PRESBYTERIANS. 



653 



ary teachers had been under commission, and 

 136 churches and 279 Sunday-schools had been 

 organized during the year. The whole num- 

 ber of church-members was 78,669, with a 

 total of 125,977 in congregations, and the num- 

 ber of members in 1,777 Sunday-schools was 

 120,936. Special attention was given to the 

 maintenance of schools in the Indian Territory, 

 among the Indians in New Mexico and Ari- 

 zona and in Alaska, among the Mexican popu- 

 lations in New Mexico and Southern Cali- 

 fornia, and among the Mormons in Utah and 

 Idaho. Six new colleges had been organized 

 in Minnesota and Kansas, and the Territories. 



Board of Education. The receipts, $73,499, 

 exceeded those of the previous year by $9,474, 

 while the permanent fund had been increased 

 by $10,000. Four hundred and eighty-six can- 

 idates had been aided in sums of $100 or $120 

 each ; among them were thirty-five Germans, 

 three Bulgarians, sixty-eight colored students, 

 eleven Indians, one Spaniard, one Welshman, 

 and one Hindoo. 



Board of Publication. Receipts, $281,124 ; 

 expenditures, $252,442 ; amount of sales, $195,- 

 420. The publications included 443,750 copies 

 of books and tracts, and 11,947,319 of periodi- 

 cals and reports. The sum of $49,983 had 

 been received, and $42,077 had been expend- 

 ed, for missionary work. 



Board of Church Erection. Receipts, $109,- 

 063. Appropriations of $104,594 had been 

 made to 215 churches and missions, being an 

 iverage of $486 to each church. A book of 

 fifty-one designs for churches and chapels had 

 been published. 



Board of Relief. Receipts, $105,566, be- 

 sides $23,374 bequeathed to the permanent 

 fund; amount of permanent fund, $300,410; 

 number of beneficiaries, 486. 



Board of Missions for Freedmen. Receipts, 

 $103,741 ; amount of Endowment and Per- 

 manent Funds, $14,120; number of mission- 

 aries and teachers, 197; number of churches 

 under the care of the board, 173, of which 

 four had been organized during the year ; num- 

 ber of communicants, 12,823 ; number of Sun- 

 day-schools, 156, with 10,771 scholars. Nine 

 hundred and sixty-nine persons had been added 

 to the churches on examination, and 1,359 per- 

 sons had been baptized. The board maintained 

 60 schools, with which were connected 124 

 teachers and 6,995 pupils. Five of the schools 

 were of the grade of academies or above it, 

 including a theological department, and re- 

 turned 1,856 students. 



Board of Foreign Missions. Receipts, $656,- 

 237 ; expenditures, $669,620. The missions are 

 among ten Indian tribes of the United States, 

 in Mexico, Guatemala, the United States of 

 Colombia, Brazil, Chili, West Africa, India, 

 Siam (Laos), China, among the Chinese in Cali- 

 fornia, and in Japan, Persia, and Syria. They 

 returned in all 159 American ministers, 92 or- 

 dained and 133 licentiate native ministers, 286 

 American male and female and 585 native lay 



missionaries, 18,656 communicants, and 21,258 

 pupils in day and boarding schools. 



The General Assembly of the Presbyterian 

 Church in the United States of America met at 

 Saratoga Springs, N. Y., May 17th. The Rev. 

 E. F. Hatfield, D. D., was chosen moderator. 

 Fraternal delegates from the Southern Church 

 were received for the first time since that 

 Church was organized during the excitement 

 incident to the questions involved in the civil 

 war. A final motion was passed in respect to 

 the restoration of fraternal relations with the 

 Southern Church by the adoption of the report 

 of the committee to whom the subject had 

 been referred, to the effect that " fraternal re- 

 lations have been happily established between 

 the two Assemblies on the basis of a with- 

 drawal of all imputations which may have 

 been made officially from either side against 

 the Christian character of the other, and no 

 further action is necessary." 



A committee was appointed to meet a simi- 

 lar committee, should one be appointed by the 

 Southern Assembly, to agree upon plans of 

 comity and co-operation between the two 

 bodies in regard to theological and collegiate 

 education, missions among the freedmen, the 

 occupation of territory, and other subjects on 

 which questions may arise. The following re- 

 port was adopted on the subject of the current 

 rationalistic and scientific methods of examin- 

 ing and criticising the Scriptures : 



The General Assembly feels constrained to express 

 itself clearly and decidedly on the rationalistic treat- 

 ment of the Holy Scriptures by Protestant teachers in 

 Europe, whose works are introduced into our country 

 and whose evil influence is felt in our Church. Our 

 " Confession of Faith" (Chap. I, sec. 2), after giving 

 the names of the books of the Old and New Testa- 

 ments, adds," All which are given by inspiration of 

 God to be the rule of faith and lite." The denial of 

 the authenticity or truthfulness of the Holy Scriptures 

 is a denial of their inspiration, and any teaching that 

 suggests such denial should be not only carefully 

 avoided but studiously repelled. The Assembly would 

 not discourage the full use of all light in critical study, 

 nor does it assume that any erroneous teaching is wel- 

 comed or offered within the bounds of the Church, but 

 it would warn all pastors and teachers of the danger 

 to young and inexperienced minds in the free use of 

 crude theories and unproved speculations on the part 

 of religious instructors, and would remind them of 

 the paramount importance of sustaining in positive 

 doctrine the authenticity, integrity, truthfulness, and 

 inspiration of the Holy Scriptures against the unsanc- 

 tifled learning by which an unbelieving world through 

 nominally Christian channels assaults the Church of 



The Assembly would also remind the Presbyteries 

 of their special responsibility as guardians of the faith, 

 and that in view of the apprehensions excited through- 

 out the Church by the rationalistic handling of the 

 word of God, it is incumbent upon them to see to it 

 that the appropriate constitutional action be taken : if 

 at any time it should become manifest that any min- 

 ister of our Church was promulgating theories of dan- 

 gerous tendency or contra-confessional doctrine con- 

 cerning the Holy Scriptures. 



A new board was established, to have in 

 charge the interests of higher education as con- 

 nected with the Presbyterian Church, and to 

 be called " the Presbyterian Board of Aid for 



