session of the Ohio Conference, at Louisville, Ky., Sept. 3. "From that point they were to commence their general plan of operation. According to this arrangement, there was an ideal division of the work into three parts-the senior Bishop taking the first, Bishop George the second, and Bishop Roberts the third. Each was bound to attend his allotted part; not, however, to the exclusion of the other two, who were at liberty to attend officially." In addition to the address to the General Conference of 1816, Bishop Asbury left, "A Valedictory Address to William McKendree, Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church." The paper is dated Lancaster Co., Penn., Aug. 5, 1813, and fills thirty-five pages of Bishop Paine's Life of McKendree. Only a sentiment or two from it can be given here: Guard particularly against two orders of preachers—the one for the country, the other for the cities. You know, my brother, that the present ministerial cant is, that we cannot now, as in former apostolical days, have such doctrines, such discipline, such convictions, such conversions, such witnesses of sanctification, and such holy men. But I say that we can; I say we must; yea, I say we have. . . . Should we go to Presbyterians to be ordained Episcopal Methodists? or to Episcopalians, who at that time had no Bishop, or power of ordination in the United States? Here let it be observed, that the Methodist was the first Church organized after the establishment of peace in 1783, and that the Protestant Episcopalians were not organized as a Church until after there was a law passed by the British Parliament. . . And suppose this excellent [Methodist] constitution and order of things should be broken, what shall the present or future Bishops do? Let them do as your noble countryman [George Washington] did-resign and retire into private life. It is a serious thing for a Bishop to be stripped of any constitutional rights chartered to him at his ordination, without which he could not, and would not, have entered into that sacred office he being conscious at the same time he had never violated those sacred rights. . . Thus I have traced regular order and succession in John Wesley, Thomas Coke, Francis Asbury, Richard Whatcoat, and William McKendree. Let any other Church trace its succession as direct and as pure if they can. .. Should there be at any time failure in any department, such as you cannot cure nor restore, appeal to the General Conference. .. Never be afraid to trust young men. . . . It is my confirmed opinion that the apostles acted both as bishops and traveling superintendents in planting and watering, ruling and ordering the whole Connection; and that they did not ordain any local bishops, but that they or Paine's McKendree, I. 361-363. dained local deacons and elders. Mark! it was in the second visit that Paul and Barnabas established order: and why was Timothy or Titus sent if elders could ordain elders? And why had the apostle to go or send, if it was not held as the divine right of the apostles to ordain? You know that for four years past I have, with pleasure, resigned to you the presidency of the nine Annual Conferences. Our government being spiritual, one election to office is sufficient during life, unless in cases of debility, a voluntary resignation of the office, corruption in principle, or immorality in practice. . . . My dear Bishop! it is the traveling apostolic order and ministry that is found in our very constitution.* Such were the mature opinions and the parting counsels of the Apostle of American Methodism, expressed to his colleague in the episcopacy. We are not concerned to establish the correctness of the opinions, or, in every case, the wisdom of the counsels; but it is the province of history to ascertain what, as a matter of fact, were the tenets cherished by a man like Asbury, and, particularly, his life-long views with regard to Methodist government and its Episcopacy. He was not a Presbyterian: on the contrary, he was a staunch Episcopalian, of the once common moderate type, to the last. In this he was the representative of many. The modern writers who would reduce our ministry to a presbyterial parity," and ascribe their doctrine to the founders of our Church, do the fathers and themselves a gross injustice, when they hang their arguments on the chance employment of a word. The early literature of American Methodism is filled with express statements and arguments, as well as passing references, which decisively prove the contrary. *Paine's Life and Times of William McKendree, I. 310–345. 66 THIRD CHAPTER XX. THE THIRD DELEGATED GENERAL CONFERENCE, AND MR. SOULE'S FIRST ELECTION TO THE EPISCOPACY, 1820. THE HE Conference met in Baltimore, May 1, 1820, and was composed of eighty-nine delegates, from eleven Conferences. Bishop McKendree presented, as usual, a written address, cited in full by Bishop Paine,* and Bishops George and Roberts made verbal communications, all of which were referred to appropriate committees. The Missionary Society was organized; the educational interests of the Church set forward; District Conferences for local preachers created; slavery legislation resumed; the Canada question considered; and the election of presiding elders agitated amid much excitement which did not soon abate. Saturday morning, May 13, after prayer by Freeborn Garrettson, Joshua Soule was elected the seventh bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, receiving 47 out of 88 votes on the first ballot. Nathan Bangs, who favored at that time the election of presiding elders, received 38 votes. Three days later, "the resolution that had been laid on the table relating to the choice of presiding elders" was called up. The Journal is evidently defective, for this is the first mention of the subject in the official record. From a memorandum of William Capers, (a member of the Conference and of the committee which reported the "suspended" resolutions,) prepared at the time for the information of Bishop McKendree, who had retired into the country, we learn that Messrs. Merritt' and Waugh had previously introduced the motion for the election of presiding elders. Their resolution, as the Journal shows, was debated, when called up, *Life of McKendree, I. 397-404. almost continuously for two days, when Cooper and Emory offered their substitute, "that the Bishops should nominate three times the number of presiding elders wanted," out of which the Conference should elect by ballot without debate. Emory and Capers, who were on opposite sides of the question at issue, agree that Bishop George was the real author of this measure, as well as of the proposal for a committee of conciliation, brought in later by Messrs. Bangs and Capers.† This committee, appointed by Bishop George, consisted of Cooper, Emory, and Bangs, who favored the proposed change, and of Roszel, Wells, and Capers, who approved the existing plan. Their duty was to confer with the Bishops, and thus mature a report which should" conciliate the wishes of the brethren upon this subject." Of the consultations which followed, we have three accounts, by McKendree, Capers, and Emory, respectively, all participants, and all agreeing in essentials.‡ McKendree disapproved of the proposed change; the other two Bishops were favorable to some alteration. On the adjournment of Conference, Friday morning, May 19, Bishop George invited the committee to meet him in the gallery of the Church. He, it appears, had stated in a note to Mr. Merritt, the author of the original resolution, that the views of the two parties could not be harmonized; but explanations were now made on this point, and the Bishop set forth his "accommodating plan" to the satisfaction of Roszel; the committee then united on a report written by John Emory, which the Conference passed that afternoon, without debate, by a majority of 61 to 25. It included the nomination by the Bishops of three times the number of presiding elders wanted, from which the Conference should elect, and declared "that the presiding elders be, and they hereby are, * Capers's Mem. in Paine's McKendree, I, 409; Gen. Conf. Journals, 1. 211– 213. Capers, as above; Dr. Emory's Life of Bishop Emory, p. 146. McKendree's Journal and Capers's Mem. in Paine's McKendree, I. 409, 410, 415; Dr. Emory's Life of Bishop Emory, p. 146. made the advisory council of the bishop or president of the Conference in stationing the preachers.' Immediately upon the adoption of this report, the Journal shows that Joshua Soule obtained leave of absence for the afternoon. He at once prepared the following letter, addressed to Bishops George and Roberts: Dear Bishops:-In consequence of an act of the General Conference, passed this day, in which I conceive the constitution of the Methodist Episcopal Church is violated, and that Episcopal government which has heretofore distinguished her greatly enervated, by a transfer of executive power from the Episcopacy to the several Annual Conferences, it becomes my duty to notify you, from the imposition of whose hands only I can be qualified for the office of Superintendent, that under the existing state of things I cannot, consistently with my convictions of propriety and obligation, enter upon the work of an itinerant General Superintendent. I was elected under the constitution and government of the Methodist Epis copal Church UNIMPAIRED. On no other consideration but that of their continuance would I have consented to be considered a candidate for a relation in which were incorporated such arduous labors and awful responsibilities. I do not feel myself at liberty to wrest myself from your hands, as the act of the General Conference has placed me in them; but I solemnly declare, and could appeal to the Searcher of hearts for the sincerity of my intention, that I cannot act as Superintendent under the rules this day made and established by the General Conference. With this open and undisguised declaration before you, your wisdom will dictate the course proper to be pursued. I ardently desire peace, and if it will tend to promote it, am willing, perfectly willing, that my name should rest in forgetfulness.† This act of the Bishop-elect was prompt and decisive. The question was not new to him; and on the very afternoon when the General Conference passed the measure of whose unconstitutionality he was satisfied, he penned and delivered to the bishops this clear, straightforward, manly document. The candid reader will keep in mind (1) that Joshua Soule was himself the author of the Constitution of the Methodist Episcopal Church; (2) that, in particular, he had insisted, against Cooper, on the exact phraseology of the third restrictive rule, which forbade the General Conference to " change or alter any part or rule of our government, so as to do away episcopacy, or destroy the plan of our itiner * Gen. Conf. Journals, I. 221. † Paine's McKendree, I. 420, 421. |