History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

ENDNOTES
1 See Mutual Rights, of November 22, 1528, reported by Rev. W. W. Hill.
2 Numerous examples might be given of every degree and in various localities. A few are here given
as late as 1894, in both cases simply because fresh in mind. They indicate not only the truth of these
allegations, but prove conclusively that though the Episcopal administration has been of late years,
indeed since 1830, materially modified and softened, yet the law is unchanged, and when opportunity
serves or necessity suggests, it is seen that this ecclesiastical leopard has not and cannot change its
spots. The facts are rigidly condensed. Case first occurred at the Baltimore Annual Conference of
March, 1894. Bishop Hurst, resident Bishop in Washington, D. C.. thought it would be best, for
special reasons bearing upon the University, of which he is the President, that a presiding elder, Dr.
Naylor, of the District, should be removed, and so advised the Presiding Bishop of the Conference,
Dr. Fowler. Without consultation with him, when the appointments were read he was removed and
sent to a station in Baltimore, after serving but two years of his allowable term of six. It produced
great excitement, not to say indignation, in the Elder's district. In a majority of the churches public
meetings were held of the laity, and resolutions asking for the recall of the action of Bishop Fowler,
passed after speeches from laymen, such as in 1827-30 would have indited and expelled groups of
them. After long and fruitless negotiation, a Committee of the whole waited on Bishop Hurst against
his wish, and urged their Suit. He met them with the dignified repellence of a true successor of
Asbury and McKendree, the upshot of the interview being in these words of the Bishop "Attend your
prayer-meetings, and leave the important responsibilities of the Annual Conference in the hands of
the bishop presiding," etc. Abashed and defeated they retired. For full particulars see Washington
papers of this date. An iron hand was drawn out of a velvet glove. The other case is certified by the
Methodist Recorder, November 17, 1894, citing from an Indianapolis, Ind., paper, as it occurred in
one of the M. E. churches of that city. The congregation expressed at the Conference a desire for a
change of pastor. It was disregarded. On his return the official board declined cooperation with him.
Whereupon, with the presiding elder abetting him, he called a meeting of the official board, and in
violation of the order of business, the elder in the chair, the pastor announced the names of eighteen
laymen as class leaders, though the size of the congregation never before called for more than two,
and by these eighteen new votes he usurped a majority in the quarterly conference, changed its
character, and asserted his will over both use legitimate officiary and the congregation. This official
board were in error according to the law of that church, but what about the usurpation of power by
the pastor and the elder in the appointment of eighteen class leaders for no other reason than to over
master it? An iron hand was drawn from a velvet glove.
3 What was "afterward published," the Circular Letter or "the plan of government"? It is now known
that the Circular Letter was published in the Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser on Jan. 3,
1785, and later in the English Arminian Magazine, but the "plan of government" was never
published, as the writer has exhaustively shown in an elaborate foot-note toward the close of Chap.
X. of Vol. II. of this History. Ware, at least, was a member of the Christmas Conference of 1784, but,
as elsewhere shown, he was not in the confidence of Coke and Asbury as to the "plan of
government." Nor can these Book Agents, Hitt and Ware, who prepared this obituary he correct as