The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1896-03-19
Efforts Will Be Made to Close
Financial Gaps.

NEW YORK, March 19.--The American
Missionary Association OF Congrega-
tional Churches has fixed upon October 20
to %, Tuesday to Friday, as the dates for
its 5Oth anniversary in Boston. Associate
Justice Fuller, United States Supreme
Court, and President of the Venezuela
commission, has accepted an invitation
to be one OF the speakers. Justice Fuller
has been identified with Congregational
missionary history throughout life. He
was born in Smy Western Turkey.
his father being the Rev. Josiah Brewer,
one of the first missionaries OF the Ameri-
can Board to Turkey. Iu Kansas he saw
the nature and fru Is OF home mission
ary work, and has spoken on the plat
form OF the Congregational Home Mis-
sionary Society at its annual meeting in
Washington. The associa tion has issued
a statement OF it's work, and an appeal to
Congregational churches TO raise a spec
ial fund for the payment OF its debt In
part as follows:
'For the last three years our average
current receipts have been sos, 600 less per
year than during the previous three years.
The work has been cut $1S4, ,0O0 during
these three years Ii IL lad been fully
maintained the debt wuld have been
three times ss great as it is.
we are now cOnirOuteu Win tne queS-
tion of further and more disastrous re-
ductions, for our obligations must be met.
The Sl00, 900 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 Mon
taDa, from California 10 Florida.
1.-THE asSOCiat ion has come To the last
half of its fiscal year. Up TO this time IL
has made no special plea for help. IL has
waited fraternally until kindred organiza-
tions have received tbe AID they so greatly
needed. This vast Christian service in
the most recessitous fields OF the conti-
Dent is as distinctively the trust OF the
churches as any of their enterprises are.
"It is proposed to raise during the next
six months a special Jubilee Year fund OF
sl0O, 900, i'm shares OF ESQ each, with the
hope and expectation that these shares
will be taken by the friends OF missions
without l,ssening those regular contribu-
tsons which must bs depended upon to
sustain the current work.
Rive distinct people are being reached
and five foreign lands To accomplish
this work, IL employs the Bible, the spell
ing book, the industrial method In the
hands OF well-traintd, consecratsd
preachers and teachers. A half-century OF
sum nOih hs tnlh luNblNlnR lnt OuiidN
OF millions OF dollars, the patient, heroic
sacrifice O. thousands OF devoted men and
women: its teachers posted across the
Continent from its most western point
TO the most soui ihsrly, looking up on
siberia at one end, and Cuba 81 the other;
its kindergarlens and universities planted
thick among the Southern mouDtaineers,
and in the great Black Belt OF the South
ern States. This comparatiyely small
body OF Congregational people Is spend
ing more money I'm the uplifting OF the
black man thsn all other Protestant de-
nominations put together. Its early mis-
tionsr.es, as we'll as It's later ones, have
fsced privat ions, sociel disah bill ties, os-
tracism and oftentimes death. For IA
years previous to The present panic, the
A. M. A. had no uebt, aud II the Con-
gregational churches bad replaced by their
gifts the government money, which at
Hartford they forbade the association TO
longer receive, there would bo scarcely
any debt today.
al we should attempt TO gather up the