tive, executive, and judicial. The danger of this has again and again been pointed out and exemplified in statecraft. Montesquieu's celebrated apothegm reads, "There can be no liberty where the legislative, executive, and judicial powers are united in the same monarch or senate." Chief Justice Story adds, "Whenever the executive, legislative, and judiciary are all vested in one person or body of men the government is in fact a despotism." And James Madison declares, "The accumulation of all powers-legislative, executive, and judiciary—in the same hands, whether one, few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny." The unity of these functions is no less dangerous in churchcraft. Hence, as far as possible, these three departments ought to be operated separately and by different bodies.

If this is not feasible, at least some plan ought to be devised by which legislative and judicial action shall be kept detached. That the legislative and executive blend imperceptibly in the administration of our affairs is conceded, but not necessarily so with the legislative and judicial. For, while the General Conference executes the laws it enacts, the former of these functions-the executive-is largely performed by the general superintendents, Conferences, boards of managers, Book Committees, and other bodies. It has been and still is the interpreter as well as the maker of its own laws-a solecism in our polity which should be remedied at once. If no other way out of this difficulty can be conceived, it is plain that a new grant of power to the General Conference, clothing it with authority to hold distinctively judicial sessions, would relieve the situation. It might be stated thus:

The General Conference, at any time during its session, shall have power by a majority vote (either by orders or otherwise) to resolve itself from a legislative into a judicial body. When it is thus organized a bishop shall preside as at other times, and it shall have authority to pass upon all matters of a judicial character coming before it; and its deliverances thereupon shall be regarded as the supreme law of the Church, until reversed by a subsequent General Conference acting in a like judiciary capacity.

In this way ordinary business or legislation could be transacted

and recorded apart from judicial decisions and interpretations, and vice versa. Or, what would answer the same purpose, a number of its most able men, including both orders, could be chosen to form its judiciary, with plenary powers to pass upon all questions of jurisprudence and hand down to the Church in regular judicial form its decisions, to remain as the supreme law of the Church until set aside or superseded by a like body acting in a like capacity. Either of these plans, if adopted, would obviate the mixed and incongruous actions and decisions of some of our past General Conferences.

In conclusion, it may be added that a few explanatory words in the form of a preamble would be proper as an historical introduction to such a Church Charter as we think should at this time be formulated. It may be further added that no attempt has been made to treat exhaustively this subject, or to write ex cathedra upon it. We have merely endeavored, as concisely as possible, to call attention to some points which in our judgment an up-to-date Constitution should cover.

Some of our readers may think we have covered too much and others too little ground; some, that the order followed would be better if reversed; and still others, that the Articles and Rules should not form part of the organic law, and that our third division is superfluous. If so, our reply is that such a document, to be clear and forcible, comprehensive and effective, must at least include what is here indicated and follow some such order as is here observed. However, it is the substance we are after, and we shall be satisfied if, in the final action taken on the organic law in 1900, any of these suggestions have given shape and fashion to the Constitution of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

Chay Sheard

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ART. VI.-REASONS FOR GERMAN METHODIST

SCHOOLS.

AMONG the various objects that the German Methodists of this country had in view when they founded institutions of learning distinctively German two were paramount. One was to educate and train men for the ministry among their countrymen; the other, somewhat subsidiary to this, was to imbue our young people with the German spirit and to acquaint them more thoroughly with the language and literature of the Fatherland. To realize these two objects our representative Germans have not only undergone great sacrifices, but have also been obliged to overcome many prejudices and considerable opposition, aroused on the one hand by a narrow American spirit, on the other by our German people themselves. However, the promoters of higher German education-among whom the names of William Nast, Jacob Rothweiler, and Hermann Koch deserve special mention-did not allow themselves to be discouraged. Being convinced that institutions of learning were a necessity to German Methodism, they through patient work overcame the various difficulties and succeeded in founding early in the sixties the first two colleges-German Wallace, at Berea, Ohio, and Central Wesleyan, at Warrenton, Missouri. These were in due time followed by others, so that at present there are six institutions of learning patronized by the various German Conferences. These schools, some of which are still in the stage of infancy, lack the liberal endowments of our American colleges, but they have done good work, though mostly under discouragements and difficulties. In their faculties there have been and still are men of liberal learning, well able to fill more lucrative positions. Nevertheless, they have devoted themselves to their work, mostly of an elementary character, with an unselfishness and self-denial somewhat rare among the younger generation of teachers.

One of the prime objects in the founding of German in

stitutions of learning, as we have stated, is the preparing of young men for the German ministry. In the earlier years of German Methodism the newly founded societies and churches were supplied mostly with men lacking a higher or collegiate education, for the reason principally that men specially trained for the work were not to be had. The ranks of the pioneer preachers were made up almost exclusively of men taken from the ordinary walks of life. With few exceptions, however, they had received a good common school education in the Fatherland. Hence these early preachers were not illiterate. Their lack of theological learning was to a great extent supplemented and counterbalanced by holy enthusiasm, deep earnestness, willingness for self-denial, and an inexhaustible capacity for hard work. Some of these itinerants traveled over immense circuits, having numerous small appointments all great distances apart. It was nothing unusual in those days for these pioneers to preach three times on Sunday and several times during the week. These are the men who built up the German work in the Methodist Episcopal Church. Circumstances were such in those early days that the college-bred preacher could be dispensed with. Rather were men needed having, besides robust health and a capacity for hard work, a heart all aglow with holy love for the souls of their unsaved countrymen.

age.

But times have gradually changed. The days of the German circuit-rider are past, excepting perhaps in the far West. Most of these early pioneer preachers are either resting in their graves, or have become inefficient through old With them the people whom they gathered in, and to whom they ministered for so many years, have also passed away. A new generation has arisen, whose bringing up and mental status is different from that of their parents and ancestors. Our young people are on the whole more intelligent than their forefathers were. They have been educated in our public schools, have modern ideas, and are more distinctly American in habits and sentiment. This gradual change in the social condition of our German Methodist

people has also necessitated a change in the constituency of the German ministry. The methods of pastoral work and the style of preaching of those early times are no longer adapted to the larger and more settled congregations of the present day. Nor do we refer exclusively to our young people who were born and have grown up in this country, but also to that class of our older members who have more recently arrived from Germany and who, coming from the cities and larger towns, have had better advantages for education than the earlier immigrants and are therefore more intelligent and consequently more critical and exacting in their demands. In view of these facts it became necessary to raise the intellectual standard of our ministry. If that had not been done we would have soon lost our hold, not only on the newly arrived immigrants, but even on a large class of our own people. But where was this educated ministry to come from? It could not be imported from Germany, for the clergymen who came to us from the Fatherland belonged to the Lutheran Church. Nor could the men needed be obtained from the Church institutions already existing, because the instruction in them is given through the medium of the English language. There was no alternative; if our German congregations were to be supplied with an efficient, educated ministry the Church itself must furnish it. This was the prime motive for the founding of German Methodist institutions of learning in America.

The question may be asked why we have not in time rather supplanted the German language by the English, and provided our more modern and intelligent congregations with pastors, either German or native American, educated at existing Methodist institutions. The answer is that this would have disrupted most of the congregations thus treated; for, although a small percentage of the younger members might have put up with such a change, or even welcomed it, the majority of the younger people and older members almost without exception would have protested. However American in sentiment our young people may be, and however well they