METHODIST CHURCH.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16397, 17 December 1918, Page 8

METHODIST CHURCH.

BIG INNOVATIONS IN CANADA,

(7ROK OUB OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

TORONTO, November 1

Two drastic changes were introduced into the polity of the Methodist Church of Canada at the General Conference, held in Hamilton, in the unanimous adoption of a clause in a committee's Teport providing that at every General! Conference tho committee of each department of tho Church shall submit three names for election to each position, these to be voted on by ballot, but not precluding nominations from the Conference, and tho adoption, on a vote of 179 to 81, of another clause in. the same committee's report, proposing that the Conference should not elect an officer to any position of the Church who has "passed his seventieth year. In consequence of .tlie latter decision, the Rev. Dr. William Briggs, who has served sixty years as a minister and an official of the Methodist Church in Canada, tendered his resignation as book steward, a position he has aMy filled for many yeare; he is eighty-two years of age, and has seen "the Book Room" grow to be the largest publishing house in Canada; he is succeeded) by the Rev. Samuel W. Fallis, a good preacher and a man of outstanding business ability, between forty and forty-five years of age. The Conference also decided unanimously to grant women equal rights and privileges with men as lay members of the Church, but after a vigorous debate declined to extend to them the same free entrance into the ministry. The extension of the lay franchise was defeated four years ago.. The admission to the ministry was voted down bv a considerable majority this time, "bub many exoect it to carry at the next General Conference, four years hence. The launching of a drive for missions, with an objective of eight million dolj lars for missionary work at home and abroad in five years, was another promiment feature of this Conference; this means that the churches will have to double their ordinary contributions to raise 1,600,000 dollars each year for the next five years.