The American conference met at Baltimore on April 24, and agreed to continue in close communion with the Church, and to permit “the friendly clergy” to preach and administer the sacraments in Methodist chapels. Hitherto, neither Asbury, nor any other of the preachers in America, had administered these Christian ordinances to the Methodist people; and, as the number of members was now rapidly increasing, this was becoming a momentous question. The want in England had been met, to some extent, by Wesley and his brother and their clerical assistants; but, in America, the Methodists had no ordained clergyman to render service like this. Besides, there the Methodists were very differently situated from what Methodists were in England. In this country, wherever there was a Methodist society there was a parish church, at which, if they chose, Methodists might attend on sacramental occasions. In America it was otherwise. Clergymen were few; and parish churches far distant from each other; and, in many instances, where Methodist societies had been formed, no church existed. The case was becoming serious. Were these thousands of American Methodists to be left without sacraments? Or were unordained Methodist preachers to administer sacraments? Or was an effort to be made, to send a clergyman of the Church of England to supply this lack of sacred service? Or was Wesley himself to assume episcopal functions, and, by ordination, turn his preachers into priests? These were serious difficulties to be surmounted. To deprive eight thousand converted people of the most sacred ordinances of the church, would have been a sin against the church’s Head. To allow unordained preachers to administer baptism and the Lord’s supper was a thing for which Wesley himself was not prepared; though who can question, that a man like Francis Asbury, whom God had so signally honoured, had as much right to do this as the most renowned priest or prelate in existence? An alternative remained, namely, either to send the American Methodists an ordained clergyman of the Church of England; or that Wesley should take upon himself the office of ordainer, and thus qualify his own itinerants for what was conceived to be a higher function than that of preaching the infinitely great and everlasting truths of Christ’s glorious gospel. Was Wesley prepared for such a step as this? Fortunately, this is a point on which we are not left to speculate. In a letter to his brother, dated June 8, 1780, he writes: “Read Bishop Stillingfleet’s ‘Irenicon,’ or any impartial history of the ancient church, and I believe you will think as I do. I verily believe, I have as good a right to ordain, as to administer the Lord’s supper. But I see abundance of reasons why I should not use that right, unless I was turned out of the Church. At present, we are just in our place.”[366]