METHODIST CONFERENCE.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 834, 4 June 1910, Page 9

METHODIST CONFERENCE.

RETIRING PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. Tho retiring president of the Australasian Methodist Conference (the Rev. W. Williams), in. - his opening address at Adelaide, said that tho Chapman-Alexander mission was duo notable occurrence of the triennium. Methodism needed no conversion to cause revivals. Methodism was itself a revival. Their Church was born in the great spiritual awakening of the eighteenth century, and they would be false both to their training and traditions if their hearts did not thrill to the strong, tender message of that mission of revival in the eighteenth , j century. .The Methodist Church was not the only product; perhaps it was not even the greatest result. Its influence was Felt in the dominance of the evangelistic note in all the churches jf English-speaking Protestantism. . If Richard Boardman and Joseph Pilmoor had not carried Methodism 'into America, Wilbur Chapman might not have como to Australia. Since Methodism was the mother of recent evangel--ism, they must take care that they did not fail in that evangelism, in which they were once unrivalled. Tho demands upon their ministers steadily grew. They had. become versatile, dexterous, learned; hut if for these they had sacrificed the evangelists' passion and evangelists' power, they had paid for them far ,too much. Dr. Chapman said lie was made an evangelist hy the prayers and evangelism of his people. Their churches,'he said, "give us evangelistic ministers." Ministers might well'answer,'"Give us evangelistic churches." One was the complement of tlie other, and each made the other complete. They were sent to repair, to remodel—perhaps, -even to build the • ecclesiastical machinery. Above all things, it was necessary that they shojild clearly know what was the force they exerted to touch their machinery, and make it live. The power of tho* Church was the power of good living within her, working through her. In all their Church enterprises they, were simply to make a path for the feet of God. The great need of tho world to-day was a. clearer manifestation , of tho fuller coming into His Kingdom of Jesus Christ. There was always a danger that their religion might ■iccome conventional and traditional: vhat it might lose the healthy hues of flesh and blood, and grow anaemic. There was tho peril that the song of the world might prove to be a melody of sirens, leading them to tragedy and death. There was a danger tliat the clutching hands of time might draw them out w touch with eternity. Tho training of their ministers was receiving- closer attention. It was important—it was even imperative —that candidates be better equipped for their work. .