In spite of its restricted income during this troubled period, the Association was able, owing to its invested funds,[8] to increase its publishing operations to a considerable extent. The number of tracts published, however, was much smaller; and their monthly issue was discontinued in order to publish The Quarterly Journal of the American Unitarian Association, the first number of which appeared in October, 1853. During the first year each number contained ninety-six pages, which were increased to one hundred and ninety-two in 1854, but reduced to one hundred and thirty the following year. In 1860 this publication became The Monthly Journal; and it was continued until December, 1869, each number containing forty-eight pages. The Journal was sent to all subscribers to the funds of the Association, to life members, to all churches contributing to its funds, as well as to regular subscribers. Its circulation in 1855 was 7,000, and it increased to 15,000 before it was discontinued. It was used largely, however, for free distribution as a missionary document. The Journal served an important purpose during the seventeen years of its publication, as a means of bringing the Association into touch with its constituency and of making the people acquainted with its work. It published the records of the meetings of the executive committee as well as of the annual meeting, it gave numerous extracts from the correspondence of the secretary, it contained the news of the churches, and all the denominational activities were kept constantly before its readers. In its pages were frequently published biographies of prominent Unitarians, notable addresses were printed, sermons appeared frequently, and able theological articles. During the editorship of James Freeman Clarke it contained the successive chapters of his Orthodoxy: Its Truths and Errors. It also printed one or more chapters of Alger's History of the Doctrine of the Future Life. The secretary of the Association was its editor, and he made it at once a theological tract and a denominational newspaper.