NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBERS.—­The date on the “address label,” indicates the time to which the subscription is paid.  Changes are made in date on label to the 10th of each month.  If payment of subscription be made afterward, the change on the label will appear a month later.  Please send early notice of change in post-office address, giving the former address and the new address, in order that our periodicals and occasional papers may be correctly mailed.

FORM OF A BEQUEST.

“I bequeath to my executor (or executors) the sum of ——­ dollars, in trust, to pay the same in ——­ days after my decease to the person who, when the same is payable, shall act as Treasurer of the ’American Missionary Association,’ of New York City, to be applied, under the direction of the Executive Committee of the Association, to its charitable uses and purposes.”  The Will should be attested by three witnesses.

* * * * *

THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY.

VOL.  XLIII.  MAY, 1889.  NO. 5.

American Missionary Association.

* * * * *

FINANCIAL.

THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY presents its greetings for the month of May.  Six months of our fiscal year are now in the past.  The half year which we anticipate includes the summer time, when many of the friends of the ignorant millions to whom we are sent, are absent from their churches.  The months of May and June ought to swell the stream of love and service against the season when the demand will continue and income will be small.

We appealed last month for an increase of the contributions in church collections.  We renew and emphasize that appeal, for these collections are the steady streams on which we rely to keep in motion the wheels of the large and ever enlarging work of the Association.  We believe that the interest in this great work is on the increase.  We rejoice that “the most prolific missionary field ever opened to any Christian people—­ right here at our doors,” is gaining upon the interest and benevolence of the churches year by year.  Never were the friends of the cause mote responsive; never was the work more hopeful.  The work enlarges, and the people’s faith enlarges.  Their gifts to Christ for his poor were never freer.

We have been greatly favored with special gifts.  Every one of them is needed.  It is a blessed thing that one can plant his benevolences in some special institution or feature of work, and know that the influences are to follow on after the giver has gone to a higher world.  But we do hope that the CHURCHES OF CHRIST, AS CHURCHES, will not fail to keep step with the providences of God in their church contributions.