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UNITED BRETHREN CHURCH. 



by the Rev. Joseph Wood and the Rev. C. W. 

 Wendte; The Outlook, by the Rev. W. C. Bowie; 

 Religious Thought in England at the Close of the 

 Nineteenth Century, by the Rev. E. A. Armstrong; 

 Liberal Thought Within the Dutch Reformed 

 Churches, by Prof. Eerdman, of Leyden: Switzer- 

 land Three Centuries after Calvin, by Prof. Mon- 

 tet, of Geneva ; The Movement in Catholic France, 

 by Prof. Bonet-Maury; The Religious Crisis of 

 our Age, by Prof. Fliederer, of Berlin; Words- 

 worth's Ideals and the Nineteenth Century, by 

 the Rev. P. H. Wickersteed; The Liberal Move- 

 ment in Italy, by the Rev. Tony Andre ; The Posi- 

 tion of Religious Parties in Hungary, by Prof. G. 

 Boros; Hungarian Folk-Lore, by the Rev. N. 

 Jozan; and Church and State in America, by the 

 Rev. C. W. Wendte. 



UNITED BRETHREN CHURCH. I. The 

 following is a summary of the statistics of the 

 United Brethren Church for 1900, as officially pub- 

 lished in its Year-Book: Number of annual con- 

 ferences, 45, with 3 mission districts; of organized 

 churches, 4,251; of bishops, 4; of itinerant min- 

 isters, 1,955; of local preachers, 438; of members, 

 244,667 ; of Sunday-schools, 3,564, with 35,996 offi- 

 cers and teachers and 260,333 pupils; of Young 

 People's Christian Union Societies, 1,632, with 

 64,965 members; of church-houses, 3,298, having 

 an estimated value of $5,908,178; of parsonages, 

 768, valued at $779,153; amount of contributions 

 for all purposes, $1,550,447, of which $84,777 were 

 for missions ($16,402 for woman's missions), 

 $17,546 for church erection, $2,193 for beneficiary 

 education, $30,656 for colleges, academies, and the 

 seminary, $5,058 for preachers' aid, $690,650 for 

 preachers' salaries, and $8,435 for the support 

 of the bishops. 



The trustees of the publishing house returned 

 cash receipts for the year of $241,817, profits of 

 $22,527, and a valuation of assets of $303,180. 

 The profits for three years and nine months had 

 been $83,087. The institution had been freed from 

 interest-bearing debt. 



The Sunday-School Board returned a balance 

 of $1,500 in its treasury, and reported concerning 

 the distribution of $193 of Sunday-school litera- 

 ture to needy city mission Sunday-schools in the 

 United States and foreign countries. It had ex- 

 pended $12,646 in the past four years. 



The Board of Education had aided 66 licentiates, 

 with an expenditure of $4,695. Several colleges 

 had reduced or canceled their debts. The board 

 reported to the General Conference that an in- 

 crease in the beneficiary work had taken place 

 during the past four years, that the receipts for 

 that time had been $17,007, and the expenditures 

 $16,002, while the fund had been increased by 

 $7,360. More than $48,000 had been raised for 

 the Beneficiary Educational fund since its found- 

 ing, and 374 students had been aided at 10 schools 

 and in Germany. The schools (1 theological school, 

 8 colleges and universities, and 4 academies and 

 seminaries) returned 144 teachers and 2,661 stu- 

 dents, 26 buildings, and property valued at $900,- 

 929. A training-school in Africa had 3 teachers 

 and 18 students, and other African schools 6 

 teachers and 393 students. 



The Church Erection Society reported $10,631 

 collected from 62 churches, 22 mortgages lifted 

 from off church-houses, and $13,309 of new funds 

 secured, which, with the loans collected, made an 

 aggregate of $23,940 of receipts. Loans had been 

 made of $26,750 to 38 churches, and $1,350 to 5 

 parsonages. During the past four years the Per- 

 manent fund had increased from $45,157 to $66,- 

 508. The cases aided during that period repre- 

 sented property valued at more than $300,000. 



Since the organization of the board, 338 churches 

 and 5 parsonages had been aided, securing more 

 than $1,000,000 of property to the denomination. 



The total receipts of the Missionary Society for 

 the year had been $91,764, while $21,231 had been 

 expended upon the foreign field and a total 

 amount of $85,878 had been paid out for all pur- 

 poses. The debt had been reduced to $19,846. 

 The board reported to the General Conference 

 that in the four years past 36 new missions had 

 been opened in the home department, 69 churches 

 organized, and 49 new churches and 21 parson- 

 ages erected. The mission work in Germany com- 

 prised 11 charges, 26 classes, 20 organized church- 

 es, 12 ministers, 1,013 members, and 9 church 

 buildings. The work in West Africa, which had 

 had to be restored after the disturbances that 

 had prevailed, included 7 charges, 122 appoint- 

 ments, 358 pupils in Sunday-schools and 393 

 in day-schools, an annual attendance of 50,502 

 at preaching services and 13,785 at class-meetings, 

 and buildings valued at $17,000. A well-organized 

 and efficient mission was sustained in Japan, and 

 a congregation had been organized in Ponce, Porto 

 Rico. The missionary income for the past four 

 years to the general and the conference treasuries 

 had been $219,390. The income from thank-offer- 

 ings and the Twentieth Century fund had been 

 $15,977. The Woman's Missionary Association 

 had received $25,869 and expended $18,224 during 

 the year. 



The General Conference met in Frederick City, 

 Md., May 9. The occasion marking the centenary 

 of the denomination, the place of its origin was 

 chosen for holding the anniversary General Con- 

 ference. Special centennial services w T ere held, at 

 which addresses were delivered on the history and 

 life of the denomination, including one on Philip 

 William Otterbein and his colaborers in founding 

 the church, and special pilgrimages were made to 

 sites in Frederick City and Baltimore associated 

 with its beginnings, where other memorial address- 

 es were made. Among the aicts of the General 

 Conference was the adoption of a measure provid- 

 ing for equal ministerial and lay delegation in 

 the body on a scale rising from 1 representative 

 of each order, to be sent by conferences having 

 less than 1,000 members, to 7 ministerial and 7 

 lay delegates from conferences having 20,000 mem- 

 bers or more. The course of ministerial study 

 was revised. Provision was made for an old 

 people's home and an orphanage. Legislation 

 relative to deaconesses included the designation 

 of a course of study, directions concerning the 

 manner of appointment of deaconesses and their 

 ordination, the definition of their duties, and 

 regulations for the establishment of deaconess 

 homes. Bishop J. S. Mills, E. B. Kephart, J. W. 

 Hott, and N. Castle were reelected for the ensu- 

 ing term of four years. 



II. United Brethren in Christ (Old Consti- 

 tution). The following is a summary of the sta- 

 tistics of the United Brethren Church, Old Con- 

 stitution, as given in its Calendar and Year-Book 

 for 1901: Number of annual conferences, 31; of 

 conference appointments, 985; of organized 

 churches, 817; of itinerant ministers, 471; of local 

 preachers, 199; of members, 26,643; of Sunday- 

 schools, 594, with 5,197 officers and teachers and 

 31,297 pupils; of churches, 479, having an esti- 

 mated value of $508,043; of parsonages, 71, val- 

 ued at $42,425. Twenty-seven new churches were 

 built in 1900, at a cost of $24,706. Whole amount 

 of contributions, $148,079, of which $12,429 were 

 for missions ($2,874 for woman's missions), 

 $2,436 for education, $480 for church erection, 

 $603 for preachers' aid, $64,367 for salaries of 



