ference until the breakfast hour on Saturday morning. In the forenoon sitting of Saturday, Bishop Soule was introduced to the Conference, by the President. The Bishop expressed the great pleasure he felt in meeting his Irish brethren; for, though separated by distance, they were the same in spirit, as Methodism was the same in America as in Ireland, with respect to doctrines, discipline, and mode of worship.. .The Address of the British Conference to the Irish Conference was then read. The Rev. W. Ferguson moved, and the Rev. A. Hamilton seconded, its reception; and they, as well as the Rev. Messrs. Stewart, T. Waugh, and M'Afee, spoke of the kindness that the connexion in Ireland had received from England, and they hoped that the union would continue to increase from year to year. The President replied, and referred to the assistance England had received from Ireland by the labours of T. Walsh, Dr. A. Clarke, W. Griffiths, H. Moore, and others, and reciprocated the feelings of the brethren who had just spoken. The regular business then proceeded, by asking the usual questions...........In the evening, the Reverend T. Sargent preached to a large congregation in Whitefriars-street chapel. On Saturday morning, the examination of the reports of the young men to be received into full connexion were proceeded with. It appeared that six, who had travelled four years, were recommended by their superintendants, after the approval of their respective districts, to be received into full connexion; three young men, who had travelled three years,-eleven, who had travelled two years, and seven, who had travelled one year, were all continued on trial; nine young men were recommended by their respective districts for the work,- -one was appointed to a circuit, as well as another on the list of reserve last year,-two were selected for the Theological Institution in London,and the remainder placed on the List of Reserve...... ..In reply to the question, -What Preachers have died the last year?-it appeared there was only one whose name was on the Minutes, the Rev. Thomas Wade Doolittle, a worthy man, highly respected and beloved by all who knew him; he was 59 years of age, and had been in the ministry since the year 1803. This closed the sittings on Saturday. On Sunday, the Pulpits were occu pied by the brethren, who preached to large and attentive congregations.— Bishop Soule preached at Abbey-street chapel at noon; the President, at Whitefriars-street chapel in the evening; the Rev. Robert Newton, at Kingstown; the Rev. J. Scott, at Hendrick-street chapel; and the Rev. T. Sargent at Abbey-street chapel in the evening; while the other chapels were supplied by other Preachers attending the Confer ence. On Monday morning, the examination of character was entered upon, according to the usage in the Connexion; cases that required examination or explanation were fully gone into, according to the rules of the Body, and decisions were taken accordingly. This proceeding being finished, in reply to the inquiry,-What Supernumeraries were to be placed on the list this year?—it appeared there were four, some of whom had long laboured in the work,-but there were three who were on the list of Supernumeraries last year, that had resumed their work as travelling preach ers. On Monday evening, the annual meeting of the Hibernian Wesleyan Missionary Society was held in Abbeystreet chapel. The Rev. W. Stewart began the service by singing and prayer. The President took the chair. The report was read by the Rev. W. O. Croggon. It appeared that the funds had advanced about £400 this year, besides contributions to particular objects and legacies. Dublin city itself had sent, in one way or another, about £1,000, to the support of the cause. The resolutions were moved and seconded by Bishop Soul, the Rev. J. Scott, the Rev. T. Sargent, the Rev. Robert Newton, (after which the collection was made, and exceeded that of last year,) the Rev. T. Waugh, the Rev. J. T. Mathews, and the Rev. A. M. Hamilton. The chapel was well filled with attentive auditors. On Tuesday, the business of the Conference proceeded with the usual questions. On the same evening, the reception of the young men into full connexion, and their ordination, took place in Whitefriars-street chapel, in the presence of a very large congregation.The service began by the President giving out the hymn on page 636, after which, the Rev. R. Newton prayed.The names of the young men were called over, viz., W. Norwood, J. Walker, J. Atkins, J. Donald, G. M Miller, and R. Hewitt. The President then addressed the congregation, explaining the nature of the service, and the manner in which these young men had been brought into the ministry, according to the rules and usages of the Society, as confirmed by the word of God. The young men themselves then gave brief but clear accounts of their conversion to God and their call to the ministry, which were listened to with deep attention. It appeared that all of them could adopt the words of the Psalmist "O God, thou hast taught me from my youth." The hymn on page 403, beginning at the second verse, was then sung, and the Rev. William Ferguson engaged in prayer; after a short address from the President, the Rev. T. Waugh moved, and the Rev. W. Stewart seconded, the resolution, that they be received into full connexion with the Body; this was carried by the members of Conference, who occupied the body of the chapel, standing up. Messrs. Waugh and Stewart, in their addresses, referred, with much feeling, to the time when they themselves had stood in the same situation as the young men, and in the same chapel. The regular ordination service was proceeded with by reading of the epistle and gospel, &c. The young men, kneeling, were ordained by imposition of hands; in which the President was assisted by Bishop Soule, and Rev. Messrs. R. Newton, T. Waugh, A. Hamilton, and W. Ferguson; part of hymn 431 was then sung, and the Rev. J. Scott concluded this very interesting service with prayer. On Wednesday morning, the Conference resumed the regular business.The stations were read, corrected, and confirmed; the chairmen were appointed by vote; and other affairs occupied the day......In the evening, the Charge was delivered, by the President, to the six young men ordained on the preceding evening. This service was held in Lower Abbey-Street Chapel. The hymns sung on the occasion were the 433d and 23d, beginning at the sixth verse. The Rev. R. Newton offered up the first prayer. The President's address was founded on 1 Tim. iv. 16. Bishop Soule concluded with prayer. The former part of Thursday was occupied with different affairs connected with particular circuits. The representatives to England were chosen, viz. the Rev. Messrs. W. Stewart, T. Waugh, and F. Tackaberry. In the afternoon, Bishop Soule took leave, and gave a very interesting account of progress of Methodism in America, where there are thirty-three annual conferences, and 3,000 travelling preachers, with about 900,000 members, He felt great pleasure, he said, in having visited Ireland, and thanked the friends for the kindness they had shown to him and his compa nion. The former part of Thursday was occupied in examining into the state of the societies, and into the accounts, by which, it appeared, the funds have all increased a little this year, and the missionary fund was about £400 more than last year. There has been an increase of 362 members, but there have also been 869 emigrants. The subscriptions to the centenary fund received in Ireland amount to £15,000. The Conference did not finally close until Monday afternoon, when the Journal was signed, and the brethren separated. On Sunday, the Rev. Robert Newton preached the anniversary sermons, in Abbey-Street Chapel, to very crowded congregations. During the Conference, a great number of friends, from different parts of the kingdom, came to the city, and, it is hoped, the religious services will prove a blessing to many. OPENING OF THE WESLEYAN CONFERENCE. At nine o'clock this morning, (July 27th,) the Preachers sssembled in the City-Road Chapel, London, to commence the business of the Ninety-ninth Annual Conference.-The Rev. James Dixon having taken his place, as President, gave out the hymn on the 444th page of the Wesleyan Hymn Book, beginning" And are we yet alive?"after which he called upon the Rev. George Marsden, and the Rev. Robert Newton to engage in prayer. The religious services being concluded, the names of the Preachers constituting the Legal Conference were called over, and they took their places, as usual, according to seniority. Inquiry was then made as to the vacancies in the legal hundred, which had occurred during the year. These were found to be eight-six in England, and two in Ireland; and they were filled up as follows: -The Rev. Messrs. William Evans, John Bustard, John Radford, George Cubitt, Thomas Garbutt, and Joseph Protty were elected from among the English Ministers, and the Rev. Messrs. Robert Masaroon and William Crook, from Ireland. After these preliminaries, the Conference proceeded to the election of a President for the ensuing year. On the votes being taken, it was found that the choice had fallen upon Dr. Hannah, Theological Tutor in the Wesleyan Institution at Hoxton. The Rev. Robert Newton was then, in the usual manner, elected to be the Secretary. Both elections were duly confirmed by the legal hundred. From twelve to one o'clock, there was a Public Prayer Meeting in the Conference Chapel. WESLEYAN MISSIONARY ANNIVERSARY. The Rev. Dr. TYNG, Minister of the Protestant Episcopal Church of Philadelphia, in the United States of America, said-I feel it, Mr. Chairman, and my christian friends, much more sensibly than any speaker who has preceded me, a very peculiar honour to have been invited to address this meeting, even at this late moment; for, although the suggestion was made to me the other day in the room of the Secretary, I had hardly supposed I should be called up until the resolution which I now hold was placed in my hand. I come, Sir, from a land where we might as well forget the proud oaks that tower in our forests,-the glorious Capitol that we have erected in the centre of our hills,-or the principles of truth and liberty, which we are endeavouring to disseminate through the world, as forget the influence and power of Wesleyan Methodism, and the benefits we have received thereby.(Loud cheers.) And although, Sir, I do say, in the language of the noble lord who first addressed this meeting, I am not only an attached member, but for these many years, have been an attached minister of another Church, we have no established Church in our land, yet such have been my associations from the very youth of my ministry up to this day with my beloved brethren and friends in the Methodist Episcopal Church of that country, that I feel every where at home in their meetings, and every where connected with them with a spirit that seeks no apology for speaking. (Cheers.) I recollect it is written of the land of Canaan, in the blessed book of inspiration, that there were no fences there there was a curse on every man that removed his neighbour's landmark-and such was the depend ence on the reverence for the authority of God, and the recollection of the power and presence of their great Jehovah, that perhaps we should find, if the history of that nation were developed, few instances in which that great commandment was voluntarily contravened. I suppose what these fences would have been in Canaan, the sectarian divisions are in our Christian Church,-(hear, hear,)—and when that Church, under the outpouring of the spirit of God, comes back to Canaan again, the landmarks will be enough to designate our territory, and the fear of God enough to prevent intrusion beyond our proper bounds. (Cheers.) In the whole length of my ministry, and to the utmost extent of the feeble powers which a gracious God has been pleased to give me, I have felt it my solemn and imperative duty, in every way, to carry forward the principles of christian union, and to overturn and cast into entire oblivion, if it might be, within the circle of my influence, that spirit which "bites and devours" the members of the body of Christ. (Cheers.) I hold, that vital practical Christianity is the fireside of comfort to a man's dwelling; and that everything like sectarian division, though necessary and expedient, is but the wall of the edifice, the beauty of which, if it hath any beauty, a man must be in the street to see. (Cheers.) Now, Sir, the principle of our land is to dwell, as much as possible, by the fireside, and as little as possible in the street. (Cheers.) We have, therefore, no need of a large ecclesiastical police. (Loud cheers.) Our climate drives to a shelter, and our indisposition to roam much abroad renders the number of our street-walkers few, and every year lessening upon our hands. (Hear, hear.) This is the spirit in which we are labouring at our work. In the Church with which God has been pleased to connect me, we know but little of those errors which my reverend brother preceding me has called semipopery; and we have known but little of that name, for, in the ignorance of our backwood spirit, we thought it was Popery itself. (Loud and long-continued cheers.) We have never been accustomed to designate it by anything like a conciliatory or softening epithet; but have contended with it from the very beginning, under the deep impression that Flanders lace could not cover a cloven foot, nor was a cloven foot to be respected, though decked in foreign importations of luxury and power.(Cheers.) We have stood upon that ground; and, in the whole number of our body, the men who favoured the spirit and principles of Popery thus developed, would be found like the blighted berries upon the topmost bough, when the frost has succeeded the harvest, and nothing is left which man desires to gather. (Cheers.) The Wesleyan body, in our country, is what the Wesleyan body is throughout the world, in the circle in which it is acting, and in the influence which it exercises,-standing, I was going to say, manfully, but I check the spirit, and say humbly, at the feet of Jesus, labouring for him, and accounting it its highest honour if it may but bear the Cross while he, in all his glory, should be permitted to wear the Crown. (Cheers.) You may ask, then, what I have particularly to do beyond that with Wesleyan Methodism ? Perhaps little; for although my habitual associations are with my beloved brethren and friends in this connexion, yet we are a busy people, and each bee must work to keep up the honey of its own hive; (laughter ;) and we are led to suppose, that the best way of beautifying spiritual agriculture, is, like the best way of beautifying the surface of the earth, for each man to cultivate, to the best advantage, his own farm, and not for every one to spend his strength in levelling the highway. (Hear, hear.) We are hard at work in our own enclosures, not building them up to keep our friends out, but seeing that, when they are ready to come in, everything may be sufficiently attractive to reward them for the visit they may make. (Cheers.) But I am sorry to intrude these desul tory remarks. I feel but little disposed to take up your time, further than by a simple recollection which occurs to my own mind, as I have been seated on this platform, in connexion with the very body, the representatives of which are here assembled. I knew, Sir, some thirty years ago-(to show the influence which Wesleyan Methodism has produced in humble circumstances)-I knew an individual, brought up in all the luxury which wealth and the circumstances of station in society could give, and who, when God was pleased, in his love, to open the eyes of his understanding, to make him see the necessity of a Saviour, and to lead his heart, in its darkness, to look after Jesus, "if haply he might find him," had not a single acquaintance, amongst those with whom he stood united by the ties of nature, nor a friend amongst those to whom fashionable life had bound him, who understood, for a moment the feelings of his heart. I knew him, when he went from place to place amongst those who, at the altar of God, had bowed together, and the simple answer he received was, that he was deranged, and a fitter subject for a physician than a divine. I knew, Sir, an elderly Methodist woman, a superannuated maidservant in the family of a distant connexion of this young man, for whom, as a reward for her services, her master had built an upper chamber over a back building in the yard, where she might dwell in quietness, supported to the end of her life by his benevolence. When she first heard, through the junior members of the family, that this young man had become "deranged," she sent for him to visit her; and she was the very first individual who understood the state of his mind; and as she led him to see Jesus, and God in him, and the glory of the Cross, and the finished work of man's salvation, she was made the minister of God for good to that young man's soul. An apostleship was finished; and years, years have passed since she has received honour and glory.That young man, Sir, was called into the ministry of the Gospel. For these five and twenty years he has attempted to preach the truth which that day he was enabled to embrace; and the Providence of God has brought him here this day to tell the tale. (Loud and continued cheers.) The Providence of God has brought him this day to tell, in the midst of affectionate hearts, who feel the same spirit which animated that old woman, the simple story of God's dealings with him, through the instrumentality of Wesleyan Methodism. (Cheers.) Has he not reason then to love it? And, though his ministry has not been connected with it, (such has been the call of God,) has he not reason to look forward to the joyful hour, when one of the happiest faces he will meet in glory, shall be the countenance of a ransomed maid-servant, a follower after Christ? (Loud cheers.) This respectable audience will excuse me for this recollection. It occurred to my mind so forcibly, as I was brought into the midst of this vast assembly, that I could not repress the recollection; and it may serve as a reason why I should, with great pleasure, second the resolu tion I hold in my hand. (Cheers.) There was exhibited the influence which may be exercised upon a youthful mind, when God directs the voice of a humble minister, by the mighty power of a glorious spirit. The Rev. Mr. NEWTON came forward amidst long and continued cheering.He said-I believe, Sir, the true interpretation of all this is, that old friends are glad to see one another. (Cheers.) I think there is another interpretation of it, which is this, that this business of debt does not dispirit our friends, and that there is, in this large assembly, a disposition to raise the amount which will just get us up to the mark, and which has been named by my friend Dr. Bunting; and, then in that case, I am sure he will look as pleasant as any of us. (Hear, hear.) Sir, the resolution I have the honour and pleasure to submit is— "That this Meeting has heard with great satisfaction and thankfulness, that although the Committee have not deemed it expedient as yet to make a formal and general appeal to the Friends of the Society for reducing the debt arising out of the deficiencies of the years 1838, 1839, and 1840, yet that so considerable a reduction of that debt has been effected by the spontaneous contributions of several friends, the liberal grant of the Committee of the Centenary Fund, and other means, as to encourage the hope that its entire liquidation will be effected at an early period." I did, at one period, look at this debt, I confess, with feelings amounting to apprehension; and I was somewhat distressed to find that such a society as this was in such circumstances. However, I am now free to confess, that I begin to see daylight on the subject, and that my despondency and fears are vanishing.— I believe that the debt will be cancelled; that, before this day closes, the sum specified will be realized; and that we shall go down to the country with hearts rejoicing in hope, that the period is not very far distant, when the whole of this debt will be wiped away, and we shall have it in our power to say that we have complied with the divine command"Owe no man any thing, but to love one another." However, I confess, I am more solicitous at this moment as to the question of getting up the annual income of the society to what I believe ought to be the expenditure of the society for the time to come, than as to any other question. This is the point that presses on my mind, and what I wish to impress on the minds of my friends present, that they may go and recommend it to their friends in the country, because I see a great many friends from the country here to-day. This Missionary Society ought, at least, to have a regular annual income of some £10,000 or £12, 000 above what it has yet reached, in order to enable it efficiently to go on in that great work to which God in his providence has called it. Now, I have been taken by surprise upon this subject, because this resolution was not put into my hand until two or three minutes ago; and the enquiry has occurred to my mind -What should we do to effect this object? Three things have struck me.In the first place, as we all know that knowledge must go before practice, my conviction is, that the religious public, as regards some portion of that public, and that the people of this country in many parts of it, are not, to this hour, sufficiently informed on the Missionary subject. With all the stores of information they possess on other subjects, somehow or other, they have not informed themselves of the urgency of the claims of the Missionary cause as they ought to have informed themselves. Well, then, what shall we all do in reference to this? Why-make better use than we ever have done of all our Missionary Notices, of all our Missionary Papers, and of all our Missionary Reports. I would charge all those that get Missionary Reports not to keep them to themselves, but to lend them out-to circulate them in their vicinity, and to afford those an opportunity of reading them who are able to do something in support of this Society, |