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

Board was read, full of congratulations and cordial sentiments, but soliciting the cession of the
Montreal appointment, and Lower Canada generally, to their control. A committee, after consulting
with the Canada representatives, reported that the great majority of the Methodists, of both Upper
and Lower Canada, wished the continuance of the jurisdiction of the American Church, and that
therefore "we cannot, consistently with our duty to the societies, give up any part of them." The
Conference voted a hundred dollars for the expense of the British messengers from Nova Scotia, and
an amicable letter to the Wesleyan Missionary Board.
On the fourteenth Enoch George and Robert R. Roberts were elected bishops, the former by
fifty-seven, the latter by fifty, votes, out of one hundred and six. A course of study, to be prepared
by the bishops, or a committee appointed by them, for ministerial candidates, who were to be
examined at the annual Conferences, was ordered; the first example of any such requisition in the
Church, though habits of reading and study had always been enjoined. Measures were adopted
providing for the better support of the ministry; for repressing heretical opinions; for abolishing pews
(which were yet confined to New England Churches) and assessments, or taxes, in support of
preaching; and for the licensing of exhorters. Joshua Soule and Thomas Mason were elected Book
Agents, and the order for the publication of the "Methodist Magazine" was repeated by a motion of
Bangs, and about two years later obeyed. The question of the election of presiding elders was again
elaborately debated, but lost. Pickering moved that the "unfinished business of the last General
Conference so far as it relates to slavery" be referred to a select committee. The committee reported
their "opinion that, in existing circumstances, little can be done to abolish a practice so contrary to
the principles of moral justice. They are sorry to say that the evil appears to be past remedy, and they
are led to deplore the destructive consequences which have already accrued, and are yet likely to
result therefrom. They find that in the South and West the civil authorities render emancipation
impracticable, and, notwithstanding they are led to fear that some of our members are too easily
contented with laws so unfriendly to freedom, yet, nevertheless, they are constrained to admit that
to bring about such a change in the civil code as would favor the cause of liberty is not in the power
of the General Conference. They have also made inquiry into the regulations pursued by the annual
Conferences in relation to this subject, and they find that some of them have made no efficient rules
on the subject of slavery, thereby leaving our people to act as they please." It was therefore
"Resolved, by the delegates of the annual Conferences in General Conference assembled, That all
the recommendatory part of the second division, ninth section, and first answer of our form of
Discipline, after the word 'slavery,' be stricken out, and the following words inserted: 'Therefore no
slave-holder shall be eligible to any official station in our Church hereafter where the laws of the
state in which he lives will admit of emancipation, and permit the liberated slave to enjoy freedom.'"
The report was adopted on a motion by Pickering.
A Book Depository at Pittsburgh was authorized, and the Missouri and Mississippi Conferences
established. Axley, aided by Myers, again struck against the distillation and retailing of spirituous
liquors, but without success. The Conference adjourned on the twenty-fourth of May.
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