The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1900-05-08
DIR Wrssenger.
THE NORTHERN METEOROLOGICAL
RENNIAL.

The NORTHERN METEOROLOGICAL
RENNIAL.
The northern Methodist q~uadrennial
general conference met yesterday in
Chicago. 1t Is numerically a great rep
resentative body. 1t represents a larg-
er constituency h any other eccle-
siastical body in the empire. It has
not less perhaps than 3.O0o.oO o actual
communicates, baptized professors. Its
regular ministry nearly equals $4,000
with over IA 900 of the local ministry.
Its increase for the last four years in
ministers is small, but 295. 1t has how
ever, added 1,6O5 church buildings. 1t
Is known that the increase Of member
ship is not satisfactory- per cent, in
Guiding additions in the foreign mission
fields. Eleven conferences show a loss
in membership. The general gain is 1O9,-
334,of which 35 per cent are in the for
eign mission work. The northern white
conferences in the south are reported
rs more prosperous than home confer
ences, while New England is set down
as barren, the loss being of 3 per cent.
Rev. DR.. H. K. Carroll attributes the
poor showing for our years to the fact
that the Methodist pulpit does not
put sufficient emphasis on the necessity
of repentance, faith and spiritual re-
generation. While much is said about
God love-though not too much-there
is a disposition, in the opinion of DR..
Carroll, to hide from view the dark and
dreadful background of the gospel mes
sage, in which the doom of eternal
G-mnation is held before those who will
not repent"
This opinion and the statistics We OBJ
tain from the New York Tribune.
Judge White, a prominent lawyer, of
P%ittsburg, Pa, attributes the decline in
the Methodist church in the great north
to the worldIiness Of the laity n the
lack Of spirituality in the preachers.
Like priest, like people is an old Eng
Iish saw U~nconverted, unconsecrated
preachers who do not preach Christ
and Him crucifed are SURE to have dead
churches and decay. The Tribune
says:
They go TO the theatre, dance and
play cards, but neglect love feaStS and
prayer meetings., and erect stately
churches, although John Wesley de-
clared hat expensive buildings would
be fatal to Methodist discipline and
doctrine. Judge White also believes
that many of the preachers are affected
by the later Biblical criticism. They
do not believe in one-half of the Old
Testament he says, and give an in
depreciation to the New which har-
it with Unitarianism." 1t is
undoubtedly true that MethOdlSm to-
day is very different from the Method
ism of the pioneer days. Men like
Judge White, who deplore this change,
would like to restore the conditions of
the past, as we'll as the church's meth
d and machinery"
The greatest preacher ever born in
North Carolina was the late Rev. DR..
Lovick Pierce, of Georgia. In a book
he wrote after he was considerably
past his eightieth year, he states that
h Southern Methodist Church had
been declining in piety for quite thirty
years-ever since it abandoned class
meetings. In the northern church the
decline in four years in probationers is
%, 900. The conference will do radical
work it is ~propheSied. 1t must do
something to restore true religion and
piety or it will become a dead church
with any amount of Journalism and i'm
itation. 1t is an able body. 1t is stat
ed in the American Methodist Magazine
that many matters Of interest and i'm
portance will be considered. 1t says:
Many proposals will affect the bish-
<ops,-to have more of them and fewer
presiding elderS-tO make them do
cesanS, and not general S~uperinten-
dents;' to assign them to cities in the
interest of the urgen cause of city
,evangilization; to fix a retiring age, as
IN the United States army; to grant
larger salaries, relieving them from
any necessity of supplementary per-
Quisities. Many are the innovations
talke of, few of which will be realized
all at once; to abandon the probation
system; to have elective presiding ell
s1ers; to grant liberty to the cabinet to
revise the appointment after confer
sence; to give right of ministerial pro-
test against any appointment; to
strengthen the laity's power in the
church by a larger democratizing."