In the same year a settlement was effected between the General Conference and the English Conference, by which it was agreed that the jNIethodist Ei>isc()pal Church should withdraw its ministers from Lower Can- ada, and give up that province, with all its Church prop- erty therein, to the management of the English Con- ference ; and that the English Conference should in like maimer withdraw its missionaries from Upper Canada, and give up that province, with all its Church proi)erty therein, to the Methodist Episcopal Church (comp. J/is- tory of the Methodist Ejmcojnil Church in Canada, p. 127-154). The rival interest having been withdrawn from Upper Canada — with the exception of Kingston, where tlie English Conference continued to keep one of its missionaries — the societies of the Methodist Epis- copal Church, once more in the enjoyment of peace, soon recovered from the effects of the recent agitations, and were greatly prosjiered in sjiiritiial things. So rapidly bad the work extended, tliat in 1824 the General Con- ference held in Baltimore consented to the establish- ment of an Annual Conference for Canada.
The Canada Conference was organized at llallowell, Upper Canada, August 25, 1824. Bishojjs (Jeorge and Ilcdding were i)rcsent,and presided in turn. The preacli- ers numbered, including the two bishops and those on trial, thirty-three persons. This was a small number compareil with the numi)ers who met at Elizabethtown in 1817, or at Lundy's Lane in 1820. For four years longer the bishops went into Canaila and j>resided at the st>ssions of the Canada Conference, appointing the preachers to the several charges, both jireachers and so- cieties cheerfully accepting such appointments. The work continued to extend and )m)S|)er, and Methodism was fast becoming a power in the land. But the good
it was accomplishing among the people, instead of re- moving tiie prejudices of its opponents, only tended to infuse fear of its great and growing influence among the advocates of a State Church. Among the Method- ists, also, there were some who advocated the inilepen- denl establishment of the Canadian Methodist E|iisciipal Church, on the ground that it would secure to the Ca- nadian Methodists greater civil and religious liberty. Prominent among these was the Bev. II. Kyan, who had been agitating for a separation of the societies in Can- ada from the parent Church in the L'nited States since 1820. The scheme was presented to the people on na- tional and ])atriotic grounds, and the (ieneral Conference was memorialized on the subject, and at its session held at Pittsburgh, May, 1828, the request was granted. Ac- cordingly, the Canadian jNIcthodists were on October 2, 1828, organized into the Methodist Episcopal Church of Canada. In 1828 there were 3 districts, 48 travelling preachers, 7 superannuated preachers, and 32 circuits, with a membership of 9C78. The uicrease for the j-ear was 1033.
From 1828 until 1832 the infant Church in Canada had unprecedented success, considering the opposition it met with from the liev. H. Ilyau and his followers, who separated themselves from the connection in 1829, and organized another i)ody. The provisional government was (piite as hostile to the Methodist Episcopal Church in Canada after 1828 as it had been before its separation from the parent body. Parliament vindicated the rights of the preachers and Church, but the executive was not only confederated with the Church and State party in the country to cripple the energies of the original ]\Ieth- odists of the province, but was intriguing witli the Eng- glish Weslej'an Jlissionarj' Committee to induce that body — in violation of the settlement of 1820— to send thei? agents again into the country to form rival socie- ties, large sums of money from the public revenue being promised if these missionaries would come. The scheme of the executive was successful, and Dr. Alder was sent out by the Missionary Committee to commence opera- tions in Upi)er Canada in 1832. It was to avoid a col- lision with these agents of the English Conference, and also in evident anticipation of large tinancial supplies, that the great majority of the preachers consented to revolutionize the newly-organized Methodist Episcopal Church in Canada, and to become a mere dependency of the English Conference.
This unconstitutional movement was resisted by some of the preachers, and by hundreds of the members. Despite remonstrance, however, the Canada Conference consummated ils iniion with tiie English body, faking with it most of the Church property, nearly all the preachers, and the jirincijial part of the membership. Some of the former, and hinidreds of the latter, disap- proving of the proceedings of the Conference, yet sub- mitted from hopelessness of successful resistance. A respectable minority protested against the action of the Conference, maintaining that the discipline of the Church did not vest in the Conference the powers as- sumed by it in that action, ajul that therefore the ac- tion was null and void. Thej' also maintained that if the General Conference had possessed the powers it claimed, its action was nevertheless null and void, be- cause persons were allowed to take part in its proceed- ings who, according to the discipline of the Church, were not meml)ers of the General Conference. The protes- tants further claimed that, having joined an I-jiiscopal Church, they coidd not without tlieir own consent be made members of a non-lCpiscopal Church; neither could they, without fault of their own, be tleprivcd of their membershi]) in the Church they had joined; that tiiey therefore weri' still members of tiie Methodist ILjiis- cojial Church in Canada, and that said Church remained in its constitution and government intact — the action of the Conference amounting to nothing more than the I withdrawal of the Conference and those who followed it : from the Church.