562 



METHODISTS. 



bationers, with 8 day-schools having 619 schol- 

 ars, and 6 Sunday-schools having 189 scholars, 

 among the Chinese. 



The reports of the Woman's Foreign Mission- 

 ary Society, made at its annual meeting, May 

 1-Jtli, showed that its receipts for the year had 

 been $107,982, or $31,656 more than the re- 

 ceipts for the previous year. It had 2,578 

 auxiliary societies, 65,662 annual members, and 

 8,623 life members. It had sent eight new mis- 

 sionaries to foreign fields, and now sustained 

 88 American missionaries in China, India, 

 South America, Japan, Mexico, and Africa, 

 and supported more than 200 Bible women and 

 teachers, 6 hospitals and dispensaries, 15 board- 

 ing-schools, with more than 700 pupils, 125 day- 

 schools, with nearly 3,000 pupils, three orphan- 

 ages, with about 400 orphans, and two homes 

 for friendless women, and had secured the sys- 

 tematic visitation of more than 1,000 zenanas. 

 Five medical graduates were in the field. 



The first session of a Delegated Conference 

 in India was held at Allahabad, July 14th to 

 18th. Thirteen delegates were in attendance 

 from the North India and South India Confer- 

 ences. The Rev. J. M. Thoburn, D. D., was 

 elected chairman. A constitution was adopted 

 which declares that the delegated conference 

 "shall have the management and control of 

 such interests as are common to the Methodist 

 Episcopal Church in the Indian Empire, and do 

 not legitimately belong to a single annual con- 

 ference, and may authorize such measures as 

 are needful for promoting or conserving such 

 interests, provided no action be taken contra- 

 vening the organic law of the Methodist Epis- 

 copal Church." 



Provision was made for holding sessions 

 every three years the next being appoint- 

 ed for January, 1884 to which delegates are 

 to be chosen in the proportion of one to ev- 

 ery five members of each annual conference, 

 and one lay delegate to each presiding elder's 

 district ; and an executive committee of three 

 was appointed to act during the interim be- 

 tween the sessions. A Board of Publication 

 was created, and authorized to establish at 

 Allahabad a Methodist publishing house for 

 India, with an endowment fund of $100,000. 

 A Board of Education was appointed, whose 

 office should be to promote harmony in the 

 distribution and management of the schools of 

 the Church. A resolution was adopted defin- 

 ing the relations of agents such as the mis- 

 sionaries of the Woman's Foreign Missionary 

 Society, missionary teachers who do not preach, 

 and others, who are not members of the An- 

 nual Conference. A paper on the marriage 

 and divorce laws of India was adopted to be 

 sent up to the Government as the expression 

 of the Church. A memorial was adopted for 

 presentation to the Board of Bishops, asking 

 that bishops who may visit the Indian churches 

 in the future "may arrange to remain two 

 years, or at least through two cold seasons in 

 India during every four years, until such time 



as they may deem it best to advise the resi- 

 dence of one of their number in this empire." 

 Statistical reports were presented of which the 

 following is a summary : Members of annual 

 conferences (European and native), eighty ; 

 local preachers (European and native), 124; 

 church-members (European and native), 4,668 ; 

 native Christians, 6,500; secular schools (fif- 

 teen for Europeans), 355; scholars, 9,103; 

 Sunday-schools (219 vernacular), 266; scholars 

 (more than three fourths native), 11,386 ; 

 church-buildings, forty-eight ; probable value, 

 $175,452; parsonages, seventy-three; proba- 

 ble value, $86,240. 



II. METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, SOUTH. 

 The receipts of the Board of Missions of the 

 Methodist Episcopal Church, South, for the 

 year ending March 31, 1881, were $108,344. 

 The appropriations made by the board, in May, 

 1881, for the ensuing year amounted to $182,- 

 750. Besides the home missions within the 

 annual conferences, the board sustained a Ger- 

 man mission conference, with which were con- 

 nected sixteen local preachers and 1,189 mem- 

 bers; an Indian mission conference, with 113 

 local preachers and 4,830 Indian members (be- 

 sides white and colored members), and with a 

 manual-labor school for boys in the Creek na- 

 tion and a school for girls in the Choctaw na- 

 tion ; a mission to the French Creoles in and 

 around New Iberia, Louisiana, with one local 

 preacher and seventy-two members; a mission 

 in China (Shanghai, Nantziang, and Suchow), 

 with seven foreign missionaries, two women- 

 missionaries, eight native preachers, one local 

 preacher, and 113 members; a mission in Cen- 

 tral Mexico, with two foreign missionaries, 

 thirty-four native preachers, twenty-three 

 teachers, 710 members, and 600 day-scholars ; 

 the Mexican border mission, on the Rio 

 Grande, with one superintendent, fourteen na- 

 tive preachers, and 699 members ; and a mis- 

 sion in Brazil (Rio Janeiro and the province 

 of Sao Paulo), to which five missionaries are 

 attached. 



III. METHODIST PROTESTANT CHTECII. In 

 the following table will be found a list of the 

 Conferences, with the number of pastors, 

 unstationed ministers, and members of this 

 Church, as given in the " Methodist Protestant 

 Year -Book" (Adrian, Michigan) for 1882. 

 The statistics of the Alabama, Arkansas, 

 Georgia, Georgia colored, Mississippi, North 

 Arkansas, Oregon, South Illinois, and Texas 

 conferences are for 1880 ; those of the other 

 Conferences are for 1881. The tables give of 

 additional items : number of probationers, 

 3,009 ; of Sunday-schools, 1,483, with 21,573 

 officers and teachers, and 76,409 scholars ; 

 number of churches, 1,599 ; of parsonages, 300. 

 Contributions: for pastors' salaries, $218,767; 

 for home missions, $4,210 ; for foreign mis- 

 sions, $4,344; for ministerial education, $1,- 

 814; for Sunday-schools, $10,979 ; for general 

 purposes, $11,142. Total value of church prop- 

 erty, $3,062,975. 



