AMJUCAN CIHIK IIKS. 



Maje-ty be prayed to grant Convocation power 

 In frame a canon which should enable the Church 

 authorities to deprive criminous clerks of their 

 :a-ti<al preferments. The Mouse of Lay- 

 men approved of the Clergy Miscipline bill, but 

 Mii.'u'eNtcd that it IM- amended so that the sentence 

 of deprivation should lie the act of the Church 

 rather than of the state; discussed the subject 

 of religious instruction in the schools; as-erted 

 the nerd of belter religious provision for work- 

 houses: and directed inquiry into the methods 

 by which Christians of all denominations may 

 co-operate in that work, "so as to bring the 

 whole power of Christianity to bear upon the 

 social improvement of the people." 



Convocation met again June 30. A petition 

 was presented and received in the upper house 

 for a committee to consider the desirability of 

 altering the amended Act of Uniformity so as to 

 extend its provisions to the Sunday services, or 

 to permit the same elasticity in ritual on Sunday 

 that is allowed other days of the week. Thereby 

 the requirements might be met of parishes where 

 the bulk of the population is estranged from the 

 Church. A motion according to the terms of this 

 petition was rejected in the lower house. The 

 resolutions adopted by the lower house in May, 

 1890, on the subject of education were taken up, 

 and such of them as were still timely were con- 

 curred in. They welcome the code of 1890 con- 

 sidered as a whole, particularly in view of the rec- 

 ognition it gives to the importance of children's 

 moral training and discipline, the method of its 

 distribution of parliamentary grants to a school, 

 its provisions for improvement in the character 

 of the instruction given, and the arrangements 

 for increasing the efficiency of small inland 

 schools ; declare that the new code must fail of 

 its purpose unless an act is obtained to provide 

 for an enlargement of the 17s. 6d. limit, and for 

 the exemption of public elementary schools from 

 local rates; and seek further information regard- 

 ing the moral and religious training of day stu- 

 dents. Satisfaction was expressed that the bill 

 Sut no new restriction on religious teaching, and 

 id not interfere with the management of Church 

 schools; and the power of the house was pledged 

 to secure adequacy of the grants given by the 

 state in lieu of school fees. The report of the 

 joint committee on the Free Education bill, com- 

 prising recommendations concerning details rela- 

 tive to the Government allowances to schools and 

 to the payment of fees, was presented and con- 

 sidered. The bill was also discussed in the lower 

 house and the House of Laymen. 



Missionary Societies. The one hundred 

 and ninetieth annual meeting of the Society for 

 the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts 

 was held April 30. The Archbishop of Canter- 

 bury presided. The society had received during 

 the year from all sources 164,382, or 26,000 

 more than in anv previous year of its history, 

 and by its enlarged means it had been enabled to 

 extend its operations verv wide.lv. The first bish- 

 '>p had been consecrated for Chota Nagpur, In- 

 dia; the mission in New Cuinea had been begun; 

 the Bishop of Corea with a staff of missionaries 

 had begun their work in that country. The num- 

 ber of ordained missionaries, incl ml in g eight bish- 

 ops, on the society's lists was 660, viz., in A-ia. 

 220; in Africa, 142; in Australia and the Pacific, 



17; in North America. 215 ; in the West Indies, 

 :M ; and in Kiin-pr. :{2. Of these, 127 were na- 

 tives laboring in Asia and 29 in Africa. Then- 

 were also in the various missions about 2.800 lay 

 tea'-her-. J.iiOO students in the sociity'H colleges, 

 and ::s.(KH) children in the mission schools in Asia 

 and Africa. 



The ninet v-second annual meeting of the 

 Church Missionary Society was held May 5. Sir 

 J. II. Kennaway, M. P., presided. The total re- 

 ceipts for the year, including those for special 

 funds, had been 247,787. The expenditures had 

 been 239,208, of which 15,056 were covered by 

 the Nyanza, Soudan, extension, and other special 

 funds applicable to the society's general work. 

 The report showed that 79 missionaries had been 

 added to the roll, and refern-d, among other 

 matters, to the Anglo-German agreement, which 

 had definitely committed Uganda. Usoga, and 

 other fields to British influence ; to the progress 

 of the Imperial British East Africa Company in 

 opening up the country ; to a readiness displayed 

 by many Mohammedans to hear the Word of God 

 in Persia, Mesopotamia, and Palestine, and to the 

 difficulties which had arisen in connection with 

 work in Palestine ; to the fact that at the recent 

 National Congress in India 40 members were 

 Christians; to the plans fora new mission in the 

 remote western province of Sz-chuen, to be be- 

 gun by a pioneer party under Rev. J. H. Hors- 

 burgh ; to the presence in the new Japanese Par- 

 liament of 14 Christians, and the election of one 

 of them to the presidency of the lower house. 



The complete report shows that the society oc- 

 cupied 327 stations viz., 44 in West Africa, 13 

 in eastern equatorial Africa, 1 in Egypt and 

 Arabia, 11 in Palestine, 2 in Persia, 109 in India, 

 17 in Ceylon, 8 in Mauritius, 23 in China, 11 in 

 Japan, 36 in New Zealand, 43 in northwest Amer- 

 ica, and 9 in the north Pacific. It employed 

 4,358 missionaries, pastors, teachers, etc., of 

 whom 655 were Europeans, 30 Eurasians, etc., 

 and 3,673 natives. The whole number of native 

 Christian adherents was 195,463, of whom 50.005 

 were communicants, and 10.491 persons had been 

 baptized during the year. There were also 1,720 

 schools, with a total of 70,311 native pupils. 



Curates' Augmentation Fund. According 

 to the report made at its annual meeting. June 

 18, the receipts of this fund for the year had been 

 8.724, or nearly 600 more than those of the 

 preceding year. The sum of 6,808 had been 

 paid in advance to 150 curates, whose average 

 service was twenty-eight years and whose average 

 stipend was 126 a year. The object of the fund 

 was to give to licensed curates who had been in 

 active work for upward of fifteen years grants of 

 50 in augmentation of their stipend, to be con- 

 tinued as long as they remained curates. The 

 number of curates who had served the Church 

 for that period was about 1,200. The fund was 

 unable with its present grants to give aid to 

 more than 125. The average stipend of curates 

 who had been twenty-five years in holy orders 

 was 118. The report asserted that this fund 

 was the only society in Kngland that provided a 

 fixed and certain income for the unbeneficed 

 clergy, and it was the only one that directly 

 helped the older curates and the Church and of- 

 fend a better prospect to those entering the 

 ministry. 



