toward infidelity, and the general tone was that of indifference to religion. A small native society was gathered, and a larger number of English-speaking residents. A church has been built and a school enterprised. Piracicaba has also been selected as a center of operations for preaching and for religious education.

The improved condition of the Church and country in 1870, and the wants of both, called for the office of General Sundayschool Secretary, to whom was committed the superintendence of the entire department of Sunday-school literature.* This department of publications soon became the most popular, and lucrative to the Publishing House. In 1882 a Church Extension Society was organized, whose aid was timely for the openings in the great South-west.†

One of the first things attempted in the new era, and the last achieved by the Church, South, was the restoration of its literary institutions. Some were never reöpened. Here money was inexorably required-zeal, industry, patriotism, and patience, could not attain unto it. The higher education costs more than the average student can pay; it must rest on endowment. Six or seven Conferences, covering a wide reach of territory and population, undertook, in 1872, to found a university such as would meet the wants of the Church and the country. A convention, composed of delegates from Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas, adopted a plan for such an institution, and it was determined to take no steps toward selecting a site, or opening any department of the institution, until the sum of $500,000 should be obtained in valid subscriptions. Of institutions of lower grade than that contemplated it was believed there was already a supply. The effort to raise funds demonstrated the impossibility of the enterprise. In the judgment of its best friends the scheme was considered a failure, when Cornelius Vanderbilt, a citizen of New York, made a donation of $500,000, which he afterward in

* A. G. Haygood, D.D., was elected to this position, which he filled until December, 1875, when he resigned, and was succeeded by W. G. E. Cunnyngham, D.D. †D. Morton, D.D., Secretary, has made an excellent showing for the first year's operations of this new arm of the service, domiciled at Louisville.

Trinity College, North Carolina, and the South-western University, Georgetown, Texas, with a strong combination of patronizing Conferences, belong to the The first succeeded Normal, the second superseded Soule College.

new era.

Munificent Gifts for Education.

677

creased to $1,000,000; and subsequently his son, William H. Vanderbilt, made a donation of $250,000, to provide a further outfit, and to increase the permanent endowment to $700,000. In West Nashville the senior Superintendent, Bishop Paine, on his way to the General Conference of 1874, attended by numerous delegates, laid the corner-stone; and with full faculties, a university of six departments, including theology, was formally opened in October, 1875. The Founder concluded his final communication to the President of the Board of Trust, expressing approval of the organization of the university, with these words: "And if it shall, through its influence contribute, even in the smallest degree, to strengthen the ties which should exist between all geographical sections of our common country, I shall feel that it has accomplished one of the objects that led me to take an interest in it."* Several years later George I. Seney, of New York, by a donation of $260,000 to Emory College and Wesleyan Female College,† Georgia, greatly enlarged, beautified, and strengthened those institutions. Education prospered greatly in the other branch of Episcopal Methodism, and they often had occasion, both on account of the inroads of death and because their work was enlarging, to bring forward new men and strong, to posts of responsibility.

The General Conference, with gratitude for the signs of prosperity on every side, met in Nashville, 1882. The Head of the Church had blessed their labors, more than restored all their losses, and given them peace. Alpheus Wilson, Linus Parker, Atticus G. Haygood,§ John C. Granbery, and Robert K. Hargrove, were elected bishops. The ordination sermon was preached by Bishop Kavanaugh, who, in less than two years, received the

"Commodore" Vanderbilt was not a member of the Church, but his mother was a Moravian, of Staten Island, whose memory he revered; and his wife (by second marriage) a Methodist, of Mobile. Consulting with one of the Southern Bishops, through whom he made his donation, he said-referring to the Lennox Library, then going up: "It is the style, when a man builds a college or library, to put it down here, where there are plenty. I will put this where it is needed."

†This institution is believed to be the oldest in the United States, perhaps in the world, established upon the plan of a regular college, with authority to confer degrees upon women. Mr. Seney, its benefactor, is a Methodist, and the son of an itinerant of the old panel.

In 1880 H. W. Warren, C. D. Foes, J. F. Hurst, and E. O. Haven, were elect ed bishops. In 1884, Drs. Ninde, Walden, Fowler, and Mallalieu. Declined.

summons to enter the joy of his Lord, while in the pulpit, in his eighty-second year. Bishop Paine conducted his last public service in laying hands upon his younger brethren, and committing to them a charge which he, for thirty-six years, had fulfilled with spotless fidelity and the most eminent ability.

Since 1878 a new power has entered the field; it was then recognized the Woman's Missionary Society. Moved by the reports of the success of women as Bible-readers in heathen lands, and as helpers in domestic missions, the godly women of Southern Methodism, upon the first opportunity, undertook this errand of mercy in various cities, beginning at Baltimore; and at Atlanta they were ready for combination and coöperation. Efficiently have they planned and acted, so that both impulse and breadth have been given to operations in China, in Brazil, and on the Mexican Border. Working in agreement with the Board of Missions, they yet keep up a separate management, which is stimulating the spirit and enlarging the field of missions.

Bishop Marvin (1876-7) visited China, strengthened the hands of the missionaries, and bore a testimony concerning the field that caused a quickened interest throughout the Church, and a steady increase of its forces. He ordained native preachers, and returned after a year's absence; but he was not permitted to make his report to the ensuing General Conference. Before his lamented death, however, he had published an account of his tour, which still speaks to the churches.

The busy laborers disappear from the scene. "God buries his workmen, but carries on his work." Capers, the Chrysostom of Methodism, has long since fallen on sleep; and Soule and Andrew and Early-whose sixty years of labor in his native Virginia associated him closely with all its material and spiritual development. The Church has mourned more recently for the eloquent and useful Wightman and Doggett. Lovick Pierce, in his ninety-fifth year, died; but so pervasive was the influence of that pure and powerful life, he seems yet to live. And the late death of his son, the senior Bishop of the Church, was the great loss and sorrow of American Methodism.

CHAPTER XLVII.

The Era of Fraternity: Correspondence Anent it-Deputations-DelegatesJoint Commission at Cape May-Status and Basis Definitely Declared-Property Claims Adjusted-Ecumenical Conference-City Road Chapel--London Methodists-Centenary Celebration at Baltimore-From 1784 to 1884.

TH

HE last letter John Wesley wrote to America was to Ezekiel Cooper, and contained these words: "Lose no opportunity of declaring to all men that the Methodists are one people in all the world, and that it is their full determination so to continue."

The grand depositum of Wesleyan doctrine is common to them all, under whatever name or in whatever region they proclaim it; the same enemies oppose, and the same standards are appealed to; the same historical names and facts are cherished by them all. Whatever differences may exist between the various branches of this ecclesiastical family, they are nearer to each other than they can be to other people. "I am a Methodist" awakes strong sympathies and affinities, and is associated with a fellowship, doctrines, experience, usages, means of grace, peculiar to this form of Christianity, and dear to every one who has enjoyed them. Notwithstanding occasional personal offenses against the unity of the Spirit, and improper associate acts and utterances, many waters cannot quench the love of the Spirit.

Efforts at formal fraternal relations were broken off at the reactionary General Conference of 1848. There the messenger of peace from the South, being rejected, left the proposition:

You will therefore regard this communication as final on the part of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. She can never renew the offer of fraternal relations between the two great bodies of Wesleyan Methodists in the United States. But the proposition can be renewed at any time, either now or hereafter, by the Methodist Episcopal Church; and if ever made upon the basis of the Plan of Separation, as adopted by the General Conference of 1844, the Church, South, will cordially entertain the propo ition.

And there it rested for over twenty years. In May, 1869, the Southern Bishops, at their annual meeting in St. Louis, were waited upon by a deputation, consisting of Bishops Janes and Simpson, conveying a communication. These distinguished brethren brought, officially, a letter of recent date from their

colleagues, saying: "It seems to us that as the division of those Churches of our country which are of like faith and order has been productive of evil, so the reunion of them would be productive of good. As the main cause of the separation has been removed, so has the chief obstacle to the restoration. . We are aware that there are difficulties in the way, growing out of the controversies of the past and the tempers of the present. We have, therefore, deputed our colleagues to confer with you, alike as to the propriety, practicability, and methods of reunion." They also reported their declaration made and published in Erie, Pa., June, 1865: "That the great cause which led to the separation from us of both the Wesleyan Methodists of this country and of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, has passed away, and we trust the day is not far distant when there shall be but one organization, which shall embrace the whole Methodist family in the United States." This declaration, they added, was referred to in the Quadrennial Address to their late General Conference, "and no exception was taken to it by that body."

The interview was a pleasant one, but brief, and the deputation as suddenly left the city as it came. The College of Bishops had now an offer of reunion on their hands, and no questions or explanations with the other party possible. To indicate a prompt refusal, or that the proposition was under consideration, would be alike hurtful-the public mind was so ready for misconception on that subject. They replied at sufficient length to be understood. A generation had grown up ignorant of the question at issue; and here was an opportunity to get a good hearing of the matter, both in the Northern and Southern papers. They therefore courteously reminded the brethren that fraternal feelings and relations must, in the nature of the case, be established before any question of reunion can be entertained. "Heart divisions must be cured before corporate division can be healed;" and referring to the well-known failure of their delegate:

You could not expect us to say less than this-that the words of our rejected delegate have been ever since, and still are, our words. It may help to the more speedy and certain attainment of the ends we both desire, to keep distinctly in mind our mutual positions, and to hold the facts involved in our common history in a clear light. You say "that the great cause which led to the separation from us of both the Wesleyan Methodists of this country and of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, has passed away." If we understand your reference, we so far differ from you in this opinion that it may help any negotiations hereafter taking