The ministers are supported by a sustentation fund formed of voluntary contributions, the rents of seats and pews, and the proceeds of the commutation of the Regium Donum made by the commissioners under the Irish Church Act 1869.
The interest accruing from it is added to the yearly sustentation contributions, and forms a central fund for ministerial support.
Hence it is that the amount of food consumed to produce a given amount of increase in live weight, as well as that required for the sustentation of a given live weight for a given time, should - provided the food be not abnormally deficient in nitrogenous substance - be characteristically dependent on its supplies of digestible and available non-nitrogenous constituents.
Other significant episodes have been the Unification of the Funds, the Equalization of Districts and the reconstruction of Conference on a broader basis, the Ministers' Sustentation Fund and the Church Extension Fund, and the enlargement and reorganization of the college at Manchester.
The revenues confiscated were those used for "the finding, maintaining or sustentation of any priest or of any anniversary, or obit, lamp, light or other such things."