Читать книгу The Colored Man in the Methodist Episcopal Church - L. M. Hagood - Страница 7

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When it is remembered that the African slave-trade in this country was intrenched behind the venerated Constitution, it is not strange that nearly every conflict the Methodist Episcopal Church has had touching slavery aroused bitter opposition within and without the Church. In most instances it is conceded that defeated or desperate enemies, when opposing a third inveterate foe, will, if an opportunity is afforded, unite against a common enemy; or, in other words, Pilate and Herod will unite. Working out from within is often found the more effectual way, whether it be a prison, a political or ecclesiastical party, or the disruption of a Church. It was thus done in the secession of colored members from our Church in 1816 and 1820. Among the number of colored members belonging to St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church of Philadelphia in 1815 was a local preacher, Richard Allen, who afterward organized and became the first bishop of the “Bethel Connection,” afterwards known as “the African Methodist Episcopal Church.” The colored members, under his leadership, formed a nucleus of a society for themselves, aside from, and out of the jurisdiction of, the pastor of St. George’s Church. The entire affair was local, and the result of the dissatisfaction that arose was the same as it would be to-day if a local preacher, white or colored, were to organize a society in opposition to the wishes of his pastor, purchase Church property for the congregation, or part of it, and then deed it to a few individuals instead of the Church. It has been intimated by persons whose reputation rests more or less upon that and similar transactions, that it was the outgrowth of neglect on the part of pastor and people of St. George’s Church. Let Bishop Allen answer that question. He says: “I was then working for George Giger. Before this, Bishop Asbury asked me to travel with him. The bishop proffered me what he was receiving, my victuals and clothes.” Rev. R. Allen refused this offer, as he says: “I told him that I thought people ought to lay up something while they were able, to support themselves in time of sickness and old age. But I made up my mind that I would not accept of his proposals. Shortly after, I left Hartford Circuit and came to Pennsylvania, on Lancaster Circuit. I traveled several months on this circuit with the Revs. Peter Moriarty and Ira Ellis. The elder in charge in Philadelphia frequently sent for me to come to the city. February, 1786, I came to Philadelphia. Preaching was given out for me for five o’clock A.M., in St. George’s Church. I strove to preach as well as I could, but it was a great cross to me; but the Lord was with me. We had a good time, and several souls were awakened, and were earnestly seeking redemption in the blood of Christ. I thought I would stop in Philadelphia a week or two. I preached at different places in the city. My labor was much blessed; I soon saw a large field open in seeking and instructing my African brethren. I preached wherever I could find an opening. I established prayer-meetings; I raised a society in 1786 of forty-two members. I saw the necessity of erecting a place of worship for the colored people of the city; but here I met opposition. But three colored brethren united with me in erecting a place of worship.”

Now let us rest and contemplate for a moment the situation. Here we find a local preacher of the Methodist Episcopal Church was invited by the pastor and presiding elder of St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church to come to the city, and preach to his congregation at an usual hour for service, five A.M. He came; success attended his labors. He then, encouraged by success, began going hither and thither to preach in the city. He, of course, found a following. What effort of the kind was ever made that did not find a following? Does it appear a repetition of the story of Absalom? But let us not stop now to consider that phase of it. In St. George’s Church, though welcomed, he “found it a cross to preach” there. Why was it a cross to preach the gospel there? Have we not in the above sentence a key to the entire situation? Was it not the effort to avoid having to preach to those who had formed an idea of what a sermon should be from the ministrations of the pulpit of St. George’s Church that brought about the other complaints? Do not such things grow? Rev. Richard Allen had preached but a short time to his “African brethren” until a necessity for a separate Church arose. He says himself that the leading colored members refused to go with him. It was natural, therefore, that the above-mentioned necessity would arise. Why was it that, as he determined to form another society and erect a church, when he presented the project “to the most respectable colored people of Philadelphia, they bitterly opposed it?” Now, if it was entirely regular, Christ-like, and therefore right, why was it that but three colored men—Absalom Jones, William White, and Darius Ginnings—would unite in that project? Rev. Richard Allen says: “These united with me as soon as it became public and known by the elder, who was stationed in the city.” Why this secrecy? Who were instigating, abetting, and encouraging Richard Allen in this move? Let us suppose it was members of another denomination in that city, or some of the white members of St. George’s Church. They could only have taken sides and pushed the matter, because, (1) They opposed meeting and worshiping with colored people, and could use him—Mr. Allen—to help them; or, (2) They opposed the pastor of St. George’s Church, and wanted a complaint against him; or, (3) They believed the colored members of St. George’s Church were being imposed upon by the white members; or, (4) They wished to germinate schism within St. George’s Church. If the colored members were being imposed upon, could Mr. Allen not have remedied the matter by remaining and combining the strength of the imposed upon with that of the good white members of St. George, and fighting the matter to the end?

But Rev. Richard Allen capitulated. Is capitulation on the part of a general attacked an exhibition of leadership or prowess? General Sigel, in the late war, became famous at it; but only among a certain class of soldiers. When it is remembered that our African brethren were in such a fort as St. George’s, the capitulation seems to take on the air of cowardice. Instead of that Church being a monument and outgrowth of a desire of our white members to drive the black ones out, it is just the opposite—the outgrowth of an effort to keep them within our communion. Mr. Allen, after reciting his action in the premises, relates what followed. One conversant with the polity of our Church, after knowing what had gone before, can shut his eyes and tell what followed, especially if the presiding elder, Dr. Roberts, and our pastor, then stationed at St. George’s Church, knew and dared do their duty. Notwithstanding this, as strange as it may appear, we hear from the lips of some ministers of the African Methodist Episcopal Church that their dear African brethren, members of St. George’s Church, “were pulled off their knees while at prayer in the church, because of their color;” nearly every young minister entering some of their conferences, ignorant of Methodist history, gives the above answer to the question, why he prefers that connection to all others. Of course, the tyro knows nothing to the contrary. It is known by every one conversant with our history, that even after the “Allenites,” as they were called, had gone out and erected a building for Church purposes, the presiding elder and pastor of St. George’s Church were willing to let them go on with their separate worship, not exercising, or desiring to exercise, a tithe as much authority over them as almost any one of their own presiding elders does over their Churches in this country to-day. The presiding elder, having an appointment to preach for them one Sabbath, was surprised to hear them exclaim as he walked up the aisle of their church that day, “Pray, brethren, pray; here comes the devil!” Such language as that in God’s house shows the animus that actuated that side of this question. With such a spirit actuating them, the matter could hardly have been settled otherwise than it was, or they had to remain under the supervision of our Church. The question has often been asked if Richard Allen was in the Church on the occasion when that outcry was made. The answer has been, time and again, that “he first began the cry.”

When it is remembered that the “Absalom Jones” mentioned as having joined Richard Allen in this movement, was a priest in the Protestant Episcopal Church, and that Richard Allen had acquired considerable wealth, more light falls on the dark background. Notwithstanding the fact that many thousands of colored members had joined the Methodist Episcopal Church, and were considered in general orderly and exemplary members, some of the more intelligent males possessing gifts, grace, and usefulness, as such, had been licensed, and several ordained deacons and elders, and that the colored members under Richard Allen had formed an organization, having built a respectable church and were under the oversight of one of our white presiding elders, they were restless, and chafed in the harness. In April, 1816, one month before the session of the General Conference that met in Baltimore, upwards of one thousand colored members, under the leadership of Richard Allen, had withdrawn from our Church. Why? A General Conference was called immediately after the formation of a Church by Rev. Richard Allen, and he was elected their first bishop! The most wonderful thing concerning this whole affair is the constant, regular succession of events! These, however, are the straws in the winds. It is, therefore, but little distance to the prime cause of that secession. Of the 42,304 colored members remaining in the Church during the quadrennium, many of them were praying that the unpleasant episode at Philadelphia would end there, and give the Church peace. Notwithstanding the trouble with the Allenites, as they were called, the Church still sympathized with the race, and the Committee on Slavery at the General Conference gave no sound for retreat from the vantage ground assumed. The whole report read thus:

“The committee to whom was referred the business of slavery beg leave to report that they have taken the subject into serious consideration, and, after mature deliberation, they are of opinion that, under the present existing circumstances in relation to slavery, little can be done to abolish a practice so contrary to the principles of moral justice. They are sorry to say that the evil appears to be past remedy, and they are led to deplore the destructive consequences which have already accrued, and are yet likely to result therefrom.

“Your committee find that in the South and West the civil authorities render emancipation impracticable, and notwithstanding they are led to fear that some of our members are too easily contented with laws so unfriendly to freedom, yet, nevertheless, they are constrained to admit that to bring about such a change in the civil code as would favor the cause of liberty is not in the power of the General Conference. Your committee have attentively read and seriously considered a memorial on the above subject, presented from several persons within the bounds of the Baltimore Annual Conference. They have also made inquiry into the regulations adopted and pursued by the different annual conferences in relation to this subject, and they find that some of them have made no efficient rules on the subject of slavery, thereby leaving our people to act as they please, while others have adopted rules and pursued courses not a little different from each other, all pleading the authority given them by the General Conference, according to our present existing rule, as stated in our form of Discipline. Your committee conclude that, in order to be consistent and uniform, the rule should be express and definite, and, to bring about this uniformity, they beg leave to submit the following resolution:

“Resolved, by the delegates of the annual conferences in General Conference assembled, That all the recommendatory part of the second division, ninth section, and first answer of our form of Discipline after the word ‘slavery,’ be stricken out, and the following words inserted: ‘Therefore, no slaveholder shall be eligible to any official station in our Church hereafter, where the laws of the State in which he lives will admit of emancipation, and permit the liberated slave to enjoy freedom.’”

The following was enacted by the General Conference of 1820:

“Resolved, That the Committee on Slavery be instructed to inquire into the expediency of expressing our approbation of the American Society for Colonizing the Free People of Color of the United States, and of recommending the same.

“Resolved, That no person shall hereafter be licensed as a local preacher or exhorter, nor shall the annual conference receive any one as a traveling preacher on trial or into the traveling connection, who holds slaves.”

No one will certainly charge that the Methodist Episcopal Church at so early a date was simply caring for her colored members because of their influence and wealth. They had neither. The Church then, as now, desired to benefit the race in every conceivable way. Nor was it obligatory on her to follow up such persons as would rather rule under great disadvantages than serve under the most auspicious circumstances; nor yet offer any extraordinary emoluments to retain those who, at that time, could do no more than increase anxiety and labor on the part of the Church. Rev. R. Allen also mentions the fact that there were others who wished him to unite with them in opposition to the Methodist Episcopal Church. Did Richard Allen consider the work he was then doing opposition to the Methodist Episcopal Church? Whether the question be answered or not, the spirit of secession among our colored members in Philadelphia was rife, as the legitimate outgrowth of his efforts. This fever soon spread, or rather was conveyed, by being carried in the clothes of Rev. R. Allen to New York City as well. Immediately after his election to the episcopacy, the year he organized his Church in Philadelphia, he went to New York City, and disturbed the tranquillity of our colored members, who hitherto had found joy and comfort in worshiping God without reference to their color or ancestors. He succeeded in establishing a small Church there, as the harvest from the seeds of dissension he had sown. His next step was the ordination of a preacher by the name of Miller, to whom he gave the charge of the Church he had formed. This man Miller was taken out of our Church for ordination. Our colored membership in that city then numbered near fifteen hundred souls, among whom were several other local preachers besides Miller—men of piety and talent. This membership was under the care of a white presiding elder. They had regular preaching services every Sabbath, and the sacraments were duly administered to them. The other appointments were filled by their own colored preachers. When the trustees of the white Churches expressed an opinion that some of the expenses should be paid by the colored members as well, some of the colored members began to object. It was but a short time until this became a source of complaints, too. Pretty soon a feeling began to show itself, from some cause, that it was “degrading for them in any way to be dependent upon white folks for the administration of the ordinances and the government of the Church.” During this year, as before, every effort was made by the Church to remove all these complaints. Concession after concession was made, but all to no purpose. The removal of the supposed evil was not the desideratum with the provoking cause. Notwithstanding they were harassed until they left the Church, instead of uniting with Richard Allen’s faction, they chose to establish a Church of their own. Some say they did not have full confidence in Rev. R. Allen. In 1819 they decided to withdraw from the Methodist Episcopal Church. The fact that our Church had not recognized colored men as traveling preachers was the complaint under which they left. By this secession we lost fourteen local preachers, and nearly one thousand members, including class-leaders, exhorters, and stewards. Notwithstanding many strange stories originated with or grew out of these secessions, the Rev. N. Bangs, the second Methodist historian, expresses the feelings of our Church when he said: “We can not do otherwise than wish them all spiritual and temporal blessings in Christ Jesus. Though formally separated from us in name, we still love them as our spiritual children, and stand ready to aid them, as far as we may, in extending the Redeemer’s kingdom among men.”

If these secessions had occurred among those who were in bondage, it might have appeared less strange. If those who led them had even professed the belief that the secession would ameliorate the condition of the suffering millions of the race then in bondage in the South, it might have assumed the role of race pride. But, alas! the condition of the poor slave in the South, whose interests every General Conference, and the one soon to meet in the city of Baltimore, had carefully considered and did all it could to emancipate him, was not written in their bond. Those secessions did nothing toward bettering the condition of the slaves at the South. If they did anything touching human slavery then existing in this country, it was to leave the suspicion of ungratefulness on the face of every struggling slave in the South. It is but a truism to say, it strengthened the belief that the race did not thank the Methodist Episcopal Church for what it was even then trying to do for them, and yet, notwithstanding this, the following was the action of the General Conference of 1824:

“Resolved, 1. That all our preachers ought prudently to enforce upon our members the necessity of teaching their slaves to read the Word of God; and also that they give them time to hear the Word of God preached on our regular days of divine service.

“Resolved, 2. That our colored preachers and official members have all the privileges in the district and quarterly-meeting conferences which the usages of the country, in different sections, will justify: Provided, also, that the presiding elder may, when there is a sufficient number, hold for them a separate district conference.

“Resolved, 3. That any of the annual conferences may employ colored preachers to travel where they judge their services necessary: Provided, they be recommended according to the form of Discipline.

“Resolved, 4. That the above resolutions be made a part of the section in the Discipline on slavery.”

MORGAN COLLEGE, BALTIMORE, MD.

Since nothing aside from the action already taken by the Church on this subject was done until the year 1836, when the General Conference met for its twelfth session in Cincinnati, Ohio, we pass from the General Conference of 1824 to the General Conference of 1836. The agitation of this question went steadily on, however, and the Abolitionists kept it warm. From Maine to Louisiana, from Canada to Florida, it was being agitated. Since so much was said concerning the question at that General Conference, some of which, if not retrogression, was akin to it, we give the following resolutions. In reading the same, and judging them, we must remember that the seeming opposition to Abolitionism was attributable, in a measure, to the aversion to politics; that the tide of agitation was even then so high that the strongest of strong men trembled; that the Church had time and again put itself on record as to the question at issue. Though it, for the time being, condemned the action of the two “lecturing delegates,” it never once relaxed its grip upon the throat of slavery, nor assayed to compromise a single principle of right. So far removed from the scenes that greeted the General Conference that year in Cincinnati, and remembering how thoughtless some advocates of measures can sometimes be or appear, and how easily a zeal without knowledge can injure a good cause, we do not wonder at the action taken in the case of those two brethren. But when the enemies of human liberty construed the condemnation of the action of those two brethren by the General Conference as a weakening by the Church on the question of slavery, the ensuing General Conference disabused their minds of their error, and sent the enemies of liberty to grass again.

The following are the resolutions above referred to, enacted by the General Conference of 1836:

“Whereas, Great excitement has prevailed in this country on the subject of modern Abolitionism, which is reported to have been increased in this city recently by the unjustifiable conduct of two members of the General Conference in lecturing upon and in favor of that agitating topic; and WHEREAS, such a course on the part of any of its members is calculated to bring upon this body the suspicions and distrust of the community, and misrepresent its sentiments in regard to the point at issue; and WHEREAS, in this aspect of the case, a due regard for its own character, as well as a just concern for the interests of the Church confided to its care, demand a full, decided, and unequivocal expression of the views of the General Conference in the premises; therefore,

“Resolved, by the delegates of the annual conferences, in General Conference assembled, That they disapprove, in the most unqualified sense, the conduct of two members of the General Conference, who are reported to have lectured in this city, recently, upon and in favor of modern Abolitionism.

“2. That they are decidedly opposed to modern Abolitionism, and wholly disclaim any right, wish, or intention to interfere in the civil and political relation between master and slave, as it exists in the slaveholding States of this Union.

“3. That the foregoing preamble and resolutions be published in our periodicals.”

The report of the Judiciary Committee is here given also, touching this question at another point:

“The Judiciary Committee, to whom was referred the petition of the official members of the Methodist Episcopal Church on Lancaster Circuit, Baltimore Conference, report, that the petition referred to them is an able document, drawn up in the most respectful language, and signed by twenty-nine individuals, who claimed to be official members of the Methodist Episcopal Church on Lancaster Circuit.

“The petitioners first invite the attention of the General Conference to the section of the Discipline which states that ‘no slaveholder shall be eligible to any official station in our Church hereafter, when the laws of the State in which he lives will admit of emancipation, and permit the liberated slave to enjoy freedom,’ etc. They then produce an extract of the laws from the commonwealth of Virginia, showing their extreme rigor in this matter, ‘That any emancipated slave (with exceptions too rare to be looked for in one case out of many) remaining in the commonwealth more than twelve months after his or her right to freedom shall have arrived, contrary to the provisions of this act, shall be sold by the overseers of the poor, in any county in which he or she may be found, for the benefit of the literary fund.’ In view of this act they claim that they, as official members, are protected by the Discipline of the Church, as they deem it to be precisely one of the exceptions to the General Rule provided for in the Discipline; and especially as under the existing laws of the commonwealth to emancipate their slaves would, in many cases, be an act of cruelty to the slaves themselves. The matter of complaint by the petitioners is, that the construction put upon this rule by the Baltimore Annual Conference, in certain acts respecting individuals connected with this section of the work, is subversive of their rights and oppressive in its bearings; that they require the same submission to the rule of persons in that State as of those in sections where the legal disability to comply with it does not exist, regardless of the exceptions. And they respectfully solicit the interference of the General Conference, either to revise the rule, or give it such construction as to afford them relief in the premises; or, finally, if neither be done, to cause them to be set off to the Virginia Conference.

“It is due to the Baltimore Conference to say that the cases referred to as evidence of their improper application of their rule, are stated in terms too vague and indefinite to authorize the inference drawn by the petitioners. It is represented that a young man applying to be received into the itinerancy is prevented by application of this rule; that it is in vain for him to urge upon a majority of the conference the impracticability of his complying with the rule, in consequence of the laws under which he lives, or any other consideration in favor of his being received; because he will not comply with the rule, he must be rejected. The same, it is assumed by the petitioners, is done with respect to those who apply for ordination. And it is inferred by them, that if the conference act consistently, stewards and leaders may be expected soon to be called upon to comply with the rule, or forfeit their official standing in the Church.

“Your committee view this subject in a very different light. In admitting a preacher to travel, or electing one to orders, a conference must have the right to act freely; and in cases which are not successful, it is wholly an assumption, on the part of the applicants or their friends, to say what particular considerations dictated the vote, unless such considerations be distinctly avowed by a majority of the conference. And it is known to all conversant with the transactions of an annual conference, that no person applying to be received or ordained ever enters as a party before the conference, pleading his own cause, and hearing and answering the objections which may be urged against his application. Any act of conference, then, in these cases, can not be justly urged as evidence that the conference denies the party concerned the benefit of the special provision in the rule. A conference or other deliberative bodies possess, and in the nature of the case must possess, the right to determine its own course, and vote freely in all such individual cases. Your committee, therefore, can not see that the privileges claimed by the petitioners have been contravened by an act of the Baltimore Conference.

“Having said this much respecting the alleged grounds of grievance, your committee agree in the opinion that the exceptions to the General Rule in the Discipline, referred to by the petitioners, clearly apply to official members of the Church in Virginia, according to the laws of the commonwealth, and do therefore protect them against a forfeiture of their official standing on account of said rule. In addition to the petition of the official members of Lancaster Circuit, a resolution of a quarterly conference of Westmoreland Circuit has been referred to your committee, by which it appears that the members of said conference concurred in said petition. Should the General Conference agree in the opinions stated by the committee in the report, it is respectfully recommended that, after adopting it, they cause a copy of it to be forwarded to the official members in each of the above-named circuits. All of which is respectfully submitted.

“The committee to whom were referred sundry memorials from the North, praying that certain rules on the subject of slavery, which formerly existed in our book of Discipline, should be restored, and that the General Conference take such measures as they may deem proper to free the Church from the evil of slavery, beg leave to report:

“That they have had the subject under serious consideration, and are of opinion that the prayers of the memorialists can not be granted, believing that it would be highly improper for the General Conference to take any action that would alter or change our rules on the subject of slavery. Your committee, therefore, respectfully submit the following resolution:

“Resolved, etc., That it is inexpedient to make any change in our book of Discipline respecting slavery; and that we deem it improper further to agitate the subject in the General Conference at present.

“All of which is respectfully submitted.”

The pastoral address presented to and accepted by that General Conference, at once puts forever at rest any shadow of a doubt as to any disposition of the Church to compromise with slavery. We quote the closing part touching this question, viz:

“It can not be unknown to you that the question of slavery in these United States, by the constitutional compact which binds us together as a nation, is left to be regulated by the several State Legislatures themselves, and thereby is put beyond the control of the General Government, as well as that of all ecclesiastical bodies; it being manifest that in the slaveholding States themselves the entire responsibility of its existence or non-existence rests with those State Legislatures. And such is the aspect of affairs in reference to this question, that whatever else might tend to ameliorate the condition of the slave, it is evident to us, from what we have witnessed of Abolition movements, that these are the least likely to do him good. On the contrary, we have it in evidence before us that the inflammatory speeches and writings and movements have tended, in many instances, injuriously to affect his temporal and spiritual condition by hedging up the way of the missionary who is sent to preach to him Jesus and the resurrection, and by making a more rigid supervision necessary on the part of his overseer, thereby abridging his civil and religious liberties.”

General Conference of 1840.—Test cases touching slavery were continually arising. That of Silas Comfort was among the most noted. No one will, for a moment, deny that this noted case was as complicated as noted, and was, we believe, on the whole as we now see it, settled for the best interests of the Church and the colored race. The decision was not what could have been expected; but, then, “discretion is the better part of valor.” There were, of course, two sides—two separate and distinct parties concerned. While the interests of a class within the Methodist Episcopal Church were at stake, the unity and tranquillity of the Church were on the altar. The action of Rev. Silas Comfort was an entering wedge between the two parties within the Church. Many earnest, honest men thought it a strange procedure when that General Conference declared it “inexpedient and unjustifiable for any preacher among us to permit colored persons to give testimony against white persons in any State where they are denied that privilege in trials at law.” This was passed by a vote of 74 to 46. Twenty-two members of that General Conference did not vote at all. Whether the spirit that gave birth to the Wesleyan Methodist Church three years afterward kept them from voting, is not recorded. Whether that decision hastened the organization of the above-mentioned Church or not, many believe it did. The decision, since in it the word “denied” appears, was probably the best the General Conference thought it could do under existing circumstances, coupled with the restriction to those “States where they are denied that privilege in trials at law.” The reason for rendering such a decision probably rested upon the fact that otherwise it might have led to internal wranglings in the general Church, and imposed additional hardships upon the colored man, in that masters would probably have felt it incumbent upon themselves to prohibit any slave from enjoying the benefits derivable from membership in the Methodist Episcopal Church, and thus added injury to insult, and left them a prey to “the false accuser of the brethren.” Notwithstanding the construction others put upon that decision, or what we now think of it, the colored members of the Methodist Episcopal Church were not well pleased, as a protest from Sharp Street Church declares. The author of “The Anti-slavery Struggle and Triumph in the Methodist Episcopal Church,” at page 148, says: “At the General Conference of 1840 a memorial was prepared by forty official members of Sharp Street and Asbury Churches, in Baltimore, protesting against the colored-testimony resolution. It was put in the hands of Rev. Thomas B. Sargent, and by him given to one of the bishops. Through the efforts of Dr. Bond and others the memorialists were pacified without the conference knowing anything of the document.” The Rev. Dr. Elliott declared that “the colored members of the Church were greatly afflicted. This matter had like to have done great mischief.” The document was afterward published. Among other things equally pungent, the memorialists said:

“We have learned with profound regret and unutterable emotion of the resolution adopted May 18th, which has inflicted, we fear, an irreparable injury upon eighty thousand souls for whom Christ died; souls which, by this act of your venerable body, have been stripped of the dignity of Christians, degraded in the scale of humanity, and treated as criminals, for no other reason than the color of their skin. The adoption of this soul-sickening resolution has destroyed the peace and alienated the affections of twenty-five hundred members of the Church in this city, who now feel that they are but spiritual orphans or scattered sheep. The deed you have done could not have originated in that love which works no ill to his neighbor, but in a disposition to propitiate that spirit which is not to be appeased, except through concessions derogatory to the dignity of our holy religion! And, therefore, they protest against it, and conjure you to wipe from the journal the odious resolution.”

This was strong language, prompted by a stronger feeling.

The members of Sharp Street Church did not protest against the decision of the Church in this case, because they doubted the expressed fidelity made prior to this, that was self-evident. But they knew that times change and men change with them. This to them looked like a compromise with the spirit of slavery that stalked abroad in the land. That decision, viewed from this distance to-day, to some, assumes a different aspect altogether. How could they keep from protesting? What could they do more, how dare do less? How did they curb their feelings enough to express their thoughts in such mild language? Why should not those burden-bound colored men and women protest against, while compelled to submit to, a decision that to them was humiliating in the extreme? Shall the crawling, loathsome worm of the dust be allowed to squirm when trod upon, the venomous snake to hiss, the vicious beast to defend himself, and then deny the right to protest? Could the Church of God deny them the privilege of exculpating themselves in the eyes of the public from what to them appeared an undeserved reproach, thrown upon them because of their color or helpless condition, casting thereby away from them the protection of all save that of God? As they probably thought, why thus insult them? Aye; rather why insult justice and God by demanding of them a reason for protesting, since it appeared to them that the Methodist Episcopal Church—the Church, and only Church, that from the beginning had stood manfully in their defense—by that decision “had failed to manifest the spirit that worketh no ill to its neighbor?” Whatever the protestants in this instance may have thought or said, viewed at that time from the ignis fatuus of the then existing African Churches in the North, “it was calculated to drive out of the Methodist Episcopal Church every intelligent and manly colored man,” into one or the other of these Churches. Viewed, however, under the light of the Address of our bishops at that time, it assumes a more rational and philosophical aspect. The bishops said: “We can not withhold from you at this eventful period the solemn conviction of our minds, that no ecclesiastical legislation on the subject of slavery at this time will have a tendency to accomplish these most desirable objects, to wit: Preserve the peace and unity of the whole body, promote the greatest happiness of the slave population, and advance generally in the slaveholding community of our country the humane and hallowing influence of our holy religion.” By this we judge that at that time the Church had come to the conclusion that it was impossible by “ecclesiastical legislation” to benefit in any way the colored man; that extra legislation on the question would be not only supererogatory, but in all probability only beneficial in goading the slaveholder. We infer (1) that civil legislation touching slavery was not objected to; but that (2) the objection to the admission of colored testimony had been raised by the civil courts, and it was not considered being “subject to the powers that be” to demur; at least, that it was the duty of the Church “to live in peace with all men” as much as possible. We are not ignorant of the fact that there have been, and will yet be, times when forbearance ceases to be a virtue, and when the Church of God can not afford to be loyal “to the powers that be.” But what could be accomplished by the opposition of one Church to the slave oligarchy that was then rife in this country? As to this we can only say:

“Deep in unfathomable mines

Of never-failing skill,

God treasures up his bright designs,

And works his sovereign will.”

As we now see it, there was no use for Methodism to push slavery harder at that time, since God was behind the movement. Long before this time the bishops and other far-seeing and right-minded men saw that all the speeches made and actions taken pro and con relating to slavery, by the Church, would, without the interposition of God, culminate in splitting the Church. This in itself gave promise of what actually grew out of it—a long, bitter, but bloodless ecclesiastical war between the two factions. Seeing signs of an approaching crisis, they were anxious to avert it as long as possible, and at the same time prayed to God, “Thy will be done, and not mine;” that when the on-sweeping tidal wave, even then within the bounds of the Church, in opposition to holding slaves, did come, that, so far as those who were leading in opposition to the accursed traffic were concerned, their consciences might be clear, and that if the separation came in their life-time, their side should bear the marks of God’s approbation.

Without multiplying evidence going to show the interest the Methodist Episcopal Church took in the colored man from its origin to the time at which we have arrived, we wish now to note the result of the unwillingness of the Church to compromise with slavery. We have seen that in every case where it was possible to make concessions to the colored man, to train, protect, and elevate him, the Church has done it where it was proper and best for him. It has in every case, as far as practicable, tried to remedy the wrongs perpetrated upon him as well as lessen his burdens. Not, of course, always as the colored man thought it ought to have been done—for he was not in condition to even judge what was best for him—nor yet as some who appeared more radical would have had it done; but the Church stood by and for the colored man as no other denomination occupying the same territory and similar circumstances would do. To know what was contemplated by the Church in this case we have but to trace out the legitimate results. During the interregnum from 1836 to 1844 “God moved in a mysterious way his wonders to perform.” The question of the abolition of American slavery was discussed at each General Conference with animation and seriousness. Many declared the radical action taken by the Church on the question would eventually rend the Church in twain. Many earnest prayers ascended to the throne of God in behalf of the tranquillity of the Church, but were not answered because “his brother” was in need; and those prayers, if answered, would not only have riveted his shackles, but bathed his face in tears, and consigned the poor colored man and his posterity, not to perpetual banishment—that would have been tolerable—but to a slavery worse than that of the Russian serf. As many more prayed that the prediction as to the split in the Church might come to pass. As a result, each succeeding General Conference was marked by the friends of slavery as the beginning of the end of a united Methodism in America.