A payment of thirty dollars at one time constitutes a Life Member. Correspondents are specially requested to place at the head of each letter the name of their Post Office, and the County and State in which it is located. THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY. * * * * * VOL. XXXIII. MARCH, 1879. No. 3. * * * * * American Missionary Association. * * * * * We have told our friends that for the last three months our receipts, in common with those of our sister societies, have been less than for the corresponding months of the preceding year. January did better, but we would still have had some anxieties if there had not come to us from an aged friend, who had given us no reason to expect so large an offering, a check for _ten thousand dollars_. The letter which accompanied the gift, referred to his observance of our efforts to reduce the debt and our success in that direction, but asking us to expend this money, the savings of a lifetime, in carrying on our work. It was a gift from the Lord by the hand of His servant, and again, as often before, we are called to make record of His faithfulness who has promised to help those who are in His work. Should not this generous gift strengthen our confidence that God has yet other treasures with which He will enable us to commend His love to the despised, and to preach His gospel to the poor? * * * * * THE CALL TO GO FORWARD. We thank our friends for their noble efforts to conquer the Debt. As we feared, however, the help thus given has diminished the supplies for our regular and pressing work. We have wrought with only one hand on the work and with the other held a weapon. But now that the debt is well nigh vanquished, we must gird ourselves not merely to repair the neglected gaps, but to push forward along the whole length of the wall. THE DEBT PROVIDED FOR. Relying upon the payment of the money pledged, our actual indebtedness is reduced to only $6,440. Against this amount our Executive Committee has set apart our remaining Iowa lands, which at a low valuation fully balance it, as a sinking fund, to be held for this purpose only. _The debt is thus provided for_, and we have no more pleas to urge for its extinction,—save as we suggest for this last time, there is a noble opportunity just now for some generous friend to step in and claim the honor of giving the finishing stroke to this Goliath, so setting free those lands again to aid our current work. We praise the Lord that we can now turn from this accomplished effort to other DEFERRED AND URGENT WORK.