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PREFACE.

THE Volume of this work for 1881 is the sixth of the new series and the twenty-first of the whole series. It has grown in size to meet the increased activity in human affairs, and to present the interesting public questions and scientific developments which have arisen, and the discussions of their principles.

A special article is devoted to the affairs of each country and to each State of the United States, which contains a sketch of its history during the year, the administration of its government, and its legislation; full official information on its area, population, education, military force, commerce, industry, finances, and the public questions agitated and reforms effected. No efforts are spared to secure the fullest information from all parts of the world, and it is considered that in its several departments the work may be safely consulted as the completest and most reliable book of reference. At the same time its record of scientific developments and progress will be found most valuable and unsurpassed.

In this volume the sad history of the fatal wounding and slow decline of the President are given in the article on "Garfield," a summary of the points in the trial of the murderer is recounted, the important medico-legal question of "Insanity as a Defense" is discussed, and the constitutional question of "Presidential Inability" is presented, with the views of public men.

The change of administration, the "legislation of Congress," with the debates, the "special sessions" and proceedings of the United States Senate, and the records of each of the States, and especially the political history of New York, are given fully. The movements and statistics of "Commerce and Finance in the United States," and the "Finances" of the Government of the latter, by ex-Assistant Secretary Upton; the "Exposition of Cotton Products at Atlanta," by Professor William M. Browne; the report of the "Mississippi River Inprovements"; "the Panama Canal question"; the important diplomatic correspondence of "Peru, Chili, and the United States"; the question of "Bi-metallic Currency" with the results of the conference at Paris; the recent progress of "American Constitutional Law"; the validity of the “Naturalization Papers of the United States "-are subjects of permanent and historical importance.

The stirring events which have occurred in foreign countries are scarcely of less interest. The agrarian question in Ireland as well as in the other coun

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tries of Europe; the wars in South America, Afghanistan, the Transvaal, and Turkistan; the revolutionary upheaval in Russia and the terrible murder of the Czar; the persecutions of the Jews in Germany and Russia; the developments of the still unsolved Eastern question; the social reforms in Germany; the rapid political changes in republican France; the liberal movements in Italy and Spain-are a few of the subjects of which an account is given, together with all the latest statistical information, under the names of the different countries, or dealt with in special articles, such as "Jews, Persecutions of "; "Islam, the Future of"; "Brahmo Somaj"; "Land Tenure in Europe"; "Opium-Trade of India and China"; "Russian Government, its Features."

Religious and denominational information is given under the names of the denominations, and a special article on the "New Testament Revision."

There are biographical articles on numerous distinguished persons who have died during the year.

The progress of science, particularly of its useful applications, and the achievements of inventive genius, are described with comprehensive completeness. Of the long list of special articles and new subjects may be mentioned as examples, the progress of "Medical Science and Practice," the article on "Eye-sight Deterioration," the one on the progress of "Mechanical Engineering," the recent developments in "Physiology"; the account of the "Exhibition of Electrical Inventions" at Paris, the article discussing "Technical Education," the account of the improvement in "Photography," the articles on "Glucose"; "Germs, Vaccination with Disease"; "Fertilizers" "Fertilizers" by Professor W. O. Atwater; "Chlorophyl"; "Oysters, Deterioration of"; "Nutritive Elements of Food"; and the merits and demerits of "Silo, or Ensilage," by L. B. Arnold.

The subject of the United States census is treated in the volume with great fullness in its various departments, and the population is given of every county in each State, and also of all the principal cities, and compared with the statistics of the former census of 1870. The returns of the recent census in Great Britain, in France, in Italy, Switzerland, and other European countries, are presented to the latest dates practicable. Large and very finely colored maps accompany the United States census, and illustrate the comparative density of the population in 1830 and 1880; the center of population at the end of each decade since 1800; and also the comparative density and the location of the foreign and the colored population.

Fine steel portraits of President Arthur, ex-Secretary Blaine, the lately deceased poet Longfellow, and the distinguished French citizen Gambetta, embellish the volume, together with maps and cuts in various articles.

THE

ANNUAL CYCLOPÆDIA.

ADVENTISTS. The several denominations of Adventists in the United States trace their origin to the preaching of William Miller, who predicted about 1840, as the result of his studies of the prophecies of Scripture and the calculations deduced therefrom, that the second coming of Christ should be looked for in 1843 or 1844. They agree in the expression of the belief that the visible personal second coming of Christ is near at hand, but are divided, on other points of doctrine, into four branches, the most numerous of which are the Second Advent Christians, numbering about fifty thousand members. The distinctive features of their belief are "the doctrine of the immediate personal coming and reign of Christ on the earth; holiness of heart; the unconscious state of the dead; their literal resurrection; and the final destruction of the wicked." The Evangelical Adventists, numbering about nine thousand members, differ from these, in holding to the conscious state of the dead, and the eternal conscious suffering of the wicked. The Seventh-Day Adventists, who have about fifteen thousand five hundred members, hold that the sanctuary to be cleansed is not the earth, but the heavenly sanctuary; that Christ will come as soon as he completes his "investigative judgment" to ascertain who of the dead are worthy of the first resurrection, and who of the living of translation. Satan is then to reign in the earth a thousand years, after which the earth will be redeemed and fitted to be the dwelling-place of the saints. The Life and Advent Union holds to the life in Christ only, and the non-resurrection of the wicked dead.

SECOND ADVENT CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION. The Second Advent Christians have, until the last year, been represented by two distinct organizations, one for the East and one for the West. Representatives of both branches of the denomination were invited by the Eastern Association to meet at Worcester, Massachusetts, in a National Convention, "for the purpose of considering a proper system of organiz

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ing churches and a declaration of principles." The convention met April 6th, and was attended by ninety-three delegates from the New England States, New York, Pennsylvania, and Canada. A declaration of principles respecting creed and church organization and a form of "advisory covenant " were adopted. The first four articles of the declaration state the commonly received "orthodox" doctrine of the Scriptures and the Trinity. The fifth article declares that Christ died to save men from eternal death, the penalty of violated law; that the redemption he provided is twofold — redemption of all men from the penalty of Adam's sin, by the resurrection of the dead; second, the redemption of believers from personal sin and its consequences." The sixth, seventh, and eighth articles treat of repentance, of baptism (concerning which it is said that pardoned believers should be "buried with Christ in baptism," to show their belief in the resurrection of Christ and the dead), of the Lord's Supper, and the personal return of Christ. The tenth article expresses belief in the everlasting destruction of the finally impenitent, and the final extinction of all evil. The eleventh article declares that the coming of Christ is near at hand. The twelfth and thirteenth articles express the belief that the earth will be made over to be the future abode of the saints, and that all church action should point to the personal coming of Christ. In the "advisory covenant" the Bible is accepted as the only rule of faith, and liberty of thought is permitted, with a reservation, for the protection of the privilege of a refusal of sanction to the "persistent urging of doctrinal themes" not "essential to salvation." The articles on the subject of church organization approve the congregational system.

A conference of Second Advent Christians representing six States, met at Foreston, Illinois, in June, and adopted resolutions on church organization; a declaration of principles in harmony with that set forth at Wor

cester; and a basis of union between Eastern and Western Adventists.

The twenty-second annual meeting of the Second Advent Christian Association-the first regular meeting of the united organizationwas held at Chelsea, Massachusetts, August 16th. The following conferences were represented: Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Hoosick Valley, New York, Ohio, Michigan, Philadelphia, Illinois, Wisconsin, Northern Central Missouri and Southern Central Iowa, Southwestern Missouri and Northwestern Iowa, Minnesota, Kansas, California, Alabaina, and South Carolina. E. A. Stockman presided. The most important business transacted was the adoption of the constitution for the united organization. This statute declares that the society shall be known as the

"Second Advent Christian Association of America," and that its object shall be "the promulgation of Bible truth, especially the fulfillment of prophecy relative to the immediate second personal advent of our Lord, and a preparation for the event, through the Advent Christian Publication Society and all other laudable means."

The association was divided into two districts, the Eastern and the Western districts, having the western boundary of the State of New York and Pennsylvania as the line of division between them; the annual meetings to be held alternately in either section. Each conference in the United States and Canada is entitled to one delegate as a member of the association, with one additional delegate for every three hundred members of churches; and single churches, where there are no conferences, may send delegates. Provision is made for the representation of distant conferences by proxy; and a committee of six delegates was constituted in either section to represent all such part of that section as may not be otherwise represented, when the annual meeting is held in the other section.

The Advent Christian Publication Society returned a capital of $14,438, and reported that its receipts for the year had been $20,480. It had handled during the year $4,339 worth of books and tracts, and had published 4,333,072 pages. The sales amounted to $4,803, and gifts had been made through the tract fund to the amount of $1,820.

AFGHANISTAN. A British garrison occupied Candahar at the beginning of the year. In the Queen's speech at the opening of Parliament in January, the incoming British Cabinet announced its intention of withdrawing the troops from the country. Lord Beacons field, in criticising the sudden reversal of his policy, protested against the impairment of the imperial prestige and renown in the Orient by the course of the Government in "doing everything they could to inform every being in Central Asia, and in every other part of Asia, that they meant to cut and run from the scene of a splendid conquest," and declared that the

abandonment of the military domination of the country had produced a state of anarchy, and that the final retirement from Candahar would give full license to military adventurers ambitious of empire.

The nature of the negotiations between Shere Ali and the Russian authorities were revealed in a secret correspondence which was captured at Cabool. The menacing preparations of Lord Lytton for the invasion of Afghanistan had led Shere Ali to appeal to Russia for aid, and an offensive and defensive alliance was in negotiation while hostilities between England and Russia were imminent; but after the signature of the Treaty of Berlin, the Russian envoy at Cabool, Colonel Stoletoff, only sought by equivocations, and by counseling the Ameer to remain at peace, to extricate his government from the position to which it was committed. The history of the Afghan war shows the impossibility of either power occupying the Afghan country as a military base. The indomitable mountain tribes are only bound together by a loose feudal league. The Ameer is little more than a titular sovereign, and there is no habitual and disciplined submission to a central organized government. Their fierce spirit of independence will not brook the thought of foreign ascendency. An ameer would lose the allegiance of his subjects who should succumb to any European influence. The threatened advance of the English was all that made dealings with Russia possible. The adherence given to Ayoob Khan by wide sections of the country was mainly owing to the fact that Abdurrahman had been the choice of the British conquerors.

The Liberal party in England, adhering to the conviction that a "strong, friendly, and independent Afghanistan" is the best bulwark against the Russian advance toward India, recorded a solid vote in the House of Commons against a motion to retain Candahar, prompted by the intelligence of the capture of Geok Tepe by the Russians. The evacuation of Candahar and Southern Afghanistan was still delayed, in the hope that the Ameer would gather the political strength to occupy the country and cope with his adversary and England's foe, Ayoob Khan. The son of Shere Ali had seemingly better chances of uniting Afghanistan under his rule than Abdurrahman. He was the candidate of the numerous Duranis, with a considerable following among the Ghilzais, and with partisans in all the valleys of Afghanistan. lis rule was established in Herat, and his pretensions acknowledged throughout Western and Southern Afghanistan. He was raising treasure and recruiting his army from the bravest elements of all parts of Afghanistan, in strenuous preparation for a struggle with Abdurrahman. The feudatory sirdars who embraced his cause with their bold and turbulent followers, however, possessed their share of the proverbial jealous, rebellious, and faithless spirit of the Af

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