In considering the state of the Society's finances, the Special
Committee recommended, in strong terms, not only that some reduction
should be made in the expenditure, but that the character of that
expenditure should be carefully examined. They recommended that the
Board should take full advantage of the opportunity furnished by the
present crisis, for placing the entire system of payments in their
Foreign Missions upon the soundest footing, and for determining the
principles by which those payments shall be regulated. The Directors
accepted these suggestions, and since then the three Foreign
Committees, into which the London Board is divided, have devoted much
attention to the system of their Foreign Missions.
In the case of each of the Missions examined, they carefully laid
down the principles applicable to the condition of the Native
churches; the forms of missionary labour among the heathen; the
number and work of the Society's missionaries; the number and labours
of Native agents engaged in purely mission work; and the state of
education. The present scale and details of expenditure were
examined; and then, to every element of the system an APPROPRIATION
for the year was made of that amount of money which, in the judgment
of the Directors, the Society could justly spare from the funds which
they have at their command. A Schedule of these allowances in every
group of Missions was next drawn out, exhibiting the sums available
for the expenditure of the year, and was forwarded to the Mission
concerned. And finally, a special DESPATCH which accompanied the
Warrants, was written to the members of every Mission, in order to
explain in the fullest manner the views of the Directors respecting
that Mission, and the form which, in their judgment, the aid of the
Society should for the future assume. Again, while the Society enjoys
the services of a large number of able, conscientious, and spiritual
men, as devoted as ever their predecessors were to missionary work,
it was seen to be essential to their fullest efficiency, that they
should be brought into closer union with each other abroad, and with
the system of the Society at home; that the personal comfort of the
mission families should be more fully secured under the changed
circumstances of modern days; and that the experience of each field
of labour should be so wrought into the general system as to prove
a helper to all the rest.
The result of the system to the Society's finances has been economy,
compactness, and strength. While in several cases the personal
income of the missionaries has been increased, yet, by limiting the
amount of the Native agency to be employed in evangelistic work; by
reducing the help hitherto granted to the Native Christians for their
incidental expenditure; and by enforcing economy in all minor
matters at home as well as abroad; the Board have been able to bring
down the total expenditure of the Society to a point much nearer the
range of the Society's ordinary income than it has for several years
past. They have provided, however, only for the necessities of their
present operations. They need a larger income still, if the friends
of the Society would wish them to undertake that extension of their
Missions into new fields which the world needs, for which the
missionaries earnestly plead, and which they themselves are most
anxious to secure. The effect of the system on certain of the Native
churches has been a most healthy one. As hoped for, it is beginning
to stimulate them to manliness, and to a more earnest consecration,
not only of their means, but of their personal service to the
Saviour's work.