548 



METHODISTS. 



III. DOMESTIC MISSIONS: 



Welsh 



Scandinavian 



German 



French 



Chinese 



Japanese 



American Indian 



Bohemian and Hungarian . 



400 



86,450 



51,400 



3,200 



11,150 



5,000 



4,950 



2,500 



English-speaking 245,100 



Total domestic missions $360,150 



IV. MISCELLANEOUS APPROPBIATIONS 85,000 



Total $1,089,803 



The statistics of the missions, according to 

 the latest published report (for 1885, published 

 in March, 1886), are as follow : 



Foreign Missions. Number of foreign mis- 

 sionaries, 116 ; of assistant missionaries, 72 ; of 

 foreign teachers, 16; of missionaries of the 

 Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, 68 ; of 

 native ordained preachers, 309 ; of other native 

 laborers, 984; of members, 36, 950; of probation- 

 ers, 12,625; of native adherents, 33,363; average 

 attendance on Sunday worship, 55,431 ; num- 

 ber of conversions reported during the year, 

 2,777; baptisms, 1,532 of adults and 2,233 of 

 children ; number of pupils, in theological 

 schools, 136; in high-schools, 1,508; in day- 

 schools, 16,327 ; in Sunday-schools, 67,069. 



In domestic and territorial missions : Num- 

 ber of missionaries, 2,508 ; of assistant mission- 

 aries, 2,397, with 81 other assistants and teach- 

 ers ; of local preachers, 3,522 ; of members, 

 239,589; of probationers, 39,130. 



The receipts of the Woman's Foreign Mis- 

 sionary Society for the year ending Oct. 1, 1886, 

 were $167,098. The society reported at the 

 close of 1886: Missionaries in the field, 57; 

 assistants, 32 ; Bible women and medical wom- 

 en, 163; children in orphanages, 395; schol- 

 arships, 479; day-schools, 210; zenanas visited, 

 1,972; women under instruction, 4,169. Its 

 work is carried on in connection with the 

 missions of the Missionary Society of the Meth- 

 odist Episcopal Church, in Japan, China, India, 

 Bulgaria, Italy, South America, and Mexico. 



The receipts of the Woman's Home Mission- 

 ary Society for the year ending Oct. 15, 1886, 

 were $37,382 in cash, and $20,000 in supplies. 

 Effective organization was reported at the meet- 

 ing in 1 885, in 43 conferences. 



II. Methodist Episcopal Chnrrli, South. Statis- 

 tical reports, made to the General Conference 

 in May showed the number of ministers in this 

 Church to be 4,406 ; of local preachers, 5,943 ; 

 and of members, 990,904. 



The General Conference of the Methodist 

 Episcopal Church, South, met in Richmond, 

 Va., May 5. The bishops presented their 

 quadrennial address, reviewing the condition 

 and growth of the Church during the past four 

 years. It represented that during that interval 

 the number of members had increased from 

 860,717 to 996,994 ; of itinerant ministers from 

 4,011 to 4,466 ; and of local preachers from 

 5,869 to 5, 943. In the missions, which have been 

 established in Mexico, Brazil, and China, the 

 expenditure has exceeded the income, though 



the latter had increased by more than $600,000. 

 Among the Indian tribes having a total popu- 

 lation of 75,000 souls, the Church had 12,000 

 members allotted among five presiding elders' 

 districts and forty-five pastoral charges, with 

 121 local preachers, most of whom are of the 

 Indian race. Six academies of a high grade, 

 for the education of Indian children, were sus- 

 tained. The efforts to restore the Publishing- 

 House from its condition of financial embar- 

 rassment had been attended with success. The 

 debt of nearly $300,000 had been reduced to 

 $80,500 in 4-per-ceut. bonds on the house. In 

 the effort to raise $2,000,000 for centennial 

 offerings commemorative of the one hundredth 

 anniversary of the organization of the Meth- 

 odist Episcopal General Conference, $1,382,771 

 had been obtained; but nearly the whole of 

 this had been given for local purposes, such as 

 the building and repairing of churches and the 

 paying of existing debts, so that not much 

 more than $500,000 were realized for connec- 

 tional purposes. Upon the proposal referred 

 by the preceding General Conference to the 

 Annual Conferences to change the name of the 

 Church to "the Methodist Episcopal Church 

 in America," the vote had resulted in 91 in 

 favor of the change and 3,415 against it. On 

 this subject the bishops said : 



" It is to be hoped that a corporate name, 

 which was first introduced by Bishop Paine 

 and adopted into the report of the Committee 

 of Nine in the General Conference of 1844; 

 which was further recognized in the conven- 

 tion at Louisville in 1845, and in the formation 

 of the first Southern General Conference in 

 1846 ; which is the title by which all our law- 

 suits for the recovery of property was known, 

 and in favor of which the decree of the Su- 

 preme Court has been; the title and name by 

 which we were known through the ample and 

 deep experience of the war; the name which 

 was reaffirmed by a constitutional vote of the 

 Church in 1866 to 1867, and by which the 

 status of our church was recognized by the 

 Cape May Commission in 1876, and about 

 which our whole domestic and foreign mis- 

 sionary work has clustered will be accepted, 

 fully and forever, as the primal and final des- 

 ignation of our beloved Methodism." 



A paper was presented reciting that whereas 

 the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Meth- 

 odist Episcopal Church, South, "have a common 

 origin, a common history, teach the same doc- 

 trines, and have virtually the same church poli- 

 ty ; and, whereas, the only end and aim of both 

 churches should be to spread Scripture holi- 

 ness over these lands and promote the glory 

 of God and the salvation of men ; and, whereas, 

 the provisions of the Cape May Commission 

 [see "Annual Cyclopaedia" for 1876J have 

 been wholly disregarded " : therefore it asked 

 that the General Conference elect a commis- 

 sion of seven to meet a similar commission 

 whose appointment should be requested of the 

 General Conference of the Methodist Episco- 



