the schedule of the preceding year, except so far as retrenchments had been found to be practicable and had been voluntarily effected in some of the missions, near the close of said year.

Your Committee are constrained by a proper regard to the interests with which they are charged, to state further, that the process of reduction in its apprehended scope, has not yet reached its largest extent, nor have the missions yet come to the knowledge of its prospective severity. The year on which we have entered must meet some engagements entered into before retrenchment was anticipated; and adjustments are yet to be made which will swell the expenditures of the current year beyond its assumed income, unless the outlay involved in those adjustments is counterbalanced by reducing still lower the ordinary current appropriations to the missions. In a word, the process

of reduction must extend to the native assistants in the Asiatic missions as well as to schools, those excepted that are supported by donations so designated; the appropriations for native laborers being reduced three-fourths in the French mission also, and onehalf in the German.

In this most painful work of retrenchment, the Committee have the satisfaction to state that they have been aided by the missions with all possible promptitude. Generous efforts have been made also, in numerous instances, to meet the exigencies of the missions by pecuniary contributions from resident or neighboring European communities and individuals, as well as from missionaries and native churches. It is an alleviation of no trivial account, in the existing calamity, that it presents opportunity and motive for native effort, tending effectively to hasten in the missions the period of their independent self-support.

RECEIPTS AND EXPENDITURES.

By reference to the last Annual Report it will be seen, that the standard of receipts and expenditures there proposed for the fiscal year now just closed, was $130,000; $100,000 of which should be appropriated to the ordinary expenditures of the year, and $30,000 to meet the deficiency of the previous year. This proposal contemplated a reduction of more than $45,000 in the disbursements, and an increase of full $15,000 in the receipts, as compared with the previous year. To this double task the Executive Committee addressed themselves with all the fidelity and energy they could command, and, so far as the receipts are concerned, the result has justified their highest anticipation. The life-members and other friends of the Union came forward promptly to meet the emergency which had arisen. Pledges, it will be remembered, were made at Chicago to be redeemed on certain specified conditions; other pledges were secured by members of the Executive Committee in Boston and its vicinity; in accordance with the direction of the Board, circulars, asking a do

nation of ten per cent. on the sum paid for life-membership, were sent out to more than three thousand life-members of the Union; churches, to a considerable extent, in different parts of the country made special collections for this object; benevolent individuals, here and there, apprized of our wants and prompted by a love for missions, unsolicited and unknown by name, sent in their offerings; and, from all these sources, $25,378 07 reached the treasury specially designated to the payment of the debt. Of this sum, $8,456 98 were pledged at Chicago, $2,735 came in direct response to the circular from about two hundred and eighty life-members, while $14,186 09 were received from other sources. Many of the life-members, it should be borne in mind, contributed more than the ten per cent. asked for by the circular, and others sent their offerings undistinguished from the general contributions of their respective churches; so that a larger number of the lifemembers than stated above gave good heed to the call.

It will be seen by comparison, that the donations of the year including those for the deficiency, have exceeded those of the year ending with March, 1854, by less than one thousand dollars; and exclusive of the deficiency, are less than the donations of the year closing with those for March, 1855, by $9,222 84. This last result was not unexpected; as special efforts always withdraw from the stated and regular contributions, and are to be avoided except in cases of extreme urgency. It may be further stated, in this connection, that the donations from Sunday Schools amounted to $5,999 60, an advance on any previous year.

Inasmuch as the reduction in disbursements fell principally on the foreign department, we will refer to it, at this point, only to say that the sums expended at the Rooms and in the agency department, as will be seen by referring to the Treasurer's Report, are less, in the aggregate, by several thousand dollars than in some previous years.

The expenditures of the year ending with March, 1856, have been, for

Civilization of the Ojibwa, Ottawa and Delaware Indians,
Scriptures in China, Assam, Nellore, Germany and France,
Tracts in Germany, Greece, Burmah and Nellore,
Balance of salaries of Secretaries and Treasurer,

For all other purposes specified in the Treasurer's Report,

96,328 42

Total of expenditures,

The receipts of the year have been, from

Donations, as acknowledged in the Magazine,

$106,898 42

Legacies,

$111,646 43 6,488 38

Sale of real estate in Rockford, Illinois,

563 00

66

"meeting house lately occupied by the Ottawa Indians in Mich.,

100 00

One year's interest on a bequest of the late Miss Martha Whiting,

66 00

Grants from the U. S. Gov't, for civilization of North American Indians,

3,000 00

66

66 Am. and Foreign Bible Society, for Scriptures in Asia and
Europe,

3,000 00

66 66

American Tract Society, for tracts in Asia and Europe,

2,200 00

106,898 42

22,595 39

Total expenditures,

Balance of receipts over expenditures,

By which the debt of April 1st, 1855, has been reduced to

$38,737 86

In proposing a scale of expenditures for the present fiscal year, the Executive Committee would turn the attention of the Board to some facts deemed worthy of special consideration at this juncture. By consulting the annual statement of gross receipts and expenditures as given in the reports of the Executive Committee, it will be found that the aggregate amount received from the United States Government and co-ordinate societies, went up, by a regular gradation, from $10,000 in 1847, to $24,000 in 1851, and then receded to $22,000 in 1852, and $20,000 in 1853; from which time it fell off rapidly till 1856, when it amounted to only $8,200. By consulting the Treasurer's reports for a series of years, it will be observed that in 1851, 1852, and 1853, the years when the receipts from the United States Government and coordinate societies had reached their highest point, the legacies amounted to nearly $10,000 a year on an average; a sum almost double the average of the remaining seven of the last ten years. Looking still further into the accounts of the Treasurer, it will be noticed that in 1853 and 1854 large sums were received from the sale of property at Grand Rapids, Michigan; in the former year $5,000, and in the latter $6,500. All these causes conspired together to swell the aggregate of receipts, and induce a scale of appropriations and expenditures for several years which the Board would not now be justified in adhering to; for during the last year the income from these sources was only one third of what it was in 1851. Turning your attention to the donations from churches and individuals, you find that these have advanced for the last ten years, including the last, at the rate of about $3,600 a year; and have gone up from $80,000 in 1847, to $111,000 in the year closing with March, 1856, the average receipts per year being about $92,000. Had there been no material fluctuations in this source of income, you might safely expect to receive, the current year, $115,000, without any extra effort, from donations alone. Material fluctuations have existed within the last year or two, and causes are now at work which admonish the Board to test well the ground on which they propose to tread. Leaving out of the account entirely the last two years, and taking the average of the

three years next preceding those, we have, in round numbers, $100,000; which sum the Executive Committee indulge the hope may be realized the current year. Add to this $7,000, the average from legacies the last five years, and $8,000 which may safely be anticipated from the United States Government and co-ordinate societies, and you have the sum of $115,000 as the available means at the disposal of the Board.

If from this view the Board turn their attention to the missions and the disbursements for their support, they will see, at a glance, the practical difficulty of reducing expenditures at once from a scale of $145,000 to one of $100,000 per annum. Time is consumed in transmitting information to the missions; and then, as an example of what has actually transpired, contracts had been entered into for lands and the erection of houses, which must be consummated or serious loss incurred. Hence it must

be expected by the Board, that, while the actual disbursements of the treasury for the last fiscal year amounted to no more than $106,895 42, other expenses have been incurred which have not yet come into account, and, with the outlay properly belonging to the current year, will render necessary larger disbursements than in the year past. In view, then, of the necessities of the missions on the one hand, and the average receipts in donations and lega cies for the last few years on the other hand, the Executive Committee dare not propose less, nor do they deem it safe to propose more than $115,000 as the amount to be raised and expended for ordinary purposes by the Union, during the current year.

Thus much is set down irrespective of the indebtedness of the Union, which still amounts, as the Board are aware, to $38,737 86. The Board is also aware that no institution of this character, dependent as it is on the good will of the people for its existence and means of usefulness, and having no resources apart from the benevolence of the churches, ought to suffer itself to be encumbered with debt and subjected to the necessity of paying, year by year, large sums for money borrowed. The work of the missionary Union cannot move forward as it ought to do, till this indebtedness is wiped away. It is hoped that the Board will give earnest consideration to this subject during the present session, and propose a sum of not less than $15,000 to be paid on the debt, which, added to the amount for current expenses, will make an aggregate for the year of $130,000.

The following table shows how much has been received, in donations and legacies, from every State in the home field of the Union, in each of the ten years since the re-organization; also the average annual contribution by each State the first nine years, and the average for each communicant the last or tenth year.

1846-47. 1847-48. 1848-49. 1849-50. 1850-51. 1851-52. 1852-53. 1853-54.

$85,009.24 $85,894.42 $88,902.99 $86,853.00 $95,776.35 $99,814.69 $108,186.55 $114,847.42 $102,164.58 $96,373.08

$117,600.07