Following the trials of Roberts and McCreery, and pending their appeals to the General Conference—a period of about two years—the spirit of persecution, which had wrought like madness hitherto, was kindled to a vastly higher pitch, even as the fiery furnace of Nebuchadnezzar was heated “one seven times hotter” than its customary temperature for the reception of the Hebrew children. In his “History of the Origin of the Free Methodist Church” the Rev. Elias Bowen, D. D., referring to this period, says:
 

     The spirit of persecution, already inflamed against the so-called Nazarites, became rampant, and burst forth with a violence which threatened their universal and speedy extirpation. The madness of Saul of Tarsus in persecuting the saints of his time, even unto strange cities, scarcely exceeded the rage with which the living portion of the Church were hunted down by the secret society, worldly-minded, apostate majority of the Conference during this period. The truly faithful, without respect to age, sex, or condition, were brought before inquisitorial committees; and large numbers, lay and clerical, were hustled out of the Church in some way, or forced into the leading-strings of the dominant party. It was, indeed, a Reign of Terror. Ridicule, disfranchisement, sham trial, and various other contrivances, well known to the order of Jesuits, were put under contribution for the crushing out of the life and power of religion; and wide-spread desolation, as the result of these outrageous persecutions, was seen to pervade the Conference throughout all its borders.

     The author was old enough at the time to remember quite vividly some of the stormy scenes which were then common, and the general and intense agitation which they produced. His early religious training and impressions were received amid those exciting scenes, in which he was  taught, both by precept and example, the nobility of sacrificing everything else for the sake of righteousness and for fidelity to God.

     In those days loyal Methodists were not infrequently shut out of the church edifices their money had helped to build; and, when they took to preaching in the schoolhouses, all usually went well until some disaffected preacher or layman would incite the atheists, infidels, Roman Catholics and Spiritualists of the community, and occasionally the members of other Churches as well, to oppose the using of the schoolhouse for religious services. Then these places would be closed against them, whereupon they would betake themselves to private houses, the streets, the woods, rented shops, farmers’ barns, occasionally to the Court-houses and theater buildings, and the author recalls one instance of a large and excellent service being held under a Church horse-shed, because of the Church building being closed and locked against their admission. The people were seated in wagons and carriages, and clinging to the timbers of the shed, while the rain was falling copiously without.

     But even in these places they were not immune from the spirit of persecution that raged against them. Attempts would often be made to break up their services; under false complaints the officers of the law would be induced to interfere, and arrests and imprisonments would occur; and at other times the worshipers would be made the victims of malicious mischief, their harnesses being cut to pieces, or other property destroyed, while they were engaged in the worship of God. They were also caricatured and basely misrepresented by some of the secular papers, and occasionally were maligned from evangelical pulpits. Even their children were in some cases the victims of this spirit of persecution at the public schools, and instances could be related of this character from the author’s personal knowledge which would seem utterly incredible.

     Of course some of the grosser forms of this opposition and persecution emanated from the rowdy elements in the various neighborhoods, and so are not to be charged directly to Church members; but the spirit of religious opposition to the “Nazarites” was intense, and the spirit of persecution against them ran high, on the part of the “Regency” element and those who were its tools, and it was chiefly this that “stirred up certain lewd fellows of the baser sort” to heap upon them some of the grosser indignities in the foregoing count.

     The following account of outrages perpetrated upon unoffending members of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Niagara County, New York, by the instigation of one of the Genesee Conference preachers, was published in the Niagara City Herald of October 8, 1859; and so aptly illustrates the spirit by which it was sought in those days to exterminate the “Nazarites,” that it has seemed proper to insert it here:
 

     The days of persecutions have returned. The spirit of the old inquisition is among us. Our informants, who are some of the most respectable citizens at Cayuga Creek, and wealthy gentlemen, witnessed the strange spectacle of peaceable, devoted Christians, while quietly listening to the preaching of an aged and honored local preacher of the M. E. Church, being arrested, hand-cuffed as felons, and hurried away to jail, on charges manufactured for the purpose. We could hardly persuade ourselves we were residents of a free and enlightened country, in the 19th century. It would seem as if the wheel of time had roiled us back to the Dark Ages.

     The history of this outrage is briefly as follows: The Cayuga Creek Church forms a part of the Niagara Falls charge. The same preacher officiates at the Falls in the morning, and at the Creek in the afternoon of each Sabbath. Soon after Conference, the pastor went covertly to work to carry out the anti-Methodist doctrine of the “Pastoral Address,” [1]  adopted by the stronger or “Regency” party of the Genesee Conference. The faithful and efficient Sabbath-school Superintendent, and the Class Leaders were changed, and persons whom the pastor could use, were appointed.

     The key of the Church, up to February 15th, had been in possession of A. M. Chesbrough, a trustee, also, hitherto a warm personal friend of the preacher. Mr. C. always had the house open for meetings, furnished lights, and had paid more for building and supporting the Church than any other man. Mr. Simpkins, the preacher, obtained tile key and gave it to another trustee, Who is not a member of any Church, and who had been the chief agent of “the Regency” in these operations at Cayuga Creek. On the eve-fling of the 16th of February, the Rev. John Cannon, who had been for over thirty years a local preacher, and for some twenty-three years a member of the M. E. Church at Niagara Falls, had an appointment to preach at Cayuga Creek. When the time arrived for opening the meeting, the house was well filled, and to the astonishment of all Mr. Simpkins, who knew of the appointment, stepped in and took the control of the meeting, without saying one word to Mr. Cannon. This created quite an excitement, for Mr. C. had preached there often, and is highly beloved.

     On the evening of the 23rd of March, when the people met for prayer-meeting, the Church was locked. For the first time since the Church was built, the windows were fastened down. Mr. Chesbrough pried open a window, the door was unbolted, and a meeting was held. The Sabbath morning prayer-meeting, which had for some months been held at an unoccupied house in another neighborhood, had been removed to the Church.

     Mr. Simpkins called a meeting of the trustees, two of whom were under his influence. The question of opening the house for Sunday morning prayer-meeting came up. One of the trustees, and not a professor of religion, objected, that the “meetings were too noisy.” The newly elected trustee said “the people could pray at home in their closets, or in their fields, that they did not need to come to Church to pray.”

     Mr. Chesbrough urged that the house should be opened for prayer-meeting. From this time till the 17th of April, the meetings were held as usual. On that day, Sabbath morning, the people met together at the Church for their customary prayer-meeting. One of the Regency trustees was posted outside the door with three or four hired men and dogs, to prevent the people from going into the Church. Mr. Chesbrough asked him by what authority he closed the door. Re said “by the authority of the preacher in charge, and a majority of the [two] trustees.” He also said, “he was sent to protect the door, and was going to do it at all hazards.” The people becoming disgusted, returned home. For four weeks no prayer-meeting was held on Sabbath morning. Mr. Chesbrough visited the preacher twice to get his consent to have the house opened, which was refused each time, and the preacher said that the trustee who guarded the door “knew his wishes.”

     In the meanwhile the members became uneasy at having no meetings during the long Sabbath mornings. No religious services were held in the place save in the Methodist Church, and it was too far to go anywhere else. An appointment was given out for Father Cannon to preach on Sabbath morning, June 19th. Mr. Chesbrough having obtained a key, opened the door. While he and two others were sitting in the Church waiting for the congregation, the new trustee came up with another man and locked them in, and said, “Mr. Cannon shall not speak here; Mr. Simpkins told me to protect the door at all hazards.” His comrade said, “If there is any fighting to be done I want a hand in it.” Mr. Cannon quietly held his meeting under a tree, and appointed another In two weeks. When the time came the Regency trustee was at the door with six or seven hired men, and said if they went into the Church that day, before the regular time, they would walk over his dead body. Again the meeting was held under the trees, and another appointment left for two weeks.

     When that Sabbath morning came the Regency trustee, Samuel Tompkins, was posted at the door with eleven men—not one of them, save his brother, ever paid one cent towards the erection of the Church,—most of them hired men and boys, with five dogs. Seats placed beside the Church were torn down, and a line was marked out, over which the people were told they must not pass at their peril.

     On the evening of the 28th of July, there was an appointment for a prayer-meeting. Mr. Chesbrough had in the meantime put n new lock upon the door, and by his authority the Church was opened. Before the people had assembled, a hired man of the Regency trustee, stepped into the Church and fastened the door by putting a brace against it. The members assembled, but being told by the guard that they could not enter the Church, they quietly dispersed. When they had gone some fifty rods or more, some boys threw in a handful of firecrackers through a broken pane of glass at the man who was holding the door. On Saturday night as the Regency guard were watching the Church, that they might have possession Sunday morning, they said two persons came up to the window and whispered, “There they lie near the door,” and then broke some eight or ten panes of glass.

     The probability is that it was done by some of the Regency party, in order to make out as bad a story as would best suit their side, for in fact, they did not even go to the door to see who was there breaking the windows.

     The Regency trustee obtained warrants of a Justice, a special friend, and business partner of his. They were kept through the week, and on Sabbath morning, August 7th, as Rev. John Cannon was preaching in a grove, some four or five constables armed with revolvers, clubs, and shackles, led on by the Regency trustee, came to the congregation, and arrested one of the members of the M. E. Church, and a respectable citizen. They then sent to the house of another member, tore him from the bedside of a sick wife, took him near the meeting, and hand-cuffed him with the other. . They were left in irons near the meeting until a part of the constables could go to the village and arrest some five or six more. They were put in shackles and then driven in the hot sun, through the dust about a mile. They were crowded into an old lumber wagon used for hauling brick, and hurried to jail. While they were kept near the meeting, some of the most responsible men in Niagara County offered to give any amount of security required; but nothing would answer—to jail they must go.

     The form of an examination was gone through with, and though no evidence of guilt was adduced, yet the Justice, to screen his friend, as is supposed, bound them over for trial.

     Thus have our free institutions been disgraced by an act of religious persecution that would be better befitting Italy or Rome. The Christians arrested are as quiet and inoffensive men as can be found. Their real offense consists in their unwillingness to put their conscience in the keeping of their pastor, and in their earnest endeavors to gain heaven. In short, they are old-fashioned Methodists, designated by their opposers in the Genesee Conference by the persecuted name of Nazarites.

     Another and a favorite species of persecution in those days consisted in subjecting those who would not tamely submit to the Regency power to the ecclesiastical guillotine. It was perilous then for a man or woman to have a quickened conscience and the courage to obey its dictates. Such a person might about as well have lived under Roman Catholic rule in the days of the Spanish Inquisition, as to have been a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the Genesee Conference. The machinery of the Church would be made quickly effective for his ecclesiastical decapitation. As a specimen of the way in which this was done, even in the case of laymen who had ever been devoted to God and loyal to the Church, we herewith reproduce excerpts from an article which originally appeared in the Olean, (N. Y.) Advertiser, of April 26, 1860, and with no other apology for the length of the quotation than its pertinency to the subject under consideration:
 

     Mr. Editor: After your very appropriate remarks and suggestions upon this trial, it might perhaps, by some, be thought advisable to allow this matter to rest without further comment. But there are some features of the case that demand the attention of the public, and which concern every man who has a reputation that he would preserve, and place beyond the reach of injury, from such assaults and with such means as were employed in this case.

     On Friday, April 6th, at nine A. M., the component parts of an Inquisitorial Court were assembled in due order, In the basement of the church edifice. The judge appeared, solemnly grave. The minister in charge seemed complacently satisfied as he viewed the arrangements, and the jury expressed a “certain conviction” in their countenances, as they eyed the accused, standing before them, conscious of his own rectitude, and surrounded by his many friends and sympathizers.

     A hymn was read in slow and measured terms. Then all kneeled in prayer, while the Rev. Mr. Hammond, of Portville, who was to preside as Judge, supplicated the throne of grace for wisdom from on high, to direct aright the duties imposed upon him; and as the words—”let no act stand in the way of the salvation of souls,” broke in upon the silence, one long, loud, earnest Amen was the response, bursting involuntarily, as it were, from the lips of the kneeling victim of their displeasure.

     The religious exercises being closed, the Inquisitorial character of the Court began to develop itself by the Presiding Elder rising in his place, and going through the transparent farce of formally deposing W. C. Willing, from his official position as Pastor of the First Methodist Episcopal Church of Olean. No reason was given for this summary proceeding, but it was easy to conjecture why It was done. He had made out the charge, selected the judge, empanelled the jury, and summoned the witness, but there was as yet no prosecutor! The arrangement would not be complete, unless he performed the part of that functionary! The whole Court was the creature of his making, carefully selected and brought together for the arraignment, trial, and certain expulsion of one of the members of the M. E. Church. He had done all he could in his official position without infringement upon the “Discipline,” and hence this “deposition” to enable him to do, what no lay member of the whole society was willing to perform—prosecute SEYMOUR J. NOBLE, on the charge of “IMMORAL AND UNCHRISTIAN CONDUCT! ! !“

     Mr. Noble plead a general denial and requested the Court to allow him the assistance of Wm. Culver and Doctor Bigelow as counsel.

     The Court decided the latter gentleman would not be permitted to take part in the trial, as he was not a member of the society.

     Dr. Bigelow arose from his seat in a retired part of the room, and said it was unnecessary to make any ruling so far as he was concerned, for before such a Court he should be like a “sheep dumb before its shearers.”

     Mr. Noble objected to W. C. Willing acting as prosecutor, on the ground of his not belonging to the society.

     The Court, with a distinction so delicate as to make the difference not discernible to ordinary minds, ruled precisely the reverse of its last decision, and W. C. Willing was allowed to act.

     Mr. Noble objected to Hiram Webster sitting as one of the jurors, for having said “he would not believe a Nazarite any quicker than he would the devil.” He called one witness who testified to Webster’s assertion, and offered to bring more, telling the Court, that in his defense he would have to rely upon the testimony of those stigmatized as Nazarites, and if men were to sit upon the jury, who would not believe them quicker than they would the “father of all lies,” it looked to him as if the case was already prejudged.

     The Court, with a coolness challenging precedent, very blandly decided Mr. Webster competent.

     Upon the declaration of this decision, the accused, acting under the impression very naturally made upon him, held the Court for half an hour, with an earnest, heart-felt speech; telling them that he could hope for no justice at their hands—that this trial was decided upon long before the alleged consummation of the act for which he stood arraigned—that it was a foregone conclusion, he must be expelled from the Church, and these forms and ceremonies were only designed as an outside show of justice. The flushed countenances, bowed heads, and averted faces of all connected with the Court, told how pungently these scathing truths were realized.

     When the accused had stepped from the threshold, his friends followed him, leaving the inquisition comparatively alone. It began its work, and with indecent haste, hurriedly consummated it. A few witnesses were hurriedly examined—the prosecutor hurriedly summed up the case—and the jury rendered a hurried verdict

     The verdict was precisely what it was intended it should be, and what every one conversant with the proceedings had very clearly foreseen, and SEYMOUR J. NOBLE,—a man whose heart and purse, for the last eighteen years, have been open to the requirements and necessities of the Church—whose hard-earned substance during all that time has constantly flowed into her treasury, and whose prayers have been regularly offered up at her sacred altars, is pronounced by a foreign emissary, * * * * * * * as no longer deserving of association. Though his heart yearns for the Church as that of a tender child for its mother, he is not allowed to bend the knee there, but is sent forth into the world with a stigma upon his name, and a reproach upon his Christian character.

     In view of all this, may we not reasonably ask, of what value Is human reputation in a community where such high-handed efforts to blast and destroy it can be successfully indulged? If such attacks upon private character can possibly injure the object aimed at, it shows the necessity of some legal enactment to protect honest men from the operations of such machinery, and from the Influence of a spirit that, in other countries and in other ages of the world, has sent men to the rack and to the scaffold, for alleged or suspected heresies.

     But in this particular instance, and in this immediate community, the malice that originated these proceedings, and set them in motion, is comparatively impotent and harmless. Mr. Noble has lived here too long, is too well known, and his position as a sincere, earnest Christian, too well established to suffer any permanent injury from such persecutors. It may have some effect abroad, where the parties are unknown; but here, it is looked upon as a farce, and only injures those who have been engaged in the transaction. The charges do not in any way refer to any act of his, as a citizen, a man, or a Christian. In order to have a semblance of a charge against him, his accusers were compelled to fasten upon what has ever been regarded in all civilized communities, as a privileged proceeding. He was engaged as counsel for JAMES H. BROOKS, when arraigned before a similar tribunal, and defended him with a zeal and ability that before any other body of men, would not have been without a saving influence. In the excitement of debate, and the earnestness of his argument, he undoubtedly used strong expressions, and characterized the proceedings as they deserved. It is for language used under such circumstances, that he has now been accused, arraigned and expelled from his Church.

     The ruling powers in the Methodist denomination, have by this act proclaimed that no man can remain in their midst who has the courage to assert his manhood and independence; and that no brother in the Church shall defend another accused of heresies, without subjecting himself to the risk of being also expelled, if he employs language that is offensive to the Inquisition before which he appears. In all other tribunals, where men are charged with offenses, the counsel who appears on behalf of the accused Is permitted to express his honest convictions of the case, in such terms as his judgment shall dictate; and he is nowhere, and under no circumstances, liable to be called to account, or even censured for a choice of adjectives that the case or the evidence may suggest When a man joins the M. B. Church, is it to be understood that he surrenders all his rights and privileges in this respect, and if accused of offenses, is the method of his trial, the character of the evidence he offers, and the language he employs in his vindication— all to be dictated and prescribed by those who may be constituted his judges? If this be so, it is well to let the community know It, that they may govern themselves accordingly.

     Instances of maladministration like the foregoing were then the order of the day; and not only did they pass unrebuked by those who held the reins of authority, but were gloried in, even as Romanism once gloried in the blood of the martyrs, and would still glory therein over most of the world, did not the civil powers restrain its persecuting spirit.

     Churchism had largely taken the place of primitive Christianity, and denominationalism had lamentably supplanted the fervid simplicity and spirituality of the earlier Methodism. Loyalty to the Methodist Church, as represented by a denominational platform, interpreted and enforced “by ‘Conference resolutions,’ Episcopal decisions, the precedents of sham trials, and the like, arbitrarily administered,” practically constituted the only authoritative system of ecclesiastical jurisprudence in the Methodism of that day. Under this régime, law could be pleaded—either constitutional, statutory, or constructive—for almost any course of administration one might be inclined to pursue, no matter how repugnant to common sense and common justice such course might be. Comparatively little attention was paid to the Constitution, or to the statute laws of Methodism; they were practically obsolete. Special legislation had largely taken the place of that equal legislation for all, which should be the glory of any ecclesiastical body, so far as it engages in legislative functions.

     The administration now had for its general objects the securing of personal interests, partisan ends and ecclesiastical popularity, rather than the conservation and promotion of “righteousness and true holiness.” Measures were adopted which conscientious brethren could not subscribe to, and then for their refusal to support them, the machinery of the Church was put in motion, by corrupt administration, for their punishment by defamation and expulsion from the Church.

     Dr. Bowen has given us an excellent illustration of the working of this principle in the following paragraphs:
 

     The clergy, who constitute both the legislative and executive departments of the Church, aware of their gross departure from God and Methodism, and the hopelessness of obtaining their support, on the voluntary principle, from a people who had lost all confidence in them as Christian ministers, resolved upon coercive measures; and to insure a support they could not otherwise receive, made it a condition of membership. This new law, introduced into the Discipline in so clandestine a manner as to leave the people unconscious, at least for a while, if not of its existence even, yet of its true import and bearing, was thenceforth to be regarded as a test of loyalty; its one great object being to compel the people to support the preachers sent to them by the Conference, whatever their character might be; or, in case of failure, to authorize the expulsion of all non-paying members.

     Many have already been expelled from the Church—ostensibly for something else, but really for their neglect or refusal to support a Christless, persecuting ministry. Of late, however, the guise has been thrown off, and members have been expelled for the avowed reason that they declined to support the preacher who had been placed over them by the Conference.

     The events narrated in this chapter show the spirit that prevailed in the Genesee Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church prior to that rupture in the Methodist communion which led to the formation of the Free Methodist Church. This spirit led to and instigated the trials of Roberts and McCreery, and was chiefly responsible for the final split in the Church and for the organization of another Methodist communion. The spirit of persecution continued against the representatives of vital godliness until hundreds were driven from their Church home, and hundreds more were so cruelly oppressed within that body which they supposed to be a Church home, that they chose to separate from it, and “go forth without the camp bearing His reproach,” rather than to make those compromises of principle that were demanded of them in order that they might have the fellowship of their brethren.

     Those were times that tried men’s souls and tested their spiritual mettle. In the midst of all these unpleasant and cruel things, however, the persecuted ones generally possessed their souls in patience, and even rejoiced that they were accounted worthy to suffer reproach for their Master’s name. The word of the Lord mightily prevailed, the work of the Lord greatly prospered, and the persecuted people of God were filled with peace, and love, and holy joy, and were enabled to say, in the words so often on the tongue of John Wesley, while wicked persecution raged about the heads of the early Methodists, “The best of all is, God is with us.”

[1] An address delivered by the Rev. I. Chamberlayne, of the Genesee conference of the Methodist Episcopal church, at its session held at Perry, New York, in the autumn of 1858, and adopted by the “Regency” majority of that body. While assuming to be a plea for union, it was rather a general rebuke 0f the so-called “Nazarites” for their alleged insubordination, fanaticism, disregard for reputation and the ordinary proprieties of life, and for the Introduction of schism disregard for reputation and the ordinary proprieties of life, and for the Introduction of schism into the Churches. To this Pastoral Address a most respectable minority of the Conference presented and later published a very dignified and strong Protest, which, to one reading the history of both sides of those proceedings nearly sixty years later, and with his mental vision unobseured by prejudices, appears to have been a very justifiable denial of the doings with which they were charged. The Protest was signed by L. Stiles, Secretary of the Protest Committee. A Review of the Pastoral Address was also published by “Jonadab,” presumably Joseph McCreery, in which with his usual vigor he declared the Address to be “partisan,” “slanderous” and “false;” and marshaled a strong array of evidence to sustain his propositions.