CHAPTER XVIII.

THIRD PERIOD. (1870-1880.)

KEARNEY DISTRICT CONTINUED.

   IF it was providential that A. G. White should be placed in charge of Kearney District in 1873, on the eve of a great calamity, it was equally fortunate that T. B. Lemon should be assigned to the district, just as it was rallying from the effects of that calamity and girding itself for a marvelous advance along all lines.
   It is no secret that T. B. Lemon felt aggrieved that he should be sent to that hard field, nor is it surprising that he should feel so. He is already well advanced in life, being fifty-eight years old, and not being very vigorous in body, he naturally feared that he would be physically unable to stand the strain. Indeed, it really seemed perilous, and many of his friends earnestly protested against the appointment. In all this there is absolutely no taint of disloyalty on the part of Dr. Lemon, and it is not to his discredit in the least that he should hesitate in the matter, but this is one of those cases where the wisest do not always know what is best for them, and an over-ruling Providence seems strangely directing our course.
   Dr. Lemon entered heartily into the work on the district, and soon found his health improving, and coming

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to like the work, was permitted to do his greatest work on this district.
   It is remarkable that while the grasshopper scourge temporarily checked immigration, it did not stop it. The increase in population in the State from 1870 to 1875 was 124,000, while it was 205,000 from 1875 to 1880. The smaller increase for the first half of the decade as compared with the last half, is doubtless owing to the larger number leaving the State at that time.
   Up to the close of Dr. Lemon's first year on this district, the country barely had time to rally from the disasters of the preceding three years, and in his first report the tone is not so hopeful and jubilant as in subsequent reports. There had been much to confirm his conviction that the appointment was a mistake. He had had a long and severe spell of sickness early in the year. The doubts regarding the future of the country were still prevalent and seemed well grounded. The force at his command,. both of men and means, seemed inadequate. But recovering from that illness he takes up his great task, visits his vast field, musters such forces as are at his command, and by the following year things begin to move at a rapid rate under the inspiring leadership of this strong man.
   The strength of his Christian character is revealed in no other way so clearly as in resistance of the temptation to give up so sadly expressed in these words contained in his first report:
   "The Church has not received much addition from the immigration of the past year, but the people are coming and the valleys and divides are filling up and the Gospel preached by earnest, consecrated men can bring them to Christ. Within this vast territory there were

twenty-one appointments and only eight men appointed by the bishop from the Conference, leaving thirteen appointments to be supplied, with only $1,400 to aid the men to work this field, and every charge purely missionary. With so few men, such limited means, and our own health impaired by overtaxing our energies during the past year, and the extent of the field before us, we felt more like giving up than ever before, but after prayer and reflection, we resolved to be obedient to the powers that be and enter upon and do the best we could, with very little expectation of standing it for the year, or appearing before this Conference with a report from Kearney District, but God has been good, and in mercy has preserved us. During the first quarter we did but little in consequence of an illness which prostrated us for a part of the winter, but the few men sent to the. district did double work to aid us, and they ably served the charges they were sent to, so that no loss was sustained by our absence."
   None but the strongest character, grounded in mighty faith in God, could have met this moral crisis, and conquered, as did T. B. Lemon. We honor him all the more because he stands the severest test to which a Methodist preacher can be sometimes subjected, to honestly question the wisdom and justice of the appointing power.
   But not only does he remain firm and go to his task in the spirit of loyal submission to constituted authority, but we find even in his first report some fore-gleams of that fiery enthusiasm which soon comes to characterize the spirit in which he did his work in that portion of the State. And what is perhaps of even more importance, he was able to communicate this enthusiasm to the band

of workers he soon gathered about him. Hereafter his reports to Conference were all inspiration to all of us.
   Perhaps no portion of the story of the first twenty-five years of Nebraska Methodism is more pathetic in the tale of suffering to be recorded, or more inspiring in the recital of the heroic self-sacrifice of the preachers, and the marvelous growth of the district in the face of these sufferings.
   When the district was organized in 1873, few in the Conference had much faith in the enterprise except A. G. White. When the report of the Committee on Appropriations of missionary money to the different missions was presented, one brother moved to strike out some of the missions in the proposed Kearney District, and had his map and other proofs ready to show that that part of the country could not be settled, and that to appropriate missionary money to such a field was to squander it. But the men of faith prevailed and Kearney District set out on its eventful career.
   Small indeed were its beginnings, as has already been mentioned. Had all the conditions remained favorable, the actual achievements of seven years could hardly have seemed possible. But when we remember that through nearly or quite half of this seven years the conditions were about as bad as they possibly could be, many leaving the country, and those that remained being so impoverished as to be unable to build any churches or parsonages, or even pay their pastors enough to keep them from suffering, the growth has been simply marvelous.
   In his first report, after stating that his district contained thirty-one counties, lying principally in the Republican, Platte, and Loup Valleys, and containing an

area of 20,000 square miles, Dr. Lemon speaks this of the year's work and of its difficulties:
   "We think the statistics will show that our frontier district has not been neglected, but the duties enjoined by our Discipline have been attended to. We have in person visited all the counties in the district and made personal examination of the country and its wants and what we say of the demands are from personal observation. We need for that vast district of country men and means. Our sister Churches are putting up their best young men at the important centers and places of promise along the thoroughfares of travel, and liberally supporting them from their mission and Church Extension funds, and saying, 'Occupy and build churches, and we will help you until your people can sustain themselves.' Alongside of these agencies we are compelled to employ the local preacher, who has to toil day by day to support his family, as the people are not able to support him, and our missionary appropriation to these charges very small - amounting only to some fifty dollars - while in the same places our sister Churches give from four hundred to seven hundred dollars to their preachers. Yet with all these disadvantages, our employed local aid and the few men sent from Conference, have nobly met and overcome the discouragements, and the results of their labors have been glorious, but how much greater would have been the results if we had had the men and means to meet the increasing demands of that growing country! Give us these and you will hear good tidings from the West."
   The reader will doubtless want to know something more about these men who rallied around Dr. Lemon, and under his leadership brought about such results.

   Besides the men that T. B. Lemon found on the district of whom mention has been made, there is one, Rev. C. A. Hale, whom we find at St. Paul. He has already done much pioneer work, penetrating as early as 1875 into the unorganized territory now comprised in Custer County, preaching the first sermon and organizing the first Sunday-school in all that section of country, in a dug-out on the Middle Loup River, at what is now Comstock. Twenty miles further up the Loup was Lillian settlement, and here in the summer of 1875, Brother Hale and another minister of a sister Church, preached the first sermons in that part of the country. We have no means of knowing which was first, but if the usual custom was adhered to it was that of the Methodist preacher. Brother Lemon finds Brother Hale at St. Paul in 1877, with a large family, just at the close of three successive years of grasshopper devastation. He feels it due to his family to suspend preaching for a time. Of this enforced retirement Dr. Lemon says in his report: "We regret to lose Brother Hale from the ministry; he is a good preacher, a pure, upright man." But he is back in the ranks again in a few years and T. B. Lemon had no more loyal supporter, and West Nebraska Methodism received a large contribution from his faithful and efficient labors on small stations, large circuits and districts through many succeeding years. His brethren express their appreciation of the worth of the man and his work by electing him as a delegate to the General Conference in 1896. Brother Hale was transferred to the Nebraska Conference in 1900, and has most of the time since resided in University Place, serving such charges as are contiguous, and still doing good work for the Master.

   Others come into the district this first year. Among these is the brilliant orator and erratic man, John Armstrong, who serves Kearney, and who, after attaining to the position of a special transfer, was in demand by some of the best Churches, and actually filled some of the best pulpits in Methodism. Finally, when pastor of one of the best Churches in Kansas City, he drops out of the ministry because of all unwillingness to pay his honest debts, a trait that had characterized to some extent his whole career, but had grown worse, as usual, and became intolerable.
   Edward Thomson, son of Bishop Thomson, is at Hastings, but is soon changed to North Platte, which is seen by the keen perception of this wise presiding elder to have reached a point, where the right man, given a fair chance, will bring the charge into conditions of permanent strength. This is what Edward Thomson did for North Platte. He is soon to be called to the educational work of the Church, and as related elsewhere, is the first principal of our first Conference Seminary at York. He is afterward called to the head of the Mallalieu University in 1886.
   Thomson's place at Hastings is filled by A. C. Crosthwaite, a transfer from the Pennsylvania Conference. He remains three years and his presiding elder says, "has proved himself to be the right man in the right place." He, too, comes to Hastings at a critical time, when the right man can start a charge on a career of permanent growth and power. This is what Crosthwaite did for Hastings, building a fine church and strengthening the work there along all lines, and it has ever since taken rank as one of our most important stations.

   The writer first met A. C. Crosthwaite at a meeting of the Conference Church Extension Board, being a member at the time. He well remembers with what thoroughness Brother Crosthwaite, who was there with an application for aid for the Hastings Church, presented his case and won it. I have been impressed since as I have watched his career, as he has filled the successive important places to which he has been appointed, that the secret of his pronounced success may be found in that one trait, thoroughness, more than in any other one thing. Besides Hastings he has served many of our most important pasorates (sic), including York, and a full term as presiding elder of the York District. He was for many years secretary of the Conference, and in 1888 was one of the delegates to the General Conference, and was chosen one of the assistant secretaries of that body. He is still in the effective ranks, serving his second year at Edgar, and gives promise of many more useful years of work.
   Another name appears on the Kearney District in 1878 that presents some remarkable features. Charles L. Brockway was received on trial in 1876, and in 1880, at the same Conference that he was ordained elder, he was appointed presiding elder of the Hastings District. This rapid advance to a place of such responsibility has occurred but few times, if ever, in the history of Methodism, and certainly never before or since in the history of Nebraska Methodism. The nearest approach to it was the case of Leslie Stevens, who was ordained elder in 1885, and appointed presiding elder in 1886. This was also under Dr. Lemon's administration, and was one of the best things he ever did.
   Brockway had joined the Conference on trial under

Dr. Lemon, while the latter was yet presiding elder of the Nebraska City District, and joined the ranks of his devoted followers in the Kearney District in 1878. They were mutually attracted to each other, Dr. Lemon so strongly impressing himself on the younger man that he either consciously or unconsciously imitated the Doctor's peculiar style of oratory so closely as to be a matter of common remark. But this was the case with Amsbary and many other young preachers who came under the spell of his oratory. But there was also something about Brockway that strongly impressed Dr. Lemon with his superior talent and capability. Brockway had been a lawyer before entering the ministry, and was a well-matured man when he entered our work. Besides, his self-consciousness relieved him of any of those difficulties arising from diffidence which sometimes hinders young men at the beginning of their career. This natural tendency to undue self-confidence might have remained within proper bounds had he not been unduly pushed forward. If Dr. Lemon failed anywhere it was at this point, where his affection for one of his boys tended to blind him to any possible danger of this kind and he recommended Brockway for presiding elder when the Hastings District was formed. This proved a calamity for the Church, and a misfortune to Brockway himself. His vanity was inflamed, and he became reckless in his conduct and fell. Perhaps of all the young men who rallied round T. B. Lemon, none were superior, and few equal, to Leslie Stevens, who joined the ranks in 1878, and was received on trial in 1880. Of the character and career of this choice young man, a writer who worked by his side and knew him well, shall speak, I quote from all article pub-

lished in a newspaper on the eve of his departure for China to become superintendent of Central China Mission:
   "Rev. Leslie Stevens, presiding elder of Kearney District, and under appointment as superintendent of the Central China Mission, was born in Michigan, April 25, 1858, and is therefore thirty-two years of age. As a boy he attended the public schools and obtained a fair common school education to which he has since added a large store of special and general knowledge by intelligent effort and intense application to books and professional duties, as a pastor and presiding elder on the frontier of Nebraska.
   "He early in life embraced religion and joined the Methodist Episcopal Church. A short time in the work of the Church convinced him that he was called of God to be a messenger of His truth. Licensed to preach he served as a supply for about a year and a half, and in 1880 was admitted on trial in the Nebraska Conference. For five years after his admission into the Conference, he did splendid work all over Western Nebraska. So great was his success in administering the affairs of the Church, that at the Annual Conference, held at Sidney in the fall of 1886, he was appointed presiding elder of Sidney District. This appointment was made through the efforts of that great and good man, who very recently has gone to his reward, Rev. Dr. Lemon, who having the greatest confidence in the young man's judgment, honesty, and capacity, gave him such strong indorsements that the presiding bishop could not do otherwise than appoint him to the honorable position. The action of the bishop in appointing such a young man
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to such a position was severely criticised at the time, but time has proven the wisdom of his choice. One year in the presiding eldership was sufficient for the people everywhere in the district to recognize that he had by his energetic efforts, indomitable pluck, devotion to the Church, and executive ability, deserved the honor. He entered upon his duties of the second year in the same position, fully conversant with the Churches and people in his district. He displayed the same activity, sympathy, and zeal in serving the humblest Church that he did for the most influential. In the fall of 1887, Brother Stevens. was taken from the Sidney District and placed in charge of the Kearney District, the strongest and most important district in the West Nebraska Conference. From that time to the present he has labored assiduously for the Church and district, over which he presides with so much grace.
   "The Kearney District has made wonderful growth during his incumbency. When he was pastor at St. Paul, Nebraska, he wooed and won Miss Minnie Phillips, of that city. We would feel that this sketch would be incomplete, if we failed to say anything of Brother Stevens's wife.
   "Mrs. Stevens is a noble woman of queenly bearing. Her sunny spirit has hardly its peer for sustained cheerfulness. Her home is the shrine of natural beauty, good sense, and good taste, the very incarnation of comfort. When asked about going to China, she replied, 'I am perfectly satisfied.'
   "Bishop Newman gave his opinion of Brother Stevens's appointment to China in the following words: 'It is a good appointment. Brother Stevens is an able young man, earnest in his labors in the ministry, and in every

way qualified for the important duties which will devolve upon him in his new field. I know him well, and I think him one of the coming lights in the Methodist work.'
   "The position to which Brother Stevens is appointed is not that exactly of missionary, but as superintendent of the 'Central China Mission,' with headquarters at Wanking, the abiding place of the famous porcelain tower. There has been a mission at that point since 1868, and in the confines of the mission are about fifteen missionaries, and a number of ladies who work in the schools and hospitals under the auspices of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society. The position of superintendent of this important mission is one requiring great executive and administrative ability, and those who are acquainted with Brother Stevens know full well his peculiar fitness."
   By the year 1879 others joined the ranks in the Kearney District. E. G. Fowler, frail of body but strong of purpose, with an ambition far transcending his physical endurance, joins the ranks. He was something of a poet as well as preacher, and in his preaching his polished thoughts were clothed in poetic expression. The writer remembers reading a most excellent poem written by him on the occasion of the printing of the entire New Testament in the Chicago Times, at the time the new version was first published. He spent several years in the State, filling South Tenth Street, Omaha, Stanton, and other important places, when he transferred to a Western Conference.
   William Esplin appears for the first time as a supply on the Ord Circuit in 1879, and is received on trial in 1880. None have been more faithful and efficient through a quarter of a century than this hearty, cheerful, conse-

crated man of God. He remains in the West Nebraska Mission Conference till 1885, when he was transferred to the North Nebraska Conference. His career in this Conference has been creditable in the highest degree, filling some of the most important charges, like Randolph, Hooper, and his present charge, Hirst Memorial Church, Omaha. His pastorates have been uniformly successful, and his good, strong, common sense, his sound preaching and cheerful, pleasant, genuinely sympathetic pastoral work has made him deservedly popular, and he has usually served the full term.
   C. A. Mastin is admitted on trial in 1879, being one of a large class of nineteen admitted that year. He is appointed to Minden, and begins a career of great usefulness, which seems yet to promise many years of efficient service. He has been uniformly popular as a pastor, almost invariably serving the full legal term. He was appointed presiding elder of the Indianola District in 1889, and was successful and well liked by all, and might have remained the legal term of six years, but finding the pastorate much more suited to his taste he asked to be relieved of district work, and resumed the pastoral work, being assigned to Lexington. His next charge is First Church, Kearney. He served for several years as chaplain of State Reform School at Kearney, and is now again pastor of First Church. He has been twice honored by his brethren by an election to the General Conference, each time on the first ballot; the last time he was in the pastorate when elected.
   He has already given a quarter of a century to the work in West Nebraska. He has long occupied the most important fields, and none have contributed more valua-

ble service in building up that Conference to its present strength.
   David Fetz is referred to elsewhere as the zealous local preacher who waited not for the presiding elder, but with another local preacher, Moses Mapes, as early as 1873-74, carried the Gospel to the settlers in Webster and Adams Counties, and was blessed with great revivals. This was not out of any disrespect for the presiding elder, but the need was so pressing that he felt that he must not wait. But he does not have to wait long for the coming of the presiding elder, and we soon find David Fetz taking his place in the regular way, first as a supply in 1878, and then in 1880 he is received on trial along with a class of twelve. Since then his career has been one of constant usefulness, often on humbler circuits, but every year counting for good.
   J. M. Dressler appears as a supply on the Plum Creek Circuit in 1878, and has seemed to prefer to remain in the local ranks. He has greatly honored that class of workers, which have seemed of late to be in danger of dropping into a condition of "innocuous desuetude." Few men in the regular work as members of Conference have put in more years of continuous service, or have done better work for the Master, than J. M. Dressler, local preacher. In later years his work has been within the bounds of the North Nebraska Conference, and principally in the Grand Island District.
   And last, but by no means least, appears the name of P. C. Johnson, in 1879, as pastor at North Platte. Without doubt he stands next to Dr. Lemon as an influential factor in developing West Nebraska Mission into West Nebraska Conference in 1885.

   P. C. Johnson was born in New York, July 14, 1836, and was educated in private and public schools in that city. On the death of his mother, in 1846, he was sent to Perrinesville, New Jersey, where he spent several years on a farm, getting some training from the country schools. He was converted in 1858, and joined the Methodist Church; taught school till the war. Then his patriotism finds expression in a prompt enlistment in the Third Regiment of the Pennsylvania Reserve Corps, was soon at the front, and participated in seven days' fight before Richmond, and was wounded in the head at the battle of White Oak Swamps, and taken to the West Philadelphia Hospital, where he remained over two months and was then honorably discharged from the army in September, 1862, after fourteen months in the service of his country.
   He was licensed to preach in 1866, and after serving one year as a supply, was admitted on trial in the New Jersey Conference. After serving several charges in that Conference he was, in March, 1876, transferred to the Nebraska Conference, and stationed at Tecumseh. Of his pastorate here, and of some of the laymen in that Church, he speaks thus pleasantly in a paper read before the Methodist Historical Society,. on "A preacher's estimate of some of the laymen I have known:" "There was a class of men at Tecumseh that impressed me very favorably. They were plain men, without any society frippery whatever. They made no pretension - they simply did whatever there was to do. I may mention their names, partly by way of honoring them, and partly that you may, if you care to, know them. Andrew Cook, Joseph Pilmore, John Graff, Robert Robb, and Dr. C. K.

Chubbuck. Others there may be that deserve mention, but I can not recall them now."
   Of these laymen he further says: "Andrew Cook was an Englishman by birth, but an American by adoption. just when he joined the Methodist Church I do not know. His piety was a practical kind and he was not strictly orthodox, that is to let some estimate his theology. But he was a good man, honest, generous, prompt, liberal in sentiment and sincere in his faith and life. He lived and died a trustful follower of the Master. For a number of years he was a steady supporter, reliable member, and firm adherent of the Church in Tecumseh.
   "Joseph Pilmore was also an Englishman. He was a strict constructionist in matters of doctrine, and a rigid disciplinarian. Brother Cook and he were not made in the same mold and they would good naturedly clash about many things, the first suave and courteous, the second, short and pointed, but both good men and honest.
   "John Graff was the silent man. He kept his own counsel, did his own thinking, said it in few words - but he always paid his share without a murmur.
   "Robert Robb was the old-fashioned Methodist of the lot - an emotional man, ready to cry as occasion demanded, not insincerely, however, for Brother Robb was all heart.
   "Dr. C. K. Chubbuck was the manager of the party. His sense, skill, financial and other ability, were often depended on by the others; while they would co-operate with him almost in every plan he might propose.
   "Of course there were some others who aided these leaders in their plans and work and made them a success.

It was never in my ministry, mine to see five men who could work together more pleasantly, and harmoniously, and successfully than could these."
   After a successful pastorate at Tecumseh, he was stationed at the important Eighteenth Street Church in Omaha, and then after a year at South Tenth Street in Omaha, he goes to North Platte. Here he begins his career of great usefulness in connection with the work in West Nebraska. Of his pastorate here he has this to say in the paper above referred to: "When I went to North Platte, 300 miles west of Omaha, I found a small Church membership almost entirely composed of women. The society had been organized but a little time before. My immediate predecessor was Dr. Edward Thomson. There was no church building - we used the house of the Baptist brethren. There was, however, a small parsonage on the north side of the railroad track.
   "Among these women were Mrs. Charles McDonald, Mrs. Joe McConnell, Mrs. Alice Robinson, Mrs. Russell Watts, Mrs. Spoor, and others. I recall the name of but one man, and the mention of it would add no interest to the record, for so far as I can remember, he was noted only for his good-natured uselessness.
   "These women were the 'fathers of Methodism' in North Platte, and incidentally of all that region. They did the work, paid the bills, aided the pastor, ran the enterprises of the Church, taught in the Sunday-school, filled the prayer-meetings, and had about all the religion there was in the place.
   "The pastor would not have been in it at all had it not been for the women of the Church, for he would have had to move out and seek for work elsewhere.

   "A word or two about each of these. Mrs. McDonald was a woman of very fine tastes, deeply pious, and yet withal, she possessed sound, practical sense, and to the extent her health permitted, worked and did her share. She has since died.
   "Mrs. McConnell was the leader in almost every department of Church work. She was of petite figure, intensely active, always in earnest, lively and sprightly, possessing a mind and will of her own, never asking anybody's permission either to think or act. She was an intense Methodist, yet not of the shouting kind. She was always in motion and could be relied on for anything within the length of her cable tow. She now lives in Pittsburg.
   "Mrs. Robinson was a woman of very practical sense. She was pre-eminently the worker. She collected the pastor's salary, and it was collected, too. She could shame scores of men into shadowy silence, with their miserable cry of 'Can't do it.' She was a woman of kind heart, and generous impulses, yet, if she took a notion to, she would wound her best friends. We soon came to know her, appreciate her excellencies, and love her for her real, solid worth. She was a whole-hearted Methodist and Christian. The story of her husband's conversion is one of the most thrilling I ever knew.
   "Mrs. Watts was one of the purest, kindest, truest women God ever made. She was not so pronounced in her manners as some. Not at all demonstrative, but very true, and certain all the same. These were a type of laymen found 'away out West' from twenty-five to thirty years ago. Of all the places I ever served in my ministry, East or West, in the past thirty-nine years, I liked none

better than North Platte. And could I have my way, I would ask for no better set of laymen than were the good sisters of North Platte."
   Dr. Johnson was next sent to Grand Island, where he found another Church which had for more than ten years been struggling for existence, but was just ready to emerge out of these conditions of weakness into strength, and power, and influence, that has characterized it since, and he again proves the right man for the place, and does much during his pastorate to secure this much-wished but long-waited-for consummation. He was then placed in charge of the Grand Island District in 1889. In his first report he gives the following description of this district and his year's work:
   "Grand Island District occupies the northeastern and northern half of the West Nebraska Mission. Bounded on the south by the U. P. R. R., east by North Nebraska Conference, north by Dakota, and separated from the Kearney District by the Middle Loup River.
   "Its territory is large enough for more than forty-five counties of the average size of Nebraska counties, viz: twenty-four miles square, or 16,000,000 acres, and is traversed by the U. P., the Grand Island and North Loup, and the Sioux City and Pacific Railroads. (This territory is larger than three States the size of New Jersey.)
   "It contains a population of about from 25,000 to 30,000 persons, and possesses a number of rapidly growing towns, destined to be in the near future towns of considerable importance, a business center of a fine agriculture and stock raising community,."
   When the General Conference of 1884 established the

line between the North and the West Nebraska Conferences, so that it ran along the west line of Hall County, taking that and Merrick from the West Nebraska Conference, it of course took the main portion of Johnson's district, and he was appointed to the Republican Valley District.
   In 1888 Dr. Johnson transferred to the Nebraska Conference, where he has since labored effectively in different pastoral charges, and is now field agent for the Semi-centennial Superannuate Fund.
   Dr. Johnson was on the commission that instituted the "Plan of Unification" for our educational work, and has twice been a delegate to the General Conference, from the West Nebraska Conference in 1888, and from the Nebraska Conference in 1900.
   These places of high trust and great responsibility to which his brethren have called him are a fair index to the high esteem in which Dr. Johnson is justly held by those who know him best.
   It is a matter worthy of special remark that Dr. Lemon not only attracted men in large numbers, but also many of high qualities, of cultured mind and character, as the foregoing sketches make manifest.
   As to the number, many were needed, and this sagacious leader found ways of securing them. It will be noticed in the Minutes of 1877 the number admitted on trial was five, and in 1878, four. But at the end of Dr. Lemon's second year, in 1879, the number ran up to nineteen, and in 1880 it was twelve, or thirty-one recruits in two years. A further scrutiny of the Minutes explains the mystery of the sudden increase. Twelve of them are the young men who have rallied around this great leader.

   Of the twelve coming up for admission in 1880, five are from this district.
   In 1880, the close of the period we are treating, we find that the little band that A. G. White led out into the wilderness bad grown under his leadership and that of P. Lemon, to a sufficient number of men and charge, to lead the General Conference, at its session in May, 1880, to organize the West Nebraska Mission, with twenty-two members, and there were still enough left to constitute the Hastings District with nineteen appointments.
   Thus closes the brief story of this marvelous Third Period of our History. How much of all that is highest in human character, greatest in human achievement, have been crowded into these ten years! Almost an entire State has been wrested from the dominion of Nature, populated, and put to the uses of Christian civilization. In all this Methodism has been true to her mission.