by us tributary to our material wants. He permits not the vegetable world to yield us bread, till it has first yielded beauty through the eye, to the mind. The blossom precedes the fruit. True art should be recognized as one of the noblest handmaids of religion; elevating impressions and associations, through the senses in our temples, may ennoble even divine worship; and imposing monuments of taste, consecrated to piety, are among the highest means of national culture, and the highest proofs of advanced civilization. It is a sacred peculiarity of architectural art that, unlike painting and sculpture, it will not lend itself to vice; its severe and stately beauty disdains effeminate or voluptuous tastes. It is the most sublime, the most religious, of the works of man.

On really utilitarian grounds, then, may we plead for religious art. Yet we may plead for it also on really economical grounds. The most expensive temple is usually the most economical. The Church that builds its edifice in the most eligible locality and in the most attractive style, almost invariably finds its expense the best reimbursed, by its command of the people, their attendance, their intelligence, and their money. A well located, substantial, and commanding temple aids much in giving security to a Church, and is cheap in this respect. The stability of the religions of the old world, their power over

local populations, are owing largely to their grand edifices. Methodism should not despise this power. It must still throw up hastily, especially in its frontier fields, temporary "meeting-houses," shanties, or logcabins; it should multiply greatly its cheap suburban temples; but it should make all prudent haste to supersede these by better structures. Consulting always, and primarily, practical convenience in its buildings, it should also endeavor liberally to ennoble the house of God by every aid of genuine taste and art. It will not be able to justify itself against the claims of public opinion and public taste upon it if, with its great prosperity, it should fail to have within the next twenty-five years the most approved and most commodious churches of the nation.

It should be one of its most earnest aims to consolidate its forces by the union of its various American branches. There would seem to be but temporary, if indeed any reason, for the continued separation of its two chief bodies, north and south. They divided on the question of slavery; that question is now practically obsolete; they are identical in their theological and practical systems and in their ecclesiastical aims; their reunion would contribute much to the social and political reconciliation of the North and South; it is a duty, therefore, that they both owe to their common country, and to our common

Christianity. On what terms such a reconciliation should be founded, need not here be discussed; it is sufficient to affirm the obvious fact that it should be effected, and whatever is obviously right is always, sooner or later, practicable. The other branches of American Methodism have arisen mostly by secessions, founded on questions of church government, especially on the demand for lay representation. The position of the supreme assembly of the Church on this subject, its readiness at the will of the Church to make the change, should make it possible for such sister bodies to return to the common household.

Such a consolidation of the various communions which bear the name of Methodists and have identical doctrines and discipline, would mightily strengthen, numerically and morally, the common cause. Perhaps a still greater advantage would be the diminution of the prevalent sectarianism of the country, and the consequent abatement of its rancor, its wastefulness, and its bad moral effect on the public mind. Whatever may be the advantage of a variety of religious denominations, for the accommodation of a variety of religious opinions or scruples, (an advantage enormously exaggerated in this country,) it surely cannot justify those distinctions, without an essential difference, which the various sects of Methodism now present. If American Christianity must needs have divisions, it certainly need not have

these subdivisions. Wesley gloried, as we have seen, in the liberality, the catholicity of Methodism; it is a boast which his disciples should be eager to maintain throughout the world and to the end of time. What a crowning glory would it be to its centenary jubilee, if all its now practically unnecessary branches could be blended into one cominon cause before the joyous year (never to be enjoyed on earth by any of us again) has passed away! If this be impossible, can we not, at least, in the proceedings of this memorable year, lay with certainty the foundations of so grand a consummation?

Methodism should earnestly seek to solve that now most important of its practical problems, how to secure its children within its own pale. Its Sundayschools help it much in this respect, but not sufficiently. Thousands of its youth have been annually converted within these schools: nearly 19,000 the last year, (1864,) nearly 40,000 within the last two years; more than 285,000 within the last eighteen years. In several of these years the reported conversions in the schools equaled half the annual additions to the Church membership; in several the former more than equaled the whole of the latter. In the entire period the Sunday-school conversions have surpassed the entire gains of the Church membership by nearly 5,000. During three years of the war the

membership decreased 67,000, but during these same three years the reported conversions in the schools amounted to 50,500. While these facts speak emphatically for the religious power of the school, they show alarmingly the inefficient guardianship of the Church over its children. They prove that most of its converted youth either fail to enter or are lost from its communion. The startling exhibit of these statistics should be kept under the eye of the Church,* and be anxiously pondered till a remedy be found for the extraordinary evil. The last General Conference ordained that the "baptized children of the Church" shall be "organized into classes," with suitable leaders, (male or female,) and in due time be "enrolled on the list of probationers" and "admitted into full membership." This is an important advance in the right direction; but it must fail without the diligent pastoral attention of the ministry. The intimate co-operation of the pastor with his Sunday-school teachers; his presence in the school, especially in