on examination find him insane, and released him. He prayed for their forgiveness, showing the Christlike spirit, a marvel of grace! The work at the Hoopa Reservation was not as prosperous as at the Round Valley, and, as I think, not as fortunately manned.

REMOVAL TO WASHINGTON TERRITORY.

My time on the Petaluma District having closed by limitation of Church law, I was assigned by the Conference to Second Church, Oakland, California. The change from outdoor life to station work did not, as I had feared, prove favorable to my health. During the year I had a slight hemorrhage of the lungs. My people becoming somewhat concerned about me, gave me a vacation of six weeks. My older son being in Portland, Oregon, desired me to accompany him to Washington Territory. This I did, and returned to my charge greatly improved and resumed my labors. Before the year ended I had a relapse. While in Washington Territory I had been urged to accept an appointment in the Columbia River Conference, as they were short of help here on the frontier, and was offered the first charge of the Conference as an inducement, which I declined, saying if I ever concluded to change it would be with the understanding that my appointment, however small, would be acceptable and willingly received. On these conditions, and with the hope of improved health, I finally decided to come.

It will be twenty-five years, September, 1904, since my arrival. Colfax was my first appointment. It had a population of about two hundred people. There were seven members in the town, and a few in the country. There was no church edifice. There was a parsonage, which had a stove or two, and a cupboard, I think. The winter coming on soon, we found the upper story quite open about the eaves. The thermometer registered thirty degrees below zero, the coldest winter in twenty-four years, I think. The change from California was great, not only in temperature, but in house accommodations and salary. But this was compensated for by the cordiality of the peo

ple and the decided improvement of my health. My three years' stay in Colfax was in some respects the most pleasant and profitable of my ministry of fifty years. We built a church and greatly improved the parsonage. I received the subscriptions, bought the lumber, and did most of the outside painting myself. The membership was materially increased, and the second year we entertained the Annual Conference of some sixty ministers, among a population of not over four hundred people. The hospitality was generous, and was most enjoyable to the ministers and their hosts. The next day, after adjournment, the little newspaper of the place got off a most amusing cartoon of the notable meeting of the ministers. Two roosters stuck their heads through a fence, on opposite sides of a prominent alley, and this colloquy took place, it was said: "And are we yet alive,

And see each other's face?"

None enjoyed this more than "the Cloth," for they had fared sumptuously during their stay in that little city in the Gorge.

At the close of this stay at Colfax I was again called to the Presiding Eldership, with residence at Lewiston, Idaho. My district extended from the village of Spokane Falls to Walla Walla, and from the Big Bend of the Columbia River to Mt. Idaho, sixty miles east of Lewiston. Railroads were unknown, except a little "Strap Road" from Walla Walla to Wallula, and there were few traveled roads in Eastern Washington. I went mostly on horseback or in a buggy. To meet all the appointments in the bounds of this district required about twelve hundred miles of travel every three months. This in my case continued for six years, greatly to the benefit of my health. Since this time I have been in circuit, station, and school work. For the last four or five years I have had a superannuated relation, not being able to do full and effective labor in station work, though I have and do some work in destitute places now. I am now (1904) “in the sear and yellow leaf," nearing my fourscore years, and

fifty-fourth since I preached my first sermon. I thank God with all my heart that "He counted me worthy of putting me into the ministry."

Both of the Conferences in which I have spent my active life have treated me generously. I had the honor of representing the California Conference in the General Conference once and twice by my adopted Conference, and was elected alternate delegate to the Ecumenical Conference in 1891. I am greatly attached to the ministers I have intimately known and labored with in the California and Columbia River Conferences. My work has been largely done when these Conferences were laying the foundations of the Church, and were in a true sense pioneers of these great Western States. Twenty-seven years in California and twenty-five in Washington! This has been a great privilege and a great opportunity.

My elder son John, who spent a few days with me at the time of Mrs. Turner's recent and very sudden death, asked this strange but pertinent question: "Father, if you had your life to live over again, would you adopt the calling of the Christian ministry?"

I unhesitatingly replied, "I certainly would."

"Well, I am glad to hear you say so."

"My son, I am gratified that you feel so. Not that I feel that I have realized my own ideal, but with all its deficiencies I would not exchange it for any position or calling in life that I have known."

I have had some fears at times that some of my children felt that the Methodist ministry did not afford the best opportunity to properly educate and train a family of growing boys and girls, because of constant change of place; but upon the whole our children will compare favorably with the best citizenship of the country as to culture and usefulness, I hope. Now when the time comes, as it soon will, that I am summoned to change worlds, if I can only hear the welcome, "Well done! Thou hast been faithful in a few things, enter into the joy of thy Lord," my sum of happiness will be complete!

DARWINISM.

Some twelve years ago, in Spokane, I was drawn into a lengthy discussion on the Darwinian "Theory of the Origin of Man" with a Unitarian preacher by the name of Wheelock. He had preached a sermon in which he assailed the Mosaic account, and not satisfied with presenting it to his own congregation, which was his right, he had it published in one of the leading papers of the city. It was couched in such extravagant terms as to reflect seriously on the orthodox Churches. I ventured to reply to it, and requested him to give his authority for some of his statements in the sermon. This reasonable request he shrewdly evaded, and charged the orthodox preachers of feeding the people on "worm-eaten and effete mythology." He called us "mummied keepers of mummies," "human moles and bats, who can not see that it is dawn-time;" that we are "living in a past age," and are "camping with Moses," and with Mr. Jasper, who said, "The sun do move." These charitable (?) insinuations are specimens from what is claimed to be "liberal Christianity." After three or four letters passing between us in the Spokesman-Review, I challenged him to a public discussion of the Darwinian theory, which he declined on the pretext that his health would not justify his acceptance of the challenge; but he sent to Chicago and got a prominent infidel by the name of Underwood to come and answer me. I attended his first lecture. Mr. Wheelock sat on the platform with him, and the lecturer said publicly "that he had not come here to answer Mr. Turner." I think Mr. Wheelock felt greatly disappointed, as did some others.

As a final result of the correspondence between Mr. Wheelock and myself through the Spokesman-Review, and his declining my challenge, I was requested by the Young Men's Christian Association of this city to deliver a course of lectures on Evolution as taught by Charles Darwin and others. These lectures created considerable interest at the time, but are of such a philosophical character as

probably not to interest general readers now. however, publish them in the Appendix.

I may,

"The survival of the fittest" is especially untrue in the moral world, as we often observe. Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley did not survive the wretches that murdered them. The most delicate and purest of the race are often shortlived. But truth and purity will ultimately triumph over robust sin and corruption; but Bible righteousness is the only evolution that can ultimately survive the ravages and lapses of sin in our world. I can not believe, that our Infinite and loving Father can take pleasure in the strong oppressing the weak and innocent. This is a horrible reflection on Divine goodness. My God when He created man pronounced the work "very good." There was nothing to harm in the Eden state. After the Fall this state was reversed. Under the scheme of redemption under Christ, the prophetic statement is made that "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like an ox; and the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice's den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain." (Isa. xi, 6-9.) This is Paradise lost and Paradise regained-lost by sin and regained by righteousness.

At the time of these lectures I felt quite confident that the Darwinian theory was untenable, and in time would collapse. The revulsion has already come, and I believe it is doomed. Eduard Von Hartmann, the veteran philosopher of Germany, in a recently published article headed "The Passing of Darwinism," says: "Among the latest opponents of Darwin's views are such savants as Eimer, Gustaf Wolf, De Vries, Hooke, Von Wellstein, Fleischman, Reinke, and others." (Nat. Philosophy, Vol. XI, 1903.) It is well known that Hartman is not prejudiced in favor of the Biblical view, and this gives greater significance and weight to what he says.