(7) Missions. The Methodist Episcopal Church has been thoroughly missionary from the start so far as the evangelization of this country is concerned, and has expended immense sums on the frontiers. in the cities, among the colored peo ple of the South, the Indians of the West, and the various foreign races that have come to our shores. Its Missionary Society was not regularly organized till 1819, and its first foreign mission, that to Liberia, was not entered upon till 1833. Next it weut to South America, '836; to China in 1847; to Germany in 1849; to India in 1856. It is working now in many parts of Europe (in cluding Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Russia, Bulgaria, Italy, Switzerland, Germany) in East Africa and Central Africa, as well as Liberia; in Peru, Chili. Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil and Argentine; in Mexico, Japan, Korea, Malay sia ; besides five missions in China and five in India. And in these various fields it has about one hundred and eighty thousand communicants, besides nearly as 'many adherents. Nearly a mil lion and a quarter of dollars (sometimes more) have been for a few years past annually raised by this society, which covers both foreign and domestic missions. There is in addition a Wom an's Foreign Mission Society, begun in 1869, which raises over $3oo,000 a year, and a Woman's Home Missionary Society, organized in 1880. The total missionary disbursements of the Meth odist Episcopal Church through these three so cieties are about a million and three-quarters a year, and another quarter of a million is expended by the City Missionary Societies.
(8) The Book Concern. The publishing agency of the church (technically called the "Book Con cern") was set in motion as early as 1789, and has wonderfully prospered until now it has mag nificent headquarters in New York and Cincinnati, and Chicago, with agencies or depositories of large importance at Kansas City, San Francisco, Detroit, Pittsburg and Boston. It publishes a large number of periodicals and papers, makes annual sales of two million dollars, and has a capital of nearly three and a half millions. It has passed all financial panics without the slightest Interruption or danger ; has cleared profits of six million dollars in the last fifty years and has paid out half of this for various church objects.
(9) Societies. Other organizations dear to the church and employed by it as instrumentalities of wide usefulness are the Sunday School Union (begun in 1827), the Tract Society (organized in 1852), the Board of Church Extension (in corporated in 1865), the Freedmen's Aid and Southern Education Society (started in 1866), and the Epworth League (formed in 1889 by the junc tion of several young people's societies). This latter has at the present time over twenty thou sand senior chapters and over seven thousand junior chapters, or about two million members.
The Freedmen's Aid Society has expended nearly $4.500,000 in the South since the war. The Church Extension Board has, during the last twelve years, aided in building nearly twelve thousand new churches, and has a Loan Fund of over $2,5oo,000. The Hospital and Deaconess work has greatly extended during the past few years.
(10) Secessions. Such are a few of the re sults which exhibit themselves after something more than a hundred years of effort. The detailed history cannot be given here. As already inti mated, it has not been entirely peaceful. This would be too much to expect considering the frailty of human nature. There have been a va riety of secessions, none of them, it is worthy of notice, arising from strife over doctrines, but all springing out of differences of opinion over ad ministration. James O'Kelley, a flaming Irish man of great ability and extensive influence in Virginia, led off a small following in 1792, because the Conference refused to restrict the power of the bishops in the appointment of the ministers. In 1816 the colored members of Philadelphia and vicinity withdrew and organized the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and a secession from it in 182o formed the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. In r83o the Methodist Protestant Church was organized by those who were restive under the power of the bishops, presiding elders and ministers, and had been defeated in their strenuous demand for the incorporation of the lay element in the General Conference. In 1843, many preachers and members, who were dissatisfied with what they deemed the too favorable attitude of the Church toward slavery, withdrew and con stituted the American Wesleyan Church. And in 1845 there was organized at Louisville, Ky., the Methodist Episcopal Church South, embracing nearly all the ministers and rneinbers in the slave holding states (about five hundred thousand) who were dissatisfied with the hostile attitude toward slavery exhibited by the General Conference of 1844. These are all the departures of any conse quence. For the last fifty years matters have moved on smoothly. There has been agitation looking towards various changes in polity, some of it successful, some unsuccessful, but there has been no further split, and is not likely to be. The most recent conflicts have been for the pur pose of changing the composition of the General Conference so that the laymen shall be as numer ous as the ministers, and women delegates may be admitted as well as men. The former has already been won and the last General Conference was composed of an equal number of lay and minis terial delegates. Prevailing sentiment favors the admission of women delegates.