END OF THE FISCAL YEAR.
With this month our fiscal year ends. At this writing we are very anxious about the outcome. As we noticed last month, July receipts this year fell off, as compared with last year, $17,000, and in August they fell off, as compared with last year, about $3,000. This puts a heavy strain upon September. When this magazine reaches our readers there will still be a few days in September left. They ought to be golden days for our treasury. The thought that, if every one will do his duty, it is possible for all deficit to be overcome and all debt to be wiped out, makes us urgent to make yet one more plea before our books are closed. The time for hand-to-hand action has come. Reader, can you not do something? Do you not know some individuals and churches that have given us nothing the past year? There are a great many of them in the country. Can you not, by a little personal effort, induce them to do something before September ends? A little effort all round, and God will bless it to our complete deliverance.
A friend of our work sends us word that in his judgment the Association should not only be speedily relieved of its debt, but that a good balance should always be in hand to meet emergencies. He therefore makes a proposition that he will be one of a hundred who shall give $1,000 each to secure this most desirable end. But where are the ninety and nine? We lay the suggestion before our readers. We believe that among the constituents of the A. M. A. there are a great many more than the required number possessing means in over-abundance to meet the call. We appeal to all such to take the suggestion under consideration and let us hear from them at their earliest convenience.
Our Indian boys are interested in the Association’s closing the year free from debt. A teacher in the Santee school writes: “Some of the young men who live in the Young Men’s Hall wish to help the Association pay its debt.” Here follow the names of eight young men who contribute $9.25 for this purpose. The teacher adds: “This is money that the boys have earned besides paying for their clothing and making other contributions.” Were the church members in the country to do proportionately as well as these Indian youth, there would not only be no debt threatening, but the new fields so urgently calling for cultivation would be entered and our work greatly enlarged.
The editor of the Missionary rejoices in having such a little friend as the writer of the following letter, and he greatly desires that her tribe may increase:
“Dear Friend—I learned from a friend, one of our late missionaries, that you was in debt, and as I am a little girl and interested in it, I will give one dime toward the debt.”
M. G.
The field is the world, and the work is one. Frequently we have occasion to realize this blessed truth. Two contributions just received bring it up with fresh emphasis. One is from a home missionary who sends us a generous contribution for our work, and the other is from a former foreign missionary, who in sending his gift from over the sea, accompanies it with these inspiring words: “Your grand work still broadens out on all sides. God give his people hearts to devise and execute liberal things. The light surely is increasing and hope grows stronger as your work rolls onward with its mighty power—the power with which alone the spirit of God can endue it—is enduing it.”
The questions with which we have to do are inseparably connected with the welfare of our beloved land. They strike deep at the roots of the life of the churches. They touch the mission work in which the churches are engaged all along the line. Both home and foreign missions will languish if they are prosecuted at the neglect of just the work which the American Missionary Association is doing. The heathen world is a common object for the prayer, thought, sacrifice and effort of the churches of Christendom. But the heathenism of the neglected classes of America must be reached by the churches of America. Over that heathenism we cannot spring; past that heathenism we must not go without giving faithful attention to it on the way.