The End of Circuit Riding
It makes sense to date the beginning of circuit riding at the Christmas Conference of 1784, but it is much more difficult to date the end of circuit riding because it was never an official category of ministry, so it never appeared in Annual Conference records. The U.S. census eliminated "frontier" as a category in 1890, but the need for "old fashioned" circuits generally ended much earlier, sometime before the U.S. Civil War. Whenever Methodist Episcopal congregations became well established, bishops would appoint clergy to groupings of small congregations rather than the territories to which earlier clergy had been appointed. Of course, this development moved west as the U.S. frontier moved west.
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Famous quotes containing the words the end, circuit and/or riding:
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