UNITED BRETHREN CHURCH. 



UNITED STATES. 



801 



Number of meeting-houses, 2,093 ; of par- 

 sonages, 308 ; of Sunday schools, 3,060, with 

 24,153 officers and teachers; whole amount of 

 congregational and benevolent contributions, 

 $618,616. The Church has five bishops, viz.: 

 Rev. J. J. Glossbrenner, Churchville, Va. ; 

 Rev. J. Weaver, D. D., Dayton, Ohio; Rev. J. 

 Dickson, D. D., Westerville, Ohio; Rev. N. 

 Castle, Philomath, Oregon; Rev. M. Wright, 

 Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The periodicals com- 

 prise one weekly English and one weekly Ger- 

 man newspaper, and six missionary and Sun- 

 day-school publications. The institutions of 

 learning are the Union Biblical Seminary, Day- 

 ton, Ohio ; Lebanon Valley College, Annville, 

 Pa. ; Otterbein University, Westerville, Ohio ; 

 Hartsville University, Hartsville, Ind. ; West- 

 field College, Westfield, HI. ; Lane University, 

 Lecompton, Kansas; Western College, West- 

 ern, Iowa; Philomath College, Philomath, Ore- 

 gon; and five seminaries and academies. 



The receipts of the Home, Frontier, and 

 Foreign Missionary Society of the United 

 Brethren Church for the year ending with the 

 annual meeting of the Board of Trustees, in 



* 1877. 

 VOL. xvin. 51 A 



May, 1878, were $29,459.90, and the expendi- 

 tures during the same period were $25,431.34. 

 Of the latter sum, $11,389.74 were paid for 

 home work, missions among the Germans in 

 the United States and in Germany, and the 

 Freedmen's missions, and $7,700.08 for the 

 African work. The Society had real estate 

 valued at $5,300, and was in debt to the 

 amount of $18,438. The receipts for church 

 erection during the year were $869.85. The 

 assets of the fund for church erection were 

 valued at $18,237. Reports were made at the 

 annual meeting concerning the home missions 

 in various parts of the United States and the 

 Province of Ontario, two missions to the freed- 

 men in Virginia, two German missions in the 

 United States, and missions in Germany, where 

 two fields of labor had been established, and 

 Africa, where four stations were returned. 

 Philomath College, in connection with the mis- 

 sion in Oregon, was reported prosperous. Ed- 

 wards Academy had been opened successfully 

 in connection with the mission at Greenville, 

 Tenn. Mount Herman Seminary, in connec- 

 tion with the Freedmen's mission at Clinton, 

 Miss., was devoted to the education of colored 

 girls. It had a good property in land and 

 buildings worth five thousand dollars, and was 

 attended by twenty-five students. 



A convention of ministers and laymen to 

 discuss questions of church polity met at Day- 

 ton, Ohio, May 21st. Sixty-seven delegates 

 attended. The Rev. B. F. Booth was chosen 

 President. The discussions of the Convention 

 favored the establishment of a pro rata repre- 

 sentation in the General Conference, and an 

 extension of lay representation, and opposed 

 the law of the Church against secret societies. 

 Among the resolutions adopted was one recog- 

 nizing the value of the literary and theological 

 institutions of the Church, and declaring that 

 the questions in dispute within the body should 

 not be allowed to retard their progress, and 

 one in favor of organic union with the Evan- 

 gelical Association. 



UNITED STATES. The progress of the 

 country in recuperation from the destructive 

 effects of the late civil war continued through 

 1878. The payment of specie in the discharge 

 of public contracts, which had been suspended 

 for nearly two thirds of a generation, was fixed 

 by law to commence at the end of the year. 

 The resumption of specie payments, therefore, 

 entered into the consideration of every finan- 

 cial and commercial enterprise. It became a 

 political question also, and, with other inci- 

 dental ones, led to the formation of a National 

 party in February, which exercised more or 

 less influence in all the subsequent elections, 

 and most in that of the State of Maine. The 

 details of this influence on public questions and 

 at the polls are fully presented in the preceding 

 pages. 



So absorbed was the public mind with the 

 subject of resumption, that it looked with com- 

 parative indifference upon events and questions 



