History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

purpose for some years was removed to larger and more respectable buildings in Manchester. The
Connection has also two educational colleges for boys, York and Birmingham, which are successful.
The Orphan Home is the latest and most popular of its institutions. Its premises at Arlesford, near
Winchester, are free of debt. The Connection has its own insurance company to protect its property
against loss from fire; its general Chapel Fund to relieve distressed chapels; its Chapel Aid
Association to assist trustees in canceling debts; its Metropolitan and Chapel and School Building
Fund, to meet the increased needs of London; its Sunday-school Union; its Superannuated and
Widows' and Orphans' Fund. Temperance is interwoven with the very texture of its church life. As
early as 1840 it shut out fermented wines from its sacramental occasions, and its chapels are always
open for promoting the cause. It has found its sphere as an organization among the workmen of
England, as did the Wesleys and Whitefield, and its success is due, Thomas Burt, member of
Parliament, has declared, to the fact that "it represented the democratic and progressive side of
religion." "In its highest court, the Conference, the ministry is represented by one-third, and the laity
by two-thirds of the delegates, while the same proportion is maintained in district meetings.
Elsewhere there is no recognition of this proportionate representation. The democratic element is
seen in the fact that the occupancy of the chair in every court, from the Conference to the leaders'
meeting, is not claimed as the right of any minister, but is determined by vote, and may be occupied
by laymen. The conservative element is found in there being no direct representation of the
membership in the higher circuit courts, thus causing the official element to be the ruling element
in a circuit. This combination of opposites has, however, worked well and satisfactorily." In Eastern
and Western North America they have two Conferences with 5639 members, 61 ministers, 171 local
preachers, 99 Sabbath-schools, 1354 teachers and officers, 96 churches, 38 parsonages, with a
probable value of church property of $231,565. They are not under the Presidency of the English
Conference, and recent suggestions have been made of their organic union with the Methodist
Protestant Church. They had in Canada, when the union of the Methodist bodies took place under
one "Methodist Church," 8223 members, 99 ministers, 246 local preachers, 237 churches, 169
Sabbath-schools, 1253 teachers, and 9343 scholars. This union cost them no sacrifice of fundamental
principles, as it is a lay-representation, voting Church with an elective, limited superintendency. In
the British Islands the statistical returns are for 1890: 193,658 members, 1049 traveling preachers,
16,315 local preachers, 10,563 class leaders, 4234 Sabbath-schools, 61,724 teachers, 431,868
scholars, 4460 connectional chapels, 1398 other chapels and halls, 580,746 hearers, and estimated
value of church property, 3,291,192.
This brief history is a demonstration of the fallacy of all arguments in favor of the oligarchic
system of government for Methodism as essential to its conservation and success. Numerically, other
things being equal and length of organization specially considered, the Primitive Methodists have
exceeded the parent body by a decided percentage. If in pecuniary values they are not on an equal
footing, the poor class of people from whom they have so largely drawn their recruits must be the
explanation, while in liberality their superiority must be confessed. In allegiance to the doctrines and
means of grace of Wesleyan Methodism they are not excelled. And yet to this day they are subjected
to disparagement and obloquy, in common with other dissenting Methodist churches, from those in
the parent bodies of England and America who make for themselves exclusive Wesleyan claims as
"the temple of the Lord." A late instance of the kind was during the second Methodist Ecumenical
Conference in Washington, D. C., in 1891, which the writer witnessed, when Farmer-Atkinson,
member of Parliament and delegate from the Wesleyan Conference, in open debate so wantonly