METHODIST REVIEW MAY, 1907 ART. I.-BISHOP STEPHEN MASON MERRILL, In the forty-fourth chapter of Ecclesiasticus, a work little known and seldom read, there is a beautiful hymn to the men of old, beginning with the lines, "Let us praise famous men and our fathers that begat us." The Pauline roll call of the immortals in the eleventh of Hebrews, close kin to this ancient ode, strikes the same heroic measure, and from Paul's epistles, especially in Ephesians, we learn that the greatest gift, except the gift of the Spirit, which Christ bestowed upon his church was-men. After all, the greatest thing in the universe is personality. Nor is there anything so attractive. Nothing draws so strongly to itself the bright steel of the world as this far-reaching magnet. One has but to glance, for instance, at the Life and Letters of Arthur Penrhyn Stanley by Prothero, or Stanley's Life of Arnold, to feel the influence of Thomas Arnold's personality on the students at Rugby; and who that is acquainted with the Tractarian Movement does not know that it would never have been had it not been for the supreme influence of Newman's personality at Oxford? Every church has had this gift-leaders of the people and wherever these divinely ordained instruments of Providence have failed, and mediocrity has usurped the seats of the mighty, there the church has faltered in her mission and become a spent force. There was no Moses, no Joshua, and where there is neither one nor the other there are neither clouds, nor pillars of fire, nor lands of Canaan. In the course of a debate in the House of Commons, during a critical time in England's foreign affairs, Gladstone interrupted Disraeli. Disraeli turned to him, saying, "You must not talk to the man at the wheel." Gladstone immediately replied in his measured tones: "There is no man at the wheel!" It is absolutely essential to the efficiency of the Methodist Episcopal Church that in all departments there should be superior quality of leadership. To no church, not excepting the Roman Church, is this more necessary. In religion the Methodist Episcopal Church is a world-power. It spreads over vast territories; ministers to millions of people of all nationalities; touches by reason of its relation to all classes of men those vital questions which are born of new conditions in an ever-evolving democracy; is related in its economy and the realization of its mission to every changing phase of social development, and as one of the greatest forces of Christendom it must keep itself abreast of all that is best in the religious and intellectual progress of the age while at the same time strenuously conserving the faith once delivered to the saints. Contemplating, then, such an organization, one might well despair of the necessary supply of adequate leadership, and yet it must be said, with gratitude to God, that, as results demonstrate, no church has been more signally favored in the number and character of its creative leaders than the Methodist Episcopal Church. And yet, naturally enough, it is in the episcopal office, as the highest administrative office, that endowments of executive ability, of statesmanlike vision, and those special gifts of inspiration which mightily move men and crystallize thought and emotion in resultful act are the more sharply distinguished, for nowhere else is there so absolutely demanded such genius for leadership, such solid qualities of judgment, strength of character, and consecration of spirit. It is no great surprise, then, that those chosen to be bishops in the Methodist Episcopal Church have shown themselves to be men of forceful personality. Illustrious names have given prestige to the office: Asbury, Soule, McKendree, Janes, Peck, Simpson, Ames, Clark, Harris, Foster, and many others, not mentioning retired bishops and others still in labors abundant. These were all famous men. But in our judgment, take him for all in all, among those who have guided the councils or left the impress of character and genius upon the church, few bishops, if any, have filled the episcopal office since the days of Asbury superior to Stephen M. Merrill, who lately passed to his eternal reward. He had not the culture of Baker nor the eloquence of Simpson, the erudition of Thomson nor the poetic sweep of Foster, the fine spiritual temperament of Ninde nor the seraphic glow of Joyce; but in him were seen in large measure the constructive statesmanship of Soule, the legal grasp and comprehensiveness of Harris, the judicial poise characteristic of Ames, the deep religious earnestness of Scott, and, withal, those fine traits of noble minds, tenderness, and justice, without which all merely intellectual powers, however brilliant, are but as the glitter of icebergs or the cold glare of lonely mountain peaks. A tall, Lincoln type of man, deliberate in movement, with well molded head firmly set on square shoulders, light gray eyes looking straight out and into things from under overhanging brows, a resolute yet kindly face over which when gentle humor played sad lines etched by care slowly faded, a long, slightly aquiline nose which lifted thin nostrils with perceptible jerk when something in debate was about to happen, dignified, ever serious and devout in the house of God and the work of the Conference, Bishop Merrill impressed all as a man of unique personality—selfreliant, one serenely conscious of full reserves for emergencies, a man who could do things when he had to. Stephen Mason Merrill was born in the little village of Mount Pleasant, Jefferson County, Ohio, September 16, 1825, a year notable in the history of the republic and of some people. His father, Joshua, was a native of New Hampshire, the son of William Merrill, of Massachusetts, a Revolutionary soldier. This William was a descendant of Nathaniel Merrill who came from England in 1634 and settled where Newburyport, Massachusetts, now stands. Joshua seems to have inherited the patriotism of his father, for we find him while yet a stripling doing active service in the war of 1812. The mother of Bishop Merrill, Rhoda Crosson, of Bedford, Pennsylvania, was also of Revolutionary stock, her father having served under Washington and died, while she was yet a girl, from the effects of arduous service. These two, Rhoda |