FREE!
With gratitude and thanksgiving to God and our friends, we are permitted to announce that our treasurer has closed his books with the balance on the right side. The receipts of the year cover all the expenses of the year, wipe out the debt of $5,000 with which the year began, and leave $2,193.80 with which to start out on the coming year. For this glorious result we are especially indebted to the magnificent rally of our friends in the month of September. The falling off in our receipts last February of about $9,000 as compared with the same month of the preceding year, and the heavy deficit of July, in which we ran $17,000 behind, made the outlook very dark indeed; but it has proved that it was the deepening darkness before the light. As we are able to see it now, our friends settled down to the determination that the year would end right. They have done it. There was no excitement about it. They just kept on quietly planning and working and giving until they rolled up what was needed, and more. Not without sacrifice in many instances. Our eyes have moistened, oftentimes, as we read the words accompanying the gifts. Indeed, in some instances gladly would we have returned the contributions could we have done it without offending the givers. We mention one instance, that of a home missionary in the West, whose wife, by self-denial, had saved five dollars to have some long-needed work done. The person who did the work, probably knowing the needy circumstances of the family, refused to keep the compensation, and returned it. There was only a single dollar in the possession of the home missionary when the five dollars were returned, and seventy-five cents of that were to be paid for a necessary bill in a day or two. Those five dollars were sent to our treasury. The letter that brought the gift was full of thanksgiving that the sender was able to aid us. Even this does not tell the story of the noble spirit that lay behind it all; for there came with the money the request that it should be credited to the Congregational Church! This is only a single example. We could refer to a great many such. Large and small, the contributions have been sent, from churches and individuals, from rich and poor, from young and old, bearing the evidence of interest and sacrifice and work; and the result is, we have closed the year free from debt.
By this outcome we are again impressed with the strong hold that the American Missionary Association has upon the churches and the Christian public. They believe in it; they love it, and they mean to stand by it.
It is right, in this connection, that our friends should know that the Executive Officers of the Association have very earnestly co-operated with them to secure this happy result. Appropriations have been made after the most careful scrutiny. Economy has been practiced at every possible point. The knife has been applied until, in numerous instances, the quick has signaled its pain. New work, urgently inviting, has been refused. Regret and perplexity have been experienced because of inability to meet what seemed to be absolute necessities. We trust that during the coming year, while continuing to be no less careful than we have been, we may be able to do some of the things that during the past year we were obliged to leave undone. But we must beg our friends to remember that this can be only as our receipts are increased. The small balance with which we set out is not much to build upon. It will be quickly swallowed up in meeting claims that have been postponed. The outcome calls upon the friends of the Association to prepare for a year of more extended work and more liberal benefactions than ever before. The standard raised by the National Council in Chicago should be kept steadily in view—$350,000 from the churches for the prosecution of our work!
It is with profound sorrow that we record the death of our honored President, Hon. Wm. B. Washburn. He was born in Winchendon, Mass., in 1820, and died in Springfield, Mass., Oct. 5. He was attending the annual meeting of the American Board, of which he was a corporate member. While sitting on the platform of the City Hall, in which the meeting was held, he quietly and suddenly and unexpectedly fell asleep in death. “He was not, for God took him.”
Mr. Washburn’s life was a most successful and honored one. He graduated from Yale College in 1844 with the Christian ministry in view, but being called to straighten out some entanglements in a business firm that had become badly involved, he revealed such business capacity that his continued services were deemed indispensable. He settled in Greenfield, Mass., and built up a large business in the manufacture of wooden-ware. He took an active interest in everything that pertained to the welfare and prosperity of the town in which he lived. He became director of the leading bank in Greenfield and afterwards its President. He was a director of the Connecticut Valley Railroad and several other local corporations. Early in the war he was elected United States Representative, being complimented with the entire vote of his district. He was so popular no one was put in nomination against him. Five times he was sent to Congress by successive reëlection. Massachusetts elected him its Governor in 1871 by 27,000 majority over John Quincy Adams. He resigned his seat in Congress to be inaugurated Governor in January, 1872. He was reëlected Governor for two more terms and resigned his Governorship to fill out the unexpired term in the U.S. Senate caused by the death of Charles Sumner in March, 1884.
In 1881 he was elected President of the American Missionary Association. His valuable services as presiding officer at the annual meetings, his wise counsels and wide influence, greatly advanced the interests of the Association.
His funeral, which was private, took place Saturday, Oct. 8th, at his residence in Greenfield. The Association was represented by Secretary Powell and Treasurer Hubbard, and Charles L. Mead, Esq., of the Executive Committee. A life full of honors worthily and modestly borne is ended here, but it still lives in the works that do follow and in the immortal life beyond the grave.