no order of proceeding has been prescribed, the President may present or entertain any business that, in his judgment, should come before the body. In an Annual and Quarterly Conference, the regular questions are brought forward by disciplinary authority, and at his discretion, as to time and circumstances.

(5) To entertain all propositions, made in order; to put to the vote all questions that may properly arise, and declare the result; to enforce order and decorum in debate; to decide all questions of law; to give the floor to the one entitled to it when two or more rise and claim it about the same time; to give information when referred to on points of order; to appoint committees when directed in a particular case, or when a regulation requires it; and to authenticate, by his signature, all acts and proceedings of the assembly.

2. All messages and communications addressed to a Conference should be received and opened by the President thereof, and by him announced. These communications should constitute the first item of business.

3. The harmony and dignity of an assembly depends much upon its presiding officer-his decision and firmness, his self-possession, his im

partiality, and his knowledge of the principles and practice of parliamentary law. It may be laid down as a rule, that with an incompetent presiding officer, a body will be disorderly in proportion to its intelligence. Questions will become complicated, and members, perceiving the mistakes of the chair and the disastrous influence of his decisions upon the measures they support, will attempt to correct him; and all contested points of order, before a presiding officer who does not know what order is, will make confusion worse confounded.

4. Not only do all written communications reach the assembly through the President, but personal and verbal ones also. If any agent wishes to gain the attention of a Conference, or any visitor or fraternal delegate is to be introduced, the President should first be notified, and consenting to the arrangement. When a stranger is brought forward to the chair for the purpose of being introduced, or "invited to a seat within the bar," the President not having been previously consulted, it sometimes occasions unpleasant delays or interruptions; and the embarrassment is increased, if he be not a proper person to be introduced to that body.

5. He may propose what appears to him the

most regular and direct way of bringing any business to issue.

6. He should carefully keep notes of the orders of the day, and call them up at the times appointed.

7. He may speak to points of order in preference to other members, rising from his seat for that purpose, and decide questions of order subject to an appeal, without debate, by any two members.

SEC. III.-DUTIES OF THE SECRETARY.

1. The qualifications of a Secretary are system, diligence, quickness of apprehension, and ability to express ideas readily and accurately in writing. It is his duty

2. To keep a correct record of the proceedings; to read all papers which may be ordered to be read; to preserve on file all documents and papers belonging to the assembly, allowing none to be taken from his table without a formal leave; to furnish the chairman of each committee with a list of all the members appointed on it, and a statement of the subject referred to it; to authenticate, by his signature, all the acts of the assembly. The Secretary, in reading and in calling the roll, stands.

3. When two or more Secretaries are appointed, the first named is chief-the Secretary: the others, in their order of appointment, are assistants. The Secretary, if a member of the body, loses none of his rights as such. He can make motions, vote, engage in debate, and in all other proceedings take part-though it will be found that, like the President, he contributes most usefully to the assembly by giving himself to the duties of his office.

4. As a rule, the Secretary should enter what is done and past-all measures voted upon, and not what is said or suggested. His record should be both a journal and a report of the proceedings. He should consider his duties discharged with a simple statement of facts. He should not deal in panegyric or rhetoric, criticising or praising persons or performances. Nouns and verbs are the staple of a good Secretary's style: he deals rarely in adjectives and adverbs.

5. The Journals of the Annual Conferences undergo the review and inspection of the General Conference, which has severely animadverted upon the careless and irregular way in which some of them are kept.

And in view of secur

ing uniformity, accuracy, and completeness in

these important Church-records, the Bishops have been instructed to supervise the Conference Journals, and to direct Secretaries to the requirements of the General Conference as to the manner of keeping them.

May 12, 1812.-Bishop McKendree in the chair. The Journal of General Conference reads: "The President asked if the Conference thought he had authority to give the Secretary orders to change some phrases in journalizing, provided there are no changes of the sense. It was said that the Rules of Conference made it his duty to examine and correct the Journal." (P. 108.) As to supervision of Annual Conference Records, see Journal of 1840, p. 107. The General Conference of 1866-" Resolved, That the Bishops be, and they hereby are instructed, to supervise the Conference Journals, to direct the Secretaries to the requirements of the General Conference as to the manner of keeping their Journals," etc. (P. 96, and Journal of 1854, p. 350.)

6. These requirements include:

(1) The penmanship should be open, plain, neat. Each item of business, for the sake of easy reference, should be recorded in a separate paragraph.

(2) Every page should be numbered. The heading of each page should give the date, and a margin should contain an index to the transactions recorded.