Year: 1859

III 'no hetDOulst church, and which resulted in
the DIVISION of that ecclesiastical organization in
g. to Church North and q Church South, still left
attached to the Northern section q large district
oil s'aVehodng country. and considerable num-
Der ei slaveholding members. The Discipline Of
the plethodist Church settled at the time of Its
hrSt planting in ibis country, did, indeed, exclude
: from m5ership of that communion all persons
: VINO engage IN 1.-The buying and selling Of men,
women, and children, with the intention to en-
J slave them." As the first converts to Methodism
made here were almost entirely among those too


little provided with this worlds goods to be slave
holders, conscience and the sense of justice did
t not md themselves then as now brought into con-
hict with personal and pecuniary interests.
e There can be little doubt that it was the iDten-
ton OF the trainers of this rule to stigmatze
sla'ehoIding as sin, and disqualification for
membership of their religious community. 1t is
true that, looking merely to its terms, the rule
! does not seem to 90 that length. The exclusion
from membership is confined to those who engage
IN buying and selling men, women, and chill
dren;" and might, therefore, be pausibly limited
: 10 tue purchase or sale, to the exclusion o! the
mere holding of slaves. Looking, however, at the


RUE little more narrowly, it will be that
! tue gravam9n Of the act prohibited inconsistent
with membership Of the Methodist Church, is not
the mere buying aud selling, Tut the intention


10 ensave-an intention which seems inseperable
from the act of slavehodng, to which buying or


selling are but mere prelulinaries But if the
rule ever received this logical and consistent
interpretation, 1t was only for q very
short period. AS Mehodism spread rnpidly
thrOt1r ti,n =, L..
ciude among its members q considerable number
of Shareholders and the rule above quoted, though
1T might be understood condemung the African


Slavc-trade, and even perhaps the domestic slave
trade when carried on professionally and as a
regular business sunk for all practical pur-
poses into dad letter. 1t was held to apply


merely to the case of reducing to slavery those


previously free.


1t is well known that the agitation against Sla-
very, started under the auspices of the American


Anti-Savery Society, some twenty five years since,
had in is origin nothing whatever political or sec
tional. That movement was based, like the En-
West Indies, from which it might be said to bt
alphabetically derived, exclusively upon rclig
ious and moral considerations. Those who engag
|
and religious convictions, upon the operation of
which, and not upon any combination of party or
political interests they relied for tho accomplish
ment of the objects which they had in view. That
very measure Of spreading their tracts and publi-
cations broadcast through the South which excl
ted against them the first violent cutburst of slave


holding indignation, no less than the character of
those publications, showed their object to be, not
to laise up political party at the North but to
appeal to the religious sentiment of the country,
and especially to that sentiment in the breas. of
the Shareholders themselves. A large part of
these early Abolitonists have indeed strcnuously
7epudated, even to this day, all connection with
politics. The question was first made political by
the acts of the shareholders themselves in attempt,
ing to suppress this religious agitation by subjec-
ting the parties engaged in 1t to species of civil
outawry, not only by deprivingthem in the halls
of Congress Of their rights as petitioners, but by
insisting that the Northern States should enact
penal laws against them and by string up mobs
to assai their persons and destroy their property.


Being thus purely religious and moral in its or
gn and early character, it is not surprising that
this agitation on the subject of Slavery should
have taken strong hold upon many members and
ministers of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and
that the division above referred to into Church
North and Church South, should already have
resulted from is. That division, however, did not
arise upon the direct question whether or not the
holding Of slaves is consistent with membership of
the Methodist Church under the rule above sta
ted. 1t grew exclusively out of the question
whether or not the Methodist Church was to toler-
ate the holding of slaves By its bishops. A major
ity Of the conferences thought not. Aggravated
at this decision, most of those who had formed
the minority seeded. But these founders of
new church did not succeed in carrying off with
them all the Southern Methoists. In all the bor-
der Slave States, of tem chose to retain their
connection with the original church, that there
still remains considerable number of slavcho-
ders IN communion with the Methodist Church
North-quite o small part, however, of the whole
number Of Southern members, by far the larger
portion of whom are slaveholders.


Since this voluntary exodus of the main body of
shareholders, formerly in communion with tho
Methodist church, tho question has arisen in the
church North whether that which is not seemly or
tolerable in bishop ought to be tolerated in
church member. The connection of some mem
bers, and even ministers, of the Methodist Church
North with forays into the Free States for the re-
covery of fugitive slaves, has excited very un-
pleasant feelings. and some qualms of conscience
at the idea of recognizing, as brother church mem
bers persons who participate in such practices.


In the General Conference of 1856 this subjec!
was formally brought up for consideration. The
ground was taken by some Of the members of that
body that the old rule. in spirit and substance,
embraces the act Of slaveholdng and they further
maintained that IL any objection exists to the Civ
ing of that interpretation and application to it in
its present shape, the rule ought to be amended
as to remove that objection. This proposition
was then voted down, but the object has still been