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York. In view of the fact that one of the four temples in New York city claims 7,000 worshipers, while the whole State has a Chinese population of less than 3,000, there would seem to be a large discrepancy. If that one temple has 7,000 worshipers, the number of visitors must be greater than the resident Chinese population. Doubtless 7,000 is the number that worship in the temple in the course of a year. In other words, the same individual is counted many times. A considerable number of the Chinese are members of Christian churches. SUMMARY BY STATES.

tem is almost identical with that of the Methodist Episcopal Church, except the presence of laymen in the Annual Conference, the election of presiding elders on the nomination of the presiding bishop, instead of their appointment by the bishop alone, and similar small divergencies. Its General Conference meets quadrennially. Its territory is divided into seven Episcopal districts, to each of which a bishop is assigned by the General Conference. There are in all 28 Annual Conferences, one of which is partly in this country and partly in Canada. There is also a missionary district in Africa.

The Church is represented in 29 States. It is strongest in North Carolina, where it has 111,949 communicants. Alabama comes next, with 79,231 communicants; South Carolina third, with 45,880, and Florida fourth, with 14,791. There are in all 1,704 organizations, 1,587 church edifices, which have accommodations for 565,577 worshipers, and are valued at $2,714,128, and 349,788 communicants. The average seating capacity of the church edifices is 356, and their average value $1,710.

THE AFRICAN METHODIST EPISCOPAL ZION CHURCH. A congregation of colored people, organized in New York city in 1796, was the nucleus of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. This congregation originated in a desire of colored members of the Methodist Episcopal Church to hold separate meetings in which they "might have an opportunity to exercise their spiritual gifts among themselves, and thereby be more useful to one another." They built a church, which was dedicated in 1800, the full name of the denomination subsequently organized being given to it. The church entered into an agreement in 1801 by which it was to receive certain pastoral supervision from the Methodist Episcopal Church. It had preachers of its own, who supplied its pulpit in part. In 1820 this arrangement was terminated, and in the same year a union of colored churches in New York, New Haven, Long Island, and Philadelphia was formed and rules of government adopted. Thus was the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church formally organized.

The first Annual Conference was held in 1821. It was attended by 19 preachers, representing 6 churches and 1,426 members. Next year James Varick was chosen superintendent of the denomination, which was extended over the States of the North chiefly until the close of the civil war, when it entered the South to organize many churches.

In its polity lay representation has long been a prominent feature. Laymen are in its Annual Conferences as well as in its General Conference, and there is no bar to the ordination of women. Until 1880 its superintendents, or bishops, were elected for a term of four years. In that year the term of office was made for life or during good behavior. Its sys

Negro slaves received the Gospel by Methodism from the same preachers in the same churches with their masters, the galleries or a portion of the body of the house being assigned to them. If a separate building was provided, the Negro congregation was an appendage to the white, the pastor usually preaching once on Sunday for them, holding separate official meetings with their leaders, exhorters, and preachers, and administering discipline and making return of members for the annual minutes." For the Negroes on plantations, who were not privileged to attend organized churches, special missions were begun as early as 1829. In 1845, the year which marks the beginning of the separate existence of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, there were in the Southern Conference of Methodism, according to Bishop McTyeire, 124,000 members of the slave population, and in 1860 about 207,000.

In 1866, after the opening of the South to Northern churches had given the Negro members opportunity to join the African Methodist Episcopal, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion, and other Methodist bodies, it was found that of the 207,742 colored members which the Church South had in 1860 only 78,742 remained. The General Conference of 1866 authorized these colored members, with their preachers, to be organized into separate congregations and Annual Conferences, and the General Conference of 1870 appointed two bishops to organize the colored conferences into a separate and indepeudent Church. This was done in December, 1870, the new body taking the name "Colored Methodist Episcopal Church." Its rules limited the privilege of membership to Negroes. The Colored Methodist Episcopal Church has the same articles of religion, the same form of government, and the same discipline as its parent body. Its bishops are elected for life. One of them, Bishop L. H. Holsey, says that for some years the body encountered strong opposition from colored people because of its relation to the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, but that this prejudice has now almost entirely disappeared. He says a separate organiza tion was made necessary by the change in the relation between master and slave. "The former, though divested of his slaves, carried with him all the notions, feelings, and elements in his religious and social life that characterized his former years. On the other hand, the emancipated slave had but little in common with the former master; in fact, he had nothing but his religion, poverty, and ignorance. With social elements so distinct and dissimilar the best results of a common Church relation could not be expected." Bishop Holsey declares that the great aim of the Church is (1) to evangelize the Negroes, and (2) to educate and elevate them.

There are 23 Annual Conferences, with 129,383 members. It will be noticed that the Church is almost entirely confined to the South. It is strongest in Georgia, where it has 22,840 members: Missis

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THE CONGREGATIONAL METHODISTS. Dissatisfaction with certain features of the system of polity led a number of ministers and members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, to withdraw and organize a body in which laymen should have an equal voice in Church government and local preachers should become pastors. The new Church was organized in Georgia in 1852, and called the Congregational Methodist Church. The first District Conference was formed the same year. A number of churches in harmony with the principles of the movement were organized in Georgia, Mississippi, and other States of the South, to which it has been confined. In 1888 many of the churches and ministers went over into the Congregational denomination, which appeared in the South after the war.

The system of the Congregational Methodists is not purely congregational. The local church has large powers, but appeals from its decisions may be taken to the District Conference, and thence to the State Conference, and also to the General Conference. These bodies have likewise the power of censure or approval. The District Conference may "condemn opinions and practices contrary to the word of truth and holiness," and may cite offending parties for trial, and admonish, rebuke, suspend, or expel from the Conference. Ministers and lay members have equal rights and privileges in the local church and all the Conferences. The District Conference is composed of representatives from the churches, the State Confer

STATES.

ence of representatives of the District Conferences, and the General Conference of delegates chosen by the State Conferences. District Conferences meet semiannually, State Conferences annually, and the General Conference quadrennially. The ministers are elders ordained after examination and approved by the District Conference. The elder, as pastor of a church, presides at its monthly conference. The other officers of a church are class leader, deacon or steward, and clerk. The itinerancy is not in force. In doctrine this branch does not differ from other Methodist bodies.

This body has in all 214 organizations, 1491 edifices, valued at $41,680, and 8,765 communicants. Its chief strength lies in Alabama, where it has 2,596 communicants. It is also represented in Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee, and Texas. The average seating capacity of its church edifices is 310, and the average value $278. SUMMARY BY STATES.

As the present bulletin completes the census of the seventeen members of the Methodist family, there is given here a summary of the Methodist Churches, taken from the present and former bulletins.

Methodist Episcopal. Union Amer. M. E.. African Meth. Epis..

THE NEW CONGREGATIONAL METHODISTS. This branch originated in Ware County, Georgia, in 1881. It was organized by members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, who were aggrieved by a certain action of a Quarterly Conference of that body, which action they regarded as arbitrary. It has the same doctrines and substantially the same practical system as the Congregational Methodist Church. A number of its churches united with the Congregational denomination in 1888.

There are in all 24 organizations, 17 edifices, valued at $3,750, and 1,059 members, found chiefly in Georgia. The average seating capacity of the church edifices is 294, and the average value $214. SUMMARY BY STATES.

African Union M. P. African M. E. Zion.. Methodist Protestant Wesleyan Methodist. Meth. Epis., South.. Cong'l Methodist... Cong.Meth. (colored) New Cong'l Meth... Zion Union Apostolic Colored Meth. Epis.. Primitive Methodist. Free Methodist..... Independent Meth.. Evangelist Mission'y

51,489 46,138 $132,140,179 4,589,287

Protestant Missions in India.

THE report of Protestant Missions in India, made at the Decennial Missionary Conference in Calcutta, gave the Baptists the largest number of communicants (53,801), followed by the Church of England (52,377), Lutheran (24,207), Methodist (15,782), Congregational (13,775), Presbyterian (11,128). The success of the missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church during the year 1891 and 1892 change the Methodist position from fourth to third. The Methodists are also third in the number of the foreign ordained agents, the native ordained agents, and the native lay preachers.

Home Missions.

BY REV. CHARLES HERR, D.D.

THE Church of Christ in this country is thoroughly committed to the work of Home Missious.

1. For the sake of Christian honor.

The eastern rim of our country was at the very first moment of occupation consecrated, nominally at least, to the cross. Columbus and his company, as soon as they stepped upon the new discovered soil, knelt and with tears thanked God. The great discoverer named the island San Salvador (Holy Redeemer) and claimed it for the sovereignty of Jesus Christ. And whatever may have been their motives, the hallowing act was completed and seemed to control every subsequent settlement upon this northern continent. The motive of the Dutch, of the Pilgrims, of the Puritans, of the Catholics, of the Hugue. nots, was to serve Christ in this new land, where no bigot would interfere with the freedom of their worship and no enemy could defeat the honor they would show to their Lord. Those whom we counted a high distinction to call our fathers sought these shores not simply as refugees, but as missionaries. "A great hope and inward zeal they had of laying some good foundation for propagating and advancing the Gospel of the Kingdom of Christ in these remote parts of the world." Such were their own words. They came not for gold; but for conscience' sake and Christ's sake.

Our land was long ago consecrated to King Immanuel. That obligation can never pass away. In the minds of Christians this has always been the Lord's land, and no other claim has ever been, or can ever be, recognized by them. Heathen lands they seek to conquer for him; this they seek to hold for him, because it is already his by the sacred act of the pioneer settlers who laid it at the feet of Jesus, and by the confirmations of their pious example on the part of the successive generations until now.

This motive will support the people of God until the work of Home Missions has been completed. The work touches the core of the Christian's loyalty to his Master. This is a promised land for Christ, and can never lose the glory of its anointing.

2. For the sake of our country's prosperity. We are committed to the work of Home Missions, because we are patriots in the truest sense of the word. It is because we enthusiastically believe that the glory of our country which puts her to-day in many respects in the van of the nations is due to that spiritual and evangelical type of Christianity which has marked her history until now. It is because we believe that both the continuance of her progress and the very preservation of the blessings that she has must depend upon her being faithful

to that righteousness which has exalted her to this pitch of glory.

The greatness of heroic acts is not in themselves, but in the character of the hero behind them. If you want to repeat the acts you must first catch the spirit and reproduce the motives of the hero. No mechanical and slavish imitation can ever rival the work of the master. The material products and industrial triumphs, the securities of liberty and comforts of life, which emblazon our civilization, are signs of the great and peculiar manhood behind them. It is not to be denied that certain conditions of natural advantage must exist to make any prosperity possible. But when we are seeking for the ultimate and dominant cause for national eminence we look for it in the people themselves. The natural character of Greece was wonderfully suited to the development of a high civilization, but no man ascribes the glory of Greece to the climate and configuration of the land, else why is the sun of its prosperity set, why is it to-day only a nation's sepulcher? Fertility of soil, rich veins of minerals ribbing its everlasting hills cannot make a barbarous people rich and great. It is the manhood making use of all these conditions that is decisive of a nation's greatness.

On the North American continent there has been developed a manhood higher, stronger, more sagacious, and more capable than any which the world has yet seen. A manhood that gets more out of the soil, that applies a more determined and inventive genius to the problems of mechanical progress, that guides its political institutions more fully by a true standard of liberty and right. So that in its wealth, in its products and manufactures, in its beneficent political organization, in its past achievements and its abounding enthusiasm of progress, it stands easily first on the face of the globe.

This manhood, which is the glory of America, is the fruit of the Gospel. It is because the religion of Christ has existed here in a purer type and has operated more simply and directly upon the conscience and heart of the people that we have made such unexampled growth in strength, richness, and happiness. Jesus Christ and him crucified furnished the motive for opening the virgin soil of this land, and his standard has been carried step by step westward from the shores of the sea. Divine principles of truth have had marked adherence in our history. The revelation of human duty in the Scriptures has been generally recognized as the standard by which our national life should be guided. We have honored God's laws, and he has honored us and blessed us.

The Christian would rather see the land robbed of anything else than its religion, for the manhood that grows by faith in Christ can renew the face of the

land in more than its previous grandeur. The Christian would rather see the World's Fair bankrupt and a failure than the nation burdened with the guilt of dishonoring the Lord's Day. Nothing is fatal or irremediable, but to forsake the obedience of God. The spectacle of France to-day is the spectacle of a nation wallowing in the mire of corruption because it forsook its God. The future of our land, the security of its liberty, the continuance of its prosperity, the preservation of its honor, will depend upon the continuing prevalence of the Gospel of God's grace and the increasing enthronement of his will in the hearts of the people.

3. We are committed to the Christianization of our country also, because it is the best vantage ground for the conversion of the world to Christ.

"Westward the course of empire takes its way." The Pacific seaboard is the last point in the westward reach of civilization. De Tocqueville remarked that populations have moved westward as though driven by the hand of God. From Persia the scepter passed to Greece, from Greece to Italy, from Italy to Great Britain, and the scepter is now departing from Great Britain. The last possible limit westward is the Golden Gate. There is no further west. Beyond is the hoary Orient. In our own land, then, that movement which has marked mankind since prehistoric times reaches its culmination, and the civilization here produced will be the flower of the world.

This is a marvelous opportunity of the Christian Church; one might dare to say, this is the last opportunity of the Christian Church. Our people upon whom the ends of the world have come, in whom are centering the most significant upward tendencies of human history-the Anglo-Saxon people, of whom our own branch is manifesting the most extraordinary development and power-is far the highest and most promising instrument in the hands of the Church for the conversion of the world. See what the Anglo-Saxon has already done in work of world-wide missions, his energy, his devotion and success far outstripping all rivalry. If the Church should lose her hold upon the Anglo-Saxon, where could she turn for an equal intelligence, zeal, consecration, and power? What Christian men anywhere shall take up the task of impressing their spirit and their beliefs upon the world if Americans shall lay it down?

The glorious ambition and duty of the Church is to make the mighty people of this country, destined, we trust, to reach inconceivable heights of prosperity and influence, a solid force for Christ in the world. It is the Church's opportunity. If she devotes herself with all the sincerity of her heart and all the energy of her brain to this achievement, then the day will speedily come when this race of ours will give laws to mankind, when its will will be mightier than armies, when its principles of govern

ment and religion will be revered and embraced by our fellow-men everywhere, when its distinctive characteristics, liberty, and a spiritual Christianity, will be disseminated over the earth with the authority of an overwhelming moral and national preeminence. For these reasons the Church braces herself, and ought to brace herself far more earnestly, to contend for the honor of Christ, for the prosperity of our land, for the conversion of the world. In contending for these things she is contending for what is fundamental in the Christian's conviction and fundamental in the world's advance.

To-day is a critical moment in this holy war. In every decisive battle there is a bridge of destiny. The fight for Cemetery Hill was the critical instant in a critical battle in a critical campaign in a critical war for the nation's endangered life. To-day is the nick of time in the struggle of contending forces for this country. To-day is the time for sacrifice and toil. It is a remarkable fact that every successive year and stage seems to be the nick of time in this immense war. Fifty years ago it was truly said by Dr. Lyman Beecher: "Now is the nick of time in matters which reach into eternity; now is always the nick of time. One man now is worth a hundred fifty years hence. One dollar now is worth a thousand then." Such words are more true still of the hour which is passing by us now. pushed forward year by year. gagement has been deferred. true that each moment is critical until the ridge of destiny is reached, until the last crisis has come, until the central struggle of our history arrives-and from that moment one force will be conqueror and the others be steadily driven from the field.

The crisis has been The culminating enAnd it will still be

The final crisis has not yet come. At least, we trust it has not. We may be defeated already and not know it. It seems sometimes as if the enemies have outgrown the forces of good by gigantic leaps, so towering have they come to be.

They

Immigration is pouring every year upon us a flood of more than a half million people, the vast majority of whom are of the lowest mental and moral character, neither understanding nor having sympathy with our Christian institutions, and forming a part of our population startling in their menace. have already captured our great cities and committed our municipal governments to knaves and pilferers. It will perhaps surprise many to know that out of 1,489,000 white inhabitants of New York city, 1,219,000 are either foreign born or born of foreign parents-about five to one. Out of 160,766 white inhabitants in Jersey City, 119, 167 are either foreign born or born of foreign parents, about four to one of native parents. The foreigner has conquered our cities, and does what he will with them.

Romanism has developed with immense energy, filling the land with its power and pretension, displaying the lavish pomp of a cardinal's court in our