UNITARIANS. 



769 



garians of Macedonia. Very recently the Rou- 

 manians and Albanians on the borders of the 

 Greek kingdom have begun to cultivate their 

 separate nationalities, encouraged probably by 

 Austria. The Roumanian Government and an 

 educational society founded for the purpose in 

 Bucharest have aided the Wallachian peasant- 

 ry of Epirus to maintain schools in their o\vn 

 language. In the districts of Salonica and 

 Clissura the Greeks used every means to check 

 the Roumanian nationalist movement, and be- 

 gan to form political conspiracies for the an- 

 nexation of these districts to Greece. The Pa- 

 triarch refused the request of the Roumanians 

 for a liturgy in their national language, and 

 when the Bulgarian Exarch requested the 

 Turkish Government to install Bulgarian bish- 

 ops in certain districts of Macedonia, the Porte 

 refused, acting at the instigation of the Rus- 

 sian ambassador. Many Bulgarians -were ar- 

 rested in the autumn for refusing to 'recognize 

 the jurisdiction of the Greek clergy. 



The Armenian Agitation. The Turkish authori- 

 ties took vigorous measures in 1888 to sup- 

 press the national movement that has for its 



ohject the re-establishment of the ancient 

 Kingdom of Armenia. The local authorities 

 searched the houses, and even the churches 

 and convents, in the districts of Van, Harpoot, 

 Diabebir, arid Erzerum. In Van a great num- 

 ber of persons who possessed arms or com- 

 promising documents were imprisoned, and 

 some were subjected to torture in order to ex- 

 tort confessions. Armenian teachers and mer- 

 chants in Constantinople were placed in con- 

 finement or banished to Tripoli. Sir William 

 White, the English ambassador at Constanti- 

 nople, addressed an inquiry to the Grand A'iz- 

 ier concerning the arrests, and was informed 

 that the Government possessed documentary 

 proofs of an insurrectionary conspiracy. The 

 British Government, which the Armenians 

 have considered their special protector, refused 

 to interfere, saying it had no right to do so 

 under the Treaty of Berlin, unless it did so in 

 conjunction with the other signatory powers. 

 The Armenian Patriarch, Harioutioun Veha- 

 bedian, who had sought in vain to allay the 

 revolutionary spirit, was forced to resign by 

 his compatriots. 



U 



The " Year-Book of the Uni- 

 tarian Congregational Churches "for 1889 gives 

 lists of 392 Unitarian Societies and 488 minis- 

 ters in the United States and Canada, and 365 

 Unitarian churches and others in fellowship 

 and habitual association with them in Great 

 Britain, Ireland, and Australia. 



American Unitarians. The American Unitarian 

 churches and their associations and benevolent 

 societies are represented in the National Con- 

 ference of Unitarian and other Christian 

 churches, a body that imposes no authorita- 

 tive tests of membership, which meets for con- 

 sultation and discussion every two years. The 

 American Unitarian Association, organized in 

 1825, is the most active agency through which 

 work for the extension of the principles of the 

 societies is carried on. Its objects are to collect 

 and diffuse information respecting the state of 

 Unitarian Christianity in America; to promote 

 union, sympathy, and co-operation, publish and 

 distribute books and tracts, supply missionaries 

 when they are needed, and to promote its pur- 

 poses by such other measures as may be ex- 

 pedient. These purposes are also furthered by 

 a number of local organizations in virtual co- 

 operation or affiliation with this society. The 

 sixty-third annual meeting of the American 

 Unitarian Association was held in Boston, 

 Mass., May 29. The Hon. George S. Hale pre- 

 sided. The receipts for the year had been, 

 from societies and individuals, $50.291, and 

 from the income of invested funds and all other 

 sources, except legacies, $28,922. The expen- 

 ditures had amounted to $103.989 showing a 

 deficiency of $24,775, the amount of which 

 VOL xxvin. 49 A 



had to be withdrawn from the general fund. 

 The general fund, after accounting for the 

 addition of $69,000 to it from legacies and for 

 the amounts that had been withdrawn from it, 

 stood at $139,609. The trustees of the Church- 

 Building Loan fund had received $3,650 in 

 contributions and $3,075 from payments on 

 loans, and had on hand $5,266. The associa- 

 tion gives aid in Southern education at the 

 Hampton Institute, Va., Tuskegee, Ala., 

 Palatka, Fla., and the Highland Academy, 

 N. C., and supports an industrial school for 

 Indian children at the Crow Reservation, Mon- 

 tana. The mission in Hindustan has been 

 discontinued since the death of the Rev. C. H. 

 A. Dall. A mission has been begun in Japan, 

 in the conduct of which the British and Foreign 

 Unitarian Association co-operates. The Wom- 

 an's Auxiliary Conference, which was formed 

 in 1880 to aid the Association and supplement 

 its work, had, since that time collected and 

 applied $31,887, the contributions of its last 

 financial year having amounted to $6,000. 



The Unitarian Sunday-School Society, in- 

 corporated in 1885, seeks to promote moral 

 and religious instruction in Sunday-schools. 

 It publishes text-books and " Lesson-Helps for 

 Sunday-Schools," and an illustrated Sunday- 

 school paper, and has a missionary work of 

 increasing scope and importance. The Mead- 

 ville Theological School, Meadville, Pa., and 

 the Divinity School of Harvard University are 

 under Unitarian influence. 



Unitarians in Great Britain. The third Trien- 

 nial National Conference of Unitarian and other 

 non-subscribing or kindred congregations met 



