sustaining, 459 preaching places, forty-six new churches have been built and also fourteen parsonages. One industrial school has been erected for the Indians, and another is in course of erection. The missionary income has increased forty per cent., and the membership fifty-seven per cent., the Sabbath-schools also have increased forty per cent. Several missions have become self-sustaining and others will soon follow their example.

Changes.

There was an animated debate over the time limit question, which ended thus: A minister may remain on his circuit a fourth or even a fifth year, if three-fourths of the members of the Quarterly Board, who are present, agree to the proposal, and two-thirds of the members of the Stationing Committee vote accordingly. A minister who may be transferred must remain in his new Conference at least six years, and cannot return to his former Conference in a less period than eight years. The number of Conferences in Ontario and Quebec is reduced from six to five.

Epworth League.

On this question more than ordinary interest was felt. The young people's societies are a power in the Church and they have come to stay. The contention was whether the official name should be, Epworth League, or Epworth League of Christian Endeavour. The two principal speakers were Mr. N. W. Rowell and Rev. A. C. Courtice, B. A., B.D., both of whom maintained their respective positions with more than ordinary ability. The General Conference, by a very large majority, decided that Epworth League should be the official name, but this did not exclude Leaguers from fraternizing with their Endeavour brethren. We are glad to believe that the decision arrived at will give general satisfaction, and that there will be no friction, but all the societies will work in harmony. The matter of appointing a secretary or agent for this department is assigned to the

General Conference Special Cominittee on Nominations, by the boards of the League and Sunday-schools.

Superannuation Fund.

During the past year especially there has been much correspondence in the Christian Guardian, respecting this fund. A commission appointed by the General Conference of 1890, presented a voluminous report, which was duly considered by a committee together with various other memorials. Instead of ministers contributing twelve dollars per year as hitherto, they are to pay three per cent. of their salaries; all under $500 are to pay fifteen dollars. Any minister who is set apart to any department outside of the pastorate is not only to contribute his three per cent., but the department which he serves is also to contribute fifty dollars in lieu of circuit contribution.

Church Union.

At the last General Conference a committee was appointed to confer with the Evangelical Association, but for some cause the association withdrew from the negotiations. Should matters be so arranged that they will wish to reopen the negotiations, the committee will welcome them.

The Protestant Episcopal Church at the beginning of the quadrennium seemed to be eager about union; but they cling so tenaciously to the historic episcopate that nothing can be accomplished.

As there are several weak missions in the Province of Quebec, all of which require financial aid from their respective denominations, the General Conference recommends that where at all practicable some of these may be brought into unison, and so prevent waste of men and money. A similar recommendation was made respecting domestic missions which overlap those of other denominations.

A federal committee was also appointed to confer with cther Churches on matters common to all, promote harmony, and form combinations on public questions, and perhaps eventually secure greater

unity-if not organic, at least federal union. They will unite in petitioning the Dominion Government re the Chinese question.

Book-Room and Publishing House.

It was very gratifying to learn that both in the East and West there had been a steady advance all along the line. The affairs of the Halifax establishment were steadily improving and the grant of credit to the amount of $10,000 was continued. The total profits of the quadrennium exceeded $90,000, of which $26,300 had been appropriated to the Superannuation Fund, being an increase of $4,300 over the preceding term. The Guardian and Wesleyan are both to be reduced to the price of one dollar, and two pages in each are to be reserved for Epworth League and young people's work.

The MAGAZINE and Sunday-school publications have had an extensive circulation, so that during the quadrennium 200,000 000 pages of good, wholesome literature had been sent forth, every page of which was instinct with religious influence. In four years the receipts of these publications had been over $200,000.

Discipline.

At former General Conferences the report of the Committee on this subject had always excited much interest, and consumed a great amount of time. When it became known that this year the number of suggestions for amendments, etc, might be styled "legion," we anticipated that the present would be as the past and much more abundant. The report was submitted, and the gratifying intelligence was communicated that to more than one hundred recommendations the Commi tee had voted non-concurrence. The alterations adopted were chiefly verbal.

Missionary Affairs.

Considering the almost universal depression of business it is a pleasure to record the fact, that during the quadrennium there has been a steady advance. The only decline has been

last year. The Woman's Missionary Society has also made a steady advance, having now an income of $37,974, a gain in four years of $15,667. When the General Board met to make the appropriations for the current year there was a difficult problem to solve. Applications were made from every field for an increase of grants amounting to $10,000, and a depleted income, and as the Board is not allowed to appropriate more than the income of the year next preceding, it was clear that $230,000 was the entire amount that could be appropriated. This meant cutting down. The General Secretary, Dr. Sutherland, said he would take $500 less for his allowance than he had taken the last few years. The Committee on Salaries had also recommended a reduction of $300 on the salary of the assistant. Other expenses had been reduced by lessening the number of members for the General Board and the executive; still other reductions of necessity had to be made, to make the appropriations harmonize with the income.

Rev. John Shaw, D.D., was reappointed assistant.

Rev. Dr. McDonald was reappointed treasurer and corresponding member for Japan. A joint committee of General Board, and the Woman's Society, was appointed to to adjudicate matters in Japan to prevent the agents coming in conflict with each other.

Fire Insurance.

Some of the Churches in England have insurance companies of their own, which is not only a great saving in expenditure but also brings considerab e revenue to the funds of the respective Churches. The Church property under the care of the General Conference exceeds in value $14,000.000, one half of which is not insured. A commission was appointed, consisting of a few wellknown business men, who are to look into this matter and report the result of their deliberations to the General Conference Special Committee, with power to act.

Sabbath Observance.

a minimum.

Temperance.

The General Conference still holds that to legalize the liquor traffic is sin. Ministers and members are all recommended to have nothing to do with the traffic in any shape or form. Electors are urged not to bring forward or vote for any candidate for parliamentary honours who will not pledge himself to do all in his power to help on Prohibition. As a Dominion election is sure to be held soon, Methodist electors are entreated to do their duty at the polls and vote as they pray.

Elections.

All the General Conference officers were re-elected, except the Editors of the Christian Guardian and the Wesleyan, who were succeeded by Revs. A. C. Courtice, M. A., B.D., and G. J. Boud. Dr. Carman retains the General Superintendency for eight years more. The following were re-elected for four years each. Dr. Sutherland, Missionary Secretary, Dr. Briggs and S. F. Huestis, Book Stewards; Dr. Potts. Secretary of Education; Dr. Withrow, Editor of MAGAZINE and Sundayschool publications. Rev. Jas. Woodsworth, Superintendent of Missions in Manitoba and British Columbia.

The following were elected Fraternal Delegates to the British and Irish Conferences, Rev. Dr. Dewart; to the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Rev. Dr. Lathern; to the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, Principal Sparling; to the Presbyterian General Assembly, Chancellor Burwash and Principal Shaw; to African Methodist Episcopal Church, Rev. T. W.

Miscellaneous.

Conference when he stated that Rev. F. A. Cassidy astonished the Methodist missionaries in Japan cannot solemnize marriages among England clergyman performs this A Church of their own people. duty at the British Consulate. committee was appointed to bring this matter before the British Government so that the disability may be removed.

A

The Committee on Systematic Beneficence recommended that onetenth at least of all incomes should be given to religious purposes. Just as the report was adopted intelligence was communicated that Mr. Mellanby, of Humberstone, had left property behind him valued at $75,000, most of which would come to the Missionary Society and Superannuation Funds.

A motion was introduced to authorize the election of laymen to all committees equally with ministers, but the motion was lost. Laymen can now sit on every committee except the Stationing Committee.

The gavel which the General Superintendent used so dexterously was a gift to him from Dr. T. Bowman Stephenson at the Ecumenical Conference in 1891. It was made of oak taken from John Wesley's Chapel, City Road, London.

The motion to do away with the renewal of tickets and substitute annual cards was voted down.

The C. P. R. Telegraph Company sent more than 250,000 words over its wires during Conference.

The receipts at the Conference post-office averaged ten dollars per day and upwards. Rev. B. Clement and his associates were never unemployed nor triflingly employed.

This was one of the best, if not the very best General Conference ever held in Canada. No member, so far as we know, went home with his heart wounded. The ministers and people of London were worthy of all the praise awarded them for their labour and hospitality.

IN 1895 this oldest Canadian magazine comes of age and marks this event by a long stride forward. It begins its twenty-first year and forty-first volume in a new form and enlarged size. To keep step with the latest improvements in magazine literature it changes to royal octavo, printed in best style, with copious illustration. The enlarged space thus afforded will give opportunity for the fuller treatinent of a greater variety of subjects. A special feature will be its high-class short and serial stories by the best writers, handsomely illustrated papers on mission fields and mission work, a splendid series of illustrated papers on our own country and foreign lands, Biblical manners and customs, popular science, and character-sketches of the men best worth knowing of the present and the past. These striking improvements render impossible at present a reduction in price of the MAGAZINE, but the marked reduction in the Guardian will enable the old readers of these two periodicals to obtain them both at considerably less than they have heretofore cost.

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Among the articles of special interest will be a series of splendidly illustrated papers on Bible manners and customs, being the result of the Editor's personal observation in Bible lands and wide study of Biblical literature. Among the subjects treated will be "Land Tenure in Palestine," "Agriculture," "Domestic and other Industries," "Dwellings," Food," "Clothing," "Ornaments,' 'Social Customs," Weddings and Funerals,' Festivals," "Religious Usages,' "Position of Women in the East," "Domestic and Family Relations," etc. These splendidly illustrated papers will throw much light on many passages of Scripture, and will be specially useful to all preachers and teachers, and indeed to every Bible student. Fuller announcement will be issued with the December number.

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Among the serial and other stories

and sketches will be an illustrated story of very special interest by that popular writer, Mrs. Julia McNair Wright, entitled, "The House on the Beach and the Elder's Sin," and a very strongly written story by Mrs. Amelia E. Barr. Another illustrated series of Mrs. Helen Campbell's admirable sketches on 'Light in Dark Places" will also be given; also a series of short stories by popular writers.

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The MAGAZINE has amply vindicated its right to exist during the last twenty years by the amount of direct religious reading and highclass literature of pronounced religious character which it has spread throughout the Dominion of Canada. Nearly 75,000 volumes, or 900,000 separate numbers, containing about 90,000,000 printed pages, have thus been distributed among the families of Canadian Methodism. The religious teaching thus imparted, the intellectual quickening, the broadened outlook and the moral uplift given, cannot be expressed in words; only the Great Day will reveal the great blessings attained.

The character of the reading supplied to the households of Methodism is a matter of very great importance. Amid the multiplicity of books and periodicals which abound at the present day much that is not only utterly frivolous but absolutely pernicious may find its way into homes where it is least suspected. A subtle moral malaria may exhale from the printed page, corrupting the soul and poisoning the very springs of being.

The great popular magazines of the age, while exhibiting vast enterprise and high literary skill and artistic embellishment are, for the most part, utterly secular and in some cases directly hostile to evangelical religion. One of the leading American monthlies has recently had a story of Parisian life, "whose fascination," says Dr. Abbott, in the Outlook, "will make it a dangerous book to the uncautioned reader." Its heroine possesses all the virtues

except the crowning virtue of womanhood. Another leading monthly had a clever serial discounting and disparaging Christian missions. Most of these magazines give special prominence to theatrical and sporting life, and treat with commendation questionable amusements of the times. One magazine specially recommended to the patronage of Methodists treats of fashionable life with approving descriptions of ball-room gaieties.

Is this the kind of reading by which Methodist parents wish their young people to be moulded in the most formative period of their history? Yet these magazines are largely supported by the patronage of Christian households, and such reading forms the mental aliment of large numbers in Methodist families. It is no use saying they must not read such books and magazines unless something attractive as well as instructive and religiously wholesome be given them instead.

As a substitute in some degree at least, for the reading so tinctured and tainted with moral contagion, this MAGAZINE has been established; and its successful career for a score of years has shown that it has to no small degree met a felt want. It is proposed to more fully meet this want and still more amply to provide sound, wholesome, attractive reading which shall improve the mind and give a moral and spiritual uplift. This MAGAZINE shall be in closest accord and sympathy with the great aims and objects of Methodism, its missions and evangelistic enterprises, with its religious spirit and its broad

philanthropies, and with all moral and social reforms.

The modern knight-errantry is that of missions. The age of chivalry is not past. Souls as brave as Sir Galahad or Bayard still ride abroad redressing human wrongs, and with a courage and a sacrifice beyond that of the peers or paladins of Charlemagne are devoting themselves to the uplifting of a fallen race. To the mission field, with its noble heroisms and sacritices, its self-abnegations and consecrations, special attention will be given. Woman's work for her sister women, deaconess work in large towns and cities, home mission work, and that noble Christian altruism which w th a passionate charity, a true Christlike spirit, remembers the forgotten, vis ts the forsaken, and succours the desol te and the oppressed, shall find also a record of their achievements.

We acknowledge with heartiest thanks the kind co-operation of our patrons, and especially of the ministers on the circuits, who have greatly aided us in the past. We bespeak at this juncture their special sympathy and aid to enable us to more nearly realize our ideal in the creation of a periodical of which our Church and our country may be proud. This can be done only by doubling the circulation of the MAGAZINE. We earnestly request each reader to send promptly through the m'nister of his circuit his own renewal, and to seek also at least one additional subscription. We earnestly ask the ministers spocially to kindly seek to secure this doubling of our list.