ther Robbins entered the North Indiana Conference in 1844. His
appointments were Winchester, Plymouth, Clinton, Hagerstown,
Williamsburg, Knightstown, Doublin and Lewisville. He was transferred to
the Wisconsin Conference in 1855, and stationed at North Ward, Fond du
Lac. His subsequent appointments were Waupun, Berlin and Empire. The
year opened finely, and during the winter Brother Robbins held a
protracted meeting, which resulted in the conversion of many souls. But
the Society met with a severe loss this year, in the destruction of
their Church by fire.

Brother Robbins remained a second year at Spring Street, and again
enjoyed a good revival. After leaving the city, he has been stationed at
Racine, Waukesha, Sheboygan Falls, Waupun, Berlin, Green Bay, Hart
Prairie, Sharon and Footville. At the present writing, he is at the last
named place, seeking to gather sheaves for the Master.

This year intense excitement prevailed throughout the country. The
Presidential election, which placed Abraham Lincoln at the head of our
national affairs, occurred in November. And during the following months,
the rebellion was taking form in the Southern States, but did not
culminate in open rupture until the middle of April. But before stating
the position of the Conference and Church in the pending struggle, it
will be proper to refer to the causes which produced the conflict.

In the settlement of the United States, two distinct types of society
planted themselves in the two great centres of the Atlantic Coast. The
one made New England the theater of development, and the other the
Eastern cordon of the Southern States. From the first center, the
population moved westward through New York, Pennsylvania, and the
Prairie States, to the Mississippi. From the other, the settlements
extended through the savannahs of the South to the Gulf.

The emigrants in the North were mainly those who came to the Western
world to find an asylum from the religious persecutions to which they
had been subjected at home. In the South, society was largely
established under the sanctions of royalty. These two facts will account
for the radical differences existing between the people of the two
sections. In the North, society very naturally accepted the political
doctrines of personal equality and universal freedom. In the South, the
people as naturally adhered to their aristocratic ideas, and held to the
doctrine of privileged classes.

The two types o