054 



PRESBYTERIANS. 



about 14,000 colored members connected with these 

 churches before the civil war, this number shows 

 an increase of about 11,000, or a rate of gain of 

 about 300 a year, while the colored population has 

 increased about 67 per cent, since 1860. A tendency 

 appears in some places, as in some parts of South 

 Carolina, among the colored Presbyterians even to 

 prefer other denominations. Many of those in that 

 State who were Presbyterians in 1861 passed into 

 the Baptist and Methodist Churches after the civil 

 war, and in Charleston the Presbyterian colored 

 members are not half so numerous as they were 

 before emancipation. 



IV. United Presbyterian Church in North 

 America. Thetables of religious statistics for 1898, 

 given in the " Independent " (New York) of Jan. 5, 

 1899,. credit this Church with 873 ministers, 899 

 churches, and 114,287 communicants. 



Prom the annual reports made to the General 

 Assembly it appeared that the receipts of the Board 

 of Education had been $5,521. Sixty-four students 

 had been recommended by presbyteries for aid 28 

 fewer than in 1896. Statistics had been collected 

 showing that of the young people of the Church 

 attending school, 2,935 were in the institutions of 

 the Church, and more than 500 in undenomina- 

 tional schools or the schools of other denomina- 

 tions. 



The year's receipts of the Board of Church Ex- 

 tension had been $24,980 from direct contributions ; 

 besides which $43,890 had accrued from legacies, 

 loans returned, investments paid in, etc., and $17,- 

 378 in balance from the preceding year. The ex- 

 penditures had been $66,962; and a balance of 

 $1,890 remained available for current expenses and 

 new work. 



The Board of Ministerial Relief had received 

 $31,306, and expended $27,830. Attention was 

 called in the report to the quarter of a century's 

 good work the board had done, its present position, 

 and its good prospects. 



The total receipts of the Board of Home Missions 

 had been $67.267, and the expenditure $77,192. 

 The debt had therefore increased, and now amount- 

 ed to $20,326. While the missions had failed to show 

 rapid extension, there had been a decided gain over 

 the previous year in all the leading items of the 

 report, and the increase of the contributions by the 

 missions from $13,460 to $14,827 in contributions 

 to the boards, and from $61,794 to $72,232 for sal- 

 aries of pastors and supplies was especially notice- 

 able. In no former year had so large a proportion 

 of the stations been regularly supplied with preach- 

 ing. Aid had been given to 206 stations, with 15,- 

 289 communicants, and an average attendance of 

 17,570 in the 197 stations which sent in reports; 

 1,433 additions by profession, a net gain of 1,394 

 members; and of 1,696 teachers, and 19,496 pupils 

 in Sabbath schools. 



The Board of Freed men's Missions had received 

 $52,461, and expended $50,971. It returned 595 

 church members at 10 stations, and 3,358 pupils in 

 11 day schools. Pour of the stations had- colored 

 pastors. Three senior students in the theological 

 seminary had been licensed as probationers. Thirty- 

 three colored teachers, including ministers employed 

 by the board, had all been educated in its institu- 

 tions. Many young men and young women who 

 had gone out from the missions had taught in the 

 public schools in different parts of the South during 

 the year, nearly all of them conducting also a Sab- 

 bath school. About 20,000 persons had received 

 secular and religious instruction by these means. 



The receipts of the Board of Foreign Missions 

 from ordinary sources had been $114,330, and its 

 expenditures $153,638. In consequence of this excess 

 of expenditure the board had been obliged to bor- 



row largely, and its debt had increased during the 

 year from $6,400 to $23,238. It had in Egypt 43 

 congregations, 2 of which were self-supporting and 

 33 had native pastors; 5.725 communicants, with 

 an average attendance of 11,021 on morning service ; 

 a Protestant community numbering about 20,000; 

 11,522 pupils, 2,464 of whom were Moslems, in the 

 165 day schools ; 15 ordained American missionaries 

 and 3 physicians ; and 597 members had been received 

 on profession during the year. The native contri- 

 butions averaged $3 per member. The mission in 

 India was under the care of 15 ordained missionaries 

 and their wives, and had 17 congregations, 1 of 

 which was self-supporting, with services held at 160 

 other stations ; 2,215 communicants and 4,115 bap- 

 tized adults not communicants ; a Christian popula- 

 tion of 10,007 ; and returned 349 additions by pro- 

 fession. There had been a net decrease of 398 in 

 membership. The 3 training and industrial schools 

 and 154 day schools had 6.441 pupils, and more than 

 39.000 patients had been treated in the hospitals. 



The Woman's Missionary Board returned the 

 amount of ''thank offerings" for the year as $17,- 

 555. It had supported 37 woman missionaries in 

 the foreign field, of whom 2 medical missionaries 

 had treated 30,181 patients ; 10 domestic missioii- 

 aries and a school at Camden. Ala., for which build- 

 ings had been completed. It had also made Church 

 Extension grants of $11,200 to 7 parsonages. 



The fortieth General Assembly met in Omatu, 

 Neb., May 25. The Rev. R. G. Ferguson, president 

 of Westminster College, was chosen moderator. Tl.e 

 Committee on Union with the Associate Reformed 

 Synod of the South reported that no correspondence 

 on the subject had been had during the year. There 

 had been co-operation in home mission work and in 

 the Young People's Christian Union, and this was 

 regarded as tending to unity by a more direct way 

 and with earlier and better results. Notwithstand- 

 ing its own recommendation to the contrary, the 

 committee was continued. The representative of the 

 General Assembly in the Committee on the Federa- 

 tion of Churches reported that the scheme had proved 

 impracticable. A committee appointed by the pre- 

 vious General Assembly to consider and report upon 

 a satisfactory plan for collecting information fur 

 the Committee on Narrative and State of Religion 

 reported that the plan followed heretofore of send- 

 ing a formula of questions to each session had been 

 found to be burdensome, and recommended that 

 hereafter the Committee on Narrative immediately 

 after the meeting of the Assembly prepare an out- 

 line for inquiry as to the state of religion, and 

 enter into correspondence with persons in all parts 

 of the Church and engaged in all departments of 

 Church work, making a careful study of the drift of 

 religious thought and of the forces adverse and fa- 

 vorable to the spiritual life. These recommendations 

 were adopted. Upon hearing the report of tlu 1 

 Committee on the Introduction of Young Men int> 

 the Ministry, the Assembly enjoined the presby- 

 teries to inquire carefully in regard to the natural 

 gifts, personal character, literary attainments, and 

 spiritual endowment of all who apply to be taken 

 under their care, and directed that the seminaries 

 exercise their inherent right to fix the standing and 

 grade of each student, and that in case a student is 

 dismissed from a seminary the authorities of the in- 

 stitution report the case fully to the presbyten. 

 Of the report of the Board of Education on a com- 

 prehensive educational policy and the distribution 

 of the beneficiary fund, the part relating to the dis- 

 tribution of funds for beneficiaries was amended 

 and adopted. It requires, among other things. Unit 

 students receiving aid must be Tinder the eare of 

 a presbytery, receive its formal indorsement and 

 recommendation, and be in attendance at one of 



