E PASTORS AND CHURCHES

_Who take Collections for the A.M.A. in March, April and May._

Dear Brethren: The work of this Association requires $1,000 per day. The
receipts for the first four months of our fiscal year have been only
about $800 a day. Here is the germ of a debt. Unless it is chilled and
destroyed in the vigorous months of March, April and May, when the
churches are full and active, it will, during the hot summer months,
when the audiences are thin, grow rapidly, and develop its bitter
fruit--a great deficit. The coming three months will be the test. We are
the servants of the churches and are doing their work, and we are
confident that they intend to give us the means to carry it forward.

We, therefore, appeal to the pastors whose collections come during these
three months, or whose collections can conveniently be brought within
these three months, to lend us their great help by emphasizing our needs
when the collections are taken, and we appeal to our patrons that they
will, both in their church collections or by their special donations,
come to our aid in a time when that aid will be so beneficial.

* * * * *

A CALL FOR ENLISTMENT.

Perhaps we never shall cease our urgent appeals for the "sinews of war."
The growing work of this Association requires increasing funds to meet
the enlarged demand. But we are beginning to feel the need of a greater
force in the field. We sound forth the bugle note calling for recruits
for the army of the Lord in our glorious warfare. We appeal to students
in theological seminaries, colleges, normal schools and female
seminaries, to consider the claims of this great work. We make this
appeal with special urgency to the Congregational institutions of the
land, for it is from this body of Christians that we receive nearly all
the funds with which we carry on our work, and there is a special
fitness that the sons and daughters of these churches should enter the
field for which the funds are contributed.

But we wish to make a distinct announcement in connection with this
appeal. We wish only to "get the best." The needy people for whom we
labor have suffered such privations, and such absolute destitution of
all adequate religious instruction, that we feel they are now entitled
to as good as can be given them. We send no teachers to the field that
are incompetent and without adequate experience. We do not believe that
everybody is qualifie