Vol. XXXVI.
MAY, 1882.
No. 5.
American Missionary Association.
The friends of the A. M. A. who examine the receipts acknowledged in this number of the Missionary will be gratified to see a total of $31,976.58 for March, thus making up in some measure for the falling off in February. But too much encouragement must not be taken from this single item. Let it only stimulate our friends to a steady effort to round out the year with the $300,000 called for by the annual meeting and by the imperative needs of the work. To reach that sum $168,000 will be required for the remaining six months of the year, or $28,000 per month.
The most infamous enactments of the Congress of the United States have been made in response to the demands of caste prejudice; as for example in the Fugitive Slave Law. A parallel to this is found in the recent bill prohibiting Chinese immigration——an enactment injurious to this country, a wrong to China and a violation of the fundamental principles of the Declaration of Independence, and of the law of God. It is a shameful repudiation of our boast that this land is an asylum for the oppressed of all nations, and it is a cowardly acknowledgment that a hundred thousand inoffensive Chinamen can so excite and alarm a nation of fifty millions of people. It is with great gratification that we chronicle the veto of this bill by President Arthur. We only regret that he has not put the veto more squarely against the principle of such prohibition.