there could be no more competent witness as to the high character of their work than Bishop Warne, the greater part of whose ministerial life has been spent in India. In an interview in the Christian Advocate for March 24, 1904, in answer to an inquiry concerning the work of this society, he pays this well-deserved tribute both to the noble women who manage the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society at home and their missionaries in the field:
   "Our Woman's Foreign Missionary Society has some of the choicest spirits of the nation in India. Not only that, but I suppose it is not generally known that the women have sent more money to India each year of the quadrennium than the parent society has sent. Because of this the women are able in some places to educate their girls where we are not the boys, until it is difficult to find husbands for the girls who are at all their equals. When one remembers that women have been illiterate through the centuries in India, and now compares that with a state of affairs in the Christian Church where the women are better educated than the men, it is surely true 'these that have turned the world upside down are come hither also.' One often wonders whether the women who go to the field or the women who remain at home, and without salary give time and thought to raising the necessary funds to carry on the work, are the most worthy; and when one remembers the restrictions that have been put upon the women in raising the money, it seems still more wonderful. May we all catch the spirit of the Womans Foreign Missionary Society workers, and may they increase and grow mightily, is the prayer of all Indian workers!"
   It is a happy coincidence that in 1880, when Nebraska

MISSIONARIES OF THE PARENT BOARD.

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Methodism was girding herself for an advance, the Woman's Home Missionary Society had its birth and would soon become a potent factor in the larger work of the Church, and often make life more comfortable for the itinerant and his wife and children. Up to that time, except in times of special calamity, the missionary on the frontier was never relieved and gladdened by the receipt of a barrel or box of supplies to supplement his meager salary. But from now on, thanks to this noble society, this is to be a common experience.
   And when a time of special need came, by reason of the drouth in 1894, the writer, who was then presiding elder of the Neligh District, in the North Nebraska Conference, the one which suffered most, this blessed society only needed to be notified of the situation and they at once started the streams of beneficence which were the first to reach the scene of destitution, and enabled our pastors to relieve the suffering, not only of our own people, but of Congregationalists, Baptists, Catholics, non Church members, and even infidels shared the bounty supplied by the Department of Supplies of the Woman's Home Missionary Society. Boxes and barrels came from New England, North and South Carolina, the States of the Middle West, and from the Pacific Coast, and not a little cash as well. The elder and his wife gave up half of their house as a supply depot, and they, and nearly all the pastors were kept busy distributing this beneficence.
   What was done for the Neligh District in 1894 is but a type of what this society is doing all the time for all the Nebraska and other Western Conferences. In 1888 the West Nebraska Conference resolved that "we are grateful to the Woman's Home Missionary Society for its aid.

   Many pastors would have been compelled to leave their fields of labor, had it not been for this band of noble, Christian women."
   Still earlier, in 1884, Dr. Lemon, in his report, says: "The Woman's Home Missionary Society has done a grand work in helping by sending clothing to the preachers and their families, and others in our mission field. This has long been a felt necessity and is doing good."
   But the beneficence of this society is not confined to sending supplies to the missionaries on the frontier, but has taken on a multiplicity of forms, and extends from Porto Rico to Alaska. It has established a hospital and Deaconess Home and Training School in Omaha, and its National Mothers' Jewels Home at York. These will be spoken of on another page.
   Doubtless the most prominent among the good women who have extended the organization of this society within the bounds of Nebraska is Mrs. M. E. Roberts, who has for years been national organizer. Others, like Mrs. Louisa Collins, in West Nebraska Conference; Mrs. J. B. Maxfield, Mrs. John Crews, Mrs. J. B. Leedom, Mrs. D. C. Winship, and others of the North Nebraska Conference, that might be mentioned, have in various ways rendered valuable service in this connection.
   But probably the most urgent need of Nebraska Methodism at the beginning of this fourth period was more church buildings in which to house the multitudes that had come into our fold by immigration and conversions. The number of circuits and stations have increased to 136. But we must remember that we are still in the period when the stations are yet few, and the circuit system yet prevails to a large extent. It is not uncommon

for these circuits to have from four to eight appointments, and some of the presiding elders report circuits with ten and even fifteen appointments. It would be safe to say that at about that time the average circuit had not less than four separate appointments, and that the general average, including stations and circuits could not have been less than three appointments for each charge. Bur lest we overstate the facts in this case we will make the general average two. This would give its two hundred and seventy-two separate Methodist societies to be housed, while the total number of churches in 1880 was only seventy-seven. This leaves one hundred and ninety-five unhoused societies and congregations. In other words, over two-thirds of the societies are entirely without shelter, except as pensioners on the State for schoolhouses, and on other denominations occasionally for a church.
   Besides these two hundred societies and congregations for which the Church has not as yet been able to furnish any shelter, there are many of the older societies that have outgrown the small buildings they first erected and must have larger ones. Probably two-thirds of those which already have churches will have to build new ones in the next ten years.
   Thus in 1880 Nebraska Methodism is far behind in her church buildings. Many of her congregations are unhoused, or are still in the school-house stage of development. This is better than no place, but can not be permanent.
   The conditions we have seen have been such since this need for churches began to be urgent by reason of

the marvelous growth of the last decade, that many projected enterprises have had to be abandoned, and few churches have been built. Indeed throughout the entire State during the whole quarter of a century there has been no time that has been favorable to church-building. Besides, the Church Extension Society has been in

FIRST METHODIST CHURCH BUILT IN NEBRASKA,
AT NEBRASKA CITY, 1855-6.

effective operation but a few years, and has not been able to do as much as it will in the next quarter of a century. Happily, just as Nebraska Methodism emerges from under the disastrous financial conditions that have made much church-building an impossibility in the past, there emerges upon the scene of action, a Chaplain McCabe, in whose fertile brain and large, warm heart so

many forward movements have been born, and about this time he starts that prolific source of helpfulness for Nebraska and the entire West, known as the Frontier Fund. This has wonderfully stimulated church-building.
   An incident in the early history of the Wayne Church illustrates the difficulties pastors and presiding elders have had of inspiring the discouraged band with enough confidence to induce them to try, even after the need of a church had become most urgent. The only thing in the way of rapid advance and permanent hold at Wayne was a church. Strange to say, the Presbyterian, Lutheran, and Baptist had all got ahead of us, and we were pensioners on the bounty of the Baptists for a place to worship. But the very fact that these three had already been built made our people feel that it was impossible to build another.
   This was the situation in 1884, when the pastor, H. G. Pittenger, sent for the writer, then presiding elder, to attend a meeting called for the purpose of considering the advisability of erecting a place of worship. The voice of nearly all the brethren was against the project, deeming it impossible. Things seemed to be going the wrong way, and the pastor, whose heart was set on having a church, was weeping, when good Sister Wm. Miller rose and spoke as follows: "You brethren say we can't build a church. I say we must." And with the tears streaming down her checks she continued, "You know my health is poor and we live a mile from town, and hoped we might this year have a more comfortable conveyance than a lumber wagon. But I will continue to ride in the old lumber wagon, and put that $100 in a church." And then when I told them that the Church Extension

FIRST CHURCH BUILT IN LINCOLN, NEBRASKA, 1868.
SIZE, 25x40.   SEATING CAPACITY, 200.

PRESENT ST. PAUL'S CHURCH, LINCOLN, NEBRASKA.
SIZE, 142 x 150. SEATING CAPACITY, 2,300.

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would give them $250 and loan them $250, they took courage and soon had a subscription of $1,000, and soon after this had a $2,000 church.
   This case at Wayne is mentioned as typical of a great many. Perhaps no part of our work has represented more of faith and the spirit of self-sacrifice than in the

SOD METHODIST CHURCH BUILT IN TYRONE, RED WILLOW COUNTY,
IN 1886. A TYPE OF MANY OF THE FIRST CHURCHES
ERECTED IN NEBRASKA.

building of these first churches. How many of these have been built, not because from a business standpoint, the prudent man of the world could say it was practicable or even possible, but because some self-sacrificing Mrs. Miller has said it must be done. Perhaps in no field have so many seeming impossibilities become realities. There were evidently at work in this phase of our

church life moral and spiritual forces that the cool, calculating business man wot not of. When we had organized at Stanton the second time, in 1883, the need of a church seemed imperative, and as presiding elder, I was urging them to build, but was met with doubts as to their ability. John A. Ehrhardt, who knew every one in the community, undertook to show me that $600 was the utmost that could be raised. I said to him, "Raise that and we will build a church." The point in this, as in many such cases, was to get the people to venture. When they started with their subscription paper, they soon had over $1,000 pledged, and ere long they had an excellent church.
   These scenes witnessed at Wayne and Stanton, with slight variation of detail, but always arising from the same cause, love for the Master, and faith in God, are transpiring in every section of the State, and Nebraska Methodism enters upon a church-building era.
   The Church enters upon this last period with seventy-seven churches valued at $147,000, and sixty-one parsonages valued at $41,266. We now have by Conferences:

   Thus Methodism has built seven times as many churches this last twenty-three years as she did during the first quarter of a century. Counting those that take the place of the old ones, she has built nearly two a

month, and has laid upon the altar for that purpose over $1,500 a week, or $250 a day.
   Not only have the churches built during the last period been much more numerous, but with the help of the Church Extension Board she has been able to built better churches.