(3) Nothing can properly go to the page of the official Journal until it has been first read and approved as a true minute. An observance of this rule would save Conference-records from those interlineations and erasures that so disfigure and discredit them.

(4) All the acts of the Conference, of every kind whatever, in the consecutive order of their occurrence, should be recorded in the Journal, or in an Appendix; especially all complaints, charges, and specifications, with the decisions in all such cases; and also all reports of committees, resolutions, statistics, memoirs of deceased members, the appointments of the preachers, and whatever else enters into and constitutes a complete historical record of each Annual Conference.

(5) The names of the movers of resolutions should always appear upon the Minutes.

SEC. IV. DUTIES OF MEMBERS.

1. Every member should feel personally charged with maintaining the dignity and order of the assembly; and this, not only while debate is in progress, but also when no one occupies the floor.

2. When the President takes the chair, no

member should continue standing, or afterward stand, except to address the chair.

3. Members should refrain from entering the house with their hats on; from moving from place to place or gathering into knots; from engaging in conversation; from passing between the speaker and the chair, and especially from private applications to the chair while a member is on the floor; from going to the Secretary's table to write thereon, or meddling with the books and papers on it.

4. No member should be interrupted while speaking, except by the chair to call him to order when he departs from the question, or uses personalities or disrespectful language. If, however, this disorder escapes the notice of the President, it is the right of any member to insist that the rules be enforced; and for this end he may call the attention of the President to the subject, and raise the point of order, interrupting, if necessary, the member alleged to be out of order. But this should be done in a tone and manner of the highest courtesy toward him who is interrupted. The one complaining of disorder is himself disorderly if his objection is frivolous, or if his manner tends to irritation.

5. No member should be present when a mo

tion or resolution concerning himself is being debated; nor should any other member speak to the merits of it until he withdraws.

6. A member desiring to speak, or deliver any communication to the body, must rise and respectfully address the presiding officer. If he secures the recognition of the chair, he is said technically to "have the floor."

7. If two or more rise about the same time, he is entitled to the floor who was first up and first to address the chair. It is customary, when the contestants seem equal, to recognize the member farthest off. The President should promptly decide, and give the floor to the one he thinks entitled to it; and this decision is usually acquiesced in when that officer has the reputation of impartiality. If, however, through inadvertency, or willfully, any one is deprived of his right, he may appeal to the house. In that case, the question to be decided is, which of the contestants rose and addressed the chair first; and the vote is to be taken first upon the name of the member recognized by the chair.

8. If members intimate to the chair a desire to have the floor after the one occupying has yielded it, such intimation, by word or gesture, should always be disregarded. The President

can give the floor to no one, except in response to an address to himself by one who has risen to his feet. In like manner should his claims be disregarded who rises before the one speaking has finished. Such conduct is disorderly, and should prejudice, rather than advance, a member's claims.

9. Members sometimes permit others to interrupt them to explain, and otherwise to address the assembly, claiming still that they have the floor. This is liable to great abuse; for in this way a few persons may usurp the prerogative of the chair, and manage to give their party friends the floor to the exclusion of all others. Such compacts ought not to be recognized; and the chair should rule that the floor given up for one purpose of the kind, is relinquished for all.

10. While the President protects every one in his right to the floor, he must give it temporarily to a member who respectfully interrupts by addressing the chair, at least long enough to ascertain his object. He may have risen to a point of order, or a question of privilege, which cannot be made known unless he is recognized by the chair. When a member rises to interrupt, he should always state in advance that he rises to a question of order or of privilege; and having

obtained the floor, he is at liberty to use it for no other purpose than for that indicated when he claimed it.

11. A member who violates the rules of decorum, and persists in a course pronounced disorderly by the President, may be named by that offcer; that is, he may declare that a certain member, calling him by name, is guilty of improper conduct. This is equivalent to his arraignment. He is entitled to be heard in his own defense, and must withdraw. The assembly then proceeds to inflict a suitable penalty, which may be a reproof, a prohibition to speak or vote for a specified time, or he may be required to ask pardon, on pain of expulsion. A deliberative body must have the power of protecting itself.

SEC. V.-MOTIONS, RESOLUTIONS, QUESTIONS.

1. The principal forms or instruments used by an assembly for disposing of matters brought to its notice, or for expressing its opinion, or taking action in any way desired, are motions and resolutions.

2. Without a motion no business can be set in operation; and by motions every thing is made to progress to the end. When a member wishes to get the sense or decision of the body on any