In presenting their report upon the financial condition and management of the business of the American Missionary Association, your committee on Finance desire to commend the clear and thorough manner in which the accounts are kept, so that any needed information may be had regarding any one of the numerous items of investment or expense at the numerous places where the work of the Association is carried on. The schedule of the property owned by the Association shows it to be possessed of buildings and land for the carrying on of educational and church work, the aggregate cost of which stands at $576,540.15. In addition to this plant, the Endowment funds amount to $229,375.78 which are securely invested, and yield an annual income of about $10,000. The Association also holds conditional trust funds amounting to $69,726.95. The good judgment shown in the purchase of land, the erection of buildings, and the investment of the permanent funds speaks well for the thorough care of the officers and the Executive Committee.
The committee desire to congratulate you and the Congregational churches of our land upon the extinction of the debt which for several years has been a burden to the Association. The treasurer’s report shows a balance on hand of $2,193.80, after paying every liability of the Association up to October 1, 1887, including the debt of $5,783.71, which remained at the end of the previous year.
In order to accomplish this, however, it has been necessary to defer until the receipts should warrant it, much work which presses with importunity upon the Association in the various fields.
We find that the treasurer’s accounts are regularly and faithfully examined each month by the financial committee of your executive board; and at the end of the year by two auditors chosen by the Association who attach their certificate to the report, and who are thoroughly reliable business men. The accuracy and economy of the work are thus as fully secured as in any merely business establishment. The by-laws of the executive committee provide a system of checks upon the officers similar to those in use in great corporations; and while of old it was said that “the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light,” we are glad to note that in the administration of the American Missionary Association so great a degree of worldly wisdom or common sense has been employed.
The duties of the treasurer are responsible, and have been performed with exactitude and fidelity. The receipts for current work of the year from all sources have been $306,761.31; and the expenditures therefor, $298,783.80.
These items of expenditure have been carefully examined in detail by your committee, and they report that in each department the most careful economy has been used, and no curtailment which would not materially cripple the effective force of the Association seems possible.
Your committee have taken some pains to compare the expenses of the Association with those of other missionary societies, and we find that it does not suffer in the comparison. The committee note with regret that the expenditures for work among the Indians and Chinese have been cut down materially as compared with the previous fiscal year; but we believe that the policy of the executive committee in refusing to incur liabilities which the Congregationalists of the country would not meet is the right one.
They must keep the Association so economically and so safely managed that no reproach may justly fall upon it; and the fact that they are able to come before you at this meeting, and to report the absolute extinction of the load of debt which has been upon them and you for several years, and have yet developed and prosecuted with vigor the grand labor for the oppressed, appeals in the strongest possible way to you for the most generous increase of the sums to be intrusted to their management in the year to come.
All departments need enlarging. The Southern work ought to have not less than $275,000; $15,000 is a small sum to spend upon the Chinese on our western coast, while $60,000 would hardly give the much needed development to the Indian Mission. Shall not the $350,000 thus plainly needed and earnestly recommended by the last National Council of Congregational churches be forthcoming? From us to whom much has been given, much will surely be required. If we cannot in person go with these Christian men and women who are devoting their lives to the direct work of this Association, into the cabin of the Negro, the abode of the mountaineer, the opium den of the Chinese, or the wigwam of the Indian, let us at least say to those who do,—“We will uphold your hands, we will abundantly support your work, we will, as far as we can, share your burdens and be your fellow laborers.”