feelings of the Conference. But from
the lengthened meeting of that committee, in the evening, it was clear
that no disposition existed to modify the power of ministers to expel
persons from the Church for non-attendance at a meeting which, in the
12th section, chap. 1st, page 47, of our own Discipline, taken from the
writings of Mr. Wesley, is declared to be "prudential," even among
Methodists--that thus the highest and most awful penalty that the Church
can inflict--a penalty analagous to capital punishment in the
administration of civil law--is to be executed upon members of the
Church for the omission of what our own Discipline does not exalt to
the rank of a "prudential" means of grace among Christians,--only among
Methodists.

It was also clear that views of baptism prevailed (I cannot say how
widely) at variance with the 17th Article of Faith in our
Discipline,[139] and altogether opposite to those set forth by Mr.
Wesley in his sermons and in his Treatise on Baptism.

But that for which I was not prepared (which I supposed to have been
settled, and which I therefore assumed), was the obviously prevalent
opinion against the Church membership of children baptized by our
ministry. It will be recollected that I had not proposed any other
condition or mode of admitting persons into our Church from without,
than that which already exists amongst us; but I urged in behalf of both
parents and children, the practical recognition of the rights and claims
of children who were admitted and acknowledged as members of the Church
by baptism, as implied in our Form of Baptism, and according to our
Catechism, and according to what the Conference unanimously declared at
Hamilton, in 1853, our Church holds to be among the privileges of
baptized persons,--namely, that "they are made members of the visible
Church of Christ." Persons cannot, of course, be members of the
"visible" Church of Christ without becoming members of some visible
branch or section of it; and it is not pretended that children baptized
by our ministry are members of any other visible portion of the Church
of Christ than the Wesleyan. To deny, therefore, that the baptized
children of our people are members of our Church, and that they should
be acknowledged as such, and as such be impressed with their obligations
and privileges, and as such be prepared for, and brought into, the
spiritual communion and fellowship of the Church, on coming to the years
of accoun