THOMSON, EDWARD. 



TIKKKY. 



721 



stand that it was solely by hi* remarkable 

 abilities, without tho influence of powerful 

 iVi.-ii I-. that ho had attained a position second 

 it of no officer of the anny. Honors and 

 rewards were pressed upon him, but, with a 

 simple dignity of character, he declined them 

 all, satisfied with having done his duty. After 

 th<- war, ho was placed in command succes- 

 sively of tho most important and difficult mili- 

 tary departments, ami, under circumstances 

 often of great responsibility and delicacy, his 

 conduct gave general satisfaction. In private 

 life (Irii. :-al Thomas's reputation was without 

 a blemish or a stain. Ho was indeed the 

 Chevalier Bayard of our time, sans peur, et 

 tans reproche. His death was the result of 

 apoplexy. 



THOMSON, EDWABD, M. D., D. D., LL. D., 

 Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 

 born at Portsea, a suburb of Portsmouth, Eng- 

 land, in October, 1810; died at Wheeling, Va., 

 March 22, 1870. In 1819 he emigrated with 

 his parents to this country, and settled in 

 Wooster, Wayne County, Ohio. Notwith- 

 standing the scarcity of good schools in so new 

 a country, ho was well trained in tho elements 

 of tho sciences and the classics. His scientific 

 taste inclining him to tho medical profession, 

 he entered the University of Pennsylvania, and 

 received his diploma in 1829. Returning to 

 Ohio, he entered upon the practice of his pro- 

 fession in Wooster. At this time he was a 

 skeptic in religion, with an entire disbelief in 

 the Bible and Christianity. With several other 

 able and skeptical young men, he formed an 

 infidel club, to meet weekly, and to seriously 

 read and refute the Bible. The erperiment 

 resulted in Thomson's conviction of the in- 

 spiration of the Scriptures, and finally in his 

 embracing the faith which he had rejected. 

 He entered tho Methodist Episcopal Church, 

 and in 1833 began his ministerial work in the 

 Ohio Conference. In 1836, he was located in 

 Detroit, where his success as a pulpit orator 

 drew throngs to his ministry. At the end of 

 that year he was called to tho principalship of 

 the seminary in Norwalk, Ohio, which position 

 he held for eight years. By the General Con- 

 ference of 1844 he was elected editor of The 

 Ladies 1 Repository at Cincinnati, and the fol- 

 lowing year was elected first President of the 

 newly-founded Ohio Wesleyan University, at 

 Delaware, Ohio, the first Methodist college in 

 the State. He remained fifteen years, bringing 

 the institution to the leading position it now 

 holds in tho education of tho West. His success 

 in tho presidency of that college is in many 

 respects without a parallel in the history of 

 tho Methodist Church. In 1860 the General 

 Conference called him to the then stormy post 

 of tho editorship of The Christian Advocate, in 

 New York, where ho Succeeded Dr. Abel Ste- 

 vens, the accomplished historian of tho Church. 

 Dr. Thomson was elected to that hitherto con- 

 servative journal, as an antislavery champion, 

 by tho radical majority of the General Con- 

 VOL. x. 46 A 



ference, and a rival sheet, The Methodut, wan 

 at once started by the defeated party. But 

 such was tho ability and urbanity with which 

 The Advocate was conducted that it came 

 out of his hands with a larger subscript ion -list 

 than ho found. Few religious journals in the 

 land did the country better service during the 

 war for tho Union than The Christian Advo- 

 cate. The General Conference of 1864 elected 

 Dr. Thomson to the Episcopacy, with Drs. 

 Clark and Kingsley. He had been a member 

 of every General Conference since 1840, and 

 received the doctorate of divinity from Augusta 

 College, Ky., in 1844, and that of laws from 

 the Wesleyan University, Conn., in 1855. His 

 first work in his high office was a voyage 

 around the world, the first ever made by a 

 Methodist bishop. He visited the Methodist 

 missions in Germany, Bulgaria, India, and 

 China. The India mission he organized into 

 an annual conference. On his return he passed 

 in review the work of the Church in California, 

 Oregon, and the new Territories. Subse- 

 quently he was actively engaged in his portion 

 of the home work. The published volumes of 

 Dr. Thomson are four, viz. : " Educational Es- 

 says," "Moral and Religious Essays," "Bio- 

 graphical and Incidental Sketches," and " Let- 

 ters from Europe," with several prefaces. 



TURKEY, an empire in Europe, Asia, and 

 Africa. Grand Sultan, Abd-ul-Aziz Khan, 

 born February 9, 1830. Area, 1,920,944 square 

 miles. Population, 43,600,000. With regard 

 to their religion, about 27,000,000 are Moham- 

 medans, and about 16,000,000 Christians. The 

 number of Catholics, according to a recent 

 report made by a statesman in high position 

 (Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung, of April 16, 

 1870), is as follows : Catholics of the various 

 Oriental rites, 410,000; Christians of the Latin 

 rite (Roman Catholics), 991,000 ; Armenian 

 Catholics, 77,300: total, 1,478,300. The prin- 

 cipal cities in Turkey in Europe, and their 

 population, are: Constantinople, 1,075,000; 

 Adrianople, 100,000; Salonica, 100,000; Sera- 

 yevo, 60,000; Gallipoli, 60,000; Philippopolis, 

 40,000 ; Sophia, 80,000. In Turkey in Asia : 

 Smyrna, 150,000; Damascus, 120,000; Beyroot, 

 100,000; Brusa, 100,000; Erzroom, 100,000; 

 Aleppo, 100,000 ; Bagdad, 40,000 ; Jerusalem, 

 25,000. 



Tho expenses of the government, for 1869- 

 '70, amounted to 4,072,168 purses, or $88,691,- 

 819.04; revenue, 3,550,289 purses, or $77,825,- 

 292 ; deficit, $11,366,527.04. The foreign debt, 

 at the end of 1869, was estimated at $427,856,- 

 000, and the home debt, which had been con- 

 solidated in 1865, amounted, on January 1, 1867, 

 to $166,980,000, bearing 5 per cent, interest. 

 The floating debt, according to a report of the 

 Minister of Finance, of July, 1869, amounted to 

 5,000,000 sterling, but is said to have reached 

 7,700,000 sterling at the end of that year. 



On July 22, 1869, a law on the reorganiza- 

 tion of the army was published, which fixes 

 its numerical strength as follows : 



