564 



METHODISTS. 



mary of the missions under the immediate 

 direction of the committee of the society, and 

 of the British Conference in India, China, 

 South and West Africa, and the West Indies : 



Central or principal stations, called circuits ......... 411 



Chapels and preaching-places ...................... 2,493 



Missionaries and assistant missionaries, including 



supernumeraries ................................ 400 



Other paid agents, as catechUts, interpreters, day- 



school teachers, etc ............................. 2,01 1 



Unpaid agents, as Sunday-school teachers, etc ..... 7,'.H)i> 



Full and accredited chumi-uiembers 



On trial for church-membership ................... 11, WO 



Scholars, deducting those who attend both the day 



and Sunday schools ............................ 88,867 



Printing establishments .......................... 8 



The Wesleyan Coherence of Great Britain 

 met in its one hundred and thirty-eighth ses- 

 sion at Liverpool, July 19th. The Rev. George 

 M. Osborn, D. D., was chosen president. More 

 than one hundred candidates for the ministry 

 who had completed their studies, thirty-six of 

 whom were destined- to the missionary sta- 

 tions, were ordained. Sixty candidates were 

 proposed to be received on trial, in addition to 

 a number who had been received in previous 

 years and were waiting on the reserve list, 

 while the number of applications for new 

 ministers was very small. The Conference 

 decided that it could not receive any of the 

 new candidates except those from Wales (where 

 new pastors were needed), and those who had 

 offered themselves for foreign mission-work. 

 The Conference resolved that no candidate who 

 had failed to obtain the minimum number of 

 marks in the preliminary examination of can- 

 didates should undergo the usual examination 

 of the district committee, unless in the judgment 

 of that committee he should possess such special 

 gifts as would justify an exceptional procedure. 

 A committee which had been engaged for seven 

 years upon a revision of the liturgy of the 

 " Book of Offices," presented a report recom- 

 mending certain changes in the services, the 

 operation of which would be to remove or 

 modify passages susceptible of a construction 

 in the direction of sacerdotalism. The recom- 

 mendations of the committee in regard to the 

 forms for the administration of the Lord's Sup- 

 per, the solemnization of matrimony, and the 

 burial of the dead, were adopted, and those in 

 respect to the form for the administration of 

 baptism were recommitted. The committee 

 charged with the revision of the catechism was 

 authorized to adopt at its discretion the ren- 

 derings of the revised version of the New 

 Testament in the proof -texts subjoining to the 

 answers. The General Committee of the Mis- 

 sionary Society was authorized to prepare a 

 plan of organization for the churches in South 

 Africa, for the purpose of constituting them 

 into a distinct, self-supporting church and an 

 affiliated conference. A proposition was made 

 to give a similar organization to the West In- 

 dian churches, but was deferred on the ground 

 that those churches were not yet ready for 

 autonomy. The schools for sons of ministers 

 at New Kingswood and Woodhouse Grove 

 were reported embarrassed in finances ; and 



the Conference decided, as the most effective 

 measure of relief, to suspend the school at 

 Woodhouse Grove and concentrate its support 

 on the one at New Kingswood. The subject 

 of the theatre was brought up by the publica- 

 tion of a pamphlet by a young minister, main- 

 taining that theatres might be made moral and 

 useful. The opinion of the Conference, as ex- 

 pressed by the president, being to the effect 

 that such a transformation of the theatre could 

 not be hoped for in England, the author of the 

 pamphlet expressed regret for having published 

 such views. The Home Mission Committee, 

 having asked the Government to grant an allow- 

 ance for the seat-rents of soldiers worshiping 

 regularly in Methodist churches, the Govern- 

 ment had replied that it never gave money in 

 that form, but offered to provide the allow- 

 ance under the form of head-money. After 

 some debate ns to whether acceptance would 

 not commit it to the appearance of receiving a 

 subsidy from the state, the Conference decided 

 to accept the offer of the Government, and to 

 instruct the committee to take such steps in 

 relation to the money that might be received, 

 as would secure a fair remuneration for pro- 

 vision for Wesleyan soldiers in the chapels, and 

 the utmost efficiency for the religious work in, 

 the army. 



The French Conference met in Paris, June 

 10th. The Rev. M. Cornforth presided. The 

 statistical reports showed that the Conference 

 had 166 chapels and other preaching-places, 

 29 ministers, 95 local preachers, 109 class- 

 leaders, 1,775 members, with 104 on trial, 53 

 Sunday-schools, with 301 teachers and 2,655 

 scholars. 



V. PEIMITIVK METHODIST CONNECTION. 

 The following is a summary of the statistics of 

 this connection as they were reported to the 

 Conference in June, 1881 : Number of minis- 

 ters, 1,149; of local preachers, 15,597; of 

 class-leaders, 10,709; of members, 185,316; 

 of chapels, 4,360; of other preaching-places, 

 1,863; of Sunday-schools, 4,097, with 69,279 

 teachers and 383,202 scholars. The increase in 

 the number of members from the previous 

 year was 2,625. The sum of 4,463 had been 

 paid from the profits of the Boole-Room to 

 benevolent funds. The year's collections for 

 the Superannuated, Preachers' and Widows? and 

 Orphan* 1 funds amounted to 7,184, with 

 which two hundred and sixty beneficiaries had 

 been cared for. 



The total receipts of the Primitive Netho.d- 

 ist Missionary Society for missionary and other 

 purposes were reported at its anniversary, 

 May 7th, to have been 35,010. The whole 

 number of home, colonial, and foreign sta- 

 tions was returned as 235, with which were 

 connected 1,237 preaching-places and 309 min- 

 isters. Of these, 96 stations, having 8,056 

 members, were in the Australian colonies and 

 New Zealand, and 92 stations, with 8,222 

 members, in Canada. The foreign mission at 

 North Aliwal, South Africa, had been contin- 



