The Mode of Raising Funds for Church Work [pp. 330-351]

1872.] FINANCES OF THE CHU~CH. 337
and a~~essive movement of the Presbyterian Church, are
found in the financial condition of its Boards and Committees. The facts and figures which exhibit their condition,
they have disseminated widely in their own publications, so
that a detailed statement of them here is not essential. A
few leading facts, relating to the four principal boards, will
be presented, commencing with that of Foreign Missions.
The statements contained in the AJontkiy liccord show that
~u the 1st of January, when eight months of its financial year
had expired, this Board, through which the Presbyterian
Church effects all it accomplishes beyond the boundaries of
our own country, had received, from all sources, bnt a little
more than one-half the amount its necessities required. It
has been compelled to borrow eighty thousand dollars, and
its credit with foreign baM~s has been in danger. What a
spectacle! Grievous embarrassrnent, damaging delay, and a
heavy interest account accruing!
The Board of Home Missions has not been in any degree
less straightened. Notwithstanding that harsh expedient to
which this Board resorts in its emergencies, viz., cutting down
the salaries promised to its ~llssiouaries, which, by its own
testimony, it has pushed this year to the utmost limit, it
was in debt seventy thousand dollars on the 1st of January.
Here again are embarrassment and delay, and an interest
account, with the addition of a plan of economizing that goes
into the families of the poor misslonalles, and suThects them
to severe hardships and privations. "Tell it not in Gath,
publish it not in the streets of Askdou!"
The Board of Church Erection is the "true yoke-fellow" of
Home Missions. When a Church is organ ized, its immediate
and vital want is a house of worship. Vuless in some way
this is supplied, it begins, after a brief time, to disintegrate.
Like a family without a home, it cannot be kept together.
How has this Board fared? Its financial history for the
eight mouths preceding January-fts painful, and in some
respects disastrous, embarrassment, is exhibited in these
statements. While, to keep even with its great work, its income should have been one hundred and thirty-three thousanl