American Missionary | Page 7

just pass the contribution box 'round, da
goes 'pooh!' and dar ain't nothin' left of 'em." It has not been my
experience that there are many pasteboard Christians in the district of
New England. Systematic giving, giving constantly, giving because the
safety of our country requires it, and the kingdom of Christ demands it;
this is the sort of giving which I have found to be the rule.
But there must be systematic spending as truly as systematic giving.
The gifts of the churches must be husbanded, and the churches must be
warned from time to time against wasteful and unwise efforts, by which
others are seeking to do the work, which is being done systematically
through your agent, the American Missionary Association.
My personal experience as Field Superintendent, has pressed upon me
the imperative importance of this side of the responsibility which this
Association holds to the churches. One must pass back and forth often,
and become personally familiar with this great field, before he can
understand the importance of the systematic spending of this
Association. Wrecks of schools and churches are not few in the
Southland. Godly men and women and godless adventurers have
experimented in many places. Money has been and is being wasted,
that might be used to great and permanent advantage if contributed
through the A.M.A. and disbursed according to the principles which
long experience has proved to be sound.
It is the purpose of this paper to emphasize some of the facts
concerning this great missionary field, and to point out the advantages
of systematic spending, which you secure when you commit your funds
to this society rather than to the hap-hazard efforts which you have no
power to supervise and no control over.
An organized society controlled and directed by those who contribute is

the surest possible way of securing this systematic spending. This
method has both negative and positive advantages:
I. It prevents waste.
(a.) Waste in administration of funds. Its accounts are open to and
audited by those whose money is being spent. Reports of the financial
standing, receipts and expenditures to the half-penny are presented
every year. Look them over and note how minutely your accounts are
kept. Officers and missionaries are held by you to strictest
responsibility. This is sound business sense applied to missionary work.
But one naturally asks why, when such absolute safeguards are thrown
around the administration of the funds committed to the A.M.A., some
of those who established those safeguards give a considerable portion
of their money to individuals over whose expenditure they have
absolutely no control, and where funds may be, and often are, wasted?
And in this way the percentage of the cost of administering the funds
committed to the A.M.A. is also increased. This can scarcely be called
sound business wisdom.
(b.) Waste in field work. It requires wide experience and knowledge of
the whole field in order to adjust and direct, without waste of laborers,
the force of missionaries. Those who know only one locality cannot do
this. It is often remarked that each missionary thinks his particular field
the most important, and the one especially needing help and
enlargement. This is a grand tribute to their faithfulness and Christian
enthusiasm. But the systematic investigation of the whole field,
constantly and patiently carried on as it is by the A.M.A., determines
with larger wisdom whether work should be strengthened and
developed in Tennessee, or Georgia, or Texas. Gen. Grant was familiar
with the whole field, and placed his men according to the varying
exigencies of the campaign. Just so the systematic methods of this
Association place these noble missionaries where there will be least
waste of labor.
But there are also positive advantages secured by the systematic
methods of the A.M.A. in expending the money committed to its
treasury.
II. It secures proportion in different parts of the work.
(a.) In appeal.--This Association, constituted, as it is, the immediate
agent of the churches, ought to be your watchman on the tower.

Every pastor is crowded with parish duties. Few intelligent laymen can
give time enough to study thoroughly the whole field covered by the
missions of the A.M.A. It is now an enormous field. Representatives of
five distinct races, Japanese, Chinese, Indians, Mountain Whites and
Negroes wait for Christian instruction very largely upon the
missionaries you are sending out.
Now, no one who is not compelled by official duties to do it can find
time, nor has he the information at hand, to investigate thoroughly each
department of this missionary work. The A.M.A. is your agent to
discover, through careful and patient investigation, the exact facts, and
so to direct its appeals to the churches that the department of work
which is especially pressing may be given due prominence. Systematic
spending involves this.