accepted Christianity have preserved their vitality, making progress in moral, intellectual, and material welfare.

Its

We said truly that Christianity is the miracle of history. Like its Founder, it is not the outgrowth of natural forces. We cannot classify it with other religions as simply the best, the most worthy development of man's spiritual nature. It has been opposed as an enthusiasm and a superstition, but it takes firmest hold and yields its most beneficent results where intelligence and humanity have made the greatest progress. history is strange and contradictory only to those who refuse to study it in the light of the centuries. Ambitious men have used it for selfish purposes; its doctrines have been warped by human philosophy into morbid misrepresentations of the divine nature and the plan of salvation, darkening the heavens which it should have made to glow with the proclamation of God's love to man. The Church, as an institution of religion committed to human hands, has sought to build itself after earthly models, usurping authority in spiritual things, and seemingly unconscious of the spirit of the Master. But the word which he taught has been an imperishable seed, a leaven which cannot be destroyed.

Never has Christianity shown greater spiritual activity or won grander victory than in this century. The powers of the world have been arrayed against it; its history has passed the ordeal of critical investigation; its distinctive doctrines have been assailed by every weapon man has been able to devise, but the larger study of the life of Jesus, which these assaults have compelled, has quickened and purified the Churches until they have carried a true word of salvation into all lands and to all people. Its all-conquering word has been that of the first preachers, the crucified and risen Jesus, and now, as then, it has been the power of God unto salvation. The prophecy of its world-wide acceptance is no longer the stumbling-block of a weak faith, for its wonderful progress in this generation attests the divinity of the great Teacher; and we already anticipate the hour when every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

Bery ! St. James Fry
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ART. III.—THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN THE SOUTH.

Is a private letter to the writer the late editor of the Review said our work in the South is a very "delicate and difficult subject" for discussion. In our Church papers it has been treated somewhat sparingly; but in those of the Southern Church our work has found abundant discussion. The attention given to this work by Southern writers is increasing of late. There are two causes for this increase: the settlement of the policy of our Church touching the colored race in our schools, and the necessity for the Southern Church finding some answer to the increasing number of her own young people who are asking why there should be a Southern Church. The writer believes the Southern Church will come to desire organic union with the Methodist Episcopal Church at no very distant day, though for the present there is no such desire expressed by her leaders. Such a desirable consummation would not be hastened by withdrawing from a vigorous prosecution of our work, or by changing our policy to suit the preferences of the Church South. We do not hasten the day of complete understanding by refraining from an examination of the differences existing. If we are to have a union that will be good and enduring we must approach it with open eyes. Church at large should give careful attention to this field, both on account of the greatness of the work and the peculiar hardships encountered in its prosecution. It is admitted on all sides that the gravest problems in Church and State confront us in the South; and the solution of them is not merely a local interest. Important among the agencies at work for the good of this people is the Methodist Episcopal Church. The bare statistics suggest its vast importance: Thirty-two conferences, over four thousand churches worth nine million dollars, and nearly four hundred and fifty thousand members about equally divided between white and colored. The increase last year was over two hundred new churches. The Freedmen's Aid and Southern Education Society reports two universities, eleven colleges, thirty academies, with two hundred and twenty-eight teachers and seven thousand students. The receipts last year were one

The

hundred and eighty-five thousand dollars, of which sum thirty thousand dollars was from tuition and room rents.

Before examining the grounds upon which the Church South claims the exclusive right to do Methodist work in the South, it is proper to state that it is the policy of our Church relative to the Negro, both in churches and schools, that is opposed by the Southern papers. Those who look forward to organic union of the two churches to furnish a peaceful solution of all difliculties should remember that some things must be solved in advance of the union. The Methodist Episcopal Church cannot set off her colored members, nor abandon the schools established for them. The Southern Church understands this perfectly, and does not desire union with us. We have not been encouraged by them to expect such an event in the future. Yet union may come sooner than any of us expect. It is the trouble of adjusting the relations between the two races that presents the most pressing and perplexing question in the South. Magazines, reviews, weeklies, and dailies, secular and religious papers, are considering it. And from a great variety of stand-points observers obtain a great variety of views. Our Christian Advocate (March 29, 1889) says:

One of the many grave crises which confront the American people is that growing out of the relation between the white and colored people of the South. This question wears a more serious aspect now than ever-unfortunately, the antipathy of the two races occupying the same territory threatens to precipitate serious conflicts.... The attitude of a large number of the whites in the South toward the Negro is one of growing hatred and hostility. They oppose the education of the colored citizen; they insist that he is essentially inferior to the white man. . . . That the position of the Southern whites is exceedingly embarrassing no intelligent man will deny. . . . It is idle to say there is no cause for uneasiness in the South. But however difficult it may be to deal justly with the Negro, it is, nevertheless, the only safe course.

We hear a great deal about the "Plan of Separation," and a constant protest against ours being called the "old Church." But the plain facts of history are, that the Methodist Episcopal Church did not begin nor end in 1844; though she is said to have done both. The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, did begin in 1845. The "Plan" of 1844 was provisional only. It stated what the Church would do in the event that certain Con

ferences, on their own motion, should withdraw from her jurisdiction. No provision of that General Conference would have been violated if no convention had met in Louisville. That convention was the creation of the Annual Conferences represented in it. They had not been directed, or even advised, to take this step. The decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, so often quoted in support of their claims, was not given upon any church or parsonage property. The only

matter before that court was the decision of the Ohio court on the division of Western Book Concern property. The declarations of the Cape May Commission are much used to prove that we should give up this work. But these deliverances, except in the case of the several churches specifically provided for, consisted merely of certain general advices and declarations. The Southern press calls it an "agreement" and "contract." The South-western says, "that contract was broken and disallowed." Dr. Summers, their chief editor, said at the time he was sorry their commissioners did not distinctly express their understanding of the "agreement" which was to ultimately restore the line of division set up in 1844. But our commissioners could have signed no agreement expressing such intent - they did not so understand it. Upon their own interpretation the Southern Conferences indorsed the action with great unanimity. Cur Conferences were mostly silent. And the General Conference said as little about it as was practicable.

Dr. Hartzell has been called a falsifier of history for saying the Methodist Episcopal Church is the mother of all the Methodist Churches in America. "The mother died in 1844❞—so says Rev. W. P. Lovejoy in the Southern Christian Advocate (February, 1889). It will be a new thing to those unacquainted with Southern journalism, that the Methodist Episcopal Church died in giving birth to two new Churches.

It is because of their efforts to establish this claim that the Southern Church has had no small difficulty with the annex, "South." This part of their name is omitted in references to their church in this city (Newport, Ky.). And here, as all over this territory where both Churches have societies, members holding letters from our Church have been led to unite with the Southern Church, supposing it to be the Methodist Episcopal Church. It is not uncommon to find them dropping the

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Episcopal," as a neighbor of mine whose notices are given by the name of the street and "Methodist "--by which means an advantage is taken of some who know nothing of the Southern Church until after they have become members of the same. Their General and Annual Conferences have labored much over the proposition to change their name; but since the "South" cannot be dropped without some change in the other part that would make it differ from ours, they are compelled to hold on to this troublesome appendage and carry it into Oregon and to the uttermost parts of the earth. One of their superintendents was often introduced, while in Europe and Asia, as "bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church of South America." And when the little word "of" was transposed to the other side of the South," the "correction" was most bewildering to the foreigner. Not being able to divest their name of this, they have very much labored to show forth what is in a name. The Rev. Josephus Anderson, D.D., editor of the Florida Christian Advocate, published a tract on their name in 1888. And this somewhat lengthy paper has been widely published in Southern Church papers. In it the Southern Church is set forth by some strange statements of history, and ours is denounced by the usual striking epithets. The writer labors to construct a basis for their claims to sole right of occupancy in the South. Some of these statements are worth a careful examination by our friends in the North, as showing what obstacles are interposed to our progress. We are sometimes reproved for bring ing forward old issues; but this writer has gone back to the old questions, and it is proposed to examine his course. In the opening paragraph he says: "It (South') does not mean secession, disunion, or pro-slavery."

Now, every body understands that those three things have been settled, and nothing stands for them now. But in the next paragraph Dr. Anderson attempts to show that the Southern Church did not favor slavery at the beginning. He says:

Our Church was organized as a separate body in Louisville, Ky., in 1845, and received its name at that time, which was sixteen years before the war; and when its name was given to it it still retained in the Discipline the old declaration against the "evil of slavery ;" and the resolution by which our Church settled the question of organization positively declared that the several Annual Conferences represented in that convention are constituted