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CYRUS DAVID FOSS 
1834-1910 



PHILADELPHIA 
FOR PRIVATE DISTRIBUTION 
1911 



Made by 
George H Buchanan Company 
Philadelphia 



jfuneral Service 



Held in Philadelphia 

in 

Arch Street Methodist Episcopal Church 

on 

February i, 19 10 

At 2 o'clock P. M. 

Conducted by Rev. George H. Bickley, Pastor. 

Scrtptttte processional : Rev. George H. Bickley 

I am the resurrection, and the life: he that be- 
lieveth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live : 
and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never 
die. 

I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he 
shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and 
though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in 
my flesh shall I see God : whom I shall see for myself, 
and mine eyes shall behold, and not another. 

We brought nothing into this world, and it is 
certain we can carry nothing out. The Lord gave, 
and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name 
of the Lord. 



Mj£?mn By the Congregation 

Read by Rev. Frank B. Lynch 
Superintendent of the South District, Philadelphia Conference 



My Jesus, as thou wilt: 

may thy will be mine! 
Into thy hand of love 

1 would my all resign. 
Through sorrow or through joy, 

Conduct me as thine own, 
And help me still to say, 

"My Lord, thy will be done." 

My Jesus, as thou wilt: 

Though seen through many a tear, 
Let not my star of hope 

Grow dim or disappear. 
Since thou on earth hast wept 

And sorrowed oft alone, 
If I must weep with thee, 

My Lord, thy will be done. 

My Jesus, as thou wilt: 

All shall be well for me; 
Each changing future scene 

I gladly trust with thee. 
Straight to my home above, 

I travel calmly on, 
And sing in life or death, 

"My Lord, thy will be done." Amen. 



2 



prater Rev. William North Rice 

Professor in Wesleyan University, 
Middletown, Conn. 

Our Heavenly Father, we come before thee to-day 
with hearts bowed down with sorrow. Our earthly 
senses can apprehend only the earthly side of death. 
We hear not the music of the choir invisible; we see 
not the cloud of witnesses by which we are encom- 
passed. So strongly rooted in earth is our human 
life, that the transplanting to another world comes 
always with a shock of surprise and grief. We 
are never quite ready to depart, never quite ready for 
our loved ones to leave us, never quite ready to lose 
those who have been our trusted guides and leaders. 
But thou dost not chide our sorrow ; thou knowest our 
frame and rememberest that we are dust. The tears 
of human sorrow are sanctified by the tears which the 
Master shed. Grant us grace that our sorrow may be 
an uncomplaining sorrow. "The Lord gave, and the 
Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the 
Lord!" 

We praise thee, O Father, for what thou hast 
given to us and to thy Church in that great life whose 
earthly part is ended. We praise thee for that conse- 
cration by which in early manhood our departed 
brother and leader dedicated himself to thy service. 
We praise thee for the steadfast, consistent loyalty 
with which that early consecration was fulfilled. We 
praise thee that he lived a pure, unselfish life, not 
seeking honors and preferments, but seeing in the 



3 



honors and preferments that came to him only new 
opportunities of service. We praise thee that as pas- 
tor, college president, bishop, he did his duty without 
fear or favor, seeking only to fulfil loyally and well 
the high trusts committed to him. We praise thee 
for all he was to the Church in his fields of public 
service, and for all that he was as a friend to those 
whose privilege it was to know him intimately. We 
praise thee for all he was in his own home — one of 
those homes that help to interpret to us the words of 
the Master when he bids us call thee our Father, and 
think of the scene of our spiritual consummation as 
the Father's House. 

We praise thee, O Father, for those great truths 
revealed to us in Christ Jesus, which brighten earthly 
sorrow with heavenly hope. We praise thee that the 
Master has taught us that our life here and beyond is 
guided, not by an impersonal and loveless fate, but by 
a father's all-embracing love. We praise thee that 
the Saviour who died for us rose from the dead and 
brought life and immortality to light. We sorrow 
not, O Father, as others who have no hope. May thy 
Holy Spirit bring to our souls those great truths 
which the Master revealed, and may our souls be up- 
lifted by the message of hope and inspiration. 

Hear us, O Father, for the bereaved family and 
the circle of relatives and intimate friends. May their 
faith be strengthened as the Divine Comforter brings 
to their sorrowing souls the message of life through 
Christ Jesus. Give to them in this hour a vision of 
the empty sepulchre and the Risen Lord. For her 



4 



whose sorrow is deepest we pray that, in the lonely 
hours and days that lie before her, she may be upheld 
by the presence of the great Comforter, and her faith 
in the blessed life beyond may grow stronger day by 
day and hour by hour. 

And for all who are gathered here to-day, for that 
great Church of which our departed brother was one 
of the chief ministers, for that greater Church, the 
Church Universal on earth, in which he lived in broad, 
catholic sympathy, we pray that the lesson of his life 
may be fruitful. May our faith be made stronger by 
his faith. And, as one by one the saints we have loved 
and honored on earth go to join the ever-growing 
cloud of witnesses, may our souls be inspired with a 
stronger purpose to lay aside every weight and the 
sin which doth so easily beset us, and to run with 
patience the race that is set before us. 

We pray for thy Church Universal. As one by 
one thou callest thy saints from the Church visible to 
the Church invisible, by thine infinite grace raise up 
saints who shall worthily take their places; raise up 
in thy Church men and women, pure and brave and 
strong, tender and patient and loving, who shall so 
take the places of the saints that have gone before, 
that thy Church may go on in its triumphant course 
until all human life is sanctified through the truth 
as it is in Jesus. In his Name we pray. Amen. 



5 



Scripture TRea&ing . . Rev. Samuel W. Thomas 

Philadelphia 



Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all 
generations. Before the mountains were brought 
forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the 
world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art 
God. Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, 
Return, ye children of men. For a thousand years 
in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and 
as a watch in the night. Thou carriest them away as 
with a flood ; they are as a sleep : in the morning they 
are like grass which groweth up. In the morning it 
flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut 
down, and withereth. For we are consumed by thine 
anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled. Thou hast 
set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the 
light of thy countenance. For all our days are passed 
away in thy wrath : we spend our years as a tale that is 
told. The days of our years are threescore years and 
ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore 
years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is 
soon cut off, and we fly away. Who knoweth the 
power of thine anger? even according to thy fear, so 
is thy wrath. So teach us to number our days, that 
we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. Return, O 
Lord, how long? and let it repent thee concerning thy 
servants. O satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we 
may rejoice and be glad all our days. Make us glad 
according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us, 
and the years wherein we have seen evil. Let thy 



work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto 
their children. And let the beauty of the Lord our 
God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our 
hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish 
thou it. 



Scripture IReaDina • • • Rev. John F. Goucher 

Baltimore 

There is one glory of the sun, and another glory 
of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one 
star differeth from another star in glory. So also is 
the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; 
it is raised in incorruption : it is sown in dishonor; it 
is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised 
in power: it is sown a natural body; it is raised a 
spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is 
a spiritual body. And so it is written, The first man 
Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was 
made a quickening spirit. Howbeit that was not first 
which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and 
afterward that which is spiritual. The first man is of 
the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from 
heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are 
earthy : and as is the heavenly, such are they also that 
are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the 
earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. 
Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot 
inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption 
inherit incorruption. Behold, I show you a mystery; 



7 



We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in 
a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last 
trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead 
shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. 
For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this 
mortal must put on immortality. So when this cor- 
ruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mor- 
tal shall have put on immortality, then shall be 
brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is 
swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? 
O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death 
is sin ; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks 
be to God, which giveth us the victory through our 
Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, 
be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the 
work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your 
labor is not in vain in the Lord. 



ttgmtl By the Congregation 

Read by Rev. William V. Kelley 
Editor of The Methodist Review, New York City 



Peace, perfect peace, in this dark world of sin? 
The blood of Jesus whispers peace within. 

Peace, perfect peace, by thronging duties pressed? 
To do the will of Jesus, — this is rest. 

Peace, perfect peace, with sorrows surging round? 
On Jesus' bosom naught but calm is found. 

Peace, perfect peace, with loved ones far away? 
In Jesus' keeping we are safe, and they. 

Peace, perfect peace, our future all unknown? 
Jesus we know, and he is on the throne. 

Peace, perfect peace, death shadowing us and ours? 
Jesus has vanquished death and all its powers. 

It is enough: earth's struggles soon shall cease, 
And Jesus call us to heaven's perfect peace. Amen. 



9 



Rev. Frank Mason North 



Secretary of the New York City 

Church Extension and Missionary Society 

Less than four years ago Bishop Foss stood be- 
side the motionless form and looked into the silent, 
seraphic face of his well-nigh life-long friend, Andrew 
Longacre. With the impressiveness which was pecul- 
iar to himself he exclaimed, "We are assembled here 
to-day to celebrate a coronation." Three weeks be- 
fore, so he said, he had used the same words as the 
beginning of his address at the service held in honor 
of the translation and coronation of Mrs. Sarah Long- 
acre Keen. By the side of many another soldier of the 
Cross, saint of God, who had been summoned to the 
rewards of battle, the fruits of service, he had said, 
"We are here to celebrate a coronation." It was his 
favorite approach to the mystery which to-day we 
face. It was his joy to push further apart the opening 
gates and point the broken-hearted to the victory 
and the crown. Here we dare the venture of his own 
glorious faith. This is not death but life. Here is not 
defeat, it is coronation. Let his own words thrill and 
lift us. Said he, "I think of him as not here at all 
but there, with 'ten thousand times ten thousand, even 
thousands of thousands' of the blood-washed near the 
throne, singing in lofty chorus, 'Unto Him that hath 
loved us and washed us from our sins in his own 
blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God 
and his Father, to him be glory and dominion forever 
and ever.' " Then followed this significant utter- 



10 



ance: — "I know of no occasion which more clearly 
calls for a spirit of lofty gratulation and holy triumph 
than the translation of a mature Christian who has 
passed three-score years and ten, and is plodding 
feebly, painfully, but smilingly on toward four-score 
years, with a waning strength which 'is but labor and 
sorrow/ as this sweet saint did, for years repeating 
the Twenty-third Psalm every day, often murmuring, 
*I desire to depart/ and with his eager eye evermore 
fixed on his star-gemmed crown." 

The vibrant, victorious note for this hour has 
been struck by his own hand ! 

How grateful we are, first of all, for these gentle 
mellow days nearest to us. So swiftly he seemed to 
go away, so quietly he came back, that the gracious 
memory of his apostolic presence in the year and a 
half past softens the pain of this day's parting and 
quickens our sense of God's tenderness. 

But into these months came a character, and back 
of them stretches a career. It is impossible at this 
time adequately to speak of either. At best, while 
faith steadies itself upon the promises, and the mys- 
terious hush of a new glory rests down upon our 
hearts, we may look upon our friend as love and mem- 
ory hold at focus before us his great personality. 

Who remains to tell us of the circumstance and 
quality of his boyhood life? At the Amenia Seminary 
Reunion, in 1906, in a semi-humorous vein he spoke 
of his boyhood : "It is a capital thing for a man to be 
well-born the first time. I had that great good fortune. 
I was not the son of a millionaire, nor the son of a 



king. I had a better start in life than that. I was the 
son of a steady-going, hard-working, circuit-riding 
Methodist preacher, who never had a salary of more 
than four hundred dollars in any one year and who, 
when obliged by failing health to give up the ministry, 
bought a stony farm of thirty-two acres and set his 
sons to work. My father told us that if we would save 
our pennies and were studious, some one of us might 
perhaps go to college. That was the brightest hope 
of my boyhood." It was to the hands of the boys 
that the father passed on the lighted torch, for he left 
the stony farm for the gold-paved streets before they 
had reached maturity. How finely could that majestic 
mother, never to be forgotten by any who knew her, 
have characterized this boyhood; — this "mother 
Foss," courtly, dignified, sterling, unflinching, and at 
times unbending, strong-fibred in intellect, in spiritual 
insight penetrating, beloved and venerated. Or that 
brilliant younger brother, William, who best would 
know what games and walks Cyrus loved, the books 
he read, the ambitions he cherished, — William, who 
graduated valedictorian at Wesleyan University, as 
did all three of the brothers, and after two years in 
the Methodist ministry died, fifty years ago. Or his 
brother Archibald, four years his senior in age, two 
in graduation from college, — Archibald, sensitive, 
high-minded, affable, gentle, who after a fruitful 
ministry as professor and pastor of less than 
a score of years, went on into the land of light 
forty years ago, from one of the skyward cantons of 
Switzerland. 



12 



But just to recall to memory these whose lips 
have long been mute is to declare how these boyhood 
years were stimulated by right thinking, stirred with 
the best enthusiasms, and shot through and through 
with the golden light of the spirit. 

Then came college and with it associations which 
only death has broken or can break. He graduated 
in 1854, when but half way through his twenty-first 
year. Some are living who could tell of those college 
days, — Thompson H. Landon, William T. Hill, the 
two great Warrens, the bishop and the president. 
But in the group, younger or older, were also David 
H. Ela, Samuel F. Upham, Charles H. Payne, William 
Xavier Ninde, Edward B. Otheman, Calvin S. Har- 
rington, Willard F. Mallalieu, and those two Alberts, 
Albert S. Hunt and Albert D. Vail, to whom, until 
death interfered, he owed so much and gave so much. 
Others could recount his classical triumphs and de- 
scribe his social life; but that strong, straight, saint 
of God, Albert Hunt, alone could speak of his spiritual 
crisis and conquest. To this one friend, — so he was 
wont to say when he told of his emancipation from 
doubt and darkness, — he owed that spiritual pressure 
and guidance which brought into touch his waiting 
soul and his waiting Lord. 

With his new learning and his new life he left 
the halls of the University for the highways of service. 
For three years he taught in the old Seminary at 
Amenia, of which he was ever fond; for nineteen 
years he was pastor and preacher, spending all but 
two of them in Brooklyn and New York; for five 



13 



years he was President of Wesleyan University, for 
nearly thirty years he has been a Bishop of the 
Church. Upon him that Church, to which in youth he 
gave his life, has placed her heaviest responsibilities 
and her richest honors. He has in her interest jour- 
neyed around the world. He has borne her messages 
to the august assemblies of her great allies. He has 
shared in her most serious councils. He has written 
some of her ablest state papers. He has preached 
throughout the length and breadth of the land. He 
has directed her forces and ministered at her altars. 
Into her homes he has come as a welcome and charm- 
ing guest. For over half a century the personality of 
Cyrus D. Foss has vitally affected his Church and his 
world. To analyze his character, to trace the radia- 
tions of his influence, to measure his contribution to 
the material out of which shall finally be formed the 
Kingdom of Heaven belong not to this hour. I may 
perhaps be pardoned, since others will speak of his 
career in these crowded years of public service and 
power, if I urge your thought to the five brilliant 
years which preceded them and to that still earlier 
period of effective pastoral ministry. 

To the president's office Dr. Foss brought a richly 
furnished mind, but with it a preacher's heart, a pas- 
tor's concern for souls. It was delightful and refresh- 
ing to perceive how quickly men who were solicitous 
for the University's standards in technical scholarship 
were caught up in his own red-blooded enthusiasm for 
a warm, eager spiritual life. How strongly he grasped 
and guided the practical affairs of administration, the 



14 



records declare. How closely he held the affection of 
faculty and students, is written ineffaceably upon 
memory and heart. But he was far, far more than, 
administrator, more even than personal friend ; he was 
felt to be the embodiment, — gracious, masterful, — of 
those essential truths in religion and morals which 
underlie the life of institutions and men. His con- 
tribution to Wesleyan was not his money, his scholar- 
ship, his gifts of eloquence, but himself, — a personality 
in whom was ever the Divine presence. 

And this was the quality of his power in those 
nineteen years of pastoral work. They were con- 
cluded before he was forty-two, before he had been 
twenty-two years out of college. He was but twenty- 
seven when he stood in the pulpit of Hanson Place 
Church, Brooklyn, and with courage and wide-reach- 
ing influence dealt with the great issues of the Civil 
War. Twice he was pastor of St. Paul's, once of Trin- 
ity and once of St. James', whence he was captured 
for the University. To his preaching multitudes were 
drawn, through it hundreds were brought to Christ. 
From the associations of these fruitful years, — which 
seem to have drifted so far away from us, — came 
many of the cherished friendships of his life. 

Two or three outstanding impressions, gained 
through the eyes of boy and youth in these earlier 
years, have never been effaced. 

His figure against all skies is clear cut. Just as 
the lines of form and features were strongly defined, 
so there was no shading at the edges of his character. 
However judicial in his methods, he was ever positive 



*5 



in his opinions. He never left argument at loose ends 
or substituted a dream for a syllogism. Accuracy in 
the use of words was only the outward sign of the 
inward grace of lucidity in the arrangement of ideas. 
He was too sure of what he saw to be over tolerant 
with those to whom the atmosphere seemed murky; 
yet where patient inquiry touched foundations which 
to him were immutable, when he deemed the investi- 
gation honest, his good will was warm and unstinted. 

Ethically he was a stalwart. He was not a 
moral opportunist. He seemed never to have har- 
bored the idea that moral flexibility is a means of 
grace or an accredited method of administration. 
Rightness was to him so thoroughly worth while that 
he sought it in his own conduct, in that of others, and 
in the affairs of the Church. To be conscious of 
swerving where a principle was actually involved 
would have been to him a keen distress. 

He cared for the essentials. If he suspected wells 
of salvation, in the Word or in experience, which he 
had not yet found, he bored for them. He read the 
best books ; he fraternized with the alert and enlight- 
ened men of all denominations ; he learned the lessons 
of sacrifice and trust in the homes of the lowly and at 
the bed-side of the sick; he studied carefully the drift 
of events and measured the currents of national and 
community life; he gave himself delightedly to the 
pleasures of social life, bringing to the common store 
a surprising fund of anecdote and the contributions of 
a raconteur and a wit ; but ever the determinant of his 
thought and the key to his purpose was the compel- 



16 



ling reality of the spiritual life, the "depths of the 
riches," the commanding greatness of "the things 
which are invisible." These truths he preached, and 
how he loved to preach them! 

He preached them not as interesting but as vital. 
They were to him not the vines upon the pillars ; they 
were the pillars themselves. 

How fresh the memory of those days ! How fine, 
how noble, how inspired was the man, Cyrus Foss, 
who before presidency or episcopacy claimed him for 
wider service and laid upon him weightier responsi- 
bilities and more notable honors, spoke from our pul- 
pits, went in and out of our homes, stood with us by 
the open graves upon the hillside, exemplified to us the 
life that is "hid with Christ in God." 

He has, indeed, gone up to his coronation. He 
has entered through the gates into the city! Once 
more may we venture to make his own words ours. 
At the close of the address to which I have already 
alluded, he said, "To our eyes they seem to be passing 
through the gates of pearl. Let Bunyan voice our 
vision: — 'Now I saw in my dream that these two 
went in at the gate ; and lo, as they entered, they were 
transfigured, and they had raiment put on that shone 
like gold. There were also that met them with harps 
and with crowns, and gave them to them; the harps 
to praise withal, and the crowns in token of honor. 
Then I heard in my dream that all the bells in the 
City rang for joy; and it was said unto them "Enter 
ye into the joy of your Lord." I also heard them 
themselves that they sang with a loud voice, "Bless- 



17 



ing, Honor, Glory, and Power be unto Him that sit- 
teth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, forever and 
ever. 

" 'Now just as the gates were opened to let them 
in, I looked in after them and, behold, the City shone 
like the sun, the streets also were paved with gold, 
and in them walked many with crowns on their heads, 
palms in their hands, and golden harps to sing praises 
withal. 

" 'There were also of them that had wings, and 
they answered one another without intermission, say- 
ing, "Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord." And after that 
they shut up the gates, which, when I had seen, I 
wished myself among them.' 99 

He is "among them" to-day! 



B&fcreSS .... Rev. Bishop Luther B. Wilson 

Philadelphia 

Whatever may be the sense of loss throughout the 
Church at large occasioned by the departure of Bishop 
Foss, that sorrow is intensified in Philadelphia, where 
he was best known and so most loved. 

Born in the home of an itinerant Methodist 
preacher, his earliest impressions were such as the 
unfeigned devotion of parents must ever make upon 
the keenly observant child. In the discipline of that 
home he learned the fine art of scorning needless self- 
indulgence, and came to set before himself high ideals. 
The prize of educational opportunity he deliberately 



18 



sought and won, passing through school and college 
with honorable distinction. Conversion gave new 
elevation to his ideals and new inspiration for their 
attainment. Entering upon the practical work of life, 
he became an instructor in mathematics, so strength- 
ening his habit of intellectual accuracy. Received into 
the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church, his 
conscientious pastoral labor broadened and deepened 
his sympathy with men. 

Called to the responsibility of a great college 
presidency, he found a new education as Christian 
scholar, and likewise as master of detail. The General 
Conference of 1880 formally recognized his fitness for 
the duties of the episcopacy, and his election thereto 
gave to him opportunity for the exercise of all gifts 
and graces which by providence of birth and educa- 
tion were his. 

After a residence in Minneapolis covering eight 
fruitful years, he came to the city of Philadelphia in 
the fullness of his strength. It was not an easy task 
which lay before him, for his predecessor, Bishop 
Simpson, had through long years wielded the influ- 
ence of his mighty magnetic personality. During those 
dark days of civil strife and in the times of peace that 
followed, this first resident bishop of Philadelphia had 
met occasion with such adequacy of ability as won for 
him the confidence and love, not alone of the state, 
but of the nation. He had passed away nearly four 
years before Bishop Foss came, but the traditions of 
his greatness and the abiding wizardry of his very 
name may well have made his successor tremble as he 

19 



considered the measure of power which the Church 
had come to expect in one who occupied this place. 
Nearly twenty-two years have passed since Bishop 
Foss assumed the responsibility of resident bishop of 
Philadelphia. What other word need I say than this ; 
that in these years the fine traditions of espiscopal 
character and service have not been marred, and the 
standards have not been lowered. By the compelling 
force of his own lofty character Bishop Foss has won 
the right of perpetual place with the noblest and best. 

In all the pulpits of the city he preached, and if 
there was with him any recognition of such distinc- 
tions as appear in common speech, of churches great 
and small, of congregations important and insignifi- 
cant, there was never the indication of it in the mes- 
sage which he brought. The message was always one 
which honored the Book, defended the foundations of 
faith and exalted the Christ, — which awakened or in- 
tensified aspiration to be like his Lord, a message of 
great thought, which glistened and glowed in lumin- 
ous and often radiant speech. 

He entered into all the details of the work with 
such conscientious application as facilitated every wise 
plan and enriched every worthy enterprise. 

He was not a dreamer in any sense of vagueness. 
He was a planner, working out his conclusion with all 
the light that could be gained. He held his impulses 
subject to his reason. Sometimes a more impulsive 
mind might be impatient of his method, but for the 
most part his intellectual processes justified themselves 
in the issue. 



20 



He recognized the fact that in such a city as this, 
with its heterogeneous population and the problems 
occasioned by poverty and sin, the City Missionary 
Society should be a power. Believing this, he gave 
himself to the task of developing such an institution 
as might adequately grapple with the city's problems ; 
and the strength of the Society as it exists to-day is in 
no small measure due to the thought and effort he be- 
stowed upon it. When he came to the presidency of 
the Board of Church Extension no one could doubt his 
attitude towards the cause of foreign missions. Twice 
he was privileged to study the work in the great field 
of the Orient ; he returned with interest intensified and 
zeal aflame. But there was no withholding of sym- 
pathy when the problems of the home field came 
before him. When, by the division of Methodism's 
missionary interests, the work of the home field was 
bound together with that of Church Extension, and 
the new Board was constituted, the presidency of 
Bishop Foss was a distinct asset to the organization. 
So calm and impartial was he, so painstaking and 
thorough, so broad likewise in his survey, that his 
counsel was always of peculiar value. 

While Bishop Foss was a Methodist to whom 
neither creed nor polity seemed outworn, he was yet 
no mere sectarian. When a year ago he came with 
painful effort to the great gathering of the Federated 
Churches of Christ in America, the benediction with 
which that historic convention was concluded was 
from his lips. None could have been found worthier 
than he to pronounce blessing upon that union of 



21 



Protestant believers; for none could hold more tena- 
ciously than did he to the point of the one Holy 
Catholic Church, with its heritage of faith and of 
power. 

Bishop Foss was a citizen as well as a churchman. 
No question of civic life was without interest to him. 
Whatever added dignity to the city or state found in 
him an advocate. Whatever tended to the lowering 
of ideals he was ready fearlessly to assail. As oppor- 
tunity made demand upon him he represented Meth- 
odism in the gatherings of the city ; and when he occu- 
pied the place, the Church felt no fear as to its rep- 
resentation. 

He brought with him to Philadelphia the honors 
accorded him by institutions of learning East and 
West; but the venerable University of Pennsylvania 
added to these honors, and to its own, by granting to 
him in the year succeeding his coming, the degree of 
Doctor of Laws. 

His strength in counsel had signal recognition 
when in 1895 he was called to serve as one of the arbi- 
trators in the settlement of an economic contention, 
which had assumed large proportions and threatened 
the gravest results. 

When in 1904 there came to him unsought release 
from the responsibilities of the effective general super- 
intendency, there came likewise such tests of charac- 
ter as one cannot easily measure. To one who is a 
real warrior, and not a mere make-believe soldier, the 
supreme test is not in the hour of physical danger, 
but in that very moment when, called by circumstances 



22 



to step aside, he sees the conquering host move for- 
ward. If the lip quiver, if the eye be dim in such an 
hour, it is not hard to find the reason; but if the 
sword be still uplifted, and if there be word of cheer 
for the comrades as they march on, then does human 
character shine forth with new strength and beauty. 

So Philadelphia was not only the field to whose 
cultivation Bishop Foss gave the strength of his intel- 
lectual and spiritual life, but Philadelphia was likewise 
the scene of that rare achievement wherein zeal for a 
great cause survives the incident of official leadership. 
No cause which prior to his retirement was of signifi- 
cance to Bishop Foss but claimed his undiminished 
devotion after his retirement. 

To those who have come to this city, with its 
problems, its burdens, its traditions of episcopal elo- 
quence and counsel, and who have trembled in the 
presence of such responsibility, to these his successors 
Bishop Foss gave always the right hand of a brother, 
the word of a loving friend, and the strength of a 
great, masterful helper. 

One who has looked upon the indescribable won- 
ders of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, knows that 
there are two distinct views of its grandeur, one from 
the brink and one from the floor of the Canyon. Of 
the riches unsearchable of the face which gathers in 
itself the light of the knowledge of the unutterable 
glory there are likewise two views, one from the 
heights, one from the depths. The vision of the moun- 
tain and of the valley, even of that where in our 
thought the river runs, were both granted unto him. 



23 



The secret of the vision was faith, and its sequel a 
stronger, more triumphant faith. And so when great 
physical weakness came at length, with such alterna- 
tion of hope and fear as made the strain most difficult 
to bear, did faith falter? Did love grow less? Did 
desire for the progress of the kingdom faint, or hope 
in the consummate purposes of God burn dim? Not 
for one little hour. 

The minister of Jesus Christ whom we come to- 
day to honor was a prince not by the accident of cir- 
cumstance or place, but by the blending of intellect, 
of faith and love, which could bear the weight of any 
burden, the hazard of any danger, the endurance of 
any testing. His sufficiency was of God, whom he 
adored. His fellowship was with Jesus Christ, with 
whom he walked in white even here. To him the 
Holy Spirit was both guide and sanctifier. His 
power to endure and overcome was the power given 
him of God. 

Last week, when death had already laid its finger 
on his lips, he smiled — smiled in the face of death. It 
was the smile of love unconquered and unconquerable. 
Doubtless it was the smile of confidence that the ever- 
lasting arms were beneath him, that the conquering 
King was going with him all the way. 

One does not need to hear some last word of pur- 
pose or hope from such a believer. The life is its own 
sufficient witness. 

O man of God, greatly beloved, worthy to bear 
the torch which aforetime Fisk and Olin held ; worthy 
to follow Hedding and Janes ; worthy to walk as com- 



24 



rade with Simpson, Ninde and Foster; worthy to sit 
in saintly fellowship with Hunt and Longacre, thou 
hast passed from us unto and into the exceeding glory ! 
Be ours the joy to find thee some sweet day in the 
presence of Him who loved thee, and whom thou didst 
so love and serve. 

BSfcreSS . . Rev. Bishop William F. DcDowell 

Chicago 

Yesterday afternoon for a half hour I held in my 
hands again, after several years, three small, faded, old 
annual catalogues of a small New England college. 
Each issue contained the names of a bare hundred 
students. But among the names of those students one 
can read these: Gilbert Haven, Edward G. Andrews, 
Henry W. Warren, Cyrus D. Foss, William X. Ninde 
and Willard F. Mallalieu. We need not repeat famil- 
iar history. The recital of these names tells its own 
impressive story. It tells the story of the value of 
the Christian college. The argument for the denomina- 
tional college which these faded old catalogues of 
Wesleyan present cannot be answered or overthrown. 

To the episcopacy from the presidency of Wes- 
leyan, one May day in 1880 came this Cyrus D. Foss. 
Henceforth he was a world-wide apostle as he was a 
noble illustration of Christian education. He could 
not forget how his parents, living on a farm mostly 
rock, — as he frequently said, — had given him what he 
ever regarded as life's best chance, the chance at a 
Christian training. A loyal son of Wesleyan always, 



25 



he became the more loyal friend of the cause every- 
where. Many a college president will gratefully recall, 
as I do, his brave words on this subject to annual 
conferences, to trustees and to patrons. The next 
great issue within the Church, in my judgment, is the 
educational issue. In that struggle his voice and his 
influence would be thrown on the side of the college 
with Christ in it; the college with liberty and with 
breadth, with devotion to humanity and power to 
serve because it has Christ. And that cause will win. 
This man now on the heights will rejoice when it is 
won. For Christian education was one of his passions. 

Christian experience was another. Perhaps not 
many men among us have ever been more completely 
or frequently tried by the fires of physical suffering 
than was he. He tested the grace of God not once or 
twice, but often, in life's crucible. How many times 
did he go down so near death's door that it seemed it 
must open to him ! How many times did he fight hard 
battles with painful and prolonged illness ! He had no 
doubt, bless God, that the grace of God is a "religious 
certainty/' He knew Him. He knew whom he had 
believed and knew that He was able. It takes us back 
to the older days to read that religious, spiritual clas- 
sic in which he related his experience during his early 
episcopal life, the long weeks of the illness that threat- 
ened to be fatal. In 1884, as a young preacher visiting 
the General Conference held in this city, I sat in one of 
these pews, — I think it must have been, — and heard 
and saw Bishop Foss for the first time. He told, not 
what he had been to God, but what God had been to 



26 



him. I heard him tell what happened on that "diamond 
of days;" — that was what he called it. I heard this 
man, as he stood here,— this man whom some have 
thought to be cold and reserved and unfeeling, — I heard 
him tell how on that day he said to his physician, "Let 
angels whisper, redeemed men must shout." That 
experience gave to our Church a new conception of the 
sufficient grace of Christ. Some of us did not always 
agree with Bishop Foss' theological opinions in en- 
tirety. Some of these matters are matters of tempera- 
ment. But there are those of us who have believed 
more steadily through the years in the present and 
sufficient Christ because of what this man experienced. 
And some of us have prayed anew that our dear Church 
might again enter into that living way ; that his death 
might open that door to many, many hearts. 

Last April he came up to his old conference, the 
New York. His colleague, companion and friend, 
Bishop Warren, came with him. The New York Con- 
ference is Bishop Foss* family conference. He came 
back to it to give his testimony before he should pass 
on. He had been again at the gates of death after his 
return from Japan. We had not expected him to return 
to speak to us any more. That conference will bear 
witness that, as he stood there and spoke again, for 
himself, for his parents, for his brother Archibald, with 
his voice as clear as ever, his eye like an eaglet, he 
spoke like a prophet come down from the mount with 
a fresh vision of the things that are eternal. We saw 
again the burning bush. We stood again by the run- 
ning river and heard again a voice from heaven. We 



27 



were near the most commercial city on the continent ; 
but as he went on, and as he finished telling the story 
of the early struggle and the magnificent triumph of 
grace, men looked at one another and said, "A good 
name is still better than great riches." He set the 
whole tone of the conference on a higher key by that 
one great address. 

Christian experience was a passion with him. And 
this gave him that genuine, constant passion for 
preaching. I never pitied him when he had a chance to 
preach. How he loved to do it ! He will be remembered 
long as one of our princely preachers. His sermons 
were not easily forgotten. They were so logical, so 
clear, so vital that they laid hold upon memory and life. 
And the experience which was always their basis kept 
them always fresh. No matter that he preached the 
same sermon many times. No matter that he repeated 
the same sentence in the same form many times. The 
experience was always fresh and kept the utterance 
always personal and living. During the years I was 
Secretary, I heard him three times in a year and a half 
preach the same sermon. I heard him before a com- 
pany of negro ministers, at the South Carolina Confer- 
ence, speak of knowing Jesus Christ personally, — heard 
him say, as I had heard him say elsewhere, "I speak it 
reverently, but I have been talking with Him this 
morning." I knew it was true. 

As Christian experience was a passion with him, 
so also were Christian character and Christian conduct 
a passion with him. His experience did not exhaust 
itself in itself. It worked out into a clean, conscien- 



ce 



tious, almost severe ethical life. Some men thought 
him stern. Stern he was against all unrighteousness. 
In matters of morals he held himself to high standards 
even more rigorously than he did anyone else. But he 
demanded righteousness, civic and personal righteous- 
ness, with a kind of Puritan insistence. He hated 
wrong. He loved right. To truth he gave himself. 
He was the kind of stuff that martyrs are made of. No 
one could approach him with suggestion of moral com- 
promise. A perfect faith seemed to him to compel a 
faithful life, and this he led. He was as straight and 
upright and clean as he looked. More I could not say. 
He lived the white life. He kept his hands clean. He 
ascended into the hill of the Lord. 

There have been those who said he was arbitrary. 
It is not easy to steer between sternness and softness 
so as to avoid that charge. But nobody ever said or 
thought that he was weak or that he was susceptible 
to undue or improper influence. Nobody ever sus- 
pected him of having personal motives in anything he 
did. And he had exactly the same manner toward all 
men. It is the necessity of men in executive, judicial 
or administrative position to render decisions. Some- 
times they must be rendered swiftly and without rea- 
sons being given. Often these decisions are hard. 
Always they are between conflicting interests or con- 
tending persons. The loser is always tempted to ques- 
tion the wisdom or the fairness or the kindness of the 
decision against him. Shall I say here that Bishop 
Foss showed me once or twice that stern and severe 
aspect of which men made so much? Once when he 



29 



did it I did not know anything better to do than to 
smile, and he smiled back, and everything was gone. 

But he is the only bishop, living or dead, who ever 
came to me with no other errand whatever but for the 
sole purpose of telling me that he loved me. Nearly 
ten years ago, when I was a Secretary, this man came 
to my office, and this is what he said: "One of my 
friends has slipped away within a week. I have loved 
him for thirty years or more, and never said so to him. 
I think he knew it, but he ought to have heard it from 
me. I shall be gone in a short time, no one knows 
when, and I am going around this morning to tell a 
half dozen men, — (at least three are in this building), 
you among them, — that I love them. I want you to 
know it from my own lips." 

That kind of thing is easy to men of a certain type. 
It was not easy to this man. That he said it, with a 
kind of overwhelming tenderness, to one very much his 
junior, has made life rich with a kind of imperishable 
riches. Some men never saw that quality. They 
never wholly understood Bishop Foss. No one knew 
him who did not know his capacity for affection and 
friendship. For this also was one of his passions. 

The cause of missions was another. No one who 
heard him will ever forget his allusions to "My India ; 
India, which I have adopted ; India, which adopted me." 
He took the whole world into his heart. I cannot dwell 
on this, but he believed in the world plans of our 
Church. He never doubted our victory. He never 
questioned our duty. No man among us has been more 
faithful, more constant, or more intelligent in his de- 



30 



votion to our work at home and abroad. Here and 
over the seas that cause has lost a foremost friend. 

What shall I say of him in the more particular 
and special work of a bishop? It was not mine to be 
associated with him in his effective years. It is not for 
me to speak as the senior bishop, the life-long friend, 
might have spoken. Not for me to speak as Andrews 
might have spoken. They would have spoken of his 
unwavering loyalty to our doctrines and our polity; 
his clear insight into legal and administrative ques- 
tions; his immense capacity for clear statement and 
convincing argument ; his absolute courage of opinion ; 
his passionate devotion to what he believed to be true ; 
his readiness to listen to other arguments, to accept 
other views than his own, if better reasons could be 
brought forward; his willingness to modify his own 
plans when convinced; his dignified bearing in pub- 
lic and private ; his broad and catholic fellowship with 
other Christian bodies ; his consuming love for our own 
Church : — all this and more would they say. He never 
represented us anywhere without making us glad we 
had him. He kept the faith which kept him. He loved 
and served the Kingdom in all lands. He made large 
additions to the goodness, the integrity, the faith of 
the world. He has added no wrong in all his long 
years. He has adorned with dignity, with character, 
with ability, with high devotion every place he has had 
in the Church. He was every inch a Christian man 
and a kingly bishop. May such never cease to be 
among us ! Eight times in less than six years our thin 
line has been broken in its advance column. Four 



31 



times before this in these six years I have spoken over 
colleagues and leaders laid low ; over Merrill, McCabe, 
Andrews and Goodsell. It has seemed to me, as it 
seems to-day, as if all the grief and all the pride and 
all the love of all the Church were standing beside 
me clamoring for utterance. And I seem dumb and 
voiceless in face of such demand. But they know, he 
knows, what I would say. I have seen him in one 
or two crises of his life. I have said to him living, what 
I now say of him and over him, that I ask for myself 
no higher grace than the grace to bear myself in any 
test as he bore himself. I can leave for my Church and 
family no finer record of Christian manliness and offi- 
cial fidelity. 

For many years it has been his custom, on leaving 
home for any length of time, to read at family prayers 
the traveler's Psalm. He ever lifted his eyes to the 
hills. Through the years the Lord has preserved his 
going out and his coming in. So it was in this latest 
journey. Preserved by his Lord he has gone out from 
us, and has entered in with the Lord, and will go no 
more out forever. 

a)£)et Rev. Bishop Earl Cranston 

Washington, D. C. 

In view of thy gracious mercies to us, O Lord, 
our God, our prayers to thee are all praise to-day. 
We are not groping in the darkness. We are seeing 
clearly the Son of God and the victories of his cross. 
We are not guessing. We are knowing the verities 



32 



that came to us in the person and in the revelation 
of Jesus Christ. We are such a people because thou 
art God. We are a Church because thou, God, hast 
spoken through such men as this man whose memory 
we are honoring. Many souls have been saved because 
of this living epistle, visible, and known and read of 
men. Here to-day we have been also honoring thee 
in recounting the victories of grace in one of thy serv- 
ants who came in a noble succession, who stood rugged 
and tall among the most commanding of his fellows, 
whose voice never gave forth a doubt, whose trumpet 
sounded no uncertain note, a man in whose preaching 
there was no quaver of uncertainty. 

Glory be to God the Father, the Son, the Holy 
Ghost, for this incarnation of faith, of sincerity, of 
probity, of conviction, of satisfying experience in Jesus 
Christ! 

We have looked upon him and we have wondered. 
How glorious he was in the consciousness of God in 
him, and in his assurance that he was doing the will of 
God I We do not wonder that he could not compromise 
truth, — truth that to him loomed so majestic that less 
than absolute homage savored of treason. O God, we 
pray thee that in our ministry thou wilt multiply such 
men. We pray that, for the great Church which still 
needs brave, spiritual leadership, thou wilt call, endow, 
equip and send into service other men like Bishop Foss. 
Some of us years ago learned new lessons of high offi- 
cial responsibility from his lips. We trusted him so 
implicitly that, hadst thou taken him from us then, our 
hearts would have been filled with consternation. We 



33 



bless thee to-day that thou didst leave him with us 
for so many years. We, his colleagues, to whom he 
was so great a help, must render this special thanks- 
giving. Even now we feel that we are not gathered 
about the dead; we are in the presence of the living. 
He whom we loved lives forever because Christ has 
overcome death. He is our companion still. We shall 
hear his voice for many days. His example will glow 
with increasing brightness, and his visions of his Lord 
will go on preaching victory so long as the literature 
of the Church shall abide. 

And now, O Christ, shed forth the light and joy 
of thy presence, the consolations which it is thine alone 
to give, that we may all rejoice together now and for- 
ever more, that men may know God, and that God 
dwells in men, and that the Holy Spirit is showing to 
the world such miracles of re-creation. 

God help us humbly to accept all the teachings of 
this hour. May the truth grow larger and more beau- 
tiful as memory shall bring back to us this day, this 
life, this character, and the words we have heard, until 
we shall be permitted to join him and all those whom 
we have loved, having triumphed in the same cross, 
in the presence of him who loved us all and gave him- 
self for us. And these, our dear friends, who are 
mourning because the household has been invaded and 
the loving companion, the counseling father and tried 
friend has been taken away, let them know thee, O 
compassionate Christ, in the sweetness of a newly re- 
vealed companionship and guidance, to the glory of 
thine own Name. Amen. 



34 



Iftsmn 



By the Congregation 



Read by Rev. Henry A. Buttz 
President of Drew Theological Seminary, Madison, N. J. 

For all the saints, who from their labors rest, 
Who thee by faith before the world confessed, 
Thy name, O Jesus, be forever blessed. 
Hallelujah, Hallelujah! 

Thou wast their rock, their fortress, and their might; 
Thou, Lord, their captain in the well-fought fight; 
Thou, in the darkness drear, their one true light. 
Hallelujah, Hallelujah! 

O may thy soldiers, faithful, true, and bold, 
Fight as the saints who nobly fought of old, 
And win with them the victor's crown of gold. 
Hallelujah, Hallelujah! 

And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long, 
Steals on the ear the distant triumph song, 
And hearts are brave again, and arms are strong. 
Hallelujah, Hallelujah! 

The golden evening brightens in the west; 
Soon, soon to faithful warriors comes thy rest; 
Sweet is the calm of Paradise the blest. 
Hallelujah, Hallelujah! 

But lo, there breaks a yet more glorious day; 
The saints triumphant rise in bright array; 
The King of Glory passes on his way. 
Hallelujah, Hallelujah! 

From earth's wide bounds, from ocean's farthest coast, 
Through gates of pearl streams in the countless host, 
Singing to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, 
"Hallelujah, Hallelujah!" Amen. 



35 



JBenefciCtfon . . . Rev. Bishop David H. Moore 

Cincinnati, Ohio 



O God, the Giver of perfect peace, grant unto us 
that peace in which our brother lived, wrought, tri- 
umphed and died. May it still the sorrowing breasts of 
wife and children; rest in benediction upon this and 
upon the worldwide company of his friends; and in- 
spire us all to emulate his courage and fidelity, and to 
be victorious in life and thrice victorious in death : yea, 
Lord and Christ and Holy Spirit, let it abide with us 
forevermore. Amen. 



36 



HONORARY PALL-BEARERS 



Levi D. Brown 
Fisher Dalrymple 
Samuel K. Felton 
James G. Francis 
Charles H. Harding 
William H. Heisler 
Charles W. Higgins 
T. Comly Hunter 



John E. James 
Jefferson Justice 
Francis Magee 
Theodore F. Miller 
Atlee P. Parmer 
Leslie M. Shaw 
Samuel Shaw 
John Walton 



PALL-BEARERS 

Rev. George M. Brodhead Rev. William G. Jones 
Rev. Wayne Channell Rev. Robert Wells 

Rev. Gladstone Holm Rev. Leon K. Willman 



GUARD OF HONOR 

Rev. C. Edgar Adamson Rev. Robert E. Johnson 

Rev. J. Wharton Bradley Rev. Charles Roads 

Rev. Amos E. Crowell Rev. Edward W. Rushton 

Rev. John D. C. Hanna Rev. Francis H. Tees 



The Guard of Honor remained in the church until 
the following morning, when the body of Bishop Foss 
was removed to Pawling, New York, for burial. 

The service of interment was conducted by Rev. 
Ezra S. Tipple, Professor in Drew Theological Sem- 
inary, Madison, New Jersey, and Rev. Merrick O. Ben- 
nett, Pastor of the Pawling Methodist Episcopal 
Church. 



37 



Btoerapbtcal Sfcetcb 

FRANK MASON NORTH 



A noble life is its own recorder. We reverently 
set down in order its annals, knowing well that its real 
history already has been written. Personality inter- 
prets itself. 

The life of Bishop Cyrus David Foss was simple 
in its quiet beginnings. It advanced without abnormal 
phases into the broad ranges of influence and service. 
It received far less from circumstance and environment 
than it gave in the distribution of those treasures of 
wisdom and knowledge which were by nature and by 
grace its ample endowment. In it there is no need to 
unravel complex motives or to seek in obscure places 
interpretations of conduct. The definitions of his faith 
were as strong and clear as the profile of his own fine 
face. Against the background of his times stand out the 
outlines of his own character with a unique distinct- 
ness. Whatever light his career may cast upon the 
events, the movements, the men of the remarkable 
period spanned by his active service, it is ever his own 
radiant personality that wins and lifts us. By this, 
by what he was, "he being dead yet speaketh." 

He was born in the parsonage of an itinerant 
Methodist preacher, in Kingston, N. Y., January 17, 
1834. He was the third son of the Reverend Cyrus and 
Jane Campbell Foss. The second son, Wesley, died 



38 



at eighteen, and the fifth son, Clement, in early child- 
hood. For eight years after the birth of Cyrus, the 
father, an honored member of the New York Confer- 
ence, to which also the three sons, Archibald Campbell, 
Cyrus David and William Jay, afterward belonged, 
continued his work in the active ministry. In 1842, be- 
cause of impaired health, he accepted the superannu- 
ated relation to his Conference, and settled upon a farm 
of thirty-two acres in the town of South East, three 
miles from Carmel, in Putnam County, N. Y. In 1849 
he died, leaving in the memory of his sons the heritage 
of a noble Christian example, and upon their hearts 
the impress of a strong, patient, uncompromising faith 
in Jesus Christ. How joyfully these sons kept the fifth 
commandment! With an almost naive delight this 
third son, who long survived the others, was wont to 
honor his father and his mother. 

In 1894, sixty years after his birth in Kingston, 
Bishop Foss writes: 

"The present dedication by myself in Kingston, 
N. Y., of a magnificent new church, erected on the very 
spot where I was born, and having a fine window com- 
memorative of my parents and of their three sons who 
entered the Christian ministry, awakened memories of 
my childhood home too bright and grateful for any 
words fitly to utter. . . . My father was a plain, 
hard-working, circuit-riding Methodist preacher, who, 
having a wife and five sons, never received a salary of 
more than four hundred dollars a year; a native of 
New Hampshire, an intense Abolitionist, a zealous 
and early advocate of the temperance reform, and a 



39 



grave, firm, strong, godly man. My mother, who had 
very similar mental traits, was one of ten children of 
Archibald Campbell, a tall, strong-willed Scotchman, 
whose farmhouse, in Pawling, N. Y., was the frequent 
stopping place of the early Methodist itinerants." "My 
maternal grandmother" [Elizabeth Mitchell], he fur- 
ther writes, "was as short as her Scotch husband was 
tall and as gentle as he was stern, one of those sweet 
saints who so glorify motherhood. Not one of her 
ten children, all of whom lived to mature age, ever 
once heard her speak an angry word." 

There is here no uncertain suggestion of a stock 
physically and mentally sound and sturdy, and of an 
ancestry in whom the realities of the spirit were in 
control. 

The New Hampshire birthplace of this father, 
Cyrus Foss, was Barrington, Stafford County. He was 
born May 14, 1799. His parents were David and Eliza- 
beth Sargeant Foss. Kindred of that generation were 
pronounced Christians, some of them devout Baptists. 
Lines of family interest connected the New Hampshire 
home with Dover Plains, N. Y. The elder Cyrus Foss 
before he became of age attended school at the latter 
place and later in Poughquag, N. Y. Here he was 
converted under the preaching of the Rev. Arnold Sco- 
field. In 1825 he entered the New York Conference. 

"The tall, strong-willed Scotchman," the maternal 
grandfather of Bishop Foss, was the son of a certain 
Colonel Archibald Campbell, a retired officer of the 
English army living in this country, who was "born 
in Scotland and died during the Revolutionary war, in 



40 



the battle of White Plains, fighting for his country — 
which was England!" 

In Jane Campbell, the mother of the "Foss broth- 
ers," as the three surviving sons came in youth and 
early manhood to be called, were traits of dignity, 
reticence, strength, hospitality, kindness and faith in- 
flexible, which, if need were, her ancestry would quite 
sufficiently explain. Those who knew her in the 
later years — this "Mother Foss," who died at ninety 
after thirty-six years of widowhood — found no diffi- 
culty in reading back into the formative period of the 
life of her sons some of the influences which in the 
quiet, frugal, devout home so definitely settled the con- 
victions of religion and established the goings of her 
preacher boys. With a tender touch the son who sur- 
vived father, mother, brothers, pictures her: — "My 
mother was tall and of full figure, even-tempered, some- 
what taciturn, never jolly, but always good-natured 
and generally cheerful and happy, a diligent reader of 
good books and especially of the Book of books, devout 
and truly devoted to her family and to the church, and, 
as many said of her, 'a remarkable woman' .... 
She left me the old family Bible with this inscription, 
'This time-worn, time-stained Holy Book, the guide 
and director of a once happy and unbroken household 
in their daily worship of the triune God, remains a 
precious relic which I transfer to my dear son, C. D. 
Foss/ " 

The memory of the boyhood years spent in this 
preacher farmer's home never became dim. With zest 
the son recalled the fourteen stony fields, all of which 



41 



were named by his father after the great countries of 
the world, so that the boys would be told after milking 
the cows to turn them into England, or France or Rus- 
sia. From this home, at the age of fourteen, this 
Cyrus Foss went out toward that broader life for 
which he had been unconsciously preparing. 

His own words best depict this transition. On 
August 22, 1906, in a brief address at the Amenia Sem- 
inary Reunion Bishop Foss said: "I can never forget 
my youthful years in this Seminary and my youth pre- 
ceding my coming to this Seminary .... We 
four boys, with this father to guide us, worked the farm 
and went to school winters in a little cross-road district 
school house. I was very fond of mathematics and 
used to sit up until eleven or twelve o'clock at night 
to work out hard problems, when I was allowed to 
do so. This poor, invalid, Methodist preacher father 
of mine (although I never knew we were poor) brought 
home about forty dollars a year from the Conference 
fund for superannuates. ... I was often found on 
my knees in the garden, not praying, but between the 
rows of onions with my father, pulling out weeds ; and 
at these times my father told us that if we saved our 
pennies and were studious, some one of us perhaps 
might go to college. That was the brightest hope of 
my boyhood. Well, the three boys who lived to man- 
hood all passed through the Amenia Seminary, pre- 
pared for college and passed through the Wesleyan 
University." In fact, each was graduated at the head 
of his class and gave the valedictory, Archibald in 
1852, Cyrus in 1854, William in 1856. 



42 



The years spent at Amenia Seminary as student 
and later, 1854-6, as teacher and principal not only 
brought him scholastic training and experience, but 
gave him some of the choicest friendships of his life. 
His first room-mate was James C. Van Benschoten, 
afterward his colleague on the faculty of Wesleyan 
University. Among his teachers were Gilbert Haven 
and Erastus O. Haven; Alexander Winchell; Thomas 
Underwood, of whom he speaks most lovingly. Wil- 
liam M. Ingraham was his instructor in mathematics. 
There were the Hunt brothers, whose home was at 
Leedsville, a hamlet near Amenia, — Andrew, "a model 
principal, a delightful gentleman, a most inspiring and 
promising young preacher," and Albert ! "I loved and 
shall forever love Albert S. Hunt, my teacher of pen- 
manship, later an adjunct professor in Wesleyan Uni- 
versity, and my teacher there of things immensely 
more important than can be found in any text-books." 

The route from Amenia Seminary to Wesleyan 
University was in those days well-traveled. The sig- 
nificance of the relationship can hardly be overesti- 
mated. In the address already quoted Bishop Foss 
stated that "Amenia Seminary then gave such prepar- 
ation for college as was equalled by few schools in the 
land." That the young man, entering the college at 
sixteen, should have given a good account of himself 
as a scholar occasions no surprise. The father's be- 
quest to each of his boys of four hundred dollars, 
"every cent of it to be put into brains," was well 
bestowed. The investment was sound. But the Uni- 
versity was ever in Bishop Foss* heart, not for the 



43 



curricula and the discipline, but because it was in these 
Wesleyan years that the indubitable, the ineradicable 
"experience of religion," the conscious joy of believing, 
became forever his possession. 

On the occasion of the seventy-fifth anniversary 
and jubilee of the University in 1906, he stated that 
the day before, as soon as he could reach the spot, he 
had gone "to old South College and climbed up the 
iron and stone steps to the old room on the left side 
near the second chimney, where on a certain evening in 
the month of March, 1852, words of that beloved friend 
[Albert S. Hunt], the like of which I had heard from 
his lips many times through the two college years pre- 
ceding, were the means of leading me then and there to 
such personal knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ as 
I have never lost. And now," said he, "I thank God 
for those words from his saintly and now sainted lips, 
spoken fifty-four years ago." 

Back I turn to some yellowing pages, covered 
with finest penmanship, which lie open before me. 
They are the journals of this same Albert S. Hunt, 
who, in Amenia, taught Cyrus Foss "penmanship." 
Four brief entries belong to this narrative. How little 
the white-souled writer of them dreamed that they 
would be quoted here! 

March 31, 1849. "Again in College — and with a 
determination to make religion my chief business." 

March 16, 185 1. "Today I have enjoyed myself 
much — Dr. True's sermon — my talk and prayer with 
Cyrus . . . ." 



44 



March 25, 1852, g.30 P. M. "Our class meeting 
was exceedingly solemn. Twenty-seven present. 
. . . Cyrus found the long looked for 'witness/ " 

March 29. "Prayer meeting last evening was 
excellent . . . Cyrus was more than happy" 

Back of it all was the home influence. "In that 
home," writes Bishop Foss long years after, "there was 
no cant nor sanctimoniousness, and not very much nor 
frequent pointed religious conversation ; but there was 
the daily, reverent, often pathetic and tearful reading 
of the Holy Scriptures ; and there was earnest, plead- 
ing prayer ; and, above all, there was a pervading spirit 
which proclaimed louder than words that the first 
desire of both the parents for their children was that 
they might all be genuine Christians." 

In a letter written to him by his parents when he 
was fourteen years old, doubtless on the occasion of 
that first separation in the Amenia school days, his 
father says: "In a word, make the salvation of your 
soul your business — let everything else be subservient 
to this. Seek counsel from experienced Christian 
friends and profit by it. Above all, take the word 
of the Lord for the man of your counsel ; believe all it 
teaches, trust in all its promises, and obey all its com- 
mands. ... I have often thought that if I could 
see all my children converted and firmly pursuing the 
course to heaven, I could say with Simeon, 'Lord, now 
lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace/ " 

A year later, when Cyrus was but fifteen, his 
father died. When on his death-bed, he called his sons 



45 



around him and after many tender and touching coun- 
sels said: "My last words to each of you shall be the 
words of David to Solomon : 'Now, my son, know thou 
the God of thy father, and serve Him with a perfect 
heart and with a willing mind. ... If thou seek 
Him, He will be found of thee; but if thou forsake 
Him, He will cast thee off forever.' " 

It was upon the heart soil thus seeded with truth 
and enriched with the gentle influences of a Christian 
home that the warm persuasions of the tutor and friend 
were brought to bear. And when in that old room in 
South College, after he had been earnestly charged by 
his guide to "give up struggling, rest upon Christ's 
promises and proceed to live the Christian life," the 
seeking spirit and the seeking Lord met and knew each 
other, the religious basis and the characteristics of one 
of the most potent spiritual personalities of the past 
half century were determined. 

For the influence of Albert S. Hunt at this crisis 
Bishop Foss never ceased to be grateful. From Amenia 
he writes thus to his spiritual guide : — "Everyone loves 
his birthplace and the very trees and stones around it. 
I love my birthplace. No room in College is so dear 
to me as Professor Lane's recitation room; no seat so 
memorable as the dingy bench behind the stovepipe; 
no countenance of all that memory gathers around me 
so lovely as his whose God-sent words led me to the 
fountain of cleansing. I have many delightful memo- 
ries of college life, but that is the best of all. I shall 
never forget how on that memorable evening your 



* 



45 



words of most persuasive tenderness and mild reproof 
roused and soothed my despairing heart." 

Here is a classic in experimental religion which 
the Church should ever hold as a precious possession. 

After graduation with highest honors from Wes- 
leyan University in 1854, nearly three years were to 
elapse before Cyrus D. Foss entered upon the regular 
work of the ministry. These were spent at Amenia 
Seminary. For the first two he was instructor in a 
favorite study, mathematics. In 1856 he was principal 
of the Seminary. Already during his college course, in 
185 1-2, he had accepted the task of a winter school — 
a common experience at that time for the students of 
Wesleyan University. Thus at intervals for five years 
he came under the discipline of the teacher's training, 
unconsciously laying the foundation in experience and 
in associations for the high enterprise to which he was 
called when in 1875 he was elected President of Wes- 
leyan University. 

But teaching was the incident; the vocation was 
preaching. To his brother Archibald, to whose influ- 
ence and counsel he pays high tribute, he writes four 
months before graduation, "I have about made up my 
mind that it will be best for me to teach a year or two 
after graduation. Where I shall go I have no idea." 
He had begun to preach a year before. In the Bishop's 
date book, carefully kept, the entry of the first sermon 
is June 19, 1853. It was preached at Hanover, a small 
manufacturing village about twelve miles from Middle- 
town. The text was II Kings, 5:12. "Are not Abana 



47 



S 



and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the 
waters of Israel? May I not wash in them and be 
clean? So he turned and went away in a rage." The 
record shows that he preached fifty times before he 
left college. To his brother he reports, October 12, 
1853, after preaching five times, "I have preached twice 
this term, once in Haddam, once in the Mission Chapel 
in this place : had considerable liberty both times." Six 
months later he writes : "I have been preaching consid- 
erable this term. Yesterday I went to Hanover . . . 
I had a most excellent time all day. The audience was 
exceedingly attentive and seemed to be affected. I 
shall always be glad to preach whenever I can have so 
much Divine assistance and speak with so much lib- 
erty as I did yesterday. It appeared to me while I was 
speaking that I had such a view of redeeming love as 
I never had before. I could exclaim from the bottom 
of my heart, 'Glory be to God in the highest for that 
dear name Redeemer/" 

In the period between his graduation and his en- 
trance into what he joyously in his anticipations calls 
the active work of the ministry, he preached nearly one 
hundred and fifty times, averaging fully one sermon a 
week during the years when teaching claimed him. "I 
do," he writes, "enjoy preaching very much, and long 
for the time when it shall be my work." To those who 
have marked the familiar fact of the later years that to 
Bishop Foss preaching was so far from being a task 
that he sought opportunities in obscure mission pul- 
pits or in the village churches during vacation time, 
the evidence that this was not impulse but habit, and 



48 



belonged to the deep joy of his relation to Christ from 
the beginning of his ministry will be significant. 

But while these years were bringing to him added 
power in the use of his gifts for teaching and preach- 
ing, the spiritual life was deepening and maturing. In 
August, 1855, he experienced a very special blessing. 
He writes again to his spiritual mentor, Albert S. 
Hunt, "I went to the camp meeting [Sing Sing] with 
an honest desire 'to get more religion/ . . . After 
two or three hours' struggle to overcome my own heart 
and by the help of God to bring it all down to the foot 
of the Cross, I was enabled to make a full surrender. 
By faith I saw my poor yet entire offering accepted, 
and by faith I received the assurance that my Father 
of whom I asked bread did not give me a stone. Not 
immediately but after a little time my soul was filled 
with joy, and for two hours I sat and laughed for glad- 
ness of heart. Never before did I have such a sense of 
the nearness of Christ. Never before did I rejoice in 
such an assurance of His presence and astounding 
love. The simple truth was, my heart was cleansed 
from all unrighteousness and filled with pure, bound- 
less love. I believed this then, I have believed it ever 
since, and I believe it now . . . But if that camp 
meeting experience were all I had, I would not give a 
cent for it. Oh ! what an indescribable peace has dwelt 
in my heart almost without an hour's interruption from 
that day to this." And then he adds, with a good sense 
of which the enthusiasm of a glorious experience did 
not rob him : "About subtle mental analysis and nice 
distinctions I do not trouble myself at all. I am 



49 



entirely the Lord's and He is mine clear up to the maxi- 
mum of my present need. I believe that and every- 
thing it implies with all my heart." 

When early in his twenty-fourth year Cyrus David 
Foss received ordination as a deacon at the hands of 
Bishop Baker and was admitted to the New York Con- 
ference — the Conference of his honored father, into 
whose membership his brother Archibald had but re- 
cently preceded him — , he was an exceptional man, in 
his natural gifts and in the equipment which years of 
study, of teaching, of preaching, of spiritual culture had 
brought him. He had also acquired rich assets in 
the associations of the Seminary and the University 
and in the intimate friendships of men who were them- 
selves to make their mark in the Church and in the 
world. 

On March 20, 1856, he had been married to Miss 
Mary E. Bradley, of Salisbury, Conn., who died Sep- 
tember 7, 1863, her death being swiftly followed by 
that of an infant son. Two daughters were left in the 
broken home, Mary Garrettson, who became the wife 
of A. Clarence Weeks and died in 1904 at her home in 
Alhambra, California, and Frances Taft, now Mrs. 
Francis A. Chamberlain of Minneapolis, Minn. 

For eighteen years Cyrus D. Foss was a pastor. 
The brilliant success of his subsequent ministry in offi- 
ces more general must not be allowed to obscure the 
strength and fruitfulness of his years as an itinerant. 
His own conception of the dignity of the pastor- 
preacher may be inferred from the text almost invari- 
ably chosen for his first sermon in a new charge, II 

50 



Cor. 4:5, "For we preach not ourselves but Christ 
Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus' 
sake." This was his message and his credential ; this 
defined his attitude. 

The first two years were spent in the charming 
village of Chester, Orange County, N. Y. In May, 
1859, he was admitted into full connection in the New 
York Conference, was ordained elder (May 8) by 
Bishop Edmund S. Janes, was transferred to the New 
York East Conference and stationed at Fleet Street, 
Brooklyn. In succession he was pastor of that church, 
Hanson Place and South Fifth Street, Brooklyn, and 
of St. Paul's (twice), Trinity and St. James in New 
York. The period begins with the year of the financial 
depression, 1857, an d includes the troublous times of 
the Civil War. In 1872 he was a delegate to the Gen- 
eral Conference which determined the status of laymen 
in the governing body of the Church. In 1873, while 
he was pastor of St. Paul's Church for the second time, 
the World's Evangelical Alliance met for its historic 
session in the building of the Young Men's Christian 
Association, within a stone's throw of his church. In 
1874 he became Honorary Corresponding Secretary of 
the Alliance for the United States. 

From the beginning to the end of this pastoral 
ministry in Brooklyn and New York, he was in con- 
stant demand as the preacher on special occasions. 
One remembers that the announcement in the old Thir- 
tieth Street Church, of which Archibald Foss was for a 
time pastor, that his brother Cyrus was to preach, in- 
variably secured a crowded house. He frequently 



51 



preached in the pulpits of other denominations. In 
the summer of 1867 he went abroad with his brother 
Archibald, and, after registering the four occasions 
when he preached, twice on the transatlantic 
steamers and twice in Paris, he adds this character- 
istic comment: "I have felt it a great privation that 
I have been invited to preach but four times in 
four months." He preaches in small churches as well 
as large. In 1872 he re-visits Hanover, Connecticut, 
where nineteen years before he had delivered his first 
sermon. 

But sympathetic as he was with general move- 
ments in church and city, entering heartily into 
social fellowships where he was ever to others a 
tonic and an inspiration, ready, as opportunity pre- 
sented, to preach the Gospel in other cities also, he was 
devoted to his parishes and found in his own pulpit 
his throne of power. He brought to it lucid thinking, 
apt and varied illustration, clear spiritual vision, unfal- 
tering confidence in the system of truth revealed in the 
Bible, ethical stalwartness, and, with it all, deep spir- 
itual emotion, which belonged evidently to the very 
life currents of his being. His message was ever a 
declaration, never a speculation. What at times might 
have seemed to some the emphasis of dogmatism was 
rather the cumulative force of conviction forged in 
his own deep experiences. 

In his career as a preacher and a pastor from Fleet 
Street, Brooklyn, to St. James, Harlem, Cyrus D. Foss 
without doubt contributed immensely to the moral 
and spiritual forces of New York. A glimpse or two of 



52 



him through the eyes of contemporaries may here have 
place. A recorder of the history of Hanson Place 
Church writes of the pastor appointed there in 1861 : 
"He began his work at our church at a time when the 
whole country was in the midst of the greatest politi- 
cal excitement. History attests how greatly the pul- 
pits of the North helped to arouse and keep alive the 
patriotism of the people. Our young pastor, for he was 
then but twenty-seven years of age, lent the warmth 
and ardor of his eloquence to the support of his gov- 
ernment. No words of uncertain meaning ever passed 
his lips. Though thirty years have passed, there are a 
number of us in Hanson Place who have not forgotten 
the patriotic sermon he preached on his second Sabbath 
and the thrilling effect it produced. 'Prepare war, wake 
up the mighty man, let all the men of war draw near, 
let them come up ; beat your ploughshares into swords 
and your pruning hooks into spears/ was his text. How 
our boys rushed to the front !' Some of our classrooms, 
the rendezvous of many young men, seemed like re- 
cruiting offices." They were stirring times for a young 
pastor, and it will be remembered that Mr. Beecher 
and Plymouth Church were but a few blocks away! 

During this pastorate the membership of the 
church increased over forty per cent. The pastor 
seems to have been his own evangelist. The narrator 
continues : "A teachers' meeting was held at a quarter 
past eight o'clock before the morning session of the 
school. A deep religious feeling was the outgrowth of 
these meetings, resulting in the conversion of seventy 
members of the school. At the same time the good 



53 



work of revival was carried on at the church meetings. 
One evening twenty-eight persons came forward to the 
altar for prayers after a solemn and impressive sermon 
by Mr. Foss on The Final Judgment. The accession to 
the membership from probationers was great. Over 
one hundred persons were admitted on trial at the com- 
munion services held in April, 1862." 

Thus, while pastor of St. Paul's, he appears to a 
writer in the Sunday School Times: 

"In his strictly private life he is decidedly genial 
and communicative. He acts as if he thoroughly en- 
joyed himself, and he makes social communion a 
means of refreshment for both mind and heart 
. . . . You see that his learning is of the most 
thorough character; that it is his delight, and that he 
pursues his scholarly duties with a mind naturally 
strong, far-reaching and retentive. 

"He weighs every word and, as he goes on, the 
sentence and the thought gain in strength, complete- 
ness and beauty of form, until it is finished, clear and 
vivid to both the speaker and listener .... Now 
his eyes burn with a new light; now his form 
straightens and fills out with conscious power and 
now his lips speak in tones of thunder. He does not 
speak with any doubtfulness, with any fear that there 
can be any sort of mistake about what he says; but 
he speaks with the emphatic utterance of the learned 
mind and the renewed heart." 

In May, 1865, Cyrus D. Foss was married to Miss 
Amelia Robertson, of Peekskill, N. Y. Their children 
were Amelia, now Mrs. James R. Thorpe of Denver, 



54 



Cyrus David, Jr., now of Philadelphia, Helen, now 
Mrs. George B. Wood of Philadelphia, and Elizabeth, 
who died in infancy. 

To many of those who knew Dr. Foss — Doctor of 
Divinity by the appreciation and good-will of his 
Alma Mater in 1870 — in the last pastorate of this 
series, that at St. James, Harlem, there is a charm of 
personal friendship which with his inspiring pulpit 
utterances leaves outstanding impressions clear in 
outline, warm in color, distinct beyond all others. 
His was indeed a happy and charming domestic life — 
a home of comfort and peace. He was just beyond 
forty, faultless in poise, eloquent, scarcely to be 
matched for manly beauty, strong as iron in the frame- 
work of his thinking, and, it may be, as inflexible, but 
gentle in sympathy, merry of heart on occasion, a 
sharer of joy and of sorrow with all, and they were 
not few, who came into the circle of his affections. 
He was ever alert, alike in parsonage, president's 
house, or episcopal residence, to the privileges and 
the duties of his own fireside. The commanding quali- 
ties which the great public so well knew were "here 
illuminated by the radiance of a devoted family affec- 
tion and warm sympathies and by a certain cheeriness 
and brightness of demeanor which were peculiarly his 
own." He was his children's counselor, quick to solve 
their problems and sympathetically to guide their pur- 
pose. He was their companion as well. They remem- 
ber with keen delight the zest of his spirit of play. 
Their friends were his and into their most simple, 
childish sports he would enter with an enthusiasm 



55 



which made them feel that it was his greatest pleas- 
ure. His conversation at the table, not occasionally 
but always, was as charming and entertaining as it 
could have been at a dinner party. It combined an 
unfailing sense of humor with dignity and elegance. 
There was no audience for which he would take more 
pains to tell an amusing story or an interesting experi- 
ence than his own little home circle. His influence 
in the home seemed like the air they breathed, "as 
pervasive, as dependable, as vital." He was fond of 
games and knew how to win them. Whatever the 
game, it straightway became a battlefield. With his 
friends and at home he was not only genial but merry. 
His hearty laugh, who, having heard it, can forget? 
"His spirit of mirth," says a frequent guest, "was not 
wayward or capricious; it knew its proper place and 
never broke loose or offended, but it was vigorous and 
wholesome and bright." His unfailing interest in 
human affairs, discovery, invention, education, politics, 
kept his mind fresh even under the burden of official 
duty. His memory was exact, retentive and trained. 
A good story, a keen phrase, an apt anecdote, a new 
fact stayed with him, and became material not for 
monologue, but for charming, witty and inspiring con- 
versation. That he was companionable is illustrated 
by his pleasure in reading aloud. In his own home 
and in others where he was a frequent and familiar 
guest, "the days," says one of the congenial group, 
"were seldom so busy that we could not rendezvous," 
for Dickens or Mark Twain, Browning or Howells, or 
Kipling or some of the vital papers in magazine or 



56 



review. "He was an ideal guest, easy to entertain 
and ever furnishing enjoyment to all about him," 
"companionable without condescension, approachable 
without familiarity, tender without weakness, the 
loved counselor of those who were privileged to know 
him in his or their own family circle." To those who 
have enjoyed his hospitality, his welcome, his solici- 
tude, his good cheer, his kindness, his wit and humor, 
his word of counsel, his strong, tender prayers are 
among memory's most durable assets. 

In 1875, at the age of forty-one, twenty-one years 
after graduation from college, of which three had been 
spent in educational work and eighteen in the pastoral 
ministry, Dr. Foss was elected President of Wesleyan 
University, to succeed Dr. Joseph Cummings. He 
entered upon his duties at the opening of the fall term. 
The inauguration ceremonies took place on October 
26th. No one, in reading the names of the participants 
in this simple but dignified occasion and of the social 
evening which followed, can escape the significance of 
personal influence and association. The president of 
the Board of Trustees, Charles C. North, has been his 
devoted friend for years and a member of the church 
from whose pastorate the new president has been 
taken; its secretary is Dr. Samuel F. Upham, a com- 
rade of undergraduate days. Here is Bishop Janes 
who received him into full orders in the ministry and 
whose family had been members of his congregation 
at St. Paul's. Here too is Bishop Gilbert Haven, once 
his instructor in Amenia Seminary. Professor Calvin 
S. Harrington who represents the Faculty was his 



57 



fellow student in college, his brother Archibald's class- 
mate. For the trustees speaks Judge George G. Rey- 
nolds, to whom Amenia and its Seminary are indeed 
scenes of home. For the alumni Albert S. Hunt, than 
whom no man was dearer to him, gives him welcome. 
In the company are Professor John M. Van Vleck, his 
intimate college friend, adjunct professor in 1853-5, 
and Professor James C. Van Benschoten, who had 
been his room-mate in the earliest Amenia period. 
How intimate a company! How dear a place! The 
strong words on this occasion, gathered up in a little 
pamphlet now seldom seen, are like the sympathetic 
advices of a group of friends setting forward one of 
their number in whom they fully trust to be the leader 
in some heroic and lofty enterprise. Characteristics 
attributed to him in these confident utterances revealed 
themselves in new strength under the severer tests of 
college administration. He kept his "ease and natural- 
ness" throughout these five years in the presidency : — 
in his own charming home with its unstinted hospi- 
tality; in his friendly contact with alumni of all the 
years ; in his candid, clear-cut methods of administra- 
tion, as he dealt with students, faculty or trustees; — 
ever a master of himself and as such a master of men 
and situations. "Strength of will and self-reliance"— 
surely, and, as well, "respect for the opinion of others." 
"Aspirations" for the realization of the higher aims 
for the college he shared. For this he wrought with 
skill and patience in securing additional endowment, 
enlarged as rapidly as might be the curriculum and 
the teaching force, drew by his persuasion and person- 



58 



ality additional students, — above all, in the presence 
of the colder ideals of merely intellectual attainments, 
he never faltered in his purpose to fulfill the pledge of 
his inaugural, "not to ignore or fail to ply to the ut- 
most of their power those religious forces which can 
alone furnish any security of character." Though 
written nearly thirty years after Dr. Foss had com- 
pleted his work as president, the resolutions adopted 
February i, 1910, by the Faculty of the University on 
hearing of his death are an illuminating and conclusive 
comment upon his career as the head of the college 
to which he owed and gave so much: 

"Dr. Foss came to the presidency of Wesleyan 
University at a crisis in its history. Financial disas- 
ter had practically blotted out its endowment. In the 
five years of his administration a new endowment was 
created and the college placed on a stronger foundation 
than ever before. Doubt and discouragement among 
the friends of the college changed to hope and courage. 

"Those who were associated with Bishop Foss 
in the Faculty of Wesleyan cherish fondly the memory 
of the intimacy and freedom of his personal relations 
with them. The life of the Faculty, much less numer- 
ous then than now, was almost like that of a family. 
To the older men President Foss was a brother be- 
loved. To the younger men he seemed like a father. 

"The deepest impression which he left upon the 
memory, alike of his colleagues and his students, was 
that of his intense moral earnestness and the profound 
sincerity of his Christian faith. The men with whom 
he was associated in daily life were no more real per- 



59 



sonalities to him than his God and his Saviour. His 
life was free from sanctimoniousness and ascetic 
gloom. No burden of care and responsibility could 
dim the cheerfulness of his spirit. He enjoyed the 
pleasure and the fun of life, and his presence made 
brighter and more joyous the life of all who knew him. 
But no one could be in his presence without feeling 
the impression of that intense moral earnestness 
which ennobled every word and deed. His character 
was an inspiration to the whole college." 

In the intimate circles of the wider fellowship of 
Wesleyan University the conviction is firm and 
strengthens with the years that while the General 
Conference of 1880 by its election of Dr. Foss to the 
episcopacy gave to the Church a veritable bishop, it 
deprived the University of a great president. 

Through all the subsequent years, as a member 
of the Board of Trustees and a powerful advocate 
of advanced policies for the college, Bishop Foss 
attested his love and fidelity for his Alma Mater. 
In 1 88 1 he was the orator at the semi-centennial 
celebration of the University. His noble presence at 
the stately ceremony of the installation of President 
William Arnold Shanklin, in November, 1909, was 
a welcome evidence of his devotion to the college 
which as a student he had entered nearly sixty 
years before. 

From May, 1880, to May, 1904, stretch the six 
quadrenniums during which, in the order of the Church, 
this student, teacher, pastor, educator, administered 
the "office and work of a Bishop in the Church of 



60 



God." With him were chosen Henry W. Warren, 
John F. Hurst and Erastus O. Haven. Among the 
bishops previously elected he found two at least who 
had been in closest relations with him in personal and 
ministerial fellowship, Randolph S. Foster and Ed- 
ward G. Andrews. With Bishops Andrews and War- 
ren the intimacy of the earlier years was to become 
constantly deeper and richer through a quarter of a 
century of high comradeship in illustrious service. 
Others whose friendship he had cherished had passed 
away during the preceding quadrennium. Among these 
was Bishop Janes, upon whom as a friend and coun- 
selor he had confidently depended since his ordination 
as elder by the Bishop's hands twenty years before. 
Bishop Simpson for four years more was to be the 
revered primate of the episcopal group. The tradi- 
tional ideals of the office were still dominant as em- 
bodied in the character and bearing of these older 
bishops. A certain exalted sense of order and of au- 
thority still withstood the democratic tendency of later 
years, a fact clearly important in the interpretation of 
the personal attitude and official administration of 
those who entered the episcopal office a generation 
ago. 

To the new responsibilties he brought the same 
qualities — and no others — which gave him distinction 
and mastery in other fields. He assumed no new 
pose; he cultivated no new phases of temperament or 
of expression. To him the episcopacy had its chief 
value on the side of opportunity. On his election to 
the presidency he had written to a friend: "I know, 



61 



of course, that the position I have taken is not likely 
to be free from trial and annoyance ; but I am coming 
to see more and more how grand an opportunity it 
offers; and if I can but use that opportunity grandly 
for God and humanity, I will ask nothing better in this 
life." He might have used the same formula five 
years later of his conception of the meaning of the 
episcopacy. Quite likely self restraint in public duties 
became more marked. The effort of conscience and 
judgment to measure values and to do justly where 
complex as well as individual interests were involved, 
undoubtedly increased reserve and reticence. The 
sense of the far-reaching influence of his decisions 
would with him, as with every deep-hearted bishop 
the Church has ever had, add to the seriousness of 
both thought and mien. He would not lose the in- 
herent right of prompt and, it might be, violent reac- 
tion against subterfuge, dissimulation, selfishness and 
insincerity. But to know the facts, to be just, to be 
kind, to share in the thrill of joy at success and as 
well in every heart-throb of pain and disappointment 
and failure, — this was of the very essence of the 
bishop as it was of the man. 

Throughout these twenty-four years he ever 
preached a great Gospel. Some of his sermons became 
noted and will remain among the classics of the pulpit 
to those who heard them. Year by year certain fel- 
lowships deepened. From the companionships of an 
earlier period, by the very nature of his work he was 
somewhat drawn away. Yet from such friends as 
Andrew Longacre and Charles S. Harrower and his 



62 



two Alberts, Albert S. Hunt and Albert D. Vail, he 
could never be really separated. In the cities of his 
residence he both found and made friends. Some of 
his warmest attachments were formed for those who 
as his college boys or as the younger clergy of the 
city or state were welcomed into the warm circles of 
closer intimacy. 

In the councils of the Church for a quarter of a 
century his influence has been notable. In Boards 
and General Committees he was never dull. Occasion- 
ally waiting, not without a sense of time lost, for 
others to arrive at positions he was already occupying, 
he would seem to wonder at the slower approach, but 
his clear analysis and trenchant statement have cut or 
untangled many a badly twisted skein. Especially 
after his journeys to Europe and around the world had 
given him familiar knowledge of the mission fields 
were his statements of facts convincing and his dis- 
cussion of policies weighty. Long to be remembered 
in the annals of our missionary administration is his 
address delivered at Providence, R. L, before the 
General Missionary Committee meeting, November 
12, 1898, on "Our Most Successful Mission" — a strik- 
ing resume of his experiences and convictions touch- 
ing India, from which he had but just returned. 

Beyond the circle of his own denomination he 
was sent to carry the message of the Church. While 
still President of Wesleyan University, in 1878, he 
bore fraternal greetings from our General Conference 
to that of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, a 
message nobly conceived and far-reaching in its influ- 



63 



ence at a most critical period in the relations of the 
two great bodies of Methodists. In 1886 he visited 
as Fraternal Delegate the British Wesleyan Confer- 
ence and the Irish Wesleyan Conference, making a 
profound impression in his addresses. The address in 
the former case was given in City Road Chapel. In 
this same year he presided over the Methodist Episco- 
pal Conferences in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Ger- 
many, Switzerland and Italy, and in 1893 over that in 
Mexico. In 1891 he was a delegate to the Ecumenical 
Methodist Conference at Washington. In his official 
journey around the world in 1897-98, for the visitation 
of Methodist missions, he presided over the confer- 
ences and missions in India and Malaysia, and visited 
the missions in China and Japan. The addresses de- 
livered under various auspices on his return are in the 
Bishop's best vein, and as preserved in permanent 
form are a distinct contribution to missionary litera- 
ture. 

In less striking ways, during these crowded years, 
Bishop Foss served the Church with equal fidelity. 
From 1888, when he became resident bishop in Phila- 
delphia, he was President of the Board of Church 
Extension, and later, until 1908, of its successor, the 
re-organized Board of Home Missions and Church 
Extension of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Dur- 
ing the same period he was President of the Philadel- 
phia City Missionary and Church Extension Society, 
an office in which he promoted most earnestly the 
interests of the work of Methodism among all classes 
in the city of his home. He was a trustee of the 



64 



Methodist Hospital of Philadelphia, and of the Clifton 
Springs Sanitarium. The interests of Christian edu- 
cation ever claimed his services. At the time of his 
death he was a trustee of the Drew Theological Semi- 
nary, of Wesleyan University, of the Philadelphia 
Collegiate Institute for Girls, and of the Woman's 
College of Baltimore, now Goucher College. Of the 
last two Boards he held for some years the office of 
president. He was a Director of the Young Men's 
Christian Association of the University of Pennsyl- 
vania, and served as University preacher. For ten 
years he was a trustee of the Pennsylvania Bible 
Society. Among the social and civic activities with 
which he was connected were the Christian League of 
Philadelphia and the Pennsylvania Child Labor Com- 
mittee. In 1905 he was a delegate to the Inter-Church 
Conference on Federation and participated in its delib- 
erations at its great meeting in Carnegie Hall, New 
York. It has been the occasion of greatest satisfaction 
to his friends and was a joy to him that after his 
critical illness in 1908, he was able to be present at the 
meeting of the Federal Council of the Churches of 
Christ in America, held in Philadelphia, and to close 
those important services with the apostolic benedic- 
tion. 

To cite these responsible positions serves only to 
show the wide variety of his official interests. To 
them all he brought always and without stint the best 
his resources of experience, judgment and faith could 
afford. Here as in the more prominent places of serv- 
ice he was an inspirer and a guide. Only the records 



65 



which are yet unread by mortal eye can estimate the 
value of the contribution which such a man through 
the years can make to the vital processes of the 
Church. 

One of the wisest leaders of Methodism has char- 
acterized the episcopal career of Bishop Foss in terms 
at once felicitous and impartial. He writes of him: 

"As Bishop, he lived in an ever widening horizon 
of knowledge, appreciation and responsibility. He 
studied every question in its larger relations, kept his 
judgment quadrated with great fundamental princi- 
ples and never permitted sentiment or pressure to 
bias his interpretation of facts and conditions. While 
the requirements of the Church were his first care, he 
was peculiarly solicitous to do justly by everyone, 
give the least possible discomfort and secure for each 
the largest opportunities for service. Painstaking but 
reticent, sympathetic but resenting subterfuge, his 
directness was sometimes misunderstood by those 
who had received his most thoughtful consideration. 
Clear in his thinking, positive in his judgments and 
fearless in their maintenance, his colleagues admired 
his discretion and honored his conclusions and the 
Church was wisely guided by his statesmanship in 
many an hour of difficulty and opportunity." 

For the first two quadrenniums of his active serv- 
ice in the episcopacy, Bishop Foss was resident in 
Minneapolis. The gracious home life of these years 
was marked by a hospitality which by his many friends 
can never be forgotten. Though he was frequently 
called from home by official duty his influence and that 



66 



of his family became a power throughout the city and 
in the entire Northwest. It was barely two years after 
his home was established in Minneapolis that accident 
and consequent perilous illness overtook him. The 
spiritual outcome of this calamity, as described by the 
Bishop's own voice and pen, profoundly moved the 
Church. "In Sickness and in 'Accidents,' " the pub- 
lished account of these experiences of physical disaster 
which after twenty-seven years of almost perfect 
health had assailed him, is as clear as his sermons and 
as powerful an inspiration to faith as any argument 
he ever uttered. His date book holds this laconic 
statement : "Prevented from preaching for almost ten 
months by a sprained ankle, a broken bone, and ty- 
phoid fever. I gave, however, two expositions in Dr. 
Strong's parlor." In November of 1882 he is again 
"preaching." He preached sixteen times in the next 
three months in the city of Minneapolis. In Novem- 
ber, 1883, he preached at Rondout, N. Y. "Fiftieth 
anniversary of a church founded by my father." The 
range of his Conference visitations is wide. It is in 
1885 that he writes from Tyrone, Pa., "What a strange 
office mine is. Here I am a thousand miles from home 
among strangers; and men begin to come around me 
whose dearest earthly interests are in my hands. May 
God help me to be faithful to Him and them!" At 
the end of this year he has reached his one hundredth 
dedication and has preached his three thousandth 
sermon. 

In 1888 Bishop Foss became resident in Philadel- 
phia. Four years before, an earnest invitation had 



67 



been sent to him, bearing the signatures of many of 
the representatives of the churches, asking him, if the 
suggestion were agreed to by his colleagues, to be- 
come the successor of Bishop Simpson. Deeply con- 
scious as he was of the bonds by which Bishop Simp- 
son had held to himself Philadelphia Methodism, the 
assurance of the desire of the officiary of the churches 
was a welcome introduction to the hearts and homes 
of those among whom the remainder of his life — 
twenty-two years — was to be spent. 

It may be doubted if happier relationships have 
ever been maintained between any resident bishop and 
his home constituency than those between Bishop 
Foss and the Methodists of Philadelphia. Among 
them to as great an extent as the law of the Church 
permits, he became a leader, a representative in civic 
and interchurch affairs, and an adviser in the current 
policies of the churches. In this fellowship they and 
he rejoiced. They revered him and relied upon him. 
He loved them and trusted them. 

He was looked upon as one of a great city's chief 
citizens. In 1889 he received from the University of 
Pennsylvania the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws, 
a degree which ten years before had been conferred 
upon him also by Cornell College, Iowa. In 1895 he 
was distinguished and acclaimed not only in Philadel- 
phia but throughout the land as one of a committee, 
of which Archbishop Ryan and Bishop Whitaker were 
also members, who settled the serious street railway 
strike of that year. The Hon. Charles Emory Smith, 
LL.D., the brilliant editor of the Philadelphia Press, 



68 



wrote of him: "The influence of Bishop Foss upon 
the civic life of Philadelphia is worthy of special men- 
tion. Without being in the least degree a sensation- 
alist, or losing that conservatism of judgment which is 
an element of power in every public leader, he has 
been found in line with every great movement for 
reform, philanthropy or municipal betterment. As a 
counsellor on committees in public service, his advice 
has been sane and practical. From the platform 
his message has always rung clear and true. 
While maintaining to the utmost the respect due 
to his calling, Bishop Foss has moved among 
men of the world, in these wider and more varied 
relations, as a scholar, a man of affairs, and a 
gentleman." 

It is a high tribute to the largeness of Bishop Foss* 
nature and to his powers of sympathy and concentra- 
tion that through a period when his official duties 
called him far and wide throughout the states and to 
lands across the seas, he could be fairly reckoned as a 
potent personality in the life of the great city in which 
his official residence was located. 

The loving words addressed to him by the com- 
mittee of representative ministers and laymen of his 
own Church, on his return from the General Confer- 
ence at Los Angeles in 1904, are an illuminating com- 
ment upon the character of his influence during the 
last sixteen years of his active service as a bishop: 

"Dearly beloved Bishop, we felicitate ourselves 
that you have returned to your home in your full vigor 
of mind and body, and that we shall hereafter more 



69 



fully enjoy the benefits of your fellowship and wise 
administration. The interests of our Church in this 
city need the counsel of your ripe scholarship and wide 
experience. Our churches will be the better for your 
life and ministry. Our hearts and homes will be the 
happier for your presence. We honor you, we love 
you. With deep emotion we acknowledge our obliga- 
tion to you for many acts of Christ-like courtesy in 
hours of sorrow and bereavement. When most we 
have needed sympathy you have ever been ready with 
tongue or pen to remind us that we were not absent 
from your thought. We proffer a warm and lasting 
welcome to you, and to the elect lady who presides 
over your household, and who by her abiding interest 
in all that pertains to the welfare of the Church has 
been the sharer in your toils and the inspiration of 
your service. We devoutly offer prayer to Almighty 
God on your behalf, that the richest ministries of your 
life may be permitted you in the years which lie before 
you, and that at last there may be vouchsafed unto 
you a crown of glory, and unto us also, who, inspired 
by your life and ministry, shall, in our smaller meas- 
ure, do faithful service for our common Lord." 

In every essential save that of Conference admin- 
istration, Cyrus D. Foss continued to be veritably a 
bishop after the General Conference in 1904 placed 
him upon the retired list. It had fallen to him to pre- 
pare and present the Episcopal Address, a document 
which must ever have high rank among the official 
utterances of the Church. In its logical arrangement, 
its clear diction, its broad range, its exact statement 



70 



and its spiritual warmth, it is characteristic of him 
who shaped it and is worthy of him. It was the mes- 
sage of one who was not thinking of loosening buckle 
or sheathing sword. Retirement at seventy had not 
been in his forecast of his own career. But the man- 
date of the Conference was accepted without a 
murmur. In word and mien, in gentleness of spirit and 
grace of manner, he gave to the Church at this crisis 
in his own life an example of manly, dignified and noble 
self-mastery which in all its annals has been unsur- 
passed. The lure and love of service were still strong 
and the opportunities multiplied. Back to his home, — 
ready for any task to which the love of the Church or 
the good Providence of God might guide him, — went 
the strong man who for fifty years had never seemed 
to turn his back upon a duty or to shun a cross. 

The slackening of official tension did not mean 
the surrender of public duties. Opportunities for im- 
portant service were ever seeking him. But home 
became dearer even than his home-loving heart had 
ever found it. He was permitted oftener and longer 
to be in it. Friends drew closer and the years were 
tender and mellow. Still was he the stay of his 
friends in the time of stress and storm. With increas- 
ing skill he practiced the fine art of the comforter. 
Once, lifting a pen from his desk, he said to me: — 
"This pen I keep for writing to my friends in sorrow." 
More welcome than ever became the presence of 
family and kindred. With the gentle chivalry of a 
warrior who with loosened armor rests awhile, he 
shared these quieter years with her for whom his loyal 



71 



devotion had deepened amid all the exactions of a long 
public life, whose traits of quick intuitional insight and 
practical judgment were ever his dependence and his 
admiration. 

In 1906-07 accompanied by Mrs. Foss he made a 
second trip around the world, visiting Methodist 
Episcopal Missions in Ceylon, India, Malaysia, China, 
Korea and Japan. They attended at Bareilly the Jubi- 
lee of Methodist Episcopal Missions in India, to which 
Mrs. Foss was the official representative of the Wo- 
man's Foreign Missionary Society, and at Shanghai 
the Centenary Anniversary of Protestant Christian 
Missions in China. Bishop Foss' impressions of the 
Jubilee and of the outlook in India are a part of the 
literature of that vast mission field. 

But the later stages of the journey were marked 
with serious impairment of health. Then, after his 
return, followed the attacks each of which, to human 
skill and affection, seemed to portend the end. How 
deep he sank, again and yet again, only to come back, 
little by little, until once more the smile kindled, the 
words of love were spoken, the deep, dark eye glowed 
and the strong, sonorous voice was heard in solemn 
benediction. For a year, in quiet, cheerful waiting, 
he enjoyed that fellowship of home and friends in 
which always he had found his comfort and delight. 

On December 12, 1909, six weeks before his death, 
he writes to a very dear member of the inner 
circle stricken with painful illness: "During all 
your sickness we have very often thought of you and 
talked about you and prayed for you. Of course the 



72 



jewels of Scripture have shone brightly before your 
eyes. 'Like as a father pitieth his children so the Lord 
pitieth them that fear Him. For He knoweth our 
frame; He remembereth that we are dust.' 'I have 
called thee by thy name; thou art mine.' God grant 
you in all your weakness and pain the abounding con- 
solations of His Word made real to you by His Spirit." 

On January third, three weeks before his own re- 
lease came, he wrote to a friend whose husband, a 
man long prominent and useful in church, college and 
civic circles, had just died: "I had no knowledge of 
your husband's illness, so his exit was to me a total 
surprise. Well, God knows best! To this refuge 
every trusting soul is driven in such a time as this, 
and millions have found when storms are roughest 
that this anchor holds. I felt that I must at once say 
something to you, but what can I say? From your 
home to the foot of the Cross, there is a well-trodden 
path, — a path trodden for many years by feet which 
now tread the heavenly streets. 

'No more fatigue, no more distress, 

Nor sin nor death shall reach that place; 
No sighs shall mingle with the songs 
That warble from immortal tongues.' 

"Thoughts of what he now is, of where he is, 
of what he has escaped from and of what he has gained, 
will bring you comfort. I pray God to grant you and 
all who suffer with you and mourn with you the 
abounding consolations of His grace." 



73 



When after a few days his own path suddenly 
darkened and upon it he could take no further step, 
did not the angels come and minister unto him? And 
when we really knew, did we not find that what 
seemed the glimmer of the eventide was for him the 
swift, brightening dawn of the eternal day for which 
he had all his lifetime waited? 

What a charm, what a benignance, what a dignity 
this life of earth has gained because he was here for 
these wonderful years! How near that other life 
approaches us as he — triumphant — finds in it his place 
with his Lord, and, — we can but think, — near Him! 

It would be like the Bishop to give us in our 
sorrow some word from the Great Book. Let those 
who bear the burden of this unutterable bereavement 
take from his text record-book these familiar and 
favorite words from which he often preached: 

"Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a 
season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through mani- 
fold temptations: That the trial of your faith, being 
much more precious than of gold that perisheth, 
though it be tried with fire, might be found unto 
praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus 
Christ." 




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