FOSS, Cyrts David, M. E. bishop, born in Kings ton, New York, 17 January 1834. His father was an itinerant Methodist preacher of Hugue not extraction. The son was graduated at Wesleyan university in 1854, and for three years he was employed as an instructor in Amenia seminary, New York, the latter part of that time as its principal. He entered the traveling ministry in the New York conference in the spring of 1857, and was stationed at Chester, Orange County, N. Y., in 1857'9. He was then transferred to New York east conference, and was for the next six years in the City of Brooklyn, and afterward in several Churches in New York City, from 1865 till 1875. In the latter year he was elected president of Wesleyan University, and served in that office with marked ability and success till the general conference of May i880, when he was elected and ordained a bishop. His residence has since been at Minneapolis, Minnesota, but his Episcopal duties have called him to travel through all parts of the country, and also to visit the foreign missions of his Church in Europe and in India.

Bishop Foss is recognized as a man of superior abilities, an able preacher, and an earnest and devout Christian. He was a member of the general conference in 1872, 1876, and 1880. He received the degree of D. D. from Wesleyan University in 1870 and that of LL.D. from Cornell College, Iowa, in 1879. He has contributed to current literature, and has published sermons and addresses, including " Songs in the Night," a Thanksgiving sermon, (New York, 1862), and his inaugural address as president of Wesleyan University (1876).

His brother, William Jay Foss, clergyman, born in Verbank, New York, 23 November 1835; died in Poughkeepsie, New York, 1 June 1859, was graduated at. Wesleyan University in 1856, and was a teacher in Amenia seminary, New York, in the same year. In 1857 he became a pastor of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Portland, Connecticut, and a tutor in Wesleyan University. In 1858 he joined the New York conference, and was stationed at Lake Mahopac, New York, in 1859, and later in Poughkeepsie, that state.