The American Missionary - Volume 50, No. 3, March, 1896

Excerpt

WHAT NOW?

One-third of the fiscal year passed on Feb. 1st without any special campaign of appeals in behalf of the debt and the suffering work of the American Missionary Association. We have constantly reported to its supporting churches and friends the exact financial condition of the Association. We have reiterated the call voted at our Annual Meeting for such enlargement of support as will bring the receipts of this semi-centennial year up to $500,000. We have emphasized the urgency of the present and prospective needs of the work.

We are sensible of the pressure made upon the churches to increase their benefactions along the different lines of the Congregational mission service. We rejoice over their increased offerings in this critical period, although the support of their work through the American Missionary Association has not been increased. Their contributions to the Association in these past four months stand at about the disastrous figure of the corresponding period last year. The other eight months of that year suffered from a disheartening reduction which raised the total debt to nearly a hundred thousand dollars. If the coming eight months are to bring the same proportionate reduction which the corresponding eight months of last year suffered, we frankly say now and here that a new debt will be incurred in addition to the old one. We cannot avoid it and we cannot remain silent about it.

What now? Must our debt grow? We cannot reduce our working forces on the instant. We cannot at once call off our missionaries whom we have engaged for the current year and to whom we have pledged their support. They have both the moral and the legal right to their support for the time stipulated. This is a necessity in the administration of the missionary societies which are called to employ large numbers of missionaries. They must keep faith with their workers.

What now? Reduction? Within the last three years we have reduced our work by $124,000. But our receipts were reduced in increasing measure each year by a total of $224,000. Further reduction? Yes, as soon as possible, under present engagements, if it must be so. Is this the decision of the Christian people in the churches? Is it wise? Is it necessary? Must the life-blood of these missions to the poorest, the most needy of all the peoples in America be shed? Does not the condition of these lowly and helpless millions cry out to God against it?

The American Missionary Association has been providentially called to minister to the down-trodden, the submerged millions of our common country. Their distressful needs are in danger of being left aside in the pressure of other worthy appeals for aid. Will not the thoughtful, the large-minded and large-hearted, who lead in every benevolent service of the churches, come to the rescue of this imperiled Christian service? Will they not make this fiftieth year of the American Missionary Association a year of jubilee by bringing an advance of at least a hundred thousand dollars before the assembling of our great Boston Convention in October?