History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

Episcopal Church through the preference of Coke and Asbury, despite the same natural tendency to
Presbyterianism in the people, — a government analogous both with the New Testament ideal and
the civil regime under which they lived. Kilham was of heroic mold and met the violence of mobs
as he afterward met his opponents polemically. Roughhewn and rugged both in physique and
intellect, and an untamed eloquence which frequently bore his audiences away with him, he comes
conspicuously into notice from the fact that in May eighteen laymen of Hull issued a protest against
the allowance of the sacrament in Methodist chapels, and to the same effect in other places, while
counter-declarations were frequent from many towns and often from the same societies. The Hull
petition aroused the lion in him, and he wrote a reply which he signed anonymously. It produced
great excitement, for he had put the case of the popular rights of the people against the National
Church so forcibly that it rallied as a party those who were of his way of thinking, and engendered
the resentment of the opposite party.
Amid the turmoil, the forty-eighth Conference met at Manchester, July 26, 1791. It was attended
by over three hundred preachers, being the whole body, with few exceptions, as there was now no
discriminating selection as under Wesley's reign. It remained in session thirteen days. Perhaps the
same number of preachers never before met with so devout a spirit, and in sentiment so divided.
William Thompson was elected President; it was the first exercise of the voting privilege for such
a purpose. He was an Irishman of sixty years of age, cool, conservative, and in his opinions of church
government moderate, so that all parties regarded him as a safe man. Dr. Coke was elected Secretary.
He was a ready scribe, and the Conference by this act showed their respect for him personally, but
cooled the ardor with which he was generally charged as an aspirant for headship. Organized, the
first act was to receive from Joseph Bradburn, Wesley's traveling companion, and to whom he had
intrusted it, the letter already adverted to, he wrote the body as a posthumous legacy. It was
addressed to the Legal Hundred, and besought them to take no advantage of their position as
discriminating in the appointments and to preserve the order he had left them. It had a moving effect
upon the Conference, and they resolved to follow the advice of their sainted father and founder. The
suggestions of Thompson for districting the work, etc., were adopted. Seventeen districts in England,
five in Ireland, two in Scotland, And one in Wales. The preachers within these bounds were to elect
a chairman and a committee of their number, who were to prepare a plan of appointments, the whole
to be submitted to the annual Conference when it assembled. They determined that the appointments
should be restricted to two years and not three, as Wesley proposed, but with a proviso, that in case
of revivals it might be extended. One from each district was to meet the delegate of the British
Conference two days before the Irish Conference for the same purpose. Thus was inaugurated the
"Stationing Committee." All the preachers were heard through their chairman of the district, and the
final "plan of appointments" was submitted to the Conference for adoption or to be referred back and
amended. It included the preachers' right of appeal. Coke was designated to preside at the Irish
Conference. The statistical returns showed the year to have been prosperous; fifteen candidates were
put on a probationary list, a new feature of business, as they were not immediately needed in the
work. The Wesleyan Conference of 1791 adjourned without division, and in much outward peace.
No sooner, however, were the preachers back to their appointments than the old controversy broke
out afresh, each party contending that the resolve of the Conference "to follow strictly Mr. Wesley's
plan" meant that their plan should prevail. Kilham was a leader in the renewed polemical fray, and
pamphlets and circulars filled the air with dissentient views. He did not mince his language, for he