I.RECENT DIFFICULTIES.
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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 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 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 sinceon the system till then in forcethe 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, in accordance with the Resolution passed on May 6th, specially to keep in view a judicious reduction of that expenditure in the case of prosperous churches in districts largely Christianized."
II.REVISION OF THE MISSIONS ABROAD.
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In considering the state of the Society's finances, the Special Committee recommended, in strong terms, not only that some reduction should be made in the expenditure, but that the character of that expenditure should be carefully examined. They recommended that the Board should take full advantage of the opportunity furnished by the present crisis, for placing the entire system of payments in their Foreign Missions upon the soundest footing, and for determining the principles by which those payments shall be regulated. The Directors accepted these suggestions, and since then the three Foreign Committees, into which the London Board is divided, have devoted much attention to the system of their Foreign Missions.
In the case of each of the Missions examined, they carefully laid down the principles applicable to the condition of the Native churches; the forms of missionary labour among the heathen; the number and work of the Society's missionaries; the number and labours of Native agents engaged in purely mission work; and the state of education. The present scale and details of expenditure were examined; and then, to every element of the system an APPROPRIATION for the year was made of that amount of money which, in the judgment of the Directors, the Society could justly spare from the funds which they have at their command. A Schedule of these allowances in every group of Missions was next drawn out, exhibiting the sums available for the expenditure of the year, and was forwarded to the Mission concerned. And finally, a special DESPATCH which accompanied the Warrants, was written to the members of every Mission, in order to explain in the fullest manner the views of the Directors respecting that Mission, and the form which, in their judgment, the aid of the Society should for the future assume. Again, while the Society enjoys the services of a large number of able, conscientious, and spiritual men, as devoted as ever their predecessors were to missionary work, it was seen to be essential to their fullest efficiency, that they should be brought into closer union with each other abroad, and with the system of the Society at home; that the personal comfort of the mission families should be more fully secured under the changed circumstances of modern days; and that the experience of each field of labour should be so wrought into the general system as to prove a helper to all the rest.
