DISCIPLES OF CHRIST. 



DOMINION OF CANADA. 211 



these localities opens up the possibility of a 

 great industrial development. 



DISCIPLES OF CHRIST. The first detailed 

 report of the statistics of the Disciples of Christ 

 was made to the General Christian Missionary 

 Convention in October, 1880. The following 

 is a summary of its principal items : 



The floating membership is estimated to con- 

 sist of 50,000 persons. Adding this, gives a 

 total of more than 600,000 members in the 

 United States. 



The annual meeting of the General Christian 

 Missionary Convention was held in Louisville, 

 Kentucky, October 21st. Mr. T. P. Haley pre- 

 sided. The whole amount of the receipts of the 

 Board representing the Convention for the year 

 had been $16,123, of which $9,373 were in cash, 

 the rest in notes and bequests. The Board had. 

 employed seventeen missionaries, and had car- 

 ried on its work in Dakota, Washington, and 

 Montana Territories, Oregon, Kansas, Nebras- 

 ka. Tennessee, South Carolina, Virginia, West 

 Virginia, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Iowa, and 

 New Mexico. Its missionaries had organized 

 nineteen churches and twenty-one Sunday- 

 schools, and returned 791 additions of members. 

 Besides this work, sixteen State societies had 

 received $85,559, and returned 2,280 baptisms 

 and 1,573 other accessions resulting from their 

 labors. 



The Foreign Christian Missionary Society 

 had received $12,887, and had expended $11,- 

 307. It had missions at Southampton, England ; 

 Copenhagen, Denmark ; Paris, France ; Chester, 



Southport, ad Liverpool, England ; and Con- 

 stantinople, Turkey all of which together re- 

 turned 291 additions during the year, 514 mem- 

 bers in all, 735 attendants at Sunday-school, and 

 a total average attendance at church of 3,000 

 persons. The services in Liverpool were to be 

 temporarily suspended, and a new station was 

 to be opened at Bury, near Manchester ; services 

 had been begun at Frederickshald, Norway, 

 with a congregation of sixty Free-churchmen 

 owning their own house. A paper called 

 "The Evangelist" was published at South- 

 port, England, and a monthly periodical was 

 published at Copenhagen, Denmark. 



The Christian Woman's Board of Missions 

 had received $7,223, and had expended $4,958. 

 It employed live missionaries in Jamaica and 

 two missionaries in Paris, France. 



DOMINION OF CANADA. The Conserv- 

 ative Government still preserves a large and 

 harmonious majority in Parliament. Sir John 

 Alexander Macdonald is still Premier and Min- 

 ister of the Interior, and the principal mem- 

 bers of the Cabinet are the same as in 1879 

 Sir Samuel Leonard Tilley remaining Minister 

 of Finance; Sir Charles Tupper, Minister of 

 Railways and Canals; James Colledge Pope, 

 Minister of Marine and Fisheries ; and John 

 Henry Pope, Minister of Agriculture. Among 

 the changes in the Cabinet the principal one 

 was the appointment of John O'Connor, previ- 

 ously President of the Council, to the post- 

 master-generalship, the office which he b,eld at 

 the time of the fall of the Conservative Ministry 

 in 1873. The leader of the Opposition, Alex- 

 ander Mackenzie, the late Prime Minister, who 

 had headed the party in and out of power for 

 over twenty years, felt compelled by failing 

 health to resign the active leadership into the 

 hands of his coadjutor, Edward Blake, who 

 had been his supporter in debate for many 

 years. Mr. Mackenzie did not cease, however, 

 to take part in the debates of the House upon 

 the main questions in controversy between the 

 Conservative Government and the Liberal mi- 

 nority. 



The Dominion Parliament was convened on 

 the 12th of February, and prorogued on the 

 7th of May. 



For the creation of the office of a resident 

 representative agent in the United Kingdom, 

 to be called the High Commissioner for Canada, 

 which post is to be filled by Sir Alexander T. 

 Gait, the vote of Parliament was obtained by 

 the Premier. 



A change was made in the currency law, re- 

 ducing the specie reserve held against the Do- 

 minion currency notes and augmenting the 

 issue. Under the old law the Government was . 

 permitted to issue notes, secured by a partial 

 reserve in specie, up to the amount of $12,000,- 

 000. Against the first $9,000,000, a gold re- 

 serve of 20 per cent, was required to be held, 

 and against all above that amount, up to $12- 

 000,000, a reserve of 50 per cent. For all 

 notes placed in circulation beyond that amount 



