History of the M.E. Church, Vol. IV - Media Sabda Org

Conference sent over three missionaries for these stations, and thus was brought on the question of
territorial jurisdiction, which subsequently led to no small amount of discussion and negotiation, but
was at last amicably settled with more intimate relations between the two bodies than ever existed
before since the organization of the American Church. The war ended with a loss of nearly one half
the membership in Canada, the returns of 1815 amounting to but one thousand seven hundred and
sixty-five. But Methodism was too vital to suffer long from such a cause. The next year the Minutes
show eleven circuits, with sixteen preachers, and two thousand five hundred members. They had yet
but eleven churches or "meeting-houses," all built of wood except that of Montreal, which was of
stone, but small. Freer scope than ever was now given to the denomination in the Canadas.
In 1817 the Genesee Conference, many of whose preachers were curious to see their foreign
territory, held its session at Elizabethtown, Canada. About eighty of them assembled there, including
twenty-two Canadian itinerants. Enoch George presided, and the occasion was a jubilee to the
Church in the wilderness. There was daily and powerful preaching, and great revival was kindled.
It was estimated that one hundred souls were awakened at the session, and a flame of religious
excitement spread out among the circuits, so that an increase of one thousand four hundred members
the ensuing year was attributed to this first Canadian Conference. The gospel was now preached in
every English settlement of Upper Canada, for Methodism, besides its itinerants, traveling immense
circuits, had a large corps of local preachers and exhorters, who were kept incessantly at work.
Meanwhile the British Conference continued to send out Wesleyan missionaries. There were nine
of them in the country in 1818, who extended their labors even to Toronto and the Bay of Quinte,
and thus further complicated the question of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Correspondence between the
American bishops and the Wesleyan Missionary Committee, London, followed; the relations of the
two Churches were cordial, but unsettled in respect to Canada, and could not be adjusted till the next
General Conference, when Emory was dispatched to England for the purpose.
In 1820 the Genesee Conference again met in Canada, at Niagara, the oldest town in the province.
About a hundred itinerants were present, eighteen recruits were received, thirty young preachers were
ordained, and one hundred and twenty-two appointed to circuits and stations. There were now in
Upper Canada sixteen clergymen of the Church of England, fifteen Presbyterian and Congregational,
and eighteen Baptist preachers. The Methodist itinerants (including the Wesleyan missionaries) were
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thirty-three, besides forty-seven local preachers, and sixty-five exhorters. Many of the local
preachers having been noted itinerants, continued to perform as effective work as any pastors of
other nominations. The actual working ministry of Methodism must now have constituted more than
one half of the pastoral supply of the province. William Case and Henry Ryan were at the head of
its itinerants as presiding elders, the former on the Upper, the latter on the Lower Canada Districts.
The number of Methodists in the country (including the Wesleyan charges) amounted to six thousand
three hundred. They had much more than trebled in these sixteen years, though they had thus far only
been planting in the wilderness, the germs of that harvest which was to yield, in our day, nearly one
hundred thousand members in the various Methodist communions, and nearly a thousand traveling
preachers, with Indian missions, publishing houses, periodicals, colleges, academies, and churches,
many of them costly edifices, adorning the whole settled country. They were to keep pace with
emigration, and reach westward to the Pacific coast; and eastward, till they should blend with the
Methodism planted by Coughland, McGreary, Black, and Garrettson on the Atlantic coast, and the
denomination become the most effective religious force of British North America.