“Unlike those schemes of ecclesiastical polity which, Minerva-like, springing full-formed and complete, from the teeming brain of some theoretical genius, the economy of Methodism is eminently practical and flexible, readily adjusting itself to new and strange conditions, and having no iron bedstead on which all forms of religious life and elibrt must
be shaped. For the beautv and excellency of the system we are not a little indebted to its flexibility, to its capacity to yield and change, to the imperfections even of its beginning, as they gradually give place to improvements which could not have been incorporated in the original structure. It is not so much a theory as a growth. As in the human system there is a constant elimination of refuse matter and an incorporation of healthy elements, so has this Church system, from the beginning, been casting off the cruder and less valuable materials, and taken on greater vigor and symmetry.”

David Sherman, History of the Revisions of the Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church. NY: Hunt & Eaton, 1890.