What we should be glad to make the great and characteristic work of the new year, is the Southern church work. We have now more students in our three theological schools than we have churches in the entire South. Of course, this does not limit the opportunity of these young men. It does not altogether destroy our influence through them. They will go out and preach the Gospel, but they must go into other ecclesiastical relations to fill churches of other orders, and, as we feel, many of them to do far less telling work for God and good than they might in churches founded anew by them under our care. This direct evangelizing and church work is very dear to those to whom the management of this Association is entrusted. Shall 1878 be for us the year of church extension? There are favoring conditions in more respects than one. The comparative freedom of the South from political agitations gives the opportunity for undisturbed effort for the enlargement of this work. The impulse given by the Syracuse meeting will be felt long by us and by all connected with the Association. The diminution of the debt already relieves for use in active service nearly $3,000 a year, which was absorbed by its imperative demands. If this debt can be wholly put behind us we may add this to the achievements of the coming year. It is easier to write prophecy than history, and yet the pen will glide lightly over the paper, and the press will resound with a more cheery clatter than in other days, if a year from now, they shall be able to make it known that the churches in the South have been largely increased in numbers and efficiency, and that the debt of the Association has every cent of it been paid. With a “happy new year” all round the circle, officers, missionaries, teachers, contributors, let us to the work! * * * * * In the fall of 1866, Mr. Warren Ackermann gave to the Foreign Board of the Reformed Church of America $55,000 in one gift, thus entirely extinguishing its debt, and leaving it a fund of nearly $10,000 for expenditure upon the field. Last spring the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions was on the point of reporting a debt of $50,000, when a like gift, by the liberality of Mrs. John C. Green, of New York, freed them from that necessity, and enabled them to close the year without a deficit. The Methodist Episcopal Missionary Committee, by special effort during the last year, paid off over $100,000 of their large indebtedness. None of us have forgotten the noble spontaneity of the successful movement this fall at Providence, resulting in the complete liberation of the American Board from their debt of nearly $50,000, and we cannot fail to notice with rejoicing every success of “the finangelist” (as he has been called), Mr. Kimball, in casting the mountains of church debt into the sea of solvency.