from the Southern States. On the Conference Minutes for 1784 question 12 reads as follows: "What shall we do with our friends that will buy and sell slaves?" Answer, "If they will buy with no other design than to hold them as slaves and have been previously warned, they should be expelled: and permitted to sell on no consideration." Question 13 is as follows: "What shall we do with our local preachers, who will not emancipate their slaves in the States where the laws admit it?" Answer, "Try those in Virginia another year, and suspend the preachers in Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey." Such were the views of Methodist preachers in Conference when nine tenths of them were in the Southern States. The convictions of nine out of every ten of the preachers were shared by the constituted authorities of the Southern States. In 1783, just the year before the organization of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the State of Virginia ceded to the United States all that region then known as the Northwest Territory which was owned by the Original Charter of Virginia, and out of which had been carved the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and parts of Michigan and Minnesota. This cession was made with the distinct understanding between Virginia and the United States that in the States to be created out of the territory, slavery was not to be allowed. That act had greater influence in bringing about the ultimate abolition of slavery in this country than any act of any other State. As late as in 1789 the State of Georgia passed a law prohibiting the importation of African slaves into that State. At this period of our country's history, the sentiment in favor of slavery was perhaps stronger in the North than in the South. At that time vast sums of money were represented by the shipping industry engaged in bringing slaves to this country, and those ships sailed mainly from New England ports. After the cession of the Northwest Territory by Virginia to the United States, Congress passed an Act creating the Territory of Indiana, and in the act prohibited the introduction of slaves to that Territory. On December 1802, a convention of the people of Indiana Territory was held at Vincennes and there prepared a petition which they adopted and sent to Congress, praying that the Act prohibiting slavery in the Territory be annulled and allowing slaves to be introduced. That convention was presided over by General William Henry Harrison, who signed the petition as President of the Convention and presented it to Congress, in February 1803. In Congress, the petition was referred to a committee, which recognizing the conditions of the contract made with Virginia, reported on it unfavorably, and there the matter ended. When the Constitution of the United States was adopted in 1787, it was provided in Section 9, Article I., that the African slave trade should not be abolished before 1808. That clause in the Constitution delaying the abolition of the traffic in slaves for eleven years, was understood and declared in the South to have been inserted in the interest of the New England ship owners who were engaged in the traffic. It was the custom of the preachers in the Southern States, irrespective of their personal views on the moral phases of the institution of slavery, to follow the advice given by Richard Watson, when speaking to the Wesleyan Methodist preachers in

the West Indies in 1833; he said, "Your only business is to promote the moral and religious improvement of the slaves to whom you may have access, without in the least degree in public or in private interfering with their civil condition.”

The convictions of the Southern members were voiced by the General Conference held in 1840 in the following language: "While the Church has encouraged emancipation in those States where the laws permit it, and allowed the freedmen to enjoy freedom, we have refrained, for conscience sake from all intermeddling with the subject in those other States where the laws make it criminal. And such a course we think agreeable to the Scriptures, and indicated by Saint Paul in his First Epistle to the Corinthians, Chapter vii., verses 20-24. And, in their address declared that "at no period of the church had the mere owning of slaves subjected_the Master to ecclesiastical excommunication." But, as the time of the General Conference of 1844 drew near, it became clear to the members living in the South, that the traditional refusal of the Church to interfere with existing political and civil relations was becoming a thing of the past. Bishop James O. Andrew had, by marriage and otherwise, become directly connected with slavery. A resolution signed by J. M. Trimble and J. B. Finley, members from Ohio, was introduced and adopted by a large majority, which read as follows:

Whereas the discipline of our Church forbids doing anything calculated to destroy our itinerant general superintendency, and whereas Bishop Andrew has become connected with slavery by marriage and otherwise, and this Act, having drawn after it consequences which in the estimate of the General Conference will greatly embarrass the exercise of his office as an itinerant General Superintendent if not in some places entirely prevent it. Therefore,

Be it resolved, that it is the sense of this General

Conference that he desist from the exercise of this office so long as this impediment remains.

The vote on this resolution plainly showed that radical difference on the fundamental theories of Church and of law existed between Northern and Southern members. And it may be truthfully said that the same differences have continued to mark these two bodies since their separation. After the adoption of the resolution, 51 delegates from the Southern States protested against this action of a majority of the General Conference. In their esteem, such a decision placed in jeopardy the General Superintendency of the Church by subjecting any bishop at any time to the will and caprice of a majority of the General Conference not only without law but in defiance to the restraints and provisions of law. A committee of nine was appointed to devise a scheme for the mutual and friendly division of the Church. The report of this Committee is known in history as "The Plan of Separation." According to its provision an emergency was to be met without schism. The Church was to be divided in Christian kindness and the strictest equity, for mutual convenience and prosperity. The part of the Church located in the South was to separate from the part of the Church located in the North, in no sense that the part of the Church located in the North did not separate from the part located in the South. Robert Paine was the chairman of the committee which prepared the plan of separation, and its various provisions were adopted by an almost

unanimous vote. On 8 June 1844, the last General Conference of the United Church came to a close. The delegates from the Southern States before leaving New York, the seat of the General Conference of 1844, decided to propose the holding of a convention in Louisville, Ky., of delegates from the Southern Conferences.

The convention met in Louisville in May 1845, and there declared that the Southern Conferences represented a distinct connection, under the name of "the Methodist Episcopal Church South." Provision was made for holding the first General Conference of the new organization in Petersburg, Va., in May 1846. At the time of the division in 1844, there were 450,000 members in the Southern Church. In 1860 there were 757,205 members, of whom 207,766 were colored. These figures were reduced after the Civil War, many of the colored people having joined other bodies of colored Methodists. In 1870 the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church in America was established, and nearly all the colored people remaining in the Methodist Episcopal Church (South) up to that time, united with the new organization, so that in 1872 there were in the Methodist Episcopal Church (South) 654,159 members of whom there were only 3,232 colored

persons.

The Methodist Episcopal Church (South) has increased rapidly in membership since 1872. According to the last general minutes of the Church the statistics in 1903 were as follows: total number of members and preachers, 1,535,032; traveling preachers, 6,469; local preachers, 4,816; infants baptized, 28,472; adults baptized, 55,848; Epworth Leagues, 5.346; Epworth League members, 116,579; Sunday Schools, 14,423; Sunday School teachers, 104,650; Sunday School scholars, 934,110; church buildings, 14,872; value, $25,203.303; parsonages, 4,092; value, $4,790,188; annual conferences, 47; amount paid for missions foreign and domestic, $477,394; schools and colleges, 132; value endowment, $2,757,197; value of property, $5,877,000.

REV. JAMES W. Lee,

Saint John's Church, Saint Louis, Mo. Methodist Episcopal Church, The. It is not a paradox to say that American Methodism originated in England; for John Wesley, a clergyman of the Church of England and an alumnus of Oxford University, is acknowledged to be the founder of that form of Methodism which was permanently established on this continent. His doctrines were those of the Church of England, but a new experience, attained 24 May 1738, caused him ever afterward to place special emphasis on certain of them. In the latter part of 1739 he organized "The United Society" consisting of those like-minded with himself. From this dates Wesleyan Methodism, of which American Methodism is directly descended. Twentyeight years afterward there were in Great Britain and Ireland about 26,000 members enrolled.

So far as is certainly known not a single Wesleyan Methodist appeared in the territory now included in the United States of America until 10 Aug. 1760, when a company of emigrants from Ireland arrived in New York. Among them were several followers of John Wesley; one of these, Philip Embury, had served as a Wesleyan local preacher. Five years later another vessel brought over five families, most

of whom were related to Embury; these also settled in New York. Nothing is known of them as Methodists till the latter part of 1766, when Mrs. Barbara Heck manifested genuine zeal by arousing in Embury, her cousin, the conviction that they were in danger of falling away, and inducing him without an hour's delay to open preaching services in his own house. There and then to a congregation of five he preached the first Methodist sermon in America. In 1707 the society was reinforced by Captain Thomas Webb, of the British Army, who had been authorized by Wesley to preach. His oratorical powers, zeal, rank and private means, made him a most valuable accession. With his aid Wesley Chapel (John Street, N. Y.), the first Methodist church in America, was completed, and was formally opened 30 Oct. 1768.

Meanwhile a work of which the Methodists of New York knew nothing was progressing in Maryland. Robert Strawbridge, with several other Irish immigrants, had settled in Frederick County. He preached the first sermon, formed the first society, and built the first preaching house for Methodism in Maryland. His society soon contributed four preachers to the general movement. By some writers it is stoutly maintained that Strawbridge began to preach and had built his meeting-house before Embury preached his first sermon. Testimony is adduced on both sides of the question of priority, but the standard historians of Methodism are almost a unit in the conclusion that while there was little difference in time, Embury's claim as the first Methodist preacher is established beyond reasonable doubt.

In the 26th English annual conference, sitting at Leeds in August 1769, Wesley said, "We have a pressing call from our brethren in New York, who have built a preaching house, to come over and help them." Joseph Pilmoor and Richard Boardman were commissioned to America, and a subscription taken on the spot furnished £50 to assist in paying the debt on the preaching house in New York, and £20 for their passage. In 1771 the number of members reported to Wesley's Conference for the "great Continent of North America" was 316. Wesley asked for volunteers to send to the United States; five responded, but two only, Francis Asbury and Richard Wright, could be spared. The former on arriving immediately manifested great zeal and fidelity in the administration of discipline, and the year after his arrival he received a communication from Wesley placing him in charge of all the preachers, including Boardman and Pilmoor. In 1773 Wesley sent over Thomas Rankin, one of the chief men of the Wesleyan movement, a Scotchman, a man of iron will and inexorable conscience. He brought a commission as superintendent of the American societies, superseding Asbury, who was younger and of much less experience.

The first American Conference was held in the city of Philadelphia, beginning on 14 July 1773, and continuing in session three days. It opened with nine preachers, and on the second day Francis Asbury arrived. Every preacher was a native of Europe. One thousand and sixty members were reported. The Conference unanimously adopted the foundation principles of American Methodism. The authority of Mr. Wesley and the British Conference was to ex

Testament, and 24 of the 39 Articles of the Church of England. Those omitted were the 3d, the 8th, the 13th, 15th, 17th, 18th, 20th, 21st, 23d, 26th, 29th, 33d, 35th, 36th, and 37th. In those sent over by Wesley and adopted there are various alterations; some merely in phraseology, others radically changing the meaning. To the 24 articles the Conference added a 25th, recognizing the United States as "a sovereign and independent nation." Wesley also sent over the Sunday Service of the Church of England modified upon the same principles upon which he altered the articles. The systematizing and energizing effects of this settlement were seen at once. The first regular General Conference was held in 1792. During its sessions James O'Kelly, a very popular district elder, fruitlessly endeavored to limit the episcopal power of appointments, by giving dissatisfied preachers the right of appeal. Disappointed he withdrew, and led away several preachers and many members. At the General Conference of 1804, the power of the bishops in making appointments was limited by a resolution prohibiting the appointment of pastors for more than two consecutive years in any one circuit or station. Theoretically all traveling ministers who had served for four calendar years were members of the General Conference; but in practice few came from distant points. Hence unendurable dissatisfaction arose because of the preponderating number and denominating votes of those living near the seat of the Conference. Representative government was introduced by the General Conference of 1808, which provided for a delegated General Conference to assemble on the first day of May 1812. It was composed of one delegate for each five members, two thirds of all the representatives were requisite to make a quorum, and if present one of the general superintendents must preside; otherwise the Conference had power to elect a president, pro tempore. To the Conference thus constituted was given "full power to make rules and regulations for the Church, subject to the following exceptions: It cannot touch "revoke, alter or change" the doctrinal standards, nor change the ratio of representation; nor "do away with Episcopacy or destroy the plan of our Itinerant General Superintendency"; nor modify the general rules, nor "do away" with the rights of ministers and members to trial and appeal; nor devote the profits of the Book Concern or the dividends from the Chartered Fund to any other cause than to the support of the ministry, their wives, widows and orphans. The constitution provided for its alteration by separate but concurring votes of the Annual Conferences and two thirds of the members of the General Conference.

Previous to the General Conference of 1812, the body known by that name was absolute. Under the new constitution the first great struggle was for recognition of the laity in the government of the church. With this was connected criticisms of the Episcopacy and its powers. In the end a large number of the lay, and some of the clerical, leaders of the movement were expelled, and they, with others who voluntarily withdrew, formed the Methodist Protestant Church in 1830.

A formidable attempt - supported by many of the most influential men of the denomination - was made to take away from the bishops the

right of appointing the Presiding Elders of the districts into which for executive purposes the Annual Conferences are divided. This struggle agitated the church for 10 years and was hotly contested in two General Conferences. A modification of the plan prevailed in the General Conference by a small majority. The Senior Bishop, McKendree, pronounced it unconstitutional, and agitated the Annual Conferences almost to the verge of disruption. In the end the project was defeated. It reappeared at intervals, making its final effort in 1876, when it was overwhelmingly rejected. A controversy more agitating, persistent and disastrous grew out of the slavery question. During the entire history of American Methodism it had been a burning question, becoming more and more acute at each successive General Conference. The real crisis of the Methodist Episcopal Church occurred in 1844. Bishop James O. Andrew, a native of the South and a man of unbounded personal popularity, became, through marriage, complicated with slavery. The anti-slavery sentiment of the North and parts of the West would not brook this in a bishop, and in the General Conference of 1844 there were introduced resolutions of protest and censure, expressed or implied, of different degrees of strength and offensiveness to the Southern members in the General Conference. During the discussion radically divergent views of the Constitutional rights of bishops came into view. After a debate which attracted the attention of the whole country, the following was passed:

"That it is the sense of this General Conference that he (Bishop Andrew) desist from the exercise of this office (that of general superintendent) so long as this impediment (his connection with slavery) remains."

Nearly all the votes for the resolution were from the free, and nearly all against it were from the slave-holding, States. The result was that the Southern Conferences established a distinct religious Communion under the name of the "Methodist Episcopal Church, South" (q.v.). (The two denominations have long been on increasingly friendly terms, and are now through commissions engaged in perfecting a hymnal and an order of service to be used in common.)

In 1866 the sense of the Church was taken on the question of Lay Representation, and the decision was in the negative, both lay and clerical. In 1868 and during the four years following, the same proposition was tried again, and the constitution was amended so as to admit a restricted number of laymen into the General Conference of 1872; after several unsuccessful attempts, the number of lay and clerical delegates was constitutionally made equal, the change taking effect in the General Conference of 1900. In 1887-8 five women were elected lay delegates to the ensuing General Conference. Their eligibility was challenged on the ground that the constitution contemplated male members only. The challenge was sustained and a change in the constitution submitted to the Conferences. It did not prevail; subsequent Conferences were agitated upon the subject, women were seated and challenged, the question was not brought to an issue, and two more attempts to change the constitution so as to render them unquestionably eligible were unsuccessful. In 1900, the constitution as a whole

was revised; the word "laymen" removed from the law and its place filled with the phrase "lay members," which now makes members otherwise qualified and duly elected eligible to seats in the General Conference without distinction of sex. In 1864 the time limit upon the appointment of pastors was lengthened to three years; in 1885 to five years; and in 1900 it was entirely removed.

The Church is divided into 124 Annual Conferences, 18 of which are in foreign countries. Beside these are 19 Mission Conferences, of which 7 are foreign. The Bishops preside in these Conferences. In its 120 years of organization it has had 46 Bishops, of whom 16 are living. There are also 3 Missionary Bishops, 2 in India and I in Africa.

The oldest important subordinate organization of the Church is the Methodist Book Concern, founded in 1789. Originally designed to print and publish Methodist and general religious literature, its profits, if any should accrue, to be devoted to the support of the ministry, its function has been greatly enlarged till its capital in the Eastern and Western Houses approximates $3,000,000. This institution publishes a series of denominational weekly journals whose generic name is 'Christian Advocate,' the oldest of which is 'The Christian Advocate' in New York. It also publishes the 'Methodist Review) (bi-monthly) and The Epworth Herald' (weekly). It issues periodicals in various languages, books upon all subjects, and in fact does a general book business. There are also papers published in the interest of the churches by local associations, the best known of which are Zion's Herald' of Boston, Mass., and the Michigan Christian Advocate' of Detroit.

Next to the Book Concern in age is the Missionary Society. Since this institution was founded, 80 years ago, it has disbursed upward of $35,000,000, rather more than two fifths of which has been spent in this country, the rest in foreign countries. Its missions are in Africa, China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia (including the Philippines), South America, Mexico, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Switzerland, Italy and Bulgaria. Besides the "parent" Society are the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, which collected and expended in 1902 $478,236, and the Woman's Home Missionary Society, which in 1902 received and disbursed $341,243. The Church Extension Society in the last 40 years has aided 12,356 churches. It distributes in donations $200,000 per annum, and has a loan fund, the working value of which amounts to nearly $3,000,000. The educational work of the Church in this country includes 52 Colleges, Theological Seminaries and Universities, besides a large number of Academies. Of these the first organized is Wesleyan University, and the largest (in property and students) are the Northwestern University, of Evanston-Chicago, the Ohio Wesleyan University at Delaware, Ohio, and in the East, Boston University and Syracuse University. The Woman's College of Baltimore marks the highest point reached by the Church in the education of women. The American University in Washington is not yet opened. The Church sustains a board of education which aids students by loans and gifts, besides performing other

important functions. The Freedman's Aid and Southern Education Society sustains 40 institutions in the South, and with them more than 200,000 students have been connected. Increasing attention is paid to industrial education. The latest enterprises of the Church are the Epworth League (the denominational young people's society), with nearly 1,800,000 members, and the incorporation of Deaconesses with church work. This movement, though of quite recent origin, employes 685 Deaconesses, 739 Probationers, and has accummulated net assets of over $2,000,000. It has been less than 20 years since the attention of the Church was drawn toward the erection and management of hospitals; already it has 25 in operation and several more in process of erection. Of these the Methodist Episcopal (Seney) Hospital of Brooklyn, and the Methodist Episcopal (Stewart) Hospital of Philadelphia are the largest and oldest.

No tax of any kind is levied upon individual members of the Church; their contributions are voluntary; no charge is made for the administration of baptism or the burial of the dead. Yet it is a conservative estimate that in the three years preceding the present the Church has given $100,000,000 to its work. And during the past 20 years, for the current support of local churches, the support and endowment of denominational schools, colleges and theological seminaries, the regular collections and special gifts for missions and the other organizations previously mentioned, The American Bible Society, Homes for the Aged, Hospitals, Orphan Asylums, Saint Christopher's Home and similar institutions, including the recent $20,000,000 thank offerings (but not duplicating the same, nor including much untabulated gifts in local churches), the denomination has given upward of $410,000,000. The number of communicants reported in 1882 was 1,748,021; in 1910 3.159.913.

The African Methodist Episcopal Church was organized in 1816 and in 1910 reported 452,126 members (estimated). The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church was formally organized in 1820 and in 1910 reported 545.681 members. These bodies were founded by members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The Colored Methodist Episcopal Church was formed of members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, set apart after the Civil War. After 1865 the Methodist Episcopal Church spread rapidly among the Southern negroes, and it enrolls among its members more than 200,000 of African descent. The Wesleyan Methodist Connection of America was formed in 1843 by ministers and members of the Methodist Episcopal Church who regarded the mother church as not sufficiently anti-slavery, and also disapproved some features of its government. Beginning with 6,000 members it reported in 1910 19.485 members. The Free Methodists date from 1860. It grew out of the disciplining of certain members and ministers for contumacy. The root difficulty related to "secret societies" and certain doctrines and experiences which they advocated so as to create dissension in the churches. They claimed to be persecuted "for righteousness sake." In 1910 they reported 32,166 members.

JAMES M. BUCKLEY,
Editor The Christian Advocate.