3. The total contributions from the churches and individuals represent a sadly low average for the total church membership. The receipts last year from churches and individuals, exclusive of legacies, were $189,483.39. Divided among the church membership of the country it represents an average contribution of only 44 cents per member; and if the contributions of those who give annually all the way from $1.00 up to $1,000 were subtracted, the average would fall from 50 to 75 per cent. below this. Surely the spirit of Christian benevolence abroad in the churches is not what it ought to be. Did Christians give as they pray, their benevolence would reach a higher mark. They are apt to be more honest in the expression of their views of duty at the throne of grace than they are through the expression of their conduct.
The pride of consistency, as we remember the confessed doctrines of the churches, should make us all intensely dissatisfied with this record of unfaithfulness on the part of so many church members.
4. The increase in contributions does not keep pace with the growth of the churches in membership and wealth. The total wealth of the United States, as officially reported for the year 1870, was $30,068,518,507. In 1880 it was $43,642,000,000. Since 1880 the gain has been in all probability even in larger ratio; and in this gain the Congregational churches have had undoubtedly their full share. Ten years ago the membership of the churches was 365,595. Last year it was 436,379. Ten years ago the church contributions and individual donations to our treasury, exclusive of legacies, were $186,166.62. Last year, from the same sources, they were $189,483.39. That is to say: During the past ten years the churches have increased in wealth 31 per cent., and over; in membership, 19 per cent., and over; but in their contributions they have increased only a little less than 2 per cent. Had the gain kept pace with the increase in church membership, our receipts last year would have been $32,055.67 more than they were. Had they kept pace with the presumable increase of wealth they would have been $54,394.69 more than they were. “Freely ye have received, freely give,” was the emphatic command of our Lord to his disciples as he sent them out on errands of mercy among the sick and suffering and sorrowing poor. “Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store as God hath prospered him,” was the explicit injunction of Paul to the churches concerning their collections for the poor. And here are our churches organized on purpose to carry out the teachings of Christ and his apostles; increasing in numbers and increasing in wealth year by year; yet relatively to that increase falling behind in their contributions to a society whose chief and crowning distinction is that it labors among the poor and the despised and the neglected. Will a man rob God? was a question asked in ancient times. Modern times have not outgrown the pertinency of its asking.
5. The Association should be relieved from a perpetual struggle to get out of debt. From a business standpoint the struggle is not healthy. From a religious standpoint it is not right. Thank God we come to this annual meeting free from debt. It is four years since we enjoyed that privilege before. We would like, if it please the churches, to indulge in the luxury of singing the doxology at shorter intervals. Well, then, don’t get into debt. Easily said. Had we a fixed and certain income; had we the authority to levy upon the churches a specified tax and the power to collect it; had we the ability to foresee just how much was coming from legacies, we could then show a clean balance every year. But in all these respects we are in a field of limitless uncertainties. The gifts to our treasury are purely voluntary. No certain dependence can be placed on legacies. One year it may be deluge; the next it may be drought. What are we to do? What can we do? We can only calculate probabilities and trust our friends. What? Can you not trust God? Yes—blessed trust—we can trust Him. But trust must be intelligent. God’s ordination is that missionary work shall be carried on by his children, and that they shall pay the bills. We have no right to expect that He will work miracles in one direction to defeat what He has ordained in another. Presumption is not piety. Fanaticism is not faith. We have a vast work committed to our care. We have a great number of missionaries to support. We have large money investments in church and school property to guard. We must plan to conserve all these interests. A sentimental trust in God will not pay taxes and missionaries’ salaries, nor save religion from being dishonored by broken pledges. The churches, whose servant the Association is, should save its officers from the worry and anxiety of constant fear lest through lack of funds the work shall be endangered and the interests of Christ’s kingdom made to suffer.
The above are some of the reasons for raising the question, What should be done to increase the number of those who intelligently contribute to the support of the American Missionary Association?
Now for the answer.
1. Our theological seminaries should provide for a course of lectures in which the history and claims of the American Missionary Association, together with those of the other six missionary societies, should be presented and discussed. Systematic theology, church polity, homiletics and ecclesiastical history would lose nothing, but on the contrary they would gain much in interest and power by the inspiration of such lectures. To train the churches in support of these societies is a part of ministerial life, and they need to be trained. The initial letters by which these societies are recognized by the few who are acquainted with them would be as mysterious and puzzling to the great majority of our congregations as the hieroglyphics of an Egyptian tomb!
Now this is all wrong. These societies are the organized assertions of great truths. They are the expressions of great principles. They represent the heart of the gospel reaching out through the churches for the world’s salvation! The people should be instructed in reference to their duty toward them, and not left in ignorance as to their names and meaning. If our theological seminaries have been established to train men for the work of the gospel ministry, they should train them for its work all round and not merely for its work on a few sides. James was an Apostle as well as Paul. You would scarcely dream it from the teaching of some theologies. The preaching that trains the people to clear intellectual conceptions of truth is good; but the preaching that in addition to this trains them to go out and put their belief into practice is better, and that because it is more Christian. The roundness and fullness of truth demand it. Theory—practice. Sympathy—benevolence. Let them not be divorced either in the teaching of our seminaries or in the preaching of our pulpits.
2. There should be an annual presentation of the Association’s claims in every church. This may seem like a wild proposition in view of the large number of non-contributing churches. But duty should be affirmed even if no one performs it. For some reason or other a large number of our ministers do not bring the claims of the American Missionary Association before their congregations. It cannot be that they are ignorant of the Society and its work. They have the Year Book. They must know of the resolutions of the National Council and the State Associations. They are presumably readers of the denominational papers, and I know they all have their pure minds stirred up periodically by way of remembrance by circulars and other agencies. Are their churches small and poor? There is no church so small and so poor, if it have any right to be in existence, but that it can do a little and in doing that little receive in return for itself and minister, both spiritual and temporal blessing. If there is a church so small and so poor that it cannot do this then it had better make haste to glorify God by its death than continue to dishonor him by its life. Are there so many objects asking help that they cannot respond? There are only seven societies in our denominational family claiming their support. Can it be that any minister of the gospel feels that seven contributions for benevolent objects during the twelve months of the year are too many for his church to make?—are more than his church ought to make? And if he allow outside objects to come in, however worthy they may be, and thereby crowd out any of the National Societies, is that quite just to those societies? Generosity is indeed a virtue, but exercised at the expense of those who have a prior claim, it can hardly be called a Christian virtue. An Apostle has written it: “If any provide not for his own and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith and is worse than an infidel.” The American Missionary Association is an adopted child of the Congregational churches of the United States. It is a lawful member of our denominational household. It is there by virtue of every law which governs in the fellowship of the churches. It is not a beggar asking alms—it is not a stranger crowding for hospitality—it is a child having all the rights and privileges of a child in its own home, and if beggars and strangers are allowed to enter and rob it of that which is its legitimate portion it has a right to be heard in earnest protest against the wrong it suffers. As the accredited agent of the churches for the prosecution of missionary work in the field it occupies it has rightful claim to their unanimous support.
3. A committee should be appointed in each local conference to see to it that during the year every church in the conference has the cause presented and a contribution taken. A committee thus appointed can write to each church, reminding it of its duty to make an annual offering to the American Missionary Association as one of our national societies. Where there are pastors who do not care to present the cause themselves every year, and where there are churches that have no pastors, certain brethren can be requested to prepare a presentation, and by a system of exchanges secure its delivery in all the churches, so that not one of them shall be allowed to go a single year uninstructed in regard to this duty. All that is needed is for some one man to take hold of this matter with earnestness and place it clearly before the local conference, and it will be done. Has this language the sound of authority about it—a flavor of presbyterial or prelatic law? It is only a sound and a flavor; nothing more. There is nothing legislative about it. It is simply the churches themselves through their own chosen representatives in conference devising the most effective method for carrying out a work in which, by the very genius of their church polity, they are all equally interested. The only law that there is about it is the foundation principle on which they were organized and recognized as churches, and on which they have established their local conference.