While January is the first month of the calendar year, it happens to be the fourth month of the A.M.A.’s fiscal year.  It is a good time for our friends to make new resolutions in reference to what they will do in support of our work the coming year.  We closed last year out of debt.  It was a cause for joy and thanksgiving.  The Portland meeting felt and expressed it.  Letters of congratulation came to us from all parts of the country.  But there is something about prosperity that almost inevitably fosters decline.  A woe seems to be attached to institutions as well as individuals of which all men speak well.  We need $25,000 a month to pay necessary bills.  We ought to have $30,000 a month to properly prosecute the work at this moment on hand.  Our total receipts at the end of the first two months of the new fiscal year were $33,336.  The lowest figure, in order to enable us to meet our bills for the two months, is $50,000.  The result is, we are again obliged to report payments in excess of receipts.  We do it unwillingly.  We want very much to be delivered from the necessity of making special appeals along toward the end of the year.  This necessity can be avoided only through our friends’ securing increased receipts to our treasury the early part of the year.  Now is the time to resolve that it shall be done.  Let every church vote to give us a contribution.  Let every individual friend resolve that he will, if possible, increase his contribution over that of last year, and that in any event he will by personal effort enlarge the circle of our supporters by inducing some friend or friends to take an interest in our work.

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Memorial services in honor of our late President, Hon. Wm. B. Washburn, were held at Greenfield, Mass., Gov.  Washburn’s home, November 29th, under the auspices of the Connecticut Valley Congregational Club.  Addresses were made by U.S.  Senator Hoar, Rev. Dr. Buckingham, and President Seelye.

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Thirty dollars constitute a Life Membership.  Some of our friends utilize their contributions in this way.  One of these writes us:  “This is my thirty-first Life Member which it is my good fortune to make to your society.”  A good example to follow.

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Lord Shaftsbury once said:  “I think it would be of the greatest value if the reports of the various Religious and Charitable Societies were at once, by Act of Parliament, elevated into the dignity of Blue Books.  If every Member of Parliament, under the most severe penalty—­and more particularly the ministers of the day—­were compelled to study them accurately, and then undergo a competitive examination, I am satisfied that great good would accrue to themselves and benefit to their country; their enlarged notions, and probably improved hearts, would be felt in the legislation of the country.”