METHODISTS. 



505 



Brought forward $389,874 



III. DOMFSTIC MISSIONS: 



Welsh 150 



Scandinavian 17,600 



German 41,700 



Chinese 14,160 



American Indian 3,550 



English-speaking 170,850 



IV. Miscellaneous appropriations 78,000 



For the liquidation of the debt 11 2,150 



Total $778,034 



The statistics of the missions for 1880 were: 

 Foreign missions: Number of foreign mis- 

 sionaries, 97 ; of assistant missionaries, 63 ; of 

 foreign missionaries of the Woman's Foreign 

 Missionary Society, 30 ; of native workers of the 

 Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, 138; of 

 native ordained, unordained, and local preach- 

 ers, 666 ; of teachers and other helpers, 536 ; 

 of members, 26,702; of probationers, 8,807; 

 average attendance on Sunday worship, 26,283 ; 

 number of baptisms, 725 of adults, and 1,609 

 of children ; number of day-schools, 316, with 

 10,282 scholars; number of Sunday-schools, 

 929, with 44,627 scholars ; number of orphans, 

 576 ; amount collected for benevolent societies, 

 $11,376; for the Missionary Society, $5,236; 

 for self-support, $134,226. The missions re- 

 turned 264 churches, valued at $1,121,748 ; 701 

 other places of worship, 190 parsonages or 

 homes, valued at $316,287, and other property 

 of the value of $156,967. Domestic Missions: 

 Number of missionaries, 2,246; of local preach- 

 ers, 292; of members, 24,154; of probationers, 

 3,418; of baptisms, 62 of adults, 200 of children; 

 of Sunday-schools, 577, with 26,935 scholars ; 

 of churches, 70 ; amount of collections for the 

 Missionary Society, $15,173. 



The General Conference of the Methodist 

 Episcopal Church met at Cincinnati, Ohio, May 

 1st. The quadrennial report of the bishops 

 reviewed the history and the progress of the 

 Church and its various societies during the pre- 

 ceding four years, and gave accounts of the 

 visits which the bishops had made to the for- 

 eign conferences and missions in Germany and 

 Switzerland, Sweden and Norway, where an- 

 nual conferences were organized; Denmark, 

 Bulgaria, India, Italy, Japan, China, and Mexico. 

 The visitation of the missions in South Amer- 

 ica, which had been contemplated, was pre- 

 vented by the death of some of the bishops, and 

 other causes. A committee which had been 

 appointed by the preceding General Conference 

 to consider the subject of lay delegation in 

 the annual conferences, made a report recom- 

 mending that lay delegates be chosen from the 

 presiding elders' districts in the ratio of one 

 delegate for every six quarterly conferences; 

 that the lay delegates and ministers sit and de- 

 liberate together in the annual conferences in 

 one body ; and that the lay delegates have 

 power to speak on all questions coming before 

 the conferences, and to vote on all questions 

 except those affecting the character and rela- 

 tions of traveling elders, and the election of 

 ministerial delegates to the General Conference. 



The subject was not definitely acted upon by 

 the Conference. The commission which had 

 been appointed by the previous General Con- 

 ference to arrange for a basis of fraternal rela- 

 tions with the Methodist Episcopal Church, 

 South, made a report of the conference which 

 had been held at Cape May, New Jersey, in 

 August, 1876, and transmitted the terms which 

 had been arranged there for fraternal recogni- 

 tion and for the adjustment of disputes con- 

 cerning property. The binding force of the 

 agreement made by the commission upon a 

 succeeding General Conference was questioned, 

 but the agreement was shown to be of the 

 nature of a contract, and the Conference de- 

 cided by a nearly unanimous vote that it was 

 binding and final. The report of the committee 

 on an (Ecumenical Conference of all Methodist 

 bodies, recommending that such a conference 

 be held in London in 1881, was approved. 

 Four new bishops were elected, viz. : Henry W. 

 Warren, of Philadelp hia, Pennsylvania ; Cyrus D. 

 Foss, D.D., President of Wesleyan University ; 

 John F. Hurst, D. D., President of Drew Theo- 

 logical Seminary ; and Erastus O. Haven, D. D., 

 Chancellor of Syracuse University. The Confer- 

 ence recommended that the bishops reside at 

 New York ; Boston ; Philadelphia ; Syracuse, 

 New York ; Cincinnati, Ohio; Chicago, Illinois ; 

 Atlanta, Georgia, or Chattanooga, Tennessee; 

 Des Moiues,Iowa ; St. Paul or Minneapolis, Min- 

 nesota; St. Louis, Missouri ; Washington,Texas ; 

 and San Francisco, California. The question 

 arose whether a person became bishop upon his 

 election to the office or on his ordination. The 

 Conference decided by common consent that 

 his entrance upon the office took place on his 

 being set apart to it by the laying on of hands 

 according to the provisions of the Book of Dis- 

 cipline. A committee to whom the subject was 

 referred made a report recommending that a 

 bishop of African descent be elected ; but the 

 Conference refused to recognize color as in any 

 way constituting a qualification for the office, 

 and postponed the recommendation indefi- 

 nitely. A report was adopted concerning the 

 f reedmen and the Southern work, ordering that 

 the organization of the Freedmen's Aid Society 

 remain unchanged, but that the Board of Man- 

 agers of the Society be advised to give aid also 

 during the next four years, so far as it can be 

 done without embarrassment to the schools 

 for the freedmen, and to the schools which had 

 been established by the Church among the 

 white people in the Southern States. A new 

 ecclesiastical code, which had been prepared 

 by the order of the previous General Confer- 

 ence, was amended and adopted. A plan was 

 presented for the organization of the General 

 Conference into two houses, one to consist of 

 ministers, the other of laymen, meeting and 

 voting separately, but was rejected by a vote 

 of one hundred and ten to two hundred and 

 eleven. A division of the Conference to vote 

 by orders, as provided for by the plan under 

 which lay representation was introduced into 



