Transcriber's Note:
Obvious printer errors have been corrected. Hyphenation has beenrationalised.
The text is divided into fifty eight Chapters, which are grouped intonine Parts. The Chapters are not identified in the Contents pages: theymostly coincide with the topics noted there, though not with theirnumbering. The numbering of pages is occasionally out of sequence,generally when a topic is discussed more than once.
Both the Index and the Contents Pages use expressions that identify thepage number and section/subsection to which they relate. Theseexpressions are explained in the Note immediately before the Index.
A number of words and phrases are bolded in the original. These havebeen bolded in this text. Where the original treatment is unclear aguess has been necessary.
Passages in smaller font in Part IX (The Ritual), that describeactions to be taken by a minister or the congregation, are indented.
REVISED EDITION 1918
COPYRIGHTED 1918,
By The AGENT and Publishers of the
COLORED M. E. CHURCH
To the Members of the Colored MethodistEpiscopal Church:
We esteem it our duty and privilege mostearnestly to recommend to you, as membersof our Church, our form of Discipline,which has been founded on the experienceof a long series of years.
We wish to see this publication in thehouse of every member of the Colored MethodistEpiscopal Church; and the more so,as it contains the Articles of Religion maintainedmore or less, in part or in whole, byevery reformed Church in the world.
Far from wishing you to be ignorant ofany of our doctrines, or any part of our Discipline,we desire you to read, mark, learn,and inwardly digest the whole. You ought,next to the Word of God, to procure theArticles and Canons of the Church to whichyou belong.
We deem it proper, in this place, to giveyou a brief account of the organization ofour Connection:
From the introduction of Methodism on{2}this continent, we have ever constituted apart of the great Methodist family—first, asmembers of the Methodist Episcopal Churchin America, and also after the change tookplace by which we were known as the MethodistEpiscopal Church in the United States;and when the division took place, in 1844,which we regard as a legal and constitutionaldivision of the Church, we formed apart of that division called the MethodistEpiscopal Church, South, which relation wecontinued to sustain until the organizationof our Church took place at the GeneralConference held at Jackson, Tenn., whichbegan its session December 15, 1870. Theday was spent in prayer and supplication tothe Almighty that his blessings might restupon us; and on the following day the regularbusiness of the session began, BishopRobert Paine, D. D., of the Methodist EpiscopalChurch, South, in the chair.
The circumstances which led to our separateand distinct organization were as follows:
When the General Conference of the MethodistEpiscopal Church, South, met in NewOrleans, April, 1866, the Conference foundthat, by revolution and the fortunes of war,a change had taken place in our politicaland social relation, which made it necessarythat a change should also be made in ourecclesiastical relations, and provision was{3}made for our organizatio