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Nevertheless Dr. Perry and his committee triumphed on three other points. The conference voted approval of their recommendations that no new bishops be elected, that the project of stated terms for bishops be abandoned, that bishops be removable for "inefficiency, unacceptability or worldliness." This last, the most drastic change in church law in 150 years of Methodism, was highly pleasing to advocates of reunion between the Northern and Southern churches.
Common Task, When Yankee Methodists in 1844 sought to oust Bishop James Osgood Andrew as a slave-owner. Southerners objected that under Methodist law that was no ground. The two branches shortly parted. Fortnight ago in the episcopal address delivered by Rt. Rev. John M. Moore of Dallas, representing the mind of the Southern Church's 14 living bishops, one passage read: "We cherish the hope that at some time we shall be wise enough to find a way whereby a united Methodist may with undivided energies and unwasted resources deliver her full strength upon the common task."
These matters disposed of, the Southern Methodists: 1) voted their faith in Prohibition; 2) elected a new council of nine which will supersede the bishops as a church court of appeals; 3) came out for peace and conscription of wealth as well as man power in wartime; 4) flayed immoral motion pictures; 5) changed the name "Sunday School'' to "Church School"; 6) approved a plan to seek 750,000 new members during the next quadrennium: 7) voted that admission requirements to the Southern Methodist ministry include four years in college; 8) denied women the right of ordination.
