We insert the following from the _Southern Presbyterian_, as a recent
testimony to the views, principles and work of the American Missionary
Association. It will be all the stronger from the fact that it was not
written for a testimony, but as a setting forth of facts by a
Southerner to Southerners.

The old masters and the old slaves are now rapidly passing into
eternity. In ten years more no one of our people, white or black,
under _forty years_ of age, will know personally anything of
slavery. It then comes to this, that now and from this time
forward, we white Christians must be impressed with the fact that
we have here at our doors, in our houses, offices, stores and
kitchens, and on our farms, not slaves, but a race of people,
three-fourths of whom are but a little removed from savages in so
far as their knowledge of religion is concerned. They have among
them those whom they call preachers; they hold meetings, they
halloo, they shout, but no _saving truth_ is preached or heard from
that source. The result is great animal excitement, but no moral
elevation. Then many of them are receiving secular education. That
sharpens their intellects but gives no Christian character. It does
just the opposite; it fits them for rascality. They are increasing.
There are probably eight millions of them now, and there will be
many millions more. Those who are dying without Christ are dying
here in a Christian land without hope.

The statement of a Congregational missionary recently made, is
probably true, viz.: that "one-fourth of the race is improving
rapidly," yet much the larger part of them are almost, if not
altogether, _heathen_. They are not across the ocean; under God's