Fruits of Toil in the London Missionary Society | Page 2

understood. Had it
been duly realised, it is incredible that the ministers and churches
which sustain the Society should quietly continue to give for its
maintenance the same narrow income which they gave to it thirty years
ago.

I.--RECENT DIFFICULTIES.
The result of this irrepressible growth, fostered by the kind providence
and loving care of the Master for whom the service has been done, was
for the Directors, in their management of the Society's affairs,
embarrassment, difficulty, and debt. That embarrassment commenced
with the year 1866, when the accounts were closed with a balance of
7450 pounds against the Society, which was paid from the legacy fund
reserved for such a contingency. During the entire year the Directors
had the difficulty in view, and adopted a series of measures to meet it.
Special Meetings were held with the London ministers and officers of
churches, to lay before them the growing needs of our Foreign
Missions. Papers were published by the Home Secretary, showing the
growth of those missions, with the increased claims they present for
agency and help; and urging that an addition of at least 10,000 pounds a
year is needed to the Society's permanent income. In the autumn
Auxiliary meetings the missionary Deputations were urged specially to
make the facts known. In February a solemn and impressive meeting
for prayer was held by a hundred and twenty of the London ministers
and Directors.
But these measures did not at once remove the difficulty. In numerous
instances old friends of the Society, and churches which have ever been
its chief supporters, not only expressed hearty sympathy with these

efforts, but increased their contributions and rendered substantial help.
Various consultations ensued, and a Special Committee was requested,
to indicate the course which, in their calm judgment, the Directors
ought to take, to meet the difficulties of their position.
Their Report pointed out various defects in the Society's system of
account, and in the audit of details in the expenditure which is incurred
abroad. It noted especially that since--on the system till then in
force--the initiative in that expenditure had been placed to a large
extent in the hands of the missionaries themselves, the Board did not
possess sufficient and effective control over its growth and its specific
application. And it recommended that, as in some other Societies, a
system of annual appropriations should be adopted, by which the
available income of each year might be made to sustain existing
schemes of usefulness, without bringing the Society into debt. Further,
the Committee recommended that, as the expenditure had greatly
increased in recent years, on the one hand, in consultation with the
missionaries, that expenditure should be carefully revised; and, on the
other, all available efforts should be made to increase the Society's
income. After full and earnest consideration of this truly valuable
Report, the Board adopted the following RESOLUTIONS, which gave
special satisfaction to the Delegates and country Directors, and met
with the marked approval of all the Society's friends:--
"1. THAT, this Board approve the proceedings of the Special Finance
Committee, in securing the services of a competent Accountant to
examine the system on which the SOCIETY'S ACCOUNTS are kept,
with a view to the introduction of all practicable improvements; and in
instructing their own Accountant to give the details of the principal
Stations, and show the items on which the outlay has taken place.
"2. THAT, with a view to secure a more complete control over the
Society's funds, an ANNUAL ESTIMATE be desired in advance from
every Station and Treasurer abroad, as well as from the Home
Secretary, of all the expenses anticipated for the coming year; that the
Board may sanction, for that year only, such amount as its probable
income may enable it to meet; and THAT all payments be strictly

forbidden unless that definite sanction has been first accorded.
"3. THAT the ACCOUNTS be kept, at home and abroad, on a
COMMON SYSTEM; and that each of the Foreign Committees in the
Mission House be requested to appoint a small AUDIT BOARD,
whose duty it shall be to audit the accounts of the Stations under its
charge, and to see that the expenditure is strictly confined to the sums
which the Board have sanctioned.
"4. THAT all the efforts already carried on for some time to increase
the knowledge, the interest, the contributions, and the prayers of the
Society's friends throughout the country, be continued, and, where
practicable, increased.
"5. THAT the Board regard with the most serious concern the rapid
increase in the expenditure of the various Missions; and, desiring to see
that expenditure not only placed under firm control, but applied in all
respects in the wisest way, they instruct all their Committees most
carefully to REVISE THE ENTIRE EXPENDITURE under their
superintendence, and,