Excerpt from The Constitution and Polity of the Wesleyan Methodist Church: On the Plan of the Work by the Late Henry W. Williams, D. D. A New and Enlarged Edition, Brought Down to the Conference of 1898 At the request of the Wesleyan Methodist Book Committee, the responsible duty was undertaken by me of preparing a new edition of the Constitution and Polity of Wesleyan Methodism. The original design of the work was to present a clear, concise, and complete statement of the Economy of Wesleyan Methodism in the stage of development which it had then reached. The task was executed with distinguished ability by the late Rev. Henry W. Williams, D.D. The volume proved of great service, not only to Ministers and Office-bearers, but also to private Members of the Wesleyan Methodist Church. It passed through several editions, the last being published in the year 1882. The book - now out of print - is still in demand, but it was essential that any future edition should include the legislation of succeeding Conferences. Since 1882 a great deal of new and important legislation has been enacted, and the Resolutions of the Conference adopted in successive years have modified, and in some instances superseded, the preceding Regulations. The present volume has been prepared on the excellent plan adopted by Dr. Williams, but it has been almost entirely rewritten, and consists of nearly twice the number of pages. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.