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Methodist Episcopal South America Conference.

punctuated, and followed each speaker; but our bishop was facile princeps.

Another occasion long to be remembered was the Conference love feast, with its scores of testimonies full of the genuine ring of triumphant faith and abounding joy. There were such trophies of grace as give greatest luster to the crown of the mighty Saviour-men lifted out of the gutter and saved from the utmost depths of degradation; others redeemed from infidelity; still others brought out of mere religious formalisin, or out of most intense fanaticismin a word, all types of experience were represented. While the saints were speaking the power of God was present, and souls were brought to the point of decision for Christ. It was a pentecostal time, and it was no wonder the bishop expressed the joy of his heart by saying that he would gladly spend the whole night in listening to such testimonies as he had been hearing.

The Sabbath was a day of victory. The morning dawned beautiful, as are our finest winter days in the latitudes south of Capricorn. The splendor of sunshine, coming after the rainy weather which had prevailed for some days, prepared all for the keenest enjoyment of the feast of fat things in reserve for them. The morning sermon in English was preached to an audience that filled the church to its utmost capacity. Bishop Newman's theme was "Christ the Only Hope of the World," and the discourse held the great assembly entranced from its beginning to its close. The morning collection brought an offering of nearly five hundred dollars in Argentine currency, or one hundred and fifty dollars in gold.

The afternoon hour brought together in the large Italian Hall, secured for the occasion, what may, in all probability, be truthfully prononuced the largest Sunday school mass meeting ever held in Spanish America. More than a thousand children and not less than five hundred adults crowded into the building, filling every inch of space. Nine schools were represented, all of them connected with our aggressive city mission work. Many came afoot distances of two, three, and four miles to enjoy the occasion. Short speeches and enthusiastic singing were the chief exercises. The address of the bishop was received with great enthusiasm and applause. These Sunday schools are doing a grand work in preparing a new generation of Protestant training, which will constitute in the near future the strength of the Church. We find little prejudice against our Sunday schools, and hence it is easy to secure the attendance of the children in almost any neighborhood where this department of our work is inaugurated.

The night service was also held in the hall above referred to, and was our missionary anniversary. Again the room was filled with an attentive and appreciative audience. "City Missions," "Woman's Work in Missions," "The Place of the United States and England in the Evangelization of the World,"

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and "World-wide Missions," were the topics presented by Mr. W. C. Morris, Mrs. Newman. Dr. McLaughlin, and Bishop Newman, whose inspiring address was interpreted to the audience. Mrs. Newman's paper was a gem of beauty. One thousand dollars (gold) contributed for connectional benevolences, and thirtynine thousand dollars (gold) given by our people to the different departments of our Church work, in a period of fifteen months, should certainly afford good evidence that the missionary spirit is in South American Methodism, and that genuine self-support is being rapidly developed in this Mission. Our people are becoming more and more awake to the fact, constantly pressed upon their attention, that the evangelization of this continent demands the utmost consecration of the fruit of their toil as well as of their prayers and faith. Many individuals are already giving as liberally as our liberal givers at home; and the example is contagious.

The salient incident of Monday was the lecture given by Bishop Newman to the English-speaking public of Buenos Ayres on "The March of Civilization." Again the Italian Hall was filled, and the enthusiasm of the audience rose to the highest pitch. This lecture was given at the request of the Conference, and under a pledge to raise at least ten thousand dollars (Argentine currency) toward the erection of a building for the theological school of the Mission.

When Tuesday's session began all were regret. fully conscious that the last day of our communing together had come. Conference business was rapidly dispatched, and when the noon hour struck, the or der of the day, previously fixed, was taken up. This was our celebration of Independence Day. The glorious Fourth had come! Three-minute speeches were made by the United States citizens present, the sons and daughters of the Buckeye State predominating in numbers, as is usually the case where Americans assemble on a foreign shore. Patriotic songs were sung, and great enthusiasm and good fellowship prevailed. Our South American brothers were scarcely less inspired by the memories of the day than we who claim Washington for our own.

For the last time we gathered about the lunch tables, so abundantly furnished for the Conference each day of the session by the ladies of the English and Spanish congregations of Buenos Ayres. In this way the hospitality of the homes open to receive the members of the Conference followed us daily to our place of meeting. Luncheon over, the Conference again came to order. In connection with the committee reports on education and self-support the Conference called up its pledge to raise $10,000 for the theological school building, and in less than twenty minutes the preachers and friends present subscribed personally $7,000, and on behalf of their congregations $3,000; thus assuring the redemption of their promise. This giving implies heroic selfsacrifice on the part of almost all the subscribers. It

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Methodist Episcopal South America Conference.

was stimulated by the liberality of the bishop, who headed the list with a gift of one tenth of the whole amount. Are there not others who will now come forward with gifts to the amount of the $4,000 still needed to meet the society's condition upon which is suspended the appropriation of $10,000 toward our educational buildings?

At four o'clock the business of the Conference was ended; the minutes were completed; Bishop Newman's last words were listened to with deepest attention; the fateful list of appointments was read; and then, with prayer, song, and benediction, the first session of the South America Annual Conference came to an end. A carriage was in waiting, hurried adieus were spoken, and the bishop hastened away to his steamer, bound for Montevideo, where, on the last two evenings of his stay in our field, he had consented to deliver two lectures, one to the English community and one to the Spanish people. These lectures awakened great interest and enthusiasm, and brought into the treasury of the church one thousand dollars (gold) toward the erection of a new church building, much needed for the accommodation of our growing work in that city.

That impressive and affecting feature of an

there appeared a challenge addressed to Bishop Newman by one of the leading parish priests-Father Duprat-calling upon the bishop to prove, and promising to refute, a statement attributed to him by a reporter, to the effect that Roman Catholicism is an obstacle to the intellectual development of the peoples of South America. Though the bishop had not made this assertion in terms, he did not hesitate to make it his own, indicated the pleasure it would give him to enter at large upon its discussion, and, after explanation of the nature of his engagements, already announced and impossible of postponement,

proposed to his challenger to accept as his representatives in the debate Dr. Thomson and Brothers Tallon and Vazquez. This did not at all meet the views of the redoubtable champion, who had thought to win easy renown by a cheap defiance, and who immediately declined the issue. He was not to escape so easily, however; for the published theme for the discourses of the following Sunday evening was, "The Origin and Fruits of Popery;" and the speakers paid their respects handsomely and in excellent spirit to his reverence and the cause he represented. Let it not be inferred from this incident that the staple of our preaching is denunciation and controversy. Such is not the case. We are here to preach the truth that saves. The glorious themes of the Gospel are those which are heralded from our pulpit and press; and the people are saved not only from error and superstition, but from sin.

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REV. C. W. DREES, D.D.

Annual Conference session, the memorial service, was not to be omitted on this first assembling of the South America Conference. For the first time in its history this Mission records the death, in active service, of one of its members. The Rev. Thomas H. Stockton fell at his post on July 29, 1892, and his remains lie in the English cemetery in this city. The memorial service, on Saturday afternoon, deeply impressed the Conference and the large number of the former parishioners of our departed brother who were present on the occasion. The memoir was read by C. W. Drees, and emphasized the fidelity of its subject to the work of his ministry.

As showing the impression made upon the public by the utterances of Bishop Newman, as that impression was gauged by the Roman Catholic hierarchy, the fact should be recorded that in Sunday morning's issue of the most influential daily paper of the city

The South America Annual Conference begins its history as one of the ecumenical brotherhood of Methodist Conferences, with a territory coextensive with the continent, with organized churches in six of the South American republics, and with lines of preparatory work extending into two others. Let the Church pray for South American Methodism !

APPOINTMENTS.

Charles W. Drees, Superintendent.

ARGENTINE DISTRICT, C. W. Drees, P. E.-Balcarce, J. Villanueva. Buenos Ayres: First Charge (English work), W. P. McLaughlin, one to be supplied; Second Charge (Spanish work), J. F. Thomson, G. P. Howard, W. C. Morris.

The Climate of Peru.

Bragado, to be supplied. Chivilcoy, to be supplied. Cordoba, to be supplied. La Paz, to be supplied. La Plata, S. S. Espindola. Mendoza, W. T. Robinson. Mercedes, R. Blanco. Parana and Santa Fe, J. Robles. Rosario, Caracana, and Canada de Gomez (English work), J. M. Spangler; Circuit (Spanish work), W. Tallon, M. Arnejo; German Charge, to be supplied. Rosario Tala, to be supplied. San Carlos, R. Weihmueller. San Juan, R. Vazquez. San Luis, to be supplied. San Rafael, to be supplied. Tucuman, to be supplied.

C. W. Drees, Publishing Agent and Editor of El Estandarte Evangelico de Sud America, and other publications. A. M. Milne, General Agent of the American Bible Society. President of Theological Seminary, to be supplied. W. T. Robinson, Professor in the Theological Seminary. BRAZIL DISTRICT, J. H. Nelson, P. E.-Manaos, to be supplied. Para, F. R. Spaulding. Pernambuco, to be supplied. CHILI DISTRICT, I. H. La Fetra, P. E.-Arica, to be supplied. Antofagasta, C. Beutelspacher. Concepcion: English Charge, G. F. Arms; Spanish Charge, J. C. De Bon. Coquimbo: English Charge, W. F. Albright; Spanish Charge, H. B. Compton. Coronal, to be supplied. Iquique : English Charge, J. Benge; Spanish Charge, J. G. Gilliland. Santiago, to be supplied. Talca, to be supplied. Valparaiso, to be supplied.

W. C. Hoover, President of Iquique College.

R. D. Powell, Director of the Santiago Industrial School and Orphans' Home.

B. O. Campbell, President of Concepcion College for Boys. PARAGUAY DISTRICT, C. W. Miller, P. E.-Asuncion, J. Dominguez, one to be supplied. Concepcion, to be supplied. Paraguari, to be supplied. San Bernardino and Altos, to be supplied. Villa Rica, to be supplied.

PERU DISTRICT, T. B. Wood, P. E.-Arequipa, to be supplied. Callao (English Charge), to be supplied. Chosica and Matucana, to be supplied. Lima and Callao, to be supplied. Mollendo, to be supplied.

F. Penzotti, Agent of the American Bible Society.

URUGUAY DISTRICT, A. W. Greenman, P. E.-Canelones and Santa Lucia, to be supplied. Colonia, to be supplied. Concordia and Salto, L. Abeledo, one to be supplied. Durazno, G. G. Froggatt. Florida. to be supplied. Mercedes and Gualeguaychu, to be supplied. Montevideo: American Church (English work), to be supplied; Central Charge (Spanish work), A. J. Vidaurre; La Aguada, A. Guelf. Rio Grande do Sul: Alfredo Chaves, to be supplied; Bento Goncalves, C. Lazaro; Caxias, to be supplied: Pelotas, to be supplied; Porto Alegre, J. C. Correa; Rio Grande, to be supplied. Tacuarembo, to be supplied. Trinidad, R. Griot. J. A. Russell, left without appointment to attend some one of our schools.

WOMAN'S FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY. Buenos Ayres, Argentine District, E. Le Huray. Lima, Peru District, E. Wood. Montevideo, Uruguay District, I. Hewett, R. J. Hammond. Rosario, Argentine District, M. F. Swaney.

M. Z. Hyde and M. E. Bowen, absent in the United States on leave.

The Climate of Peru.

BY REV. T. B. WOOD, D. D.

MANY questions have been asked me about the peculiar climate of the part of South America where I now reside. The following statements concerning it may be of interest.

Peru is in the torrid zone, yet its climate is not torrid. To understand this, let the reader turn to a map of South America-if possible, one showing the

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ocean currents or the distribution of rain-and observe the following facts:

From Cape Blanco northward the Pacific coast is subject to tremendous rains during the tropical rainy season, which swings to and fro across the equator, following the annual oscillation of the sun. But the moment the traveler rounds Cape Blanco he enters a rainless region which stretches for two thousand miles down the coast, with a climate whose characteristics are hardly to be found anywhere else on earth.

An ocean current sweeps up that coast-a stream of cold water from the antarctic seas-carrying with it into the tropics the temperate zone coolness, clear up to the extreme west point of the continent, where it sets away from the coast, leaving the regions north of it subject to unmitigated heat.

From that point southward a tropical sun keeps the land warmer than the water, causing a daily breeze to carry ashore the coolness of the ocean stream. Midday rarely passes without the rising of the sea breeze, and the hotter the forenoon the earlier and the stronger it comes, and the farther into the night and the higher up the slopes it continues. Before morning it ceases, and a gentle land breeze glides down from the summits of the Cordilleras, cool from the snow fields which cap the great Andes all the year round in all latitudes, even under the equator. These land and sea breezes banish the torrid climate from the coast of Peru.

In the interior there are vast table-lands, constituting the most lofty habitable parts of the earth. These are not loaded with snow, like the highlands of the Himalaya regions, being nearer the equator, so that the arctic climate is confined to the summits. But the elevation of the table-lands, with the snowclad Cordilleras surrounding them, gives to the interior of the whole Andine region a temperate climate.

Eastern Peru descends to the Amazon valley, and there comes under the torrid zone. But the central and western divisions (and a large part of the eastern) are free from the characteristics of typical torrid climes.

From the coast range of mountains eastward rain abounds, and the whole land teems with life. The rainless coast region would be all a desert but for the streams that run down from the snow fields. Indeed, it is, in the main, a rocky and sandy waste, with oases at favored spots kept fertile by irrigation.

Those deserts were once full of teeming millions of people. Their ruined towns are found in almost countless numbers. Their ruined aqueducts stretch for leagues and leagues down and around and through the spurs and slopes of the mountains. Their ruined terraces that kept the ashy soil in place, under an admirable system of irrigation, cover thousands of square miles, now untilled and destitute of life.

The European conquerors of that populous empire neglected the aqueducts till the earthquakes and

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The Methodist Episcopal Church in Peru.

the cloudbursts and the landslides destroyed them, leaving vast tracts uninhabitable.

But those regions are destined to be inhabited again, and more densely and more widely than ever. The outpouring European emigration that is seeking cheap lands near to great water ways all over the world can find none anywhere more inviting than the coast of Peru, as soon as irrigation is restored.

Modern engineering has resources adequate for watering every square foot of the Peruvian deserts.

Why has this not been done already? Because of the moral conditions now dominant there, such that capital is afraid to go there, and labor, unsustained by outside capital, cannot cope with moral and physical difficulties combined. There is no hope for Peru till the moral character of the people is changed. That accomplished, capital will flow in, labor will flow in, and the deserts will be reclaimed and colonized and developed into the seat of a dense population.

and ruggedest of all scalable mountains, than to the fact that the moral atmosphere there makes capital unsafe and labor unreliable to a degree that will keep back the material development of those vast regions till the people are evangelized.

When that day comes European emigration will inundate those regions, and a temperate zone civilization, the counterpart of that of the temperate zone of North America, will crown the Andine highlands througho it their immense extent.

The Methodist Episcopal Church in Peru.

BY REV. T. B. WOOD, D.D., PRESIDING ELDER. [The following report concerning the Western District of the Methodist Episcopal Mission in South America was made to the Annual Meeting of the Mission held in Buenos Ayres in July last.]

THIS Western District is small in the beginnings of its work as shown in the statistics, but vast in its

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The agency that will change the moral character of the people and make all this possible in the near future is the Gospel.

The interior of Peru is also far less populous than it was formerly, under the Inca empire. The devastation of the Spanish régime was not so complete there as in parts of the coast region, yet in many places ancient fields and meadows have lapsed into wilderness, town sites have grown into jungle, and remnants of the people have sunk down to barbarism.

There, too, a vast reclaiming of agricultural and mineral resources is awaiting the moral regeneration of the present inhabitants.

Nowhere else on earth is there a region so vast and so inviting for European colonization lying so near the sea. But between it and the sea stands a mountain wall four miles high. It is not insurmountable. Two of the Peruvian railways have passed it and reached the rich interior. Many others have climbed far up the slopes, and will some day run over it or burrow through it at many points. But railways in Peru are costlier than anywhere else in the world. This is due not more to the fact that the Andes are the highest

extent and in its promise for the future of the work begun.

At present it includes the following elements:

1. One Quarterly Conference at Callao, Peru, with church organization developing well and full of spiritual life. This is the church that was founded by Brother Penzotti. Out of it will come more Penzottis, to found and build up churches all over these lands. Four of the brethren are preaching with increasing efficiency-Brothers Illescas, Vasquez, Noriega, and Irigoyen-whose recommendations will come before you for license, as local preachers the first two, and as exhorters the second two. The first three are Peruvians, and the fourth is an Ecuadorian; and they are all men who have hazarded their lives for the Gospel's sake. Thus is God raising up here the men who are to carry forward his work in this field.

2. One new congregation at Lima, not yet mature enough for a Quarterly Conference, but approaching it with vigorous growth, and that in spite of the asphyxiating atmosphere that surrounds it. The Archbishop of Lima tried to strangle it in its cradle

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