CONGREGATIONALISTS. 



173 



two societies, we, the joint committee, give it 

 as our judgment: 



"1. That, as heretofore, the principal work 

 of the American Home Missionary Society 

 should be in the West, and that the principal 

 work of the American Missionary Association 

 should be in the South. 



u 2. Whatever new work may be called for 

 in any locality, should be under the charge of 

 the society already occupying the ground. No 

 exception to this rule should be allowed unless 

 it be by agreement between the two societies. 



u 8. Concerning any work already estab- 

 lished by either society, we would recommend 

 that if either comity, economy, or efficiency 

 will be advanced by it, such transfer of the 

 work should be made as shall bring the work of 

 the societies into harmony with the preceding 

 recommendations." 



This action was approved by both societies 

 at their meetings in 1884. 



American Board. The seventy -fifth annual 

 meeting of the American Board of Commission- 

 ers for Foreign Missions was held at Columbus, 

 Ohio, October 7th. The Rev. Mark Hopkins, 

 D. D., LL. D., presided. The total receipts of 

 the society for the year had been $538,353, of 

 which $428,851 had come in in the form of 

 donations. An addition of more than a quar- 

 ter of a million dollars to the funds of the 

 board was expected from a legacy left it by 

 Samuel W. Swett, of Jamaica Plain, Mass. The 

 annual average of the contributions to the 

 treasury of the society during the last ten 

 years, excluding legacies, had been in round 

 numbers $359,000, or about one dollar for each 

 resident member of the Congregational church- 

 es throughout the country. About 75 per cent, 

 of the entire contributions were received from 

 the New England States. 



The ;* General Survey" of the work of the 

 board in the mission-fields represented it as 

 generally in a condition of prosperity and prog- 

 ress. In Africa, the Bible had been pub- 

 lished complete in the Zulu language, and 

 nearly five hundred copies of the work had 

 been sold at once. The East African mission, 

 which it was intended to push into Umzila's 

 kingdom, had been established at Inhambane, 

 and the location had been found to be a very 

 suitable one. The West Central African mis- 

 sion, at Bih6, had suffered from disturbances, 

 which were, however, believed to be only tem- 

 porary, and no permanent interruption to the 

 plans of its friends was anticipated. The na- 

 tives were friendly, while the Portuguese of 

 the coast were hostile, to it. The Micronesian 

 missionary vessel, the Morning Star, had been 

 wrecked, but a new vessel to replace it was 

 on the stocks. In the Turkish missions, the 

 discussions in the previous year (see " Annual 

 Cyclopedia "for 1883, article CONGREGATIONAL- 

 ISTS) of the various questions at issue between 

 the board and the native churches had pro- 

 duced good results and an improved feeling ; 

 a better understanding of mutual relations 



had been attained, and misconceptions on both 

 sides had been cleared up. Conferences of 

 missionaries and representatives of the native 

 churches, which had previously been held to a 

 limited extent, had now been instituted in all 

 the different stations, " with the happiest re- 

 sults." A Home Missionary and Education 

 Society, known as the ''Greek Alliance," had 

 been established at Smyrna. Over seventy dif- 

 ferent publications, amounting in all to more 

 than 11,000,000 pages, had been issued dur- 

 ing the year from the press at Constantino- 

 ple. Among these were about 80,000 copies 

 of the Scriptures or portions of them. Two 

 important evangelical mo veinents were recorded 

 among the old Armenians in the fields of Sivas 

 and Csesarea, where meetings for young men, 

 congregations for worship and the study of the 

 Scriptures, weekly prayer-meetings and wom- 

 en's prayer-meetings, and a Sunday-school, had 

 been organized and were sustained. In India, 

 forty-three out of seventy-one churches were 

 themselves meeting their current expenses ; the 

 church in Bombay was besides supporting a 

 missionary at a point seven hundred miles dis- 

 tant ; and the churches of the city of Madura 

 had engaged two evangelists for labor in the 

 outlying districts. In China, the encouraging 

 prospects of the mission of the " Oberlin Band " 

 in the province of Shanse were remarked upon. 

 The Government officers in North China were 

 manifesting a better appreciation of the object 

 and labors of the missionaries, and had changed 

 their attitude toward them. As a whole, 

 through the missionaries of the board and its 

 native ministers, the gospel was preached in 

 twenty-five different languages, and in more 

 than eight hundred towns and cities, on every 

 Lord's day. The following is the general sum- 

 mary of its work for the year: Number of 

 missions, 21 ; of stations, 79 ; of out-stations, 

 747 ; of ordained missionaries, 158 ; of physi- 

 cians not ordained (7 men and 3 women), 10; 

 of other male assistants, 7 ; of women (wives, 

 152; unmarried, besides physicians, 102), 254; 

 whole number of laborers sent from the United 

 States, 429 ; number of native pastors, 142 ; of 

 native preachers and catechists, 362; of native 

 school-teachers, 1,010 ; of other native helpers, 

 307; whole number of native laborers, 1,821 ; 

 whole number of laborers connected with the 

 missions, 2,260; number of churches, 292; of 

 church-members, 21,176; added during the 

 year, 2,371 ; whole number from the first, 91,- 

 694 ; number of high-schools, theological semi- 

 naries, and station-classes, 50, having an at- 

 tendance of 2,007 pupils ; of boarding-schools 

 for girls, 38, with 1,711 pupils; of common 

 schools, 825, with 30,142 pupils; whole num- 

 ber of pupils, 33,860. 



The commission appointed under the direc- 

 tion of the National Council of the Congrega- 

 tional Churches of the United States, "to pre- 

 pare, in the form of a creed or catechism, or 

 both, a simple, clear, and comprehensive ex- 

 position of the truths of the glorious gospel of 



