History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

a committee of the whole, an unusual proceeding, and McKendree retired from the chair, selecting
Garrettson to preside, and so he did from day to day through the week it was under consideration.
It was working against wind and tide to carry a measure which the Episcopacy had openly
denounced. What convincing arguments were used to thwart it receives some intimation by the vote
from day to day, on differing phases but substantially the same issue: 42 in favor, 60 against — 38
in favor, 63 against; finally defeated by "an overwhelming majority," Tigert says, speaking from the
Journal. How this overwhelming majority was coached is presumptive in the face of the fact that four
years later it is again the vexed question, and is carried by a two-thirds majority.
The Committee on the Episcopacy reported in favor of the election of two Bishops. On the 14th
of May, the election took place, and Enoch George, known to be in favor of an elective eldership,
received 57 out of 106 votes on the first ballot, and Robert Richford Roberts 55 out of 106 on the
second ballot. None of the historians tells who were the opposing candidates that made the majority
of the successful names so narrow. Roberts frequently occupied the chair during the closing sessions,
but George never assumed it during this Conference. The committee on slavery reported that "the
evil appears to be past remedy," and that "they are constrained to admit that to bring about such a
change in the civil code as would favor the cause of liberty is not in the power of the General
Conference." It was a wise conclusion, though unsatisfactory to the conscientious opponents of the
institution. The most that an ecclesiastical body can do with moral questions is to hear testimony
against the evils, and then in their civic capacity work to the end of their destruction. Disregard of
this rational course led indirectly to the division of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1844, and of
the "suspension of official relations" of the West and North from the East and South in the Methodist
Protestant Church, in 1858. Obedience to it preserved the Protestant Episcopal Church of all the
Protestant denominations in the country from a like division.
The local preachers presented memorials to this Conference asking: (1) for representation in the
councils of the Church; (2) a share in the administration; (3) a stipulation that their services might
be compensated where the people desired their services. Some amendatory provisions were made
to the law, but the specific things asked were not granted. Provision was made for the support of the
wives of the newly elected bishops, McKendree being the last of the bachelor order, and this was the
beginning of their support out of the Book Concern in violation of its charter. Joshua Soule and
Thomas Mason were elected Book Agents, and the Methodist Magazine again ordered, but it was
not republished until 1818. These are the material items of business. The Conference adjourned on
the 24th of May, to meet again in Baltimore, May 1, 1820.
Standing inseparably connected with this General Conference was the death of Bishop Francis
Asbury, which cast a pall over it and the whole Church, and was heralded throughout the country as
a public calamity. Before touching it let his Journal be consulted for records bearing upon his history
and pertinent to the special object of this work, and in line with the fact that no previous History has
fortified its possessions so fully from his Journal. They shall be rapidly sketched from 1804.
November, — "The Superintendent Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church in America being
reduced to two dollars, he was obliged to make his wants known." He received not infrequent
legacies from partial friends, which he kept at interest, and when he died about two thousand dollars
was found to his credit, which he willed to the Book Concern. He was utterly unselfish and devoid
of money love. December, — " We came away twenty miles to see Alexander McCaine." He was