3-066-064 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Rev. George Osborn, D.D., President of the Wesleyan Conference, 1881. Engraving from a photograph by Messrs. Appleton and Co. 'It seldom happens to any President to be elected by so very large a majority as that which placed Dr. Osborn in the chair. He evidently enjoys the confidence of his brethren as to his fitness for the highest post in their connexion. In 1851 Dr. Osborn was appointed one of the foreign missionary secretaries, and remained in that office for seventeen years...Dr. Osborn is an able expository preacher, and his style is a "well of English undefiled," and is frequently lighted up with great felicity of illustration. His knowledge of John Wesley and his writings is marvellous, and he is more fitted than any other Wesleyan minister to write on the study of John Wesley's writings, as he has been requested to do by the Conference. A resolution to that effect was moved by the Rev. H. W. Holland, who, in moving it, observed that no living Wesleyan minister in either hemisphere was better able to expound and set forth the spiritual life produced and fostered by the theology of John Wesley, and the working of those institutions which were ordained for its culture'. From "Illustrated London News", 1881.