Excerpt from Annals of the American Methodist Pulpit: Or Commemorative Notices of Distinguished Clergymen of the Methodist Denomination in the United States, From Its Commencement to the Close of the Year Eighteen Hundred and Fifty-Five It was not long before the several Annual Conferences found it necessary, in order to secure harmony in their mode Of Operation, to appoint a General Conference, consisting of all the Elders belonging to the travelling connection. The first General Conference was held in Baltimore, in November, 1792. At this time, a number of ministers seceded from the body, headed by James o'kelly, a Presiding Elder in Virginia, on the ground of being dissatisfied with the Bishop's absolute power of stationing the preachers. This occasioned some disturbance, for a season, in some parts of Virginia and North Carolina; but the seceding party gradually dwindled until it ceased to exist. At this time, there were two hundred and sixty-six travelling preachers, and sixty-five thousand nine hundred and eighty members of the Church. Circuits had been formed and societies established throughout nearly every State and Territory in the Union, and also in Upper Canada, the whole of which was under the watchful superintendence and energetic control of Bishop Asbury. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.