Columbia Stotoensitp THE LIBRARIES THE LIFE OF ISAAC WILSON JOYCE BY WILBUR FLETCHER SHERIDAN With Portraits. CINCINNATI: JENNINGS AND GRAHAM NEW YORK: EATON AND MAINS °\i Copyright, 1907. by Jennings ; fore from DePauw University, where he had been at the head of the students' military battalion. He had also been at the head of the crack artillery company of the university, and had been its cap- tain when it won first honors in the national mili- tary drills over all others of the United States, not including, of course, those in the regular army. Writing to a friend of this riot, Dr. J03XC said: "I sent you the papers describing our terrible riot. We suffered greatly in mental anxiety on Frank's account. He was in that awful fight of Saturday night of March 29th. He is captain of the Second Ohio Battery, and lie and his men were under fire constantly during the time that the riot- ers were putting forth their strongest efforts to murder the soldiers. We did not sleep for three days and nights, so great was our anxiety. But God brought him and his men out of the fight without a single hurt. And we are thankful and profoundly happy." 68 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. During Dr. JVyce's pastorate at Trinity Church he became greatly burdened about the con- dition of the city. He felt that nothing but a great religious awakening could create the new civic conscience which the community so sorely needed, and could turn the attention of careless, unawakened men to the needs of their souls. He went to the Preachers' Meeting and told them how he felt; and sought their co-operation in securing an evangelist then unknown in the North, but widely and favorably known in the South — the Rev. Sam P. Jones. The brethren did not see their way to co-operate. Bishop Walden, however, whom Dr. Joyce trusted and loved pro- foundly, encouraged him to secure him. So Dr. Joyce engaged Sam Jones himself, rented Music Hall, the largest building in the city, and assumed all the financial responsibility. Within a week after the meetings opened the whole city was inter- ested, and many pastors of various denominations, who had at first withheld their support, joined heartily in carrying forward the work. Hundreds were converted, and the city was aroused to a new civic righteousness. A great religious revival took place. While there were not a few critics of the peculiar personality and utterances of the evan- gelist, practically the whole city honored the pastor of such heroic faith and courage as to lead a move- Cincinnati Pastorates. 69 ment which affected in its sweep not only a great municipality, but other communities for hundreds of miles around. The Western Christian Advocate said edito- rially : "The recent revival of this city has attracted attention from all parts of the country. The in- terest awakened by Reverends Jones and Small, the Georgia evangelists, was the most remarkable in years, as evidenced by the vast crowd that con- stantly attended the meetings. A great revival like a great campaign must be controlled and di- rected by a master mind, and the success of the Cincinnati revival is due to the Rev. Isaac W. Joyce, of Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church, upon whose invitation the evangelists came here. Dr. Joyce is responsible for the two greatest re- vivals that have occurred in this city in the past thirty years — the one just closed, and the other known as the Harrison meeting, a few years ago, will long be remembered." Dr. Joyce had an influence in Cincinnati much beyond the bounds of his pastoral charges. He impressed himself on the general public. He took the liveliest interest in subjects affecting the public welfare. He had correspondence with working- men and working girls about conditions of labor in the city. These letters he made the basis of ser- mons in which he pointed out vigorously the in- TO Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. dustrial sins of employers. Although pastor of many wealthy Methodists, he did not hesitate to expose the failures and neglects of the well-to-do. A man of strong sympathies, such as Bishop Joyce was, would feel bound to utter his protest against anything like oppression of the weak by the strong. Always Dr. Jo}>ce was the warm friend of the old soldiers. He frequently spoke before them. As a Decoration Day orator or Memorial Sunday preacher he was unexcelled. This brought him into contact with a large number outside of his own Church circles and made him a well-known man in Cincinnati. It also gave him a larger ac- quaintance with the newspaper men. And their good-will is an important factor in the success of a minister in the city. But it was in the management of the great revivals that Dr. Joyce impressed himself most strongly upon the city as a whole, and upon the Methodism of that part of the country. While at first in both the great revivals he was almost alone in the responsibility of these movements, yet each time the revivals grew to such proportions as to sweep in the other Churches and to awaken the interest and largely the co-operation of the entire Protestant religious public. It was these movements — the arranging of their details, the financing of them, the keeping them off the rocks, that displayed generalship. Perhaps it was this Cincinnati Pastorates. 71 that more than anything else marked him as a really great executive and administrator, and di- rected the attention of the Church towards him as a suitable man for its greatest administrative office — the bishopric. The strength of Dr. Joyce's hold on the city was shown in nothing more clearly than by the fact that at the close of his pastorate of three years at Trinity, he was again invited to become pastor at St. Paul. In our judgment this was a greater compliment than if he had been invited to serve a seventh consecutive year at St. Paul. For these two Churches were but a few blocks apart, their territory practically the same, and the opportunities for friction must have been number- less. For a pastor to conduct himself with such wisdom, and at the same time with such successful aggressiveness, as that he was invited back to a third consecutive pastorate in the same territory, showed great practical wisdom in dealing with men. And it showed also that in the judgment of the princely laymen who composed the leadership of St. Paul Church the resources of Dr. Joyce had by no means been exhausted. During Dr. Joyce's years in the episcopal office some ministers criti- cised his intellectual qualifications, who, in their own pastorates, never came within gunshot of this magnificent achievement of Dr. Joyce in Cin- 72 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. y i i ■ cinnati. We speak of this here because of the dis- position in some quarters to measure preachers by purely academic and artificial standards, instead of by the influence and work actually achieved. A man is as great as the sum of his achievements. Yet men whose Churches die on their hands will send the dagger of unbrotherly and unchristian criticism into ministers who lead forlorn hopes to magnificent success, because those ministers do not happen to fulfill certain doctrinaire conceptions of sermonizing. It was this kind of criticism that caused Dr. Joyce the keenest suffering of anything in his entire ministry, if we may judge from his letters. He was an exquisitely sensitive soul. The great- ness of his power to love was the measure of his power to suffer. There were times when for weeks together he suffered so keenly under hostile criti- cism, and strangely enough from hostile ministerial criticism, as that he was tempted to resign his charge and leave the city. Writing to his friend, the Rev. William McK. Darwood, of New York City, he says: "My mental suffering was great, I assure you, and my spiritual nature was in an agony a great part of the time. I lived in torture for days. But i I had two never-failing friends in all this fearful •j ordeal — my faithful wife, and the blessed God and I Father of my salvation. Finally the sun began to Cincinnati Pastorates. 73 shine, I felt better. I left all with Him who is the Head of the Church. I gathered up my energies, concentrated my forces again, and went to work. God is wonderfully blessing my work. And while my bruised feelings pain me now and then, yet I . am clinging to God with an unyielding grasp. I love Him supremely." Perhaps Dr. Joyce took to heart too deeply the criticisms that were directed against him. The tender mercies of politicians are never gentle, whether those politicians be ecclesiastical or secu- lar. When a man gets tall enough to be seen above the heads of the crowd he becomes a target for the shafts of rivals, not to say of the envious. But notwithstanding some unfriendly criti- cism, Dr. Joyce grew steadily in the favor of the city and of the Churches. Pie was elected president of the Interdenominational Ministerial Union, and also was one of the prominent officers of the Law and Order League. His influence extended out into the surround- ing States. He was called all over the Central West for special service for the Church. And it became evident that he was the most powerful factor in the life of Methodism in Cincinnati. In the fall of 1887 Dr. Joyce was elected a delegate to the General Conference, which was to meet the ensuing May in New York City. His election was an especially high honor in view of 74 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. the small delegation which the Cincinnati Confer- ence could send — four, while there were so many men of pronounced ability in its membership. And also it was a high compliment because of his being a transfer into the Conference. Writing to his friend, Dr. Darwood, in Janu- ary, 1888, Dr. Joyce said: "My time will be out here in the fall of 1889. But I have an idea that the General Conference will add another year to the pastoral term, making four years instead of three; and if that should be done, then I will stay here until 1890. I am glad to report to you that my work goes well. I have been like a race horse on the track, and from Mon- day morning until Sunday night I am on the rush. I am in the midst of a meeting, and you know what kind of work a protracted meeting means. "There is one thing that I would be especially glad to see; viz., that beginning at the close of General Conference, the great Methodist Episcopal Church would enter upon the next quadrennium with only one purpose inspiring all her move- ments — in every department of her organization — that is, to see how many souls this great Church could lead to Christ in the next four years. It seems to me that with our great army of ministers, and our nearly two million of members, we ought to do grand work for God and humanity." Dr. Joyce's expectation about returning to Cincinnati was not fulfilled for reasons that become apparent in our next chapter. CHAPTER VIII. Elected Bishop. IT would be inaccurate to say that when the Board of Bishops nominates a minister to serve as fraternal delegate to one of the great sister denominations of Christendom, they place that minister in nomination for the office of bishop. Doubtless no such consideration ever in- fluenced the action of the Episcopal Board. Yet such a nomination carries with it in so marked a degree the stamp of approval of that board — and it is the most powerful group of men in the Church — as that its effect is scarcely less than if the purpose to place a man in nomination for the episcopacy were present. In 1886 Dr. Joyce was appointed fraternal delegate to the Methodist Church of Canada, which met in Metropolitan Methodist Church, To- ronto, in September. He was now in the prime of his powers — just fifty. The Montreal Globe gave the following description of his reception by the Canadian brethren: "The secretary then read the credentials of Rev. Dr. Joyce, of the Cincinnati Conference, 75 76 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. after which the Chairman introduced that gentle- man to the Conference. Dr. Joyce has a fine physique and a most intellectual face, while his manner of speaking is slow and deliberate. He asked the audience to try and picture the astonish- ment of John Wesley, if that great father of Methodism could look in upon them that evening, and see as the fruits of his efforts representatives of grand and growing Methodist Churches gath- ered from all parts of the world. The speaker then dwelt upon the great work that might be done by Methodists in the United States. The great problems that were vexing them there every year more and more, were lawlessness, infidelity, intemperance, and Mormonism. "As to Mormonism, the Christian people of the United States and the Government of the United States were determined that it should be stamped out. The Methodist Episcopal Church was one of the great weapons with which they were to contest and overcome these evils. The Church was united there and spoke with one voice. Other great weapons of warfare were the Sunda3^-school and the press of the Church. "Touching on the educational question, he said they had in the United States some years ago con- siderable trouble over the question of colleges. Every little town wanted a college or a univer- sity or a high school or a seminary or something of the kind, and in a good many cases the small towns secured the colleges. But they had found out their mistake and had merged the smaller col- leges into the larger ones, and now had great col- Elected Bishop. 77 leges and universities only at the most central and most useful points in the country. (Applause.) "The speaker then told of the strength of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States, and said he hoped and believed that before long the Methodist bodies of the United States would unite and form one great Church as they had done in Canada. (Applause.) He referred most en- couragingly to the missionary work of the Church in his country, and brought thunders of applause by touching on Bishop Taylor's grand work in Africa, and referring to the great missionary as the greatest hero since St. Paul and Martin Luther. The address was listened to with the deepest atten- tion, and frequently broken by applause. "Dr. Sutherland moved a congratulatory reso- lution to the speaker, which was carried with ac- clamation." In May, 1888, Dr. Joyce journeyed to New York City, together with the other Cincinnati Con- ference delegates, Charles H. Payne, Adna B. Leonard, and Jeremiah H. Bayliss. Dr. Joyce was the last of the group elected by his Conference. But it was doubly complimentary to him that he should have been elected at all in view of the fact that he was a "transfer," having been a member of the Conference but seven years at the time of his election. Four years before, in 1884, he had been chosen a reserve delegate. Dr. Joyce served as a member of the Committee 78 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. on Itinerancy in the General Conference, and was the committee's secretary. Two important duties devolved upon him at this Conference. One was the making of a report to it of his official visit to the Methodist Church of Canada. The other was his memorial of Bishop Wiley. Perhaps this last event brought him more prominently before the Conference than any other act. His address on Bishop Wiley was a model of good taste and sympathetic delineation. Dr. Joyce and Bishop Wiley had been the closest of friends. On his arrival in Cincinnati as pastor of St. Paul Church Dr. Joyce had been received to the heart of Bishop Wiley. The inti- macy begun then lasted until Bishop Wiley's death in China in 1884. Bishop Wiley's family were members of Dr. Joyce's Church in Cincinnati. When in the city the bishop himself was in the congregation, one of Dr. Joyce's most sympathetic hearers. Bishop Wiley's daughter, Nellie, was con- verted under Dr. Joyce's ministry at St. Paul Church. And it was Dr. Joyce who broke to Bishop Wiley the sad news of the death of the bishop's only son, by burning in a great fire in a drugstore, when the latter was a Senior at the Ohio Wesley an. The General Conference of 1888 decided to elect five bishops. The office is a more important Elected Bishop. 79 one in the Methodist Episcopal Church than in any other Church employing the Episcopal form of supervision. The Protestant Episcopal Church has one hundred and two bishops in the United States, who supervise three quarters of a million members. The Roman Catholic Church lias one hun- dred and six archbishops and bishops ,who super- vise eleven million communicants. The Methodist Episcopal Church has (at the time we write) fifteen bishops, only twelve of whom are assigned to the Conferences in the United States. These supervise sixteen thousand churches and three mil- lion members. The bishops appoint the pastors to the Churches, every appointment being reviewed and fixed each year. In addition to this most re- sponsible duty the bishops are members of the several great benevolence boards of the Church which administer millions of money every year. They determine the course of study of all the preachers who enter the ministry, and a course of study for an army of local preachers. They su- pervise the theological seminaries of the Church, having veto power over the selection of their teach- ers. They scrutinize every part of the work of the Church and make recommendations concerning it to the General Conference. They elect the fra- ternal representatives to the various sister denomi- nations of Christians. And in addition to all these 80 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. functions, by virtue of the life tenure of their office and the extremely wide acquaintance they enjoy, they are able to exercise a personal influ- ence which is no less than extraordinary. Hence it is that the Episcopacy is looked upon within the Methodist Episcopal Church as being the highest position in point of honor, and the highest in its opportunities for usefulness, of all the positions in the gift of the Church. And friends of preachers can think of no better wish than that they shall be elected to the Episcopacy. The old Methodist mother of William McKinley when asked if she were not delighted over her son's election as President of the United States, replied: "Yes, but I would rather have seen him a Methodist bishop." No doubt there will be found those who would dissent from the foregoing observations and ad- duce some vigorous reasons for another view. And three men have declined elections to that office. Nevertheless the views just expressed state the general feeling about the office among the people called Methodists. On May 22d the balloting began. On the first ballot eighty-four persons were voted for. Dr. Joyce stood fifth in the total vote received, having 145 votes out of a total of -±47. On the second ballot he received 217 votes, and came fourth in Elected Bishop. 81 the total number received. On the third ballot he received 260 votes, and came up to third place. On this ballot Dr. J. H. Vincent and Dr. J. N. FitzGerald were elected. On the fourth ballot Dr. Joyce led with 265 votes; and on the fifth ballot he was elected with 326 votes out of a total of 449. His was the largest vote received by any bishop elected. It is of interest to recall that three of the four delegates of the Cincinnati Conference received votes for bishop, and all were chosen to General Conference positions, a fact probably unduplicated in any General Conference election in the history of the Church. Dr. Bayliss, editor of the Western Christian Advocate, received 15 votes for bishop; and Dr. Charles H. Payne, President of the Ohio Wesleyan University, received 148. In addition to this, Dr. Cranston, who was living at Cincin- nati, though a member of another Conference, re- ceived 144 votes. The correspondent of the Cincinnati Commer- cial-Gazette at New York said: "The election of Dr. Joyce was a good deal of a surprise to many in this region (New York). It was a magnificent triumph that grows on those who study it. . . . He was comparative^ unknown throughout the East, and consequently had not much hold here. His friends, however, both within the Conference and outside of it, were not a few, 6 82 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. and through them his superior qualities were brought to the attention of the delegates. His paper on Bishop Wiley, his presence, his manner, and his spirit, so won upon the Conference that upon the fifth ballot, as the third man chosen, he went in with such a vote as was never in any other instance given to any man in his election to the Episcopacy in the Methodist Episcopal Church. His triumph is complete. He is believed to be a clean, strong man, full of manly sympathies and parts, and a born leader among men, while modest and affable in an unusual degree." Of Bishop Joyce's election, Dr. James M. Buckley, in his "History of Methodism," says: "His marked efficiency as a pastor ?„nd evangel- ist, his prudence and fervency, commended him to the large number who justly believed that the pas- torate should always be represented upon the Board of Bishops." Of the ten men leading in the votes for bishop in the General Conference of 1888, only three were from the pastorate. The others were in secretarial or educational work. Dr. Buckley said of Bishop Joyce's election after the latter's death: "These things gave his candidacy the benefit of a spontaneous impetus. He was a pastor. Al- ready two general officials had been elected. He had always been a pastor, excepting a brief term as presiding elder, which office in reality does not Elected Bishop. 83 divorce a man from the pastorate, since he has a constant intercourse with the ministry, the Churches, and the laity. He was not only a pas- tor, but one highly emotional, a lover and a pro- moter of genuine revivals. He was not conspicu- ously identified with the burning issue at that time — the admission of women into the General Con- ference — although when his name was called he voted not to admit the delegates, but to submit the question of constitutionality to the Church. His bearing on the Committee on Itinerancy made him many friends. There and elsewhere, whenever any one named for the Episcopacy was mentioned in his presence, or his opinion of any one nominated was asked, in every case he mentioned the quali- fications of such persons without one disparaging word or look. The sum of his career abundantly justifies his election." After the election it developed that some dele- gates had adopted a unique method of arriving at one qualification for the Episcopacy of men whose election was being advocated. They called on Dr. Joyce and asked his opinion of one or two men who were being prominently mentioned. Dr. Joyce spoke highly of them. The delegates then went to the other men and asked them their opinion of Dr. Joyce as an Episcopal possibility. These brethren spoke disparagingly of the Doctor, de- claring it would never do to elect him. The out- come was that these men lost the votes of this 84 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. group of delegates, while they were all given to Dr. Joyce. The Independent, one of the leading religious journals of America, speaking of the election of bishops from a non-Methodist standpoint, said : "In the election of Bishops Vincent, Fitz- Gerald, Joyce, and Goodsell the Conference struck a high plane of ability and character. Bishop Vincent excels as preacher, educator, organizer; Bishop FitzGerald in administrative and judicial ability ; Bishop Joyce in balance of powers ; Bishop Goodsell in strength and grace of mind and char- acter." The election of Dr. Joyce to the Episcopacy was favorably received by the Church at large. It provoked the greatest enthusiasm in Cincinnati, Greencastle, and Lafayette, where he had held long pastorates. A movement was immediately set on foot by Cincinnati Methodists to secure his residence in Cincinnati, which had long been one of the cities designated by the General Conference as an Epis- copal residence. As this was not in harmony with the method then in vogue, which gave the bishops their choice of residence in the order of their seniority of election, the plan to bring Bishop Joyce to Cincinnati was not carried out. He was assigned to Chattanooga, Tennessee, instead. The Elected Bishop. 85 following is the report of the efforts of the friends of Bishop Joyce to secure his residence in Cincin- nati, as set forth in one of the papers there: "The following memorial to the Board of Bishops, asking that Cincinnati be made the Epis- copal residence of Bishop I. W. Joyce, has been signed by several hundred prominent laymen of the Methodist Churches of this city and duly for- warded : " 'To the Board of Bishops of the Methodist Epis- copal Church: " 'Reverend and Beloved Fathers, — During the period of his pastorship in this city — consisting of nearly eight years — Rev. Isaac W. Joyce, D. D., has shown an executive capacity and magnetic force which enabled him to awaken widespread re- ligious interest in the community, and conduct in worship crowded assemblies ; to secure increased congregations and membership in the Churches to which he was appointed; to interest men, women, and children in personal religion and train them for Church work ; to supervise and direct wisely the secular affairs of his charges, and to stimulate his people to greater liberality toward all our con- nectional objects. " 'He early won and has held the respect, affec- tion, and confidence of Cincinnati Methodists. He is to-day the recognized wise and judicious leader of the Protestant ministers and laymen of our city in all concerted plans and efforts to secure public reforms — such as Sabbath observance, enforcement $6 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. of law and order, and other good works. Our best citizens of all classes — Church-goers and non- Church-goers — hold him in high esteem. " 'Permit, therefore, the undersigned to express the hope and wish that, if it shall create no em- barrassment in making your selections, Bishop I. W. JVyce be allowed to select Cincinnati for his home.' "Another paper, having the same object in view, has also been forwarded to the Board of Bishops, supported by resolutions passed by the Official Boards of nineteen Methodist Churches in Cincin- nati and vicinity." CHAPTER IX. His Episcopal Residences: Chattanooga and Minneapolis. CHATTANOOGA, TENNESSEE, was the first episcopal residence of Bishop Joyce. At the time of his election the bishops in the order of seniority chose their places of resi- dence from the cities designated by the General Conference as episcopal residences. Since then the plan of assigning the bishops to their resi- dences by the General Conference itself has been introduced. Bishop and Mrs. Jo} T ce removed at once to Chattanooga, and for eight years that city was their home. Their son, Frank, during Dr. Joyce's stay in Cincinnati, had married Miss Jessie Birch, daughter of Hon. Jesse Birch, of Bloomington, Illinois, and Cincinnati became their home for some years. Later the two families were to be delightfully reunited at Minneapolis. Bishop Joyce threw himself with his customary energy into the work of the Church in the South. While his presidency of Conferences, in harmony with our plan of General Superintendency, took 87 88 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. him all over the country and into foreign lands, yet he was able to keep in close touch with the local work in Chattanooga, and with the work through- out the Central South. The First Methodist Episcopal Church, of Chattanooga, was not then the great Church it is to-day. At the time the bishop went to the city the Church was in a discouraged condition. The salary was but twelve hundred dollars a year, and the influence exerted by the Church in the com- munity was not large. Bishop and Mrs. Joyce put their energies into the work of this Church. Mrs. Joyce accepted the presidency of its Woman's Foreign Missionary Society. Bishop Joyce at- tended the Official Board meetings whenever pos- sible, and counseled with the brethren. New hope and courage were infused into the Church's work. A leading layman of this Church says that the splendid growth achieved by this Church since has been due in no small degree to the counsel and en- couragement of Bishop Jo}^ce. Throughout the city also he made his influ- ence felt. He preached in every Protestant church in the city ; in some of them repeatedly. He iden- tified himself with the city's life. Again and again he was the orator of the local posts of the Grand Army of the Republic at their Decoration-day services. Mrs. Joyce organized the Kindergarten His Episcopal Residences. 89 Association of Chattanooga, and came into pleas- ant social contact with the ladies of the city. Bishop Joyce looked carefully also into the condition of the town and country Churches. Into every remote part of the Holston Conference he found his way, going where no bishop had ever before found his way, according to the statement of laymen on the ground. He was a true "epis- copos" — overseer. Rev. J. J. Manker, D. D., a prominent member of the Holston Conference, writes : "During his stay at Chattanooga he took upon himself, perhaps more than any other bishop has ever done, the cares and burdens of the pastors and Churches, lavishing his own means in efforts to help where help was sorely needed and could be given in no other way. He never made any dis- play of his charities, and probably no one ever knew how he denied himself in order to render assistance to the needy." How deeply he became interested in the various charges in the region about him may be inferred from the following letter, written to a young min- ister in a Northern State, as the latter was about leaving his first pastorate: "Chattanooga, Tenn., March L' h 1889. "My Dear : "It has been in my heart many days to write you. I want a pastor for Anniston, Alabama. 90 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. We are building a new stone church at a cost of sixteen thousand dollars. It will be finished in May. The town has twelve thousand people. Very many of them are from the North. They are of our Church, and friends of our cause. It is a new place for us. Whoever goes there will have to organize the Church. We will be able to start with seventy -five or one hundred members. The town will give five hundred dollars, and I will add to that three hundred dollars from the Missionary Society, making in all eight hundred dollars for the first year. We can pay one thousand dollars the second year. This is one of the very best fields I know anywhere for a young man who wants to do a great work for God and the Church. The town will double its population in less than five years. Do you know of a young man who is thor- oughly devoted and consecrated to the Lord, who can preach, will visit, is good in a prayer-meeting ; loves Sunday-school work — in short, loves to do the work of a Methodist preacher? Do you know of such a young man — not one who you think would do, but one who you know would do? It has been the prayer of my very inmost thought and heart all day to-day that it may be the will of the Lord to put it into your heart to say to me that you will take this field and cultivate it for the blessed Christ. If such should be the case, I would be the happiest man in this whole Southland. "Now, my dear boy, let me hear from you at the earliest possible moment, for I must settle this matter within the next ten days. God bless you! "Faithfully your friend, "Isaac W. Joyce." His Episcopal Residences. 91 This little incident, unimportant in itself, shows how Bishop Joyce took all the Churches on his heart. He identifies himself with their interests — says "we can pay" so much this year and so much next. It is this absolute pouring out of himself in behalf of every part of his field that accounts for the magnitude of his achievements, and for the breaking down of his magnificent physique years before a reasonable time. In the discharge of the duties of his office on one occasion, he accepted the hospitality of a col- ored presiding elder at Cleveland, Tennessee. Tins aroused the prejudices of some people, and he was bitterly assailed in the public press. He made no reply to these attacks, although they wounded his sensitive and tender heart to the very quick. Instead, he went steadily forward in the discharge of his duties, and the persecution soon spent itself. While the feeling was most bitter he was invited to preach at First Church in Chattanooga, and a magnificent audience turned out to hear him, composed of the leading citizens of Chattanooga of all Churches. Coming when and as it did, this was a great comfort to Bishop Joyce, evidencing thus openly the high esteem in which he was held in the city that had been his home for five years. In addition to all his other labors, Bishop Joyce 92 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. assumed, at the earnest and insistent request of the trustees, the Chancellorship of the U. S. Grant University. He consented to take this office only because it was a critical time in the institution's history, arising out of causes which led also to the consolidation of our two Methodist colleges in the Holston Conference, located at Chattanooga and Athens respectively. Bishop Joyce received no salary. The services he rendered in this im- portant position are declared to have been of in- estimable value to the Church. And in this work Mr. John A. Patten, a prominent layman of the Holston Conference, says, "He showed the qualities of a statesman." At the close of the General Conference of 1896 Bishop Jo} r ce transferred his residence to Minne- apolis, Minnesota. Owing to the fact that his son, Colonel Frank M. Joyce, had recently removed to that city, this change of residence was especially gratifying to Bishop and Mrs. Joyce. Minne- apolis continued to be their home for over nine years, until Bishop Joyce was called to his heav- enly home. Almost immediately after taking up his resi- dence in Minneapolis (June, 1896), Bishop and Mrs. Joyce left for the Orient, where the bishop supervised for two years our Conferences in Japan, Korea, and China. This foreign work is described in another chapter. His Episcopal Residences. 93 Before leaving for the Orient, Bishop Joyce preached at the Hennepin Avenue Church in Min- neapolis. Reference to the occasion is made by one of the local dailies as follows: "Bishop Joyce, who is to relieve Bishop Fowler as the head of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the Northwest, preached his first sermon to a Minnesota congregation at Hennepin Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church 3'esterday morning. It was a living sermon, full of hope and faith in the glorious possibilities of human nature, and seemed born of the June sunshine and beautiful flowers that filled the church. "Bishop Jo} r ce is first of all a preacher. He has a kindly face, a devout enthusiasm, and that rarest of gifts, personal magnetism. There was vitality, earnestness, and cheerfulness in all he said, and his impassioned appeal for a deeper under- standing of the 'things which are not seen,' stirred his hearers profoundly. Bishop Joyce's voice is eloquent even in his colloquial speech, and in the higher flights of pure oratory it was greatly ef- fective. "The bishop took for his text % Cor. iv, 18, 'While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.' "He said in part: 'This world, which is but an aggregation of material things, is of less impor- tance than it seems to be. We want to feel that the foundations under us are immovable, and we reach 94 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. out to touch that which is not possible. The mental is greater than the material, and the spiritual can not be satisfied with that which is merely for the passing moment. No thoughtful man regards the pleasures that come out of material things as his greatest blessings. It is a World of beauty, and life and light, that sometimes makes us feel that it is the only world. And when I reflect that the majority of the people in it go to bed hungry, and that the morrow can bring them nothing but the hope of going forth to battle for existence, I do not wonder that men learn to think beyond the hour. We come into this great world and push and fight and crowd. Then there is darkness and we pass out, and if that were all I would rather now break through the crust of things into the dust of oblivion.' "The bishop then spoke earnestly of a better world, and mentioned with the deepest satisfaction that scientific men were to-day finding the truths of the Bible not inconsistent with the laws of the universe; that 'men of the highest scholarship are beginning to find that there is another life just next door to this material life; that justice says, unless there is another life this life is a mocker}', and infinite wisdom is toying with the minds and hearts of men. Christ has said there is another world. God has said it, and, Father divine, I thank Thee for the declaration.' "Continuing, the bishop said men could not hope to come to an understanding with their Heav- enly Father in this world. In that better life alone would it be possible for them to achieve His great- His Episcopal Residences. 95 est development, and realize all His grand possi- bilities. The Father, too, would then have a better chance to show the efficacy of His grace. " 'When the sun goes down to-day it will set upon a better world than it looked upon this morn- ing. This is the best world since our first parents were in Eden. The Bible is a bigger book to-day than ever, and this material universe is richer than our fathers ever dreamed. In 1896, Jesus Christ is a larger Christ than He was 1800 years ago.' "At the close of his sermon, Bishop Joyce ad- dressed his congregation on a personal matter. 'I am very sorry I can not move here for some time,' he said; 'duty calls me to Korea, Japan, and China, and I leave here Wednesday morning. My plans are to be absent two years, but I hope to be with you in March or April, 1898. I never shirk my duty, and I go to those distant lands with the same faith that I would visit your Churches here. Re- member me in your family prayers, and I will pray for you.' " Bishop and Mrs. Joyce returned from the Orient in April, 1898, and immediately proceeded to Minneapolis. They w T ere given receptions by the Churches of both Minneapolis and St. Paul. The St. Paul Pioneer-Press gives the following de- scription of the reception at the latter city, in which the governor took part: "Such a welcome as Bishop Isaac W. Joyce received last evening in the Central Park Church from the members of the Methodist congregations 96 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. of St. Paul will live long in his memory. The bishop only recently took up his residence in Minne- apolis, and the reception last evening was taken as an opportunity for the clergy and the laymen to meet him and Mrs. Joyce. "Every Methodist Church in the city was rep- resented in the audience which faced the bishop and those on the pulpit platform with him. Governor and Mrs. Lind were there, and so were Rev. Benjamin Longle}', pastor of Central Park; Dr. Bridgman, president of Hamline University ; Judge Brill and Dr. F. M. Rule, presiding elder of the St. Paul District. Dr. Rule was the chairman of the meeting. Beautiful flowers and potted plants were placed in profusion about the platform. "Addresses of welcome were delivered to the bishop and to his wife. Mrs. Longley addressed the greeting of the women to Mrs. Joyce, and she responded feelingly. Dr. Bridgman spoke on be- half of the ministers, and Judge Brill on behalf of the laity. " 'Our Church has been very fortunate,' said Judge Brill, 'in its selections of men for the high office of bishop. A Methodist bishop is no ordi- nary bishop. He is the head of one of the greatest religious organizations upon the globe. Unlike any other potentate, civil or ecclesiastical, he is not confined to any State, or continent, or nation. His diocese is the world. We are to be congratu- lated to-night that we have as guest one of these Methodist bishops, and that he has come to live among us and be our neighbor and friend, and we are to felicitate ourselves that he is a bishop who His Episcopal Residences. 97 so nearly fills the Pauline ideal — that he is so spiritually minded, so zealous in good works, so abundant in labors, and is so in touch with the life of the plain people. The people of this Pauline city bid this Pauline bishop welcome. " 'We need his ripe experience, his wise counsel, and the stirring influence of his spiritual force. The people of New York and other communities are wont to think that about everything worth while resides with them, and that we provincials are narrow and uncultured. Perhaps in our battle with the elements of nature, which we have had to subdue in this new country, we of the West have given too little attention to the block of our hats or the cut of our coats. However this may be, we can assure Bishop Joyce and Mrs. Joyce that we have warm hearts, and into the innermost recesses of our affections we to-night bid them enter. Our hearts, our homes, and our extremest means lie all unlocked to their occasions.' "Governor Lind, so the chairman stated in his presentation remarks, had been asked to represent 'all creation' by his presence at the reception. The governor said his mother was a Methodist, and therefore Methodism meant much to him. 'It is one of the Churches of the world,' said he, 'that has never felt the blight of being a State Church.' Then he told how important a factor the Methodist Church is in religion, and in education, 'and — yes, in politics,' he added. He concluded by extending a hearty welcome to the bishop and his wife. "When the bishop commenced to speak his voice was soft and low, but pretty soon he 'got 7 98 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. warmed up,' as he himself expressed it, and talked in the old-fashioned Methodist way. His auditors were delighted, for Bishop Joyce is one of the most entertaining of pulpit orators. He told of the work of the bishops, and he confided to his lis- teners that he would like nothing better than an opportunity to discontinue for a period his regular duties and make a tour of the State and go into the homes of the laymen. He desired to come into contact with the laity. He was glad that he had been brought into Minnesota 'to help a little in the building up of righteousness in the North- west.' "The bishop returned to this country from China last April after a tour of the world. He has therefore traveled much. He is a keen student of human nature. He spoke in the Norwegian and Swedish tongues toward the close of his remarks, and alluded to the purpose of the Methodist Church to raise twenty million dollars as a twentieth-cen- tury thank-offering to carry on the work of the Church. He urged all to help, especially in the work of securing two million converts while the great fund is being raised." In Minneapolis and throughout the Northwest Bishop Joyce threw himself into the work just as he had done in the South. Dedicating churches by the score, preaching on special occasions, speaking at camp-meetings, conventions, and Conferences, besides all the regular work in presiding at the Annual Conferences filled his days and nights with His Episcopal Residences. 90 toil. The Northwestern Christian Advocate says of him: "The same spirit of helpfulness which he dis- played toward his members when a pastor he dis- played toward Churches after he became a bishop. During his residence in Minneapolis he devoted himself to the work of the Church, particularly to that part of the Church needing him most. From deliberate conviction he gave himself to the weaker Churches, and it is a matter of record that he preached and lectured, frequently paying his own expenses and always without compensation, at ninety-two places in the Northwest which had never before been visited by a bishop of our communion." From a personal letter from Dr. Fayette L. Thompson, pastor of Hennepin Avenue Church, Minneapolis, printed in the Central Christian Ad- vocate of January 25, 1905, we quote: "I wrote in a recent issue of the Central a quotation from my calendar relative to the love and esteem in which Bishop Joyce and his family are held by Hennepin Avenue Church. I am glad you used that, yet had I known you were to do so, I would have made it much stronger. I most confidently believe that Bishop Joyce and his fam- ily come as near to the actual New Testament of what a bishop in the Church of God should be as it is possible for flesh and blood. When in the city the Bishop is always at prayer-meeting, mod- est, retiring, requesting to be permitted to sit with 100 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. the worshipers and to be given no more attention than though he were a layman. On a number of occasions, when unusually pressed with work, he has called up the pastor over the telephone early Thursday evening to say that he had expected to be at the service, but he did not see how he could come that evening, but that his heart and prayers were with us in our devotions. In these days, when it is rumored that some bishops and even some presiding elders are so great in the offices they hold as to be excused from the usual personal loyalties to the local Church expected from influential peo- ple, it is indeed a delight to have in one's congre- gation such people as this saintly bishop and his family. If there is a solitary thing in which he can help any pastor in the city that he is not doing, /I am frank to say that I do not know it. He is a blessing and inspiration to all of us, and withal as genial and modest as a child. Someway it seems to me if the Church could appreciate its saints while they are still with us more than we do, it would be well — well for them, well for us." In 1902 Bishop Joyce was assigned to visit our Conferences in South America, and late that autumn he and Mrs. Joyce sailed for that country. The description of his work there is given in the chapter on "Foreign Missions." On their return to this country a reception on a large scale was planned for them by Minneapolis Methodists. The following account of it is from the Minneapolis Times : His Episcopal Residences. 101 "The deep respect and genuine affection the Methodists of the city feel for Bishop Isaac W. Joyce and his wife were manifested last evening in a reception in Wesley Church, such as is rarely accorded any one on their home coming. "Those present were not wholly confined to Methodism, but all denominations joined in giving welcome to the man and woman who have devoted their lives to the good of mankind. "Wesley Church has rarely presented a more beautiful appearance, nor held a more notable array of speakers, for nation, State, and Church were represented. In his address Bishop Joyce said that no one quite realized the beauties of the American flag until one had spent some time in foreign lands, and it seemed in special keeping with his expressed love for his country's emblem that innumerable flags were used to decorate the church. "The entire balcony and Sunday-school was draped with flags, and the supporting pillars were wound with the national colors. Draping the pul- pit rail and organ were the Stars and Stripes, and red and white bunting hung over doorways and arches. Palms and American Beauty roses added to the beautiful effect. "Dr. Mark Smith presided, introducing the speakers, who were Governor Samuel R. Van Sant, Senator Moses E. Clapp, Congressman John Lind, Mayor J. C. Haynes, Dr. William Fielder, Dr. Robert Forbes, and Dr. James S. Montgomery. "Governor Van Sant in a few well chosen words honored the bishop as a man, and for his work welcomed him back to the great Commonwealth of Minnesota. 102 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. "Senator Clapp spoke in eloquent language of the good that was being accomplished by men and women like Bishop and Mrs. Joyce, and he be- lieved that the world was growing better. "Mr. Lind emphasized the fact that in all the recent interviews given by Bishop and Mrs. Joyce they had always spoken well of the country in which they were carrying on their work. They had always found something encouraging, some- thing hopeful. Mr. Lind added, "We are not here to welcome a hero from many battles, but a man and wife engaged in good work, and this is of infinitely more good to the world than battle- scarred heroes.' "Mayor Efoynes paid a warm tribute to the unselfish life, doing good to others, bringing to the soul of man comfort, a life that deserved and re- ceived the respect of all men. "In Bishop Joyce was found the kind of hu- man nature that grows younger, the kind that never grows old. "Dr. Fielder told that a woman recently re- turning from India said that no one had left there richer memories, holier influences, a more perma- nently good impression than had Bishop and Mrs. Joyce, and it was the same, Mr. Fielder said, in Japan, Korea, South America, and every other place in which they had engaged in work. "He believed in giving the word of encourage- ment, the tribute of flowers from the heart, to the living, and not wait until they were dead, and he sincerely hoped that when Bishop Joyce left the Church militant to join the Church triumphant, he might leave from Minneapolis. His Episcopal Residences. 103 "Dr. Forbes added his quota of praise for Bishop Joyce and his wife, and told a number of witty anecdotes. "Though not on the program, there was so insistent a call for Dr. Montgomery that he spoke a few words of welcome and appreciation of Bishop Joyce's kindly nature. "Had there ever been even the slightest doubt in Bishop Joyce's mind as to the sincerity of the welcome, it must have vanished as he arose to respond. "Almost instantly every man and woman in the audience were on their feet, wildly applauding and waving handkerchiefs. It was several minutes before the bishop was able to speak. "He dwelt principally upon his work in South America. It was his honest conviction, he said, that the United States had only the good-will of those people, and more so now that we had shown such interest in the Panama Canal, of which the bishop was in hearty favor. It was surprising, he said, to note the strong desire everywhere among them to learn to speak English. "Bishop Joyce and Mrs. Joyce expect to re- turn to South America in December, and will re- main until the following May, when they will go to Los Angeles to attend the General Conference. "At the close of the program, Bishop and Mrs. Joyce, Governor Van Sant, Senator Clapp, Mr. Lind, and Mr. Haynes received the guests, of whom there were nearly a thousand." CHAPTER X. / As an Administrator. BISHOP JOYCE was not a man of the ju- dicial but of the ardent temperament. Nevertheless, in the highly important ad- ministrative work involved in the functions of a bishop he proved himself a wise superintendent. The fervor of his nature was balanced by a sturdy common sense, which extraordinarily intimate con- tact with men re-enforced. So that as a judge of human nature he had a penetration rare to a man of his temperament. Added to this was an extreme conscientiousness — a positive passion to do the best possible for the men and Churches committed to his charge. These two qualities, combined with a thorough knowledge of the practical workings of Methodist economy, made him one of the most ef- ficient administrators of recent years among Meth- odist bishops. Some of our general superintend- ents have been men so long out of the ranks of the pastorate and presiding eldership, or so short a time in it at all, as that they were not conversant with the practical problems of the itinerant system, 104 As an Administrator. 105 but dealt with thern from a doctrinaire viewpoint, to the hurt of the cause. The fact that Bishop Joyce had been for thirty years in the active ranks of the ministry was greatly in his favor in the ad- ministrative work of the Episcopacy. Bishop Joyce might appropriately be styled "The Pastor's Bishop." His sympathies were strongly with the ministers. He invited their con- fidence. He was in the habit of asking them, from the least to the greatest, to come and lay their matters before him. While he could not always do for them what they desired, yet he treated them as brothers. At the Conference ' at The Dalles, Oregon, in 189.5, for instance, he said: "Brethren, I have never yet felt that I was a bishop. I feel like one of the brethren. I am here to help you." At another Conference he said : "When I was made a bishop I made a vow that I would be a brother to every Methodist preacher around the world." And the Methodist preachers everywhere declare that he was. When it occurred, as it must in the very nature of the case, that men had to be sent to hard fields and to disappointments, criticism was largely dis- armed by the evident grief it caused him. Presiding elders who have sat in his cabinets testify to his solicitude for the preachers and the preachers' wives. The hearts in the parsonage, 106 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. and especially in the little parsonage, were the con- stant objects of his thought and care. Yet he was accustomed to appeal to their loyalty and hero- ism by saying: "The preacher who gets a poor appointment must remember that Jesus had not where to lay His head." Bishop Joyce himself had been a pastor for thirty years, the earlier part of that time in the very humblest circuits. If, as George Matheson says, "All sympathy is memory," he had a very discernible basis for his sympathy with poor preachers. He knew their sorrows and burdens, the injustices under which they often suffered, the trivial faults and blunders which would so often result in the request for their removal from a charge. Hence he was ever ready to hear the preacher's side of the case. Especially was the bishop ready to champion his cause if he found that the preacher was being removed to gratify one or two worldly officials in the Church. Even though the aforesaid officials had been able to se- cure an adverse vote in the last Quarterly Confer- ence of the year, that gauntlet which every Meth- odist preacher has to run each year, the preacher would go back. Nor did the Churches themselves suffer under this course. We have watched the results in many Conferences, and have heard very little adverse As an Administrator. 107 criticism. Bishop Joyce went on the theory that it was good for the Churches themselves to treat their preachers with consideration and respect. And the results justified his course. Committees of laymen were always received with kindness and given a fair hearing. Yet a course was pursued which was calculated to make Churches careful about whom they appointed to represent their interests. He was accustomed to ask Church committees two or three questions which sometimes proved embarrassing. Such as : "Do you attend regularly the services of the Church, includ- ing prayer-meeting ? Do you have family prayers ? Do you stand by the preacher in his revival work? Do you take the Church paper?" If the com- mittee could not answer these questions with some degree of satisfaction, the bishop would decline to hear them, telling them kindly but firmly that they were not proper persons to be intrusted with the selection of a pastor. This did not mean that the Church would go unrepresented, for the presid- ing elders rarely failed to do the most ample jus- tice to the Church's desires. Often, of course, com- mittees could answer his questions in the affirm- ative, in which case the bishop heard them fully. He frequently had prayer with these lay com- mittees before separating. At a Conference in the Central West a committee representing a strong 108 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. Church called on the bishop to make certain repre- sentations concerning a new pastor. At their head was a prominent physician. A conversation sub- stantially as follows ensued after the committee had been introduced, the bishop asking: "You are Dr. Blank?" "Yes, sir." "Does this newspaper paragraph refer to you ?" At the same time hand- ing the physician a clipping which told how the doctor had won a progressive euchre prize a few nights before. The physician's face flushed, and he acknowledged that he was the man referred to; also that he did not have time to attend either the prayer-meeting or revival services. The bishop courteously but decidedly declined to hear the doctor as to a new minister. As a matter of fact the Church got the minister they were after, but it was not through the committee, but through the regular authority, the presiding elder. A pleas- ing aftermath of this incident is that the physician has never since been known to touch a card. At a Conference in the Far West a Church was asking for the removal of its pastor. Inasmuch as the preacher's revival and benevolence report was exceptionally fine the bishop inquired espe- cially as to the action of the Church. He learned that the fourth Quarterly Conference had taken action against the preacher because of the influ- ence of the most wealthy layman in the Church, As an Administrator. 109 who had been offended by some public utterance of the preacher on civic matters. Bishop Joyce sent for the layman, and a conversation substan- tially as follows occurred: "You desire a change of pastors?" "Yes, sir." "Is not your present pastor a man of good character?" "O yes, Bishop, he is an excellent man." "Does n't he preach well?" "Yes, there is no complaint about his preach abilities." "He has had a good revival this year he?" / "Yes, he has taken in quite a number of people." "How about his benevolent collections ? are n't they well up?" \ "Yes, I understand they are. But you see, Bishop, he has offended some of our people by indiscreet utterances. And the Official Board thinks, for the sake of harmony and the good of the Church, we ought to have a change." "Do } r ou know anything about the club-house in the suburbs of your city?" The layman stirred uneasily. "Why, yes, there is such a club-house." "There is a great deal of gambling there, is .• there not?" / "Well, there is some card-playing there, with/ perhaps an occasional bet." 110 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. You own some stock in the club-house, do n't you p» "I own some little stock along with business men generally in that city." "Do you not own the majority of the stock?" "I said I own some of the stock." "Won't } T ou please be explicit, and tell me whether you do or do not own four-sevenths of the stock in this club-house?" The layman acknowledged that he did. Bishop Joyce went on: "My brother, do you think that a man who owns the majority of the stock in an institution that carries on gambling as a part of its equipment is the proper person to dictate the appointment and removal of pastors in the Church of God? Your minister is going back. And I advise you to either change your mode of life, or in all honesty withdraw from the Church which your course is dishonoring." Of course the wealthy layman went away angry. But no sober-minded man will doubt that a like course of procedure on the part of the appointing powers would save some ministers from crucifixion at the hands of godless lay officials, would give other ministers courage to deal with cases of outbreaking evil, and would by these means furnish the whole Church a moral tonic and the world a token of sincerity on the part of the Church which are very much needed. Bishop Joyce himself told this incident: As an Administrator. Ill "Once there came into my room at a certain Conference, for private interview, four very in- fluential looking Church officials, desiring a change of pastor, because, somehow, they hardly knew why, their present pastor, there but one year, had failed to have success. To each of my questions as to his scholarship, preaching, ability, piety, pastoral fidelity, social qualities, and personal ap- pearance, they said, 'He is number one.' 'Well,' said I, 'brethren, there is another side; let us in- quire into it.' And upon interrogation I found that not one of them ever read a Church paper or had family worship or attended class or prayer meetings, or Sunday-school, and but seldom even the regular Sunday services. And yet scarcely ever missed any club or lodge or social function. 'Well, well,' said I, 'brethren, having heard your confession, I must say I am not sur- prised that he has had no success; for with such a strong four-horse team pulling back hard with the world, I could not succeed; neither could a Wesley or a Paul; and even Christ Himself, as your pastor, would in a measure fail to hold con- verts and draw sinners. Let us all get down here, alone with God, and pray over this matter.' And the Lord seemed to mightily help me as I held that persecuted pastor and these unfaithful offi- cials before the throne. Soon they sobbed and cried to God for mercy. And, as we rose, bathed in tears, they said, 'Dear Bishop, we will take back all we said about a change of pastor, and will earnestly seek for ourselves and others a change of heart, and do all we can during the coming year 112 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. to hold up, encourage, and help our pastor to suc- ceed.' Well, blessed be the Lord, soon a wonder- ful revival came down on that charge, and as a natural consequence a unanimous, most earnest pe- tition went up to the next Conference for the re- turn of their much-beloved pastor. Thousands of charges are in the same condition. Let none but the sinless hereafter cast stones at pastors. And go, all ye unfaithful, and seek first a change of heart, and pastoral success and all other blessings shall be yours." That Bishop Joyce made some mistakes is only saying that he was human. Every earnest man makes some mistakes. But he did not make the most fatal of mistakes — that of being dilettante and half-hearted. He administered for the glory of God, as he understood it. Believing profoundly in the need of spiritual men and in the danger of worldly men dictating policies, either in pulpit or pew, he administered with all his might to secure I the leadership of good men everywhere. Abso- lutely sincere himself, it is not to be wondered at that he was sometimes deceived by men who affected a spirituality they did not possess, and thereby sometimes blundered. These mistakes he was always ready to acknowledge when he came to see them, and so far as possible to rectify. Bishop Joyce was a conservative in theology. He shared the limitations of those who have not As an Administrator. 113 had the benefit of the wider educational outlook. This occasionally prevented his doing full justice to a man of opposite views. But such mistakes were rare. The natural catholicity of the man, his breadth of sympathy, his strong common sense, and his constant looking to God for guidance, together combined to give a wisdom and fairness to his administration which, all things considered, was extraordinary. We had Bishop Joyce in our home during a Conference session in Michigan. There was not a night that he was not working at the administrative problems of that Conference until after midnight. He took exquisite pains to get all the facts and to give the fullest consideration to all the interests in- volved. Our wonder at the time was that he did not break down under the strain. Dr. William McK. Darwood, of the New York Conference, writes: "As an administrator he was conscientious to a degree that caused him acutest pain. In the city of Newburg at his request I sat up with him all the last night of the Conference, during which time he was in such agony of soul that twice he cried out as the tears ran down his face: 'I would gladly die to-night if I could adjust these ap- pointments so as to satisfy the preachers and the Churches they represent.' His heart was as tender as that of a woman, and every preacher's troubles 8 114 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. were carefully considered. While those that did not know him took his devotion to duty for stub- bornness, those who knew him best knew that it was loyalty to God and His Church. His defense for all he did was the Lord Jesus Christ and the New Testament." Those deeply err who think that it was only men of emotional temperament or conservatives in theology that the bishop drew to him. He won men of the most advanced theology and of the most unimpassioned temper. The following letter written in 1904, from one of the most intellectual preachers and advanced thinkers in the Methodism of the Central West is simply a sample of many: "My Dear Bishop Joyce: "At no time during the past fifteen years have I so enjoyed a Conference presidency as I did yours las-t fall. It was a benediction to me and to others. The spirit of it throughout was such as to bind you close to me. I feel as if I knew you now. I am sorry that I have not written this earlier, for I have felt it in my heart and said it to my friends a score of times. God bless you! If ever you can make it to spend a day or more with us here, or wherever else I may be, kindly do so. It will be much to me, I know." The gifted writer of this letter stood then and still stands in the leading pulpit of his Confer- ence, and without having received in any way As an Administrator. 115 favors from Bishop Joyce. The letter quoted was simply the result of the strong spiritual impres- sion made by Bishop Joyce's utterances and ad- ministration upon him. The California Christian Advocate said edi- torially concerning his presidency at the Southern California Conference in 1902: "In matters of administration he carries with him, not only the approval of all but the admiration of all. His path of duty was sometimes steep and not always clear, but with unwavering patience he worked over his problems and reached conclu- sions into which were woven the threads of his personal thinking, and upon which were stamped the marks of his prayerful sympathy. There were some hard things, as there nearly always are, to be done, but it is simple justice to say that Bishop Joyce, by his kindly spirit, accomplished his work with the minimum of friction. In saying good- bye to him, we voice the feeling of all the Confer- ences in assuring him, not only that he has done us great good, but that he bears with him our highest esteem and our prayerful gratitude for his devoted service to our common Methodism." / CHAPTER XI. As a Preacher. BISHOP JOYCE was first of all a preacher. His presence was commanding. A mas- sive head, on massive shoulders, with a strong symmetrical form to match, arrested the attention of an audience at once. While he was but five feet nine inches in height, he appeared to be all of six feet. His face was open, forehead high, eyes large and wide apart, and mouth ex- pressive. The features were regular, and consti- tuted a handsome countenance. "He looks every inch a bishop," was a remark frequently heard. To this was added an easy, graceful delivery, and a marvelously flexible, sympathetic voice. Every shade of human feeling was within the easy compass of his voice. It could be tender, soft, melodious, like a mother singing a lullaby to her child; or it could ring like a trumpet calling men to battle, or thunder like a sea in storm. Bishop Joyce possessed to an extraordinary de- gree the quality we call personal magnetism. It is a quality inseparable from, if it does not consist 116 As a Preacher. 117 in, warmth of heart and breadth of sympathy. This warmth of heart glowed in his face, and vibrated in his voice, and informed his unconscious attitudes with extraordinary winsomeness. In this he resembled George Whitefield. Doubtless it was this, too, that made it impossible that his printed words should convey anything like the impression which they exerted when spoken. "It was impossible to report him correctly, for often one word, with a significant gesture or peculiar inflection of voice, told more than a para- graph. . . . He was never at his best until helped to forget the staid requirements of stilted cere- mony. How his Pegasus lagged until spurred by some sympathetic 'Amen!' Quickly the eye flashed, and the soul leaped. When a whole Con- ference of 'Aniens' were shouting about him, it was like the beating of the storm to the petrel. He arose to loftier heights, and his soul was at home. . . . He let go the restraint upon himself and let loose the characteristic qualities of his own nature. He was himself, and it was that frank exposure of his own mind and heart that put his hearers en rapport with him. When he ever feared to do this in the presence of any com- pany he had a 'hard time' — and so had others. His friends knew that if they wanted the best they must clear away the frosts and give summer- time to his soul, and then they might expect to hear the singing birds he could unloose."* *Dr. C. B. Mitchell In the Methodist Review. 118 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. As might be expected from the qualities just delineated, the dominant element was not argu- mentative, nor didactic, but hortatory and experi- mental. During his pastorates Dr. Joyce's preach- ing covered a wider range of subjects than after his election as bishop. In the Episcopacy he felt called to emphasize evangelism because of its wide neglect by the more prominent ministers of the Church. Yet in the pastorate, whether he dis- coursed on industrial, patriotic, or evangelical themes, he made practical application of his themes to existing conditions about him. It is not known to general Methodism, as it is to the Methodists of Indiana, that his style of preaching changed very considerably after he reached middle age, both as to subject matter and delivery. His earlier emphasis was the literary emphasis. While he had revivals in his charges in Indiana and always spoke with enthusiasm, yet his min- istry was not especially evangelistic. As a pre- siding elder he was more insistent on his preachers getting and reading the best books, than he was on anything else. And his preaching as we heard him at Greencastle was characterized by its lit- erary and sympathetic elements rather than by its emphasis on religious experience. It was not until Dr. Joyce had been in Cin- As a Preacher. 119 cinnati a year or so, and had received the great spiritual baptism elsewhere referred to, that his preaching became so pronouncedly evangelistic in subject matter, and characterized by such free- dom — we may say abandon — and unction of de- livery. During all the later years of his life Bishop Joyce's preaching was marked by the soul-passion of the prophet. It was apparent to the most su- perficial that he was intensely in earnest, that he longed after the souls of his hearers as a father yearns for his children. Frequently his speech was with tears and choked utterance. Then a luminous smile w T ould shine through his tears and irradiate his expressive face, until he seemed al- most transfigured. There are men who have great power over audiences without the emotional element which was an indissoluble part of Bishop Joyce's force. Henry Drummond always spoke quietly, and S. D. Gordon does. And no one familiar with their work doubts their power over men. But if Bishop Joyce attempted to speak quietly and with reserve, he was a David in Saul's armor. He had to "swing out" and from the fullness of his heart pour forth his deepest thoughts and emotions. So in his later years he never tried to be anything else than himself, and w T as a master of assemblies. 120 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. But that which gave peculiar power to Bishop Joyce's utterance was the divine unction that so generally attended it. As Dr. C. B. Mitchell said, in the article above quoted, "a divine unction glorified all his other natural and acquired gifts of speech, and compelled even ungodly men to testify that they had never been so moved by preaching. It was this quality which overflowed into the heart of his interpreter when addressing vast multitudes of foreigners and heathen, and set on fire hearts hitherto stolid and unmovable. The unction of the sermon was felt, although no word was understood. When speaking through a sym- pathetic interpreter his soul flashed the lightning, and quickly the thunder-clap was heard from the lips of the interpreter. Soon all the audience was electric, and the Spirit of God made quick en- trance into the hearts thus strangely opened." At the Conferences presided over by him it was the rule that displays of unusual power ac- companied his preaching. Unusual, that is, as compared with the pulpit discourse of preachers in general. Always some persons expressed a pur- pose to live a new life, and the preachers and the Church members were quickened. Frequently a tide of conviction and feeling was aroused that would result before midnight in the conversion of a score or more souls. At Stroudsburg, Pennsyl- As a Preacher. 121 vania, at the Philadelphia Conference ; at Chicago, at the Rock River Conference; at Huntington, at the North Indiana Conference, there were upwards of one hundred conversions on Conference Sun- day. Doubtless there were other Conferences where the work was equally great. But of these we know. Audiences were deeply affected under his preaching, many persons weeping, some shouting aloud, and others by glowing faces testifying the gladness of their hearts. The newspapers all over the country unite in ascribing remarkable immediate results to his preaching. Whether at camp-meetings or Con- ferences or Church celebrations the testimony is all to the effect that the audiences were deeply moved. After making a due deduction for the adulatory tone which the newspapers generally adopt in commenting on the utterances of notables, there remains a large and reliable residuum of testimony to Bishop Joyce's power over popular assemblies. More frequently than to any other orator do they compare him to Bishop Simpson. The California Christian Advocate says of his addresses at the Southern California Conference in 1902: "The addresses and sermons of Bishop Joyce have been received with the highest satisfaction. 1-2 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. The people have been moved to the depths of their soul. He has the happy faculty of combining his argument with a spirit of glowing evangel- ism. Bishop Joyce's sermons take hold upon the conscience. He is entirely unconventional. He does not preach to please the fancy but to move the heart. He is tactful. He defends the Scrip- tures against the attacks of radical criticism by I exalting the Scriptures above criticism. His plea for a supernatural gospel, in his address to the I class for admission, was a masterful answer to the superficial rationalism of our day. He has cap- tured all hearts." At the Ohio Conference of 1900, held at Galli- polis, some persons who had heard Bishop Simp- son forty years before on a like occasion were present, and heard Bishop Joyce on Conference Sunday, according to a report published in the Western Christian Advocate. These declared that Bishop Joyce's sermon "was not inferior to that great effort in any respect. One of the elderly brethren said it was the greatest sermon ever de- livered before the Ohio Conference in his time. Should the Ohio Conference be held in Galli- polis forty years hence, no doubt reference will be made to the wonderful sermon of Bishop Joyce." A San Francisco daily, commenting on the sermon before the International Epworth League As a P readier. 123 Convention which Bishop Joyce preached in that city, says : "For two hours Bishop Joyce kept eight thou- Bi (1 people in their seats, quiet, intent on his words. For two hours he moved his hearers at his will. He chatted with them, he joked with them, lie impelled them, he moved them from laughter to tears, and from tears to loud 'Aniens.' " Bishop Berry, speaking of his colleague's achievements as a preacher, says: "The experience which stands out most promi- nently in my memory was the remarkable Sunday of the Rock River Conference, at Dixon, some eleven or twelve years ago. The bishop was then in the zenith of his power. The earlier part of the session had been marked by singular spirit- uality. The tide rose steadily day by day. When Sunday came, expectation was on tiptoe. "Bishop Joyce's fame as a preacher and an evangelist brought to Dixon a multitude from the region round about. At an early hour on Sunday morning the church was packed with eager peo- ple. I secured a seat in a remote part of the gal- lery of the lecture-room, and was glad to get that. The love-feast was a love-feast indeed. The meeting caught fire with the first song. Then song followed testimony and testimony song, while waves of emotion swept through the church. Bishop Joyce was there, drinking in the tonic of the meeting. Perhaps that would not be a good 124 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. preparation for preaching to some preachers, but it set the bishop's brain and soul on fire, and made the sermon which followed a possibility. "There was only a little space between the close of the love-feast and the announcement of the text. When the preacher stood up, he faced an eager, praying throng. 'Launch out into the deep' was the text — a text upon which he so often discoursed. I doubt whether in all his ministry he ever preached with mightier effect. For a few minutes he spoke moderately, as was his wont. Then his words came quick and hot. Soon his utterance was volcanic. Twice did he reach a cli- max I have never heard him equal. In dramatic vividness and emotional power they were tremen- dous. Preachers and people were swayed as the forest is swayed by the storm. We were melted and aroused, and the shouts of joy did not seem at all out of place. The power of the sermon was best shown in the bishop's exhortation and invi- tation. What an invitation to backsliders and un- repentant sinners! How it gripped the conscience and forced decision! No one was surprised that there were seekers that morning, or that the revival swept with irresistible force through the remain- ing services of the day and on up to midnight. I found my way to the altar with many other eager souls at night, and the impression of that hour has never been effaced. Inspired by the bishop's burning words, ministers went out into the congregation to plead with the unsaved, and Christian people, with tears streaming from their eyes, brought their unconverted friends to Christ. As a Preacher. 125 There was joy among the angels that night. The good news which went up from Dixon set the heavenly bells a-ringing." A convincing proof of his pulpit power is the fact that many persons who had been preju- diced against him were completely captured when they heard him. At one of the New England Conferences, a lady of refinement was overheard saying on Satur- day: "I shall never like Bishop Joyce. He is too noisy — a typical Westerner." On Sunday the bishop preached for an hour and a half, and had the audiences completely in his power. The next morning the same lady was heard to say to a friend: "O, did you hear Bishop Joyce yesterday? I never heard such a sermon before. I wish he had never stopped." At the opening of the Philadelphia Confer- ence at Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, in 1901, Bishop Joyce made the opening prayer. It was a pe- tition of great solemnity and tenderness. Immedi- ately following was to have been the address of welcome on behalf of the city by Judge S , a prominent lawyer. When he was introduced he said with deep feeling that he had come prepared to give a formal address of welcome to the Con- ference, but that the prayer of the bishop had awakened memories and longings in his soul that 126 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. led him, instead of making the expected address, to ask the prayers of the Conference for his own soul. His remarks created a profound impression. The Spirit of God was poured out upon the peo- ple, and then and there a revival broke out which resulted not only in the blessing of this prominent lawyer, but which led to the conversion of over one hundred people by the following Sunday night. Perhaps the most remarkable fact of all was that he should have had such power in preaching through interpreters. In Korea and China he spent two years. All his preaching to the natives was done through interpreters. Yet hundreds were converted under his preaching. We have understood that nothing so much interested his colleagues of the Board of Bishops, in the report which he made to them on his return, as this fact. One of their number reports that body of devout men as profoundly moved by Bishop Joyce's de- scription of the conversions which thus took place. As for Bishop Joyce himself in making the report, the tears poured down his cheeks as he cried: "O brethren! Let us give the Holy Ghost a chance!" That is, trust the Holy Ghost to effect immediate results in the conversion of souls. When asked by an eminent Christian worker As a Preacher. 127 what he considered the secret of his power over audiences, he replied: "I have learned the secret of absolute dependence on the Holy Spirit." From all we know of the bishop's methods it is fair to infer that he meant that he prepared to preach as though there were no God, and then he trusted God as if he had not prepared at all. The greatest result of Bishop Joyce's preach- ing was not seen at the Conferences where he preached, but at the Conferences that followed. The new faith and courage that his words in- spired in the preachers was the most significant and important result of his Conference preaching. To send fifty or a hundred baffled and discour- aged men back to their work with a new sense of their mission and with a new grip on the re- alities of Christianity is a tremendous achieve- ment. Yet that is exactly the result of Bishop Joyce's ministry at every Annual Conference he held. He may not have been a great preacher according to the coldly classical standards of aca- demic critics. But if the preaching described in the Book of Acts was great preaching, then Bishop Joyce's preaching was great. When some leaders of the Church speak at our Conferences we preachers go away praising the eloquence of the speaker, or otherwise. When 128 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. others speak we go away asking God to make us truer men, and loving Jesus Christ with a new passion of devotion. And Bishop Joyce always had this effect upon preachers. They went away saying, not "What an orator is Demosthenes !" but "Lead us against Philip!" CHAPTER XII. Bishop Joyce and Foreign Missions. A METHODIST bishop has extraordinary opportunities to become acquainted with the missionary work of the Church. It is doubtful if any other class of men comes into contact with so many different nationalities, and is able to judge from close observation of the conditions existing in the various countries of the earth. Our State Department at Washington might do well to keep this fact in mind. In 1892 Bishop Joyce presided over the five Conferences in Europe. In 1894 he had epis- copal supervision of our work in Mexico, involv- ing a stay of some length there. In 1896 he had charge of our Conferences in Japan, China, and Korea. He spent two years in these countries. He presided twice over each of the Conferences and Missions in those three countries, returning to the United States in 1898 by way of India and Malaysia. In 1903, and again in 1904, he had supervision of our work in South America, making two episcopal tours through that continent. 9 129 130 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. On his return from the Orient he repeatedly declared that if he were a young man he would east his lot as a Christian worker among China's millions. The opportunity there presented for great results strongly appealed to him. This love of missions was strong in him when he was a pastor. It became a passion with him as his episcopal visits to the mission fields brought to him a wider understanding of the needs and opportunities of those fields. When he was a pastor in Lafayette, Indiana, his interest in missions won him the affectionate admiration of the women of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society in Indiana. A visiting speaker, Mrs. Jennie Fowler Willing, of Chicago, describes in the Northwestern Christian Advocate a scene in which his interest in missions showed itself, as follows : "The Indiana State Woman's Foreign Mis- sionary Society was in session in his Church in Lafayette. We held our anniversary on Sunday evening. All the Methodist Churches in the city closed their services to come and bid the women God-speed in their work. Just before starting for the Church that evening I said to Miss Sample, the State corresponding secretary, 'Katie, we ought to get a thousand dollars from that congre- gation to-night. Dare we ask the Lord to make them give it?' " 'Indeed we dare,' was the bright reply. 'He can do it easily enough.' Bishop Joyce and Foreign Missions. 131 "So hand in hand we went into the Presence and asked our Father for the thousand dollars. When we met Dr. Joyce in his study I told him what we had asked for. " 'I 'm as sorry as I can be,' he replied, 'but you can't get any money to-night. The other pastors said they 'd give up their services on con- dition that no money was asked for.' " 'Never mind, Katie,' I whispered aside to my friend, 'we asked for a thousand dollars. Let us hold steady for it.' "So strong was her faith, and so warm her zeal for the work, that I think if we had prayed as Edward Payson said he dared do — asking the Lord for a couple of planets for his private ac- commodation — she would have looked for them to come sailing along. "I spoke first, and while Miss Sample was talking, Dr. Joyce leaned over toward me behind her and whispered, 'We '11 make an appeal for help, Official Board or no Official Board; and you 've got to do it.' " 'O, no, Doctor, I can't. I never did such a thing in my life. I have neither the courage nor the skill. And besides, if we offend your Official Board we '11 lose heavily in the long run.' "He made no reply, but when Miss Sample had finished her address he rose and said in substance, 'Mrs. Willing has a matter to present to winch I know you will gladly respond.' "There I was. Retreat was impossible, so with a sharp, quick telegram to the skies for help I went at it, explaining the conditions of our 'sacrifice life memberships,' and asking the people 132 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. to take them. In a few minutes twenty were pledged. That would bring us in four hundred dollars, for they were a class of people who do not easily forget their promises. By that time we were quite as free from care about Official Boards, inexperience, and awkwardness as we were about where the remaining six hundred was to come from. "The next morning Dr. Joyce came into our convention, and when opportunity was given he said: 'I have a serious accusation to bring against Mrs. Willing. She took some life memberships last evening and stopped just when her work had fairly begun. That 's no way to do with a con- gregation in the condition that that one was in.' " 'Well, Doctor,' I replied, 'I plead guiHy, and I move that you be requested to finish the work in which I failed.' "There was plenty of assenting applause, and he began at once. Two or three times we went on our knees to thank God for what He had done for us, and at each time except the last as soon as we were quiet from our crying for joy he said, 'That 's all right. You can't be too thankful to the Lord ; but I 'm not through yet.' "At the end of an hour of such enthusiasm as burned into the hearts of those Indiana women the conviction that heathen women must be saved, at no matter what cost to us, we found that we had the thousand dollars pledged, with a good sum thrown in for shrinkage, beside the support of sev- eral orphans. "That was a great deal of money for those days, and we all went home from that mount of Bishop Joyce and Foreign Missions. 133 blessing, feeling that it was a love gift from Him who is the 'same yesterday, to-day, and forever.' " In his episcopal supervision of the foreign work Bishop Joyce showed the same painstaking care and unflagging energy that had character- ized him in the pastorate. Every detail of the work, the theological schools, the Book Concerns, the Church papers, the Epworth Leagues, the Sunday-schools, all these as well as the stationing of preachers and the reports from the Churches, received the bishop's careful scrutiny. Imagine him, for instance, having a few days to spare before meeting the Norway Conference, taking a trip up the coast for a hundred miles to visit every town that had a Methodist Church! In all his foreign Conferences, as well as in those at home, he started the revival fire. His first Missionary Conference was at Lausanne, Switzer- land. At the close of his sermon before that Con- ference Bishop Joyce did not give an invitation to seekers. This was out of deference to the judg- ment of colleagues in the Episcopal Board, who had told him that he could not secure immediate results in preaching through an interpreter. At the close of his sermon, however, a Swiss stopped him in the aisle and said, "Please tell me how to be saved." Gladly Bishop Joyce and the pastor tarried behind with the inquirer, and the man was 134 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. happily converted. This incident Bishop Joyce took as God's rebuke to him for his lack of faith, and thereafter he made his usual appeal for im- mediate decision. At Frank fort-on-the-Main, in Germany, and at Svendborg, Denmark, there were a number of conversions. A score or more were converted at Christiania at the session of the Conference there. At Frederickschald, Sweden, he held three serv- ices, and many conversions resulted. At Goten- berg, Sweden, fifty people came forward seeking pardon at the night service, at the session of the Sweden Conference. At Stockholm, where he or- ganized and set off from the Norway Conference the new Finland-St. Petersburg Mission, sixty-five persons sought Christ on Conference Sunday. And so he spread the flame through Italy and Switzerland. The secretary of the Conference in Germany wrote of the 1892 session at Frankfort: "The proceedings were marked by a kind and brotherly spirit that prevailed until the close of the session. I am sure that the beloved president of the Conference has done very much to keep all brethren in a good temper, and it was by no means an act of formality when the Conference in a series of resolutions expressed its heartiest thanks to Bishop Joyce for his wise and fatherly counsels, his careful direction of the business of the Con- Bishop Joyce and Foreign Missions. 135 ference, his heart-stirring addresses, his inspiring sermon, and his blessed co-operation in the divine services, and that it was its desire to see him again as president of the Conference in not too distant a future. The Bishop has won all hearts." It was the same in the more northerly Confer- ences of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. It is recorded: "These were all scenes of revival power under the earnest ministrations of the good bishop, who will be held in loving remembrance throughout Scandinavia." And even in Bulgaria, the "burnt district" of Christendom, where forty accessions in a year for the entire mission field was the banner achieve- ment up to the time of his visit, twelve persons were converted under his preaching on Conference Sunday, most of them being young men. On visiting Bulgaria he had to stay in quaran- tine for a short time. His description of meeting the brethren in that strange land reminds us of St. Paul's meeting the brethren from Rome at the "Three Taverns:" "To go from Stockholm to Bulgaria, by the only route left open to us, and comparatively free from quarantine necessitated a journey of one thousand eight hundred and seventy-seven miles. When we reached Vienna, we found that low water and prospective quarantine forbade our going to Sistov by steamer, on the Danube, so 136 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. we went on the 'Orient Express, 5 but when we reached Rustchuk we found ourselves in quaran- tine to stay twenty-four hours. But the time passed, and at an early hour in the morning we took steamer for a forty-mile ride up the Danube to Sistov, which we reached in good season, and opened the Conference on time. "I think the presence and cheerful words of friends were never more appreciated, or did us more good, than did the coming to us of Rev. George S. Davis, our superintendent in Bulgaria, and Rev. T. Constantine, our pastor at Rust- chuk, about the middle of the day of our stay in quarantine. We had never met before, and ex- cept in a very general way we were strangers to each other. But we were Methodist preachers, and there was a heart relation between us ; and as soon as they heard that we were in the quaran- tine station they came to us at once — that is, they came as near as they were allowed to approach, which was within one hundred feet of the place where we were staying — and there we stood that distance apart and talked. Of course, we could not shake hands, except in our hearts, and that we did most heartily, I assure you. How their words cheered us, helped us! They brought us a good dinner — had to put it on the ground, one hundred feet away — the guard brought it to us, then in the shade of the building where we were staying, on a little table which the guard had furnished my wife spread out that dinner. A physician from The Hague, Holland, who was also brought into quarantine with us, we asked to share our dinner with us. We three gathered about Bishop Joyce and Foreign Missions. 137 the little table; we bowed our heads, and with full hearts thanked God for food, for friends, and for the heart-ties of Methodist preachers. We found this physician to be an earnest Christian, a well educated and thorough gentleman; and his genial and happy spirit helped us greatly in passing through the twenty-four hours of quarantine. We shall never forget him." "A man earnestly seeking Christ traveled over one hundred miles to hear Bishop Joyce preach at the session of the Bulgaria Mission. He was hap- pily converted, and in his gratitude sincerely pro- posed that when the bishop reached his city he would draw him through the streets with six of the large buffaloes found there. The matter was compromised by the bishop taking supper with him, and at the table with the bishop was the presiding elder and both the old and the new pas- tor, and numerous other friends." Bishop Joyce made the episcopal visitation to Mexico, and presided at the Annual Conference in January, 1895. Dr. John W. Butler writes that the bishop gave them the motto, "A thou- sand souls for Christ in 1895." "The workers in this city caught the inspiration, and have done the best work of their lives this year. Nine hun- dred and eight accessions in ten months is a record unheard of before in any one place in the Mis- sion." This impulse to soul-winning, which he com- municated to the preachers everywhere he went, 138 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. was the most valuable feature of his valuable work. In it he most resembled his Master, who said: "I have sent you forth to reap . . . that he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together." During his two years of supervision in China Bishop Joyce visited every part of the field, pene- trating into the interior of China further than any other bishop had ever done, and holding the West China Mission Conference. To reach Chentu, in West China, the furthest point reached by him, he went by steamer from Shanghai one thousand miles up the river, then five hundred miles further by house boat, and the last three hundred miles by chair, carried by coolies. Mrs. Joyce accompanied him all the way except the last three hundred miles. She staid with the missionaries at Chungking, while he made the chair trip on to Chentu. In China many missionaries said repeatedly to Bishop Joyce that he could not expect immedi- ate results in preaching such as could be secured in preaching to audiences reared in Christian lands. J They said it required years of instruction before the people could understand the plan of salvation. But Bishop Joyce believed that immediate results could be secured even in preaching to the raw pagans, and his sermons usually were planned with the view of securing the immediate conversion of Bishop Joyce and Foreign Missions. 139 his hearers. The results abundantly justified his view, for everywhere pagans were converted under his preaching. This unprecedented fact pro- foundly moved his colleagues of the Board of Bishops, when reported to them on Bishop Joyce's return. And it was this fact — the willingness of the Divine Spirit to seal the preaching of the Word to the immediate conversion of pagans, that led Bishop Joyce, in concluding his report to his colleagues, to cry out with streaming eyes, "O brethren! let us give the Holy Ghost a chance!" In the Christian Advocate the Rev. Don W. Nichols wrote from Kiukiang, China, as follows: "The recent session of our Conference was the most blessed in the history of the Mission. The visitation of Bishop Joyce has been a great bless- ing to every member of the Mission. It was a re- vival Conference in every sense of the word from beginning to end. The power and influence of the Holy Spirit were graciously manifested. The Bible readings and addresses of the bishop were a source of great profit to every one. Sunday was a day never to be forgotten by those present. It was a great day in the Israel of God in Central China. The love-feast began at nine o'clock, con- ducted by C. F. Kupf er ; sixty people gave ringing testimonies to the power of Jesus to save. These testimonies were from the old man of seventy-five down to the little girl of ten years. The Bishop's morning sermon through an interpreter was one 140 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. full of blessing and comfort to all. A wave of salvation moved every heart; some were moved to tears of joy, while others shouted, 'Hallelujah!' Fully a dozen persons presented themselves at the altar to seek their souls' salvation. At 2.30 an Epworth League rally was held, the bishop and members of the Mission delivering addresses; at 4.30 the bishop preached to the foreign com- munity a sermon that made a profound impres- sion on the minds of all present. At 7.30 the writer preached and conducted a revival service. Some thirty persons came to the altar — the mourn- ers'-bench — to seek salvation. The Holy Ghost came upon every believing heart. The voice of prayer could be heard all over the house, three and four praying at the same time, while souls were being converted and praising God. On Mon- day night the writer conducted another revival service. Again the altar was crowded with seek- ers; men, women, and children were converted, and more than thirty united with the Church. The battle cry is, 'A thousand souls for Christ in Cen- tral China during this Conference 3 r ear.' The visitation of Bishop Joyce has given the greatest satisfaction, and we rejoice that he is to be with us again next year. We are sure that the results will prove the wisdom of the plan of having the bishop remain two consecutive years in charge of the same field." The Rev. J. J. Banbury wrote from Kiukiang, China : "Bishop Joyce's presence among us was truly a benediction. Our meeting was marked by an Bishop Joyce and Foreign Missions. 141 old-fashioned revival spirit, and some twenty of the natives have professed conversion. At the reg- ular prayer-meeting last evening about forty per- sons testified to the power of Christ to save and sanctify. It was a glorious and blessed sight. We believe that the time for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in much power has arrived, and are expecting to embrace the opportunity and bring many to Christ." A presiding elder wrote concerning the Hing- hua Conference: "Bishop Joyce made every session a season of spiritual blessing and profitable instruction, as well as of inspiration. The Sabbath will indeed live in history. The power of God came down upon preacher and people." The bishop himself said: "Sunday, November 22d, at Foochow, and Sun- day, November 29th, at Hinghua, were two of the most wonderful Sundays I have ever had in all my life. I have seen some gracious and marvel- ous results on Conference Sundays, but these two Sundays went beyond anything I have ever seen anywhere. The blessed, old-fashioned Gospel, under the blessing of the Holy Spirit, does pro- duce old-fashioned revivals, old-fashioned conver- sions, and old-fashioned victories." In a letter to Dr. R. J. Cooke, an intimate friend, Bishop Joyce writes: "It is a sight never to be forgotten and one that fills the soui with joy to see heathen men 142 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. and women come forward and kneel down to be prayed for, and give themselves to Christ as the Savior of their souls; and then to see how the native Christians get down by them and instruct them, and tell them how to believe, that they may receive the pardon of their sins and the witness of the Holy Spirit. It is a great joy to know — to see the demonstration of it before your own eyes — that the dear old Gospel preached in the old-fashioned way will be attended by the Holy Spirit's blessed influence all around, and all over this world. . . . Paul was right. 'It is the power of God unto salvation' in all parts of the world and among all people." While on board a vessel in Foochow Harbor Bishop Joyce fell through a hatchway and was severely injured. For some days he was doubtful as to whether he would recover. To his wife he said: "Nothing would suit me better than to die here and be buried by the side of Bishop Wiley." Bishop Wiley, one of his dearest friends, died at Foochow in 1884, and was buried in the English cemetery in Foochow. But Bishop Joyce was not to finish his life work in Asia, but in his own land. It is interesting to note that among the many resolutions of thanks and appreciation passed by the Conferences everywhere over which he pre- sided, Bishop Joyce seems to have cherished with peculiar tenderness the many tributes from the Conferences in foreign lands. Bishop Joyce and Foreign Missions. 1^3 After their return from China Bishop and Mrs. Joyce had in their home several years two Chinese girls who have prepared themselves for work among their own people under their watchful and loving care. It is not many people who are so profoundly interested in the extension of the Re- deemer's kingdom as that they will allow the in- vasion of their home for years together by stran- gers to further that end. Yet this Bishop and Mrs. Joyce did. It speaks volumes not only for his own, but his companion's devotion to the cause of missions. Mrs. Annie E. Smiley wrote in the Zion's Herald of a little incident at the International Ep worth League Convention at Detroit in 1903, as follows: "In reading Bishop Berry's tribute to Bishop Joyce in a recent number of the Epworth Herald, it recalled an utterance of Bishop Joyce at a missionary rally at the Detroit Epworth League Convention two years ago. "A young man who was going out as a foreign missionary had been introduced to the convention, and had made a few remarks. Following him came his father, a Methodist preacher, who said a few brave words in a voice which trembled. Every heart was moved, and when Bishop Joyce, who was presiding at the meeting, arose there was per- fect silence in the crowded room. 'I want to say,' Bishop Joyce began, 'that if I was as young as 144: Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. our brother here, and if I was of the same mind that I am this morning, not three days would pass before I offered myself to go as a foreign mis- sionary.' Then, after a pause, he said with great feeling: 'When the waking angel knocks at the door of my dusty bedchamber, what does it matter whether I am lying in this country, or beside Bishop Wiley in China?' "A quick rush of tears blotted out the in- spired face of our beloved Bishop from my eyes, but I shall always remember him as he stood and uttered these words which expressed his heart- yearning for the salvation of the whole wide world." In his first visit to South America, for which he sailed late in 1902, Bishop Joyce began his work on the west coast. He visited our work in Chile, preaching and visiting the most important centers of our mission work, and holding the Andes Conference. From Santiago, Chile, he proceeded by train and stage over the Andes Mountains to Mendoza, and to Buenos Ayres in Argentina. De- scribing this trip Bishop Joyce wrote: "We left Santiago by train late in the after- noon, and at ten o'clock that night we reached Los Andes, a town a little way up the mountain. We stayed there that night, leaving next morning early, on a narrow gauge road, for a run of eight- een miles to Saltos, which is as far up the mountain as the road is yet finished on the Chilean side. Bishop Joyce and Foreign Missions. 145 "Here the company furnishes coaches for the passengers, or horses and mules for those who pre- fer that sort of transportation over the mountains. All the heavy baggage is strapped to the backs of mules. Sixty-six people were to be taken across the range, and only ten of the entire number pre- ferred the horseback transportation, all the rest chose the coaches, myself and wife among the num- ber. The smaller coaches carry four persons each, the larger ones six each. There are four horses to each coach, hitched abreast. Such driving as those Chilean fellows do, we have not found anywhere else in the world. Hooting, yelling, slashing, whipping, away they go. A hard place in the road is reached — the horses get up a strike, balk, won't go — men get out, drivers slash and yell, men lift and push at the wheels. Suddenly the horses dash away on the double quick, and we get back into the coach at pretty much the same rate of speed. "From Saltos, on the Chilean side of the moun- tain, to Los Cuevas on the Argentine side, the distance is forty miles. This is the gap between the two points of the railroad — and which we hope will be filled up by the completed road when we come this way again a year from this time. We left Saltos at 8.30 in the morning, and reached Juncal at 11.30, where we got breakfast. After this, with fresh horses and a new driver we began the more decided ascent of the mountain, and under the pressing methods of the drivers, and taking advantage of every little bit of level road, we climbed toward the summit of the great range. The road is like a huge stairway, only we do not 10 146 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. climb by stepping from one step to the other — we travel the steps lengthwise, at each end there is a curve around which the horses are driven — many times if there is a half a chance, the driver makes the curve on a good sweeping gallop. Every curve lifts us a little higher up the mountain. Every little while we change horses. Late in the afternoon we reach the great summit, and find we are at an elevation of twelve thousand seven hundred feet. The baggage train crosses at a point not far from thirteen thousand five hundred feet. On the summit we rest awhile, and feast our eyes and hearts on the indescribable beauty, maj- esty, and glory of this never to be forgotten scene, with the words upon our lips and the feeling in our souls, "'Great and marvelous are the works of the infinite and eternal God V "We begin the descent on the Argentine side of the great mountain. We have the sensations of unusual exultation — the horse and drivers seem to share the great joy with us, and away we go down old Andes' winding way, and in a few min- utes we have dropped three thousand feet down the great mountain side. On we go until, near six o'clock in the evening, we reach Los Cuevas, the mountain town to which on the Argentine side the new railroad is finished. Between 8.30 in the morning and six in the evening we have traveled forty miles in these mountain coaches. "We are glad to see the railway train, we are soon aboard and on our way of a few miles run to Puerto del Inca, where we spend the night in Bishop Joyce and Foreign Missions. 147 a comfortable hotel. Next Monday at seven we leave for Mendoza. Soon after leaving Inca we have the wonderful good fortune to get a good view of the highest peak in the Andes range, known as the Aconcaqua. When Humboldt visited South America he supposed he had settled it that Chim- borazo was the highest point in the Andes range, but it is now known that in height Aconcaqua sur- passes Chimborazo. "We reach Mendoza at two o'clock in the after- noon, and friends meet us at the depot. We re- main in this city a few days to inspect the work of the Church and to preach for the English and Spanish congregations. This is the great grape region of all this country, and the fruit is almost as delicious in taste as the grapes that grow on the slopes of Vesuvius. "The Methodist Conference met in the city of Rosario, and Sunday night a great audience was present. During the services we learned that people of nine nationalities were present; but counting England and the United States as one, so far as language was concerned, we had eight languages in the congregation. At the close of the services I had the people sing the doxology, every man in his native language, and it was sung in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Dutch, Welsh, and Flemish. "Dr. J. F. Thompson preached on 'Giving the heart to God.' At the close of his sermon, an in- vitation was given for those to come forward who would now give their hearts to God. In a few minutes thirty-four persons were kneeling at the chancel rail. Several of them were converted, and 14:8 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. gave testimony to that fact. Among the number was a son of the pastor. The entire audience was wonderfully moved. Not more than half the peo- ple who wanted to hear the sermon and enjoy the services were able to get into the building. In the memory of all who were present the scene will live forever. "The Sunday before the meeting of the An- nual Conference I preached twice, and delivered two addresses in Buenos Ayres. Dr. A. W. Green- man, the presiding elder of the Buenos Ayres Dis- trict, was my interpreter at three of these serv- ices — two in Spanish and one in Italian. He did his work well, and when the last service. for the day closed he was about as weary as I was. But we both felt the day had been a good one for Christ's cause, and we specially felt that the fourth service was a helpful one. The official members of the Church and many others came forward, and prayed for the enriching of their spiritual life, and for such a spiritual equipment as they needed for the right sort of work during the Conference year upon which they were soon to enter. This service was in the Second Spanish Church, one of the strongest Spanish Churches we have in the city. "We spent March 26th, 27th, and part of 28th in the city of Montevideo, looking into the work of our schools and Churches, preaching for our English and Spanish congregations, and lay- ing the corner-stone of our new church. "The laying of the corner-stone was an occa- sion of much importance to our cause in this cap- ital city of Uruguay. Careful preparation had been made for the services by Dr. Craver, the pre- Bishop Joyce and Foreign Missions. 149 siding elder; the pastor, Rev. George P. Howard, and the lay members of the committee. Invitations had been sent to the president of the republic, the members of the cabinet, members of the supreme court, members of the city government, business and professional men, and many others, including every class of citizens. "In the evening I preached to our Spanish con- gregation. The church was crowded. Dr. S. P. Graver was my interpreter. The Holy Spirit was manifestly present. At the close of the sermon the official members of both the English and the Spanish Churches came forward seeking the en- riching of their spiritual experience and life, and such equipment for their work for the year they were then entering upon, as only the Holy Spirit could give. After this the invitation was given to those who wanted to seek the Lord in the par- don of their sins, and receive the witness of the Holy Spirit to that great fact, and more than thirty persons accepted the invitation." Of his homeward journey he wrote as fol- lows: "At Rio de Janeiro, the capital of the republic of Brazil, where we had to change steamers, we were met, on the arrival of our steamer, by Brothers Tucker, Kennedy, and Parker of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and taken to the de- lightful home of Brother Tucker. To him and his good wife, and to Brothers Kennedy and Parker, we are indebted for charming Christian hospitality during the day we were in that great city of six 150 Life of Isaac Wilson Jcryce. hundred thousand people. It gave us joy to meet these brethren, and we rejoiced over the success God is steadily giving them in the city and in the republic, and the growing victories the Lord of the harvest is enabling them to win." Early in 1904 Bishop Joyce made his second visitation to the South American Conferences. This time he began on the Atlantic seaboard, and worked his way through the continent to Chile. After completing his work in the Andes region he sailed for California, reaching Los Angeles in time for the General Conference, which met there in May. CHAPTER XIII. His Missionary Tours Through Asia. B ISHOP JOYCE made the following re- port to the Board of Bishops of his mis- sionary administration in Asia: "I regard it as one of the great opportunities of my life that came to me in my appointment to visit our missions in Eastern Asia, and to remain in these fields two years, or until I had made two tours through the three countries and presided twice at all the Conferences and annual meetings of the missions. "I left the United States in the month of June, 1896, and reached Yokohama the 5th of July. I was met at my steamer by missionaries, native preachers, and others, and their hearty greeting gave a sense of home feeling at once, which grew in increasing delights as the days came and went. Between landing and the meeting of the Confer- ences the days were spent in visiting our work in and about Yokohama, meeting friends, delivering addresses, preaching in the churches, and in vari- ous other ways becoming acquainted with the field and our work. "Japan is a beautiful country, and has many attractions wholly peculiar to itself. Beginning 151 1513 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. in the extreme south with the Loochoo Islands and going to the extreme north to the Hokaido, the distance is three thousand miles. The average width of the country is perhaps less than two hun- dred miles. There are crowded into this small space forty -three millions of people. "I am glad to say that I have been in every place in the Empire of Japan where we have a missionary stationed, and in each place have preached and conducted other services. I have also been in several places where we have no mis- sionary stationed, but where we have native preach- ers or teachers. The sessions of the Conferences, both in 1896 and 1897, were interesting occasions, showing not only the thorough work that had been done by our missionaries in the past, but also the conscientious work that our present force is seek- ing to continue in every part of the field. The work of the sessions also showed the intelligent devotion and consecration of our native preachers and helpers, and their love for the Church that had brought them so many advantages, had en- riched them with so many blessings and was prov- ing to be so helpful to them in their individual as well as in their home lives and in the general good of their country. The testimonies given in the Conference love-feasts were revelations of rich experiences quite in keeping with the testimonies we hear at home on such occasions. In the debates during the sessions the native preachers showed an intelligent comprehension of all subjects relating to the Church, her breadth of purpose and her Missionary Tours Through Asia. 153 determination to do her utmost not only in bring- ing Japan but all the world to a true knowledge of God and of His revelation to men. Such cities as Sappora, Hakodate, Hirosaki, Sendai, Yoko- hama, Tokyo, Nagoya, Kioto, Kobe, Nagasaki, Kumamoto, and Kagoshima, as well as almost in- numerable towns and villages, show the inviting wealth and greatness of opportunity to the Church, not only to continue her work, but to increase her diligence and her giving both of means and work- ers to the ultimate winning of these wonderful Japanese peoples to a loyal belief in God and in His Son Jesus Christ and in the Holy Ghost. "If the Church knew this field as well and thoroughly as the missionaries know it and those who have visited it, it would be anxious to send forward all needed supplies in means and workers and meet every spiritual demand of the country. "We go from Japan to Korea. In doing so we go by steamer from Yokohama to Nagasaki, a distance of eight hundred miles. At Nagasaki we transfer to a smaller steamer for Chemulpo. On our way we touch at Fusan in Korea, where the ships touch in going to and returning from Vladivostok. From Fusan we go around the point of the island and land at Chemulpo. We tarry for a day and night in Chemulpo inspecting our work, which is in charge of C. H. Jones. Hotel accommodations in the town are very good and comfortable, and we enjoy our stay and are pleased 154 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. with the growth, aggressiveness, thoroughness, and outlook of our work. "From Chemulpo we go up the Han River sixty-two miles in a little steamer, and then are carried across the country in a chair to Seoul, the capital of Korea. In Seoul we have the Paichai college, also a printing-press, bookstore, hospital, and evangelistic work. The Woman's Foreign Missionary Society has a school, hospital, dispen- sary, and evangelistic work. "Korea is a little over seven hundred miles in length and a little less than two hundred and fifty miles average in width, and in this small area are crowded twelve millions of people. The country has never been overrun by the Buddhist priesthood and its teachings to the degree and extent that Japan and China have been. What may be called the 'lower classes' are to a degree believers in Buddhism. What are called the 'educated classes' are influenced by the teachings of Confucius. The people, however, are easy to reach, and they are ever ready to listen to the preaching of the Gospel. Within the last four years there has been a won- derful turning of the people in all parts of the country to the teachings of the New Testament and the ministrations of the missionaries in chapels, villages, and everywhere else that the missionary stops to give a message to the multitude. Ap- parently all Korea is ready to give such attention to the Gospel of Jesus Christ as would indicate the readiness of that country to believe in the doctrines and teachings of the Christian religion. Missionary Tours Through Asia. 155 If all the missions now at work in that country could be re-enforced to the extent of the needs now manifest in the field with means and workers, it is the conviction of those best informed that in a period of ten or fifteen years the whole country would be practically Christian. A visit to Korea and its peoples is surely a great event in one's life. I am glad I was favored with the privilege of twice visiting the country. I am glad also that on one of my visits I had the honor of an in- terview with the king, and, in response to some kind things he said of our missionaries, of Amer- icans, and of the United States, I had the oppor- tunit3 r to thank him for the kindly services he and other Koreans in official positions had rendered our school and other forms of our work. "The annual sessions of the mission were not the only occasions of interest, but to me were to an unusual degree full of interest and profit. I not only preached to our native converts, which of course had to be done through an interpreter, but I preached to the English-speaking people on several Sunday afternoons in our college chapel. One afternoon I had an audience of forty people who could speak English. In that congregation of only forty persons there were nine nationalities. This shows the attention that little Korea is at- tracting among the nations of the world, for the representatives of these nine nationalities were not tourists, but were residents of the city and repre- sented in some capacity the interests of their na- tions. We are building a church not far from the king's palace, a commodious, well appointed, brick church that will seat one thousand people. When 156 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. I left Korea the building had not cost up to that date any of our societies a dollar, the expense had been provided for by the missionaries subscribing and paying the money out of their salaries, and by contributions of the native Christians. They ought to have help, because the enterprise is a burden greater than the financial strength of the missionaries and native Christians can carry. "The native Christians do not worship to- gether in Korea as we do in America. The Church is divided into two parts, one for men and one for women, and the pulpit is placed so that the minister can see easily both parts of the congre- gation. The men sit on one side of a wall or curtain, and the women on the other. They sit on the floor on bamboo mats, and all join in the singing and in every other part of the worship, such as the Lord's Prayer, Apostles' Creed, and the Ten Commandments. They give the most earnest attention, and no matter how long you preach they manifest not the slightest sign of weariness or lack of interest. I shall always retain an exceedingly happy memory of the love-feasts I attended with these native converts. Their won- derful testimonies, their clear statements of the pardoning power of Jesus Christ, of the comforts derived from the presence and guidance of the Holy Ghost, the expression of their unbounded faith in the promises of God, their great love for our Heavenly Father, and also their love for the Church and the missionaries, all combined, made an impression on my mind that I will carry with me all my life. I know of no mission field anywhere that has more promise in it, nor one that seems Missionary Tours Through 'Asia. 157 so near to a complete surrender to Jesus Christ and all that implies, than this strange and inter- esting Korean field. All that is needed, in my judgment, for a speedy and abiding conquest, is sufficient means and the needed number of workers. "We go from Korea to North China, touching at Chefoo, one of the important places of the China Inland Mission and also of the Presbyterian Mission. We land at Tientsin, where we have a Boys' Boarding and Day School, also two mis- sions, a street chapel, and three homes for mis- sionaries. The Woman's Foreign Missionary Soci- ety have a large and well furnished hospital for women and children. Our work here is on a good foundation, is well organized, well managed, and has a steady development. From Tientsin to Pekin, the way I had to go the first time, is very nearly one hundred and fifty miles. Pekin has a population in the neighborhood of one million people. It is a city full of interest to travelers. Being the capital of the empire, here are gathered the ministers of State representing all the coun- tries of the world that have commercial or other relations with China. Upon the streets as well as in social gatherings and Church services, you will meet people from almost every country of the world. Many missionary societies are represented in this great center, but so great are the needs and so varied the demands and so important the situation, that if all the missionary societies now at work in all China were to be represented in this great million population center, they would in no sense of the word crowd upon each other, nor be in each other's way, nor do other than help each 158 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. other in their great work of as speedily as possible impressing this vast multitude of people with the knowledge and importance of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. " "The North China Conference covers an im- mense territory, and the reports brought in by the missionaries and the native preachers and help- ers at both sessions of the Conference, show the hold that our work has upon the population, and also the thoroughness with which all our helpers do their workT Just before the session opened in September, 1896, there was a convention of the Christian workers in all North China, held in the city under the general direction of John R. Mott and D. Willard Lyon, who were making a tour of the world in the interests of the College Forward Movement on behalf of Missions. I had the honor of opening the convention with an address, Dr. Sheffield, the president of the college at Tung Chow, being my interpreter. The convention was in session several days, and was attended with great blessings and was of very great benefit to the more than two hundred workers that were present from almost every part of North China. Following this convention the North China Con- ference convened in the city in our new church. We had the usual order of Conference, beginning in the morning at half-past eight o'clock. The first half hour was prayer-meeting, and from nine to twelve, Conference business. From two to four, committee meetings, and from five to six, and from seven to eight Bible readings or sermons and re- vival services. This was about the usual order at Missionary Tours Through Asia. 159 most of the sessions of the Conferences and annual meetings in China. "J. H. Pyke, W. T. Hobart, and W. F. Walker were my interpreters from time to time. Brother Pyke is from Indiana, and Brother Hobart is the son of the well-known Dr. Chauncey Hobart, of Minnesota. The Conference business was con- ducted with as much order, thoughtfulness, and thoroughness as Conference work is usually done in the United States. The native brethren from time to time took part in the discussions, and showed in every way not only an interest, but an intelligent comprehension of the questions under discussion and the general work and aims of the Church. Several of the native members of the Conference are graduates of the Pekin University. They have had strong financial inducements of- fered them to enter government service, but with- out hesitation they declined these offers, entered the ministry, and are doing in all cases successful work as preachers of the Gospel, notwithstanding the salary we pay them is in some instances not over one-third of what they could have if they entered government service. The man Wang, who when a boy wheeled his mother in a wheelbarrow four hundred miles in order to have her instructed in the doctrines of the Gospel by our missionaries in Pekin, is a member of this North China Con- ference. A large, fine-looking man and a happy- hearted, successful worker in the Lord's vineyard. The native secretary of this Conference, Tejui, would attract attention anywhere. He is over six feet tall, has an intelligent face, conducts himself with great dignity, and has the love and confidence 160 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. of all his brethren. Indeed, the native preachers and workers are a body of fine-looking men, not only in the North China Conference, but in all the Conferences and Missions in the empire. "The influence and greatness of our work grew upon me rapidly as I went from place to place in different parts of China in the prosecution of my work. At different times in the North China Con- ference, as well as at all other sessions of the vari- ous Conferences, people were invited to come for- ward and kneel as penitents asking God to pardon their sins, and many came. So far as we could see they came intelligently, understanding why they came and why it was they could come. The native preachers, workers, and missionaries knelt by their side and instructed them, and many of them found Christ in the pardon of their sins, and manifested by word and act their great joy over their new- found experience. In studying the matter closely ;-and continuously from week to week as I went from Conference to Conference, I learned this, to me, very important truth: after you have ^ preached to the heathen mind long enough to get that mind to understand in outline the plan of redemption, the mind understanding who God is, what He has done for the human race; get them to understand that Jesus Christ the Son of God wants to save every man from sin, and that if men will be sorry for their sins and trust God in the name of Christ they will receive pardon for sins, md the Holy Spirit will bring to their hearts the testimony and evidence that God does forgive and las forgiven, and that the New Testament tells us all about the reasons why Jesus Christ came Missionary Tours Through Asia. 161 into the world ; because men are sinners, they will be lost if they are not saved, and explain how men came to be sinners; and with only that much knowledge invite them to come forward and kneel down and seek God, with plain, honest instruc- tion you can rely upon the Holy Spirit to do His work in their souls. In other words and briefer form, whenever a heathen mind gets a clear out- line idea of the plan of the atonement, invite him to act upon that knowledge and trust the Holy Ghost to complete the work, and then after con- version takes place, take the mind and instruct it more fully and completely in regard to Christian doctrine, Christian experience, Christian living, Christian obedience, and Christian character. No amount of instruction in itself have I ever seen effective in leading a mind to surrender to God, so that the life is made new by a new-found ex- perience. Continuous instruction without asking the mind to act and rely upon the Holy Ghost for help, is too apt to lead the mind to rely upon the instruction for the renovation of the soul and the transformation of the life rather than to de- pend upon Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost to execute in the soul the ends aimed at in the teaching. Therefore I have found it best, wisest and safest, more abiding, to set forth the simple idea of the atoning work of Jesus Christ in the soul, and when the mind fully takes that in, then invite it to act at once in accepting Jesus Christ as a Savior, and depending upon the Holy Ghost for the testimony that the work is done. When that work has been done, let the missionary take 11 i n 162 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. the convert and instruct him, thoroughly train him by the wisest of instruction in the doctrines of the Bible, the principles of the New Testament ; in short, a complete outfit given through instruction, after the mind has an experimental knowledge of sins forgiven. "The second time that I went to Pekin the railroad from Shan Hai Kaun to Tientsin and Pekin was finished, so that whereas it took me nearly five days to reach Pekin the first year I was there, by boat and chair, the second year it took me by railroad less than seven hours to go from Tientsin to Pekin. "The first year I was in China, after my work was finished at the North China Conference, Mrs. Joyce and myself, Brother Hobart and a mission- ary of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society rode in an American buckboard from Pekin to Tsun Hua, the home of Brother Hobart and Dr. Hopkins and the Woman's Foreign Missionary So- ciety ladies, the distance being one hundred miles almost directly north. We had two mules hitched to our buckboard, driving them tandem, and we made the one hundred miles in three days, most of the time over bad roads. We had carts to go along with us carrying our bedding, our pro- visions, and some of the native helpers. We slept at night in Chinese inns, and were comfortable. Just beyond Tsun Hua is the Great Wall, said to have been built years before the birth of Christ. A large company of us had the pleasure of visiting it, climbing to the top of it, and, after eating our lunch, we sang some Christian hymns and gave thanks to God for the coming of a better day and Missionary Tours Through Asia. 161 a more glorious hope for China. From Tsun Hua we went to Tientsin, stopping on the way at some of our chapels, taking a mid-day lunch in one, spending the night in another. "From Tientsin we sailed for Shanghai on our way to the Central China Mission. After stop- ping a few days in Shanghai we proceeded on our way up the Yangtsze River to Kiukiang, where the annual meeting was to be held. / "Our evangelistic work in this Mission has taken on new vigor and life in the last two years, and is winning success. At the session of 1896 the brethren covenanted to pray for a net increase by conversions for the coming year of one thousand. Throughout the Mission prayer was offered to God asking; for such evidence of His favor. When the Mission convened in 1897 the figures revealed the pleasant fact that the gain had been one thousand and thirty. They covenanted to pray that the net gain might be even greater the coming year, and throughout the Mission the whole year prayer has ascended to God for the outpouring of His Spirit in every part of the Mission. The result is that in various parts of the field the success has been unusual. "From this Mission we returned to Shanghai, and from Shanghai we go to Foochow, a distance of four hundred and fifty miles. We go, of course, by steamer. Our Mission in Foochow began in 1847, and the field is a great one. We have in Foochow the Anglo-Chinese College, the Theolog- »* 164 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. ical School, and in and about Foochow the day schools that have obtained such wonderful suc- cesses under the direction and care of George S. Miner. "As is well known, Bishop Wiley died in Foo- chow, November, 1884. His love for China was all-absorbing. He loved the work, was always in- terested in efforts to advance it, remembered with great delight the days when he was a medical mis- sionary at Foochow, and esteemed it a great priv- ilege and honor to visit China as a bishop. He did much in many ways to advance the interests of the work in that field. He loved the native Christians, and they in turn loved him with a great and tender love. His body is buried in the little cemetery in Foochow. The Sunday of the Con- ference session in 1896 was just twelve years to a day after his death. I knew Bishop Wiley very intimately. I loved him as a brother. I was pas- tor of St. Paul's Church, Cincinnati, where he al- ways attended when he was at home. I learned to know him, and my love for him grew as my knowl- edge of him increased. I was, one of the little company that bade him farewell in Cincinnati when he started for China on his last trip. On that Conference Sunday in Foochow when I arose to preach I thought of him. I thought of his going from that field to his final resting-place with God in heaven. I was in a tender mood. The presence of the Lord seemed to be in the congregation, and the blessing of God came upon the great audience. In the afternoon at the close of the ordination service there was a testimony meeting, really a Missionary Tours Through Asia. 165 praise service, and there were many tender and beautiful references made to Bishop Wiley, all expressive of the great love the native Chinese Christians have for him. After the service many of the older ones spoke with me, telling me of many things they remembered about the Bishop, and saying many tender and beautiful things about him and his love for them. Altogether this session of the Conference was one of very great in- fluence, and the preachers all went to their work apparently to do better service in the Lord's vine- yard than they had ever done before. "From Foochow we go to Hing Hua. We go twenty-five miles by boat, and are then carried fifty miles in a sedan chair. Four stalwart China- men carried myself, but two were sufficient for each of the other members of the party, who were less in weight than myself. We traveled twenty-five miles the first day, and spent the night in one of our chapels. The next morning we started early, intending to reach Hing Hua by sundown. Soon after we started we were met by native Christians, who saluted us with instruments of music and with firecrackers. They went with us to the first vil- lage, when another company of Christians saluted us in like manner and went with us to the next village, and so during the entire twenty-five miles we had music, firecrackers, and singing of hymns. Christians came in from the surrounding country to join in the procession, glad to show their belief in and love for the cause of Christ, and their de- votion to Him. They seemed to think or know Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. of no way better than this one of revealing their devotion to the great cause of the Lord Jesus Christ, and seemed to desire to let the heathen people about them know that they were not ashamed of Christ nor His Gospel. It was a pe- culiar experience to us, and one we always will re- member. When we entered Hing Hua we were saluted by the pupils of the two schools with joy- ful acclamations, hearty salutations, and earnest singing of hymns, and the explosion of fire- crackers. "At this session the Hing Hua Mission Con- ference was organized by the authority of the General Conference. "The only missionaries we have in that field are W. N. Brewster, superintendent, Franklin Oh- linger, and T. B. Owen. This Conference was originally a part of the territory of the old Foo- chow Conference. The missionaries had been dili- gent and successful, and the new Conference was organized with something over five thousand mem- bers and probationers. They had not only been drilled in the doctrines of the Gospel, so as to enjoy a clear Christian experience, but they had also been drilled in regard to Church organization, and also in giving, so that their collections were a remarkable showing of consecration of their means, although the people, as is well known, in all parts of China are very poor. The session was a very happy one, and the utmost harmony prevailed. The session seemed to be permeated to the utmost with the spirit of brotherly kindness and devo- tion to the cause of Christ. The native Christians for miles around came in to the services on the Missionary Tours Through Asia. 167 Sabbath, and our new church, that will seat eight hundred people, was more than filled, many people having to stand about the doors. On Sunday afternoon I baptized thirty-seven children, all of them of Christian parentage. "The visit to Hing Hua completes the tour of all the Conferences in Eastern Asia except West China. Therefore we turn our faces to the direc- tion of that distant field. We return to Foochow the same way that we came to Hing Hua. We are conveyed in chairs until we reach our boats, and then go up the Min River in our mission boat. No bishop, until I went to West China, had ever visited that distant field. Not because they did not want to go, but because conditions were not favorable for them to go when they were in the field. It was my good fortune to have the oppor- tunity to go, and I availed myself of it. We go from Foochow to Shanghai, and in Shanghai we made our preparations to go up the Yangtsze River on our way to West China. The steamers on the Yangtsze River are very good, and as a whole furnish every required comfort and conveni- ence. We went from Shanghai to Hankow on one of these steamers. At this latter place we trans- ferred to a smaller steamer, which took us to Ichang. From Shanghai to Hankow the distance is six hundred miles, and from Hankow to Ichang the distance is four hundred miles. Ichang is the end of steam navigation going up the river. We were delayed at Hankow ten days waiting for the smaller steamer to take us to Ichang. So while 168 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. waiting in Hankow I had the privilege of visiting the work of our Wesleyan brethren in Hankow and in the cities on the opposite side of the river, and was greatly pleased with all I saw. I also had the privilege of visiting the station of the China Inland Mission, and also the work, hospital and evangelistic, of the London Missionary Soci- ety. I had the privilege of lecturing for the Young Men's Christian Association and preaching three times for the London Missionary brethren. I visited the hospital of the London Mission and the hospital of the Wesleyan Society. In every- thing I saw of the work of both societies I was greatly pleased. "When I reached Ichang we found Rev. Q. A. Meyers and wife, of our Chung King Mission, who had come down the river to accompany us from Ichang to Chung King. He had hired a house boat for us and engaged the men, forty in num- ber, to pull us up the river. A house boat is hired just as a house is rented, empty. You put in your own provisions and your own furniture, hire your servants, and have general supervision for the time you have it, just the same as if it were your own property. At Shanghai, knowing that I would have to furnish my own provisions, I laid in a comfortable share of supplies, such as American flour, American cornmeal, American meat, Boston baked beans put up in cans, and other articles that it was supposed we would need on our trip. When I reached Ichang, I found that Brother M} r ers also had laid in something of a supply. There were other missionaries of other missions wanting to go up the river with us, so a Missionary Tours Through Asia. 169 second boat was hired and some forty men also to pull them up the river. Dr. and Mrs. Woolsey, whom the Board was sending out as medical mis- sionaries for West China, were in our company, and we had a doctor going out to West China to work for the London Missionary Society, and a Baptist brother and his wife also going into that field. We divided our company, myself and wife and Brother Myers and wife in one boat, Dr. Woolsey and wife and the London physician and Mr. Upcraft and wife, of the Baptist Mission, in the other boat. Having laid in our supplies both of food and furniture we were soon ready to start, but no matter in how much hurry one may be, it takes just so much time — so much talk, talk, talk, for a Chinaman to get ready to start. It does no good to worry, it does n't help a particle to make a fuss, just be patient. They will start after while. From Ichang to Chung King the distance is five hundred miles. When the winds were favor- able we put up the sails and traveled with a fair degree of speed; when the winds are contrary, then the men have to pull. This is called track- ing. A large rope made of bamboo is made fast to the boat and the other end of it is put ashore, and the forty men get hold of it and then patiently tramp, tramp, tramp. At intervals they divide and a number come on the boat to get their rice, and after them the others come and eat and rest. At night we tied up. When we came to rapids, and there were many of them, we usually had to pull ashore below the rapids, and we all clamored out and walked around. Then above the rapids we had the privilege of watching the men pull 170 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. the boat through the noisy, tumbling water. At most of these rapids we had to hire an increased number of men. In one instance we hired one hundred additional men. At one that was called 'New Rapids,' having been made by a recent land- slide, we hired an additional force of two hundred men. The boy that waited on the table and the one that did the cooking for us were Christians. We had prayers in the evening in English, and in the morning in Chinese. Brother Myers conducted the prayers in Chinese, the Chinese servants taking their part from time to time as requested. We had services on Sunday, and the people about the place where we tied up came down, of course, to see and hear. "The scenery along the Upper Yangtsze re- minds one at times of some of the scenery in Colo- rado. Three or four of the gorges are very fine. We have no missionary work on the Yangtsze River from Kiukiang to Chung King, a distance of one thousand miles or more. "We were twenty-seven days making the dis- tance of five hundred miles in this houseboat. The brethren of Chung King heard at one time that I was not to visit them, that the trip was so long and accompanied with so much supposed danger, that I had concluded not to go. But when the word reached them that I was certainly coming, they, judging about the time I would likely to reach there, started down the river in our mission boat and met us a few miles below the city. Such a welcome as they gave us ! So full of joy, so full of heartiness, so full of earnest expressions of Missionary Tours Through Asia. 171 thankfulness, thai I was paid more than a thou- sand times for making the trip. "We reached Chung King the middle of the afternoon of February 1, 1897. The city has between two hundred and fifty and three hundred thousand people. We are well situated here. We have good property and we are doing good work. It was necessary that I go to Chentu, the capital of the province, before the annual meeting of the West China Mission should convene. There are two routes by which I could go. I could get a smaller boat and go on up the river, which would be five hundred miles further; or I could go by a route they call the 'Little Road' and be carried in a chair, and this route was three hundred miles. I chose to go in the chair. They secured four stal- wart Chinamen to carry me. Dr. McCartney, in charge of our hospital in Chung King, went with me as my guide and interpreter. We had men with us to carry our beds and food, and a man to cook. Another man to take care of the doctor's horse. It seemed a long journey to be carried three hundred miles in a chair. I felt, however, that it was my duty to go, and with that sense of obligation upon me I did not give the difficulties of the journey any special consideration. On our journey we stopped over night in Chinese inns. Our cook prepared our food. When the evening meal was over and we were ready for sleep, we had our prayers. Dr. McCartney usually con- ducted the same. Sometimes our cook would lead the devotions, and once in awhile another member of the party would conduct the services. We arose 172 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. early in the morning, and our cook would go for- ward and select a place some six or eight miles ahead and have breakfast for us when we came up. The rest of the party would come after us, bringing the beds. Half way to Chentu is the city of Sui Ling, and here we spent Sunday. We had a private service early Sunda}^ morning in our little chapel. Dr. McCartney preached, and then through him as an interpreter I led class. There were twenty-four persons present, and I led it in the old-fashioned Methodist manner, each one giv- ing his or her experience. I asked them to tell me how it was they became Christians, and what led them first to think of Christ and give their hearts to Him. They assigned various reasons, all of which I have noted down. After this meet- ing we threw open the doors of our chapel, and a great crowd came in. I preached, Dr. McCartney preached, and then our native pastors preached. We then went back to our Chinese inn, cooked our dinner, and then went out to one of the largest heathen temples in the city. A great crowd fol- lowed us everywhere. After we had looked through the temple, we went into the open court of it and held a Gospel service. We sang hymns, we read the Scripture, we prayed and preached. The great crowd steadily increased. All was quiet and very orderly, and not a single word or act was said or done to show us disrespect. Even the Buddhist priests treated us with kindly consideration, bring- ing me a chair that I might sit while the other brethren were conducting the services. In the even- ing several of the native Christians came to our Chinese inn, and the Scriptures were read and I Missionary Tours Through Asia. 173 said a few words to them. Dr. McCartney also talked and prayed with them. After dismissing them we went to our beds, thankful to God that we had had an opportunity of doing a little good for our blessed Savior that day. "Next morning we started early, and in due time reached Chentu, making the distance from Chung King to Chentu, three hundred miles, in ten days. Chentu is the capital of Szechuen Prov- ince, and is a city of five hundred thousand people. Here is where the riots occurred in May, 1895. The rioters destroyed our property and the prop- erty of other missions as well, but the Chinese Gov- ernment was called on by our Government to make good the loss of property, which was done. When I reached there two houses had been rebuilt, and a neat new church and a school building, and per- haps some others which I do not now recall. "I was in Chentu several days, and had the pleasure of dedicating our new church, baptizing several native converts, preaching and talking upon several occasions, and twice conducting services for all the missionaries of the several missions in Chentu. "The day I dedicated the new church we had in the audience a native of Thibet, a Lama priest. I had sent for him, that I might have an interview with him. After I got through with the interview, I invited him to stay and witness the service of dedication. He did so, and manifested great in- terest in what he saw and heard. I asked him if they would allow us to come into Thibet. He said no, they did not want any Christian mission- aries in their country, and insisted they would not 17-i Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. allow it. When I was in India, however, I had great joy in learning that some of Bishop Tho- burn's women missionaries, I believe, had gone into Thibet from the other side of the great field and had organized Bible and other work, and were quietly pushing the work of Christ without this Lama priest knowing that such a thing was going on in his country. "After remaining in Chentu for several days, I returned by way of the river in a small boat in company with Dr. McCartney and Dr. Canright. The distance by river is five hundred miles, and we made it with comfort and safety. When we had gone two hundred and fifty miles we met our own mission boat, which had been sent up to meet us, and we dismissed our little boat and got into our mission boat, and with more comfortable travel- ing sailed down the river, stopping at various places where our missionaries were at work. "The annual session of the Mission was, of course, full of interest to me, and it was so also to the missionaries and native Christians, as it was the first time a bishop had ever presided at their annual meeting. We continued in session five days, and the Lord wonderfully blessed us. We did our work carefully, looking after every interest of the Mission. People were converted, and Sunday was a day of unusual victory, results beginning to tell immediately in various ways. From time to time I have heard of the pushing out into new fields by our laborers and the winning of new victories. "The prospect of success in this West China work was never so inviting and promising as now. Missionary Tours Through Asia. 175 The Szechuen Province, in which Chentu and Chung King arc located, has forty millions of people, all speaking one dialect. It has one hun- dred and fifty-two walled cities, and it has seven large cities between Chung King and Chentu, on what is called the 'Great Road,' in which there has never been a missionary stationed or doing any work until our Brothers Peat and Cady entered one or two of them. All the missionaries of all the missions, all told, in West China when I was there numbered only one hundred and fifty. This for forty-five millions of people. Chentu is almost opposite New York on the other side of the globe. From Shanghai to Chentu, going all the way by water, is a distance of two thousand miles, one thousand by steam, the other thousand by house- boat. You will note that I went the thousand miles by steam, then five hundred miles by houseboat, and then three hundred miles in a chair. So I went, going up, eighteen hundred miles. Going back all the way by water, it was two thousand miles, making a total of thirty-eight hundred miles. "Mrs. Joyce accompanied me everywhere, ex- cept on the long chair ride from Chung King to Chentu. She remained in Chung King with our good missionaries while I made that journey. While I was in Chung King I had the privilege of holding services for all the missionaries of all the societies doing work in that city and vicinity. One of the most precious services I have ever at- tended in my life was on Sunday afternoon, when there were forty-two missionaries present in the parlor of a Quaker missionary. The persons pres- ent were from America, England, Scotland, 176 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. Sweden, and Germany. I do not think I over- state the fact, when I say that every soul present during that hour somehow felt that the Lord of the vineyard, the great Head of the Church, was present and did wonderfully bless His servants. It was an hour filled with precious influences to my own soul, and an hour the memory of which I shall carry with me forever. I feel sure that all who were present that day, if they could speak in these lines this moment, would utter in substance what I have just said. "The annual meeting over, myself and wife and the mother of the American consul in Chung King started down the river in a small houseboat for Ichang. The wind was contrary a great part of the way. Our boat was not very heavily loaded, and it tossed about quite vigorously, and sometimes seemed to be dangerously doing so. We felt, however, that we were always in the hands of Him who said, 'I will never leave you nor forsake you.' The current is very swift, and instead of pulling the boat by ropes, as we had done going up the river, the men simply had to direct it by rudder and oar. In ten days we made the distance of five hundred miles, tying up every night. By this you will see that we made fifty miles a day, so the current must have been remarkably swift. "Reaching Ichang we had to wait two or three days for a boat to take us down to Shanghai. This stay including a Sunday, I attended a serv- ice in a native congregation where the Scotch Presbyterians were at work, and was benefited greatly by the service. In the afternoon I preached to the English-speaking people, and was Missionary Tours Through Asia. 177 greatly pleased to meet so many in that far-off part of the world who remembered God, His Word, and His service. "In due time we reached Shanghai, arriving there on the 15th of April, making just four months to a day since we left Shanghai for West China. After resting a few days we left for Korea, to begin my second round. In all my jour- neys, from the time I left America until I re- turned to it, I was on thirty-five ocean and river steamers, five of them twice, making forty jour- neys on the steamers. I traveled in all Eastern Asia during my work twenty-two thousand miles. I preached wherever I had opportunity, conducted services of various kinds, such as revival, Bible readings, prayer-meetings, etc., wherever occasion offered. I also lectured a number of times. Neither my wife nor myself was sick a single day while we were gone, except such ailings as come from colds, from which my wife suffered a few days in Hankow. The two years I was in this wonderful field are among the happiest years of my life. "I would rather live in Shanghai than any other city of which I have any knowledge. Not because I could have every comfort there, not be- cause of the many conveniences that I might have about me, but because of the good I could do in mission work. It is also the great commercial cen- ter of Eastern Asia, what New York is commer- cially and otherwise to the United States. In my judgment we ought to have an episcopal residence 12 178 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. in that city. We ought also to have a printing- press and a Methodist Book Concern there. We ought to have a business agent there to transact all our business for all our missions in China. Our printing-press could print our theological books, our hymn books, and all other kinds of literature that we would need for the work of missions. We could also have one paper for all our missions in the Empire. We have such a paper now, designed for this purpose and published at Foochow, but Shanghai is the commercial center of all China. Our press and Book Concern are doing remarkably good work at Foochow, but they could do still more and greater work if they were located at Shanghai. "When I finished my work in China, instead of returning home by way of Vancouver and San Francisco, we came on around the world by way of Malaysia, India, Palestine, Italy, and England, and landed in New York the 2d day of April, 1898, having journeyed in all forty-one thousand miles, and by God's blessing kept in health and strength, both my wife and myself, throughout all our long journey." CHAPTER XIV. Bishop Joyce and the Epworth League. IN the year 1900 Bishop Joyce was elected by his colleagues on the Board of Bishops President of the Epworth League of the Methodist Episcopal Church for the quadrennium beginning at the close of the General Conference of that year. It was an appointment in harmony with his tastes and gifts. His strong sympathies with youth, his buoyant and optimistic spirit, and his deep spiritual experience, altogether fitted him peculiarly to become the leader of the young life of the Church. The saintly and catholic-spirited Bishop Ninde had preceded him in the office. After receiving his notification of this added responsibility he went to the office of the editor of the Epworth Herald in Chicago — where the General Conference was held — and they spent two hours in prayer and counsel together concerning the needs of the young people of Methodism. From that time on the welfare of the young people of the Church was his peculiar care. He 179 180 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. advised with and inspired their leaders. He ad- dressed their conventions. He exhorted the young people to high ideals and attainments in Christian experience. He urged them to be true to the Church's standard concerning worldly amusements. He pressed on their attention the lofty claims of foreign missionary service. And he led hundreds upon hundreds of them into that spiritual baptism which had so comforted his own soul and re-en- forced his ministry. And in the International Ep- worth League Convention at San Francisco, in 1901, he preached to an audience of nearly ten thousand Epworthians a sermon of marvelous power, holding the vast audience spellbound for an hour and a quarter, and lifting them to trans- figuration heights. The following is an appeal to the young life of the Church for revival effort, made while he was President of the League through the columns of the Epworth Herald: "The Coming Revival. "What Kind of One Shall it Be? "The Church is praying for a revival. God is answering prayer. The presence of the Holy Spirit is among the people. The Churches are taking on new strength. The Conferences are making encouraging reports. There is a very general opinion that we are on the eve of a great spiritual awakening. A revival is at hand. What Bishop Joyce and the Epworth League. 181 kind shall it be? It is so much easier to depend on the seen than it is upon the unseen, upon the human rather than the Divine, that we may thereby be led to forget the important truth that it is not by the wisdom of human might, nor by the skill of human power, but it is by the agency of the Holy Spirit, that men's consciences are reached and awakened, and their minds enlightened and persuaded, and their wills influenced and surren- dered, and their sins pardoned and their souls saved. "It is therefore a Scriptural revival we need and are praying for. And such a revival is clearly provided for in the Word of God. Pentecost was such a revival. Read Joel ii, 1, and ii, 27, 28, 29, 32. We must take into account the fact that God is always ready to give to His Church the revival with its attendant blessings. The view that would limit Him to set times as the only seasons when He can or will revive His people, is not in harmony with the teachings of the Holy Scriptures on the subject. Nor is the same in keeping with the records of revivals in the history of the Church of God. "Methodism at its best believes, and therefore teaches, that God will give the revival and its blessings to longing and prayerful souls anywhere, everywhere, and any time and all the time. If we will give the references in Joel, and also in all other parts of God's Word, referring to this sub- ject a careful reading, depending upon the Holy Spirit to open the Word to our understanding, we shall see this truth in so clear a light, as to be satisfied ever after, not only with its correctness, 182 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. but also with its fullness and richness and glory. God is always ready to bestow upon His servants and His Church His very best spiritual blessings. The leader called of God to blow the trumpet in Zion must be taught of God by the Spirit. Such a leader will possess the mind and patience of Jesus, and be ruled by the spirit of compassion. (Matt, ix, 36.) Joel ii, 17, makes humiliation and fervent prayer absolute necessities on the part of God's ministers. The right study of Revelation iii, 15, 16, will lead to self examination, repentance, and confession, and soon the spirit of the New Testament tenderness, and loving compassion, and the fullness of spiritual blessing, will fill the soul, and direct the life. These experiences and their effects are to go beyond the ministers. Joel ii, 1, says, "Let all the inhabtants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand." In Acts ii, 1, we read, "And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place." We are not to suppose that an overwhelming majority of the Church will at once be ready to join such a company, for such purpose and such results; but, thank God! there are those of God's people who carry a burden of soul for the success of Christ's kingdom, and for the victories of His righteousness, and there are those who lead the way in these days of intense interest, and their faith, prayers, and victories are bringing many to their side to join them in this growing and widening work. There may be those who speak against the few who groan and weep in soul over the spiritual dearth abroad in the land, but such persons show thereby, however, that they. Bishop Joyce and the Epzvorth League. 183 themselves are ignorant of the Scriptural condi- tions of a revival of religion. "Such people frustrate the grace of God. This condition of revival success is not to be secured by hunting for Achans in the camp, or railing at the people. He who rushes into the burning build- ing to save its occupants has neither time nor heart to abuse the sleeping inmates ; there is no scold in the man who is alarmed, and horrified at sin and its consequences. When such a man gets desperately in earnest, the lukewarm, the indiffer- ent, and the heedless misunderstand him, and de- ride him and sometimes laugh him to scorn. "Whoever will give himself to the work of bringing sinners to Christ, must do so with a des- peration of purpose. This is essential. But be it known everywhere that such a state of mind and of heart can not be obtained by any methods of human training. The schools can neither teach it nor confer it. It can be obtained only from God. Through the personal, prayerful study of His Word and an absolute abandonment of self to God, and an unreserved dependence upon the Holy Spirit. This is neither rant, cant, nor wildfire. It will not always fit into formal molds, nor will it run in ice-bound ruts, nor will it be pleasing to people who are under the esthetic influence of a heartless and non-responsive formalism. But it will be pleasing to God, and wonderfully helpful to the Church of Jesus Christ, and make her a power in drawing men into the kingdom of love and grace. It will make a way for itself, and it will distribute its power effectively far and wide according to methods which the fathers of the 184 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. Church understood, for they had it and conquered and triumphed under it. "Every minister and every layman throughout all Methodism ought to know that one of our rules for preachers says, 'Be ashamed of nothing but sin.' The same applies to laymen as well. I ap- peal to every Methodist to read paragraph 136, section 3. Also paragraphs 137 to 142 of the Discipline of the Church, and do this along with Joel ii, 1, 26, 27, 28, 29, 32, and Acts ii, 1-4, and also verses 12 to 21. "The Spirit-taught souls will see wondrous things in these truths, and will discover equip- ments of power for service that will mean revivals of religion according to Bible provision that will bring people in great multitudes to Christ for sal- vation from sin and for the fullest and richest blessings of His love. "Such a salvation movement is now at hand. It is at our doors. I rejoice and thank God that our Epworth League army has already entered into the work with a heroic faith that means vic- tory along the entire line ; and already Christ, the Head of the Church, is giving them some glorious victories. I pray that this Army of } T oung people will continue to go steadily and prayerfully for- ward to the movement of final victory and broadest triumph, and even more than the two millions of souls shall be won for Christ and for the best life in His service." CHAPTER XV. Decoration-day Address Delivered at Chat- tanooga, May 30, 1895. THIS day is full of interest to us all. Mem- ories precious and tender are revived in many thousands of hearts throughout the land. The eyes grow dim, through gathering tears, as memory is busy with the scenes crowded into the years long gone by. Voices grow tremu- lous as the names of dear ones come to the lips; the« mental vision pierces through the shadows that gather over the years, and the forms of loved ones are seen walking again the familiar paths that lead up to the dear old home of the long ago. We join them in our affection, and hold converse with them once more in the intensely yearning love of our hearts. Men die, but their influence lives. Death brings them to the grave, but what they did in life tells the world the kind of men they were. Death deprives men of their wealth, but the work they wrought while living constitutes an imperishable monument that will, ages long, reveal 185 186 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. what were the supreme, and therefore the ruling, purposes of their lives, and the motives which were the ground-work of their ambition. Men are ex- pressions of possibilities, of that which may be; they stand for influences, expressive of principles, the power of which is felt along the lines of hu- manity, and lie in the pathway of the centuries. Men of high-grade character, of exalted motives, governed by the law of self-sacrifice — these are the men who build great governments, create best civilization, and, if need be, are willing to die for the sake of a great principle, which will result in good to mankind. The works of such men follow them and influence generations of peoples, and shape institutions with the highest expression of the best power that ever comes to men out of the Divine fullness. Such men deserve the admiration and are entitled to the loving remembrance of mankind. God provides for the founding, the growth, and the career of nations ; they are the things that must be, they are the necessities in the education of men, and in the needed character-building of the generations of the human family, and in the development or unfolding of God's plans for men as the ages come on. We have a right to believe that this nation of ours is a child of Providence. The time and man- Decoration-Day Address. 187 ner of founding it, the struggles passed, the his- tory made, the work done, the influence achieved, the position won ; these indicate some of the rea- sons why we have the right to believe, yea, why we are authorized to believe, this nation came into being because God willed it; and it lives, and has a future and a mission because He is over it, and wills the same: the pathway along which our na- tion has come is conspicuously marked by institu- tions, monuments, battle-fields, and heroes' resting- places. In the ranks of its people are the evi- dences of struggles which fade not away ; they are broken semi-circles, crippled bodies, desolate hearts, burdened souls, care-worn faces, and tearful eyes. The nation lives because its countless thou- sands of manly men went to their graves for it by way of the weary march, the bloody fields of battle, the hospital, and the prison: but these men are not forgotten; a grateful republic lovingly en- shrines in the hearts of its people, as a sacred trust, the memory of its heroic defenders, and annually the surviving comrades of these hero dead come together, and with gentle hands cover the sleeping forms with flowers — Nature's best expres- sion of love. Bolingbroke said : "Neither Montaigne in writ- ing his essays, nor Descartes in building new worlds, nor Burnet in framing an antediluvian 188 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. earth, nor Newton in discovering the true laws of nature, felt more intellectual joys than he feels who is a real patriot, who bends all the forces of his understanding, and directs all his thoughts and actions to the good of his country." The most enlightened patriotism of all lands approves the statements of this gifted and far-seeing thinker and writer. From the spring of 1861 to the year 1865 the great question with Americans was that of patriotic devotion to the principles of civil lib- erty in the republic as guaranteed by the Con- stitution of the nation. During that period of four years of war, more than one-half a million of men went to heroes' graves from the battle- field, the camp, and the hospital. But — patriot- ism came out of the awful struggle in triumph, and those who gave sturdy blows for the nation's honor, and who stood for the defense of freedom's flag came through the conflict — heroes — the equals of any men that ever in the history of mankind braved the dangers of war for the love and de- fense of a great principle. Every pure sentiment of the human heart says, "Let love's choicest gifts express a nation's deep- est affection for those who, as Montgomery would have it, 11 ' "Went down like favorite children to hurtle in the lap of glory.' " Decoration-Day Address. 189 Their names will recall multitudes of precious memories; thoughts of past scenes and loved ones will set to vibrating chords that will cause the eyes to overflow with tears. To die for a nation's honor is to go to a martyr's grave for the supremacy of a principle and the uplifting of the people; the result gives new life to the republic, and in- creases the greatness of the nation, and mankind is enriched by the influence of such consecrated devotion, and the higher nature of men is edu- cated, — disciplined — by the matchless, peerless power of such object lessons. Unselfish and far-reaching deeds take deep hold upon our hearts and our memories; we can not forget them; their influence makes us think better of our race; they give us a conviction of the power of righteousness, and faith in the final vic- tory of right over wrong, of truth over error; this is the mighty and the enduring link which unites and holds together the generations of men, and those who come after us will do as we are doing, they will honor the memory of the nation's defenders, and they will annually cover their graves with flowers, and children's children will be told the story of the sacrifices and of the dying of these patriotic martyrs. "Leonidas and his regiment of three hundred immortal and invincible Spartans died, more than 190 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. two thousand years ago, at Thermopylae, with their faces to the foe, but their glorious achievement again and again through the centuries has nerved the arm of the patriot upon many a battle-field when measuring dangers and bravely meeting them against overwhelming foes." "So along down the way of the centuries — yea, it may be along the pathway of the length- ened ages, men and youth will gather inspiration from the history of our conflicts, from the story of our battle-fields, from the deeds of our noble patriot dead, to nerve and to inspire and strengthen them for the conflicts which they may be called upon to take part in. "So long as there is an Antietam, a Gettys- burg, a Wilderness, a Vicksburg, a Chickamauga, a Lookout Mountain, a Richmond, and a March to the Sea, aye, so long as there is a soldier with an empty sleeve, or one that trudges along life's dusty way by aid of crutch or cane — because he left a leg on some blood}' battle-field, — so long as there is the widow of a dead soldier, who wishes for the coming of her loved one, but he comes not again, so long as there may be the orphaned child of the hero dead, who in evening twilight sits and yearns for just one more look into father's face, although he knows it can not be, aye, so long as this nation shall stand, let not loyal Americans Decoration-Day Address. 191 forget the men who for love of country willingly, cheerfully died, that the republic might continue to live and be a light and a blessing to all. Government — nationality — is a necessity with all people, and under the influence of the best, men rise to the purest and the wisest political influ- ence, to the highest mental development, as well as to the truest Christian character. Mind is al- ways stronger and better, the more closely and in- tensely it is applied in the labor of great think- ing, in the processes of trying to solve hard prob- lems; and the nation which is able, by the genius of its laws and the provisions of its constitution and under the leadership of wise men, to keep the brain of its people employed upon subjects of great practical value, will, in the sum total of results which go to make a people's history, become the wisest, the best, and the most influential nation. It will be able to discover and bring into use those virtues which lift a people to the heights of the best civilization. "For practical purposes, new application of old truths is equal to the discovery of new ones." Men have done well in building nations, in making civilizations. Man started with nothing, without a home, without village or city, an un- subdued earth, with but little knowledge of the world he was in. He stood facing a destiny, 192 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. which he feared more than he understood. But look along the lines of history, and the centuries tell of the unfoldings of his powers and the results of his skill. Cities, states, nations, monuments, libraries, institutions, and civilization mark the way of his power in all lands and in all time. Take a survey of the status to-day ; he is this day more in himself, and more in the breadths and heights of his achievements, than at any former moment, hour, or century of his history. He is master to-day. He has solved the problems of earth and air and sky, he sails all seas, he ascends all rivers, he climbs all mountains, he explores all continents, he trav- erses all depths, he measures all heights, he studies all languages, he masters all laws, he examines all mysteries ; his cities are marvels for greatness, in wealth, in influence, and in power; his inventions and his discoveries show that in the embodiment of his power and in the possibilities of his great- ness he stands a king, as one akin to the Divine. Behold him this day, as he stands in the results of his mighty and his far-reaching inventions, in the continent sweeping power of his combinations, in the thought lines of his genius that girdle the globe on which he lives. Surely he is, in view of this exhibited vastness of his power, entitled to a high place in the sweep of ages. Such a being must have a nation. He Decoration-Day Address. 193 will, by the inherent power within him, build for the centuries, for it is a great manhood, present and possible, under Divine guidance and instruc- tion, on its way through the ages, facing hope- fully the steadily unfolding and endless future. It is just as essential that he build and possess a nation as it is that he have a house in which to live, a home for the shelter and protection of his family. And when the nation has for its foun- dation the principles of righteousness and justice, it is by that fact as worthy a subject of prayer and defense as is the home. Nations have problems to solve peculiar to the places they occupy in the centuries, and their geo- graphical location on the face of the earth. God works His plans to final and effective results through the agency of the nations; He has no more trouble to give a nation a mission, than He has in giving a single man a work to do. If either does anything worthy a name and a place in history, it is because there is a Divine wisdom that plans the work for both, and a Love infinite in its nearness and tenderness to inspire both for the same. The place and surroundings of our nation in- dicate that God has no merely ordinary work for it to do. We are in the best center for a great nation to be built, and in due time do a work 13 194 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. which will lead to a destiny greater than that ever yet reached by another. Our area of territory is greater than that of any country except Russia. "Two great oceans receive the waters and the commerce of the rivers which touch every part of our land, and in turn something from every part of the world is brought to our very doors." Here is the place for a nation greater than any known to history, and results already achieved in- dicate its mission to be to work out a better des- tiny for humanity than has yet been reached. Here, if anywhere on the face of the earth, principles taught by the Lord Jesus Christ are to have a practical application in the solution of problems of government, and all other questions which can enter into the life and work of a nation. Here, if anywhere, is to be shown by practical il- lustrations how the welfare of men is secured, and how the rights of all men are guarded by the jus- tice and the great-heartedness of the nation's laws. If American history has a meaning of any- thing more than the mere record of events, or de- scription of battle-fields and their bloody scenes and the victories for the nation's flag, it is that after defending the unity of the nation, and then securing the same, there are other questions which have arisen and are now confronting us, and which by their nature can not be bowed out of the arena, and they refuse to be pushed aside. Decoration-Day Address. 195 The influence of our brave dead is about us; the atmosphere of their devotion pervades our homes, and is felt through all the ranks of soci- ety and of commercial relations, and the voice which comes to us upon its currents is the voice of that Providence that speaks in events, and re- veals the trend of His will in the epochs that make history. God has lifted to the eyes of nations great principles. He commands men to study and apply them, to love them, to obey and build them into individual and into national organic life. They cover all life ; obeying them is elevation, purity, and power; disobeying them, individual debase- ment and national degradation follow. "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain." "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart." "Thou shalt love thy neigh- bor as thyself." What would the record show covering these things? Desecrations, blasphemies, and trans- gressions so abound that in places refinement and purity blush and hide their faces. Greed and selfishness and wrongly used power put forth their hands now and again with alarm- ing effect upon the less fortunate. Practices that lead men into wrong paths grow with a rapidity, and at an expense of brain and conscience and 196 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. fortune that are truly prophetic of the widest dis- asters. These and other things which spring grave questions upon us constitute some of the problems which at this moment are confronting us as a people. We must meet the issues which they crowd upon us. Have we, as a people great in our nationality, enough moral courage and power to overcome all these evils of which I have spoken, and which carry in their expression so much of alarm? Can we break their influence and free ourselves from them? I believe I voice the convictions and the faith of right thinking men when I say we can, and that we will. We can always depend upon the bedrock common sense, the courage and devotion of the American people, when we reach the last stages of a great crisis in our national condition. They have never failed us yet in our history, they have ever been true at the emergent moment of every great emergency. I dare believe they will be in all the coming years in the life of this republic. Since the year 1865 the elements of a new civ- ilization have been gradually manifesting their presence and making known their influence among the people of this nation, and these elements are persistently pushing themselves into every part of the land, and they are felt in every abode of man, Decoration-Day Address. 197 from lakes to Gulf, from Atlantic Ocean to Pa- cific waters. Every hut, cabin abode, and home of wealth experiences something this day of their uplifting inspiration. Childhood is wiser, manhood is stronger, and old age is happier. A spirit, as if out of the open heavens, has come down among the people, and they have been inspired and by it lifted up and carried forward at such a rate that it is not easy for us to esti- mate the progress we have as a nation made since 1865, nor the rate we are making to-day at winch we are going forward. The material activity everywhere manifest, is a showing of the presence of intellectual giants abroad in the land. A thoughtful writer says, "We have railroad lines sufficient in number to reach almost seven times around the earth." Their annual earnings reach up into the hundreds of mil- lions of dollars. The telegraph companies of the country are operating wires enough to reach around the globe thirty times. "We have telephone wires now in use of suffi- cient length to reach eight times around the earth." We are in contact with the heart-beats and brain-throbs of the peoples of all the islands and all the continents upon the face of this earth. 198 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. The activities are equally great on the moral side of this nineteenth-century life. The great universities and colleges are crowded with the young manhood and the young womanhood — the great young life — of this nation. The institutions of learning of all grades are too limited in ac- commodations to receive the multitudes of Amer- ica's children that crowd their way to their doors asking for that training to fit them for the scenes, and the labors, the responsibilities and the crises that await them as citizens in this great republic. The Churches have in their pulpits men, many of whom have received the best intellectual train- ing possible for men to receive, and they are using that disciplined and consecrated ability to go into every grade of society, and out of their love for humanity and their love to God persuade the humblest and the most obscure life to look upward and God- ward. The Sunday-school army numbers millions of children passing under the magic touch of Holy Scripture communicated by lips from hearts in touch with the Christ. The Christian press is in the front line with cultured brain, high purpose, and a holy passion to give the most inspiring truths to every home in our land. The closing years of the century throb with Decoration-Day Address. 199 the high purposes of the best men and women of the age. The best womanly character known to history- is, in these days of mighty movements, devoting itself to lifting up the fallen, helping the needy, instructing the ignorant, persuading the wayward to come home to the Heavenly Father. She is this hour heaven's messenger to carry hope and good cheer everywhere. But great as all this is, the hour rings with calls for men of yet greater moral courage and power to go into the arena, and do a work that cries to heaven for relief. By the hundred thousands men gave them- selves to the defense of the dear old flag and to save the nation from dismemberment and ruin. Without a moment's hesitation they went to scenes of carnage and stood amid shot and shell and flame, and fought and won for freedom. But the battle-fields of the republic, the graves where sleep our honored dead, in addition to flag, and union, and liberty, and nation mean also jus- tice, righteousness, the Golden Rule, and all the virtues taught in the Holy Book; these are some of the momentous questions that followed in the wake of the hour when in 1865 our dear old flag — the Stars and Stripes — went once more to the top of the mast o'er all this land, never to come down again. These are the problems we have to solve. 200 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. These are the battles we must fight. Chickamauga — Gettysburg — Richmond — the Wilderness — the March to the Sea meant courage — blood — death; but these other problems that follow in the wake of bloody fields are the most tug and tussle con- flict — battle of thought with thought, brain with brain, heart with heart, pen with pen, dollar with dollar; the field covers the nation; the enemies' hiding-places are in the hearts, brains, homes of the people. These enemies are in saloons, the gaming places, in poison-dripping literature — and in the spirits of hate, deception, jealousy and envy. These constitute the battle of this day; have we the courage to march into the heart of the conflict, and with manly words, brave deeds, and with Christly spirit do and dare the best we can to bring the kingdom of God to earth, and establish it, with its love, peace, joy, purity, in the hearts and homes of the peoples of our land? Tins is not an hour's nor a day's conflict. O men of a hundred battle-fields, where you stood so grandly for the Stars and Stripes, will you not, as you have helped save the nation from civil disruption, will you not help to save it from evils which now imperil its peace and its prosperity, which threaten its moral purity and its stability, which menace its homes, its character, its every in- terest which a brave patriot and a devout Chris- tian loves so devoutly? Decoration-Day Address. 201 Grand Army of the Republic — noble men — well nigh a million strong, the voice that called you in the days of your young manhood to follow the flag of your country, to fight its battles and win its victories, that same blessed voice this day calls you to wage a ceaseless warfare in the name of the Holy One against every evil and form of wrong which threaten the best good of our nation. There is no question about the outcome; victory will come, and the victors will have again God's blessing and heaven's reward; for more than these Gabriel would not ask. We ought to do these things for our own nation's sake and its security, and for the sake of nations about us, for the eyes of all peoples of all nations are turned this way, and they have a feel- ing that humanity has an interest in this land of ours. The greatness of the interests committed to the keeping of this free nation is sufficient reason for the massing of the great moral forces of the land, to hold the nation in the strength of God's favor for the triumphs of righteousness. Ac- knowledgment of God is the strength of a nation, and the practice of His precepts is the salvation of governments. The people that in their prin- ciples and elements of nationality are the nearest God's idea of things are on their way to the great- 202 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. est victories possible to be won, and the hands on their dial plates will never go backward. "France tried for a time to get along without God, but Napoleon, for the good of the State, restored religion to the people." "When the Prime Minister of Louis Philippe was dying, he said, 'France must have religion.' " So must every nation, no matter what the form of government. Our Ship of State has sailed some stormy seas, but in the darkest hour, when we cried unto Him, we found Him guiding us through the darkness and the storm. And so long as we are true to Him, He will continue to shape our course, and take us safely unto the desired haven. I have an abiding conviction that this country of ours, more than any other, represents much of the future of mankind, and one of my strongest reasons for my belief is, we can do more for the man — the individual here, than can be done for him in any other part of the world. He can get more here than in any other nation. Matthew Arnold says, "America holds the future." Even with all the obstacles in our way, and the difficulties which beset us, we can at this hour show the best average citizen character to be found in any country. Some one has said, "Let us remember we speak Decoration-Day Address. 203 the language of great ideas, hence the language of the future." "It makes a great difference what language a people speaks, what songs they sing, what re- ligion they have." A thoughtful writer says, "A nation that speaks the language of Shakespeare and of Milton can never be ground under the heel of a tyrant." Let us also remember, the people who read the Bible, think its thoughts, imbibe its spirit, ex- perience its religion, practice its precepts, live in its atmosphere, and cling to God, its Author, can never be conquered by any power on earth, nor overthrown by any sort of influence known among men. Under some such power as this we have come out of every ordeal through which we have passed, and we look back now to the dark days from 1861 to 1865, and without any hesitation whatever say, "God brought us through." No other power could have delivered us. Victory came on His plan, and at the last union and peace were restored throughout the land; we thank God for it, and devoutly pray they may abide forever. The con- flict was the struggle of giants. The contest was the mightiest onset of opposing armies, made up of the best blood and brains and muscle and char- acter that ever entered into battle over a great 204 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. principle in the life of a nation. The American soldier stands forth to-day in the record he has made, the peer of any soldier of any land or nation. But the price we paid for the unity and the peace of the nation was hundreds of thousands of lives, and these services can only be a feeble expression of our appreciation of, and our love for the honored dead, and for what they accom- plished for us. We owe them a debt we can never fully pay. Their dying was the price of blessings which enrich us this day, and it is our duty to make the story of their sacrifice a source of per- petual benediction to the nation and to the world. No graves were ever more eloquent than these graves of our heroes. They speak to us of cour- age, of duty, of the grandeur of a great mission. They who live to great purpose always fill a larger sphere than the local circle of their indi- vidual lives. You may have stood in a plain hall, and read the news of the men who thought out and uttered the proclamation of American independence; per- sonally not one of them did you know, but in their deeds they are immortal and known to all the world. So with these hero brothers of ours, whose deeds and memory we love to cherish because they gave their lives for the defense of the principles uttered in the declaration of American independ- ence. A new generation has come upon the stage Decoration-Day Address. 205 since they fell, and the time will come when not one will be living who took part in the conflict of arms, nor will one remain who knew any one of these men, but what these heroes did, in the sacri- fice they made, in the results they achieved, has passed into history to be read by succeeding gener- ations, and this nation will stand as a monument to their memory. In every national cemetery in the land will be found on many a headstone the word "Unknown ;" but whether known or unknown, the American people will always remember their deeds of valor, nor will they ever cease to cherish their memory, and they will live in song — in his- tory — in monuments — in great institutions, and in this mighty republic that has a mission to lead the world in the greatest enterprises that charac- terize a people for the moral and intellectual wel- fare of mankind. Annually during all the coming years these services will be held, and gifts of flowers from lov- ing hearts will be strewn by gentle hands o'er the mounds where sleep the nation's honored dead. Our government honors itself in the beautiful and tender way it makes provision for the care of its hero dead. No other nation has done so much as ours has done to show its appreciation of and love for the men who gave their lives for the nation's life. All honor to the brain and heart of this great republic for the loving care it shows for its 206 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. yet living defenders, and for the love and honor it bestows on the memory of those who braved everything and died for the nation's life, unity, and perpetuity. To this sacred place we come this day to honor the memory of our nation's dead, and with a loyal poet say: Cover them over— the brave and the true ; Cover them over — the Boys of the Blue ; Husband and brother, father and lover, Cover them over, cover them over: Cover them over — the brave and the true, Cover them over — our Boys of the Blue. Cover them over with silence and weeping, Cover the dust that lies here in our keeping ; Graves of the youthful and graves of the old, Cover with flowers of crimson and gold : Cover them over — the brave and the true, Cover them over — our Boys of the Blue. Cover them over with fragrance and beauty, Cover the hushed hearts that shrank not from duty ; Men of the battle-field ghastly and gory, Cover them over — these men in their glory. Cover them over — the brave and the true, Cover them over — our army of blue. Men of a nation in darkness and danger, Sick, bleeding, dying, in land of the stranger, Our fond hearts shall cherish a love that is true, For all who gave life for the Red, White, and Blue. And long as that banner shall symbol our pride, We '11 garland the graves of our heroes that died. Decoration-Day Address. 207 men of the nation ! men of the blue ! Out from the heart comes a requiem for you, From hilltop and valley, from prairie and sea, The shout of the millions: One nation are we! No more may war's reveille open the day, But peace wreathes her chaplet forever and aye. Peace ! peace to your ashes, O men of the Blue ! Over each mound falls our love like the dew: Round you we gather to-day in our pride, With honor to all who for country have died. Sleep ! sleep ! till the waking calls to arise, And join with the army of blue in the skies. CHAPTER XVI. His Religious Experience. THE conversion of Bishop Joyce has been described in a previous chapter. Some- thing of the depth and genuineness of his religious life has been inferred from the narrative of his labors and utterances. But so important a part did personal religious experience have in his success as a pastor and bishop, and so marked was the experimental emphasis in his preaching, as that the subject merits distinct treatment. The great fundamental of his religious life was his conversion. So clear and definite was that experience that he never doubted it. He loved to refer to it. Undoubtedly it was responsible for the definiteness and confidence with which he ap- pealed to men for immediate decision for Christ. It colored all his thinking and feeling. And the conversion of men was the major emphasis of his preaching and effort up to the very end. With him, as with every obedient child of God, numberless blessings and times of refreshing came to him along the way. He grew in grace and in the knowledge of God. The exercise of his gifts 208 His Religious Experience. 209 brought their enlargement. New sorrows brought fresh opportunities to prove the faithfulness of God, and new joys afforded him fresh occasions for thanksgiving. Next to his conversion the most important spir- itual crisis of his life occurred during his first pastorate at St. Paul Church, Cincinnati. In the summer of 1883 he had charge of the Epworth Heights Camp-meeting, near Cincinnati. During its progress the teachings of Dr. William Jones, of the St. Louis Conference, on the subject of en- tire sanctification deeply impressed him. The teachings of Dr. Sheridan Baker had already given him much light upon this subject. As a young minister, in common with all other young min- isters of the Methodist Church, he had studied John Wesley's "Plain Account of Christian Per- fection," and had answered in the affirmative the bishop's interrogatory, "Do you expect to be made perfect in love in this life?" But he had never felt that he had received this grace. During the camp-meeting at Epworth Heights, however, he sought and received this blessing. And during all his ministry afterward he gave this doc- trine and experience a prominent place in his teachings. However interpretations of religious experi- ences may differ, — and we recognize that an inner 14 210 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. experience is one thing, while its theological inter- pretation is a wholly different thing — there is no doubt that there came to Bishop Joyce a great spiritual baptism at Epworth Heights, which pro- foundly affected his after ministry. There was a freedom, an earnestness, a fearlessness, and an unction attending his public ministry, and a pa- tience and love and steadiness of self-control in his private life, which showed how deeply the grace of God had permeated his springs of action and feeling. We who had known him in his Indiana pastorates felt that, while he had always been a good man and a useful minister of Christ, a new emphasis had come into his ministry and a new beauty into his life during his Cincinnati pas- torate. On his election to the episcopacy he emphasized the higher Christian life at his Annual Confer- ences. He took with him to many of his Confer- ences Dr. Samuel A. Keen, of the Ohio Confer- ence, who conducted "Pentecostal Meetings" for the ministers and people. In these meetings the office and work of the Holy Spirit were emphasized, and preachers and people were urged to seek the experience of perfect love and the anointing of the Spirit for service. After the death of Dr. Keen, Bishop Joyce took with him much of the time the Rev. Edward S. Dunham, of the Central His Religious Experience. 211 Ohio Conference, who conducted meetings on the same lines. It is not possible to estimate the new courage and hope and spiritual re-enforcement generally that came to thousands of ministers and lay members as a result of these "Pentecostal" services. While thousands of irreligious people and persons holding a merely nominal relation to the Church were converted. Bishop Joyce had with him in this work "Dr. William A. Spencer, Secretary of the Church Ex- tension Society, whenever it was possible for the latter to so arrange his work, and also Dr. Manley S. Hard, of the same Board, both of whom pre- ceded the Bishop to the heavenly reward. At first glance it might seem that such services were an unnecessary innovation. A reference to the custom of Mr. Wesley in his conferences with his preachers shows that they were a renaissance rather than an innovation. For the early Confer- ences dealt chiefly with matters of Christian expe- rience. Stevens's "History of Methodism" makes that clear. The experimental note was the domi- nant note of the early Conferences. But as the Church grew and became a vast and complex or- ganism, with great benevolent and educational in- terests, and many organizations seeking a hearing before the annual gatherings of the preachers, the Annual Conference, as a means of grace, disap- 212 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce, peared, save as an occasional sermon aroused men to seek their spiritual improvement. The confer- ring together concerning personal religious expe- rience dropped out of the program, and the em- phasis came to be on things ecclesiastical rather than on things experimental. It was to re-intro- duce this spiritual note that Bishop Joyce insti- tuted Pentecostal meetings at his Conferences, usu- ally held in the afternoon, when the Bishop and his cabinet were busy. But sometimes they were held at other hours. It was, of course, because he could not be there in person to direct the work that the Bishop took with him such brethren as Dr. Keen and Mr. Dunham to lead the work. Rev. Ira C. Cartwright, of our Mission in Mexico, told in the Central Christian Advocate how, on one occasion at least, Bishop Joyce intro- duced a Pentecostal service into the midst of the business session of the Conference: "One day Bishop Joyce stopped in the midst of the work of the day and said, 'Brethren, let us put aside for a time the temporal things, and talk of Jesus and His love.' Then in a personally con- ducted excursion he took us all and sat down with us at Jesus' feet. O, what a love-feast it was! I dare not venture to describe it." Rev. E. S. Dunham, who was associated with Bishop Joyce in this work at forty-three Confer- ences, writes concerning him: His Religious Experience. 213 "His anxiety for the spirituality of the Church, especially for the young men of the ministry, was so great as to cost him seasons of deep depression of soul. He was often with Jesus in Gethsemane with a heart of anguish. Going to his room on a Sunday morning, we found him under an unusual depression. He said : 'To-day I will lay my hands on the heads of two large classes of young men for ordination, and I will urge them to receive the Holy Ghost. O, that they would receive Him! But I fear that they will not, but will go out to be pro- fessional preachers and not soul winners.' "In this latter respect he was always an object lesson to the ministry. Never did he fail, on Con- ference Sunday, after lifting his congregation heavenward, to pull his net with from fifty to one hundred or more weeping souls on their feet for prayers. One of his most effective sermons, never to be forgotten by its hearers, was 'Peter the Fish- erman.' (Luke v, 4.) 'Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a draught.' His vivid description of Peter's sinking boat, full of fish in an unfruitful place, — and its climax, that God is always 'a good paymaster, for He paid Peter well for the use of his boat, and He will pay you in your hard field if you will take the Master with you,' sent a thrill of hope to many a discouraged preacher's heart, and brought to him many per- sonal letters reporting revivals in the most un- likely fields. I could narrate many beautiful inci- dents of remarkable conversions on these occasions, as the result of his masterful sermons on Confer- ence Sunday, but space forbids. "His desire, often expressed, was that he might 214 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. be taken to heaven from the pulpit, while in one of his 'holy gales of glory.' God answered his prayer, for he heard the summons while preaching a holiness sermon in a Pentecostal camp-meeting. He lives still in the hearts of the many thousands whom he helped to see Jesus. He was a Boanerges, with the soul- winning art of Apollos." Concerning the camp-meeting at Red Rock, Minnesota, where Bishop Joyce was stricken down, the Pentecostal Herald says: "Our beloved Bishop Joyce had graced the meeting for several days. There was not a more humble, interested listener than he. Smiles broke over his face, tears coursed down his cheeks, praises broke from his lips, as the Word was preached by one and another. He had not preached — we were saving him for Sunday, when he was to preach in the morning." The same paper says that at a meeting of the Minnesota State Holiness Association, held a few days before his death, Bishop Joyce said: "When I am resting under the flowers I want it told as a memorial that I had this blessing of entire sanctification as a work of grace by faith in the blood of Christ, subsequent to regeneration." No one who knew Bishop Joyce will need to be informed that his teaching of the experience of holiness was not controversial or censorious, but His Religious Experience. 215 loving and persuasive. It was perfect love and the Spirit's indwelling that he dwelt on. The spirit with which he approached the subject and approached men concerning the deeper things of the religious life was Fletcher-like in its tender- ness and love. It was probably because he was never a didac- tic preacher on any theme that he presented but little the doctrinal phases of this experience. His was rather the ministry of exhortation, inspiration, and consolation. Mrs. Jennie Fowler Willing wrote to an East- ern paper as follows concerning an interview with Bishop Joyce: "I met him one day in a Cincinnati restaurant, and while we stopped for a word I told him how I rejoiced over his wonderful revival services dur- ing: the session of the North Indiana Conference. 'Yes,' he replied, 'they were wonderful. I 've learned the secret.' 'I wish you would explain it to me,' I replied. 'Of all things in the world, I most want to know how to secure the outpouring of the Spirit upon the people.' 'It is nothing more nor less,' he said, 'than absolute dependence on the Holy Spirit.' " As illustrating the large place which the sense of God's presence had not only in his preaching, but in his administrative work, we introduce this 216 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. letter from a prominent member of the Newark Conference, Dr. A. H. Tuttle: "The last time I conversed with him (Bishop Joyce), was when he presided over the Newark Conference in Elizabeth, New Jersey. He called me to his office, and held me there for more than an hour talking about personal religion. Many committees were waiting outside; but he held me fast, saying, 'I need this heavenly tonic to fit me for the work these men are bringing to me.' ' Administration in the power of the Holy Spirit! What a lesson for the eighteen thousand pastors of Methodism! If we entered every Offi- cial Board meeting and every committee meeting "in the Spirit," what irritations and misunder- standings would be avoided, and how infinitely smoother would move the machinery of the Church, the operation of which now wears out so much of the vital force of preachers and lay leaders! Of this same interview Dr. Tuttle writes: "I was especially impressed with Bishop Joyce's depreciation of himself. He told me how humili- ated he had felt when he last preached at Ocean Grove. It so happened that only the day before I had been talking with one of our young preach- ers about his ideals when he said to me: 'I had been a long while asking God to give me the true conception of the way I should preach. I went to Ocean Grove and heard many sermons, but felt His Religiotis Experience. 217 that none approached my ideal, till at last Bishop Joyce preached. It was a sermon simple in its outline, but filled with argument and illustration that came from a master mind. The language was luminous, the manner fervent, and above all else the spirit was of God. The effect on the congre- gation and on myself was overpowering. God had answered my prayer. I hastened to the platform to thank the Bishop, when I saw him look over the retiring multitude, the tears raining down his cheeks. He lifted his hands over them as if in benediction, and said, "O that I knew how to preach this great gospel !" ' " Dr. Tuttle goes on to say: "I told the Bishop of this interview and inci- dent. His eyes flooded and he said: 'How dare I mistrust Him when He has given us such a gospel and has commissioned us to go preach it! How- ever feeble the preacher, the power of the gospel is sure to be felt.' That was Bishop Joyce. What he was and what he did can be explained only by the fact that he believed the Gospel of Christ as the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth." It would be an imperfect delineation of relig- ious experience if we were to confine it to a de- scription of inner enjoyment, or any inner exer- cises whatever, however genuine and important these may be. It is the effect of these in the ethical realm that we must account of greatest 218 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. importance. This phase of his religious life pro- foundly impressed those who had the opportunity of close observation. We have seen him under the most trying circumstances, where clashing interests made his position one of the greatest difficulty and delicacy, and where officious and unreasonable men must have tried him to the uttermost, and yet there was no departure from the steadiness and kindness and calmness which characterized him in the less strenuous hours. This is the more notable from the fact that his natural temperament was vol- canic. Nature's carbon had by abounding grace been transformed into diamond. Bishop Goodsell in Z ion's Herald illuminates this phase of Bishop Joyce's character: "My heart is heavy because of the death of Bishop Joyce. Elected by the same General Con- ference, our friendship began with the day of our election when we prayed together for grace for our work. For seventeen years his acquaintance has been both inspiring and delightful to me. He was a holy man, pure in speech and right in con- duct. His conscience was rightly tutored, and took cognizance of all his powers. There was no part of him which was not under control. Naturally quick-tempered, he could be silent under provoca- tion when few could resist a strong sentence. He under-rated the grace that was in him when he told me that he was silent when tried, because if he began to speak it set him on fire; or, as he put it, His Religious Experience. 219 with a twinkle in his eye, 'It stirred up the Irish in him.' In all these seventeen years of intimacy I recall nothing unworthy in him of the Christian gentleman and bishop. He differed without anger, debated without heat, and estimated without de- preciation or the slightest sign of jealousy or envy. He praised warmly, and was cold and critical only to himself. ... He said more than once (to his brother bishops) with a holy joy to which he had a right: 'My dear colleagues, you are all more gifted in many ways than I. But God gives me something, too: He gives me access to souls. In every Conference some are converted.' . . . He was a very brave man, not only in meeting physical peril, but in administration. He did not let wrong things stay because it was easy, nor wrong men remain in power for fear of raising enemies. He would be the last to claim freedom from mistakes. He told me he felt he had made some in Eastern administration ; but no one doubted that these were due to imperfect knowledge of Eastern conditions and not to self-will." Rare indeed is it to have such a cluster of ethical qualities in one life. Courage, to the point of self-sacrifice; humility, accounting others better than himself ; patience, bearing all things and hop- ing all things ; purity, transparent whiteness of soul; and love, abounding love toward God and men. "Granite base, fluted column, and lily-work at the top," a columnar character, "polished after the similitude of a palace." CHAPTER XVII. A Beautiful. Home Life. BISHOP JOYCE was greatly blessed in his home life. On the twentieth of March, 1861, he married Miss Caroline Walker Bosserman, of Laporte, Indiana. It was a most happy union. To rare personal graces his com- panion added a devotion to the work of the Master that made the young minister and his wife one in the completest sense. All through the years of his ministry this devotion never flagged. She was his helper and consoler always. In every pastorate the people bore testimony to her noble Christian character and to her charm as a woman. It is scarcely possible to over-estimate the in- fluence of the minister's wife in making or un- making the preacher's success. The home life of Bishop Joyce was a constant source of inspiration to him. And his home was more — it was what God designed every minister's home should be, a model to the people of the communities where they lived. On the occasion of receiving their own por- traits from the members of St. Paul Church in 220 A Beautiful Home Life. 221 Cincinnati, Dr. Joyce said, in semi-humorous vein: "Twenty-two years ago I asked the lady at my side if she would become the wife of a Methodist preacher, with the prospect of moving once a year. If she could say 'Yes' to that proposition it was a bargain. She did say 'Yes,' and neither of us has ever regretted our decision." We think that ministers will generally affirm that the wives of preachers have the heavier end of the yoke. They have to stay at home when their husbands are away on the long circuit trips. The burden of the absolutely necessary economies falls upon them. And of all Methodist ministers the bishops have to be away from home most, and their wives have most reason to suffer from lone- liness. We do not believe the Church in general understands how much of sacrifice the office of general superintendent in Methodism entails, es- pecially upon the wives of the bishops, the hus- bands being away months at a time. Mrs. Joyce bore the enforced absences uncom- plainingly, accepting them as a part of the burden of service for God. At those times when the Bishop came home utterly wearied in mind and body, and oppressed with the burdens of the Churches, and would say, "O, I wish I could go to sleep and never have to awaken," it was his wife who soothed and comforted him. 222 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. Two sons were born to them. One of them, their second child, Wilbur, died in infancy. Their first child, Frank Melville, grew to manhood, and became an honor and source of great comfort to them. During his college days at Greencastle, Indiana, this son organized and drilled the cham- pion college military company of the country. It bore the name of "The Asbury Cadets," and at the national tournament at Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1882, in competition with companies from cities and colleges all over America, it won third prize. While the Artillery Company from Asbury Uni- versity, also organized and led by Captain Frank Joyce, won first prize over all competitors. Well does the writer recall the exultant pride with which we undergraduates at the college received the news of these great victories. This son afterwards arose to high rank in the business circles of Cincinnati and Minneapolis, where his home now is. It was in his home that Bishop Joyce died, and with him the widow of the Bishop now resides. During the pastorate at Greencastle Bishop Joyce's sister died, and left a son, Melville, whom Dr. and Mrs. Joyce adopted and reared. This son on reaching manhood married, and makes his home in Cincinnati. Three and a half years before the Bishop's death they had moved into their new home. And A Beautiful Home Life. 223 on New- Year's day, 1902, Bishop Joyce drew up the following paper, in gratitude to God and in token of their love to Colonel Joyce, and all the members of the household signed it: "We wish to say that we regard it as a great privilege as well as a blessing and joy to be able to sit under our own vine and fig-tree in this our new home, and together eat our bountiful dinner on this the first day of the new year, 1902. Surely our lines have fallen to us in pleasant places, and we have a goodly heritage. The Lord our Heav- enly Father has been, and continues to be exceed- ingly kind and gracious to us, filling our home with plenty, and also filling our hearts and lives with a great gladness and supreme joy. We recog- nize His hand in all the blessings we this day have, and without hesitation or distrust or misgivings, trust Him for His guidance and blessings through the year upon which we now enter, and will do the same through the years He may in His blessed kindness give and allow us to live. And we not only thank Him, but we anew surrender our lives to Him, and pledge Him our unwavering love and faithful and loyal devotion and obedience so long as we shall live. And we not only give our lives anew to be His, but we dedicate this our new and beautiful home to Him, and ask Him as our Father, and His Son Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, and the blessed Holy Spirit, to fill our home with their presence, and thus make that sacred Presence an abiding blessing in our home, keeping us all in health and strength and joy fulness of spirit, glad 224 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. to serve each other, and also be a blessing to all who may come within this our home. "We wish here to express our great and hearty appreciation of the love and devotion, and service and patience, and skill and labor, of our beloved son, husband, father and grandson, Frank Melville Joyce. Without his loving sacrifice and devotion, and constant care and vigilance, we never would have had this our comfortable and tasteful home; and with all our hearts we here and now, one and all, thank him for this wonderful service which he has rendered us. Therefore be it "Resolved, That we present our beloved Frank with a copy of this paper, with our names attached to the same, as a testimony of our abiding love, affection, and devotion to him, ever praying that God through Jesus Christ our Lord, and by the blessing of the Holy Spirit, may keep us all in the riches and comforts and peace and joys of His inexhaustible and endless love. "(Signed) Isaac W. Joyce, Carrie W. Joyce, Jessie B. Joyce, Arthur R. Joyce, Caroline Joyce, Wilbur B. Joyce, Helen Joyce, Mrs. May A. Ervin (Bishop Joyce's mother)." We should go far before finding a more beau- tiful home picture than this, both in the tender- ness of the mutual love between the members of A Beautiful Home Life. 225 the households of father and son, and in the full recognition, the loving and glad confession, of the love of God in it all. This paper, drawn up by Bishop Joyce and signed by four generations represented in the home, might well become a model and inspiration for every Christian home in the land. When we remember that in this beautiful home much of the time Chinese girls were admitted while receiving an education to fit them for carrying the emancipating gospel of Jesus back to their country-women, it is a touching indication of the completeness with which this home of culture and refinement was dedi- cated to the service of Jesus Christ. And when Bishop Joyce came down to the hour of death, the precious wife who had gone uncom- plainingly with him to the hardest Indiana circuits, and shared his labors in the city pastorates, and had been at his side in his travels in foreign lands for years at a time, was still at his side, the same loving, devoted helpmate she had ever been. No touch was so soft as hers. No hand could answer to his wants with such deftness and tenderness. And the eyes of the sufferer looked the love and gratitude which his stricken lips could not utter: " When pain and anguish wring the brow, A ministering angel thou!" 15 226 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. And it was she who went with him as far down into the "valley of the shadow" as it is permitted one soul to accompany another, and repeated for him on the verge of Jordan the song: "What is this that steals upon my frame? Is it death, is it death? That soon will quench this vital flame ? Is it death, is it death? If this be death I soon shall be From every pain and sorrow free ; I shall the King of glory see ! All is well ; all is well ! Weep not, my friends, weep not for me ; All is well ; all is well ! My sins are pardoned, I am free ; All is well ; all is well ! There 's not a cloud that doth arise To hid the Savior from my eyes ; I soon shall mount the upper skies ; All is well ; all is well ! Tune, tune your harps, ye saints in glory, All is well ; all is well ! I will rehearse the pleasing story, All is well ; all is well ! Bright angels are from glory come, They're round my bed, they're in my room, They wait to waft my spirit home, All is well ; all is well I" CHAPTER XVIII. The Last Days. THE last day or so of June and first two days of July, 1905, Bishop Joyce spent at the Red Rock camp-meeting, in Min- nesota. The camp ground is an old one, and is located on the bank of the Mississippi River, a few miles below St. Paul. On Sunday morning, July 2d, Bishop Joyce arose to preach. As a Scripture lesson he read the third chapter of Ephesians. The audience ob- served that he was deeply moved during the read- ing. When he came to the eighth verse he was quite overcome and had to stop several seconds to recover himself. The verse reads, "Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints was this grace given, to preach among the Gentiles the unsearch- able riches of Christ." The theme of the sermon was, "The Power and Ultimate Triumph of the Gospel of Christ." The Rev. Henry C. Morrison, of Louisville, Ky., who was on the platform, de- scribes the scene as follows: "His sermon was one of great power of thought and unusual unction in delivery. Just before he 227 228 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. fell he said : 'They say I am growing old ; and not long since I found a photograph of myself taken some thirty years ago. I placed it alongside of my face and looked in a mirror. I could not rec- ognize the face and the picture as being that of the same man. I realized that I was growing old, but, friends, I did not feel the one-thousandth of a particle of sorrow, for this book' — pointing to the Bible — 'tells me I am immortal. I shall live for- ever.' I noticed him stagger, but he righted up. I was sitting in a chair almost in front. I moved my chair to the side of the pulpit, and very near, fearing he was going to break down. But he spoke on, clear in thought, but with thickening voice, and was saying : 'I have preached this blessed Gos- pel in almost every country under the sun, and everywhere it has the same blessed effect upon men that it has here at Red Rock.' He gave way, and I leaped forward from his left and Brother J. M. Harris from his right, and we caught him in our arms. Instantly a number of preachers surrounded him, and a large chair was placed behind him, in which he sat for a few moments. He said: 'I will be all right directly, and want to finish my ser- mon.' Some one gave him water, and after a few moments he arose to preach, Rev. Brother Brown, pastor at Mankato, standing by him, and sup- porting him with his arm. 'None of you know what labor I have gone through, and if it is God's will that I go now, I would as soon go from here as anywhere.' We all (including Mrs. Joyce) entreated him not to attempt to preach further. It was plain that his right arm and lower limb The Last Bays. 229 were paralyzed. He was placed in the chair and borne to his room. "The great audience remained perfectly quiet, and scores of people were weeping. I said to them: 'I want all of you, Christians and sinners, in the Church and out of it, who feel within your hearts after this sermon and this scene that you will give your hearts to God, and live more devout and consecrated lives to stand.' It seemed that everybody present arose. At the two succeeding services of the day we had sixty-five professions of salvation." As the Bishop was being borne from the plat- form to his cottage he said : "If this is God's time and God's way, I am ready." The next day Bishop Joyce was removed to the family residence in Minneapolis. For four weeks he lingered, while his friends alternated be- tween hope and despair. The story of that period is vividly delineated by the pastor of the family, Dr. Fayette L. Thompson, of the Hennepin Ave- nue Church, in the Northwestern Christian Ad- vocate : "The concluding four weeks of helplessness in the life of Bishop Joyce are not less remarkable than the wonderful years of his vigorous health. The stately family home at 310 Groveland Ave- nue, Minneapolis, offered every facility for his most perfect care. The trained nurse, herself a Christian product of our own Asbury Hospital in 230 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. which for all the years of his residence among us the bishop has been so deeply interested, could not have surpassed her devotions had the sufferer been her father. The bishop's son, Colonel Frank M. Joyce, and his devoted wife, with utter self-forget- fulness night and day, ministered as utmost love alone can to every expressed or imagined desire. The beauty and charm of the affections manifest during those days can never be fully appreciated by the outside world, and are far too sacred to permit any verbal expression. The well known pride of the bishop in his only son and beautiful family, and his intense affection for each one of them, seemed to be greatly accentuated during these days, and he was not satisfied unless one or more of them were constantly with him. "For the first week he evidently alternated in his own mind between the strong expectation of recovery and an appreciation of his hopelessness. After the first shock had somewhat passed, for a few days some slight control over his helpless side appeared to be returning. So much so, that one morning with boyish glee and the old, familiar twinkle in his eye, running his hand fondly through his son's hair and proudly swinging, slightly, his helpless limb, he said, 'We '11 fool them yet.' "Somewhat later as his physician was leaving his side, he seized hold of his own shriveled cheek with his well hand and looked with a peculiarly penetrating gaze at his doctor as much as to say, 'Can you help me?' The physician strove to ig- nore the manifest question, but with a touch of his old, splendid imperiousness the bishop looked The Last Days. 231 the more intently as though demanding an answer. At last, with quivering lips, the physician slowly shook his head. The bishop turned quickly on his pillow to hide his emotion, while the physician, with tears streaming down his cheeks, left the room. From that hour the great soul seemed to accept the inevitable. "Upon entering the room after a day or two of absence, this writer was greeted with a distinct smile and a slight nod of the head. With the hand over which he had control the bishop indi- cated the opposite side of the bed. When coming close to the bedside, with a vigorous up and down motion of the hand he distinctly articulated the one word 'pray.' We all understood him to sug- gest prayer, and knelt about his bed. During the prayer, by frequent pressure of his hands tightly clasped in those of the visitor, he expressed his approval of the individual petitions as intelligently and appreciatively as though in perfect health. "A little later he hummed through a four-line stanza of some hymn. It is quite impossible to be positive to the degree of certainty, but those who heard it and who knew his great fondness for the hymn are entirely sure that he was singing as his death song: " ' There's a wideness in God's mercy, Like the wideness of the sea ; There 's a kindness in His justice, Which is more than liberty.' "The entire last day was a never-to-be-forgot- ten period. From early morning throughout the whole day there was a supernaturalness about his 232 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. room. The face of the sufferer was like some rare old porcelain with a light behind it. He was con- stantly looking intently upward, his lips moving, and he seemed in perpetual converse with an unseen presence. None there will ever doubt that he saw unseen things that day, and talked with invisible attendants. "Shortly after midnight it was seen that the end was drawing on. With finger on his pulse the physician said, 'It can not be long now.' Every heart was tense to the breaking point ; but she who was henceforth to walk alone seemed wondrously strengthened. After a moment, in quiet, yet bell-like tones, Mrs. Joyce said, 'If he could speak now I am sure he would say' — and then she repeated in the same even tones the lines from the hymn: " ' What is this that steals upon my frame? Is it death? Is it death V "The spiritual effect of the entire scene baffles description. In a few brief moments it was well, eternally well. "Throughout all these hours one, more than all others, perpetually amazed everybody by her poise and self-control. One who more than all others suffered, yet was most composed of all. At Red Rock at the first, through the long nights of waiting, in the crisis hours, in all the sad prepa- rations for the services, at the last and always the same splendid resignation, she put us all to shame. Naught save a superlative character, re-enforced and glorified by the matchless fullness of divine grace, could thus "suffer and be strong." The Last Days. 233 "Unexpected and heart-breaking affliction re- veals instantly and inevitably the real fiber of home life. The writer was in and out of this home at all hours of the night and day, probably more frequently than any save the family physician. The house was a temple. The place was holy ground. Utter and crushing sadness was in every heart, on every face, but trust in God, reliance upon heaven, a holy calm and strength such as only long years of godly fellowships can make possible, were there also. If the atmosphere of that home during these trying days could be expressed in a language intelligible to mankind, it would afford a demonstration of Christian realities incompar- ably above any of the arguments in the books. "Perhaps the final touch of glory came when, under a spreading canopy at Lakewood, with banks of flowers about him, the dust of the great servant of the Church was left to rest beneath the lilies he loved so well. From that spot in holy awe the sympathetic company turned away, touched by his immortal presence, into an honest purpose to live something of his life among men. Will one be misunderstood in saying that the heart- aches were well nigh lost in holy exultations, and that both tears and hallelujahs were in many hearts?" That death did not come to Bishop Joyce an unconsidered guest is indicated by some verses they found among his later papers after his death: 234 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. "O think, to step ashore, and that shore, Heaven! To take hold of a hand, and that, God's hand ! To breathe a new air, and that Celestial air ! To feel invigorated, and know it Immortality ! think ! To pass from the storm and tempest To one unbroken smile — To awake and find it Glory !" The funeral was held Monday, July 31st. Brief services at the house in the morning were con- ducted by Dr. Fayette L. Thompson, pastor of Hennepin Avenue Church. The body of Bishop Joyce, escorted by a delegation of official mem- bers of the various Methodist Churches of the city, reached Wesley Church at about 12.40 P. M. It was there received by the Methodist ministers of St. Paul and Minneapolis and adjoining Confer- ences. The body lay in state until 2.30 P. M., with a guard of honor consisting of the presiding elders of the Minnesota and Northern Minnesota Conferences, and Dr. P. A. Cool, pastor of Fowler Church, Minneapolis, and Dr. H. V. Givler, pastor of First Church, St. Paul, Minn. The services at Wesley Church were in charge of Dr. Thompson, assisted by Dr. L. T. Guild, pastor of the Church, Bishop W. F. McDowell, President George H. Bridgeman, of Hamline Uni- versity; Dr. W. B. Riley, of the First Baptist Church; Dr. W. H. Jordan, pastor of the First Methodist Episcopal Church, and Dr. F. M. Rule, The Last Days. 235 presiding elder of the St. Paul District. The services were conducted without music, but the fa- vorite hymns of Bishop Joyce were read by a num- ber of the ministers. The main addresses were delivered by Bishop Walden and Bishop Berry. Bishop Merrill made a brief, touching talk. The pallbearers were the ministers who carried Bishop Joyce to the depot at Red Rock the day he was stricken. The following were the addresses delivered by Bishops Beriy and Walden : "ADDRESS. BISHOP JOSEPH F. BERRY, BUFFALO, N. Y. "It seems not much longer ago than yesterday that the bishops closed their semi-annual meeting at Louisville, grasped hands in affectionate fare- well, and went out to another six months of toil. Bishop Joyce had been entertained at a private home, but on that closing day he came down to the hotel and took dinner with us. He looked very tired, and I remarked as much to him. He looked up at me with his charming smile and said: 'Yes, but I am going to have a long rest.' He meant a long rest at his home in Minneapolis, surrounded by his family and friends. He did not know — we did not know — that a longer and more exhilarating rest was just ahead, a rest amid the glories of the skies. "I make no attempt at formal discourse, but 236 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. speak out of my heart a simple tribute to the memory of one whom I loved as I have loved few men. If there should be overmuch of the personal element in what I shall say, you must pardon me; I can not speak in any other way. "I have been acquainted with Bishop Joyce since 1888. I have known and loved him only since 1900. "I will never forget the morning, at the close of the General Conference, at Chicago, when he came into the editorial rooms of the Epworth Herald and announced to me that he had just been chosen by his colleagues to be president of the Epworth League. We spent two hours in con- ference and prayer for the League, which bore rich fruit during that quadrennium. That inter- view, with its earnest planning and praying, was the beginning of five years of most precious inti- macy. u As I have been thinking for the past day or two about my glorified friend, certain traits of his character have stood out conspicuously, and I must mention them to you: "First, our friend was an exceedingly sensitive man. To those who knew him only superficially this statement will seem strange, but it was more true of Bishop Joyce than of any public man I have known. When he was misunderstood it was a wound in his soul. Criticism cut him to the quick. He craved the appreciation of his friends. He coveted sympathy. A word of honest praise when he had done some splendid service was as 'oint- ment poured forth.' It is not often that a man of such rugged strength, such courage, such The Last Days. 237 tenacity of purpose, such abounding enthusiasm, had also such delicac}' of feeling, such sensitiveness, heartstrings that were made to moan or sing by the slightest zephyrs which blew upon them. But such was the combination in the character of our translated leader. "Second, this friend was absolute and undying in his friendships. What a lover he was ! To a man he trusted he gave his whole heart. He would brave any criticism, much as he disliked it, make any sacrifice, endure any toil, take any risks which might seem necessary, to serve the man he loved. He may at times have been imposed upon by those who were unworthy of his confidence. His own heart was so pure that he thought all others pure. His motives were so free from selfishness that it was difficult for him to discern selfishness in others. And even when his eyes were opened to the truth, how slow he was to close his heart to one who had once been admitted there! What finer trait is there than loyalty to one's friendships? And what blacker thing is there than to accept the confi- dence of another and then betray that confidence? The friendships of Isaac W. Joyce were never based on self-interest. "Then Bishop Joyce was essentially demo- cratic. He was a plain man. He loved the plain people. Wealth, station, social pretense, civic or ecclesiastical position — these counted for nothing with him. Many of his closest friends were very poor. The plain circuit preacher had in him a brother. He would as soon accept entertainment in a hovel as in a palace. He was especially kind to those who had nothing to give in return but 238 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. their love. A storm of indignation was raised in a Tennessee town some years ago because Bishop Joyce accepted the hospitality of a colored fam- ily while he was serving his Church in that com- munity. He did not go to that humble home because he desired to provoke comment. He did not willingly invite the protest. He went there because he was invited, and because to accept the hospitality of the family seemed to him the most natural and proper thing in the world. He hated social caste, and assumptions of superiority be- cause of wealth or name aroused his hot indigna- tion. He was a common man and loved common people. "Then, the bishop was an intense missionary. The spirit of the propaganda was in his blood. He yearned for the salvation of the unsaved. Like his Master, he had compassion on the multitude. His sermons, his prayers, his conversation and his correspondence were all surcharged with an undying solicitude for the perishing. There was no spot on earth that he loved quite so well as the glowing altar of revival. No song was quite so sweet to his ears as that which sounded out as some seeking soul came into the light. No bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church ever came home from a foreign field more absolutely in love with his field than Bishop Joj^ce when he came home from China. How he loved those brainy, awakening people! What pictures he painted of their redemption-! No guests were so welcome in his home as re- turned missionaries. He used to say in speaking to his Conferences or at missionary meetings that he would rather be doing service in China than The Last Days. 239 an v where else on earth, and that he would rather go to heaven, like Bishop Wiley, from that land than from any other spot on earth. His wife used sometimes to call his attention to the utterance which some persons thought extravagant, and re- minded him that at his age it could not be true that he would rather be in China. To this he would reply: 'I mean just w r hat I say; I mean just what I say.' "All will agree that Bishop Joyce was one of the most popular and effective preachers of his day. He was not at his best in a short and in- formal address. His greatest efforts were sermons he preached at the Conferences or upon special oc- casions. As a pastor in Indiana and in Cincinnati he was immensely popular. To sustain himself for eight years in practically the same territory, as he did in Cincinnati, was evidence of unusual intellectual and oratorical power. No Methodist preacher ever made such a profound impression upon that city as did Bishop Joyce. What re- vivals God gave him there! From the beginning he was a flaming evangelist. Our evangelist-bishop has fallen. "I heard him preach perhaps twenty times. Two sermons stand high above the others. One was the sermon delivered at our Ep worth League convention at San Francisco. For an hour and a quarter he held that mighty host by the spell of his fervid eloquence. Though he spoke to nearly ten thousand people, his voice rang out clear and sweet, and marvelous in its winsomeness to the very close. In all parts of the country I meet persons who heard that sermon, and it lingers 2-40 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. in the memory as a benediction. But, judged by its effect, the sermon Bishop Joyce preached at the Rock River Conference at Dixon was still mightier. "Launch out into the deep" was his text. There were two climaxes which were simply tremendous, over-mastering. The congregation was melted, uplifted and swayed as the storm moves the tree-tops of the forest. What a day it was! The waves of holy joy rolled higher and higher until nearly midnight, and scores were either converted or lifted into an enlarged spiritual life. "But at the basis of all this great life and far-reaching usefulness was the utter consecration which our leader had made to God. He believed in the Bible utterty. He was not troubled by doubt. He was gloriously converted. He never discredited for a moment his personal experience. He gripped with a grip of steel ail the great verities of religion. Skepticism never neutralized his power. He believed in an uttermost salvation. "I was disappointed two weeks ago when I visited his bedside that he could not talk to me. I wanted to hear his familiar voice again. As he lies before us to-day he is still. We can not hear him speak. Yes, we can ! Yes, we can ! 'He being dead yet speak eth.' And what does he say? Our translated leader, enthroned among the blood- washed throng, says to his colleagues of the Epis- copal Board, to the editors of our Methodist press, to the secretaries of our benevolent organizations, to our pastors in this and in other lands, to our great membership everywhere: 'Be true to God; be true to the Bible; be true to the Pauline doc- The Last Days. 241 trine of an uttermost salvation; be true to the traditions of the fathers ; accept the whole Gospel ; have faith in your mission, and press on to the conquest of the whole wide world." "ADDRESS, "It was by mutual request that Bishop Joyce and I were entertained together in the same home during the last Conference of the Bishops in Louis- ville. Those were precious days, and all the more precious to me now. Our associations in the past, and my presence to-day would lead me to be one of the family here instead of where I stand. But, looking forward to this moment, I felt I could not, although I seldom use manuscript — I felt I could not say what I desire to say without having the matter before me. Bishop Joyce and I became acquainted during the Northwest Indiana Conference in 1870, nearly thirty-five years ago. He was closing his first year as presiding elder, having been appointed by Bishop Clark the year before, when he had been a full member of the Conference only eight years. His early promotion caused a critical concern with some, but the hearty sympathy and interest of others. I did not know at that time that his birth- place was only two miles from where I was a boy. By this same bishop's suggestion I had been appointed to Cincinnati when I had been a full member of the Conference only seven years, a coin- cidence in our experience which may have had much to do with the beginning of our friendship. 16 242 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. I learned from Bishop Simpson that young Joyce had his work well in hand and that his colleagues respected his counsel. During the first decade, when he was received on probation, his work was such that he was then appointed presiding elder. Bishop Clark selected him for the position, because the character of his work arrested the bishop's at- tention and commanded his confidence. "At the close of a successful term on that dis- trict he was appointed to Lafayette, a station where, as pastor and as presiding elder, he was well known. It was one of the first important churches he was called upon to serve, and he spent ten years at Lafayette as pastor and presiding elder. His next pastoral term was in the church at Greencastle. Here his kindly life had a great influence upon the students. He found no reason to modify the evangelistic character of his preach- ing. At the close of this pastorate in 1879 his Conference elected him as a delegate to the Gen- eral Conference. In 1880 he became pastor of St. Paul Church in Cincinnati. The Church had been served by pastors known throughout the whole connection, and the bishops and the Church rep- resentatives were all concerned about the choice to be made. Bishop Peck appointed him in 1880, and at the close of 1883 he was appointed to Trinity, and after three years he was returned to St. Paul, where he served until he was elected bishop in 1888. His pastoral service in these two churches covered a period of seven years and eight months. When he came to Cincinnati as pastor there was a discouraging debt on each of these two churches. He used ordinary means to interest the people of The Last Days. 243 the church, but he was insistent in impressing upon the officers of the church and Sunday-school the need of a great revival. He saw the necessity of a revival for the upbuilding of the church. This is his own record as stated in that memorial to Bishop Wiley: 'During my first pastorate at St. Paul God blessed his people with a revival of religion which continued three months.' He preached to relatively large congregations ; he had revivals during each of the pastorates such as have not been witnessed in Cincinnati in a generation. There was an increase of membership in each church and full payment was made of the debts. This means ability in the pulpit, an evangelistic spirit, a faith- ful performance of pastoral duties, a practical leadership in temporal as well as in spiritual af- frairs of the church. He brought into his Epis- copal work the evangelistic spirit which was char- acteristic of his pastorate. He prepared his ser- mons not only with the desire to interest his con- gregations, but also with the view that his hearers might be led to the all-important decision. Many years ago in a mountain village in North Caro- lina, where Bishop Simpson and I were keeping watchnight, he told me that he attributed much of his success to his intense desire to bring his hearers to an immediate decision. "During his residence at Chattanooga he was an inspiration in the encouragement of our strug- gling churches in the South. A little after he had taken up his Episcopal duties at Chattanooga, owing to some peculiar conditions that arose at that time, he was elected Chancellor of Grant Uni- versity. His time was fully occupied with his i 244 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. Episcopal duties, yet for five years he held that position to the greatest advantage. "His wisdom and the element of leadership were made prominent in the most delicate duty a bishop is called upon to perform, and that is in fixing the appointments of the preachers. In the discharge of this duty Bishop Joyce was able to render much valuable service, but he came to this duty with a brother's heart, and yet with a leader's conviction. He understood and s} T mpathized with the preacher and his family, yet he never failed to recognize the material and spiritual welfare of the Church. He was devoted as any father could be, but when firmness was needed he was immov- able. "His work as bishop was done faithfully and well; no one could become more deeply interested in the work and carry it forward in a more advan- tageous way. Perhaps the most important work he did was in foreign fields, and no other foreign field interested him quite as much as China and its old and quaint civilization. Bishop Jo}^ce in seventeen years has done more work in foreign fields than any other bishop in the episcopacy except myself. In 1898 he held twelve Con- ferences in Continental Europe; he had charge of Mexico in 1895 and thoroughly visited that work; in 1896-7 he had charge of China, Korea and Japan and spent two consecutive years there, and he was the first to make the toilsome trip to the West China mission. His last foreign visit was to South America in 1903 and 1904. He went down one side of the coast and returned on the other side, visiting every part of the field. He The Last Days. 245 was vitally interested in every part of our foreign work. He was careful in his administration. He was anxious that our work should be Methodistic. It was necessary for him to preach through an interpreter, but his sermons were so full of the evangelistic spirit that his Episcopal visits marked a new Gospel era in those far foreign fields. This gives supreme significance to the words with which his life-work as a preacher culminated: 'I have preached this Gospel in nearly every country on the globe, and always with the same effect!' His report in the Bishops' Conference of his two years service in Japan, China and Korea made a deep and lasting impression upon his hearers. Stead- fast as their faith was in the saving power of the Gospel, former reports from those fields had not led them to expect such results as followed his earnest and faithful preaching in China and Japan. At the close of his report he emphasized the importance of preaching an evangelistic Gos- pel, and to close the sermon by an appeal to sin- ners to make an immediate decision by rising for prayers or in some other public way committing themselves to God their Saviour. With deep emo- tion he closed by saying, 'Brother bishops, let us give the Holy Ghost a chance!' That Board was moved as I never saw it moved before or since. "I am moved to make a single remark with- out having it committed to my paper. Here sits with us this afternoon the one who has been his companion in his ministerial work for forty-four years or about that time. No one but a bishop's wife knows what the Episcopacy means for the home. It means the breaking up of home. Many 246 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. of your bishops sleep more nights on the sleeping car than they do in their homes. This companion for twenty-seven years shared with Bishop Joyce the lot of a pastor's wife. During a large portion of his travels in foreign fields she was with him, and during one year alone he traveled nearly forty thousand miles. Our people do not know, the Methodist Church does not know what a pastor's wife sacrifices in building up the Church. The Church does not know the blessed influence that the bishops' wives exert upon the welfare of the Church. "Bishop Jo} T ce was strong as a friend. Con- cerning Bishop Wiley he wrote: 'He was a true friend ; he dearly loved his friends and opened his heart to them. I can say of Bishop Wiley that he was one of the truest friends I ever had.' These words mean that Bishop Joyce knew what friend- ship was and cherished it. He had many true friends, but, as with every man, a few stood very close to him. I was cognizant of the friendship between him and Bishop Wiley. He and the sainted Ridgaway were far more than neighbor pastors. I knew well that precious fellowship for Wiley, Ridgaway and Chase. Friends, they are united. He and one member of his old Confer- ence (still living, or I would give his name) in Indiana had been in the closest friendship all these years. There are few of such friendships, but they make earth much richer. "I think I may be pardoned for speaking of this incident: From that room where the dear ones were watching over him so tenderly and faithfully The Last Days. 247 during those anxious days and nights came this message in a letter written from that home : 'Frank can help him talk by catching a word now and then and reading his thoughts apparently. Yes- terday he was trying to talk of Bishop Walden. He kept saying "John M." over and over, and when Frank said, "John M. Walden?" he said, "Yes," and then added slowly, "Best friend I ever had." ' And I know what those words mean. "This friend, moved by that unspeakable feel- ing to the which name friendship is given in lim- ited human speech, offers this tribute, imperfect as it is, to his dear memor}'. These earthly trib- utes seem inadequate, but they are filled with tender and sacred meaning. We know something of their worth; we feel something of their inner power, but he, seeing as he is seen, and knowing as he is known now, may they not be even more to him than to us with only our earthly vision? But if all this is so, and who doubts it? these tributes are but a minor part of what has become real to him. During his last visit to St. Paul Church, how many gathered around him w T ho had been converted under his ministry ! How many have gained the heavenly home in whose salvation he w r as instrumental! Now they have gathered about him there. May he not now know how many were saved during all the years of his evangelistic preaching? What a constellation must be the stars in his crown of rejoicing! That constella- tion is the crowning of his passion to win souls to Christ. But, far better than even all this, far better than all the saintly greetings, has been the 248 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. approving smile of the enthroned Jesus, whose all-saving power was the dominant note of his preaching, and the words of his Jesus, his Lord, whom he strove to serve loyally, to complete his joy, 'Well done, faithful servant!'" CHAPTER XIX. Isaac Wilson Joyce as We Knew Him. THE "Great-Heart" of Methodism is dead! So thousands felt when the news flashed over the wires that Isaac Wilson Joyce was no more. Eighteen months have passed since then and the feeling of bereavement is as fresh as on the day he was stricken; a feeling by no means con- fined to the denomination of which Bishop Joyce was an honored representative. The time has been long enough to permit a sober estimate of his character and work. And with a multitude of people that estimate will declare Bishop Jo}^ce to have been the most Christ-like man they ever knew. There was about him a personal magnetism that was the product of warm sympathies and per- sonal graces. It drew men to him. Coupled with it was a dignity, both of manner and character, which won their respect, forbidding undue famil- iarity. This respect was heightened by the ca- pacity he displayed in the management of men and affairs. Courage and gentleness were so admir- 249 250 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. ably blended as to provoke wonder that either could exist so fully, and brook at the same time the other's presence. All this was combined with a passion of zeal and enthusiasm for the kingdom of God and for the personal Christ that often rendered his personality radiant. Particularly was this last impression produced when he was at his best in the pulpit. Whatever the conventional standards of pulpit discourse might offer in crit- icism of the homiletical structure of his sermons, or as to their subject-matter, judged by that most accurate of all canons, the total effect produced, Bishop Joyce was a remarkable preacher. Few, indeed, are the men of this generation who have touched the secret springs of being in so many people. And, not as his type of preachers are usually credited with doing, only emotionally and evanescently, but permanently. While often the emotions have been profoundly moved, yet the will and the moral nature have been moved also, and when precipitation has taken place, there have been seen the crystallizings of new and holy character. In this regard Bishop Joyce's ministry was truly apostolic. Under his preaching the phenomena of the early Christian preaching were continually re- appearing. And when it is remembered that this was in a "burnt district" age — a generation in which the pendulum has swung to the farthest Isaac Wilson Joyce as We Knew Him. 251 extreme from the emotional phases of the apostolic era, and when the people called Methodists main- tain for the greater part an attitude of apology for being the depository of a "heart" religion, it becomes apparent how much independence of in- tellect — not to say courage — Bishop Joyce's at- titude required. For it is harder to be true to a teaching which, because of excesses or abuse, has been discredited, than to champion an entirely new interpretation of religion. The achievements of Bishop Joyce's career bulk large. The work he accomplished in the pastorate, the unexpected strength which his Epis- copal administration developed, the new impulse which he gave to evangelism throughout the whole Church, the impetus he imparted to missionary enterprise, and the powerful influence which he exerted on individuals, especially the rank and file of the preachers of Methodism, were extraordi- nary, even for one in his high position. His career is full of encouragement to the average men in the ministry — average in ability and in educational equipment — as showing, not how high a position a man of less than the highest intellectual equipment and power in the realm of pure intellect can attain, but as showing how much such a man can actually achieve that is of perma- nent value to the kingdom of God. With strong 252 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. though not transcendent mind, and with an edu- cation little better than the high school at the start, though afterwards greatly enlarged by study, his degree of Master of Arts being obtained by a course of study, this man of God, by an absolute devotion to the core of the Gospel, wielded an influence and achieved results which many of greater natural gifts and greater scholarship have utterly failed to approach. This suggests two queries: whether we must not revise our classification of "abilities" as com- monly estimated, and assign a larger place to tem- peramental and heart qualities, and a less com- manding place to pure intellect. As Bishop Joyce once said to the writer: "More preachers fail from lack of heart than through a lack of head." Sec- ond, it suggests the query whether the Church in choosing her officials would not do wisely to take more account of these elements of strength in mak- ing her choice of leaders. That intellectual Phari- saism which trusts in itself that it is brainy, and despises others, is an offense to both God and man, and fails always to work the righteousness of God. But Isaac W. Joyce was much more than a suc- cessful preacher. He was a broad-visioned man, taking the keenest interest in everything that af- fected the well-being of his fellows. He took the Isaac Wilson Joyce as We Knew Him. 253 liveliest interest in politics. And bis politics was of the stalwart Republican school, bred-in during the civil war. However the new generation might be carried off into new schools of prophesying, Bishop Joyce was mindful of the forces and ideals that had come into such sharp and fierce conflict during the struggle between the States, and this determined his political alignment, although in the last few years of his life he manifested sym- pathy with the Prohibition party's work. He was an idol among old soldiers. They heard him with delight, and again and again called on him for speeches. Except in his directly evangelistic ap- peals he was at his best on patriotic themes. What- ever had to do with the flag and the institutions and principles for which it stood, awoke his deepest enthusiasm. Never shall the writer forget when, as a boy, perched up in a window overlooking the pulpit in the church at Greencastle, Indiana, we heard him grow eloquent over the greatness of America and over God's plans for her; and how his eyes flashed and his face glowed as he intro- duced in his peroration Longfellow's "Building of the Ship:" "Humanity with all its fears, With all the hopes of future years, Is hanging breathless on thy fate." 254 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. And every one of us boys was perfectly sure that it was; the very way Dr. Joyce said it carried ab- solute conviction. Bishop Joyce had a genius for making and holding friends. He had the faculty of draw- ing them to him with silken cords and then binding them to him "with hooks of steel." His correspondence — the amount of it and the variety of it — with all sorts and conditions of people — re- veals it. The letters that came pouring in after his death reveal it. When some good men die those who knew them say: "What a loss his death is to the Church! Who can do the work he has been doing?" But it is soon found that the work has another workman at hand fully equal to it, and the loss is quickly repaired. But when Bishop Joyce died it was as though a blow had been struck to hundreds of hearts all over the world, and they all cried out, "Behold and see if any sorrow like unto my sorrow !" We may not know just how that full witchery was wrought, but such things as these may account for it in part. A young lad in Lafayette, Indiana, comes along with his daily papers on Christmas. Mr. Joyce, the Methodist minister, was to him no more than any other customer. But when the paper went to his home that day, into the boy's hand Mr. Joyce slipped a bright new dollar, with Isaac Wilson Joyce as We Knew Him. 25.5 a cheery "Merry Christmas!" And the boy went bounding down the street to finish his route and carry the news to his mother. Eighteen or twenty years afterward when Dr. Joyce was pastor of a Cincinnati church that boy, now become the head of a railroad company, sent word to Dr. Joyce "that he was never to pay a cent of railroad fare on any part of his lines, and that he could have anything on that railway except the roadbed." At Greencastle another poor boy came trudging in from work one evening, to be told by his widowed mother: "Brother Joyce was here awhile ago and left this for you." And she put into his hand a crisp five dollar bill. "He says this is to pay your admission fee to the preparatory depart- ment of the University — that he wants to have the pleasure of paying your first fee." Every other dollar of his whole course through college and seminary that boy earned. But that first five dol- lars looked the biggest and the brightest of any that he ever handled before or since. And there was never a day after that that boy would not have done anything on earth for "Brother Joyce." A young man in an Indiana town, ambitious, but with no adequate opening in the town, writes Dr. Joyce about it at Cincinnati. And Dr. Joyce in the midst of his heavy and responsible pas- torate, has time to go out and find a situation on a 256 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. daily paper for the lad, and he begins a career of usefulness and success in the newspaper world. A teacher's health breaks down in her work in an Indiana town. She is the daughter of a de- ceased preacher of Dr. Joyce's old Conference in Indiana. He sends for her to come down to Cin- cinnati, arranges for her entrance to a hospital, secures special rates for her and looks after her as tenderly as a father during the months of her illness. He was Great-Heart all the way along! When some one spoke about his doing so much for the poor, he replied: " I have been poor my- self, and I am going to help every struggling per- son I can." An incident in the St. Paul pastorate at Cin- cinnati further illustrates this quality. In his round of visiting one day he called on one of the St. Paul members. Her only child was dying from scarlet fever. The neighbors were afraid to go near. There was no servant in the house and the woman was in despair and wild with grief. Dr. Jo} r ce went to the cellar, found kindling and coal, made a fire in the grate, then went out and found a friend to go and help the mother, and ordered groceries and other things for the comfort of the home. The next day the precious child was bur- ied. The mother never ceased her expressions of gratitude for her pastor's timely help in the darkest hours of her life. Isaac Wilson Joyce as We Knew Him. 257 Ex-President Gobin, of DePauw University, wrote of him, in the Central Christian Advocate: "To strangers, his bearing sometimes seemed a little too independent, if not haughty, but no man had more genuine sympathy for the needy and afflicted. In one of his wealthy churches some ladies were criticising him for his assistance of a 'ne'er-do-well' family in his parish, claiming that he allowed himself to be imposed upon, but with much emphasis he answered: 'That woman (a widow with three children) is your sister in the Church and deserves your sympathy, and not your censure.' "When about to move from a certain city, he and Mrs. Joyce were tendered a reception in one of the largest and finest homes in the place. Of course, great multitudes came to say good-by to the beloved pastor and wife. Before the conclu- sion of the occasion he asked to be excused to at- tend to an errand, as he was to leave in the morn- ing on an early train. He went away from this scene of elegance and compliments to make a part- ing visit to a poor family in a distant, dark and wretched part of the city, where he left a gift of five dollars out of his own pocket to meet emer- Wc read in Holy Writ of One who went about doing good. Is not the secret of Bishop Joyce's power over people's hearts that he followed in the Master's steps? There was that about Bishop Joyce's friend- 17 258 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. ship that made those who shared it feel that each was an especially favored one. This was not be- cause of any impression he attempted to make. There was no insincerity about it. It was because it was easy and delightful for him to love. And his whole heart went out in unaffected love to his friends. The personal element was so strong as that each felt himself to be favored above all others. Friends of his youth maintained their intimacy with him up to his death. Friends made in his early pastorates never forgot him. The touch of other personalities never effaced his image from their hearts. They loved him and he them, to the end. What a vital things his love was! Bishop Joyce was subjected to a test of char- acter by his election to the Episcopacy which has seriously affected more than one man. The in- vestment of a man with as absolute power as our polity clothes the bishops with is a strain upon humility. Many a man has grown arbitrary and self-sufficient by the exercise of such authority, and by having to hear chiefly adulation and flattery — or at least praise. But with Bishop Joyce's elec- tion to the Episcopacy there came, if anything, added humility and patience. We have seen him wading through the work of annual Conferences with a kindness and a patience, under trying cir- Isaac Wilson Joyce as Wc Knew Him. 259 cumstanccs, that were amazing. In one of our larg- est Conferences he was a guest in our home. Night after night, twelve and even one o'clock would find him still up, going into the many cases re- quiring adjustment, with minutest care. And the patience with committees, ministerial and lay, in a peculiarly difficult Conference session, involving an extraordinary number of changes, was a growing wonder to those who knew it. And the secret of it all was his absolute devotion to Jesus Christ. In it he showed himself a great soul, with that great- ness described by J. G. Holland: "To honor God, to benefit mankind, To serve with lofty gifts the lowly needs Of the poor race for which the God-man died, And do it all for love — 0! this is great!" CHAPTER XX. Estimates by Church Leaders. WE give the following characterizations of Bishop Joyce and his work by leaders of the Church, who were long associated with him, selecting a few out of very many. The first — that of Bishop McCabe — will read almost like a prophecy. The sustained co-incidences of their lives were further added to in the manner of their death, Bishop McCabe, also, being stricken with apoplexy, lingering for a time amid the prayers and tears of a host, like Bishop Joyce, and then passing away: "Bishop Joyce was born on the same day of the month and the same year that I was born, and in the same State — namely, the 11th day of Oc- tober, 1836. When I heard that he was stricken down, the first words that came to my mind were these: 'I come next.' I trust I shall be as ready as he was, for when they bore him from the platform, he said: 'If this is God's way, His will be done.' It is so blessed to so live that sudden death is sudden glory, and the summons to arise and depart 280 Estimates by Church Leaders. 261 is not a painful surprise to us, but a joyous call to a higher and more glorious career. I believe him to have been a good man, a true man, a winner of souls, and a man of great evangelistic power." BY BISHOP MERRILL. "His work as a bishop proved the fitness of his election. He entered upon it courageously and prosecuted it with the zeal of a man of God, ad- justing himself to the practical phases of his office without abating in the least the ardor of his soul in the spiritual lines of his ministry. The work of revival was still his favorite work. He had revivals in his Conferences, and often sent his preachers home from Conference sessions aflame with zeal for conversions. His influence for good in keeping the spirit of evangelism awake in the ministry and in the Church can not be adequately estimated. After all, there is no better repute for a Methodist bishop than to be known through the Churches as a revival bishop. This distinction be- longed to Bishop Joyce while living, and will crown and glorify his memory through ages to come. "Bishop Joyce was a much-loved man by the ministers of the Church, but not more by any class than by his colleagues. On his election he came into the fullest confidence of the bishops, and al- ways commanded their esteem and love. He was chosen by them to preside over the Epworth League, and thus to do much towards shaping the religious life of the young people, and thereby to affect and give tone to the spirituality of the whole Church. He was sent abroad by them to the most important foreign missions of the Church, 262 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. and intrusted with the most important and delicate affairs of administration, where world-wide inter- ests depended on the wisdom and fidelity of his work. No disappointment ever came because of any responsibility put upon him. The results of his labors abroad elicited the admiration and grati- tude of those who sent him and enhanced the esteem in which he was held by the whole Church. Not even a summary of his work in his wide field is possible. Gloriously did he come to the consum- mation. In the strength of his manhood, in the zenith of a career marked with triumphs, with fac- ulties alert and with powers aglow with fervor, he met the summons and bowed submissively to the order which closed his activities while the star of hope for greater victories still gleamed brightly in the heaven of his love." BY BISHOP FOSS. "The characteristic of Bishop Joyce which im- pressed me most was his sustained and unquench- able evangelistic enthusiasm. Most soul-winners at times grow weary ; but he came nearer than any other man I have ever known to being an exhaust- less magazine of evangelistic dynamite. The sight of a crowded congregation at a Conference or camp-meeting would always set him on fire; and to all eternity thousands will bless God for his per- sistent, overwhelming appeals on such occasions for the immediate surrender of the sinful soul to the present Savior. Even through an interpreter such appeals from his lips were often 'the power of God unto salvation.' "The Board of Bishops will long remember Estimates by Church Leaders. 263 his report to them of his work in Japan and China, and especially his evangelistic successes there. At the close of the report he gave his colleagues a word of exhortation on the wisdom of ending the sermon with an earnest appeal to sinners to 'rise for prayers,' or in some other way openly commit themselves at once to God; and, with streaming eyes and quivering lips, he cried out, 'Brethren, let us give the Holy Ghost a chance !' " BY BISHOP GOODSEKL. "My heart is heavy because of the death of Bishop Joyce. Elected by the same General Con- ference our friendship began with the day of our election when we prayed together for grace for our work. For seventeen years his acquaintance has been both inspiring and delightful to me. He was a holy man, pure in speech and right in con- duct. His conscience was rightly tutored, and took cognizance of all his powers. There was no part of him which was not under control. Naturally quick-tempered, he could be silent under provo- cation when few could resist a strong sentence. He under-rated the grace in him when he told me that he was silent when tried because if he began to speak it set him on fire, or, as he put it, with a twinkle in his eye, 'It stirred up the Irish in him.' In all these seventeen years of intimacy I recall nothing unworthy in him of the Christian gentleman and bishop. He differed without anger, debated without heat, and estimated without depre- ciation or the slightest sign of jealousy or envy. He praised warmly, and was cold and critical only to himself. 264 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. "While abroad he observed carefully, and al- wa} T s came home with an accurate knowledge of the work. The evangelizing power of the man was so steady that, whether he preached in English or through an interpreter, men were won to Christ, I believe, in every Conference he held. He said more than once with a holy joy to which he had a right: 'My dear colleagues, you all are more gifted in many ways than I. But God gives me (something, too: He gives me access to souls. In every Conference some are converted.' "If any have heard him preach their verdict must be that, always clear and strong in matter, his hortatory summing-up and closing were often truly awful in their power. I know of no one who equaled him among us in exhortation and in the immediate results of exhortation. In the Bishops' Conferences he was an infrequent speaker, but always commanded attention by the clearness, precision, compactness, timeliness, and brevity of his contributions to our debates. "He was a very brave man, not only in meeting physical peril, but in administration. He did not I let wrong things stay because it was easy, nor wrong men remain in power for fear of raising enemies. He would be the last to claim freedom from mistakes. He told me -he felt he had made some in Eastern administration ; but no one doubted that these were due to imperfect knowledge of Eastern conditions, and not to self-will. "We have seen for a quadrennium that he was failing. There was a slower and heavier step. He sometimes complained that his feet were sore under his weight, which was moderate. Sometimes Estimates by Church Leaders. 265 to intimates lie would say : 'The General Confer- ence will make an end of old man Joyce next time.' But the end-making was something to smile over. He often told me that he prayed to know when he was old and not to resent the judgments of others as to this. I could have wished he had spared him- self in labor a little after passing sixty-five. But to the end he worked on as if he was forty-five. "And his ending was like him : a ride until midnight Saturday night, broken sleep, a sermon attempted, a moment's hesitancy and confusion, a \ struggle to finish his sermon, then acquiescence in j the sudden finishing of his work, and then increas- I ing paralysis, weakness, and at last death. We may know where he is. The only place to which so good a man can go is to the home of God." BY BISHOP MALLALIEU. "A more conscientious and painstaking and faithful administrator of all affairs committed to his charge I have never known. He was brotherly, sympathetic, and helpful in all cases. He was ab- solutely sound in the faith and in all respects loyal to Methodism. If ever a man was wholly and irre- vocably consecrated to God, he was the one. "He had that supreme quality of the highest type of genius, the will and capacity for unremit- ting hard work. He was a great broadminded man. There was not the slightest suspicion of smallness or meanness in his nature. Rank, wealth, power, could not daunt him or turn him from the path of duty. At the same time the humblest and poorest were dear to him, and he was glad to share 266 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. with them and stand by them in every hour of affliction, suffering, or need. Race, color, lan- guage, were nothing to him, for he recognized the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of all men. He was sincere to the last degree; there was not the most distant suspicion of sham and pretense in Ms nature. He had a lofty scorn of all cheap tricks and subterfuges, and despised all hypocrisy ; he wore his heart upon his sleeve. He was modest and sensitive to an unusual degree. He never put on airs, never assumed dignity, never shut himself off from the commonest of the common people. Still he had very clear-cut convictions of right and wrong, of the true and false, and so without noise or disagreeable self-assertion he did not hesitate to disclose his convictions and stand by them. He was especially noted for his steadfastness in his friendships. It was his nature to be loving, fra- ternal, affectionate, and steadfast. His friends could depend upon him. He was found loyal, true, and genuine. At the same time he was not obliv- ious of others who were not bound to him by special relations of intimate friendship. It may be af- firmed, with unhesitating emphasis, that he was an ardent lover of humanity. In the scope of his prayers and sympathies and services, he counted himself the servant of all." BY BISHOP FOWLER. "He studied faithfully the work committed to him. He was excessively industrious. He worked as one who feels that the night is coming, when no man can work. He rejoiced in a high state Estimates by Church Leaders. 267 of grace, and walked in the light of God's favor, and preached the gospel in Spirit and with power. He was a good administrator and a marked popu- lar preacher with great hortatory powers. He was thoughtful and modest, but definite and decided in his opinions in the Board, and we always knew where to find him. He was brotherly, affectionate, and companionable. The force of his intellect and the forces of his character will long be remembered by us." BY BISHOP THOBURN. "I esteem it a privilege to be permitted to record my appreciation of our beloved Bishop Joyce. I had known him for twenty -five years. From the first I found him to be a true man, measuring up to the New Testament standard of a spiritually-minded disciple. His conversation, his preaching, his prayers, and in short his whole life, was that of a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ. Our Church can ill afford to spare a man of his type, but he had almost finished his threescore years and ten, and by faithful and abundant labors had earned the sweet rest into which he has en- tered. His brief visit to India some years ago avhs a source of blessing to many, and will never be forgotten." BY BISHOP HAMILTON. "There are few men who wear out, and when one man does the world will know it; he is the only man who has finished his work. Death then is only the signal of work done. Methodism has 268 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. always made honorable mention of 'worn-out preachers.' "Bishop Joyce was literally worn out; he may not have known the remaining measure of his strength. But it has been evident to his friends, for many months, that the wheel might be broken at the cistern at any moment. Like the tourist car away on a journey, and where there was no law against speed, he has broken down in the middle of the road. From the first there has been little hope of repair. And now, the end having come, nothing in life more becomes him than his death. "It is not difficult to discern the nature of his work, the amount of it no summary will tell. He was an old-time Methodist preacher put forward fifty years into our time. He had only one busi- ness, and that he has so certainly dispatched, that it 'is business well done.' From his call to preach to the very last words spoken by him in the pulpit of the camp at Red Rock, he has had but a single aim. He came to call sinners to repentance, and they have heard Ins call to the ends of the earth. "In every sermon there was splendid appeal. His fervor imparted itself magnetically to the multitudes who heard him, and his work alwa}'s went on with spirit. Beginning never so moder- ately, when he heard the sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry-trees, then he would bestir himself. His enthusiasm had 'the genius of sin- cerity,' and the people were profoundly moved. I met an intelligent and distinguished lawyer, who was not a Methodist, in North Dakota several years ago, that said to me, 'I have heard many of the great preachers of this country, but I have never Estimates bij Church Leaders. 269 heard a man who has given me such an impression of my personal responsibility and duty as your i Bishop Joyce,' and added, 'He knows what he is ' talking about.' "He was able, out of the pulpit, on the street and in the homes of the people, to influence persons religiously as few men can do. It was his pre- eminence in this regard which elevated him to the episcopacy. He was a great pastor. I was a guest in Albany, New York, two or three years ago, in the home of a wealthy family, not Meth- odists, where I invited the Bishop to dine with me. Never have I seen a man so ingratiate himself, and without any apparent intention, in the hearts of the four or five children and their father and mother as he did in the two hours we were to- gether. "It was his affable, entertaining, and inspiring manner which enabled him to induce individuals and congregations to give money so cheerfully to any and every good cause whenever and wherever he asked for it. His success in raising twenty thousand dollars at the session of the California Conference for the University of the Pacific will not be forgotten. "There was a tenderness in his sympathies which made him a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He gave away more than he had, and was compelled to ask and receive that he might continue to give. A volume could be written in giving some account of his generous impulses in the homes of the poor and the bereaved. "He was never troubled with unbel lis- belief annoyed him. The heroism of his intellect 270 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. was in his faith; his 'faith was the soul of religion and worked his body.' He believed the root of all heresy to be 'the effort of men to earn, rather than to receive their salvation;' this he knew to be un- scriptural, and he could vote against it as easily as against any other kind of sin. "In the delicate and difficult duties of his office, his forceful purpose sometimes awakened differ- ences which were very pronounced. But in doing what seemed best for him to do, he was so sure of his own motives it was easier for him to advance than retreat. He was vigorous in his administra- tion, but when not unceremoniously opposed was as conciliatory as the Christian woman. "The end of preaching with Bishop Joyce was to save men, and he made it a vocation. If he had any art it was in the exercise of the skill with which he could gain men, and even against their wills. He rejoiced more over the one sinner that had been saved, than the ninety and nine sermons which went astray, as he believed, because he had seen no fruit of them. Preaching without praying to him, therefore, was a bow without a cord. It had no place or use for an arrow. "We shall miss him wherever we meet the wings of the morning for he went everywhere preaching, but nowhere more than in calling sin- ners to repentance." BY BISHOP VINCENT. "Bishop Joyce was an intensely earnest man. God was not a theory nor a dream to him, but the one great Reality of the universe. And a living, loving, abiding, inspiring Reality, in whose con- Estimates by Church Leaders. 271 stant presence he lived. God was in every breath he drew, and his official life was full of faith. He believed. He knew. He rested. He rejoiced. He lived out his faith." BY BISHOP OLDHAM. "He has always been to me an inspiring per- sonality. And his word was always with power. His was the supreme cut of the Gospel preacher. There was always enough of the intellectual to engage and interest the mind, while there was markedly present the urgent warmth, the compell- ing energy of the prophet who takes you by storm in the name of the Lord his God from whom he brings his message. He taught China how to look for immediate conversions. He mightily helped ! South America. He was a naming torch up and down the North American continent." BY DR. HOMER EATON. "Bishop Joyce was an ideal man and bishop. He accomplished a great work for Christ and His kingdom on the earth, and has now gone to his heavenly coronation." BY DR. JAMES M. BUCKLEY. (In an editorial in The Christian Advocate.) "As a bishop Dr. Joyce was dignified in the chair, and, except when overwhelmed with appli- cations or wearied with extraordinary travel and work, was affable and approachable in private in- terviews with the ministry and laity of the Church. With the people he was very popular as a preacher, and on some ocasions rose to a height which might 272 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. satisfy the reasonable ambition of any one. Some- times this occurred under the most unfavorable cir- cumstances. ... He belongs to the class of bish- ops with George, Roberts, Peck, Waugh, and Levi Scott. Not that these resemble each other in many particulars, nor that he resembled them in many respects, yet there is one broad resemblance, the evangelical trait, the hortative preaching, the heartfelt spirit and manner. The sum of his career abundantly justifies his selection. He passes out of our sight with a spotless reputation and with many great and good achievements to his credit." BT DR. CHARLES PARKHURST. (Editorial in Ziori's Herald.) "He was wonderfully well balanced — kind with- out being weak, deeply devout and zealously ac- tive, yet with no touch of cant or fanaticism, fervent yet prudent, a friend to all, but no flat- terer, every way sensible and efficient. "Undoubtedly he worked too hard. He could not seem to help it, such was his ardent nature. How greatly he will be missed ! Genial, beautiful, reliable, he wore his honors and his dignities meekly. He could be implicitly trusted. He never uttered an unkind word. His elevation honored the pastorate, and showed that the Church, some- times at least, puts a proper estimate upon those who go about doing good. As he said of Bishop Wiley, so we can say of him: " 'He left but little earthly property for his family; but he left them the legacy of a pure character, a good name, an exalted purpose, and Estimates by Church Leaders. 273 a useful life. His memor}' will live in the hearts of thousands of the Lord's poor, who loved him because they knew he loved them for Christ's sake. He was a true friend. He was never in haste to believe evil of others; he chose to live in an atmos- phere of charity toward all men. He never allowed himself to cherish malice or ill-will toward any.' "His death-room, we learn, was a veritable ante-chamber of heaven. He rested in perfect peace, with uttermost confidence in his Redeemer, and broke forth repeatedly, so far as physical powers permitted, in exclamations of great joy. It was as might have been expected, from such a life. Few men in the Church have been more beloved, few will be more lamented." BY DR. JAMES H. POTTS. (Editorial in Michigan Christian Advocate.) "The salvation of souls was the burden of his heart, no matter what else the particular respon- sibility he had in hand. Bishop Foss testifies that Joyce 'came nearer than any other man he ever knew to being an exhaustless magazine of evan- gelical dynamite.' Bishop Moore declares that 'experimental religion and a passion for souls domi- nated his pulpit efforts.' Evangelist Dunham re- calls the fact that it was Bishop Joyce who inaug- urated Pentecostal services at the Annual Confer- ence session. 'The thought of a bishop and two or three hundred Methodist preachers convening for a week together in a community, attending to business, properly so, yet not one soul brought to a decision for God, and that session leaving no hal- 18 274 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce, lowed revival memory behind it; then the young men having no lesson in soul-winning, was a thought so painful to him, that at the outset of his service as a bishop he determined to make every session a revival.' And this determination he ac- complished. "The secret of this evangelistic spirit in Bishop Joyce may be found in the religious character and consecration of the man himself. Bishop Malla- lieu pays him this remarkable tribute, that 'if ever a man was wholly and irrevocably consecrated to God, he was the one.' It seems to us that Chris- tian eulogy can not get beyond that. But Bishop Warren confirms the estimate by saying that Joyce lived Christianity, and 'preached an immediate sal- vation from all sin to a heathen congregation that had never heard of Christ with the same unction ) and expectation of results by the present power of the Holy Ghost as he preached the same gospel to one nurtured in Christian beliefs from infancy.' "This rich experience kept him in touch with the Author of all life, and it was ever an expec- tation with him that the God on whom he relied would demonstrate His presence and power to save just as really and effectively as if He were a person present in form and parts, to be seen and touched like human beings. He thought of God as ever at his right hand, round about him, in him, and working through him. As Bishop Hamilton says : 'He saw the supernatural in every- thing, and could have little patience with the preachers and teachers who were boisterously bent on trying always to displace the supernatural to find place for the natural. The story of his un- Estimates by Church Leaders. 275 selfishness is the best that is ever told. He was absolutely self-forgetful in the presence of crying need. His generosity was an embarrassment to most of his associates whenever there was a call for help.' "How impressive and beautiful such a char- acter! Pure, trustful, benignant, serious, earnest, insistent on present blessing, with God always be- fore Rim, flinging his whole life force into labor for souls, coming to his death-stroke in a camp- meeting sermon, testifying with his latest breath, 'I have preached the gospel in every land, and everywhere it has met the needs of men,' and then yielding up his great spirit in this strain of sweet submission, 'If this is God's time and God's way, His will be done!' " 'Well done, good and faithful servant !' It is cheering that thy life was lived in our day, that we saw thee and knew thee, and that the same inspirations and influences which impelled thee to thy life-tasks are yet present with us, and may nerve us for like endeavor if we will but yield to them!" BY DR. DAVID D. THOMPSON. (Editorial in Northivestern Christian Advocate.) "For seventeen years Bishop Joyce went in and out before the Churches, bearing this high office, doing episcopal work, never flinching, never complaining, accounting no labor too taxing, no burden too heavy, and no sacrifice too great, so he might serve the cause of God and win souls. With him the minister was not lost in the bishop. He carried into his wider field all the zeal and evangelistic fervor that gave him success in the 276 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. pastorate. He had conversions in his Conferences. While not lacking in executive ability, but indeed measuring up to a high standard, he bore the honored distinction of being known everywhere as the 'revival bishop.' On this account his coming to the Conferences was anticipated with delight, the preachers expecting a spiritual uplift and fresh inspiration from his presence and counsels. "This marvelous power accompanied him wher- ever he went. Whether in Japan or China or India or in South America, revivals attended his ministry, and conversions took place, even when his preaching was through an interpreter. A great tide of spiritual quickening followed him all over the Celestial Empire during his episcopal visit to China, and the Church in that far-away quarter of the globe has felt the impulse of his visit ever since. "He could well say, as he is reported to have said with thickening voice, as cerebral hemor- rhage arrested the flow of his speech, 'I have preached this gospel in almost every land, and always with the same effect.' His preaching was with power and the demonstration of the Holy Spirit. "While his episcopal career was noted for the revival power that attended him, there was no re- spect in which his work was not a success. He looked after the practical interests of the Church with the eye of an expert. In cabinet work he was wise, patient, and painstaking. In the Conference chair he presided with ease and dignity. His mind was alert to discover men who had in them the elements of success, and to give them a chance. Estimates by Church Leaders. 277 Those who brought things to pass commanded his respect. "As an administrator he was conscientious to a degree frequently causing him the acutest per- sonal pain. Sharp difference sometimes created troublesome problems, but faithfully he strove to do the utmost and exact right with every brother whose interests were in his hands, and at the same time faithfully conserve the effectiveness and effi- ciency of the great Church at large. Again and again, when importuned for something he could not give, he has spent hours when he ought to have been asleep in sad and painful sympathies over conditions he was powerless to change. His heart was as tender as that of a woman, and every preacher's woes were made his own woes. Those who did not know him well sometimes mistook this high devotion to duty for willfulness. None ever more gladly welcomed all the possible light and in- formation on any subject, or more devoutly sought to reach the exact fact and truth. "As a pulpit orator he will hold high rank. He was a mighty preacher, and was in special de- mand for camp-meetings and other occasions which brought together great crowds. He had rare power in moving large audiences. He was presi- dent of the Epworth League from 1900 to 1904, and was beloved by thousands of the young people of the Church, to whom he was a spiritual father and inspirer to a more consecrated life. "The sweetness of his spirit and the beauty and spotlessness of his personal character were, after all, his superlative charm, and the final and decisive element in his greatness." 278 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. BY DR. CLAUDIUS B. SPENCER. (Editorial in Central Christian Advocate.) "As a bishop it can be said that he gave him- self to his work without even reasonable reserva- tion. Big in frame, having a constitution of woven steel, he literally threw himself into the arena — on the altar — everywhere. He preached, lectured, dedicated churches, often paying his ex- penses, and often, if not always, without compen- sation. He visited ninety-two places in the North- west where no other bishop had ever been. And wherever he went men kindled their smol- dering lamps at his torch. In fact, without a word or a hint disparaging to any one else, it was given to Bishop Joyce to be an evangelist. He was an evangelist before he was elected bishop. His heart was no less swept by the passion for souls after the episcopal staff was put in his hand, than it was when he was a country shepherd of the flock of Christ. Amen. There are diversities of gifts. Nor can the eye say of the hand, 'I have no need of thee.' But : may God grant — may God grant, I say, that never may there fail from our episcopal college one who will stand pre-eminently forth as an evangelist. There are such in that body now. May their enthusiasm never be cooled off by the proprieties of what is, after all, but an office — exalted office though it be! . . . "The wanderer has found the path home. May the path he blazed, in any, in every clime, be trod like gloriously, as by sons of God. Adieu — for a little time. Then? To take the path again, to- gether, on, on, still on, where Jesus still leads the way." Estimates by Church Leaders. 279 BY DR. R. J. COOKE, HOOK EDITOR OF THE METH- ODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. Dear Doctor Sheridan, — I wish it were pos- sible for me to reply in a fitting manner to your kind request for my estimate of Bishop Joyce, but how can cold words adequately express the tenderest emotions of the heart which start at the thought of those we love? How can calm and passionless judgment sanely estimate qualities and powers when the soul of us is up in revolt against all critical analysis which would mar the faces of loved ones gone, or blur the memory of their sweet companionship? Wordsworth has something to say of { " One that would peep and botanize Upon his mother's grave," and doubtless there are those who are so far gone in atrophy of feeling, like Darwin who lost his ear for music, that they are no longer able to respond to sentiments beautiful and tender, but imagine in the silly pride and hardness of their hearts that stoical indifference to misfortune is better evidence of a cultured mind than outward expressions of bitter grief or of glorious appre- ciation. To such people the very music of heaven would all be one with the raucous voices which Dante heard in Malaboge. If then my estimate of my departed friend should become a eulogy rather than a critical appraisal of his gifts, it is because I can not forget the love wherewith he loved me, and for that reason I feel incompetent for the task you have assigned me. 280 Life of Isaac Wilson Joyce. I may be permitted to say, however, that with Bishop Joyce I was for many years most intimate. I knew him thoroughly ; knew him in all his moods, and seasons; in his public life and private life, knew his judgments of men and affairs, and this I have to say, that in my estimation, a better, nobler hearted man, a man whose whole inner life was tuned to the sweetest music of the noblest living, never lived and moved among us, laboring night and day for the advancement of the king- dom of God. He loved God deeply and all things which make for righteousness. He loved the brethren, and his was a heart that ever yearned for human friendship. His character was a fine combination of strength and beauty. In his preaching he struggled intensely to make God real to those who heard; to make Christ and salvation and heaven real to all who cared. How his soul, at times, would pour itself out in torrents of fire and pathos and love, when the Holy Spirit brood- ing over a congregation, the whole body of be- lievers responded to his magnetic eloquence! But I have heard him in prayer in a humble cabin on the lonely mountain side when he was just as fer- vent as when before the vast multitude at a camp- meeting. He was an heroic soul. Many are the instances I could relate of his courage and of his patience, of his Christly self-restraint, but I am writing you a letter and not a book. He was self- sacrificing. The bishops who have lived and la- bored among us in the Southern Conferences have all been generous in expenditure of self. When Bishop Joyce first came to Chattanooga he and Mrs. Joyce immediately entered heart and soul into Estimates by Church Leaders. 281 the incessant toil of those who were building for the splendid results which are seen to-day in beau- tiful East Tennessee. After eight years' residence in the South, Bishop Joyce left for other fields with nothing but his insurance. Nothing? He carried with him the undying love of a noble people ! Among the many important duties of a bishop in the Methodist Church the most important is to put the right man in the right place. So, as a bishop presiding in the Conferences, Bishop Joyce was ever considerate of two things: the preacher and the Church. He would not sacrifice a preacher if he could help it; he certainly would not ruin a Church. That he was always wise, and never made mistakes, he himself would not admit; that he was ever willfully autocratic against all light and leading would be — an exaggeration. He could be firm, as Tennyson makes Cardinal Pole say, I have seen a pine in Italy which flung its shadow athwart a cataract, the cataract shook the shadow, firm stood the pine; but his heart was as tender as, woman's love, and to the Methodist preacher he was kindness incarnate. Such was Bishop Joyce as I knew him. And here I must close, for I must stop somewhere. In one final word, this dear man of God stood before us the living picture of Goldsmith's village pastor, "And as a bird each fond endearment tries To tempt its new fledged offspring to the skies, He tried each art, reproved each dull delay, Allured to brighter worlds and led the way." COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES This book is due on the date indicated below, or at the expiration of a definite period after the date of borrowing, as provided by the library rules or by special arrangement with the Librarian in charge. DATE BORROWED DATE DUE DATE BORROWED DATE DUE C28(842)M5C / 938.6 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 0035521449 J85£ J852 938.6 Sheridan BRITTLE DO NOT PHOTOCOPY