Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 13.djvu/422

* METHODISM. 386 METHODISM. orders like the .Jesuits, stroiifr to prcaeh like the Domiiiiians. they liave gone everywhere, thread- iiij? forests, fordinj; and swimming rivers, making friends with Indians or with chanee settlers, traveling through parishes a hundred miles or more in extent, meeting their appointments with the regularity of a machine, running the gauntlet of all kinds of dangers. These men of the first geiierations of ilethodists revived the earliest traditions of Christianity. The emphasis put on preaching has been another cause of suc- cess. Necessarily deficient in learning, the preacher.? made up for that hy study (a course of study was early prescribed), reading, and con- tact with men. Hut they learned above all to be preachers — ready, powerful, interesting extemi)0- raneous pi'eachers. Kmphasis on religious ex- perience, personal knowledge of Christ, and vic- tory over all sin, gave botli prcacliers and people a buoyant, triumphant life, and this sense of reality and power invested the pulpit with au- thority and fascination, and its pco])l(' with a vitalizing inlluence over others. At a time when the prevailing type of Christianity was Cal- vinistic, the Methodists came with the Gospel of a free, full and present salvation, which they preaciied with tremendous earnestness and with- o>it philosophical refinements. Methodism has therefore been a revival Church. The government of the Methodist Episcopal Church was completely in the hands of the preachers, who received their appointments an- nually from the superintendents, who were thus invested with large legal and indefinite moral power. This excessive clericalism was the occa- sion of the first two schisms. .Tames O'Kelly, an earnest Irishman of warm piety and strong ))er- sonality, tried to have the right of appeal to the Conference recognized in the case of a preacher who felt oppressed by an appointment by the bishop, and. failing in this, led a schism in Virginia in ITflii. lie organized the Ucpiihliran Mctliddiyl Clniich. which was finally absorbed hy other movements. Of greater significance was the agitation to adiuit laymen into the Church councils, which, being refused by the General Conference of 1824. led to a new Church, in 1828, which took the name of the Mrthodist I'rotrxtaiit Church in 18.30. This Church repudiated the episcopate, gave laymen their full rights, and thus disentangled Methodism from hierarchical methods. To many minds at one time slavery seemed the article" of a standing or falling Church. At the beginning Methodism had taken strong ground against slavery, but exigencies of the work in the Southern States led to an abandon- ment of the old ground. The anti-slavery men of the North would not yield, however, and in 184,3 organized the 1V«.>.7ri/rtH MrthmVmt Coniicctinii at I'tica. X. Y. In government they are similar to the Methodist Protestant Church. They liold stricter ground in regard to secret societies and intemperance than the old Church. The great division on slavery was that in 1844-4.5. in con- nection with the ease of Bisbop .Tames O. Andrew, who had married a slave-holding wife. The Mrthndixl I'.iiisropiil Church, fiouth, was organ- ized, taking most of the societies in the South. This Church has the same laws and customs as the elder body, with some niodilication of the disciplinary provisions. The latest division of consequence was that in Western New York in 1800, when the I'rcc Mvllwdisl Church was or- ganized, a reaction toward the strciuious ideals of primitive Methodism in regard to secret so- cieties, plainness of dress, the use of tobacco, and in the interests of positive Christian teaching and practice. Other and smaller separations have taken place prompted by a desire either for a more democratic or for a purer Christianity, or both, the latest being the organization of the Independent Methodist Church, at Newark, N. J., in I'JOO. Colored Methodism has had free course in the United States. Housed at first in the parent Cluirch, the colored i)i'ople came out in I'hiladel- phia under Richard Allen in 181G. and organized the African Methodist Epiacopal Church, with doctrine and polity similar to the old Church. Four years later the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church was organized in New York. The Colored Methodist Episcopal Church of America was organized by action of the JMcthodist Kpis- copal Church. South, December 10. 1870. The Methodist Episcopal Church has colored con- ferences in the South, an integral part of her organization, hut she has never elected a colored bishop since the death of Francis Burns in 1863. The struggle for the rights of laymen in America has been similar to that in England. The Jlethodist Episcopal Church, South, not only (since 18(i9) admits laymen to the General Con- ference in ecpial numbers. l)ut admits four lay- men from every district in the .-Vnnual Confer- ence. The African Churches do the same. After the organization of the Metliodist Protestant Church. 1828-30, the agitation rested in the Methodist Episcopal Church until 1852. But it was not until 1872 that that Church granted place to laymen in her supreme council; and then only to the extent of two laymen from each Annual Conference, which gave the preponderance to the ministers three to one. In lliOO the ratio of rep- resentation was made eipial. C.N.I)A. The Palatines, who did so much for Irish Methodism and who founded the Cluirch in the New World, were also the organizers of the first class in Canada — at Augusta. Ontario, in 1778. In fact, it was the same Paul and Barbara Heck, their sons and relatives, and the widow and son of Philip Embury, who constituted that class. George Neal, a school teacher in the Niagara dis- trict, preached to the ])Cople on Sunday and on week evenings after !78('>. and gathered his cnn- ' verts into classes. He kept u|i this work for years, but was not ordained unt il ISIO. William Losee was the first itinerant minister. He preached in and around Kingston in 1700 and following years, and in 1701 and thereafter Can- ada was regularly supplied with ministers from the United States. In 1800 there were one dis- trict, four circuits, seven |>reacbers. and 936 members. Relations with the ICpiscopalians were not always friendly. Canada was a part of the Genesee Conference of the Jlethodist Episcopal Church until 1824. when the Canada Conference was orgartized. In 1828 the Church was made independent and became the Methodist Episcopal Church in Canada. The English Jlcthodists be- gan work in Montreal in 1814, extended it into Ontario in 18IS. and took over the Methodist Episcopal Church in 18.32. though the latter re- sumed an independent existence in 1834. Metho- dism in the eastern provinces was founded by the apostolic William Black, a notable figure,