Читать книгу The American Missionary. Volume 50, No. 04, April, 1896 - Various - Страница 1

of the American Missionary Association

It is now fifty years since the American Missionary Associationwas organized. Its work and history are before the churches. We have reason to rejoice in the accomplishment of the past. We are grateful to God for this ministry of grace to His needy ones. We have come now to the semi-centennial year of the Association. We propose to celebrate the Fiftieth Year, and to acknowledge the goodness of God to us in the past.

But we find ourselves in this present time in distress. Our work has been severely affected by the adverse times. Our mission schools and churches are suffering. For the last three years our average current receipts have been $93,000 less per year than during the previous three years. The work has been cut $184,000 during these three years. If it had been fully maintained the debt would have been three times as great as it is.

We are now confronted with the question of further and more disastrous reductions, for our obligations must be met. The $100,000 borrowed for mission work must be paid. We do not believe that the churches wish this to be done by closing more schools and church doors against the poorest of our countrymen throughout the Southern lowlands and mountains, amid the Dakotas and Montana, from California to Florida.

The Association has come to the last half of its fiscal year. Up to this time it has made no special plea for help. It has waited fraternally until kindred organizations have received the aid they[pg 114]so greatly needed. This vast Christian service in the most necessitous fields of the continent is as distinctively the trust of the churches as any of their enterprises are. Shall it not now have the same equitable relief as has been given to others? Has not the time now come for helping this suffering work? Will not those who have charged the Association with this burden of service now consecrate anew their benevolence to its relief and make this a Year of Jubilee, to wipe out the last vestige of debt?

It is proposed to raise during the next six months a special Jubilee Year Fund of $100,000 in shares of $50 each, with the hope and expectation that these shares will be taken by the friends of missions without lessening those regular contributions which must be depended upon to sustain the current work.

The plea is urgent because the need is urgent. Will not all friends of this great work, pastor and people, now heartily unite in one special Christian endeavor to raise this American Missionary Association Jubilee Year Fund?

Charles L. Mead,

Samuel Holmes,

Samuel S. Marples,

William H. Strong,

Elijah Horr,

William Hayes Ward,

Lucien C. Warner,

James W. Cooper,

Joseph H. Twichell,

Charles P. Peirce,

Charles A. Hull,

Albert J. Lyman,

Addison P. Foster,

Nehemiah Boynton,

A. J. F. Behrends

Executive Committee of the

AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION.