submit to the vote of the Conference the question of electing women to Orders.-Journal, 1880, p. 353.

§ 3. The General Conference judges it inexpedient to take any action on the subject of licensing women to exhort or to preach; and that it is also inexpedient to take any action on the subject of ordaining women to the Ministry. Journal, 1884, p. 317.

¶42. Quarterly Conferences

§ 1. The Quarterly Conference may remove Trustees at any time for cause, where statutes of the State do not prevent.-Journal, 1892, p. 490..

§ 2. Supernumerary and Superannuated Ministers residing out of the bounds of their Annual Conferences are members of the Quarterly Conferences where they reside, and are entitled to vote therein. Journal, 1892, p. 490.

¶ 43. Annual Conferences Continuous

§ 1. Individual members come in and go out; but the Conference itself continues. It may adopt rules for its government and Rules of Order for its Annual Sessions, the same to continue at its pleasure and to be amended or repealed as it may provide. In short, it is a permanent body.-Journal, 1904.

§ 2. The status of an Annual Conference is not affected by the fact that its membership falls below the number required by the Constitution for the organization of an Annual Conference. But the General Conference should so exercise its undoubted constitutional powers in this matter as to provide that such Annual Conferences as fall below the required number shall be by consolidation or otherwise brought up to that number, or that they shall be reduced to the status of Mission Conferences.Journal, 1904.

¶44. Consolidation of Churches

The Bishops have full power under the law and usage of the Methodist Episcopal Church to consolidate Churches and appoint one Pastor for the united Congregation.

In so doing they exercise an authority which from the beginning of our distinct Church life has been held to be resident in the Bishop presiding in an Annual Conference by virtue of his power to "fix the appointments of the Preachers." Journal, 1900, p. 422.

45. Union with Other Churches

Whenever any Synod, Conference, Church Society, or other body of Christians, agreeing in doctrine with the Methodist Episcopal Church, shall desire to become a component part of said Church, the Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church most nearly or conveniently related, territorially, to such Synod, Conference, Church Society, or body, shall have power, with the consent of the Bishop presiding, on being satisfied with the agreement of such Synod, Conference, Church Society, or body of Christians with the Methodist Episcopal Church in Doctrine and Discipline, to receive such organization in a body into our communion. Ministers so received shall hold such relations and enjoy such privileges as they would hold or enjoy if admitted individually on their credentials. Members so received shall sustain the same relation to the local Church they, would sustain if received individually by certificates. Before such reception, however, a properly authenticated register of such ministers and members shall be deposited with the Secretary of the Conference considering such reception. In all cases of the reception of Churches, satisfactory assurance shall be given the Conference that the property shall be placed in the custody of Trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and that the Churches will receive pastors appointed by the authority of the

General Conference of said Church.-Journal, 1896; p. 398.

¶ 46. Negotiations Between Preachers and People

Direct negotiations between Pastors and Churches in advance of the making of the appointments by the Bishops are contrary to the spirit of our itinerant ministry and subversive of our ecclesiastical polity, and as such should be discouraged by our Bishops, Pastors, and people. Journal, 1884, p. 313.

¶ 47. Episcopal Administration

The General Conference requests the Bishops, if they shall find it practicable,

1. To arrange the Annual Conferences into groups covering contiguous territory.

2. To form several groups of Conferences into districts.

3. To assign the individual Bishops within said districts to preside for the ensuing quadrennium, in rotation, over the several Annual Conferences in such districts.Journal, 1908.

4. To arrange their work so that they make at least two visits during the year in each Annual Conference within the United States which is assigned to them respectively, in addition to 'the time given to the holding of the Conference session, the said visits to be made for the purpose of overseeing the spiritual and temporal business of the Church as it is carried on in the several pastoral charges of the said Conference:

5. The Treasurer of the Episcopal Fund is directed to pay the traveling expenses incurred by the Bishops in making said visits. But this direction shall not apply to cases where Bishops are invited by local churches, committees, or institutions to attend dedications, anniversary conventions, and such other functions as are not directly connected with the work of administration.

CHAPTER V

MISCELLANEOUS

48. Temperance and the Prohibition of the Liquor Traffic

GENERAL STATEMENT

The Methodist Episcopal Church is a temperance society. We gratefully acknowledge the blessing of God upon our temperance endeavors and rejoice over the increasing tolerance and greater coöperation among temperance workers. The progress of the past four years strengthens our convictions, increases our zeal, and renews our faith for the greater and final struggle yet to

come.

In the language of the Episcopal Address: "There must not be any reaction from the wrath with which all good and Christian citizens pursue this lawbreaking and murderous traffic. It deserves neither charity nor mercy. There is no law it will keep, no pledge it will honor, no child it will not taint, no woman it will not befoul, no man it will not degrade. It falsely claims to be a great public interest because it employs thousands and pays heavy taxes. But no money in the pockets of employees and no taxes in the treasury of the city, county, state, or nation can balance the monetary losses of the nation through this traffic. No profits, however real or immense, can compensate for the corruption of our politics, the emptiness of the drunkard's home, or the fullness of prisons and graves."

An enlightened citizenship and a vital piety demand

The liquor

the utter destruction of a traffic so accursed. traffic cannot be reformed. It is inherently unreformable. An institution which outrages the divine law of love will never obey the police regulations of men. Therefore it must be destroyed, and with our Bishops we "pledge eternal enmity to this foe of God and man." Our purpose is its extinction; our battle cry, "A saloonless country, a stainless flag.".

1. Personal Abstinence

We declare our conviction that total abstinence from intoxicating beverages and narcotics is the duty of all our people of every clime and country.

2. The License Policy

We condemn the license policy. It is vicious in principle, utterly inconsistent with the purposes of enlightened government, and in practice a protection to a traffic which is inherently criminal in its nature. The liquor traffic "cannot be legalized without sin."

3. Prohibition and Local Option

We stand for the speediest possible suppression of the beverage liquor traffic. Under that divine law of absolute right which is the source of all human law the only proper attitude of civil government toward anything so harmful as the liquor traffic is that of absolute prohibition.

We are in favor of reclaiming, never to be surrendered, every foot of territory which can be wrested from the liquor traffic as an additional base of operations for further aggression, which shall not cease until the world shall know no more this crime-breeding traffic. To this end, in the light of recent experience, and the practical results where, according to the Episcopal Address, "States which have been notoriously unfriendly to any temperance legislation, except general license, have passed