We recognize these needs, of student aid, of woman’s work, and of special endowment, and we would not have these particular demands neglected. It is only that if all the money were to be thus specifically applied by the donors, there would be none left for the main work, on which the ability to carry on all the specialties depends. Don’t starve the body in order to enlarge the hand or the foot. The best growth of all is that which comes from the food, which enters by the mouth into the stomach, and, vitalized, is carried through the whole system. If you appropriate all the fuel on the steamer to the donkey engines, what will you do with the great machinery whose work it is to revolve the main propeller? If in your city water-works, you enlarge the side supply pipes and leave the old mains, you get not more, but less, water into the houses.
What do we ask, then?—1. That your special appropriations be special gifts, additions to, and not diversions of, the moneys you are wont to give to the general work of the Association. 2. That you do not fail in your church, or from your private purse, to give us something this year. 3. That as you have encouraged us to lay out a larger work, you send us for general uses at least twenty per cent. more than you did last year.
THE NEW PLEA.
Henceforth the basis of our appeal to the churches ought to be gratitude, not necessity; thankfulness, not the cry of sharp distress; the impulse kindled at the sight of opening fields, widening opportunities, intelligent appreciation of service done and rewarding results.
The large additions to the churches in the foreign field, their increasing spirit of benevolence, the awakening interest in the cause of education, the world-wide readiness and call for helpers, the cheering indications of an abundant harvest of souls, soon to be gathered, the overwhelming demand in our own land for immediate work upon the frontier and at the South, among the depressed races and the incoming population, the return of prosperous times, and the ever-pressing command of Christ, are considerations so potent, so eloquent in their united plea, that the first thought of him who listens is, “How can any Christian heart resist the new plea!” What can hinder a most liberal investment in causes that promise such rich returns?
Instead of exhausting all the strength of the crew at the pumps in a desperate endeavor to save the ship from sinking, has the time not come, when, with canvas all spread, and the ship sea-worthy, rightly headed and well under way, the main question shall be, how to touch every harbor, explore every river, sail every inland sea, and leave the precious freighting of the Gospel at every port around the globe? Is it quite creditable to our piety, our devotion, our loyalty to Christ, that we can resist appeals based upon love, goodness, merciful interposition, glorious enlargement, and wait until we are crowded to a reluctant response by the plea of dire necessity, overshadowing peril?
There are most cheering indications that the new plea is becoming effectual. We are informed of a number of instances in which churches have lately nearly or quite doubled their contributions to the American Board, and that, too, apparently with great heartiness and joy. Gifts, also, from some private and unexpected sources have been a cheering indication of the advance movement. The same indications are, to a certain extent, true of the other Societies.
A mid-summer appeal for larger and extra contributions, in order to prevent a deficit, ought to be anticipated, and made impossible, by ample gifts now. The volume of offerings during the first half of the year, ought to be so large as to remove all anxiety concerning the state of the treasuries of these Societies when their accounts close. How pleasant, if, at the annual meetings, the friends could be surprised with reports of a surplus instead of deficits.