This noble gift, which awakened such enthusiasm at our annual meeting one year ago, came with its echo of work well done during the year—­an echo which we trust will reverberate with steady force through all the years to come.  In the Treasurer’s report the figures were given as to the appropriations made from the income of this Fund during the year; in the General Survey cheering statements were made as to the many pupils it had stimulated to industry and education, and the buildings it had erected; and in several of the papers and addresses, grateful mention was made of the benefits conferred by it.  We trust that other large givers may be stimulated to follow in the footsteps of one who has so wisely invested his money for the uplifting of the most needy in our land.

A recent letter from Mr. Hand shows his deep solicitude that his gift shall be used for the highest moral and religious purposes.  He says:  “I have feared that the teachers might be more concerned for letters than for morals.  My bequest was given to you chiefly as a religious society.  Religion is the first, chiefest and best of it all.”

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THE LITERATURE OF THE MEETING.

This presents a genuine case of the embarrassment of riches.  We never had better.  We wish all our friends might have the opportunity for the careful study of it, for it is worth their time and attention.

Full reports of the proceedings were made daily in the Chicago Inter Ocean.  They were all gathered into a supplement, and have already been widely scattered.  Some copies are still on hand at our offices in New York, Boston, Cleveland and Chicago, and can be had on application.

The annual sermon, as usual, will be printed with the Annual Report.  This number of the MISSIONARY (an enlarged number) will contain the Minutes and the official papers, including reports and the speeches upon them, (the latter necessarily somewhat abridged) Secretaries’ papers, and the closing address of Rev. Dr. Taylor.  Other papers and addresses, including the Representative Addresses, will be published hereafter as far as practicable in subsequent numbers of the MISSIONARY or in some other form.

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NOTICES FROM THE PRESS.

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FROM THE ADVANCE.

No meeting of the American Missionary Association has ever been better than this last one.  Dr. William M. Taylor, who with such consummate felicity combines so many of the best characteristics of the Scotch, the English and the Yankee, presided.  The topics of the several papers and addresses, though covering a large range of thought all converged to the same main point, and were especially pertinent to the hour.  Those who had been invited to prepare papers showed, by the manifest pains they took with them, their sense of the importance of the occasion.  They brought the results of their best and most earnest thinking.  And it is rare that such speakers are confronted by a more earnest, intelligent and sympathetic audience.