MEETING, is the name applied by- the society of Friends to their various assernblies for worship and for the management of official business. 1. To their usual gatherings on several days of the week for worship, meditation and instruction. 2. The monthly meeting is an assembly of members from several contiguous congregations, charged with making provision for the poor and for the education of children; with the admission of persons desirous of joining the society; with giving attention to the proper performance of religious and moral duties among Friends; and with the administration of needed dis cipline. In this last duty is included the appointment of committees to see that the rules are observed and to settle difficulties amono. niembers by private admonition and counsel so as if pOssible to prevent their being. Crought before the meetin.g. And even when cases are introduced to the meeting similar committees are appointed to settle them informally if possible. In all disputes the practice of the society is to refrain from going to law. It therefore directs all its members to harmonize their differences by prompt and impartial arbitration. To the monthly meeting belong,s the allowing and solemnizino• of marriages. It keeps a record of rnarriages, births, and deaths among its members. 3" The quarterly meeting is composed of several monthly meetings. It receives answers from the monthly meetings to questions it had sent to them concerning the conduct of their members and of the care taken of them. The statements thus received are con densed into a.report, also expressed in answer to inquiries previously received, sent by representatives to the yearly meeting. The quarterly meetin.g receives appeals from the judgment of monthly meetintts and -has supervision over their neglect of discipline and care. 4. The yearly meeting-has the general superintendence of the society in the coun
try in which it is established; and therefore as the accounts which it receives discover the state of inferior meetings, as particular exigencies require, or as the meeting is impressed with a sense of duty, it gives forth its advice, makes such regulations as appear to be requisite, or excites to the observance of those already made, and sometimes appoints committees to visit those quarterly meetings which appear to be in need of immediate advice. At the yearly meeting a sub-committee called the morning 'fleeting is appointed to revise the official manuscripts prior to their publication and also to grant in the inter. vals of the yearly meeting. certificates of approval to those ministers who " have a con cern" to travel in the work of the ministry in foreign parts in addition to those granted by their monthly and quarterly meetings. Appeals from the quarterly meetinT.S are heard by the yearly meetings. There are 10 such: in London, Dublin, New England, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas, Ohio, and Indiana.—The QUARTERLY MEETING in the Methodist church is a general meeting, of the stewards, leaders, and other officers, for the purpose of transacting the general business of the "circuit" or " district." In the Methodist Episcopal church it is presided over by the "presiding elder," or bv the minister in charge. Its special object, in addition to celebrating the love-feast, is to examine the spiritual and financial condition of the church.