PERIODICALS:

The Methodist Protestant, a weekly paper published at Baltimore, Md. The Methodist Recorder, a weekly paper, published at Pittsburgh, Pa.

Sunday School Literature, published quarterly and weekly, containing the International Lesson and helps, and general literature for children and youths, published at Pittsburgh and Baltimore.

MISSIONARY:

The Board of Foreign Missions, Rev. T. J. Ogburn, Secretary, Greensboro, N. Č.

The Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, Mrs. D. S. Stephens, Secretary, Kansas City, Kan.

The Board of Home Missions, Rev. G. E. McManiman, D.D., Secretary, West Lafayette, O.

The Woman's Home Missionary Society, Mrs. R. J. Jyson, Secretary, Kansas City, Kan.

EDUCATIONAL:

The Board of Ministerial Education, Rev. J. C. Berrien, D.D., Secretary, Center Moriches, N. Y.

The Westminster Theological Seminary, Westminster, Md.

The Western Maryland College, Westminster, Md.

Adrian College, Adrian, Mich.

Kansas City University, Kansas City, Kan.

West Lafayette College, West Lafayette, O.

Texas College, Tehuacana, Tex.

DIFFERENCES

Between

Episcopal and Representative

Methodism.

Methodism is not a doctrine, nor a form of government, but a type of Christian experience. Those who hold to this experience, however, may associate themselves together under different forms of government. The principal forms of government in Methodism are the Episcopal and the Representative.

Episcopal Methodism is a form of government adopted when Methodists were first organized into a church in this country, and is so called because the government is a system of superintendency, the chief superintendents being bishops.

Representative Methodism is a form of government adopted by those who opposed the form known as Episcopal on the ground that the government of a church should be carried on through representatives elected by members of the church.

These two forms of government are represented principally by the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Methodist Protestant Church respectively. The

differences between them were more apparent formerly than now, because some important changes have been made in Episcopal Methodism in the direction of Representative Methodism, particularly, the admission of laymen into the General Conference. Nevertheless there are still numerous and important differences between them, among which are the following:

1. Principle of Government. The founders of Episcopal Methodism, who were pastors, believed that pastors had a divine right to rule the church. Hence they did not take the people into account in settling a form of government, but retained all power, legislative, executive and judicial, in the ministry. The belief in this divine-right doctrine has been generally abandoned, but the system of government founded on it still continues practically as it began. The pastor is now, as he was in Asbury's time, the administrative unit out of which the whole system is framed. First the chief pastor, called bishop: then his appointee, the district pastor, called presiding elder; and finally the local pastor, holding office both as to time and place at the bishop's mere pleasure. So far as government makes à church this correlated series of pastors is the Methodist Episcopal Church.

Now in Representative Methodism such a series of governing pastors can have no place. No scheme of church government being revealed in the Scriptures, Representative Methodista believe that just government in the church as well as in the State must seek its sanction in the consent of the governed. Hence administration must be a

delegated power, and its real source not in a chief pastor proceeding downwards, but in the people proceeding upwards.

2. The Constitution. Both these forms of government have a constitution, but in a very different sense. Episcopal Methodism existed more than a hundred years before such a word as "Constitution" appeared in its Discipline. But in the year 1900, what was called "The New Constitution of the Methodist Episcopal Church" was adopted by the General Conference and submitted to the Annual Conferences for ratification. This document is neither "new," nor, in the true sense, a "Constitution." It is not "new," for it consists of, 1. The Articles of Religion and the General Rules of the United Societies, which were adopted by the church when it was organized in 1784. 2. The regulations and restrictions governing the General Conference, which were adopted substantially when the General Conference was first organized, in 1808. 3. Provision for lay delegates in the General Conference, which was first adopted in 1868 in a partial way, and expanded in 1896, and 4. Short descriptions of a pastoral charge, a quarterly and an annual conference, which are mere definitions accepted from the beginning. So that the adoption of this paper was superfluous; everything in it was law already.

It is not a "Constitution" in the true sense. 1. Because it was never ratified by the members of the church, nor adopted by their representatives. Only about three hundred laymen had an opportunity to vote on it, and they were sent to the General Conference by dele

gates elected by Quarterly Conferences which are not creatures of the membership of the church. 2. Because it does not embrace the entire organism of the church in its provisions, and hence is not properly organic law. Only the legislative department is described in its provisions, and this department is given absolute control over the others. The General Conference can change every essential feature of the organization_except the Articles of Religion, the General Rules and the Episcopacy without submitting its action for ratification and without violating the Constitution.

Representative Methodism has a Constitution adopted in the beginning by representatives elected by members of the church for that express purpose. Its provisions cover every department of the church and cannot be changed except by the consent of three-fourths of the Annual Conferences of ministers and laymen.

3. Governing Bodies. The governing bodies in both forms of Methodism are in name alike. They are the General, the Annual and the Quarterly Conferences.

Episcopal Methodism resisted the admission of laymen into the General Conference until 1868, and it has only been since 1900 that laymen have been admitted in equal number with ministers and elected by members of the church. But this has been the arrangement for composing General Conferences in Representative Methodism from the beginning.

Episcopal Methodism still excludes laymen from the Annual Conference, and the churches have no representative