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

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doctor preach and make motions and speeches in the Conference, but also of dining with him and Bishop Asbury. The doctor was a short man, and rather corpulent. He had a beautiful face, and it was full of expression, a sweet smile often playing over his features. His eyes were dark, and his look very piercing. His voice was soft and full of melody, unless raised to a very high pitch, and then it was harsh, discordant, and squeaking. His conversational powers were great. He was very entertaining. He did a noble work for American Methodism, and should ever be remembered with the liveliest sentiments of gratitude. He sleeps in the Indian Ocean, 'till the sea give up its dead.' " Nicholas Snethen was elected secretary. Asbury, worn out by labor and disease, had designed to resign his office; but the Conference could not think of so serious a revolution in their affairs, for such would certainly have been the loss of Asbury's episcopal services. They not only unanimously voted him their thanks, and "entreated" him to continue the "superintendency" as "far as his strength would permit," but, besides electing Whatcoat as his coadjutor, authorized him to select a "traveling companion" from the ministry, a relief which was continued during his remaining life. They also so far conceded to the prayer of the British and Irish Conferences for the services of Coke as to allow of his return to them, on condition that "he come back to America as soon as his business will allow, but certainly by the next General Conference." They were two days debating this subject. "We have lent the doctor to you," they wrote, "for a season." The "allowance" of sixty-four dollars per year, besides traveling expenses, to the preachers, was now found entirely inadequate to their support, as prices had advanced nearly fifty per cent. On almost "every article of their consumption;" they were therefore allowed eighty dollars, their wives or widows the same amount, and each child, under seven years old, sixteen dollars, each over seven, and under fourteen, twenty-four. Their children over fourteen had no allowance. These pittances were the "salaries" of Methodist preachers and their families down to the year 1816, when the sum was raised to one hundred dollars a year, except for children, to whom the old rule still applied. The provision of furnished parsonages was urgently recommended, and some other financial arrangements devised, particularly the "Preachers' Fund," for the relief of the suffering ministry. They repealed the rule requiring a report of all donations given by their friends. They enacted that each Annual Conference should raise its proportion of the expenses of the bishops, which had hitherto been met, quite casually, by private donations and occasional collections in particular churches. The whole Church was now divided into seven Annual Conferences. These bodies were required to keep journals, and submit them to the examination of the General Conference. It was enacted that no preacher should be a member of the latter who had not traveled four years, and been received into full membership. The power of the preacher over accused members of the Church was amended, so that the members trying the accused were to pronounce him guilty or innocent according to the evidence, the preacher retaining the right to pronounce sentence, and also, if he dissented from the committee, to appeal the case to the Quarterly Conference. Ezekiel Cooper was elected Book Agent. There are some significant indications in the proceedings of this session which have hitherto been unnoticed by the historians of the Church. On the second day a motion was introduced to authorize the Annual Conferences to elect their own presiding elders. It was defeated, but was the beginning of a controversy which, prevailed for years in the Conference, and throughout the Church. It was
attempted also to make local preachers eligible to ordination as elders. The motion was adopted, but reconsidered and "withdrawn." William Ormond, who appears to have been the noblest "radical" of [7] the body, tried it again, but failed. A motion to reorganize the General Conference, as a delegated body, was defeated by "a great majority;" but was an anticipation of a coming change. Coke attempted, without success, to obtain a rule by which the new bishop, in the absence of Asbury, should be required to read his appointments of preachers in the Annual Conferences, "to hear what the Conference may have to say on each station," in accordance with the English example. Joshua Wells was defeated in a motion to provide a committee of three or four elders, to be chosen by each Annual Conference, to aid the new bishop in making the appointments, an anticipation of a later function of the presiding elders. The motion was twice repeated by other members, but was negatived. These good men were fearful of innovations which have since become indispensable and most salutary in the Methodist system. A rule was recorded allowing the bishops to ordain "local deacons of our African brethren in places where they have built a house for the worship of God." Nine years later, Lee says that this concession was but "little known," and had never been published, owing to Southern opposition. Richard Allen, of Philadelphia, (afterward Bishop Allen,) was thus ordained on the 11th of June, 1799, the first colored preacher ever ordained by the Methodist Episcopal Church. But the most striking feature of the journals of this session (unnoticed by the Church historians) is the persistent antislavery interest of many of the most eminent men in the Conference. We have seen that ever since the Annual Conference of 1780 the subject had been kept before the Church; that the first General Conference (1784) had courageously faced it, and that the session, preceding the present one declared itself "more than ever convinced of the great evil" of slavery. The question was soon again rife. Good William Ormond (though a Southerner) introduced it by moving that "whereas the laws now in force in two or more of the United States pointedly prohibit the emancipation of slaves, and the third clause of the ninth section of the Discipline forbids the selling of slaves, it is evident that the members of the Methodist societies who own slaves, and remove themselves and families to another state, or to distant parts of the same state, and leave a husband or a wife behind, held in bondage by another person, part man and wife, which is a violation of the righteous laws of God, and contrary to the peace and happiness of families. And it is further observed that the rule now existing among us prevents our members increasing the number of their slaves by purchase, and tolerates an increase of number by birth, which children are often given to the enemies of the Methodists. My mind being seriously impressed with these and several other considerations, I move that this General Conference take the momentous subject of slavery into consideration, and make such alterations in [9] the old rule as may be thought proper." Stephen Timmons moved, that if any of our traveling preachers marry persons holding slaves, and thereby become slave-holders, they shall be excluded [from] our societies, unless they execute a legal emancipation of their slaves, agreeably to the laws of the state wherein they live. Nicholas Snethen moved, that this General Conference do resolve, that from this time forth no slave-holder shall be admitted into the Methodist Episcopal Church. John Bloodgood moved, that all Negro children belonging to members of the Methodist Society, who shall be born in slavery after the fourth day of July, 1800, shall be emancipated: males at _____ years, and females at _____ years. James Lattomas moved, that every member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, holding slaves, shall, within the term of one year from the date hereof, give an instrument of emancipation for all his slaves; and the quarterly-meeting conference shall determine the time the slave shall serve, if the laws of the state do not expressly prohibit their emancipation. Ezekiel Cooper
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WESLEYAN HERITAGE Library HISTORY O
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HISTORY of the METHODIST EPISCOPAL
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BOOK VI CHAPTER I = PART 58 METHODI
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CHAPTER IX = PART 66 METHODISM IN T
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CHAPTER XV = PART 72 REVIEW OF THE
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disappearance of Coke, Asbury, What
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convened, a second time, in Wilbrah
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yet I did not go out that year; but
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He returned again to New Jersey in
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Asbury pressed on westward with his
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congregation, and meanwhile advanci
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direction of the presiding elder, G
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traveled in Massachusetts, Rhode Is
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knowledge. His judgment was always
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He did great services and endured g
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of the itinerants. There was no one
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found adequate to the singular exig
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as a sail in a leaking canoe, and p
Page 37 and 38: [16] of his decease, sent home for
Page 39 and 40: passing through small villages; but
Page 41 and 42: HISTORY OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL
Page 43 and 44: God. The Scotchman could endure it
Page 45 and 46: [7] Conference till the next year.
Page 47 and 48: y his own hands, and his furniture
Page 49 and 50: there were three circuits, with thr
Page 51 and 52: performed incredible labors and tra
Page 53 and 54: Before he reached the last stanza h
Page 55 and 56: "in the wilds of Virginia, where he
Page 57 and 58: ed, and trembling with agitation. E
Page 59 and 60: this melancholy record. I never rea
Page 61 and 62: at Cabbin Creek, Ky., twenty thousa
Page 63 and 64: in that vast wilderness, and had no
Page 65 and 66: poles. This was their bedstead. Som
Page 67 and 68: Benjamin Lakin, Samuel Doughty John
Page 69 and 70: Gibson. "Here," say his brethren, "
Page 71 and 72: of the Little Miami River. On Thurs
Page 73 and 74: Circuit) for this year began at Moo
Page 75 and 76: Sale, J. Oglesby; Guyandotte, Asa S
Page 77 and 78: worst for stealing, fighting, and l
Page 79 and 80: twentieth they reached the scene of
Page 81 and 82: the toil and sufferings, of another
Page 83 and 84: ENDNOTES 1 See Extracts by Bishop M
Page 85 and 86: 37 Rev. Dr. Trimble's Address at Oh
Page 87: my father's neighborhood. The Confe
Page 91 and 92: tireless apostle completed by the n
Page 93 and 94: to prepare forms of petition to the
Page 95 and 96: HISTORY OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL
Page 97 and 98: a change which it has always since
Page 99 and 100: Methodism was now entrenched in eve
Page 101 and 102: ENDNOTES 1 Bangs, (II, p. 171,) fol
Page 103 and 104: Methodists in other places, and wis
Page 105 and 106: are reported from Flint Circuit. Th
Page 107 and 108: Russell, fallen as he was from the
Page 109 and 110: ENDNOTES 1 Bangs, ii, 194. Dunwody'
Page 111 and 112: intensely bright by the grateful jo
Page 113 and 114: eached the furthest end of the piaz
Page 115 and 116: his humble shed and the chancel whe
Page 117 and 118: class-meetings, and to no small ext
Page 119 and 120: 1 Minutes, 1858. ENDNOTES 2 Rev. Dr
Page 121 and 122: grandchildren were gay and playful;
Page 123 and 124: in a swamp on the Waccamaw Lake, a
Page 125 and 126: ENDNOTE 1 A few months ago, accompa
Page 127 and 128: Asbury, in the summer of 180, wrote
Page 129 and 130: means by which this necessary objec
Page 131 and 132: I should have to preach, but determ
Page 133 and 134: themselves, it was resolved that th
Page 135 and 136: ENDNOTES 1 Bangs, though his narrat
Page 137 and 138: directions, preaching as far as Buf
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and in the States, from the Ulster
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Conference sent over three missiona
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1814 Michael Coate, of New Jersey,
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1 Peck's "Early Methodism," p. 158.
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limits, when it will devolve upon t
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That very significant and convenien
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Channing, the elder Beecher, Wainwr
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in the eyes of the people, and grea
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HISTORY OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL
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own souls, because ye were dear unt
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Early in the spring of 1808 he retu
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seventeen preachers upon trial. The
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this meeting. Monday, 22d, I turned
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strengthened the whole denomination
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savage men, and venomous serpents."
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indescribable. At one time I saw at
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extraordinary learning, of tireless
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oom; but, finding there no means of
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By the end of our present period th
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some sixty or seventy souls. They a
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stacked away at the end of the cour
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olled over the whole Conference." H
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ashamed of yourselves?' which only
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living; I have outlived every membe
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iographer of the itinerant. Born in
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gentleman. While the circles of fas
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His itinerant ministry in the West
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took a prominent part in the great
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to the people, and to go back to Na
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country. These were about to return
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of preachers had increased thirty-f
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1 Rev. F. C. Holliday, in Sprague,
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Astonishing, superhuman almost, as
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of "through the interior of Louisia
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their children. In ten years, I thi
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hates the nefarious practice. In th
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These extraordinary facts excited n
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15 I must remind the reader that I
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[3] and threatened to return home.
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he prepared for South Carolina, wit
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the expediency of increasing the nu
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1 General Conference Journal,, vol.
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itinerants he said, "See that every
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In our day (1866) the Methodist Boo
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edifice was soon after provided in
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in both hemispheres, and which prop
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even romantic record, but our limit
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He organized the Liberia Mission. H
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and the moral prospects of the worl
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ut we may well hesitate to admit th
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They preached and suffered in Engla
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ENDNOTES 1 An error in the Minutes
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and great labors; his charity, his
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directing the advancing Church with
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history, and presents, in full vita
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