five marriages, buried two hundred persons, immersed fifteen hundred persons, and our finance has not been less than ten thousand dollars annually for all purposes. Today we have on our sick list ten members.

Sisters and brethren, Rev. G. E. Duncan, my assistant pastor, deserves much credit for the loyal help he has rendered me in this work of the Lord. There has not been a single thing between him and me in our ten years of acquaintanceship. Let me thank you, every one separately, and then collectively, for the aid you have rendered in the work of the Lord. My entire board of twenty-three officers, save four, have united with the church since I have been your pastor.

Now, as our great National Baptist Convention with its two million five hundred thousand members is to convene with us September 10, let me urge you to leave no stone unturned for the members' comfort and happiness during their stay among us. Arise, and let us go hence " (John 14: 31).

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Thanking you for the joy you added to my family, and praying the blessing of God upon you, your homes, and your friends, I beg to remain

In this same month the Rev. C. H. Young, of Atlanta, Georgia, conducted a revival for him in which there were many converted. The anniversary occasion was also the scene of rejoicing over souls as well as other blessings that God had given to the church.

Doctor Fisher was fast breaking under incessant labors. The winters were cold and dreary, but the pastor of Olivet left his home walking over ice and through snow to church. The wintry blasts of snow coated his garments a sparkling white, numbed his grip

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on the crutches, and decorated his face with frozen mixtures of breath and snow. With cloth hat pulled down over his ears, with ulster buckled around a muffled neck, and with heavy boot, the minister plied his way religiously from his warm house. During his twelve years at Olivet there were not a score of meetings, concerts, entertainments, or worshipful service in which he was not present at least a part of the time unless hindered by sickness or absence from the city.

This constant strain was severe upon his physical body, but it shows the perpetual care required of a good shepherd for his sheep. The day of the ministerial consumer who sleeps all night and half the day and rests the other half is fast passing. Probably the time will come, as it should, when along with the reports of the different workers of churches will come a report from the minister stating the amount of his activities. Such a report should show an equal distribution of hours spent in work, recreation, and rest, with an allowance of one day in seven. In the case of the Negro shepherd, he gets more of his share of work and little or no recreation and rest.

Perhaps no Negro minister of the gospel ever toiled harder, was opposed more, complained less, or accomplished more.

Some think there may have been ground for some of the opposition. Men will not submit tamely to ironhanded rule. On the other hand, human nature is so normally fallible that where men have equality of op

portunity and office, if one person succeeds markedly above the other, jealousy and its sequel, opposition, come from many, if for no other reason than to attract attention from their own incapabilities.

If Doctor Fisher's ambition was to be the leader of the Baptist forces in the Gateway to the Middle West, indeed it was a laudable one, the logical result of his position as pastor of the mother church. He fought a victorious fight against all who dared usurp his prerogatives. He had built his work with a will indomitable. He never pastored a split, and no church dared split under him. He was pastor of his church, so he said, from the pulpit to the backdoor and to the grave-yard." But he would rend any Association or Convention if he believed his views to be right, and that such a course would advance God's kingdom.

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Conspiracies were formed by many to hurt the influence of Olivet, and even a Union was organized to pass on the eligibility of churches to receive aid from the white Baptists. This " Union" tried to eliminate him and Olivet as factors of power with white Baptists. However, the white brethren considering Olivet stronger than the combined churches of the "Union " would follow no policy that did not include Olivet. The organization remained in existence two years, but did not succeed.

Doctor Fisher never lost a battle, but the energy used in fighting could have been conserved if men had taken time to understand him. The thing that told

most on his life was the opposition of those men who had lived on his bounty. He continued to labor in his course despite the accumulation of every form of persecution. Venturing on the Providence of God in making an experiment in the Northwest at a time when the results were problematical, he had been useful in converting thousands to Christ. He is not permitted to witness the triumph of the system which he did so much to inaugurate, but he did see that even churches which did not wish to cooperate with him, relied in a large measure upon his methods for their increase in power and usefulness. When the memory of his antagonists will be forgotten or remembered, chiefly, because of their antagonism to him, the church with which his name and life are associated will continue to operate as a potent factor in hastening the latter-day glories of the Lord. This is not an idle prophecy. It is being fulfilled today. The Olivet Baptist Church stands today the most vital moral force in the Negro race and the largest Protestant church in the world, with the Rev. Dr. Lacey Kirk Williams, pastor, used mightily by God.

Ah! But the story might have been different and the end might have come sooner had it not been for Pastor Fisher's angelic wife. She was expected to retail to her husband grievances of some weakling too prudent to bring his trouble directly to the pastor, but she was too thoughtful to do that. She knew full well the agonies of suffering her husband had to endure