We therefore rejoice in every new meeting-house that this society helps the struggling churches of the South to build.
Another item in the report to which we call attention is the organization of seven new churches during the year, about the average number, if you take a series of a dozen or more years, but not the average if you take simply the last five years.
Since 1882 the average rate of increase has been eleven per year.
It would undoubtedly be a joy to us all if the rate of increase could be more rapid. We must not, however, forget that we are at work “among a people who have no congregational trend or training.” It is undoubtedly wise to proceed with care, planting churches at the right centres and only where they will give promise of permanence.
After all the caution that has been exercised it has been necessary recently to drop four or five from the list. The aim should be at stability and worth rather than numbers. A single church organized on the right basis, watched over with painstaking care, so that her members shall adorn the doctrines they profess, will do more for the prosperity of Congregationalism in this part of the country than would a score of churches hastily organized and unsuitably located. We think the officers of this society have been wise in their movements thus far; nearly all the churches organized having made a history that deserves the admiration of Christian people everywhere.
But when we think of the constantly increasing number of graduates from the Christian schools and colleges under the patronage of this society; and the greater familiarity of the Secretaries with the localities suited to become strategic points for Congregationalism in the South; and the marked success of those churches whose permanence is beyond question, are we not warranted in expressing the hope that in the near future we shall see a radical advance all along this important line of denominational work? We know that this is what our Secretaries long for as well as pray for, and what with our contributions cheerfully made, they will hope to accomplish.
They heartily agree with us in believing that the uplifting influences of schools and colleges would be readily dissipated or turned into channels for evil if they are not gathered up and multiplied in rightly constituted bodies which shall prove the germs around which the forces of the community shall organize for good. Working together, therefore, as contributors and directors, we may expect to be cheered from year to year with the rapid growth in the numbers of these organized Christian forces which have in themselves vitalizing and transforming power which works for righteousness both in character and conduct.
REPORT ON MOUNTAIN WORK.
BY REV. A. H. QUINT, D.D., CHAIRMAN.