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

to prepare forms of petition to the state legislatures for emancipation were omitted, and it was
ordered that "our preachers, from time to time, as occasion serves, admonish and exhort all slaves
to render due respect and obedience to the commands and interests of their respective masters." The
treatment of their petitions and addresses in the South, and Dougharty's sufferings at Charleston, had
evidently somewhat discouraged the preachers; their tone is more subdued, though the law, in its
new form, is still very thorough, imposing the penalty of expulsion from the Conference upon any
preacher who should "become, by any means, an owner of slaves," unless he should "execute their
legal emancipation, if practicable, according to the laws of the state where he lives;" expulsion from
the Church, on any member who should sell a slave, and conditional emancipation on any who
should purchase one, except at the request of the slave. There was no little significance in the motion
of Bruce, made immediately after these proceedings on slavery, that an edition of the "spiritual part"
of the Discipline be printed for the slaves, the laws on slavery not being in that newly made division
of the book. The next day Dougharty moved that two thousand be thus provided "for the use of the
South;" an explanation of the fact that copies of a mutilated edition of the Discipline are still
occasionally found in old Methodist families in the South.
The Conference adjourned on the twenty-third of May, having sat seventeen days. It "closed," says
Lee, "in peace, and the preachers parted in much love; but we had to lament before the Lord that
there was very little stir of religion among us during the sitting. One principal reason of our
barrenness, I believe, was owing to an improper plan which was adopted by the Conference in the
beginning of their business, which was this: to admit men, women, and children into the galleries
of the meeting-house to hear our debates. After a few days we were obliged to close the galleries,
and sit in private, according to our usual plan. It was to the preachers a good Conference, but there
was very little visible good done among the people in general."
Coke embarked for Europe, and was to see his American brethren no more; and Whatcoat, the
junior bishop by election, but senior by age, was to meet with them no more in a General
Conference.
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