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stances the Committee felt constrained, though with regret, to accept the resignation.

From the time of the conference with the secretaries until within a short time before the meeting of this Assembly, frequent meetings have been held both in New York and in Philadelphia. The discussions of the Committee have been marked by great frankness and minuteness, but by uniform cordiality, constantly deepening interest, happy reconciliation of conflicting views, and ultimate substantial agreement upon all important points. The result may be said. to represent the unanimous action of the Committee.

The following principles gradually shaped themselves as a basis of the Committee's action:

(1) That the magazine should distinctively represent the officially organized benevolent work of the Presbyterian Church, and should therefore exclude all matter relating to questions of doctrine or ecclesiastical polity.

(2) That it should therefore aim to set forth in the best and largest way the claims of all the church boards.

(3) That it should clearly recognize and endeavor to develop the idea of the essential unity of the church's work as represented by these different boards; to discourage any possible antagonism or rivalry between them, and to exhibit them as representing merely different aspects and functions of one thoroughly compacted system for the proclamation and diffusion of the gospel, and therefore as standing toward each other in a mutually dependent relation. It was held by the Committee that a clear recognition of the interdependence of the several boards would go far to secure for each its due place and emphasis in the mind and conscience of the church at large.

(4) That while the principal emphasis should be given to the official work of the

church as represented by its boards, the magazine might, within the instructions of the General Assembly, deal with other benevolent interests, in which, though Christian rather than denominational, members of the Presbyterian Church in many parts of our country, notably in the great cities, are so largely engaged. City missions, hospital work, medical missionary schools and other similar matters, it was thought might be represented with great benefit in diffusing larger knowledge of the variety and power of Christian agencies, in stimulating effort. on similar lines, and in making more generally available the experience of those who direct these movements.

(5) In order to foster the popular conception of the unity of our church work, it was held that the magazine itself should exhibit a corresponding unity of structure. A mere combination of the three existing periodicals within a single cover could have been easily made, and a clerk of average capacity could have pieced together the material furnished by the different boards. The Committee was unanimous in the opinion that if this were the ideal of the new maga zine, consolidation was unnecessary, and that the three periodicals might better be left as they were.

The action of the Assembly in consolidating seemed, however, to make possible the attainment of a higher ideal in a magazine which, while fully representing all the separate agencies of the church, should be informed and shaped by a single mind, thoroughly possessed with the conception of the unity of our church work, and arranging and shaping all material, so far as possible, with that principle distinctly in view. The Committee therefore held that the matter of the magazine should be not only compiled, but adjusted, and, so far as practicable, worked up; that facts should be not only cited, but marshalled and massed; and that,

while the magazine should not attempt to enter the field occupied by the popular secular monthlies, its conductors might wisely take a lesson from these in making it bright and readable. It seemed to your Committee that if these ideas could be realized, a larger field would be open for the consolidated magazine than for its predecessors; and an opportunity provided for creating and forming healthful sentiment, no less than for diffusing information.

(6) Having gone thus far, it was necessary for the Committee to go farther. The logical outcome of this ideal was an editor. On this point the Committee took high ground from the beginning, insisting that the new magazine should represent, if possible, a power of the first order in our church machinery, demanding for its manipulation the best ability joined with ripe experience and recognized position in the church.

It was therefore resolved that the consolidated magazine should be furnished with an editor who should reside either in New York or in Philadelphia, as circumstances might thereafter determine. His salary was fixed at five thousand dollars in the event of his residence in New York, or at four thousand in case he should reside in Philadelphia; this salary being a legitimate and proper part of the expenses of the magazine, authorized and directed to be paid by the General Assembly. The Committee further authorized the payment of the editor's travelling expenses between New York and Philadelphia in the interest of the magazine.

The Rev. Henry A. Nelson, D.D., was unanimously elected editor at a full meeting of the Committee, October 26, and signified his acceptance on November 11. The action of the Committee assigning the publication of the magazine to the Presbyterian Board of Publication fixed his residence in Philadelphia.

The Committee was deeply impressed with the importance of so adjusting the relations

of the editor to the heads of the several boards as to secure and maintain perfect harmony in the conduct of the magazine. To this end they deemed it wise not to extend editorial supervision to the curtailment or modification of material furnished by the secretaries. It was accordingly resolved that, within the pages allotted to each board, the secretary or secretaries of that board should prescribe the character and form of the matter, the only discretion left to the editor being that of arrangement, a discretion rendered imperative by the prac tical necessities of publication. Any pos sible complications from this source it was believed could be easily adjusted by personal conference between the editor and the secretaries. In order to facilitate the settlement of these or other possible difficulties, Messrs. Vincent, Crosby, Dey, Pierson, Dickey and Willson were appointed an Advisory Committee to co-operate with the editor until the meeting of the present Assembly; and it was further provided that the editor should have power to exclude any matter which might be regarded by himself and any three of the Committee above named as in conflict with the general interests of the church or the principles already laid down for the conduct of the magazine.

Twelve pages, afterwards increased to sixteen, were assigned to the editor, over which his control should be absolute, subject only to the action of the Advisory Committee aforesaid. The matter of a children's department, and that of notices of the publications of the Women's Boards, were left to the editor's discretion.

The Committee decided that the magazine should be made up as follows: (A) Two general departments, OFFICIAL and EDITORIAL.

(B) The official department to consist of two sections, designated, respectively, the HOME and the FOREIGN Department.

The Foreign Department to represent the interest of Foreign Missions, and the Home Department to include the work of the Board of Home Missions, the Boards of Ministerial Relief, Education, Church Erection, Freedmen, Publication and Aid for Colleges.

(C) The Editorial Department as previously described.

The magazine to consist of ninety-six pages, royal octavo, to be distributed as follows, the pages allotted to each department being in every case consecutive: Foreign Department, 32 pages. Home Department, 48 pages, apportioned as follows: Board of Home Missions, 24 pages; each of the other six boards, 4 pages; Editorial Department, 16 pages.

All details of a merely business character, such as the addresses of the boards, names of officers, etc., to be printed, as far as prac ticable, only on the third and fourth pages of the cover.

The magazine to be issued monthly, and sufficiently early to be used for the monthly concert; and to constitute two volumes annually, ending respectively with the months of June and December, and each to be provided with a complete index of

contents.

In assigning the publication of the magazine to the Presbyterian Board of Publication, the Committee was guided by the following considerations:

(1) In the line of the unification of our church work, it was felt that the official church magazine should have the imprint of the church's official Board of Publication. Such recognition of that agency was simply decorous.

(2) The publication of the magazine in New York, though on some accounts desirable, would have involved expenses which could be avoided or greatly diminished by employing the facilities for printing, mailing and editorial accommodations already or

ganized in Philadelphia under the supervision of the General Assembly.

The Committee desires to acknowledge in the strongest terms the hearty, prompt and efficient co-operation of the Board of Publication in launching the new enterprise. The Board promptly advanced the necessary funds, and the experience and energy of the superintendent, Mr. John A. Black, and all the facilities of the Publication House, were placed at the Committee's disposal, without any charge beyond that for actual outlay.

The title of the magazine, THE CHURCH AT HOME AND ABROAD, was selected with no shadow of ecclesiastical pretension going to represent the Presbyterian body as peculiarly the church of Christ, but rather as expressing the identification of the Presbyterian body and work with the universal church, consisting of all true disciples of our Lord and Saviour. The Committee assumes that wherever Christians of any name are engaged in diffusing the gospel and establishing its institutions, there the church is at work-the church of Jesus Christ, including the sects, but larger than them all combined. From this point of view, the Committee claims that the title is the most catholic which they could have chosen, representing not our distinction from other branches of the church, but our oneness with them on the great lines of evangelical work.

At the same time, it was proper that the denominational character of the magazine should be fairly announced on its titlepage; and this, in the judgment of your Committee, was amply secured by the official imprint of the General Assembly and by the business imprint of its denominational publishing house.

From the denominational point of view, the Committee also desired to emphasize in the title the principle which they designed

the future magazine to express the principle, namely, of the superintendence and general direction of Christian effort by the church instead of by voluntary societies; the principle, in other words, of work on church lines. The title, therefore, denominationally considered, stands for the solidarity of our denominational work under the direction of the General Assembly. Christianly considered, it represents Presbyterians as at one with the great purpose and work of the whole true church of Christ under different names-the diffusion of the gospel of our common Lord and Saviour.

The price of the magazine, after consider able discussion, was fixed at two dollars for single subscriptions, one dollar for clubs, and one dollar and a quarter when members of the clubs should desire the numbers mailed to their addresses. The subscriptions to the three magazines before the consolidation amounted to two and a half dollars, and at club rates to one and threequarter dollars; and the Committee think that in giving to subscribers two volumes annually, containing 1152 pages, for two dollars at the utmost, and for half that sum at club rates, they have put the matter on a most liberal basis. It has been their policy to make the magazine sustain itself by subscriptions. They have excluded all advertisements; and while the new enterprise is still a matter of experiment, they have thought it wise to draw the lines of the free list within those laid down by the three magazines. In view of their responsibility for the administration of the large amount of church funds required for the inauguration and equipment of so important an enterprise, they did not feel justified in extending the free list beyond home and foreign missionaries. The circulation must, in the nature of the case, depend largely upon pastors, and your Committee feels justified in assuming that the loyalty and

devotion of the great body of pastors may be counted upon to do gratuitously what they can for an enterprise so important.

The expenses of the magazine have been apportioned among the several boards according to the amount of space occupied by each in its pages. The Board of Publication has been authorized to receive all moneys coming as subscriptions or donations to the magazine, and to place the same in a separate and distinct account, and to disburse such sums as may be necessary for the current expenses of publication.

The first number of the magazine was issued, according to the Assembly's instructions, on the 1st of January, 1887. Dr. Nelson being unable to superintend the preparation of that number, it was published under the supervision of an editorial sub-committee, consisting of the members of this Committee who resided in Philadelphia.

While the Committee has thus shaped the new magazine according to its best knowledge and judgment, its action with regard to certain details has been necessarily tentative, and consciously open to modification in the light of increasing experience. We have therefore carefully studied the numerous suggestions and expressions of opinion called forth by the publication itself since its first issue. These have included, as was to be expected, some adverse criticism; but we are pleased to be able to say that the general drift of sentiment, so far as expressed to us, has been favorable beyond our expectation, and that censure has been mostly confined to minor details. On a few points objections have been so general and persistent as to render immediate changes advisable. The emblem on the cover has called out very emphatic disapproval and protest. Objection has also been taken to the color of the cover and to the omission of the tables of monthly receipts by the different boards. This last point has caused the

Committee much perplexity, and has led to a request for a formal expression of the wishes and opinions of the secretaries concerning it. On the one hand, the Committee has felt that the amount of space required for the publication of these receipts involved the exclusion of matter more valuable and interesting; since it has been reluctant to incur the expense of additional pages for that purpose. On the other hand, we have been aware of the interest taken by many in these reports, and that they are considered important by many as furnishing additional security for accurate and prompt returns from the churches. The opinion of the secretaries was by no means unanimous; but as the publication of the receipts was strenuously urged by the secretaries of the two principal boards, the Committee finally adopted a resolution that, "Beginning with the July issue, the receipts of such of the boards as shall furnish the same shall be published monthly, and for this purpose the number of the pages of the magazine shall be increased to 104." The numbers of the new volume will also appear in a cover of a different color, from which the present device of the cross and serpent will be removed.

The total of cash receipts of the magazine from November 29, 1886, to April 14, 1887, was $27,398.75. Disbursements or payments during the same period, $12,366.55. Cash on hand, $15,022.20. The above items of payment include all charges and expenditures for the January, February, March and April numbers. Of the first number, 55,000 copies were printed, and an average of 33,000 of the other numbers. The total circulation April 15 was 27,394, as follows: paid circulation, 25,708; free copies to home and foreign missionaries and exchanges, 1686. The total cost of publishing 30,000 copies of the April number, including paper, composition, printing, binding, salary of editor, wages of clerks, wrapping-paper.

stationery and postage, was $2537.43. At the same rate of cost for the same number of copies for the balance of the year [eight months] the outlay would be $20,299.44. If the paid circulation should remain just where it was on April 15, the deficit at the end of the year would be $5267.24. But no such result is anticipated. New subscriptions are coming in daily.

It may be well to present in comparison the figures of the former magazines. The total circulation of the Foreign Missionary in May last was 20,500 copies; the number of paying subscribers, 14,000; free circulation, 6500. Receipts, including $1048 for advertisements, $10,100; cost of publication, $9777; profit, $323. The average circulation of the Home Missionary for the twelve months ending April, 1886, was 22,000. The Committee is not advised as to the relative number of paid and free copies. Cost of publication, $10,573.11; receipts, $8324.52; deficit, $2248.59. Cost of publication from April, 1886, to December, 1886, inclusive, $6768.46; receipts, $2728.81; deficit, $4039.65. With regard to this last statement, it is proper to quote the words of the treasurer of the Home Mission Board: "Very few of the subscribers renewed their subscriptions after the action of the General Assembly became known; but for reasons, we continued to send the publication to a larger part of the subscribers till the publication was suspended." The monthly circulation of the Record from January, 1886, to December, 1886, was 8375 copies. Cost of publication, $3819.25; receipts, $433.72; deficit, $3385.53. This deficit was paid by the various boards in proportion to the space occupied by each.

It will thus be seen that the publication of the two missionary magazines for the fiscal year 1886, on an average circulation of 21,500 copies, after deducting the credit balance of $323 on the Foreign Missionary,

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