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454: METHODISM any proposed changes in the general rules must be submitted to the quarterly conferences for examination, and must be approved by two thirds of the ensuing conference. In doctrine and general church usage this body agrees with the parent church. In addition to the home work in England, they support missions in Ireland, Canada, Australia, and China. The "Minutes" for 1874 give : chapels, 677; soci- eties, 827 ; circuit preachers, 244 ; local preach- ers, 1,270 ; members, 33,563 ; Sunday schools, 590; officers and teachers, 11,566; scholars, 80,483. 4. The Primitive Methodists origina- ted in 1810, in consequence of a controversy about the propriety of holding camp meetings. These meetings had been introduced into Eng- land by Lorenzo Dow, and had proved an effi- cient means of good to the common people. They were defended and advocated by Hugh Bourne, a zealous layman, but were declared by the Wesley an conference of 1807 " improp- er" and "likely to be productive of consider- able mischief." On the persistence of Bourne in his labors he was expelled in 1808; and William Clowes, a fellow laborer of Bourne, was expelled two years later. They neverthe- less continued their labors with increased zeal and success. In Lancashire and Cheshire a schism in the Wesley an church led 16 congre- gations and 28 preachers to be mostly absorbed into the Primitive Methodists. This church is chiefly Wesleyan in theology and discipline. Its annual conference in England is composed of two thirds lay and one third clerical mem- bers ; in the United States the clerical and lay elements are equal in the annual conference. It has churches in Great Britain, Ireland, Can- ada, the United States, New Zealand, Australia, Tasmania, and Africa. According to the " Min- utes" of 1874, its numbers are as follows: preachers, itinerant and local, 15,904; mem- bers, 166,772; Sunday school teachers, offi- cers, and scholars, 356,276 ; chapels and other preaching places, 6,425. 5. The Bible Chris- tians were organized in 1815 by William O'Bryan, a Wesleyan Methodist local preacher, who separated himself from that body on ac- count of irregularities in his methods of work, and visited a destitute district in E. Corn- wall and W. Devonshire, where he formed his first class. They have missions in Canada (these became independent in 1854) and Aus- tralia. They have a publishing house in Eng- land and one in Bowmansville, Canada. In doctrine they are essentially Wesleyan. In all minor courts the laity are in the majority, but every fifth conference must be composed of equal numbers of preachers and laity ; to the intervening conferences the laity send one rep- resentative from each district. In 1873 this body had 1,991 itinerant and local preachers, 1,072 chapels and other preaching places, 26,427 members, and 58,089 Sunday school teachers and scholars. 6. Other Bodies. The lesser se- cessions from the Wesleyan church are chiefly the " Band-Room Methodists," who originated in Manchester in 1806 ; the Primitive Metho- dists of Ireland, 1816 ; the Protestant Metho- dists, 1828; the "Wesleyan Methodist Asso- ciation," 1835; and the "Reformers," 1849. The last three have recently been merged un- der the name of the " United Methodist Free Church," which in 1872 numbered 66,907 members. III. METHODISM IN AMERICA. 1. The Methodist Episcopal Church is the origi- nal and largest body of Methodists in the Uni- ted States. Wesley and Whitefield, during their visits to America, had organized no Metho- dist societies. The nucleus of the first Meth- odist church in America was composed of immigrants from Ireland who had been mem- bers of Mr. Wesley's societies. In 1766 these were formed into a class and instructed by Philip Embury, who had been a class leader and local preacher in Ireland. He was greatly assisted by Capt. Thomas Webb, an officer of the British army stationed in New York, who had been licensed as a local preacher by Wesley in 1765. Webb preached and formed classes during 1768 on Long Island, and in New Jersey, Delaware, and Philadelphia. In the same year the first chapel was dedicated in John street, New York; and in 1770 the first Methodist church in Philadelphia was erected. In 1769 Boardman and Pilmore, the first missionaries sent to America by Wesley, arrived in New York and took charge of the work in that vicin- ity. Nearly contemporaneously with Embury, Robert Strawbridge, a local preacher from Ireland, settled in Maryland and formed a so- ciety in Frederick co., and afterward organized classes in Baltimore and Harford counties. About the same time Robert Williams had im- migrated from England, and had formed the first circuit in Virginia and preached in North Carolina. In 1771 Francis Asbury arrived, and the next year he was appointed by Mr. Wesley superintendent of the American socie- ties. He was soon superseded by Thomas Rankin, an experienced and able minister and disciplinarian. The first American confer- ence was held in 1773, and consisted of ten preachers, all of European birth. The socie- ties then aggregated 1,160 members. At the beginning of the revolutionary struggle nearly all the preachers of English descent, except Asbury, sympathized with the cause of the mother country, and returned home. ' During the war the English church in America was nearly extinguished, and the dependence of the Methodists on the English clergy for the sacraments almost entirely failed them. For this cause a majority of the Methodist preach- ers determined to provide for their adminis- tration independently of the English clergy. This threatened a serious rupture of the peace and harmony of the church. Under these cir- cumstances Wesley in 1780 applied to the bish- op of London to ordain at least one presbyter to administer the sacraments among the Amer- ican Methodists, but was refused. Therefore in 1784 Wesley, assisted by the Rev. Thomas