Nathan Bangs · 14 of 29

Chapter 12. From the Close of the General Conference of 1832 to the Beginning of the General Conference of 1836. · 1834

We have heretofore noticed the improvements that were gradually making in building churches and parsonages in many parts of our work. The enlargement of our borders on every hand, and the increase of membership in the other circuits and stations, generally created an ability in our brethren and friends to supply the means to furnish accommodations for the people and their preachers and the necessity for these things, together with the urgent calls from the pulpit and the press, particularly in the columns of the Christian Advocate and Journal, excited them to activity in the discharge of these duties. Hence churches more commodious and central than heretofore were erected and erecting, parsonage homes built or rebuilt, and partially furnished; by which means the difficulties and expenses of removing were very much lessened, and the congregations became more numerous and permanent. It will be seen, therefore, that our increase this year and last was unusually large, and the missionary work went on most delightfully and prosperously, the whole being aided by protracted meetings, missionary anniversaries, and prayer meetings. These things, by diminishing the inducement to desist from traveling, lessened the number of locations.

We have already noticed the commencement of the Liberian mission, its incipient prospects, and its disastrous results upon the life of the missionary, the Rev. Melville B. Cox. but, though he had thus fallen a martyr to his work upon that distant and desolate shore, others were found to fill his place. At the call of brother Cox, and of the Missionary Society the Rev. Mssrs. Rufus Spaulding and Samuel O. Wright, with their wives, and Miss Sophronia Farrington, a female teacher, volunteered their services for this hazardous enterprise, and were accordingly appointed by the proper authorities of the society in 1833. While waiting for an opportunity to embark, the missionaries traveled as extensively as possible through different parts of the country, held missionary meetings, and thus contributed much to awaken and to diffuse the missionary spirit among the people. At length they set sail from Norfolk, Va., on the sixth day of November, 1833, and landed in Monrovia on the first day of January, 1834. They were received by the brethren with great cordiality, who hailed them welcome to their shores, bidding them “God speed” with all their hearts. They immediately entered upon their work with energy, and a most inviting prospect of success, the fields before them appearing already “ripe for the harvest.” But alas! they, too, were destined soon to feel the corroding effects of an African climate; for amidst the plans of usefulness which they had in contemplation, and the active discharge of the arduous duties of their station, on the 9th of February brother Spaulding was seized violently with the fever, and the rest of the mission family were soon prostrated with the same disease, to some of whom it proved most fatal. On the first day of March, when so far recovered from his first attack as to be able to write, he says, “Sister Wright is dead! She left us on the morning of the fourth ultimo, and we have no doubt but that she is in heaven, while we are left to suffer yet longer on earth.”

Brother Wright soon followed his beloved wife to the eternal world. He survived the first attack, and was so far restored as to be able to walk about, read, and write, and probably through premature exertion brought on a relapse, which soon terminated fatally, and his mortal remains sleep beside those of his wife on the shore of Africa; the bones of Cox having first sanctified the soil.

Nothing daunted, however, by these disasters with death thickening around them, and staring them in the face, the survivors persevered in their work believing that Africa would yet be redeemed. Miss Farrington especially, though much enfeebled by disease, manifested all the heroism of a martyr: having laid her soul upon the altar of her God, she seemed determined to brave every danger rather than relinquish the work in which she had engaged. But who can resist the course of events? Such were the corroding effects of the malarian fever, and so frequent and violent were its attacks, that brother Spaulding and his wife found themselves so much reduced, as to be unable to pursue their calling; and having but little prospect of regaining their health in Liberia, they resolved, as the only alternative left to their choice, to return to the United States. This they accordingly did, leaving, however, behind them evidences of their piety and zeal, and much to be hoped for as the result of future laborers. Under another date we shall endeavor to give a consecutive account of the progress of this mission, from the time it was committed to the oversight of brother Seys, the present superintendent of the mission.

Another very important mission was commenced about this time. This was the Flat Head, or Oregon mission.

That our readers may understand the character of this mission, it is necessary that they should know something of the situation and state of the country in which it was established.

The vast territory now known as the Oregon, in which the present mission is located, was but little known before it was visited by Lewis and Clarke in the year 1805, under a commission from the United States government. With immense labor and no little privation, they penetrated the wilderness west of the Missouri river, crossed the Rocky Mountains, and descended the Columbia river to its mouth, or where it discharges itself into the Pacific ocean, in about the forty-sixth degree of north latitude. It is true that the mouth of this noble river had been entered by Captain Gray, of Boston, Mass., in the ship Columbus. Having been the first modern navigator who entered the river, hitherto distinguished as the Oregon, or River of the West, Capt. Gray called it the Columbia, after the name of the ship in which he entered its mouth.

This extensive territory lies west of the Rocky mountains a high ridge stretching through the western part of North America, from the frozen ocean to Mexico, where it is connected with the Cordilleras, or Andes, which continue their course from the isthmus of Panama to the straits of Magellan. From its eastern boundaries on the Rocky mountains, the Oregon territory extends to the Pacific ocean west, and from the Russian and British dominions on the north to the northern line of Mexico and California, in about the forty-first degree of north latitude. This entire country is claimed by the United States, though its exact limits have not yet been ascertained and settled by the respective governments who claim jurisdiction over these western regions.

The Hudson Bay Company, incorporated in 1670 for the purpose of carrying on the fur trade at Hudson’s Bay, had extended their trading posts to the Columbia river, and had established a depot at Fort Vancouver, which is about one hundred miles from the mouth of the Columbia, a very fertile region of country. Here the governor of the company resides, the public store is located, and it is the center of trade in all that region of country. A large farm, belonging to the company, is under cultivation, and they have plenty of horses and cattle for domestic uses, and every thing is in a nourishing condition. This company is supposed to be extremely rich, having accumulated their property by the immense profits accruing from the fur trade which is carried on extensively with the Indians.

The company, however, instead of improving the moral condition of the natives, have exerted an opposite influence, unless it may be indirectly, by opening the way for the introduction of the gospel, and the arts of civilized life. Many of the agents and clerks connected with this establishment have been in the habit of marrying, some of them but temporarily, with the native females, and at the termination of their service of leaving them and their children to all the miseries of a semi-barbarous state, and to the poverty and wretchedness consequent upon their want of industry, and their great aversion to agricultural pursuits. Hence, the vices of licentiousness, of intemperance, and domestic feuds and quarrels, superadded to their heathenish practices, had made their condition even worse than it was in their state of entire barbarism; while most of the half-breeds grow up in a state of heathen ignorance, irreligion, and immorality.

In 1811 John Jacob Astor, Esq., of the city of New York, commenced a trading establishment near the mouth of the Columbia river, and the fort which was erected was called, in honor of its founder, Astoria. But the war between Great Britain and the United States commencing soon after, through the timidity or unfaithfulness of the agents employed by Mr. Astor, the entire establishment was sold for a trifling consideration to the Hudson Bay Company, and the project of the North American Fur Company was abandoned.

With the exception of a few white men introduced into the country by these trading establishments, the whole territory was in the occupancy of the native tribes, who roamed at large, living upon the fruits of hunting and fishing, and the trade they carried on with the Hudson Bay Company, and some few American traders, who casually visited these regions either for the sake of gain, or from a roving disposition. These consisted of a great number of small, insulated tribes, who, in addition to their sufferings from poverty and idleness, were almost perpetually annoying each other by war and bloodshedding. The whole number of the Indians inhabiting this dreary region has been variously estimated, from sixty to one hundred and fifty thousand; probably the latter is nearest the truth.

Those who live on the shore of the Pacific, and along the banks of the Columbia river know the great Falls, have become very much deteriorated in their physical and moral condition by their proximity to and intercourse with the trading establishment and other white people who have occasionally visited the country, more especially by the introduction of intoxicating liquors, and those evils growing out of a promiscuous intercourse of the sexes. These sad fruits of that state of civilization which is unaccompanied with the blessings of pure religion, fix a fearful responsibility upon the white population who have made inroads upon the Indian settlements, and they present one of the strongest barriers against the entrance of the gospel by the missionaries of Jesus Christ. We shall see, however, in the progress of this, as well as in the other aboriginal missions which have been conducted under the auspices of our Society, that this and other impediments have been overcome by the power of gospel truth, and even these heathen, debased and corrupted as they were, have been given to Christ for an inheritance. This seems, indeed to have been “the set time” for God to visit these outcasts of men with the renovating power his religion, by those means which, while they confound the wisdom of the wise, plainly show the wisdom of God, and the power of God.

And although the consequences above mentioned followed the introduction of the trading establishments in Oregon, and the intermixture of white men among the natives, yet may we not trace the workings of benignant Providence in opening the way, that the voice of God’s messengers might be heard in this wilderness, “crying, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight, that he Himself may enter among them and make them a people for his glory! The perilous journey of McKenzie, from Montreal, and the subsequent one of Lewis and Clarke, though undertaken under the patronage of their respective governments for political purposes, for enlarging the boundaries of geographical knowledge, and the benefits of trade, were no doubt rendered subservient to God’s designs of mercy toward these wandering sons of the forest. Even the “axe and the saw,” in the hands of men, may be so used as to answer the ends of divine wisdom and love toward the human race.

The truth of these remarks we may see exemplified in the events connected with the Oregon mission. These we shall now more particularly endeavor to present to the reader. Among the various tribes inhabiting this territory, one was distinguished by the name of “Flat Heads,” because they flattened their heads in the manner presented in the following likeness. [graphic not included with the electronic edition — DVM]

The circumstances which led to the establishment of the Oregon, first called the Flat Head, mission, were as follows: It seems that two of the Indians belonging to the Flat Head tribe had received an education at a school in the city of Montreal, then elder the charge of Roman Catholic priests. After the return of these youths to their tribe, they endeavored, according to the dim light they had, to instruct their heathen brethren in the truths of Christianity. This imperfect instruction, mixed, as it was, with the superstitious notions of the Roman Catholic Church, awakened a spirit of inquiry among the Indians, and a great desire to know something more respecting the God of the Christians. This desire was afterward much increased by the conversation of a white man who had penetrated into their country, and was present at one of those religious ceremonies which they scrupulously perform at stated times and in which they exhibit no little of their heathenish folly and ignorance of spiritual and divine things. This man, after attentively observing their manner of worship, told them that they were wrong in their notions of the Supreme Being and of their modes of conducting religious services, — that there were a people who lived toward the “rising sun” who had the knowledge of the true God, which they received from a book he had given them.

On receiving this information, they convened a council to deliberate upon the propriety of sending a deputation to the people of whom they had heard, for the purpose of obtaining a more accurate knowledge of these things. This consultation resulted in dispatching four of their principal men on a journey over the Rocky mountains, to make the needful inquiries. After traveling about three thousand miles, they arrived at St. Louis, and were introduced to General Clarke, the Indian agent, and the colleague of Lewis in his tour of observation over the Rocky mountains to the north Pacific. They immediately unfolded to him the object of their mission, and he gave them such information as he was able respecting the birth, works, character, doctrine, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, together with the objects he designed to accomplish by coming into the world, and other such Scriptural information as he thought might answer their inquiries.

The general facts being communicated to the world through the Christian Advocate and Journal, in the number for March 1, 1833, accompanied with a facsimile of the head of a Flat Head Indian, a most lively sensation was produced in the Christian community, and a great interest excited in behalf of these wanderers of the desert, who had manifested such an eager desire to become acquainted with the God of the Christians as to travel through a wilderness of about three thousand miles for the sole purpose of realizing the object of their desire. And the interest became yet more intense when it was ascertained that two of these noble chiefs had fallen victims to death in St. Louis, in consequence, it was supposed, of the change of climate and mode of living to which they were subjected while they were upon the very threshold of obtaining the object of their pursuit.

Soon after the announcement of these facts to the public, the excitement was raised still higher by a most touching appeal, made through the columns of the Advocate, by the late Dr. Fisk, whose soul ever burned intensely in the cause of missions, and who exerted himself in every possible way to help it forward. In this spirited appeal he inquired whether there were any young ministers who were willing to devote themselves to this work — to brave the dangers of the wilderness — to submit to the privations and sacrifices of a missionary among those Indians, and at the same time to reap the rewards of such an undertaking! This call was soon answered by two young men, brought up in Lower Canada, one of whom had been partially educated at the Wilbraham Academy, and they had both recently entered the traveling ministry. Having been inured to hardships from their youth, and now giving evidence of their piety and call to the Christian ministry, their services were accepted by the proper authorities of the Church, and Jason and Daniel Lee, uncle and nephew, were appointed missionaries for the Oregon territory, and they immediately set about preparing themselves for their journey across the Rocky mountains. As it was desirous to have a school teacher accompany them on the mission, Cyrus Shepard, a young man of deep piety and competent talents, volunteered his services, and was accepted by the board of managers.

On the eve of the departure of Mr. Lee and his companions, it was ascertained that Captain Wythe, who had before visited that country on a trading expedition was about to return with a large company by the way of St. Louis, over land to the Columbia river. This seemed another providential indication in favor of the mission, and Mr. Lee, in conformity to the advice of the board of languages, embraced the earliest opportunity for an interview with Captain Wythe and it resulted in an arrangement to accompany him in his journey over the Rocky mountains; in the mean time sending his heavy baggage, consisting of some farming and domestic utensils, clothing, &c., by way of the Sandwich islands. [Hawaiian Islands — DVM]

The projection of this important mission had a most happy effect upon the missionary cause generally. As the entire funds of the society, up to this time, had not exceeded eighteen thousand dollars a year and as this mission must necessarily cost considerable, with a view to augment the pecuniary resources of the society, a loud and urgent call was made, through the columns of the Christian Advocate and Journal, on the friends of missions to “come up to the help of the Lord” in this emergency; and to assist in this benevolent work, the Messrs. Lees were instructed, while remaining in the civilized world, to travel as extensively as possible, hold missionary meetings, and take up collections; and the “Flat Head” mission, as it was then called, seemed to possess a charm, around which clustered the warm affections of all the friends of the missionary enterprise, and special donations for the “Flat Heads” were sent to the treasury with most cheering and delightful liberality and avidity. As an evidence of the beneficial result of these movements, the amount of available funds had risen, in 1834, from $17,097.05, the sum raised in 1833, to $35,700.15. So true is it that those who aim at great things, if they do not fully realize their hopes, will yet accomplish much.

Being thus cheered on by their friends, buoyed up by the prayers of God people, and animated by the prospect of speedily planting the standard of the cross for the first time in that distant and desolate part of our continent, the company left St. Louis, Missouri, on the 10th of April, on horse back intending to make their first stopping place for recruiting their stores, and taking their final leave of civilized society at Liberty, about three hundred miles from St. Louis. Here they were joined by Capt. Wythe and his company, whence they started for the wilderness about the first of May, 1834. In their company were two Indian youths, one of the Flat Head tribe, about thirteen years of age, and the other of the Pierced Nose Indians, about twenty-one years of age, both of whom were brought, at their request, from beyond the Rocky mountains, by Captain Wythe, in a former journey through their country. They had expressed a wish to be conducted to the abodes of white people, with a view to become instructed in their language and modes of living. While here they had made considerable progress in learning, and were now taken back by Captain Wythe to assist him as interpreters in his intercourse with the Indians.

The distance from St. Louis, by the most direct route, was estimated to be about two thousand three hundred miles; but in consequence of the zig-zag course they were obliged to make, to shun steep mountains, and to cross livers, &c., it was not much short of three thousand miles, which, by traveling at the rate of twenty miles a day, would require one hundred and fifty days to reach the place of their destination.

In this tedious journey, after exhausting the stock of provisions they were enabled to carry with them on packhorses, they were obliged to live chiefly on buffalo meat, which they procured by hunting the buffalo on the extensive prairies east of the Rocky mountains, in which fatiguing work the missionaries had to share equally with the rest of the company. They, however finally arrived in safety, and without any serious accident, though not without much suffering from hunger, and other incidents of traversing a wilderness infested with ferocious savages, beasts of prey, and in many places, particularly on the treeless plains, from the scorching beams of a summer sun, to the place of their destination. On arriving at the country of the Flat heads, about which so much had been said and written, they found them to be few in number, and these few of such a migratory character that they concluded it best to select some other place as the center of missionary operations. They therefore proceeded on to Fort Vancouver, the principal depot of the Hudson Bay Company, where they arrived in the month of September 1834. They were received and treated with great kindness and hospitality by Dr. McLaughlin, the company’s agent, and governor of the colony. On sabbath, the 28th of September, brother Jason Lee preached the first sermon ever delivered in that part of the country, to a very attentive audience, composed of whites, half-breeds, and Indians, who listened with much apparent interest to the truths of the gospel.

With a view to recruit their exhausted strength after such a toilsome journey, and to collect all the information they could respecting the state of the country, and particularly the most eligible situation for commencing the mission, they remained at Fort Vancouver and its vicinity for several weeks, and on the 14th of December brother Lee preached a second time, after which he baptized four adults and fifteen children. This was a solemn and deeply interesting season, being the first time this holy ordinance was ever administered in the Oregon territory, and therefore seemed like the opening of their commission as Christian missionaries in heathen lands.

It was a high gratification to Mr. Lee and his worthy companions, to find themselves so hospitably entertained and respectfully treated by Dr. McLaughlin and his associates. And after collecting all the information they could from them and others respecting the state of the country, and particularly the aboriginal tribes by whom it was inhabited, they finally concluded it to be most advisable to locate the missionary establishment on the Williamette river, about twenty-five miles from its junction with the Columbia, and sixty from where the latter empties its waters into the Pacific ocean. Here they found a small settlement of white people, composed of French voyagers, who had been in the service of the Hudson Bay Company, and some Americans from the United States, who had wandered into that distant region. Many of them had married native females, and their children were growing up in heathenish ignorance and immorality, while the parents themselves were fast assimilating to a state of barbarism.

Being entirely dependent upon their own exertion for accommodations and a livelihood, the missionaries were compelled to go to work with their own hands, and fell the trees of the forest, and prepare the ground for cultivation, and they soon succeeded in erecting a log house thirty-two by eighteen feet, one story and a half in height. They then proceeded to the cultivation of a farm, plowing, and sowing grain and such vegetables as they could procure for culinary purposes. On examination they found that they and selected a healthy place, and fertile soil, which promised abundantly to reward the labor of their hands. Having procured these temporary accommodations, they commenced a course of religious instructions among the people and as soon as practicable opened a school for the instruction of the youth, and all things seemed to promise a happy result.

At the request of the head of department at Fort Vancouver, brother Shepard was left there in charge of a school which had been commenced two years before by a Mr. Ball, whose letters concerning the state of the country had been published and read with interest, but who had discontinued his services as a teacher of youth. The school consisted chiefly of half-breeds, collected from the vicinity of the fort, and the children of those belonging to the company. These, together with two Japanese youth to whom he imparted instruction in the evenings, soon made encouraging improvement in reading, writing, grammar and a few in geography and the first principles of mathematics. The labors of brother Shepard, therefore, were of the most useful character, and were highly appreciated by those concerned.

The information contained in this sketch of the state of things in Oregon having been communicated to the Missionary Society, and the prospects arising from these incipient steps toward establishing the mission, and the crying wants of the many heathen in that wild region, induced the board of managers, and the bishops, to adopt measures to send, as speedily as possible, a reinforcement to the mission. Accordingly a physician and blacksmith, with their wives and children, a carpenter, a single man, and three female teachers, in all thirteen, including the children and domestics, were selected for the mission, and they sailed from Boston in the month of August, 1836, by the way of the Sandwich islands. With these was sent a quantity of household furniture, about twenty boxes of clothing of various sorts and sizes, valued at not less than two thousand dollars, and also agricultural, mechanical, and surgical instruments, as well as an ample supply of medicine.

This family arrived in June at the Sandwich islands, where they were treated with great kindness and hospitality by the missionaries of the American Board, and after waiting some time for a passage, they set sail, and finally arrived at the mission house on the Williamette about the last of May, 1837, where they were hailed with great delight by those already on the spot. They had the unspeakable satisfaction of finding the two Lees in health, and pursuing their work with unexampled diligence, and great success. They had succeeded in procuring the confidence and affection of the natives, and the other settlers in the neighborhood; had a large farm under cultivation, and in addition to the log house before mentioned, erected a convenient home for preaching and for teaching the school, consisting of three rooms, well arranged, though but indifferently furnished. To the superintendence of this school, Mr. Shepard had been removed from Fort Vancouver, that he might more properly fulfill the object of his appointment as a missionary teacher among the heathen of Oregon. And before the arrival of the last-mentioned family, having no females attached to the mission, the brethren were compelled not only to raise their own provisions by cultivating the ground, but also to work for themselves, to make and mend their own clothes, and for the children committed to their care, as well as to be their own doctors and nurses. From a part of these onerous duties they were glad to be relieved by the arrival and timely services of the females attached to the last family, to one of whom, Miss Maria Ann Pittman, of the city of New York, a young lady of eminent piety and respectable attainments, Mr. Jason Lee was married soon after her arrival and she soon became no less useful to the mission generally than she was every way agreeable and happy in her conjugal relation, though she lived but a short time to adorn her profession, and to comfort her husband in his labors and sacrifices.

Being convinced, from the representations made to the board by brother Lee, that more help was needed to carry on the mission with energy and success, measures were adopted to send two additional missionaries, and accordingly, on the 24th of January, 1837, the Rev. David Leslie, wife and three children, and the Rev. H. K. W. Perkins, accompanied by a pious young lady as a teacher, sailed from Boston, in the brig Peru, for the Sandwich islands, whence they found a passage in a short time to the mouth of the Columbia, where they arrived in safety after a voyage of about ten months. They immediately entered upon their work, and soon found the blessing of God upon their efforts.

Before their arrival, however, brother Lee, with a view to furnish the farm with stock, had sent, in conjunction with others who had united in the enterprise, to California, and purchased about six hundred head of domestic cattle, oxen and cows, about five hundred of which they had driven through a wilderness of nearly six hundred miles, the rest having perished or strayed away on the journey. This, though attended with great labor and hardships, enabled them to stock the farm with milk cows for the use of the missionary family, and with oxen for plowing, carting, etc., and to provide for replenishing themselves with all necessary food hereafter, as well as to keep up such an ample stock of cattle as their means of sustaining them and their accumulating wants might warrant and require.

But a more important achievement than even this had been effected. A project was formed by some individuals who had recently become domiciled in the settlement, to set up a distillery. Knowing that if this succeeded, all their efforts for the moral renovation and religious instruction of the people would be unavailing, Mr. Lee set himself to work to prevent the project from being carried into execution. He called the people together, and gave them an address on the evil effects of intemperance, and proposed the formation of a temperance society, under a pledge of total abstinence from all intoxicating liquors as a beverage, which the people almost unanimously signed and as the gentlemen concerned had already expended some money in preparing for their contemplated establishment, the same people who had joined the temperance society subscribed more than a sufficient amount to remunerate him for their pecuniary loss, at the same time presenting an earnest, but respectful remonstrance against their project, urging the mischief it must, if carried into operation, bring upon the infant settlement. This had the desired effect. The distillery was abandoned; and, greatly to their honor its projectors politely declined the proffered remuneration, and heartily united with the others in the cause of temperance.

By this means a foundation was laid for the future well-being and prosperity of this little colony, and very soon God bore testimony to the zealous efforts of his servants, by pouring out his Spirit upon the people. The work commenced among the children in the school, and extended to the adults in the settlement, including some of the different nations, French, English, Americans, half-breeds, and Indians, who were grouped together in the village, molding their hearts into the image of Christ, and filling them with love to God and one another. Upward of forty were the subjects of this glorious work. This was most cheering to the missionaries, and as an evidence of their gratitude to God, they formed themselves into a missionary society and three hundred and forty-eight dollars were subscribed toward the support of the cause. This was a glorious beginning, being the “first-fruits” of a more plenteous harvest which they hoped yet to reap from among the heathen of that land of darkness and desolation.

Several other new places were occupied this year, chiefly west of the Allegheny mountains, under the auspices of the Missionary Society. Smethport and Sinnamahoning, in the bounds of the Pittsburgh conference, were successfully cultivated; and King’s River, in the Missouri conference. In the northwestern section of the Indiana conference, the Tippecanoe and Eel River, the Mississinewa and Maumee missions were commenced among the scattered settlements in that new and thriving country. Point Rock, in the bounds of the Tennessee conference, and Yalo Bush and Tallahatche missions, in the Mississippi conference, were commenced this year, and prosecuted with success. Several additional missions were also begun for the special benefit of the slaves in the neighborhood of New Orleans, and on the cotton plantations in the bounds of the Georgia and South Carolina conferences, which have proved highly beneficial to that class of our population.

As the lands formerly occupied by the Cherokee Indians were filling up rapidly by white people, that they might not be allowed to grow into a community destitute of the gospel, four missions were established in this territory, and they returned the next year four hundred and seven members of the Church. Mattawoman mission, in the Baltimore conference, embraced a population not hitherto supplied in the regular way, and one hundred and fifty-four members were returned in 1835, one hundred and nine of whom were colored.

The Philadelphia Conference Missionary Society, in addition to assisting largely in support of the aboriginal missions by the appropriation of its funds, exerted itself efficiently to supply destitute places within its own bounds, and Southwark, in the vicinity of Philadelphia, was added to those heretofore undertaken and supported by this society, and one hundred and fifty-eight members were returned the next year as the fruit of the labor bestowed upon it by the missionary.

The successful manner in which these new fields of labor were cultivated, together with the prosperous state of the work generally, tended to enlarge the sphere of our usefulness, as well as to increase the number of preachers and members. It was evident, also, that the ministry was improving in learning and general knowledge, and consequently in usefulness and respectability, while the continuance of the revivals was sure indication that they were not retrograding in piety and zeal.

Another college was founded this year in Lebanon, Illinois, under the patronage of the Illinois conference. It has gone on prosperously from that day to this, being under the presidency of a graduate of the Wesleyan University, a son of one of the old preachers of the New England conference, the Rev. Joseph A. Merrill. This institution is exerting an improving and hallowing influence on the present generation of that new and growing country, by calling into action their intellectual resources, and it promises stability and usefulness under the superintendence and patronage of its zealous friends and supporters.

The academies already established, now amounting to about twenty, were in successful operation, and becoming prolific feeders to the higher seminaries of learning. These all, no doubt, were exerting a most salutary influence upon our community, and tended to create among our people generally a more just appreciation of sanctified learning, and useful, scientific improvement.

A controversy had arisen in the course of this year respecting the collections which had been ordered by the General Conference, and were therefore recognized by the Discipline of the Church, which were made for specific purposes: such as for the support of the ministry, for missionary objects, etc. It seems, that some boards of trustees claimed the right, by virtue of their corporate powers, to take possession of all the moneys which might be collected in the churches, whether in the classes or otherwise, whether for specific objects or in the ordinary way, and appropriate them as they pleased. It was at once seen, that if this claim were yielded to the trustees, our discipline, providing for a board of stewards and their duties, would be rendered entirely nugatory, and the collections made for missionary or any other specific object, might be diverted from their original purposes, and applied as the common revenues of the Church.

In opposition to this claim, it was pleaded, —

That the constitution, both of the general and state governments, secured to religious denominations all their peculiar rights and privileges, both as it related to doctrine, rites, ceremonies, and practice, whether this practice relates to moral, religious, or pecuniary matters, provided only that they do not contravene any law of the state, or are not guilty of licentiousness. On this broad principle of constitutional right, it was contended that those peculiarities growing out of the Church economy were recognized by legal enactments, and we were therefore protected by the strong arm of law in the peaceable exercise of all our rights, privileges, and usages.

Hence it followed, that no board of trustees could be authorized, even were such a disposition manifested by any state legislature, to trample upon the discipline of their own Church, to nullify a regulation or usage peculiar to their own denomination, if for no other reason than because it would be empowering trustees to defeat the object of their appointment, which was not to annihilate, but to support the institutions of their Church.

Inasmuch, therefore, as our Discipline had provided for the appointment of stewards, to whom all Class money and quarterly collections were to be intrusted, as well as the alms of the Church for the benefit of the poor, the trustees had no right of control over such collections, because they were made for specific objects, pointed out and prescribed by the Discipline, namely, the support of the ministry and the poor.

And as to moneys raised for missionary purposes, as it was always notified when collections or subscriptions were taken, that they were designed for that specific object, and the people gave accordingly, no board of trustees, nor any other person or persons had a right to appropriate them for any other than the objects for which they were given.

The duties of trustees were specific and well defined, and they did not, in either the Discipline or the law of the state, include the receiving or appropriating the moneys so collected, but they related altogether to the temporalities of the Church, the taking care of the real and personal estate by means of money raised for that object alone, and so specified in the Discipline of their Church, and the law of the land.

These plain, common-sense views, however did not satisfy those individuals who had set up the claim contended for; and to put the matter at rest, the questions were submitted to two eminent lawyers in the city of New York. Their opinion, given entirely independent of each other, the one not knowing that the other had been consulted, was as follows, which put an end to the controversy. Lawyer Jay, a son of the late eminent Governor Jay, after stating the questions at issue, and assigning sundry reasons for his opinions, decided as follows: —

“The stewards, after paying the allowance to the preachers, send the surplus to the annual conference. Other collections and subscriptions are directed or authorized, but in all cases the money raised is subject to one or other of the conferences, and generally is to pass through the hands of the stewards.

“Now, the moneys thus collected are not the property of the corporation in this city. The money, before it was contributed, certainly did not belong to that corporation, nor has it been given it.

“The corporation are trustees only for the congregations who meet in their churches. The money has been given for the use of all the congregations under the jurisdiction of the conference.

“The stewards who have received it are not officers of the corporation, which can neither appoint nor remove them, nor call them to account. But the trustees or corporation may, if they please, solicit subscriptions or make collections for the purpose of defraying their debt or the interest due upon it.

“The money thus raised will be under their own exclusive management, and the clergy will have no control over it.

“The only question, then, which requires further consideration, is, whether the corporation can prohibit the collections directed by the book of Discipline from being made in their churches? I think they cannot.

“The act of 1784, under which the Methodist Episcopal Church in this city is incorporated, is its charter, which is not altered by the act of 1813. The eleventh section has been already explained. By the act of 1784, the trustees are authorized to take possession of all property already belonging to the society; to purchase and acquire other property; to lease and improve land; to erect meeting houses, parsonage houses, school houses, and other buildings for the use of the society; to make rules for managing the temporal concerns of the congregation; to have the sole ordering of payments of the moneys belonging to the congregation; to appoint a clerk, treasurer, and collector; to regulate the renting of pews, and the fees for burials, and all other matters touching the temporal concerns of the congregation.

“These temporal concerns relate only to the property vested in the corporation.

“The right of the incorporated trustees to forbid the collections (if they possess it) must be derived from the right of property. Being the owners of the meeting houses it may be thought that they are authorized to control the use of them, and either to prohibit the preachers from entering them, or to admit them under such conditions as the trustees shall see fit to prescribe. And is would be true if they held the meeting houses for their personal benefit but they hold them, as their name imports, as trustees. What, then, is the nature of the trust?

“In the first organization of the Methodist society by Mr. Wesley, he established it as a principle, that the preachers should be independent of the people; for that, as well as for other reasons, he permitted none of them to be stationary, or to derive their support from any contract made with particular congregations and he framed the system of collections to defray expenses. In this state Methodism was introduced into America, and at the time when the law of 1784 was passed, the ministers were appointed and paid as they are at present. The design of that act was, not to alter the doctrine, discipline, or worship of any denomination but, on the contrary, to sustain such doctrine, discipline, and worship, by enabling each congregation to manage its property through the agency of a corporation, instead of managing it as they had previously done, through the less convenient agency of private trustees.

“By the act of 1784, the incorporated trustees have certain powers granted to them — and these powers cannot be exercised by the conferences. But the trustees themselves must exercise them so as not to defeat the very end and purpose of their incorporation.

“They cannot exclude from their meeting houses the preachers appointed in the manner prescribed by the constitution of their Church, nor impose upon them conditions inconsistent with it.

“I do not mean to say that the conference have unlimited authority. But I am of opinion that, in directing their preachers to solicit from the liberality of their hearers the accustomed contributions, without which their system could not subsist, they have not exceeded their proper limits, and that the trustees ought not to resist them.

“My answers to the questions proposed to me are as follows: —

The religious societies incorporated under the law of 1784 are to be governed by that law, and not by the act of 1813.

“The eleventh section has been already explained.

The framers of the discipline of a church can make no rule contrary to the law of the land. Such a rule would be a dead letter. But I do not think that the rules in question concerning collections are of that nature.

With respect to the third question, I understand that previous to the year 1820 the trustees acted as stewards, and received and paid over the money raised by collections, in the manner prescribed in the book of Discipline, and that in 1820 they consented that other stewards might be appointed, which was done accordingly. This act of the trustees would not abridge the legal rights of their successors, and therefore has no influence on my opinion in relation to the other questions.

No law gives to the trustees the control of the collections made in the classes.

“Revenue is the produce of taxes, &c., or the rents and profits of real or personal estate. In a loose sense, it may denote income of any kind. But in no sense can the voluntary contributions of individuals for the general benefit of all the clergy and institutions of a church be considered as the revenue of any particular congregation or corporation.”

To the two following questions he says, “I answer in the negative, for reasons already sufficiently explained.” These are the questions: —

Does the law make it obligatory on the trustees to take the voluntary contributions made in the congregations and classes which the Discipline assigns to the stewards for specific purposes?

Can the trustees, by virtue of their corporate powers, compel the stewards to relinquish the voluntary contributions made in the congregations and classes in opposition to their official duties, as defined in the Discipline?”

The other attorney, no less eminent than Mr. Jay for his sound legal knowledge, David B. Ogden, returned the following answers: —

“My opinion has been requested by some of the members of the Methodist Episcopal Church in this city upon the following questions: —

“First. Are religious societies incorporated under the law of 1784 to be governed by that law, or by the act subsequently passed in 1813? If by the former, what construction is to be put upon the eleventh section of that act?

“Second. Have the framers of a discipline of a church the right to ordain provisions which are contrary to the laws of incorporation; and is the discipline in such a case a dead letter?

“Third. Does the fact that the society submitted to the appointment of stewards to take charge of part of its funds in 1820, prevent the present board of trustees from assuming the duties enjoined upon them by statute?

“Fourth. The funds collected in classes are devoted to the use of the ministry. Will the fourth section of the act of 1813, giving to the trustees the control of the temporal concerns and revenues of the Church, include such collections in the classes?

“Fifth. Are voluntary contributions to be considered as revenues of a church? And have the trustees the power to prevent collections in churches under their charge by others, without their consent?

“Sixth. Does the law make it obligatory on the trustees to take the voluntary contributions made in the congregations and classes which the discipline assigns to the stewards for specific purposes?

“Seventh. Can the trustees, by virtue of their corporate powers, compel the stewards to relinquish the voluntary contributions made in the congregations in opposition to their official duties, as defined in the Discipline?

“I give the answers to them, which are according to the best of my judgment.

“First. As to the first question there can be no doubt. The powers of this religious society as a corporation being derived wholly under the act of 1784, the corporate powers are under that act, and to be looked for in it only.

“The object of the incorporation is to enable the society to held property, and to hold it down to their successors, to sue and be sued, and in effect to give it a personal power, or the power of holding property, of suing and being sued as if it was an individual. The law never intended further to interfere with the society, but to leave its doctrine, its discipline, and form of worship untouched. These are considered as matters with which the law has nothing to do. This is what the legislature intended to declare by the eleventh section of the act.

“Second. The framers of the discipline of a church certainly have no power to ordain provisions contrary to the law of the incorporation. They have no right to say that the property of the corporation shall not vest in the trustees under the law in whom the law has vested it, but shall vest in some other persons — any such ordinance would be absolutely void.

“Third. I think the trustees are bound to take charge of all the temporalities of the church, and if they have omitted to do so heretofore, they are bound to do it now.

“Fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh questions —

“The answer to these questions must depend upon one and the same principle.

“The trustees are to possess and enjoy all the temporalities of the society, by which I understand all its real and personal property: I do not think money raised in the congregations for special and particular purposes as forming any part of the property of the Church or society. Suppose a collection made for the use of the Orphan Asylum, for instance; it seems to me that the money raised by such a contribution is the property of the Orphan Asylum, and not of the trustees of the religious society by which it is raised.

“What collections are to be made in the churches, and for what purposes they may be made, seem to me to be matters with which trustees have nothing to do, but belong to those who manage what is called in these questions “the discipline” of the society. If moneys are raised by contribution, or in any other way, as part of the general property of the society, the trustees take them, as a matter of course, for the use of the society. But moneys raised for special purposes must be held for the use of those purposes by those in whose hands the discipline of the church chooses to place them. I do not think the act of incorporation intended or can in any way affect those moneys. This matter must depend upon those who manage and control the discipline of the Church.”

These decisions had a very happy influence upon the Church, as they tended to set the mooted question at rest, and to confine the litigating parties to their appropriate duties, without attempting any longer to interfere with each other.

Sixty-eight preachers had located the last year, seventy-five were returned supernumerary, one hundred and sixty-seven superannuated, and thirty-four had died.

Among those who exchanged the scenes of labor and employment in this world for the rest and pleasures of the next, were two of our eminent preachers, who had labored long with an unblemished reputation to build up the walls of our Zion.

Barnabas McHenry, of the Kentucky conference, entered the traveling ministry in 1787, only three years after the organization of our Church. He will be long remembered in the west, the scene of his youthful labors, as the pious and diligent servant of the people, to many of whom he was indeed a messenger of peace and good will. And though he was compelled, in consequence of debility brought on by excessive labors and sufferings, to intermit his itinerant ministry from 1796 to 1819, yet he again entered the work, to which he devoted himself as an effective preacher only two years, when he was returned superannuated.

It is said that he lived for several years in the enjoyment of “perfect love,” giving evidence of it by the tempers of his mind, and the deportment of his life. To the doctrines and discipline of the Church of his choice he adhered with a firm and commendable tenacity, making them the subjects of his private meditation and public advocacy, and, withal, feeling their solemn and saving efficacy upon his mind and heart.

He finally ended his days in peace, and, we trust, rests from his labors.”

Seely Bunn, of the Baltimore conference, was a native of Poughkeepsie, N. Y., and was born August 1, 1765. After the family settled in Henley county, Virginia, in the twenty-fourth year of his age, he was made a partaker of justifying grace, and in 1792 entered the field of itinerant preaching.

In these early days of Methodism in this county, he partook of his quota of obloquy and privations, more especially when engaged in carrying the gospel into the new settlements, where accommodations were coarse and poor, and the work of a traveling preacher laborious and fatiguing. In traversing the wildernesses of the west, from one new settlement to another he was often exposed to savage cruelty, had frequently to sleep in the woods, exposed to the pelting storms, to hunger and cold, and all those privations incident to the state of the country, and to the life of a Methodist itinerant. But in the midst of all, his soul was borne up by the promises and presence of God, and by seeing the fruit of his labors in the awakening and conversion of sinners.

In this good work he continued until 1814, when he was compelled, from debility, to take a superannuated relation. He bore his afflictions with exemplary patience, and finally departed in peace and triumph in the full prospect of entering into life eternal.

Numbers in the Church: Whites This Year: 553.134; Last Year: 519,196; Increase: 33,938 — Colored This Year: 83,156; Last Year: 78,293; Increase: 4,863 — Indians This Year: 2,494; Last Year: 2,247; Increase: 247 — Total This Year: 638,784; Last Year: 599,736 — Increase: 39,048 — Preachers This Year: 2,625; Last Year: 2,400; Increase: 225.