gies. He crossed the Atlantic eighteen times at his own expense. Until his death, he had charge of the Methodist missions throughout the world, a work for which he was undoubtedly raised up and qualified by God. He founded the negro missions of the West Indies, which will no doubt exert an important influence on the destiny of those islands. They included fifteen thousand members at the time of his death. He visited the missions which he had established, spent almost the whole of his patrimonial fortune in their support, preached for them, and begged for them from door to door. The missionary spirit was with him "as a burning fire shut up in his bones." When a veteran of almost seventy years, we find him presenting himself before the Wesleyan Conference as a missionary for the East Indies. The conference objected, on account of the expense, when he himself offered to pay the charges of the outfit, to the amount of six thousand pounds. He prevailed over all objections, and embarked with a small band of labourers; died on the voyage, and was buried in the waves; but the undertaking succeeded, and the Wesleyan East India missions are the result. It has been justly asserted that, next to Mr. Wesley, no man was ever connected with the

Wesleyan body who contributed more to extend the blessings of Christianity among mankind. His colleague in the episcopacy of the American church would not allow of even this exception: "A minister of Christ," said Asbury, when the news of his death arrived, “a minister of Christ, in zeal, in labours, and in services, the greatest man of the last century." He has also recorded the sentiment somewhere in his Journal.

Coke was not merely energetic; he possessed a sagacity which was quick in its perceptions, and a comprehension wide in its range. We owe to his judgment some of the most important features in the economy of American Methodism. He first proposed and obtained a permanent establishment of the General Conference to be held at stated times,- -a measure which, in giving unity and energy to our vast body, is perhaps unequalled in importance by any other department of our system. In the very outset, his comprehensive mind saw the importance of that provision, the deficiency of which has been, perhaps, our greatest loss, and the supply of which is now so strenuously attempted by us,-educational institutions. He had no serious hostility to resist in his efforts for such institutions; but such was the ineffi

ciency, if not indifference, of most others, that the honour of the attempt (and an honour it still is, for it has silenced many a charge against us) belongs almost exclusively to his name. Not discouraged when the first establishment was burned by fire, he pressed with all his energies a second and even more extended attempt, and ceased not his endeavours until he fully succeeded. This institution shared the fate of its predecessor, and (Dr. Coke being mostly absent from the country) Methodism was allowed to grow up without this great auxiliary. What might have been the extent and maturity of Christian education in our land at this moment, had the spirit of Coke been more general among us at that period! The intelligent Methodist cannot review the interval of indifference which followed but with mortification and pain, for the immense influence and usefulness which it has subtracted from the church.

Cokesbury College flourished during its short day with much prosperity. The state legisla ture voluntarily proffered an act of incorporation, with power to confer degrees. Offers were made from Kentucky and Georgia, of land and funds for the founding of similar institutions; a few influential persons pledged two thousand acres of land, and one church sub

scribed twelve thousand five hundred pounds of tobacco. But the prospect of success which was dawning, and, no doubt, would have opened over the length and breadth of the nation, was disregarded, through an absurd interpretation of one of those providences which, if we may learn from the past, seem preparatory for the success of great plans,-the difficulty of their first operation. It would have been as wise to have abandoned Methodism, because of its first trials, as it was to abandon education because of the conflagration of Cokesbury College.

Dr. Coke was not only useful in the superintendence of great measures—he was active as a preacher; all the minuter duties of a Methodist itinerant, as far as they came within the wide sweep of his ceaseless movements, he performed, and at the same time made no small use of his pen. Wesley used to say he was as a right hand to him. He was unquestionably the next character to Wesley himself in the biographical catalogue of Methodism. It was a noble sentiment recorded by him, at sea, on his first voyage to America, and which illustrates as fully as language can his own character, "I want the wings of an eagle, and the voice of a trumpet, that I may proclaim the

gospel through the east and the west, the north and the south."

There is genuine sublimity in the end of this veteran evangelist. Such a man belongs to no locality-he belongs to the world; though dead, his influence is widening daily over the earth, and it was fitting that he should be buried in the ocean, whose waves might sound his requiem on the shores of all lands.

PROGRESS IN PIETY.

"Grow in grace."-Paul.

Is it not the habit of most Christians, after the first fervours of conversion, to content themselves with a uniform practice of the regular duties of religion, maintaining a fixed temper of mind, and expecting no very appreciable advances in piety, except, it may be, in seasons of extraordinary revivals? At least, it is unquestionable that the proportion is very small in the general church, who, in the strong language of David, "pant" after the Lord. The Christian course is represented as a "race." How absurd would it be for a racer to stop at frequent intervals in his progress, or to start with ardour,