5. The circulation of the _American Missionary_ should be greatly increased and the people urged to read it. Among the 436,379 members of the Congregational churches in the country there are sent every month 19,463 magazines; that is on an average _one_ magazine to twenty-two readers. If this one magazine were passed round so that all had a chance to read it there are enough of them to answer the purpose. One subscriber wrote us that she made her _American Missionary_ to be so much of an Episcopalian, that it “_kept lent_” all the year round. But the evidence is not very overwhelming that this _is_ done to any great extent. The evidence is, however, quite convincing that the magazines are not all read by their subscribers, and that the waste basket is not altogether unacquainted with their presence. After Dr. Ellinwood, Secretary of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, had once made an earnest appeal for money in the Presbytery, the Moderator, a distinguished Doctor of Divinity, asked him if he would not confer a favor on the brethren by printing the facts that he had just stated in the _Missionary_ magazine next month, adding that he had been trying for a long time to obtain those figures. “Why,” responded Dr. Ellinwood “That magazine, for the last two months, has contained just what I have been telling you to-day.” Missionary literature is despised. If this despite were shown on the merits of the case there would be nothing to say, but that is not so. It is despised without examination and in perfect ignorance of its contents. Like the Saviour, of the progress of whose kingdom it tells the story, it is despised and rejected of men. Not on its merits. There are those who read it, and who read it regularly, ready to testify to the exceeding value and interest of its matter. One of the great literary monthlies recently contained an article in which were assertions bearing upon a question of literature which two months before were utterly destroyed by statements of facts that appeared in the _American Missionary_. When historians undertake to write the history of countries into which missionaries have gone, they are sure to consult the missionary literature; and they do not often find it necessary to question either the accuracy or the value of the information they there obtain. This prejudice against missionary literature, which in the main is both unfounded and unjust, ought to be abandoned. Its worth and value ought to be recognized. Its wide dissemination and reading ought to be advocated; and that, too, on its merits. If there are reasons why the _American Missionary_ should be read by one of our church members, the same reasons hold good why it should be read by all of them; if there are reasons why it should go into one of our families, for the same reasons it should go into them all. There is a wide field here for cultivation. Only one magazine for every twenty-two readers; only one magazine for every four families