A few months before this mortgage was given, it was decided at one of our business meetings to take a Thanksgiving Offering each year, on the Sunday preceding Thanksgiving, and raise at least $500.00 towards the Mortgage. The result of the appeals each year was beyond our expectations, following amounts being received:
1902 ............... $608.00
1903 ................. 627.00
1904 ................. 686.00
1905 ................. 596.00
1906 ................. 905.00
1907 ................. 646.00
1908 .............. 1,128.00
1909 .............. 1,075.00
1910 .............. 2,516.00
————
Total . . . $8,787.0
The people took hold of the idea with great interest and enthusiasm.
In eight years we have received sufficient money to entirely wipe out the mortgage and partly pay for the improvements recently put on the lower flat of parsonage and Church parlors, and tonight I am glad to report that there is no mortgage on this dear old Germain Street Baptist Church, now one hundred years old. It has been paid in full—cancelled at the Registry Office—and in a few moments we will see it go up in smoke.
During the eight years we have been working to reduce this mortgage nearly all of our people have helped in its reduction, and tonight as we burn it, no one can say that it was paid by only a few, but all have come to our help. Many have had this very much at heart, and denied themselves considerably in order to give their assistance in this noble work.
I am also happy to report that in all the pledges of the past eight years of over $8,000, the shrinkage has been less than one per cent., which speaks well for this dear old Church.
Now Brethren, here is the Mortgage. It is signed for the Trustees of the Church by our late beloved Deacon T. S. Simms, Chairman, and G. U. Hay, Secretary, and is marked “Cancelled by Certificate No. 83,348, May 23, 1910. J. V. McLellan, Registrar.”
DONALDSON HUNT,
Treasurer.
May 25. 1910.