Rice, Samuel D, Dd

Rice, Samuel D., D.D.

a general superintendent of the Methodist Church in Canada, was born in Maine in 1815. He studied for some time at Bowdoin College, and was converted in his seventeenth year. In 1837 he entered the itinerant ministry. With the exception of a year at the Sackville Wesleyan College, he spent six years in the city of St. John. From 1853 to 1857 he was treasurer and moral governor of Victoria College; from 1857 to 1860 stationed in the city of Hamilton; from 1863 to 1878 governor of the Wesleyan Ladies' College there; in 1873 and 1874 president of the conference; in 1880 appointed to Winnipeg, where he remained for three years as chairman of that district. In 1882 he was elected president of the Methodist Church of Canada; and at the first session of the General Conference of the United Methodist churches he was elected senior general superintendent. He died December 11, 1884. Dr. Rice was a man of tall and commanding appearance. As a presiding officer he was dignified and firm as a preacher, earnest and forcible; as a pastor and administrator his principle was "not to mend our rules, but keep them." He was a man of strong faith and lofty courage. See (Canada) Christian Guardian, December 1884.