Methodism and Slavery

Publishing Committee · BATTLE CREEK, MICH. · May 27, 1858

Methodism and Slavery.

THE New York East Methodist Conference, yesterday, after routine business, took up its second resolution on Slavery, and the Rev. Mr. Roche, M. D., of Philadelphia, occupied two hours in telling stories about how the slaveholding Methodists of the Philadelphia Conference had treated him. During the last eighteen years he has been stationed on slave territory for two years—at Smyrna, Delaware. Nearly half an hour was consumed in telling a story of the moderation of the British in sparing a tree that was very much prized by their American enemies. He hoped they would at least exhibit no less consideration for their Southern brethren, and concluded by extolling the great moderation of the Philadelphia Conference in declining to consider the charges preferred by the Rev. Mr. Quigley last month, in the Philadelphia Conference, against the Rev. J. D. Long, of publishing ungodly lies about the brothers in Christ belonging to the Conference, who happen to hold slaves.

This brought out Mr. Long, who is at the Conference, with his book, "Pictures on Slavery," and who declared that the Philadelphia Conference refused to consider the charges against him, because there was nothing in his book but the truth.

The book is very general in its statements of facts, which are few for a volume of 400 pages. Mr. Long estimates that there are 6,000 slaves now owned by members of the Methodist Episcopal Church North, more than were owned by the whole Church, North and South, in 1845. He states that Samuel Green, a free colored man, of Dorchester Co., Md., and a local preacher of the Methodist Episcopal Church, was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment last year for having in his possession a

copy of Uncle Tom's Cabin; that Dorchester Co. is almost exclusively a Methodist county, and the Methodists of the State could have him pardoned at any moment they might desire. Mr. Long, in a picture of a class-meeting gives the following report of what was said by

HENRY BANNING.—"Brethring, my soul is hot—hot as pepper. Before I sought de Lord I was a very bad negro; I got drunk, and took de name of de Lord in vain; but now I am a new creature in Christ Jesus, and on my way to Hebben. I toats de witness in my breast! Bless de Lord! I feel dat my name is written on his hands."

Mr. Long handed us the following advertisement, which appeared in the Cambridge Herald, (Dorchester Co., Md.) of Oct. 28, 1857:

$300 REWARD.—Ran away from the subscriber, from the neighborhood of Town Point, on Saturday night, 24th inst., my Negro Man, AARON CORNISH, about 35 years old. He is about five feet and ten inches high, black, good-looking, rather pleasant countenance, and carries himself with a confident manner. He went off with his wife DAFFNEY, a Negro Woman belonging to Reuben E. Phillips. I will give the above reward if taken out of the county, and $200 if taken in the county; in either case, to be lodged in Cambridge (Md.) jail. LEVI D. TRAVERSE. Oct. 28, 1857.

The Rev. Levi D. Traverse is a local preacher, belonging to the Philadelphia Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and Reuben E. Phillips is a brother in good standing.

The church edifice in Cambridge was built some years ago, and deeded to trustees to be held for the Methodist Episcopal Church, so long as its discipline shall tolerate Slavery. Judge Lecompte, of Kansas notoriety, was a convert in a revival which took place in this church soon after its dedication.

The position of the Methodist Church on Slavery since John Wesley said that "American Slavery was the sum of all villainies," has varied considerably. The first discipline, adopted in 1784, required members to free their slaves within twelve months, and prohibited the admission of slaveholding members, besides making it a capital offense to buy or sell slaves, or to give them away. This lasted for twenty-four years, when so much of it was repealed as related to private members. In 1836 the General Conference sent out the exceedingly Pro-Slavery pastoral address, of which the venerable Dr. Bangs avowed himself the author on Monday. Preachers were tacitly allowed to hold slaves, and in 1844 only the most strenuous opposition of New England and the West prevented the ordination of a slaveholding Bishop. To-day, although the main body of slaveholding Methodists have withdrawn from the church and established the Methodist Episcopal Church South, two Conferences (the Philadelphia and Baltimore Conferences) cover territory in which are Methodist Church members owning six thousand slaves. One of these (the Baltimore Conference) passed the following resolutions in March, 1857:

Resolved, by the Baltimore Conference, in conference assembled, That we highly deprecate the agitation of the Slavery question, which has already resulted to the great detriment of the political and religious interests of the country. Resolved, That, as heretofore, we will oppose with zeal any aggression which shall be attempted by the abolition agitators of the country.

The struggle in the New York Conference is now upon the point whether the discipline should be altered so as to exclude slaveholders decisively, and whether the Methodist pulpit and press should be used against Slavery; in short, whether it should be considered as a sin. The New York Conference has no authority in the matter, and no change can be effected until the General Conference meets in 1860. But it can manufacture public opinion by expressing its own, and, perhaps, influence the general conduct of the Methodist press and pulpit, by showing what sort of delegates it will send to the next General Conference, as the New York delegation, if radically Anti-Slavery, will give that side so great a preponderance in the next General Conference, that the discipline will be altered, the sinfulness of slaveholding recognized, and editors and ministers instructed to write and preach against it.

[Tribune.]