666 



PRESBYTERIANS. 



PRESIDENTIAL CANVASS OF 1896. 



Missions to the .Tows had been carried on in East 

 London with zeal and efficiency, but the mission 

 to the Jews at Aleppo, Syria, had been hindered by 

 the disturbed condition of the Turkish Empire. 



The home-mission report represented that an 

 encouraging decree of success had attended the 

 effort to raise 00,000 for a Church building fund. 



The Synod met in London, April 27. The Rev. 

 J. Thoburn McGaw was chosen moderator. Recog- 

 nizing with satisfaction the rapid spread of Chris- 

 tian Endeavor societies in connection with the 

 Church, the Synod authorized the Committee on 

 the Instruction of Youth to regard these societies 

 as a department of the work under their oversight. 

 The ordination, under certain conditions, of assist- 

 ant ministers was sanctioned. A colonial commit- 

 tee was appointed to grant certificates to licentiates 

 or ministers proceeding to the colonies. 



XIII. Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Church. 

 The statistics of this Church, presented to the 

 General Assembly in May, showed an increase of 9 

 congregations, 28 chapels, and 2,203 communicants. 

 The present numbers were: Of churches, 1,317; of 

 chapels, 1,514; of ministers, 742; of preachers, 399 ; 

 of deacons, 5.291; of communicants, 147,297; of 

 children in the churches, 67,000; of probationers, 

 2,954; the whole forming a total membership in the 

 churches of 217,341. showing an increase of 2.885. 

 The adherents, including members, numbered 305,- 

 890. The collections toward the ministry amounted 

 to 88,754, an increase of 1,151. The total 

 amount of collections for the year was 221.072. 



A report made to the General Assembly concern- 

 ing the ' Welsh from Home " showed that more 

 than 100,000 Welsh people born in Wales were liv- 

 ing in America, 50,000 in Liverpool. 47.000 in Lon- 

 don, and about 80,000 in other Knglish towns. A 

 band of 25 Welshmen who had settled at the foot 

 of the Andes in South America had formed a 

 church and applied for membership. The 500 

 Welsh people resident in Johannesburg, South 

 Africa, have Welsh services every Sunday. 



The receipts in aid of missions during the year 

 amounted to 13,851. The mission churches in 

 Khasia. Jaintia, Sylhet, etc, in India, returned 

 9,303 members anil collections of 11,246. with 

 6,409 children in day schools. The preaching sta- 

 tions numbered 271, showing an increase of 21 dur- 

 ing the year. 



The General Assembly met in Liverpool in May. 

 The Rev. Griffith Ellis was moderator, and the Rev. 

 J. M. Jones was chosen moderator for the next 

 year. The Education Committee presented a re- 

 port bearing upon the education bill pending in 

 Parliament, criticising its provisions generally and 

 opposing it. Besides adopting this report the As- 

 sembly resolved to petition Parliament against the 

 bill, and ask, at any rate, that it should not be 

 passed without such amendments as would pro- 

 mote the highest efficiency of education and pre- 

 vent religious discord in schools. Inasmuch as the 

 General Assembly is not mentioned in the Constitu- 

 tional Deed of the connection, a committee was ap- 

 pointed several years ago to take measures for 

 securing the legal standing of the body and to pre- 

 pare the corresponding amendments to the Consti- 

 tutional Deed. The amendments reported by this 

 committee were received, and were referred by the 

 Assembly to the associations of north and of south 

 Wales for further consideration. 



XIV. Presbyterians in Australia. The Aus- 

 tralian Presbyterian Federal Assembly met at Mel- 

 bourne, Sept." 11. The Rev. Dr. David Pat on. of 

 Adelaide, was chosen moderator. The question of 

 union was discussed in the debate on a committee 

 report on the subject, and the Assembly resolved, 

 by a vote of 57 to 3, to perfect a union on the basis 



of a scheme which had been before the churches 

 for a considerable time. The discussion of the re- 

 port on foreign missions brought -out statements 

 concerning the condition of the work in New Heb- 

 rides among the aborigines at the north end of 

 the continent, among the Chinese in New South 

 Wales, where there had been 30 baptisms, and 

 among the Kanakas in Queensland, where 2 mis- 

 sionaries were laboring, between 300 and 400 per- 

 sons were attending school, 163 had signed the 

 pledge. 82 hud communed, 26 persons had been 

 baptized during the year, and the contributions 

 amounted to more than 101. 



PRESIDENTIAL CANVASS OF 1896. The 

 political canvass of 1896 began in 1895. Early in 

 that year the names of William McKinley, of Ohio, 

 Thomas B. Reed, of Maine, and William B. Allison, 

 of Iowa, began to be talked of in connection with 

 the Republican nomination. On the Democrati'c 

 side there were few candidates, as it was believed 

 that on the issue that has often divided the great 

 parties, the tariff question, the drift of sentiment 

 was so strongly with the Republicans that in this 

 instance the Democratic candidacy would be an 

 empty honor. Other issues, which came rapidly to 

 the front later, were then formulating, but had not 

 become so prominent as to indicate the interest they 

 would awaken in the canvass. 



The first definite steps relative to the canvass 

 were the meetings of the national committees of 

 the parties to determine the time and place for 

 holding their nominating conventions. The Re- 

 publican National Committee met in Washington 

 early in December, 1895, and after several ballots 

 selected St. Louis as the place for holding the con- 

 vention and fixed the date June 16, 1896. The 

 Democratic National Committee met in Washing- 

 ton a few weeks later, and selected Chicago as the 

 place for their convention, fixing the date for its 

 meeting July 7. 1896. This was unusual, the cus- 

 tom having been for many years that the party in 

 power should give to its opponents whatever advan- 

 tage there might be in the later convention. Since 

 the first years of the Republican party there has 

 been but one occasion on which the party in control 

 of the Government held its nominating convention 

 later than that of its chief political opponent. 



The selection of delegates to the nominating con- 

 ventions began in the spring of 1896. The conven- 

 tions were to be composed of delegates from all of 

 the political divisions of the United States, each 

 State and Territory being entitled to double the 

 number of its representation in Congress, 2 dele- 

 gates being chosen from each congressional district 

 by conventions held for that purpose and 4 being 

 elected " at large " from each State by State con- 

 ventions. Levi P. Morton, of New York, had been 

 meantime announced as a candidate for the Repub- 

 lican presidential nomination, and in the selection 

 of delegates from Southern States the honors were 

 divided between the 4 candidates thus in the field. 

 In New England the delegates were generally favor- 

 able to Mr. Reed, in New York nearly all were for 

 Mr. Morton, and a large proportion of those elected 

 from Pennsylvania were pledged to Matthew S. 

 Quay, of that State. When-the election of delegates 

 from the agricultural States of the Mississippi val- 

 ley, the Pacific coast, and from the mining States 

 of the West took place it became apparent that the 

 drift of sentiment was overwhelmingly for Major 

 McKinley. and before' the Republican convention 

 met at St. Louis his nomination was assured. 



Meantime new issues were brought to the front 

 within the Democratic party. Agitation in favor 

 of a return to the free and unlimited coinage of sil- 

 ver at the ratio of 16 to 1 had been in progress in 

 the United States for several years, but had been 



