ART. V. THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN THE SOUTH.

By the terms of the Plan of Separation adopted at the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1844 it became the right of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, when formed-if it should be formed agreeably to the Planto secure to its fellowship as many of the members of the undivided Church in the South as it could induce to go with it, from the Gulf to the line of division between slavery and freedom; while it was the right of the Methodist Episcopal Church to retain in its fellowship all whom it could induce to continue therein, in unbroken connection, by pastoral charges, districts, and Conferences, from the line of division between slavery and freedom down to the Gulf.

The line of division between the two Churches might fall anywhere south of the line of division between slavery and freedom. Perceiving this, and seeing the importance to the new organization of making the former line conform as nearly as possible to the latter, the Convention of Southern delegates, assembled in Louisville, Ky., in 1845, by which the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, was formally organized, adopted a resolution looking to the accomplishment of this object; and at once efforts began to be made toward organizing Southern Methodist Episcopal churches within the bounds of the Ohio Conference, in West Virginia. Two Southern Methodist churches were also organized in Cincinnati. These two churches did not have a long life, but the will and the purpose of the Church South were clearly revealed in the fact that they were established.

The Methodist Episcopal Church was able to retain in its fellowship a considerable number of members south of the line between slavery and freedom. There was a strip of slave territory, in some places wider, in others narrower, extending in almost unbroken connection from Delaware on the east to Missouri on the west, in which the Methodist Episcopal Church never ceased to have an existence. In 1864, when the War of the Rebellion was drawing to a close, the Conferences which were located, wholly or partly, in what had been slave States

were the Baltimore, the East Baltimore, the Central German, the Delaware, the Kentucky, the Missouri and Arkansas, the Southwestern German, the Washington, and the Western Virginia. Excluding from the calculation in which we are now engaging such parts of any of these Conferences as were sitnated north of slave territory, we find that the strength of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the South at that time was as follows:

In 1865, the war having been brought to a close and slavery abolished, there began to be manifested a desire on the part of many persons, both white and colored, in the South, below the strip of territory on which the Methodist Episcopal Church had at that time an existence, for membership in it. In the Gulf States this desire revealed itself almost exclusively among the colored people; in the border and intermediate States it was found to exist chiefly among the white people. The leaders of the Church were not unwilling to enter the door thus opened, and began at once to arrange to extend the fellowship and the offices of the Church to all in the South who might desire to receive and enjoy them. From that time to the present the extension of the Church in a southerly direction has gone steadily forward. At first it progressed in the face of great prejudice and opposition. The success that has attended the movement has tended to lessen both the prejudice and the opposition, though they still exist to a certain extent. At times the indifference shown by brethren of our Church in the North has been scarcely less unpleasant to those engaged in the work than the unfriendly attitude with which they have been met in the South.

In 1882, because of the existence, among some of our friends in the North, of a feeling of uncertainty in regard to the progress and stability of the work among the whites of the South, the writer of this article undertook to examine and learn the strength and prospects of our Church in that section. In addition to obtaining letters from prominent ministers in the South, he

prepared statistical tables from the Minutes of the Conferences. These tables aggregated as follows for the year 1882:

These figures were a sufficient answer to any question as to the success of the movement, and showed that no inconsiderable part of the people in the South, white as well as colored, preferred membership in the Methodist Episcopal Church to membership in any other Church that was accessible.

In 1885, influenced again by some things which had appeared in print, the writer went over the ground a second time, and found that the progress made in gathering members in this part of the country was fully equal to that made in other parts. The following was the result for 1885:

Just before the last General Conference our progress in the South was again made the subject of discussion in some of our Church papers, and again appeal was made to the statistical reports, with the following results for 1891-92:

Another quadrennium has passed, and though little has been written during the period that could be objected to, yet, for general information, and more especially in view of the possibility of something being proposed at the approaching General Conference looking to a change of relations of the Methodist Episcopal Church to the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, it has seemed proper again to appeal to figures; and tables of

the most recent statistics, by Conferences, as they lie wholly or partly in the South, have been prepared, as follows:

These figures show that the Church has about quadrupled its membership, with a corresponding increase of Church property, in the South since 1864. This is a much greater increase, relatively, than that of the entire Church.

OUR PROGRESS AMONG THE WHITES OF THE SOUTH.

For the reason that our work among the colored people in the South has appealed more forcibly to the sympathies of the North than has that among the white people of the South, and has been more frequently and more earnestly emphasized before the public, the latter has been less thoughtfully considered and less perfectly understood, whether as to its present strength, its prospects, or its future influence upon Southern sentiment. Many of our friends in the North, otherwise intelligent, have seemed to be ignorant of the fact that we have any hold worthy of consideration upon the white people of the South. Many of them have formed their views, in part, from what has not been said by agents and others when speaking before the public about the Church, its condition, and its wants in the South; and, in part, from letters written by persons who have visited the chief towns and cities in the Gulf States. The South is large, and there are many people in it who are not to be found in the extreme southern centers of population; and, besides, there are as wide differences of view in the South on all important questions as there are in the North.

In speaking of the hold which our Church has upon the white people of the South we have no desire to depreciate what has been done among the colored people, but would simply bring into clearer view that department of enterprise of our Church in the South which, we think, has not been sufficiently emphasized and understood. Our progress at first among the whites was slower than among the colored people, for reasons which are obvious. There was in the way of the whites everything in the nature of social influence to prevent them from coming; nothing brought them but preference of ideas. The colored people, on the other hand, had everything to induce them to come. In addition to the tractive power of ideas, whatever of social life there was for them was altogether among themselves, and they were all of one way of thinking; so that, in coming, they came under the impulse which moved the whole, and not