METER 



3756 



METHODISTS 



of them. Verse in which each line contains but 

 two feet is known as dimeter; that of three 

 feet as trimeter; four feet, tetrameter; five, 

 pentameter; six, hexameter, and seven, hep- 

 tameter, 



METER, the unit of linear, or long, measure, 

 in the metric system of weights and measures. 

 It is equal to 39.37+ inches, and is therefore 

 3% inches longer than the English and Ameri- 

 can yard. The present standard meter of the 

 International Metric Commission is a bar of 

 platino-iridium, forty inches long and eight- 

 tenths of an inch square, grooved out on all 

 four sides, thus providing the greatest rigidity. 

 It is divided into decimeters, centimeters and 

 millimeters. It is kept under a sliding, micro- 

 scopic glass cover in the International Metric 

 Bureau of Paris. 



The length of the meter is one ten-millionth 

 of the distance from the equator to the poles. 

 It was adopted as the standard unit of length 

 by France in 1799, and in 1837 its use was 

 made obligatory. It has since been adopted 



INTERNATIONAL METER 



with the other units of the metric system in 

 Germany, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Spain, 

 Italy, Greece, the Netherlands, Portugal, Nor- 

 way, Sweden, Switzerland, Serbia, Rumania, 

 Siam, Brazil, Chile, the Argentine Republic and 

 Uruguay. Its use is legalized in the United 

 States, Canada, Great Britain, Egypt, Japan, 

 China, Turkey, Russia, Bolivia, Venezuela and 

 Paraguay. See METRIC SYSTEM. 



METHODISTS, meth'udists. When John 

 Wesley, one of the world's great reformers, 

 formed a little 'society for religious betterment, 

 he did not think that he was founding a new 

 sect. Indeed, he hated sectarianism, and to 

 show this feeling called his followers simply 

 the United Society; but lookers-on, seeing the 

 ordered life and the moral strictness of the 

 earnest leader and his followers, bestowed upon 

 them the title of Methodists. This name, 

 given half in derision, is now borne by all those 

 who belong to the Churches which look upon 

 Wesley as their founder. It would be untrue 

 to say that it is borne by all who are, spiritu- 

 ally speaking, followers of Wesley, for there is 

 not a Protestant Church which has not felt his 

 influence and been largely modified by it. 



Early Growth. The message which Wesley 

 had for the pQople was so stimulating that it 



found everywhere a ready hearing, and the 

 United Society grew beyond the bounds of a 

 single association. Branch societies were 

 formed in various communities, and these were 

 subdivided into classes, over each of which a 

 leader was placed. Wesley himself rode about 

 preaching to them, but made no attempt to 

 organize them into a single body or to separate 

 them from the Church of England. In time, 

 when the movement spread more widely, other 

 clergymen, still of the Church of England, but 

 accepting the new doctrines, took part of Wes- 

 ley's work, and lay preachers also were ap- 

 pointed. Finally, as the Church of England 

 refused to accept some of the results of Wes- 

 ley's work, or to recognize his clergymen, the 

 society became a separate denomination. Mis- 

 sionaries were sent out to America in 1784, and 

 it was at a conference held in Baltimore late 

 in that year that a formal Church organization 

 was begun, and the title of Methodist Episco- 

 pal adopted. 



Branches. The Methodist Church has been 

 unable to avoid dissensions which have resulted 

 in a division into various branches. In Eng- 

 land the main body is that known as the Wes- 

 leyan Methodist Church, while in the United 



LOYELY LANE MEETING HOUSE 

 Building 1 in Baltimore in which the Methodist 

 Episcopal Church was organized, in 1784. 



States the Methodist Episcopal Church is the 

 strongest. This body split on the slavery mat- 

 ter, however, and though this original question 

 has long been settled, there still remains the 

 Methodist Episcopal Church South, a numerous 

 sect. There is also the African Methodist 

 Church, organized especially for the colored 

 people; the Free Methodist Church, which in- 

 sists upon a return to the strict practices and 

 simple living of former days; and the Metho- 

 dist Protestant Church, which has as its basic 

 principles the right of laymen to a part in 

 Church councils. 



In recent years a determined effort has been 

 made to unite the Church North and South, 

 and all indications are that in the near future, 

 not later than 1924, the breach which has re- 



