Methodism in Australasia.— British Meth odism was early planted in the Australasian colonies, the first church in that continent hav ing been formed in 1816. Most of the British branches came in process of time to be repre sented there i but a union movement which be gan in 1896 n New Zealand and spread to Aus tralia resulted in a merging of all branches in 1902, save the Primitive Methodists of New Zealand, who maintained a separate existence. There are two bodies: 1. Australian Methodist Church, a body of 149,878 members, with 985 itinerant ministers (1917). It has a General Conference, and prosecutes vigorously missions among the na tives and the pagan South Sea Islanders and in India. It is also active in education.
2. New Zealand Methodist Church.—This body has 24,730 members, with 198 ministers. It manifests missionary zeal and promotes edu cation.
Methodism in America.— The largest group of Methodist churches is that of the United States, consisting of 16 bodies, to which must be added two bodies for Canada and one for Japan, all constituting the Western Section of the Ecumenical Methodist Conference — 19 bodies in all, with 8,622,395 members.
1. Methodist Episcopal Church.—Immigrants from Ireland and England brought Methodism to the American colonies. The first to land, so• far as known, was a company of German Pala tines, who had settled in Ireland, and who came thence to America to engage in linen-weaving. The head of the group was Philip Embury, a local preacher, and their class-leader. They arrived at New York in August 1760, probably held meetings occasionally, but formed no so ciety, so far as the record shows, until 1766 when Embury began to preach regularly and formed what was known as the °first Methodist society in America.* Two years later the °first Methodist church in America' was built and opened. The third building occupies the origi nal site, and John Street Methodist Church, New York City, is the oldest Methodist society in America. About the same time,* as the historical statement of the Methodist Discipline has it, Robert Strawbridge, a local preacher from Ireland began to preach and form societies at Sams Creek and vicinity, in Frederick County, Md. A log chapel was built soon after. Some claim that the Maryland beginning was prior to that of New York. The matter is in contro versy. In response to urgent letters from New York, Wesley sent over (1769) two preachers, Pilmoor and Boardman, to help the °brethren in America.* These were followed by others, including a young Methodist preacher from England, Francis Asbury, who arrived in Phila delphia in 1771. All the other men sent by Wesley returned to England before, or at, the outbreak of the Revolutionary War; but Asbury threw in his lot with the Americans and re mained to spread Methodism from Georgia to Canada and to the regions beyond the Alle ghenies. He organized societies, compiled a book of discipline for their regulation, and ad ministered it with fidelity and firmness. The founder of American Methodism had qualities as a leader and organizer as great, in some re spects, as those of Wesley himself, to whom he yielded nothing in zeal, devotion and capacity for work No man of his time knew the cities, towns and frontier settlements better than Asbury, who held a firm grip of preachers and societies through the formative period, from the time of his arrival in 1771 to the day of his death, 21 March 1816. When he came, 316
Methodists were reported for the American continent; when he died, the number had reached 214,235, surpassing by several thousand the strength of the mother Church in England.
New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore were the early centres of the new denomination; but the greater work was done in the country districts, which, covered with a system of circuits, brought groups of small societies under the care of preachers and multiplied the power of the humble itinerant. The first annual conference was held in Philadelphia in 1773, with 10 preachers, all Europeans, all of the lay order, present. It acknowledged the authority of Wesley and his conference, accepted the doctrine and discipline of British Methodism, forbidding, in loyalty to Wesley, the adminis tration of the sacraments, for which Methodists must look to the Episcopal churches. Oppor tunities for this were few, and Asbury's iron hand could not always enforce obedience to this rule. Unordained preachers, selected from among converts who had "gifts and graces,* served the societies for the next 10 years, there being none others, and none with power to ordain. After the new nation was recognized, the Church was organized. At a general con (erence of the preachers in Baltimore late in December 1784, a letter was presented from Wesley saying that as the colonies were now independent, both in civil and ecclesiastical mat ters, he deemed it necessary that the Methodist societies, long deprived of the ordinances, should have them and should have their own form of government. Having failed to secure ordination for any one from the bishop of London and having for some years been con vinced that presbyters and bishops are of the same order, and therefore have the same right to ordain, he had appointed Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury to be joint superintendents in North America. Upon Coke, already a pres byter of the Church of England, he had laid hands in a ceremony of ordination or consecra tion. The General Conference proceeded to organize the Methodist Episcopal Church, with doctrinal standards, including 25 articles of religion, adopted from the 39 articles of the Church of England, and a discipline. It elected Coke and Asbury as superintendents, or bishops, defining their powers and duties, and Coke or dained Asbury deacon, elder and bishop. This action of the Conference had the effect of set tling the controversies which had distracted the societies over the administration of the sacra ments, and it provided for ordained men, at a time when such were few and far between, even in the older denominations.