which, or the knowledge of which, has come into being since the appointment, would claim the power to nullify the action of the Bishop by changing any or all of the "Preachers on his District." His necessary powers for unforeseen emergencies are guaranteed, but his position is that of an agent of the Bishop, and it is made impossible for him to do any damage by usurping the prerogatives of his superior by two safeguards. He can himself be removed by a single act of episcopal discretion, and his conduct in his office is subject, and has been from the beginning, to review at the next session of the Annual Conference to which he belongs.*

The General Conference of 1840 made this clear by special legislation, whereby a provision which seemed to give the Presiding Elder power to permit a Preacher to leave his work was stricken out.

Appointments made at Conference are therefore annual, subject only to the operation of causes arising subsequent to the appointments, when the Bishop may revise his judgment, or, in case of his being inaccessible, the Presiding Elder may act for him in a critical emergency. But after a second re-appointment the Bishop is powerless, and so also is his agent, even in the employment of Superannuate and Local Preachers.†

It is this machinery which makes the Itineracy effective. The position taken by those who would remove the time limit is, that the appointing power is competent without the aid of a statutory limitation to secure the desired result more efficiently than is possible under any restriction other than its own judgment of the demands of the work.

It is held by the present writer, that "a limitation by law is essential to the successful working and permanency of the Itineracy."

"And yet their power is so considerable that it would by no means be sufficient for them to be responsible to the Bishops only for their conduct in their office. They are as responsible in this respect, and in every other, to the yearly Conference to which they belong, as any other preacher."- Coke and Asbury's Notes on the Discipline.

"Provided, however, that a Presiding Elder shall not change a Preacher in his District from a charge to which he has been appointed by the Bishop, and appoint him to another to which he could not be legally appointed by the Bishop. The law of limitation applies also to Superannuated and Local Preachers who are employed in the pastoral work.”—Discipline, p. 106.

RE-EXAMINATION OF THE REASONING OF FORMER ARTICLE. We now propose a careful survey of the fortifications erected in defense of our position, that a time limit is indispensable to the efficiency and perpetuity of the Itineracy, to determine what breaches if any have been made; and whether, if any are found, they can be repaired, or, if incapable of being strengthened, they are sufficient to undermine or overthrow the structure. I. The first position was thus stated:

1. Under a limitation the appointments are made in the discretion of the appointing power until the limit is reached. The will of the Bishop determines when the pastor shall go, whether he shall return once or twice. Loyalty requires him to go or stay. But, according to his appointment, when the constitutional limit is reached the Bishop becomes "weak as other men." It is now the whole Denomination which compels the incumbent to move, and he cannot resist. If the Bishop, the Minister, and the Church, should combine, it would avail nothing. Hence it is impossible for the man to stay, and though he may go with the tears of the people mingling with his own, there is no outcry against the Bishop. But let all limitation be removed, and the exercise of Episcopal discretion is the sole "efficient cause of the otherwise unnecessary removal of their beloved pastor, and the people are grieved and indignant, while he feels oppressed. And after a pastor should have been settled many years in a place, if the people desired him to remain, it would be impossible to remove him without his consent. It would be useless to talk to either about the good of the Denomination as long as both were satisfied.

This position has received attention from the editor of the "Methodist" whose remarks we quote in full:

Some of the reasons of Dr. B. for a time limit are: 1. After the limit is reached "It is the whole Denomination which compels the incumbent to move, and he cannot resist." We have once before pointed out the fallacy in this statement. We answer now as before, "the whole Denomination" requires a man to go at the end of any year, if the Bishop, speaking for it, tells him to go, "and he cannot resist." Any removal has the whole Denomination behind it, and there is no case of successful resistance known to us. The whole Denomination weighs (at least) just as much when its law empowers a Bishop to do something as when it forbids him to do it. The vast virtue of a negative is chiefly a matter of the controversial imagination.

It would seem that this passage was written under an error as to the meaning of the statement declared to be fallacious.

We must, therefore, endeavor to make it more clear. Up to the statutory limit the decision is contingent on the judgment and will of the Bishop; but when the limit is reached the removal is arbitrarily effected by the force of the statute.

When the Denomination empowers a Bishop to perform an act contingent on his discretion and will, it holds him personally responsible for his action. Ministers and Churches have their opinions of the wisdom or folly of his decisions, of his motives, of his "bias ;" and if he could be proved to have an unworthy motive, or to have neglected to inform himself, or to have acted capriciously, or without reason, it would be a sufficient ground for impeachment. But when the law limits the term, the personality of the Bishop sinks out of sight before the impartial decree of the Denomination. Let it be observed that, in the final decision, the Bishop has every thing to do with the minister's leaving prior to the expiration of the term of three years, but practically nothing whatever to do with his leaving at the end of that time. As when the law fixes the punishment of murder in the first degree to be death, the jury having declared the prisoner guilty, the judge has no alternative, and therefore no responsibility for the sentence; so when the third year ends, the law relieves the Bishop of all responsibility, by forbidding another reappointment to the same circuit or station until after the lapse of three years more. Whether this radical difference exists is a question of fact; whether it is recognized is one of perception. The logical reader will decide after due reflection. We should hardly have thought it necessary to refer to it again, were it not that some may have seen the objection who never saw the original proposition. The editor of the "Northern," in an elaborate article, which strikes us as a model of gentlemanly discussion, thus summarizes the argument:

In other words, the ministers and members of the Methodist Episcopal Church will submit to inconveniences which come from a statutory regulation, but would not submit, even for the greater good of the Church, to the same inconvenience coming from the exercise of discretion conferred by the statute upon the administrators of the law.

To this we reply: "Discretion," given by the statute to the administrators, may be judged by the discretion of those af

fected; "the greater good of the Church" becomes a matter of opinion, and there is room for argument, appeal, and resistance to any extent less than rebellion. Now, to destroy the force of our reasoning, Dr. Warren says:

Let us test the validity of this argument by experience. The fact is, that under the operation of the present rule not more than one third-probably not more than one fourth-of the changes or removals of pastors to new charges made every year are required by the limitation. We base this assertion upon facts ascertained from an examination of the Minutes of five eastern Conferences, and two western. Here, then, we find "Episcopal discretion" exercised each year in effecting the removal of at least two thirds of the pastors who receive new appointments. Under these circumstances we venture to affirm, that of those who are moved by Episcopal discretion, there will be found a smaller proportion complaining of the act of the Bishop than can be found among those who are moved by the limitation complaining of the arbitrary exactions of the law.

We quote so much because the style is clear, and because we have no sympathy with the method of discussion which distorts language to gain a point.

The question is, Does the fact that two thirds of the removals are cheerfully submitted to under the exercise of Episcopal discretion prove, or even raise a presumption that a "time limit" is not essential to the "successful working" of the itineracy? We hold that it does not, and for these reasons. Most removals before the time limit is reached are of one of the following classes: the Church or the minister wishes a change, or one or both are indifferent to it, or a minister is wanted for some more important work.

The instances in which a minister strongly wishes to stay, and the Church as strongly desires him to remain, and the minister is removed before the time limit is reached without some most imperative reason growing out of the demand for his peculiar gifts, are "few and far between;" and when they occur, they are most bitterly complained of by pastor and people, and are astonishing to all. They are submitted to because there is no help, and because both minister and Church know that the pastor could not stay more than one year, or, at the most, two years longer.

Now, no one, so far as we have learned, ever imagined a time

limit to be necessary to preserve the Itineracy in cases where the minister wished to go, or the people earnestly desired a change, or both were indifferent on the subject, or where the reason for the removal is so obvious that neither minister nor people could complain. How, then, it could be fancied that submission to "Episcopal discretion" in instances where there is substantial agreement or indifference, would show that if there were no limit, and both minister and people felt in their "inmost souls" that the separation was wholly unnecessary and would ruthlessly sunder ties that years of intimacy had formed, there would be equal submission-is a problem as difficult of solution as any presented by the subject itself.

The same writer adds another passage which, if we understand it, is not confirmed by the history either of Churches or Nations:

If it shall be claimed that the one third who are moved by the limitation include most of the more able and experienced ministers, we reply: The greater measure of loyalty ought also to be with them, and it would hardly be admitted by them that they would not submit to the exercise of Episcopal discretion as cheerfully as their younger and weaker brethren.

On the subject of "loyalty," we shall speak in another part of the discussion; but observe here, that the men who are more likely to revolt are those who, by reason of conscious strength, influence, and position, have grounds for expecting success. The young, except in a few instances of rashness, and the weak, know that there is no help for them; but the able and experienced, accustomed to rule, are strongly tempted, when they feel the yoke of higher authority, to resist. Most of the serious difficulties in the exercise of Episcopal discretion have come from influential Churches and able or popular ministers, though by no means always co-related. The men who in Europe and America have left original Methodism and formed other sects, have not, as a rule, been "young and weak," but "able and experienced." James O'Kelly, Nicholas Snethen, Alexander M'Caine, Asa Shinn, the leaders of the South on the one hand, and Orange Scott and his colleagues on the other, were not "young or weak." We may conclude, therefore, that the distinction between the "exercise of Episcopal discretion and a statutory regulation," relieving