The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1872-04-07
Tho Approaching Methods. Conferences.

anniversary season, and the present year will
witness one of the largest gatherings of &C.
clesiastics which has been seen since 1865.
The General Conference of the Methodist
Episcopal Church will convene in Brooklyn
on the LIST of May, and the Academy OF
Music has been hired for its sessions during
the entire month. English-speaking Methodism
throughout the world will be represented in
that gathering, and delegates from all the mis-
sion fields of the Methodist Episcopal Church
will also be present. This General Confer
ence will be the most important Of any that
has taken place since the quadrennal meet
ings of the Church's representatives were in
stituted. For the first time in American
Methodism the lay element of the Church will
be represented in the supreme council The
Western and Southern Conferences have
already elected their delegates, and the East
ern Conferences now holding their sessions
are choosing theirs. Next Wednesday the two
Conferences whose field of operations centres in
this city will meet-the New York Conference in
the Eighteenth street Methodist Episcopal
church in this city, and the New York East
Conference in Connecticut Their wealth,
numbers and position give them an important,
if not controlling influence in the General
Conference, and as this latter body will elect
four or five bishops at its next session there is
good deal of ''log-rolling" and "wre-pull-
ing" in favor of or against prospective candi-
dates. Four ministers from this section Of
the country are freely spoken of as candi-
dates for this high Office, namely Rev. W.
F. Harris, d. D., the Assistant Secretary of
the Church Missionary Society; Rev. E. G.
Andrews, d. D., pastor in Brooklyn; Rev.
Cyrus D. Foss, D. D., pastor in this city,
and Rev. Joseph Cummings, D. D., President
Of Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn.
The Rev. Thomas Carlton, D. D., senior
agent Of the Methodist Episcopal Book Con-
Germ, was prominently named az q candidate
a few months ago, but of late there seems to
be stronger desire to keep him where he is
and where he has done the Church such signal
service for twenty years past.
The Book Concern troubles will be rehearsed
again from beginning to end before this Cen
eral Conference or one of its com mittees, and
though the proceedings on this matter will be
secret, lively time is expected when it comes
up for review and final action. There is a
possibility if not probability that the publish
ing and much Of the editorial interests of the
Church may be committed hereafter to laymen,
and with this peradventure before them the
lay delegates will have to act for the first time
in the councils of the Church. It is therefore
important in some sense that certain persons,
lay and clerical, should be elected to serve in
the General Conference and certain others
should not be. And to accomplish this pur-
pose circulars have been sent to several min
listers in this city and Brooklyn asking them
to choose delegates from list of names
appended thereto rather than to send those
whom they have thus honored for successive
years heretofore.
The General Conference will have to take
some action also upon the tenure of Office of
the bishops or general superintendent, about
which great deal Of newspaper controversy
has been had during the past year. While the
majority of the church members and ministers
doubtless cling to life tenure there is very
respectable minority who favor a reelection
quadrennially or for q specified period. And
when o bishop ceases to be effective they
want him and his family to be cared for by
the Conference from which he is chosen
rather than by the Church at large, as is now
the case. There are some also who want
sort Of provincial system Of supervision, with
separate Bishop in each province, instead of
the general and interchangeable supervision
which all the bishops now exercise over the
affairs of the Church. The presiding elder
ship economy, it is quite probable, too, will
be modified; and demand is made in some
quarters, especially in the large cities, for an
extension Of the pastoral term in certain cases.
This would tend to destroy the itinerant
system upon which Methodism depends for a
large share of its success, and any change
thereof will be strenously opposed.
There has also grown up in late years
among the Methodist ministry desire for a
broader Church and demand for a more
liberal form of Christianity. This desire is
felt and expressed mainly by the younger
class Of ministers, who partake freely of the
spirit of the age. II is the natural result of
the hasty manufacture Of clergymen which
at present prevails, not only in the
Methodist Church, but in evey other
Church and denomination In the land.
Young men are in great demand for
the ministry, and when the proper persons are
found with the requisite degree of piety in
their hearts they are rushed through a college
course, and after three years are sent out to
teach-often they know not what. And the
most important interest that can be COM
mitted to men-the care of souls-is handed
over to striplngs Of twenty or twenty-five
years of age, whose ideas and beliefs are ever
changing, while men of thirty or forty years of
age, with fixed principles and settled IDEAS
have the barest chance of entering the min
- mn r. Ahu.- A. =