appear for the purpose of considering certain connectional and financial interests.

The Methodist Church of Canada, in its recently organized form, comprised chiefly of the Wesleyans, and a dependency of the parent Conference in England, was modeled after the latter in its District Meetings, with somewhat enlarged powers and combining important functions. It is composed of all members of Conferences and probationers for the ministry, the Recording Stewards of the several circuits and missions, and one other lay representative for each minister and probationer for the ministry. The first day is devoted exclusively to ministerial affairs. The lay members of the District Meeting immediately preceding the General Conference are elected by ballot at the previous quarterly official meeting. Its business is to recommend candidates for the ministry, examine and recommend probationers, persons to be received into full connection and ordained; receive reports of trials and make regulations in reference to married men. On the second day it receives the reports from the Stewards of the circuits, recommends special grants to cases of affliction, inquires into the financial ability of probationers, elects members of the Conference committees, hears appeals of Local Preachers, recommends alterations in charges, and elects lay delegates to General Conference. There is also a Financial District Meeting required to be held in each district in September, composed of the Superintendent and a Steward from each circuit and mission, which is wholly occupied with financial matters.

In the Methodist Protestant Church each Conference is authorized to fix the number of sub-districts, and associating as many charges together as may be deemed best, composed of the pastors and such a ratio of lay representatives from each charge as it may decide necessary. The work of this District Meeting is to promote all the local and general interests of the Churches, such as missions, education, Sabbath-schools, finance, pastoral work, etc. This is the only body between the Quarterly and Annual Conferences.

The District Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, is a great agency in promoting its polity, and performs important functions not delegated to the Quarterly Conference, relieving the Annual Conference of the minute

details of certain departments of the Church.

The Confer

ence is cherished and heartily sustained by the Bishops, Presiding Elders, and preachers generally. It is composed of all the preachers in the district, traveling and local, including superannuated preachers, and of laymen to the number of the above; and their mode of appointment each Annual Conference may determine for itself. The business of the body is to consider the condition of each charge, as to their spiritual state and attendance upon the means of grace, missions, Sunday-schools, financial systems, and electing lay delegates to Annual Conferences. Prominence is given to religious exercises. It will be seen that its functions are more restricted than our District Conference in some respects. The Bishops frequently preside and vitalize every department. Through this body an interest is incited to provide for the Episcopal Fund.

The term "District Conference" in our Church was first employed in 1792, but it was originally applied to the Annual Conference, as will be seen by the following: 1792.: "Ques. 4. Who are the members of the District Conferences? Ans. All the traveling preachers of the district or districts respectively who are in full connection. Ques. 5. How often are the District Conferences to be held? Ans. Annually." In 1796 the word "Yearly" was substituted for "District." In 1800 "Annual" took the place of "Yearly" Conference, and it has remained the same from that time to the present. According to a record examined, a "District Conference" was held in 1805, at Leesburgh, Va., in the bounds of the old Baltimore Conference, by William M'Kendree, President; Nicholas Snethen, Secretary. The only act recorded was defining rules on "Slavery," and here the record of its proceedings abruptly ceases.

Petitions had been presented from Local Preachers to the General Conference which met at Baltimore, Md., in 1820, asking for the organization of District Conferences, to enable them to enjoy certain rights, which they alleged were denied. them; and the demand was intensified by the controversy which was then agitating the Church, called the "Reform" movement, which culminated in a secession and the organization of the Methodist Protestant Church. The Bishops had called attention to the desirability of some action on the subject. Dr. Bangs' "History of the Methodist Episcopal

Church," referring to this important change says: "A little uneasiness had been manifested at times by some of the Local Preachers, because they thought they had been abridged of some of their rights in not being permitted to be examined, licensed, and tried by their peers exclusively. To remove the cause of their dissatisfaction by granting them the privilege of transacting the business which related to themselves exclusively, this General Conference (1820) created a 'District Conference,' to be composed of all the Local Preachers in the Presiding Elder's district who shall have been licensed two years."

A special committee, comprising the late Dr. Martin Ruter, Bishop Capers, and three others, framed a plan of a District Conference, and it passed May 18, 1820; the features of which may be gathered from the following condensation: The Presiding Elder of the district, or, in his absence, such person as the District Meeting might elect for the purpose, was to be President. The Conference was authorized to grant licenses to proper persons to preach as Local Preachers, to renew their licenses, to recommend to Annual Conferences suitable persons for Deacon's and Elder's orders in the local ministry, for admission on trial in an Annual Conference, to try, suspend, expel, or acquit such Local Preachers as might be accused; but it could not license any man to preach unless he was recommended by a Quarterly Conference. In fact, all the powers formerly belong. ing to the Quarterly Conference which related to Local Preachers, except simply the privilege of recommending candidates for the office of the local ministry, were transferred to this District Conference. At the session of the General Conference in Baltimore, May, 1824, the seat of the "Radical" controversy, on May 12 a resolution was offered to do away with District Conferences, and make all ordained Local Preachers members of Annual Conferences, which was lost. Dr. W. Winans, of the Mississippi Conference, subsequently reported on behalf of the Committee on Local Preachers, that petitions had been considered for and against District Conferences, and that the request to allow a delegation of Local Preachers to the General Conference was inexpedient; and the report then recommended amendments to the chapter in the Discipline that when District Conferences were not held, or failed to transact all the business necessary, the Quarterly Conference was authorized to transact it.

Also licenses were ordered to be renewed annually, and a clause inserted making it necessary for admission into the traveling connection to be first recommended by the Quarterly Confer

When the General Conference assembled in Pittsburgh, Pa., May, 1828, while the "Radical" controversy was at hightide, under the lead of M'Caine, Jennings, Snethen, Shinn, Brown, and others, the organization existed more in letter than in practice. This General Conference provided that a majority of the members of a District Conference should be a "quorum to do business." Action was taken by inserting a clause, " Provided, that no person shall be licensed to preach without the recommendation of the Society of which he is a member, or of a Leaders' Meeting." By the time the General Conference convened in Philadelphia, in May, 1832, the organization seemed to exist more in name than in fact, and its deathknell was virtually secured, without seriously affecting the condition or relation of Local Preachers, as the Quarterly Conference was fully competent to perform any or all functions neglected by the District Conference. When the General Conference assembled in Cincinnati, O., May, 1836, it was found that causes had grown up, almost wholly outside of the organization itself, that had antagonized its design, and rendered it inoperative. Its abandonment was but a mere formal action, and every thing relating to Local Preachers was relegated back again to the Quarterly Conference, to the same condition in which they were previous to 1820.

A wide-spread feeling, gathering momentum for years, existed, that an intermediate Conference, so useful among the English Wesleyans, and so potent as an arm of denominational power in the Methodist Episcopal Church South, was absolutely necessary. The culmination of the lay sentiment in the Church by the introduction of laymen into the General Conference made the necessity still more imperative that a mixed body should exist, and possibly the two progressive steps would help to make the solution of the introduction of laymen into all bodies to "confer" on the interests of Methodism. Under this condition of sentiment in the Church the Bishops, in their Address to the General Conference of 1872, wisely recommended attention to the subject of District Conferences: "We deem this (District Conferences) a matter of considerable practical FOURTH SERIES, VOL. XXXII.-19

importance, and think if such Conferences were carefully constituted, and their duties and prerogatives strictly defined, they might be rendered highly useful. In our opinion there should be two sessions held annually; the first near the commencement, and the second near the close, of the Conference year."

In the distribution of the portions of this able address to the standing committees, the question of District Conferences fell to the jurisdiction of the Committee on the Itinerancy; but the exciting discussions on the Presiding Elder and other live questions overshadowed every other subject; and it is evident the same unfortunate misapprehension of the character, place, and work of District Conferences possessed the minds of the majority of its members then, as has clouded so many minds since it became a law; and on May 29 the Committee reported adversely to the organization of District Conferences. Subsequently, in debate in the General Conference, it was stated that a minority reported in favor of the measure.

The following bit of history is in place. At the sixth annual session of the National Local Preachers' Association of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States, a deputation was appointed to visit the General Conference at Philadelphia, May, 1864. A similar deputation waited upon the General Conference in May, 1868, at which time some conference was "held on the subject of District Conferences for Local Preachers." Assurances were given by the Committee on Local Preachers that any well-matured and defined memorial to the General Conference on the subject would receive respectful attention and be granted. The deputation reported back these friendly assurances to their constituents at the annual session in October, 1868; also, the report of the committee of the General Conference in response to the memorial presented in May previous. Considerable discussion took place on the subject of District Conferences, and the outline of a plan was adopted. Brief action followed at each annual session succeeding, and at the annual meeting in October; 1871, a memorial was ordered to be carried and presented by a deputation of ten to the General Conference at Brooklyn, N. Y., May, 1872.

Dr. Daniel Curry was intrusted with the duty of presenting the memorial and accompanying fraternal papers of the deputation, which he did by special permission on the thirteenth day