To the Standing Committee on Colleges, Overtures Nos. 186 and 187.

To the Standing Committee on Education, Overtures Nos. 267 and 268.

To the Evangelistic Committee, Overtures Nos. 240 to 244, 304 and 351.

To the Standing Committee on Finance, Overtures Nos. 270, 274 and 275.

To the Standing Committee on Freedmen, Overtures Nos. 188 to 191, 346 and 347.

To the Standing Committee on Home Missions, Overtures Nos. 226, 269 and 271, 356 and 358.

To the Standing Committee on Ministerial Relief, Overtures Nos. 254 to 256, 364 and 379.

To the Standing Committee on Polity, Overtures Nos. 276 to 278, 280 to 295, 296 to 302, 343, 357, 362, 363, 369 and 375. To the Standing Committee on Publication and Sunday School Work, Overtures Nos. 257 to 266, 305, 308, 354, 355 and 370.

To the Special Committee on Christian Life and Work, Overtures Nos. 245 to 250 and 352.

To the Special Committee on Church Coöperation and Union, Overtures Nos. 303 and 361.

The Reports of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, the Executive Commission of the World's Presbyterian Alliance, and the Council of the Reformed Churches in America, were referred to the Committee on Bills and Overtures. Requests in said Reports for appropriations of money were referred to the Finance Committee.

All Overtures not referred to other Committees were ordered referred to the Committee on Bills and Overtures.

The Special Committee on Sabbath Observance, through its Chairman, Mr. James Yereance, presented its Report, which was accepted and, after addresses by Rev. M. D. Kneeland, D.D., Rev. B. L. Hobson, D.D., Rev. S. M. Templeton, D.D., and Hon. John W. Foster, was adopted. The Report is as follows:

"In every country where it is honored, the Sabbath is a palladium of liberty and the ark of religion. A nation trained through its devout observance to the knowledge and practice of piety will neither aspire to be tyrants nor submit to be slaves."Dr. Guthrie.

As we keep or break the Sabbath Day, we nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope by which man rises."-Abraham Lincoln.

Your Committee has during the past year continued to give its hearty coöperation to the Lord's Day Alliance of the United States (of which the Chairman of this Committee is the President), and to the Woman's National Sabbath Alliance, both national organizations, as also to the various State and District Sabbath Associations auxiliary to and affiliated or coöperating therewith. We continue to believe most emphatically that these organizations, in many of which are represented the various Protestant denominations, Roman Catholic and labor organizations, can accomplish far more in securing the proper enforcement of existing Sabbath laws, in defeating the passage of the annual crop of anti-Sabbath bills in the Legislatures of the various States to break down the Sabbath, and in educating the people of the country in their God-given right of the Sabbath for rest and worship, than could possibly be effected by an organization of this Assembly in the same field for the same object, with the attending expense of its denominational agency.

From a world-wide vision of the Sabbath cause, we record with gratitude the following:

VICTORIES DURING THE YEAR.

Closing of Post-offices on Sunday. Further progress has been made in this direction, until now 90 per cent. of the post-offices of the country are closed on the Lord's Day. The postal authorities at Washington, when first the movement was urged, feared the result would increase the deficit of the postal service for the previous year, which was over $17,500,000. They have been agreeably surprised that, at the end of one year, since the order for Sunday closing, the surplus was over $300,000-a net gain of over $18,000,000. Thus has God prospered the nation in this department in honoring His law.

In San Francisco, formerly, as many as 20,000, mostly strangers, called for their mail on Sunday; now not more than twenty people call.

Postal employés have recognized that with the boon of a Sabbath rest, there devolved an obligation to spend the day in worship as well as rest. Pastors throughout the country have welcomed them and their families to the services, and received many into the membership of their churches.

Does this experience not prove that the most effectual way to reach the unsaved and unchurched masses, as we speak of them, is for the Church to address itself to the task of changing conditions that bind 3,000,000 and more of the

toilers of the nation to a slavery as blighting in its mental, physical and spiritual effect as was ever African slavery?

Lord's Day Week. The week commencing the second Sabbath of April has this year been more generally observed throughout the world than ever before. Last year, 20,000 sermons enforcing the claims of the Sabbath were preached in England alone; this year we believe there have been an increased number there.

LEGISLATION.-New England. No less than thirty-six bills relating to the Lord's Day were before the legislatures of the New England States, mostly for business or sports on that day. But two bills were passed-one mildly unfavorable to the cause, by permitting the sale of Kosher meat on Sunday morning, and affecting only the Jewish people who dwell in certain sections. The other, favorable, was passed in Connecticut, and provides that "every person or corporation who shall require or permit an employé to do any secular business or labor for more than six days, of ten hours each, in any one week, shall be fined not more than $50."

New York. None of the anti-Sabbath bills before the New York Legislature this year has become a law. A bill limiting the hours of work to fifty-four hours in each week has been passed.

California. The prospects of securing a Sunday law for California are promising. Nearly all classes of business seem to favor such a law. Labor organizations stand willing to coöperate, and all classes of what we call "laboring" men are anxious for one day's rest in seven. A mining operator having large interests in California and Oregon has advocated and urged upon other operators the necessity of Sunday rest for all miners, stating that he believed that thereby their productive value would be so increased that the miners could receive 25 per cent. advance in their wages, and the operators would still derive larger profits than under the present system, which requires seven days a week service.

North Dakota has enacted a law prohibiting any theatre, picture or other show or performance on Sunday.

Utah, in its new excise law, "provides that all licensed places must be closed on Sunday.'

Sports, etc.-The United States Government has closed its reserves, on Sundays, to competing clubs, and forbids the presence of citizens, except by special permission.

There has been a marked reduction in Sunday baseball in Rhode Island and elsewhere throughout the country. Certain professionals now refuse to play ball on Sundays.

Some six years ago, the golf clubs of Chicago decided to discontinue Sunday golf, their object being the preservation

of the "green." However, within a year, pressure for Sunday play became so great, the practice was resumed. Once again the pendulum has swung back, and the majority of the clubs in that city have come definitely to the conclusion that the "green" does require a day of rest, and have determined that there shall be no Sunday golf for the future. We are reminded of the sturdy Scotchman who was defending the Sabbath against the intrusion of this pastime. His opponent in argument said that he did not require a day of rest. The The Scotchman's reply was, "If you dinna, the green does."

China. The late Imperial Government issued an edict which decreed that Sunday should thereafter be observed as a day of rest in the Chinese Court, and that no business, unless urgent, should be transacted by the Government Boards on that day. With the passing of the Empire, and with the new Republic in the hands of young Chinamen, many of whom are Christians, whose minds have been moulded by the faithful missionaries and cultured in our own universities, can we dream of anything stranger, a Chinese Republic with a Christian Sabbath!

While there is much cause for thankfulness, there is need of prayerful consideration as we briefly present a

SURVEY OF GENERAL CONDITIONS.

Industrial. While one day in seven is being more generally given for rest among the employés of many industrial concerns, our attention was directed a short time ago to the fact that one of the largest and wealthiest concerns in the country required thousands of their employés in certain departments to work seven days a week, twelve hours and more a day, with no holidays, and, if they lived through a year, a two weeks' vacation was given. The Chairman took up the matter with the heaviest capitalist interested-a Christian and very benevolent gentleman-to secure the remedy of these conditions. The result has been extended correspondence, but the conditions are not yet changed, and the employés, discouraged and well-nigh hopeless, still cry, "How long, O Lord, how long?"

Panama Exposition.-This Exposition will open in San Francisco, in 1915. Efforts have been made to close the gates on the Sabbath. The United States Government will close its Exhibition building, but has no control over the Exposition or its gates, since no financial aid has been sought from or is to be given by the Government: otherwise, following the precedents of former expositions, the Government would doubtless make the closing of the gates on Sunday a condition

precedent to the grant. The present prospects for success in closing the gates on Sunday, are not as promising as we could wish. This is largely due to the fact that the ministry and Christian people on the Coast are only partially aroused. In the southern part of California the sentiment is strongly in favor of this. We urge all Commissioners from the Coast to use their weighty influence to secure the closing of the gates of the Panama Exposition on the Lord's Day.

Washington, D. C.-In the capital of the nation there is continued and increasing laxity in Sabbath observance, owing to the difficulty of securing legislation. The District of Columbia has no Sunday law, and all efforts to secure one have thus far been unavailing. Stores are open in many parts of the city; theatres, concerts, five- and ten-cent shows abound as on other days; building operations and real estate business are conducted as on other days. Many of the United States Government offices are open, and many of the clerks feel the pressure that compels them to be there; but we make special mention and commendation of the United States Post-office Department, which has not only so greatly aided in the Sunday closing of post-offices throughout the country, but has in its Department offices in Washington largely reduced Sunday work. Social functions on the Sabbath have very much multiplied, and their publicity and patronage by prominent officials and social leaders are tending very seriously to debauch the public conscience upon the whole subject. The Sabbath of the National Capital has reflex influence upon the whole country.

Salt Lake City.-Rev. Dr. Grannis, the efficient General Secretary of the Lord's Day Alliance of the United States, when in that city a couple of months ago, spoke on "The Sabbath as the Family Day," to an audience of 5,000, in the Mormon Tabernacle, at their regular Sunday afternoon. meeting. He urged the importance of maintaining the purity and integrity of the family circle as the only hope of the nation. The address occupied forty minutes and was given the closest attention.

Light-house Inspection.-While the claim is made that the inspectors of light-houses along our coast are not expected nor obliged to work on the Lord's Day, it has recently come to light that a faithful inspector who has been long in the service and has a splendid record was removed because he objected to Sunday work, and a friend of a party in power was put in his place. The attitude of the Government service should be so clear and positive on the question, that no man need be in danger of losing his position because of his loyalty to the Sabbath. Government engineers and