The Cecil Whig., 1876-05-06


The Conference met in the Academy of
Music. Eleven bishops and owe: three
hundred delegates were present at the open
ing. Bishop AmeS. vino resides in Balti-
more, made an address of welcome, which
was responded to by Bishop James. After
the customary religious devotionS. the or
ganiZation of the Conference was com
peted by the election of Rev. DR.. Wood
ruff rs Secretary, aud Rev. Israel c. Perish
ing, of Pittsburg, ~ Assistant Secretary.
The selection of seats and other prelimi-
nary work was attended to by the dele
gates. ln pursuance of a resolution adopted
at the last Conference. a Centennial Ad-
dress was read by Bishop Andrews. The
remainder of the session was taken up by
Rev. w. II. Perrine. who made lengthy
argument in favor of an amendment to the
Book of Discipline, providing for the divi-
sion of the Conference into two bodies, a
clerical Senate and House of Delegates
composed exclusively of laymen. Mr.. Per
rine's resolution was laid on the table.
CENTENNIAL ADDRESS.
To tie pastors and congregations ofthe Netho-
dist Episcopal ChHrctes in the United
States:
BRETHREN AND FRIENDS Your Bish-
ops and Delegates in General Conference
assembled, this first day of May, A. d.,
1876, hasten TO urge your hearty compi
ance with the order taken four years ago,
for the celebration in all our churches of
the centenary of American independence.
This order provides both for suitable com
memorative services in our Conferences and
congregations, and for liberal thankofer-
ings to Christian education. Its particu-
lars are set forth i'll the appendix of the
Discipline of 1872, and need not be here
recited. Most of the Conferences have
taken the action thereby required; the
Bishops have issued the requested pro-
gramme of public worship, and contribu
tions in behalf of many of our schools and
colleges are already begun.
We earnestly entreat YOU to complete the
scheme thus inaugurated. Throughout our
whole communion, let Thanksgiving prayer
and memorial discourse declare and in
crease our gratitude to the Sovereign of
nations, and our conviction that national
we'll being can be guaranteed only by 10y
atty to His righteous government. Let
generous gifts devoted in the permanence
to the Christian training of youth, and
thereby to the highest service to the State.
attest the love we bear to our country and
it's institutions. In this day of rejoicing,
the free church is pre-eminently the friend
and ally of the free State
This special religious commemoration
will not withhold you from the secular
celebrations by which the whole people
will mark the occasion. On the contrary,
community of history. of interests, and
of destiny will ensure community Of pa
triotic sentiment and action. in company
with your fellow citizens you will Joyiully
review the land which God has given us; the
annals of our colonial settlement and train
ing; the fit time and men and deeds of the
revolutionary struggle; the formation of a
more perfect union under a constitution of
consummate wisdom; the marvellous in
crease of our territory, our population and
our resources: our triumph i'll arts and in
arms; our progress in science, literature
and education; our undecayed faith in the
self evident truths of the great Declara-
ton, and their recent stupendous reasser-
tion in the emanci patton and enfranchse-
ment of a servile population more numer
Gus than that of the colonies at the Revo-
luton: our contributions to the nations
from which we sprang, and our predes
tined part in the great drama of human
liberty; and. in fine, all the facts and all
the forces which have made the century
memorable and which presage a more sig
nal future. With your fellow citizens you
viii also solctously study, and as far as
possible remedy the evils which threaten
national life, issuing, some of them, from
the defects of our political system and
methods: some from sectional antipathies
and aspirations; some from the autagoniSm
of social classes; some from the machina-
tions of a foreign spiritual despotism, but
all having their power for harm in the
lamentable prevalence of individual ignor-
ance, indifference and vice.
Upon all these assemblies of the people
we invoke the spirit of concord, of patriot
ism and wisdom. May they fifty introduce
Il century of larger civil good than the
world has yet known, a century of wider
intelligence and better morals. of liberty
and order more perfectly allied. of con-
tirmed unity, peace aud prosperity.
But the patriot who is also an intelligent
Christian surveys a wider horizon than his
fellow citizen. He interprets and values
all centuries and all nations by their rea-
tions to the kingdom and glory of Christ
He must, therefore, be moved by pro
founder sentiments and recognize higher
duties on such an occasion as this. For to
the American Christian his own land and
time seem to have been designated for
peculiar illustrations of the Divine King
dom, and for special and large contribu
tions to it. Here has tlourished a govern
ment historically deduced from the Chris !
tian principles of equality and brotherhood,
"a government from the people, by the
people and for the people" Here the
Church made independent of the State has
illustrated the simplicity, the freedom and
the vigor of ancient Christianity. Here Il
nation, growing within the century from
vast regions recently occupied by the say
age and the wild beasts, has SO maintained
and dffused the faith that the increase of
churches, of communicates, of schools dis
tinctly consecrated to Christ, and of organ
lied Christian charities has relatively out
stripped the increase of population. Here
the humane spilit of Christianity has been
eXcmpllied in generous hospitality
to aliens, i'll the mitigation of penal laws,
in protection and opportunity given TO
woman, in care for the rights and interests
of labor, III the overthrow os slavery, in
war waged against intemperance, and in
successful effort for international arbitra-
ton Here have been added to the visible
agencies by which the world shall be
suhugated to Christ a free, great and en-
lightened nation. and a Church vital with
the missionary spirit of its Lord.
The significance of these facts cannot be
overestimared. They illust ate the depend
euce of social welfare or religion. They
are tokens of the vitality and beneticence
OF the Gospel. They are arguries of its
future triumph. They make the land and
and the century wherein they appear CON
spicuouS III the history of redemption =
They challenge the adoring gratitude; they
impose weghty obligations. They must
not, brethren, be content to stand at this !
meeting place of the centuries-at this hour
of retrospect and an,cipatOn-si simply with
secular and patriotic rejoicing, nor with
formal and scauty recognition of the great
purposes of God i'll our century's history.
Even beyond the measure of other times
does the Church now seem to be ummoned
to reverent praise and tervent prayer, to a
remuneration of selfish and worldly aims
for sympathy ard 60 operation with the
Lord aud Redeemer of mankind and to be
faithful stay and to the use of all agencies
by which the national life may be wrought