UNITED METHODIST FREE CHURCHES.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 5561, 24 January 1879, Page 2

UNITED METHODIST FREE CHURCHES.

The District Meeting was continued yesterday iu the Courtenay-place schoolroom. After the usual devotional exercises, the minutes of the previous day’s sittings were read. Then came the second reading of the stations of the ministers. This was followed by a sitting with closed doors, while the characters of the preachers were under investigation. One minister asked to be relieved from circuit work during the coming year, on account of ill health. This is the first case of the kind that has occurred in the district, and as the brother was considered to be one of their most promising young men, a general expression of sympathy was shown, and hopes that rest and God’s blessing may result in his putting on harness again very soon. It is evident that Free Churches are active to the evils of intemperance, from the fact that the Rev. H. B. Redstone and Mr. J. Caygill were requested to prepare a resolution, to be submitted to the meeting to-day, on the question of temperance. The Rev. R. Taylor was elected as secretary and treasurer of the Contingent Fund; and the Rev. H. B. Bedstone as the tecretary and treasurer of the Preachers’ Children’s Fund. The address to the churches, prepared by the Rev. H. R. Wilkinson, was submitted to the meeting, and ordered to be published in the magazine. The reading of the statistics show that while the denomination has been gathering the people together, they have had in view the providing of church accomodation, as the following will bear evidence;—Nearly £20,000 worth of property is owned by the denomination; the total indebtedness being only £6OOO. Thus in the few years they have been at work the noble amount of church property is upwards of £14,000 net. This promises well for the future.