land and in most of the English colonies. The Presbyterians, Baptists, and Congregationalists, however weak spiritually, held the social and secular ascendency in their respective fields. An eminent English statistical authority, "Whitaker's London Almanac," for 1881, gives the following estimates of the leading denominations among English-speaking people: Episcopalians, adherents, 18,000,000 | Congregationalists, adherents, 6,000,000

Methodists,
Presbyterians,

Baptists,

66

66

14,250,000 Unitarians,

8,000,000 Of no particular faith, .

1,000,000 13,500,00

8,500,000

These estimates were made six or eight years ago. In 1884 the Methodist population in all the world is probably not much under twenty millions, though some estimate higher.

Taking the ministers and enrolled communicants of five leading denominations, as prepared for 1880,* we have, in all the world, the following:

Much is said of the remarkable growth of the Roman Catholic Church in this country. It has gained rapidly. Nothing is gained by disparaging it, as some do. Let it be fully accredited and honored for its zeal and for its strong, compact organization. Taking the statistics of the Roman Catholic population given in their year-books, and we have, with rare exceptions, their whole families. Our own numbers can be compared with theirs only by multiplying the enrolled communicants of the various branches of Methodism by three and a half. (Some multiply by four; but I prefer the smaller number.) This gives the following:

On the authority of Father Hecker.

2 Metropolitan Catholic Almanac.

Sadlier's Catholic Directory, Ordo, and Almanac.

The Catholics are for 1883, but given in the Year-book for 1884.

*See "Appendix " of "The Problem of Religious Progress," by the author of this

paper. Phillips & Hunt, 805 Broadway, New York City.

This table shows that Methodism has more than twice as many adherents as Romanism in the United States; and that since 1870 the Methodist population has increased 4,638,351, while the Roman Catholic population gained 2,023,176.

LEADING PROTESTANT COMMUNIONS IN THE UNITED STATES AND IN ALL

For a detailed exhibit see Appendix of "The Problem of Religious Progress," by the author of this paper.

* Foreign mission communicants reckoned out.

Including the two Reformed (late Dutch and German) Churches.

Lest comment might seem invidious, I content myself with giving the statistics without making any comparisons, and close with a catholic prayer for the universal Church:

"May the Lord God of our fathers make" all good people "a thousand times as many more as they are, and bless them as he hath promised."

STATISTICAL RESULTS OF METHODISM-EDUCATIONAL AND FINANCIAL.

PRESIDENT J. H. CARLISLE, LL. D.

WHAT can the man do that cometh after one who is a king over the realm of statistics? Even that which has been already done. He may, perhaps, give some gross amounts from the educational and financial columns, adding the few inferences that may be suggested. Coleridge says the plainest human face is at once a history and a prophecy, if we know how to read it well. Statistics show the status of a Church. To say it more simply, figures are great facts. The figures of a Church's progress, in so far as they are right and rightly read, are at once a history of the past and a prophecy of the future.

It has been often said that Methodism started out on its work from the gates of an old university. Its first preachers, if not universally learned men, were very generally lovers of learning. If not already wise when they began to preach, they were great lovers and earnest seekers of wisdom. Some studied Hebrew on horseback. Others began farther down, with the English grammar or spelling-book. They tried hard to educate

themselves while educating others. John Wesley planned Kingswood school in 1739, the first year of Methodism. A theological school was proposed in 1744, at the first conference in America. John Dickins was planning at once a college and a publishing-house in 1780, at the darkest hour of the Revolution. There is something even sublime in this—the educated Englishman from Eton College, in the woods of a new world, while traveling his large circuit in North Carolina, almost within hearing of the guns of King's Mountain and Cowpens, thinking about a publishing-house and a college! Others will tell what results have followed from his attempts at book-making. At the Christmas Conference the college design took a definite shape, and the corner-stone was laid six months afterwards. This was old Cokesbury, around whose ashes all our historians love to linger, while they take pleasure in the stones thereof. It was proposed that schools and seminaries should be started in different parts of the country. A few were organized, and, with varying fortunes, they continued for a time. Jesse Lee, writing in 1796, says of them, "They are hardly worth noticing in this history." "I wished for schools; Dr. Coke wanted a college," says Asbury in the same year. The truth is, each of these wise men wanted both, the only difference of opinion being as to the best point at which to start to secure both. In 1800 there was no college, and there were very few schools. The early Methodists had helped to build colleges in America for others. Princeton and Dartmouth colleges owe their origin to the revival influence of Whitefield, and the English Methodists sent help to both enterprises. Through the first quarter of this century, however, Methodists able to educate their sons could only send them to institutions under influences not only alien, but often opposed to Methodism. The late Bishop Simpson gives an instance within his knowledge of a young man, openly studying for the Methodist pulpit, who was several times called before the faculty and reproved for attending the Sunday services at his own church. The bishop himself, in his college life, was made to suffer annoyance and reproach for belonging to an unpopular body.

In 1820 the General Conference recommended the organization of seminaries and schools in the conferences. A few began in that decade. The time for colleges came a little later. There are many delegates to this conference who are older than any existing Methodist college in America. Wesleyan University, at Middletown, Connecticut, is the oldest on our list, having been organized in 1830. Several others of like grade quickly followed in different portions of the country. Wesleyan Female College, Macon, Georgia, organized in 1839, is the oldest of our long list of female colleges. The centennial year 1839 gave an impulse to the educational tide. In that year American Methodists raised about six hundred thousand dollars, chiefly for educational purposes. Will not this amount be surpassed in some instances by single conferences during this centennial season? A presiding elder, whose work covered the spot where Asbury laid down his journalizing pen for the last time, reported eighteen thousand dollars. He thought this was the largest amount reported from any district in the connection. Will not this amount be surpassed, in many instances, by single congregations and individuals?

Within the Churches represented here to-day we have, perhaps, seventy universities and colleges, with at least as many classical seminaries, nearly one hundred female colleges, and ten theological schools. A very

interesting and hopeful phase of our educational interest is seen in the foreign mission fields; such as Africa, India, China, Japan, Brazil, and Mexico, where we have more than twenty high-schools and colleges, with ten theological seminaries. There must be some connection between the multiplication of female colleges in the last few years and the rapid development of the Christian work of women. There are, perhaps, fifty thousand students in all our institutions, of whom about one-tenth are pursuing a regular college course. The total amount of property invested in our educational institutions is about eleven millions. During the last thirty years five denominational colleges have been started to one non-denominational, in the United States. The denominational colleges are to the non-denominational as four to one; the students in them respectively are in the same ratio, while the property invested is as three to one. The entire amount invested in denominational colleges is nearly seventy millions.

The leaders in the great Methodist movement were quick to see the worth of the new Sunday-school enterprise. The untiring, wise, practical Asbury started the first Sunday-school established in America during the year 1786, in Virginia. He longed to see "two thousand children brought under the best system of education." On next Sunday, in this city alone, more than ten times that number of children will take part in Sundayschool exercises. We now have fifty thousand schools, with more than three hundred thousand teachers and three million pupils. It has been said that from all our various folds we lose more than one-half of our converted youth. Will this gloomy experience be repeated in the next generations?

Remembering that John King preached the first Methodist sermon ever heard in Baltimore, from a blacksmith's block at the corner of French and Broad Streets, in 1769; and that in 1784 not more than sixty churches of all kinds were reported, while a prediction had been ventured "that a corn crib would soon hold all the Methodists"—it is interesting to know that we have thirty thousand churches, the number increasing at the rate of five for every working day in the year. These will accommodate about ten million worshipers. The money value of these houses may reach eighty millions. The last sentence in Jesse Lee's little history is appropriate here: "I wish that we may increase in grace as fast as we have in numbers."

Our people did not take as readily to building parsonages as to other good works. For many years marriage meant location. Even in the early years of this country, when an itinerant went through the solemn form of endowing some brave woman with all his worldly goods, he simply meant that, as his Church had no home for her, he would turn aside and get one as soon as he could. About 1800, however, some attention was first given to this important matter, and the result is that to-day we have on the continent parsonages to the value of twenty millions.

In all our bounds more than twelve million dollars are paid yearly for salaries and kindred claims. One hundred years ago the first collection for foreign missions was taken up. Nova Scotia and the West Indies were the regions beyond, towards which the restless itinerants at the Christmas Conference were looking. Less than three hundred dollars was raised as an outfit for two missionaries. Now three millions are raised annually for missions.

The Methodist Episcopal Church last year raised about seventeen millions for all purposes, which amount is probably more than half of the aggregate sum raised by all the members of the Methodist family. It is estimated that the net value of all our national products last year was five hundred millions. The Christians of our country have perhaps one-fifth of the whole intrusted to them. How much of this goes into Methodist pockets? What becomes of it then? These important questions can not be answered here. The condition of our Church twenty years hence will answer them.

In 1793 Asbury writes in his own Journal, after reading that of Wesley: "He made this observation (so fixed in my mind) that it is rare, a miracle of grace, for a Methodist to increase in wealth and not decrease in grace." It is well for Methodist men and women and Methodist Churches to remember this. The amounts we have been quoting are very large, but it is startling to think that there are private citizens in our wonderful country, any one of whom could buy the entire property of the Methodist Episcopal Church, or perhaps the entire property of all the Methodist Churches. When prizes like that are floating even as a remote theoretical possibility before the busy, excited men who sit in our churches, there is need of instant faithful warning. Especially is it all important to remember that the danger lies not chiefly in the amount of money possessed, but in the love of money cherished.

On March 7, 1793, Asbury, having spent the day before among the hills of upper South Carolina, with his Hebrew Grammar in his hand as a household study, wrote in his Journal: "I consulted the minds of brethren about building a house for conference, preaching, and a district school. I have no reason to believe that our well-laid plans will be executed. Our preachers are unskillful and our friends have little money." The good bishop little dreamed there was at the moment of writing this, within thirty miles of him, a boy, thirteen years old, just finishing his common school education, who, sixty years after that date, would give to the Church a sum beyond the requirements of all his "well-laid plans." Rev. Benjamin Wofford died in Spartanburg, S. C., in December, 1850, leaving one hundred thousand dollars to found a Methodist College. It has been said, that up to that date no amount so large had been given by a Methodist. If this assertion is not true, it will be corrected in the general discussion to follow these papers. If true, let it remain for the double purpose of placing the self-denying local preacher in his proper place in our history, and of fixing a date from which we can estimate the recent and very rapid growth of benevolence among our people. Truth compels the confession, to the shame of Wofford's own Church, now numbering nearly one million members, that this amount has never been equaled by any of them in the generation that has passed since his death. May this reproach be wiped out speedily and repeatedly! Let it be said, to the honor of other branches of the Methodist Church, that the amount has been frequently and greatly surpassed by their liberal men and women. May this class of men and women increase rapidly in numbers and in wealth!

The Methodist Episcopal Church has resolved to raise at least ten millions as a Centennial offering, chiefly for educational purposes. The Southern Church hopes to raise two millions. The other Churches represented here will do as well, or better, in proportion to numbers and wealth.