In 1832 he was elected a bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and entered upon his duties at once, not only by attending the annual Conferences, but also by general attention to the interests of the Church. He was espcciallj- active with regard to education, and had a large share in the organization of Dickinson Col- lege. In addition to this, he drew up the outline of a plan for an education society in the Methodist Episco- pal Church, which he designed to aid ministers and others in educating their sons. Soon after his election
to the episcopacy Dr. Emory devised a course of study for candidates for deacons' and elders' orders, in which, with his usual discretion, he did not hazard everything by attempting too much. The Troy Conference of 1835 was the last which he attended. On the 16th of December in that year he was thrown from his car- riage, about two miles from his own house (Reisters- town, Md.), at seven o'clock A.M., and at half past seven in the evening he died.
Bishop Emory was a man of great talent and large cultivation. As a scholar, he was accurate and pro- found ; as a preacher, he was clear and convincing ; as an administrative officer, he hardly had a superior in an}' church. As a controversial writer, he was dis- tinguished for logical directness and for fairness to his adversaries. In 1817 he published two pamphlets in reply to bishop White's Objections against Personal As- surance h;/ the Uohj Spirit ; and in 1818, another, enti- tled The Divimtij of Christ vindicated against the Cavils of Mr. John Wright. The period from 1818 to 1830 was one of great excitement in the Methodist Episco- pal Church on various points of Church polity, and in all the controversy Dr. Emory bore a distinguished part. A large partj' wished to have the office of pre- siding elder made elective ; he fell into the ranks of that party, and, at the General Conference of 1820, he opposed vigorously a theory which gave the bishops a right to veto the acts of the General Conference. In the later conferences as to lay representation he was the principal writer, publishing, in 1824, The Defence of our Fathers, in reply to A. M'Caine, a very vigorous and powerfully written work. After his death there appeared from his pen The Ejnscopal Conti-oversy Be- viewed (New York, 1838, 8vo), edited by his son, Rob- ert Emory, from an unpublished manuscript ; it is a luminous sketch, in reply to liishop Onderdonk'si'/jfs- copacy tested hy Scripture. Most of the original articles in the first two volumes of the 3Iethodist Quarterly Re- view were written by him. — Life of Bishop Emory, by his eldest son (N. y' 1840, 8vo) ; M'Clintock, in Meth- odist Quarterly Review, 1842, p. 62 sq. ; Sprague, An- nals, vii, 486 ; Stevens, History of the Methodist Episco- pal Church, vol. iv.
Emory, Robert, D.D., son of the preceding, an eminent Methodist minister and scholar, was born in Philadelphia, Juh' 29, 1814. His early education was superintended bj' his father. In 1827 he entered Co- lumbia College, New York, where he graduated in 1831 with the highest honors and medals of his class. He then entered upon the study of law, first in the law school of Yale College, and afterwards in the office of the Hon. Reverdy Johnson, of Baltimore. In 1834 he was elected professor of ancient languages at Dickin- son College, Carlisle, and entered upon his duties there with great zeal. In 1839 he was admitted on trial in the Baltimore Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church; in 18J1 he was appointed to the Baltimore cit}' station ; and in 1842 he was appointed acting pres- ident of Dickinson College, during the absence of the president (Dr. Durbin). In 1844 he was appointed presiding elder of the Carlisle District; and in 1845 he was made president of Dickinson College. In the same year the degree of D.D. was confen-ed upon him by Columbia College. In 1847 he attended the session of the Evangelical Alliance held at London, and few of the delegates made a greater impression upon the bod}'. His health showed signs of failure during this j'ear, and he spent the winter following in the West Indies. But he continued to decline, and on his re- turn homeward he died in Baltimore, ]\Iay 18, 1848. Dr. Emorv was one of those rare men in whom the hu- man faculties, both moral and intellectual, seem to ap- proach perfection, and to reach almost complete har- monj' of action. His classical scholarship was thor- ough and accurate ; his mind was at once logical and comprehensive, and his general culture was wide and generous. His religious experience was, in manj' re'
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spects, similar to that of President Edwards, and ripen- ed into similar fulness and serenity. As a preacher he was luminous, earnest, and successful. As a college officer he was seldom rivaled. "His power of gov- ernment was nnsurpassed: he seemed born to com- mand. In him prudence and independence met to form that rare combination so essential to one who rules. This remark finds its illustration and -proof in h'u\ government of the college, to whose interests he devoted so much of his brief earthly life. While he shrunk from no responsiliility of his position, he was still careful to maintain tliat position by devising the best means to meet responsibility. Though many felt the weight of the sceptre in his hand, yet the con- viction that it was wielded by a strong man, and in the fear of the Lord, conciliated esteem. As president of the college, as in eveiy other position, he rose rapidly, both before the public and in the college ; and the last year in which his name appeared in connection with that office was the most prosperous in the historj' of the institution. The students honored him even to reverence, and regarded him as standing on a moral and intellectual eminence toward which the indolent and unworthj' must not even look, and to which the noblest and best among them ought eagerly to aspire." In 18J[1 he published .1 Life of the Rev. John Emory, D.D. (N. Y. 8vo); in 184;>, an elaborate IHstorij of the Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church (N. Y. 12mo). He left nnfinished an Analysis of Butler's Analvffi/, which was completed b}' the Kev. G. R. Crooks, D.D. (N. Y. Harpers, 1856, 8vo), and which is the best analysis of the Analor/i/ that has ever appear- ed.— Minutes of Conferences, 1849; Sprague, Annals, vii, 828.