They are entrusted with the raising of
supplies, benevolence, and the support of the ministry. Exhorters are
prayer-meeting leaders and general helpers in the work of the
circuits.

Methodism began in a college and has been a great patron of education.
It has been largely devoted to the educational and religious culture
of the Colored people in the South and in Africa. There are sixteen
conferences of Colored members in the M. E. Church--fifteen in the
United States and one in Liberia. For the Liberian Conference two
Colored bishops have been consecrated, viz.: Francis Burns and
ex-President Thomas Wright Roberts, both deceased. The present bishops
are all white, one of whom annually visits Africa. The same is true of
conferences in Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, India,
China, and Japan. The agency by which the Church prosecutes this work
is the Missionary, Church Extension, Freedmen's Aid, Education, and
Sunday-school Union societies. Books and periodicals are amply
supplied by its own publishing house, which is the largest religious
publishing house in the world.

In the sixteen conferences there are 225,000 members, 200,000
Sunday-school scholars, 3,500 day scholars, one medical, three law,
and seven theological colleges, and twelve seminaries. There is
$500,000 in school and $2,000,000 in church and parsonage property
owned by the Colored membership! The Colored members elect their own
representatives to the General Conference, and are fully represented
in all the work of the Church.

At the present time the Rev. Marshall W. Taylor, D. D., and the Rev.
Wm. M. Butler are the most prominent men in the Church. Marshall
William Boyd (alias) Taylor was born July 1, 1846, at Lexington,
Fayette County, Kentucky, of poor, uneducated, but respectable
parents. He was the fourth in a family of five children, three of whom
were boys, viz.: George Summers, Francis Asbury, and himself; and two
girls, Mary Ellen and Mary Cathrine. He is of Scotch-Irish and Indian
descent on his father's side. Hon. Samuel Boyd, of New York; Joseph
Boyd, of Virginia; and Lieut.-Gov. Boyd, of Kentucky, were
blood-relations of his, and all descended from the "Clan Boyd" of
Scotland. His mother was of African and Arabian stock. His
grandmother, on his mother's side, Phillis Ann, was brought from
Madagascar when a little girl, and became the slave of Mr. Alexander
Black, a Kentucky farmer, who at his death willed his slaves free. Hi