Civil War could have been averted, and many precious lives and much property been saved? But the American people apparently did not view it in that light. It came at last, as of old, the arbitrary Pharaoh rushed on pursuing his slaves, notwithstanding the terrible warnings given, until ingulfed in the boisterous waves of the mighty Red Sea. How true is it that “the wicked pass on, and are punished!” No more fearful punishment ever came upon any nation than came upon ours because of slavery. Although the above plan was adopted by the Church, it declared that if a Methodist person purchased a slave woman, all her children—whether her husband was a free man or not—were to be free from birth. Thus the Church sought at once to begin emancipation. The General Conference of 1800 declared slavery among ministers or lay members not only “reprehensible,” but that “such slaveholders must consent to manumit all such persons held in bondage or leave the Church,” even though purchased to prevent the separation of husband and wife, or parents and children. Thus the Church unmistakably declared its unutterable opposition to the heretical doctrine of “doing evil that good may come of it.” That General Conference, if possible, went further still when it declared: “Any minister who marries a slaveholding wife must be expelled.” If this was not strong language, then there is none. The Church, at that period, sought not only to protect, but to give “the colored members within its communion all the rights and privileges guaranteed by the Discipline to any other members.” Was it strange, after this action, that the Methodist Episcopal Church decided that even colored men were eligible to ordination? From henceforth the Church saw no valid reason, as there was none, why it should not be done; and hence the Church began to ordain colored men as “deacons in the Church of God.”