The Woman's Bureau has proved a most efficient agency in our work during the past year. The family and the home where mother and sister are the strong guard of purity and moral strength, the newly-freed people knew nothing about from experience. Our missionaries, more than two-thirds of whom were women, found themselves face to face with the duty of caring for their unfortunate sisters. When the Christian women of the country were taking up and discussing the special claims of degraded and lost women for woman's special effort, and organizing societies to meet that claim, the American Missionary Association had the whole business in operation on a large and successful scale. When, therefore, the Woman's Bureau was created, it was neither to inaugurate a new work nor in imitation of other organizations. The purpose was to make the Christian women of the country more intelligently acquainted with a branch of our mission long in operation, and induce them by an increase of their contributions and sympathy and prayers to make it more widely successful. Miss D. E. Emerson, who not only by her experience as a missionary in the field, but also by her experience as a clerk in the New York office, was admirably qualified to take the Bureau in charge, was made its Secretary. She has opened direct channels of communication between the lady missionaries on the field and the Christian women of the churches. Sunday schools and ladies' missionary societies have been furnished an opportunity to assume, either wholly or partially, the support of an assigned missionary from whom they have regularly received letters. She has arranged to have addresses given upon the work at missionary meetings and conferences, either by herself or by a lady missionary, so far as she could, wherever and whenever such service has been desired. The work has been steadily growing upon her hands. The interest is widening and deepening. With no increase of machinery, with but little increase of expense, and with no divisive disturbance, either in the Association or in the churches, our Woman's Bureau quietly and effectively carries forward its operations at the North and at the South, at the East and at the West.
FINANCES.
Receipts for 1884-5.
| Donations from Churches and Individuals | $191,698.35 | |
| Legacies | 41,501.66 | |
| U. S. Government for Indian Schools | 9,458.13 | |
| Slater Fund for Industrial Training | 8,600.00 | |
| Tuition, Rents, etc. | 39,635.92 | |
| ————— | ||
| Total | $290,894.06 | |
As compared with the receipts of last year, these figures show $191,698.35 collections and donations this year, as against $164,056.77 last; legacies, $41,501.66 this year, as against $64,559.42 last; a gain in contributions from the living of $27,641.58, a loss from legacies of $23,057.76. The receipts from all sources for the past year, notwithstanding the heavy loss in legacies, are in excess over the receipts of the preceding year $3,299.87. The expenditures for the year have been $306,345.93, leaving a debt on the year just closed of $15,451.87. This, added to the deficit of the previous year, leaves us with a total indebtedness of $29,237.73. But over against this and in close connection with it, should be stated the fact that in both years the indebtedness has been owing to an increase of appropriations to meet the absolutely necessary demands of the new Indian missions transferred to us by the American Board. In 1883-4, we expended on these missions, including $11,495.19 received from the U. S. Government, $33,204.95. In 1884-5, including $9,458.13 from the Government, we spent $41,283.75. The churches had laid this work upon us, and we could not avoid these expenditures.
We began the year with a debt of $13,785.86. The task before us, therefore, if our work was to be kept to its former scale, was to increase our receipts over the previous year $27,571.72, or twice the deficit. We have made that increase in donations from the living, with $69.86 to spare, and that, too, in the face of the stringency of the times. Had the legacies remained the same as the preceding year (which were $61,807.31 less than the legacies of the year preceding that), we should have closed this year without a debt, and had $7,605.89 on hand to apply on the debt with which we started out.
CONCLUSION.
In conclusion, this review of the year inspires first of all songs of thanksgiving to our Heavenly Father for His manifold blessings upon the work and workers, and then our heartfelt gratitude to the pastors, churches and friends that have so nobly and generously, many of them at great self-sacrifice, contributed to sustain the work. With such evidence from heaven that the work is God's, with such evidence from earth that it rests upon the hearts and consciences of His people as a sacred trust, we cannot but feel that in it all Providence is saying unto us, Go forward. But what say our constituents? We present them our report. We await their answer.