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398 OTHER INTERDENOMINATIONAL ASSOCIATIONSIX.The Annual MeetingThe conclusions reached and the plansmade at the Annualth^MeetinMeeting, abundantlyworth while though they be, are far lessimportant than the simple fact of having the members ofthe Committee meet together for five days face to face.Every effort had to be made this year, owing to the absencefrom China of several members and especially to the greatlydisturbed political conditions throughout China, to preventthe breakdown of the Annual Meeting through lack of aquorum. Serious disappointment and regret arose from theimpossibility of meeting at Hangchow, where not onlyconditions would have been more favourable for meetingthan they were in Shanghai, owing to the comparativeisolation, but where Dr. and Mrs. D. Duncan Main hadgiven such thought and labour to the preparations whichwould have ensured nearly ideal conditions both for theformal sessions and for the equally valuable intercourse ofmembers between sessions. One of the first resolutions ofthe Meeting was an expression of the Committee s disappointment and regret and its grateful appreciation to Dr.and Mrs. Main of their arduous labours in preparation forthe Committee s entertainment at Hangchow. Such nearlyideal conditions as had been prepared in Hangchow will bedifficult to secure again but it is to be hoped that somethingapproaching them may be possible in the future in order tomake the most of this extraordinary opportunity, once ayear, for the cultivation of those informal intimacies whichgo so far toward creating the atmosphere in which the otherwise insuperable barriers of ecclesiastical, theological, andpersonal differences are surmounted, and in which we mayanticipate the accomplishment of the Committee s humanlyimpossible aspirations and purposes.An important element in the success oftn* sProcedurey ear s Meeting was the rule of procedurewhich provided for the fuller and freerdiscussion of a smaller number of reports. This rule wasnot based on the relative importance of the subjects dealtwith in the reports nor even of the subject matter of the