The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1896-05-29
GENERAL NJ. y. ooNFERESoE.

Final Review OF Proeeedings-The Tug of
War Between Laymen and Ministers
The Conference and tho Christian En-
deavor Society--The Wives OF the New
Bishops--Pen Pictures of Impressive
Scenes and of Leading Personalities.
Cleveland, o., May 81.
no the Editor oil the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
There is no gathering of religious
workers just like this Methodist general
conference, and no church which gets
periodically the thorough advertising
this does by means Of the noisy pro-
ceedings of this body. Perhaps, too,
there is no church which, by the hard
work it does and the success it
achieves, so well deserves this distinc-
ton. Bishop McCabe, who makes a
speciality OF church statistics, vouches
for the statement that one-third of this
church, as it stands to-day with its two
million and three-quarters of members,
is the creation of the last twelve years,
and that in the foreign missions of the
church more converts have been made
In these last twelve years than in all
the years preceding. Another of his
astonishing statements is that this
church gives annually to the work of
God, at home and abroad. about twen-
ty-four million dollars. So that, as he
graphically puts it, the M. E. church
could annually, by its contributions, re-
produce the great White City of the
Worlds Fair, and have, each year, a
surplus of four million dollars for pock-
ct money.
The marvellous success of this cturch
has it's influence, no doubt, in causing
the conference to move so slowly as it
does in making changes. The woman
question has been acute for more than
eight years, yet it is still unsettled.
Longer still have the laymen clamored
for additional, recognition; yet this con-
ference has voted that it will not give
the membership of the church a direct
vote in sending representatives to this
body and has refused to commit itself
to the long pending proposition to
make the.laymen in it equal in number
with the ministers. The only thing
possible is to submit the question for a
third time to the annual conferences,
and what the result is likely to be the
reader can infer from the adverse fate
the same proposal has met from those
bodies in the two quadrenniums just
closed.
Never were the laity of the church
more bent upon reform, and, to their
credit it should be said, they never
held themselves under better control.
One point of special soreness is that the
ministers insist still upon keeping to
themselves all the great church offices.
They have refused again to even admit
laymen to a share in the responsible
management of the Book Concern,
strictly secular though that business is.
The two lay candidates, Charles F..
Magee for the New York agency, and
George b. johnson for the Cincinnati
house, could each run up to about one
hundred and seventy votes, but they
could get no higher. The ministers are
not willing at present to turn over
these fat positions to even such well
equipped and popular laymen as these.
Nevertheless the lay delegates, though
they feel sore, are keeping a cool head.
They are not drawing the line very
= ClOSGly Ill lllG NOllIS, ana eAitso 40 sAiS
first general conference at which they
have failed to show their strength by
demanding a vote by orders.
The vote in committee for removing
the time limit was twenty-eigh in IA
vor to thirty eight against, vote
which would probably represent the
sentiments of the entire conference. IT
is very significant, by the way, that
the demand for removal comes almost
entirely from the ministers, and that
the laity are overwhelmingly against
it. There have probably come to this
body as many memorials urging the
continuance of the time limit, as petit
tons asking that it be abolished. Not
a few have urged a return to the for
lner limit of three years. The commit
tee on itinerancy have reported that at
the farthest there should be no change
other than to provide that in extremely
exceptional cases the term of pas
torate may extend to ten years, and
even this is not advised except as it
may be demanded by three-fourths
vote of the quarterly conference, and
the subsequent concurrence of the bish-
OBJ and three-fourths of his cabinet.
Not only SO, but the presiding elder of
the district must also concur; and all
these checks and guards are to operate
actively every year. So that, even II
the new plan should be introduced, 1t
would not at all follow that the man
who went back for his sixth year would
continue il undisturbed possession of
his church for thc proposed limit of ten
wears, or that he would necessarily be
appointed for even a seventh year.
incidentally, the Christian Endeavor
society has figured in the proceedings.
and there has been widespread mlsap
prehension on this subject. The
straight of it is, that in a committee
meeting, Dr.. Quayle of Kansas City,
had referred, by way of illustration, to
the action of a body of Endeavorers in
proclaiming publicly that at a certain
time they would offer special prayer for
Colonel Ingersoll. This action he
called idiotic. He was intending to
show, think, that Christian Endeav-
orers were not necessarily perfect; that
they had not a monopoly OF the wisdom
of the serpent, spite of their dovelike
harmlessness. He did not say the
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