Page:A short account of the rise and progress of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in America.djvu/53



The official members of Zion Church being now fully determined upon forming connexions with such of their coloured brethren, as were willing to unite with them in the formation of a uniform system of church government, came together on Wednesday night, October 25th, 1820, for the purpose of coming to a determination about the Discipline, and, after reading and examining the same, they adopted it and resolved to have it printed, and appointed George Collins and Christopher Rush, a committee, to attend to the publication thereof, and on the first November following, the manuscript was put in the hands of John C. Totten, printer, who was ordered to print twelve hundred copies. About this time there were several places opened where our Preachers might have formed societies, or taken the charge of those already formed; but they, being unaccustomed to the work of forming societies, and being not yet fully organized as a society, they were slow in their movements,