The current expenses of the year are all paid; the debt with which we began the year is all cancelled, and we enter this new year with the good sum of $2,193.80 on the credit side of the ledger. But this will provide for the current expenses of the Association only about two days.
This has been a perilous experiment. The work has suffered, although none of it has been given up. The total number of missionaries has been reduced. Teachers and pastors have been overworked. New fields, “white to the harvest,” have been ungathered and left to possible blight. We praise God for this deliverance, but earnestly pray that we may not again need the chastening discipline of a like experience.
Such is the record of another year in the life of the A. M. A., as we read it from our human standpoint. The full significance of these simple facts as they stand related to the Divine plan for the redemption of the world, we cannot trace, nor need we. “What is written, is written.”
THE CHINESE.
REVIEW OF THE YEAR.
The fiscal year of “The California Chinese Mission”—the representative and agent of the A. M. A. in its work among the Chinese—closed August 31st. I devote the space accorded me, this month, in the Missionary, to a brief review of the year’s service. Statistics ought not to be dry when they set forth succinctly a gospel work and a record of souls saved. Each unit in each number stands for a story that angels stop to read—a gift, a labor, or a turning of the heart of God, that has to do with the eternal life.
Our missions have numbered 17; of these, 11 have been sustained during the entire year, and two others for eleven months. We have no vacation in our schools, unless forced to it by lack of funds, or by other causes which we cannot control.
The number of workers has varied from 23 to 28; the aggregate number of months of service being 309. Of these 91 are to be credited to our Chinese missionary helpers, and 218 to Americans. The total number of pupils enrolled is 1,044. The average enrollment month by month has been 461; the average attendance, 247. These numbers are smaller than those of last year, or of any preceding year for a great while; which comes of a serious diminution in another quarter which it has been out of our power to avert. Our resources for current work have been less than in previous years by more than $3,000—last year, $12,341.80; this year, $8,989.30. This statement is to date; I trust the amount will be increased somewhat before the books are finally closed. It was impossible to maintain the larger work with the smaller sum. I think that we can truly say: We have done what we could. The most serious loss is in the employment of Chinese missionary helpers; we ought to have had twice as many in the field as we were able to employ.