Events never made clear whether human hearts could be "saved from all inward sin--from evil thoughts, and evil tempers." What they did show was that the tempers of church leaders flared up like the tempers of secular leaders. Bad blood in the Evangelical Association, which had been simmering since the Orwig-Neitz squabble in the 1850s, came to a boil at the General Conference of 1887, with the result that there was a rupture in 1891 and the United Evangelical Church was founded.
There also was a split in the United Brethren Church in 1889, occasioned by the adoption of a new church constitution. Bishop Milton Wright championed the old constitution and became one of the founders of a new denomination, the Church of the United Brethren in Christ (Old Constitution). Scores of suits over local church properties were filed in at least seven states. While these cases were being heard, many United Brethren, Evangelicals, and Methodists shifted their gaze from sin in the church to sin in the marketplace.