BEFORMED CHURCHES. 788 REFRACTION. VIMSM.) They also reject certain ceremonies which the Lutherans have seen fit to retain. The Chureli of Scotland, the Protestant Church of France, that of the Netherlands, some German churches, and the Protestant churches of Hun- gary, Bohemia, and Poland belong to the Re- formed churches. ]Iost of the Protestant cluirches in the United States have sprung from Keformed churches in Europe. See Eefoema- TION; Pre.sbvteri.m.sii. REFORMED EPISCOPAL CHURCH, The. A religious body which was originated for such members of the Protestant Episcopal Church as ■were opposed to the growth of sacramentarianism and sacerdotalism in that communion, and for any others who. like-minded with them, de- sire to be associated with a Church evangelical in its teachings, liturgical in its worship, and episcopal in its government. It was organized in New York City, December 2, 1873, with eight clerg;('men and twenty laymen, all of whom had been or were at the time ministers and laymen in the Protestant Episcopal Church identified with the 'evaneglical' or 'Low Church' party. One of them, George David Cummins, had been Assistant Bishop of the Diocese of Kentucky until November 10, 1873, when by letter to the presiding Bishop he resigned his office and withdrew from the de- nomination. He became the Bishop of the new organization; the Rev. Charles Edward Cheney of Chicago was also elected bishop, and con- secrated on a subsequent day. The following statement, condensed from the declaration of principles adopted at the organization, explains in the briefest form possible the doctrines lield : I. The Reformed Episcopal Church declares its belief in the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the word of God and the sole rule of faith and practice ; in the Apostles' Creed ; in the divine institution of the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper ; and in the doc- trines of grace substantially as they are set forth in the 39 articles of religion. IL It recog- nizes and adheres to episcopacj', not as of divine right, but as a very ancient and desirable form of Church polity. III. Retaining a liturgy, not imperative or repressive of freedom in prayer, it accepts the Book of Common Prayer as it was revised, proposed, and recommended for use by the General Convention of the Protestant Episco- pal Church (1785) ; reserving the right to make alterations in it. provided th,T,t the substance of faith be kept entire. IV. It condemns and re- jects the following doctrines as contrary to the word of Ciod: (IjThat the Church of Christ ex- ists only in one form of ecclesiastical polity. (2) Tliat Christian ministers are 'priests' in another sense than that in which all believers 'are a royal priesthood.' (3) That the Lord's table is an altar on which an oblation of the body and blood of Christ is offered anew to the Father. (4) That the presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper is a presence in the elements of bread and wine. (5) That regeneration is inseparably connected with baptism. At the sixteenth Genera] Council, Baltimore, 1900, there were reported as belonging to the denomination in the United States and Canada: 7 bishops, 81 presbyters. 13 deacons 04 parishes, 10 002 commimicants. of whom 428 were added by confirmation, and 191 were otherwise received during the past three years, 876 Sunday school teachers, and 10,106 scholars; total offerings of three j'ears preceding, $172,418; value of church and parish buildings and rectories, $1,609,930. The Reformed Episcopal Church in England at the same date had 1 bishop, 24 presbyters, 1 deacon, and 3 lay readers, 21 parishes, with 1500 communicants, 2580 Sunday school scholars, and 236 teachers. The denomination is strongest in Philadelphia and Cbicago, and has 11 parishes in Canada and British Columbia. It has a well- equipped theological seminary in Philadelphia, with a faculty of 5 professors, and a prepara- tory department; maintains 2 denominational papers, and supports a Woman's Foreign Mis- sionary Society, with two effective stations in India. The trustees of its sustentation fund hold endowments of over $125,000. REFORMED MENNONITES, The. See 1Ien?;okites. REFORMED PRESBYTERIANS. See C'.^MEKONi.xs ; Presbyteriakism. REFRACTION (ML. ref radio, breaking up, refraction, from Lat. refrinycre, to break up, from re-, back again, anew + frangere, to break) . A phenomenon, like reflection, common to all kinds of wave-motion. If there are two media separated by a bounding surface in which the trains of waves of the particular kind travel with different velocity, a train of waves in one medium will, on reaching the bounding surface, produce similar waves in the other medium; these are called refracted waves, because in gen- eral each ray of the incident waves has its direc- tion changed or broken at the surface. (See Light.) Snell's laws for refraction are that the angles Oj and Oj made by the incident and refracted rays with a perpendicular to the re- fracting surface at the point of incidence are sina, connected by the relation : -; =n, a. constant •' 8ma2 ' for the two media if the waves have a constant wave-number, and that the two rays and the perpendicular to the surface are in one plane. It is easily seen that the index of refraction is the ratio of the velocities of the waves in the two media, V, and V~; viz., -. := tj-- Therefore this ratio, which is called the 'index of refraction,' is different for different media ; and for any one case it varies with the wave -number if there is dispersion (q.v.). Refraction is illus- trated in aerial Avaves by the effect on them of heated columns of air; and in the case of ether- waves by the action of prisms, etc. Certain crj'stals and strained isotropic bodies exhibit 'double refraction.' that is, if a ray of light falls upon them there are tw'o refracted rays. See Ln.iiT. REFRACTION, A.stronomical. The effect of refraction in the appearance of the heavenly bodies is to make them annear higher in the sky. Thus refraction increases the altitude, but it does not alter the azimuth. In the figure S is the true position of the star, and S' the apparent. The refraction is greatest at the horizon, where it is about 37'. This is evident since the angle of incidence is here the greatest. From the hori- zon to the zenith the refraction constantly de- creases, very rapidly near the horizon and more slowly at greater eievation.s. It varies approxi-
