Ohio Yearly Meeting's Podcast

EOF04A The Eye of Faith, A History of Ohio Yearly Meeting Conservative. Chapter 4 Part, The Second Schism

• Bill Taber

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The painful second great schism of Ohio Yearly Meeting Conservative unfolds through a historical account of dividing tensions between Gurneyite and Wilburite Quakers from 1845-1874. This detailed historical narrative chronicles how theological differences surrounding Joseph John Gurney's theological interpretations of Quakerism fractured a once-united religious community.

• Conflict began in 1845 when Ohio received competing epistles from two separate New England yearly meetings
• Benjamin Hoyle, Ohio's clerk, openly favored the smaller Wilburite body, creating tensions
• Representatives repeatedly failed to agree on new clerks, effectively freezing leadership
• Traveling ministers increasingly identified as either Gurneyite or Wilburite, intensifying divisions
• Local problems like rejected certificates, withheld ministry minutes, and unrecognized ministers worsened tensions
• In 1853, the yearly meeting couldn't conduct business for four days due to objections over visiting Wilburites
• The formal separation occurred in 1854, though groups didn't officially disown each other until 1864
• Final division came in 1874 when courts granted the Gurneyite branch possession of the Mount Pleasant Boarding School

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Speaker 1:

Art thou in the darkness, mind it not, for if thou dost, it will feed thee more. But stand still and act not, and wait in patience Till light arises out of darkness and leads thee.

Speaker 2:

This is a continuation of a reading of the Eye of Faith a history of Ohio Yearly Meeting Conservative, chapter 4, the Second Schism 1845-1874. Section A 1845-1853. The second great Quaker schism to affect Ohio had its origin in 1845, when the yearly meeting was confronted with epistles from two separate New England yearly meetings. The schism finally occurred in 1854, though the separate groups did not actually disown each other for yet another ten years. The final step of separation occurred in 1874, when the bins yearly meeting Gurneyite was granted by a divided civil court possession of the Mount Pleasant Boarding School and the Hoyle Yearly Meeting Wilburite made preparations to erect a new school and then a new yearly meeting house near Barnesville in the midst of Stillwater Quarterly Meeting. When Benjamin Hoyle informed Ohio Yearly Meeting early in the 1845 sessions that he had letters from two New England Yearly Meetings, the meeting came to an immediate impasse. Ohio Friends were not in fact caught unawares by this dilemma. Their leaders had been following the conflict between the two competing New England groups since its beginning. Nor were they indifferent to the central issue which revolved around whether accepting or rejecting Joseph John Gurney's evangelical interpretations of Quakerism. Feelings were already strong on both sides, for example Jacob Branson's last public act before his death in 1845 had been to attend a meeting for sufferings to labor against the writings of Gurney and Ash, hoping that a clear and unequivocal testimony might be issued against them. Benjamin Hoyle understandably refused repeatedly to read the epistle from what was being called the larger body Gurneyite, whose leaders had sent him home without a returning minute two years earlier. In a later meeting, the assistant clerk was repeatedly requested to read the epistle as Benjamin Hoyle would not do it. Benjamin finally consented to the assistant clerk's reading of the epistle on condition that he himself be allowed to read the epistle from the smaller body Wilburite Immediate following which he did, rising to his feet the moment the assistant clerk had finished reading.

Speaker 2:

Benjamin Hoyle's open espousal of the smaller body in New England made him unacceptable as clerk to many members of Ohio Yearly Meeting. But when the representatives met after the final session in 1846, they found themselves unable to agree on any other name for the clerk. To agree on any other name for the clerk At first some of the representatives favored Hoyle. Proposed that they a strong majority sign their names to a report favoring Hoyle. However, someone pointed out that such a procedure could lead to dangerous consequences, so they agreed to report that they could not agree on any names for clerk and assistant. When this report had been given to meeting, a venerable Gurneyite friend sanctioned the precedent which kept Benjamin Hoyle as clerk throughout the troubled years. He said there is no alternative. The friends under appointments of clerks must be continued and the yearly meeting agreed, thus freezing leadership in several areas of the yearly meeting as it was in 1846. During that year no epistle from New England was read and two visitors from the smaller body eventually left the business meeting after repeated objections to their presence and after Benjamin Hoyle said he was willing for them to leave so long as this did not signify approval of their disownment by the larger body. An out-of-door meeting was given these friends, signed by 38 prominent friends, including Benjamin Hoyle and Joseph Edgerton, to signify the fellowship felt for them by many Ohio friends.

Speaker 2:

On one thing the 1846 yearly meeting could agree Without a dissenting voice. It wrote to London that the peace and harmony of this Yearly Meeting and its several branches, also in its collective capacity, have been greatly disturbed on account of the doctoral writings of a member or members of that Yearly Meeting by the yearly meeting of 1847, the position of the rest of Quakerism in regard to New England was very clear. Only Philadelphia and Ohio held back from fully recognizing the larger body as the only New England yearly meeting. A small separation in New York in 1847 and 1848, never recognized by Ohio, was the only other opposition. Once again, however, the representatives could not agree on.

Speaker 2:

Clerks prophetess wrote several weeks later that the state of things exhibited amongst us at this time is daily in my remembrance. When will better days arrive? The journal of a Weberite minister from Short Creek echoes his distress. Many of the circumstances that occurred at yearly meeting had better be buried in forgetfulness. Some indications of the kind of preaching and circumstances deserving forgetfulness may be found in the last words of Abner Heald, a minister who died in 1847. Those who say the doctrines of Gurney are in accordance with the writings of early friends will be found liars before Almighty God.

Speaker 2:

Anne Branson's journal marks this year as the beginnings of the trouble with Gurneyism. Many wonder at my mouth being so generally closed during our meeting for worship. It seems to me I see a cause how we have become degenerated, trusting in the arms of flesh. And what a flow of words do we often hear which have but little demonstration of the Spirit and power to recommend them to the attention of the people. After beginning at Harrisville, she was pained at how some of our members, who have given up to go where they please and run as they list, have become divested even of common civility and good breeding in our meetings for worship. Having given up to mix with all the popular associations of the day, they despise those who believe it best and right to act upon religious ground and in a society capacity. After visiting meetings of Short Creek quarterly meeting, she spoke of cruel censures and a feeling like being nailed to the cross and she declared she could never again visit a low, lifeless libertine meeting which met at Smithfield In 1848, the representatives again could not agree a nominee for clerk.

Speaker 2:

However, as the assistant clerk was ill that year, the matter was urgent and the representatives were instructed to propose a name on which they could agree. They could only report, however, that it was their prevailing sense to offer the name of R H Smith. This is the meeting. This the meeting could not accept because the representatives had not been able to unite on his nomination. Ultimately, a friend assisted the clerk until William Bates was able to return to his place beside Benjamin Hoyle.

Speaker 2:

So far as nominating clerks were concerned, the next yearly meeting 1849, was somewhat more peaceful, for the representatives were able to unite on proposing the same clerks. Only in 1851 would they again be able to agree. Each of the other yearly meetings through 1854 would be marked with the same tensions over nominating clerks, but the unanimity on nominating clerks did not permeate the meeting when it came to the New England question. After several days of discussion, an English minister, benjamin Seaborn, declared that he was led to tell them to close the yearly meeting and go home to avoid further fruitless controversy. He was immediately followed in speech by a friend from philadelphia who simply said friends, it is a snare, it is a snare, it is a trap. Beware you are not taken in the trap. A memorial, including the dying words of a beloved minister and fellow member, which condemned certain modified views of Quakerism, was shelved because of understandable Quirini opposition. During this yearly meeting, the Wilburites would have been fortified by a document issued by the 1849 Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, a report of the meeting for sufferings adopted by the Yearly Meeting of Friends held in Philadelphia in relationship to the fact and causes of the division which occurred in New England Meeting in 1845. Vision which occurred in New England meeting in 1845.

Speaker 2:

The New England business was not the only source of attention for Ohio Yearly Meeting. Another irritant to some was the Free Produce Association of Friends of Ohio Yearly Meeting which by 1848 had sponsored a store selling goods produced by free labor, that is, by non-slaves. That rather Wilburite periodical, the Friend, would not publish a notice about the store or about the free produce associations. The Ruhlman-like logic of refraining entirely from the evil of slavery, even if it meant buying more expensive cloth, sugar and so on, solely gained ground among friends in Ohio, so that by 1850, more than 200 friends attended the annual meeting of the Free Produce Association. Just four years after a very discouraging start, however, a proposition to hold the annual meeting in the meeting house at Mount Pleasant after a long discussion in yearly meeting was not united with. Even so, the annual meeting was strong enough to appoint two correspondents from each monthly meeting to ascertain the degree of abstinence from slave-produced girths. The Flourishing Society had printed and distributed 46,000 pages on behalf of its cause. Both the Wilburites and Gurneyites served on the board of managers in 1850.

Speaker 2:

An English friend visited in 1850, spoke of the first session of yearly meeting as a very painful sitting owing to a spirit of disorder and ranterism under a cloak of sanctity, which was very prevalent. The next three sessions, he said, were an exhibition of much that was painful Of that. Last day he simply noted trouble in the camp. He concluded beautiful for situation is Mount Pleasant and where all the friends who lived in the town and around it to dwell and love it would be a happy place indeed.

Speaker 2:

After 1850, the irritations and pressures leading towards the separation began to accumulate and intensify. Pressures from the outside included the ministers and visitors who are now usually identifiable as Gurneyite or Wilburite, at least in the outspoken convictions concerning the New England question. A Wilburite account gives two examples. One was attending our yearly meeting twice and most of its subordinate meetings. After much excitement had been apparent in one of the sittings of our yearly meeting at the rise of said friend from Philadelphia, I have more hope for this meeting than I have of yours. If we can only raise a contention, there is some hope. The other example concerned two ministers who urged the yearly meeting to adjourn to another year, with businesses still before it, just because the presence of two friends from the smaller body. We venture the belief that such disorganizing measures have never been admitted to by any yearly meeting, unless we accept the one by John Comley, a leader in the Hicksite organization, that our friends should feel restrained to withhold. From such as these the right hand of fellowship is not to be wondered at.

Speaker 2:

The traveling ministers not only kept the question alive by their preaching and their presence, the Quaker custom during public prayer for the prayer of any friend whom they did not feel to be divinely led.

Speaker 2:

Apparently, this silent rebuke was not practiced in all or most local meetings, but it is likely that wherever it did occur, as at Short Creek, it would have created strong tensions and feelings. Furthermore, friends of each party could cite instances when a traveling minister had not been properly received by friends at local meetings or where he had not been given an acceptable returning minute or had not been able to appoint meetings or to use the meeting house, for example. The Gurneyite document declared public opposition was frequently made to the ministers frequently traveling amongst us with full certificates. Several beloved ministers from England were openly charged with unsoundness and much disunity with them was expressed. Petty local problems added fuel to the tensions almost everywhere. Gurneyites throughout the yearly meeting would probably have agreed with Brough's general charge against the Wilburites High profession of sanctity, wholesale denunciation of others and palpable violations of the discipline. A minister with his family who moved from New England to Salem Ohio had their certificates of removal returned to them by that meeting as unacceptable. Removal returned to them by that meeting as unacceptable.

Speaker 2:

In 1852, a Gurneyite minister was not given a minute to travel to Indiana yearly meeting. At least one budding minister with Gurneyite sentiments was not recognized so long as the Wilbrights were in control. Both sides could point to cases in many local meetings where appointments had been held up or paralyzed by the intransigence of the other party. For example, short Creek had not been able to appoint representatives to the meeting for sufferings for several years, just as the yearly meeting itself had not been able to appoint its members at large to that body. Surely many friends could agree with Brough's comment. It was often felt a burden to attend our meetings for discipline, a marking being set upon every friend as unsound and out of unity who was in favor of corresponding with New England yearly meeting. Things got worse in 1853, when the yearly meeting was unable to do any business for four days because of the gurneyite objections to the presence of two friends from the tiny Wilburite body in New York. When Benjamin Hoyle was about to begin the business after four fruitless days he had been told privately by a Gurneyite that the objections would cease. On that day an English minister rose and entreated him to consider well what he was about to do In the eyes of visiting Quakers, most of them now Gurneyite, because of their unity with New England and their friends within Ohio. Yearly meetings Hoyle proceeding with business while to disown members of New York yearly meeting one of them, a minister who was probably given a seat in the minister gallery, were present was a break in the World Fellowship of Friends because it seemed a clear breach of the informal laws which governed the relationship between yearly meetings. Their indignation was righteous. This was no longer just a difference between two yearly meetings. Since 1849, the three conferences of American yearly meetings on this question not attended of course by Philadelphia or Ohio had declared more strongly each time that yearly meetings were bound to accept the internal disciplinary proceedings of a sister yearly meeting. London had also tenderly but firmly declared the same advice. In 1853, the conference said in part that ministers and elders traveling from abroad, partaking of the spirit which was produced discord and schism elsewhere, is of doubtful usefulness and may have a mischievous effect. Friends will be cautious how they aid such, either individually or by minute. And in obvious reference to the Wilbright High Profession of Sanctity and wholesale denunciation of others who were not faithful or consistent or sound friends, the report stressed the need for cultivation of the spirit and feeling of the brotherly goodwill and the resisting of the spirit of jealousy and judging of others. The 1851 conference had already called on Ohio and Philadelphia by name to recognize the larger body in New England. The 1853 yearly meeting was properly attended by a committee from Indiana yearly meeting concerned to promote unity.

Speaker 2:

Little record of that long dry week in 1853 remains For three days. Only the opening and closing minutes stand on record. One can clearly imagine the kind of preaching and even more clearly the kind of silence which would have occurred during these days of non-violent test. The will engaged in several hundred quiet Quakers. According to Joshua Amal, the only Wilburite who cared to say much about this painful period, the journals of Anne Bransham and Joseph Edgerton are blank. For several years William Hill, the friend whose presence caused the four-day impasse, silently endured much-pointed preaching. Apparently there were even some attempts to block him from entering the meeting house and some threats to keep him out by legal means.

Speaker 2:

The yearly meeting of 1853 saw increasing tension over the selection of the clerk. In 1852, some of the representatives had tried to call their group into session to nominate a new clerk after the yearly meeting had already acted on the report, but they were told that they might not meet without a specific charge from the yearly meeting In 1853, fully two-thirds of the representatives favored continuing the clerk for his 16th year in office and they were able to prevail, even though some of the representatives strongly urged those who wanted a change to meet separately. Strongly urge those who wanted a change to meet separately. The separate meetings were not permitted as the representatives were told that they must meet and act together. This concludes the reading of Section A of Chapter 4 of the Eye of Faith. We'll be continuing with Section B of Chapter 4.

Speaker 2:

What we just heard was a production of Ohio Year of Faith. We'll be continuing with section B of chapter 4. What you just heard was a production of Ohio Yearly Meeting. It was read by Kent Palmer. The words from our introduction are from James Naylor's To the Life of God and All, 1659. The music was composed and sung by Paulette Meyer. More information at her website, wwwpaulettemeyercom.

Speaker 1:

Art thou in the darkness, mind it not, for if thou dost, it will feed thee more. But stand still and act not, and wait in patience till light arises out of darkness and leads thee.