for the appointment of Trustees to hold their property. The finances of the societies rendered necessary the appointment of local Stewards; the multiplication of societies, the appointment of Circuit Stewards, to whom the local stewards became auxiliaries. The increase of business on the circuits led to the creation of the Quarterly Meeting, or Quarterly Conference as it is called in America, comprising the officers, lay and clerical, of the several societies of the circuit; and the District Meeting or Conference, combining several circuits. And thus, wheel within wheel, the system took form, and became a settled and powerful economy.

The importance of this system becomes still more striking when we consider its adaptation to the New World-to the immense fields of immigration and civilization which were about to be opened in not only North America, but in Oceanica, the "Island World," to which geographers give rank as the fifth division of the globe, and along whose now busy coasts Cook, the navigator, was furtively sailing while Wesley was founding Methodism in England. Its importance to our own country will be considered hereafter.

It has been objected to the ecclesiastical system of Methodism that it excludes its laity from its higher councils. Historically this fact is not discreditable to it. Its early preachers went forth not at the call of

the people, but to call the people. A small body of ecclesiastics, they traversed the land preaching and forming Societies on circuits hundreds of miles long. These Societies were usually feeble, individually; they were composed mostly of poor, dispersed, and unlettered people; and the preachers were compelled to have the almost exclusive management of their scattered, untrained Churches. It was necessary for the itinerants to meet periodically to revise and rearrange their labors; these periodical assemblies were called, as we have seen, by the unpretentious name of Conferences; it would have been impossible, in the early days of the denomination, to have gathered, in their sessions, any satisfactory lay representation of the Societies. The conference grew into the supreme legislature and judiciary of the Church, and thus came to pass, at last, the startling anomaly of the largest religious body in the republic, a body, too, entirely pervaded by the republican sentiments of the country, yet controlled exclusively, in at least its higher assemblies, by its clergy. The fact was not the result of design, it was historically an accident, and I repeat, in nowise dishonorable to the ministry. In agitations for a reform of this fact, there has been no little contention and confusion, but opposition to a change has not arisen so much from theories of church government, as from a fear, on the part of loyal laymen and preachers, that the practical

efficiency of the system would be endangered by any radical change. Theories of Church polity have been of course more or less unavoidable in such discussions, but practical expediency has been the main question with both parties. The liberality, not to say liberalism, of Methodism in theology (hereafter to be shown) has characterized it equally in matters of Church government. It does not admit that there is any scriptural or divinely enjoined form of ecclesiastical polity, but that practical expedience is the only divine right of any system. Its own system is essentially Presbyterian, a Presbyterian episcopacy. Its bishop is a presbyter in order," though a bishop in office; a presbyter superintending the body of presbyters, primus inter pares. In retaining the two clerical orders of presbyter and deacon, it does not declare that they are necessary to the validity of the ministry, nor impeach sister Churches that have them not; in adopting ordination, by imposition of hands, it does not assert any sacramental virtue or scriptural obligation in the rite, but uses it as an impressive and appropriate ceremony. In America Methodism has always, since its organization, had bishops, in England it has never had them; in America it has the two orders of the ministry, in England it has but one; in the former it has always practiced "ordination" by imposition of hands, in England it never used such ordination

until some years ago, when it was adopted at the suggestion of an American visitor, and solely as an expedient form; and yet British and American Methodism have never questioned each others' scriptural validity.

Basing all Church government on Christian expediency, American Methodism is ready for any modifications of its system which time may show to be desirable for its greater effectiveness. Its General Conference has therefore formally declared that it is not only willing to provide for lay representation whenever the Churches demand it, but that it approves of the change. Many Annual Conferences have also formally seconded this declaration of the supreme body, and it is evident that the Church is now generally becoming convinced that in its present maturity it can safely modify its government in this respect, and thus rid itself of an ecclesiastical anomaly which, if it has not seriously interfered with its prosperity, has at least been a disparagement to its character, especially in the writings of its opponents. Lay representation is a prospective, apparently a certain fact of American Methodism, and with it will come, it may be hoped, a reunion of most if not all its various sects in the nation, this being now the only important question between most of them and the parent body.