The business of the Conference was transacted with the usual dispatch, and there were only two items which engrossed unusual attention.  These were the distribution of the missionary appropriations and the election of delegates to the General Conference.

As to the first, a new departure was made in the organization of the Committee on Missions.  The Presiding Elders of the Conference had been hitherto appointed on this Committee.  But now a few restless spirits, who fancied that, as seen from their limited opportunities to judge correctly, the appropriations had not been judiciously made during the past few years, determined to appoint this Committee from among the Pastors.  The Elders, well knowing that the farcical proceeding would in time come to naught, concluded to offer no opposition to the movement.  The Committee was accordingly appointed and proceeded to the discharge of its duties.  At the first meeting, however, it was found that the Committee was unable to proceed for want of information.  At the next meeting, to remedy this difficulty, the brethren who had occupied Mission fields the previous year were invited to be present.  This measure was found to afford only a partial relief, as these brethren knew nothing of the border territory that ought now to be organized into new fields.  The next move was to ask all the Pastors to meet the Committee at the next session.  To afford room to accommodate the Committee and its invited guests, the audience room of the Church was appropriated for an entire afternoon.  Here the great work of the Committee was entered upon in right good earnest, with the special champions of the movement as managers of the exhibition.

But now, alas! for the success of the meeting, there was too much light.  At once a large number of fields that had been supposed to be self-supporting was brought forward, and their respective representatives were so successful in setting forth their feeble and helpless condition, that many of them were entered upon the list by the Committee as Missions.  The question as to the number of Missions having been settled, the next thing in order was the amount of money that should be given to each.

From the information already received, the amounts were jotted down briskly until the entire list had been gone over.  The footings were now made, and to the Committee the result was appalling.  They had appropriated three times the amount of money at their disposal.  Then came the rub, which had been so often experienced by the Presiding Elders.  The Missions must be cut down in two ways.  First, all that could possibly manage to get through the year without aid must be struck off the list, and then such as remain will need to be cut down to the lowest possible figure.  But still brave, our Committee would not see their impending defeat, and proceeded at once to the labor of cutting down.