732 



UNITED BRETHREN CHURCH. 



cided by local and State courts, but no final de- 

 cision has yet been reached. The census of the 

 United States for 1890 gives the Liberal branch 

 45 annual conferences and 3,731 church organ- 

 izations in 23 States, with 202,474 communicant 

 members and $4,292,643 of property; and the 

 Conservative branch, or United Brethren of the 

 old constitution sometimes, too, called Radicals 

 765 organizations in 12 States, with 22,870 

 communicants and $644,940 of property. 



I. Liberal Branch. The twenty-first Gen- 

 eral Conference met in Dayton, Ohio, May 11. 

 For the first time in the history of the Church 

 lay delegates were present as members of the 

 Conference, in the proportion of 56 to 131 clerical 

 delegates, and 2 of them were women. Allusion 

 was made to these new features in the quadren- 

 nial address of the bishops. The address con- 

 tinued with a review of the condition of the 

 Church as it had been affected by the separation, 

 eight years before. It said : 



Statistics exhibit our present membership at 204,- 

 982. The membership decreased in number from 

 207,800, as shown in the bishop's address to the last 

 General Conference, to 197,123, as shown by the 

 statistics of the year 1890. This was the lowest point 

 reached as a result of the defection from the Church, 

 which began during the sitting of the last General 

 Conference. It showed a decrease of 10,677. Since 

 then the membership of the Church has been steadily 

 on the increase. The results of the ingathering of the 

 past winter are not, in most of the conferences, in- 

 cluded in these statistics, so that it is safe to say the 

 present membership is about the same in number as 

 reported to the YorK General Conference. Consider- 

 ing the circumstances through which the Church has 

 passed, this statement furnishes occasion for devout 

 thanks to God. 



The number of churches had increased since 

 the last General Conference from 2,609, valued at 

 $3,757,161, to 2,976, valued at $4,430,445; be- 

 sides which there were 564 parsonages, valued at 

 $502,616. The total contributions of the last 

 year had been $1,183,030, a gain over the con- 

 tributions of 1888 of $146,944, or 80 cents per 

 member. The Missionary Society returned the 

 number of foreign missionaries as 32; of mis- 

 sionaries in mission conferences and districts, 

 118; and of missionaries in home conferences, 

 225 ; making in all 375 missionaries. The Church 

 had 777 members in Germany and 5,978 in 

 Africa. The Woman's Missionary Society had 

 raised more than $50,000 during the four years, 

 and not less than $142,383 since its organization, 

 eighteen years before. The cash receipts of the 

 Publishing House for the quadrennium had 

 been $713,052; the profits had been $82,490; 

 and the total assets were $359,576. Forty thou- 

 sand one hundred and twenty-five dollars had 

 been collected for Church extension, and 66 

 churches had been aided. The 3,493 Sunday 

 schools had a total enrollment of 262,000, or 55,- 

 000 more than the number of church members. 



The Young People's Christian Union was ap- 

 proved and recognized and made a distinct de- 

 partment of the work of the Church, and pro- 

 vision was made for the establishment of a 

 newspaper organ devoted to its interests. The 

 office of church-erection secretary was estab- 

 lished. It was decided that one half of all the 

 funds collected for missionary purposes, except 

 in the Ohio German Conference, should be paid 



into the general missionary treasury, provided 

 that the Board of Missions may return to such 

 conferences as may need more funds to carry on 

 home work such appropriations as it may deem 

 wise ; and the conference pledged itself to raise 

 $100,000 for missions during the coming year. 

 It was ordered that in the election of delegates 

 to the General Conference three times as many 

 candidates as there are delegates to be elected, 

 of either order, shall be nominated by the minis- 

 ters and by the lay delegates in the annual con- 

 ferences, respectively, and that from these the 

 delegates shall be chosen by the people. The 

 " time limit " was removed from the pastoral 

 term. Under the rule adopted, pastors will be 

 appointed for a year at a time, but will be sub- 

 ject to reappointment for an unlimited number 

 of years. A rule was adopted forbidding minis- 

 ters to act in the capacity of traveling evange- 

 lists without being appointed to such work by 

 the annual conferences to which they may be- 

 long. Bishops N. Castle, D. D., E. B. Kephart, 

 D. B., LL. I)., and J. W. Hott, D. D., were re- 

 elected bishops for another term of four years. 

 The Rev. George A. Funkhouser, D. D., was 

 elected a fourth bishop, but declined to leave 

 his professorship in Union Biblical Seminary to 

 accept the office, and Prof. J. S. Mills, D.D., 

 Ph. D., of Western College, was chosen to the 

 position. Bishop J. Weaver, D. D.. who had 

 been in the bishop's office twenty-eight years, 

 was elected emeritus bishop ; Bishop J. Dickson, 

 D. D., who had been a bishop twenty-four years, 

 and was seventy-three years of age, was not re- 

 elected, but received a testimonial from the con- 

 ference. Resolutions were adopted declaring 

 total abstinence from all intoxicating drinks to 

 be the duty of every individual ; that the liquor 

 traffic is only evil ; that high-license laws are 

 utterly at variance with the divine method of 

 treating crime ; that no political party has a 

 right to expect, or should receive, the support of 

 Christian citizens so long as it stands committed 

 to the license policy or refuses to put itself in an 

 attitude of open hostility to the saloon ; approv- 

 ing an official national recognition of the Chris- 

 tian religion ; inviting the application of gospel 

 principles to the labor question ; deploring the 

 prevalent tendency to Sabbath breaking and 

 urging the enforcement of laws against Sabbath 

 desecration ; insisting on the maintenance of 

 the public-school system with teaching in the 

 English language and opposing the appropria- 

 tion of public money for sectarian schools ; and 

 declaring only such amusements proper to the 

 Christian " as will tend to recreate him physic- 

 ally, mentally, and morally, and that whatever 

 will interfere with his highest growth in any of 

 these lines should not be indulged in." 



The Board of Missions, at its meeting after 

 the General Conference, made appropriations to 

 the African Mission of $7,660 ; to the mission in 

 Germany of $2.200 ; and to the Freedmen's Mis- 

 sion of $250. Other appropriations to confer- 

 ence and home missions made it $20,737. 



The receipts of the Woman's Board of Mis- 

 sions for the year were $23,836, and its expendi- 

 tures $16,280. It supports, in connection with 

 the home work, a Chinese school with 7 teachers, 

 45 enrolled pupils, and an average attendance of 

 18, having property that has increased in value 



