THE HOME MISSIONARY. VOL. LIX. Go......... .PREACH the GOSPEL....... .Mark xvi. 15. SEPTEMBER, 1886. A NEW EDITION OF "OUR COUNTRY." No. 5. TEN thousand copies of "Our Country" were sold by the middle of July, and the new edition of five thousand will soon be gone. It is safe to say that fifteen thousand copies will be sold within seven months of its first publication. This wonderful success of Dr. Strong's book is due wholly to its merits. Every one who reads it becomes its warm friend, eager to get somebody else to read it. Hundreds of people have sent us the price of the book requesting us to mail it to their friends. There is such a demand for it on the part of booksellers, that the officers of the Society have decided to put this work into the hands of a regular publishing firm, in order that the trade may be better supplied. Messrs. Baker & Taylor, Publishers & Booksellers, No. 9 Bond Street, New York City, have been secured to make and sell this book for the Society. In the future all orders should be sent to them. The price in paper covers will be kept at 25 cents. Those bound in cloth will be 50 cents. Sent postpaid, on receipt of price, by Baker & Taylor, Bond Street, N. Y. A NOTE OF DISTRESS. THE melancholy days of the year have come in the rooms of the American Home Missionary Society. Eight thousand dollars (now $16.000) are past due to its faithful men, and the ominous cards have gone out which carry dismay to so many homes. These seasons of distress seem inevitable, when the Society's pledges must be made on expectations, and become due by the clock, while its income depends on two sources-first, legacies, which know no law but their own sweet will; and, secondly, contributions, that flow in, at best, by a fitful and irregular stream. The Swett exigency fund, that stood at $25,000 in April, is exhausted. The officers of the society have repeatedly borrowed on their personal notes to relieve this annual summer distress, and must do so again at great inconvenience and risk, unless the friends who resolved in the heat of the Saratoga meeting to do something handsome take the present time to do it. Whoever gives quickly now, doubles his gift, and will make glad and grateful many faithful hearts.-Bourne, in the Congregationalist. WHO CAN COMPUTE IT? YOUR missionary has been solicited (and has agreed thereto) to furnish a religious article each week to each of the two daily papers of the city. Weekly papers of New England publish a column each week, from his pen, on religious topics; but for western dailies to open their columns to a religious article once each week is an item to be marked. These columns are prayed over, and most carefully written. Thus your missionary has an audience far more numerous than the walls of the little church. Oh, if cur eastern friends could only know the state of things out here, their hearts and purses would open wide to help on the grand development, both material and spiritual. Money out here brings from ten to eighteen per cent., in safe investments; but who can compute the spiritual per cent. realized by the Congregational churches in their investments in home missions!-Helena, Montana. MISSIONARY BOXES. THE organization of the Woman's Department of the American Home Missionary Society has already resulted in a general increase of interest in Home Missions, among the women of our churches, and in the formation by them of a large number of local Societies to aid in this work. Hitherto the organized efforts of women have been expended, mainly, in preparing boxes of clothing for the families of the missionaries. For more than twenty years the value of these gifts, according to the moderate estimates of the donors, have exceeded $50,000 a year. Last year it amounted to nearly $60,000. The Society was thus enabled to send one box, and in many cases more than one, to the family of every missionary who was known to need, and expressed a desire to receive, such assistance. The Executive Committee of the Society, as well as the missionaries themselves, are grateful for these expressions of Christian sympathy and kindness, and the continuance of them is solicited. But there is no occasion, at present, to increase the number of these gifts. It fully equals and often exceeds the number of applications. Now and always the Society's most pressing need is that of money to redeem its pledges to the missionaries already in the field, and to send forth other laborers into the harvest. In this work it needs and invites the aid of the numerous Ladies' Societies which have been, and those which may hereafter be, organized among the churches. It will still co-operate, however, with such of them as shall decide, in view of all the facts in the case, that they can best serve the cause of Home Missions by preparing boxes of clothing for missionary families. But, in order to promote the efficiency of such labors, and to prevent the waste and confusion that must otherwise attend them, these Socie ties are requested to conform to the system of operations which has been adopted by the Society and its Auxiliaries. The main features of this system are as follows: 1. Each missionary, except those in the New England States, is furnished, annually, with a printed blank, in which, if he needs and desires a missionary box, he is requested to enter the age, sex, and dimensions of each member of his family; a list of the articles of clothing, etc., which they especially need; his post-office and freight address; and such other items of information as will guide and interest ladies in the preparation of a missionary box. 2. The blanks thus filled are sent to the State Secretary or Superintendent. If he can supply any of these applicants with boxes prepared within his own State, he retains a portion of the applications for that purpose, and reports to the Secretaries in New York the names of the missionaries supplied, the value of the gifts sent to them, and the sources from which they came. The remaining applications he forwards to New York, with his indorsement of them, and such comments as each case requires. 3. If the State Secretaries and Superintendents receive applications for boxes from missionaries laboring in other States, or applications from ladies in other States for the names of missionaries in need of boxes, they forward these also to the Secretaries in New York. 4. Ladies desiring to prepare a box of clothing for a missionary laboring in the State where they reside, should apply to the State Secretary or Superintendent to designate a missionary wishing such aid; but if they desire to assist a missionary laboring in any other State, they should make their application to the Secretaries of the National Society. To secure a satisfactory preparation and just distribution of boxes, attention is invited to the suggestions contained in an article entitled 'Missionary Boxes," which may be found in each issue of The Home Missionary. 66 NORWEGIANS ASK QUESTIONS. I HAVE visited and prayed with my countrymen in different places in Iowa and Minnesota, preaching to them the way of salvation through Christ Jesus, our Redeemer. The word is cheerfully received, and I thank God for his blessings, and trust that he will continue to bless the great cause. I am working for the salvation of my dear people. This mission seems to be very new to them, because of the Congregational name. There is nothing else new or different about me, either in my appearance or doctrine, from what I had in former times. But they know that I now represent the Congregational church, and this excites their |