History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

Coke having thrown the weight of his influence in favor of it also. The odds had been too much for
Asbury. Snethen says, "It is well known what immense labor and difficulty it cost Mr. Asbury to
maintain the non-representative system." It was his chief concern now to mold what he could not
control. His Journal, however, for all these months gives no hint of the internecine struggle, except
that he was unremitting in letter-writing to the preachers. No man knew better than he how to
conciliate men either by epistolary contact or personal interview. It has been found that for many
months, despite frequent letters of parley from Dr. Coke, he steadfastly refused to condone his
conduct in the Bishop White affair and the circular he addressed the preachers favoring ostensibly
radical changes in the Methodist government — he took not the slightest notice of him. But he kept
close to O'Kelly and the American dissenters. In September, 1791, he records, "I received the olive
branch from Virginia. All is peace; it was obtained by a kind letter from me to O'Kelly." Could the
letters of that day be collected as to the prevailing contest, what a revelation they would be of
political maneuvering, spiced with intrigue and craft. But that the truth of history, as to momentous
issues, is involved, it would be well if the veil of oblivion were drawn over it.
Though an organization was effected in 1784, there was no semblance of a Constitution, so that,
for the period intervening, there was but one law — the will of Asbury. Snethen says, "No period
of the same duration in the history of any church exhibits such a jumble of powers as ours did from
1784 to 1792." The ostensible purpose of the General Conference was to review the doings of the
Council and to supersede it; but O'Kelly and not a few of the leading preachers saw in it the
opportunity for curtailing the powers of the Episcopacy. They, too, were busy through the mail
disseminating their views. The right of appeal from the appointing power of the Bishop was their
objective, and, as will be presently seen, they came to the Conference of 1792 in a decided majority.
That there was quiet agitation among the laymen for changes giving them some recognition there can
be no doubt, otherwise it is impossible to account for the favor with which the innovations made by
O'Kelly in the seceding section under his lead in 1792-93 were received. Indeed, so complete was
the subordination of the laity, that their interchanges of grievance were with bated breath. There is
not wanting evidence that governmental questions were not discussed by the preachers with the laity,
the prevailing opinion being that the less they knew of such matters the better. In many it begat an
indifference to the whole subject of polity, and they were so willing through the indolence of human
nature to waive its consideration, that it encouraged the arrogation of the preachers. Forcibly Snethen
has put it: "Truly, if the people care not how the Church is governed, their governors will, in process
of time, care little how they govern them. This indifference is one of the awful and undoubted
evidences of the effects of an absolute government." By a species of heredity, it must be confessed
it has come down to this day in the laymen of that Church. Knowing the subject to be under ban, the
average member lives content with the peace of stagnation. It has been availed of, by the ministerial
class, during all the uprisings of the thinking membership for the hundred years of its well-nigh
ceaseless agitation. It was the affirmation in reply to the Reformers of 1824-28, and so onward; the
people do not wish participation in the government, or so soon as a sufficient number demand, heed
will be paid; but more than forty years passed away before the General Conference of 1872 took the
initial steps, and every concession from that date to this has been wrested from the clerical class; for
voluntary surrender of power is a thing unknown to absolute systems. It will be seen, in the
succeeding chapter, how the General Conference of 1792 rejected every proposition looking to a
modification of the aristocratic polity.