B. T. Roberts

So the center of the story shifts over to New York for a while.

So it was in Pekin, New York in 1860 that B.T. Roberts and other ministers and lay people decided they needed to restore a Wesleyan zeal for holiness.

And they felt compelled as Christians to fight for freedom for slaves, freedom from secret societies, and freedom from materialism in order to help the poor.

The group always wanted free seats in church and a style of service which allowed freedom for the Holy Spirit to minister.

And where does that leave you when you wholeheartedly believe that those ways are fundamentally wrong? The Free Methodists separated from the Methodists because they couldn't stand by things like slavery and charging money for seats in church, and they found they were unable to persuade the Methodists to change their ways at the time.

It usually happens at the point that there's no other choice.

And for BT Roberts and the other clergy with him, as soon as they dared to openly condemn slaveholding and the renting of church seats, they were officially excluded from the Methodist denomination anyway.

You know, they had no choice but to forge their own path.