The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1872-05-26
The Methodist General Conference.

! The Methodist General Conference.
Nearly month ago body of four hundred
and twenty-one delegated representatives OF
the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United
States and its mission dependencies convened
in Brooklyn in quadrennial session, to legis-
late for the interest of its extensive fields of
labor. The grave and the gay, the priest and
the prophet, the poet and the politician are
there. Side by side sit the curly headed, dark
complexioned son of Africa. whose fatherland
the HERALD is striving to explore and the
white-faced, ruddy-cheeked, straight-haired
son of the Emerald Isle, whose ancestry some
writers claim originally came from the land of
Ham Slowly the Conference drags its weary
length along, and up to this time has
transacted very little business of Importance.
Ignoring parliamentary rules the delegates
have adopted rules for their own governance
which they repeatedly transgress, and some
times get themselves into snarls from which
they are with difficulty extricated.
The work accomplished SO far may be briefly
described. The standing committee were ap-
pointed in the early part of the session, and
everything went pleasantly along until the
reports of the agents of the Book Concern, the
Book Committee-majo rity and minority-and
the experts Investigations were presented for
information and reference, when a protracted
discussion took place, which lasted in one form
and phase or another for six days. Eight ad-
ditonal bishops were elected and consecrated,
and the place of meeting Of the next General
| Oonfere1Ace was fixed A few Conference
boundaries have been settled, the homes Of the
bishops appointed and certain details affect
ing the organization and relations of the
benevolent societies to each other and of the
General Conference completed and defined
This is, in brief, all that has been done.
But in the accomplishment Of even this
| much some strange scenes were witnessed for
which so grave body of ministers and lay
men will have need to blush. 1t is hardly
probable that any other gathering Of equal
| gravity and importance could be found in this
or any other Christian land who could calmly
listen to harangues in which some Of their own
most prominent representatives were called
and classed as thieves, liars, stock jobbers and
oil Spectators and the body itself in
directly charged with being in collision with
those persons and characters by whom the
Church has been defrauded And yet this is
what the General Conference has DONE What
the great "Woodchopper of Chappaqua'' would
have said in language unmistakable-s'You lie,
villain you lie''-has been said more politely,
but none the less certainly, by an agent of the
No. 81. cal.
Conference kept silence. If this Book Concern
trouble is personal matter between the two
agents it should have come up in some other
shape; but if it related to dishonest employees
only they should have been arrested and pun
| ished or discharged, and the matter have
ended there. But it does not come before the
Church or the Conference in exactly those
/ forms.
| Certain employees who were charged with
dishonesty, one of whom has been morally
though not legally convicted thereof, have left
the service Of the Concern voluntarily and are
no longer amenable to Conference authority.
But the agent and other employees who have
been accused of Encouragement and classifying
accounts remain. They have been examined
by and before the Book Committee, who in
the interim of General Conferences, are the
supervising custodians of the publishing in
terests Of the whole Church. This committee
have said substantially to the Conference that
the charges against those persons are not
proven, and their expert has decided that they
cannot be proved. The duty Of the Conference,
under the circumstances, was plain. But to
save itself from the imputation of unfairness
and an attempt to whitewash and cover up the
alleged frauds, it has allowed both sides to be
heard during the chief part of six days, and
then sent the documents to its committee to
decide which is true and which false. But
this reference did not satisfy the persons who
were determined that no good thing should
come out of the Book Concern Nazareth, and
they demanded new deal, special commit
tee who should look after FRAUDS and nothing
else. This committee was granted, and some
Of the best men in the Conference, ministers
and laymen, were put on it A thorough bust
ness man from the West stands at its head
as chairman. But neither did this commit
tee satisfy the fraud hunters, who refused to be
comforted because their pets are not A few
days after its appointment a resolution Of want
of confidence in this committee was introduced,
but was promptly tabled. The Conference
had been trihed with long enough, and was
not in mood to have its time and patience
further taxed with this matter until its com
mittees could report.
A strong opposition to Masonry and other
secret organizations has manifested itself in
the petitions, memorials and resolutions that
have been presented to the Conference, and a
pronunciamento will probably DO issued
against them by the Conference.
The grave editors and publishers of the