03.04. A CHRISTIAN DEMOCRAT.

A CHRISTIAN DEMOCRAT.

He had from his childhood breathed the spirit of liberty. The mountain path was free to all; the wilderness road had no barriers; the homes of the pioneers were open to all comers; the fish in the sea, and the bird in the air, were not freer than the man of the wilderness, and this very freedom influenced his character and made it impossible for him to submit to rule or endure restraint. Then, too, American liberty was being born, and by the time he reached his manhood, it was a strong, healthy, robust spirit which the pioneer breathed to the full, even as he did the fresh mountain air of the morning. Of course it is understood that I use the word democrat with reference to its philosophic, and not its political sense. Real democracy is more than the mere framework of government. It reaches into the life and thought of the individual citizen, and proposes to secure to him all the right and privileges of his kind. It affords every citizen the greatest possible development of his powers, and the greatest and freest use of his rights, consistent with his duties to his neighbor, his country and his God. Self-will is not supreme in a real democracy; indeed there can be no democracy in a community where the people are self-centered, or self-seeking. A Christian democrat must assist his neighbor when in need, console the sorrowing, speak thoughtful words of encouragement, and fully share the joys of those about him. The sacrifice of self for the good of others is the only foundation upon which a Christian Democracy can be builded, and I submit that the Rev. James O’Kelly fully met the demands of such democracy. In the days of James O’Kelly there were at least two great aspiring leaders, both of whom were self-centered, and self-seeking--Asbury and Coke--which made it all the more difficult for O’Kelly to live his life, and make effective his plan, but he neither swerved from the path, nor faltered in the march. He was a man of peace, but was forced to fight. He was a dissenter for conscience sake. No controversy embittered him; no ecclesiastical opposition involved him in personal enmity; no contention ever called forth from his lips sneering allusions to an inferior. He contended with his brethren, but it was in the interest of the oppressed. He replied to those in authority with sharp rhetoric, but his rejoinders were full of love and truth. There were two forces which made his greatness possible, and his democratic spirit effective. One was a sublime self-trust. He leaned upon no man’s arm. He walked a path untrodden by others, except they followed. He walked erect in every path of duty to which he was called to pursue. He accepted responsibility, and advanced with firm and steady step. His march centered on the consciousness of rectitude and duty. The other was that there was no royal road to place and power. That the best a man could do under the circumstances was his duty, and with rare singleness of purpose, and deep consecration, he devoted himself to the work he had to do. To him the daily obligation was "thus saith the Lord."

Very early in the history of Methodism the ecclesiastical form began to take shape, and show assertion, and immediately O’Kelly, with characteristic devotion, began his plans for defense, for to him Ecclesiastical Rule was unbearable. It was the desire and the plan of Asbury, and others, to Episcopize the Church. O’Kelly and his followers were willing for a Presbyterian form of government, and for that they pleaded, though O’Kelly was a staunch advocate of the republican, or congregational, form of church government. Voting by the preachers and people was a thing to be feared and dreaded by Asbury, and his immediate successors in office, but voting was the one thing O’Kelly believed to be Biblically right and wholly just to the people. The leaders made an effort to create a Central Council for the government of the new-born church, in which O’Kelly saw the development of an unbending ecclesiasticism, which he fought with a vigor characteristic of his strength and interest, and so well did he succeed that in the district over which he presided the Central Council was not recognized, nor enforced, for human rights, and human liberty, were well entrenched in the hearts of his followers. His vigorous and decided opposition to this Central Council was the entering wedge which finally separated him from the Methodist Conference. Of the plan, and his interpretation of it, he writes:

"I confess that on one side it discovers weakness, and on the other hand policy. But as we were men under authority, we feared to offend our superior. We often prayed that God would deliver the preachers from the curse of suspicion. This prayer had the desired effect on some of us. Francis proposed that no preaching house should be built for some time to come, by the people, without first obtaining liberty of the conference. I cogently opposed the motion, because I loved the people, and conceived it to be an invasion of their civil as well as their religious liberties. I contended on till I discovered Francis to be much displeased, and he answered and said unto me: ’I can stay in Baltimore as long as you, and if I do not carry this I will never sit in another council.’

"However, I obtained a small amendment, and so gave over contending, and the business went on. In the evening I unbosomed myself to my brother, Philip Bruce, but from what I afterwards heard, I found that Solomon’s bird had carried the news to the great man. However, I told Francis that instead of councilors, we were his tools, and that I disliked to be a tool for any man. The business was finished, and the whole collected, and I suppose prepared and sent to the press. I saw them no more until the resolves came out in print." The conditions were a source of great mental, and soul, anxiety, and for a time sleep was denied him. He felt himself deceived, and imposed upon, for in the matters of government, as provided by the Council, neither preacher nor layman were recognized. Of this he wrote Mr. Asbury, calling his attention to the infant church, and asking for one year in which to consider the matter. The request was promptly denied, and the writer given to understand that neither he, nor the people, had rights that the Episcopacy was called upon to respect. O’Kelly says of Asbury’s reply, "I now began to discover the rapid five years’ growth of a ’moderate Episcopacy.’ Whereunto shall I liken it? It is like a dwarf whose head grows too fast for its body." Not only in the matter of government did this champion of human rights and liberties take the part of the common preacher, but in the matter of ordination and administering ordinances. In the contention over the ordinances of the church, there was for a while a visible separation between the church in the north, and the church in the south, but O’Kelly, with a bleeding heart over the situation, stood firmly by his conception of right. He believed that all men were equal before God, and that broad phylacteries, bordered garments, and mitred caps called for no more respect from men, than home-spun garments, coon-skin caps, and Indian moccasins. Mr. Asbury had demanded that he be addressed as Bishop, but O’Kelly felt that in the land of liberty and freedom, though yet wrapped in the swaddling clothes of its infancy, there was no place for an ecclesiastical head, and set his face steadfastly against it. He saw in that early day, what we have all come to see in these, that a Christian Democracy would profoundly impress not only the people of America, but the people of the whole world.

James O’Kelly, though a man of the wilderness, was a man of culture, refinement and justice, and to him to be just was greater than to be generous. He was a big man, with a big gospel, and he preached it in a big way. He was a firm believer in the capacity of every man to receive, enjoy and express that abundant gospel of life. To him every man was a child of God, and all things his, richly to enjoy, whether they were temporal or spiritual in character. The greatest asset a nation, or a church, can have is not found in fertile soil, and large endowments; not in great rivers, and eloquent preachers; not in mines of coal and iron, of silver and precious metals; not in the largeness of college buildings, and the architecture of temples; not in the transportation of great cargoes of merchandise across the seas; not in the organizations of forces according to the latest scheme for expert work, but in giving to the world such heroic spirits as the man, who for conscience’ sake dares to stand alone. The greatest asset that any nation, or church, can have, is a robust, self-respecting, intelligent, law-abiding, high-minded citizenship, and a membership of consecrated men and women, whose lives are given to the unselfish service of one another.