(3.) The most encouraging outlook before us, however, is in the deeper spiritual and prayerful interest which our work awakens. Among other signs of this fact are the aroused attention of the praying women of the North to the woes and wants of the colored women and girls in the South, the increasing volume of prayer going up from the churches of the North for Africa, and the prayer and consecration awakened in its behalf among the colored people of the South. But above all, we believe that the followers of Christ are coming to realize that in this whole range of work it is only in the Divine arm that effectual help can be found.
2. We have a great work before us.
(1.) In our own special field we have the urgent call to make the repairs and improvements which we were compelled to refuse when in our great struggle for the payment of the debt. These can no longer be denied, in some cases, without sacrificing the health of the missionaries and teachers, as well as the progress of the work.
(2.) The call for enlargement confronts us on all sides. We cannot meet the demand in the public mind at the North if we stand still, and still less can we meet that of overcrowded schools and for new churches in the South. We refer our readers to the following article for some stirring details on this subject.
(3.) Our friends need to be on their guard against one incidental drawback. The Presidential election occurs this year, and the experience of this, and all other missionary societies, shows that such years mark diminished receipts. We can only say to our friends: Do your duty at the ballot-box, but do not forget the contribution-box and the prayer for missions!
OUR ENLARGED WORK.
We have been saying for a long time, when we are free from debt we will do more work, and now that we are free, we have felt constrained at once to begin the fulfillment of that promise. The great question is to find the just mean between cowardice and rashness. No organization like ours can say, we will never spend a cent that we have not in our treasury, for we have to make engagements amounting to many times the sum at our present command. We must follow the leadings of Providence not only, but its indications, and rely on God’s people to sustain us in our anticipations of what they will do.
In our Salutation to our friends, we spoke of the call for the enlargement of our work that confronts us on all sides. During the struggle of the past few years for the payment of our debt, we could have but one answer for the pressing appeals that came to us for more room and better accommodations—an answer which was hard to give and hard to receive, for those who saw so clearly the great good that would result from a comparatively slight expenditure of money.
But now that the debt is paid, our friends must tell us whether we can venture to make a different and more cheering answer to our appeals. These appeals are coming to us from Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, &c., as may be seen by noticing the “Items from the Field,” in this number of the Missionary. These items were taken without any special reference to this article, and surprise us, as we glance over them, by the needs which they disclose.