absolutely free to all readers, without regard to color, sex or race, the best wishes of its founders will have been realized."

LADIES' LITERARY CLUB OF GRAND RAPIDS.

During the winter of 1869, Mrs. Stone, of Kalamazoo, organized a class of ladies in history.* A few of the members of this class established a ladies" library association, July 23, 1870. Proving successful, the board of education offered to consolidate the public school library with that of the ladies' association, which was done, and the united library was managed by a board consisting of four of the ladies' association and three members of the board of education. The result has been highly satisfactory. Mrs. Stone has from time to time resumed her history classes, and when not attending, several members of these classes met at private houses for mutual improvement. A ladies' literary club was the result, and its first meeting was held in April, 1872. The club occupies a large, well-furnished room in Ledyard block, where the public library and Young Men's Christian Association reading-room are also located. During the past year there were 164 members of this club, and the average attendance has been 100. Committees prepare a programme of exercises for each weekly meeting of the club.

The "West Side Literary Club of Grand Rapids" is an offshoot of that above mentioned. It was organized April 3, 1875, at the residence of Mrs. A. J. Rose. President, Mrs. P. M. Goodrich; corresponding secretary, Miss H. A. Lathrop; treasurer, Mrs. Widdicomb. The first year's efforts placed $430 in the treasury. A library is in contemplation, for which Hon. E. G. D. Holden has already donated a few valuable works. Mrs. E. L. Briggs has donated a collection of cabinet material from specimens collected by herself on and west of the Rocky Mountains and along the Pacific coast. Mrs. P. M. Goodrich, who contributes the sketch of the West Side Club, remarks: "That the beneficial influence of this organization is already being felt in this community cannot be questioned."

Mrs. S. L. Fuller, the lady who contributed the history of the original Literary Club in Grand Rapids, remarks, in reference to both clubs: "It may be questioned whether any progress in this community during the last six years has been more marked than that of the intellectual growth of its women, very much of which must fairly be attributed to the tone of public sentiment engendered and fostered by the spirit of the members of the various enterprises, the origin and expansion of which are here briefly chronicled."

* Mrs. Dr. J. A. B. Stone, well known as having, among other worthy enterprises, organized and successfully directed a number of " classes," chiefly young ladies, in tours of travel, observation and study, in Europe.

VI.-RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS.

HIS chapter is, of necessity, confined to those religious organizations that were represented at the Centennial Exhibition. There are besides a number of sects or denominations, more or less numerous, in the State, among which may be mentioned the Wesleyan Methodists, the Lutherans, the Universalists, the New Church or Swedenborgians, the Unitarians, the Jews, the Friends or Quakers, the Christians, technically so called, United Brethren in Christ, the Spiritualists, etc. Some statistics of the several denominations, based on the census reports, will be found in the Appendix. The order of precedence in the abstracts that follow is chronological solely, so far as the same appears:

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.

As early as 1632, Father Theodat Sagard planted the cross of Christ in the forests of the Huron tribes roaming east of the Peninsula, and the Jesuit soon followed. Fathers Raymbaut and Isaac Jogues, S. J., left Georgian Bay September 7, 1641, and in a birch canoe paddled their way to Sault Ste. Marie, where they visited a Chippewa settlement, preaching Christ crucified to 2,000 Chippewas. Father Rene Menard, S. J., passed by the site of Teuchsa Grondie (now Detroit), on his way to Lake Superior, in 1660, and founded the first Catholic missionary station on the borders of Keweenaw Bay. Father Claude Allouez, S. J., visited the Lake Superior region in 1666, and remained there alone over two years, wandering from tribe to tribe, ministering. He was joined in 1668 by Father Claude Dablon and James Marquette, S. J., they together founding the mission of Sault Ste. Marie. Soon after the great council of the Indians and French officers at that place, in 1671, Father Marquette gathered a little flock of Indian converts on the main land north of the island of Mackinaw, and called his new mission Pointe St. Ignace. This enterprising explorer, on his return from his expedition to the Mississippi, died at the mouth of the lake now known by his name, on the western shore of the Lower Peninsula, where the city of Ludington is now located (formerly the village of Pere Marquette), May 19, 1675, and his remains were removed by the Indians to the church of Michilimackinac two years afterward. In the meantime, Father

Allouez was evangelizing the Miamis in the south at the mission of St. Joseph, founded by him at the mouth of the St. Joseph river, in the Lower Peninsula. The College of Mackinaw was subsequently established by the Jesuits for the education of young men. This college remains at the Sault Ste. Marie mission to this day. At the settlement of Detroit by Cadillac, in 1701, the Jesuit, Vaillant, and the Franciscan, Constantin Delhalle, accompanied him, the first to evangelize the neighboring tribes, and the latter to act as chaplain to the military post of Fort Pontchartrain. Since that time Detroit has not been without a priest attending to the spiritual wants of the inhabitants. In 1786 another missionary station was established at River Raisin, now Monroe, thirty Catholic families having founded Frenchtown, on the borders of that river, the same year. Father Frichette, pastor of St. Ann's, Detroit, visited the mission four times a year. Rev. Gabriel Richard came to Detroit in 1799. He was the first to establish Sunday schools in that city, and the first to bring a printing press west of the Alleghanies, printing, at his own expense, the first school books used in the first female boarding school, which he established. The rebuilding of St. Ann's Church was his crowning work. The cholera broke out in Detroit, and the good father fell a victim to his Christian work among the sick, September 13, 1832. From this time Catholic missions were established wherever a white man was to be found. The diocese of Detroit was erected in 1833, and when its first bishop, Frederick Reze, arrived, January 7, 1834, he found eleven priests on the mission, which included the whole Northwestern Territory. Of 95,000 inhabitants of Michigan in 1837, 24,000 were Catholics, composed of 3,000 converted Indians, 8,000 English, Irish, Americans and Germans, and the remainder descendants of the French. The same year (1837) St. Phillip's College, cote du nord est, Detroit, was established under the auspices of Right Rev. Dr. Reze, Rev. Mr. Vandepoele, superior, and Rev. Mr. DeBruyn, prefect of studies. This institution was destroyed by fire in January, 1842, and never rebuilt. The old church remained till 1861, when it too was reduced to ashes. St. Ann's High School was established in Detroit in 1839, Mr. William McDonagh, superintendent. Bishop Reze resigned and Right Rev. Peter Paul Lefever succeeded him, November 21, 1841. June 29, 1844, the corner stone of the cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul was laid, and the jurisdiction of Bishop Lefever was from this time confined to the two peninsulas of Michigan, the increasing population of which he endeavored to supply with priests by the establishment of St. Thomas' Theological Seminary in his own house, in 1847. The St. Vincent's Female Orphan Asylum, directed by the Sisters of Charity, was established in 1850. The ladies of the Sacred

Heart opened their select school for young ladies in 1851, and the Brothers of the Christian Schools assumed the direction of the Cathedral schools in the city of Detroit in 1853. An asylum for the insane was provided in 1860; a school for the colored population of Detroit in 1865. St. Anthony's Male Orphan Asylum was established in 1867, under the care of the Sisters Servants of the Sacred Heart of Mary; and the Sisters of Charity commenced the House of Providence in 1869. Bishop Lefever died March 4, 1869. His successor, Right Rev. Caspar Henry Borgess, was consecrated as bishop April 24, 1870. In 1875 the Little Sisters of the Poor commenced a charitable institution in Detroit. In 1876 the diocese of Detroit contained: Churches and chapels, 173; priests, 109; clerical students, 38; parochial free schools, 57; hospitals, 3; orphan asylums, 4; religious institutions-male 4, female 10; pupils in free schools, 15,000; Catholic population, about 180,000.

The diocese of Sault Ste. Marie and Marquette, embracing the Upper Peninsula, was established and placed under the pastoral care of Bishop Frederic Baraga, in 1857. The Right Rev. Ignatius Mrak succeeded Bishop Baraga, who died January 19, 1868. The diocese of Marquette, according to the latest returns for 1876, contained: Churches, 27; religious institutions, 3; charitable institutions, 3; clergymen, 18; academies, 3; Catholic population, 20,000.

METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH.

In the spring of 1804, Daniel Freeman, a Methodist preacher from Canada, preached once or twice in Detroit. In June, 1804, Nathan Bangs was appointed by the New York Conference to the Thames circuit, in Canada, and preached three times in Detroit. In 1809 William Case was appointed by the New York Conference a missionary to Detroit, remaining one year. Robert Abbott was converted under his ministry, and his conversion was followed by others, so that in the autumn of 1810 a church was organized, consisting of seven members. Ninian Holmes was the next preacher sent, remaining two years, and was in Detroit on the day of Hull's surrender. This little church had increased to about thirty members when the war of 1812 commenced. Only a few remained, and during that war the church was without a pastor. The honor of organizing this first Protestant church in Michigan belongs to William Mitchell, who was a member of the Western Conference, which included Ohio and Western Virginia. He was appointed to Detroit by that conference in 1810. He continued in the circuit for the year, in conjunction with Mr. Holmes. He also organized the society on the Raisin river, near Monroe. Mr.

Holmes was assisted, the second year he was in Detroit, by Silas Hopkins. In the spring of 1811 Mr. Mitchell organized a church at or near Monroe, consisting of twenty-three members, who became entirely scattered by the war. In June, 1815, Joseph Hickox was sent to Detroit. He found Mr. Abbott had kept up regular services, although many of the members had been scattered by the war. He reorganized the church, obtained the use of the old council house as a place of worship, and commenced preaching. He created a circuit of as much territory as he could visit once in three weeks, preaching nearly every day. During his second year Mr. Hickox was assisted by Rev. Joseph Mitchell, and was succeeded, in June, 1817, by Gideon Lanning, who was assisted part of the year by Thomas Harmon, from Canada. Alpheus Davis succeeded in 1818, and Freeman Dixon in 1819. In 1820 there were three churches and twenty members in Michigan. Only one church building had been erected, a log structure, on the River Rouge, five miles from Detroit. These early preachers were allowed $100 a year salary by the discipline of the church, and were entertained by the people. In 1820 Michigan was attached to the Ohio Conference and separated from the Canada district, and John P. Kent was appointed to the Detroit circuit, and was succeeded, in 1821, by Platt B. Morey, who died a few weeks after his arrival. John P. Kent, who had taken a superannuated relation, was induced to take the circuit for the balance of the year. He organized a society at Mt. Clemens, and held a camp meeting on the Rouge in June, 1822-the first of the kind held in Michigan. At the conference of 1822 he returned 130 members. At this conference Alfred Brunsen and Samuel Baker were appointed to the Detroit circuit, which extended from Mt. Clemens to the Maumee river. The Methodist Episcopal church in Detroit became incorporated in 1823. The first permanent church was built of wood on the corner of Woodward avenue and Congress street. In 1830 ten preachers were regularly engaged and 963 members reported. In May, 1840, the Michigan Conference became a separate organization to that of Ohio, and in 1856 it was divided by the principal meridian, creating the Detroit Conference, to which the Upper Peninsula was attached. A Methodist Sabbath school was established in Detroit in 1827. In 1850 there were 257 of these schools in the State, and 10,334 scholars; and in 1876 there were 957 schools, and 63,394 scholars, and more than 10,000 teachers. By the action of the General Conference of 1864, a Methodist book depository was established in Detroit, and a prosperous trade in Methodist publications is the result. The "Methodist Publishing Company" was organized in 1874, and January 1, 1875, a weekly newspaper entitled the "Michigan Christian Advocate " was com