O'Kelly and Haggard, assisted by disaffected local preachers, at once began the work of organizing a new an<l pure Church, free from all such evils as they fan- cied bad corrupted IMethodism. Allen settled, and soon after, entering upon the practice of medicine, gave up preaching altogether. Kobertson remained local, and after some years became the head of a subordinate schism in the O'Kelly ranks. Tfie Repiiblknn Meth- odists was the title chosen for the new Church. The leaders proceeded to hold conferences and other meet- ings for the purpose of deciding upon some settled plan of operations. They formed many rules, but upon trial
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found them extremely defective when compared with those they had abandoned. At length they renounced all rules of Church government, and took the New Tes- tament as their guide. They agreed that all the plans and regulations made at their conferences should be merely advisory. The name for their Church was sug- gested by the political complexion of the times. Ke- puhlican principles prevailed in Virginia, and there was something to be gained by a Church bearing the im- posing and popular name, "Republican Methodists." One of their first measures was to enact a levelling law. All the preachers were to stand on an equal footing. There were to be no grades in the ministry. They en- deavored to swell their numbers liy jiromising the laity much larger liberty than they enjoyed in the old Church. The leaders warred zealously, and not without success. In some places thej- carried off entire societies; in oth- ers they wrought ruinous divisions. A few preaching- houses were seized by them, and the rightful owners turned out of doors; from others the Methodists retired in order to avoid strife. The seceders are even accused of having said all manner of evil against the Jlethodist Church. They certainly censured the preachers severe- ly. Asbury was the object of their peculiar displeasure. They took special pains to iinpeach his character in ev- ery possible way before the public. The name of bishop they professed to regard with holy horror. They in- sisted that bishop and elder had the same signification in Scripture ; yet they received the one and rejected the other. " The spirit of division," says Bennett, " pre- vailed chiefly in the southern counties of the state, and in the border counties of North Carolina. In all this region the intiuence of O'Kelly was very great, and he scru- pled not to use it to the utmost of his ability in building up his own cause. Although his success in gaining proselytes from the ranks of Methodism was far less than he anticipated, yet the liistory of this painful schism is full of sad memorials : families were rent asunder, brother was opposed to brother, parents and children ^vere arrayed against each other, warm friends became open enemies, and the claims of Christian love were forgotten in the hot disputes about Church gov- ernment. The means of grace were neglected, piety declined, religion was wounded in the house of her friends, and the enemies of Christ exulted over many who had fallen away from faith." '• It was enough," says Jesse Lee, "to make the saints of (Jod weep be- tween the porch and the altar, and that both day and night, to see how the Lord's tiock was carried away captive by that division."
The conjectures for O'Kelly's secession are very va- ried. Some writers of his own time and since believe that his ambition craved position beside the noble As- bury, and that when shut out from the episcopal cab- inet, he determined to build up a Church of his own, where, though but a simple jjresbyter, he could yet rule as chief It is said that an English lawyer, a man of iiilidel principles, who, strange to saj-, admired the Methodist Church, and witnessed with many regrets the O'Kelly schism, advised Jesse Lee and many other leading ministers to make O'Kelly a bishop;" "for," said he, "if you will let him share the dreaded pow- er with. Asbury, he will no longer fear it." The his- tory of O'Kelly's movement shows that the lawyer was nearer right than wrong. Besides this, we learn from certain records that O'Kelly held heterodox views. "lie denied," says Dr. Lee, "the distinct per- sonality of the Holy Trinity. He affirmed that, instead of distinct persons in the Godhead, the terms Father, Son, and Holy Ghost were only intended to represent three offices in one glorious and eternal Being." It was a favorite expression of his, as we learn from a living contemiwrary, that "(iod was Father from eternity. Iledeemer in time, and Sanctitier for evermore." Of the truth of tliis charge there is proof in the proceed- ings of the Greenbrier Conference. He had raised doubts of the personality of the Trinity in the minds of
two preachers from his district who were present at the Conference, and they only renounced their heretical opinions when their brethren confronted them with overwhelming scriptural evidence of the true doctrine. This was in May, six months before the meeting of the General Conference of 1792. We may well believe that a man so bold as O'Kelly would not hesitate to give expression to his doctrinal views, and there is littk doubt that many were led astray from the truth in the large district over which he presided so long. The in- fluence of O'Kelly was used against Asbury with a suc- cess that should have satisfied any man who had not determined to rule or ruin the Church. The council was O'Kelly's favorite hobby; he kept before the preach- ers and people the great evil of the council ; magnified the power of Asbury as a bishop until many were im- pressed with the belief that a great, overshadowing ec- clesiastical tyranny was growing up in the Methodist Church. During liis travels in Virginia in the summer of 1790 Asbur}' saw the sad effects of O'Kelly's influ- ence; and when he reached the Leesburg Conference in August of that year he showed a noble disinterested- ness as pleasing as it is rare. He says: "To conciliate the minds of our brethren in the South District of Vir- ginia Avho are restless about the council, I wrote their leader a letter informing him 'that I would take my seat in the council as another member,' and in that point at least waive the claims of episcopacy ; yea, I would lie down and be trodden upon rather than know- ingly injure one soul."