he shall regularly minute down the names and ages of all the slaves belonging to all the masters in his respective circuit, and also the date of every instrument executed and recorded for the manumission of the slaves, with the name of the court, book, and folio, in which the said instruments respectively shall have been recorded; which journal shall be handed down in each circuit to the succeeding assistants.

"3. In consideration that these rules form a new term of communion, every person concerned, who will not comply with them, shall have liberty quietly to withdraw himself from our society within the twelve months succeeding the notice given as aforesaid; otherwise the assistant shall exclude him in the society.

"4. No person so voluntarily withdrawn, or so excluded, shall ever partake of the Supper of the Lord with the Methodists, till he complies with the above requisitions.

"5. No person holding slaves shall, in future, be admitted into society or to the Lord's Supper, till he previously complies with these rules concerning slavery.

"N. B. These rules are to affect the members of our society no farther than as they are consistent with the laws of the States in which they reside.

"And respecting our brethren in Virginia that are concerned, and after due consideration of their peculiar circumstances, we allow them two years from the notice given, to consider the expedience of compliance or non-compliance with these rules.

To seek its destruction

means."†

It is not our purpose, ir question. We only desir the progress of the Chu The climate of Kentucky, the soil, not only invited sation of Indian hostilitie period, when even life ar peril from the tomahawk of the journey were brave throughout the northern the District. We have a not the dull, the unambit first to Kentucky. The main, fair representatives which they had resided, only those who possesse

* Emory's History of the Discipl

spirits dared to remove to a country not yet given up by the Indians. The District of Kentucky having originally been a part of Virginia, that State was more largely represented upon its soil than any other. Entering the Confederacy as a slave State in 1792, many families of wealth and influence, who were slave-holders in Virginia, as well as other States, were induced to seek a home within its rich domain. It is true, the action of the Christmas Conference upon the question of slavery was, to a great extent, inoperative; nor will it be denied, that, with scarcely an exception, the preachers of Kentucky confined themselves to their legitimate calling-the preaching of the gospel-so that no fault could be found with their conduct; yet, in the statute-book of the Church, prominently stood the declaration, that "no person holding slaves shall, in future, be admitted into society or to the Lord's Supper, till he previously complies with these rules concerning slavery." And in many communities this law was enforced. In the Hartford Circuit, although organized at a later date, the records of their Quarterly Conferences, from 1804 to 1825, show the continual agitation of the question, in the examination of the characters of official members, who, by any means, had become connected with slavery-thereby producing prejudice in the entire community against the Church.

This interference of the Church with an institution purely civil, and, by consequence, its departure from primitive and apostolic Christianity, was too obvious not to attract the attention of even a casual

preachers, the simplic truth of its doctrinesso that many of our the doctrines once pec had been assailed with bigots, were adopted b other Christian Com away from the Church indebted.

In the attacks so fre ism at this early day, mon for our opponents a wish to interfere wit State; from which all was no means of escap sentatives of a Church

placed itself in antago was recognized by the right.

In addition to the

signed, it is proper to notice the prevalence of infidelity at this period.

66

Early in the spring of 1793, circumstances occurred which fanned the passions of the people into a perfect flame. The French Revolution had sounded a tocsin which reverberated throughout the whole civilized world. The worn-out despotisms of Europe, after standing aghast for a moment, in doubtful inactivity, had awakened at length into ill-concerted combinations against the young Republic, and France was engaged in a life-and-death struggle against Britain, Spain, Prussia, Austria, and the German Principalities. The terrible energy which the French Republic displayed against such fearful odds, the haughty crest with which she confronted her enemies, and repelled them from her frontier at every point, presented a spectacle well calculated to dazzle the friends of democracy throughout the world.

"The American people loved France as their ally in the Revolution, and now regarded her as a sister Republic contending for freedom against banded despots.'

The wide-spread sympathy of this country with France was natural. But France had embraced infidelity. The Bible there had undergone a total eclipse; its hallowed teachings despised and spurned; "death declared to be an eternal sleep; while Atheism-the very worst form of infidelity— was openly professed by all classes of society. We

*Collins's Kentucky, p. 46.