PRESBYTERIANS. 



PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND. 059 



the affirmative to 62 in the negative. The reports 

 on temperance showing that a considerable number 

 of the office bearers of the Church do not practice 

 total abstinence, a motion was adopted urging " on 

 ministers, ruling elders, Sabbath-school teachers, 

 and all members of the Church the great and 

 pressing duty of personal abstinence." 



XIV. Presbyterian Church in England. The 

 returns of this Church showed an increase both 

 of congregations and of members. There were 327 

 churches and preaching stations, affording accom- 

 modation for 162.644 persons. The number of com- 

 municants was 71,444, and the value of church prop- 

 erty 1,801,215, against which were debts amounting 

 to 81,073. The aggregate sum of 270,577 had 

 been raised for all purposes during the year, an 

 increase of 9,007 from the previous year. Since 

 the Synod was constituted in England in 1876. the 

 number of congregations in that country had in- 

 creased from 271 to 327, and of members from 

 34,146 to 162,044, while the value of the church 

 property had improved from 973.485 to 1,801,215 ; 

 the debts thereon had decreased from 121,173 to 

 81,073. The home mission report urged meas- 

 ures to raise the 20,000 needed to complete the 

 50,000 aimed at as a Church Building fund. The 

 London Presbytery had during the year initiated 

 ten church extension efforts. 



The amount of contributions by the home 

 churches to the Foreign Mission fund had been 

 25,000 ; besides which the native churches had 

 made considerable contributions for the extension 

 of work in their several fields. The society had in 

 China 160 stations, 55 medical and other European 

 missionaries, 25 of whom were women, without 

 reckoning wives of missionaries : 153 native agents, 

 69 organized congregations, 10 hospitals, 15 native 

 pastors entirely supported by their congregations, 

 and 5,466 communicants. 



The Synod met in Liverpool, late in April. The 

 Rev. William Hutton was chosen moderator. The 

 report on religion and morals mentioned indica- 

 tions in the returns from the churches of ear- 

 nest spiritual life throughout the denomination. 

 The Synod recorded its " peculiar satisfaction in 

 the continued expansion of interest in the Sunday- 

 school examinations, and especially in the fact that 

 pupils connected with the mission church in China 

 had taken part in the scriptural examinations. A 

 plan for increased representation of the eldership 

 in presbyteries, and suggestions of schemes to pro- 

 vide a more frequent interchange of pastorates, 

 either by an optional time limit or otherwise, were 

 sent down to presbyteries and sessions for consid- 

 eration and report. Charges were preferred against 

 the Rev. Dr. John Watson, pastor of the church in 

 which the Synod was held, and known in literature 

 as ' Ian Maclaren," based on his teaching in the 

 book "The Mind of the Master," but were not en- 

 tertained. 



XV. Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Church. 

 The General Assembly met at Newport, Monmouth- 

 shire, June 14. The Rev. Evan Jones was chosen 

 to preside instead of the moderator-elect, Rev. John 

 Roberts, who had been obliged to return to the mis- 

 sion field in India. The report on foreign missions, 

 of which the chief stations are in the Khassia Hills, 

 India, showed general progress. The sum of 14,- 

 000 had been contributed by the home churches to 

 repair the loss occasioned by an earthquake suffered 

 the previous year. The report on the state of the 

 denomination showed growth in every direction. 

 The Presbyterian Joint Committee reported fa- 

 vorable progress in the matter of transference of 

 church members, in which the Free and the United 

 Presbyterian Churches of Scotland, and the Presby- 

 terian Church in Ireland, England, and Wales 



were co-operating, and expressed the hope that 

 each Church would continue efforts to make the 

 transference of members as complete as possible, 

 so as to keep in touch with every moving member 

 at home and abroad, and reduce the loss by leakage 

 to as low a point as possible. The Forward Move- 

 ment Committee reported that during the last 

 seven years the movement had gained from among 

 the lowest classes of society in large towns and in- 

 dustrial districts as many" as 15,000 or 20,000 peo- 

 ple. Of 30 churches established during that time, 

 several were now self-supporting. A report of a 

 joint committee of this Church and the Welsh 

 Congregational churches looking to the cultivation 

 of closer relations through exchange of pulpits and 

 interchange of fraternal delegates, was adopted. 



PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND, a province of 

 the Dominion of Canada; area, 2,133 square miles; 

 population in 1891, 109,088. Capital, Charlottetown. 



(jcOYernment and Politics. In 1897 Freder- 

 ick Peters, who had been Premier of the island 

 several years, resigned and removed to British Co- 

 lumbia, where he entered a legal partnership with 

 Sir C. H. Tupper. His place was taken by the Hon. 

 A. B. Warburton, who, however, before many months 

 accepted a judgeship, and also resigned. Before 

 doing this he pressed upon the Dominion certain 

 claims which the province wanted settled and which 

 previous governments at Ottawa had refused to ac- 

 cept. The following was the basis of a memorandum 

 unsuccessfully submitted by Messrs. Warburton, 

 Macdonald, and Richards : 



"1. Failure to provide steam accommodation. 2. 

 The terms of union were incorrectly worked out. It 

 assumed net debt and obligations resting on the 

 Dominion at the time much lower than the actual 

 amount. The cost of completing the Intercolonial 

 and Canadian Pacific Railways and the canals was 

 $75,000,000 more than was computed. Prince Ed- 

 ward's share of this expenditure was $1,101,926. 3. 

 The island has been left out in railway subsidies 

 given to other provinces. 4. The province is en- 

 titled to a larger share of the fishery award than 

 has been assigned. The delegates mention that 

 some of these claims, when presented by Senator 

 Ferguson and his associates, had been acknowl- 

 edged. They proposed that those claims be sub- 

 mitted to arbitration." 



On Aug. 9, 1898, the following new Cabinet was 

 announced, Liberal, like its predecessors: Hon. D. 

 Farquharson, Premier; Hon. H. C. McDonald, At- 

 torney-General ; Hon. Angus McMillan, Provincial 

 Secretary and Commissioner of Public Lands; Hon. 

 James R. McLean, Commissioner of Public Works; 

 without portfolio, the following : Hon. James W. 

 Richards, Hon. Peter Sinclair, Hon. Benjamin 

 Rogers, Hon. Peter McNutt. and Hon. A. McLaugh- 

 lin. It was also stated that a new Department of 

 Agriculture would be created. The "Summersidc 

 Journal " described Mr. Farquharson. from a per- 

 sonal and not political standpoint, as follows : " The 

 new Premier is a very shrewd and successful busi- 

 ness man, a speaker of some considerable ability, 

 and well posted in political matters, he having been 

 in politics for the past twenty-two years, during all 

 of which time he has occupied a seat in the local 

 Legislature. lie is a very strong temperance limn. 

 and has long been an active and vigorous worker in 

 that cause. The Opposition was naturally not so 

 well satisfied, and in a by-election that ensued in 

 Queen's County it gave the new Government a bad 

 blow by electing the Hon. W. Campbell, a Conserva- 

 tive, to replace the late Premier VVarluirton in the 

 Assembly. The following is a summary of the Op- 

 position policy and charges. 



The Peters' Government, they allege, came into 

 power facing a debt, according to their own Auditor. 



