I. It prevents waste.

(a.) Waste in administration of funds. Its accounts are open to and
audited by those whose money is being spent. Reports of the financial
standing, receipts and expenditures to the half-penny are presented every
year. Look them over and note how minutely your accounts are kept.
Officers and missionaries are held by you to strictest responsibility.
This is sound business sense applied to missionary work. But one
naturally asks why, when such absolute safeguards are thrown around the
administration of the funds committed to the A.M.A., some of those who
established those safeguards give a considerable portion of their money
to individuals over whose expenditure they have absolutely no control,
and where funds may be, and often are, wasted? And in this way the
percentage of the cost of administering the funds committed to the A.M.A.
is also increased. This can scarcely be called sound business wisdom.

(b.) Waste in field work. It requires wide experience and knowledge of
the whole field in order to adjust and direct, without waste of laborers,
the force of missionaries. Those who know only one locality cannot do
this. It is often remarked that each missionary thinks his particular
field the most important, and the one especially needing help and
enlargement. This is a grand tribute to their faithfulness and Christian
enthusiasm. But the systematic investigation of the whole field,
constantly and patiently carried on as it is by the A.M.A., determines
with larger wisdom whether work should be strengthened and developed in
Tennessee, or Georgia, or Texas. Gen. Grant was familiar with the whole
field, and placed his men according to the varying exigencies of the
campaign. Just so the systematic methods of this Association place these
noble missionaries where there will be least waste of labor.