THE WESLEYAN CONFERENCE.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.")
SIR,—The Lord Mayor of Newcastle-upoii-Tyne has invited the President and members of the Wesleyan Conference, about to meet in that city, to a reception. It will be held, as it happens, three days before the official celebration of Peace. Contrast with that happy programme a tragic situation which Wesley's journal describes in the year 1745. The Pretender had entered Edinburgh. Newcastle was in consternation and her citizens mounted the walls with cannon. The Mayor summoned all the townsmen to meet him. Wesley—that amazing itinerant— chanced to be in the city. He wrote to the Mayor, two days later, thus: " I knew not how far it might be either necessary or proper for me to appear on such an occasion. I have no fortune at Newcastle. I have only the bread I eat, and the use of a little room for a few weeks in one year." He paid high tribute to the Mayor's office, and added : "All that I can do for "His Majesty whom I honour and love—I think not less than I did my own father—is this, I cry unto God, day by day, in public and in private, to put all his enemies to confusion." Wesley's latest successor, the President of the Wesleyan Conference at Newcastle, in 1919, is summoned to meet the Mayor. They will eat bread together and rejoice that the King's enemies are put to cqnfusion.
It is likely to be a notable Conference. Newcastle, at any rate, is determined to make it so. "It is the Peace Conference," the Wesleyans of the North are saying, "and, our guests from all over the land will find us ready." The new President is the Rev. William T. A. Barber, M.A., D.D., HeadMaster of the Lees School since 1898 until quite recently. He follows in the chair the Rev. Samuel Chadwick, a man equally beloved of his Church, but with gifts andexperiences of another order. Great hopes are cherished that Dr. Barber will be able to infuse with his own cultured and gracious spirit the young life of the Church to which he is devoted. In the business of the Conference he will be indebted, as his predecessor has been, to a secretary, the Rev. John E. Wakerley of Norwich, whose technical efficiency has not impaired a mind singularly gay and refreshing.
One rather interesting matter of administration will be debated. A special Committee has sat during the year preparing a scheme by which General Superintendents or " Separated "Chairmen would be appointed. At present Great Britain is divided for Wesleyan purposes into thirty-five Districts. For each District a Chairman is appointed by the Conference, and he is generally a minister who already is within the District as a minister charged with local responsibilities. Sometimes the dual burden is unendurable. It is now proposed to readjust boundaries, reduce the number of Districts, and appoint a whole-time Chairman over each area.
Lay preaching is an essential and really remarkable feature of Methodist churchmanship. The work of 2,596 Wesleyan ministers is supplemented by 18,818 voluntary lay preachers— doctors and dockers, tradesmen and titled men, lawyers and labor revs--a consecrated army of men who in spiritual matters possess what Mr. Walter Bagehot called "an experiencing nature." The Newcastle Conference will have before it the results of careful inquiries that have been made as to their number and efficiency. Special attention will be directed also to the training of the ministry. A problem of considerable perplexity arises from what is termed the "down-town chapel—old centres traditionally precious but deserted because a new and unattached population has gathered around them. Some new policy of evangelism may be projected.
Questions of unity and union will be discussed. There will be a practical illustration of unity without organic union in the visit of a deputation which for the first time in the history of the Conference will combine the local Anglican and Non
conformist Churches.—I am, Sir, &c., J. EDWARD HARLOW. 90 Cheriton Road, Folkestone.
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