FEBRUARY, 1887.
No. 2.
American Missionary Association.
We remind our readers that the National Council and the annual meeting have placed before us a high mark in asking from the churches $350,000 the current year. That sixty per cent. advance upon the contributions of last year will not be made without the consciously directed efforts of our friends to secure it. We are happy to announce that quite a number of the churches whose contributions have been taken since the annual meeting have made the advance, some of them reaching even a hundred per cent, over the contributions of the preceding year. Let the matter be brought to the attention of the churches and kept before them, and they will rise to the occasion. They have both the means and the disposition.
Can you do anything to increase the list of subscribers for The American Missionary? That is one way in which you might help us. Every mail brings voluntary testimonials of the high esteem in which our magazine is held by its readers. We could easily fill our pages with extracts. The subscription price is so low—fifty cents—that we cannot offer premiums or make reduction for clubs. We do ask, however, for a greatly enlarged increase in subscriptions on the purely business ground that the magazine is worth the subscription price, and more, too. Can you do anything to help us in this direction?
An Example.—Rev. A. F. Newton, of Marlboro, Mass., one Sunday in last December preached to his people on Christian Reading in the home. He circulated among the congregation a list of the missionary magazines and religious papers which, in his judgment, ought to have a place in every family. The American Missionary, of course, was among the number. We presume that other ministers have done substantially the same, but knowledge of Mr. Newton’s effort having come to us, we take occasion to specially mention it. Our conviction is strong that if all our pastors were to go and do likewise, there would be a great increase in the number of our subscribers, and during the year corresponding increase in contributions, sympathy and prayer for our work. We commend the example of Mr. Newton to the brethren.