VOLUME 4 — BOOK VI — CHAPTER XII
GENERAL CONFERENCES, 1808 — 1816

Necessity of a Delegated Form of the Conference — Session of 1808 — Committee of Fourteen" on Representative Reorganization — "Presiding Elder Question" — Delegation Adopted — The "Restrictive Rules" — Bishop Coke's Relation to the Church — His attempt to Unite it with the Protestant Episcopal Church — Decisive Evidence that no General Conference was held between 1784 and 1792; Note — Coke's Explanation — His Treatment by the Conference — McKendree elected Bishop — Other Proceedings — The Occasion in the Baltimore Churches — Mckendree's Remarkable Sermon — Session of 1812, first Delegated General Conference — Leading Members — McKendree's "Address"— Proceedings — Slavery — Local Elders — Temperance — Elective Presiding Eldership — Session of 1816 — Canadian Territorial Question — George and Roberts elected Bishops — "Course of Study" — Other Proceedings — Slavery

I have traced the legislative development of the Church, by the General Conference, down to the end of the session of 1804. The next meeting of that body was in Baltimore, May 6, 1808. It had been anticipated with no little interest, as the change of its organization, to a delegated assembly, was generally expected. For years Asbury and other leading men had advocated this modification; it had now become an obvious necessity by the magnitude of the body, and the preponderance of the central Conferences in its proceedings. At the present session Virginia, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York, had one hundred members out of the whole number of one hundred and twenty-nine recorded at the opening of the Conference; Philadelphia and Baltimore Conferences had sixty-three, half of the whole, lacking three.[1] A memorial, asking for a reconstruction of the Conference as a delegated body, had been addressed, early in 1807, to the annual Conferences, by the New York Conference. It was approved by the New England, Ohio, and South Carolina Conferences; but, as it proposed, for the purpose, an extra session in the same year, it was defeated in the Virginia Conference, chiefly by the influence of Jesse Lee, who, nevertheless, was decidedly in favor of a representative organization of the body, and successfully advocated the measure in the next Virginia session, [2] held three months before that of the General Conference. A committee of two members from each annual Conference, making fourteen in all, was now appointed to report on the subject. They were Cooper and Wilson, of New York Conference; Pickering and Soule, of New England; McKendree and Burke, of the Western; Phoebus and Randle, of South Carolina; Bruce and Lee, of Virginia; Roszell and Reed, of Baltimore; McClaskey and Ware, of Philadelphia. On the sixteenth of May they reported a form of law, a species of constitution for a representative General Conference. It was opposed, and postponed, that the question of the election of presiding elders, by the annual Conferences, might first be decided. Cooper and Wells moved an elective presiding eldership. It was decided in the negative by ballot (ayes 52, nays 8) on the eighteenth of May, and the same day the report of the "Committee of Fourteen" was resumed, and rejected by a majority of seven out of a hundred and twenty-one voting. Asbury and other chief advocates of the measure were profoundly afflicted by this result. The New England, and most of the western members, who had been sent by election, as representatives of their distant Conferences, which could not generally attend, retired, and threatened to return home.[3] Consultations ensued, and, four days later, the question was again resumed by motions of George, Roszell, Soule, Pickering, and Lee. On the twenty-fourth the report of the committee was substantially adopted, "almost unanimously." [4] It provided that one representative for every five members of the annual Conferences shall be sent to the General Conference; that the latter shall have "full powers" to make "rules and regulations" for the Church under certain "restrictions," to wit, that it shall not change the Articles of Religion; nor allow more than one delegate for every five, nor less than one for every seven members of an annual Conference; nor do away episcopacy or the itinerancy of the episcopate; nor change the "General Rules;" nor abolish the right of trial and appeal of accused preachers and members; nor "appropriate the produce of the Book Concern or Chartered Fund," except for the benefit of ministers and their families. These restrictions could, however, be suspended by the joint recommendation of all the annual Conferences, together with a majority of two thirds of the General Conference. Such are what are usually called the Restrictive Rules of the Methodist Episcopal Church. With the "Articles of Religion;" and the "General Rules," they compose the organic or constitutional law of the denomination. They are attributed chiefly to Joshua Soule; a sub-committee of the fourteen, consisting of Soule, Cooper, and Bruce, having prepared them. In their form, at this time, they leave open to change, the fundamental interests of the Church, even its theology and terms of membership, without representation of the laity; but, in 1832, the proviso giving this power, was justified, making the Articles of Religion unalterable, and requiring a vote of three fourths of the members of the annual, and two third of the General, Conferences to effect any of the other specified changes. The ratio of representation has been repeatedly altered.

The relation of Bishop Coke to the American Church was much debated at this session. He was still absent in Europe. The Conference addressed him a cordial letter, consenting to his remaining abroad, at the request of the Wesleyan Conference, till recalled by the American Church, and retained his name among those of the bishops, with a proviso that he is "not to exercise his episcopal office among us" till recalled. The debate on his case was complicated with the report of his attempt, in 1791, to negotiate, with Bishop White, a union of the Methodist Episcopal and Protestant Episcopal Churches. I have heretofore alluded to this fact, so often and fallaciously cited, by opponents of the Church, as proof that Coke distrusted his episcopal consecration by Wesley." [5] The threatened disturbances of the O'Kelly controversy, which soon after broke out, together with the treatment which both Wesley and Coke had received from the American Conferences, alarmed the doctor. He rashly but conscientiously supposed that a union with the Protestant Episcopal Church might give stability to Methodism. His correspondence with White was strictly personal and confidential, and was designed solely to ascertain the possibility of the union, before he should consult Asbury and the other American leaders respecting it. Before he left the country, after writing to White, he did submit the question to Asbury, at New Castle, Del., where he embarked. Asbury "gave no decisive opinion on the subject."[6] The correspondence was kept confidential by White till 1804, when he revealed it to Simon Wilmer, of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and John McClaskey, of the Philadelphia Conference. He, still later, gave L copy of Coke's letter to "Rev. Dr. Kemp, of Maryland, and it was at last published in a controversy of the diocese." Of course it raised a storm of prejudice against Coke; but his explanatory letter to the present Conference allayed all hostility. "I had provided," he says, "in the fullest manner, in my indispensably necessary conditions, for the security, and, I may say, for the independence of our discipline and places of worship; but I thought (perhaps erroneously, and I believe so now) that our field of action would have been exceedingly enlarged by that junction. If it be granted that my plan of union with the old Episcopal Church was desirable, (which now, I think, was not so, though I most sincerely believed it to be so at that time) then if the plan could not have been accomplished without a repetition of the imposition of hands for the same office, I did believe, and do now believe, and have no doubt that the repetition of the imposition of hands would have been perfectly justifiable for the enlargment of the field of action, etc., and would not, by any means, have invalidated the former consecration or imposition of hands. Therefore I have no doubt but my consecration of Bishop Asbury was perfectly valid, and would have been so even if he had been reconsecrated. I never did apply to the general convention or any other convention for reconsecration. I never intended that either Bishop Asbury or myself should give up our episcopal office if the junction were to take place; but I should have had no scruple then, nor should I now, if the junction were desirable, to have submitted to, or to submit to a reimposition of hands in order to accomplish a great object; but I do say again, I do to now believe such a junction desirable." [7]

Both the characteristic rashness and the admirable catholicity of Coke are manifest in this affair, and the whole correspondence does more credit to his heart than discredit to his head. The Conference, in its official letter to him, after thoroughly investigating the case, properly said, "You may be assured the we feel an affectionate regard for you; that we gratefully remember your repeated labors of love toward us; and that we sensibly feel our obligations for the services you have rendered us. We hope that no circumstance will ever alienate our Christian affection from you, or yours from us."

The ecclesiastical system of the Church had been so thoroughly developed and established, by this time, that the further proceedings the Conference present little more an the enactment of administrative details. A hearty letter from the British Conference said that "respecting our union, dear brethren, we think of no separation from you, except the great Atlantic." The American Conference responded, "Respecting our union, brethren, we can say with you, we know no separation save the Atlantic." They devoutly congratulate one another on their late success and greater prospects. By the death of Whatcoat the aged Asbury was left alone in the episcopate. McClaskey and Cooper moved that it should be reinforced by the consecration of seven men, proposing a modified diocesan episcopacy, there being seven Conferences at this time.[8] Ostrander and Soule proposed two, Roszell and Pitts one. On the 12th of May McKendree was elected to the office by ninety-five votes out of a hundred and twenty-eight, and consecrated in Light Street Church on the 17th. Ezekiel Cooper and Jesse Lee were the other candidates. Ezekiel Cooper resigned the Book Agency, and John Wilson and Daniel Hitt were elected to that office. It was enacted that, in order to ordination to deacon's orders, local preachers must be recommended by a quarterly meeting, and be approved, after examination, by the annual Conference. A change was made in the rule on the trial of Church members, for debt and other disputes, allowing a legal process in cases judged to require it. A thousand dollars were appropriated from the Book Concern to the printing of religious tracts to be given away; Asbury and his traveling companion usually scattered them over their routes. The question of slavery, which had never failed to come up in the sessions or the General Conference, was again brought up by Roszell. McClaskey and Budd were defeated in motion to strike out "the whole section in the Discipline on the subject." Roszell and Ware carried a resolution to "retain the first two paragraphs of the section," and to authorize the annual Conferences to "form their own regulations relative to buying and selling slaves." It was ordered that "a thousand forms of Discipline he prepared for South Carolina, with the section and rule on slavery left out." By motion of Lee and Ware, the word "salary" was struck out of the Discipline, and the word "allowance" inserted in its place.

The Conference adjourned on the 26th of May, having sat twenty days. Boehm, who was present, gives us a few glimpses of the exterior incidents of the session. He says there was much eloquent and powerful preaching . "On Sunday, the 8th, George Pickering preached in the market-house, and three preachers exhorted after him. There was a mighty shaking among the people. This was early in the morning. At half past ten I heard William McKendree from 'Is there no balm in Gilead,' etc. This was the eloquent sermon that made him bishop. Dr. Bangs gives a graphic description of it. Slow in his commencement, he rose with his subject, till his audience were melted like wax before the fire.

In the afternoon Stith Mead, from Virginia, preached at Oldtown. Bishop Asbury preached, in Eutaw Street, the opening sermon of the new chapel, from 2 Cor. iii. 12, 'Seeing then we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech.' The crowd was immense and the sermon characteristic. There was not only preaching on Sunday, but three times every day in the Light Street Church, and every evening in the four other churches, namely: The Point, Oldtown, African, and Eutaw. Several souls were converted during the week. Sunday, the 15th, was a great day. William McKendree, bishop elect, preached at seven o'clock in the Marsh market. My record says: 'This was an awful time of the power and presence of the Lord.' At ten o'clock Asbury preached in Light Street Church, and the sheep were gloriously fed by the under shepherd; in the afternoon Jacob Gruber in German, at three o'clock, in Otterbein's church; McKendree again at five in the Eutaw; and John McClaskey at Light Street in the evening. On Wednesday, the 18th, William McKendree was consecrated to the office and work of a bishop. Asbury preached from I Tim iv, 16, 'Take heed unto thyself;' etc. Freeborn Garrettson, Philip Bruce, Jesse Lee, and Thomas Ware assisted Bishop Asbury in the ordination service, they being the oldest ministers present. Sunday, the 22d, was a great day in Baltimore. George Pickering preached in the new church at six in the morning; at ten, Samuel Coates, in Oldtown; at three, Jacob Gruber, at the African Church; at five, Ezekiel Cooper in Eutaw Street Church. Jesse Lee preached in the evening at Light Street, from John v, 40. Thus ended this day of privileges, the last Sabbath of the General Conference in Baltimore in 1808. I have given a statement of the preaching, for this has not been done. Others have dwelt upon the doings of the General Conference during the week, and have said but little of what was done on Sunday. But to hear these giants in the pulpit, these master workmen, was a privilege that afforded me consolation in after years. It will be seen they preached early in the morning, and had five services a day. There was a great deal more preaching during the General Conference. I have simply named the men I heard. The business of the Conference was done in great harmony. There were masterly debates on the great questions of Church polity that came before them, but all was done in love."

Nathan Bangs was at this Conference as a spectator. He had been laboring on Canada circuits, and had hardly heard of McKendree, whose fame, nevertheless, now filled all the West. Bangs went, on Sunday, to Light street Church, the center of interest, the cathedral of the occasion, and of the denomination. He says, "It was filled to overflowing. The second gallery, at one end of the chapel, was crowded with colored people. I saw the preacher of the morning enter the pulpit, sunburnt, and dressed in very ordinary clothes, with a red flannel shirt, which showed a large space between his vest and small clothes. He appeared more like a poor backwoodsman than a minister of the gospel. I felt mortified that such a looking man should have been appointed to preach on such an imposing occasion. In his prayer he seemed to lack words, and even stammered. I became uneasy for the honor of the Conference and the Church he gave out his text: 'For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt; I am black; astonishment hath taken hold on me. Is there no balm in Gilead? is there no physician there? why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?' As he advanced in his discourse a mysterious magnetism seemed to emanate from him to all parts of the house. He was absorbed in the interest of his subject; his voice rose gradually till it sounded like a trumpet; at a climactic passage the effect was overwhelming. It thrilled through the assembly like an electric shock; the house rang with irrepressible responses; many hearers fell prostrate to the floor. An athletic man, sitting by my side, fell as if shot by a cannon-ball. I felt my own heart melting, and feared that I should also fall from my seat. Such an astonishing effect, so sudden and overpowering, I seldom or never saw before."

Bangs refers, again, in his History of the Church, to this sermon, and says he saw "a halo of glory around the preacher's head." McKendree's general recognition as leader of western Methodism, together with his evident fitness for the episcopal office, doubtless led to his nomination; but this remarkable discourse placed his election beyond doubt. "That sermon," said Asbury, "will decide his election." Asbury had formerly favored Lee's appointment to the episcopate; McKendree had become endeared to him in the conflicts of the West, and he now saw reason to prefer him even to Lee. The Church had become rich in great and eligible men.

On May l, 1812, the first delegated General Conference assembled in the "old John Street Church," New York. Garrettson, Ostrander, Bangs, Clark; Merwin, and eight other members of New York Conference were there; Pickering, Hedding, Soule, and six others from New England; Owen, Batchelor, and four more from Genesee; Blackman, Lakin, Quinn, Sale, Collins, Parker, Axley, and six more from the West; Myers, Pierce, Kenneday, Dunwody, and five others from South Carolina; Lee, Bruce, Douglas, Early, and five more from Virginia; Reed, Wells, Snethen, George, Shinn, Roberts, Ryland, and eight others from Baltimore; Cooper, McClaskey, Sargent, Ware, Roszell, and nine others from Philadelphia; the whole number being ninety. No provision had been made in the law of the Church for substitutes, to take the place of members who should fail to be present by death or other cause. But New England had the forethought to provide three for such an exigency. The "Conference took into consideration the propriety of the principle," says the journal, and approved it, and the example has ever since prevailed.

McKendree submitted a written address or message to the Conference, the first example of the kind. "Upon examination," he said, "you will find the work of the Lord is prospering in our hands. Our important charge has greatly increased since the last General Conference; we have had an increase of nearly forty thousand members. At present we have about one hundred and ninety thousand members, upward of two thousand local, and about seven hundred traveling preachers in our connection, and these widely scattered over seventeen states, besides the Canadas and several of the territorial settlements."

He specified many interests of the denomination which needed the revision of the Conference. His suggestions were referred to committees, after which Asbury addressed the assembly extemporaneously on the history of the Church, its appropriate policy for the future, and particularly the expediency of increasing the number of annual Conferences. The legality of the organization of the Genesee Conference, two years before, had been questioned; the Conference now sanctioned that measure. It also divided the Western Conference into two, the Ohio and the Tennessee, and authorized the bishops to form another, "down the Mississippi," if they should judge it expedient. After protracted debate the ordination of local preachers, as elders, was voted: but only for localities where the "official service of local elders might be necessary, and "provided that no slave-holder shall be eligible to the office of local elder in any state or territory where the civil laws will admit emancipation, and suffer the liberated slave to enjoy his freedom." It was ordered that the Magazine, which had been published in 1?59 and 790, should be revived, but it was not, till six years later. The preceding session had disapproved of the manuscript of Lee's "History of the Methodists," which had been submitted to the examination of a committee; the Conference now voted that the annual Conferences should collect, by committees, historical materials, and the New York Conference employ a historian to prepare them for publication; a proceeding which seems to have been soon forgotten. It was ordered that stewards should no longer be appointed by the preacher in charge, but be nominated by him, and appointed by the quarterly Conference. Annual Conferences were allowed to provide funds for the relief of their own preachers, and "for mission purposes." Axley stood up persistently for his " temperance" reform, moving repeatedly, against motions to lay on the table, that "no stationed or local preacher shall retail spirituous or malt liquors without forfeiting his ministerial character among us." At the third effort he was defeated. David Young moved that "the Conference inquire into the nature and moral tendency of slavery." The motion was laid on the table, but the question was irrepressible. The Conference sent forth a long and fervent pastoral address, in which, among many important counsels, it paid some respect to Axley's defeated motions. "It is with regret," it says," that we have seen the use of ardent spirits, dram-drinking, etc., common among the Methodists. We have endeavored to suppress the practice by our example, but it is necessary that we add precept to example; and we really think it not consistent with the character of a Christian to be immersed in the practice of distilling or retailing an article so destructive to the morals of society, and we do most earnestly recommend the annual Conferences and our people to join with us in making a firm and constant stand against an evil which has ruined thousands both in time and eternity."

Two days were spent in a great debate on the question of the election of presiding elders by the annual Conferences. Lee, Shinn, and Snethen were the leaders of the affirmative, and many of the ablest delegates shared their opinions; but they were defeated, the bishops being known as profoundly opposed to it. At every session of the General Conference, since 1784, down to 1828, (with the possible exception of that of 1804,) this question obtruded itself; [9] arraying the chief men of the ministry against each other in formidable parties. In the session of 1812 the majority against the change was but three; the delegates of Philadelphia, New York, and Genesee were pledged to it; the southern and western members were mostly opposed to it. Lee, Cooper, Garrettson, Ware, Phoebus, and Hunt were its most strenuous advocates.

In 1816 the Conference again assembled on the first of May in Baltimore. The war with Great Britain had just closed, and left, as has been noticed, some disturbance between the Wesleyan and American Methodist bodies by the encroachment of Wesleyan missionaries on the Canadian appointments. Case and Ryan were present to represent the Canadian Church on the subject; Black and Bennett, from Nova Scotia, represented the Wesleyans. A letter from the English Missionary Board was read, full of congratulations and cordial sentiments, but soliciting the cession of the Montreal appointment, and Lower Canada generally, to their control. A committee, after consulting with the Canada representatives, reported that the great majority of the Methodists, of both Upper and Lower Canada, wished the continuance of the jurisdiction of the American Church, and that therefore "we cannot, consistently with our duty to the societies, give up any part of them." The Conference voted a hundred dollars for the expense of the British messengers from Nova Scotia, and an amicable letter to the Wesleyan Missionary Board.

On the fourteenth Enoch George and Robert R. Roberts were elected bishops, the former by fifty-seven, the latter by fifty, votes, out of one hundred and six. A course of study, to be prepared by the bishops, or a committee appointed by them, for ministerial candidates, who were to be examined at the annual Conferences, was ordered; the first example of any such requisition in the Church, though habits of reading and study had always been enjoined. Measures were adopted providing for the better support of the ministry; for repressing heretical opinions; for abolishing pews (which were yet confined to New England Churches) and assessments, or taxes, in support of preaching; and for the licensing of exhorters. Joshua Soule and Thomas Mason were elected Book Agents, and the order for the publication of the "Methodist Magazine" was repeated by a motion of Bangs, and about two years later obeyed. The question of the election of presiding elders was again elaborately debated, but lost. Pickering moved that the "unfinished business of the last General Conference so far as it relates to slavery" be referred to a select committee. The committee reported their "opinion that, in existing circumstances, little can be done to abolish a practice so contrary to the principles of moral justice. They are sorry to say that the evil appears to be past remedy, and they are led to deplore the destructive consequences which have already accrued, and are yet likely to result therefrom. They find that in the South and West the civil authorities render emancipation impracticable, and, notwithstanding they are led to fear that some of our members are too easily contented with laws so unfriendly to freedom, yet, nevertheless, 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. They have also made inquiry into the regulations pursued by the annual Conferences in relation to this subject, and they find that some of them have made no efficient rules on the subject of slavery, thereby leaving our people to act as they please." It was therefore "Resolved, by the delegates of the annual Conferences in General Conference assembled, That all the recommendatory part of the second division, ninth section, and first answer of our form of Discipline, after the word 'slavery,' be stricken out, and the following words inserted: 'Therefore no slave-holder shall be eligible to any official station in our Church hereafter where the laws of the state in which he lives will admit of emancipation, and permit the liberated slave to enjoy freedom.'" The report was adopted on a motion by Pickering.

A Book Depository at Pittsburgh was authorized, and the Missouri and Mississippi Conferences established. Axley, aided by Myers, again struck against the distillation and retailing of spirituous liquors, but without success. The Conference adjourned on the twenty-fourth of May.

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ENDNOTES

1 General Conference Journal,, vol.1, p.71.

2 Dr. Lee's, Life of Lee, p.429.

3 Elliott's Life of Bishop Roberts, p.159.

4 Bangs' "History," Vol. ii, p.281.

5 See vol. iii, p. 41.

6 Coke's Letter to the General Conference of 1808, in Bangs, vol. ii, p.207. There is an important passage in this letter which further decides the question, (treated in a long note on page 37 of my third volume,) whether there was a session of the General Conference between 1784 and 1792. Coke says, January 29, 1808, "There are few of you who can possibly recollect anything of what I am next going to add. Many of you were then only little children. We had at that time [1791] no regular General Conference. One only had been held in the year 1784. I had indeed, with great labor and fatigue, a few months before I wrote this letter to Bishop White, prevailed on James O'Kelly to submit to the decision of a General Conference. This Conference was to be held in about a year and a half after my departure from the States. And at this Conference, held, I think, the latter end of 1792, I proposed and obtained that great blessing to the American connection, a permanency for General Conferences, which were to be held at stated times. Previously to the holding of this Conference (except the general one held in 1784) there were only small district meetings, excepting the council which was held at Cokesbury College either in 1791 or 1792." This, even without the decisive citation I make from Asbury in my former note, sets at rest the question.

7 The Italics are his own.

8 Lee's Life of Lee, see p.435.

9 Lee's Life of Lee, p. 475, note. Bangs (ii, 332) is erroneous in supposing that there is nothing in the Conference records relating to this question from 1792 to 1808. The record of 1800 shows that it was then acted upon.

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