The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1860-12-25
lFAoN 2gR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
MI EFElks rsTs7y nN THE R0RnER

church bodies connected. The commercial interests
of Baltimore are closely interviewer with the result
of the coming session Of the Baltimore Conference at
stanton, Va. So marked will be the effect of its
deliberations on the ecclesiastical, social political
and other interests of Maryland and Northern
Virginia, that letter upon the subject may not
prove unnteresting.
There is no religious body in America that
ercises upon national affairs influence so com
manding as the Methodist Episcopal Church in its
two great divisions. Your readers are generally
aware of the fact that in the Monumental city, 1t
| possassas n LARGER number of church edifces, and
! has a more numerous body Of communicates than
orv other branch of the Christian Church. During
! the present month there assembled in Baltimore
! the first convention of the laymen known in the
| UNCONVENTIONAL history of Methodsm. Circum-
stances created it. Its object to enquire into
the propriety of memorializng the ministerial
body under which it existed, to its unnatural
conference relations assume independent eccle-
siastical position, and no longer recognize the u-
risdiction of the General Conference of the Meth
| odist Episcopal Church.
were the Wesleys. Its object, greater religious
| purity Its doctrines were first promul gated in
| Mary land by an Irish lay minister named Robert
| Strawbridge, immediately prior to the American
revolution From that period until the present,
this body OF Christians has steadily and rapidly in
creased, until it now numbers, in its several
| branches,
| United States.
Twice has this extensive organization been sun
dered. In 1925 large number of ministers and
laymen seeded from the great body, and established
the Methodist Protestant Church. 4 difference of
! opinion upon church government, involving the
questions of lay delegation and Epscopacy, caused
the unfortunate rupture of church relations
| Prominent among the seeding ministers were Rev.
DR.. Stockton and son; the former ripe with years,
having recently passed away; the latter, grazing
Christianity by his piOus life, and adjoining the
pulpit by his eloquence as the distinguished Chap
lain of the Unit States House OF Representatives
The second great secession occurred in 1914. and
has been attended with the most depOrable results
| The accursed question which clothes in mou min q
our great Union. accomplished this fatal separa-
ton, which has had, and yet has a marked infu-
| ence upon country troubles. The Methodist
| Episcopal Church has ever borne a. testimony
against the system of involuntary servitude,
| social evil, although until 1860, has she
| affirmed slavehOlding to be per SintHt. Through
all the Southern States, up to IA, she had
| tensive bodies of slaveholding commandments
against whose moral fitness for Christian fellowship
she pronounced no nvective; thus proving its anti
slavery declaration to be erclusirely Of political
| character. ltinerant was her clerical economy
| Her ministers being liable at any time immediate
| transfer to free State foreign mission field
| were required to be constantly free from the en-
cumbrance of slave property. This restriction was
necessity growing out of the SYSTEM
! Again, Shareholders were not eligible to official
stations in the church, because so many viewed do
| Il
| was designed to render useful and efficient in the
highest degree the offerings of the church. All the
privileges of the church offered freely to all
Shareholders desirous of "feeing from the wrath to
| come" In both these restrictions is the great
wisdom of the trainers of the 'Discipine" mani
tested, and thus has the church removed from the
path of the ministry and official board, an mped-
| ment to their Christian usefulness.
Rev. F. A Harding, of the Baltimore Annual
| Conference, and Rev. Bishop Andrews of the Epis-
copal Board became, by marriage, possessors of
| slaves. Thus the Bishop rendered himself obnox-
ious to any anti-savery conference over which he
might be called to preside; and thus by localizing
the administration of his Episcopal functions he
embarrassed the Board of Bishops. Rev MIR. H.
placed himself beyond the power of a Northern or
free State transfer. Each knew the law of the
church. Each conscious of a contraction of
his ministerial sphere. Abolitonism had waged
upon he South. As a consequence all anti
slavery restrictions awakened Indignation. In the
| church at the South, strong feeling of hostility
to this denominationa restriction was being gen
Grated. The extending and streng thening influence
of AbolitiOnism in the politics of Northern States
was co-eXtenSively strengthening in the Northern
! representation at the General Conference.
| A determination to check this antslavery senti-
ment ran through the Southern Conferences John
| c. Calhoun's influence was not altogether unfet
| The General Conference assembled and resolved to
maintain her time hOnored and wise restriction
earnestly pleading with the Bishop to free his
| slaves The South refused to allow it, and Bishop
| Andrew allowed his Samsonian strength to be ex-
| OF
| Metbodism and crushing the magnificent structure.
| BY this melancholy separation, the Methodist
| Church became divided into two great parts; the
| Northern portion retaining the original name, the
Southern wing appending to itself the sectional ap
pelation "SOHh, each receiving its legal share Of
general church property. In this bitter contest
the Baltimore Conference remained perfectly con-
| servative. Seeing no just cause for secession it,
with several other border Conferences geographi.
cay possessing slave holding territory refused to
secede from the mother church, although aware of
the Identification of its interest with the new or
! ganiZation.
| Soon after, the border conference discovered
that by refusing to secede they had laid themselves
liable to suspicion of disOyalty and inlidelitv to
| the institutions of Southern States. Accordingly
these several conferences in the exercise of their in
dividual conference sovereignty, declared them
selves true to all civil regulations and took a con-
servative stand, leaning Soufh,card If at all biased.
| They interpreted their opinion of the disciplinary
! declaration respecting slavery by refusing to i'm
pute immoral motive to the stakeholder, or rec
ogrize it as "evi" other than in a social and po-
litical aspect. On the other hand they refused to
| enter upon defence of modern domestic slavery
| as divinelv instituted system. They adopted the
| views of Washington, Jefferson, Clay and Ran
dolph. than whom no greater statesmen lived,
| and whose memory amid our national discord is to
all sections of our periled contederacy, ga sweet
smelling SAVIOR" 1t may be safely affirmed that
| among the collective bodies of our country, the
| Baltimore Ministerial Conference stands pre-emi-
nent for a pure conservatism upon the question OF
| the day. Its influence in the Southern portion OF
its territory has been crippled by a s0phism. This
sophism extensively promul gated has been, that by
refusing to secede with the Southern Conference in
| 1874, it virtually expressed Northern sympathies,
and consequently principles hostile to the feelings
| Of Southern people,
| Immediately after the great secession, the border
conferences (the most prominent among which is
the BdltimOre) found themselves in a hopeless mi
nority. They determined, however, to remain
faithful to the discipline to the adoption of which
tba,- ntad. hiatt Ii fn
| it remained unaltered notwithstanding the fearful
| cost at which their fsthiulness to be main
| tanned. Gradually. however, has the anti-saverv
| influence in the Quadrennia General Conference
been deepening and extending, becoming more and
| more oppressive upon the minority, until all the
| border conferences have been excluded from the
| posts of honor within the gift of the Church. No
! editor other conference officer has been elected
| by the body whose sympathies were known TO be
pro slavery. The growth of anti slavery sentiment
has been so apparent and glazing during the past
several years that the position of the conferences
! slaveholding SOIL in union with the Church proper,
! has become painfully embarrassing.
In MAY last the General Conference of the Meth
odist Episcopal Church held its session at Buffalo,
| New York. Upon it was tremendous pressure
| from legions of ultra Abolition communicants de-
| handing advance action upon the question of
| slavery. Piles OF petitions were addressed to it
| clamoring for unmstakabe testimony against
| the morality OF savehodng. The border protested
against any change in the discipline as dea h-how
/
! existence. According to the constitution of the
church, two-third vote was necessary to effect
| change. The North proposed new rule in lieu of
the present dead law OF the discipline By this rule
all Shareholders excluded from the communion
! of the church. The debate protract ID and
marked by extraordinary strength, impressiveness
and eloquence The North struggl led if for life
Firmly and unblanched the border, aided by
Northern conservatism, met the storm. The final
vote taken the passage of the rule, and the
proposed substitute failed to secure the requisite
vote by a small minority.
1t is well understood, that previous to the
vote, several of the advocates for the measure,
sought legal counsel from eminent lawyers, upon
the question of the consttutionaty of this election
of slavehodng communicates. Being assured of
its unconstitutionaty, account of which fact,
the elected conferences were secure in their pos
session, not only OF their local church property,
but also of their just proportion of general pro-
perty, the several supporting delegates reluctantly
voted against the law, desiring to defeat the border
in its participation in the property of the church.
The North, determined in its purposes, Immediately
sought avenue by which the spirit of the rule
might be engratted into the tenets of the church,
without infringing upon the Constitution; rendering
the secession of slaveholding communions,
tainty, without forcing them by statutory law from
the church, thus satisfying fully the North; rem
derng the secession of the border conferences
fixed fact get voluntary toih themselves. and closing
the treasury of the organization upon the demands
after the defeat of the proposed "New Rule" the
following new chapter was presented for adoption,
ingeniously framed by Rev. ID. Wise, DID,, an
aboitiohist of the strongest cast, and one of the
most shrewd politicians in the connection
We believe hu hnldinp usinp