130 



CONGREGATIONALISTS. 



A table of the Congregational churches for the 

 world published in the Year-Book gives: 



Church Building Society. The forty-ninth 

 annual report of the Congregational Church 

 Building Society, presented at the annual meet- 

 ing in January, gave the total receipts of the 

 year as having been $251,668. Loans and grants 

 amounting to $253,195 had been paid to 93 

 churches to aid in building houses of worship, and 

 parsonage loans amounting to $22,510 had been 

 paid to 47 churches. By the aid of these sums 

 church property valued at $979,207 had been 

 secured. Grants amounting to $42,352 had been 

 voted to 69 churches; church building loans of 

 $79,300 to 39 churches; and loans on parsonages 

 of $30,005 to 61 churches. A considerable number 

 of contributions on the annuity plan had been 

 received. 



Home Missionary Society. The seventy- 

 sixth annual meeting of the Congregational Home 

 Missionary Society was held at Syracuse, N. Y., 

 June 3 to 6. In the absence of the president, the 

 Rev. Newell Dwight Hillis, D. D., Mr. William H. 

 Wanamaker presided. Eighteen hundred and 

 forty-five missionaries had been employed during 

 the year in 47 States and Territories, of whom 

 1,262 had been pastors or stated supplies of single 

 congregations and 586 had ministered to two or 

 three or more congregations each. Under their 

 labors the Gospel had been preached regularly or 

 at stated intervals to 2,484 congregations or mis- 

 sions. Two hundred and eighteen missionaries 

 had preached in foreign languages to German, 

 Scandinavian, Bohemian, Polish, French, Mexi- 

 can, Italian, Spanish, Finnish, Armenian, Greek, 

 and Welsh congregations. The missionaries re- 

 turned 2,018 Sunday-schools under their special 

 care with about 133,378 pupils, 166 new schools 

 organized, 4,321 additions on confession of faith, 

 65 churches organized, 42 churches assumed self- 

 support, and many new church buildings, par- 

 sonages, and improvements. The total receipts 

 of the National Society for the year had been 

 $346,849, and its expenditures $293,064. The debt 

 at the beginning of the year had been $63,698, 

 and at the close $9,912, having been reduced $53,- 

 785. The auxiliary societies had raised and ex- 

 pended on their own fields during the year $255,- 

 012. Adding this sum to the receipts and ex- 

 penditures of the National Society, the total of 

 receipts for home missions during the year was 

 $60-2,462, and of expenditures $548,676. The 

 woman's department had completed twenty years 

 of organized activity. It had been conducted dur- 

 ing the past year as a part of the general execu- 

 tive office. Besides the continued publication of its 



periodical, the Home Missionary, now monthly, 

 the society had added much to its department of 

 junior literature. The invested funds, registered 

 under seven heads and including funds tempora- 

 rily in the hands of trustees and " temporary in- 

 vestments," amounted to $207,599. At the busi- 

 ness meeting of the society, the Committee of 

 Fifteen, appointed in the previous year to con- 

 sider some plan for perfecting the relations be- 

 tween the auxiliaries and the National Society, 

 reported, proposing changes in the constitution 

 intended to substitute for the present voting 

 membership a corporate body elected for a term 

 of years by the churches, to read as follows: 



" ARTICLE III. MEMBERSHIP. 



" The members of this society shall consist of 

 honorary life members, life members, members 

 elected by the churches, and the officials of the 

 society during their respective terms of office. 1. 

 Any person chosen as president, vice-president, 

 recording secretary, treasurer, corresponding sec- 

 retary, auditor, or member of the Executive Com- 

 mittee, shall be a voting member during his term 

 of service. 2. Life members appearing on the roll 

 at the date of the passage of this article shall 

 retain their voting right unless it be voluntarily 

 surrendered. 3. The churches shall be represented 

 in the voting membership of this society by mem- 

 bers elected in number and manner as follows: 

 Each State association or conference of churches 

 may elect three members, and in addition, one 

 member for every 5,000 church-members; at the 

 first election by the State associations or con- 

 ferences, one-third of the members shall be elected 

 for one year, one-third for two years, and one- 

 third for three years; and thereafter one-third 

 shall be elected each for a term of three years. 

 In any year the State bodies may elect members 

 to fill vacancies. It is recommended that the 

 number of members be in all cases divided be- 

 tween ministers and laymen as nearly equally as 

 is practicable. 4. Honorary life members. Any per- 

 son on whose behalf $50 shall be paid into the 

 treasury of this society at any one time, or into 

 the treasury of any of its auxiliaries at any one 

 time, accompanied by a request for honorary life 

 membership, shall be an honorary life member, 

 with all the privileges of membership except 

 voting. 



" ARTICLE VI. VOTERS. 



" All members elected by the churches through 

 their State associations or conferences as herein 

 provided, bringing proper credentials, and life 

 members and officers of the society, who shall be 

 present and cause their names to be registered 

 upon a roll to be made at each annual or other 

 meeting of this society by the recording secretary. 

 and no other persons, shall have the right to vote 

 at the annual election and in annual or other 

 meetings of the society, upon questions there ari- 

 sing." 



The committee further recommended that an an- 

 nual conference be held at the place of the an- 

 nual meeting of the society, and at an hour 

 preceding its opening session, in which the repre- 

 sentatives of the auxiliary societies and the of- 

 ficers and Executive Committee of the Congrega- 

 tional Home Missionary Society shall confer with 

 regard to the condition and problems of home 

 missionary work in all parts of the land. Tin 

 report was adopted unanimously. It wa* al-< 

 resolved that hereafter the president of the society 

 should not hold office for two successive years. 



Education Society. The annual meeting of 

 the Congregational Education Society was held 

 in Boston, Mass., June 11. The receipts of th 



