ut
found the movement too far advanced to avoid a rupture of the Societies
in many of the charges. Several of the men who had taken an appeal had
stultified themselves and vitiated their appeals, by forming Societies
on the basis of the new movement; and though they disclaimed all
intention to establish another Church, the formation of these Societies,
it was held, could be interpreted in no other way. Having thus become
members of another Church their appeals, which contemplated their
restoration to the former Church, could not be entertained.

But the great question before the body was the new Rule on Slavery. At
the beginning, the subject was given to one of the large Committees, of
which the writer was a member. The late Bishop Kingsley was the
Chairman, and the Committee met almost daily for three weeks. The report
to the General Conference was made to cover the whole ground, and
accepted the basis which had been advocated so long by the Wisconsin
Conference. On its presentation a long discussion followed, and it was
believed that the requisite two-thirds vote would be obtained. But judge
of our surprise when, on taking the vote, we found the measure had been
lost by a few votes, and these had been mostly given by the delegation
of the troubled District in Western New York.

But though the majority were thus defeated in their effort to change the
General Rule, they passed a chapter that declared it to be unchristian
to hold slaves, as well as to traffic in them. The war, however, soon
followed, and the "logic of events," disposed of the Slavery question.
At this Conference I was elected a member of the General Mission
Committee at New York, which rendered it necessary for me to visit the
city annually for four years.

The Conference of 1860 was held Sept. 26th, at Janesville, Bishop Scott
presiding. At this session the Conference received Rev. I.L. Hauser, and
he was sent as a Missionary to India.

Brother Hauser is of Austrian, German and French descent. His mother's
family were German, and the Hauser name is over six hundred years old in
Vienna, Austria. His grandmother on his father's side was directly
descended from one of the Huguenot families driven out of France by the
revocation of the edict of Nantes. Coming to America, the family settled
in Pennsylvania, where Brother Hauser was born, in 1834. His family came
to Wisconsin and settled at Delavan in 1850. He graduated from Lawrence
University in 1860. D