ABSTRACT OF THE FIRST ANNUAL REPORT.

IN presenting the First Annual Report of the Presbyterian Board of Home Missions, succeeding the "Board of Domestic Missions," in its sixty-ninth year, and the "Committee of Home Missions" in its tenth, the Board cannot but express their profound thankfulness to Almighty God for so many conditions of successful labor which he has permitted the Missionaries to enjoy.

I. The Difficulties and Perplexities of the Board.—(1.) The labor of reconstructing our Home Missionary work, simplifying and making a unit of what had been two distinct corporations, and two centres of operation, has been much greater than one would suppose.

The Board of Domestic Missions and the Committee of Home Missions kept up their separate work until the 15th of July. But, when the work of both organizations was united under one management, that of each had been projected into the year to come. Both had issued commissions and made appointments, and the work of both needed to be followed on their own lines, independent of each other, and independent of our present organization. Besides, Presbyteries had been reconstructed and their boundaries changed. New officers, stated clerks, and Committees of Home Missions had been appointed, and missionaries and their churches often found themselves within new limits, perhaps among strangers, and that, which had hitherto been well known or carefully treasured up in the minds of one Presbytery, was unknown to that in which they now are, and equally so to the Board; so that the requisite information to act promptly and wisely, in many cases, was wholly wanting. As the Church was in the midst of the process of reconstruction, it frequently occurred that the Board had no means of certainly ascertaining to what Presbytery a given missionary or his church belonged.

Believing that we could not satisfy the great company of contributors to our funds, unless we passed an intelligent judgment on all applications, the Board adopted a series of Rules for congregations applying for missionary aid, embodying information on all important matters-rules, the substance of which had previously been adopted by the "Domestic Board" and the "Committee of Home Missions"--which, we are sorry to say, some thought inquisitorial, or at least too exacting; but which drew out only the information which seemed necessary to the Board, that they might form an accurate and impartial estimate on every application that came before them.

Moreover, the Board have demanded, of all their missionaries, statistical re

ports full of particulars about their fields of labor, for the whole or that part of the year they have been in commission, closing April 1st, 1871. These statistics are embodied in a permanent form, and will be kept among the records of the Board. It is the intention to have these reports made very full with regard to every important feature of the work in the missionary churches, so that hereafter we can trace their history and note their growth or decay, and be able to tell, at any time in the future, how much missionary money has been expended on any given church, from the reunion of the Assemblies at least, and perhaps from its very organization. By the same means we shall be able to inform every Presbytery or Synod, how much the Board has expended within its bounds during any given year or series of years, and in like manner trace the career and make out the history of every missionary.

(2.) The Board have been greatly perplexed for want of funds. The expenses of the Board are at a uniform rate of from $25,000 to $30,000 per month. But it is well known that the collections from the churches are small during the summer; and they were unusually small last summer, on account of the unparalleled heat of the season. In October, the Board was so burdened with debt that it was compelled to give notice, to the churches and the missionaries, that it could pay no more demands on our treasury till it was replenished.

What increased the difficulty was, that the Committee of Home Missions, made up by the same parties that constitute the Board, were carrying a debt on the Freedmen's Department contracted the year before. Had it not been for this debt, the Board probably would have borrowed $12,000 or $15,000 more to pay the missionaries, till the contributions of the churches began to flow in more rapidly, and thus have saved us from the mortification of suspension within three months of our reunion.

II. Enlargement of the Work.-But our work has considerably enlarged during the year. The Home Missionary Reports of the two branches of the Presbyterian Church last year contained the names of 1148 missionaries. This year our Report contains the names of 1233 missionaries, being an increase of nearly one hundred.

This increase is almost wholly in the Western States, though more of it is east of the Mississippi than we could have desired. For, in the four or five States lying directly east of that river, and called the "Central West," where the churches of both branches of the now reunited body were numerous, it seemed but fair to expect that, following organic union, numerous contiguous churches would unite, and thus constitute self-supporting fields of labor, thereby relieving a considerable number of missionaries from any further dependence on our Board. This result we still anticipate, through the steady effort of Presbyteries, and the increasing unity of spirit among the churches themselves. It is obvious, from the number of missionaries employed, that they constitute nearly one third of the whole ministerial force of our Church.

III. The Condition of our Finances has been less satisfactory. The balance in the treasury of the Board at the close of the last fiscal year was $65,037.59, of which $30,000 was transferred to New-York on the 15th of July, and in that of the Committee $9194.19, an aggregate of $74,231.78. We close the year

covered by this Report with a balance of $29.28. Last year the receipts from all sources were $300,599.69; this year they have been $281,945.82. But our expenses this year have been $352,844.23, which is $70,898.41 in excess of our receipts.

It is but just to the churches to say, that the difference in receipts between this year and the last is due to the differences in legacies alone. Churches and individuals have contributed this year $250,184.92; last year, $233,887.67. But, while the Board and the Committee received last year $66,712.02 in legacies, we have received this year only $31,760.90, a difference of $34,951.12.

It should be borne in mind, that there is a slight unfairness in the best statement we are able to make, about the number of churches that have contributed to Home Missions during the year; for the Board have determined to make the last day of March the end of their fiscal year. But, in time past, the Board of Domestic Missions closed a month earlier, and the Committee of Home Missions a month later; consequently the period of time covered by this Report embraces

thirteen months for the churches of the late O. S. branch, and only eleven for the late N. S. branch; and the churches in the former, that took up their collec tions in April of each year, will be credited with the collections of two years. Hence it is due to say that, for the same reason, the churches in the late N. S. branch, that take their collections in April, will be credited with nothing this year except incidental balances from last year's collections.

The great inadequacy of the receipts to meet the demands of mission churches has been a source of constant anxiety on the part of the Board; and when they remember that, with the exception of April, all the months until November next yield but small returns from the churches, and that our current expenses are so uniform and so great, we can readily see that we shall be overwhelmed with debt, and many of the missionaries subject to grievous delays in the receipt of their appropriations from the Board, unless the churches rally promptly and come to our aid.

It is a natural inquiry, Why have the receipts of the Board been so much below the demand and the general expectations?

(1.) In many cases, the demand was far in advance of previous years. When it was known that the Board of Domestic Missions had closed the last year with $65,000 in the treasury, many churches asked for more, some twice as much and some three times as much as they had last year, and the Presbyteries readily indorsed their applications.

(2.) Then the last Assembly passed the following resolution, viz. :

"That the Board of Home Missions be authorized and empowered to supplement the salaries of all ministers, wholly employed in preaching to our congregations at salaries of less than $800, by such an amount as shall raise their salaries respectively to not less than that sum, on proper recommendation by the proper Presbyteries."

The resolution added nothing to our authority, and nothing to our power; and yet many seemed to think that, if their salaries had not been $800 per annum before, they had only to ask in order to receive that amount.

(3.) Any thing which turns the benefactions of the people into new channels is always found to affect the amounts unfavorably.

The reorganization of the Board, the change of location, the appointment of new officers, and any new methods proposed, are sure to check for a time the free transmission of customary funds.

Besides, the public needed to be assured of the ability and wisdom of those to whom the trust had been committed. Confidence is of slow growth, and the churches will not give freely, till they have had time to learn to confide in and love those who have their precious interests in charge.

(4.) It is also fair to suppose that for the present year the Memorial Fund has reduced the contributions to our treasury. A large part of the Memorial Fund has been expended in aiding Seminaries and Colleges, adding to the capacity of the Publication buildings, enlarging or endowing schools and institutions of learning in foreign lands, under the care of the Board of Foreign Missions, and in building and freeing from debt church edifices in this country. The Boards of Foreign Missions, Church Erection, Education, and Publication, have received or will receive largely direct benefit from that fund. But as that fund was intended mainly for permanent institutions, and our funds are gathered to be immediately disbursed among the missionaries, we have received directly only about $6500 contributed to our treasury and specified as memorial offerings, whilst from another part of this Report it appears that nearly $340,000 for the Memorial Fund were raised by our missionary churches.

IV. The Lessons Suggestel.-The most obvious lesson suggested by this state of things is, that the churches must increase their contributions, or we must reduce our expenditures. But incidental to this it is manifest―

(1.) That congregations that have become really able to be self-sustaining must be searched out, and their applications hereafter discouraged or refused. To aid just as long as is necessary is the duty of the Church, and her highest duty; but it is very difficult for some churches to discover the point where foreign aid is necessary; and in such cases, it is best for the Presbytery and

Board to help them make the needed discovery. Such churches must be searched out, and at the earliest possible day foreign aid should be withheld. (2.) The missionary churches must do more toward the support of the preaching of the Gospel.

Nothing is more common, than for new churches to appeal to us for nearly the entire support of the missionary for one year, because they are building a church; the second year they do the same, because they are in debt for the church; and the third year, because they wish to add a steeple, or procure an organ or a bell; and thus year by year they press upon us almost the entire support of the missionary. But we have reached a point where it is important that the missionary churches should learn, that the entire support of their pastor must no longer be, as it apparently is to many, the very last object of their desires. We have borne this burden until it has become impossible to bear it longer.

All this has proceeded upon a false assumption, that the Board of Home Missions was created for the support of the missionaries. It was created for no such purpose. If the missionary or his family be in want, he can have recourse to the Board of Ministerial Relief. The Board of Home Missions was organized for the aid of feeble churches. The contract for the support of the missionary is directly with the church and the congregation. If the missionary is willing that his people should expend all their effort in building a house of worship, so let it be; but let him not blame the Board. He has a right to fix the terms of his support with the congregation; he has a right to know what amount of aid we can give-and he can then judge whether it is sufficient for his support. If not, and we can give no more because the churches give us so little, there is but one alternative-he must decline the field. And yet, if he be already on the field, and the work promises well, we can do nothing but encourage him to be brave and wait for better days. For to leave the field, often only adds to the impoverishment of the missionary and the weakness of the church. The frequency of changes in the location of our missionaries is one of the most discouraging features of our work.

V. The Present Outlook.-Let no one suppose that we are counseling any reduction of Home Missionary work. Far from it. Never were grander opportunities for the extension of the Church than now. In Minnesota, the supply of missionaries has fallen 15 behind the demand for the past year. The same is true of Kansas, which calls for an equal number. In Nebraska, 18,000 homesteads were taken last year, and 2,700,000 acres of her choicest lands were sold to actual settlers; and the present year is undoubtedly to surpass any previous year in the increase of her population.

No previous year has witnessed such a wonderful enlargement of the railway system. And we have found that wherever the locomotive has gone, immigration succeeds, and the missionary of the Cross must follow. The fertile prairies and fat valleys of all our frontier States and Territories are being laid open for settlement. We have expected to see some check given to railway development and to the inflowing tide of immigrants. But we see no abatement in either case, but rather increasing growth and extension. The Northern Pacific, stretching westward from the head of Lake Superior, already spans the father of waters, and in a few months will reach the boundaries of Dakota, the Red River of the North. Not only is the line to be pushed rapidly westward, but from its present terminus on the Pacific it is to be as boldly pushed eastward.

During the past year, a second road has penetrated the heart of Colorado, stretching past its capital city to the base of the Rocky Mountains. A northern population is now flowing into Texas, in anticipation of the completion of a railway from Kansas to the Gulf of Mexico. Late acts of Congress have probably made sure the early construction of the Southern Pacific Railway. Thus Texas, that once was a nation by itself, that is larger than France, by more than four times the extent of Massachusetts, whose inherent resources are fully equal to those of France, and that is capable of supporting a population equal to that of the whole United States, is just on the eve of great material development; and already we hear her voice crying to us to come and help educate and evangelize her people-her people that are and that are to be.

But these projected railways must of necessity enhance the value of the whole unsettled portion of our country as a missionary field; for all these larger enterprises give an impetus to smaller undertakings, branching roads, that stretch out their arms in every direction.

Of the 8,000,000 increase of our population during the last decade, 5,000,000 are supposed to be west of the Mississippi. One hundred post-offices a month were established, mostly at the West, during the eight months of the past year. How clearly it is our duty, then, to do our share in the work of evangelization, till the distant West shall be as thickly planted with churches as Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan, in the central West; until both the farther West and the central West shall be as the most favored States of the East.

VI. Missionary Churches in Cities.-The Board would call the attention of the General Assembly to the subject of City Missions; or, Mission Churches in our large cities. We have now, including German and colored churches, about sixty Missionary churches in our large cities.

We have no doubt of the expediency of aiding such churches, provided they are well located. After they once become self-sustaining, we may expect them to be generous contributors to our treasury; but for the time being, they are more expensive to the Board than missionary churches in the country, and if enthusiastic men, on their own responsibility, are allowed to start churches wherever they please, and the Presbytery indorse the application for aid without a careful examination of the field, there is danger that the appropriations made would be but money thrown away. We therefore hope that the Assembly will so instruct the Presbyteries, that they will not indorse any such applications for aid, unless they are sure the church is needed and can be expected to become self-sustaining in a reasonable time.

The reference of the last Assembly to the question of transferring the Jews, Chinese, and North-American Indians, from the care of the Board of Foreign Missions to that of Home Missions has been carefully considered. We have not thought any change advisable at present. The work among the Jews is too sinal to demand any special attention; that among the Chinese and Indians involves the work of secular education, and the translating of the Holy Scriptures, and it is kindred to the general work of the Board of Foreign Missions. But, inasmuch as the missions in New-Mexico furnish scarcely any opportunity for preaching the Gospel, and are engaged almost wholly in teaching the children of Mexican Papists, the Board ask that the Missions in New-Mexico be transferred to the Board of Foreign Missions.

VII. The Freedmen.-By an arrangement with the Committee on Freedmen, the Board has rendered assistance at a uniform rate of $300 per annum to all missionaries laboring among the Freedmen.

The report of their labors will more properly come from that Committee which has complete supervision of the whole work.

The debt which lay on the hands of the Committee of Home Missions at the last Assembly, has not been paid by the Committee of Freedmen, and still remains on our hands a continual burden and source of perplexity. The debt is now $12,318.

VIII. Synodical Missionaries and District Secretaries.-Under these designations the two organizations to which we succeed were accustomed to employ a few men, mostly in the frontier States, where the population was flowing in very rapidly, where the members of Presbyteries were widely separated from each other, and there was more work to be done than the resident pastors could perform.

It has been found that whenever a Presbytery awakes to a sense of the destitutions within its bounds, and sees the amount of missionary work to be done, it is likely to call for the appointment of a Presbyterial Missionary.

But a single Presbytery is so small that, by the time the missionary has learned by experience how to prosecute this kind of labor successfully, the available work demanded of him comes to an end. Besides, to support so many Presbyterial missionaries with our limited resources, as would thus be required of us, would manifestly be impossible; hence the appointment of such laborers, whose field shall be the destitutions of a whole Synod or a whole State, seems a suitable compromise, and furnishes abundant labor for a much longer period.