interfere with the internal affairs of any church, except for unchristian conduct. At the annual conference circuits are sometimes formed, and preachers engaged to supply them; but conference has no power to station a preacher contrary to his own, and the wishes of the people. Ordination is performed by a committee of elders chosen by the annual conference, the candidates for orders first being elected to orders by the annual conference. The General Conference.-The General Conference is composed of delegates from the annual conferences, the number of delegates from the annual conferences in proportion to their respective numbers of their church members. The General Conference has power to revise the Discipline under certain limitations. It can pass no rule giving to preachers power over the people, except such as belongs to them as ministers of the word. The alterations in Discipline must, before they go into effect, first be recommended by threefourths of the annual conferences, or after the General Conference has passed upon them, receive their ratification. General Conferences are held at the call of annual conferences, not periodically, and the delegates to them are chosen at the session of the annual conferences next preceding the General Conference. Such is the outline of the articles of religion and church polity of the Reformed Methodist Church. We pass next to a brief notice of their progress. And here we would premise, that a cause however good, and principles however wisely adapted to an end, cannot progress without an appropriate instrumentality. The first Reformed Methodists had not money, and as for talent, however good it might have been in its uncultivated state, they had not the refinements of the schools of learning or divinity with which to command attention. They were poor men, men with families dependent upon their own hands for bread, living among the peaks of the Green Mountains. However, some of them by application have become able ministers of the New Testament. Of the original number of the seceders, four have been regarded as leading men in the denomination, and have contributed much by their devotion and self-denial to raise up and perpetuate this body of reformers. Elijah Bailey, father of the writer, was a native of the town of Douglas, Mass., but immediately after his matrimonial alliance with Miss Lydia Smith, removed to the town of Readsborough, Vt.; this mountainous region being the Elysium of the "Far West," to the people of Massachusetts. He was accompanied by his brother, James Bailey, and Ezra Amadon, his brother-in-law, both of whom in course of time became useful preachers of the Reformed Methodist Church. Elijah Bailey was a young man of sober habits, of a contemplative turn of mind, but indebted to a few weeks in the common school of his times for his education; to which should be added the instructions received from his grandfather Phillips, a man of great soundness of moral principle and variety and richness of maxims of law and morality, with whom Mr. Bailey passed the greater portion of his juvenile years. Being bred a Congregationalist, he knew not the power of godliness, though a strict observer of its form, until the Methodist preachers came into Vermont. He was among the first fruits of their labors; was awakened, convicted, and received into their society, and continued an acceptable member of the Methodist Episcopal Church up to the year 1814. In this wilderness country he became the father of eleven children, whom he reared by the sweat of his own brow, from the products of a small Green Mountain farm, and the trade of a cooper. He was a staunch Jeffersonian in politics, was for sixteen years a justice of the peace of the town of Readsborough, and at the same time a member of the assembly from that town. In the legislature of that state those lessons of democracy, early inculcated, were more clearly explained and more firmly fixed; and it is to this course of mental and moral training that he was afterwards led to question the justice of the Methodist Episcopal form of church government, and ably to defend religious democracy, not only from the genius of Christianity, and the precepts of the New Testament, but from the inalienable rights of man. Up to the time of the secession from the Methodist Epis copal Church, he was but a local preacher, | original fourteen who organized the Reand was severely opposed by his family formed Methodist Church. He is, we connexions for attempting to exercise the think, a native of Vermont, still resident ministry of the word without a regular in that state, and has stood from the becourse of literary and theological training. ginning as one of the pillars of the cause But immediately after the organization of in the Vermont Conference, He is a the Reformed Methodist Church he was self-made man, like his coadjutors above ordained elder, an office which he has alluded to, and from a boy, indeed, has continued to fill, up to the present time; become a man in the things of God; wise travelling extensively, exposing himself to in council, and of universal integrity and the inclemency of all seasons of the year, Christian simplicity. and that, too, with no other pecuniary compensation than such as friends from time to time might contribute. To his self-denying labors, labors unrequited except with spiritual blessings upon his own soul, is the cause of Reformed Methodism indebted, as much, if not more than to any other one. Although past forty-five years of age before he entered upon an itinerant life, few men have travelled more extensively in preaching the gospel, in the regions between Cape Cod on the east, Ohio on the west, Canada on the north, and Pennsylvania on the south. William Lake gave his name, his heart, his hand to the cause of Methodist reform, at the first conference. He was a native of White Creek, N. Y.,of Low Dutch descent, and inherited all the roughness of character peculiar to that class of our citizens in this state. Previous to his conversion he was a gambler, a horse-jockey, boxer, &c., a rare specimen of a man to look up, of an ardent temperament, hasty and undaunted in any thing he undertook. After his conversion, his ardor, zeal, and physical energics, were all turned into a new channel. He was as zealous for God and the salvation of souls, as he had before been the devoted of all unrighteousness. Having much of the "good things of this life," he brought not only his own. personal services to the aid of the cause, but by his money did much to sustain his poorer brethren. He has some two years since gone to his long-sought rest. He was a man distinguished for the power of his exhortations, more than the richness and correctness of his sermons. In the prime of his years, the sinner trembled under the eloquence of spirit with which he spoke. Few persons ever stormed the bulwarks of iniquity with more undaunted courage and better success. He could accomplish what could be effected by zeal, and moral and physical force, better than that which required prudence and discrimination. He was an illiterate man, but acquired an easy use of the English language, and was a fine specimen of natural eloquence. He travelled extensively, was itinerant in his feelings, and in the prime of his years revivals uniformly followed his labors. He travelled a few times into the State of Massachusetts, where his boisterous zeal very much shocked the puritanic habits of the people; but the Ebenezer Davis was likewise of the greater portion of his ministry was spent in James Bailey, brother of Elijah, has likewise occupied a conspicuous place in the progress of this branch of Methodists. in preaching talent, though inferior to Elijah Bailey, and not so well versed in the conference business and the exposition of intricate questions, he is a sound divine, and will doubtless have many souls as seals of his ministry in the great day of accounts. He is a man of indomitable perseverance, always laborious and never discouraged; more local in his labors, with a wife who has been confined to her sick room for nearly forty years; to him the cause is indebted for some of its best 'societies in central New York. Ezra Amadon, another of the original seceders, is, in the true sense of the word, a nursing father. Of strict integrity and universal love for the cause, surrounded by a large family of connexions, he has been a pillar in the cause of reform in western New York. His words are always few and to the point, his counsels safe and conciliatory, he enjoys himself best when servant of all, and the instrument of good; a truly great man in the affections of his acquaintances, but of humble pretensions. Vermont, New York, and Upper Canada. | His family residence was Granby, N. Y., for the last twenty years of his life. Pecuniary embarrassments greatly depressed him in the latter part of his days, and to a considerable degree impaired his usefulness; but thousands will bless his memory, and appear as stars in his crown of rejoicing at the last day. Caleb Whiting deserves likewise to be noticed as one of the original band. Soon after the organization of the Reformed Methodist Church he removed to this state, and has been extensively useful as a minister of Jesus Christ in central New York. He has been distinguished more for the power of his exhortations than for his preaching talent, though he has held the office of an elder from the beginning, and is worthily regarded as a father in the cause. Elder Whiting is now superannuated, and resides at Berkshire, Tioga county, N. Y. ders, and twenty-five licensed preachers. The memberships are computed at 3,000. Of the progress of the cause in Vermont, I need not farther speak. The year of the close of the war, with a view to thrust laborers into the field, a sort of community was formed, Wm. Lake, E. Bailey, E. Davis, E. Amadon, and several others being members of it. They bought a farm on the state line in the town of Bennington, Vt., and Hosack, N. Y. This farm consisted of several hundred acres, and the community, of near a dozen farmers. Providence did not seem to smile on the undertaking, though conceived in the purest benevolence. The cold seasons coming on, the want of funds to pay in advance for the farm, rendered it impossible for them to pay for the place, and after remaining two years on the premises, they were compelled to scatter; not scattered to abandon their principles, but to promulgate them in other regions, where Providence might open the way. Rev. E. Bailey removed to Slatersville, R. I., in which place he labored two years, and then removed to Onondaga, N. Y. For eighteen years his family remained in Manlius, Onondaga, while he himself was itinerating from Cape Cod to Ohio. About ten years ago he removed to Cape Cod, Mass., at which place he has labored since that time, and where he still resides, in the 77th year of his age, though capable of sustaining a pastoral charge. He has frequently remarked, that preaching was to him a healthful exercise. This is owing, no doubt, to the natural, easy mode of speaking which he had acquired, and the self-control he had obtained over himself; so that he was always cool and collected, his zeal the effect of the flow of spirit, and not a labored effort for effect, against the impulses of his own heart. He is emphatically a man of integrity, and The six persons above alluded to, are regarded as fathers in the cause of Reformed Methodism, and have been the leading instruments in the progress of this body of Methodists; their history is interwoven with the history of the church with which they stand connected. Other brethren of great merit and usefulness have come in to their aid, which the limits of this article will not allow us to notice. Rev. Pliny Brett, of Mass., early united with the Reformers, and his self-denial and love for souls have done much for the cause in that state. But he, several years since, left us and joined the Protestant Methodists. Rev. Seth Sterling, of Vermont, a man of God, whose praise is in all the church, likewise united with this church while in her infancy, and still lives, an ornament to the Christian name. Rev. Jeremiah Fry, of the Green Mountain State, born a Reformed Methodist, is one of the most talented ministers, though self-steady devotion to God. made, of any in the Vermont Conference. Rev. Wm. Lake, soon after the comRev. Messrs. Dunham, Snow, and Harris, of Mass., reared up among the Reformers, are able ministers of the New Testament. At the present time we have five conferences of Reformed Methodists: the Massachusetts, Vermont, New York, New York Western, and Canada Conferences, and about fifty ordained preachers or el munity was dissolved, removed to the town of Granby, N. Y., where his family still resides; and from this central point travelled extensively, and was eminently useful in planting and watering the Reformed Methodist societies in this state. He was unlike the Rev. E. Bailey in the temperament of his mind and gifts; but for several years, when the providence of God opened the way for them to labor together, they most harmoniously drew together as true yoke-fellows, and scarcely did they strike a blow, but that a powerful revival attended the effort. He was indeed "a son of thunder," whose powerful appeals touched the most stony heart. Failing in the "community" project, tended no doubt to subserve the cause which they had so nearly at heart. They were scattered, and in their scattered condition have accomplished more than they would have done if confined to one spot as a centre of operations. This attempt to build up a permanent community was an unwise move, and is now universally so regarded by the persons interested. So the fathers think; and some of their sons, now that property associations and communities are heralded as the sovereign panacea of the ills of human society, look back to that time with an instinctive dislike to such schemes for human improve ment. Reformed Methodism was planted in Upper Canada by the Rev. Messrs. Wm. Lake and E. Bailey, some time in 1817 or 1818. Here they soon found faithful co-laborers in the persons of Rev. Messrs. Robert and Daniel Perry. The history of the revival which followed their first labors in this province would be most instructive, affording one of the most interesting instances, of the conversion of hardened sinners, found in modern history of revivals. Instances of slaying power were common. Infidels feared and trembled in view of the manifest tokens of the divine presence. 66 year 1839 was removed to Fayetteville, N. Y., and took the name Fayetteville Luminary," edited as before. In the fall of 1841 an association was formed between the Reformed Methodists, Society Methodists, and local bodies of Wesleyan Methodists, the object of which was to aid each other, without merging the various bodies in one church. By the terms of this association, the name of the Luminary was changed to that of the "Methodist Reformer," the Reformer to be the organ of the association, but still the press to be the property of the Reformed Methodists. The Reformer was started in Fayetteville, but removed to Utica, in the fall of 1842; and after the organization of the Wesleyan Methodist Church, May, 1843, by an arrangement between the Reformed Methodists and the Wesleyans, on the association principle, the Reformer subscription list was transferred to the True Wesleyan, published at Boston, Massachusetts, as a preliminary step to a union of the two bodies. Six years only of the time of the existence of the Reformed Methodist body, they had the advantages of the press. Rev. E. Bailey had, however, written two works, one, "Bailey on the Trinity," and Thoughts on Government," previous to this. The Reformers are still distinct in their organization, but bound to the Wesleyan Methodists by the ties of sympathy in principle and mode of church polity, and likewise by an association which secures mutual advantages, and it is contemplated that at no distant day, they will be lost in the Wesleyan Methodist Church. Such is but a meagre outline of the In the state of New York, worthy co-history of this body of Methodists. It has laborers soon came to the aid of "the often been tauntingly said, "Why, you fathers," whose piety and devotion have Reformers have done nothing!" We placed them high in the affections of the have, truly, nothing of which to boast. people with which they stand connected. But considering the material with which But our limits will not allow us to notice they commenced, the number, men, want them particularly. of schools and an educated ministry, the The Reformed Methodists, up to the opposition which a body must meet, that year 1837, labored under the inconve- has the plainness to intimate that the nience of having no periodical organ. In Methodist Episcopal Church needs reformthe year 1837 the "South Cortland Lumi-ing, and the actual opposition, to say nary was started, edited by the writer. This paper was started by the New York Conference, but was soon made the organ of the whole church. The press in the nothing of outright slander from that quarter: the wonder is greater that they have done as much as they have. The actual number in a denomination is not the true standard of the good they are accomplish- | we need be ashamed of nothing but our ing. The Reformers have been the in- sins. And I must add another fact: it struments of the conversion of thousands might be expected that a body formed upon who, in consequence of their itinerant habits, have sought a home in other churches. One whole conference went off in Ohio, and joined the Methodist Protestant Church. Some ten years since, more than one half of the ministers of the Massachusetts Conference, and several societies, seceded and joined the Protestant Methodists. Then, again, it requires some humility and attachment to principle to induce men to stand long with a small and persecuted people. Reformers have had seceders from them-I will not call them apostates-and all these things taken into the account, we have abundant reason to thank God that our labor has not been altogether in vain. I might have added, under the head of "articles of religion," that the Reformed Methodist Church has always had an article against war, offensive and defensive. I add it here, for I have aimed to give every "radical" as well as "fanatical" trait in the history of this people. For if the public have any interest in the history of this branch of the Church of Christ, they are most interested in those portions wherein they differ from others. And surely, the democratical principle of the Reformed Methodist Church would be anti-slavery in its character. The Reformed Methodists have from the beginning had Mr. Wesley's general rule with respect to " buying or selling men, women and children, with an intention to enslave them," and not that spurious interpolated one now in the Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church; and when the recent anti-slavery discussion sprung up, this body was prompt to respond to this effort to rid the church and country of this "sum of all villanies." They soon added an article to the Discipline, excluding apologists for this sin against "God, man, and nation," from the church. And we are happy to add, that they have great harmony on this question. In conclusion, Mr. Editor, I shall thank you for allowing space in your History of the whole Church, for transmitting to posterity the brief record of this body of Christians which I have furnished; but the haste with which it has been written, and amidst the pressing cares which at present devolve upon me, and the want of statistics and records, I must beg to urge as an apology for deficiencies. |