ministerial career, which was peculiarly severe. They will long be remembered, in the spheres in which they labored, with respect and affection. The Rev. Evan M. Johnson possessed a character marked by striking peculiarities. He maintained what he believed to be the truth, and denounced what he regarded as pernicious error, very openly, and in very plain and vigorous language. There was an instinctive antagonism in his mind to all shams and unrealities. But he was of a kindly nature, full of homely virtues, and his love of the Church, her principles, her devotions, her broad Catholic spirit, her clear apprehension of, and her inflexible adherence to the fundamentals of "The Faith once delivered to the Saints," her care for little children, was the progressive growth of a long life of study, observation, and labor, and continued to grow more hearty and more thoroughly considerate and rational up to the hour of his death. Many years ago he gave up a pleasant country parish, went to the city of Brooklyn, erected a church at his own expense, and for twenty years discharged the duties of a cure requiring much labor, entirely without salary. His last service, after he had retired from the charge of a parish of the ordinary character, was to purchase, with his own property, an old market, in a part of Brooklyn where there were many poor, to fit it up simply, but comfortably, as a place of worship, and there to minister (with the aid of an assistant), so long as he could minister anywhere, to the people who gladly gathered about him.

The Rev. Edwin R. T. Cook, rector of the Church of St. John the Evangelist, Memorial Church of Bishop Wainwright, has been removed in a very early and seemingly vigorous manhood, and from the midst of singularly successful labors. His large and united congregation was wholly the result of the blessing of God upon his own ministry. The more than ordinary sorrow with which his loss is mourned by them attests the tenderness and earnest

ness of his devotion to them, and the hold which he had taken of their hearts. I have known few young men. who so completely surprised me by the powers for usefulness which they developed-none who grew more rapidly in my respect and esteem. There was a mystery about his success to those who saw him only in a superficial way; but the mystery vanished when you communed with him in private, in intimate connection with the objects nearest his heart, and observed the workings of his mind towards his people and towards his work! The people loved him just because he first loved them-loved them as a flock, loved them individually, followed them with minute, painstaking kindness, wept when they wept, rejoiced with no feigned joy when they rejoiced, and in literal truth gave up his whole heart and his whole life for their good. Less than one short month before his death, I carried our recent graduates of the General Seminary to his church for ordination, moved thereto by special respect for his Ministry and his church. I saw him apparently in perfect health. At his request, I went, before the services of the church began, to visit his large and interesting Sunday school. All was full of brightness and promise, and when, afterwards, far in the interior of the Diocese, I heard the startling news of his death, I felt that it was almost a case of translation. He was not, for God took him. God most merciful, make us equally faithful, and equally ready.

In connection with these losses which the Diocese has sustained during the past year, it cannot be improper to refer to those sustained by the Church at large in the death of three of her Bishops, all of them having been members, in former days, of this Diocese. The venerable Bishop of Connecticut, the revered Presiding Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States, the Bishop of Western New York, the Bishop of Pennsylvania, have all been removed from their earthly labors during the past year. The Bishop of Connecticut, when elected to the

Episcopate of that Diocese, was an assistant minister of

Trinity Church, in this city. The Bishop of Pennsylvania was also, at the time of his election to the Episcopate, a Presbyter of this Diocese, being a Professor and Vice-President of Union College, Schenectady. And the Bishop of Western New York was a native, and had been a Presbyter of this Diocese, though, at the time of his election to the Episcopate, he was a Presbyter of, the Diocese of Pennsylvania.

In the late venerable Presiding Bishop the whole Church has recognized a character of singular elevation, wisdom, and benignity. He was too retired and reserved in his habits to be familiarly known, even in middle life, much beyond the limits of his own Diocese, and for the last fifteen or twenty years he has been almost wholly withdrawn from general intercourse with the world by age and infirmity. But the more intimately he was known, the more warmly was he respected and beloved. I speak from a most happy experience. In the college, in which for five years I was a Professor, and to which, with his warm approval, I was afterwards invited to return as President, I was intimately associated with him in daily duties and counsels.

him in his most private and unguarded moments. I was with him when his mind was oppressed with care; and I enjoyed the sunshine of his happy home in hours when, amid cheerful scenes, he was seeking to indemnify himself for the severities of official toil. He was ever the sameever pure, and upright, and earnest; ever kind, and patient, and sagacious; firm when it was necessary to be firm; but mingling so much courtesy with his firmness, that the fortiter was lost and forgotten in the charm of the suaviter. He was considerably versed in some branches of physical science, and in classical learning, and he was a sound theologian. In fine, he was every way worthy to be the Presiding Bishop of our branch of the Church. The influence of his moderate and conservative Episcopate will be long felt as a present blessing in our councils.

The Right Reverend William Heathcote De Lancey, Bishop of Western New York, has been so well known, he has been so much among us in episcopal labors, and in our places of counsel; he has been considered so much as belonging in part to our Diocese as well as to his own; we have been so familiar with his eloquence, his efficiency in counsel, his ability as an administrator, that it seems a waste of words to dwell upon his admirable qualities. We mourn his loss, but we bless God for his life, and for the broad and deep foundations which he laid for the future growth and prosperity of his Diocese.

There remains the name of one other departed Bishop. It is not for me to speak in the presence of that new-made grave. It tells of another, yet unmade; and warns me to be ready.

It is a great satisfaction to me to be able to report that St. Stephen's Training College, Annandale, is full to over. flowing, having now within its walls, or ready to enter upon the studies of the term, which is about to open, 34 or 35 students, earnestly engaged in preparing to enter upon a full theological course, and having their thoughts and habits already in a course of training for the duties of the ministerial life. By the munificence of certain unknown friends, an ample edifice, to contain a residence for the Warden and a hall for purposes connected with the Institution, is likely to be soon erected. Another college building, for students' rooms and other important uses, is urgently required, for the accommodation of young men seeking admission. I am not without hope that some dev out Churchman will soon be found, who will take pleasure in supplying that much-needed addition to a most admirable Institution.

I have also pleasure in reporting that the vacant Chair of Ecclesiastical History in the General Theological Seminary has been filled by the election of the Rev. George F. Seymour, rector of St. John's Church, Brooklyn, an alumnus of the Institution, and formerly Warden of St. Stephen's

Training College. Mr. Seymour has now for several years been surrounded by students who were preparing for the sacred ministry. I have long felt that he was destined to play an important part in connection with theological education in this country, whether in the General Seminary or not, and without in the least detracting from the merits of the other eminent names mentioned for that important post, for they are all names held in high honor and esteem, I may yet congratulate the Church that we have secured a Professor for that school, who, by his experience as a teacher, his accurate scholarship, his intense activity, his fervid and sympathetic nature, and his love for young men, is so admirably fitted for the great work to which we have called

him.

In

my Address to the last Convention it was mentioned that the internal care and management of the "House of Mercy" were in the hands of several of those "Sisters who were formerly in St. Luke's Hospital. Three others have been added to their number, and they are now dividing their services between the "House of Mercy," the Sheltering Arms," an Institution opened a few days after the last Convention, and designed for the care of children who are friendless and destitute, though not without parents, and "St. Barnabas's House," in Mulberry street, in this city, which is a house of reception in connection with the House of Mercy. As these Sisters desired to place themselves immediately under Episcopal supervision, and as the subject was one of some delicacy as well as difficulty, I appointed an able Committee of Clergymen, and drew up for their consideration a number of questions touching the special employment of single women in works of piety and charity, and the organization of such persons into an association. They presented to me an elaborate and instructive report; and having taken some time for consideration, I proceeded to receive and sanction the offering which these earnest Christian women so much desired to make in the