History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

it was appealed to by one of the parties to the disunion against the other as a last resort for an equal
distribution of the property — the essence of empire owned by the General Conference which, in the
exercise of the independent sovereignty residing in every General Conference agreed to a separation
of the South from the North. In the shape just given it came before the Conference after being in
committee for ten days. It was discussed all day — it was a tussle of the giants, Lee setting himself
against it with all his massive and rugged force. Tigert and Dr. L. M. Lee, who enter into the details
more fully than others, fail to make perspicuous the reasons of Lee's trenchant opposition. He was
certainly not opposed to a Delegated General Conference, and he was as certainly for an Episcopal
General Superintendency, yet he tackled the report, and the informants lead to the inference that his
dissent clustered around a preference for selection of the delegates by seniority rather than choice
by election. Ezekiel Cooper, seconded by Joshua Wells, made a diversion by securing the
postponement of the question to make "room for the consideration of a new resolution." It carried,
and when his resolution was sprung upon the Conference, it was in these words, "By whom shall the
presiding elders be chosen? A. Each Annual Conference, respectively, without debate, shall annually
choose by ballot its own presiding elders." He was a master of strategy in debate also. His motion
for seven bishops had been defeated. He had sought to withdraw it when he saw the tide against it,
but Pickering and Soule were too alert, and forced a vote and killed it. He then endeavored to secure
the next best thing, an elective eldership. It laid under contribution all the debating strength of the
Conference, which was continued through the greater part of two days, Soule making repeated efforts
to call the previous question on it, and finally succeeded. Garrettson and Sparks, knowing how good
men were intimidated by the open voting on questions, secured a vote by ballot, and when the tickets
were counted, it stood 52 for and 73 against out of a full vote of 128, or a slim majority of one-sixth.
Despite all the influence of the Episcopal party to defeat it by a finality it would not down, and came
thus perilously near for its opponents to adoption.
On the first Sabbath morning of Conference, McKendree, who was looked upon as a
backwoodsman, was appointed to preach. Lee and Cooper were the favorite candidates for the
bishopric, but now occurred one of those crises human affairs impossible of anticipation. McKendree
had been steadily growing in power and influence, and was known as a rigid disciplinarian, and the
staunchest supporter of Asbury's extremist measures. He had faced about since 1792, and displayed
a bigoted zeal in building the things which once he destroyed. Six feet in stature, finely proportioned,
with kindling blue eyes and an intellectual face, clothed in homespun, he stood before his
congregation all alive to the issues of the hour. Bangs, who was present, gives an extravagant
description of the sermon. Boehm, who was also present, says: "This was the eloquent sermon that
made him bishop. Slow in his commencement, he rose with his subject till his audience was melted
like wax before the fire." Four days afterward he was elected Bishop by 95 votes out of 128.
Immediately after the ballot on the elective eldership, another diversion was made by a call for the
ordination of McKendree, the first native American Bishop. Garrettson, Lee, Bruce, and Ware,
assisted Bishop Asbury in the "consecration" as the sobered General Conference of 1884, just one
hundred years from the so-called "ordination" of Asbury by Coke, determined by a rubric it should
be denominated, having settled by a previous large vote that it was an "office," and not an "order."
It will be seen, however, that the Church South, adopting Soule's construction of the bishopric and
its powers, never so qualified it.