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virtue of self-sacrifice rooted in love for AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION. God and man.

But find me the church which nourishes these primal conditions in her heart of hearts, and makes them good in her life, free from the fatal drift, then that church may be yours and mine, or some other standing at the other pole from yours and mine; and there you will find me a Church of the living God. And this was the heart, -the old, Puritan heart, -at its best, from which we hail. It is true they had their faults, but they held these first conditions of the Church of the living God; and true that their conceptions of his truth were very much as if you should narrow down the sunlight to an auger-hole over against a darkened room, while you stand in the strong, white splint, and say, This is all we can have; but this is ours, and the world abideth in darkness. But they could not be cast out, as they could not stay where Calvin had put them; and the door was smitten with dryness, and the roof was lifted, and the light came in, full and fair. And we, their children, sit in the light. Yet, dear friends, unless we have a faith as deep as it is broad, and stand free from the drift, holding well to the primal conditions, we can never attain even to their worth in the Church of the living God.

But this we can do, by his help and blessing, and our own continuance in welldoing, not dissatisfied, but unsatisfied, and, like those of whom Plutarch tells, never quite content with the good but striving still after a better and a best.

We can clasp the perpetual revelation of His truth to our hearts, come from where it may,-through His prophets and seers, and no fear can hold us. If we are true to our trust, then we shall answer to the grand old Scotchman's word,

"There are who live as near to God
As my right arm is near to me;
And thus they walk about,
Mailed in full proof,

And bear a charm that mocks at fear,
And bars the door on doubt."

Try to keep clear of prejudice, and be willing to alter any opinion you may hold when further light breaks upon your mind. He is clever beyond precedent, or weak beyond measure, who never sees reasons to change his judgment of men and things. William Unsworth.

Report of the Board of Directors by the Secretary, Geo. Batchelor.

To the Members of the American Unitarian Association :

During the past year your directors have, under somewhat embarrassing conditions, given constant and careful attention to the tasks which you have assigned to them. In making our report, we call your attention, first of all, to the business aspects of our work and the manner in which we have dealt with them.

Our first difficulty has been the necessity of not spending money which we did not have. This necessity, taken by itself, would have given us no anxiety, had it not been for obligations already incurred and the high-pitched expectations of our constituency. The rate of expenditure had been fixed for us at a time when throughout the country money was easily made and generously spent, and when, also, annual drafts were made upon funds of the Association which are no longer available. While some of you have encouraged us in our reduction of expenditure, and a few have urged us to still more severe economies, the majority of our constituents in all parts of the country have brought constant pressure upon us to spend money without regard to our annual resources, because so much work lies in sight, undone, and because so many promising enterprises have been crushed or crippled by the commercial disasters of the last four years. The work is great, and the motives are inspiring; but the free action so exhilarating to a cheerful worker has been impossible. It has been difficult to keep the sober pace required by necessity to save the old beginnings, without losing the new possibilities, to look backward enough for safety and forward enough for inspiration.

In our American fashion, we speak somewhat lightly of the "playing out of booms" and the "bursting of financial bubbles." Now booms are only enthusiastic expectations lived up to, and bubbles are as light as air. But, when financial bubbles burst, they destroy as if they were charged with dynamite; and the "tail-end of a boom" often leaves a trail as desolate as the track of a tornado. The whole country has passed through a period of financial tribulation. Every interest has suffered; and our work has been made more difficult by the double necessity imposed upon us of reducing our expenditure and increasing our helpfulness at the same time.

The bequests made to the Association during the year have been as follows: from Mrs. Eliza S. Nevins, Boston, Mass., $2,500; from Winthrop Faulkner, Grafton, Mass., $1,815.43; from Miss Jeanie Pomeroy, Stockbridge, Mass., $1,000; from Mrs.

Sarah Stout, Plainfield, N.J., $1,000; from Nathan M. Wright, Lowell, Mass., $1,000; from Mrs. Maria Cutler, Boston, Mass., $511.53; from Miss Caroline Wood, Boston, Mass., $250.

The differences between annual expenditure and annual income, brought forward in our accounts from previous years, have now been provided for by the Finance Committee, so that to-day the only obligation of every kind for the past is $1,780.

The estimated expenditure of all kinds for the coming year is inside of $67,000, which is less than the income of last year. Your directors, through their various committees and as a whole, have agreed to a limit of expenditure in each department corresponding to this fixed sum. They have also agreed that in no case shall the limit be exceeded, unless later in the year there shall be a marked increase in the income to warrant it. We have assisted some ancient churches that had been weakened by no fault of their own. We have helped newer enterprises on the way to selfsupport. We have encouraged a few movements which were too hopeful to be suppressed. And now the demand comes from every department for increased activity. We are ready to go forward just so fast and so far as our constituents desire, and will justify by their contributions.

We hear frequently the complaint that the Association is too much a Northern institution or an Eastern institution. We answer that we are doing our best to change the centre of gravity. We should be very glad to see it transferred to New York, and still more glad when the majority of our churches shall be west of Chicago.

The Southern Conference complains of the lack of representation on our board of directors. The complaint is just, and next year there should be a readjustment. In the West the clouds have rolled away; and throughout the country we can report a unanimity of thought and feeling concerning the purposes for which we work and the means which it is desirable to use which is altogether unprecedented in our history.

New houses of worship have during the past year been built and dedicated at San Diego, Cal., at a cost of $3,000, with a debt to the Loan Fund of $2,500; at Santa Ana, Cal., at a cost of $3,000, without debt; at Ontario, Cal., at a cost of $3,500, with a debt to the Loan Fund of $1,500; at Redlands, Cal. (refitted from an old one), at a cost of $2,150; at Waverley, Mass., at a cost of $5,800, with a debt to the Loan Fund of $2,000; at Passaic, N. J., at a cost of $8,312, with a debt to the Loan Fund of $4,000; at Hudson, Wis., at a cost of $3,550, with a debt to the Loan Fund of $800. In all these cases you will observe that the annual instalment due the Loan Fund, without interest, will not exceed the rent of a hall.

Ten of the beginnings, which we have accounted to be, for the present, hopeless, were last January dropped from our list of churches. Fourteen, which seemed to have breathed into them the breath of life, we have added. The new names are Brookline, Mass. (Second Unitarian Society), Gouverneur, N. Y., Hanska, Minn., Ida Grove, Ia., Lemoore, Cal., Manchester, Mass. (summer), Newton Highlands, Mass., New Ulm, Minn., Ridgewood, N.J., Rockville, Conn., St. Anthony Park, Minn., Union Springs, N. Y., Visalia, Cal., and Westerly, R. I.

We have Unitarian book-rooms and headquarters at San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and Boston. The Boston headquarters are maintained by the income of invested funds. $250 (one-fourth the cost) is given to the headquarters in San Francisco; and $300 has been put at the disposal of the secretary, to be used, if necessary, in co-operation with the Western Conference, to establish a book-room in Chicago.

The Church Building Loan Fund continues its good work. Mistakes have been made, hopes have been excited which could not be realized, churches have sometimes been tempted to undertake more than they could perform, and distress has sometimes followed the incurring of too great obligations. But now, taught by experience, the trustees are more careful to reduce the expectations of borrowers to the limit of their probable ability to repay. Used in this way, the fund is an undoubted blessing. There are several of the older churches which are heavily burdened with debt, and which would gladly avail themselves of the aid of the Loan Fund. the rules under which the trustees act, all loans are limited to $5,000. The fund was given for church-building purposes, and cannot be used for other objects without a total change in the rules under which the trustees act. If the advantage of a large loan, without interest, were given to one church, it should be given to all churches with similar burdens. The fund is not large enough to make this possible. It is mostly invested in church buildings throughout the United States.

By

Within ten miles from the State House in Boston we have now fifty-nine churches. During the past ten years we have added but four to the number. In the next ten years that number should be increased by forty. This increase would furnish to our own people, who are constantly moving away from the centres of business, accommodations which are necessary. Not only would our migrating Unitarian population be furnished with the spiritual privileges to which they have been accustomed, butwhat is of vastly more importance- their children would be protected from the energetic propagandism of other churches or saved from the indifference and spiritual

apathy which often come with social isolation and religious disfranchisement. The potent argument against Unitarianism met by your officers in all parts of the country is that favorite assertion made by revivalists and others that "Unitarianism is dying in Boston." Nothing would give such an impulse to our missionary work throughout the country as a warning uttered by the same men to the effect that "Unitarianism is growing in Boston." That which is true of Boston is true, also, of other great cities.

FOREIGN MISSIONS.

Our relations with the Unitarian churches of Hungary are very cordial. All Americans who visit these churches return with an enthusiastic admiration for our brave and devoted brethren who, under the Catholic government of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, still maintain their liberties, and, vastly out of proportion to their scanty numbers, furnish the leaders in all movements of political and social progress. Acting with the British and Foreign Unitarian Association, we have appropriated $300 to the church in Budapest. Our mission in Japan continues. Rev. Clay MacCauley, our representative there, last Friday met your directors; and, after a full consideration of the matter, they voted to authorize the Committee on Foreign Missions to appropriate $2,250 additional for the current fiscal year. This continues the appropriation, at the rate of $4,500, to the 1st of May, 1898. Rev. Clay MacCauley, the superintendent of the mission, will this afternoon present its claims, and show the kind of work it has been doing in Japan.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE.

The Christian Register has been partially endowed, and plans are making to improve its quality and enlarge its circulation. The Pacific Unitarian, the Old and New, and the Unitarian, with several minor periodicals, are doing effective work. The New World, a magazine established by aid of our Association, but unsectarian in its administration, fitly represents our highest thought. It is exceedingly desirable that our periodical literature shall have ample support. Necessarily, because we are few in number, the great world pays little attention to what we say; but our own people are amply able to give these journals generous support, and greatly assist thereby in all the work we do.

THE MINISTRY.

The permanence of the Unitarian Church, its enlargement, and the increase of its influence, depend, first of all, upon the number and quality of the men and women

admitted to its ministry. We have three principal sources of supply, -the Divinity Schools at Cambridge and Meadville, and the ministry of other churches introduced by the Fellowship Committee. A careful investigation has been made by your officers to learn what number is furnished to our ministry by each of these agencies. The figures report themselves after this fashion: The total number of ministers in the Year Book is 529. Of these, on January 1, 378 were settled, and 151 were not settled. Of the unsettled ministers, 66 had retired from active life, 65 were engaged in various occupations, -as professors, teachers, lawyers, and in business of various kinds,leaving 20 who were still candidates.

Of these 529 ministers, 133 were from Meadville, and 33 of them were unsettled; 157 were from Cambridge, and 53 of them were unsettled; 239 came from other sources of supply, and of them 65 were unsettled. In this case the other sources of supply" includes all those who took partial courses at Cambridge and Meadville, and became candidates without graduation.

During the last ten years the Fellowship Committee appointed by the National Conference has been authorized to examine the credentials of ministers who come to us from the other sources of supply." During these ten years we find that about 282 men and women-an average of about 28 a year-have been candidates for Unitarian pulpits. Of this number, 102 have never been settled. Their names, therefore, do not appear in the Year Book.

Classifying these 282 candidates, we find that 110 have come through the Fellowship Committee, 88 from Meadville, and 84 from Cambridge. Of the 110 received through the Fellowship Committee during the last ten years, 47 are now settled in Unitarian parishes, 14 who have been settled are now

candidates, 49 have never been settled. Of the 88 coming from Meadville in ten years, 41 are now settled, 13 who have been settled are now candidates, and 33 were never settled or have fallen out of our ministry. Of the 84 received from Cambridge in ten years, 61 are now settled, 3 who have been settled are now candidates, and 20 have never been settled or have fallen out of our ministry. Of the 88 from Meadville, 65 were graduated and 23 became candidates without graduation. Of the 84 from Cambridge, 33 were graduated, 25 were resident graduates, of whom 14 had already graduated at Meadville, 13 were special students, and 13 were regular students, not graduated.

To recapitulate, we have 378 settled ministers, of whom Cambridge furnished 104, Meadville 100, the Fellowship Committee and other agencies 174. We have had in ten years 282 new candidates for settlement in our churches, of whom 102 have not been settled.

To get a bird's-eye view of our ministry

and the sources upon which we depend, a convenient locality to be studied is bounded by the ten-mile limit from the State House in Boston. In this district there are 59 Unitarian churches. Of the ministers of these churches, 15 graduated at Meadville, 16 at Cambridge, 5 came by recommendation of the Fellowship Committee, and 23 from other sources. Of these 23, some, no doubt, took partial courses at Cambridge and Meadville, and some came from other denominations before the Fellowship Committee was organized; 3 of them were graduates of Harvard College. Of the 16 graduated from Cambridge Divinity School, 5 were also graduates of Harvard College.

These figures seem to indicate an astonishing amount of misdirected effort and unrecorded misery which ought to be preventable. Some of these one hundred new candidates-to say nothing of candidates already admitted to the ministry-might be employed with profit to all concerned, if we had the means to sustain them in

missionary work. But, aside from this, there is evidently a difference between the standards of the parishes and the standards of the candidates. Who are right, the candidates or the parishes? This is a subject for the careful consideration of the faculties of our divinity schools, the Fellowship Committee, and the parishes. Your directors do not feel called upon to answer these questions, but they lead up to other questions which involve our most vital interests.

We

We know that many intelligent persons regard the Church with indifference. know that many Unitarian parents would not advise their children to become ministers. But we are also certain that the decline of the Church and the extinction of the ministry would be the sign, if not the cause, of moral calamities which no patriot would willingly contemplate. Let us admit the most serious charges that can be made against modern society and the Church. Let us admit that irreligion is prevalent. Let us admit that in many congregations the ideals are worldly, selfish, and trivial. Let us admit that what is called success in the ministry is often more showy than substantial. Let us admit that the parishes often encourage mere glibness of speech and tricks of rhetoric, that they often neglect men who are wise and good, and honor those who are shallow and selfish. What, then?

Taking the most pessimistic view possible, we still have to say that men and women are called to the ministry in order to raise the standard of modern society and

the Church. It is their business to disclose the loftier ideal, and to make the Church worthy of its high calling. We have need of preachers of the living word and shepherds of the people who recognize the obstacles which lie before them, and are able to surmount them, - -men with a

The

message which has carrying power. message makes the man. Let our parishes recognize this fact. Let them set a high ideal above all worldly considerations, and it will not be long before religion will press into its service both the genius of the unlearned saint and the trained ability of the scholar. Let the word go out to our Unitarian families in which are youth for a high career. Let it be proclaimed in our colleges and universities that we have five hundred religious societies organized for the common good, with a lofty and unselfish ideal; and then, as flowers follow the sun, so will magnanimous souls be drawn into the ministry of religion. Any group of five hundred religious societies, so working, will hold the keys of the future. Reduced to its simplest terms, the task of the American Unitarian Association is to get enough of the right kind of ministers into the right kind of churches, organized in the right way for service.

Our financial condition is better than that of any other missionary society in the country of which we have knowledge. The only obstacles which are formidable lie within our own minds, and not in the difficulties before us. We have light, liberty, and opportunity. If, in proportion to these, we have intelligence to use our opportunity, religious enthusiasm to match our liberty, and religion enough to make our light shine, our spiritual fortunes will be secure. If we deserve to succeed, we shall succeed. If we are faithful to the noble traditions which have made our leaders illustrious, and to the principles which we profess, we shall deserve and receive the recognition, the fellowship, and cooperation of those who are doing God's service by serving their fellow-men.

THE ANNIVERSARIES AND SOME

SURPRISES.

The first surprise of arriving delegates who came to Boston to attend the many meetings of Anniversary Week beginning May 24 was the extraordinarily extended view from the steps of our denominational capitol on Beacon Street hill. Is this the new outlook of Unitarianism? It is; and we owe it to our orthodox Congregational brethren, who have torn down and utterly demolished the solid business blocks which formerly closed our view at short range across the street. Before long, however, we shall have to give up this panorama of Tremont Street and all its moving humanity, when another surprise will be prepared for our next anniversary delegates,— nothing less than the smiling countenances

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THE ANNIVERSARIES AND SOME SURPrises.

of our ministerial brethren beaming across the street from the new denominational house they propose to erect, facing ours. If a subway is considered too dangerous, it is to be hoped some sort of suspension bridge, perhaps the stringing up of the old iron creeds across the way, may connect the two buildings.

Turning from this prospect, the arriving delegate must have been surprised to notice the brightened aspect of our own headquarters; and, wondering upon its cause, he could not fail to discover the lavish goldleaf announcements,

"UNITARIAN BOOKS."

Thousands of strangers and visitors pass up and down Beacon Street daily; and the fact that we, like Miss Edgeworth, are prepared to say, "I am now ready to produce my books and to abide by them in any court," will doubtless have its effect.

It is probable that late arrivals were consoled to find the saints forlorn, for the usual King's Chapel service opening the week at about the breakfast hour was this year omitted. That was a surprise to some, others did not know about it at all, few seemed conscious of the change. It was carefully planned, however; and the next morning the great white angel of our church, whose glorious voice has lost nothing of its dear familiar brogue, conducted the service, and the hour made nine o'clock, and certain doorkeepers of the faith set to count the heads of all ministers present. But the result? Alas, it was hardly to be reckoned among the surprises!

However, as Dr. C. C. Everett at the Berry Street Conference succeeded in demonstrating, if we lack in devotion there are still many “reasons” in our religion, and crowds of applauding brethren sought to enforce all the arguments given so skilfully by Rev. J. H. Crooker in the first paper of the week, at Channing Hall on Monday morning, which left atheism, like Wolsey, "naked to his enemies." Among the surprises of Monday afternoon may be cited Mr. Chadwick's suggestion of putting the old creeds to Pegasian service by mounting their scaly backs and circling, Dante-like, the depths of hell. Mr. Chadwick's splendid paper on the real unity of ideals was no surprise, nor was Dr. Hale's

[June

declaration that even the Unitarian ministry has room for more intelligence, although his statement was received with ironic applause.

The greatest surprise of the week doubtless centred in the extraordinary financial statement of the American Unitarian Association, set forth very forcibly in the secretary's report printed on another page of this journal, and of course embodied in the treasurer's statement. It seems that for the first time within most memories expenditure does not exceed income, that, while every other missionary body in the country has been sinking most heavily into debt through the depressing financial times, the Unitarian Association has been able to meet its liabilities and pay its way. This is a pleasant surprise. It should be borne in mind, however, that it has only been accomplished by severe restriction of often greatly needed missionary expenditure. What is certainly true, and would constitute splendid surprise for next year, is that, if $50,000 was added to the year's available resources, by all churches doubling their subscriptions, the American Unitarian Association could most profitably spend every dollar of it.

a

It is well to record the names of the following officers who were elected at the annual meeting on Tuesday morning, May 25:

For president, Hon. Carroll D. Wright, Washington.

For vice-presidents, Hon. Joseph W. Symonds, LL.D., Portland, Me.; Mrs. Sarah E. Hooper, Boston; Hon. Dorman B. Eaton, New York; Hon. Thomas J. Morris, Baltimore, Md.; Hon. Daniel L. Shorey, Chicago; Hon. Horace Davis, San Francisco. For secretary, Rev. George Batchelor, Cambridge.

For assistant secretary, George W. Fox, Boston.

For treasurer, George W. Stone, Boston. For directors to serve till May, 1900, Rev. Howard N. Brown, Boston; Archibald M. Howe, Cambridge; Rev. Austin S. Garver, Worcester; Rev. Samuel Eliot, Brooklyn, N.Y.; Mrs. Mary Louise Catlin, Brooklyn, N.Y.; Francis Cutting, San Francisco.

At the afternoon meeting of the same day Rev. Clay MacCauley of Tokio, Japan, presented his annual report as representative of

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