A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

escape the necessity of drinking this bitter draught. Nevertheless, life is worth the living; mere existence is a boon; life under ordinary circumstances is a delight; opportunity to work is a great privilege; and, when properly viewed, the life that most of our readers will be permitted to live for the next twelve months can be made fruitful in labor and rich in experience. Life is very much what we make it. Like a clear brook, it reflects the image that we project into it; if we smile, it smiles back at us; if we weep, it weeps with us. Faith, hope, love, good deeds, worthy living, these are life's treasures, and they are within the reach of all, however humble. Again we say to all, "A happy New Year."

AN EASY WAY OF DOING GOOD.

There are a great many Negroes from the South crowding into Oklahoma Territory. Many of them have secured land and are developing farms, while others are gathered into villages and cities. Langston City, in the eastern part of Logan County, having

*

No. I.

from 800 to 1,000 people, is exclusively a Negro town.

A large proportion of these people are Baptists, and already many churches and Sunday-schools have been organized. As a class they are very poor and very ignorant ; their preachers being, in this respect, little in advance of their people; they take no religious papers, have no religious books, and have only the crudest notions of religious things. Rev. J. W. Dunjee, Choctaw City, Oklahoma Territory, is a General Missionary, under the employ of this Society, charged with the responsible work of caring for these colored churches. Any of our readers who can send to him any simple religious books, or religious newspapers, for distribution among the colored pastors, will render a very gracious service at very slight

cost.

OUR FINANCIAL NEEDS. The Home Mission Society depends upon two sources, chiefly, for money to meet its current expenses, including the payment of the salaries of teachers and missionaries; first, and mainly, upon voluntary contributions from individuals and churches; and second, upon legacies. Receipts from the latter source are fluctuating and uncertain : taking a series of years, including perhaps a decade, the receipts from legacies may be reckoned upon with a fair degree of assurance; but it is impossible to forecast, from year to year, what can be expected from

that source. Our hope and dependence is in the living, and not the dead; in the active, working, giving people of our churches, and not in those whose work is done and whose career is ended.

we

In entering upon the present Fiscal Year, great pains were taken to reduce expenses, and scale down our work to the lowest limit consistent with safety and efficiency, and it was confidently hoped that our cause would make such an appeal to the friends of Home Missions as to enable us to meet these reduced expenditures, and close the year without adding anything to the burdensome debt of $100,000 with which started. Eight months of the year have elapsed, and our receipts for general and missionary purposes from churches and individuals are $14,000 less than for the same period last year. In order to complete our In order to complete our year's work successfully without adding to our debt, we need to receive during the next four months, for general and missionary purposes, from churches and individuals and legacies, $180,000. The total amount received during the same four months of last year was $161,000; should we receive for the last four months of this year no more than we received for the last four months of last year, we shall close the year with quite a serious addition to our debt; if, on the other hand, we can receive $180,000 this year, instead of $161,000-an increase of $19,000-we shall close the year in good shape. Is it too much, then, to ask the friends of Home Missions who have not yet made their contributions, to add twelve per cent. to what they gave last year? While in some cases this may not be practicable, we hope that in others it may be possible for contributors to double their contributions, and so bring up the general average of increase. Is not this a modest request?

Our work this year has been particularly blessed, and we do not believe it was ever in a more, sound, healthy, hopeful condition than it is to-day; and we are anxious, naturally, that we should be able to close the year without embarrassment, and be prepared to enter upon the work of another

year with hope and courage. We ought to enlarge, and not further retrench.

OUR WORK.

The attention of our readers is invited to the new Revised and Enlarged Home Mission Catechism, which we present to them in his number. Care has been taken to make a comprehensive, clear, and concise statement of our work, in all its manifoldness, so that it may be comprehensible to every intelligent reader.

The American Baptist Home Mission Society is distinctively AN EVANGELIZING AGENCY; its great work is that of PREACHING THE GOSPEL. This is true missionary work. To this end it sustains missionaries, supports pastors, organizes churches, baptizes converts and fosters Sunday-schools. This is the work of supreme importance, for which it was organized; this is the high duty to which the denomination summoned it; this is the trust that it has striven faithfully, intelligently, and vigorously to carry out during its more than sixty-two years of history. We do not believe that the denomination has had any reason to find fault with the Society's work either as to methods, spirit, or success. The extract from the Annual Report of 1880, which we re-publish, states with clearness and eloquence the work and province of this great Society. There is nothing in the present condition o things to suggest the necessity of any change. in our work or in our relations to the Baptists of the North, as their one, distinctive, national HOME MISSION SOCIETY.

CHAPEL DAY.

One Sunday a year is devoted by many Sunday-schools to learning about the new chapels that the Home Mission Society is erecting for new churches in the West. We have already aided in building about one thousand five hundred. We aim to build one thousand more. A very appropriate and delightful program has been prepared, with music and recitations. It will soon be ready for distribution. We hope every Sundayschool superintendent will want them.