Page:A short account of the rise and progress of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in America.djvu/85

 seek for information of the best manner of obtaining ordination elsewhere. The committee, thus authorized, promptly went for- ward, and shortly after obtained the consent of Doctor James Covel, Silvester Hutchinson and William M. Stilwell, all regularly ordained Elders of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and members of the Methodist church lately established in this city, (having recently withdrawn from the old connexion, for reasons mentioned in the foregoing part of this work,) and on Monday night, June 17th, 1822, they attended the appointed meeting in Zion Church, and after an appropriate and solemn sermon, delivered by Doctor Covel, they ordained Abraham Thompson, James Varick and Leven Smith, Elders in the church of God, in the presence of a large and respectable audience. Thus, after twenty-one months struggling through a kind of spiritual wilderness, Zion Church obtained three ordained Elders.

At this time, the Asbury Church had returned to the old connexion, and during the time of the yearly Conference of the Allenites, William Miller had allowed their Preachers to preach in his church; therefore, being thus separated from Zion Church, he deprived himself of the privilege of ordination.

In consequence of the unfinished state of the second yearly Conference, held at Philadelphia, it became necessary to have an extra meeting or convention of the