CONFERENCE (Lat. .conferre, °to bring together°) (1) In general a meeting for con sultation, discussion,. instruction or the like; or any interview for interchange of views. The term is specifically applied to consultations be tween committees of the two Houses of Con gress in the United States, and to similar con sultations between delegates of the two Houses of Parliament in Great Britain. Such confer ences are usually called to discuss the pro visions of a bill with regard to which the two houses are disagreed, with the object of effect ing an agreement between them.
(2) A term much used in ecclesiastical gov ernment, etc. The annual meetings of Wes leyan preachers in England for deliberation on the affairs of the body are called conferences. In the United States the Methodist Episcopal Church has an assembly called the general con ference, which meets once in four years; numerous assemblies called annual conferences; district conferences; and quarterly conferences; these assemblies variously dealing with local or general interests of the Church. In the Roman Catholic Church there are instituted pastoral conferences, chapter conferences, etc.; and in various Protestant denominations there are stated local or general assemblies of chosen delegates from individual churches, who meet to consider or adjust denominational affairs.
(3) The word conference also covers inter national meetings, and there have been many noted international conferences, some of which have been of a religious nature. Of these latter a very notable gathering was the ecclesiastical conference called together by King James I of England and which met at Hampton Court Palace in 1604, for the establishment of a com mon creed. It led to King James' famous trans lation of the Bible which is still known to all Protestant English-spealcing readers as the *Authorized Version.* Another famous eccle siastical gathering was that known as the Savoy House conference, which at a meeting held in 1661 made some important changes in the Prayer Book of the Established Church of Eig land. Political conferences have been many and some of them important The conferences of London and Geneva both held in 1864; two other conferences of London held respectively in 1867 and 1871 and the Balkan conference also held in London (1912-13) form links in the chain of modern history; while the con ference of The Hague of 1899 and recent meet ings of a similar nature have attracted general attention.