the accident. The time had been well spent. He knew that he was now as well read as any college graduate, and that he had the makings of a clear and confident writer and speaker. The long hours spent nursing his mother had made him feel needed and useful once again. Moreover, he had enlisted in the United Brethren fight as his father’s strong right arm in Dayton.
That spring, Wilbur published a short tract entitled Scenes in the Church Commission During the Last Day of Its Session . His first piece of published writing, it was a lucid, concise, and professionally strident bit of Radical propaganda. He had gathered the material for the pamphlet three years before, in the fall of 1885, when the Church Commission established by the General Conference of 1884 met in Dayton. Milton, like all of the bishops, had been named to the commission. True to form, he refused to attend what he regarded as an illegal and unconstitutional body. He left for the West Coast as usual late that summer and was in Oregon when the first session was called to order on November 16, 1885.
The Religious Telescope announced that the commission would conduct its business in closed-door sessions. Wilbur, following the proceedings with obvious interest, was not surprised. “It seemed entirely proper, and indeed fitting,” he wrote, “that a body meeting to legislate secrecy in, should also legislate in secret.” 23
In fact, visitors were to be admitted, although the commission had chosen not to advertise the fact. Wilbur did not attend until the final session on November 23, when he heard a debate that raged through the afternoon. A great many Liberals were as philosophically opposed to secret societies as Milton Wright, but feared that the absolute prohibition of these organizations was driving members out of the church. They sought to abolish penalties for membership in a lodge, but to include a statement in the new Constitution suggesting that Christians “ought not” to belong.
Others took a harder line. The president of the commission went so far as to argue that the position on secretism, like the classic abolitionist stand of the church before the Civil War, placed the Brethren in an untenable political position. “We made a great mistake on the slavery question,” he maintained. “Our opposition was not judicious. Other churches, by taking a milder course, were enabled to do a great work in the South, while our church was not able to do anything.” 24 Wilbur—Milton Wright’s son, Dan Wright’s grandson—was appalled.
Before the close of the session, the commission managed to produce a draft of a new Constitution and Confession of Faith to be put to a vote by all church members in an election which the commission would oversee. Wilbur, who had made very careful notes on the alterations to the traditional documents approved at this session, was outraged to discover that the official versions of the new Constitution and Confession published in The Religious Telescope in January 1887 did not match those approved by the commission. Apparently the Liberal leadership had illicitly introduced further alterations.
Most of the members of the Constitutional Association, led by Milton Wright and his friend and ally Halleck Floyd, argued for a complete boycott of the election. Such decisions were the work of the General Conference, not a special commission; the vote was illegal and divisive. Over the next year and a half the Radicals increased their already heavy travel schedules to include attendance at local conferences in order to argue against the election.
Wilbur joined the fray in the spring of 1888, transforming the rough notes taken three years before into the most effective Radical pamphlet of the entire campaign. Scenes in the Church Commission was first sold through the Conservator , then given away by the thousands at local conferences and to church congregations.
The general election was held later that year. The Liberal
That spring, Wilbur published a short tract entitled Scenes in the Church Commission During the Last Day of Its Session . His first piece of published writing, it was a lucid, concise, and professionally strident bit of Radical propaganda. He had gathered the material for the pamphlet three years before, in the fall of 1885, when the Church Commission established by the General Conference of 1884 met in Dayton. Milton, like all of the bishops, had been named to the commission. True to form, he refused to attend what he regarded as an illegal and unconstitutional body. He left for the West Coast as usual late that summer and was in Oregon when the first session was called to order on November 16, 1885.
The Religious Telescope announced that the commission would conduct its business in closed-door sessions. Wilbur, following the proceedings with obvious interest, was not surprised. “It seemed entirely proper, and indeed fitting,” he wrote, “that a body meeting to legislate secrecy in, should also legislate in secret.” 23
In fact, visitors were to be admitted, although the commission had chosen not to advertise the fact. Wilbur did not attend until the final session on November 23, when he heard a debate that raged through the afternoon. A great many Liberals were as philosophically opposed to secret societies as Milton Wright, but feared that the absolute prohibition of these organizations was driving members out of the church. They sought to abolish penalties for membership in a lodge, but to include a statement in the new Constitution suggesting that Christians “ought not” to belong.
Others took a harder line. The president of the commission went so far as to argue that the position on secretism, like the classic abolitionist stand of the church before the Civil War, placed the Brethren in an untenable political position. “We made a great mistake on the slavery question,” he maintained. “Our opposition was not judicious. Other churches, by taking a milder course, were enabled to do a great work in the South, while our church was not able to do anything.” 24 Wilbur—Milton Wright’s son, Dan Wright’s grandson—was appalled.
Before the close of the session, the commission managed to produce a draft of a new Constitution and Confession of Faith to be put to a vote by all church members in an election which the commission would oversee. Wilbur, who had made very careful notes on the alterations to the traditional documents approved at this session, was outraged to discover that the official versions of the new Constitution and Confession published in The Religious Telescope in January 1887 did not match those approved by the commission. Apparently the Liberal leadership had illicitly introduced further alterations.
Most of the members of the Constitutional Association, led by Milton Wright and his friend and ally Halleck Floyd, argued for a complete boycott of the election. Such decisions were the work of the General Conference, not a special commission; the vote was illegal and divisive. Over the next year and a half the Radicals increased their already heavy travel schedules to include attendance at local conferences in order to argue against the election.
Wilbur joined the fray in the spring of 1888, transforming the rough notes taken three years before into the most effective Radical pamphlet of the entire campaign. Scenes in the Church Commission was first sold through the Conservator , then given away by the thousands at local conferences and to church congregations.
The general election was held later that year. The Liberal
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