The report of your Executive Committee on church work submitted for our review is very brief.  There is a statement or two and a few figures.  It puts things in the very best light, and uses figures in the most telling way.  Its very brevity should act as a call to the churches for more means, and more men, and more prayer, and more enterprise.  If the churches had done more there would have been more to tabulate.

The report reads:  Four new churches organized; 972 added to Christian fellowship; 2 church edifices built; 1 church edifice enlarged; 2 parsonages built; a one-year-old church the centre of four Sunday-schools filled with scholars who never before attended religious instruction, and ten churches blessed with a revival of religion.

Four new churches organized!  Only four?  And yet the territory awaiting churches holds twelve States, and each State is an empire.  Only four?  And yet the darkest spot in the republic is crying for the light of the Gospel.  Only four?  And yet three-fourths of the illiteracy of the whole nation must be grappled with.  Four new churches versus ten millions of immortal souls!  What are these among so many?  This is the question which the report of the American Missionary Association for 1888 sends through the length and breadth of American Congregationalism.

To keep us in cheer the Executive Committee puts these facts by the side of the four new churches: 

First—­“In each school” (and there are seventy-six schools) “we have an incipient church.”  This predicts a golden future.  “Each school is a torch of Christ in a dark place.”  This means advancing illumination.

Second—­There are one hundred and thirty-two old churches fully organized and completely vitalized.  All of these are centred at strategic points.

Third—­There is a living army of 8,452 adults, and of 17,114 children carrying the banner of the Lord.  These give themselves, and give their substance, to the cause of Christ, and to the good of their fellowmen, in a way worthy of emulation.

Fourth—­These churches and this army are under, and are led by pastors who are for the most part the children of this Association.  This means thorough equipment, and discipline, and effectiveness, and aggressive work.

When we look at what has been done in the line of church work in our vast field, and compare it with our limited resources, we are satisfied and speak the praises of the noble men and women in the field and in the office.  We have garnered fruit grandly proportionated to the planting.  But when we look at the work which has been done and contrast it with what remains to be done, we are far from being satisfied.  Instinctively we are impelled to repeat the call of the prophet in the hearing of the Church of Christ:  “Arise, shine, for thy light has come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.”  Proportioning the means used to the products reaped, we look forward with hope, expecting a future that