We now present the following paper, which was prepared and signed by seventeen ministers of the Genesee Conference who were supposed to be prominent members of the “Nazarite organization,” in which they emphatically deny that any such organization had an existence. The paper was published at the time in the Northern Independent, and also in fly-sheet form. A copy of the same was also presented to Bishop Simpson.
 

GENESEE CONFERENCE MATTERS

Read and Then Judge

     Certain reports having been put into circulation, charging a portion of the ministers of the Genesee Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church with the disreputable and unworthy act of having organized a society “bearing certain marks of secrecy” under the name of the “Nazarite Band or Union,” the object of which, it has been reported, is to control the appointments, and direct the affairs of the Conference; and this charge Implicating many of our ministers as taking steps unworthy the Christian, and derogatory to the ministerial character:

     Therefore, We, the undersigned, members of the Genesee Conference, hereby declare, that after careful inquiry, we are fully convinced that no such society has ever existed in the bounds of this Conference. The whole excitement with reference to the supposed organization grew out of certain letters, indicating the existence of such a society, written by a single individual, who, on the floor of the Olean Conference in 1855, publicly declared, that he alone was responsible for the whole affair. These letters were written without our knowledge, and have never received our approval. Though the existence of such a society has been repeatedly denied, in various ways and on numerous occasions, yet in public and in private, and especially through the columns of the Buffalo Christian Advocate, these reports have been spread abroad, to the injury of the ministerial reputation, and Christian influence and usefulness of numbers of our ministers, by creating an unjust prejudice against them; among whom are some of our most able and efficient men.

     Connected with the charge of association, is that of encouraging fanaticism, and extravagance In religious exercises and worship. This charge we declare to be as groundless as the other. We have never encouraged excesses, and with them we have not the least sympathy. But while we stand opposed to all improprieties in religious exercises and worship, we declare ourselves in favor of a consistent and vitalized religion; not a dead formalism, but the power of godliness. Not that form of religion that expresses itself in confused irregularities on the one hand, or on the other, in sermons without life and without adaptation,—the abandonment of social meetings, and the neglect of family and private prayer; but in a religion that moves the heart, and prompts to every good work; not of beneficence alone, but also of devotion.

     These charges then, of forming an association or encouraging fanaticism, having their origin, in the opinion of some, in ambition and jealousy, made and reiterated, it has been feared, with a design and for effect-—if applied to us, we unhesitatingly pronounce to be unjust, iniquitous, slanderous and FALSE.
 
 

A. ABELL,		ISAAC C. KINGSLEY,
JOHN P. KENT,		C. D. BURLINGHAM,
SAMUEL C. CHURCH,		A. HARD,
LOREN STILES, JR.,		B. T. ROBERTS,
JOHN B. JENKINS,		E. S. FURMAN,
W. GORDON,		R. E. THOMAS,
A. W. LUCE,		DANIEL B. LAWTON,
J. MILLER,		WM. KELLOGG,
		J. BOWMAN.

LeRoy, September, 1857

     The signers of the foregoing paper are the men of whom tile “Nazarite Association” was said to be chiefly composed. Had there been any such “Association” they were the men who would have known it. Their united testimony, however, is: “We are fully convinced that no such society has ever existed in the bounds of this [the Genesee] Conference.”

     The standing and character of these witnesses were such as to afford the strongest guaranty of their veracity. Five of them had served as Presiding Elders, and four of them as members of the General Conference. All were ministers of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Of the seventeen only three ever became members of the Free Methodist Church. One is said later to have become a Presbyterian, and another to have joined the United Brethren. The others all appear to have remained in the Methodist Episcopal fold, and some of them finally became decidedly hostile to Free Methodism. To this day, however, none of them, so far as we can learn, has ever retracted the statements of the foregoing paper, or made any statements inconsistent with its contents.

     In view of the character and standing of these men, as well as of their undoubted knowledge of the facts, who will dare even to suggest that the paper in question, and to which they unitedly affixed their signatures, is false, or in any other way misleading? Had Bishop Simpson regarded any one of these men as guilty of deliberately signing his name to a glaring falsehood for publication, would he from time to time have appointed that man to the pastorate of Methodist Churches, to feed and care for the flock of God, and to guide the members of that flock in the way to heaven? Would he have been willing to have it appear that so gross a sin as deliberate and persistent falsehood was no disqualification for the ministry in the Methodist Episcopal Church? And yet, think of it! if the Bishop’s version regarding the “Nazarite Association” is credited, it places those seventeen ministers of Jesus Christ, against whom no complaint had ever been brought, under the imputation of conspiring to write, sign, and publish an outrageous and deliberate falsehood, regarding a matter of which they had full knowledge and could not possibly have been mistaken! To fix such an imputation upon innocent men would be a sad comment on Christian charity indeed.

     Yet here is the situation, let the reader make the best of it he may be able to make by skill in the use of language. Bishop Simpson says of the Free Methodist movement, that it “originated in an association of ministers who thought they had not been properly treated by the leading men of the Conference. They privately adopted a platform, and in this organization were known as ‘Nazarites.’” Dr. Buckley reiterates the statement in substance, and in a more aggravated form. Those seventeen ministers who signed the paper in question, say: “We are fully convinced that no such society ever has existed in the bounds of this Conference.” These statements are plain and irreconcilable contradictions, and therefore one or the other must be false.

     Those seventeen men said of the statement which alleged the existence of a “Nazarite Band” at the time it first became current within the Genesee Conference, “This charge of forming an association to encourage fanaticism, if applied to us, we unhesitatingly pronounce to be unjust, iniquitous, slanderous, and FALSE.” A more specific denial could not well be framed. Both statements—that signed by the seventeen ministers and that made by Bishop Simpson and by Dr. Buckley—can not possibly be true. Either the denial by the seventeen or the affirmation by the Bishop and the Doctor must be false. If the affirmation was “unjust, iniquitous, slanderous, and false,” when it first obtained currency, it of necessity is equally so when made from twenty years to a generation later, and by whomsoever made. Those seventeen men spoke from personal knowledge; and, if what they uttered was untrue, it was the deliberate utterance of untruth, and would classify them as belonging to the Ananias Association. Bishop Simpson and Dr. Buckley do not profess to have spoken from personal knowledge; and, since they evidently relied upon information given them by others, they may have been deceived. The statements are made, however, with as much positiveness as though made from personal knowledge, and thus, if untrue, they are left to do all the harm of which they are capable. It would seem that these authors should have given some authority for their statements, at least.

     In addition to signing the statement denying the existence of a “Nazarite Organization” within the bounds of the Genesee Conference, which has been under discussion in this chapter, the Rev. Asa Abell, one of the most godly men produced by American Methodism, in an article published in the Northern Independent of March 10, 1859, gave his further personal testimony regarding the matter in the following paragraphs:
 

     It does Seem to me that I have been so circumstanced, that had there really been any such Union or Society, it could not have failed to come to my knowledge; and I solemnly declare that I neither know now, nor have ever known of any society called by the name in question, neither in form nor in fact: nor of any association like to the one whose existence is so boldly and positively asserted; nor of any such league or combination whatever, by any name whatever.

     All this I intend to assert, without any such mental reservation RS would leave what I say to be true, and yet in some hidden and mysterious sense true, [so] that there is, or has been Such an organization or society. No man has yet proved, and I am sure no one ever can prove, the existence of such a league or society, for the reason that no one can prove a non-entity to be an entity. 1 never knew or heard of any meeting f or the purpose of forming Such a society, or league, or union, nor of any meeting of any such society; nor of any meeting of reputed officers of any such society.

     Asa Abell was one of the noble pioneers of Western New York Methodism. He had been a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church since 1821. His career in the ministry had been a long one, and during eighteen years of this time he had Served in the office of Presiding Elder. He was elected four times in succession as delegate to the General Conference of his Church, and filled the position with credit to himself and his constituency. When the Free Methodist Church was finally organized, he showed his disapproval of the action of the Genesee Conference in its policy of proscription and expulsion of the so-called “Nazarite” preachers, and of the action of the General Conference in refusing to entertain their appeals; and also exhibited his devotion to the principles which he had advocated throughout his entire ministry; by severing his connection with the Church which had been his spiritual mother, and to which his best energies had been given for many years, and uniting with the proscribed and persecuted few who composed the newly organized sect. Nor did he wait before taking this step until it was manifest that the new venture was likely to be a success, but entered at the beginning, willing to share the fortunes of his persecuted brethren, whatever those fortunes might be. He was loyal to his convictions to the end, and no breath of scandal or of calumny ever detracted from his spotless record. Surely the testimony of such a man should be regarded as unimpeachable and every way convincing.

     The men who signed the denial of a “Nazarite Organization” with Mr. Abell were also God-fearing and holy men, as has been shown—men of undoubted integrity and veracity, and whose general intelligence and credibility have never been even questioned to this day. The necrological records of the Methodist Episcopal Conference to which some of them belonged at the time of their death bear strong testimony to their sterling virtues as Christian men, and to their loyalty and usefulness as Christian ministers. In view of these facts we would ask, with Mr. Roberts:
 

     In making up a history of events in which such men bore a prominent part, Is their testimony respecting these events to be set aside, without even assigning any cause? Is it to be assumed, without evidence, that they placed themselves on record as falsifiers of facts with which they were well acquainted? And is such assumption to pass into history unchallenged? Is partisan prejudice, or denominational pride to supersede the necessity of candidly weighing evidence, and honestly endeavoring to ascertain and state the truth? If no notice is to be taken of the testimony of such men as these, what is the use of human testimony? History may as well be written wholly from the imagination.

     If these men are to be believed, then is Bishop Simpson’s statement that the Free Methodist Church had its origin in an “association of ministers” who “privately adopted a platform, and in this organization were known as Nazarites,” utterly false. [1]

     It is at least exceedingly unfortunate that men of such standing and reputation as Bishop Simpson and Dr. Buckley should have helped to give general currency to. statements so grossly misleading as those under consideration, by publishing them as though they were all attested facts of history, while there is not a word of historical truth in them. It would seem that they must have been betrayed into taking the aspersions cast upon the so-called “Nazarites” by their enemies as statements of historical truth, without investigation, and were thereby misled in their published statements. But the effect has been just as injurious as though the statements had been deliberately false.

[1] "Why Another Sect?"