Nathan Bangs · 16 of 29

Chapter 13. The General Conference of 1836. · Part 1

This conference assembled in the city of Cincinnati, Ohio, on the first of May, 1836, and was composed of the following delegates: —

New York Conference: Nathan Bangs, Laban Clark, William Jewett, S. Martindale, Daniel Ostrander, Phinehas Rice, Marvin Richardson, Peter P. Sandford, John B. Stratten, Beverly Waugh.

New England Conference: Isaac Bonney, Phineas Crandall, Daniel Fillmore, Joseph A. Merrill, Orange Scott, Charles Virgin, Daniel Webb.

Maine Conference: Charles Baker, Moses Hill, John B. Husted, Heman Nickerson, William H. Norris, Ezekiel Robinson, George Webber.

New Hampshire Conference: John F. Adams, Charles D. Cahoon, Schuyler Chamberlain, Samuel Kelly, Samuel Norris, Jared Perkins, Elihu Scott, Elisha J. Scott, George Storrs.

Troy Conference: S. D. Ferguson, Buel Goodsell, Noah Levings, Sherman Minor, P. C. Oakley, Charles Sherman, Tobias Spicer.

Oneida Conference: Horace Agard, Elias Bowen, Silas Comfort, George Gary, George Lane, Zechariah Paddock, George Peck.

Genesee Conference: Asa Abel, Glezin Fillmore, Loring Grant, James Hemmingway, Wilbur Hoag, Samuel Luckey, Manley Tooker.

Pittsburgh Conference: Joshua S. Barris, Wesley Browning, Charles Elliott, Robert Hopkins, Thomas M. Hudson, Joshua Munroe, Martin Ruter.

Ohio Conference: William B. Christie, Augustus Eddy, John Ferree, James B. Finley, Thomas A. Morris, John F. Power, James Quinn, William H. Raper, Le Roy Swormstedt, John F. Wright, David Young, Jacob Young.

Missouri Conference: Jesse Green Thomas Johnson, George C. Light, Andrew Munroe.

Kentucky Conference: Henry B. Bascom, Benjamin T. Crouch, H. H. Kavanaugh, Jonathan Stamper, Edward Stevenson, G. W. Taylor.

Illinois Conference: Peter Cartwright, Hooper Crews, Simon Peter.

Mississippi Conference: Benjamin M. Drake John Lane, William Winans.

Indiana Conference: James Havens, C. W. Ruter, James L. Thompson, Allen Wiley.

Holston Conference: Thomas K. Catlett, David Flemming, Samuel Patton, William Patton.

Tennessee Conference: T. L. Douglass, Alexander L. P. Green, G. W. D. Harris, G. T. Henderson, John M. Holland, John B. McFerrin, Robert Paine.

Alabama Conference: F. H. Jones, Robert L. Kinnon, W. Murrah, W. Wier,

Georgia Conference: Samuel K. Hodges, John Howard, Lovick Pearce, Elijah Sinclair,

South Carolina Conference: Charles Betts, William Capers, Samuel Dunwoody, William M. Kennedy, Malcolm M. McPherson, N. Tally.

Virginia Conference: Moses Brock, Thomas Crowder, John Early, H. G. Leigh, James McAden, Abram Penn, Lewis Skidmore, William A. Smith,

Baltimore Conference: John A. Collins, A. Griffith, D. Steele, N. Wilson, John Bear, Samnel Brison, Robert Cadden, John Davis, William Hamilton, William Prettyman, S. G. Roszel.

Philadelphia Conference: David Daily, Manning Force, Solomon Higgins, John Lybrand, R. W. Petherbridge, Charles Pitman, Levi Scott, James Smith, Jr. Matthew Sorin, Henry White, William A. Wiggins.

Bishops Roberts, Soule, Hedding, and Andrew were present, and the first named opened the conference by reading a portion of the Holy Scriptures, singing, and prayer. Thomas H. Douglass was appointed secretary, and Thomas F. Sargeant assistant secretary.

After the conference was organized, the president introduced the Rev. William Lord, as a representative from the Wesleyan Methodist Conference, and the Rev. William Case, as the representative from the Canada conference, when the former delivered the following address from the Wesleyan Methodist conference: —

“To the bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the Conferences of America.

“Very Dear Brethren, — The preachers of our connection, assembled in conference, however earnestly engaged in numerous and diversified affairs, requiring diligence, vatolofulness, and prudence in council, cannot be so pre-occupied with their own most urgent interests as to forget that time approaches for the holding of your General Conference at we have a confidential agent in the western continent, in the person of of the beloved brother, the Rev. William Lord; and that an opportunity is thus presented for renewing the affectionate fraternal intercourse of the two great families of Wesleyan Methodism.

On former occasions, the conferences of both connections have alike acknowledged the beauty and utility of that unity of faith and love which has happily hitherto subsisted between them, and the value of reciprocal intercourse by epistles and deputations, as a means of cultivating and perpetuating the existing union and brotherhood. By taking knowledge of the steady improvement and resistless growth of our kindred communities, and giving exercise to the brotherly feelings with which we rejoice in each other’s welfare and success, we are stimulated to love and to good works, and confirmed in the principles and affections essential to a catholic spirit. We also perceive in the co-existence, the independence, and the kind and intimate correspondence of the two great confraternities of the Methodist body, a mutual check to evil change in doctrine, discipline, or practice.

“We sincerely congratulate you on your continued prosperity. The increase of your members, — the extension of your missions among the aborigines of the western continent, in regions where you have a whole and appropriate sphere of action, the establishment and progress of seminaries for your junior preachers, and all the auspicious circumstances of your great work, are highly interesting to us as partakers of your joy.

“In reference to the condition and prospects of British Methodism, notwithstanding some partial agitations in our societies, we have great cause, on the whole, to thank God and take courage. Our numbers in Great Britain are nearly the same as at the last conference; but our missionary department continues to afford us great encouragement, both by actual increase of converts from sin to God, and by openings for more extended operations. The experiment, commenced shortly after our last conference of a theological institution for the improvement of preachers admitted on our list of reserve, is proceeding in a manner which promises to exceed our best hopes. In the direction of this, as of all our institutions, it is the anxious wish of our body, inspired with one unanimous sentiment of conscientious solicitude, to preserve and perpetuate sound doctrine, and pure, experimental, and practical religion.

It has already come to your knowledge, as a matter of public notoriety, that by the blessing of God on the efforts and influence of our connection, and on the combined endeavors of the religious public of our beloved country, a great measure for the emancipation of the slaves in all the territories of Great Britain was eventually conducted to a successful issue in the imperial legislature; and has since been carried into practical effect in all the colonies of the empire, with various degrees of completeness, but universally with safety and advantage, and with results which mightily encourage us to go forward in our earnest attempts to enlighten and evangelize the whole population to which favorable access is thus freely opened.

“Our American brethren will doubtless allow us the fraternal liberty to express our conviction that great Scriptural principles are opposed to the continuance of slavery in a Christian state; that the permission of it is one of those deviations from natural equity and evangelical purity which call for further deviations to abet and maintain them; that it is contrary to the precepts of Christianity, and violates and counteracts the principles and obligations by which the gospel urges those precepts. We trust that your connection, having already begun to resist and condemn this baneful system, will, in its own way, be freely and providentially led to such practical steps as shall produce a consentaneous opinion, feeling, and purpose among your own people; and will then have the glory of leading the public opinion of your great and increasing population to such decided views as will result in a unanimous rejection of slavery and its social mischiefs, on the ground of its repugnancy to the laws of Christ.

“We rejoice to learn, from various quarters, that in your country, as in ours, Wesleyan Methodism is steadily and powerfully diffusing Christian knowledge; and this we trust it will still abundantly effect by advocating right principles in its periodical publications, as well as by the living ministry of the gospel. It will, we trust, he the sacred and unalterable purpose and aim of the Methodist societies, on both sides of the Atlantic, to maintain uncorruptness of doctrine and life, and to offer a free, a full, a present, and an everlasting salvation to all people, and to the end of time.

“Brother Lord is instructed to present to you our warmest Christian salutations: he will be able to communicate freely with you concerning our affairs; and, we trust, will be brought to you ‘in the fulness of the blessing of the gospel of peace.’

“Of all that we have to express in our communications to you, the best is that he is graciously with us, to whom all power is given in heaven and in earth, and who is with his disciples always, even to the end of the world. We earnestly pray that his presence may go with you through the length and breadth of your States, and throughout your western wilderness, so that every class and race among your mingled tribes may specially know the truth as it is in Jesus. Signed, on behalf and order of the conference,

“Richard Reece, President “Robert Newton, Secretary. “Sheffield, August l8th, 1835.

To this address the conference returned the following answer, appointing the Rev. Dr. Fisk, who was then in Europe, our representative to the Wesleyan Methodist conference: —

“Honorable Fathers and Brethren, — We have had the pleasure of receiving, by the hands of your worthy representative, the Rev. William Lord, your kind and fraternal salutations, as expressed in the epistle with which he was charged, and which has been read n’ open conference. This, together with the friendly intercourse of brother Lord among us on the present interesting occasion, has brought to our recollection those hallowed associations by which we have been refreshed in former times, by similar tokens of brotherly love and Christian affection. Assembled as we are, in our General Conference, is the representatives of the twenty-two annual conferences, into which our work, for greater convenience and facility in carrying forward the sacred cause in which we he engaged, is divided, we embrace this opportunity of expressing our unfeigned gratitude to God for what he hath wrought on this vast continent by our instrumentality and of our firm and unwavering attachment to those doctrines and usages, and to that discipline, by which we have ever been distinguished, and which we have received in substance from the venerable founder of Methodism.

But in the midst of these recollections, so holy and consolatory, we have the lament the loss by death, since we last assembled, of our senior superintendent, the Rev. William McKendree, the brightness of whose example, for the many years he went in and out among us shone with a steady and cheering light, and whose setting sun reflects upon those of us who survive his in the radiance of immortality; of our junior superintendent, the Rev. John Emory, whose commanding talents and fervent piety gave us reason to hope that he would be rendered a great blessing to the Church and the world, but whose sudden and unexpected death, while it has deprived us of his services, has doubtless transferred him to the brighter regions of eternal day; — and the loss of our excellent book establishment by fire in the city of New York, by which disastrous event we have lost about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars’ worth of stock, including printing and binding materials, building, etc. And to these losses, which we regard as the chastisements of our heavenly Father, we may add, a diminution in the number of our communicants, for the last year, of between two and three thousand.

But while these things call for mourning, for ’searchings of heart,’ for humiliation and prayer, we are by no means discouraged; for though thus chastened, we are not in despair, — though cast down, not destroyed. We trust that the God of providence and grace will raise up others to fill the places of those who have gone to their reward; and furnish means to resume our wonted practice of diffusing abroad evangelical principles and holiness through the medium of the press; and also pour out his Spirit upon our heritage, and so prosper the labor of our hands, that we shall hereafter witness an increase of piety and of numbers to our Zion.

But while our domestic work has thus suffered from these and other causes, not necessary now to mention, we rejoice to witness the growing prosperity of our missions, both in our own borders, among the aborigines of our wildernesses, in the rising Colony of Liberia in Western Africa, and in some of the cities of South America. In the contemplation of these opening prospects for missionary enterprise, we rejoice in being able to record the encouraging fact, that our people are cheerfully and promptly pledging a portion of their substance to aid us in this great and good work. During the past year our missionary fund has been replenished by about twenty-two thousand dollars, over and above the amount collected in any one preceding year; and on our several missionary stations we have had an accession of upward of four thousand to the number of our church members. For these manifest tokens of divine approbation upon this department of our work, we desire to be thankful to him from whom cometh every good and perfect gift, and to make them motives of renewed exertion and persevering efforts in the grand missionary cause.

“In common with sister denominations of Christians in our country, we have been less or more agitated with the perplexing question of Negro slavery. And, although we receive with respectful deference what you, as our elder brethren, have said to us in relation to this question, yet we are assured that, from the known prudence by which your body has ever been distinguished, had you been as well acquainted with this subject as we are — could you have viewed it in all its aspects, as it presents itself to us who are in the midst of it, interwoven as it is in many of the state constitutions, and left to their disposal by the civil compact which binds us together as a nation, and thus put beyond the power of legislation by the general government, as well as the control of ecclesiastical bodies, — could you have critically analyzed its various ramifications in our country, so as to have perceived all its delicate relations to the Church, to the several states, and to the government of the United States, — we cannot doubt that, while expressing your decided disapprobation of the system of slavery itself, your tone of sympathy for us would have been deeper and more pathetic. While on this subject, it may be pertinent to remark, that of the colored population in the southern and southwestern states, there are not less than seventy thousand in our Church membership; and that, in addition to those who are mingled with our white congregations, we have several prosperous missions exclusively for their spiritual benefit, which have been, and are still, owned of God, to the conversion of many precious souls. On the plantations of the south and southwest our devoted missionaries are laboring for the salvation of the slaves, catechizing their children, and bringing all within their influence, as far as possible, to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ; and we need hardly add, that we shall most gladly avail ourselves, as we have ever done, of all the means in our power to promote their best interests.

Having thus given a brief outline of our present state and future prospects, permit us, dear brethren, to congratulate you on the continued prosperity of your growing connection. We have witnessed with mingled emotions of pleasure and gratitude the extension of your work, both at home and abroad, particularly on your foreign missions. In this grand work we hope to imitate your pious zeal and, though it may be at a respectful distance, to follow your steps until we shall meet on some favored spot upon our globe, and salute each other face to face, as the servants of Him who claims the heathen for his inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession.

“Although we have no institution, as, you seem to have supposed we have, of the character you mention, as existing among yourselves, for the education of those of your junior preachers who are not actively engaged in the field of labor, yet we are endeavoring, by such means as are at our command, to improve our young ministers in the various branches of knowledge which are deemed requisite for a successful discharge of the functions of their office and we rejoice in being able to state, that the cause of general education, in its various branches, from the sabbath and common schools up through the academic to the collegiate course, has been, and is now, gradually demanding more and more of our attention; and hence we hope that our ministry, though none of them has been established for their exclusive benefit, will reap a proportionate share in the results of these institutions of learning.

“We have availed ourselves of this early period of our session to return to you our Christian salutations, and to bear testimony to the prudent and conciliatory manner in which your delegate has thus far discharged the trust committed to him, that we might not miss the favorable opportunity of employing the agency of our highly respected and beloved brother, the Rev. Dr. Fisk, who enjoys our confidence, to present to you in person these expressions of our affection and esteem. We have therefore requested him to convey to you an assurance of our undiminished attachment to the Wesleyan Methodist connection; and to ask that, at our next General Conference, we may be favored with a representative from your body, whose visit, should it take place, will, we doubt not, be reciprocated with the same feelings of brotherly affection by which this intercourse has heretofore been characterized.

“Earnestly praying that he ‘whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting,’ may guide, sanctify, and ever be with both you and us, we subscribe ourselves, in behalf of the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, your brethren and servants in our common Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

“R. R. Roberts, [Bishop] “Joshua Soule, [Bishop] “Elijah Hedding, [Bishop] “James O. Andrew, [Bishop] “Thomas L. Douglass, Secretary Cincinnati, Ohio, May 5th, 16.”

Friday the 6th was observed as a day of solemn fasting and prayer, and at eleven o’clock Bishops Roberts and Hedding addressed the conference very appropriately and feelingly on the general state of the work of God, and on the strict manner in which discipline should be administered in order to keep the Church pure from immoral members. There was one point especially on which Bishop Hedding insisted with emphasis, as devolving a high duty on those to whom the execution of discipline was intrusted. He remarked, in substance, that it was the practice of some preachers to wait for a formal complaint, containing charges and specifications, before they proceeded to the trial of a supposed delinquent member. This he considered a defective administration. As the minister was held responsible for the state and character of the Church, it became his imperative duty, whenever a report was in circulation against a member of the Church, to institute an inquiry respecting its truth, and if he found reason to believe there was just cause of complaint, he was bound to proceed to examine and try the case, as the discipline directs, without waiting for a formal accusation. Nor is it perceived how a minister can otherwise discharge his high trusts so as to give a joyful account to the Judge of all of his stewardship.

On the assembling of the conference a vacancy was perceived, accompanied with very mournful sensations, on the bench of bishops, by the absence of Bishops McKendree and Emory, whose deaths are recorded in the preceding chapter. By a vote of the conference, Bishop Soule was requested to preach the funeral discourse of the former, and Bishop Roberts of the latter, which, at a proper time, was done, greatly to the satisfaction of all who heard them.

Among other things which came up for consideration before the is conference, was the propriety of dissolving our Bible Society. The existence of this separate and denominative organization, though it answered its purpose for a season, was found not to work advantageously either to ourselves or others, and the question of its continuance had been mooted both, in and out of the board of managers for some time before the meeting of the conference.

As, however, the constitution of this society was adopted by the General Conference, and was therefore considered as a Church institution, the managers thought it inadvisable to cease such operations without the recommendation of the conference. The conference, after due deliberation, recommended to the society a dissolution of its existence, and it was, soon after the adjournment of the conference, dissolved accordingly, and our brethren and friends were advised to unite in carrying forward the objects of the American Bible Society. Since that period a harmonious co-operation has been effected and carried on between us and the other friend and supporters of that great national institution, mutually satisfactory to all concerned.

Several alterations and amendments were made in the Discipline, the chief of which we shall mention.

The rule respecting “laying aside” persons for not meeting in class, which had been so interpreted as to allow the acting preachers to drop the delinquent without a trial, was so amended as to make it obligatory on the parties concerned to allow the accused to be heard in his defense before a committee, the same as in other cases of delinquency.

The correspondence of the Missionary Society had been hitherto carried on by one or the other of the brethren connected with the Book Concern; but the increase of the business, both of that Concern and of the Missionary Society, made the duties of each so onerous, that it was found impracticable to unite the two offices any longer without injury to one or both. Hence, on the recommendation of the board of managers, an article was introduced into the constitution of the Missionary Society creating a resident corresponding secretary, who should be devoted exclusively to the interests of the society, under the direction of the managers. His election was with the General Conference.

The Liberia mission was erected into an annual conference, “possessing all the rights, powers, and privileges of other and annual conferences, except that of sending delegates to the General Conference, and of drawing its annual dividend from the avails of the Book Concern and chartered fund.”

The following was added to the section on receiving preachers, and their duty: —

“Whenever a preacher on trial is selected by the bishop for a mission, he may, if elected by an annual conference, ordain him a deacon before his probation ends, and a missionary employed on a foreign mission may be admitted into full connection, if recommended by the superintendent of the mission where he labors, without being present at the annual conference for examination.

“At each annual conference, those who are received on trial, or are admitted into full connection, shall be asked whether they are willing to devote themselves to the missionary work; and a list of the names of all those who are willing to do so shall be taken and reported to the corresponding secretary of the Missionary Society; and all such shall be considered as ready and willing to be employed as missionaries whenever called for by either of the bishops.

“It shall be the duty of all our missionaries, except those who are appointed to labor for the benefit of the slaves, to form their circuits into auxiliary missionary societies, and to make regular quarterly and class collections wherever practicable, and report the amount collected every three months, either by indorsing it on their drafts, or by transmitting the money to the treasurer of the parent society.

“It shall be the duty of each annual conference to examine strictly into the state of the domestic missions within its bounds, and to allow none to remain on the list of its missions which, in the judgment of the conference, is able to support itself.”

Hoping that the time was not very distant when our missionaries, and those under the direction of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, by the continual enlargement of their respective fields of labor, would approximate and even meet each other in Africa, and also among the aborigines of America, where we both had missions established, and perhaps at no remote period in some portions of Europe and Asia, the following paragraph was added to the section on missions: —

“It shall be the duty of the bishops to instruct all our foreign missionaries that, whenever they come in contact with any of the missionaries belonging to the Wesleyan Methodist conference, they shall not interfere in their respective charges, any farther than to help them in their work when requested, but shall, on all occasions, cultivate a spirit of friendship and brotherly affection, as brethren engaged in the same common cause, namely, the salvation of the world by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.”

For the purpose of meeting the local wants of some sections of our country more perfectly by the introduction of periodical literature and general intelligence, two additional weekly papers were established, and the one which had been commenced at Cincinnati by the book agents, on the recommendation of several of the annual conferences, was sanctioned and continued, making in all four religious weekly papers, besides the Methodist Magazine and Quarterly Review, now authorized by the General Conference; namely, one at New York, one at Cincinnati, another at Charleston, S. C., and another at Nashville, Tennessee: besides these there were published four others, under the patronage of annual conferences, namely, Zion’s Herald, in Boston, Mass., Maine Wesleyan Journal, in Portland, Maine, Virginia Conference Journal, in Richmond, Virginia, and the Auburn Banner, issued in Auburn, N. Y., making altogether eight weekly papers devoted to the interests of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

The claims of the brethren in Canada upon a portion of the capital of our Book Concern, which had remained hitherto unsettled, were now amicably adjusted in accordance with the principles embraced in the following articles of agreement: —

“Whereas, the Canada conference, now in connection with the Wesleyan Methodists of Great Britain, was formerly united to, and formed port of; the M.. E. Church; and whereas, the union which by mutual consent then subsisted, was dissolved at the earnest and repeated solicitations of the ministers and members of the Church in Canada, which was definitively determined upon by an act of the Canada conference, who thereupon and subsequently did form a union with, and become a part of the Wesleyan Methodist connection; and whereas, there has been a difference of opinion between the M. E. Church and the Canada conference in regard to the claim which has been urged by the Canada conference, of an interest in, and a portion of, the Methodist Book Concern; and whereas the decision of the several annual conferences, to whom the subject was referred by the General Conference of 1832, has been averse to the claim of the Canada conference, and has thereby precluded any further action of the General Conference on the ground of claim, as made by the Canada conference; but whereas this General Conference cherishes an affectionate remembrance of the Canada brethren, and is desirous to manifest its fraternal regard in every suitable way; and whereas, the Canada conference did, at its last session, appoint its president, the Rev. William Lord, and the Rev. Egerton Ryerson, delegates to this General Conference to negotiate its claims on the Book Concern, and the Rev. William Case having been duly appointed to take the place of Rev. E. Ryerson in the negotiation; and whereas, the said Rev. William Lord, president of the Canada conference, and the Rev. William Case, have full powers to bring to an amicable termination the question pending between the two connections, therefore it is hereby declared to be mutually understood and agreed, that the following plan shall be considered as an arrangement for the full and final adjustment and settlement of the matter at issue between the Canada conference and the Methodist Episcopal Church; to wit, The agents of the Methodist Book Concern shall furnish to the book steward of the Canada conference any of the books which may be issued from its press at the following rates, subject to the conditions and provisions hereinafter named: —

The general alphabetical catalogue books, whether in sheets or bound, shall be sold at forty per cent discount from the retail prices, as long as the present discount of one-third shall be made to wholesale purchasers, but should the discount be hereafter changed to one-fourth, then, in that case, the books sold to the book steward of the Canada conference shall be charged at a discount of one-third from the retail prices which shall from time to time be affixed to them respectively. Provided, that this discount shall not apply to such books as may be reduced below the usual prices on account of rival publishers; and provided, also, that the Canada conference shall give satisfactory security in regard to the payment of any debt which may be contracted with the Methodist Book Concern, within one year from the time such debt my be created. And it is also expressly understood and agreed, that no interest shall be demanded or paid on any such debts, unless payment shall be delayed beyond the period of cred it before named, in which event interest shall be charged and paid, from and after the expiration of said credit term. It is also further provided, that all books which may be ordered by the book steward of the Canada conference shall be at the risk and expense of the said conference from the time they shall be forwarded from the Methodist Book Concern.