This Monthly is furnished at sixty cents a year, postage paid. The subscription price could not well be less. Its whole present issue should go to actual subscribers. But, unless they prefer to pay, it will be sent free, as heretofore, to Life Directors and Life Members; Missionaries of the Society and its Auxiliaries; Ministers securing a yearly collection for it in their congregations; also, to every individual, Association, or Congregation, one copy for every ten dollars collected and paid over to the Society or an Auxiliary. Suitable name should accompany the payment. Pastors are earnestly requested to serve Home Missions by promoting the use of this Journal at the Monthly Concert and among their people.

Immediate notice of the discontinuance or change of post-office address should be given.

APPLICATIONS FOR AID.

Congregations desiring aid should apply at once after finding a minister. They should make a full statement of the facts in their condition and prospects which justify an application. They should also give these particulars, viz. :

Average of congregation.

Denomination and size of contiguous congregations.

Names and distances of the nearest Congregational churches.

Minister's full name and post-office address: Town, County, State.

Does he reside on his field of labor? Is he installed pastor?

Has he any other calling than that of the ministry?

Of what local church is he a member?

Of what Ministerial Association?

The number of persons composing his family.

Total amount of salary proposed.

Amount pledged by the people and how secured.

Has he, also, the use of a parsonage?

Is aid expected from any other source?

The least amount that will suffice from the A. H. M. S.

The amount received from this Society last year.

Will less probably be needed next year?

Amount contributed to this Society last year. How raised.

Amount contributed to other benevolent societies.

Additional statements concerning the condition, prospects, and wants of the field.
Date of the desired commission.

The application must be signed by the officers of the church, where there is one, and by the trustees or a committee of the congregation.

If the ecclesiastical body, within whose limits the congregation is found, has a "Committee of Missions," the members of that committee should certify these statements, the standing of the minister, his prospects of usefulness there, and indorse the application. If no such "Committee of Missions " exists, the application should be indorsed by two or more neighboring clergymen acquainted with the facts. If no church or congregation is yet gathered, applicants will follow the same course, as far as practicable.

Applications, after being so indorsed, should be sent to the Superintendent (or Secretary of the Auxiliary) for the region where the applicants reside.

Appropriations, as a rule, bear the date of a punctual application; and they never cover more than one year. If further aid be needed, a new application is required, containing all the particulars named above, and indorsed as before. To this the certificate of the missionary that the congregation has fulfilled its previous pledges for his support, must be added. For the address of Superintendents and Secretaries of Auxiliaries, see p. 4 of cover.

FORM OF A BEQUEST.

I bequeath to my executors the sum of

dollars, in trust, to pay over the same after my decease, to the person who, when the same is payable, shall act as Treasurer of the American Home Missionary Society, formed in the City of New York, in the year eighteen hundred and twenty-six, to be applied to the charitable uses and purposes of said Society, and under its direction.

AMERICAN HOME MISSIONARY SOCIETY,

Bible House, Astor Place, New York.

REV. DAVID B. COE, D.D., Honorary Secretary.

REV. WALTER M. BARROWS, D.D.,
REV. JOSEPH B. CLARK, D. D.,

Secretaries for Correspondence.

REV. ALEX'R H. CLAPP. D.D., Treasurer.

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE:-MR. JOHN WILEY, Chairman; MR. WM. HENRY SMITH; REV. WM. M. TAYLOR, D.D.; MR. CHARLES H. PARSONS; MR. ALFRED S. BARNES: MR. ALBERT WOODRUFF; GEO. P. SHELDON, Esq.; REV. JAMES G. ROBERTS, D.D.; REV. SAMUEL H. VIRGIN, D.D.; MR. JOSEPH WILLIAM RICE; REV. JAMES W. HUBBELL; MR. HERBERT M. DIXON; REV. A. J. F. BEHRENDS, D.D.; MR. FRANCIS FLINT; WM. IVES WASHBURN, ESQ., Recording Sec.

COMMUNICATIONS

Belating to the general business of the Society may be addressed to either of the Secretaries for
Correspondence.

Communications relating to the Woman's Department may be addressed to
Mrs. H. M. SHELTON, Bible House, N. Y.
Communications relating to the Editorial Department of THE HOME MISSIONARY, may be addressed to
Mrs. H. S. CASWELL, Bible House, N. Y.

DONATIONS AND SUBSCRIPTIONS,

In Drafts, Checks, Registered Letters, or Pcst Office Orders; also Communications relating to the business matters of THE BOME MISSIONARY and other Publications of the Society, may be addressed to ALEX'R H. CLAPP, 11easurer, Bible House, Astor Place, New York.

Post-Office Orders should be drawn on STATION D, New York City.

A Payment of $50 constitutes a Life Member.

SUPERINTENDENTS.

Rev. HENRY A. SCHAUFFLER, Work among Bohemians, Poles, etc., Cleveland, O.
Rev. GEORGE E. ALBRECHT, Work among Germans, Chicago. fil.

Rev. M. W. MONTGOMERY, Work among Scandinavians, Minneapolis, Minn.

Omaha, Neb.
Mitchell, Dak.
Fargo, No. Dak.
Denver, Col.

Salt Lake City, Utah.
San Francisco, Cal.
Portland. Or.
Ashland, Wis.

Bangor, Me.
Bangor, Me.
N. Hamp. Home Miss. Soc., Concord, N. H

Vermont Dom.

66

66

66

Concord, N. H.

Montpelier, Vt.

Montpelier, Vt.

Boston Mass.

Mass. Home Miss. Soc., 22 Cong. House,

66

6.

Rhode Isl'd "

66

66

Miss. Soc. of Conn.,

66

66

Providence, R. L Hartford, Conn. Hartford, Conn. Syracuse, N. Y. New York City. Cleveland, Ohio. New York City. 151 Washington St., Chicago, Ill

Milwaukee, Wis. Milwaukee, Wis. Grinnell, La. Des Moines, Is.

SIXTY CENTS A YEAR, IN ADVANCE, POSTAGE PAID

ONE duty forced upon the managers of the Home Missionary Society by its shortened funds, is that of reducing missionary expenditures. It is no easy task. In its best financial estate the Society is not unlike an anxious mother who, with a scanty measure of cloth, must contrive to make it cover a growing child. The garment is always a marvel of piecing. But when from this scant material a whole breadth is suddenly swept away, at a time, too, when the child is bursting with new growth, then the home missionary mother may almost sit down in despair and confess herself at her wits' end. Nevertheless the garment must be made from the material in hand. We cannot cut down the child. We must cut down the pattern. How shall it be done?

Is there waste in the expenditure of home missionary funds? It would imply infallible wisdom on the part of the management if there were absolutely none. But the system of checks and safeguards now employed to prevent it, is such as to reduce this waste to the lowest terms. Every applicant for missionary aid has to pass through four distinct courts. First, a local committee of the pastors of the vicinage, who know the church well, and can testify, as only friendly neighbors can, of its special needs. Second, a State Committee of pastors and laymen selected for their wider knowledge of the field. The fidelity of these State committees is beyond praise. One of their quarterly meetings is, in fact, a session of days, in which the condition and the prospect of every missionary church is passed in review, and the least amount it ought to ask is fixed. Upon the result of these estimates, thus carefully reached, the apportionment of funds for the State is chiefly determined. Third, a superintendent who holds the double relation of trusted friend of the church and confidential agent of the managers at New York. These superintendents are picked men, wise, cautious, alert, free from any foolish ambition to multiply churches on paper, and under strict directions never to plant a church on ground fairly occupied by another in which a pure gospel is preached. Finally, the Executive Committee at New York, with the accumulated judgments of these three courts before them, assemble at the Bible House to authorize the needed grant, and to commission the missionary.