If this debt can be wholly put behind us we may add this to the achievements of the coming year.
It is easier to write prophecy than history, and yet the pen will glide lightly over the paper, and the press will resound with a more cheery clatter than in other days, if a year from now, they shall be able to make it known that the churches in the South have been largely increased in numbers and efficiency, and that the debt of the Association has every cent of it been paid.
With a “happy new year” all round the circle, officers, missionaries, teachers, contributors, let us to the work!
In the fall of 1866, Mr. Warren Ackermann gave to the Foreign Board of the Reformed Church of America $55,000 in one gift, thus entirely extinguishing its debt, and leaving it a fund of nearly $10,000 for expenditure upon the field.
Last spring the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions was on the point of reporting a debt of $50,000, when a like gift, by the liberality of Mrs. John C. Green, of New York, freed them from that necessity, and enabled them to close the year without a deficit. The Methodist Episcopal Missionary Committee, by special effort during the last year, paid off over $100,000 of their large indebtedness. None of us have forgotten the noble spontaneity of the successful movement this fall at Providence, resulting in the complete liberation of the American Board from their debt of nearly $50,000, and we cannot fail to notice with rejoicing every success of “the finangelist” (as he has been called), Mr. Kimball, in casting the mountains of church debt into the sea of solvency.
All these things encourage us to hope and pray and labor for great things. Our debt is diminished already from $93,232.99 to $57,816.90. This is quite within the average of the sums named above. Not one of these societies or churches but will say: “These gifts, to deliver us from the bondage of debt, have proved the grandest helps to our forward work.” Let no one think that money thus given does not tell upon the work. It does tell: not this year alone, but every year it puts money in our purse to be expended in the directest furtherance of our mission to carry the Gospel of light and love to the poor and neglected races. It is in effect a permanent fund, the interest of which we have for yearly use.
Is there not some one, or may there not be more far-sighted men, to whom the Lord has entrusted a liberal share of His gold and silver, whom these examples and this opportunity may stimulate?
In accordance with the decision at the last Anniversary Meeting of the American Missionary Association, the printing of this paper will be done hereafter in New York City.