nds
for the year to come.

The National Council, representing the Congregational churches of the
whole nation, lately in session at Worcester, by a unanimous vote
recommended that the churches and friends of the work of this
Association raise for it for current expenditures for the year now
commenced the sum of $500,000. Is this magnificent sum too much to ask
for the year now auspiciously begun? Happily for your committee, we are
saved the necessity of elaborate or studied examination of the needs of
the work that has been done by the papers read and to be printed and
addresses delivered from the platform during the meetings up to this
time. You are thus informed more fully than we could hope to inform you
what these needs are and their urgency. But we may say that of the
8,000,000 Negroes in the South it is estimated only 2,000,000 can read
and write. Add to these the millions of poor whites in the mountains and
the red men of the West and the Chinese in our land, and we are fully
justified in asserting that the work of this Association equals in
magnitude any work of the church, and involves issues of Christianity,
and patriotism touched by no other work of our age. It is estimated by
the officers of the Association that through its schools and colleges
and the teachers furnished by them, who are instructing the children in
the South more or less every year, perhaps 175,000 are being reached and
instructed. Assuming that as many are reached by other missionary and
benevolent societies, we see the tremendous need that can not be
ignored. This burden is laid peculiarly and urgently on this society and
its contributing friends. Can we meet this duty with less than $500,000
for the current year? Your committee say, No. Perhaps you will be ready
to acquiesce. But let us see what this means. It means that every living
donor who contributed last year must increase his contribution 50 per
cent., or the number of donors must be largely increased. A large amount
was received last year from estates and legacies, namely, $114,020.41.
This resource is a variable quantity. The Association can not _depend_
on any increase from this source. Its confidence must be in the living,
who can give if they will.

Your Committee deem it proper to call more particular attention to the
magnificent gift of Daniel Hand to the Association. It is quite likely
that some may suppose, and some may have measured their gifts last year
in the belief,