No little interest has been awakened by a legal suit brought by the Methodist Episcopal Church South, to recover a portion of the "Book Fund" belonging to the Methodist Episcopal Church before its division. This fund, arising from the sale of books and publications, and devoted to the benefit of traveling, supernumary, superannuated, and worn-out preachers, their wives, widows, and children, amounted, in 1845, when the division in the Church took place, to about $750,000. It was under the charge of the General Conference, with the restriction that they should appropriate it to no other purpose than that above specified, except by a vote of two-thirds, upon the recommendation of three fourths of the members of the Annual Conferences. In 1844, when it seemed apparent that the diversities of opinion in the Church on the subject of slavery, would render a separation advisable, the General Conference recommended to the Annual Conferences to pass resolutions authorizing it to make proper arrangements as to the Fund; and in anticipation of such authorization, appointed a committee to meet one from the South, to make the necessary arrangements for an equitable division. But the separation, thus amicably proposed, did not take place without great exasperation on both sides. In the Annual Conferences the vote authorizing the division was 2135 out of 3205, lacking 269 of the requisite majority of three-fourths. The Northern Commissioners, therefore, decided that they had no authority to act. The separation was formally effected in 1845. In May, 1848, the General Conference, held at Pittsburgh, authorized the Book Agents in New York and Cincinnati, to submit the matter to arbitration, provided that, upon consultation with eminent counsel, they should be satisfied they had the legal power so to do, when clothed with all the authority the General Conference could confer. If the Agents should find that they had no such legal power, they were authorized, in the event of a suit being instituted by the Southern Church, to submit the claims to a legal arbitration, under the authority of a competent court. And in case no suit should be commenced, the General Conference recommended to the Annual Conferences so to suspend the "restrictive clause" as to authorize a voluntary arbitration. Previous to the commencement of this suit, the Bishops had begun to lay the above recommendation before the Annual Conferences. When, however, in June, 1849, a suit was instituted, this proceeding was suspended. The suit came on, upon the 19th of May, in the United States Circuit Court, before Judges NELSON and BETTS. It lasted eight days, four of which were occupied with the arguments of counsel--Messrs. DANIEL LORD and REVERDY JOHNSON for the plaintiffs, and RUFUS CHOATE and GEO. WOOD for the defendants. On the part of the South it was claimed:--That the Fund was the property of those who received the benefit of it; of which they could not be deprived without clear proof