both here and in eternity. With this ground-view, all the other peculiarities of Methodism, such as its peculiar dogma of freedom, its emphasis of the working of the Holy Spirit, its doctrines of Christian perfection, etc., are intimately connected. In respect to its inmost spirit and essence it is a viewing of Christianity from the stand-point of Christian perfection or perfect love.

"Such is the stand-point, such the doctrinal and historical significance, of the Methodistic system. It presents Christian theology 'high as the love of God, deep as the want of man.' It is the ripe final result of the millennial-long spiritual study and searching of the Church of Christ into the truths of the divine revelation. And as soon as this view of the soteriological relation of God and man shall find universal prevalence and acceptance, so soon will the salvation or non-salvation of the soul cease to be made dependent either on human conduct in regard to a particular priesthood or an eternal decree of God, or on the mysterious working of Church ceremonies, but will be regarded as depending on man's own action in regard to the enlightening, renewing, and sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit. Let us venture to hope for an early dawn of that day, so much anticipated and so anxiously wished for by so many and such earnest spirits of our time, in which a

new and rich outgushing of the Holy Ghost will put an end to the intolerable disagreements of the old Churches and creeds, and reveal the kingdom of God in power and great majesty."

Such, then, is Methodism, as seen in its History, its Practical Economy, and its Theological Platform— a system of spiritual life, of Evangelical liberalism, of apostolic propagandism. As such it has pre-eminent claims on the consideration and gratitude of our age; but these claims it has further demonstrated by its beneficent, its extraordinary results, especially in this new world. We are now prepared to consider some of these results.

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PART II.

WHAT HAS METHODISM ACHIEVED, ENTITLING IT TO THE PROPOSED COMMEMORATION?

CHAPTER I.

ITS SPECIAL ADAPTATION TO THE COUNTRY.

METHODISM, it has been affirmed, was a specia. provision for the early religious wants of this nation. The Revolution opened the continent for rapid settlement by immigration. A movement of the peoples of the old world toward the new was to set in on a scale surpassing that of the northern hordes which overwhelmed the Roman Empire. Much of this incoming population was to be Roman Catholic, most of it low, if not semi-barbarous. Some extraordinary religious provision was requisite to meet and counteract its demoralizing influence on the country.

The growth of population was to transcend the most credulous anticipations. The one million and a quarter (including blacks) of 1750, the less than three millions of 1780, were to be nearly four mill

ions in 1790; nearly five and a third millions in 1800; more than nine and a half millions in 1820; nearly thirteen millions in 1830. Thus far they were to increase nearly thirty-three and a half per cent. in each decade. Pensioners of the war of the Revolution were to live to see the "Far West transferred from the valleys of Virginia, the eastern base of the Pennsylvania Alleghanies, and the center of New York, to the great deserts beyond the Mississippi; to see mighty states, enriching the world, flourish on the Pacific coast; and to read, in New York, news sent the same day from San Francisco. Men, Men, a few at least, who lived when the population of the country was less than three millions, were to live when it should be thirty millions.

Methodism, with its "lay ministry" and its "itinerancy," could alone afford the ministrations of religion to this overflowing population; it was to lay the moral foundations of many of the great states of the West. The older Churches of the colonies could never have supplied them with "regular" or educated pastors in any proportion to their rapid settlement. Methodism met this necessity in a manner that should command the national gratitude. It was to become at last the dominant popular faith of the country, with its standard planted in every city, town, and almost every vil