A MINISTER'S TESTIMONY.

"I have just been reading the AMERICAN MISSIONARY for August with profound interest. I rejoice with you that the 'figures are still improving'.

"Your 'practical thoughtful friend' is a suggestive example for us all, I am not surprised that this year he 'has doubled his special contribution.' 'Nothing succeeds like success,' is true also of achievement in bringing ourselves to give to the Lord of what he is constantly giving to us.

"I thank God for the simple, but singular and noble justice done by that judge and jury in Chicago who maintained the civil rights of brother Smith.

"Mrs. Regal's paper on 'The Local Society,' seemed to me full of excellent suggestions. One in particular, that of a birthday offering containing a cent for every year of age, is eminently practical, and conducive to surprising results. How better can we set up our Ebenezer than by thus saying from our purses as well as from our hearts, 'Hitherto hath the Lord helped us'?

"Finding it is best for myself to 'strike while the iron is hot,' I sit down at once to send you a check. The signal mercy of the Lord enables me to make my offering of dollars instead of cents, and has put so many benefits already into the fraction of the current year that it may be reckoned as a complete year. How small an acknowledgment does even a dollar seem for a year of life, with all its escapes from peril and all its experience of good! What a refreshing addition to the resources of the church would result if each professing Christian would give such a birthday offering of one cent for each year of life! May the Lord fill us all with the spirit of him who gave himself unto the death for us.

"I pray earnestly that the American Missionary Association may continue to enlarge, and its work to prosper."