134 



CONGREGATIONALISTS. 



connected with the churches, 187,617; num- 

 ber of persons connected with Sunday-schools, 

 444,628. Total amount of benevolent contri- 

 butions from 2,896 churches reporting them, 

 $1,032,272 ; amount of contributions for home 

 expenditure from 2,613 churches reporting, 

 $3,446,489. 



The seven theological seminaries (Ando- 

 ver, Andover, Massachusetts; Bangor, Bangor, 

 Maine; Chicago, Chicago, Illinois; Hartford, 

 Hartford, Connecticut ; Oberlin, Oberlin, Ohio ; 

 Pacific, Oakland, California ; and Yale, New 

 Haven, Connecticut) returned altogether, 36 

 professors, 19 lecturers, and 279 students. 



According to the tables given in their " Year 

 Book" for 1881-'82, the Congregationalists 

 of the Dominion of Canada have 91 churches 

 with 51 pastors, 28 assemblies not churches, 84 

 preaching-stations, an average attendance on 

 worship of 13,210 persons, with a total of 17,- 

 627 persons under pastoral care, 6,653 church- 

 members, and 6,753 Sunday-school scholars. 



The " Year-Book " of the Congregational 

 Churches of England and Wales for 1881 gives 

 lists of 4,188 churches and 2,723 pastors, lay 

 pastors, and evangelists. Seventy-five minis- 

 ters had been ordained during the year. Eigh- 

 teen ministers left the denomination, and as 

 many had been received from other churches. 



I. CONGBEGATIOSTALISTS IX TUB UNITED 



STATES. The working capital of the Ameri- 

 can Congregational Union for the year end- 

 ing May 1, 1881, was $55,359. The society 

 had made grants and loans ("mostly grants) to 

 71 churches. During the twenty-eight years 

 of its existence, the Union had aided in the 

 erection of 1,120 houses of worship, and it was 

 now pledged to sixty additional ones. 



The fifty-fifth annual meeting of the Ameri- 

 can Home Missionary Society was held in the 

 city of New York, May 8th. The receipts of 

 the society for the year had been $290,953, 

 and its expenditures $284,414. It sustained 

 missions in thirty -four States and Territories, 

 employing 1,032 missionaries, who served 2,653 

 preaching - places. Five of the missionaries 

 were commissioned to congregations composed 

 of colored people, and twenty-six to congrega- 

 tions of foreign nationalities, chiefly of Welsh. 

 The number of pupils in Sunday-schools was 

 99,898. Seventeen more missionaries were em- 

 ployed than during the previous year, and 131 

 churches had been founded. 



A committee appointed to consider the sub- 

 ject of amending the constitution of the society 

 has made a report proposing certain provisions 

 for securing its constant control by influences 

 favorable to the " evangelical " side of religious 

 belief. The society was founded as an unde- 

 nominational agency to assist congregations 

 unable to support a minister, and to send the 

 gospel to destitute places, and was supported 

 for many years jointly by Congregationalists 

 and Presbyterians. The Presbyterians having 

 formed their own societies, it was left in the 

 hands of the Congregationalists, who, however, 



exercised no direct control over it as such. 

 The committee recommended that the arti- 

 cles defining the object of the society be 

 amended by the insertion of the words " but 

 no minister or teacher shall be employed by 

 this society who is not in regular standing in 

 some Protestant evangelical church," and that 

 the several State Congregational bodies be given 

 the right to nominate, according to their mem- 

 bership, one or more directors, to be chosen by 

 the society at its annual meeting. The com- 

 mittee also proposed that the Board of Direct- 

 ors thus chosen, besides selecting the Execu- 

 tive Committee of fourteen, as now, be also 

 given authority to name the secretary and 

 treasurer of the society. 



The thirty-fifth annual meeting of the Ameri- 

 can Missionary Association was held at Worces- 

 ter, Massachusetts, November 1st, 2d, and 8d. 

 The total ordinary receipts of the association 

 for the year had been $243,795, or $56,315 

 more than the receipts of the previous year. 

 Besides this amount, the following sums had 

 been received by institutions in which the 

 association has an interest: Berea College, $60,- 

 106 ; Hampton Normal and Agricultural Insti- 

 tute, $102,579 ; Atlanta University (appropria- 

 tion from the State of Georgia), $8,000 mak- 

 ing, with $114,563 received for endowment 

 and special funds, the total receipts for the 

 work in which the association is engaged, 

 $529,046. 



The association conducts missions and schools 

 among the freedmen in the Southern States ; 

 at the Mendi mission on the west coast of Africa; 

 among the Indians at the Skokomish agency ; 

 and among the Chinese on the Pacific coast of 

 the United States. Its work among the freed- 

 men included, according to the report for the 

 past year, eight chartered institutions, and for- 

 ty-six normal and common schools, with 230 

 teachers and 9,108 students, .and 78 churches, 

 with 5,472 church-members and 8,130 persons 

 in Sunday-schools. The pupils in the schools 

 Avere classified as follows: theological, 104; 

 law, 20; collegiate, 91 ; collegiate preparatory, 

 131 ; normal, 2,342 ; grammar, 473 ; inter- 

 mediate, 2,722; primary, 3,361 ; studying in 

 two grades, 136. Seven State Conferences, 

 holding annual conventions, had been organ- 

 ized among the freedmen's churches. Eleven 

 missionaries had been commissioned to labor 

 in the homes of the poor and destitute colored 

 people. The Mendi mission, in West Africa, 

 comprised a church and school, which had been 

 well kept up, a coffee-farm that promised to 

 make a good return, and a profitable saw-mill. 

 Three lads from the Mendi country were at 

 school in the United States. Commissioners 

 had been dispatched to arrange for the estab- 

 lishment of a mission on the Upper Nile, near 

 the mouth of the Sobat, in aid of which $30,- 

 000 were expected from English friends of 

 the work, conditioned upon the association 

 providing $20,000 more. The two churches 

 among the Indians enjoyed an average attend- 



