With gratitude and thanksgiving to God and our friends, we are permitted to announce that our treasurer has closed his books with the balance on the right side. The receipts of the year cover all the expenses of the year, wipe out the debt of $5,000 with which the year began, and leave $2,193.80 with which to start out on the coming year. For this glorious result we are especially indebted to the magnificent rally of our friends in the month of September. The falling off in our receipts last February of about $9,000 as compared with the same month of the preceding year, and the heavy deficit of July, in which we ran $17,000 behind, made the outlook very dark indeed; but it has proved that it was the deepening darkness before the light. As we are able to see it now, our friends settled down to the determination that the year would end right. They have done it. There was no excitement about it. They just kept on quietly planning and working and giving until they rolled up what was needed, and more. Not without sacrifice in many instances. Our eyes have moistened, oftentimes, as we read the words accompanying the gifts. Indeed, in some instances gladly would we have returned the contributions could we have done it without offending the givers. We mention one instance, that of a home missionary in the West, whose wife, by self-denial, had saved five dollars to have some long-needed work done. The person who did the work, probably knowing the needy circumstances of the family, refused to keep the compensation, and returned it. There was only a single dollar in the possession of the home missionary when the five dollars were returned, and seventy-five cents of that were to be paid for a necessary bill in a day or two. Those five dollars were sent to our treasury. The letter that brought the gift was full of thanksgiving that the sender was able to aid us. Even this does not tell the story of the noble spirit that lay behind it all; for there came with the money the request that it should be credited to the Congregational Church! This is only a single example. We could refer to a great many such. Large and small, the contributions have been sent, from churches and individuals, from rich and poor, from young and old, bearing the evidence of interest and sacrifice and work; and the result is, we have closed the year free from debt. By this outcome we are again impressed with the strong hold that the American Missionary Association has upon the churches and the Christian public. They believe in it; they love it, and they mean to stand by it. * * * * *