Various - The American Missionary. Volume 42, No. 06, June, 1888

Relating to the work of the Association may be addressed to the Corresponding Secretaries; letters for "THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY," to the Editor, at the New York Office.

In drafts, checks, registered letters, or post office orders, may be sent to H.W. Hubbard, Treasurer, 56 Reade Street, New York, or, when more convenient, to either of the Branch Offices, 21 Congregational House, Boston, Mass., or 151 Washington Street, Chicago, Ill. A payment of thirty dollars at one time constitutes a Life Member.

"I bequeath to my executor (or executors) the sum of – dollars, in trust, to pay the same in – days after my decease to the person who, when the same is payable, shall act as Treasurer of the 'American Missionary Association,' of New York City, to be applied, under the direction of the Executive Committee of the Association, to its charitable uses and purposes." The Will should be attested by three witnesses.

This Number of the Missionary will reach our friends, the pastors and the churches, about the first of June, one month before the usual vacation time sends many of the pastors to their much-needed summer rest, and when the churches enter upon the months of small congregations. We wish to remind our friends that the expenditures of a missionary society have no vacation, and to ask them that in this remaining month, special efforts be made to prepare us for the months when there is the usual outflow with only a small stream coming in.

The showing of our receipts is favorable. For the seven months to April 30th, they aggregate $158,921.20, an increase of $5,082.75 over last year. The increase in collections and donations is $9,241.84, but there is a decrease in legacies of $4,159.09, leaving the net increase as above stated. On the other hand, however, the expenditure that has been absolutely demanded by our growing work has been $23,778.24 over the receipts. Our committee has denied many appeals pressed upon it, from the workers in the field, for needed growth and strengthening; but some calls have come with such urgency to save the work already in hand, that it felt constrained to grant the additional appropriations, and we are very confident that if our constituents had been present, they, too, would have concurred heartily and unanimously in the votes.

We might reasonably hope that this debtor balance would be wiped out during the five months of our fiscal year yet before us, but there is a special reason for anxiety that it should soon be materially reduced. It is at this time that we are compelled to plan the work, and make estimates, for the next fiscal year, beginning October 1st. We are now endeavoring to cut down these estimates to the lowest possible point, but if, before the close of June, there shall be no marked reduction of this balance, we shall be obliged to cut still further, even to the arresting or crippling of work already begun. We ask our friends to rally to the rescue.

The work of the American Missionary Association appeals to the churches of Ohio with cumulative urgency. "A.M.A.," as our stalwart brother Pike used to say, are letters that stand for the darkened races of this continent—the American, the Mongolian and the African. To the Christian people of America, these tribes are entrusted; for their enlightenment and Christianization, we are responsible. The Government at Washington can do something toward protecting these people in their political rights; but there is very little, after all, that can be done for any people which does not know how to assert and maintain its own rights. Liberty can never be a gratuity, it must always be an achievement. Peoples, as well as individuals, must work out their own salvation. The Negro at the South is cheated out of his political rights, simply because he does not know how to claim them; the Indian on the plains is defrauded of his property, because he does not know how to protect himself. No matter how favorable the laws may be to these hapless people, they will be oppressed and impoverished and kept in a condition of semi-slavery, unless they know how to use the laws in their own advantage. Education, therefore, is the only effectual remedy for their wrongs. To awaken their minds, to arouse the energies of hope, to show them that they are made in God's image and that they have a right to all the liberties of the laws of God, is the only way to complete and secure their emancipation from bondage and from barbarism.

This is the work to which the American Missionary Association calls us all. It is our just pride as Congregationalists that through this Association more has been done for the true enfranchisement of the freedmen than through any other agency, and it is our duty to see that this great work, in which we have borne so large and honorable a part, halt not nor slacken in its energy because of our failure to keep its treasury replenished and its faithful laborers re-enforced and supported by our gifts and our prayers.

The sum total of all the contributions of all the benevolent agencies for the evangelization and education of the Negro in the South, is seventeen cents per year for each person.

This seventeen cents includes whatever is done in missionary colleges and in all educational missions, as well as in the direct church work.