History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

pounds were contributed by the people for its erection and the building of a mission ship for the
South Sea Islands. For the Home work various funds were organized, to which the Methodist people
contributed their wealth. The Superannuates were better cared for, and most of these measures are
to be traced to the lay cooperation, which Bunting advised, defended, and successfully established
in the face of the old party of preachers, who still held that the trinity of lay virtues, as already set
forth, was to pray, pay, and obey, as Wesley also held for his Societies. If he had ever seriously
contemplated a Church for the Methodists in either England or America, he would probably have
found a place for laymen, taking his cue from the National Church at home and its congener in
America, in both of which, despite extreme conservativeness, in their lower houses of legislation
there is full lay representation and cooperation. Higher education, both for the preachers and the
children of the people, was pressed, and schools established at various points. This very educational
movement was, directly or indirectly, the occasion, if not the cause, of that serious disturbance which
eventuated in expulsion and secession and the organization of another branch of Methodism, and
also of important revision of the Wesleyan polity, "the one single exception for this period," as
Stevens notes it.
He says of this defection: "Not a little agitation accompanied the initiation of this important
measure. Many devoted members of the society and some members of the Conference suspected that
its tendency would be deteriorating to the simplicity and purity of the ministry; others, restless under
the government of the Church, or disappointed in their ambition for places in the management or
offices of the new institutions, availed themselves of the occasion to disturb the peace of the
Connection." Perhaps these reasons are fairly enough stated, though the parties implicated tell
another story, as might be expected. Dr. Samuel Warren, a prominent member of the Conference,
led the way. Stevens says that he at first fully agreed with the educational plan, but "finding that his
own name was not reported in the nomination of its officers, he opposed the institution with
extraordinary animosity." He wrote against it with severity, and organized the "Grand Central
Association" for combined attack. He was in consequence suspended from the district meeting of
Manchester. He threw the case into the courts, and it was decided against him, as he might have
foreseen, and possibly did, as there could be no doubt about the legal validity of the Conference
polity under the Poll-Deed of Wesley. He appealed to the Lord Chancellor, but the opinion of the
Vice-Chancellor was confirmed. Warren then appealed to the next Conference against the district
meeting which had suspended him. The Conference heard him, and then expelled him.
The Association became the basis of a new Methodist sect, "The Associated Methodists." A
schism had taken place at Leeds over a church organ question in 1829, and these now joined the new
body. At its second assembly it reported 20,000 members, but in the coming twenty years it had
advanced numerically but about 2000. Warren labored energetically to promote its success, but
finally took refuge in the National Church. No explanatory data are at hand, so the case must be left
as Stevens reports it. It occurred in 1835. The gist of it is, however, that, as in other cases, the parent
body had a way of first excising the disaffected and then conceding in its law about what had been
contended for; for it is unreasonable to assume that all this agitation was without real grievances. The
effect of the movement was considerable, but by the centenary year the old Conference had fully
recovered. The result was that farther concessions were made to popular and liberal Methodism.
Bunting, the sagacious, prepared a "Special Address" of the Conference to the Societies,
"embodying," Stevens says, "explanations and some emendations of discipline, especially of rules