The Executors of the late Serjeant-Major Withers, of Dublin,

for payment of a Legacy of

Rev. James Everett

Mrs. C. M. Wilson, Edinburgh..

John Nussey, Esq., Birstal, Leeds

WESLEYAN THEOLOGICAL INSTITUTION.

Q. XXI. What are the Resolutions of the Conference on the Report of the Committee of the WESLEYAN THEOLOGICAL INSTITUTION?

A. 1. The Conference receives the Report of that Committee with satisfaction and gratitude, and cannot but rejoice in the undoubted signs of prosperity and usefulness with which the Institution continues to be favoured.

2. The thanks of the Conference are hereby presented to the REV. DR. BUNTING, the President of the Institution, and to the REV. JOSEPH ENTWISLE, SEN., the Governor of the Institution-House, for their valuable counsels and services during the past year.

3. The thanks of the Conference are also presented to the REV. JOHN HANNAH, SEN., the Theological Tutor, and to the REV. SAMUEL JONES, A.M., the Classical and Mathematical Tutor, for their very satisfactory attention to the duties of their respective offices.

4. The thanks of the Conference are gratefully tendered to THOMAS FARMER, ESQ., the Treasurer of the Institution; to the REV. JOHN BOWERS and the REV. GEORGE CUBITT, the Secretaries; and to the Members of the Committee of Management; for their vigilant and unwearied care of the concerns of the Institution during the year.

5. DR. BUNTING, and MESSRS. ENTWISLE, HANNAH, and JONES, are re-appointed to their several offices for the ensuing year; MR. FARMER is also respectfully requested to continue in his office as Treasurer; and MESSRS. BOWERS and CUBITT are re-appointed Secretaries.

6. The Preachers are directed to collect the Donations and Subscriptions which have been promised in their respective Circuits, and any others which they may be able to procure, in aid of the Funds of the Institution, during the first and second weeks of the month of January in each year; and to remit them to the Treasurer, addressed, Wesleyan Theological Institution, Hoxton, London, not later than the end of January.

7. It is agreed that the second year which each Student may spend at the Institution shall be reckoned to him, when he is received on trial as a Preacher, as the first of the four years of probation now required by our rule;-provided that the Officers

and the Committee of the Institution recommend such Student as having conducted himself with Christian propriety and diligence. 8. Resolved, that the object of the preparatory examination of Preachers on the List of Reserve by the London District-Meeting, as appointed in the Minutes of 1834, being, in the strictest sense, a connexional one, the expense which may be incurred by attending that examination shall be provided for by a connexional fund, at least in all those cases in which it cannot be defrayed by the Candidates themselves; the Conference regarding it as an equitable principle, that the funds of the Institution should not be chargeable with any expense, excepting for that select class of Candidates for our ministry who are, after the examination, finally taken under its care, nor even for them, until they become actually resident, as Students, in the Institution-House.

9. The cordial thanks of the Conference are presented to the REV. JOHN HANNAH, for his very able and useful pamphlet, entitled, "A Letter to a Junior Methodist Preacher, concerning the General Course and Prosecution of his Studies in Christian Theology;" and the Conference recommends that pamphlet to the diligent and careful attention of our Junior Preachers, and to the Candidates for our ministry in general.

10. It is recommended that a cheap and convenient edition of Mr. Wesley's "Christian Library" shall be published, as a valuable book of reference, for the especial use of our Students and Ministers.

11. The Committee of Management for the ensuing year shall consist of the following persons; viz., The President and Secretary of the Conference; the President, House-Governor, Tutors, Treasurer, and Secretaries of the Institution; the Rev. John Scott, as one of the Treasurers of the Wesleyan Missionary Society, and the Secretaries of that Society; the Editor and BookSteward;-with the following Ministers and Gentlemen; viz.,—

Rev. William Atherton, London,
Richard Bealey, Esq., Radcliffe,
Rev. Joseph Beaumont, London,
J. J. Buttress, Esq., London,
Rev. William M. Bunting, London,
Mr. T. Percival Bunting, Manches-
ter,

Thomas Crook, Esq., Liverpool,
Rev. Jon. Crowther, Manchester,
Rev. Jonathan Edmondson, A. M.,
Portsmouth,

J. S. Elliott, Esq., London,
Rev. A. E. Farrar, London,
John Fernley, Esq., Manchester,
Mr. Thomas Frid, London,

Rev. Thomas Galland, A.M., Leeds,
Rev. John Gaulter, London,
Rev. E. Grindrod, Sheffield,
James Heald, Esq., Stockport,
Rev. Josiah Hill, London,
James Hoby, Esq., London,
Rev. Elijah Hoole, London,
James Hunter, Esq., London,
John Irving, Esq., Bristol,
Rev. Samuel Jackson, London,
Mr. William Jenkins, London,
William F. Johnson, Esq., Man-
chester,

William Judd, Esq., London,
Mr. Peter Kruse, London,

Rev. William Leach, Bradford,
Rev. Peter M'Owan, London,
Henry Longden, Esq., Sheffield,
John Marsden, Esq., Manchester,
Rev. George Marsden, Sheffield,
W. F. Pocock, Esq., London,
Thomas F. Rance, Esq., Loudon,
Humphry Sandwith, M.D., London,
Rev. B. Šlater, Macclesfield,
Mr. William Staley, Sheffield,

Rev. Jacob Stanley, London,
Rev. Joseph Sutcliffe, A. M., Lon-
don,

Benj. Thorold, Esq., Lincoln,
Rev. Richard Treffry, London,
Rev. Richard Waddy, Wednes-
bury,

Rev. John Waterhouse, London,
James Wood, Esq., Manchester,
Rev. Robert Wood, Manchester.

APPOINTMENT OF CERTAIN OFFICERS.

Q. XXII. What is the Resolution of the Conference with respect to the APPOINTMENT OF CERTAIN OFFICERS ?

A. 1. The appointment of the Editor, the Assistant-Editor, the Book-Steward, the Missionary Secretaries, and the Governors of our Schools, shall ordinarily be for a term not exceeding six years; at the close of which period, the office shall be, as a matter of course, considered as vacant.

2. If, however, in the course of the fifth year of a Preacher's holding one of these offices, it shall appear to the Book-Committee for the time being, to the Missionary Committee, or to one of the Local School-Committees, as the case may be, that the re-appointment of any Preacher to one of the said offices is so desirable as to induce them to recommend such re-appointment, a special Committee shall be chosen by the Conference to consider the recommendation; and if that Committee also shall agree to it, the Conference reserves the right of re-appointing him for another similar term, or for any shorter one.

3. Subject to the foregoing regulations, the Conference is at liberty to renew the re-appointment to these several offices as often as it shall deem necessary.

4. These appointments shall, of course, be subject, like all other stations, to the annual confirmation or reversal of the Conference.

WESLEYAN PROPRIETARY SCHOOL AT SHEF

FIELD.

Q. XXIII. What is the judgment of the Conference on the projected WESLEYAN PROPRIETARY SCHOOL AT Sheffield?

Å. The Conference has heard, with great pleasure, that some highly respected gentlemen in Sheffield have determined to establish, in that vicinity, a Proprietary School, uniting the advantages of a sound classical and literary education with a religious and Wesleyan training. The Conference deeply feels the great value and importance of the object in view, and admires the spirit and zeal with which the gentlemen have pursued it; and as they have been the first to propose a plan which, it is hoped, will be exten

sively beneficial to that important neighbourhood, and may possibly be followed in other parts of the Connexion, the Conference consents that they shall be at liberty to make an arrangement with any Preacher who now is, or may hereafter, by consent of the Conference, become a Supernumerary, if one, sustaining that relation to our body, can be found, who is suitable for the office of House-Governor and Chaplain to this proposed Seminary, and willing to undertake it.

ORDINATION BY IMPOSITION OF HANDS.

Q. XXIV. What is the decision of the Conference on the ORDINATION OF OUR MINISTERS BY IMPOSITION OF HANDS?

A. The Conference, after mature deliberation, resolves that the Preachers who are this year to be publicly admitted into full connexion, shall be ordained by imposition of hands;-that this shall be our standing rule and usage in future years;—and that any rule of a contrary nature, which may be in existence, shall be, and is hereby, rescinded.

N.B. The Conference agrees that Returned Missionaries, who have travelled with acceptance four years and upwards, having been already, on their appointment to the foreign work, solemnly set apart to the office of the ministry by the imposition of hands, shall not be re-ordained with the approved Candidates for the home work, who may be received into full connexion ;-but that there shall be a formal recognition of them, by the President and Secretary for the time being, acting on behalf of the Conference, in a separate public service appointed for that purpose; when they shall be examined with respect to their continued attachment to the doctrines and discipline to which they are already solemnly pledged, and shall also be expected to give an account, if time will permit, of their present Christian experience, and of their labours in the foreign department of our work.

OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS OF LAST YEAR.

Q. XXV. What is the judgment of the Conference on reviewing the "Official Documents" respecting various parts of our discipline, which were published in the Minutes of last year, and the Explanations and Improvements therein contained?

A. I. We are thankful to find, as we fully expected, that the great body of our people, so far from desiring any change in the essential character of our Christian discipline, have evinced, by their almost universal approbation of the general principles maintained in those Documents, that they are utterly averse to such change, and are, with us, resolved that the system as received from

Mr. Wesley, but adapted to the state of our Societies after his death, by the Regulations of 1797, shall be faithfully preserved.

2. We learn with great pleasure that the several Documents, explaining some of our rules which were considered to be, in some degree, obscure and ambiguous in their phraseology, and improving other rules, with the arrangements for completing the union of Laymen with Ministers in the management of our several Funds, and the solemn determination of the Preachers steadfastly to adhere to those long-established principles of scriptural discipline, by which our societies have been preserved in peace and prosperity, have given great and general satisfaction to our societies, and served to confirm their confidence in the stability and efficiency of Wesleyan Methodism.

3. We hereby express our great obligation to Dr. Bunting for the discriminating and able manner in which he embodied the results of those deliberations, which so long and anxiously engaged the attention of a Committee appointed by the last Conference to consider the subjects which had been brought into question, and afterwards of the Conference itself, in Documents, maintaining at once the scriptural integrity of the pastoral office, and the Christian liberties of our people; and we now present to him our unanimous and cordial thanks.

SOCIETY-MEETINGS AND PRAYER-MEETINGS.

Q. XXVI. Is it necessary again to enforce our existing Regulations on the subject of SOCIETY-MEETINGS AND PRAYERMEETINGS?

A. 1. We think it is; and as the frequent meeting of our societies is of great importance to the establishment and perpetuation of the work of God among our people, the Conference again directs, that in every place where there is preaching on the Lord's day, the Preachers shall regularly meet the societies according to our original practice; and that, when they visit the country places on week-days only, they shall, as often as is consistent with their other duties, meet the societies on those evenings.

2. Though the Conference approves of occasional meetings for prayer in our chapels, after the evening preaching on the Lord's day, as there are seasons when an extraordinary influence may render them proper, yet it advises that such meetings shall be only occasional, and that the Preachers' ordinary practice shall be to meet the societies, and give suitable counsel to the various classes of our people.

3. It is also very desirable that Prayer-Meetings should be held in various parts of the Circuit and other large towns, at such times as will not interfere with our public worship; meetings of that