REFORMED CHURCHES. 



The offerings for current expenses, $3.437 having 

 been contributed during the year, had been 

 brought up to a total of $14,050; and with the 

 addition of another gift of $4,000, the total thus 

 far secured was $64,000, besides promises and 

 legacies still outstanding. The committee was 

 steadily keeping in view the conviction of the 

 Synod that $250,000 should be added to the en- 

 dowment of the seminary to repair its dimin- 

 ished income and increase its equipment for 

 effective service. A report was made of the 

 Western Theological Seminary, at Holland, Mich., 

 and of the progress of the endowment scheme. 

 The second chair had been fully endowed with 

 $30,000, and $8,000 had been secured toward the 

 endowment of the third chair. The report on the 

 action of the 34 classes of the Church in the 

 amended forms which had been approved at the 

 last session of the Synod and referred to the 

 classes, showed that 25 of the classes were in 

 favor of some revision of the forms Under con- 

 sideration. Some desired shorter and simpler 

 forms; some objected to changes in long familiar 

 phraseology ; others desired " the language of to- 

 day for the people of to-day." Many desired the 

 elimination of the phrase in the form for the 

 baptism of adults, " wholly incapable of any 

 good and prone to all evil," or some change which 

 will bring it into closer accord with other phrases 

 of the Standards. The whole subject was re- 

 ferred to another committee to prepare amended 

 forms conforming as nearly as practicable to the 

 prevailing views of the classes, with the sugges- 

 tion of the sense of the Synod that in these 

 forms, " simplicity, dignity, and verity should 

 be sought rather than elaboration of form"; this 

 committee to report to the next Synod. The in- 

 stitution of a post-graduate course, covering at 

 least one seminary year, was authorized in the 

 theological seminaries. A special committee was 

 constituted to urge each church in the denomina- 

 tion to undertake a definitely evangelistic work 

 during the coming year; the committee is fur- 

 ther to consider the methods of such work and 

 its results, and to report to the next Synod. The 

 Synod of South India having been constituted as 

 an independent native union church by the union 

 of the mission churches of this body and of the 

 Free Church of Scotland, the classes of Arcot, 

 heretofore attached to the Particular Synod of 

 New York, was set off from that judicatory and 

 transferred to the new jurisdiction in India. The 

 resolutions of the Synod on the Sabbath express 

 alarm at the increased tendency to secularize 

 the day; affirm the law of the Sabbath as a 

 divine law of perpetual and binding obligation 

 upon all men and the authority of the Christian 

 Sabbath to be derived from it; direct that its 

 nature and the danger to it be intelligently set 

 forth in the pulpits and frequently brought 

 to the remembrance of congregations; testify 

 against Sabbath desecration under such forms as 

 the publication and encouragement of the Sun- 

 day newspaper, unnecessary Sunday travel, Sun- 

 day visiting, and the playing of baseball, golf, 

 and other games on the Lord's Day; and express 

 " unqualified disapproval " of all political confer- 

 ences on Sunday. The Committee on a Uniform 

 Version of the Metrical Psalms reported progress. 

 Responding to an overture of the General Synod 

 of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, a commit- 

 tee was appointed to confer with reference to 

 closer cooperation or unity of organization. 



II. Reformed Church in the United States. 

 The following summary of the statistics of this 

 Church is from the Almanac of the Reformed 

 Church in the United States (Philadelphia) for 



1903: Number of synods, 8; of classes, 58; of 

 ministers, 1,112; of congregations, 1,691; of com- 

 municants, 255,408; 'of unconfirmed, 198,815; of 

 Sunday-schools, 1,662, with 24,796 officers and 

 teachers and 200,178 pupils; of students for the 

 ministry, 199; of baptisms during the year, 13,437 

 of infants and 1,830 of adults; of confirmations, 

 11,366; amount of contributions for benevolent 

 purposes, $283,954, including $60,000 for home 

 and $47,710 for foreign missions; of contribu- 

 tions for congregational purposes, $1,396.054. 

 Number of literary and theological institutions, 

 17 ; of periodicals, 17 in English, 8 in German, 

 and 15 published by institutions. In home mis- 

 sions special attention is given to work among 

 Hungarian and Bohemian settlers. The foreign 

 missions are in Japan and China. 



The Sunday-School Board had reports from 

 1,613 Sunday-schools, with 25,938 officers and 

 teachers and 221,917 members, showing a gain in 

 three years of 15,013 members. Fifteen Sunday- 

 school missionaries had been employed during the 

 past three years, 16 schools had been organized, 

 reorganized, or revived, and 7 congregations de- 

 veloped out of Sunday-schools. Since 1894 30 

 Sunday-schools had been organized or reorgan- 

 ized, out of which 17 congregations had been es 

 tablished. Grants of literature had been made 

 to the Hungarian and Bohemian missions, and 

 inquiry had been made with reference to th 

 publication of Hungarian-English Sunday-school 

 literature, but it had not been begun. An aggre- 

 gate of 8,273,765 copies of publications had been 

 issued, and the net profits from sales had been 

 $12,104. The capital of the Publishing Estab- 

 lishment was $18,953. 



The report of the Board of Directors of Or- 

 phan Homes represented the institutions at Fort 

 Wayne, Ind., and Womelsdorf (Bethany), and 

 Butler (St. Paul's), Pa. The endowments had 

 been raised through accessions by legacy, $17,000 

 during three years. The total receipts had been 

 $29,678. 



The Society for the Relief of Ministers and 

 their Widows had expended during the past year 

 $3,600 in aid of 13 ministers and 39 widows. Its 

 invested funds amounted to more than $50,000. 



The triennial report of the Board of Home 

 Missions covers the work of the boards of the 

 General Synod, the Central and Northwest Syn- 

 ods, and the German Synod of the East. Th<:> 

 altogether returned 145 missions, 17,724 commu- 

 nicants, 179 Sunday-schools, with 19,828 officers., 

 teachers, and pupils, and contributions of $36.- 

 336 for benevolences and $350,401 for congrega- 

 tional purposes. The two boards of the German 

 synods represented their work of organizing the 

 German immigrants in the new agricultural set- 

 tlements as being in an encouraging condition. 

 The harbor missionary in New York met these 

 people on their arrival and sought to speed them 

 safely to their destination, taking care thus 

 of 500 or 600 persons a year. Toward the aj- .' 

 portionment of $3,450 for this harbor work dur- 

 ing the past three years only $2,379 had been 

 received. The missions among Hungarian immi- 

 grants were growing in numbers and importance, 

 and it had been necessary to bring pastors for 

 them from Hungary. Although $24,000 had been 

 apportioned for them, only $10.234 had been r<-- 

 ceived. The board had under its control a Bo- 

 hemian church in Cleveland, Ohio, and was con- 

 templating the erection of a church building for 

 Bohemians in Chicago. The Woman's Missionary 

 Society of the General Synod had contributed dur- 

 ing the triennium $9,573 to the general and church 

 building funds. The sum of $119,075 had been in- 



