Dear Father,

Your very kind letter, assigning the reasons why you could not retransfer Rev. L. Stiles to this Conference, and reappoint him to the Genesee District was duly received. We are satisfied that in this, as in all your official actions, you were actuated by a sincere desire to promote the glory of God and the welfare of the Church over which a kind Providence has given you with your worthy colleagues the superintendence. I do not write to complain of this decision. It may have been the best that could have been made, though present appearance indicates that it will not be promotive of either the peace of this Conference or the prosperity of the district. You seem to think that the difficulties of our Conference are satisfactorily adjusted. Permit me to say that, in my opinion they were never greater or more serious than at the present time. The Conference is divided. Two distinct parties exist. With the one or the other every preacher is in sympathy. A few individuals may affect to stand aloof, and serenely looking down from their imaginary Olympus may assume to act the part of arbiters between the contending factions. These assumptions are too glaring to impose on any save those who make them. The division is not a personal one. It has no personal animosities for its basis. On the contrary, there exists, in the main, a good understanding between those who are found arranged on opposite sides. With few exceptions I believe the preachers cherish mutually confidence and brotherly love.

Nor is this disagreement occasioned wholly by the connection of some with secret societies. Such connection may and doubtless does tend to produce alienation of feeling. Those bound together by the extra ties of a secret brotherhood with its peculiar interests, its attractive mysteries, and its special recognitions, will, according to the inflexible laws which govern the affections, feel a stronger sympathy for each other, than for those to whom they are bound only by the common ties that unite together ministers and men of the same communion. They may not be aware of the existence of this partiality, or if they are, they may struggle against it. But here, as elsewhere, the law of affinity will prevail. This connection with secret societies, I regard both as an effect and a cause of the division among us. Were it not for Masonry and Odd Fellowship the party leaning on these societies for support would be too insignificant in numbers to effect much mischief. And, on the other hand, many by belonging to these societies are drawn into measures which, if left alone, they would never tolerate. Still, if nothing else kept us apart we might come together. The conviction of the necessity of union in order to promote the cause of Christ, is so deeply felt, that, if it could be purchased by a total and eternal separation from all secular societies, there are but few among us who would not be willing to make the sacrifice. But the REAL DIFFICULTY LIES DEEPER. It is far more perplexing. Conference resolutions cannot reach it. Committees of adjustment and pacification cannot come near it. Nothing short of the Almighty power of the Holy Spirit can ever bring us together. He alone can give us that unanimity of views without which unanimity of action cannot long prevail.

The difference among us is fundamental. It does not relate to things indifferent but to those of the most vital importance. It involves nothing less than the nature itself of Christianity. Our brethren from whom we differ, have a theory of religion as yet clearly defined in the minds of but a few, and therefore not generally under-stood. Some who are laboring to carry it out hardly know themselves what they are aiming at. They may honestly doubt whether their leaders hold to such views of religion as I believe they do. This theory is to the effect, that Christianity changes, that we are not to expect it to present the same manifestations now that it did in a less refined age, that we are in the habit of laying too much stress upon mere experience, that it is now in a transition state, and is about to assume the benevolent form. According to this view, the model Christian is one who leads a moral, respectable and fashionable life, and contributes liberally to the various objects of benevolence. Any ado about the salvation of souls is not to be tolerated. What we call religion they call fanaticism; what they denominate Christianity, we consider formalism.

Differing thus in our views of religion, we necessarily differ in our measures for its promotion. They build stock churches and furnish them with pews to accommodate select congregations, and with organs, melodions, violins and professional singers to execute difficult pieces of music for the entertainment of fashionable audiences. We favor free churches, congregational singing, and spirituality, simplicity and fervency in worship. We endeavor to promote revivals, such as we remember to have seen in the days of our childhood, under the labors of the fathers; such as have made Methodism the leading denomination of the land. Their most talented men I have never known guilty of any such irregularity as being responsible for a revival. We inculcate upon all the necessity of self-denial, non-conformity to the world, purity of heart and holiness of life: they ridicule singularity, encourage by their silence, and in some cases by their own example, and that of their wives and daughters "the putting on of gold and costly apparel," and treat with distrust all professions of deep Christian experience. When we desire to raise money for the benefit of the church we appeal to the love the people bear to Christ; they for this purpose have recourse to the sale of pews to the highest bidder, to parties of pleasure, oyster suppers, fairs, grab bags and lotteries. In short we rely practically upon the agency of the Holy Spirit for the building up of the Church of God; they appear to us to depend upon the favor of Secret Societies, the patronage of the worldly and the various artifices of human policy.

If this diversity of opinion and of practice among the ministers of our denomination, were confined to this Conference, it would be comparatively unimportant. But unmistakable indications show that prosperity is producing upon us, as a denomination, the same intoxicating effect that it too often does upon individuals and societies. The change by the General Conference of 1852 in the rule of Discipline requiring that "All our Houses of Worship should be built plain and with free seats," and that of the last General Conference, in the rule respecting dress, show that there are already too many among us, who would take down the barriers that have hitherto separated us from the world. The fact that the removal is gradual, so as not to excite too much attention and commotion, renders it none the less alarming. [1]

¹ Letter from B. T. Roberts to Bishop T. A. Morris of the Methodist Episcopal Church, written from Albion, New York, November 15, 1856. Found among the personal letters of the Roberts family and never before published.