is incredible that the ministers and churches which
sustain the Society should quietly continue to give for its
maintenance the same narrow income which they gave to it thirty years
ago.

I.--RECENT DIFFICULTIES.

The result of this irrepressible growth, fostered by the kind
providence and loving care of the Master for whom the service has
been done, was for the Directors, in their management of the
Society's affairs, embarrassment, difficulty, and debt. That
embarrassment commenced with the year 1866, when the accounts were
closed with a balance of 7450 pounds against the Society, which was
paid from the legacy fund reserved for such a contingency. During
the entire year the Directors had the difficulty in view, and adopted
a series of measures to meet it. Special Meetings were held with the
London ministers and officers of churches, to lay before them the
growing needs of our Foreign Missions. Papers were published by the
Home Secretary, showing the growth of those missions, with the
increased claims they present for agency and help; and urging that
an addition of at least 10,000 pounds a year is needed to the
Society's permanent income. In the autumn Auxiliary meetings the
missionary Deputations were urged specially to make the facts known.
In February a solemn and impressive meeting for prayer was held by
a hundred and twenty of the London ministers and Directors.

But these measures did not at once remove the difficulty. In numerous
instances old friends of the Society, and churches which have ever
been its chief supporters, not only expressed hearty sympathy with
these efforts, but increased their contributions and rendered
substantial help. Various consultations ensued, and a Special
Committee was requested, to indicate the course which, in their calm
judgment, the Directors ought to take, to meet the difficulties of
their position.

Their Report pointed out various defects in the Society's system of
account, and in the audit of details in the expenditure which is
incurred abroad. It noted especially that since--on the system till
then in force--the initiative in that expenditure had been placed
to a large extent in the hands of the missionaries themselves, the
Board did not possess sufficient and effective control over its
growth and its specific application. And it recommended that, as in
some other Societies, a system of annual appropriations should be
adopted, by which the available income of ea