the profoundest thinkers the church has ever had. With mental endowments of the highest order and a life of very close fellowship with God, he was able to present the truth with overwhelming force and power. At conference sessions his sermons were especially impressive and powerful. In 1857, at the session of the East Pennsylvania Conference in New York City, he preached an ordination sermon from Acts 20:28. This sermon was described by hearers as having been overwhelmingly grand and impressive. The great deep of almost every heart was broken up. 'Fathers in Israel' wept like children, and many vows of fidelity were recorded in heaven as the result of that sermon." Death and memorial After Bishop Long died in June 1869, the Ohio Conference of the Evangelical Association in 1870 passed the following resolution: "Whereas, his departure falls especially heavily on us, as a conference, as he for many years dwelt among us and gave us counsel as a devoted father would to his children in whom he had delight, and in whose welfare he had the deepest interest, therefore, Resolved, That...we will highly prize his good advice so often given us, and cherish his persevering and self-sacrificing spirit in the cause of the church, and the work of the Master. May the mantle of Bishop Long rest upon us and may we have still more of that loyalty and self-denying spirit which he as our leader ever evinced in the interest of our beloved Zion." See also List of bishops of the United Methodist Church References Behney, J. Bruce and Eller, Paul H., The History of the Evangelical United Brethren Church, (edited by Kenneth W. Krueger), Nashville, Abingdon, 1979. Leedy, Roy B., The Evangelical Church in Ohio (1816–1951), The Ohio Conference of the Evangelical United Brethren Church, 1959, pp. 732–735. Official Record of the Ohio Conference of the Evangelical Church, 1940, p. 171. Yeakel, R., Bishop Joseph Long, in Evangelical Annals, p. 533. 1800 births 1869 deaths Bishops of the Evangelical Association Converts to Christianity People from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania American evangelicals Ministers of the Evangelical United Brethren Church 19th-century Methodist bishops 19th-century American bishops People from Allegheny County, Pennsylvania Bishops in Ohio