MINISTER.

Dear Brother: We, the Secretaries of the American Board, are your servants. Many times have we addressed you. Many times have you answered. Bear with us as once again in this public way we unfold to you our hearts.

Nothing will save the work of the American Board from a backward step but an advance along the line of our annual income of at least one-fourth.

Since 1881 our Congregational Churches have increased nearly fifty per cent, but in 1897 the churches gave about $50,000 less than in 1881. We have had within fifteen years over two million dollars from the Otis and Swett legacies with which to start our Forward Movement and continue it until now, supplementing the gifts of the churches from this Reserve Fund. These legacies are now exhausted, and the bard times, with other patent causes, have lessened our contributions at this critical hour. What shall we do, what can we do but

ASK GOD AND TELL THE CHURCHES?

We appeal to you, the natural leaders of our churches and congregations, to unite with us in a concerted effort to raise at once the standard of our giving at least 25 per cent. The opposite page of this Missionary Herald Extra tells how one church is doing it. A method adapted to your circumstances and the present need will, without doubt, suggest itself to you.

Our part would naturally be to furnish you with all the information and helps possible. If you address Mr. Charles E. Swett, Congregational House, Boston, Mass., he will send you 100 numbers of this Extra, or 1,000 more or less of any particular page of it, or from 100 to 300 copies of the booklet so effectively used in Cambridge.

Our people only need to know the need and have an opportunity, and while one church may not be able to do all it would, another will do more than it expected, and so there will be no lack.

Brother in a common faith and fellowship, consult with those in your church who are men and women of hope and courage! Give your people a chance to give! Somebody will be the leader about whom your workers and givers will gather. Do not break the line, but let us all give together, and the $100,000 needed will come, and the now imperilled work of Christ entrusted to us will be saved.

As part of a movement for informing the churches of the present condition of the actual field work of the American Board, the proper authorities resolved to give to the churches a message direct from the workers.

This message was contained in a little booklet of thirty odd pages, of which one or many will be sent you on request. Copies, with a letter, were sent to all the pastors and to the names of many thousands of members of our Congregational churches.

In the church referred to, the pastor, the Missionary Committee, and others, received this little booklet with its accompanying letter. After some conference it was decided that the work of the American Board was in real peril; that we must do our part, and that the only way to do it was to give the church and congregation in some manner the facts, and the opportunity to give aid.

A circular letter was at once prepared, a copy of which is given below. This letter was signed by all the members of the Missionary Committee and indorsed by the pastor. It was then mailed, with a copy of the booklet, to every family in the church and congregation.

The result was at once apparent; money began to come in in sums that varied very much in amount, but not in the spirit in which they were given. The Missionary Committee expect the sum asked for to be exceeded, and plan further:

Ist. To have the subject referred to later on the church calendar.

2d. To place this booklet or the Missionary Herald Extra in the pews. 3d. Before June ends to have a missionary prayer and thanksgiving service on Sabbath evening.

The circular mailed read as follows:

CAMBRIDGE, MASS., May, 1898.

To the Church and Congregation of the First Church, Cambridge. DEAR FRIENDS:

In view of the pressing needs of the American Board as set forth in the inclosed booklet, the Missionary Committee appointed by the church believe that our church and congregation wish to share in lifting this burden, and we submit the following:

Ist. It is thought that $500 is the amount we should contribute.

:

2d. Any sum, large or small, may be paid at the convenience of the donor before July 1. 3d. The contribution should be placed in the inclosed envelope and handed or mailed

to a member of the committee or to the pastor.

4th. The amount will be given to our church treasurer, and by him sent to the treasurer

of the Board as a special gift.

This ancient church stands pre-eminently for missions.

Here is another opportunity for every one, old and young, to uphold its banner.

Signed by the MISSIONARY COMMITTEE.

I heartily indorse this movement of the Missionary Committee, and trust there will be a ready response from all.

Signed by the

PASTOR.

Send for 100 or 500 of that Booklet, and give every one an opportunity to see it and to give.
CHARLES E. SWETT,

Address

Congregational House, Boston, Mass.

THE following are representative cases of the situation in Turkey, as reported by Rev. C. S. Sanders of Aintab:

Third Church of Aintab.

This is the only church in Aintab now on our list as needing help. We have in the past year aided the First Church a good deal, but probably will not have to do so again. We have no preacher definitely engaged yet for the coming year. The work will probably be done by a young man, a son of one of the old Protestants of Marash, who himself often goes out to preach. This young man was educated in the Central Turkey College, and later in the Theological Seminary at Marash, and later still was called to the church at Biredjik on the Euphrates, where he spent a very happy and very useful three years, during which time he was married.

His work there, however, ended very sadly, for in the dark days before the great massacre began he was arrested for having in his possession some political papers, and, as was alleged, for translating them for distribution. among the people. He was in prison when the massacre took place and thus his life was saved. The general amnesty of last winter made him a free man, and now he will probably be in this church. We have to help this church more than in the days before the massacre, and this man should have about 2,500 piastres — $110.

[Who will see that he has this $110 this year?]

THIS is the place that sustained such a fearful massacre on the 1st of June, 1896. Our little church suffered far more in proportion than either the Gregorian or the Catholic communities, for they saved their lives. Biredjik. by turning Moslems, and for six or more months they were outwardly of the Mohammedan faith. When they came back again we sent them a preacher from Aintab, who has been there ever since and in all probability will continue the coming year. He is a native of Aintab and has seen considerable service as preacher, doing extremely well in some places and not so well in others. In Biredjek he is doing very well.

The Gregorians and Protestants work together here very harmoniously. One preacher preaches twice each Sabbath in the Gregorian Church, and at noon all come over to our church. These services are not real preaching services, however, the afternoon service in the Gregorian Church being much like a Bible class in the midst of the regular vesper service. This preacher is not uneducated, but has not had by any means the equivalent of a full college course. So broken are these people that this year we shall have to give the preacher more than used to fall to our share. On the estimate the amount put down is $132.

In the midst of scenes like this are many native workers. The modest sums asked for their support vary from $79 to $132, averaging about $100.

Are there not men and churches that will see that they have it?

THE American Board has a four-page circular naming special objects to individuals, churches, Sunday schools, and young people's societies. It is well worth your reading. In it are set forth in a clear way the fact that at once the secretaries would be glad to see individuals, churches, or any groups of individuals supporting the objects named below:

One hundred and fifty students in various schools and colleges, at an expense of from $25 to $50 each.

Two hundred and fifty village schools, with endless possibilities, at a cost of from $30 to $50 each.

One hundred and fifty native pastors, the key to the whole future work, at salaries varying from $40 to $180, according to location.

One hundred and fifty catechists, the coming native preachers, who are in the field coöperating with other workers, at a cost of $35 to $60 each.

This work, all under the supervision of the missionaries, whom the natives trust and follow as they will not one another, stands before all our people, and prays that some man or woman, or church or congregation, or Sunday school or Endeavor Society, will come into direct supporting relation.

You can have your catechist, your colporter, your native pastor, your Bible reader, your village school, your missionary-indeed, your station. The special objects named above would, if taken at once, relieve all the work, and seven hundred persons or churches, adding but $20 to $200 to what they are now doing, would provide for all this special work now awaiting your individual or church acceptance.

Send for this circular to Rev. E. E. Strong, Congregational House, Boston.

You are millions strong, and in your hands lies the work of the future. In all matters of business and training the natural way is for the strength, the alertness, the hopefulness of the young to be coupled with the experience and wisdom of their elders in mutual helpfulness.

This generation has seen the greatest uprising of young life on right lines known to the centuries. The answer to the appeal of those not far beyond you in years, or of your own natural leaders, has been the beginnings of a movement heretofore unknown to history.

Allow us, as appointed to the work of caring for the Foreign Mission field, to rally you about a few practical thoughts.

I. Resolve to be represented either individually or in groups, as classes, Endeavorers, etc., by some person on the Mission Field. Begin with a Bible Reader, or some other native helper. Save for it, plan for it, work for it. In this way "go" and "teach.”

II. Plan to give systematically, just as you eat, sleep, work.

III. As deliberately as a man or woman set themselves apart for the work of ministering or teaching, set your mind on doing, according to the measure of your ability, and expect, as your income grows and your life work is entered upon, to rise from supporting a Bible Reader at $12 per annum, to where you will stand, as a supporter, behind a School, a Missionary, a Station.

The churches of the world now give $12,500,000, or about that, annually to the Foreign Mission work. Your generation, moving with the impetus on you now, will easily pass to $50,000,000, and if we rise to the level of the only distinctively Missionary Church of our times, the Moravian, it will soon be $200,000,000.

There is, as you know, no denominational rivalry in these barvest fields. The work is assigned and divided, as well as unified, by a comity that must increase everywhere. Japan, China, Africa, India, are in the travail that precedes and makes possible Christian civilization.

We hope that individually, as well as in and by your varied Organizations and Fellowship Societies, you will take measures looking toward getting into closer personal relations with some person or field; begin to provide yourselves with circulating mission libraries; and read, as you do the news and politics of the day, the story of the fields where the Lord is making, through Mission workers, the world's future.