Conferences were rejected. The controversy centred upon lay representation, the episcopacy and the presiding eldership.
A General Convention was held on the 2nd of November 1830, a Constitution was adopted, and a new organization was established, styled the Methodist Protestant Church. Within eight years it had accumulated 50,000 members, the majority of whom were in the South and bordering states. The Methodist Protestant Church has a presbyterial form of government, the powers being in the Conference. There is no episcopal office or General Superintendent; each Annual Conference elects its own chairman. Its General Conference meets once in four years. Ministers and laymen equal in number are elected by the Annual Conferences, in a ratio of one delegate for 1000 members. The General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church of 1908 sent delegates to the Conference of the Methodist Protestant Church, making overtures toward an organic union, but formal negotiations have not been instituted. This Church had, in 1907, 1551 ministers, 2242 churches and 183,894 communicants.
The Wesleyan Methodist Connection or Church of America.—In the Methodist Episcopal Church slavery was always a cause of contention. In 1842 certain Methodist abolitionists conferred as to the wisdom of seceding. Among the leaders were Orange Scott (1800–1847), Jotham Horton and Le Roy Sunderland (1802–1885) and in a paper, which they had established, known as The True Wesleyan, they announced their withdrawal from the Church, and issued a call for a convention of all like-minded, which met on the 31st of May 1843, at Utica, New York, and founded the Wesleyan Methodist Connection or Church of America. The enterprise started with 6000 laymen and 22 travelling ministers of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and nearly as many more from the Methodist Protestant Church and other small bodies of Methodist antecedents. Its General Conference has an equal number of ministers and laymen. In less than eighteen months this body had gained in members 250%; but as the Methodist Episcopal Church had purged itself from slavery in 1844, and slavery itself was abolished in 1862, a large number of ministers and thousands of communicants, connected with this body, returned to the Methodist Episcopal Church. It had in 1907 539 ministers, 609 churches and 18,587 communicants.
The Congregational Methodists originated in Georgia in 1852; but in polity they are not strictly Congregational. Appeals from the decision of the Lower Church may be taken to a District Conference, thence to the State Conference, and ultimately to the General Conference. This Church had, in 1907, chiefly in Southern states, 24,000 members, 415 ministers and 425 churches.
The Free Methodist Church.—This body was organized in August 1860, and was the result of ten years of agitation. A number of ministers and members within the bounds of the Genesee Conference, in Western New York, in 1850, began to deplore and denounce the decline of spirituality in the Methodist Episcopal Church. The Rev. B. T. Roberts, the ablest among them, was reprimanded by the Bishop presiding in the Annual Conference, and next year he was expelled. Similar proceedings were taken against others, who appealed to the General Conference of 1860, but their expulsion was confirmed. It was the purpose of the founders to conserve the usage and the spirit of primitive Methodism. The government of the Church is simple, in all but the Episcopacy and its adjuncts resembling that of the Church whence it sprang. The Free Methodist Church had, in 1907, 1032 ministers, 1106 churches, and 31,376 communicants.
Minor Methodist Churches.—The Primitive Methodist Church, as it exists in the United States, came from England. In 1907 it reported 7013 communicants. The Independent Methodists are composed of congregations in Maryland, Tennessee and the District of Columbia. They had fewer than 3000 members in 1907. The Evangelist Missionary Church comprises ministers and members in Ohio, who in 1886 withdrew from the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. They had in 1907 about 5000 members. The New Congregational Methodists in 1881 withdrew from the Methodist Episcopal Church South, in Georgia. They had 4022 members in 1907. The African Union Methodist Protestant Church dates from 1816, and differed from the African Methodist Episcopal Church in opposing itinerancy, “paid ministers,” and episcopacy. In 1907 it had 3867 members in eight states. The Zion Union Apostolic Church was organized in 1869. in Virginia. It was reported in 1890 to have 2346 communicants, and shows no gain at the present time.
Bibliography.—Gross Alexander, History of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (New York, 1894), being vol. xi. of the “American Church History Series”; John Atkinson, Centennial History of American Methodism (New York, 1884); Francis Asbury, Journal (3 vols., New York, 1852); Nathan Bangs, A History of the Methodist Episcopal Church from its Origin in 1776 to the General Conference of 1840 (4 vols., New York, 1839–1842); Henry B. Bascom, Methodism and Slavery (Nashville); A. H. Bassett, History of the Methodist Protestant Church (Pittsburg, 1878, revised, 1882, 1887); Thomas E. Bond, Economy of Methodism, Illustrated and Defended; J. M. Buckley, History of Methodism in the United States (1897); H. K. Carroll, Religious Forces of the United States (New York, 2nd ed. 1896); David W. Clark, Life and Times of Elijah Hedding (New York, 1855); Daniel Dorchester, Christianity in the United States (New York, 1895); Edward J. Drinkhouse, History of Methodist Reform 2 vols., Baltimore, 1899); Robert Emory, History of the Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church (New York, 1843); William L. Harris, Constitutional Powers of the General Conference (1860); J. W. Hood, One Hundred Years of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (New York, 1895); Jesse Lee, A Short History of the Methodists in the United States of America (Baltimore, 1810); John Lednum, History of the Rise and Progress of Methodism in America (1859); Alexander McCaine, History and Mystery of Methodist Episcopacy (Baltimore, 1829); Holland N. McTyeire, A History of Methodism (Nashville, 1884); Joel Martin, The Wesleyan Manual, or History of Wesleyan Methodism (Syracuse, N.Y., 1889); Lucius C. Matlack, Anti-Slavery Struggle and Triumph in the Methodist Episcopal Church (New York, 1881); Stephen M. Merrill, A Digest of Methodist Law (New York, revised ed., 1888); Thomas D. Neely, A History of the Origin and Development of the Governing Conference in Methodism (New York, 1892); id. The Evolution of Episcopacy and Organic Methodism (New York, 1888); Robert Paine, Life and Times of William McKendree (2 vols., Nashville, 1869; revised, 1874); Daniel A. Payne, History of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (1891); James Porter, Comprehensive History of Methodism (New York, 1876); A. H. Redford, History of the Organization of the Methodist Episcopal Church South (Nashville, 1871); J. M. Reid, Missions and Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church (New York, 1895), revised by J. T. Gracey; David Sherman, History of the Revisions of the Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church (New York, 3rd ed., 1890); Abel Stevens, History of Methodism (3 vols., New York, 1858); id. History of the Methodist Episcopal Church (4 vols., New York, 1864); id. The Centenary of American Methodism (New York, 1866); John J. Tigert, A Constitutional History of American Episcopal Methodism (Nashville, 1894); J. B. Wakeley, Lost Chapters Recovered from the Early History of American Methodism (New York, 1858); Thomas Ware, Sketches of His Own Life and Travels (New York, 1839); and the Discipline and Journals of the various American Methodist Churches. And the Proceedings of the Centennial Methodist Conference (1884); of the First Ecumenical Conference (1881); of the second Ecumenical Conference (1891); and of the third Ecumenical Conference (1901). (J. M. Bu.)
METHODIST NEW CONNEXION, a Protestant Nonconformist
Church, formed in 1797 by secession from the Wesleyan Methodists, and merged in 1907 into the United Methodist Church (q.v.). The secession was led by Alexander Kilham (q.v.), and resulted from a dispute regarding the position and rights of the laity, Kilham and his party desiring more power for the members of the Church and less for the ministers. In its conferences ministers and laymen were of equal number, the laymen being chosen by the circuits and in some cases by “guardian representatives” elected for life by conference. Otherwise the doctrines and order of the Connexion were the same as those of the Wesleyans. At the time of the union with the Bible Christians and the United Methodist Free Church in 1907 the Methodist New Connexion had some 250 ministers and 45,000 members.
METHODIUS (c. 825–885), the apostle of the Slavs, was a native of Thessalonica, probably by nationality a Graecized Slav. His father’s name was Leo, and his family was socially distinguished; Methodius himself had already attained high official rank in the government of Macedonia before he determined to become a monk. His younger brother Constantine (better known as Cyril, the name he adopted at Rome shortly before his death) was a friend of Photius, and had earned the surname “the Philosopher” in Constantinople before he withdrew to monastic life. Constantine about 860 had been sent by the emperor Michael III. to the Khazars, a Tatar people living north-east of the Black Sea, in response to their request for a Christian teacher, but had not remained long among them; after his return to within the limits of the empire, his brother and he worked among the Bulgarians of Thrace and Moesia, baptizing their king Bogoris in 861. About 863, at the invitation of Rastislav, king of “Great Moravia,” who desired the Christianization of his subjects, but
