their behalf. The ministerial delegates, by resolution, reciprocated their expressions of esteem and confidence.

Standing committees were ordered on Episcopacy, Itinerancy, Boundaries, Book Concern, Missions, Education, Revisals, Sunday-schools and Tracts, Appeals, Church Extension, Freedmen, and State of the Church-these committees to consist of one member from each annual conference delegation, to be nominated by the said delegations.

Oliver S. Munsell, John M. Phillips (reserve lay delegate acting in place of Philip B. Swing, not present, from the Cincinnati Conference), D. N. Cooley (lay delegate from Upper Iowa Conference), and Edward A. Manning were elected assistant secretaries. Rules of order were adopted and published in the Daily Christian Advocate.

Special committees, to consist of seven members each, were appointed on Temperance, Pastoral Address, Expenses of Delegates, American Bible Society, Metropolitan Church at Washington, Scandinavian Work, and Fraternal Correspondence. Also committee of thirteen on Church Insurance; of twenty-five on the Support of Bishops, Expenses of Delegates, and Other Church Expenses; of five on Erecting a Monument over the Grave of Bishop Kingsley in Syria, and of nine on the Centennial of American Independence in 1876.

During the preceding quadrennium four of the bishops had died-Osmon C. Baker, Calvin Kingsley, Edward Thomson, and Davis W. Clark. Memorial services were ordered to be held; and on Saturday, May 18th, these services were presided over by Freeborn G. Hibbard. Bishop Simpson read a brief sketch of each of the deceased bishops, and addresses were then made as follows: On Bishop Thomson, by Daniel Curry; on Bishop Baker, by Lorenzo R. Thayer; on Bishop Clark, by Luke Hitchcock; and on Bishop Kingsley, by Moses Hill.

Luke H. Wiseman and Wm. Morley Punshon, fraternal delegates from the British Conference, were introduced to the Conference, May 8th, and presented their credentials as delegates and the address of the British Conference to the General Conference. The credentials and the address having been read, they both addressed the Conference. Howard Crosby, fraternal delegate from the General Assembly of the Presbyterian

Church, was introduced, and presented his credentials. He then addressed the Conference. Joseph W. McKay, an accredited delegate from the Irish Wesleyan Conference, presented the address from his conference, and addressed the Conference.

George R. Sanderson and Alexander Sutherland were introduced as delegates from the Wesleyan Conference of Canada; Henry Pope, as delegate from the Wesleyan Conference of Eastern British America; E. A. Wheat, C. H. Williams, J. B. Hamilton, and others, from "The Methodist Church;" Dr. George B. Bacon, from the American Congregational Council, and Joseph Wild and Michael Benson from the Canada Methodist Episcopal Church. On May 11th, addresses were delivered by the delegates from four of the corresponding bodies before the General Conference; Messrs. Wild and Benson speaking on May 14th. The Committee on Correspondence was instructed to prepare suitable resolutions in reference to the addresses from the fraternal delegates, just delivered.

The Committee on Fraternal Correspondence on a later day reported answers to these addresses, which were adopted, the secretary, G. W. Woodruff, and W. L. Harris being authorized to edit the same before they should be engrossed for delivery.

On May 16th, John J. Murray, a fraternal delegate from the Methodist Protestant Church, was received, and he delivered an address to the Conference. Hon. George Vickers, a co-delegate, could not be present, but he forwarded a letter, which was read to the Conference. Bishop Singleton T. Jones, of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, sent a letter, stating that on account of disaffection in that Church on the subject of union with the Methodist Episcopal Church, he desired that further negotiations looking to that end might be stayed for the present. The address of the Evangelical Association to the General Conference was read on May 22d, and R. Dubs and Thomas Bowman, delegates from that Church, addressed the Conference.

On May 27th the fraternal delegates from the American Baptist Home Missionary Society, Drs. Gillette and Dunn, were introduced, and addressed the Conference. On June 1st a fraternal letter to the General Conference of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, in session in Nashville, Tenn., was

read and adopted. This letter was in answer to a telegram received from that Conference a few days previously.

The following brethren were, on the nomination of the Committee on Fraternal Relations, appointed fraternal delegates to the several bodies named: English Wesleyan Conference: the bishop who shall attend the conference in Germany and Switzerland and J. A. McCauley; alternate, F. G. Hibbard; Irish Wesleyan Conference, same as above; Canada Wesleyan Conference, Miner Raymond, A. C. George; Eastern British America Conference, William R. Clark, William H. Elliott; Canada Methodist Episcopal Church, Moses Hill, Homer Eaton; African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, Lucius C. Matlock, James Lynch; Methodist Church in the United States, Wm. Hunter, Gideon Martin; Methodist Protestant Church, Wesley Kenney, Joseph M. Trimble; Evangelical Association, Jacob Rothweiler, James F. Chalfant; National Council of Congregational Churches, Stephen Allen, J. C. W. Coxe, Otis H. Tiffany; General Assembly of Presbyterian Church, S. H. Nesbit, Jacob B. Graw; and Baptist Church (through their Missionary Societies), C. D. Foss, D. Stevenson.

The secretary was requested to prepare and cause to be printed a manual, containing the rules of order, the roll of delegates, list of standing committees, with the times and places of meeting, and such other information as he might deem necessary for the use and convenience of the Conference.

On petition of a convention of colored members in Georgia and of the Georgia Conference, the organization of a Conference of colored preachers in that state was referred to the Committee on Boundaries. The work among colored people had heretofore been looked after chiefly by white conferences or mixed white and colored conferences. It was thought that new conferences, consisting of colored preachers only, might be organized in the South; hence this request from Georgia. The Lexington Conference had been formed out of the Kentucky Conference during the quadrennium, composed of colored preachers; and the Washington Conference, of colored preachers, had only been organized.

The principal subject which occupied the attention of the Conference was the Book Concern. During the quadrennium

just ended, the Junior Book Agent, John Lanahan, discovered in some of the departments of the business loose methods of keeping the accounts and other irregularities; and he believed there were also frauds, causing great losses to the Concern. The Senior Agent, Thomas Carlton, did not credit the statement that frauds had been committed by any of the employees; but to make the matter clear, both the Agents and the Book Committee, to which it had been referred, and which had heard both the accusation and the defense, engaged expert accountants to examine all the books, accounts, and correspondence of the Agents, to discover anything wrong, if it existed. The Book Committee presented both a majority and a minority report, the former being accompanied by the report of James P. Kilbreth, who had been employed as a referee. In addition to the joint report of the Agents at New York, Dr. Lanahan made a sub-report, defending his official conduct, and Dr. Carlton presented a rejoinder. S. J. Goodenough, superintendent of the printing-department, also sent a communication; and John A. Gunn made a defense of his report submitted to Dr. Carlton, and embodied in the minority report of the Book Committee.

A special committee on the Book Concern, to consist of one member from each annual conference delegation, was ordered, and each delegation thereupon selected a member to serve on this committee. To this committee were referred all reports and papers relative to alleged frauds and irregularities in the Book Concern; but all other papers pertaining to the publishing interests of the Church were referred to the regular standing committee on the Book Concern. In case any member of the special committee should be absent, the delegation which appointed him was authorized to fill his place. This committee, after a full and patient investigation of all the irregularities and alleged frauds in the Book Concern at New York, made an elaborate report, stating: 1. That the evidence showed that frauds had been practiced in the bindery, whereby the Book Concern had suffered loss; 2. That there had been irregularities in the management of the business of the house, by which losses had been, or might have been, sustained; 3. That such losses, if any, were not of sufficient magnitude to en

danger the financial strength of the establishment or to impair its capital; 4. That the business methods used had been such as to afford opportunities for frauds and peculations by subordinates; 5. That no Agent or Assistant Agent is or had been implicated or interested in any frauds that may have been practiced in the Concern; 6. That the present methods of keeping accounts and of conducting the business are such as to insure reasonable and ordinary protection against frauds and irregularities; and 7. That the report of the Agents was a fair exhibit of the assets and liabilities of the Concern. The report was adopted.

The boundaries of seventy-six conferences, a gain of five since the preceding General Conference, were defined; the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, organized by a select number of women in Boston, in 1869, was recognized as a valuable institution of the Church; and it was determined to elect a secretary for the Board of Education, and again ordered that the second Sunday of June, annually, be everywhere observed as "Children's Day," and that on that day a collection be taken in the Sunday-school in aid of the Sunday-school Fund of the Board of Education.

It was reported in the Conference that Abel Minard, of Morristown, N. J., had established a Home, and secured a charter therefor, for the training of daughters of foreign missionaries of our Church, for the reception of orphan and halforphan daughters of our deceased ministers, and also for such other orphan and half-orphan girls as the trustees might admit, and had secured the same to the Methodist Episcopal Church. It was therefore resolved that the Minard Home be commended to the generous liberality of the Church and to the public.

The Committee on the State of the Church reported an amendment to the chapter in the Discipline on imprudent conduct, so as to make more explicit the General Rule on the subject of sinful amusements. These amusements were grouped as dancing, playing at games of chance, theater-going, horseraces, circuses, dancing parties or balls, patronizing dancingschools, and taking such other amusements as are obviously of misleading or questionable moral tendency. The report