connection with the present status of the laymen question. The present plan never was satisfactory to a single layman, for it never met a single condition involved in lay representation, for there is no lay representation in it. Waving the objection that the electoral college which chooses lay delegates is the creature of the Quarterly Conferences, which are in turn the creations of the pastors, and often composed largely of members of Annual Conferences, the fact that at best the laymen compose less than one third of the General Conference, and even then may easily be set aside by the majority, so as to become only a body of obstructionists, without whose consent a measure cannot pass, invests the whole with a sense of inferiority which is repugnant to American notions of representation. The action of the lay representatives of the Conference of 1888, as well as of the two preceding General Conferences, indicates their wishes. They want equal representation, and they want to represent the laymen of the Church, not the ministers, as the laymen now do, being elected through ministerial machinery. While less than three thousand five hundred ministers can negative more than two million laymen, laymen will not be in a hurry to vote after their late experience, in which the wishes of more than three to one have been disregarded. Then what? Probably nothing in the near future. The very emphatic setback given to the Philadelphia Conference proposition for equal representation by the Conferences that have voted, indicate the present animus of the traveling connection toward laymen. One Conference voting against this proposition more than four to one subsequently voted almost unanimously in favor of an explanatory resolution, saying that this vote is not to be construed as opposed to the proposition for an equal number of laymen; but they must deliberate in a separate house-the politician's dodge in favor of the Maine law but opposed to its enforcement. As an obstructing agent half the present number would answer as well, and be much cheaper, than twice the number. Then what? There is one chapter of Methodist history that no loyal Methodist can contemplate without a sense of mortification. It began almost with the beginning. Thousands were converted at our altars in the days in which our growth was almost wholly by accretions from without, only to become members of other Churches, either immediately or as soon as possible afterward; while thousands who were for a time pillars in the Church have quietly gone into other communions, taking their families with them. So common has this been, that there is not a city fifty years old of five thousand inhabitants, in which there are not examples of families that were once active Methodists who are now equally influential in some Church in which laymen have a voice in church affairs. This has gone on for a century or more so quietly as to attract little attention except to elicit the complacent remark: "Withdrawals from our Church have never been on account of doctrinal disagreements, but always on account of dissatisfaction with our economy." A little investigation as to this dissatisfaction will always trace it, directly or indirectly, to the status of laymen in the Church; and I may add parenthetically, and very complacently as well, that a reflex influence of this infusion of Methodist doctrinal teachings into sister Churches is seen to-day in the demand for creed revisions in the Churches that have shared most largely in these changes of church relations. Pews, educated theologically by Methodists, have given theological tone to pulpits, and now pew and pulpit are hand in hand laboring to make the written creed correspond with the creed of the pew and pulpit. Methodist laymen will eventually sit side by side with the apostles and elders in all Methodist Church convocations, as they did in the early times, when "the whole Church" deliberated with the office-bearers on questions of doctrine and duty. Methodism will never put on her whole strength until it thus far follows the pattern of the earliest days of Christianity. But this will come as an evolution, not as a revolution. There will be no more secessions to bring this about. No mutual rights paper will make this its hobby. The stream of withdrawals will continue, and some Methodists will say, "Let them go, if they are not Methodist enough to love our economy." But that spirit of elasticity which has already eliminated every thing but this that was distinctively Methodistic in polity even fifty years ago will bring "the whole Church" up to the standard of efficiency which is set up in the Gospels and Epistles, in which there is no exclusive prerogative claimed by any one, but all are one in Christ. [March, Fifty years ago there was not even the semblance of a theological school in all American Methodism. This was not so much for the want of means as because of a settled hostility to such schools, and the first attempt in that direction was purely tentative. A moribund seminary was converted into a harmless "biblical institute," and thus nursed until it became a fullfledged theological school. It was an evolution, not a revolution. Fifty years ago men and women were required to sit apart in all our churches. To-day there is no trace of the custom left in any Methodist church. The change was an evolution, not a revolution; but not until it had contributed largely to defections from the Church. Fifty years ago there was not an instrument of music in any Methodist church in America except under anathema; to-day there is hardly a church without some instrument, while some have a whole orchestra. This by evolution, not by revolution. Fifty years ago the Methodist preacher who did not kneel in prayer would not have been tolerated; to-day some bishops stand when they pray. These and many other changes have taken place within the memory of men who are not very old. The present plan of lay representation is tentative only. It has developed both devotion to the interests of the Church and great ability in deliberating upon them on the part of laymen. And now it is evident that the time is coming for as full a recognition both of the rights of laymen and their worth in counsel in the Methodist Episcopal Church as in any other Church. As every step of the evolutions which have eliminated every distinctive feature of old-fashioned Methodism has been taken in the face of opposition, so opposition may be expected here. We have only to wait. We want no more votings by the laity on any proposition. The increasing intelligence of our ministry is a guarantee of the coming uplift of our Church to the highest plane of efficiency. T.A. Goodwin ART. VI.-WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, D.C.L. "THE lapse of years," said Dean Stanley in one of his later addresses, "has only served to deepen in me the conviction that no gift can be more valuable than the recollection and the inspiration of a great character working on our own." It is to quicken the recollection of one who was sincerely great in life and utterance that we undertake the study of the life of William Wordsworth. He belongs in the zodiac of the worthies. Indeed, when we come to the study of the life—the immortal part--of any man, we are face to face with divinity. Biography is the burning bush of being. No elevation on the earth is so high as personal character. And when character takes the harp of expression and pours out its content in poetry we have whole continents of light, and all life feels the inspiration. Is this chimera? We answer, No. There are no great myths. They are all small. So, in vaster sense, are vast minds real ones. They have a biography. We may not always know when they were born, or with whom they played, or when they came to a knowledge of their powers. The wheel of time may have ground away the edge, yea, the indenture, of their lives, but their mental flashes, the human quality, is intact; and we say these men were once with nursing mothers like our own. And what if the statistics of biography do grow dim? Their work is their biography. Achilles and Ulysses are Homer; we know them. Othello and Lear are Shakespeare; they testify of him. And "Samson Agonistes" is one of the best lives of John Milton ever written. But we may come nearer to men than this. We are in an exact period. All houses have added windows and subtracted bars and shutters. If modesty has suffered truth has rejoiced. If there has been more invasion there is less evasion. Can all men live long under this skylight method? We answer, Only those whose lives and works are fitted for sunshine. That is why writers like Byron lose fragrance. That is why character grows valuable and looks over the shoulder of preacher and poet. And is not this why the long half-averted eye of opinion now turns toward a knight of this and the last century-fastens on Rydal Mount in England, Grasmere, and Alfoxden, his dwelling-places-and sees William Wordsworth "The happy warrior, Conspicuous object in a nation's eye, Who, whether praise of him should walk the earth Or he should go to dust without his fame, Found comfort in himself and in his cause; And, while the mortal mist was gathering, drew The life data of this man are simple. Born on the 7th of April, 1770, at Cockermouth on the Cumberland, educated in the grammar schools of Penvith and Hawkshead, and a graduate of St. John's, Cambridge, in 1791; two years later he comes before the public for the first time as an author in two poems: "An Evening Walk," addressed to a Young Lady, and "Descriptive Sketches," taken during a pedestrian tour among the Alps. Of these first efforts there were few admirers, yet one above many to be chosen such, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. From this hour these two minds, like two planets, drew toward each other, and shone long years in brilliant conjunction. With the settlement of Wordsworth at Racedown Lodge, in Dorsetshire, in 1797, and of Coleridge at Nether Stowey, but three miles away, may be said to have begun that new type of English poetry known as the Lake School, the era of real song, the second rennaissance. In 1798 Coleridge and Wordsworth published unitedly the "Lyrical Ballads," one of which, "The Ancient Mariner," was the joint production, in part at least, of these two minds, written to raise the sum of five pounds to pay the expenses of an itineracy into Devonshire. Next we see Wordsworth traveling with Coleridge in Germany, then residing at Grasmere, and in 1813 settled permanently at Rydal Mount and married to Mary Hutchinson, his playmate in childhood, and his devoted wife for forty-eight years. In 1814 comes forth the "Excursion," his longest though not his greatest poem, and the one that laid the basis of his growing fame. From this period we find him writing, rewriting, traveling on |