ple, or in cases where there is a tie, or the majority for the person receiving the highest number of votes is only one, by lot; and they receive no salaries. The Lord's Supper is administered twice a year. Besides this, baptism, feet-washing, and the holy kiss are regarded as ordinances of equal importance. They take but little part in civil affairs, only occasionally voting at elections for school officers, are conscientiously opposed to military service, and have no denominational schools or church paper, depending upon the public schools for the education of their children and upon the Mennonites for their literature. The Church pays the debts of those who are unfortunate and become insolvent, and excludes those who can pay their debts and will not; and members are advised to consult the Church before embarking in any new enterprise. The older members are distinguished by certain peculiarities of costume, such as wearing hooks and eyes instead of buttons, whence the sect has been called "the Hookers"; but the younger members are beginning to conform to the customs of the world.

VI. THE BRETHREN, OR TUNKERS.—The annual Council of The Brethren, commonly called German Baptists, or Tunkers, met at North Manchester, Ind., during Whitsun-week. Enoch Ebeg was chosen Moderator. An organization for the promotion of home missions, called the Church Extension Union, had been formed in the previous year, the plan and management of which, in that it contemplated salaried officers, were a deviation from the established usages of the brotherhood. Several petitions were presented, asking the Council to account for the departure. As the Union was an acknowledged innovation, and could not be shown to be consistent with any precedents in the Society, there seemed no way of answering the petitions except by dissolving it. It was accordingly dissolved, but a new organization was immediately formed, under another name, with the same objects. It was claimed in justification of this course, that the Brethren, professing to have the primitive and apostolic form of Christianity, were under obligation to spread it; and it was stated that more than one hundred calls for teachers had been received from all parts of the United States, and even from England and Switzerland, and there was no other effective way of answering them. The question of the validity of "tub baptism," or baptism in the house in exceptional cases of extreme sickness, instead of taking the candidate to the stream, was brought up; but the Council, although a general sentiment of disapproval was expressed against it, declined to condemn it as without authority of the Scriptures. The use of "fine and fancy carpets" was condemned as tending to pride and elevation. Condemnation was voted against the practices of ministers going about persuading people to join the Church, and telling them that they need

not observe the order of the Brethren in regard to apparel; against administrators of communion who fail to conform to the order in respect to dress and the hair; and against expensive feasting at funerals.

VII. BAPTISTS IN THE BRITISH MARITIME PROVINCES.-The Baptist Convention of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward's Island met at Fredericton, N. B., August 17th. The Rev. S. W. De Blois was chosen President. The statistical report gave the number of churches as 352, with 34,450 members. Three new churches had been constituted, three ministers ordained, six houses of worship opened, and 1,735 persons baptized during the year. The endowment fund of Acadia College amounted to $83,863, of which $31,500 consisted of notes of hand and pledges. The most important business transacted was the adoption of the report of a committee which had been appointed in the previous year concerning the subject of placing the home mission work in the three provinces under the control of the Convention. The committee presented a plan for the appointment of a committee of thirteen persons to take charge of this work as soon as the legal obstacles to the making of the change can be removed. The Home Mission Board of Nova Scotia had already approved the principle of the new arrangement, but it still awaited the ratification of the Convention of New Brunswick. A foreign mission is maintained by the Convention among the Telugus of India.

VIII. REGULAR BAPTISTS IN GREAT BRITAIN. -The "Baptist Hand Book" of the Baptist Union of Great Britain and Ireland for 1878 gives statistics of the Baptist churches of Great Britain and other foreign countries, of which the following are summaries :

many, 4,917; in Denmark, 547; in Holland, 745; in Poland, 505; in Russia, 232; in Turkey, 108; in Sweden, 17,383; in Port Natal, 172; in St. Helena, 250; in the West Indies, 15,106. The Baptist Union of Germany, Denmark, Holland, Switzerland, Poland, Russia, Turkey, and Africa employs 200 missionaries and colporteurs. The Swedish Missionary Union employs 68 missionaries at stations in Sweden. The Swedish Baptists have a building fund of £280 for furnishing loans for the building of plain houses of worship, a poor fund, and the Bethel Theological Seminary for the instruction of ministers, which in 1877 had 21 students. Serampore College, India, under the control of the (English) Baptist Missionary Society, had 300 pupils. Besides their general missionary and other societies, of which notices are given in the "Annual Cyclopædia" from year to year, the Baptists of Great Britain sustain the China Inland Mission, with 157 laborers, and the Palestine Mission, established in 1870, which reports two missionaries at Nablus, with three baptized converts, upward of 80 children in the schools, and about 30 attendants at the mothers' meetings. They have also numerous general and local societies for the aid and relief of ministers and the care of the widows and children of ministers, and a Baptist Tract Society, having for its object "to disseminate the truths of the Gospel by means of small treatises or tracts, in accordance with our views as Calvinists and Strict Communion Baptists," the income of which for 1876 was £1,469.

The annual meeting of the Baptist Union of Great Britain and Ireland was held in London April 29th. The statistical tables showed that 1,825 pastors, 3,381 evangelists, 270,000 members, and 370,000 Sunday-school scholars were connected with the churches represented in the Union. An increase was shown in all important particulars. Two new associations had been formed for home missionary work.

The autumnal meetings of the Union were held at Leeds, beginning October 9th. The first day's session was devoted to the subject of missions, and a paper was read by one of the secretaries of the Society comparing the condition of its missions in 1848 with the condition in 1878. It showed that in 1848 the total number of European missionaries wholly supported by the Society was 58, and that their labors were supplemented by those of 159 native teachers and preachers. In 1878 the Society employed the same number of missionaries, 58, that it had supported thirty years before; but the native force consisted of 199 missionaries and evangelists, with 611 unpaid Sunday-school teachers and helpers. The contributions in 1848 were £21,876; in 1878, £42,254, special funds being excluded in both cases. The report of the Home and Irish Mission showed that during six months the Mission had spent £2,680. A resolution was adopted ap

proving the measure by which the Baptist Home Mission had become connected with the Baptist Union, urging the churches to make annual collections for the Mission, recommending the associations each to appoint a representative on the committee, and advising that special efforts be made to raise its income to £10,000 a year.

The receipts of the Baptist Missionary Society for the year ending with the anniversary, May 1st, were £50,069, and the expenditures during the same period were £37,873. Favorable reports were made of the progress of the missions in France and Italy. Opposition had been manifested to the work of the Society in Norway.

The Baptist Zenana Mission reported at its anniversary, May 3d, that it employed about twenty lady visitors and about thirty-six native teachers and Bible women at various important points in India. It had received during the year £2,772 for general purposes, and £1,205 for the homes which it was intended to build for the lady workers in India.

The Baptist Home and Irish Mission Society reported at its anniversary in May that it conducted in Ireland 17 principal stations and 211 sub-stations, at which 21 missionaries and other persons were employed, and the average attendance was 6,000 hearers. In England, the Society supported 25 churches, and indirectly supported 28 other churches, which were attended by an average of 7,500 hearers, and with which were connected 2,856 members and 3,038 Sunday-school scholars. The cost of the operations of the Society for the year in England and Ireland had been £5,215.

The Bible Translation Society during the year ending in May, 1878, issued 28,470 copies of the Scriptures. Its receipts for the year were £2,093. It is translating and distributing the Scriptures in various tongues, particularly in the languages and dialects of India. Of the translations now in hand, those into the languages of Japan and Orissa were nearest completion.

IX. GENERAL BAPTISTS.-The one hundred and ninth annual meeting of the Association of General Baptists was held in London, June 17th. The Rev. Thomas Goadby presided. The statistical reports showed that the total number of members in the churches connected with the Association was 24,943, with 179 separate churches, 109 pastors, 384 local preachers, and 4,515 teachers in Sunday schools. There had been 1,175 members added by baptism, and the net increase of members during the year was about 250.

The annual meetings of the Baptist Union of Scotland were held at Edinburgh about the first of November. The Union had just en tered upon its second decade, and a review of its history showed that, while it began with 50 churches and 3,850 members, it had grown to consist of 81 churches and 8,163 members, with 7,670 pupils in the Sunday

schools.

The Union had during the year built 14 new chapels, giving accommodation to 10,000 persons, at a cost of £59,435. One thousand pounds had been raised during the year for the beneficiary fund; the ministers' provident fund had a capital of nearly £3,000; and a chapel debt and building fund was about to be started with a capital of £4,000. The income of the general fund was £528, of the beneficiary fund £375, of the educational fund £464, of the Home Missionary Society £1,647. The Educational Committee had 13 students on its rolls, and the Home Missionary Society returned 21 missionaries, 141 mission stations, 1,720 members, and contributions from the mission churches of £1,000.

BARAGUAY D'HILLIERS, Count AOHILLE, a French general, born September 6, 1795, died June 6, 1878. He took part in the campaign of 1812, and in the Spanish and Algerian campaigns. He became lieutenant-general and commandant of Constantine in 1843, but was superseded in the following year. In the Constituent Assembly of 1848, of which he was a member, he usually voted with the Right. He was placed in command of the army sent against the Roman Republic, and in 1851 succeeded Changarnier as commandant of Paris, but resigned six months afterward. In 1854 he commanded the Baltic expedition, and the capture of Bomarsund made him a Marshal and Senator. He also distinguished himself at the battle of Solferino in 1859. In July, 1870, he again became commandant of Paris, but resigned on the formation of the Palikao Cabinet. After the conclusion of peace he presided over the inquiry into the numerous capitulations, and in 1872 over the court-martial which sentenced General Crémer to one month's imprisonment.

BECQUEREL, ANTOINE CÉSAR, physicist, died in Paris, January 18, 1878. He was born March 8, 1788; made a full course of study in the Paris Polytechnic School; in 1808 was attached to the engineer corps of the imperial army; served with distinction through the entire Spanish campaign; in 1812 was promoted to a captaincy in his corps, and decorated with the cross of a chevalier of the Legion of Honor. In 1815, on the downfall of Bonaparte, he resigned from the army, to devote himself to chemical and physical research, and became an instructor in the Paris Museum of Natural History. He succeeded to a professorship in that institution in 1837, which position he continued to occupy down to his death. His chosen field of research was electricity and magnetism, and with these two important branches of physical science his name is inseparably linked. His experiments in thermo-electricity resulted in the formulation of the thermo-electric series, bismuth, platinum, lead, tin, gold, silver, copper, zinc, iron, and antimony. With the aid of delicate apparatus devised by himself, he was enabled to demonstrate the development of faint elec

tric currents by the operations of the animal economy, thus giving confirmation to the theory proposed by himself, that all chemical actions develop electric currents. Further, he determined the electric conductivity of sundry elements and compounds. But the discovery which constitutes his strongest claim to rank as a benefactor of mankind is, perhaps, that of the deposition of metal on the negative electrode, when the two poles of a battery are introduced into solutions of various metallic salts. This observation he made in 1834, and shortly after he discovered that by using feeble currents the metal could be deposited very evenly on the surface of the electrode, and that the two solutions required for the purpose could be kept from mingling by interposing between them an animal membrane without hindering the current. In 1840 De la Rive made practical application of this discovery for the purpose of gold-plating; thus the important art of electro-plasty had for its real author this indefatigable investigator. He continued to pursue his researches in electricity down to the day of his death, but there is not room here even for a bare list of his discoveries. Becquerel composed numerous treatises on physical science, chiefly, of course, on electricity and magnetism; among them may be named his Experimental Treatise on Electricity," etc. (7 vols.); "Elements of Electro-Chemistry," "Terrestrial Physics and Meteorology," "History of Electricity and Magnetism," and many others. He was for fifty years a member of the Paris Academy of Sciences; was a corresponding member of the London Royal Society, and honored with the Copley medal. He leaves a son who inherits his father's eminent gifts.

BEECHER, CATHERINE ESTHER, died May 12, 1878, at Elmira, N. Y., where she had been living with her brother, the Rev. Thomas K. Beecher. She was born at East Hampton, L. I., September 6, 1800, and was the eldest child of the Rev. Lyman Beecher. The death of her mother, when Catherine was about sixteen years of age, brought upon the latter domestic responsibilities which lasted until her father's second marriage, about two years later. Soon afterward she was betrothed to Professor Fisher of Yale College, whose death by shipwreck off the coast of Ireland while on a voyage to Europe so affected her that she remained unmarried throughout life. Her brother, Henry Ward Beecher, says that this sad event nearly destroyed her religious faith. In 1822 she went to Hartford, Conn., and opened a school for young ladies, which was continued with marked success under her supervision for ten years. During this time she also prepared, primarily for use in her own school, some elementary books in arithmetic and mental and moral philosophy. Her sister, Harriet Beecher Stowe, was her assistant in the Hartford school. In 1832 Catherine went to Cincinnati with her father, who had accepted the presidency of Lane Theological Seminary, and in that city