Fruits of Toil in the London Missionary Society

by Unknown

XIV.—INCOME AND EXPENDITURE.

1.—RECEIPTS.
1.	CONTRIBUTIONS FOR GENERAL PURPOSES—
	a. Subscriptions, Donations, and Collections	£56,685 2 11
	b. Dividends	584 4 9
	c. Australian Auxiliaries and Foreign Societies	3,191 6 10
	d. Legacies	10,875 13 7
	e. Fund for Widows and Orphans and Retired Missionaries	4,500 15 0
	f. Mission Stations, English and Native Contributions, raised and appropriated	19,414 16 4
	g. Ditto, additional from the South Seas, unappropriated	1,070 19 5
		———————	£96,322 18 10
2.	CONTRIBUTIONS FOR SPECIAL OBJECTS—
	a. For the Extension of Missions in China	552 12 10
	b. For the Extension of Missions in India	371 5 4
	c. For Madagascar Mission	1,521 7 11
	d. For Memorial Churches	1,267 17 0
	e. For Training Native Agents, other than in India	1,000 0 0
	f. For Missionary Ship	253 19 0
	g. For Expenditure of 1867 and 1868	79 7 8
		———————	£5,046 9 9
			———————
	Total Income		£101,369 8 7
3.	Balance in hand, May, 1868	1,062 8 4
4.	Funded Property, Tasmania Bond, paid off	500 0 0
5.	Value of Stock transferred from Ship Account	2,432 0 0
6.	Rev. Dr. Tidman's Testimonial Fund	3,483 18 11
		———————	7,478 7 3
			———————
			£108,847 15 10
			============
2.—EXPENDITURE.
1.	FOREIGN EXPENDITURE.
	a. China Mission: allowances of the English Missionaries; Rents; Repairs; Sick Leave; Expenses of Itinerancies; Native Agency; Education, and the Press (as detailed in the last Annual Report)		£10,103 7 3
	b. India Missions: Bengal and North India; the Madras Presidency; and Travancore		35,386 13 11
	c. Madagascar Mission		6,686 4 4
	d. South Africa Mission		9,872 1 6
	e. West India Mission		9,225 10 9
	f. Mission in the South Seas		13,454 19 2
	g. Education of Missionary Students		2,109 10 4
	h. Retired Missionaries; Widows and Orphans		3,398 8 0
			———————
	TOTAL FOREIGN EXPENDITURE		90,236 15 3
2.	HOME EXPENDITURE.
	a. Expenses of Administration	£1,913 16 10
	b. Expenses in Raising Funds	3,477 12 4
	c. Periodical Literature	1,539 1 1
	d. General Home Expenses	794 19 8
		———————
	TOTAL HOME EXPENDITURE		7,725 9 11
			———————
	Total expended in 1868		£97,962 5 2
3.	Investments		9,017 0 0
3.	Balance in hand, May 1, 1869		1,868 10 8
			———————
			£108,847 15 10
			============

This statement shows that the greater ordinary income secured during the past year is needed every year, to maintain the Society at its present strength. Even with revised establishments working at a reduced cost, the Directors still require £75,000 a-year to meet the various items of general expenditure for which they have directly to provide. But that is precisely the amount which the revived interest and the earnest exertions of deputations and collectors have brought into their hands; and no margin is left at their command to cover any extraordinary expense which may arise. Nowhere, therefore, may our friends relax their efforts or diminish their recent gifts. Givers, collectors, ministers who plead, are still invited to uphold the hands of the Society, and to urge its claims. And if we look to extension, that extension which comes naturally to a prosperous field: still more to that extension for which the field untouched cries mightily day by day: how shall this enlargement of our operations be secured but by still augmented resources, by still higher consecration, still greater liberality, and more earnest prayer?

The SOCIETY DESERVES such help from our Churches; its history, its sphere of usefulness, the spirit in which it is managed, the rich prosperity which the Lord has granted to its labours, all appeal in its name. THE FIELD DESERVES AND NEEDS IT. How little has been accomplished of the holy purpose which Missions have in view. Compared with the millions unevangelized, the converts gained are numerically nothing. Indeed, the sphere of our labour has continued ever to grow wider, and every answer of God's providence to the Church's gifts and prayers and self-denial has been to extend its power to be useful and give it much more to do.

And does not the LORD CLAIM from us this larger service? He has shown the need of the heathen world more clearly, and made the argument for instructing it unanswerable.

We have prospects for the future to which the gains of the past are poor. With our skilled agencies, all shaped by experience, with plans well-tried, with our versions and our literatures in every tongue, with China opened widely in answer to prayer, with India deeply moved, with Africa free, with Polynesia raised and civilized, with Madagascar purified by fire—what tokens have we of manifest blessing, of approval, and of divine help! The old systems have fallen, or are paralysed, or are trembling with fear; and the young life of the world is drawing towards freedom and truth. Our results are incomplete; they are but an earnest of successes yet to be gathered; and the full reward will be reaped more truly as the years go by. But how noble that reward will be!

A pleasant custom prevails in India which will illustrate our position. At all the military stations of the Empire, the troops are summoned to parade in the early morning by the firing of a gun. The night may still be dark; the restless sleeper may fancy it will yet be long. But suddenly amid the stillness loud and clear booms out the morning gun. The stars are still shining, and the landscape is wrapped in gloom. But THE DAWN IS NEAR; and soon every eye is open, every foot astir, and the busy, waking life of men again begins. The fleecy clouds that hang on the eastern horizon grow ruddy with gold; and the arrowy light shoots its bright rays athwart the clear blue sky. The dust and foulness which the night has hidden stand revealed. But in the forests and hills the pulses of nature beat fresh and full; the leopard and the tiger slink away; the gay flowers open; the birds flit to and fro, and with woodland music welcome the rising day. In the city all forms of life quicken into active exercise. The trader sits ready on his stall; the judge is on the bench; the physician allays pain; the mother tends her child. The claims of human duty come again into full force; benevolence is active; suffering and disappointment, forgotten in sleep, press with new weight on weary hearts. What a mighty change one hour has made!

Long has the night of heathenism and of wickedness ruled over the world. "Darkness has covered the earth, and gross darkness the people." But the gun has fired and "THE MORNING COMETH." The nations once wrapped in gloom are waking to life and truth. Divine light is quickening all the pulses of human thought; the heart beats more warmly; the eye looks upward, and the great world is drawing nearer to its Father. The Gentiles are coming to the light, and kings to the brightness of His rising. And when at length the Sun of Righteousness shall rise in power, His new creation, "with verdure clad, with beauty, vigour, grace adorned," shall give Him loving welcome; and He shall shine, to set no more, on "the new heavens and new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness."