History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

those of the Methodist Protestant Church. A few extracts only can be given, "They felt straitened in
their religious rights and privileges, under the Episcopal mode of Church government." At a
subsequent Convention on the 5th of February, they adopted a Constitution and Articles of Religion
and a Discipline. The Articles and the means of grace are those practically of the Old Church; the
Constitution gives a "Declaration of Rights," "All power for the government and regulation of the
Church, under God, belongs to, and of right is at the control of, the Church; therefore the right of
priests to rule, as well as of kings to reign, we view as contrary to the gospel of Christ, and
inconsistent with the natural, original, and inherent rights of man." It provided for quarterly, annual,
and general conferences on a basis of equal representation in the last two, of ministers and laymen.
Visiting elders are provided for to attend quarterly and other meetings. The other machinery is
Methodistic. Actual statistics of its after growth through thirty years are not at command, but is
estimated at from three to five thousand. Ultimately their societies in large part were merged into the
Methodist Protestant Church. That it seriously affected the Old Church is evident when the statistics
are consulted. The gain in that Church for 1812 was 8017, and for 1813, 14,596, while the decrease
in 1814, was 2750. Bangs puts it down to the war. It had much to do with it, undoubtedly, as well
as the Canada defection as a part of it, but the Reform movement most accounts for the decline,
though not acknowledged by any of her historians.
Why did not this movement more fully succeed? Its principles were scriptural and amenable to
reason, but, as in the O'Kelly schism, the personal equation was too conspicuous. The hard soil of
New England, always unfriendly to Methodism, was against the liberal tentation. If the social and
business and organized opposition of the Methodist Episcopal Church was as strenuously and
unrelentingly put forth as it was against the Methodist Protestant Church of 1830-40, the marvel is
that it was not incontinently strangled in its birth-throes. The proscription and ostracism were
fearfully intimidating. It was circumscribed in its source, and hedged about more and more in its
attempts to enlarge its area. This, as well as the settled determination of its leaders not to secede or
to sympathize with secession, made it impossible for the Reformers of the Snethen, Shinn, Jennings,
McCaine, Brown, Dorsey, French, and Hill type of 1820-30 to affiliate with it. The pride of personal
leadership made it impossible that the Britt-Bailey Reformers should consent to absorption by the
latter Reform until necessity made it a virtue to coalesce. The same remarks are applicable to the
secession of William M. Stillwell, one of the ablest of the itinerant preachers of his day, who
organized in New York, 1819-20, and gathered some societies on liberal principles, but there was
lacking the cohesive power of a common sympathy. Such schisms cannot long survive the personal
life and posthumous influence of the projectors, and, as schisms, are, for the most part, intrinsically
ill-advised. A number of his adherents were absorbed by the Methodist Protestants and found thereby
a congenial Church home. Both these movements, however, trace their inspiration and execution to
the Episcopal system as embodied and administered in the Asburyan Church.
The General Conference of 1816 had been appointed for Baltimore on the 1st of May. Boehm says
it assembled at Light Street church. Bangs furnishes a full list of the members, 106 in number.
Asbury was dead, and McKendree, though present, was in feeble health. His episcopal address was
presented by Douglass, and referred with Asbury's valedictory, previously prepared, to appropriate
committees. On the 7th, the presiding elder question was brought forward, the strong minority in
favor of an elective method maintaining heart and hope. It was put in various forms in
accommodation to the moods of those who were interested in it. The Conference resolved itself into