ons; and
also the adoption of practical measures by which the youth baptized
by Wesleyan ministers may be more personally cared for, and
affiliated to our ordinances. Your distinguished ability and
matured experience eminently qualify you as a safe legislator and
counsellor on such grave questions, which by some cannot be
separated from ancient usages greatly blessed to the growing
spirituality of true believers, without injury to the vital
character of the Church. After so long and useful a career, your
separation from our Conference and work would be a connexional
calamity. You stand among the few in Canada to whom the present
independent and legal position of the Wesleyan Church stands deeply
indebted. Future generations of ministers and people will partake,
imperceptibly to themselves, of the advantages a few of the more
gifted and noble-minded brethren struggled and contended for
against so many obstacles. You are as capable of remedying anything
wrong, or supplying anything wanting within the Church, as you were
many years ago, to overcome impediments to her usefulness without.

Nothing further was done in the matter until at the Belleville
Conference of 1854 Dr. Ryerson moved the following resolution:--

1. That no human authority has a right to impose any condition of
membership in the visible Church of Christ, which is not enjoined
by, or may be concluded from the Holy Scriptures.

2. That the General Rules of the United Societies of the Wesleyan
Methodist Church being formed upon the Holy Scriptures, and
requiring nothing of any member which is not necessary for
admission into the kingdom of grace and glory, ought to be
maintained inviolate as the religious and moral standard of
profession, conduct and character, in regard to all who are
admitted or continued members of our church.

3. That the power, therefore, of expelling persons from the visible
Church of Christ, for other than a cause sufficient to exclude a
person from the kingdom of grace and glory, which the fourth
question, and answers to it, contained in the second section of the
second chapter of our Discipline, confer and enjoin upon our
ministers, is unauthorized by the Holy Scriptures, is inconsistent
with the Scriptural rights of the members of Christ's Church, and
ough