VI. Duties of Pastors.

¶ 349, § 1. It shall be the duty of the Pastor, aided by the Superintendent and the Committee on Sunday Schools, to decide as to what books and other publications shall be used in the Sunday Schools.

§ 2. It shall be the special duty of the Pastor, with the aid of the other Preachers and the Committee on Sunday Schools, to form Sunday Schools in all our Congregations where ten persons can be collected for that purpose, which Schools shall be auxiliary to the Sunday School Union of the Methodist Episcopal Church; to engage the cooperation of as many of our Members as they can; to visit the Schools as often as practicable; to preach on the subject of Sunday Schools and the religious instruction of children in each Congregation at least once in six months; to form classes, wherever they can, for the instruction of the larger children, youth, and adults in the word of God; and where they cannot superintend them personally, to see that suitable Teachers are provided for that purpose.

§ 3. It shall be the duty of our Ministers to enforce faithfully upon parents and Sunday School Teachers the great importance of instructing children in the doctrines and duties of our holy religion; to see that our Catechisms be used as extensively as possible in our Sunday Schools and families; and to preach to the children, and catechise them publicly in the Sunday Schools and at public meetings appointed for that purpose.

§ 4. It shall be the duty of every Minister in his pastoral visits to pay special attention to the children; to speak to them personally and kindly on the

subject of experimental and practical godliness, according to their capacity; to pray earnestly for them; and diligently instruct and exhort all parents to dedicate their children to the Lord in baptism as early as convenient.

§ 5. Each Pastor shall lay before the Quarterly Conference, to be entered on its Journal, the number and state of the Sunday Schools in his Charge, and the extent to which he has preached to the children and catechised them, and shall make the required report on Sunday Schools to his Annual Conference.

CHAPTER IV.

MISSIONARY WORK.

THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY.

I. Incorporation and Officers.

350. For the better prosecution of Missionary work in the United States and in foreign countries, there shall be a Missionary Society, duly incorporated according to law, and having its office in the city of New York, said Society being subject to such rules and regulations as the General Conference may from time to time prescribe.

NOTE.-For Charter, Constitution, By-Laws, etc., etc., see Annual Report of Missionary Society.

351. The Board of Managers of the Missionary Society shall have power to suspend a Corresponding Secretary, or Treasurer, or Manager, for cause to them

sufficient; and a time shall be fixed by the Board, at as early a day as practicable, for the investigation of the official conduct of said Secretary, Treasurer, or Manager, due notice of which shall be given by them to the Bishops, who shall select one of their number to be present and preside at the investigation, which shall be before the fourteen members of the General Missionary Committee elected from the Districts by the General Conference, two thirds of whom may remove said Secretary, Treasurer, or Manager from office in the interval of the General Conference.

¶ 352. In case a vacancy exists in the office of Corresponding Secretary, Treasurer, or Assistant Treasurer, by death, resignation, or otherwise, the Bishops shall have power to fill the vacancy; and until they do so, the Board of Managers shall have power to provide for the duties of the office.

¶ 353. It shall be the duty of the General Missionary Committee to revise annually the list of Managers, and in case of inattention of any Manager to the duties of the office it may declare his seat vacant.

II. Missions, Foreign and Home.

¶ 354. When a Mission is established in a foreign country, or in the United States and Territories outside of Annual Conferences, the Bishop having Episcopal Supervision of the same may appoint a Member of the Mission as Superintendent, who may also be the Presiding Elder of a District. It shall be the duty of the Superintendent, in the absence of a Bishop, to preside at the Annual Meeting of the Mission, to arrange the work, and take general supervision of the entire Mission, and to represent the state

of the Mission and its needs to the Bishop having charge, and to the Corresponding Secretaries.

¶ 355. The Bishop having Episcopal Supervision of a Mission shall annually designate a time at which all the Members of the Mission, and also the native Preachers employed as Supplies or Helpers in the Mission, shall come together for the purpose of holding an Annual Meeting; said Meeting possessing, in all ecclesiastical matters, the functions and privileges of a District Conference; and also transacting such other business as may be assigned by the Board, or grow out of the local interests of the work. In the absence of a Bishop or Superintendent, the Annual Meeting shall choose its Presiding Officer in the manner provided for District Conferences in such cases.

¶ 356. But in Missions in the United States and Territories, the power to license and to try Local Preachers, and to renew the Licenses of Local Preachers and Exhorters, shall remain with the respective Quarterly Conferences; and Local Preachers tried and convicted shall have their Appeal to the Annual Meeting of the Mission.

357. The Ministerial Members of the General Missionary Committee shall constitute a Judicial Conference to hear Appeals of Local Preachers convicted at an Annual Meeting of a foreign Mission, said Judicial Conference to be presided over by a Bishop.

¶ 358. When a Mission in a foreign country shall be organized into an Annual Conference, the administration of the Missionary Society is not thereby disturbed, but shall be continued as in the case of other foreign Missions.

¶ 359. Wherever Methodist Churches are organ.

ized in territory outside of an Annual Conference, or of any regular Mission of our Church, such work may be attached to such home Conference as the said Churches may elect, with the concurrence of the Bishop having charge of said Conference, and may be constituted a Presiding Elder's District.

III. The Annual Conference and Missions.

¶ 360. It shall be the duty of each Annual Conference to form within its bounds a Conference Missionary Society, which shall appoint its own officers, fix the terms of membership, and otherwise regulate its own administration. But it shall pay all its funds into the treasury of the Parent Society. It shall appoint a Secretary for each Presiding Elder's District, whose duty it shall be to cooperate with the Presiding Elder in planning and holding District missionary meetings and disseminating missionary literature, and to inform the Corresponding Secretaries from time to time of the state of the work in the District.

¶ 361. Any Annual Conference may, at its option, by a vote of two thirds of its Members, assume the responsibility of supporting such Missions, already established within its own limits, as have hitherto been reported under the head of "Missions in the Destitute Portions of the Regular Work," and such other Missions as may be established therein; and for this purpose it shall be at liberty to organize a Conference Domestic Missionary Society, with branches; provided, such organization shall not interfere with the collections for the Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, as required by the Discipline; provided, also, that in case more funds shall be raised