The
seceders called themselves "Reformers"; many of them eventually
joined similar bodies of seceders, forming with them the "United
Methodist Free Churches." These in 1857 reported a membership of
41,000, less than half that which was lost to Wesleyan Methodism. But
now they may be congratulated on better success, the statistics for
1896 showing, at home and abroad, a total of nearly 90,000 members,
with 1,622 chapels, 417 ministers, 3,448 local preachers, 1,350
Sunday schools, and 203,712 scholars. It may be noted with pleasure
that the leaders of the movement outlived all hostility to the mother
Church; one of them attended the Ecumenical Conference of 1881, and
took the sacrament with the other delegates.
With great regret we speak of this painful disruption, now that so
much better feeling animates the various Methodist Churches.
Practically there is no difference of doctrine among them. It has
been well said, "Our articles of faith stand to-day precisely as in
the last century, which makes us think that, like Minerva from the
brain of Jupiter, they were born full-grown and heavily armoured.
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