II. Doctrines. — The doctrines are the same as those of the Methodist Episcopal Church (q. v.).
III. Government.— The bishops preside in the con- ferences and station the ministers; they are styled " Right Reverend." The General Conference is com- posed of travelling preachers of two years' standing, and of local preachers delegated by the Annual Con- ference, in the ratio of one to every five travelling preachers. Its sessions are quadrennial. The An*
G
nual Conference consists of all the travelling preach- ers in full connection, and of all local preachers who have been licensed a certain period, and can pass a satisfactory examination. In other respects the gov- ernment resembles that of the M. E. Church.
IV. Statistics. — From the reports made at the Gen- eral Conference of 1864 on the constitution of the Church, it appears that in that year the real estate and church property was estimated at about $2,000,000, lo- cated in the New England States, the North-western States, in Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina, and California. The mem- bership of the connection was about 50,000 ; the num- ber of those attending the Church, 300,000 ; local preachers, 1000 ; travelling preachers, 500 ; ordained ministers, 200 ; and 3 bishops. Missions had been es- tablished in nearly all of the states above named, and the number of missionaries was about 20. The Church had about 1200 day-schools, and 1000 teachers of color, educated at the various institutions of learning in the United States and Canada. Sunday-schools had been established in connection with nearly all of the meet- ing-houses. They were attended by about 200,000 children, and some 200,000 volumes of Sunday-school books were used. The highest literary institution of the denomination is Wilberforce University, which is under the control of the General Conference, and lo- cated three miles north of Xenia, Green County, Ohio. It had, in 1864, about 100 students. There are also seminaries at Baltimore, Columbus (O.), Alleghany, and Pittsburg. The school near Columbus has a farm of 172 acres. There are two religious papers, the Christian Recorder, a weekly, issued by the Book Concern at Philadelphia, and the Repository.
African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church , a religious denomination con posed entirely of colored Methodists.
I. History. — This denomination originated in the secession, in 1820, of the Zion congregation of African Methodists, in the city of New York, from the Meth- odist Episcopal Church. The congregation assigned as the cause of its separation some resolutions passed by the General Conference of the Methodist Episco- pal Church, in 1820, concerning Church government. Zion congregation was soon joined by several other congregations, and in 1821 the first Annual Conference was held in the city of New York, which was attended by 22 ministers, and repoi'ted the number of members connected with the Conference as being 1426. For seven more years successively an Annual Conference was convened, each of which appointed its president. At the Annual Conference of 1838, the Rev. Christo- pher Rush was elected permanent superintendent for four years. In 1817 the denomination had 2 general superintendents, 4 annual conferences ■ ( New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Baltimore), 75 travelling ministers, from 150 to 200 local preachers and exhort- ers, 5000 lay members, 50 churches, and many congre- gations without churches, in 11 states of the Union, the District of Columbia, and Nova Scotia. The Gen- eral Conference of 1864, held at Philadelphia, declared in favor of a union with the African Methodist Epis- copal Church (q. v.).
II. Doctrines. — The doctrines are the same as those ■ of the Methodist Episcopal Church (q. v.).
III. Government, — The highest functionaries of the Church are general superintendents, who are elected to their office every four years by the suffrage of the members of the General Conference. They may be re-elected at the expiration of their term. The Gen- eral Conference meets every four years, and is com- posed of all the travelling ministers of the connection. The Annual Conference is composed of all the travel- ling ministers of a district. See Rev. Christopher Rush's Hut. of the African Methodist Church (N. Y.).
AFRICAN US I
Africanus, Julius (called by Suidas Sexius Ju- lius), was an intimate friend of Origen, an eminent Christian chronographer, and flourished about the year 220. Having been attracted by the fame of Her- aclas, a celebrated philosopher, and pupil of Origen, he came to Alexandria to study with him, but he seems to have lived chiefly at Nicopolis (the ancient Emmaus), in Palestine, and to have exerted himself for its restoration ; for which purpose, in 220, he made a visit to Antoninus Heliogabalus, to obtain from him permission that the walls of the ruined city should be rebuilt. According to one writer (Hebedjesu, Cat. lib. Chald. xv, 18), he was bishop of Nicopolis. He died about 232. Africanus wrote a chronological work in five sections under the title of Pentabiblos — a sort of universal history, composed to prove the antiquity of true religion and the novelty of paganism. Frag- ments of this chronology are extant in the works of Eusebius, Syncellus, Malala, Theophanes, Cedrenus, and in the " Chronicon Pasehale." The "Pentabib- los" commences with the creation, B.C. 5499, and closes with A.D. 221. The chronology of Africanus places the birth of Christ three years before the com- mencement of our era. But under the reign of Dio- cletian ten years were taken from the number which had elapsed, and thus the computation of the Church- es of Alexandria and Antioch were reconciled. Ac- cording to Fabricius {Bibl. Gr. ed. nova, viii, 9), there exists at Paris a manuscript containing an abstract of the " Pentabiblos." Scaliger has borrowed, in his edition of Eusebius, the chronology of Africanus ex- tant in "Geo. Syncelli Chronographia ab Adaino ad Dioclesianum, k Jac. Goar" (Gr. et Lat., Paris, 1652, fol.). Africanus wrote a learned letter to Origen, in which he disputes the authenticity of the apocryphal history of Susannah (Basle, Gr. and Lat. 1674," 4to). A great part of another letter of Africanus to Aristides, reconciling the disagreement between the genealogies of Christ in Matthew and Luke, is extant in Eusebius (bk. vi, ch. xxxi).