The Conference of 1808 he

of the year 1806” (p. 295). calls"the fifth general conference held in Baltimore on the 6th of May" (p. 345). But there are other passages in which Lee would naturally have spoken of the Christmas Conference as the first General Conference had he so regarded it; in some of which he distinguished it, with more or less sharpness of contrast, from General Conferences. Thus he says, "I shall therefore take no further notice of the rules about slavery which were made at various times for twentyfour years, i. e., from the Christmas Conference, in 1784, to the last general conference held in 1808" (p. 102). Speaking of the college he says, "The business was brought before the Conference which met at Christmas (p. 113). Alluding to Mr. Whatcoat's rejection as a bishop in 1787, he says, "Dr. Coke contended that we were obliged to receive Mr. Whatcoat, because we had said in the minutes taken at the Christmas Conference when we were first formed into a Church in 1784," etc. (p. 126). "Mr. Tunnil was elected to the office of an elder at the Christmas Conference, where we were first formed into a Church" (p. 162). Finally: "It was eight years from the Christmas Conference, where we became a regular church, to this general conference [1792]" (p. 192). It may be noted that in the first and last passages the Christmas Conference is distinguished from General Conferences in the same sentence, and that in three the organizing function of the body is emphasized as its distinguishing feature.

The difficulties and dangers of a merely verbal proof, based on the use of the term General Conference, which had a variety of significations, in contrast with a real proof, based upon an historical examination of the facts, may be briefly illustrated. Asbury, who says that at the council at Barratt's "it was agreed to call a general conference," also says (Journal I. 55) of the first American Conference in 1773, "Our general conference began." As late as 1798

he says (II. 213), "Some of our local preachers complain.

that they have not a seat in the general annual conference." But perhaps the most decisive passage in Asbury's Journal (II. 321) on his view as to the time of the establishment of the General Conference is found under date of Thursday, July 19, 1798. Referring to some accusations of James O'Kelly's previous to the General Conference of 1792, he says, "It was talked over in the yearly conference, for then we had no general conference established." The name is denied to any previously established governing body of the Church, while in the context it is thrice applied to the body that met in 1792. Asbury probably brought with him from England his manifest predilection for the use of the term. In the text of "A Plain Account of Christian Perfection," as inserted in the Disciplines of 1791 and 1792, occurs this language, "To cast a fuller light on this important subject, I shall lay before the reader the Minutes of several of our general Conferences on this weighty, this momentous doctrine." -Discipline of 1791, p. 103; of 1792, p. 108. See also Discipline of 1801, p. 114; of 1805, p. 101; and of 1808, p. 99. Finally, in the original pamphlet Minutes of 1785, 1786, and 1787 the name "General Conference" is applied to the yearly Conferences that met in those years—exclusive, in 1785, of the Christmas Conference. This is the earliest employment of the term in the official records of the Church, and it entirely differs from that which prevailed after 1792. The term did not become univocal, acquiring its present fixed legal and historical meaning, until 1792. The question of the application of the term in 1785, 1786, and 1787 is so important in itself, and has hitherto seemed so inexplicable, that I have designedly omitted all reference to it in this discussion of the beginning of General Conference government in our Church, that the following Appendix (VI.) might be devoted exclusively to it.

APPENDIX VI.

THE BALTIMORE CONFERENCE SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT AND THE EARLIEST OFFICIAL USE OF THE TERM

GENERAL CONFERENCE.

IN

N my my "Making of Methodism," Chapter XIII., I have previously written on this subject; but the possession of fresh evidence—particularly the original pamphlet Minutes of contemporary issue in 1785, 1786, and 1787-and the broader study of the evidence already in hand, if they do not constitute a demand, will at least afford an apology, for a second attempt to reach, if possible, definite conclusions in this intricate and important inquiry, whose problems, dimly discerned but scarcely defined by Stevens and other historians, still await a satisfactory solution.

In 1780, the Asburyan, Northern, or Baltimore Conference, as we have seen (see above, pp. 109-120), met in Baltimore, while the "regular," Southern, or Virginia Conference met at Manakintown. There by the intercession of Asbury, Garrettson, and Watters, the brethren were reconciled, after the Fluvanna schism, to the Baltimore or Asburyan body, the union being consummated in 1781. From that date until 1787, the Baltimore Conference was the final Conference of every year, and enjoyed powers and privileges (throughout the period, I think the evidence will warrant me in saying) not accorded any other body. And all of these sessions, from 1780 to 1787 inclusive, were held, let it be noted, in the city of Baltimore. This is the period, and this the phase, of the government of American Methodism which I desire historically to investigate.

The Conference of 1781, Jesse Lee tells us, met in Baltimore on the 24th of April." But," he adds, "previous to this a few preachers on the Eastern Shore held a little Con

ference in Delaware state, near Choptank, to make some arrangements for those preachers who could not go with them, and then adjourned (as they called it) to Baltimore; so upon the whole it was considered but one Conference."* Jesse Lee's phrases, "little Conference," " adjourned (as they called it)," and "upon the whole," indicate that he held the preliminary gathering in some contempt; and, owing to their irregular origin in 1779 and 1780, these preparatory Conferences were, no doubt, still viewed with suspicion in some quarters; but the Minutes are unequivocal in their recognition, saying that the Conference was "held at Choptank, state of Delaware, April 16th, 1781, and adjourned to Baltimore the 24th of said month."t

The next year, 1782, Lee, in a passage, whose importance, in the absence of other testimony, is very great, explains the governmental relation of the Southern or Virginia Conference to the Northern or Baltimore Conference as follows:

The work had so increased and spread, that it was now found necessary to have a conference in the south [the Virginia] every year, continuing the conference in the north [the Baltimore] as usual. Yet as the conference in the north was of the longest standing, and withal composed of the oldest preachers, it was allowed greater privileges than that in the south; espe cially in making rules, and forming regulations for the societies. Accordingly when anything was agreed to in the Virginia conference, and afterwards disapproved of in the Baltimore conference, it was dropped. But if any rule was fixed and determined on at the Baltimore conference, the preachers in the south were under the necessity of abiding by it. The southern conference was considered at that time as a convenience, and designed to accommodate the preachers in that part of the work, and do all the business of a regular conference, except that of making or altering par ticular rules.

At this early date, 1782, it appears that it was "the business of a regular conference to make and alter particular rules"; a prerogative which continued after, as before, the meeting of the Christmas Conference. Here, also, we have the final legislative authority fixed in the Baltimore Conference, while the Virginia Conference was confined

* Short History, p. 75. † Ed. of 1995, p. 41. Short History, pp. 78, 79.

to a subordinate and non-legislative sphere. If legislation agreed to in Virginia, but disapproved at Baltimore, was "dropped," while rules fixed and determined at Baltimore were binding on the Virginia preachers; if, in short, in Virginia they did all the business of a "regular" Conference, except that of making and altering rules, which was attended to at Baltimore; then, as early as 1782, the Baltimore Conference already sustained to the Virginia Conference a relation not unlike that of a General to an Annual Conference. The situation was somewhat relieved if, as Dr. L. M. Lee states in his Life of Jesse Lee, "a preacher in one division possessed the right to sit and vote in the other"; for, in that case, a member of the Virginia Conference could participate in the final passage of legislation by attending at Baltimore. We must not fail to notice, moreover, that in the Minutes the bodies were still officially viewed as one. These legislative arrangements certainly continued until the meeting of the Christmas Conference. Of the Conference of 1784, the last before the meeting of the Christmas Conference, Jesse Lee says, "It was considered as but one Conference, although they met first in Virginia, and then adjourned to Baltimore, where the business was finished.”

Throughout these years we have a dual session of the Conference, the first in Virginia, preparatory, executive, advisory; the last in Baltimore, of final legislative authority. Specimens of the legislation enacted at the Baltimore Conference, from 1780 to 1784 inclusive, much of it by no means of slight importance, may be seen in the extracts from the Minutes of those years given in the preceding pages of this History. Since Baltimore had been so long the seat of connectional legislation, it is easy to understand how no other place was thought of as the seat of the Christmas Conference, called together by the preachers at Barratt's Chapel, when Dr. Coke made known to Mr. Asbury the designs of Mr. Wesley for the organization of the Church. Indeed, it is scarcely overbold to say that we