202 Magazine of History

Frontier : The Life and Times of Robed Richford Roberts, 1778- 1843. By Worth M. Tippy. (New York: Abingdon Press, 1968. Pp. 207. Bibliography, index. $3.60.) Dr. Tippy, director of the Archives of DePauw university and Indiana and former of Christ Church (Methodist) in New York City, has given in this slender volume an interesting and able portrayal of “the life and times of Robert Richford Roberts, 1778- 1843.” He has given more of the life than of the times actually. If the book has any single deficiency, the blame lies not with the author but with the paucity of materials from which he has worked. Direct biographical data in any considerable corpus are limited to a statement dictated by Bishop Roberts while sitting for a portrait painted at Indiana Asbury University (now DePauw) . Combined with scattered reminiscences of those who knew the bishop, a few sermon fragments, and some records of the Methodist Conferences over which he presided, the primary sources still have a gaunt, underfed appearance. One has the impression that Dr. Tippy has had to pad his narrative in order to compensate for this defect. But the padding, while historically risky, arises from sound intui- tion. For Bishop Roberts’s significance to nineteenth century Methodism and to frontier Indiana is unquestionably bulkier than the record which he and others failed to leave. Born in , coming to Penn- sylvania as a boy, rising from reticent obscurity to reluctant eminence in the church, settling in Indiana in 1819, traveling throughout the church (a duty which has apparently always been laid upon ), giving much energy to the founding and proportionate substance to the strengthening of Indiana Asbury, preaching effectively but un- dramatically-all resulted in a quiet, compelling piety and in a broad, refined statesmanship which places him among the primary if lesser known figures of the Midwest and of the Methodist Church. Indiana readers will be especially attracted by the Hoosier geo- graphical and historical backgrounds in this very human portrait. Indiana University readers will be interested in the author”s chapter on the controversy between early Methodists and the officials of the &ate university, leading ultimately to the founding of DePauw, although this chapter contains no new details. The book is unfortunately marred by several typographical errors. The style is facile but not flowery, the scholarship accurate but not pedantic. Withal, Frontier Bishop is a worthwhile footnote on a little known chapter in nineteenth century Indiana-Methodist history and an affectionate tribute to an effective clergyman. Bloomingtcm, Indiana R. Benjamin Garrison

History of the North Indiana Conference, 1917-1956. By Frederick A. Norwood. (North Indiana Conference Historical Society, 1967. Pp. 331. Illustrations, graphs, appendices, index.) During the last five years histories have been published concerning all three Indiana conferences of the Methodist Church: Jack J. Detzler’s History of the Northwest Conference of the Methodiet Church (1963) ;