RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Methodists
to such a change in the constitution. James M. Thoburn (q.v.) was elected a missionary bishop for India. This conference lengthened the pos- 7. Female sible pastoral term from three years Eepresen- to five. The conference of 1892 dealt tation. chiefly with matters relating to the ordinary work of the church and did not add to the number of bishops. In 1896 two bishops were consecrated and a missionary bishop for Africa to succeed William Taylor, retired on account of declining health. Four women were elected to the general conference, and the usual debate arose, but this compromise was reached, that the claimants might remain, but under a title in dispute, and that the conference should adopt an amendment to the constitution legalizing the admission of women to the body, to be ratified by the annual conferences. Under the circumstances the women preferred not to remain. The annual conferences failed to adopt the amendment. During the next four years the church was agitated by a controversy concerning the inequality of clerical and lay representation. The annual conferences having given a constitutional majority for doing away with this inequality, the general conference of 1900, after completing the action, admitted the needed number of delegates, who had been provisionally elected. It also removed the time limit of the pastorate, leaving the appointments entirely to the judgment of the bishops. The same conference amended the draft of a revised constitution then pending by substituting " lay members " for " laymen." The annual and lay electoral conferences confirmed the constitution; thus the struggle of twelve years ended. In the succeeding conferences the few women elected have performed the duties of their office creditably. The constitution as revised contains several regulations long in the discipline, the constitutionality of which some disputed, and also some recognized essentials, which were before but rules. The most important change was in the number of votes of ministers in the annual conferences necessary to a vote to initiate or confirm a change of the constitution. Formerly it was three-fourths, now but two-thirds. The lay electoral conferences were invested with the same power, conditional on two-thirds of their members. The conference of 1908 substituted the title " district superintendent " for that of " presiding elder," and removed the time limit upon probation for membership in the church, placing the responsibility jointly upon the pastor and the official board, who must concur as to the fitness of a candidate and the time when he may be received into full membership.
The general conference is the supreme legislative,
judicial, and executive body, having " full power to
make rules and regulations for the church," with
certain constitutional restrictions. It
8. Govern- can not do away with episcopacy, nor
meat. destroy the plan of itinerant general
superintendency. This plan excludes
diocesan bishops, gives the power of ordination to
the bishops, makes them presidents in the annual
conferences, and gives them authority to decide
questions of law when presiding there, subject to
appeal to the general conference. To them belong
the power and duty of appointing the preachers and district superintendents, and to transfer pastors. Each annual conference is divided into districts, of which, in the absence of a bishop, the district superintendent has the charge. The quarterly conference is the ultimate body in the local church. The annual conference has substantially the function of a Presbyterian synod, except that, as a conference, it has no legislative function. It is the sole decider whether candidates for the ministry shall be received on trial, and, if so, who among them shall be ordained deacons and elders. Appointments are in the power of the bishop in charge and of his agents the district superintendents. Deeds to church property contain the provision that the pastors sent by the general conference through a bishop (and such only) shall be received. A bishop presides in the general conference, but in the absence of a bishop, the conference can elect one of its members president pro tempore. As an appeal can be taken from the presiding officer's decisions on parliamentary law direct to- the conference, and he has no right to make decisions of law or interpret the constitution before the general conference, his functions are strictly those of a moderator. But the veneration felt for his office as bishop adds moral influence to his office as president, and it is rarely that his parliamentary decisions are contested. The bishop is amenable to the general conference. It can superannuate him, as annual conferences do their members, and can order the manner of his trial, and expel him if, in its judgment, this be just and necessary. From its decision there is no appeal. The rights of members and ministers to trial before a committee and to an appeal are guarded. The profits of the Book Concern and chartered fund are restricted to the purposes specified in the constitution. The general rules can be changed only as the constitution provides, and the ratio of representation is to be determined in the same manner. The doctrines of the church are protected by a double constitutional guard. They can not be changed by the general conference, nor by the constitutional methods which apply to other protected subjects. The method of change must itself be revoked before the doctrines, as embodied in the " Articles of Religion," the Sermons of Wesley, and his Notes on the New Testament, can be modified in the least degree.
The Missionary Society was founded in 1819, having the compound title of " The Bible and Missionary Society." The next year the 9. Mis- title of " Bible " was eliminated, and sions. the society made entirely missionary. It was adopted by the church in 1820, and dealt at first strictly with the home field. Foreign fields were entered in the following order: Africa, in 1833; South America, 1836; China, 1847; India, 1856; Bulgaria, 1857; Japan, 1872; Mexico, 1873; Korea, 1885; Malaysia, 1885; Germany, 1849; Norway, 1853; Sweden, 1854; Switzerland, 1856; Denmark, 1857; Italy, 1871; Finland, 1884; France, 1906; Russia at St. Petersburg, 1907. The missions in Scandinavia, Germany, and Switzerland received their initial impulse by citizens of those countries migrating to the United States, coming
Methodists