ANNUAL REPORT OF THE SECRETARY.

THE Directors of the Association have held their usual meetings on the second Tuesday of each month, except July and August. They have been very regular in their attention to their duties, which has meant the giving of the entire day on which meetings are held, first to the sessions of the committees in the forenoon and second to the full board meeting in the afternoon. In addition to this, special meetings of the committees are not infrequently held. The average attendance of the Directors at all meetings has been very gratifying, and I believe that every Director will testify that he esteems it a great privilege to be called upon to deal with the important and interesting problems which come before the board. The executive officers, whose duty it is to carry out the plans formed by the Directors, are naturally more conspicuous than the other members of the Board, but it should never be forgotten that their actions are but the expression of the careful deliberation and the prolonged discussion of the larger body of your elected officers.

The personal efforts of your National Officers, Field Secretaries, and State Secretaries have been similar to those of last year, and have been so fully set forth in Word and Work that it seems unnecessary now to enter into any elaborate report of the details of the work. Enough to state, as a sample of the service rendered by all of these officers, that the President and Secretary between

them have, during the year, visited 183 churches, preached 99 times, made 42 conference addresses, taken part in 21 installation or dedication services, made 88 addresses at clubs, Alliances, and other week-day church gatherings, making in all 244 public addresses.

In the course of the work of the year these two officers have rendered service in the following thirty-two States: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, District of Columbia, Virginia, South Carolina, Florida, Louisiana, Texas, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Montana, Washington, Oregon, and California.

The gratitude of the Association should be heartily expressed to Rev. Fred V. Hawley, Secretary of the Western Conference, Rev. George H. Badger, Field Secretary for New England, Rev. George W. Stone, Field Secretary for the Pacific Coast, and Rev. William G. Eliot, Jr., State Superintendent for Oregon, for the unceasing faithfulness and marked efficiency with which they have administered their part of the national service. Valuable work has been accomplished by nearly all our State Secretaries; and, where little has been accomplished, it has been due to the circumstances of the case, and not to lack of willingness on the part of our officers.

Rev. Daniel W. Morehouse, for sixteen years the efficient Superintendent of our work in the Middle States, after struggling many months with an illness which has finally enforced his resignation and retirement from active service, has brought to a close a period of denominational service in which we may all take pride. It is with a profound personal affection as well as with a brotherly appre

ciation of good service that I here bear witness to the extraordinary consecration, the kindliness in dealing with ministers and churches, and the wisdom of administration which have marked this long service rendered to the cause in the Middle States. In 1891 Mr. Morehouse sought my services in the building up of a new society in his department, a work in which I was engaged for nine years. I therefore speak from close personal knowledge in bearing witness to his exceptional ability and wisdom in the work of supervising the development of new Unitarian churches. Those of us who have been nearest to this man are the most outspoken in the praise which all give to him, and in the expression of profound regret for his retirement from active service.

The important work of the Middle States Department has been placed in the hands of Rev. George H. Badger, whose service in New England gives a sense of security to all as he takes up his more extended field. This change may possibly lead to a readjustment of the New England work. It was after Mr. Badger's election to the field secretaryship for New England that the readjustment occurred whereby the Association obtained both a President and a Secretary as active national officers. We shall now probably make the attempt to distribute the work of the New England Field Secretary between the President and Secretary of the Association, inasmuch as one or the other of these officers is always in New England, and to employ in the place of a Field Secretary a Field Agent in New England, who shall not have an office at headquarters and shall not have supervisory duties, but shall work under the direction of the Secretary in the nurturing of new or enfeebled societies in the New England States.