a. Expenses of Administration 1,913 16 10
b. Expenses in Raising Funds 3,477 12 4
c. Periodical Literature 1,539 1 1
d. General Home Expenses 794 19 8
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TOTAL HOME EXPENDITURE 7,725 9 11
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Total expended in 1868 97,962 5 2
3. Investments 9,017 0 0
4. Balance in hand, May 1, 1869 1,868 10 8
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108,847 15 10
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This statement shows that the greater ordinary income secured during
the past year is needed every year, to maintain the Society at its
present strength. Even with revised establishments working at a
reduced cost, the Directors still require 75,000 pounds a-year to
meet the various items of general expenditure for which they have
directly to provide. But that is precisely the amount which the
revived interest and the earnest exertions of deputations and
collectors have brought into their hands; and no margin is left at
their command to cover any extraordinary expense which may arise.
Nowhere, therefore, may our friends relax their efforts or diminish
their recent gifts. Givers, collectors, ministers who plead, are
still invited to uphold the hands of the Society, and to urge its
claims. And if we look to extension, that extension which comes
naturally to a prosperous field: still more to that extension for
which the field untouched cries mightily day by day: how shall this
enlargement of our operations be secured but by still augmented
resources, by still higher consecration, still greater liberality,
and more earnest prayer?
The SOCIETY DESERVES such help from our Churches; its history, its
sphere of usefulness, the spirit in which it is managed, the rich
prosperity which the Lord has granted to its labours, all appeal in
its name. THE FIELD DESERVES AND NEEDS IT. How little has been
accomplished of the holy purpose which Missions have in view.
Compared with the millions unevangelized, the converts gained are
numerically nothing. Indeed, the sphere of our labour has continued
ever to grow wider, and every answer of God's providence to the
Church's gifts and prayers and self-denial has been to extend its
power to be useful and give it much more to do.
And does not the LORD CLAIM from us this larger service? He has shown
the need of the heathen world more clearly, and made the argument
for instructing it unanswerable.
We have prospects for the future to which the gains of the past are
poor. With our skilled agencies, all shaped by experience, with plans
well-tried, with our versions and our literatures in every tongue,
with China opened widely in answer to prayer, with India deeply moved,
with Africa free, with Polynesia raised and civilized, with
Madagascar purified by fire--what tokens have we of manifest
blessing, of approval, and of divine help! The old systems have
fallen, or are paralysed, or are trembling with fear; and the young
life of the world is drawing towards freedom and truth. Our results
are incomplete; they are but an earnest of successes yet to be
gathered; and the full reward will be reaped more truly as the years
go by. But how noble that reward will be!
A pleasant custom prevails in India which will illustrate our
position. At all the military stations of the Empire, the troops are
summoned to parade in the early morning by the firing of a gun. The
night may still be dark; the restless sleeper may fancy it will yet
be long. But suddenly amid the stillness loud and clear booms out
the morning gun. The stars are still shining, and the landscape is
wrapped in gloom. But THE DAWN IS NEAR; and soon every eye is open,
every foot astir, and the busy, waking life of men again begins. The
fleecy clouds that hang on the eastern horizon grow ruddy with gold;
and the arrowy light shoots its bright rays athwart the clear blue
sky. The dust and foulness which the night has hidden stand revealed.
But in the forests and hills the pulses of nature beat fresh and full;
the leopard and the tiger slink away; the gay flowers open; the birds
flit to and fro, and with woodland music welcome the rising day. In
the city all forms of life quicken into active exercise. The trader
sits ready on his stall; the judge is on the bench; the physician
allays pain; the mother tends her child. The claims of human duty
come again into full force; benevolence is active; suffering and
disappointment, forgotten in sleep, press with new weight on weary
hearts. What a mighty change one hour has made!
Long has the night of heathenism and of wickedness ruled over the
world. "Darkness has covered the earth, and gross darkness the
people." But the gun has fired and "THE MORNING COMETH." The nations
once wrapped in gloom are waking to life and truth. Divine light is
quickening all the pulses of human thought; the heart beats more
warmly; the eye looks upward, and the great world is drawing nearer
to its Father. The Gentiles are coming to the light, and kings to
the brightness of His rising. And when at length the Sun of
Righteousness shall rise in power, His new creation, "with verdure
clad, with beauty, vigour, grace adorned," shall give Him loving
welcome; and He shall shine, to set no more, on "the new heavens and
new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness."