simply on the ground that the circumstances would embarrass him in
the exercise of his office, declared it as "the sense of this General
Conference that he desist from the exercise of this office so long as
this impediment remains." The issue could not have been simpler and
clearer. The Conference was warned that the passage of the resolution
would be followed by the secession of the South. The debate was long,
earnest, and tender. At the end of it the resolution was passed, one
hundred and eleven to sixty-nine. At once notice was given of the
intended secession. Commissioners were appointed from both parties to
adjust the conditions of it, and in the next year (1845) was organized
the "Methodist Episcopal Church, South."

Under the fierce tyranny then dominant at the South the southern
Baptists might not fall behind their Methodist neighbors in zeal for
slavery. This time it was the South that forced the issue. The Alabama
Baptist Convention, without waiting for a concrete case, demanded of the
national missionary boards "the distinct, explicit avowal that
slave-holders are eligible and entitled equally with non-slave-holders
to all the privileges and immunities of their several unions." The
answer of the Foreign Mission Board was perfectly kind, but, on the main
point, perfectly unequivocal: "We can never be a party to any
arrangement which would imply approbation of slavery." The result had
been foreseen. The great denomination was divided between North and
South. The Southern Baptist Convention was organized in May, 1845, and
began its home and foreign missionary work without delay.

This dark chapter of our story is not without its brighter aspects. (1)
Amid the inevitable asperities attendant on such debate and division
there were many and beautiful manifestations of brotherly love between
the separated parties. (2) These strifes fell out to the furtherance of
the gospel. Emulations, indeed, are not among the works of the Spirit.
In the strenuous labors of the two divided denominations, greatly
exceeding what had gone before, it is plain that sometimes Christ was
preached of envy and strife. Nevertheless Christ was preached, with
great and salutary results; and therein do we rejoice, yea, and will
rejoice.

* * * * *

Two important orders in the American church, which for a time had almost
faded out from our field of vision, come back, from about this epoch of
debate and division