The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-03-10

 past score of years, within which the one simple task of the first half-centu- ry of national work has become @ conl- plicatlon of intricate, interrelated and interdependent problems, conditions for the meeting of which in the applica- tion of the Gospel this society has been q chief agency of Congregational churches.
 THE FOREIGN DEPARTMENTS.
 In the eleven years since the startling increase in the volume of immigration awole the conviction that Congrega- tionalism has it's duty, with the other branches of the church, toward the for eign life coming to make it's home here, this society has devoted to this depart ment of it's work the sum of S364,62O- exclusive of the expenditure of the several auXiliaries along the same lines within their fields. This sum-avera- ging above $3600O per year--is that only which, in view of the whole great na- tional field could be devoted to these specific lines. It in no way indicates the needs, or suggests the unseized op- portunities, of this foreign home mis- sion field.
 The test has been abundantly sutfi- cient to demonstrate, says the Rev. George Washington Choate, D. D., sec- retary of the society, that Congrega- tional polity is readily adaptable to ev- cry phase of foreign nationality that has made this land it's adaptive home the Scandinavian, the Hungarian, the Bohemian, the Pole, the German, the French. That which was for many years the greatest desideratum-- trained Congregational pastors to sup ply these churches of foreign tongues is now provided, in degree almost be- yond power of use, through the Oberlin and Chicago Theological seminaries, whose well-equipped graduates stand ready to enlarge this field of missiona ry service whenever the means are at the command of this society to employ them.
 THE CITY.
 From the first years of the society's existence the larger centers have com manded the attention of the executive committee as strategic points to be oc- cupied and held with a strong force.
 But as leader in the discussion of the city problem in it's modern aspect a subject which in one form or another has been considered from its platform annually-the society has during there cent ten years multiplied many-fold its efforts to establish the centers of Chris tian influence and power and life at these points of alarming growth.
 At least one-third of it's expenditures each year are thus directed; and with an estimate of five and a quarter mill lions of dollars devoted to this increas- ing important department of the whole field during the entire seventy years of work, it is without doubt true that not less than four millions have been thus appropriated within these tive-and- thirty years now under review.
 THE SOUTH.
 Atonce, upon the, close of the civil war a door of entrance into the devastated South was opened to the workers of this society; and the year 1S65-66 found one missionary under it's commission in each of the four states, North Caroina, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas. States which had in earlier years appeared on the pages of the annual report of the society, but for nearly decade-the tumultuous years immediately preced- ing and during the srife--had had no representative of this organization within their bounds, reappeared; and the national scope of the work was re- stored
 The conditions of the southern field have rendered it work of slow devel- cpment, but it was evident that one re- suit of the great national struggle was to turn thither an increasing volume of northern life.
 The scope of this work in the south has had it's expression along two lines that of northern migration thither, first for agricultural enterprises, and later for the industrial and manufac- turing interests which have already had large growth and are manfestly at the point of greatly vaster expansion; and secondly, that of existing southern Christian bodies, notably the Congre- gational Methodists, thoroughly evan gelieal in faith and Congregational in polity, who have spontaneously sought alliance with Congregationalists, and among whom are found deep piety and the eager desire for fellowship with the great body of churches standing on the faith and order of the Pilgrims.
 The four missionaries of this society laboring south of Mason and Dixon's line thirty years ago, in four states, had become in 1893-94, one hundred and fifty, distributed through the entire southern field, in every state save South Carolina and Mississippi. This work i'll the southern field finds it's urgent neceS- sity in the fact that there are two races in the south, and the great southern problem cannot find it's solution by deal- ing with either to the exclusion of the other.
 Among the forces which are shaping and energizing the new south is the Congregational Home Missionary soci- ety, through the six score Iaborers bear ing it's commission.
 1892 TO 1895.
 At the close of the year 1S92-93 the society had fulfilled every pledge to it's missionaries and cancelled every obli- gation at the banks-the temporary use of loans during the dry months, of the summer being necessary to fulfil the command of the churches that their missionaries be promptly paid on re- porting their work.
 The universal disaster of 1S99-94 no one had anticpated Its coming caused