African Methodist Episcopal Church

“ A few weeks ago the members of the Baltimore District Conference, Washington Annual Conference, passed a preamble and resolutions, in which they declare that members of African descent in the Methodist Episcopal Church do not enjoy practically the fullest recognition of Church fellowship and communion; that the only way to prove to them and the world that they are recognized as equals in the Church is the election of a man of African descent to the office of bishop ”

“ In the next place we proceed to say—When the Methodist Society in the United States was small, the Africans enjoyed comfortable privileges among their white brethren in the same meeting-house ; but as the whites increased very fast the Africans were pressed back; therefore, it was thought essentially necessary for them to have meeting-houses of their own, in those places where they could obtain them, in order to have more room to invite their coloured brethren yet out of the ark of safety to come in ”

“ But, although we judge it inexpedient to prostrate the constitution and government of the church to accommodate any case whatever, firmly believing the evil would ultimately over-balance any good which might be supposed to result from it, we consider the condition of the Africans such as to demand every prudent exertion within our power to recover them from their wandering, and preserve them in the confidence and communion of the church. ”

“ The preachers of our Zion Church, (except the said George White,) believing that Bishop Allen had acted very unkind towards the church, by sending an Elder in- to this city, with intention to establish a third society of African Methodists, thereby taking the advantage of our present necessity, they met together and resolved not to preach for them, nor allow them to preach for us. ”

“ It was feared that much harm would come to Methodism among our people if a bishop of African descent were not chosen at that General Conference. Ought we to say it was the hope of some? In the rural districts, where the general intelligence of the race was not above par, it may have caused friction because of the omnipresence of “colored bishops,” “General Conference officers,” “college presidents,” etc. The years that are to come, unless a strange influence not related to that of the Church of the past comes upon our Methodism, will show that up to this time it was better as it happened. ”

“ And it is provided and agreed, that the said Elder may claim, for himself and his white brethren, and shall have and possess a right to preach once on every Sunday, and once during the course of the week (and no more when there is a sufficient number of African Preachers) in any or all the houses set apart and built, or to be set apart and built, by the aforesaid Trustees or their successors, of the said African Zion Church, in the city and suburbs of New York. ”

“ Pretty soon the more manly members of our Church, in the community where such tricks were played, would begin to say: “Well, that’s passing strange, that white ministers of our Church prefer African ministers to our own. ”

“ Shut away from the large Negro populations of the South, and confronted with aggressive African Methodism among the smaller Negro population in the North calling for separation from the whites in ecclesiastical organization and government, the field of operation of the Methodist Episcopal Church was necessarily proscribed among Africa's sons and daughters. ”

“ There are at this time various societies and congregations of coloured people, in different places, who have been collected and raised under our ministerial labours, and who have erected and built themselves houses for the public worship of God, wherein they assemble separate from the white people for their religious devotions; and also, there are a considerable number of pious coloured men, whom we have reason to believe are qualified to preach the word of life and salvation, and to be useful in their labours among the people of their own colour ”

“ And it is further declared, that no person who may come recommended to the Elder from other societies, as a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, shall be admitted or considered as a member of the African Church, if he refuse to have his name registered in the books of the said Zion Church, after notice given him. ”

“ The Preachers of Zion Church being unpleasantly exercised in mind about a resolution of the white Methodist Preachers in one of their Conferences, relative to a Local Preachers' Conference, they had previously appointed a meeting, and had requested our Trustees to meet them and council each party in regard to what they had heard, and the appointed time happened to be on the night of the same day that the Trustees met the aforesaid Preachers at Peter Williams', in Liberty Street ”

“ They believe that unhappy divisions among their African brethren will continue to exist, unless there is another permanent African Methodist connexion formed, besides that of our brother Richard Allen's. ”

“ First, Resolved, that the Philadelphia Conference do advise and recommend that one of our Bishops do attend and preside in the African Conference, appointed to sit in New-York, and to superintend their organization as an African Methodist Conference, under the patronage of our Bishops and Conferences, agreeably to the proper plan, viz. (if the New- York Conference concur with us.)
1. One of the Bishops always to preside in the said Conference, or in case no Bishop be present, then, such white Elder as the Bishop shall appoint is to preside. ”

“ Many Preachers have been raised up among them, who have been very useful in a located state; but they have hitherto been confined; they have had no opportunities to travel, being generally poor men, and having no provision made for them to go forth and dispense the Word of Life to their brethren, their usefulness has been greatly hindered, and their coloured brethren have been deprived of those blessings which Almighty God might have designed to grant through their instrumentality. ”

“ The next to be noticed is an Elder and his duty; but, as we find him so nearly like our present mode, we judge it needless to say much on that point, only that he was the same in order, or ordination, but not in degree with a Bishop, because he is not so advanced to that office by the suffrage of the church. We will, therefore, only transcribe one verse from Lord King:
"The Presbyters ruled in those churches to which they belonged ”

“ The Preachers accordingly held their meeting at the residence of William Miller, in Mulberry Street, and, after some consultation, they resolved to request a meeting of all the official members of our Church.
The official members, therefore, came together in the Rose Street Academy, on Friday night, August 11th, 1820, and the Preachers informed them that they hadheld a meeting for the purpose of considering the present state of our Church, and that there were two grand questions put and answered at that meeting, viz.—Shall we join Bishop Alien? Answer, No. Shall we return to the white people? ”

“ There exists no expectation or prospect, that the coloured Preachers will be admitted to a vote or seat in our Conferences, or participate in sundry other privileges among the white Preachers, in their labours and pastoral care of the churches and societies generally ”

“ Of our Churches in Connexion at the present date.
it is presumed that it would be a satisfaction to many of our brethren and friends, to know the number of Churches or Meeting-houses we have, since our organization as a regular Evangelical Church in 1820 ”

“ It came to the Christian Church slowly. The African people in America, I trust, will seize upon it more rapidly, for they have a large emotional nature and great faith. What they now need is education and intellectual character, and those qualities which give shape, and tone, and persistence, to the forces which direct and control events.
Men who have been slaves may not take on this, and their children may not in great numbers. But their children's children are coming on multitudinously, and from them must go those who shall preach the Gospel to their own race in Africa. ”

“ It will be readily seen therefore that should any single Christian denomination once lower its standard in this respect, converts would flock to it in thousands. The African Church does this, and springing from the people themselves, meets the situation. Its members probably represent the Christian natives of the near future in Southern Nigeria, men for the most part commercially successful, boldly solving their own problems, living an easy-going and comfortable life, their religious standard lowered to their own desires. ”

“ The churches alone can create a race sentiment broad and deep and potent enough to bear up an enterprise aiming at the Christianization of Africa. It is the Gospel, ministered by holy men, which unifies and exalts communities. It is the Church, as the centre and representative of divine power, which stands for God, and the word and the ordinances entrusted to her keeping are his only visible hold upon the world. ”

“ The General Assemblies of both divisions of the Presbyterian Church, have also recommended the Society to the patronage of their people. The Baptists and the Protestant Episcopal Church, both, have missions in Liberia, and their people need no other inducements, it is conceived, than the fact that their contributions are needed, to enlist them in aiding emigration to that Republic. ”

“ This the Episcopal Church offers him. A complete faith, naturally, is to be found in a comprehensive church. The Episcopal Church is most comprehensive. She believes more in turning in than in turning out. Men are not brought into the fold to be "turned out" for every little thing, but they are brought in to be built up, established and rooted and grounded in Him. The church, then, is adapted to the present Negro because she gives him not opinions and theories, but the living faith of the ages and a living Christ as potential to-day as when He trod this earth clothed in flesh. ”

“ Last May, this Society received a letter, stating, “There is a part of Africa on which I have long had my eye. It is the Congo country. There is not much knowledge of the Christian religion in the Congo. Only three or four of its inhabitants can read and write. The language of the coast is the original African. The old king has strongly expressed his hopes that some white men would come to them. It is, therefore, a great satisfaction, and a high and sacred favor to me, to offer £1,000 if the Baptist Missionary Society will undertake to teach these interesting people the words of eternal life. ”

“ The Mission of the American Protestant Episcopal Church, in Liberia, was regularly commenced in the year 1836, at Cape Palmas. It now embraces 6 clergymen, including Bishop Payne. A high school has been established for training colonist teachers and missionaries. Connected with this school are 5 candidates for orders, 3 of whom are natives. The number of youth in this school at present, is 10; who are supported at the expense of the mission. The children of the colonists, to the number of 15 or 20, are admitted as day scholars. ”

“ There is no man within the Methodist Episcopal Church who would feel worse than the writer, were any General Conference of our Church to elect a white man to the episcopacy because he had been an Abolitionist, a Federal soldier, was a Japanese, or who had been a foreign missionary, but, aside from these things, had no other qualification. ”