HENRY CLAY'S FORebodings.

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the unfortunate controversy which has arisen in the Methodist Episcopal Church of the United States, all of which I have attentively perused. You desire an expression of my opinion on certain inquiries communicated in your letter.

"I have long entertained for that church sentiments of profound esteem and regard, and I have the happiness of numbering among its members some of the best friends I have in the world. I will add with great truth that I have witnessed with much satisfaction the flourishing condition of the church and the good sense and wisdom which have generally characterized the administration of its affairs, as far as I have observed it.

"It was, therefore, with the deepest regret that I heard in the course of the past year of the danger of a division of the church in consequence of a difference of opinion existing on the delicate and unhappy subject of slavery. A division for such a cause would be an event greatly to be deplored, both on account of the church itself and its political tendency. Indeed, scarcely any public occurrence has happened for a long time that gave me so much real concern and pain as the menaced separation of the church by a line throwing all the free States on one side and all the slave States on the other.

"I will not say that such a separation would necessarily produce a dissolution of the political union of these States; but the example would be fraught with imminent danger, and, in coöperation with other causes unfortunately existing, its tendency on the stability of the confederacy would be perilous and alarming.

"Entertaining these views, it would afford me the highest satisfaction to hear of an adjustment of the controversy, a reconciliation between the opposing parties in the church, and the preservation of its unity.

"I limit myself to the political aspect of the subject, without expressing any opinion on either of the plans of compromise and settlement which have been published, which I could not do without exposing myself to improper imputations.

"With fervent hopes and wishes that some arrangement of the difficulty may be devised and agreed upon which shall preserve the church in union and harmony,

"I am, respectfully, your obedient servant,

44 'Dr. W. A. BOOTH."

"H. CLAY.

There is reason to suppose that certain statesmen who were themselves willing to resume the sovereignty of the State preparatory to the formation of a new confederation-a Union in which slavery should be recognized without restriction-regarded the event as a step in the right direction. Be that as it may, no evidence exists that those possibilities warped the judgment or influenced the action of any of the participants in the discussion and legislation of the General Conference of 1844, which led to the addition of another to the long list of Protestant denominations.

CHAPTER XIX.

FROM THE ECCLESIASTICAL TO THE NATIONAL CRISIS.

A PECULIAR interest inheres in all the transactions of the General Conference of 1844, since that was the last held by undivided Episcopal Methodism. Early in the session the Rev. Edmund S. Janes, financial secretary of the American Bible Society, was invited to take a seat within the bar of the house, and to speak on subjects connected with the Bible cause. William Nast was by resolution permitted to visit Germany with a view to more extended usefulness among his brethren of that nation.

The committee on episcopacy reported, on the 7th of June, that, owing to the want of time and opportunity, it had not arrived at any conclusion regarding the number of bishops necessary to be elected, and asked to be relieved from further action on the subject. The conference decided on the afternoon of that day to elect two bishops. On the first ballot no one was elected, and after the second ballot, which was declared irregular, Capers moved that the conference by a rising vote sustain the election of E. S. Janes. On this the previous question was moved, but not sustained. Preliminary to the third ballot the secretaries were ordered to call the roll, and each delegate went to the secretaries' desk and deposited his vote. Leonidas S. Hamline received one hundred and two, Edmund S. Janes ninety-nine, and both were elected. Hamline was presented for ordination by Pickering and

Fillmore, of the North, and Janes by L. Pierce and Capers, of the South. The imposition of hands was by Bishops Soule, Hedding, Waugh, and Morris.

Janes, who had neither been connected with any General Conference nor taken part in the controversies upon slavery, had traveled extensively in the South and was preeminently the choice of that part of the connection. McTyeire says: "Two bishops were to be elected, and the last service of the conservative South to the yet undivided church was rendered here. The elements that united in the choice of Hamline will readily occur to the reader, but the Southern delegates brought forward and concentrated on Edmund S. Janes. As one of the secretaries of the American Bible Society he had become known to them, and none could know him without perceiving his great worth and abilities."1

Janes, twin brother of Edwin L., also a minister, was a native of Sheffield, Mass., the son of a carpenter, and in the summer worked on a farm, attending school in the winter until seventeen. He became a Christian at the age of thirteen, and in his twentieth year began the study of law, being in due time admitted to the bar. The sudden death of his prospective partner led to serious reflection, and he turned to the ministry, entering the Philadelphia Conference in 1830, and, owing to his clearness of statement, which made financial questions intelligible and interesting to the ordinary mind, in two years was appointed financial agent for Dickinson College. He was pastor in Philadelphia from 1836 to 1838, was then transferred to Mulberry Street Church in New York, and at the end of his term was elected secretary of the Bible Society. He was a man of inflexible uprightness, indomitable will, and unusual spirituality. While in Philadelphia "History of Methodism," p. 639.

JANES AND HAMLINE elected bishops.

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he pursued the study of medicine, not designing to prac tice, but from a love of knowledge and a desire to qualify himself further for the prosecution of his ministerial work. He was always self-possessed, and united the two principal clements of a perfect style-simplicity and purity of language. He passed his thirty-seventh birthday on the 27th of the April preceding his election.

Hamline's votes came exclusively from the delegations that had carried the measures opposed by the South; Janes received fifty-one Southern votes and forty-eight from the rest of the connection. He was highly esteemed in the North and probably had not an enemy in the world; but it is probable that the motion of Capers to elect him by a rising vote diminished his natural Northern vote.

Hamline was a native of Connecticut; he had been somewhat wild in youth, and skeptical; partly educated for the ministry, he turned to the law and was already practicing when, at the age of twenty-one, he was converted, and immediately began preaching, entering the Ohio Conference; where, being assigned to circuit work in a rough country, he showed himself so great a master of religious assemblies as to be at once demanded by the first churches in the cities of Ohio. He filled editorial positions from 1836 until his election as bishop, the first four years as assistant to Elliot, of the "Western Christian Advocate," and the last four as editor of the "Ladies' Repository." His appearance was commanding; his features were dark and expressive of thought and feeling under perfect control. Thomas M. Eddy says that his voice was musical and deep-toned, and that his eye had a power which he himself felt at the time of writing, though years had passed since he came under its influence. As a preacher he combined, in an extraordinary degree, culture, oratory, and emotion.