atmosphere. Satisfied that it would be at the risk of his own life to visit Norfolk, he sought to have them removed, but failing even to hear from them, he determined to go to Hampton, and seek measures there for their safety. On his way down the river he heard of the death of his mother, through a letter from Mrs. Wills, wife of Rev. D. P. Wills, who had prepared her for the burying, written to her family; and the first person he met in Hampton informed him of the death of his father. The destroyer had completed his work. Well would it be with all if they had had the same preparation of heart and life. Full of faith as well as ripe in years, Sister Bryant was first called away, and died happy in God. Brother Bryant, when struck down, exhibited the same patient and unmurmuring spirit that so constantly marked his course in life, and died without a struggle or an expression of regret. Thus, our brother, scarcely risen from the stunning blow that had fallen so lately in the loss of his precious son*, finds himself the only survivor of a family in which all hearts beat together as moved by a common pulsation. It is gratifying to know that, where so many were suffering, they had every attention needed for their comfort while sick, and that in the absence of their own sick pastor, the Rev. D. P. Wills, the Rev. Mr. Walke, of the Episcopal Church, attended to their funeral rites. "A thousand ways has Providence to bring believers home." May this new visitation of sorrow be sanctified to our suffering brother; and according to his day, so may grace, mercy, and peace, from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ abound unto him.-Richmond Advocate, Sept. 20.

[From the S. C. Advocate, October 18.]

THE REV. W. H. MILBURN.

There has lately been a grand gathering of publishers and authors at the Crys. tal Palace in New-York-a great literary festival. There were several speakers, and among them Mr. Milburn, of whose speech the Daily Times says: "The Clergy' was responded to by Rev. W. H. Milburn, the blind preacher. Mr. Milburn made a very elegant little speech, in the course of which he referred in touching terms to his affliction. He said, that in the economy of the Church to which he was attached, it is incumbent upon the ministers, not only to preach the word, but to circulate good books. Mr. Milburn is in the twelfth year of his ministry: in this space of time he has travelled more than two hundred thousand miles in the performance of ministerial duties. The training of the Western preacher commences in the saddle. Mounted upon a noble steed, the best he can procure-with limbs encased in leggings, and head surmounted by a straw hat, the young itinerant rides on from place to place, as duty calls. Dismounting at the door of the first convenient log-cabin, nicely adjusting upon his arm his saddle-bags, crammed with books-a rush-bottomed chair for a pulpit-he labors with the few who are drawn together by his ministry. Then his books are distributed. The Methodists, from the very first, therefore, have been the book publishers of the West. [Applause.] Hence, their relation to the trade' is more intimate than might be supposed. They are a kind of two-edged sword that cuts both ways. But their pay is small. They rejoice with exceeding great joy, if they succeed in obtaining one half of their average allowance of $100. After humorous allusions to his own experience, Mr. Milburn rebuked himself for the attempt to say any thing at a literary festival-a man who could not read! Time was, when he was able to read; now he could not. Not that he had ever possessed the power of transferring ideas by the line, by the word, by the sentence, from the page to the mind. That privilege had been denied him. His reading had been but the child's perpetual spelling. He was only spelling-never reading. With shaded brow, with hand on cheek, with finger on eye, with veined sweat rolling down the face, with scorching tears starting from tortured eyes—these had been his infirmities. But in the midst of all, he had found Learning its own exceeding great reward. He had struggled thus for twenty years. In that space of time he had learned the riches of his mother tongue from the pages of Shakspeare's dictionary; had studied eloquence from the pages of Milton; had reaped knowledge from the light-giving mind of Homer; and, like solitary Bartimeus, had delighted to hear the words, if

*Alluding to Edwin Bryant, a lovely boy, studious and pious, who was drowned in Dan River, in July, and not recovered until some days after his decease.

he could not see the face of the Son of Man. He magnified the position and office of the seller of a book. It was said of Wolfe, as he floated upon the St. Lawrence the evening before he met his death upon the plains of Abraham, that he said of Gray's Elegy:' 'I would rather have the reputation of being the author of that work than to be the conqueror of Quebec:' and so, to paraphrase the sentiment, Mr. Milburn would rather have been the author of the Sketch-Book (turning to Mr. Irving, amidst great applause) than to have achieved any other work; or to have been known as the author of that noble ode, commencing,

"The groves were God's first temple,'

(turning to Mr. Bryant,) than to have the highest earthly honor. Had these been his, gladly would he have worn this badge of pain, (drawing a shade over his eyes,) and have worn it as a crown of triumph."

THE REV. Bishop Andrew presided at the Pacific Conference, and wrote a series of letters which sets forth his view of the position and wants of our Church, in the great and growing country on the Pacific. They will be interesting to the general reader and valuable for future history. They are given entire, as they appeared in the New-Orleans Advocate.

THE CONFERENCE-STATE OF THE CHURCH-COMPARATIVE-WHAT HAS BEEN DONEIS THERE NEED OF THE METHODIST CHURCH, SOUTH, IN CALIFORNIA?-CASE EXAMINED DECIDED-HEALTH-RETURN.

MARIPOSA, CAL., May 28, 1855.

DEAR BROTHER: I believe, when we parted, you requested me to write you at soon as I had a chance to look around at the state of things in this country. Since the adjournment of the Conference, I have been travelling so incessantly as to allow but little time for correspondence, and even now you must accept a brief and hurried epistle.

To the main subject, then, namely, the prospects and necessity of the Southern organization in this country. The session of our Conference was a precious season, specially to the preachers. From the commencement to the close, the presence of God was realized, and the preachers left for their different fields of labor full of confidence and hope as to the future. Some seven or eight preachers were admitted into the Conference; six were received by transfer; three had returned to the Atlantic States during the year, and they had lost a probationer by death, giving to the Conference a net gain of some nine or ten preachers.

The membership amounts to some nine hundred and forty-an increase of about two hundred during the last year. The missionary collections of the year amounted to some eight or nine hundred dollars. Now, take these facts in connection with this, that during the past year nearly one third of their work had no preachers on it, and that through the whole year there was but one presiding elder in the Conference; that the grumblings and muttering of those boding prophets of evil in the Atlantic States, who seemed determined to kill off the Southern Church here, right or wrong, had been wafted to these shores and seized on by those who were

inimical to us, to discourage our brethren by giving it out in private and in public that we intended to abandon California, thus blocking up our way and rendering many people who were with us in sentiment and policy dubious about the perpetuity of our Church, and preventing them from uniting with us in church-fellowship: I say, when all these things are considered, it strikes me the wonder is, not that we have succeeded no better, but that we have lived at all. And small as the exhibit is, I believe that in several respects it is about as good a showing as that which has been made by some of the Atlantic Conferences for whom preachers and editors claim considerable regard.

But is the Southern organization necessary, and may not the Southern people who are in California be gathered and cared for by the preachers of the Methodist Church, North? To this I reply, there are thousands and tens of thousands of Southern people in this country. In some places the majority of the population is Southern in its character and affinities; and in almost every place they constitute a very respectable portion of the community. To this class of the population our Northern brethren can have but a very limited access. Some from the Southern and South-western States have, in many places, united with them, because there was no Southern Church in reach; but these are comparatively few in number. The great body of the people referred to, will never unite in church-fellowship with a church, whose abolition tendencies are so strongly marked; whose pulpits so often give utterance to this anti-Nebraska Gospel; whose press teems with articles denunciative of slaveholders, and which numbers Uncle Tom's Cabin amongst those publications suitable for circulation as a Sunday-school book.

Men who would fear to cross salt-water to reach this country may gravely sit down and decide that Southern Methodists who are here ought to identify themselves with the Church, North, and may talk as prettily as they choose about the onenesss of Methodism everywhere; yet a large proportion of the Southern people who are here will never support the institutions of that Church; nor would the very men who thus write, do any better if they were here.

An abolition lecture on the Sabbath, and in the house of God, would be just as acceptable to a Methodist in Mississippi or Alabama as it is to a Southern Methodist in California; and the hundreds and thousands of worldly men here with Southern affinities will never be reached by the preachers of the Church, North. The Southern Church must supply these people with the word of God or they must perish. We can reach them; we can have access to them; and by the aid of the Holy Ghost we can save many of them. Shall we abandon the effort? For one, I answer, No, never! But let us rather with quadrupled energy and zeal apply ourselves to the work of evangelizing the thousands who dwell on these lovely plains and valleys, and who delve for gold in these mountain gulches.

But I hear a brother, whose eye looks with economic vigilance on the dimes, exclaim: "We have spent thousands upon California, and after all this outlay of money and men, what have we to show? Only a few hundred souls: this is bad economy: it won't do; let us call home our men, and let the money be applied nearer home."

Let us examine this matter a little more closely. Upon the principle urged by this objector, all the churches should call home their men from the Pacific coastfor I hazard nothing, when I give it as my deliberate opinion, that, all things considered, the Southern Church stands numerically as well as any other church in the State. Let us see: the Northern Methodists were here before us; they have been comparatively well supplied with preachers, numbering, as they do, about sixty travelling and forty local preachers, and yet they number only about two thousand members, and they have probably the largest number of communicants in the State, except the Roman Catholics. Now, if the smallness of numbers renders it necessary that we call off our forces, the very same reason would require that every other Protestant Church should do the same: and then what? Why, this fair land would be abandoned to the Pope and the devil.

The fact is, this way of deciding upon the continued occupancy of our missionary field, by comparing the dollars expended with the souls converted, is rather a doubtful process, unless there could be a standard established, by which it could be fairly settled how many souls a thousand dollars should convert. If this were settled, we might know how to act. Perhaps it might be well to call a convention for the settlement of this momentous principle.

But I must leave this subject now. I may possibly address myself to it more at length hereafter. I may just add, that hitherto God hath sustained me.

I am

eating no idle bread here. Yet my health is good, and I enjoy almost uninterrupted communion with God. This is a lovely country, and I wish I could ramble over it for six months longer, but important obligations call me home. I expect to sail in the steamer of the 16th June. Shall probably go the Nicaragua route. Yours affectionately, JAMES O. ANDREW.

No. II. THERE IS ROOM ENOUGH AND WORK ENOUGH FOR US ALL IN CALIFORNIA. In a former number I urged the claims of the California work, on the ground that there was a large class of the population in California to whom the great body of the preachers of the Church, North, can have but little access, for reasons there stated. I purpose now to sustain our missions there on the broad ground that the necessities of California require it. Those who suppose that the ground is all occupied, even when all the churches have brought their available forces into the field, are very greatly mistaken. The mining towns of California are scattered in all directions over the mining localities; for wherever gold is discovered in any promising quantity, thither the miners flock from all directions, and a village springs up as if by magic, and as long as the diggings prove good and water can be procured, the town remains, and embraces, perhaps, several hundred inhabitants; and in many instances, when the bed proves a rich one, and promises permanence, the towns assume the air of permanently-established cities, respectable buildings go up, and the inhabitants increase to a few thousands. These little towns are scattered all over the mining districts, and the well-being of the country, morally, spiritually, and civilly, requires that the Gospel be regularly, faithfully, and perseveringly preached in all of them. The object can not be attained by an occasional or casual visit; the Church must be established, and her institutions must have an abiding home amongst the people in their several localities, or but little good can be effected. The house of God must be there before their eyes; its doors must be opened, and the faithful warnings of the man of God heard from its pulpit on every Sabbath-day. The minister of God must be among them, that he may visit them in their cabins, preaching Christ to them in private; he must be accessible to them, that they may know where to find him when sickness or death invades their circle, and that he may take advantage of every opening for good.

The mining population of California has been, and still is, to a great extent, peculiarly circumstanced. Many of them are men of early advantages and considerable mental cultivation, and in other days were accustomed to highly-cultivated associations; but the prospect of retrieving ruined fortunes, in some instances, or in others of acquiring a large wealth in a short time, has called them from all the influences of home associations. To this distant land they came, dreaming of the easy acquisition of immense wealth, and have been disappointed. The golden vision which deluded them has vanished, and they have been painfully awakened to the conviction that stern, unfailing, and toilsome labor is the price at which even bread was to be obtained. The associations into which they have been thrown are utterly adverse to social refinement or enjoyment; the voice of maternal love, which had so often checked their youthful aberrations, and the sweet influences of sisterly love were far away; the influences of refined and virtuous female piety were not at hand. Under all these circumstances they too generally yielded to the seductive influences of vicious associations. The drinking-saloon and gaming-table, with all those accursed influences which invariably cluster about them, have done their work; and, oh! what a fearful ruin has resulted! The Sabbath has been desecrated, and there was no house of God and no faithful and loved minister of the Gospel to rebuke their wanderings and woo them back to the ways of virtue. For it is to be remembered that for many years, and even up to the present time, there are scores of places where the people have no Gospel ministrations among them, except, perhaps, an occasional visit from some preacher whose field of labor is so extensive as to forbid more than a monthly visit, and that, perhaps, at night, when comparatively few may be expected to attend.

But besides these mining localities, there are scores of neighborhoods in the agricultural portions of the State which are very rarely favored with the visits of the ministers of Christ. This is, in part, attributable to the fact, that the settlements are scattered over large tracts of country, separated considerable distances from each other, which demands of the preacher long and fatiguing rides to reach

neighborhoods where small congregations greet his arrival. This may discourage him, and lead him to abandon those sparsely-settled neighborhoods, as scarcely sufficient to compensate him for the toil and sacrifices which they cost him. And yet now is the time to establish churches in these places, which may serve as so many nuclei, around which may cluster the institutions of religion as the population shall increase.

It may be proper to remark, that the agricultural population is gradually increasing, and is destined to increase annually in proportion as the security of land titles becomes established. These lovely valleys must, beyond a peradventure, become thickly settled, and that with a population destined to be more permanent than any other in the State; and of this population a very large proportion ́is from Missouri, Arkansas, Texas, and Tennessee. Among these farmers we must build up churches and form circuits, which in a few years shall become respectable and self-supporting. I had several applications at the late Conference for preachers to establish such circuits, but the stock of preachers was exhausted, and these demands were of course not met. We did, indeed, arrange for the formation of several new circuits, and as far as heard from before I left California, the preachers were at their work, with encouraging prospects of success.

Very few persons east of the Isthmus have any proper conception of the extent of the State of California. At the last session of the Legislature, a committee was appointed to consider the propriety of dividing the State. The committee reported in favor of dividing the State into three States, to be called California, Colorado, and Shasta. This division will probably take place, and each of these States will be very respectable for size.

And now let me ask any serious Christian, in his sober senses and the exercise of a godly judgment, whether he deems the sixty travelling preachers of the Northern Church sufficient to cultivate this vast and constantly-extending field? If he answer yea, I give him up as an incorrigible sinner, on the principle that none are so blind as those who will not see!

I don't wish to tire your readers, and therefore close for the present, intending to continue the discussion of this subject, if you can afford me space in your paper, till I say all I have to say on the subject.

SUMMERFIELD, ALA., July 20, 1855.

Yours truly,

JAMES O. ANDREW.

No. III.-SOME OBJECTIONS TO THE CALIFORNIA WORK NOTICED.

I am not unapprised that many of our good brethren are opposed to the California work, and shall now proceed to notice some of the objections which I have heard alleged against the propriety of the Southern Church prosecuting her work in that country.

One argument mainly urged has been, that California being a free State, the Southern Church ought not to attempt to establish herself there. I have in a former number made some suggestions on this subject, but perhaps it deserves a more extended notice.

It it is the doctrine of the M. E. Church, South, that her ministers are only fit to preach the Gospel in slaveholding communities, and that her mission as a Church is entirely to them, then I have only to say, that I have wholly misunderstood the matter, and am wholly mistaken in my church relations; and if I am not wholly mistaken in my views, this opinion, if made the basis of our Church action, will exclude us from almost the whole missionary field now open to us.

What business have we in China? That is not slave territory; and besides, our Northern brethren and our Wesleyan brethren are there, and it is certainly among the possibilities that we may come in contact with them some time or other, and thus Methodist altar may be raised against Methodist altar, which seems to be the thing so greatly dreaded by some good souls among us. Where, then, shall we look? Our Missionary Board, at its last meeting, recommended the attempt to establish missions in Central and South-America; but these are all free from slavery at least, such I believe is the fact. The Board are wrong altogether in their recommendation; it is useless to take any steps in that direction; all this territory is tabooed, so far as the Church, South, is concerned.

It seems we are shut up on this principle, to the slaveholding States of this Republic. We have not even the consolation of hoping for an outlet in any of the