The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-08-02

mere We're many customs and usageS
among early Methodists partly enforced by
law and partly traditional, which initiated
greatly against its success. Were 1t not
lrreVerent l would say they were cranks
on many things. hence / will say only that
they were bigots, attaching undue impor-
lance to matters of dress methods of wor-
snip style of church architecture,
matters OF instrumental music, both
in the church and the family
suckers Tor class meetings and opposed TO
hlsher education, especially in the min
lslry. But all this was not wholly without
collpehsauon. BY our un-American and
unscriptural polity we drove thousands of
cultured men and women from our church
communion, and they found more congenial
quarters in churches which had been
preaching very unsOund doctrines. such as
unconditional election and the like, pre-
Ierflng TO hear what they did not believe
than TO be cramped by usages that were
offensive and a pOlity that was oppressive
These lively Methodists not only infused
new life into the dry bones of those old
churches but in Difference TO the theology
or their new blood those churches were
silent on the offensive dogmas until 1t has
come to pass that what they at first
omitted as matter of prudence they now
omit as a matter of conviction. and all that
relates to election and reprobation is care
fully stored away on the historic shelf
never to be brought out except on festive
occasions, and rarely then; so that uni
Versal Chrstendom is the gamer even if
Methodism is the loser. But the time has
come for us to cease to do evil that good
may come.
trast with Methodism as it was more strik-
lnSly than in its attitude toward higher
education. To say that the early Metho-
dlsts were Indifferent to it would not so
truly characterize it as to say they were
hostile. They categorized it, with fine dress
ing and costly churches, as fostering
species OF pride which is detrimental to
true plety; hence when COkesbury College,
their first educational venture, was de-
Stroyed by flre Bishop Asbury recorded in
ms diary: Its friends need not mourn.
The Lord has not called Methodists to build
colleges and it was twenty-nine years
before the great New York and the New
England conferences attempted so much as
their Cazenovia and their Wilbraham acad-
emles, respectively and 50 pronounced
was the church against education in the
ministry that the General Conference of 1910
resolved so emphatically against theological
schools that when, seven years later Os-
man c.. Baker and John Dempster deter
mined to open a theological school on their
own responsibility they had TO seek
an, obscure village in New Hampshire
of biblical institute" to escape perse-
cution if not prosecution. 1t is no wonder,
therefore, that in 1910, when Henry Ward
Beecher was talking of the infant .Asbury
University, he expressed fears that the
Methodists of Indiana had made mis-
take in entering the educational field; they
had been successful as evangelists in the
rural districts, but were not adapted to
educational work, or city pastorates.
A STRIKING CONTRAST.
All this and much more in the same line
is in striking contrast with the Methodism
of to-day We now have tifty-six colleges
and universities, with SIG teachers and
24,159 Students open alike to male and fe-
male; for females are welcome to any place
in Methodism except the General Confer
ence; and seven colleges for females only.
with 149 teachers and 10l9 students; and
sixty classical Seminaries, with AIS teachers
and 10000 students, and sixty-seVen foreign
mission schools, with their 5S3 teachers and
schools with fifty-eight teachers and PSI
students; and last, but not least in impor-
lance twenty theological schools, with
eighty-two teachers and S5S students.
not to mention our embryo national
university, which is to be for postgraduate
work only. No wonder we are not only
supplying our own pulpits with educated
ministers as fast as vacancies occur
through death or old age, but we have
prolific sister churches. what would be-
come of our younger sister the Protestant
Episcopal Church, IL we should call home
all the able preachers We have lent her?
Not only would many of her best .puApits
be left vacant, but her house of bishops
would be badly demoralized.
These results have been reached, though
our Oldest school is only sixty eight years
old Late statistics of school work in the
Cnited States show that tWo-elevenths OF
all the students. in American colleges are in
our branch of Methodism alone, and, taking
the Church South and other branches OF the
Methodist family, one-fourth of all the col
lege students of America are in Methodist
colleges and one-sixth of all the money in
vested in college plants and college en-
doWment, not including state schools, put
including the old colonial schools, such as
Yale and Harvard and the wonderful bene-
factions of the Stanfords and the Rocke-
fellers, is Methodist money. Evidently Mr..
BeeCher was mistaken as to his estimate OF
Methodist adaptabiity to educational work,
though equally reliable statistics show that
he was not so far wrong in regard TO city
paStorates owing to some phases OF our
polity, even since some of our early nm
ORANGES have been abandoned-a state or
facts which demands more than the pcoh.
pooh! with which some in high places greet
it. When by the hundreds such historic
Methodist families as the Harpers, of New
York. have wholly disappeared from Meth
odsm and the hegira is going on IN every
city of the land. without any compromising
accessions from other churches or from I'M
churched people of culture. 1t Is time 10
search for the cause and TO apply the REM
edy 1t is not within the scope of this lee
ture to do either; but one TACT Is SO CON
spicuous that no discourse on the evolution
of Methodism would be honest that did not
mention it: Every church into which these
cultured Methodists have gone and are go
ing recognizes the laity as entitled to
vote in church government, suggesting the
very. pertinent question whether it is the
mission of Methodism to furnish cultured
recruits for the peWs OF other churches,
as we'll as educated ministers for their pull
pits. And yet there are ministers VINO, IN
the face of this hegira and the universal
demand of our laty for enfranchisement,
persist in governing the men who built and
who have been and are being educated IN
them as they governed the illiterate col
liers of England and the uncultured pioneer
settlers of America. 1t can never be done.
WHAT OF THE FUTURE?
But what Of the Methodist Episcopal
Church that is to be? IT'S not the sunset
of life giving me mystical lore that en-
ables me to forecast the future of the Meth
odist Episcopal Church. Whoever consid-
ers attentively the evolution of life as
seen all around lis does not need the spirit
of divination to foretell what is to be the
next stage of the entity, whose life he is
studying The fading and falling corolla OF
the peach blossom to the uniformed
means death, but to one who has observed
the law of evolution as applied TO peach
life it foretels the coming OF fruit, Tor
which alone the bud and blossom period
had existed. The metamorphic throes of
the caterpillar do not presage Its death,
they only indicate the near approach OF
that crisis in it's continuous existence which
is to transform the caterpillar into but
and larVa and caterpillar life were only
preparatory.
ments of the Methodist Episcopal Church
for more than half the years OF its eX-
istence, not from the outside as "A curious
spectator merely, but from within as an
enthusiastic lover, acting in the capacity
of a local preacher more than halt cen
fury taking an active part in whatever
has concerned it; never weeping over the
abandoned past but ever looking nope
fully to the better future, the conditions
Of the present hour are inspiring E-VerS-
thing indicates that q change as rdalcal a.
that which evolves the peach from tne
fading blossom or the butterfly from the
caterpillar is near at hand. Unless some
violence shall break the continuity OF IT'S