The Thirty-fifth Annual Meeting of the American Missionary Association will be held in Worcester, Mass., commencing November 1st, at 3 P. M. For particulars see fourth page of cover.
FINANCIAL.
This month brings around the close of another fiscal year. Our balances will be struck on the 30th of September, and we are exceedingly anxious that all parties, either churches or individuals, who have intended to contribute to our work during the current year, should do so as early as possible. Our appeal is that you give to this cause liberally as the Lord may have prospered you. Our receipts for the nine months to June 30th were very encouraging, but the receipts for July, the first month of the last quarter, have not been as large as we had reason to hope. The increase over July of last year has been only fourteen per cent, instead of twenty-five per cent., the amount necessary to carry forward the additional work we have undertaken. But we trust that our friends will enable us to meet these appropriations without embarrassing our treasury. Every dollar received during the next thirty days will help us to meet our pressing demands, and possibly save us from closing the year with debt.
OUR BROADSIDE.
We give room in this number of the Missionary to a broadside on Church work. Our object is to present to our patrons, at a view, an array of the large number of new churches we have established for the colored people. A majority of the pastors employed by us have been connected in some capacity with our Institutions, a goodly number of them having graduated from the theological classes at Talladega College, Fisk and Straight Universities.
It may be said, with grateful assurance and peculiar emphasis, that this Association establishes its churches. It prepares a constituency by its day and Sabbath-schools, and from this educates a ministry. In this way it develops a demand for a pure church, and also the possibility of maintaining it when established.
It will be observed that nearly all the churches reported have been blessed during the year with additions to their numbers, and that many have made improvements upon their property. The Sabbath-schools have everywhere received due attention, and much of the progress in the different churches has been made possible by the earnest, prayerful and unremitting labors of our missionaries in this department of religious work. Missionary meetings and societies have been greatly encouraged and the cause of temperance widely promoted. Many of the young converts have found their way to institutions of learning, and many have engaged in teaching and missionary service.