The receipts have been, $320,953.42, which with the balance on hand,
September 30th, 1887, of $2,193.80, makes a total of $323,147.22. We
have received in addition to this $1,000 for an Endowment Fund. The
total disbursements for the year have been $328,788.43. The churches
through the National Council have asked us to keep abreast with the
providence of God. "It is our duty," said the Ohio State Association,
"to see that this great work in which we have borne so large and
honorable a part, halt not, nor slacken in its energy because of our
failure to keep its treasury replenished and its faithful laborers
re-enforced and supported by our gifts and our prayers."

Said our good friend, the _Congregationalist_, in an editorial after
our inspiring meeting at Portland in October last: "Never did the
magnitude of the field, and the complex character of its labors,
appear in such startling lines. Either of the four departments of
labor demands the money and the force which is distributed among all.
But, in the providence of God, this society is called upon to
prosecute this fourfold work. It cannot abandon a single field and
must not be asked to. It can do in the next five years a work for
Christianity and for Congregationalism in the South and West which
will tell on the coming century. As Christians, and as Congregational
Christians, we must see to it that it be not obliged to pinch its
workers and to turn away from promising openings in order to keep free
from debt the coming year."

Thus charged, we have yet gone within our instructions. We have made
every dollar do more than its work. We have gathered up the fragments
that nothing be lost; and yet to-day our payments anticipate our
receipts by the sum of $5,641.21. We do not regret the anxiety and
pain which it has cost us to effect what we have. The generous words