and character of Jehovah, and of the worship which he desired, was apparently the occasion for the settled abhorrence of the sin and idolatry of the people which pervades both books of Samuel and of Kings. Wellhausen, however, accounts for this spirit in the fact that these histories were written up finally after the discovery of the Deuteronomy, and that the compilers, under its influence, attribute these great truths to those earlier times and denounce the people for their wickedness. They "partook of the spirit of the age in which they lived, and, forgetful or ignorant of the real past, did an injustice to those nations." Therefore, "we must not allow the Israelitish historians to shake the conclusions to which our in

vestigations have led us."* This is certainly an easy way out of the difficulty, but the explanation is entirely inadequate. It is altogether incredible that even traditions could have been so greatly at fault. It is to assume such stupidity or knavery, on the part of compilers, as find no parallel in the records of any other nation. It is a singular fact that none of the later prophets, in the interest of the brotherhood and truth, attempt to set right what they must have known to be grossly wrong. Their spirit and their utterances, however, are in the most perfect harmony with these traditions, which are the only traditions of the nation.

While there is the greatest reluctance on the part of the most radical to acknowledge any particular critical value in the historical books, there is a very noticeable disposition to use every fact and incident, so far as possible, in the interest of adopted thories. This is the case with reference to Israel's conception of Jehovah. "It is very possible, and even probable," may sometimes be a sound argument, but generally, it must be confessed, it is of very little value. Then, too, the ease with which troublesome texts are disposed of is something astonishing. The conclusion that images were a legitimate part of the worship and representation of Jehovah-from the golden calf which was made at Horeb; from the teraphim which were possessed in a very few instances and employed as household gods; from the ephod which, on no authority whatever, is said to have had an image representing Jehovah, perhaps a bull, attached to it, or to have been itself an image; † from the calves * National Religions and Universal Religions, p. 80.

Ibid, p. 87.

adopted by the northern kingdom as symbols of Jehovah; from the prevalence of images in both kingdoms-seems to be an exaggeration of the value of evidence. This is especially true. when such practices are uniformly denounced as a violation of some fundamental law of the religion of Jehovah. To infer also, and to affirm with dogmatic positiveness, the legitimacy of human sacrifices from the story of Abraham's willingness to offer up Isaac, or from Jephthah's devotion of his daughter, or from the practice of causing children to pass through the fire, would seem to be entirely unwarrantable in view of what is said in all such cases. Such assumptions can only be held because the presuppositions of a theory make them necessary. These facts and inferences form to a very large extent the ground for denying such a character to Jehovah as the prophets give to him.

From the fact that the prophets entertained such exalted views of the character of Jehovah, and from their very evident disposition to assume that they were declaring nothing which had not long before been known and accepted in Israel, it is difficult to believe that they held any conceptions of Jehovah different from those which had been held from the beginning. They may have apprehended them more clearly and stated them more forcibly, but that they introduced new truths, fundamental to the very life of religion, naturally requires such conditions as are known not to have existed.

The view of the prophets in their relation to the religion of Israel which seems most consistent with all the facts is, that which sees in them reformers sent by Jehovah to recall the people to a devotion to his ancient requirements. They spoke not only with the authority of the living Voice within them, but also with the authority of laws and customs and truths which had been for generations in the possession of the nation. How much of the Pentateuch they may have had may be left to a sober criticism to say, but that they had all that can make the Pentateuch a part of Scripture, to be received, believed and revered, cannot be denied from the writings of the prophets. They evidently did not build upon myths and fables. With Jehovah's truth behind them and his Spirit within them, they were prepared to command a hearing in the nation.

ART. III.-ORIGIN OF PRESIDING ELDERS.

In a former article we traced the origin of the Methodist Episcopal Church to the close of the General Conference of 1784-85, the so-called "Christmas Conference." The Church which that Conference constituted had but a slender organization. We propose in the present paper to show how the new Church secured a more perfect ecclesiastical polity. The history of the Church's advance in the matter of ecclesiastical adjustment and equipment will be shown in a great degree by a careful review of the rise and progress of the presiding eldership.

When the Christmas Conference had completed its work the presiding eldership had no existence in Methodism, though the germ of the office was found in some of its provisions. The ordination of the preachers and the celebration of the sacraments were the objects which Mr. Wesley contemplated in the embassy of Dr. Coke to America. Eleven preachers received ordination as elders, they having first been ordained deacons at that Conference. Two other preachers, namely, Henry Willis and Beverly Allen, were elected by the Conference to the order of elders, but were not present. Shortly after the Conference adjourned Mr. Willis was ordained by Asbury, and at the Conference in North Carolina, in April, 1785, Mr. Allen received ordination. Of these thirteen elders two were sent as missionaries to Nova Scotia, namely, Freeborn Garrettson and James O. Cromwell; and one, Jeremiah Lambert, was sent as a missionary to the island of Antigua. Upon the ten elders who remained in the United States devolved the work, in connection with the two superintendents, of giving the Lord's Supper to the members of the new Church. In their Notes on the Discipline, which by direction of the General Conference of 1796 Coke and Asbury prepared, those first bishops said that "when Mr. Wesley drew up a plan of government for our Church in America he desired that no more elders should be ordained in the first instance than were absolutely necessary, and that the work on the continent should be divided between them in respect to the duties of their office." But as these newly ordained elders traveled abroad over

the land in the fulfillment of their office, Bishop Asbury saw that he could profitably utilize their assistance in the work of the superintendency. Accordingly, in their Notes on the Discipline, Coke and Asbury say:

Bishop Asbury and the District Conferences* afterward found that this order of men was so necessary that they agreed to enlarge the number and give them the name by which they are at present called.

It thus appears that the presiding eldership grew out of the method which Mr. Wesley designed, and which the Christmas Conference adopted, of sending forth men invested with full ministerial powers through the land, each of whom was to devote himself to a given number of circuits, for the purpose of celebrating the holy sacraments. So, as in their annotations, the first bishops say, "In the year 1784 the presiding eldership did in fact, though not in name, commence." The General Conference of that year did not, however, constitute the office, nor, so far as appears, was it then thought of in the form which it soon after assumed, by the authority of Mr. Asbury and of the "District Conferences."

When, nearly eight years after the Christmas Conference, the first General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church assembled in Baltimore on the first day of November, 1792, the presiding eldership had taken quite definite shape under Asbury's episcopal hand, and with such other authorization as the District, or, as we would now say, the Annual, Conferences gave. There was, however, no formally constituted legislative body or power in the Church during that interregnum of eight years. The Christmas Conference adjourned without providing any plan for future legislation further than that of declaring submission to Mr. Wesley's control. Therefore, though at the convocation of the General Conference of 1792 this particular office existed, it was not by unchallenged authorization. One of the early writers of our Church has said: "No period of the same duration in the history of any Church exhibits such a jumble of powers as ours did from 1784 to 1792. Since the latter date the departments and powers began to be defined." Speaking of the General Conference of 1792 in its relation to

*"District Conferences" here mean the same thing as the phrase "Annual Conferences," which is of later origin.

the office of presiding elder, the first historian of the Church, Jesse Lee, says:

Such an order of elders had never been regularly established before. They had been appointed by the bishop for several. years; but it was a doubt in the minds of the preachers whether such power belonged to him. The General Conference now determined that there should be presiding elders, and that they should be chosen, stationed, and changed by the bishop.*

In respect to the authorization of the office by the first General Conference of the Church, that of 1792, Coke and Asbury, in their Notes on the Discipline, say:

In 1792 the General Conference, conscious of the necessity of having such an office among us, not only confirmed every thing that Bishop Asbury and the District Conferences had done, but also drew up or agreed to the present section for the explanation of the nature and duties of the office. The Conference clearly saw that the bishops wanted assistants; that it was impossible for one or two bishops so to superintend the vast work on this continent as to keep every thing in order in the intervals of the Conference without other official men to act under them and assist them.

The title of "presiding elder" first appears in the Discipline. in the year 1789. In the Discipline of that year there is no account given of the authorization or nature of the office, yet the recognition of its existence appears in parentheses in the following passage in the Discipline of 1789, namely:

The bishop has obtained liberty by the suffrages of the Conference, to ordain local preachers to the office of deacons, providing they obtain a testimonial from the society to which they belong, and from the stewards of the circuit, signed by three traveling preachers, three deacons, and three elders (one of them being a presiding elder).†

In the same year (1789) that the title of the office first appears in the Discipline it also appears in the "appointments" as printed in the Minutes. It seems certain that until that year the office was not recognized in any official documents under its present title. Furthermore, after that year the prefix "presiding" was omitted in the appointments in the Minutes, and did not appear again until subsequently to the General Con*Lee's History of the Methodists, p. 183.

Discipline. Fifth edition. New York, 1789, p. 5. There is no copy of the Discipline earlier than this known to be extant except that of 1784.