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402 OTHER INTERDENOMINATIONAL ASSOCIATIONSMethodist Episcopal Church in 1828. The chief causes ofthis division was the insistence of certain leaders thatlaymen should have representation in the councils of theChurch. In that far-off day of nearly a century ago theMethodist Church in the United States was a preacheradministeredbody of Christ. The spirit of the Revolution,surging in the hearts of the membership, insisted uponrepresentation as a condition of co-operation in the ecclesiastical body. For many decades the Methodist EpiscopalChurch has in practice acknowledged the wisdom of theMethodist Protestants by incorporating the very principlesfor which they stood in her law and polity. The reason for.separate altars having passed away, the churches in 11)08advanced each toward the other with outstretched hands,and confessing themselves to be of one mind and one spirit,sought organic union.The causes of the division between theThe NorthernMethodist Episcopal Church and the MethodandSouthern . .. . .,,,Churches is t Church South dates back to the strife ofante-bellum days. The Methodist Church inthe southern part of the United States, like the Americangovernment itself, was sadly embarrassed by the existence ofslavery south of Mason and Dixou s Line. This was therock on which the makers of tbe Constitution of the UnitedStates were pinioned for many weary mouths and finallyreached a compromise that was inserted in the Constitution,that no law should be enacted affecting the institution ofslavery prior to the year 1808. The Church north andsouth was deeply troubled, not so much because of divergentviews concerning the evils of slavery, as on account of themethods of dealing with the institution. The Church inthe North viewed slavery from a distance and was naturallyintolerant of its existence; the Church in the South wascompelled to deal with it in the homes of her membership,and while multitudes of noble souls sorrowed deeplylike theirbecause of the curse that was upon them, yetbrothers in the North they saw no way of escape. At theConference in New York 7 in 1844, after the most strenuousdebate and many weary days of earnest attempts to reconcilethe differences which had arisen, the fathers separated whit