CHINESE MISSION HEADQUARTERSDON'T FORGET IT.

Let no one think that the call in the May MONTHLY for $15,000 for Chinese Mission headquarters in San Francisco was once for all and that nothing more will be heard about it. Mark this The Baptists of the United States will not cease to hear about this until the money is raised. This is not a spasmodic effort. It is a deliberate undertaking, born of the profound conviction that it is a necessity that it should be done. Remember our motto: WHAT SHOULD BE DONE WE MUST atTEMPT TO DO. This should be done. It can be done. It must be done.

Responses are coming in. One comes from a brother in Pennsylvania, aged 82 years, and who relinquishes the annuity to which he is entitled on his conditional gift of $500, and directs that the $30 per annum be applied to forward this enterprise.

Another response comes from a lady in New Jersey. Without going into details, suffice it to say that there are $3,000 from this source consecrated to this object. With what has heretofore been given by others we have about $5,000 now pledged or paid for our Chinese Mission headquarters. This is one-third of the sum asked.

We want the next third, or $5,000 more, within sixty days, so as to purchase the property.

We want the last third by October 1st., in order to transform the building for mission purposes.

And to this end we ask the prayers and the offerings of many. When the Providence of God sends thousands of heathen to this Christian land, shall we not make the most of our opportunity to win them to Christ?

The Church Edifice work of the Society is of exceeding importance. Read the carefully prepared article in this number by Rev. H. F. Cochrane, and then please follow the reading by an offering for this object. We have no regular contributions from the churches for this purpose, and so must depend almost wholly on the liberality of individuals.

Within a short time we have been cheered by the gift of $1,000 from a gentlemen, to help erect chapels in new towns in the West; also, by a gift of $2,000 to help erect chapels for the colored people in the South. They have given wisely; we shall make the gifts go as far as possible, because the calls are so many and the amount at our disposal so small.

Until there are larger offerings for the Society's Church Edifice work, it will hardly be practicable to make grants of $500 to churchWe therefore advise that es desiring aid. applicants desiring assistance to this amount

ask for not more than $250 or $300 as a gift and obtain the remainder as a loan to be repaid in three years.

Bear in mind also that the recommendation of the Board of a State Convention, in favor of an appropriation from the gift fund, places the Society under no obligation whatever to make the grant. Such action is merely advisory. We say this because in a letter just at hand occurs the following:

"We implicitly count on $500 from the Church Edifice Fund, as our application was honored by the State Board."

We have had scores of applications endorsed by State Boards which we could not grant for lack of funds. Only when a State Board is in such co-operation with the Society that it stands pledged to a definite proportion of the amount asked, then its recommendation may be considered tantamount to a grant by the Society.

Suppose the spirit of consecration in the use of money, as shown in the letter received recently from a good man, should become general, what a mighty inflow there would be to the Lord's treasury!

Considering the straits the Home Mission Society is in, I now take half of what I had laid aside to put in the bank and send to you to be used where most needed. I wish I could multiply it by ten thousand, but considering that my income the last year was only $365, and $110 of that was put into our new church, I do not see that I can do more at present." Precious in the sight of the Lord are gifts like this-gifts that cost something to the giver.

"Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth "-in the matter of giving -is a saying of our Lord which was recently

illustrated in the rooms of the Home Mission Society, when a gentleman who has been a close observer of its affairs quietly counted out checks to the amount of $7,600, which he wished to be applied to the general work of the Society, at the same time strictly enjoining as a condition of the gift that his name should not be published nor even spoken of to others than those with whom he had

directly to do. "The Lord knoweth them that are His." And they that have made their offerings to Him, here unknown, shall in the day of His coming be rewarded openly.

But, in thus making reference to this gift, we would not be understood as disparaging the publication of names of churches and individuals who give for missions. It is interesting to know who our friends are; besides a good example is thereby furnished others whose benevolence is often stimulated thereby. Last month when the receipts could not be published, a friend of the Society after receiving the MONTHLY wrote to the rooms expressing her disappointment, saying that the most interesting part was left out. To all such we commend the present number as containing an unusual amount of reading of this sort. Our only regret is that we cannot keep it up to this extent every month in the year.

The Baptist Courier of Columbia, S. C., referring to our call for $15,000 for Chinese mission headquarters in San Francisco, says: "We are sure that there are many Baptists in the South who will be glad to aid in this noble work. The denomination has not been doing a tithe of its duty to this mission."

Dr. Hartwell and Mrs. Sanford, missionaries to the Chinese on the Coast, were "from the South," and surely it is fitting that Baptists of the South as well as of the North should participate in this undertaking. The evangelization of these heathen Chinese is a

duty resting equally on all Americans, regardless of sections, and we hope every State and Territory in the Union will have some part in the establishment of our mission there on a

good sufficient footing. Now, excellent Courier, please ask the 75,000 Baptists of South Carolina to give $500 for this object.

As we are preparing the MONTHLY for the press, we learn of the death of Wm. H. Jameson, Esq., of Brooklyn, lately a member of the Society's Executive Board. Mr. Jameson was elected a Manager in February, 1881, to fill a vacancy caused by the death of A. B.

Capwell, Esq. In May, 1885, he was elected by the Society as one of its Auditors, which office he continued to fill with wisdom and fidelity until January, 1887, when he was reluctantly compelled by failing health to resign. His last visit to the city was to attend a meeting of the Board.

"IT'S NONE OF OUR BUSINESS, IS IT, GOD?"

A well-known clergyman's little daughter has just been put to bed, and upon the stillness comes a tiny voice in the nightly prayer. Then silence, soon broken by these words: "And, dear Lord, this afternoon I saw out upon the cold sidewalk a poor little girl, and she had no shoes or stockings on-andand "-another silence as though staggered at the immensity of the problem-" it's none of our business, is it, God ?"

Reading the foregoing incident we fell to musing: "Then spake I with my tongue."

A well known clergyman whose attention had been called to the great destitution on many of our Home Mission fields, during the past year made no effort to secure a contribution from his people to meet this destitution, and even in his prayers stammered when he came to this topic, and seemed re. lieved when he could dismiss it. He virtually said: "It's none of our business, is it, God?' A wealthy man, whose living expenses are not much if any less than $20,000 per year, and whose thousands are lavishly expended on paintings, horses, and pleasurable gratification, when the annual contribution of the church to which he belongs was made gave next to nothing or nothing at all to Home Missions. He virtually said: "It is none of our business, is it, God ?"

A certain church never thinks of making a contribution to Home Missions unless the pastor preaches a sermon on the subject, or unless a Secretary comes along to stir them up to do so. The members would go along year after year without giving a dollar to this great work, unless urged and entreated and aroused to do so. Don't they

practically say: It's none of our business, is it, God ?"

Is it anybody's business?
Whose business is it?

Is it not yours as much as anybody else? Have you neglected your duty in this respect?

Will you do your duty by sending at once a contribution for this work?

Or, will you continue to read and hear of the great religious destitution in the West and in Mexico, and then turn your thoughts and prayers away from these things, saying: "It's none of our business, is it, God ?”

"YOU MUST MAKE THEM CRY."

One of our excellent general missionaries writes that if all the pastors in the State would heartily co-operate in the development of benevolence in the churches far more could be accomplished. On some he can rely, others "are under conviction-in full sympathy but a little 'weak-kneed,' and others on the anxious seat.' We hope to make it so warm for them that they will arise and join the invading army; and then there are those who are absolutely indifferent, fearing their own salaries will suffer if they advocate benevolence. Mistaken souls! The true idea of Christian giving has seldom found a place in our advocacy of missions. Appeals have been made to the feelings; as one good district secretary said to me, 'If you would get them to give you must make them cry.' Inducements to give that find no support in the word of God or the spirit of the Master, motives too low and selfish to touch the Christian element in our natures, are pressed as if divine. Contributions have been secured and the mind and heart left untouched by those high and holy motives that emanate from the cross, and the soul is left uneducated in the true principles of benevolence, and the reaction is ruinous in its effects. My aim in my preaching and addresses, and in my intercourse with the pastors and churches, has been to make Christ 'all and in all,' in` giving as much as in praying or any Christian duty. From

Calvary radiates the light of Christian giving. If Gethsemane and Calvary and Olivet have no power to move the heart, and vitalize our Christian activities, we may despair of ever making a success of our religious work. I want to see our people on the 'Solid Rock,' which will be a perpetual inspiration—a source of spiritual power-an up-lifting agency consecrating all their resources for the honor of Christ and His cause.

A Massachusetts pastor sends a contribution from a member of his church, saying: "This is his second annual thank-offering for his gracious riddance from the tobacco slavery."

We are sure that to the Lord this offering is a "sweet savor"-much sweeter than if it had been spent for tobacco, and puffed heavenward in pungent smoke. May our brother long be spared to make these annual offerings.

CHURCH EDIFICE WORK.

BY REV. H. F. COCHRANE, CENTREVILLE, MICH.

I. What do we mean by the Church Edifice work of the Baptist Home Mission Society? We mean the giving aid to needy churches in the erection of suitable houses of worship. The aid is by gift or loan, and in some cases partly by gift and partly by loan. Selection is made of such fields as give promise of permanency and prosperity. The amount that can be appropriated to any one church is limited, as a rule, to $500; the average appropriation is about $300. An indispensable condition of assistance is that the building when finished shall be free from debt.

The ordinary cost of the houses so aided is from $1,200 to $2,500. In return for gifts thus made, the church is required to execute to the Society a 'mortgage upon its house of worsnip, without interest, and with the condition that there shall be no foreclosure unless the church shall cease to be a Baptist church or the house shall be alienated from the denomination. So much for the general plan of the work.

II. Is there any call that this work should be done? There are said to be 2,500 houseless Baptist churches in North America today.

Considering our large extent of territory yet unsettled and the rapidity with which new churches are now being organized, we can not expect this number to greatly decrease for some years to come. This destitution is scattered all over our land; the churches may be found in the Southern States, a few in Mexico, over 1,500 in our Western States and Territories, and some in the newer portions of our own State. In the new settlements the people who must compose The these churches are generally poor. first year they build their sod hut or log cabin and get things in some shape about the home; it may be two or three years before the returns from the soil equal the cost of But the missionary is there, churches are formed, multitudes of the irreligious, many perhaps foreigners, are pouring in, and these must be saved for Christ. The house of worship must be built, and then out of their poverty they appeal to us for help. | Almost daily the calls come to the officers of the Society from nearly every quarter of the

settlement.

land.

III. Why should we answer these calls? Because, next to the work of the pioneer missionary in preaching the Word, there is no measure of evangelization so important as the erection of houses of worship. The fiftieth annual report well says: "A stated place for preaching and prayer ever has been, ever will be, an indispensable condition of the highest permanent results; hence the Society's church edifice work is the right arm of its missionary operations." The misssionary must go first, preaching the Gospel, organizing Sundayschools-in private dwellings or in schoolhouses--wherever he can find an open door. But if his labors are not to be largely lost the fruits must be gathered; believers, the old and the new, must be organized into churches, and these churches must have homes. The house of worship thus becomes a first necessity.