12mo., pp. 234. New York: Impressions of Theophrastus Such. By George Eliot. Studies on the Baptismal Question; Including a Review of Dr. Dale's "Inquiry into Sermons and Lectures. By WILLIAM ELBERT MUNSEY, D.D. 12mo., pp. 481. The Orator's Manual. A Practical and Philosophical Treatise on Vocal Culture, Emphasis, and Gesture, together with Selections for Declamation and Reading By G. L. RAYMOND, M.A. 12mo., pp. 342. Chicago: S. C. Griggs & Co. 1879. A True Republic. By ALBERT STICKNEY. 12mo., pp. 271. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1879. The African Repository, July, 1879. (Washington City: Published by the Ameri can Colonization Society.) The Expositor, June, 1879. Edited by Rev. SAMUEL COX. (London: Hodder & Stoughton.)-1. Ecclesiastes, chapter i, verses 1-11. 2. Christ Demanding Hatred. 3. The Book of Job.-VI. The Soliloquy of Job, Second Monologue. 4. A Word Study in the New Testament; Part II. 5. Annas and Caiaphas. July.-1. The Rhetoric of St. Paul. 2. The Book of Job.-VI. The Soliloquy of Job, Second Monologue. 3. A Word Study in the New Testament; Part III. 4. Ecclesiastes, chapter i, 12-18. 5. A Biblical Note. August.-1. The Paradox of Christian Ethics. 2. The Book of Job.-VII. The Intervention of Elihu. 3. The Second Epistle of Timothy. 4. Zion the Spiritual Metropolis of the World. 5. The Christology of St. Paul. 6. A Biblical Note.-Gal. i, 19. September.-1. Ecclesiastes, chapter ii, verses 1-11. 2. The Book of Job.VII. The Intervention of Elihu. 3. The Second Epistle to Timothy, Chap. i 4. Abraham Justified by Faith. 5. Additional Note on Rom. ix, 5. ART. XI.-REV. REUBEN NELSON, D.D. THE REV. REUBEN NELSON, Doctor of Divinity, whose recent death has so filled the Church with sorrow, was born in Andes, in the State of New York, December 13, 1818, and died at his residence in the city of New York, February 20, 1879; so that at the time of his death he had just entered on the sixty-first year of his age. He was awakened to a sense of his sins and brought to Christ when he was fifteen years old, and immediately upon his conversion he joined the Methodist Episcopal Church, and from that time onward till his death he was an active, devout, earnest, and sincere Christian, strongly attached to his own Church, and yet bearing a heart full of fraternal love to all true Christians of every name. From the beginnings of his religious life his intelligent zeal in Christian work was so conspicuous as clearly to foreshadow his subsequent successful career as a public preacher and teacher of the Christian faith. At the early age of seventeen years he was regularly licensed as an ex horter, and began under this authority to hold meetings for prayer and exhortation. In the exercise of his gifts and duties in this office he was so acceptable to the people and so successful in his work, and the fruit of his labors was so abundant, that no one doubted that he was truly called of God to the ministry of his word, and within one year from the time he received license to exhort he was licensed to preach the Gospel. It has occurred but seldom in the history of our Church that one so youthful in years has been thrust into an office of so great solemnity and responsibility, and his rapid promotion by the spontaneous suffrage of his brethren who knew him most intimately bears testimony to the exalted place he held in their affection and confidence. Believing himself to be called of God to the office and work of the holy ministry, and being convinced of the importance of a thorough education to fit him for the highest usefulness in his vocation, he devoted himself at once to academic studies, and prosecuted his course with untiring industry and with distinguished success. In August, 1840, being then in the twenty-third year of his age, he was admitted on trial in the Oneida Annual Conference, and was appointed as the third preacher on Otsego Circuit. At the Conference of 1841 he was appointed as the third preacher on Westford Circuit. During these two years he did his work faithfully and successfully on the circuits to which he had been assigned, and at the same time fulfilled the duties of Principal of the Otsego Academy, located at Cooperstown, in the State of New York. In 1842 he passed his examinations in the Conference studies, was admitted into full connection in the Conference, ordained to the Order of Deacons in the Church, and appointed Principal of the Academy which had already been under his supervision the two preceding years. Near the close of this year a partial paralysis of the vocal organs made it impossible for him to speak aloud, and he was compelled to resign his place in the institution over which he had presided with notable ability for three years. At the Conference of 1843 his name was placed in the list of superannuated preachers, a relation in which he remained for one year. During a portion of this year he was employed as a private tutor, teaching Latin and Greek to some young men who were preparing for college, though he was obliged to give his instructions most of the time in a whisper. By the close of the year he had so far recovered his voice as to able to resume his work in the ministry. In the year 1844 the Oneida Conference founded the Wyoming Seminary, in the beautiful and historic Wyoming Valley, locating it at Kingston in the State of Pennsylvania, just across the Susquehanna River from the city of Wilkesbarre; and, as was eminently fitting, in view of his scholarship, character, and reputation, Reuben Nelson was appointed its first principal. He held his position at the head of this school, and conducted its affairs with distinguished ability and success through a period of twenty-eight years; excepting only two years-the Conference FOURTH SERIES, VOL. XXXI.—52 years of 1862-63 and 1863-64-during which he was the Presiding Elder of the Wyoming District, within whose bounds the Seminary was located, and during even these two years his molding and guiding hand was in no small degree upon the institution. During the Conference year of 1868-69 he did double duty, being at the same time Presiding Elder of the district and Principal of the Seminary, fulfilling the duties of both offices to the satisfaction and delight of the Church and of the friends and patrons of the institution. His relation to the Conference and to the Seminary necessarily entailed on him various and varied services. As a preacher and as a teacher, in the pulpit and in the recitation and lecture room, his duties were exacting and incessant; still he met to the full all reasonable demands upon his time and strength, and did it, too, with an unfaltering devotion to every interest confided to his care by the Church. Under his wise and vigorous administration of its affairs for well-nigh a score and a half of years the Wyoming Seminary grew to be the chief educational center of the beautiful valley whose name it bears. It stands a monument of his wise forecast, patient toil, and unfaltering energy, one of the very best institutions of its grade in the land. The country has felt its influence and power. Its graduates are numerous and notable. They have come to usefulness and honor in the holy ministry, and in other lines of Church work, both at home and abroad; they have attained to eminence in the learned professions, and occupy high places of dignity and trust, as legislators, jurists, and statesmen, while multitudes in less conspicuous positions adorn the various other departments of churchly, secular, and social life. As an educator Dr. Nelson had few equals, and perhaps no superiors. He was scholarly in his tastes and in his acquirements, and he was "apt to teach." In acknowledgment of his liberal and varied learning, and of his distinguished success in the line of his profession, Union College conferred on him the degree of Master of Arts, and Dickinson College that of Doctor of Divinity. Dr. Nelson possessed in large measure the esteem and confidence of the members of his own Conference. In 1852 the Oneida Conference was divided. One portion of it retained the old name, and the other was called Wyoming, as it comprised within its bounds the beautiful valley bearing that name. In this division the Seminary and its Principal fell to the new Conference. In 1858 he was chosen Secretary of that body, and was unanimously re-elected by acclamation at every succeeding session till the one of 1870, at which time, because of the increasing and pressing demands of other duties, he declined to serve any longer in the office. In 1860 he was chosen a delegate to the General Conference to meet that year in the city of Buffalo, N. Y., and he has been a delegate to each General Conference since that time, receiving a larger number of votes each time he was chosen than was given to any other delegate from his Conference, being thus by the immemorial usage of the Church placed at the head, and made the chairman of his delegation. He was an active and useful member of the General Conference, always serving on important committees, and contributing his full share of influence in directing and controlling the action of that body. At the General Conference of 1876 he was chosen by the Committee on Episcopacy to preside over its deliberations, and the duties of this chairmanship were discharged with ability and success. In 1872 Dr. Nelson was elected Agent of the Methodist Book Concern, in the city of New York, and also Treasurer of the Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In both these offices he was the immediate successor of the Rev. Thomas Carlton, D.D., who had worthily held both of these positions of honor and of trust without interruption for a fifth of a century. In this new and untried sphere of toil and care Dr. Nelson manifested the same keen insight and foresight, and displayed the same energy and enterprise, that had always characterized his conduct in every place and duty assigned him by the Church. He succeeded to this agency in troublous times. The Book Concern had just passed through a most trying ordeal. Its former management had been fearfully assailed and maligned, not only in private circles both within and without the Church, but also in commercial communities, and in the public prints throughout this country and in other lands, thus begetting great hesitancy and distrust every-where in relation to its affairs. Although the results of the most careful and exhaustive scrutiny that could be made by competent and skilled accountants had signally failed to justify or even to excuse the slightest suspicion of the honesty of its Agents or of the solvency of the institution, yet the vigorous and persistent assaults upon both strongly tended to overthrow its credit and destroy its usefulness. Moreover, the financial affairs of the country were greatly disturbed. Many commercial houses of long-established and wide-spread reputation for solvency and strength were utterly ruined, while others survived as but the wreck of their former greatness. It was difficult, and, indeed, hazardous to do business at all; and yet, aided by the judicious counsel and co-operation of his associate, Mr. John M. Phillips, Dr. Nelson carried forward the publishing' interests which had been committed to him with such carefulness, wisdom, and success as fairly to earn and command the confidence of the Church, and of the whole business community as well, in his ability and integrity; and the General Conference of 1876 showed its appreciation of the administration by re-electing unanimously and by acclamation both the Agents for another term. From the organization of the Missionary Society onward till 1876 the Missionary Treasurer of the Church had been chosen by the Missionary Society itself or by its Board of Managers. A change in the Charter of the Society recently made had transferred the authority to appoint that office to the General Conference, and Dr. Nelson was unanimously elected to that position. He held this office and discharged its duties with signal success until his death, when he was succeeded by his surviving associate, Mr. Phillips. The same energy and sagacity which distinguished the administration of Dr. Nelson during the first term of his agency were not a whit abated in the second. With an unselfish devotion to his trust, he studied and planned and toiled when he ought to have rested, otherwise he might have lived to labor longer for the Church. For weeks before he was brought down by his last illness his friends perceived that his health did not seem as firm as usual, and he was advised by them to rest a little from his wearing toil. He was all oblivious to his real condition, though it occasioned the keenest solicitude among his friends, and he persisted in constant attention to the duties of his office until within three weeks of his death, at which time he became seriously sick, suffering from an attack of malarial fever which soon assumed a typhoid type. The disease yielded so far to skillful medical treatment that he was able to walk about his room on the Saturday evening preceding his death; and he received the congratulations of his physicians and friends on his improved condition and the prospect of his speedy recovery, and both he and they anticipated his complete restoration to health in a short time. But within a very few minutes afterward, while walking across the floor, he was suddenly stricken down with paralysis, which extended to the entire left side of his body. He became insensible at once, and, with the exception of two or three brief periods of consciousness, he continued in that condition till his death, which occurred on the following Thursday, at ten minutes past four o'clock in the morning. Thus closed an honorable, active, and useful life. "Servant of God, well done! Thy glorious warfare's past; "With saints enthroned on high It may be of interest to note in connection with the decease of Dr. Nelson, that, of the whole number of Agents of the Book Concern both East and West, only three have died in office. Rev. John Dickins, the first one of the long list, died in 1799, and Rev. E. Cooper was appointed to fill the vacancy. In 1808 Revs. John Wilson and Daniel Hitt were appointed, and Mr. Wilson died in 1810. So that for near seventy years the official ranks have been undiminished by death. In 1856, just before his term of office expired, the venerable and venerated Dr. Bond, Editor of "The Christian Advocate and Journal," departed this life. He (in 1856) and Dr. Nelson (in 1879) are the only officers appointed by the General Conference to an agency or editorship in New York, with the exceptions above referred to, for nearly a century, who have died while holding office, though some of them saw many years of service. |