Columbia (Btttotitfftp
THE LIBRARIES
Bequest of
Frederic Bancroft
1860-1945
g 1832 '■§£)
Til OY GOiXIivRJi^Wi
E MI-CENTENNIAL.
Q^1882
First Half Century
LIFE AND WORK
TROY CONFERENCE
Methodist Episcopal Church.
BY ERASTUS WENTWORTH,
MEMBER OK THE CONFERENCE IN ITS FIRST AND LAST TWO DECAD1 3.
TROY, N. V.:
PRINTED AT THE T:MEC OKnCK, ,{K« >.\ i ► "\ V.Y AM' IHIK1> STREET.
'■ .'.•- ;'ss.>. - • ■
Text : — " What mean these stones ?'
i • • • • » • •
• • • • • t«
• • . < • • » •
SEMI-CENTENNIAL
The general-in-chief of the Israelitish forces,
and leader of a great national migration, only
obeyed a common human impulse when he com-
manded twelve stones to be taken from the bed
of the divided Jordan and piled in Gilgal as a
lasting memorial of a signal event in the nation's
history.
The monumental instinct is universal. All
ages and lands have their rude or labored me-
mentoes of past events and times gone by. The
graceful pagodas, rising story above story, a
cpnspicuous feature of the Chinese landscape,
are venerable commemoratives. So are the Dru-
idic monoliths of Salisbury plain and the rock-
wonders of Luxor, Karnak and Elephanta. Amid
the silences of Persepolis and Palmyra ; the
Sphinxes and pyramids of Egypt ; the winged
bulls of Nineveh ; the ruined arches and temples
of Rome and Carthage ; the tombs of Athens
and Cyprus ; successive generations of explorers
— Layards, Belzonis, Champollions, Schliemans
and Cesnolas pause and inquire, "what mean
these stones."
Youngest in the family of nations, America
already chronicles her Bunker Hill and Gettys-
burgh achievements in marble shafts and granite
4 SEMI-CENTENNIAL.
obelisks. Yet, there are better and more endur-
ing preservatives than these.
Historical happenings, luckily, are independent
of rocks and stones which the rains abrade, light-,
nings and earthquakes shatter, and sands bury.
Oral traditions, written records, ballads, epics,
are better custodians.
The pen erects monuments more durable than
brass. Customs, and public periodical observ-
ances, especially those of celebrative character,
are more instructive to new generations than
monumental piles. Passover and Purim were
more educative to the young Jew than Gilgal
stone heaps ; the semi-centennial jubilee vastly
more striking than the weekly Sabbath.
The fiftieth anniversary of marriage is so much
more notable than the original wedding as to be
fitly styled " golden." Centennials and semi-
centennials are marked periods in history.
American Methodism, like the American nation,
has already celebrated its hundredth birth-day.
The Methodist Episcopal Church will, two years
hence, honor the historical Christmas that made
it an independent organization.
Fifty years ago, the Troy Conference, a sub-
section of that church, came into being, and we
are here to offer due respect to the occasion, to
connect by living links 1882 with 1832; and to
send, by living messengers, brotherly greetings
to the conference Centennial session. Some on
this floor, to-night, will survive in 1932.
In 1828, I heard a half-century sermon from
my own old Norwich, Connecticut, Puritan pas-
SEMI-CENTENNI. 1 1.. 5
tor, Joseph Strong, J). I)., i 778-1834, preceded
by Benjamin Lord, I). I)., 171 7-1 784, who,
together filled out the long period of one
hundred and twenty years in the same pul-
pit. Naturally, it was beyond the wildest dream
of a lad of fourteen, that he would, after fifty-
four years, be the chosen mouth-piece of a similar
occasion. Half a century seemed a period bor-
dering on the patriarchal. Yet, the years have
glided away so swiftly and smoothly, that, to-
night, he stands before you, facing the verge of
the allotted three score years and ten, startled to
find himself so near the goal, but feeling, that,
if it were Heaven's will, he could, without re-
pining, live out another period of equal duration,
and, thoroughly convinced, from his own experi-
ence, that if Methuselah had been asked if he
could endure the world's wickedness for another
nine centuries, he would have answered unhesi-
tatingly that he had "no objection to trying."
In June, 1744, Mr. Wesley convened, in Lon-
don, his first ministerial "conference," the germ
of one of the numerous potential agencies of
ecclesiastical Methodism. These annual minis-
terial " conversations " have traveled over the
the world with Methodism, entered into all its
ramifications, and culminated, in 1881, in an
"ecumenical conference" at City Road chapel,
the first general pilgrimage to the shrine of the
venerated founder, not yet, however, whatever
may hap in the future, to canonize or deify him.
This harmless gathering threw some few con-
temporary church idolizers into spasms of mirth
6 SEMI-CENTENNIAL.
or throes of holy horror at the ridiculous or pro-
fane association of the sacred name, 'ecumeni-
cal," with a body that did not claim to be a synod
or council of clerics and bishops, but a simple
brotherly "conference" of laics and preachers.
The first American Annual Conference, held
in Philadelphia, in 1773, under the chairmanship
of Thomas Rankin, one of Mr. Wesley's assist-
ants, consisted, like Mr. Wesley's first conference,
of ten preachers, — all English, — and represented
a membership of 11 60 and a chain of circuits
along the Atlantic seaboard from New York to
Norfolk, in Virginia. In the ten years follow-
ing, notwithstanding the struggle between the
colonies and the mother country, a conference
session was held every year, the preachers in-
creased to 80, the circuits to 40, the membership
to 15,000.
At a called conference commencing with
Christmas, 1784, the Methodist Episcopal
Church of the United States of North
America was founded, superintendents were
elected and made presidents ex officio, for life.
At the end of the century, sixteen years later,
the new organization numbered 270 itinerants,
160 circuits, stretching from Bay Ouinte, in Can-
ada, to Augusta, Georgia, with a lay membership
of 60,000.
A single conference, meeting, by adjournment
or appointment, at widely separated points, to
accommodate preachers scattered over such
breadth of territory, was no longer possible. The
number of sessions had increased from three to
SF.M J-CENTENNIAL. 7
twelve and twenty a year when the General Con-
ference of 1796 distributed the circuits among
six annual conferences, which became seven in
1800; nine in 1812; twelve in 1820. As the
work extended, new conferences were created by
annexing newly-settled territory, or by sub-di-
viding such of the older bodies as were found to
be too unwieldy or wide spread. By the General
Conference of 1832, the northern limb of the
New York Conference, which stretched from the
metropolitan city to the Canada line, something
over 300 miles, was severed from the parent stock,
named Troy, after one of its principal cities, and
made the twenty-second member of a family of
annual conferences, that now number 96, enrol
1 2,00c itinerants, 1,700,000 members and engir-
dle the globe. The Arminio-Wesleyan phase of
Christianity now aggregates between twenty and
thirty millions of adherents, a growth that has had
few parallels, notable as that of the American
nation itself. Success is not an infallible measure
of merit. Mere numbers are no test of worth,
otherwise we must award approval, divine and
human, to Mohammedanism, Buddhism, Mor-
monism, Spiritualism.
Methodism is not a mushroom growth. Its
doctrines are those of the universal church. Its
ground principles are as old as Christianity, as
lasting as the true interpretation of the Book of
God. It is no other than Christianity re-vitalized,
shaken free from dead works and unprofitable
traditions. It needs no apology or defence in
this connection The Troy Conference is sim-
8 SEMI-CENTENNIAL.
ply a sub-section of the grand body, set for the
propagation and maintenance of the christian
faith, opposition to wrong and sin, the promotion
of pure religion and right living. Territorially,
it included ten counties and parts of three other
counties in North-eastern New York, the
northern half of Berkshire county in Massachu-
setts, and that part of Vermont which lay west
of the Green mountains, since rent away, nay,
rather, wrenched away from the parent trunk by
the wretchedest empiricism ever known or heard
of in ecclesiastical surgery.
Pre-history of this lake, river, mountain and val
ley region is not needed here. In 1609, Anglo-
Dutch Hendrick Hudson, called at the south door
of the future conference, and French protestant
Champlain at the north, and each left his card,
to be read of all generations, the one in our chief
lake, the other in our principal river. French,
English and Indians, in their struggles for own-
ership, made this whole region historic battle-
ground, suggestive, at every turn, of defeat or
success, from burning Schenectady on the south,
to victorious Plattsburgh on the north, especially
reminding us of the shining fact that, within a
dozen miles of the Mecca of American Method-
ism (the Embury monument) was fought one of
the " fifteen decisive battles of the world," and a
victory gained which advanced universal freedom
and ranked Saratoga with Marathon, Arbela,
Hastings, Blenheim, and Waterloo.
The tide of emigration which, between the
French war and the Revolution, swept the Em-
SEMJ-CENTENN/A L 9
bury family to the north, resumed its flow with the
return of peace, and the hardy pilots of Methodism
kept their rude, life-preserving craft upon the crest
of the advancing wave. Contemporaneously.with
the adoption of a Republican constitution in
place of a rickety confederation, Garrettson and
his heroic band found their way to the log set-
tlements of the occupants of the land-grants cov-
ering the counties bordering Champlain and the
upper Hudson. Cambridge, the home of pre-
revolutionary Methodism, fittingly became the
first post-revolutionary centre from which evan-
gelistic efforts pulsated throughout all that north-
ern region. Albany. Saratoga, Pittsfield, Yer-
gennes, Plattsburgh, successively became perma-
nent names in the ever-widening family of circuits.
The whole period, from the Revolution to the
close of the second war with Great Britain, was
experimental, a time of trial for the nation, a
new people, learning to live under new and hith-
erto untried conditions. Our new ecclesiastical
life, was, in like manner, experimental. We suc-
ceeded to no old, cut and dried mediaeval system,
The woods of the new world had no more affinity
for prayer-books, surplices and diocesan episco-
pacy than the nation had for sceptres and crowns,
orders of nobility and robes of state. The fathers
had to feel their way to order, consistency and
consolidation. Duties and modes were novel,
recruits raw, and life rough. It was in the midst
of migratory populations, sojourning in log cab-
ins, riding on horseback through blazed forest-
2
io SEMI-CENTENNIAL.
paths, or over corduroy roads, and swimming
bridgeless streams that itinerant work commenced
in America. No other was possible. The coun-
try had to be cleared of forests, Indians, wolves,
bears, panthers, catamounts and rattlesnakes to
make way for the advent of civilization.
The Methodist itinerant rode in the van of
the never-ending procession of emigrant wagons
till they halted, perforce, on the shores of the
Pacific ocean. Forty years ago a favorite theme
with New England home missionary agents was
"the religious destitution of the great West."
" Only twenty ministers in all Illinois." True, only
twenty Congregational and twenty-five Episcopal,
but eight hundred Methodist, two hundred trav-
eling and six hundred local, in a population of
700,000! In 1803, Albany and Saratoga were
in the Philadelphia Conference. Quarter of a
century later there had grown out of this northern
soil four presiding elders' districts, numbering 44
charges, Sy preachers, and 16,200 lay members.
Distinguishing names were first given to the
Conferences in the Minutes of 1802. New York,
henceforward, alternated its sessions between the
northern and southern portions of its territory.
In the south it held seventeen out of twenty an-
nual sessions in New York city. In the north it
met twice (1803 and 1805) at Ashgrove. Albany
entertained the body twice and Troy five times.
Pittsfield, in Massachusetts, and Middlebury, in
Vermont, were favored with a single sight, each,
of a live bishop.
Of the 219 men in the hands of Elijah Hedding,
SEMI-CENTENNIAL. u
assisted by Robert R. Roberts, for distribution at
the Green street church, New York, 1832, Troy
Conference received 91, of whom 66 were elders,
23 probationers, and 2 superannuates. One-third
of the effective force was veteran, two having
commenced itinerant life with the century ; a
score more had fallen into the active ranks before
i8t>o, and ten had been members of General Con-
ference since it became a delegated body. The
heroic age of American Methodism was already
past — the age of peculiar labor and peculiar sac
rifice. The saddlebag dynasty was passing away.
The theological Anaks of those days were the
last graduates of " Brush College," the institu-
tion of which that eccentric polemic, Peter Cart-
wright, used to boast of being an alumnus. It was
the last of reading the Scriptures in the original
tongues, a la John P. Durbin, in log cabins, by the
light of pitch-pine knots ; the last of horseback
homiletical studies — bible, hymn-book and dis-
cipline being the only text-books ; the last of
portmanteau book-hawking ; the last of the plain
garb, straight coat, wide felt hat, and foretop re-
ligiously plastered clown over the forehead, after
the fashion of the puritan and shaker, a fashion
ridiculed endlessly by " Vanity Fair," in earlier
days, but the very top of the mode in that same
" Vanity Fair," now, the pride and glory of the
young misses of the ton, known, in the slang of
the hour as their ''beautifully beautiful bangs.'
In 1835, Wilbur Fisk wore to Europe the con
ventional, straight-waisted uniform which he
brought from the itinerancy to the college presi-
I2 SEMI-CENTENNIAL.
dential chair, and returned the following year,
after representing American Methodism at the
British Conference, dressed in the ordinary cos-
tume of the period. In 181 1, Tobias Spicer was
" discontinued " for presuming to marry while "on
trial." In those days the celibate system was in
full vogue. Of the 84 preachers constituting the
Virginia Conference only three were married.
In 1 816, a married man was, for the first time,
made bishop, and the celibate custom went by
the board, though there are not wanting instances
to suggest that while marriage is a good thing,
on the whole, for the itinerancy, occasional cases
of celibacy would do it no harm.
These were the days of the waning and final
extinction of the circuit system. In 1832, New
York city was divided into two circuits, east and
west, supplied by five preachers, each, who
preached in rotation ; six years later, the twelve
churches of the city had each its stationed
preacher. The new Troy Conference sent 88
preachers to 51 appointments ; twenty years later,
144 out of 169 were stationed, and there was
scarcely the ghost of an old time circuit in the
entire list of charges.
Men live who saw the last of conferences with
closed doors, an idea that would hugely amuse
a modern newspaper reporter, that ubiquitous
Robin Goodfellow, busy as fairy Puck, who
would
"put a girdle 'round the earth in forty minutes."
Said reporter would smile at the notion that
his prying pencil, potent as a housebreaker's
SEMI-CENTENNIAL i3
jimmy, could not force any door, burglarize, if
need were, the council chamber of heaven, and
beat ever\- competitor in placing- its secrets in
staring capitals before a generation of newspaper
gourmands who seem to regard scandal and gos-
sip as the choicest nutriment of mind and soul.
The old time quarterly love-feast tickets are
not yet quite forgotten ; though modern Metho-
dists luxuriate in express trains, palace cars and
through tickets. Their fathers rode on limited
passes, vised quarterly, and, in default of compli-
ance with the conditions of the road, were un-
ceremoniously put off the train by the conductor
or dropped at the way stations.
We remember the days, also, when each mem-
ber of conference had to leave the room while
his character, habits, methods, usefulness or use-
/^j-ness, were freely canvassed, and when, if these
were not satisfactory, some method was speedily
found for locating him, with his consent or with-
out.
There is not so much talk in conferences as
formerly. Even a spirited debate is a rarity.
The age inclines to telegraphic brevity, despatch,
directness. It was not so a generation or two
ago. Small matters elicited lively discussion
and every man had to have his say.
Twenty years ago there lingered among us a
brother who always sat in a front pew on the
conference floor, watched all the proceedings
with Argus eyes and commonly had something
to say on every point at issue. Full of the tra-
ditions and usages of the past and jealous for old
I4 SEMI-CENTENNIAL.
time precedents, he popped up twenty times
during a morning session with some inquiry,
some objection, some suggestion, pertinent or
non-pertinent, opportune or inopportune. Dur-
ing one of the last conferences he attended, I
dined one day with an intelligent Baptist lady,
who had never witnessed the proceedings of an
annual conference before and who was not, of
course, familiar with the terminology of Metho-
dist Minutes and Discipline, " effective," " super-
numerary," "superannuate," though she had
evidently heard of the latter. In all seriousness
she put to me the embarrassing question, !' who
was that old gentlenan who was so conspicuous
in the doings of this morning's session ? I think,"
said she, " he is on what you call your Dotage
List." It is consoling to age and superannuation
to believe, though it may be only a shallow con-
ceit, that dotage, all of it, does not belong to
years, or the superannuate class. There are
occasional instances of it at the other end of the
line. Some are dotards at thirty, others vig-
orous at seventy.
The fathers did dote much and piously upon
their "peculiarities," — plain dress, plain churches,
free sittings, and the like. The present race of
Methodists concedes much to the general belief
of mankind that religion is an affair of conduct
and not of clothes, respects the heart and not
the hair, is independent of bodily ornaments —
flowers, silks, ribbons, steeples, pews, bells, or-
gans, choirs and many other things abominable
to the Puritan and old Methodist regime. De-
SEMI-CEA TEA ,\ /.//. i5
spite their singularities, incidental or cultivated,
trivial or positively objectionable, those stalwart
sons of the mountain slopes or lake and river
basins, did sturdy work and used every effort to
prove themselves worthy sons of the indefatiga-
ble Wesley, in the gospel.
Wesley, like Bonaparte, with a healthy body,
alert mind and wiry constitution, found that he
could do with six or seven hours sleep and make
up any little deficiencies in the saddle. Whole
generations of Methodist preachers attempted
suicide by trying to follow his example, irrespect-
ive of physiological or climatical conditions. If
Wesley had commenced his mission in mid-win-
ter, in the region of the St. Lawrence river, with
the mercury frozen solid in the bulb of the ther-
mometer, six feet of snow out doors, and green
wood for the fire-place within, it is safe to say
that four o'clock rising and five o'clock preaching
Methodists would have been as scarce as Baptists
in Greenland.
Our voluminous pioneer biography bristles
with incidents of labor, privation, danger and
suffering. The " hardships of the early itiner-
ants" is an ever-recurring theme. Nevertheless,
one point seems to be often overlooked, and that
is, that the hardships and sacrifices of the pioneer
peoples were as great as those of their spiritual
guides, that the best the people had, though it
were only corn bread, " hog and hominy" was
always at the service of the preacher. Ministers
of consolation, sons of thunder, weeping Jere-
miahs or wrathful denouncers of iniquity and sin,
1 6 SEMI-CENTENNIAL.
these heralds of the Cross flamed through the
land. If the incidents of their individual biog-
raphy and the characteristics of their individual
persons and ministry have never been written,
or have faded from recollection, the flavor of
their excellence and the traditions of their spirit
and modes influence our lives and guide our con-
ference delibrations to this day.
The Conference of 1832 was a live body.
What has become of these noble men ? The an-
swer to this question will remind us of the
changes wrought by time. Sordid souls, wor-
shipers of the present, imbued with slight rever-
ence for the past, and little influenced by esprit
du corps, will reply, "who cares?" "Let the
dead bury their dead." What has this rushing
age to do with the fossils and fogies and mum-
mied remains of two generations past? " A living
dog is better than a dead lion." The old look
backward, the young, forward, impersonations
of memory and hope. Frightful bores, these
Jonathan Old Bucks, with their Rip Van Winkle
stories about " old times," as if any " former
times were better than these ! " Another class,
more reverential, more inclined to sentiment,
history, tradition, will heed, with becoming
thoughtfulness, the solemn inquiry
" Your fathers where are they ?
And the prophets — do they live forever ?"
It is pertinent to the occasion to inquire what
has befallen the 91 men that constituted the
original Troy Conference ? The General Min-
utes answer this question, partially. Two-thirds
SEMI-CENTENNL 1 1 . t7
of them arc dead. Three-fourths of the young
men who were probationers in 1S32, are dead.
The figures composing the number 91 are re-
versed. Only 19 of the 91 are known to be
alive. Seven of these are in the Troy Confer-
ence, all superannuates, of from five to twenty
years' standing. Ten have disappeared from
view through the several doors of conference
exit. Eleven still live in other conferences, nine
on the retired list ; one only is effective."*
Into this ministerial close corporation have
been received, in the last fifty years, six hundred
and thirty men, of whom less than two hundred
and fifty compose the Troy Conference to-day.
Like everv thincr human, an annual conference
exhibits the ordinary phenomenon of out-go and
income, waste and supply. The lay member-
ship, including the 6,000 carried off by the un-
righteous severance of Western Vermont, despite
all drains by death, secessions and removals, is
twice what it was in 1832, while the ministry for
the same period has increased in triple ratio,
giving an effective minister to every 200 mem-
bers, or one in 1,000 to the Methodist popula-
tion. The tabulated history of the ministerial
conference is as follows :
Original Nucleus, - 91
Received on Probation, 511
Received by Transfers and other modes, - 119
Total Conference Corps, - - - 721
♦Joseph Ayers, presiding cider of Bellefontaine District, Central Ohio, fifty-
two years in the itinerant tic-Id.
iS SEMI-CENTENNIAL.
PER CONTRA.
Deceased, ------- 184
Living in Sister Conferences, - - - no
Discontinued after brief trial, - - - 80
Located permanently, - 61
Withdrawn from the connection, - - - 28
Expelled for various causes, ... u
Members of the Conference to-day, - - 247
Total, - - - - - - 721
The Conference has also 118 local preachers,
once a useful order, but now chiefly the " vesti-
bule or the Botany Bay" of the Annual Confer-
ences.
The Troy Conference may be fitly character-
ized as rural, its two commercial capitals, Albany
and Troy, being about mid-way in rank with the
first fifty cities of the Republic, classed accord-
ing to population, yet it is among the foremost
in clerical force, lay membership, Sunday School
work and benevolent contributions. About one-
fourth of the Conferences of the connection
report church property of a million dollars and
upwards in value. Troy stands eighth in this
list, with the same grade of church debt. It
ranks as tenth or eleventh in ministerial support,
fifteenth in superannuate collections, several
grades below what it ought to be in view of the
fact that in the number of superannuates and
supernumeraries it is the banner Conference of
the connection ! Its corps of preachers and re-
serves lacks only five of being equal to the whole
effective force of the original body !
SEMI-CENTENNIAL. i9
The Conference has always taken lively in-
terest in education and has experienced its full
share of the customary failures of popular effort
in that direction.* It may felicitate itself upon
its steady recognition of the grand reforms of
the century; its war record; its rank and work
in the quadrennial Conferences; its occasional
contributions to the literature of the church ;f
its honor in counting in its membership two men
on their way to the bishopric, % and another,
equally distinguished, en route {or the editorship
of the Quarterly Review,^ its present honor in
the chairmanship of the Book Committee, | the
embodied General Conference in the interval
between sessions.
No less than sixty self-denying presbyters of
grave character and years have, from time to
time, consented to serve the Conference as dioce-
san overseers by episcopal grace or popular nomi-
nation, personally grateful, no doubt, for the op-
portunity afforded for self-sacrifice and practising
itinerancy in primitive style and on first prin-
ciples, with entirely subordinate reference to the
fact of its being a tolerably fair passport to the
general councils of the tribe and a seat among
its chief sachems, since it has happened that
of the fifty men who have represented the min-
isterial body in General Conference, one-half
have been presiding elders ! Nevertheless, these
*In this year of grace, 1882, it patronizes two institutions, Troy Conference
Academy, Chas. H. Dunton. Principal, and Fort Edward, N. Y., Institute, Jos.
E, Kintf, President.
tNotably. F. G. Hibbard and D. D. Whedon, Commentaries.
*John Alley and Jesse T. Peck.
^Daniel D. Whedon.
lh uner Eaton.
2o SEMI-CENTENNIAL.
cabineteers have all been able, hard-working
men, and the office though of less use than for-
merly, no sinecure.
For forty years local Minutes have been
printed, a convenient Year Book, suited to an
age when every interest, sacred and secular, from
a tooth powder to a sewing machine, from a col-
lege society to a presiding elder's district, is pro-
moted by some form of published periodical.
The attitude of the Conference toward the
special questions that have agitated the church
and nation from time to time has partaken both
of the conservative and the progressive.
In 1844, the body voted overwhelmingly to let
the South go and take with her an equitable
share of church property according to the " Plan
of Separation." The vote of the border Con-
ferences turned the scale and converted the pro-
posed peaceful division into rebellion and seces-
sion. On lay delegation the laity of the Con-
ference voted for, while the clerical body voted
against, the mild infusion of it that was pro-
posed for our church councils in a spirit suffi-
ciently fogeyish to suit its sternest official oppo-
nent, the late Edward R. Ames.
The body has had, from the beginning, stal-
wart preachers and herculean laborers. Its work
has been mainly domestic, the motion of its in-
conspicuous spheres regular and orbital. An
occasional comet has flashed athwart the sys-
tem, engendering the usual apprehension caused
by these erratics, distinguished from fixed stars
by a thin, misty, transparent nucleus in the way
SEMI-CENTENNJA L. 21
of head and millions of leagues of nebulous
spread in the rear.
Sunflower aesthetics in the line of oratory,
music, poetry, have not been over-abundant in
these rustic regions. Watts, the Wesleys and
the Medievalists have rendered it well nigh im-
possible for any modern to add any thing to the
world's stock of genuine hymns. It is a curious
fact, highly illustrative of the power of culture,
that the Church of England, whose fixed ritual
allows slender provision for hymn singing,
should, nevertheless, have been most prolific in
hymn writers. Ten Episcopal hymnists find
place in the new hymnal, but a Methodist hymn
writer worth the name would be a lusus natures !
Taste for nature and art is no longer piously
suppressed. In 1850, when Jenny Lind was
entrancing New York with her divine songs, I
asked Father Lane, old time book agent, if he
had followed the multitude and visited the scene
of her triumphs, Trippler Hall. He thanked
God that he had "seen neither the inside of it
nor the outside." One of our superintendents
is said to have passed Niagara Falls seven times
on his episcopal tours without diverging from
his direct course to see a revelation of God that
hundreds have crossed the ocean to reverence !
This age has little of the Quaker prejudice of
the one or the Spartan devotion to duty of the
other. It has studied Burke on the Sublime
and Beautiful, looked into Hogarth's Analysis
of Beauty, read Matthew Arnold and Principal
Shairp on Culture, and listened to Oscar Wilde.
22 SEMI-CENTENNIAL.
While it has no leanings toward church mil-
linery, and abhors artificial flowers like the door-
keeper of an old-time love feast, it has no objec-
tion to a genuine horticultural display, provided
it be not of that extravagant magnitude that
makes it equally improvident for the impecuni-
ous to marry or die. Beauty is a relative word.
Fashion renders the intrinsically ugly beautiful.
The dress and manners of the fathers were beau-
tiful in their time — unspeakably ugly to us.
They could not help becoming obsolete.
It is equally absurd to petrify fashions, and to
endeavor to force the creeds and rituals of one
generation upon generations following. What
is exactly fitted to one age of the world is totally
out of joint with another. Cardinal truths,
laws, general principles, fit all times ; details,
special rules, dispensations change as men
change. Rome's Latin ritual is a body of death.
It was a live medium when it began to be used,
the language of the masses. In the run of the
centuries one word after another died on the
tongue of the priest till all was corpse in his
altar ministrations. The fashions in dress and
beliefs to-day, in a century will be as ridiculous
as the ugly head-dresses of the Roman sister-
hoods. All healthy growth is a process of death
as well as a process of life. All healthy organ-
isms are actively engaged in sloughing off the
dead and replacing the old and defunct with that
which is new, vigorous, life sustaining and life
creating. Ecclesiastical organizations are no
exception to this law. Rules, regulations, ordi-
SEMI-CEXTRXXIAL.
23
nances, questions and catechisings become obso-
lete, and books of creed and discipline dead
letter. The indefinite multiplication of ques-
tions for the conduct of quarterly and annual
Conferences will not infuse life into that out of
which the life and spirit have once departed. It is
a question of vital importance to Methodists and
General Conferences how many and what of the
prudentials of the last century are fitted to this !
We live in a new world, if not in " a new
heaven," at least a " new earth."
The era of the organization of the Troy Con-
ference was one of the world's transition periods.
Forces were being developed that affected, un-
precedently, the physical, civil, social and religi-
ous welfare of mankind. Every passing century
has a grandeur of its own. Every part of God's
creation manifests a variety that scorns repeti-
tions and tends to the infinite. The great law
of averages and compensations distributes ad-
vantages among the centuries. Each has its
own revelations and inspirations, each, its full
share of the wondrous and the useful. The
fragment of the 19th century now under review
has been especially prolific in physical and social
wonders. What were some of the thoughts and
doings that busied the brains and hands of men
in 1832 ?
Morse, on a return voyage from Europe, was
studying out methods of applying the electro-
magnetic currents (discovered by Oersted in
18 19) to the transmission of thought ; and de-
veloping, step by step, that wonderful system
24 SEMI-CENTENNIAL.
which now clothes the globe with thought
nerves, and enables antipodal hemispheres to
converse with each other. Stephenson had set
the whole capital world into a ferment of stock
company enterprise by demonstrating in 1830,
on the Liverpool and Manchester railway, the
feasibility and advantages of locomotion by
steam. In May, 1832, I rode on the rude cars
(coach bodies on trucks) that began that season
to make regular trips between Albany and
Schenectady, going about seven miles an hour,
the rude foreshadowing of that mighty system
of travel and transportation now familiar to all
lands. In 1832, Daguerre was prosecuting in-
itial experiments in photography ; Goodyear
was trying to vulcanize india rubber ; Harnden
was meditating the express system ; omnibuses,
invented in France, were taking the place of
hackney coaches in the cities ; gas was working
its way into general favor, displacing tallow
candles and oil lamps ; friction matches were
supplanting the old flint and steel and tinder-
box ; cook stoves were succeeding the old time
fireplace, with its array of bellows, andirons,
shovel and tongs, cranes, bake kettles and long-
handled frying pans ; chimney sweeps armed
with broom and scraper, and merry song were
giving way to bootblacks, and greasy black-ball
to box and liquid blacking. The immense
anthracite stove business was entering with its
numberless inventions, patterns and adaptations,
employing, like almost every other branch of
modern invention, armies of workmen and mil-
SEMI-CENTENNIAL. 2$
lions of capital. Since then, over ocean steam
navigation and under ocean telegraphy, over
continent railroads, electric lights and telegraphy
have succeeded each other in a rapid whirl of
evolution. Stephenson and Morse had to fight
their marvelous creations — the two most marvel-
ous of the century — into use in the face of op-
posing parliaments, and congresses, and popu-
lar prejudices of every description. Now, mirac-
ulous revelations in mechanism follow each other
so rapidly as scarcely to raise a ripple of excite-
ment beyond a nine days' wonder, when the
novelty is put to some practical purpose and
treated, after a few months, as though mankind
had known its properties and uses for centuries.
I have no need to remind you of the revolu-
tionizing influence of steam, railroads, telegraphs
and the world of modern inventions upon the
sublime science of human butchery. The wars
of the century have shared the mighty impulse.
They have been distinguished for gigantic prepa-
ration, brevity, and we are pleased to add, for
humanitarian tendencies. The venerable frown-
ing portals of Chinese exclusiveness have been
battered from their rusty hinges by British can
non and an effort made, unsuccessful we hope, to
set them up again at the Golden Gate of the
harbor of San Francisco. Germany and Italy
have been unified, France, once imperialized,
twice republicanized ; slavery abolished by the
madness of its own defenders ; the American
Union more firmly than ever nationalized.
4
26 SEMI-CRN TENNTA I. .
This was the era also of wonderful moral and
social movements. In 1832, at a meeting in
Preston, England, the total abstinence pledge
was introduced and the society called teetotal.
In 1832, the celebrated ethical teacher, Way-
land, asked the significant question, "Is it right
to get a living by selling poison and propagating
plague and leprosy all around you?" In 1832,
Melville B. Cox, appeared at the General Con-
ference in Philadelphia and gave the first life
thrills to foreign missionary work by offering
himself, with a broken body and a fiery soul, for
Africa. His dying prayer for the continent of
his adoption has been answered at the head
waters of the Nile and Congo in the labors, dis-
coveries and missionary endeavors made and
prompted by the noble Scotchman, whose re-
mains in 1873 w^re honored with a resting place
in Westminster Abbey.
In 1832, the Oregon Flatheads appeared at
St. Louis, inquiring after the white man's bible
and the white man's God, creating a mission
which proved to be the first stone in the founda-
tion of the empire of the Pacific. In 1832,
South Carolina passed Calhoun's celebrated
nullification act, antagonized the next year by
the American Anti-Slavery Society, disbanded
in 1870, perhaps the only instance in history
where a voluntary association did not find some
excuse for continuing to exist after its special
mission had been accomplished. In 1832, Joseph
Smith and Sidney Rigdon were building the first
Mormon temple at Kirtland, Ohio, and setting
SEMI-CENTENNIAL.
in motion a system whose blasphemies and
abominations have never been equaled in any
heathenism, ancient or modern.
Millerism and Tractarianism were both gret-
ting under way, the one to land in annihilation-
ism, or soul sleep, the other to pave a broad
highway from Anglicism to Rome.
Horace Greeley, a journeyman printer in the
metropolitan city, was trying initial experiments
with a penny daily, destined, within ten years,
to blossom out into one of the most gigantic of
modern enterprises. That Mephistopheles of
journals, the New York Herald, was founded in
1833. The application of steam to rotary,
cylinder and power presses has so enlarged and
multiplied the publishing interests of the world
that they count their gains by millions and their
productions by myriads !
In 1832, a man who was worth $20,000 was
considered rich — in 1882, the great New York
stock operator, Jay Gould, displays $53,000,000
vested in a brace of railroads and one telegraph
line to amuse an idle hour with a circle of
friends. The bloated wealth of the age, grow-
ing out of improved physical conditions, is shown
in the tax list of New York city, where thirty
corporations are assessed on from one million
to nine and a half millions ; ten estates belong-
ing to heirs, and twenty private individuals are
assessed from one million to five millions each,
and this only represents a fraction of their ac-
tual wealth. These fortunes, royal in propor-
tions, are so common as scarcely to attract re-
2S SEMI-CENTENNIAL.
mark in this age of wholesale. Rome had
colossal individual fortunes. They represented
the fruits of provincial plunder and conquest.
England has had gigantic fortunes, the gifts of
chartered monopolies, or the yield of oppression
and extortion in dependencies and distant trade
marts.
While some of the fortunes of the day are the
fruits of gambling speculation, over-reaching, op-
pression and rascality, a goodly number of them
are the legitimate outcome of business profits,
investments, earnings of labor, rise in the values
of stocks and real estate.
Men have learned that wholesale investments
yield wholesale profits. One of the discoveries
of this age of discoveries is pitt money into an
enterprise if you want to get money out. It is
this lavish, almost unlimited expenditure, that
has made the modern press such a source of
wealth to proprietors. Thirty years ago Har-
per's Magazine was commencing existence as a
doubtful experiment. Fifty thousand dollars a
year in literary and artistic matter, editorial
ability and mechanical execution have been a
magnificent investment. Its secular rivals, Scrib-
ners and the Atlantic for instance, expend as
much per month as some deceased church mag-
azines we wot of expended per year ! While
the agriculture, the commerce and manufactures
of the age are all at wholesale, carried on on a
gigantic scale, the church still conducts her en-
terprises on a retail basis. It is true that the
doings of modern benevolent boards would
SEMI-CENTENNIAL. 2g
shame the humble beginnings of their origina-
tors, and that these enterprises have; shared,
measurably, the powerful impetus of the spirit
of the age. The sight of the million dollar pub-
lishing house at 805 Broadway, would make
honest John Dickins exclaim with wonder that
in ninety years his modest capital of S600, had
waxed to a million. Sixty years ago, in 1821,
the Methodist Missionary Society, just set in
motion, reported $800 collections for the first
year, an average of barely, three mills per mem-
ber ; last year, 1881, the affiliated missionary
benevolences of the church aggregated over
§800,000, an average of fifty cents per member.
Contributions have increased a thousand fold
in two generations, but are not yet half what they
should be in proportion to the enormous wealth
of the church, or in comparison with the offer-
ings of other denominations, or even of con-
verted heathen. The ecclesiastical benevolences
of the age form a striking contrast to the mam-
moth gains of the age. The means are ridicu-
lously inadequate to the magnitude of the work
proposed. The fifty missionary societies of the
world raise only about 87,000,000 all told, the
amount that New York city pays annually for
amusements. Eighteen centuries ago (it might
shame us to remember) India sent three thous-
and Buddhist missionaries to China to propa-
gate, by preaching and tracts, the tenets of
Gautama.
Forty years ago, P^euerbach, the great German
atheist, insisted vigorously on the incompati-
jo SEMI-CENTENNIAL.
bility of Christianity with the times upon which
we have fallen. " Christianity," he says, " has
long vanished, not only from the reason, but
from the life of mankind ; it is nothing more
than a fixed idea, in flagrant contradiction with
our fire and life assurance companies, our rail-
roads and steam carriages, our picture and
sculpture galleries, our military and industrial
schools, our lecture theatres and scientific mu-
seums."
It is our opinion that Christianity will yet
vindicate its right to live in the enlistment of all
the newly discovered powers of the 19th century,
for its furtherance and propagation. Hope and
fear and sympathy are undying. Reverence
will always seek an object and that object will
not be the god that Feuerbach worships — Man.
Slowly, but surely, the church of God is utilizing
all the potencies of the times. The gospel flies
on the wings of steam to the most distant lands ;
bibles are printed and circulated by steam ; steam
presses annually shower abroad millions of pages
of Christian literature. Through the telegraphic
currents the heart of the hitherto lonely mis-
sionary now throbs in daily and hourly sympathy
with the great heart of the church at home.
In this age of social and physical changes,
nothing has been more remarkable than the de-
cline in theological controversy that has taken
place within the last generation. Our imme-
diate predecessors belonged emphatically to the
church militant. They were armed at all times
cap-a-pie for war, offensive and defensive, on
SEMI-CENTENNIAL. 31
Calvanism, exclusive communion, and " isms" of
every kind. Methodism was contemned and
despised by all. In 1832, the distinguished
William B. Sprague, of Albany, published a vol-
ume of revival lectures supplemented by twenty
letters from the most distinguished divines of the
century, college professors, princes in the vari-
ous denominations, Wayland, Baptist ; Alex-
ander, Presbyterian ; Mcllvaine, Episcopal ; who
all gave their ideas on revivals, with many a
warning against "excitement," "cant," "enthu-
siasm," "exaggeration," "clap-trap," and much
praise of " genuine revival," " not spurious," but,
never a letter or a word from a Methodist, the
representative of the revival church par excel-
lence of the century.
What has wrought the remarkable change in
the attitude of Christian denominations toward
each other ? Common schools have been a
unifier; the combined hostility of infidels, Jews
and papists to the school system has unified
protestants ; Sunday schools have been a po-
tential unifying factor ; young men's Christian
associations have leveled the barriers of creed ;
missionaries have not dared to hoist hostile ban-
ners in the presence of a common foe on the
shores of heathenism ; temperance, anti-slavery,
and other benevolences have drawn Christians
together. Polemics have disappeared in the
face of actual war, bloodshed and conflict. All
classes feel the change. Even Roman Catholic
orators no longer call us " infidels " and " her-
tics," but speak of us as " separated brethren."
32 SEMI-CENTENNIAL.
A reminiscence of the Conference of 1832 is
relevant. It was the year of the advent and
destructive ravages of the Asiatic cholera, and
we well remember the terror that its dreaded
approach inspired. In mid-June the news broke
upon the startled conference that the world-
scourge had reached Whitehall from Canada,
and was on its way to the city. The Rev. Mr.
Schermerhorn, a delegate from the general asso-
ciation of the churches in New York, came to
make a statement to the conference that the
plague was close at hand, and to suggest that a
delegation from the Methodists meet one from the
other Churches to consider what shouldbedone in
the premises. Nathan Bangs and Samuel Mer-
win were made a committee, and a day of com-
mon fasting and prayer was appointed. What
was the parent of this then unwonted courtesy ?
was it fright ? or faith in Methodist prayers !
Will the near future bring further and closer
unification of christians, or the contrary ; will
coming years witness further disintegrations and
subdivisions, or will they hail grander efforts to
consolidate and integrate? Why should not all
the denominational missionary societies of the
country be placed under one common grand
management like the American Bible Society ?
What but pride and ambition hinders federal
union between northern and southern Metho-
dists ? It is objected that a resulting constitu-
ency of 20,000 ministers and 3,000,000 members
would, ratioed as now, make General Conference
unwieldy. Certainly ; but why does a church of
SEMI- CEN TENNIA L .
33
3,000,000 need a legislative assembly as large as
that of the United States which represents
50,000,000 ? What need of anything more than a
senate of bishops, and a representative assembly
of one minister and one layman from each annual
conference? Shade of William H. Perrine tell
us why !
Brethren of the Troy Conference : Three-
fourths of you are young men, men in the prime
of life, all of whom have united with the body
within the last twenty-five years. Of the re-
maining one-fourth two-thirds are out of the ac-
tive field. There comes a time when God and
the church call a man out of the work as surely
as they originally called him into it. The vig-
orous manhood of some of you will carry you
far into the next century, and what a host of
silent social changes will not you and the com-
ing half century witness ? The passional preach-
ing and exhortation of the past have given place
to the intellectual. The occupants of the school
house bench, rough out-door plank, or free seat
in a plain free church were wont to say to the oc-
casional circuiteer " move us !" The elegant
cushioned pews of to-day say to the salaried
graduate of college and theological seminary
" instruct us," "entertain us." In another fifty
years the aesthetic may have displaced, entirely,
the emotional and intellectual. Imposing
ritual may have usurped the place of gospel
preaching altogether, and Methodism, if pro-
testant at all, may be of a piece with that High
5
34 SEMI-CENTENNIAL.
style that has been characterized as the " vario-
loid of Romanism."
What the church edifices of 1932 will be may
be judged from what has been. Troy, in 1809,
was a village of 3,500 inhabitants. A handful
of Methodists, about 130, built, without being
able to finish, a small white wooden church in
the outskirts of the village, on the shores of a
duck pond, at a cost of six or eight hundred dol-
lars. Eighteen years afterward, the society, num-
bering 430, still undivided, erected a brick edi-
fice costing $7,000, then one of the finest churches
outside of New York city.
Forty-four years later ( 1 8 7 1 ) after ten churches
had been carved out of the original society, 350
members remained to build an elegant stone edi-
fice at a cost of'$ 1 00,000. From wood to brick
the'increase was ten-fold, from brick to stone,
twelve to fifteen fold. If wealth rolls up for the
half -century to come as it has during the last
fiftyjyears,)State street can easily improve twenty
fold on the last outlay, which will imply an arch-
itectural investment of two millions of dollars !
a vision of 1932, which makes us tremble for the
bones of Embury. In 1832, John N. M afrit
placed an epitaph over them which promised
that Ash Grove should be their " last resting
place." How like sarcasm this will sound when
the relics of this new St. Philip shall be the gold-
enshrined attraction of a hundred Methodist
Cathedrals between this and the Pacific Ocean !
The preacher of the Troy Conference of to-
day has a vastly more complex and extended
SEMI-CENTENNIAL.
35
•routine of duties than his predecessor of fifty
years ago. The old-time, hard-riding itinerant
preached three times on Sunday to different con-
gregations, and every day in the week, to widely
scattered populations, exercising but little pas-
toral supervision, and that little through the class
leaders. The incumbent of to-day is pastor as
well as preacher, combining, in theory, evangel-
istic labor with the pastoral. The class leader
pastorate went out of existence when the circuit
system went out. In proportion as a work is
evangelistic it fails signally to be pastoral.
The itinerancy has reduced itself to a limited
pastorate. With people and preachers clamor-
ing to have that limitation extended or taken off
altogether, how long before the present system
of annual and triennial changes will follow the
class and circuit systems !
The loss to primitive Methodism, Method-
ism pure and simple, in the abrogation of the
circuit system was incalculable. Methodism at
once lost its evangelistic character. It congre-
gationalized the churches, it destroyed the com-
munity idea. It became, ever)' man, every
church, for self. Preachers and people no
longer worked, as bees work, in clusters, for the
good of the hive. The limited pastorate, Meth-
odistically considered, proved a poor substitute
for the circuit system. If Wesley were to re-
turn to earth and resume control, he would break
up the pastoral and restore the evangelistic.
11 The preachers," said Asbury, in substance,
'all want to get into the cities and stay there. I
36 SEMI-CENTENNIAL.
will show them how to get into the country."
When stationed in New York he circuited all
about on Long Island, in New Jersey and up
the Hudson wherever he could find hearers. He
got the General Conference of 1804 to pass the
two year rule of limitation to get some " star
preacher " out of Albany, who was disposed to
stick to the city indefinitely. Individual churches
may flourish, but it is at the expense of desti-
tute districts in cities, and neglected neighbor-
hoods in the country. To build up a single
interest, the temporary pastor excuses himself
from all others. It is impossible to do two
things at the same time, and do both well. The
effort to work the evangelistic and limited pas-
toral side by side has not been a distinguished
success ; something like trying to ride two horses
at once, or to trundle two wheelbarrows by the
same hand.
The class-pastorate was a superb idea, and
worked well on a small scale, but like a thou-
sand inventions buried in the Patent Office,
which worked beautifully in model, it failed to
operate successfully on a grand scale. The
death of classes has been the want of leaders,
and frightful dearth of material to make leaders
of. A clerical pastorate was inevitable, but an
itinerant pastorate is a contradiction in terms.
It fails to supply the great human hunger for
permanent leadership. The problem of the hour
is can the time limit be extended or removed
without destroying the connectional bond, and
bringing in sheer selfish independency ?
SEMI-CENTENNIAL. 37
The calls upon the time and attention of the
modern preacher are endless in number and va-
riety, and perplexingly modified by the changed
habits of society. He finds the last century di-
rections of the discipline conflicting with the
business modes of the day, work hours, school
hours, meal hours, social calling- customs, the
seclusion and inaccessibility of households, the
season of the year, winter holiday recreations
and summer, wood and sea-side, vacations. The
leader or preacher who would catch his members
now must intercept them on the run. In addi-
tion to preaching and Sunday and week-day
evening services, the modern minister must look
after a great number of financial interests. Fifty
years ago only one of fifteen questions proposed
at Conference was statistical, the report of "num-
ber in society." Now, the general minutes pre-
sent, in appalling array, forty solid columns of
figures, two-thirds of which the preacher is ex-
pected to supply at the point of the bayonet, as,
next to preaching, the most vital element of his
ministerial vocation.
Exacting societies, pressed by debt, suffering
from slovenly or incapable management, or stim-
ulated by ambitious rivalry with prosperous
neighbors, demand of the appointing power the
best talent in the conference for their ministerial
supply.
For S800 a year, half the wages of a head me-
chanic, they want financial ability like Jay
Gould's ; learning like Adam Clarke's ; eloquence
like Whitefield's ; piety like John Fletcher's; a
38 SEMI-CENTENNIAL.
young man with the wisdom of a veteran ; one
who will be always in his study, and yet always
on the street, " visiting from house to house,"
who will lead class like Carvosso ; interpret bible
like Miss Smiley ; be aVincent in Sunday School,
an Ives or Kimbal on church debt ; sing in pray-
er meetings like Philip Phillips or Chaplain Mc-
Cabe, and compete successfully in revival work
with evangelist Harrison, or a national camp
meeting.
It is a fair picture of the times to say, that he
will be lucky, if some inland charge does not
press him to personate Daniel in the lion's den
in an operatic cantata, got up to buy books for
the Sunday School library ; or if the Ladies'
Aid Society, on whom a magnanimous board of
masculine officials has thrown the brunt of the
church finances, does not set him at a fair or
festival to dishing sloppy ice cream at fifteen
cents the small plate, or to ladling out oyster
soup at fifty cents a stew, in which two lean and
lonesome bivalves float in a pint of lukewarm
water, tinged with milk ! !
What will the Troy Conference of 1932 be?
Lift for a moment the curtain that hides futurity.
The physical features of this romantic region
will remain the same. Mansfield, king of the
Green Mountain range, will nod across lovely
Champlain to Marcy, monarch of the Adiron-
dack group. The lakelets of the north woods
will send their cool and pellucid stores to form the
incipient Hudson, to be swelled as it rolls, now
in smooth reaches and now in tumbling falls and
SEMI-i 7:.\ TENNIAL. 39
foaming cataracts by the Schroon, the Sacandaga,
the Kills and the broad Mohawk, till it becomes
an arm of the sea, and proudly bears the com-
merce of the nations. Holy Horicon, island
gemmed, and Saratoga with its sparkling, world-
famed fountains, will be thronged as now with
health seekers and summer loiterers.
But what shall be the changes wrought in so-
cial life by human invention and divine revela-
tion ? No man dare prophesy. Grand as have
been the achievements of the century, it is con-
ceivable that those of the future will be grander.
It is humbling to vanity to reflect that the proud
locomotives, elegant palace cars, saloon steam-
ers, beautiful and efficient fire engines, magnifi-
cent variety of manufacturing and farming ap-
paratus, convenient gas, kerosene, telegraph,
telephone and electric illuminators will be just
as antiquated and laughable to the Trojans of
1932, as the lumbering vehicles, rude imple-
ments, sanded floors, hand looms, tallow candles,
tin sconces, foot stoves and warming pans of our
immediate ancestors are to us to-day.
Slow and old fogy shall we seem to gener-
ations that ride on noiseless trains with the ve-
locity of storm-winds ; that navigate oceans in
submarine crafts below the realm of tempests
and out of the reach of surface agitations ; that
fly through the air on the wings of steam ; that
dispel night-darkness and pale the moon with
electric suns ; that may put wool and silk and
cotton into one end of a machine and turn out
ready-made suits, and printed books at the other,
40 SEMI-CENTENNIAL.
when bicycles shall out-speed horses ; and when
telegraphic and telephonic communication shall
put distant states and people in contact, anti-
quate slow-paced postal service, and even render
attendance upon the sanctuary to listen to ser-
mons unnecessary. Millennial indeed will be
the condition of the world, if its social and re-
ligious development keeps pace with the wide
promise of the physical. What posterity will
think of our dress, our speech, our inventions,
our social and religious modes, is of less conse-
quence to us than what they will think and say
about our work, our objects, character and aims.
Shall we appear, to them, as heroic as the
itinerant fathers appear to us ? Shall we, like
them, immortalize the John Brown heroism
that is born of self-sacrifice, conflict, victory ?
We have discovered most happily that it is ig-
nobly fratricidal to war on our fellow christians,
that it is a Don Quixote battle with wine skins
to slash madly at theologico-metaphysical ab-
stractions. Our enemies are concrete. The
offspring of the times. Wholesale production
has generated wholesale vices. It is not a single
commandment that is here and there, infringed,
but a grand railroad smash-up of all the tables
of the law. Respect for God and man are old-
time superstitions. The restful Sabbath is con-
verted into a day of laborious revelry or stupefy-
ing dissipation. Marriage is lightly set aside by
divorces. Robbery is no longer the taking of
purses on the highway, but the stock operation
that swindles banks and cities and individuals
SE . \n-CENTENNlA 1 . 4I
to the tune of hundreds of thousands and mil-
lions. Politicians and legislatures are often a
bye-word and a hissing. Partisanship swallows
up patriotism. Bribery is systematized.
The enemies we have to contend with are the
concreted vices of the times. The labor ques-
tion, the monopoly question, the war of the
white race upon the dark ; of the Southerns, par-
ticularly of uneasy South Carolina, upon the
blacks ; of demented California upon the yellow ;
of vacillating politicians on both, these are the
open problems in christian ethics to-day. The
christian minister's business is to save, both the
sinned against and the sinners. The preacher's
first and highest mission is, not the sanctifica-
tion of saved saints, but the salvation of unsav-
ed sinners. If a steamer blows up at a wharf,
and hundreds are struggling for life in the river,
the first object of every philanthropist will be to
save as many from immediate destruction as pos-
sible. Furnishing dry clothes and clean suits
will be an after thought, benevolent but secon-
dary.
Progress is the pet watchword of these pro-
gressive times, but highest progress is not al-
ways forward movement. In some things seem-
ing retrograde is real advance. Some things
come complete from the hand of God, and some
things were perfected by human ingenuity ages
ago. In pursuit of these, return to first princi-
ples is highest progress. In poetry we cannot
improve on Homer or Isaiah ; in ethics we find
6
42 SEMI-CENTENNIAL.
nothing superior to the ten commandments, or
the sermon on the mount. In architecture we
we cannot go beyond the Grecian orders, or the
Gothic of the middle ages. In creed and wor-
ship we cannot improve upon the simplicity of
the New Testament. Progress here is out of
the question.
Protestantism was progress when it went
back to New Testament principles and rejected
the theatrical substitutes of medievalism in
christian worship. Methodism has had little re-
gard for calendar Christianity, that reverence for
" times and -seasons " so annoying to the apostle
Paul. We have retained the forms of the fathers
in all their bald simplicity. Have we their enthu-
siasm ? Spurgeon prays " Lord give us the ear-
nestness and fire of the early Methodists." Pro-
fessor Hopkins, of the Auburn Theological
Seminary, laments the cold " silence worship "
of the Presbyterians. His reviewer says, "we
sit bolt upright, stock still, dumb as oysters, and
let the preacher and choir monopolize the entire
worship after the most approved style of the
Romish mass." Prof. Hopkins envies the Metho-
dist the privilege of an occasional " Amen !"
" Hallelujah !" " Bless the Lord !" Alas ! in
Methodist congregations and even in Methodist
conferences these vocal expressions of feeling
are becoming, like angel's visits, few and far be-
tween. The British parliament vents its appro-
bation of a speaker or sentiment in the enthu-
siastic "hear!" "hear!" The successful operatic
composer or performer in Italy, or the victor
SEMI-CENTENNIAL. u
in a Spanish bull fight is saluted with loud
"bravos !" The political stump speaker is greeted
with cheers and hurrahs, and the popular sover-
eign or leader honored with heaven rending
shouts and acclaims.
When Dr. Coke, ninety-five years ago preach-
ed to the theatre going West Indians, they ap-
plauded his sermons as they did their favorite
plays and actors, with hand clapping and stamp-
ing. The audiences of Beecher and Talmage
stimulate the eloquence of Plymouth church or
Brooklyn tabernacle in the same way. Opera
house General Conferences adopt opera house
styles of performance. Business meetings and
lectures, held in our churches, copy General
Conference manners and do the same. This
mode of demonstration is beginning to force it-
self (as in the Guiteau trial) into courts of jus-
tice, though it is felt to be exceedingly out of
place there. It is specially repugnant to wor-
ship hours and the house of God. Yet it is as
natural for strong religious feeling, as it is for
secular, to seek vent in vocal expression ; as
natural to express accord with a preacher as with
a lecturer, a public singer, a rostrum or stump
political speaker. Methodism from the first, has
encouraged ejaculatory responses, and has re-
garded them as perfectly fitted to the place and
occasion. The pulpit has relied on the pew, not
for applause, to feed personal vanity, but for in-
spiration, and especially for the divine aid vouch-
safed in answer to united prayer. Scripture
ejaculations have ever been felt to be in perfect
44
SEMI-CENTENNIAL.
harmony with the house and worship of God,
perfectly consonant with the style of religion
which the followers of Wesley profess. Har-
monies in music form not a fitter running ac-
companiment to a stirring melody than does a run-
ning undertone of suitable ejaculatory responses
to a prayer or sermon with those whom religion
makes happy. And what is genuine Methodist
religion ? not doctrine but spiritual experiences ;
not Sinai but Zion ; not Moses and the law, but
Christ and the gospel ; not the opening poems
of the book of psalms, wailing, discouraged and
imprecatory, but the last, paeans of praise and
thanksgiving ; not Romish purgatory and Cal-
vanistic despair, but Arminian hope and peren-
nial heaven ; not the gloom of Gothic Cathedrals,
but the light Grecian, roofed with the blue
heavens, and full of glorious sunshine; not bile,
nor misery, nor spasmodic rapture ; not momen-
tary ecstacy, nor laughing gas, but a happiness
beaming, in unclouded sunlight, from the face of
God, permanent as the lustre of the stars, full as
the flow of the full river or the waves of the
abundant sea. Holy hearts and sanctified voices
found better modes of giving expression to feel-
ing than political hurrahs. Hosannahs took
the place of huzzahs. Hallelujahs were the
natural vent for irrepressible ebullitions of holy
rapture. The in excelsis gloria of ritualistic
Christianity set to a thousand grand strains of
music, became the good square old English word
''glory" on the lips of the young convert or the
happy christian. The gospel preacher, instead of
SEMI-CENTENNIAL i5
being obliged to carry his congregation, (a fear-
ful load for a single pair of shoulders,) found
himself buoyed by the enthusiasm of multi-
tudes, not seldom borne aloft on the wings of a
chorus of "aniens" to the third heaven of White-
fieldian eloquence. The man who could not
preach with such backing had good reason to
doubt his call to the gospel ministry ! What a
rush of holy memories comes over us as we recall
the days of the full exercise of this right arm of
Methodistic power ! What storms of Methodist
applause did Edmund S. Janes and Noah Lev-
ings evoke in conferences as bible agents ! What
memorable instances occur to each and all of the
reciprocal zeal, power, and magnetic influence
of pew and pulpit ? Photography preserves for
us the features and forms of the later fathers,
would that phonography perpetuated their in-
spired flights ; those of Seymour Coleman, for
instance, at the Petersburgh camp in 1863, elo-
quence indescribable ! fitted to wake responses
from the tongues of the dead ! Would that
"shocks from the battery" lived in the living
accents of Benjamin Pomeroy, and were not
buried in the silent pages of a printed book !
The "amens" of the prayer book are all ar-
ranged with studious attention to that decorous
order which churchmen worship and love so well,
but if any thing would provoke a crowd of kneel-
ing, warm-hearted christians to interject "amens"
promiscuously, "hit or miss," it would be one of
the extempore prayers, of forty years ago, of
Jesse T. Peck or Truman Seymour.
46 SEMI-CENTENNIAL.
No Abel Stevens, now in the midst of a tem-
pest of shouts and tears, preaches at Eastham,
till they pull him away from the book board !
No Francis Hodgson, in the neighborhood of
cultured Philadelphia, leaps sheer over the
breastwork into the camp meeting straw, in his
burning passion to get sinners converted and
saints sanctified ! Camp meeting fervor has evap-
orated. Round Lake is as decorous as State
Street.. We apologize for the excesses of the
fathers, and are annoyed with a few chance vocal
" amens" in the midst of a prayer or sermon.
Yet, some of us have seen times when the pew
has overwhelmed the pulpit, when the shouts of
happy saints have accomplished results which
the sermon and preacher failed to secure.
What shall we say of our ever lengthening
death roll ? At six sessions, only, in fifty years
has the answer to the question, " Who has died
this year?" been " None." On every other year,
sometimes as high as seven a year, the great
harvester has claimed his sheaves. Memorial
services have become so common as to be per-
functory. Funeral sermons and set eulogies are
out of fashion, and formal obituaries, made up
of dates and common places, are the dullest
things 'in literature. The " In Memoriam " of
the Annual Minutes excites less interest than a
newspaper column detailing the latest crhninal
execution.
For once, if only once, in fifty years, let us put
away indifference, and the hired undertaker's
ostentatious woe, and ask " how did these fellow
SEMI CENTENNIAL. 47
heralds die ? A score went suddenly as if by
lightning stroke. Fifty others sank into insensi-
bility or struggled with over-mastering pain and
disease, or confined themselves to general decla-
rations of soul peace and readiness to live or die.
Full fifty others left positive dying testimonies,
those which christians love to hear so well, rang-
ing all the way from the language of simple trust
in God in the hour of death, to the highest ex-
pressions of rapture, triumph, victory. What a
rich legacy to the church are these precious last
words ! The sacraments are often administered
to the dying. Methodist preface to the sacra-
ment is a love feast, and the love feast a wealth
of glorious experiences ! What an unparalleled
love feast would the death-bed utterances of the
loved and lost of Troy Conference furnish forth !
Coles Carpenter, who heads the roll of the
departed, went breathing forth " glory ! glory !
glory !" as long as breath lasted. Wright Ha-
zen, among other beautiful things, said " the
cradle of death is fast rocking me away to eter-
nity— and I am sure it rocks easy !" James
B. Houghtaling, secretary of the conference for
the first nineteen years of its existence, drops his
pen with the exultant shout " I am going to my
home in heaven !" The venerable Elias Vander-
lip is " pluming his wings for flight!" The
wretched cripple Ryder breathes out his soul
with the gentle aspiration ""Jesus ! Jesus !" The
beloved Moriarty ejaculates, " Glory to God !
all is well !" Datus Ensign, " Jesus is precious !
he is my all in all." The venerable Spicer, un-
48 SEMI-CENTENNIAL.
poetic soul ! in the midst of a night of excrucia-
ting suffering inquires, "What time is it ?" " Past
twelve." " Then it is morning, henceforth, it
shall be no more, 'good night,' but always ' good
morning.'" Sherman Miner cheers the watchers
by the entrance of the dark valley, shouting
as he enters, " there's light ahead." James Quin-
lan, " a flood of glory fills my soul !" Halsey W.
Ransom, as he nears the fanes of the New Jerusa-
lem, cries with the rapture of a tired traveler, " I
see the city !" Eri Baker exults " I never ex-
pected such a victory ! Hallelujah ! dying is a
pleasure ! It pays to be true to God !" Hiram
Harris triumphs, " O the glory ! I have seen
the king in his beauty !" Hiram Chase, at the
end of a troubled pilgrimage of seventy-six years,
says " Such a lighting up of the glory of God in
my soul, I never experienced before." The ven-
erable Araunah Lyon has "glorious visions of
Christ! It is all glorious in the Lord! Every
thing is as clear as light !" Edward Turner had
the doors of his sick room open to all comers,
that he might teach his people how to die. " I
expected," said he, " that Christ would be my
support when death approached, but I had no
idea that he would so fill my soul with love and
joy." The impulsive Elisha Watson exultantly
cries " To God in the highest, be glory !" "^An-
gels all in white," flood with celestial radiance
the death chamber of the youthful Melville
Senter, as he reiterates " Heaven !" "Glory !"
" Jesus !" " Blessed Lord !" " O death, where is
thy sting ! O grave, where is thy victory !" Did
SEMI-CENTENNIAL. 49
cherub bands, alter the fashion toward conquer-
ors of old, unharness the steeds of fire, and drag
with their own hands the chariot of that trium-
phing spirit, with thunders of hosannah, through
the gates of the beautiful city ? Surely, Troy
Conference sustains the righteous boast long
since put forth for Methodism, " our people
die well."
So may we all die ! in holy confidence, if not
in exultant rapture ; in sure and certain hope of
a glorious resurrection, followed by the regrets
that always attend the departure of the good ;
and worthy of that sublimest eulogy ever pro-
nounced over the coffin of mortal, voiced direct
from heaven, " blessed are the dead which die
in the Lord ! yea, saith the spirit, that they may
rest from their labors and their works follow
them."
In our posthumous influence lies our true im-
mortality. How long we shall be remembered
depends upon the depth and ineffaceableness of
the impressions we have made upon our con-
temporaries. No need, then, of blocks of gran-
ite and marble over our graves to challenge the
inquiry "what mean these stones !"
In the young men before me, just entering
upon the second half-century of Troy Confer-
ence existence, 1 address possible college presi-
dents, bishops, general conference officials, men
who will combine the wisdom of Hedding with
the holiness of Hamline and the energy of Janes;
the silvery eloquence of Fiske and the lightning
flashes of Durbin with the learning of McClin-
jo
SEMI-CENTENNIA L.
tock, and the sweeping irresistibleness of Olin ;
or, those, on the other hand, whose quiet lives
may be passed in rural districts, and pioneer la-
bors. It matters not. The work of each and all
will be felt and remembered. The death-bed
exhortation of the expiring era is " whatsoever
thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might, for
there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor
wisdom in the grave whither thou goest."
The dates of the year 1900 and upward will
be written upon few of our tombstones. Ours
will be scattered graves. fne itinerant is buried
where he falls. No conspicuous headstone
marks the place of his rest. His true monu-
ment will be the love and veneration of saved
souls, comforted human homes and hearts A
single ray is lost in the effulgence of the sun,
but it travels on and on forever, bearing warmth
and lustre in its infinite flight. The glory of the
individual is the glory of the body of which he
forms an integer. Next to being a christian is
the glory of being a minister in the church of
God, subordinate to that is the glory and honor
of being a member of a conference of the Meth-
odist Episcopal Church! We call on 1932 to
show a century of work that shall give the-Troy
Conference a proud place in history, entitle it
to the gratitude of millions, and the respect of
mankind.
TROY CONFERENCE.
INITIAL SESSION.
Held in conjunction with the Vew York Conference^ in New York, June
6th, /.\\v, Elijah Heading, assisted by Robot R. Robots, presiding.
Names marked with s-ar *, deceased ; t Living in 1882; } unknown.
Superannuated, Cyprian H. Gridley,* Ibri Cannon*.
Charges. Preachers. Numbers.
TROY DISTRICT. Arnold Scholefield, P. E.* 5,215
Troy Buell Goodsell* 577
West Troy Freeborn G. Hibbardt 80
Albia Edwin F. Whiteside* 109
Chatham and Nassau Seymour Coleman* 871
Alden S. Coopert
" John Peg-g*
Pittsfield Jarvis Z. Nichols* 209
Dalton Henry Burton* 345
Petersburg John M. Weaver* 515
" John G. Barker:}:
Hoosic and Bennington Wright Hazen* 340
Cambridge Stephen Remington}: 561
Henry Smith*
Washington Jacob Beeman* 574
William F. Hurdt
" Sherman Miner*
Pittstown and Schaghticoke . . . Roswell Kelly* 786
James Caughey+
...Jacob Hall*
Lansingburgh and Waterford. .Timothy Benedict* 243
SARATOGA DISTRICT. Henry Stead, P. E.* 5,842
Albanv. South John B. Stratton* 305
Garretson Thomas Burch* 349
Schenectady Salmon StebbinsJ 243
Watervliet Joshua Poort 280
Berne John W. DennistonJ 1,186
Hiram Meekert
M Henry Fames*
1 1 thnsto >wn Samuel Covel* 347
William D. Stead*
Spraker's Basin James B. Houghtaling* 122
Northampton Cyrus Meekert 759
Orrin Pier*
Samuel Howe*
Halfmoon James Quintan* 574
William Amer*
Gilbert Lyon*
Andrew McKean*
52 SEMI-CENTENNIAL.
Charges. Preachers. Numbers.
Saratoga and Mechanicville Daniel Brayton* 664
" Thomas Newman*
" Datus Ensign*
" " .... William Anson*
" " John D. Moriarty*
Luzerne Henry R. Colemant 344
Warren Joseph McCreary* 560
Sandy Hill and Glen's Falls. . . .Coles Carpenter* 159
MIDDLEBURY DISTRICT. Tobias Spicer, P. E.* 3.201
Middiebury Peter C. Oakleyt 201
Monkton Joseph Ayrest 346
Charlotte Joseph Earnest 214
Westport and Essex Hiram Chase* 530
" Barnabas Hitchcock*
Ticonderoga Amos Hazleton* 204
Orville Kimpton*
Bridgport Samuel Eighmy* x!53
Leicester William Ryder* 21)9
... John Alley*
Pittsford Elias Craw ford* 310
Asa C. Hand:}:
Wallingford Christopher R. Morris* 241
Whitehall and Castleton Elisha Andrews* 311
Charles P. Clarke*
Poultney Friend W. Smith* 105
Granville Reuben Wescottt 187
PLATTSBURGH DISTRICT, Samuel D. Ferguson, P. E.* 4,234
Plattsburgh Truman Seymour* 145
Grand Isle and Alburgh Lewis Potter* 330
" " John Fraser*
Highgate Jacob Leonardt 280
Sheldon Benjamin Marvin* . . 552
Josiah H. Brown*
Fairfield John P. Foster* 420
Hiram Knapp;
Stowe Orris Pier* 352
Milton Luman A. Sanfordt 21?
St. Albans Joseph D. Marshall* 190
Burlington and Essex Elijah Crane* 100
11 " Abiathar M. Osbont
Chazy and Champlain Ephraim Goss* 461
" " Milton H. Stewart*
John W. B. Woodt
Beekmantown Joel Squiert 247
Peru and Redford Dillon Stephens* 410
" " Araunah Lyon*
John W. Belknapt
Jay James R. Goodricht 435
" Albert Wickware*
Keeseville Merritt Bates* C5
MEMBF.RS OF C( >\TEREXCE DECEASED
SSEL
Coles Carpenter March 17, 1784 [809
Andrew C. Mills. .. . Dec. — , 1807 1888
Arnold Schoieheld L810
Wright Hazen L800 1827
Philetus Green Julv 16, 1809 1888
Amos R. Ripley 1808 1889
Gilbert V. Palmer 1814 L888
Daniel Holmes August 24, 1802 1832
William D. Stead 1799 1882
Charles Sherman. . . Oct. 20,1808 1830
James Covel, Jun Sept. 4, L896 1816
Thomas Kirby Julv 28, 1815 183*3
Alfred Saxe Sept. 6,1814 1843
Samuel Eighmv 1789 1814
Daniel F. Page 1835
William Anson 1768 1800
Elias Vanderlip 1764 180'_>
William Ryder lune 27, 1805 1881
John D. Moriartv .. August 1, 1793 L820
lohn P. Foster 1829
John Lindsay July 18, 1788 L809
Chester Lvon 1839
Henry Earues June 23,1774 1800
James F. Burrows... Feb. I". 1826 L848
Elijah B. Hubbard 1799 1884
Cyrus Bolster 1818 1845
( diver Emerson L814 1834
Datus Ensign Oct. 16, 1783 1804
Richard Griffin 1828 1*49
John Bannard Jan. 6, 1820 1850
Valentine Brown . June 6, 1806 1839
Henry Stead April 10,1774 L804
fosiah H.Brown 1810 1*32
Harvey S. Smith 1820 1843
Elijah Chichester 1778 1835
Jas. B. Houghtaiing.. Oct. 9,1797 1828
Thomas B. Pearson.. Sept. 28, 1827 ls.~>"
Samuel Howe March 20,1780 1802
Edward S. Stout Feb. 15, L812 1833
Stephen Stiles .. Feb. 10,1800 1833
Ahriah H. Seaver 1859
Albinus Johnson | 1823 1847
Samuel Covel ' 1821
William X. Fraser. . J 1810 1836
Dillon Stevens April 6, 1794 1822
Egbert H. Foster 1823 1845
Christopher R. Morris Jan. 26,1807 1829
Joseph Conner Julv 5,1810 1840
Tobias Spicer Nov. 7,1788 1810
John Haslam 1802 1838
Jacob Hall 179! 1816
John B. Stratton 1785 1811
Lewis Potter Sept. 26, 1806 1830
Andrew M'Kean. ... July 28, 1777 1802
OrrinPier March 7,1797 1819
Sylvester W. Cooper. Oct. 31,1889 186]
Samuel H. Hancock . June 21, 1825 1849
Sherman Miner March 14, 1793 1815
James Quinlan Feb. 15. 17931 1818
Ephraim Goss April 15, 1794J 1829
Died.
\ •
Feb.
Nov.
Feb.
June
Dec.
Oct.
Jan.
March
May
July
Oct.
March
July
Sept.
Feb.
Oct.
Sept.
April
April
Feb.
April
July
May
Sept.
Oct.
Jan.
April
Aug.
Nov.
Feb.
Aug.
Aug.
Oct.
March
Oct.
Jan.
Feb.
May
Dec.
Nov.
Feb.
April
June
Julv
Dec.
Oct.
Nov.
April
Feb.
Aug.
I Nov.
17, L834 50
... 18
.. . 1887 . .
12, L8J
10, 1840 31
17, L842 ::i
81, 1842 28
5, 1843 M
6, 1844 15
10, 1844 ll
15, 1845 19
10, 1846 31
8, 1846 32
1, 1847 60
...1848
17, 1848 80
:;, 18
.. . 1849 t I
18, 1849 56
... 1849
20, I860
19, L850
6, 1851
2, 1852
22, 1852
17, 1853
22, 1853
. . . 1853
1. 1853
11, 1854
24, 1S54
62
77
26
53
35
39
70
30
:;i
48
18, 1854 80
7, 1855
8, 1855
21, 1855
... 1857
IS, 1851
16, L858
3, 1859
24, 1859
— . 1858
2, I860
... I860
19, I860
10, L861
14, ISO:
11. L861
27, 1861
13, L862
::, L863
19, 1863
20, L863
15, L863 57
19, 1863 86
10, 1864 67
23, 1864
5, L865
10, 1860
19, 1866
6, 1866
46
35
77
60
3ii
>
i;
59
37
50
67
54
51
74
60
69
>
Names.
Born.
Entered
Conf'nce
Died.
Age.
Halsey W. Ransom.
.. 1811
1848
March
26,
1867
~56~
Jacob Beeman
March
12, 1780
1809
Feb.
15,
1868
88
Alpheus Wade
June
14, 1801
1838
July
26,
1868
67
Norris Mihill
. . 1823
15, 1795
1866
1823
Oct.
April
3,
0
1868
1869
45
Stephen L. Stillman.
April
74
Isaac Parks
Sept.
6, 1803
1834
April
is!
1869
66
David W. Gould. . . .
. . . 1824
1850
May
5,
1869
45
Merritt Bates
July
12, 1806
1827
Aug.
23,
1869
63
David Lytle
Oct.
31, 1826
1855
Oct.
13,
1869
43
Ensign Stover
May
15, 1815
1839
May
8,
1871
56
William R. Brown . .
March
7, 1828
1850
June
8,
1871
43
Eri Baker
... 1833
1866
Feb.
18,
1872
39
Bennett Eaton.
Dec.
31, 1806
1850
March
7,
1872
65
Hiram Harris
July
19, 1824
1852
1872
48
John M. Weaver
July
5, 1792
1829
May
12,
1872
80
Albert Champlin . . .
Dec.
3, 1809
1834
June
18,
1872
61
Henry A. Warren . .
March
30, 1839
1870
June
29,
1872
34
Cyprian H. Gridley.
... 1787
1808
Aug.
28,
1872
85
Berea O. Meeker . . .
May
13, 1816
1838
Jan.
3,
1873
56
Asaph Shurtliff
...1802
1853
Feb.
3,
1873
71
Paul P. Atwell
March
28, 1801
1843
June
13,
1873
72
Jas. H. Patterson. . .
March
16, 1810
1833
Dec.
24,
1873
63
Samuel Young.. . .
March
22, 1794
1833
Jan.
26,
1874
80
Alvin Robbins
July
5, 1816
1841
April
10,
1874
58
Alanson W. Garvin.
April
14, 1813
1843
June
19,
1874
61
Sylvester P.Williams
April
16, 1809
1831
Sept.
14,
1874
65
Miltcn H. Stewart. .
1831
1839
80
Alfred A. Farr
Aug.
29, 1810
Nov.
4,
1874
64
Truman Seymour. . .
Jan.
25, 1799
1829
Nov.
15,
1874
75
William C. Butcher.
Oct.
30, 1841
1869
Dec.
14,
1874
33
Alexander Dixon. . .
June
9, 1799
1836
April
12,
1875
76
Chester Chamberlain
Jan.
19, 1807
1834
July
Sept.
30,
1875
68
John F. Crowl
.. . 1824
1843
14,
1875
51
Bernice D. Ames. . .
Dec.
26, 1827
1857
Jan.
5,
1876
4s
Melville A. Senter
March
24, 1847
1867
Feb.
1,
1876
29
Hiram Dunn
Feb.
5, 1812
1836
March
1,
1876
64
Araunah Lyon
Oct.
24, 1804
1831
Nov.
6,
1876
72
Newton B. Wood. . .
Nov.
8, 1814
1840
Dec.
8,
1876
62
Hiram Chase
Feb.
1, 1801
1827
Jan.
9,
1877
76
Seymour Coleman . .
Dec.
23, 1794
1828
Jan.
23,
is; ;
82
George S. Gold ....
Nov.
11, 1813
1841
Feb.
21,
1878
65
Charles C. Gilbert. .
1843
1817
March
May
13,
6,
1878
1878
Timothy Benedict . .
May
25, 1795
83
John L. Cook
Jan.
7, 1819
1846
May
15,
1878
59
John Thompson. . . .
Aug.
20, 1800
1840
July
9,
1878
7S
William W. Atwater
Feb.
15, 1814
1842
Aug.
Nov.
3,
1878
64
Edward Turner. . . .
June
23, 1832
1858
30,
1878
46
Elisha Watson
Feb.
15, 1822
1846
Jan.
11,
1879
57
Matthias Ludlam . . .
1843
March
19,
1879
60
Ward Bullard
Feb."
8, 1810
1838
May
21,
1879
69
John Pegg
... 1800
1832
Aug.
26,
1S79
7!)
Benjamin Pomeroy.
. . . 1806
1835
May
Aug.
12,
1880
74
Warren B. Osgood. .
Feb." '
5, 1844
1868
17,
1880
36
Benjamin S. Sharp. .
Oct.
11, 1834
1858
Nov.
1,
1880
46
George J. Brown. . .
Nov.
12, 1839
1868
Dec.
1,
1880
41
William Bedell
Nov.
25, 1820
1848
Jan.
27,
1881
60
Chas. B. Armstrong.
Oct.
14, 1848
1872
May
13
1881
33
Henry Smith
June
30, 1803
1832
May
18,
1881
78
Charles H. Leonard
1836
May
24,
1881
69
Joshua Poor
Dec.
31, 1797
1825
Nov.
28,
1F81
1 84
CONFERENCE SESSIONS.
8
Presiding Bishop.
1 August
2 August
:; Augusl
4 June
5 May
6 June
7 June
8 June
'.i June-
Id June
I 1 May
L2 June
18 May
May
May
June
May
May-
May
June
ljMay
22 May
28 May
24 June
26 May
26 May
21 May
28 April
29 April
30 April
:;i April
82 March
88 April
84 April
36 April
36 April
37 April
W April
39 April
40 March
-II April
42 April
43 April
44 April
1.') April
46 April
47 April
48 March
49 April
50 April
28,
•J 7.
26,
22
8l]
6,
■">,
17.
2
r.
21,
L9,
7.
•-'7,
26,
1 1,
80,
29,
21,
16,
11,
1".
9,
L8,
20,
18,
is,
11.
17,
16,
16,
80,
5,
18,
17,
8,
1 1.
28,
12,
-'7,
24 ,
16,
21,
L2,
is,
IT,
28,
81,
20,
19,
L888 1 roy, \. V
1884 Plattsburgh, N. Y.
L836 Albany, X. V
L836 Pawlet, Vt
1887 Troy, N. Y
L888 Keeseville, X. V. .
L889 Schenectady, X. V
is m Middlebury, Vt . .
IS 11 Albany. X. Y
L842 Burlington, Vt . . .
L843 Troy. X. Y
1844
1846
L846
1S47
1848
L849
West Poultney, Vt
Schenectady, X. V.
Keeseville, N. Y. . .
Albany, N. Y
Troy, X. Y
Sandy Hill, N. Y...
1850 Saratoga, N. Y
1851 1 North Adams, Mass
L862 Plattsburgh, N. Y..
1853|Schenectady, X. Y.
1854' Albany. N. Y
1855|Troy, N. Y
1856: Burlington, Yt
1867 Pittsfield, Mass
1858|Middlebury, Vt. . .
1859
I860
L861
1862
1863
Saratoga, X. Y. . . .
Lansingburgh, N. Y
Albany, N. Y
Troy, N. Y
Fort Edward, N. Y.
L864 Amsterdam, N. Y. .
1866 Plattsburgh, tf. Y .
1866 Cambridge, X. V..
1867 Pittsfield, Mass. . . .
1868 Albany, X. Y
L869 West Troy, N. Y...
1870 Burlington, Yt.
1871 Trov, X. Y. ...
L872 Saratoga, X. Y
1873 Gloversville, N,
1 s7 1 Schenectady, N
1875 Glen's Falls. N.
1876 Albany. N. Y ...
1877 Plattsburgh, N. Y
1878 Lansingburgh, N.
1879 Bennington. Yt. .
1880 Burlington, Vt. . .
1881 Glen's Falls, N. Y
1882 Trov, X. Y
Y.
Y.
Y.
Bishop
,,
"
" G
I redding
Hedding
Emory
Waugh
I [« dding
Morris
1 [edding
Roberts
Soule
Hedding
Waugh
Hamlin
Hedding
Janes
Morris
Hamlin
Hamlin
Morris
Janes
Janes
Waugh
Janes
Simpson
Morris
Baker
Ames
Janes
Baker
Ames
Scott
Baker
Simpson
Kingsley
Janes
Clark
Scott
Kingsley
Ames
Scott
Janes
Peck
Foster
Ames
Scott
Foster
Haven
Harris
Peck
Wiley
Simpson
GENERAL CONFERENCE DELEGATES.
Twelve Quadrennial General Conferences have occurred in fifty
years, to which the Troy Annual Conference has sent the following
clerical delegates : Timothy Benedict, 1848 and '52 ; John E.
Bowen, 1868 ; Stephen D. Brown, 1852, '56, '64 ; William R. Brown,
1868 ; Chester F. Burdick, 1872 ; John Clarke, 1848 and '52 ; Seymour
Coleman, 1844; James Covel, 1844; Hiram Dunn, i860; Joel W.
Eaton, 1876 ; Homer Eaton, 1872 and '80 ; Samuel D. Ferguson, 1836 ;
John Frazer, 1848 and '52 ; Buel Goodsell, 1836 ; Ephraim Goss,
i860 ; Oren Gregg, 1864 ; William Griffin, 1856, '60, '64 ; Thomas
A. Grifnin, 1876 ; Barnes M. Hall. 1848, '52, '56 ; Peter P. Harrower,
i860 ; Bostwick Hawley, 1864 ; James B. Houghtaling, 1840 and '44 ;
William H. Hughes, 1880 ; David P. Hulburd, 1856 and '60 ; Joseph
E. King, 1864 ; Noah Levings, 1836 and '40 ; Lorenzo Marshall,
Samuel McKean, 1880 ; Merritt B. Mead, 1S72 ; Samuel Meredith,
1868 and '72 ; Sherman Miner, 1836 and 40 ; John Newman, i860 ;
Peter C. Oakley, 1S36 ; Stephen Parks, 1856 ; Jesse T. Peck, 1S44,
'48 and '68 ; Zebulon Phillips, 1852 and '56 ; Rodman H. Robinson,
1868 ; Hiram C. Sexton, 1872 ; Truman Seymour, 1840 and '44 ;
Charles Sherman, 1836 and '40 ; Tobias Spicer, 1836, 40, '44, 48 ;
Desevignia Starks, 1852, '6o, '64 ; Henry L. Starks, 1856 and '6o ; Jno.
W. Thompson, 1880 ; Sanford Washburn, 1856 and '72 ; Elisha Wat-
son, 1872 ; John M. Weaver, 1844 and 48 ; John M. Webster, 1S76
and '80; Reuben Wescott, 1852; Erastus Wentworth, 1868, '72, '76;
Andrew Witherspoon, 1848, '52, '56, '60. '72.
Lay Delegates — William Wells, 1872, '76 ; Hiram A.Wilson, 1872 ;
George L. Clarke, 1876 ; Henry M. Seely and Joseph Hillman, 1880.
A superannuate of the New York Conference, Nathaniel Kellogg,
says in a recent letter, "let me give you a specimen of an old fash-
ioned estimate for the keeping of a young aspirant to a city pulpit "
in a charge which now probably pays its pastor a salary of $3,000.
" At a meeting of the official members of the station, it was pro-
posed to raise for the support of our beloved preacher for the current
year, four hundred dollars, estimated as follows : "
Flour, including other bread stuffs $30 00
Beef and pork (salted), fish and fresh meat 40 00
Butter and cheese 12 00
Sugar, molasses, tea an J coffee 10 00
Oil and candles 7 00
Pepper, Alsoice, salt an.l ginger 8 50
Milk bill 9 00
Preserves 2 00
Wood 36 00
Add for incidentals 10 50
Disciplinary allowance self and wife 200 00
Two children 35 00
Total $400 00
" Voted that this be allowed the preacher, provided we can raise it !"
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First half century of the life and
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PHOTOCOPY