No. 11.
American Missionary Association.
This Missionary, as will be seen, is an Annual Meeting number. We have endeavored to give a glimpse at the things which were said and done at Norwich. We have been able to give almost nothing entire, except the briefer of the reports of the Committees. For Dr. McKenzie’s sermon we must refer to the Advance of Oct. 28; for Dr. Taylor’s paper, to the Congregationalist Supplement of Oct. 20; for Mr. Carroll’s review of missions, to the Independent of Oct. 28. For the rest, we have crowded what we could into this double number of the Missionary.
We are under renewed obligations to our denominational newspapers for their editorial representation at our anniversary, and their full and discriminating reports of our proceedings.
Our Annual Meeting in the Broadway Church, Norwich, awakened, in the minds of many, encouraging comparison with the Anniversary of this Association held in the same place 19 years ago. It was in the fall of 1861. Our country was just settling into the heavy tug of war. And yet one of the headings of the Annual Report was: “Enlargement demanded.” See how God has fulfilled that aspiration in the enlargement of our finances, of our constituency, of our field, of our work. The $51,819 of that year, upon the recommendation of the Boston Council in 1865, came up to $250,000 and $3,000 more, and the average of these fifteen years has been that same sum, $253,000. All the work we then had at the South, the very first of the kind that was done, was that of the one missionary and one teacher among the 1,800 “contrabands,” who at that point had pressed through our lines. But the men of that meeting, believing that the day of freedom was at hand, and praying,—in the words of one of Governor Buckingham’s State papers—that “the country might be carried through the crisis in such a manner as should forever check the spirit of anarchy, bring peace to a distracted people, and preserve, strengthen and perpetuate our National Union,” did solemnly and grandly resolve “to follow the armies of the United States with faithful missionaries and teachers”. You know how this Association did follow those armies across the sunny South, and how it turned its own forces into an army of occupation, until its field became identical with the realm of our national flag.
Now this marvelous enlargement, attained within less than two decades, has brought us to “the cross of our success.” Shall we take up that cross? Shall we consecrate ourselves to bear the burden of obligation which this extension of our work lays upon us? May we discern this call of God for enlargement, even as did the good men of that day?