REFORMED CHURCHES. 



The twenty-first annual meeting of the Woman's 

 Board of Foreign Missions was held in New York, 

 May 12. Mrs. P. D. Van Cleef presided. The total 

 receipts for the year had been $28,198. A special 

 emergency appeal for contributions to avoid closing 

 the year in debt had brought $1,527 into the treas- 

 ury. Reports were made of 4 stations and 37 

 preaching places in the Amoy mission, China, with 

 1,206 communicants, who had contributed $4,628. 

 Ferris Seminary, Japan, returned 82 pupils. A 

 Gospel Extension Society had been organized in 

 India. 



The General Synod met at Catskill, N. Y., June 3. 

 The Rev. John B. Thompson, D. D., was chosen 

 president. A report concerning the " Amsterdam 

 Correspondence" related that the Assembly had 

 had in its possession for more than fifty years about 

 1,200 valuable letters and documents pertaining to 

 the early history of the Church, which had been 

 obtained by the Hon. J. Romeyn Brodhcad in 

 1841-'43. Most of them had been translated, and 

 about luO of them had been printed in volumes or 

 periodicals. They constitute an invaluable mine of 

 material for the early general ecclesiastical history 

 of New York and New Jersey as well as of all the 

 older local Reformed Churches. The Reformed 

 Church occupied this territory for half a century 

 alone, and these documents cover that period as 

 well as the subsequent periods down to the Revolu- 

 tion. Several hundred additional documents have 

 come to light in recent years. To the application 

 of the Synod for these documents in 1888 the ( 'lassis 

 of Amsterdam had replied that it could not part 

 with them, but would furnish every facility for 

 their transcription. A reasonable prospect having 

 arisen that the papers, if the additional material in 

 Holland is secured, might be published in the vol- 

 umes of the Archives of the State of New -lory, 

 the committee suggested, and the General Synod 

 decided that arrangements be made for securing 

 the transcription of the documents in question. 

 Most of the business of the Synod was of a routine 

 character and concerned the condition of the be- 

 nevolent funds and enterprises. To an overture 

 for the suspension of the reading of the " Van 

 Benschoten bequest," a formal proceeding which 

 under the condition of the gift has to be observed 

 at stated periods, the Synod, after hearing the com- 

 mittee's report reviewing the history of the bequest, 

 unanimously resolved that its ecclesiastical bodies 

 adhere to the rule that has been continuously ob- 

 served for the last eighty-three years. The plan of 

 denominational co-operation in home missions pro- 

 posed by the Alliance of Reformed Churches was 

 approved. A committee was appointed to consider 

 an invitation from Orangeburg, S. C., to open work 

 among the colored people in the South, and was 

 authorized, if it should so decide, to begin work in 

 such a way and after such a plan as in their judg- 

 ment shall seem best. In its resolutions on Sabbath 

 observance, the Synod reaffirmed its loyalty to the 

 Decalogue and recognized each one of the Ten Com- 

 mandments as an essential part of the moral law 

 which is binding upon the heart and conscience of 

 man ; urged a careful and prayerful discrimina- 

 tion " between harmless and necessary recreation 

 (re-creation) and careless, worldly Sunday amuse- 

 ments"; disapproved the purchase and patronage 

 of Sunday newspapers ; and declared the Sabbath 

 question "one of greatest importance connected 

 with public morals in these closing years of the 

 nineteenth century." The Board of Education was 

 authorized to include students of medicine ap- 

 proved by the Board of Foreign Missions as intend- 

 ing to become medical missionaries, as entitled to 

 the benefit of the educational funds. A rule was 

 passed to regulate the licensure by classes of 



graduates of theological seminaries other than those 

 of this Church. Gospel temperance was recom- 

 mended to the Sunday schools as a proper subject 

 for a quarterly lesson. A resolution was passed in 

 favor of the settlement by arbitration of all dis- 

 putes with Great Britain. The classes were invited 

 to nominate suitable persons from whom the Synod 

 could chose a professor in the Arcot Theological 

 Seminary, India. 



II. Reformed Church in the United States. 

 The statistical reports of this Church, made to the 

 General Synod in May, give the following numbers: 

 Of classes, 56 ; of ministers. 961 ; of congregations, 

 1,639; of members, 226,572; of infant" baptisms, 

 45,075; of adult baptisms, 5,480 ; of confirmations, 

 33,646 ; of persons taking the communion, 182,435 ; 

 of Sunday schools, 1,644, with 20,096 officers and 

 teachers and 172,458 pupils; of students for the 

 ministry, 304 ; amount of benevolent contributions, 

 $676,271 ; of contributions for congregational pur- 

 poses, $3,067,780. These figures show an increase 

 in three years of 76 ministers, 56 congregations, 

 13,742 members, 6.777 officers and teachers in Sun- 

 day schools, 23,435 pupils in Sunday schools, $26,- 

 435 in benevolent contributions, and $45,608 in 

 contributions for congregational purposes. 



The report of the Sunday-school Board showed 

 the net gain per year to the Sunday schools for the 

 past three years had been 4.480 pupils. It dwelt 

 especially upon the co-operation of the board with 

 the Board of Missions in missionary work by means 

 of its Sunday-school missionary ; upon its efforts to 

 increase the attendance at Sunday schools ; upon 

 the development of the home department ; and 

 upon the need of improvement in the Sunday- 

 school helps. 



The Board of Home Missions of the General Synod 

 reported that 101 missions were sustained by it and 

 34 by the boards of the German synods. The value 

 of lots, mortgages, and titles held by the General 

 Board amounted to $39,564, which, less $11,550 in- 

 debtedness, gives the amount of net assets as $28,- 

 014. Seventeen missions of the General Board and 

 6 missions of the German boards had become self- 

 sustaining during the past three years, and 31 new 

 missions had been enrolled by the General Board 

 and 10 by the German boards. The missions re- 

 turned in the aggregate 199 congregations with 13,- 

 762 communicants; 156 Sunday schools, with 17,- 

 889 teachers, officers, and pupils ; and $13,767 raised 

 for benevolence (in three years) and $144,323 for 

 congregational use. The whole amount contributed 

 by the Church during the past three years for home 

 missions and church building had been $154,671. 

 The home-mission work of the German part of the 

 Church was confined largely to large cities. Their 

 church-erection work was in a peculiarly flourish- 

 ing condition. The harbor mission (in the city of 

 Xe\v York) had continued to be of efficient service 

 to immigrants landing upon our shores, and had 

 also been of assistance to the Reformed Church in 

 America and the Presbyterian Church in caring for 

 immigrants affiliated with them. Four additional 

 Hungarian missions had been constituted, making 

 the whole number of such missions in the United 

 States now 6. It had been necessary to call from 

 Austria-Hungary 4 young men who would be able 

 to minister to these people in their own language. 

 The work of Church extension was greatly facili- 

 tated by the existence of about 50 church-building 

 funds of $500 each in the possession of this and the 

 affiliated In-synodic boards. 



The Board of Foreign Missions of the General 

 Synod reported itself free from debt except $5.000 

 on permanent loan. Its estimates for the ensuing 

 three years called for the appropriation of $35,000 

 a year. The statistical report of the missions (in 



