The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-11-13
NORTH ALABAMA
CONFERENCE OPENS
Address by w. F. McMurry
Features Night Session.
Interesting Debate

Admission, November 12.-tSpeciaLj
The feature of tonight's session of the
North Alabama conference OF the Meth
odist church was the address by Rev.
w. r. McMurry of Louisville. general
secretary of church extension work,
who kept his audience of about 500 in
constant laughter in a talk that dealt
exclusively with cold figures and sta
tistics.
Dr. McMurry was introduced by ]. IL.
Wilson of Lincoln, president of the ex-
{ tension work in this conference. Mr..
Wilson deprecated the inability of the
conference to collect more than IS per
cent of its subscriptions to this fund,
but stated that conditions are getting
better, as the loan fund estaulished
three years ago has now grown to
s16U0.
DR.. McMurrys plea was for an in
crease In the capitalization of the gem
eral loan fund from S6O9,OU0 to yl,0vU :
600. To show the work that is being
done by the fund. he stated that there
are now 16,S27 church houses in the
southern Methodist district, or which
1929 have been built largely through
the aid of the extension fund. The ex-
tension work was established 81 years
ago and since that time, he said, five
and half churches have been built
every week through the aid of this in
stitution, two churches now being built
by thcm every day. In this connection
he denied very emphatically that the
southern Methodist church is decadent
Interesting Debate
The rnost interesting development or
the afternoon session was q debate be-
tween Judge w. w Brandon and w.
of in n "a foil 1nt "a t,,tr fh.A
address of DR.. George Sexton of Wash
ington, d. c., who spoke in the inter-
est of the representative church at
Washington.
Sylacauga and Athens so far are the
only places mentioned for the next con-
ference, and 1t was reported tonight
that Athens has Withdrawn in favor of
the Marble City.
Admission, November 13.--(Special.)
With about 500 masculine voices united
in an old-fashioned Methodist hymn,
an inspiring scene was enacted at the
very opening of the North Alabama
conference OF the Methodist Episcopal
church in this city Wednesday morning
and the inspiration was heightened
when Bishop j. Ii. Mccoy began his
invocation.
Tears rolled down the cheeks of many
of the older members of the congre-
language of the old circuit riders OF
the Methodist denomination. I'VE thank
Thee, o Lord" he said, that we have
so many sons among us of that noble
band of workers who were true when
the work was hard and the pay was
small" and as he paused tears were
prodded from many eyes by memories
Of that noble band of men who went
before and paved the way for the
Methodist church of today.
Asks Brotherly Love ,
Bishop Mccoy in his opening. invo-
cation also besought caImness and the
spirit of brotherly love as the charac-
teristics of the ministers In their de-
liberations. He pleaded that there
might be no acrimony in debate and no
word calculated to cause hard feeling
or wound the sensibiiities and that
resignation might characterize all the
ministers and the people in tho. ac-
Eceptance of ASST gnments that must be
made.
The election of officers followed the