PRESBYTERIANS. 



551 



eighty-four churches and manses, valued at $476,- 

 1)48, had been completed during the year without 

 debt. 



The work of the Sabbath-School and Mission- 

 ary Department of the Board of Publication and 

 Sabbath-School Work had been carried on in 30 

 States and Territories, and Havana, Cuba. Nine- 

 ty-three missionaries had been in commission, 767 

 Sabbath-schools had been organized and 304 re- 

 organized, having in all 38,209 members. Of G6 

 churches the outgrowth of Sabbath-schools organ- 

 ized by the missionaries of the board, 54 were 

 Presbyterian, with an aggregate membership of 

 1,067. The year's business of the publishing 

 house amounted to $500,000, and the profits to 

 $24,000, two-thirds of which had been given to the 

 Sabbath-school department for its missionary 

 work. The net capital of the board was now 

 $218,260. 



The report of the Board of Home Missions gave 

 the following statistics of the work: Number of 

 missionaries, including 28 Mexican and Indian 

 helpers, 1,342; of missionary teachers, 425; of 

 members, 76,993; of members of congregations, 

 86,423; of Sabbath-schools, 2,018, with 117,113 

 members; of additions during the year on profes- 

 sion of faith, 7,207; of baptisms, 3,050 of adults 

 and 3,386 of infants; of Sabbath-schools organ- 

 ized, 281; of church edifices, 1,520, valued at $3,- 

 116,110; of church edifices built during the year, 

 63, at a total cost of $128,164, while 250 church 

 edifices were enlarged and repaired, at a cost of 

 $67,285; amount of church debts canceled, $95,- 

 681 ; number of churches having reached self-sup- 

 port, 31 ; of churches organized, 37 ; of parsonages, 

 432, valued at $464,720. 



The Board of Missions to Freedmen had received 

 during the year $163,265, the amount showing a 

 considerable increase over the receipts of the pre- 

 vious year, which were, in turn, larger than those 

 of the year preceding. The sum of $82,066, or 

 $10,304 more than in the previous year, had fur- 

 ther been contributed to self-support on the field 

 and reported to the board, but not entered in its 

 accounts. An effort to raise $250,000 for the en- 

 dowment of Biddle University was approved by 

 the General Assembly as a part of the Twentieth 

 Century fund movement. 



The treasurer's balance sheet of the Board of 

 Foreign Missions showed total current assets of 

 $609,990; total invested assets, $1,274,150; cur- 

 rent liabilities, $527,434; other liabilities, $1,355,- 

 093, leaving an apparent surplus of $1,621. 



A considerable part of the report of the board 

 was devoted to an account of affairs and condi- 

 tions of the missions in China, in connection with 

 the " Boxer " troubles, under which 5 missionaries 

 had lost their lives and 178 communicants had 

 suffered death at Pekin and Pao-Ting-Fu. In the 

 other mission fields the work had been prosperous, 

 in some places even more so than in the most 

 fruitful years of the past. The missionary force 

 numbered 299 men and 416 women (715 European 

 missionaries), 583 native ordained preachers and 

 licentiates, and 1,258 other helpers in all, 1,841, 

 native assistants. The 636 native churches re- 

 turned 41,599 communicants, 4,481 having been 

 added during the year, while 718 schools were 

 maintained, with 25,910 pupils, besides 38,137 pu- 

 pils in Sabbath-schools. Eighty-four students 

 were preparing for the ministry. The board had 

 117 mission stations and 1,182 out-stations in 13 

 different countries. 



The receipts of the Woman's Board of Home 

 Missions for the year had been $357,201. Espe- 

 cial mention was made in the report of the large 

 amount $39,367 paid for tuition. The freed- 



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 Uil.N-s and 

 in: the 

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men's department had ror'cived *<;].: 

 of $5,898. An increased demand 

 Testaments was reported. Work ; 

 Americanized races had been a.-si^i 

 eral Assembly as the special lie|,| 

 with responsibility to the Board 

 sions. 



The treasurer of the Women's Bo;u 

 Missions reported that the contribut 

 year had amounted to $70,767. 



The one hundred and thirteenth General ASM-MI- 

 bly met in Philadelphia, Pa., May 15. The llev. 

 Henry C. Minton, D. D., Stuart Professor of Sy*- 

 tematic Theology in San Francisco Theological 

 Seminary, was chosen moderator. A motion to 

 repeal the " Peoria overture" (see Annual Cyclo- 

 paedia for 1900) adopted by the preceding General 

 Assembly was lost. The second day's sessions of 

 the Assembly were given, in accordance with the 

 program marked out by the previous General 

 Assembly, to the celebration of the Twentieth 

 Century. Three meetings were held in the Acad- 

 emy of Music, where addresses were delivered by 

 selected speakers, and a Historical and Missionary 

 Exhibit of the Church was opened in the Academy 

 of Fine Arts. The treasurer of the Twentieth 

 Century fund reported that the amount con- 

 tributed to the fund to date including only gifts 

 actually made in legal form, returns of which had 

 been filed in the treasurer's office was $3,397,031. 

 In addition to this amount, mention was made, as 

 not included in report, of contributions in St. 

 Louis, Mo., of $180,000 to a single enterprise, and 

 of the subscriptions that had been made toward 

 the effort to remove the mortgage on the Presby- 

 terian building in the city of New York. The sum 

 reported as subscribed had come from about 1,000 

 of the 7,800 churches represented in the General 

 Assembly. The contributions were distributed 

 among the several objects of benevolence, as fol- 

 low: For the boards of the Church, $106,030; for 

 colleges and academies, $330,642; for the theolog- 

 ical seminaries, $110,767; for hospitals, $61,659; 

 for the Young Men's Christian Association, $117,- 

 464; for miscellaneous purposes, $30,000; for pay- 

 ment of local debts upon churches, $1,081,654; for 

 improvements in local congregations (for church 

 edifices and other improvements), $1,537,913. The 

 committee was continued for another year. In its 

 resolutions on the subject the Assembly called 

 upon every church in the denomination still bur- 

 dened with debt and thus hindered from giving its 

 full share to missions and benevolence, to remove 

 its indebtedness within two years; invited consid- 

 eration of the enlarged needs and opportunities of 

 the various boards and other objects of contribu- 

 tion; and expressed its deliberate judgment " that 

 it is the sacred duty and blessed privilege of the 

 Church, at the beginning of the new century, to 

 strengthen all the agencies and institutions em- 

 ployed in our work by furnishing a sum sufficient 

 for their enlarged endowment and support." 



The report of the Special Committee "on Sys- 

 tematic Benevolence defined that term as apply- 

 ing, first, to the principles that should govern an 

 individual church-member in his giving of money ; 

 and second, the arrangements that should be 

 adopted by the churches, as churches, for their 

 benevolent offerings; and expressed the belief that 

 it was the teaching of Scripture that gifts of a 

 church-member ought to be systematic rather 

 than spasmodic; that they should be arranged for 

 in advance, like other uses of money; that they 

 should bear relation to the giver's receiving, never 

 falling below some determined proportion of his 

 income (one-tenth) ; and tlat definite accounts 

 should be kept of them, so as to determine 



