FRIENDS. 



307 



bership now stood at 93,699. The whole number 

 of Friends in Great Britain and its colonies and 

 the Continent of Europe was 20,178, indicating 

 a net gain for the year of 1(53. The society in- 

 cluded 14 yearly meetings on the American con- 

 tinent, 2 in Great Britain, 5 on the Continent 

 of Europe, and in Australasia, with mission 

 stations in every quarter of the globe. The whole 

 number of recognized ministers of the Gospel was 

 1,648. The foreign-mission stations returned an 

 aggregate native membership of 1,860, with 104 

 Bible schools having a total attendance of 5,102. 



The statistical tables for 1899, published in 

 January, 1900, gave the whole number of Friends 

 throughout the world as 113,580. The yearly 

 meetings of the United Kingdom returned 20,379 

 members. The total number of recognized meet- 

 ings for worship was 1,334, and of ministers of 

 the Gospel 1,694, together with 1,234 Bible schools, 

 attended by 101,258 persons. The Quaker mis- 

 sion schools for colored persons returned 3,585 

 members, with 8,305 persons attending 308 Bible 

 schools. 



The Friends' Foreign Missionary Association 

 of London Yearly Meeting has in the foreign-mis- 

 sion field 79 missionaries and 235 native preach- 

 ers, teachers, and Bible women, 187 churches and 

 2,639 members in Madagascar, 49 organized 

 Friends' churches in the other missions, and a 

 total of 14,297 adherents. Aside from Madagas- 

 car, 159 members were added by confession dur- 

 ing 1898, 11 boarding and high schools and 247 

 other schools returned 20,187 persons under in- 

 struction, and 30,063 patients were treated in 

 the hospitals. Fifty-four of the accessions of 

 members, or nearly 33 per cent, of the whole num- 

 ber, were from the schools. The total expense 

 of carrying on the work during 1898 was 20,- 

 621. Industrial training was associated with the 

 missionary work in India, and 750 orphans in 

 that country were under the care of Friends. In 

 China 5 persons were received into membership. 

 The mission in Madagascar is carried on in con- 

 nection with the work of the London Missionary 

 Society. 



American Friends. The 14 American yearly 

 meetings returned at the end of 1899 a total of 

 93,253 members, against 93,699 in the previous 

 year, sho.wing for the first time in several years 

 a loss 446. The number of ministers was 1,279. 

 The missionary reports of the American Friends 

 give 284 principal and subordinate mission sta- 

 tions in foreign countries, with a native member- 

 ship of 3,585, not counting the 612 Indians who 

 are members or the 550 Mexican Friends. One 

 hundred and fifty-eight Friends are engaged in 

 foreign-mission work, with 8,305 persons enrolled 

 in 308 Bible schools. The foreign-mission work 

 of the American Orthodox Friends was begun in 

 1871 in Mexico. These Friends have now 16 sta- 

 tions in 8 different countries, including Alaska, 

 with 31 substations. In these fields 13 men and 

 38 women missionaries are employed, with 85 na- 

 tive helpers, and they return in all 1,279 mem- 

 bers, 117 of whom were received last year, besides 

 2,938 nonmember attendants of the meetings, 

 1,795 pupils in Bible schools, and 1,454 pupils in 

 boarding and day schools. The contributions last 

 year from all sources for the support of this work 

 aggregated $41,499, an average of about 45 cents 

 a member. Fifty-two hundred and seventy-five 

 patients were treated at the hospitals. Fourteen 

 of the American and 7 of the native missionaries 

 are recorded ministers. All the 14 Orthodox 

 yearly meetings take part in this work. 



A committee of two members from each of the 

 yearly meetings was appointed at a conference 



of American Friends held in Indianapolis, Irid., 

 in 1897, to formulate a plan for a closer union 

 of the yearly meetings, and to prepare a discipline 

 to be submitted to them for approval. A draft 

 of a discipline was made, submitted for criticism 

 and suggestions, and has been published previous 

 to submission to the yearly meetings for final 

 action. It differs in many features from the old 

 Discipline, omitting much of the historical mat- 

 ter and the advice, and contains a statement of 

 belief which, though brief, is believed to include 

 everything fundamental to the Christian religion 

 as Friends interpret it. One of the purposes gov- 

 erning the draft has been to rid the yearly meet- 

 ings of " useless machinery and formal perfunc- 

 tory exercises, and make for life and peace." 

 Changes are made in the names of the meetings, 

 and the quinquennial conference, which has been 

 introduced as a voluntary assembly, is adopted 

 and called the Five Years' Meeting. 



The Five-year Education Conference of Friends 

 in America was held in Providence, R. I., in June. 

 It was attended by Friends from all the Ameri- 

 can yearly meetings except Canada, Oregon, and 

 California, and by three Friends from London 

 Yearly Meeting. A number of subjects relating 

 to religion and education were discussed, and the 

 opinions of the meeting were embodied in resolu- 

 tions urging upon the schools and colleges the 

 importance of endeavoring to give students a 

 clearer knowledge of the doctrines and govern- 

 ment of the society, and to lead them into the 

 practice of true worship; defining as the most ef- 

 fective means to that end the strong spiritual 

 personality of the teachers; exhorting Friends to 

 fidelity to the spiritual realities of the Gospel, to 

 " fearless reception of truth from whatever source 

 it may come," and to a more faithful endeavor 

 to meet the needs of the age by the use of all 

 the instrumentalities, spiritual and temporal, 

 which God is placing within reach; and advising 

 that Friends should present the Bible attractively 

 to their children in the home, and that more 

 adequate provision should be made for rendering 

 the biblical instruction given in the schools and 

 colleges " second to no other teaching which they 

 offer." 



Friends in Mexico. The first Friends' meet- 

 ing of Spanish-speaking people was organized in 

 Matamoras, Mexico, in 1875, by Samuel H. Purdy 

 and H. M. Bimford. The work has increased till 

 it includes 10 monthly meetings in Mexico, into 

 which more than 1,000 members have been re- 

 ceived, with several thousand adherents. Schools 

 have been established and a Spanish Protestant 

 literature has been created. The various yearly- 

 meeting committees own property valued at $20,- 

 000 in gold, and other new buildings are contem- 

 plated. Through removals from these stations 

 Friends have been scattered throughout southern 

 Texas and northern Mexico. A native ministry 

 has been raised up, and a yearly meeting has 

 been established at Victoria. 



The Cuban Evangelical Church. The Cuban 

 Evangelical Church has been organized at Ha- 

 vana, with the intention of establishing a national 

 church, " which, deriving inspiration from the 

 doctrines and discipline of the old Puritans, should 

 worship the Lord in spirit and in truth." It was 

 in its first organization independent of any re- 

 ligious denomination and sustained by the indi- 

 vidual effort of all the brethren composing it. 

 Having adopted Quaker forms in baptism, the 

 Lord's Supper, government, and ministry, it, by 

 the act of its quarterly meeting, entered into 

 correspondence in June with the Friends' Society 

 in Mexico, announcing its organization and ac- 



