612 



MORAVIANS. 



The permanent Church Extension Fund 

 amounted, including cash and unpaid pledges, 

 to $16,70U, or $3,944 more than in 1878. 



The Board of Home Missions represented in 

 its report to the Synod that the work under 

 its care was embarrassed from an insufficiency 

 of funds. The amount raised by the churches 

 of the province had been at no time, since the 

 previous meeting of the Synod, sufficient to 

 cover the grants made to the home mission- 

 aries, not even after the grants had been 

 reduced ten per cent, and the treasury was 

 now in debt. The twenty-nine home mis- 

 sions comprised together a membership of 

 1,784 communicants and 8,347 souls; while 

 eleven of them were free from debt, the other 

 eighteen owed in all $32,318, and the total 

 value of their property was about $91,800. 



The Theological Seminary graduated seven 

 students in 1879 and 1880, and had four stu- 

 dents in its theological class, and twenty-three 

 students in all its classes. 



The receipts, mostly from interest and divi- 

 dends, of the Missionary Society, the Society 

 for Propagation of the Gospel among the 

 Heathen, were reported, at the anniversary of 

 the society, August 81st, to have been, for the 

 year, $12,508. The Indian Mission at New 

 Fan-field, Canada, was served by one mission- 

 ary, with a lay assistant and a teacher. Its 

 expenses were paid, in large part, from the 

 proceeds of a farm attached to it. The mis- 

 sion, also to the Indians, at New "Westfield, 

 Kansas, was not in so prosperous a condition. 

 The contributions of the churches for foreign 

 missions during the past three years were 

 stated in the report of the Unity's Elders' 

 Conference to have been $10,362, a larger 

 amount than had ever before been raised in 

 the province during the same period of 

 time. 



The Provincial Synod of the Northern Prov- 

 ince met at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, May 18tb. 

 The meeting was a special one, called to con- 

 sider the financial condition of the province, 

 which the Provincial Elders' Conference rep- 

 resented as being exceedingly bad, with a large 

 amount of the assets unproductive and the in- 

 come falling below the expenditure by between 

 four and five thousand dollars every year. 

 The existence of this condition was explained 

 by showing that some of the enterprises in 

 which the Synod had embarked had proved 

 unfortunate. The attention of the Synod was 

 given chiefly to the consideration of measures 

 of retrenchment, and of the means by which 

 its financial condition could be improved. 

 ^ A series of resolutions, defining the rela- 

 tions of the Synod to the Church at large, was 

 adopted. The resolutions declare, in effect, 

 that the Synod recognizes that it is only as an 

 integral part of the Brethren's Unity that the 

 American Province has any right to present 

 separate existence among the churches of the 

 United States; that it considers itself " firmly 

 held by the bond of doctrine, ritual, discipline, 



constitution, the work of education, home, for- 

 eign, and Bohemian missions, which unite the 

 several provinces of our Church in a unity 

 of brethren"; that the interests of all the 

 parts of the Synod's province are one and the 

 same, and indivisible; and that the Synod dis- 

 approves of all appeals to sectional feeling or 

 assumed sectional interests, " and, further, of 

 all threats, open or implied, as contrary to the 

 spirit of the Brethren's Unity." Two delegates 

 were present from the Southern Province, to 

 present a plan for the union of the two synods, 

 which had been agreed to by the synod of that 

 province. The plan, providing for the union of 

 the two provinces upon a footing of corporate 

 equality, under the operation of which the 

 Southern Province is to be constituted the 

 Wachovia District, was adopted unanimously 

 on three different votes, taken on three suc- 

 cessive days. By its provisions, the Southern 

 congregations will send their full quota of 

 delegates to the next meeting of the Synod, in 

 1884, which is then to be constituted the first 

 regular United Synod of the American Prov- 

 ince. An Advisory Board of Laymen was 

 constituted, to consist of an equal number of 

 members with the Provincial Elders' Confer- 

 ence, and to act with that body as a joint 

 board for the management and control of all 

 the financial affairs of the province not other- 

 wise specially provided for. The rule prohib- 

 iting the organization of new congregations by 

 division or colonization from other congrega- 

 tions, without the express sanction of the 

 provincial synod having been previously ob- 

 tained, was repealed. A rule was adopted 

 prohibiting the consecration of new church 

 buildings till all of the building expenses shall 

 have been provided for. The right of any 

 congregation to lay representation in provin- 

 cial synods was declared to be contingent 

 upon its providing for an actual and adequate 

 salary of its minister, and for the necessities 

 of its church establishment, " without any 

 fixed or regular aid from the general funds of 

 the Church, during the interval between the 

 previous synod and the synod about to con- 

 vene," except in the case of the first applica- 

 tion of the congregations for representation, 

 which was left to be accorded by special act of 

 the Synod. The Synod further ordered il that 

 no home-mission church which counts on aid 

 from the province shall build a church or a 

 chapel without the express sanction of the 

 Church Extension Board"; that a plan for 

 the building and estimates of the cost should 

 be laid before the board for approval; and 

 that it should have authority to reject any 

 plan that should be found unnecessarily ex- 

 pensive. 



The reports of the British Province, in 

 which the Irish churches are included, show 

 that in 39 congregations the number of " souls " 

 in 1880 was 5,706, against 5,423 in 1870, and 

 the number of communicants was 3,302 in 1880, 

 against 3,236 in 1870. 



