METHODIST PROGRESS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 241, 4 July 1908, Page 12

METHODIST PROGRESS.

The Mothodist West London Mission has just oomploted its twenty-first year of useful existence. At .1 meeting held to celebrate this occasion Sir William Rob son, the Attorney-General, as chairman,. oharincd tho i audience with his appreciation of Methodism and tho Mission, and delighted 'them with his genial wit. The son of a staunch follower of Wesley in Neweastle-on-Tyne, ho could not help identifying himself with what ho described as "tho greatest Protestant community in the world, and spoke as no outsider could about .tho decline in Methodism. Ho thought that meeting was a singular symptom of decline, and pointed . out tho erroneous assumptions niatlo by those who did not recogniso tho distinctions between tho adherents —whoso numbers supplied the real' tost of Mothodist progress, if .statistics woro tho basis—and tho, members based on tho attendance at the weekly class-meeting. Ho found an excellent similo for this distinction in two tortus, of which much had been hoard in Parliament during the debate on tho Small Holdings Bill—extensive aud intensive cultivation. Their present roll of church membership ho was inclined to regard as intensive culture; but when they came to extensive cultivation they looked at missions like that of West London.

"Tho thirty-seven dioceses in England," said tho Bishop of Rochester at tho Church. Reform League recontly, "must bo increased rapidly, l'nero is a very simplo way of doing this. _ Take thirty-seven bishops and halvo their salaries, and'you double the number of bishojyica."-