MORAVIANS. 



515 



Repealing the law prohibiting selling at retail 

 on credit. 



Exempting graduates of the State Normal 

 School from examination before teaching, and 

 providing for granting them life certificates after 

 two years' experience. 



Permitting the maintenance of kindergartens 

 in connection with district schools, and of county 

 high schools after a vote in favor. 



Providing that reports of State officers may 

 not be printed oftener than once in two years, 

 except by order of the State Board of Examiners. 



Prohibiting insolvent banks from accepting de- 

 posits, and regulating the increase or diminution 

 of the capital stock of banks and trust companies ; 

 also regulating their dissolution. 



Amending the law regulating powers of build- 

 ing and loan associations. 



Changing the method of sale or lease of State 

 lands. 



Requiring contracts for sale of personal prop- 

 erty to be recorded with the county clerk in cases 

 where the title does not pass till the whole price 

 is paid. 



Changing the boundary between Deer Lodge 

 and Lewis and Clarke Counties. 



Annexing part of Meagher County to Cascade. 



Appropriating $11,000 for completing the Or- 

 phans' Home at Twin Bridges. 



Providing for a 2^-mill State levy. 



Appropriating $577,000 to State institutions. 



The Governor vetoed bills legalizing 20-round 

 glove contests; amending the antigambling act 

 so as practically to license gambling, and making 

 it a misdemeanor instead of a felony; depriving 

 an applicant for a medical certificate who has 

 failed to be certified by the Board of Medical 

 Examiners of the right to appeal to a jury; per- 

 mitting doctors to compound drugs without hav- 

 ing passed an examination in pharmacy; and re- 

 pealing the license on State banks. 



MORAVIANS. The following are the statis- 

 tics of the Moravian Church in America to Dec. 

 31, 1898, as officially published in March, 1899: 



Northern Province: Number of communicants, 

 11,775; of noncommunieant members, 1,155; of 

 children, 4,892; total membership, 17,822; mem- 

 bership t)f Sunday-schools, 1,237 officers and 

 teachers and 10,248 pupils. 



Southern Province: Number of communicants, 

 2,955; of noncommunieant members, 234; of chil- 

 dren, 1,553; total membership, 4,742; membership 

 of Sunday schools, 346 officers and teachers and 

 3,708 pupils. 



Total for the American Province: 14,730 com- 

 municants, 1,389 noncommunieant members, and 

 6,445 children in all, 22,564 members 1,583 of- 

 ficers and teachers, and 13,956 pupils in Sunday 

 schools. The numbers show increase during the 

 year of 177 communicants, 162 children, 219 in 

 the total membership, 17 officers and teachers, 

 and 122 pupils in Sunday schools, and a decrease 

 of 120 noncommunieant members. The returns 

 from the Northern Province represent 89 churches, 

 classified as in four districts, of which the first 

 district embraces churches in New York and 

 Pennsylvania ; the second district, churches in New 

 Jersey and Pennsylvania; the third district, 

 churches in Ohio, Iowa, Indiana, Indian Terri- 

 tory, Missouri, and Illinois; and the fourth dis- 

 trict, churches in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, 

 and North Dakota; and the Alberta (Canada) 

 district, comprising three churches. Detailed sta- 

 tistics are given of the contributions and expendi- 

 tures of the Northern Province. The whole 

 amount contributed during the year for Church 

 support was $120,128, or $13,612 more than in 



1897. The contributions for Church enterprises 

 were: For retired ministers, $1,295; for the Bohe- 

 mian Mission, $1,277 ; for foreign missions, $7,987 ; 

 for the Alaska Mission, $3,026; for home missions, 

 $7,169; for the Theological Seminary, $4,476; forall 

 other Moravian causes, $1,655; for general Chris- 

 tian objects, $1,220. The whole amount of con- 

 tributions of this class ($28,105) was $4,731 more 

 than in 1897. The average salary of pastors is 

 $592. 



A. summaoy of the gifts of the American Mo- 

 ravian Church, North, for foreign mission causes 

 for 1899 gives the whole amount as $28,690, show- 

 ing an average contribution per communicant of 

 $2.44. 



The General Synod met at Berthelsdorf, Saxony, 

 in May. A number of important constitutional 

 changes were adopted, mainly bearing upon the 

 status and relations of the several provinces and 

 missions. The West Indian missions were organ- 

 ized into two provinces, to be called the Eastern 

 West Indian Province and the Jamaica Province, 

 each of which is to be governed by a provincial 

 synod and a provincial elders' conference. These 

 provinces will be aided by the General Synod 

 with yearly grants of 700 each, to be increased 

 to 1,000 if necessary, for the next ten years, 

 while the Mission Board will bear the entire cost 

 of the Theological Seminary for the two West 

 India provinces, the Mosquito Coast, Demerara, 

 and possibly other fields, and the training schools 

 will be supported by the general missionary treas- 

 ury. The Mission Board will continue to bear 

 the expenses, as hitherto, for foreign brethren now 

 in service, and one half the expenses connected 

 with outfit, pension, education of children, etc., 

 of foreign missionaries appointed after December, 

 1899. Sanction was given to an agreement made 

 in 1897 between the Mission Board, on the one 

 hand, and the American Provincial Elders' Con- 

 ference in the North and the Society for Propa- 

 gating the Gospel on the other hand in reference 

 to the administration of affairs in the mission in 

 Alaska; and the agreement was interpreted to 

 mean that the American congregations and the 

 Society for Propagating the Gospel would pro- 

 vide the means to meet the entire cost of the 

 current expense of the mission, while the general 

 missionary treasury would bear the expenses in- 

 volved in the outfit of the missionaries called to 

 Alaska, their sustentation during furlough at 

 home, the education of their children, and their 

 pensions. The Synod decided to transfer the mis- 

 sion in Greenland to the Danish Lutheran Church. 

 The work of evangelization in Bohemia and Mo- 

 ravia was assumed as the charge of all the prov- 

 inces, to be carried on with the intention of re- 

 establishing the Church in the land of its origin, 

 the final decision in matters of administration 

 resting in the hands of the Directing Board of the 

 Unity, with seat at Berthelsdorf. In the man- 

 agement of this work the Directing Board will 

 be assisted by the Bohemian-Moravian Commit- 

 tee, which committee will consist of two sections 

 namely, the executive section and the circle of 

 nonresident members. It was decided that in 

 each of the larger mission provinces there shall 

 be a bishop; that missionaries called to those 

 provinces shall, as a rule, go out unordained, and 

 shall be ordained as deacons only after serving 

 one or two years; that, as a rule, five years shall 

 elapse between the missionary's ordination as 

 deacon and as presbyter, with exceptions in case 

 of a missionary receiving a call as superintendent 

 or warden of a province or as head of a regular 

 station or as a member of a helpers' conference, 

 when he may be ordained a presbyter at once. In 



