New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1883-04-08
THE METHODIST CONFERENCES.

| THE METHODIST CONFERENCES.
There ore now In session, in and near this
city, three Metropolitan Conferences of the
| Methodist Episcopal Church, containing some
| 500 ministers and representing more than
| 100, 900 communicates. These groups of pas
tors serve NowYork, Brooklyn, Jersey City,
| Newark, Paterson and the adjacent country
| The New-York East Conference runs up into
Connecticut, embracing Hartford and New
| Haven. The New-York runs up the Hudson
River and across several of the eastern
| counties The Newark takes in the northern
| part of Ncw-Jersey and Staten Island The
geography is queer and not altogether salts
factory-it grew, like Topsy, and nobody can
be said to have made it. The force that keeps
up this geography is, however, a plainly
visible one. Each body of Methodist ministers
is rotating One-that is to say no one can
stay in one church more than three years at a
time. Each body naturally desires to have as
many good churches as possible and when a
conference has good churches it desires to
keep them. The General Conference can
change conference lines; but it does not often
change them except after agreement between
| the parties interested. The exceptions have
sometimes been unfortunate. For example,
the last General Conference QSS0) took
| Western Vermont out of the Troy Con-
ference and put it in the Vermont Conference.
The result was geographical; beauty-all
Vermont being in one conference. But West
ern Vermont 49, socially and commercially, a
part of Newly and the Methodists of that
region ministers and laymen, with few excep-
lions, are struggling to get back into the Troy
1 u Al. Al m .
The curious fact is that the Methodist laymen
become attached to pastoral body of minis
tiers as other churches do to particular pastors,
and therefore changes of conference lines are OBJ
noxious to popular as well as to ministerial
| dsfayor The small bodies of preachers would
| like to enlarge their territory but the large
ones do not wish to lose a church, and the
| church does not wish to be transferred. An
| ideal Methodist geography exists. Any good
| sized preacher can make one that would please
orr reporters, but the burden of history brushes
the gecgrapher when it comes to voting
against the wishes of every church where con-
ference relations arc to be changed by ideal
| boundary lines.
The most striking thing about these confer
ences of ministers is that the ideally least
desirable ministry is the only one that is
| crowded. Every outsider says (and many in
| siders concur) that the rotary system is a
| hardship to the pastors. No one can serve 4
| church more than three years. The rule is
| infcxiblc and has been burlesqued as "a
| great iron Wheel There are pastors who
complain, and pastors who go out. Two ex-
| cellcnt men leave the NewYork East Confer
ference for the Episcopal ministry this year.
They are pastors of high grade, but they will
| no more be missed than two grains of sand
would be missed by a sandbank. The con-
fercnccs are crowded young men stand wait
ing at the doors. 1t is hard matter to find
supporting churches for all the effective pas
! tors. This is true all over the country, until
the most sparscly settled regions are reached,
and then the only question is one of support.
| Given II modest salary, Methodist Bishop
will always find a man. Other churches COM
plain that they have an inadequate number of
pastors. The subject is discussed in their
periodicals Grave articles appear in the quar-
! tcrlles dep0ring the fact that young men no
| longer enter the ministry. But here is the
! largest Christian denomination of the country,
subjecting its ministers to hardship unknown
| i'm other churchcs-a hardship which is be-
lieved to render that ministry SO undesirable
| that bright men would be expected to shun it
and this ministry is OVERLOOKING. There are
probably 500 irst-class Methodist ministers
who are not in pastoral service, but would be
| if there were need of them. Bright, strong
men go into this ministry and stay there.
We believe this fact ana contrast to be one
| of the problems that somebody should go up
to the blackboard and solve. The usual an
swers are unsatisfactory. One is that each
pastor in Methodism is always given place.
1t is formally but not literally true For
| some are for some reason standing idle, or,
what is practically the same, otherwise en-
ployed Beside, this motive would not tempt
| strong men, and the Methodist ministry is full
| of strong men, and its average of pulpit ability
| is not below that of other churches. The
Methodists themselves give no satisfactory
solution. We conjecture that the solution lies
back in something behind the forms of a min
lstry. Bishop Warren's address to the East New
| York Conference candidates for admission
| seemed to suggest solution. He spoke in
eloquent terms of the solidarity of the Meth
| odist ministry. 1t is compact; the sense OF
| fellowship is clear, strong, winsOme. May it not
| be that this sense of having helping and loving
arms all about one-this keen consciousness
| of Observation-Disclosures the Methodist ministry
| warmer and sweeter to the pastors than
| settled ministry could BET
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