A Short History Of The Methodists... - Media Sabda Org

At the Conference of 1791 he was appointed presiding elder over the work he had formed, with
the help of a few others, but his journal reads more like that of a traveling preacher, which he was,
than that of an elder.
The Conference the following year met at Lynn. Methodism had grown wonderfully the past two
years under the master hand of this prince of traveling preachers. He was appointed at this
Conference over Lynn, Needham, Boston, and Providence. He began the year with a missionary trip
to Rhode Island, preaching and organizing societies wherever possible. He prosecuted his work with
unusual diligence, and came up to the General Conference which met in Baltimore on November 1,
1792, crowned with "palms of victory." It must have been at this Conference that he began to known
as the "Apostle of the East." His journal is painfully silent about the proceedings of the General
Conference.
We quote all he has to say: "November 1 the General Conference met in Baltimore, November
5 we spent the whole day discussing one point -- namely, whether or not a preacher that thinks
himself injured in his appointment to a circuit shall have an appeal to the district (annual)
conference. We had a close and long debate and at five o'clock we went to the Dutch church, and
about eight o'clock we broke up, and a majority was for no appeal." Some of the preachers were
much dissatisfied about it after it was done. "Tuesday, the 6th, James O'Kelly wrote a letter to the
conference 'that he should leave the traveling connection on account of the vote taken the night
before.' " The vote taken settled, in part, the course of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and one fact
in determining the status of the episcopacy in reaching maturity. It did not settle in the minds of
many in that Conference, and many who have followed, the wisdom of an unlimited episcopacy,
which it indicated. It came up again in 1820 over the election of the presiding elders by the
Conference, and was the occasion for a very sharp and long controversy, which culminated in the
organization of the Methodist Protestant Church. It was up again in the Conference of 1844. The
majority gave it a new turn, and it has never been since, in the M. E. Church, what it was before. The
M. E. Church, South, has run true to the original form given it by the fathers. Except it "bobs" up,
that is the contention for some limitation on the episcopacy just before every General Conference
with as much regularity as the rising of the sun. Its persistency has been out of all proportion to the
results attained. But one crumb, so far as we know, in the long years since 1844, has fallen from the
table -- that requiring the bishops to read the appointments to the presiding elders before reading
them to the Conference. But wherever the question has been raised to limit the episcopacy -- that is
O'Kellyism.
From the General Conference of 1792 Mr. Lee visited Virginia. He preached in Richmond,
Petersburg, and at a number of places in his father's neighborhood. He was at this time one of the
best preachers, as well as among the best known, in the connection. We are told that throngs of
people flocked to hear him.
On Monday, December 31, 1792, he took leave of his parents and friends and turned his face to
the far North. He preached as he went, and now and then collected money to build a meetinghouse
in Boston. He arrived in Boston on February 20, and was very busy with his work till the Conference
at Lynn, which met in August following. He was appointed at this Conference to the Province of
Maine. This carried him far beyond any of his previous itineraries. He met with encouragement,