The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1895-06-05
THE OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES.
Opening of the General Conference at
Saratoga.
Sixty. Ninth Annual Report-A Falling Off
in Financial Receipts. but the Spiritual
Results Have been Rich-Gen. o. o.

hOWdru D0llgeTS the annual Address.
Saratoga, June Awhile the Baptists
have been withdrawing yesterday and to-
day from Saratoga the Congregationalists
have been appearing. The Baptists have
considered their entire missionary work,
home and foreign, for six days. The
Congregatlonallsts will devote three days
to home missions only. They represent
$3.50 Congregational churches, the ma
jority of which owe their origin to the
home missionary society, which has al
ready entered upon it's roth year. Boston
is under consideration as the place for
celebrating next year the society's three
score years and ten.
The Goth annual report has already been
referred to a special committee for exami-
nation and report
The receipts of the society have amount
ed to $402, 756. This 1924, 600 less than the
income for 1928, and S103 600 less than
| the income for 1SS9-90 the income of five
year ago. The year just closed, which
began with debt of sSS, OOO has ended
with debt of S132, 600
| On the other hand this very exceptional
year, which has been so disheartening. on
the material side, has been exceedingly rich
| in spiritual results IS, 040 have been added
to the churches as compared with the 10, :
| 7S4 of the last report, which was itself
one of unusual success. OF this IS, 040,
| o, OJO uDlbGO OQ COUlCSolOA VI lctlUIl, d gam
of 1856 over last year, which was an ex-
ceptional year in this respect, and gain
of 2OS5 over the report of five years ago.
| There is not one of the T. 104 missionary
stationssoccupied bystheEsociety that has
not, by the financial stringency been bur-
dened and depressed. Hundreds of
churches have been disastrously affected.
initiated by the shifting of populations
and the rancor and alienation resulting
from strikes. The decline in silver has
not only paralyzed industry in the
mining regions, but religious enterprise
as WELL
Probably wider area has suffered from
drought and crop failure than ever before
North and South Dakota, Nebraska,
Kansas and Oklahoma are the regions
! chiefly visited. In some of these locali-
| ties missionary enterprise has been almost
suspended in the effort to save life.
Scenes of famine such as one reads of in
India and China have been witnessed in
our own land.
The destruction by frost in Florida,
which amounted to national calamity,
has sadly crippled work in that state
| Forest fires in Wisconsin have swept
| away mills, farm buildings, homes, and
| missionary churches bearing their full
share of the disaster.
There are indications that the move
LULU 1IOIl tllO 4COuubTy I'LL COWnS III
Massachusetts, which has been at work
now for decades, depopulating them for
the benefit of the cities and the west has
| reached its climax There are of these
country towns not a few where the popu-
lation has begun to increase again,
although not at very rapid rate.
Fifteen towns in Berkshire county, and
as many in Franklin county, show more
polls than they did three years ago.
The rapid increase of the electric rail
road system will tend to help this return
to the country. The state before long will
be not only gridironed, it will be checker
boarded by the electric roads. And when
the remote farmer has such facilities for
reaching the center as a railroad before
his very door will furnish, there will be
less and less forsaking the farm by the
younger people and a more ready return
to it as years advance.
The receipts from the New England
states have been as follows:
States Receipts
Maine, 800, 205 55
New Hampshire, 40, $50 SO
Vermont, IS, 7O2 40
Massachusetts,, 221, 744 "a
Rhode Island, II, 1888 03
Connectucut, So. $50 90
Total for New England, $404, 925. 81
lu0 d1uOuuU luCluu6S WQdG was Spent
in New England and what was contribut-
ed to the national society. The woman's
organizations have paid into the treasur-
les of the five national Congregational
societies 1913, 1858. 70, $57, 674. "a of it coming
to the home missionary treasury !, thus
providing for appropriations to 81 miss
ionaries, besides special offering for aid
ing the work of the three foreign depart
ments and the Indian school at Vinita, l.
I. The total offerings of the woman's
organizations in nine years is 1878, 352. 50,
of which $344, Al. 03 came to the Congre-
gational home missionary society.
Probably Congregational churches in
Vermont have never had so large mem
bership in the history of the state as at
present. Ministers from other denomina-
tions have been looking toward the Con-
gregational fold in Vermont in increasing
numbers.
The superintendent for Idaho reports
that, contrary to the popular impression,
it is destined to become great state Its
fruits cannot be surpassed, it's mineral
deposits are fabulous, it's timber lands are
of immense extent. 1t contains vast sec
tions of arid lands which only need
water, which engineering will yet supply,
to make them as rich as any in our coun-
try.
Tourists who visit cities and towns
near the coast of California, between
h1epiioeH 1'oi Du1d duu kotn Ol6RO bFC us
posed to regard southern California as
well evangelical But there are two
southern CALIFORNIA;. The smaller and
more populOus southern California, with
which they become acquainted, situated
between the mountains and the sea; the
larger, six times larger, but less populous
southern California, lying north and east
of the mountains. The former illustrates
most wonderfully the value of home mis-
sion work put forth in large measure at
rapid movement Of immigration Phi hith s
ward, planting the church at the very
outset of the new settlements along the
coast; the latter illustrates as remarkably
the woeful results of the neglect of gospel
ministration The former has crowded
churches, revivals of religion, in some
places church membership equal to one
third of the population, and prevailing
Christian public sentiment. The latter
has crowded saloons, in some places as
many as one to every 50 inhabitants,
churches generally thinly attended, if