USA > Florida > The History of Methodism in Georgia and Florida: From 1785 to 1865 > Part 26
USA > Georgia > The History of Methodism in Georgia and Florida: From 1785 to 1865 > Part 26
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35
381
IN GEORGIA AND FLORIDA, 1785-1865.
before this movement had saved the Church, it might do so again. The conference was in no humor to pause, and after Bishop Hedding and Bishop Waugh withdrew their indorsement of the plan of peace they had jointly with Bishops Soule and Morris presented, the whole plan failed. The vote must come, and it was taken by Yeas and Neas, on Saturday, June 1st. One New York man alone voted with the South-Chas. W. Carpenter. We have spoken of a young New Yorker in Savannah, in 1819, who stood by the Church there in its days of trial ; now single-handed and alone, he stood by his Southern brethren. Dr. Sehon, of Ohio, G. Smith, of Michigan, Sinclair, of Rock River, Stamper, Berryman, and Van Cleve, of Illinois, Slicer, Gere, Sargent, Tip- pett, and Hildt, of Baltimore, Thompson, White, Cooper, and Cooper, of Philadelphia, Neal and Sovereign, of New Jersey, and the whole Southern delegation, voted together against the substitute. The Yeas were all from the North and West, save I. Clark, from Texas. The vote was 111 to 69. The work was done. The General Conference had declared that it was supreme; that a Bishop elected for life could be deposed at any time when, in the opinion of a conference, he was unaccept- able. It mattered not why. The cause might be one entirely insufficient to produce the effect; but, if he was distasteful, he might be removed, if there were votes enough to do it. Connection with Masonry, with an unpopular political party-anything might be called improper conduct, and without trial he could be de- posed.
The majority were entirely ignorant of the extent of the damage this vote had done. There was perhaps only one among them that saw it. That was Stephen
382
HISTORY OF METHODISM
Olin. Only one who voted for that substitute because he saw in that vote the only way to consolidate both North and South and prevent schism. He knew the South must go; he believed this vote would bind her together with bands of iron, and he was right in this view. The enormity of the outrage, the bold announce- ment made in the deed that never Southern man again should be a Bishop, the disregard of all written law, the fearful progress of the radicalism which owned a higher law than the written, awakened a storm of indignation, which made a great unit of all the South.
Bishop Andrew, crushed and almost broken-hearted, left the conference that night for his home in Georgia.
The ordinary work of the General Conference con- tinued until the 5th of June, when Judge Longstreet introduced the declaration of the Southern members (see p. 200, General Conference Journals, vol. ii.), and the following day Dr. Bascom introduced the celebrated protest which is to be found in the history of the organ- ization of the M. E. Church South, and the journals. (General Conference M. E. Church, vol. ii., p. 204.) It was an exceedingly able document, presenting a clear view of the whole issue between the Northern and Southern delegates. It was spread upon the minutes. The famous committee of nine, to whom the declaration of the Southern delegates was referred, reported what is known as the plan of separation, which provides for the establishment of another General Conference, in case it became evident that such a result was necessary. The modes by which churches were to adhere to either body was indicated, and provision was made for the division of the Church property. This report of the committee was unanimous, and its adoption was moved
383
IN GEORGIA AND FLORIDA, 1785-1865.
by Dr. Charles Elliot. He was followed by Dr. Hamline in a beautiful and impressive speech, and by Dr. James Porter. After a considerable discussion, full of Chris- tian feeling, the report was adopted by a large majority.
The prospect was now bright that if division should come there would be only fraternity in all the borders of American Methodism. So it might have been ; but when the delegates returned to their homes, and when what the Southern delegates had told them would come to pass was abont to be, measures were at once taken to prevent the consummation of the plan of separation, and years of alienation and strife was the result.
The student of this period of history recognizes the old issue of 1820, when Mckendree resisted the General Conference, as again made. He sees that the General Conference, intentionally or otherwise, took the ground of the advocates of an elective presiding eldership, that the General Conference is the supreme judicature, as well as legislature, and that its will is to be recognized as the finale. The Southern Churches held different ground. The Bishops were co-ordinate with the confer- ence. They existed, by the expressed will of the Church, before there was a delegated General Conference, and when a General Conference of delegates was called its powers were limited by a constitution. We are per- mitted, however, to present the Southern view of the episcopacy, clearly and forcibly, in the words of one of our ablest Bishops-Bishop Wightman.
" The episcopal form of Church government as held by prelatical churches, claims to be jure divino, and therefore invested with the sanction of a divine law as the priesthood of Aaron was. It is supposed to be the necessary condition of Christ's presence with his
384
HISTORY OF METHODISM
Church, since it is of Christ's own institution, and then of course it is of absolute and unchangable authority. This theory explains the great stress laid on the so- called ' Apostolical succession ; ' but its fundamental principle cannot be sustained by an appeal to Scrip- tural authority. From no passage in the New Testa- ment can it be shown that Christ imposed this form of church government or connected with it inseparably his covenanted grace. The Protestant, says Litton, in his admirable book on the Church of Christ, 'will retain when it has been handed down to him that form of church polity which is sanctioned by apostolic pre- cedent ; he will require the clearest evidence of its being no longer fitted to secure the great ends of the Church, before he ventures to innovate upon it; but when he hears apostolic precedents exalted into divine laws, and made immutable obligations, so that when there is no Bishop there is no church and no sacra- inents, ritual and polity being set forth as that wherein the true being of the Church lies, he will at once detect the presence of that noxious element which makes Romanism what it is. A divinely prescribed polity and ritual like that of Moses, cannot, withont sacrilege, be altered ; but no such sanction is claimed by the Apostles for their own regulations, much less can it be claimed for those of their uninspired suc- cessors.'
" The episcopal form of church polity as held by the Southern M. E. Church, disclaims all pretensions to ' jure divino' anthority. It rests upon the solid ground that episcopacy is apostolically sanctioned, though not enjoined by Christ nor made obligatory. The history of the Methodist Episcopacy in this coun-
385
IN GEORGIA AND FLORIDA, 1785-1865.
try, proves that this form of ecclesiastical government is the best for wide, efficient, and successful evangeliza- tion. Stier in his Words of the Risen Saviour, refers to Christ's manifestation to Saul of Tarsus, as to one whose immediate call from above should vindicate for all futurity the Lord's supreme right to establish new beginnings of regimen, to raise up a reforming of apostolate without succession, to be renewed in his good pleasure, when circumstances may require.
"John Wesley was manifestly thus raised up to be in the hands of divine Providence the great instrument in the signal religious awakening of the eighteenth century. In the rapid development of his work in the American colonies, there arose at the close of the war of the Revo- lution an urgent necessity for the establishment of a new beginning of regimen. No act of Wesley's life was more important in remote and ultimate results than his determination to establish an episcopal regimen for the American Societies that were in connection with him. As he did not recognize the 'jure divino' claim, as he was invading the rights and privileges and order of no other church in christendom, as he believed with the fathers of the Reformation, that episcopacy was in ac- cordance with apostolic precedents, and perceived it to be the best bond of union, and spring of vigor, to an itinerant system of operations destined to be as wide as the Continent, he hesitated not.
" Dr. Coke, a regularly ordained Presbyter of the English establishment, had united himself to Wesley's connection. He was the man to meet the American emergency. Wesley, aided by a Presbytery regular and valid, according to the New Testament and the ancient canons, and in the exercise of his inherent 17
386
HISTORY OF METHODISM
power of ordination, ordained two elders, and Dr. Coke a Bishop, for the purpose of forming the societies of the American Methodists into a regular Episcopal Church, if such were their election. These preachers and people adopted accordingly the episcopal form of church re- quirements, received Dr. Coke cordially as their Bishop. Deacons and elders were now elected and ordained, and an additional, Francis Asbury, received the third ordination. Dr. Henkle shows conclusively in his Prim- itive Episcopacy, that the Methodist Episcopal Church South has episcopacy with the name, authority and attributes and functions of a complete order ; this epis- copacy having its own appropriate office, instead of being itself an office, or the office of a different order. The third ordination as unquestionably confers a life tenure, as the first or the second." So far, Bishop Wightman, who has given expression to the generally entertained views of the Southern delegates. Bishop Andrew had been deliberately and solemnly invested with a life-long tenure to his place. He could not without guilt sur- render his place unless assured from Heaven that he was released. He could not be deprived of his place unless he had violated some law of the Church and of God. He had done neither. He would gladly hare sought retirement, but he could not conscientiously do so. IIe had done nothing to disqualify himself from doing all his ordination vows required. To yield to the demand for his retirement was to render the episcopacy for all time dependent upon the hasty judgment of a General Conference, and to make it time-serving and cowardly. Bishop Andrew nor his friends could thus yield.
After the return of the delegates the whole Sonthern
387
IN GEORGIA AND FLORIDA, 1785-1865.
Church was in a ferment. There was great unity except in some of the border conferences, and a perfect unity in Georgia. Meetings were held over the State in all circuits and stations. We have said perfect unity, but there was one exception. Daniel Curry, a young North- erner, had come south as a teacher, and had been licensed to preach in Georgia. His sympathies were all with the section from which he had come, and he was too coura- geous to conceal his feelings, so he was loud in his denunciations of the course of the South, and very wisely concluded to return to the North ; otherwise there was no expressed dissent. The Convention, however, had not met in Louisville before the conference came on, which was in December, 1844. The conference met at Eatonton, Bishop Soule presiding. He had resolved to leave his Ohio home and adhere to the South, and he came to preside over the last conference of the M. E. Church held in the State of Georgia. Though the Con- ference had resolved to separate from the M. E. Church, yet the feeling was not a bitter one, and the agents of the still united Church who were present found the same welcome as of yore.
The General Conference had divided the Georgia Conference as requested, and from that time forth the Florida Conference appears on the record; but in lieu of this territory and the 4,500 white members given up, 3,028 came to it from the Holston Conference, with all of northern Georgia, so there was only a decrease of about 2,500 white members. Agitation other than that of revival does not favor religious improvement, and there was a decrease of 1,000 members. There were twenty-one received on trial, of whom there are four in active work.
388
HISTORY OF METHODISM
The collections for the year were smaller than they had been. The conference collection was $1,151.37; that for missions $5,805. There were seven districts, and 111 preachers in active work. The white members numbered 37,094; the colored 13,094.
The Florida now set off included a large part of lower Georgia, and had four districts, thirty-two active preachers, 4,221 white members, and 2,653 colored.
It had been just fifteen years since the South Carolina Conference was divided and Georgia began its separate work. When the division took place there were eighty- seven preachers-now the number was 143; then the membership was 27,552, now it was 58,017. There were now two flourishing colleges, male and female. The collections had increased yearly.
In every direction the work had prospered, until now scarce a county in the State was so neglected that a Methodist Church was not in reach of any of its inhabit- ants. The negro missions had become more numerous, and there was no large body in any part of the State who were not visited by the missionary. The work in Florida had progressed under great difficulties, but it had pro- gressed steadily, and now, fully organized, it gave great promise for the future.
390
HISTORY OF METHODISM
Georgia and Florida Methodism during the war. Fourth, The changes in the Church brought about by the results of the war. We take these up in their order.
About the period of the close of the last chapter, great economical changes were fully inaugurated in Georgia, which were full of results to the Church history.
The railroad system of the State was at that time so far completed as to introduce into Georgia a new era.
A railway now connected Savannah and Augusta with the Tennessee River, and others were projected which were soon to connect the Savannah with the Chattahoochee. The Cherokee country was to be rapidly peopled ; and where but a decade before was only a wilderness, beautiful and thrifty towns were to spring into being. The Church, which had not waited for the railway, was already in this country, and was prepared to take advantage of the new state of things.
The General Conference of 1844, while it had attach- ed a considerable part of Georgia to the Florida Cou- ference, had at the same time given to the Georgia Con- ference all that part of the State in the up-country hitherto served by the Holston preachers.
The provision for the new General Conference made at Louisville in 1845, and the separation of two sections of the Church into the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Methodist Episcopal Church South, threw the Geor- gia Conference, as it did all the Southern conferences, upon its own resources both for missionary and confer- ence funds. How it mnet these demands upon it, it re- mains for this chapter to show.
There had resulted no strife from this division in this
391
IN GEORGIA AND FLORIDA, 1785-1865.
section. The Georgia preachers were united in desiring it, and the body was perfectly homogeneous.
Year by year classes of gifted men applied for admis- sion to the travelling connection, and the number who located grew fewer. Every year some honored one died at his post, but there was another to take his place. In 1846 two men who had been of great service to the Church and the State passed away, Benj. Blanton and Ignatius A. Few.
Benj. Blanton was at the time of his death the only one left of the old line who came from Virginia to Georgia, to aid in evangelizing a new State. He was a presiding elder as early as 1798, and that year located, and for many years remained local, then entered the conference again, that he might die in the harness. Of him we have spoken previously.
Ignatius A. Few, of whom we have had much to say, as he often prayed that he might, fell calmly asleep in Jesus.
For some years before his death, he had been com- pelled by feeble health to remain in retirement, driven by it from the work he loved. He had been converted in the maturity of his life, and was nearly forty years old when he began to preach. He had not then twenty years of life left, and his health. was not good. He however, wasted no hour after that, and no man who ever worked in the Georgia Conference has left his impress upon the future more indelibly. In the annual and general conferences he was a power. He was a man of the broadest culture and of the most enlarged and liberal views. Entering upon the work of the ministry at a time when he was needed, he had brought to it a consecration of energy which was entire. He
-
392
HISTORY OF METHODISM
began his career in a conference in which there was at the same time Lovick Pierce, James O. Andrew, and Stephen Olin. He did not pass away until he saw Augustus B. Longstreet, Geo. W. Lane, G. F. Pierce, and others like to them in the active work of the body, and until he saw the colleges and schools which had sprung into being, largely through his influence, in successful operation. It was meet, then, that one of the two socie- ties of Emory College should be called the Few, and that his portrait should hang on the walls of the Few Hall; and when the Masonic fraternity of which he was an honored member erected a monument to his memory, that it should be placed in the front of the college chapel.
While the old veteran and the gifted scholar passed away, others came forward to take their places. Many came ; some of them live and work still, many of them have entered into rest.
John M. Bonnell, a young Pennsylvanian, of whoin we speak in the sketch of Methodism in Athens, began his work in 1846, to end it by a peaceful death twenty- seven years afterwards.
J. Blakeley Smith entered the conference in 1847, and died suddenly while Presiding Elder of the Ameri- cus District in 1870. For twenty-three years he had been a most efficient worker. He was a man of fine person, of fine business qualifications, of great common sense, and a man, if not of broad, yet of very correct culture. He was a moving and successful preacher. His fine qualifications for the office called him to the secretaryship of the conference. IIe retained this posi- tion for several years, up to the division of the confer- ence, and then was secretary of the South Georgia till
393
IN GEORGIA AND FLORIDA, 1785-1865.
his death. He was a decided Methodist in his convic- tions, and adhered, with a devotion almost unusual with so young a man, to the features of the first days of the Church. Gifted in the pulpit, he was more so in prayer and in exhortation. He was so well suited to the office of agent that he was selected as agent for the Tract Society and for the Wesleyan Female College, and did his work with great efficiency.
Smith C. Quillian, who entered the conference with him and died some years before him, was one of the large family of that name who, from the beginning of Methodism in Georgia, have been devoted to it. He was not a brilliant man, but one of strong common sense and of great piety. He died in the early years of his ministry.
Charles R. Jewett had entered the conference four years before them. He was the son of a devotedly pious layman in Macon, George Jewett. This good man, during a protracted meeting in Macon, felt so im- pelled to search for his thoughtless son, that, leaving the church, he sought him till he found him ; the boy came to church and was converted ; soon afterwards he began to preach. He was not, nor did he claim to be, a man of great intellectual power ; but he was a man of fine taste, of gentle manners, a most untiring pastor, and a most successful worker. No church went down when he was in charge of it, and no district was other than well served over which he presided. He was always frail, but he did his work for nearly twenty years, and then died of consumption in Thomasville, in which city he was the stationed preacher.
W. B. McHan, one of two brothers who entered the conference in 1846, was one of that class to whom the 17*
392
HISTORY OF METHODISM
began his career in a conference in which there was at the same time Lovick Pierce, James O. Andrew, and Stephen Olin. He did not pass away until he saw Augustus B. Longstreet, Geo. W. Lane, G. F. Pierce, and others like to them in the active work of the body, and until he saw the colleges and schools which had sprung into being, largely through his influence, in successful operation. It was meet, then, that one of the two socie- ties of Emory College should be called the Few, and that his portrait should hang on the walls of the Few Hall; and when the Masonic fraternity of which he was an honored member erected a monument to his memory, that it should be placed in the front of the college chapel.
While the old veteran and the gifted scholar passed away, others came forward to take their places. Many came ; some of them live and work still, many of them have entered into rest.
John M. Bonnell, a young Pennsylvanian, of whom we speak in the sketch of Methodism in Athens, began his work in 1846, to end it by a peaceful death twenty- seven years afterwards.
J. Blakeley Smith entered the conference in 1847, and died suddenly while Presiding Elder of the Ameri- cus District in 1870. For twenty-three years he had been a most efficient worker. He was a man of fine person, of fine business qualifications, of great common sense, and a man, if not of broad, yet of very correct culture. He was a moving and successful preacher. His fine qualifications for the office called him to the secretaryship of the conference. IIe retained this posi- tion for several years, up to the division of the confer- ence, and then was secretary of the South Georgia till
393
IN GEORGIA AND FLORIDA, 1785-1865.
his death. He was a decided Methodist in his convic- tions, and adhered, with a devotion almost unusual with so young a man, to the features of the first days of the Church. Gifted in the pulpit, he was more so in prayer and in exhortation. IIe was so well suited to the office of agent that he was selected as agent for the Tract Society and for the Wesleyan Female College, and did his work with great efficiency.
Smith C. Quillian, who entered the conference with him and died some years before him, was one of the large family of that name who, from the beginning of Methodism in Georgia, have been devoted to it. He was not a brilliant man, but one of strong common sense and of great piety. He died in the early years of his ministry.
Charles R. Jewett had entered the conference four years before them. He was the son of a devotedly pious layman in Macon, George Jewett. This good man, during a protracted meeting in Macon, felt so im- pelled to search for his thoughtless son, that, leaving the church, he sought him till he found him ; the boy came to church and was converted ; soon afterwards he began to preach. He was not, nor did he claim to be, a man of great intellectual power ; but he was a man of fine taste, of gentle manners, a most untiring pastor, and a most successful worker. No church went down when he was in charge of it, and no district was other than well served over which he presided. Ile was always frail, but he did his work for nearly twenty years, and then died of consumption in Thomasville, in which city he was the stationed preacher.
W. B. MeHan, one of two brothers who entered the conference in 1846, was one of that class to whom t 17*
394
HISTORY OF METHODISM
Church in Georgia is so much indebted, who, without brilliant powers or careful training, give themselves to the hard work demanded of them. He became a preacher of very respectable gifts, and did useful work until, after a season of deepest affliction, he was called to his reward.
Ivy F. Steagal, after thirteen years of useful work, died in 1847. He had for some years been a local preacher, and in 1834, when the demand for workers was imperious and the promise of reward was small, he entered the work. He travelled hard circuits and harder districts, and did his duty in every field. His health broke down under his labors, and he retired to his home in Upson County, where he died.
He was a man of most devoted piety and a preacher of real power. He belonged to that class of Georgia preachers who, when there was no hope of family sup- port, and when rides were long and exposure great, held on his way while his faithful wife attended to the farm and supported the children.
Josiah Askew, who died the same year, was a North Carolinian, born in the mountains of Burke County. His father removed, while the Indians were yet in the county, to Habersham County, in Georgia. He learned there was a camp-meeting in progress, and passing by his new home, he went immediately to it, nor returned to his own house till it was over. Josiah went to Ran- dolph Macon College. Ile evinced talents of a very high order, and while at college was licensed to preach. IIe was induced to remain in Virginia, and there mar- ried. Ile soon acquired considerable reputation for gifts and piety ; his health failed him, and he came to Georgia.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.