METHODIST EPISC. CHURCH 175 METHODIST EPISC. CHURCH
their libraries. It reports also 77 academies, with 556 instructors, and 17,7G1 students, 10,402 of whom are fe- males, making an aggregate of 102 institutions, with 71-4 instructors, and 23,100 students. Tlie Southern division of the denomination [the Methodist Episcopal Church, South] reported before the Rebellion 12 colleges and 77 academies, with 8000 students, making an ag- gregate for the two bodies of 191 institutions and 31,100 students" (Stevens's Hist, of Am. Meth. p. 540). In the thank-offerings of the Centenary, education was made a prominent object of the contributions of the people.
6. Later Dinsions. — Various causes have operated to prevent the continued unity of the denomination whose origin and progress are here traced, but it should be noted that no division has ever occurred on doctrinal grounds. The separation of O'Kelly and his friends, as already stated, took place in 1792, because the Confer- ence refused to restrict the power of the bishops in the appointments of ministers to their iields of labor. In 1810 the colored members of Philadelphia and its vicin- ity withdrew and organized the "African Methodist Episcopal Church ;" and in 1S20 a secession in New York City originated the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. They are large and useful bodies.
Embarrassments arose in Canada after the War of 1812, through jealousies of the Conference, because of its connection with a foreign ecclesiastical body, which finally became so severe that in 1828 the General Con- ference was formally requested to set off the Canada Conference as a distinct Church. The General Confer- ence, after full deliberation, held that it had no power to divide the Church, as it was constituted to preserve, not to destroy, its unity. Deeming the case to be one of necessity, it consented to the voluntary withdrawal of the Canada brethren; allowed the bishops, if recjuested, to ordain the bishop whom the separating Conference might elect; and jmiposed to the Annual Conferences such a ehaiii;c in ilie Restrictive Rules as would permit a. pro ratii ilivi^idu with them of the common property in the Book Concern. The requisite vote not being ob- tained, the property was not divided; but a satisfactory arrangement was effected through heavy discounts in sales of books, giving what was on all hands consitlered a full equivalent. The Canada Conference separated it- self from the Church; but between the two sections the most friendly relations have ever subsisted.
The circumstances which led in 1830 to another se- cession, and the formation of the "Methodist Protestant Church," were of a more serious sort. The subject of lay representation in the General Conference, though from an early day deemed by a few to be important, be- gan about 1820 to agitate the Church. The measures of the "Reformers," as the friends of the movement styled themselves, were unfortunate, leading not only to a most acrimonious controversy, but to such disorders as rendered necessary ecclesiastical trials and expul- sions. Out of the controversy arose Emory's masterlj' prodiictiDU, "The Defence of Our Fathers." The sub- ject came iieforo the General Conference by petitions and memorials, and received the fullest attention. The report refusing the radical change asked for, written by Dr. Thomas E. Bond, a local preacher, and not a mem- ber of the body, and presented by Dr. Emory, was unan- imously adopted. "The great body of our ministers, both travelling and local, as well as of our members— perhaps not much, if any, short of one hundred to one- oppose their wishes," says the report ; and Bangs thought that "nine tenths of our people were decidedly opposed to the innovation." The result was a new denomina- tion, starting with 83 preachers and 5000 members, and a long and bitter controversy that finallv died of ex- haustion.
The subject of slavery, which for many years agi- tated the whole country, and finally plunged it into a civil war, could not fail, in the progress of events, to involve in its complications a Church which constantly put slavery under its ban, but did not make absolute
non-slaveholding a test of membership. Two important secessions resulted — one in the North, the other in the South. One of the General Rules — the moral code of the Church from the beginning — forbade " the buying or selling of men, women, or children, with an intention to enslave them." The legislation of the Church was steadily adverse to the institution, though always em- barrassed by the obstacles which the civil laws [)laced in the way of a legal emancipation. The prohibition, however, of buying or selling slaves with any other in- tent than their freedom, remained unchanged. More- over, from the year 1800, the Discipline provided that "when any travelling preacher becomes an owner of a slave or slaves by any means, he shall forfeit his min- isterial character in the Methodist Episcopal Church unless he execute, if it be practicable, a legal emancipa- tion of such slaves, conformably to the laws of the state in which he lives;" from 181G, that "no slaveholder 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;" and from 1824 it contained pro- visions Idv the religious instruction of slaves, and con- cerniii;;- colmril local preachers. These regulations were in force at the conmiencement of the "abolition move- ment," and continued unchanged until 1800, when the formula in the Discipline declares that " the buying, sell- ing, or holding of human beings, to be used as chattels, is contrary to the laws of God and nature, and incon- sistent with the golden rule ;" and both preachers and people are admonished to " keep themselves pure from this great evil, and to seek its extirpation by all lawful and Christian means." The discussions in Great Brit- ain from the year 1823, that resulted in emancipation in all the British colonies in 1834, drew attention to the system of slavery as it existed in the United States, which was not greatly unlike that of the West Indies. Philanthropic men became aroused by numerous well- authenticated facts of the wicked and inhuman treat- ment of slaves. They were led to examine the system of chattel slavery and its practical workings, and found them so adverse to the right to himself of every person of full age and sane mind, except for the commission'of crime, that they pronounced slaveholding to be a crime in God's sight, and immediate, unconditional emanci- pation a duty. Leading ministers, chiefly in New Eng- land at first, espoused these views, and advocated them in the pulpit, at camp-meetings, in conventions, through the press, and by all those means that could act upon the public mind. In the controversies that followed, in which some of the most able pens of the denomination were engaged, the question was examined in all its as- pects. The subject was introduced into Quarterly and Annual Conferences, and ultimately became involved with questions of Conference rights. Episcopal preroga- tives, and the rights of the laity. The General Confer- ence of 1830 passed a vote of censure upon two of its members who had attended and spoken at an anti-slav- ery meeting in Cincinnati, where the session was held, (a resolution which in 1868, so greatly had opinion changed with events, it rescinded and pronomiced void), and exhorted the "members and friends" of the Church " to abstain from all abolition movements and associa- tions, and to refrain from patronizing any of their pub- lications." But Methodism had not overlooked the wel- fare of the slave. At the culmination of these troubles, a hundred thousand colored persons, mostly slaves, were enrolled as members of the Church, amounting to one tenth of the whole. But many apologies for quietness and tolerance of the legal relation of master v.ere nulli- fied by a resolution of the Georgia Conference, " that slavery, as it exists in the United States, is not a moral evil." At length, the General Conference of 1840 hav- ing found it " inexpedient to express any opinion, or to adopt an}' measures additional to those already in the Discipline," many began to abandon all hope of seeing the Church purged of slaverj', and to regard withdrawal