Elijah Embree Hoss

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Elijah Embree Hoss (14 April 1849 –23 April 1919) was an American Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, elected in 1902. He also distinguished himself as a Methodist Pastor, as a College Professor and administrator, and as an Editor.

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[edit] Early life

Born on Cherokee Creek, four miles from Jonesboro in Washington County, Tennessee, U.S.A., he was a son of Henry and Maria (nee Sevier) Hoss. His mother was a granddaughter of General John Sevier. The family moved to Jonesboro before Elijah was two years old. He was the second child and the first son of a family of eight children. He professed faith in Jesus Christ and joined the M.E. Church, South at Jonesboro when he was ten years old.

Elijah married Miss Abbie B. Clark of Knoxville, Tennessee 19 November 1872. They had three children: Mary, E.E., Jr., and Sessler. Mrs. Hoss died 15 June 1918 in Muskogee, Oklahoma.

[edit] Education

Hoss was educated in the schools of Jonesboro, Tennessee. He entered Ohio Wesleyan University in 1866, studying there two years. He then entered Emory & Henry College, earning his B.A. degree in 1869. He had acquired the habit of reading widely in early life. He was known in college for the range of his studies and the accuracy of his scholarship. His memory was prodigious, so that accurate and wide information was at his ready command.

[edit] Honorary Degrees

The Rev. Hoss was honored in 1885 by his alma mater, Emory and Henry College, with the degree Doctor of Divinity. Emory and Henry similarly honored him in 1890 with the LL.D. degree. Ohio Wesleyan University did the same (LL.D., 1906).

[edit] Ordained Ministry

Elijah was Licensed to Preach in the M.E. Church, South at Jonesboro on 8 February 1866. He was Admitted on Trial to the Holston Annual Conference 29 September 1869, and ordained in 1870. His first appointment was Jonesboro. The first person he received into church membership was his own father. He was then appointed to Knoxville, Tennessee in 1870.

In July 1872 he transferred to California to the Pacific Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (M.E.C., S.). He was appointed to San Francisco. He then transferred to the Western North Carolina Annual Conference in 1875 and was appointed to Asheville.

[edit] Academic and Editorial Ministries

The Rev. Hoss became a Professor at Martha Washington College in 1876. He was elected President of this institution in 1879. He became a Professor and Vice President of Emory & Henry College in 1881, and was elected President in 1885. In August 1885 the Rev. Hoss was elected to the Chair of Ecclesiastical History, Church Polity and Pastoral Theology at Vanderbilt University, serving there until 1890.

In May 1890 Rev. Hoss was elected the Editor of the Southern Christian Advocate, an important periodical of the M.E. Church, South. He held this position until his election to the Episcopacy in 1902. Previous to this, he was a delegate to five General Conferences of his denomination. The final time elected, he lacked only six votes in the Holston Conference, besides his own, of being unanimously elected.

[edit] Episcopal Ministry

The Rev. Dr. Elijah Embree Hoss was elected to the Episcopacy of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South by the 1902 General Conference. His Episcopal Residence was at 810 Broadway, Nashville, Tennessee.

Bishop Hoss was a fraternal representative of his denomination to nearly every Methodist Church in the world. His last great mission of this kind was to Australia in 1915. He was the Presiding Bishop of the M.E. South work in Brazil, (1905-08) and in the Orient (1910 and 1915).

[edit] Retirement, Death and Burial

Bishop Hoss was given a year's vacation, 1914-15. He retired on account of feeble health in 1918. He died 23 April 1919 in Muskogee, Oklahoma, at the home of a son. He was buried in Muskogee beside his wife. They were re-interred together at Jonesboro, Tennessee 12 April 1924.

[edit] Selected Writings

  • Address: The Religious Press, Washington, Second Ecumenical Conference, 1891.
  • Address: General Missionary Conference, 1901, Organization for Mission Work.
  • Address: The New Demands upon Methodist Authorship, London, Third Ecumencial Conference, 1901.
  • Sermon: Face to Face with the Eternal World, Wesleyan Christian Advocate Pulpit, 1904.
  • Address: Temperance and Prohibition, Toronto, Fourth Ecumenical Conference, 1911.
  • Methodist Fraternity and Federation, 1913.
  • David Morton - A Biography, 1916.
  • William McKendree, A Biographical Study
  • many magazine articles.

[edit] Biography

  • Life, Ecumenical Methodist, I.P. Martin.

[edit] References

  • Leete, Frederick DeLand, Methodist Bishops. Nashville, The Methodist Publishing House, 1948.
  • Sketches of Holston Preachers[1]

[edit] See also

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