678 



REFORMED CHURCH. 



EEPEESENTAHOK. 



Two Indian agencies in Arizona have been 

 placed under the care of the board. The total 

 amount of the eleven invested funds of the 

 General Synod is $427,330. 



A special meeting of the General Synod was 

 held at Brooklyn, ST. Y., September 27th, to 

 elect a Professor of Didactic and Polemic The- 

 ology in the Theological Seminary at New 

 Brunswick, N. J., in place of the Rev. Joseph 



F. Berg, D. D., deceased. The Rev. W. G. 

 T. Shedd, D. I)., was elected to the vacant 

 chair, but subsequently declined it. 



II. REFORMED CHURCH IN" THE UNITED 

 STATES (FORMERLY GERMAN REFORMED OHTTRCH). 

 The Eastern Synod of the Reformed Church 

 in the United States met at Pottstown, 

 Pa., on the 18th of November. Two of the 

 ministers of the Church, J. S. Ermentrout and 



G. D. Wolf, had connected themselves with the 

 Roman Catholic Church without formally 

 withdrawing from the synod, or asking that 

 their relations with it might be dissolved. 

 Regarding these proceedings as acts of insult 

 and contempt upon the dignity and authority 

 of the Church, and as bringing great reproach 

 and scandal upon it, the synod directed the 

 classes with which these ministers were con- 

 nected "to proceed in the way of discipline 

 against them according to the requirements of 

 the constitution." 



The action of the General Synod of the Re- 

 formed Church in America, in appointing a 

 committee on the subject of union with the 

 Classis of North Carolina, and in appointing a 

 delegate to visit the Synod of Ohio of this 

 Church, was discussed, and in the report of 

 the Committee on Correspondence with Sister 

 Churches was spoken of as " a manifestation 

 of discourtesy toward this synod and a course 

 which, if generally pursued, must eventuate 

 in endless confusion and absolute disintegra- 

 tion of ecclesiastical organization." The Rev. 

 Dr. W. H. Ten Eyck was present as the rep- 

 resentative of the General Synod of the Re- 

 formed Church in America. He assured the 

 synod that the action in regard to the Classis 

 of North Carolina was taken without proper 

 understanding of the relations between that 

 body and the synod ; that in regard to the 

 Synod of Ohio was in response to an overture 

 from that body, concerning the general sub- 

 ject only of union, and was without definite 

 purpose ; and that his synod had no predatory 

 intentions. In view of these explanations, no 

 special action was taken on the subject. 



The operations of the Board of Home Missions 

 were reported as " encouraging under the pe- 

 culiar circumstances." The General Board 

 of Missions, it was stated, had been sustained 

 chiefly, if not entirely, by the members of the 

 eastern portion of the Church. A Board of 

 Missions was organized, to be auxiliary to the 

 Board of the General Synod. The General 

 Board of Missions is stated to be $1,200 in 

 debt. Its annual appropriations sum up about 

 $8,000. 



The following are the statistics for 1871 : 

 Synods, 4; classes, 32; ministers, 567; con- 

 gregations, 1,271 ; members, 127,643 ; uncon- 

 lirmed members, 71,376; baptisms, 13,106; 

 confirmations, 8,407; received on certificate, 

 3,112; communed, 106,098; Sunday-schools, 

 975; Sunday-school scholars, 54,268 ; benevo- 

 lent contributions, $66,714.64. As compared 

 with the report of the previous year, this 

 shows an increase of 20 ministers, 57 congre- 

 gations, 6,329 members, 1,720 unconfirmed 

 members, 214 baptisms, 1,056 confirmations, 

 4 received on certificate, 5,839 communed, 12 

 Sunday-schools, 5,139 Sunday-school scholars, 

 and a^decrease of $27,305.26 benevolent con- 

 tributions. 



REPRESENTATION, MINORITY OR PRO- 

 PORTIONAL. It is the theory of representative 

 government that the laws are made by repre- 

 sentatives chosen by the people. The repre- 

 sentative body is supposed to be the people in 

 miniature, and, by way of keeping this idea 

 before the public attention, the enacting clause 

 in several of the States, as for instance in New 

 York, is ordained to read thus : " The people 

 of the State of New York, represented in 

 Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows : " 

 "The people" being that portion of the in- 

 habitants of a Commonwealth who are in pos- 

 session of political power, it follows that in 

 theory their will is the basis of legislation. In 

 practice, however, it is only the majority of 

 those who exercise their power that is "the 

 people." Thus, by the United States census 

 of 1870, the number of inhabitants of the State 

 of New York who were in possession of 

 political power, male citizens, to wit, of twenty- 

 one years of age and upward, is given as 

 984,255. At the election for Governor in the 

 same year, 765,968 of these citizens voted, 

 399,532 for one candidate, and 366,436 for an- 

 other. The candidate favored by the 399,532 

 was elected, and those who voted for him 

 constituted " the people," no account being 

 taken of the 366,436 who voted for his an- 

 tagonist, or the 218,287 who did not vote at 

 all. It'thus appears, first, that "the people" 

 in practice may be but two-fifths of "the 

 people " in theory ; and, second, that the 

 minority of those exercising the elective fran- 

 chise are not regarded as any part of "the 

 people " at all. As regards those who abstain 

 from voting, it is difficult to imagine any 

 remedy, unless it be to make such abstinence 

 penal, and this part of the question may be 

 dismissed with the remark that those who will 

 not say how they wish to be governed havo 

 no right to complain at any misgovernment 

 to which they may be subjected. Coming to 

 those, however, who express a preference, but 

 have that preference overslaughed, a different 

 state of affairs presents itself. In the case of 

 the election just quoted, it seems hard that the 

 will of so many citizens should be utterly dis- 

 regarded, and yet, where but one person is to 

 be chosen, the only possible way is to let the 



