130 CONGO, INDEPENDENT STATE OF THE. 



CONGREGATIONALISTS. 



tant. A royal decree was issued in January, 1898, 

 sanctioning a line of railway from a point to be 

 determined on the Itimbiri through the Welle val- 

 ley to another point on the Nile near Redjaf, and 

 money was assigned for the necessary preliminary 

 Mirveys. 



Scarcely less important than the railway ques- 

 tion is that of improving the means of communi- 

 cation by water, and in June, 1898, the sum of 

 6.000,000 francs was assigned for the purchase of 

 >t earners, tugs, etc., the improvement of the port 

 of Ndolo, and other similar works. Among the 

 new river boats are stern-wheelers of 150 to 250 

 tons, and light fast-steaming packet boats capable 

 of carrying 12 passengers. One large steamer of 

 .~>iM) tons is specially designed for the conveyance 

 of railway material*. AH these boats are sent in 

 -.tions over the railway and put together on 

 Stanley Pool. 



Telegraphs have not been neglected, and during 

 1IMK) great progress was made with them. The 

 line from Boma to Tanganyika, with branches to 

 llfiljaf on one side and Katanga on the other, has 

 been built at a total cost of 3,000,000 francs. 



Recent Events. The Germans established in 

 H!>9 military stations on the river Rusisi and on 

 Lake Kivu, to guard against an invasion of their 

 territory in East Africa by the mutinous Batatela 

 troops of the Congo State. The Belgian garrisons 

 on Lake Kivu, which . had previously been with- 

 drawn, were thereupon reinstated, and a formal 

 protest was made against the occupation by Ger- 

 many of Congolese territory. The German Gov- 

 ernment asserted in reply that the map which 

 illustrated the treaty of 1884 makes the Rusisi the 

 frontier, and places Lake Kivu on the German 

 side of the line. M. Beernaert went to Berlin as 

 special envoy of the Independent State in January, 

 11)00, to show that it was another map on which 

 neither river nor lake appears, and that in subse- 

 quent documents Germany recognized a more east- 

 erly boundary. He arranged with the German 

 Government to have the boundary surveyed by a 

 mixed commission. Pending the demarcation both 

 governments kept military forces of equal strength 

 in the disputed district. 



In the early part of 1900 a fresh outbreak of 

 the Budjas occurred in the Mongalla district of 

 the Congo. On March 4 they killed Lieut. Wey- 

 lants and another European near Jambeta, having 

 two months before attacked the military station. 

 The new revolt was attributed by some to cruelties 

 practiced on the natives to compel them to collect 

 caoutchouc for the trading companies. In the 

 Belgian Chamber an investigation was demanded, 

 to show how far the officers and public force of 

 the Congo State were implicated in barbarous 

 methods of collecting rubber whereby the popula- 

 tion was practically condemned to hard labor un- 

 der the pretext of civilizing the natives. The Bel- 

 gian ministers having rejected the proposal on the 

 ground that the conditions of the loan of the Bel- 

 gian Government to the Congo State gave only 

 the right to obtain financial and commercial in- 

 i"iiiiati<>ii, not to intervene in the affairs of the 

 Congo State, which was a foreign country, the 

 Chamber refused to entertain the interpellation. 

 During the debate stories were brought out of Bel- 

 gian officers having ordered hands to be cut off 

 ;md sanctioned other atrocities, and charges were 

 made that the agents of trading companies were 

 ferocious. In suppressing the revolt in the Mon- 

 galla district, wholesale massacres of natives were 

 alleged to have taken place. The Congo Govern- 

 ment submitted these reports to the judicial au- 

 thorities, to be investigated. In order to prevent 

 any complicity on the part of its own officers, it 



forbids all its agents to engage in trade. It also 

 prohibits them from having recourse to arms ex- 

 cept for legitimate defense. The state did not 

 intervene in any way in the nomination of agents 

 of private companies or in the direction of the 

 latter, but had decided to repress all excesses in its 

 territory. The Mongalla revolt was not termi- 

 nated by the first re-enforcements sent into the 

 Budja country, and in July an additional force of 

 500 soldiers was sent up. On April 17 the black 

 garrison of the Chinkakassa fort below Boma mu- 

 tinied. It was composed mainly of about 100 Bata- 

 telas, who had been sent to the Lower Congo when 

 the expeditionary force of Baron Dhanis revolted. 

 The black soldiers killed a white officer, attacked 

 the rest in the house of the commandant, where 

 they had taken refuge, and began to bombard 

 Boma with the guns of the forts. Volunteers from 

 Boma relieved the beleaguered whites, and began 

 an assault on the fort, upon which most of the 

 mutineers fled and the rest surrendered. 



CONGREGATIONALISTS. The Congrega- 

 tional Yearbook for 1900 gives in its summary of 

 the statistics of the Congregational churches in 

 the United States the following numbers: Of 

 churches, 5,604; of ministers, 5,614; of members. 

 629,874; of families, 400,249; of additions by con- 

 fession during the year, 24,514; of baptisms during 

 the year, 10,390 of adults and 11,824 of infants: 

 of members of Sunday schools, 682,907, with an 

 average attendance of 408,506; of societies of 

 Christian Endeavor, 3,696, with 191,753 members. 

 Of the churches, 4,228 are recorded as " supplied " 

 and 1,376 as "vacant"; of the ministers, 3,655 

 were " in pastoral work " and 1,919 " without 

 charge." Amounts of contributions (4,883 churches 

 reporting): For foreign missions, $445,508; for 

 education, $193,376 ; for church building, $88,388 ; 

 for home missions, $477,852; for the American 

 Missionary Association, $141,022; for Sunday 

 schools, $61,938; for ministerial aid, $24,107; for 

 other purposes, $678,227 ; making a total, as footed 

 up in the tables, of $2,110,413. Amount of contri- 

 butions for home expenditures reported by 4.854 

 churches, $7,023,124; amount of legacies. $438,738. 



The Congregational Education Society in 1899 

 aided 162 students preparing for the ministry. S 

 colleges, and 17 academies. In the New Weal 

 department for the aid of mission schools in Utal 

 and New Mexico, Salt Lake College with Gordor 

 Academy, Proctor Academy in Utah, and 10 mis 

 sion schools were assisted. The receipts for the 

 year were $147,372. 



The Congregational Church Building Society ii 

 1899 received $247,307 and expended $197,560. 



The Ministerial Aid fund of the National C'oi 

 gregational Council, which in 1899 amounted 

 $118,000, furnished an income of about $5.(MH>, 

 which was distributed in pensions of from $25 i 

 $200 a year to aged or disabled Congregational 

 ministers and missionaries and their families 

 Fifty-nine persons or families were thus aided in 

 L8Q. 



The 7 theological seminaries Andover, Bangor. 

 Chicago, Hartford. Oberlin. Pacific, and Yale re 

 turn 22 resident licentiates and fellows, 17 mem 

 bers of advanced and graduate classes, and had. in 

 1898-'!)9, 04 professors and 23 instructors ami 

 lecturers. 



The receipts of the Congregational Stuulas 

 School and Publishing Society for 1899 wen 1 

 $62,990, a gain of about $5,000'over those of the 

 preceding year. Of this amount $23,554 wen- 

 ( 'hildren's Day receipts. The sum of $7,500 wa - 

 appropriated for missionary work. The superin- 

 tendents and missionaries of the society had organ- 

 ized 325 Sunday schools directly and 150 through 



