A DIVIDED COURT.

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private. This led the counsel for the defendant to add to their number the Rev. George R. Crooks, editor of the "Methodist," the Rev. Franklin Ward of Baltimore (an expert stenographer), the Rev. John S. Porter of New Jersey, and the following laymen: John A. Wright and Thomas W. Price of Philadelphia, and John Elliott and Oliver Hoyt of New York. Whereupon the committee voted that the proceedings should take place in open session and that reporters of the daily press should be admitted. The result of the second trial was that the majority of the committee found the defendant guilty of having taken the affairs of the church into the civil courts, and decided that he should be removed from his office. Bishops Janes and Ames divided; the former paid a high tribute to Lanahan, who, he intimated, had made important discoveries, but also stated that after long hesitation he had reached the conclusion that it was his duty to concur with the vote of the committee removing him. Ames declined to do this. As the law required that at least two bishops should concur in the finding, this result left the assistant agent in possession of his office.

Meanwhile the subject of lay representation was before the church, as provided in the plan proposed by the General Conference of 1868. For a long time it was doubtful whether the necessary three-quarters' vote of the ministry could be obtained, but so serious was the feud and so sharp the division that many who had no sympathy with lay representation as such became convinced that the enterprises of the denomination had become so large and the possibilities of evil so great that the counsel and disinterested arbitrating influence of laymen in the General Conference were indispensable to the future welfare of the church, and the requisite number was secured.

CHAPTER XXI.

FRATERNAL RELATIONS AND THEIR CONCOMITANTS.

WHEN the General Conference of 1872 assembled in Brooklyn, N. Y., the bishops, through Simpson, reported that each conference had voted on the proposition to alter the Second Restrictive Rule so as to add, "not more than two lay delegates for each Annual Conference," and that the result was, for the proposed change, 4915, against it, 1597, blank, 4, showing that the necessary three fourths had been obtained, with, however, only 32 votes to spare.

Awaiting admission, one hundred and twenty-nine lay delegates, provisionally elected, appeared at the door of the General Conference. As soon as the body was organized the bishops made the foregoing report, and after discussions and various resolutions, by a vote of two hundred and eighty-three in the affirmative and six in the negative, the General Conference formally concurred with the Annual Conferences in changing the Second Restrictive Rule. By a subsequent vote the plan of lay delegation was adopted, thirty-six voting in the negative; and by a vote of two hundred and eighty-eight to one was ordered the calling of the roll of the laymen whose certificates of election were in the hands of the secretary, and their admission to seats in the General Conference allowed.

The negative vote was cast by the late William H.

PROPHECY FULFILLED.

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Perrine, of Michigan, who held, vindicating his view with ability, that the clergy and the laity should sit in separate houses and that the plan as adopted contained grave defects which would work injury to the church.

Through their chairman, Dr. James Strong, the lay delegates after being seated presented an address to the conference. It recognized the gravity and responsibility of the hour and the train of divine providence that had led to it; deprecated any separation of so-called temporal and spiritual powers of the joint body as between its lay and its clerical members; and declared that the laity did not enter the body to propose any sudden or radical change in the practical machinery of the church.

The General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, six years before this had admitted laymen both to the General and Annual Conferences, according in the former equal representation and in the latter in the ratio of four delegates to each presiding elder's district.

Thus was fulfilled the prediction of Nicholas Snethen, made in 1834: "If we are true to it [the pure, unmixed question of representation], if we are not ashamed of it, if we glory in it, it must finally prevail and proselyte every Methodist in the United States. They may, indeed, remain Episcopal Methodists, but so sure as we are not moved away from our high calling, the whole lump will be leavened into representative Methodists." 1

In addition to the usual standing committee, the conference ordered, on the ninth day of the session, a special committee on the affairs of the Book Concern, to be composed of one member from each delegation, to be elected by the delegations respectively; to this were referred all reports and papers relative to alleged irregularities and frauds in the Book Concern. On that committee were 1 Editorial, "Methodist Protestant," new series.

appointed noted manufacturers, distinguished lawyers, merchants in large business, eminent financiers, such as John Evans of Colorado, John Owen of Michigan, Washington C. De Pauw of Indiana, Amos Shinkle of Kentucky, William Deering of Maine, Grant Goodrich of Chicago, Alexander Bradley of Pittsburg, and Judge Dennis Cooley of Iowa. They reported that:

"Repeated frauds have been practiced upon the Book Concern. These frauds are found in the manufacturing department, and are located chiefly, if not wholly, in the bindery. Mr. Hoffman was superintendent of this department at the time of the perpetration of these frauds, and the evidence indicates that for a series of years he carried on a system of frauds by which the Concern sustained very considerable losses, the amount of which it is impossible to indicate with accuracy. . . . Also that the business entries of the years 1862 and 1864, including also the bindery and periodical account of 1861, are totally inexcusable as specimens of accounts.

"Also that the losses sustained by frauds and irregularities are not of such magnitude as to endanger the financial strength of the Book Concern or materially impair its capital.

"That there are no reasonable grounds or proofs to justify an assumption that any agent or assistant agent is or has been implicated or interested in any frauds which have been practiced on the Book Concern. . .

In reference to the purchasing of paper through the son of a former agent, the committee reported that, “under all the circumstances of the case, we unhesitatingly regard it as a decided business impropriety." Also that in certain transactions of the Book Concern with Messrs. Brown Brothers & Company, it was an unauthorized use of the credit of the Book Concern for the benefit of outside par

SETTLEMENT OF BOOK CONCERN TROUBLES. 535

ties. The committee say that they may reasonably believe that the motives which prompted to the act were to promote the interests of the Concern and to accommodate the missionary society of another denomination. "Yet," say the committee, "to guard against its influence as a precedent, we call your attention to it as an error fraught with peril to the interests of the Book Concern, which should not be sanctioned."1

The report of the special committee was adopted without debate and with little open opposition. While it was not wholly satisfactory to the assistant agent and decidedly unsatisfactory to those who had steadily denied the existence of frauds of any importance, its conclusions made a strong impression upon the General Conference and led to the adoption of a remarkable system for the management of the Book Concerns East and West.

It was decided that it was not proper to nominate for members of the Book Committee for the coming four years those who had served on that committee for the past four years, that it was not advisable that either of the recent book-agents should be placed upon the Book Committee, that the distinction between the agent and the assistant agent should be removed, and that two agents of equal authority should be elected quadrennially.

Provision was made that of six members of the Book Committee, three should reside in the vicinity of New York and three in the vicinity of Cincinnati, and that at least once a month the agents in each city should confer with the three nearest to them (known as the Local Committee); that the three at New York and the three at Cincinnati should have power to suspend an agent or editor for causes to them sufficient; and that a time should be fixed as early as

1 For full report of committee and other reports and memorials, see appendix to "Journal of the General Conference of 1872."