But, then, “the disciple is not above his Master, nor the servant above his Lord.” “Remember the word that I said unto you, The disciple is not above his Lord. If they have persecuted me they will persecute you.”
They beheaded John, crucified Christ, stoned Stephen, murdered Paul, “and others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover, of bonds and imprisonment; they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were slain with the sword; they wandered about in sheep-skins and goat-skins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented; of whom the world was not worthy.”
Every age and country have reproduced in some form the altar and the victim, the persecutor and the persecuted, the Caiaphas and the Christ, without material alteration in the charge or the trial. Missouri has provided the altar, the wood, the fire and the sacrifice for the offering demanded by this age and country in the interest of the Church. Woods, Sexton, Glanville, Wollard, Robinson, Wood, Headlee and others supplied the sacrifice.
While this chapter prepares the way, in an important sense, for the better understanding of the subject in hand, it will also embody a standing declaration and testimony against the peculiar spirit and character of sectarian strife in Missouri.
CHAPTER IV.
Division of the Church in 1844—Slavery only the Occasion—Action of the General Conference in 1836—Slavery in the Church in 1796 and in 1836—No Change of its Moral Aspects in 1844—Facts Perverted—Constitutional Powers of the Church—Bishop Andrew, a Scapegoat—Protest of the Southern Conferences—Resolution and Plan of Separation—Dr. Elliott and Schism—The Vote—The Question in the South—Louisville Convention in 1845—Division—The Bishops of the M. E. Church Accept the Division the following July—Failure to Change the Sixth Restrictive Rule—General Conference of 1848 Pronounce the Whole Proceedings Null and Void—Dr. Lovick Pierce Rejected—Fraternization Denied—Responsibility of Non-Fraternization—Northern Church Refuse to Make any Division of Property—Appeal to the Civil Courts—Decision of the United States Circuit Court for the Southern District of New York—Justice McLean—United States Circuit Court for the Southern District of Ohio—Judge Leavitt’s Decision—Supreme Court of the United States—Points Decided—The Decision of the Supreme Court in Full.
It is due to the uninformed that a true statement be made here of the causes, conditions, plan and immediate results of the great division, in 1844, of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States. This is made the more necessary by the misrepresentation of the facts made by the press and pulpit of the Northern wing of the Church, and the political and other uses a perversion of the facts was made to subserve in Missouri.
1. Slavery was not, in any proper sense, the cause of division, but was made, incidentally, the occasion only. American slavery had existed in the Church for sixty years in the same form, and under the same civil and religious sanctions that authorized and covered it in 1844. If it was the “sum of all evils” in 1844, it was the same in 1796; and the moral character of the institution was not changed in 1836, when the General Conference in Cincinnati, by a vote of 120 to 14, adopted the following preamble and resolutions:
“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 subject; 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 to misrepresent its sentiments in regard to the points at issue; and, whereas, in this aspect of the case, a duo 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 ideas 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.