trict meetings, as in the Conference, the purely pastoral work is managed by the ministers alone, but they are assisted in all secular and financial business by certain of the lay officials of the district, who deliberate and vote on equal terms with themselves. There are about thirty-five districts England and Scotland, each of which is divided into a varying number of circuits, the average number for each stret being about eighteen. In the provinces a circuit, generally includes a town and the adjacent villages within a circle of 10 or 12 miles, but the large towns and the metropolis include several circuits within themselves. To e circuit a number of ministers are appointed, one of, mis styled the superintendent, and these are generally sted in the work of preaching by a number of lay or preachers, who are authorized to preach, but not to baptize or administer the Lord's Supper. The financial irs of the circuits are conducted by stewards; and the stewards, class leaders, trustees, and local preachers, with the ministers, form the quarterly meeting-a powerful body, exercises an oversight over both the spiritual and traal affairs of the circuit. It is by the quarterly meetat the ministers are invited (subject to the approval Conference), and it is by this meeting that most of the it funds are administered. The members of the society aped together in little bands of from ten to thirty, are called classes, and placed under the care of a **** leader, and these are expected to meet once a week devotional exercises and religious conversation. Each ber, if able, is expected to pay a minimum subscriphacf a penny a week and a shilling a quarter, and every er the classes are visited by the minister, who pertay converses with each member, to whom he gives a tart of membership. Each minister is appointed to a at fr one year, and he may be invited to stay for two bat no minister may stay more than three years in a The principal statistics of the denomination at the Cnce of 1884 were Wh respect to doctrine, the system of Methodism may teescribed as one of evangelical Arminianism. No doctai test is imposed upon members, who are merely rered by the rules to be persons "who desire to flee from wrath to come;" but the local preachers and ministers red to subscribe to the doctrines set forth in "WesSermons" and his "Notes on the New Testament." Tare also two catechisms published under the sanction f the Conference, which contain a short compendium of Most doctrines. After the belief in the Trinity and Incarnation, the points chiefly insisted on are original general redemption through the atonement, repentance, -finition by faith, the necessity of holiness, and the ty of attaining to a state of entire sanctification. ar as the official standards are concerned Methodist trite represents the moderate Protestantism of the pre* century, and the subsequent developments of biblical trim and of the science of theology have obtained little to recognition. In everything relating to doctrine a tringernservatism has prevailed among the leaders of the ization, but there are not wanting signs that the adof a younger generation to power will be marked by a 1 of greater liberty than has hitherto been known in the Methodist body. Of the many offshoots from the original body the most Portant are 1. The Methodist New Connexion, which was formed METHODISM. in 1797 by the Rev. Alexander Kilham, a minister who had been expelled from the parent body for publishing injurious charges against his brethren. The following year he died, but the little society he founded survived him, and it now reckons about 29,000 members. 2. The Primitive Methodists, who sprang up in Staffordshire in 1810, under the leadership of Hugh Bourne and William Clowes, two energetic local preachers who declined to obey the Conference rule prohibiting camp meetings. The Primitive Methodists have always been an enthusiastic, hard-working denomination, and they are the most numerous of all the bodies which have separated from the old Wesleyan connexion. They number about 1200 ministers and about 190,000 members. 3. The Bible Christians or Bryanites, founded by a Cornish local preacher named O'Bryan. They are found chiefly in the west of England, and they closely resemble the Primitive Methodists in their modes of working. They number about 22,000 members. 4. The United Methodist Free Churches, which are an amalgamation of three different secessions-the Protestant Methodists, formed in 1828; the Wesleyan Methodist Association, which sprang out of a controversy in 1834 concerning the training of ministers; and the Wesleyan Methodist Reformers, who seceded in 1850 during the great agitation in the Wesleyan society previously referred to. At the present time they have about 400 ministers and about 74,000 members. 5. The Wesleyan Reform Union, a very small body representing some of the seceders of 1850 who refused to amalgamate with the United Methodist Free Churches. 6. The Welsh Calvinistic Methodists represent an entirely independent organization altogether, and one that takes precedence in point of time to the Wesleyan Society itself. It arose out of the labours of Howell Harris of Treveera, in the county of Brecon, a gentleman of strong religious convictions, who, although a layman, began to preach and conduct revival services in 1735. About the same time a similar work was commenced, quite independently, by Daniel Rowlands and Howell Davies in 1742. George Whitfield presided over the first association of the Welsh Calvinistic Methodists, at Waterford or Watford, in Glamorganshire. The society thus established has always remained, as it commenced, quite independent of English Methodism, and its system of church government is now a modified form of Presbyterianism. It has made much progress during recent years, and now numbers about 120,000 communicants. For the greatest development of Methodism, however, we must turn to the United States of America, into which it was introduced by a few pious emigrants from Ireland in 1766. Two ministers were sent out from England in 1769, and after the War of Independence the society in the United States was organized as an independent church, under Dr. Coke, with the title of the American Methodist Episcopal Church. Like the society in England, its history has been marked by sundry divisions, and there are at the present time five bodies known as the Methodist Episcopal, as well as several who use the term Methodist but do not adopt the Episcopal organization. In all these the doctrines and modes of worship are very much alike, the differences relating almost entirely to matters of church government. Between them they reckon over 4,000,000 enrolled members, but this by no means represents the extent of their influence, and some careful calculations, founded upon the last census of the United States, showed that the number of adherents there could not be reckoned at less than 10,000,000. In all the British colonies Methodism is well represented, and there are important missions in many of the non-Christian countries of the world, so that it is not without good reason that the Methodists claim to be "the largest Protestant church in Christendom METRE, a certain definite collocation of feet forming a verse or line of ancient classical poetry, each metre being governed by its own laws as to the power of variation in the normal order of the feet. The chief varieties of poetical feet are given in the article Foor, and one of the most famous ancient metres is described under HEXAMETER (Greek her, six, this metre having six feet in the verse). The attempt often made to classify musical tunes by the terns of the old classical metres fails, and must fail, because zsic depends altogether upon the collocation of accents, taat is, upon rhythm, while metre depends upon the colloeation of quantities, that is, of long and short syllables. No one knows better than the musician that his accented rete is frequently a short note, a case which shows at once futility of measuring one thing by another logically distinct from it. Modern poetry also goes by rhythms of accents, not by metre. For instance the word mon'ument, which we *Dunce with the stress on the first syllable, is, by the rules of prosody, an anapæst, that is monument; and see'ing, wth has an accented syllable followed by an unaccented one, d be by the classical rules an iambus, that is see-ing. Notwithstanding this entire diversity of meaning metre is extually used in our ordinary speech to express our colloexion of accents, instead of the more correct word rhythm. We have thus our famous heroic metre, of ten syllables to the line, the metre of Shakspeare's plays and Milton's" ParaLost; our ballad metre, of alternate eight and six ed by hymnodists common metre); the long metre and httetre of our churches (8888 and 6686 respectively), and the serens, whose name explains itself (7777), &c. syllabic metre (the long metre of our churches, and classical parlance iambic tetrameter) is the favourite re of Scott in his famous lays, "The Lay of the Last strel," Marmion," &c., of Butler in his "Hudibras," &c. There are also the distinctions of what we agree to call A verse, as "O God, beyond that boundless sky" (iambic), which the accented syllables lead, and what we agree to thaic verse, as METRONOME. In this nomenclature Shakspeare may be said to write usually in unrhymed iambic pentameters, as The quality of mer- | cy is not strain'd: | It drop- peth as the gen- | tle rain from heav'n. | Refer also to the articles POETRY, PROSODY, FOOT. The essential distinction between metre and rhythm (that is, between quantity and accent) cannot, however, be too earnestly insisted upon. METRIC SYSTEM. See DECIMAL SYSTEM. METRONOME, a mechanical appliance used by musicians for beating time, the best being a variety of the double-pendulum. The principle of the pendulum, as a time-measurer, was early applied to music, and with good reason; for it is evident that if a composer can direct a piece of music to be played with the accents occurring so many times in a minute, he has power to fix the exact pace at which he desires his music to be performed. In fact this is the only method, other than personal tuition, of insuring the realization of the composer's time-idea. Plumb-lines, with variable lengths of string, were used as early as 1696 to indicate varied numbers of beats per second, but seeing that a pendulum to beat as slowly as sixty times a minute, or once a second, must be over 39 inches long, all these attempts (and they were many) were failures on account of their cumbrous nature. The way out of the difficulty was found, as is generally believed, by Maelzel, the unworthy friend of Beethoven [see MAELZEL], who, in 1816, patented at Paris a doublependulum arrangement with a graduated scale, that at once satisfied the musicians of the time, and has remained the standard time-keeper ever since. In truth, however, it was not Maelzel who made this valuable discovery. He was a fair musician, and a man of considerable inventive mechanical talent, and he had already himself constructed "Rock of Ages, cleft for me" (trochaic), ich the accented syllables follow. There are various time which had received Beethoven's good word. But at a pendulum with a graduated scale as a measurer of musical *** of anapæstic verse, so called, in which the accent Amsterdam, in 1815, he learned of an appliance commended once in three syllables, and is sometimes the first, by the Dutch Academy of Sciences, whereby a certain etimes the second, sometimes the third of the three-Winkel, a practical working mechanician, had brought the responding to the dactyl, to the amphibrachys, and to - araast respectively, if for accented and unaccented es we were to have long and short. Curiously Byron's "Bride of Abydos" gives in its first three - example of each variety of this three-syllabled tre a their succession as above enumerated. Keve the land where the | cypress and | inyrtle Aeriblems of deeds that are done in their clime, Ware the rage of the vul- ture, the love of the turtle, &c. Ang can, at the same time, better show the falsity of ating our rhythms with antique names than this fragThe last line (reading quantity for accent) is the ene in anapastic metre of the three; but if the pasis read aloud it is found (still using the old terms of tity improperly to describe accent) to be purely dactylic, an accented syllable, followed by two unaccented, to be thus arranged: ye the land where the cypress and | myrtle Are of deeds that are done in their clime, Where the the vulture, the love of the turtle, Now | Cinto | sorrow, now | madden to | crime, &c. following classical nomenclature we speak of a line airing one accent as a monom'eter, the classical term a uine of one foot, of a line of two accents as a dim'eter, at one of three as a trim'eter, and so on for tetram'eter, Petan eter, hexam'eter, &c. We find a curious specimen double-pendulum to perfection. In this instrument the pendulum has two "bobs" or weights, one fixed and below, the other movable and above, and the pendulum swings on a pivot passed through its middle. The upper part of the pendulum being moved aside, the fixed weight below draws the rod back sharply towards the perpendicular, and so, as usual with pendulums, sets it swinging; if the movable swing swiftly, but if it be moved to the upper end of the weight be down near the centre the pendulum will rod its leverage becomes great, and it impedes the action of the fixed weight so much that the return towards the perpendicular is sluggish. The pendulum can be made to differ very greatly in its rapidity of vibration by the adjustment of this upper weight, and if the upper part of the pendulum be graduated and numbered, it will be found that a range of from forty to 200 beats a minute is readily obtainable. The graduation of the scale was the only point really due to Maelzel, who saw at once the value of Winkel's doublependulum, offered to buy it, and being refused, stole itthat is the only expression possible. He rushed to Paris, where Winkel had not secured his invention, patented it in his own name, and at once set up a manufactory which had the greatest success. From that time to this, though poor Winkel got his case investigated, and was formally decreed the inventor by the Dutch Academy, the metronome has been called Maelzel's Metronome. METROPOLITAN. Hitherto the machine was slient. It was adjusted. made to swing by the hand, and then swung silently at the pace to which it was set, with ever smaller excursions until the first impetus was exhausted. This older slent form is still preferred by many sensitive musicians, but is difficult now to obtain. The genera, public desired the ear attacked as well as the eve, and according acizel afterwards applied clockwork to the machine; this being wound un goes at the pace controlled by the pendulum, as ary other clock does, and ticks at each vibration. Recently a further advance has been made in the share of a bell, wherear the clock strikes at tack second, täitu, fourth, or sixth heat as preferred, marking in this manner the first of the bar for all the principal varieties of time. Teachers who aim at mechanica, dexterity and frizid accuracy make their nuniis nay what nieces by the mitrenome, whest tiel-tick forms a Linus nogom"kli ¡m-nt threnztent. But that is to use a wertir took hout. The time one fixed by the my tranomt the Ti as sessed a the ordina” capacity for time SL it afterwards sparinghy; in fact it shot, men p serve as a check in dangerous passages. Metronome marks comprise a musical note, deseritine the musica valve of the heat and a figure denoting the number of snet beats & mix. Thus MMS= Tulbe enick 1. ne, means that the m、 ME WANANT DE TANGAt 200 of 1.0 soal, anu ti in trenom vill tr bea. 1 time is mint as a miniII. S.m. AA ==20%, well, maki IPT SAM MENsinčni sorve te indiosIL & SON LIMING, MS: ht thi nae of the former tær here au MCWb is minnir Dem instead of 700 minims METROPOLITAN 1 mò mani pula the point ein), s tem a... digula” of a prormer er ecunt, who is STU LIVRE L I reside in the mitoppas œ CLIO The establishment d. metroncitans to Ê YAZ AZ IM eng o' the thin, OPTLTM and was evifirma, da je Sourci of N The militar hai th congress which was to organize a European peace. After the final fal. of Napoleon Metternich became for a time the foremost statesman of Europe, and be exerted his utmost influence in favour of a policy of repression. At his instance the constitution and general assembly that had beer promised the Prussians by King Frederick Wam were withheld, the severest measures were adopted to destroy the liberty of the press and to control the teaching of the universities, and Austrian troops were sent to crush the risings in Naples and Piedmont. By his poley he secured & temporary appearance of order, but it was at the price of future convnisions; and after remaining in power unti 1848 the revolution of that year drove him from office for ever. One of the first acts of the exasperated peobit was to sack the palace of the absolutist premier, and Metternich, fied for safety to England. In the autumn of 18" he return d to Vienna, but was not asked to take ay hart in the conduct of public affairs, and he remained I retirement until his death on 5th June, 1859. Metternich possessed high abilities as a diplomatist, and during a great portion of his career he was certainly the most intuential statesman in Europe. He served the Anstrat government with unswerving fidelity, and in hos mate le he was kind and affectionate. But be bad beg trained twm the first to hate all innovation, and as te mmurd & himself as the guardian of Europe against the intta: nec ut i, seral ideas, he was led to prevent the un bermar", to keer Italy disunited and weak, to oppose the independence at treece, and to repress every legitimate ashoratur. towards liberty until the forces he suppresses Non vent it revolution. His Memoirs" show that le WR (INSTIT enrouted and egotistical, and the saying. ag, attributed to him.- Après m dela "—epasses not inaptly his own idea of his pos21 as the unk Hider of the peace and order of Europe. METZ, now the capital of German Lorraine, is the aney, 12 Akoturum. Arediomatricorum and the Mettis citie fiti gertum and the capital of the kingdom of Austras sor El centur. It was made a free imper I was besired by Charles VII. of Fran for somet te atis ⠀ 1999, and was ransomed for 100 was not be Hry 11. on 10th April, 1972 SL."" defended by the Duke of Guise against t Amber Claris V, vizi. ar army of 100,000 men, iT Pek, 14 15th January, 1558. After be #2 NEW THE TOWL, the emperor at last re CARITATE - tire. Laring pst 30,000 mes. I JAY DI 6 Metz, fund the MSTA MEUM. Metz is built on the Moselle, at the point where that river is joined by the Seille, 190 miles east by north from Paris, and had in 1881 a population of 51,131. Its cession to Germany caused a large emigration of French families, and for a time the population was very much redared. Metz is washed on the west by the Moselle, which makes a bend and traverses the town; the Seille enters the cry on the south, dividing into two branches, one of which fws between the ramparts, while the other runs through the town and drives several mills: these rivers are crossed by several bridges. Metz is entered by nine gates furnished with drawbridges, and is girt by a system of fortifications wich in 1870 were so strong that, had it been properly provisioned, it could have held out indefinitely. Since the German occupation the defences have been completed and musly strengthened, and it is now the strongest inland stress in the world. The new works consist chiefly of taled forts placed about 6000 yards from the city, at tervals of 3500 yards, with intervening smaller batteries. A the forts communicate with each other and with the twa by railway. The store-houses will now hold sufficient provisions for 40,000 men for several years, and so extended are the fortifications that it is estimated that it would reare an army of 400,000 to besiege it. 235 MEURTHE-ET-MOSELLE. however, is actually produced by the use of the common melilot. It is uncertain from what source the word "bald” in "bald-money" is derived, but the most likely conjecture is that it refers to the Apollo of the north-Balder. MEURTHE-ET-MOSELLE, a department in France, consisting of the remaining portions of the old departments, deriving their names from the rivers Meurthe and Moselle, ceded to Germany in 1871. It is bounded on the E. by Alsace-Lorraine; on the N. by Belgium and Luxemburg; on the W. by the department of the Meuse, and on the S. by that of the Vosges. The area is 2020 square miles, and in 1882 the population was 419,317. General Character.-The department is remarkable for the beauty of its scenery, the fertility of its soil, and the variety of its productions. The principal chain of the Vosges Mountains runs along the eastern boundary, reaching in one of its summits to the height of 1148 feet above the plain. The rest of the department presents a pleasing variety of hills, dales, and well-watered valleys-the hills, which branch off from the Vosges, nowhere exceeding 650 feet in height, and nearly all running in a north-western direction. The hill slopes, and a considerable portion of the plains, are covered with dense forests. Hydrography.-The Meurthe rises in the east of the Metz is in general a well-built town; the houses are department of the Vosges, and running first north and then stly of cut stone. The esplanade is one of the finest north-west, past St. Dié and Raon l'Étape, enters the demenades in Europe, formed by numerous avenues of partment below this last town; here it flows through a trees, and commanding a fine view over the rich valley fine valley, fertilized by the deposits of its frequent inundathe Moselle. Among the many remarkable structures of tions, in a general north-west direction, past Lunéville, Metz must be mentioned the cathedral, founded in 1014 Rosières, and Nancy, where it becomes navigable, and a nct finished till 1546, and thoroughly restored by its little below which it falls into the Moselle, on the right te possessors during 1871-75. The elegance, delicacy, bank, after a course of 70 miles. The west of the departbeliness of this structure have been always much ad- ment is drained by the MOSELLE, which here receives the aired. Of its lightness some idea may be formed from the Madon on its left bank. The Seille, which springs from stance that the total area of its windows, many of one of the lakes in the east of the department, flows through them of the best age of glass-painting, amounts to no less a very fertile valley, first west and then north, falling into the 4869 square yards. Its spire is 397 feet high. The the Moselle at Metz, in the department of Moselle. The dral was seriously injured by fire during the illumina- Sarre rises on the western side of the main chain of the as in honour of the visit of the Emperor of Germany Vosges Mountains, in the south-east of the department, 1977, but has since been repaired. Other noteworthy and flows generally north as far as Sarreguemines, in the * are the churches of Notre Dame de la Ronde department of Moselle. Below this town it enters the dio and St. Vincent; the military hospital, a large build-Prussian Rhein-Provinz, through which it runs north-west ettiguous to the barracks and close to the Moselle, to its junction with the Moselle a few miles above Trèves. ape of receiving 1500 patients; and the palace of tice in which the courts are held and the public library of 35,000 volumes is kept. Next to these, the town, the mint, the churches of St. Martin, St. Nicolas, and Site Segolène, and a large Protestant church, as well other library of 10,000 volumes of select works, and manuscripts by Vauban, Monge, and other writers ftification and the art of war, are the most notable t in the town. Metz possesses an artillery and ring school, a royal college, and several literary and Matic societies. Ang the industrial products of the town are broadath, fannel and other woollen stuffs, hosiery, plush, ezawares, muslin embroidery, room-paper, glue, chicory fre, extton twist, excellent beer, nails, tiles, and leather. There is a fair trade in these articles, and in wine, brandy, arionery, groceries, furniture, hides, iron, &c. ME UM, a genus of plants belonging to the order UMSELLIERE The name is from the Greek méon, supposed e derived from meion, very small, from the extreme Less and delicacy of the leaves of these plants. Meum mesticum (common bald-money), is a highly aromatic pat, with numerous white and yellow flowers. It is a Lave of Western Europe, in dry mountain pastures, and is and in the north of England and the mountains of ScotThe root-stocks, seeds, and every part of the plant arcatie, and are used in the countries where it grows a stomachies and carminatives. A strong infusion of the serb gives cheese the taste of the Swiss schabzieger, which, The Paris-Strasbourg Railway crosses the department, Products, &c.-The vine is generally cultivated, and a large quantity of wine, as well as wheat and timber, is exported. Rape is extensively grown, both for green food and for making oil. Hay is abundantly produced along all the river valleys. Potatoes, herbs of all kinds, and fruits are extensively cultivated. Horses and cows are small; the latter are, however, of a tolerable breed and good milkers. Hogs are numerous; pork is a staple article of the food of the people. The forests still contain the deer, the roebuck, and the wild boar; foxes and weasels are common. Iron ore is found, but too poor to be worth working. Building stone, marble, alabaster, and limestone are quarried; lithographic stone, red and gray granite, grindstone grit, glass sand, potter's clay, &c., are found. There are vast deposits of turf, and an immense bank of rock salt, whence issue valuable salt springs. The chief manufactures carried on in the department are-glass, crystal, porcelain, paper, linen, woollen, and cotton fabrics. A great variety of other articles are made, but in smaller quantities. The inhabitants are a mingled German and French race. The department of Meurthe was formerly divided into five arrondissements-Nancy, Lunéville, Toul, Château-Salins, and Sarrebourg. result of the Franco-German War of 1870-71 was, how The |
