Excerpt from Proceedings of the Third OEcumenical Methodist Conference: Held in City Road Chapel, London, September, 1901 The (ecumenical Conferences, occurring once in ten years, are valuable as points of definition and calculation. It is satisfactory to know that the number of Church members has steadily advanced during the decade, and that the totals of churches, Sunday scholars, and adherents all Show a corresponding increase. The Statistical Reports presented to the Conference are profoundly interesting, and full of inspiration. They will, without doubt, be carefully studied alike by comrades and critics. This, the winning of souls to Christ, and building them up in their most holy faith, is the prime work of the Church, without which all else is vain, and by reference to which everything else should be judged. To alter the constitution of a Church, to draw the Churches nearer to each other, or to unite those who have been disparted, is not in itself of any importance, except as it improves the capacity of the Church for its great work of saving mankind. Whatever promotes this, directly or indirectly, is worthy of all care and efiort; nothing that will not help this is worth the time Spent upon it. For the Church's business is salvation; and it is a matter for rejoicing that Methodism is still a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough whose branches run over the wall. 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.