BAPTISTS. 



been met from the proceeds of the gift of Mrs. 

 Mercy M. Gray, dec-eased; but the income of the 

 department had not been equal to its expenses, 

 and another deficit of $3,114 had been incurred. 



A review of the seventy-five years' work of the 

 society showed that 2,788 books, pamphlets, peri- 

 odical tracts, etc., had been issued, and that the 

 total amount received by the department from 

 the beginning had been $14,353,390. The profits 

 accruing from publications had been applied in 

 two directions to the creation of a reserve or 

 sinking fund for provision against contingencies, 

 and to the missionary department, in behalf of 

 whose work $250,000 had been spent. Thirty- 

 seven hundred and ninety agents, colporteurs, 

 Sunday-school missionaries, and chapel-car work- 

 ers had been engaged in the service of the society, 

 through whose instrumentality 11,215 Sunday 

 schools had beeji organized, 1,300 churches con- 

 stituted, and 27.231 persons baptized. Resolu- 

 tions were parsed by the meeting expressing grati- 

 fication at the complete agreement between this 

 and the Home Mission Society concerning the 

 prosecution of their respective works; rejoicing 

 at the evidences of blessing upon the chapel-car 

 work, urging a vigorous prosecution of the Bible 

 work, and expressing sympathy " with all lovers 

 of law, order, and decency " in efforts to prevent 

 the seating of Brigham H. Roberts as member 

 of the national House of Representatives from 

 Utah. 



Education Society. The eleventh annual 

 meeting of the American Baptist Education So- 

 ciety was held at San Francisco, Cal., May 24 

 and 25. It was represented in the report that 

 there had been during the year a revival of activ- 

 ity for the endowment and better equipment of 

 the higher institutions of learning. Grants had 

 been made to 6 institutions, aggregating $157,000, 

 conditioned on their securing $415,800 additional. 

 Acadia University, Nova Scotia, had completed 

 its effort to secure $00,000 as a condition of the 

 society's grant of $15,000 in the previous year. 

 On the second day of the meeting of the society 

 a conference was held on the establishment of a 

 theological seminary and other educational insti- 

 tutions in the Pacific States. An educational 

 policy was approved, contemplating a united ef- 

 fort of the whole Pacific coast for the establish- 

 ment of one theological seminary, two colleges 

 one on the north coast and one in California 

 for each of which an endowment of at least 

 $100,000 is aimed at. The American Baptist Edu- 

 cation Society was invited to consider a plan of 

 co-operation under which it should for a definite 

 term of years give one dollar for every dollar 

 raised by an institution approved by the Pacific 

 Coast Convention to go toward constituting an 

 irreducible endowment ; the money, if the society 

 prefers, to be held by it as a trust until the school 

 has an endowment fund of $100,000 if a college, 

 or of $50,000 if an academy. 



Home Mission Society. The sixty-seventh 

 annual meeting of the American Baptist Home 

 Mission Society was held in San Francisco, Cal., 

 May 30 to June 1. The annual report showed that 

 the debt of about $14,000, with which the society 

 had begun its fiscal year, April 1, 1898, had been 

 paid, and there was now a surplus in the treasury 

 of $40,890, of which $35,000 had been set aside as 

 an emergency fund. The total receipts for the 

 year had been $461,802; the expenditures had 

 been $415,255. One thousand and ninety-two mis- 

 sionaries and teachers had been employed in 

 whole or in part by the society viz., 43 in the 

 New England States, 84 in the Middle and Cen- 

 tral States, 201 in the Southern States, 722 in the 



Western States and Territories, 17 in Canada, 

 19 in Mexico, 2 in Alaska, 2 in Cuba, and 2 in 

 Puerto Rico. Of the whole number, 300 mission- 

 aries and 12 teachers had been employed among 

 the foreign population; 55 missionaries and 190 

 teachers among the colored people; 22 mission- 

 aries and 27 teachers among the Indians; 13 mis- 

 sionaries and 8 teachers among the Mexicans; 

 2 teachers among the Mormons; and 504 mis- 

 sionaries among Americans. The society aided 

 in the maintenance of 31 schools established for 

 the colored people, Indians, and Mexicans. The 

 missionaries returned a total church membership 

 of 52,755, 57 churches organized during the year, 

 1,151 Sunday schools under their care, with an 

 aggregate attendance of 72,968 and $87,782 of 

 contributions. 



A conference had been held in Washington, 

 "Nov. 23, 1898, between representatives of this 

 society and those of the Home Mission Board of 

 the Southern Baptist Convention, respecting the 

 relations of the two bodies in Cuba and Puerto 

 Rico, and concerning the adjustment of sectional 

 divisions in Oklahoma and the Indian Territory. 

 A resolution was passed expressing the sense of 

 the conference that there should be harmony 

 among the Baptist workers in the Indian Terri- 

 tory and Oklahoma, and recommending that the 

 secretaries of the Home Mission Board and of 

 the Home Mission Society visit those Territories 

 and seek a basis for such harmony, with author- 

 ity to associate with themselves brethren from 

 neighboring States as advisers. A correspond- 

 ence was afterw r ard had with the corresponding 

 secretary of the Southern Home Mission Board. 

 Doubts were expressed by him as to the value of 

 the visit to the Territories, and he intimated 

 that the only solution of the question was for 

 the Home Mission Society to withdraw its mis- 

 sion force from the region, and that New Mexico 

 and Arizona should be surrendered to the Home 

 Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Conven- 

 tion. Reply was made that the Home Mission 

 Society, after fifty years' work in that region 

 and the expenditure of half a million dollars, or 

 about ten times the expenditure of the Southern 

 Home Mission Board, was not prepared to con- 

 sent to such an arrangement, and a plan of co- 

 operation between the two organizations in their 

 work in those Territories was submitted for con- 

 sideration. Negotiations were terminated by the 

 reply of the corresponding secretary of the South- 

 ern Home Mission Board that further correspond- 

 ence on the subject was undesirable. 



Co-operative work had been instituted with the 

 Baptist City Mission of Chicago and with the 

 Baptists of Detroit, Mich., with promise of ex- 

 cellent results; and conferences had been held 

 with the Baptists of Buffalo, St. Louis, New 

 York, and Brooklyn, in which definite conclu- 

 sions had not yet been reached. 



Missionary Union. The eighty-fifth annual 

 meeting of the American Baptist Missionary 

 Union was held at San Francisco, Cal., May 29 

 and 30. The total receipts for the year 'had been 

 $520,995, of which sum $103,389 had been con- 

 tributed through the four Woman's Baptist For- 

 eign Missionary Societies, and $3,014 through the 

 conference of German Baptist churches. The finan- 

 cial outcome, the Executive Committee represent- 

 ed in its report, had again proved disappointing, 

 although in no previous year had more strenuous 

 efforts been put forth to increase the income of 

 the society. The books, when they were closed, 

 March 31, showed a deficit of $54,384. The year's 

 work had been paid for, indeed, and the debt of 

 the year 1897-'98 had been diminished by. $14,000; 



