History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

conferences shall be composed of ministers and laymen in equal numbers." "In the Conference no
pastoral questions are reserved for the ministers; and in ministerial discipline laymen sit with
ministers on the tribunal." "The legal instrument of incorporation guarantees the privilege to revise
its rules every seven years, yet no revolutionary change has ever been made; no doctrine has ever
been altered; no important rule has ever been revoked; no Methodistic institution has ever been
abolished; neither the position of the ministry, nor the rights of the laity, have ever been assailed."
"In 1848 a serious defection took place. The Rev. Joseph Barker adopted and propagated Socinian
doctrines, which soon degenerated into open infidelity, and he was expelled after much agitation;
he was a man of popular eloquence and personal influence, and the loss of 5000 members was
involved, directly and indirectly, in his exclusion." The writer adds a brief to this history. After
traversing the United States in infidel lecturing, often in challenged debate, he returned to England,
retracted his errors, repented, confessed, and died in the faith of his earlier years. After the
Connection recovered from the shock of his expulsion, it devoted itself to ministerial training, to
evangelistic work at home, and to missionary enterprise abroad. It has prosecuted four missions
proper: in Ireland, where returns have fluctuated greatly, owing to losses by emigration to the United
States and British dependencies; in Canada, where a mission was established in 1837, and prospered
to 30,000 adherents, now coalesced with the ''Methodist Church of ''upon a platform in which every
essential principle of the New Connection was adopted and recognized, and is now a magnificent
demonstration of the successful application of those principles on a large scale;" in China, where it
has all the requisite appointments for the work and some 2000 Chinese converts; in Australia, where
good work was done for a time, but, the China mission taxing all the resources of the Connection,
they were advised to identify themselves with other Methodist communities in that quarter.
Statistically, this branch of Methodism reports 202 ministers, 1249 local preachers, 515 churches,
and nearly 35,000 communicants, 467 Sunday-schools, 11,345 teachers, and 88,761 scholars;
$30,000 raised for the mission in China, and an equal amount for Connectional funds independent
of the sums raised for the education of the ministry, the erection of chapels and schools, and the
defrayment of all other local expenses. The cost of the Connectional College at Ranmore has been
about $100,000, and the total value of Connectional trust property is estimated at $4,900,000. These
figures are for 1891. Its principal strength is in England. Its numerical increase has not been so great
as is wished. "The reason of this is not that its polity was mistaken, but that its policy was at fault."
Dr. Watts thinks they should have paid more attention to home extension, while they rather
consumed their resources in foreign work; but if a mistake, it could not be more commendable. It
stands today a model Methodist denomination, refuting all the antecedent predictions of failure,
inadequacy, dangerous experimenting, lack of personal force and collective power. It has a ministry
the peer of any in the Methodist world for piety, education, and culture; a laity unsurpassed for zeal
and liberality. It made of a theory a demonstration. It developed an individuality in its ministry and
laity the guarantee of personal force and the converse of that automatic movement, the resultant of
centralizing power, which absorbs the individual in the organization. It was the forerunner of the
Methodist Protestant Church in America, begotten of birth-throes notably akin to it.
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