up to the help of the Lord' in this emergency; and to assist in this benevolent work, the Messrs. Lee were instructed, while remaining in the civilized world, to travel as extensively as possible, hold missionary meetings, and take up collections. The 'Flathead' Mission, as it was then called, seemed to possess a charm, around which clustered the warm affections of all the friends of the missionary enterprise, and special donations for the 'Flatheads' were sent to the treasury with cheering liberality and avidity. As an evidence of the beneficial result of these movements, the amount of available funds had risen, in 1834, from $17,097 05, the sum raised in 1833, to $35,700 15. So true is it that those who aim at great things, if they do not fully realize their hopes, will yet accomplish much."

The surges of emigration have overwhelmed nearly all that grand transmontane region; the aborigines are sinking out of sight beneath them; but the Oregon Mission, after some useful labors among the Indians, became the nucleus of the Christianity and civilization of the new and important state which has since arisen on the North Pacific coast.

Meanwhile Fountain C. Pitts was sent on the mission of inquiry to South America. In the autumn of 1835 he visited Rio Janeiro, Buenos Ayres, Monte Video, and other places, and the Methodist South American Mission was founded the next year by

ITS MISSIONARY LABORS.

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Justin Spaulding. Thus had the Church borne at last its victorious banner into the field of foreign missions. It was to be tried severely in these new contests, but to march on through triumphs and defeats till it should take foremost rank among denominations devoted to foreign evangelization.

At the General Conference of 1836, it was found that the missionary cause had grown rapidly since the preceding session. In the last single year its receipts surpassed those of any preceding year by about twenty-two thousand dollars; and in the various missionary stations there had been within the same time an accession to the membership of the Church of more than four thousand converts. The Liberia Mission was now organized into an Annual Conference, and the operations of the Missionary Society had assumed such importance, and involved such responsibility, as to justify, in the judgment of the Conference, the appointment of a special officer, or "Resident Corresponding Secretary," who could devote his whole attention to them. Of course the mind of the Conference, as indeed of the general Church, turned spontaneously to Dr. Bangs as the man for such an office, and he was elected by a majority which surpassed that of any of the three bishops, or any of the numerous editors and Bock Agents (save one of the latter) who were elected by ballot at this session.

At the adjournment of the Conference he returned to New York, and entered with energy upon his new functions. The first year of his secretaryship (1836-7) was signalized by the first recognition and. announcement, by the Missionary Society, of one of the most remarkable events in the history of modern missions, the beginning of the German Methodist Missions. Professor Nast, a young German scholar of thorough but Rationalistic education, had been reclaimed by Methodism to the faith of the Reformation. In 1835 he was sent to labor among his countrymen in Cincinnati; in 1836 he was appointed by the Ohio Conference to a German charge on the Columbus District, comprising a circuit of three hundred miles and twenty-two appointments. Thus originated the most successful, if not the most important of Methodist missions; and in the next Annual Report of the Society the "German Mission," and the name of "William Nast," its founder and missionary, were first declared to the general Church. German Methodism rapidly extended through the nation, to Boston in the north-east, to New Orleans in the south-west. German Methodist Churches, circuits, districts, were organized. 'In the brief space of fourteen years," says the historian of Methodist Missions, "the German Missions have extended all over the country, yielding seven thousand Church members, thirty local preachers, eighty

66

three regular mission circuits and stations, and one hundred and eight missionaries. One hundred churches were built for German worship, and forty parsonages. The increase in membership during the past year (1848) was nearly one thousand. Primitive Methodism appears to have revived in the zeal and simplicity and self-sacrificing devotion of the German Methodists. May they ever retain this spirit! No agency has ever been employed so specifically adapted to effect the conversion of Romanists as that which is immediately connected with the German Mission enterprise. The pastoral visitations of the preachers bringing them into immediate contact with German Catholics, their distribution of Bibles and tracts, their plain, pointed, and practical mode of preaching, all combine to bring the truth to bear upon that portion of the population; and the result is the conversion of hundreds from the errors of Romanism." The chief importance of the German Mission has, however, been developed since this date. It has not only raised up a mighty evangelical provision for the host of German emigrants to the New World, but under the labors of Dr. Jacoby, it has intrenched itself in the German "fatherland," and is laying broad foundations for a European German Methodism. German Societies and circuits, a German Conference, a German "Book Concern" and German periodicals, and a Ministerial

*

School, with all the other customary appliances of evangelical Churches, have been established; and, in our day, this Teutonic Methodism comprises, on both sides of the Atlantic, nearly thirty thousand communicants, and nearly three hundred mission

aries.

It is impossible here to trace in detail the further outspread of this great interest, especially under the successful administration, since 1850, of its present secretary, Dr. Durbin, nor is it requisite to the plan of the present volume. Suffice it to say that the annual receipts of the Society which, the year before his administration began, amounted to about $104,000, have risen to nearly $560,000, and that besides its very extensive domestic work, the Methodist Episcopal Church has now missions in China, India, Africa, Bulgaria, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and South America. Its Missions, foreign and domestic, have 1,059 circuits and stations, 1,128 paid laborers, (preachers and assistants,) and 105,675 communicants. The funds contributed to its treasury, from the beginning down to 1865, amount to about $6,000,000. About 350 of the missionaries preach in the German and Scandinavian languages, and more than 30,000 of the communicants are German and Scandinavian. The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, had before the rebellion missions in China, among the foreign set