The secret society men of the Genesee Conference, although in the minority, were very adroit in their manner of securing control in Conference affairs. Their relation to the Secret Empire appears to have suggested the way, which no scruples of conscience restrained them from effectively pursuing.

     “In any deliberate assembly, a minority composed of men of average intelligence, bound together by secret oaths, unknown to the rest, can generally carry their measures. Scattered about, their concerted action appears to be spontaneous; and they often secure a favorable decision before their opponents have time to rally. In this way the Jacobin Club gained control of the National Assembly, or Legislature of France. In this way the secret society men of the Genesee Conference obtained the controlling influence.” [1]

     For a number of years, unsuspected by their brethren outside the Lodge, these men had been doing the very thing they falsely accused the others of doing—combining in secret to carry out their own ends in the transaction of Conference business. The “Nazarite Union” has been shown to be wholly a fiction, and that the product of a single brain; but the secret conclave composed of the “Regency” preachers in the Genesee Conference was no fiction, but a most disastrous reality. Nor was it in any sense a one-man affair, as was the alleged “Nazarite Union,” but a conclave of from thirty to sixty men, working under cover of darkness, and each pledged to the others to keep their doings secret. Nor would their course have been so reprehensible had it been directed merely toward the shaping of the general policy of the Conference; but it is the fact that their secret meetings were used as means for crushing those brethren of the Conference who would not tamely submit to their proposed policy, that exhibits the iniquitous character of their designs and operations. Having thus attempted to carry out iniquitous ends by crooked measures, they appear to have tried to divert attention from what they had done, and were still doing, by charging the innocent objects of their aversion and plotting with a similar offense. A glaring inconsistency, indeed, but one which is both natural and common among those who secretly plot against the welfare of good men.

     “But if these things were done in secret, and under pledge to keep them secret, how can the public be assured of what was thus done?” This question is a most natural one, but also one that admits of being easily and satisfactorily answered. A friend of the Rev. B. T. Roberts furnished him with the original minutes of one of their meetings. Then, during his trial, Mr. Roberts called a number of preachers who had attended the secret meetings, as witnesses, and from their testimony we learn something of the doings of the secret conclave. The following is a copy of the minutes furnished Mr. Roberts by his friend:
 

Leroy, Sept. 3, 1857.

     Meeting convened according to adjournment; Brother Parsons in the chair. Prayer, by Brother Fuller. Brethren present pledged themselves by rising, to keep to themselves the proceedings of this meeting.

Resolved, That we will not allow the character of Rev. B. T. Roberts to pass until he has had a fair trial. Passed. Moved, That we will not pass the character of Rev. W. C. Kendall, until he has had a fair trial. Passed.

Moved, That Brother Carlton be added to the committee on Brother Kendall’s case. Passed.

     This document, though brief, is full of significance. The following points concerning it are deserving of particular notice:

1. It was read before the Conference, and was repeatedly published, yet its genuineness was never called in question; whereas, had it not been genuine beyond a possibility of dispute, no such silence would have been maintained with reference to so important a paper.

2. The document contains prima facie evidence of the holding of secret meetings, organized and officered in the regular way.

3. The foregoing paper also proves that the meeting of which it is the record was a secret meeting, and that every member was pledged to keep the doings of that meeting to himself.

4. The contents of the document also show conclusively that the object of the meeting was to secure secret and pledged agreement to embarrass, and if possible, destroy, the standing of certain members of the Conference, who were altogether unaware of these underhanded measures —an object and method more worthy of Jesuitical persecutors than of Protestant Christians of the Methodist persuasion.

5. The foregoing minutes also make evident the fact that those in attendance at that meeting, though a minority of the Conference as later evidence will show, proposed through their concerted action to assume prerogatives that belonged alone to the Conference as a whole; as, for instance, when they say, “Resolved, That we will not allow the character of So and So to pass until they have had a fair trial.” The Conference alone was competent to determine whether any of its members should be placed under arrest of character, or whether their characters should be passed. The doings of that meeting remind one of the doings of the Jewish Sanhedrin the night before the crucifixion of Jesus.

     The clue which the foregoing minutes gave Mr. Roberts was carefully followed up; and, as a result, a number of the preachers who had attended these secret meetings were called as witnesses in his trial, and were questioned regarding the character and proceedings of said meetings. This placed them in an embarrassing position. Some were honest enough to give important information, though with more or less reluctance. Others resorted to such evasions as were difficult to reconcile with Christian simplicity and guilelessness.

     From the testimony of those who reluctantly gave information it was learned that a secret organization of ministers had been maintained in the Conference since the session of 1856, at least, and how much longer could not be ascertained. This appears to have been a base prostitution of their secret society relationship, such as was not only a moral wrong to their brethren of the Conference, but an unenviable advertisement of the Lodges they represented as well.

     The Rev. Sanford Hunt was one of the men whom Mr. Roberts called as a witness, and he testified as follows:

     “I was present at meetings at the house of John Ryan. I think there was a chairman and a secretary at the meeting. We had about three meetings. There were generally twenty or thirty at the meeting” [clearly a minority of the Conference].

     At a later session, held at LeRoy, the number was increased by others having been induced to join the conspiracy, until it was about twice as large as formerly; but still the number composing the conclave was a decided minority of the Conference.

     The Rev. Thomas Carlton being called as witness testified:

     “I attended three of the meetings held at the house of John Ryan during the session of the Medina Conference. I attended some of the secret meetings at LeRoy; not all. I should think there might have been sixty at one of the meetings, at another forty; they ranged from thirty to sixty.”

     The Rev. D. F. Parsons was also called, and gave the following testimony:

     “I was chairman of these meetings held at LeRoy. There was a person who kept brief minutes of the meetings.”

     The foregoing testimonies clearly establish the fact that secret meetings were held at various Conferences, that they were organized in due form by the election or appointment of officers, and that regular minutes of the proceedings were kept.

     Moreover, the operations of this association were so secret that its members had been stealthily doing their work and acquiring control in the Conference for at least two years before their brethren had even suspected the existence of such a secret combination. They had noted the unanimity with which some thirty or more preachers voted on all questions bearing with any directness upon the issues between Methodism of the primitive type and that of the modern kind, but this was accounted for on the ground of natural predilection and the influence of Lodge relationships. The representatives of John Wesley Methodism, though possessed of ordinary sagacity, and though on the alert for shrewd tactics from their opponents, had not even dreamed of such a coup as that which the Regency party had so successfully concealed and effectively operated during at least two sessions of the Conference. It is significant, too, that when the facts concerning this secret association within the Conference did at last come to light, through providential circumstances, it was certain members of the conclave who, with reluctance, yet with definiteness, furnished the information.

     If Bishop Simpson, Dr. Buckley, and others who have assumed to trace the ultimate origin of Free Methodism to a “Nazarite Association” partaking the nature of a secret society, could not believe the testimony of those seventeen ministers of the Genesee Conference, accused of belonging to the said association, in their unanimous statement that there was not and never had been any such association or organization, did they credit or discredit the testimonies of Sanford Hunt, Thomas Canton, and D. F. Parsons, as to the various secret, organized meetings which they and from thirty to sixty others had attended from time to time?

     Seventeen men denied the existence of a “Nazarite Association,” and one man declared that he alone was responsible for the fiction which gave occasion for the allegations regarding its existence; three men testified to the existence of an association of ministers which was regularly organized, which held its meetings secretly, and which pledged each member to keep secret the doings of those meetings, and also testified that they attended those meetings from time to time. Here, then, was the only secret society that ever existed within the bounds of the Genesee Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. This, too, was the only “association of ministers” in the aforesaid Conference that ever had anything to do as an association in bringing about the formation of the Free Methodist Church. It was in the secret meetings of this “association of ministers” that those persecutions were instigated and those proscriptions predetermined which made the organization of the Free Methodist Church seem necessary to those who were thereby deprived of their Church home.

     It will now be proper to give some further attention to the work accomplished in these secret meetings, as also to the method of its accomplishment.

     The first attempt appears to have been in the direction of securing certain changes in the Presiding Eldership. In this L. Stiles, Jr., and I. C. Kingsley were the victims. Mr. Stiles has been described as “one of the most devoted, eloquent, gifted, noble-hearted men in the ministry of his denomination.” He was particularly acceptable on the district, and effective in conserving and building up both the temporal and the spiritual interests entrusted to his supervision. Mr. Kingsley was also popular on his district, and highly useful in the advancement of the work of God. Apparently the only thing against these two men was the fact that they were strong advocates of entire sanctification, and were not in sympathy with those secret society preachers who were plotting to secure the control of the Conference. Hence, in a secret meeting of the Regency [2]  preachers it was decided that these men must be removed. A petition was prepared, signed by about thirty of the preachers, and presented to the Bishop, requesting their removal. The Bishop was also informed that unless they were removed, the thirty signers of the petition would decline to take work. Proof of this is furnished by the subsequent testimony of some of their own number at the LeRoy Conference.

     The Rev. William Barrett, being called, testified:

     “I saw at the Medina Conference a petition asking for the removal of Brothers Stiles and Kingsley from the office of Presiding Elder. I can not state the wording of the petition, but understood it to be this; that we would refuse to take work if Brother Stiles and Kingsley were continued in the Presiding Elder’s office.”

     The Rev. J. M. Fuller was also called and gave the following testimony:

     Ques. “Did you state at the Medina Conference that you would not take work under either Stiles or Kingsley ?“

     Ans. “I did.”

     Ques. “Did you hear any one else say the same?”

     Ans. “I heard others say what would amount to about the same.”

     Who that reads the foregoing testimonies can entertain a doubt as to secret meetings having been held, and that for the purpose of securing control of the Conference by the minority, without respect to the fairness or righteousness of the measures employed?

     In order to the accomplishment of the end sought, good men must be sacrificed and men of inferior qualifications and piety put in their places. In fact, these secret society preachers in their unauthorized secret ecclesiastical meetings were habitually doing exactly what they had charged upon their brethren as doing, and for the alleged doing of which they were now, in an underhanded manner, seeking their removal from office and expulsion from the Church. The so-called “Nazarites” were falsely accused of having formed a “Nazarite Organization” partaking the nature of a secret society for the purpose of securing control in the Conference; and this was the real ground of all the proceedings against Roberts, Stiles, McCreery, and others, as also the ground upon which it was sought to have Stiles and Kingsley removed from the Presiding Eldership.

     Such action lacks the common fairness and honesty which respectable men who make no profession of Christianity are accustomed to exhibit. Any argument for the justification of such a course would be equally valid in justification of those who, living by the commission of crime, secure the punishment of honest and upright men by falsely accusing them of the commission of similar crimes.

[1] “Why Another Sect?” p. 64.
[2] A name designating those preachers who had surreptitiously secured control of the Conference.