

PRESBYTERIANS. 



591 



General Assembly that its total receipts for the 

 year had been $733,124, and its expenditures 

 $730,548; hence it had closed the year with a 

 balance of $2,576. It had employed 1,371 mis- 

 sionaries, including 25 Mexican and Indian help- 

 ers, with 372 missionary teachers, and returned 

 a total membership in the mission churches and 

 stations of 77,181, with 88,510 attendants in the 

 congregations; 16,311 Sunday schools, with 117,- 

 773 members thereof; 223 Sunday schools organ- 

 ized during the year; 3,229 baptisms of adults 

 and 3,523 of infants; 7,776 additions on examina- 

 tion; 33 churches organized, and 16 reached self- 

 support; 57 church edifices built, at a cost of 

 $115,483, and 273 repaired and enlarged, at a 

 cost of $54.551 ; 1,519 church edifices in all, hav- 

 ing a total value of $2,943,234; 399 parsonages, 

 valued at $412,530; and $89,258 of church debts 



iceled. 



The Board of Education had under its care 



94 students in colleges and 399 in theological 

 seminaries. Its entire receipts had been $93,194, 

 and its expenditures $85,977. 



The Board of Relief had had 903 names on its 

 list of ministers, widows, orphan families, and 

 other beneficiaries. One hundred and eleven 

 names had been added during the year to the roll 

 of annuitants. The honorably retired roll of 

 ministers more than seventy years old who had 

 been thirty years in service and desired to re- 

 ceive the annuities of the board (not exceeding 

 $300 each) contained 127 names, while 232 min- 

 isters had availed themselves of its privileges 

 since 1889. The average amount paid to minis- 

 ters on tliis roll was $282.87, and the average 

 amount paid to all annuitants was $199.48 an- 

 nually. The receipts of the board from all 

 sources had been $194,890. 



The total resources for the year of the Board 

 of Aid for Colleges and Academies had been 

 $181.576. 



The Board of Missions for Freedmen had un- 

 der its care 199 ministers, 339 churches and mis- 

 sions, 19,588 communicants, 1,841 of whom 

 were added on examination during the year, 324 

 Sabbath schools with 10,582 scholars, and 64 

 day schools with 231 teachers and 9,132 pupils. 

 Its entire receipts for the year had been $155,- 

 033, or $5,600 more than the receipts of the pre- 

 ceding year. The board had nearly $1,000,000 of 

 permanent property. The freedmen had raised 

 more than $71,763 for self-support during the 

 year, none of which was included in any of the 

 accounts of the board. Industrial instruction 

 was given at all the important schools. 



The total receipts of the Board of Foreign 

 Missions had been $957,521, and its total dis- 

 bursements $935,351. The board had under its 

 care 117 principal stations and 1,172 out stations, 

 with 720 American missionaries (including 233 

 ordained ministers, 46 physicians, 13 lay mission- 

 aries, 253 married women, 149 single women, and 

 26 woman physicians), 1,701 native missionaries 

 (including 170 ordained ministers, 398 licentiates, 

 and 1,133 other workers), 626 organized churches, 

 37.S20 communicants, 66 students for the minis- 

 try. 702 schools having 23,929 pupils, and 26.611 

 pupils in Sabbath schools. The number of 'addi- 

 tions during the year was 4,442. The missions 

 were supplied with 8 printing establishments, and 

 35 hospitals and 47 dispensaries where 321,836 

 patients had received treatment. 



The Woman's Board of Home Missions in its 

 annual report returned 126 schools and missions 

 and 372 missionaries and teachers, with 8,446 

 pupils. Its total receipts had been $345,857, of 

 which $55,/36 were for .the freedmen's depart- 



ment. During the twenty-one years of its exist- 

 ence the board had secured $5,082,090, of which 

 amount $750,000 had been invested in buildings. 

 The one hundred and twelfth General Assembly 

 met in St. Louis, Mo., May 17. The Rev. Charles 

 A. Dickey, D. D., was chosen moderator. The 

 special committees on the celebration of the ad- 

 vent of the twentieth century appointed by the 

 previous General Assembly reported the details 

 of the plan which had been adopted in general by 

 that body for the observance. They included 

 special religious services during the week of 

 prayer of 1901; the setting apart of the first 

 Friday of the meeting of the General Assembly 

 in that year for appropriate exercises, including 

 a review of the history of the Church during 

 the nineteenth century at the morning session, a 

 forecast of the outlook for the twentieth century 

 at the afternoon session, and popular addresses 

 at a session to be held in the evening; the raising 

 of a special memorial twentieth century fund 

 for the endowment of Presbyterian academic, 

 collegiate, and theological institutions, for the 

 enlargement of missionary enterprises, for the 

 erection of church buildings and the payment of 

 debts upon churches and educational institutions, 

 and for the other work of the boards at the 

 option of the donors; and the constitution of a 

 committee of four ministers and three elders, with 

 headquarters at Philadelphia, to have a general 

 supervision of the enterprise. It was also ar- 

 ranged that the meeting of the General Assembly 

 of 1901 should be held in Philadelphia, where 

 the body was organized. Numerous overtures 

 having come to the Assembly respecting a re- 

 vision of the Confession of Faith, the subject 

 was referred to a subcommittee of the Committee 

 on Bills and Overtures. This committee reported 

 concerning the overtures that, of 38 presbyteries 

 sending them in, 8 asked for revision as their 

 first preference, 1 asked for a new declaratory 

 statement, 20 asked for a new and shorter creed, 

 and 9 asked for a committee to consider the 

 whole subject and report to the next Assembly. 

 " Your committee," the report continues, " deem 

 these overtures of such nature and number as 

 to justify some action on the part of the Assem- 

 bly. But the overtures are of such variety and 

 suggest so many paths of process that they 

 hardly furnish sufficient data to justify a dis- 

 tinct trial of any of the plans proposed. To 

 enter at once either upon the revision of our pres- 

 ent creed or the preparation of an explanatory 

 statement would be to commit ourselves to un- 

 dertaking some one of the proposed methods of 

 creedal change, without sufficient knowledge of 

 the mind of the Church to warrant reasonable 

 expectation of approval. On the other hand, to 

 decline all action would be to ignore a condi- 

 tion that seems to demand attention, and which 

 involves a wide misrepresentation of our doc- 

 trinal position. We therefore recommend, first, 

 that a committee of 15 8 ministers and 7 elders 

 be now appointed by the moderator to consider 

 the whole matter of a restatement of the doc- 

 trines most surely believed among us, and which 

 are substantially embodied in our Confession of 

 Faith. Second, that this committee be enjoined 

 diligently to pursue their inquiries, seeking light 

 and knowledge from every available source, and 

 to report to the next General Assembly what 

 specific action, if any, should be taken by the 

 Church. Third, that to further the work of the 

 committee the presbyteries be and are hereby in- 

 vited by the Assembly to take action at their 

 approaching fall meetings and through the As- 

 sembly's stated clerk to report said action to 





