Page:Daniel Minort Baxter - Bishop Richard Allen and His Spirit (1923).pdf/68

60 found himself and all his group almost friendless and poor, from thence the time of race consciousness continues to rise higher and higher as the river of intellectual, spiritual, and material growth flows on. Flow on Allen’s spirit in to the warm gulf stream of charity for all the nations of the world! After our church, Bethel, was a fact in Philadelphia, and Bethel, Baltimore, Md., other churches sprang up and in 1816 an organization was formed with the following delegates present Philadelphia, 5; Baltimore, 6; Wilmington, Del., 1; Attleborough (now Langhorne), 3; Salem, N. J., 1; thus came into being the first General Conference of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and Rev. Richard Allen was elected and consecrated, and the first Bishop of the Negro race. Following him as Bishops came Morris Brown of Charleston, S. C., and Edward Waters of Baltimore. Race prejudice and the Denmark Veasey insurrection in Charleston in 1822 caused a ban to put on the church at Charleston. But all over the North, Allen’s spirit had brooded and the work spread like wild fire. Rev. Morris Brown was sent by a congregation of Negroes to Philadelphia in 1817, and was ordained deacon and