Page:Eleventh annual report of the Association for the Religious Instruction of the Negroes, in Liberty County, Georgia.djvu/8

 meeting all seemed cold and lifeless. I have made this state of things a matter of humble prayer before God. It has caused me to prepare my sermons with greater care, selecting those subjects which I thought best adapted to their religious state, but so far, to all human appearance, all has been in vain. "Will the Lord cast off forever? and will He be favorable no more? Is His mercy clean gone forever? Doth His promise fail forevermore? Hath God forgotten to be gracious? Hath He in anger shut up His tender mercies? Nothing but the remembrance of "the years of the right hand of the Most High" can comfort and sustain the labourer in the vineyard of Christ under these circumstances, I have conversed personally with some of the most exemplary christians among the people, and they seem to be fully aware of the state of religion and mourn over it. One of them remarked, "What will be- come of the people? For the more light you give some of them, the farther off they wander in darkness." It is an encouraging thought that in the midst of the general declension in piety, there are some who feel for the backslidings of Israel, who mourn over the spiritual desolations of Zion. May their numbers increase until a strong cry shall ascend to heaven, "Oh Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years: in the midst of the years make known: in wrath remember mercy." North Newport.Referring to niy memorandum book, I find that the attendance at this Station has been as good as in former years. The Sabbath School remains the same as last reported with the exception, that there is now in the School a much larger number of beginners, this being their first year in the Sabbath School. These new comers are tell-tales as it respects who have and who have not Schools on their plantations. The exercises of theSabbath Schools have been as heretofore: with the addition that since I have become the Pastor of the Church at this Station, I have, with the colored members, attended to the discipline of the Church, by which means, offenders are immediately brought up, and cases of discipline prevented from multiplying, and I think, since the adoption of the plan, I can see some improvement. Hutchinson.At this Station the congregation varies from one to two hundred persons. I commenced a Sabbath School at this Station the first Sabbath in June, with twenty Scholars, a few of them were Scholars belonging to other Stations. At the next meeting, which was the