METHODISTS. 



535 



Utah, etc., $57,100; for domestic missions 

 among the foreign, Indian, and English-speak- 

 ing populations of the United States, $248,300 ; 

 total, including miscellaneous appropriations 

 and $32,000 for the liquidation of the debt of 

 the society, $777,849. The foreign missions 

 returned in their annual reports, 269 foreign 

 missionaries and assistants, 246 native ordained 

 preachers, 1,025 native assistants, 1,498 other 

 helpers, 29,095 members, 9,984 probationers, 

 80 day-schools with 12,913 scholars, and 303 

 churches. 



The domestic missions employed 2,381 mis- 

 sionaries, with local preachers and teachers. 



The Woman's Foreign Missionary Society re- 

 ceived for the eighteen months ending Novem- 

 ber 1, 1882, $195,678. It returns 42 missiona- 

 ries, 350 Bible women and teachers, 6 hospitals 

 and dispensaries, 16 boarding-schools, 140 day- 

 schools, 3 orphanages (400 orphans), and 1 

 home for friendless women, in eight several 

 mission-fields. 



The committee appointed by the bishops of 

 the Church met in November and took the pre- 

 liminary steps for holding in 1884 a centennial 

 celebration of the organization in 1784 of the 

 Methodist Episcopal Church, in which all or- 

 ganizations of American Methodism should be 

 invited to unite. A committee was appointed 

 to correspond with other American Methodist 

 Churches on the subject. 



II. METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, SOUTH. 

 The "General Minutes" of the conferences of 

 this Church for 1881 give the folio wing statistics 

 of the Church for the year : Number of travel- 

 ing preachers, 3,704; of superannuated preach- 

 ers, 307; of local preachers, 5,865; of white 

 members, 844,367; of colored members, 993; 

 of Indian members, 5,451 ; total of ministers 

 and members, 860,687, showing an increase 

 during the year of 12,894 ; number of Sunday- 

 schools, 9,310, with 62,442 teachers and 462,- 

 321 scholars, showing an increase during the 

 year of 21,707 scholars. 



The General Conference of the Methodist 

 Episcopal Church, South, met at Nashville, 

 Tenn., May 3d. The bishops of the Church 

 presided over the sessions of the body in al- 

 ternation. The address of the bishops pre- 

 sented a view of the present condition of the 

 Church during the past four years. The num- 

 ber of ministers active in the thirty-nine annual 

 conferences and the mission-fields had increased 

 by 247, and was now 3,704; the number of 

 members had increased from 798,862 to 860,- 

 687. Thirteen thousand members had been 

 added during the past year. The amount of 

 church property and the accommodations for 

 congregations had increased in proportion with 

 the other items, and much progress had been 

 made in the payment of debts. The sum of 

 $354,372 had been contributed for foreign mis- 

 sions against $242,934 in the preceding four 

 years, and $226,850 against $216,916 for home 

 missions. Home-mission work had been ex- 

 tended through Colorado and New Mexico 



toward Arizona, in Northwestern Texas, among 

 the German settlers in Louisiana and Texas, 

 and in the Indian Territory. The Indian mis- 

 sion had steadily grown, and there were now 

 in the conference that represented it more 

 than 5,000 members Cherokees, Choctaws, 

 Chickasaws, Creeks, and Seminoles, besides sev- 

 eral hundred white people and negroes who had 

 obtained citizenship or the right of residence 

 among the natives; who were served by more 

 than thirty traveling preachers most of them 

 Indians and one hundred and twenty local 

 preachers. The Mexican Border Mission in- 

 cluded nearly a thousand ministers and seven- 

 teen native preachers. The foreign missions, 

 in Central Mexico, China, and Brazil, had been 

 strengthened by the addition of new missiona- 

 ries. The Woman's Missionary Society, four 

 years old, had sent out five missionaries to 

 China, Brazil, and Mexico, and was building a 

 boarding-school at Laredo, on the Eio Grande. 

 The number of Sunday-schools had increased 

 during the four years by more than 2,000, and 

 the number of pupils by 71,000. The Sunday- 

 school literature had been improved in quality, 

 reduced in price, and increased in circulation. 

 The condition of the Publishing House had been 

 materially changed for the better. While, four 

 years before, the claims against the establish- 

 ment amounted to more than $300,000, and 

 were drawing interest at the rate of $60 a day, 

 and the liabilities exceeded the assets by more 

 than $100,000, it now reported an excess of 

 $50,000 of assets over liabilities, with the whole 

 of its remaining indebtedness in manageable 

 shape. The negro population of the South and 

 Southwest, which had for several years been 

 turned away from this Church, was again be- 

 coming accessible to its influence. The Colored 

 Methodist Episcopal Church, which had been 

 organized ten years before, at the request of 

 colored members, had maintained its integrity 

 and made some progress. It needed better fa- 

 cilities for the education of pastors and teach- 

 ers of the colored race, and the favorable con- 

 sideration of the General Conference was in- 

 voked for measures to help it in this work. 



The agent of the Publishing House reported 

 that he had received a bequest from a lady in 

 Virginia of $2,500 to the establishment "for 

 the use of the Church in spreading and dissemi- 

 nating the gospel among mankind " ; and that 

 the sum of $266.17 had been paid him by John 

 Whitman, of Philadelphia, as a balance due the 

 Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in the di- 

 vision of the property of the Methodist Epis- 

 copal Church under the action of the General 

 Conference of 1844, which sum he had entered 

 under the title of " suspended assets." The 

 Conference ordered the latter sum to be turned 

 over to the Publishing House as a part of its 

 capital. Fraternal communications were re- 

 ceived from the African Methodist Episcopal 

 Zion Church and the Colored Methodist Epis- 

 copal Church in America. Bishop Wood, of 

 the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, 



