In South Carolina. 430 



whole connection for their support. Before this the 

 difficult task of supplying money for their use had 

 been performed principally by his own personal and 

 unaided endeavors. A second collection was granted 

 by the Conference in 1796, and was afterward annu- 

 ally appointed till the regular organization of " The 

 General Wesley an Methodist Missionary Society," in 

 1818, of which Messrs. Bunting, Taylor, and Watson 

 w^ere the first secretaries. In emulation of the exam- 

 ple of the British brethren, the preachers stationed 

 in New York and the book agents held a meeting and 

 resolved to form a Bible and Missionary Society of 

 the Methodist Episcopal Church in America. In 

 pursuance of a call made by them, a public meeting 

 of all the members and friends of the Church who 

 might choose to attend was held in the Forsyth 

 Street Church, on the evening of April 5, 1819, when 

 a constitution was adopted and officers and managers 

 were elected. The Domestic Missionary Society of 

 Columbia, in South Carolina, was formed the same 

 year, and was one of the first that became auxiliary 

 to this original society in New York. At the forma- 

 tion of this society, it was intended to print and circu- 

 late Bibles and Testaments gratuitously in connection 

 with spreading the gospel by means of missionary 

 labors, and hence its name was called the " Mission- 

 ary and Bible Society of the Methodist Episcopal 

 Church;" but being convinced, upon more mature re- 

 flection, that the American Bible Society, which was 

 in successful operation, was fully adequate to the 

 task of supplying the community with the sacred 

 Scriptures, the board of managers recommended to 

 the General Conference of 1820, whose cooperation 

 was contemplated from the beginning, to strike the 



