DENMARK. 



DISCIPLES OF CHRIST. 



185 



tered from the beginning the same difficulties. The 

 Opposition resisted particularly the military policy 

 of the Government, which demanded the comple- 

 tion of the coast fortifications of Copenhagen. In 

 1898, declaring that the country was in danger, 

 the Government, on its own authority, having 

 failed to carry the project through the Rigsdag, 

 appropriated 500,000 kroner for the fortification 

 of the capital on the seaward side. The Opposi- 

 tion was highly indignant at this new act of arbi- 

 trary government, recalling the policy of the Es- 

 trup ministry, which ruled without Parliament. 

 Horring, however, had not undertaken to revive 

 the constitutional conflict. When he saw that his 

 ministry was doomed he sought to postpone the 

 evil day by making changes in the Cabinet, re- 

 placing the Minister of War, Col. Tuxen, with an 

 officer esteemed by the Opposition, putting Brain- 

 sen into the Ministry of the Interior, and removing 

 another obnoxious member of the Cabinet. This 

 did not avert the storm, however, and as soon as 

 the Rigsdag assembled, on Oct. 2, 1899, it broke out. 

 The war budget, in which the 500,000 crowns spent 

 arbitrarily on the defenses of Copenhagen, ap- 

 peared, and four tax bills that had been discussed 

 in previous sessions afforded the chief points of at- 

 tack. These tax bills provided for the conversion 

 of certain Government taxes into communal taxes, 

 a new tax on capital and incomes, the alteration 

 of the customs tariff, and an increase in the tax 

 on spirits. The Government demanded that the 

 four should be dealt with as a whole. The brandy 

 tax was intended to make up the deficiency caused 

 by a lowering of customs duties. The Opposition 

 was willing enough to reduce import duties, but not 

 to make brandy dearer, although the Government 

 had considerably moderated the spirit duty pro- 

 posed in the bill submitted in the previous year. 

 The Folkething decided that it would not discuss 

 the brandy tax at all, but that the three other 

 measures should be the subject of a compromise 

 to be arranged with the Right. The Government 

 could not agree to this because the tariff reduc- 

 tion without the substituted brandy duty would 

 cut down the revenue. The Left in the Folkething 

 appointed a committee to discuss the lowering of 

 the communal taxes in connection with the intro- 

 duction of an income and property tax. When the 

 Folkething rejected the project of augmenting the 

 brandy tax the ministry resigned. The elections 

 of 1899 increased the Radicals in the lower cham- 

 ber to 63 and the Socialists to 12, and reduced 

 the Moderate Liberals to 23 and the Ministerial- 

 ists to 15. Even in the Landsthing the minis- 

 terial majority was not large, including the mem- 

 bers nominated by the King. Still it was a lasting 

 one, which would oppose a Radical Cabinet as 

 vigorously and uncompromisingly as the Radicals 

 formerly opposed the Conservative Estrup Cabi- 

 net. If the King could overcome his repugnance 

 to the Left sufficiently to accept a radical ministry 

 it would only lead to a renewal of the constitu- 

 tional conflict with the position of the parties re- 

 versed, and probably would result in a fresh dead- 

 lock. The successor chosen for H. Horring was 

 therefore a Conservative of the same stripe as him- 

 self, H. Schested, the vice-president of the Lands- 

 thing, whose hope of success depended on his 

 evolving an agrarian policy that would attract 

 both the Conservative Agrarians in the Lands- 

 thing and the Radical Agrarians in the Folke- 

 thing. The Rigsdag session was closed by royal 

 decree on April 26, and on April 27 the new min- 

 istry was announced as follows: President of the 

 Council and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hannibal 

 Schested; Minister of the Interior, V. de Ludvig 

 Bramsen; Minister of Public Works, Railroads, 



Posts, and Telegraphs, Baron Juul Rysensteen; 

 Minister of Marine, Commander Middelboc; Min- 

 ister of Justice, Dr. Goos; Minister of War, Col. 

 .1. G. F. Schnack; Minister of Agriculture, Herr 

 Friis. 



DISCIPLES OF CHRIST. The report of the 

 General Statistician to the General Missionary 

 Convention of the Disciples gave the whole num- 

 ber of churches as 10,528, and of members as 

 1,149,982, showing gains for the year of 127 

 churches and 31,982 members; and the amount 

 raised for all benevolent and educational purposes 

 as $5,714,638, an increase of $244,043. The num- 

 ber of Christian Endeavor Societies was 5,001, or 

 10 more than in the previous year. The schools 

 for ministers, including the Bible chairs at the 

 University of Virginia and Ann Arbor, Mich., the 

 Disciples' Divinity House, Chicago, and two other 

 schools, returned 442 students; while more than 

 1,300 students were taking the Bible Extension 

 course of the Ann Arbor school. 



The annual meeting of the American Christian 

 Missionary Convention began at Kansas City, 

 Mo., Oct. 11, with that of the Christian Woman's 

 Board of Missions. This society had received 

 during the year $106,723, and had co-operated 

 in expenditure and labor with the work of 

 the other societies represented in the conven- 

 tion. Arrangements were made with the Amer- 

 ican Christian Missionary Society for the trans- 

 fer of the work of the Board of Negro Evan- 

 gelization and Education to its care. The Amer- 

 ican Christian Missionary Society, whose work is 

 in the United States and Canada, met Oct. 13, 15, 

 and 16. It had employed during the year 168 mis- 

 sionaries, together with 27 laborers of the Board 

 of Negro Evangelization and Education, in 37 

 States and Territories, and had engaged in city 

 evangelization or city missions in 16 large cities. 

 The missionaries reported 6,028 additions to the 

 churches, 53 churches organized, and 23 houses of 

 worship completed during the year. The total re- 

 ceipts of the board had been $63,627, while the 

 various State and district societies had raised and 

 expended $114,368 for mission work in their respec- 

 tive fields, and the Woman's Board of Missions 

 had expended $30,000 for home missions. The ag- 

 gregate results of all the three agencies showed 

 1,363 places helped, 202 churches organized, and 

 16,009 additions to the churches. The society had 

 begun the year with a balance of $3,460 in the 

 treasury and no indebtedness, but, the appropria- 

 tions having been larger than ever before, had 

 closed it with a debt of about $3,000. A committee 

 was appointed at the meeting to confer with a like 

 committee of the Free Baptists with reference to 

 union. 



The meeting of the Foreign Christian Mission- 

 ary Society was held Oct. 16. The report repre- 

 sented that the past year had been the most pros- 

 perous in its history. The receipts from all sources 

 had amounted to $180,016, showing a gain of 

 $27,289 over those of the previous year. The offer- 

 ings of the 3,067 contributing churches, as 

 churches $65,964 in all showed an average of 

 $21.50 per church, a gain of 40 per cent, over the 

 average four years before. Four churches had been 

 added to the number of those supporting one mis- 

 sionary each. The Sunday schools had contributed 

 $42,705, and the Christian Endeavor Societies 

 $2,966. Twenty-two hundred and twenty-nine dol- 

 lars had been received from bequests, and $30,425 

 on the annuity plan. Twelve missionaries had 

 been sent out during the year, 2 had resigned, and 

 1 had united with another mission. Reports were 

 made from missions in India, where 65 converts 

 had been added and 1,831 children were enrolled 



