionary Association. Do not let the fact pass from your minds that we are in America, not Africa. "What I have told you is but a small part of the work which you, by your means, under God, are doing in this, my native land. I am asked to report every month new openings for churches and Sunday schools. I cannot do it, except to say that the whole country is open. What we want is consecrated men to come down and go in and out among the people, teaching them the way more perfectly. We want consecrated money to support these workers and to build schools and churches. Whenever money is ready to help support a missionary and build a church, I will guarantee the 'opening.'"