the members of our societies in the States of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia shall be exempted from the operations of the above rules. “5. Let our preachers from time to time, as occasion serves, admonish and exhort all slaves to render due respect and obedience to the commands and interests of their respective masters.” The intention of the whole of the foregoing resolutions in general, and the last part in particular, was to preserve peace between master and slave, and prohibit the former from having occasion to chastise the latter, because the latter might use his religious privileges to his own harm. Though the Church had already a fixed purpose and established regulations touching the question of slavery, the General Conference of 1808, held in Baltimore, Md., from May 6th to 26th, discussed it, and took action upon it again. An effort was adroitly made to change certain paragraphs in the Discipline against slavery. The following settled the question at that General Conference. It was moved, by Stephen G. Roszel, and seconded by Thomas Ware, “That the first two paragraphs of the section on slavery be retained in our Discipline, and that the General Conference authorize each annual conference to form their own regulations relative to buying and selling slaves.” The motion was carried. During the ensuing quadrennium the question of slavery was not agitated to any great degree. While the one faction rested upon its laurels, the defeated faction was recuperating its numerical strength pursuant to another attack. At the General Conference of 1812, nothing of importance on this question was done or needed to be done, more than had already been accomplished. The city of New York, where the General Conference was held, had in it the oldest Methodist Episcopal Church, the John St. Church. Among its first members were colored people, who had worshiped there in peace all along. Philadelphia, where a number of colored people resided, had long been celebrated as “the City of Churches.” Colored and white Methodists for years had worshiped together there in peace. But now a storm was brewing that threatened not only to inundate the Church, but the roaring thunder of which would likely rend the Church in twain, so far as the two races within it were concerned. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER II THE COLOR-LINE SECESSIONS.