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General Association of Congregational churches in Connecticut sent out an "Address" on the sanctification of the Sabbath, and prepared and circulated a petition to Congress against the transportation and opening of the mails on the Lord's day. The following year the General Association of Massachusetts took similar action in regard to the mails. From 1812 to 1819 the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church repeatedly engaged in discussions on this subject, and petitions were drawn up and sent to the people for signatures and then forwarded to Congress, praying for the repeal of the laws requiring the conveyance of the mail on the Sabbath.

In 1827 Rev. Dr. Gardner Spring and a few other gentlemen attempted to hold a public meeting in the City Hall, New York city, for the promotion of a better observance of the Sabbath. Able speakers were engaged, but long before the time for the meeting the place was preoccupied by those who had taken alarm at the supposed invasion of their rights. When Dr. Spring and his friends entered the hall they found the rabble passing resolutions advising the "ministers to mind their business," etc. Dr. Spring says:

We were marked men. The excited multitude looked daggers at us. They would not listen to us. Our persons were in danger and we left the hall. . . . Other efforts were made, but without success. Even the most glaring Sabbath nuisances could not be abated, while the abetters of such efforts met a storm of reproach from the press."

When General Lafayette visited this country in 1824 public military honors were paid to him on the Lord's day. The General Association of Massachusetts at its next session passed resolutions presenting their views of the importance of the Christian Sabbath, their painful apprehensions in witnessing the growing indifference to the sanctity of the day, and especially the public and repeated violations of it in paying honors to General Lafayette.

Organization.

In 1828 a "General Union for the Observance of the Sabbath" was organized in New York city, Rev. M. Bruen, secretary, and Hon. Arthur Tappan, treasurer. This Society was immediately recommended by the various religious bodies to the sympathy of the churches. The report of the Postmaster-General, in 1829, in favor of Sunday mails, to which reference has been made, aroused a strong feeling of indignation, and excited the churches to more earnest measures for preserving the Sabbath from profanation.

From 1830 to 1840 no special organized efforts were put forth to

promote the observance of the Sabbath. About 1840 the radical abolitionists, who received the designation of "Comeouters," began to assail the churches, the Bible, and the Sabbath as bulwarks of slavery, and sought their overthrow. They held several anti-Sabbath conventions, in which the most violent language was used in denouncing the Lord's day, shocking the moral sense of the Christian public. But these things had an influence to quicken the friends of the Sabbath into action. During the year 1842 Rev. Justin Edwards, D.D., who for seven years had acted a leading part in conducting and organizing the temperance reformation, and had just closed a six years' presidency of Andover Theological Seminary, devoted himself especially to the promotion of temperance, the observance of the Sabbath, and the proper treatment of the Bible.

On the 27th of June, 1842, in Andover, Mass., Dr. Edwards formed a Sabbath association. On the 29th he was at Westborough, Mass., attending the General Association of Massachusetts, and procuring the passage of resolutions on temperance, the Sabbath, and the Bible. On the 31st he was at New Haven, raising funds for the Sabbath cause; then at Saratoga and at Mr. Edward C. Delevan's, at Ballston; then at Utica, then at Rochester, holding a Sabbath convention; then successively at Geneva, Auburn, Albany, Troy, Boston, and other parts of New England, conferring with gentlemen as to providing funds, and otherwise exerting his powerful agency for the cause of the Sabbath, to which he devoted seven years of his public life.* On the 4th of April, 1843,

The American and Foreign Sabbath Union

was formed in Boston, Chief-Justice Williams, of Connecticut, president; Dr. Justin Edwards, secretary. A year after Dr. Edwards reported that he had visited ten States, had traveled 12,000 miles, had held five general Sabbath conventions, and had addressed twenty-five different ecclesiastical bodies.

On the 27th of November, 1844, a National Sabbath Convention was held in Baltimore, attended by upward of seventeen hundred delegates from eleven different States, Hon. John Quincy Adams presiding. This convention adopted with great unanimity twenty resolutions expressive of their sense of the sacredness, the divine authority, the obligations, and the benefits of the Sabbath, and also three able and forcible public appeals for the true and proper

*Rev. Justin Edwards, D.D. By Rev. Wm. A. Hallock. American Tract Society. Pp. 448-451.

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477

observance of the day-one to the people of the United States, one to all Canal Commissioners, and one to railroad directors. Within the first three years of Dr. Edwards's labors fifteen general Sabbath conventions were held, of which seven were State conventions, each attended by from one hundred to five hundred delegates. On the adjournment of the National Convention, at Baltimore, Dr. Edwards entered upon one of those extensive and laborious tours for which he had become noted in other departments of reform, and by which he exerted so effective an influence.

During his connection with this Society as its secretary. Dr. Edwards prepared a valuable series of Permanent Sabbath Documents, the first of which was issued in 1844, exhibiting "the ends for which the Sabbath was appointed," the reasons why it should be kept, the benefits of observing it, and the evils which, by laws that no one can annul or evade, must come upon those who profane it. The second appeared in 1845, upon "The change from the seventh to the first day of the week;" the third, in 1847, entitled, "The Sabbath a family institution;" the fourth, in 1848, showing "The proper mode of keeping the Sabbath." The fifth, and last, was upon "The developments of Providence in regard to the Sabbath," and was published the following year.

In 1846 Dr. Edwards prepared the Sabbath Manual, which was stercotyped in several languages and very widely circulated through the country. Mr. Edward C. Delevan, of Albany, had one hundred thousand copies printed and circulated among the stockholders and travelers on the New York Central Railroad from Albany to Buffalo, to prepare the way for the discontinuance of railroad travel on the Sabbath. The American Tract Society co-operated in this work, circulating the Sabbath Manual in English, German, Spanish, and French, to the surprising number of one million, one hundred and seventy-five thousand copies.*

Dr. Edwards's last report was made in May, 1850, in which he stated that he had traveled more than forty-eight thousand miles through twenty-five of the United States. "About forty railroad companies," he says, "stop the running of their cars on the Sabbath on about four thousand miles of roads. The communities through which they pass, and whose right to the stillness and quiet of the day had for years been grossly violated by the screaming and rumbling of cars in time of public worship, are now free from the nuisance, and are permitted to enjoy their rights and privileges without molestation."

*Life of Rev. Justin Edwards, p. 496.

CHAPTER V.

ORGANIC CHANGES IN PROTESTANT CHURCHES.

EVERAL important ecclesiastical movements occurred during this period. The schisms occasioned by Arian and Socinian tendencies will be sketched in the next chapter. Those which will be here noticed were caused almost entirely by differences occasioned by questions of policy or polity.

The Methodist Episcopal Church

experienced the greatest number of these schisms. The Reformed Methodist Church had its origin in Vermont, in 1814, under the leadership of Rev. Messrs. Elijah Bailey and Ezra Amiden, and grew entirely out of questions of polity—a protest against Episcopacy. Rev. Pliny Britt, for some years a successful minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church in New England, joined the movement, and, after spending about forty years in that body, a short time before his death returned to the mother Church. This denomination has never numbered more than five thousand members, and has existed chiefly in Massachusetts, Vermont, northern New York and Ohio.

A colored secession from the Methodist Episcopal Church, originating near the close of the last century, in Philadelphia, under the leadership of Rev. Richard Allen, became more fully organized in 1816, and took the name of the African Methodist Episcopal Church Mr. Allen was elected and ordained as the first bishop, and served until his death in 1831, when he was followed in the episcopal office by Rev. M. Brown. Since 1860 this body has grown very rapidly.

The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church originated in the city of New York in 1820, in a secession from the Methodist Episcopal Church, and in 1821 the first Annual Conference, consisting of 22 ministers, was held in New York city. In 1836 Rev. Christopher Rush was elected Superintendent for four years. In 1847 two

METHODIST CHURCHES.

479

superintendents were elected. This church also has grown very rapidly since 1860.

The Stilwellite secession from the Methodist Episcopal Church occurred in New York city in 1820, but never became a large body, and long since disappeared. Opposition to the polity of the Methodist Episcopal Church was the basis of the movement. Its few churches existed for a while on an independent plan and subsequently joined the Methodist Protestant Church.

The Methodist Protestant Church was formed in 1830 by a secession from the Methodist Episcopal Church. The agitation which culminated in this organization was continued through a half dozen previous years. The objections which were alleged against the Methodist Episcopal Church were its episcopal form of government and the exclusion of the laity from the legislative councils of the Church. Efforts were made to secure a representation in the Conferences, but without avail. In 1824 a meeting of the reformers was held in Baltimore, at which a "Union Society" was formed for the purpose of agitating the question of a change of government. Similar organizations were formed elsewhere, and a periodical was established called the Mutual Rights. In the spring of 1826 the Baltimore Union Society initiated a movement for a general convention to consider the expediency of petitioning the General Conference of 1828 for lay representation. The convention was held November, 1827, and the petition was presented, but received an unfavorable answer. The reform movement was opposed, the "Union Societies were condemned, and, in some places, members were expelled who belonged to them. Thereupon the "Reformers" began to secede in considerable numbers. A convention met in Baltimore November 12, 1828, which drew up provisional articles of association, and November 2, 1830, another convention assembled in the same place and adopted a constitution and Book of Discipline under the name of the Methodist Protestant Church. Rev. Francis Waters, D.D., of Baltimore, was president of the convention.

The Evangelical Association, sometimes called "German Methodists" and "Albrights "-noticed in the preceding period-was organized in Pennsylvania, in 1800, by Rev. Jacob Albright, originally a convert to Methodism. Gradually societies multiplied and conferences were formed, and in 1816 a General Conference was held. Since 1843 a General Conference composed of delegates elected by the Annual Conferences among the elders has held quadrennial sessions.