American Methodism, its divisions and unification

Front matter

Book M±

Copyright N°.

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT.

Preface

THE largest ecclesiastical family of the Protestant type in the United States of America is the group of Churches called Methodistic.

Beginning in colonial days, it has, throughout the entire existence of the nation, been in touch with all the stages of national development, and, exerting a marked influence upon all grades of society, it has had a very direct part in molding the national life. While it held strategic positions in the cities, it ministered also to the rural regions, and its pioneer preachers followed those who sought homes in the wilderness, and, by their religious services, they saved the frontier from lapsing into barbarism. It was also a unifying force, as in the colonial days and in other periods of % the country's history, its itinerant ministers, like soldiers under orders, moved from one part of the land to another binding the people of the different sections together by a common spiritual bond.

So great has been the influence of Methodism upon the people generally that no one can thoroughly understand the history of the United States who is not fairly familiar with the movements of Methodism from its beginning in this land. As Wesley had much to do in making a new England, across the sea, so his followers on this side the Atlantic have had much to do with the making of the great American Eepublic.

What is more, State questions were at the same time

6 PREFACE

Church questions, and especially when the issue was moral or humanitarian. Conditions that affected the nation affected the Church, and both Church and nation had to grapple with the same forces, and the issues common to both Church and State shook both to their foundations, and, in a number of instances, violently rent the ecclesiastical fabric, and made fissures that have never yet been entirely closed.

In view of this interrelationship between the country and the Church, those who wish to comprehend the history of the nation should know something of the history of American Methodism, as those of this ecclesiastical family who would intelligently know the history of their Church must know the history of their country.

At one time the only Methodism in the United States of America was the Methodist Episcopal Church, but, through various causes, there are to-day at least seventeen Methodistic bodies, large and small, in this country, and nearly all of them have sprung from the Methodist Episcopal Church, which continues to exist with a phenomenal growth, and which still is by far the largest of them all.

The history of American Methodism, therefore, includes the history of the divisions and subdivisions coming down from the original body, the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States of America.

This book is a presentation of such history covering about a century and a quarter and touching some twenty Methodistic denominations.

As in other human relations, so in ecclesiasticisms, there is the law of action and reaction. From a unity there is a tendency to disunity and division, while on

PEEFACE 7

the other hand there is likely to come a period when the divided parts will be attracted to each other and tend to gravitate to one another or towards the main body. In other words, while there was once a disruptive force, there may come into action a force that will bring the disrupted parts together.

So a study of the causes that produced division and diversity will aid in a consideration of tendencies towards unification.

This work is a study of divisions that have taken place and a consideration of unifications that are proposed and that may or may not be brought about. The book contains history which is interesting in itself, but which has an additional interest because it proposes to present enough of the history of the divisions as to aid in an intelligent consideration of suggestions looking towards forms of unification.

Thomas B. Neely.

Philadelphia, Pa., Aug, i, 1915.

Contents

I. Early Movements in American Meth-

odism 13

II. Early Withdrawals from the Parent