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It was 225 years ago that Francis Asbury assembled the people called Methodists at Lovely Lane meeting house in Baltimore for the Christmas Conference.

In that small, crowded room, the Methodist Episcopal Church was formed and 80 preachers rode forth on horseback “to reform the nation and spread scriptural holiness.”

The legacy of those Methodist ancestors was celebrated at this year’s annual conference with a show-and-tell of artifacts from Lovely Lane Museum.

Included in the items was Francis Asbury’s ordination certificate. Asbury, Methodism’s first bishop, was ordained a deacon one day, an elder the next, and consecrated as a bishop on the third.

Also displayed from the stage was a chair from the unifying conference of 1939, which brought together the Methodist Episcopal Church; the Methodist Episcopal Church South, which split off in 1844 over slavery; and the Methodist Protestant Church, which had split off in 1830, protesting the power of bishops. Members at that conference were invited to take the chairs they sat in home with them.

Other historical items displayed included the Cokesbury College bell, the saddlebags of circuit rider Samuel M. Alford, and the 1956 journal of the Washington Annual Conference, listing Emma Hill Burrell as the first women admitted as a pastor in full connection.

These, and many more glimpses into Methodist history, can be found at the museum at 2200 St. Paul Street in Baltimore. For more information, visit www.lovelylane.com.