B. T. Roberts

While there, he met Daniel Steele, later to become president of Syracuse University, and William C. Kendall, soon to become Roberts' comrade for reform in the Genesee Conference (Ibid) Upon graduation, Roberts was offered the presidency of Wyoming Seminary of Kingston, PA, a secondary institution of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

Roberts declined the position, electing instead to enter the pastorate, seeking elders orders in Genesee Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

Roberts, along with a number of other would-be reformers, could essentially identify three problems with the pew system: 1) it ended the segregation of the worshiping congregation into male and female (which John Wesley himself approved of), 2) it commercialized the church, and 3) it discriminated against the poor.

Leslie Ray Marston, former bishop in the Free Methodist Church of North America, best described the situation: In July 1855 the Buffalo Advocate accused the minority group of organizing a secret society called the "Nazarite Union," basing the charge on a document that had come into the hands of Editor Robie, and which had been prepared by the unpredictable Joseph McCreery, Jr.

Nevertheless, much was made of the affair and the 1855 Conference adopted a resolution which assumed the actual existence of such a union and passed disapprobation thereon.

This caused great trouble for Roberts who published the article "New School Methodism" in The Northern Independent, a religious news journal, just days before the 1857 Annual Conference met.

In the article, Roberts cited exactly where he believed the present day Methodist Episcopal Church to have deviated from its Wesleyan heritage.

(Marston, 194) Roberts was not the only Methodist minister to be formally charged by the Genesee Conference in this period, all done so in an avowed effort to stamp out "Naziritism" (i.e. the minority-power reform movement).

During the ensuing year, Roberts supported his family as a traveling preacher as he and the reform movement in general had a healthy following among Methodist laity.

The idea of separating from the Methodist Episcopal Church had entered the mind of some reformers and had already produced denominational offspring, both in America and in England.

However, Roberts attempted to avoid secession, waiting during his probation period to appeal his case directly to the General Conference of the MEC to be held in 1860.

With J. W. Redfield and others, Roberts formed the Free Methodist Church of North America at an organizational conference at Pekin, New York in 1860.