The Australasian Conference in 1873 was a very important occasion. Of course it was. Amongst other distinguishing features it was my first conference. Some one relates that a juvenile class was recently being examined upon the wonderful events of the Nineteenth Century, and on being asked at the conclusion of the address if they could tell any of the wonderful things that had happened during the century, one little girl held up her hand. "Yes," she replied, "us have happened." The century would not have been much to those young folk if they had not been in it, and to them, and for them, at any rate, the most wonderful thing was their 'happening' in connection with it.

The Methodist preacher is not worth much to whom his first District Meeting and first Conference are not lifelong memories. But that Conference was noteworthy in itself. It was the last of the old order of Australasian Conferences; it was the first at which the question of lay representation was seriously considered, with a view to giving effect to the proposal; and it was the Conference at which the plan for Annual and General Conferences was formally and finally adopted. It marked the close, then, of what might be called the intermediate period of Australasian Methodist history.

These sketches are not written from the point of view of the historian. Anyone who essays to do that must bring to bear a faculty which does not necessarily come into play in papers that are purely reminiscent. He must carefully collect all facts, place them in their proper relation to the past and the future, ascertain the spirit pervading them, and observe in his setting forth the laws of perspective and proportion. But mine just now is a simpler task. How did the Conference affect me, and what are my recollections of it?

The Conference of 1873 was held in old York Street church. It was attended by about 100 ministers, nearly half of whom had gathered from New South Wales. The rest had come from Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, and New Zealand, with representatives from Fiji, Tonga, and Samoa. The Rev. Thomas Williams, of Victoria, was the President, the Rev. John Cope the Secretary, and the Rev. Benjamin Chapman the ex-President.

The platform presented an array of men who had graced the chair in preceding years. John Eggleston was there, with his closely-knit brow and his penetrating eyes, indicative of the clear strong brain that lurked behind; Thomas Buddle and James Buller, fathers and founders of Methodism in New Zealand, which began to claim even then to be the Great Britain of the South; John Watsford, ruddy of countenance, ready in debate, and full of unction whenever he spoke on subjects bearing on the spiritual interests of the church; George Hurst, well informed and emphatic, regarded as an authority on constitutional questions, and conservative of what he held to be the vital principles of Methodism; William A. Quick, quiet, dignified, learned, always listened to with great respect; James Bickford, a master of pastoral theology and in pastoral visitation; and others who have now gone over to the great majority.

The leaders on the floor of the Conference were such men as Samuel Wilkinson, Joseph H. Fletcher, Joseph Oram, J. B. Waterhouse, William Kelynack, George Woolnough, George Daniel, Joseph Dare, and W. J. K. Piddington. Young men in those days had not much to say; but Shirley W. Baker, of Tonga, could not be suppressed. He was frequently in evidence, and came off finally with a vote of thanks for the work going on in the Friendly Islands.

The President's official sermon, and the charge of the Rev. W. B. Boyce at the Ordination Service, were deliverances not soon to be forgotten. The President was a man of literary tastes and pretensions. He had written a book on "Fiji and the Fijians," in collaboration with the Rev. J. Calvert, and as he rightly regarded the occasion of the last of the Australasian Conferences as an historic one he had specially prepared for the official service. His text was: "What hath God wrought?" He surveyed the past of Australasian Methodism, descanted upon its present position, and looked out upon the future with the eye of a prophet and a seer. I do not know if that sermon is in print; but it ought to be somewhere, for future use. But the manner of its delivery lacked dignity. The manuscript was before the preacher, but he laboriously sought to hide the fact from his hearers, until his efforts to do so became grotesque. A simmer of amusement ran round the congregation, and the effect of the great service was altogether marred.

The Ordination Service also had its remarkable features. It was held in Wesley Church. Candidates for ordination were seven in number. They represented men of various years, as ordinations were not held annually in the several colonies at that time. Here is the list: John S. Austin, Robert Johnston, John A. Waddell, James E. Carruthers, James G. Middleton, Robert Allen and Frederick W. Ward. The service was as usual conducted by the President, and the charge should have been delivered by the ex-President, the Rev. B. Chapman. But the Rev. W. B. Boyce was on a visit to Sydney from England, and the ex-President had secured him as a substitute in his especial duty.

A feature of the service was the noise to the accompaniment of which it went on. Engines were shrieking and trains were shunting in the railway yard at the rear of the church all the time, and Father Boyce looked unutterable things as every now and again a particularly fiendish shriek would go up from some engine not more than forty of fifty yards off.

But the Charge in itself. It was sui generis. Never before or since has there been an Ordination Address like it. The ex-President had a particularly good time, and called aloud, "Hear, hear," several times during its delivery. The audience laughed frequently, and at times seemed as if they would like to cheer outright. Racy, humorous, and sententious, some of the points stuck. "Don't feed your people on cabbage," was one of the thrusts; especially cabbage that was of the "cauld cail het again" sort. "Mind who you marry," again advised the preacher; "don't marry a milliner's walking show-stick," and more of the same sort all through. The pills were sugar-coated, but the intrinsic qualities were there all the same. No one was better qualified out of the abundance of his own experience and wisdom to counsel young preachers than the same venerated William Binnington Boyce.

At that Conference a splendid Missionary Meeting was held, and the Rev. Joseph Dare - the Chrysostom of Victoria - delivered an address which thrilled the audience by its magnetic fervour and sacred eloquence. The Missionary business was not transacted in the Conference proper but at a meeting of the General Missionary Committee held during the time of the Conference.

The Minutes show that the only laymen now with us who were present at that meeting were the Hon. E. Vickery, Mr. T. P. Reeve, and Mr. E. Bayliss. Mr. W. Robson was also present, but it was as the Rev. W. Robson. There were some good debates in the Conference. There was the usual manoeuvering or more over stations. There were one or two laughable incidents. The President was in the act of pronouncing the Benediction, when half-way through he was interrupted by a brother who wanted "a little matter" settled before adjourning. "It's time, is it not?" queried the President. But the brother got his little matter through. "Now, Sir," put in a member of the Conference, "Will you give us the rest of the Benediction?"

The Conference had its recreations. It was so in those days. Now-a-days our Annual Conference are severely let alone in that respect. There was an 'At Home' at Toxteth tendered by Sir Wigram and Lady Allen, a harbour excursion on the Saturday afternoon, and an all-day railway trip to the Lithgow Valley Zig Zag, specially to give intercolonial visitors an opportunity of seeing the wonders of our Blue Mountain railway line. That trip stands out in memory still, and the glorious hymn-singing by the company in the crowded carriages as the train was descending from the cool heights above to the hot and sultry plains that intervene between the mountains and Sydney.

The close of the Conference meant the close of the old order. Many who met then could scarcely expect to meet again. The colonies were to go their own several ways with their own Annual Conferences, and the General Conference was thereafter to be composed of a limited number of elected representatives only. Hence it was with more than ordinary significance and feeling that the verses of the closing hymn were sung:-

			Through Thee we now together came,
				In singleness of heart,
			We met, O Jesus, in Thy Name,
				And in Thy Name we part.

			Subsists as in us all one soul,
				No power can make us twain;
			And mountains rise and oceans roll,
				To sever us in vain.

In the year 1873 the Australasian Conference met in Sydney, under the presidency of the Rev. Thomas Williams, and at which no less than seven young ministers were solemnly ordained. the seven comprised men of different years of standing, one being a seven-years' man, two others of five years' status, and the remainder men who had just been 'received' into full connection. The delay did not mean anything in the nature of discipline. It was merely that ordination had been postponed pending the holding of a convenient session of Conference. Of the men then and thus received, only two of us remain in the work.

The President was a somewhat remarkable man. And that a present-day writer regards him as such is evident from the fact that after our interval of half a century, the said writer has published, with careful annotations, the journal made in the mission field in the 50's of last century of Thomas Williams, as well as writing a volume (priced at 25/-) based on his life and work. He was, at the time of the Conference, on circuit work in Victoria, and in the early decline of what were once very vigorous powers of mind and body.

The ex-President was the Rev. Benjamin Chapman, who filled at the time the office of General Secretary for Missions, and upon whom devolved the responsibility of delivering the Ordination Charge. But he had procured a notable substitute in the person of the Rev. William Binnington Boyce, the President of the first two Australasian Conferences, who happened to be in Sydney on an important personal mission - in short, Mr. Boyce was about to marry his second wife, in the person of Miss Allen, daughter of the Hon. George Allen, of Toxteth Park, and sister of Sir Wigram Allen, then Speaker of the Legislative Assembly.

The service was held in Wesley Church, adjacent to the Mortuary Station, then the centre of a vigorous Methodist Church. Just at the rear of the Church were the railway shunting yards, and the noise of engines blowing off and of others shunting, with heavy grinding, was a source of irritation to the congregation and of not a little annoyance to the venerable preacher in his delivery of his Ordination Charge. Every now and again he would stop and turn around, and if some expressive expletive of disgust had escaped his lips it would not have caused any surprise. And such an Ordination Charge it was! Looking down from the pulpit at the ordinances, he solemnly warned them against the preaching of old sermons. "Don't feed your people on cold cabbage," he adjured them; "don't give them cauld karl het again!" Moreover, he counselled them on the matter of marriage. "Mind who you marry," he said; "don't marry a milliner's walking show stick," and more to the same purport.

But withal, William B. Boyce was a great character and a great asset to Australasian Methodism. After his marriage he settled down quietly in a cottage at Toxteth, and lived a beautiful life, admired by all who knew him and loved by an inner circle of intimates and friends. The historian Froude spent an evening at Toxteth during his brief stay in Sydney, and left on record a beautiful tribute to the old saint, who said to him on parting, "The blessing of an old man cannot do you any harm; it may do you a little good; in any event, I give you my blessing."

Mr. Boyce was a member of the first Senate of the University of Sydney, and his portrait in oils graces the walls of the Great Hall. He was always a voracious reader and a keen student; and he has left as his heritage two volumes of permanent value - one being "An Introduction to the Study of History" and the other "An Introduction to the Higher Criticism" - both volumes of more than ordinary merit.