spiritual power, and accomplishing, under God, wonderful results. Multitudes were brought from darkness to light. True converts, changed not only in their opinions but in heart and in life, came "as a cloud, and as the doves to their windows." Richard Boardman and Joseph Pilmoor, the first missionaries sent by Wesley, landed on the American shores in 1769, and fifteen years thereafter eighty-one faithful evangelists were toiling in the gospel field, and fifteen thousand members were enrolled as the fruit of their earnest ministry.

It was evident, too, that the work was just begun. The success already given was not the victory in which these spiritual warriors were to rest, but only the "sound of the going in the tops of the mulberry trees" calling them to battle. These ministers of God, when they gathered in the memorable Conference of 1784, were not like so many reapers coming home weary at eventide, the last rays of the fading twilight guiding their way, and the last sheaves of the gleaning loading their wains. They stood rather in their strength, sickle in hand, amid the growing light and the early dew of the morning, while far away on every side stretched the golden harvest in endless perspective.

The work of the early Methodist evangelists was not only important but peculiar. None but they were doing it, and to human wisdom it would seem that none but they could do it. This work must go on. With the wide field opening before

them, and a divine voice calling, they dared not cease from their labors; they dared not disband.

To do this would be

to prove false to every inner conviction, and to every outward token of duty. But the obligation to do the work involves the right to plan the work, to map out the field, assign the places of the workmen, and establish the rules necessary to secure harmony and efficiency of effort. In a word, the societies were divinely called to organize and equip themselves for all Church duties and responsibilities; and they had a divine. right so to do.

We reach the same conclusion from another point of departure. One of the fundamental principles of Protestantism is, that all true piety is the result of honest conviction, and consequently, in matters purely religious, not only is coercion

wholly out of place, but that every man should regard it as a right and a duty to read God's word, and learn for himself what it teaches. There is a point, indeed, beyond which "no stranger intermeddleth." In the silent depths of the soul-in the inmost recesses of being-God and man meet, and there, whither no human voice can penetrate, no human hand reach, the controversy goes on, and the great question of life and death is determined. The Bible is God's voice to men. Each is entitled to the privilege of hearing it with his own ears. The Papist declaims against private judgment in matters of religion as a most perilous thing, but there is no judgment at all except private judgment. Rome assures me that I cannot understand the Gospel till an infallible pope has explained it to me. But how am I to understand the pope? My only choice is, whether I shall exercise private judgment on the text or the comment; on what God says, or what man says that God says. And who will dare to tell us that the comment is better than the text? And if Peter was the first pope, and all the popes are Peters, how does it happen that the first Peter is an unintelligible and dangerous teacher of the people, and the last one is plain and safe?

But if men read the Scriptures for themselves they may differ in their interpretations. The history of the Church seems to indicate that diversity of opinion is inseparable from religious freedom. The religious opinions of different men are sometimes not only divergent, but even logically antagonistic. And there are limits within which men may differ not only without forfeiting the divine favor, but without dimming their luster as lights of the world, or lessening the practical value of their piety. They may differ so widely that while they do not lack Christian regard for each other, they cannot work together with advantage. Paul and Barnabas so differed in judgment in respect to a practical matter that they separated, and each went his own way. We may wonder that both of them should be so unyielding, nevertheless we do not question the piety of either; nor can we fail to note the fact that the "contention" which arose between them gave rise to no bitterness of spirit on either side, but merely sent them off in different directions, and thus gave a wider range to their ministry of life and salvation.

Thus good men are liable at any time to form such diverse opinions in regard to religious doctrine, or church government, or plans of doing the work of the Church, that there is more of utility and even of true unity in amicable separation than in ill-yoked fellowship. The right to deal with the greater implies the right to deal with the less. If we have the right to judge for ourselves in regard to the nature of God, the plan of salvation, human duty and human destiny, surely we are not treading on dangerous ground when we venture to discuss forms of church organization, or decide whether duty demands that we found a new organization. If it be true, therefore, that men are accountable to God, and not to each other, for their religious views-if the grand Protestant principle of religious freedom is sound--then we must conclude that any body of Christian men, agreeing in regard to doctrine and church usages, and desirous of forming a closer union among themselves, have, by the will of God, a right to judge of the time when they are called to carry their plans into effect. If the American Methodists had a right to adopt and maintain the peculiar opinions which they held, they had a right to organize all needed agencies for the spread of those doctrines. From the great Protestant principle of religious freedom it follows that the Methodists of 1784 had a scriptural right to organize as a Church, and the ecclesiastical edifice which they erected is not built on the sands of human caprice, but is founded on the living Rock, and "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."

But was the Methodist Church organized by those who had a right to act in the case? Stillingfleet, as already cited, affirms that any form of government, "agreed on by the governors of the Church," and consonant with the general rules of the Scripture, exists by divine right. But who are the governors of the Church? In the case of the Methodist societies, who had a right, legal, natural, moral, or scriptural, to take part in the work of organization? It is easy to point in certain directions where no shadow of right existed, and whence even advice, to say nothing of criticism, would be an impertinence. The constitution of the United States has set the Church forever free from the control of the State, and the civil law interposed no obstacle in the way of the contemplated work. The

Episcopal Churches of the country could claim no authority either to help or hinder, for they were in a state of utter confusion, and almost of wreck, with no bond of union among themselves, and at a loss even for a plan of union. The other Churches of the country had no right to utter a word or lift a finger. The Church of England could have no voice in the matter, notwithstanding the fact that the Wesleyan movement began within her pale, because she exacts of her clergy an oath of allegiance to the English sovereign as the head both of the Church and the State; and no American could take such an oath.

The only persons, therefore, that could righteously claim a place among the framers of the plan of organization were John Wesley, the eighty-one preachers, and the fifteen thousand members of the American societies. Wesley, as he himself said, had grown into a true bishop, not through any far-seeing ambition on his part, but by the providence of God; and it would have been unwise as well as ungrateful for the American Methodists not to ask his counsel and co-operation. The preachers, who were bearing the burden and heat of a day of hardest toil, poverty, and self-sacrifice, were certainly entitled to a place among those who were laying the foundations of the Church; and the people had rights which no just or wise man would be willing to see disregarded. In the formularies given in our ritual for the ordination of elders and the consecration of bishops, the office is declared to be committed to the elder or bishop elect, "by the authority of the Church." Who would venture to say that the Church consists of the ministry alone, and that the laity are no part thereof? To show precisely how much authority rightly belonged to each of these three parties-Mr. Wesley, the preachers, and the people to say whose counsels ought to have prevailed in case there had been a conflict of opinion, might not be easy questions to settle; but we are happily saved from the necessity of attempting to settle them by the fact that all these parties concurred with the most complete and hearty unanimity. Mr. Wesley had been repeatedly importuned by both preachers and people to devise measures whereby the American societies could become a regularly organized Church, with a government of its own, and a ministry who should perform all the

duties of the sacred office. When he judged that the time had come for the doing of this work he prepared a plan which was essentially episcopal in its form. Knowing the desires of the preachers and the people, he proceeded to solemnly set apart Dr. Thomas Coke for the office of a superintendent or bishop, directing him in like manner to ordain Francis Asbury. The preachers, assembling in the Conference of 1784 for the purpose of completing the work of organization, felt that no small part of the responsibility devolved upon them, and took action accordingly. When Dr. Coke presented himself before them, and the letter of Mr. Wesley was read, there was no usurpation of authority on the one side nor blind submission on the other. The question was put, in parliamentary form, whether Dr. Coke should be accepted as the Superintendent of the Methodist societies under their new name of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the vote was unanimously in favor. Mr. Asbury was also elected by a unanimous vote. In like manner the entire plan of Church polity was adopted and established without a dissenting voice. The laity, indeed, were not present to bear a part in the formal action of the Conference; but it was well understood that the ministry and the people were a unit in their views and purposes. Referring to the general approval with which these proceedings were hailed, Ezekiel Cooper, who was present at the conference, remarks that "we shall seldom find such unanimity of sentiment upon any question of such magnitude." No one outside the circle named-John Wesley, the eighty-one preachers, and the fifteen thousand members in society-had the semblance of a right to say what form of organization the American Methodists should adopt. All inside that circle concurred with enthusiastic unanimity; consequently there was no disregard of the rights of any one concerned, no assumption of imaginary authority. No unlawful hand was laid upon our ecclesiastical ark.

We now come to the third question: Did those who estab. lished the Methodist Episcopal Church so lapse in any way from Scripture rules as to render their work of doubtful validity?

In the judgment of adverse critics our ecclesiastical structure has one defective spot, which is, as they state it, our lack of valid successional ordination. We do not design to review