give a better account of the status of the business of the body than he, or speak more effectively on any important question under discussion. He is a brother beloved and of good repute.

Henry Brown, D. D., is one of the oldest men of the Conference, and has been prominent in her councils, having represented her once in the General Conference. He has been a defender of the polity of our Church on the amusement question, and has published a creditable book on the subject recently. His first term in the Presiding Eldership has just expired. Dr. Brown wields a facile pen. His personality in looks and manners is attractive and unique. He has a fund of humorous anecdotes, some of them side-splitting, and he uses them rather lavishly. He has some ability as a cartoonist, and as has been intimated of some others of us, may have missed his calling. This can be said to his great credit, however, he is an inveterate anti-saloon man, and would make a creditable prohibition candidate for governor of some State.

William B. Carithers, among the oldest men of our body, has recently been translated. He came to this Conference in 1884 from the Illinois Conference. He took a superannuated relation about ten years ago, but has been in constant attendance at our sessions until the last, and always took an active part in its business. We greatly miss him, so kind and gentle. His name is like "ointment poured forth."

John Le Cornu. This brother is of French descent. He is stockily and compactly built; has black, kinky hair, and is about five feet eight inches high, aged about sixty, and of robust health. He has a good voice, with a magazine of enthusiasm, and is a superabounding Methodist. He is a No. I leader of a prayer-meeting or love-feast, and a good pastor. I do not remember that he ever made a five-minute speech on the Conference floor on any issue before the body, but he is tactful in interjecting remarks on anything that pleases him, either by the brethren or bishop, without making himself offensive or impertinent. As I once heard a minister of a Congregational Church

call a brother minister "a Methodist stove," so I might say this brother is the Methodist stove of the Columbia River Conference. He is a good committeeman, and is in goood repute. He ought to be effective till he is eighty.

David E. George, one of the older members of this body, is an eccentric character. He is somewhat tall, and has a head of Websterian dimension. God made but one David E. George, and will probably never repeat Himself. He lays no claim to preaching ability. He has some gift as a revivalist, and quite a little tact. He is eccentric, some may think to a fault. He is utterly unconscious of it until after it has created a laugh. He is unaffected and simple as a child. You can never tell when nor where nor how it will manifest itself, so effervescent is he, and so versatile. His wife, who has lived with him about thirty years, once said to him, "David, will I ever know you?" I doubt if there ever was a Methodist bishop who presided at the Columbia River Conference that did not have his gravity well-nigh upset by this eccentric brother. He is now on the retired list, and keeps sweet and happy.

Among the other pioneers of this Conference that it has been my privilege to know intimately were D. G. Strong, J. C. Kirkman, William Koonts, N. E. Parsons, Abraham Eads, and T. A. Towner. The younger men who are full of promise I know, and am proud of them and expect great things of them. Columbia River Conference is vigorous and progressive, and I rejoice that I have had the privilege of fellowship in labor and toil with them in the Gospel of Christ in this interesting field.

Two laymen in Washington who have greatly impressed me are Father Waltz and Andrew J. Loomis.

Father Waltz was a man of medium size, black hair, mild countenance, modest, an intelligent Christian, companionable, and of generous hospitality. His was one of the beautiful homes where I was often entertained during my Presiding Eldership. This was a model Christian home, the fruits of which are seen in the outcome of the

children. Two Methodist preachers and two or three daughters, beautiful Christian women, are to-day blessing the world by their talents and Godly example. His name is redolent with a beautiful piety.

Andrew J. Loomis is a man of six feet and about two inches; raw boned, sandy complexion, sanguine temperament, not good looking, as the phrase is, but goodness personified, which is far better; not unlike Andrew in the Gospel, and like Jeremiah, tender to tears and a most companionable man. His godliness never sours, but is sweet and persuasive; a most approachable man, and generous to a fault. Twenty-five years ago when we landed in Colfax, Washington, and had just moved into an open parsonage with scant furniture, and the rains were copious, and we had no wood except some green slabs just sawed, a tall, ungainly man came to the door, and asked if the preacher lived there. Being answered in the affirmative, he said his name was "Loomis," and remarked that it occurred to him that we might need some wood and flour. We certainly did, and he had come some five miles with dry wood and provisions. They were timely. That man was photographed on my mind and heart, and to me he is one of the best-looking men I have ever known. I have known him intimately all these years, and he has grown on me, and I love him more than a natural brother. I know a large number of people who agree with the estimate I now place on him as a man and Christian. I said he is a layman. He is also a lay preacher. I shall know him when the "roll is called up yonder."

I have it in my heart to mention many other precious names; but my limits in this book will not permit.

In the last sixty-four years I have seen and heard the following bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church: Waugh, Morris, Baker, Scott, Kingsley, Simpson, Clark, Hamline, Ames, Janes, Merrill, Wiley, Gilbert Haven, Thomson, Foster, Bowman, Peck, FitzGerald, Andrews, Warren, Foss, Hurst, Fowler, Ninde, Mallalieu, Vincent, Cranston, Goodsell, and Joyce, and the following Missionary Bishops: William Taylor, Thoburn, and Hartzell. I

have felt their impress, and thank God for the privilege. Such a life causes one to be a composite, in a sense, of all he has seen and felt.

THE BOOKS THAT HAVE Influenced aND IMPRESSED ME.

These have been mostly biographical and religious. Hester Ann Rogers, Carvosso, Wesley, Madam Guyon, John Fletcher, Bishop Taylor's "Story of My Life," Bishop Simpson, Frances Willard, and others. But the Bible is the supreme Book of my life. The Bible characters who have impressed me most deeply are Abraham, Moses, Joseph in Egypt, Daniel in Babylon, Elijah, Isaiah, Peter, James, John, and Paul. I think I can say, without extravagant exaggeration, that I have known these persons better than many living men whom I have known personally. But more than all these I have known Jesus Christ, the chief among ten thousand, and the "altogether lovely," the only faultless character of our race! He stands out the transcendent God-man, peerless and unique, without a stain on His beautiful life and character! It is not idolatry to worship Him and an unblushing sin not to worship Him, who is, as Paul puts it, “The express image of the Father's person," "the only begotten of the Father and well-beloved Son." "Let all the angels worship Him," says St. Paul, setting at rest forever His Divinity. All this I sincerely and firmly believe, and can not be satisfied with a lesser creed. I expect not long hence to awaken in His likeness, and see Him as Peter, James, and John beheld Him on the Mount of Transfiguration, or as on the Mount of Ascension when He was parted from His entranced disciples.

FINIS.

A closing word to the great Methodist Episcopal Church as to her duty towards her superannuates. I began to support myself at the age of twelve, and now in my seventy-ninth year I am preserving the habit of self-support by keeping books and collecting for a black

smith firm to supplement what I receive from the Superannuate Fund. I may, as bodily strength decreases, be compelled to do lighter work; but still I hope to work at something. This does not offend my pride, for I have never been ashamed of anything but sin since my conversion. But I say this in behalf of my fellow superannuates who are more feeble and dependent than myself, that the Church may be stirred to its obligations to the men and women who have worn themselves out in her service, and as a consequence are left in this delicate plight. We are called "claimants" in the Discipline, and the claim is righteous if any claim is.

A last word to the many noble laymen and lay women I have known in the half-century recently ended. While in the choice I made in the year 1850 to be a Methodist preacher, and in so doing gave up all hope of a settled home of my own, I have had, without exaggeration, more than a thousand homes open and free to me, as if they had been my own, and many of them better and more costly than I could have hoped for of my own making. A hospitality genuine and as sincere as the sunlight and as free as God's pure air and water. And in many of the humble log cabins I had a royal welcome that I prized more than I can express. I pray God to bless the Methodist laity, and help them not to forget the hospitality of early Methodism in America, for this is doubtless an eminent virtue of the Christian religion.

As I have been giving this biographical sketch of my life I have felt the difficulty of avoiding undue personality, which is distasteful to true modesty. But a personal life involves more or less of the egotist. Herbert Spencer in his recent autobiography felt this difficulty, and I think was criticised because of it. A truthful and honest biography is not possible without it; but it ought to be reduced to a minimum. George Francis Train allowed his egotism to go to seed until it degenerated into a huge disgust. Some people wonder in reading some autobiographies whether the writer was ever conscious of any faults or blunders in his own life. To be strictly, nay