In 1784, Thomas Coke, one of Wesley’s ablest coadjutors, and ordained by him bishop, arrived at New York, bringing with him Wesley’s plan for the organisation of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Methodism was now wanted in America; it was the element of religious excitement, which the temper of the times required, and it spread rapidly, especially among the poorer classes of the Southern States. It commenced by excluding slaveholders from its communion; but as God suffers his sun to shine on the just and unjust alike, methodism opened its pale to sinners of every description. The zeal of the Methodists aroused the somewhat slumbering energies of the Baptists, and religious revivals commenced, especially in the Middle and the Southern States. They were the safety-valves in many cases for the excited and agitated popular mind. The Presbyterians, as the Episcopalians had done, reorganised their church on a national basis. In New England, by that necessary law of reaction which never fails, latitudinarianism had followed the sternness of the puritan creed, and made its way with the learned, while universalism was adopted by the less educated.[61] CHAPTER XV. FORMATION OF THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. In May, 1787, the convention met for the revision of the Articles of Confederation, twelve states being represented by men distinguished by their talents, character, practical abilities, and public service. Franklin, who had been among the first to propose a Colonial Union in 1754, was there; Dickinson, as delegate from Delaware; Johnson, of Connecticut; and Rutledge, of South Carolina, who had been movers in the Stamp Act Congress of 1765. Besides Benjamin Franklin, there were present seven who had signed the Declaration of Independence, all tried men and true; while the revolutionary army was represented by Washington, Mifflin, Hamilton and Pinckney; eighteen were members at the same time of the Continental Congress. Altogether this important convention numbered about fifty delegates. Rhode Island sent no representative.[62]