FRIENDS. 



247 



and to the Declaration of Faith, issued by the 

 Richmond Conference of 1887." 



The constitution is to become operative upon 

 those adopting it when it shall have been approved 

 and adopted by seven yearly meetings. 



The missionaries of the American Friends are 

 supported by yearly meetings or by associations 

 severally interested in the care of one or more 

 districts. (Sixty missionaries are thus sustained 

 in stations at Ramleh, Syria, Nanking (China), 

 Tokio (Japan), Newgong (Bundelcund, India), 

 Jamaica, Victoria, Matamoras, Metahuala, Ce- 

 dral, and Estacion de Catorce, Mexico; Douglas, 

 Kotzebue, and Kake Island, Alaska. 



The American Friends' Board of Foreign Mis- 

 sions at its meeting in February, 1900, made ar- 

 rangements for securing an incorporation under 

 the laws of the State of Indiana, and completed 

 its organization for work in the field. At the same 

 time it decided to open a mission in Cuba, and ap- 

 pointed an agent or superintendent to go out as 

 early as possible and start the work. 



The Friends' African Industrial Mission was 

 organized early in the year to found an industrial 

 mission settlement on the eastern shore of the 

 Victoria Nyanza. It contemplates obtaining by 

 lease from the British Government and purchase 

 from the natives a tract of land on the high and 

 therefore healthy plateau, where the most profit- 

 able crops of the region may be cultivated and 

 other industries pursued for the products of which 

 good markets are not far distant; and it is the 

 purpose of the mission to become self-supporting 

 as soon as possible. The several hundred native 

 workmen needed to do the manual labor of the 

 settlement will be required to live on the station, 

 where they will be withdrawn from heathen sur- 

 roundings and kept continuously under Christian 

 influence. Boys in school will be taught various 

 handicrafts, such as blacksmithing, carpenter's 

 work, and shoemaking, and the girls household 

 duties. Daily gospel services will be one of the 

 features of the life of the settlement. The board 

 controlling the mission is to be composed of two 

 Friends from each yearly meeting. 



Several yearly meetings have already engaged 

 heartily in the work, and a large number of quali- 

 fied workers have applied for service without any 

 appeal having been made. 



British, Friends. The summary of numbers for 

 the year 1899 supplied to the London Yearly Meet- 

 ing shows a membership in Great Britain of 17,153, 

 being an increase of 121 on the number reported 

 in the previous year; these were comprised in 

 376 congregations, 4 more than in 1898. Other 

 numbers were 8,000 habitual attenders at the con- 

 gregational meetings, 380 persons admitted to the 

 society during the year " on convincement," and 

 145 retired, 145 births, and 256 deaths. The dis- 

 parity in the number of births and of deaths is 

 explained partly by reference to the relatively 

 large number of persons who join the society in 

 mature life, causing additions to the death rate 

 lot balanced by corresponding additions to the 

 sirth rate, and partly by failure to enter the 

 lames of children of mixed marriages or marriages 

 aetween Friends and non-Friends. 



A chief subject of discussion at the meeting on 



linistry and oversight of the London Yearly 

 Meeting in May was the eldership. The meeting 

 had in 1898 adopted a minute on worship and 

 ministry in which what were regarded as the true 

 conditions of living worship and of enlightened 

 ind effective ministry were set forth. Now it 

 liscussed and adopted a minute to be sent dow r n 

 to the monthly meetings, pointing out the na- 

 ture of the duties involved in eldership and the 



qualifications which should be regarded in ap- 

 pointing persons to that office. In the Yearly 

 Meeting at Large a committee was appointed to 

 prepare a statement of the real position of the 

 society in regard to war, and an appeal was di- 

 rected to be made to the Government asking that, 

 in deciding upon a settlement of the conflict in 

 South Africa, the Christian sentiment of the coun- 

 try and the desire for justice and magnanimity 

 should have due weight. The minute prepared by 

 this committee and adopted by the meeting took 

 the following form : " This meeting has felt pro- 

 found sorrow on account of the war in South 

 Africa, with its mournful sacrifice of brave lives, 

 its many stricken and darkened homes, and its 

 manifold sequel of misery and bitterness. It can 

 not but also grieve over the discredit brought 

 upon the religion of Jesus Christ by warfare be- 

 tween those who name his name and seek him as 

 their Saviour and example. It respectfully appeals 

 to the Government of these realms to do all that 

 can be done to allay mistrust and to remove mis- 

 understandings, which ever inflame and embitter 

 strife, and are among the most fruitful causes of 

 war and of its continuance. It earnestly desires 

 and prays for the establishment of an early and 

 durable peace in South Africa, which shall enable 

 all elements of the population, including the native 

 races, to grow together side by side under free in- 

 stitutions, and shall rest not upon the Government 

 of the sword or the humiliation of the vanquished, 

 but upon the lasting foundations of justice and 

 good will." The subject of " birthright member- 

 ship " was brought up in a minute from the Bed- 

 fordshire quarterly meeting, in which it was 

 pointed out that the principle of " hereditary re- 

 ligion " is contrary to the teaching of the New 

 Testament; that there should be a sharp distinc- 

 tion between the natural birth and spiritual birth ; 

 that only about 40 per cent, of the membership of 

 the society is through birthright, and that it is 

 not fair to those who come into it by request to 

 maintain two kinds of membership. The minute 

 proposed, therefore, that children should hence- 

 forth be enrolled as associates, with all the privi- 

 leges now enjoyed by birthright members, except 

 that they should not be members of meetings for 

 business until they apply for full membership. 

 Arguments were urged in the yearly meeting 

 against the change proposed, that heredity was 

 of great value in religious associations ; that there 

 was danger that the inducements offered by other 

 churches and social attractions would draw away 

 many of the young people if their close, organic 

 connection with the society was broken during 

 these early formative years; and that the pro- 

 posed new plan might result in introducing 

 " tests " for membership that is, that young peo- 

 ple would be received only after a careful exami- 

 nation of their faith. The fact was emphasized 

 that the very condition of entering the kingdom 

 of heaven, as laid down by Christ, is to " become 

 as little children," and that the apostle Paul 

 clearly regarded children as a real part of the 

 Church. One of the principal points urged in favor 

 of the change was that the true Quaker is, alone, 

 the person who has experienced the regenerating 

 power of the Holy Spirit. The contemplated new 

 discipline of American Friends provides that the 

 children of members be enrolled as associate mem- 

 bers. " They are thus recognized, not because 

 their birthright can of itself make them members 

 of the body of Christ, for they can only become 

 such by experiencing the new birth by the Holy 

 Spirit, but because of the promises in the Holy 

 Scriptures to believers and their households, and 

 the conviction that true Christians will so make 



