EVANGELICAL ASSOCIATION. 



EVENTS IN 1899. 



261 



EVANGELICAL ASSOCIATION. The sum- 

 mary of the statistics of this body for 1899 gives 

 the following total numbers : Of itinerant preach- 

 ers, 1,031; of local preachers, 511; of members, 

 117,613; of members newly received during the 

 year, 7,967; of adults baptized, 1,109; of infants 

 baptized, 6,394; of new conversions, 8,782; of 

 Sunday schools, 2,178, with 23,641 officers and 

 teachers and 148,867 pupils; of catechumen 

 classes, 911, with 10,735 catechumens; of Young 

 People's Alliances, 987, with 34,960 members; of 

 churches, 1,819; of parsonages, 696. 



The total receipts of the Missionary Society 

 for the year 1898-'99 had been $199,673, the aver- 

 age of contributions being $1.73 per member. The 

 amount show r ed a gain over the previous year of 

 $9,124. The expenditures had amounted to $146,- 

 000. The missionary debt had been paid, and for 

 the first time in thirty-two years the treasury 

 was free from obligations. The 548 home missions 

 returned 543 missionaries, 46,577 members, 4,153 

 conversions, and 4,497 members newly received dur- 

 ing the year. Fourteen missions had been changed 

 to stations, and 22 new missions had been estab- 

 lished. The foreign missions returned 106 sta : 

 tions, 130 missionaries, 14,250 members, 1,532 

 conversions, and 1,348 members newly received 

 during the year, and 3 new stations had been 

 formed. The whole shows an increase of 9 mis- 

 sions, 14 missionaries, and 670 members, and a 

 decrease of 1,163 conversions and 699 members 

 newly received. The Woman's Missionary Soci- 

 ety had 6 conference organizations and 115 aux- 

 iliaries, with 2,587 members, and had contributed 

 $4,374, or $1.76 per member. At the request of 

 this society the Board of Missions had appointed 

 2 women missionaries to Japan, to be supported 

 by the women's organization. 



The Evangelical Correspondence College includes 

 three schools, of which the Evangelical School of 

 Theology embraces 10 departments in theology, 

 Christian philosophy, and sacred languages, and 

 had in 1898-'99 174 students; the Evangelical 

 Reading Circle had 450 students enrolled ; and the 

 Evangelical Bible School had nearly 2,000 stu- 

 dents. 



The assets of the Charitable Society were re- 

 ported to the General Conference as amounting 

 to $31,641, showing an increase of $1,100 in the 

 past four years. 



A report was made to the General Conference 

 concerning the Orphan House. 



The twenty-second General Conference met at 

 St. Paul, Minn., Oct. 5. A general episcopal ad- 

 dress was presented, reviewing the condition of 

 the Church, in which a check to its growth or 

 reduction of the rate of increase was recognized 

 as a result of the disturbances which it had suf- 

 fered resulting in the formation of the United 

 Evangelical Church as a separate body. This, 

 however, did not appear so plainly in the foreign 

 conferences in Germany and Switzerland and 

 Japan, which had not suffered so seriously from 

 the disturbances, and where the growth had been 

 unhindered. Among the more important mat- 

 ters of business transacted by the Conference was 

 the formation of a board of church extension, 

 the object of which was defined to be " the assist- 

 ance of needy congregations in the erection of 

 houses of worship." A petition, numerously 

 signed, asking for lay representation in the an- 

 nual and general conferences, was referred to a 

 committee of 5 preachers and 4 laymen, a bishop 

 presiding, to prepare a practicable plan and re- 

 port the same to the next General Conference. A 

 centennial celebration or commemoration of the 

 one hundredth anniversary of the existence of the 



Church was determined upon to be held in the 

 year 1900, on or about the time of the year when 

 Jacob Albright effected the first organi/ation. It 

 was decided that the general celebration be held 

 at Linwood Park, and a local committee was ap- 

 pointed to carry the scheme into effect; that each 

 annual conference arrange for one or more gen- 

 eral celebrations, and provide for the holding of 

 celebrations by each individual society within its 

 bounds; and that offerings be solicited for the 

 higher institutions of learning, with provision for 

 the application of special offerings to the particu- 

 lar benevolent societies of the Church to which 

 donors may desire them appropriated. The bish- 

 ops were empowered to appoint delegates to 

 the (Ecumenical Council of Methodism, to be 

 held in London in 1901. J. J. Esher, Thomas Bow- 

 man, W. Horn, and S. C. Breyfogel, the present 

 incumbents of the office, were re-elected bishops 

 for the term of four years. Provision was made 

 for the preparation of a commentary on the cate- 

 chism for the use of ministers and teachers in 

 the Sunday schools. The Conference determined 

 to open a fund for beginning a mission in China. 

 A minute was passed recognizing " the deacon- 

 ess movement as the highest practical expression 

 of the Samaritan law of Christian philanthropy," 

 and welcoming its introduction into the Evan- 

 gelical Association, and a committee was consti- 

 tuted to oversee the organization of its work in 

 any part of the Church. The Christian Endeavor 

 Society, the Epworth League, and the Baptist 

 Young People's Union having adopted uniform 

 prayer-meeting topics, favorable consideration 

 was invoked for the adoption of the same by the 

 Young People's Alliance of this Church. A report 

 was adopted for insertion in the discipline con- 

 cerning the relation of young people to the 

 Church, recognizing those who have been bap- 

 tized as belonging to it and as objects of its 

 solicitude and pastoral care. The report of the 

 Committee on Public Morals dealt with the sub- 

 jects of family devotion, the Christian Sabbath, 

 and temperance, and included resolutions against 

 the seating in the national House of Representa- 

 tives of Brigham H. Roberts as a member from 

 Utah. 



EVENTS IN 1899. The attention of the 

 world has been largely fixed throughout the year 

 upon wars, actual and possible, and upon means 

 for preventing their recurrence. In our own coun- 

 try scandals connected with the Spanish war and 

 the deplorable outbreak of hostilities in the Phil- 

 ippine Islands commanded a large share of public 

 attention. In France the renewed army scandal 

 of the Dreyfus case drew the attention of the 

 world, while the International Peace Congress at 

 The Hague resulted more favorably than had been 

 expected in the direction of arbitration. In Octo- 

 ber the South African w r ar startled the whole 

 world by its developments, and the year ended 

 with universal peace apparently as far off as 

 ever. 



January 1. Cuba: Spanish sovereignty termi- 

 nates and the flag of the United States is raised 

 at all military posts, Gen. John R. Brooke, 

 U. S. A., military governor. Samoa : Hostilities 

 begin between the rival native kings. Boston: 

 Formal opening of the Terminal Railroad Station. 



2. New York: Inauguration of Gov. Theodore 

 Roosevelt. State Legislatures meet in California, 

 Montana, and Tennessee. Sicily: Outbreak of 

 tax riots. 



3. State Legislatures meet in Delaware, Minne- 

 sota, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Pennsylvania. 

 Denver: Organization of the United States 16-to- 

 1 Money League. 



