CONGREGATIONALISTS. 



J '.):', 



l.oii); pupils in common schools, 40,615: whole 

 niiinlMT under instruction, 48,585; native con- 

 tributions, so far as reported, fll2,f>()7. 



Among the special facts of interest noticed in 

 the survey of the condition and growl li of I he 

 Missions in the several fields it is observed that 

 the social and intellectual progress of Bulgaria, 

 us compared with the situation twenty years ago, 

 under Turkish rule, attracts the attention of all 

 thoughtful observers, and is justly recognized as 

 due to Robert College and to the missionaries of 

 the board. In India, according to the testimony 

 of thoughtful observers, a great change of senti- 

 ment is in progress, and there is a readiness on 

 the part of the people to listen to the gospel such 

 as has never before been shown. In Japan, the 

 earnest manner in which the native Christ inns 

 have taken up the support of their own institu- 

 tions and have entered into the evangelistic work 

 is remarked. Missionary operations in Micro- 

 nesia, after having been carried on for forty years 

 with great benefit to the islanders, were now in- 

 terfered with by the aggressions of the Germans 

 in the Marshall Islands and of the Spaniards in 

 the Caroline Islands. Remonstrances had been 

 addressed by the Government to Spain, and 

 amends were promised for the injurious treat- 

 ment by that country of the missionaries and 

 their property on Ponape; but as yet no relief 

 had been obtained against the attacks of the Ger- 

 mans upon the native pastors and churches in 

 the Marshall Islands. Yet the churches and 

 schools in the Marshall Islands were well main- 

 tained, the number of communicants had been 

 materially increased, and the quality of Christian 

 life was improving. The work was prospering in 

 the African missions. In Asiatic Turkey, inter- 

 ference of the Government with missionary work 

 was complained of, with arrests and exile of 

 teachers, and the burning of the new building 

 for the girls' school at Marsovan, all showing, 

 the report says, " that it is the settled purpose of 

 the Ottoman Government to cripple the schools 

 and churches which have been established by 

 our missions, and eventually to drive out the 

 missionaries themselves." 



A committee of eleven, appointed at the pre- 

 ceding annual meeting to consider the relation of 

 the board to the churches, and the question of 

 increasing the number of corporate members, re- 

 ported, recommending that a plan for securing a 

 certain portion of its new members through the 

 nomination of specified organizations of Congre- 

 gational churches, temporarilv adopted at the 

 previous meeting, be continued for the next two 

 years, and advising that the limit of corporate 

 membership be fixed at the number of 350, and 

 that, in addition to the vacancies regularly occur- 

 ring, 25 persons be nominated and appointed for 

 the next four years, beginning with 1894; also, 

 that the by-laws be amended to correspond with 

 this recommendation. The report was adopted. 

 A number of memorials and resolutions relating 

 to the subjects of enlarging the Prudential Com- 

 mittee, the appointment of missionaries, and 

 other matters, were referred to a special commit- 

 tee of fifteen, which reported, recommending the 

 appointment of an assistant secretary ; the en- 

 largement of the Prudential Committee at once 

 to fifteen members, including the president and 

 vice-president of the board ; also, 

 VOL. xxxni. 13 A 



That, beginning at the annual meeting of 1894, th^ 

 members of the Prudential Committee shall be elected 

 in three classes, one class to serve three yearn, one 

 class two yearn, one class one veur ; that at the expira- 

 tion of these term* members shall IH> chosen in clawteM 

 lor terms of three yearn each. It is further reconi- 

 IIH ii'ldl that no member who baa served three full 

 successive terms shall be eligible for re-election till 

 after a year lias pawed. 



That the Prudential Committee be requested to ue- 

 eure the necessary legal authority, through a change 

 in the charter, to carry the above'vote into effect ; 



together with the resolution, 



That this board, in response to the expressed wish 

 of its missionaries in Janan, and in recognition of the 

 successful labors of the Kev. William H. Noyes in that 

 empire, requests the Prudential Committee to offer 

 liim un appointment as a missionary of the board. 

 The board declares that this action is not to be un- 

 derstood as in any way modifying its former utter- 

 ances on the subject of future probation. 



The recommendations and resolution were 

 adopted. 



In explanation of the course the board and he 

 had pursued with reference to the appointment 

 of the Rev. Mr. Noyes as a missionary, President 

 Storrs said, in an address to the meeting : 



Six years ago, when . . . vou elected me to the 

 presidency of this institution, I said that I could ac- 

 cept it only on the condition that I could find some 

 way in which we all might walk and work together as 

 Christian brethren, trying to advance the kingdom of 

 the Lord on earth, lhat way I outlined in the letter 

 of acceptance which I wrote a short time afterward, 

 and which the board did me the honor to adopt as a 

 practical basis of administration two years later, at the 

 meeting in New York. In that letter of acceptance 

 there was not a hair-breadth of compromise on the 

 doctrinal position of the board. A certain hypothesis, 

 which had been presented as a tolerable hypothesis, 

 was regarded by me, as it was by many others, and as 

 it still is by me, as a dangerous dream of the human 

 mind, unauthorized by the Scriptures, and perhaps 

 damaging to the souls of men. But I made the dis- 

 tinction, which I have made many times in the exam- 

 ination of candidates for license or candidates for or- 

 dination or installation, between that which a man 

 thinks more or less loosely and the man himself, or a 

 doctrine positively and centrally held by him. ... I 

 said in the letter to which I * have referred that I 

 thought that a just distinction, and that we were to 

 estimate carefully and critically the spiritual force of 

 any tendency which might appear in the candidate 

 toward a doctrine which we might not indorse. As I 

 understand it, the board itself has adopted and ap- 

 plied precisely that principle in the action which it 

 took this morning. It recognizes that a man may be 

 entangled in statements made by himself which he is 

 not ready to repudiate, feeling, perhaps, that it would 

 be unjust to his relf-respect to do so, but which do 

 not represent a part of his working theology. And so 

 it was said that it does not change in any degree the 

 doctrinal basis of the board, but it believes, or hopes 

 certainly, I think, believes that this man, whose work 

 has been seen and known of men in Japan, who is 

 commended to the board by all the missionaries work- 

 ing in that empire connected with us, will work pre- 

 cisely as I saia at Chicago last year, as if he knew 

 that that hypothesis which has interested his mind 

 was not a reality, but a dream. The board has exer- 

 cised this generous confidence in him. 1 trust, and I 

 surely hope, that the result will justify this expecta- 

 tion. It has not changed in any degree the doctrinal 

 basis of the board, but it has given to this brother, 

 laboring afar from us and commending himself thus 

 far by his work, the opportunity to labor in its service 

 and under its commission whil'e he continues to labor 

 in faithfulness and with zeal. This is what the board 

 has done, and nothing else. 



