596 



PRESBYTERIANS. 



follow: To foreign missions, $132,822; to home 

 missions, $94,141; to freedmen's missions, $55,000; 

 to church extension, $55,000; to education, regular 

 work, $8,000; colleges and seminaries, $25,000; to 

 ministerial relief, $8,000; to Assembly fund, $14,- 

 500; to publication, $500. In addition to these 

 amounts, $24,000 were pledged to foreign missions 

 by the Woman's Board and other parties. 



'The contributions made by the Woman's Board 

 of Missions to the funds of the Church amounted 

 for the year to more than $82,000. The reports 

 made at' the annual meeting for 1900 show that 

 since its organization, in 1886, this society had 

 contributed more than $600,000. The board pub- 

 lishes a general missionary magazine and a maga- 

 zine for juniors, and sustains a training school 

 at Xenia, Ohio. 



The Freedmen's Mission returned nearly 800 

 members, with 14 schools, having an enrollment 

 of 3,024 pupils; 10 Sabbath schools, with 138 offi- 

 cers and teachers; and 89 missionaries, 11 of whom 

 were ordained ministers. The contributions had 

 increased during the year from $857 to $2,024. 

 The policy of the board had been to provide min- 

 isters and teachers from among the colored. A 

 charter had been obtained for Knoxville College, 

 empowering it to confer academic degrees. The 

 deot of the board was $16,082. 



The annual meeting of the Young People's 

 Christian Union was held in Denver, Col., late 

 in June. A gain of 47 senior and 31 junior so- 

 cieties was returned, with a large increase of 

 contributions by the junior societies. The re- 

 ports showed that the number of professions of 

 faith among the juniors was equivalent to two 

 thirds of the net gain in membership of the 

 Church during the year. Resolutions were passed 

 urging the keeping of the Sabbath holy, oppos- 

 ing the use and traffic in narcotics and alcohol 

 in any form, and regretting the existence of the 

 army canteen in opposition to the wishes of the 

 great majority of Christians. 



IV. Reformed Presbyterian Church in 

 North America Synod. The following is a 

 summary of the statistics of this Church for the 

 synodical year 1899-1900, as given in the report 

 made to the Synod in May. The numbers from 

 12 congregations are taken from the reports of 

 the preceding year: Number of congregations, 

 113; of mission stations, 8; of ministers, 124; of 

 licentiates, 19; of students of theology, 7; of 

 communicants, 9,790; of attendants upon Sabbath 

 schools, 10,449; of attendants of Young People's 

 Societies, 2.1(59; total amount of contributions, 

 $104.718. 



The Synod met at Cedarville, Ohio. May 30. 

 The Rev. F. M. Foster was chosen moderator. 

 Mr. Foster, who had been one of the delegates to 

 the (.Ecumenical Conference of Missions, but had 

 not attended on account of the use of instru- 

 mental music and of hymns other than the 

 Psalms in worship, reported concerning his "at- 

 tempt and failure to secure the silencing of the 

 organ and the use of the divine Psalms in wor- 

 ship." The delegates to the General Council of 

 the Reformed and Presbyterian Alliance in Wash- 

 ington in 1899 reported to the effect that the 

 character of the proceedings of the council was 

 conservative and thoroughly biblical, and that 

 the Psalms were used exclusively in worship 

 without the organ. Yet the opinion was ex- 

 pressed by the speaker that the Alliance was 

 manifestly and thoroughly opposed to the Re- 

 formed Presbyterian principle as to praise. A 

 committee on an International Convention of 

 Covenanters which it was proposed to hold in 

 America in 1901 reported that after having cor- 



responded with all the ministers of the Reformed 

 Presbyterian Synods of Scotland and Ireland on 

 the subject, they did not consider the information 

 received such as would encourage the synod to 

 decide upon holding the convention at the time 

 designated. A special session was given to the 

 subject of national reform, which was defined 

 by one of the speakers as being a movement not 

 so much to get the word God into the Constitu- 

 tion (as the public regarded it) as "to get God 

 in Christ into the hearts of the people so com- 

 pletely that they will themselves put Christ into 

 the Constitution and laws of the world." A me- 

 morial was addressed to Congress and all State 

 legislatures asking that they make no more ap- 

 propriations for expositions in this country or 

 other countries without the proviso that such 

 expositions shall be closed on the Lord's Day. 

 The officers of the Synod were appointed a com- 

 mittee to prepare a memorial to the next Con- 

 gress asking the abolition of all Sunday mails 

 and mail trains, the closing on the Christian 

 Sabbath of the Post Office Department at Wash- 

 ington and of all post offices in the United States, 

 and the prohibition of all business and labor in 

 the entire Post Office Department on the first day 

 of the week, the committee in person to attend to 

 the presentation of the petition. 



V. Cumberland Presbyterian Church. The 

 statistical reports of this Church, made to the 

 General Assembly in May, give it 180,192 mem- 

 bers, a gain of 2,614 over the previous year. They 

 show also gains of 4 in the number of churehe> 

 with installed pastors, 36 parsonages, 117 Sunday 

 schools, 10,000 in Sunday-school enrollment. l'2'.l 

 in the number of additions and 566 in that of 

 baptisms, and 35 ordained ministers, while the 

 number of missions and congregations awaiting 

 organization had nearly doubled. Reductions 

 appear of 22 in the number of churches without 

 ministers, of 85 in that of churches without 

 Sabbath schools, and of 22 in the number of min- 

 isters without charge. Thirty-six churches had 

 been dedicated during the year, costing in all 

 $97,895, all but $4,810 of which was paid. The 

 contributions for education, ministerial relief, 

 synodical missions, and miscellaneous causes had 

 increased, while those for foreign missions, home 

 missions, and church erection had fallen off con- 

 siderably, entailing a decrease of $55,262 in the 

 total contribiitions of the church for all cause-* 

 of which the actual amount was $677,491. 



The seventieth General Assemblv met at Chat- 

 tanooga, Tenn.. May 17. The Rev. H. C. Bird. 

 of Uniontown, Pa., was chosen moderator. Tin- 

 report of the Educational Society represented 

 that an unusual interest in education had been 

 manifested during the year, consequent upon the 

 appointment of an educational commission by 

 the previous General Assembly. The prcsbyterie- 

 were as a rule demanding that their probationer! 

 reach the required standard of knowledge, ami 

 were dropping those unwilling to do so. The 

 receipts of the society for all purposes had l>een 

 $11,932, its indebtedness was $1,260. and its I-.T- 

 manent fund amounted to $7,700. The Kdn.-a- 

 tional Commission appointed by the previon- 

 General Assembly reported a plan for four grades 

 of schools above the primary, to include aead 

 emies, colleges (of which there are five), one uni- 

 versity for the whole Church, and a theological 

 seminary, all adequately equipped and correlated 

 to one another. The Board of Missions and 

 ( imrch Erection reported concerning the missions 

 in Japan. China (Hunan), Mexico, the Indian 

 Territory, and home missions. The offerings tor 

 church erection had amounted to $2,303, and the 



