METHODISTS. 



505 



ing the Concern into the civil courts. His 

 trial commenced June 15th. Two of the 

 bishops presided. By the law governing the 

 proceedings of the committee, two bishops 

 had to concur with the committee to effect 

 the removal of the officer on trial. The com- 

 mittee decided that Dr. Lanahan had been 

 guilty of an offence for which he ought to be 

 removed. One of the bishops concurred in 

 their decision, the other dissented. The de- 

 cision was therefore nullified, and Dr. Lana- 

 han was again restored. An experienced ac- 

 countant was appointed by the committee 

 (without the concurrence of Dr. Lanahan) to 

 examine the books, and report before the meet- 

 ing of the General Conference. The case now 

 stands over till that meeting, when it is ex- 

 pected a thorough and impartial examination 

 of the publishing department will be had. 



II. METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH SOUTH. 

 The following abstract of the statistics of this 

 Church is taken from the last volume of the 

 General Minutes, published in May, 1871 : 



Included in the totals of ministers and 

 members are, divided among the several con- 

 ferences, 187 superannuated preachers, 4,714 

 local preachers, and 3,952 Indian members. 

 The apparent decrease in the number of col- 

 ored members is occasioned by the setting off 

 of the colored churches to the newly-organ- 

 ized " Colored Methodist Episcopal Church." 



The number of infant baptisms was 21 002 ; 



of adult baptisms, 34,408; of Sunday-schools, 

 6,173; of teachers, 42,505; of scholars, 282,- 

 467. The amount of the collections for con- 

 ference claimants was $54,875.96 ; of collec- 

 tions for missions, $88,675.61. 



On May 25, 1870, the General Conference, 

 by the requisite two-thirds majority, adopted 

 the following proviso to the restrictive rules : 



Provided, That when any rule or regulation is 

 adopted by the General Conference, -which, in the 

 opinion ol the bishops, is unconstitutional, the 

 bishops may present, to the Conference which passed 

 said rule or regulation, their objections thereto, with 

 their reasons, in writing; and, if then the General 

 Conference shall, by a two-thirds vote, adhere to its 

 action on said rule or regulation, it shall then take 

 the course prescribed for altering a restrictive rule, 

 and, if thus passed upon affirmatively, the bishops 

 shall announce that such rule or regulation takes 

 effect from that time. 



This proviso was ordered to be sent round 

 to the Annual Conferences, to become, if it re- 

 ceived a three-fourths vote of all the members 

 present and voting, a part of the constitutional 

 law of the Church. 



The votes were counted on the 8th of May, 

 1871, and found to be 2,024 in favor of the 

 amendment, and 9 against it. The amend- 

 ment was therefore declared adopted by the 

 College of Bishops, on the 25th of May. 



The number of members of the Colored 

 Methodist Episcopal Church, which was formed 

 in 1870, by setting off the colored members of 

 the Methodist Episcopal Church South, into a 

 separate organization, is estimated at 100,000. 



III. THE METHODIST CHURCH. The second 

 quadrennial session of the General Conference 

 of the Methodist Church met at Pittsburg, 

 Pa., on the 17th of May. The basis of repre- 

 sentation was one minister and one lay dele- 

 gate for each thousand members of the 

 Church. The full roll of the conference con- 

 tained the names of forty-seven delegates of 

 each class, representing twenty-two district 

 conferences. Francis H. Pierpont, formerly 

 Governor of West Virginia, was chosen presi- 

 dent. Fraternal delegates appeared from the 

 Methodist Protestant and the Methodist Epis- 

 copal Churches, who spoke at length on the 

 subject of union, expressing the sentiments of 

 the bodies which they respectively represented, 

 as being favorable to the consideration of the 

 question, as an ultimate though perhaps not 

 an immediately attainable end. A paper was 

 adopted by the conference to the effect that, 

 first, "the Methodist Church, as a branch of 

 the militant Church of our Lord Jesus Christ, 

 stands now, as ever, with open hearts and ex- 

 tended hands in Christian love and sympathy 

 toward all Evangelical Christian denomina- 

 tions," etc. 



A second paragraph recited that the history 

 of the forty years of the existence and expe- 

 rience of this branch of the Church fully vin- 

 dicated the wisdom of its founders, and that 

 its continued existence was imperatively de- 

 manded. 



