THURSDAY EVENING.

The Vice-President took the chair. Devotional exercises were conducted by Rev. J. R. Thurston. An address was delivered by the President. Adjourned to nine o'clock to-morrow.

FRIDAY MORNING.

The President took the chair. Prayer was offered by Rev. Moses Smith. The Minutes of yesterday's sessions were read. The tellers reported the result of the ballot in the election of officers held yesterday, and the whole list as nominated was elected. Remarks were made by the President. The following resolution was read by the Recording Secretary, and by unanimous consent was received for debate and action:Resolved, That the Board reaffirms the rules of administration laid down by it at its Annual Meetings in New York and Minneapolis, and expects them to be applied in a spirit of liberalty, as well as of faithfulness, to candidates for missionary appointment.

Remarks were made by Prof. Egbert C. Smyth, D.D., Joseph Cook, LL.D., and Rev. A. H. Quint, D.D., who offered the following amendment, adding to the resolu tion the words, "as explained by the President in his original letter of acceptance."

Remarks were made by Rev. E. B. Webb, D.D., Rev. W. Gladden, D.D., the President, Rev. A. H. Quint, D.D. The amendment was accepted and the resolution was unanimously adopted by a rising vote.

Rev. Arthur Little, D.D., presented his declination to serve as a member of the Prudential Committee, and his declination was referred to the gentlemen who had constituted the Nominating Committee.

An invitation to the Board from the Directory of the World's Fair to visit the grounds of the Exposition was received.

Hon. H. D. Hyde offered the following resolution, and it was referred to the Business Committee:

Voted, That a committee of five, of which the President of the Corporation be chairman, be appointed by the President to consider and report at the next Annual Meeting on the expediency of holding the meeting of the Corporate Members for the transaction of its business affairs at another time than the religious meeting of the Board; and also that said committee consider the expediency of appointing most of the committees who are to report on particular missions and like subjects the year previous, so that they may have proper time to prepare their reports.

The Committee on China reported through Rev. S. Gilbert, D.D., and the report was accepted. An address was made by Rev. S. V. Karmaker, of India.

Letters of regret and excuse were received from the following Corporate Members: Messrs. J. F. Anderson, J. W. Backus, J. L. Barry, S. C. Bartlett, S. L. Blake, S. G. Buckingham, M. Burnham, H. Q. Butterfield, James W. Bradbury, S. B. Capen. Franklin Carter, T. E. Clapp, Robert Coit, Richard Cordley, Ebenezer Cutler, J. D. Cutter, Timothy Dwight, W. P. Ellison, D. T. Fiske, J. G. Foote, J. M. W. Hall, J. W. Harding, J. N. Harris, Burdett Hart, Samuel Holmes, J. W. Hough, N. A. Hyde, D. Willis James, J. L. Jenkins, C. A. Jewell, Samuel Johnson, H. W. Lathe, Alexander McKenzie, J. K. McLean, George Mooar, J. W. Noyes, Philo Parsons, G. W. Phillips, A. H. Plumb, Douglas Putnam, A. H. Ross, Frank Russell, J. W. Scoville. H. M. Scudder, N. D. Sperry, E. A. Stevens, H. M. Storrs, M. E. Strieby, Royal C. Taft, W. M. Taylor, Thacher Thayer, C. F. Thompson, C. F. Thwing, J. H. Twichell, J. G. Vose, G. L. Walker, J. P. Wallace, J. H. Washburn, Thomas Weston. J. S. Wheelwright, W. H. Willcox, E. F. Williams, E. M. Williams, F. P. Woodbury, T. H. Hawks, and A. E. P. Perkins.

The Business Committee reported back Mr. Hyde's resolution, and it was adopted. The President appointed Hon. H. D. Hyde, Hon. J. M. W. Hall, E. W. Blatchford. Esq., Rev. H. A. Stimson, D.D., as, with himself, the Committee called for by the resolution.

The Business Committee reported the following resolutions, and they were adopted:

Resolved, That we proffer our most earnest and hearty thanks to the First Church of Chicago, and to other churches of this city, for the generous hospitality with which they have welcomed the representatives of the foreign missionary work; to the several Committees for the complete and faithful discharge of their duties; to The Advance for its marvelously accurate reports of our meetings; and to the railway corporations, for their coöperation in the reduction of fares; also, that the thanks of the Board be presented to Rev. Daniel March, D.D., for his sermon, and that a copy be requested for printing; also, to the Directory of the World's Fair, and to the faculty of the Theological Seminary for invitations to visit their buildings.

Addresses were made by Rev. C. C. Tracy and Rev. T. D. Christie. The Nominating Committee reported back the resignation of Dr. Little, and the resignation was accepted. The Committee also reported the name of Rev. F. E. Clark, D.D., to fill the vacancy in the Prudential Committee, occasioned by the resignation of Dr. Little, and the ballot was taken and he was elected.

The President, the Secretaries, Dr. Webb and Dr. Thompson, of the Prudential Committee, were by vote appointed a Committee to express to Dr. McKenzie the unanimous desire of the Board that he accept his election upon the Prudential Committee. An address was made by Rev. A. W. Clark, of Bohemia.

The Minutes to this point were read and approved.

Rev. E. P. Goodwin, D.D., made an address in behalf of the churches and friends entertaining the Board, to which President Storrs responded. Prayer was offered by Rev. L. H. Cobb, D.D.

The benediction was pronounced by the President, and the Board declared adjourned to meet in Worcester, Massachusetts, on the second Tuesday in October, 1893.

HENRY A. STIMSON, Recording Secretary.

REPORTS OF COMMITTEES ON THE ANNUAL REPORT.

FROM the reports of the Committees appointed at the Annual Meeting to consider the several sections of the Annual Report.

The Committee on the Treasurer's Report, George H. Rust, Chairman : —

The Committee to whom was referred the Treasurer's Report have had placed in their hands the original papers embraced in his report, consisting of account current, balance sheet, and lists of investments for the various funds of the Board. These have all been verified and certified to by the Auditors. We have also examined the certificate of the Special Committee of the Board who have, from month to month, been charged with the duty of examining the Treasurer's Accounts, and supervising expenditures and investments, and find their report very full and complete, and signed by the members of the Committee. The report of the expert examiner of accounts has also been submitted to us, and certifies to the corrections, in every detail, of the accounts of the Treasurer. The certificate of the firm of brokers, selected for that purpose, is attached to the valuation of the various bonds, stocks, mortgages, etc., held by the Board.

The Committee take pleasure in confirming the opinion of the expert accountant, as to the care and accuracy with which the books are kept, the methods employed, and safeguards against loss or nistakes. Your Treasurer has earned the hearty approval and endorsement of the Board in his more han quarter-century of service. The increase from all sources of $104,000 over last year's receipts is rery gratifying and encouraging, especially in view of the fact that there was used from the Otis Fund $45,000 less than last year. Continued effort on the part of our churches is urged, to the end that here shall be no necessity for any curtailment of the various missions, but on the other hand that the Prudential Committee may be able to enlarge the work to meet the imperative demands from the evervidening fields of work.

The Committee on the Home Department Report, Rev. F. A. Noble, D.D., Chairman:

The story of the operations of the Board for the past year reads like an epic. There are in it the march and majesty of heroic numbers. It is a fit and natural sequel to the spirit of the Pittsfield meeting. In that grand gathering something of the old haystack temper of enthusiasm and consecration reappeared; and the auguries of a splendid success were in the pulses of the air. Few notes of discord were struck and few tokens of dissent were manifested; but faith in God and the future, and a determination to move forward in aggressive endeavor, marked the occasion. The outcome has been one to awaken devout gratitude to God and to inspire in us all a deeper confidence that he owns and blesses in signal ways the efforts his people are making through this Board to carry light and a knowledge of the saving grace of Jesus Christ to all the tribes and kindreds of the earth.

It is a matter for thanksgiving that so many new missionaries have entered upon the service of our Lord in foreign fields during the past twelve months. Men and women of high qualifications and full of the Holy Ghost are the key to the situation. As these are forthcoming the redemption of the world will advance, and the dark places will shine resplendent with beams from the face of the Son of God, and Africa will emerge from its barbarism, and Japan and China and India will one by one, and in due time, take their places in the ranks of the Christian nations.

Our District Secretaries, Dr. C. H. Daniels and Dr. A. N. Hitchcock, and the Field Secretary, Dr. C. C. Creegan, deserve warm commendation for the very efficient and successful way in which they have worked their several fields. It is, perhaps, a questionable kind of encouragement to pay to men who have evidently done just as well as they could, that we expect them to do still better in the time to come. Yet with their increasing hold on the trust and love of the churches they visit, and with their constantly enlarging experience in reaching and influencing the people, is it not reasonable to anticipate a steady gain in the results of their labors? Might not the efficiency of these District Secretaries be be very much heightened, too, were the pastors to extend to them warm greetings, and to hold frequent conferences with them, and to do their best to build them up in the good opinion of their parishioners? The tables of statistics prepared and presented in the Annual Report now under consideration are not alone interesting, but they are exceedingly instructive and valuable. We commend these tables to the careful study of our pastors and church members. Many of our churches in the cities and on the frontier are weak and struggling. Were they to attempt to make regular contributions to the cause of foreign missions, it would not be much they could give. But it is hardly conceivable that a church can be a church at all, and not be able to give enough to take it out of the column of noncontributing churches. It is not to the credit of our sense of the value of the salvation which has been secured for us by the death of Jesus on the cross that there are still 1,500 churches on the rolls of our Congregational body giving absolutely nothing for the rescue of pagan peoples from the impurity and guilt and bondage of sin. It will be a long step forward, and one which we ought to be in a hurry to take, when there shall be no disciple in our fellowship, and no smallest company of believers, who have not some offering to lay on the altar for the world's conversion.

The question of special pertinency and pressing importance is - What of the coming year? The Prudential Committee through the Home Secretary has not laid too much emphasis on its statement of the case. Our very success has become to us an embarrassment. Had our churches and or individual donors done less last year, it would have been easier to reach the standard set up by them. But an advance of $100,000 over the preceding year, with no movement in sight which contemplates large special gifts, may well bring us to our knees for wisdom to meet the emergency.

How, then, shall we front the situation? Shall we yield to the spirit of faint-heartedness? Shall we fold our hands and say the thing cannot be done? God forbid! For in God's might the thing can be done. Faith, courage, consecration, system, work-all illuminated and quickened by the energy of prayer-will surely turn the currents of gold and silver into the treasury of the Lord, and we shal marvel at the close of the present fiscal year, as we marveled at the close of the last fiscal year, at the wonderful way in which men have been constrained to give of their means for the speedy setting up of the kingdom for whose coming we plead. Indeed there must be no relaxing of enthusiasm, and no abating of heart and hope, until the million a year for foreign missions has been realized, and the splendid dream has become still more splendid fact.

But still again, how front the present situation? On the basis of what expectation and by what method may we hope to leap the chasm of the $150,000 which the Prudential Committee tells us yawns before us, and which we must somehow cross in order to reach the high standard of last year We venture to make three suggestions looking toward securing the extra amount which seems to be required.

1. Ask the Sunday-schools connected with our Congregational churches to increase their offering over last year to the extent of $25,000. One hundred schools pledging $100 extra would yield as

$10,000. One hundred schools pledging $50 extra would yield us $5,000. Four hundred schools pledging $25 extra would yield us $10,000. Here we have our total of $25,000. Is it not possible to form plans and to set agencies in motion which will certainly and even easily accomplish this end? 2. Ask the Societies of Christian Endeavor connected with our Congregational churches to increase their offerings over last year to the extent of $25,000. One of the most potent factors in the churches of our order to-day, and one of the most hopeful signs of the times, greets us in these Societies of Christian Endeavor. Into no form of work do they enter with more enthusiasm than sending the gospel to foreign lands. Nothing would suit these young people better than to be led to buckle down to some task which would tax their energies to the utmost, and at the same time give them the joyous feeling of being in fellowship with Christ and with all who love and serve Christ in bringing the entire race into subjection to the truth. An organization which can send 30,000 and more of its members from all parts of the land to New York city, to sit in convention day after day and night after night in the heat of midsummer, at their own expense for railroad tickets and hotel fare, may be counted upon to respond with alacrity to any reasonable appeal presented to its constituency, and to make sacrifices, and large sacrifices, if necessary, to meet an emergency. Last year we turned to the men of wealth to aid in increasing our contributions. This year let us turn to the young, and make our campaign one of instruction and development as well as of appeal. These societies can be classified after a plan similar to the one suggested for the Sunday-schools, and amounts apportioned sufficient to yield the $25,000 extra.

3. Ask the churches of our Congregational body, and such other churches as may elect to do their foreign missionary work through this Board, to increase their subscriptions and contributions by a round $100,000. God helps brave men. God helps hopeful men. Not yet have we sufficiently learned the sublime lesson that God loves to open Red Seas to men when men are ready to walk through them. Last year a couple of large-minded and large-hearted constituents of the Board conceived the idea of raising an extra $100,000 from the business men. They themselves gave munificent sums to this end. Only a little more than half the amount aimed at was secured in this way. But God honored this effort by opening unexpected channels of beneficiaries, and the $100,000 and more was forthcoming. If we plan large things, if we go forward in the expectation of large things, God will not fail us. Maybe that some of the very men who gave extra amounts last year to help swell the total of the receipts of the Board found so much joy in it and so much blessing for their souls, that without any plans or concert, they will do the same this year. New friends will be raised up. The churches can be made to see that as yet they are only "playing with missions." When they once see this, how small would seem the task of giving the extra $100,000 here urged upon them!

In the carrying out of these suggestions there will need to be hearty coöperation between the pastors and the officers of the Board, but there will need to be especially hearty coöperation between the pastors and the leading members of their churches. With faith and enthusiasm all along the line the record for this year can be made to outshine the record for any previous year in the history of the American Board.

Three members of the Committee on the Home Department, Rev. Messrs. A. H. Bradford, F. S. Fitch, and J. W. Cooper, presented a supplementary report as follows: The great and overwhelming appeal of the Home Department is for more money and for more men. It is to be definitely understood by our churches that unless the Prudential Committee can," before they make their regular annual appropriations a few weeks hence, receive reliable assurance, in some form, of not less than $150,000 additional to what may be reasonably expected from regular donations and legacies," they "will be obliged to reduce by that amount the work upon the missionary field ”— "and what this means," says the report of the Home Department, "we dare not allow ourselves to picture."

Your Committee therefore respectfully but urgently ask that the several recommendations herewith offered be taken into immediate consideration by the whole constituency of the Board: be carefully and prayerfully reviewed in detail, and that pledges of interest and support be sent at once from all over the field to the Prudential Committee.

It is also to be understood by our churches that there are fewer missionaries at work to-day in foreign lands under the direction of this Board than there were twelve months ago. "This work calls aloud for not only the contributions of the churches but for their sons and daughters, and the requirements and responsibilities of the work demand the choicest and the best."

In view of these great facts it is of the largest practical importance, at this juncture, that every possible misunderstanding concerning the basis on which missionaries are appointed by the Board should be removed from the minds of the churches and of the young men and women contemplating missionary service, and we therefore recommend the adoption of the following resolutions:

Resolved, That young men and young women, of approved Christian character, possessing the needed physical and mental qualifications, who accept heartily the creeds of their respective churches, and the fundamental doctrines of the gospel as set forth in the "Burial Hill Declaration of Faith," and in the creed of the Congregational Commission of 1883, should be accepted by the Prudential Committee as suitable candidates for missionary service.

Resolved, That the missionaries of this Board, while holding these fundamental truths, "shall have the same right of private judgment in the interpretation of God's Word, and the same freedom of thought and speech as are enjoyed by their ministerial brethren in this country," whether in the pastorate or in the employ of other benevolent societies of the denomination.

The Committee on African Missions, Rev. D. O. Mears, D.D., Chairman:

The reports of the Zulu, East Central, and West Central African Missions placed in our hands are almost romantic in their enumerations of difficulties met and overcome. The fair skies of hope are here and there darkened by clouds. The evils of heathenism are increased by contact with foreign influences of peoples who seem to have lost the light they had centuries ago. Missionary life is sadly tested by facing so heavy a work while hearing from the Board of the possibility of a cutting down of appropriations. The thinning ranks of the workers, through ill-health and death, would discourage but for their unbounded confidence in God's Word. The power of the gospel is emphasized in lives turned from heathenish corruption into exemplary models. The schools attest the intellects wakened into life by the new faith.

In most respects the work is encouraging, especially in the affairs of the mission toward Gazaland. Questions of good government, of law, and of labor remind us of a progress springing from the gospel hope. Natal has struck for "home rule," under the republican spirit. The commercial growth is registered in the increasing reports of industry.

Church life has its bright and dark phases, such as we can well understand; but on the whole there is progress both in numbers and in character. The solution of a large problem depends upon the action of the Board with reference to enlargement. Your Committee recommend to the Board the acceptance of the reports, including in such recommendation their warm approval of the work.

The Committee on Missions in Turkey, Rev. S. H. Howe, D.D.,

Chairman:

The Committee finds in the comprehensive reports of the Prudential Committee ample justification for the large outlay of interest in and expenditure of means and missionary force upon what is perhaps the most conspicuous, certainly the most thoroughly equipped, of the missions of the Board. For the perfection of its organization, for the careful and wise distribution of its forces, for the number and heroic quality of its missionaries, and for its results and gathered fruits it holds, and has ever done, high place in the interest and affection of the Board's constituency. But missions in Turkey, while rich in present fruits gathered from the accessible populations of the empire, hold important relations to the larger missionary problems of the future. They are the highway cast up in the desert over which the gospel is to pass to larger conquests among people yet inaccessible.

The reports of the Prudential Committee, covering the work of the four great divisions of the field in Turkey, exhibit the usual vicissitude of steady advance and progress in many of our missions and of decline or stationariness in others, with however an encouraging balance on the side of growth in the work as an entirety. To some of the missions during the year has been added a more effective equipment. Some have witnessed special seasons of religious quickening and revival; most of them have known steady, healthful growth. The educational work of the schools and colleges has been efficiently maintained. As in other fields educational forces are taking here a large office, but need to be still further strengthened by generous outlays of money for their more thorough and complete equipment. Some of the missions have been seriously trammeled by governmental interference, but we note with gratitude the prompt response of our own and the British government for their protection in the prosecution of their work.

Your Committee desire to express unqualified approval of the methods and measures emploved by the Board for the prosecution of its work in the great empire where some of the great problems of the world's and the church's future await solution.

The Committee on Missions in India and Ceylon, Rev. A. W. Hazen, D.D., Chairman:

We find the record of the last year in India full of encouragement and also of pathos. Long years of depletion by death and weariness have left the Marathi Mission far too weak. Its call for men is imperious. The Madura Mission is better manned, but it is so crippled by lessened appropriations that it cannot think the Prudential Committee were aware of the true nature of their action in so ch