Sixty-one years of intinerant Christian life in church and state

Dedication

To my dear daughter,

VIRGINIA WYOMING PEARNE,

*Cbis Volume

Preface

HPHIS volume is due to the partiality of iny * brethren of the Cincinnati Conference, who, by a resolution passed at their session in 1896, requested that it be prepared. It was thought by them that a record of my experiences and observations, extending through a ministry of over sixty years, would be of interest and value to the Church, and contain suggestions that might lead its readers to a more active and better spiritual life. In accordance with this resolution the work was undertaken, and the present book is the result.

The author has not written these pages in the form of a diary, nor has he given a detailed narrative of his life. He has attempted rather to present the more striking events with which he has been connected, and to depict some of the great incidents of our ecclesiastical and civil history which came under his notice, together with occasional sketches of the prominent actors with whom he has been more or less associated from his younger years. He has endeavored to be a faithful chronicler, and to describe persons and

scenes as they were, or, at least, as they appeared

6 PREFACE.

to him. Most of what is given has been written from recollection. The events of my earlier life still seem fresh and vivid. If I have lost somewhat of the buoyant spirit of childhood, I trust that the high hopes then conceived have in a measure been fulfilled through my ministry, and that I have not labored in vain in the Lord.

For whatever success I may have had in preaching the Word and in cultivating the field given me by the great Head of the Church, to him be the glory. T. H. P.

Hiiasboro, August, 1898.

Preface To Second Edition

THE favor which the public has shown to this book, exhausted the first edition within about six or eight months after it was issued. The second edition, it is believed, will be even more sought than the first. Besides a few minor corrections, it contains an appendix of some fourteen or fifteen pages, making a volume of 506 pages. The topic treated is current in reading circles. Its treatment, it is believed, will well repay those who may purchase the volume. It is hopefully commended to the public.

T. H. P.

Hii^sboro, O., Aprii,, 1899.

Introduction

THE influence of Methodism upon the marvelous growth of what was once called the Great West, upon its educational and its religious life, will never, probably, be accurately measured nor fully acknowledged. A distinguished jurist, judge of the Supreme Court in one of the Western States — a professed Deist — is reported to have said, on one occasion: "But for the Methodist Church and the Methodist ministry, this country would have sunk into barbarism.'' This may be an extravagant statement ; but the early Methodist itinerants were, undoubtedly, a remarkable class of men. It is said occasionally, in a half apologetic tone, that these hardy and adventurous pioneer preachers were men for their times ; and so indeed they were, and nobly did they fulfill their mission. Some of these sturdy heroes were the vanguard of our early frontiersmen, who, advancing westward from the Atlantic seaboard, over the Alleghanies and across the Mississippi Valley, swept onward over the Rockies to the Pacific Ocean, thus spanning the continent with a splendid type of Christian civilization.

It is certainly within bounds to say that Methodism has been^second to no other human agency in promoting the remarkable growth of the West; and if so, the publication of the many biographies of the pioneers of this pioneer Church, which have been issued in recent years, is amply vindicated; for these books are an important part of the history of the country.

S INTRODUCTION.

Many notable and most valuable contributions have been made already to this biographical literature of the Church, including sketches of such recognized leaders as Francis Asbury, Jesse Lee, William Watters, Henry Smith, Elijah Hedding, James B. Finley, David and Jacob Young, James Quinn, Peter Cartwright, Thomas A. Morris, Granville Moody, William I. Fee, and many others. The writer of this autobiography ranks easily with these and other distinguished men of the denomination, and it is eminently proper that a life of such varied and protracted usefulness should find a permanent place in the history of the Church. It may be said truthfully, I believe, that no man in the ministry of American Methodism has sustained an effective relation in the itinerant ranks for so many years, consecutively, as are embraced in this volume, and it will be the earnest prayer, I am sure, of all who read these thrilling pages, that the author may long be spared to the Church he has so nobly served.

The sixty-one years of active and conspicuous service which Dr. Pearne has given to the. Church already, covers a most interesting period in the history of the world — the most remarkable period, perhaps, in the nineteen centuries of the Christian era; for in that time, and on this continent, and in this Republic, humanity has reached its high-water mark of material, intellectual, and political thrift. The fact that this splendid Western civilization is the highest now existing, is due largely to the labors of the pioneer preachers in the formative and history-making epoch in which they lived. Certainly these born leaders of men are worthy to be held m affectionate remembrance by those of us who have entered into their labors.

INTRODUCTION. 9

And yet, worthy as is this volume of a place in every Methodist library, it is not probable that its preparation would have been undertaken but for the action of the Cincinnati Conference, in 1896, as follows :

"Whereas, Dr. Thomas H. Pearne, an honored and able minister of this Conference^ having had large experience in_ public and journalistic service, has in many ways accomplished great good in both Church and State; therefore, be it

"Resolved, That we express to him our high regard, with the hope that he will be able to place his Reminiscences in printed form. If it be feasible, we suggest and request that he prepare such a volume, which we believe will be of great interest and value.

"C. W. Barnes, J. A. Story, C. L. Conger,

"D. LEE Aultman, M. M. KuglER, John Pearson, "F. G. Mitcheli,, G. W. Dubois, Wm. Runyan."

The reader of this volume will note the division of the author's life into five periods, each marked by distinctive conditions and duties. The first fourteen years of his ministry — from 1837 to 185 1 — were spent in Central New York and Northern Pennsylvania. Here all the characteristics of the Church and of society were marked by more or less culture and maturity, even at that early time, rather than by the rudeness and hardships of pioneer life; and yet it was, after all, the transitional period between the old and the new — the evolution from the earlier and simpler forms of life to the higher civilization of the present times. The common-school system was then in its infancy; the Sunday-schools were crude and comparatively inefficient; railways were unknown; steamboats were in their earlier' stage, limited to river transportation ; there were then no ocean steamers ; the daily newspaper was a luxury, only to be enjoyed in the

IO INTRODUCTION.

largest cities; and telegraphic news from all parts of the world, printed daily, was not even dreamed of as a possibility. Methodism, then, was of the primitive type. The class-meetings, band-meetings, love-feasts, were given great prominence, and strangers were admitted to them cautiously, and not more than twice or thrice. Instrumental music was very generally excluded from the services of the Church. Its introduction was stoutly opposed as an innovation, forbidden alike by precedent, prejudice, and the claims of spiritual worship. It would be a great mistake, therefore, to suppose that the life of an itinerant Methodist preacher, even in that favored region, would be destitute of hardship, romance, and such thrilling incidents as constitute the web of all human history. Of Dr. Pearne's marked success as a preacher and pastor in this initial period there is abundant evidence, apart from that furnished, incidentally, by his autobiography

The second period — 185 1 to 1865 — was that spent in Oregon. No part of Dr. Pearne's ministry, it is safe to say, has been more influential in molding opinions and shaping results than the fourteen years passed in Oregon. He was selected for that work by one of the wisest men on the Episcopal Bench, and the outcome fully vindicated the wisdom of the choice. The country was new, and the foundations of civil, educational, and religious institutions were being laid. A man of force, courage, arid ability was needed to take leadership in the plastic stage of our Church life in that important and strategic field. Of Dr. Pearne's work in Oregon, a« a presiding elder and an editor, this is not the place to speak at length. The following pages will reveal how great was his oppor-

INTRODUCTION. II

tunity, and how fully he met the demands of the situation. That country was receiving, at that time, large accessions to its population from all parts of the Republic; these accessions were swelled, no doubt, by the contiguity of the recently-opened gold-mines of California. Dr. Pearne's position naturally brought him into close relations with the pioneer leaders of that section, in religious, civil, and military life, and so impressed were these leaders in. civil affairs with the Doctor's statesmanlike qualities that he was once importuned to stand for an election to the United States Senate. Dr. Pearne did not encourage this movement, because, as he felt, he could not relinquish the work committed to his hands by the Church.

The third term included five years spent in the South, in the "Reconstruction Days" following the Civil War. His work was in East Tennessee, and in connection with the first Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church organized in Tennessee after the overthrow of slavery, and the rehabilitation of that State with sovereignty. The war, indeed, was over, and armed rebellion was subdued ; but the fierce passions aroused by the long and bloody struggle, and the bitter prejudices excited by that unhappy, fraternal strife, still existed. Dr. Pearne's position here was a most delicate, difficult, and even dangerous one, as will be noted by the reader in the thrilling narrative of that period.

From this important work Dr. Pearne was called by the Administration at Washington to serve his country as United States consul in the British West Indies. Of course, the duties of this position were secular rather than sacred; and yet amid the engrossing duties of his official position in Jamaica, the Doctor

12 INTRODUCTION.

found time to respond to the frequent calls made upon him to occupy the various pulpits of the city, and also of the island of Jamaica, in all of which he preached frequently, except in those of the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England.

The last of the five periods into which the Doctor has divided his life — from 1874 to the present time — has been spent in the regular work of the itinerancy in Ohio, as a member of the Cincinnati Conference. Entering this body at an age when ministers are generally supposed to have crossed the "dead line," Dr. Pearne took at once the position in the forefront which he holds now, and is likely to hold until his voluntary retirement from the effective ranks. Whether as pastor or presiding elder, his rare ability as a preacher, his genial personality, his fidelity to every trust, and his faithful discharge of every duty, have made him one of the most acceptable and useful ministers of his day.

The Church will be grateful to Dr. Pearne for this valuable contribution to its pioneer literature, and it will be read, I have no doubt, with increasing interest as the years go by, and greater distance lends still greater enchantment to the heroic days of American Methodism.

JOHN F. MARIyAY.

Springfield, Ohio, August, 189&

Contents

•first period— Beginning Itinerant Hife.

Chapter I

Ancestry — Birth — Conversion of Parents — -Early Childhood — Removal to New York Mills, Oneida County — Happy Home-life — Father a Local Preacher, then an Itinerant — Old-time Veterans — Conversion, and Call to Preach — School-life — Serious mistake, Page 21

Chapter II

Begin preaching as a Supply — Truxton Circuit — First Appointment— First Sunday — Changed to Madison Station — Marriage — Amusing Incident — Appointed to Marcellus — Funeral — James Jay, an Old Wesleyan Preacher — Skaneateles — Visit there in 1864 — Auburn — Returned to Madison— Revivals and Church Improvements, 31

CHAPTER HI.

General Conference of 1844 — Personal Recollections, ... 41

Chapter IV

Binghamton — Eel-pot Church — Wyoming — Great Revival — Elisha Harris my Helper — Conversion of Payne Pettebone — I/etter from Rev. R. W. Van Schoick, .... .53

Chapter V

Francis Asbury, Personal Reminiscences — Wilkesbarre — Bishops Soule and "Waugh, who Ordained me — Bishop Roberts, 63

14 CONTENTS.

Chapter VI

Associations and Experiences — Fathers of the Oneida Conference — Marmaduke Pearce — John Dempster — Joseph Castle — George Harmon — The Paddock Brothers — David A. Shepard— The African Missionary — W. W. Ninde — Elias Bowen, Page 77

Chapter VII

Jesse T. Peck — George Peck — George Gary, 91

Second period— JUfe in Oregon.

Chapter VIII

Transfer to Oregon — Conditions inducing — Voyage — Steamer Associates — Delay in Aspinwall — Passage up the Chagres River — Incidents— San Francisco Delay — Port Oxford — Indians — Portland — J. H. Wilbur — Oregon City — Salem — Ministers, 109

Chapter IX

The Name Oregon — Description — Columbia River and Valley — Willamette River — Umpqua and Rogue Rivers — Washington— Climate — Camp-meeting Lunatic — Rook Creek Camp-meeting — " Two-seed " Baptist — Santiam Camp-meeting — Doctrinal Preaching, 123

Chapter X

Toils and Hardships — Muleback Riding — Trip to Washington in December, 1852 — An Inhospitable Priest — Lost — A Bitter Cold Night— Narrow Escape from Freezing — Christmas Walk in Deep Snow Twenty-six Miles — Floods out, 134

CHAPTER XI. Sloughs — Weddings and Funerals — Incidents, 124

CONTENTS. 15

Chapter XII

Jargon — Wolves — Trip with Bishop Simpson — Bishop Ames in Oregon in 1853 — Organization of Oregon Conference — Educational Plants — E. S. Hoyt — Other Preachers — Conference of 1854 — Bishop Simpson's Sermon — Reminiscences of his Visit to Oregon — Incident, .... Page 148

Chapter XX

A Year's Absence from the Conference for Rest and for Work in the Army — Christian Work in the Army — City Point — Care of Hospital Ward — Work During a Bloody Engagement at Hatcher's Run, Page 271

CHAPTER XXL

Bishop Clark's Visit and Work in East Tennessee in 1865— Organizes the Holston Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church — History of the Proceedings, 281

Chapter XXII

History of the Reorganization continued — Letter Concerning Bishop Clark's Work in, the South, 300

Chapter XXIII

Letter from Nashville Concerning Reconstruction — Editorial in Western Christian Advocate — Work on Knoxville District— Visit to Asheville — Perils — Misunderstandings, . 310

■pourtb period — Hs United States Consul.

Chapter XXIV

United States Consul to Kingston, Jamaica — Reasons superinducing— Duties of the Office — Cuban Excitements — Steamer Edgar Stuart — Steamer Virginius — Captain Fry's Farewell to his Wife — Editorial in Western Christian Advocate on " The Spanish Difficulty," 327

Chapter XXV

Events in the Consulate — Visit of Frigate Tennessee to Kingston— Bishop Coxe — Commissioners to San Domingo — History and Description of Jamaica, 339

CONTENTS. 17

fifth period— *&ork in Ohio.

Chapter XXVI

Return to United States — Secretary American Colonization Society — Residence in Cincinnati — Illness and Death of Mrs. Pearne — Resignation of Secretaryship — Transfers to Cincinnati Conference — Appointed to Grace Church, Dayton— Second Marriage, to Miss McDonald — Dayton District— Unveiling a Painting— Address — Urbana — Wesley Chapel, Cincinnati — Centennial Sermon, .... Page 363

Chapter XXVII

Central Church, Springfield — God in the Constitution — Answer to Ingersoll — First Church, Xenia — Semi-centennial Sermon— Hillsboro District — Hillsboro College — Hillsboro Charge — A Remarkable Event — The Gospel on Horseback— Closing Words 410

Hppendix.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

Thomas H. Pearne at the Age oe Thirty

Years, . . . Frontispiece.

Oregon Presiding Kinder and his Faithful

Mule, . . • • • • Face Page 134

Thomas H. Pearne at The Age of Seventyeight Years, . Face Page 410

First WzvixtA.

Beginning Itinerant Life.

I

Chapter I

WAS well born. Like Paul, I was free born. My birth date is June 7, 1820.

"My boast is not, that I deduce my birth From loins enthroned and rulers of the earth; But higher far my great pretensions rise, The child of parents passed into the skies."

My parents were, on my mother's side, of the hardy Cornish stock; on my father's side, of Rochester Bridge, Kent County, London. Father was strictly a Cockney; i. e., a Londoner; mother was a Yorkshire woman. The former inherited the culture and keenness of observation of the civic conditions of his birth and early years. Mother transmitted to me the vigor and robustness of her own sturdy constitution. Both lived to a ripe age, each of them dying when about seventy-four. Both were members of the Church of England. Mother's ancestors for two generations had been Wesleyans. Her father and her grandfather were local preachers in Mr. Wesley's Connection. The tradition runs that on mother's side there was a dash of the Wesley blood infour veins.

Yet while both my parents had the forms of godliness by their membership in the Church of England, neither of them knew its power. They had never experienced what is understood, among Methodists, as a change of heart. On their arrival in New York, a Methodist and a relative inquired of father whether he had ever been converted, and how his soul was prospering. It was the first time in his life that such questions had ever been addressed to him. The same person invited them to attend a revival-meeting, then going on in Duane Street Methodist Episcopal Church, New York. In the first Methodist meeting they ever attended they went forward to the altar for prayers, and united with the Methodist Episcopal Church as seekers of religion. I have often heard my father say that he was indebted, under God, for his salvation to the zeal of the New York Methodists, and to this wise provision for receiving persons as seekers of religion on trial in the Methodist Episcopal Church.

The earliest years of my life were spent in New York. When I was five years old — i. e., in 1825 — my father moved with his family into Central New York. We settled in a place called New York Mills, a cotton factory village in Oneida County, which employed some five hundred operatives. The place was three miles east from Utica, and one mile west from Whitesboro. Father's family was typically large. It consisted of ten children — seven sons and three daughters. One died in infancy; another in his ninth year. A third died at fourteen. The others lived to adult age. Their names were, respectively, William, Nathaniel, Thomas, Francis, Mary, Harriet, Benjamin, John, and Hester. Hester was called home when fourteen, John Wesley at twenty-three, Harriet at twenty-five, Nathaniel at fifty, and William at seventy-five. His

THE FAMILY — INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC. 23

ministerial life began when he was twenty-one, and continued fifty-four years. Nathaniel was a merchant. For many years he was in the wholesale store of A. T. Stewart, New York; and for a few years he kept a retail store on Bleecker Street. Benjamin was a mechanic. John Wesley was a printer, a compositor in the office of the New York Commercial Advertiser. Three of the family remain : the writer, sister Mary, and brother Benjamin; the latter, respectively, in Cortland and Oxford, New York. Those who have, gone, died in the Lord, after lives of piety and usefulness. All the children in my father's family were converted in early childhood, and united with the Methodist Episcopal Church, most of them before the age of twelve.

In my boyhood, the introduction of instrumental music in the Sunday service created much agitation and violent contention. A maiden lady of some maturity came into the church while the first hymn was being sung. For the first time instruments had been introduced into the choir in the gallery; but as she was under the gallery, directly below where the choir sat, she did not observe the musical instruments, and she sang from the same hymn-book with my mother with apparent zest and delight. After the prayer, and when the second hymn was announced, the instruments sounded the pitch. "What is that?" said she to my mother. "Musical instruments," was the answer given. She was seized with hysterical convulsions, which lasted several days.

Father and mother and my oldest brother, and our hired girl, with three other persons, united with the Methodist Episcopal Church by letter, and were organized into a class by the Methodist minister stationed in Utica, and my father was appointed class-leader. Father held a license as a local preacher. For a time we had meetings in our house, and then the mill company assisted the villagers in building both a Methodist church and a Presbyterian church. In both these churches we had sweeping revivals of religion. In the Presbyterian Church, Rev. Charles G. Finney was the evangelist. In one of these revivals a large number of children were converted. Among these were two brothers and a sister of mine, and also Edward G. Andrews, at present, and for twenty-five years past, one of our honored and beloved bishops. My father was a schoolteacher in England and in this country, and he was also an accountant. For several years he was the clerk and the cashier of the factory He was a man of large reading, of good education, and of literary tastes and pursuits. He had a somewhat full library As I was a voracious reader, I soon held its treasures in my possession.

Our home was a bright, Christian home, the abode of content and piety. It was well ordered, full of cheer and comfort. The family were taught to fear and love and honor God. Family worship was kept up morning and evening. The religion of the family was sunny and joyous. Music was much loved and enjoyed. We were a very happy family. We knew and sang the old Methodist

FATHER A TRAVELING PREACHER. 25

hymns and tunes. Mother was a very sweet singer. Father sang some; but his voice was less musical than mother's. Father regularly filled appointments as a local preacher in places not too far from our home.

In 1832 father entered the traveling connection, in which he continued thirty-six years. His death, at the age of seventy-four, was peaceful and triumphant. His last words were, "Happy ! happy !" Mother's last words were : "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil : for thou art with me : thy rod and thy staff they comfort me." At fourteen I was made a class-leader of a large class, mostly of females, some forty or fifty of them. Six months later I was licensed to exhort, and at fifteen I was licensed as a local preacher. In 1836-37 I attended school at Cazenovia Seminary, in Madison County, New York. The principal of the school was Rev. George Peck, D. D., who later filled a large place in the Methodist Episcopal Church as editor of the Christian Advocate, New York, and the Methodist Quarterly Reviezv.

OLD-TIME VETERANS — PHCEBUS — MERWIN — BANGS.

The writer's feet first pressed the soil of old Oneida Conference in his childhood. In his early manhood he traveled the circuits and ministered in some of the stations of that gopdly field. There were giants in those days. He saw them. He heard them. He remembers them. However far his path may have since diverged from those earlier scenes, and however diversified the experiences and events of the later years, memory has embalmed the recollections of those golden times. Those memories reach distinctly to 1828.

One of the well-remembered events of that early period was about that time. It was the presence in my father's home, as guests, of three venerable preachers of the New York Conference. They were men of large stature and fine presence: tall, portly, and of courteous bearing. The third session of the Oneida Conference was held in Utica, N. Y., three miles distant from New York Mills, the place of my boyhood home. These persons were visitors at the Oneida Conference from the New York Conference. New York Mills was then a new charge. Two years before this the first class of seven persons was organized in my father's house ; four of them, as already stated, were of our family. The name of the new charge first appeared in the Annual Minutes in 1826, with Charles Giles as pastor. In four years it had grown to three hundred and sixteen members. It was now assisting in sustaining the Conference. The manly guests, already named, were : Dr. William Phoebus, Rev. Samuel Merwin, and Rev. Nathan Bangs.

Dr. Phcebus was then an old man. He had been forty-seven years in the itinerancy. He began his ministry in 1783, the year before the organization of the Metbodist Episcopal Church. Thus my association with him in childhood relates me, personally, with the beginning of our organic Church life. Dr. Phcebus was well-preserved, vi-

VETERANS — PHOEBUS, MERWIN. 2J

vacious, and most agreeable in his manners. He was born in Maryland in 1754. After having traveled ten years he located, and after a brief term he re-entered the itinerancy. In 1798 he was again located, and engaged in the practice of medicine in New York. Eight years later he joined the New York Conference. In 1824 he was superannuated, in which relation he remained until his death, in 1 83 1. His mind was vigorous. His knowledge was large and various. In men and books he was well versed, and also in the early records of the Church and in the different systems of Church order and government. He was large in person, and noble looking. His manner was genial. He was quite attentive to children, who in turn loved and admired him. He was fluent in speech, and well stored in racy incidents, which he rendered graphically. Upon my young imagination he made a deep impression, never since effaced. He was a leading member of the General Conferences of 1808 and 181 2. He was a strong man in Methodism, aiding effectively in extending her borders and strengthening her stakes during her immature period. He helped to lay broad and deep her foundations, upon which the Methodist Episcopal Church has had a most astonishing growth in numbers, activities, and resources.

The second of these eminent ministers was Rev. Samuel Merwin, who was yet in his vigorous prime. He, too, was genteel and elegant. He was probably a little above fifty, and had been preaching thirty years. He was above average height, of full habit, yet not corpulent. Dr. Bangs was less corpulent than Phoebus, and taller than Merwin. He baptized me in my early childhood, in Duane Street Church, New York — of which fact I still hold a very distinct recollection. As I recall him he was slightly round-shouldered, with his head somewhat inclined to one side. He, too, was a most genial, interesting person. All the early Methodist preachers were specially attentive to the children in the families where they were guests. Dr. Jesse T. Peck, afterward bishop, was also a frequent visitor at our house, and we much enjoyed his visits.

My call to the ministry antedated my conversion. It was very strong and clear, and I even commenced to preach in my eighth year. My entrance into the pastoral work was somewhat peculiar. In the fall of 1837 I was attending the Cazenovia Seminary, Rev. Dr. George Peck the principal. I had no means. I boarded myself, and did odd days' work, and I also did chores in the morning. I lived on bread and milk and potatoes and salt, renting a room and doing my own cooking; my entire living costing me from fifty cents to seventy-five cents a week. A vacancy occurred on a circuit some fifteen or twenty miles away. A junior preacher was needed. The presiding elder came and offered the place' to me. I remained on this charge nearly two years. Near the end of the second year I had two offers to go through college. An Episcopalian, who came to my semi-monthly services, and whose generous hospitality as a host I often shared, said to me one evening,

AN EARLY MISTAKE. 29

"Are you very desirous of getting a classical education?" Upon my returning an affirmative answer, he offered to send me through the Geneva College, an Episcopalian institution in Western New York, and then through the theological school at the same place, defraying all my expenses, and then depending on me to repay the debt as I might be able after graduation. I consulted my father, who said that meant that I would enter the ministry of the Protestant Episcopal Church. I declined, with many thanks. A Methodist layman made me the same kind of an offer. He wished me to go to the Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., then our only collegiate institution in the East. We had then no theological school in our Church. That is the offer I should have accepted. I would have done so, only that a presiding elder dissuaded me, urging me to enter the Conference at once, and educate myself while employed in the pastoral work. This wrong advice I followed, and, being recommended to the Conference from the charge on which I had been a supply for almost two years, I was admitted into the Oneida Conference in the early autumn of 1839.