ism among the upper classes? Practical questions like these spring naturally from our studies of Methodism as it was and is. It might be sufficient to answer them by asking others. Why may not the Methodist Church use learning, culture, wealth, architecture, music, and other helps to her own advantage quite as well as other denominations? Has not the time come when she ought to make the most of her great resources of every kind for all classes of people? Can she fulfill her vocation and not do all this? And will not a higher educational standard and the right use of her wealth tend to elevate, purify, and strengthen the whole church? Much of this wealth is in the hands of men who, under God, owe all that they are and have to that church, within which they have been converted, trained, and lifted up from poverty and wickedness into the respectability of Christian character and associations. There is no reforming agency, no uplifting social power, like that of the Church of Jesus Christ. And so it happens that much of the prosperity which she confers returns into her own bosom, and the wealth which her sons and daughters accumulate flows through ten thousand channels into her treasuries, to publish tracts and books, to build churches, sustain missions, erect noble edifices for schools and colleges, and to found universities and theological seminaries. The danger lies in one direction chiefly, and that is of worldliness, unconsecrated wealth, fashionable religion. A corrupting prosperity will soon palsy the strongest hands. Some of the old-fashioned Methodists look with alarm and aversion upon the stylish buildings and the more quiet worship and cultivated preaching of churches which differ very little from those of the Presbyterian or Reformed communions. This second century of American Methodism probably marks only its comparatively new departures and growing successes among the higher classes, as its seminaries send forth yearly more well educated young preachers, and as its congregations increase in temporal prosperity. Yet, as all church history attests, this is the crucial period, when Laodicean dangers attend upon the consciousness of outward prosperity and blind the heart to its real state. If Methodism shall "level upward" as it has "leveled downward," and do the same work in the future among all classes, with the advantages of higher culture and the use of weightier resources, she will win her title to special honor by the grace of God.

It is difficult to forecast the probable future of a system of churches which are so closely related and move forward under one ecclesiastical banner. But it may be questioned, whether its vast expansion may not, like that of the Roman Empire, become a source of weakness? Should the northern and southern churches unite and, with other now slightly separated branches, form one vast church, could it hold together, retaining a homogeneous character, in the unity of its faith, in the simplicity of its Christian life, and in the integrity of its administration? Theologically it already embraces considerable differences of opinion and of preaching, with a drift in some directions toward a Broad Church expansion. Its doctrinal flexibility is offset by a singular combination of rigid general administration, with freedom of individual action and with traditional customs and usages. It has furnished hundreds of ministers to other denominations, many of them to Calvinistic churches. While this may be one of its safety valves, yet the fact indicates a wider range of doctrinal variation among its clergy than one would expect from its creed, and so far it is a source of weakness within the denomination itself.

Next to this is the difficulty of controlling and unifying so large an organization. The discussions upon the tenure of the general superintendency, the itinerancy, and especially the presiding eldership, in the last General Conference, and the great number of proposals to revise almost everything within reach, indicate a widespread restlessness and a disposition to change many things which are essential to its character and polity. The good sense of the majority did not "remove the ancient landmarks," while their opponents had ample opportunity to express themselves as they desired in free speech. These proposals and debates exhibit the alleged imperfections of parts of the system, and, like lay delegation, may be repeated until successful, by modifications, or even by revolutionary changes of polity.

It would have been interesting and profitable to have exhibited somewhat of the progress and present status of other branches of the Methodist communion in this country, and specially of Wesleyan Methodism in Great Britain. The differences between them are principally in their polity. The Non

Episcopal Methodists on both sides of the water are less churchly, less liturgical and ceremonial, and in England their theology is not so distinctive and defined. They have no bishops and but one order in the ministry. They represent more the old idea of primitive Methodist "societies," with as little as practicable of ecclesiastical constitution and uniformity. They have their "preachers, itinerants, chairman of districts," etc. They have less of that consolidated and centralized power with which American Episcopal Methodism has marched over this continent. The English Wesleyans stand between the Church of England, for which many of them cherish a filial love and from which its founders came, and the dissenting bodies with which they most affiliate in doctrine and practice and in evangelistic efforts. But they have not by any means the same numerical and relative denominational importance as the M. E. Church in this country. Their clergy, as a rule, are more highly educated, but as a body they hold and propagate all of the principal religious truths, and observe the peculiarities of their church with zeal and fidelity. In America the Non-Episcopal branches are overshadowed by the huge proportions of their mother church. According to the latest statistics, the total Non-Episcopal Methodists (which include the "Methodist Church," Methodist Protestant, American Weslyan, Free and Primitive, and Congregational and other independent Methodists) consist of 1,808 itinerants, 1,002 local preachers, and 147,802 lay members.

We have only glanced at the principal elements of this great ecclesiastical phenomenon which began with Philip Embury and Mrs. Barbara Heck, his cousin, who started the movement in his own house in Barrack Street, now Park Place, New York, in 1766, when that first American class-leader and local preacher first preached to an audience of five persons. John Wesley, with all his foresight, never could have imagined the results of his life work within less than a century from his death, which took place in 1791, although he lived to see his cause established in Great Britain, the West Indies, the British North American Provinces, and these United States. Much less could he have believed that in this year of our Lord, 1876, his own monument would have been erected, and his character and work eulogized in Westminster Abbey, by the celebrated

Dean who represents in his own person and office that established church which shut its sacred edifices against him, and drove him and his co-workers into the streets and lanes of the cities and villages of England to "preach the gospel to the poor." In a time when the old Ishmaelitish spirit of hostility between Methodist and Non-Methodist bodies has given way to recognized Christian fellowship, and when fraternal delegates convey cordial greetings to the long-sundered assemblies of the universal church of Christ, we may by generous comparison and fair contrasts learn much of practical value from the working of a system which commands universal attention, and is destined to still greater prominence in the ecclesiastical and religious movements of the age.

The late Dr. McClintock, whose name and fame are in all the churches, once said to the writer of this paper, that he believed the day was nigh at hand when all branches of the evangelical church would be compelled to unite more closely in defense of their common faith against the aggressions of Romanism and Atheism, and that God would gradually strengthen the churches for that conflict by the spirit of Christian union, by mighty revivals of religion, and by the combined pressure of the hostile forces. No man in the Methodist communion has done more than that eminent preacher, scholar, and author, to prepare his own church for that swift coming day. With sister churches, she raises her constant protests against Papal hierarchy, the rationalistic heresies, the secularism and infidelity of the times. Her silver trumpets sound forth the salvation of the gospel on every continent and in many languages. Her conquests have been mostly from the world, and largely from classes of population which other churches failed to reach with equal popularity and power. With all her defects and weaknesses, and after making all abatements which our Calvinistic theology and Presbyterial system and calm judgments of its results and tendencies suggest, we can not but rejoice in every token of her prosperity, and bid her God speed in doing Christ's work for Christ's sake. The typical circuit rider, with his saddle bags, primitive dress, plain manners, and rude preaching, has almost entirely disappeared, except perhaps on the western frontier and in some portions of the South. Early Methodism, bold, controversial,

shouting, and pioneering, has given way to a more cultivated but not less earnest and aggressive generation of preachers and people. The despised little societies have become a great historical church, "an army with banners." The Arminianism of Wesley and the Calvinism of Westminster and of Dordrecht are working out their legitimate developments side by side in all the world. They are too diverse and contradictory to admit of organic union between their respective churches, yet they approach each other closely enough on the great essential truths of salvation, to dwell together in Christian charity and to cooperate against the " enemies of cross of Christ." And in his name we "will now say " to this sister church, " peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces.'

Art. II. THE INDIAN QUESTION.*

BY THOMAS WILLIAMSON, M.D., Saint Peter, Minn.

[We are very glad, in the present perplexity of the public mind in regard to the proper method of dealing with our Indian population, to be able to present to our readers the two following papers, from writers who speak from personal knowledge and experience.-EDITORS.]

THIS Indian question is still unsolved. It is of vital importance to the red-men, and sufficiently concerns the white race, to merit all the ink and paper and thought which have been bestowed on it. Some want to banish it, but, like Banquo's ghost, it will not down, or disappears only to come up again when most unwelcome. Public sentiment just now seems to be settling strongly in one direction. The articles above named. published in our most able and popular magazines, written by

*North American Review, April, 1873.

Indian Citizenship. International Review, May, 1874. late U. S. Com. I. A.

By Francis A. Walker.

The Indian Question. By Rev. G. Ainslie. Presbyterian Quarterly, July, 1875. How to Treat the Indians. By L. Edwin Dudley. Scribner's Monthly, Aug.'1874