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Show 4 A CHRISTIAN WOMAN. people that has appealed most strongly to me, and in their behalf I would be glad, if possible, to create an interest among those into whose lives has come so much more of sweetness and light. Perhaps I can find no better way of giving you an idea of the lives these women lead than to tell you of a journey I made into the mountains to attend a S. S. convention. The request that I would go came from some of our Berea people who are especially interested in mountain work, and the form in which it was put would have been amusing if it had not been such a painful commentary on the real condition of the people. They wished me to go as an "object lesson," that the women in that region might actually see an educated Christian woman and hear her talk, as many of them had probably never had such an opportunity. I suppose that I was chosen from among the teachers as the one most likely to be able to endure the journey of seventy-two miles over rough mountain roads on horseback, and even I quaked a little at the prospect. We had fine weather for the journey and all varieties of scenery-wooded ridges, deep valleys, rocky cliffs and mists, buzzards sailing high, and mountain streams pouring over rocks ; but nothing could quite dispel the feeling of desolation caused by the sight of the scattered, comfortless human dwellings, and of their unprosperous, unanimated looking inhabitants. |