elief, as these brethren
knew nothing of the border territory that ought now to be organized into
new fields. The next move was to ask all the Pastors to meet the
Committee at the next session. To afford room to accommodate the
Committee and its invited guests, the audience room of the Church was
appropriated for an entire afternoon. Here the great work of the
Committee was entered upon in right good earnest, with the special
champions of the movement as managers of the exhibition.

But now, alas! for the success of the meeting, there was too much light.
At once a large number of fields that had been supposed to be
self-supporting was brought forward, and their respective
representatives were so successful in setting forth their feeble and
helpless condition, that many of them were entered upon the list by the
Committee as Missions. The question as to the number of Missions having
been settled, the next thing in order was the amount of money that
should be given to each.

From the information already received, the amounts were jotted down
briskly until the entire list had been gone over. The footings were now
made, and to the Committee the result was appalling. They had
appropriated three times the amount of money at their disposal. Then
came the rub, which had been so often experienced by the Presiding
Elders. The Missions must be cut down in two ways. First, all that could
possibly manage to get through the year without aid must be struck off
the list, and then such as remain will need to be cut down to the
lowest possible figure. But still brave, our Committee would not see
their impending defeat, and proceeded at once to the labor of
cutting down.

One of the champions had been a surgeon in his time, and had cut human
flesh with becoming recklessness, but now he, as well as the entire
Committee, struck a new experience. To strike Missions off the list, and
cut down the appropriations to others, is comparatively an easy task in
the quiet and secluded confines of a committee room, but to do either in
the presence of the very men who expected to occupy those fields the
coming year, and who knew the poverty of the people, was quite another
thing. The flood-gates of speech-making had been opened by the
Committee, and it was now impossible to close them. The balance of the
afternoon was given to stormy debate, and into what disorder the meeting
might have drifted, if the coming evening had not made its appearance,
it