ADVENTISTS, SEVENTH-DAY. 



Russian Progress. The Russian admin- 

 istration in the province of Ferghana has been 

 building a road leading into the Pamirs and 

 Kashgada. The Russian trade with Central 

 Asia has so increased that the Transcaspian Rail- 

 way is not sufficient for the traffic. A new rail- 

 way or a canal is demanded. A plan is contem- 

 plated for connecting the Amu Daria with the 

 Caspian by a navigable water way, which would af- 

 ord the necessary facilities for transportation, and 

 at the same time could be utilized for the irriga- 

 tion of thousands of square versts of rich land 

 suitable for the cultivation of cotton. A railroad 

 from Orenburg to Tashkend is also under con- 

 sideration. The Asiatic visitors to the fair at 

 Nijni Novgorod are annually increasing. Even 

 Afghan merchants are represented there. Dur- 

 ing 1893 the Emir of Bokhara and the Khan of 

 Khiva visited the Czar in St. Petersburg. A dis- 

 pute which arose regarding the use by the Rus- 

 sians and Afghans respectively of the water of 

 the river Kushk, in the neighborhood of the de- 

 limited Russo-Afghan frontier, was settled in the 

 summer of 1898 by Col. Yate and a Russian com- 

 missioner, who met on the spot to study and de- 

 cide the matter in consultation. 



ADVENTISTS, SEVENTH-DAY. The fol- 

 lowing is a summary of the statistics of the Sev- 

 enth-Day Adventist Church as they are given in 

 the Seventh-Day Adventist Yearbook for 1893 : 

 Number of districts, 7, viz., Atlantic, Southern, 

 Lake, Northwest, Southwest, Pacific, Foreign ; 

 of conferences or territorial organizations, 45 ; 

 of ministers, 244 ; of licentiates, 156; of churches, 

 1,102; of members, 33,778; amount of tithes, 

 $302,310. The foreign conferences taken sepa- 

 rately, including churches in Australia, Great 

 Britain, Central Europe, Denmark, New Zealand, 

 Norway, South Africa, Sweden, Polynesia, Ger- 

 many, Russia, South America, the West Indies, 

 and Central America, return 37 ministers, 18 

 licentiates, 108 churches, 3,524 members, and 

 $52,710 of tithes. The General Conference Asso- 

 ciation balanced its resources and liabilities at 

 the end of 1892 at $261,732. The Foreign Mis- 

 sion Board returned its receipts at $60,886, and 

 its disbursements at $46,362. The International 

 Tract Society returned its resources and liabilities 

 at $7,844; the Educational Society at $119,378. 

 The receipts of the National Religious Liberty 

 Association for six months had been $12,121. 

 The International Sabbath-School Association 

 reported the number of schools as 1,552, with 

 35,223 members, and an average attendance of 

 26,075; and the gifts of the Sabbath schools 

 to missions amounted to $18.456. Publishing 

 houses in connection with the Church are estab- 

 lished at Battle Creek, Mich., Chicago, Toronto, 

 Ont., and Oakland, Cal. ; and other publishing 

 houses in London, Christiania, Norway, Basel, 

 Switzerland, and Melbourne, Australia. The 

 educational institutions are Battle Creek College, 

 Mich. ; Union College, College View, Neb. ; 

 Healdsburg College, Cal. ; Walla Walla College, 

 College Place, Wash. ; South Lancaster Academy, 

 Mass.; Claremont Union College, near Cape Town, 

 South Africa ; and the Australasian Bible School, 

 Melbourne. Health institutions are maintained 

 at Battle Creek, Mich., and St. Helena, Cal. 



The General Conference met in its thirtieth 

 session at Battle Creek, Mich., Feb. 17. Thirty- 



three conferences and 4 mission fields were 

 represented. In the resolutions adopted on pub- 

 lic questions, emphasis was given to the position 

 of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church as demand- 

 ing the most complete separation of Church and 

 state. One series of resolutions took the form 

 of an appeal and protest against a decision of 

 the United States Supreme Court declaring the 

 United States a Christian nation, and against 

 the passage of an act of Congress directing the 

 closing of the Columbian Exposition on Sunday, 

 as a violation of the Constitution and invading 

 " the dearest rights of the people, by legislating 

 on the subject of religion, deciding a religious 

 controversy, and establishing a religious institu- 

 tion " ; appealing as Christians " on the ground 

 of the divine right which Jesus Christ has recog- 

 nized and declared the right of every man to 

 dissent even from the words and religion of 

 Christ " ; as Protestants, " on the ground of the 

 historical right to protest against every inter- 

 ference of government in the affairs of religion " ; 

 as American citizens, " on the ground of the spe- 

 cifically declared constitutional right to the free 

 exercise of religion according to the individual 

 conscience " ; as men, " on the ground of the 

 natural right of mankind to render to the Creator 

 such homage, and such only, as each believes to 

 be acceptable to him." The resolutions repre- 

 sented "that the only proper objects of civil 

 government are the happiness and protection 

 of men in the present state of existence, the 

 security of life, liberty, and property of the 

 citizens, and to restrain the vicious and en- 

 courage the virtuous by wholesome laws, equal- 

 ly extending to every individual." But religion 

 can be directed only by reason and experience 

 and is cognizable only at the tribunal of the 

 Universal Judge. Other resolutions protested 

 against a bill proposed in the Legislature of 

 Tennessee exempting Seventh-Day Baptists, Ad- 

 ventists, etc., from the penal operation of the 

 Sunday laws, provided they observe one day in 

 the week as a day of rest, declaring that consent 

 to the act " would be only to surrender to the 

 state our God-given right to be religious or not 

 religious, to observe or not to observe a day, ac- 

 cording to the dictates of our own consciences 

 and the convictions of our own minds ; and 

 would be only to consent that the state shall 

 take judicial and supervising cognizance of our 

 religious beliefs and our conscientious observ- 

 ances " ; as well as to consent to have enforced 

 on others that (the observance of Sunday) 

 which they would not have forced on them- 

 selves. The conference also protested against 

 the exemption of Church property from taxation. 

 The local conferences were advised to hold work- 

 ers' institutes for the study of " religious liberty 

 subjects." For propagating the principles of the 

 denomination in foreign countries a more vigor- 

 ous and thorough work in Great Britain was de- 

 termined upon ; assistance was pledged in the 

 establishment of a school for workers in Aus- 

 tralia ; the Foreign Mission Board was advised 

 to send an American family of suitable experi- 

 ence and qualifications to Constantinople ; the 

 opening of a mission in India was advised, to in- 

 clude health and medical missionary work, teach- 

 ing, Bible work, canvassing, and translating and 

 publishing small works in the native tongues; 



