The Wesleyan Conference has virtually conceded the demand of the
Laity for equal representation in the governing body. The representative Committee of Laymen and Ministers to whom Conference remitted the question, after three days' dis- cussion—reported, and very badly reported, in the Times— has decided by overwhelming majorities that the time has arrived for lay representation in Conference, and that the repre- sentation of the laity shall be equal to that of the ministry. A reservation is made that all questions connected with pastoral functions shall still be decided by the Ministry alone, before the laity are admitted to their seats, and it is expected that in prac- tice the clergy will still have a majority ; but the revolution in• theory is complete, and enough to make old John Wesley sigh over his degenerate successors. He would have borne no Parliament, and he did his best, by the creation of the Legal Hundred, to make a Parliament impossible. The "spirit of the age" is, however, too strong for anybody but the Roman Episcopate, and it is conceivably possible that a Wesleyan hymn- book may hereafter be sanctioned or disallowed, by a majority in Conference composed only of human beings. The world moves fast.
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