RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Methodists
encouraging. At the conference of 1828 the Methodist churches located in Canada, by the consent of the general conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, were formed into an independent denomination, and William Case was appointed its general superintendent until the ensuing annual conference. That conference was visited by Bishop Hedding, under whose counsel the organization was perfected.
In 1833 the Methodist Episcopal Church of Canada had three annual conferences, 197 effective ministers, 25,000 members, and a polity practically the same as that of the Methodist 2. Division Episcopal Church in the United States, and Denom- In that year it unified with the British
inations. conference, changing its name and form of government. When the conference agreed to this union it did so without formal consultation with the laity. The majority both of ministers and laymen acquiesced, but certain dissentients declared that, as it had not been submitted to the societies, the act was unconstitutional, and that it infringed upon the agreement made between the church in Canada and the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States. These organized a new Methodist Episcopal Church of Canada, more than one-thirteenth of the membership, declining to affiliate with the British conference, associating with them. Being without schools, parsonages, and churches, they began litigation to secure a pro rata part of the property. The lower courts decided in their favor, but on appeal the higher court recognized the Wesleyan Methodists of Canada as the rightful owners. After this question was settled the Wesleyan Methodist Church of Canada entered on a career of prosperity, and the Methodist Episcopal Church, thrown wholly on its own resources, made every sacrifice in order to succeed. Four Primitive Methodist ministers had been sent in 1829 from England because of the number of that sect emigrating to the United States. Three years later the Hull circuit in England decided to take the Canadian societies under its immediate charge. A general missionary committee was formed by the home church and under its management the increase of members was such that in 1854 the Canadian annual conference of Primitive Methodists was established. In 1831 the Bible Christians sent two missionaries to the British dominions in America, one to West Canada and the other to Prince Edward Island. In 1855 the society was strong, and held its first conference in Columbus. It then had 51 churches, 21 regular preachers and many lay helpers, and 2,200 members. Ten years afterward the union with it of the Prince Edward Island churches, together with local growth, raised its membership to 5,000. The Canadian Wesleyan Methodist Church was formed in 1829. It was founded principally by Henry Ryan and introduced lay representation in all its courts. Ryan died in 1833, but the little church struggled on, and in 1841 united with the Methodist New Connection. The Methodist New Connection of England, with the consent of the parent society, established a mission in Canada in 1837 The mission, enlarged by admitting a small denomination, VII.— 23
assumed the title " Canadian Methodist New Connection." In 1840 the British conference " withdrew from its cooperation " with the Canada conference, which acted independently for seven years, but during that period the form and name of the Wesleyan Methodist Church remained unchanged. In 1847 the union was restored, and in 1854, by special arrangement, the Lower Canada and the Hudson Bay missionary districts, both of which had stood in immediate connection with the British Wesleyan conference, became incorporated with the Wesleyan church in Canada. In 1857 the Methodist Episcopal Church founded an educational institution at Bellville, which was incorporated as Bellville Seminary; three years later it was affiliated with the Toronto University as Bellville College, the ladies' department taking the designation of Alexandria College, and later the remaining part of the institution being known as Albert University.
For years a yearning existed in many hearts for organic union of Methodist bodies. This first bore fruit in the union of the Wesleyan 3. TJni- Methodist Church in Canada, the Eastfication. ern British American conferences, and the Methodist New Connection Church, proposed in 1872, and consummated in Toronto in 1874, the uniting bodies adopting the all-inclusive name of the Methodist Church of Canada. Its first census reported 1,031 ministers, and 101,946 members, two universities, three theological schools, and several colleges and secondary schools. Yet something still greater awaited Canadian Methodism. The first Ecumenical Conference of Methodism, which convened in Wesley Chapel, London, in 1881, gave such impulse to fraternity as to extend the horizon till glimpses of complete Methodist unity could be perceived in the not distant future. Canada was the first to know its visitation. In Bellville, in 1883, was accomplished the formal and actual union of the Methodist Church of Canada, the Methodist Episcopal Church in Canada, the Primitive Methodist Church in Canada, and the Bible Christian Church of Canada. The body thus formed was in the possession of seven colleges, having 100 professors and 5,068 students. The Methodist Church of Canada contributed to the union 128,- 337 members; the Methodist Episcopal Church in Canada, 25,678 members; the Primitive Methodists, 8,000; and the Bible Christians, 6,800 — a sum total of 168,815 members. The itinerant general superintendents hold office for the term of eight years, and are eligible to reelection. The annual conferences are composed of ministers and an equal number of laymen, a president being selected from among the ministerial members. The president of the annual conference is the superintendent of the district in which he may be stationed. The annual conference elects superintendents for each district. There are now six departments of mission work, home, Indian, French, Chinese and Japanese in British Columbia, and foreign. The home work embraces needy fields in the dominion, Newfoundland, and Bermuda. These include more than 35,000 communicants. The French missions are in Quebec. The foreign missions are in China and
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