PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



703 



72 in Sunday schools, and $1,804 of contribu- 

 tions. Mexico 2 bishops elect, 4 presbyters, 

 50 congregations, 79 lay readers (supported by 

 the people), 3,500 communicants, 1 orphanage 

 with a superintendent, 3 teachers and 34 bene- 

 ficiaries, 8 schools with 250 scholars, 3 Sunday 

 schools with 230 scholars, 1 theological school 

 with 7 students, and 11 candidates for orders. 

 Appropriations were made for the Church in 

 Mexico of $14,000 per annum. The work of 

 the Church has been extended to eighty dif- 

 ferent towns, villages, and estates, but for 

 want of means is regularly kept up at only fifty 

 places. 



The contributions to the Woman's Board of 

 Missions for the year were $97,927.28. The 

 report stated that the Board had supported 

 during the year 100 scholarships in the differ- 

 ent mission schools, had supplied $400 for the 

 support of three woman agents in the domes- 

 tic field, had furnished four scholarships in the 

 freedmen's school at Raleigh, N. C., had com- 

 pleted a fund for finishing the electrotype plates 

 of the Dakota Prayer-Book, had with its aux- 

 iliaries projected funds for the endowment of 

 four scholarships in the Missionary College in 

 China, and had sent a missionary to Africa af- 

 ter having made provision for her support for 

 a term of years. 



The American Church Missionary Society 

 (now auxiliary to the Board of Missions) re- 

 ported receipts for the year ending August 31, 

 1878, of $31,840. Thirty-seven missionaries 

 had been commissioned during the year, of 

 whom 31 continued to labor at its close, and 

 138 stations had been supplied in 17 dioceses 

 and missionary jurisdictions. 



The annual meeting of the Evangelical Edu- 

 cation Society was held in November. Several 

 questions were discussed relative to promoting 

 the greater efficiency of the Society, and ques- 

 tions respecting the rationalistic controversy, 

 The Executive Committee were authorized to 

 receive and expend money for the benefit of 

 any one studying for the ministry in schools, 

 colleges, theological seminaries, or under other 

 conditions, as well as of persons who had been 

 ordained deacons, but had not completed their 

 course of study. Sympathy was expressed 

 with the work of the Church among the col- 

 ored people of Virginia, and especially with 

 the effort to supply those people with an edu- 

 cated ministry. The Society determined that 

 ten prize scholarships of $100 each should be 

 founded in Kenyon College, Ohio, and that 

 three scholarships of $50 each, one for each 

 class, should be founded in each of the Episco- 

 pal theological schools at Cambridge, Mass., 

 Philadelphia, Pa., Alexandria, Va., and Gam- 

 bier, Ohio, to be awarded at the close of the 

 year by the faculties of the institutions. The 

 receipts of the Society for the year had been 

 $20,201, and its expenditures $15,963. The 

 permanent fund amounted to $19,000 cash, be- 

 sides $15,000 in estates and bequests. The 

 amount of bequests left during the year had 



been $5,300. The Society had educated during 

 the year at various seminaries 50 students, of 

 whom 15 had been ordained. 



The Church Society for promoting Christian- 

 ity among the Jews was organized in the city 

 of New York on January 10, 1877, and was 

 shortly afterward incorporated. Bishop Pot- 

 ter, of New York, was chosen its President. 

 It is proposed to carry on the mission work 

 throughout the United States, from New York 

 City as a center. It is claimed in the prospec- 

 tus of the Society that under the operations of 

 the English Society with a similar object more 

 than 20,000 Jews have embraced Christianity 

 and been baptized. More than 100 Hebrews 

 have been ordained to the ministry of the An- 

 glican Church, and four have become bishops, 

 among whom are the present Lord Bishop of 

 Huron, and Bishop Schereschewsky, of Shang- 

 hai. Twelve Jews were baptized by the clergy 

 of New York during 1877. The Society had, 

 soon after its organization, a school in which 

 fifty Jewish children were trained in Christi- 

 anity. 



The twenty-second annual report of the So- 

 ciety for the Increase of the Ministry shows 

 that its receipts for the year ending Septem- 

 ber 1, 1878, were $21,212, and its expenditures 

 $26,949. During the year 115 scholars had 

 received aid from the treasury of the Society, 

 and 23 had been ordained. 



The Rev. J. H. Eccleston, who had been 

 elected in 1877 to be Bishop of the new Diocese 

 of West Virginia, declined on January 9, 1878, 

 to accept the office. Another Diocesan Council 

 assembled on February 27th, when the Rev. 

 George W. Peterkin, Rector of the Memorial 

 Church, Baltimore, Md., was elected Bishop. 

 His election was approved, and he was conse- 

 crated at Wheeling, W. Va., on May 30th. 



The Rev. Dr. Samuel S. Harris having de- 

 clined in December, 1877, to accept the office 

 of Bishop of the new Diocese of Quincy, 111., a 

 special convention of the diocese was held at 

 Quincy, February 27th, and the Rev. Dr. Alex- 

 ander Burgess, of Christ Church, Springfield, 

 Mass., was chosen Bishop. He accepted the 

 office, and was consecrated at Springfield, Mass., 

 May 15th. Dr. Burgess is a son of the late 

 Chief Justice Thomas Burgess, of Rhode Island, 

 and a brother of the late Bishop Burgess, of 

 Maine. He was graduated from Brown Uni- 

 versity in 1838, and has held the rectorship of 

 churches in East Haddam, Conn., Augusta and 

 Portland, Me., Brooklyn, N. Y., and Spring- 

 field, Mass. He was President of the House of 

 Deputies of the Protestant Episcopal General 

 Convention of 1877. 



The election of the Rev. George F. Seymour, 

 D. D., as Bishop of the new Diocese of Spring- 

 field, 111., in 1877, had been approved in Feb- 

 ruary, 1878, by the consenting vote of twenty- 

 four dioceses, or a sufficient number to com- 

 plete the diocesan confirmation. Eleven dio- 

 ceses failed to give their consent. The consent 

 of the Bishops was afterward given. Dr. Sey- 



