BOARD OF CHURCH EXTENSION, pp. 259-274.
• "Annual Report" by G. W. Muckley, pp. 259-261.
• "The Tent Dwellers of Faith" by Finis S. Idleman, pp. 261-264.
• "Songs of the Temple" by Charles A. Finch, pp. 264-267.
• "The Magic of Church Extension" by George Darsie, pp. 267-269.
• "Our Obligation to Church Extension in the Twentieth Century" by Randolph Cook,
  pp. 269-271.
• "The Glory of the Latter House" by R. H. Miller, pp. 272-274.

      Twenty-one years ago the Church Extension work was placed in the hands of the present Board by the Church Extension Committee of the American Christian Missionary Society, as directed by the society at its annual Convention at Springfield, Ill. Kansas City was made the headquarters, and on Nov. 21, 1888, $10,662.80 was turned over to the Board by the committee at Cincinnati, in mortgages on twelve church buildings and $2,762.21 in cash. During these twenty-one years of service your Board has paid all expenses connected with the propagation of the Church Extension idea among our churches; has secured a permanent fund of $757.621.39; has aided in the erection of 1,261 church buildings in forty-three States, in Canada and Hawaii by loans aggregating $1,314,361.69, with a cash balance on hand September 30 of $79,842.42. All this with a loss of only $563, which has been more than made up by excess of interest above expenses. This is certainly a wonderful record, and your Board acknowledges the hand of God and the help of our brethren in all these years of growth.

      The loyalty of the brethren who have borrowed this money to erect their church homes is a notable feature of this work. With compelling power they command our confidence because of the rapidity with which they have returned what they borrowed, so that it might go out again to help others of their brethren to get the equipment of a church building. During these twenty-one years $922,324.49 have been returned on loans, and 708 congregations have paid their loans in full.

      The total new receipts for the year are $99,905.41. This includes $28,229.22 of interest collected by the treasurer. The receipts through the corresponding secretary are $71,676.19, a gain of $20,182.84 over last year.

      The campaign for our annual offering must always be very brief and very strenuous, because not much can be done to prepare and enlist the churches until after the vacation period. Both preparation and the harvesting must be

F. COWHERD.

done within five or six weeks. The results this year are the most gratifying in our history. The offerings from the churches amount to $33,174.85, a gain over last year of $9,192.22. There were 1,318 contributing churches, a gain of 124. This increase shows growth. However, there are yet hundreds of congregations that have never co-operated in this work. Your Board has sought to enlist all the churches that believe in organized work. Why there are yet so many who refuse fellowship in this method of housing their homeless brethren is beyond our comprehension. We shall seek to enlist new contributing churches, believing that with knowledge of this great work there will come the help of those that are at present indifferent.

      The Board has not closed as many loans this year as usual. This was not because our missions were not active in building this Centennial year, but was due to the fact that we had no money to promise early in the year, and hence the erection of buildings did not begin in time to complete them and secure the loans.

      Later in the fiscal year our receipts justified us in promising 108 loans, totaling $187,850. These buildings are going up and are a part of our work for this year.

      The General Convention in 1888 decided that whenever an individual or a congregation gave $5,000 through a ten-year period to the Church Extension Fund, such amount should constitute a Named Fund, and a separate account be kept of it. We have twenty-eight Named Funds.

      Including the William G. Logan Trust Fund of $55,000, our Annuity

G. W. MUCKLEY.

Fund now amounts to $245,424.47. The Board does not invest the funds in some secular enterprise, but the money is housing homeless congregations while earning the annuitant his income. Our annuity money is loaned at six per cent. to congregations that we can not help with four per cent. money. Twenty-three gifts amounting to $19,750 were received this year.

      "I give, devise and bequeath to the American Christian Missionary Society, whose headquarters are in Cincinnati, Ohio, the sum of —— dollars, the same to be added to the Church Extension Fund of said society, and used in aiding to build houses of worship."

      The Endeavor societies and Sunday-schools

T. R. BRYAN.

are building up Named Funds. The Endeavor Fund amounts to $2,320.31, and has erected four churches. The Sunday-school Fund amounts to $2,224.50, and has erected four churches.

      Finally, brethren, this work must be greatly enlarged. In a rapidly growing brotherhood there will always be found thousands of Disciples of Christ who can never enjoy a religious home [260] without out the aid of this fund. This fund must help to take the cities. Let us begin our second century's history with confidence in our divine plea for union on the basis of the teachings of the New Testament, but let us not allow the best plea on earth to paralyze our efforts so that we fail to furnish new congregations with proper equipment. The plea will not be heard to-day in a church that has no house above its head. Given a consecrated preacher, a devout, self-sacrificing congregation and an adequate, modern church building, and the plea of the Disciples will succeed anywhere on democratic American soil, as has been demonstrated in all parts of our land.

      We should hasten to secure the million-dollar fund for Church Extension as one of the absolute essentials to our permanent progress in the years of opportunity before us. This accomplished, new goals should be set, to lure our brotherhood onward to the larger tasks before us. In behalf of the Board.

[CCR 259-261]