That the dominant religion had departed as far from the original standards of Methodism as Mr. Roberts’s paper on “New School Methodism” represented, is fully corroborated by representatives of the dominant party, whose candor and moral courage led them to express their convictions from time to time, as certain extracts from the public press, which will presently be subjoined, most clearly show. A careful comparison of these reprints with Mr. Roberts’s article will, in the author’s opinion, lead to a general verdict that they afford a stronger arraignment of the religion of the dominant party in the Genesee Conference at the time of the agitation in question than that for which the author of “New School Methodism” was cited to trial and expelled by his Conference.

     The following appeared as an editorial in the Buffalo Advocate, organ of the “Regency Party,” and was reprinted in the Christian Advocate and Journal, now known as the New York Christian Advocate:
 

RELIGIOUS INTEREST IN BUFFALO

     We have none; we have no more than is usual through the year. We do not intend to convey the idea by the above that there is any special movement among us, or that there is any marked effort toward getting souls converted, or keeping those converted who are already in the Church. The great movement among us is, we judge, to determine how far the Church can go back to the world, and save its semblance to piety, devotion, and truth. Hence, many, many Church members have become the most frivolous and pleasure-loving, and folly-taking part of our town’s people. They love, give and sustain the most popular, worldly amusements, such as dancing-parties, card-parties, drinking-parties, masquerade—and surprise—parties, and have no disposition to come out from the world and be separate from it. All this may be seen, read and known in more or less of the Buffalo Churches.

     The city of Buffalo was the headquarters of the “Regency” party, and the state of religion there was in all probability a fair example of the religion of the dominant party generally. And we submit to the candid reader this question: Is there anything in Mr. Roberts’s article to compare with the foregoing editorial in the way of depreciating the state of religion in the Genesee Conference? To the person who calmly surveys the situation at this distance from the occurrences referred to, it at least appears gravely inconsistent to persecute the so-called “Nazarites,” even to the extent of excommunication from the Church, for statements regarding the decline of Methodism as moderate as that contained in “New School Methodism,” and then send forth in the official publications of the Church such an indictment of the Church for its backslidden condition as that contained in the foregoing editorial.

     Following the appearance of the foregoing editorial in the periodicals referred to, the Rev. William Hart published in the Northern Independent an article in which he commented on it as follows:
 

     Now the question is, are these charges true or false? If false, is the Advocate aware what it costs to slander the Church in these days? It saw a couple of men beheaded for an offense which dwindles into superlative insignificance, when compared with these wholesale charges. Let us look at them.

1st. “No effort towards getting souls converted.”

2nd. “No effort to keep souls converted.”

3rd. “The great movement,” “the marked effort is to gain a position where they can just balance between God and the devil.”

4th. “The Church members are frivolous, folly-loving, and pleasure-taking, even more so than those who are openly in the way to hell.”

5th. “They love, give and sustain dancing parties, card-parties and drinking-parties, etc., and have no disposition to do otherwise.”

     These are the charges; now for the testimony. Brother Robie [Editor of The Advocate] called: Are the above charges true respecting the Churches in Buffalo? Ans. “All this may be seen, read and known in more or less of the Buffalo Churches.”

     Dr. Stevens [then editor of the Christian Advocate and Journal] sends out these awful charges to his thousands of readers, on the simple assertion of The Advocate, without waiting to know the facts. How he has anathematized the Northern Independent, as vilifying and slandering the Church; but since its commencement, to the present day, where will we find anything to equal the above from Bros. Robie and Stevens? Now if the above charges cannot be sustained, should not Brother Robie be prosecuted for slandering the Buffalo Churches, and Dr. Stevens for “publishing and circulating” “slanderous reports ?“ If they belonged to the Genesee Conference, and were charged with abusing and slandering the Church, they would, ecclesiastically, be sent higher than Haman. In the Genesee Conference, the above extract from The Advocate would be considered as slanderous, whether true or false. So, Messrs. Editors, you had better take care. What was Brother Roberts’s and McCreery’s fault, compared with yours? Where or when have these brethren ever said anything half so severe as this from The Advocate? But, if what Brother Robie writes be true, why all this hue and cry against the so-called Nazarites? The same ungodly influences, and the same proneness to comply with them exist in other places as well as Buffalo. And would it be strange, if like causes produce results like those now being experienced by the Churches in Buffalo? The same state of things narrated by The Advocate, has [existed] and does exist in other places. The temptations of the devil have been listened to, and the prayer-meeting has given way to the social party; entire consecration has died out, and the spirit of compromise between the Church and the world obtains; formality and indifference respecting the salvation of souls have taken the place of spirituality, and the love which constrains “to seek the wandering souls of men.” To counteract these effects, a few faithful souls stood up for Jesus and, like the Hebrew children, declared they would not fall down and worship the worldly gods which those “frivolous, folly-loving and pleasure-taking members” and ministers are setting up. This, as everybody knows, that knows anything about It, was the origin of Nazaritism. The natural antagonism between sin and holiness has caused all the trouble. While the current flows along, as Brother Robie says it does in Buffalo, and nobody stands up for Jesus and proclaims the whole truth, they will have peace and prosperity; but it will be the peace of death, and the prosperity of those “whose eyes stand out with fatness.” If Brother Robie would stand out as an uncompromising exponent of the whole truth, and in the might of the Spirit bear a decided and open testimony against all worldly connections and associations that are cursing the Churches in Buffalo, he would see such a commotion and storm of opposition as has been seen and felt in other places. But, glory to God! souls would be awakened and saved. Then would commence the work of persecution; for, as he that was born after the flesh, persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, “even so is it now.” If Brother Robie would take this position with an eye single to the glory of God, and seek to root out dead formality, by a living, earnest Christianity, and make “special efforts” for the conversion of sinners, he would be to all intents and purposes a Nazarite. Will Brother Robie take this stand, and see and feel the salvation of God, or will he let the Buffalo Churches drift down to everlasting woe, unwarned, he following in their wake?”

     The editorial in question and its republication in Methodism’s leading journal certainly go to show that Mr. Roberts’s article on “New School Methodism,” although plainly showing that the dominant religion in the Genesee Conference at that time had lost well-nigh all semblance to original Methodism, was fully justified by facts, even his enemies themselves being judges.

     That the reader may get, if possible, a still clearer view of spiritual conditions then prevailing, however, a few pages will now be devoted to the means by which representatives of the dominant party sought to promote the type of religion not ineptly characterized as “New School Methodism.”

     The following extracts from a long article, which was published in the Buffalo Courier in the way of friendly mention of a “clam bake and chowder festival” held for the benefit of the Niagara Street Methodist Episcopal Church, will throw much light on this point:
 

CLAM BAKE AND CHOWDER

     The spot selected for the clam bake was Clinton Forest, situated about a half a mile from the road. This place, containing about twenty acres, was surrounded by a neat board fence, and ten cents was demanded from each visitor for admission within the enclosure. Within we found thousands of people, some ventilating their garments on swings, some playing games of different descriptions, hundreds eating ice-cream, coffee, ham, fowls, and other substantials, while the great mass opened, swallowed or gorged themselves with clams. Clams was the cry—from every corner came the echo, clams! clams! and the odor of clams went up and down, odorous as exquisite otters, and fragrant as a back-kitchen about dinner-time.

     At other points on the ground were many tables, spread with delicacies of all sorts, behind which handsome women added their voices to urge on appetite; flower tables were many, where young and pretty damsels waylaid pecunious young men with their eyes, and persuaded them into floral purchases; ice-cream booths, where shillings were exchanged for the frigid luxury, accompanied with parallelogrammatic sections of sponge cake; there were other places where money could be laid out to advantage in many ways, but of them we remember none. At the rope-walk, a building which appeared to us to be a mile long, a large crowd had collected, and to the music of two bands were jumping about and perspiring to their heart’s content, which privilege cost each dancer ten cents. The air in this place was so intensely hot and high-flavored, that we positively failed to get the program of the dances.

     The festival altogether was a success, and has initiated a new order of excursions, which we hope will be followed up. The receipts at the gate were over four hundred dollars, we understand, and at the different booths, etc., several hundred dollars more. The proceeds are for the benefit of the Niagara Street Methodist Church, and will prove a great assistance to them in paying off the debt of the Church. The ladies, particularly, deserve the highest encomiums for their efforts and attempts to make the festival a model one, and carrying it on to triumph.

     It has been said, and published, and, so far as we know, has never been contradicted, that “The person who stood at the door of the rope-walk and collected ‘ten cents’ from each one who attended the dance, was a member of one of the M. E. Churches in the city; and that the proceeds, after -paying for the music,’ went to the benefit of the Church.” By such means did the dominant party seek to promote the work it professed to be doing in the interest of the kingdom of God!

     The subsequent history of the Niagara Street Church is of peculiar interest. In “Why Another Sect?” Mr. Roberts writes of it as follows:
 

     The Niagara Street Church, for the benefit of which this festival was held, was the oldest M. E. Church in the city. It was once highly prosperous. Here Eleazer Thomas preached holiness, after the pattern of Asbury, in the power of the Holy Ghost. At this Church we were stationed the fifth year of our ministry. It was the only appointment made for us with which we ever tried to interfere. We felt deeply our lack of ability, experience and grace, to fill so important a position. We entreated the Bishop not to send us there. But when we were sent, we resolved to do our duty faithfully. God kept us from compromising, and gave us a good revival of religion. The members generally were quickened and many sinners were converted. A few—less than half a dozen—composed of secret society men, and one or two proud women, encouraged by a former secret society pastor, held out and opposed the work.

     Ever since the Church edifice had been built, there had been on it a mortgage of a few thousand dollars. This we agreed to see paid if they would make the seats free. We had a good proportion of the amount necessary to do it pledged, when at the end of the first year, through the influence above referred to, we were removed, and a man of the other party was sent in our place. The people were finally persuaded that what they needed was a more imposing Church edifice. So the Church—a very substantial stone building—was remodeled, a new front built, a large organ placed in the gallery, and tall gothic chairs in the pulpit. All the money was raised that could be raised by selling the pews, by taxing the members to the utmost of their ability, and by making one of the largest liquor dealers in the city Trustee and Treasurer. So great was the zeal excited among the members to “save the Church,” that one of the most godly women we had known up to this time, was induced to preside at one of the tables at the clam-bake and chowder entertainment!

     But all was of no avail—the Church edifice was sold to pay the indebtedness upon it, and the members were scattered. This Church has, for many years, been a Jewish synagogue. [1]

     Still later, while the author was pastor of the Virginia Street Free Methodist Church in Buffalo, the property again changed hands, the stone Church building was torn down, and a Masonic Temple was erected on the site!

     One might naturally suppose that, with the Conference freed from the troublesome “Nazarites,” who had been pronounced “disturbers of its peace,” and excommunicated therefor, “New School Methodism” would have made rapid advancement. Such does not appear to have been the case, however, according to the published testimony of its chief promoters. Declension in interest and in numbers followed for many years. In 1865, just a decade after the persecution of the so-called “Nazarite” preachers began, and five years after the organization of the Free Methodist Church, the Genesee Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church published a report on “The State of the Work,” which bewailed the declining condition of religious affairs, and on which the Editor of the Northern Independent ably and courageously commented as follows:
 

GENESEE CONFERENCE OF THE M. E. CHURCH

     A copy of the Minutes of the last session of this Conference lies upon our table. Its mechanical execution is excellent, and reflects credit upon all concerned. With the matter in general, we are equally pleased. Each page, if we except the account of the “Conference Camp-meeting,” bears marks of diligence and candor. But what strikes us most, is the report on the “State of the Work.” It is able, pungent, truthful, humiliating. Yet it would have been more so had all the facts in the case come out. Their language of confession wants translating, and then it would read much like the following:

     “They said one to another, we are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear: therefore is this distress come upon us.” And Reuben answered them, saying, “Spake I not unto you, saying, Do not sin against the child, and ye would not hear! Wherefore behold also his blood is required.”—Gen. 42: 21, 22.

     But let us have their own statement of the sad condition of affairs In a Conference from which all traces of Nazaritism and “Contumacy” have been carefully excluded. As this purgation has been eminently expensive to common sense, moral principle, and Methodist Discipline, one would suppose that it might have been prolific of mere numbers and of a certain kind of self-respect. Yet, even In these poor results it fails, and hence they say:

“1. Our revivals have not been, either In number or extent, what we desired, or had reason to expect. Are we God’s ministers, commissioned and sent forth by the great Head of the Church, to win souls to Christ, and must we, in so many instances, pass on, year after year, with no marked results? Are we doing our whole duty, as preachers of the everlasting Gospel, while the years go by, and that Gospel seems essentially powerless in our ministrations? While we are the appointed guardians of the Churches, must we, of necessity, see them moving on to inevitable extinction? This is not God’s will. The fault lies, in part, at least, at our own doors. There is, on the part of many of us, cause for profound humiliation before God, and for the most serious inquiry whether we are not essentially failing of the great ends of our ministry.

“2. Another unfavorable feature In our condition is the fact, that in many, perhaps In most of our Churches, the membership is made up, almost wholly, of persons far advanced in life. We see among them very few of the young. In a large portion of our Churches, we rarely find a young man in the Official Board. This indicates a lamentable want of extensive revivals among us, for the PAST TEN YEARS. These aged persons in our Churches are true and faithful, and worthy of all honor. But they will soon pass to the Church triumphant. There are, perhaps, scores of Churches In our Conference, the very existence of which seems to depend on the lives of one, two or three men now far advanced in years. These men are rapidly passing away. It is obvious that, in many places, nothing can save our cause but powerful and far reaching revivals of religion.

“3. Another very great evil among us, and one, fraught with most damaging results to God’s cause and all our interests as a Conference, is the engaging in secular pursuits by so many of our ministers. This evil, during the past two years, has been largely on the increase. It is needless to spend time to show the error of a practice so obviously contrary to both the spirit and letter of our commission, and of our ministerial vows. We claim to have obeyed the voice of the Master, ‘Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature,’ at the altars of the Church. In the presence of God and man we have solemnly pledged to be men of one work, and how can we, conscientiously, engage in occupations that must divide our interest, energies, time and affections. This practice is alarmingly shaking the confidence of the people in us, as ministers of the Lord Jesus. They say we are as greedy of gain, as covetous of large possessions, as easily swept into wild speculations as any other class of men. This loss of confidence in the ministry is not confined to those alone who engage in secular pursuits, but extends measurably to the whole body. Thus the innocent suffer with the guilty, and our hold upon the people is lost.”

     The chronology of the above is worthy of note, and we have marked it by putting the words in capitals. It is now almost ten years since that Conference arrested the character of one of its ablest and most useful ministers, and finally expelled him for slander—which slander consisted in writing an article for this paper, on “New School Methodism.” The article reflected pretty severely on some usages current in that and other Conferences, but was not one whit more scathing than this report on the “State of the Church.” Its allegations indeed were not as broad, nor were its developments as alarming. A keen observer, however, at that time saw the evil in its incipiency—saw a ministry shorn of its strength, secularized, unsuccessful, and the Church dying out—saw exactly what this official document declares began to exist ten years ago. The brave man whose eyes, anointed of God, saw this deplorable condition of the Genesee Conference, should have been rewarded by something better than expulsion, for he meant well, spoke well, and is now fully indorsed by the Conference itself. We saw the injustice done, saw it at the time it was done, and gave notice of the fact; but our words were then, as they probably will be now, unheeded, and the Conference went on its way trying men for “Contumacy” and expelling such large numbers of their very best ministers and laymen, that absolute ecclesiastical annihilation stares them in the face. This result will surprise none. It is but the inevitable consequence of a wrong course. Had the leaders of that once prosperous section of the Church listened to good counsel, they would not be uttering their De profundis, but their Nunc dimittis, and each valiant soldier of the cross, looking back over a well contested field, could say, “I have fought a good fight.”

     Ten years of spiritual barrenness, the secularization of the ministry to such an extent that the people have lost confidence in them, and many other evidences of decline should satisfy the Conference that it has done wrong—that its administration has cast down those whom God has not cast down. By way of helping them out of their trouble, we suggest that the Conference at once reconsider its action in the case of all who have - been expelled on mere technical grounds, and thus restore those on whose account God has sent leanness into all their borders.

     The Conference as a body continued its struggle to promote “New School Methodism” for a number of years, but with continually declining numbers and influence. “Many of the leading preachers had lost the confidence of the people to that degree that they took transfers to other Conferences. New men were introduced to supply the work. But all was of no avail. They could not get up even a show of prosperity. They were united with other Conferences for a time—their name changed—and after a general change of preachers, were again restored as a Conference, with the old name.”

     At the celebration of the centennial anniversary of the Genesee Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in the fall of 1910, its secretary, the Rev. Ray Allen, read a historical sketch of the Conference; and, in referring to the events of the period we are now considering, he paid the following tribute to the brethren whom the Conference expelled at that time, and also gave the added showing as to the decline of the Conference subsequent to those expulsions:
 

     This heroic treatment might have seemed necessary at the time, but looked at half a century later, it seems unjust, and therefore exceedingly unwise. Those expelled brethren were among the best men the Conference contained, and scarce any one thought otherwise even then.

     The troubles of the Genesee Conference were not cured by a surgical operation. Following 1859 came the darkest years of her life, and her membership steadily fell year by year until in 1865 it was at the lowest level ever reached. She then had Only 7,593 —a sadly wasted figure! In 1866 she began to amend, but the territory which in 1859 held 10,999 members never got back to that number again for nineteen years. Truly she came up out of great tribulation, and it is to be hoped she washed her robes white.

     When it is remembered that the Conference had over one hundred preachers at the beginning of this period, and that the territory it embraced was of a very promising character, and predisposed in favor of Methodism, the foregoing statement makes a still more unfavorable showing.

     The brethren who were contemptuously called “Nazarites” had the spiritual vision to perceive that widespread declension had begun, and diligently strove to awaken others to a like vision, and to unite as many as possible in an earnest effort to check the downward tendency and turn the tide the other way. In this they were misunderstood, misrepresented, bitterly opposed, cruelly persecuted, accused of disloyalty, ridiculed as “fanatics,”, and, finally charged with “Unchristian and Immoral Conduct,” tried, and expelled from the Conference and the Church. Thus to some extent they shared the fate of those earlier prophets of God who stood in the breach in times of great spiritual declension and sought to turn the trend of affairs in favor of true godliness.

     The matters to which we have been referring were to a considerable extent local; but that a like declension in Methodism was also general is evidenced, as will be seen later, by events occurring at about the same time in Illinois and other parts of the country, and with similar results. Then, too, the testimony of some of Methodism’s most prominent men is in evidence on the same point. Regarding the state of religion generally, the Rev. Jesse T. Peck, later elected Bishop, wrote as follows:

     “What a mass of backsliders there are now in the Church, for the very reason that they have been satisfied without going on unto perfection !”

     Concerning the special reception of the Holy Ghost as “a baptism of light,” he says:
 

     It discovers dangers that were never before realized. It shows the perilous track of a wandering Church within the unhallowed precincts of sin. It compels the soul to shrink and abhor the very things which before It has earnestly coveted. It trembles to see that the outward splendors of the Church, once deemed reliable evidences of success, are but the attire of a harlot, both revealing and inviting illicit commerce with a godless world.

     The Rev. E. Bowen, D. D., in preaching a semi-centennial sermon before the Oneida Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in 1864, was constrained to preach on the general subject of “The Church’s Defection from God,” and, in his peroration, said:
 

     Our task has been one of painful interest; not only because of the pain we have felt in being called upon, in the order of Providence, to present to the Church the ugly portrait of her own character; but more especially for the reason that she was not in a condition to sit for a better picture. We mourn over her defection from God, and from Methodism, which we still love, as ever, with an almost idolatrous devotion. We still love the Methodist Episcopal Church, and mean no disrespect towards her in anything we have said in this discourse. And if we have felt it incumbent on us to sound the note of alarm, and to admonish her, in this way, of her impending overthrow, it is not because we desire such a catastrophe, but because we fear it.

     Since the foregoing paragraphs were prepared the author has come into possession of an autograph letter from Dr. Bowen, written at the time referred to, of which the following is a copy:
 

CORTLAND [N. Y.], JULY 13TH, 1864.

DEAR BROTHER ROBERTS:

     I thank you for the kind interest you have taken in the circulation of my Semi-centennial. I have grieved much for a few years past over the rapid decline of experimental and practical piety in our Church; and dared not refrain, at our late Annual Conference, from an exposé of my honest convictions upon the subject, as indicated by the clear openings of Providence. If in giving a correct likeness of the Church, I have made a bad picture, she must remember that her own ugly features, and not the hand of the operator, is responsible for it. I felt that “a life and death remedy” was called for: and having administered it in the name of the Lord, I must leave the result with Him. * * *

Respectfully yours,
ELIAS BOWEN.

     The following extracts from an editorial in the Buffalo Christian Advocate of November 19, 1856, also goes to show that, in that day, especially in the city Churches throughout our country, the state of religion was that of bankrupt faith, false and hypocritical pretension, sham performance, and destitution of spiritual power:
 

RELIGION OF CITY CHURCHES

     Many of our city Churches are abominably corrupt, and there is no disguising of the fact. Corrupt men and women belong to them. They have money, fashion, and position, but with all these they have a bankrupt faith and hearts as depraved as Satan’s.

* * * *

     Our cities are full of sham religion, of false and hypocritical pretensions, of forms and ceremonies without power, and of graceless and shapeless appearance which passes for the real and saving in the economy of the gospel.

     In the writing of this chapter it has been our aim to show, from Mr. Roberts’s article on “New School Methodism,” from the hearty endorsement of that article by prominent Methodists in other Conferences, from confessions made by representatives of the dominant party, and from uncontradicted reports of the secular press, those religious conditions within the Genesee Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church which demanded reform, if genuine Methodism was to be rescued from its danger of utter apostasy; and also to show from the testimony of men prominent in the councils of the Church that the conditions prevailing in the Genesee Conference were by no means merely local conditions, but were prevalent throughout the country. The reader will be able to decide for himself whether we have accomplished our undertaking or not. Have we not, at least, made it appear to unbiased minds that Mr. Roberts’s statement of the case in “New School Methodism” was moderate, and, in the fullest sense of the word, justifiable?

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