CHAPTER VIII. 



And are we yet alive, 



And see each other's face ? 

 Glory and praise to Jesus give 



For liLs redeeming- grace ! 

 Preserved by power divine 



To full salvation here, 

 Again in Jesus' praise we join, 



And in his sight appear. 



(Charles Wesley.) 



THE first American Conference met in the city 

 of Philadelphia, July 14, 1773; the first South 

 Carolina Conference convened March 22, 1787, about 

 fourteen years afterward, in the city of Charleston. 

 Besides examining the character of the preachers, and 

 fixing their appointments for the following year, little 

 business was done in these early Conferences; they 

 were for the most part purely religious meetings. 

 Their number was greatly multiplied to suit the con- 

 venience of the preachers and people — as many as 

 three being held in the State of Virginia in 1793, and 

 no less than nineteen the same year in different parts 

 of the country. But these different Conferences were 

 considered but as the adjourned meetings of the same, 

 or viewed as one by the aggregation of the several 

 parts, and their proceedings published as those of 

 only one Conference. The following account in sub- 

 stance, given by Stith Mead, of one of these Confer- 

 ences, held in a log-cabin (1792), may aid to a clear 

 understanding of their proceedings: 



12 (177) 



