American Missionary, Vol. XXXIV., No. 5, May 1880

Vol. XXXIV. No. 5.
NEW YORK: Published by the American Missionary Association, Rooms, 56 Reade Street.
Price, 50 Cents a Year, in advance. Entered at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., as second-class matter.
Vol. XXXIV. MAY, 1880. No. 5.
With this number, the American Missionary passes into the hands of Rev. C. C. Painter, as Editor and Business Manager. Mr. Painter was born in the South, educated at the North, where he was for several years a pastor, and more recently a Professor of Theology in Fisk University, and connected with its financial management. He brings to the work a ripe scholarship, the pen of a ready writer, and a deep interest in the varied work in which the Association is engaged.
The retirement of the Rev. Geo. M. Boynton, who, for several years, has acted as Editor of the Missionary, is felt to be a great loss to the Association. His peculiar skill in editing, his facility in writing, and his quick apprehension of current events bearing on our work, enabled him to give to our magazine a freshness and attractiveness it never before had attained. Mr. Boynton’s usefulness as a member of our Executive Committee makes his loss to us the greater. In his new pastorate in Jamaica Plain, Boston, he bears with him the warmest affection and best wishes of the officers of the Association.
As we make our bow after the above graceful introduction by our honored Senior Secretary, we are conscious that all eyes are turned regretfully toward the departing, rather than hopefully to the incoming, Editor. We are in the position similar to that of a new minister, who is told as he makes his first pastoral visits, “We never expect to love another pastor as we loved Mr. B.” We are glad for all that makes our position difficult, and suggest as the only remedy for the loss the Missionary must otherwise sustain in the retirement of Mr. Boynton, that all who feel it, shall make the appropriate effort to prevent it. Let our teachers and missionaries understand, that they must come to the rescue by prompt and faithful reports of every phase of their work; giving us rich material from which to select what, from our stand-point, appears the thing to be said at any given time. Let Pastors and Superintendents, and other co-laborers, feel that they must stand between this work and loss, and double their diligence, and quicken their zeal, in keeping their churches and schools informed and interested; and, finally, let all who have felt an impulse to give more, show their appreciation of the late Editor’s good work by such an increase of gifts, as shall meet the urgent demands on our Treasury; and in reporting all this, we promise the most interesting numbers of the Missionary yet published. Thus: