METHODISTS. 



547 



means may be found for reaching a solution of 

 all these questions. 



High Meteorological Stations. Dr. Breitenlohn- 

 er gives, in the " Mittheiluugen " of the Vienna 

 Geographical Society, the following list of ele- 

 vated meteorological stations in Europe, with 

 their heights above the sea in metres : Italy, 

 Monte Cimone, Apennines, 2,162 ; Etna, Sic- 

 ily, 2,900; France, Puy-de- Dome, Auvergne, 

 1,453; Pic de TAigual, Cevennes, 1,567; Mont 

 Ventoux, Cottian Alps, 1,960 ; Pic du Midi, 

 Central Pyrenees, 2,877; Switzerland, Santis, 

 Appenzell, 2,500; Great Britain, Ben Nevis, 

 1,418; Germany, Brocken, Harz, 1,141; 

 Wendelstein, South Bavaria, 1,860; Austria, 

 Schafberg, near Ischl, 1,776 ; Hoch-Obir, Ca- 

 rinthia, 2,047; Sonnenblick, Salzburg, 3,103. 



METHODISTS. I. Methodist Episcopal Church. 

 The following is the summary of the statistics 

 of the Methodist Episcopal Church (including 

 its foreign missions) as they are given in the 

 " Minutes of the Annual Conferences " for 

 1886: 



Number of traveling preachers 



Number of preachers on trial 



Number of local preachers 



Number of members (in full connection) 



Number of probationers 



Total of members and probationers 



Number of children baptized during the year. . . 



Number of adults baptized 



Number of churches 



Number of parsonages 



Probable value of church property 



12,075 



1,562 



1-2,813 



1,768,229 



222,148 



1,990,377 



67,795 



98,844 



20,263 



7,338 



$89,412,442 

 23,088 

 259,237 



Number of Sunday-schoo 



Number of officers and teachers in the same 



Number of Sunday-school pupils 1,901,007 



AMOUNT OF BENEVOLENT COLLECTIONS: 



For missions $823,056 



For church extension 105,944 



For the Sunday-school Union 1S.894 



For the Tract Society 17.444 



For the Freedmen's Aid Society 78,509 



For education 98,146 



For the American Bible Society 28,940 



For the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society. . . . 145,518 



For the Woman's Home Missionary Society 35,856 



A total increase is shown for the year of 

 100,047 in the number of members and proba- 

 tioners. 



Church Extension. The General Committee 

 of Church Extension met in Philadelphia, No- 

 vember 11. The report of the Board of Church 

 Extension showed that the year had begun with 

 a balance in the treasury of $49,781. The 

 receipts had been : On general account, $143,- 

 574; on loan-fund account, $82,910; making 

 altogether $226,484; giving a total for use of 

 $276,266, or $11,521 more than the available 

 resources of the previous year. The confer- 

 ence collections had been $99,446, a gain of 

 $7,893 over those of the preceding year. The 

 disbursements had been : On general account, 

 $143,542; on loan-fund account, $86,997; giv- 

 ing a total of $230,539 ; and leaving a balance 

 in the treasury on November 1 of $45,726. 

 Additional grants had been made on conditions 

 to be complied with, including gifts and loans, 

 of $73,990 ; and applications were on file for 

 gifts and loans to the amount of $18,086. The 

 appropriations and the requests from the annual 

 conferences for the ensuing year were adjusted 



on the basis of raising and expending the sum of 

 $204,150. An "emergency fund" of $6,000 

 was constituted, which the Board of Church 

 Extension was authorized to use in gifts to 

 churches costing more than $10,000. A reso- 

 lution was passed deprecating the solicitation 

 of money for needy churches ; and conferences 

 and official boards were requested not to au- 

 thorize the action of soliciting agents beyond 

 the limits of their own conferences. 



Freedmen's Aid Society. The receipts of 

 the Freedmen's Aid Society for the year end- 

 ing June 30, 1886, were returned at $165,228, 

 showing an increase of $21,762 over the re- 

 ceipts of the previous year. The total amount 

 expended by the society in the work of Chris- 

 tian education in the South during nineteen 

 years had been $1,737,305, of which $1,500,- 

 000 had been expended in schools among the 

 colored people, and $237,205 in school-work 

 among the whites. The society has 11 char- 

 tered institutions, 7 of which are devoted to the 

 training of colored pupils, and 21 others, with 

 174 teachers and 5,526 pupils. It has under 

 its care 12 institutions for white students, with 

 61 teachers and 1,740 pupils. It had estab- 

 lished two schools among the whites, at Little 

 Rock, Ark., and Chattanooga, Tenn. All the 

 other schools among the whites in the South 

 had been established and largely maintained 

 by the people themselves. The society had 

 aided these schools, when they had been em- 

 barrassed, in the erection of buildings and sup- 

 port of teachers, as its funds would allow, with- 

 out embarrassment to its work among the col- 

 ored people. 



Missionary Society. The General Missionary 

 Committee of the Methodist Episcopal Church 

 met in New York city, November 3. The 

 treasurer reported that the total amount of 

 collections for the year had been $992,128; of 

 which $836,592 had been obtained through the 

 conferences, $133,958 from legacies, and $21,- 

 578 in the form of miscellaneous receipts. The 

 total amount was greater by $165,300 than 

 the amount of the receipts for the previous 

 year. Appropriations were made for carry- 

 ing on the missions in their several fields of 

 work during the ensuing year, as follow : 



I. FOREIGN MISSIONS : 



Africa ( Liberia and the interior): $11,000 



South America 43,000 



China 106,272 



Germany 85,160 



Switzerland 11,440 



Scandinavia 75,385 



India 73,202 



South India 85,000 



Bulgaria and Turkey 16,729 



Italy 46,485 



Mexico 49,477 



Japan 50,836 



Corea 17,022 



Total for foreign missirns $570,958 



(A conditional appropriation, contit.gent on a 

 gift of $3,000, was made for a mission-press in 

 Calcutta.) 



II. MISSIONS IN THK UNITED STATES NOT IK AN- 

 NUAL CONFERENCES, TO BE ADMINISTEEED AS 

 FOREIGN MISSIONS (including stations in Ari- 

 zona, the Black Hills, Indian Territory, Montana, 



New Mexico, and Utah) $73,700 



