BAPTISTS. 



but this amount of income could not be regarded 

 as a satisfactory basis for the maintenance of 

 the work on the scale now existing. The mis- 

 sions were suffering at every point, having for 

 six years been held back from the normal ad- 

 vance. Only 13 new missionaries had been com- 

 missioned during the. year, and the whole num- 

 ber now in service was less by 20 than it was 

 four years ago. In regard to pushing missions 

 into new fields, such as Cuba, Puerto Rico, Ha- 

 waii, and the Philippine Islands, an agreement 

 had been made with the various foreign mission 

 boards of the United States to proceed with due 

 regard to the principles of comity. As to rela- 

 tions with sister Baptist societies, it had been 

 early deemed important that a division of terri- 

 tory should be agreed upon. Accordingly, a joint 

 committee of the Missionary Union and the 

 American Baptist Home Mission Society had met 

 in the fall of 1888, at New Haven, Conn., and 

 agreed that the West Indies should be considered 

 the legitimate field for home mission work, and 

 the Philippine Islands and other fields contigu- 

 ous to the Asiatic missions a legitimate field for 

 foreign mission work. Among the noteworthy 

 events of the year in existing missions were the 

 addition of an Anglo-vernacular department to 

 the Burman and Karen departments of the theo- 

 logical seminary at Insein and the opening of 

 a new station among the savage people of the 

 North Chin hills in connection With the Burman 

 mission; continued numerous accessions to the 

 churches in China; the prosecution of missionary 

 work among the aborigines of Formosa by a 

 native society recently organized at Sendai, 

 Japan; and the acquisition of property at Sumba, 

 on the Congo, from the Advent Missionary So- 

 ciety, which had retired from the region; while 

 the station at Bolengi, on the Congo, had, in the 

 reorganization of the mission, been transferred 

 to the Foreign Christian Missionary Society. 



Women's Societies. The Women's Baptist 

 Home Mission Society held its annual meeting 

 at San Francisco, Cal., May 24. The annual re- 

 port showed that 144 missionaries had be* en em- 

 ployed during the whole or a part of the year 

 at 90 stations in the United States and 2 states of 

 Mexico. The Baptist Missionary Training School 

 had enrolled during the school year 49 students, 

 of whom 14 were in the senior or graduating 

 division. Work had been successfully prosecuted 

 in the missionary training departments for col- 

 ored workers in connection with Shaw University 

 in North Carolina and Bishop College in Texas. 



The twenty-first annual meeting of the Wom- 

 an's American Baptist Home Missionary Society 

 (Boston) was held in Portland, Me., May 4. 

 The receipts for the general work had been $36,- 

 663, and the expenditures $35,733. For Alaska the 

 receipts had been $3,675, and the expenses $4,752, 

 the deficiency being supplied out of the general 

 treasury. 



The thirty-ninth annual meeting of the Wom- 

 an's Baptist Foreign Missionary Society was 

 held at Manchester,' N. H., April 18 and 19. The 

 treasurer reported that the total receipts of the 

 society had been $78,917, and the expenditures 

 $92,545. The net deficit, after supplying $3,300 

 of the total deficit from the contingent fund, was 

 $10,328. The society had employed 69 mission- 

 aries in the foreign field, and had 4 young women 

 under appointment. It sustained 390 schools, 

 with 13,328 pupils, employed 169 Bible' women, 

 and returned 706 baptisms during the year. The 

 report spoke of aid given to churches in Paris, 

 France; a few stations in Burmah occupied only 

 by women, and aggressive work carried on in all 



the stations of that country; of hospital and dis- 

 pensary work at Nellore and Nalgonda, India, 

 and Banza Manteka, Africa; and of various fea- 

 tures in the schools in India and Burmah. Kin- 

 dergartens had been added to a number of mis- 

 sion stations. 



The Woman's Baptist Foreign Missionary So- 

 ciety of the West at its annual meeting in 1898 

 returned its total receipts for the year as having 

 been $58,607. The report of the Home for Mis- 

 sionaries' Children showed receipts amounting to 

 $2,015, and expenditures to $1,307. The society 

 had 39 missionaries in Burmah, Assam, India, 

 China, and Japan; 43 mission schools, with 113 

 teachers and 1,975 pupils; 66 Bible women; and 

 41 persons under training, with 264 baptisms 

 reported during the year. 



Young People's Union. The ninth annual 

 convention of the Young People's Baptist Union 

 of America was held at Richmond, Va., July 12 

 to 16. Mr. John H. Chapman presided. The re- 

 port of the Board of Managers represented the 

 society as being in the third stage of its exist- 

 ence the periods of the unbounded enthusiasm 

 of a new organization and of the reaction from 

 it having passed and the work being now to be 

 carried on by those who are earnest and of set 

 purpose. The past year had brought advance 

 in some directions. The educational work was 

 proving to be the strength of the movement. The 

 number of examination papers in the Christian 

 Culture Course (15,000) was larger than ever be- 

 fore, the increase having been mostly among the 

 juniors, while the number of papers from seniors 

 had fallen off. An inquiry into the subject had 

 shown that only a limited proportion about 180 

 out of 500 who pursued the course with consider- 

 able regularity and perseverance were repre- 

 sented in the examination papers. A change was 

 announced in the " Bible Readers' Course," by 

 which in the daily Bible readings the accompany- 

 ing brief comments on the several books will be 

 replaced by a careful and comprehensive analy- 

 sis of the book read and a summary of its essen- 

 tial religious teachings. The union was labor- 

 ing under financial difficulties, for, while it was 

 meeting its expenses, it could only make slow 

 progress in paying its debts. The receipts and 

 expenditures for the year were balanced at 

 $66,916. 



Southern Baptist Convention. A statistical 

 table published in connection with the reports 

 of the Southern Baptist Convention showed that 

 there were in the region contributing to the socie- 

 ties of that body 18,701 churches, with 1,644,363 

 members; and that their contributions amounted 

 to $109,267, or $14,982 less than in the previous 

 year. 



The forty-fourth meeting of the Southern Bap- 

 tist Convention was held at Louisville, Ky., be- 

 ginning May 12. Judge Jonathan Haralson, of 

 Alabama, who had presided over the delibera- 

 tions of the convention for ten years, declining 

 a re-election, the Hon. William J. Northen, ex- 

 Governor of Georgia, was chosen president. The 

 Foreign Mission Board reported that a larger 

 number of converts had been baptized during the 

 past than in any previous year in its history. 

 The total amount of contributions had been 

 $109,267, against $124,249 in 1897-'98. All obli- 

 gations had been met, and the board was out 

 of debt. Fourteen new missionaries had been sent 

 out, 13 missionaries had returned to their fields 

 after visits to this country, 6 were now at home, 

 and 9 had retired from service. The detailed re- 

 ports from the fields represented 3 missions in 

 China, where a Chinese Baptist Publication Soci- 



