regated on the rice and sugar and cotton plantations, under climatic conditions agreeable to their tropical habits but dangerous for white residents, missionaries were sent who, constrained by the love of souls, cheerfully submitted to the social inconveniences and malarious perils of the situation. By their efforts much people was added to the Lord. Chapels were built, and vast congregations of blacks were gathered and ministered to in doctrine and discipline and sacraments. Sunday-schools were formed and catechisms prepared for them, and the children of slaves were taught the truths of Christianity.* When Coke landed on the continent, Black Harry, unable to read, was the most advanced specimen of African Christianity he met with. On the general emancipation, effected by the Civil War, Southern Methodism showed thousands of negro preachers, exhorters, and class-leaders, who could read their Bibles and edify their congregations. Many of them were counted, by those who controlled the civil government of that day, fit for legislators and senators. And when the sons of Wesley, from all parts of the world, gathered at City Road Chapel in Ecumenical Conference, African bishops were there as representative members, who had never seen Africa. They had been born and con * In 1860, Southern Methodism numbered in its membership 207,766 negroes, and over 180,000 negro children, under catechetical instruction. By a persistent maneuver it has been attempted to shift the odium of slavery upon those with whom it ended, instead of those with whom it began; upon those connected with its only redeeming feature, instead of those whose connection with it was marked alone by lucre and cruelty. At the Convention of Delegates from the thirteen States (Philadelphia), to consult upon the formation of a Constitution, the subject of slavery was referred to two committees successively. The majority of the first were Northern men. They reported (Aug. 8, 1787) a recommendation that the slavetrade should be legalized perpetually. This committee was composed of five perSons-Rutledge, Randolph, Gorman, Ellsworth, and Wilson. The first two from the South, the last three from the North. The majority of the second were Souther men. They recommended that the slave-trade should not be extended beyond the year 1800. The committee who reported this amendment consisted of eleven persons-Langdon, King, Johnson, Livingston, Clymer, Dickenson, Martin, Williams, Pinckney, Baldwin, and Madison. The first five represented Northern States, the last six Southern States. The constitutional provisions on this head would never have prolonged this infamous traffic to the year 1808, if either Massachusetts, or New Hampshire, or Connecticut, had stood by Delaware and Virginia, in that crisis of the country, and like them voted against the extension. But the profits of New England's ships had to be protected. (See Stiles's Modern Reform.) † President Lincoln's emancipation proclamation was issued January 1, 1863. The Colored Church-membership of Methodism. 387 verted and reared in slavery, as modified by Christian influence, and they gratefully acknowledged Methodist ministers as their spiritual benefactors. Their forefathers had been brought over under the decks of the slave-ships of England and New England; they went back, from the pupilage of Methodism in the slave States, as cabin passengers in steam-ships. Their forefathers had been idolaters, abject gregree worshipers; they returned as redeemed Christian men and ministers-the Lord's freedmen. While these black bishops came from the fields of Southern slavery, over which Methodism persisted in her benignant and thankless but successful labors, none were present at that grand synod from the continent of Africa. Never in the history of the race, if we may rely on the census, did a given number of Africans so multiply and increase as did the negro slaves of the United States for a century following these instant measures of Bishop Coke and his party for emancipation. This speaks for their physical comfort. Never did an equal number of Africans, anywhere else or at any time, attain to an equal intellectual, moral, and religious standard. The heathen Churchmembership of all the missionary societies and stations, in all parts of the world, did not equal the colored membership of Methodism in the Southern States. To this may be added the colored membership of the Baptists-only a little below that of the Methodists and the colored membership of other Churches, which cared for the bond as well as the free, and the problem is furnished approximately with facts for its solution. Humanity, inspired with religious sentiment, views with awe such a continental movement of Providence-transporting one race across the ocean to the home of another to be Christianized, and making the subjection of one to the other the condition of its instruction. The man-stealer and slave-trader meant it for evil, but God meant the relation of master and servant for good. What more is to come of it, we wait the unfolding of hidden things to see. Some elevated seers profess to have caught a glimpse of the redemption of the Dark Continent, that has defied all other missionary enterprise, by the return of the best portion of its redeemed children. It is for the Church, in the future as in the past, to do the present duty, guided by the plain truths of Divine revelation, and not by the shifting principles of human revolutions: assured that God is no respecter of persons; that all races, the weak as well as the strong, the black as well as the white, are alike the objects of his fatherly love; and that "the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him." The unbiased historian of the time coming, who reviews the course of Methodist legislation on slave-holding, will probably give this opinion: If such legislation was founded on scriptural authority, it did not go far enough; if it had no such foundation, it went too far. A law is made for preachers which is not applied to the people, as though a separate moral code existed for each class; also, one part of the land is legislated for to the exclusion of another. Stringent emancipation rules are enacted in 1804, and followed by the clause: "The members of our Societies in the States of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee shall be exempted from the operation of the above rules." Again-on the last day of the next quadrennial meeting: "Moved from the chair, that there be one thousand Forms of Discipline prepared for the use of the South Carolina Conference, in which the section and rule on slavery be left out. Carried." In six months, the emancipation enactments of the Christmas Conference were annulled on the spot. Methodism as a broad and beneficent power was thus saved to the kingdom of heaven and to the world. Otherwise, it must have been cut off from the people it has blessed, and would speedily have degenerated into a narrow, fretful combination for social reform, "teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." The rescue of the new ecclesiastical organization from such a fate was a mercy to the slave as well as to the master. Natural freedom, sweet as it is, is infinitely unimportant; a mere secularity, when compared with that spiritual freedom which God, at so great cost, has provided for every man through the gospel. In God's order, St. Paul being judge, the primary concern and position belongs to soul-emancipation. Let the gospel have free course; and if by its effects upon the master or the servant, or both, the way is prepared for, and the consequence points to, temporal freedom-well. In the meantime to leave the whole subject where the Bible leaves it, and to bring it under the Bible treatment specifically provided, was always the wish of a growing number of American Methodists. But they were in connection, highly prized, with others who earnestly favored and pressed a secular and more aggressive policy; and hence the Asbury's Conviction About the Blacks. 389 4 language of compromise in the Discipline, and contradictory, inconsistent, varied, and vexing legislation on the subject. After the division of Episcopal Methodism into two independent jurisdictions, each body followed its tendency, and in less than twenty years reached its position. The Northern section, which all the while had numbered more or less slave-holders in its communion, accepted "the new terms of communion" proposed in the Christmas Conference, and in 1864 unqualifiedly made slaveholding a bar to membership. The Southern section, six years before that, had struck out all special legislation on the subject. Bishop Asbury, avowedly and of conviction an anti-slavery man, looked at the whole subject in a practical light. When he saw how every act of ecclesiastical interference with a civil institution provoked new restrictions and prohibitions by the civil power and blocked up the way of the messengers of peace, he recorded in his journal (Feb. 1, 1809) this matured conviction: "We are defrauded of great numbers by the pains that are taken to keep the blacks from us-their masters are afraid of the influence of our principles. Would not an amelioration in the condition and treatment of slaves have produced more practical good to the poor Africans than any attempt at their emancipation? The state of society, unhappily, does not admit of this; besides, the blacks are deprived of the means of instruction-who will take the pains to lead them into the way of salvation, and watch over them that they may not stray, but the Methodists? Well; now their masters will not let them come to hear us. What is the personal liberty of the African, which he may abuse, to the salvation of his soul-how may it be compared?" Wesley's Requests not Complied With-Leaving his Name Off the Minutes-The W HILE independence was being secured and organized by the Conference of 1784, the importance of union found early expression. Hence this minute: "Question: What can be done in order to the future union of the Methodists? Answer: During the life of the Reverend Mr. Wesley, we acknowledge ourselves his sons in the gospel, ready, in matters belonging to Church-government, to obey his commands. And we do engage after his death to do every thing that we judge consistent with the cause of religion in America, and the political interests of these States, to preserve and promote our union with the Methodists in Europe." Within three years this engagement was put to a severe test. So well had Freeborn Garrettson acquitted himself in Nova Scotia that Wesley saw in him an instrument needing only to be clothed with large powers for achieving the greatest results, and he sent a request to the Conference (1787) for his ordination as superintendent, or bishop, for the British dominions in America- -a diocese comprising not only the north-eastern provinces and the Canadas, but also the West India Islands. Coke, is Wesley's delegate and representative in the matter, asked Garrettson if he would accept the appointment. Garrettson, more surprised than pleased at the affair, writes: I requested the liberty of deferring my answer until the next day. I think on the next day the Doctor came to my room and asked me if I had made up my mind to accept of my appointment; I told him I had upon certain conditions. I observed to him that I was willing to go on a tour, and visit those parts to which I was appointed, for one year; and if there was a cordiality in the appointment among those whom I was requested to serve, I would return to the next Conference and receive ordination for the office of superintendent. His reply was, "I am perfectly satisfied," and he gave me a recommendatory letter to the brethren in the West Indies, etc. I had intended, as soon as Conference rose, to pursue my voyage to the West India Islands, to visit Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, and in the spring to return. What transpired in the Conference during my absence I know not; but I was astonished, when the appointments were read, to hear my name mentioned to preside in the Peninsula. |