History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

selected Watters, Gatch, Dromgoole, Ruff, and Glendenning as a committee to act in the place of
the General Assistant. The matter of administering the ordinances was again discussed, as it would
not down, and the disposition to Presbyterianize the body grew apace. Two things alone kept them
from action, veneration for the counsels of Wesley and the indefatigable opposition of Asbury. It so
happened, providentially the advocates of the Episcopal system will hold, that, when such a crisis
arrived, Asbury, by his correspondence, could fortify his position with a letter from Wesley, and for
the time deferred action. Watters, writing from this Conference, says, "In fact, we considered
ourselves, at this time, as belonging to the Church of England." The parting of the preachers at this
Conference was an affecting scene. The sixth Annual Conference met at Leesburg, Va., May 19,
1778. All the English preachers, save Asbury, had returned, and he was in seclusion at Judge White's
in Delaware.. The Conference was presided over by William Watters, the oldest native itinerant. He
was not yet twenty-seven years of age. Nine preachers were admitted on trial, among them James
O'Kelly, Richard Ivy, and Henry Willis. The sacramental question was once more postponed.
Asbury's name does not even appear in the printed minutes. The membership fell off about 900,
owing to the ravages of the war, specially in the North. The next Conference was appointed for
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Brokenback chapel, Fluvanna County, Va., May 18, 1779. It marks a crisis in the history of early
Methodism and must receive special attention. Before doing so, it seems proper to embalm some of
the precious names and labors of these long-suffering preachers.
During the five years from 1774 to 1779, as the Revolution culminated and ran its course, space
would fail to narrate these sufferings and labors. Stevens devotes 150 pages to this phase of the
subject, and to him readers are commendatorily referred. America was already an asylum for the
oppressed religiously as well as civilly. Many refugees were prominent in the colonies, while the
native-born felt the thrill of free air and independent surroundings. Stevens says aptly, "The hierarchy
of Great Britain was to them a form of antiChrist, and it was an integral part of its constitution." The
people had received a military education through the two French and Indian wars. They had taken
up arms against the mother country, it may be almost literally said, for an idea. They had been
educated to self-government and had reached the point when they could not and would not suffer any
infringement of their civil rights; while in religion they spurned all trammels upon their conscience
and freedom. No environment could have been more inauspicious for a Methodist hierarchy, yet the
first steps which led to it had been already taken and its consummation will presently occupy our
attention. The Stamp Act was repealed, as it could not be enforced, with other objectionable
legislation for the colonies by the home government; only the duty on tea remained; but as this
involved the principle, it was resisted in the overt acts of the burning of the Peggy Stewart in the
harbor of Annapolis, Md., with its cargo of tea, not by men disguised as Indians, as in the Boston
tea-party, but the owner himself was compelled to fire his ship. This event took place October 19,
1772, thus antedating the Boston affair, which took place December 15, 1773. As already noticed,
the Tory party was largely American and sincere in their convictions, just as sincere as in after days
Asbury was, and those who cooperated with him, in a polity for the Methodists, utterly incongruous
with all the principles of government in which they were educated and for the maintenance of which
they staked "their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor." Snethen, whose brilliant and
analytical mind looked into the seeds of things, luminously exhibits the parallel: "Our brethren are
no doubt quite serious in believing that lay-delegates will lead to a change in all the rules of
discipline, because they cannot conceive how the form of discipline can be maintained without
exclusive power in traveling preachers. Their sincerity, however, is equaled by that of the opposers