Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1901-04-12
DIAMOND ANNIVERSARY
CONGREGATIONAL MISSIONARY So
CIETY TO CELEBRATE.
Appeal for Funds With Which to Dis
charge Liabiiities-New Jersey
Association.

| 1t is expected that one and perhaps all
| the Congregational ministers of Washing
| ton will attend the seventy-fifth anniver-
| sary of the Congregational Missionary So
| ciety, which is to be held in Boston from
! May IA to 10. From an advance copy of
| the annual report which will be presented
| at the meeting it Is learned that in forty
/ three out of forty-five states, and in all the
| territories, the society and its auxiliaries
are at work. The Massachusetts, Home
Missionary Society in it's 102 years has re-
| ceived s7,554,0s2 as home missionary
money.
One week before the national society
meets for It's diamond jubilee the New
Hampshire Home Missionary Society will
celebrate it's one hundredth anniversary.
The state has contributed $1,212,000 to the
work.
In Indiana four weak churches in 1916
have multiplied to sixty. The pioneer
church of the nine members, organized in
Omaha, Neb.. May 4, 1856. has developed
into 205 churches, with 14,000 members and
10000 Sunday school scholars.
In Florida in 1888 the inventory showed
three missionary pastors and five churches.
Every ten weeks since a church has been
organized.
Ten years ago there were twenty colored
churches in Alabama and four white. Now
there are ninety-tve white churches.
Congregationalism occupies the unique
position in Georgia of having been perhaps
the strongest single intellectual. moral and
spiritual influence in laying the founda-
lions of the state and yet of having no ex-
listing church in it fifty years old.
South Dakota's Congregational history
began with the organization of Yankton
Church In 1868 Now there are JAG church
es, with $50 members and 10,S1S Sunday
school scholars. In North Dakota there
are ninety-one churches as a result of
twenty years of work.
A spirit of unity, the report states, pre-
walls among the seven denominations at
work in Cuba. An evangelical ministers
alliance has been organized. All Protestant
ministers in Cuba are eligible to member
ship.
Appeal to Pastors.
In an appeal to the Congregational pas
tors of the country Revs. William l. Wash
burn, chairman, and Charles L. Beckwith,
secretary of the committee having the
matter in charge, say:
THE present liabilities of the society may
be summed up under two items: First, the
current apportionment, $27S,0O0, the lowest
in ten years, and, secondly, the debt of
S10S,000, inherited from the commercial
panic of 1923. The total of these items,
S3S7,0 900, measures the financial obligations
of the society and should also measure the
claim it has upon the thoughtful benevo-
lences of the churches.
1T is the conviction of the executive COM
mfttee that no time so favorable as the
present will soon or ever occur in which to
clear the society from it's financial obliga-
lions, setting it free at the opening of the
twentieth century for the continuance and
enlargement of its important work
Let it be remembered that of the $500
churches composing our Congregational
household fully 4,500 owe their being to
this society; that American Congregations
aiism would be an exceedingly doubtful
quantity but for the part which the Home
Missionary Society has taken in it's de-
Velopment; that .all other forms of Chris
tfan endeavor, both home and foreign, dear
to our churches, have depended and must
depend for their support upon the sue
cess of home missions; that scores of
Christian colleges and academies have
sprung up in the path of organized home
missions, and rely for their future growth
and strength on the continued success of
home missionary efforts; that great states
have been saved to the Union, and being
saved have been sown by home missions
with a Christian civilization. Remember
ing all these things, may we not with
natural and Astounding confidence appeal
to the churches most of them its foster
children, to come unitedly to the help of
the society in this year of grateful men,
cries and of pressing needs? We solicit
no special fund we contemplate no for
ward movement save only such as may
naturally follow the normal increase of
receipts. We are not seeking to force
the ordinary law which governs the benev-
olence of our churches. We are seeking
only to raise the natural sources of supply
to permanently higher level and thus to
avoid all disastrous reactions.
Deeds of Faith and Daring.
I'VE, therefore, appeal earnestly to every
Congregational pastor to make known to
his people in this year of jubilee the in
valuable benefits that seventy-fve years
of home missions have conferred upon the
nation, to keep alive in the hearts of
old and young the deeds of faith and dar-
ing that have illumined these years of
home missionary history, and to ask for
increased gifts, for memorial and thank
offerings, suitable to the seventy-fifth an
niversary of this notable enterprise
The reasons advanced why special con-
tributiOns to the Congregational Home
Missionary Society are just now timely and
appropriate are stated to be:
Because seventy-five years of home mis-
siOnary achievement are nearly complete
and deserve grateful recognition; because
four-fifths of all the churches Of the de-
nomination were planted or were aided in
their time of need by home missions; be-
cause Christian colleges and academies al
most without number have sprung up in
the path of home missions; because law
order, temperance, morality, security and
reverence for the Sabbath are direct fruits
of home missions; because much land re-
mains to be possessed and many souls in
the newer regions of America to be re-
claimed by home missions; because the
Home Missionary Society has inherited a
natural but burdensome debt from hard
times; because prosperity has reklrned and
a great cause may now be freed from debt
and equipped for new conquests; because
the opening of the twentieth century de-
mands a forward movement along the
" hole home missionary line; because every
other organized benevolence of the Con-
gregational churches depends for supplies
upon the success of home missions and
because home missions have saved Ameri-
ca once and will save it again If needed
New Jersey Association.
The thirty-third annual meeting of the
Congregational Association of New Jersey
In which are comprised the churches of the
denomination in the District of Columbia,
Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania and New
Jersey, will be held In the Associate Con-
gregationai Church. Baltimore, April %, "a
and Is. 1t Is anticipated that the meetings
will be of more than ordinary interest, as
both Cardinal Gibbons and Bishop Paret
the latter the bishop of the Protestant
Episcopal diocese of Maryland, have ac-