Thirty Years in the Itinerancy

by W. G. Miller

Conference of 1855.--The New Departure.--Mission Committee.--The Slavery Controversy.--Triumph of Freedom.--Wisconsin Conference Rule. Conference Report.--Election of Delegates.--Appointed to Racine.--Detention.--The Removal to the New Charge.--Stage, Dray, and Steamboat.--New Bus Line.

The Conference for 1855 was held at Racine on the 29th day of August, and was presided over by Bishop Janes. During the session I was quartered with Rev. Moses Adams, a superannuated member of the Black River Conference.

The business of the Conference was transacted with the usual dispatch, and there were only two items which engrossed unusual attention. These were the distribution of the missionary appropriations and the election of delegates to the General Conference.

As to the first, a new departure was made in the organization of the Committee on Missions. The Presiding Elders of the Conference had been hitherto appointed on this Committee. But now a few restless spirits, who fancied that, as seen from their limited opportunities to judge correctly, the appropriations had not been judiciously made during the past few years, determined to appoint this Committee from among the Pastors. The Elders, well knowing that the farcical proceeding would in time come to naught, concluded to offer no opposition to the movement. The Committee was accordingly appointed and proceeded to the discharge of its duties. At the first meeting, however, it was found that the Committee was unable to proceed for want of information. At the next meeting, to remedy this difficulty, the brethren who had occupied Mission fields the previous year were invited to be present. This measure was found to afford only a partial relief, as these brethren knew nothing of the border territory that ought now to be organized into new fields. The next move was to ask all the Pastors to meet the Committee at the next session. To afford room to accommodate the Committee and its invited guests, the audience room of the Church was appropriated for an entire afternoon. Here the great work of the Committee was entered upon in right good earnest, with the special champions of the movement as managers of the exhibition.

But now, alas! for the success of the meeting, there was too much light. At once a large number of fields that had been supposed to be self-supporting was brought forward, and their respective representatives were so successful in setting forth their feeble and helpless condition, that many of them were entered upon the list by the Committee as Missions. The question as to the number of Missions having been settled, the next thing in order was the amount of money that should be given to each.

From the information already received, the amounts were jotted down briskly until the entire list had been gone over. The footings were now made, and to the Committee the result was appalling. They had appropriated three times the amount of money at their disposal. Then came the rub, which had been so often experienced by the Presiding Elders. The Missions must be cut down in two ways. First, all that could possibly manage to get through the year without aid must be struck off the list, and then such as remain will need to be cut down to the lowest possible figure. But still brave, our Committee would not see their impending defeat, and proceeded at once to the labor of cutting down.

One of the champions had been a surgeon in his time, and had cut human flesh with becoming recklessness, but now he, as well as the entire Committee, struck a new experience. To strike Missions off the list, and cut down the appropriations to others, is comparatively an easy task in the quiet and secluded confines of a committee room, but to do either in the presence of the very men who expected to occupy those fields the coming year, and who knew the poverty of the people, was quite another thing. The flood-gates of speech-making had been opened by the Committee, and it was now impossible to close them. The balance of the afternoon was given to stormy debate, and into what disorder the meeting might have drifted, if the coming evening had not made its appearance, it is impossible to conjecture.

The next day the Committee took another new departure, and invited the Presiding Elders, who had studied these matters and looked the ground carefully over for a whole year, before them. The Committee were now able to complete their labors and make such a report as had usually been presented to the Conference. But the Conference became fully satisfied that this experiment needed no duplicate, and, for years after, the mention of the "Committee of the Whole on Missions," did not fail to excite mirth.

Early in the session, the election of delegates to the General Conference occurred. As I was too young to be thought of in that connection, I was permitted to sit quietly and take notes. The only issue of any great importance in the election was the slavery question. And as this institution had already been put in issue in the general elections of the country, it could not well be left out on this occasion. So it was made the chief subject of discussion. To be a thorough-going anti-slavery man was the stubborn test of qualifications for a delegate. And that there might be no mistake on this point, it was deemed advisable to have an able committee present to the body as a platform a report that should make the absolute prohibition of slavery its chief plank. But before I make further reference to the report it will not be amiss to refer briefly to the subject of slavery in its relations to the Church.

At the organization of the Church in this country, and for years thereafter, the testimony she gave against American Slavery was distinct and unequivocal. Both the Ministers and people were agreed that the Institution was, as Mr. Wesley was pleased to call it, "The sum of all villanies." Agreeing in this, they further believed that, as a relic of barbarism, it would soon pass away. Under this conviction they hardly deemed it necessary to enter up any very stringent enactments against it, save that it might be well as a temporary arrangement to provide that there should be no traffic in slaves. Under such a regulation matters passed on for a term of years. But in due time it was found that the tendency of events was not altogether satisfactory.