New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1868-05-17
THE EPISCOPAL ADDRESS.
Delivered May 5, 1868.


10 the General Conference of the Methodist
Episcopal Church:
REVEREND AND DEAR BRETHREN
Grace be unto you from God the
Father and from the Lord Jesus
Christ.
Assembled in General Conference
as the chosen Representatives of the
Methodist Episcopal Church, we ex-
tend to you our fraternal and most
cordial salutations. We also invoke
for you and upon you the blessing of
the great Head Of the Church, humbly
beseeching him that in his fatherly
goodness your lives and your health
may be mercifully preserved during
the period of your deliberations, and
that your families and pastoral charges
may, in your absence, be watchfully
guarded by his gracious Providence.
Entrusted with the highest interests
of the Church, invested with powers
involving vast responsibilities and ex-
ercising an influence which must affect
even the most distant fields of labor,
we earnestly pray that the Divine
presence may constantly be in your
midst, and that you may be endued
with that wisdom which alone can pre-
serve from error, and direct to con-
illusions which God will approve.
Never in the history of the Church
has a general conference convened
under circumstances more favorable
than those which attend this fifteenth
quadrennial session of your venera-
bic body. The place of its assembling,
farther West than at any previous
period, this city, so recent in date,
of such wonderful growth, located on
the shore of beautiful inland lake,
yet reaching its arms of commerce to
distant parts of the globe, seems in
harmony with uor branch of the
Church to which God has given such
rapidly extending boundaries. Al
ready its annual conferences reach
from the Atlantic to the Pacific,
spreading alike over the immense
prairies and the towering mountains.
1t has not only kept pace with the
advancing columns of population on
this continent, but, claiming the world
for its parish, it has organized its con-
ferences in Africa, Europe, and Asia.
The time has peculiar interest as
making an era in eur history. The
first century of American Methodism
has just closed. Before us pass in re-
view its small beginnings, severe OPP
positions, hard contested fields, its
moral heroes, its fearless utterances
songs of Joy and shouts Of triumph
As in the presence Of such "a clouC
of Witnesses" we meet in the first
general conference Of our second cen
tenary. What may lie in the future
no human eye can see, but we lool
forward in hopefulness and faith. Thu
same grand and glorious doctrines .
a free and full salvation which on
fathers proclaimed still resound from
all our pulpits. To fallen and sinfu
humanity is offered a Divine Re
deemeR, whom, despite of all caYiE
ings 81 infidelity and ''the opposition
Of science falsely 80 called" we re-
jo8ee 10 hail as "very Godv and 'sYery
man. The Lord Of Hosts, the King o
Glery. We have the same usages anC
the same lnsirumentalities. The elasl
meeting AID The love feast, the timer
ant system and the general superin-
tendency are elements Of power witt
ms as with our intheFs.
In our national condition 4 vas
change has Occunaa since our las
assembling. Then . isarful war VA
devastating large portiaa Of our Iand
More than a millisn Of men were Al
der arEns and in frequent aanHie
Padcefal ayocatiOns were interrupts,
manF q home was vacant, and nts
heart was sad. Dark clouds tire
their shadows over the future. and 4
nations lite seemed in peril. New !
meet rejoicing in The salvation viii
God has wrought. The voice Of v
has been hnahed aod is tumult b
passed awuw. The unity Of our n
ton has been secured Human slav
~, that great crime against humanii
and God, has persisted ID he strueg
which itself COMM dad, and freedom
peace. and prosperity are beginnin
zheir tfiumphant reign % every part /
ear land Doors long closed again
eur ministers and onr services arc ne
open. and the dssa. oade
and nod are joyfallY weles min
the s4rr and he teacher.
The world n aesAimg The impulse