The American Missionary - Volume 43, No. 06, June, 1889

Excerpt

FINANCIAL OUTLOOK.

The Figures.

Our receipts for seven months to April 30th are, from donations, $118,051.25, estates, $20,308.09, incomes, $4,829.21, tuition, etc., $22,719.89, United States Government for Indians, $9,540.87; total, $175,449.31. Our payments to April 30th are $203,777.45. Debt balance, $28,328.14.

The Meaning of the Figures.

These figures mean a debt—growing at the rate of $4,000 a month. In passing "through the dark valley and shadow of"—debt, we walk with a goodly company. It is said that nearly every missionary society in Christendom reports a deficit this year. A common cause must underlie so broad a fact, and no one society deserves special censure.

How we get into Debt.

A missionary society cannot make its expenditures as a man provides for his family—from day to day—but must lay out its plans for the year. The missionaries, the teachers, the matrons and all employés must be engaged for that length of time. The appropriation must be made on the general expectation of receipts, with some allowance for added growth. Every prosperous business firm plans for enlargement. Shall the Lord's business only lack enterprise and growth? Must it move on a dead level, or on a declining grade? The churches would not long endure that, and the word of the Lord is: "Speak unto the children of Israel that they go forward."

How our Debts are to be Paid.

This cannot be done near the close of the year by dismissing the ministers and shutting up the schools. These self-sacrificing workers are dependent on their salaries, and the teachers, some of whom out of their small pittance are helping to sustain an invalid mother or sister, and in not a few cases are aiding needy students, and should not be deprived of their wages. Repudiation of such debts is not the relief for a missionary society.

The only way, therefore, that we can see is, to throw ourselves upon the benevolence of the churches, whose agents we are in doing their work, and ask them to come to the rescue by increased donations. A little from each will make it easy for all.

We wish our friends to see as we see and hear as we hear from the field, as to the need of enlargement and the difficulty of closing schools prematurely, and hence we present some condensed facts as specimens.

McINTOSH, GA.—One hundred and nineteen in a single room and with only one teacher. No boarding department and scores must be turned away.

FLORENCE, ALA.—In a rapidly growing city, school held in our church building. Large numbers turned away for lack of room.

JONESBORO, TENN.—No boarding place for either boys or girls. Boys live in rough rooms in a barn, six in a small room. No more can possibly be accommodated.

GRAND VIEW, TENN.—Buildings crowded full; no place for any more, yet pupils are trying to crowd in.

PINE MOUNTAIN, TENN.—Situated in a region nearly a hundred miles long, without a single school except the almost worthless district schools for two or three months.

WILLIAMSBURG, KY.—Crowded full of students; more than sixty in one room large enough for only thirty.

JELLICO, TENN.—Our church and school building will not hold either our Sunday-school or those who attend the preaching services. Must be enlarged or no growth can follow.

ATHENS, TENN.—Growing town; nearly a thousand Northern people with no church suited to their needs. Some Congregationalists need aid in starting a church.

FORT BERTHOLD, DAKOTA.—Rev. C.L. Hall writes: "We have not at Fort Berthold the necessary buildings for our work. Our girls are in an old Government building out of repair, and a little cottage 16x22, and our boys and industrial teacher are crowded into the missionary's house, and a little one-story annex 14x22. There is no room for a guest to stay over night."

CHINESE IN CALIFORNIA.—Dr. Pond, the Superintendent of our Chinese Missions, makes a dollar go as far as any man in our service. He is one of the most careful men in making ends meet. But he has been caught in the cyclone and writes thus about the premature closing of the schools:

"Nothing seemed left for me to do but to notify the teachers that I could pay all bills for May, but could promise nothing more. When I had resolved to do this, the workers passed before me, one by one: most of our teachers are dependent on this slender stipend for their daily bread—teachers that had been in our service for many years, never measuring their service by their pay, but working in season and out of season, and most of the time rendering help not bargained for fully equal to that which I could have required. The helpers also passed before me. Jee Gam with his wife and five children; our brave, unselfish Low Quong; our faithful, almost saintly Chin Toy, our earnest and eloquent Yong Jin—all of whom have sacrificed their pecuniary interests for service in the mission, and all of whom, if their income from missionary work ceases, will be compelled at once to seek an income elsewhere because of those dependent upon them....