At the May district-meeting, when the circuit-stewards have taken their departure, one of its ministers is chosen by ballot, as its general representative at the coming Conference. Then the meeting deter mines how many additional ministers belonging to the district shall be allowed to proceed to the Conference. The Conference, strictly and truly, consists only of one hundred preachers, whose names are in the deed that gives it a legal existence, but all the preachers allowed to go from the respective districts are suffered to sit therein, and vote as integral parts thereof. At the assembling of the Conference, one of its first acts is the choosing by ballot the president and secretary, who must be of the hundred—the legal Conference. The business which follows comprises the supplying of the places of those who by death, ke., have been removed, by the hundred, partly by ballot and partly by nomination ; the examination of the character of every minister as to his moral conduct, Methodistical orthodoxy, kc. ; the examination of the minutes of the several districts ; and the appointments of the ministers for the coming year. Further, they legislate for, and deter mine the multifarious concerns of the connexion.
In Methodism, the members are divided into two great classes—the ministers and the people ; and each, if accused, is tried at its separate tribunal, and by its own peers. The members are tried by the leaders' meeting; and the ministers by the ministers only, at a district-meeting. If either the members or ministers are dissatisfied with the decision of their respective judicatories, they may appeal to the Conference, the highest court of Methodism.
Methodism furnishes its ministers from the members, who first are known as local preachers, and then nominated at the March quarterly meeting as persons proper to be recommended for examination at the coming May district-meeting by the ministers alone. if the churches in the circuit, by their representatives at the quarterly meeting, re commend the person nominated, he appears before the distriet-meeting and undergoes an examination as to his personal acquaintance with Christianity, his Methodistic orthodoxy, and attachment to its dis cipline. If approved and recommended by the distrietmeeting, his name is brought before the next Conference. If all inquiries here are satisfactorily met, be is either immediately employed as a probationer, in which state he must continue for four years, before he can be admitted into full connection—that is, be ordained and permitted to administer the sacraments--or he may be placed on the list of reserve, and if approved, when again examined by the preachers in the London district, he will be admitted to the Theological Institution, and by training for some two or three years, be prepared for his work.
The doctrinal test of the Methodists is found in certain volumes of Mr. Wesley's Sermons, and his notes on the New Testament. Among the most prominent of these doctrines, next to the being of God, his perfections and worship, are—original sin, moral impotency, the sufficiency of grace, the atonement, general redemption, justification by faith, the witness and work of the Spirit, entire regeneration, good works as the fruits thereof, eternal life, and everlasting punishment.
The disciplinary, test is found in the minutes of Conferences, the statute-books of the Wesleyans. While the ministers appointed by the Conference keep within the above limits, they have a right to the pulpits, and are beyond control. But any departure from the above will give authority to the trustees of any chapel in which un-Method istical doctrine is preached, to require the chairman of that district to summon the ministers of the district, and the trustees of the circuit in which the supposed transgressor is found, and if at the district meeting so constituted his delinquency be proved, he may be suspended until the next Conference, when the whole case will be reviewed, and finally adjudicated.
While the ministers are irreproachable, the Conference claims the right of appointing them to all the chapels in the connection settled on the Conference plan, and this right is beyond dispute or control; but over the property of the chapels, the Conference has no control, except it be the giving or withholding permission to the trustees to sell. when this is craved by them.
The labours of Wesley were not wholly confined to England. He had made little impression upon Scotland, where the number of members at the time of his decease scarcely exceeded a thousand. But in Ireland he had about fifteen thousand, and in the United States there were about thirty thousand. Since his decease, the prevalence of Wesleyan Methodism in North America has been very great.
By the census of 1851, there were 428 circuits in Great Britain, with 1024 ordained preachers, and between 13,000 and 14,000 lay-preachers, who receive no remuneration, and there were 6579 chapels in England and Wales, with accommodation for 1,447,580 persons. The number of communicants was 358,277. On Sunday, March 31, 1851, the attendance at these chapels (including an estimate for 133, from which no returns were made), was—morning, 429,714; afternoon, 383,694; evening, 667,850.