The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1896-05-10
And the Result II a Picture Of Bishop
Taylor Developed Especially for
Readers Of the Sunday Journal.
AN ERRATIC, RECKLESS MAN
WHOSE GREATEST SUCCESS IN EAR
LIZ LIFE WAS AS A DEBT MAKER.
His Work I'm Africa, How He Came to
He Elected Missionary Bishop,
and His Present Status.
Special to the IndianapolIs Journal.

on the episcopacy is wrestling with one Of
the most difficult problems now before the
General Conference Of the Methodist Church.
1t was difficult at first to determine TO what
standing committee the question of mission
ary bishops should be referred, as 1t
touched both the episcopacy and the mission
ary work. and papers were indiscriminately
referred to either as the immediate object
seemed to bear most on this or that branch
of the general question. 1t was finally re-
solved to put the whole matter into the
hands of the episcopal committee, where it
is now in the hands of an able subcommittee
Of seven. Though they have barely had time
to look at the surface of the subject, they
have already encountered difficulty, which,
in fact, does not legitimatey belong to the
abstract question.
The personality of Bishop Taylor, the
bishop of Africa, has much to do with this
embarrassment. He is a character. There
is much in his life TO admire while his &C.
centricities, TO give them no harsher name,
and his repeated failures along his own
chosen lines make it difficult to deal with
him or with anything he handles. He is the
Lorenzo Dow of this period, erratic, insub-
ordinate and reckless, yet so plausible at
times as to command large following. In
the early fifties he incontinently abandoned
his work as pastor in the State and turned
up in San Francisco as street preacher
He was eloquent and impassioned and many
were led to a better life through his preach
ing But his work was purely personal He
published popular works which had large
sale and he reaped great profits, and he bor-
rowed money and met expenses, but he
created debts that were never paid, and,
though the whole affair was purely a per-
sonal venture, the result was scandal, un-
der which the Methodist Church in San
Francisco staggered for a quarter of a CEN
tury or more and even yet its greatest re
lief comes from that merc;ful provision-for-
getsulness. A race has arisen that is not fa-
miliar with his blunders.
After this Taylor turned W In South
America as the founder of a seif-supporting
mission. Here too, like his prototype,
Lorenzo Dow. he ignored all ecclesiastical
authority and proposed to be as unmethod-
istic as possible, though a Methodist local
preacher. This venture as religious move
ment was lamentable failure and ne aban-
doned South America, leaving as in the
California experiment, legacy of debts and
the like. which for many years greatly him
dered the work which was under the man.
agement Of the Missionary Society. No one
familiar with the profits and losses of that
venture can hesitate a moment in determin-
ing on which side of the ledger is the great
est amount to be found.
IN INDIA AND AFRICA
Taylor next turned up in India, still
the champion of system of mis-
sonary work which should be self
supporting. For a while 1t seemed
that he had organized success.
Among the English-speaking Eurasians he
worked in his peculiar way and word came
back to America that he was literally TAX
ing the country. whereas not a native in
India had been reached. Leaving India as
ne had left San Francisco and South Amer
lea, with the additional legacy of no little
disccrd among the Wesleyan missionaries
he turned up on the Congo in Africa sixteen
to twenty years ago, still in pursuit of a
system Of self-supporting missions. He went
in on the tide which resulted in the organiza-
ton of the Congo Free State and he easily
attracted following of adventurers, good
men and women in their way, who were
ready to go on self-supporting mission
while their expenses were paid, for II must
be remembered that the word seif-support in
this connection merely means support by
funds contributed for this special purpose,
otherwise than through the machinery of
the Missionary Society. Those who went
were not all preachers or teachers, but
mostly tradesmen of one class or another
Mr.. Taylor himself was a local preacher not
amenable to any church authority, except
as to his moral character. He was easily
recognized as the leader of these adven-
turers and money flowed into his lap like
water from England and America and Hol-
land. There was scarcely commercial en-
terprise that he was afraid to venture upon.
He collected money to build a steamboat on
the upper Congo carrying the machinery
around the falls on the shoulders OF natives,
and he did many other equally marvellous
things in a commercial way to the admira-
ton of the world.
When the General Conference of 1884 met
Taylor's self-supporting mission was the
one marvel of the day. He had under his
control nearly 100 missionaries engaged in
almost every branch of commercial enter
prise, and he was himself lay delegate
to the General Conference from India, his
latest local habitation. 1t did not require
unusual tact to work UP demand for a
missionary bishop for Africa under the rule
adopted at Indianapolis in 1856 for the special
benefit of Africa, and layman William Tay-
lor, a local preacher, was easily elected TO
tine office. That was twelve years ago. His
personality cropped out at the beginning.
Though his mission had posed as a self-sup-
porting work. 1t had absorbed more money
than any other mission among Methodists,
the difference being that it went through
Mr. Taylor's hands exclusively rather than
through the Missionary Society. but it had
no connection whatever with the Methodist
Episcopal Church, all its property being held
by an independent corporation.
THE BISBO OPS SALARY.
The election of Mr.. Taylor, however,
served as a sort OF umbilical cord to unite
the two, and the missionary board apprc-
priated a salary for the bishop out OF the
missionary funds. leaving him still respon-
sible for the salary of his subordinates out
lea for the self-supporting mission But he
refused to accept IL, because IL came from
the missionary funds. instead of the epis-
copal fund. He must be recognized as a
bishop or he would have nothing TO do with
it. In hopes that something might come OF
the so-called mission the General Conference
honored his whim and ordered it be so paid
though 1t was ultimately reimbursed from
the mission fund.
He has now been bishop twelve years
That he has exhibited wonderful powers Of