The Portland daily press., 1879-04-28
Our YiSilarS.

Our city has been honored for week past
by the presence of the elders and representa-
tive laymen OF the Methodist Episcopal
Church of western Maine. There is prob
ably no deliberative assemblage, outside the
assemblage of our law makers, whose annual
meetings are watched with more interest or
whose decisions are awaited with greater
solicitude than those of Methodist Confer
ence.
Yet in 1738 no Methodist Church existed.
John Wesley was then still in full! COM
munion with the established church of Eng
land. 1t is to his genius, under the inspira-
tion OF God, that we owe that great religious
society which to-day outnumbers any 9th er
branch of the Protestant confession in
America. At time when the church in
England was given over to Journalism, when
the spirit of proselytism had seemingly died
out, when the good tidings were but Ian
guidly told to the rich, aud the poor were
neglected, John Wesley received great
light and went forth on his mission to preach
to rich and poor alike the simple doctrine of
justification by a living faith in a living
Lord" At the time he began preaching in
the fields dull decrepitude had crept over
the priests of the established faith and the
people had turned away from them, sickened
at their luxury, angry at their indifference,
incredulous as to their goodness and piety.
Even in the dissenting chapels the Laodi-
cean spirit prevailed. ''There was," says
brilliant writer who sketches the time in the
North British Review, ''no freshness in the
past, and no promise in the future. The
Puritans were buried and the Methodists
were not born. The philosopher of the age
was Bolingbroke, the moralist was Addison.
the minstrel was Pope, and the preacher was
Atterbury. The world had the idle, discon-
tented look of the morning after wine
mad holiday; and like rocket-sticks and the
singed paper from last nights squibs, the
spent jokes of Charles and Rochester lay all
about, and people yawned to look at tbem,"
A Hebrew proverb tells us that when the tale
of bricks is doubled Moses comes, and it was
at this time of general Indifference or open
inidelity that Wesley began his career as,-
it would almost seem,-a leader of the chos-
en- people of God. He brought to his task
devout spirit, a keen, resolute mind. an exec
utive power wonderful even among leaders
of men, and depth and earnestness of con-
v;ction that were scarcely equalled by Luther
himself. The history of his life, it has well
been said. is the history of Christ
ian effort to evangelize the neg
lected masses of Eogland; and, not
content with the vast home mission he
founded, he sent the ardent mission
aries of the new revival across the Atlantic
aud established a church here whose commu-
nicants to-day exceed two millions of people.
He began bis labors in 1888. In 1773 the
first Methodist Conference in America was
held at Philadelphia. In 17S4 Thomas Coke
organized the church in this country, a
church built up by the lab,rs OF Francis Ash
bury and Richard Wright and Joseph Pill.
moor, but inspired by the ardent and intrep-
id spirit and genuine piety of its English
founder. Then it numbered 13,740 members
and 43 preachers. To-day, less than a centu-
ry from the time of its formal organization,
IL CANldCCo la oL bLC UIauCucS vi ltS Wlu0-
spread communion 2.723.OOO members, and
10000, 900 preachers; and 1,223O0O pupils are
taught in its Northern Sunday schools alo ne.
The organizing genius of Wesley has given to
it a government and discipline exceled by
no other branch of the church and perhaps
unequalied by any. He fitted it for the ac
| tive, aggressive work of proselytism. His
scheme OF the class meeting is the very per
lection of discipline, as we'll as powerful
| agent for the quickening OF spiritual vitality
and strong incentive to right living. he
| revived the church militant. If he was moi
| in the line of Apostolic succession he was a
worthy follower of the fiery monk who urged
| Europeto the recovery of Palestine. Hi
itinerant ministry went forth like the Tenn
plars ard the Knights of st. John to the con-
was not to gain possession of the earthly Je.
rusaem. They and their followers stormed
with repentance aud prayer aud all the weap
ons o. faith that city OF God of which Angus
tine preached.
The Methodist Church to-day holds true
| 10 Inc UTdulLlOuS vi us lOuuuer, anu Is
moved by his godly spirit. Not only is it 3
powerful religious body, but it throws it.
mighty, organized strength on the side o
good laws, of good citizenship. and for the
promotion of right living and all the grea
charitable and reformatory movements which
distinguish the time. 1t is a sturdy foe tc
ill-doing of all kinds, and is found wherever
it flourishes in its purity the bulwark of the
State and shield against oppression OF the
individual. In the high attributes of Chris
tian charity, of devout life, of reverence t.
God and love to man it but emulates 1T
brethren of other denominations. But i
seems, more than any other branch of thu
Protestant communion, to govern itself b,
the spirit of Burke's maxim: "When bat
men combine, the good must associate; else
they will fall. one by one, an unpitied sacri
fee in a contemplate struggle"
A MEMPHIS correspondent of the Cincin
natl Commercial writes that he recentl
counted on the banks of the Mississippi TWEEN
ty.four different encampments of coored peo
pie, with their poor battered aud tattere,
household goods stacked up waiting for
boat to give them the transportation the,
were canahla Of rapino for Tbaco poopI