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Ministerial Support: Pastors, Presid'g Elders, etc. $13,526,780

Current Expenses, Sexton, Light, Fuel, Sunday School, etc.

For Missions, see section XXI.

Conference Claimants...

.387,370

$13,914, 150

$5,553,948

Epworth League, a society of young people of the Methodist Episcopal Church; formed May 15, 1889, in Cleveland, Ohio, by the union of five societies affiliated with the Methodist Church. Its motto is: "Look up. Lift up." Its object is to promote intelligent and loyal piety in the young members and friends of the church; to aid them in the attainment of purity of heart, and constant growth in grace. The following pledge is required. "I will earnestly seek for myself and do what I can to help others to attain the highest New Testament standard of experience and life. I will abstain from all forms of worldly amusements forbidden in the discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church." The League is governed by a board, a part of whom are appointed by the bishops and the rest elected by the General Conference districts. The League has grown rapidly, extending into foreign lands. On Oct. 1, 1902 there were in the League 20,600 chapters, and 2,000,000 members. Its official organ is the Epworth Herald published in Chicago.

12. Methodist Episcopal Church (South), was organized by a convention of delegates from the southern annual conferences which met at Louisville, Ky., May 1, 1845. Its first General Conference met at Petersburg, Va., May, 1846. The property belongng to the whole church was divided, through the action of the supreme court of the United States, in accordance with the plan adopted by the General Conference of 1844. A publishing house. was established at Nashville, Tenn.; a quarterly review, weekly, and Sunday-school papers, books, and tracts were printed.

Table showing the increase in four years.

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This prosperity was followed by the war, and much of the property of the church was used for military operations, and the work of the church was largely broken up. In 1864 there was no General Conference held. The first conference held after the close of the war was in New Orleans, April, 1866. The membership had fallen to 511,161, showing a loss from 1860 of 246,044 members. But the church is fast recovering from the effects of the war. Some modifications in the government of the church have been made.

The annual conferences are composed of traveling preachers, and four lay delegates (one may be a local preacher) from each district. The General Conference contains an equal number of

ministerial and lay delegates. A revised edition of Wesley's abridged liturgy has been published, but it is not much used. The ritual and the psalmody have been revised and improved. Much attention is given to Sunday-schools, and many publications for their use are prepared. Seminaries for both sexes, colleges and universities have been established in the South. The publishing house has revised and reprinted the standards of Methodist works, and has added to them many new books of history, biography, and theology. The destitute portions of the South, laid waste by the war, require a large amount of missionary labor.

In 1874 the Methodist women of Nashville, Tenn., organized a" Bible Misson" to furnish Bible instruction to the poor of the city, and to collect and contribute pecuniary aid to foreign missions. This society secured a home for the poor and founded a "Mission Home" for fallen women, which has grown into a large and permanent institution. The Southern Methodists have taken much pains in extending the gospel to the slaves on those large plantations in the far South by sending missionaries and teachers among them. The official returns in 1860 gave 207,776 colored members, and 180,000 negro children under regular catechetical instruction.

The church has a flourishing university at Nashville, Tenn., three colleges, one of them for women, and nine other schools, appropriately located for their entire work.

Statistics of the Methodist Episcopal Church (South) in 1905 were as follows: total number of members and preachers 1,595,014; 6,616 traveling preachers, 4,816 local preachers, 28,472 infants baptized, 55,848 adults baptized, 5,346 Epworth Leagues, 116,579 Epworth League members, 14,423 Sunday-schools, 104,650 Sundayschool teachers, 934, 110 Sunday-school scholars, 14,872 church buildings; value $25,203, 303; 4,092 parsonages; value $4,790, 188; 47 annual conferences; paid for missions $477,394; number of schools and colleges, 132; value of endowment, $2,755, 197; value of property, $5,877,000.

For Missions, see section xxI.

13. Methodist Protestant Church, organized in 1830 by a portion of the M. E. Church who were opposed to the episcopacy and to the exclusion of the laity from a voice in the government of the church. Each annual conference elects by ballot its presiding officer, and in all legislation and government the laity and clergy equally participate.

The general conference meets every four years and is composed of delegates elected by the annual conferences in the ratio of one minister and one layman for every 1,000 communicants. Under specified restrictions it has authority to make rules for the government of the church, to determine the duties and compensation of traveling ministers, and other officers; to devise ways and means for raising funds; and to declare the boundaries of the annual conferences. The annual conference, consisting of all the ordained.

itinerant ministers in the district, elects candidates to orders, stations ministers and missionaries, makes rules for their support, and declares the boundaries of circuits and districts. The quarterly conference-composed of the trustees, ministers, preachers, exhorters, leaders, and stewards of a district, -examines the official character of its members, licenses preachers, and recommends candidates for ordination to the annual conference. In 1858 the church was divided by differences on the subject of slavery into the Methodist Protestant Church of the northwestern states, with its headquarters at Springfield, Ohio; and the Methodist Protestants of the southern states with headquarters at Baltimore. At the time of the division the church contained 2,000 stationed ministers, 1,200 churches, 90,000 members, and property worth $1,500,000. Their college at Adrian, Mich., is flourishing. The strength of the Methodist Protestant Church, South, was principally in Virginia, Maryland, and in some parts of Pennsylvania and Ohio. They have three colleges. The two branches of the Methodist Protestants met in convention at Baltimore in 1877 and formed an organic union under the original name of the Methodist Protestant Church.

They have 1,551 traveling ministers, 2,242 churches, and 183,894 members.

For Missions, see section XXI.

14. New Congregational Methodists. This branch originated in Ware County, Ga., in 1881, by members who withdrew from the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, who were aggrieved by the arbitrary action of a quarterly conference. Its polity is purely congregational. A number of its churches united with the Congregationalists. They have 238 ministers, 417 churches, and 4,022 members.

15. Primitive Methodist Church.

This is an English church first introduced into Canada in 1843 and then into the United States. It was organized in England in 1812 by ministers and members of the Wesleyan Methodist Church who believed in camp meetings. They are represented in only eight states. They have 74 ministers, 100 churches, and 6,976 members.

16. Union American Methodist Episcopal Church.

This is a body of colored Methodists which was organized in 1813 in Wilmington, Del., by Rev. Peter Spencer, a colored preacher. They have 138 ministers, 255 churches, and 18,500 members.

17. Wesleyan Methodist Connection (or Church) of America grew out of a separation from the Methodist Episcopal Church, the result of the connection of that church with slavery, and the arbitrary character of its government. Secession of churches and ministers took place in different northern states, --the most extensive being in Michigan, where a conference was organized. A

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