the delegates of Southern Conferences moved directly up to this position. The issue was, therefore, as sharply defined as it could possibly be. It was approached with the utmost calmness and solemnity. There was no inconsiderate haste. Anticipating our sad approaching trial, a day of fasting and prayer had been appointed, and the whole Conference, with many tears, entreated God to avert the dangers which threatened our beloved Methodism. On the eighteenth day of May a deputation from an informal meeting of "twenty-two delegations from the North," including the venerable Nathan Bangs, Charles Elliott, George Webber, and Tobias Spicer, waited on Bishop Andrew, with the most brotherly purpose of ascertaining whether some method of safety could not be devised. But he remembered his representative position, and declined to receive or make any communication excepting in writing. With heavy hearts, these wise and noble men turned away, feeling that the hope of an adjustment was growing less. On the fourteenth our distinguished brethren, William Capers and Stephen Olin, in a carefully drawn preamble and resolution, moved the Conference to appoint a committee of six "to confer with the Bishops, and report as to the possibility of adopting some plan, and what, for the permanent pacification of the Church." William Capers, Stephen Olin, William Winans, John Early, Leonidas L. Hamline, and Phineas Crandall were this committee. They were men of prayer and of eminent wisdom. In the discharge of their grave responsibilities they were joined by our excellent Bishops; while the whole Conference, and uncounted numbers outside, waited with intense anxiety and prayed for their success. But on the eighteenth these ominous words fell from the lips of Bishop Soule:

The Committee of Conference have instructed me to report that; after a calm and deliberate investigation of the subject submitted to their consideration, they are unable to agree upon any plan of compromise to reconcile the views of the Northern and Southern Conferences.

On Monday, May 20th, John A. Collins's resolution of inquiry into the facts in the case of Bishop Andrew went to the Committee on the Episcopacy. On the 22d the Committee answered "that Bishop Andrew is connected with slavery,” and

submitted from him a frank statement in writing, which showed the manner in which he became a slaveholder. And on the same day the following preamble and resolution were presented by Alfred Griffith and John Davis, which, though superseded by another, we deem worthy of record here, because the long and familiar acquaintance with the history of the Church of these really great and good men gave it historical importance.

Whereas, the Rev. James O. Andrew, one of the Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church, has become connected with slavery, as communicated in his statement in his reply to the inquiry of the Committee on the Episcopacy, which reply is embodied in their report, No. 3, offered yesterday; and whereas, it has been, from the origin of said Church, a settled policy and the invariable usage to elect no person to the office of Bishop who was embarrassed with this "great evil," as under such circumstances it would be impossible for a Bishop to exercise the functions and perform the duties assigned to a General Superintendent with acceptance in that large portion of his charge in which slavery does not exist; and whereas, Bishop Andrew was himself nominated by our brethren of the slaveholding States, and elected by the General Conference of 1832, as a candidate who, though living in the midst of a slaveholding population, was nevertheless free from all personal connection with slavery; and whereas, this is, of all periods of our history as a Church, the one least favorable to such an innovation upon the practice and usage of Methodism as to confide a part of the itinerant general superintendency to a slaveholder; therefore,

Resolved, That the Rev. James O. Andrew be, and he is hereby affectionately requested to resign his office as one of the Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

Whatever might be thought of the wisdom of this proposed action, it had the advantage of being clear and direct, and within the undisputed rights of the body. But Bishop Andrew would not resign. As the representative of the right of slaveholding in the Episcopacy he could not.

We have now reached the last of our four great questions; What was it lawful and expedient to do?

He might have been charged with "improper conduct,” tried, and if found guilty, expelled.

"To whom is a Bishop amenable for his conduct? Answer, To the General Conference, who have power to expel him for improper conduct if they see it necessary." Not from office

merely, according to the interpretation of Mr. Hamline, which is an accommodated and not strictly correct use of the word "expel," but from the ministry or the Church. We are driven to this latter sense by the history of the rule. It was adopted in 1784, and has never been changed excepting to put the word "General" before "Conference," and "Bishop" in the place of "Superintendent." The question as originally put was numbered 27. Question 25, in this immediate connection, asks, What shall be done in case of bankruptcy, involving dishonest accounts, and "that base practice of raising money by coining notes?" And the answer is, "Let him be expelled immediately." Answer 6 to question 24 is, "Extirpate bribery; receiving any thing, directly or indirectly, for voting in any election. Show no respect of persons herein, but expel all that touch the accursed thing." We cannot allow that the word expel meant entirely different things in these three closely connected parts of the same system of "Rules and Regulations." The uniform use of this term clearly determines the scope of prerogatives originally assumed and defined by the body of the Elders, and then by the delegated General Conference in the form of Discipline. Had Bishop Andrew been charged and tried under the intentionally general terms "improper conduct," the grade both of the offense and penalty must have been determined by the high ecclesiastical court, from whose decision there could have been no appeal. But no such charge was preferred; and it may be safely stated that the calm judgment of delegates did not indicate such a degree of severity, though the immediate friends of the Bishop insisted that formal trial under specific charges was the only method the law of the Church would allow.

This measure rejected, it was, however, competent in the General Conference formally to request Bishop Andrew to resign, as proposed by the resolution offered by Messrs. Griffith and Davis. But this was very distasteful to Southern delegates, and was strenuously resisted, as equivalent to a deposition and a final announcement of an unchangeable purpose that a slaveholder could not be a Bishop. It was felt that judgment must now be distinctly pronounced upon this issue; but there was a strong and sincere desire that the decision should be reached in the kindest possible manner; and, so far as the question concerned Bishop Andrew, it was now evident that a milder course

than that which was before the Conference was greatly desired, as this would conclusively remove him from the Episcopal office. With the distinct intention of relieving the Church from the wrong and danger of slaveholding in the Episcopacy, and yet showing the desire of the General Conference to retain Bishop Andrew in office, free from this "impediment," on the twentythird day of May the following substitute was offered by our distinguished brethren, J. B. Finley and J. M. Trimble, of Ohio.

Whereas, the Discipline of our Church forbids the doing any thing calculated to destroy our itinerant general superintendency; and whereas Bishop Andrew has become connected with slavery by marriage and otherwise, and this act having drawn after it circumstances which, in the estimation of the General Conference, will greatly embarrass the exercise of his office as an itinerant General Superintendent, if not in some places entirely prevent it; therefore,

Resolved, That it is the sense of this General Conference that he desist from the exercise of this office so long as this impediment remains.

This substitute was manifestly accepted as expressing the firm purpose of the General Conference not to be responsible for "the enormous evil of slavery," in connection with the sacred office, but to relieve itself from this responsibility with the least possible injury to the Bishop and to our brethren in the South. This section is expressed in carefully studied words.. It waived entirely the question of personal wrong in act and motive upon the part of the Bishop; it affirmed the incompatibility of slaveholding and its sequences with "the general superintendency;" it pronounced "the sense of this General Conference" that Bishop Andrew ought himself to relieve the Church of its embarrassment, not by resigning his office, and thus ceasing to be a Bishop, but by deferring the exercise of his functions until he should cease to be a slaveholder; and finally, it waived, for the time being, the exercise of all judicial rights in the premises; it provided no certain executive ministerial relief of the Church; it left to the Bishop himself the free choice between slaveholding, and the exercise of the Episcopacy, and to his own free determination whether he would acquiesce in "the sense" of the General Conference or not, and exacted no pledges of any kind. The question which arose after the passage of this substitute, as to

whether it was mandatory or advisory, was not discriminating nor learned. The act was neither a law nor a judicial sentence. It was an official decision, to the effect that slaveholding was an "impediment" to the exercise of Episcopal functions, and as such it was authoritative, not "mandatory." But if Bishop Andrew should decide that it was not authoritative, and determine not to govern himself by it, there was no provision made to enforce it; nor was the slightest penalty indicated. It was adopted on the first day of June, by a vote of 110 yeas to 68 nays. And on the sixth it was resolved, in answer to questions of administration asked by the Bishops, "that Bishop Andrew's name should stand in the Minutes, Hymn Book, and Discipline as formerly,"--" that the rule in relation to the support of a Bishop and his family applies to Bishop Andrew," and, let it be especially marked, it was

Resolved, That whether in any, and if any in what work Bishop Andrew be employed, is to be determined by his own decision and action, in relation to the previous action of this Conference in his case.

This was the final action relating to the Bishop in person, and not a word in addition is needed to sustain our entire theory of the result proposed and reached by the passage of this preamble and resolution, and its true meaning and intent. It was an official, authoritative decision by the supreme judicatory of the Church, waiving, for reasons of high discretion, all provisions for its enforcement. Hence a private fact which has nevertheless become history; the other Bishops made two provisional plans of Episcopal visitation, one with Bishop Andrew's name, to be used if he should elect to submit to this authoritative decision, the other without his name if he should determine to disregard it. Pending the vote on the Finley substitute, the Bishops had formally advised the General Conference to defer action on this case for four years. This advice was not accepted as a whole, because the crisis brought on by the action of Bishop Andrew, under the advice of the delegates from the South, demanded a solution. They would, therefore, make this an official decision, but all judicial rights were held in abeyance, in the interests of peace and charity; and if one man had so determined, the ministerial force of the decision would have been suspended, and the paternal council of the