lAAAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 1^ IIM I.I L25 IIIIIM 1.8 II— 111!!^ ^n ^m >>> '^ > m Oy- /A Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STRiET WEaSTER.N.Y. 14580 (716) 872-4503 C^. ^A. W^ % <«^.. rn.^ '«*. SH CIHM/ICMH Microfiche Series. CIHM/ICMH Collection de microfiches. Canadian Institute for Historical IN^icroreproductions / Institut cunadiien da microreproductions historiques Teichnical and Bibliographic Notes/Notas techniques et bibliographiques The Institute has attempted to obtain the best original copy available for filming. Features of this copy which may be bibliographically unique, which may alter any of the images in the reproduction, or which may significantly change the usual method of filming, are checked below. n Coloured covers/ Couverture de couleur I I Covers damaged/ Couverture endommagea Coversj restored and/or laminated/ Couverture restaur^e et/ou pelliculde I I Cover title missing/ Le titre de couverture manque I I Coloured maps/ Cartes g^ographiques en couleur □ Coloured ink (i.e. other than blue or bijck)/ Encre de couleur (i.e. autre que bleue ou noire) I I Coloured plates and/or illustration j/ D D D D Planches et/ou illustrations en couleur Bound with other material/ Reli6 4vec L amres documents Tight binding may cause shadows or distortion along interior margin/ La reliure serree peut causer de I'ombre ou de la distortion le long de la marge int^rieure Blank leaves added during restoration may appear within the text. Whenever possible, these have been omitted from filming/ II se peut que Curtaines pages blanches ajoutdes lors dune restauration apparaissent dans le texte, mais, lorsque cela dtait possible, ces pages n'ont pas 6t6 film.4es. Additional comments:/ Commentaires suppl6mentaires; L'institut a microfilm^ le meilleur examplaire qu'il lui a 6t6 possible de se procurer. Les details de cet exemplaire qui sont peut-dtre uniques du point de vue bibliographique, qui peuvent modifier une image reproduite, ou qui peuvent exiger une modification dans )a m^thode normale de filmage sont indiqu^s ci-dessous j I Coloured pages/ Pages de couleur Pages damaged/ Pages endommag^es Pages restored and/oi Pages restaurdes et/ou pellicul^es Pages discoloured, stained or foxei Pages d6color6es, tachet4es ou piqu^es Pages detached/ Pages d6tach6es I I Pages damaged/ I I Pages restored and/or laminated/ r"~> Pages discoloured, stained or foxed/ I I Pages detached/ Showthrough/ Transparence I I Quality of print varies/ Quality in^gale de I'impression Includes supplementary material/ Comprend du materiel supplementaire Only edition available/ Seule Edition disponible Pages wholly or partially obscured by errata slips, tissues, etc., have been refilmed to ensure the best possible image/ Les pages totalement ou partiellement obscurcies par un feuillet d'errata, une pelure, etc., ont 6t6 filmdes d nouveau de facon d obtenir la meilleure image possible. This item is filmed at the reduction ratio checked below/ Ce document est filmd au taux de reduction indiqu6 ci-dessous. 10X 14X 18X 22X 12X y 16X 20X 26X 30X 24X 28X 32X The copy filmed here has been reproduced thanks to the generosity of: D. B. Weldon Library University of Western Ontario The imases appearing here are the beet qualivy possible considering the condition and legibility of the original copy and in keeping with the filming contract specifications. Original copies in printed paper covers are filmed beginning with the f 'ont cover and ending on the last page with a printed or illustrated impres- sion, or the back cover when appropriate. All other original copies are filmed beginning on the first page with a printed or illustrated impres- sion, and ending on the last page with a printed or illustrated impression. The last recordeu frame on each microfiche shall contain the symbol — ^ (meaning "COIM- TINUED"). or the symbol V (meaning "END"), whichever applies. L'exemptaire filmd fut reproduit grdce * la g6n6rosit6 de: D. B. Weldon Library University of Western Ontario Les images suivantes ont 6t6 reproduites avec le plus grand soin, compte tenu de la condition et de la nettet6 de I'exemplaire filmd, et en conformitd avec les conditions du contrat de filmage. Les exemplaires originaux dont la couverture en papier est imprim6e sont film6s en commenpant par le premier plat et en terminant soit par la dernidre page qui comporte une empreinte d'impiession ou d'illustration, soit par le second plat, selon le cas. Tous les autres exemplaires originaux sont filmds en commenpant par la ^Temidre page qui comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration et en terminant par la dernidre page qui comporte une telle empreinte. Un des symboles suivants apparaitra suit ^a dernidre image de chaque microfiche, selon le cas: le symbole •— ► signifie "A SUIVRE", le symbols V i»ignifie "FIN". Maps, plates, charts, etc;., may be filmed at different reduction ratios. Those too large to be entirely inclurled in one exposure are filmed beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many /rames as required. The following diaarams illustrate the method: Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., pbuvent dtre filmds & des taux de reduction diffdrents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtre reprotJuit en un seul clich6, il est film6 d partir da Tangle sup6rieur gauche, de gauche d droite, et de haut en bas, en prenan^ le nombre d'images ndcessaiire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mdthode. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 (JiU/^JlfC^J.,_^ jo"^^-L Ccy^^ ^^t^ -i ^' i ', ; i '«»>w;iM/'-- '■>' nl I ur ; ■'"•\ OK it? , '.'^^ ■ ■'■!,' ■ Vf!%'.l"«i.- ■*? m: '^m^ -l^ff^ft^^aS^i^''''*''-'--'''*''^"'**"-' * IHH STC^RY OH ETHODISM THROUGHOUT THF WORLD, TRACING THE RISE AND I'RCXiKESS OK TlIA 1 Wonderful Religious Movement, WHICH, LiKn THi; i^ui.k strka.m, Mas c.ivkn Warmth to Widk Watkks and Verdure vo many I.ands; AND UIVIN(J AN ACCOUNT OF ITS VARIOUS INFLUENCES AND INSTITUTIONS OF TO-DAY ^V. B. t^:YDB, S.T.D., J'rt'ii's.'.or (>/' tircek in the Uiiwersiiy of Denver; Member of American Phiklogictil A sso< niiion ; ,'t AiiW'tcuii Siic/i'/y of liibl'ca! /■'xfgesix : if Summer Siliool if I'hilomphy, etc. ; /ate/y I'rojessor of Biblical Literature, Allegheny College, J'a. TO WHICH IS ADDED "THE STORY OF METHODISM IN THE DOMINION OF CANADA," H> Hiijih Johnston, M.A., I). I)., AND "THE STORY OF THE EPWORTH LEAOUE," By Rev. Joseph F. Berry, D.D. Seventietb UbousanC), IReviseC) anO JEnlarge^, l:mbellished with nearly six hundred portraits and views With Classified Index of nearly 3,000 References. TORONTO, ONT. : WILLL\M BRIGGS, Publisher, 1894. Notice is hereby given by the publishers that the sab of this book, THE Story of Methodism, by su!)scriplion only, is protected by decisions of the U. S. (.'ircuit Courts. These decisions are by the U. S. Circuit Court of Ohio, rendered by Judge Hammond, and by the U. S. Circuit Court of Pennsylvania, rendered by Judge Hutler, and are that "v'len a suh?,cription book publishing house, in connection with the author elects to sell a book purely f>y subscription and does so sell it, through agents that are agents in the le}:;(il sense and not in iepenJent purchasers oi the books, the house and author arc entitled to the protectioii of the Courts as against any book-seller who invades their rights by attemptmg to buy and sell a book so imblishcd and sold." Hence this is to notiev you that all our agents are under contract, as our agents, to sell this book by subscription only. They have no right whatever to sell it in any other way, as books only for individual interference with our to sell contrary to tions and our rights, book by you will en- tion of the Courts, to call your es])ecial facts, because of the ous belief that a sub- ()ought and sold in /rary to the rights of author without legal ed them. DECISIONS establish sellers lay themselves to injunction restrain- copies of the work, obtained by collusion an accounting in buy and sell this sold purely by sub- Notification Entered according to Act of Con- gress, in December of the year iSSS, by A. V>. Hyde, in the Office of the Lil)ra- rian of Congress, at Washington, D.C. Entered according to Act of Con- gress, in the year i8!'S, by A. 1>. Hyde, in the Ottice of the Lilirarian of Con- gress, at Washington, I). C. I'jitered according to Act of Con- gress, in the year 1887, by A. V<. Hyde, in tiie Office of the Librarian of Con- gress, at Washington, D. C. I'lntered according to Act of Con- gress, in the year 1804, by A. 1!. Hyde, 111 the Oftice of the Librarian of Con- gress, at Washington, 1). C. are furnislied them subscribers, and any agents to induce them their contract obliga- or any sale of this title us to the protec- We take pains attention to these general and errone- scription book can be the book stores con- bo th publisher and redress being afford- THESE RECENT the fact that book- liable to prosecution, ing the disposal cj which can only be with an agent, and t > damages when they book, knowing it is scription. IS HEREBY GIVEN that this book can be infallibly identified wherever found, and the detection of the person selling this book to the trade, and the offering of it for sale by a book-seller, will be sw ft and sure, and summary proceedings against both book-seller and agent will be instituted. We trust Y'ou will receive this notice in the kindly spirit in which it 13 given, as it is made to inform honorable merchants and others who have heretofore bought sub- scription books in ignorance of the publishers' and authors' rights, as well as to protect ourselves and author, and our agents against infringements which discourage them, and lob us of the legitimate fruits of our labor and investment. Agents and all other persons are particularly requested to inform us at once of the offering of this book for sale by any book-seller or other person not our accredited agent. H7255 OEC)ieA'?I©JM. of the :redited To the busy, often weary, people of our period, who would like to know, at least in fair outline, the dawn, the morning and the early day in the life of a Church now shedding its salutary influence far and wide, but who need refreshment of spirit while they seek truth of statement, this book is dedicated. It is counted an author's privilege to deflicate his work to any whose advantage the work is especially meant to promote, or whose approval he would reckon especially honorable and gratifying. f his book is designed fcr those who have none too much time for reading. The round of daily engagements and the stem struggles for a living, the imperious call to which we are bom and bound to obey, leave us for literature only a little more time than is needed for a decent acquaintance with things now pas- sing. Nor can we, when the summons of business is satisfied, easily com- mand the energy of mind needed for the effort of deep and careful study ; unless the matter before us is offered briefly, clearly and agreeably, we soon become weary, and our grasp of it relaxes. Yet there are many things which we would like to know, and which we can but think we ought to know. One of these is the Historic Course of Methodism : Its Rise, Progress and Present Position, If we are Methodists, this is to us a matter so near and important that to know nothing of it, and to be strangers to the men who have appeared in it, is hardly respectable. If we are not Methodists it should still interest us to know how some five and one-half millions of active and spiritual Protestants came to the organism in which to-day they are working. To all who would like this knowledge, and like it in a faithful but easy and fresh presenting, the author dedicates his work, for with such he is in perfect sympathy. .A ft f^U'BUI§f1Ef?.S' A.N,NOU.NCEt^EJMT (Revised and Enlarged Edition.) With profound gratitude to the members and fnends of all brrnches- of Methodism and to the general reader, for their generous patronage ; and to the Bishops, College Presidents, Editors, Missionaries, Pastors, and others for the hearty commendation given the first edition, the publish- ers take pleasure in presenting a thoroughly revised, an enlarged, and more fully illustrated edition of The Story of Methodism. Every page has been re-examined with diligent care and all state- tients verified with the original authorities, the latest knowledge given, And the number of chapters increased from fifty-six to sixty-two. Two hundred and eighty new illustrations appear. The late Geo. John Stevenson, of London, England, was engaged to is not thankful, seeing that Christ is not divided, and the welfare of t)ie world needs so many workers? It is, however, believed that the spirit ^nd methods of Wesley have helped all Christian people. The Evangelist of to-day is much like the early Wesleyan preachers, and therefore a chapter 's given to him and his work as a lineal and lawful product of Methodism. This story aims, then, to tell what Methodists should properly know,, what ail Christians might profitably know, of the greatest movement in Christianity since the days of the Apostles. It hopes to give life and fresh- ness to transactions 'hich seriously affect ihe Modem World, and touch the interest of many a household. It asks a favorable hearmg, especially from those who are now taking ttiJir places in the Churches, to make, in their own day, the Story that shall lengthen this one, and shall with it be toid hereafter. May what they add agree well with that which goes before it ! University of Denver, 1888. ^"♦•-^Sr^, 1-®-*--*^— U (©— 4i ••€f CONTENT^S. '^^ -^^^*^^ .^-ii THE STORY IN ENGLAND. CHAPTER I. The Origin of Methodism, Pages. . 17—46 CHAPTER IT. Life at Oxford, 47 — 8? CHAPTER ni. Headway of Methodism ; Whitefield's Sep\ration, 83 — 96 CHAPTER IV. The Countess of Huntingdon 97 — 102 CHAPTER V. The Heroic Times, 103 — 120 CHAPTER VI. Battles and Victories, CHAPTER VII. The First Conference, . CHAPTER VIII. Methodism in Ireland, . CHAPTER IX. Whitefield Once More, CHAPTER X. Opinions and Economics, 121 — 1^0 127 — 140 141—149 150—152 153—157 158 — 162 CHAPTER XI. Progress in Ireland, CHAPTER XII. The Next Ten Years in England, i 750-1 760, 163 — 177 CHAPTER XIII. Calvinistic Methodism 178 — 190 14 CONTENTS. i-; 4h V: CHAPTER XIV. The Calvinistic Controversy, CHAPTER XV. Wesley's Later Work. , CHAPTER XVI. Wesleyan Methodism Grows, CHAPTER Xyil. Wesley's Old Age and Death, CHAPTER XVIII. Wesley and His Institutions, Pages. 191—205 206—220 221 23a 231 252 253 — 262 CHAPTER XIX. Education and Literature at Wesley's Death, 263 — 272 CHAPTER XX. Methodism Enters France CHAPTER XXI. After the Death of Wesley. CHAPTER XXII. Some Methodist Women. — The Village Black- smith, CHAPTER XXIII. At the Beginning of this Century, CHAPTER XXIV. Methodism and the State Church, CHAPTER XXV. Wesley anism Abroad CHAPTER XXVI. Wesleyan Educational Work, ♦♦♦ 273—279 280 — 288 289 — 294 295 — 301 302—3 1 8 319—338 339—346 ^HE STORY IN AMERICA. CHAPTER XXVII. First Things, CHAPTER XXVIII. Regular Work Begun, CHAPTER XXIX. First Things and Rising Heroes, . 349—360 361—370 371—378 .i^fi^S^^- CONTENTS. IS CHAPTER XXX. Up to the Revolution, .. CHAPTER XXXI. r-294- 301 318 338 346 \6q 78 In the Revolution, CHAPTER XXXII. Forming a Church, CHAPTER XXXIII. Doctrines and Institutes, CHAPTER XXXIV. To THE End of the Century, CHAPTER XXXV. Schisms — Eminent Characters, CHAPTER XXXVI. The Wild West and Canada, CHAPTER XXXVII. Persons and Incidents, . CHAPTER XXXVIII. Some Men — The West — Two General Confer- ences, CHAPTER XXXIX. Men and Doings in the South, CHAPTER XL. Men and Doings in thf North, . CHAPTER XLI. Legislation and Usage, .... CHAPTER XLII. The Methodist Protestant Church, . CHAPTER XLIII. Lay Delegation and the Pacific Coast, CHAPTER XLIV. The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, . CHAPTER XLV. Methodism among the Indians and Mormons, CHAPTER XLVI. Methodism in Africa Pages. 379—384 385—403 404- -4 1 2 413—418 419—431 432—442 443—450 451 462 463—470 471 480 481—508 509—51^ 517—524 525—534 535— 55<^ 551—56^ 561—573 i6 CONTENTS. I CHAPTER XLVII. Methodism in China and Japan, CHAPTER XLVni. Methodism in India, CHAPTER XLIX. Methodism in South and Spanish America, CHAPTER L. Methodism in Europe, CHAPTER LI. Free Methodism and some Change of Usage, CHAPTER LII. Methodist Literature CHAPTER Lin. Methodism among the P'reedmen, . CHAPTER LIV. Methodist Benevolences, CHAPTER LV. Methodist Bishops, CHAPTER LVI. Bishops of the M. E. Church, South, . CHAPTER LVII. Bishops of the African M. E. Church, Recent Evangelists, Chautauqua, Ocean Grove, CHAPTER LVIII. CHAPTER LIX. CHAPTER LX. CHAPTER LXI. The General Conference of 1888, CHAPTER LXII. The General Conference of 1892, . CHAPTER LXIII. The Story of the B>worth League, CHAPTER LXIV. Future Methodism, Story of Methodism in the Dominion of C.v^iada. Pages. 574—596 597—618 619 634 635—658 659 — 666 667 — 6y6 6T] — 684 685 — 702 703—750 751—765 766—775 776—793 794 — 808 809—8 1 5 816—823 824—833 835—858 859—862 863—927 ±:^4t^h^^k CHAFFER I. The Origin of Methodism. ; THINK of Methodism as confined ^i to a branch of the General Church would be wrong. It was not so confined at its be- ginning. It introduced to the world no new ecclesiasti- cal institute, but a newness of life ; not a new formula of doctrines, but a fresh and full experience, under doctrines accepted from the beginning, the simple foundation doctrines on which Christianity itself was resting. The word Methodism was only an old term revived, and not one newly coined. There had been, ages earlier, a school of physicians who discarded observa- tion and held to the pure deductions of reason and logic. They took the name of Methodists, conveying thereby their strict ad- herence to logical processes. Their success in practice is not reported ; their school was not long-lived. When, now, in 1 729, John Wesley, leading half a dozen young gentlemen at Oxford University, began to read the New Testa- ment in Greek and to try to conform their ideas and their be- havior most strictly to the same, a young gentleman of Christ Church College called out : *' Here is a new set of Methodists sprung up ! " The new, quaint name found instant currency, and the " set " were known as Methodists all over the University. i8 THE STORY OF METHODISM. Thus came the word now familiar through all the world. All to whom it was given were zealous members of the Church of England, and the idea of founding any new Christian body was far from their minds. They proposed to live logically and hon- estly after the rules given in their New Testament — blameless and harmless, doing good, as th«W^!?J^. i 26 THE STORY OF METHODISM. have only wounded me yet, .ind, I believe, cannot kill me." His soul went fai beyond the precincts of Epworth. He drew a missionary plan for evangelizing the foreign British possessions, including even China and India. Adam Clarke says that it was piacticable, and Wesley offered to undertake it in his own person if the government would care for his family and endorse the en- terprise The time had not yet come. The missionary work of the world was not to begin with the favor of the great, but with the sacrifices of the humble. Meanwhile, as Wesley pressed his s c h e m e with the Arclibishop of York, and the Prime Min- ister Walpole, there was one growin;;^ up in Epworth parson- age, saying his prayers at his mother's knee, who w\is to declare: " The world is mj' parish ! " and make good his declaration. This " Father of the Wesleys " had a soul of healthy humor and his in- tense and toilful spirit was lubricated by a steady flow of humor His conversation was rich QUEEN ANNE, AAer Romney the Sculptor. and a lively sense of the ridiculous in wit and wisdom, in vivacity and illustration. Yet he could do a foolish thing. One evening, as he read prayers for the Kmg, William HI., Mrs. Wesley did not say Amen. He asked the i^eason. She did not believe he had a right to be King. "We must part," said Mr. Wesley; " if we have two kings, we must have two beds." She was inflexible. He left the house and did not return until after a year, when William's death and the accession of Anne gave them a sovereign whom both acknowledged. Married life vvas then resumed as Wm. - THE ORIGIN OF METHODISM. 27 .1 r reign d as quietly, devoutly and faithfully as if nothing had happened. The anecdote, told by John Wesley himself, shows this historic family to have been of " like passions " with the rest of us, and even their sterling qualities made their absurdities the more glaring. The birth of John Wesley himself (June 17, 1703) firmly re- cemented the household. It was April 25, 1735, that this brave and gifted man entered into rest. He had for seventy years been " a penitent without witness of pardon," but the day befo-e his death he said to his son John " the inward witness son, the inward witness." He had it then but John did not understand it. Thus the Sun looked in upon his soul from the rim of the western horizon, and at even- ing time it was light. " Are you not near heaven ? " was the last question. " Yes, I am ! " was the reply in all the tones of joy his failing orgms could command. In 1340 one of his ancestors had fought in the Cru- sades and fallen fight- ing the Saracens. He had the crusading heart and it passed on to his sons. " The mother of the Wesleys was the mother of Methodism." Susanna Annesley was the daughter of Samuel Annesley, of the noble house of the Earl of Anglesea. Her father had distin- guished himself at Oxford, and had served in the Church as chaplain at sea, as rural pastor, anel at two of the largest congre- gations in London, one being " the broad St. Giles." When the crisis already noticed came, he, like John Westley (the spelling of his name, as he himself spelt it. distinguishes him from his OLIVER CROMWELL. From the picture presented by him to Col. Rich, now in the British Museum. i I 28 THE STORY OF METHODISM. grandson), refused to " conform," and he drank of the cup of his humbler brother. For over thirty years he had sore trials, but he was never baffled or cast down. Why should he be? He was of noble form and bearing, such as gives welcome and assurance even to a stranger; his large wealth furnished him for ample charity ; his life-long health was equal to the execution of his THE ORIGIN OK METHODISM. «9 o < O u o H < o Of a) ;d heart's desires. The author, of Robinson Crusoe has left an elegy telling the perfection of his character. Baxter, Calamy and the other non-conformists accounted him a " Second Paul," " an Israel- ite indeed." Cromwell set him high among his " men of religion " and the Countess of Anglesea, his kinswoman, dying, wished burial in his grave. Still more touching is the voice of one of his suffering brethren at his funeral.: " O how many places had sat in darkness, how many ministers had been starved, if Dr. An- nesley had ^'ed thirty years since! " What a contrast in living men did England show ! Such a man was contemporary with C h a r 1 e s' court, with Congreve's comedy, with Swift's misanthro- phy and Bolingbroke's atheism ! His daughters in- herited his personal beauty and the freedom and energy of his mind. Before she was thirteen, Susanna had for herself studied the great controversy be- tween the Church and the Dissenters, and calmly and openly took the side of the Church. Her noble father saw the opinions, for which he had toiled and suffered, rejected in his own house. He stifled all regret, and all beneath his roof were of one loving heart, and his devout but decided daughter was tc his affections fully as dear as ever. At twenty, when married, she was well educated. Without any striking display of genius, enough is left of her let- ters and her life to show that she was the peer of Lady Montagu, the first English woman of the period, if not in brilliancy, still in breadth, clearness and power. ;» * More than one of her biographers speaks of her personal beauty. Sir Peter Lely, the famous court-painter of Charles, Mrs. SUSANNA WESLEY. The above portrait is inserted because it has been generally published as the portrait of Mrs. Susanna Wesley. Geo. John Stevenson says: " It is not Susanna Wesley, it is the portrait of Lady Kudd, the second wife of Mr. Gwynne, brother of Mrs. Chas. Wesley. This fact I had from Mi>s Sarah Wesley, daughter of Mrs. Chas. Weiley. I send you her correct Dortrait. "*!»»!■•*»«■««- I Yhe Origin 6f mEihodisM. 31 has given a portrait of her sister, a woman whose charms could have no higher compliment than to be a subject for his hand, but one, who knew both sisters, tells us Susanna was far the more beautiful. Her portrait, taken at about twenty-five --about five years after her niarnage — gives a face that one cannot choose but admire It has an air of high breeding, but there is a touching simplicity, a liveliness and a sweetness beaming over all. One writer, looking upon this picture and remembering what virtues adorned the fair original, and how, after the toils and struggles of three-score years and ten, her soul and her face were still full THE BIRTHPLACE OF JOHN WESLEY. (As it was.) Wesley. Iwife of Mr. las. Wesley. .-,.^,p^x, of light and sweetness, is not ashamed to vent his feelings in tears. " Such a woman, take her for all in all, I have not heard of, I have not read of, nor with her equal have I been acquainted." He almost thinks that Solomon saw her from afar and took from her the portrait of the perfect woman ! Study- ing her character and thinking of the noble women later risen, one finds himself, after a century and a half, still saying. " Thou excellest them all." At about the age of thirty she resolved to spend an hour each morning and evening in prayer and study, and this habit she kept unbroken by the demands of her household. 33 THE STORY OF METHODISM. Of her nineteen children, ten lived to be educated, and this duty fell on her, nor was she e\'er charged with neglect of domestic affairs. Yet in those precious hours she planned and partially executed several important works, besides writing copious valu- able thoughts and criticisms on manifold topics. The family now formed at Epworth came of such ancestry — "a breed of noble bloods" — and, of all the families of England, high or low, in the eighteenth century, none has so impressed the world. It is worth while to study closely its home life and training. . . The Epworth parsonage was now a hundred years old, built in those days when Shane and Hugh O'Neill went down in Ireland, and the seed was sown of that bad harvest of tyranny and massacre of which the gleanings are not yet all gathered. Under its thatched roof were a large hall, a parlor, a " buttery," three large chambers, some smaller rooms, and a study. This last was the rector's oWn. Here he wrote his ser- mons and wasted (?) his hours in rhymes, " that found him poor at ^rst and kept him so." Over all the rest of the house his wife w£ s ruler. She managed outside affairs also, the incomes and ex- penditures. Her son John long afterwards speaks of her as writing, conversing, being all business, with thirteen children around her. Her training of these children was peculiar. It was systematic, logical, " methodical," as she in later days rehearsed i1 to her son. The first three months were to be spent by the infant mostly in sleep ; it was then laid in the cradle awake, rocked io sleep and rocked until its waking. This wa^ to fix the time of sleeping, which, being at first three hours in the morning and three in, the EPWORTH PARSONAGE. (As it is.) THE ORIGIN OF METHODISM. 33 afternoon, was gradually reduced until sleep in the day-time was no longer needed. At one year it was taught to " cry softly," and " the odious noise of crying children " was rarely heard in the quiet house. None ate or drank between meals unless in sick- ness, which was rare. At eight in the evening they went to their rooms and of themselves fell asleep unattended. Mrs. Wesley held that " both precept and example will be ineffectual " un- less the will of the child be subdued. " Then a child is governed by the reason and piety of its parents until its own have taken root and matured." The children were taught, at prayer and at table-grace, the gestures of reHgion before they could kneel or speak. No study was allowed until the child was five years old, but then it began in earnest. No one was allowed to enter the room where the young novice was being initiated into the mystery of the alphabet. Six hours were allotted for learning it, and be- tween nine and twelve of the morning, and two and five of the afternoon, of the first day : and of all the family only two required a day and a half. The next task — as with Hebrew students — was to spell and read a chapter in Genesis, and to do it perfectly. Such entrance upon education was straight, clean and vigorous. She early began their religious training. When eight of her children were now of reasonable years, she said: " I discourse every night with each child by itself on something that relates to its principal concerns. On Monday I talk with Molley ; on Tues- day v/ith Hetty ; Wednesday with Nancy ; Thursday with Jacky ; Friday with Patty ; Saturday with Charles ; and with Emily and Suky on Sunday." No wonder Thursday became " Jacky's " Sunday in the middle of the week ! , ^ ^ . ■ There was no afternoon service at Epworth church, and never an evening service. Mrs. Wesley thought she could use the time well, her husband being then at convocation in London and his place filled by a curate, in giving to her own family some religious discourse and counsel. Others heard of it and begged to come in and soon forty were present. The thing grew. Soon she was reading " the best and most awakening sermons we had " to gatherings of over two hundred. The kitchen in which she held these services could not hold more than fifty persons and the rest stood outside with the windows open. Her husband feared this u tHk story of MEtfiontsM. novelty as an invasion of church order. He proposed that " some other person " — i. e., not a woman, officiate. She writes to him at London: "And where is the harm of this? I do not think one man among them could read without spelling a good part of it; and how would that edify the rest?" Her boys could read, but their tiny voices could not reach so many hearers. While her husband hesitated, the gatherings grew to be larger than the congregations at the clv.irch. His curate was very naturally grieved, and, n'ith some prominent parishioners, reported these to ^ Mr. Wesley, giving them the name, so odious to churchmen, " conventicles." She now made good her de- fence : " It was saving the common people from immorality; it v^is fill- ing up the parish church ; some who had not for years been seen there were now in at- tendance." She would stop such gatherings for no man's grumb- ling, but she would obey lawful authority. " Command me to de- sist," she says, and she would do so at once, and he, as husband and pastor, must take the responsibility. Just such a balance of zeal, conscience and loyalty appears later in the character and career of her illustrious son, and in no small degree fitted him for his work as founder of a Christian institute. This curate, Mr. Inman, was a very practical preacher. In every sermon he urged the paying of debts, and of this the people com^plained. Mr. Wesley went to hear him preach on the Nature of Faith. His second sentence was: " It makes a man pay his debts as soon as he can." Mr. Wesley agreed that " his case was lost," and we hear no further objections to Mrs. Wesley's course. REV. SAMUEL WESLEY, M. A. From a portrait in possession of the family. Mi l— II THE ORIGIN OF MErHODl.«5M. 35 once, Just in the degree This every eople ature ay his se was ourse. M Of the ten children who came to aduU years, five became noted for rare and brilliant endowments. Samuel was the eldest son, and was consecrated " as Heaven's by an inalienable right," as his noble mother told him. • From his birth, Feb. lo, 1690, he was thought of defective mind, for he did not speak until just five years. He then burst out and answered correctly a question put in his presence concerning himself to a servant. After being at school in Westminster, he went, at seventeen, to Oxford, where his large and ardent mind overflowed the limits of the University routine, and he early became known in general scholarship. He was a Tory, and, using his wit against Walpole, that minister obstructed his advancement, alleging as a reason his marriage. This was his occasion of an elegant poem to his wife, glorying in the *' error " and refusing to regret it. His poetical gifts were fine. It is .strange how poetry, which their father was ever vainly attempting, and which their mother ignored, was wonderfully honored in the children. To Samuel we owe some of our best hymns : " The morning flowers display their sweets ; " " The Lord of Sabbaths let us praise ; " " Hail, Father, whose creating call." This eldest brother was too strict a High Churchman and too unbending a Tory to approve the course of his younger brothers. Of this, however, he lived to see but little. After twenty-seven years' service as teacher, being at the time Head Master of the school at Tiverton, he ended a life of toil, integrity and love, a month before his brother, in London, formed the first of the United Societies, December 27, I739> the first distinct phase of Methodism as an Institute. He was not quite fifty years of age. The daughters of the family were not below their brothers in gifts and graces. There was Susanna — Mrs. Ellison^-" very facetious and a little romantic;" and Mary, deformed, but full of humility and goodness, whose exquisite face revealed a mind almost angelic. Keziah, crossed in love, was of too vigorous sense to sink under the trial. She chose to live " disengaged from the world," and, though solicited to marry, she felt unable " to discharge a wife's great duty as she c ~ht." She died un- married in 1 741. Mehetable was unfortunately married, and pined in neglect and unkindness. Her health gave way, and, in her melancholy, she wrote sweet, sad poems to her husband, Mr. 3^ THE StOftY Ot? METIIohlSM. Wright, to her dying infant, anil an epitaph for herself. 'fhi9 was the gayest, brightest of the house, who at eight years read the Greek Testament, in later years, the consolations of religioil gave her comfort and peace, and Charles buried her with prayel* and cheerful song. Mrs. Hall, Martha, Was, in looks, closely like her brother John, and their hearts were one in the tcnderest sympathy. She said her brothers and sisters took the family wit and left her none, but she had ample intelligence, and, what Pope was then praising as chief of all things — sense. She loved her mother intensely, and was hwed with even more than would have been her share of her mother's heart. Her history was sad enough. Mr. Hall led a wretched, outrageous life. Yet her character, amid all the blights that fell, was beautifid, and her clear, calm mind undimmed. Dr. Johnson ardently admired her, was fond of discussing with her in theology and j)hilosophy, which she could enrich and illustrate with ample quotation?? of poetry anc) history. The great ruler in literature even wished her to make her home beneath his hospitable roof. She outlived all her sorrows, outlived, too, all her brothers and sisters. In 1 791, she passed from this world in peace. She, who had been the most loved of all, thus lingered to comfort the lives of all, and was "the last of that bright band." It is well to take fully into our account this Christian family. Self-centered and self-cultured, such another is hard to find. All who grew up were ardent Christians for their life-times. " Such a family," says Adam Clark, " I have never read of, heard of, or known, nor has there been since the d^ys of Abraham and Sarah, and Joseph and Mary of Nazareth, a family to whom the human race has been more indebted." We propose now to trace more closely the early livjs of the two brothers who were called to the great work of organizing and promoting in the world that renewal of Christianity called Meth- odism. John Wesley was born in the year after that estrangement of his parents. It was when the Duke of Marlborough was prepar- ing for that great career that made England first among the powers of the world that the boy appeared who was to save England from her own undoing, a task which neither warriors nor ry and o X make 'J> ill her ^i, she r < e most 7> ul was O family. d. All " Such d of, or [ Sarah, human :i;- '.J. w 3« THE STORY OF METHODISM. Statesmen could pcrfo'-m. It was the first noted c/ent of his life when the Epworth parsonaj;e was burned. Mrs. Wesley has given a lively and graphic account of the aflfair. "Hetty" — Mehctablc — was awakened by sparks falling from the roof, upon her feet, at midnight, of Wednesday, February 9, 1709. She was very ill, could neither climb to the windows nor get to the garden door, the only one accessible. She gave a moment to prayer, " then waded through the fire, which did me no further harm than a little scorching of my hands and face." All had escaped but John, then six years old. Hj ran to a window, and was seen by those outside. A s tr o n g man lifted a lighter one upon his shoulders, and this latter took the lad from the window. Just then the roof fell inward, so that none were harmed. " Come, neighbors," said Mr. Wesley, when John was brought into a house where the family found shelter, "let us kneel down ! Let us give thanks to God ! He has given me all of my cjght children ; let the house go, I am rich enough ! " LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. J O h U Wcsley WaS deeply impressed with this event. The house did " go," with all its contents. Only the family were saved, and his own was a hair-breadth escape. In one of the early prints is represented a burning house with a child being rescued at an upper window. And this is the inscription : " Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire." The founder of Methodism was to stay until his work was done — more than four-score earnest, active efficient years thereafter. At nine years, John, with four other children, had the small I THE ORIGIN OF METHODISM. 59 small pox. Lady Montajju hau just introdiicod inoculation to the world's notice, but Jcnncr's vaccination was not to relieve the disease for more than a hundred years yet to come. "Jack," writes his mother to his father in London, " has bore his disease bravely, like a man, and. indeed, like a Christian, without any complaint ; thouj^h he seemed angry at the small-pox when they were sore, as we guessed by his looking sourly at them, for he never said anything." She already had some forefeeling that this was to be the foremost of her family, and she says, with emphasis : " I do intend to be more particularly careful of the soul of this child." Well and wisely, indeed, did she train him for that imknown, but not unfclt high calling! Seven years later strange " noi.ses " were heard at the Ep- worth parsonage. They were first heard in the whi.stling of the wind outside. Latches were lifted; windows rattled, and all metallic substances rang tunefully. In a room where persons talked, sang, or made any noise, its hollow tones gave all the louder accompaniment. There was a sound of doors slamming, of curtains drawing, of shoes dancing without a wearer. When any one wished to pass a door, its latch was politely lifted for thom before they touched it. A trencher, untouched upon the table, danced to unheard music. The house-dog, with furious barking, met the unseen intruder, the first day, in brave mastiff style, but thereafter he sneaked, cowed and whining, behind some human friend. At family prayers the " goblin " gave thundering knocks at the Amen, and, when Mr. Wesley prayed for the King, the disloyal being " pushed him violently " in anger. The stout rector shamed it, for annoying children, and dared it to meet him alone in his study and pick up a gauntlet there. It obeyed Mrs. Wesley. If she stamped on the floor and bade it answer, its response was instant. If one said, " It is only a rat," the noise was the more fast and furious. At last the family seemed to enjoy their lively and harmless unseen guest, and when, after two months, he left them, they lost an amusement! Many, then and since, have tried to explain the case. It v as thought to be a spirit strayed beyond its home and clime, as an Arabian locust has been found in Hyde Park. Of such things this writer has no theory. There are more things in heaven and earth than his knowledge of philosophy can compass. Only he is sure that *W: 40 THE STORY OF MKTIIODlSNf. outside of this world lies a spiritual domain, and is it not strange that there should be interccMUimtnication. In those days there was much blank, sensual unbelief, yet the apparition of Mrs. Veal, a fiction by the writer of Robinson Crusoe, was widely l)elieved, and Dr. Johnson never doidited that a ghost was haunt- ing Cock Lane in London. The effect of these " V^i)worth noises" on John Wesley's mind was excellent. It taught him to •icknowledge fully the spiritual world, and, at the same time, neither to fear nor regard it. He believed in (iod every hour of his life; with spirits he had simply nothing to do. I lis calling did not cross theirs. CHARTER-HOUSE SCHOOL. At thirteen, John left Epworth home for school, in London. Charter-House, a quaint building at the upper end of Aldersgate Street (permission to pull it down has recently been refused by Parliament), was, of old, a monastery of Carthusians, from whom its name comes by corruption. In the fierce times, the skin of a Danish pirate had been nailed to its door. In 1613, the year of King James' Bible, it had been bought and endowed by Sir Thomas Sutton as hospital, chapel and school-house. Bacon calls it " a triple good," and Fuller " the masterpiece of Protest- ant-English charity." Here were such boys as Addison and Blackstone, of earlier days, and Grote and Thackeray, of later. J^i&a^ rm: oRUiiN oi- mkhiodism. 41 m.'-L Provision was here made for the sons of " poor pentlcmen " anxious, yet unable, to echicate their sons, and the roll of its pupils proves what it has done for Mn^Mand -ind the world. When the lad John was there, the older pupils were tyrants over the younger, v-atin^f the best of their food, and making them " fag," as Tom Brown and m^ny an i'^nglish boy has fagged at ICtoi. and Rugby. John ran three times each morning around the ample play-ground, and the place became so dear to him, by his own good conscience, and his succes« in study, that he paid it afterwards annual visits and refreshed himself with its sunny memo- ries. This sch'"^I was removed into the country about 1876. Leaving him in his preparation for the Univci'sity, we trace the boyhood of Charles. He was younger than John by less tlian five years. In the fam- ily at Epworth, the future poet made no marked figure. He did not " lisp in num- b(!rs " as poets born are wont to do. He was only sprightly and act- ive, quick to learn, and unlucky in boyish thk cHARiKk-HorsK and okoi'nus. pranks. At eight years, he was sent to Westminster to be pupil in the school of which his eldest brother, Samuel, was an usher. This generous brother supported Charles, training him very care- fully in his own High-Church principles. Charles had now " a fair escape," as John calls it, from another destiny. Richard Wesley, a kinsman to Epworth, was a childless man, of large fortune, in Ireland. He wrote to ask if there "'^s a " Charles Wesley " there, for such a one he would gladly adopt. He a.ssumed at once the lad's expenses. When Cha'"les grew older he declined the offer, and another was adopted in his place. This one became Baron Mornington, grandfather of " Arthur Wesley" (Analyst spelling, 1800), Duke of Wellington ind victor at Waterloo. Such an incident makes one think, ilow easily, had it so pleased the Great Ordainer, might the world 1^ w. CHARLES WESLEY. (From an ortjmal painting in possession of the family.) THE ORIGIN OF MKTHODISM. 4.^ have missed the great General and the great Poet. Charles \va<> nineteen when he went to the University. Passing now from boyhood, these men were well furnished for the career which was to open before tlicm. In person they were hardly of average stature, but they were of symmetry ad« mirable. Their physical habits were of a Spartan cast. They could endure toil and hunger, not only with patience, but with even a stoical disregarv.. John had a marvelous command of sleep. It came at his call, and, for fifty years, this " chief nourisher at life's ferst " never failed to give him prompt and unbroken refreshment. In all his movements, whether he spoke, or walked, or rode, his ease and energy were won- derful, and his body rarely failed to do the bidding of his mind. Both brothers w e r e sweet and powerful singers. Indeed, the Epworth home was a very nest of songsters. The family of Charles retained this musical gift, and a son became a musician of eminence, and two of his great- grandsons, now En- ARTHUR WELLESLEY, K. C, DUKK OF WELLINGTON. gllSn clergymen, have From the Painting of sir. Thos. Lawrence. kept something of their inheritance. The brothers sang their own hymns, not, however, extemporizing, and their clear, strong voices often served to quell the rude and riotous. More vigorous intellects than theirs rarely entered the University. John's mem- ory was wonderful. To his dying day he seemed to forget no person or incident. He marks how grandsons changed the estates that he had seen fifty years before. He touched upon every branch of human learning, and only Art seemed to be that for which he could afford no leisure. But he had a lively feeling of the beautiful in nature, and one to whom poetry and music were 44 THE STORY OF METHODISM. SO congenial and obedient, was not with oi't artistic capacity. The brothers entered Oxford as Christian men. They brought, from I'^pworth, to their schools, dejp convictions of Christian truth and unfaltering confidence in the Founder of the Christian religion. They were leading blameless lives; they looked forward to cheerful service in the Church, to England and through England, to mankind. VVc shall see how, in their hearts, convictions led to expe- riences ; how longings and strug- gles after " more life and fuller " were satisfied, and how ihey were endowed with power from on high, so as to enter upon their career " like strong men to run a race." VVc have presented the family at Epworth.and the young Wesleys, thus fully — perhaps more fully than is in due propor- tion of this book — because we have in it such an example and such teaching. The Church and the world are giving ever iarger honor to the household in which JOHN WESLEY, at Twenty-three Years. ^^^^^ fashioucd SUCh hclpCrS of the human race. Quite recently, the Hymnal, which will soon be used in sacred song more widely than any other, bears the name of Epworth, to perpetuate the sweet home that did so much to bring music into the modern service of the Church from which, in the two previous centuries, it had been painfully excluded; " where songs rose from grateful hearts to the listening heavens," and neighbors were drawn to a worship kindred to that of Jerusa- lem, which is above the home eternal in the heavens. \d^^iM^. John Calvin, French Prc^eatant Refornier, Born 1509, Died 1564. John De Wycuf, English Reformer, and Translator of the Bible, Born 1324, Died 1384. Martin Litther, Leader of German Reformation, Born 1483, Died J546. John Knox, Scottish Reformer, Born 1505, Died 1572. Mblancton, German Lutheran Reformer, Born 1497, Died tsgo. ing, ^ i ta |o Ip" lib la CHAPTER II. LiFK AT Oxford. rPiK|f T Oxford, the Wesleys came into such ^^^ connection with others of their own age and inclinations, that our story must embrace much more than their personal history. The University au- thorities were alan.iOd at the growth of infidelity in the University, and the Vicc-Chancellor issued an "edict" against it. The entrance of the Wes- leys, and some other luen of kindred spirit, was bet- ter than many edicts. Jolin W'cslc)- gave himself to intense study and this rapidly developed and polished his natural abilities. For recreation, he wrote poetry, and his father seeing in him the gift denied to his own longings, wrote to him, " not to bury his talent." In all his religious and theological reading, his mother was still his guide, and her discussions with him are acute and copious, and their impressions deep and lasting. In the classics and mathematics he pro- gressed rapidly, and his skill in logic was greatly ad- mired. At twenty-three, and before becoming Mas- ter of Arts, he was chosen Lecturer in Greek. He had already found that " there are many things not worth know- ing," and he was acting on the maxim which he afterwards put in form : " Never be unemployed ; never be trifiingly employed." LIFE AT OXFORD. 49 ca D >< I-) o 33 His attainments, and the repute gained at the University as " a lord in the realm of mind." served well his work in many a later crisis. He gave himself to the services of the Church, and was or- dained Deacon in 1725, and Priest in 1728, by Dr. Potter, Bishop of Oxford. In March, 1726, he was elected Fellow of Lincoln Col- lege — i. e., one of its legal managers, with a .salary of $140 — now- worth much more. Lincoln colle(^k, oxford. After hi.s ordination he a.ssisted his father as curate. In all his religious and churchly duties he was most faithful, but, as a Christian, he was yet unsettled. He thought of becoming a recluse, or of opening a scliool " far from the maddening crowd." His mother foretold better work for him. A "serious man," whom he went some miles to see, said to him: "The Bible knows nothing of soli- tary religion ; you can- not go to heaven alone ; you must, therefore, find companions, or make them." A word it was in season. Returning to Ox- ford, he found Charles and others in a like re- BOCARDO, (THE DEBTOR'S PRISON,) O.^rORD, . . AS IT STOOD m 1770. hgious crisis. Ihese 50 THE STORY OF \fETH0DI5M. naturally formed a group ; they were called the Holy Club, the Methodists. They were the VVesleys, Morgan, Kirkham, White- field, Clayton, Ingham, and a few others. From November, 1729, they began systematic exercises of prayer, study and discussion, for their own benefit. In 1730, Morgan, a warm-hearted Irish- man, led his brethren out in visits of nicrcy to the poor, the prisoners, the sorrowing. By his father's advice, Wesley referred the matter to the Bishop, and received that prelate's warm ap- proval. " I hear my son John has the honor of being styled the ' Father of the Holy Club ' ; if it be so, I am sure I must be the grandfather of it ; and I need not say that I had rather any of my sons should be so dignified and distinguished than to have the title of His HOLINESS." A strong, fatherly endorse- ment ! The kind and gener- ous Morgan early wore himself out in his labors, .,; and, returning to Ireland, :;£| died in peace. Another z~i|now appears in the place \# from which he fell out. George Whitefield, the chief sacred orator of _ modern times, was born at 'III p| 11 "|(P.^p^ ^<^ Gloucester, in 17 14. He GEORGE WHITKFIELD, at 24 Years. led a vicioUS life in his youth, securing, as he says, " a fitness to be damned," yet he had some deep religious feelings. At fifteen, he was waiter in a hotel, and, in his blue apron, " washed mops and cleaned rooms." Kempis' "Imitation jf Christ" fell into his hands. It touched his heart. His gift of eloquence had already been noticed, and he heard that he could get an education at Oxford. Thither he went as waiter and servant, expecting to thus provide for his ex- penses. He was extremely devout, and was constant in prayers and fasting, but the way to pardon and peace with God he could not find. " I no more knew that I was to be born again than if I was never born at all." He had heard of the " Methodists," and " loved them," before he came to Oxford, and he now took their LlfE AT OXFORD. 51 part against all ridicule. He often gazed at the little company as they passed through the sneering crowd to church and sacrament, and longed to be one of them. At last the young orator was introduced to Charles, and the young poet took him into lively and ardent sympathy. Charles brought his new friend to the Holy Club. They taught him how to live to the glory of God, and he found their regimen of prayer and praise, of meditation and philanthropy, most profitable and GENERAL OGLETHORPE. delightful. Yet he was affected, as Wesley had been, by the in- tense ungodliness around him, and it seemed as if, in order to serve God, he must renounce the world and live in " quietism " and seclusion. Wesley had himself overcome this feeling. He found, as he afterward told Mrs. Hannah More to do, in London society, •' to keep in the world " is Christian duty. " I was delivered," says Whitefield, "from those wiles of Satan." Here was a sight for all time to see ! Voltaire was then saying, " I am tired of 52 THE STORY OF METHODISM. hearing that twelve men founded Christianity ; I will show that one man can overthrow it ! " So it looked, yet the future of the Church and of the worhl lay here at Oxford, with four young men, preparing to unfold in freshness and vigor. John was now invited to Epworth to succeed his aged father and maintain the family center. Samuel joined his father in urg- ing the matter, and an earnest debate ensued. John could not consent to leave Oxford. .St)on l'2i)worth vanishes ; the family is scattered, and the Wesleys are known there no more. B THE GERMANS IN THE STORM. ■'Not a rose of the wilderness left on its stalk To tell where the garden had been." Years after, Wesley visited the place, and, forbidden to preach in the church, spoke from his father's tombstone to crowds that looked up, unfed by the bigoted, negligent incumbent. A new experience now opened, that this man of God might be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto his great calling. He was asked to go to Georgia, with General Oglethorpe, as missionary to the Indians. It was a question of choice between the calm of the venerable University, and the vexing toil and struggle among savages under the heats of the South. Epworth, an intermediate. LIFE AT oxFonn. $i reach that light was )nary Im of long hate, he had rejected; Georgia, at the opposite extreme, he accepted. His aged and widowed mother wrote him : " If I had twenty sons, I should rejoice that they were all so employed, though I should never .see them again. In October, 1735. the Wesleys left England. On the ship were a company of Moravians, with their Hishop. At once Mr. Wesley became the he.id of the little community. The ship was at once a church and a school, afloat, in the routine of which all took part, and even the children had their share, after the fashion of those in I'^pworth. Here occurretl a proof of piety that touched Wesley's heart. He had noted how free his German friends were from pride, anger and revenge. A terrible storm came on. The others were in wild alarm ; the Germans sang, calmly. "Were you not afraid ? " asked Wesley. " I thank God, no," answered one. " But were not your women and children?" " No, our women and children are not afraid to die." Wesley felt that his simple friends had a freedom from mortal bondage, such as he had not reached. In Georgia, he consulted Spangenburg, a Moravian pastor, about some plans of labor. " I must first ask you one or two questions — Do you know Jesus Christ?" "I know that He is the Saviour of the world," replied Wesley. " True, but do you know that He has saved you? " " I hope He has died to save me." The Moravian added: "Do you know yourself?" "I do," said SOUTH LEIGH CHURCH, WHERE JOHN WESLEY PREACHED HIS FIRST SERMON. I I, u THK StORY Ol^ NtEtMoniftM. Wesley, but with seme misgivings. All these incidents touched his heart, and drew him towards the clear, simple, effective Christian experience, which he was soon to declare to the world. They found the Indians inaccessible. The Colonists were of the type still found in our West. They were demoralized, and the stiff form of the Church, though urged with the utmost zeal and utter solf-dcnial by the VVesleys, gained no influence over them. The Wesleys slept on the ground, lived on bread and water, and went barefoot, but neither their views nor practices were such as to win souls. After a year of toil, amid slander and persecution, with no results, Charles returned to England, and John soon followed. During his voyage, he thought over his failure and its causes, and he gained " an entire new view of religion." His own need.s pressed upon his mind. " I went to America to convert the In- dians, but, O ! who shall convert me? " wrote he, as he came again in sight of England. After his years of devout and upright living, he loathed himself " 1 am fallen short of the glory of God." Kis views of councils and decrees, and Church order, his earnest _tudies and self-denials, and profound thinkings, gave him no peace. The simple key of faith was not yet in his hand. Whitefield, too, went to Geoigia, and his outgoing ship passed W(.3ley's, returning, hard by the English coast, taking him to a brief experience in the training-ground of the New World. During Wesley's absence, Whitefield had risen above the horizon, full of light, and splendor, and gladness, and had entered upon his mar- velous career. His darkest hour before the dawn, had been very dark indeed. His agony of mind, over his soul's condition, be- came intense. He neglected his person until his employers dis- missed him for his shabbiness, and students threw dirt at him in the streets. He lay " whole days and weeks, prostrate on the ground," in prayer, with sweat dripping from his face, or trem- bling with cold. His health gave way, and a sickness came on, " for which I shall bless God through the ages of eternity," In the seventh week of it, he saw that it was for him that the Saviour died, that his sins were borne on the cross. The vision filled his heart with strange and sudden joy. " On that day my joys were like a spring-tide, and overflowed the banks ; go where I would, I could not avoid singing psalms aloud ; afterward they became -.■5z.!i':,.,j:»'-"fc,.((i :■ -iui. jtvi m inng ill of ^ n r T^^^HttL vi^BI ^ i 1 1 iS^SBH H ■•■ R 1 m )t'-M'f fmZZT Kni^^ SHI F '' V i.- ^^^ ^i~.^:- .-...J!;^^^''^ ■■■■'- d£OBU£: WHIT£FI£U>. ■ -i- '?- * ■^.iUf~,^.-JJ'..,i:.-, ?'!■.■.■■■'-, '.c"..''-'.!'.? ,-.l. ,>°:i."^, ■^i^^'g.- U.*/-.. 'j,-, _!( '".■■- ' r 56 THE STOI^Y OF METHODISM. I more settled, and have increased in my soul ever since.** What a preparation for a great calling ! The Bishop of Gloucester wished to ordain him. Like a knight of old, watching with his armor, he spent the hours in prayer, and, at his ordination, his " Amen " was deep, generous and unreserved. "When the Bishop laid his hand on me, I gave up myself to be a martyr for Him who hung upon the cross for me." The Bishop, with his blessing, gave his candidate five jjuineas, much and timely for one who had not a guinea in the world. Now entered upon his work the evangelist, chief of all since the Gospel came. To the marvel of his preach- ing, all of his day bear witness. Hume, the hard unbeliever, said he would go twenty miles to hear Whitefield preach, while he would not hea' a common preacher. Dr. Frank- lin, after pre-determin- ing not to give a penny to a cause which he was to hear Whitefield BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. present, emptied his After the original miniature in pc ession of \V. J. Duane, Esq. 1 , , .1 , , pockets , to the last penny — twenty pounds — and would have given his whole estate, had it been in those pockets. Besides his blazing heart, the evangelist had rare personal qualities. He was tall and fair, and his face beamed with a gen- erous ardor. His gestures and grace of bearing were admired by those who heard Garrick and Chatham, while the common people were in wild, uncritical delight. His early life taught him how to touch the common heart. To this was added " the finest voice of the century," which in its delicate tones, was still audible to thousands, and in its power, often rose above the noise of the ■Vf nrr tlFft AT OXFORD. i) rsonal gen- led by [eople how I voice )le to )f the elements and the tumult of the people. No such orator ever 3'et spoke our English tongue. Yet the excellency of his power was of God, and not of himself. His first sermon, in the church of his childhood, proved his power. The Bishop was told that fifteen of the hearers had gone mad; his answer was, that he would like the madness to abide until the next Sabbath. He was soon preaching in London. "Who is he?" was the inquiry of a surprised and delighted peo- ple, who thronged to hang upon his lips with strange emotions, and to bless him as he passed along. The Gospel seemed to them as something newly revealed ; they were startled, and under it had searchings of heart, such as they had never felt before. One ol the " Holy Club " had thus entered upon his sacred calling, and the Club itself, at Oxford, was increasing in numbers, and not declining in character. Wesley now wrote tV(jni tjeorgia, calling Whitefitld to his aid /' Do you ask me what you shall have? Food to eat, and raiment to put on, a house to lay your head in, such as your Lord had not, and a crown of glory, that fadeth not away." Whitefield's heart leaped as at a bugle-call, and he hastened to depart. Going to Bristol, to take leave of his frien Is, he preached unweariedly. People of all classes and denominations flocked to hear him. "The whole city seemed to be alarmed. In the crowded churches, the word was sharper than a two-edged sword, and the doctrine of the New Birth made its vVay like lightning into the hearers' consciences," Returning, after a short absence, the crowds came out of the city to welcome him and bless him as he passed. He preached five times a week. Men climbed to the church-roof, clung to the rails of the organ-loft, while the breath of the crowd within condensed into drippings on the pillars. At his farewell sermon, the house was loud with sobs and weepings, and until the next midnight — all the livelong day — he was speak- iiig counsel and comfort. He then secretly started for London. At London, all the city was stirred. If he a isted at the Lord's Supper, the elements had to be resupplied. If he spoke for a charity, the collections were trebled. Constables were em- ployed to manage the crowds. Before the morning light, thrones of people, as at the Athenian theatrical representations, filled tl e streets, making their way by lanterns to secure places for hearing 58 THE STORV OF" METHODISM. I '!! his ten o'clock sermon. After this immense stir in London, some were glad of his departure for Georgia, for they feared whereto this thing would grow in his excess of zeal. As we have seen, in the order of that Providence, to whom the welfare of man is dear, Wesley was not far away. Arriving " at the land whither he would be," he entered at once into Whitefield's labors, and preached to the same crowds : " If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature." Whitefield's voyage to America was with a ship-load of soldiers and emigrants, who, with the crew, were rough and un- godly. He was faithful in Christian labor, and, by the time they reached the Colony, there was a visible and gratifying change. Four months he spent in continuous travel and labor among the settlements, being spared many of the bitter trials which the Wesleys had borne, perhaps, indeed, because he had attained a better mind than they. The colony was singularly full of orphan children. He determined to found for them an asylum, and for this purpose he returned to England in the autumn of 1738. The great work upon which he was now so fitted to enter, upon which he had already entered, was fully opened before him ; the work truly called " the starting point of our modern religious history." The Wesleys were not yet ready, like himself, but so they were soon to become. John Wesley (he is henceforth Wesley) came upon English soil in temper very different from that in which Whitefield was leaving it. The flaming orator had taken for his seal a winged heart, with the motto, " Let us seek the stars ! " Wesley was bowed and broken in spirit. He sadly records that he had left his native land to teach the Indians the nature of Christianity. "What have I myself learned, meantime? What I least suspected — that I myself was never converted to God." He was sure that he was not alone in this grievous state. Thou- sands, placed like himself, learned, serious, and serving in the Church, were, could they but feel it, no better conditioned than he. He recounts, in deep, frank soliloquy, his attainments, his devotions, his charities, his labors, his resignation to the Divine Will, " Do all these things, be they more or less, make a man acceptable with God? All these, when ennobled by faith in Christ, are holy, just and good. Without it, they are but dung and dross." It was the old question, out of which the agony of UFK AT OXFORD. 59 the ages has come — "How can a matt be just with God?" He wanted something other than clouds and uncertainties. " Misera- ble comforters tell me that I have faith ; so have the devils a sort of faith ; but still they are strangers to the covenant of promise. The faith I want is a sure trust that, through the merits of Christ, my sins are all forgiven, and I am reconciled to God." He lacked nothing but this, yet this is the one only sunshine upon a human heart, and as the sunshine gives to the earth all color and energy, the flow of streams, the glow of heat and the ripeness of harvest, so this which Wes 1 ey lacked, was the only source of joy and power that gives Christianity its glory. This lack was soon to be supplied. He who com- manded the light to shine out of dark- ness, was soon to fill His servant's lieart with a vision of glory, in aknowl- edge of Christ as the true and present Saviour. It was to come from a people of another land and language. It is now four hundred years, and more, since Huss and Jerome were burned at Prague, in Bohemia. They represented those Protestants to whom Anne, their country-woman, the good Queen of Richard II. of England, had sent preachers, trained under Wyclif, the first translator of the Bible into English. The Protestants of Bohemia had fared hard, and at last were driven from the land. A company of ten, fleeing last from Moravia, and thence known as Moravians, found refuge on the estate of Count 4 t'lA* i/jr^ COUNT ZINZENDORF. Front a rart print. PETER BOHLER. LIFE AT OXFORD. 6i ®>^ \^' Zinzendorf, a Lusatian nobleman. He named their home " Herrn- hut," from a wish of his pious steward that here might arise a city whose people might be on the " Lord's Watch." The Count himself suffered for the faith. He was exiled (though the Countess held the estates), and, returning, was imprisoned. He preached in various parts of Europe, in New York and Pennsylvania. At sixty years he died at home, blessing God for what he had seen done among his own people, in other churches, and among the heathen. This latter word may be emphasized, for the Moravi- ans are the only Christian body of whom more than half are reclaimed Pagans. From this people, Wesley was now to receive his final light, and his yet-needed impulse ; from them he was to borrow, also, much of his organization and discipline. We have noticed his acquaintance with Spangenberg and the Moravians, on his voyage to Georgia. They had seen his defects, and he had seen their cheerful, simple, effectual piety. The same people had a few small congregations in London, and a preacher, Peter Bohler, had just come to serve in them. Within a week after his own landing, Wesley met this good man, on February 7, 1738, "a day much to be remembered." Their conversations were frequent. " By Bohler, in the hand of the great God, I was convinced of unbelie^" He was amazed at Bohler's accounts of the holiness and hc»tj^>mess which attended living faith. He studied the New Testament on this point, and his filling heart began to heave and flow. " I could not confine myself to the forms of prayer, neither do I propose to be confined to them any more, but to pray with a form or without, as may be suitable to partic- ular occasions." Extemporaneous prayer is an era with Wesley. Bohler showed that this faith and its fruits agree perfectly with the teachings of the Book of Common Prayer, and to this Wesley assented. An instantaneous change of heart, a passing at once into pardgn, love and peace, was the Moravian doctrine which stag- gered him most. Yft he owned that the Word said, "Believe, and thou shalt be saved," and, though sad and desponding, and without spiritual witness, he was coming towards the Light of Life. Charles stepped in before him. He had been in a Moravian meeting. " Lthought myself in a choir of angels." Falling sick, he was cared for by a pious mechanic, a plain man, named Bray, 69 THE STORY OF METHODISM. "'who knew nothing but Christ, and, knowing Him, knew all things." A Christian woman of the family told him her own ex- perience, and encouraged his hopes. One evening, after singing with John and others, he was sinking to sleep in thought of the divine promises, when he heard a voice : " In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, arise and believe, and thou shalt be healed of all JOHN WESLEY AND COUNT ZINZENDORF. thine infirmities." I'he words went to his heart. O that Christ would so speak to me ! " mused he. Wondering whence had come the voice, that good woman told him, " It was I a \veak, sinful creature, that spake, but the woros were Christ's. He commanded me to say them, and so constraintid me that I couid not forbear." He sent for his good friend Bray. Not LIFE AT OXFORD. 63 I, t many hours after, he says : " I now found myself at peace with God, and rejoiced in hope of loving Christ, I greatly mistrusted my own weakness. I saw that by faith I stood, and faith kept me from falling, though of myself ever sinking into sin." At five o'clock on the thira morning after, John read : " There are given great and precious promises, even that ye should be par- takers of the divine nature," and, " Thou art not far from the Kingdom of God." In the evening, he went to a society, and heard a layman read Luther's description of the change which the Spirit works in the heart, through faith in Christ. '• T felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt that I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation ; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine ! After my return home, I was much buffeted with temptations, but cried out, and they fled away. They returned again and again ; I as often lifted up my eyes, and He sent me help from His holy place. Now I was always con- queror." Thus the Moravians directed the feet of both Wesleys into the way of peace. Their aged mother " heartily blessed God, who had brought them to so just a way of thinking." Wesley, with a few friends, now made a pilgrimage of grati- tude to Herrnhut, the home of those to whom he was owing so much. On the way they met Count Zinzendorf, and took sweet counsel with him on experience and doctrine. He found, among pine forests, a town of a hundred houses and six or seven hun- dred people. Their lives were simple ; even their amusements were religious — music, marching and the like. Wesley says : " Their conversation was in heaven." One spirit of meekness and love seemed to animate all. He attended a burial, where the father praised God. " I know that when his body is raised, both he and I shall be ever with the Lord." Here, too, he gained the idea of reforming the Church of England, by forming a little church of life and warmth within it. And now the great Orator, the great Poet, and the great Organizer, each mighty in Scripture, gifted in utterance, and glowing with experience, are ready for their work. How itinerancy began, is a matter as simple and natural as the running of water from a hill-side. While Wesley had been in Germany, Charles had already begun telling of his fresh and sat- I 64 THE STORY OF METHODISM. isfying experiences. Some clergymen anproved of them, and were seeking the hke for themselves. Crowds came to hear him, but he could rarely get a church for his gatherings. Not that his JOHN WESLEY PREACH I No IN MATHEW BAGSHAWS HOUSE. action was offensive ; it was his manner, too earnest and forcible, that was annoying. For this reason, he was ejected from the par- ish of Islington, London, where he was serving as curate. He f'l i LIFE AT OXFORD. 65 found sympathy, indeed, homo, with certain small religious soci- eties, which had a historic interest. Not long after the re-estab- lishment of the English Church, a few years after the death of Cromwell, some spiritual members of the Church felt the need of more intimate and sympathetic religious exercises than the Church service offered. These formed themselves into small societies, some of which were surviving in these Wesley days, and felt some revival from the influence of the Moravians. In these modest circles, the VVesleys found love and fellow- ship. Wesley arrived from Germany on a Saturday night. He held four public ser- vices the next day, and by the next Sun- day evening he had held thirteen, " declar- ing, in my own coun- try, the glad tidings of salvation." These v/ere to all classes of people, in prison, in church, in little circles. Thus began, in 1738, when Wesley was thirty- five years old, that habit of daily effort, which he con- ^'^^ M^^^' Islington. tinned, without interruption, until his eighty-eighth year. The first week was the pattern and sample of the fifty-two years to follow. His theological stock and store was slender. He believed and urged four things: i. That orthodoxy, and even benevo- lence, may exist without religion, this latter being inward right- eousness, attended and certified by peace with God, and joy in the Holy Ghost. 2. That this religion can be gained only through repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, 66 THE STORY OP ^fF.THODISM. 3. That this faith in Christ, this hearty surrender and unfaltering trust, "taking God at his word," brings to the soul jicccptance with God. It is all that man can do. 4. The result of this is tl:at •' we taste of the heaven to which we arc going," are made holy and happy, by a power in us but not of us. These four points, in Wesley's own experience, he saw rapid- ly confirmed by the experience of many and various people — of clergymen, and of criminals under sentence of death, and of all grades between these extremes. Many cried that these were " strange things." Wesley set four tests of self-examination, by which he was able to forestall most of the wild, unreasoning fervor, which at once might arise: i. One in the faith will judge himself a wretched creature, whose righteousness and happiness must be in and from God. 2. His designs must be, henceforth, to serve God, and regain his image and likeness. 3. His desires arc new, all set on heavenly things. 4. His behavior, in word and act, is for the divine glory, and for the good of man. Thus simply did Wesley throw out his generalities of doc- trine. He had, in his preaching, little occasion to defend them ; his task was to enforce them. As Fellow of Lincoln College, he was "to uphold the Catholic faith." He now believed, both from his own experience, and what he was at once seeing among those to whom he spoke, that these four points are the gist of the true Universal (i. e.. Catholic) Faith. He was surprised to see the immediate triumphs of faith, as he explained and urged it, over sin and death. On his first week of preaching, a man under sentence of death suddenly raised his s .earning eyes to the sky. " How do you feel now?" asked Wesley. " I feel a peace which I could not have believed possible, and I know it is the peace of God, which passeth all understanding." In a few minutes the hangman had done his work, but the soul had gone in peace ! No wonder the brothers felt strong and stronger ! True Churchmen, as ever, they conferred with the Arch- bishop of Canterbury, and the Bishop of London, receiving moderate approval, and even fair advice. Still, the parish priests would not often admit them to their churches. They labored in the societies, in the prisons, and in the neighboring country. Now, after a year's absence. Whitefield appears again, Ho LIFE AT OXFORD. «7 was the very man whose power was to break the barrier that now limited the work. Not a church was open to him, where he had so lately been welcome. January i, 1739, was the first watch-night in Methodism. Whitefield and the Wesleys, with some sixty brethren, were at love-feast in Fetterlane. As they were in prayer, at three in the morning, such power from on high came upon them that many leace '. irch- Mving priests [ed in He INTERIOR OF FETTER LANE CHAPEL, 1867, and how it was when John Wesley left it. fell to the ground; others shouted for joy. Like the Apostles at Pentecost, they counted this a sure token of the divine approval of their efforts. Then and there did Methodism rise from Moravi- anism, and that day is its epoch. On January 5, the first " Love feast " was held at Islington. These three evangelists " conferred " with other men— seven in all — upon matters of importance, and, after fasting and prayer, a deep conviction of their calling and a deep sens, f power were given them. They closed "with a full 68 THE STORY OF METHODISM. conviction that God was about to do great things among us." The conviction came amply true. Henceforth, the story of Methodism, for more than half a century, is told by Wesley himself, in a journal, where everything is put down at once upon its occurrence. Methodism is already inaugurated, and a conference has been held. Now opens the next feature of the movement. Whitefield was allowed to preach in a London church. A thousand stood outside, and hundreds went away foi lack of standing-room. As he proceeded, " with great freedom of heart and clearness of voice," he thought, "Why not speak as Christ WHITEFIELD PREACKING. did, in the open air?" Some friends counted it wild. He took it to h's Master, in prayer. " Hear and answer, O Lord, for Thy name's sake!" He went to Bristol, and soon not only its churches, but even its prisons, were closed against him. Near by is Kingswood, a royal forest once, then a range of coal mines, with a peopi heathenish in speech and manners — the lowest of Englishmen. There was no church to ask for. Wh'tefield felt his prayer answered, jind his cccrsion present. On Saturday, February 17, 1739, he stood on a high ground, and told two hundred colliers what they had never heard before. He thought of his Master; His pulpit a mountain, and His sounding-board the dome of the sky. " Blessed be God ! I have taken the field. LIFE AT OXFdRft. 69 US. Is there not a cause ? Pulpits are denied, and the poor coUiers are ready to perish." From two hundred, his audiences grew to twenty thousand. The scene was inspiring, and his wondrous gifts come into their fullness of action. All stood in breathless silence, " in an awful manner, filling me with holy admiration." His marvelous voice reached every one. As he went on, tears made white gutters down their coal-stained cheeks. Wide as his own nature was, and heaven-mounting his soul, he was sometimes nearly over- powered. " But I ".as never deserted ; I was strangely assisted." As the winter evenings drew on, and over the fields, beneath the solemn .sky, were thousands beyond thousands " at times all affected and drenched in tears together." But " it quite over- came me." He then ventured upon the bowling-green, in Bristol. He needed help, and Wesley came in the end of April. The latter shrank from " this strange way." " Having been all my life so tenacious of decency and order thrc I should have thought the saving of souls almost a sin if it had not been done in a church." On Monday, May 2, he made his first open-air dis- course, from "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me," etc. He felt himself divinely endorsed. He was soon preaching m Kings- wood, to five thousand, " If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink." The new step was taken. The Gospel, that had been housed in England for twelve hundred years, was now uttered in the fresh air. To us, living a hundred and fifty years after the event, and familiar with such preaching, its importance is not readily appreciated. Wesley saw the need, and the opening, and henceforth the Word was not bound by the will of parish priests. Whi^efield now passed on into Wales. There was need, for the Welsh, now the most religious of the British Empire, with a church to every three square miles, mountains and all, were then in a sad c .idition. Wesley found them " as little versed in the principles of Christianity as a Creek or Cherokee Indian." Meth- odism wrought the change. Griffith Jones, a clergyman of the Church, but, like Wesley, a Methodist, was not only preaching with his might, but was employing traveling teachers of Scripture, catechism and son^. These went through the region, and when Whitefield came, he found one hundred and twenty-eight of their schools where these salutary exercises were had in the musical 76 'the STORV Ol' METHODISM language of Wales. Jones lived to see the work of the new evangelists take deep, effectual hold, in his dear land. Howell Harris, also a Churchman, was at this time forming " societies, "such as Wesley had found in London. They were to promote piety within the Church (where all the people were as- sumed to be). They resulted in such growth of Dissent, that to- day, as a sample, the restored Cathedral of Truro, which can hold all the worshipers of the town, is nearly empty, and ttie chapels take the people. Harris and Whitefield met at Cardiff, and they WESLEY AND BEAU NASH. held meetings together. " They set the whole principality in a blaze." Whitefield says of Harris : " There seems a noble spirit gone out into Wales." The Welsh temperament responded to the call of these kindred souls. Eloquence and song had of old their home in Wales, and the land of the Llewellyns furnished many laborers, gifted with genius for conception and utterance as well as with the Christian graces. Whitefield had, in Wales, heroic experiences of opposition and victory. Returnmg to London, he was excluded from all the churches. in a spirit Ito the their |many well Isition rchea. ' ! HOWELL HARRIS. LIFE AT OXFOR6. n He resolved to preach at Moorfields, a large common, where, on Sunday, the rabble of the city were wont to congregate. He made his way to the center of the fields ; a table on which he was to stand was crushed, but finally, from a wall, he brought the noisy thousands into order as decorous as in a church. " God strengthens me exceedingly ; I preach until I sweat through and through," That same evening, he preached on Kennington com- mon. His voice was heard a mile, with no loss of quality. Car- riages and horsemen, with perhaps forty thousand people on foot, were in his audience. The poor did as Franklin had done ; they gave their all. One of his collections contained ten thousand pieces of copper, and people still threw half-pence into his carriage ! Nor was Wesley idle. His personal gifts of oratory were not equal to Whitefield'b but they were respectable, and he had clearness, force and earnestness, " the qualities that produce con- viction." His labors were wonderful, and displays of divine power attended them. Preaching in the prison, at Bristol, " men dropped on every side, as thunderstruck," while God " bore wit- ness to His word ; " and the convictions were so lasting that, the next day, the prison " rang with cries." He exulted in these ex- periences. One day, on Rose Green, the people stood through a fierce storm, while he discoursed from " The God of glory thundereth." A fop of the period, mentioned by others as a ruler in fashion. Beau Nash, tried to silence Wesley before a large congregation. " Did you ever hear me preach ? " "No, I judge of you by common report." ** Give me leave to ask. Is your name Nash? " " My name is Nash." " Sir, I dare not judge o{ you by common report." Nash was annoyed, but said : "Why do these people come here?" An old woman answered : "You, Mr. Nash, take care of your body; we take care of the body, and then come here for the food of our souls." Nash turned and retreated in silence. Wesley was now preaching every day in the week, and four I LIFE At OXFORD. 75 c ■ft, 2 '. Scores would lie as if dead. A passing traveler paused to hear a few words, and, falling, lay as if lifeless. A sober Quaker, who was admonishing against such " irregularities," fell with the re- proofs on his lips. A weaver denounced th^ whole thing. A convert gave him one of Wesley's sermons. In reading it, he " roared mightily," and fell to the floor. There his friends found him, sweating, weeping and screaming. Those who believed that these excitements, though sincere, might be controlled, fell in the midst of their remonstrances. In July, of this year, Whjtefield, preaching, with Wesle\' at his side, had his first experience of this demonstration. At his first words, four persons fell. White- field had recoiled from such scenes, but now they agreed that " wc will suiTer God to carry on his own work, in the way that pleaseth Him." Most of those afi"ected in this way came to peace in ])elieving, but Wesley, afterwards, counted them as no proof of .Slaving power. He discouraged them, though tenderly and wisely, while Charles gave them no countenance. They might accompany a genuine operation of the heavenly grace — and they might not. The new departure was now an accomplished fact. Samuel Wesley disliked the outward accompaniments of his brother's preaching. He even denied that pardon of sin could be surely known. In fact, he staid by the faith of his ancient family, the faith really, of the best part of the nation at the time, while his younger brother revived, in freshness and power, the faith of Paul. A brief argument was held between them. Neither sur- rendered, but Samuel, at last, wrote tenderly : " Finally, breth- ren, pray ye for us both, that the word of the Lord may have free course and be glorified," as, with his brouhers, it amply was.. The venerable mother, now residing with Samuel, at Tiver- ton, was present at what Samuel called " Jack's congregations." She remembered that her father had not, for forty years, doubted the pardon of his own sins, yet had never preached of such 'y 7» THE STORY OF METHODISM. experience. She had thought such might be the privileges of n favored few. She now, in the very act of taking the cup of Sac- rament, y^// the sense of pardon. Her son's doctrine was hence- forth t( her the soul of truth, and she heartily approved of his course, as reasonable and necessary. In some things, as in the using of lay preachers, she was in advance of him. Her home was, hereafter, at his house in the Foundry. This was a half-ruined building, in Moorfields, which the Government had once used for the casting of cannon. Two friends, Mr. Ball and Mr. Watkins, asked Wesley to preach in it, and aided him in fitting it for regular worship. On November 1 1» I739> it was opened for service. The foundry was thereafter the headquarters of Methodism in London. This first service in it has been assumed as the true Epoch of Methodism, and on the same day of our century, the Centennial of Methodism was observed. Wesley was fond of dating from the forming of the Holy Club, ten years earlier. t, his own statement is satisfac- tory, " Soon after the consecration of the Foundry, in the latter end of the year 1739, eight or ten persons came to me in London, and desired that I would spend some time with them in prayer, and advise them how to flee from the wrath to come. This was the rise of the United Society." The evening set was Thursday, already half-sacred at Epworth, and so held by the Methodists long afterwards for social worship. With the Moravians in Fetterlane, Wesley was getting out of sympathy. They were becoming Quietists, holding " true still- n ss " to be the highest religious attainment — almost like the Nirwane, " infinite sleep," of the Brahmin.s. They even discarded the Christian ministry and ordinances. These errors were tran- sient, and Zinzendorf himself came to London to correct them, but, Wesley soon left them. " I long to be with them, yet I am kept from them." His reason controlled his aftection, though Charles would still have remained with them, a Moravian, and not a Methodist, had not his brother and his friends made vigor- ous remonstrance. July 20, 1740, marks the separation of Wesley from his German brethren. It was done with love and regret. The career now opening before him wais such as could not be hindered by alliances. It was peculiar; it must freely adapt itself to its new conditions, and the past must bury its dead. LIFE AT OXFORD. 79 out of still- ce the carded tran- them, I am hough n, and vigor- on of e and could freely dead. In this year of 1739, came into being the "Bands." These were companies of converted men, set to watch over and help each other, which as " Classes," a modified form, exists in all Methodism. A force, felt from the beginning of the movement, now took definite form. \Vc saw how poetry and music throve in the dear home at Epworth. Both John and Charles were poets and singers, yet Charles had the fuller endownment. He is, as we may see, the prince of sacred lyrists in our English language. Soon after their return from Georgia, the Wesleys published AUTOGRAPH MUSIC OF CHARLES WESLEV. A fac-simile of a page in possession of (jco. John Stevenson. hymns. Now, in 1739, they put out three volumes of "Hymns and Sacred Poems." Like their preaching, their hymns were in season. The hearts of the people hungered fo*- them, and they went in a bla^e of popularity. " 'Listed into the cuuse of sin, Why shall a good be evil ? Sure, music long enough h&% been Companion of the devil ! '• So thought Charles, and it was his happy gift that he wrote Bei,^ii m^i 80 THE STORY OF MFTHOOTSM. the finest of poems in a style so immediately available that they rose upon the air while the Ink was hardly dry, and, after a century and a half, are sung in every land and most of the languages of the world. The Wesleyan hymns, in the chapels, served as the Litur^^y in the churches. They were read one line at a time, or the verse was " lined," and the people were exhorted to sing "lustily," using "the tenor only" — i.e., the soprano. The "tenor" was made simple. The glory of the music was to be in the affections which it conveyed, and not in its " Ital- ian trills." Thus came an era in church music. These liturgical hymns held the essence of sermons, transfigured by the poet's imagination, and glowing with his heart's affections. They pre- pared the congregation for the discourse, to re- ;^ ceiveitinwarmthofsym- h: pathy and lively energy of understanding. In no other way could the poor, the weary and the ignorant have been roused and retained, heartened and inspired. Three editions of these !iymns were at once printed, and their circulation and use was wonderful. Charles was not strictly an extemporizer in poetry, but he was as nearly so as his cotemporary, Robert Burns. Every event, many a minor incident, became a theme of sacred song, and was caught by the people while sparkling with the dews of its morning. Every phase of Christian experience — its gloom, its struggle, its victory, its peace, its joy — finds in a Wesleyan hy tin some true Castalian, almost seraphic utterance. For this reason while at this date the Wesleyan sermons may be in disuse, the hymns are in all churches, and Christian hearts can never let them die. ROBERT BURNS. LIFE AT OXFORD. 8i One can now sec what Methodism was, now that it had fairly passed the period of its origin. It was the result of a series of necessities. Wesley had formed no theory. His plans, like the English constitution, " were not made, they grew," as a tree grows from the earth and unfolds itself In the air. He, with Charles and Whitcfield, could not do otherwise than preach. The word of the Lord was as a fire in their bones. Their endowments for its utterance were complete, and their duty was as clear as the sun in the heavens. When the churches were .-.hut against them, what else coukl they do but preach in the fields? When " con- verted men " sought Wesley's care and guidance, what could he do but provide houses for their meetings and rules for their association? He took no step forward until necessi* 'ompelled it; no step backward did he ever take. Nothing dim and distant affected him ; he cared only for what lay close about his feet. The future, with him, bore its own burdens, which he did not care to foresee. Southey says, that when Methodism was now enter- ing its career, like a ship upon unknown seas. Wesley did not know to what his plans were leading, what institute his societies might yet form, what men would rise to help him, or what resources would supply his needs. He only knew that the mist of the future would lift and roll aw.iy in its time, and that God's own cause would not fail of God's own support. Least of all, did he dream of disloyalty to the English Church. All England held no man more reverent of its authority and order, though the more reverent he was, the more rudely he was treated. WESLEY'S TEA POT. Piwented to Wesley by Wedgwood, the famous Potter of StaffordsWre. \ em die. iTT^^^^^ ' ^t: -^^,'^^': III ^ ■»{ 2 ^ p < 2; CHAPTER III. v r y Headway of Methodism.— VVhitefield's Separation. ?^^ ()W the labors of Wesley, having ^ a definite center and outline, be- Hj came more effectual than ever. He went far and wide, preaching daily, and on Simday, usually, four times. Mobs were always assailing him, but they usually softened down to quiet attention ; the loudest and most vio- lent being often brought to tears, re- pentance and conversion. No book smaller than Wesley's own journal cjuld give the continuous perils and victories that came with tho days. At Bengeworth, a mob "with tongues set on fire of hell," proposed to duck him. Carrying him to the bridge, himself and his helper, Thomas Maxfield, singing all the while, they left him. He sang, loud and clear: Angel of God, whate'er betide. Thy summons 1 obey." Then, while hundreds gathered respectfully, he discoursed from, "If God be for us, who can be against us?" "Never did I so much feel what I spoke. The word did not return empty." He became used to the warfare. Nearly every day brought a con- flict, and conflict meant victory. In 1742 he visited Epworth, after seven years of absence. The Wesleys were gone — t ily his 'W^ mn 84 THE STORY OF XritMOmSM. WESLEY PREACHING ON HIS FATHEK> TOMB. father's Um\h remained. Not allowed by the curate to preach in the church he stood, at six in the evening, upon his father's tombstone, and preached " to such a congregation as, I believe, Epworth never saw before." A week later he preached at the same place, "to a \ ast multitude g^hcred from all parts." 1 L^^ !« OMB. 1 lowed church upon lition as, Ireached parts," HEAPWAV OF NfETHODI?;.\I. — WIIITF-FIELD'S SEPARATION. 85 hardly able to leave, after throe hours' discourse. " O let none think his labor of lo\e is lost because the fruit does not immedi- atel) Tppear ' Nearly forty )ears did mj' father labor here — he saw little fruit "if his labor; but now the fruit appeared." Charles iiad, among other places, been preaching at Newcas- tle, where John had made entrance. " | was sui prisetj. So much drunkenness, cursing and swearing. e\cn from tin. nioiitlis of little children, do I remember to have heard in so little time." He began to sing, and fifteen hundred gathered. At five, " I never TO.MH OF SAMUEL WESLEY iRESTORED) IN EPWOR I'll LllUlv'i (From a photograph taken ia 1887.) saw so large a number of people together. My voice was strong and clear, yet it was not possible for half to hear, though I had them all in view." Visiting the place, after Charles h ul met with success, Wes- ley began (it was midwinter, and in that hig i latitude ! ) to preach at five in the m^ ning. He was gratified with the results in the place. Havmg one pound, s''x shillings, in hand, he began the largest peaching house" in England, apparenth' the third of the *»rni» ''he eiitire cost was at least seven hundred pounds. i !?*!'-;- i '^' ;ar d6 THK STDRV n|- MKTHODISM. A Quaker, who had heard of the work, wrote : " Friend Wesley, I dreamed I saw thee surrounded with a large flock of sheep, which thou didst not know what to do with. My first thought, when 1 awoke, was of thy flock at Newcastle. I have enclosed thee a note for a hundred pounds, which may help thee to pro- vide a house." By such supplies the building rose, and it was called "The Orphan House." While the stream flt)we(.l on, it widened. Some debts had Ol.T) NKWCASTl.K ORPHAN HOUSE. been incurred at Bristol. Wesley was consulting how to pay these, when one said ; " Let every member of the Society pay a penny a week, until all are paid." "But many are too poor to do it." "Then put eleven of the poorest with mc. I will call on them weekly, and, if they can ^ivc nothing. I will pay for them. Each of you do the same." It was done. These collectors found some members who were behaving badly. " It striic' \iZ 'tr-me- diately, ' this is the very thing we h.-'ve wanted i..- Vug." fh ■*m |o pay I pay a )or to tall on them. Ifound ■ me- rit ■' o^/ //J^ Headway of mfthopism. — wnTTKriF.i.n's sErARATioN. A; spiritual interest was then made the foremost. The collectors were to make weekly inquiry of each one's religious welfare, and report the same ; then to receive the penny. Soon it was ar- ranged for them to meet him — now called their leader. Thus arose the Class, with its leader and weekly meeting. Wesley was told of his people at Kingswood meeting, and spentling the night in prayer and praise, as early Christians had done in tiieir Eves, or Vigils, " I could see no cause to forbid it." He proposed to meet with them "on the Friday nearest the full moon, when we should have light; desiring that only they would meet me there who could do it without prejudice to themselves and their business or families. Abundance of people came, and I began preaching be- tween eight and nine. We continued beyond the noon of night, singing, praying, and praising God." Thus was the Watch-night introduced among the usages of Methodism. There were tares among the wheat. To separate the vile from the good, Wesley de- termined to talk in person, once in three specimen of love feast ticket. months, with every member of the Societies. To those of whom he saw no reason to doubt, he gave a ticket, bearing the receiver's name ; as much as to say, " I believe the bearer hereof to be one who fears God, and works righteousness." These tickets were renewed each quarter, and v/ere, in fact, letters of commendation. lie was afraid that his people might come to think, " there is no work of God, but among them- selves." To prevent such bigotry, l»e devoted one evening a month to reading what God was doi.ig in other land^i and in other denominations. For still close- mutual care, he arranged the Hands (already mentioned) oi v bas^s of close sympathy and confidence. These have, iu later days, drttpped out oi the system, J\fary Hart. iuifuiiR'' ^S950r -p^.- 88 THE STORY OF METHODISM. II ill though Wesley said, " Where there is no b. l-meeting there is no Methodism." What are called Holiness i "etings in Eng- land, now take the place of Band meetings, thougli general Band meetings are still held in Yorkshire and other localities. Thus Methodism was, in Yorkshire, fully developed, and its distinctive features aopearcd. One sees that here is more work than one man can do, and helpers were already in the field. John Cenick, a layman, was set over the society at Kingswood, to pray and to expound Scripture, not to preach, in Wesley's absence. Maxfield began to do the same, at the Foundry, in London. John Nelson, in Leeds and places near there, was working as mason ] by day, and holding i meetings at night. The I lay ministry was already it work, protecting and J enlarging what Wesley's labors h a d begun. Howell Harris was at work in Wales. Taylor, a servant of the Earl of Huntington, encouraged by the Countess, was addressing large gather- ings in the heart of Eng- land. Samuel Deacon went from his hay-field to hear the preaching, and soon was himself a preacher. Thus England was feeling the stir of a new c\ angelism, and Methodism was rapidly coming to the form which it has, m the main, preserved. Meanwhile, George Whitefield, the great orator of this wonderful trio was again in America. Landing in Philadelphia, in November, 1739, he stirred the city most wonderfully. People of all creeds crowded the churches, and, after his departure, such was the impulse from hia visit that for a year public service JOHN CENICK. Photographeil in 1887 from the only known portrait of him HEADWAY OF MKTHODISM.— WTinKFIETlVs SEPARATION. 89 was held twice daily and four times on Sunday, while twenty-six societies held social prayer. From the Market House, he could be heard across the Delaware, and the crews on the river caught his words distinctly. EMINENT CLERGY Of WESLEY'S TIME. Going to New York, he stopped at Princeton, where Tennent and others had begun the education of pastors. Nassau Hall was a log building, twenty feet square! He was at oace in hearty it si, i I t 96 tMfe stofeV off METMobisM. sympathy with the good men toiling in this day of small things. He assured them that the work was of God, and would not come to naught. They gave him the degree of A. M. They were aided with money given by Methodists, and President Davies was a correspondent and admirer of Wesley. " Though you and I may differ in some little things, I have long loved you and your brother, and wished and prayed for your success." Whitefield was for a week in New York. Preaching to sailors, he introduced a storm and a shipwreck so effectively that, at the climax, they sprang to their feet and cried, '• Take to the long-boat ! " So were they swept along by his dramatic power. He went to his Orphan House, in Georgia, but soon returned up the coast to collect money for its support. He found the im pressions, made by his recent visit, fresh and lasting. Already new churches had been formed, and new laborers raised up. Returning to Savannah, he made yet another northward tout, landing at Newport. All New England was astir. In Boston, the Puritan divines welcomed him, and the city was moved — high and low of the people — the faculty and students of Cambridge, the masses from the country, all thronged to hear him; and twenty thousand heard his farewell discourse, under the trees of the Common, where, nearly fifty years later, Lee preached the first Methodist sermon in Boston ; where Hastings, still later by a century, has been fined and imprisoned, for the same simple act ! He visited the great Edwards at Northampton. At Ne v Haven the Governor heard him, and said, amid his tears, " Thank God for such refreshings on our way to heaven ! " After a tour of seventy-five days, and a hundred and seventy-five sermons, he was again in Savannah, with seven hundred pounds gathered for his enterprise. Never before, or since, has mortal tongue so .stirred the hearts of men in America, and its influence was long felt — is still felt. After a year and a half, Whitefield returned to England. The painful '■ eir now draws near when Wesley and Whitefield, like F«Uiil anc Bar .abah of old, " parted asunder." They differed on potaxB of doctrine on which men in the present iniptM futtion of their facuUicH can never wholly agree, and of which we cm iie\-cr be tua thMuklul ihiU they are not essential tu •a|v'ft^|i ^V "V>'* /!^ ^ / Sdences Corporation qjj „^ ,-\ ^^ ^v ^^ 1*. [V Vv'"^^ i\ ?3 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14S80 (716) 872-4503 ■P «^^ fc i ;\ ''III 94 THE STORY OF METHODISM. to begin. " I had got the start of the devil." He drew the whole multitude around his field-pulpit. He again entered the field at- noon, when thirty thousand were swarming over it. " It was in fiill possession of Beelzebub." Players, puppet-showmen, exhib- itors of wild beasts, drummers and trumpeters, were furiously plying their vocations. " Great is Diana of the Ephesians," was his text, ai;d he boldly opened the battle. Loudly and clearly he told them the story of their sins, and called them to the Saviour. The fight was fierce. " Stones, dirt, rotten eggs, dead cats, were thrown at mc ! " " My soul was among lions." He was undaunt- ed, and the throng of lions "were turned into lambs." At six he was again upon the field. " I came and I saw — but what ! Thousands and thousands more than before." Satan was present in hot wrath. A harlequin, performing near by, was deserted when Whitefield's black robes were se'en. " I lifted up my voice like a trumpet, and many heard the joyful sound." Then the wild crowd surged up, and a comic performer, who, with the rest, complained that the preacher was ruining his business, got upon a m:in's shoulder, and corning near Whitefield, tried to strike him down with a long, heavy whip, but tumbled down with the violence of his own efforts. The mob then induced a recruiting sergeant, with drum and fife and train of stragglers, to march through the crowd before the pulpit. " Make way for the King's officer ! " cried Whitefield shrewdly. The crowd parted, and the sergeant with his little pomp and circumstance marched through, and the ranks closing behind him furnished an unbrol;en audience. Then "roaring like wild beasts," and forming a solid column on the margin of the field, they proposed to sweep straight through and bear the preacher along with them. With a long pole for a standard, with drum and shoutings, on they came. Then, quar- reling among themselves, they dropped the pole and the head ot their column melted away, many joining "the besieged party." When the tumult, like the sound of many waters, drowned White- field's voice, he, with those around him, would sing until the host was hushed to hear. So he held his ground now preaching, now praying, and now singing, until night came upon the field. He then went to the Tabernacle, where the voice of rejoicing and praise was lifted up for the victory of the day. A victory it was, indeed. The vice and misery of London, that seemed bom for HEADWAY OF METHODISM. — WHITEFIELD'S SEPARATION. 95 /hole Id at as in xhib- lously ," was rly he Lviour. ,, were daunt- six he what 1 present eserted y voice len the he rest, )t upon •ike him ith the :cruiting march King's land the ihrough, ludience. umn on thrciugh (le for a n, quar- head ot party." White- the host ,ng, now lid. He ing and it was, lOrn for crime, were bravely met when in their wildest mood, and souls were won from their throngs. From persons that day convicted of sin, a thousand notes came to him requesting prayers, and of these, at one time, three hundred were taken into his society. Many sought marriage, who had been living together sinfully, and many on the road to the gallows were turned to become good citizens. Bad as the crowd was, it was still human and of like passions a« those who came to church. Through VVhitefield's rare gifts as » vehicle, the spirit touched their moral sense. Strange that \¥hitefields so seldom appear! Yet in our day these masses of London are reached by many appliances then unknown, and Spurpeon's labors, for instance, may fairly rank with Whitefield's. \A/hitefield was still in his meridian of strength. He traveled in England and Wales, preaching more than twelve times a week to audiences of rarely less than ten thousand. WESUtV's CLOCK. rU '"I ^ H 11 SELINA.THE COUNTESS OF HUNTfNGDON. (From the Engraving by A. H. Ritchie J CHAPTER IV. The Countess of Huntingdon, ETHODISM was the help and blessing o^ the poor, and the common people re- ceived it gladly ; yet it was not confined to the poor. " \ot many wise, not man\- mighty, not many noble," became acti\'< in its toils, \'et it was not left withoii*^ witness as to its power to reach and bless even those in the highest station. King George III. was a member of a Method- ist class, at Windsor. Selina, daughter of the Earl of Ferrers, and of remote ro)al lineage, was born four years later than John Wesley. She married the Earl of Huntingdon, whose tastes were for a life of retirement. Her brother was Earl of Chesterfield, " the first gentleman nf his centur\-." The loss of several children was ctTective in giving her feelings a religious turn, which the sisters of her husband the Ladies Hastings, tenderly encouraged. One of these had aided the Methodists at Oxford ; another be- came the wife of liigham, a Methodist preacher. The Earl was anxious over his wife's feelings, and called Bishop Benson, who had ordained Whitefield, to counsel and restore her. Unequal to the task, the Bishop regretted his ordaining the preacher. " Mark Oiy words ! " said the Countess " on your dying bed vou will re- 7 SH 98 THE STORY OF METHODISM. fleet upon it with pleasure." Years after, the Bishop, dying, sent to ask Whitefield's prayers and made him a handsome ofifering of money The Earl died of apoplexy, and his Countess entered upon a career of Christian usefulness hardly equaled in all the history of the Church. She met Wesley, and, as his labors be- came more distinct, she cooperated with his branch of Methodists. He often preached to the noble and courtly company at her res- idence in Donnington Park. She said of his " Christian Perfec- tion:" "It is absolutely the most complete thing I know; the doctrine I hope to live and die by." She chose Whitefield and his Calvinism as nearer to her views, but she was the w?rm, harmonizing friend between the great labor- ers, so dearly did she love them both. She brought it about that one S u n d a j^ Whitefield preached and Wesley aided at the Foundry, and on the next, Wesley preached at the Taber- nacle, Whitefield assist- ing, while at the end of the service tvv^elve hun- dred took the Lord's supper at the hands of both. Harris aided the Countess in this work of harmony. She writes : "Thanks be to God, for the love and unanimity that have been displaye '. May the God of peace unite us all in the bond of affection ! " This noble lady's part in Methodism, must have its place in every history of the movement, and it may as well now be traced. At her London mansion, the resort of the fashion and aristocracy, she invited Whitefield to address her courtly circle. He became her chaplain, and the hero of Moorfields had a hearing from the noble and eminent, the highest audience in the land, GEORGE HI. From the Drawing by R. Corbould. THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON. 9> [, sent ing o( itered ill the rs be- odists. ir res- Perfec- v; the Id and larer to ,vas the y friend labor- id she She hat one e field esley dry, and Wesley Taber- assist- end of hun- T.ord's ands of ded the work of writes : ive been bond of place in traced. itocracy, became from the VQ Wesley was delighted. " They will not let us come near them." The polished Lord Chesterfield said : " Sir, I will not tell you what I shall tell others, how much I approve you ; " and he had the Evangelist oreach in his own private chapel at Bretly Hall. His wife and her sister embraced the faith. Had he but done the same ! He would not at the close of his brilliant life have written : " I have not been as wise as Solomon, but I have been as wicked, and I can as truly say, " all is vanity and vexation of spirit." Hume listened with pleasure and surprise. Horace Walpole was able to resist only by extra triflings of his rest- less wit. Bolingbroke, the arch-infidel, heard with approval, and his brother, Lord St. John, embraced the faith o{ the preacher. To all this brilliant circle, Whitefield was as direct and earnes*^ of appeal as in all other places, and his word was with divine power. The Countess of Suffolk, the reigning beauty of Geoi-ge Second's Court, Pope's "Good Howard," was under a sermon thrown into an agony of conviction, and declared that the sermon was aimed at herself alone. Thus high and low were sharing the same gracious visitation from above, and the truth had trophies from every grade of society. The Countess v/ent on with enlarging zeai for sacrifice. She sold her jewels ; she gave up her equipage, and reduced her hereditary expenditure, and gave to the service of religion more than half a million of dollars. She fitted up halls and theaters for chapels, and built new ones, both in city and country. Eminent clergymen, as Toplady, author of " Rock of Ages," her own kins- man. Shirley, Joseph Benson (not the Bishop,) and Fletcher, LORD CHESTERFIELD m lOO THE STORY OF METHODISM. aided her plans, and shared her liberality. Often she made in person extensive tours in company with noble ladies and promi- nent evangelists, giving to the labors of these among the people that charm so potent in England — the presence of nobility. What was better, she gave her sure faith and her ardent prayers. Dividing England into six districts, she sent one of her best laborers into each, bidding him pr'^a^h in every place, large or small, not already " canvassed," and by this system she had at her death reached almost the entire Kingdom. TREVECCA COLLEGE. She could build chapels faster than she could find preachers. In an old castle where the Lords of Snowdon had lived before Wales was conquered, at Trevecca, she opened a school for clergy- men, in a building which had some time been used by Howell Harris as his school. Chesterfield and other nob'c friends aided her in the work, for her own income was always overdrawn. She had Wesley's approval. Writing to Fletcher, she so stirred his soul with her wise and generous plans, that he dreamed of them \m7^ THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINHDON. lot in the visions of the night. James Glazebrook, at work as collier near Madeley, Fletcher's home, appeared before him as the first student. With the morning light Glazebrook was at Fletcher's door, himself restless with a kindred vision ! He was a Christian of seven years' experience, of no mean gift in song and prayer, and of sense and judgment above his station. This first student of Trevecca justified its founding. After a long and useful life he died as Vicar of Belton. Their was no lack of students in his train ; Fletcher became president, and Joseph Benson, the fourth Methodist Commentator, whose family names coincides with that of the Archbishop of Canterbury but is not eclipsed by it, took charge as head master. No test of doctrine was at first established, but in 1770, Arminian doctrines were excluded, and both Fletcher and Benson were dis- missed from the college. True conversion and devotion to the work of the ministry, whether in the Church or elsewhere, were the leading requirements. The Countess gave them board, tuition and a " yearly suit of clothes." This lady, like Wesley, never dreamed of separation from v.ie church of her ancestors, and of her heart. In later years however, she was legally compelled to make avowal of dissent, in order to control her chapels, and make them serve their intended purpose. Thus, " Lady Huntingdon's Connection," became distinctly a Dis- senting Church, and Calvinistic in doctrine. It still survives as a small body. At her death ateight>'-four, after forty-four years of Christian labor, in widowhood, she held sixty-four chapels ; and, after giving twenty thousand dollars in charities, she left for the support of these the remainder of her estate. Her last words were, "My work is done ; I have nothing to do but go to my Father". Her College now flourishes at Cheshunt. Her " Chapels," now doubled in number, since her death, have in doctrinal prac- tice become Congregational, only that they retain a limited use of the Book of Common Prayer. JOHN WESLEY, (HIS FAVORI'l E PORTRAIT AT THE TIME.) From a portrait in possession of the family. / CHAPTER V. The Heroic Times. E now go back a little in our narrative. It has already been said that the moral condition of the English people was bad. That of the mining districts was worst oi all, worse even than that of the Loudon mob who assailed Whitefield on Whit Monday at Vanity Fair. Wesley early made it a rule for himself, and enjoined it upon his preachers, " to go not to those who need us but to those who need us inost." He knew what to expect — that mobs and violence would await him. Magistrates would charge upon him the disorders that vv'ould arise; the regular clergy would count him an intruder whose presence was a reproach to their own dignified, easy-going ways. In fact, toils, troubles, death, were in the road, but the people were perishing in their sins and there was no other mode of rescue than this. His mother now, like a sinking luminary, brightened with a final glow his path and his courage. While he was absent from London, Thomas Maxfield, " his second helper," (Joseph Humph- ries being his first,) went to delivering full sermons. Hearing of it, Wesley was alarmed and hurried up to London to check such disorder. In the Foundry Parsonage his mother, like Deborah in her tent, was inquiring of the Lord. " Thomas Maxfield has turned preacher, I find," said he. " He is as surely called of God to preach as you are," was her reply. Wesley heard Maxfield. " It is the Lord," he said, and so Maxfield was first of that long procession of lav preachers who have tramped so many lands and tiH m H Tin: sroKV or mktiiodism. won so many triumphs. " Liiy preachers," tlicy were called, because they had no ordination from a bishop's hands. They felt the moving' t«f the Holy Ghost, and as there are times when constitutions must ^nve vva)' th.it Nations ma)' be saved, so here was a time when church order had t(i ijive way that the Gospel might be preached. Maxfield proved an able man. Lady I luntingdon said of him : " I If is my astonishment ; how is God's power shown in weakness !" Soon, within hearing' of the joj' and worship of the throngs in the Foundr\', .]fr<. Iffs/ry '■erenel)' ])assed to the "sweet lJa.se of lomb. I'he (Jravc. KUNHILL I'lELDS CEMKTERY, Showing approach lo and the gnve of Mrs. S' sanna Wrsley, also the tomb on the base ol which We.>lcy .stood to preach his mother's funeral sermon. societies " on high. She asked her children to sing, at the moment of her departure, "a psalm of praise to God" that she was now to be with Christ. John and five of her daughters mingled their voices in the sweet, sad exercise. Helpers now arose, and soon twenty-three were itinerating, following the example of their untiring leader. A remarkable man, John Nel: i, appears. He had been religiously reared, he was happy in person, family and estate. inroWIBHIl] il^: ^iioiiMi :ir Mrs. SUSANNA WESLKY IN OLD AGE. From a portrait in possession of the family. ■• iJ •\ ^ -I i% 1 if I P t- io6 THE STORY OF METHODISM. after the modest standard of a mechanic, a stone-mason. He found that he could not live by broad alone. His hungry soul grasped strangely after problems of good and evil, of life and destiny, and he spent hours after work in noble longings and invvnrd discussions. He was sure that true religion would reUeve these wants, and towards this his anxieties all turned. But how to find itr He was already of high morality, but far from rest. His .ellovv v/orkmcn jeered and insulted him without disturbing his stranjr.e calmness. Only when they took away his tools to be given back when he should consent to drink with them, did he fight them until they agreed that he was better let alone, for *' he had as brave a heart as ever En- glishman was blessed with." Going from his home at Birstal to work in London, he visited, on Sundays, Church and Chapel, Quaker quietand Romish ritual, but nowhere Jid he find r lief. He had resolved to abide by the Church and plod along in the dark, when Whitefield's sermons at Moorfields gave him a new, strange shock. He could not sleep, unless to awake from dreadful dreams with sweat and shivering. Then Wesley came to preach at the same place. Af first sight of him Nelson felt that this man could finish for him what Whitefield had begun. " This man can tell the secrets of my breast ; he has shown me the remedy for my wretch- edness, even the blood of Christ." Wesley's sermon seemed to be all for him. He was not long in coming to t! 2 peace which he so long had been seeking. His simple comrades thought him ruined. JOHN NELSON. 1. Il Till. lIKROk: ITMIS, 107 They thoupfht he was going too far, his business would sufter, his family would starve. "His having hoard Wesley would be the ruin of him." "I blessed God that Wesley was ever born. 1 learn from him that my chief business in this world is to get well out of it." The fiiniil}' that lodged him wanted to be rid of him, for mischief would come of "so much praying and fuss as he made about religion." Ho prepared to leave. Then they thought : "What if John is right and we wrong?" One saia : "If God has done for you anything more than us, show us how we may find the same mercy." He took them to hear Wesley, and not in vain. Nelson was worling on the Exchequer building. On the ground that it was a National edifice, the contractor required him to work on Sunday. "The King's business requires haste." Nelson's answer was that he would not work on the Sabbath for any man in England, except to quench fire or to do something as needy of instant help. "Then thou .shalt lose thy place." "I would rather starve than ofifcnd God." "What hast thou done that thou makest such an ado about religion? I always took thee for an honest man and could trust thee with five hundred pounds." "So you might, and have never lost a penny by me." "But I have a worse opinion of thee now than ever." "Master, I have the odds of you there, for I have a much worse opinion of myself than you can have." John kept his place, and neither \,c nor his fellows worked again on Sunday. He wrote to his wife and kindred in Yorkshire, urging upon them the life that he was now leading. In the joy of his new mind, he fasted that he might give the value of his dinner once a week to the poor. He hired a comrade to hear Wesley, and this man declared it the best deed ever done for him, for it brought himself and his wife to the Saviour. Glorious dreams came now in which John Nelson in his flush of strength always conquered Satan ! Once in his dreams he saw Satan dashing among the people as a huge red bull. He bravely grasped the monster's horns, threw it on its back and trod upon its neck 1 John Nelson, is of .the style of Aidan, the apostle of North Eng- land a thousand years before, a brave high-hearted man, equal to any emergency. . So. kind, so strong, so clear of head and io8 THE STORY OF METHODISM. I 111 generous of temper, witty and fearless, he was the hero of the lowest classes, and Southey, the poetic historian, gives the stone- mason a warm admiration. He founded Methodism in Yorkshire. Returning to Birstal, he began to work for the saving of his own kindred. His first converts were his two brothers, an aunt and two cousins, and these cost no little effort, for at first thcj- thought John deluded of the devil and were not easily argued out of that. He then read the Bible, which grew brighter to his mind, spoke and prayed with those who came into his own house. Soon his house became too sinall, and standing in the door, he spoke to outsiders as well. There was a conversion every day; drunk- ards became sober and the Sabbath was kept; the face of the village was changed. Wesley heard of Nelson and came to help him. To his surprise he found a preacher and a congregation, and took both into his growing system. Our Story has already told a little of Wesley's work in New- castle. It was really after this visit to Nelson that he began reg- ular operations there. The plowshare of the Gospel was never driven into a wilder soil. He at once began the erection of a chapel, and in all the region of the colliers the work of grace went on. "It continually rises," said he, "step by step." Now, too, he was a week in Epworth, preaching from his father's tombstone to throngs that filled the church-yard, the drunken curate forbidding him the pulpit. A queer incident shows the nature of the work. Some angry opposers procured the arrest of a few Methodists, and these were taken before a magistrate in a neighboring town. "What have they done?" The accusers had prepared no legal charge. One found his voice and said : "Why, they pretend to be better than other people, and, besides, they pray from morning till night." "But have they done nothing else?" "Yes, sir," said one, " they converted my wife. Before she went among them she had such a tongue, and now she is as quiet as a lamb." "Carry them back, then, and let them convert all the scolds in town," and the parties were sent out of court. In every place the converts be- came blameless and harmless. Methodism had now reached the time when it must declare itself in an intelligible form, that its own people and the world THE HEROIC TIMES. 109 might know its nature and its purposes. It was already founded. Chapels had been built ; preachers were rising ; all the dis- tinctive usages of the societies had come in sight. A platform was now necessary, that all might clearly know what was re- quired of its members. Now appears Wesley's genius for statemanship. His declar- ation — The General Rules of the United Societies — for simplicity, JOHN WESLKYS STUDY IN THE ORPHAN HOUSE. NEWCASTr.K. accuracy and adaption, has no superior among like documents in Church or State. It is still the nucleus of Methodist law and usage, and with almost no amendment is vital in all Methodist communities. It contains no formal doctrine, but it is full of the plainest duties. In the American Churches, it is usually read iince a )ear in t'vcry society, and it can no more be superseded no TttE STORY OF METHODISM. than the Christian life of the New Testament which it so faithfully represents. ~ Such a society, it says, is no other than a company of men having the form and seeking the power of godliness, united in order to pray together, to receive the word of exhortation and to watch over each other in love, that they may help each other to work out their salvation. Members are arranged in classes of about twelve, one of whom is styled the leader. He meets them weekly to inquire, to calk of their soul's welfare, and to receive their gifts for the support of the society, and these he duly passes on to the stewards and preacher. Only one condition of entrance to the classes is established — a desire to flee from the wrath to come, and to be saved from their sins. This desire will be shown, first, by doing no harm. Then comes a remarkable transcript of Christian morals : "By avoiding evil of every kind, especially that which is most generally practiced." Then follows a partial list of these evils, such as before Wesley's eyes were wasting the resources and lowering the civilization of England ; such as mar social order and ruin human souls in all land and ages. "Drunkeness, the buying or selling of spirituous liquors or drinking them, unless in cases of extreme necessity." Here Wesley was far ahead of his time, and, even in our day, so long after, wc see the truth hardly more clearly than he. Fraud towards the State : buying or selling goods that have not paid the duty, the matter in which men are so easily led to quibble, is by name forbidden. " Borrowing, without a prob- ability of paying, or taking up goods without a probability of paying for them." How lofty the Christian sense of commercial honor ! Then comes solemn admonition of things in which a lively conscience must always be the judge, and the conscience must be enlivened by the Holy Ghost, in order to judge rightly : " Doing what they know is not for the glory of God ; as the putting on of gold and costly apparel, the taking of such diversions as can not be used in the name of the Lord Jesus : the singing those songs or reading those books that do not tend to the knowledge or love of God ; softness and needless self-indulgence ; laying up treasures on earth." If these things seem severe, so is the regimen of Christianity itself a self-denial and a self-control, and if here is a military sternness of discipline, so are Christians called to be soldiers. THE HEROIC TIMES. Ill After this statement of things not to be done, comes the sug- gestion of active, positive goodness. Doing good of every kind to the bodies and souls of men — feeding, clothing and visiting; re- proving, instructing and encouraging; "trampling under foot that enthusiastic doctrine that we are not to do good unless our hearts be free to it ;" i. e., unless we feel like it. Especial good must be done to them of the household of faith, "because the world will love its own, and them only;" employing them preferably to others, buy- ing of one another and helping each other in business. Diligence and frugality, patience and meekness are illustrated and enjoined. Thirdly, come attendance on all the ordinances of God — such as public worship, the ministry of the Word, either read or ex- pounded, the Lord's Supper, family and private prayer, and fast- ing or abstinence. " These are the General Rules of our societies ; all of which we are taught of God to observe, even in His written Word, the only rule of our faith and practice ; and all these we know His Spirit writes on truly awakened hearts." Then follows a solemn and affecting statement of the treatment of those who ob- serve not these Rules. There is no trial or expulsion. " He hath no more place among us ; we have delivered our own souls." These simple rule? are not for doctrine, but for behavior. They were for those who were born to a deed ; who were assumed to be already members of the Church of England, as the Wesleys themselves were. They were to promote piety under the creed, and inside of the Church, nor was there ever a Church organiza- tion in which these rules would not be as salutary as in the English Church. They guide to good citizenship, to good church- fellowship, to active benevolence and to personal piety. "O." says Wesley in his Journal, "that we may never make anything more or less the term of union with us, but the having the mind that was in Christ, and the walking as He walked ! " Following these Rules came, in 1743, the definite beginning of the circuit-system. He found that it would never do for him- self and his helpers to ramble, to touch and go, leaving the im- preosion made to the unsettled chances of the future. He at once "resolved not to strike one stroke in one place where he could not follow up the blow." Himself was still- an explorer, and some of his helpers served as pioneers, but if in any place he saw proofs of good, he fixed a simple plan by which, at a fixed time. 112 THE STORY OF METHODISM. a given man should preach there. Thus the itinerancy unfolded the circuit-system, which seemed early to assume the harmony and regularity of the very solar system in the sky. Strange physical effects were frequent under his preaching, and at Newcastle they were now specially frequent. He examined these closely, but they puzzled him and he never clearly solved them. Who indeed has yet solved them? They are of the many things that baffle human philosophy. He found that the people affected were in perfect health, were free from all physical ten- dency to convulsions. It was under the preaching or in meditation upon it that they dropped down, lost their strength, and usually had violent pains. Such affections (often called "the power") have attended the Gospel in America, and have not been confined to Methodism. Mr. Wesley saw no physical cause of these things and he was sure that they were not of God. He therefore assigned them to Satan, as mimicking the work of God to discredit it, or as teasing those who would come to Christ. He carefully states all the symptoms, phenomena and sequel of the cases, but the cause per- plexed him. Charles was wiser and, sure that much was counter- feit, he laid his hand firmlv on these disorders and was little troubled with them, "and the Lord was with us." Charles was now called to the test of his hero'c temper. John had preached in Leeds, afterw^ards a great center of Methodism, and, on his return to Bristol, Charles went north to Wednesbury and Walsal. Here, as he preached from the steps of the market-house, a mob came in like a flood and stones flew around him, often hitting but not hurting him. He was driven from the steps but he regained them three times, finished his sermon, and was pronouncing the benediction when a final rush swept him off. He gave thanks to God and passed unhurt through the midst of the rioters. Charles was a poet, calm, longing, sensitive and often melan- choly. His lofty sense of duty took precedence of his fears and his imagination flamed into glorious, heroic emotion, when peril was around him, and he was invincible. He wrote as he had often felt and seen : " Yua, let men rage, since Thou will spread Thy shadowing wings above my head; Since in all pain Thy tender love Will still my sure refreshment prove." •7 \ 't>' ncy ins. was 1 to ;ing the )cr- ittle was :hcd 'lis ilsal. ■nob but incd the lanks lan- Ifears Lvhen U he 114 THE STORY OF METHODISM. This hymn was inspired at Sheffield, where he came from Walsal and where " hell from beneath was moved to oppose us." "The floods began to lift up their voice," at his entrance. A military officer led the mob. Stones flew, hitting the desk and people, so that Charles announced that he would go out and face the iFoe in the field. He gave the furious officer, who had "the whole army of aliens" at his back, a tract of John's "Advice to a Soldier," and then, while stones were hitting him in the face, he prayed for the King and went on with his sermon. He then prayed for sinners as servants of the devil. The officer drew his sword, forced his way ^^ through the crowd, and, presenting his weapon at Wesley's breast, swore revenge for such insults to the King, his master. Wesley opened his vest and, with his eye on his fiery foe, said \ quietly : " I fear God and honor the King." The captain quailed, and returning his sword to its scabbard, he vanished from the scene. Wesley went to a friend's house, but the mob came howling on. All the mobs he had seen "were as lambs to these." They set to pulling down the preaching- house "while we were praying and praising God. It was a glori- ous time with us, and many found the Spirit of Glory resting upon them." The rioters went on all night, trying to break the door and tearing down one end of the house. Charles calmly slept. "I believe I got more sleep than any of my neighbors." CHARLES WESLEY IN THE MOB AT SHEFFIELD. THE HEROIC TIMES. 115 II his lis eye said God King." uailed, g his Dbard, )m the went house, "were ching- . glori- gupon le door y slept. He was expounding at five the next morning and preached later in the town. After he went from the chapel the mob left not one stone of it upon another. They afterward followed him, broke in the windows of his lodging, and proposed to tear it down. Weary but fearless, he "fell asleep in five minutes in the dis- mantled room." He sank into the nursing of sleep, that knits up the ravelings of care, with the words : " Scatter Thou the people that delight in war ! " At five the next morning he com- forted his b«ethren and went on to other places of toil and danger. It came to his knowledge that the clergy of Sheffield had caused this mob, so denouncing Methodism as to make the people think that whoever even killed them was doing God service. ST. IVES. At St. Ives, where he was preaching soon after, and which became a strong center of Methodism in the west of England, a mob broke the windows of the chapel, tore up its seats and carried away everything but its stone-walls, while Charles looked on silently. When they fiercely swore that he should preach there no more, he at once began to proclaim the Great Redemption. They lifted their clubs upon him, but, strange enough, never struck him. They beat and rudely trampled even the women present, but these and all were full of enduring courage. After an hour, the crowd fell into a qua.-rel of their own, broke the head of their own captain, the town-clerk, and left Wesley and his uwMiiii^ li6 THE STUkY OF MKIIIODISM. people giving thanks for ability to keep the field until victory came. At Poole, a church-warden headed the mob and drove Wesley and his hearers out of the parish, and there on the church- record stands, to this day, the bill paid for liquor furnished on the occasion ! Surely there was need of reformation ! And, amid the yell cf mobs, Methodism came into Cornwall to stay. These miners were men of courage and sincerity, and Methodism has among them a list of saints and heroes, many of whom continue unto this present. Soon after this John Wesley, with Nelson, came to the same region. Nelson worked at his trade by day and helped Wesley WESLEY AND NELSON PICKING BLACKBERRIES. at night. For three weeks of service, they slept on the floor. "Wesley had his great-coat for a pillow; I had Burkitt's Notes on the New Testament for mine," says Nelson. One morning about I was ch( three o'clock Wesley turned over, and, finding Nelson awake, I comed. clapped him on the side: "Brother Nelson, let us be of good I tween cheer ; 1 have one whole side yet, for the skin is off but one side." I singing They were seldom asked to eat and drink. Once Wesley stopped I Ne to pick blackberries. "Brother Nelson we ought to be thankful | now foil M TIIK IIKROIC TIMES. 117 that there .ire plenty of bhickbcrries, for this is the best country I ever saw for j^cttinjr a stomach, but the worst I ever saw for getting food. Do the people think that we can live by preach- ing?" Nelson said: "I know not what they may think; but one asked me to eat something as I came from St. Just, when I ate heartily of bread and honey," Wesley said : "You are well off; I had thought of begging a crust of bread of the women where I met the people at Morvah, but forgot it till I had got some distance from the house." All this has long since changed in Cornwall. ICven then it PULPIT BUILT ON KOCK WESLEY USED TO PREACH FROM, WESLEY ROCK CHAPEL. CORNWALL. From a photograph taken in 1887. was cheered by the hearty zeal with which the Gospel was wel- comed. On his last morning with them Wesley was waked be- tween three and four by throngs of miners under his window, singing as they waited for the sermon at five. Nelson remained to serve these hopeful societies. Wesley now followed where Charles had been at Walsal and Wednesbury JT .' ii?.::-nvl]8i5' ii8 THE STORY OF METHODISM. in the "Black Country." A mob bore him in tlie night and a violent rain, to a magistrate in town and to another two miles away; neither would rise from his bed. Another mob, led by an Amazon, took him from the first, the leader knocking down several men in his defence, until she was herself overcome. A man aimed blows with an oaken staff at Wesley, any one of which would have killed him, but strangely not one hit him. He was then struck on his breast and mouth, but felt no pain. He calmly watched the mob, crying, like the roar of waters, " Knock his brains out! down with him! kill him at once! crucify him I" "No, let's hear him first," cried others. He broke out aloud into WESLV.Y AND THE OSTLER. prayer. The leader, a prize-fighter, was overawed and suddenly said : " Sir, I will spend my life for you ; follow me, and not one soul here shall touch a hair of your head." A butcher took effective hold of four or five of the rioters ; others turned pro- tectors, and all together openec" the way and guarded Wesley to his lodgings. The captain of this mob v/as, from the moment of his turning, in deep grief for his doings. He soon joined the society he was bent on destroying. "What do you think of my brother?" asked Charles. "Think of him — that he is a man of God; and God was on his side, when so many of us could not ^.Zf'"./. V m\ THE HEROIC TIMES. no kill one man." So the plowsliarc of tlic Gospel siibsoilcd society. The clergy and the magistrates usually opposed it and approved the mobs, but all these outbreaks drew the attention of the com- mon people. Wesley and his now forty-five itinerants felt the crisis to be upon them. This was no time to flinch from their calling. When minds were alert and mobs were rife, impressions fresh, deep and lasting could be made. Up and doing! IVter Martin, an old inhabitant of Ilelstone, who was sexton of the parish church for si.xty-five years, used to tell a story of Wesley's deter- mination and courage. This man was ostler at the Londcn Inn, and as Wesley's coachman did not know the country so far west, he had to drive him to St. Ives. When they reached Hayle, the sands which separated them from St. Ives were covered by the rising tide. A captain of a vessel came up, and begged them to go back at once. Wesley said he must go on, as he had to preach at a certain hour. Looking out of the window, he shouted, "Take the sea! take the sea!" Soon the horses were swimming, and the poor ostler expected every moment to be drowned ; but Wes- ley put his head out of the window. Mis long white hair was dripping with the salt water. "What is your name, driver?" he asked. " Peter," said the man. " Peter," he said, fear not: thou shal'. »>ot sink." At last the driver got his carriage safely over. Wesley's first care, he says, was "to see mc comfortably lodged at the tavern;" he got warm clothing, good fire, and refreshment for his driver; then, totally unmindful of himself, and drenched as he was with the dashing waves, he proceeded to the chapel, where he preached according to appointment. i llfi WESLEY'S TABLE. MONUMENT OF JOHN ANP CHARf rs WEbUY, IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. in- ■■< « PQ ' tlu- doctrines relating at once and directly to personal religion, without which one cannot be saved, were con- sidered. Care was taken to define Repentance, Faith, Justifica- tion, Sanctification and the Witness of the Spirit. These are still the "Five Points" of Methodism, and nothing unrelated to these . was discussed. "What shall we do?" Secession from the church found no favor, but " How far is it our duty to obey the Bishops? " was a hard question. "In all things indifferent; and, on this ground of obeying them, we should obey the Canons as far we can with a safe conscience." The General Rules were approved. Directions as to the best methods of preaching were given, such as have never since been improved. In every sermon the lay-preachers were: first, to in- vite ; second, to convince ; third, to offer Christ ; then to build up Wesley was still slow to extend his lay-ministry. His heart was fondly hoping to see the fire now kindled, warm the clergy of the Church. "We believe that the Methodists will either be thrust out, or will leaven the vvh'^le Church." Both these things have been done! "Can we have a seminary for laborers?" There was no money but the decision was affirma- tive: "If God spare us till another Conference." At that next Conference it was asked : " Can we have a seminary for laborers yet?" "Not till God gives us a proper tutor," was the answer, then. These educational longings were worthy of a movement that began in a University. They fore- showed the vast educational system, that counts to-day in one branch of Methodism, in one country, more than a hundred in- stitutions of learning. Lady Huntingdon entertained the Conference. Wesley preached in her mansion from: "What hath God wrought?" in- troducing her s}'stem of household sermons, that made her Lon- don residence a chapel. Two of Wesley's clergymen took part in the services, and his four lay-preachers sat with them, their peers in calling if not in churchly order. On Friday the Conference adjourned. The work before them was not yet to organize an ecclesiastical body. It was to briag men to Christ, to create a body of sincere believers and practical workers. Providence would guide the future. Wesley now felt called to a defense of his opinions and prac- 9 ^ / iSlJI I I30 THY. STORV OF METHODISM. tices in a wider and more lasting manner. His Earnest Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion is eloquent, bold and ihoughtful. It speaks of facts, plain to all eyes. There had come in five years a great reform in England. "Christ is preached, and sinners are converted to God." The inference, therefore, cannot be denied, that "God is now visiting His people." He defends his open-air preaching. "For preaching inward salvation, attainable by faith, we were forbid to prejich any more in those churches where, till then, we were gladly received. We now declare the grace of God, who dwclleth not in temples made with hands, in all places of His dominion. We declare it wherever a door is opened, nor dare we refrain." He turns upon the regular clergy. "There are among yourselves ungodly, unholy men. A clergyman, so drunk that he can scarcely stand, may (as at Epworth) in the presence of a thousand people set upon another clergyman, of the same Church, both with abusive words anc^ open violence. Where, then is your zeal against these?" This book had its effect, but Wesley's power was in his daily labor, bringing the people to the Saviour, and framing them into Christian order and fellowship. " By their fruits ye shall know them." Charles, now going to Cornwall, where persecution had just raged so fiercely, writes, "What an amazing work has God done in one year!" The preacher, with five or six sermons a day, could not meet the de- mand for preaching. The morals of the whole people had im- proved. At a jail delivery, not one felon was found in prison ; a thing utterly unknown before. A wrestling match was given up. "all the Gwennap men being struck off" the devil's list, and found wrestling against him, and not for him." At the amphitheater he spoke for three hours, "yet knew not how to stop," to thousands on its green slopes. All the societies were growing, and where persecution had been fiercest, "our Lord rides on triumphant." The wars of the Continent, in which England was now in- volved, "the war of the Austrian Succession," called for soldiers. Preachers and members were impressed for the service. In Cornwall, John Wesley was arrested. When the arresting party found they had a gentleman and a clergyman, they excused him for a day, and never again troubled him. That evening, he was, while preaching, dragged away, " for his majesty's service," but THE FIRST CONFERENCE. »3l >eal to .1. It ears a rs are lenicd, )en-air ' faith, ;re, till if God, of His are we among that he ;e of a 'hurch. then is is daily 2m into i-oing to writes, The the de- lad im- prison ; ivcn up. i found theater usands where ant." ow in- oldiers. ce. In |g party ed him he was, e," but was soon returned and completed his sermon. The next day a mob assailed him at Falmouth, and his escape was narrow. But in the midst of alarms, he wjis amazed at the success of the truth. " I never remember so great an awakening." Soon he writes, **We are here in a new world, as it were, of peace, honor and abundance; how soon I should melt away in this sunshine! but the goodness of God suffers it not." Nelson, too, at York, where he had been impressed, now preached with great success. His manner touched the soldiers. One day, an officer who had come to pull him down, while others threw squibs at him, knelt on the ground, with tears, to beg prayers for God's mercy, declaring that he would lead a new life. This leads to Methodism in the army. The soldiers were of the worst classes, vagrants, and dangerous men in part, and the officers were wicked. ("Our army swore terribly in Flanders," said Uncle Toby.) Methodist soldiers from Wesley's societies at once began to preach in camp. Si.\ or seven, with often a thousand hearers, were doing theie the work of Wesley and Nelson, and hundreds were converted. John Evans, in the heat of battle at Dettingen, devoted his life, if spared, to the service of God. He found an old Bible in a baggage-wagon, and a Methodist soldier who showed him the way of life. He opened two preaching places in Ghent, and "preached and lived the Gospel" until his death in the battle of Fontenoy. Mil'tary life brings out character in strong develop- ment ; and two of these soldiers claim a brief notice. The soldier who led John Evans to Christ was John Haine, He was a ner- vous, sad-hearted man, and went as dragoon for relief in the ex- citement of war, but between its excitements came deeper des- pondency. Bunyan's "Grace Abounding," helped him. He read, he fasted, ue prayed seven times a day. .At length "the Lord took away my sorrow, and filled my soul with peace " Then his sorrow came back, but, before he left for the seat of war, light returned. He fought seven hours at Dettingen, and in the carnage, "my heart was filled with love, peace and joy, more thin tongue can tell." Sampson Staniforth then came with his regiment. He was a desperate man, who up to twenty-five had never uttered a prayer, id 132 THE STf)KV OF MLTIIDDISM. or known what the Bible is, or had a reWpjious thought. He went into the war for its wild, reckless freedom. In his rep;imcnt was a sad man, Mark Bond, who read and prayed miicii and drank no rum. He believed himself forever lost for blasphemy, and he had entered the war. hopinj^ to be killed, and thus avoid sui- lUTTLK OF KONTENOY. cide ! This sorrowful soul fouiul under the words of Haine and Evans the peace of God. He felt at once strangely and strongly drawn towards the terrible Staniforth. The latter being thus led to the soldiers' meeting was, for the first time, conscious of religious thoughts, THE FIRST CONFERENCE, J33 e went nt was drank ly, and id Rui- [aine and ^ards the soldiers' I thoughts. " I was knocked down like an ox." liond had a piece of an old Bible. " I can do better without it than you ; " for this man. whose constant cry now was for God's mercy, had never read a passage in his life. Soon he saw "the Saviour on a cross amid parting clouds," and " all mj' guilt was gone." The champion was con- verted ; ten, at least, of his comrades went with him. Soon three hundred soldiers were in the societies, and seven were preaching. Tabernacles were built in the camps, and Haime bravely lid. "I have now three armies against me: the French, the ■ ii ;ed English, and one of devils." Even the ofhcers and their families were drawn to the preaching. At Eontenoy, May i, 1745, forty-six thousand men i;ntered the dreadful battle. Staniforth prayed for grace to "behave as a Christian, and a good soldier," and as he and Hond lay on their arms after the first day of the battle, "we had sweet communion." One of the Methodists, anticipating death, as he went into the fight, said: " I am going to rest in the bosom of Jesus," and so he did. The courage of these men in battle, and their fortitude in suffering, amazed even the brave hearts around them. Clements, a preacher with one arm broken, grasped his sword with the other hand ; " I will not go yet." His other arm was shattered. "I am as happy as I can be out of paradise." Evans, both legs shot away, died, praising and exhorting. Haime's horse was killed under him. An officer asked: "Where is your God now?" "Sir, He is here with me." " Haime is gone ! " cried one, as the horse fell. " He is not gone yet," called Haime. In seven hours of carnage, "I was as full of joy as I could contain." Meeting a wounded brother, covered with blood, and searching for water: "Brother Haime, I have a sore wound." " Have you Christ in your heart? " " I have ; I have had Him all this day." Bond was shot in a later battle. Stout Staniforth carried him out of the fight, and his last look, as the tide of war parted them, was "with eyes full of heaven." Wesley was glad, even proud, of his soldiers. They lived faith- fully and died bravely. Such as came back, like Cromwell's "men of religion" a century before, were faithful still, and the first societies in Scotland, at Dunbar and Musselborough, were formed by dragoons of Haime's regiment. Wesley found them "patterns of seriousness, zeal and all holj' conversation." 134 THE STORY OF METHODISM. Forty years after Fontenoy, at seventy-eight, died John Ha'.me, declaring that a convoy of angels would take him to his rest. He had made full proof of his ministrj;. Nearly sixty years after his conversion, and fifty years of preaching, the mighty Staniforth entered the heaven of the true and the brave. Methodism never had victory more timely and complete than with these soldiers. The mobs of London, the colliers of New- castle, the miners of Cornwall, the rude peasants of Yorkshire, and now the hard soldiery, felt its reviving call. Many came into a new life, and all were affected with new ideas. The Second Conference was at Bristol> Aug. i, 1745, but was marked by no special interest. The North of England was astir with the Pretender's war, and at Newcastle Wesley joined loyally in furthering the public safety. When it was believed that the next day the city would be attacked, he held three services of unusual power. "We cried mightily unto the Lord to spare a sinful land." That night a man, captured and strangely saved from suicide, told the plans of the enemy, which would have been fatal to the city, and the peril passed away. This year Charles hurt his leg by slipping, and for weeks preached daily on his knees, being carried from place to placj. As soon as he could use crutches, he preached twice daily. " The word of God is not bound, if I am. It runneth very swiftly." The Third Conference, May 12, 1746, was of little impor- tance. Wesley's preaching tours now covered all, England and Wales, but he met this year only one mob. Wesley was now able to visit places remote and neglected, and there was rising a supply of able men to follow where he opened the way, and even to open the way for him. Space fails us even to name many, but we must mark the brave John Nelson. He was of the people, only wiser and stronger ; he knew the people and they heard him gladly. He had become a very bishop in his own town. One who had aided in putting him into the army sent for him, and the preacher aided his old persecutor into the Kingdom of heaven, preaching afterwards, at the man's earnest wish, a sermon over his coffin. Conflicts still awaited Nelson.. At Harborough, a son of the rector led a mob, " almost the whole town," to drag the first preacher coming, by a halter, and drown him in the river. A m i: ■ . i; '■■',: I' ! THE FIRST CONFERENCE. 135 John to his ars of e true :c than f New- kshire, Tie into 3Ut was as astir loyally hat the services spare a ,y saved ive been half-insane man stood to throw the halter ; a butcher was to start the dragging. They could do nothing while Nelson spoke, so they drowned his voice with " six large hand-bells." Then the halter-man came up ; Nelson then thrust back the rope, and the man fell " as if knocked down by an axe." The butcher trembled ; a constable who had come to protect thj mob, "turned pale," and bringing Nelson's horse, bade him " go on in the name of the Lord." " O my God, hitherto Thou hast helped mc ! " cried Nelson. At Hepworth Moor, stones were thrown while he preached, but none bit him. As he left, one felled him bleeding to the earth, where for some time he lay. The mob followed him as he stag- gered away, with blocil streaming down his back, crying that they woyld kill him beyond the town. He thought how his Lord was slain without the gate. A door was opened for him ; a surgeon dressed his wound, and, before night, he went to Atcomb, where he was to meet the very crisis of all his conflicts. A coach full of young men drove up to the assembly and the men showed their purpose by throwing eggs and singing songs of revel. Then the two strongest came to Nelson, one of them crying: "If I do not kill him, I will be damned." Three times he attempted an assault. The third time Nelson fell and the ruffian, putting his knees upon him, beat him senseless, opening the wound of the day before. Twenty others of the mob came to finish the deed. They picked hiin up in his blood, got him into the street, and a brother of the parish clergyman cried : " We will kill you as fast as you come." Eight times they felled him to the earth. Then, as he lay exhausted, they dragged him by the hair, with merciless kicking, for twenty yards, over the stones. Six then jumped on him " to tread the Holy Ghost out of him ! " Pausing, they said : " We cannot kill him." *' I have heard that a cat hath nine lives, but I think that he hath nine score." " If he has, he shall die this day." " Where is his horse, for he shall quit the town immediately." Order your horse tc be brought to you, for you shall go before we leave you." To this Nelson said : " I will not, for you intend to kill me in private that you may escape justice; if you murder me, it shall be in public, and it may be that the gallows w-'l bring you to repentance and your souls be saved from the wrath to come." acy then tried to thrust him into a well, but a woman there knocked several of then» down, and. !* 136 THE STORY OF METHODISM. being recognized by some ladies passing in a carriage, they sneaked away. And tiiese twenty, such as Fielding portrayed, of the gentry, did such exploit ! The hero, a martyr in will but not in deed, rose up in strength and the next day rode forty miles to hear Wesley preach, and to tell him deeds, determined, dared and done. Nelson had preached at Manchester, in 1743, the first Methodist lay sermon. Wesley loved the ni'ghty " Caleb." About this time, John Thorp, a drunkard of Yorkshire, de- clared to his comrades that he could out-preach Whitefield. He opened the Bible at random and read, " Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." It seemed to him a bolt from heaven ! In terror he could not but proceed. God spoke through him, making his own hair stand on end . nl binding with a spell the drunken company. After the disco.nse, he left the ale house and joined a society. After two years of repentance and anguish, he found peace, became a successful preacher, and " made a glorious end." Wesley was now in ful' tide of labor and success. The period of peril seemed over ; only toil remained. At stormy Wednesbury he preached to vast congregations, " behaving in a manner becom- ing the Gospel." In London, the rector of St. Bartholomews, himself become a Methodist, opened his church to Wesley. " How strangely is the scene changed ! What laughter and tu- mult among the best, when we preached in .1 London church ten years ago I now all are calm and attentr ' '>m the least even to the greatest." The vast congregat:");, - rough Moorfields was such that "it was comfortable even to s. • nem." At Ep- worth, he received the Lord's Supper in the church, but preached in the air, for reason of the multitude. "God has wrought upon the whole place." At Leeds and Birstal, Nelson's fields, onl\' a third of his congregations could hear him. "Surely none will n&w ascribe this to the novelty of field preaching," after twelve years of it. At almost every step of our story appears some new, interest- ing personage, like a fresh star swimmiriy to the sky. William Grimshaw had become a clergjman " of average piety." He sel- dom swore grossly, "unless in suitable company," and, when he got drunk, he still aimed to "sleep it off before he got home!" He was in this shameful life visited by deep convictions, and, after they ;d, of t not OS to d and : firsl •e, de- . He mt. ye ^aven I h hini, )en the ise and lish, he rlorious 2 period nesbury becom- omews, Wesley, and tu- rch ten ast even orfields At F.p- reached jht upon Ids. only one will r twelve interest- William He sel- Iwhen he home 1 " liivi. after D 138 THE STORY OT METHODISM. years of deep anguish, h*^ found peace in Methodist ideas before he heard a Methodist preacher or read a Methodist publication. Becoming curate at Havvorth, he joined Wesley, and, in an orbit of his own, he followed Wesley's plans. "Grimshaw's circuits," served by " Grimshaw's Preachers," reached many towns in his region, and he had his classes, love-feasts and the like. His labors, even in these evangelizing years, were notable. He trav- eled his two circuits every two weeks, often pi caching thirty tines a week. In the four hamlets composing his parish, he preached four times a month, besides his regular church services ; and also a meeting at his parsonage, each morning, when he was at home. He would even preach at the doors of those who neg- lected church. "You shall hear me at home." Under his preaching many.melted and lay for dead, ss so was often the case with those listening to the preachers. These latter he loved and served with all his heart. He entertained them at his house, built for them a chapel, and treated them with all humility and generosity. When Wes- ley or Whitefield visited Haworth, he rallied all the region, erecting a platform outside the church for the preacher, and administering the sacrament to successive throngs inside after the sermon. He, with Wesley, had some taste of the rudeness of mobs, but with both it fell out for the help of the Gospel, and Grimshaw was known as Archbishop of Yorkshire. Soon after this, Charles, after a most gratifying tour in Wales, where, at St. Just, after the mob had ruled, and the chapel had lain eighteen months in ruin, he quietly restored the preaching, had another terrific struggle at Devizes. Of these we need no longer speak particularly. Every battle was a scene of violence, meekness, courage, and victory. HA WORTH CHURCH. THE FIRST CONrERENCE. 139 efore ition. orbit uits," in his His trav- thirty ih, he vices ; le was o neg- "You home." caching lay for ften the isteniiig These d served rt. He at his them a ed them ty and en Wes- visited lied all for the throngs e of the of the shire. I Wales, pel had eaching, need no iolence, Marmaduke Gwynne was a true prince of Wales. He lived in a stately way at Garth, with chaplain and servants, a large family, and many a guest. When Harris had preached near Garth, Gwynne, as magistrate, proposed to arrest him as incendiary, in Church and State. " But I will hear him myself before I commit him." He was deeply affected under the sermon, and "thought the preacher, resembled one of the Apostles." At the close he went and took Harris by the hand, told him his dis- appointment, asked his pardon, bade him God- speed, and invited him to his mansion for sup- per. He was a warm, generous man, helping in many ways the good work, and giving the itinerants a home and resting-place. Here, April 8, 1 749, Charles became the husband of Sarah Gwynne. Perronet, Vicar of Shoreham, ven- erable friend of all the parties, had advised the marriage. John offi- ciated at the ceremony and "was the happiest person among us." It was a fitting and happy union. Mrs. Wesley's home was fixed at Bris- tol. She was in full harmony with her husband's calling and tem- per. She appreciated the heroes of every degree, and such as Nelson and his brethren were welcome at her house. Often trav- eling with her husband, she made herself dear to the women of the societies, and strengthened the hands of her husband. Mrs. Grace Murray, a woman of culture and education added to brilliant natural gifts, had been in chargi? of Wesley's house at VINCENT PERRONET AND SHOREHAM CHURCH. 140 THE STORY OF METHODISM. Newcastle. She had also been his " rijjht-hand" in organizing his societies of women, both in En^dand and Ireland. Wesley had hoped that she would be his wife ; but. while he lingered, shi- became engaged to John Hennet, a lay preacher. Wesley's suf- ferings were severe, but she wiis already married. Her husband left the Methodists ; but, afterwards, during a widowhood of fifty years, she had class-meetings in her own house. Her dying words were : •' Peace Thou givest me." Hoth Wesley and her- JOHN WESLEY AT WEDNESBURY. self seemed to count "what might have been" as a bitter loss. He married a lady of position in London, having an ample fortune, but so ill tempered and jealous and in other ways so un- suitable as to make his marriage the mistake and misfortune of his life. She soon left his home in London and they never met again on earth. His kindness and care of Mrs. Murray, after her marriage, and his high regard for her husband, proved well his chivalrous piety. CHAPTER VIII. Methodism in Ireland. OR three hundred years this unhappy land has been the scandal and perplexity of its rulers, the home of oppression, disorder and misery. Wesley had taken the world for his parish, and, as soon as his work- was clearing itself from dangers in Eng- land, he was anxious to do something for Ireland. In 1747, he looked at the case. He found not one in a hundred of the na- tives had left the religion of their fathers. The Protestants were plants grown abroad. "And no wonder, when the Protestants can find no better way to convert them than penal laws and acts of Parliament ! " Bishop Berkeley had already suggested that persons conversant with low life, and the Irish tongue, and the first principles of religion, might mix with the common people, get their confidence, do them good, and bring them to church. Something like this already wis there in the Mendicants of the Romish Church. When Wesley, having already set at work in England what Berkeley suggested, came to Ireland, Protestantism was feeble and waning. His success we shall find but moderate, yet, without him. Protestantism would have vanished from the island. Reaching Dublin, Aug. 9, 1747, he preached that day at St. Mary's to "as gay and careless a congregation" as he had ever seen. The curate, with the Archbishop, wished no lay preachers. II METHODISM IN IRELAND. 143 vVesley proceeded independently. Williams, a lay preacher from England, had formed a societ)- of three hundred. Wesley found z 1 '" U K H these "strong" in the faith, docile and cordial. He preached for two weeks to crowds at the chapel, who gave him a polite hear- ing. He was pleased, and thought the prospect better than : t I 1 144 THE STORY OF MEriU)I)ISM, in London itself. Yet he saw tlic need of care — "these cordial people are equally susceptible of f^ood or of ill impressions ! " After two weeks he returned, and soon Charles came over. Meanwhile the Celtic ardor had blazed, and in a jfcnuine Irish riot, with its noise and ti^htiny;s, hat! wrecked the chapel, made a bon-fire of its contents, and threatened to kill the society. The mayor could do nothing; the grand jury favored the rioters. "Swaddlers" was the Irish for Methodists. It was caught from a Christmas sermon, by a popish hearer, who thought " swaddling clothes" a Protestant device to ridicule the infant Saviour. Even the children shouted this. Every day Charles preached in the parks, and one or more were killed by the mob, for an Irish mob is fiercer than an English. At last the Gospel subdued them. " I have never at the Foundry seen a congregation more respect- ful than on Dublin green." The prayers and sobs of the people almost drowned his voice. He preached every day, and even five times a day. He built a better chapel, and, as they came into it out of great tribulation, they had a day of "solemn rejoic- ing in hope of His coming to wipe all tears from our eyes." He heard of awakenings in other places. The Irish love of song and music served him well, and even Catholic children caught and sung his h\nins, or whistled his tunes. Hundreds came to be charmed by Methodist singing, who would as readily have gone to hear Caoch O'Leary, or Turlogh O'Carolan, the last Irish bards. At W'e.xford, one, who with his spalpeens was to wreck a barn where a meeting was held, hid in a sack within the barn to watch and give them signal. The singing charmed him, and he must hear that. Then came the prayer, under which he roared out with remorse and trembling. The people thought Satan was in the sack ! It was pulled off, and there was a weeping, praying Irishman ! He was soundly converted. At Tyrrel Pass a great work began. At Athlone was a mob, and the dragoons interfered. At Philipstown the dragoons themselves had a society. "All turned from darkness to light." He felt that Methodism was fairly planted in Ireland. John came over, and his Journal shows how truly he saw the Iris'h character. The people were cordial and polite, full of good- will and desires, "The waters spread too wide to be deep. I MPTItdDtSM 1\ IkF.I.ANP. U5 found not one under very strong conviction, much less had arty attained the knowledge of salvation in hearing thirty sermons." He did not hope for any rapid success of Methodism, though he believed it was the land's sore need. As he was preaching at Athlonc, to a vast number of Roman ists, their priest came and "drove them away like a flock *^f sheep." Wesley preached "the terrors of the lord, in the strong- est manner I was able." They ate every word, yet seemed to HEALEY ON ATHLONE CIRCUIT. digest none. They were an "immeasurably loving people." When he left, there was such weeping as he never heard before, still, "I see nothing as yet but drops before a shower." Organizing Ireland with societies, he returned after three months to England. Charles, coming over, saw all signs of prosperity, only he feared it was shallow. Of two hundred members at Cork, "all seemed awakened, but not one of them justified." " How few will own God's messengers when the stream turns ! " He seemed lO ^ 146 THE STORY OF MF-THOniSM. to read the warm, ^ay, cliaiifjefiil and fierce Irish character. The storm burst over Cork. Mardly had Charles ^one, when one Hiitler, a ballad-singer, with clerical gown and Hible, evi- dently approved by the mayor, began preaching against the Methodists. Their persons were assailed, and their houses ^orn down; the mayor saying that, under his rule, "the priests were protected, the Methodists not." Butler and his gangs cried. "Five pounds for the head of a Swaddler ! " The grand jury threw out all depositions against the rioters, and even presented PARSON BUTLER'S ATTACK ON THE METHODIST CHAPEL AT CORK, IRELAND. Charles, and nine of his associates (eight preachers, and one who entertained them), as vagabonds, praying their transportation. This brought them to the King's court. Butler was the first wit- ness. "What is your calling?" "I sing ballads." "Why, here are six gentlemen indicted as vagabonds, and the first accuser is a vagabond by profession ! " said the judge. The second accuser was put under contempt of court, and the preach- ers cleared. In 1750, another riot ruled in Cork, but at length came peace. A large chapel was built; Wesley was entertained at the acter. when :, evi- it the 3 vorn j were cried : d jury :sented I [< th came d at the 111' Mi •i'i ■ i. . I i4« THE STORV "OF" MF.THODiSXi. mayor's mansion, and he was even afraid that the circuit might enervate his preachers. Remarkable conversions occurred. In Antrim, a niost vi- cious deaf-mute was converted, and, wiien the preacher came, he would run from house to house with the news. He refused to work on the Lord's day, and learning the sacred promises, and their places in the Bible, he would put his finger on them "with a wild, screaming voice, and floods of tears." Violence still broke out, and John McBurney, at Enniskillen, was the first Irish mar- tyr, under circumstances much like those attending the fate of Thomas Beard, our first martyr in England. Wesley declares that the Irish were the politest people he ever knew, ana that courtesy in their cabins was as perfect as at the courts of Lonoon and Paris. A remarkable man was soon raised up to the front rank of the Wesleyan worthies. Thomas Walsh, a strictly trained Catho- lic, but of active mind and longing heart, stood in i 749, on thtj parade-ground at Limerick, to hear a preacher, .Swindells. He had attained much in study, had lived by the straight rules of his ChurcH, and yet found no rest. An older brother had become Protestant ; he also, after an agony, study and dis- cussion, did the same, and in his eighteenth year, at one in the morning, after a long interview with his brother and others, he fell upon his knees and for the first time prayed to none but God. Vet he tenderly loved his Romish friends and he found no clear rtst for his heavy-laden heart. At length, in a Methodist meet- ing, he was set free by Him "who cometh from Edom and with dyed garments from Bozrah." Now was in Ireland a saint indeed, in this world but not of it, such as no recorded saint sur- passes. He knew Irish 'le mastered English, Latin, Greek and Hebrew, all that he might fully know and teach the Bible. He entered the ministry with awe and hesitancy. "Lord Jesus, be Thou my sun and star ! " ran his prayer. He walked thirty miles to his first appointment. It was in a barn, and he was heard with contradictions, mockery and tears. Soon he was preaching daily to multitudes. The Irish, addressed in their own tongue, smote their breasts, and beggars under his word knelt in the streets to pray. A native, with whom he remonstrated in English, swore tu kill him. Walsh reproved him in Irish. "Why didst thou not METHODISM IN IRELAND. 149 : might iost vi- ame, he fused to ses, and "with a 11 broke sh nriar- : fate of eople he ect as at : rank of ;d Catho- 9, on the 2 straight r brother ' and dis- ne in the others, he : but God. no clear iist meet- 1 and with d a saint saint sur- ireek and iible. He Jesus, be lirty miles heard with :hing daily gue, smote streets to h, swore tu ,t thou not so speak to me in the beginning?" "I let him know in Irish what Christ had done for sinners, and he departed with a broken heart." The Irish tongue is pathos itself. When yon plead for your life, plead in Irish. His task was the harder for his being regarded an an apostate from Rome, and he had many a mob to face. One priest told his people that Walsh was dead and that this preacher was the devil in his shape ! Yet the common people would run to hear him, and un- der his sermons call with tears upon the Virgin, the Apostles and all the Saints. His work among his own people was won- derful. Wesley sent him to London, where he spoke to crowds of countrymen in the tongue in which they were born, pouring out upon them the full- ness and energy of a glowing soul. Wesley says : " I do not remem- ber ever to have known a preacher, who, in so few years as he remained John wesley giving alms. upon earth, was an instrument of converting so many sinners." He labored for nine years, a burning and a shining light, wonder- ful in his knowledge of Scripture, in his saintly living, in his eloquence. He died after much mental suffering, but at evening time it was light. By such a man, and his associates, Methodism was rooted in Ireland. Wesley often visited and traversed it, and fully six of his toilsome, hopeful years were spent in labors there. '• m CHAPTER IX. Whitefield Once More. N 1744, Whitefield came again to Ameri»*a. He reached York, in Maine, in feeble health, and after one of his sermons he sank away and thought himself dying. His weeping fnends said : He is gone." Mood\', pastor at York, cared for him and welcomed him "in the name of all the faithful ministers of New England." The faculty of Harvard and many clergymen did not bid him welcome. " Tes- timonies " for and against him were published. Fanat- ics had risen in his absence, but many, even pastors, were converts by his former labors. He was at once among them as a sun above the horizon ; his congregations were large ; conversions occurred ; he spoke on occasions of public interest, and regained all his power with the people. They proposed to build him, at Boston, " the largest place of worship ever seen in America." At Philadelphia he was ofifered four hundred pounds salary and half the year for labors abroad. In Virginia, his printed sermons, read without prayer (there was nobody dared to pray in public), had produced conviction and awakening in several towns. He says with joy: "The Gospel is moving southward ; the harvest is promising ; the time of the singing of b :rds is come ? " " Thou- sands and thousands are ready to hear the Gospel, and scarce anybody goes out but myself Now is the time for stirring." Struck with a burning fever, he omitted one sermon ; " But I hope yet to die in the pulpit or soon after I come out of it." So he did. WHITEFIELD ONCE MORE. 151 »-a. He ilth, and way and ids said : d for him 2 faithful Harvard " Tes- Fanat- pastors, He wrote from North Carolina that, " with r> body weak and crazy," he was hunting for sinners in these " ungospelized wilds." It was with *he people as if an angel of God was visiting them. As a " dying man," he went to the Bermudas. There, as an inva- lid, he preached twice or more daily. One rainy week he preached " but five times in private houses." His motto was, " Faint yet pursuing," and the crowds were " affected as in days of old at home." After three months he sailed for England, but, at his last sermon, the audience wept aloud, the negroes outside were sobbing, and he joined in the prevailing sorrow. His friend Harris had been laboring in Wales with an energy like that of Wesley and his men, and he, too, had met his share of persecutions. Lady Huntingdon had taken a tour through that region with two noble ladies, the Hastings, and several preachers. She had preached four or five times daily, and her jour- ney was a progress of the Gospel. At Trevecca, great congregations were had for several days, and " were moved by the truth as a forest by the wind." ^^^O- whitefield. preaching. She met Wliitefield at London. The great preacher entered at once upon his old career. John Newton, rising at four to get to the service at five, used to see Moorfields before daylight as full of the lanterns of the worshipers as the Haymarket (the street of the great theater) was full of flambeaux on opera nights. " I bless God that I have lived in his time." London was too small for Whitefield. He went for the third time to Scotland, where the stern Synods were complaining that he had not preached up the Solemn League and Covenant. " I preach up the Covenant of Grace," said he. Among his vast congregations were many vho told him how his former preaching had led to their conversion. On his way to London he had hi.= usual series of crowds, »5» THE STORY OF MfiTHODISM. sensations and victories. At Exeter, a man stood aiming a stone at his head ; just as he was to throw, the word struck him. He humbly sought the preacher : " Sir, I came here to break you head, but God has broken my heart." He turned and lived a true Christian. At London, Whitefield could not remain. He was too weak to hold a pen ! Like the Baptist, he seemed but a " Voice." He .started for Portsmouth and Wales, and in eight hundred miles spoke to a hundred thousand hearers. At times, twenty thousand were present and weeping. " I think we had not one dry meet- ing." At Exeter, Bishop Lavington, the most bitter of his opponents, gazed with his clergy on ten thousand people swaying, trembling and weeping under the Word, while " Jesus rode forth in His chariot of salvation." At London, frequent earthquakes were occurring ; Charles and Whitefield were there, and, in the general alarm, they comforted the people. On the morning of March 8, 1750, Charles, at five, was rising in the Foundry pulpit to preach. A shock jarred all London, and the Foundry walls trembled. The frightened people shook, but he cried: "There- fore will we not fear though the earth be removed. The Lord of Hosts is with us." His words of lofty faith and cheer shook their souls, but dispelled their fears. The Foundry became a place of refuge. While coaches and people hurried from the city as if it were struck with the wrath of God, " our people were calm and quiet as at any other time." Crowds came to the Foundry at night; Whitefield preached at midnight in Hyde Park, to fear- stricken multitudes, and " the word of God prevailed." It was a time for Charles to sing: " This awful God is ours ! " and the people felt that the God of the evangelists " rides on the whirlwind and directs the storm." m I' Ml I'll w CHAPTER X. Opinions and Economics. rTEERAGE follows headway in the nat- ral order of things. Methodism was becoming rich in all resources — in men of gifts and graces as laborers ; in a membership numerous, energetic and devoted ; in growing material proper- ty ; in the respect, willing or unwilling, of the nation. It was now time for all this to be rounded into form. At the Second Conference it was asked : not the will of our governors a law?" not of any governor. If a Bishop wills [^=^^'^^' me not to preach, his will is no law to me. >/ XN If jf ]-^^^ produce a law, I am to obey God rather than man." Freedom from man, loyalty to God, thus lay at the foundation. " Is Episcopal, Presby- terian or Ind_^.jnc'-.it (Congregational, iu America) Church government most agreeable to reason?" To this was given a careful answer. It presents an out- line of the origin of Church government, telling how an Apostle needed a Pastor ; a Pastor, Helpers or Deacons ; then Presbyters or Elders, and, finally, a Bishop or Overseer of them all. All these work together by love and consent, and any may. at any time, leave the rest " for the glory of God and the good of II i Ml 154 THE STORY OF METHODISM. their own souls." "How shall we treat those who leave us?" *' Beware of bitterness ; talk with them at least once or twice ; if they persist, consider them as dead and name them no more except in prayer." Nothing could be more liberal, yet Wesley was High-church. He believed in ordination traceable to the Apostles; in a priestly ministry as alone entitled to administer the Sacraments, and in the utter distinctness of office in Bishop, Priest and Deacon. On these matters his views were afterwards changed. He steadily believed that the Church and the Dis- senters would yet be so revived that his societies would melt in a large religious life of the nation, and he was willing that all his labors be lost by blending with the general Christianity to in- crease its warmth and volume. At the third session, it was asked by the great Welchman, Gwynne, "Who shall compose a Conference?" "The preachers conveniently at hand ; the most prudent and devoted leaders in the town wh>-re it is held, and any pious and judicious stranger." " Wherein does our doctrine now differ from what it was at Oxford?" "First, we then knew nothing of the righteousness of faith in justification ; nor, second, of the nature of faith itself, as implying consciousness of pardon." To this was added : "We mean, first, that pardon (salvation begun) is received by faith, and produces works ; second, that holiness (salvation continued) is faith working by love; third, that heaven (salvation finished) is the reward of this faith Or, in the glowing lines of Charles, concerning the believer : " "Into himself he all receives Pardon and holinzss and heaven." After these few doctrines were defined, came the framing of a personal force to work the rising system. We have seen how itinerants, local helpers, who were ancho ed at their homes, and leaders, came to be. They rose up as God's own means. They were soon reduced to a system. " How shall we test those who think they are moved of the Holy Ghost and called of God to preach?" To this earnest question was answered: First, "Have thfey the grace of experience?" Second "Have they gifts of understanding and utterance?" Third, "Have they fruits?" The concurrence of affirmative answers was taken as proofs of the will and moving of the Holy Ghost, and so it is still taken in all a, OPINIONS AND ECONOMICS. 155 the domain of Methodism. Yet such were preachers only ; they were not ordained as deacons or priests, They seemed too •'stately" for the present; perhaps "Providence would open the Way." "Exhortcrs" now arose. They must have a note from the preacher, renewed each year, giving them "license" to speak In the societies. The system of Helpers was now complete, and so simple, natural and efficient, that it remains as it was struck out at first. Taken as training in oratory, it could hardly be im- proved. The exhorter becomes a local preacher, then an itinerant, according as he hi endowed and makes the most of his endowments. To stop at the lower offices is no disgrace ; to reach the higher, proves calling and ability. Precisely as in mili- tary life, in any life, merit must take its chance, if the system is to have the best of servants; so Wesley fixed t'.e plain feature in his system that, in the diversity of gifts, there might be unity of working. The two points of Justification and Sanctification now came to be made clear. Their difficulties will always arise, for the ap- prehension of them depends mainly upon actual experience. They who truly take the death of Christ as the atonement for their sins must be acc'°:pted, "justified," before the Most Worthy Judge Eternal. That they may know this acceptance, was the peculiar point of the Wesleyan preaching; that men, in that full, hearty, self surrender to Christ that proves "faith," and that asking, from which faith cannot be separated, may, by the com- ing of the Holy Ghost to their hearts, be cheered by an inward, unmistakable sense of pardon. This is assurance. Not every believer has it, but every believer may have it ; it is his right and privilege. Wesley's opinion was that every true believer gains this before leaving this world (unless he falls back from his faith) ; he urged that such may have it at once, to shed upon his heari and way its light and gladness and joy. Entire Sanctification was cautiously treated. It was to be surely held as a truth of Scripture and experience. It was not to be preached harshly or boastingly, but amiably, that it might excite only hope, joy and desire. Above all, it was not to be so put as to make people under-value pardon, "which is in- expressibly great and glorious, though there are still greater gifts behind." 1t| 156 THE STORY OF METHODISM. The "divine right" of Bishops was rejected. "Till the mid- dle of Elizabeth's reign, (say, 1570,) all Bishops and clergy joined in the services of those whom no Bishop (but only presby- ters) had ordained." Thus ideas of doctrine and usage slowly grew, and they have substantially remained. At the Conference of 1747, there were, besides regular clergy cooperating, about sixty helpers engaged in spreading and establishing Methodism in the land. For reasons already named — the hope of finally blending with existing Churches — no societies were formed the next year. The result was bad. The clergy of the Church neglected and aoused the converts that came to their care and communion. "We have preached for more than a year without forming societies, and al- most all the seed has fallen by the wayside." With- out "societies" the preacher could not collect the awakened apart for instruction, nor could be- lievers watch over and help one another. Wes- ley felt deeply this awk- ward dependence of his PHILIP DODJjRiUGE. people on clergymen who disdained him and his movement. The next year it was proposed to make the London society the central one, to which all should report, whose stewards should receive annual collections and with these aid the weaker societies. This plan pleased Wesley, but he hesitated, for it tended to separation from the Church. He appointed an assistant — as distinct from helper — to each of his (now) nine circuits, to take charge of its societies and tliUS unify them — but the Annual Conference grew rapidly to be the true center of Methodism. At the Seventh Conference, March 8, I/50, over ten years OHNIOKS AND KcoNn\tlCS: t57 had gone since the founding of Methodism, 'ten wonderful years ! The greatest Christian legislator, the greatest Christian poet, the greatest Christian orator, that the world had seen, had risen and used their utmost gifts and energies in renewing the kingdom of Christ. The lowest masses of the English cities, mines, collieries and rural districts had effectually felt the plow- share of the Gospel. It had touched the highest classes, and the Countess of Huntingdon had become the most eminent woman among all since woman was last at the cross and earliest at the grave. Its lay ministry had restored the usages of Apostolic times. Whitefield and his Calvinists had revived the heroic old dissenting Churches. Wesley had a perfected and permanent organism, and his circuits to England, Wales and Ireland were being served by seventy devout and active men. '' Per ardiia ad astray Through mobs and riots and all annoyances it was com- ing to a movement and working as peaceful as that of the stars. Of its literary and educational progress we speak hereafter. Those venerable men whose deep discouragement was noted could now have spoken more cheerfully. Indeed, for eight of these years, Watts, from his home at Abney House, had marked the rising day, and told out his gladness and surprise. Charles, his brother poet and his only superior, and Lady Huntingdon had visited him and their words had been " tuneful sweet." Doddridge welcomed the Wesleys to Northampton, and rejoiced as if he saw "The long expected day begin. DawD on these realms of woe and sin." CHAPTER XI. Progress in Ireland. N going to Ireland, in 1750, Wesley called John Jane to accompany him. Jane illustrates the itinerant service of the period. Hewent to Holyhead, seven days of journey, on foot, start- ing with three shillings and arriving with a single penny, fed and lodged on the way in the humble homes of his brethren. In Ireland, he walked, unable to afford a horse, to his preaching-places. Such a walk on a hot day brought a fever and he sunk to his death. He went, "with a smile on his face," saying, "I find the love of God in Christ Jesus." "All his clothes, linen and woolen, stockings, hat and wig are not thought sufficient to answer his funeral expenses (which were about nine dollars). All the money he had was is. 4d. (thirty-two cents), enough for any unmarried preacher of the Gospel to leave to his execu- tors." One is reminded of the Franciscans, both in the temper of the master and the fidelity of the follower. At a later visit to Ireland, Wesley found, at Court Mattress on the western coast, a community of Germans. They had, under Oueen Anne, come from the Rhine — a hundred and ten families — PROGRESS IN IRELAND. 159 and in sixty years had become many. Though Protestants in their old homes, they had become sadly demoralized. Wesley and his helpers preached often amon^' them, and to some purpose. A preaching-house rose in the heart of their town ; profanity and drunkenness disappeared, and such communities as theirs were hard to find, for they were industrious, upright and devout. " How will these poor foreigners rise up in the day of judgment against those thi't are around about them ! " wrote Wesley. From these West Ireland Germans, as we shall see, came THE HIGHLANDERS AT LIMERICK KEEPING ORDER FOR JOHN WESLEY. Philip Embury and Barbara Heck, who introduced Methodism into the city of New York, thus planting it in the heart of the New World. Wesley's best friends in Ireland were the soldiers. At Lim- erick sixty Highlanders joined the society, "and by their zeal, according to their knowledge, stirred up many." The presence of these men of war in uniform at the meetings insured order, for they felt the spirit of their profession, and the honor of religion was, in their eyes, well worth the drawing of their swords. At Dublin, they kept order for Wesley, as self-constituted police, and in many places a fair number of them were "good soldiers of - ■ H ■.«'KV^fti!^*'% \f)0 tllK STORV OK MfcTllohlSM. Jesus Christ." One of these, Duncan Wright, deserves notice. He was a Scotchman, from childhood "bookish," reading and weeping and wishing to be a Christian, "but not knowing how." At eighteeen, he went into mihtary Ufe to ease his heart. At Cashcl, in camp, a corporal preached to the troops, and Method- ist soldiers, at Limerick, kept his conscience uneasy. He then sought the conversation of Methodists for relief, and on a wake- ful, weeping night, "the Lord brought him in an instant out ol darkness into His marvelous light." He had a deep impression that he ought to preach to his comrades, and this was most tragically confirmed. To put a terror on desertion, order was given to shc^t a desert- er in every city of Ireland. One of the e.xamples was m Wright's regiment, a youth of but twent)'. Ou ncan went to talk and praj' with the poor lad, who, auK^ng his guards, was reading "The Whole Duty of Man," with hot. tlespairing tears, "like a drownin-^ man catching at WESLEY AN CHAPEL, THURLES, IRELAND. StraWS." Again Duncan came at evening, praying with him, and exhorting the many soldiers present to turn to God. The visits were continued, and, four days before his execution, the poor lad found peace. He witnessed a good confession, walked to his death with a face of serenity and joy which his fellow soldiers noted well, d. ,pped on his knees for ter minutes of prayer, gave the signal for his shooting, and "went to pa.adise." Duncan then began preaching. At lught, he had meetings at his quarters, sang, prayed and read, and, as his light usi-ally then went out, he had to exhort. Moving with his regiment, he was the first preacher in Galway, and in that city he gained converts, some of whom were long after " a comfort to me, though some are asleep in Jesus." PROCRF.SS F\ IRKI.AND. i6t )tice. I at*d low." At thoil- thcn wake- )Ut ot essic»ii most desert- right s youlU :enty. vent to ay witli d, vvh«', guards. S "The uty of h hot, tears. lrownin<< ing at Again hortiiMi ts were oor lad to his soldiers er, gave leetings usvally l-nent, he gained I, though His colonel, unabli> to stop his preaching, got his discharge, and he «vas soon a traveling i)rcachcr. Hut the colonel was not rid of annoyance. A regimental surgeon, for wit and waggery, went to hear a local preacher, and "i)eering at him through his fingers," was. like the King of old, pierced through the crevict* of his armor. He became preacher to the soldiers until he died from professional exposure. Duncan gave to the ministrx- tliirt\- active years. Soldier as Ik- was. he could not keep up with the tire- less Wesley. "That gave him toi* much exercise ; he iiad to give it up," Thomas Walsh was now. 175S. "just alive." "O what a man to be snatched away in the strength of his years ! " Walsh had worn himself out. He was of feeble frame, yet he preached al- ways twice, often thrice a day. besides much visiting of the weak, the sick and the dying. He rose at four to study, and was at his books until late in the night. He grew worn and weary, seldom smiling, never laughing. l'"(jr such errors there is no pardon provided. Nature sternly exacts the penalty. Walsh failed in health, and at twenty-five looked like a man of forty. Whert,' was Wesley, whose care of his own health was so wise, who was free and joyous in relaxation, and taught his preachers sanitary rules so admirable? Walsh spent two years in Wesley's own house, and was allowed to live on "at this poor, dying rate." In truth he lof)ked on Walsh with wonder and II WESLEYT, FAREWELL TO IkKLAND. ''ul in his pul'ic prayers "it was as though the heavens were burst open, and God himself appeared in the congregation." We have noted that he died in anguish until the very last. His jangled nerves seemed to bring his soul into ruins, and in the gloom he "sadly bewailed the absence of Him whose presence had so often given him victory." It was a remark of Fletcher that weak believers might die cheerfull}-, while strong ones might liave severe conflicts. Walsh thought otherwise, but two years later he proved the truth of Fletcher's words. Still, his last words were : " He is come ! He is come ! My beloved is mine and I am His — His forevi-r ! " He was twenty-eight years old, and had served eight years in the ministry. Thus Ireland gave its heroes to Methodism. And Methodism had done much for Ireland. It had, by 1760 entered every county but Kerry, and had societies in most of the large towns. Strange, its worst opponents were Protestants, who could not see that the success of Methodism was the success of the mor.t active and salutary movement known to Protestant Christianity. r f'i" --' ' .», "■ ^ -; :'jr;" :o be a :ared to )\v\edgc, »d. His nld only f-dcnials, his face. : wavinu, itc devo- "or hours t was as appeared n anguish g his soul absence of It was ;i cheerfully, sh thouglu f Fletcher's c is come! He was he ministry. Methodism Itered every large towns. uld not see most active lity. CHAPTER Xn. The Nkxt Ten Years in England, 1750- 1760. HSITING Wales, in 1 750. Wesley was glad to find all the Churches walking in the fear ol God and the comfort of the Holy Ghost. Their numbers increased. "What can destroj- the work of God in these but zeal for and contending about opinions?" Yet there wa^ need to bring religion to bear on morals. Vessels wrecked upon the coast of Wales had fared hard, the peopL counting such thin ^s as special favors of fortune. Another vice of tne coast was smuggling, and he found that some of his people dealt in "uncustomed goods," and perhaps did even worse. His action was peremptory. "They should see his face no more unless the thing were entirely abandoned." He was glad to know that his people became exemplary in their humane and just behavior. The next year he visited Scotland. He had never been there, and Whitefield warned him not to go. Those stern Calvinists "would leave him nothing to do but dispute from morning to night." At Musselborough, the people stood cold as statues, yet "the prejudice which the devil had been years in planting was plucked up in an hour," He was invited to stay, but Hooper, a lay itinerar.t, took his place, and good was done in several towns. "God raised up witnesses that He had sent us to the North Britons also." /■; \vl of Sid in VVi an J visi fJ"-iV^f.\ 'IIIK NKXr TKN VKAKS 1\ KNclt.AS'D. 'ii ty bi Two years later lu- visited Scotland and jireachod at Glasgow. On the second day it rained, and (lillies, a pastor, opened his kirk for Wesley. "Who ucnild ha\-c believed, five and twenty years ago, that the minister woidd have desired it, or that I shoidd have consented to preach in a Scotch kirk?" He then j)reachcd in the open air and had a large hearing, even in a shower of rain. He was pleased with their manners. They seemed respectful, but they were indifferent. They would not even riot and persecute him. He said: ''They k/iow everything and /^tius'Vi«\'.'Mvir".^.;i«j " 1 168 THE STORV OF MKTHODISM. the Catacombs at Rome. Obituaries are still prominent in Christian Advocates of the present day. Charles took special note of deaths among the colliers of Kingswood and raised a song, new and sweet, over many a humble believer. He wrote elegies over many a preacher who died until his own turn came which he preluded with a h\'mn so tender and touching that it has no equal among the "swan-songs" of literature. It was also time for troubles to "arise of your own selves." At Bristol, in 1757, half the society had been lost by internal discords. James Wheatley, atNorv/ich, the first preacher ex- pelled from the Societies, had almost destroyed his o w n societ)'. His own company fell apart and finally gathereti again into Methodism. At Bolton, Ben- net, the husband of Grace Murray, se- ceded and harshly abused Wesley. Some doctrinal wranglings came in to annoy the flock. No dogmas, except those universally received, were conditions of membership. Wesley was on the best of terms with the evangel- ical Calvinists in his day. They took delight in his work and their Churches felt the power of the great revival. There were others of low degree, "caviling, contentious, proselyting," who vexed his soul and his people and whose conduct Charles felt more deeply than himself Heroes were still needed and they still were found. NATHANIEL GILBERT PREACHING IN ANTIGUA. '-..■• :*,{■'•■. ^ii'ji'',W-1./-:H:v THE NEX1 TEN VKARS I\ RNCI.AS't). 169 rv.'ich, er cx- n the almost o \v n i cnvn apart bcretl odism. Ben- \nd of ly. ^i<-"- larshly Thomas Lee was fit to rank with John Nelson. He was no vulgar boy. At fifteen, apprenticed to the worsted trade, he was fond of books and specially of the Hible and already loved prayer and souirht spiritual experiences. Hearing the Methodist preachers, " My heart was so united with them that I dropped at once all my former companions and, blessed be God ! I have not from that hour had one desire t(j go back." His approach to the light was slow and painful. He suspected himself of hypocrisy while he omitted no duty of religion, even conducting family prayer in the house of his master and of several others. At length, God broke in upon his soul. He began to work half the time and preach the other half. At Pateley Bridge, the parish clergyman roused a mob to initiate him, and he proved a hero. "We have done enough to make an end of him," they cried. He reeled ; his head was broken with a stone but he says : " it was a glorious time, and several date their conversion from that day ! " The common preachers still suffered severely where the leading preachers were unharmed. At Pateley, I.ee was met by a mob whose leader was kept in constant pay for this pur- pose. They hit him with twenty stones, dragged him down some steps, to the lasting hurt of his back, rolled him in the sewer and then threw him into the river. His nife coming to his help as he lay on the ground unable to rise, they struck her on the mouth till it bled. So they fared for a year, and the Dean of Ripon refused protection. Yet one of these "seemed to us a little heaven." "Is not the assurance of the divine favor com- fort enough for all this?" Year after year Lee and his noble wife seemed to be in the front of the battle. And when all was over, and in 1786 his Mary, that dexoted wife, stood by his bed- side, he thought : "If at this moment I saw all the sufferings I have had for His name's sake, I would say: Lord if Thou wilt give me strength, I will begin again, and Th(ni shalt add to them lions' dens, and fiery furnaces, and by Thy grace 1 will go through them all." And so thought Mary Lee. Christian Hopper was such a man. He often preached with a patch on his head, wounded for his Master's sake, and he thought it an honorable badge. He was the first lay preacher to go into Scotland. About this time Charles Wesley gave up itiilerating. The li K i; 170 llIK SroKN (»!•■ MI'IItoDlsM. restless activil\- of Jolin inafle much travel by Charles unnecessary, and John's was the ruling; mind. Not that Charles ceased to labor. He tocjk charge of the chapels in London and Bristol. At ti\'c on Sunday he administered the Conmuinion. He preached constanti)', the places in the two cities being many. Me also went o\'er the country after Whcatley's expulsion, and, j^atherinj^ small conferences of the preachers, he at once examined, taught iii^i' ON THE SHORE OF T.AKE GENEVA. and admonished them as to their moral and ministerial behavior. A new man now appears. In March, 1757, Wesley, weak and weary, was praying for help of his own grade, when John Fletcher came, a helper in every respect meet for Wesley's needs. "Where could I have found such another?" He was born of a noble famil)- at Nyon, in Switzerland. His kindred are still found on the north shore of Lake Geneva. Being of religious turn, he •■»3 73 :eds. of a (HUkI n, hl.sM. was intended for the (Church, but the Calvinism n\' Switzerland was not to his mind, and he chose a military life, lie took a captain's commission in the army of Portugal, hut, failing to sail to Brazil, he heard |)rearhini^ in London. He was con- '■KfiPi- ,0' vinced that was unregenerate, and was amazed. He had been counted religious, had studied divinity, and for his writings on it had taken from a university the "premium of piety," yet "knew not what faith is ! " After conversion, he took orders in the English Church, and became Wesley's chief clerical helper. He Tin: NKXT TF.\ Vr.VRS IN ENGLAND. 173 •/J < ■jl 7. 'J ^ \ y. la ' CJ 1 *^ ■ S If* ; ■/; w l/J 10 is d been s on it "knew in the ;r. He 'became \ ic.ir (»f M.ulclcy, but he was all his Hfe Wesley s adviser and C(.inpanu)ii, tlie leadin^j defender of his theoloj^y and practice, and above all the man most skillful to tell, in works still read with delij^lit, the spiritual c\|)eriences that fjave Methodism its life and power, and with which his own soul was richly familiar. It has been noted that \Vesle>- now married. His wife, Mrs. Vazeille. was hii^hly recommended b>' those who had in that way done Charles j^ood service. He was now of middle age, and his heart felt the natural lon|;inken. After hours of agony he found relief for soul and body. When four thousand had been awakened after this fashion, the excitement vanished and the fruit of righteous ness was peace. After twenty years (jf faithfulness, in which his learning, labor and wealth were freely given to the Methodists, especially the Calvinistic, he was borne to his grave by a large company of clergymen, amid the tears of thousands. \Villiam Romaine had won, by his abilities, place and dis- tinction in the Church, and proved himself true to reform within its pale. Mis church, St. Dunstan's in the West, where he had his share of trouble, was too small for his congre- gation, lie took to the open air and, becoming ' iiie of Lady 1 luntingdonV rliaplains, traveled and preached incessantly. He was Calvinistic, and his writings went far to give permanent form to the best religious views and exoeriences of the times. Martin Madan was a Rfv. wirxiAM KOMAiNE. brilliant, aristocratic young lawyer in London. He went to hear Wesley so as to re- hearse the sermon with mimicry. As he entered the; room, the text was uttered, " Prepare to mei-t thy (iod ! " He was struck ; he listened; he changed his purj)ose and his life. "Did you take the old Methodist off?" asked his gay comrades .-;'; the colTee- house. "No, gentlemen, but he has taken mc off." His mother was a friend of Lady Huntingdon; the young convert found in her meetings comfort and guitiance, and soon his learning, talents and fortunt; were given to the Methodistic vvork. His brother, THK NKXr IKN \KAkS IN 1:N(;LAM). 177 ends y\n^, their :f f \Ve:v leys, and, though he re- in.iined true to the Church, he indulged in such "ir- regularities" as preaching eight or ten sermons .1 week, besides his regular services, in barns, prixate houses or tlu! open air. I''or thirty years he labored ami thirteen of his con- verts became preachers of the (lospel. ilius VVeslex' gathered around him men of genius A\)(.\ i)iety, wliK siiared his labors, called liiin father and loved him with un- r , ■ , ■ r ALLHAT.LOWS CHURCH, faltering tenderness. !No After engraving by a. Cmw. better proof of his own character can be given than this group of his friends iiffords. He outlived these already named, but others rose in their places and his last years wore brightened by a system ot such luminaries, moving about him in love and harmony. la If ClIAPTiiR XIII. C\\.\ iMsiK MirmoDijsM. S WL- see, most of the men lately named were of Cal- vinistic views. Iheir ^reat preacher was VVhilefield , ihcii ciM\tral ami ruling; |M:isuna}^f was lad) il\\n\\\\^u^'^^ lliepreach- n was slill abiindaiU in \i\\\\\\'^ ' Kan^ini^s" as hi- called il, IVoiu London, over j^ronnd now broken by huiadiler men, he in less than thrti months of 1750. P't-ached m l^n^land a itmdr«.d sermons to a luin- .li>d aiHJ tift\ thousand hearers. In Wales, Scotland and Ireland he hatl a likr hearing Ai h.ihnbur^di he spokr twenty-ei^ht successive days to ti 11 thousand a tlav Joyous and flush 1 wit and himior he was , even a habit vomiting btetxl after preach inj; he called \v^ natural relid Again he went to (ieorgi* Mid Ubored for moi»ihs in the Southern Colonies Returriing he went ik'sh over V, ales and Scotland. < ) that 1 could fly from pnl lo iv-- pfcachinij the everlastmi, r,..spel!" was hiii con«k.uJt ^^n^. ^ms^ IJIUWIi J= <'AIAI.\ISI IC Mi;i lidlHSM". m the men re of C^ai- \\k\ ruliin; /as \ av\> i\t;\)rcach- [iiulanl iM ;■ as hi- Lotulot^. broken he in less of i/S^^- upland a \(. a lum- nivs. li' he had a \\v spoke lo Uii nd tlnsh 't a habil acbinu ^^^" va U*boreil went tU^^^' ',, lo \>»<^'^ " I'aiii wmiM I dii liicaehiii^f ! " In London, he hiiik a lu-w tabernacle, and, while il w.v-^ building;, he' |)reached in one (»f Wesley's cliape|s, in VVesk) 's sickness the ^rcat-souled preacher wrote: "If yoii uill |)e jn tin land of the living', I hope to pay my last respects to you next week. If not, farewell! Mj' heart is too bi^ ! Tears trickle down too fast; and I fear you are too weak for me to <:nlar^,'e. I am your most affect ionat<;, symi)athi/- injr and afflicted yonnjier son in the (ioHpej." What tend'-r love betwci n men whose opinions (H\ many things were different! He then made " his most successful campaign in ICn^jland, (ravel- ing; in thue months twelve hundred miles and \Ueachin^ a hundred and eipjhty times to heariTs by ti\e hundred thousands. " A^ain he was in America. In his Orphan House he found a hundred and six of black and white. In a tour of two thousand n\iles to Boston an' wearied liiin. " I envy the man who can take his choice of foo: mil as a Ix-iu fact or I am lavipier than iS c. \'«r-' . ' aid he over it. Stxni after lii:-5 ileat'; 't u is destro, , : ' \' .i;'e and to-day the traveler fmds iic trace 01'^ !. la' m:uiy i beuj. ' i:cc has taker, its place in '.he fair iti y in l^M',',- j.is as val- e consc- I iiispii ■ c;uly ii' is friend^ nf()rta\)U ,(• lonnti' 1,1(1 lit'lic si. "-^'^ V(.-l 1>'- ,1(1 k-0 llu' :oi'|4ia. ^^''' was i)tn- ,r. "1 '"'' Soon ;i*i" 1,M- finds n" c in '.Uc f^iii' CAIAIMSI IC MIlIlofMsM. l8l city of Savannah. I lis spirited \.ticr soared tiironj^fh .ill this coiisiimniativc yiar. " I lallohijah " was in his letters. " My soul is on the winj^ lor another (iros[)el ran^e ! " Kanj^e he (hd. At the north, as far as to Albany and the tiien western frontier, he preached almost dail)'. lie yearned over the jiossibilities "of this ntw world." His last written words were on the tour up the Hudson: " (iraci: ! (irace!" At l'"..\etc;r, N. 1 1., he spoke in the opi;n air to a vast ^atherinj;, and, carried beyond his own control, for two hours. Jt was the last utterance from the "field-throne" where for thirty-four years In-, like a sovereign, had rided the mighty people as no orator before or since had "swayed at uill the fierce tlemocratic." The next da>' he was to |)rt;ach at Newbur)- port, Mass. Keachinj^ th(^ place that evening, In; was at su|)per, wlun ( rowds at the d o o r w ould hear a few words. He was exhausted in;li (".lory's morning Rate, And wulkfil in i'ari'disf." He awo!;t. at two with asthma. " I had rather wear out than ii'st oi;t," siMd he to his con7paniou who spoke of less preachint;. He sat and [.'rayed •")r a blessinj.^ on his preaching, his Hethesda, lus I iDcii^Mele, his " ';ornu'Ctions the otiu'r side of tin; water." At hil I'll', 'I r'f.^n I S ! 1 15 fSil 1 li : l82 THE STORY OF METHODISM. ' Wt the window, pantinjj; for brcatli, ho said. qiiietl\- : "1 am (l>'in^, ' and at six he brcatlicd no more. In all the Colonies there was ;i burst of public sorrow, and in Georgia all the mourninj^ cloth was used at his funeral. In London, all the chapels were draped, and Wesley, to whom he left a mourning ring with a request that he preach the funeral sermon, tlelivered it repeatedly. "In e\er\- place I wish to show all |)ossible respect to the memory of that great and good man." Charles poured his emotions into a touching and beautiful elegy. The remains of the great j^reacher lie beneath the pulpit at Newburyport, and many from far and near \isit the ancient church to revere his memory. Thty should be in ICnglish soil, and his face should, at Westminster Abbey, " Look (Inwn on marbles covering iiiarl)lc dust." He had preached eighteen thousand sermons. His hearers cannot be reckoned, but no speaker in all records e\er addressed s() man\' of his fellow men, or affected them so deeply. Around Lady Huntingdon, meanwhile, arose a large circle of laborers. In 1762, she, with some of her best men, attended Conference at Leeds, and there most of the great leaders of Meth- odism took sweet counsel together. She went t> H Ult VVll I'll rtjj conM r^*at- 'i!lil Hiiiiii^ jildii by »ii|iii all toiihl l|iirli|tiii|iMiHl) CALVINISTIC METHoniSNf. i8; the al of lorc. lid it , was a the p was inie of where rmons, inistry. mother d: "If id your camt- a ^ears he icond to ins who am, tho Coun- also a Of him he rector From -i The Earl hear, and heir kinu Ihe Hr< ■■<"^ isinn «iv > U»'» \\\im\) work. At length, himself, his brother. Lady Huntingdon and Wliitefield formed a "quadruple alliance." Of this, Wesley furnished the true constructive brain ; and this the Countess per- ceived, and of that brain she freely made use. She saw the need of an educational institution. The students for the Methodist work had small favor at O.xford. Six students of Oxford were brought to trial "for holding Methodistic tenets, and taking upon themselves to pray, read and expound the Scripture in private houses." They were abl}- defended by the principal of their owi college — St. Edmunds — but they were expelled — an indignit\- like that put upon VViclift" f( iir hundred years before. The case was stirred through all l^igland, and the voice of the best denounced it. Wesley's marriage had ended his Fellowship, but Whitefield wrote forcibly to the Vice-chancellor. Lady Hunting- don had supported these young men. She was now accused of seducing them from their trades that they might at her expense "skulk into orders." She might now with good reason open her school at Trevecca. In August, 1769, the first anniversary of this school was cel- eorated. All the great evangelists were there, and for a week sermons and other religious exercises were had, w ith great attend- ance, in the castle yard. The morning of the anniversar)' was given to the Holy Communion. After a sermon b\- l<"letcher came one in We'sh, after which all were fed from the bount)' of the foundress. In the afternoon, Wc.Uey gave a sermon, and as did again Fletcher. The day ended with a love-feast, at which l^nglish and Welsh were with equal freedom usetl to set forth the wonderful works of God. it was a da)- of true evangelical har- mony and the blessing on it was like the dtw that fell upon the mountains of Zion. The time of controversy was yet to come. Come it must, for " tills is the state of man ; " but there cou'd not be a better prepa- hillon for It, t«» secure it« hnnefits and avoid its evils, than such a day as this nnnlveiaui} a( htyccctt. riiefe are yet ^tMHi- (jU'lt iH In iuHihI. WaUer Shirley was tlliH mlblli to Lady ltunting»lnii, son tjf lIlM Hnil lif l't*lll'ia aitd jUHHMHml with l-OVnl IlllttUtt Mis visits |o the Conitte.S8 hloUHht llilll mill the comuauv <'l \\v\ \ Implahis. luul t«t V'k-Hh Ih' ullilbiilid Ills iii|)V»'Hl»MI. he \\A*< iillvmh 11 ('h'l'HVntUH ami h< now entered It .1 ! f 1, II. !86 THE STORV OF MF.THOniSM. the toils of Methodism. The rcj^ular clcrj^y, in spite of his high rank, at once shut him from their pulpits, and he shared the same reproach as his humbler brethren. Mis curate, UeCourcy, followed his example and tasted his cup, Expelled from St. Andrews, Dublin, he preached from a tombstone, and, refused ordination b\- the Bishop, he became an effective Methodist. At London, W'hitefield showed him a deep scar on his head, worn from that day on Dublin green. " I '^ot this, sir, in your country, for jjreaching Christ. Shirley's brother had killed his servant for showmg kindness to the wife, whom Parliament had divorcetl from the wretched ICarl, her hus- band. For this act the Earl was t.ied by the House of Lords and sen- tenced to be executed. Shirley, Lady Hunting- don and others tried in vain to prepare the crim- inal for his fate. He died tlepraved, fantastic, and doubtless insane. Sellon had been Master of Kingswood School. Later, on rec- CU" I U l immendation of the Huntingdon family, he obtained Episcopal oUiriey SOUgnt tllC jrdination, but remained a life-long friend of Wesley. SVmOlthv of tile WeS- Within tSe building are some fine monuments to the Shirley . 1 f 4. family. Here Fletcher preached to great crowds. ^'^Y^' '^^^ I"'" ten ycarS kept with them a close relation. H'vj own field in Ireland called forth all his manly and Christian v^irtues. His only friend in the Church was his Arch- bishop of Tuam, to whom Bishop, archdeacon and curates were ever running with charges of heresy. "O your grace," came saying one day the curate of Loughrea, "I have such a circum- stance to communicate to you as will astonish you ! " " Indeed, and what can it be?" " VVhv, my Lord," said the curate, solemn- ly, "he wears white stockings!" "Very anti-clerical and very Rev. WALTER SELLON AND BREEDON CHURCH. CAINIMSTIC METHODISM. i8; i" ilrcadful indeed!" I'he prelate spoke as if Sliirli!y wore now " ^one." Drawing his ehair near the confident informer; "Does Mr. Shirley wear them over his hoots?" "No. your f;racc/' was the arsuir in surprise. "W^ell, sir, the first time you see him with his stocking's over his boots, pray inform me, and 1 shall deal with him accordin'^ly." Well, had there been more such prelates! Shirle\ made full proof of his ministry, ami his noble cousin said of him ; " Hlessed are the lips that jjroclaim the ^dad tidinj^s of salvation to the poor, the ij^Miorant and the vicious!" The Hills, a fam- il\- of baronial rank since 1300, and still more famed for five ^f a 1 1 a n t brothers a t Waterloo, for a com- mander-in-chief of the British army, for the first Protestant Lord Mayor of London, and for the Father of Penny Postage, no w <.^ave Richard and Rowland Hill to Methodism. Under convictions which travel and dissi- pations could not dis- sipate, Richard wrote to Fletcher, who, walk- intj some miles to meet him, showed him the way of peace. Rowland at Cambridj^e led a sort of Holy Club, and was not baffled by persecutions or by the expulsions of others. Jane, a sister walking with God at home, wrote constantly to her brothers to confirm them in the faith. The parents misunderstood Rowland, felt disgraced in him. and i^ave him little money. "Cleave only the more to Jesus," wrote Jane, whose love and meekness "shone upon everybodv' but her- self." She ur^ed him to seek Lady Huntingdon. Herridge, too. heartened young Rowland, for they were by nature akin of humor, /Ceal, generosity and of eccentricity as well, ROWLAND HILL. m i^ .%. ^^v. IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) *^vy 4 ^r ^ ml/. % 1.0 I.I la £2 1122 E lit =• 20 14.0 1.8 1.25 — 1.4 1.6 „ 6" ► HiotDgraphic Sciences Corpordtion 23 WEST MAIN STREET V/EBSTER, N.Y. M580 (7,6) 872-4503 .^^ iV o l\ V Q^ Q> TiiK srf)in' OK MKi iroDisNr. When the six students were expelled fi'od counsel : " Fear nothing but yourself; look sim- l)ly to Jesus, and while the Lord gives you sound lungs and travelinghealth, blow your horn soundly." He could express in his countenance every emo- tion but fear. Sheridan said: I go to hear Hill, f(jr his ideas come red- he ': from his heart." Dean Miller said to him : " Mr. Hill, I Jcit to-day; it is this slap-dash preaching, say what they will, that does all the good." Augustus montague topladv, a. b. His wit went sometimes too far. He called Lady Hunting- don by some humorous term, as a feminine apostle, and, though she had heard him as "a second Whitefield," she never forgave him. "Mr. Hill cannot preach for me!' He took orders as deacon and went on by himself. He built Surrey Chapel in the worst part of London, and he signed himself "Bishop of Surrey Chapel and of all the waste places in the kingdom." F"or fifty years he preached there and " everywhere," finding immense assemblies in all places. No Bishop ever outworked him, or had more influence. II!' I 190 IHK SIORV (>!• .MKIIl()i)IS.\i. Toplady, writer of " Rock of Ajjjes," was an eloquent and effective preacher. He had heard at the University the best preaching of the day, and was unaffected. P'or his health he rambled in Ireland, and one Sunday, strolling in where a dull preacher was speaking to a poor handful, his heart was touched and he became a Christian. "How was it that I was so dealt with? Was it not by special grace, and in God's own time?" He easily took to Calvinism, and was not only a rare and effective preacher, but the staunchest Calvinistic writer ot his day. Such are some of the Christian heroes of the period. If too much space is given them in this story, it is because they are men at whom it is cheering to look, and acquaintance with them raises our ideas of human goodness. " A oOFT ANSWER TURNETH AWAY WRATH." ^m m and best 1 he dull ched dealt me? sctive If too e men raises Hi I'll') A'ti CHAPTER XIV. The Calvinistic Controversy. IX years of controversy now came. Wesley at * Conference askeil : "Have we not leaned too [\>-® much towards Calvinism? " The battle over the answer to this raged hard, and all the " heroes " whom we have named took part therein. It has little interest for the j;2neral reader of to- da> , and its story need not be told, only that after it the sky cle:iied, and love and peace prevailetl. It convinced nobody; all went on as before. In 1770, another festival was held at Trevecca, at which Wes- ley was conspicuous by his absence. Lady Huntingdon, afler his "We have leaned too much, etc.," had written to him that, while he so held, he could never preach in her pulpits. But he had ennugh else to do. Fletcher, who had been president at Trevecca, now, for the same reason, took his leave in a warm, geiicrous and noble temper, commending the noble Countess and all her works to the help and favor of God. Benson also was dismissed. Trevecca flourished. Its foundress spent there most of her time, and its students evangelized the country for thirty miles around, and from them her pulpits were steadily replenished. Its commencements were like camp-meetings. In a large field were put " a thousand and three hundred horses," after the stall yards o( the villages were full ; from a platform religion^ services were conducted in Welsh and English before gathered thousands, '"I ■! ^i! i n wamm 9:* TllK SK.ikV (»!• MK1H!)D1SM. ami rvcry room in the castle bccanu' a chapel for exhortation, l)rayi-r ami son^. Upon the Countess now came the burden of Whitcfield's Or- phan House in Savannah. Habersham. Whitefield's brother Methodist, at ( )xford, whose son becanu- Postmaster-j^encral un- der Washington, was his executor in (.ie()r<;ia. He sent Cornelius \V inter, who h.id laboreci with Whitetield in the colon)', backed bv a letter from its ( iox'ernor and b>- tlu- personal plea of Franklin, to be ordair.ed in l".nL;land, and so continue the work in Savannah. Tile H i s h o p of London refused to (jr- dain, partl\- l)ecaust' tlu colonies were alreadv " rebellious.' r h e C o u n t e s s bou<;ht up the whole propert}-. A mission- ary- band was origan i/.ed at Trexecca, after a tortnij.>ht of services, in which the ^reat names oi the " C^)nnection " appear a s preachers and counselors. It was a i^oodl)- da_\- in Lon- don, Oct. 27, w hen the " destined \essel, hea\ - enl\- freit^hted," started down the Thames. The renewed piet)' of l^iijjland thus overflowetl upon the world, while prayer and jiraise went up like incense to the skies. At Georgia, all began well, ami for years their labor pros- pered. Then the war came on. The Orphan House was burned, the missionaries returned to England, the good work among col- onists, negroes and Indians ceased, and at last the property of the Countess v.-.-.s taken by Congress. I'-minent men, Washington, h'ranklin and '^.aurens, took a deep interest in the restoration ol iier estates, but her claims were ne\'er allowed. Quite a pari of Whitefield's property, which he willed to the JOSEPH UAHEKSHANL \v\- ;i> ,011- ;iv- Mtcd I'hc »1K' hvos- rncil. col- it" the jgton, ) 1 ^1 B WKt //^ ^ |o the «3 194 tup: STOKV ok MKTIIODISM. Countess, consisted of fifty slaves, men, women and children. Their labor aided the Orphan House. Gen. Oglethorpe, with whom Wesley had gone to Georgia, had forbidden slavery. " It vas against the Gospel, as well as the fundamental law of Eng- land." " Slaves starve the common laborer." Whitefield had, in 1740, petitioned the trustees of the colony for "an allowance of slaves," and the introduction of rum ! He reminds us of Las Casas, the Catholic Bishop, who, from humanity to the Indians, urged African slavery upon the New World. In 1772, Lord Mansfield decided that Somerset, a slave brought to England, was thereby free. Cow^per at once rose and sang, "Slaves cannot breathe in England, If their lungs receive our air, that moment They are free. 'Tis noble, spread it then ! " Ten years later, a feeble boy at school took these lines for his school essay. Fifty years after his essay, he, dying, learned that his Emancipation Bill had passed. He was William Wilberforcc Such was the earliest relation of slavery to Methodism, and such has been the growth of ideas. That which Whitefield fostered has shaken Churches, has shaken Nations, but shakes them now no longer. At this time died Howell Harris, the most efiective of the Calvinistic laborers, next to Whitefield himself. For this reason as well as for the charm of high, heroic character, his later life may in part be given. Of his starting out we have already written. Then, no one in Wales, whom he knew, " had the true knowledge of God." No clergyman noted, or tried to stop, the immorality that deluged the land. He " had never known one man awakened by the preaching in the country." He began, though a layman, to preach, even five or six times a day, in barns, church-yards and wherever he could gather a hear- ing. Assailed by mobs, threatened by magistrates, denounced by tlv clergy, yet " I was carried, as on the wings of an eagle, triumphantly above them all." Rowlands and Davies and Griffith Jones rose up at his side to help him. Whitefield and the Wes- leys came often down ; religion became the common talk in Wales and crowds went to the preaching. Howell had humble views of his own gifts, but, after self-searching, he found that he could rely on Christ, " and that if His honor should call me to sufTer THE CALVINISTIC CONTROVERSY. 195 rcn. with "It I should find Him faithful in every trial, in death, and to al eternity." No early Welsh hero, Arthur, or any Lord of Snow- don, was of braver Cambrian heart. His conflicts year after yeat were past belief, beyond those of any other evangelist, but o\ these we cannot speak particularly. Gentlemen (in the English sense, "men of wealth and culture"), clergymen and magistrates led mobs against him, as if he were a monster ravaging the land. " When I arose in the morning, I waa in daily expectation of my crosses." At Newport, the rioters tore away his coat sleeves and carried off his peruke, leaving him " in the rain, bareheaded, under the re- proach of Christ." He went on amid shouts and stones, and he brought away a bleeding brow, but undaunted spirit. At Caerleon, his comrade, Seward, became blind by blows on his eyes, but still stood blindfolded by the side of Harris, saying calmly, " We had better endure this than hell ! " On Sunday at church he heard a leading clergyman call him " a minister of the devil, an enemy to God, to the Church, to all man- kind," and summon the people to join against such a man. So they did, and they stoned him as he went from church until he doubted if he should get home alive. " For such times," said Wesley, " God made such men." At one place " a gun was presented to my forehead ; my soul was happy." One struck him on the mouth till the blood came; his clothes were spoiled " with mire, mud and guujjowder." He got a change of clothes, washed himself and went on preaching to the lingering crowds. They begged him to come to the village a mile away. He went, and " the word was glorified." By such labors LORD MANSFIELD. m im] t\4 i I9<5 THE STORY OF METHODISM. and sufferings, "Howell Harris, Esq." (so he his named on his tomb at Trcvccca), and the like of him reformed Wales. For a hundred years Wales has been a religious land, and when wc sec what "the Cambrian in America" has in that time, done and is still doing, American Christians maybe grateful for Harris' labors. After his health faileu, he lived at Trevecca in, says Wesley, "one of the most elegant places which I have seen in Wales." There were walks in a wood, a mount raised in a meadow, commanding a delightful prospect, a large and beautiful house, " so that, with the gardens, orchards, walks and pieces of water that surround it, is a kind of little paradise." Wesley keenly enjoyed the beautiful in nature and in human life, and a call at Harris' mansion was to him sweet and refreshing. Here Harris had a hundred residents beneath his roof, variously employed on his estates. He preached to them every morning at their first rising, and from this home sanctuary, lay preachers and exhorters were continually going out to labor in the World. Harris was in other ways a staunch Llewellyn, a true prince of Wales, not a Quaker, but a Hampden or Adolphus. When an invasion by I'rance was threatened, he in- quired, of his young men, if any, being first, " earnest with the Lord in prayer," would go into the service of the King for the defence of the land. Many were willing. Five " went in the strength of the Lord," and at Louisburg and Quebec and Havana, under Wolfe, they fought side by side with Puritans from New England. Whitefield had given them a motto, " Fear nothing, while Christ is Captain." Seven years had the Harris household prayed for its absent five, when suddenly the survivor appeared. He told how his comrades had fought a good fight. Himself, after many a hair- breadth escape by flood and field, had been offered promotion, but he came to Trevecca, where forty years later, with a ball still in his leg, he was telling the story of the Infinite Love. Harris himself now left his " little paradise of home and entered the service. He was captain, stipulating onh' that he everywhere preach among the troops. Twenty-four of his household went with him ; twelve for three years at his own expense. " I commit my family to the Lord and go to defend our Nation and its privileges and to show that for the sake of our Saviour we can part with life itself, seeking a city which is had the market. like, gat "What': killed hii The CALVINLSTIC CONTftOVERSV. »97 above." For his three years of service he preached as an officer in his uniform. His own compan)- were his yuard, and so his word had access to the roughest phices and always had victory. At Yarmouth, he was told that the itinerants had tried to preach but had been driven away, narrowly escaping death. He at once GEORGE WASHINGTON. had the crier proclaim that a Methodist would preach at the market. A mob, with the usual ammunition of stones and the like, gathered, while the captain was drilling near by. He asked, "What's up?" "That Methodist did well not to come; we had icUled him surei " He said that it was a pity; that he would sing ''in h\ I!"' ;■< ■'•Ji'lit mm 3"it 1^6 THE STORV UF METHODISM. and pray with them and j^ivc them " a little friendly advice." His men in uniform brought him a table and joined in singing and prayer. He went on to preach while the mob was awed, for these Methodists "looked like men of war." He preached many evenings and with results, invited itinerants, a chapel was built, Wesley came, and Methodism flourishes in Yarmouth to this day. After the war was over — the war which in America gave young Washington his experience with Hraddock and made Fort Du Quesne into Pittsburgh — Harris returned to his charming home and its peaceful labors. Soon we find him outliving his brethren, bringing up the rear of that band of Welsh heroes. On the ceiling of his sick-room was gilded in Hebrew the awful, glorious name of Jehovah. It brightened before his dying eye, and many a pilgrim still gazes on it with tenderness and awe. The day of his interment was one of mingled grief and gladness as devout men carried to his burial a lover, a hero and a saint. Harris was the first itinerant in Wales, having preached thirty-nine years before. July 21, 1773, he entered into rest. Daniel Rowlands was second to Harris in time, but not in ability. He was rector of Llangeitho and chaplain to the Duke of Leinster. Utterly undevout, he would come from his pulpit to spend the Sunday afternoon in athletics with his own stalwart parishioners. He went — but in lofty scorn — to hear Griffith Jones, and was converted. He became a Whitefield to the Welsh, "turning the world upside down." Under his preaching the Welsh temperament reached its utmost of ardor and inspiration. Everywhere " Gogoniant ! " Glory! was shouted. In preaching and in prayer, in perils and in death itself, it was the one tuneful Cymrig word that seemed to define and to express the revival. After Rowlands, who survived Harris twenty years, came Charles, outliving Harris by still more years. He was offered high place in the Church, so were his gifts after being dismissed from three churches for his evangelical " irregularities." " I would rather have spent my last three and twenty years as I have, wandering up and down our cold a' d barren country, than to have been made an Archbishop." A hbishop of Wales he truly was, for he organized their Calvinistic Methodism so that ir there abides ito this day. It is affecting to wander in Wales and find these men, whom we have noted, still held in remembrance among the THE CA'.VINISTIC CONTROVERSY. 199 i ice. I, for iiiiny built, this gave Fort rming [\>i his leroes. awful, ig eye, d awe. laclness a saint, ty-nine t not in \c Duke societies whicu they founded. These men endured a great fight of afflictions ; such is ahvays the fare of those who lead the con- flict of light with darkness ; but they regenerated Wales, their enemies themselves being judges. Among other results of their preaching was a demand for Hiblcs, such as led to the formation of the Hritish and Foreign IJible Society, from which sprang our American Bible Society. This form of Methodism had henceforward little to do in I'^ngland. Its sphere was in the West, be Courcy, who had been Shirley's curate, was now at St. Alkmond's, and, though a y.ealous Churchman, he served ably under Lady Huntingdon's system. John Newton had been a common sailor; ihen cap- tain of a slaver. "There goes John Newton, had it not been for the grace of God," said he afterward, as he saw a man led forth to the gallows. Conscience, smouldering under all his crimes, at length blazed out. He left the sea, began to study, and for eight years he labored in and near Liverpool. Lord Dartmouth, the Method- uev. john newton ist founder of Dartmouth College, prevailed on the Bishop of i^incoln to ordain Newton, who became curate at Olney. New- ton says: "I have had the honor to appear as a Methodist preacher. He " had not sufficient strength of body or mind to become an itinerant, but he loved the people called Methodists." He afterwards became a rector in London, where he died in 1807, after founding, in part, at least, the Low Church party and those great benevolent enterprises which organized and which still employ the energy and resources of the Established Church. Newton encouraged the true bard of Calvinistic Methodism, William Cowper,who lived with him at Olney. " The Task," lines n ■\\\ I i ^ Ii i 200 THE STOKY OF METHODISM. four hundred to seven hundred, tells the poet's views of Method- ists, as do allusion.-? in "Truth" and "Conversation.' When VVhitefield was abused in. verse and drama, Cov/per sang clear and bold in his defence. His poetry was not of the highest order. It ranged far below the hymns of Charles Wesley, of which we speak e!sev/here, but he was tender and true in his religious utterances. There were hymns before his day, for Watts had made them, but there were few religious poems. Young had given his lofty and wearisome " Night Thoughts," and Gray his immortal " Elegy," but Cowper first put into g-^neral verse the sentiments of evangelical piety. In 1778, Calvinistic Methodism had on its rolls the most popular clergy in London, where also lived the most cmment layman of the Connec- tion, John Thornton. He, with Lord Dart- mouth and the Count- ess, procured orders and places for many Trevecca students. All these, with their breth- ren in Dissenting Churches, held a moral relation to the Good Countess. In Scot- land, Lady Glenorchy had done as Lady Huntingdon had done, WILLIAM COWPER. ^^d there were chapels and brethren in Ireland. All these had no center but the aged Countess mi person, and no system beyond her personal direction. She had no genius to organize or legislate. The crisis of her Church career came in 1777. ^he fitted up for preaching the Pantheon, a secular building in a wretched part of London, and held it as a part of her own estate as Peeress of the realm. So she held chapels by the score and the castle at Trevecca. The rector, in whose parish stood this Pantheon, claimed to control it, its services and its incomes. Appeal wa? • k i^k:*^-. ■'■y'■;■" '■■^-*'-' ! ;. ■ -^^s?-.^/* '^^^^^f"' P% ^m^V\ \ ■W'v f'i»- '■'■.■ ■''-''{■' .. mm^ iwl^ii w -^^ THE CALVINI'JTIC CONTROVERSY. ?0I thod- iVhen ir and jr. It speak ances. them, s lofty mortal ents of ts rolls r clergy made to the law. Thornton and Dartmouth upheld the Countess, but the verdict was against her, and her chaplains had to retire. But such also was the situation of all her chapels ! The decision of the court took them from her, though built with her own money, and put them in the control of the clergymen of their rcipective parishes. There was but one course to take. The Act of Toleration gave WESLEY AND WILBERFORCE. them freedom as Chapels of Dissent, and such they were obliged to become. It was to the Countess, a most loyal daughter of the Church, a bitter grief" to turn the finest congregation in the world into a Dissenting meeting-house ; tc be cast out of the Church only for what I have been doing these forty years — speaking and living for Jesus Christ" i' M 202 THE STORY OF METHODISM. Some of the clergymen protested against the verdict and for- sook the Church. Far the greater number forsook the Countess and her chapels and gave themselves to the *' regular work." How different now from her position was Wesley's I He had at his back two hundred and thirteen itinerants besides scores of local preachers. In England alone he had sixty-four circuits. His whole mem.bership was over fifty-three thousand. Able men had risen in his ranks and he himself was in full vigor, his eye not dim or his natural force abated. The organization of his people was complete. Those who worried the Countess, the center of so much piety and benevolence, shrank from touching him, the cen- ter of such a system. Forty years before this — in his First Con- ference — he had said: " If any Bishop will that I preach not the Gospel, his will is no law to me. I am to obey God rather than man." When the Bishop of Bristol forbade his preaching in that diocese, he stood at Kingswood and preached before the tear- washed faces of thousands of colliers, ready for any course the liishop might take, but no Bishop laid hands on him, as on his grandsire. In 1783, the breach between the Countess, Connection and the Church became complete. The Bishops no longer ordained her preachers, and they were ordained by elders of their own number. This made it impossible for them ever to conduct services in churches of the Establishment, and henceforth each took its own way. For eight years longer, the same labors by her preachers brought the same success. But she felt the need of better organization. This she tried to effect, but it was too late. Wesley's system had begun at the beginning of his labors. All who had joined him had entered it, and were at home in it, loved it. The Countess' laborers had grown old independently and were no longer plastic. She failed in her effort. " My work is done," said siie, in 1791 ; at eighty-four she entered into rest. None deny that she had excelled all women known in Chiistian records. Now her societies went apart, as Whitefield had said of his own, " like a rope of sand ; " her executrix removed her college from Trevecca to Cheshunt, near London. Her societies became Congregational, dropping the name of Methodist, which in Eng- land has since belonged to Wesleyans alone. In Wales, the great majority of Christians are Calvinistic Methodists. Those who THE CALVINISTIC CONTROVERSV. 203 represented the Countess in the Church formed the Low Church party, and it is safe to say that in our century that party has by its piety and zeal given honor to its hneagc. One may here note the good influence which Methodism came to have upon the National councils of England. That Thornton, who aided the Countess and was the great Methodist layman in London, left his estate to his son Henry, a son worthy of such a father. If we may be'ieve the great lawyer. Sir James Stephen, the home of Henry Thornton was, as the seat of public and politi- THE CHURCH AT CHESHUNT. cal benevolence, what Lady Huntingdon's at Chelsea had been, as the seat of evangelism. It was at Clapham, near London. Here Pitt had built, for his own scant rest, a villa amid lawns, and be- neath such trees as an Englishman venerates. Henry Thornton, being a banker in town, bought this for his retreat, and here came many a visitor to rest, to converse and worship with the Church that was in his house. Evjry lover and worker for mankind was jfiit. 204 THK STORY OF METHoDISM. i welcome, and (ev/ could do more than their host was doing, for he labored, not merely sat, in Parliament for thirty years, and of his income he long gave away six-sevenths, and sometimes to the poor, alone, fifty thousand dollars within the year. Of these men were Wilberforce, the Emancipator, Sharp, the first Chairman of the Bible Society, and Lord Teignmouth, its first President, Venn, who framed the Church Missionary Society, and often his father, one of Wesley's preachers, Henry Martyn, the brilliant Missionary, and Macaulay, father of the historian Here came Rowland Hill and his brother, Sir Richard, and many others of the same accord and mind. The circle of these " good men of Clapham " is the first known, even in England, where pol- itics was discussed in the clear light of relig- ion and the honor of Christ was held to lead the welfare of man. To measures devised with prayer at Clapham many a prayerless statesman acceded fi^j both before the people and in Parliament, and so the moral feelings of Englishmen were ele- vated and religion was honored in political reforms. Most of the beneficent legislation of England, which we cannot here trace particularly, originated here with " the sons of men who, in the earlier days of Methodism, had shaken ofTthe entrancement of religious lethargy and come into the splendor of evangelical faith." This " Clapham Sect" was from seed of Whitefield's sowing, in the days of the elder Thornton. He writes : " I am to be at Clapham this evening. May it be a Bethel I " All the measures fostered in the Thornton mansion, those relating to peace, reform, economy, toleration and emancipation, came of the stir which HENRY MARTYN. THE CALVINISTIC CONTROVERSY. 205 for he of his to the rp, the uth, its jocicty, VI arty n, istorian. id many i " good lam " is ,vn, even here pol- ;ussed in t of relig- honor ot Id to lead 'man. To rised with lapham ye rless acceded the people ,ment, and feelings oi were ele- jligion was oUtical ind, which •• the sons :en off the splendor ol i's sowing, Im to be at le measures ^ce, reform, istir which Methodism gave to the moral sense of the Nation. None of these things were in England before the Methodist revival. The only traceable cause of them is that revival, and they prove its benefi- cent character. Men do not gather grapes of thoru.s I • DR. A. CLARKE'S MONUMENT, PORT RUSH, IRELAND, ERECTED 1850. I ■ i!! J s«i^f^ CHAPTER XV. Wesley's Later Work. OW, in 1770, he was near three- score and ten, as his age marches just behind his century. He was, ,, as we are wont to call Gladstone, "the grand old man." He wrote, preached and traveled more in the ten years preceding his four- score than in any other ten of his life. He had been the most per- secuted man in England ; he had come to be the most known, the most felt, the most truly honored. The years of victory bc- nind him were all the years that most men could remember; they obeyed him without answering, and followed him, fearless of failure. Someof the bodily infirmities of youth were gone ; those of age were not come. " How is this, that I find just the same strength that I ditl thirty years ago?" His eye-sight better; his nerves firmer! He states as the cause, "the good pleasure of God." His means were : " Rising at four, for now about fifty years ; preaching at five, one of the most healthy exercises in the world ; never traveling less than forty-five hundred miles in a year." Until about seventy, he rode on horseback, " paying more tolls than any other Englishman." His riding, with its exposures, may have cured some evil tendencies, but the stumbling of a horse once so injured him that the surgeon ordered him to lie on his back fifteen days. T/iat he would not do. An operation took from a hyd*-ocele that had formed a half-pint of water and a ■ ...:M WESLEY'S LATER WORK. 207 small pearl! What a "relic" that would have been! The next day he was at work. He now adds to his means of health some upon which all will agree. The ability to sleep at once when needing it; the never losing a night's sleep in his life; an even, cheerful temper; these arc conducive to health. He traveled through Ireland, through Wales, visiting the "lovely place, the lovely family" of Harris, now long gone. In Scotland, kirks were opened for him, and the magistrates of Perth formally presented him in Latin the privileges of citizenship. Crowds came to his preaching, and listened cooly and candidly. * 4 •■y . ■ r-.--f:, ' ■.-■•/ ' »>■ -. \ i ••>.; 1 »''^ J r ^ ... ■- •• 1 ^ .J.;- vi • ■'■'■li ;;.*'■]' ''^i ■,.:|; j^' ^ i ■ ... :r'' - .-u;"' ' .? VV :■■.■'■ ■*? *fS-^v ■?? -^.1 ''3 • .-■r-y-rZl^sz. -.. — ^^-^ ■ ■* ■— ■■"*■■•. £ t~ : ^ ,. .' - 11 ii — 1 _._-. INTERIOR OF ALL-HALLOWS, LONDON. (Frovi a photograph taken in 1S87.) This view shows the pulpit where Wesley's first sermon without notes, was preached. and felt for him all the love and reverence they could for " ae mon whae is nae Calvinist." His Journal often speaks of the grand- sires of those to whom he was now preaching. At a place near Oxford, there was in his audience only one man who had there heard his first sermon, nearly fifty years before. At Gwennap, he preached to the largest audience of his life, over thirty-two thousand by careful reckoning. He was heard to the very out- skirts; "perhaps the first time that a man of seventy had been heard by thirty thousand persons at once." At the Dales, then a charming region of pleasant homes, he fij;' 208 THE STORY OF METHODISM. notes that "three in four, if not nine in ten" had sprung up since the Methodists came in hither. He preached in the old Moor- fields " tc the largest congregation ever assembled there." The remotest heard him distinctly. "So the season for field-preach- ing is not yet over." Fifty years earlier he had given at All- Hallow's, London, his first sermon without notes. He was now, ;ifter the long exclusion, invited to preach there again. In every place the old barbarism had vanished. August 8, 1779, he says: "This was the last night which I -l^^i CITY ROAD CHAPEL, LONDON. (An old view.) spent at the Foundry. What hath God wrought there in forty years ! " The dear old fortress, his first-opened chapel, the seat of his First Conference, where his mother had died, the metropoli- tan home of Methodism, the shelter of its young institutions, was forsaken. To-day the traveler in Windmill street, where it stood, sees not a trace of the building which he might venerate as a shrine. On November i, 1777, he had dedicated, while "God was eminently present," the City Road Chapel, then the finest chapel in London. Here we find tablets to himself, his brother, WESLEY'S LATER WORK. 209 [e in forty |l, the seat Imetropoli- itions, was l-e it stood, lerate as a Ihile " God the finest L brother, and other Methodists of note, and in its yard rest his ashes, with those of five thousand of his heroes. The building of chapels was now a serious part of Wesley's care. He showed such skill in the choice of sites that, though I'.nglish towns are many times larger now, many of his chapels are still admirably located. At this stage of our Story, when Methodism was now fairly launched, the charm of personal incident by no means disappears, Wesley had, in 1742, founded as a Christmas offering his Orphan INTERIOR OF CITY ROAD CHAPEL IN t86o. House at Newcastle. Here presided for years Grace Murray, the fair haunter of Wesley's dreams. Of her we have already spoken. She was the very angel of North of England Methodism. In this century, an old man was telling how he saw her start upon a day's itinerancy. Her horse was brought to the door. With a glance at his trappings, she laid her hand upon his shoulder. He knelt; she was in the saddle, and, with every beauty of move- ment, was quickly out of sight; but the vision floated brightly |in the old man's memory. 14 310 TliK STORY OF METHODISM. li'-'i I." Here, while Mrs. Murray, "the dcsirciof his eyes," was min- istering, he used to stop to rest. " It is ^ood for me to be here, but I am to be a wanderer upon earth until my spirit returns to God." Grace Murray was now lon^^ ^one. yet he writes of New- castle : " Lovely place, lovely company ! Hut I must arise and go hence." Always active ! Dr. Johnson now said of him : " He is clever, but he has always an engagement. He cannot, like me, curl his legs under a tabic and talk all day." Newcastle became a center for the soci- eties of the North, an Elim for its itinerants. So it still remains. Within a circle of ten miles it has more than a hundred chapels. Wesley, in the great cities, visited his people from house to house. He was amazed at what he found, in London, of misery, and want, and vice. After the active chari- ties of a century, one may add, after so many years of gas-lit streets, those are found there still ; but in Wesley's day the darkness was like that of Egypt. He notes in his visits to prisons the sad case of Dr. Dodd. This was an eloquent clergyman, who had forged, to a check of a thousand pounds, the name of Chesterfield. The public pity was given to the prisoner. The Earl would gladly have paid the check, and more, to hush the matter ; and Dr. Johnson wrote to the King a touching appeal for pardon. All was vain ; the law took its course, ard forgery was a capital crime. Dodd sent for Wesley, and in the end the mercy that does not break a bruised WESLEY AND Dr. JOHNSON. CITY ROAIJ CUAl'EL, LONDON. a-'<">i " />/ui/,'^/,i/>/, /.<-..« ;« /.i?.^ This view shows the Monument to Mrs. Susanna Wesley and John Wesley's house. i!l^]i h hr 's ..ia«:i?JUBW«'l'"''~" INTERIOR OF CITY ROAD CHAPEL, Showing John Wesley's Old Pulpit, Monument to Morley Punchon and Gervaise Smith and Bas Relief Mtiral Tablet to Robert Newion. {From a photograph taken in i88j,) WESLEY MONUMENT, CITY ROAD, LONDON. ENGLAND, Wesley's utrr work. i\^ reed came to Dodd's contrite heart, and his end 'vas peace. He h:id wrecked, in a ini.mte's use of the pen, his own namj and hope, and had 3cnt his wife insane ; yet out of the depths, he truly camo to the Friend of sinners. From the gallows, " I make no doubt," he went to Abraham's bosom. Nor were Wesley's labors less effective with culprits of low degree. This was the period of our American Revolution. Wesley was by temper a Loyalist ; but he wrote to Lord North, the I'remier, atjjd Lord Dartmouth, Colonial Secretary, to dissuade them from war. "These men ask for nothing more than legal rights, and that in the most modest and inoffensive manner. They will not be frightened. They will probably dispute every inch of ground, and, if they die, die sword in hand." His letter might have done good service in the Congress of 1776. In these days, Wesley was himself in such tide of prosperity that he met almost no persecutions, and but small annoyance. His helpers, penetratingi places still dark In England, could tell: the old, old story. At Almondburg, the clergyman had declared himself "min- ister enough" for that parish, :mu1 his clerk, who was constable, set himself to prevent and punish invasion. Dar- ney, a preacher, came and formed a lord north. society of thirty-two in hearing of the church bell. A mob was raised, and the clerk tried to drag Darney out for its victim, but his brethren rescued him. Then came a point of law. In a week, Darney was there again preaching in a house licensed for the purpose, and there, too, were the clerk and the mob. Hold- ing up his constable's staff": " I charge thee, in the name of King George, to come down." " I charge thee, in the name of viie King of Kings, that thou let mc go on with my sermon." " Pull him down!" The mob rushed upon the preacher, dragged him rudely, for he was old and heavy, If '-...li l\ 'fi* WW iMl i * '^ ^i8 tHE STORY OF METHODISM. t » there, soon to be hung. He found them, a>id getting them to- gether, spoke of the thief on the cross, and how the King of heaven died for the chief of sinners and certainly for them. Eiglit of these he attended to the gallows, and they all died in penitence and hope. The door thus opened widely for Told, and in and out he went for more than thirty years. Generous, simple and sincere, he gained the hearts of those appointed to die, and of all other prisoners, and even the keepers and hangmen wept uncU r his appeals. He loved the poor men even unto death. Anions those confined for debt he formed societies, one of thirty-two members, and strange ! his only opposers were the regular cha[)- lains ! Prisoners fared hard then in England, as '^ clding's reade s know. Hangings were prodigiously many, forty sometimes on a single Friday at London, while the populace :r.ade of it a "Ro- man holiday." There was no "law's delay" for the poor; trial was hasty and justice rare. Told was the comforter and confidant of all, and he, only, knew their guilt or innocence, for they kept notii- ing back from him. One young woman, pure, tender and de- vout, was under sentence for murder. She showed Told her in- nocence with all meekness and simplicity. Brought out to die amid the jeers of the crowd, there she stood, like marble, pale with grief — calm with resignation. "My dear, look to Jesus!" said Told, as they went through the howling mob. "Sir, I bless God that I can look to Jesus, to my comfort." In prayer and conversation at the gallows, in hearing of the sheriff, he became sure of her innocence. It was too late and she died a criminal's death, but died in peace. A man turned by a creditor into the street, with a sick wife and a little daughter, hungry and penniless, demanded of a wo- man two-pence and of another four. For this he was sentenced to be hung. He confessed to Told his crime and his penitence, and died in hope. His poor wife. Told found in extreme misery and despair. He at last took her to his own home, and there- after got her a place as housekeeper, and for her child a home. The good man's work, with that of Wesley himself and others, made easier and more effective the prison reforms of the great Howard. Hanging for theft ceased about 1828. A pirl of « f « iM « (S Jt * » fvfil em t(v ing (if Eight [litencf in ami Die and d of all t uncUi Amoni; rty-two ir chap- readc s les on a a " Ko- as hasty It of all, :pt noth- and ilc- l her in- it to dit' ble, pale Jesus !" r, I bkss ayer and e became :riminal's sick wife of a \v<'- sentenced Denitence, ne misery nd there- i home, nself and ms of the A girl of ssiuijli^ ' j^.^ij Im k 1 1 t »" W ft S fl 120 THE STrtRY OF NfFiTHODtSM. eighteen had in vanity taken from her brother-in-law's store, where she sewed, a blue ribbon worth eighteen pence. He saw her wearing it, and, asking her to walk with him, went to Bow street to the police station. "Where are you taking me?" she cried. "To be hung." She burst into tears, owned her guilt, and begged for mercy, but in vain. He testified against her, she confessed, and hung she was ! But the public conscience was stirred, and the laws were reformed. P'or this the autobiography of Told had been preparing the mind of England. These outlines of men and their doings may well end with the death of John Nelson. His sickness and death, after the thirty-three years of ministerial labor, came within the course of a single day. His leaving of the world, as befitted his looks and bearing in it, was noble. A long train followed his bier from Leeds to his native Birstal, which had also been his first and most triumphant field of conflict, and there he was laid to trie rest of those who sink " with all their country's wishes blest." WESLEY'S BOOK CASE. s store, He saw to Bow ic?" she er guilt, her, she ence was iography end with after the course of looks and bier from : and most trie rest Q' CHAITKR XVI. Weslevan Methuuism Grows. UR Story still de- pends for its in- terests on the per- sonal characters and acts of men, more than on any developments o f opinion, or of in- stitutions. Joseph Benson, converted at sixteen and full of noble longings for a career of labor and sacrifice, went to meet Wesley in London, to enter evangelical service under him. He was made classical master at Kingswood and afterwards the head of the college at Trevecca. During the Calvinistic controversy, the Countess dismissed I him from that place. He then prosecuted his studies at Oxford. His instructor refused to sign the testimonials necessary for his ordination. After others were secured, the Bishop of Worcester refused to ordain him. The old hostility, for which Oxford had suffered the loss of some of her best sons in that century, now Idrove Benson from the Church. For fifty years he was in the [highest places of Methodism. For nineteen years he was editor |of its Magazine and all its books, and after Wesley's death was m {vrfi^%- 'r*E)i ~i -: " ''y'^~v''\~'\!"'r'~"('~ ™~" 'v^vi's'-""-' :';■ ■» "" ■, " t;i tva ^,;'is?'i'f"!is™ii«-n , 'j^,i*"»., 'i^j^fi 'vi^'f^FslUffF^y'^^^'W^ 222 THE STORY OF METHODISM. twice president of the Conference. He prepared a Commentary which, becoming the one uniformly studied by the preachers, aided in an intelligent and consistent style of opinion of exposition in Scripture. The orator of the Connection, during the last quarter of the JOSEPH BENSON. eighteenth century, was Samuel Bradburn. He was of noble stature, and refined in dress and manners. His wit and humor often verged as did Rowland Hill's, to eccentricity, and relieved the sweep of his sublime and grasping thoughts. " I have never heard his equal ; I can furnish you with no adequate idea of his powers as an orator. Another Bradburn must be created and you WESLEYAN METHODISM GROWS. 223 mentary rs, aided isition in er of the Is of noble 1 and humor |nd reheved I have never idea of his Led and you must hear him for yourself before you can have a satisfactory an- swer to your inquiry." So said Adam Clarke, himself an orator, and another distinguished speaker puts it vigorously : " Never man spake like this man." His wit was generally well used. Some young brethren spoke with undue emphasis, he thought, of having given up their all for the ministry. He had been a cob- bler. " I made a double sacrifice. I gave up two of the best ixn^ls in the kingdom to become an ambassador of God in the Church and a gentleman in society." Mrs. Bradburn devised the Sunday School. In the old city cf York the clergyman and his mob were set to repel all preachers. Bradburn had the notice given for an out- door sermon on Sunday afternoon, and, himself arriving, attended in the forenoon at the church. His fine person and manner drew attention. After the benediction, he so politely thanked the clergyman for the sermon as to win his favor, and was asked to be his guest at dinner. His host w^s impressed that this was a brother clergyman and no ordinary man. Bradburn was curious to hear the Methodist sermon and the clergyman was happy to go with him. " I mean to arrest the vagrant and stop such things." He agreed, however with Bradburn to give a fair hearing. No preacher was there. Bradburn suggested that it was a pity to disappoint the people and urged the clergyman to mount the stone and speak as Paul would have done. He " had no sermon in his pocket," but, retorting, challenged his guest. Bradburn at once mounted a stone and sang a hymn and prayed and preached : " Refrain from these men and let them alone," etc. The courteous clergyman was delighted with the discourse, praised Bradburn for his stratagem, and his door was ever after open to the preachers. Memoirs are left us of Bradburn ; his sermons have been printed, but not his eloquence ; like " music past " that " has gone away." James Rogers, whose wife, Hester Ann Rogers, was one of the saints of Methodism, was called to the itinerant work from the ground where, a thousand years before, the Abbess of St. Hilda, at Whitby and Holy Island, had given to Christianity its first English poet and where Bede had put into English the Gospel of John. All that early light had gone cut aod Rogers seemed to deal with raw heathen. In the heat of the assault, a pious young girl took up a stone to defend him. A ruffian hit her in the face \\\ 224 THE STORY OF METHODISM. with a stone and laid her for dead. She recovered, but bore to her dying day this mark of sufifering for her Lord. Others suffered, but a terrible storm, as if " God had come to our relief, ' scattered the mob. On this wild North Sea border, Rogers toiled two years, and then, as Aiden had done, he started at dead of winter upon a wider circuit. Wesley welcomed him to the Conference of 1775, and for thirty-five years his praise was in the Gospel in all the circuits that he served. It is but of little interest that the general reader could find in the Conference sessions of these years. In 1777, occurred the thirty-fourth at Bristol. One hundred and fifty-four men then ti)ok appointments. The members were 38,274. No account was made of American statistics owing to the war then in progress. Wesley now began to ask: "Who have died this year?" The answer gave no eulogy. *' John Slocomb, at Clones, an old laborer, worn-out in the service," was the style of reporting even the most eminent deceased, and not a bad style either. Wesley was hearing that his people were falling off in piety, energy and spiritual life. To every assistant — the word, as we saw, now meaning a class between him and the helpers — having oversight, he put these questions : " Have you, of your own obser- vation, reason to believe that the Methodists are a fallen people? Is there a decay or an increase in the work of God where you have been? Are the societies in general more dead or more alive to God then they were some years ago?" To this came unani- mously the comforting assurance: " If we must 'know them by their fruits,' there is no decay in the "ork of God among the people in general. The societies are not dead to God ; they are as much alive as they have been for many years and we look on this report as a mere device of Satan to make our hands hang down." One John Helton disagreed with these answers. He, with thirteen years' experience, held the Methodists to be a " fallen people," among whom he grieved to stay. " Let him go in peace," said Wesley. Helton went to find zeal and progress among the Quakers. At this Conference, Fletcher was present. He was not able io preach ; he had long been trying to restore the health broken by labors, and a spitting of blood kept him in continual exhaustion. He gave to his brethren his counsels, his love and his prayers. WESLEVAN METIKiniSM GROWS. 225 i'n bore to uffercd, cattered years, ■ upon a of 1775. 1 all the id find in irred the nen then ;ount was progress, r?" The ;, an old fting even f in piety, ird, as we p — having )vvn obser- n people? where you more alive imc unani- ^v them by imong the they are ,ve look on ands hang vers. He, to be a et him go (i progress To them, he seemed an angel stepping from the margin of heaven to che-ir and brighten their pathway. When they differed and debated atui there was a danger of heat and of loss of charity, he would suddenly offer prayer, and not in vain, for their patience and gentleness revived while he prayed. " This world has become to me a world of love." To Ferronet he writes : " Your great age and my great weakness have brought us to the verge of eternity. Let us take the Kingdom and enjoy, beforehand, the rest which remains to the people of God." To find health, he now, with his wife and daughter, spent four years in his native Switzerland. In these days came a stir such as it was reasonable to antici- pate. In Ireland, the Methodists had long been ill-used by the Church, and Rev. Edward Smyth had, for preaching, been driven from it. They now pressed, and ardently, upon Wesley this question : " Is it not our duty to separate from the Church, considering the wickedness both of the clergy and of the people?" "We conceive not, (i) because both the priests and the people were full as wicked in the Jewish Church, yet God never com- manded the holy Israelites to separate from them ; (2) neither did our Lord command His disciples to separate from them; (3) hence it is clear ///«/ could not be the meaning of St. Paul's words ' Come out from among them and be ye separate.' " This answer gives Wesley's uniform feeling on a question that would come to a hearing, and after his death had a final hearing and another answer. He anew states the errand of his preachers and of his system. "To save as many souls as we can, and with all our power to build them up in that holiness without which they cannot see the Lord." His motto, " The world is my parish," had in itself the germ and spirit of all missionary enterprise. Methodism had by its own force gone to the West Indies and to America, without any special scheme ; mostly by simply following the course of emigration. Now, 1778, a "mission" (the word is just come to use) to Africa is discussed, and the discussion was a blessing, though no attempt was made. It fell upon the ears of one who was to be the founder of Methodist missions and the foremost figure in their history. It was Thomas Coke. He was the only child of a wealthy house at Brecon Wales, and at Oxford had IS ;in ;!) 226 THE STORY OF MKTIIODISM. I f every advantage clue to fortune and station. Hccomfnp a clergy- man, he entered the Church in fuihiess of personal culture, but with infidel, or at least unevangelical, impressions. In his parish labors he grew anxious anti, as it seemed to his people, strangely earnest. They oveicrowded his church. He built at his own expense a gallery, and it was filled, for he pleased everybody but himself. An unlettered peasant, leader of a rustic class in Devon- shire where Coke was visiting a family where the leader was ;. laborer, taught this gentleman and scholar "the way of God more perfectly." This man talked to Coke clearly of the Christian doc- trines by which men live, and his discourse of the riches of Christ was accompanied by prayer, until Coke came into the harmony of Gospel truth and into the soul's own peace with God, which soon blazed into a joy full of glory. This was not hidden in his own heart. He grew " irregular," holding services all around, teaching the people to sing hymns, and declaring ? free, Dr. coke and THE MEM j RIAL SCHOOLS, AT BRECON, WALES. unlimited salvation. His Bishop admonished him; his rector dismissed him ; his own parish raised a mob, and he was rung out of the church on which he lavished his money. The next Sunday, he preached near the church door; attempting on the following Sunday to do so, he narrowly escaped stoning. He then left his parish to enter Wesley's work, while bells were rung, cider flowed freely, and Petherton, his parish, held jubilee over a great deliv- erance ! The man thus ushered came to be second to Wesley only WKSLEYAN MKI IlODISM (IkOWS. 227 ill Kngland, and in America the first Protestant Rishop. Wesley looked upon Coke, so endowed in mind, heart and fortune, with every ^ift and ^race, as liis own successor in administration. Coke was, hke liis contemporary, Warren Hastings, small of stature, but his soul was as vast as that of the founder of the I'.mpire of India, and his energies were equal to the execution of his wide designs. Wesley, in 1776, had taken his measure, and " formed with him a union which, 1 trust, shall never end." Coke, forty-four years yc;unger than himself, he chose as the coming Tremier of Methodism. Coke proved to be its l*'oreign Minister, while, in the providence of (iod, the office of pre- mier fell to a committee. The foreign field of Methodism was now be- coming immense in prospect, and the "tight litde island" of England was to be only "the motherland " to the new evangelism. Coke was the man for the hour, and during his life-time no missionary society was needed, as, in Wes- ley's, no " Legal Hun- dred" administration was needed. As the French King had just said, "The State is myself," so could Wesley or Coke, each for his life-time feel him- self a center, an embodiment. At his own expense, Coke crossed the Atlantic eighteen times. He spent most of his own estate, replenished though it was by his marriage, on his missions, and he was in their behalf an irresistible beggar. He was in a sea-port. A rough captain called to the commander of the next ship, " Did a man run to you for money this morning for what he called a mission?" "Yes." "Ah, he is a heavenly-minded little devil ; he got my last penny?" Rev. THOMAS COKE, V. C. L. I t 228 THK STORY OK METHODISM. At near seventy years, 18 13, the year of Judson's opening the Bap'.jst Mission in Rangoon, Coke urged before the Conference an East India Mission. The cost of outfit, thirty thousand dollars, he took upon himself, and he headed the little band of laborers. He died at sea. "Thev/hole earth," said Pericles, "is the real tomb of the great," and it was fitting that the ocean be the burial place of one whose soul touched all lands, and was, like the ocean, " boundless, fathomless, sublime." At the Conference of 1779 appears these rules: i. "Let every circuit bear its own burden, and not lean upon the Confer- ence." 2. "Tell every one expressly, 'We do not make a sub- scription for paying debts." The object of these rules was one most desirable and difficult in connectional systems — the promo- tion of local prudence and self-reliance among the societies. Almost the last of " Irish grievances," of which preachers were the victims, fell now to the lot of Henry Moore. He had in childhood heard Wesley in Dublin, and, after hearing preachers in London, he joined the Dublin society. He at once, like the brave Told, began work in the prisons. Then he began to preach " in a deserted weaver's shop," and his strength grew by study and by spiritual experiences. Wesley's eye fell on him and bro.ight him to the "noble army" of itinerants. He became Wesley's companion in travel, and even his much-used and much-trusted counselor. After vainly trying to get a Bishop to ordain Moore, whose future importance he saw, Wesley himself, with two pres- byters of the Church, ordained the young preacher. It is notable that Moore, who is the first whom we find ordained by Wesley, was at the Centennial of 1839, the soul survivor of the men on whose heads his hand with the hands of the presbytery had been laid. Moore was singing from a chair in a Dublin street, when a great multitude of Papists came running to his presence. They bowed at the name of Jesus in the hymn, and knelt during the prayer. At its end a woman cried: "Where is the Hail Mary?" Tempers grew warm, and, as he began his sermon, a genuine Irish row began. Mrs. Moore and a young lady stood by the preacher's chair, and the mob, with the true and charming Irish gallantry, paid them more reverence than they would have paid to a guard of soldiers. After a few words, amid flying eggs and clods I AS, WESLEVAN METHODISM GROWS. 229 Moore went safely home. A drunken sailor mounted the chair to sing and preach for the amusement of the cheering crowd. Passing from his sermon to his ship, the poor blasphemer slipped from a plank and was drowned. Moore reconquered and held the post, and a chapel now marks his battle-field In 1780, Wesley, at seventy-seven years, in white hair but in fullness of strength, appointed one hundred and seventy-one men to sixty-four circuits of forty-three thousand eight hundred ai i thirty members. He was amazed at the work, its steady growth, its success in the rudest places. '"That a revival of religion seldom continues above thirty years,' has been niany times verified. It will not always hold. The present revival in England has continued fifty years. Blessed be God ! It is at least as lilr'^ly to continue as it was twenty years ago. Far more likely ! It spreads wider ; it sinks deeper. We have reason to hope that this revival will con- tinue to increase until all Israel shall be saved, and the fullness of the Gentiles shall come." After one hundred and six years, "this revival" still "spreads wider, sinks deeper." WESLEY'S CHAIR. |l:i,i:P ' JOHN WESLEY AS HE PREACHED AT ST. GILES, From a portrait in possession of the family. "*' 1' "^ MP CHAPTER XVII. Wesley's Old Age and Death. '^1 r^' ■4 ^AST SCENE of all this strange, eventful history! It was wonderful. The "second old age" he never saw. Entering his seventy-eighth year, he says: "By the blessing of God, I am just the same as when I entered the twenty-eighth." At his eightieth, his strength is not labor and sorrow, nor has he more pain or infirmity than at five and twenty, being n stranger to headache, toothache and such "youthful" disorders, "To-day, I en- tered on my eighty-second year, and found myself just as strong to labor in body or mind as I was forty years ago. I impute this not to second causes, but to the sovereign Lord of all, who bids the sun of life to stand still as it pleases Him." After a year, he writes : " It is now eleven years since I have felt any such thing as weariness. I speak till my voice fails, and I can speak no longer ; I walk till my strength fails, and I can v/alk no farther ; yet even then I feel no sensation of weariness ; I am perfect- ly easy from head to foot. It is the will of God." Neither his writings nor his speaking showed a trace of mental decay. His Journal grows sunny and cheerful. He has more than ever a leisurely regard for the beautiful in life, in art, in nature. He discusses the newly-come poems of Ossian ; he criticises and 11 !.'! SEB^BSSa 232 THE STORY OF METHODISM. compares the Italian poets ; he Is at home with Shakespeare. He gives minute delineations of residences and ant'scapes, and te'ls how estates have changed since the days of the (j .''.r.usires of their present owners. His eye looks back and views things in a tender, poetic light, as if distance truly lent a soft enchantment to the view. At Epworth, still dear to him " beyond most places in the world," he thinks, as the third and fourth generations crowd to his preaching, " See how the earth drops its inhabitants as the tree dtops its leaves!" At Kingswood, when the sun was hot as "even in Georgia," his rays could not pierce the canopy under which he was preaching, a double row of trees, " which I planted forty years igo." " How little did any one then think that they would serve such an intention ! " The loneliness of old age seemed never to touch him. As he preached in places where he had done the same forty or fifty years before, he showed no sorrow at finding "a few," "three," "not one," of his early hearers. Their happy spirits seemed to minister to him, as an unseen "majority" in ihe air. He forgot his old opposers, for they were in the dust ; he tenderly names those who heard and helped him. At St. Giles, London, where he had preached before going to America, he speaks after over fifty years. "Are they not passed as a watch in the night ! " said he, as the panorama of half a century sped before his mind, and " a solemn awe sat on the whole congregation." He visits here and there a survivor of the old heroes, and the interview is bright with high and joyous spirits ; Maxwell, his first lay preacher, Perronet, now over ninety, Delamotte, who ,vas with him in Georgia; and two hours he spends with Dr. Johnson, "that great man," now sinking into his grave. No changes of season or place, no loss of friends or lapse of years, could affect the healthful glow of his full and joyous heart. Nothing could prove this so well as his hold on the affections of little children. He loved them. Once a child obstructed the pulpit stairs. He tenderly took it up, kissed, and, passing, replaced it. At another place, as he came down from the desk, he found himself in a group, who began kneeling about him. He knelt down and prayed with them and "the fire ran from heart to heart." "Is not WESLEY S OLD AGE AND DEATH. 233 this a new thing in the earth. God begins His work witli children. Thus has it been in Cornwall, Manchester and I^pvvorth." This writer has conversed with an aged graduate of Oxford, who counted a sight and hearing of " Father Wesley " the chief event of an eventful life. He was then of rosy health under his white hair, serene and yet sprightly in manners, keen of look, with something more than good conscience brightening his features. He was not tall, weighing "not a pound more or less" than his weight for years, "a hundred and twenty-two pounds." Altogether his age was " as a lusty winter, frosty but kindly." Of his eighty-fourth birthday he writes noth- ing of himself, for on that day, " Howard, the Philanthropist," "one of the greatest men in Eu- rope," was with him in Dublin. We saw that Wesley's man. Told, had been Howard's pioneer. Howard says of this birthday visit: "I was encouraged ; I saw in him hov/ much a single man might achieve by zeal and perseverance, and I thought, why may not I do as much in my John howard. way as Mr. Wesley has done in his?" When Howard left England on that "crusade of benevolence" from which he was not to return, he called to see Wesley in London. Wesley was absent, but Howard told Moore that at his ov/u country-seat he had long ago heard Wesley preach. "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might." "I have but one thing to do, and I do it with my might." "All places are alike to me, for I find misery in all. Present my respects and love to Mr. Wesley. Tell him I had hoped to see him once more ; perhaps we may meet again in this world ; but, if not, we shall meet, I trust, in a better." 1 '%' 1 i t*! i |. J ■ ■- 236 THE STORY OK METHODISM. time to /wc, if T am growing old," he tiserl to quote from Ana- creon's Ode. In 1790, he held at Hristol his last Conference. He could "o longer write, and his signature to the Minutes would hardly be taken for his name. It is, for all that, his autograph, his last, writ strangely large, nor has the word one more venerable. He could still preach, and, under a tree at Winchelsea, he soon preached his last field sermon. Hi- wvn thought of going to WESLEY'S TREE. Scotland and Ireland. At length, the last sermon is preached at Leatherhead, Feb. 23, 1791. It was the last of forty-two thousanc four hundred — an average of fifteen a week, since his return from Georgia in 1738. On Feb. 26, he wrote his last letter — to Wil- berforcc — to hearten him in his efforts against the African slave trade. He then became lethargic, but rallied and spent hours in words to friends, in snatches of song and prayer. Nature sank slowly, but on the mor.iing of Wednesday, March 2, 1791, Iched ai ihousano lira from -to Wil- |an slave it hours Nature 2, 179I' lOlIN WESLEY ON HIS DEATH-BEU WRITING THE LETTER TO WILI3ERF0RCE i u ri* ^ » f R « ■ 11 iiill ■w. ,'!JC3'. t-5- m^ ^^.. . '.■■si ■l«r f;^>,v ■ '«'• 03 Q tht of, bet for r vvh o placi *■.«?» s. * WESLEV'S OLD A(;E AND DEATH. 239 he said, softly, " I'arcwcll," and passed the heavenly portal. He willed that no funeral pomp he had. Six poor men should bear him to the grave, and to each five dollars be paid for the service. His body lay in state in City Road Chapel for a day, ten thousand persons looking tearfully on that dear face, and at six the next morning, to avoid the crowd, was quietly buried in its yard. The ritual words "t)ur brother" wt-rc changed to TOM us OF JOHN WESLEY AND AUAM CLARKE. From a photograph taken in 1887. "our father," and the bursting grief of the company approved the change. Thus died, in the eighty-eighth year of his age, and the sixty- fifth of his ministry, the most wonderful man of his age, perhaps of any of the Christian ages since the first. His character must be taken from our Story as it goes. There is no special space for portraiture or eulogy. Before Wesley's own death, there were changes among those who stood around him. Some died and others arose in their places. Of these, due notice should be taken. 240 tllfi STORV of MKTIIODISM. In 1 78 1, Fletcher was married to Mary Hosanquet, .wKo proved to be the first lady of Wesleyan Methodism. She was born, 1739, in a family of wealth and fashion. As early as eight, she was thinking: "What is a sense of pardon?" and "What is faith in Jesus?" She could not give answer, and yet she was conscious of both. Her experience outran her understanding. In the gay circles where her family moved, in the opera and the ball-room, the devout impressions remained, and some conversa' tions overheard from a Methodist servant-maid fixed her impres- sions and her course of life. She declined, from teligious views, a suitor whom from worldly views her parents favored, and becoming acquainted with some Methodist ladies, she renounced the fashionable world. A life wholly devoted to God seemed sweet beyond telling, and " If I but thought on the name of Jesus, my heart took fire." One day, her father said: "There is a particula promise which I require of you — that is, that you will never, o: occa- sion, here or hereafter, attempt to make your brothers what you call Christians." " Looking to the Lord," she said, " I think, sir, I dare not consent to that." " Then you force me to put you out of .i\y house." "Yes, sir, according to your views of things I acknowledge it; and, if I may but have your approval, no situa- tion will be disagreeable." Coming of age and having a fortune of her own, she lived apart with her maid, giving her time and money to usefulness. She visited and tenderly loved her parents, but she felt that the Master had set her free for His own service. She owned a house at Laytonstone, and there, with Sarah Ryan, she established a school for orphans, a refuge for the poor, a preaching-place and a preachers' home. Wesley, in 1765, says: "I there found one Christian family." Two years later, he says: "O what a house of God is here!" After Sarah's death, the institution was removed to a large farm at Cross Hall. Here Miss Bosanquet's meetings were overcrowded, and she began to hold others abroad. Wesley says of the Hall: "It is a pattern, and a general blessing to the country." She became an actual preacher, and by Wesley's advice. "I think the case rests here, in j/c/zr having an extraordinary call. So has every one of our lay preachers. Methodism is wholly an extraordinary dispensation of God's providence." Miss Bosanquet, and the women whom WESI-KY'S <»I,n AGE AND nEATII. 341 iromise occa- what you think, sir. Lit you out f things I I, no situa- a fortune time and ,er parents, |wn service, ith Sarah r the poor, [1 765, says: ;r, he says : death, the Here Miss an to hold [ttern, and a al preacher, .ere, in your of our lay ispensation ,men whom she led, did not enter pulpits. She had in the cliapels of hci building a seat a little above the floor from which she gave expo- sitions anc' exhortations. " Her manner of speaking is smooth, easy and natural, even when the sense is deep and strong. Her words are as a fire, conveying both light and heat to all that hear her." So said Wesley. Her marriage was in Batley Church, Nov., 1781, and the wedding was a religious festival. P'ourteen months after, F'letchcr wrote to Charles Wesley : "New-married people do not at first know each other, but I can tell you Providence has reserved a prize for me, and that my wife is far better to me thai the Church to Christ." Uniting their activities, they opened new places of worship, building a chapel and school-house near, so that in any parish changes the Methodists might still b- safe. Into their Sunday- school they soon gathered three hundred scholars. They gave away most of their income. It went among the poor ; it furnishcti dinner to those who came to the preaching from afar; it buill and furnished houses for religious service. Fletcher at last wore out. One who had known him for years "never saw him in any temper in which I would not wish to be found at death." His last Sunday service was long and broken by faintness, but it was impressive even to awfulness. He lay some days in mingled suffering and triumph. "Shout, shout aloud ! " he cried ; " I want a gust of praise to go to the ends of the earth ! " A long procession of the poor were allowed one more look of his loving face, and that night he died, making sign at the last that he thought on heaven's bliss and saw it opening before him. Wesley's brief word of him was : " I have not found, nor do I expect to find, another such on this side of eternity." On March 29, 1788, Charles Wesley died. He will be known as the Poet of Methodism, and, we believe, the Poet Laureate of Christianity in the English language and of the world. He was, as many a poet has been, rather inclined to moodiness and discontent. The even temper, the clear insight of men and tendencies, the skill of adapting policies to changed conditions, these things which so marked John, and fitted him for the great work of his life, Charles did not have, or, at least, in some far 1$ I ^ 242 THE STORY OF METHODISM. lower degree. Yet he at first was in advance of his elder brother. Charles, at Oxford, was the first member of the Holy Club, the first to be called Methodist, the first to experience regeneration. Geo. J no. Stevenson. Bishop Harris. Kev. W. H. Depuv. TOMB OK CHARLES WESLKY. Maty-le-bone Church Yard. From a Photograph Taken in 1887. He was also the first, and for a long ti^ne almost the only, man who ven*-Mred to hold Methodist "meetings" at the same hour with " services " in the churches, When he and his poor colliers WESLEY'S OLD AGE AND DEATH. 243 »ll ei- brother, ' Club, the generation. ' morning and evening, nor JOHN WESLEY PREACHING, lO HIS PREACHERS IN CITY ROAH CHAPEL. (From a photograph of the painting, taken in 1887.) will the peo] " come to hear him." Much indeed may be said in favor of long nd settled pastorates, but the Methodists are not likely to abandon the itinerancy. These times even show among other Churches a tendency to frequent pastoral change. Wesley was himself the model for his itinerants. He taught them to face every hardship and manage every difficulty. Even rules for their bodily habits he gave, "and first he followed them himself." These rules were often, as we might think, severe, but ([uite as often intelligent and excellent. They touched upon eating and drinking, rising 'and sleeping, conversation and all deportment. "Touch no drink, tobacco or snuff," unless a glass of home ^W^llfff '%■% .11:1; 1^ iilj,.*%*iv;5 26o THE STORY OF METHODISM. brewed ale at night, after preaching. The rules for the treatment of the body are good, and very few have been superseded by later science or experience. The preacher was to take no step in marriage without ac- quainting Wesley with the design ; to be ashamed of nothing but sin ; to be a gentleman without affecting so to be. The rules for behavior are stern and stringent; obedience would bring practical perfection. In preaching, his itinerants were to chose plain texts and stick to them ; never to continue public services beyond one hour; to speak loud if necessary, but never to scream. He urged constant study. "It is for your life." "Give your soul time and means to grow." Five hours daily they were to spend in study. He was even proud of his men's attainments. " In the one thing which they profess to know," he could compare them with candi- dates for holy orders, "even in the University." They had scanty support, and when they became "supernu- merary" — i. e., able to preach but two or three times a week — or "superannuated" — i. e., utterly broken down — they often knew the sufferings of poverty. There was a Preacher's Fund to which each paid a guinea at entrance into Conference, and half a guinea yearly thereafter. From this, an infirm man could have ten pounds a year and his widow forty pounds. For years they re- ceived in their labors only what the people chose to give them. In 1770, each was to have annually sixty dollars for his wife and twenty for each boy under eight and each girl under four- teen, but money had then more purchasing power than now. The itinerant life was severe. Loss of health compelled many to leave the work. Family needs made many locate and enter business. Half of "the first race of preachers/' in number two hundred and eighteen, were thus driven from the work. In America, as we shall see, greater hardships caused even greater losses ; half the nreachers uying before thirty, Half of the Eng- lish preachers are put down as dying "prematurely." They en- dured long walks, often in the snows of winter. Whatever the weather might be, the preacher, like a shepherd, met his flock. Of robbers they had little fear. The roads were often unsafe to other men, but higliwaymen learned that the preachers had noth- ing to give but prayers and holy advices, for which they had lit- tle relish Instances are given even of the robber's conversion. »! V *. A ^- <« '^ ^ WESLEY AND HIS INSTITUTIONS. 261 Wesley, himself, once gave up his purse with the words : " Re- member, sir, that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin." The sacred te.xt touched the robber. He followed on to hear Wesley preach next day, and, at last, became truly penitent. In all the hardships of the preachers, Wesley could say like the Mexican Emperor; "Am I on a bed of roses?" He had felt the same; he was tenderly in sympathy with them, and gave them every possible aid by word and deed. But he could not make straight what God had made crooked, and the itinerants shared the appointed sufferings — " What is behind of the sufferings of Christ" — for the saving of men. In this sense of their calling they were habitually joyous. They were also always successful, and success exhilarates. They were blamed for lack of "gravity and solemnity." They could tell of adventures and of victories, and their cheerfulness, often rising into joy, made them delightful guests, as perhaps many a reader of this story had found them in his own father's house. One who has read of Billy Hibbard or Peter Cartwright can readily believe that Wesley's preachers of an earlier day might often hold their own, and more, in such wit as came home to the popular mind. His Itinerant Ministry was effectually aided by his Local Ministry. These latter were men of affairs, who preached at night or on Sunday as there might be need. As far as they were preachers they came under the " Rules." Many of them stood high in the professions, or were men of wealth and standing in commerce or manufactures. Time has not rendered this Ministry obsolete. In England and America, in all regions of Methodism, it contains able and active men of wide, general influence, and in some places outnumbering the itinerancy. The Finsbury Dispensary, in London, the oldest existing in- stitute of medical charity, is patterned after one which Wesley founded twenty years earlier, on support of John Gardner, a Methodist, who began in London the work of a dispenser. As he says, he found many sick and too poor to pay physi- cians. " I will prepare and give them physic myself." He had studied anatomy and medicine in his "leisure hours." (When did he find them?) He had as helpers an apothecary and a surgeon. For hard ^ ^ a 262 THE STORY OF METHODISM. cases, the patients were to choose their physician. The sick might come to Wesley, " if they pleased;" he v/ould do for them the best he could, whether they belonged to a society or not. In five months, at the expense of forty pounds, he treated five hundred, of whom seventy-one were cured. This dispensary was connected with the Foundry, where he had also homes for "sick widows," fifteen or more with whom he and his preachers ate "the same food at the same table, an earnest of eating bread together in our Father's Kingdom !" Lastly, he created a Loan Fund for the industrious poor, many of whom in their small afi"airs often sorely needed a little ready money. He began with fifty pounds. In a year, this nim- ble capital, managed by two judicious stewards, loaned in amounts of five to twenty-five dollars for three months, had aided two hundred and fifty persons. Near his death, Wesley found John Gardner working mod- estly for the poor sick, and friendless in London. With others, Wesley aided this good man, from whose efforts came the " Stranger's Friend Society." Clarke founded branches of this society in Bristol and Dublin, to seek out and relieve the victims of poverty, disease and vice, "not members of our society." "By their fruits ye shall know them." We saw Methodism beginning by calling men to be reconciled to God. After fifty years, we find it ministering relief to every form of human sor- row and distress, " doing good, as far as in our power, to the bodies and souls of men." LONGWORTH CHAPEL, 4 MILES FROM HEREFORD, IN 179a. CHAPTER XIX. Education and Literature at Wesley's Death, ^ T II ^JH E have seen how Methodism be- gan at the top of society. Lady Huntingdon, the Wesleys and their early associates were of the ex- cellent of the land. They set to themselves the task of raising the English people to a footing in re- ligion and intelligence like their own. It was not long, and could not be, before these men of the University should begin the work of education. In the year of the first field preaching, and among the colliers of Kingswood, to whom the first open-air sermon was spoken, Whitefield laid the corner-stone of the first school, and knelt to pray that the gates of hell might not prevail against it. Wesley went on and built it. Lady Max- well, of Scottish nobility, grateful for the consolations which Methodism brought her in her sore grief at the loss of her husband and child, and devoting herself and her fortune to Gospel uses, letting the dead past cover its dead, gave him eight hundred pounds to complete the school. Wesley equipped it with six teachers, and its course of instruction was thorough. Here came young Adam Clarke, and his lively narrative of his own experiences there shows 264 THE STORY OF METHODISM. its regimen sufficiently severe. In fact, the lady in charge might have served as the original of Mrs. Squeers ! The school vexed and burdened Wesley, yet it was a fair success, chiefly as a semi- nary for preachers. After his death it was given to the educa- tion of preachers' sons. Soon it had to be supplemented by a like school near Leeds. About a quarter of a century ago it was reijioved to New Kingswood, near Bath, where the preachers' sons receive a high class education for a limited payment. The York- shire school was discontinued in 1885. At Newcastle, Wesley early founded an Orphan House, and NEW KINGSWOOD SCHOOL provided by deed for the maintenance of forty children, with master and mistress. Brunswick Chapel is now on the ground. It gave Wesley "great concern," in London, that abundance of children whom their parents could not afford to send to school "remained like the wild ass colt." Those who went to school learned, with reading and writing, "all kinds of vice." He de- termined to have them taught in his own house, "without also learning heathenism." He soon had sixty children ; the parents of some paid for schooling; the greater part, "being very poor," came free. All who needed it were provided with clothing. The EDUCATION AND LITERATURE AT WESLEY'S DEATH. 265 results were most gratifying. The children learned the common branches, "the three R's," swiftly, their temper and behavior im- proved, and they learned "to fear God and work out their own salvation." Wesley early felt the need of a theological school and, in 1744, he proposed to found one. Funds could not be had and he postponed it — for a life-time — making the Kingswood school do some service. We shall see elsewhere the present educational work of Methodism. The first trace of Sunday-schools is found at Wycombe, mrcAt* NEW ORPHAN HOUSE, NEWCASTLE. where, in 1769, Hannah Ball, a Methodist girl, opened one for the training of children in Scripture. Twelve years later, Sophia Cooke (who later married Rradburn, the "Demosthenes of Methodism") was conversing at Gloucester with Robert Raikes. publisher of the Gloucester Journal. "What can we do for them?" asked he, pointing to groups of street Arabs — children, poor, neglected and depraved. " Let us teach them to read, and take them to church," said she. No time was lost. Soon Robert Raikes and Sophia Cooke were leading to church the van of the 266 THE STORY OF METHODISM. '*, W "Sunday-school Army," a ragged train, well jeered by the gazlnj? crowd, but a vision dear to overhanging angels. Robert and Sophia did their work modestly. They little knew that they were introuncing the Gospel agency, the most effective, next to the pulpit, ol our modern times. Late in 1783, Raikes spoke of f.hc school in his Journal, and in 1784 gave his plan in full. Wesky saw it, and republished it with approval in his Arminian Maga- zine. His "hard-working men and women took his advice." Soon, Fletcher, at Madeley, had three hundred children in one school and was planning foi twice as many. He was also think- ing of small publications for their use. Wesley founri them "springing up wher over I go; perhaps God may have a deeper en<( therein than men are await; of." Rowland Hill opened the first one at London in 1786, the year of Asbury's opening the first one in the United States. Within two or three years, Wesley found schools of seven or eight hundreds of children, and wrote from what he saw of their influence: "This is ROBERT RAIKES. one of the best institutions which has been seen in Europe for some centuries." In 1794, Sunday-schools were introduced among the Methodists of Ire- land. The literature of Methodism at Wesley's death consisted chiefly of his own sermons and of Charles' hymns. Of the ser- mons, published partly as tracts and partly as bound volumes, we find a hundred and forty-one. The first series of fifty-three, ap- pearing in 1 77 1, is named — together with his Notes on the New Testament — as the standard of theology from which any depart- ure is to work a forfeiture in the trust deeds of the chapels and other legal properties. Many of the sermons are of great merit. I , lU ATION ANf) MrKUAIUKI- AT WKSI.KY's DKATH. 2 heart. The o f Charles Wesley was the more hopeful, warm and vigorous, striking the popular taste and voicing the popular feel- MiLTON. ii'gs. He wrote sixty-five hundred sacred poems. Some are finely wrought and not familiar to the public ear. No writer ever used such a variety of meters — twenty-six in one hymn book — and into these flow " all passions in our frames of clay." Everything human, all phases of common and Christian experience ; every- thing that an overfull heart might at any time wish to say is found in his easy, various .md abundant utterance. His hymns "took" with the converts, and they could never sing them loud enough or long enough. John was to Charles a faithful critic, as if aware gen 1 u s t *-fe-a 5»' W^M'i EDUCATION AND LITERATURE: AT VVESLEY's DEAIH. ^71 that these hymns were to serve as a iiturgy for lands and ages. He could himself write, but criticism and emendation and trans- lation were his true task. The Wesleyan hymns also called out the best work of other poets, and gave new richness and power to sacred song. To this day they keep out cheap ballad and doggerel from popular servi- ces, and a new hymn must have real merit, if it is to be used, or even heard, by people trained to the Wesleyan standard. The Methodist hymns are sung by " people and lands of every tongue." The missionar)''s first task next to translating Scripture is to fill enr and voice with the sweet and simple songs that tell the Gospel so truly and tenderly. Wesley urged the people to sing, and their swelling voices with his raptuciis words, made necessary LUe highest forms of composition known to the art of music. Handel, the greatest composer then living, put forth the utmost of his <::jcnius in framing tunes worthy to be " married to the immortal verse," of Charles Wesley. What are the doctrines of Methodism ? " Our main doctrines a»c repentance, faith and holiness, for these include all the rest. The first of these we account, as it were, the porch of religion; t\\e next, the door; the third, religion itself." In the experiences o! the great salvation, Wesley noted three things to be distin- gMished. Justification is a work done for us by which the record aijainst us is cleared on high, and we are there for Christ's sake counted no longer guilty. Regeneration is the corresponding work done in us, whereby we become conscious of the divine favor and enter into loving, joyou.'- fellowship with God. Sanctificatioii is die cleansing of the affections, so that wc love God with them wiioUy and do not love sin at all. This is called Christian Per- fection, a plain matter seeing it is the utmost of the divine work- ing in the soul, for love cannot be more than love. Still the word "Perfection" is not pleasant to all. This perfecting of the work may be gradual or instantaneous. Faith is the soul's own indi- vidual grasp on the merit of the Saviour, and the witness of the Spirit is the felt, inward assurance, brought from heaven by the Holy Ghost and revealed in the heart, of actual pardon. These are all the positive doctrines of the system. Beyond these it iHf^rges in general Protestantism, and even these are but restate- ments of the teachings of the highest standards of the theolofcal S;!"-* 272 THE STORY OF METHODISM. world. It was the clearness, force and earnestness of this state- ment that gave Methodism its doctrinal success. Such was Methodism at the death of Wesley All it- branches have preserved the original family featuics. Reason- for separate organizations have now and then arisen, but thci; likeness, not wholly kept or wholly broken, is such as ought t-. abide among sisters. trr. BARTHOLOMEWS THE GREAT, WEST SMITHITELD, LONOOK (5ec pagt 136O CHAPTr.R XX. Methodism Enters France. H E spread of Methodism be- . yond England was often from no formal intention, but from some easy and natural incident. VVc saw how it went to the West Indies by Mr. Gilbert, a planter from Antigua, and his two slaves, whom Wesley met as thcv were staying in England. These had gathered in their island fifteen hundred mem- bers, before a preacher came. After like manner, it went to the Channel Islands to reach their people, and so to all islands of the British seas. A native of the Isle of Man, removing to Liverpool, became a Methodist. He remembered his own people and entreated John Crook, a preacher, to visit them. Crook went and passed the old ordeal of mobs with their violence, and the clergy with their exclusions. The work spro^' Wesley went and preached to wondering, lis- tening crowds. At a 'ater day, he found all opposition vanished. Twenty-t\v\ local >:oachers met him. "I never saw so many stoul, wetMookinj^; preachers together.' He found that never ■ MiMjta 274 THE STORY OF METHODISM. yet in any community had his preachers met such success. "What has been seen like this?" P'ifty years after Crook's com- ing, the island had one Methodist in fifteen of its population, and lis material fixtures were excellent. It had in 1888, over four thousand members. The Norman islanders spoke no English, and their religion and morality were of low degree. Le Sueur, a Jerseyman, went over the ocean to trade in Newfoundland. There he heard a Methodist preacher, and returned to Jersey in a mind which his neighbors and even his wife counted madness. Fentin, a New- JOHN WESLEY IN A FlSHER-BOAT. foundland convert, came to his help. Le Sueur, after a long struggle, found peace, as did also his wife. Soon twelve others were with them, and a new life began in the island. Le Sueur began to preach in French. A pious sea captain came, then a regiment, of which some soldiers were Captain Webb's converts. I'hese wrc'te for a preacher who could speak both English and French; "then the Gospel would shine over the islands." Robert Carr Brackenbury, author of "My son, knov/ thou the Lord!" a wealthy layman, master ^f both tongues, went to 'vrf^orh to them. H'.s servant, Alexander Kilhani, wis able to pv. "r\! in h'"< .w.i. ter's illness or absence. He, in 1797, became ore i d. fcuncl;. "■ of .#'v".\'' v uccess. s com- on, and 'er four religion an, went heard a hich his a New- tor a long ,'lve others Le Sueur [me, then a [s converts. Lnghsh and Js." Robert Lord!" a -h to them. . .wii.ter's Ifcand;."- o' METHODISM ENTERS FRANCE. 275 the '• New Connection " Methodists. Here in Jersey, Adam Clarke then took his baptism of the storms. He was pulled from his pulpit; his life was endangered. His sermon in French, when order was restored, was a masterly appeal. His foes became his warmest friends, and societies were formed all over the island. Arrivf^ had come from Guernsey to Jersey to remonstrate with his two sJsU;rs for becoming Methodists; he went home a Meth- odist himself. De Quetteville, whose French hymns are yet sung in the islands, followed him, and after much tribulation he planted Methodism in Guernsey. Then Adam Clarke went to Alderney. Not a person did he know; he was hke one on a new planet. Stopping from some inward impulse at a poor cottage, he was met like an expected guest, and, when they learned his errand, they gave him the house and gathered him a congregation. After sermon, as he was resting, he was called to preach to a new gath- ering, and for three days he was under invitations and constantly preaching. " We wish you would go back no more," they ten- derly said at his leaving. Thus quietly came Methodism into Alderney. Wesley then came to the islands. A furious storm nearly wrecked the vessel. Learning its danger, " We cried mightily unto the Lord and He heard us." He labored two weeks in Alderney with full, youthful zeal, and in the other islands he received every attention. Thus the islands were added to the domain of the revival, and nowhere have the results been more gratifying. They had, in 1887, 3,349 English speaking members. Wesley valued these French societies all the more, for he had his eye upon France, and these were outposts and points of departure. The Protestants of the fair land sorely needed a re- newal. Popery and infidelity confined and weakened them, and death among them seemed stronger than life. In 1790, De Quetteville went over to Normandy and preached in many villages. Dr. Coke also went over, and at Courcelle ordained Mahy, a local preacher from Guernsey, the first Methodist ordained in Europe. Coke hired a preaching-place in Paris, and De Quetteville preached the first Methodist sermon in the then storrnj^ capital of France. Mahy, after much success dew ) the west coast, where Cath- olics and Protestants b;th sought the solace of his word in these » . i ; if ? lh.v 276 THE STORY OF METHODISM. [F'S*"" ■'! bitter times, fell upon fierce persecutions, health nd brain gave way, and these evangelists from the islands had to return homo. Among the French refugees on English soil was a Catholic noble- man, De Pontavice. He became a preacher, and, returning to France in 1802, was most gladly welcomed by the societies gath- ered under Mahy. After the original Wesleyan policy of a little Church, as a reviving center within a large one, this man joined the French Protestant Church, the Church that had given to the faith more martyrs than any other in Europe, but which was now, under Napoleon and the Atheistic fury, in weakness and decay. It was, however, the Church whose deputies had well said Ic a persecuting King; " Remember that the Church of God is an anvi! on which many a hammer has pounded itself to pieces!" De Pontavice made deep impressions on his countrymen, and ni his triumphant death he urged the societies that he had rescued from the tide of ungodliness, then running strong in France, say- ing: "Only be faithful and all will be well." It may here be said, though in advance of oui story, that the next approach of Methodism to France was through the pris- oners of war. William Toase, a preacher who went among these poor men on English ships, did his work with a permit from the government, obtained by Joseph Butterworth, a layman, brother- in-law of Adam Clarke, and member of Parliament. The poor prisoners heard him gladly, and he softened the rigors of their fate on the "cold, cruel side of war." He furnished libraries and tracts, comforted the sick and dying, and the conve»'ts amon^^ them took home their Bibles at the return of peace. " Peace be with you!" was Toasc's last text to them. "You found us naked," said they with tears, "and you clothed us; in prison and you visited us !" Methodism in France, as indeed all spiritual religion, has had a hard time. Atheists and Romanists alike have persecuted it, and its struggles, reverses and sufferings have outdone any in purely heathen lands. After the battle of Waterloo, Charles Cook became for forty years the foremost Methodist laborer, and on a small scale did as well and wisely as Wesley had done in England. There are now in Franci about two thousand Meth- odists. They have a complete organization and an increasing prosperity. Few as they are in a people of thirty millions, "a w METHOniS.Nt KNTERS FRANCE. 77 I gave home. nobKv- ing to i gath- a little joined I to tbc as now, lecay. said tc d is ail Dieces !' , and ui rescued ice, sav- ory, that the pris- thesc from the brother- he poor of their aries and among Peace be bund us rison and gion, has ersecuted )ne any in Charles 3orer, and d done in nd Meth- increasins:; illions, ".I crooked and perverse nation," they have aided French Christian- ity and they are now effectively working with the other evangel- ical missions to establish piety in France. The beautiful Isle of Wight is, by one incident and by the character of one humble person, embalmed for fragrant memory in Methodism and even in the Christian world. Wesley came to the island in 1753. He found amid its charming scenery, that has made it the chosen home of royalty, genius and leisure, " a humane, loving people. Surely, if there was any one here to preach the word of God with power, a multitude would soon be obedient to the faith." In 1779, preachers from Portsmouth came and Methodism was established. Six \'cars later Wesley found that "the work of God had prospered there." There were 1,168 mem- bers in 1887. No tract in this century has been read with delight so wide and salutary as "The Dairyman's Daughter." Legh Richmond, a cler- i;yman in Wight, was one- day called to attend the , funeral of a young wo- ^^^ man in a remote part ol ' ;"^^>;va^. his parish. Her father, ^^-^^^^fl^^-^g venerable in years and reverent in bearing, had legh Richmond. brought a note from his surviving daughter. He was a laborer, whose earnings were, with the produce of a small dairy, the sup- port of his family of five or six. The writer of the letter had "left a good place" and come to the help and comfort of her home. Four of the family she had quietly brought to Christ, and the rustic home was a house of God, a gate of heaven. At the funeral, Richmond was struck with the serene and pleasing face, warmed with a glow of devotion, of this, now, only daughter. A lH)wer rested in it, and a hard man was. melted while the burial service was proceeding. From this girl, Richmond was j'-^d to learn relnjion, am the m 'if inl .Vfl ^9 2;8 THE STORY 01- METHODISM. . wisdom of the wise could not teach it. She at length fell ill. He saw her pillowed up in an arm-chair, the same sweet radiance glowing in her face, for God was the strength of her heart. Soon a soldier came to tell the pastor, "She is going home very fast, sir." "She is a bright diamond," said the pious veteran, whose camp was not far away, "and will soon shine brighter than any diamond on earth." Richmond found the peace of God on her face and in her heart. "The Lord deals so gently with me!" "All is well," said she, as she touched the untrodden shore. " Farewell, until the eternal morning !" came from Richmond's heart. At the funeral, AKkETTON CHURCH, THK CHURCH ATrENDED BY THE LAlRYMAN'b DAUGHTER, NEAR HER COTTAGE. a deep joy dispelled all sadness. The class leader, an aged mat- ron, "remarkably decent looking," and the devout soldier joined their testimony with Richmond's as to the blessings that her modest sanctity had shed, and all wlio knew her said Amen ! In all che records of Meth<^Hlism there is no story so complete, so gentle and so touching as hers. It has gone into more than thirty lamguage^ arl has brought to salvation its thousands. To-day, ^iKire people visit Elizabeth Wallbridge's lowly grave than the r^aeen's rinhorne Palace, near by, or Tennyson's Helieat, and tens of tjuiusandrt lead the Christian Idyl of her life who have ncYrr heuiU ol "Hie |t|yla of ilie Kinji " THK CHURCH IN WHICH CHARLES WAS MARRIED. (As it wau a century later.; METHODISNf KN'TF.RS FRANCF. 279 The young woman had been converted under the labors of a preacher, James Crabb. One of her brothers was for forty years a useful local preacher, and a chapel near the simple cottage of her parents, stands as if it were her monument. The Scilly Isles were notorious as the home of smugglers, if not of wreckers and pirates. Joseph Sutcliffe, preaching at Land's End, was moved to go over and help these poor people. On his second visit, he was kept by contrary winds for three months and formed a society of thirty-three. Thus the margins of England ill its southern streak of silver sea felt the throb of the newness of its religious life. SutclilTe's youngest daughter still lives a vener- able lady of nearly fourscore. "And the isles shall wait for His Law." ::::t I CHAHER XXI. After the Death ok Wesley. ESLKV died in the Infinite peace, and full of hope for his peo[)le, in view of the ability of the men raised up around him, the chan.<:je in the national temper and, "best of all, God is with us." He left, as we have seen, a complete organization, amply endowed with modes and ippli- ances for effective working. A band <>{ itinerants, five hundred and fifty-one in all, with veterans true and tried at its head, was in condition \>> operate the system, and nearly a hundred and forty thousand living members in England and America were giving it lo)'al adhesion and support. Yet, among the preachers, there was anxiety. " My soul trembles for the ark of the Lord," wrote one who seemed Ui speak for many. None were living who had stood by the cradle of Methodism ; not a few felt that they might follow its hearse. Wesley died in troublous times. France, the central land of Christendom, was bursting like a volcano into a blaze that might be wide and ruinous, and some were stricken with alarm. Others hailed the new convulsion with delight, as if they saw in it the promise and potency of a new order of blessings to mankind. Both classes felt the instability ot human institutions. Satan was not idle at such a crisis, and by a strange provi- dence a man rose up to do him effective service. "Tom Paine" did more harm to three generations of English-speaking men than AFTER IHE DEATH <)F WKSI.tlY. 2D1 nd full of the id him, ;r and. He left, lization, ippli- oand al [y soul ;nicd t(i cradle hearse. land ut ^t might Others m it the lankind. re provi- Painc" men than ny one who ever used the Encjlish language. He was born in Ijigland, but gained his honors in America, where his pamphlet, • Common Sense," changed discontent into revolution. After an ( iiergetic career that won him honor and estates, the " piping limes of peace" were too tame for him, Hi went to France, I.ecame a citizen, and was hono.ed in the " Reign of Terror," with a cell and a narrow escape from the guillotine. As he passed to l>rison, he handed to Barlow, an American, the manuscript of a book, "The Age of Reason," that did more harm to the common mind than any other on record, It had neither wit nor wisdom, but its absurdity and audacity amounted to something like genius. It showed what Goethe calls "the demoniaeal faculty." This honk sprcad,with the eiierg)- of circulation gained by "The Rights of Man," and long after Taine had died the doath of contempt, r(;morse and drunk- enness, it furnished sneers, flings and false- hoods to turn the hearts of common men from the truth. Well was it for thomas painf. Kugland that Methodism was planted before such times came on ! It was impossible to have one man in Wesley's place. N(; man living could center in himself such love, trust and obedience. The Conference proceeded according to the Deed of Declaration, but that document, like the U. S. Constitution, might be variously construed. It was so general that special policies had to be framed to its intent and meaning, and thence came controversy. "Shall the sacraments be administered in the chapels? " To this such Methodists as had been trained Churchmen naturally said iiu ; those come from the Dissenters said yes. ^f^^^. IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 I.I 1.25 ^■^ IIIM ■^ 1^ III 2.2 "* ::: lll!l2.o 1.8 1-4 IIIIII.6 V] VI %. c^l ^p >> o^. ^%.. e W Photographic Sdences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSYE!t,N.Y MSaO (7l*v 872-4503 f\ ,V <^ '^ <\ 4.^ L^, O^ i j j 282 THE STORY OF MEfMODISM. The leader of the affirmative was Kilham, who had been servant to Mr. Brackenbury. He was energetic, tenacious of opin- ion and not infirm of purpose. Even before Wesley's ieath his mind was, " Let us have the liberty of Englishmen and give the Lord's Supper to our societies ! " Discussion of the question, which had during the year been agitated by circulars, came on in the Conference of 1792. When no end could be reached, the matter for the year was prayerfully committed to the disposal of the Lord by lot. Adam Clarke drew the lot. "You shall not give the sacrament this year." " His voice in reading it was like a voice from the clouds." On this subject the first address ever issued to the societies was sent forth by the Conference. It was now ordered that no ^;% itinerant should seek or- dination or hold meetings during "church hours" in a new place without the express permission of the Conference. The same person was not to be president of the Con- ference more than once in eight years. The circuits were divided into districts, of AL-EXANDFR lULHAM. w h i c h the prcachcrs, summoned by the one appointed by the Conference as "Assist- ant," were committee on the affairs of the district. They were to choose one of their own number as a member of the " Stationing Committee," who met three days of the week before Conference to prepare the appointments of the following year. Although the Deed allowed a man to remain three years in one place, the term wua now changed to two years. The debate about the sacraments was of course resumed. Some men, whom Wesley had authorized to administe** these, declared ic to be their felt duty so tc do, and soon " we were as AFTER TIIK DEATH OF WESLEV. 283 I been f opin- ith his ive the icstion, le un in led, the (osal of lall not \/^s like clouds." the first ;d to the nt forth lice. It I that no seek 6r- meetings hours" without nission of The IS not to ic Con- lan once ts were tricts, of ireachers, "Assist- y were to ;tationing lonfercnce lough the the term resumed, jtc these, /e were as much divided as ever." Kilham was foremost in the discussion. This year he was in Scotland where, the Church not being there, there was nothing to hinder him from *doing as he liked. In 1793, the Conference ordered that where any society should unanimously wish the sacraments, these should be admin- istered, and that full connection with the Conference should be counted ordination sufficient without the laying on of hands. None of the preachers were to use cassocks, gowns, bands, or surplices, or to be called "Reverend." So were "clerical preten- sions" avoided. The peril of division was by prudence and piety for the time averted, and Kilham's energy was turned against theatres and horse-races. Nothing was as yet permanently settles "We really have :)o government," said Pawson, President in 1793. "Episcopal ;4overnment will suit our present plan far better than Presbyterian. To preserve all that was valuable in the Church of England among the Methodists, Mr. Weslc}' ordained Dr. Coke and Mr. Mather to be Bishops. He designed that they should ordain others. Mr. Mather told us so. I sincerely wish that thej' may be allowed to be what they are. We must have ordination at any rate." It is agreed that Pav/son was right, and that in his plans for America, including the ordination of Coke and Asbury as Bishops, Wesley showed his real unhindered mind. On this came the next debate. The most eminent of the Conference held Pawson's views, and they agreed to recommend at the next session " Superintendents " (Bishops) and ordination. In this the wealthiest and ablest laymen and trustees nobly con- curred. Kilham anc his friends opposed all this vigorously, demanding that the preachers refuse ecclesiastical titles, sacra- ments, ordinations, and even the burial of the dead. T'he Conference of 1794 staved off the issues by allowing the Lord's Supper, baptism and burial by the preachers, only where "love and concord can thereby be promoted." The crisis came in Bristol in the first chapel of Wesley's building. Henry Moore, the preacher, was in favor of the sacra- ments in the chapel. The trustees, being opposed to what they knew he would do, obtained a writ of injunction to keep him from preaching until the issue be legally determined. He went into the pulpit, read the injunction, and then, followed by all but m 'n I 1 IS ,'• - -o-"i j .1 !}^4 THE S70RV OF METHODISXf. twenty cf the congregation, went to another chapel, where "the Word of God was not bound." This blow at itint-rancy, by giving trustees ccntrol of t^nc pulpit, was approved by some of the preachers and looked disastrous. If Moore was not sustained, the system must go to pieces. Again love prevailed. After a day of fasting and prayer, the trustees of the chapel where Moore was enjoined transferred their property to those of the chapel to which he had retired, and Methodism in Bristol was whole again. At the next Conference, 1795, was completed a "Plan of Pacification." The sacraments and burials, also divine service in "church hours," after the consent of the Conference, must be determined by a majority cf the trustees, stewards and leaders — i. e., of the Quarterly Conference. The Lord's Supper should not be had at the rhapels on the same Sundays as at the churches ; that it be conducted accordnig to the Church Ritual ; that the Liturgy, Wesley's Abridgment of it, or at least the Lessons in the Calen- dar, be usetl whenever, in England, divine service should be held at "church hours;" that the appointment of the preachers be solely with the Conference, and no exclusion of them from the pulpits by the trustees be allowed. Preachers, when accused, might by a majority vote of the trustees, or of the stewards and leaders be brought to trial before the preachers of the district and the Quarterly Conference, and, if found guilty, be removed from the circuit. These measures produced in almost ever)- place their desired effect, but not upon the indomitable Kilham. H-Mittered a pam- phlet in harmony with the political winds then blowing, "The Progress of Liberty among the People Called Methodists." Then came his " Methodistic Bull." Between the risk of disloyalty to the crown and hostility to freedom, both which were charged against them, the preachers needed the wisdom of the serpent and the harmlessness of the dove. In 1796, Kilham was brought to trial — a very historic event in Methodism. His late conduct had forced some action. In presence of the Conference he was asked if he had not on joining the Connection received a copy of the large minutes (^Discipline in America) with these words written on them and signed by himself: "As long as you walk by these rules, we shall rejoice to icceive you as 9 fellow-laborer." He !lHl! ^ % ^ &, », S In AFTER THE DEATH OF WESLEY. 285 had so received. "Do you retract that agreement, or covenant?" "I desire time to consider that question." The next morning he pres<,'nted a paper, before the reading of which the Conference and himself voted unanimously to abide by Wesley's plan and the aforesaid Minutes as to doctrine and discipline. His paper contained no answer or defence, but only ii repetition of his own charges agrinsc the Conference. He was then asked if he agreed with the ruk's in the minutes. "As far as they are agreeable to Scripture." "We agree so far with the Koran ; we agree with these rules because we believe them agreeable to Scripture." He made no answer. His charges igainst the preachers were pronounced "un- proved and slanderous, not one of which has he proven." These charges were of wasting the public money, ".swindling" and secrecy in business, tyranny, admitting preachers from selfish motives, and much of that sort of thing. He was unanimously adjudged " unworthy of being a member of the Methodist Con- nection" and his name was struck from its roll. Still one more effort was made to win him back, but the final vote was : "He could have no place in the Connection while he continued in his present opinions.' He went forth and began founding the "Methodist New Con- nection." Into this about five thousand went with him. Their chief difference from the Wesleyans is that the laymen have equal voice with the clergy in church government. They numbered in 1877, twenty-nine thousand nine hundred and fourteen members, of whom a few are in Ireland. Their president, in 1886, was Dr. W. J. Townsend, whose father had aided Kilham in founding the New Connection. The crisis was now passed and discipline preserved. The Conference rejoiced with exceeding greet joy. Then came for two years a struggle of great intensity. The principle involved in Kilham's movement was really whether the laity should remain as in Wesley's time, or whether they should share, even possess, the appointing power, and direct in the mat- ter of the sacraments. At last, in 1797, the adjustment between the Conference and the trustees of the chapels, as met in conven- tion, was complete. To the Conference remained its right of <»' ■Mm • if • ««♦ 'I ! ; ' * ! :Ef ff Mi n 286 THE STORY OF METHODISM. appointing the preachers and controlling the pulpits; a majoiity of the Quarterly Conference having the right to demand at any time the trial of any preacher by the clerical officers of the circuit by whom he might be suspended until the next Conference. The sacraments also were to be administered in the chapels, and many other concessions were granted to the societies — i. e., to the lait)-. "Thus, brethren, we have given up the greatest part of our executive government into your hands, as represented in your various public meetings." In all these years of the controversy Methodism went on growing, for debate did not hinder preachini;. In 1790 there were sixty-one thousand members and in 1797, ninety-nine thousand ; thirty-eight thousand members were gained in the first seven years after Wesley's death ; eighty-six names were added to the Confer- ence list, besides fil'ini,' the seventy-six blanks made by death, de- bility, or defection. During these years, some men of large gifts came into REV. RICHARD wat.sqn. the Conference, men. who in various ways aided the work within it and gave it good repute abroad, of whom our American readers, now that they see the rise and full progress of the system, will not care to hear particularly. It was time for the theologian to appear, and this was Richard Watson, the most eminent preacher of the next genera- tion, greatest as orator, as secretary, and as author. He came into the ministry at sixteen, already tall of stature and advanced in classic studies. He had a taste for metaphysics, Ipf AFTER THE DEATH OF WESLEY. 287 ajoiity at any circuit :. The 1 many le laity, of our n your A'ent on bate did eachin!^. re were o u s a n (1 in 1797. lousand ; thousi»nd -e gained ven years s death ; imes were Confer- des filUng X blanks ath, dc- cction. 2 these men of ame into nee, men, e it good that they are to hear this was xt genera- of stature etaphysics, and in preparing to discuss some knotty point of Calvinism he liau gone to get arguments by hearing a preacher. Instead of arguments he gained deep and keen religious convictions, and in a few days came to pardon and peace. " O what a day was that !" said he long after. He at once began to study, and soon was ex- horting. His first sermon was in a cottage at Boothby on the day after he became fifteen. He went on preaching, not without some taste of riot and abuse, but makin.:^ deep impressions, and he was soon called to the Conference. In all its history it has received none so young, unless it be R. S. Foster, now a venerable Bishop cf the M. E Church in America. After five years of hard service and severe study, he found himself charged with heresy — a grour dless, but annoying andswi tly circulating, charge. He act* d unwisely — peevishly r c t i r i I' g from Conference, entering secular business w ithout success, and then be- coming a pr« Tcher in the New Connection. In i8i2,he was welcomed back to the Conference and became one of the foremost men. He took up the errand of Method- ism in the world with a feeling wise and lofty beyond any Robert southey. other living preacher. The missionary cause, embodied for years in Coke, as Methodism itself had once been embodied in Wesley, fell into his hands. A plea whicn he made for it in London, 1 8 16, proved him called to be its guiding, energizing spirit. He was made a secretary of the New Wesleyan Missionary Society which succeeded the personal management of Coke, and in 1821, he became its resident (permanent) secretary. When he begati the service of the society, its income was thirty-five thousand dollars, its missionaries were sixty, its converts were fifteen thousand. He left it v/ith two hundred and fifty thousand dollars of income, one hundred laborers, and for'-y-four thousand communicants, and the society stretching itself to reach all the :- f 288 THE STORY OF METHODISM. heathen world. If vvc may trust Robert Mall, the greatest Baptist preacher of our first half century, Watson was a greater preacher than Hall himself. yXllowing much to Hall's generosity, we may count Watson the peer of the great Baptist. Pale, sickly and tremulous, he made hearers of ever^' cIpss feel the piesence and the touch of a master. Hall was so enchanted by one of his sermons that he could for a long time think of nothing else. The preacher's soul came out in speech, and with no action or grace of delivery he swept his hearers into regions which no living speaker dared to enter, or even supposed to exist. He was an unwearied writer. Southey, the Poet Laureate, had written Wesley's life from a worldly and literar)' view. Wat son's "Observations" set Southey righc, and Watson's "Life ol Wesley" has become the classical one. His 'Theological Insti- tutes" were long a standard in Methodist study. Now they are superseded by Dr. W. B. Pope and other theologians. He stands with Adam Clarke, some years his senior; with Bunting and Newton, who came a little later as the representative men of F^nglish Methodism in the first half of the nineteenth century. ■ »* * s * » Baptist reachei ,ve may kly and nee and le of his ic. The or grace 10 living; ^.aureate, V. Wal "Life ol ical Insti- ' they are He stands nting and •e men of iitury. CHAPTER XXII. Some Methodist Women.— The Village Blacksmith. RDER of time in this Story is not severely followed. We propose to vary its interest by freely anticipating and returning. Chris- tianity emancipated woman ; Methodism opened for her abundant work and heartened her to do it. After such a woman as the mother of the Wesleys had lived, it is natural to look for others like her. Hester Ann Rogers leads the train. Her husband was an able itinerant, but slie was his peer. She especially urged, from her own experi- ence, that utmost of divine. working in the human heart, "Chris- tian Perfection. She never preached. Her labors were in leading classes in personal conversation. Fletcher owed much to her counsels and Wesley made her the housekeeper at the City Road Chapel. For twenty years, she seemed always beneath the white robes of the transfigured Christ. Her death was in "the primal agony" of childbirth, but her memoirs have helped many a soul to victory. She, with her husband, stood at Wesley's death-bed (they lived in his house) and they appear in the engraving of that affecting scene. Ann Cutler arose to aid Bramwell at Dewsbury in a great revival in which, on an Easter day, fifty were converted. After- wards, at Bristol, Nelson's old home, an amazing power from on high gave zeal to her labors. She felt herself called with a specii If 290 Ilir. SIORV OF MKTMoDISM. and heavenly calling. She consecrated herself to a single life, but not in convent walls "Where ever-musing Melancholy reigns" and there is no entrance for "Fresh-blooming Ilopt, sweet daughter of the sky." She, "glowing with seraphic flames," seemed a "sainted maid" come down from above to guide sinners to mercy and the weary to rest. She rarely exhorted, but her tender, ardent prayers, rippling over a congre- gation, hushed all U) quiet and subdued to penitence many .i heart. At midnight, she habitually rose to give thanks; at four, she spent an hour in prayer, and, at dawn of the last day of her life, she welcomed the morn i n g with utter- ances of glory, and in such temper she went to the "sweet socie- ties" for which she had helped to fit so man)'. The genius of HESTER ANN ROGERS. Gcorge Eliot has, in "Adam Bede," introduced Dinah Evans to the acquaintance of the reading world and thrown around her such a charm as might suggest that she is but a creation of the novelist. It is, however, so strictly free from exaggeration as to be realistic — a painter can add no charms to a rose. His success is perfect if he paint it as it is. Seth Evans (not Adam), her husband, was a useful local preacher in Derbyshire where she began her public labors. Her girlhood had been one of "beautiful years." A conscientious childhood was the portal to a maiden life of personal grace and beauty, and she soon entered the sphere which Wesley had opened for the gifts of Christian women. She preached in cottages and 'n m scjme MP:riiui)isT womfa. — iiif. vii i.avje blacksmith. 291 in the open air, and the rudest crowds heard with reverence. She went to the abodes of darkness, the prisons and poor-houses, to the haunts of sin and shame, nnd even on the gallows stood by a inurderess to aid and comfort her. l'>lizabeth Fry, the Howard of Quakerisir, found in her a kindred spirit. Seth, then a class leader, went to hear her preach. His simple account gives no hint of his personal enamoring. After their marriage, her influ- ence was felt even more widely. Seth and Dinah often walked on a Sunday fifteen miles to preach in benighted districts, in barns, (ir in the open air. They found- ed Methodism in many places, and (-' V e n yet there lingers at Roys- ton andMillhouse some venerable witnesses to the faithful labors of the devoted pair. Dinah passed away in peace ; " one of the most [)ure-minded and holy women that ever adorned the Church of Christ on earth. Seth was in ruins. His health dinah evans. and his faculties gave away beneath the blow, and he spent a few feeble, tearful years in humble services to the poor, the sick and the dying, and then rejoined his gifted wife "where grief forgets to groan and love to weep." George Eliot, whether she cared much or little for her own soul, keenly saw what character was here, and its power to touch human hearts was in these humble ones of whom one said, "He did not believe our first parents in Eden were purer than they." Dinah Evans and the Dairyman's Daughter, living at the same 292 THE STORY OF METHODISM. time, one in Derbyshire and one in the Isle of Wight, aie em- balmed, and worthily, one in sacred and the other in fictional literature, to be read for many generations. Samuel Hick was a man of mighty frame, a Yorkshire black- smith, lie had heard Nelson when too yotmg to understand him, but the vision of a brave man facing a howling mob never fadec' from his memory. He was in York on Whit Monday, with such a crowd as Whitcfield had found on the same day at Moorfields. A preacher from a preaching block began to sing when a clergyman I o u tl 1 >• threatened to pull him down from the block. Hick, who was listen- ing, doubled his might}- fist: " If you disturb that liian of Gotl 1 will drop you as sure as ever )' < > u w e r c born ! " He then con- ducted the frightened clergy m a n tot h e border of the crowd and returned to the preaching. He after- wards traveled sco^'es ELIZABETH FRY. 0<" "^''^S, following Up (From the painting of C. R. Leslie.) tllC preacher. He WClU ti) hear Wesley, "an angel of God," he thought, and all tiu: while his conviction that there was nothing good in himself was deepening. It grew into an agony and then came the Gospel re- lief. His zeal at once tiamed like Melanchthon's. "I thought I could make all the world believe when daylight appeared ! " He went first to a landlady. "What, have you become a Methodist? You were good before." " She wouk not hear me." He went away and prayed for her. When he can back, she was crying at the door. "The lord gave me the first soul I asked for!" Hick went on pounding his anvil and preachin§[ the Gospel, •* Nearly w^^ cm- ional )l;vck- 1 him, fatlcci )Wtl as cachcr r block k^hcn a D u dl y LiU him block, listen - mi'^hty disturl) God 1 as sure I w e r f icn con- htencd o the crowd to the c aftcr- SCO'''-S wing up rle went all tin- self was ospel re- ■hought I ! " He jthodist? ent away g at the ' Hick «« Nearly SOME METHODIST WOMEN. — THE VILLAGE BLACKSMITH. 293 the whole town came to my shop and I was always at them ! " His biography is full of wonders told artlessly. A young lady rode to his shop for the shoeing of her palfrey. She was delicate. "Dost thou know, child, that lh.)ii hast a soul? Thou hast one whether thou knowest it or not, and it will live in happi- ness or misery forever." She went home serious. Her father, angry, hurried to the smithy aiul with a club gave Hick a blow on his side that almost felled him. Hick turned and lifted his arm: "Here, man, hit that, too!" The father's fury fell and he went away astonished. On his death-bed, he .sent for Hick, to beg pardon. "Pardon thee! I have nothing against thee, but we will pray and see if the Lord will forgive thee." The, man died in hope; the tlaughter and her two children became Christians. This man and a com- pany of i)rayer leaders kept all Yorkshire stirred, ,(,' and for fifty years he was 'm ;ui irrepressible laborer. / The diligence of his); strong hand made him | rich, and he then gave all ^v his time to the Gospel. ^ His prayers were to some a terror. A man proposed to knock him down — he dropped on his knees to george eliot. pray and the man ran. A miser refused to give anything to the missionary cause — Hick began to pray. The miser ofTered him a guinea and then two, " if thou wilt give over," and Hick bore away the two guineas in triumph. He said to a Jew: "Bless the Lord ! here is a fine morning." "It ish fery fine. Vat be te besht news in te city?" "That Jesus Christ is pardoning sinners!" "Tuff and nonshensh ! it ish all telusion ! " But his kind and frank manner was rarely met so rudely. At seventy-one he died, born 1758, died 1829. Of this 1 il ifil »Mfr§ , «i.B 294 THE STORY OF METHODISM. I Village blacksmith it might be said in the noblest sense : "Toiling, rejoicing, sorrowing, Onward through life he goes; Ea.h morning sees some task begin. Each evening sees it close; Something attempted, something done, Has earned a night's repose." SAivii;.:L HICK, ' The Village Blacksmith,'' receiving a visitor iu his snuthy. no 0\i^tiii:':.- . dl' ■JP "!.»■•» CHAPTER XXIII. At the Beginning of Thts Century. R. COKE, who loyally loved ^^ the Church, wished the socie- ties to be held as an annex or extension of it. In his view, if the Bishops would ordain a certain number of the preachers, the McthodisLs would still be members of the National Church, and receive the sacraments on its authority. He urged that this was the true poHcy of the Church itself. The societies had now half a million ^ of attendants, with fixed proced- ures and revenues. They were rising in the social scale, and one, at least, Butterworth, brother-in-law of Adam Clarke, became a member of the Parliament in 1 813. Rejection would in timo bring about a separation, such as the Church could not well afford. Coke's plea was declared by the Archbishop of Canterbury "impolitic and impossible." To American eyes, the clinging of the Wesleyans to the National Churcn seems strange Even since their separation from it, they have gone no farther than the middle grotind between Churchmen and 14 296 THE STORY OF METHODISM. Dissenters. So have they held the strong loyalty inherited from Wesley and exemplified by Coke. Financial troubles now arose. The allowance to superan- nuates had to be increased. A society, " Preachers' Friend," was formed, by Butterworth and other laymen, for aiding privately and delicately such as were found to be in special need. But, by helping men defectively supported, the Conference canio into debt. To clear this debt off, a shilling was asked of each mem- ber. The response was prompt, the debt was swept away, and a cheerful confidence in the liberality of the members was settled by this first general appeal. It now became necessary to arrange for the legal defense of the rights of the societies. A "Committee of Privileges" was formed of two preachers and six laymen, with an attorney. These advised and managed all lawsuits, and this is the first effectual introduction of laymen into the control of Methodism. Then lay stewards were directed to advise and assist in the settlement of circuit finances. So the entrance of the .'ay- men went quietly on, until to-day in happy cooperation the laymen have in the system all the power they desire. " Shall women be allowed to preach among us?" It was fo'Mid that a vast majority of the people were opposed to such preaching, and that there were preachers enough there. Still, with Dinah Evans before them, the thing could not be flatly refused. They might preach to women only, extraordinaries excepted, and in the circuit of their residence they must have the consent of the superintendent and Quarterly Conference, nor might they go t'^ another circuit without the written invitation of its superintendent and the consent of their own. Many tried and well-worn veterans now vanish from the Con- ference, like sails from the horizon of the sea. Of these the most interesting is Thomas Olivers. He was a Welshman, of the grand type of the ancient bards. "The God of Abraham Praise ! " will tell of his power in song. But his depravity was dreadful. His teacher in profanity could, in Welsh, put twenty or thirty oaths into one, like the Greek comedy, and Olivers could better the instruction. He came into his twenties, a hideous young mon- ster, yet he often thought, " I live a most wretched life." He tried to reform. He saw that if he died he should go to hell. But down he went lower than ever. He wandered to Bristol and AT THE BEGINNING OF THIS CENTURY. 297 )eran- icnd," vatciy iUt, by r; into mcm- and a settled arrange- nmittce m, with md this introl of id assist the !ay- tion the 1 It was to such ill, with refused. 3ted, and nt of the y go to ntendent the Con- the most the grand stopped with a drunken Methodist, whose wife had once been religious, and whose other lodger was a backslidden Moravian. In this hopeful home Olivers got mad at the Moravian and, for an hour, swore his utmost. It shocked even his landlord. Insane with sin and its agony, Olivers went to hear Whitefield preach. That one sermon did for him what "the earthquake's arm of might did for the jailer at Philippi." "Showers of tears trickled down my cheeks." After an agony of struggles and victories he rose out of the depths to a pure and noble life. It was the glory of the revival that it reached such cases. Olivers proved his sincerity by immediate ertbrts to rescue others. He had strange experiences, Druidical visions like "the dreamer, Merlin, and his prophecies," but he got well of all these. His conscience became clear, his labors abundant and his advent- ures, told in his own lively style, read like a romance. One of his crusades was for paying up old debts. He went to every place where he owed anything and, after payment, he preached. One of his creditors was in prison, and handing him the welcome amount, Olivers gave the prisoners a sermon. To complete these financial adjustments, he sold his horse, saddle and bridle, and got home on foot. Wesley needed to see such a man but once. Olivers started afoot on a Cornwall circuit. A layman gave him a horse of Olivers' own choosing, a Bucephalus for this Alexander, on which he rode for twenty years and "a hundred thousand miles comfortably." "Forty and six years" was this brave man in preaching serving in all parts of the Kingdom. Before his death, his "God of Abraham" was sung at the Synagogue in London, and to-day "this cobbler's" hymns are sung in all lands. Such a man was worth saving, in the inteiests of literature at least. Mather, Hopper, and others of Wesley's " thundering legion," now dropped away. "Nothing in their life became them like the leaving of it." Their power unfolded as they took their flight, and it was not strange that such souls as theirs had so much stirred the world. While these were "trembling at the gates of the West," other luminaries were rising in the East, one of whom was to be, for his time, lord of the ascendant. As Boardman was about coming to America, in 1769, he preached at Monyash, a little place ir Derbyshire, on the prayer of Jabez. Mary Redfern was deeply affected. Years after, being 298 THE STORY OF METHODISM. the wife of William Bunting, she named her first-born Jabez, in memory of the sermon and in glow of hope that her son's career might be " more honorable." The blessing of the aged Wesley on the lad at Manchester fell on him like a prophet's mantle. In childhood he was shut out of a love feast, and his mother re- minded him that it was his own fault , he had not sought Christ. He laid it to heart and here his life turned. He gave all diligence to make his conversion sure, and he was afterwards as thankful for Methodist disci- pline" as "doctrine." His first "ticket" had for its text that prayer of Jabez that was the text of the sermon so marked by his mother in her childhood. In 1798, he made his first "exhortation" in Manchester, and in the same year he preached his first ser- mon at a village near by, worthily called Sodom. Mr. Wood, afterwards an eminent layman, hearing this sermon, said, half a century later, that Bunting had never preached abetter one. JABEZ BUNTING. For nearly sixty years, during which he was upon only eight different circuits, he was a central figure of English Methodism. "The Wesleyans have a Pope; his name is Jabez Bunting." At his death, he had behind him along career of unbroken victory. He had most of the personal gifts of Gladstone and a keener insight of the possibilities of an occasion. He was the first man elected to the Legal Hundred ; he was four times its president, filling the office first after Coke ; ten times its secretary and, after Coke's death, its missionary -i'-H-:f.\-.M.;i;-iii-. mi AT THE BEGINNING OF THIS CENTURY. 299 ez, m ;areer Lesley t. In ler re- Dhrist. igence ankful •'disci- :trine." ;t" had prayer kvas the mon so mother od. le made •rtation" r, and in /ear he first ser- ige near called Wood, eminent fring this half a er, that never etter one. irly sixty ts, he was ,ns have a hind him sonal gifts occasion. 1 ; he was :oke; ten nissionary secretary, which, after Watson's death, he resumed. No man can keep a high place in a great organization for half a century, in- spiring its movements and directing its policy, unless he has the highest order of ability. Like Gladstone, Bunting was strong, of noble presence and clear majestic voice. Nothing physical seemed lacking to give the world assurance of a man. His speeches were usually brief; his sermons were not specially elo- quent, but take him for all in all, his abilities and the use he made of them justified the life-long place of power among " Englishmen, Christians, Methodists." The most popular preacher since Whitefield was Robert Newton, the last of our four representative Methodists in this century. His people wrre plain farmers at Roxby on the Yorkshire coast. They read Nelson's Journal and Hked it, and Newton's father hired a room for meetings and procured the preaching of itinerants. He was repaid in his own house. His eight children became Methodists and four sons acceptable •ti.-I^^ preachers. It was during the the birthplace of Robert newton. Kilham struggles that a copious revival fell on the notable region of V/hitby and Robert was brought to Christ. At eighteen, he preached his first sermon in a cottage now replaced by a chapel whose pulpit is precisely where young Newton stood behind a chair to preach. He, too, like Bunting, had such personal endowments that one felt our race elevated in such a specimen. He was tall and kingly in bearing, with voice of Gladstone or Gambetta. In the pulpit, or out of it, the same excellency of power which is not of man, or among natural gifts, but which is in man from the Holy Ghost, attended him like an atmosphere. The common people heard him gladly, and, even in the days of Daniel O'Connell, Newton was addressing more people than any man in Great Britain. 300 THE STORY OF METHODISM. His platform speeches were extemporaneous. His sermons were extempore. A tendency to mental derangement from which one brother died, caused his physician .o prohibit his writing sermons or speeches. He was forty years the Methodist orator. At missionary services, at dedications, on every special occasion, he ROBERT NEWTON, D. D was in demand in city and country alike. While Watson managed the details of the Missionary Society, as did Bunting after him. Newton was its advocate in the field. When he began his long career as a solicitor abroad, in its behalf, it had fifty missionaries and seventeen thousand in membership. At his death, there were three hundred and fifty misaionarien and one hundre^i ' *• »&» a «« AT THE BEGINNING OF THIS CENTURY. 301 thousand members. Newton labored fifty-five years and, at his death, in 1854, he was still "the old man eloquent." Of these four great VVesicyans of our century, we see that each had some specialty of calling. Adam Clarke was the scholar and commentator; Watson, the theologian; Bunting the prime minister, and Newton the orator. There was no rivalry among them ; no strife of personal ambition. Each simply made the most of what was given him from above, and they harmonized in charac- ter and action like the accompanying paits of some sweet, sacred harmony. Blameless and harmless, they built up their beloved system, like the walls of Thcb "s, to the sound of heavenly music. Other men of great merit labored with them. Dawson and Savillc be- came far-known a n d effective local preachers. ^^^^ife^, They like Hick, were .rii£fe»«&i., p I a i n, self-supporting men ; Dawson, a farmer, and Savillc, a miner. They associated with the best, while they had power with the lowest classes. Meanwhile, great revivals occurred. At Bradford, for three months, the chapel door, stood open night and day, and such was the pressure of awakened people that no preaching was had. All the time was given to prayer, comfort and counsel. Nine hundred persons were received into the society. Missions were begun in the obscurer parts of Wales and soon a thousand members were reported. Amid the Cambrian snows, as no house could hold the congregations, the preaching was in the open air, even in the rough, wintry weather. So Wesleyanism grew. In 1805, it counted in the Kingdom four hundred and thirty- three preachers and one hundred and twenty thousand members. As we shall see, it was assuming a national importance and drew the notice of statesmen. EASINGWOLD CHURCH AND BURIAL GROUND, WHERE REPOSE THE REMAINS OF ROBERT NEWTON. •'l^*s| CHAPTER XXIV. Methodism and the State Church. S the Wesleyan Body grew, the Legal Hun- dred came to be of growing importance. In 1814, it was the ruhng center of a gatherinj^^ of eight hundred and forty-two preachers, and it needed to be of the best available tal- ent. Hitherto, membership in it had come simply by seniority. It was now ruled that one out of four additions be made by ballot from the entire list of preachers. This placed Bunting the same year, for his faithful service, in the Hundred for his long career. Coke now introduced (1806) to the modern Church the system of Home Missions. Parts of the country not reached by the regular circuits were formed into eight districts and preachers were placed "m partibiis infidelium" as Rome says, to call to Christ the poor, the scattered and the remote. In 1804, one might say that Methodism took national posi- tion by aiding in the forming of the British and Foreign Bible Society. Adam Clarke was for years in its service, and had the warmest regard of Lord Teignmouth, its first president. Butter- worth and Sundius, eminent laymen, were of its first patrons. The Society collected thirteen hundred pounds for its earliest needs. The rapid growth of the Connection, making call for new chapels, led, in 1808, to the creation of the Chapel Fund, of which the Church Extension Society is, in this country, a reproduction. METHODISM AND THE STATE CHURCH. 303 Difficulties of a new sort now arose. They were not wholly unexpected. In 18 10. Southey, who had studied Wesley and his works in no favorable mind, had in the Quarterly Review a severe article against Methodism. He predicted that the Wesleyans would soon be able to subvert the National Church and would not scruple to do so, and would even lay hands on the government of the country. He could not name one disloyal act of which in all their sufferings the preachers had been guilty. While he wrote, Newton was disabusing the popular mind, not only of Paine's infidelity, but also of his anarchism. Yet Sor licy was a man of j^enius and he loved a startling theme. Statesmen looked around. Lord Sid- mouth and other poli- ticians, and even VVilber force, were alarmed at the facts presented. They found that Dissenters end Methodists had in the Kingdom twelve thousand one hun- dred and sixty-one licensed chapels and rooms for worship, and that in parishes of more than a thou- sand people these lord teiunmouth. bodies had nine hundred and ten churches and chapels, more than the Establishment. High Churchmen and Aristocrats re- solved to crush the growing danger. Sidmouth introduced a Bill in Parliament, such as was worthy of darker ages. It conceded to the Wesleyans the right of members of their Conference to preach, but it struck off all lay workers. That is, local preachers, exhorters, leaders and even Sunday-school teachers were to be silenced on pain of imprisonment. Thousands of the best people in England, who were laboring to do their countrymen all the good in their power, were to be shut of their dearest liberty. IllM 304 THE STORY OP METHODISM. Southey wrote the article in Satan's interest. It would have drawn little notice, only that the wild commotions of France made leading Englishmen more than ever afraid of the misuse of strength by the people. The effective character of the Methodist organization appears. Its Committee of Privileges, two of whom were members of Par- liament, remonstrated with Sidmouth in vain, but secured an LORD ERSKINK. advocate in Lord Erskine. Meanwhile, districts and circuits were astir and petitions were presented from every part of the realm, of whose signers Earl Stanhope said that their thousands might easily become millions. Erskine made a strong speech against the Bill and it failed to the great joy of all lovers of religious freedom in the land. Dissenters of all names owned their debt to the Methodist Comminee of Privileges, who had taken with courage the lead and brunt of the struggle. ■■i, ,_^j»;;;04!iS!&ii'; rv »* M li» "* ! rcuits were the realm, mds might :ch against Df religious their debt taken with METHODISM AND TIIF. STATE CHURCH. 305 Then came another attack aimed at the Wcslcyans alone. It was hekl that the okl TokTatioii Act applied only to such as were pastors of sifij^^/r con^Mx-^ations This would have swept away tlic itinerancy at one stroke. By this construing, refusal of license to itinerants and local preachers began at once. There was real ciuise for alarm. Percival, the Prime Minister, was a High Churchman, but he saw the peril of such injustice and gave a hearing to the Committee of Privileges. The Dissenters rallied to the support of the Methodists. The result was complete victory. H\' Act of Parliament, all the old barbarisms, the Five-mile Act, the Conventicle Act and the like, were then repealed, swept away, and religious freeilom in iMigland came to be all one could reasonably desire. In 1S12, the Conference thanked the Committee, and issued to the societies an address calling for thanksgiving. It procured one of the most important movements in the whole course of religious liberty in the land. In 181 5, the Methodists of the British Islands were two hundred and thirty-one thousand, having for ten year" gained aboiit nine thousand a year. Their preachers were nine hundred and forty-two. In a quarter of a century — i.e., since Wesley's death, they had trebled their numbers. Statesmen might well look with interest and respect on such a phenomenon, but there was nothing to fear. They were the best of citizens, the truest of patriots, though they knew their rights, and, "knowing, dared maintain." The annals of Methodism were still adorned with men and women of high, heroic character and career. Thomas Thompson, of Hull, was an humble farmer's son. Wilberforce, who lived in that town, marked his young merit and took him into his house- hold. He rose rapidly, became a banker, a man of fortune and a member of Parliament, doing religion true and loyal service. At his expense, the Holderncss Mission was established and here was the last of those heroic struggles on British soil which our Story will recount. A young man of talent and culture began the work. He met unmerciful persecution. At his meetings by night spar- rows were let loose to put out the lights, the doors were fastened, and fumes of assafoetida blown in upon the congregations. Driven from one place, the young man went to another. The rector of i J 30 :-^cj!^Aii&uat . * a .\ A 4 * .f. i 3o6 THE STORY or METHODISM. Rocs was also a magistrate and (--ncoiiragcd the rioters. Undct his influence, no man would stand by the preacher or testify for him in court. Many even appeared against him. Then hf became his own witness and advocate, and so set forth his errand and his acts that the presiding judge gave the rector, who sat b\ his side, a sharp reprimand, and the missionary thereafter had legal protection. Of hardships in food, lodgings and labor, the wayfaring evan'^elist had still a goodly share. More than one home missionary now drank of the cup pressed to the lips of Wesley and his laborers two genera- lions before, but by faith and patience they gained the same victories on a less conspicuous scale. The preachers of the first times were now gone. Of their immediate suc- cessors, few were now in service, but they were al- lowed to see, in i ? 1 4, the greatest revival 0.1 record, It was in Cornwall, and extended fromTruro through the peninsula — forty miles. In seme parishes hardly ten v.crc unvisited by influences of JOSEPH LIVESEV, THE FIRST TEETOTALER. graCC. SoHlC chapcls were occupied for four weeks, night and day, and sometimes forty persons were added to the society in one day. In the caverns of the mines, in the smelters and all work-houses, prayer and praise were heard. A heavenly breeze blew over the region and brought healing on its wings. Drunkards became temperate, the profane became devout and the character of whole neighborhoods was changed. Fifty-two hundred were added to the six circuits most touched by the great work. It is worth notice that in these times one hears of the clearest and simolest teacher of the faith that "^npnf METHODISM AND THE STATE CHURCH. y? has yet appeared in Mothodism. It was William Carvosso. He was a farmer and fisherman on the Cornish coast, and was up to the standard of proficiency in the vices of his day. Mis sister, becoming converted among the Methodists, came twelve miles to tell her family. She induced VVilliain to go to the preaching. He w.is deeply convicted, gave up all vices, and after much tribula- tion he entered into the Kingdom of God. He came to love the Saviour with all his heart, and to his death, at eighty-five, he walked in the light. Removing to a farm, "a mere desert," near "a feeble, destitute class," he entered with large views upon the care of both. His hard farm yielded to wise .\iid diligent treatment, >() that he became able to live without perso'ial labor, and to give his whole time to the classes. Verdure broke out in dry places. Some of his neighbors were converted ; soon he had two large classes, and then a chapel "of his own building or beg- ging." H i s f a m i 1 y were converted ; the chapel was replaced by william ca.'^vosso. a larger, and the work dear to the great class leader's heart went prosperously. Then came the revival of which we h&ve just been telling. "I call it a 'glorious revival'; 'such as my eyes never saw before.' " His society, of which we noticed i'iic '^malj beginning, became two hundred, and of its classes he took three. Henceforth, he gave himself wholly to the service of religion and "went about doing good" in a still-hunting style. "I am a teacher, but not a preacher ; that is a work to which God has not called me." Teacher he was, in that he knew what he taught, was convinced 3o8 THE STORY OF METHODISM. of its value, could adapt it for entrance into the minds of others, and could urge it with personal force and vivacity. To this, which makes a teacher, was added the divine influence. His soul was always overfull, and common Christian phrases took glow and energ)- from him. At middle ag^- he learned to write, so as to guide souls in the path of life when he could no longer visit them. In short, he was the model of cla.ss leaders. During his careei, Methodism in his circuit increased on the whole about sevenfold, and of this increase a large credit is assigned to his la- bors. His life is still read far and wide by those who are learning the art of which he was master. During these years was held the first English camp-nieeting. Lorenzo Dow, an eccentric but zealous preacher of Ver- mont, had made his way to Staffordshire. Camp- meetings were useful in the thinly-peopled regions of the United States. He raised a flag on Mow Hill and called the people to their tents The new agency was made a great blessing and other meet- ings followed ; approved by the people but op- wiLLiAM CLOWES. poscd by the preachers, they hardly found place on the crowded soil of England. After some debate, the Conference declared them improper. Still they were held, and Bourne, a leading layman, was expelled from his society for his persistence in sustaining them. Clowes, a local preacher, was for the same reason expelled. The latter then gave up Is business. He began as a home missionary. Other men came to his help. They gleaned in the highways and market- places and, for local reasons, twenty-eight preachers from various circuits joined him. Thus, in i8io, was formed a new denomination, "The Primitive Methodists." " ■»' « B- a ,4 t^, METHODISM AND THE STATE CHURCH. 309 In 1887 thev held in Scarborough, their sixty-eighth Con- '.erence, a body composed of one-third preachers and two-thirds laymen. Next to the VVesleyans, they arc the largest Methodist body in England, having now one thousand and forty-three sta- tioned preachers and one hundred and ninety-one thousand six hundred and forty-one members. At the Conference of 1866, ihey complained of a "tendency to Congregationalism" by form- ing a circuit "with one chapel and one preacher." They have often been, from the stir they make in their religious services, called Ranters. Their work has been chiefly among the lower classes. They have been an active, useful people. Dui-ing the vear 1866, thev issued two millions of books and magazines. Their Quarterly and six monthly magazines are of excellent qualit\'. How strange that dis- like of Dow's camp- meetings should result in developing such a people ! Mary (Bosanquet) Fletcher had now out- lived, by thirty years, her saintly husband. She believed that his mary hosanquet fletcher. spirit was yet in fellowship with hers. She prosecuted the works in which he had been interested, and her home at Madeley was the center of Christian hospitality, prayer and converse, through all her life's sunny afternoon. She commemorated in a quiet wa\' her wedding-day and her husband's death. On IJec. 9, 1815, "the best year of all my life," she died in calm, sweet silence. Of her charities, enough may be known from the fact that, on herself, she spent in one year twcnty-fi\'e dollars, and on her chari- ties over nine hundred dollars, and so ran her accounts for many years. This year, 1S15, died the good Lady Mar)- Fitzgerald, ■■•^ V ■ i •; I i 3IO THE STORY OF METHODISM. S^e was of the highest rank, three of her brothers in succession being Earls of Bristol. Her husband was an earl, from whom, for his vices, the House of Lords granted her a divorce. She turned from the gay, sad world and, according to her larger means, followed Mrs. Fletcher. Her rank imposed style and expenditure, but she was a faithful member of a Methodist society and, at death, wished burial near Mr. Wesley, at City Road Yard, rather than with the Earls and Ladies of her ancestry. For some years after the death of these ladies, there followed like departures of men named in earlier parts of our Story. Of these, our American readers will hardly care to IVear particularly, seeing that so much is to be said of Methodism at home in our own land. The four great leaders were in full activity. The eld- est, Adam Clarke, was wearing out. " I must hide my head in the country, or it will shortly be hidden in the grave." His pro- digious literary labors had been remunerative, and he now settled at Milbrook, near Liver^jool, and thence made sallies for service in every direction. He also, there, educated two Buddhist priests, whom we shall see serving well their native land. In i8i6, he visited his home in Ireland. In forty years, he had become a stranger, and none of his kin were there, but he saw the barn where he had first heard Methodist preaching, and the spot in a field where peace came to his sou'. Presiding at the Irish Conference of that year, he found them debating the old question of the sacraments. Many influential laymen were op- posed to the demand from the rest of the laity that they receive these from the hands of their own pastors. With these latter, Clarke sympathized, and the majority of the Conference decided in their favor. A schism at once followed. "The Primitive VVesleyans of Ireland," taking the name from those of England, formed a new body, and a third of the Irish Methodists, about ten thousand, went with them. They differed from the Wesleyans in nothing but that they counted their own pastors as simple lay- men, and took the sacraments at the churches only. After sixty years, being about fifteen thousand, they returned to the parent society in 1877. We noticed what men founded Methodism in Ireland and with what labor and sufferings. For twenty-two years after Wesley's death, Coke presided at its Conferences and lavished his labors there. Irish preachers were raised up slowly and, after METHODISM AND THE STATE CHURCH. 311 thirty years, there were but twelve. Then Ireland began to send men to England—VValsh, Adam Clarke, Moore and Thompson. Meanwhile, the "Rebellion" came on, in which all Protestants suffered, and the Methodists, who were presumed to be loyal to England, suffered worst of all. The histories of the time tell of awful scenes. So utterly fierce and brutal were the insurgents that to this day, the horrid traditions affect the politics of Irish Methodiits, and this very session — 1888 — is marked by violent Home Rule debate. A loyal Methodist had from his brother secret news that Dublin was to be sacked. The news enabled the Lord Lieutenant to defend the city. He gratefully granted to the Con- ference and to the indivi^- i\ preachers every privilege and all the protection in his power. This Conference provided a mission to the "wild Irish" in their own language. McQuigg, an eminent Irish scholar, became a missionary. His health proving unequal to the rough task, he, under the aus- pices of the British and Foreign Bible Society, put forth the Bible in Irish. This, widely circulated, has had a marked influer.ce. Charles Graham, the other missionary, had been a rollicking, up- roarious Irishman, but he had been converted at the preaching of an itinerant. His Irish speech and wit served him well. Of course he knew what mobs were. At Tralee, he was to be killed, but the stone aimed at him hit the accomplice of the thrower, who died confessing his design. Bartley Campbell was a staunch Papist, but of restless, hun- gry soul. He prayed, did penance, had absolution, went to St. PatrickV purgatory, and a^ the "houly tomb" received again absolution. All did not comfort him. "What shall I do?" "Why, 2"o to bed and sleep." "Perhaps I may awake in hell!" The priest threatened to horsev/hip him for his insolence. Camp- bell went in tears to a lone place and prayed. He found pardon for Christ's sake. Going back to the "purgatory," he told the way of relief to the people there, doing penance on bleeding knees. The priest drove him away, but he was thereafter a warm, brave witness of what Christianity can do for an Irishman. For half a century, the foremost Irish evangelist was Gideon Ouseley. He was of an eminent Galway family and a career was open to him. He was fearless, generous, and devoted to the work to which he was called at his conversion. One day, he rode 312 ■PHK STORY OF METHODISM. up where a priest was saying mass. Kneeling with the crowd, he gave them in Irish all the Gospel part of the mass, and when all rose he spoke to them of peace with God through faith in Christ alone. "Father, who is that?" they cried to the priest. "I don't know; he is not a man at all; he is an angel; no man could do what he has done," said he, as Ouseley rode away. Such men went to thf worst places in Ireland, preaching often th/ee or four times a da\ . They went to ground stained by the Rebellion and spoke to hungrj-, ragged thousands. They translated Wesley's hymns into the pa- thetic sweetness of the Irish language, and from many a cabin the inmates ran out to hear their own soeech and crossed themselves and knelt in tears. The warm, Celtic teii.per flamed into many an Irish r o w w i t h unspeakable comicalities; weeping, praying, shouting anil fighting going on at once " in sweet confusion." The Irish masses heard the Gospel. Usually the atti- tudes of Pn/testant and Catholic in Ireland have been defiant, but Ouseley and his men did not fear or hate their unwashed coun- trymen. He was a trained "gintleman;" he was as witt\' in their own tuneful GIDEON OUSF.LKV Preaching in the Saddle. j^,,^^.^,^, ^^ ^j^^j^ brightest ; he could sing like Caoch O'Leary, and he was honestly reverent in his allusions to the Virgin. All, even the Papists of the bigoted sort, loved for various reasons, to listen to him, and counted it an entertainment at least, while always some hearts were truly touched. Once in a Papist town, he hired the bellman to announce preaching, but saw the timid man did not half do it. Taking the bell himself, and with voice as loud, "Gideon Ouseley, the Irish missionary, is to preach this evening, at such a place and hour. And I am the man myself y The Irish could enjoy that ! Those 3wd, he all rose it alone. ; know ; what he It to the s a da\ . hungr\-, I the pa- ;abin the emselves rs. The teii.pcr ■ an Irish eakable wcopin}:;, ng anil n at once ion." The card the y the atti- itant and and have t Ousclcy ot fear or icd coun- a trained c was as n tuneful rightest ; Icverent in e bigoted jnted it an 1^ f^uchcd. announce faking the the Irish ind hour. I Those MKTUODISM AND THK Sl'ATK CHURCH. 313 who have seen Irish cabins know well wh; <■ fare these brave men found. Ireland has had, is having, trouble enough. What would have been its state to-day had it never had McQuigg's Bible anr^ Ouseley's apostleship? Thereafter came the "Irish Society" for which these opened the way. Even Papists widely owned the benefit of their vernacular Scripture; "the want of them, in their native language, has been to the n and their forefathers, for a long period, the greatest evil." In the King's Court district, of five counties, it was fountl that forty thousand persons were being taught tc read the Scriptures, and more than double that number were hearing them in their cabins. NEW METHODIST COLLEGE, DUBLIN, IRELAND. Then emigration to America began to reduce the societies. It kept Methodism in the old home poor, and it was often deep in debt. Then came the secession of the Primiti\e Wesleyans. It led to lawsuits and levying upon church property. Ouseley was distressed, but he and the like of him worked harder than ever to make good the losses bv schism and emigration. This latter was the far more exhausting cause. Yet Irish Methodism has been most liberal beyond any other branch of the movement. It has, in its poverty, built noble chapels, a seminary in Dublin, many subordinate schools and an ample collegiate institution, to which H fi, «» '■ I'll 314 THE STORY OF METHODISM. American Irishmen justly contribute. It had, in 1886, twenty- four thousand six hundred and forty-four members, and the Conference has one hundred and twenty-one ministers and one hundred and twenty laymen. Ouseley died in the centenary year of Methodism, 1839. A month before his death, he preached three times in one day, proving, as his hfe had proved, that Methodism had not lost its breed of noble bloods. He is the true Protestant Apostle of Irelrnd, its best friend in this troublous century. Adam Clarke was in sympathy with every effort to aid "his own loved Ireland of sorrow." At a later visit, he spoke of a mission to the blue-eyed Gaels of Shetland. He went to see them in their stormy seas, and by his own efforts and money he sent them laborers, built them chapels, arnd Methodism gained a fair footing in "Ultima Thule." In 1826, his Commentary, the work of forty years, was completed. It was a long and earnest task. Of its merits we have already spoken. " Dr. Clarke writes all his Commentary," said the American Bishop Emory ; " no scissors or paste ! " Again he went to Shet- land. " O if I had twenty years less of age and infirmity, how gloriously might I be employed here ! " said he, on preaching at a higher latitude than the Gospel had, he thought, been heard. He went on doing all that he could. Lords and great men, and even royalty, honored him for his learning, and such things count in England. He tried to buy in Ireland the field where he had been converted, but it was not for sale, he built in the region six memorial schools in that part of his sweet Ireland. August 25, 1832, he in pra^'er spoke of "the blessed hope of entering into glory." The next morning he was to preach, but cholera struck him and he entered glory. He was seventy-two, in the fiftieth year of his ministry. Watson died the next year. He too, left works of permanent value as nid Adam Clarke, and at his death he was preparing an Exposition of Romans. How transient are even books I How hardly longer of life than spoken speech ! Few read these great authors now. Each generation produced its own literature, and the Methodism of to-day has produced or reproduced for itself. In 1 820, John Emory, from the United States, visited England, METHODISM AND THE STATE CHURCH. 315 twenty- and the and one 839. A jne day, )t lost its postle of aid "his spoke of nt to sec money he gained a ntary, the id earnest American nt to Shet- rmity, how •caching at een heard, t men, and lings count :re he had region six sed hope of preach, but eventy-two, permanent reparing an nger of life low. Each ^thodism of led England, as a representative of American Methodism. The usage has be- come permanent, and friendly interchange of representation now occurs once in four years. In 1886, the Americans were Bishop Foss and Dr. Hunt, of the American Bible Society. Emory gave full report of what he saw, revealing Weslcyan ways to American eyes. He was welcomed by a declaration of purpose to value and maintain the unity of Methodism throughout the world. He found the Conference, under Bunting as president, a large, digni- fied, industrious body, holding sessions from six a. m., to eight, from nine to one and from two and a half to five, public meetings and the like coming at evening. They arranged with him for the division of the work in Canada and for the exchange of publications. Warmly they wished their brethren success in occupying the new Continent, while they, in their missions, "whose march is o'er the mountain wave," would meet them and "shake hands at the Pacific." The meeting has been realized on many a heathen shore. Emory was almost amused at their mode of appointing preachers. In America, the theory, if not the practice, is that no preacher knows his place until it is read aloud by the Bishop at the close of the Conference. Emory found that the stationing committee published its work at the opening of the session, thus giving opportunity for wide petition and remonstrance. He visited, as a soldier would visit Waterloo, the memorable spots, as Moor- fields, where Whitefield had shaken the multitudes, since gone with their preacher to eternity. Emory brought to this country a good report of Methodism in "the little mother-land." It was growing in the homestead five thousand stronger each year, and that in spite of migration. It was increasing in fixed properties, getting strong and was reaching to heathen l^nds and was in all the joy and vigor of a mighty youth. Four years later his visit was returned. Richard Reece and John Hannah came to America on an errand like his own. The effect of their coming was to infuse among American Methodists a new zeal for evangelizing the world. Other Christian bodies, the Baptists, etc., were breaking in upon the outer darkness ; the Meth- odists resolved not to be far behind them. Yet so great was the American home work that the first foreign effort did not come until 183 1, ill .: . i 316 THE SIOKY Ol MlinioDlS.M. Once more Wcslcyanism had to appear in court. An insti- tute was built for theoloLjical instruction. It is a noble one, at Richmond, near London. Samuel Warren, an able but restless man, had heartily approved of the institute, only he preferred the name "colle'^e." VVMien he was not made an oflficer of it, his whole views changed. He attacked it violently, and even organ- ized out of available malcontents a "Grand Central Association" to oppose the whole Methodist polity. For his violence, he was RICHMOND THEOLOGICAL ]N.=; TI lUI'ION, LONDON, (near the Thames River.) suspended by the Manchester District Conference and Newton took his office. He then applied for an injunction in Chancery against Newton and the trustees of the chapel from which he had been excluded. This involved the very existence of VVesleyap- ism. If it could not control its preachers and properties, it was ruined. For three days the case was argued before the Vice- chancellor Shadwell. His Honor refused the injunction and spoke very warmly of the benefit of Methodism to England. Appeal n insti- one, at restless red the ■ it, his 1 organ- :iation" , he was s River.) Newton Chancery ch he had ^Vesley all- ies, it was the Vice- and spoke Appeal METHODISM AND THE STATE CHURCH. 317 was taken to Lyndhurst, Lord High Chancellor. The anxiety of all the Connection and of many beyond it was intense. After four days of argument and two of consideration, his Lordship affirmed in an elaborate judgment the decision of his vice-chan- cellor, and so the chapel, institutions and rides of Methodism SAMUFX WARREN. Were settled on the rock of English law, to be no more shaken. This was in 1835. The i,olicitor in Chancery for the Methodists was a son of Bunting, a fact not a little gratifying. The "Grand Central Association" formed the basis of the Methodist Free Church. This union of three seceding bodies; the Protestant Methodists. Warren's .\ssociation and the Rcjormers 3J« THE STORY OF METHODISM. B was completed in 1857. It now nmubers about seventy thousand members, and differs from thf main body only by admission of laymen to its Conference and by having each circuit independent within itself. . The reformers just named, the last secession from Wesley anism, went out in 1849. Six members of the Conference wen- held to be intriguing against the Conference and the appearance of " Fly Sheets," anonymously attacking eminent Wesleyans, the authorship of which the said six would neither admit nor disclaim, aggravated the temper of the Conference. The men were not brought to trial, but three were peremptorily expelled and three reprimanded. A hundred thousand left the Connection within two years with these men, some of whom returned. One result of this serious trouble was that a full, clear expo- sition of Wesleyan Rules and Usages was published and tiie read- ing of it earnestly urged, so that the system might be clearly and widely known. Provision was also made for uniting laymen with ministers in all temporal affairs, and the members were encour- aged to present to the Conference, with the utmost freedom, petitions for change of anything but the Articles of Faith and the Itinerant System. In 1828, William Capers, afterwards Bishop, was the Ameri- can visitor, and, in 1836, Wilbur Fisk. At Fisk's visit, some trouble was raised from his representing a church containing slave-holders. He explained how the Gospel went to the slave and his master, and all were satisfied. He urged the laying of the hands of the elders on the head of the candidate " 1 ordination, and his advice has ever since been followed. Wesleyanism Abroad. OT yet do we tell the Story of Methodism in America. That is to go by itself. We trace the revival in English colonies and in heathen lands. We noted Wesley's first African convert, and how, on the recovery of her master's health, she returned with him to Antigua, where both were active in religious labors. In 1792, tiie year after Wesley's death, Coke, sailing for the fifth time to America, took, though others were already there, Daniel Graham, as the first missionary to the West Indies. Stopping at the Dutch island of St. Eustatius, he found some classes meeting secretly, but fiercely persecuted, while mission- aries and prayer-meetings were prohibited. At Dominica, he found a hundred and fifty sheep having no shepherd. At St. Vincent's, Lumb, a preacher who had independently made his way there, was in jail, though preaching to weeping negroes through his grated window. Fine and imprisonment were im- posed for the first preaching, flogging or banishment for the sec- ond, and death for the third; yet, under Lumb's labors, "a thousand slaves were stretching out their hands unto God," 1 :;, 111 p i .«•» CHAPTER XXV. i« ■ ■ Ml ■ I ALTAR OK A ClIINKSE PAQODA. be law sec too cha WKSl.KVAMS.M ABRUAU. 3it Coke was siirpristd to fiiul so man)- negroes converted, and he obtained the King's "()rder in Council, " annulling the savage law at St. Vincent's, but not till after hve hundred had been lost I))' persecution. In five years there were twent)'-t\vo missionaries oil the Islands, and all the British settlcnients and some others \\«;re visited. The con\erted negroes bore all the fruits of right- i ousness. The missionaries, from the climate and pestilence, were short-lived, but others took their places and the societies grew r.ipidly. In the French invasions of the islands, the blacks were safely armed for defence and their petty officers were taken froni KIN(;STOWN, VI. VINCENP'S. the Methodist negroes. The government, grateful, offered Coke free passage to Bermuda and Jamaica for all outgoing missionaries. Then came fiery trials. The Jamaica Legislature fixed the penalty of imprisonment for preaching b\' any but ministers of the English or Scotch Churches. Stephenson, a missionary just beginning work most hopefully, was imprisonetl imtil his health was ruined. The King annulled the law, but, seven years later, a law was made forbidding any " Methodist missionary, or other sectary," to instruct slaves, or admit them to any meetings. This, too, the King canceled, but for ten years persecution raged and chapels were closed. 322 1HE STORV OF METHODISM. In i8i5,thc irrepressible laborers were in full tide of success-, and converts vcre gained, a thousand a year. The heathen negroes, counted incapable of civilization, were often marvels of transformation. They had clung to the savage usages of Africa and had taken not a few vices from the whites, so that they were worse degraded than when running in Guinea. Thousands were no; ' cleaned of superstition, polygamy and theft, and sat under the preaching clothed and in their right minds. In 1818, "they all spent the holidays, in a rational manner, in the worship of God." They had formerly had orgies almost diabolical. In i-wUids of other nations the missions met the old fight of persecution, but at length they got footing. The first class in South America was at Demarara, being formed by laymen. These goo 1 men had seventy members when the first missionary came. He soon had a chapel and a society of three hundred and sev- ^>,,^ enty. Then fell the un- '^ failing storm, which might '<^^WS!rMI^^^^SI^^iA^/!^MMi&Mii¥£^:^M j-io without the saying. The chapel was wrecked '^4-^^^^^^^ and the whole colony in 1 <i<\ \i. Cli\c had (»[)ciu'(! to I'ln-^laiul llu; rci^qoii wlici c now V'ictoiia, iMiipress of India, rules aljoiil three hundred inilhon subjects, 'i\veiity-se\en years after CMve's decisive victory- at l^lassey, Cokr bej^an to phiii the conquest o[ tlie same h\nd. "India cleaves ti. my heart." He offered to become Bishop of India, bcin^ a cler- ;4yman of the I'.stablished Church. He was willin^r to spend there his entire ii.come of sixty thouscuvl tlollars. The Compan)-, with th.it strange {)olicy that so long fostered heathenism and exchuled ClirisLianity, refused. Vet there hiy, free ftom the Compan\'> control, the island em balmetl in the impei- ir.hable h\'mn, Ce\loii, the threshokl of India, "Wherf every prospecl |>Ilmacs And only man is vile." Coke began to stuck Portuguese, and he ap- plied for hel])ers lo Ire- land, from which alreadv had gone forth bra\e pi- oneer missionaries. Se\- eral men xolunteered ; among them Uusele\- stood, begging to go. The Conference in ICnglami moved more slowly, but when Coke offered to g(j in person and pa\- all the cost o( outfit, it was voted to sanction his going, and six men, two of them with wives, started for Ce\'lon, and one for the Cape of (iood Hope. The voyage was stormy and disas- trous, and Coke, d\'ing suddenly of apoplexy, was laid in the In- dian Ocean, "where pearls lie deep." The effect of liis death on the Conference was like that of Ciustax'us' death on the Swedes at Lut/.en. Defeat was not to be thought of. Soon the General \\'eslc)'an Missionary Society was formed, with a system of auxil- iaries, monthl\' prayer-meetings, managers, secretaries, and treas- urers. Its first anniversary was enlivened b)- the first fruits <>f l.OKO CLIVK. iclona, ubjccts. y, Coke [ a cIlm- ul there n)-, with •xclucU.il mpaii) > and (-111 ; imi)i.T- CcnIoii. i)f Iiuiia, 1 to stud}' id Ik- a))- ■rs to \\\' ph alreac!) brave pi- a'lcs. Sc\- untccrc'l ; U u s c 1 e >• to i;o. crcncc in ;cd more icn Coke in person us coinii. 1, an d o\n and disas- in the In- oll death Swedes al General n of auxil- an d treas X fruits ol Ut ' !«i n * ): 5 326 THE STORY OF METHODISM. Ceylon, two Buddhist priests, who came to enjoy the care and teaching of Adam Clarke. Coke's comrades went to Ceylon. Under the first jermo i, Lord Molesworth, commander of the jj^arrison, who entertained ihc comers at his own table, and a man born in Ceylon, of for- eign parents, were awakened, and his lordship afterwards fount! peace in a prayer-meeting. Nothing could have been happier for the mission. He honoretl and aided it. Wrecked, '. His body was thrown by the waves on the South African shore, his arms still enfolding the corpse of his wife. HARVARD PREACHING NKAR OOOIU?!'., INDIA. The othor convert became a missionary, the first Methodist preacher in Asia. Soon, several priests became converts and even preachers. In a temple, Harvard, a missionary, stood before the great idol, "The Light of Asia," and preached, " We know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is none other God but one." The missionaries found all heathen with education from the priests alone. There are now about one hundred and twenty preaching places, two thousand members, and six thousand hear- ers, with all the other church appliances. Ceylon is counted the birthplace of Buddhism, and at Batticola, alone, when the mis- sionaries came, were five hundred temples; now, less than fifty WESLEYAMSM ABROAD. 327 ithodist achcrs. at idol, idol is lit one." rom tho twenty id hear- nted the he mis- an fifty S^fifflg^ft3[^^?j are standing, and these arc on their way to the moles and bats. The native churches could now, of tlu'tns •''"", carry on the Christian work of their own land amid its spicy breezes. Permitted, at last, to enter the continent, Thomas Lynch went to Madras, in 181 7, and there formed the fust Methodist society in Asia, and John Morner went to Homba}', in 18 19. Soon, another went to Negapatam ; and, in 1823, there were four sta- tions, like li^ht-houses, on a far-stretching coast. Around these, with their ten chapels and as many schools, were two hundred converts. They went on growing. In 1837, eame five men, so well trained \\\ the Wesleyan Theological Institute at Ho.xton. established in 1834, that they began at once to preach to the natives in their own born speech. In that year. Arumaga Tambiran, of the very highest rank among Brahmins, and a teacher of wide repute, was con- verted. He was obliged to apply to a magistrate for protection, and in tlie court he wore, for the last time, his Brah- minical cord and robe. "As a heathen I "^ot '^"^' first methodist chapf.l at natal. money in abundance and honors. I abandon heathenism. I wish to teach others of this Saviour," was his public word. He wrote a poem against heathenism, and of this copies by scores ot thou- sands were scattered, to be said or sung, far and wide. India has missionaries from various bodies — the Wesleyan Methodists, the London Missionary Society, and the Methodists of the United States. Other denom-nations, coo, arc in the vast field. Native Christians are now reckoned b>- hundreds of thou- sands, and in 1886 entire villages have become Christian in a day. As early as 1795, Coke sent artisans to teach civilization to the Forclahs of West Africa. They failed, and the next year two i^; i! iii 328 THE STORY OF METHODISM. evangelists were appointetl. Hishop Taylor had not yet risen to urge the union of the two ideas. In the war of the American Re\-olution many negroes fled from the States to Nova Scotia, where man)- became Methodists Twelve hundred were afterwards taken to Sierra Leone. Twd white nun were local preachers among them, and Mingo Jordan, a colored preacher, in i80(S, wrote to Ailam Clarke of their con- dition. He had in society a hundred. On one day he had bap- tized twenty maroons — half-breeds — and all were giving two cents a day to promote the Gospel. .Sierra Leone was a dreadful place. CAPE COAST CASTI-K. Cargoes of recaptured slaves were landed here, and two hundred African tribes, each with its own language and savagery, have been seen there at one time. Many a missionary died at once, and the term of their service was at last but two years. Great good has been done in its region. An institute for training native preachers was founded. .Spreading through .Senegambia, the VVesleyans now have twenty-five preachers, mostlj' trained officers, with about ten thousand members. At Cape Coast Castle, some young natives at school came across portions of Scripture and wanted the whole, A pious WESl. EVAN ISM ABROAD. 3 ''9 ;! l:i sea-captain told of this in Kngland and offered to take out. and, if needed, brin^^ Ijack, a ni'ssionar)-. John Dunwell went, and in six montlis died, but the lads were con\'erted. So soon, too, the natives had built a chapel, and lar^e congr nations created. "V/e will remain in the new piofession, for, though the niissionarj' is (lead God lives." Five missionaries perished. Then came T. B. IVeeman, of their rac*. and color. He found six places of wor- ship, three schools, four hundred and fifty communicants and large congregations ; but all the laborers bcfori> him were dead He is the hero of Ashantee, t'u- darkest land on eai th. Its people, the most fierce and powerful of Afri- cans, were slave deal- ers, gix'en to h u m a n sacrifices, to ever)- I iiormity. He entered Coomassie, the capital, between two mounds, under each of which had been buried a liv- ing man, to prevent the coming "Fetish-men" from doing harm. Dur- ing his stay, forty were sacrificed to the ghost of some o n e of the King's famil)-. Preach- ing amid these horrors, Freeman gained one convert, who had heard of Christianity and now wished to profess it. The awful Coomassie, the very abode of spirits In prison, saw one Christian baptism. The King was favorably impressed, and asked for a mission and a school at his capital. He had sent two sons to England to be educated. These returned and came with F'reeman to their father's court. Land and privileges were granted, and soon a thousand were hearing the Gospel in Satan's seat at Coomassie. /\t a similar place, Abbeokuta, F'reeman alst) established a mission, rHb'. JlUlLliK AT iONUA. 1* WESLEVANISM ABROAD. 331 7. O H Q. < ■•J m The Wcslcyan Mission in South Africa bctr.-in romantically. A chief, far up in the interior, learned, somehow, of the "Great Word," and started to Capo Town — five hundred miles — to find it and a teacher. Shaw, just come as missionary, was not allowed to preach at the Cape. His wife su^i^^ested that they ^^o to find natives beyond the limits of the colony. The ox-wagons met, as •.hips meet on the sea, on the evening of Shaw's twenty- seventh day. A half-hour's difference with either would have prevented tlieir meeting. The chief wept aloud for joy. He hastened back with the good news, and the Namqauas received Shaw joyfully. Here he built a house and chap- el, planted a field, worked, taught and preached. In a month, he heard at night a native praying alone ! Soon he baptized seven- teen, blessed a Christian mar- riage, celebrated the Lord's Sup- jicr, made a plow and used it, rais- ing a crop of fifty fold. Edwards, another missionary, came. A band of converts went, with joy and song, by night, to call on every family to pray and gi^'e thanks over the arrival. In the region where Shaw, in 1820, planted at Salem the Gospel — his wife, from her own for- tune, paying all expenses — are now about ninety ministers, with fourteen thousand men»jers and as many scholars. Of the min- isters many are native. All things belonging to religion and civ- ilization flourish there, and the wilderness blooms in gladness and beauty. Of Wesleyanism in the island world of the Pacific our Story must be but an outline. In these islands, dreamers used to plac'" HORTON WESLEVAN COLlfcKrE. TASMANIA. 11 ■ ■ I I I'M.-'- !; *;{ ' Pir;; i I 35-* THE STORY OK METHODlMVI. the "Paul and Vir^finia" tlrcains of natural innocence. They were, in fact, the abode of such horrors as were rife in Ashantee, and had cannibalism besides. In 1.S15, Methodism be^'an in Ni;u South Wales, though a class was formed of emigrants three years earlier. An educated young irrshman, in prison for forgery, and awaiting doom, was converted in his cell through Methodist l.ibors. His sentence was changed to transportation. He began, in the land of his exile, to read prayers and expound Scripture, and became, with the brand of his crime upon him, the first Methodist preacher in Australia. There is now in Australia a separate Conference. It has over forty thousand members, served by two hundred and fifty 4WU3K9K;..«HK CHRISTIAN SAMOANS RKFUSING TO FIGHT. preachers and sixty native helpers. It has three colleges and a large supply of lower schools. In New Zealand, the VVesleyan missionaries had sore baffling. At length, in 4834, the good work began. Some came forty miles to meeting, b'amous \var.:)rs, grown old in fighting and feasting on their fallen foes, came to sit at Jesus' feet, and calls for mission- aries were heard in everv direction. When the work began there was not a book in the Maori language. The missionaries mas- tered it and gave it a religious literature, and all the good things of the Kingdom of Christ grew so fast that the reaper overtook the sower. Men who had seen the island in its grossest barbarism lived to see, among the W^esleyans alone, two hundred and fifty -^'vscv^rs.il. '.«"k.u\.tfe;j^ ' ^4 ^'''L-i i^ U. WESI.r.VANfSNf AIIROAI). 333 cliapels and places for preaching, ami nearly four lutiidrcd preachers of all dej^rees. '\'cn or twelve thoiisami attend vvor.shi,>. At Auckland is a Methodist college, and there are a hundred (l.i)' schools. Three-fourths of the native adults can read and two-thirds can write. ,1 < r. H The last cannibal act was in 1842, when one Taraia caught some people coming from church and cooked them in his oven. The old chief still (or lately) is pointed at with loathing as the lust cannibal. In some of the islands wonderful things occurred. Paganism tS/iWt 3J4 Hir. SluKV oK .Nir.l lloDISM. went down all at once I'ooplc cast away tlnir idols and went hundreds of miles to find a missionary. At Vavau, llabai and tin; Tongas, in 1834, came such an awakening as is raicly recorded. Hundreds of men, women and children were often at once in deep conviction, weeping and crying lor mercy. Ordinary employ- ment ceaseil. All the islands were griiciously visited. In one day, at Vavau, a thousand were converted, not merely from idols, but from Satan. "The Lonl has bowed the whole island to his sway," wrote the missionary. " We went to the house of prajer at daylight. A thousand bowed, weeping at the feet of Jesus. The greatest chiefs and the meanest men, old and young, men and women, were there and the Lord heard their cry." George. King of Habai, and Charlotte, his Queen, were foremost in the work. He became class leader and local preacher, the only Royal Preacher of modern times, nor did he fail to give goo proof of his ministry He is of majestic bear- ing and has full kingly _^.„,,„ - ,„ -.yy^.<-,->, ,.^^>..'^. -'--^. qualities. He freed his ■ ilK4p!^;rU.'.>/>i ^i:^^u^ijy^^>fj^ slaves, with an affecting i'lKSr MISSIJN HOUbJi AT TONGA, *IJl ISLANDS. „^^, ..^^ .. , ^Uo„,, ^ speech upon the change now wrought in himself, in them and in his Kingdom. All wept, as did his queen and he, and two begged to live and die in his service. He gave the Mission the finest building ever built in the islands for a church. Its altar rails were from the spears of his ancestors, and the pulpit stairs rested on sacred clubs of old. Himself, at the dedication, preached to thousands of his people. Commander Wilkes, of the U. S. Navy, bore witness to the good state of things under King George. "I could not but admire him." He gave his people a code of laws, simple, but equal in fitness to any modern legislation. And now on his islands came all the blessings that attend upon the faith, and they came to stay. King George won the respect of nations. Sir Edward Howe, commanding an English id went and tlu; xordcd. in deep employ- In one )ni idols, lul to his )f prayer of Jesus. Ling, niei\ :en, were he work, iss leader acher, the readier of 1, nor did ve goo ministry Stic bear- ull kingly :; freed his 1 affecting he change All wept, die in his luilt in the ;ars of his lbs of old. |iis people, the good Ibut admire it equal in that attend Ire won the (an English WESLEY AMSM .'lURiJAD. 33S man-of-war, saw him pardon some Tonga chiefs who had rebelled. These expected death. George said, "Live!" They thanked liim. He told them to thank Jehovah. They went with him to Ins house, and, with a hundred of their Pagan attendants, bowed and owned the true God. Sir Edward said: " He is worthy of being called a Kinj.,." Helland, a French commander, had come with some cc .nplaint. He was so impressed that, in the name of his government, he acknowledged "George, King of the Friendly Islands." F'iji was visited by Wesley's missionaries. It was the worst of all the bad groups of islands and its very name was used for THE CITY OF HAU, IN 1B55. Utter degradation. Aftfer ten years amid atrocities and abomina- tions, the mercy came, "Business, sleep and food were almost entirely laid aside." Varin, a chief, "the human butcher," was converted and began preaching. The Queen of Veiva turned with a broken heart and many were converted at her baptism. At last, Thakombau, the King over all Fiji, stood up to confess and forsake his sins. In all that land of blood and darkness there was none so bad as he. He was in the presence of those who had felt his crimes. He had defiled wives and slain husbands; had strangled sisters and eaten brothers ; had constantly made children orphans. i'. ' P' i; i^ 1 11 336 THE STOKY Ui«' MKTHODISM. No pen could write the horrors of '/iji, of which cannibaHsin was the most rcvoltin^s and Thakombau s ovens were daily heated for victims. He now, with a broken heart, owned the true God and siiicerely entered His service. Hau, his capital, "doubtless the deepest hell on earth," is now a Christian town. A church stands in the square where, while the missionaries were arriving, eio'hteen men and women were ser\cd up to feast .some distiii- Sl P\ILS CHAPEI , VAI F EV OF MOUSIA, MALTA guished stranger, and over all the islands seems to hang a new heaven in which dwe'lcth righteousness. In P'iji are now two hundred thousand people; one hundred and forty thousand rank as Weslcyan, eight thousand as Catholic, and none as heathen. So has Methodism carried religion into the South Seas. T,i the Fiji and Friendly Islands it has about fori;}' thou- sand communicants and nearly two hundred thousand adherents. Progress, moral and material, has, since Thakombau, in 1H54, WESLEVAMSM ABROAD. iy/ became a Christian, be',-n rapid. The last martyrs, nine visitors to the last heathen island, fell in 1867. The Wesleyans have missions in Malta. (Gibraltar, in North- ern America and elsewhere. Other Methodist bodies of ICngland \xc well represented in mission fields. We saw how the revival supplied to men in England fresh thoughts v^ love and duty, and how it gave such thoughts an im- pulse towards embodiment in benevolent action. It 's still trans- forming the world, partly by labors directly its own, still more by the zeal and courage which it has inspired and encouraged in non-Methodist Churches. GIBRALTAR aa Wi CHAPTER XXVI. Wesleyan Educational Work. N 7, "i T is difficult for some people to admit what Christianity has done for education. Oth- ers, in an ungrateful temper, seem anxious to separate the two, an effort as unnatural as that of parting a m'^ther from her child. The struggle is against the fixed order of tilings, and it is not wise to struggle like Bert, Minister of Instruction in France, to put asunder what God has joined together. In England, when Wesley began to preach, there were few and small facilities for general education. "The common mind" ran on unformed. There were six endowed schools. That in Winchester, where, a thousand years ago, Alfred, its founder, would listen to the class exercises, was the oldest. Another was the Charter- house, where John Wesley attended. These schools were accessi- ble only to the better classes. Wesley felt the pressing need of general education, but he wisely attempted only what he could actually do. At Kingswood. he opened a school for the sons of his itiner- ants. We saw Whitefield laying, at Kingswood, the corner-stone of that first school, and kneeling to pray that the gates of hell might not prevail against it. The ceremony was, to the thousands of poor people who looked on, the date of rising intellectual i I I I ■ I 340 THE SIOKV Ol'" .MHTHODISM. desires. No address on the Benefits of Education could have touched them Hke that object picture. The enterprise came into Wesley's hands, and the income of his Fellowship at Oxford, which he was expected to spend in " learned leisure," he devoted t(» the instruction of others, a use of it which would have rejoiced the heart of William, Bishop of Lincoln, who, three hundred years earlier, had founded the Fellowship. The Methodist Peeress in Scotland, Lady Maxwell, gener- ously aided the enterprise. The school seems to have opened with twenty-eight pupils, who were under stern training, for, though Wesley had a soul of love for the young, he was prone to TRINITY HALL, SOUTHPORT, KNGLAND. judge them by himself, who had no need of play. Soon the school could not receive its growing numbers. The originiil school was removed to a site near Bath. In this school, about three hundred sons of the preachers and missionaries are in pro- cess of education. Two colleges are for preachers' daughters; one, called Trinity Hall, at Southport, the other at Queenswood, Clapham, London. Of the Orphan House at Newcastle — now a Day School and Girls' Industrial School — and of the London F'oundry School, enough has already been said. There are to- day two flourishing colleges, one at Shefifielil and one at Taunton. The London University, erected in 1836, which differs from -" w « • SS If ^ y WtSLKVAN EDUCATIONAL WORK. 341 lUl have Oxford, devoted ; rejoiced hundred U, gcncr- c opened nui|;, f<"'. ; prone 1.0 Oxford and Cambridge mainly in that its collc(/es are h)cated in various parts of the Kingdom, and even in tiie colonies, recog- nizes these Weslcyan colleges and confers their degrees. Ciradually grew a system of day schools, the need of which will be understood if we remember that until Mr. Foster's Bill, ni' 1870, there was no system of public education in England. 1-ive years later, there were still "Dissenting' .schools to the number of two thousand and eighty-six, of which the Wesleyans had over seven liundred, none of which existed when Wesley be- gan his work. riu-sc diiy schools, which arc now aided by governnu-nt Soon ih^; he original liool, about are in pro- daughter^; )ueenswo(Hl, istle — now a the London ^here are to- ut Taunton, differs from wF.si.i'.Y (:(>i,i,k(;k, shkki'iki.d, kniu.anh. grants, made necessarx^ a training school for the supph'ing of teachers. The W^eslcyan Normal School, at Westminster, was built at a cost of two hundred thousand dollars. Tts attendance is nearly two hundred and its j)upils have every facilitx- that a choice home in the suburbs of London can give. A new college for female teachers has been opened at Southland, Rattersea. (^f theological institutions the W^eslewins have four. The list of their various schools is far too long for this storw it is ample and honorable. They are not a whit behind the very chiefest educators. Wesleyans in Ireland opened a college in Belfast in 1868, '-l'..Aj:v:ti±^A''~ 34: TH-F, bToRV OI' METHODISM. and they have their full share, not any too large, of special charitable schools. They have another college in Dublin. In every part of the world where W'esleyans have gone as missionaries they have soon planted schools. It may now be said that their schools, like their national flag, "following the sun and accompanying the hours," have a "morning drum beat" around the entire circle of the tilobe. To the educational work of English Methodism must be added its periodical literature. It has three weekly journals, one Review, and smaller publications almost in- numerable. From all these causes it has come that its rolls have now (>y; long contained the names of eminent men. It has seldom been without representation in Parliament. In 1887 it furnished a Lord Mayor of London from its Irish contingent. In 1839, the first century of Wesleyan- ism expired. It was proper!)- thought that JAMES H. kiGu.D.D., ^^ ''''"^^ ''^''^ grateful Principal of Wesleyan Normal School, Westminster, KuKland. lU)tice should bc takeil of such an epoch. It will be recalled that, earl>- in 1739, White- field and others had their marvelous experience in Fetter Lane when some fell to the floor and all felt the power of God. They sang the Te Deum loud and clear, and were sure that the Lord was about to do great things among them. Then he broke the ice by his first open-air sermon to the weeping colliers at Kings- wood, and, calling Wesley to do the same, he passed on in his wonderful career. That same year, Wesley, in Bristol, laid the corner-stone of his first chapel and issued a volume of those hymns whose singing has now encircled the earth. To bring to :■«: *!».*■!»* nil WESLtVAN EDUCATIONAL WORK. 343 special Tone as now be the sun 1 beat" nust be lals, one smaller most in- [l these IS come lave now led the lent men. )m been ;sentation In 1887 a Lord idon from ngent. the first Vesleyan- It was o-ht that U('.\rit)N.\l. NVOUR. 345 given. to Ix dinary ts sail, to scml pounds :)n anil sixteen added and one -ij^hteen ry. "Is ig us Ol- id reph-. y a n d e looked nc Flng- love and uld have words so often leir life- lath God t e s t a n t Iver seen Ision, and •angelical lipiscopal inters and and had ,'ery three charactei Ivilization, [ling soon •crse now happen. 'V,\kc from the ILngu h world what is truly traceable directly to " The (ireat Revival " and th : jf)y and strength of the land would be gone. Wesley began with a group eijual to the fingers of his hand, lie died at the head of tuf hundred and fifty traveling preachers and one hundred and forty thousand nieiiibers. (We here, for the first time, include those of the L'.iited States.) At the Cen- tenary these figures had increased about tenfold. At the end of still another generation, 1886, there were nine hundred and thirty-(jne thousand fdur hundred and fift)- Methodists in (neat Britain and Ireland, and four million in the world. The statistics )f to-da)' will be gix'cn in another j)lace. Having thus set forth the Story of Methodism in the land of its origin we pro- pose to tell of its career in (nir own country, one" neart r and not less enter- taining. In 1863 the Jubi- k\- of the Foreign Missionary Society was celebrated, when about five hundred thousand dollars were ijixen to extend Methodism in foreign lands. In 1878 la)men were first admitted into the Conference during one third of its sessions and the change was made with not ;i ripple in the harmony of the society. A Thank Offering Fund was commenced to testify ihc joy of all concerned. That fund totaling nine hundred ;iik1 fifty-five thousand dollars was appropriated to the removal uf obligations then existing on all the leading agencies of Methodism. feiilife REV. WII.I.IAM MORl.F.V Pl'NSHON, I.L. L). TlLANSITION. THE LANDING AT SAVANNAH, {From a rare print.) EN. OGLETHORPE, in '733. founded Savan- nah. He revisited England and returned to Savannah in '735. accompanied, as we have seen, by the Wesleys as missionaries. On the island of St. Simons, the most charming off the coast of Georgia, Gen. Oglethorpe had in 1735 set Fredrica, the Cap- ital of his Colony. He there built of bricks brought from England a chapel for the Episcopal service of his vice- regal court and framed his manners and his worship after the stately model of England. To-day the chapel stands rebuilt after its former Gothic style and in its walls are seen those English bricks built in with bricks molded of Ameri .an clay and tempered with American fire. Near the entrance stands a live oak, that noblest tree of our southern savannas, its mighty limbs flush with sap and copious in verdure. Under this same green island in the air, John Wesley preached his first sermon in America. The young chaplain had fair hearing from his courtly audience, but in his heart were working those Moravian influences and suggestions, gained on shipboard and destined to afifect his character and career. That chapel, partly English and partly American, that live oak, green and even broader with the years, are after a century and a half touching symbols and memorials of the first contact of Meth- odism with America. It was but a contact. When the mighty truths then struggling in the chaplain's heart had gained the mas- tery and had subdued other hearts to vigorous co-working, when the fulness of time had come, Methodism came for more than contact, came to stay. (346) THE STORY IiN AMERICA. - ^ ■ -. • ■. '■• ■ ''.■•■ ff^K: ■ '^\li^^,Vr*' • _,,- — , ' '' Ms:- . FRANCIS ASBURY. Second Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church. (From the Engraving by A. H Ritchie.) ch,\pii:k wvii. FiKsi Things. 2^' Y liis revocation of the Kdict of Nantes (jjjrantin;^ t<> the Protestants fair freedom) Louis XI\', that wretched King of I'Vance, drove from his land half a millicjn of its best j)eople. He now in like folly scat- tered his (jcrman subjects on the Rhine. Of these fugitives from their burning homes, about one hundred and ten families reached ^ Ireland and settled on the estates of oril Southwell, near Limerick. Of one of these milies, in 1728, Philip lunbury was born, hough on Irish soil, his early instruction was in LM-man by Gier, <^he school-master of Ballinga- ne. On Christmas day of his twenty-fifth year : writes: "The Lord shone into my soul by a impse of his redeeming love." This year, he r the first time saw Wesley. Embury became tiss-leader and local preacher, and supplied on ircuit the lack of itinerant serv'icc. He was diffident and melancholy. n the spring of 1760, Kmbiirj', at the head of a party of emigrants, left Limerick for New York. His parting words were in sermon and pra\er for those who had come from Ballingarane, sixteen miles avva)', to see the company start. The ship reached New York, Aug. 10, 1760. It had 350 THE STORY OF MF.THOniSM. brought Philip ICinbiir)- and Barbara llcck, liis cousiii. I''mbui'\ was an activo man and a skillful carpenter. He does not aopc^u as preaclicr until 1766. Some of their company were Methodists, but became cold and worldly by migration. Others came over, and on these, one of whom was her brother, Mrs. Heck was often calling. One day she found them playing cards. With majestic energy, she threw their cards into the fire, and earnestly set before them their duty and their error. She then hurried to Embury's bouse in Park place, and, reporting the case, urged him at once to utter the Word ear- nestly to save their own kindred. She would have him preach in his own house and without delay. She gathered four persons v/ho, with herself, were the first Methodist con- gregation in America. These five were framed into a class and met at his house weekly. Thus Barbara Heck was distinctively the first American Metho- dist, and Heck Hall, of the Garrett Biblical In- stitute, after more than a hundred years, was made her monument. Soon there were two classes of seven each. Three regi- mental musicians became exhorters and Methodist singing drew many to the meetings. Embury was invited to preach at the almshouse, where the superintendent and several inmates were converted ; and thus, in the infancy of our American Methodism, " the common people heard gladly" and " t.ie poor had the Gospel preached unto them." Soon a rigging-loft in \V-'!iams stieet — a room sixt)' feet by eighteen — was rented tor the preaching. PHILIP EMBURY FIRST THINGS. 551 Now Captain Wcb'u suddenly appeared. He was in uniform, with sword and belt ; and who could say that he had not come to order halt and dispersion? He devoutly shared their exercises. He was a soldier of Christ, a preacher licensed by Wesley. He had c Miie with his company to America, losing on his route his righ^ e at the siege of Louisburtj, and having also his right arm uou ... .d with Wolfe at Quebec. He had become a Methodist at Ikistol in 1765. At Bath, he had preached extempore to a con- gregation disappointed of its preacher. Thereafter he was an effective helper by his money, his preaching, and whatever his hands found to do. In Hath and Winchester, later ill tne Channel Islands, and now in America, he v/as 'ing suddenly from an injury, in '775, his grave is at Ashgrove, and its wordy epitaph suggests his virtues. Mrs. Heck soon removed with her family to Bay Quinte, Canada, where her descendants are still found. Robert Straw- bridge was every inch an Irishman, and not like Embury, a Ger- man, who took Ireland by the way, generous, fiery, rebellious and improvident. He came from Armagh to Fred- erick county, Mary- land, had preaching at his house, formed a society and built the "Log Meeting-house" on Sam's creek near CAPTAIN THOMAS WKBB, by. The cdificc had holes sawed out for door and windows, but the holes remained such He began in zeal and self-sacrifice to go out preaching and was reaching large throngs in the backwoods. In his absence his neighbors cared for his little farm. His little society at home produced five early itinerants. The first native American preacher, the first-born of so many faithful men, Richard Owen, was converted near Baltimore, and he proved a kindred spirit with Strawbridge, whom he aided and imitated and whom, in 1781, he followed with sorrow to his grave and preached his funeral sermon within sight of Baltimore, jy THE sroKV UK METHODISM. the city to which ho had been an apostle of Mcthochsni. Whin the war broke up the services of the regular clergy, Straw-bridge administered the sacraments independently, and uoulil not licid yVsbury's counsel. For this his name seems to have been dropped from the list of preachers. Asbury could not endure insubordi- nation. The little society in New York glowed with zeal. In 1768, they wrote to Wesley for "an able experienced preacher." For his passage money, "we will sell our coats and shirts to procure it." From their center, which they already felt to he metropolitan and even continental, " such a flame should soon be kindled as would never stop until it reachet! the great South Sea." Methodists in h>ng- land were in equal ardor of hope. " I make no doubt," wrote Perronet to Wesley, " that Methodism is designed to introduce the millennium." Two men, Williams and Ashton, could not wait for the regular routine. Wesley gave Williams authoritv to roiu.:kt stkaw.:kidge. ,^^.,j^ ^j^^, missionaries .'^oon to be sent; Ashton paid Williams' expenses, for he was poor, and they reached New York, in 1769, in advance of the missionaries. Ashton, an Irishman, (how these fiery Celts broke the way in so many places!) gave Embury valuable aid and spent his later years in Camden, where h^mbury had died. He left a fund for an annuity "to the end of time" to the oldest unmarried member of the New York Conference, which still provokes an annual smile. Williams was the apostle of Methodism in Virginia. He preached, in 1772, from the court-house steps, in Norfolk, so ««»>*% Kiksi' riiiNCJs. 35; Wlun \vV)rid^c (jt herd dropped subordi- cal. Ill •cachcr." shirts to ;lt to hc and even " svich .1 soon bt: )uld ncvcM- I reached uth Sea." in KnLi- in equal :opc. " 1 abt," wrote Wesley, hodism is ' introduce ium." Two 'ams and ould not he reguUu- cslcy c;avc uthority to issionaries "or he was mcc of the c the way in nt his Uitcr fund for an member of inual smile. rginia. He Norfolk, so l)lainly that none invited iiim home — and that in Virj^inia ! — for they thoui;lit him insane. On his second j)reachin^, they ihani^cd their mind and he formed the first Vir<.,n'nian societ)-. ICncouraged by Jarrett, an i'4)iscopalian, lie formed the first circuit in the state, and saw, as he traveled it, the conversion of Je.ssc Lee, the founder of Methodism in New iMiLjland. William W'attcrs, the first native itinerant, came to help Williams, who pressed on and became the apostle of Methodism in North Carolina as well as Virginia. He afterwards locatetl near Norfolk antl there died in 1775. Francis Asbury |)reachcd his funeral sermon and bore him full witness as "a pious servant of the Lord." " No man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this (lay. About this time, John King came from London and appeared, abrupt as an h^lijah, preaching in Potter's hield, now Washing- ton square, above the bones of paupers. His piety was so stamped upon his hearing that Henry IV)wman was convicted before the preacher had spoken a word. lie preached in Baltimore, at the corner of Baltimore and Calvert streets, on a " training-day." The crowd upset his table and threw him to the ground. King knew well his calling as follower of Wesle)' and Paul and did not shrink from their experiences. The commander of the troops took his part and he went on with his sermon, and King was, as other preachers had been, master of the field. He is regarded as the hero of Methotlism in Baltimore, seeing that he thus look the brunt of the introduction. So did it thrive in Ballimor" JOHN WILLIAMS. Pastor ( )liver Street Church, New York, 1798. ;l t> fl'kP,T THINGS. H^ that, in five years from King's ficlcl-day, the Conference was entertained there. He was once invited to preach in St. Paul's, an English (Episcopal; church, but his mighty voice and vigorous action " made the dust fly from the old velvet cushion," and he was not asked a second time. Wesley had tried in vain to mend King's elocution, " Scream no more at the peril of your soul. I often speak loud but I do not scream." But he says: "You are stubborn and headstrong. ST. GEORGE'S METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA, PA. You surely might take advice from your affectionate brother. ' John King went on "screaming." He died near Raleigh, N. C, very old, the last of all the ante-Revolutionary preach- ers, apparently not having " shortened his own life " by his screaming, as Wesley had feared. Thus six lay evangelists planted Methodism in America. They were Embury, Webb, Strawbridgc, Owen, Williams and King. And, first of them all, like Mary at the Saviour's tomb, was Barbara Heck. m 1. *;i'! ;i;; HH 1 i ■ M i MOUNl VKKNON I'LACE M. K. CHURCH, HAI.TIMORE. ^*it,»%i ( IIAl'lICk X.WIll. kK(il lAU W'oKK iiK(;iN. POX his return liomc, Wrangle, a Swedish clergyman, who had visited the Lutherans in IMiihiilelphia, met Wesley in London, and urjred the sendni^ of itinerants to .America. He even ur^ed two of his own converts to become Methodists, two )'oiin^ men who founded the \ew Church, be- haved in hfe hke David and Jonathan, and in death were not divided in burial under the Union Methodist Church. At his Twenty-sixth Conference, Wesley asked of his lieroes, "Who is willing; to i[o?" Richartl Hoardman and Joseph I'ilmoor responded. Their brethren, themselves mostly poor and hut scantily kept, i^ave two hundred and lift)' dollars to clear the two from debt anil one hundred dollars for their passage. In Leeds, where the first missionary orferint; of men and money was made, was afterwards formed that Wesleyan Missionary Society, of which we saw the abundant labor anil success from Hudson's Hay to the Cape of Good Hope. These ^ood men did not an- swer Wesley at once. The enterprise was too serious. When, the next day, they consented, it was with minds prepared. Hoardman had seen six years of Si)artaii discipline under Wesley, and had faced accidents by flood and ileld. On the coast of Flint, he found the rocks impassable, a snow storm hin- dered him on the sands and a heavy tide cauiiht him from the ■( i62 tHE STORY OF MKTHODI^M. sea. Only the way to heaven seemed opened. At the last mo- ment a boat rescued him. It was at almost his last sermon in England that Mar)' Redfcrn was converted, who, as we saw, be- came the mother of Jabez Hunting, the name of her eminent son being taken from the sermon's wcll-remembercd text. Boardman was thirty-one. His noble wife had just died. Pilmoor was younger. Their voyage was rough and they were nine weeks in reaching Philadelphia. The good Wrangle had written his two converts to welcome them. Pilmoor found Captain Webb and a hundred Methodists in the city, and at his first sermon five thousand hearers on the race- course were " still as night." White fie Id. now on his way to die at Newbury port, gave these men his blessing, and they entered upon a work which his won- derful labors had done much to prepare. Boardman hastened to New York, preaching at Trenton on the way. Ho wrote to Wesley : "Our house contains about seven hundred. A third of those at- tending get in ; the rest are glad to hear without. Such a wil- lingness to hear the Word I never saw before." Giving four ser- mons a week and ample other labor, he received his board, and fifteen dollars a quarter for clothing. John Mann, one of his first converts, afterwards preached at John Street during the war, and then had a long ministry in Nova Scotia. Boardman was four years in New York, exchanging often with Pilmoor and makin^^ txcursions for preaching. In one of these he reached Boston, where he formed a society in 1772, seventeen years before Lee's sermon on the Common. klCHARU iJOAkDMAN. tifeciri.AK Work Ut;(;uK. J^3 Pilmoor f«)uiul in Philadelphia an effectual door, and amid tender and tearful thoughts of ICngland he declares, "Our coming has not been in vain. The Lord is pleased to advance His King- dom. If two of our brethren would come over it would be a great blessing, and we shall gladly provide for them." He was in his excursions preaching to the French refugees at New Rochelle. A Mrs. Deveau had, in an illness, dreamed of being lost in a tangled wilderness. Faint and despairing, she saw a stranger coming with a light, and he led her out safely. At the Deveau house, Pilmoor found a little company, but a clergyman present forbade his preaching. From her sick-bed, Mrs. Deveau caught a glimpse of Pilmoor's face. It was that of tiie stranger in her ihcam ! She begged him to preach, and found peace under the sermon. The village JOSEPH PILMOOR. was moved, and here was formed the third society in the State, following John Street and Ashgrove. It was one of Asbury's pleas- ant wayside homes (he had no other), and from it came the Disosways and other worthy Methodists. Pilmoor went south as far as Georgia, tasting perils of travel and violence of mobs, but always cheered with success. In 1771, Wesley again asked for volunteers in the American work. Five offered; two were chosen, Francis Asbury and Rich- ard Wright. Of Asbury, our Story will long be telling. He was the only child, after the death of a sister, in the house of a comfortable farmer in Staffordshire. .^, 1: i »■ A,»' "■3*>ii \:Ji^ i '^'>i. 364 I'llH SiORV OF METHODISM. The lad, at scxin, was piously iiiciniccl, and ri'ad -tvith pleas- ure " the historical parts" of the Hiblc. iM'fected i:\' the conver- sation and prayers of a pious man, the boy .^ fourteen ,vns prayer- ful and ^race was stirring within him. He heard preaching at the residence of Lord Dartmouth, whose seat was m tliat neigh- borhf)od. Not far away was that VVednesbuiy, where we saw tin Wesleys and the Methodists for a week at the mercy of a mob. Their houses were wrecked and pillaged ; themselves, men ami women, knocked down and maltreated, and Wesley's life put in peril. Asbury asked his mother, "Who and what are these Meth- odists?" She sent him to Wednesbury to see fv)r himself. He found them such as his soul longed f o r — the ideal of Christian peo- ple. Their dex'out kneel- ing, their saying Amen, their preaching and pray- ing "without a book," t h e i r h e a r t y s i n g i n g, seemed to him so beauti- ful, and his heart said: "This people shall br iny people!" He grieved that his convictions were not deep and violent, but krancis asbury, at thk age of twenty-six. h t fo u n d p e ace while (From the portrait recovered by Dr. Roberts.) nravlM"' in his fithi'l' s barn. He quietly began public labors and was soon a 1 )cal preacher, and at eighteen was preaching as many as five times a week, besides work at his calling. At twenty-one he began to itineiate, and after five years of hard service was named for y\mcrica. A classical student might safely call Asbury a modern, a Methodist Hannibal. He wa.s severe and self-denying, never surprised, afraid or discouraged. Physical toil and hardship li ul no terror for him. Hewa^ ,dways on the move ; he read men quickly, and easily won and controlled tempers as diverse as those of Hannibal's Iberians and Numidians. That poor, blind phrase, " personal magnetism," if it means anything, cor.ld be applied to bin": He had the strength, activity and grace cf the C:irth.;iginia:'., KE(;ULAK WORK BEGUN. 36s , pleas- convei- praycr- :hinir at t nci^^h- saw ihf f a mob. nen atul e put in se Meth- sclf. He :h as his f o r — the tian pco- )iit kncel- ig Amen, and pray- a book," singing, so bcauti- eart said: shall be e grieved ctions were iolent, but ace whiU; is father'-^ )n a 1 >eal \ve times a c began to named (>'!■ a modern, ying, never rdship had c read men -rse as those lind phrase, c appli'^'-^ ^^ -....fUjwviiv.an, ELIZABKTH ASBURY, MOTHER OK FRANCIS ASBURY. ami his high, m.uily beauty, until lime and toil had dealt upon him. This was the tireless man who was to be the Wesley of America. Wright made little mark in this countr)' and bis name se)on \anishes from all records. " The brave man is frightened only after the danger," but Asbury felt the weight of his task as ^^i-^ few men c;m feel. Mis strength la}- in the nature 'i/|j^--^^ of his errand. " I am go- ' ' ing to live to (iod and to bring others to tlo so." In that temper he landed at Philadelphia and im- mediately his word was with power. y\t his coming there were in the colonies six hundred Meth- utlists and ten preachers. St. Georgo's, where he, on the evening of his landing, heard Pilmoor preach, had been built Dy a German society, but at Captain Webb's instance had been bought, in 1770, for the Methodists. This " old cathedral," for fifty years the Methodist church in America, stands venerable with sacred as- sociations, among more than three-score and ten that have risen up around it. No branch of the Church in the Quaker City has grown like the Methodists, to whom now belong more than a sixth of its houses of worship. Wright went to Maryland, and among his warm helpers were HOME OF ASBURV'S YOUTH. (From a photog aph.) mi^ffr^ "NIBKH 366 THE STORY OF METHOmSM. those Bayards, one of whom, in this generation, after succeeding his father in the United States Senate, is now Secretary of State Asbury went rorth, preaching; at Hurlin^ton and resting a few days with I'eter Van Pelt, on Staten Island. His heart grew larger. " I believe (lod hath sent us to this country." It was no small thifi;; to plant Methodism on tin; pleasant island, when now, on its little area of ' ne forty stpiarc miles, are at least four thriving Churches. Van iClt, \\'ri<;ht and Disosway, at who-^f houses Asbury preached, Ixcame firm Methodists. Israel Disos- way was the first class leader, his barn shelteretl the first quarterly MANWOOI) eoiTAGli, llANDSWOKTH, S I At KORDSHIRK. KNOLANU. (In which Ashuiy beg:!!) his Itinerant Ministry.) ^^:.. meeting, and from his woods came the timbers of the first church Entering New York, " Now I must watch and fight and pr»\ Lord, help !" as Tancred liad said, on entering as crusader the Holy Land. He found the cities comfortable and "the back woods" rough. Vhv preachers were inclined to settle in the cities, and averse "to circvdate." lie was at once "dissatisfied" at having the brethren " shut up in cities for the wint, he went back to push things at Philadelp la " I hope that se^< n REGUT.AR WORK RKGUN. 367 receding f State •esting :t art grew [t was no id, when: least foiir at who 11 id Disos- quarterly irst church it and pr->> rusadcr the ' the back ttle in the issatisfied " intci." "1 al, he would nd the city, n the spring, that se^ n THE OLD LIGHT STRKET PARSONAGE, BALTIMORE. preachers of us will spread over seven or eight hundred miles." He soon had the Philadelphia circuit, reat liing north to Trenton, and soon, between the James and the M nelson, was a net-work of appointments m which he was preaching three times a day, and the large desires of his heart were satisfied. Pil- moor went as far as Sa- vannah. Now, at twenty-seven, Asbury was made, by Weslcx', his American superintendent, in charge of all Churches and ap- pointments, subject to Wesley alone. His j)ecu- liar career now began. He took for himself a circuit of six couitties (to-day) south of Philadelphia, visiting men and places already named, and at " Pveshurg's," in Christ»\\.\s week, of 1772, held his first Quarterl)' -practicalh \nnual — Conference. Its proceedings were brief I he pyeachers agreed to abide by Wesle>''s rules. Asbury was averse to giving the people the sacraments, but, of his five minis- ters, three were influenced by the pleadings of the people. " I was obliged to connive at some things for tlic sake of peace," writes Asbury, quietly. With the new year he made Haltimore his heatl- (juartcrs — i. e., the place of his departures. Here again a sai'-loft served for the third time as the dwelling-place of Methodism. Acbury's next task was discipline. He saw Bahim»>'-^^ \v ^s to bv a great center and he wished there m exemplary peopK Ht ^' be th.' head of the Methodist column. He relied on conf(>rmit\ v> -^uc as the swurcc of lasting strength And peavc. H 'ouno hi*- people meeting as they chose, regard- LOVfaiH ..ANb M. E. CHUKv H HALTIMORE. 368 THE srokV OK METHODISM. less (»f liinc, niiinbcrs, or Icatlcrship. lie sdoii made of an earn- est crowd an effective army. Two churches compete for |)riorit\' in Baltimore. One is on Strawberry Alley, Fells' Point, where a warm Irishman, Captain I'atten (Irishman ever at the front!), oi)ened his house for As- bury's first sermon. It afterwards fell to a coloretl con^ret^ation, The other, in Lovely Lane, was later begun, hut, apparentlw earlier finished. Asbury laid the first stone in Strawberry y\lk:\' in November, 1773, and that of its fair-named consort six montiis later. Captain Webb preached the first sermon. • Thus a dwell ing place was found for Methodism in the Monumental City three years later than in IMiiladelphia and five years later than in New \'ork. Its relative growth was much greater, and Baltimon might almost be called the Metli odist City. More churches in proportion to its population arc there found than in any otlui- American city, and of these about .1 third are Methodist, being more ihan twice as many as those of any other order. Methodism (piickly had wide and firm footing in Maryland Asbury's discipline was like that of a general in the presence of an encm\ , but all, from slaves to governors, were glad of his com- ing, heard him with delight and encouraged his work. To-day, the first church, with the finest edifice in America, is the lineal descendant of that chapel in Lovely Lane. "I'^irst,' it may wcH be called ! It gave Baltimore its first Suiidav school, its first free school; its first colored church, and Us first home for the aged, and it sits in motherly love, with tiv woman's college by its side, among churches of its own planting. After a Cunfero^ce, Marcli 1773, he went northward. His preachers were good men, but were not on his scale. \oi e < f them had his order of conquest, (?r appreciated his s'^ r" r ' s ili tary disoipiine, so needful in an enem)''s countr}'. * 1 lo\ li v n THOMAS RANKIN. '4 ,o:^/"Vn i,Or:,.'=i§ Kr.(;i'i,.\R WORK iiK(;u.\. 369 in carn- nc is on Captain for As- rc^alion. parent!)', ry vMlcy c nionlii^ 1 a cIwhH ^ity three ladclphia m in New owtli was I It i ni < "■ < ' the Mcth urches in ilation arc any other licsc abont )cin<^ tnorc s those (it y had wide Maryland. like that encc of an his coni- Ameiic.i, "iMrst," st Sui'.d;!\ :h, and its e, with th' n planting';. ward. His Noi e ' f ;•,: r :< .s-th • 10V"i'' • V 11 %r but he was anxious. ()nl\' stout Captain Webb seemed to have .1 heart for the hour. It looked as if poHtical causes might make llie work still more trsini^. Captain VVel)b went, in 1772, to Knj^land, and Wesley heard him. " Hi" was all lifi- and fire." He told his tale of victory in \inerica and 1 ailed for recriuts to stretch a longer line of battle. lie asked foi Benson and Hopper, the top of the Conference; he got Rankin and .Shadford. Kankin was a .Scotchman, and had seen at Dunbar the Meth- iidists of Haini's old regimiMit in l*"landers. He heard Whitefield ill lulinbur[^li, and was soon passing through those deep spiritual ( xperiences of which our Story has so often told. A lady saw his tears at his conversion and tenderly asked the cause. He told her they were tears of joy ! .She herself burst into weeping, and his wDrds guided her to h is joy. Aided by Maine's dragoons, who came to be stationed near Edinbu rgh, he ivas soon thinking: " I :ould lay down my life, ' ^ if I might be instru- I mental in sou ruin." He had now ten years of itinerancy, had faced mobs and stones, had been tiained by Nelson, had become true and tried. Shadford was a man of another style, born flush of spirits and mischief, and weak of conscience. He was held to Church usages, to prayers, catechism and confirmation. At sixteen, on taking his first acrament, he began to have deep, spiritual exercises, but he had no guide and made no progress. He became the athlete of his town, full of lite and fire. Then he wvMit soldiering for a year, ;iiid heard and deeply felt his first Methodist sermon. On his re- turn he, in much and various struggling, came to Christian peace, and began an active Christim life. His father was converted, hut feared lest his son's words to h's customers might ruin tl'e trade of their shop. " Father, let i.s trust Cod atui do our dut)' !" hi tv\elve months the\' had more busii ess than e\er, ;.nd his a4 saving one from everlasting A BETHEL MEETING AT NIGHT. i-t-i'T'i.'v..; 370 THE STOKV OF MEIllODISM. father came into perfect light. Becoming a preacher, he di '«metl that he was to preach in a foreign land Six years later his dream came true, and the words remembered from it, " Fear not, for I am with thee," rang fresh and timely in his ear. It was a goodly com- pany that sailed from Peel, on Good Friday, and came to Phila- delphia, June 1 , 1 773. Besides the two itinerants, of whom Weslc)' said, "I turn you loose on the great continent of America," there were Captain and Mrs. Webb, a local preacher and other passen- gers, and the vessel, like so many thus furnished, was a floating Bethel of prayer and praise and blessing. Arriving, Shadford went to New Jersey, Rankin to New York, Webb to Albany. They were warmly greeted and instantly began to gather sheaves from fields white with harvest. ifi'*&,flj CHAPTER XXIX. First Tm.NCis and Rising Heroes. HILAUELPHIA was the place where the First Conference was held, in the niicklle of July, 1773. Its ten members were Europeans, Wil- liam Watters, the first American itinerant, and Philip Gatch, the second, not yet appearing. J The members of classes were one thousand and one hundred and sixty ; about half of these being in Maryland and Philadelphia and New York, having one hundred and eighty each. Many more had joined the societies, but not the classes, for the Wesleyan pattern was not readily adopted in this country. It even looked as if the itiner- ancy would have to give way to a settled pastorate, so did the larger societies wish the preachers to be permanent w ith them. Then there would have been no American Methodism. Of this lack of Wesleyan discipline, Rankin, at the Confer- ence, sorely complained. Some things went badly. Certain preachers wished to "abide in the cities and live like gentlemen. " "Money had been wasted and many of our rules broken." In truth, Wesley was too far away to understand precisely American needs and temper^. After our Revolution, he saw more clearly that submissiveness like that in England could not be had in this country. Thus the preachers v/ere not .diowed to ;idmin- ister the sacraments. This drove the people to ihe Engli»lt cltrgy, who were few, often bad livers, rarely devout, Strawbridge, seeing -^ i-:M. .\7^ 'IIIK MoUN n\' MKl llohlsM. Hi Hi i IE. this, ivonlil L,'iv<.; his pooplc the sacranunts in Man'lativl and V'irj^inia. lie was iinpatiml, biil he was nioxin^ in the lij^lit direction, and was not torbitldcn. Robert Williams was now the personal " liook Concern," as Coke was the personal Missionary Societ)-. He was rcprintini;- Wesley's works and doin^' real j^ood. J lis work was approved and its profits were to be divided among the preachers or used in charity. In this humble way began those now immense Book Concerns of the various Methodist bodies of our land. Our first native itinerant, Watters was sent to New Jersey circuit. ']"he cloud of war was now rising, and all the preachers but one were born in Ivngland. They were presumed to be "royalists." Boardman and Pilmoor quietly retired to England. Twenty years later, Boartlman quietly finished his course at Cork. Pihiioor gave up the itinerancy after ten years more service in iMigland. He then became an I'^piscopal rector in Philadelphia, where lie died in 1 825. He never lost his Methodist heart or speech. Asbury and others were welcomed to his pulpit, and he lived and labored in perfect charity and reasonable fellowship for the people whom he had helped to plant. We saw how the strongest, though strictly the foremost, man among our American founders was the noble Captain Webb, liritish soldier though he was, he staid here until the storm of war was in full rage. He then returned to I^ngland and fixed his home it Portland. His old age was such as was comely, ift r a career so good as his. He labored for twenty years among soldiers and sailors and P'rench prisoners, preaching also to large audiences of c tizens, .Ttiil in uniform and scarred with honorable wounds. He bJieved that an angel had covered his head in battle and snatched h-m from all perds in peace, so that it was his special duty to give to Hum, who had so sent the angel, the life so rescued and sus- tainecL He gave nearly all his income to benevolence. His last ■«rmt'»n was in Portland Chapel, at Bristol, a beautiful one, which he largely aided to bu' \t seventy-two, he was as active as m*>"-T mei!i at fift}" amd fuil of cheer and joyous hope. Dec. 21, i/.jiD, he suddenl} changed worlds, ivith no dwindling or decay. He took supper, sprnl a i liecrful evening, lay d(jwn at ten, and before eleven was luTi' Mo IMnie. " Tlie wheels of life sf/;/f/| sf|||," His epitaph i: lu marble within llu: Portland Cli.ipel. " lirav^ *ifcl Mksr iiiiNcs AM) kisiNc iiKk()i;s. h7?> vl and : right rn." as irintiiv,; iprovcil used in c Book ' Jersey reachcrs d to be ui inland, at Cork. :rvicc in adelphia, heart or t, and he wship for ost, man Webb, m of war lis home a career Lliers and iences of inds. IK- snatched ityto i^ivc and sus- His hist ,ne, which active as Dec. 21, or decay. It ten, all"! " Ikav" active, coura^eou.s — faithful, zealous, successful," all these his record in America proves true. William Watters, the first native itinerant in our country, had come to his place through a series of experiences like those already so often rehearsed. The self-same spiritual exercises pro- iluced the self-same preachers. He was born in Maryland, the sunny land of early Methodism, where he was reared in '.he usages of the luiglish Church. He was always faithful in using his prayer-book, but he had no living guide. The clergy about him were immoral men, too blind to lead the blind. Watters was "^^^gfT CAPTAIN WLBB CONDUCllNG A METHODIST SKKVILK.. reckonetl "a good Christian," for he was icgular at church, with his prayer-book under his arm. He Himself did not (|uite think so. Soon "the preachers" came around. Some of Watters' friends (among them his own brother) \vhom he thought "as good Christians as an\- in the world," were converted and declared they had never until now knnvvn what " h' art religion" w.is ! This Hurpriwrd mul ronfoiiiided him. Ihen In uint lo ii piijirr- in(M v^> ^9, V * "^ ^ ^.^ -■ ;■■ ■"■ - ■■--'- '■ ■ - ■■ - '-'- ^ ' • ^ ^ .V' ti;k story of .mimiiodism. awakened you." That night, awaking from bad (h'cams, he saw by faith the Saviour with outstretching arms, saying: " I died for you ! " He rose, weeping for joy, and, " Hght as a bird," he caUcd up his family to prayer and then went to tell " what a dear Sav- iour I have found." His words had various effects, and he was reported " raving mad.' A clergyman tried to free him from " these delusions of the devil." " He ma)- be right," thought Abbott, and took it to the Lord in prayer. " The Lord said In me, ' Why doubt of Christ ? Have you not felt his blood applied ? " ' .Vbbott sprang up, crying: " Not all the devils in hell shall make me doubt! " Clouds and darkness now vanished, and lie entered tijion his Christian career rejoicing like a strong man to run a race A strange trial soon met him. He dreamed that the preacher who had brought him to Christ had turned to sin, a fallen, ruined man ; and so it proved. Abraham Whitworth has the sad place of the first apostate of the American Methodist ministry. He had come from England by the same ship with Rankin and Shad- ford, h. d labored well and brought Abbott into the Kingdom, and then himself became a castaway. He entered the British armb- and nothing more is said of hini. His fall was a distress to . Vbbott. "What, then, will become of me?" This word came: " Cursed is he that putteth his trust in the arm of flesh." He saw that his own salvation did not tlepend on another man's standing or falling. Whitworth nas expelled, but .Abbott, the fruit of his labor, took his place. Under Gatch's preaching, Mrs. Abbott and si.x children were converted within three months. iiXbbott's first sermon was at a neighbor's funeral, and it at once appeared what manner of man he was. He vvas half lanil) and half lion. He knew the ways of the worst men. Out of liis own consciousness he knew that something tender, longing anri spiritual may lie dormant under the rudest surface, and he was skillful in touching that one lead of possibility. And now Methodism in New Jersey had in Abbott its first native itinerant. No man did more for it in the state, and it is comely that his grave at Salem be visited by its thousands, who think of his character and his labors. " Sleep on, thou Prince of Dreamers ! " said one at Bunyan's tomb, and the words may be repeated at the grave, in Salem, near a church edifice of the people of his love. FIRST TlILNwS AND RlSi.NC HEROES. in Another preacher from Maryland now appears, " Honest, simple Daniel RulT," converted at Havre dc (iracc i:i 1771, took for his first circuit tiie state of Delaware and Chester county. He was the first "native pastor" at John Street. His higher fortune was that his ministry brouj^ht conversion and the itinerancy t(^ Freeborn Garrettson. After the Conference of 1773, Rankin went out to his work like a giant refreshed with new wine. In Maryland, at the Wai- ter's homestead, he says: "I had not seen such a season as this since I left my native land." Boardman and Pihr.oor, now about to sail for England, aided him, and he spent four months alternately in New \'ork and Philadelphia, and wide circuits around the cities. Shadford, as was said, alternated in m a n n e r corresponding. He was the most ^elf- distrustful of men, "un- worthy to preach the Gospel to a polite and sensible people." Christ alone was magnified in the preaching, and in his first year in this countr)' about two hundred were added to the :>ocieties. Asbury went to Baltimore. He found the little society; he was sick with fCver and ague, so that his twenty-four appointments nti Mie Baltimore circuit, where he sometimes preached four times ill a day, were heavy for him. The forming of new societies was often perplexing work, but his spirit was usuall\- free and joyous. Hi'sides his own, there were in the city a Romish, an ICpiscopal, a Lutheran and a Quaker Church. Of tliese, the h^piscopal, dating from 1744, was the oldest. A new Lutheran. Church was now formed, and a devout friend of Asbur}-, Otterbein, became its pastor. He was a good helper to Asbur\', and twenty years later he founded the United Bretiiren, w ho are far more Methodistic JOHN STREET CHURCH, NEW YORK CITY. (As Rebuilt.) m r ;_ ''if i ,Lk. 378 THE STORY OF METHODISM. than Lutheran. A son of one of Otterbein's preachers was Henry Boehm, long in our day a survivor of those men who toiled in the forest primeval. Soon we find Asbury's circuit divided into four, such had been the growth of the work luider him, his local preachers and exhorters. Five chapels were building, and he left at the end of his year, 1 774, thirty societies in Maryland, with ten hundred and sixty- three members, of whom more than half were this year's gainings. Maryland was now the center and seed-bed of Methodism. Wright had built the first Methodist chapel in V i r g i n i a — Y e a r ga n ' a Chapel — the farthest ad- vance of Methodism southward, and he was planning another — Lane's Chapel — in Sussex coun- ty. Williams, laboring with Jarratt's help and symi)athy, gathered this year in the region from PetersburjTh into North Carolina, two hundred and eighteen members, among whom was the Lee family , which gave usjcsse g;L'.-..u^v^ MllPllilillli I f^Ki:-' ^^.-^^^ ..^>j^^^ Lee, the founder of New REV. w. OTTERBEIN. England Methodism. This same year was the date of the conversion of Freeborn Garrettson — conspicuous for half a century among the men and events of the Church. CHAPTER XXX. Up to the Revolution. ERY good effects appeared from Rankir.'s firm and careful discipline, when on May 25, 1774, the Second Conference met in Philadelphia. There had come regularit\- and harmony of action, which gave a feeling of strength. There had also been an increase of numbers. Yet Rankin had the faults generated in a land of obedi- ence, and he could not adapt himself to the peculiar freedom of Americans. His official dignity and his air of authority were in marked contrast with the easy bearing of Asbury, who learned to rule in fact and spirit, without seeming to the eye to rule at all. Yet all the session was in love and peace. The additions to the societies had been over a thou- sand in ten months, thus doubling the number at the beginning. In the five Middle States were ten circuits with seventeen preach- ers. More than half the whole denomination were in Maryland. and thus the center of the nation was firmly occupied. At this Conference, the itinerancy was even intensified. No preacher was to labor more than half a year on the same circuit, and the preachers at New York and Philadelphia were to inter- change quarterly. Each itinerant was to own the horse provided by his circuit, and to receive sixty-four dollars a quarter, besides traveling expenses. There was to be an Easter collection for ;8o Tni-: STORY OF MKTIIODISM. debts and deficiencies. Rankin, who "traveled at larjije," was to be paid by any circuit which he mi^ht at any time be helpin^^. After Conference, Asbury was sick in New York. No trial could be more trying than weakness now. The people were so anxious to hear, and he so little able to preach, ihat he could hut ask, "If I am the Lord's, why am I thus?" In John Street there was discord among the members, and a serious discontent with discipline. " My soul longs to fly to God, but he that believeth shall not make haste." Soon all came right in the society ; new helpers came from England and Asbury went to Philadelphia. In the early spring he went, still feeble, to Baltimore. " Here are all my own with increase," he writes with joy, and he is sure that it is the Divine will that he now be with this people. "The Lord will yet raise up for himself a large society in Baltimore." Asbury now gave good proof of prudence and foresight, in view of the rising war. Rankin was alarmed. He saw everythin^f with straight, luiglish eyes, and to him ruin to the colonies and disaster to Methodism. Asbury had the vi'iion of Adams and Jefferson. He said nothing, but he saw far and hopefully, and he made all haste to put Methodism in a shape to stand the storm and reach safely the quiet water that he saw in the smiling distance. The providence of God worked with him. The preachers, like the Apostles, found that not many wise, or noble, or wealthy were called by their preaching, but some were called. Henry Dorsey Gough, son-in-law of Governor Ridgeley, was one of the wealthiest men of the colony. His wife had heard preaching with deep concern, but he forbade her hearing a second time. In a gay revel he went with his company to hear Asbury, and under the word came deep conviction. "What nonsense!" said one of the triflers. "No, no! What we have heard is the truth, the truth as it is in Jesus." He assured his wife of his consent to her hearing the Me*-hodists. The world lost all its charm, and he thought of suicide. One evening, as he rode away alone, he heard praise and thanks- giving from a company of his slaves. He was all the more broken in spirit that they should be so much more blest than he. Return- ing, sadly, he retired to a chamber and begged for mercy, and so asked that he received. Coming to his family and a company of guests, he told them joyfully, "I have found the Methodists' ? »■ s * 1 f" ■ I ur TO nil': uKvni ition. 3Hl :, was 1(1 clping. No trial c were so could but treet there ntcnt witli t believelh :iety ; new ,'lphia. In lore are ,ill sure that it 'The Lord re." oresight, in everything olonies and Adams and ully, and he d the storm ng distance. achers, hkc wealthy were dgeley, was had heard ns a second ear Asbury, nonsense ! " leard is the wife of his lost all its and thanks- nore broken le. Return- ercy, and so cornpan}' of Methodists' hKssing; I havt found the Methodists' (iod ! " Henceforth, l*erry llall, his residence, twelve miles from l^allimore, became a resting- place and a preaching-place for itinerants. It was one of the finest ill the land, and its inmates, servants and all, were near a hundred. Gough built a chapel, the first in America that had a bell, and to this his household were morning and evening called for worship. On Sunday there was preaching. What was cjuite as Ltfective was that the mansion had an atmosphere as devout as the scat of Lady Huntingdon or Lord l^artmouth in iMigland. Here caiiK" the aristocracy of l^altimore to the elegant hospitality of the Hall; yet, at the sound of the bell, none could be so rude as not to gather v.-iih their host at the chapel. If no other could serve as chaplain, Mrs. Gough herself crved, reading, giving her colored people a hymn ajid then leading in prayer. "Take her altogether, fc^v• such have been found on earth." Her only sister and her only daughter were devoted Methodists. Gough, about 1800, had a season of darkness, but was restored, and, aftei great liberality ami usefulness-, went to his home on high. He was chief of Methodist la\men for many trying and weary years. Rankin records this year his most wondro.is sense of the Divine presence since his coming to this country. It was at Wat- tors' at a quarterly meeting. The preachers could not preach. They could only say : "This is the house of God ; this is the t;ate of heaven ! " If one arose to praise or testify, he was over- come and sat down silent. Rankin arose, and, pointing to the negroes who crowded the rear, said : " See how many Africans stretch out their hands to God ! " As he spoke, the house seemed to shake with power and glory, and many were overcome, even to faintness. For three hours the breath of the Spirit was on the people — a pure, silent, overpowering influence. So the Holy Ghost prepared the souls of men by deep experiences for the times of sifting soon to come under the shock of war. New laborers were rising, but the service was severe. The preacher had to be strong of limb and hardy of frame, as well as warm of heart and clear of brain, The feeble fell out by the \va\-side ; only those marched on who were uncommonly strong and resolute. They had to remain single ; the circuits were unable to support families, and marriage, unless the preacher had I ii\atc means, made location necessary. [it! 1 1''" II [.'I 3S2 THF. STORY Of MF.THOnrSNt. Gatch, ill Dclavvare, saw trying times, such as our Story ha? told in England. He had to take the place of the fallen Whit worth, and to gain the confidence of the public which the apostate had betrayed. This sore task was made the sorer by violent pi 1- secution. There was one Kain, a clergyman, who, when Gatch came to preach within his parish, proposed to crush him ; ami ai this Gatch had warning. In prayer, Gatch was reminded of David and Goliath. When the hour of service came, Kain was on hand. "By what authority do you preach?" "l^y the authority that God gave me." "But why in St. Luke's parish?" "Heai, and then judge for yourself." Kain stood at Gatch's right-hand. The preacher was familiar with the prayer-book, took his text from it and 'took it with me through the sermon." This con- fused the "Parson." Kain spoke against extempore prayer. Gatch showed how Peter, sinking, did not go ashore for a prayer- book, but cried out instantly. Such discussion proved unpleasant to the parson and he quietly fell to the rear. By toil, hardship, and no little peril, Gatch redeemed the cir- cuit. At the end of the half-year he went to Frederick, where he had experience of cudgeling in the dark, and other ill usage; but the Word prevailed, and a hundred and sixty were added to the societies. Then a preacher, Ebert, in New Jersey, followed Whitworth to the bad, and Gatch went to repair the damage done by the sec- ond apostacy. Here, too, the wound was healed and fifty souls gathered. In such a disaster he had the gifts needed for relief, he was so persistent, wise and fearless. Abbott was in full movement. At Deerfield, a mob was pro- posing to tar and feather the first coming itinerant. Abbott v .is warned. " I thought it would be a disagreeable thing to have u\y clothes spoiled and my hair all matted with tar ! " But " I resolved to go and preach, if I had to die for it." In the prayer the power of God came down ; some fell, many wept, and the leader of the mob "had never heard such preaching since Williams went away, and so I came off clear." His own experien ,e grew deep and wide. At Salem, a Presbyterian elder asked him to preach "at my house." The elder and his wife were awakened, and people cried, and one fell. "Do you know what you have done?" asked he of the elder. "What have T done?" "You have opened your -'^*8;*S-*| UP TO I I IF. Ki:\ni,rTION. 3R: ir Story ha- fallcn Whii the apostate violent pei - when Gatch lum ; anil of led of DaviJ vas on hand, he authority 1?" "Hear, s ri^ht-hanil. ook his text " This cun- pore prayer. for a prayer- cd unpleasant iomed the cii- iderick, where ther ill usage ; ^vere added to red Whitworth ine by the sec- and fifty souls ded for relief, mob was pro- Abbott w as ng to have my iut " I resolved ayer the power e leader of the ims went away, rew deep and to preach " at ed, and people ; done?" asked ve opened your house to the Methodists, and, if a work of religion break out, your people will turn you out of the synagogue." "I will die for the truth." Hell Neck was such a place as its name might suggest. Ab- bott invaded it. "I have heard Abbott swear, and I have seen him fight. Now I will go and hear him preach," said a sinner tlu.rc. He was ct)n\erted, and had Abbott preach at his house. Abbott went preaching on the Neck ami won many souls. He was earnest and artless. His tender, simple appeals touched all luarts, and he well knew how bad and violent men can be touched. Ho was mobbed. At Mannington, one twice thrust his bayoncL by the preacher's ear, but he retreated, not the preacher. Removing his fam- ily to Salem, he notes a powerful work of >;race breaking out. Many of the conver- sions w e r e attended with remarkable cir- cumstances, such as noetled wise and tender treatment. He counted that these circumstan- ces were no proof of ' ''^ conversion. Distress is R^v. john dempster, d. d. no standard. If sin and guilt are removed and love enters the soul, that is enough. He always expected immediate results of con- viction and, usually, of conversion in his preaching. Of "demon- strations" he made no account, though no preaching was ever attended by so many, and notable, as his. Watters also speaks of his work in New Jersey at this time. "0 how sweet to labor where the Lord gives his blessing and sets open a door, which no man can shut ! " In Virginia, the numbers on the Norfolk circuit were nearly doubled in number, and on tht^ Brunswick rose from two hundred and twenty to a thousand. .5^4 rin: ^iokv mk .mi:i iiodism, \\\'sli'}-, tins yvAV, sciU iis it rriiits two rt'j^ulars, James Dcinp- sUt .111(1 Martin Kodda. 1 )(nii)slcr, a Scotchman, tr. lined at tli^ University of l.dinbnrL^h, had tra\eled Un )ears in J',n_i;land. l!i , health soon failed. lie married, and without ,L,M\'in|4 up the \\\ -,- Icyan doctrines, became a Tresbyterian pastor at I'lorida, X. N', His son, {\\v Rev. John Dempster, I). I)., ser\ed for half a centui\- the people from whom his father thus withdrew , and orj^anizKi the Theological Schools of lioston m-[d I'Aanston. Rodda could not let alone politics of the day, in which he took the Royalist sitle. He was oblitj[e(l to flee the couritry (and his escajje was narrovv) for ilistril>utin;4, as was belie\-ed, the Kind's proclamation. tilendeniiinn', who had come with these men, as a volunteer, soon left the Methodists. 'n .i little while, Asbur\' alone was K ft of the Englishmen. The rest had t;m of preachers there in custody. Mean- while his \iews of America grew wider and warmer. In 1777, lie lielieves " the Americans will become a free nation." Soon he sees " that independence will give the Gospel a free course through the land." His conti.'.ement at Judge White's was for five weeks close, anil for ele\en careful. Aftef rhat the little State was his prison For a year he preached among his neighbors, and. in 1779, held the Conference in his as)luiii. In the second year, Delaware was his circuit. Judge White's house being his usual shelter at night. Mrs. White, his hostess, was the true duplicate of Mrs. Gongh, at I*err)' HaK. Her husband was arrested for being a Methodist; but she clmiji to him, resisted the patrol who brandished their ully entered )dist heroes. 10 saddle for ; of the glow : \vc find the lained much ; he appears /ing policies , leaving tlu acher. leaves from home , enemy of the ence. Lord, rst views, but Ocith of alle- lall see that it ;\v fiercer, but uld not safely law are, ga\c rs. or conc- preacheil ai strates beiu;^ ce of men mi the Ciovernoi tody. Mean- In 1777, li>-' ." Soon he free course weeks close, as his prison. in 1779. 1>^"''' Delaware was lelter at night. Irs. Gough, at a Methodist; ludished their 390 THE STORY OF METHODISM. swords, followed to his place of confinement and, after five weeks, procured his release. She prayed with a company of soldiers just leaving their weeping families, she led the class, she did everything but preach ; and, even for that, she was ready and gifted. In everything she was worthy of her devout and gener- ous husband. In his retreat, Asbury won the regard of Richard Bassett, afterwards one of the franiers of the Unitetl States Constitution, United States Senator and Governor of Delaware. Calling on Judge White, Bassett saw Asbury and some preachers "in sable garments, keeping themselves aside." Mrs. White said : "They are Methodist preachers, some of the best men in the world." "Then I cannot stay here to-night." "You must stay ; they can^ not hurt you." Charmed at supper with y\sbury, Bassett had him as a gue&t at Dover. Soon, Bassett, with Mrs. Bassett, was a Methodist, ,\ life-long liberal supporter of the Church and even a local preacher. He was chief founder of Wesley Chapel, in Dover, and his three residences, at Dover, Wilmington and Bohemia Manor, were homes for preachers. This last, his country-seat, became another Perry Hall. His only daughter became ancestress of Thomas F. Bayard, now Secretary of State. Another of Asbury's friends in this close time was Judge Philip Bairatt. He now built Barratt's Chapel, and, in 1780, the Quarterly Conference was held in it. This was long the finest of our country chapels, and here Coke first met Asbury and began to frame the Methodist Episcopal Church. The very seat on which they sat is kept. Such were Asbury's friends and guardians in his confinement, if he is confined who has a State for his prison. One sees what the man must have been that he drew and held such friends. To him it was due that Methodism in those regions took such hold of the ruling cL sses, and that, even to this day, it is of such social position on the " Shores." For two years and a month, Asbury was in Delaware, which, we see, was not to him as Meschek and the tents of Kedar. He had shown himself in a character that none could longer doubt, a true preacher, faithful to his adopted land and serving its sacred interests. The native preachers now made him assistant or IN THE REVOLUTION. 391 superintendent in Rankin's place, and he is to be for a long time tlie hero of our Story. He now fully entered that course of min- isterial service by which he was to spread Methodism over the nation, and along the wide frontier keep it in even march with the nation's growth. His first journey was southward, where trouble had arisen about the sacraments. He Wiites, as ho makes his way among rocks, rivers and pathless woods : " I was tempted and tried in Delaware to prepare me for, and drive me to, this work." In ten months, during which he returned to New Jersey, and, for the first BARRATT'S CHAPEL, DELAWARE. time, saw Abbott, he traveled four thousand miles, over rudest roads, and averaged a sermon a day. In May of the next year, 1781, he started for the southern wilderness. "Greatly pleased I am to get into the woods, where, though alone, I have blessed company." Here and there among the Alleghanies, beyond the south branch of the Potomac, he found settlements where two or three hundred would gather to hear, and the mountains rang "with strains unknown before." At some German settlements he longed to have preachers of their own tongue, but in one place he tried his English before them, if perhaps they might get some crumbs of meaning. At Leesburgh 3Q2 THE STORY OV MF.TIIODISM. '. !l l.c held a Quarterly Coi'.forencc and then set out to return. Thus, for three \'ears, to \7^-\, Ih" was in constant motion. At lent^th. on the first )ear of peace, Wesley sent Dr. Col«' to America. He was conductinjj; service at Harratt's Chapel, when .\sbury came, and, U^Mn<; into the pulpit, embraced him, kissed him anil sat down by his side. No warrior ever gave warmer welcome to a reinforcement in the toil of battle. We have told of Coke. He hat! come as the first Protestant Bishop of the New World. As a grand and graduated English clergyman, he could not come until the war was over. He had now come to organizt- perpetual warfare and concpier the Union for Christ. /Xsbtiry greeted him as a very angel, bringing aiil and comfort. Rankin put on record his later experiences in this countrj'. and some of them arc interesting. When, in 1775, Congress ap- pointed a day of fasting, he preached in Maryland to a large gath- ering. " I tried to open up the cause of all our misery." He was the first to set forth " the dreadful sin of buj'ing and selling the souls and bodies of the poor Africans." He was glad to find hundreds of negroes among the converts in the great revival. He was in a strain of anxiety over the war. One day in August, 1777, at his quarterly meeting, he was told that a squad of militia were coming to arrest him. The\- came. He went on with his meeting, and, on rising from the first prayer, he noticed men and officers weeping. Under the preach- ing they trembled, and at last they departed, saying: "God for- bid that we should huit one hair of the head of such a minister!" That day Rankin had a strong impression that there had been a battle Two da\'s later an express came, telling of the battle of Long Island. He was alarmed and hastened to leave the country. In London, he served, after his return, for over thirty years, and was at the death-bed of Wesley. He had proved himself in this country to be a man needed in matter of discipline ; he had found things going loosely and had brought them to order. He yond that he was not a manager for America. He was so unable to understand Asbury's wiser views that his presentation of them to Wesley caused the latter to write to Asbury, recalling him to England. The letter never reached Asbury, and for the failure Wesley was afterward most thankful. In the absence of our English brethren, native preachers ■^vW'l m IN THE REVOLUTION. 393 were growing in power. In Maryland and Virginia, Walters was, in 1775, blest with conversions every week, though his circuit was (in the frontier, and his hardships many. On his Virginia circuit ;i hundred souls were added in six months. The next year he was on new ground in Herkelcy and Frederick counties. In 1777. he went to Brunswick circuit, the region of Jarratt's revival. Here he notes his first hearing of a Gospel sermon from a clergyman of the Church of England, M. Roberts, who afterwards became a I'resbyterian pastor. So VVatters labored and endured hardness luitil the end of the war. Hj then, for the sake of his family and his health, was obliged to locate. Not quite " locating " was it when he was still fdling regular appointments thirty and fort)' miles from home ! The most importa"t man who came to us during the war was Freeborn Garrettson. He was of an oltl and foremost Maryland family, and was strictly trained in the wajs o( the Church. He was early yearning over ques- tions of conscience and religion, on which none could give him light, and the message of the itiner- ants was to him a mystery. Its first effect was to induce him to lead a prayerful, tlevout life, "serving God privately!" He thought himself a Christian. He fasted, prayed, attended church and rebuked his neighbors. The second effect of the preaching. to which he could not choose but listen, was to shatter this self- confidence and show him that Christ must be his Saviour. Rid- ing home from a sermon by Daniel Rufif, he was deeply impressed that " fiotv is the accepted time." " I threw the reins of the bridle on the horse's neck, and, putting my hands together, said, ' Lord. 1 submit!' " " My soul wa^^ exceeding happy." Reaching home lie called his household together for prayer and praise. Soon followed a scene the like of which had not been seen in .'Vmerica. Standing in the midst of his household, bond and free, at family prayer, he pronounced his servants free, and knelt with tlu-m to pray to the Father of all. As did the deed, •' a divine METHODIST CHURCH AND ACADEMY, RHINEBECK, N. Y. (Built in 1833, largely by the elTbrts and contributions of Freeborn G.-irrettson.) ii Hi 1 M 1-p 394 THE story of METHODISM. sweetness ran through my whole frame." It was a great, brave thing for a young planter to do. and the Holy Ghost in his heart endorsed the deed. He now began to tell of Jesus, to exhort and form classes. He started upon a circuit, but returned to work in his own neighborhood. Here he was mobbed, and, on one occa- sion, he was beaten almost to death with a stick, by one of the magistrates of Queen Anne County, for no other offense than that of being a Methodist preacher. He was summoned to military drill, but, sitting on his horsr, he told his experience and exhorted a thousand people. He did not drill, but was fined twelve and a half dollars a year, which he was never asked to pay. Soon, Daniel Rulf took him upon a circuit, and his life-work then began. He went upon new ground to form a new circuit. As he went along, prayerfully, musing hen and where to begin, he came to a gate. " Turn in, this is the place to bo gin," was his inward im pression. The house wa^ an officer's, who, that day, held muster. He marched his troops. to the front of the house for the sermon, and his own son of thir- teen, Ezekiel Cooper, afterwards a prominent preacher, was con- verted. He went from circuit to circuit, and always had strength and victory. In North Carolina, he told his views of slavery and preached comfort to the slaves, pitying their sad case. He was threatened and interrupted. A man was shot for entertaining him, but he had attained the love that casts out all fear. The next year he was in Maryland, when the masses were thinking that jVIethociis^s must ])c TorieS. HflftUT) hJ^ colk'ague, ^as put in FREEBORN GARRETISON. IN THE REVOLUTION. 395 :, brave is heart ort anil work in le occa- j of the nan that is hoisr, perience ;housand not drill, Ive and a ar, which sked to ielRulf a circuit, ork then pnt upon rm a new nt alon^;, sing ho\v begin, ht " Turn ace to be ivvard im house \\''d\ ^lis troops- n of thiv- , was con- strength avery and He was lining him, The next king that •as put in Talbot jail, where he preached through the windows. After a while it was thought thi^t he might as well prerch outside of it, and he was released. The magistrate who had committed him. being sick, sent for Hartley. "When I sent you to jail, I was lighting against God ; pray for me !" He urged his family to be- come Methodists, gave them into Hartley's charge, and requested him to preach "at his funeral." June 24, 1778, he visited Asbury in his retrer.:; at Judge White's, and " had a sweet opportunity of preaching." The next day, as he rode away from his congregation, a ruffian struck him on the head with a club, and a second blow brought him senseless to the ground. He was taken to a house and bled. It seemed as if he could live but a few minutes, and he was as if blest with the very vision of Stephen. " I was so happy that I could scarcely contain myself." His assailant sat by his bedside and offered him the use of his own carriage ! Garrettson was summoned before a justice, who charged him with violation of law. " Be assured that this matter will be brought to light in an awful eternity!" The pen dropped from the Dogberry's hand, and the preacher retired. He preached from his bed that evening, and, thirty years after, a kinsman of the ruffian invited Garrettson to preach at Church Hill, where he was vestryman, as if to atone for the outrage. The next day, the scarred and bruised face of the preacher was in front of two congregations, and he soon came back to the scene of the outrage, and preached to a large and deeply-affected concourse. He was victorious. He was in Dover near the end of 1778. A mob gathered, crying: " He is a Tory; he is one of Clowe's men; hang him!" "I was in a fair way to be torn to pieces." A gentleman led him by the hand to the steps of the academy and bade him preach. " I will stand by you." The sermon rang through the town, and a person in a window a quar- tci of a mile away was convinced, as were twenty others, and even the leader of the mob. A society was now formed in Dover. In Sussex County, a man came with a pistol to shoot Garrettson, but was hindered, and at Salisbury the sheriff came to arrest him, but left him free. At Quantico, a couple who had heard Whitefield, but had not, for now twenty years, heard a sermon, felt their flickering piety kindled to a flame, and at their house was formed the first society of Somerset County. A^ii^jl. ■» # »■.»:« { 39<5 THE STORY OF METHODISM. There was a region of Delaware called the Cypress Swamp, where the people were simply heathen. Garrettson took this into his circuit. Asking a man, " Do you know the Lord Jesus Christ?" he had for answer, " I know not where the gentleman lives." A second answer was, " 1 know not the man." The peo- ple simply had no religion, and their condition was every w.i\- deplorable. Light now came in upon them. Garrettson's con- gregations went as high as fifteen hundred. A church was built. l''xhorters and preachers were raised up. The people began to till the land and build houses. The wilderness became a garden of Methodism and began to bud and blossom as the rose. Mobs and afflictions were still awaiting the young preacher. At one place, a man presented a musket to his breast; others interfered, and the wretch soon joined the Methodists, a broken penitent. At Salisbury, a mob tried to seize him, and, not finding him, nearly killed his entertainer. He was urged to leave at once, but he was not afraid. While he was preaching, one sent by the mob to signal to them their best time to come on was so affected b\- the sermon that he went to tell them that, if they laid hands on the preac' er, he would put the law on them. Now we find him going to Lewiston ; ard the people, who had heard of his coming, gaze from their doors and say: "Oh, he is like any other man !" He is greeted with drums, guns, bells, and once, preaching at a court house, on a hot day, a huge firo was made to sweat him out. He always held the ground, was always more than conqueror, and, from this rude region, he in fifteen months gathered thirteen hundred members. In 1780, he was preaching ten or twelve sermons a week in New Jersey. Soon he is in Dorchester County, Maryland, at the house of a Mr. Airey, whom Judge White and the Bassetts had interested in religion, and who now introduced preaching into his county. Though Airey, a magistrate and eminent citizen, was witli him, mobs and annoyances were still his portion. One Sunday he was seized, while preaching, b)- a mob of twent\', led by an old man with a pistol, and was kept a fortnight in Cambridge jail ; a fortnight of gracious experiences and of sweet fellowship of friends, out of which he came in new vigor. He preached to three thousand near the jail, and he conquered the county. It gave him the severest struggle and the completest victory. So he IN •mi', REVOLUriUN. 397 fared for three folldwin^' \\ars. In 17S1, ho rode five thousand miles and preached fue hundred sermons. He then came •to his old field and rejoiced over the permanence of the work. Meanwhile, Gatch had fared still harder. In 1776, he had ^one to his work, after sufferintj from the small-pox, but, in pain and weakness, he pressed onward. Near Hladensburgh, on his I'Vederick circuit, a man, enraged at the conversion of his wife, vowed vengeance on the next preacher. He caused Gatch to be waylaid and tarred, while forgetting himself he prayed for his enemies. The leader, who put on the tar, and veral of his crew, were afterwards converted. A plot was formed to murder Gatch as he should cross a bridge. His friends, learning it, sent him by another rpad, and one of them was arrested on the bridge in his place. These fierce men had flogged a young exhorter nearly to death. Yet the preachers were unterrified. Gatch was soon preaching where he had been tarred, and none molested him. He next went to Hanover circuit on the James. Here some faithful Baptist evangelist had borne the brunt of violence, and he found easier times, large gatherings and ardent worshipers. But now his health began to fail. He was riding to an ap- pointment when two men came up, and each taking an arm twisted it behind his back, giving him racking pain and injuring his lungs. In 1778, ^e withdrew for his poor health's sake and went upon a farm in Virginia. He was, by marriage, owner of nine slaves. After the doctrine of Jefferson and the example of Garrettson, he gave these their freedom. " I do believe that all men are by nature equally free, and, from a coiiviction of the injustice of de- priving my fellow creatures of their natural rights, do hereby emncipate and set free the following persons." Though now a farmer, he was, like other retired itinerants, constantly preaching. The relation of supernumerary — i. e., of a member of the Conference, left for good reason without appoint- ment, was not yet created. The name of Gatch, therefore, disap- pears from the scanty minutes of the war time, as these give only the names of Asbury as superintendent, and of the preachers actually appointed, or who for any cause "desist from traveling." During these years when New Jersey was by its position con- stantly under the tread of armies, Abbott was doing active service in the Gospel. He took no pay. His farm was worked by his m s?| * 39S THE STORY or MF.TItontSM. ill own family and hired men. Kven these he brought to his preach- ing, when near home, and paid them as they listened the same as when they labored. His children were as full of zeal as himself, and one son became an itinerant. Abbott appeared like a Quaker of that noble sort, even yet seen in his region. He was large of stature, kind of look and bearing, with hat and coat after Quaker fashion. "Thee appears so much like us we will welcome thee," was the feeling of the Friends. And, like them he was opposed to fighting, though devoted to the cause of freedom. To his preaching he added wise and tender conversation, and this was even as useful as his sermons. His own experiences with soldiers and men of all classes, with families and congregations, make of themselves a volume. These were often impressive, but so were those of the other preachers, and, as they do not often specially illustrate our Story, we omit them. His first and perhaps his only money received for preaching was on Morris river. He was over two hundred miles from home, with fifteen pence in his pocket. As he was leaving, an old lady put two dollars into his hand. " He that was mindful of the young ravens was mindful of me." A noble layman, peer with the Whites, Goughs and Bassetts, now arosu to Abbott's help. James Sterling was a patriot officer, a citizen of large means and abilities. At Burlington, his ample home was free to the preachers and to all Christian ministers. It appears that he was converted under Abbott's preaching, and he at once made Zaccheus his example. His time and for- tune were held for the Saviour, and for half a century he did more for religion in New Jersey than any other layman on its soil, while he was believed to have given more for the support of preachers than any other man in the nation. He often went out with Abbott and exhorted after the preaching. In 1780, Abbott invaded Pennsylvania. Mobs and menaces greeted him, but his fearless, kindly bearing and the force of his right words steadily prevailed. Perhaps his air (and fact) of great physical strength was respected. At Lancaster, Martin Boehm, a founder and Bishop of the United Brethren, warmly greeted him. This man, the warm friend of Asbury, made his house a preacher's homt and gave his son Henry to the itinerancy f-'w tN THE REVOLUTION. s preach- c same as ,s himself, a Quaker as large of er Quaker )me thee," is opposed 1. To his id this was ith soldiers ns, make of but so were ;en specially perhaps his er. He was pence in his ,Uars into his , was mindful and Bassetts, large means free to the t' 's preaching, time and for- he did more its soil, while of preachers twith Abbott and menaces ^e force of his [and fact) of [aster, Martin ihren, warmly iry, made his |he itinerancy 399 He died, in 1812, at ninety, and Asbury preached at his funeral. Henry, sixty years after his father's death, was the oldest living itinerant. Abbott's ministry was still attended with those strange physical phenomena. They had no moral or religious meaning, for as many convictions and conversions took place without as with them. Abbott, himself, neither sought nor shunned them, lie took as little notice of them as possible. Had he been a feeble man, they might never have happened. His mighty pres- ence had at least something to do with them. When scores were Uembling, falling and senseless, he went right on, counting nothing worth regard but a changed heart and a reformed life. Hence Uiere was no reaction. At upper Octoraro, many, as usual, fell under his word as men fall in battle. A Presbyterian declared the scene "diabol- ical." "Wait and see!" said Abbott. One after another they " came to," praising God and giving testimony for Jesus. " Hark, brother, do you hear them? This is the language not of hell but of Canaan." Soon, at a prayer-meeting, the people gathered, and tlie Presbyterian came also. " I gave out a hymn : Brot ^r Ster- ling prayed, and, after him, myself." After a few words, Sterling fell and then every one in the house but two men, the opponent and Abbott. After a little down went the two men. The oppo- nent lifted up his voice. " It is all delusion and the work of Satan ! " At an appointment next day the Presbyterian again put in an appearance. Soon he fell as one dead. At the next preaching, nine miles away, there was his, now, familiar face. After the sermon he rose to say : " I am not of this sect ; I have been with this preacher now four days ; I never saw the power of God this way before, but it is the power of God." He went on exhorting for three-quarters of an hour. In thirty days of this crusade, Abbott held about fifty meetings and the result was ample. Going to Delaware to help his son David, whose young labors were on a circuit there, he came where a clergyman was conducting a funeral and many were present. After the services he was asked to speak. A storm arose and, two clouds meeting over the place, the lightning flashed fearfully and the thunder shook the building. Abbott rose above the tempest and set forth the second coming of Christ, and, while "horrors all hearts i m THE STORY OF METHODISM. appall," he ur^^cd them to flee to Him now for refuge. In the sublime and affecting hour the people wept and cried and fell. Nor was Abbott himselt exempt from emotions beyond control. Once when Rufl" was conducting family devotions at Abbott's house, the latter was stretched upon the floor, overcome by sudden, perfect, overmastering love. One more of these early men needs tracing. Jesse Lee had, in 1779, preached in North Carolina his first sermon. In 1780, he was drafted and taken into camp. He resolved, in prayer and good conscience, that to bear arms was not his duty and he would not do it. On his first parade the sergeant offered him a guri, but he refused it; the lieutenant did the same, with the same rbsult. The latter rej){)rted the case to the colonel, and returning, leaned a gun against him ; he still refused and was put under guard. "We must pra}* before we sleep," said he to the guard, and a Baptist, also under guard, led in prayer. " At daylight I began to sing; hundreds soon joined with me and we made the plarfta- tion ring with the songs of Zion " An innkeeper, still in bed, heard the soufj and prayei, and came with tears begging him to preach. Lee stood on a bench near the colonel's tent and preached repentance. Officers, soldiers and people were in tears. The colonel talked with him about bearing arms. Lee was wilHng to drive the regimental baggage wagon and the coionel was satisfieu. Four months the young preacher bore the life of the camp and the army, fared hard by marches, hunger and toil. To this was added for Lee the fierce profanity and rude manners of the soldiery. He was more chaplain than teamster, preacfiing and praying, attending them in sickness and suffering, and holding their burial services. At length he came home honorably discharged. In 1782, he was at the Annual Conference. Asbury asked him if he would take a circuit, but he shrank from it. " I am going to enlist Brother Lee," said Asbury to another. "What bounty do you give?" "Grace here and glory hereafter, if he is faithful." He hesitated, but was soon planting the good seed on a new — Camden — circuit, in North Carolina, where more than usual power attended his word. He was rich in the qualities that, serve in public address, and which nothing brings out and uses like the Gospel, On leaving llWiVliViLuVfii- 'iilL- II fuge. In the I and fell, ions beyond devotions at >or, overcome esse Lee had, on. In 1780. in jjrayer ami and he would him a ^uri, but ; same rbsult. iirninj:;, leaned ler ^iiard. he jijuard, and lyli^ht I be^nin ide the plailta- :r, still in bed, egginji him to nel's tent anil e were in tears, ^ee was wilHn'^' ,c coiv>ncl was the life of the r and toil. To de manners of ter, preaclfiing ig, and holding ged. In 1782, lim if he would going to enlist bounty do you faithful." He new — Camden mi usual power lie address, and ;l, On leaving 26 .li-jkk/t^. l, ■i."lfll!»'|!il|' PPSfWWiiPPflF 402 THE STORY OF METHODISM. his first circuit, he was obliged to stop speaking and mingle his tears with those of his peopK^; brought in under his ministry, who wept aloud at his departure. Thus, during the eight years of war, great men came out to labor i\nd great revivals took place. The chief prosperity was in the regions of which our story has been telling. War is no "friend to grace," and not only law, but even the Gospel has small hearing in " the claih of arms." Church buildings fared hard. Few were built and some were put to military uses. St. George's, in Philadelphia, became a riding school for British cavalry, and the chapel in Trenton was occupied by troops. For seven years, from thj battle of Long Island, 1776, to evacuation, 1783, no r;reacher was sent to John Street. Still service was held there, and John Mann not only preached Sunday nights (the morning being given to the Hessians), but by filling in his own person all its offices, saved the society, and at the close of the war reported sixty survivors of the two hundred at its beginning. Only one itinerant, Spraggs, of unpoetic name, crossed the Hudson duriii<; the war, and he, a yalist, fled there for refuge. Meanwhile Boardman's little society in Boston became extinct and none were lefc in New England. i^ra igle his ry, who •a t out to y was in ir is no las small ed bard. George's, airy, and 'en years, 1783, no eld there. 2 morning person all r reported Only one son during Meanwhile none were mi ©*■ COKffl. F. AS]Slir!S.X. VI ;>•■:■■.«,:«. ;.,-i. CHAPTER XXXII. Forming a Church. I' RING tlic remainder of this Story v.c must take less note of personal histo- ries. The early heroes have now been presented and we must mark only the j^eneral movements. The question o\' the sacraments, which was serious in l^lngland, became more serious in America. The Methodists depended fdr these upon clergymen of the Church of England, and these, in the war, nearly forsook tlv; country. Our people had no doubt of their right to have these administered by the pieachers ; the only doubt was of its expedi' ency, After several postponements, it had a hea"ing at Fluvanna in 1779. It was time, for "the Episcopal establishment is no^v dissolved in this country, and therefore in almost all our circuits our members are without the ordinances." Four men were ap- pointed a "Presbyter}-," to administer the ordinances themselves, and by laying on of hands to authorize to do the same "to those who are under our care and discipline." The proper persons to receive the ordinances were designated and the modes of proced- ure were determined. The "Presbytery" then solemnly ordained one aiiLither and such of the preachers as desired it. A prepara- tory Conference at Kent (Judge White's) had been held, at which seventeen had been present, which had voted against separation from the Church, and, of course, against anything leading to it, as this action about the sacraments straightly led. At Fluvanna, KOKMINC A ClUkCll. 405 i Story v.c )nal histo- : now been k only the question ot serious in serious in srgynien of brsook tlv; have these its expedi' It Fluvanna lent is no'V our circuits en were ap- themselves, e "to those persons to of procc'd- ly ordained A prepara- Id, at which t separation ading to it. it Fluvanna, the Seventh American C'onfeiHMicc:, r''u;ularl\- appointed, tuenty- -.even were on the list and eighteen voted for the abo\e measure. Those voting nay are not recorded. Asbin}- liad not yet entered upon his office, for though the preparatory Confere«"'je had named him as superintendent, yet it was needed that the regular Confer- ence confirm the nomination. The action at h'iuvanna was, therefore, legal. The brethren thus ordained administered the sacraments, it would seem, in few and extreme cases. They afterwards agreed, with those who dissented from such action, to refer the matter to Mr. Wesley, who replied that matters should remain as they were until further notice. Soon, all was made good by Coke's arrival. There was, for a while, some fear that a division might follow, and uhei: love and reason prevailed the feeling of relief was great indeed. In 1780, we have glimpses of a high morality. The wives of itinerants were to have an allowance from the quarterage equal to tliat of their husbands.' It was determined to "disapprove the practice of distilling grain into liquor and disown all who would not renounce it." Preachers holding slaves were to promise to s' was fixed at sixt\- tloliars and .--. If* 4.(a. THE STORY OF METHODISlvt. traveling expenses. His personal property was "one coat and waistcoat, half a dozen shirts, two horses and a few bcoks." In 1768, John Jones, from Maryland, had followed on Brad- dock's path, and built his cabin on Redstone creek, which flows westward from the AUcghanies into the Monongahela. Robert VVooster, a local preacher, had followed in that region. This year, a Redstone circuit was formed and soon the oldest societ}- west of the Alleghanics was formed at Uniontown. Just east of the mountains was formed a circuit on the Blue Juniata. In many such regions, lo- cal preachers migrating introduced Methodism. Under their labors, lit- tle classes ', re first formed, and then the itinerant crested his circuit with its societies. In this year, VV'es- ley sent Thomas Coke with Thomas Vasey and Richard Whatcoat to take charge of the work in this country. Of Coke as an Englisli- man, and of his first meeting with Asbury, we have already spoken, REV. RICHARD WHATCOAT. "^ ^^^"^ ^' ^"P^'"'"" Third Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church. tendcut Or Bishop, and the others were elders. The usage of the English Church was that at least two elders, or presbyters, join with the Bishop in the ordi- nation service. Vasey had given up case, wealth and family to enter, in 1775, Wesley's itinerancy. He had been this year or- dained by Wesley, but he was now rc-ordained by Bishop White, of Philadelphia, of which Wesley seems to have taken no notice. On his return, after two j^ears, to England, he served in the Church as a curate. This was agreeable to Wesley's policy of having in the parishes able Methodists, who, by serving the Methodists in the sacraments, might prevent them from desiring a separate FORMING A CHURCH. 40; and Jrad- flows obert This )ciet\- ast of 1. In ns, lo- [rating odism. )rs, lit- •e first en the ;d his )cieties. ,r, Wes- is Coke asey and ^coat to of the country. English- es! Church. Vasey soon came back to ihe itinerancy and served it, in one form or another, till his death, in 1826. Whatcoat was a true member of the brotherhood of saints. His uniform behavior was "as if he saw Christ," and he was as if sent to the Church to show what a life of peace and holiness Christians may attain on earth." He was born in 1736, and piously trained by a godly mother. In 1758, he was converted and in 1 761, he was enable'^ to love God with all his heart, for some years he was leader in Wednesbury, where we saw those terrible mobs. In 1769, when Boardman and Pilmoor came to America, he joined the Conference at Leeds. After great success and much sufiferi: ^, he came, with prayer and fasting, to America to aid in organizing the Church. The material for the work had, as we have seen, been strangely gathered. If we except that brief effort at Fluvanna, we may say that here were thousands of converts without baptism or the Lord's Supper, yet sincere, zealous and spiritual. The English Church in America was now »" -uins. Before the war, it had been absolute in Virginia; at the c > )se, only a third of its strength rcnained and, from being the controlling Church, it wa;> now able to obtain from the Legislature no favor beyond other churches. During the war, in spite of it, tl e cir- cuits had grown and the life and power of the revival, called Methodism, had affected wider and wider regions, as if it were to coincide with the exteni of the new nation and be the National Churc'.i. Wesley saw that something must be done. Such a body of Christians must have the sacraments and become a Church in form as it was already in fact. Unable to procure Bishops ordained by Anglican Bishops, the Bishop of London refusing, Wesley resolved to do as the ancient Alexandrian Church had done, to provide Bishops ordained by presbyters alone. He himself, and others, as Coke, were regular presbyters of the Church of England. On September i, 1784, he, with Coke and Creighton, ordained What- coat and Vasey as deacons and, the next day, as presbyters, then ordaining Coke as Bishop (or superintendent) of the Methodist societies in America. Coke was the first Protestant Bishop in America and his was the first Protestant Episcopal Church. 4o8 THE STciRY nv MKlUdDlsM. Wesley prepared for this Cliiinli tlie Articles of Faith (omittiiij^ that on Predestination) and the Litiir}i[y (abrid^eil) so that {Uv Methtuhst I'^piscopal is not wrongly called the eldest-born and lineal successtjr of the Church of l^ngland in America. That is not very important, but it i:. worth the knowing. Wesley preferred Church government by Hishoj)s, but he did not consider it so prescribed and ordered in Scripture, or that an- other form might not be as good, if one chose it. He believed that Mishops anil elders are in the New Testament the same, and thai tl; • unbroken successitMi of Hishops from the a|)ostles is a fable. The little banil, fn-ighted with such duty and authority, hail a stormy passage of six weeks, sailing four thousand miles and land ing at New York on the third of November. Stephen Sands first entertained them in generous style and John Dickins, preacher at John Street, gave them a hearty welcome. He was the more delighted, learning their errand, to bring the sacraments to the societies. That evening. Coke preached, at John Street, his first American sermon. In Philadelphia, Jacob Haker opened his house for them. On Sunday, Coke preached in the morning for Mr. Gaw at St. Paul's and in the evening at St. George's. Dr. White, after- wards Bishop of Pennsylvania, called on him the next day and invited him to his pulpit for the following Sunday. He was also presented to the Governor of the state, who knew Wesley and admired Fletcher. Coke was favorably impressed by men and things in America. He stopped at Bassett's in Dover, and was soon at Harratt's chapel, "from the name of our friend who built it ami who went to heaven a few days ago." In this ch.'pel in the midst of a forest he had a noble congregation. "After the sermon a plain, robust man came up to me in the pulpit and kissed me." He saw this was Ashury. After the preaching came sacrament to five or six hun dred and love-feast. " It was the best season I ever knew, except one at Charlemont in Ireland." This was on November 14th. \'oung Garrettson was sent off "like an arrow," to gather all the preachers at Baltimore on Christmas eve. For this interval, Asbury turned over to Coke, Black Harry, his servant, got him an "excellent horse," and planned a trip of a thousand miles. " He and I have agreed P'()Il\' and freely follow the .Scripture ami thi; primitive Church. " It was a|;rced to form ourselves inti> an ICpiscopal Church, and to have superintendents, cUUms and deacons," says Asbury. Whatcoat adds : "in which the Liturgy should be read and the sacraments be administercil by a superintendent, eklers and deacons, wlio sliall be onlained b\' a [)resbytery, usin^ the I'.pisco pal form." Persons to be ordained were to be nominated by the superintendent elected by the Conference, and ordained by the imposition of the hands of the superintendent and elders; the superintendent h.id a negative voice. Asbury was elected, ordained deacon, then elder, and then consecrated as superintendent. In this last rite the good Ottcr- bcin assisted. Twelve were ordained deacons and then elders, and several were ordained deacons only. Time was given to discussing; Rules of Discipline and a plan of Abington College. "Om Conference continued ten days. I admire the American preach- ers." Ho found them "Holy, zealous and godly," such as coidd "carry the Gospel from sea to sea, and from one end of the con- tinent to the other." The sixty were young — few would be called old men. The oldest, Dromgoole, had traveled ten years, and only fourteen had been in the work five years or over. Yet hard t(tKMIN(. A CirUKCll. 4n W)il and h.ird fair h.id |)itt a m;iil< upon thrm. These fourtc-cn, with the four from ICn^laiid, foriiictl "the Senate" of the Conference, uprescntint; its years and experience and fixed character. The work of these nten was siniph', clear and permanent. lo compare their task with that ol the men who then framed \\\c ("onstitiition of tht United States mij^ht he iinreasonahle, f(»r the undertakiiij; of lh( latter was far more complex, hut the Dis- 1 iplini'. for wisdom and for effectual working', without need of .iinerdmeiit, m.i\' rhallen^^'e the Constitution. Ihe moral temper (it th(; Coideicnec was the key to th(;ir success, for truth and un- scKish love of the ju nc ral welfari- illuminated all their thoughts ,iiid showed the way to their conclusions. Two were ordained elders to labor in Nova Scotia, and lor Antij^ua. I'or the United States ther(; were ten e Idcrs one and thret; deacons, lea\in^ alxtut forty preachers imordained. Ihe doings of this C'onf(Mence were published in 1785, and hound up with a .Sunday Service and with Psalms and Hymns oi Wesley's preparing. This Service contained a form of Public rra)'er, the Ritual of Ordination and the Articles of Kelij^ion. Ihis use of the Liturj.;y for form of public prayer has never been lepealed. it was ke[)t for a few years in some societies, but it \\;is fouiul t(. be in the way of class-meetin^^s, love-feasts and the like, and so it fell away. It mi^ht be lej^'ally revived in any soci- ety, but there is small chance of that. When those who had been roared in the I'luj^Iish Church came to be outnumbered by others, the Prayer Hook, and with it the fjowns and bands worn by elders, quietly fell into disuse. Wesley reduced to twenty-four the "Tiiirty-nine Articles" of the Enj^lish Church. To these were added one "Concerning Christian Rulers." Methodists have now twcnty-fivc presentations of Scripture doctrine, such as not every member would have leisure to g'ather for himself, "as guides through the voyage of Christian inquiry." The Conference declared its purpose of allegiance to Wesley, during his life, as his sons in the Gospel, obeying him in all mat- ters of Church government. It also pledged itself, as far as the interests of religion and the welfare of the United States would allow, to keep union with the Methodists of the Old World. Measures were taken for the extirpation of slavery, and the ugly subject was plainly handled. Everv member was to emancipate II 412 TIIF. sloKV (>l MKIHoDISM. his slaves within twelve months, where the state \i\\\ allowed, and was not to be ailiuitted to the Lord's Supper until he had so done. Unless he did this in the saiil time he was excluded from the Church. Huyinj^, sillini^, or ^;ivinj^ away slaves was to be fol lowed by expulsion. These rides were far in advance of the time, and it t«)ok eighty years to bring all Metlunlism to ritldance ol slaver\ Vet, thou}^h hoti)' opposed, and suspended in si,\ months, they caused some emancipations and fixed the true ami lasting; tiMuper of the Church. Tlu' duties of preachers were fixed about as they now are. I'o each preacher was allowed sixt\ -four doll.irs yearly, and tlu same to his wife, with sixteen dollars to each child under six, ami twenty-two to each under eleven. This allowance for children was in two \ears repealeil, but, in 1800, provision for them was .iL^ain made. The Conference refused themselves all fees, presents and percpiisites at weddings, baptisms aiul burials. Afterwards they accepted these and charged them in the "allowance." Macli preacher paid two dollars yearly to a "Relief Fund" for extreme and necessitous cases, and widows and orphans. Never did an\- l)ody of nun more sternly renounce worldly good and take vt)us of poverty ami toil more truly than these preachers. Their uii- worldliness and their devotion to life's great, unseen realities was not paraded before men, but no man was so blind as not to see it, and it was a source of their power. Preachers now, after a hun- dred years, are faring better, yet many a struggling itinerant, in lields still sexxTc, comforts himself with the example of these early men, who through faith and patience gained their victories. A General Fimd, chiefly for the expense of men in fields new or remote, was to be raised by yearly or quarterly collections. The attitude in taking the Lord's Supper and the mode of bap- tism were left to the choice of the candidate. Neglect of class meeting and " marrying unawakened persons" were grounds of ex- clusion. This latter act was afterwards to be only "discouraged." — ««0-»0<>' ^te,y3._ CHAPTF.R XXXTIT. Doctrines and Institutes. iraged. It is ULr.S adopted by thr Christmas Confer- ence wen;, by their nature, open to chanfjc or repeal. In telling now of the doctrines and institutes of American Methodism, we come to things pirn^anent. In all branchings of the original Church these have remained the same. The accepted doctrines agree with those of the great bodies of Christians from the beginning. We reject Predestination and a Limited Atf)nement; we hold the mode of bap- tism to be oj)tional ; we reject Purgatory and Prayer to Saints, the Apostolic .Succession and the Descent of Christ into llell. Beyond these, there is a bod)- of doctrine, ample for guidance of faith and con- duct, on which all modern Chutches agree. It is not badly given in the Apostles' Creed, that com- pendium now si-xteen hundred years eld, in which all Christian Churches agree. Baptism is with Methodists a sign, not a cause of justification, and is administered to in- fants because, as such, they are of the kingdom of heaven. Sin, after this, may yet admit of the grace of repentance and find pardon, notable that two doctrines most earnestly preached by 414 THE STORY OF METHODISM. Wesley and still prominent among .ill Methodists do not appear in the Articles. These an* the Witness of the Spirit and Christian Perfection. The reason is that these arc matters less of doctrinal statement than of expcric.cc. It is not possible to solidify expc rience into doctrine, as has been shown by many a weary discus- sion especially of this matter of Perfection. The satisfactory nature of the utmost divine working; in a human soul is a glorious fact, attested by many a full experience, but nothing of the kind is made a condition of membership, and of the ministry is required only a confident, earnest desire. Nor do the Methi dist Articles state that all men may be saved. With the preachers, that went without formal saying. They saw it daily proven. Formulated doctrine is not quite "the skin of truth dried, stuffed and hung up," but vital experience preserves even unstatable doctrine and a degree of religious truth unstated as doctrine. A Methodist m.'iy hold his creed and yet be a meager Christian, as a man may keep inside of statute law, and yet be a meager citizen. Methodist Arminianism was long misunderstood by the Cal- vinist of New England. These thought that it denied the sovereignty of God and the need of His gracious aid in re- pentance and all good works. It only teaclics that enough grace is given to all men to make them resnonsible and guilty, more or less, if they are not saved. Professor Stuart, of Andover, himself a Calvinist, nobly showed his people their error of judgment in the matter and the question of Calvinism has now, for years, slept in this country the sleep from which few would wake it. "The Spirit itself beareth .'.'itness with our spirits that we are the children of God.' O "; that rests the unwritten Methodist doctrin of Assurance. This inward feeling of harmony with God, which Assurance means, so that one knows the comfort of His peace, has been held from the beginning of Christianity. "We know" did not begin to be said by Wesley. The soul is conscious of its own state, and, if light from above enters it, the glow is unmistakable, more than even any outward vision. "Perfection is a word awkward to use amid human infirmities, as it seems to imply no farther progress possible. It is not so in other connections. A perfect shrub is not one incapable of farther growth ; it is the one best fitted to grow and unfold into a tree, DOCTRINES ANn INSTITUTES. 415 )t appear Christian doctrinal lify cxpe- ry discus- itisf;ictory :i 'glorious r the kind s required jt Articles that went brmulateci and hun^ e doctrine Methodist 1 man may by the Cal- denied the aid in re- ough grace uilty, more Andover, lir error of 1 has now, few would and such is Christian Perfection as it is produced by the cleansing, disinfecting work of the Holy (ihost in hearts surrendered, and desirous, that it is often called S''nctification. In nothing has the influence of Methodism upon other Christian bodies been more salutary than in heartening them to strive for "the region fair" of perfect love and holiness. It has already been noted that the unwritten creed of Method- ism constitutes in all the vorld the bulk of its preaching, and chiefly inspires its zeal, effort and experience. For admission tn Methodist societies only one thing is required ; " not name or sign or ritual creed," but simply a desire to fiee from the wrath to come, and to be saved from sin. " ' Is a man a believer in Jesur Christ, and is his life suitable to| his profession?' is my sole in- quiry." " I have no more right to object to a man for holding | a different opinion from me than 1 have to differ with a man be- cause he wears a wig and I wear I my own hair." The Methodist] church in America is just as lib- eral. It does not ask what a man ] thinks. "But, if he takes ofif his wig and begins to shake the powder about my eyes, I shall] consider it my duty to get rid of arminius. him as soon as possible." Who would not? No member can be expelled for opinion. There must be, as in civil law, " an overt act," misdoing " sufficient to exclude one from the kingdom of grace and glory." There were now recognized three Conferences, the General, the Annual and the Quarterly. In the General Conference all the Annual Conferences were at first assembled. Such was this Christmas Conference. Three such were afterwards held, in 1792. 1796 and 1808. In 181 2 it became a Conference of Delegates, the number of preachers having become too large lor meeting in mass. The Annual was, up to 1812, the chief Church convention, and it has not lost its interest and importance. It is now mainly ■if,: « I > I i 416 THE STORY OF METHODISM. what it was at the beginninj^. It is an impressive and usually a joyous occp.sion, the ministerial feast of the year. The presiding Bishop conducts business by a series of fixed questions, but the routine is enlivened by exuberant spirits, venting themselves in a thousand ways within the limits of decorum. It is the one vaca- ration week of hospitality, brotherhood and prayer. Every preacher has his tale to tell his brethren ; laymen renew acquaint- ance with old pastors and plan for future ones ; the wives of the preachers have some days of relief and revival, and the sun looks down >r. no occasion more entertaining. At first, the Bishop alone considered the men and the field and made out the appoint- ments. No preacher knew his destiny until the Bishop read the list at the close of the Conference. The reading was usually taken as the speaking of Divine Providence, and soon after the parting benediction the preachers, vvith strong heart and hope, were on their way to their new posts of service. Man)' now living will remember when the meeting of the Quarterl}' Conference was a great occasion. It has always been known as the Quarterly meeting. This'Conference was made up of all who held office in the circuit and had charge of all local interests, as chapels, finances of local preachers and exhorters, of trial of appeals and presentation of candidates for the itineranc) . This business was soon done and then came love-feasts, sacra- ments, prayer meetings and sermons. From miles away, Methw- dist families were in attendance and there was amplest hospitality. Prayer and praise, revival and rejoicing filled two days or more, and people came to know and love each other. The unity of the (Hiurch, already begun b}' the wide acfjuaintarce of the preacher.;, was promoted b)- the old-time Quarterly mectin.gs. In later days, they have, by increase of population and the system of stations, lost much of their early character ; but other gatherings, as camp- meetings, institutes and the like, do, in place of these, a somewhat similar work. At the formation of our Church there were, in all, one hur- dred and four preachers, of whom twenty-four were ordained. These are soon called elders and deacons, and the words " assist- ant " and "helpers" disappear. The Bishop was commander, almost dictator. His sway was such as could be safely trusted onlv to a wise and good man, for it was tempered only by bOCTRINES AND INSTITUTES. 4«) Uy a ding t the ; in a vaca- ivery Liaint- Df the looks V\shop )point- ;ad thf usually ter the I hope, of the lys been expulsion. To this he v/as more liable than any of his brethren, for he alone could be expelled for "improper conduct," without crime. He was paid no higher than his brethren, and in the inter- vals of Conference must "travel at large," which Asburv and his successors have done, indeed, at very large. The "assistant" was soon called the "preacher in charge." His duties and those, in fact, of his helper, were about the same as we noted in the Wesleyan syste.a in England. They were to enforce the rules. In those for dram drinking, etc., Wesley's rule about tobacco has never appeared ; perhaps because Asbury and many preachers used 't, as do some of their successors unto this (lay. The rule of Wesley about preachmg at five in the morning never worked in this ccrAry. It was soon qualified by "where he can get hearers ! " Then it vanished altogether. The regimen of Wesley was hard, but it was almost in its entirety adopted in America. There it stands, facing the preacher and, if later virtue has not been able to attain unto it, still its influence has been monitory and beneficial. The new Church was now upon its career. Its footing was sure. It was crowding no other aside. There was room enough in the spaces of our continent for all existing Churches, and part of its errand was to revive these and cheer them to their own work. It had also its own task and we proceed to tell how it has been doing that. -;M it ij me bur- )rdainc(l. " assisi- imandet, trusted only by 27 1 1 UMii il CHAPTER XXXIV. To THE End of the Century. III ■1 i¥ Vili •: s 1 HE Methodist Episcopal church began with eighteen thousand members, one hundred and four itinerants and some hundreds of local preachers and ex- horters. 1 he attendants on its services, besides its members, were about two hundred thousand, and these were the more from there being in Delaware, Maryland and Virginia almost no other ministry. There were sixty chapels in regular use, "none of them frescoed, yet the mystic •^bokinah, the glory, was manifested in them." There were no i 'Modists in New England, but, from New York to Cjeorgia and P'^int near Pittsburgh, the preachers were calling the people 10 • Saviour. Over all these regions no voice protested against the new organization. Its servants had enough to do, for hundreds, on a single occasion, would come for baptism and the sacrament was crowded. Some Churchmen were no longer seen at the meetings and the good Jarratt, though he did not break with Asbury, had no liking for the new arrangement. Still all the preachers felt the life of the epoch and entered with ardoi upon its conquests. Coke's first "order" was for gathering material to build a school at Abingdon, Md. He then went north, begging for his mission in Nova Scotia. He returned to Baltimore, where the U. 'M V i* 420 rilE STOKV OF MKTHODISM. chapel of the Christmas Conference was now sold and Li^dit Street church bej^iin. Goiiij^ southward, he had a taste of ihc perils of the wiklerness, for he came near drownir,^ li a swollen stream, across which he had to swim his horse Woe and shivering, he reached a house whose master and mistress were absent. "The principal nej^ro lent me an old ragged shirt, coat, vest, breeches, etc., and the negroes made a large fire and hung my clothes up to dry all night." At Roanoke, he found Jarratt, who condemned the Rule on Slavery. "The secret is, he has twenty-four slaves of his own." Soon, Coke had a taste of persecution. He fearlessly denounced slave-holding. As he did this many of the "unawakened" left the barn where he was preaching antl got ready to flog him as Ik came out. A huiv offered them fifty pounds if they woidd "give that little doctor a luindred lashes." On the "doctor's" coming out. " l^rothrr Martin," a magistrate, seized one of them. Colonel Taylor, " a fine, strong man, only half awakened," assumed a fighting attitude and the crowd fell away. Brother Martin set fret: nftevn sla\en ; Norton eight slaves, and Ragland one. Brother Kennon set free twenty-two, worth two hundred dcjllars apiece. Coming into North Carolina, Coke was silent on slaverx', for the laws fi>rbade iMnanci])ation. The first Ntirth Ca:oliiia Conference was now held, and a petition for the right of iinancipation. to which Asbury had gained the (lox'ernor, was addresseil to the (General /\ssembly. Return- ing to Virginia, Coke resumed his urging of the Slavery Rule ;uul arranged for ever)^ preacher to circulate a petition to the Genera! yVssembly of Virginia, praying for immediate or gradual emanci- pation. The .subject had already been under debate, and Coke was sure that the freeholders signing would not be few. Going westward, he dined by appointment with a "plain country gentle- man," George Washington, who now had his first contact with Methodism. " lie recei\ed us very politel)'." .\fter dinner. Coke presented the emancipation petition, entreating his signature if in his high place he felt free to sign any petition. Washington assured Coke that he held Coke's views and had stated them to leading statesmen. He declined to sign the petition, but promised to write to the Assembly, if the matter canic to =1 hearing. It is alilecting to think how different might have '■-.fl;f IIJBnaQH k TO THE END OF THE CENTURY. -PI and Li^lil taste (if i^^h: 1,1 a swollen Wet and iii stress were c\ shirt, coat, ire and hun^ the Rnle on of his own." ily denonnced cned" left the i) views and had [d to sign tlie Ihe matter canie ,nU might have been the reading of our national history had these views of Wash- ington, Coke and the Conference so prc\ aiied as to change the course of the nation on slaver\- in tlie dav of small things, when GKORGK WASHlNlilON. "An OX might drink the infant Hudson dr> ." After a few weeks, the Rule on Slavery was suspended at Baltimore, and never again enforced. From that Baltimore Conference, which acljournctj j.uniary 3, 1785. Coke sailed to luiroj^c. ii ii » 1 I' »i»* iL 51 lnW 432 THE STORY OF METHODISM. Asbury, of course, had not been idle ; he had for four months averaged thirty miles a day, with daily services of every sort. Lee and Willis went with him to Charleston, and at this southern- most point they staid two weeks. They preached every day ; their host was converted and a society formed, which Willis staid to serve. On Sunday, June 5, 1785, he laid at Abingdon, twenty-five miles from Baltimore, the corner-stone of Cokesbury College, the first of Methodist institutions in this country, the leader of a long train of nearly a hundred and fifty now, the Methodist Episcopal Church having built, since that day, more than one a year. Five thousand dollars had been raised for the work. From its com- manding: site, one looks up the valley of the Susquehanna, and down over the Bay to the ocean. Asbury felt the nature of the occasion. "The sayings which we have heard and known and which our fathers have told us, we will not hide them from our children," was his text, and he spoke as if he foresaw the noble schools of every branch of learning, the glory and strength of his people, of which this school was the pioneer, as he was himself the pioneer of a goodly fellowship of Bishops in the hereafter. The building four years later was not quite complete, but thirty students were there, and a preparatory school of fifteen had been three years in progress, in whose examination Asbury took the deepest interest. Already a collegiate town was building around it. Here met, in 1786, the Baltimore Conference. Its professors were also preachers, and at times great religious interest prevailed among the students. In 1792, it had over seventy students, pursuing with English branches, the chief languages, ancient and modern, as well as giving attention to "agriculture and architecture." A high moral character and purpose was required for admission, and morals and religion received careful attention. The sons of traveling preachers were boarded, clothed and taught gratis, as were orphans. The regimen was interesting. None were to study after seven in the evening, or to be out of bed after nine, or to be in bed after five of the morning, and there was to be no feather-bed. There were to be seven hours of study, with abundance of recrea- tion in and out-of-doors. For ten years it did well its work, and then, at midnight, December 7, 1795, it burned down. It had TO THE END OF THE CENTURY. 423 )3\ cost fifty thousand dollars. Asbury shed no tears that his name and Coke's — Cokcsbury — thus went to ashes. "If any man should give me fifty thousand dollars per y^ar to do and suffer again what I have done for that house, I would not do it." He regretted the loss of the library, but he thought that neither Whitefield nor the Methodists were called to build "colleges." He wanted a simple school. The Cokesbury disaster did not complete the Methodist collegiate enterprises. Coke left England for Nova Scotia, September 24, 1786. He did not reach the haven whither he would be, but he fared strangly better. In mid-ocean the ship sprung a leak; then came a hurricane, and all the terrors which they see who do business in the great waters. "They cry unto the Lord and He delivered them out of their distresses." Candles and food were failing when the full beauty of a tropic island, with its birds and palms and sunshine, opened before them on the Christmas morn- ing, and instead of Nova Scotia they were at Antigua. Our readers will recall the work of Gilbert and the missionaries in the island that furnished the first African Methodist. Coke's coming was of course a comfort and a blessing. Reaching Charleston, he was amazed to find that a society of forty members had built a church worth five thousand doilars. He and Asbury dedicated it, and he held in it the first South Carolina Conference, for it held fifteen hundred hearers. Coke loved the southern people. " Great has been the work of God in this state and Georgia." The two bishops set out to ride through the continent and in a week they had made three hundred miles, preaching every day. Thick forests, frightful swamps, bad roads ! " The preachers here ride a hundred miles a week through morasses tremendous." He fairly delights in it ! Preaching in the midst of great forests, with hundreds of horses tied to the trees, he finds truly romantic, and he is surprised at the progress of Methodism. On Pedee circuit two years before, there were but twenty in the society ; now there were eight hundred and twenty-three members. In this year, two and twenty preaching houses had been built on this circuit. In Mecklenburgh county he found the largest congregation he had seen in America, four thousand, and at a Conference in the mighty forest was a great, joyous gathering. Here came word from ,•*>•,•;:?; .;.■,;.;■,.-;./„. 424 THE STORY OF METHODISM. Ir} Kentucky, near the mouth of the Ohio, of an awakening under an elder, who had been sent there, Haw, the first to enter that wild He wanted help, and a young man, Williamson, volunteered for the wilderness. A Conference had been set for Abingdon, Jul)' 24th. Cokr had changed it to Baltimore, Ma>' ist, and the change seemed arbitrary and unpleasant, but harmon)' prevailed. Six thousand and six hundred had been added to the societies within a year. Coke then went back to England. Asbury resumed his immense travels and was soon in Charleston, where he was mobbed while preaching in the new church; and " I had more liberty to preach here than I have- ever had before." At his first Conference in Georgia, at the Forks of Broad River, he noted that many who had no religion in Virginia found it on migrating to Georgia and South Carolin i. And now he crosses the mountain barrier to the northwest and enters Tennessee. His journey to the edge of the Mississippi valley was "awful." The first conference in Tennessee, at Keys- woods, was amid many discomforts, but it was like taking formal possession of a rich and boundless land. Some from Kentucky were there, and Methodism was inaugurated into the heart of the continent. Asbury made his way back, preaching in the settle- ments, and went to Pennsylvania. His journals tell a story of hardship among the Alleghanies. "O how glad should I be of a plain, clean plank ; the beds are in a bad state and the floors arc worse ! The gnats are as troublesome here as the mosquitoes in the lowlands of the sea-board. Many of the people are of the boldest cast of adventurers, and the decencies of life arc scarcely regarded. Savage warfare teaches them to be cruel. and Antinomian preaching (faith without works) poisons their morality." The region, now part of West Virginia, is not yet in the front of civilization. At Uniontown occurred the first ordina- tion west of the Alleghanies, that of Michael Leard. Asbury officiated in clerical gown and band, as did Whatcoat, who assist d him. In February, 1788, Coke returned and found Asbury in Georgia, and shared with him the trials of Episcopal fare. In the back parts of Georgia they often ate nothing from seven in the morning to six in the evening, and then "bacon, eggs and Indian i'*;^-..;'' i4'ii>" si".^iji*vil*»i'! TO THE END OF THE CENTURY. 425 In the |i in tbe Indian corn." "The great revival, the great rapidity of the work and the consolations of God's Spirit" more than balanced all. The noble forests, the wild deer, and the charms of broad, free nature, delighted Coke. They found in Georgia two thousand and eleven members. "Our principal friends" were ready to give two thousand acres of land for a college and "we agreed to build one." . "Coke wants colleges," quoth Asbury. A like olTer soon came from Kentucky. "If they will give five thousand acres of good land we will complete a college in ten years." So education is kept in remembrance. The first Conference in New Jersey was held at Trenton, 1788, There had been a decrease, almost the first one in this country. Coke did not grieve, for he thought it at least a proof of sound discipline. Soon there was a Conference at New York, where Garrettson, who had a talent for opening new places, reports the work carried to Lake Champlain, to most of the New England states and to "the little state of Vermont." "The numbers in the state of New York were si.x thousand one hundred and eleven, and in the United States forty-three thousand two hundred and sixty-five, being thirty-five thousand and twenty-one whites, eight thousand two hundred and forty-one blackii and three Indians. Who these three were does not appear. The "printing business" had now been settled" — i.e., the Book Concern was founded, which we saw begun in the person of one man. Its profits were in part to help the Cokesbury College and in part to plant Indian Missions. The itinerant life on the frontier may be illustrated by the use of split bushes. The preacher, at cross paths in the forests, split two or three bushes along the path leading to the appoini-ment, and this was a guide to his successor. Mis- chievous fellows, learning the secret sometimes used it to mislead him. Coke, returniuj from England, met Asbury in Charleston the day that Wesley died, March 2, 1791. The departure of "the most influential mind of the century" was duly mourned. Asbury was no unworthy follower of Wesley. " I have served the church over twenty five years. I have gained two old horses, my companions seven thousand miles a year. My clothing is the same as at the first, neither have I silver, gold or any other i:A.Af.?.:sr,'>.\n„i,yi 426 THE STORY OF METHODISM. property." Yet he was charged with ambition to become an Archbishop or a Pope ! Lee now invaded New England. Preaching at South Carolina, he met at Cheraw a New England merchant, conversn.tion with whom impressed Lee's mind with the duty of entering the East. This he could not at once do, and, meanwhile Methodism had entered "the little state of Vermont," and a class of two or three had been formed at Stratford. Now, Lee strikes out for Boston, and July, 1790, is the epoch of Methodism in New England. It was just thirty years after its arrival in the Western Hemisphere with Mr. Gilbert at Antigua. Lee, in the late afternoon, stood on a table under the Elm, long venerated, now gone, and began services alone. His singing drew four hearers, and when he had ended prayer people in evening leisure wc.e gathering around. He soon had three thousand hearers and his word was with power. The sons of the Pilgrims, used to dry discourse, were taken by surprise. Many wept; some thought of VVhitefield, some went to hear him again, and "could follow him to the ends of the earth." Methodism had now reached Nova Scotia and Canada, Georgia and the mouth of the Ohio, and, five years after, Lee's impression was just entering New England, If there was any region where it was not wanted it was this. Yet here it was wanted. The old order was declining in both doctrine and experience. The Churches were becoming fewer. Infidelity was ripe, and the Unitarian movement was about to carry away a large proportion of the parishes. There was need of Methodism, and though the Methodist Church, after nearly a century of struggling growth, has only now come to full prosperity, it has all the time proved its mission of diffusing newness of life throi'gh other Churches. It has saved religion in New England, when rank heresies were well-nigh crowding it from the soil. For the first year Lee was alone. Before corning to Boston, he had begun his work in Norwalk under an apple tree by the road-side, after all houses had been refused him. He had twenty hearers. He was the first appointed preacher and this was his first sermon. He was glad of the tree. " Who knows but I shall yet have a place in this town were I may lay my head ! " V-...L^.A-r£Vt^-_ TO THE END OF THE CENTURY 427 He went to Fairfield, and, in the town house, his soul flaming with plans and ambitions, he had the schoolmaster and three or four women, and at last thirty. " My soul was happy " in this day of small things. At New Haven, the president of Yale came to hear him. This man, good Dr. Stiles, predicted that in this country, after a hundred years, the religious population would be mainly Congregational and Episcopal, some Baptist and "perhaps a few VVesleyans !" Had he lived he might have seen the "Wesleyans" more than both his first-named and have worshiped with them in their noble and thronged New Haven iiouses. Soon after, he again preached in this "Athens," in a Congre- gational chapel. Two clergymen, Austin and Edwards, came to hear, but no man asked the preacher home. He at the tavern, found comfort in prayer when " David Beacher came" and was Lee's host thereafter. At Greenfield and Stratfidd, Lee was shunned, and at Milford preached three times without being asked to dinner, or making any acquaint- ance. The Christians of the town-house at fairfield where lee ,, . r • • 1 preached. the region were frigid enough. Then he went to Rhode Island, where he liked the open-communion Baptists, and opened the way for preachers who should follow him. Coming back he formed a circuit — the first in New England — with Stratford as center, where also was Iicld the first New England class meeting, of three women, though a few Methodists had come to Stamford and .Sharon. These three women at Stratfield were the first Methodist Church in New England. They remind us of Barbara Heck, of Lydia, the first European Christian, and they were the fruit of "Lee's three months' labor, not a showy result, but Lee was more than ever sure that Methodism was needed in New England. After seven months he had five members — one man only, Aaron Sanford, in whose line came to this day many preachers and laymen. Lee was annoyed in a thousand ways by the f 428 THE STORY OF METHODISM. UitI r i 'I ! J "Standing Order." Counting; him "unlcMrncd," they tried him with Greek ; he would answer in Dutcli. which they reverenced, takinj.( it for Hebrew I Nathan Ban^s, the jj;reatest r>f itinerants after Asbnry, was now .1 hid of twelve in tiiese parts. I lis father, a sturdy biack- smitli, forbacU' his hearing Lee, but his y(»ung heart was hot and restless from what he learned. Clearly, Lee was affecting widely the staid old atmosphere. Soon three preachers came to his help .ind, in 1790 four preachers and eight members were the New JCngland Methodist Church. A volume might be written of their exploits. May loth, Lee "invaded" Middletown to preach the first Methodist sermon where has long been the first and best of our colleges, the Wes- leyan University. Goin^ towards Boston, he, witii surprise and delight, met, ten miles east of Provi- dence, Garrettson ^nd Black Harry, ret g from Boston after meir mission to Nova Scotia. He had, unknown to THK Fi'- JT M. E. CHURCH AT NEWKiELU NOW Lcc, made au cxcursioH BRIDGEPORT. CONN.. EREciKD IN .800. from New York through Soiuh views 01 the ChiirclieK at Bridgeport, Conn., about 1800. (The Methodist church is the one in the Hartford, whCTC his distance, on the right, without a spire ; .•„ • , * ^ meetmgs were broken up by a mob, " even those who are called the gentry." Lee could find in Boston no place but the one used the year before under the Elm, but he had three thousand hearers. At Newburyport, "Rev. Mr. Murray" refused Lee his pulpit on the ground of his "unpardonable sin of preaching four times in one day ! " but Lee got in a sermon at the court-house at six in tlic morning. His next congregation under the Elm was five thousand. After facing hinderances and hardships heroically for sixteen months, Lee reported at the New York Conference two hundred members and two chapels, one, " Lee's Chapel." in Stratfield. the first in New England. Asbury heard with delight Lee's story One district of five circuits and seven preachers was put on the scheme for New England and Lee was sent to Boston. On his To I 111- KNI) (>K IIIK CKNIlJkY. 429 return thitlicr he was ij^orccl in a chilly manner. He couUl only say, " Lord, help me!" The \'Am could hardly do in the end of November and no other place could be hail, even after four weeks' effort. He had been invited to Lynn. There he was warndy welcomed by \ienjaniin Johnson, had a ^ooil hearing and spoke with a j^lad heart. Once more he trietl Boston and, amid ne^;lect, insults and destitution, he toucheil some hearts, anil Boston be^jan to be saved. At Lynn, February 20, 1791. he formed of eif^ht persons his tirst Massachusetts society and, June 26th, dedicated there the first chapel. At the Conference then held at New York, tour hundred and ei^ht)'-one members were reported in New I'ji^dand. The Church was now fairly planted, to struggle, to abide, to flourish. It had three c'.iapels. Lee was made pre- siding elder of New England and Canada! "Forward with fresh strength and courage !" said the hero. He was traveling five hundred miles and preaching fort)' times a month. A.sbury now enters the region to si ond with his own vast energies iiis loved lieutenant. At New Haven, Dr. Stiles and others came to hear him preach — in other respects he was ** a stranger" — never inviting him near the college. " I will requite their behavior by treating them as friends, brethren and gentle- men." At Middletown, he preached in the Congregational ciuirch, but had to go a mile out of town to lodge. He thought that, as of old, the poor were the most blest in the preaching. At the poor-house in that city there was fifty years later, a good woman, converted by this preaching of Asbury's and still owning a Testament bearing his autograph. He went to Boston and preached at "Murray's Church" to twenty people. " I have done with Boston for the present. At 'wicked Charleston,' S. C, I was kindly invited by many; here, by none." " The Methodists have no house, but their time may come." It /tas come, and he can look from on high upon fifteen churches, one the largest in the city, and upon the University and all the belongings of his Church in Boston, he will know it has come I At Lynn he was delighted. " Here we will make a 'firm stand and the light shall radiate through the state." He staid there ten days, equal to ten years of some men. Here in August, 1792, was held the first Conference in New England, of Asbury 430 TllF, STORY OK MKTHoDISM. and eight preachers, foremost of those the heroic Lee. In July of this year, a small class of poor people was formed in Hoston. They could easily ^et a place for meeting, and it was not until 1795 that the first Hoston chapel was founded. Meanwhile, events were elsewhere in progress. In 1786, the title "Bishop" first appears as a form of address. In i7iS9, John Dickins lent the church six hundred dollars, and. on this capital lie began the Hook Concern in Philadelphia. His first publica- tion was Wesley's Thomas a Kempis' " Imitation of Christ;" then came the Discipline, the Hymn Book, a reprint of the Arminian AJajfa^n'fu: So began the immense "Concern" that to-day tinploys the best brain of the church. In 1789, Asbury and the other Bishops presenteil to G'.,urge VVr.shington, just inaugurated as Presi- dent, an address assuring to him and to the Consti- tution the loyalty of the M. K. Church. He re- ceived it and replied with great courtesy, assuring them 01 his favor as a patron of vital religion, of hi;'; prayers for them and his desire for their prayers in his own behalf. Other Churches were a little vexed that the Methodists should be the first in an exercise so fitting and patriotic. In 1 790 was formed the first Sunday-school in America. This was nine years after, as our Story tells, Sophia Cooke had sug- gested one to Mr. Raikes. The Conference now fir?t gave o"der on the matter, though really the first Sunday-school in this country was started by Asbury in Virginia four years earlier. Thus this is historically a Methodist idea in both worlds, the old and the new, and it is one so satisfying a felt want that now hardly a Church organization in the land is without it. We may fairly name it as part of the good which Methodism developed for mankind. In the Church that originated it, the growth of the Sunday-school has kept pace with the general growth and is to-day gigantic. Fl"Sr METHOniST PREACHING HOUSE IN BOSTON, MASS. to IHE END OF THE CENTURV. 431 l When the General Conference met, in 1792, Methodism had been well planted. By Lee's invasion of Maine it now held the coast from Nova Scotia to Florida, and had gone to the western frontier. This had been done by men, of whom Coke alone was learned, who, in toil, poverty and hardship, but in the spirit and [)ower of the apostles, had given their lives to the work. They reported now sixty-six thousand members and two hundred and sixty-six preachers. Hut how much this success had cost ! One- third of the preachers died before they were thirty years oid and two-thirds died before they had traveled twelve years. Hard work and fare ! Our story will hereaftr . be less personal. Great men, as well as great events, v ill come before us, but our Story is nut to be a history. # CHAPTER XXXV. Schisms — Kminen i' Characters. OKE now came over to hold a General Conference in Baltimore. He worked while at sea on a Poole's Commen- tary, which he adapted and later got Samuel Drew to print. He was cheered in this work by six canaries that sang in his cabin. After his years oi toil and expenditure, he writes: "I am forty-five. I have done nothing." Preachers from all circuits in the nation were there, but Lee sees that this cannot always be. The Conference must be formed of delegates, and so, after sixteen years, it waj. Many details of rule were perfected in this Conference, but its chief concern was a motion introduced by O'Kelly, one of its oldest members, providing that a preacher discon- tented with his appointment might appeal from the Bishop to the Conference, and, if the Con- - ference sustain him, the Bishop should give him another appointment. It was equal to a declaration of distrust of Asbury, and it called forth an eloquent and affecting debate, and developed a high order of deliberative talent. The question after awhile took this form: i. "Shall the Bishop appoint the preachers?" i. "Shall the preacher SCHISMS — EMINENT CHARACTERS. 43.3 be allowed an appeal?" On the first there was no vote in the negative. The second was, after a long debate, decided nega- tively. Ware, an able and prominent jireacher, thought it might have been carried, but for the bad temper of its advocates. One must see that at a Conference one man's successful nppeai and change might, by displacing another, call out a new appeal, and so on, and the Conference might sit all fhc year. The morning after the vote O'Kelly and his friends, against much entreaty, withdrew from the Conference. This was the first secession. O'KcUy was said to deny the doctrine of the Trinity, but that never .ip- peared in the debate. The question was ; "Should the itinerancy retain its military character, the preach- ers being free to enter or leave it?" This question was now effectually settled. O'Kelly was an able, fearless Irishman, who had toiled and suffered equally uith the best, and in Virginia and Carolina his influence WM. McKENDREE. The Fourth Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church. was great. He now went to that region to frame a new church, and many, even McKendree, afterwards Bishop, were in sympathy with him. He went (^n forming societies, to which he gave the taking name of "Republican Methodists," getting the term from the political party opposed to a strong central government, /rouble came on. Preachers and members were drawn off and embittered, and all the evil fruits appeared that are wo to appear when politics overwhelm piety. At a Conference of the disaffected, in 1793, O'Kelly renounced all Church government, except as each man might find it for himself in the New Testament, 3S 434 THE STORY OF METHODISM. ordained his own preachers, and took the modest name of " Th( Christian Church." His organism soon went to pieces and lu^ followers were few, but he clamored stoutly against "despotism ' undl his death, at ninety-two. So intense was the spirit and su stern the rule in the Methodist body that it is simply wonderful that our human nature worked in it so well and quietly. The victories that rewarded the toil and discipline, as in armies, were a constant solace and encouragement. A smaller schism, apparently from only personal ambition, was made by one Hammett in Charles- ton. He was eloquent and popular, and liis followers built him in the city a very fine church. He de- nounced Asbury and Coke as tyrants, but he made out no cast and his Church died with him. Asbury went now twelve miles from Savannah to see the ruins of VVhitcficld's Orphan House. He thought of the money and labor here si)cnt, "now all swallowed up," and was sad. He then thought how this enterprise had caused its founder to come seven times to America and what blessings those visits bad brought and how he was entered into Whitefield's labors in the world that the great preacher had quickened, and gratitude tilled his heart. After a wearying trip through the southwest, we find him resting for two davs at the home of Mrs. General Russell, in eastern Kentucky, whose husband, an officer in the Revolution, had been a faithful Methodist. Mrs. Russell was a sister oil Patrick Henry, and eloquent in meetings as he in the forum "rj THOMAS WARE. d bi- lism ' .nd ^" dcrfvil The ;, were jy one :harles- ;\oquent and bis : bim in ■ery fi>''^' He de- oury ;i>^^ -ants, but it no case .urcb died went now lies ^rom to see die Ivbiteficld's ousc. Ho the money here spent, sNvaWoNV^^^^ as sad. lb cr to c.*^i^'' visits bad bors in tbo titudc iAllcd -e find bim [\ RusscU, »^' Revolution. ,s a sister oil the foruni or SCHISMS — EMINENT CHARACTERS. 435 Senate. Her grandson, Wm. C. Preston, was U. S. Senator from South Carolina. He rides a thousand miles in three months. Near the Catawba, he writes: "Swamps, cold, rains and starva- tion. After a ride of twenty-seven miles, without eating, how good were the potatoes and fried graham ! If a man-of-war is a floating hell, those rice plantations are standing ones — wicked masters, overseers and negroes ; cuising, drinkmg, no Sabbaths, no sermons !" Three weeks of the three months he had spent in Conferences. Fording dangerous streams, out at night in storms and darkness, facing every peril in Georgia, he says : " I am mightily wrought upon for Maine and Lower Canada ! Oh, for more of God!" What breadth of love, toil and sacrifice! This was in March. In June, he was in Baltimore, and, by October, had visited Boston and the North and was at rest for a day, grieving over the loss of the noble Judge White. Bassett, of Bohemia Manor, had also entered into rest. Asbury could not stay to mourn. He went South and spent some days at Charles- ton, where he was cheered with prosperity, but he heard of the burning of Cokesbury College. In June, he was again in Balti- more, having preached along twenty-three hundred miles of wintry road in six months, besides a month in Charleston. 436 THE STORY OF METHODISM. In 1796, Abbott, whom we have found a wonderful man, even in wonderful times, was called out of this world. His death was fitting to his life. Power attended his word to the last, and his final utterances were : " I see heaven opened ! Glory 1" His place was filled by mighty men of old, men of renown, who did exploit and bore shame and toil, but were more than conquerors. Such were Henry Smith, Francis McCormick, John Easter; and of all these, time fails our Story to tell. William McKendrec had served in the Revolution and been present at Cornwallis' surrender. i\t the age of thirty he was converted, and his standing and talents brought him at once to the front. He became, with much shrinking, a preacher. Al one of his early appointments he could not lift his eyes to his audience, and after sermon, when the people were gone, there he sat, on the pulpit stair, his face in his hands. A gentleman came to invite him. "I am not fit to go home with anybody." An old preacher afterward said, "The Lord has a great work for you to do," and so it proved. Soon he was in charge of the whole work in the Mississippi valley. He was of magnificent presence and a look at him gave assurance of a man. We shall see him a leader to the last, fol- lowing Coke, Asbury and Whatcoat, as fourth Bishop. The South, especially Virginia, the mother of Presidents, was the mother of a high order of Methodist preachers. It was a good place for Methodism, for south of Delaware were, in 1796, about forty thousand members, two-thirds of the whole Church. Going northward, Asbury found a patron and brother in General Van Courtland, a man of high position, in whose homo, near the mouth of the Croton, the greatest statesmen had been visitors, and from whose porticoes Whitefield had preached. He was a true Methodist and his social and political standing aided the cause. Garrettson had married Catharine Livingston, and his ample home at Rhinebeck was another resting place to the wayworn, often weary and depressed. Bishop. George Pickering was received on probation in 1 790. In 1840, he was still active, though he says, in his semi-centennial sermon, that he "shall not labor much longer !" He was the only itinerant who had served fift\' \ears ; the patriarch of the hour, This true Nestor was tall, trim and vigorous of person, scrupulou:- ^'' SCHISMS — K.NriNFNr (IF AKAC I KRS. 437 /en yvas his lace ploit Duch 3faU been 2 waii ice to :. M to bis verc be n canio An oUl you to ssissippi im gave last, fol- was the s a good )6, about Irotbcr in |se bom^t Ibad been |hed. He ling aided [n, and bis ;e to the 1790. 1" centennial las the only the bouv. kcrupuiou- in dress and to all who now remember him, most venerable of aspect. His smallest ways and habits were perfectly systematic. Of his fifty years of itinerancy, he had spent just a fifth with his non-itinerating family. Nothing at home, not even the loss o( his daughter at sea and the grief of the family, brought him back an hour ahead of his programme. When his time for return after her death came, he gave up hours to silent, solitary grief. He was brief of speech, simple and direct in his ideas, and in every place a gentleman. When, seven years after his fifty, he laid ilown his active service, all said, "Servant of God. \v<-ll done! " His chief labor was in New England. There was Ezekiel Cooper, who brought the Book Concern to perfect order and success, raising its capital in six years from nothing to forty-five thousand dollars, and whose min- istry, effective and super- annuated, reached sixty- two years. He is the first preacher who is on record as a "furious" sportsman, his dear recreation being "the gentle art" of anglinr Some of the preachers liad, with a full experience of the familiar hardships, now made their way up the Hudson. Thomas Ware became Presiding Elder of the vast region. He dined with one of his preachers. For the Elder, the man and wife, and seven children, there was only a blackberry pie with rye crust, with no ingredient iiflard or butter. Ware had a few dollars and gave them to his brother, while they all wept together. There were many settle- .iients now, large towns with flourishing Churches, that were utterly without the Gospel until these faithful, suffering evangelists came. Northeastern Pennsylvania was as hard a field as any. Ware made his way to Wyoming through every difficulty. *'That REV. NICHOLAS SNU'HKN. ■1 438 THE STORY OF METHODISM. is what I glory in!" He found settlements with no form ol religious service, but his errand was not in vain. From one of the points he reached came Henry Bascom, the greatest Church orator of his day, and liisliop of the southern branch, Thomas Howmaii, now senior Bishop, and the I'eck family of seven preachers, one an eminent editor and another a Bishop, in one generation anil man}- preachers in the one following. In 1796, there were, on the northwestern border of settle- ments, three circuits, each a Conference to-day, the Fio^^ >., Wyoming and Seneca. As far at least as Seneca lake. New York was occupied. On its northeast, Richard Jacobs, disinheritetl from I wealthy house for his Methodism, was drowned in goin^' to preach to the settlements in I'.ssex uid Clinton. Which was me better his father's wealth or this, that all his family were converted, three sons and two sons-in-law becoming preachers ? On Long Island was an event as notable as any. Mrs. Moore, coming from New York to Southold and finding no Church privileges, joinetl two other ladies in prayer that a preacher might be sent them. Late in the evening she felt an answer: " I have heanl their cry and am come tlown to deliver them." That very night, Wilson Lee, who at New London was awaiting a wind to take him to New ^'ork, felt a strange and sudden impression to go to Long Island. The next morning he took ship for Southold, and, being a stranger, was din\:ted to Mrs. Moore's. She instantly knew him as the preach.. , and his errand was proved by the power of his word. In Februar\', 1793, Lee was again in Boston, not so " chill)' " as he once had fountl it, for he met a class "at Mr. liurrill's." Lynn was his New England home, and there Asbury came, in Jul\, to Conference. The Bishop had been ill four months, yet had ridden three thousand mih s, of which the last two hundred were the hardest. The Conference, too, had elements of pain. Some preachers withdrew, through O'Kelly's influence, among them a " Boanerges," John Allen, who retired to Maine. "Camp-meetini^' John Allen,' who had labored in three hundred and seventy-six camp-meetings, converted in his first, and at ninety dyir.^' in his last, bore the name of the mighty preacher. At Waltham, the life-long home of Pickering's family, Asbury staid with Benjamin Bemis, father-in-law of Pickering. The first native itinerant of SCHISMS — KMINENT CHARACTERS. 439 brni ol one of Churcli Thomas f seven ), in one ,f scttle- : Tiou', cw York ,inlieritc(.l , in ^oiiii^ /hich was uily NVLMc rcachers ? rs. Mooro, o Churcli :her mi'^ht '• I have That very ;i wind to )rcssion to 1- Southold, ic instantly cd by the ;o -'chilly " burriU's." Ime, in July. Ihs, yet had mdred were pin. Some ong them a Imp-meetiuii seventy-six jdyinj in his 'altham, the [th Benjamin itinerant of New England now appears — Enoch Mudgcwas of devout parents who found liberty under Lee's preaching in Lynn, as flid F-noch afterwards under that of John Lee. In 1793, being eighteen, he l)egan preaching, and his long and useful life was marked by ministerial legislative and litcrnry labors, until his death, in 1850. In Maine, Mudge found young Joshua Soule, long a Bishop ot the Church and then of the Church South. Men now living well remember others who now came into the ministry. Hunt whose grandson is now Secretary of the American Bible Society, Ostrander, and who can say how many unforgotten worthies ? »l|9-* f 440 I UK STORY OK MKTIIonif^M. It was the Roman usage to employ soldiers as far as possible from their native provinces, and something of the sort is seen in the appointments of the Methodist preachers. The men of the South, glowing of temper and utterance, were launched upon New England. They had much to bear from the settled clergy, who were strongly entrenched, for the law taxed all the property in the parish for their support, were fond of argument and afraid of zeal. Baptists and Methodists in Massachusetts and Connecticut were sent to jail for refusing to pay taxes to support a ministry which they did not want. The "Standing Ortler" were intelligent, wealth)- and aristocratic and yielded but slowly, but they yielded. Odious laws were repealed. At first, those who gave no notice of their s u p port of o t h c r Churches were held to pay the Congregational tax. At last, all laws were erased and all support of the Gospel was free. The struggle was usually c a 11 e il Calvinistic, but it was like that of Wesley with parish priests of the Church of England and any other name would have served as well. All that is now far gone behind us and the New England Churches of all names are in fair harmony. It was a severe trial, though, to be annoyed by intolerance, jealousy and petty controversy, and it would not be strange if the preachers were often witty, often harsh and often impatient in reply. In 1794, Conference was held at VVilbraham, Mass, and more than half of its recruits were from Maryland and Virginia. The little village afterwards became a seat of learning. In 1826, JOSHUA SOULE. Seventh Bishop of ihe .Methodist Episcopal Church. Kirsi Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church South. The Ri-antd Maint first mi h at Re^ New SCHISMS — EMINENT CHARACTERS. 441 :)W far Ics are red by Lot be often more The 1826, Colonel Hiiiney, of Boston, and others founded there Wesleyan Academy, which others, as Isaac Rich, the founder of Boston University, have since made a noble and useful school. It has trained more Bishops, preachers and men of affairs than any other Methodist academ)-. The session of the Conference here was remarkable and seemed to leave an influence on the very soil. Nt)\v appears a man to bi- noted. Nicholas Snethen, born on LonjT Island, 1769, joineil Conference at Wilbraham. Me, later, traveled with Lee and .Vsbury, was an able preacher, aiul made a vigorous defense of the Church against O'Keily. In 1S20, he began to write against the spirit and usages of the Church he had su labored to build and defend, and, in 1828, he presided in Baltimore at a con- vention of seceders which formed the Protestant Methodist Church. He was dis- satisfied with the place of the laity in the "Old Church," and for twelve years he gave his energies to . 1 r .1 AT ISAAC KKH tile work of the New. His last work was founding Snethen Seminary, Iowa City. His Church has now about twenty-five hundred preachers, travel- ing and local, and one hundred and thirty thousand members. The privileges which he claimed for laymen have since been granted. From this same Conference went the first itinerant to Maine, where the first class was formed at Monmouth, and the first member was Daniel Smith. In 1795, the first chapel in the state was dedicated by Lee at Readfield. The cause went forward with great energy in New England during this year of schism and decrease in the 442 THE STORY OF METHODISM. South, and there were reported two thousand five hundred and seventy-five members, of whom three hundred and eighteen were in Maine. The first chapel was erected in Rhode Island, and New Hampshire called for more preachers. And now, five years from that sermon under the Kim, Lee laid the corner-stone of the first Boston chapel. It was in a bad place, Hanover street, but it was a home, and from it Methodism went out over the city. ind ere and :ars the it it CHAT I 1:K WW!. IHE Wild V\ t^i and Canada. ENTUCKY and Ohio at the close of the last century were the wild frontier of the nation. "Westward the star of luTipire tai \ , X" ,.i;wt^-.- L^■^sS:^''^'M- ««jn ^S * f 9% "^^^^ *^!>^^B?M i|;..JS;^i mn'^M rVt-r-'i ••>. .w< . '1:0^ y'" "?Vr»1_ ■■, v-'"J^v'Hk.- .-^f-lyt^Aift! FIRST CHURCH IN KENTUCKY. 448 THE STORY OF METHODISM. Methodism. He came of the hearty and vigorous line of loyalists who came to Canada at the close of the American War of Independence. His ancestors ranked high among the Protestant founders of Canatia. His place of birth was Iroquois, not far from the old Blue church, in the yard of which lie the ashes of Barbara Heck. Methodism was even then prevailing in the rural regions and Carman's father, being of the M. E. Church in Canada, sturdily opposed its union, in 1833, with the Brittish Weslcyans. Fifty years later he saw all Canadian Methodisms united — and was glad. Dr. Carman has from the beginning been ardent in scholar- ship and his work has been that of a teacher until he became Bishop. In 1854 he graduated at Victoria College, Coburg. He conducted the Grammar School in Iroquois, then became Professor of Mathematics at Belleville, where he, in 1858, became Principal. In 1874, he left tlie Seminary, grown to a strong, thriving University. He became at this date Bishop of the M. E. Church. He held firmly and fondly to the Wesleyan ideal of Christian experience and his influence in promoting personal holiness. The cast of his mind by which he successfully guided the educational work seems precisely that which has best served him as Bishop. At the union of Canadian Methodisms, in 1883, he was elected one of the General Superintendents of the Methodist Church. By the General Conference of 1886, under the new constitution of the Church he was re-elected for eight years. Thus being now in the thirty-first year of his ministry, he is in the fourteenth of his episcopacy. He has with his colleague a wide range, from Newfoundland to the Pacific, and over the whole his influence has been beneficent. The Alma College, St. Thomas, is a monument of his educational zeal and executive ability. His writings have been sermons and magazine articles, largely rel^iting to Christian experience. The lives of few men have been marked by success so uniform, and his influence, like the spread of a healthy tree, has grown steadily with his years. His residence is Belleville, Ontario. Losee had a romantic fate. He fell in love with a young lady of unusual charms, but another gained her before him, and his heart and mind gave way. His name disappeared from the list. THE WILt) WEST AND TANADA, 449 ::■■:■::■'■:-■]■:■■ .■.^v^.>^^l^i| He led an honest, faithful, but broken, eccentric life and died at Hempstead, Long Island. His successors were Coleman and Woolsey. Going to his circuit by a canoe up the Mohawk, Cole- man, fifteen nights, was obliged to go ashore and build a fire, as a defense against wild beasts. They shoved against the current, day after day, until they reached the Oneida Lake and went down the Oswego. Only once in the nineteen days, fifteen in rain and snow, between Albany and Oswego, did they sleep in a cabin, and that a poor, sick settler's. The family were delighted with singing, ,conversa- .v«?st'V-:;:^'i&;v , tion and prayer, and begged all Methodists would stop with them. From Oswego, they pad- dled out upon the lake, but they met storms, and winds detained them on Grenadier Island, until their last food was gone. Eating their last biscuit at noon, they started and, at midnight, they reached a friend's, Captain Parrot's, on the shore. They were ravenous with hunger, but, after three weeks of bivouac, they got no sleep on feather beds. They now hurried to their REV. ALliERT CARMAN, D D. General Superintendent of the M. E . Church in Canada. work and found crowds hungry for the Gospel and glad of their commg. The people had no money, but gave such as they had. One offered fifty acres of land ; another followed the boat into knee- deep of water, saying, " As long as I have two mouthfuls of bread, you shall have one." In a year these men gathered four hundred and thirty-three members. Next year they came to Conference in thirteen days. They called at " the poor, sick set- tlers" and found a glad welcome in a home fairly comfortable, with "corn, potatoes and two or three cows." They told at 29 450 THE STORY OF METHODISM. Conference a hopeful tale and were sent back. Their return voyage was better, though they were nearly wrecked in a storm on Oneida Lake. This year, the first helper in that region appeared, Sylvanus Keeler, who, in a long and active life, preached from the St. Lawrence to beyond the Rideau and the Mississippi. Woolsey's health failed and he came to the milder climate of the states. "The handsomest pair in Canada," Samuel and Mrs. Coate, now appear as laborers. Their personal beauty was not a hindrance. Both were laborers, faithful and very successful, while Wooster was mighty in faith and eloquence as he worked with them. In Canada, as elsewhere, the work be- gan with the poor and gained but few of the higher families, but it worked upward. This year, each preacher — four — gained over eighty | members. And now, in 1796, Methodism had thus been founded in all the land. Virginia had the most members, fourteen thou- ^ „ „. . , ^ , ^ u u j , A Pioneer Missionary, round frozen to death in the attitude of sand, and New Hamp- prayer, shire the fewest, sixty-eight. Schism had reduced the aggregate to fifty-six thousand six hundred and sixty-four, or nine thousand three hundred and sixteen less than four years earlier, but that was no discouragement and, thenceforth, there was no decrease. Washington saw the benefit of the work to the country and wrote, when the "Whisky Insurrection" was ripe, to the preachers in its region, thanking them for their brave and true loyalty as "good and meritorious citizens." Coke was glad to hear of prosperity. " The last year is the greatest Methodism has ever known," and he urges attention to the conversion of the negroes, which he believes will in some way be followed by their freedom. So it proved. ":^' -*.-v'. CHAPTER XXXVII. W Persons and Incidents. I ITTLE of special interest was done at the General Conference of 1796. Coke had come and found in Balti- more a hundred and twenty preachers. The work was now framed into six Annual Conferences. The holding of Church property was given to trustees, the pulpit being guaranteed to the preachers. A Methodist magazine was to be published. Rules were made for the discipline of schools by which there was to be no play^ exercise by manual labor or walking, and all students, at all seasons, GJT® w^re to rise at five ! Remonstrance was made against /A /Ik giving or retailing spirituous liquors. The sale of slaves was cause for expulsion, and emancipation at certain ages was enjoined. Soon after this, Asbury, in South Carolina, saw a slave fishing. The Bishop asked: "Do you ever pray?" " No, sir." Asbury taught and exhorted him ; the negro wept, and As- bury sang a hymn, and, kneeling by his side, prayed and left him. Twenty years later, the negro came sixty miles to thank Asbury. He had been converted. Forty-eight years after this, an itinerant heard of a flock in the wilderness and went ]! i*- ,■''•:-■ ,.te 452 THE STORY OF METHODISM. to find it. There were two or three hundred on a plantation un- known to any Church. "Is there a preacher?" "Yes, massa; de old Bushup lib hyar." "Is he a good preacher?" "Oh, yes; he word burn we heart !" The "Bushup" was Punch, now palsied and white-headed. With beaming face, he said : " The Lord has sent you, my child. Now lettcst Thou thy servant depart in peace." The humble apostle had here gathered throngs of hear- ers, until the overseer had forbidden it. One evening, a few were praying in Punch's cabin when he was alarmed at the overseer'? calling him. He went out. "Punch, will you pray for me?" The man, with grateful tears, owned the blessing of the negro's prayer and became a preacher. And " Punch was that slave b) the river." But Asbury had trials. Just a year after the burning of Cokesbury, an academy, started in Baltimore to replace it, with Light Street Church and parsonage were burned — a loss of one hundred thousand dollars. For ninety years the Maryland Meth- odists undertook no other school. The overwork that made havoc of the preachers told on the Bishop, and what he said of his favorite horse might be said of the rider. "No wonder he is stiff after being ridden five thousand miles a year for five successive years !" The loss of helpers made him sad. Wells, who first welcomed him to Charleston, an able and liberal pillar of the Church, died, and though McFarland, his partner in business, took his place, yet it was but one for two. Coke was deeply interested in the meetings of the negroes, of whom five hundred were members. Their mythological names, Jupiter, Mars, Diana, seemed to him comical. He now left for England, but the next year, in Virginia, he suddenly met Asbury, and Lee, "riding a borrowed horse with a large white boy on the same behind him." It was Asbury's turn to see something comi- cal ! Coke had come to get release from ofiice in America. As- bury, by the advice of the Conference, granted it, but he showed how from the place of one Conference in Charleston to that of the farthest in Maine was thirteen hundred miles, and there was "only one worn-out superintendent" — that is, Asbury himself. Lee was the man dear to Asbury as colleague and successc. He was now forty, and his record of fifteen years* preaching was wonderful. A southern tour was now ordered for him, and in PERSONS A*JD INCIDENTS. 453 made able d, his two. |)es, of anics, ft for sbury. »n the comi- As- owed of the "only Icessc". ,g was land in December he had twenty-five appointments and five hundred miles of travel. In Charleston, thirteen years after he had preached there the first Methodist sermon, he found two chapels, and five hundred members, black and white. Returning to Virginia, he persuaded his father to emancipate by will the slaves of the home- stead, and then hastened to and fro as Asbury's substitute. The next year, 1800, both were in the vast field, preaching in new places, where people even grown and having families had never heard a sermon. Lee roughed it as well as the Bishop, sleeping in log cabins of one room for all the people, and " thirty or fort)^ hogs under it." For four years, to 1804, he preached in Virginia, and the whole State felt his word. He was flush of vigor, full of wit and glowing eloquence. At one Quarterly meeting every person present was converted, the service lasting all day. Camp meetings were introduced. The first was held in Ken- tucky, where, in 1 799, a meeting held by a Presbyterian and a Methodist had suddenly outgrown the house and been adjourned to the woods. In the early days the attendance was immense, and the good of them very great. They were to the scattered people in the leisure after harvest, like the various summer assemblies and Chautauquas of to-day, only that they were for devotion only. Lee used them to good purpose in Virginia. In i8cx), wonderful revivals took place in the South and West. Baltimore was deeply moved and a hundred and fifty were converted during the week of General Conference. In east Virginia, a nt some ilems, as electing Hishops for fonr years only. The United Brethren, Otterbein's people, are about the same, and both I luirches are earnest, spiritual and prospc»ous. Looking now eastward, we Inul rising a man most devoted, useful and entertaining, liilly Hibbard, named from a Governor of a State, was p u t on the Conference roll as "Wil- liam." He would not answer. "Is not that your name?" asked As- bury. " It is Billy Hib bard." "But Billy is a v-i^ little boy's name." "I ^^ w:»s a little boy when my father gave it to me." The Conference was convulsetl with laughter. In passing his character he was charged with practicing medicine. "Are you a physician?" asked the Bishop. "I am not. I simply give advice in critical cases." "What do you mean by that?' " In critical cases I always advise them to semi for a physician." His wit was always ready, and it could bo rude, for he would not " hew blocks with a razor." In a crowd, a noisy intidel challenged him by saying a man's sou! goes with his body, " Suppose the body was yours and should by accident be eaten by a pig?" "Then ! am soul and body in the pig." "And if the pig be made into soap?" "Then I am in the soap." "Well, we'll leave you there in the soap !" while the throng roared .->t the man's " position." JACOB ALBRIGHT. J'KRSONS AND INCIDKNTS. 459 Hilly Kihbard ^avc the ininistry a son, Fru'cborn Garrctlson llibhard, for fifty years the most rffcctivo preacher in western New York, and widely known as an author. His eldest son and namesake, lonj; a prominent citizen of New York, was obli^jed to ^je< m, an( I h( i;ive np "Hilly." Not one in ten wonid so address hi had to be "William." At twelve, llibbard went thron^di an in- t "nse relif^ioiis e.xpcMience, from which he fell away, but at lenj^th iMine out into settled peace and a life-ion^' purpose. I lis wife, a woman )f clear head and even temper, Wi ited. d he be- h' m t conve o suspect his callni}^. L.op'.'crsjons followed Ins earlic /. elTorts, but he leit weak and unworthy. At I'ittsficid, ho heard a weak, "a very weak" brother, who weakened a.s he went on. " He is weaker than l am, or, if I am as weak as he, I will never try to preach aj^ain." The ne,> than sixty years. No man labored longer or better to manage and secure its varied interests, and he is the most truly tH,^present- ative Methodist of our century. He was born in Connecticut, but was »*ow surveyor in Canada beyond iNMagara. He knew the Methodists only to despise them, but under a se-rnion of Sauyir's lie w ,. i«»nvcrtcd. As lu vvai> tT.R'inNN ANT) rvriDKNTS. 461 then teaching, he opened school with prayer, for which he was stormily dismisscil. Hi began lo preach. Those who have seen majestiv men in the full dress of the day can sec how Hangs, who was of manly beauty, must have changi.'d in a preacher's garb. He sold everything in 1 801 and went out to preach. No result seemed to follow and he was downcast. Then he dreamed ot picking at a rock and making no impression. lie would pick no more, when a stranger appeared, ami said : " ]\)itf duty is lo pick.' At another blow the rock flew into a thousand pieces ! Hangs was never again tempted to give up. He soon had an experience about " impressions." He went to a settlement on a winter's day to call for prayer and conversation at every house. He came to one back in the tield with no path to it through the snow. He went on, but was impressed that he ought to visit it, until the impression became intolerable. He turned back, waded through the snow and found not a soul there. He never again trusted impressions. Going to an appointment he was aimoyed on the mad by three half-.\ \t' live and how to die. Her grave is shown in the tr churv^. ^ ^rd, with the rude forefathers of the hamlet "'W™«"'^WBpPWW!P(PrSBWW!'W!^WWPIWiP?W'^^ 462 tH£ STORV OF MEtHObiSNt. and pious great-grandchildren, and descendants beyond call her blessed. So does the Church, which she founded in New York, thirty-nine years before her death, and which now, eighty-two years after it, has covered one continent and reached to many. r ■""■'■■ ■ — —— ■ '. ■ II..HIIIWPIIII 1 ■ — ' r ■ ■'"'"?■- 1 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ . ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H A ^^^: ■ ' '"^^^H ^^ ■ ' ■- ^^^^1 1 W ti. ■ ■■■ V"^^^-'^-^-';'-/^ ■v^^^^^''•'•- 1 ( -: I. \ w,^:: ,^|W. .&;■■'/ '-rv^ ;::..; ■^■'^■ •.^'/.aa'.;./ ' ', .' , ,. d rj ■ ■i ---■■' •-■'-■^- - :; * OI,D BEECH HLI.L M. E. CHURCH. The "Beech Hill" M. E. Church was built on Beech Hill, West Granville, Massachusetts, in the year 1793, and was the first M. E. Church built in Massachusetts, west of the Connecticut River. Bishop Asbury held a Conference here in 1797, at whicii fifty-two preachers were present. Here, rn'":ny were born again; and glorious indeed in the record thereof in the Book of Life. CHAPTF.R XXXVIir. Some Men. — The West. — Two General, Conferences. "H UST four years since Wager's entering Maine, there had been gained a thousand members. In 1799, three years after his entrance of New Hampshire, that .state had one hundred and thirty-one. Of all New England, this was the hardest at first, but such it has n it continued. In these years Lorenzo Dow was admitted to Conference and did immense labor in ^ western Massachusetts. Daniel Webb, who now became a preacher, was at his death, in 1867, the oldest effective preacher in the world, serving sixty-nine years. Elijah Hedding, a future Bishop, the eighth, began service in 1799. He was born in Dutchess County, New York, but was reared in Vermont. He had all due initiation, for in northwestern Vermont he had to meet the fierce frontier barbar- ism. Even when he had formed societies, he was often foublcd with what is at once the strength and weakjic.vj of New England — the people would "go West." Their emigration t: this day drains Churches of their most active members and for that reason the growth of 464 THE STORY OF MtTlIODlSM. Methodism in New England is the more remarkable. Medding grew in power. At Hebron, Connecticut, in an audience of three thousand, five hundred fell within five minutes under his preaching, and lay as if dead. Maine, as well as Vermont, now developed a coming Bishop. He was born in Bristol and began work in 1798, rude of mind and manner, but unable tver ^or Methodist) Alley was slowly building, they had .-^ure aiinoyance from rude fellows of the baser sort, and the city authorities gave no protection. Hibbard, preaching twelve sermons a week at Granville, was at- tacked with stones and dogs. In Vermont, a preacher, Crawford, was ducked in the river, and others suffered constant annoyanec, In these quiet regions, where the Churches have so long had nst, it seems incredible that preachers, in the very land of the Pilgrim^, should suffer as if among the heathen. Fhe dominant Church REV. ELIJAH HEODING, D. D. The Eighth I'ishop o( the Methodist Episcopal Church. 9 SOME MEN. — THK WKST. — TWO GENERAL C;ON^KKl^NCES. 465 liirts of rous;h In Hos- Allty Ifellovvs lection. /as at- «wf<»i'l. lyam <■ U T.'St, "huich seemed bent on their extirpation. fliey were denounced from pulpits, snubbed in court.s, interrupted in sermons and mobbed on the streets. To tliis daj-, the sons of the I'ilgrims, ^rim with moldy pride, often speak with distant contempt, or with the grace of patronage, about " the Methodists," whose growth and power gives them unwelcome surprise. For, despite all hindrance, Methodism had, in 1804, over ten thousand members and eighty itinerants. In the West the ground was more free. Scotch Presbyteri- ans had, however, settled in western Pennsylvania, and they were a vigorous race of good citizens, warm in temper and fixed in religious ideas. They were fond of controversy, and, "e'en though vanquished, they could argue still." Roberts, a bold young hunter of the region, tells of a public debate to which a .Scotch clergyman had challenged Valentine Cook, the Presiding lillder. It was held in the woods, where ample seats were had and a throng had been two days gathering. All things had been arranged in the interest of a victory for " Calvin- ism." Cook was sitting quietly when a stout, Scotch clergyman came a little late, but early enough to "gie the youngster a dose from which he will not recover." The dominie was rude to Cook, and, without prayer or j)reliminary, rushed into the rough pulpit and began a furious attack on Wesley and his whole system. He yelled, staniped and fairly foamed. Whan he came to defend "Calvinism" he had no reserve of voice. Hoarse, alul hardly audible, he growled for an hour and took his seat, utterly spent. Cook began with prayer, and with clear, sweet voice, quickly gained the completest attention. His defense of Wesley and his reply to his opponent werv^ almost wholly in careful quotations of tile ringing words of Scri|)lure. His Scotchman sprang U[) and liowlcd "Wolf! wolf in sheep's clothing!" but Cook spoke right on. He then calUd his friends to go with him from the place and " leave the babbler to himself." Only two or three from thou- sands, went with him. As Cook was ctMieluding, the vast throng rose to their feet and stood, many in tears, under the spell of his word, and, at the end, silently left the spot under the «1< cp»:st im- pressions. This debate made Methodism respected and opened an effectual door for it in the .stati; west of the iiumn^nwn. In 1800, Asa Shinn began service in the Pittsburg dittrict. J9 466 THE STORY OF METHODISM. He became the founder of the Methodist Protestant Church. This body, formed in 1830, and now having fifteen hundred itin- erants, with one hundred and thirty thousand members, differs from the parent Church mainly in having no Bishops and in making the laity equals of the clergy in Church management. Near the Ohio line, forty miles south of Lake Erie, is Old Salem, the home of Robert R. Roberts, a Bishop at thirty-seven ; only E. S. James having become Bishop so young. He was early a student of Methodist authors and, in 1800, became a preacher. H i s earthly passion was for hunting and, even after his making into a Bishop, keeping his home in the Salem cabin, he would go upon his old sport. His skill Avas wondcr- f u 1 — o n 1 y , in later years, he would get lost in thought, and, leaning on his rifle, let the game escape. He was kingly to look at, born to command, and his love of frontier life fitted him to serve as Bishop, to use the pa- Ri.V. KU^iiRT KICHFORD ROBERTS. P^^ Pl^l"^^^' ''' P^''^'^"'' Tlie Sixth Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church. tufidellUm^ amOUg tllC frontiersmen. His memory is still dear at Salem and along the Chenango. In West Virginia, Cook, the debater, was doing the work of an evangelist, but he vas ^oon broken in health. He then took charge of tbe first T>cho( ' uethodist founding in the West, Bethel Semi- nary, in Keanaicky, auu continued as educator until his death, in i8ji>. In 1800, Willlatn McKendrce, afterward fourth Bishop, lonk charge of the western W brother. " f Jiofp uie sevfiu|." I ulllhs wept I'he grocer fA*,.t ! 468 THE STORY OF METHODISM. opened his house for preaching. The first Methodist congrega- tion in Cincinnati was twelve persons, in the chamber of John Carter's iiouse, and John ColHns was the preacher, in 1804, and a class of eight was formed, four being the Carter family. " A handful of corn in the top of the mountains." The next sermon was by Robert Sale to forty in a house on Main street between First and Second. The Stone chapel was begun in 1805. What conquest has Methodism made in the city in eighty years ! The first Methodist in Indiana was Nathan Robertson, who came to Charleston in 1799, and the first class was at Gassaway near Charleston, where also the first chapel was built in 1802 and is still shown. Indiana is now the Methodist state, half of its Christian popu- lation being in the Church and its congregations being more than half its population, though Iowa follows hard after. In 1804, Benjamin Young went as a missionary to Illinois. He had a hard time. Few people were there, but " stealing, lighting, lying!" He f!)und five societies of thirteen each. Jle was sickly ; he lost his horse, stolen by Kickapoos ; he had to sell his books at Kaskaskia for his board before the people began to help him, but he knew he was "in the work of God" and was not cast down. The first Methodist sermon in Detroit or Michigan, was by one Freeman in 1803, Bangs preached there in 1804, welcomed by one convert of Freeman's sermon, and the first society in the city and state was formed in 1805. Detroit was a Romanist city of French and Indians, and no Protestant church was built there until 1818. Asbury threaded the West about once a year. He was always sick and infirm, but his soul was a driving-engine. The details of his experience we have no room for. In our Story, hardship, suffering and victory are amply familiar, but we may take a little more from Asbury's faithful Journal. At Claiborne, Tennessee, he writes, "What a road have we passed, the worst on the continent, yet there were four or five hundred crossing the hills while we were. As many thousands come yearly from East to West, and we must send preachers after them. Should a well-mounted man complain when he sees men, women and children, almost naked, paddling barefoot and barelegged along, or laboring up the rocky SOME MEN. — THE WEST. — TWO GENERAL CONFERENCES. 469 hills, while the best-off have two or three on the same horse? The people are the kindest, but what can kindness do with a log- cabin, twelve by ten, cold and rain without, and six adults and as many children (one always in motion, to say nothing of doj^s) within ? I have taken the itch — strange T haxe not taken it twcnt> times; there is no security in these filthy beds, but sleeping in ;i sulphur shirt. But we must bear it for the elect's sake. The air is pure and the house of God is near." Reaching North Carolina, "once more have I escaped from filth, fleas, rattlesnakes, hills, mountains, rocks and rivers ; farewell, western world for a while !" He took the cup of which his humblest brethren were drinking. But they all had success. The Gospel was hear the city, but in the next ten years their nunv ber was more than doubled. Still that was, slow growth for a Methodist society. Richmond was singularly destitute of religious institutions. In 1799, it had a small Baptist chapel, and ar. Episcopal church 472 THE STORY OF METHODISM. in which a service was held but three times a year, and that t© hold certain endowments. The first class was formed, in 1793, by some persons just come from England. In 1799, Thomas Lyell began a chapel. In 181 1, the most impressive disaster up to that date in this country, the burning of a crowded theater in which many of the gayest perished, opened the hearts of many to hear the Gospel. Another church was built, the Virginia Conference was he'd there and Lee was appointed there. The Methodists were now in advance of all other Churches. Not only in these southern centers, but inward and on the fron- tier, progress was made. Lorenzo Dow, who trul}- counted the world as his parish, preached, in 1803, the first Protestant sermon, in Alabama, to the rude pioneers on the Tombigbce and other streams. Randlc, the first Presiding Elder, had a district of which the extreme vircui-is were separated by four hundred miles of Indian territory In 181 1, the country having, by the extinction of the Indian title, become more occupied, about four himdred members were reported. The region was served by preachers from the South Carolina Conference, but it soon began to be counted as a part of the Great West, and men were appointed from the western Conference, from which we saw Gibson come to Natchez. Four young evangelists went, in 1812, to preach in the farthest regions of the Gulf. Full of ardor and devotion, they found no lack of toil, peril and adventure. Heroes became many. REV. L'JVICK PIERCE, M. D. MEN AND DOINGS IN THE SOUTH. 473 Lewis Myers, wlio li\cd to 1857, was a hard)-, courageous, able man, who long took, as if from choice, the brunt of labor and fiufifering in the lowlands. \Vm. M. Kennedy had, among other gifts to be ccv'eted, a powerful and melodious voice. He was the sweet singer of his Confere.icc and, with his ability as jf)reacher, coidd swa\- the vast thrcngs at camp-meetings. James Russell learned to read after he began to preach, the only case of the kind in the history of Methodism. His marvelous, natural gifts carried him into Coiift-renrc H<' was a born orator and could move with east' as he would an audi- ence, howe\er large. Eye, voice and muscle joined to express his thoughts, and he be- came a power in founding the Church in the South. On his first circuit he carried a spelling- book, and Wd.- not ashamed to get help fiom the children of families that enter- tained him. He be- came a good scholar, and no man had occasion to despise him. Stephen Olin, aftcr\vards the greatest Methodist orator, had the highest admira- tion of his genius and power in preaching, and declared his success "seldom equalled since the time of the apostles," r^.nd that in his brief career, thousands of souls were given him in the South Carolina Conference. In the same year, 1804, with these men, two brothers, Lovick and Reddick Pierce, came into the Conference. The former has but just died, after so near a century of prominence at the front of southern Methodism, a prominence due to his labors and sacrifices, as well as to his great abilities. These young men, REV. REDDICK PIERCE. 474 THE STOkY OF METHODISM. whose father despised the Methodists, were once allowed to attend a preaching. They were awakened and began lives of prayer. Within three weeks after they joined the Church, their whole family became Methodists. The next year, i802. Pierce chapel was built on Tinker's creek. South Carolina, and the brothers entered upon their sacred calling. Under Reddick's preaching among his old associates, great results followed. "Eleven sinners at one time fell from one scat crying for mercy." He died in i860. One of those four "true knights " who went to Mississippi was NoUey. He was a poor orphan near Sparta, Georgia, where Captain Lucas, a Methodist, took him in. At a camp-meet- ing, in 1806, so great was the congregation that Lovick Pierce held an overflow meet- ing. The power of God was present, and more than a hundred, of whom Nolly was one, were ther^e converted. In 1807, we come to the name of John Early. He joined the Virginia Conference at twenty-one, and his first labors were among the slaves of Thomas Jefferson in his own, Uedford county. His character anC talents brought him quickly to the front. In 181 1, five hundred joined his circuit. Two years later he was Presiding Elder, and at one of his camp- meetings more than eight hundred were converted in one week. Nor was he a preacher only. He founded Randolph Macon College, in Virginia, and was for years its president. Every office of trust and honor in the Church, and some very flattering positions in the state, had been offered him. He had, at the close of his life, probably received into the Church more people than REV. JOiiN EARLY, D. D. Sixth Bishop of the M. E. Chin -h South. MEN AND DOINGS IN THK SOUTH. 475 any man then living. Strong, simple and spiritual of address, clear and energetic in business, he was valued early and late in his career, and his name adorns both the Methodist Church and the Methodist Church South. Major William Capers was a leading Methodist of Charleston. He had been under Marion in the Revolution and won his title in defense of his state. His son William showed early promise, and, afier a collegiate course, gave himself to the study of the law. His father had, meanwhile, fallen away from peace and hope, but the son had been awakened at a camp- meeting, though not converted. One even- ing, father and son caught the hymns that a daughter was singing and both hearts were touched. They went away and prayed together, " until grace was restored to my father and mercy came to me." The father resumed his love for Asbury and the Methodists, from whom he had been so sadly estranged, and the son entered upon that long and eminent career in the ministry, which belongs both to the northern and southern Churches. Entering Conference in 1808, he began with twenty-four appointments every four weeks. On his second circuit, he found, at Fayetteville, Henry Evans, a negro well worth noting. This Evans, being free, had come from Virginia to ply his trade of shoemaking. He found his people in the town poor heathen, at the lowest of morals and habits, and with earnest soul he began preaching to them. Forbidden to do this in the town, he went out to the .sand-hills, and M'hen a mob was raised he eluded it by WILLIAM CAPERS, D. D. Third Bishop of the Methoaist Episcopal Church South. ^'^^■■':'^.A^yi.- wmmmimmtm. 476 THE STORY OF METHODISM. constant change of appointments, while he honestly told of his effoi'ts and their cause. Soon there came a change upon the conduct of the negroes — there was more fidelity, less vice — so plain that E\'ans was allowed to preach in town. Then masters and mistresses followed their servants, and a meeting-house was built. The attendance grew. Soon the whites took the house ano built at the sides ample lean-tos — extension sheds for the negroes. Capers testifies to Evans' power ; the facts do so very plainly. He began at the bottom and left off at the top in Fa)-etteville. jl Capers preached the good man's funeral sermon, who was buried under the chancel of "Evans' chapel," his just monument. His record is on high. Capers, in 18 10, was in Charleston. Strangely enough, such was the feeling roused by the General Confer- ence's disapproval of slavery that he, son of an eminent slave-hold- ing citizen, was no longer allowed to preach to the negroes. He found, as substi- tutes, able and eloquent colored men, whom he licensed to preach, and sent out far and near to the slaves on the plantations. The result was very beneficial and the negroes have since been mostly Methodists. This form of labor on the plantations, so beneficial to the poor slaves, led Asbury and others to soften their ideas of emancipation into conciliation and thus affected the policy of the Church. Capers served the Church long and well, spending in the service an ample fortune. He filled important offices and, in 1845, became Bishop of the Church South, dying in 1855. Beverly Waugh joined the Baltimore Conference, at twenty. REV. BEVERLY WAUGH. D. D Eleventh Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church. MKN ANO 1>61NGS in- TItE SOl'TII. 477 in 1809. Ho took his early traininpj in Virginia, his native state, on one of its hardest western circuits. After serving in main' places, he was, in 182b, made book agent at New York, from which post he was, in 1836, made the eleventh Bishop. He died in 1858, leaving the record of a prudent laborious man. He was about the last whom the present generation remember as wearing the severe ministerial garb of early times. To all these rising men Asbury was dear and venerable. His example constantly inspired them. Young Capers, when first introduced to him, came up \'ery timidly. Asbury, who, seventeen years before, had been Major Capers' guest, caught young William in his arms, saying, as he remembered the family, "I've got the baby!" and he won "the baby's" heart. The Bishop loved the South and the warm-hearted men of the South, among whom he found so many heroes. Seventy times he passed over its territory, spending there a part of every winter, even in his old age. , After 1804 he wrote less, but was otherwise as active as ever, only he had now a companion, usually another Bishop. He writes from Georgia that himself and McKendree, " two Bishops of us," are riding in a poor thirty-dollar chaise, with purses to match. " What Bishops ! But we hear great news and we have i^rcat times. Each Conference will, this year, have a thousand souls converted to God. Are we not well paid for starving and toil? Yes; glory be to God!" He carried an ax slung under his carriage for trees would fall across the road and his companion must cut them away, as well as care for the Bishop's infirmities, and even preach at the appointments when the latter was too sick or feeble. His early friends drop away. Forty years have told on Perry Hall, the dearest of all his resting places. In 1805, he finds it newly painted and gay with grandchildren, "but I and the elders of the house felt that it was evening with us." Gough died in 1808, and Asbury came to the house of mourning to shed his own tears, as he preached over the body of his true and noble friend. In 181 1, he preached at the chapel, and, in 1813, he was there to write, "Alas, how solitary!" Bishop Gilben: Haven, then chaplain of a Massachusetts regiment, visited Perry Hall in 1862. "The most elegant house in America" had been burned in 47« HIE srokv of MKriioDisM. 1845, and its successor was inferior; the estate had been divided and sold, the trees were scant and strajrgUn^. "A glory had passed away from the place," but it will not pass from the Story of Methodism. Many [generations will venerate the asylum of the weary preachers, the abode of piety and culture, such as made it dear and sacred beyond all the stately mansions of the land. Otterbein, founder of the United J^rethren, now died in Baltimore; ''sixty years a minister, fifty years a converted one," Asbury loved and revered him, and, preaching his funeral sermon, calls him "the great, the holy Otterbein." The Bishop shows something of an old man's notions, though he was never in his life so cheerful. He fears that wealth and honor may harm the Church. A church-going bell from a chapel steeple startles him, and he hopes it may be the last as well as the first. (How bells are vanishing in i888!) He finds southern families reluctant to marry their daughters to preachers, and he is glad, for 'elibacy is "all the better." In the Virginia Conference, 1809, of eighty-four preachers, only three were married, and Asbury and McKendree, i*^^s Bishops, were bachelors. It was well called "The Bachelor Conference." Asbury could not see how the itinerancy could do otherwise than lose its semi-military order and energy, if the preachers had families. We now see how, in the slow and natural change of social conditions, his fears have proved groundless. The spread of the church delighted him. He computed that Methodism, in 1806, had on this continent four million hearers. Over all these he was commander-in-chief. Well might he say, "What a charge!" In 181 2, he was feeble, and one foot was useless by rheumatism. He had to be carried into Church and sit while preaching. Sick with fever, his feet swelled and painful, he was still preaching twice in one day, or traveling twenty-five miles. Among the preachers his presence was electric, for no man on the continent, or then living in the world, had such a record as he. His feeble voice was worth a thousand men. At the great camp-meetings, now frequent in the South, attended sometimes by three hundred preachers and ten thousand hearers, where a thousand conversions would occur in a week, he was the luminous, inspiring, central figure. This man. the chief founder of Methodism in America, died )cen tlividcd glory had )m the Story isyUini of the :h as made it [ic land, now died in iwerted one," neral sermon, )tions, thou'j^h at wealth and from a chapel as well as the finds southern hers, and he is lia Conference, married, and s. It was well ot see how the itary order and ce how, in the rs have proved computed that ■ ^jj lillion hearers. I might he say, 1 one foot was ■ to Church and 1 ed and painful, H ng twenty-five ■ electric, for no ■ d, had such a ■ nd men. ■ in the South, ■ d ten thousand ■ ;ur in a week. MONUMENTS OF LEE AND.ASBL'RY, MT. OLIVET CEMETERY. America, died 48o THE STORY OF METHODISM. March 31, 18 16. Beginning his ministry in England at seventeen, and coming to America at twenty-six, he closed his career at seventy-one. For over fifty years he had preached fully a sermon a day, and, in America, had for forty-tive years, traveled six thousand miles a year and ordained more than four thousand preachers. He had been in the West, but was returning through the South to the General Conference at Baltimore. At Rich- mond, March 24th, he preached his last sermon, being carried to and from the pulpit and preaching from his seat. He went on to Spottsylvania to die. His last entry in his Journal tells, " My consolations are great." His last gesture was raising both hands as affirmative to an inqu.ry after his comfort in Christ. He then entered into rest. At the soon-coming General Conference, McKcndrcc preached his funeral sermon, and, escorted by an immense pro- cession, in which was most noted the sad and noble face of Jesse Lee, the coffin was laid beneath the altar of Eutaw Street chuich. He was the last of the great quarternion, the foremost four of Methodism, Wesley, Whitefield, Coke and Asbury. Six months later, Lee himself, rejoined his great leader. We have told of his career, how for thirty-five years he had gone from Maine to Florida, had brought Methodism to Boston, had been chaplain to Congress, and the earliest Methodist historian. He ranks next to Asbury in service, a Bishop in everything but the name. So fell, at the close of its first half-century, the two greatest figures iu the front of American Methodism. COOKIKU DINNER AT CAMP MEETING. <^i CHAITER XL. Men and Doings in the North. 1 7 ■ if '^W^^^SS^^^^^if ' ^ ^'^ most eminent preacher next rising Mft#t1ir^!W/ in the Middle States was John Emory. He entered the Philadelphia Confer- ence in 1810. To do this, he had renounced the law, for which he had been finely educated, and in which his prosp'xts were very brilliant. What was more, he had to brave his father's dis- pleasure, who refused him a horse, and, for two years, would have no communication with him. Afterwards, there was complete relenting and the father was comforted with the son's ministrations. Ready for the hardest service, Emory was but three years on circuits. He served in the cities where the highest talent and character was needed. In 18 16, he was a dele- gate to the General Conference, as to every other, but one, during his life thereafter. We saw him, in 1820, a visitor to the British Confer- ence. He became book agent in 1824 — "Em- ory and Hangs" was the name of the firm — and Bishop, the tenth, in 1832. In 1835, he was thrown from his carriage and died unconscious. His son Robert rose to eminence and became president of Dickinson College. Jacob Gruber had now in Maryland a lively experience. At V 482 THE STORV OF METHODISM. a camp meeting near Hagcrstown be preachcJ against slavery before an audience of three thousand. For this he was indicted and tried for felony in Frederick County. The case aroused great interest among the Methodists, for their preachers were often doing the srme thing. Roger B. Taney, afterwards Chief Justice of the Unitcil States, WAS Gruber's chief counsel. Taney entered heartily into his case, .uid showed ably the sentiment and policy of the Church, as ha\'ng steadily in view the a')olition of slav- ery. He went on to denounce slavery as a "Ijlot on our national character," and looked hopefully to the time when "we need not blusl'. at the language of the Declaration of Independence." One can hardly identify the young advocate, so ardent and generous) in behalf of liberty for Africans, with the ven- erable jurist who, forty years later, in the high- est court of the nation, affirmed that, in this cT3untr^', "the 'African has no rights that we are bonpi^ to respect." But all that has passed away, and by-gones arc by-gones. Gruber was cleared, but he steadily refused "to learn by my trial to call good evil and evil good." His next appointment was on the very spot of his trial. Farther north, Nathan Bangs brought into the Church his brother, Heman, whom many recall as majestic of stature, voice and brain as Nathan himself He was an effective preacher down to our own days. Natlian was now Tm- man>' \\-ars serving along tl.- Hudson. UEV, JOHN EMORY, D. D. Tenth Bishop of the Methodist Episcor>al Church. "tyjf.v^r':^- MfiN AND DOINCiS IN THE NORTH. 4«3 In 1 8 10, he found in New \ork about two thousanci members. Four hundred were added during bis two years of service. He went upon the Rhinebcck district and it grew to be " as a field which the Lord hath blessed," a very garden of Methodism, to this day. Here he called into the work the third of collegiate graduates, following Capers and Emory, Robert Seney, a man of rare and varied excellence, v/hose sen, Robert I. Seney, has been so generous a patron of Methodist enterprises. Samuel Luckey, a man prominent in the State of New York for more than half a cen- tury, now began on a cir- T' """"■ "'*' ' " cuit requiring, each week, i ten sermons and one hun- dred miles of travel. In Philadeljohia, now occurred the separation of the African Methodists. It was not easy, it is not yet any too easy, for negroes to be peers with whites in the societies, though the utmost k i n cl n e s s mi ;; h t prevail. All Americ.-Tns will u n d e r s t a n (.1 that. Richard Allen, ord.iined, as we raw, by Asbury, in 1 799, was a r e ni a r k a b 1 c man He was born a slave, redeemed himself, became wealthy and built for his people on his own land a church, which Asbury dedicated as a *' Bethel." For a while it was under Meth- odist supervision, but a decision of the court put the property into their own hands and took from the Methodist Episcopal Church. all pastoral responsibility. They proceeded to form, in iSi6, the Afrxan Methodist Episcopal Church, which has now four hun- dicu thousand members, and is the largest Protestant African Church in the world. It has a college, "VVilberfoice University," Xenia, Ohio, with four flourishing seminaries elsewhere, and per- haps fifteen hundred day schools. In the slave States it hfd rot k. ATTICUS G. HAYGOOD, D. D. LL. D. ir ■., MEN AND DOINGS IN THE .N(JRTH. 48S been allowed, colored people beintj held to '.vorship with the whites, but, in 1865, Bishop Payne, assisted by Bishop Brown, the successor of Allen, who was the first Bishop, formed a Con- ference in South Carolina Since the civil war it has greatly l)rospered. It has, at Philadelphia, a Book Concern, and pub- lishes the Christian Recorder and the Repository. At one time its organization included Canada, but. in 1856, the Canada Confer- ence became a separate body. It di»ifers from the parent Church on the color line only, and most friendly courtesies are inter- changed between the (ieneral Conferences of both bodies. It is often called "African Bethel Church," from the place of its origin. Some of its bishops have a record of struggle and achievement. Dan- iel A. Payne, at twelve an orphan-apprentice in Charleston, S. C. ; at seventy, presiding over the Ecumenical Confer- ence in London. Such a career, beginning m RICHARD ALLEN. First Bishop of the Af.ic.in Methodist Episcopal Church. the disabilities of his race and ending at the fulness of personal and churchly attainment, merits in its widest sense the wortl heroic. For thirty-six years, the most eventful that his people have ever seen, he has been their bishop and foremost of their leaders. The like may be said of Bishops Shorter, Turner, Cain and Wayman. Of their nine bishops, one, the Rev. R. R. Dissney, resides at Chatham, Ontario. At its General Conference at Indianapolis, in May, i!i(S8, one of its sessions was opened with exercises conducted by the Rev. Daniel Smith, a clergyman one hundred and two years old, the oldest effective preacher in the world. This movement was, in 1820, followed by another, The new ■wpfipspiBfpr 486 THE STORY OF METHODISM. Church gathered in New York a congregation at a house called the Zion Church. Dissatisfaction with Church government led to a schism, and the new body was called the African Zion Church. It has grown to have three hundred thousand members, with two thousand traveling, and as many local, preachers. It differs in nothing from the "Bethel," only in name, "Zion," neither does either of these differ from the parent Methodist Episcopal Church, unless that their Bishops are elected for four years only. Why do they not unite with each other and with the Mother Church? The color question is surely not in the way, for five hundred thousand frecdmen have come into "de ole Chu'ch" since the war. In 181 5, Tobias Spicer preached in Troy, with great success, where the work had moved but slowly. A young blacksmith, Noah Levings, arose and began as exhorter. He came to emi- nence, and was the first Methodist secretary of the American l^ible Society, and by his zeal, eloquence and sagacity, he caused that his Church was honored in him. Methodism was novy taking wide and lasting hold of central and western New York. In the Susquehanna valley, taking parts of New York ard Pennsylvania, was the Canaan circuit, embracing more territory than the Wyoming Conference of to-day. In 18 10, it was for all the young preachers a training ground. The roads were shocking, " pole bridges and no bridges." There was enoui^h of hunger, cold and weariness, of rude shelter amid frontier dis- comforts, and the preacher's pay was forty-nine dollars and ninety- eight cents and traveling expenses. Many a winter evening has this writer, whose father's house was a preacher's home in the region, heard the rehearsal of circuit life there and gazed on the narrator as upon some man more than human. Soon the charming Lake country was threaded, and Peter Vannest, fording the Genesee at Rochester, preached at Ogden the first sermon beyond, it. The first class was formed at New- stead. George Lane, best known as the longest-serving of book agents, held the next year, 1808, the first camp meeting, and from that came a new impulse. In Lyons, that daring Thomas Smith, coming to the circuit. found a handful, but the wicked were in large major-t and full MEN AND DOINGS IN THE NORTH. 487 of insult and annoyance. Unable to endure this, Smith planned a battle. " I should not wonder if, to-morrow, Lyons should be visited as it never has been and may never again be to the end of time." The meeting became quiet. " For God's sake, tell us what is to happen to-morrow?" cried one at the close. " Let to-morrow speak for itself!" was the answer. Smith went home with Judge Dorsey, just out of town. Next morning, Mrs. Dorsey came with the preacher to call on a family. Crowds were coming into town and there was excitement. At the end of the call, Smith asked if prayer would be agreeable. "By all means, Mr. .Smith, by all means, sir." Scores crowded the doors and a crusade began. Smith and his praying ones went in procession from house to house, entering and praying for the souls of the family. Soon there were four hundred in the procession. They entered the tavern, where the seat '>f all mischief was, and, shouting, stormed it. At four they came upon the \ illage green ; thirty-two converts came within the circle, and forty were that day added to the Church. Truly, Lyons saw no such day before or since, and no living man could have dared and done this but Thomas Smith. At Judge Dorsey's barn, in Lyons, the beams of which were fifty years after made into me- morial canes, the Genesee Conference was formed. It was of mag- nificent extent, comprising most of New York, a large part of Pennsylvanii*, and Canada, to the infinite — to the Pacific. One of the members was William Case, the apostle to the Indians. His chief labor was in Canada, and though he served circuits and several districts, yet the work among the Indians was WILLIAM CASE. 4«H THE STORV <'F .METHODISM, his passion. At the separation of Canadian Methodism, in 1828, he took entire charge of its 'ndian schools and missions. He loved the Indians, and his coming to a village was a joyful occa- sion to them, i^ven the shy children he would run and catch and kiss. Hundreds were brought to Christ by his labors, and no missionary has had such success among them. The whole system of Canadian Indian missions is of his devising. In 1830, he was made general superintendent of the Meth- odist societies, and, had any Bishop been elected, he would have b e e n t h e man. In 1854, he preached to the united Canada Conference a "J'lbilec Sermon," fifty years after his entrance on his ministry. The union of all Canada Methodism had been his heart's desire and this he lived to see. His death, by a fall from his horse, occur- red in 1855. The war now com- ing on cut off the Can- ada region of the Gen- esee Conference, and its preachers made their own appoint- ments, splicing on the local brethren. Some preachers from Eng- land came to Quebec and Montreal, but the loss was great. After the peace came freer labor, and, in 1817, the Confer- ence was held at l*!li'/.'ibethtown. Bishop George, the fifth in order of election, presided, and the session was penticostal. A hundred were made subjects of grace, and a flame of revival went out to all the circuits. Another session was held at Niagara, on Canada soil, in 1820. At that date, there were in upper Canada forty-nine clergymen of other denominations, and of Methodists eighty, besides sixty-five exhorters, and the members were six REV. WILBUR FISK, D. D MEN AND DOINGS IN THK NORTH. 489 thousand three hundred. Asbury once entered Canada, but the route cannot now be found. Looking to New England, we find Wilbur Fisk. c\en yet, the greatest, dearest name. He entered the ministry in i(Si8, the first New England preacher of collegiate training in a region where that counts seriously. He had graduated at Hrown University in 181 5, having been a member of the Church already five years, and had intended to give his life to the profession of law. He was not long an itinerant. His calling lay chiefly in the work of education. In 1826, he became principal of the academy, just removed from New Market, N. H., to Wilbraham, Mass. In 1832, he took the presidency of the Wesleyan University, at Middletown. Conn. I have ne\cr heard of a teachi'r wlio so deeply impressed WILBRAHAM ACADEMY. his pupils. The venerable survivors can never speak of him without tears of love and reverence, and his simple monument near the University is visited by many a pilgrim gray, " To bless the turf that wraps his clay." Of his preaching, this may be told. A lad of ten years was taken to hear him in a rural church. " I know I never took m\' eyes off from him, and I thought he sat down as soon as he got lip." The sermon was two hours long! He was twice elected Bishop (once for Canada), but he held himself to his work in education. In 1839, at forty-eight, he went from perfect love and service to perfect bliss in heaven. At this time, too, appears "Father Taylor," one of the men fuund hardly once in a century. He had been twenty years a 490 THE STORY OF METHODISM. sailor, though only twenty-seven years of age. Amos Binney helped him to three months at school, and he began to preach. His true field was found to be among sailors, and in 1829, he was made Sailors' Preacher at Boston. Here he had been converted, after crawling in through a window to hear Hedding preach, and here he now labored forty-three successive years. His genius for preaching, his hearty and poetic feeling and utterance, drew audi- ences from all classes, and Dickens, in "American Notes," gives him a whole chapter. " He is worth a hundred policemen," said a mayor, and it was true. He forgot the vices of his hearers in their woes, and the poorest and most degraded were helped to the way of goodness by his labors. At the close of the war, Hedding was preaching in Boston. Building the Bromfield church, afterwards the chief one, drained Methodist resources, and the ruin of busi- ness by the war put upon the enterprise eighteen thousand dol- lars of debt. In this dark case, Amos Bin- ney offered, if pews EDWARD T. TAYLOR. could be sold to the amount of the debt, to cash the notes of the buyers and furnish to each enough work in his calling to pay the face of the note. There seemed no other road from ruin, as one Board of Trustees held both houses and both would go for the debt. But the pews were thus sold ; Col. Binney paid the debt and saved the houses. This began "pewed churches" in Methodism. The first academy in New England was now founded at New Market, N. H., and Martin Ruter, the first Doctor of Divinity in American Method- ism, became its principal. In 1820, he was sent to found the Book Concern at Cincinnati. After serving as President of Augusta and Allegheny Colleges, he went, in 1837, as the first missionary to MEN AND DOINGS IN THE NORTH. 491 Texas, which had just become independent of Mexico, a " Lone Star State" of twenty thousand people. Here he spent a year in vigorous and effectual pioneer work, tlyin^ in 1838. Asbury had taken a deep concern in New luigland Metliod- ism. He saw the country sound and free and full of enterprise in every direction, but that of religion. There he saw stagnation, partly by the bad influences of its old 'heology and partly by its pride of intellect and culture. He groaned to see renewal and conversion. Up to 18 10, his journals give quite ample accounts of labors and victories. Thereafter we read little, only that he regrets tlie entrance of pews, steeples and instruments of music. Lee comes over his old fields, after eight years, and is glad all along the way. He finds two Churches, in Boston, where the Elm had been his first temple, and at Lynn ; he with that first society weeps for joy. In Maine he was even more affected. Fifteen years before this, the people had never seen a Methodist; now there were societies of communicants, thronged congrega- tions, and preachers, local and itinerant. Lee's words were often tears. In Maine he preached forty-seven times in forty-three iays, and then, after a week and seven sermons in New Hamp- shire, he came by Lynn, Boston and Hartford to Garrettson's " Rest" at Rhintbeck. His work in New iMigland was done, well done, done to remain, and he now took his last leave of it, with gratitude and peace. The work fared on in New England in a fashion not specially notable, but, in 1820, there were twenty-five thousand members, with a hundred and twenty-five traveling preachers and several times as many local preachers. In the remote West, Methodism was not falling behind the rapid growth of the nation. Northeastern Ohio had belonged to the State of Connecticut and was called its Western Reserve. This had been settled from New England and even yet bears the New England character. A local preacher, Shewel, came from western Virginia and made an effectual entrance upon this Puri- tanic region. He made his own cabin a center and went out in all directions, raising up classes and societies, and preparing the way for the circuit preacher, Jacob Young took charge of this district, the Monongahela, in 181 2, and his preachers shared the energy of the Elder. At North East, Pennsylvania, they found a small society, sprung from the last efforts of a dying man. 492 THE STORV OF MKTHODISM. Thomas Br.inch had, witli the scant furnishing of books and sadcllc-ba},'s that markcil an itinerant, started from New England to labor in the milder climate of the Southwest. He had entered the wilderness along the south shore of Lake I'^rie and disap- peared. For fifteen years his old friends heard nothing of his fate. He reached a little settlement where there were no Meth- odists and preached there. At the close of his sermon, he told the people that he was too ill to proceed on his journey, and he asked their hospitality. After a long silence, a man, who had a log house, with a large family of children, invited him home. In his illness. Branch would preach, pray and exhort w h e n u n a b I e even to stand. He rejoiced in the Lord to his last breath. There was a meeting house in North liast, the name of the settlement, but it was griml)' refused for his funeral, as was also interment in the new cemetery aiul a wagon to carry the coffin. A prayer was made, and the coffin, on a rude sled, was drawn by oxen to a grave a mile west. It is within JAMES H. FiNLKV. the modcm cemetery. The strange providence of Branch's death had its solution. A revival began ; many to whom he had spoken in his illness were converted, and where, at his death, there was not a Methodist within twenty miles, there was found a thriving society. James B. Finley, "the warhor.se," appears in 1819. Born in North Carolina, he had come on the wave of migration into Ohio, Hh youth was wild, and he delighted in adventure with savage men and savage beasts. At a Kentucky camp meeting he had been converted, with such a variety of violent exercises as rude, strong natures were wont to experience. After agony and crying ■« Siur i><4 1 MKN AS'h |M»|.\i;s t\ tllK NoRflt. 49^ for a ni^jht ami a day, he lonnd peace. • 1 th..u^,Mu I should die with excess of j..y.' Me was then seven years in the wilderness without seeing; a pi acher. He then went with his wife some miles to a meeting' and joined the society. I he next year, i S09, he be^^m to preach, and now had the district alonjr Lake l-irie. He was of great bodily strength and a terror to the ill-behaved; his sandy hair bristled upwards, his features were coarse and his voice stentorian. He found the Lake winter hard, but he had a glorious revival, especially at North I'^ast. This year he traveled d a i I \' about twenty miles, preaching once and leading class, and doing on Sundax' three times as much. 1"' i n I e y s o o n be- came missionary to the Wyandotte In- dians. After that, he filled many im- portant stations and districts in Ohio, and was also an author, and pris- on chaplain. He died in 1856. We omit many characters that now arose in the West, Jane trimble. Init we cannot omit Jane Trimble, a woman equal to any in all the Methodist record. Thomas Quinn, whose passion for frontier life kept him on the border, was. in 1806, serving the Sciota circuit, where he had thirty appointments, of which the nearest was fifty miles from his family. At a meeting, a lady remained to attend class and confess the pardoning love of the Saviour. She was a ^"'"dow, latel}' from Kentuck\', with a large family of children. She had come ten miles to the meeting, and to ask the preacher J-'irr:'3rir.f.f»t.'>L ;(!"'■.■ .1,''i,l---J»''i"..''Vt'i-.-iV'^*.i'n-V 494 tut STORV of- Mt';Tlt(>t)tSM. to preach in lur cabin for the benefit of her chililren and neigh- bors. At his next round, (^iiinn preached at her cabin, near Hillsboroii^jh, the preacher and the widow being the only profes- sors of religion. After sermon, Quinn, being soon to go to Con- ference, could leave no appointment, but he sang a parting hymn. Her daughter-in-law, wife of Allen, the Governor of Ohio, and mother of an eminent preacher, Joseph M. Trimble, was deeply convicted, and in prayer was brought to the Saviour. The widow was Jane TrimbK'. She was born at Augusta, Virginia, and had removed to Kentucky, carrying in her arms, on horseback, the fut- ure Governor. She was a bold rider, and swollen rivers had no terrors for her. In Kentucky, her hus- band and herself de- cided to remove to Ohio and free their slaves, and so she came within reach of an itinerant. She trained her children and servants in the fear of the Lord, and her mind, well versed in English and sacred JOSEPH M. TRIMBLE. literature, was a won- der for the frontier. Her husband had died before reaching Ohio. She had one of the earliest Sunday-schools ; she aided the Indian missions, and her long, active life was a blessing to her family and the Church. Her descendants are still identified with the Chur"h which she served fifty years. The most effective pioneer in Illinois was Jesse Walker. The border had charms for him as it had for Daniel Boone. In 1806, he was missionary to Illinois, which meant all he might choose to put upon it. The wilderness was his home. He was never lost, he never complained. McKendree was once with him in a tour. MEN AND DOINGS IN THE NORTH. 4$5 They were on horseback and it was very rain)', and some know what that means on the prairies. Their horses swam the full channels, the riders carryin^^ their precious saddle-ba^s high on their shoulders. They cooked their own food and slept " by the beautiful star." In winter. Walker wont from cabin to cabin, faithfully e.Khortinjj w'th prayer the families of the settlers. In the summer, he rode far and near to preach. When a young preacher came to his help they had a camp meeting, with this remarkable end: It ceased " for lack ot argument;" the IrU sin- ner was converted I He preached in Illinois to a neii^jlihorhood of seventy. After three days' service, he read the Kides and " opened the doors of the church.' The leading man said; "Sir, I trust we will all here unite with you to serve God," and, coming forward, all came with him. Thus, in one year, two hundred and eighteen members were gainet' in Illinois. He then went to Missouri. John Travis, the first appointeil preacher, had been preceded by Dglesby, a pioneer, who, in 1805, 'vent into the territory as far as the Osage river, seeing there Daniel Boone, who had come there for " elbow room." He preached the first sermon in Miss- uri, its utter novelty attracting the people. Travis gathered in the wilds a hundred whites and six blacks. In 1816, a Conference was formed of part of Indiana, and everything west, to the last cabin toward sunset. Walker came to Nashville, in 18 19, to see the Tennessee Conference. He was "ragged, weather-beaten, war-worn!" A suit of clothes was bought for him, which he bluahingly accepted and went back to his border. St. Louis was then a terrible place. The only show of re- ligion was by Romanists, unless by a handful of Baptists. Walker proposed to take the town. He engaged two young preachers of the unflinching sort to stand at his right-hand and his left, and they went to the field toget''2r. They found the Legislature in session and every hotel full, and they could get no private lodg- ings. Some laughed at them, some cursed them. Sitting on their horses in the public square, they discussed the glof^my pros- pect. The hearts of the young men sunk. They thought if the Lord would have His Word preached there He would have made some opening for it. They shook off the dust of their feet for a »J.S''<'«»&'J jii*i>jiji^ j ■ MEN AND DOINGS IN THE N'ORIH. 497 o a o > > 5 testimony against St. Louis and deliboratt'l}' rode away. The veteran sat in his saddle and, for once, had gloomy thoughts. It was his first defeat. " I will go to Mississippi and hunt for the lost sheep of the house of Israel," and slowly and sadly he rode eighteen miles southward. He stopped and thought: "Was I ever before defeated in this blessed work? Never. Did any one ever trust in the Lord ]csws Christ and get confounded? No; and by the grace of God I will go back and take St. Louis!" Waiting for neither food nor rest, he turned his horse's head to the battle-field. For the night, he staid at a wretched inn with high prices, and in the morning reconnoitered the city. He met legislators who knew him. " Why, Father Walker, what has brought you here?" "I have come to take St. Louis." "But the people are Catholics and infidels, wild and wicked. No preacher can get access to them. You had better go back to Illinois." " I have come in the name of Christ to take St. Louis, and by the grace of God I will do it." He found a place of v/orship belonging to a handful of Bap- tists and was allowed to preach there. At his second preaching there was some stir and the house was refused him. He rented a large, vacant dwelling house at ten dollars a month, got som^: old benches cast away from the court house, and, borrowing tools, repaired them with his own hands, and soon, in his largest room, had regular worship. He lived in the house, and, by day, taught the children of the poor to read and spell, and, by night, the negroes. School and chapel were soon full, and a work of grace began. The house then changed owners and he had to vacate. Without a penny in hand, he contracted for the building of a chapel. A gentleman gave him lumber standing in the forest and soon the chapel was raised and covered. Some Episcopalian gave him an old Bible, cushion and pews, from which he quickly took off the doors. Money came in, and the chapel was finished, fur- nished, and filled, and paid for. At the end of the year he re- ported a thriving school and seventy members. He had taken St. Louis, " the stronghold of devilism." He returned the next year, and, in 1822, Conference was held there. The Story of Methodism hds no better thing to tell. The Methodists in the State thus invaded are, to-day, two hundred thousand. 498 THK STOKV OK NUVmODISM. Walker, always at the front, then went to the Indians up the Mississippi, and, in 1830, was let loose upon Chicago. The town was laid out that year. IleMiad no dinicuUy there beyond what is eoinnion in the day orsnial! tliinj^s. Me j^atheied a class of ten and, niakinj^ Beggs the first in charge, had his first Quart.'rly meetiii}^ in 18,^2. The first church in Chicago was built in 1834, and, in lifty years, there were lift) of Methodist branches. Evans ton, now the {greatest center of the Church in the West, was in Walker's range, but positively not then in existence. Walker tlieii in 1833. He needs no eulogy. Janus Axley, a product of these limes in the West, was, like Walker, a child of nature, lie was "a hunter of Kentucky." Mis gift for preaching was moderate, but his humor, like that of Abra- ham Lincoln, captivated the western mintl. It was keen, tender and timely, and came from a sober face, dark and rugged, under a wide rimmed hat ,un\ heavy brows, so that it seemed to flash from the clouds. A newly elected Hishop met him. " Mow are you. Brother Axlcy?" "Who are you?" " My name is Thomas A. Morris," laying him from head to fool: "Upon my word, 1 think ihcy were hard pushed for Bishop limber when they got hold of you." "That is ju^t what I myself thought." "Why, you look loo young for a Bishop." "As to that, I am old enough to know nu>!c and do better." The Hishop cjuickly loved the plain s[)eakin^ ma I. loved him for his wit and for the toils and moving dangers he had passed. He fought braveK' against whisky, for the cheap- ness of corn made bourbon the pest and woe of his regipn. After he located and became a farmer in Tennessee, he steadily testified that house and harvest needetl no help from whisky, and that abundant corn could be raised in fields untrodden by a slave. He and Cart\vright were kindred of spirit in faith and courage. At a camp meeting, Cartwright was preaching while Axley was quelling a rough gang that threatened to whip him. " If y.V"7I ?=■ ■ ' (" 1 ^f^ ' *fi^}^'j'^.f9^*> y 560 THE si'ORV OK MliTHODtSM. kept them in a tent, and, the next morning, they were fined to the limit of the law, the magistrate being also cashiered of his office. The aftair was on Sunday morning and it threw a cloud over the meeting. Not a preacher could find his tongue. " Let me preach," said Cartwright. "I feel a clear conscience; we have done right." " Do," said th<" Elder, " no other man can." Me called on all to come out, and his text that evening was, "The gates of hell shall not prevail." The power of God came down, three hundred fell, and mourners were all over the grountl. Two hundrcil jirofessed religion and the victory was comolete. As Wesley said of an Englis preacher: " For such times God makes such men." Many no\v living well remember Cartwright, not tall, rude of speech, but full of wisdom, harsh of feature, and such a head of hair ! Werj its flush and ^\ mighty locks ever combed? He sat in twelve General Confer- ences, and for forty-five sessions of his Annual Conference he was pre- sent at the first roll-call. He was fifty years a Presiding Elder, and, in his long life, was never six months awa\' from work. The solitude of old age ! " I have no father, no mother, po brother, no sister living ; I have outlived every member of the class I joined in 1801, every member of my Conference in 1804, nearly every member of the first General Conference, to which I was elect- ed in 1 8 16, all my early Bishops, all my Presiding Elders, and hun- dreds and thousands of my contemporary ministers and members ; and I still linger on mo-^tal shores. Why 1 live, God only knows." For three generations he was one of the notables in Methodism. JOHN M'LEAN, LI.. D. MEN ANIJ DOINC^ IN THF. NORTH. 501 A layman was now raised u|) in the West who was long an lienor to Methodism and to the nation. John M'Lean, born in New Jersey, was a student of law in Cincinnati, and settled for h'l^al practice in Lebanon, Ohio, lie was skeptical, but he went ti) hear, at a private house, John Collins, one of those .ible men whom we have hardly space to portray. The preacher, at fir«t sight, took the young lawyer upon his heart in prayer. As he uttered the word " eternity," its full meaning came upon his hearer's soul, who could think of nothing but its vast imjiortance. >T'Lean followed Col- lins to another appoint- ment to learn what he must do to be saved. Collins asked him to read the New Testa- ment fifteen minutes daily, until their next interview. Later, they agreed to be in pi"\yer at sunset, wherever the\- should be. This union of prayer was soon fol- lowed by M'LeanV. con- 'crsion. Me filled with h o n o r m an)- of t h e highest offices. When he was on the Ik^nch of the Su- ^^^ „p,,^Y J, ^^3^y^,^ ^ ^ l)ieme Court of the The Fifth Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church South. United States, his negro valet, as his master dismissed him for the evening, seemed sad and thoughtful. " What is the matter, my boy?" " O massa ! I's such a sinner." The Judge laid b}' his papers and began to talk to the servant about the Saviour. Soon both were weeping; the\' knelt, and the Judge prayed and taught the man to praj", nor did they rise until the latter was clear in a sense of pardoned sin. Such was M'Lean in every place, through a long and high-placed life. The men that came up as preachers in the West sometimes showed powcs that the world was obliged to acknowledge 502 THE STORV OF MKTHODISM. Henry B. Hasconi entered the ministry in Ohio in 1813. Ten years later, by the influence of Henry Clay, his warm admirer, he was chosen Chaplain to Congress and his fame began. In all the great cities he drew throngs of spell-bound hearers. He after- wards spent some years in educational work, and received from various colleges the highest honors paid to genius and learning, lie was in General Confeience at the division of the Church, and was, in 1849, elected a Bishop of the Church South. In the end of July, 1850, he preached in St. Louis a sermon of two hours, a most eloquent effort, but his last. Within two months he died. At Albany, New York, in 1844, where the highest of the State heard him in a throng which no house could hold, an eminent critic, who stood in the rain through a long dis- course, said : "He swept us through ranges of the highest thought and feeling with a force quite irre- sistible, giving us the sensation that children have when swung by ri strong hand from one high point to another. We saw in him the full majesty of sacred eloquerce, and some who cared little for preaching bent forward in adm. ration of his oratory." Thomas A. Morris, a man of far simpler mold, but of large and valuable service, became a preacher in Ibi4, having been con- verted under the labors of David Young. After twenty years of travel, he was made editor of the Western Christian Advocate, then started in Cincinnati. In 1836 he was elected, the twelfth in order, Bishop of the Church. After the death '^f Bishop Waugh, in 185.S, Bishop Morris was senior Bishop until his own death, in 1874. REV. THOMAS A. MORRIS, D. D. The Twelfth Bishop of ihe Methodist Episcopal Church. MEN AND DOINGS IN THE NORTH. 503 In 1818, John P. Durbin, whose age marches with the cen- tury, entered the ministry. His grandfather had, before his com- ing into the Church, said to him : "A'-e you not concerned about preaching the Gospel?" and it startled him. In his second year, he went to northwest Ohio on a two hundred mile circuit, and there he began study. After preaching, he sat down in the one room that served all purposes for a frontier family, and went, with pen in hand, through Clarke's Commentaries and Wesley's and P^letcher'^ works. Inch by inch he came upward. At the iff stance of Collord, long printer to the Book Concern, he began English Grammar, studying as he rode on his circuit. Then Dr. Ruter set him upon Latin and Greek, and soon, being at Hamilton, Ohio, he spent a few days of each week at the Miami University, twelve miles away. He copied off his L^rammars and hung them before him on pasteboard for refer- ence. His industry was his genius and it REV. john price durbin, d. d. was with him, "/fer ardna ad astra," steep climbing to the stars Soon, by introduction from Doctor Ruter and Governor (after wards President) Harrison, he matriculated at the Cincinnati Col- lege, being stationed in the city, and obtained the regular degree of A. M. He was, in 1831, Chaplain of the United States Senate. After a brief term as editor of the New York Advocate, he was for tet> years President of Dickinson College In 1850, he was chosen missionary secretary, and in that office the rest of his life was spent. All the foreign missions ex- cept Liberia were started under his guidance, and he saw the 504 TIIK STORY OF METHODISM. " (.■■• 1 -■■• 1 ■' iticoino (>f the societ)' ^o from one luiiulrod thousand dollars t- of them together as I can, and preach Jesus Christ to them, t) ni\' (iod, have merry on the souls of this people !" He was in a land of swamps and bayous, sometimes wet from nn)rning to night in swimming them. " My horses legs are now skinned and rough to his hocks, and I have the rheumatism in all my joints." Vice was rampant, and Sunday was given to frolicking and gambling. In all Bowman's sufferings he was not cast down. "While mj- body is chilled with cold and wet with water, my soul is filled with heavenly fire." Here was his toil and suffering and not his rest. He kept his ground two years, and then welcomed reinforcements. In 1807, Asbury sent Jacob Young to the remote Southwest. He started on "a fine Arabian horse," with five preachers who were to travel the " Mississippi district." They went through the long wilder- ness from Nashville to Natchez, camping out and taking the frontier hardships, until, at Fort Gibson, they met Bow- man, with Blackman and . BRADDOCk'S C.RAVK. Lesley, preaClierS m Mis- (The men iwnd on the spot where he wa« buried.) sissippi, now about returning. Young had two years among the lowest people of the whole frontier, many of them criminals and refugees. Axley was now here, and who but Lorenzo Dow ! i'his strange man seems omni- present. Axley cut and hewed pine timbers, borrowed a yoke of oxen, and hauled them, made a raising-bee and covered the house with shingles of his own making. He built a pulpit, cut doors and windows, bought floor boards with money raised to get him new clothes, and soon had seats. He then invited the people to come and hear him preach, and they crowded to hear. Reading the rules, he offered if the\- would conform to these, to take them into the Church, but not othetwise. Eighteen joined the first day. The first Methodist building in Louisiana vva^ named "Axley Chapel" by a citizen who said that, in building it, Axley had "so behaved that neither man or devil could find fault with him," $o6 THE STORY OF METHODISM. This was on the Wichita circuit. When Axley came back to Mis- sissippi, which he had left as a full, fine-looking man, he was shrunken anil miserable ; his clothes were worn out, and so were his spirits, for he could not talk without weeping. He soon had new clothes, lively spirits, anrl the condition due to a victor in a hard-won field. The greatest oCthe Methodists of the .Southwest now appears. William Winans, born in 1788, near Braddock's Grave, Pa., was left, at two years, an orphan. His gifted mother taught him to read well two books, the Bible and the Pil- grim's Progress. At eighteen, he had his only schooling in thir- teen days and a half. The two books had formed and filled his mind. In 1808, he preached on the lime- stone circuit, Kentucky, and the ne.xt year on the Vincennes, Indiana. Then we find him in the Southwest, the right man for the region, and here h' for forty- five \ears employed his wonderful energies of WILLIAM WINANS, D. D. mind and body. His personal appearance was striking. In his later years he became feeble, yet, when he could hardly sit upon a saddle, he would preach with wonderful power. " His spirit glowed like some eternal flame upon the altar of a ruined temple. In 1844, he was for the ninth time a delegate to the General Conference. In the separation of that year he took a lively interest, being himself a slave-holder. He was then thin and weather-beaten, negligent of dress, his collar without stock or cravat, slouching about his neck. In this shagbark exterior was a mind of strange energy, grasping and handling the most difficult of subjects, and uttering itself in a r"",?' MEN AND DOINGS IN THE NORTH. 507 rhetoric equal to that of our best writers. He died in 1857, but his inrtuencc in his rej^ion has outlived the storms of war. We have noticed the cominj^ of Methodism into Mississippi. Nolley's work was not yet done. He labored there during the war, following the new settlers and reclaiming them from barba- rism. One day he saw fresh wagon tracks and overtook a settler just placing his family on his intended homestead. " Another .VIethodist preacher ! I left Virgiria for Georgia to get clear of them. There they got my wife and daughter, and I came here, and here is one before my wagon in unloaded !" "My friend, if you go to heaven, you'll find Methodist preach- ers there; if you go to hell, I'm afraid you'll find some there and you see how it is on earth, so you had better make terms with us and be at peace." Nolley, in 18 14, was in Louisiana, on Bow- man's trail. He was rudely treated. A planter drove him from his fire. Others took him to the bayou to duck him, when a stout ncgress rescued him with a hoe and took him back in triumph. He came to Conference and was re-appointed to the same field. In the end of November, on a cold, dreary day, he parted from Griffin, his nearest comrade. The ne.\t day he went on, and at night reached an Indian village, but he had to cross a raging creek or stay with the Indians. An Indian showed him the way, but after crossing he was thrown from his horse, which swam back to the Indian on the other bank. Nolley left all with his guide, and set out to walk two miles to a house for shelter. Wet aiul weary, he went a mile through the woods and lay down to (lie. His work was done. His muddy knees and some marks in the soft ground showed how he commended his soul to God, and then, composing himself, with one hand on his breast and the other at his side, had quietly passed away. So a traveler the next day found him. His body was taken to the nearest house, and on Sunday was buried. His grave seems to have been left "to heaven's sweet rain" for forty years ; it is now visited in "the fenceless old field " of Catahoula, as that of a martyr in the ministry of patience, faith and love. A marked event now opened the way of this great, growing Methodism of the West to a work among the Indians, and finally to the Missionary Society of the Church. John Stewart was a drunken negro in Marietta, Ohio, and, in sullen remorse and 5o8 THE STOKV rth living, In- was on his \va\ to the nvtr tn ilrown himsoll, wlu-n l\(' c.ui^lU llu- voice of a piracijcr. Hi \\< nl to the chmvh ilitor, ami ^;ain -el luu iilr.is (»f hopr. awA life, and ihity. In a \vhn Stewart, the Missionary Society was formed to take the Indiar. Missions into the general care of the Church and to go beyond these, and abroad in the earth. In 1888 was purchased for the whole Church, by order of the General Conference, the graveyard at Lower Sandusky. In it sleep "the rude forefathers" of the Methodist Missionary Society. There lie the ashes of Stewart. Big Tree, IJetween-the-logs, Mononcue. From this neglected spot came into sunlight, like the Jordan from the caves of Hermon. the sparkling, ever-widening flow from which heathen in ever\- continent arc drinking, and the source of which is rich, historic ground, CH\i»ii:i< xf.r. Li-:(;isi,.M ION AND Usage. ( )\V uc turn from tracing,' the spread of llu- C'liiiicli nvv.r the nation to a ix- ln-arsal of its structure and niana^'c- nicnt. W'c shall sec what means were taken to prevent all stra^'Klinjr and (lisor^Mni/.ation. In 1820, half of the members of the Church were \\v'\i\^r Ixyond tlu; /Mii'^hanies. A mmh larmier proportion is ff)iind there to- day, the center of Methodism l)einK ""^^' a little west of Cincinnati, rather beyond tiie cen- ter of national population. The center of influence and character was still at Haltimore. If the Gen- eral Confqri'iice, which was a j^atherin^ of all the Conferences, were held in th(! I'Last, the conven- ience of access would cause the eastern preachers greatly to outnimiber all others. Thus, of one luindred and twenty-nine at the opening in 1808, half, or sixty-three, were from the two central Con- ferences, the Baltimore and the Philadelphia. Some of the remoter Conferences already appeared by delegates, for a plan of doing so had, in the year before been sent around to the Annual Conferences and they seemed to think it would be at once adopted. So it was, after much debate and even being once defeated. UO 'mt; sn»uv of MivnionisM. {\\v (ionri'.-il ('(Mjforcntv' wnM to be tompnm d of 'Irlt'nuU's, not luoro than on*' loi rvoty {\\r, or loss than imu' lur i voin Hovni nuMuht iH ol oiuh Annual lonltMrnn'. Thus ihirtN- sovc-n. li^'ht ui nino uMiM somi hnl so\«'n vh-lr^^atrs. This huil) , so composed, hail hill oovvor to iualv«> hU rules ami irmih.tions lor the Chtirch, Iho linih ot \\^ artit);» was hxinl by ctrtan* " KrHliictivc Knlcs." It voiiM not vhan^o thr Artivlos of Koli^ion. the Katio of Krprc- stni .lion i\o\ [\\c (Jrnnal Kulos. It couhl not abolish tin* Itinri- ancy, tho lioUiMal SujuMintomloncy, or tin- Ui^hl ol Appoal, by proachoi ov tnctubor. nor oouM it ilivrrt tlu' iiuonu' of the Hook l\>nccrn or tho I'hartoroil ImouI ntai^in t«> an\ tiling but tho roliol «>t proaohors ami thoir f'atnilii-s. I hoso Kostriotivo rulos can bo ohan^oil by two-thirds ot [\\c llonoral (onforonco at tho joint rov.on\»nondation ol' all tho Annual t.\>nloronoos, They, with Ihi' Articles v>t" Koli^ion ai\il tho tlonoral Kulos. form our t^'hurcli l.\>nstitution. In »S.^2. tho Articles of Kelij^ion were made abso- lutely unchanj^eablo ; tho other Kostrictive Rules may now bo ehanued bv three-fourths of tho Annual (..(nferencos and two- thirds of the ("loneral ContVrence. The (.ioneral Superintondencv b\- Hislu>ps is unchaji^oablo. From time to time changes in all other respects have been discussed, yet ahuost nothing has been ch,n\i;od. Iho rativ) of representation has boon made to aj^roo with the i^nnvih of the Church to prevent an unwieUly maijnitudc of tho vioiural (.\mforence, and it is now one lor fort\'-!ivc and one for a remnant of thirty, l.aynnn bccoiue members of it — two for each Co>\fercnce. Beyond that, few serious changes have taken place. Many yeai"s before this session (1791), Coke had made pro- pt^sals to 'bishop White, of rhiladelphia, for a union of the Methodist ICpiscopal with the l*rotestant lC()iscopal. It was an inquiry as to the possibility of the thinjj, ami was personal and conlidential. .\bout this time, it came upon the house tops and to Coke's danuuie. He explained the matter, that he had in his j^laii carefully secured the iridependence o( his own Church and that his hope had been to enlari^e the Methodistic tield of action. His ap- proac'.ics were not successful, and he was now glad they were not. ' I do not now believe such a junction desirable." Warmest greetings were exchanged with the British Conference, each assur- ing the other that there was " no separation but the great Atlantic." l.t:(JlSl.,M ION ANI» t)SA(iK. •;»' Whalroat had just dirH ( iKo6j and A .!)iiry a)(»nr was Mi^lu;|i. An tlicic were now seven ( (MifeienceH, it was )>• (posed to elctt one IVir eai li and make hini lo( al — a^ Hisliop I aylor is ii(;w in yXIVica. However, McKentlree alone was elected, I'or the first lime, an arranj;emenl was made lo eircniate tra( ts and the M(»ol Concern wan lo print a thousand dollars worth for fre(; dlslribii- tion. A thonsand copies of the hiscipliiie for Sonfh Carolina were ordered lo he printed, with ihe omission of everything re- latin^/ lo slavery, that nj^ly (piestioii which was to have s<; n)any vexations relnrns. The j^iorions featnre of this (ieneral ('or'-jrencc, as «»f most (tthers, was ils preachin^,f. On Sunday there were five sermons, on week-days three or four, with many "an awftd time «>f tl)e power and presence of (iod." The most impressive sermon of n\\ was hy McKendree, (|nile fully reported by Han^s, 'I'he man, the fourth Mishop soon, was a blown backwoodsman, ronj/hly dressed, with red flannel shirt painfnlly visible between vest and pantaloons, lie bej^an, awkwardly stammerii;}.,', and Han^s fairly grieved for the honor of the Conference. The sp( aker warmed up to his work, his voice raiif^ out, and the Holy Cihost was with the Word. Men fell as if shot, and Jian(,'s felt his own heart ineltinf^f and his strcn^^th ^'ivinj^ way. He thought he saw a halo of ^lory aroiind the |)reacher's head. McKendree had nh<,wn ^rcat administrative talent, and this sermon decided his election over the noble antl f^eneroiiH Ix-e. iivcn then there was — to use that western dialect — no lack of Hishop timber. McKendree served in hi:; h'|4h office twenty-seven years, dyin^ at Nashville in The first General Conference of delej;ates met in John Street church, New York, May i, i8l2. Ninety men were members. The New England Conference alone provided sub.stitutes for its absentees, a usage at once adopted, and now every Conference elects two "reserves" to fill possible vacancies, McKendree delivered an Episcopal address, or message, a ucage still maintained, setting forth officially the state of the Church. He reported that, in seventeen state", the Canadas and the territories, he found about one hundred and ninety thoi .id members, with seven hundred traveling, and two thousand local preachers. The suggestions of his address were duly considered • •:♦«*", ^'■': •,<>mf'-'. •i.i.f.fn 'H_*f.^'.f':'^!i^V>1fKViJff>!^ff.'!ltii*f^}..-,\!^^ il2 THE StOKV or METHODISM. by the Conference. Axlcy, always strenuous, was defeated in his etfort to make the manufacture, sale or use of whisky a bar to membership, but he secured a remonstrance and admonition notice of his other "bur- days' debate, the election of C o n f e r e n c e s , instead of Bishop, was defeated by in every General Conference Conference counted one A course of study was now candidates, and committers be appointed in each ^o; At this session, Enoch erts, the fifth and sixth against them, as also some den,' slavery. After two Presiding Elders by the their appointment by the three votes. It came up until 1828. In 1 8 16. the General hundred and six members, prepared for ministerial to e.xamine them were to ference by the Bishop. George and Robert R. Rob Bishops, were elected. A resolution against "pews," introduced into There was also be adjusted be preachers in VVesleyan missi Nova Scotia, preferred the Church, and so over the Canadas present retained, strenuous, tried action on the retailing of familiar term in icants. In sla little better. The was passed which we saw New England, some border to t w e e n the Canada and onarics from The Canadians American j u r i s d i c t i o 11 was f o r til ..' A X 1 e y , e \' e r in vain to get distilling and whisky — that eludes all intox- very he did r^ committee sor- NEW McKENLaEE M. E. CHURCH, SOU TH NASHVILLE, TEMN. rowfully reported that "the evil appears to be past remedy," and SO, indeed, to human eye, it long seemed. Still progress was made. No slave-holder, whose state law allowed emancipation and the slave's after freedom, could hold office in the Church. LEGISLATION AND USAGE. 513 e V c r y and that intox- did r. ) sor- and made- id the m Henceforward, the course of the Story is amid growth and development upon the ground already gained, and few modifica- tions of usage have occurred. On the whole, the most important has been the introduction of laymen to the councils of the Church. In America it is usually called Lay Delegation. To appreciate the movement, we must go back almost fifty years before the time when that feature of ecr-iomy was developed in the M. E. Church. It is curious to notice how freedom affects the atmosphere nf tliis continent. The people who first became inhabitants here, those, at least, who most gave it character, were come to the coun- try for freedom's sake, to be rid of the oppres- sive, or, if not oppres- sive, the narrow policies of nations in the old world. All who came later, in whatever tem- per they may have come, inhale the same air and, in breathing it, receive the same tem- per. Some, coming la- f, have been of a listless, lawless and malicious style, and „„^„„ ^.,^„^x. •^ ' ENOCH GEORGE, have, in our day, pro- Fifth Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church. voked riot and disorder. Still it is matter for grateful recognition that even the violent and dangerous have soon calmed down into peace and order. Strange, indeed, it is that the worst elements in European populations have soon ceased to give us trouble here. After a little, they have, except a few desperadoes, learned to unite freedom with loyalty and find reasonable range for activity inside of law. This freedom has fed the energies of the people and inspired them to subdue the continent, and, with all its evils, is a blessing. "The best cure for the evils which liberty produces is liberty." Men learn by results what fruit comes of lawlessness, 33 5>4 THE STORY OF METHODISM i ! ajid the wise and just "remnant" come to mocicjitc and control the half-thinking and even vicious "majority." This peculiarity of our American society accounts for the entire difference between Wesleyanism in Kngland and Methodism in America. The English are on a land marked by social orders fixed for now a thousand years and more. When they came into Hritain they brought earls, and thegns, and freemen, and thralls, and these early social orders have not wholly vanished. "Slaves cannot breathe in England," but even in the most humble there is a general contentment with the social order. The spirit of rever- ence for the clergy, the result of the Church being a part of the state, and clad ^vith temporal authority as \vell as with spiritual control, is distinct and universal, even among Dissenters. It was thus very easy and natural for the affairs of the Wesleyan Con- nection to be under ministerial control. We have seen how Wesleyanism began in the person of Wesley himself. The preachers were for fifty years his helpers, his employees, doing such work as he assigned them. The con- verts freely joined the societies, and the injunction which all accepted was "not to mend our Rules, but keep them." The control of Wesley's successors over the interests of the Connection was of course natural and logical. Yet eminent lay- men were soon coming into the societies, and before long there came to be need of such talent as they were known to possess. Jabez Bunting, who had such perception of the needs of Wesleyanism in the changes that time was bringing, first urged the admission of laymen to service in the missionary committee, making it consist of twenty-four clergymen and as many laymen. Gradually this method of composition was extended to all the committees dealing vv'ith funds. The Annuitant and Book Room I*\mds are now the only ones purely ministerial. Committees of this mixed membership meet before the session of the Confer- ences, both English and Irish, and review all expenditures for the previous year, with estimates for the coming year. So beneficial was the working of this experiment that the time plainly drew near for the farther entrance of laymen into the counsels of the Copference. Both wisdom and piety seemed promoted by the" presence. In 1875, the Conference resolved that "the time is approachini: I.EGISLATlOiN AjnD USAGE. 515 when a comprehensive phm should be devised for some direct and adequate representation of the laity, in the transactions of the business of the Conference, in consistency with the recognized principles of our economy and the principles of the Poll Deed." This last is that Deed of Declaration by which one hundred cler- jj;ymen, duly elected, form the legal successors of Mr. Wesley. During the next year, legal counsel was taken as to what part of the management of affairs must be held to belong to the Legal Hundred. A satisfactory report was made and the business was divided in a very natural way. It is not needed here to give the division in all its items. When the Conference sits, as compf)sed of ministers only, its attention is given to matters affecting only the pastoral or ministerial supervision of the Connection. Only the management of the Book Room is given to ministers alone, as growing out of their supervision of the connectional literature. When the ministers have concluded their work the laymen join them, and the Conference thus formed is twice the size of our House of Representatives, more imposing than the House of Commons and almost as large, for the i)lan at first was that il should consist of two hundred and forty laymen and as many ministers. This Conference finds work enough to do in manag- ing all the remaining interests of a great and growing Church. Of the lay representatives, one-eighth are by this mixed Confer- ence elected from all parts of the Kingdom. The rest are elected by the combined votes of ministers and laymen in the district meetings. It will be noted that in Methodism "layman" is held to mean "any member of the Church who is not a member of an Annual Conference." Lay representation in the Methodist I'^piscopal Church has a more eventful history. It wp.. preceded by a serious division of the Church. Our economy had from the first put all legislative power in the hands of the itinerancy, and the appointments were made by the Bishop after consultation with Presiding Elders of his own selection. This had come from the fact that the very en- trance of Methodism into this country had been of the nature of an invasion, peaceful and beneficent, but much like a military entrance and occupation. Its military likeness of organization and operation had given it great efficiency. The large majority of the preachers liked the system and worked under it in perfect i6 THE STORY OF METHODISM. harmony. Some found it too " patriarchal " — that is, despotic— for tl^^eir tastes. Not that they complained of tyranny actually experienced, but they urged that, should the system at any time come to be managed by tyrannous hands, its facilities for oppres- sion were alarming. In 1820, an efifort was made, not for the first time, to have the Presiding Elders elected by the Conferences. From this grew the Methodist Protestant Church. As Lay Delegation did not for fifty years become a fact in the Old Church, it seems better here to give the Story of the Methodist Protestant Church. CHAPTER XLII. The Methodist Tkotestant Church. r the flosc of the General Conference of 1820, William S. Stockton, a leading layman in Trenton, N. J., began to publish the Wesley an Repository, in advocacy of the representation of the ' 'ity in the Confer- ences, with a modification of the office of Presiding Elder and the abolition of that of Bishop. Petitions in behalf of these objects- were sent to the General Conference of 1 824, but all propositions for change were rejected by a strong majority. In May, of that year, a meeting of the friends of these changes was in Baltimore. Measures were taken to' publish the Mutual Rights — i. e., of ministry and members within the M. E. Church, Unions began to be formed within the Church, to promulgate the ideas above named. Articles in the Mutual Rights, which had absorbed the Repository, created warm feeling, and, as societies of unions went on forming, members were suspended or expelled, not for their ideas, but for false and injurious statements and sowing discord. All appeals resulted in con- firmation of sentence. One preacher, D. B. Dorsey, of the Baltimore Conference, was arraigned for such cause, though he and his friends claimed the exact point at issue was the right to organize at all for the promotion of reform. The expulsion of a number in Baltimore, on charges above named, was followed by 518 THE StOkV Ol' METHODISM. cries of " })crsccution " for difTorcncc of opinion on Church govei'n- nicnt, and soon matters were moving more rapidly. About fourteen i)reacliers and two hundred members now, in the beginning of 182X, formed a society of "Associate Methodist REV. THOMAS HEWLINGS STOCKTON, D. D. An Eminent Minister of the Methodist Protestant Church. Reformers." Toward the end of the year, sixty delegates from all parts of the country, meeting in convention at Baltimore, set forth their grievances to the General Conference of the following year. This body offered to icaiore all expelled or suspended THK MKTMODIST I'ROTKSTANT ("IllkCII. 519 from re, set owing persons to the ('Inircli. on eondition that the Mutual Rig/its be discontinued ■a\'h\ the unions within the church be dissolvcil. This offer was rejected and the controversy went on growing and spreading. At a General Convention held in Baltimore, in the same year, 1828, Nicholas Snethen, the powerful opponent of O'Kelly, was president, and Stockton, who eight )-ears earlier luul liegun The Ifcs/cya/i Rcposiforv, was secretary. It was decided not to abandon the prosecution of an object which they considered of vital imi)ortance to the future welfare of the Church. Articles of association were framed, and a provis- ional organization, as "Associated Methodist Churches," was formed. Committees to draft a Constitution and Discipline, and to compile a Hymn Book, were appointed, and in two years the Convention was to meet again. This second Convention, of 1830, contained fifty-seven ministers and as many laymen. They represented eighty min- isters and about five thousand members. The title of "Methodist Protestant Church" was adopted; a declaration of principles was made and provisions for regulating •md controlling the Church were adopted. Some things from the Mother Church were retained. The Articles of Religion and the General Rules were retained in full, together with the same routine of meetings and other means of grace. The division of the territory into districts, circuits and stations was after the old style. The ritual was retained, only that the Lord's Supper is not consecrated and the order of deacons was many years after, 1874, abolished. Other things were changed. The offices of Bishop and Presiding Elder were abolished. Each district was to hold an Annual Cor''^rence composed of all its ordained ministers, elect- ing annually its own presiding officer. The appointments of the preachers are made by committees of their own Conference. The (ieneral Conference, meeting once in seven years, is composed of ministers and laymen in equal numbers, one of each being chosen from each thousand of members. If any district has less than that number of members, it still has the two representatives Office and suffrage are limited to white males in full connection and over twenty-one years of age. No minister or member can be expelled for disseminating 520 THE STORY OF MEIHODrSM, opinions, unless they be contrary to the plain Scripture. Classes elect annually their leaders, but, in failure of election, the pastor nominates and the class elect. In all this, the Methodist Protestants considered themselves not as seceding, but as e.xpelled and as having by necessity formed the new Church for themselves and their children. Many ministers, who had warmly advocated reform, did not, when the crisis came, care to cross the Rubicon ; so the new organization, being scant of preachers, made large use of local preachers, and its affairs wtrc conducted with great energy. Soon an official organ was started, The Methodist Pro- testant, which has been published continuously to this time. A Book Concern was established. A Superannuated Fund Society was chartered, whose invest- ments are now ov( r sixty thousand dollars. Educational efforts were made and seminaries and colleges designed. In 1834, the date of the first General Conference, there were fourteen Annual Conferences, with five hundred preachers and twenty-seven thou- sand members. Soon another paper was started in the West, which finally became The Methodist Recorder, still published at Pittsburgh, The Methodist Protestant being published at Baltimore. In 1846, the irrepressible conflict of slavery being then rife, the General Conference remanded the control of the subject to the Annual Conferences, declaring that they should make their own regulations covering the matter. There were then thirty-two Annual Conferences with some sixty thousand members. The Gent.al Conference now met every four years and at its next session, in 1850, the Madison College, at Uniontown, Penn., came into its possession. Within ten years the grim and restless Slavery Question entered. The college was in a free state, but with a southern faculty. The time was stormy and soon the college was suspended and another opened at Lynchburgh, Va. A missionary society was formed at Pittsburgh in 1854. We noticed that the right of voting and office holding had been given to white males only. In 1857, a Convention of the Churches North and West was held at Cincinnati. They agreed not to attend the General Conference, coming in i860, at Lynch- burgh. They prepared for it a memorial, setting forth that, unless the word "white" were stricken from the Constitution and slave- holding and slave-trading be made a bar to membership North THE METHODIST I'KuTf.STANT CHURCH. 521 and South they would secede. Of course they seceded, taking with them about half the entire Church. There was no complaint or discontent apart from the demand just indicated. In the order of events, slavery soon disappeared. In 1862, a Convention was held by which a General Conference was appointed to meet, in 1866, at Pittsburgh. Hefore it met, slave-holding had ceased to be a "bar" to anything. This Conference adopted the name of "The Methodist Church." An effort was made to gather in the VVesleyans and other smaller Methodist bodies, but, from opposition to secret societies on the part of the Wesleyans and from other reasons, the effort was not successful. In 1 87 1, there being no reason for longer separation, negotiations for reunion began on the part of the Methodist Church. In 1877, a Convention of each Church met, in Balti- more, and aftc a careful discussion a basis of union was fi.xed. The Conventions, on a pleasant day in May, filed from the churches where they had met to the corner of Lombard and Fremont streets, and thence walked arm in arm to Starr Church. I'he next day the Methodist Church ceased to exist being re- absorbed by the Methodist Protestant Church after a separation of twenty years. It had gathered seven hundred and fifty-eight preachers of both classes, and fifty-eight thousand members. It had a Book Concern in Pittsburg and a college at Adrian, Mich. Meanwhile, the Protestant Church had suffered severely by the war. The paper at Baltimore lost more than half its circula- tion. The Secretary of War allowed it, on account of its strictly neutral character, to be forwarded to the southern lines by way of Fortress Monroe, under a flag of truce, but was not sent beyond those lines and it soon ceased to be forwarded. At the General Conference in Georgetown, 1862, the southern Conferences were unable to attend, and, before the war was over, the southern churches were burned or ruinously neglected. At the same place, in 1862, another General Conference was held with quite a full representation. At this Conference, a reso- lution was passed of acquiescence in the state of the country, and acknowledging the existing government as the true and lawful ruling power of this nation, and advising prayers for its welfare, "that we may lead quiet and peaceable lives, in all godliness and honesty." .,:,_,;,■,-.,'..%-, ^ . .-'•'■■" -v .!v> $ii Tin: STOKV nV Ml.rr!tf)|)ISM. The M. E. Church South had now atloptcd the scheme of the M. P. Church for lay representation, ami there were ^nuinds of sympathy between the two bodies, partl\- from having both aUke suffered severely from the war. In 1867, Bishop McTyeire, of the Church South, communicated, throu};h the Rev. Dr. Deems, overtures from the General Conference of his own Church, look- in}^ to a union of the two bodies and proposing the appointment from each of commissioners to consummate such union. A Convention was called to consider the matter, and to this came commissioners from the Church South who proposed the union aforesaid. After careful examination, there were found fifteen points of difference between the two Churches. The commission- ers had been appointed, not to adjust differences, but simply to receive into their Church the M. P. Church as a body. In this way the scheme failed and no farther action was ever ken, though man)- ministers and Churches afterwards seced nd joined the Church South. In 1870, Doctors Eddy and Lanahan, from the Methodist Iilpiscopal Church, visited the General Conference in Haltimorc, bearing fraternal greetings, and asking in view of sameness of doctrine and of historic memories, if there could not be a closer bond of union. It was agreed that there be interchange of delo- gat'js, avoidance of irritating controversy and cooperation in missionary work. Delegates from the Church South were treated with like courtesy. At the General Conference of 1874, legislation was asked on the sale and use of whisky. To this it was answered that the settled policy of the Church was not to legislate on moral and political subjects. That belongs to the local organizations. Since the union with the Methodist Church, in 1877, the name and policy of the Methodist Protestant Church remain the same. It has a Book Concern in Baltimore, and a paper, T/u' Meth- odist Protcstauty and one in Pittsburgh, The Methodist Reeorder. At Westminster, Md., a college was founded, in 1867, whicli provides for a certain amount of theological study. There is a college at Yadkin, N. C, and at Bowdon, Ga., besides that at Adrian, Mich., which came to it from the Methodist Church. At the present time, the Methodist Protestant Church reports fifteen hundred traveling, and a thousand local, preachers, with tltl-i MhlriiODIST PRoTkSTANT ("lil'kClt. 525 one huiulrcd and thirty thousaiul nicinbcrs. Its position in tlic land and . monjj other Churches is excellent. If, for reasons that appear in this outline, it has not the ma<;nitude that some other Methodist bodies have reached, it is none the less respectable. In some happy day, when all Methodism shall be a unit, it will blend and bless its kmdred. HRST MEETING-HOUSE IN OHIO '!5'irr',--'W '^^'TrV ~flP' ^^T \trmni!7^-my-'Zf^ffi:rf!!n I CHAPTER XLIII. Lav Delegation and the Pacific Coast. UCH was the feeling after the organi- zation of the Methodist Protestant Church that the question of lay rep- resentation in the M. I£. Church was hardly named for twenty years. Just before the General Conference met in i' should a branch of Christ's Church exclude itself from any open door or heeding any Macedonian cry? On(j sees, however, that the " Plan," as relating to territory, which the South at first approved proved irksome and unreason- able, and the i..ouisville Convention authorized entering the Border Conferences. The " Plan" thus went to pieces and the next Gen- eral Conference of th' Northern Church, confirmed what the Southern Church had practically done, sweeping the fragments to the winds. The M. E. Church South was definitely formed by a Con- vention held at Louisville, in May.. 1845. Bishops Soule and THE METHODIST EPltJCOPAi. CHURCH SOUTH. 539 Andrew were present, with Bishop Morris as their guest, and were asked to become the Bishops of the new Church ; the latter at once entered its service, the former did so in the following year. The first General Conference was called for May, 1846, at Peters- burg, Va. William Capers and Robert Paine were made Bishops, and all arrangements needful to the working of a Church were completed. Lovick Piei cc was chosen to present to the next General Conference of the M, E. Church the Christian and brotherly greetings of the new Church. "We will still be brethren beloved," The General Conference to which Lovick Pierce was thus sent was unable to give him official welcome. The Northern Conferences had rejected the "Plan," as "altering our General Superintendenc}'," and "doing away with the right of appeal" in the case of "interior societies, which were summarily given to the Church within whose lines they were. Dr. Pierce received every personal courtesy, as he gratefully owned, but the Conference declined fraternal relations until "existing difficulties" were set- tled. He was clothed with no authority to deal with them and in his final note he says that friendly advances from the Northern Church will at any time be welcomed on the basis of the " Plan of Separation," a thing already borne far away on the winds. The strong hand of Ca;sar adjusted the vested properties. The Supreme Court of the United States decided in a suit brought by the Church South, that neither of the existing Churches could justly claim to be the original one; that the Church South had not seceded, but had adopted a territorial convenience without change of doctrine or usage, and that such, too, was now the legal position of the Northern Church. The Court held that the sepa- ration was amicable, as by agreeing parties, and ordered an equitable division of all properties created and held before the separation. The Church South began its career with a high social posi- tion and a rich endowment of the true spirit of Methodism. W'e have seen how the early pieachers found on its territory their field m.ost fertile in toil, in heroism and in success. Its living preachers were happier in preaching gifts than their brethren of the Nor .1. The political feeling of the South was wholly in their favor, and there was fair prospect of a vigorous and effective Church career. Such career it has had and is abundantly hav- ing, but not without many adversities. Almost as soon as it had come into working order came the wide and ruinous war. In 1844, the number of communicants was four hundred and fifty thousand. In i860, there w^e seven hundred and fifty-seven thousand two hundred and five, of whom more than one-fourth were colored. In 1872, the number was six hundred and fifty- ■'WT^5P'"^v"^«^Sj?*?^ W 540 THK SToRV OK MKTIIODISM. four thousanc' one hundred and fifty-nine, and of these less than one in two lumdrcd were colored. This came of the fact tiiat the colored people had chosen to join other Methodist Churches, usually those of their own people. One of these Churches is the Colored Vi. E. Church in America. Before the war, we see that more than two hundred thousand colored people were in the Church South. These were chiefly slaves who were in many states not allowed to hold meetings by themselves. As soon as the war was over, and they were free, they chose to be in societies by themselves. Some went into the African and Zion, others into " de olc John Wesley Church" — i. c., the Methodist I'^pisco- pal, of xv'hich they had kept the tradition, and which at once began to introduce schools and Churches among them. The leaders of the Church South thought it wiser, for such as re- mained with them, to form separate Churches. In 1870, the General Conference of the Church South directed its Bishops to organize a new Church and to ordain for it Bishops when it had elected them. The above-named Church was organ- ized at Jackson in 1 87 1. It has five Bishops, six hundred and thirty-eight traveling, and about as many local, preachers and a hundred and twenty-five thousand members. The formation of such a Church accounts for the failure of the Church South to show a rapid increase of numbers. It perfectly agrees in doctrine and discipline with the Church from which it is taken. Its organ is the Christian Index, published at Louisville, and it has some institutitjns of learning. The trouble of the M. E. Church and of the Church South has usually been along the border. Many societies in Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri, all along the boundary, had minorities opposed to going to the Church South. These minorities sought Church relations with the North. In some cases, as at St. Louis, a society of the M. E. Church was organized soon after the sepa- ration. In Missouri, the two Churches have each three Confer- ences ; the M. \\. Church counting about fiftx' thousand members, and the Church South a much larger number. St. Louis was a test place. In 1845, before the Conferences of the North had given their separate votes upon the "Plan," Bishop Morris was solicited to organize a Conference in Missouri. This he declined to do, holding it better to abiile by the spirit of that document while it was on trial, and not to organize a Missouri Conference where the Church South already had one of the same name on the same territory. The Union Church of .St. Louis was filled b}- special appointment and in 1848 the "Plan" was thrown into "the dark backward and abysm of time." It could rot be otherwise than that the people of two Churches like these M. E. Churches should be prominent in the war. THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH SOUTH. 541 some They had for membership the numbers, itrength and activity of the nation. In the North, the M. E. Church was first of all to send to President Lincoln assurance of loyal support, and first of all to congratulate President Johnson at its successful close. During the war no other Church had so many soldiers in the service, and Bishop Simpson was often called to give advice and encouragement. Lincoln called it well nigh the National Church. In the South, the record of the other Church was of the same quality. As Lincoln said of the northern Church, so Davis might have said of the southern; "It sent more soldiers to the field and more nurses to the hospi- tals than any other religious body." As the war fared on, the armies of the North came into posses- sion of cities of mili- tary importance and in such the clergy were forbidden to pray for the success of the Confederacy. General Butler, in New Orleans, pro- claimed that such acts would be treated by martial law, as " firing the southern heart" and encour- aging the Confeder- ates to prolong the war. Of c ^ I r s e manyChurche vere closed and sonit )f these belonged to the Church South, Stanton, Secretary of War, ordered that in the Department of the South- west all Churches belonging to the M. E. Church South be placed at the disposal of Bishop Ames, of the M. \\. Church, on the ground of the advantage coming to the nation from such loyal sentiments as his appointees would inculcate, and all commanders were to give to such appointees "courtesy, assistance and pro- tection." So came the northern Church again into the South. J. P. Newman, a preacher of great eloquence and culture, was put in charge of the Carondelet Street Church, one of the finest in all the South, and "northern" worship was there held by a large and LOCHIE RANKIN. Kirst Missionarjr of the Woman's Missionary Society of the M. K. Lhtirch South. -i 542 THE STORY OK METHODISM. intelligent congregation. This was a painful sight to southern Methodists. Military use of churches was no new thing, but this military possession of their property b\' the northern preachers was mo. J bitter than anything else that the war had brought them. Yet without such occupation the houses would have been empt}'. The sense of invasion and the days of sourness left by the war led to many an outrage upon northern preachers and teachers who, holding that peace had opened all the country for settlement, canoe to labor for southern populations. Ruffianism took for its special victims the represen- tatives of the M. E. Church, and, though there is no occasion to charge these to the influence of the Church South, they seemed to put far awaj' the day of harmony. It will be re- membered that Lo- vick Pierce had said (and properly) that the Church South could never renew the offer of fraternal relations, but would JOHN B. McFERRIN, D. D. ^^ ^^^ ^-^^ cordially entertain such an offer. In spite of the separation, in spite of the war and its sequels, there was among the best men of both Churches not only pride of a common ancestry and a love of their common faith and order, but also a sincere desire that fra- ternity, if not union, should be established before those who had seen and been part of the separation and the estrangement should pass from this world. The advance was made b}^ the Bishops of the Methodist ICpiscopal Church to those of the Church South. In .April, i860, the former held a meeting at Mcadvillc, Pennsylvania, and felt THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH SOUTH. 543 .ithcrn ut this acluTs rou^ht c been left by ;rs and \try for Tianism special ipresen- i M. E. , though jccasion ;hese to e of the ith, they put far day of be re- that Lo- had said Irly) that k South r renew fraternal lut would cordially lite of the of both love of that fra- who had nt should ilethodist )ril. i86q, and IcU themselves justified by action of the General Conference at Chicago the year before (providing for the treatment of any (>ther Methodist Church that might desire union with them) in making overture of intercourse looking to reunion. Hishops Janes and Simpson conveyed this overture to the Bishops of the Church South, who met in May, 1869. To this the latter made a fair reply, alluding, among other things, to the work of the northern missionaries and agents in the South as tending "to disintegrate and absorb our societies." In 1870, Bishop Janes and Dr., afterward Bishop, Harris, visited at Memphis the General Conference of the Church South and were received with courtesy. The men of the South were vaguely feeling that fraternity must be looked for where it was lost, and they sug- gested a return to the Plan of Separation. Such a return was simply impos- sible, so enormously had twenty-five years wrought their changes, that it would have been a rais- ing of the dead. The Northern Gen- eral Conference of 1872 appointed Drs. A. S. Hunt and (afterward) Bishop Fowler, with General Fisk, to bear Christian greetings to the Southern, to be held, in 187^^, at Louisville. These men were warmly received and a similar delegation was ordered by the South. That same Lovick Pierce, now venerable with years (he died four years after, at ninety-five), who had, in 1848, said that last word in sorrow, not in anger, Dr. Duncan of Virginia, and Chancellor Garland of Vanderbilt University, were made delegates on a like errand to the Methodist Episcopal General Conference, in 1876, at Balti- more. Five commissioners were also appointed to meet a similar commission from the North to fix a Plan of Harmony and Peace. It was in 187(1, the centenary of national life, that the OF.NEKAL CLINTON I!. FISK. 544 THE ST(;RY OF MKTHODISW. reconciliation was made a fact. The twelfth of May in that year is a day to remember. In a vast gathering over which Bishop Janes presided, Dr. Duncan and Chancellor Garland were intro- duced to the (jeneral Conference. A letter from Dr. Pierce, who had fallen sick on his journey, was first read. He protested against the current phrase, " two Methodisnis." "There is but one Episcopal Methodism, and you and we make it up." Dr. Duncan then gave a memorable address. To him fraternity was to be an end of strife, an exchange of discord for h-nrmony, when, walking in the light, as Christ is in the light, men have fellowship one with another, and cease from petty strifes and bitter words. Then Chancellor Garland spoke briefly and the Conference was moved to tears of very gladness. The Rubicon was repassed. In August of the same )'car, the joint commission already spoken of met at Cape Ma}-. There were five in each committee, men well versed in the matters to be discussed, men of clear head and Christian temper. The ghost of the long vanished " Plan " haunted for a little the southern committee and to this the north- ern made no objection, as it could make not a hair white or black. There was no longer a question of territory. In 1890, Dr. Frank Bristol and Ex-Gov. Pattison, of Pa., were fraternal delegates from the North and were welcomed with every mark of respect and afifection. This interchange of personal visits and fraternal salutation has served to maintain a close fraternity of feeling, and to manifest to the world that there abides true Christian unity. "Ephraim shall no longer vex Judah nor shall Judah any longer envy Ephraim." The relation of the Church South to the colored people of its region is peculiar and interesting. It is pardonable, seeing our Story is to give our colored brethren as well as others an eas\-, accurate and readable view of Methodism, here to rehearse what the Church has done for them. We shall see that it has done for them more than all other agencies together and that there is much yet to be done for their mental and spiritual advancement. Of the seven millions of colored people residing in the South to- day seventy per cent, are illiterate and there are a million and a half of colored voters who cannot read the name on their ballots. When Mr. Wesley was on his return from Georgia to England, THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH SOUTH. 545 he gave much time to teaching two negro lads on shipboard. This was the beginning of a work of love and help to their race, which his followers have well continued to this day. In 1758, he received at VVardsworth, in England, his first African convert, a slave woman, whose master, Gilbert, became a local preacher. These introduced Methodism at Antigua. The colored race had come to this country in the second voyage of the Mayflower, nearly a hundred and fifty years in ad- vance of Methodism. In that time they had ceased to be heathen and had come into a condition of emptiness and expectancy. The Methodist preachers published precisely the glad tidings for which their souls were yearning. The Gospel was offered to them as freely as to their masters, and they were foimed into classes and had every privilege of Christian care and training. The sons of their masters often became preachers, the masters often class leaders. The negroes in some societies soon outnumbered the whites, and of their own people arose preachers and exhorters. Of these we noted the true and faithful labors of Henry Evans, who had founded in Wilmington the Fourth Street Church, before he went to Fayetteville to found in the same manner the Evans Chapel. In the towns, and along the coast as far south as Georgia, the colored population was in a religious way fairly prosperous. Not so on the rice and cotton lands farther down. Early in this century these regions were filled with Africans from slave-ships, rude heathen given to fetish worship and superstition. Their numbers grew rapidly and their descendants kept the usages of Congo and Guinea. Here was a mission field and a hard one. The planters were not often Methodists, if Christians at all. They lived on their plantations in winter only. The malaria of the plantations told upon the whites. Bishop Andrew and Dr. (afterward Bishop) Capers took hold in earnest of this plantation work. Capers prepared catechisms and gave his own efforts to conciliating the planters and planning the work. The enterprise was constantly enlarging by new settle- ments and new plantations. After the separation the Church South spent a million of dollars in twenty years, to say nothing pf wasted health and untimely loss of men. The result of all this was most gratifying. Religion worked I I 54*5 nrE sioRv OF methodism. a reform in morals wherever the missionary came with his preach- ing, his Sunday-schools and his personal exhortations. Polygamy and the other vices of barbarism, with theft, and other vices of civilization, disappeared, and peace, order and honesty took their [)lace. Preachers were raised up who (whatever the statute-book might say) could read well and preach well. There was many an Uncle Tom, devout and faithful, among the hardships of plantation life. The piety of the slaves proved equal to the severe trials of the war. They might have risen and wasted the planta- tions with sword and flame, as their fierce heathen coun- trymen had done in some of the West India islands. The leaven of Christianity had worked among them and they had learned to labor and to wait, though they intensel)' longed for freedom. Thus the South reaped the harvest of benefit which the Meth- odist missionary had been sowing. At the end of the war, the Church South was in poverty and prostration. It was as if a cyclone had swept REV. Dh. CHARLES F. DEEMS. i t s t e r r i t o r y. Churches had to be rebuilt and refurnished, all benevolent enterprises had to be newly undertaken, and the negro work had to be dropped. The various African bodies from the North came for- ward to prosecute it, and the Church South, as we have seen, gave churches and organization to the colored people of its own body — forming the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church in America. Yet the religious needs of the freedmen (and of the poor whites) after the war were immense. Masses were needing fitness for their new, free life. The\' were sometimes as helpless as v4dv..,('ijVi-:.»j!t;.ai">ii.\.»i.U\*2i*'.-iii. THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH SOUTH. 547 each- gamy ;cs ol" : their -book many ips of •ials of t have planta- fiame, 1 coun- ome of ,. The ty had m and bor and itensel\' Thus harvest : Meth- d been the war, was in (on. It Id swept Ihurches [erprises to be ime for- re seen, its own lurch in le poor kr fitness Ipless as children, and ofcen wild, self-indulgent and improvident. But they had an admirable record with both the contending parties. They had so behaved as to reduce the horrors of war, and both North and South felt kindly and grateful towards them. Never had a people of slaves so conducted themselves in a crisis so terrible. It was, then, only just that the various Christian bodies of the North should promptly come to the relief of a needy and worthy people, and so they all have done. In this work the best minds of southern men have agreed. There have been broad, *.•..■■■ ■' "•'j m^^m^^ssM .. ■■,, ..■ i ^jr J 1 - -■--;- (1 t: .-^'V:.- ■• ,: ^-^<*^-^r- M ':^ipp l^hH^^^^^^^Kt — '— '- ^,:^i^ J ^''^-*^^-fcT%^~_^*^ —"'^ -' r"*^^^B '^^Hnf^^dy •^SVl^i^r'^^^^^^BHS^SHHSS^^i^S^Hl ^^T^^mM i^H^BhtS^Iu ^9nH yvi.' I'^ftfJHB^Bflh^rtwlSE^iM^^Bi^^^^^P^nB H^^^^HH^H^^^Br,.? .1/ '^ ^^J^'^^^&Ek^^Hb - '■ ^ 'P^^i'ft^W**' «^" ' ■ir—r &-M '^uMim^^'^s^Tm. 1 . v, '"-^".^s^' '■!..l i JBiilfflBL*^- J3ESo&f ' "i^' ' * ^ "' ■■•-^^^ r '^^§1 ni^^nsi^ ^B^mi mm^^mmmm mn:m&mm^Mm'^^t^'^-'^'!^ • y^^^-:v,y-:^-U mmmmmmmKwm VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY, NASHVILLE, TENN. political differences, but a Republican colored Congressman has given ot his salary to help his old master's family and a Demo- cratic Governor of Georgia has endeared himself to colored congregations by his religious labors. Two colored Methodists have with dignity and sound wisdom served in the Senate of the United States. The work of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the South will be elsewhere told. It is not out of place to pause here and wonder at the divisions of Methodisms in the South. Among the colored 548 THE STORY OF METHODISM. people the case is amusing, or it would be so, if it were not lamentable. There are for them organizations enough to dis- tract th'' brain — five in all, three for themselves and two of whites, with vvhon chey may connect themselves. They call, in their way, the African M. K. Church "de mudder Chu'ch ; " the A. M. E. Zion Church " de halleluyee Chu'ch," antl the colored M, E. Church in America " de Chu'ch set np by de white foke," A more undesirable state of things for the freedmen of a village or a scantily peopled rural district can hardly be imagined. Union would be strength, re- spectability and effi- ciency. And why could not the two Methodist Churches of the whites also unite? They are so identical in doctrine and usage, in everything, that a stranger does not know in which he is worship- ing. They are one line- age and interest. As it now is, only name and recent memories keep them apart. Soon these memories will vanish with the survivors of the generation that held them, and then there will Even in 1 844, Chas. Elliott said that, apart from slavery, the Church's vast and various concerns would some day compel its division. The same may long prevent organic reunion. Each Church is now in full career, rejoicing in its strength and with the world for its field. Only may charity abound ! Twelve years ago there were five bodies of Methodists in Can- ada. Now there is but one Methodism from the Bermudas to the Pacific. Happy would it be, were such the fact in the United States ! One Methodism, like the banyan tree of India, might cover the continent, and millions rest in peace beneath its fragrant C()RNKI.1U> VANDKRBII.I. be a name and nothing more. Tin: MKIHUDISI Kl'lStOl'Al. CHlUt II .^ol III. 540 shade. The Church South has shown ^rcat cnerj^jy in its ciluca- tional work. The second Mrs. Vanderbilt. upon coining to New York, joined the Church of the Stran<;ers. an independent church, which had been founded by Rev. Dr. Charles F. Deems, equally distinguished as preacher and writiT, thus Mr. Vanderbilt became his parishioner. Mrs Vanderbih and Dr. Deems hail been South- ern Methodists. His devotion to his wife, and his love for Dr. Deems, led Mr. Vanderbilt to liberal measures. In 1872, the Church South had fotindcd at Nashville its Central University, to be its seat of learnin^^ for all coming time. To this Mr. Vanderbilt f . ^ave a million of dol- | lars, thus puttinj^j it at I once in a highly-effect- ^■ ive condition. It has four departments — of Theology, Law, Medi- cine and Philosophy, the latter including Science and Literature, and is amply furni^^hed with University appli- ances and resources. Its site includes seventy five acres just east of the city, and its build- ings cost four hundred hon. a. h. oLyunT, thousand dollars. L. C. Garland, LL. D., has been Chancellor from the beginning. Besides this, the Church South has over thirty colleges of less or greater degree, some of which have recovered from the ruinous effects of the war. There are also other schools and academies. The Church South has foreign missions in China, Mexico, Brazil and Germany. It has beyond its original slave territory Conferences in California, Oregon, Colorado Kansas and Illinois. These came on the track of emigration from its old home. As 550 llli; sluKV i>|' MKilliHHSM. yet, it has ^jaiiicil little biyf)n(l this imij^ratcd mcmberHhip. One of its own authorities states that all the N«)rth and half the South — i.e., i^cllulin^; the negroes, prefer the Methodist Episcopal Church. At the ei " of 188;, the Church South hail of traveling' preachers, four thousand four huuilreil uud ihirty-four; local, hve thousand nine hundred and ei^,dUy-nine ; members, one mil- lio.. fdty-live thousand nine hundred and Hfty-four. (Jf the last hve thousand four hundred and eighty-five are Indians, and only six huiuhed and lifty-three are colored. For missionaries its ^ifts were in 1SH7, two luinilred and fifty-seven thousand two hundred and twenty-ei^dU dollars. If by disasters, for which this }4enera- tion is not responsible, it has suffered heavy loss, it is repairing,' the loss by the true (iospel means, by labor and sacrifice. Such laynuMi as (lowrnor C!ol(|uitt, «)f Cn-or^ia, who, in the press of public care, still tintls time to labor in the Sunday-schools of his coloretl citizens, such clerj^ymen as Dr. Haywood, who takes into his heart the needs anil possibilities of his " Hrother in Hlack," and a |i[;vlaxy of men anil women of like mind and effort, show that the Church appreciates its calling; and makes its history of to-day sublime. Perhaps — |)robably by the movement of heart that, like the earth's internal chan^^es, must at length affect the surface — the "South" will yet vanish from its name. • ^1 # ^m- J A ^^ M i^& CHAIMKK XLV. Mi;iii()i>isM \Mo.\{; iiii: I\[>ians and Mormons. AVlNCi been savctl from suicide by turning to luar a sermon (as wc have noted), John Stewart be^an anionic tlie Wyandottes of Ohio the missionary w(;rlv of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1832, the Wyan- dottes sold their lands to the jjeneral Liovernment ,uk\ went to Kansas. They were seven hundred in all, of these, nearly half were members of the Mission Church. There were fifteen native class leaders and four local preachers. They had seventy children in school, and had banished whisky from their little nation. Settliiifr at the junction of the Kansas and the Missouri, where their name abides, they became citizens and held their lands in severalty. Not many seem to be there to-day. This removal, which even among whites is injurious, was disastrous. The Wyandottes are no longer a tribe, and there is no mission, but they were the first to feel the benefits of the Methodist missionary efforts in this country (unless we count all Metho^iftt efforts as missionary) and they found in these a blessing. In 1822, Capers, afterward Bishop, spent eight months in Georgia, persuading the people and collecting means for a mission to the Creeks. These were about twenty-four thousand, living partly in Georgia and Alabama. He gained the good-will of .Mcintosh, a half-breed and leader of the tribe, and, a council being held, the mission was allowed. " Asbury Mission" was 5 [' 55^ THK sroRV OI- MEiKODlSM. ■ I begun, thouj^h Bip^ Warrior, an influential chief, and the govern- ment agent, made vigor' is oppositioii. A wise and patient teacher, aided b>' his wife, opened a school and inaugurated the second Metliodist mission. Th> school was "ery successful. One boy, beginivng with his alphabet, in ihree months read the New Testament. Children were learning to pray, and the prospect was ver\- cheering. Preaching ^\as opposed b}- the agjnts and by wicked whites. Mcintosh did all he could for it, and a few sermons under his protection had a large hearing, but soon prejiching had to be suspended. Calhoun, Secretarx' of War, then r rdcrcd the agent to give "decided countenance and support to the Methodist mis- sion." Crowell obeyed, but ihcrc were obstructions. Soon however, there were conversions, some of them very affecting, and in 18:^9, tliere were twenty-four Christian Indians and twice as many blacks — also a few whites — in membership, liven this success was gratifying when one thinks of the troubles that hindered it. During this period came the hard measure of removal of the Creeks to the Indian Territory — a measure provoking jealousy and anger, in whicli Mcintosh, the chief patron of the mission lost his life. After the removal, better times came on and the good seed bore its harvest in a coi dition of Churches, schools and the like that entitles the Creeks to be counted a civilized tribe. Among the Cherokces the pious work fared better. This princely tribe held ten million acres of the best land of Georgia. They were comparatively wealthy and civilized when Methodism reached them, and the American Board had for five years maintained a successful mission. In 1822, Riley, a Cherokee, invited Neely, a preacher near by, to preach at his house, and before si.\ months there was a class of thirty-three, Riley being leader. In December of that year, being appointed missionary, he opened there a school of twenty-five, and in this and in his meetings conversions occurred. Before the year was out, the heavenly grace was amply shown. At a camp-meeting, thirty-one were converted, and at the close of the meeting thirty caim to the altar and begged to be told how they could like these be happy in the favor of the Great Spirit. The meeting was resumed and a wealth)' Indian otTered to spend his last dollar in maintaining it. ME'IHODISM AMONG IHK INDIANS AND MuKMONS. 553 Never did such results conu- so cheaply. The whole cost of the mission was two hundred dollars, and, at the end of the year, there were one hundred and eight members and many children were reading the Testament. Coodv. an Indian a hundred miles I:' (iKORGF. OUESS. away, became an exhorter and his house became a religious center. In 1826, George Guess, an Indian, invented an alphabet, an event of curious interest to students of the Science of Languaj,^.. r 534 nil, STOKV Ol MEIHODISM, It represented their speech by seventy-six characters, each giving a syllable. Th'- help which it gave to the Gospel vva.> very great. Soon among their seventeen thousand people were eight hundred and fifty-five members, seventeen preachers and five schools There uere law, government and a weekl}- newspaper. Then came a series of events at which every patriot must blush. A 'lergyman, an agent of the government, began to urge their removal beyoi the Mississippi. The struggle was long and ruinous. Some of the missionaries were brutall)- punished for their symjiath)' with an injured people. At length, in 1841, the Cherokees were driven out at the point of the bayonet. Under missionary guidance they transferred them- selves fairly to their new home, and thero have prospered. United with the Chick a saws, \\\k \ numbrv i\\\\\\\\ \\\v\\V\ in I- thousand atu\ aif n the best shape o{ ill our Indian \»eople. They ha\ V good laws an d go ve r nm e n t. schools and school- houses, Churches aiul JOSEPH DRANDT. church b u i 1 d i n t. Their helpers outside of their own number arc from the Church South and the American Board. The American Board had priority of the Methodists .r missions among the Choctaws also. Of these there were twent\ thousand in Mississippi. William Winans, himself the chief ot Mississippi Methoilism, began work among them in 1826, but with little result. At length, under Talley, in 1828, at a camp meeting, a break occurred. Four chiete, among others, were converted, and soon Laflore, the heW chief, and six other chief followed. !i!'.it ' MKIIImDI^m \\!(i\(, !II1: IMMANs AM) MORMONS. ^ m t* 33 5 each giving i very great, ght hundred Five schools, per. Then ,t blush. A 1 urge their IS long and punished for in 1 841. the s were driven he point of •net. Under guidance sferred them- lirly to their 10, and there ispered. ted with the I saws, \\\\\ .\^M\A ai\t\ avc est shape ot [ndian \)eoplc. V i;ood laws \e mm en t. and school- "hurches antl b u i 1 d i n 1^ ♦^hc Church llethodists .;^ were twent\ the chief ot in 1826, but !, at a camp I others, were other chict- Tn 1830, whisky and lu athenism were banished; ail the Jiiefs but font wen 'hnsti.m^, .md four lludis.ind members were enrolled out of a population ot twenty thousand. Then comes the ^ail story of their remo\al. Falle)' did lluin good and faithfid service in s.i\'ini; them from moral damage by the translcr. in their new home they have thriven and are now making good pr<.i- L;ress in the arts of eiviliz.itioii. I'heir l.iilure to have a George (iuess to invent them an alphabet may have been a blessing, for they have taken u[) the English f(u tlu ii speech and, one may BAPTISM BY TORCH MGHT AMONtJ IHK INDIAN:. say, are Indians no longer, unless in complexion and feature. Fifty years of religious labor have made them no more aliens and foreigners, but fellow-citizens. Their outside help is from the (hurch South -i.e., their Methodist help, and the same Church l.as mis.«ions to the Seminoles and other tribes of the t^ rritory. In all it has nearb ten thousand members. In Oft coi lur -f the territory, among the f'oncas ami Tawnees and >th. . tribal remnants, the Methodist Episcopal Chuf* . hak »*," ■ V , small missions, countinj^ one hundred ami bixty '?i^C;'^r "'py^iSir?!;,* f^F^-^^,r}7^)^*:'^^^^n!^v?^f:!?jJ!r^^:^fr^.. y/> WW. siouv ••!• \ir.ri!i)i)isM. members, and about seven luindrecl atteiulants on worship. These are "wild Indians." Mrs. (iaddis, their self-sacrificing friend, says: "I saw men and women kneel to idols (stufied skins of wild geese) and offer their garments in sacrifice, while their tears and cries were terrible. And this within seventy-five miles of the Kansas line, while wee.xpKjre Africa to find lieathen !" She now, 18S7, is cheered with success. The Si.\ Nations, once so powerfid through the center of the state of New York, have been visited by Methodism. The Mohawks, after the Revolution in which, under Hrandt, they had aided the liritish, retired after the war to Canada. Coh^nt-l Hrandt, a graduate of Dartmouth, was not a Christian, but his daughter, Mrs. Kerr, was a believer, and patriotic in her desires for Christianity among her people. In 1S07, two of her people were bapli/ed, one being Mrs. Jones, whose son jccame the greatest of Indian preach.ers. In 1822, AlvinTorrey was sent from the Genesee Conference to visit these Mohawks. At this time, young Seth Crawford, living with them, was moved to learn their speech and give his labor for their welfare. In his meetings, in 1823, a revival broke out like a flame, and twenty were convertetl in the little settlement, and the work spread to others. Soon, Peter Jones, called a Mohawk, a Chippeway, or a Mississanngah, as the tribes were now blending, now twenty-one, began to speak with trembling and brevity, but with power. He was stately to look upon and afterwards an English lady of fortune accepted him as her husband. The y<. ung evangelist found fierce oppositii>n from the heathen, the \ ile whites, and the traders with their whisky, but he soon hatl one hundred and fifty believers. When the Indians, in 1825, received their governoitnt annuities, he end his brethren tented by themselves, and, in place of ;i drunken frolic, spent their time iw instruction p:.,"^ urayvn. The other Indians gathered around, aid .rov.s 01 ^vh;;v.^ c.,nie to look on, Jones was educated, ar 1 J ^ woui.l u it .Achi -j SENECA M1SSK)N HOUSK llUKl'ALO RESERVATION. MF.TIIODTSM AMONG THE INDIANS AND MORMONS. 557 These friend, kins ul ir tears s of the he now, ;r of the 1. The liey liad Colonel liut his r desires tr people ne being jose son [jatest of 'in Torrey c Genesee isit these lis time, Crawford, m, was fare. In d twenty spread to way, or a enty-one, wer. He »f fortune ind fierce ders with beUevers. [annuities, lace of ;i loi wt>U-^ ur .Achi'tf ' han^e to lMi},disli. ami thus many whites were converted, .md so the j^ood work prospered. At Icnj^flh, an island in Hay CJiiinte, liki; \lu\y Island, on tin- northwest of iCiif^jland, l)cr;une Christian lieadipiarters, and soon a lar^^er island \\iirt oeeiipietl. Nt;w preachers were raised u|) and new mission - iiies cailJe. Wlu-n, in liSjS. the Methotlism of Canada parted in peace from that of the states, two thousaml adults and four hiindreel < jiildren were in the care of tlu' Church. All the Indian missions in Canada have continued to prosper. The ()ni;idas, livin;^' in central New V'ork, were, fifty years a^o, sadiv demoralized. Kirt land, their noble friend, and Scanado, their ^^ r e a test chief were dead, and the entrance of such population as followed the opening of the Erie canal was a disaster. Daniel /\dams, a Christian Indian from Can ada, came to labor witl) them, lie saw more than one hundred converted, and eighty children gathered into school. Some of the converts went to the Onon dagas near by, and soon three chiefs, with others, were there converted. In 1 83 1, and soon (.knkral u. s. (,kan 1 . after, most of these Indians went to Green Hay, Wis., the mission- aries following on tluir track. In theii old homes about half ar.- Christians, and these have tid\- houses and fair-looking farms. The Pagans are still barbarous. We told how four Flathearl chiefs had heard from somf trapper of a Book that would teach chei\> how to wor'=hip Gori and how they came to St. Louis to get it r»f the Indians in their region now, the Yakimas are the haj^picst. In 1869, General Grant being President, and wishing to bring vhe .ndiar.3 under kindly influences, and if possible, to limit the long list of fraud i 55« THF, STORY fU' MFTIIODISM 7 1^. and abuse Ravr thr nomination of thr Indian ..^'rnts to varions r<'lij^i(nis boiUcs. It w.is just and wise to i)ut the wards of the nation in the care of their best benefactors, and in some cases th( Tresiilent's aim was fully reached. The Reservation happiest of all has boen that of the N'aUimas in Washin^Hon i'erritory. Of these, there are thr(>«' thousand, on ei^hl hundred thousand acres of excellent land More than five hundred are members of the Church, and in ten years they have j^iven to its benevolent causes tw«) thousanti two hmulred and forty-five dollars. "I''ather" Wilbur, their apostle went, in 18S7, to his rest but they have two comfortable churches, Whisky is almost unknown. Abf)Ut out; in ten cm read and write and there is .1 f^ood suppl}- of com- petent nu'chanics, while },f«)od and wi-ll-stocked tarms abound. Rev. J. L. Hurchanl was matle a^ent at Round Valley, L'alifor- nia, and, of less than twelve hundred popula tion, nine huntlretl, were in two j-ears converted, and proved their chani,u- by clothing, housekeep- ing^ and industry, such as befitti'd their new life. What the Lees had done in ()rei;on, how. among other things they drew emigration from the states and s.ived Oregon to the nation, has already been told. Closely relatci! to the fndi.n work for diffieulty and for its appalling necessity has been that among the Mormons of Utah There stands in good repair at Kirtlaml, Ohio, a little south ot the Lake Shore Railroad, the majestic temple first built by the Mormons. It is empty and unused. From it the builders went to Illinois, to Missouri, and at last to Ltah. Here they hoped tf> be left to their own ways. The>- were not out of the world. It became necessary to send there a military force to maintain MKTHonisT CHURCH, SAM I AkK crrv, MFTHnniRM AMONG THE INDIANS AND MORMONS. 559 United Stales law, and with thr army ("liristiatiH began to enter. I'-spccially at the completion of the I'acilic Road, in 1869, when travel was Htreaminj; westward, anil " (ientiles were stojjping in the Mormon towns," the time for Methodism seemed to have eomc. Bishop Kinj^sley, in that year, pn;ached in the Mornion I ( inple the first Methodist sermon in Utah. In November, 1869, Uishoj) Ames apjiointed Rev. Lewis Ilartsoti^^h first snperinfenrhmt nf the Utah mission, lie made VVahsatch, its first regular appoint- ment and, exploring; other touns, found some scattered Methodists. In 1870, Rev. G. M. Pierce began the mission at Salt Lake City and twelve formefl the first class. The first church was built at Corinne in 1870. A noble edifice was soon reared at tlu' capital, and there is MOW in its basement and a building near by the .Salt Lake Seminary, the luicleus of the coming college. Schools are sus- lained in fourteen towns, with over one thousand pupils. Of these, fully half are of Mormon parentage. The schools are openetl with Si ripture, singing and prayer, and thus, if in no other way, the Mormon youth are reached. Utah is credited with being in a bad way. One Methodist Bishop calls it "a black land." another says it is "haider than China." Ihere is no public school, and the only hope of redeeming the fair and fertile region from its immorality and ignorance li< s in thes< schools. Methodism has its missions among the remnants of tribes at St, Regis and Gowanda, N. Y., and at various points in Michigan, At Fort Peck, Idaho, is a thriving Hchool. and at Nookssachk, far up Puget Sound, is a mission looking iiitrlsr TUM titular Is fnajestic, the ptillllR fff*^ «if tluniBitlvUH rt Kuurtu of wealth, ai)d iron U UjUtUi to pure as tu Uu used by i\\^ lUttve blaLkstiiltll IHM 562 TIIK SIORV OK MKIIIOIHSM. . without reduction. To this land of hope and freedom were sent five thousand seven hundred and twenty-two recaptured Africans, and of emi{,Tants, whose expenses were paid by the Colonizati(»ii Society, fifteen thousand seven hundretl and eighty-eight, of whom three thousand seven hundred and ninety went since our war. Could ten thcusand of our best black people be sent there, they would find home and hapi)iness, r»>om for all their energies and encouragement to every enterprise. Among these natives and emigrants are various missions, as Presbyterian, I'^pis- copalian, Luther. ui and Baptist. In 1824, the General Conference was able to take it^ first look across the sea and declare that it was expedient to send missicnaries tu Africa whenever the funds of the Mission- ary Society would justify the measure. The dec laration waited six years before it was put into execution. In 1831, Mel- ville B. Cox, of HENRY M. STANLEY. Maine, volunteered as missionary to Africa. " I thirst to be on my way," said he. " I know I cannot live long in Africa, but I hope to live long enough to get there, and, if God please that my bones lie in an African grave, I shall have established such a bond between Africa and the Church as shall not be broken till Africa be redeemed." To a student of the VVeslcyan University, where he was visiting, he said : " If I die in Africa, you must come over and write my epitaph." "I will, but what shall I write?" "Write, 'let a thousand fall before Africa is given up.' " Mr.riloDISM IN Al'RU A. ■-,(">■ e sent •icun>, z;itit>n whom ar. ; there, nergies ions, as Kpis- utherdii >4, the nfcrencc take il> ;ross the larc that cdicnt to naries to never the : Mission- y would measure, a r a t i o n ,ix years was put ;ion. ,31, Mel- Cox, oi ,lunteereti I" said he. live \o\y^ lie in an ;en Africa ;dcemed." LS visiting, write my lite, 'let a Arriving in March, iS^3, he at f)ncr orpf.mized from pious rmitjrants some Methodist Churches and prepared to establish an .icademy at Monrovia, the capital. He soon held under the ever- ijreen palms the first camp-meeting; ever known in iVfrica, In five months, this heroic nur , lit to lead a mortal enterprise, fell by African fever. The same year five followed him, of whom Duly one, Sophronia Farrington, served for a year. John Seys, born in the West Indies and fitted to life in the tropics, then joined the mission and was identified with its inter- ests in Africa and America for nearly forty years. Liberia under him took definite form and character. He was not of Cox's flam- ing temper, who "saw Liberia rise up before him as a cloud out of heaven." Uv was a calm, plain hard-working man. Miss Farrington now left. Shv had remained to hold the place alone and her experience was very sinjjular. She was sick with fever, which on the fourth day ran >o high that mortification was taking place and all hope of recoxery was abandoned. " [ was alone. I thought, 'Is there not some one here to sympathize with me?' At once Jesus seemed to stand by my side and showed me that it was not His will that I should die at this time and that I should remain for the mission's sake. I said 'Then, Lord, remove the disease.' Sudilen as a flash of lightning the fever and pain all left me and 1 was well. "'If half the slriiif^s of life should break, God can our llcsh restore.' "The doctor said mine was the greatest cure he had ever wrought to which I made him no reply. Eight missionaries were now dead, and Mr. Spaulding, our superintenilent was to sail on the following Tuesday for Amer- i. He was calcidating to take me with him and give up the misbion. But I said : 'No ; 1 can never see this mission abandoned. I can die here, but I will never return until the mission is established.' But he said : 'The Board will probably cut you off if you do not go.' I said, 'I will stay and trust in the Lord.'" She staid, and was the only white person on the coast to welcome Mr. Seys on his arrival. He says: "We were soon at the house and in the presence of the solitary remnant of the former mission band, Miss Farrington, o.. whose visage the pesti- lence had left its traces, and who was at the time enjoying a little, IMAGE EVALUATBON TEST TARGET (MT-3) .<^'.<^ 4 1.0 I.I IM 112.5 ■^ 1^ 12.2 «: ..n nil 2.0 j.iO 18 1.25 1.4 1.6 ^> >v (^1 /A Photographic Sciences Corporation 4^ \ ^^^^^H^Mm *^j|^ this note: "A / - r^fflSaHH^^« ■'•W'^V s^SR sister who has a little money at command gives that little cheerfully, and is willing to give her life as a teacher it she is wanted." .She was able to serve twenty years in Africa. She opened a school in Caldwell ; then she was with Mr. Bur- ton in the academy at Monrovia and finally at Millsburg. In every place she has a record of zeal and success in well-doing. At one time every pupil but the youngest in her school was converted. Some of her scholars were children of native chiefs, and her influence over them is felt in ihe interior to this day. In 1857, she came home, worn-out, to die. She was greeted by the Christians of New York as one ought to be who had not counted home or life dear unto herself, but had left all to follow duty in a far-ofif. wjary land. In the year, 1886, on ,VNN WlLKINS. METHODISM IN AFRICA. 567 (he removal of her remains to another grave, her memory was renewed and thanks were given for the work she was able to do, ■ind for the bright example she left lor Christian workers. There were now four hundred and twenty-one members in ihe colony, with seventeen missionaries, ten teachers and a physician. A jour;ial, Africa's Luminaiy, was printed and a hiiildin^^ begun at Monrovia, a fine one, for an academy, a coming college or university. There were a saw-mill and a sugar-mill, adjuncts of a manual labor school. In 1839, at Hedilingion, a settlement named from the Bishop, there came a shower of reviving grace. The missionary wrote to Se^ s : "Come up and see (iod convert the heathen ! Do not stop to change your clothes, to eat or drink or sleep; salute no man by the way. Come quick!" It was a wonderful work. Tom, a native king, with thirty-five came to Christ in one day. Tom said; "The debely gone long, long way from this town, and, s'pose he come back, he pray God for kill him one time," Meet- ings of natives were held every day, and the divine mercy and power was shown as at Pentecost, as in Ohio, as everywhere on earth. Zoda, a famous Qucah chief, tall and kingly of bearing, came to build him a town near Heddington. A preacher went to the new town and Zoda came to listen. After a serm.on, Zoda rose and went down to kneel, pray and wrestle at the altar. He fell prostrate, but when he arose he was a changed man. He called his town Robertsville in honor of a Methodist Hishop. This season when Ethiopia did so stretch out her hands unto God was, of course, one of fierce opposition, but the converts were steadfast in their new life. They said, "First time I get religion I love God true, but this time I love Him pass first time." So they grew in knowledge and love. Trouble now came on. From 1839 to 1844, the Governor of the colony was one Buchanan, who felt it his pleasure and calling to destroy, the mission out of the colony. He was such a man as i*- mysteriously set to try the patience and faith of the saints, and t(i dishearten all philanthropy. He blighted at once the mission and the colony in a way gratifying only to the adversary of all good. Of the matter we give but an outline. The supplies of the mission, being for the public good, were by l:..w exempt from customs. The missionaries were in no sense traders, though they I I 568 THE STORV OF METHODISM. had paid for some labor in gootls sent for the use of the mission, and this purely for the comfort of their employees and not for profit. To trade without license was punishable b}- a tine of forty- five dollars upon every emplo\'ee, and b\' confiscation of the goods. All enemies of the mission, the Governor and all traders joined to enforce the tax, and Huchanan made such statement of I'RESIUENT k015ERT>' HOUSE, MONROVIA the case to the Colonization Society as to get their decision in hif. favor. The suit to recover taxes was tried before the Governor, who was also plaintiff", antl ruled out every exception that Seys raised ! As a legal trial, it was a tarce, but Seys so truly and eff"ectively explained to the jury the work of the mission that ten of them voted for him and two for the hopeful Governor. The case was discontinued. .Se\s had often paid his bills in promis- sory notes, as good as gold, ami these like our checks and drafts, METHODISM IX AFRICA. 5<^9 ^ ^ wiTc apt to pass through several hands before put with Seys on his tirst voyaj^c, was i)iit in cliar^r. anil Mr. Home, the last white missionary, took chart,^' of the acaileni}', remaining five years. Bishop Scott, in 1M52 was the first of our Bishops to visit Africa, lie spent three months in visitinf^, preaching, correctintj anil encouraging;. It touched him to see how the prominent young natives, after conversion, found so scant means of culture, and he proposed that they !)•• taken into the families of the preachers. The native towns were transient, and some of the best converts were already far away towards the center of the continent — gone, but not lost, for traces of their influence could be found. In 1856, Miss Staunton, a young white lady who was aiding Ann Wilkins, died at Cape P.ilmas, the first unmarried lady to fall in missionary service in a foreign land. .Si.\ unmarried white ladies were sent to Liberia, of whom Mrs. Wilkins did the longest service, and Miss Margaret Kilpatrick, 1854-1864, the next. The Bishops could not easil\' or safely visit Liberia, though, being now a Conference of over twenty preachers, it needed their supervision. The young preachers could not come to America to be ordained. A constitutional change was now made in the Dis- cipline, by which a missionary Bishop could be created for a specified foreign mission. Francis Burns, whose view was that Liberia was a mission, was chosen and ordained in 1858, and the next year he presided at the session. He at once began the interior work, and acted wisely and vigorously until his death in 1 863. J. W. Roberts succeeded, at whose death, in 1875, the members had come to be two thousand three hundred, the largest number yet reported. In 1876, Bishop Gilbert Haven met the Conference. His visit was comforting and inspiring, the Conference being at Monrovia, where the Legislature was in session. He found his people only moderately prosperous, but rather better off than their neighbors. The preachers were elderly men ; he was anxious to have young laborers brought in, and to have an aggressive work upon the interior. He was well cared for, and his letters give lively and hopeful views of the region, yet it is possible that his deatli was hastened by his journey. "A 57* THE STORY OF METHODISM. i pillar of ice where my backbone shoiild be," with alternations of "fierce equatorial fire," reniincieii him of his I-iberian experiences. In 1877, an expiorin^f party started to find mission stations in the interior. At Vanziiah tlu-y found, with surprise, Moham- medan missionaries within twelve miles of Monrovia! These had come from a college at Musardie, two hundred and fifty miles away, while Christ's messen^'ers liad not yet ^one fifty miles. The\' were;, however, cheered to find students from Liberian schools, and the people little inclined to Mohammedanism, At the Condo capital they bc^j;ed for Missionaries, and even children got into the visitors' laps, and asked these to come and teach them. The Kinfj of the Comioes said he himself uoidd attend the school, and he agreed, in writinj^, to " protect, sustain and encourage any missionaries or mission schools." This region back of Liberia is cool, beautiful and healthful. Bishop Haven was sure that white men could there work to advantage, and at his call fifty young men offered themselves. He appointed to this interior work Rev. Messrs. Osgood and Hovard, and to the Seminary, Rev. Mr. Kellogg. These went in 1878, They found a charming climate and everything conducive to health and activity. The King of Hojjoro did not keep his con- tract, but they easily got better places, and harl no idea of stopping until their work should reach the heart of the continent at the head waters of the Niger. Mr. Kellogg entered with eciual zeal upon his educational work. No missionaries arc now sent to Liberia, and the progress of the work is but moderate for lack of Laborers. The men last named have since returned. Yet there are now twenty-seven hundred in the society, and about as many scholars in Sunday- school. In 1885, William Taylor, who, the year before, had been made missionary Bishop of Africa, a man of faith> strength and courage, gathered a company of his like and started for Central Africa to occupy the Congo Free State an 1 other places. Some of the company were farmers and mechanics ; some had families of children. They go as " Pauline " missionaries, on a plan of self-support. The expense of their going was paid by friends in symp?thy with the movement. Some valuable African properties NfirrUoDlsM IN AFRICA. 573 have been bouj^ht in ilu- saiiu- way. It is propo.scd to raise in the fertile soil alDundaiii piovi.sions, then such products as will tell in commerce, then to build schools and churches. This is to show the natives how Christians live, work and do business. Meanwhile, the work of evanyjelizin^ will go on. The theory is that Christianity is not to come as a suppliant and an adventurer. It is to stride in by daylight, as a conqueror comes, not by force, but by assurance of faith, come to stay, and that b\' command of its Almighty Founder, and to draw the people to luself and to demand their grateful service and support. This magnificent scheme has begun well. The company have had a year of good health, as good as at Iiomc. One familj' of six children reports (^nly a week's illness of the youngest two and a half \'ears old, who is since fat and playful. The Hisht)p works seven hours a day in the sun, nor does any one thus far complain. They will in time have ample crops, Soon it will be proved whether white men can or cannot thrive in Africa. Should the result be favor- able, Methodism will at once take its due share of the task of regenerating the continent now opening its resources and its needs to the Church and the world. CHAni-.K Xl.VII, METHomsM IN China and Japan. M()N(i the vcUi.m students of tlic Wcsleyan University are man\' who will recall its Mission- ary Lyceum. I'here, in 1S35, was discusseil in several ineetin^fs, this iiuestion : "What country now ])resents the most promising field for missionary exertions?" "China," was the decision, aiul three students, Tefft, Kidder and Wentworth, since eminent in the Church, prepared an address ur^in^ attention to that country. Dr. Fisk, that )'ear, urj^cd its claims before the Missionar)- Society. It was not until, in 1 ^^44, the unjust op'um uar with iMigland compelled China to open five sea-ports to the wc>rld that steps for a mission were actually taken. J. 1). Collins, a youn^ man of Michigan, offered to Bishop Janes to i^o as a common sailor, workin < ■'n n anner. r got a 1 :, and in 1 y were Iget into > L ';chool l^s was 1 R. S. B s'jhool li China Bingels." B^as not Ito Old I H)lained, I H>f Mat- I Hrs were ■ H^rested. I Hnd the I 'I ' 573 . // \-^^ y.^T' ^ T^v^''' THE STORY OF METHODISM. Lord's Prayer. A little room by the street was obtained for a chapel. It might hold fifty, but the wayside hearers were man}-, as the Chinese love discourse, and stop to hear for a moment what is being said. One day, a fine-looking, well-spoken man offered the missionaries his services on salary to master and present their themes for them. He was a talker by profession. The first church building, a solid one, was built in 1855, outside the walls, but on a main street, with a cupola and a bell, that almost gave the Church's name, "Ching Sing Tong," Churcli of the True God, carved where all could read it. Soon another was built in another place convenient for foreigners, its Chinese part being called "Tien Ang," Heavenly Rest. Mr. Collins was obliged to come Jiome for his health and on his way he planned at San Francisco the present Chinese mission there. His place was filled b\- g^. Rev. (afterwards Bishop) \\'ile\ .- ^^^ ^ and others. Soon, from various ^^^^ reasons, chiefly the great Tai- ping rebellion, Mr. and Mrs. if Wiley were alone. Soon, Mrs. Wiley died, and h^M" husband, from grief and debilit)', returned home. Messrs. Maclay (return- ing), Gibson and Wentworth then came, and the work went on. Mrs. Maclay and Mrs. Gibson had a fine school of thirty, and soon the Misses Woplston came and took it for permanent service. The first convert was baptized on July 14, 1857, Ting Ang, a tradesman of forty-seven. He had been hearing the Gospel, had cleared his house of idols, and begun secret and family prajcr. His family, a large one, was in agreement with him. The mis- sionaries visited him, and for the first time offered prayer in a Chinese house in the great cit}'. His baptism and entrance to the Church, and partaking of the Lord's Supper made a memorable day. Previous to this a little boy had died in the faith, privately taught by Dr. Wiley, and a young man, a true believer, had sailed for New York. In a year, 1858, a complete Methodist Episcopal Church was organized. Chinese Mission of the M. K. Church, San Francisco, California. 1 A CHINESE RCKIRE. The C'iinese use a separate character for every word and idea. Their tangua|;e contains about fifty thousand characters, of which some thirty-three thousand arc in actual use. 58o THE STORY OF METHODISM. The next blessing Methodism gave to China was the Found- ling Hospital. Thousands of female children have there been yearly cast away. This was to save the lives of the little unfortu- nates. Meanwhile, the family of the first convert embraced the faith. He has passed to heaven, but his children are Christians, and Bishop Harris, in 1873, learned the ritual in Chinese to baptize his grandson, the son of a native preacher. I /? i ^ nv PO MI T've first itinerant raised no in China was Hu Po Mi, who became pastor (1859) at a place fifteen miles from Foochow. After his conversion, he had visited at this place some friends dear to hirp, and told them "what a dear Saviour he had found." Soon he took Dr. Maclay to visit them, and a meetinjr was held ..' ^^aJ-^^.A3. MEIHOniSM IN CHINA ANH JAPAN'. 581 at their home, tea being, meanwhile, served to each comer as he entered. Ail listened, and the result was the conversion of nine in this one (the Li) famil\-. Such success gave alarm, but the natives found that both law and public policy protected the mis- sionaries ; so milder means were tried. The heathen Lis thought that, at Maclay's coming, the spirit guardians of their house ran away. They went to the mountain behind their house and begged these to come back, and it seemed as if the spirits would do so, when another Christian meeting tinished^the business. A tamous enchanter was employed, but the pale shivering phan- toms that had for ages ruled the house of Li now fled forever. The morn was rising. The enchanter and two more Lis now forsook the older gods that had so forsaken them and became earnest and true Christians. The number of workers was now, 1859, doubled. S. L. Baldwin and Mrs. Baldwin, and C. R. Martin and Mrs. rev. s. l. hai.dwin. d.d. Martin, came to Foochow. It is sweet to say how, on their voyage, Mr. Peet of the American Board cheered their hearts and helped in learning Chinese, and that, reaching Shanghai at midnight, the missionaries of the Church South gave them greet- ing prompt and warm, and introduced them to their peculiar work, to Chinese discourse and communion. In a far land how good it is for Christians to dwell in unity ! And they always do. Two sisters. Misses Woolston, now came to enter upon the education of Chinese girls. Mr. Gibson's school for boys was succeeding; that of Mrs. Maclay and Mrs. Gibson for girls had 1 L ! 58i Till-; ^|(>k\ oF NIKTIIODISM. done fairly. IMic pativis wen- afraid of such a novelty, and for ci<][ht da)s OIK- littk' i^irl came alone. After ten months there had been fifteen, three heini; small footed — i. e., of higher family. The need of such a schot)! was forcibly set forth by Ur. VVent- uoith to the Metiiodist women of America. The case of Chinese i,nrls was hard indeed. Half t)f them were put to death on the day they were born. To most of the others was set a life of slavery, with all the ills tiiat heathenism puts upon women. Hesides this appccd to general humanity, it was shown that the . , : , . THE FIRST CIJINKSF. MINISIERS. female foundlings would r.oon fill a school, woidd usually h^ converted, would have culture for social position, would be wives of preachers and Christian men, and establish in China homes, rich in domestic ])eace and \irtue. "the only bliss that has survi\'eil the fall." The appeal did its work, and the school is now, for thirty years, one of the good things of Foochow. Hu Sung Eng, " Mary Mertlett Irving," was the first convert among its pupils. She was a daughter of that good family that furnished the first native preacher. She is now the wife of a lly b thirty x^:\!X'~j>"-''i:M 584 THE STORY OF METHOniSM. preacher, with bright, Christian cliiklren about iicr, the third Chiistian generation of her lunise proving that Christianity is not to die out in tlie Flower)' Kingdom. In i860, "Father' Hu was the first convert to die, and he proved, on that side of the world, Wesley's comfortable words, "Our people die well." Hi left, beside Mary Irving, six sons, four adult members and two lads at school. The next years went on successfully. Chapels were buih native preachers came up, and tracts and Scripture translation> were multiplied. Thr i;ovcrnnient opened the country to mis- sionaries, and agreed to protect them. IVIr Sites went to a place farther into the land, and at last a mission- ary, witli chapel and school on his own premises, was alloweii within the walls nt l'\)Ochow. This last \ ictory cost sonielhiiig. A mob destroyed I lie new church, and the house of Martin, tlie missionar\-. He re- built it, but ill the week before it was dedicated he was taken with cholera, and w ent suddenly to the house not made with hands. His last words were: "It pays to be a Christian." In 1865, Bishop Thompson came to cheer and guide the work. Other Bishops have visited the mission. It has now six districts, with a hundred native preachers, and three thousand members, contributing liberally to all Church interests, and as well established in Christianity as any people. It will be noted that here Bishop Wiley began his labors. Thirty-three years later, sick and weary, he sailed up the river, SIA SEK ONG 'ITie first Doctor nf Divinity among Methodi-t converts from heathenism. (Delegate to the General Conference 1888.) Ide the jow six lousand land as llabors. river, ^ttsS \ii. fv\ 586 THK SIORV oK METiloDlS.M. and as he saw where he had first hved, he said ; " Home, ni)' old home!" Ihere he died, on the same spot where, thirty- two years before, at the same iH)ur, day and month, Mrs. Wiley also had died. Service was had in that Church of Heavenly Rest, whose n;'nu' was now so fitting, and native preachers bore the body of their dear " Hwaila Kangtok," in a coffin which their own hands had lineti and pillowed, to rest by that of Mrs. Wiley, among the olives and pines, the longans and giiavas ol the Foochovv cemetery. In the year 1886, a wholr village of five hundred near Foo- chow, with one im- pulse, threw awa\' i their gods, and askeil to become a Meth- odist Church. They said their gods could do nothing. Of these, many will become true converts. The whole of China was now open to missionaries. Kiu Kiang, a great cit)- far up the great river Yang-tse, at the mouth of which is ROBERT c. BEEBEE. M. D. Naiikin, w a s n e x t entered. It is the capital of a province that has a population equai Vo one-third of the United States, and around a beautiful lake, Po Yang, are other large cities. Here, in 1868, was planted the Central China Mission. The commerce of the noble river is Miimense, and lines of steamers run far into the interior. The best monument of Methodism in this vast region is the hospital at Nankin, the gift of Mrs. Philander Smith, of Oak Park (Chicago). It was last year, 1886, opened, with accommodations for eighty patients, besides a chapel, and dwellings for physicians. In one thing it is above reproach of sectarianism, for at its .^1 1 ' iW;. I 1. Ill 111 ail 5: c "^ n r y. r. X y. > 588 'I'AV. s|f)RV OF Mi:iri()|)lSM. opening tlicrc \ as not a Methodist in tlic j^reat city, and only two Christians, Prcsb)tciiaiis. Surely, it is meant for mankind ! It is the talk and wonder of the region, drawing; more notice than the far-famed I'aj^oda of Porcelain. t)ne of its specialties is the cure of the opium habit. R. C. Heebee, the builder and ph)sician in charj,'e, is devout and skillful, and of j^reat executive ability, and Mrs. Heebee, of hi^di education anil medical lineage, is a valuable helper. The ton^jue of reproach, native or foreign, is silent in the presence of such an institution. Peking, the capital, a city of two millions, on avast, fertile plain girt with mountains rich in minerals, and the best of coal on the surface within thirty miles of the town, is the greatest mission tield on earth. To this Messrs. Wheeler and Lowry came in 1869. The missionaries of the American lioard were already there to give them a hearty welcome. They found a queer city, ()r rather four cities, on a space three-fourths as large as New York islanil These are the Chinese City, the Tartar City, the Imperial City, the Forbidden City. This last is occupied by the Emperor anil his court. As it name implies, no foreigner enters it, though the French and English soldiers have "looted" the summer palace. The climate is that of Philadelphia. Here some time was needed to learn the Mandarin, the dialect of the capital, and to find premises for chapel and home. Just inside of a city gate was a mansion where a chancellor of the Empire had lived with twenty-seven wives, and servants in pro- portion. This was secured and was ample for the present need. The Woman's Foreign Missionary Society hoi now a home and hospital near by. On June 5, 1869, the first public service by Methodists was held in the Chinese capital. Forty natives and a few foreigners were present. To-day all is hopeful, thouf^h it is the day of small things. There are five hundred members, and these have paid seventy-five cents this year for the missionary cause, being above "the million line." The W. F. M. Society has treated one thousanci five hundred at its dispensary, and made four hundred and ninety- eight visits, so that Methodism in Pckin follows Wesley's London rule, "to do all possible good to the bodies as well as the souls of men," follows the pattern of One greater than Wesley. It would not be Wegleyan to limit religious work to stations. METHODISM IN CHINA AND JAPAN. 5«9 I only two kind! It Litice than ties is the 1 physician ive ability, leage, is a foreign, is vast, fertile of coal on est mission ry came in ;re already . queer city, rgc as New ar City, the pied by the iirner enters looted" the Imdarin. the and home. IccUor of the lilts in pro- resent need, home and [C service by atives and a tmall things. 1 seventy-five the million lousanci five and ninety- jy's London IS the souls |ey. to stations, Both misnionaries and native preachers have gone, usually, on horseback with saddle-bags, sometimes for a six weeks' tour from the east, where the great wall touches the sea, to the sacred moun- tains on the west, and hundreds of miles north and south, *o preach and scatter tracts. The results have been salutary. Per- sistent eflforts have been successfully made for self support. The THE PREr,Er r mikado of japan, in native costume. charge of being hired and fed by "foreign rice" hurt the native preachers, and many of them resoh'ed to take no more monc>- from abroad. Their resolution cost them something, but. as their leader said, "I am glad I did it!' Their faith, courage and manliness have been found equal to it. A mission has lately been started in West China, in which the I 590 THE STORY OK METHODISM. mcc'ical work vof the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society is prominent and successful. MoUiodism has thus, in thirty years, done well in China. The Church South has also done faithful work there, chiefly in r . 1. «|i!i REV V. HONDA. 'I'lic first Jajianese ordained in the M. E. Mission by liishou Wiley. 'M the region of Shanghai, where Bishop Wilson is now visiting. The Wesleyans have a mission now long flourishing at Canton, and other Methodist bodies have stations at Ningpo and Tientsin. There arc, in all, over twenty thousand Chinese converts in the METHODISM IN CHINA AND JAPAN. 591 various Methodist societies. The abuse of Chinese in America is just now causinj; blind retaliation upon missionaries in ^Vcst China, but this will be brief. Japan is so near China that its Methodism may here be told. The entrance was in 1872; the progress has been most rapid. Dr. Maclay, coming from Cliina, cook charge of the work, and his helpers were Messrs. Harris, Soper and Uavison. Bishop Harris, with many visitors, was present at the formal organization at Yokohama. August 8, 1873. This city had, since the opening of Japan to the world, in 1853, come into existence as the great centre of foreign in- tercourse, and here were to be the head- (I'larters of the mis- sion. Tokio.the capital, eighteen miles away, will, however, be its natural center. Other cities were at once occupied. The first real est?te was bought at Nagasaki, an im- portant sea-port, by Mr. Davidson. It was notable that this is in poetry and legend the sacred region of Japan, where the gods once lived in the form of men, and thus the first foot-hold of Methodism was in the Japanese Holy Land. Mr. Harris was sent to Hakodati, the only place in the island of Yesso open to foreigners, and here, January, 1874, he preached the first Protestant sermon ever given on the island. It was now an interesting time in Japanese history. The Mikado had come out of ages of seclusion, and the present one was making a wise and energetic administration felt in all his land. The world was surprised to find here a vigorous and intelligent GOUCHER HALL. Anglo Japanese College, Tokio. mmiMmmm' u w METHOD'SM IN CHINA AND JAPAN. 593 u people suddenly entering into the list of nations. The stirring world came in like a tide, and the Emperor and his people wel- comed the arts and ideas of the West. Several branches of the Church saw the opportunity and the pressing duty to bring in Christianity at such a crisis. There was a boundless hunger for hearing the Gospel, and this has grown by what it has fed upon, until it is probable that, in ten years, Japan will rank as a Chris- tian nation. Dr. Maclay looked about and was convinced that the work was already beyond the working force of the mission. He urged its increase and ^*' ^Icomcd all Christian laborers. The first year was spent in gaining foot- hold ana the language. Preaching in Japanese began in the summer of 1874, the congrega- tion being four, but soon growing to fifty. Here in Yokohama in October, the first con- verts, Mr. and Mrs. Kichi, were baptized. Miss Schoon- maker, of t^>e Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, now opened a boarding-school in Tokio, in the only m. e. church, hakodati, japan. place to be had, half of an idol temple, the priest of which needed money. .So the building long served to very contrasting uses, a Christian home and school, and a gloomy shrine of false worship. This year the government gave Mr. Harris in Hakodati a hand- some piece of land for mission buildings. At the end of the year, about twenty had been converted. The next year, besides the preaching, public day-schools were begun, the classes were formed in full Methodistic style, and various buildings were erected. ¥ ji 111 ^94 niK SKtUV <)!• MKIKonrSM. The lU'xt year, 1S76, the missions wont on prospering. Hisliop Mar\iM of tlu- Cllnirch South, with Mr. Ilendrix, his travi'hnj; coinpanioti, spent a wcrU in loving and choorin^ fcllow- sliij) at Tokio, Yokohama. In the lifth year, Mr. Davison pre- sented to the mission a collection of hymns in Japanese. Of these tile M. \']. Church of Canada, having a missit)n in the country, bore half the expense, as it did also in the translation of the Discipline. There hati been founded in Yesso, where Harris was laborini;, an at^ricidtural collej^e, and of this Col. W. S. Clark, from Mass.ichuselts, was now presiilent. lie was an attractive man, gallant .uid accom[jlished, and by his quiet instructions m> 'Y students were brought to Christ. These in tiirn instructed others, and st) Harris was much aided. 'I'his was the year of the Satsuma re- bellion, a proud and restless people revoltinj.; against the luuperor because the)' had no representation in the government. It cost fifty I thousand lives aiui fift)' millions of doH .irs. After it came the cholera, so that it was a year of disaster. In 187S. Bishop Wiley visited the missions. These were able to show him as the result of five years' work, five important and thriving central stations and several out-stations. There were fourteen missionaries and thirty-two native helpers, one boarding and five day-schools, church property worth twenty-five thousand two hundred dollars, translating Discipline, Catechism and Hymns, and three hundred and eighty-one members. Since that date the buildings at Tokio have been burned and rebuilt. Mrs. Governor Wright, of New York, has built a seminary at Hakodati in place of a school-house there burned PHILANDER SMITH BIBLICAL INSTITUTE, AOVMA, rOKlO, JAPAN with the church (now rebuilt.) Mf.tho'ism in china and IAPAN. 595 At Tokio, in Ius and :d. nnarics, lifornia. ty being six are eastern telligent ke," and 1 jicople. r. Harris ;ft Japan th power niay still o, I dedi- r or more lit ainonu t has had iiton went id toilinti id bought ind in the- nce upon lents and, growing lent to the uld be no CHAPTER XLVni. Methodism in India. ALF the size of the United States is about the extent of India, which has five times as many people, and these are of twenty-one races, using fifty tongues. Upon such a land there is room for all the labor that Christendom can spare. The East India Company fiercely persisted in excluding all missionaries for one hundred years, and when it was at last obliged to concede their entrance, as by the law of Britain and of nations, it contrived hindrances down to the Sepoy Mutiny, about the time that Methodism entered the country. In 1856, William Butler, an Irish Wesleyan of talent and education, and well acquainted with English affairs, had come to preach in the United States. In Ireland he had been assistant of James Lynch, who, after thirty years of service as Wesleyan missionary in India, had returned enfeebled to his native land. Butler was thus peculiarly related to a missionary enterprise in India, and his superior per- sonal qualities completed his fitness. He was sent to find the best place and to found a mission, and September 25, 1856, he reached Calcutta. To choose a field in so large a land, where Wesleyans and others were at work before him, was a task delicate towards other missionaries 1 :;^W- fun GIRLS HIGH SCHOOL, NYNEE TAL, IND^, MFTHOniSM IN INDIA. 599 t;^.*g r. te'-?^-',: .'^I :^-*)f' and difficult in itself. "Wc arc to },'o, not U* those who want lis, hilt to those who want us most," is the VVesleyan rule. He wanted to leave none without the Gospel. At last he chose the northwest provinces. His lield had on the north the Himalayas; on the west and south the (ian^i^s, beinj^ Kohilciind and Oiide. It was about as lar^e as eleven-tenths of I'eiuisylvania, but with five times as many people, Lucknow having' three hundred and fifty thousand. Other missionary societies conceded to that of the M. Iv Church the rij^ht and duty of evan^eli/in^ this district. To occupy it, Mutler "" asked for twenty-live missionaries. The I'reiibyterians at Alla- habatl kiiuily sent him a you n j^' n a t i v e as an interpreter, Jotil T. janiver, aftervvards the . first native preacher. In a fortnight af- ter work had be^un at Bareilly the mutiny liroke out. Dr But- ler, after much urj^iu},'. fled with his family to Nynee Tal o n t h e mountains. Joel re- mained to watch the outrages. He saw the head of Maria, the first wii.liam hu tler. convert, struck ofT by the sword of a Sepoy. Emma, the other es- caped and, returnint,', buried Maria's body under a rose hedge by the mission dwelling. The rage of the mutineers against these was from their having eaten with Christians. The forces of Neil and Havelock scon arrived, but the whole story of the mutiny was dreadful. On the very day when the mutiny broke out in Bareilly , Messrs Humphrey and Pierce, with the' wives, left Boston for India, and, arriving; they went to Nynee Tal. Parsons, a man five years in the country and fluent in the language, the Hindoostanee, 6oo THF STORY OF MFTMODTSM. jdiuod the mission, and all began to learn the lan^juaRc an/r of Jesus, as that was irritating to Mahomedans. They explained to him why they could not, and he owned the force of their reas- ons. In July of this year, Humphrey baptized his first convert, Zahur-ul-Kugg, a Mahomedan teacher, now a preacher. This man was for his faith driven from his father, mother, wife and children. The Methodist was a preaching mission, and American ways seemed happily fitted to India. Perhaps the people were shy of the English as their conquerors. They have habitual gatherings at fairs and festivals, and of these the M. E. missionaries have made good use. Sometimes two millions of people encamped for days at some sacred or habitual place, so that continuous M MFTHODISM FN INDIA. 60! preaching,' is heard. lluy live in villages in the country, anrl at ivening, as in their cities, all are at leisure and can listen in tin public squares. In the cool season, preachers go with tents from o ■/ > > CO W C/) S r n H a: PI o M o o a: i village to village, as the preachers went in early Methodism, and so, it is said, the Brahminic teachers had always done. This accounts for a large part of Methodist success in India, 6o2 THE STORY OF METHODISM. Sir Henry Lawrence, who was with l!Tvei()cl< a great figure in the mutiny, said at his death: "Let a mission be estabUshed in Lucknow." It was a great city and a center of a great region, and just then, by its siege ant! suffiTings in the mutiny, its asso- ciation with the great name of fLivelock and Scotch Jennie's "Dinna ye hear it?" when the rehcving force was miles away, Lucknow was before the eyes of the world. All roads to other missions passed through this great city. Montgomery, a noble Christian, commissioner or military Governor, gave the mission a valuable property, confiscated from mutineers, and offered what other sites it might need, for the reason of its being a public benefit. He added from his own purse five hundred dollars. Work began at once. The first comer to the mission was an orphan, a girl of sixteen years; then a boy, who became* an exhorter; then a native policeman. In July, 1859, there were thirty converts, forty-nine baptisms, and a dozen serious inquirers. The next month came from home five missionaries and their wives, with J. i\L Thoburn, who, after twenty-five years of "ap- prenticeship," is now at the head of the India work. Of these, Mr. Downey died soon after arrival, but Mrs. Downey {nee Rock- well, from a gay, dashing girl, come to be a devoted, enterprising woman) went on with the work. The mission was now enlarged, and Hareilly became its cen- ter. There was fixed at Shahjehanpore "The World's King's City," an asylum for .rphan boys, survivors of the mutiny. One of these, found on ai: elephant's back after his father had fallen in fight, is to-day a preacher, James Gowan. So did the orphanages strengthen the mission. A Book Concern, after Methodist type, was started, and now flourishes at Lucknow. In a year, there were fifty-six native Christians in Hareilly. Budrow was then reached, premises pur- chased, and Mr. and Mrs. Humphrey began work. There was a famine, and the common people (half the people of India never have what we call a full meal) were starving. The police picked up children whose parents had died of hunger, and these they instinctively brought to the mission. A girl's orphanage was thus begun. Here was now brought, from the lowest caste, Chimman Lall. now lativc pur- ^as a Inever jicked the>' thus Lall. 3 r r n > o X X o s r n 2! O Z 3 ll a tin'olof^ical c«)urse in the sehool aflcrwards fonnded at Hareiliw He thiii. wi»h Wesley's own /(;al, went fr»»n> villajre to village, addressing ehietl)' his own low caste, a»id with trite Wesleyan results, He is now, 1888, in labor and usefulness at l.ueknow. Mahbub Khan, a Mahometan, was teacher in a government school. SeeUinj^ f«)r truth (with a mind fTfaciously disturbed, as active heathen minds are apt to be when the Gospel conies near), he read all books of his own faith and ^jrcw more restless. He had been toUl that Christianity was false; he saw that Mahotnet anism was so. ()ne day he asked a fellow-teacher for .0 book "tc^ drive away the blues," and j;ot a New Testament left by a mis- sionary. This lu' toi)k home, read a little, laitl it by, and then took it up aj^ain. He read the Blessinj;s of Matt. v. and thought them indeed well invented! He re.ul on. and the SutTcrings, Matt, xxvii, touched him. uml he felt that this must be true, and he accepted it. He me.uit to be a (juiet, prudent Christian, but "his tongue broke out in unknown strains." He began to tell his older pupils what he had f"ovii\d. He could but come to the mis- sionary and confess Christ. He expected that his wife would forsake hini and his family be broken up. She studied the case and nobly said. "I am your wife and will never leave you." They and their children were baptized, and several of their kin- dred have followed them. Mahbub showed talents of a high order, and soon became a preacher and at the head of the native ministry. The missionaries came lapidl)- on in that most difficult mat- ter, the talking to the people in their own tongue. Still they had queer experiences. If they spoke ardently, they seemed to the average hearer to be "mad about something." and all wondered what it could be. Kvery little precinct had its local speech or tlang, and good, classic words were liable to be misunderstood. The missionaries laughed at their own blunders, and the p«*ople, keen a5 old Athenians, on joyed them. One was preaching, when a portly pundit — rabbi, doctor — interrupted him several times. The preacher finally turned : 'Von are no pundit; you arc only >•«>' 1"' rd, and [^rwrtids nt fi«»n\ 11(1 with cfiilncHs crtimnil ir\)cd, as :s near). CSS. Hr hdiotin't book "to by a mis- and then I thoiighl iutTcrings. true, anfl istian, but to tcU his the mis- fi< would the case avc you." their kin- if a high the native icult mat- l they had :d to the I wondered Sl)OC ch or |H lorstood. jv people, |ing. ^v [ral times, nly hen w w 3 > o w > r v, o lu arc o tsie.. 606 THE STORV OF METHODISM. pindit" (i. e., a fat man). The crowd laughed at the pun, and the pundit was suppressed. Another trouble was with the child marriaj;es. These take place while the bride is a child of six, eight or ten years. She- goes to live in the family of her future husband, and there fares like a slave. If her betrothed die, she, poor thing! is doomed to a servile life, so that the old suttee — widow-burning — w.'«s a positive relief. It is believed that the Kmpress Victoria will call attention to this matter in early legislation. Thus, in a family, the men and boys came to baptism without the girls. The missionaries early refused to baptize men without their families, and now many a houseliold has true Christian usage ; but what are they among so many? Another sore trouble to the converts was frci.i li.^ir ancient persuasion that the spirits of the dead need food and drink, and they who refuse to offer these will, after death, suffer in their own turn thirst and hunger. These offerings to the dead were hard to renounce. The women of India were like most women in heathen land;^', sufferers from heathen usages. Those of high rank suffered most. Since the English have been in the land, nativ>_ princesses have ruled with energy and success in various domains and yet have never seen their generals or ministers, liolding all councils and giving all orders from behind a screen, yet showing by their co»m- prehension and sagacity great ability in affairs. In sickness '' pulse was felt and treatment prescribed in the same way. i ' life of a high lady was that of a frog in a well. She never went from the zenana unless closely veiled, and she saw no man's face but her husband's, and heard no voice but his. Without bocks, music or society, she led a dismal life. The zenana — harem — woman's part of the house, was of course shut to missionaries, and only orphans and women of the lowest caste could hear the Gospel. At last, entrance to these family prisons was made by medical missionaries. India is a land of immense sickness. The people seenied to think that che newly come preachers could heal their diseases, as a part of their sacred calling. Humphrey, one of the first missionaries, was a medical man, and he saw the need of the mission. HINDU WOMEN RESCUED FROM THEIR DEGRADATION. .||iJ|Uk(>|lIf,.i)|l|>U|JII 608 rHK SIDKV OF Mi'lHoDlSM. Miss Swain, a trained physiciaiv oanic to his help in 1870, and he needed her, for in the previons year he had had thirty-five thousanil patients at seven dispensaries managed by himself with a growing band of fairly-trained stuilent helpers. A native prince presentetl her at Hareilly an estate worth fort)' thousand dollars, for a nieilical sch«)ol and hospital, and on this a noble building has been erected. Miss Swain made, in 1S70, two hundred and hfty visits, and treated at her rooms one thousand two hundred and twenty-live TEACHING IN A ZENANA, INDIA. patients. Her school has sent out almost every yeai' a class such as were, by a competent Board, pronounced qualified to practice medicine. The Women's Foreign Mission Society has sent out accomplished ladies as physicians. All have been taxed to their utmost by calls for practice. Princes have sent carriages to bring them to their palaces, and the poor have blessed them for healing. Wherever these and their helpers have gone, they have freely carried the Gospel balm for souls, and thus the zenanas have been reached. Thus at ^oradabad, in 1874, Miss Julia Lore opened practice, METHODISM IN INDIA. 609 i in 1870, thirty-tivc inself with live prince lid dollars, e building visits, and twenty-tive class such to practice ^as sent out ced to their Tcs to bring for healing. I have freely have been •d practice, With two helpers she sat in her dispensary for a week, when a little boy from across the street was brought to be treated. A crowd soon followed and she was called to families. A young Mahometan lady said: "One day I became suddenly ill. Our friends were alarmed and called the 'doctor, Miss Sahib.' I soon recovered and now they are quite willing that you should come to our house." She had never seen a Sahib (i. e., missionary, really "Your Worship") nor any foreign woman but Miss Lore. In this way "the doctor, Miss Sahib," opened hearts and houses. She was at length welcomed with lender embraces and asked to tell about the "new religion." El- derly women would call her "daughter" and listx.n tearfully if she would sing a bhajan, a Christian hymn to a native tune. Those who were not exactly siok would send for the doctor to beguile in conversation the time that hung upon their hands. They were faithfully told of Christ and His salva- tion, and many longed clara m swain, m. d. for peace in Him, but profession meant banishment from home. After the physician, followed the Bible reader with tracts and portions of Scripture, and words of love and experience, and these produced in the zenanas results of which we cannot now speak in detail. There are now in India a vast number, more than one million, of homes where teaching is done, and the zenana school is a great institution. The Gospel is taught in but few, yet the effect of them all is to arouse and guide the women of the land, and the result is sure to be beneficial. Out of the mission day-schools came slowly the Sunday H^ 6io tHE STORY Of METHODISM. school. Parents were groedy of secular education for their children and consented, to obtain this, that there should be some use of Scripture. Soon the Bible was a text-book, and the Catchism, and then came prayer and preaching. Craven, an experienced Sunday-school worker, came to Lucknow in 1871, and took charge of the school work. He soon invited all the boys to come to a Sunday-school. Many came and, finding it good, brought their comrades, and the work went on until soon every school in the mission became a Sunday- MISSIONARV TENT LIFE, INDIA. school. The annual picnics are joyous and effective. The "honor-men," boys and girls, who have had no absence or lost no lesson for the year, ride upon a stately elephant, furnished often by some native nobleman, and the beast's capacity is many times taxed by the number of successful scholars. The singing, the sports and the refreshments make the holiday complete. There is a good supply of Sunday-school literature. This year the Sunday-schools of India have about twenty-five thousand scholars. Provision is made for higher education. India had always been a land of schools, such as they were, and, just before our METHODISM IN INDIA. 6ii ■or their be some and the came to )rk. He 1. Many the work i Sunday- live. The or lost no Ihed often liany times iging, the U. There year the J scholars, lad always ])efore our mission was planted, Lord Bentinck, governor-general, had organ- ized a great system, with universities at Calcutta, Madras and Bombay. Of this, the masses, the poor, got little benefit. Schools, as we have seen, were soon connected with the missions. In 1872, D. VV. Thomas, a missionary, gave twenty thousand dol- lars to found a theological school at Bareilly, for he saw how the young native preachers needed thorough training to cope with Brahminical and Mohammedan teachers, and with the growing mind of young India. Every false and infidel notion of the world was coming, or was liable to come, with the new mtellectual AN HINDU SCHOOL. life now dawning on the land. To this. Remington, of Ilion, New York, added five thousand dollars, and the sum became sixty-five thousand dollars. It is now prosperous, graduating, in 1885, nine, of whom five are good English, js v/ell as vernacular, scholars. . There is a normal school with four graduates. The theo- logical school, all others in India having failed, has shown how the wants of the land may be skillfully met, and other Churches, after thirteen years' watching of its processes, are now establish- ing their ov/n after its pattern. Of many other excellent Methodist schools in India there is here no need of mention, METHODISM IN INDIA. «iS In 1870, that William Taylor whom we saw in California came to India. He had been to Australia by a long road, a year in England, and three years in the regions of Australia and the South Pacific. He had then spent four years in South Africa, where twelve hundred colonists and seven thousand Kaffirs had been brought to Christ under his labors. Thence by the West Indies and British Guiana, he reached India. The missionaries gave him a hearty welcome. He is a fearless, independent man, who marks out his work, and does it, fond of breaking into new, hard work. Dr. Thoburn yearned for revival work, for something beyond the routine, for invasion of territory outside of the lines, and he had urged Taylor to come and help them. He came, a giant in bodily strength, silent of habit, majestic in his long, white beard, indifferent to what migiit be said, with no 'if" in his talking. He had come to work in revival, and a week after him the revival came. His meetings were singularly quiet, but powerful. They broke all the slow routine, and brought in life and victory. He was not able, for various reasons, to affect the native masses but he gave courage and impulse to all workers. He then went to the larger field of Bombay and South India. He there organized of his converts, at their request, a Church, self supporting, evangelistic, with no distinction of caste, language or color. The Eurasians, the business men, but lost from Christi- anity, were moved by his appeals and came to his support. Lay- men who could preach in various tongues were raised up to help liim. Mohammedans, Hindus and Parsees were reached, and the limes of refreshing had come. Missionaries came from America, and Churches were formed in South India of men who paid the ex- penses of all movements and did not wish the Gospel as a charity. A aylor then went to Calcutta. " The hardest work of my life was here and under the greatest discouragements. A great work of God was what Calcutta least desired and most needed, A more convenient season would never come ; so I determined, as the Lord should lead, to win the battle or die at the guns." After months of labor, only fifty-three were gained. In 1873, Taylor's Churches were brought into the Methodist Connection, having ten preachers and five hundred members. Dr. Thpburn took charge in Calcutta. Taylor then went Xq a o en 1-4 o w METHODISM IN INDIA. 61; < •J en (A O Madras, the only remaining great city, and labored six months. Three hundred and forty had been converted, but some of these joined other Churches, but a good society wrs formed, as was, soon after, the case in other cities of the region. Soon Taylor went to America, still working in many ways for India, GRADUATING CLASS. At length, in 1875, he visited, after eight years' absence, "my wife and boys" in California, and soon went to South America on another great evangelizing tour after his firmly-held Pauline ideal. He left in India a record of hearty labor under the greatest tfl rt|f ilHVu nllics, ami he l)iok(> llic way Ihmn^h appalling; harriris into now u'j;i»)HH wlu-ir www ol his spirit liavr lolluwcil suc:- ccssriilly. In CaKntta. Di, riutbnrn i-ntrrcil at oiuc tipun revival work, whiih lan lunlly he said to liavr ceased aOer ten years of proj;rcss. A cluireh holding; two thousand was built ami paid for. It is now under the care of J. M. IholMirn. Jr., and is a center ui relij;ious power, thoui;h its actual j;rowth is not lar^e on account of its ct>nstantly feeding; other enterprises. Calcutta is a ^;reat sea-port, and the first niemher of Taylor's Church was captain of a vessel. In 1H71;, Mr. ().d iiis^ftiiN.-- ■■if ■■■ ■:^^^^0^- 0m§^^!^^ ^ barriers )\VOll suc- ival work. progress, or. It is center <>1 n arfonnt 1 laylor's to IS captain 1-* f f»1 In 1H71;. fi s, an \'A\ IS led to < »i en .«nd in- •0 \\\ to the 1 d s. Soon ladies bc- '?> it lor sinj;- )ra)'cr tlu: r )f sailors, V cm to ai- if re. Many 1 he red i n dens and > I/' jiLiins in- •0 50 ching on , and soon 5 s M. IC. < salutary. , inquiry- issionary id cITorts vc ships. ; Bethel. T. Eddy Ih where 6i8 THE STORY OF METHODISM. There is an inebriate asylum, and scliools which were made necessary by the fact that existing schools were either ritualistic or Romish. Dr. Thoburn has of late done evangelistic work with most excellent results. Last year he was, by a broken leg, unable to serve, and was recuperating in America. His work has reached to Rangoon in Burmah, where S. P. Long has a Church and a large and laborious field. Singapore, an island fifteen hundred miles from Calcutta, the center »of a great and growing trade, has now been occupied, and Mr. W. F. Oldham, who. with Mrs. Oldham, is Eu- rasian, and of rare talent, has there gath- ered a society and a great door opens. Gifted men have arisen in the Method- ist Episcopal Church of India. Dennis O.sborne, an Eurasian, and Ram Ch under Bose, a Hindoo, vis- iting this country at General Conference, have won the highest esteem. Dr. Tho- burn affirms that, if Christianity were to ISABEL THOBURN. die in America, there is enough of Church force and faith in India to take hold and re- store it. Last year, 1886, was the most prosperous of all years. In an evangelizing tour in Oude, three villages were wholly con- verted and baptized, and the South India Conference were calling icr twenty-five men to enter immediate service. Wc must leave- ampler details. Enough has been told to show that Methodism is in India, acting its beneficent character fally out, doing its own work, and inspiring its evangelical neighbors to do theirs in love and h-irmony. ■' i •'■■ f, ■• CHAPTER XLIX. ; ;. t : Methodism in South and Spanish America. ETV/EEN the United States and Cape Horn, the M. E. Church, after it came to ability to do foreign work, found a line of States now getting clear of the Old World and propos- ing to govern themselves. The peo- ple were Pagan or Romanist and twenty millions in number, and the New World below us was to be what they should make it. It was natural to count these needy people the first cla'mants on missionary benevo- lence. In 1835, a Mr. Pitts was sent to examine South America, and on his report Mr. Spaulding was sent to Rio Janeiro and Mr. Dempster to Buenos Ayres. In Rio. the preaching was not allowed in anything that looked on the outside like a church, (a queer statute!) and in Buenos Ayres it could not be in the Spanish language. The Romish Church did its utmost at multiplying obstacles. There was enough to be done; the Scriptures, at least, could be circulated. Spaulding soon had iii Rio forty hearers, and Kidder came to his help. They opened a Sunday-school, the first effort ever made for the blacks, and had a weekly prayer-meeting. At this tfme, 1836, Rio was a bad place.-- It-had one thousand priests, but no prayer . *. CVPRESS GARDtNS O* CHAPULTEPEC OR CALLED "HALLS or MONTUUMA,' MEXICO. MMIIIoniSM IN S(»l III AM> SI'ANISII AMr.KICA. 021 or sermon for the people, Ihc jiriests were low in morah, atui ( iued ahoiit religion only eiiou^;h to oppose with fury the effctrts (if (he niissioiiaries. Not one in five luiiulred of the people, or hi Hie hnndred of the priests, had ever seen a Hible. Hy I'io aiil of the Bible Soeiety and of some jjencroiin I^n^j- lisli merchants a ^;reat many Hililes wen; distributed. The mis- Ktnaries also preached i»n board ships in the harbor, especially those of their own nav>', Mr. Kidder traveled extensively. He was the first I'rotestant minister to visit San I'aulo. lie found one ))riest who welcomed tlie Hil>le and aided in its circulation. As he was just feeling; able to fi preach in I'ortu^^uese, the sutlden (h.-ath of Mrs. Kidder cinupel- led him to return home. i'\)r various reasons the work in Brazil was ^iven up to the Presbyterian mis- sions already estab- lished there. The Methodist (.■hurch South has now in Brazil llourish- m^r missions. "■ •'• KinnER. n. i>. There remained the work in Buenos Ayrcs. The first Prot- estant worship in the city was held by a Baptist, Mr. Thompson, in 1820. A Sunday-school was opened the next year, and a Presbyterian mission was conducted It was closed before Demp- ster's arrival in 1836, but worship was continu 1 without a pastor. The awful Rosas was then Dictator, but he welcomed Dempster, only warning him to keep to the foreign population. The city is to Europeans the avenue to South America, to which come four thousand miles of navigable rivers, flowing through fertile '•egions. Dempster found an ample foreign population (now fifty 622 THE STORY OF METHODISM. thousand), and to these for twenty years the work was limited. He was an able man, and soon there was need of building. Then war came on ; the society was in debt and its workers were re- called. Three years later came peace, and the stir of business was sudden and immense, and all life revived. Before recall, Dempster had done well. His parsonage was finished and his church nearly so; his day and Sunday-schools, his church and congregation were respectable. ; BUENOS AYRES, ABOUT 1840. All were sad at the stoppage of the work. At Montevideo, a petition to Bishop Hedding, headed by Tarros, the Swedish consul-general, set forth that the removal of Norris, the missionary at that place, would leave them in darkness and ignorance, as painful as a relapse in fever. At Buenos Ayres, the foreign resi- dents guaranteed one thousand a year to support Norris, if sent to them. He was ordered to sell out the plant at Montevideo and go to Buenos Ayres. On Christmas, 1842, he received at the latter place a hearty welcome. For four years he was blessed in his C.:j > ^'ii'iH -iti*?-\Lr.'Wj METHODISM IN SOUTH AND SPANISH AMERICA. 623 IS limited, ng. Then 5 were re- f business "ore recall, d and his tiurch and W^^. [ontevideo, |e Swedish lissionary lorance, as Ireign resi- 1, if sent to |eo and go Ithe latter led in his labors. Most of the time a civil war was raging, but he kept his (lock and it grew in spite of the evils that accompany war. In 1846, he came home, and Dr. Lore was his successor. During four months of interval, sermons were read and meetings riustained by the members. Dr. Lore was in service until 1854. Mr. Carrow, who succeeded him, found on every side the fruits of eight years' faithful labor, even in troublesome times. In the Church were about eighty, gathered amid the long storm of war. In 1855, the last revolution ended, and Carrow urged prompt extension of the work. His labors met obstacles and misfortunes. Half the gatherings were lost, and Mrs. Carrow's health failing, he had to return home. Dr. Good- fellow now took charge of the work, and the time of the divine favor drew near, when the seed sown in tears and toil was to bring its harvest. He managed the mission thirteen years, and rarely did a month pass without conversions. There were wars, cholera and earthquakes, but in spite of commotions, there was progress. In 1863, a school for the poor was begun, and this proved a true and efficient aid to the mission, In 1872, a beauti- ful church edifice was erected, for which long efforts had been made, beginning in 1864. In that year, Dempster, the first mis- sionary, died, and the church, though long in building, was truly his memorial among those whom he had well served and who held him in lively remembrance. The work now spread, and, as in the rest of the world, it had its heroes. George Schmidt, who, besides BUENOS AVRES M. K. CHURCH. 624 THE StORY Of METHODISM. his German, spoke many tongues, undertook the Bible work. He carried his pack over thousands of weary miles. The priests, to whom he always first ofifercd his books, often got him thrown into prison, but he was always able to defend himself in court, and the more his persecutions, the larger his sales. Mobs were unable to do him harm. He had been a kleptomaniac, who could not sleep unless he had stolen something, and for this he was in prison in Brazil, when a Bible from the Bible Society was the means of his conversion, and his propensity to steal troubled him no more. He worked as cooper, and with his earnings bought Bibles to give away in gratitude for his cure. He, at last, went into the service of the Bible Society, and there wore himself out. He died in a rude hospital, alone and uncared for, but he had won the record of a good and faithful servant. After a prayer-meeting, a captain of the Argentine army, blazing with new uniform, arose and declared himself an Aura- canian Indian from Southern Chili. His people, he said, had convents and the like, but " no good." He had been baptized, but was, for all that, a pagan. They had schools, but he could not read, for they were never taught that. In the meeting, his heart had been touched with the simple, spi.itual worship. He begged for a missionary. His tribe were sowing and reaping, making butter and cheese, living in their own houses, but had no light. " I will build you a house about as good as this." This was Antonio Negron, a chief of that great tribe on the Pacific coast. There was no missionary for him. Charles William Pearson had come from England and en- tered business with his brother in Buenos Ayres. On his birth- day, August 5, 1865, his mother, widow of a Wesleyan mini; :er, a lady of culture and faith, wrote from Leeds : "I have been all day in prayer for you, and now just at night my prayer is answered ; you are to be converted and become a minister ; I know not when or how, but my covenant-keeping God has said it." At just the same hour, after a thoughtful day, Charles was writing to her: " My plans are changed ; I am to be a Christian at all hazards ; Christ first and business afterwards, if at all." The letters passed each other in mid-ocean, and six weeks after writing were read at their destinations on the same day. Charles at once became active in the mission, such an ally as cheered all hearts. He MKTHODISM IN SOUTH AND SPANISH AMERICA. 625 afterwards graduated at Kvanston, and has long boon professor of English in the Northwestern University. Urquiza, Governor of Entre Rios, in 1866, welcomed the missionary to his own town of Urquiza, and gave five hundred dollars towards building a church. John F. Thomson, whose family had come from Scotland, and whose " mither," deeply imbued with lessons of "the great ha' Bible," found congenial fellowship at the mission, was to be a sheep farmer. Dr. Goodfellow turned his thoughts to an educa- tion. He was converted, and spent seven years amid the enno- bling associations of the Ohio VVcsleyan University. Returning in 1866, he resumed his Spanish, and enriched it with all the resources of his education. The next year he heard of Mrs. Aldeber. This lady was born in Patagonia, the southernmost town in the world, on the frontier of civilization. Here a lady from Spain was teaching, and " Fer- mina" became her pupil, and very dear. The lady had a New Tes- tament, and when her loved Fermina became Mrs. Aldeber, she gave it as the choicest of bridal presents. V^ears after, Fermina, a widow with four children, teaching at Boca, not far from Buenos Ayres, heard that a clergyman in the city was preaching from her now old, worn book, the Testament. She invited him to her house, and service was there sustained for ten years, and then jhe removed to the city. At he .- yiiie was converted Cardoza, a sailor of reckless char- acter. Conversion it truly was. His life was at once transformed after Christ's dear image. He began a faithful support of his family, and also the leading of his friends to Christ. In a yellow fever, that in 1871 wasted the city, he, with another convert, gave his time to the sick, saving more patients than the physicians, and bringing many to the Saviour of souls. He then took his religion to a colony on the northern frontier, to the Gran Chaco, where for ten years it has been a light shining in a dark place. The first Spanish sermon in Buenos Ayres was given by Mr. Thomson, May 25, 1867. His audience was more than the house could hold, and of the best people in the city, legislators, professional men and prominent citizens crowding with the common people. The preacher frankly stated the difference between his Gos- pel and that of Rome, so that the Spanish work might rest on AMAZONIAN INDIANS WORSHIPING THE SUN. NttTHODISM tN s6UTtl ANn SPANISH AMERICA. 627 clear foundations. He had a good hearing, as also on Tuesday evening afterwards, and the new work was fairly begun. In 1868, three sailors came to the parsonage to inquire where to find lodgings and labor. They staid to a prayer-meeting, and all began the Christian life. One of them, Mathieson, opened a sailors' home fo- an evening resort, and by day gave his time to labor among the hundreds of seamen in port. He could speak half a dozen languages, and thus reach men of many nations. He had some trials, but good success. One morning he found him- self without money or breakfast, but he never stopped work. He found at the post-office a letter with two dollars, which a sailor, dying in England, had sent him in gratitude for kindly service. Mathieson afterwards served in New Mexico, the northern border of those ninety millions of Spanish peoples on whose southern border he entered his work. The most eminent lady in literature that Spanish America has ever produced, Scnora de Norhona, known wherever Spanish is spoken, became, in her last years, a devoted laborer in our Church and Sunday-school. Just before her death, her pastor found her with the Hible given by her class open before her, and herself praising God for His goodness. The Romish priest re- fused interment in consecrated ground unless she would renounce Methodism. She quietly chose to die trusting in Christ alone, and to rest in the Protestant cemetery. In i87i,the first Spanish service was held in Rosario by Mr. Wood, who afterwards became professor of Physics in the National College in that city. " By their fruits ye shall know them." Our missionary has, besides spiritual results, formed a society, like Henry Bergh's, in New York, that has banished bull-fights. The bull-ring was torn down, and in its place came a decent cattle show, with premiums. The temperance work, too, has prospered, and the W. F. M. S. has done well. In Montevideo, Thomson, in 1868, was politely greeted, and here he had a lively experience. In the State University, a famous Romish doctor was asserting the divine authority of the Apocry- pha. Thomson was invited to answer him in the University Hall On the evening of their statement of the question, a most intelli- gent audience crowded to hear " the young heretic." At the 628 THK STORY OF MKTHODISM. next meeting the; masses were not ailniittcil, and in place of thi> doctor a well-fed priest appeared, who refusctl to debate unless the people could hear. Thomson aj^reed with him, and offered to adjourn to another place, hut the padri' could not do that without his Bishop's consent. The next Sunday ni^ht tlie plump padre came to Thomson's, and, asking to say a woril for the Church, talked on for some mortal hours. Thomson appointed to answer him on Wednesday evenin^f, but that ni^ht fell seriously ill, and his physicians forbade all labor. Me, for rest and recovery, left the town. Then trumpeted forth the fat father a victory ! His portrait he had sold on the street as " Friar Mansueto, the con- queror of Thomson." Soon his victim was back in fair health, and Mansueto, calling on him, urged him to enter the Romish, or, if he would keep his famil}', the Greek Church. " It was too bad to use such splendid gifts in a Church so crude and dark as the Methodist, when he couUl have a great career in the True ami Holy Church." The longed-for evening came, and the room was packed with Catholics, and Velazio, an eminent jurist, presided. Thomson began by saying that he had not yet been heard, yet Mansueto claim.cd a victory. Was th it just? "As many as think '\i Jusf, please rise?" Not one arose. "As many as think Mansueto is not conqueror, rise!" Every man stood up. Thus he gained good hearing, and the verdict in his favor was crushing. He was at once appreciated at the University. He lectured there, put- ting into his lectures a large aiul hearty Gospel. He became president of a literary club, and edited a literary journal for the students. To-day, there are in South America, one thousand in society and five times as many in attendance, with sixteen hundred schol- ars in Sunday-schools, and twelve hundred in day-schools. Three papers are printed, and our hymns are sung at the opening of the public schools, in which, of all grades, are many Methodist teach- ers. All the elements of growth are active, and the increase by conversion is one hundred and fifty a year. In Mexico, the northern land of Spanish America, "our next-door neighbor," Methodism made a home in 1873, Juarez, an Indian of great dbility and patriotism, had opened Mexico to Protestantism in 1857, Then came Rome's last struggle, and, iijAJiL):^h:fe,ii^ ", ice of the ate unless offered to at without mp padre e Church, to answer sly ill, and lovcry, left ory ! His D, the con- air health, le Romish, It was too nd dark as e True ami acked with Thomson : Mansueto ink it just, ansueto is he gained He was liere, put- e became al for the in society Ired schol- Is. Three |ing of the list teach- ;rease by |ica, " our Juarez, [exico to rgle, and, 630 THE STORV OF METHODISM. with tho .lid of the French Kmperor, Mexico had years of sad. bloody history, never to be repeated. After the ion^ storm was over, the vast Church and proper tics, save churches used for worship, were confiscated, and all con- vents and monasteries abolished. A ijreat door was opened and all Churches hastened to enter. There was need of it. ICvery bad thin^ of Romt- had ruled and the condition of the people was dreadful. William Hutler, now come from India, was taken to Mexico by Hishop Haven, with money given by the founder of De Paw University, to open a mission. In Puebla they bouj^ht the {^rounds and buiU'inRs used by the Incjuisition, where many a poor victim had come to ajjony. In the capital, ground far more historical was gaireil, the very site of Montezuma's palace, where, three hundred )ears before, Cortez had seized the ICmperor's person and handed his country over to Spain. On this stood the Monastery of St. Francis, where four thousanil monks had been fed by people to whom tliey had done no good. Under the noble Juarez and the new laws, this had become the property of those whose toil had built it, and for near three centuries supported it. Better mission property can be found nowhere in the world. It is in the very best part of the city and provides for every want of the enterprise. The vork went on briskly, and soon there were four congregations in Mexico. In 1873, Dr. Cooper, of the I*!piscopal Church, having an ICnglish congregation, united it with the Methodist, and entered the Meth- odist Spanish work. Toward the end of the year the Romish priests grew furious. They had had rule in Mexico three hundred and fifty years, and the people were weary of them. In half the families of the coun- try there had never been a lawful marriage, and all other morality was of the same sort. There wus a growing call for Protestar.t service. The priests tried violence and murder. Twenty Chris- tians were killed, and churches were plundered. The government did its best. The Archbishop, whose word would have stopped all outrage, let it go on, and to his Church's damage. For now ten years all is peace. At Puebla, where the legend is that angels worked on the cathedral by night as the workman did by day, the Church had owned nineteen-twenticths of the real estate, and did most of the; f * METHODISM IN SOUTH AND SPANISH AMERICA. 631 business of the city. Of course there was devotion to Rome even after the confiscation of its property, and tlie first Protestant preacher, Dr. Riley, a Presbyterian, had to flei- for his life. At the first Methoilist service, January, 1H75, only two persons dared to come. In April, the public were invited, and the street was «iill of a noisy mob, whom a rain in ^ood time scattered. In August, the new premises were used. As native preach- ers were needed, a school for training converts was opened in ;.S76. .Since then the favor and energy of the government has ^.ecured rest, and the \vork has prospered, (luanajuato, a city of eighty thousand people, in a rich re- ^'ion, three hundred miles north of the capital, among fat |: lands and silver mines, was reached in 187C. The Governor iicartily we 1 c o m e tl tlu: missionaries, and promised them pro- tection, and premises were si-cured. The Hishop gave his peo- ple instructions, and they raised a mob, headed by three Dr. j. w. butler. priests, to wipe 'out the mission. The Governor ordered the chief of police to disperse the mob in ten minutes, or he would call out his troops. The chief obeyed, though himself in sympathy with the mob. The mob did not rally, and soon was preached the first Protestant sermon in this important city. Two obstacles hindered early progress; one was requirement of the marriage ceremony, the other was bitter personal persecution. The former was soon to be a duty, the latter diminished. Mexico is so hear us that we can understand its condition. Religion there has for ages had nothing to do with morals. 6,^2 THK ST(M3: The Theological School at Pucbla has three teachers and sixteen students. The Spanish work of New Mexico is now in its second year. Thomas Harvard, superintendent, has twenty-seven preachers in Spanish, all faithful men ; one, David Al Wah (David Alvah), the only native Arabian Methodist preacher in the world. S. N. Thornton. Superintendent of tlu- l-'n^lish work, is building at Albuquerque, a hopeful University. SHir HRKACH1N(; ■H':: •fv.f- ^fffvjtpsv^' P M O C CHAPTER L. Methodism in Europe. F the work done by Methodism in Scandinavia (Denmark, Nor- way and Sweden), we will first tell. It began in this country. "Pastor Hedstrom," born in Sweden, was a tailor in New York. In 1829, he was converted and became a preacher. Bergner. r.Iso a Swede, brought out of the depths of wickednc js, a carpen- ter, was deeply affected at the condition of his countrymen, Mho came to New York either as sailors or emigrants. Soon others were interested, and a ship was bought at Pier 11, North River, and named "John Wesley." This became a church, and, to Bergner's great joy, Hed- strom, as pastor, held there his first ser- Fifty Swedes were present. The first Methodist congregation in America, eighty years before, was five. The ship became an asylum, a labor and emigrant bureau, a dis- tributing center, not only for Swedes, but for all North Europeans. Its good influence was felt far and wide. The emigrants pressed on to the frontiers, and soon societies were formed in the West, in Iowa and Wisconsin. vice, May 25, 1845. mmmammmmm 1 i 1 ■ i 636 THE STORV UF MKI'MODISM. In 1850, twelve thousand Scandinavian seamen visited New York, so that Hedstrom's task was great, while VVillerup found in Wisconsin twenty thousand Norwegians needing his labor. Both enterprises went on together, the ship being receiver, helper and distributor of people for the western Churches. Hed- strom was for a while relieved by Petersen ; a new ship was bought, and this afterwards moored at Harrison street, Brooklyn, but the work still goes on. Hedstrom died in 1877. Of Scandinavian members in the M. K. Church in this country, there are now twelve thousand, and usually of a solid, spiritual, intelligent class. Correspondence from these awakened religious interests in their native land. Converts even made the home voyage to tell their kindred the tidings of salvation. Hedstrom had made such a visit, and had seen his father and two brothers come to the Saviour. Petersen went on like errand to stay a month and could not get away until after a year. He was then sent by Bishop Waugh " to raise up a people for God in Norway." He went to his native land as a foreigner, being an American citizen. He found some offended at his coming — as if, forsooth, they were heathen! — others at his doctrine. Yet, after a year, in 1854, he had fifty " with us in heart and life." His labor was chiefly at Frederickshalt. The State church, which by law could make every preacher show his credentials and swear to obey the laws of the land, and made every man record his pastor's name, was a tedious enemy. VVillerup now came to his help, and at Sarpsborg, in 1857, a church was built of funds raised in the town. Soon one was built at Frederickshalt. VVillerup then went to Copenhagen. As years went on, the special glory of Methodism as a revival was seen in the State (Lutheran) Church. It built chapels, sent out laborers and stirred itself with new life and zeal, though it heartily opposed the Methodist efforts. There is now a Norway Conference of over four thousand members. In Trondhjem, the " Land of the Midnight Sun," the north- ernmost point yet reached by our Church, is a society of about fifty, so near to the Paradise Found, the North Pole, home of Adam and Eve. In Denmark, Willerup began work in 1857. A church was dedicated in 1866, in Copenhagen, but Viele became our chief MKTHOnrSNf fK RIIROPK. c->:>7 station. The Lutheran Church felt the zeal of the new-comer, and put forth commendable efforts for preaching and Sunday-schools in neglected places. At Hornsyld and Langeland, a citizen of each place, Simonsen and Brunn, built a chapel and gave it to the society. In later days, Hon. M.J. Cramer, brother-in-law of Gen- eral Grant, and United States Minister at Copenhagen, identified himself with the Methodists, and did them true service during his official stay of twelve years. In Denmark are now twelve hun- dred in society, twice as many in average attendance on worship, an J fourteen hundred in Sunday-school. Two periodicals are published. L a r s s o n was a convert at Hedstrom's Bethel, in 1852. On his return, being wrecked, an English vessel picked him up and took him to Swe- den. He was neither preacher nor exhorter, but he began simple work, and for eighteen months had a continu- ous revival, all the time working with his own hands. He thus began Methodism in rev. o. p. Petersen. Sweden at Calmar. In 1855, Swenson. also a Hedstrom convert, went home for a visit, and found himself working with Larsson. They were laymen. The laws of Sweden were hard upon those not of the State Church, and. not ten years before this, five Baptists had been fined and imprisoned for their faith's sake. Clergymen, jurists and other eminent citizens were at the meet- ings, and the King himself urged a change of law. The meetings could not be held " in church hours," nor could churches be formed or sacraments administered. Still the meetings went pros- perously on^ and Onderholm, a born Swede, opened service in the 63^ THIl STORY 01" METHODISM. island of Gottland. Soon there was a great revival at Gottenburg, and the Archdeacon of the State Church bade it God-speed. In 1868, there were revivals elsewhere, and at Karlskrona the people built a neat chapel, some living on two meals, and others pawning their spare clothing and furniture to get money for it. This was the second Methodist building in Sweden, a Wesleyan Mission Chapel having, in 1826, been built at Stockholm. In 1870, a rich man at Monsteras opened his house for meetings, and at Karlskrona a leading business man, Kringelback, was con- METHODIsr CHURCH, CHRISTIANA. NORWAY. verted. Ho proved his sincerity by beginning to pray morning and evening with his hundred and twenty employes, and to preach to them on Saturday evening. Soon eighty of these came to Christ. He also gave liberally to the general cause. At the end of 1 87 1, twenty chapels were counted, and the preaching had reached royal ears. One preacher was fined, another imprisoned, but at Warburg, where these annoyances were worst, the work grew, and soon a fine chapel was built. The King's counsel had at last prevailed for a modification of METHODISM IN EUROPE. 639 )rning )reach le to le end had ^oned, work lion of the rigid laws, and, in 1874, "The Swedish Methodist Episcopal Church" was formed. In February, they presented their petition to his Majesty, who was deeply moved, and blessed them : " God be with you, my people!" It took a year to get their charter, through long and weary formalities, but in the year three hundred were added to the societies. A training school was established at Orebro ; a Book Concern and periodicals, " Sandebudet," and all the fixtures and features of Methodism became facts accomplished. To-day there are in Sweden six thousand in society, with about ten thousand in Sunday-school. The book agent is a mem- ber of the Diet, or Leg- islature. The country is poor, but the last year, one of constant revival, has been the best ever seen. In Finland, the nobility are aiding the society at Helsingfors. A minister of govern- ment and his sister, the Princess Karamsin, have attended and dealt generously. Thus, in the icy North, Methodism, like the Christianity of ^eroy m. vernon. d. d. u hich it is only a fresh movement, is warming and cheering human hearts. As we trace it in every climate and continent, among various kindreds and tongues, we find it always and everywhere the same. In 1832, Charles Elliott, whose Irish warmth made his con- victions ardent, had become persuaded of the utter apostasy of the Romish Church of to-day. He came to look on a Romish land as a heathen land. It was only natural that he should urge a mission to Italy as a duty pressing on the Christian world. For forty years, or nearly, his idea was counted as a pleasantry or at 640 TtIK STORY ol' METIlontSM. least as a thin|^ impracticable. In 1870, the question found a vig- orous advocate in Gilbert Haven, and gained a favorable hearing with the Missionary Board. Leroy M. Vernon, son-in-law of Dr. Elliott, was asked to go as missionary to Italy. He was surprised, but, giving no direct negative, was appointed, and in the end of June, 1871, he sailed for the ancient land. On his way he consulted in London with the Wesleyan missionary secretary, who had ten years before be- gun work in Italy. Arriving at Genoaj be found a true friend in O. M. Spencer, U. S. Consul, and there he fixed his home. His next work was to ex- plore the land through which he was to "spread Scriptural holiness," and to per- fect himself in its lan- guage. The political state of the country, the feelings of its peo- ple, the condition of the Romish Church, and the progress of other missions, had to be carefully exam- ined. He came to see that Rome was the Rev. TEOFiLO GAY, D. D. true placc for the mission. The Wesleyans proposed to join their work with his, but separate friendly labor seemed preferable. Strangely enough, (lavazzi, one of the most eloquent men of the century, and cham- {Mon of Protestantism and "A Free Church in a Free State," op- posed the coming of the mission, as if it might complicate and VkCaken the Protestants. The headquarters were fixed at Bologna, but it was four months before a place for public worship could be had, so bent were the priests on keeping Vernon out, and, meanwhile, a hall was leased at Modena. Here, in June, 1873, was the first service METHODISM IN EUROPE. 641 with sixty present, and the next Sunday as many attended the opening of a hall in Bologna. Work was begun in Forli and Ravenna also, these four towns being near each other. Of course there was opposition. A priest showed in a pamphlet that Vernon's doctrine was atheistic, immoral and retro- [^radc, fair of face, but all serpent beside. At a public meeting, to discuss the pamphlet, the priest did not appear, and Vernon turned the adjectives and the man-serpent figure upon him and his doctrine with bold and successful demonstration. Now came a valuable helper, Dr. fw^ Gay, a French Prot- f ', cstant of piety, learn- ing and general cul- ture, whose ancestry were of the long-suf- fering Church of the Waldenses, for ages struggling with perse- cutions in northwcst- U'n Italy. In Novem- ber, 1873, Gay entered Rome as a Methodist preacher. A hall was rented near the old Forum, where Cicero had spoken, where Paul had been in prison. Here, on Sunday, December dr. alceste lanna. 18, 1873, he preached to a full house his first Methodist sermon. In a few days, Methodist work began at Florence, also, by Arri- gai, a man of education, who had lived in America. He had a rough time with a mob excited by the parish priest, but the dam- age was slight, and six of the mob were promptly put in prison. In 1874, Milan, the great city of North Italy, was occupied. Two places were occupied, and three services in each were held weekly. Dr. Lanna was professor of Philosophy in the leading college in Rome, and had been the same in the Seminary of the Vatican. He was of broad, inquiring mind, and religious 4,1 H 642 THE STORY OF METHODISM. questions had occupied and troubled him. He had noted thi? corning of the Methodists to Rome, but he could not safely come to a Protestant minister, and to become a Protestant meant loss c*" ali things, place, fri-Mids and standing. At length he got an in- terview with Vernon and Gay, and told them his heart. Other interviews with long and free conversations were had, and at last Lanna decided to give up all for Jesus, to bear His cross and do His work, let the cost be what it would. It was like the coming of Jonah from the maw of the sea monster. The next year was made glad by a like conversion. Caporali was of high rank in so- ciety, and well known as author and editor, engaged at the time on a scientific encyclope- dia. One evening his attention, as he walked thi; street, was drawn to some words in a lighted vestibule, in- dicating services with- in. He stopped and heard them, and went on with truth like an arrow in his heart. He was converted, and ENRICO CAPORALI. LL. I). .yith all his gifts and accomplishments entered the following of Christ. The little band was made strong by his coming, and his own soul found rest. One Ravi had years before given up Romanism and become a Protestant preacher. In Rome he had gathered a flock of forty whom he had well taught and trained in the truth. His work had been his own, wholly independent, and now he and his willing people came together to the handful of Methodists, and took membership with them. All these cheering events, with no reverses elsewhere, made the Annual Meeting of 1875 a glad . n K s *. METHODISM IN FAIROPE. 643 occasion. Bishop Simpson was present, and Dr. Lanna was ordained deacon and elder. An event of {gladness and victory was yet to come. It was the building of the first Italian Protestant church in Rome. A choice site on Via Poli, a street of high character, was offered for ST. PAUL'S :A. E. church, the first PROTESTANT CHURCH IN ROME, ITALY. sale, and Vernon at once secured it. It had been the garden of a monastery, and of course there was a cry and a curse at its dese- cration. Free Italy found voice in the dailies for approval, and Colonel Coaindrelli, one of the patriot.^ prominent in 1849, being government inspector of buildings, aided and defended the enter- prise. It is queer that the pope had bought for the stables of 644 THE STORY OF METHODISM. his French allies, that force of ten thousand which Napoleon III. for many years lent him, the roofing; material now used on this church. On the departure of the French to the war in which Napoleon fell, this material was sold and the Methodists took it of the dealer who bouyjht it. "The Festival of the Roof," an Italian usage, like corner-stone laying with us, was on All Saints Day. The Catholics were in the cemeteries praying for and to the dead, while the few Methodists were rejoicing in a work for the living. The banners of Italy and America were hung from the front wall ; dinner was served for the workmen, and Dr. Lanna made a glowing address, full of patriotism and pious zeal, grateful for Italian freedom and Gospel light. "Long live Italy! Long live the King!" There was gay and cheerful music, and an old e.\teinpori/ing poet, such as abound in Italy, being one of the festive workmen, broke forth miu a rhaps(jdy of song in honor of the occasion. The priests were looking for some proof of divine displeasure at the heretical undertaking, "lias no one fallen from the roof?" asked one. " No one." "There is time yet." But no one ever did fall, and at Christmas came the Feast of Dedication. The audiences were large ; all the evangelical churches of Italy were represented, and the event was noted in foreign lands. Early in 1876, Ravi rented a theater in Naples, and trans- formed it into a church. Stasio, a young lawyer of position and ability, was there converted anil came into the ministry. Another Gay, and a vigorous young man, Bambini, were also joined to the working force. These latter opened work at the charming city of Terni, the scenery of which is so often painted. Here a monk was set to demolish their work with his curses. He could not use the civil power, as of old, and his curses, like the boomerang, came back on him and his cause. The nuns were dismissed from service in the public schools, and the monk wished he had kept stiller in the new, free Italy. In 1876, Cardin, a Wesleyan, came to the M. E. work and was put into Venice, " Fair Queen of the Sea." Here the angels, according to the legend, had brought from Syria St. Mark's cot- tage, and where they placed it was afterwards built St. Mark's Cathedral. No city of the world has had such place in song for a thousand years, and into this paradise of art and nature Mirniohi^M IN* fetuopfi. H N 71 X r > z D At Arezzo, near Florence, a church was now secured on a long lease. In front of it, across a thirty-foot street, is a house wall, on which is painted a Virgin and Child. Before this at night THE STv)UY OF METHODISM. is hung a lighted lamp, fed by the house-owner, and there it has glared upon the ruoc, staring picture, while across the little street has shone the true and living light. Baron Gattuso, one of Garibaldi's heroes, took charge of the work. The W. F. M. S. novv, in 1H77, put three women into service as Bible readers, and also Dr. Stazi, a fellow-student ol" Lanna, a man of high cidture and attainment, took charge in Milan. It is remarkable that so many of the very best Italians became preachers, and by this the work was at once, socially and intellectually, respectable. In '878, a journal, La Fiaccola ("The Torch"), was intro- duced. By reason of the stream of travel, the work in Italy, and esp' cially at Rome, has been more noticed than any other in the world. It is small, but it is on historic soil, wet with the blood of ancient and modern martyrs. Here, in the ground now used as the Protestant cemetery, out on the Appian way, and marked by the Pyramid of Cestius, which was built for other uses, Paul the Apostle laid down his life, and missionary zeal might well grow warm in such a vicinity. There is opposition enough. It drives the priests mad to see the work the mission is doing, but there is steady progress in all good things in Il.ily, and the darkness of a thousand years is disappearing. Bishop Hurst, in 1884, dedicated a beautiful church in Bo- logna, and a Catholic chapel in Pisa was bought, repaired and dedicated. An Italian churcli at Geneva, Switzerland, the home of Abel Stevens, the Methodist historian, has joined the Meth- odist Conference. Dr. Caporali edits a Quarterly Review, and in every way Italian Methodism has a complete life of its own. It has twelve hundred in society, with twenty-five preachers. The largest society — of about two hundred — is at Florence. Thus the Story of Methodism in the fairest of all lands is the same as elsewhere. Bulgaria is the wide region below the Danube, and is to be the probable successor of Turkey in Europe, .is Armenia is its probable succc-'or in Asia. In 1855, Dr. Riggs, of the American Board, urged the Methodists to send missionaries to this country. The Bulgarians vvere of the Greek Church, but not of the Greek language. They wanted religious services in their own speech MFTIinMsM IN F.rROrE. rM7 and a Church of their own. Messrs. Lonj^ and I'rcttyman were sent in 1857. Reaching R'ltschiik, on the soiitli side of the Dan- ube, they found a fertile and beautiful land, the Protestants cordial and even "the unspeakable Turk" kind and tolerant. They set- tled at Shumla, forty-five miles from the sea, and began the study of the language. This was a trying task, and it was long before they could tell the people their errand. Mr. Flocken, who could speak Russian, soon joined them. Mr. Long soon went to Tir- nova, a city near the Balkans, the finest in all Bulgaria, having thirty thousand Turks, as many Bulgarians, and ale:'; of all cities <;>^v*«- mSmi^Jmmiii BULGARIA MISSION. of its size in the world, not a single Jew. For this city the Romanists were making a desperate struggle, offering the people the protection of the pope and the aid of France. The leading citizens, however, turned to Protestantism to find life for their Church and hope for their land. Dr. Long began to preach in Bulgarian, December 24, 1850, with fifteen hearers. All Catho- lics were warned, under pain of excommunication, not to attend his preaching, but his congregation grew. A Bulgarian priest (Greek) came to him to ask ihe loan of a Bible. He complained, with tears, of the impiety of his people. "I am poor, weak and ignorant; whL, can I dor My ^ of 1? ave l'')!"; y'r JW^W'tiHW!!*^*' X^TS^HWJ«F^' ^r 648 THE STORY OF METHODISM. no instruction and will not hear mine. If I ask them to pray they say they are not priests and the praying is my business. They call themselves Christians, but they do not love Christ or keep His conimandments. I went to my superior priest and asked for a Bible. He said the Bible was not for me to read and I had no business with it. Now, I am a priest, arid 1 do not see why I should not read the Bible." Eliefi he first Protestant convert in Bulgaria, had found Christ in reading a Testament from the Britisli Bible Society. He did not know that there was another in the world that felt a^ he did. He was surprised to meet a colporteur who held his views, and, going to Constantinople, he learned from the missionaries the full nature of the faith. He now came to Dr. Long and be- came a permanent and valuable helper. In Shumla, meanwhile, some progress was making. A young German, who was going to Jerusalem on foot to pray for the soul of his tiead mother, was converted. A young Jewess became a true believer, and Flocken officiated at her wedding, using his simple ritual in the presence of guests of several nations. Some of the religious usages of the people were strange. \\\\ St. John's Day they baptized all sli angers, ani\ uvvn\\\3v-\^ \\^ vU) so to the missionary ! December 24th was ke\>\ A3 tUe b\tthdi^y of Colida, a heathen deity, and then, diugying a log ftom the wou\is, they cut upon it a rude human face and drank themselves drunk to its health. It was time for a purer religion. Ur. Long had a taste for poetry and music and he put into Bulgarian many sweet songs, as " Joyfully," and the like. These the childrefi to-day are singing. He is to be called the pioneer making the way for western and Christian literature into that long-ncir'ccted land, and for this he will have an honorable fam* when Bulgaria shall take her place among the nations of the world. Mr. Flocken then went to Tultcha, near the sea. Here h« found a singular people the Molokans. In the last century, two young Russians, a young man and woman, had gone to England as servants of the Russian embassa- dor. Coming home, they told of English Christians who met m dwelling houses, without image, cross or holy candle, who did not fast or cross themselves, yet were very pious and ys ^ >m school at twelve. He was about to leave Tultcha her i , ival began, and soon the first Russian M. E. Church I! ' %'fi^^Mfy^^':!^^w^'< '•^s^'^i^s^sf ^■57s:r':^?^'?»™?^;7^ ii» •t 'X H c w s METMOtHSM IN EIROPE, 65 t < c o c X < H u. (1868) was organized. There has never yet been a second. There were nineteen in society, with a Sunday-school of thirty-five. Opposition and difficulty of many sorts set in, and the mission was abandoned. Dr. Long became professor in Roberts College, where his learning and talent still keep him in great usefulness, A native Russian, Petroff, staid by the Church in i i/ltcha, and Elieff served a place, Sistoff, and itinerated. Mrs. Clara Proca began a useful service as Bible reader, but Flocken and his helper came to America. In 1873, the mission was resumed. A new man, Dr. Buchtel, was sent with Mr. Flocken, and in learning the language, the con- version of his teacher was his cheering introduction to Bulgarian work. The country was now cut loose from the Greek Church, but not for the better. Several native Bishops forbade the read- ing of the Bible, and foreigners were not welcomed. Dr. Buchtel had to come home for Mrs. liuchtel's health. Flocken and Elieff did their best, and Mrs. Proca, supported by the V/. F. M. S., was very useful. The dreadful war between Russia and Turkey now began, and the massacres in some parts of Bulgaria shocked the world. Bishop Andrews came in 1876 and ordained the faithful Elieff, the first Bulgarian Protestant, the first Bulgarian Methodist preacher. The effect of the war was now felt near the missions. The Turks became fierce and cruel, and there was no safety. After much suffering, Flocken and other Americans came home in 1878. The same year he returned for a while, and Messrs. Thomoff, a Bulgarian, a graduate of Drew Seminary, and Challis, who had already been in service in the country, were later sent. The prospect in this worn and weary land is now better. It is looking as if here were before long to be a great nation, and there is a growing inclination to hear the Word. The past has been full of trouble, but the missionaries now at work are per- suaded that they will soon show the Slavonians of Bulgaria, after five centuries of Turkish oppression, still humans capable of a spiritual religion. There are now one hundred in the soci'^ties; Miss Schenck, of the W. F. M. S., has at Loftena a thriving school, and the attentions of h ^-silf and her pupils to the wounded in the late struggles Irave done much to win the hearts of the people. imifm^'M,.:*'^, 652 THE STORY OF METHODISM, l*^" mmm German Methodism, in both Amen i and Germany, begins with William Nast. He was piously reared imd thoroughly edu- cated, but he came out of the University of Tubingen with his religion spoiled by philosophy. In 1828, he emigrated and became tutor in the family of Mrs. Duncan, of Duncan's Island, in the Susquehanna. There he saw Methodist preachers and came to know of the M. E. Church. He was then professor of German at West Point, where Mcllvaine was chaplain, who, with some de- vout officers, encouraged his religious feelings. For three years he was under deep but varying conviction, until finally, at a meeting in Ohio, he was able fully to give his soul to the Saviour, and enter into a glorious peace. His call to preach was clear, and he became German mis- sionary in Cincinnati. He had been favored with the best friendship of the Episcopal and Lutheran Churches, but he felt his home to be with the Methodists. He had learning and high character, but he was of heavy tongue ; he could not sing, he felt quite un-Germanized. In his first year, he reported twenty-three awakened persons. The next year, he addressed the Germans through all southern Ohio, on a circuit of twciir -five appointments. His seven con- verts joined English societies. In 1837, he formed in Cincinnati the first German society of the M. E. Church, having twenty-six members. A convert of his first year, John Swahlen, a good singer, began to help him. In 1839, Swahlen, being now a preacher, built in Wheeling the first German Methodist edifice. It was dedicated in 1840, and the society is still flourishing in its WILLIAM NAST, D. D. METHODISM IN EUROPE. 653 succsssor on Chapline street. In 1839 was issued the first num- ber of the Christlichc Apologctc (Christian Advocate). In this year, too, was converted Jacoby, a young physician of broad and thorough culture. He was born in Mecklenburg, an Israelite of ihe tribe of Levi (?),andwas now in Cincinnati in his profes- sion. He was, by a deep experience, fitted for an effective career. In 1 841, he was sent to St. Louis, where he began his work with but one converted German, while mobs and opposers were fierce and many. Dr. Nast now devoted his time chiefly to the spread of Methodist doctrine and life through the agency of the press. Wesley's sermons and other standards of Meth- odist doctrine were trans- lated into German in rapid succession. The A pologete aroused the fiercest opposition of the Roman Catholic church, and became a fearless defender of evangelical Christianity. The pio- neer work of German Methodism was baptized in the blood of its early adherents, by mob vio- lence. In years, hardly R«-- ludwig s. jacoby. fifty years, the German Methodist work has spread over all this country. It has the Apo/ogele, with nineteen thousand subscribers, Hans u. Herd, with seven thousand five hundred and forty-seven ; The Sunday-School Bell, thirty-eight thousand ; The Bcrcan Leaf (Bibelfor'cker), thirty-nine thousand five hundred, and other Sunday-school publications, its Church catechism by Dr. Nast, its Church hymn-books and collection of Sunday-school hymns and songs, the latter being widely used in other German Churches and a respectable collection of other books. The Western Book Concern publishes more German work.s than any book house in this country. The chief institution of learning is the German Wallace 654 THE STORY OF METHODISM. College, Berea, O. This dates from 1864, having been preceded by a German department in Baldwin University, at the same place. There is still free access between the two institutions. There is a Biblical department ; and over one hundred and sixty have gone from it into the ministry. Mere, too, is an orphan asylum, opened in 1863, the first in the Methodist Episcopal Church of the United States. There are altogether five Methodist Episcopal German schools or colleges in this country, of which nine-tenths of the cost was paid by Germans, two orphanages and the foundation for a Deaconess school, in Kansas City. Of members in German societies there are about fifty-two thousand in the United States, and of preachers six hundred and forty- seven, and these contributed to missions in 1885 an average of one dollar apiece. Such is the American train of results foliowinjj the conversion of Nast in 1835, and he still lives tc look and labor, as he edits, for now forty-nine years, the Apologete. In 1844, Nast was sent to Germany to prospect for a mission in the old father-land. He knew how for a century the masses of Germany had been godless and unbelieving, and those who, like himself t^nd Jacoby, came to America had the better chance of becoming Christians. So many of these wrote home of their ex- perience that one said : " Every letter is a ijiissionary." He found one Muller, who, fleeing to England to avoid serving in Bonaparte's army, had there become a local preacher, and, returning after twenty-five years' absence, was preachmg as a Wesleyan missionary in Wurtemburg. Nast was glad to find Muller's work very prosperous, and he believed the good man could fill the present demand, as the State Church elsewhere refused openings. Muller died in 1858, but the Wesleyan Society continued his work and it prospers to this day. All Europe was shaken in 1848 by political revolutions, and one result was that the German Diet, under popular pressure, de- clared full religious liberty for all Germany. This was construed to have reference only to the Lutherans and Catholics, but the feee citi*^ a: least, were open, and, in 1849, Jacoby wa> sent to His so«l was sorely tried, and he longed to return f\uin a godless land to one that had Sabbaths. \\v ronld find no plarr to prertrh, i\ml l\h firat sermon was in Authen. (///|/><'««««lon wii« METHODISM IN EUROPE. 655 made, but his next sermon, at Aachen, was unheard by the gay, Sundaylcss community. At length he got the Kramcramthaus, a public hall at Bremen. It seated four hundred, and was on the evening of December 23, 1849, packed and crowded. He soon got a hall twice as large, and that was crowded. He went to a vile suburb where he was often interrupted and preached to the unwashed. At Baden also, fifteen miles away, he had a school house full. At Easter, twenty-one converts formed a class, and on May 21, 1850, the holding of a Quarterly Confer- < nee fixed the birthday of the mission. The same day came the first issue of a Methodist religious journal in Germany, that land of reading. Already a thousand hymn books had l-ccn sold, and the demand for books was wonderful. Dcr Evangelist began with two hundred subscribers. This year the Book Concern prints about thirty-five million pages. Jacoby was soon unable to meet the growing demand, and Uoering and Nippert was sent to his help, and with them came Dr. John McClintock. On the day after his arrival, Nippert preached on a barn floor near Bremen. Morses and cattle, pigs and poultry were all crowded unwillingly by the congregation, and their discontent made a very mixed scene. On the Sabbath, Dr. McClintock preached the first English sermon that had been delivered by a Methodist Episcopal minister in Germany, and on Monday evening was held a meet- ing in behalf of Africa, at which over five dollars was given, being Germany's first missionary collection for the Methodist Episcopal Church. Sunday-schools now came to Germany, one of eighty children being formed at Bremen, and another at the hard suburb, with the ponderous name, Buntcnthorsteinweg. The Lutheran Churches soon and widely were forming them. The first cxhortor was Ficge, licensed in 1850, and Jacoby foretold truly that Germany v/ould yet be sending preachers to America. A watch-night was held at the end of the year, while a ball was in phi||»n«ti on Ih" floor abcvc. The meeting was too much ftu ihe dancing, and the tluongi •|iHVilt:«l the hall, and the (iccrtsluil was one of divine glory and power. Mi:tliot|jsTn llUil surely iMitprcd GciUiuU^' Now Ituguii the pcritid oi pttuecutioii m\ uf HhtloyinSP. A 656 THE STORY OF METHODISM. mob drunk with free liquor, and instigated by state clergymen, broke every window where Doering was preaching in the old style of Wesley. The Sunday-school was denounced in vain, and, as an answer, one among the vile dens of Bremerhaven grew from fifteen to one hundred and thirty. Nippert, going with a colporteur to a town was met by a mob with a fierce leader, who tore off their clothes and threw the colporteur into the ditch, bidding Nippert never come there again. Twenty years later the funeral train of that leader was passing that very spot. The hearse was overturned by accident (i. Cm without hands) and his coffin pitched where he had thrown the colporteur. Wunderlich, who had been converted in Dayton, O., came home to Saxe Weimar to witness for his Saviour. His mother and brothers were converted, and one of them began to preach. The comer was fined, imprisoned and banished for persisting in his work. In one prison were three for " infidelity," a queer coin- cidence ; he, put in for praying too much ; they, for not praying at all ! The comer returned to America, but his brother persisted, though fined ten dollars for every sermon. In 185 1, Jacoby found at Saxe Weimar a society of one hundred and thirty. At Frankfort, Mr. Riemenschneider held meetings in his own house, but his congregation of one hundred and growing was suppresed because it annoyed his sensitive neighbors. He went to Giessen, where all the notables of the town came to hear him. He was then put in jail for the night, because he had no passport, and the next day was sent out of the little dukedom (Hesse Darmstadt). The tracts which had been taken from him were read by three or four sets of officials and then returned, the officer who returned them begging a few. Thus these were well read, and that is what tracts are for. ^ Through all the country there was a great readiness to hear, and great rage of opposition by clergy and magistrates. In Heilbronn and Alsace preachers were imprisoned, but the work went on. In 1856, the Annual Conference was organized. In Zurich, Switzerland, a preacher advertised a service, and went in true, wrestling faith, but not a soul entered the hall ! The next Sunday he had five hearers, and the following seven, but his evening congregation filled the place. In Zurich, is now a beautiful -^tot«i-j^iati^-E:-^i:^^5w.-3!fc?-.'.-^m^iSi<^^ METHODISM IN EUROPE. 657 rgymen, the old in vain, en grew let by a tirew the le there ader was accident d thrown O., came 5 mother 3 pre.'ich. listing in leer coin- : praying persisted, I, Jacoby rty. 1 his own I'ing was He went lear him. assport, (Hesse ere read e officer lell read, |to hear, tes. In Ihe work lice, and ll! The but his keautifiU church and a vigorous society. This tried brother was the first of the German missionaries to die, but he left in Zurich forty members. In i860, a Biblical Institute had been established at Bremen, its corner-stone being laid in 1859, ten years after the coming of the first missionary. W. F. Warren now president of Boston University, became a professor in it. In 1866, John T. Martin, of Brooklyn, gave twenty-five thousand dollars to build for it a worthy building, which was erected in Frankfort-on-thc-Main as being more central, and the Martin Mission Institute has since been its name. In the same year, a chapel worth fifteen thousand BREMEN CHURCH AND TRACT HOUSE. dollars was built in Berlin, chiefly by the eflbrts of Ex-governor Wright, of Indiana, then U. S. Minister to Prussia, who died before it was finished. In 1 87 1, Jacoby, who had begun this work, and for nineteen years been at it, returned to America. Doctor (now Bishop) Hurst, who had, since 1866, been director of the Biblical Insti- tute, came to the Drew Theological Seminary, was succeedetl by Dr. Nippert, who returned in 1886 to the United States and was in turn succeeded by Rev. C. Achard, the son-in-law of Dr. L. S. Jacoby and the present Director. In 1875, Bishop Simpson held the Conference. His Sunday iMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 4 /. y4^, A ^ M/y % 1.0 I.I 1.2 1.4 Z2 2,0 1.8 1.6 6' Photographic Sciences Corporation « A ■^U^ ^\^ 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.V. 14380 (716) 872-4503 J^''^. % 658 THE STORY OF METHOTHSM. discourse was one of tho^c marvelous efforts which came from his lips as a special blessing, and Nippert's translation was so rich in skill and sympathy, as to seem a prolongation of the power. The sermon was read and remembered, and, not the hearers only, but its German readers, were deeply affected. Doering, after twenty-six years' service now visited America. After a year he came back to take charge of the Book Concern, but later returned to the United States where he still resides in Berea, O. Thus three of the original pioneers of Methodism in Germany, Doering, Nippcrt vnd Riemensclineider are spendin-.,^ the closing years of their life in this country. Dr. Nippcrt is still an effective member of the Central German Conference. There are now in Germany ninety-one churches and chapels, with about one hundred preachers and about fifteen thousand in society, and twenty-three thousand scholars in Sunday-schools. How has Methodism taken hold of Germans within the life- time of men yet living ! Fifty thousand in America, and fifteen thousand in the father-land, and Nast, the first convert, still in service ! The Revival, which we call Methodism, has done for Gfmans as it has done for so many other people. We have now told the Sto"y of Methodism in the lands which it has visited. We have found it at Trondhjem, near the North Pole ; we have found it at Patagonia, near the South Pole, and in every climate between. Bishop Taylor in Africa, and Mr. Oldham at Singapore, are spreading it beneath the Equator. By itr> fruits it is known to be a genuine form and development of Christianity. It is everywhere Christianity in earnest. CHAPTER LI. Free Methodism, and Some Change of Usage. F the youngest offshoot from the great Methodist Chuich we now come to tell. In human affairs the form and manner of any institution does not remain without variation. In Church and state, as well as in art, education and society, methods are ever shifting. The successive generations, and the same generations in various lands, must modify the outward form of religious usage ; it is the spirit that abides and quickens every form. This change of form, not only in usage, but also in speech, will always be unwelcome to some, and they will choose not to swerve with the swerving times from what is dear and venerable by its associations, and has served the fathers well. The youngest offshoot from the great Meth- odist body illustrates this remark. The Free Methodist Church was organ- ized at Pfckin, in western New York, August 23, i860. Its founders were preachers, who held that the parent Church was sadly departing from fidelity to the clear doctrines and simple usages of Wesley. They held that hearty repentance, proved by suitable behavior, was ceasing to 660 THE STORY OF METHODISM. be faithfully preached ; that the witness of the Spirit was but little enjoyed, and that a merely intellectual persuasion, without love or loyalty to Christ, was taking the place of the self-sacrificing faith of the heart. As to Christian perfection, it was preached in styles so conflicting that it might as well not be preached at all, and the number of those professing it was small. In this way the supernatural clement, the glory and the power of the Church, was weakened and dishonored. It w,'is nlso urged that in wealthy societies discipline fared quite as badly as doctrine, and could not be executed. Methodists were dressing as gaudily as the world, were doing business unscriptural in its nature or methods, and were in oath-bound fellowship of secret societies with unbelievers. In the churches were costly pews, organs and hired artists, daintily- read sermons in build- ings of extravagant cost, and supported by picnics, fairs, con- certs, by any means rather than the primitive, apostolic and Wesleyan. In the Genesee Conference many ministers regretted and denounced this unhopeful departure. Of these the most prominent was B. T. Roberts. He was a brilliant and effective speaker, and a concise, clear, energetic writer, a college friend at the Wesleyan University with Bishops Andrews and Gilbert Haven. He and his friends would not be silent at what they held to be ruinous and wrong, and, in 1857, Roberts was tried for publishing an article on "Nev/ School Methodism," in which he had set forth the view of the Methodistic mSHOP B ROBERTS, FREE METHODISM, AXD SOME CHANGE OF USAGE. 66 1 was but , without acrificiiH; cached in :d at all, s way the nrch, was line tared badly as nd could xecutcd. ,ts were gaudily as A'ere doing inscriptural ature or Liid were in d fellowship 3cietieswith In the vcre costly ■ g a n s and ts, daintily- Lns in build- lextravagant supported fairs, con- any means In the [ounced this He was a energetic Ijth Bishops )uld not be id, in 1857. Jew School iMethodistic decay and departure as above given. He now offi,/ed to retract any statements therein made, should they be proven untrue. His article was taken as slanderous, and he was pronounced guilty and sentenced to be rebuked by the Bishop. The next year some one republished his article, with an account of his trial, and he was again iried by his Conference, this time for what was called contumacy — persistence after rebuke. Neither the publication nor the circulation (it was a pamphlet) seemed legally fastened upon him, yet he, with a colleague, McCreery, was expelled from the Conference and the Church. A convention of laymen, looking upon this expulsion as unjust and tyrannical, passed resolutions of ssmpathy for the expelled, and, as proof of unabated confidence in ihem, urged them to continue in the work of the ministry. Several ministers of the Conference freely denounced the expulsion, and the next year four of these were e.xpellcd and two located on charges of the same contumacy. Many laymen were put out of the Church, and the term "Nazarite," as indicative of higher piety and holiness, or the assumption of the same, now cann.' into use. There was a world of unpleasantness now rife, and in almost every society in western New York heart and Church divisions prevailed. It could not be expected that the blame of the unhappy state of things would rest on one party and not on both. The General Conference of i860 met at Buffalo in the territory of these disaffections. Fifteen luindred members of the Methodist Episcopal Church within the Genesee Conference petitioned for the investigation of these acts of the Conference in expelling its members. A committee was appointed for this, but was soon discharged. Roberts had appealed both his cases. That of his expulsion was not entertained ; that of his previous rebuke was confirmed — i e., not reversed, the committee being equally divided. Other Methodist bodies being more or less liable to the charges already made against the Methodist Episco- pal Church, the people in the new movement, being thus outside of their original Church, had to proceed and form a new denomi- nation. It was a case of deep convictions and of impracticable temper, in which the action of the Methodist Episcopal Church was hardly correct, and it was better for all parties that separation take place. In most societies those who choose to do 'ft' I 66: THE STORY OF METHODISM. SO simply left and formed new ones, no letters being asked or offered, and those who remained proceeded as the original and lawful society. The new Church was after the model of the parent. Bishops were chosen for four years and Presiding Elders were called district chairmen. In all the Conferences laymen in num- ber and right are equal to the clergy. Probation is retained, but none enter it on "a desire to flee from the wrath to come." An actual saving faith is required, and none are admitted to full membership who do not give proof of a living religious experi- ence. Laying aside gold, pearls and costly array, membership in secret societies, and all use of whisky or tobacco (unless as medicine) are forbidden, and attendance on class meeting is enforced. The new denomination found great hindrance from being at once the chosen home of wild-fire and uvireasoning zeal, that dis- liked all discipline and had its own ideas of order, and some strange practices were found in its meetings. These have worn off, and in twenty-six years, energy and zeal have come to be joined to charit)', sobriety and decorum. Most of its adherents have been drawn from the poor and uncultivated, and most of its preachers have been uneducated. Bishop Roberts began, in i860, the publication of The Earnest Christian to expound the principles of the new Church, and this, as his independent journal, has had a large circulation. He has also published tracts and pamphlets, but as yet there is little standard literature. The Free Methodist, at Aurora, 111., also a private enterprise, has a large patronage. Bishop Roberts is still at the head of this new Methodism, which he was in this way led to found and which he has now so long conducted. He courts about six hundred preachers, travel- ing and local, and thirteen thousand members. There are two seminaries, one at North Chili, N. Y., and one at Spring Aiuor, Mich. It will be seen that the basis of this new departure in form from the M. E. Church is urged by the departed to be a falling away of the Church from its early character. That is indeed a serious matter. If the Methodism with which our Story ends is not the same as that with which it began, then this is not tjje ■ Kill II p;;i! FREE METHODISM, AND SOME CHANGE OF USAGE. 663 Story which we intended. Let us look closely for the state of the case. First of pcwed churches. They have an air of inhospitality. We saw how the Boston church, the first pewed church in Meth- odism, was saved by Colonel Binney's making it a stock affair, cashing its debts from his own purse and letting his poorer breth- ren work out their various subscriptions at their leisure. None but a man of generous faith would have taken such a risk. Such things have since repeated themselves. Wesley's life was spent in labors chiefly for the poor, and, as we have seen, the English at home are more pi one to acquiesce in an established order than we Americans. We are self asserting, bound to have things to our mind, if we can, and that not wilfully or wickedly, but because we believe our mind is right. It will, therefore, happen that those who build a church can make a pew in it a permanent home for their families, where their children can sit with the parents, and comforts and fixtures be provided, and there is much to be said in favor of this. In free-seated churches there is a tendency in persons and families to occupy the same places, and a stranger could hardly tell whether it were pewed or free. The tenant of a pew has the chance for politeness and hospitality, and this a Christian will not fail to use. So of costly churches, something is due to art, beauty and refinement, and no man enjoyed these more keenly than Wesley. The first pewed church in the West (Christ Church, Pitts- burgh) is a splendid edifice, beyond anything in western Methodism, when erected. Bishop Morris was looking at it. "What would John Wesley say if he saw that?" asked a grumbler. "He would say, 'It is the finest Methodist church I have ever se'^n,'" was the quiet answer. There seemed to be something vvrong when, as was for years seen at a point on Cayuga lake, a Friends' meeting-house worth five hundred dollars stood near a cottage of one of the worshipers, and this cost thirty thousand dollars, the grounds being equally valuable. That men and women sit apart was a relic of Wesley's monastic ideas. The life of the family has gradually prevailed over that. It is still kept as the usage in many places, yet it has come to be classed among the things not essential. -ry. "^.T!T^7F?."'*';> y; 664 IHE STUKY OF METIIUDISM. In the matter of singing as a part of public worship, Wesley's views were too correct to be superseded. *' Let all the people sing; not one in ten onl)' ! " We have seen how Charles Wesley sang the Gospel, putting Scripture into verse and music as if he were himself divinely inspired. He put the Story of Grace into the people's language and the people's tunes, so that all could sing, and to-day hardly any Christian people sing six hymns without including one of his making. At Bolton, 1787, Wesley's heart was glad. He had put a short stop to what he found at Warrington. "A few men who had fine voices sung a psalm which no one knew, in a tone .it for an opera, wherein three or four persons sang different words at the same time. What a burlesque on public worship ! " At Bolton, about one hundred boys and girls were taught to sing and, "they sang so true that, all singing together, there seemed to be but one voice. In the evening I desired forty or fifty of them to come in and sing, 'Vital Spark of Heavenly Flame.' Some were not able to sing for tears, yet the harmony was such as I believe could not be equaled in the finest chapel."' He returns afterwards. "The spirit with which they all sing and the beauty of many of them so suits the melody that I defy any to exceed it, except the singing of the angels in Our Father's House." Music at worship, by a quartette of artists, is certainly not Methodistic or scriptural. A concert or a nmsicale is quite another thing. The Sunday-school is the true feeder to congre- gational singing, and Wesley would be glad again could he see (perhaps he sees) how the singing of the societies has been in late years improved by the happy training of the Sunday-school. The use of tickets to love-feasts has been discontinued. In Wesley's plan these were certificates of standing. Membership in the societies was held to be a privilege to be retained only by Christian activity and usefulness, and the quarterly visitation of the preacher in charge was to ascertain, as far as possible, each member's religious character. In this country, the ticket system has. gone out within the memory of those now living. It was found that few cared to come in who were not already serious, and that it was better to put no hindrance in the way of their coming. The love feast is a place of joyous witness for Christ, a^d it often happens that such witness affects so^ne hearts roore FREE METHODISM, AND SUME CU.VMiE UF USAGE. 665 Wesley's le people ;s Wesley ; as if he Irace into all could ix hymns , Wesley's e found at r a psalm I three or , What a e hundred ) true that, :e. In the sing, 'Vital cr for tears, equaled in spirit with }o suits the ing of the !e deeply than any formal sermon. The ticket system was therefore easily discarded, and the love-feast has come to be a public service, in which bread and water are taken together in token of Christian friendship, and the time is given to cheerful, soul- expanding fellowship. The class is the unit, the smallest organism in Methodism, it was to consist of not over twelve, and of these the leader was to be a spiritual acquaintance each week renewed. The value of such an organization is great. It makes every member responsible to somebody, and, from being primarily a financial convenience, it came to be a source of mutual knowledge, aid and comfort. The heart that hai> no relish for it, or something equivalent, has reason to doubt its own religious health. The class meeting is not a confessional. No one is obliged to make a speech in it. The intent of it is the same as of those schools where the older scholars serve as monitors to the others, and all teachers know how aptly scholars appreciate and relieve each other's difficulties. In England, non-attendance renders one liable to exclusion from the society on the ground that when he became a member that was a clear condition, and he agreed so to do. In America, exclusion has not been counted as a penalty for non-attendance, this latter not being held to be an offense "that would exclude one from the kingdom of grace and of glory." Still, the moral obligation exists, and the class meeting is in most societies highly valued as helping a life of light and victory. In America, too, circuits early begun to break up into stations, and the informal usage prevails by which prominent Churches practically select their own pastors. Still these modifications are not enough to justify the state- ment that Methodism in this country materially differs from Wesleyanism in England, or from that which Wesley founded. In India, Dr. Thoburn was once surprised, at seeing eleven men come forward and ask for baptism when he had had no time with them for inquiry and instruction. It was a critical moment. His helper, native, told him that if he put these men off they would be discouraged. Dr. Thoburn baptized them at once, con- trary to all usage, rather than leave them in tlie precarious and unsettled condition of inquirers. They were thus fully and promptly brought away from heathenism and committed to 066 THE STOKV OF METHODISM. Christianity. He was glad that he put aside Church usage, and gained souls, for these men prospered. Reporting the case to Hishop Kingsley, the robust answer was : " Under the Methodiit Discipline it is alivays right to do the best you can under tAe circumstances." His decision relieved the faithful missionaiy from many a difficulty, and uttered the true spirit of Methodisn. These changes '..\ Methodisl ways and usages are partly due to the influence that has come to it from other Christian bodies. The lineal source and origin of Methodism was from the Church of England, the Protestant Episcopal Church of this country. To this day the VVesleyans occupy a middle ground between the Dissenters and the National Church. Some societies are still found using the liturgy arranged by Wesley from the Anglican Pr.iyer Book ; some Wesleyan families send their children to Ive confirmed by state Bishops. Not until this year have they voted to call their societies churches, and their chapels churches. So in New England the Congregational Churches formed the aristocratic class, and Methodists were at first held to the support of those Churches. Methodism there has for that reason had a peculiar type, more decorous and self-controlled, with pewed churches and written sermons. Not, indeed, behind in labor and sacrifice, and to-day no people arc nobler in their Methodism. But, meanwhile, the Methodists have influenced their neigh- bors. It has been especially the revival Church. It has gone beyond metaphysics and doctrinal statement, beyond sacrament and ceremony. It has used a working theology, believing thij< thing first of all that men should be up and doing what is put in their power to do. Sinners are called straight out to conversions ; backsliders are warned and heartened to return, converts are bidden to tell what God does for them. .—cTilAS^'Jaf . C.UENOVU, «. y .ABOUT i8i«, CHAlTI.k 1.11. Mfthodisi Lueuature. i ;-n-^^f''lg JOHN WKSI.KY, 'f ■ 1 *^ '^^ ^^'^ have seen, was not o n I }• a scholar, but he also held that literature, like the Gospel, was the he r i t a ^f e of mankintl. He earl\' began in earnest to restore men to their heritage and to unfold and enrich it for their benefit. His own direct etiort to scatter books and tracts widely by large sales and low prices dates from the T^oundr)', in 1739. He made some profits, and with these he aided need)' preachers and promoted the work of the Gos- pel. His own publications in sixteen \'ears had come to the number of one hundred and eighty-one and treated a variety of useful subjects in a manner fully up to the advance of his day. Many of these went "^ ""''" through twenty editions and most of tnemwere sold at less than one shilling each. They thus came it »:|?* 668 THE STORY OF METHODISM. ii into the hands of the poor, and well used they must have been, for at Wesley's death many had vanished or could be had at only the highest prices. The Hymns sold cjuickest, as was very natural. Charles Wesley, before his conversion, had written nothinj^. It was in the dingy street of Little Britain, in the heart of London, that he found peace and the fountain of his poetry was unsealed. One nii^ht visit the street, as one walks through Smyrna, and thinks how here with Homer began the immortal songs of Greece and the classic world. John had already published some hjinns, but when, three days after Charles, he entered into peace with God, the brothers began a poetic career together, in which Charles outstripped his brother. Their hymns were simply the expression of their own feelings. A new hint soon came to Charles. His preaching was one day interrupted by the rollicking song of some sailors. He told ihem to listen to the sermon and come the next day and he would give them a song to their own tune. They came and he had for them his "Listed into the cause of sin, Why should a good be evil?" Thus putting hymns into familiar tunes, he found ready sale for them. With the songs went other books. " See that every house is supplied with books" is Wesley's direction. In 1778, he began the Anninian, tlie second oldest religious periodical in the world. It is now called The IVeshyan Methodist Magazine. For the publication of his works Wesley soon had a "Book Room" near the Foundry, and afterwards on premises adjoining the City Road Chapel. This Book Room he willed to trustees, who transferred by legal process until it came into ownership of fifteen trustees, who are members of Conference, and into the management of a "Book Steward." At the Centennial, in 1839, its premises were enlarged to meet the demands of a ^'.-::atly-increasing business. Here are published the London Qua .'rrly Review and eight other periodi- cals, and the issues have L^ n over twelve millions a year. I publications stand w^ll in the general market, and are sold by all dealers. MLITIIODIST LITERATURE. 669 The Bool: Concern of tlu' Church in America has long been the largest reUgious pubhshing house in the world. In 1787, as we noticed, it was determined to proceed with the printing of "our own books," and soon John Dickins, with si.\ hundred iloUars of his own finding, began the business in rhiladelphia. There must have been good profit, for besides si.x hundred and si.\ty-six dol- lars and si.xty-seven cents salar>-, and a house to the agent and as much to the distressed preachers, there w-is a payment of eight hundred dollars to Cokesbury College, and sixty-four dollars to the Bishopsfor schools. |. '• ~i The whole profit must have been twenty-five hundred dollars a year. In 1797, a book committee to I'xamine and decide upon ])ubli- cations was created. In rSo.'f, the Concern was removed to New York. T/ie Methodist Mac^a- zine, though ordered in 1796, was first pub- lished in 1818. It is now The Methodist Re- view, under the effect- ive editorshipof Daniel Curry. The Youth's Instructor began in 1823 and in 1826 The daniel curry, d. d.. ll. d. Christian Advocate appeared. In periodicals, New England could not wait, for its Missionary Magazine began, in 1815, at Concord, and Zions Herald, with pages nine inches by sixteen, the first Methodist weekly in the world, and still one of the best, was started at Boston in 1823. The financial history of the Concern showed good manage- ment. Ezekiel Cooper took charge of it in 1799, finding four thousand dollars of property and three thousand dollars of debt. In 1804 he had a clear capital of twenty-seven thousand dollars. In 1 8 1 6, the capital was eighty thousand dollars. In 1 820, Dr. Bangs /■ turn ^-■;-.i"fj \ '-.■\' M .■[» ■'■['"-y\,^*,' ;'>^ ■'■ 7.^V. ^f. ■V"T"'^¥';r- I 670 THE STORY OF METHODISM. foiik vij^oroiis hokl ami soon had a maiuiracttiiin^^ lioiisi- in Crosby strocl. In 1820, the diniciiU)' of trat.sportalicn tnadc ili."siral)lr the jilantinj^ of a Conconi at Cincinnati, and from this and tha' at New York, branch hoascs tor the saU- of books wcic established in various cities. Tl-e Ai/v'unfi' soon had thirty tlionsanil sub- scribers, bein^ iW'Xc than any papei in the land was having' ; it also advertised the books. Si)* n more room for the phuit was needed, and ii. 1S33 an inline ise house was built in Mulberry street. This in 1836 was binned, it a loss of two hundred and '^^^'^^^^^^^''^i^i^M^S^. fifty thousand tiollars. Public collections were taken, jieldinj; ninety thousand dollars; some insurance was realized and soon the Concern was at work. At the di- vision of the Church, the Concern paid to the Southern Clurch two hundred and seventy thou sand dollars, to- gether with all its prop- erty, debts, accounts, etc., in the South, being in ratio of its number of travelini; preachers. The Church South then plant- ed its Concern at Nash- lAMES M. BUCKLEY. D. D., LL. D ... t^, ^ ■ Eaitor of the Christian Advocate. ville. The Coucerp wcnt on prospering and twenty years aftcrwa.ds, bought the iron building, 805 Broadway, •"or salesroom and general offices, still retaining the Mulberry street plant as a manufactory. To pay for the new building, which cost seven hundred and fifty tliousand dollars, bonds at par were issued, the last of which were in the year of 1886 redeemed and burned. In 1889, a vast edifice will be seen at the corner of Fifth avenue and Twentieth street. The six hundred borrowed dollars which, in the hands of John Dickins founded the Coficern in 1789, will at its centennial have heenme an inmate and own»'i MFTHODIST LITERATURE. 6; I there. It will have a home worth a iniiiiun ar.d a q- arter and a net capital of two million.s and a half, with annual sales of two piillions and a quarter and a profit of two hundred thousand dol- lars. It will be issuing four thousand five hundred books and tract publications, ai.d ilu: daily average of bound volumes will \n three thousantl. Of all book and tract issues there will be a mil- lion pages daily. Could John Dickins look down on all this, it woidd be with wond>,-r and delilug. Of ail periodicals the Concern now issues ninete-n, and be- sides these are r-lty-four pid)lishcd in the Church interest; in all METHODIM HOOK. CONCERN, NEW YORK. seventy-three. If to these we add the half million working capi- tal of the Church South with its valuable plant and its twenty-five periodicals, the publication houses of the other branches of Methodism in America, we have some three hundred periodicals and a publication capital of three millions, with all which that suggests of print, circulation, and reading. The e figures are im mense and " need explaining." The explanation is simple. Some of the Methodist preachers have the finest talent for affairs, and their calling has its secular and financial side on which they tind exercise and development. Their brethren see this, and thus 672 THE STORY OF METHODISM. M !i: some of the best business men living come to these agencies and their success proves tlieir gifts. Then, too, all traveling preachers are agents. In this way it has happened that only once has th« Concern suffered by frauds in management (a trifle, oi an over- seer in the bindery), and never by a defaulting agent. While so great a financial success, it has done vast good to the minds of nearly three generations. It has called into existence kindred associations, and nearly every Church has now its "Book Con- cern" under some form and name, giving religious liti^rature at low prices to its people and to the world. The origin of Sunday-schools and the opening of the first one in America at Crenshaw's in Virginia, have already been given. In 1790, Sunday-schools were recognizcil by the Con- fcrcnces. Directions for their formaticn were given, but there was no general or- ganization of them. Dr. Durbin prepared a Question Hook, and the first Library Hook and others followed. In 1827, a Sunday-school Union was organized,, and its starting was successful. At the first annual meeting, m ore t h a none thousand Publishing House of th2 M. E. Church South, Nashville. SChools and sixty thoUSand scholars were reported. For various causes the Union declined, but, in 1840, it was reconstructed. A.t its report, in 1845, the at- tendance of scholars was nearly one-Jiird of the number of com- municants in the Church In 1876, the scholars almost equaled- in number the Church members. The Year Book for 1B86 gives the members, one million seven hundred and eighty-seven thou- sand three hundred and thirty-nine, and the Sunday-school scholars, one million seven hundred and ninety-six thousand and thirty-four, showing a great change in forty years. The number of conversions during this last four years was two hundred and ninety-seven thousand eight hundred and three. The object of the Union is to collect mondy from the MKllKiDlsr l.llKRAIl RK. fv---) Chiirclu-s, and to aid weak schools, as well iis fo ])laiit schools in ilestitiilc places. I'Or this i)iiri){)sc it receives about fifteen thou- sand dollars per year. Closely connected with it is the Tract .So- ciety, which has usually about the same inconu-. Of .Sunda>--scho()l books there arc- one thoiis.-.nd three hun- dred and fourteen volumes. Of the 'I'cnclicrs .'/('/////^c/ one million copies; of the ('/nssinn/r two million copies, and <.f the Advocate over four million copies have been issued tlurin^^ the last four years. In treaiint; of the C'hurch South, as well as of some other branches, the Method- ist ICpiscopal Church beinfij in fact the j)arent stem, we will ^nv(.' some- thing of the styli" and success of these x'arious institutions as found amon^L; them. Under the vigor- ous leadership of |o!in II. V'incent, .Secretary of the Union since i (Sr)8, Institutes have been in- troduced. These are held in the Church dis- tricts once or twice a year for the training of the teachers in the best methods of teaching ,. . , ^ O. P. FITZGERALD, D. D. Scripture and of man- Kditor The Chiisti.m Advocate, M. E. Church .y!,.■•}:^^'■.l',.■^.•:^;■'/ \:'*i*J.-y_s.i^y:ir\iK^'\','l^-M^'''^-A.<- CIIAI'II.K I 111. MKI lloDlSM A.Mo.Ni; I 111-:, l-'kKKDMtiN. OTHINCr ill the ordinary strii^54lcs of the woricl has been so marked as one fea- ture at the close of the ci\il war, ill 1S65. The separa- tion of the combatants left helpless between them a mass of five millions of colored people, a fortieth part of the ne^^roes of the world. The t:joveriimeiit undertook the care and i,aiidaiice of its wards, but " How small of all that human hearts endure Is that which kings or laws can cause or cure ! " It was soon found that personal and or- ganized benevolence alone could do the work' needed by these unfortunates. Their ignorance and immorality were such that only the patience of Christian love could labor and wait for their reform. The Freedmen's Bureau was also in the eyes of southern whites a con- stant reminder of the recent struggle. It represented the party then controlling the government and was unwelcome to their eyes. Besides, the United States government is not patriarchal, 67^ THK STOkV (il MKTllomsM. and that any class of people should lean upon it foi* support is contrary to its theory of personal responsibility. Its doctrine of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is that citizens help themselves, or, in some way independent of the state, help each other. The most unhopeful element in our Indian manap^ement has been the dependence of the Indians on the government. As soon, therefore, as the immediate pressure was over the Freed- men's Bureau was discontinued and the relief of the colored people was thrown upon public benevolence, which meant — which always means — the benevolence of the Churches. As we have seen, the Methodist Episcopal Church, with the best desires to care for what seemed its natural inheritance, was heavily taxed to repair its own severe losses by the ^, war, and had few spare resources for the relief of the "Brother in Black." We have seen how the Church South heartily and honestly urged the formation of the colored Church, "de Chu'ch de white folks set up," and that this now contains the colored people who were under its care A MISSIONARY A CENTURY AGO IN; TRUCTINO , ^ , , , „ rj. , COLORED CHILDREN. " bcto de wa . 1 o-day there arc almost no colored people in the Church South. Bishop Keener says of his South Carolina Conference in 1885: "White membership, fifty-four thousand eight hundred and fifty-eight. Colored members, seventy-six, mostly sextons. Think of our Church in South Carolina as solidly white." At present there is not a colort^d congregation in the Church South served by a white preacher. Tlie Methodist Episcopal Church began on the whole wisely. It sent teachers first. The Freedmen's Aid Society was organized in 1866, and in October of that year seventy-five teachers were sent to op2n schools in various places. The southern whites did not all take the matter kindly. Some felt it like a new invasion and there METHODISM AMONG THE FREEDMEN. 679 Were instances of rude behavior. Gradually tlie \vori< was better understood and it has come to be welcomed. Well it mijjht be, for it has been a vast blessing to the South. There had been in some of the states no good school system even for the whites, and there were few good teachers to be had for colored schools. These had to be brought from the North. The colored children began to learn with great reeidines? Training schools were opened and young people of promise were taught the art of teaching and the work went on hopefully. In due time there was found to be need of still lower labor. The Woman's Home Missionary Society was formed to do at the South, chiefly, what the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society was doing abroad. Its devoted servants visited the lowest places in cities and towns, as well as in the rural districts, sought out the most degraded, relieved their wants, read to them the Bible and got the children and adults, too, into schools. These women had some hard times in their faithful labors, chiefly from the cruel scorn of the higher white families, but they kept on. They knew of W^hose cup they were drinking. In patience and long-suffering they worked on, and in due time the good results appeared. What need there was of all this effort will easily appear. There were in the South, at the close of the war, eighteen and a half millions of people, of whom six and a half millions were colored. Of these, eighty per cent, could not write and many of the whites were in as bad condition. Meanwhile, the M. E. Church was gaining rapidly in numbers. In 1884, it had in the South over four hundred thousand communicants, of whom three- fourths had been added since the war, and these were about equally divided between whites and colored. The M. E. Church could not undertake to educate all these, but it did its part. It began with primary schools in cabins and did what it could to help the ignorant masses. When the states began to recover from the evils of the war, they went to the task of establishing public school systems, guided by the experience of the North. It has now come to be the case that elementary instruction is as well provided in the southern states as in most of the northern. The illiteracy is chiefly of those beyond school age, and the young, between six and sixteen, are fairly taught. The task of 680 illK SIOKV Ol MKl IIODISM. ki the society ami of "tic ok- John Wesley Chu'ch" is now to pro- vide for hi^'her instruction. IIk- colored people are less inclined to mix with the whites in school, church and society than they were twenty years a^o. This is seen in the fact that the Confer- ences were then mixed. They have steadily tendeil towards separation until now they are entirely distinct. At first the color- line was entirely i<,Miored, and the man in black was accounted a full brother. Nature has asserted herself, and while as citizens the white and colored are ti)-(lay breaking up party lines and votin^j variously they socially are parting as gently as oil and water. This is not at the instance of the whites in cither Church or school. It seemed to be by the instinct of the blacks. The colored preach- ers were restless until they had Conferences of their own. The society has now to provide higher schools, training schools and pro- fessional schools, such as J the state ought not to be taxed to support, and which in most of our states benevolence in s o m e f o r m supplies. About forty such schools are now operated by the society in the South. These have been carefully located, places being sought where the largest number of people can be benefited, and where there is the surest local sympathy and support. At Atlanta, "the Chicago of the South," is the Clark Uni- versity, already equal to any institution of learning in the South, except the i.^.agnificent Vanderbilt University. It has at the edge of the city ^our hundred and fifty acres of land, rapidly rising in value. Its chief building is fitted to all the purposes of school and boarding. The students are trained in farming, blacksmith- ing and carpentry, and they themselves have built houses for the faculty, a Flomc where the girls learn all the arts of housekeeping and plain sewing. Thus what the negro most needs, training in labor, with right ideas of its fitness and dignity, and what the girls so greatly need, training in housewifery, plain cooking and GAMMON SCHOOL OF THROLOGV, CI,.\RK. UNIVERSITY. :^.. MKTIloDISM AMt)N(i HIK !• KKKDMK.V. 68 1 V to pro- i inclined ban they c Confer- l towards the color- counted a itizcns the uul voting md water, or school, cd preach- vn. :ty has nt)W icrschools, )ls and pro- ols, such as lit not to be pport, and ist of our ivolence in ,s u p p 1 i e s. ich schools lied by the [the South, where the ;here is the :iark Uni- Ithe South, It the edge |y rising in of school llacksmith- Ises for the lisekeeping gaining in what the loking and necdlc-work are ft> iiul on the premises. There is ample instruc- tion in all ihe branches of booU-learning. The Ganuuon School of Iheolog)' is upon the same premises, bearing the name of the giver of over twenty-five thousand dollars to build and endow it, being about half its entire cost. The Clartin University at Orangeburg, South Cr.rolina, has a similar outfit of farm, etc. Instruction of this kind combineil with manned labor elevates the negro. /\ mere getting of learn- ing tends to give him a peculiar reluctance toward manual labor and to unfit him for what he must surely do if he is to live antl thrive in Dixie, cr elsewhere. It is a relic of his olil condition that he so often counts exemption from labor a blessing. Indus- try and economy are to be the lights of his pathway to improve- ment. It is therefore- wise that the society in its schools keeps this constantly before him. In every state, from Baltimore to Marshall and Houston, there is a higher Institution. In Little Kock the.c is a Philander Smith College for the blacks (the same IMiilander Smith as at Tokio, Japan, and at Nankin, China), and there is a Little Rock Univer- sity for whites. Alabama has a school of moderate graile. In New Orleans is a University and at La Teche is the Baldwin Semi- nary. These are the only ones that compete directly with Roman Catholics. In all, the institutions for colored pupils are this \-ear twent\'- two, with an attendance of three thousand four hunilred and sixty-one. For whites there are eighteen, with an attendance of two thousand seven hundred and fift>'-eight. The expenditures for the year closed arc one hundred antl se\ent)-four thousand, seven hundred and fifty-two dollars. During its career the soci- ety has spent one and three-quarters of a million of dollars. There are now in the South fourteen Conferences, composed of colored preachers. No distinction of these is made in the Church reports and no color line is found in the Minutes. The colored members prefer to be by themselves and they are Methodists for all that. There are no colored Bishops. In the good time coming when separation shall have run its weary course, and there shall be but one Methodism in this laud, these enterprises will thrive with flush life and vigor. One can hardly foresee how two races, so distinct and yet so similar, are to I( :] m 682 THK >'n\i\ n| MK llloblsM. prosper on the sanu' grouiul, uiuUr tin; same political rights and privilct,'cs. This has never yet happened since the worid began. We must dismiss that to tlu- liistaiit future. I'here are no race troubles now. anti piet\' .uid rulture do not produce troubles. If this land is in the order of divine providence to show to the world the new si^ht of African and Caucasians living in peace, freedom and mutual re^rard, neither hUndinj^' nor hating nor fearing each other, it will do the world j.(ood servict;, STATUE OF JOHN WESLEY. ights and id began, e no race iblcs. If the world , freedom ring each . tl '^iis Miam i nS ' -■•w* il chai'H'.k 1. 1 v. Mil iiohmr ni;Ni';v(M,KN< Ks, rilONS foe its v;tii(Mis licitcsolciii (11 Icrpriscs I (.MM in tin lilt and various the he a( iVctl Ivant llO' belongs under the head of its benevo- lences. To plant an institution is the noblest form of individual benevolence, when it is done as told in the motto of Harvard, "/'/'<; Christo et Eccltsia," for Christ and the Church. The Church is the one thinjj that abides in the restless whirl of mortal change, and institutions of learning anchored to it and under the shadow of its Living Head, perpetuate the name of the founder and become the joy of many generations. The great universities of England and most of those, all the ancient ones, in Europe were so founded. Almost none of the seats of learning bear a founder's name. Better and truer if none did ! No one jierson can do such exploit alone. Of educational institutions the Methodist Episcopal Church has now one hundred and forty-three. Of these, theological schools are ten, colleges and universities are forty-five, classical seminaries are sixty-one, female colleges and seminaries are eight, and foreign mission schools are nineteen. Their entire property is fifteen millions. This last is imperfect, for, while one writes it, the University of Southern California gains a basis of two and one-half millions, and large additions in the year 1888 are making in other schools. Of the theological schools, the oldest is the Boston. In was first placed at Concord, New Hampshire, and opened as the Methodist General Biblical Institute. When the Boston University was built the removal was made in 1867. Since 1 871 it has been the Theological Department of Boston University, which is intended to comprise a complete system of affiliated colleges in all depart- ments of learning. There could not be a better location. Boston culture is proverbial, and the city, like Athens of old, is itself a school. Its pulpits and platforms set before the student examples of the highest sacred and secular eloquence. The libraries, the resources of art and music, the historic associations and the bracing breeze of the sounding sea, inspire the young mind and help to furnish the student in every gof)cl work. The needs of the city for such labor as aids in training the laborer are great. It is not quite a Christian city, but no Church is more faithful and thriving than the Methodist. The Garrett Biblical Institute at Evanston, Illinois, bears, unfortunate! \-, the fouiulcr's name. Mrs. Eliza Garrett, dying at f V I"' '"'(J 9 o w (d W ec bi METHODIST HENKVOLENXES. 695 O > (A 2 o Chicagc) in 1H55, left the means by which it was cstabhshcd. Its organizer was Jdhn Dempster, alread)' named in owv Story, whose father liad been one of our earhest preachiTs from ICn^land. It has done a ^'reat worU in training ministers for the western regions. Om- of its buildings is Heck Hall, Barbara's true monu- ment. About two tlunisand students have there received instruc- tion. The huge cit)' of Chicago is but twelve miles away, and its crude and mostl\' foreign-born population give the students ample apprenticeship in e\'angelical labor, l^vanston is a charming town by the bright blue Michigan, and so many tlecayed preachers have made it a resilience that it is called the I'ilgriin's Rest. The Drew Seminary, also named from a founder, is at .Madison, N.J. . . -. forty- five miles .^.^y^^T" • from N e w York. It has a noble place, not so much of im- posing archi- tecture as of parks and grounds, so that a student might s ;» y : •' This shall be my rest forever. Here will I dwell, for I have desired it." Its libraries .\nd appliances are choice and ample. Planted in the heart of metropolitan Methodism and served from the beginning by able men, it has, since its founding in 1866, done a work worthy of its resources, and already about one in thirty-six of Methodist preachers are its graduates. .Although so far from New York, many of its students find calls to labor in the city and its environs. Other theological schools are at Baltimore, Atlanta and in foreign missions. Of colleges the oldest is the Wesleyan University at Middle- *own, since Allegheny and Dickinson, though earlier built, did aot earlier come into the control of the Church. The University began its work in 1830, but was not a college until the OARKEIT HIliLICAI- INSTITUTE. I 696 THF. STORY OF MF.TICODISM. following year. It was happy in having for its first president Dr. Fisk, whose fame abroad was full)' justified by the happiness of those who were iinnu-diately under his shadow. The Univer- sity is beautiful for situation. Its buiklin^^s look upon the mir- ror of the Connecticut and its wide rani^e of wootled hills south and cast, while in front and around is the (|uiet town in fullness of foliage and of homes. The Universit>- has every modern improvement and fixture, and of all Methodist colleges docs most truly college work. Its namesake at Delaware, Ohio, was founded in 1842. Its WESLEYAN !» (vERSITY, MIDDLETOWN, CONN. f-owth was slow, as it might well be in a state that has forty colleges, but it has come to be foremost of them all. Its build- ings and fixtures are very extensive, and its attendance is nearly one thousand in the associated schools. No Methodist college has been so favored with continuous revival, the converts being sometimes hundreds in a year. The Northwestern University at Evanston was framed in 1850. The leader in the enterprise was a far-sighted man, John Evans, a physician of Chicago. His theory was that, if the school were endowed with lands in its (jwti neighborhood, its endowment must grow with the prosperity of the school. Four hundred acres of MFTimnisl RFNFVOI.FNTF.S. 607 low-priced farms were si-cured in oiu' bod), and on tliis l.iiul Fvvanstun was bc^'iin. VIk" schcnu* siicccctlctl. Ihc lowii Umk the schemer's name and jjrew to he the finest suburb of Clhicaj^o and a ^reat iducational center. To-day its work is larj^e and prijsperous, and a thousand can at any time be found in attend- ance on its scho(>ls. It is no part of our Story to give account of othrr than a few of these leadinj^j schools. The Boston Uni- versity shoulil be named, seeing it bravely takes the classic name of its town, and in its youth competes fear- lessly with the oldest and rich- est schools in the land. It has its home in the heart of the an- cient city where Methodism had so dreary and unhopeful an en- trance. Hishop Gilbert Haven put it to some rich Methodists of Boston in this simple way: " Plant your potatoes where you can see them grow!" The\- accepted it and built under their own eyes a university of which all Boston is glad and all Meth- odists proud and thankful. I""rom it, as from our Rock)* Moun- tain reservoirs, flow streams all the year tJ refresh and fertilize a wasting world. Syracuse University, the successor of the Genesee College, Lima, New York, founded in 1849, we must also note. CHARLES H. PAYNE, D. D., LI.. U. S«c'y of the Board of Kdiication, V I' II 698 THE STORY OF METHODISM. At a convention held in the city of Syracuse, February 23, 24, 1S70, in which all Mew York State Methodism was repre- sented, and of which Rev. Jesse T. Teck, \). D., was president, it was resolved to establish a University in Syracuse, under the .uispices of the Mc>tlunlist ICjiiscopal Church. Previous to the convention, one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars had been pledged for this purpose, the city added one hundred thou- sand dollars, anil a further subscription of one hundred and sixty t loasanu dollars was taken at the convention. The institution w as thus launched, with financial resources amounting to three hundred and eighty- five thousand dollars. .\ commanding site of fift)' acres was pur- chasetl, and work be- gun on the first great building — the Hall of Languages — in May, I S7 1 . The University opened its first term the following September in a rented hall, with five professors and forty- one students. Alexander VVin- chell.Ll.. D.,wasChan- RF.v. CHARLES N. SIMS, D. I)., i.L. D. ccllor from 18/2 to 1874, Erastus O. Haven, LL. D., 1875 to 1880, C. N. Sims, LL. D., 1881 till the present. The College of Medicine was opened in 1872, and the College of Fine Arts in 1873. From 1 88 1 to 1886 the property of the University increased half a million dollars, and the number of students rose to about 400. During the year 1886-87 the prosperity of the institution was unprecedented. In addition to many smaller gifts, it received fifty thousand dollars for the founding of the Joel Dorman Steele Professorship of Theistic Science ; the Holdcn Memo, ial Observ- atory completely furnished for use; the John Crouse Memorial METHODIST IJENEVOLEXCES. 699 Building, which will he called " A CajIIc^c for Women ; " and the Von Ranke Library, the gift of Dr. J. ?»!. Reid and wife, for which a new fire-proof library building will be cr cted this year. Cazenovia Seminary was opened December 11, 1824, and is the oldest existing Methodist Seminary as to its date of opening. The first building was the Midison County Court House, built in 1810, which in 1817 was sold to the Methodist Church, and six years later was transferred to the Conference for a Seminary. Nathaniel Porter, of Connecticut was the first principal. J. N. Clements, its present principal ha.s been con- nected with the institu- tion for fifteen years. During its sixty-four years about fifteen tho"- sand young men and women have been in at- tendance. Among them were Bishops Bowman, Andrews and Newman, of the M. K. Church and United Sta*^es Senators Joseph R. Hawley and Leland Stanford. More than three thousand of its attend- ants have been converted to God while there. No human arithmetic can t. o. summers, d. d. ll. d. estimate the intellectual and moral power of its large body of alumni. It was in 1858 that a party of miners, retur"'"«^ from Cali- fornia to the United States, by passes of Clear Creek, found silver near the foot of Gray's Peak. Tidings of this discovery aroused the adventurous, and man\- feet and faces turned towards Colo- rado, then called the "Pike's Peak country." Denver, near which the first gold was found, became the centre, anu later, the Car 'il of the region. It is about where the fortieth parallel crosses the meridian of Mountain time, on a rolling plain fifty-two hundred 700 THE STORY OF METHODISM. feet above the sea. Ten miles west of it begin the foothills, and for fift\- miles back of these rise the ever snowy peaks of the Rocky iMountains. The South Platte amply waters the city, and with other streams, irrigates a million of iertile acres around it. The pure air, the sparkling streams, and the magnificent environ- ment, makes Denver a city of delights, the healthiest in America. The resources of Colorado are immense, and its Capital, with 120,000 people, was last year increased by thirty-eight hundred buildings; and its growth shows signs of even further increase. Its seventy churches, its many and various institutions, and the rapid development of the State around it in- dicate that he-'^ i' true place for a seat of learning. At the heart of a wide and wealthy region, now filling with a people of intelli- gence, energy and pro- gress, no institution could have a fairer field or a promise more inviting. In the days of the war, Mr. Lincoln sent to Colorado, as Terri- REv. DAVID H. MOORE, D. D. torial Govcmor, Dr. John Evans, of Chicago. His energy and foresight had already appeared in his record as Mayor of Chicago, in its formative period, and in his founding the Northwestern University in the town that bears his name. He brought his fulness of sagacity and force to bear upon the welfare of Cclorado. In 1864 he effected the founding of the Colorado Seminary. This was the nucleus, and is still the legal designation of the Denver Univer- sity. For sixteen years this germ steadil)' fared on, doing such work as the shifting fortunes of the region demanded. In 1880 it was expanded into the outlines ^>f a university. Of this new MKTH<>l)lS'r liKNKVoI KMKs. ;6t cleparUirc ilic first liberal patron was John W . Haik-}-. Governor I'^ans i^avi; lar^cl}-, and free'} put into the etil'ort his labors and counsels. The Rev. David 11. Moore, D. D., of Cincinnati, a man o( honorable record in niilitar\', as well educational service, of threat energy, generous temper antl eti'ective eloquence, canu- to the head i)f the institution. The city estate of the uni\ersit\' is central and valuable. Besides its School of Liberal Arts, it has a School of Medicine, of Dentistry, of ISus: ess, of Music, of Art, and of Manual Irain- ing. In 1887. Jacob Haish. of De Kalb, Ills., generousl)' pro\ ided a statelv- edifice, the llaish Huilding, facing the uni\ersity, ami accommodating all the schools but that of the Liberal Arts. All these schools are well ecpiipped, well managed, and well attended. Universit)' Park is three miles south of Deiner. Here are five hundred acres of choice land, secured for the university town. 1 he site is of enchanting beaut}'. The Rock}- Mountains give a westward horizon of three hundred miles — beyonil Lory's l*cak to the north and beyond Pike's Peak to the south — the snow}- summits notching into the blue sk}- and glistening in the sun, while the foothills, the Platte valle}' and the city are in the wide foreground. The Atchison and Santa Fe railway at the centre, and the Texas and Gulf raihva}- at the northern edge, give rapid and convenient transit from the city ; and the South Denver Water Works supply abundant water. Here, at the expense of $50,000, Mr. H. H. Chamberlin is buikling, as a gift to the uni- versity, an observatory, of which the telescope ranks fifth in magnitude in the United States. On this park homes are now preparing. People in all parts of the land have purchased lots, and even foreign missionaries have here chosen homes for their families and recruiting stations for themselves. Here will be a true university town, with full appliances of learning and culture. The Rev. Bishop H. W. Warren, whose residence i^ in Den- ver, is an unwearied friend of the universit)', always devising antl executing measures for its welfare. Mrs. Warren is steadily its active and generous patron. She proposes, in due time, to found on an initial fund of $100,000, a School of Theolog}-. Other cit- izens, net Methodists alone, are looking towards the universit}' with growing confidence as an abiding, effective institution, the growth of vvhich should march with the prosperity of Denver, and 702 THK STOkV OF METHODISM. there is reason to hope well of their generosity. The ]uch were his peace and comfort that he says : " I am far more contented and cheerful than in the best days of my youth." His sky seemed always growing brighter and his horizon wider. After his death, Mrs. Hamline removed to Evans- ton, 111., where her home \<'as for years a center of religious society. Bishop Hamline gave to the Hamline University, between St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minn., twenty-five thousand dollars in real estate at Chicago, said to have greatly increased in i*iiW> MKTIIonr.ST HiSIfOPS. vaiuc since the date of if • ^?5 "K cnicMy sermons. ^"^- '«44 chcsen Bishop. ^^ '^-nc.uMUhl^ Socic-ty. he was in [hf ,a.st ever chosen ^ hy the vote of an in- 'lividi.a. Church For thirty-one years, a t^'rm Jonger than any "ther has yet sc ved '7 ^'d al, the duties' '^'^ a Bishop. He was "otta,, but of fu„ and f^^althy appearance. ^'f his sJender. flute- ''I^^' voice made upon .fhe hearer a peculiar "J'Pression. His share ••^ Episcopa, experi- ences was quite ^'•nous and complete Among these was this edm^ o storer „ ■' ■"M^ ^^ f hat. m 1 859, lioJdinrv , r r '' ''• ^- ^^^^^^ ^'-' -;te by an tZ ^ ^ T^ '■" ^^-as. he was driven from ^M f c^--- - '^-. ^1 ^;- a/^::.""^::^ "r- ii. Lhurch has never (nrt a m " ""-' who e, ^'"es. His clear judgment a„H ? "'°''' '■'^'^"■^'-- 'h--"' "ishon '"-""er on .he piatfo™ r tfo^te^r "7" ''''' "-•- ^^ '"• the social circle, he had th , fi u Conference, in the ptdpit 7o6 THE STURY UK MEIHODISM. congenial relij^ioiis society. This was some years before her m.'.rriage She proved worth)- to rank with the noblest ladies named in this Story, with those who aided WesUy in the begin- ning, Mrs. I'Metcher, I.ady .Vlaxwell, Lady Huntingdon. She died a month before her husband, and her last words were: "Out of the darkness into the light." The Hishop had already been suffering from slow disease and the loss of Mrs. Janes aggravated his malady or diminished his vital, resisting force. In about a THOMAS A. MORRIS. ELIJAH HEDDING. E. S. JANK.S, THE BOARD OF BISHOPS IN 1844. L. L. HAMLINE. B. WAUGH. month after her death he was prostrate and in a few days he rejoined her among the blest. His last quiet remark was : "I am not disappointed." In the same year his twin brother, who had "orved forty-three ye^irs in the ministry, also died; as a man, he was not unlike the liishop and hardly his inferior. The fifteenth Bishop was Levi Scott. He was born near Odessa, Del. His father, of Irish origin, died in the year after Levi's birth, solemnly commending his boy to God and dedica- ting the lad to sacred service. Young Levi grew up worldly and METiior)isT nisFinps. 707 wickfd in spite of his parents' prayers, but he worked hard to aid his mother in the care of tlie family, llis summers were {,'ivcn to farminfj and fishing; ; in winter he was at school. For music, and especially for the violin, ho had a passion and a skill which opened temptation enough before him in his youth, but soothed anil rested him in many a weary hour of later life. He was brought to f'hrist at twenty by the preaching of a I'resbyterian clergyman who used to stop at his mother's house, but his clear- ness of experience dates from a camp-meeting held soon after. He entered Conference in 1826. We have else- where seen how Dela- ware was a fertile field for Methodism and how its most cultivated people became mem- bers of the societies. This was true when Scott began to preach and it filled him with misgivings. He began a course of severe ;>tudy and his inborn abilities rapidly devel- oped. There were not then five college gradu- ates in the itinerancy, but there were many hard students, and of ^^"^^ scott. d.d. these none was more diligent than this one, now entering upon ministerial labor of more than half a century. After service of fourteen j/ears in the itinerancy, he became for three years principal of the grammar school of Dickinson College. In 1844, being member of General Conference, he opposed separation, and, though from a slave state, he took the northern view of matters then at issue. In 1848, he became book agent at New York, and in 1852 was made Bishop. In his first Episcopal year he went to Africa, and tf> the last, or until his strength gave way, he was in travel -.xnd labor as abundant as his colleagues. ■-:,''; !jk\aifih:Ajfifis.i J:' »ll|l^R'«!W!PlW«i*|'!:"»yi'' 708 THE STORY OF METHODISM. The impression that ho made upon the Conferences was peculiar. He had no <^ush or overflow of fecHng. His air was that of weakness and wcarine->s, but no man saw the import of a question more quickly, or presented it with greater clearness or vigor. It was surprising that with his look of exhaustion, in a crowded, perplexed and agitated assembly, he would flash a clea? convincing light over the matter in debate, and with a few words bring every ihing to order. He was meek of temper but he would not abuse his own judgment, and he was inflexible in his decisions. Of all the ;iisho[)s, lie was the man for a troublous sessioi",. He could ride on the whirlwind and direct the sttM'rii. "We Bishops do not claim infallibility," but he held himself alone answerable for his decisions, ^^t the Baltimore Conference of i86i, the secretary being in the chair, resolutions wt i\, passed condemning the slavery action of the General Conference of i860. On taking the chair the Bishop said: "This whole action passed, is in my judgment, in violation of the Order and Discipline of the Meth- odist Episcopal Church, and is therefore null and void, and I as Bishop do not recognize it as Conference action." This was entered over his name on the Journal. Those who recall those stormy times v/ill see that then to annul the action of such a body of men was the highest eflbrt of courage and conviction. Thus Bishop Scott, having neither genius nor brilliancy, honored his ofiice by the; liigher gifts of sound judgment, deep piety and clear ideas. He ceased from public labor in 1880 and two years later was gathered to his fathers. He had been fifty-six years in the ministry and thirty years a Bishop, Mrs. Scott was for fifty years an invalid. The last dayi5 of the Bishop were soothed by a daughter's care, and his son is a member of the Wilmington Conference, The sixteenth Bishop of the Church was Matthew ""-mpson. He was born, 181 1, at Cadiz, Ohio, His early advantages were fair and he was a diligent student. At first, having spent some time in teaching, he entered upon the practice of Medicine, He then felt his call to preach and entered the Pittsburg Conference. Some years later he became professor of Natural Science at Allegheny College, Pa., and in 1839 he was made president of Ascury (now De Pauw) University, Indiai.a, Here he served nine years, . nd after four years' editorship of the Westertt fiW MKTiiobisT iiisitors. ;o9 Christian Advocate, he was in 1852 chosen Bishop. He was a (Uligent Bishop and a successful author, but ht- will be most remembered as an orator. For )ears he was the orator of Meth- odism. Of Celtic lineaf^c, he inherited the Irish ^ift and turn for eloquence, but, m his youth, speakin- he united with the Church, and, in iH^o. being then twenty-four, he got from Peter Cart- wright his license to preach. He earl\ showed a sagacity, fearlessness and energ}' that made him the joy of the frontier, and. when Indiana became a Conference, he took the state for his range. In 1840, being member of the General Con- OSMOND CLEANDER BAKER, D. D. ference, he was made superintendent of Indian missions, as well as corresponding secretary of the Missionary Society. Within four years he traveled, between Texas and Eake Superior, moio than twenty-four thousand miles. He seemed to enjoy the Indians thoroughly, and they enjoyed him as well. He would be for weeks among them, camping in the wild, equally fearless and free with friendly or hostile tribes. He perfectly understood their character, and, learning to speak Choctaw, i served that tribe, in 1842, as chaplain of their council. He framed the school law of their nation, providing for education more amply ;^i2 tut sioRV OF MKTHOIMS.Vt. than any law found in tliis country. His acquaintance with Indian character and ills power to manage them were valued in national aftairs, and he was often consulted and urged to take office. He became Bishop in 1852, and, being from the same state and Conference as Bishop Simpson, his election was the more complimentary, as it is the only instance of the taking of two Bishops from the same state or Conference at the same time. His power over men and his skill in affairs was such that, had he taken a political career, he would have gone to the highest place. His bearing had tender- ness, courage and authority ; he could listen patiently and explain, but his word was final. One could see in a Conference how he gained the love, reverence and obedience of the Indians. In the days of the war, while Bishop Simpson was stirring the hearts of the peo- ple. Bishop Ames was closeted with Lincoln and Stanton in counsel KDWAKD RAYMOND AJVlEb, D. 1)., LL. D. ^^^ oftCU in praVCr His knowledge of the Southwest served them well. He was never disheartened. When men doubted whether Chicago would be rebuilt, he relieved the case by saying: "The railroads could afford to build it," and men saw at a glance the truth of his word. He died in Baltimore, in April, 1879. "Know ye not that a prince and a great man is this day fallen in Israel?" Our next Bishop, the nineteenth in order,, was Davi.i Wasgatt Clark. His birthplace was Mount Desert, off the coast of Maine, that island so bleak in winter and so fair in '.ummer. Here he was born in 1812, and, like most lads of the NiKiiioDisr liisitols. 71 coast, he had before him Hfe's ideal in the captaincy of a vessel or in wealth boldly drawn from the abundance of the stcjrmy seas. His views of duty changed with his conversion, and he thougiit of becoming a fisher of men. At nineteen, he went to a manual labor school, and thence he began " to climb the hill of science barefoot." His health and vigor seemed as inexhaustible as his native Atlantic. He prepared for college by twelve hours of daily study, besides three of hard labor with his hands. In 1833, he went to the VVesleyan University, and finished in two \ears the proper study of four, a feat impossible now. It should have been impossible then, but that was in times of looser requirements. He was overdrawing life's resources and, though his drafts were honored, he found himself without de- posits when they would have best served him — twenty >ears later. In 1846 he entered the pastorate, and did ser- vice mostly in New York city. His fiery abolitionism and the L lazing of his bright blonde hair made him a shining mark in those restless times. Ik- was, in 1 85 I, made Doctor of Divinity by the University from which he graduated, being the first of her sons so honored by her hand. He became, in 1852, editor of the Ladies Rcf>ository -aX. Cincinnati. That periodical has long since vanished from the earth "for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof," but it is remembered at least by its strange bisho{)-making power. Bishops Hamline, Clark and Wiley sprang from it into the Episcopacy. He (Clark) became Bishop in 1862. We shall see that, of the three then elected, he alone served sex'en jears, DAVI-i WASGA'rr CLARK, D. D. 1H THE STORY OF METIlOt)lSM. the others only five each. He was, when chosen, already a worn- out man. He set at the duties of his new office with his habitual energy, his most noted labors being in the Southwest and South after the war. The University at Atlanta bears his name. So intense was his interest in the southern work that he seemed to bequeath it to his family, and Mrs. Clark and hi?; daughter, Mrs. Dr. Davis, of Cincinnati, became prominent in its promotion. His final breakdown was at Peekskill, 1871, but he was taken home antl died among his kindred at Cincinnati. "He should have died hereafter," but, measured by its intensit}-, his life was fairly long. " Since Jesus hath lain there, I dread not its gloom," was his last word of the grave. Like many other Bishops he left a fair estate, not that the office of Bishop is "a good thing," but that keen sight and econ- omy, with toil and energy, may lawfully secure some share of the life that now is, as well as of that which is to come. EDWARD THOMSON, D. D.. LL. D. Edward Thon..on was the Bishop next in order of election, the twentieth to come into the sacred office. His birthplace was Portsea. England. From his family, one hundred years before, had come James Thomson, the Poet of the Seasons, and, in 18 10, was born a kinsman quite equal to the well-known, second grade author. When he was eight, his family came to Ohio. Plato used to call young Aristotle the iions, the intellect of his school. It was true of young Thomson that, wherever he might be, he was the brain of the place. At nineteen, he had a medical diploma from the University of Pennsylvania, and began the practice of his ^:/'y^:^':f.-' ^ METHOD! ST lUSllOl'S. 715 profession. At his conversion, a year later, he entered the M. E. Church, thouj^h from a liaptist family. He filled several promi- nent places, and had charj^e of Norwalk Seminary for two years; was also (.-ditor of the aforesaid LacUfs Kcpository. In 1846, he l)ecame president of the Ohio Wesley .m University, where he served fourteen years. No president of a college in our (Church has ever so deeply impressetl a school and community as he has done. So perfect was his acquaintance with the studies of every department that he could enter any recitation and lood the exercise with instant light anil energy. He adopted the Sunday afternoon lectures, and, as it was at an hour outside of the usual Church services, the University chapel was always crowded. No mastery of the JMiglish language more nearly perfect than his can be found in our century, and his prayer " fl(nved from lips wet with Castalian dew." The young Methodism of the West learned of him (and felt the lesson) that noise and fury are no part of eloquence, and that the Wesleyan rule of elocution is good in every land. The students of Williams College were fond of calling their president, Mark H(j[)kins, "Mark, the perfect man." The students of Ohio Wesleyan University said as much without play of words concerning President Thomson, and his name is dear anil sacred with many thousands. In i860, he was chosen editor of the N. Y. Christian Advo- catc. The period was a trying one, the passions roused by the war were increased V various opinions within the Church, and competition among Church journals was vexing, but he quietly did his best. At the next general Conference he was made Bishop. He had a record as a preacher. At his first open-air sermon sixty-five had sought religion- and forty-si.x united with the Church. Wherever he went men heard him gladly. As Punshon said, he was the Chrysostom, the golden-mouthed, of preachers. He visited India and gave, in two volumes, an account of the land ; he also published " Kssays and Evidences of Christianity." Four years in the Episcopacy did not allow him to make much impression as Bishop, but he gained in his office the confidence of his brethren. He died of pneumonia at Wheeling, West Virginia, in 1870. The twenty-first Bishop was Calvin Kingsley, born, in ^TW!Wpf^W!"*W?^^!3Wr 716 THK SToKV oK MKTIIohlS.Nf. 1812, at -fVnnsvillc, New Vovk. " In sut)th, my friends, a sturdy lad was he ! " At fourteen, he drove an ox team for six weeks westward, and then the family were not far from Chautauqua, settling in the forest primeval, under nuirnuiriuL^ pine trees and hemlocks. There he heard a Methodist preacher, and, becoming converted, his prayers at home were blessed to the conversion of his parents. Feeling the ministerial call, he determined to have an education hrst. He made the forest help him, yielding him skins and venison and maple sugar, and "how bowed the woods beneath his sturdy stroke!" Me made liis way to i\lleghen>- College, and cut his way through with his axe. Such a man was most wanted where he was best known, and he was kept at the college from 1 84 1 to 1856. His life was prodig- iously active. His bodily strength was great, and whatever he touched must move. In debate against the heresies and delusions of the period, he re- joiced as a mighty man and his fame traveled far. lu 1856, he was made editor of the Western Christian Advocate. At the General Conference oi i860, he was chairman of the committee on slavery and was regarded as the leader of the anti-slavery sentiment. His able conduct of the subject drew upon him general admiration and he was, in 1864, chosen Bishop. In his new office, he moved with his habitual energy. At a session of his old Conference (Erie), at Warren, Ohio, in 1866, a fire broke out at midnight on the premises of his host, and the Bishop was instantly foremost of all the active and muscular men, and bv word and deed was mastei CALVIN KINGSLEV, D. D. METHODIST BISHOPS. ;i; of the situation, snvin^r the house that «^avc him a homo. In 1869, after uu J'^piscopal tour around the world and great exertions in the heats of India and Ceylon, he was on his home- ward way by the Holy Land. iVt lieyroot, with Dr. I^annister, of Evanston, he rose up early to get a view of that goodly mountain, Lebanon, then still white with its wintry snows. Coming down from the housetop, he fell and died. It v/as found that organic disorder of the heart, the result of some hard strain in othei years, had resulted in this sudd(Mi taking-off. His tomb is in Heyroot, and over it has been reared, by the order of the General Conference, a monument to mark our Methodist interests in western India. "The ruddy beam of morning tinges Only his sad funereal stone, And evening throws its crimson fringes But on his slumljer cold and lone." But to him the Master had but to say, "Well done!" Ho went up from a region of old, well represented in the heavens. Thomas Bowman follows Kingsley as twenty-second Bishop, He was of that ancient Methodist stock which we have in another place noted as appearing when Methodist preachers first entered central Pennsylvania. He is the grandson of the Bowman there named, born at Berwick in 1817. In 1832, he was a student at Cazenovia, N. Y., a bright, clean boy, not only loved by every- body, but impressing all with the idea that he was to act no ordinary part in the affairs of his generation. He was set up, a beardless orator to make a Fourth of July address, and, forty years after, old citizens stoutl)^ aflfirmed that it had not yet been '^quailed ! He was then associated with his brother, who has since achieved a legal and a military career. While at school the future Bishop was converted, and four years later, graduating at the head of his class at Dickinson College, and still not fixed in his calling, he gave a year to the study of the law. In 1838 he began to preach, and, after ten years, he organized the Seminary at Williamsport, Pa. Having conducted this for ten years, ht became president of the Asbury (De Pauw) University. For two years he was chaplain of the U. S. Senate, retaining his presi- dency of the University. In 1872, he was chosen Bishop, and, though now but fourteen years in service, he is the senior Bishop 718 THE STORY OF METHODISM. "The fathers, where arc they? And the prophets, do they live forever?" He is the most sunshiny of men, and, so simple and attractive is his manner, that, of all the Bishops, he is the favorite of the Sunday-schools and is often called " Th'i Children's Bishop." He has entertained and instructed them all around the world. At his turn of encircling the earth, as he came up the Red Sea, he found himself suddenly unable to mention his wife in pri- vate prayer. " She is dead !" was his instant conviction, and there he left it. At his conference in Italy, soon after, a letter, his first for a long time from home, was handed him in time of ses- sion. "That is it!" he thought, and sure enough the letter told him of her death, at St. Louis, in the very hour of his strange thought upon the Red Sea! From that blow he has never rallied — i. e., Ins friends mark his loss of buoyancy and cheer, for she had been to him as Mrs. Gl'idstone, as any true and gifted wife, is to her hus- band. Still he does, even in a cool and broken spirit, his work to the blessing and welfare of the Church. The twenty-third Bishop of the M. E. Church is William L. Harris. His birth was in 1817, at Mansfield, Ohio. In early life his attention was not given to getting an education, but in the free air of a farm he secured a vigor of body that has served him Well. At seventeen, he was converted, and began to seek intel- lectual training and fitness for the calling that came home to his conscience. He entered Norwalk Seminary, and was there able BISHOP THOMAS BOWMAN, D. D., LL. D. METHODIST BISHOPS. 719 rk his ancy she lifted hus- docs, r and iam L. ly life in the d him intel- to his e able to secure a good elementary education and a fair beginning in higher studies. After beginning, in 1836, to preach, he prose- cuted his studies with an industry worthy of a disciple of Wesley. On his circuits, he studied by the blaze of pine knots in cabins of settlers, and in the saddle as he rode to his appointments on his far-stretching circuit. He became, for two years, a tutor in the Ohio VVesleyan University, thus gaining a larger opportunity to perfect himself in his higher studies. In 1848, he took charge of the Baldwin Institute (now University), at Berea, Ohio. This institution took its name from the gen- erous, eccentric man, who had found a for- ttme in the grindstone quarries of Berea, and who, among other mu- nificent acts, founded the institution for col- ored students, which now bears his name, at La Teche, La. His service here was for three years, and then he resumed teaching at the Ohio VVesleyan University. Mean- while, he had been in General Conference, and, in 1856, was made william 1.. harkis, d.d., ll.d. its secretary. So fully was he endowed with secretarial gifts of quickness, accuracy and order, that he was re-elected, without op- position, at every session until 1872, a term of service quite with- out precedent. In i860, he was chosen assistant corresponding missionary secretary, to aid the now venerable Dr. Durbin, and to this office he was reelected until 1872. He was then chosen Bishop, and entered upon the highest position in the gift of the Church. His long experience as missionary secretarx* and as secre- tary of the General Conference gave him instant fitness for a line pf work to which none of his colleagues was so well prepared. :o THE STORY OF MinUODISM. He is often called "The Missionary liishop." The qualities th«t made him a ^ood secrelai')' make him also an excellent presiding officer. He was never snarled, and business under his hand was clearly and rapidly dispatched. He died of heart disease, September 2, 1 887, aged nearly seventy years, at his home in New York City. Randolph S. Foster is the twenty-fourth Bishop of the Cinirch. He was born, in 1 820, at Williamsburgh, Ohio. His early studies were prosecuted at Augusta College, Kentucky, but his mind developed rapidly, and at seven- teen he was alretdy in the ministry. It was his happiness to begin thr Christian life so early as scarcely to feel the change, though this was real and abid- ing. At eleven hr. was quite furnished in the experiences of grace, and, though his ser- vice in the ministry began at an age so unusual, he was no novice in the princi- ciples of religion or of the art of discourse. His youthful turn was to literature and metaphysics, and his specialty has for his whole life been in this direction. In depth of theological study, he has been the most eminent of our Bishops, and he may be called among them as St. John was called among the apostles, the divine, the theologian. Such a man went, as a matter of course, to the front rank of service. After being in prominent places in Ohio, he went to Cincinnati, where, in 1849, he put out his first book, " Objections to Calvinism," in reply to some attacks upon the doctrines of Methodism. Being then called to New York, he published " Christian Purity." Such intellectual power as he was RANDOLPH S. KOSTKK, D. D., LL. D. Mr.TitonisT Hisiiops. 7n now manifesting was in tUinand in many directions, and he be- came president of the Northwestern L'niversity at Hvanston. At that Athens of Methodism he spent several years, and then re- sumed the pastorate in New \'ork', (ilhii^; the foremost stations and makinj,' himself felt in all. in 185S, he became professor of Systematic Iheolo^^y, at the Drew Seminary. On the death of Dr. McClintock, in 1S7P, Dr. poster was made president of the seminar)-. In 1S72, he was chosen Bishop, and entered upon the ever-shiftin. D mg of diflicult and pro- i^uvav- ^^i^^.^.u found subjects. His home is at Boston, and the progress of tha Church there planted by Jesse Lee has been well promoted by his successor. The twenty-fifth Bishop was Isaac William Wiley. He was born at Lcwiston, Pa., in 1825. He professed religion at ten, yet, like the twenty-fourth Bishop, such had been his habit 01 prayer that he hardly felt the change. He was soon in prepara- tion for college, but at eighteen, being then a local preacher, he left school to labor in a revival then extending through that part of Pennsylvania. At the close of the revival, his voice seemed 46 722 'I 111; Sl'dRV ()!• MKIIIoDlSiNf. ruined, and he, (ov that reason, took a medical course at New York. Ill 1S46, he married ami entered practice in western Fenns\'lvania. He was still troubled about preaching;; yet there was in the Conference no room for married men. ile resolved to j;o to a new place, and be a physician and nothing else; but, strangely enough, his repute as a preacher arrived at the new place, Port Carbon, as soon as himself. His medical success was most grD'ifying; his preaching was in growing demand, and at last both were reconciled in his appointment as medical mission- ary to China. After giving a year to special medical study, he sailed, in the spring of 1S51, to I''oochow. His initiation was severe. The health of Mrs. X'^'iley and himself was wretched, and the Taiping rebellion was in full rage, wasting the country with lire and sword and threatening I'^oochow, where no missionaries but the VV'ileys remained. For a week they were kept in the upper story of their house, a cyclone having flooded the city. The year (1853) was dreadful with every evil known to mankind, and, in November. Mrs. Wiley died amid its horrors. He came home with his t\\o motherless children. He then entered the pastorate, and afterwards he managed the Pennington Seminary. In 1864, he became editor of tlie Ladies' Rcpoxiforv, and continued in that post until 1872, when he was chc^sen Bishop. The leading feature in this character was fortitude. Few men have had so many sorrows iis he in his own house. In Chiuii, the horrors around him were unspeakable, and, after his return, he, in our own war, wtMit to the aid of the suffering, and was for years in work for the freedmen. He was always the center of misery, and 'f a'ly man, like the Italian poet, ever "saw hell," Bishop Wiley was the man. Yet he was always quiet, self- centered and unsnaken. When the Chinese storms were raging, he gentl}' v/on his first convert, a little boy. by telling the lad Bible btories and softly leading him to the truth, as it is in Jesus. No maii gloomy with fear and sorrow could have done that. After twelve years of the usual restless round of episcopal duty, he made his last visit to China and there died, as was told in our " Methodisr.. in China." Stephen M. Merrill was, in 1872, made the twenty-sixth in the order of Methodist Episcopal Bishops. He had not behind him so varied and eminent a history as some othei Bishops could Mil IhiDlsT lilsUol'S. 7n sliow. I lis bri^llmn chose him lor what hi- was at ihi- time proviii).', himsilft*. I)(J and lor what ihcy were conCulent he would be ahh' to do hereafter, lie was born, in 1H25, at Mt. I'le-asant, Ohio. His earl) etliieation was not colle^Mate. In 1 H42 he came into ihi; Cluirch, and in 1 S40 lu: be^^an his career as a preacher. Ik had a ^reat native enerj^)- of mind and his early lack of f)p- j)ortnnity was now remedied by intense application to a wide ran^c; of stud)'. His clear and comprehensive attainments have been recognized by institutions of learning, and he has to com- plain of no lack of university honors, lb fu'st became a membei of General Conference in I SOS, and he went immediately to the front of the body as a clear, fearless and skill- ful debater. In that year he was chosen editor of the Wi'sfcni ( liriatian Advocate. The office of c:ditor has [)rec(;ded that of liishop in so many instances that it seems to show some direct relation with it. Only si.x liishops have been taken from the pastor- ate, while at least nine have come from editorship. The pastorate, unless its incumbent be otheiwise conspicuous, rarely makes him so. The editor or general officer becomes widely known. He gives to the public only his best attitudes and his most careful thoughts, and thus makes his best impression. He is also well situated for gaining broad views of the (!^hurch's interest and an appreciation of the ideas prevailing in it and of the men :-ierving it. Bishop Merrill's course as editor wa.s final proof of his character and ability, and when, in 1872. men were wanted for Bishops, whose eye was not dim or their natural force abated, STEPHEN M. MRKRILL, D. D. ?H THli STORY OF METlioni.S\t. before whom lay probable j'oars of effective service, he was chosen one of ihcin. I'oi imw fourteen years he has fuUiiled the expectation of the Cinirch. While he has taken his share of the duty "to travel at larj;e ihrouj^hout the work," his residence has usuall)- bi'i-ii at Chicaj^o. I'he C'hurch interests centering there are very [i[real. The city is a wicked one, but not more so than any great city where evils, foreign and domestic, are in the majority. In mery direction, Christianity is at work, and Methodism does its share. There are about forty M. K, Churches, with many missions. These, u ith E V a n s t o n and its schools, and the vast, rich country surround- ing, make the active Bishop care and labor at home. The Bishop next in order of election, the twenty-seventh, is lulward Gayer An- drews. He came of a good lineage. The family of his mother, who is (1886) in the calm rest of an hon- ored old age, was of the Friends, and still EDWARD G. ANDREWS, V. D., LL. D* remembered in central New York for their integrity and ability. His uncle has been Chief-justice of Michigan, and his brother has long been a Judge of the Court of Appeals in New York. His father, a cotton manufacturer of Utica and Troy, was one of the noblest laymeii, devout and generous, taking the lowliest duties and the heaviest burdens. Th»^ future Bishop was one of five sons, whose sisters were as many, was born near Utica in 1825. He was me-nber of the Church at ten. He prepared for college at Cazenov.a. Full of animal spirits and bodily vigor, he found a congenial friend in General Ha.vlev, now U. S. Senator from Connecticut, and he MKTH()l,:sl' lusnoi's. 7^5 left with all the imprissioii of a joyous, active, blameless bo)-. the life of his circle. In 1S47 he graduated at llu: VVesleyaii University. There he had been under Dr. Olin, and in the societ)' of Gilbert Haven and a score like him, whose young efforts and ardors were fitting themselves and each other for place and power among men. iVndrews was already a preacher, and, after graduation, he began at tlu; bottom of the service, under a Piesiding Ivlder, in Central New York, In 1854 he became a teacher at Lazenovia and, in 1H56, principal. He was member of Gener.il Conference in 1864, and at that time was transferred to the New York I'Last Conference. His character now rapidly unfolded, and all the efforts of his previous life seemed but as studies preparatory to the brilliant career that now opened before him in the pastorate. His services were called for in the most important charges, and each year found him stronger in himself and in the sentiment of his people. In a Conference crowded with talent he was agai'^ sent to (jeneral Conference, and was for t)ver thirty years the only man chosen from the pastorate into the ICpiscopac). The true honor of the pastoral office seemed to be restored in him, and his following career has amply justified the expectation with which he was elected. Like his brethren in the Board of Bishops, he has traveled the round world, seeing the cities of many men and learning their minds. His residenr : has for some years been at Washington. The rapid growth of the national capital, and the southward spread of the M. 1'^ Church, made such residence desi ible. Abundant as lie is in labors, his hereditary \ is^or is equal to their doing, and his cheer of heart is unfailing. Gilbert H. /en was, in 1872, elected as the twenty-eighth of the Bishops. J c was the most intense man of his generation. What has been said of the family of Bishop Andirnvs might now be said again. Bishop (the simple "Gilbert," and even the shorter "Gil," not frcm lack of reverence, but from fullness of fellowship, has been his title among his contemporaries) Haven's father was a strong business man of Boston, and his mother a woman of great energy within her house and Church. After some business expe- rience, he entered Wilbraham, and graduated, in 1846, at the Wesleyan University. No man in his college was so active in general affairs or of so wide miscellaneous reailing, yet he took .■r\L:.X ^pp IffMpiF i 2(} rill". MOKV Ol' MKllloDISM. the third honor in a lariji- ;uul able class. Such was his inl(Misily of niiiul that hi' was (il)li^r(l to do nothing; but once, ll slayixl and lu" could rocall it at will to his strvicc. After teachi.i}^ five years .m\ serving as pastor for ten, durinj^ which his pen was in- cessanti)' active, he was tin- first chaplain commissioned lor the war, entering; with tlu- I'j^hth Massachusetts, under deneral ijut- h-r. lie w.is so proud of his rej^inient ! Jie insisleil, too, that one of its privates madi- the i;re.it war-son^, "John Ihovvn's l}t)d}-." Ilexisited i'.urope, and ^avc his travels in "The Pii- i^rim's W^i 1 1 1' t." b\ i.Sr)0, he became cdior of /ions llcnild, ;>ihI that j^oodl)' slu;et shot to the front in the handling' of the stirring (piesliuns of the hour, II is place was always ai the front, as his reg- iment, in iusand years in heaven ;uul rest it," saiil h»,', in a time of longing and exhaustion. Becoming Hish»)p, he took the black man for his charge, and gave him all his heart and time. He took the perils of a season in Liberia, from which he never fully recovered. He made his home at Atlanta, and, on flying wing, he penetrated every place where Christian work was able to enter. He had a passit)n for laiul, and the noble property of Clark Uni- versity is of his securing. The whites of the South counted him hostile and dangerous but they have come u see that he was their MtmuiJlhT JUSllUl'S. 7-7 ing, he I enter, •k Uni- L'd him s their mtensc, far-si^rhtcd friend. In the end of 1879, a medical man at Cincinnati pronounced him suddenly worn-out, and he hastened to his family home, Maiden, Mass., to die. Crowds of friends came, and his last days were a continuous levee. He died in t,dori()US peace, January 3, i«8o. His son is a Boston preacher. His son-in-law is Dean of Gammon ScIk.-oI ofThcolo^^^y at Atlanta. Jesse Truesdell I'eek, the twenty-ninth Bishop of tin- M. E. Church, was of a family ancient for this country, hoth liis ^^rand- fathers bein^^ soldiers of the Revolution, a pedif,'ree about as ^r„(,cl as the hundred earls of the Lady Vere dc Vcre. He was one of six ^if^antic brothers, of whom the eldest was n local preacher and the others itinerant, iliere were five daugh- ters in the well-filled house, and the line is now multitudinous. Jesse was trained a blacksmith, and, on the fine old military days of central New York, his ear-piercing fife sent far its soul- animating strains. At about nineteen, he left his sounding anvil and J^^^e truesdell peck. d. d.. ll. came to school at Cazcnovia. His excess of vigor sufficed him in paying his way as a janitor. His first sermon was at a school- house not far away, and, when his comrades " said nothing about it," his heart broke out in tears lest he might never be a preacher. His youthful bashfulness would hardly be believed by those who knew his fearless confidence in himself and his calling in later years. He did not graduate, but so close was his habit of study that he was early called to the educational work, and was for some years president of Dickinson College. In 1844, he was prominent among those taking part in the 728 THE STORY OF METHODISM. I debates that led to tin- si-|)aiati()n ol tlu- Cluirc h. His years of greatest service wore probably those spent in California. Going to San l'>ancisco, in 1839. he was there in the days of the war. All public (|iiestions he discussed in his pulpit, at the street corners .\\u\ in popular assi-inblies, ,v\\i\ his inlluence on popular opinion became \er>- j^real. The highest political ofhci-s were tenderi'd him. He was presitlent of the State Bible Society, and labored to build and perfect the University of the Pacific. In 1866, he returned and devoted hitnself in like manner to the in- terests of Syracuse IJniversit)'. He was chosiMi Bishop in 1872. In \iew of his bi'in^'' the one most recenth' elicted, Bishop Ames, who di-irl)' loved a pleasant word, intro- chued him at a recep- tion as " t h e b a b <^ .1 m o n I,; the Bishops, with whose a r 1 1 e s s piallle you will now be entertained." Seeing that Bishop Beck was the oldest man ever chosen to the office, and was in stature almost double any of his colleagues, the pleasantrx* was overwhelming. A true and faithful servant of the Church was Bishop Feck. He spent weeks in the territory of the Conferences that he was to hold, and thus gaineti personal knowl- edge of men and places. Years of debility came on, against which he struggled hard, but. after eleven \ears of Episcopal service, he died at .S>'racuse in 1883. The thirtieth in this goodly list is Henrj' White Warren. He is from the Massachusetts line, and well represents the ancient character. His birth was at Williamsburgh, in 1831. Muscular force and mental encrg)- W(.M'e his born endowments. His early mi: mn^ ;; ;i^ vVv.,:;'; :.M ^ffiHr^*Dn| ^'X -'.'Jl ^|HL_'^flH| bt?> ^, '' ' ^ III'VIIk^^I Mkh. . % i "TcStts ^^^^IbkI^'''^ I 'i'^»H^^^H H9^''1l ^^^^^^^f^^^' ^^rm ^'t^^l^H^ HPPI ^H BHP^' J ^^^^^^K^M Hr M ^^^^^^^^^^^B^^ , ! , '^' }■ '■ ^^^^^^^^^1 ^^^^H i 1 H HENRY WHITE WARKKN, D. D., LL. D. t METHODIST nisiiops. 729 He Indent Iscular early days were days of hard labor, and what he gained was fairly won by indomitabk- strii};^,din^'. His record at VVilbraliani was that of thousands at tht; sanu- placi-, wh.osi: parents, " pdor, but respect- able," could {,nve their chiltlren little but their exami)le and their blessing;. There is a brother, two years y«Hin{,'er, now (1888) president of Boston University, wIk^sc cast differs much from that of the Bishop, but whose intense /.eal for learning', and whose early and conspicuous success in attainin^f it, must have served the elder one as an inspiration. After ^^raduation at the VVesleyan University, in 1853, this elder brother entered upon teaching, but in two years began the pastc^ral work, never to leave it. He was marked as a star, rising to be of the first magnitude. l''or this, nature had endowed him with a full wealth of piiysical and intel- lectual gifts. He is above the ordinary stature, strong and grace- ful, and ileveloped b>' abuiulant nianl\- exercise. His voice is firm, silver)' and flexible. The art of am|)lif)'ing a topic without diminishing its force he earl) mastered, and his j)reaching touched the entire; range of his congregation. His j)ersonal bearing gave instant " assurance of a man." He was soon sought to occup)' the foremost pulpits, and was, in matter of appointment, above any perplexity except that of deciding upon his own choice. As early as 1864, when eloquent tongues were rife, he, being member of the Lower House, was chosen bv the Senate of his native .State to preach its annual sermon. He was twice pastor at Arch .Street, IMiiladelphia, and was, when made liishop, pastor at Spring (iarden in that cit)'. I'here are no appointments of higher grade. Astronomy is his favorite intellectual recreation. His lectures have been very popidar, and his " Recreations," a Chautauqua text-book, found in 1886 a demand of twenty thousand copies. In physical exploit, mountain climbing is his specialty, and for this his strength, steadiness and endurance fit him well. He has mastered the Matterhorn and Monte Rosa, and is quite at home in the Alps. In 1880 he was chosen Bishop directly from the pastorate. His first t)fi[icial residence was Atlanta. Since 1884 he has chosen his home, where he is rarely found, but felt wiiether found or not, under the bright sky of Denver, Colorado. The Bishop next in succession, not traceable from the apos- tles by ecclesiastical lineage, but a follower of Wesley and thirty- first in superintendency from him, is Cyrus David Foss. His T— - 7h^ THK STORV OK MKTHODISM. father was a preacher in tlic New York Conference, and dying left four sons, one dyiii^ shortly after his father at eij^hteen years, to the care and guidance of their noble nu)ther. She could feel the pride of that Cireek mother whose sons, after winning each the highest of the athletic prizes at the games, drew her in a chariot to make an offering at Juno's temple. Kach of her three sons was, at the VVesleyan University, the valedictorian of his class, thus bearing home to her its highest honors. Of the three, Cyrus alone was to have a long career, so as to fulfill the expecta- tiot\ 3o justly raised. He was born in 1834, at Kingston, N. Y., and graduated in 1854. h'or three years he taught in the Amcnia Seminary. In 1857 he began the pastoral work at Chester. His noble personal ap- pearance was for him always a favorable in- troduction ; he was such as would be "cheered before he had said a word." His utterance was full and clear, and his discour- ses, often impassioned, CYRUS D. FOSS. D. D.. LL. D. ^^^^^ ^^^^^^ ;„ ^^.^^^,^ and rich in feeling, appreciable by the weak and weary. He filled in succession the most prominent places in New York, and was honored with his full share of attention from the public. His highest of compliments was a call, in 1875, to the presidency of the University from which he graduated. The ancient institution had a long list to choose from, and the unanimity and gladness with which he was selected proved his standing where of all places he was best known. Under his guidance, the University pros- pered, and his ways and words made a deep and lasting impression on all his students. After he had left the presidency, MKllIoliIsr BISIIOI'S. 7.^' \\r was rccallc-(l, in iSSi, to hr tin- orator at the scmi-ccntcnnial ol the Univcrsit}-. Alter hriii^ iminbrr of three (ieiieral (!ont'er- ences, lie was, in iSSo, elected Hishop. I fc fixed his resilience at Minneapolis. Since his severe sickness in l«S2,he has not ..njoyed the robust health of former years, but his presence witli his conferences has never failed to be a comfort and I blessing'. How such men come to their hi 1 MklllnKIM lllSllol's. 7iS ;r and made \incnt. LIS ;'.s i\ cd ihc r eight 1, Ger- ipcncd, ic with of the u'n the vice he lo^y .»t t of tlie s " His- )nie ten iisliops, e pvilpit \\m aiul tainini^. )quencc liishop lop for is resi- |l k- was lo. He loiioi* a ic Wcs- k Sem- Ih these ttress is It is ced in- lication, Haven te then laui;hl Latin in ihi- I'liistisiiy of Michigan, .iiul l^n^^hsh in Union Colk'^,'e, N(rw N'oik. In 1^50, hi- hc^an as editor *.){ /ion's //crn/d, following Abel Stevens, and in n<» phice of his hfe was his service more satisfac- tory. It was a peri(id when New I'.ni^land's pulsi; was hij;h, and his //<7v/A/ was the leader of its sentinuiit. To be wise when ex- citement was so intense, and tiv land of the Puritans was rocking;, was no easy thin^;, but the editor ihd it well and fairly. He was aided, and his flcvald made spicy by the swift .md restless pen of of his cousin Gilbert. Uiirin^ his eilitorship he was overseer of Harvard University and a Senator of Mas- sachusetts. He left the Herald and became chancellor of Michii^an University in 1S63. y\fter six years of ser- vice, during which the University '^rew rap- idly, he chose lo take the same position in Northwestern Univer- sity at ICvanston. I'rom this place he was, after three years, taken to be secretary of the Board of lulu- ^^^^'^^ ons haven, d.d.. ll.d. cation of the Church. One more period of educational work awaited him at the Syracuse University. Here he became chan- cellor in 1874. During his six years of occupancy of the place, its fine building was erected ; its interests put in a safe and per- manent condition, and the institution fairly set upon its great career. In 1880, its chancellor was chosen Hishop of his Church. He was now sixt\' years of age, and the labors of a life might seem to have told upon a frame always slender, but he rose at once to the level of his new duties. Of course he was no novice in Church work. In his Conferences he gave the utmost care to nA THK SlOkY Ul- MKllloDlsM. \i the stnallcst duties of his office, and such had been his experience with men in his many relations with them that he found no trou- ble in his new work. His Episcopal sirvicc ended in a year by his death in Salem. Our next iJishop, the thirty-fourth in the len{Tthenin^ pro- cession, is William Xavier Ninde. He is a native of central New York, and was born at Cortlandville, in 1832. No Bishop has such a family line. James Ninde, an extensive farmer near London, was a preacher dear to Wesley. The Bishop's son, now a member of Detroit Conference, is fifth from James, a preacher following four lineal preachers, whose ser- vices span one hun- dred and twenty-five years. His father had been one of the most eloquent preachers of the region, and only his delicate health and extreme modesty kept him from the highest places. Few of those far more widely re- puted than he as ora- tors would so afifect an audience. WILLIAM X. NINDE. D. D., LL. D. So, bom with an inheritance, there could be no doubt of the son's career after conversion and calling brought him to the work of the min- istry. This son graduated at the Wesleyan University in 1855, and the next year he entered the pastorate in central New York. His preaching drew immediate attention. His voice was not ringing nor always clear, but it was sympathetic and agreeable, suiting well the cast of his thought and the temper of his heart. He seemed to take his hearers into his deepest con- fidence, and speak to them of things of the utmost concern to himself as well as to them. What all preachers try to do, and are ME'I'HOIUST lUSHoi'S. 735 glad to do, hv sccnud to do almost without an effort. Such a preacher and pastor was ahvays in dimand. In a fi:w years, i86i. he was called to Cincinnati and there served in the most promi- nent Churches. After extensive travel in 1868-69, through Europe and the Kast, he became pastor at Detroit. In three years he went to lCvanst(Mi as Professor of Practical Theolopy in Garrett Biblical Institute. His uniform success as pastor proved that the secret of his calling; he well understood. His department was really the professorship of religion, and in it he was at ease and in great efficiency. His first service in the General Confer- ence was in 1876. Once more he went back to Deiiuit and served a term with his dear people at the Central Church, whose edifice is counted the finest in our Methodism. Meanwhile, the presidency of Garrett Biblical Institute became vacant and he was called to fill it. His service in his high place had but fairly begun when he was chosen to the higher one. There were other men more conspicuous, and perhaps in some ways more gifted, but his gentleness, his skill in pastoral guidance, his profounti religious experience, were agreed to indicate him as a man who could do wide-lasting good to the Church. Perhaps his venerable appearance, prematurely white hair crowning a m.ijestic form and florid face, had something to do with this. His home is at Topeka, Kansas. John M. VValden, the thirty-fifth Bishop, was elected May 15, 1884. He was elected for his business and executive ability. It is fitting that such talent command respect and have recognition. Mr. Wesley seemed to have in his own person the whole round of talents, but he \vas extraordinary. Usually to each man is given his own gift, and the diversity of gifts in the Board of Bishops is quite certain to be harmonized by the same spirit. Bishop Walden may be called the business man of the Board. He was born in Lebanon, O., in 1831, and reared upon a farm. He then became a clerk, and having some leisure formed a taste for reading. This wise and happy use of his time led to some- thing more, led to all his success and gave him his position. In 1852 he graduated with honor at Farmer's College. He served for two years as tutor in the college after graduation. He was already in the Church, but the stirring politics of the period had a charm and a duty for him, and he entered into public affairs iSSB ■?,^ IHt; STORY OV MKTHohtsM. with all his heart. Tho crisis aiul collision of the time centered 111 Kansas, the land boin^ then open for -'^•^tlenient and the repeal of the Missouri Coniprt)n»ise leavinjf the youn<4 state to be Slave or Free, as its first settlers should d-':ide. Walden went to Kans.is, started a journal at (Juindaro antl threw himself '.vith all liis mij.yht iiUo the conflict. He served in the Legislature and was made superintendent of Public Instruction. For ten years he was in the pastorate of the Cincinnati C'onference, during which he was especially active in Sunday-school work. He then, in 1868, became book a^tjent at Cincinnati. It is a fact very compli- mentary to his talent for business that he was kept there four- teen years and that the Coi'.cern sj^rew rapidl)- under his care, his department of it bein^ the' local and manu- facturintif interest. As citizen of his town, he was able to do ex- cellent service. He was number of the Hoard of lulucation and chairm; 11 of the Librar)' Committee, JOHN M. WALDEN, D.D.,LL.D. ^^,^^.^^ ^-^ ^^^^^ f^^ the public Library was wise and effective. Cincinnati is the true headquarters of the Freedmen's Aid Society, bein^ the home of l>r. Kust, its secretary, and Dr. Walden was an earnest helper of the .society's enterprises. To this and the favorable sentiment towards him thus creat< d in the South, is his election to the I'^piseopacy in part due. His elevation occurred in 1882, and since that time all his led for their predecessors. The times have changed and the fare of Bishops, like that of other men, changes with them. Surely there is no virtue in hardship for its own sake, and he would be a strange man who chose it rather than straightforward labor, i ■>: would seem to have in his composition an ingre- ; dient of barbarism. 1 Thus Bishop Mallali(.u ■ has no record of moving accidents or hair-breadth escapes. He has had a life of simple hard w*ork, and "^uch he is still having, In 1857, at the mature age of twenty-five, he graduated at the Wes- ieyan University, the venerable mother of so many Bishops. If he was later than some t| in graduation (and early graduation is not the best), he was yet ready for immediate willard f. mallalieu. d. d. business, and he entered life as a strong man to run a race. Entering the pastorate in 1858, he remained in it, except a year as president of liast Tennessee College, until he became Bishop. Me seems to have had little care to be Known beyond the Churches that he was immediately serving, yet all the time his \j,ood repute was growing like a tree in the silent lapse of time. Being a member of the General Conference in 1880, he gave in Cincinnati an address of eulog>' on Bishop Gilbert Haven, who had recently deceased. It is needless to say that this was of gieat merit. It marked the orator in the minds of his brethren 47 /:3L ^ ^ 738 THE STORV OF METHODI«;M. as the man tci rccci'c the mantle of tlu-ir departed brother and to continue Bisho}) Haven's special work amon^ what he used to call "his shininj^ ones," our coloreil people at the South. At tht' next General Conference in Philadelphia, he was elected, and his residence was hxeil at New Orleans, the center of his "diocese." Thf mantle and sprit of his sky-^one brother are with him, and his soul exults in u'ts of begging and building, of tiamp and travel, of training and shepardizing, for the millions put chiefly in his charge. He stamps New England upon Texas. Charles H. Fowler s the thirty-seventh Hishop, and until this year he brought up thi rear of the episcopal train. This is fitting, as he was the youngest as well as the most recent Hishop. His rise has beei\ tl\r \\\o \ iaj)id on thi ve\vnd He is \\\( o\\\y " fnv iguiv " since .Vsbur\ h.uing been Immu m Hu I fo» vl, Canada, in 1 837. At four he was i)rought with his famih to Illinois, ami therc- iore has needed n' c.iARtKs iiKNRv lowLKU, D. I.., LI,. I- „t,,^, naturaliz:uion. His earl\- studies were had at Rock River Seminary, and ni 1859 he graduated at Cienesee College (now Syracuse University) with the highest honors of his class. His friends were then look- ing on him with both the greatest admiration and also with deep concern. He was freighted with such talents and eiH;rgies and dominated with an ambitiify. their hopes and not their fears came true. On Christn^ »« of his graduating year, being then student of law in Chicag.). he was converted, and the MF-THODIST BISHOPS. 739 wholi- course and \im of his lifr was changed. Ifc then gave himself to the niinistr\- and cnit red Garrett Mihiicil Institute. At the end of his stay the war broke (HiI ;ind he ;il once iM-ganized a eompan) of ICvanston students, nian\ u| ulioni did good sen'ice, and thus he was eaptain, our oid> niiUtary Uishop. In the pastorate at Chicago he saw Cenlenar\- church huih during his labors. 1 he roaring, stirring cit> appneiati il iiini and worked with him. /\fter the great hrc lu was suecessfvd \\\ raising funds at the Iv.ist to restore its waste plans, ispcciall)- its hurches and the (iar- vrn Biblical Institute, the losses of which in Chica '•o had been \ ery great. In 1872, he was made president of the Xorthwestern Tniver- sit)', as intlri'd he had hv-en invited to brv oi\ic in 1 866, and in this mWcc he rcmainc'd fcnir \(Mrs. He was iirator uul preacher ni o r e than educator, and his calls to the pulpit and .»latform were simply uicessant. In 1S76, he was made editor of the Aifvocatc at New York, the highest editorial posii .)n in his Church, and after four years he became missionarj' secretary. In whatever office he may be, his electric activity and his gift of overpowering appeal produce the same valuable results. The platform is his thione, and from it he rules the spirits of all vithin range of his voice Since his election to the Episcopacy, • n 1884. he Has i.tken f.- his ground the Pacific slope, to guide and spret. k> ,. and he can make his h'fe sublime. 'iheth? y-eJK' shop is John H.Vincent. His relation to the Si-?dav-^;-.N-, and tear, i8iSH. he was chosen editor o{ /ion's llcrnld. He was more needed as .Secretary of the Hoard of Edutifion, arul that office he tilled for a few months, until he became bishop He brings to his new place a distinct literarj training and a wide, careful a« quaint- ance with the course of thoight in this period. He takes his nome in the heart of that great domain, Texas, the France of America, .Such are the Bishops of the M, \\. ( hiirch in Awpfita, but ^o tljcse should be added three names of men servmg in Africa. 744 THE STORY <>K MKTHODISM. ^ ■ r-- iin T 'ES 1 "• iHI '■"'1 1 II ^1 : i! ■ ■|||iBi 1 Francis Burns was a native of Albany, N. Y., born in 1809, a thorough African. At eight, he was, on account of the poverty of his parents, put with a farmer, but he spent his winters and some part of his summers at school. The family that reared him was kindly and devout, the lady being herself a class leader. At fifteen he was converted, but, as he was bound to service in the family until twenty-one, he would not begin to preach sooner, lie hungered for learning, and, while in attendance at high school, he made his first efforts at preaching. It was refreshing to see his talent and character over- come at the outset all the disabilities of his color, and he arose to the very high esteem of all. At- tention was called to him as a man available for the mission work then open- ing in Liberia, and after a course of appropriate study he went out, in '^33. with John Seys as missionary teacher. His ancestral land sorely needed him, but he had been for several genera- tions homed in another climate, and it is doubtful if Africans from our Northern States are better ritted tlaan the whites for tropical residence. For two years Burns differed severely from African fever. Recovering, he became ibundant in labors. Besides teaching and preaching, he edited Africa s Ln.-minary. dind his excessive ability was of great use, as (oversight frL-rix Am-erica was remote and precious. He was a model of what is possible for his race. He was refined in his manner, fluent aiul oflen ijocjucui in Hpecti), and ihwir In ull his ideas, free (rc»m nil Hurvility, mnl a good, wholesome luan. II jt Afllcnu bl-elluen counted him their representative, and when \i \Y^9 ^^levltlfeU to huvL a Bishop for Africa thejr choic.' fell on him FRANCIS BURNS. Firs: Missionary Bishop for Africa. •^'KTHOlj/ST HISHOPS. He was ordained by Bishon l.., • ^^^ -a land of po^, 'j;;^' Z^c!^'!'-' '^'^ ««^ce of Bishop ^-^th^ million of heathen in ' " ^'''''^"'^ infiddium ^ -able to bear strong „K.\;^ J i/'r" ""' '^'^ «-" Peopie ^^ousand things to 'disco ,1^ ,^:"^ ;-' --ting. He'had onward. For about five yen fh. u '' '"^'">' '^ <^'^eer him ^- ^iscopacy. .spending' ^ bir '' '^ '"''^'^ ^"" P-^^ of ;;^-ngth bcingthengreatVw ted I :'"■'" '\'''' ^^P^- His but recruiting was not to be his «: T- '" ^^"^'^'^^ ^o recruit. ^^^- first Methodist African Bhooirf" ''''^'^'"^'•^ '" ^863 -^y of his white brethren "^ ^'^' ' '"^^""■^ «^ '>""ora-.Ie a« John VV. Roberts was ^hc second African Bishop He was born in Petersburg.' )^a., ma free family, i„ ,8,3, He went to Liberia among ' ' ^'■h-est settlers, being ..^^ ^;eady a member of the ..^^ CJ^^rch. After several years =^*^' ^^-vice .n preaehn^g. he " ''""'' '" i84i. to this , !?""t.y to be ordained.,^ Then folJowed twenty-three /' y^-rs of preaching, during "■^'l^^^ he attained p^e^ ^'•"nience among his breth- ;-;/orabih-ty, and also had then- fullest brotherly regard w-^ =- ■ He js not to be confounded Tel' IT ^'^^=^^'' «««^«^-''- ^^•'th J. J. Roberts the fn """^'^ ^'^''"^ ^- '^W-- ;^-Hough an .rZJ::r:-;rc!:z '''-'- '- ^-^"-^. ^" 'tmerant. '*"''^'^'' ^hr.st.an, was a civilian, not After thi dt^atU r n. . ;; ' 'V. J, . ;'":„- ;::: "", '• ^'- • "i^^m- '-;7 ''l«-d ,„ l,l,„ ,1 " I, ", '""" "i. needy \Mt the 74^ THE STORY OF METHODISM. oversight of the Church in Liberia, and therefore his place was not filled. Bishop Gilbert Haven visited the country, but it was left for the present Bishop of Africa to take the Church there under his special care. William Taylor, the third Bishop of Africa has already appeared in our Stor)'. He was born, in 1821 in Rockbridge, Va., and became a preacher in 1842. A rude young Hercules, fit. like him of the Greek mythology, to endure twelve labors in many lands ! He went upon circuits in his native region and, rude , though he was of P m'WWWWI^W^;^: REV. WILLIAM TAYLOR, D. I). Third Missionary BUhop for Afric.i. speech and little versed in the set phrase that is oftenest heard, ho gave signs of power. He is a restless rover, born for pioneering, and soon we saw him shipping a church from l^altimore to California and hurry- ing to organize the first society in San Fran- cisco. "California Taylor" was for jears his name. In 1856, he came to the East and spent five years in evangelistic work on the Atlantic coast. His next labors were in Australia, Tasmania and Ceylon. We found thousands of Kaffirs and many whites brought to Christ by his preaching in South Africa. He was then seen in India and after that he was for years in South America. In every place, he has been, as on the day he first entered the ministry, strong, sovereign, rude and fear- less, knowing well his own mind and with no "if" or "fail" in all his vocabulary. The only thing indispensable to his comfort is a stone for his mighty head at night, and he carries a marble slab a foot square for this, sleeping his "marble sleep " soundly and IP 1 It METtloidsr HISHOPJ^. 747 waking in the morning to run .incvv his race. His view of mission work is the Paulino. He puts it in two general principles. The first is the " Pioneer Principle." This means that men like Paul and Barnabas, at their own cost and risks, must go to open new fields. The Gospel pioneer must pay his own expenses and preach the Gospel free of charge. His second, the "Commercial Principle," applies when the li id has been opened, the value of the Gospel made known, and the law of supply and demand put in operation. William Taylor proposed to apply his Pauline method to the regions opening in the heart of Africa. The opportunity to utilize his zeal, loyalt)' and experience for the good of that far-awa\' flock in Liberia was not to be lost, and so, in 1884, he was made Hishop of Africa. It is not the usage of the Church to make a local or territorial Bishop. The Bishops are equally such in cver\' pl-ce, and William Taj lor is Bishop in New York as much as in Loanda, only he chooses to have charge in Africa alone. We have told of his entrance t1 ,c. Hi^ last letter shows him delighted with his work. He is distributing men and women to his heart's content, and is hopefid of them and then work. About thirty went with liim and twent\'-six more have since gone. "I am weeping for joy as 1 get acquainted with these dear people." The authorities of the Congo Free State gave them hearty welcome and free conveyance. The Bishop exidts in his work and in his helpers. " We don't appear to have a weak- ling among us." Bishop ra\-lor, on going to Africa, planted himself at once in the heart of his " diocese " in the Congo Free State. This occupies a wide region in central Africa, a region rich in all that tropic fertility can produce, and watered by the affluents of the Congo. The King of Belgium is Governor-general of this State, one hundred times as large as his own little Kingdom, and be- yond all crushing between France and Germany. His agent is the famous and noble Henry M. Stanley. The highway to this country is the Congo river. For one hundred and ten miles from the Atlantic, it is navigable by the largest vessels. Then comes a series of huge cascades, some of great beauty, reaching two hundred and thirty-five miles, and en- tirely shutting otr navigation. At Stanle)' Pool the cascades end, o^. W IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1 1.0 I.I 1^ no 1^ 15 1.8 Dl 1.25 1.4 1.6 ^ 6" — ► M 4 ^ \V ;\^ N> ^ ;v 'l'^' f^V^ Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716) 872-4503 €f^ ^> k m mm \ Ci^. «^ /4« THE STORY OF METHODISM. and the broad, bright stream? give seven thousand miles of sailing amid countries populous and productive. Bishop Taylor saw his instant need of a steamer and, in the winter of 1887, he made his appeal. It was to cost twenty thousand dollars, and he preferred that the money come m dollar contributions. Some would have more "stock," and one, Mrs. Henry Reed, of Tasmania, asked to give two thousand dollars. From the Bishop s friends all around the world the money came quickly to his hand. Many wished the steamer to be "William Taylor," but he gallantly and justly urged the name "Anne Taylor," from his noble wife, his peer (in her own place r.nd manner) in all labor and sacrifice. The steamer was built in England; it was, in April, 1887, shipped from Liverpool, in pieces weighing sixt}'-five pounds, to be carried on men's backs along that weary path up the cascades, which the stout Bishop has walked already more than once. The steamer is ninety feet long and sixteen feet wide, drawing two feet of water. Its machinery is so arranged as to admit of use in sawing wood in transit, and lumber when at rest. It has a hose worked by steam, which will shoot water with force enough to disperse canoes of " hostiles." One steamer sent from Scotbnd is« before the "Anne" on these mid-African waters. By hindrances unforeseen Bishop Taylor's steamer was not carrietl to Stanley Pool until « 888 but lie lost not an hour thereby. Along the lower Congo and the Lower Ca'^cades, he got land and planted missions and made ready the way of the Lord. The "Anno Taylor" is to convey the Gospel along seven thousand m'les of streams in the land which will one day be second to no other. It will also tell of a toil- some, much-suffering woman, who for over forty years would never let her husband fail of a Gospel duty on her account, who in his long absences trained her four sons, strong and manly as their father, to pure and brave living, and to witness for the Master whom he was serving. Yet is not this steamer with heart of fire and frame of steel, steering fearlessly on an errand of grace along the strange and distant streams, a very type and embodiment of her dauntless husband? Following the precedent of 1884. by which William Taylor was made Bishop of Africa, the General Conference of 1888 made James M. Thoburn Bishop of India and Malaysia. Like Taylor, MISSIONARY BISHOPS. '49 he is missionary bishop, his functions, not his authority, being limited to the field for which he is elected. He is as truly a bishop as any other, but he operates only in his appointed domain. Could he wish a lar^^er? It has 3,000 miles of longitude and 1,000 miles of latitude, with 300,000,000 of people. Dr. Thoburn was born in Ohio, in 1836, and graduated in 1857, from Allegheny College. Two years later he went to India, and his labor there has been of infinite variety, as his book, " My Mis- =;ionary Apprenticeship," illustrates. He has, besides simple missionary, been pastor of an English speaking church in Calcutta; presiding elder and editor of the Indian Witness. For the last three years he has been Conference Evangelist. Three times he has been member of Gen- eral Conference. In his bearing he is verj' quiet and unobtrusive, and his utterance is that of ff^e conversing and watching how his words are taken, as if giving all his thought to the winning of somebody to the truth. Thirty JAMES M. THOBURN, D. D. years have given him knowledge of India, its tongues and peopK , lind all the needs of its work, and there could be no doubt of him as the man for its Bishop. Out of India his work is growing in far away Singapore, and its demands in Burmah increases rapidly. These two missionary bishops differ in person, temper and habit, as much as men well can, but each has a great office and each will be followed in his work with sympathy and prayer. The Church has now eighteen bishops. We have thus told the individual story of the Bishops of the M. E. Church. They are but men, and not the only men of ^fw^m i-Bwrn' 750 The story of Methodism. power and repute. They are, however, representative men. Their personal characters tell the liking and tendency of the Church that chooses them, and in them we see the turn and temper of the Church in their day. Study them and we know what manner of Methodisni is now around and among us. There- are men enough as worthy of the Episcopal office as any now filling it, but not more worthy, and these have been freely chor,en. It is now three centuries since the French Academy was founded, with arm-chairs and members limited to forty. In the forty ariv.- chairs have sat the ablest scholars of France, yet a witty writer has shown how often the ablest man of the period has been sitting in "The forty-first arm-chair" — i. e., has been ji;st outside of the Academy. That may be so of the Methodist Jipiscopacy. CHAPTER LVI. Bishops of the M. E. Church South "im^^W'W^^ ASCRIPTIONS of Bishops Andrews, Soule, and Capers have already been t^ivcn. In the Church South, has been a hne of able and effective Bishops. In 1844, Bishop Soule (portrait page 440), and Andrew (portrait page 537), remained with the southern division. After two years, there were chosen William Capers (portrait, page 475) and Robert Paine, The latter, fifth bishop of the Church South, was born in North Carolina, in 1799. forty- seven years before his election to the Episcopate, in a home rich in the best of Soirthern character and culture. His family early went to the fertile region of West Tennessee, and though this was a new country, he found means to become in Wm youth a classical scholar. Entering the Tennessee Conference at seventeen, he volunteered for the toils and perils of missionary life in Alabama and among the Choctaws. At twenty-five, being Presiding Elder in Tennessee, he was a delegate to the General Conference of 1824. In the journey to Baltimore he was companion of Bishop McKendree, who, now feeble, leaned for aid and comfort in both mental and bodily efforts on his strong comrade. After six years of pastoral service, Dr. Paine took the 752 THE STORY OF METHODISM. presidency of La Grange College, Ala., serving until he became bishop. His educational work was excellent. No man in the South surpassed him as a proficient in Geology and Mineralogy, his favorites, but his highest fame was as a general educator. In 1844 he shared with Dr. Winans, the Church leadership of the southwest, and was in both the great General Conference of that year and the Convention of the year following, chairman of the most important committees. With reluctance, he at the call of the Church, assumed in 1 846 the toilsome office of bishop. It brought him with its Iabor''> a course of ac- cidents by flood and field, of fierce diseases and hair- breadth es- capes that made his long survival and serv- •ce a wonder. Not until eighty-three did he become superanu- ated and then at once, from his quiet home at Aberdeen, he was called to the Church on high. In bearing, in per- sonal culture, in for- tune and social posi- sition, he was a South- ern gentleman of the noblest order, and when he put himself and his estate into the service of Christ and the Church, all felt that he was to be a prince and a great man in Israel. Nor were any disappointed. He had a legal mind and his only book, "The Life and Times of William McKendree," gives large and himinous views of Church government, such as the student of church history can profitably read, mark and inwardly digest. Henry Biddleman Bascom (portrait, page 501), sixth Bishop of the Church South, has elsewhere been noted. He was born in western New York in 1796, but his early home was in R: v. ROBERT PAINE, D. D. Fifth Bishop of the M, E. Church South. BISHOPS OF iTHE M, E. CHURCH SOUTH. 753 southeastern Ohio. " Slow rises worth by poverty oppressed," but Henry while still a boy, felt his powers, and struggled to make the most of them. At fifteen he was boring pump-logs by day, and exhorting at night, and at sixteen he entered the Ohio Conference. His magnificent stature, voice and bearing put him far in front of his years. In dress he differed from his brethren. " Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy," was a new departure for Methodist preachers, but he did it. Nor was he a weakling. He took his share among wild beasts, Indians, and the wild frontier. He rapidly grew to be the wonder of the West. I^ishoj) McKendree transferred him to Kentucky. In every place he stood aloof from his brethren on a lofty footing of his own. At twenty-seven he was Chaplain of Congress, and thereafter his place as a leader in the Church was assured. Becoming Chancellor of Transylvania Universi- ty, Kentucky, he vvas in the General Conference of 1844, and the hardly less famous Convention of 1845. He held but one Conference after his entrance upon the Episcopate in 1850. In August of that year he died at Louisville. His volumes of sermons and lectures are valuable but they only imperfectly perpetuate his lofty character and grand personaliiy. George Foster Pierce, the sixth Bishop, was the first-born of Lovick Pierce, then, 181 1, a physician of Greensborough, Georgia. Favored with early advantages, he was at fifteen ready for Frank- lin College, and at nineteen he graduated. It was with no light struggle that he turned from brilliant prospects in the law, but with Bishop Andrew's counsel and comfort, he in 1831, entered 48 REV. GEORGE FOSTER PIERCE, D. D. Sixth Bishop of the M. E. Church South. •piPlBPiipiifpiiPW 7S4 THE STORY OF METHODISM. Conference. For fifty years, like a luminary without a cloud, he was Georgia's foremost preacher. His pastoral service was varied by educational and editorial work. He became delegate to Gen- eral Conference in 1840, and in 1844 he was the most gall.int chan'ipion of Southern ideas, dashing with fearless eloquence upon New England and the North, yet keeping the personal re- spect and affection of his opponents. An address at the time, before the American Bible Society, gave him a national reputa- tion. In 1848, he became for eight years, president of Emory College, Georgia, and then at forty-three he was made Bishop. In his power as Bisliop and preacher, and in his strength and sweet- ness as a man, he in the South, was like Simp- son in the North. In- deed he was a thorough Southerner, and Bishop Simpson did not more ardently uphold the Union than did Bishop Pierce the Confederacy. But when the storm of warwas over, he heartil}' accepted the new ordci that rose upon the ruins of the old. In 1876 a severe ailment of the throat hindered much public service, }ct for eight years he occasionally preached and with the old power and unction, until at Sparta, Georgia, the end came. The Rev, George G. Smith, of Macon, will soon give the world a biog- raphy of Bishop Pierce, and our Southern brethren will greet his portrayal of the most truly representative man of the Church South, John Earl)' (portrait page 474), was born in 1786, of a stately Virginia family, and by marriage came into powerful con- nection of the Rives. Entering Conference in 1805, he was in 1812. member of the first Delegated General Conference, His REV. HUBBARD HINDE KAVANAUGH, D. D, Eighth Bishop of the M. E. Church South. BISHOPS OF THE M. E. CHURCH SOUTH. 755 N yd |l)o\vi'r Kcv. biog- tet his jouth. of a con- :as in His first ministerial labors were anion^ Jefferson's slaves and he was ever as ready to serve the lowly as the lofty. A thousand were converted at one of his camp-meetings. Randolph Macon Col- lege is the monument to his educational toil and wisdom. In 1846, he v/as made the first Book A^ent of his Church. From this post he in 1854, at sixty-eight, became Bishop. For twelve years he served with a fullness of energy that a young man might envy; then quietly retiring, he died in 1873. His skill and force in business served his Church in its sorest need of such gifts and he was a wise and faithful steward of its infant interests. Hubbard H. Kav- r •II 45l anaugh, eighth South- ern Bishop, was by birth in 1 802, a Ken- tuckian. His father f r in a Methodist preacher had become an Episcopal rector. His mother, daughter of Dr. Hinde, an emi- nent local preacher, trained her boy in her own deep piety. While learning the printer's trade with a Presbyte- rian elder, \oung Kav- anaugh was converted and began itinerancj' upon the hard circuits of the mountains. A stern school he had, but it shaped him well. He gained the southwestern style of rhetoric, exuberant, dramatic and picturesque, " beginning his sermons in Eden and ending them in heaven." The ways of such preachers are not equal; they sometimes fail, but their success tell powerfully. Becoming Bishop in 1854, he was during the war the only South- ern Bishop within the Federal lines, and in California was for a while under military arrest. He was honorably released, and went on with his sacred office in the wisdom of a serpent and the harm- lessness of a dove In 1 884 he died in his native State, his love REV. DAVID SETH DOGCETT, D. D. Ninth Bishop oi the M. E. Church South. ! 7S6 THE STORY Ol- METHODISM. for which was wonderful, which had no purer, nobler son. After twelve years, during which no Bishops were elected, David Seth Doggctt was made Bishop in 1866. He was a Vir- ginian, born in 1810, and he entered the ministry at nineteen. Having had small opportunity for education, he was appointed near the University o^ Virginia, and mastered its entire course. He then became chaplain and afterwards a professor at Ran- dolph Macon. In 1854 he took the editorship of the Quarterly Review and was recognized in his Church as master of rhetoric and moral science. This mastery came out in his preaching always marked by soundncssi force and beauty. For nearly fourteen years his brethren were glad and thankful that they had made him Bishop. His finished style and graceful delivery served as a model and his temper and manners were sweet and refresh- ing. After long suffer- ing, he in 1880, passed from this world in peace. William May Wightman, born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 18 10, of sturdy English stock, (his mother had seen Wesley, and been led in class by Adam Clarke) graduated at South Carolina College, and joined Conference on his twentieth birthday. He had come into the Church under Bishop Andrew's ministry. After some years of effective preach- ing, he became professor at Randolph Macon, and then editor of the Southern Christian Advocate. He was afterwards president of Wofford College, Sparta, South Carolina. In 1854, he lacked one vote of becoming Bishop, one scattering ballot having been cast for " W. M. Bishop .' " After serving in educational work for REV. WILLIAM MAY WIGHTMAN, D. D., LL. D. Tenth Bishop of the M. E. Church South. BISHOPS OF THE M. K. CHURCH SOUTH. 757 the interval, he was chosen Bishop in 1866, and for sixteen years made full proof of his ministrs', broad, so earnest, and so spiritual that n.on wondered at the providence that in 1854 had shut him from the office. In 1823, Enoch Mather Marvin was borr of a New England family in the wilds of Missouri. A pious, cultured mother was the guide and teacher of his early years. He entered with scant preparation and at but eighteen, the Missouri Conference. After years of hard service on frontier circuits and small stations, he suddenly appears at St. Louis as the ablest preacher of his State. Here he held his high place ably, but going South in 1862, to find the General Conference to which he was a dele- gate. He became chaplain in the Confed- erate army. After the war he went to Texas and was not a member of the General Confer- ence of 1866, which made him Bishop. He was intensely active, another Asbury, in his Episcopal work. In 1877, after a visit to the Missions of China and Japan, in which he made the tour of the world, he died of pneumonia at St. Louis. He wrote some valuable books. His cast of mind was m\'stical and his style was Emersonian for simplicity, clearness, pathos and elevation. Strongly marked by contrast with Marvin was Holland N. McTyeire, who was chosen with him to the Episcopate. Born in 1824, of a wealthy house in Barnwell District, South Carolina, he was at twelve a pupil at Cokesbury, the Methodist school of his State, and here he joined the Church. In 1845, ^^^ graduated at REV. ENOCH M. MARVIN, D D. Eleventh Bishop of tnc M. E. Church South 758 THE SluKV Ul- METHODISM. Randolph Macon. Thus he was not a preacher at the separation of the Churches, yet he is now senior Bishop. How the genera- tions in Church, as well as in State, " haste stormfully " across the scene I His first prominent charge was at Mobile, and when lie came, his Quarterly Conference was just buying a lot to bury preachers in ! His gift of clear and original thinking brought him to the task of editorship, and in 1854, he was put in charge of the New Orleans Christian Advocate. In 1858, he was chosen to like duties at Nashville, and these he discharged during the most trying times of the war. He became Bishop in 1866. The task set before his Church was then a severe one. To gather the scat- tered people and re- pair the broken shrines after years ol wasting might require toil, but to manage wisely in the delicate offices of moral and churchly reconstruc- tion, while passions and prejudices were yet uncalmed, was pc- cuHarly difficult. Election to the Gen- eral Superintendency at such a time was from his brethren the highest proof of their confidence. He has shown them that they were not mistaken. Besides his gifts as preacher and man of letters, he has a clear and active grasp of ecclesiastical law and parliamentary usage, so that as Bishop and chairman of deliberative bodies he is perfectly master of his duties. In 1873, when Mr. Vanderbilt founded his university, he gave the entire charge of his donation to Bishop McTyeire, and this charge Bishop ^' Fyeire accepted and still retains. I is filso at the head of tae School of Theology, and his residence is REV. HOLLAND N. McTYKIRF,, V>. D. Twelfth Bishop of the M. K. Church South. wiffr BISHOPS OF THE M. E. CHUKCH SOUTH. /59 at Nashville. He has moved a busy pen. Among his early works are, "Manual of Discipline," " Duties of Masters," and a valuable history of the M. E. Church, both before and after the separation. He is, as is perfectly fitting, the most influential man in his Church, and years of active and widening usefulness may be reasonably anticipated on his part. John Christian Keener is, in the Episcopacy of the Church South, next in seniority to Bishop McTyeire. He was born at IJaltimore in 1 8 19. At nine, his father took him to Wilbraham, and kept him ten years under the g o d 1 }' shadow of Wilbur Fisk. During this time he graduated at the VVcs- Icyan University in its first regular class of 1835. His conversion was in Baltimore in iSji'. He was then prosperous in business asawholesalc dru<;^ist, but, engaging as super- intendent of a Sunday- school, he soon felt a divine call to preach. Closing up all secular pursuits, he went to Alabama, got license to Ijrcach and, in 1843, REV. JOHN CHRISTIAN KEENER, D. D. Thirteenth Bishop of the M. E. Church South. entered the Alabama Conference Five years later, he was sent to New Orleans, then reckoned a post not only of difficulty but of actual danger. For twenty years he was in service there, being a part of the time Presiding Elder of the New Orleans district. In 1861, he was made superintendent of Chaplains for the Confederate armies west of the Mississippi. He was editor of the New Orleans Advocate from 1866, and, in 1870, he was chosen Bishop, being then sixty-one. His pen had not been idle. His best-known work, " The Post Oak Circuit," is a lively effort of humor, in which character is drawn with a skill equal to that of the highest masters. 76o tuf: stokv of Methodism. Bishop Keener has taken a deep interest in the Mexican mission of his Church, which he founded in 1873, and which he has many times visited. It is his good fortune to have three sons in the ministry, and now, in the fullness of his years, with facul- ties unfaiHng, to have 'that which should accompany old ige, as honor, love, obedience, troops of friends." John C. Granbery was born in Norfolk, Virginia, 1829. From his taste, stylo and bear- ing, he ma> be called the scholar amonir the southe rn REV. JOHN C. GRANUERY. Sixteenth Bishop uf i\w M. E. Church South. Bishops. After enjoying a thorough collegiate education, he entered the Virginia Con- ference, where he spc.i soTie years in the pastoral work. During the war, being chaplain of a Virginia regiment, he was wounded in the hand and lo=t the sight of one eye, and these scars gave him no damage in his friends' affections. On the founding of the Vanderbilt University, he entered as professor, and served ten years in Literary and Theo- logical departments. In 1878 he was chosen Bishop. His chaste and classic style of ad- dress, both in preaching and in all utterance, commands hear- ing and admiration, while his fine taste and temper make him specially dear to his brethren. Alpheus Wilson was born at Baltimore in 1834. His father, Norval Wilson, was an eminent Methodist preacher, and his son was called to follow his father's career. After graduation from college, he found his health REV. ALPHEUS W. WILSON, D. D, Fourteenth Bishop of the M. E. Church South. BISHOPS OF THE M. E. CHURCH SOUTH. 761 REV. i-INUS PAKKER, D. D. Fifteenth Bishop of the M. E. 'Jhurch South. failing under the labors of his early ministry. For a few years he was engaged in the legal profession, but. his health being finally restored, he resumed the ministry in the Baltimore Con- ference. After filling several important stations, he was made secretary of the Board of Mis- sions. In this office his views proved so wide, his judgment so accurate and clear, and his energies and tenij, :r so fitting to a wide sphere of action, that his brethren agreed that he was of genuine "Bishop timber." In 1882 he became Bishop, and though of rather delicate health, he has been an active and successful worker. In 1886 he went to China on an ofiicial visit. The Rev. Linus Parker, D. D., fifteenth Bishop of the M. E. Church South, was one of the able men whom the North contrib- uted to the service of the South. To the South he really be- ^^1 longed. He was born, in 1829, in Oneida County, central New York. Going, at sixteen, to New Orleans, in the ardor of youthful enterprise, he was there brought to Christ and entered at once upon the work of the Church. In 1849 he became a member of the Louisiana Conference. In all the trying times before, during and after the war, he was stead- ily and faithfully fulfilling his ministerial call and as pastor and Presiding Elder he made a goodly record. He became m 1870 editor of theiVvw Orleans Christian Advocate. REV. ROBERT K. HARGROVE. Seventeenth Bishop of the IvI. E Church South. ;6i THiE STORY OF METHo£)1SM. ^^^ ^ *"^ In 1878, being for the fourth time member of the General Conference, he was made Bishop. His residence was at New Orleans. He did seven years* faithful service as Bishop. In the spring of 1883 his brain yielded to the intertse exertion of years, and he died of congestion. In the city of his home, where he had so long been known in quiet and stormy times, he was mourned by all, and his much-loved Church felt her bereavement. Robert K. Hargrove was born in Alabama, in 1829, of a ^^5-5,^ Methodist family, an- cient as antiquity h counted in this coun- try. After collegiato graduation, he spent some years in the higher grade of class- ical teaching. From teaching he entered the pastorate, in which he filled the usual va- riety of places. In 1 882, he became Bish- op, visiting Colorado this year in his official capacity and gratif}- ing all by his elo- quence as preacher and his ease and di<;- nity as a presiding officer. William Wallace Duncan was born in 1839, at Randolph Macon College, his father being there a professor. His father becoming one of the faculty of Wofiford College, South Carolina^ the son graduated there in its first class in 1858. Wallace then entered the Virginia Conference, leaving, however, the pastorate for a chaplaincy in the war. In 1875, ^^^ was called to the chair of Moral Science in the college from which he graduated and took his place as leader of his Church in South Carolina. He is not only of a high and full education, but of great power RKV. WILLIAM WALLACE DUNCAN, D. D. Eighteenth Bishop of the M. E. Church South. BISHOrs OF THE M. E. CHURCH .sOUl'H. 76Z as a speaker, both in the pulpit and on the platform. His brother James was president at Randolph Macon, and the family have a valuable social and churchly record. Being the first chosen as Bishop this year (1886), he maybe counted as bearing with him the great regard of his brethren and the hope of his people. C. B. Galloway, the youngest of southern Methodist Bishops, was born in Mississippi in 1849, and entered his office at thirty- seven. In 1868, he graduated at the University of Mississippi and began the work of the miniscry in that state. His rise has been rapid, and yet not more rapid than the unfolding of his abilities. All interests of man have his at- tention, and as a temperance work- er he has been true and effective. For four years he has been editor of the New Orleans Advocate. Henov\ enters upon his Episcopal career in the flush of his strength, and with the hopes and prayers of all his people. Eugene R. Hendrix was born, in 1847, at Fayette, Missouri, where he had his early training at Central College, of which he was president at his late election to the Episcopacy. In 1867, he graduated at the Wesleyan University, and in 1869 at the Theo- logical Seminary, New York, and then entered the Missouri Con- ference. His appointments have been of the highest grade, and he has been around the world in his study of the ways of men and the welfare of his Church. He has given his observations in a valuable and entertaining volume. Like his colleagues chosen •■■■•>>■ REV. C. B. GALLOWAY, D. D Nineteenth Bishop of the M . £. Church South w 764 THE STURY OK METHODISM. this year, he has a fine personal appearance and the gift of a glowing eloquence, such as has so often distinguished preachers and statesmen of the sunny South. Joseph S. Key is the fourth of the Bishops chosen in 1886 in the Church South. He is a Methodist by inheritance, his father and his grandfather having been preachers, and his line runs back to the old days of Methodist heroisms in Georgia. He was born at La Grange in that state in 1829. In 1848, he graduated at Emory College, and he has spent his ministerial life in the south of that state. He was a member of the Ecumenical Conference in Lon- don, 1881, as a rep- resentative of his Church in the great family of Method- ism. At the Cen- tennial Conference at Baltimore, 1884, he was also a dele- gate. He alone en- ters the office of Bishop from un- broken service in the pastorate. He is a hearty worker in every form of Church labor, and is of all the Episcopal College of his Church, the most ardent advocate of the doctrine of Holiness. He is as Bishop, the youngest of the College, but his career is proving that the sacred office is still in the keeping of faithful men, who are able to teach ochers also 1 REV. EUGENE R. HENDRIX. Twentieth Bishop of the M. E. Church South. -.s ,<^5)pe5^s.j)» -B>a BISHOPS OF THE M. E. CHURCH SOUTH. 76^ hi REV. JOSEPH S. KEY. Tvrenty-fint BUhop of the M. E. Church South 1 ' 1 CHAPTER LVII. Bishops of the African M. E. Church. ICHARD ALLEN, the first Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (see page 483), was born Feb. 12, 1760, in Philadelphia, Pa. He was converted and joined the Methodist Society in Delaware, at the age of seventeen. He was licensed as a local preacher in 1782, and so at twenty-two years began his labors, founded the first African Church in America in 1797, and in 1793, built the First Colored Church in America, which was dedicated by Bishop Asbury as a "Bethel." He was the first Colored Deacon, being ordained by Bishop Asbury in 1799. He remained in connection with the M. E. Church until 18 16, when various difficulties having arisen, a convention was called and delegates from the colored people met April 9, 1 8 16, and organized The African M. E. Church, He was made an Elder, and on April 11, 1838, was consecrated the First African Bishop in America by the First General Conference of the African M. E. Church. He died March 26, 183 1. A monument to his memory, erected by the members of his Chyrch, is in the Philadelphia ParHi ■'I: III '■ !* 'il I i| s • ti '• t'l 5'? 2 a 00 2 =' ^ ■o = n g Q. ^ '5 49 ^T*c'%Sl' s -? "V 3 n i w'vi 5 = 2 I? a. 3 49 ay- Si u I X UJ >, Q c If! .1 IN (b c <2S 1 - 00 *^ S i? •3 - = s §■"' w n SO BE f & P 5 IPiPIHillllliPiillli K s- J A% M M 1-5 S r.al n ■%■ |A|3 ra.s" s « 3 m ti .<3 J 5> rt X O » ■s c ISP 3- ?> U en 9 3 3* St U O "• • ? 2 3 u : ^ Si - a ■ « 3 " CO ; 5 s^ ' o V I? §.3 ^r « <* ■■■■'.'^•T^tsT^''-'?^ ■ S. ^ .? tfl o 3 3" .-> y O • ? O 2 3 - CO » 5' ? ^Pf'T^'W^ CHAPTER LVIII. Recent Evangeusts, ETHODISM is itself an evan- gelism, and the early Meth- odist preachers were evan- gelists more than anything else. The term evangelist is used in the New Testament to indicate a class of labor- ers well known and valued in the constitution of the early Church. They are shown to be a certain class of Christian teachers who were not ^ '.ed to any particular spot, but who traveled either independently or under the direction of one of the apostles for the purpose of propagating the Gospel. The absence of any detailed account of the organization and working of the early Church, at least of the first century, leaves us a little uncertain as to their functions and position. Their title, "publishers of the Glad Tidings," might belong to all the Christian minis- try, yet "evangelists" are named next after •'apostles and prophets" and before "pastors and teachers." If, then, apostles were those who immediately represented Christ, and prophets were those who spoke, under the special impulse of the Holy Ghost, words mighty to affect men's hearts and con- sciences, then it would follow that the evangelists were in authority RECENT EVANGELISTS. below the apostles ^n^^ • ^"^^ office was u.^z'zrz^:""" '': ''^"■"'"=- ^« *=,> who watched over a Chu.ch ZT^K " f ' °' '"''= P^'"- teachers who carried on the wlk „f " ""''"'■ "' °f *= They were apparently sent forth bvr, '''"™"'" '"^truc.ion. -'ves had been sent forth by th ir M sr """""' " ^^'^ "-"■ -s of the Gospel preparing^ ,e w""';"' ='^ '^''''""^'y P-ach. foundmg Churches to which oastornH 'T*' «"grogations and m,nister. The evangehs wa hen"; T ''°"'' ''^'^--d^ superintendence, and Philip T^hc^ ' P^^'^'^" '''"'> "o pastoral Ws order. A "Bishop' t' 1 f'f '"^ "^= ^^^'''^^t of this work, and so Timothy is': 'dj^!^"'^^ P-"^ employed in '^:t." as occasion and open.ng „ 1 ""'''" "'"'■'^ °f -" evangel- ;™es the name was give^ t^ tL rSdlr" Hh" ^ ""'>'• '" ' '''- --yha.re.aine^dint,rc,r;-;-^--,^^^^^^ One can easily see fh-,f fi, that of Whitefield^ln^^t, hartf",?" "™^'"^' --vhoUy -r went fron, place to p lac ,ot to °' ^"'^>'- ^he for' and h,s career was wonde'rfu VesL H^,"'^'' "" '° "' ''°'"' ' among the dead and dark of the En h "" "'"^' e<""g «- and evangelists had ,,„ne to the ^^ "V"?''^^' ^^ ""^ 'Po^'les "lly three-fourths of this work h ' ""''""■ ^'^'^^'^hing was handful of converted or even t '" '"°" ^^ ^e had gained a ;'"o a class. The classes becTeT'-:' '•""" "^ f°™''' '^'- oon a circuit, the circuits were bu„ch'r'"^' ""^ '"''"''•^^ "ore ■ere was a Conference. The ore '"'° ' *'"""' and then h'3 own death gave it no shock^ H '■"'°" ''''' '° ^°™P'«o tha •"hose going overboard a J^'^„ ^r,!!'" ' "^-^^-P'^'" »' It was when the system of '""'"^'So the well-trained crew evangelist and the pasC blf ^'''"' '° P^"-' "'at the '"f- The modern evangelist fs'V'T''"^ ™' '" become two a development of the orfgi a Met ''. "'"''"'' °' "othodism, Peared in these earnest Ch c ,e! th r "'''''""■ "^ «-' ap- i ■ 778 THE STORY OF METHODISM. had done their work he passed on and left the pastor to train and organize the souls whom he had brought to Christ. Thus Knapp and Swan and Moody are illustrations of the happy influence of the Methodist modes and spirit affecting the ways of other Churches, for, as we have said, not half of Methodism is in Methodist Churches. The first Methodist evangelist in th's country, as above de- fined, was Lorenzo Dow. Mention has already been made of him. He was so eccentric as to be counted almost insane, yet there was i \ his madness always this method — a burning zeal to bring men Trjff.i!:-3'!^jp7!i|r!iif7Pr"';^wn!P^ to salvation. He was born in 1 77^, at Coventry, Con- necticut. He began preaching £\t eighteen, and the next year, feeling that he had a special call to go to Ireland, he made a canoe and in it went down the Connecticut river and took ship for foreign lands. In England and Ireland, he drew great attention ; was the first, as we saw, to in- troduce the American usage of the camp-meet- ing. For thus leaving his work he was dropped from the roll of the Con- LORENZo DOW. fercncc, and as his eccen- tricities continued he was never re-admitted. He devoted himself all the same to the work of the Gospel. Many were converted under his ministry. He never waited to be called ; he went to find the hardest places and labored in them until good results appeared. His energy was immense; he could ride fifty miles and preach five times in a single day. For years he preached in the South wher_^ver he could gather the planters and their slaves to listen. The itinerants would then gather up and organize his converts. In 1834, then a strange, venerable man with long, white beard, he came to Washington to warn the government against RECENT F.\.\NGE1.!STS. 779 the; plans of the Church of Rome and there he s\i irlenly died. Prominent amon<4 evan^^tUsts has been Dwi^du L. Moody. He is a product of the Methodist movement and his Congrega- tional Church relation has been the happier as illustrating the value of the Methodistic modes of working. He was born at Xorthheld, Massachusetts, in 1837. The loss of his father at four early inspired him with a desire to be good for the sake of his mother. He was Unitarian by training, and in early life was a healthful, joyous, fun-loving lad, to whom life was wonderfully good for its own sake. Going into business in Boston, he was there converted a t seventeen. In 1856, he went to Chicago as salesman of boots and shoes. His early ef- forts for others were quickened by the ef- forts of his own Sab- bath-school teacher at lk)ston for the welfare of Moody's own soul. This good man had, with tears standing in his eyes, urged Mood>' to seek pardon and life in Christ. "Why should this man weep fo r me?" wondered Moody, and as the case dwight l. mood\ . grew clear to him he saw behind the teacher the tears arf^ love of the Saviour, with whose mind the teacher was in sym v^thy. Moody himself now entered into that sympathy. He began by bringing to Sabbath-school a class of fifteen neglected newsboys, and soon he took the work of a Sunday-school in a deserted saloon in the vilest part of Chicago. He was annoyed, and so was his handful of scholars, by rude lads, sons of low Cath- olics in the neighborhood. Going directly to the Romish Bishop, he explained to him the nature of his enterprise and set before him the needs of the half-heathen region. Something in ■? 1 ' i* 78o THE STORY OF METHODISM. Moody's manner and the words he used touched the Bishop's lonely heart. The convtrsation was long and tender, and he thanked Moody for calling and wished an ample blessing on his enter prise. At parting, Moody proposed prayers together. The Bishop begged to be excused from vocal, extempore utterance, as it was not his usage ; but he politely knelt while Mood)' prayed fervently for him and the people committed to his care. The Bishop took leave of his guest with tears and the Sunday-school was annoyed no more. Mr. Moody thus began his work at the bottom and the poor heard him gladly. Soon he gave up his shoe business and de- voted his whole time to his evangelistic efforts. Men came to his help. It is under- stood that for years a merchant of Chicago bore the chief part of his personal expenses, and thus Moody saw his way clear to be- come a clergyman after the Congregational or- der. In 1876, a beau- tiful church edifice, costing one hundred thousand dollars, was finished for him in IRA D. SANKEY. Chicago. About this time he became acquainted with Ira D. Sankey, a younf? business man, son of a Methodist banker in Newcastle, Pennsylvania. This man had been early converted and from his very boyhood had been a leader in sacred song. No artist had ever trained him in Italian trills, but his voice was clear and pene- trating as that of a cornet, and behind his voice was a great, warm, Christian heart. A strong, flush, bright-faced man, in sympathy with his fellow men in their joys and sorrows, such a man as it was refreshing to the weary, the sad and the wrong to look upon and listen to. The two seemed made for allies to each other, and II kECENT EVANGELISTS. 7*1 the plain words of Moody and tho plain songs of Sankey were the vehicle of gracious influence to the souls of thousands. After extensive services in Chicago, they went, in 1873. to Europe. In the very centers of Christianity their success proved that the work of an evangelist is to-day a lawful need of the Church, and that they were called to it by the Holy Ghost. In Dublin, their meet- ings were largely attended by those least affected by regular minis- trations of the Word, and two thousand were brought to Christ. In London, the capital city of the world, the center of its sin and sorrow as well as of its wealth and power, its jiiety and truth, the two evangelists held meetings four months. During this time two hundred and fifty thousand people attended their meetings and seven thousand were converted. "They shall fear the Lord from the West." It was strange, but not unexampled, that fresh thought and energy should enter the old home, the heart of the modern world. Seven thousand are few among four millions in that great human hive, but of themselves they are many, and the Ciiurches were quickened and . freshed. In Edinburgh, the cautious, wcll-doctrinated Scotch heard gladly the fresh and stirring appeal, and three thousand from the Moody meetings joined the various Churches. The evangelists visited Oxford, the birthplace of the Methodist movement near a century and a half before. The effect there was about the same as elsewhere. "Townsmen and gownsmen" (i.e., students) at' tended with the greatest interest and many were converted. The students thus brought to Christ are now represented among the missionaries in China and elsewhere, and arc Christians in many callings through the wide British dominions. In Sheffield and other English towns, equal attention was drawn to the Gospel, and thousands were brought to accept it. How many were converted during these two years of labor abroad is neither possible nor important to say, but all pastors of the places visited found that the grace that came with the evangelists did not go with them. The revival was genuine and its fruit remained. - - . '. On Moody's return to Chicago, a Tabernacle holding ten thousand was built and in this, continuous services were held for three months, and forty-eight hundred were converted. Afler a like manner meetings have been held in many other of our large 7«: tME STf)RV OK MKTHonisM. cities. At present, Mr. Moody is giving his time to schools that he has buiU in his early home at Northfield. He has tuiiicU 'ilucc hundred acres of barren land into smiling fields, and here he has a Christian school for girls, and at Mt. Hermon, four miles away, he has another for boys. These are meant for the education of those who can do little for themselves, and are largely charitable. They are flourishing and indicate the turn of his mind towards the future and permanent welfare of his race as well as to immediate evangelization. In the "acation of his Northfield school, Moody gathers lo its vacant rooms a large attendance for Bible study. He himseh presides, but he has for helpers men of genius and learning in the Scriptures. Most of those in the gathering are evangelists like himself, weary in mind and body, from labors in various parts of the land, " faint, jet pursuing." Sankey and other singers likewise attend. Fifteen hundred are sometimes present and three daily sessions are held. Questions are freely asked and the Word of God is opened for the help and use of these recruiting evangelists und all who come to the Bible Summer School, some of whom arc from foreign lands, nor could it be told, except from the register, to what denominations they severally belong. Of late years, some women have been raised up, whose gifts have done good service in the work of evangelists. We have told of the good women who aided by prayer and counsel and sacrifice the early Methodist movement. These were such as Lady Huntingdon, Lady Maxwell, Mrs. Fletcher and Mrs. Murray, Mrs Rogers and the Dairyman's Daughter. It grew steadily in Wesley's mind that there was room in the Church for womanly appeal and discourse, and he looked forward to a day when it would be called out. Toward the end of his life he wrote : '• It has long passed for a maxim with many that women are only to be seen and not heard, and, accordingly, many are brought up in such a manner, as if they were only designed for playthings. But is this doing honor to the sex, or is it a real kindness to them? No; it is the deepest unkindness. It is horrid cruelty. It is mere Turkish barbarity, and I know not how any woman of sense can submit to it." Dr. Adam Clarke had said: "A cock reproved Peter and an ass reproved Balaam, and why may not a woman reprove sin ? '' The time was dawning when woman's gift RECENT KVANGKLISTS. 7«3 of speech was to be put to service beyond even such as the more private social meetings afforded. The first Methodist woman hcensed to preach, and thus for full evangelistic service, was Mrs. Maggie Van Cott. She was born in New York, in 1830. Her training was strictly Episcopa- lian. The loss of a daughter and the failure of her husband's health, which threw upon her the care of his business and estate, burdened her soul with labor and sorrow. She had in childhood lived within hearing of a Methodist Church, and had felt drawn by its singing and pray- ers, but had never been present at one of the meetings. Turning now with all her heart to her Heavenly Father for help and guidance, she began to attend a Meth- od ist prayer-meeting. Beir.g gifted as a singer, she was invited to come to the class-meeting, be- ing assured that she need not speak unless she chose. She found her tongue and gave testi- mony for the grace that was helping her, and soon she joined the Church. Her first efforts were at the Five Points, In this sink and lowest drainage of the crime and misery of the city, good women had been working since 1848 to change a pest-house of sin into a school of virtue, and to do this every form of Christian effort was utilized. Here Mrs, Van Cott aided the work to the utmost of her power. For twenty months she did earnest service among the colored people of Baxter street. In 1866, being on a visit at Durham, New York, she made by invitation what might be called her first public address in a school-house. She followed with others, and many conversions Mrs. MAGGIE VAN COTT. 7«4 rHE STORY OF MFTIIoniSM. seemed to pjivc lier efforts tlic divine endorsement. Under grow ing conviction she, in 1868, obtained, not without some opposi- tion arising, not from her character, but from the novelty of the case, at Springfield, Massachusetts, a local preacher's license, and henceforth gave herself wholly to evangelistic work. In her first year of itinerancy, she numbered five hundred souls brought to Christ and gathered into the various Churches. In about twenty years her record has been the same. She has the stature and bearing of a queen, and a voice of strength FIVE POINTS MISSION, NCW YORK. and sweetness, such personal gifts as impress and control an audi- ence, and her word has always been attended with excellency of power. She has held meetings, of which her variety is great, in nearly every state m the Union Encouraged by her example, other women have been free to use their gifts and some have even excelled her in power of address. The woman's movement in temperance during its twelve years of activity has brought into notice many able speakers. Some of these have come to have a national and even an European fame. RECENT EVANGELISTS. 7«5 Of them all, Miss Frances K. Willard is foremost. She is a native of Rochester, New York, but was reared in Wisconsin. Her (;ducation proceeded in the Woman's College of the Northwestern University. On the death of a sister at nineteen, she wrote "Nineteen Beautiful Years," the most charming biography in the English language. She was, after graduation, engaged in teach- ing at various places, and, after serving as secretary of the asso- ciation that built Heck Hall for the School of Theology, at Kvanston, sli'.> spent tvVo and a half years abroad. In 1 871, she became presi- dent of the college where she gradu- ated, and after two )cars was called to the Department of /Esthetics in the University. At this time the crusade of women against whisky began, and she quickly came to the front of it. In 1876, the women most prominent in the temperance work met at Chau- tauqua and formed u National Union for the better pro^ ^"ss Frances e. -.villard. motion of their cause. Miss Willard was made president, and has now served ten energetic and effective years. Since the death of Wendell Phillips, she is the finest orator in America, and her voice has been the most effectual of all voices ir. bringing to its present forwardness this one intense concern of the nation and century. As representative of the Methodist Episcopal Church, she has good backing. The rules of the Church are abreast of the time. No member can sign a petition for license or own premises where liquor is sold, and it is only by a dodge that the Methodist mayor of Brooklyn makes his peculiar record. The 786 THE STORV OF METHODISM. Methodist Episcopal Church and ail Methouist Churches are sound on temperance, and Miss VVillard is the product of generations of sentiment and practice. Other evangelists have risen up within the proper bounds of Methodism, laboring in given places a longer or shorter time, as the local pastors may desire. One of these, perhaps the most truly re ^esentative man of the class, is Thomas Harrison. He is a native of Boston, born in 1854. He was converted in the end of 1869, just in time to enter 1870 in newness of life. He began the study for the ministry, at first in the Wilbraham Academy and then at Talmage's "Lay College " in Brooklyn. During the Decem- ber vacation of this col- lege he went home, and also to Long Plain, where a friend was conducting a revival. They together sought and found such power from on high as filled the hearts and moved the tonguesof those early preachers, of whom our Story told nearer its beginning. This power was straightway felt by the congregation, and a month of effectual, fervent revival followed. The next fall he engaged in evangelistic work in Baltimore. In the various Churches he spent most of the winter. What the result may have been it is not easy to say, but it is clear that more than one thousand were brought to Christ. The attention of the Church was now fully directed upon him. He was still so young as to be called by the unhappy title, "The Boy Preacher," but the silly epithet in time wore away. Of slight personal figure, he was active, nervous and graceful, with much in him that attracts and conciliates, sometimes called REV. THOMAS HARRISON. kECENT EVANdEMStS. 78? personal magnetism. His eyesight is keen ; no movement in any part of a great congregation escapes him. His wit is ready ; he know.s, as if b\- instinct, how to answer a question, how to encour- age a movement an'l liow to quell a disorde.. Yet he is immensely inferior to what he is doing. No wit, or wisdom, or speech of his is equal to what is done in his presence. He is himself but a means, an instrument. Yet he is an effective instrument. In Haltimore, only three per cent, of the converts fell away, and the Hame of revival burned steady and unflickcring long after he had left the city. While he was at Madison Square, Mr. Moody was holding meetings not far away. The meetings of botii were crowded. The styles of the two evangelists differed enough to draw somewhat different classes, but with their diversity of gifts there was the same spirit, and it was happy for the town that had such double visitation. He passed on to assist the pastors in the Dis- trict of Columbia. At Foundry Church the crowds could by no means get admittance, and in forty evenings perhaps four hundred were awakened and more than half joined that Church as con- verts. In Georgetown, and again in Washington, at the Hamline Church, the same power and the same style of result were wit- nessed. The evangelist was the honored vehicle chosen of God to affect hearts long in contact with Christianity, but never as yet yielding to its claims. In all, probably one thousand souls were awakened in the District. After labors almost unbroken in smaller towns and in camp-meetings from Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, to Loveland, near Cincinnati, Harrison went to Philadelphia. Here at Wharton Street Church, over one thou- sand were converted. There was a large proportion of mature men among these converts, and the best classes of the city were moved. At times three to five hundred men would be at the door unable to enter, and one day the house was given up to an all-day service and thronged from ten A. M. \o ten P. M. This (1879) was followed by a meeting at Talm^ge's Tabernacle in Brooklyn. At the first day's service one hundred rose for prayers, and afterwards four hundred and sixteen joined the Church in one day, and on another day two hundred and forty. Many united elsewhere, so that it is not easy to say how many were actually subjects of grace during the seven weeks of the meeting, 788 THK STORY OF METHODISM. In the fall of i88c, he held a meeting at Scott Methodist Episcopal Church, Philadelphia, under trying circumstances. It was the year of the presidential election, and a Republican "Wigwam" was a block and a half from the Church. And there were torchlight processions and brass bands and the tumult of the people. The meeting prospered. It was once held in the Wigwam with three thousand present, and in a few weeks three hundred were added to the Church. Mr. Harrison had now been preaching four years, and fifteen thousand souls had come to the Saviour in his meetings. He had proved two things: One was that in the most cultivated Christian, among the ablest pastors and amplest Church resources, the work of an evangelist has its place, It helps, not hurts, the regular ministrations. Anothe«- thing proved is that the Head of the Church chooses His own instru- ments. The wisdom of man would not have chosen Harrison but he was chosen and the conversion of men under his labors was by the Power that made choice of him. So it was in the beginnmg, is now and will ever be.* Leaving Philadelphia, Harri- son now went to Meridcn, Connecticut. It is a fine inland cit) , where in earlier days Methodism hung chiefly on one able and faithful family, the Parkers. The church edifice there was about the finest in the state. It was awaiting the pillar and the cloud of the Divine Presence. It was now divinely accepted indeed. In four weeks three hundred professed conversion and the work can hardly yet, after five years, be said to have ceased. Perhaps it neve/ will. At the end of March, 1881, Harrison went to Indianapolis, asking that a thousand souls might there be brought to the Saviour. The Roberts Park Church, named from a Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, holds two thousand and is the finest in the state. Here the meetings began and it was immedi- ately crowded. In five weeks over five hundred professed con- version. Revival services were then opened in fifteen other churches of the city, and the whole tov/n was shaken. Talmage came from Brooklyn to cheer his pupil and testified, in aid of public confidence, that to his knowledge not one of those who had joined his Church from Harrison's meetings had fallen away, that by their help over three hundred had since been brought in. By June 13th, a little more than two months, the conversions in th€ Roberts Park Church were ten hundred and ei^^hty-nine and RECENT EVANGELISTS. in the whole city more th. . ■ ^^^ f c. o„ .He tL;r:!TZZZ 71 ^"' -P"-^- The Every Christiau communion wlen ° ^ '"^ *"= '"""-nsc. P-d. "The Be,ov«, came ,onh i ^hTs ?""" ''^"'^ «-- '"" trr" '^™'-' "p™ ^" Christ,:;" ^r^"^"-" -"" ^""^-ss After a meetiiKr in San h- . ^"-"P'^- proressed co„v.3,o„t HarH „ ::::':r;,!l"""=- f"- hundred "ty sm has long thriven, and ^- !" u ^'"=^"""«'- I" this great -- in a Christia,. .own At'^'lLs t °" 1^""'^' ""'"'' 'he open every day and „igi,t of thl "'°"^''"'' '"'oons are largest gatherings of mt f . ^tt t 'T" °" "^'^ ''-^' « »"' of the land, and, like Chicago th "" ^''""'■»" religion tain the worst of for..: ,„ ^"'"t'o, the city seemed to get and -. «^«t. an evangeHotThtrrre/'I'^^^^^^ ''=">- "^ N seemed at last to go out in darIL . ? "°""'"^' "h"'- light ;vh.ch eight hundred had been adH ?' "" '''''' ^"^'«-^> here h harder now. ,n Ja„u„y , 3^^ ' ^j^<^^v .' " Every Church nC^' " "=''°'''' ' ""ake ajer life, and good men rose " wh'"^"''^'""'^ blessing „f »n,bat with the ruler rf the H '^. '"''" '^""^"Se to their ^ears this man m„st hav fal tl e "ki "' "'■' ''"''"■ '" ^ - Christ twenty ,h„„sand souK H^rab'^ ""=""^ of bringing ,„ , '"'i. he was in fjlecatu,- Tlr "■■' '"""^ ""■ In AoriP these were from other places a^rhS T^Jt 790 THE STORY OF METHODISM. Uecatur from thirteen different states to share the season of grace. And these, taking home the good here found, were able to help tho cause of Christ in many and various regions. In the same vear, Harrison saw one thousand come to seek the Saviour at Danville, Illinois, and about the same number at Rockford. It is not our plan to follow all his later labors, but only to set forth the REV. SAM p. JONES. man. His career is so different from Moody's, and yet so attended with gracious p^jwer, that it is well to look at them both. From both has gone out a power that proves how lawful and necessar\' is their calling. The numbers gathered under iheir eye are hardl\ more than half the whole number blessed in their work. The Methodist P^piscopal Church South has more recentl}' sent an effective laborer into the evangelical work. Sam P. Jones RECENT EVANGELISTS. 791 if m was born, in 1846, in Alabama, but was reared and educated in Cartersville, Georgia. His education, like that of so many of his generation, was interrupted by the tread of armies, so that he cannot be called an educated man. In 1872, he was converted and at once began to preach, and soon entered upon a circuit. His. home was in the North Georgia Conference of the Methodist ■episcopal Church South, and the Van Wert Circuit was his first tiold of labor. After eight years of service on circuits, he felt himself distinctly called to the work of an evangelist, and, in 1 880, he began to follow his calling. The result of six years' labor is held to justify his impression that he is thrust out, like a herald, to call men with the Gospel call. Others may be called to in- struct, to build up and shephcrdize, but he is let loose from local work and set to go before the pastor and the teacher, and get them souls to feed and teach. Early in this year he was for some weeks in Cincinnati. He had before this held meetings in the chief cities of the South, and always with great success. In Cin- cinnati he was to find new helps and new hindrances. His helps were in a spiritual and intelligent body of pastors and a people already deeply affected by Harrison's labors. His hindrances were from the very fact of Harrison's success, which had set very high the standard of revival eTort, so that they who had resisted Harrison's appeal would give little hearing to the average preacher. Jones began his meetings in Trinity Methodi?it Episcopal Church. He is of slight figure, of average height, of plain, rather classic featureij under heavy, black hair. He has no grace of oratory, and ignores the arts by which the gold of speech is served in comely baskets of silver. Moody himself is not more plain, direct and earnest. In language, the Doric, as a Greek would say, is his born and chosen dialect — straight, rude and vigorous. It is queer that often what is called Jones' slang, is the pure Anglo- Saxon, the English of one thousand years ago, and how it should re-appear in him is matter for a philologist to study. In his dis- course his moods are ever shifting, as Gough's Vv^ere shifting. He holds that every emotion of which men are capable should be made to ser\'e in bringing them to salvation, and he never limits himself to the understood decorum of the pulpit. To him, man is a being of vast and various susceptibilities, and he believes that the time to laugh and the time to weep, the time to love and r ^m a 792 THE STORY OF METH0D1S^ . the time to hate, all come lawfully within the limits of one discourse. So he in Music Hall, with its thousands before him, seemed to control the emotion of them all as, in the same place, Theodore Thomas, in a grand choral, had with his wand controlled hun- dreds of instruments and thousands of voices, from the giant- voiced organ to the softest alto, of whose presence he alone seemed aware. Jones touched every person, and "all passions, in their frames of clay, came thronging at his call." The cliurch at Cincinnati proved within a week, too small by half for the crowds that pressed to hear him. The services were then transferred to Music Hall, Vv^hich seats six thousand, and that, too, was soon just as much too small. There he stood, plain and earnest, but in his hands the Gospel indeed became a trumpet, whence he blew new and stirring tones. At his last service, which was to begin at 7:30 P. M., the Hall at 6:30, was packed with eight thousand people, and perhaps as many were at the door in vain During his stay of a month in the city, two hundred thousand heard him preach, and all were impressed with new and effective views of the Gospel. All Churches united in his work, and all gathered members from converts at his meetings. He is, in the course of the year, preaching to more people than any man in this country. His fearless, earnest way of hold- ing the mirror up to the people, so that they see, each his own image, and all see the course of society, and the divine min ! and judgment, deeply impresses even those who are the least inclined to reform. Should his strength be spared, he will in the coming twenty years be, far and wide, a help to the Church and a reformer in the land. Sam Small (strangely undignified name, this "Sam," but that is the whole of it!) was a man of talent and of education, position and prosperity, but was going rapidly, by whisky, to shame and ruin. He went from his home in Atlanta to Carters- ville, to hear Jones preach, hardly knowing how he was minded to go. There he was forcibly impressed with ideas of deliverance. even from whisky, which the Great Deliverer brings, On his re- turn, he found such deliverance, after hours of agony in prayer, and then scattered three thousand handbills through Atlanta, in- viting all to come and hear the story of his deliverance. His RECENT EVANGELISTS. 793 m one nied dore hun- ;iant- alone iions, all by ; were I, and stood, ;ame a lis last iO, was yere at ty, two ed with ited in etings. people f hold- is own n ^- and nclined coming former ," but lication, |sky, to :arters- Iminded ^erance. his re- I prayer, Inta, in- life has since been given to labors for his race. He sees prohibi- tion ruling in Atlanta and in most of the counties of his state. As an evangelist, he has far more culture than Jones and equal earnestness, but lacks the rude energy and the completeness of sympathy with our many-sided human nature that makes Jones a man of special power. Yet he is called to the same great work, and the hope of his calling is thus far well known. REV. SAM SMALL. There are many other evangelists working under the name of Methodism, and many working in its spirit and after its usages by other names, all good and effectual, but of these our story need not tell. These already introduced are men and women repre- sentative of evangelism and, being most prominent, they are such as may best be put on permanent record. They acre, an It is so that th( CHAPTER LIX. Chautauqua. AUTAUQUA Is the name of a lake in southwestern New York. It is, iu summer, a charming sheet of water. It is twenty mih^s long, of hour- glass shape, and of width vary- '^'Z^Ah^^^!^'^ miles. The special repute ^•^"^yUyl^^^ which it enjoys is that of being the highest % navigable water in the world. Lake Eric is a dozen miles away, but the great diffcr- /N T/mvv ence in the altitude of the two lakes makes Erie seem oceanic and boundless and sublime. At a given point where both are visible, the view is jy^l ^J enchanting. Chautauqua is set in a frame of green lawns and woodlands ; and its pure waters fs^ have been the richest of fishing grounds, and 'p now art is restoring the fish suppi)' which greed ^•^^*^'i) has short-sightedly darnagcd. Along the northwest shore of this lake, in 1864, some Methodist preachers were sailing in a canoe to look for a camp meeting ground. They chose fifty acres of forest, then worth twenty dollars an acre, and for some years an annual camj) meeting was held there. It is so beautiful a situation that generations will long be glad that the preachers in the rude canoe chose wiser than they 796 THE STORY OF METHODISM. thoii^'ht, and secured for sacred society and progress the best place in America. The area has been many times enlarged* and now contains a square mile and more. Tliere is a city with im- mense hotels, with public buildings ample for a university, with cottages in every st>le and quality along its avenues, and with every summer charm that shade and water have. The sumnuT population may reach twenty thousand ; the winter stayers may count one thousand. This is the home and center of the Chautauqua idea. John VIEW ON CHAUTAUQl'A LAKE. H. Vincent was born in Alabama, in 1832. He was educated at the North, and in 1853 joined the New Jersey Conference, and in 1856 he was transferred to the Rock River. His attention was early called to Sunday-school work, and soon his tastes for it u'ere formed and it became his favorite and most successful form of labor. He spared no pains to fit himself for such work, going to Palestine to gain vivid and effective impressions, making the acquaintance of successful workers and searching out improve- ments in ail working methods. In 1865 he was made general CHAUTAUQUA. 797 agent of the Sunday-school Union of the M. E. Church, and, in 1868, editor of the Sunday-school Jotirnal and of books of in- j^truction. New life was now thrown into all the workings of that department of the Church. Among other things he intro- duced Teachers' Institutes. These had already been used with success in aiding and fitting the teachers of public schools. It was found to be of the greatest possible service that they meet and spend days togetiier, C()mi)aring ideas and methods, getting the views of those most eminent and successful in their calling, harmonizing their systems, promoting the interest and dignity of the profession, and assisting its general progress. In Vincent's eyes, the teaching and management of the Sun- MOONLIGHT ON THE LAKE. (lay-schools was quite as important as any other could be, and every possible improvement in them was urgently desirable. He was in charge of the Sunday-school of a great Church; he mag- nified his office, and soon others also began to count it excellent and important. He found workers in the schools of his Church to be many, earnest and intelliger t. By bringing together for a few days such of these as were leaders in any city, district or even Con- ference, he had opportunity to see their ways and to teach them his own. His skill in teaching and his knowledge of his work were at once acknowledged, and the power of personal presence was most salutary in producing order, hopefulness and zeal in the work, In a little while, his methods gained the confidence and CHAUTAUgUA. 799 approval ol all workers, and he was owned to be master of the situation. He achieved the position of a model teacher and teacher of teachers. Secure now of public and churchly supports, he began to introduce improvements. Of these the first was, in 1H70, the Bercan System of Lessons. Every school had taken its lesson from such parts of Scripture as it chose, accoidintf to its view of its own needs and preferences. Few schools followed any coher- ent or logical system for attaining knowledge of either history or doctrine, and it was only by accident that even two, much less any great number, had at a given time the same lesson. Of course there could be no general exposition or illumination of the les- son, and uniformity was the thing first needed. Mr. Vmccnt has a happy facility, really a genius, for devising names that, for their fitness and convenience, take, without argument, and he gave to his new uniform lessons the name of "The Bcrean Series." It came from those Bercans who are noted in the Acts as " more noble" than those of Thessalonica, chiefly in that they searched the Scripture daily. The lessons were accompanied with skillful markings to arrest the attention. D was for Dates, Doctrines, Duties ; P, for Persons, Places, and that sort of thing, and brief comments were given, with illustrative picture, etc. Thus Sunday-school instruction was put alotigside of the best secular instruction in matter of scientific methods and facilities. The Church journals were soon publishing weekly expositions of the lessons, a column, usually as readable and as much read as any other. While this was proceeding in the M. E. Church, the Sunday-school people of other Churches were looking 0.1 with growing attention. They were invited to take part in th{; work and soon they were active helpers and patrons of the progress. The Berean Series was, in 1873, discussed by a congress of all, or nearly all, Protestant Churches and made International. By that name it is henceforth known. Annually, two years in advance of the year in which the lessons are to be actually used, a lesson committee, made up from the Churches of this country, Canada and England, meets and determines the forty-eight lessons which, with the reviews, occupy the Sundays of the pleasant and various year. The system has such and so many advantages that it has clearly tome to stay as a feature of the Sunday-school i; ' .1 8oo THK ST()RY OV MElHODISM system of the world. Its uniformity is charming, A stranger entering a Church service is not sure of the text from which he may hear a sermon, but wherever he enters a Sunday-school he knows the lesson. On a given Lord's Day, the International Lesson, following the sun and keeping time with the hours, circles the world, and there is now hardly a speech or a language where its verses are not read or learned, explained and enforced. The plan was adopted of holding, at some convenient place, a pro- tracted Sunday-school Institute, at which the exercises should be broad like the Interna- tional Lessons, like the Sacred Scripture itself. Mr. Vincent found his first helper in Lewis Miller, of Ak»-on, Ohio. This man h '.ome up by his own ., devout, generous and energetic cflfort, from humble ori- gin to the front rank of business men, of active Christians and good citi- zens. His time, his counsel and his money were freely put to the backing of V i n c e n t's ideas, and to him more than to any other than their author is due their success. These gentlemen chose the Chautauqua Camp-meeting Ground as the place for their Assembly, and here, in 1874, the first Sunday-school Assembly was held. Every resource and appliance then attainable was brought into service, and men and women of the largest ability and experience. The effort to bring Sunday- school work to its highest excellence was vigorously made, and the result was cheerful and assuring. The declared purpose was the improvement of methods of biblical instruction in the Sunday- school and the family. Here was to be a Bible-school, and the ideal adopted from the beginning has not been changed, but only LEWIS MILLER. CHAUTAUQUA. 80 1 iteadily unfolded for now these fourteen years. It has of course, been fov nd that the wide, deep study of the Bible leads to the study of most other things, as from the Golden Milestone in the Roman Forum went roads to all the provinces. The Assembly began as a Methodist Episcopal effort, being suggested and put in operation by Methodists, but, like that camp-meeting of which we told, began by Presbyterians, in 1799, on the Red river, Ky., the first camp-meeting on record, it was no more the plan to shut the Assembly to Methodiits than to limit to them the Bible itself. It was meant for mankind and it soon gained wide attention. Soon after the endorsement of the move- ment by the managers of the Sunday-school Union of the M. E. Church, the following resolution was sent out to the world: "Whereas this course of study is ; substantial agreement with that adopted by the normal departments of the Baptist, Presby- terian and American Sunday-school Union Boards, and as the leading workers in these and other branches of the Christian Church will be at the Assembly to assist by their experience and counsels, and, as it is our purpose to make the occasion one of the largest catholicity, the committee cordially invite workers of all denominations to attend and to participate in the services of th^ Assembly." This invitation was taken in the spirit in which it was given, and the Assembly soon became the most truly cath- olic institute in the world. In its general work the lines of de- nominations vanished and the movement v/as seamless as the Saviour's robe. Still every represented Communion has its own home and its own exercises. Many of these have their own buildings and each on arriving registers himself with his own people, and on Wed- nesday evenings each Church has its own separate meetings for conference and prayer. Thus the gathered flocks are at rest in one fold and under one Shepherd, and they go in and out and find pasture. At times fifteen different denominations, almost every one known in Protestantism, have been counted in attendance. On various occasions the doctrines and practices have been stated by representative men, and the grounds and reasons thereof frankly and fully stated without reply or debate, and large audiences have given the most kindly and attentive hearing, and have felt 51 l-f 802 TIIK STORY OF MKIIIODISM. all the stronf:[cr in tin: deep love that biiuls bclicvinjj hearts. At Cliaiitatiqua, as we saw in China, all comnuinions meet as, to our vision, parallel lines niuet on the starry surface of the sky. The central institute thus planted at Chautauqua, like a tree by generous streams, went on to grow and put forth its branches. Of these, the one of largest spread is the Chautauqua Liter- ary and Scientific Circle, usually known by its initials as the C. L. S. C. (Once in a century these letters may mislead. In a town near Chautauqua lived Klla See. "Where is Dr. F.?" asked a pa- rishioner one evening. " Gone to C. L. S. C," said Mrs. F. "Why, is she sick?" came out anxiously.) This is a company of readers pledged to a wide range of literature. Its aim, as set forth at its organization, August 10, 1878, is to promote habits of study and reading in connection with the routine of daily life, especially that those whose educational ad- vantages have been lim- ited may gain a student's outlook upon life and REV. LUCIUS II. BUOBEE, V . D. upon the world, and may develop the habit of close, persistent thinking. That it was not to be confined to the uneducated is shown by the fact that the first graduate in its course of study was the Rev. Dr. Lucius H. Ikigbee, a graduate of Amherst College, an experienced educator and, at the time, president of Allegheny College, Meadville, Pa. The C. L. S. C. proved by its progress that it oict and satisfied a real want. It gathered its members from every class of society. Several were over eighty at their joining, as old as Plato when he learned to play the (lute to aid in resisting the ravages of old age. Those who had more time •'K CHAUTAUQUA. 803 At ) our I tree ichc3. Litcr- C. L. . town a pa- cning. 3. ^., ' Why, me out mpany ;ed to a siaturc. forth at August promote dy and incction of daily at those nal ad- en Um- tu dent's ife and nd may shown Iwas the lege, an llegheny Progress jiembers lat their le to aid Ire time than business, 01 more business than time, found solace and profit in its studies. The theory of the circle is simple. Its first principle is th".t 1 le basis of education is religious, and that when education is rightly begun all life should be its school. That learning has no favored classes; the humble home and the lowly calling, as the classic Horace sang long ago, may claim and have its elevating, re- fining influence. Nor i^ education limited to the school period and to early life. Business, care and experience serve to strengthen the intellect, and, if this be well directed, the attainments of maturer years, and to this may be added the fact that those whose early advantages were small have .ifterwarcis the stimulus of an exalted view of learning and an intense craving to obtain it. These can, with good guidance and encouraging assurance, achieve, in a di- rection so desirable, results solid and gratifying. Its work, based upon these propositions, is done partly at Chautauqua and other assemblies, where for a few weeks in the summer instruction is given by lectures and class exercises. For those who cannot be present at these assemblies, provision is made for study by correspondence. Lessons arc given and examinations are made, and after satisfactory processes the diplomas are issued. Finally, those who can use neither of these methods may have direction in such reading and study as they can accomplish, and by duly reporting to headquarters obtain credit for work actually achieved. The usual method is to organize in a given precinct a circle with an efficient chairman, able to comfort, counsel and command, and to have monthly meetings for review and inspection for the statement and removal of difficulties, and for social entertainment and inspiration. Where the number is such that the expense is little, lectures are had on matters relating to the course. It is not to be expected that all these students will be pro- found and exhaustive in their work, but they who master their studies even defectively get well paid for their effi)rts. They gather ideas, they come into wider sympathy with truth, they breathe a higher atmosphere, as the result of even imperfect effijrts. The course in this "school out of school" embraces science, history and literature. Graduation in it corresponds to gradua- tion in college. It means that certain lines of study so important i 'l^i^v^WWW^'^^^^^^^^ ■^Tf^s^^^f? T^mi^-^ 804 THE STORY OF METHODISM. as to be fixed and based are completed, and that henceforth the student or reader is to exercise his own choice. On the diploma are thirty-one blank spaces and there are as many courses of read- ing provided. When one of these courses is completed, a seal is stamped upon one of these spaces. These are enough for an aver- age lifetime. About eighty-four hundred names were, in 1878, enrolled for the class aiming to graduate in 1882. When their Commence- ment (called their " Recognitior Day") came around on August 12, 1882, seventeen hundred and eighteen received the diploma. Of these, about eight hundred were present, and the order of the day was made noble and impressive. Over one hundred thousand names are now enrolled in this circle. There are six local circles in Japan, containing more than one thousand members, coming from every rank of society. There are judges, lawyers, government officials, as well as soldiers, etc, with many ladies. In South Africa is a circle with an attendance of three hundred. Russia has a circle of three hundred and forty-four, and there is one in Hawaii. For those who can hardly take the C. L. S. C. course, but are desirous of doing something, there has been framed " The Chau- tauqua Book-a-month Reading Circle." It offeis thirty-six vol- umes, one a month for three years, being about sixteen pages a day. These volumes are selected from a wide rang"; in the vari- ous departments of literature, history, biography, essays, travel and historical romance. In the same connection is also "The Chautauqua Musical Reading Club," adapted in one line to prac- tical musicians and in the other to lovers of music. A "Young Folks Reading Union" (everything begins with "Chautauqua") follows these just named, and a "Town and Coun- try Club/' framed to encourage the young to keep their eyes and ears open for all things in art and nature, to make record and report the same, is also in existence. There is, too, a Society of Fine Arts. Rising above these is the College of Liberal Arts — i. c., a real college with thorough courses of study. This is the "college outlook " from the C. L. S. C. It is a non-resident college, and that is, at best, a disadvantage. Nothing can make good the loss of daily drill under a master's eye and voice, and the personal !• '1 CHAUTAUQUi.. 805 force of his presence. Recitation and guidance is the next best, and to many it is the only thing within reach. The studies are by no means without a master, and guidance at long range is sometimes quite effectual. It certainly tends to make the student self-reliant and impels him to do for himself the best he can and to do it sincerely. Certainly there are none in such a college but those who, in good faith, desire and intend to learn. The examinations are in writing and in the presence of com- petent and watchful committees, and their papers receive as much PHILOSOPHY HALL, CHAUTAUQUA. consideration as at Oxford or Cambridge. The defects of the study by correspondence are partly balanced by a certain inde- pendence, accuracy and continuance of attention necessary for writing. Thi^ college and this system of study are not designed for those who can do better, but for those who can get collegiate education in no other way. This College of Liberal Arts is a part of the general educa- tional enterprise organized at the Chautauqua U iversity, but called by the simple name Chautauqua, Dr. Vincent being its chancellor. There is also in the University a school of Theology In this, as in the College Arts, the work is done at the homes of the students, attendance at Chautauqua being not a necessity, but rather a recreation and an encouragement. Of this School of Theology there are two departments, one of drill and one of 8o6 TIIK srOKY OV MKTIIODISM. resource. Tn the first arc severe studies of Hebrew, Hellenistic Greek, and some Latin. For these there arc stiniincr schools in July, at which one may ^;ct initiatory instruction anil helps by tin; way. In doctrine the students are directed by theoloj^ians of tluir own Churches and are examined by the same, so that each is in the care of his own brethren. 'l"he course in the first department has quite a ran^e of history and science and criticism. More than tour hundred men, most of whom are already enf;ageil in preach- ing, arc at work in this department. The other tlepartment of the Theological School has the im- posing name of "The Jerusalem Chamber." This was taken from that room in Westminster Abbey, where seven hundretl years ag(y were Iring ample tapestries, illustrating the coiu|ucst of Jerusalem by the Crusaders, where one still reails, "O pra>' for the peace of Jerusalem;" " lUiild thou the walls of Jerusalem ;" "Jerusalem which is above is free." Here were framed the Book of Common Prayer of the I'.piscopal Church and the Westminster Confession and Catechism of the I'resbyterians, and here, not long ago, the Revised Translation of the Bible was made. This historic name has been given to the department which offers resources without requiring study, or, at least, examination. All actual clergymen, missionaries and the like, becoming members, receive all docu- ments, publications, and every help which the department can give. There is a Chautauqua literature — a Chautauqua monthly and several minor periodicals, a great range of special text-books and a stream of poems, essays and lectures. At the place itself the fixtures and appliances are complete. Ever}'' variety of building and equipment is ample, and the grounds and waters have summer throngs. There is a Teacher's Retreat for weary but studious teach- ers, and a Summer School of Languages and abundant play as well as work. Chautauqua is now reproduced in all parts of the country. Attractive as its routine is and successful as its efforts is to com- bine recreation with improvement, it is wholly unable to satisfy the demand which it has created. Every precinct of land is get- ting its own Chautauqua. Assemblies of those who can take a few summer days for leisure, whose relish for the Word is lively, chiefly such as work in Churches and Sunday-schools, are •:^\'Vi CHAUTAUQUA. 807 3 t, abundant. There arc over forty in this country. From eastern Maine to soutlicrn California, from the St. Lawrence to Florida, where the season first o[)ens, one finds the assemblies. The youngest of all is at I'alnier Lake, Colorado, under the imperious {guardianship of Pike's Peak. The story of Chautauqua has been thus fully told for two j.'fPi »r^ Dr. T, L. flood, EDITOR OF THE CHAUTAUQiJAN, reasons ; one is that it illustrates the form which Methodism, ever the same in spirit, takes in these later days. We have seen how education has, from the beginning of the movement, been a cause upon which its best efforts have been lavished. Since Whitefield laid with tears and prayers that cor- ner-stone at Kingswood and Wesley went on to build the school, 8o8 THE STORV OF METIIUUISM. the temper of Methodism has been to this day the same. And now, when schools of every kind, even of law and medicine, are in good supply, Chautauqua comes in to gather up. those who cannot use the means already provided and bring them in to the glad feast of knowledge. This is akin to Wesley's work, to find the unawakened, the weary and the disheartened, and bring them to the heritage of light and life. The other reason is, that the Chautauqua movement has on other Churches an effect so like that which the movement called Methodism had on other Churches one hundred and forty years ago and which it has always had. Chautauqua was begun by Methodists, but it found prompt and powerful alliance with the best of other Churches. Without their aid it would not have be- come what it now is. We saw how many Churches are rep- resented on its ground and are working for its success and arc blest in their deed. The various denominations are there "dis- tinct as the billows, yet one as the sea." And, while all Churches thus give the enterprise their valuable aid and sympathy, they cheerfully concede that the beginning and the inspiration are Methodistic. Early in 1888 the University had six hundred students pur- suing its studies by correspondence, and its Summer Faculty was of the best obtainable teachers. More than one hundred thousand were prosecuting its reading and studies, forming a body larger than the University of Paris could boast in its wondrous days of old. The Chautauqua Monthly has fifty-three thousand subscrib- ers. In the summer of 1888 there were forty-one Chautauquas in the United States, one in Canada, and one in England. *4fe^&:^-^ Ocean Grove. HHE coast of New Jersey re- [^ mained in its original wilder- ~^f^ ness long after the overflow of the crowded city had spread to rural homes and summer resorts along the Hudson and the Sound. Six miles below Long Branch, already an attractive and becoming a fashionable retreat, and fifty miles from New _^.k, some Methodist families, in 1869, found a quiet lake near the beach of the Atlantic. Here, in simple rest and devotion, they were deeply impressed with a feeling of the Divine Presence. " God is in this place " was their thought, as if He meant their coming to the lake to result in special honor to His name. Their ideas grew wide and earnest, and in December of 1869 was formed The Ocean Grove Camp-meeting Association of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Ocean Grove, the town that arose under the control of this association, has proved that it is practicable to combine rest, recreation and religion, three sore needs of a weary world. The rapid growth of the enierprise proved that it answered a healthy and deep felt want. About four hundred acres were purchased from wild beach lands, securing not merely an ocean front but some fresh ponds farther in. The sale of liquors within a circle of a mile was effectually prohibited, and other legislation needful to the design m I' I CHAPTER LX. i PILGRIM PATHWAY AND MAIN AVENUE. OCEAN GROVE, N, J. ( Looking toward the Auditorium ) OCKAN flROVK. 8ll secured. " In the bcginninfj, God." This fia^rment of Holy Writ came laden with suggestions to the leader's mind, and he took it for a motto, as if he would have Ocean Grove, like the primal earth, framed for the honor of the Creator, Such has been the temper and steadfast aim of the enterprise, and now has risen by the sea a fair city, such as He who smiles upon efforts for mortal happiness in His name, pronounces (one may humbly think) very good. There is a permanent population steadily increasing, and all the fixtures and appliances of an abiding town are in ample supply. The sewerage, the fire department, the postal and tele- graph service, artesian water works and electric lights, are accord- .il OCEAN GROVE, FROM THE SEA. 'Hg to latest of completeness and facility. St. Paul's M. E. Church has a large and beautiful edifice and four hundred members. The walks by the sounding sea, many of which are asphaltum or con- crete, the fences and all solid fixtures, as well as all provision for supplies, indicate comfortable winter residence. It is, however, in summer that Ocean Grove serves the pur- pose for which it was designed. In 1887, more than a million passengers came to its depot. These found homes for periods longer or shorter, in nine hundred and seventy-eight permanent buildings and six hundred tents, many of these latter being large and commodious. They were served by two hundred and forty- i. OCKAN (iKOVK. «I3 six dealers of various kinds, and received durinff the season, five hundred thousand pieces of mail matter. A resort so larjjje rapidly gathers the delights of modern civ- ilization, and so has Ocean Grove done. The cottages and pub- lic buildings are usually beautiful. Trees and flowers arc copi- ously cultivated. The lakes that nearly flank the town are gay with tiny craft, and Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste seems brightening into smiles at the fragrance and beauty com- ing to him from the shore, and at the merry laughter of the bathers who sport with him in the surf along his margin. "SWEET HOME" COTTAGES. The exercises relating to moral and religious improvement are conducted with wisdom and energy. The Rev. Dr. E. H. Stokes, president of the association from the beginning, now nearly twenty years, adds to rare business ability a hearty sym- pathy with the highest Christian experience, and with every effort for the welfare of man and the honor of Christ. He welcomes to the hospitality of Ocean Grove all who personally or collectively labor to promote works of piety and benevolence. Thus, during 814 THE STORY OF MKTIlODISM. the season of 1887 (July and AuRust), there were held four hun- dred and ninety reli^Mous or benevolent services. Of these, may be specified sixty-nine meetings for the attainment of personal holiness, in which, three hundred and forty-nine were brought to thn bliss of the purified, six hundred and forty-two professed con- version, one hundred and forty were reclaimed from wandering, and eight thousand three hundred and ninety were specially helped in religious experience. Thus, nearly ten thousand re- ceived clear and felt Christian benefit. For sixty-nine days the work of God went quietly forward in this calm re- treat, and one may muse upon the contrast be- tween the fierce self- denials amid rocks and sands in early ages or the glooms of convents and monasteries, and these shades by bright waters where hearts joy- ous and free, witii every blessing blest, gave to Christ in gladness and gratitude, the glory of summer hours. Here the African M. E. Church celebrated Emancipation Day; here, temperance unions, missionary societies, and other bodies, too many to name, held their gatherings, and the ver}^ air grew rich benevolence, praise and joy. The success of Ocean Grove has inspired like enter- prises elsewhere, but this wears the wreath of primal success. So near to the heat and bustle of the great city, it is wholly clear of the maddening crowd ; only a step from the luxury and self- indulgence of Long Branch, it uses the world as not abusing it. Seated by the glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form glasses in tempests, in breeze, or gale, or calms, it looks upon the works of God and His wonders in the deep, and seeks to worship Him HON. JNO. B. FINCH, Grand Worthy Templar of the World. OCEAN GROVE. 815 in spirit and in truth. Methodist in origin, in management and in influence, it gathers not only Methodists of all branches and of all lands, but Christians of all denominations, and they go from it recuperated and revived in experience, with kindlier views of life and larger thoughts of duty. I" ; I I ' I CHAITKR LXI. The General Conference of 1888. |HE Twentieth Delegated General Confer- ence, the twenty-fifth from the forming of the Church, met on the first of May in New ;j York. The growth of the Church and the progress of the world had made it not only duly greater than any of its predecessors, but foremost of all assemblies of modern Christendom. Its direct constituency in the Methodist Episcopal Societies was over two millions ; second to none in energy, devo- tion, in wealth and intelligence. Of kindred churches wearing the name and owning the pedigree of Methodists, there were three millions, all turning with reverence and affection towards this gathering of the parental body. All Christian eyes turned towards the Conference and all Christian hearts mused of it;> doings. The place of its nieeting was worthy of such a gathering. Methodism in the metropolis of the Western Continent is not strong, but it is renewing its mighty youth, and while the Confer- ence was sitting, hundreds of souls came to Christ in a revival which Harrison -vas conducting and in which bishops and eminent preachers assi^ited. There, too, was John Street, venerable as time could make it in this young land, still shedding the liglit which W^bb and Embury had kindled. There was the book concern which in the former century John Dickens had begun with six hundred uorrowed dollars, now grown to millions of capital and millions of transactions. New Yotk, with fifty-three churches and thirteen thousand members, was still the metropolis of Metnodisni. The building in which the Conference held its r; THE GENERAL CONFERENCE OF 1 888. 817 sessions was fit to shelter it. The Metropolitan Opera House, at Broadway and Fortieth street, furnished the finest assembly room in the United States. Its platform was ample for the bishops and all officials with their guests ; the floor accommodated the dele- gates ; the first two galleries, made of boxes, paid by rental the cost of the hall, and the other two galleries were free to visitors. The lighting was wholly by gas, which brought out the splendor of the room and flooded its five thousand occupants with the full light of noonday. The personality of the Conference was worthy of study. Eleven bishops, with Thomas Bowman as senior, sat upon the platform, survivors of the thirty-seven since 1784. William Taylor, the missionary bishop of Africa, was most observed of them all. Finishing his work, he was waiting on the Liberian coast for a stean^er due in a fortnight. Suddenly one appeared ("by order of Providence," he said), and he reached New York in time for Conference. His snowy beard, maroon face and mighty bearing were Abrahamic, but he came with neither two coats nor money in his purse. He brought only him- sel" and his record. With these sat on the platform men eminent in the various branches of Methodism, come on errands of brotherly greeting. Other denominations were often so repre- sented, so that the platform showed a constellation of stars of the first magnitude. Of delegates there were 463 ; of ministerial 288, of lay 175. Five women had been elected, Frances E. Willard, Mary C. Nind, Lizzie D. Van Kirk, Angle F. Newman and Amanda C. Rippey. One layman. Major E. L. Paine, remembered hearing Asbury preach, had seen in press the first number of the Christian Advo- cate, and at eighty-seven found age " a lusty winter, frosty but kindly." A preacher. Dr. J. M. Trimble, had sat in the General Conference of 1844 and seen the Cnurch become two bands. These were the veterans, all others were of this generation. From China ("these from the land of Sinim,") came Sia Sek Ong, once a Confucian bigot, now for twenty years a preacher of child- like bearing, but of heroic record, and Tiong-a-Hok, a merchant- prince of Foochow, devout and generous. The Conferences of India and Europe sent delegates. From Africa was noticed the venerable Mrs. Roberts, widow of the noble President of Liberia. A Norwegian represented the land of the midnight sun. "li.llflJJIflilTl^.WW' Chur Merr actioi views to th cnce. Churc definit electee lively. vote of Octobe years c women favor th Annual Conferei change, mitted. giving h delegates these res Jstry can f'or some many, ha who care supplemei and Swiss activity. what alrea women inl being worn Board. J twenty.five above indi< These take direction of THE '6€'^fkAL CONFERENCE OF 1 888. 819 At the opening the lessons were read from a Bible long used by John Wesley and now owned by the Methodist Episcopal Church. The Bishop's address, written and read by Bishop Merrill, set forth the leading questions of the Church upon which action of the Conference was desirable, and it also indicated the views of the bishops thereon. The first of these questions related to the admission of women as delegates to the General Confer- ence. In 1872, a layman had been defined as any member of the Church, not a member of an Annual Conference. Under this definition twenty-two women (reserves being counted) had been elected to this General Conference. The debate was long and lively. After four days it was voted to submit the decision to a vote of the Church, according to the constitutional routine. In October and November of 1890 the members over twenty-one years of age in every society, will vote upon the admission of women to General Conference. If a majority of ?uch voters favor their admission, and three-fourths of the members of the Annual Conferences voting thereon also favor it, then the General Conference of 1892 can, by a two-thirds vote, complete the change, and any women then already elected can be at once ad- mitted. Closely related to this important action was a '-lotion giving like career to a provision for making the number of lay delegates as many as the ministerial. It will be seen that on both these resolutions the initi tive vote is with the laity, and the min- istry can do nothing without the primary approval of the societies. For some yea -s already the State Church at Kaisenvcrth, in Ger- many, had em loyed Deaconesses, an order of Christian women who cared for he sick, for orphans, for discharged prisoners, supplementing in kindl)' labor the pastoral service. The German and Swiss Conferences had found such a department of churchly activity. The General Conference, giving form and name to what already existed, provided for the organizing of these good women into an orderly system. Nine persons, three at least being women, may, in any Conference, be chosen as a Controlling Board. These may license as deaconesses any women over twenty-five years of age and two years of probation in the work above indicated, whom a Quarterly Conference may recommend. These take no vow, but simply devote themselves, under the direction of the pastor, to such Christian labor as may be suited ^w^ Tf»»WWW!!'Pflpp»" 820 THE STORY OF METHODISM. to their abilities. Or they may establish themselves in a house or in, titute for like purpose, under a superintendent chosen by the Conference Board. This marks an advance in the recognition as a church-worker. The laymen of the cities had long been of the opinion that an extension of the time of pastoral service was needed. The view had reached the ministry, and the bishops agreed in suggest- ing its lengthening to four years. With singular unanimity the Conference made the term five years, with a possible return after five years of absence. The term of a Presiding Elder was stretched to six years. The position of Bishop Taylor was vigorously discussed. The conclusion was that he is not a General Superintendent; that he is in all things but breadth of superintendcncy, a full bishop ; that his field of superintendcncy is defined by the terms used at his election, and that he is in no wise subordinate to the General Superintendents. Bishop Taylor's supervision is over the African Conference. "No pent up Utica," he may say with the proud Numidian, " contracts our powers, but the whole boundless conti- nent is ours ! " For the better support of supeiannuated preachers and widows and orphans of deceased preachers, a Board of Confer- ence Claimants was organized, of twelve ministers and as many laymen, with the bishops as ex-ofiicio members. These are to employ a corresponding secretary, and the duty of the body is to raise, manage and disburse funds raised by the annual collections, or in any other way, for the benefit of the above named benefi- ciaries. This gives energy, equity and s,vstem to a serious and just duty of the Church. The world ("my parish," said Wesley) was divided into one hundred and eleven Conferences, seven Mission Conferences and four Missions. Enabling acts were passed for creating nineteen new Conferences, so that the map of Methodism may, in 1 892, show one hundred and forty-one provinces, of which the African Con- ference is the largest. Except in the acts just noted, the temper of the Twentieth General Conference was conservative, being steadily set, "not to mend our rules ■ ut keep them." On May 24th, during the session, occurred the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of John Wesley's conversion, the true ♦'■ METROPOLITAN METHODIST CHURCH, TORONTO, CANADA. I' 1 ■ 5^ "?■". ' 822 THE STORY OF METHODISM. spiritual origin of "the movement called Methodism," On that day in 1738, "my heart was strangely warmed," and many warm hearts were lifted to heaven in gratitude and praise when this day, in its annual round, reached the General Conference. Fraternal greetings from branches of the central banian came copiously and tenderly. The youngest of them all, the Inde- pendent Methodist, an outcome of the one hundred Methodist churches of Baltimore, reported two thousand communicants gathered in twenty years. The Rev. Dr. J. T. Wightman presented their brotherly regards. They have some chapels and Sunday Schools. Their missionary efforts are through the societies of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the Methodist Episcopal Church South. The Rev. Dr. E. A. Stafford, pastor of the Met- ropolitan Church, Toronto, the largest Methodist Church in the world, brought the salutations of Canadian Methodism. He reported two hundred and ten thousand members, and two hund- red and eleven thousand dollars missionary money, the only known instance of a large church going beyond the dollar-line. From the Church South came the Rev. Dr. S. A. Steel, of Louisville. He knew of the separation and even of slavery by tradition only, and his heart longed for union in fact, if not in form. He reported the addition of seventy-five thousand three hundred and nine to his church in 1887, making its members now one million fifty-five thousand nine hundred and fifty-four, with four thousand four hundred and thirty-four traveling preachers. The African Methodist Episcopal Church, from its own General Conference, sitting at Indianapolis, with two hundred and sixty delegates from forty-one Annual Conferences and nearly three hundred thousand members, reported among other things its desire and effort to unite with churches of its own ken, so that in the States, in Canada and the Islands there might be one African Methodism, it had just elected four bishops, two of whom, born slaves, had by their own energy, raised themselves to a fitness for such position, and whose personal history will yet enrich a story of African Methodism. The American Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, holding General Conference at Newbern, N. C, sent greetings from three hundred thousand members, one thousand seven hundred and fifty preachers and twenty-five Conferences, and alluded to the H tME GENERAl, CONFERENCE OF 1888. 823 part its people, the Dinahs and Pompcys of the time, took in the labor and sacrifice of building Methodism in New York a hundred years ago. The Conference of England was represented by the Rev. Charles H. Kelly, and that of Ireland by the Rev. Wesley Guard. They told heart-cheering things of Methodism in its old home, of the great and successful efiforts to spread its influence in Lon- don and to reach every village in the kingdom. It is going forth in all its ancient vigor and Wesley need not blush for his great grandchildren. The Church in all its affiliations numbers five hundred and thirty-seven thousand and sixty-six, with forty-six thousand eight hundred and twenty-one on trial, besides "junior classes" of children numbering over eighty thousand, of Sunday School scholars there are eight hundred and ninety-two thousand five hundred and thirty-two. Home mission work is now the notable feature of Methodist church work, and so is Great Britain by emigration sending forth her people that every effort is needed to retain and advance in the mother land. It is affecting cause for gratitude that Ireland, the "island of sorrow," Methodism steadily increases and all its institutions are green as the shamrock. Thus in all the world Methodism was shown to be growing in vigor, breadth and power. In 1891 there will probably be held in New York an Ecumenical (all world) Methodist Council. It will then be shown that Methodism is planted in every land ; that the century since Wesley's death has been greatest of all the Christian centuries, and that his life and labors were blessed as the agency by which the head of the Church was pleased most to renew His people and bring the nations to the obedience of the faith and the experience of His grace. MODEL OF MOUNTAINS OF MOAB, CHAUTAUQUA, N. Y. CHAPTER LXII. The General Conference of 1892. ' a MAH A, the place of its session, fifteen hundred miles west of New York, where the General Conference of 1888 had been held, was in striking contrast with the great metropolis. In 1854 the Territory of Nebraska had been carved from the wide regions of the Northwest and framed into the national system. At its southeast corner the trail to the Pacific had crossed the Missouri. Here, too, for a generation and more had been the mart of Indian trade, and "Council Bluffs," the name of the spot, tells of the meeting of the tribes with each other and with the Federal representatives. Here, as far as possible from the Territory's geographical center, was fixed the capital of Nebraska, "Omaha" (^on top, Indian), "Council Bluffs" being limited to the adjoining settle- ment in Iowa. Thus begun in 1854, Omaha, on a great thorough- fare, and being a natural trade- center, had in 1892 become a city of 150,000 people, with such energy, cheer, aspiration and incom- pleteness as brought it into sympathy with the Church whose chief Council now met upon its Bluffs. Bishop Newman, here residing, with loyal helpers among the citizens, had looked well to the comfort and convenience of the session. The Conference had 494 members, 31 more than its predecessor, and, as the ratio of representation was unchanged, this increase of membership was from the actual growth of the Church. The ministerial members THE GENERAL CONFERENCE OF 1892. ^25 I were 313, of whom 153 were presiding elders, 92 pastors, 34 edu- cators, 13 editors, 8 secretaries, and 6 book agents. The 181 laymen were men of high character, and some of marked financial, professional and political standing. There was in the Conference very little of marked individ- uality. Those who had stood around the Separation in 1844 had gone with the men of their generation. Of actual seniors there were several, John Lanahan of Baltimore, now in his seventh session, being foremost. The youngest was I. Garland Penn, twenty-five years of age, a layman of Washington Conference. The ablest debater was J. M. Buckley, editor of the Christian Advocate. Intensely watchful, quick, clear, forcible and courteous, if he often met or urged the brunt of debate, it was because he of many was the man for the moment. The eighteen bishops of 1888 were present. Time had touched them but lightly. Thomas Bowman, the senior, at seventy-five, now in the fifty-fifth year o£ his active ministry, was by reason of strength perfectly equal to every demand of his office. R. S. Foster, at seventy-two, in the fifty-sixth year of his long service, read in manly voice the pastor's address of two hours' length, with no sign of weariness. William Taylor from Africa, and James M. Thoburn from India, "through burning climes had passed unhurt," and brought tidings of toil and victory. The bishops felt no need of re-enforcements and none were elected at this session. Certainly these good men were willing to be in labors abundant, having care of 1 1 5 annual con- ferences, 14 mission conferences at home and 9 in foreign lands, besides "that which cometh upon them daily," lectures, dedications and many a public service, and each had magnified his office. The General Conference assembled in the opera house at Omaha on Monday, May 2. Aft r the opeiiing solemnities came the task of seating. With debate and apprehension it was voted that the laymen sit apart from the clergy, though in the same room, which to some appeared to mar tht unity of the body, and forebode the forming of two houses. Then came the address of the bishops. It reviewed four years of peace, of growth and of fair success in the life of the Church. The Ecumenical Con- ference at Washington, in the previous year, had gathered Metho- dists of all branches, languages and lands, and on their sweet unity the heavenly grace, like the dew of Hermon, had richly fallen. There had been large increase of humanitarian work. Seven 1 I, ['I REV. JOHN I.ANAHAN, D. D. ijf hosj with hom of h the ] The allow sion ! the C about (but 1 an inc contri gate i $8,000 and sp tion, 01 liquor 1 movem ference Annual sage, sf of those Ea mittee £ Constiti This im pline, wi Th( came to earnest, present Restricti Conferen Jay deleg to vote in May I, I "If THE GENERAL CONFERENCK OF 1 892. 827 hospitals were reported, the largest, at Hrooklyn, costing $600,000, with an annual expenditure of $40,000. Twenty-six Deaconess homes and seven Deaconess hospitals were at work for the relief of human suffering, while many a smaller mission was doing for the poor and the sick, as Wesley did in his following of Christ. The growth of the Church in numbers had been assuring. The number of communicants was 2,292,614, showing (making allowance for those meanwhile dying) 442,000 added by profes- sion since 1888, and this not at the expense of other churches, for the Church South, for example, had meanwhile grown at a rate about the same. The energy of the Board of Church ILxtension (but not that alone) had raised the number of church edifices to 23,395, worth $9.8,134,113, besides parsonages worth §26,000,000, an increase of 2,640 and $ 18,321,321 in four years. The annual contribution for missions had come to 51,251,059, and the aggre- gate for church benevolences in the period had risen above $8,000,000. The address gave a cheerful account of the loyalty and spirituality of the Church, of its zeal in missions and educa- tion, of its patriotism and its firm, earnest conviction as to the liquor trade. It also made official statement of the failure of the movement to admit women to membership in the General Con- ference, it having received less than the vote required in the Annual Conferences. Thus the address, like a presidential mes- sage, set forth the state of the Church, with the views and wishes of those set in charge over it- Early in its session the Conference received, from a com- mittee appointed four year? before, a report digesting the Church Constitution, and the organic law of the General Conference. This important document, a harmony and comment for the Disci- pline, was to accompany the same, not supersede it. The question of admitting women to General Conference came to a n»:w hearing, and the discussion of it was ample and earnest. In the last hours of the Conference it was voted to present it to the Annual Conferences as follows : The second Restrictive Rule (which fixes the Representation in General Conference) shall be amended by adding to "nor more than two lay delegates for every Annual Conference" these words, ''And said delegates tmist be male members^ On this the societies are to vote in the autumn of 1894, and the Annual Conferences before May I, 1896 If it fail to be approved by three-fourths of the ■I ■wppp REV. J. W. HAMILTON, D. D. a A THE OENERAL CONFERENCE OF I892. 820 Annual Conference and by two -thirds of the next General Conference, then women are to be admitted because they are "laymen" and not expressly excluded. This, called the Hamilton Amendment, from the Rev. Dr. J. W. Hamilton of New England, who presented it, is now before the Church awaiting its destiny. The educational enterprise of most general scope and widest appeal, was the establishment of a National University at Wash- ington. Bishop Hurst, with the aid of citizens of the metropolis, had secured a fitting site — a hundred acres on an *. 'nence look- ing far and wide over the city and its environs. Every educational resource of the federal government would here be at the student's service, and here might be the central seat for the nation's learn- ing as well as for its law and government. The Bishop's large and generous views drew the hearty approval of the Conference, and, though indefinite millions of money will, as time goes on, be needful to the plan, it is to advance like Oxford for a thousand years and, as its days, so its strength and beauty, as of a growing tree, will prove. In a great and growing Church, as in a free and thriving State, new questions and new aspects of matters already familiar are always thickly coming, and so it was in the General Conference of 1892. Here were nearly five hundred able representative men. " When ye come together, every one of you hath an interpretation, hath a doctrine." Legislation after discussion is the rule among the free. Discussion in this Conference was immense. The committees were large and their task laborious. Their reports coming up to be adopted, amended or rejected, called out debate often high and free, sometimes trivial except to him speaking, and all going to make faithful membership no common strain upon both mind and body. No great issues came up ; nothing critical occurred. " Happy the people whose history is dull ! " The unexciting record of this General Conference proves that the welfare of the Church had the movement of a broad, calm, beneficent river. Apart from its doings, the Conference was of itself a study. Its personality was to the onlooker like a tour around our ever- shrinking planet. It might be called ecumenical, for here were represented the kindred and tongues most prominent among man- kind. "The earthly have many languages; the heavealy, one." One might have spoken in any of twenty languages, and some one THE GENERAL CONFERENCE OF 1892. 831 would have caught his word and shown his meaning. The gift of tongues was needless, for all knew English. Every day brought from some religious body a fraternal delegate with words of sympathy and cheer. The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church passed through Omaha to its meeting at Portland, Oregon, and made an almost official visitation. Every evening was given to lectures, addresses or some other public occasion ir which the best talent of the -hurch was employed, and the whole month was as a long " feast of fat things full of marrow and of wine on the lees well refined." The growth of the Church in some regions, as reported at the Con- ference, was very encouraging. Thus, in the Indian Territory, larger than New England, with a population of 360,000 and a capacity for ten times that number, a Mission had been organized in 1889. It had already fifty preachers and 3,500 in society, with 3,000 in Sunday school and $40,000 of property. Of pastoral charges there were over a hundred, and the day of small things is the day of growth and expansion. Other churches arc concerned in the same good work, and the fertile, beautiful Territory, with its 55,000 Indians who have so borne th * scourge of civilization, will have the blessings of its gentler side. Africa, outside of Liberia, was shown to be sharing the heavenly light and truth. In the societies were 3,26J, in Sunday schools 3,070, and of church property $28,526. This might seem a slender footing, but a foot- ing it is and shows that the M. E. Church is not slighting the Dark Continent. At home, too, at the opposite extreme of civiliza- tion, New England, where in 1792 Asbury with eight preachers held at Lynn the first New England Conference, showed, in spite of constant drainage by migration, 100,000 members and $10,000,- 000 of church property. In 1789 John Dickins had lent the Church $600 to found the Book Concern. Its report, which might fairly be called centennial, showed an aggregate capital of seven and three-quarter millions, and a profit for the four preceding years of $998,000 From a few given instances one may infer the general growth oi the Church. The whole would of itself form a volume. Between this General Conference of 1892 and the F ■.'i- ^gg^f"'^^''' '' » ' . . ^' ■ V ; 'm^ \. mm m B|t 41^ A ^9| ' ^...._— ■ I obtain tance, Jn this We maj liis grej world's the mist coin and niation o "^hey niov ffreat mc political, '^y the pt\ their roes !l ■'T^ Jjjpl, J*'<'ll«'li The Stor CHAPTER Lxm. " o- THE Epvvorth League. HE Epworth League is fh« development Of "l:^^™Xr-'. devoted friend.s. We arl . ""^ '» its beginning. He wLT '°° "^^^ nhf • ,.■ about paintins-, ;. . ''"""^ "ttle obtain h,s view. Tiie true cri ^ h "P' '" «» 'oo near to tance knowing that it is true of otr^"' ''""* ^' ^""e dis! ™ '"IS world that ■■distan iels r ? "' ^^"^"""^ '■- We may also be too near a great Z f"""' '° "^^ -ie*-" his greatness and worth TU, '" ^''^P^'-'r appreciate -rld's leaders loon, up only t.^'"'^ f"" "rength'^^fX the mists of many v^ar, w -r ^ ""'" ^""''^ "Pon through »ln and Uither aVdtvibert^rlt !",!"'' ''"""'"S'- -^ ^ nation of the world than thyeemed ,■■"■'''"■ ""■" "' *« es^- theyn,oved among the people "^ The tm T^ ''^ ''^^^ "' -hieh great movement. All ihe „„ , "^ """K is true of a reallv political, movement^ f't ctt -7'"^ """"'"''' «'"-« onfl' ■^ythe people w.,„ ,i,ed ner them "Vr 'T ""''erestima" d *- meaning nor measure them :,h L^ura^v T' ^"""'^^"^^ ' -uracy, .t was necessary 836 THE STOKY OF METHODISM. for many years to elapse before they could see how large and influential and gracious these upheavals in society really were. That is true of the Epworth League. The movement is still in the early morning of its existence. Those who, under God, con- ceived its wonderful methods of work and started it out on its career of achievement had no idea of how largely they were building, and those who are actively pushing forward in the work to-day are not competent to weigh the significance of what they are doing. We are all too near the Epworth League yet properly to characterize it. A quarter of a century we shall know more of it than we do now, and we shall have a better view yet when fifty or a hundred years have passed away. The Epworth League is the official young people's society of three great branches of the Methodist family. These are the Methodist Episcopal church, the Methodist Episcopal church South, and the Methodist church of Canada. The organization has also been introduced into the Wesleyan church of England, where it has been received with marked favor. The League is not yet five years old. Five wonderful years they have been ! No young people's religious organization has ever enjoyed a more rapid and symmetrical growth. It has caused universal amaze- ment. Think of it ! There are already in the three churches named nearly fourteen thousand senior chapters, besides some two thousand Junior Leagues. The total membership is about one million. The present rate of growth is rapid. Everywhere the organization is winning golden opinions, even from those who were at first skeptical about its utility and permanency. But it must not be supposed that this Epworth League move- ment is the initial effort of Methodism to promote the social, intellectual and spiritual culture of her young people. During all the years of her eventful history, individual churches have sus- tained societies for the special benefit of their younger members. In recent years these organizations have multiplied rapidly. But the first effort to provide a uniform organization dates back to the year 1872. Some time before that date an organization had been effected by the Rev. Dr. T. B. Neely of the Fifty-first Street church, Philadelphia, called a Church Lyceum, the primary object of which was to encouraj.';e the reading of a better grade of books and periodicals. Several oi the Philadelphia churches formed similar Lyceums, and these soon afterwards united in a city asso- 'Wm-W THE STORY OF THE EPWORTH LEAGUE. «37 elation. At a meeting of representatives of the different Lyceums, held on March 3, 1872, it was resolved to ask the General Con- ference, soon to convene at Brooklyn, to recognize the Church Lyceum as a regular connectional society. The memorial was presented to the General Conference and referred to a committee. The committee approved, but when it was ready to report, the close of the session approached, and great pressure of other mat- ters prevented the consideration of its recommendations by the body. At the succeeding General Conference, that of 1876, the request for official recognition was renewed. The paper was referred to the Committee on Education, of which Dr. E. O. Haven was the honored chairman. This committee reported favorably and the General Conference adopted its report with great heartiness. The Lyceum was received with considerable favor in different parts of the Church. It did good work in stimulating the intellectual life of the young and in promoting a taste for the pure and upbuilding in literature. The organiza- tion was destined, however, to give place to the Oxford League, a society which retained the idea of intellectual culture, but provided also for special activity in the realm of social and spiritual life. It will be observed that from the very beginning the Metho- dist Episcopal Church has favored a denominational organization for her young people rather than the interdenominational form now so popular. She has all along emphasized certain doctrines and methods which have distinguished her from all sister denomi- nations. We have not imitated others in our theology, hymnology, polity, or methods of practical work. We have always been a peculiar people. If our fathers had sought to follow other churches, if they had sought to assimilate with other churches, to tone down their enthusiasm lo the level of others, Methodism would not be in the forefront of progrcHW. The young David of a century ago won his victory, not in Saul's armor, but with weapons all his own. For .1 hundred years we have; been successful accord- ing to the measure that we have sought to be ourselves and to do our work in our own way. In dealing with its young people, our church is bringing to pass the best results by tn;^*,iing fast to its own traditions while it seeks cordiality and fraternity with Its sister churches. The Methodist KplncopaJ t^bnrch i» a connec- tional organization. Plans suited to a denomination having a congregational form of government would not answer our purpose 838 THE STORY OF METHODISM. at all. The Kpworth League i.s a vital part of our connectional life, just as are the love feast, the Quarterly Conference, or the Missionary Society. It should also be remembered that the working plans of the Epworth League are original. We have borrowed nothing. Every essential feature of our organization has been familiar to Metho- dism for generations. Is it the consecration service .'' Behold the Methodist class meeting for a hundred years. Is it the pledge? Turn the pages of our history and read of the numerous instances where John Wesley solemnly pledged his earliest members to certain specified duties. Listen also to the testimony of our ministers who have formally pledged their young people to loyalty and service. Is it the appointment of committees to do certain definite churchly duties ? Read our book of Discipline from the beginning, and you will see that practically the very methods of doing the Lord's great work have been in use for a century as are now so popular and effective in the Epworth League. The League has been an evolution. It has grown from within. We are con- servative in the retention of old methods and progressive in mod- ernizing and adapting them to present-day conditions. These methods are proving effective to a remarkable degree. What we aim to do is to revive the evangelistic fire and constructive power of primitive Methodism, and use them to uplift the teeming thousands who are within the influence of our denomination in these busy times. But should there not be fraternal co-operation between the young Christian workers of the various denominations ? Indeed there should. The historic attitude of the Methodist Church is one of cordial fraternity and practical co-operation with other churches. We rejoice greatly in their prosperity, and gladly aid them m achieving <;rander churchly victories. But we are clear in the conviction that the cause of religion can be most effectively adJBanced by each church working in its own sphere, and by tht use or machinery with which it has become familiar. The RpmnxTth League takes its stand beside its mother in il.s nUitihh toward its denominational sisters. To one and all we Hiiiceiuly ■ay, "All \ya\\ I" I^ut we are confidciil fliil gjoater goofl can hf accomplished when the young people of each dt'tiufillhufiim tiff- atganiztnl lato a society which shall be an organic imil nf Mie denomination itself. Loyalty Uf one's own church need not Soon sprang attent; and a Voung Alliatu iiiilll ii ■inci's with tr AlJiant. ih was th' THK STORY OF THE EPVVOKTH LFAGUE. 839 subtract sympathy from sincere workers in all other churches. Why should our devotion to the League prevent the most ardent love for our co-laborers in the other splendid young people's organizations ? We are brethren. In the golden words of our sainted Simpson, " We live to make our own Church a power in the land, while we live to love every other Church that exalts our Christ." Earlier Young People's Societies. The Epworth League is the resultant of the union of five societies: The Young People's Methodist Alliaiice, the Oxford League, the Young People's Christian League, the Methodist Young People's Union, and the Young People's Methodist Epis- copal Alliance. Of these, the oldest was the Young People's Methodist Alliance. It came into existence August 25, 1883. Its birthplace was the historic Desplaines camp ground, not far from the city of Chicago. The story of its beginning is easily told. Dr. and Mrs. Asbury Lowrey of New York visited the camp, and preached the doctrine of entire sanctification until hundreds in attendance became interested. Many young people sought a fuller baptism i/ the Holy Spirit. One day two young women. Misses Winnie S. benjamin and Lillian E. Date, met by appointment, under a certain tree, for prayer. The next day a larger group strolled off to the sequestered spot for conference and prayer. The circle widened day after day, until it was pro- posed by Mr. Henry Date, a young evangelist, to form a little society for mutual helpfulness in spiritual things, This was done. Soon after the adjournment of the camp meeting, organizations sprang up in several of the Chicago churches. The work arrested attention. It spread. Finally a general organization was effected and a corps of officers elected. The name adopted was "The Young People's Methodist Alliance." A worthy organ called the Alliance Hera'd WM** Ifllllirhed Mtmbership increased rapidly, imlll in moil \\\ the slates of the Union a \\\\^x^ number of Aili- anres WtMP (h>iun effldeiU service. When the time for union with th(} other young {ieon|r'a am (('ties ol Ihe Liuircn came, i^g AllianLM vvtts on liu; ciest-Wavr of success, wlll» ntuuiy iydHIQ nihtj:)if^rs, and u ilduiI dI witlMndhJ *Ui'<'i»h» The at^tniii] of the sotlellfN wlu'U thev went Into the Unlnn was tb# Oxford League. The prime movci |n Its «M^^UlUrtllt>u was 840 THE STORY OF METHOniSM. Dr. John H. Vincent. He outlined his plan at the celebration of the Christmas Conference, which was held in the city of Baltimore in December, 1884, The society was called " The Oxford League," after the famous English University in which the " Holy Club" was founded. The new League placed emphasis upon four things — the four things which were made prominent in the Holy Club so many years ago, viz.: Bible knowledge, literary culture, personal piety and practical service. The League was denomin i- tional — a thoroughly Methodistic movement, designed to build up Methodism, that Methodism might do more effective work in building up the cause of God. Although it was imperfectly understood in some quarters, the Oxford League soon grew to respectable proportions, and proved itself a potent agency for uplifting the young people in the churches where it had been organized. Soon after this another society sprang up in New England. It was called "The Young People's Christian Leag e." In its organization the late Rev. J. H. Twombly was a leading spirit. He was heartily aided by the Rev. W. I. Haven, Rev. W. P. Odell, Rev. C. A. Littlefield, and other wide-awake young pastors and laymen. The new society provided for the union of all local young people's societies of whatever name or form of organization. A convention was held at Boston, the attendance at which was large. Soon new Leagues began to spring up at many points, and enthusiasm rose steadily. But before the second annual conven- tion was convened, the Young People's Christian League had joined the four other Methodistic young people's societies in forming the Epworth League, The fourth society which went into the amalgamation was "The Methodist Young People's Union." It was organized at Detroit, Mich., and had a rapid and substantial growth for several months. The Union was not only adopted by a large number of Michigan churches, but was accorded a hearty welcome by some in distant states. The fifth of the "original societies" was but an infant when the consolidation took place. It was known as the "North Ohio Conference Methodist Episcopal Alliance," and the avowed object of its existence was the union of the various Methodist Young People's organizations. A commendable aim, and one which was to be realized much sooner than its projectors anticipated. easily Methoc favor. pastor societie; morning Voung Henry J^ev. M. odist Bo -soul-wini Iowa Co f^rand R Tianufact lepresent of the Si J'>eeman, Union anc of the sai H THE STORY OF THE EPWORTH LEAOUE. 841 The Hikth of tiik Ij-wokiii League. What Methodist tourist to Ii!nfrlancl fails to visit I*4iworth, the home of the Wesley family and the City Road Chapel in London ? What Methodist visitor to New York City will willingly forego the pleasure of seeing old John Street Church, where our early denominational fathers preached ? What Methodist sight-seer will miss viewing old St. George's in Philadelphia, or Lovely Lane Chapel m Baltimore ? In the coming days the ardent Methodist will as eagerly visit the spot once occupied by the Central Meth- odist Episcopal Church in Cleveland, O., for there the Kpworth League was born. The memorable event occurred on the 15th of May, 1889. The old building in which the historic meeting was held has been removed, and a beautiful modern structure, known as the Kpworth M -morial Church, has taken its place. For several months negotiations had been carried on by representatives of the five Methodist societies, to which reference has been madf, looking toward a possible union. That some steps ought to be taken to centralize and harmonize the work was freely admitted. Hut just what method would most easiiv and success- fully bring about the desired consummation was a cjuestion not easily answered. F"inally the leaders of the Young People's Methodist Alliance proposed a conference. The idea met with favor. An invitation was extended by Rev. B. F. Dimmick, pastor of the Central Church, Cleveland, to representatives of the societies to meet in that edifice. This was accepted. On the morning of Tuesday, May 14, the leaders met face to face. The Young People's Methodist Alliance was represented by Rev. Henry Date, a Chicago Methodist local preacher and evangelist; Rev. M. D. Carrel, now a valued attache of the Western Meth- odist Book Concern at Cincinnati ; Rev. Dr. S. A. Keen, the soul-winning evangelist ; Dr. S. W. Hcald, Secretary of the Upper Iowa Conference ; Dr. W. L Cogshall, Presiding Elder of the Grand Rapids District, Michigan, and Dr. Willis W. Cooper, a manufacturer of St. Joseph, Mich. The Oxford League had as its representatives Rev. Dr. J. L. llurlbut. Corresponding Secretary of the Sunday School Union and Tract Society ; Rev. Dr. J. M. Freeman, Assistant Corresponding Secretary of the Sunday School Union and Tract Society ; Dr. R. R. Doherty, Recording Secretary of the same ; Rev. Dr. J. Embury Price, a prominent New York .^. €<^ \^^^^^ ^^o S^^jti, *^ ^ IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 I.I ■ 50 '■^" u 2.5 ZG 1.8 1.25 1 .1.4 1.6 *— 6" ► V] 'W ^ m m c^l >.^ ^^ >^ 0^ > V /^. w '/ Photographic Sciences Corporailon 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. MS80 (716) 672-4503 -/,, # ,\ ^ ^^ \ \ ^ ^ •^ I 842 THE STORY OF METHODISM. City pastor; Rev. James T. Docking, now a pastor in the New England Soutliern Conference, and Mr. Bryon K. Helman, a successful merchant of Cleveland, Ohio. The Oxford League also had reserve delegates as follows: Rev. J. C W. Coxe, D.D., of Iowa; Rev. A. H. Gillet, D.U., Cincinnati; Rev. J. W. Kennedy of Michigan, and Mr. W. M. Day of Cleveland, Ohio. The Chris- tian League sent Rf,v. William L Haven of Boston, Rev. Willis P. Odell, then of New Itngland Conference, but now pastor of Dela- ware Avenue Church, Buffalo, N. Y., and Rev. C. A Littlefield, at present pastor of Asbury Church, Springfield, Mass. The Methodist Young People's Union commissioned a full delegation as follows : Rev. Dr. W. W. Washburn of Saginaw ; Rev. Charles H. Morgan, now of Howell ; Rev. Samuel Plantz of Tabernacle Church, Detroit ; Rev. Frederick A. Smart, at present success- fully engaged in evangelistic work ; Rev. James E. Jacklin, asso- ciate editor of the Michigan CJinstian Advocate ; and Rev. Caludius B. Spencer, pastor of Christ Church, Denver, Colorado. The Alliance of the North Ohio Conference was honored with this representation : Rev. J. S. Reager, Rev. G. A. Reeder, Jr., Rev. B. J. Mills, Rev. B. J. Hoadley, Rev. Orlando Badgley, and Rev. L. K. Warner. These brethren were all pastors in the North Ohio Conference; and with one exception, we believe they are still toil- ing in that field. The Conference was called to order by Mr. Willis W. Cooper. A hymn was sung and Dr. Hurlbut led in prayer. Mr. Cooper was then chosen temporary chairman, and Dr. A. H. Gillet, since translated to the heavenly home, was named as temporary secre- tary. Committees on permanent organization and order of busi- ness were appointed. Mr. Cooper was elected permanent chair- man, and Rev. Caludius B. Spencer, secretary. It was decided that a representative of each society should occupy ten minutes, suggesting, if possible, some basis of union. Henry Date spoke for the Methodist Alliance. The Oxford League was reprv^sented by Robert R. Doherty, its recording secretary. Rev. W. I. Haven was spokesman for the Young People's Christian League. Dr. Washburn expressed the wishes of the Young People's Union. For the North Ohio Conference delegates Rev. J. S. Reager said they were ready to make any proper concession for union. Thus the morning hours were spent in fraternal exchange of sentiment. Before adjournment it was clear that while the desire for a unjted THE STORY OF THE EinVORTH LEAGUE. 843 society was strong, very ser'ous obstacles were in the way of its consummation. When the brethren came together in the afternoon, Rev. W. I. Haven led the prayer, asking most earnestly for divine guidance and help. After a brief conference with his colleague^, Dr. Hurl- but made certain propositions for a united "Society. All the socie- ties having now submitted a basis of union which they considered fair and equitable, a committee on "Consolidation" was appointed. This committee scon presented a model general Constitution for the consolidated societies. It embraced many of the features of that which eventually became the general Constitution of the Epworth League. The report was laid on the table until the next meeting. The c^/mmittee of one from each society which had been appointed during the afternoon to confer about the publica- tion of a newspaper organ now reported. Its recommendation was that Our Youth be modified so as to give more prominence to the religious and social features of the proposed united society. Then the Conference decided to adjourn till the morning Wednesday morning, May 15, a day to be forever memorable in the history of Methodism, found the little company assembled in the clasf^ room of Central Church. A half hour was spent in prayer. How important that the Head of the Church should be present to guide and control the deliberations of the Conference upon this historic day ! First in order was the consideration of reports which had been laid upon the table at the previous session. Those on "Consolidation" and "General Organization" were first considered. The discussion was most fraternal, and, with slight amendments, both the documents were approved. Inasmuch as the general plan formed the basis for the model general Constitu- tion of the Epworth League, its insertion here is not considered essential. The selection of a name for the proposed united society awak- ened much interest. The committee made this recommendation: While we agree that the retention of the name of each society here represented would probably conduce to the strength of that society for the time being, v/e have felt, nevertheless, that the interests of the work at large should be consulted, and that those interests may be best subserved by mutual concession. We are in practical agreement that we can select no better noun than League. As to the adjective we are not agreed. The major- "f i i 844 THE STOKY OF METHOOISM. ity of your committee favors Tlic Wesley League ; one votes for The Oxford League, and one for The Christian League. We make this tentative report as the completest we can now reach, and reserve our individual rights on the final vote. The vote showed that the problem had been pretty thoroughly discussed by the committee. If these brethren could not agree upon a name after careful and prolonged consideration, it was hardly to be expected that the Conference could do so at once. The matter was talked about a good deal. Finally it was resolved to go into committee of the whole, and sec if some conclusion could not be reached. But the hour of adjournment was already at hand, and the committee postponed further consideration till afternoon. Nearly all the delegates participated in the devotions with which the afternoon session opened. Various suggestions were then volunteered concerning the name of the proposed new society. Some new combinations of words were proposed. Finally an in- formal ballot was agreed to. This was the result : The Wesley League, twelve votes ; The Epworth League, nine ; The Oxford League, eight ; The Young People's League of the Methodist Episcopal Church, one. This vote, it will be remembered, was taken in the committee of the whole. When it was announced, Dr. Hurlbut moved that the committee rise and report the name "Wesley League" to the Conference. Some of the brethren were eager to substitute the name "Oxford" for "Wesley." But the name "Wesley League" was adopted by a decisive vote, and the committee so reported to the Conference. In the Conference the debate was resumed, but " Wesley League " became tempora- rily the cognomen of tne projected society. Then followed a careful examination of the report of the Com- mittee on Local Constitution. The document w?s read and then taken up item by item. Many earnest speeches were made. Pending a decision, a recess of ten minutes was taken. When the meeting was called to order again. Dr. Hurlbut, in belief of the representations of the Oxford League, read a communication stat- ing that the Oxford League was now the official young people's society of the church and they did not feel justified in making the concessions which the delegates representing the other societies had demanded. They had already yielded all that could be consist- ently given up, tne doctor declared, and would not surrender their constitution. These delegates of the Oxford League then left the THE STORY OV THE EJ'WORTIl LEAGUE. 345 room in a body. The withdrawal of these brethren was wholly unexpected and threw the meeting into consternation. It Ljgan to look as though the Conference must break up in failure. That would be a terrible misfortune. So the brethren who remained held a prayer meeting. It was a gracious season. ICvery one was conscious of the Divine presence. Mr. Haven, with eyes filled with tears, exclaimed: "I am now willing tj concede anything, even the name ; we must not leave this place without securing the end for which we came — union." All agreed that he was right. So after a most affecting season of prayer, a committee consisting of W. I. Haven, S. A. Keen, J. E. Jacklin, and Orlando Badgley was appointed to wait upon the Oxford League delegates and invite them to return to the Conference. After half an hour had been .spent in prayer, in the continued absence of the committee, it was resolved to continue the recess subject to the call of the chairman. When the brethren returned to the little room for the evening session there was upon every face a look of anxiety. They knew that the problem would in all probability be solved in some form before they left the church that night. But all felt that the work in which they were engaged was of God. He surely would find a way out of the present embarrassment. Mr. Haven reported that his committee had visited the Oxford League delegates and that Dr. Hurlbut and Dr. Price, who were present, would report their answer. Dr. Hurlbut then read a paper in which he said his dele- gation had listened to representations of Mr. Haven, and suggested that in the judgment of the men he represented, union could only be effected on these conditions : 1. That the Oxford League constitution be accepted as it stands ; and that lor all constitutional changes we wait the com- plete organization of the new board of control. 2. That district and conference leagues be organized as rapidly as possible. 3. That alterations to the constitution be made only by the board of control upon recommendations of local leagues through district and conference organizations. 4. That the names "Oxford League" and "Wesley League" be submitted to every loca' society for choice, and a majority of these determine the name. 5. The present names of all the five societies be used till final action by the board of control. 846 THE STORY OF METHODISM. This paper received patient consideration. In a short tinu- Rev. C. A. Littlefield introduced a mem6rial to the Oxford Lea-ue which contained the following propositions : — 1. The name shall be "The Epworth League." 2. The formation of a constitution for local chapters shall be submitted to the Board of Control. 3. Until the Board of Control shall draft and present such a constitu- tion we shall work under the Local Constitution of the Oxford LeaLjue, after it has been verbally ametided. 4. The pledge presented to the Conference by our Committee on Local Constitution shall be placed in the By-laws of the Epworth League, with a note stating that its use is optional. 5. The preamble stating the aim of the League reported by the Com- mittee on Local Constitution shall be the statement of the aim of tlie Epworth League in the amended Constitution. After ilebate, this memorial was adopted. The Oxford League delegates, feeling that this action left them free to act without violating the instruc'tions of the organization which had commis- sioned them, resimiec' their seats in the Conference. Upon formal motion the union of the five societies was then joyfully effected. The white ribbon, with a scarlet thread running through the cen- ter from end to end, which had been the badge of the Young People's Methodist Alliance, was chosen as the " colors " of the new League. The Maltese cross, with the initials and motto of the League, was adopted as the badge of the new League. The Maltese cross had been used as a badge both by the Oxford League and the Young People's Christian League. The motto of the Young People's Christian League was selected as the motto of the new organization, "Look up; lift up." It was also agreed that this sentence from John Wesley, used by the Oxford League as a motto, be adopted as a sentiment of the Epworth League: "I desire to form a league, offensive and defensive, with every soldier of Jesus Christ." The words of Bishop Simpson, "We live to make our own Church a power in the land, while we live to love every other Church that exalts our Christ," were also chosen as a sentiment of the League. Midnight approached as these final de- tails were arranged. It would have been difficult to find upon all the earth a happier company of men. Congratulations over the result were joyfully exchanged. Faces were illumined. "Praise God " fell from many lips. Had our brethren not a right to be glad .■* They had, under God, laid the foundations of an institution THE STORY or THE EPWOKTH LEACIUE. 847 which was destined to be one of the mightiest forces in all the history of the Christian Church. Early Meetings ok nir. Hoaki) ok Control. The first meeting of the General lioard of Control of the new League convened at Chicago on the sixth day of February, 1890. The gathering had attracted wide attention. The church press had noted with pleasure the rapidity with which local Leagues had been formed in different parts of the country, luithusiasm had l)cen steadily rising. Deep anxiety was felt by the friends of the new organization that it should start right. Hence many more atti^ ided this inaugural official meeting than were actually mem- bers of it. Dr. Jesse L. Hurlbut called the meeting to order and Dr. W. H. W. Rees was chosen temporary secretary. The mem- bership of the board had been constituted as follows: Five mem- bers had i)een appoir.ted by the Bishops; five had been named by the Sunday School L^nion and Tract Society ; and each of the General Conference districts had elected two members. Perma- nent organization v\is effected by the election of Bishop J. N. Fitzgerald as pre5:ident, and Dr. Rccs as secretary. The usual committees were appointed. After much patient toil the Com- mittee on Constitution presented a General Constitution, which, after minor alterations had been made, was adopted. The Com- mittee on Literature presented a very able report in which the suspension of Our Youth was called for and a request made for a new League organ of increased size and broader scope. A dele- gation consisting of Revs. Arthur I'xlwards, T. McK. Stuart, J. E. Price, C. J. North, and W. L PLiven were requested to visit the Book Committee soon to convene at New York and present the wishes of the Board. The election of the rest of the permanent officers resulted in the choice of Dr. Hurlbut as corresponding secretary ; Dr. R. R. Doherty as recording secretary ; and Dr. Freeman as treasurer. These three together with W. W. Cooper, O. L. Doty, Dr. L. E. Prentiss and Dr. A. Edwards were consti- tuted an executive committee. W. VV. Cooper was chosen frater- nal delegate to the lipworth League of Canada, and Dr. J. B. Young to the Yonng People's Society of Christian Endeavor. Drs. Hurlbut and Young were appointed a committee on an international conference. 84« TIIF, STOKV OF MKTIIODISM. The meeting lasted two days. On the evetiin<; of the sccoikI day a mass meeting was held in the auditorium of First Church. Bishop h^itzgerald presided and delivered a thoughtful, vigorous address. Dr. J. L Hurlbut, Dr. W. 11. W. Rees, Rev. VV. 1. Haven and Rev. IM. D. Carrel also spoke briefly. Brief mention must here be made of the launching of our organ. Our Youth had for several years been the young i)eople's paper o) the Methodist ICpiscopal Church. Dr. John H. Vincent was its first editor, and after his election to the episcopacy Dr. Jesse L Hurlbut succeeded to the tripod. It was a handsome, illustrated weekly of si.vteen pages, and was edited with recognized ability. During its later years the paper devoted a good deal of space to the Oxford League, and when the Epworth League was formed it immediately gave the new organization proper prominence and support. WwX. a conviction that a paper of somewhat larger size, whose pages should be wholly devoted to the interests of the League, became general. The Book Committee met at New York in February. The special committee representing the Board of Control appeared before the bcdy, and made known its wishes concerning a paper. The c(uestion which it presented received patient consideration. It was decided to discontinue the publication of Our YoittJi after the I St of June following, and substitute a paper to be published at Chicago. The details connected with the launching of the paper, were referred to the Western section of the Book Committee and the Western publishing agents. The Western section convened at Chicago on March 5. The questions involved were thoroughly canvassed. Dr. W. P. Stowe, then publishing agent at Chicago, had prepared a "dummy" showing a pajier of sixteen pages some- what larger than those of Our Youth, and a weekly of this size and style was soon decided upon. But what should the infant be named .-* Various cognomens were suggested. Some one pro- posed The Epzvorth Nczvs. Another thought that 7'hc Epworth Standard would be a name around which the young people would be likely to rally. Still another thought it would be well to give to the new paper an orthodox Methodist name, calling it TJic Ep- xvorth Advocate. But Dr. Stowe had the words The Epworth Herald printed in plain black letters across the front page of his "dummy," and the adoption of this name he earnestly advocated. His logic, or enthusiasm, or both, proved effective, and the pub- THE STORY OF THE El'WORTII LEAliUK. S49 lishers were authorized to Hinjif the name, The Epivorth Herald, to the breeze. The result of the ballot for editor was the unanimous election of Rev. Joseph I*". Berry, at that time associate editor of the Miehij^att Christian Advocate. Rev. Stephen J. Herben of Jersey City^ N J., was subsequently chosen as assistant editor. The new paper met with a most cordial reception. At the close of its first year it had a circulation of 42,000. At the end of the second year there were over 60,000 subscribers. The close of the third year showed a subscription list of 75,000. At that time it had already reached the largest circulation of any denominational weekly in the world. Three subsequent meetings of the general Hoard of Control have been held, those at St. Louis and Council Bluffs, Iowa, before the General Conference of 1892, and the one at Cleveland subsequent to that event. In addition to receiving reports of the marvelous growth of the League, the principal business transacted at the St. Louis and Council Bluffs meetings was the preparation of a memo- rial to the approaching General Conference asking for recognition as the official young people's society of the Church and for incor- poration into the organic life of the denomination. A great deal of careful and prayerful consideration was given to this matter, and at the latter meeting of the Board the document was completed and adopted. li! The League Officially Endorsed. The General Conference convened at Omaha on the first day of May, 1892. On the afternoon of May 4th a special committee, composed of five members at large and two from each General Conference District, was asked for to consider memorials which might be presented in reference to the Epworth League. The committee was named by the Bishops on the following day. Inas- much as the work performed by this committee has gone into our denominational history, it is proper to mention the names of the men who composed it: — Arthur Edwards, S. W. Heald, D. R. Lowrie, Alfred Anderson, D. T. Denny, J. M. Durrell, R. L. Douglas, J. H. Coleman, Peter Welsh, E. M. Mills, W. B. Wright, S. W. Gehrett, T. H. Muiray, W. H. Rider, A. M. Mattison, W. S. Ed- wards, James Armstrong, H. A. Gobin, T. J. Robinson, J. F. Berry, Robert McMillan, H. C. Jennings, Henry Swann, B. E. Scruggs, ilia '..iii' 850 THE STOKY or MKTIIoniSM. S. E. IV-ndleton. II. C. DcMottc, Henry Liebhart, W. F. Finkc, E. W. Caswell. C. B. I'erkms. This comiiiittee organized by electing; J. F". Hcrry, chairman, and S. E. Pendleton, secretary. A dozen meetings in all were held. Some of these sessions were very animated. lOach membe.- had opinions of his own and was not backward about e.\[)ressing them. All realized that the work committed to our care was superlatively in'portant, and well worth the most alert and conscientious con- sideration. A persistent effort was made by two or three mem- bers of the committee to make radical modifications in the plan outlined by the Board of Control. But this effort did not succeed. However, some minor concessions were made. Finally on Thurs day morning, May 19th, the chairman of the Epworth League committee asked consent of the General Conference to present the report of that committee and have it printed in the Daily Christian Advocate. This was promptly given, and the body consented to make the report the special order of the day immediately after the reading of the Journal on Saturday. Saturday morning came, and with it an eager crowd of visitors. Many of the friends of the League were present from different parts of the country. The reading of the report of the committee was followed by a most earnest discussion. With the details of the debate the reader would not be greatly interested. Motion.s, substitutes, amendments, and amendments to amendments followed each other rapidly. Some of the ablest men in the body partici- pated. Every speaker commended the League in the highest terms. Each contended that his favorite view ought to be adopted because it would surely promote the highest interests of an organization that was worthy of the best things which the General Conference could do for it. The chief bone of contention was the proposition relating to affiliated societies. Another matter concerning which there was some difference of opinion was the creation of the office of General Secretary. Several speakers thought that the duties of this position could be performed by the Corresponding Secretary of the Sunday School Union and Tract Society. An amendment calling for such an adjustment was presented. There was a more radical difference, however, on the proposition of the report to have the general secretary and the editor of The Epworth Herald elected by the General Conference. It was finally resolved that the editorship should be a General Conference office, and that the THE STORY OF THE EHNVOKTII LEAGUE. «5i secretary should be placed under the supervision of the Hoard of Control. When the hf)ur of adjourn.nent arrived, some problems concerning the financial support of the secretary were under con- sideration, and the matter was referred back to the committee for adjustment. On the Tuesday following, the I'^pworth League again absorbed the attention of the Conference for almost the entire session. The revised report of the committee was pres'^nted, and after a slight amendment or two, was adopted by a substantial majority. This report embodied the general constitution for the League. The duty of electing a secretary was placed by the General Con- ference in the hands of the Hoard of Control. Hence a meeting of that body was called at Cleveland, Ohio, on September 3(1. Two days were spent in prayerful consideration of the grave problems with which the young organization stood face to face. Several changes were made in the local constitution. On the first aft.^r- noon a visit was made to the room in the Old Central Church where the League had been formed. Hefore adjourning. Dr. W. N. Brodbeck, a prominent Boston pastor, was elected to the secretary- ship. Bishop Fitzgerald being ex-officio president of the General organization, no election was necessary in his case, but the other offices were filled as follows : First Vice-President, Willis W. Cooper; Second Vice-President, Rev. W. L Haven; Third Vice- President, R. R. Doherty ; Fourth Vice-President, Rev. H. C. Jen- nings; Treasurer, Charles \i. Piper, The selection of Dr. Brodbeck was hailed with great satisfaction by the whole church. It was felt that the selection was singularly fortunate. Great disappointment and regret were, therefore, felt when he decided that he could not leave his church to accept the proffered position. The election was then thrown into the hands of the General Cabinet, which is really the executive committee of the Board. The Cabinet met at New York, November 3d. After canvassing the matter with some care, a vote was taken and Rev. Edwin A. Schell was elected secretary. He accepted, and at once entered upon the discharge of his duties. Epworth Methods of Work. The general supervision of the Epworth League of the Metho- dist Episcopal Church is vested in a body called a Board of Control. It consists of fifteen members appointed by the bishops, one of IS ' fV «52 THE STOKV or MKTIi;)l)ISM. whom is a bishop; and ot one member from each (leneral Conhr- ence district. This Hoard of Control meets twice during; -k h quadrenniuni. Tho olHicers of the General I.eague are a presidt iit and four vice-presidents (two of whom must be laymen), a ^emiil secretary, and a general treasurer. These ofTicers, together with the editor of /'///• lipxvortli lleralii and the German Assistant Sih- retary, constitute the General League Cabinet. The president is chosen by the bishops. The vice-presidents are elected by llic lioard of Control from their members. The secretary and trca.s- urer are selected by this body also. The central office of the League is in Chicago. The working plans of the lCi)worth League chapter are simple enough. Members are constituted by election of the chapter, on nomination of the president, after approval by the Cabinet. The pastor is cx-oj^cio a member of the chapter and the Cabinet. Wherever a chapter so decides, there may be two classes of mem- bers, active ami associate. The active members are expected to subscribe to the follnving pledge : — I will earnestly .seek for myself, and do what I can to help others attain, the highest New Testament standard ot experience and life. I will abstain from all those forms of worldly amusements forbidden by the Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and will attend, so far as possible, the religions meetings of the chapter and of the Church, and take some active part in them In cases where there arc two classes of members, the active members only are eligible to election as officers of the chapter, while associate members are entitled to all other privileges of membership. The officers are a president, four vice-presidents, a secretary, and a treasurer, and these, together with the pastor and the superintendent of the Junior League, constitute the Cabinet. The president must be a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the other officers must be members of the Methodist Episcopal or 5ome other evangelical church. The president must be confirmed by the quarterly conference, and then becomes a member of that body. The work of the chapter is conducted through six depart- ments, as follows: (i) Spiritual Work; (2) Mercy and Help; (3) ' terary Work; (4) Social Work; j/ Correspondence; (6) iinance. A vice-president is in charge of the work of each TUF, STORY OI' THE KPWORTH LEAGUE. 85.? (lepartnicnt, the first vice-president being in chiirj^e «)f the Depart-^ Mient of Spiritual Work, the second vice-|)resi(lent ol Mercy anA Help, the third vice-prer.ident of Literary Work, the fourth vie^J president of Social Work, the secretary of Correspondence, Mi^ the treasvirer of I'Mnance. Work in at least one of tht.'se divi,-mii>i is assigned to every member. He may choose his special liild of activity, but having chosen it he is expectetl to l)e I03 a! to ^hfti department superintendent and render in all cases the bc*t possible service. ^ The Junior Kpwoktu Leaouk. One of the most vital features of League work is that which pertains to the culture of the children. For ihis purpose the Junior I^pworth League was established. Its scheme of work is a modification and adaptation of that t)f the JCpworth League. Its chief officer is the superintendent, who is appointed by the pastor, and who is also a member of the ICpworth League cabinet. The other officers are a president, four vice-presidents, a treasurer, and a secretary, who are elected by the Juniors from among their own number, and these, with the superintendent and pastor, constitute the Junior League cabinet. The membership is made up of boys and girls ur ler fourteen years of age. The "Junior Wheel," like the Senior one, is divided into six sections. I'^ach of these divisions has a key-word indicating some- thing of its purpose. The key-word of the first department is //tuirf. It stands for the development of true heart life. The conversion of the children is the chief aim of every Junior superintendent. The children are urged to take part in their own devotional meetings. They are encouraged to testify, and lead in short, simple prayers. Besides, they are shown how to bring their young friends to the Master. The key-word of department two is /uvu/. The idea which is represented is that of helpfulness. Various kinds of Mercy and Help work are undertaken uniler the guidance of the intelligent superintendent, and the children are made very happy by the knowledge that they are putting light and joy into lives that have been full of darkness and sorrow. Department three has for its key-word /lead. This suggests thoughtfulness and study. Great interest is taken by the little people in the systematic study of the Bible as a book. Many of 854 THE STORY OF METHODISM. them can readily give the names of the differ'^nt books, and the order in which they appear, as well as the name of the author and the circumstances under which the book was written. There are also drills in the history of our own Church, and in the Catechism. Literary meetings are held occasionally with great profit. Department four is assigned to social work. The key-word is feet. The children are encouraged to seek out those of their companions ^vho are not identified with the League or some similar society, and b/ing them in. In many ways they provide innocent and delightful recreation for each other and for their grown-up friend^. I'he ^fth and sixth departments embrace the usual duties of secretary ^nd treasurer. The first Junior League registered at the central office was that of First Church, Iloboken, N. J., Rev. C. R. Barnes, D.D., pastor ; the second was that of Keysei, W. Va., and the third that of Asbury Church, Des Moines, la. Other Leagues were formed almost immediately, and they soon began to spring up all over the land. The four years of Junior development and success have been scarcely less marvelous than the record made by the Seniors. There are now about two thousand Junior Leagues. The League in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. The Epworth League months ago swept beyond the bound- aries of the Methodist Episcopal Church. It found r. welcome in at least three other branches of the great Methodist family. And why not .' Was the organization not needed in these sister churches .-' Is it not as well adapted to promote the social, intel- lectual, and spiritual culture of their young people .-' Yea, verily. At the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, held at Su Louis, Mo., in May, 1890, it was decided tc form *' young people's leagues having for their object the promotion of piety and loyalty t our Church, education in church history, and Liieir encouiagement in works of grace and charity." The respon- sible work of preparing the way for such a society was intrusted to the General Sunday-school Committee. This committee was composed of W. G. E. Cunnyngham, chairman; T. j. Magruder, J. H. Carlisle, G. A. Dazey, J. D. Hamilton, and J. R. Pepper. These devoted brethren met at Nashville, Tenn., December 18, 1890, and, after long and prayerful deliberation, r lopted the Ep- worth League as the official young people's society of the Metho mmmm THE STORY OF THE EPWORTH LEAGUE. 855 erily. urch, f ot m on of ', and spon- usted was 1-uder, fpper. ;r i-school secretary. It could not have fallen into better hands. The doctor regards it as a move- ment destined to do marvelous things for the young Methodists of Ml 1 mm 856 TUK STOKY 01 MKIHDIHSM. u Iff tho South, and is tluowinn meat (Miciny into ihr Wi)ik ol dircctiiij; aiul inspiiiMf; thr yoiinj; U'adns. VUv I'.f^worth Mit/ioi/ist, .m indrpnuUMit pajuM, has hocii |uil)Ushrd at P'ort Wottli, I'l'xas, Ici siMUi' timr. and (he littU" orf;an is n-udciiii}; vahiabU* srrvico to the cause. In dtic time a rej^ular olfu ial or^an will, no douht, be eom nnssioned. In the nieantiine the various /u/rocd/rx me devoliiif' genertnjs spaee to the ^-.rovvinj; eaiise. and the editors are vyiii)^ with each othei ii\ paying to this j;iand army ol youii); people tributes ol ap|)reeiation ami praise. 'i'UK I'J'WOKIll Li;,MilM': in ('AN.MtA. l'"or yeais the need ot some t-oniprehensive yoini;; pi-oplc s organization was telt in Canadian Methodism. Ol lourse thcK were the usual literary and social societies, but these had no cohe sion or uiuty, and had not much direct religious inllueme. At llic ticnoral Conterence of iS.Sj Rev. \V. li. VVithrow. I). 1), intnt- duced a rest>luti»>n calling tor the organi/ation ol a young people's society with iletuute reading cou'ses, somewhat alt»M tlu- plan ol the CMunch Lyceun\ ol the Methodist l'',pisco|)al Church. Tins was received with a good deal o\ tavoi, a course ol ri-ading wis.s arranged, and a luunber of reading vuiions wrvc organized, i'lie j)lan. however, did not take like tiro an'.ong the heather. When Dr. VVithrow returned tn)m Murojie in September, i.SSi), he learned from our press of the organization of the I'.pworth League. "Here," he said, •'• is the very thing needed for Canadian Mi'tho dism." He sent at once for our leallets ,ind mailed them to Ke\. Dr. Carman, general superintendent, and other men of light and leading in the Church, He .dsci brought the new nu)vement ((► the attention of the Smulay Scht)ol Hoard, which met in Octobci, but the brethren did not seem to ap[uehend the importance of the matter. One or two said they had received the leallets, but threw them into the waste-paper basket. Another suggested that the matter be postponed for a year, till the meeting of the (icneral Conference in iScyo. But the doctor said, "If the thing is good why waste a year.' why not adopt it now.'" The general superin- tcnclent, who heartily symjiathized with the movement, called a representative committee to consiiler the matter forthwith, tht: Constitution of our American League was adopted with slight modifications to suit Canadian needs, and a copious supply of liter- ature was ordered printed. The movement was formally inaugu- ,.„ — ^, ««,*.«. y V, -ff- '■-•'■"''■.^\•^^- ;-■'■;=' »^:'T|j».-;-^-'.j'jfr^' y .■.■^-. '■'-,™l_,.?i!,*'^?''*' V^ TIIK MTdKV Ol'' TIIK KI'VYOKIII LKAfil/K. H57 lali'd in a mass mfcliiij; lu-ld in llir Mctiopolilan ( liiiirli, Toronto. Thai laif;c' l)nil(!in^ was lillcd to I he doorH. Vi^oroiiH addicsscs were ^ivt-n, and llu* plan adopted with enthusiasm. I lie leadiii):; papers al)ly seconded the movement with cditoiiul comments and lomnn-ndalions. Sid)se(|uent mass meetinns were held in ilantil- IdM, London, and elsewhere, 'i'hc new departure was hailed with tlelij;iu by many ministers and yonn^ laymen, who cordially co- operated in these opening meetin};s. The siihscMpicnl history of the movement has been one ol notable pro^^ress. It should be mentioiu'd that before !)r. Wilhrow's return in the stnnmer ol i.S.S(), one chapter w;.s formed auxiliary to the I,«;af;ue in this roimtiy that in Man ie, ( )ntario, It was orf;ani/.ed by the Kev. K. N. Mums, H. A., a successlul youuj^'erly minister, who also held I he liist l,ea[;ue convention, in that town. A few of the ministers who held oldiial relations to Ji<; Yomi^ People's Society of (Christian I'indeavor objected to the new I .eaj^uc as a di\'isivc force, l)Ut their objections carried little weij^ht. At the (leneral Conference of iHcjo the Leaj^uc was reorj^anized as an integral department of the Methodist Church of (,'anada, and pro- vision was muilc that its |)residents be, in \irtiie of office, mend)ers of the ( Juarlerly iioard. This is '.lie Hist recognition in the world, we belii've, of the Lea;;ue as an or^^anic part of the Church. At that Coideniice il was proposed that direct alliliation shoidd take I'lace with the ('hristian iOndeavor Society, and the name of ' IC[)- worlh League of Christian lOndeavor" was suj^i^ested as an official name. That projjosition (leneral C'onfercnce did not sanction. A Constitution, however, was adopted cniibodying a pledge and principles in harmony with those of the lOndeavor .Society, which it was thought would facilitate friendly affiliation with that body. Hut as the I'Jideavor .Society insisted on the a('o|)tion of the name as well, a committee of the (ieneral Conference made it possible lor individual societies, if they chose, toa(lo|)t the name " ^[jworth League of Christian bjideavor, " in the hope of uniting all the young people's societies under one comprehensive organization. That expectation has not, however, been generally realized. In company with Mr. Williss W. Cooper it was our i)rivilege to attend the (General Conference held at Montreal, mentioned above. We were received with marked courtesy by the members .of the committee having b^pworth League interests in charge. They were eager to learn of the practical workings of the League 858 THE STORY OF METHODISM. in the United States, and we <;ave such facts and suggestions as we could. On the day following our arrival this writer was intro- duced to the Conference and made a brief address outlining the aims and methods of the ICpworth League, and giving some of the benefits already apparent in this country. The growth of our glorious cause in Canada has been more than satisfactory. It has extended to every province, even to far- away Bermuda. At the present writing there are upward of twelve hundred ICpworth Leagues and ICpworth Leagues of Christian En- deavor. Onwani, the popular official organ, was started two years ago, and already has a circulation of nearly 40,000. Two great conventions have been held, one in March of 1892, and the other in the same month of 1893. Dr. Withrow is editor of Onward, ami in connection with his duties as Sunday-school Secretary is also major general of the League. A Methodist Young People's Asso- ciation, embracing all young people's societies in the Church, has been formed, and is accomplishing a good work. Mr. R. W. Dillon, of Toronto, is the energetic secretary, and Mr. F. W. Daly, of London, the president. Several chapters have also been organized in the Wesleyan church of England, and are doing satisfactory work. Our friends yonder assure us that the movement will necessarily be of slow growth, but that the methods of the League are as well adapted to the churches there as here. The general adoption of our organiza- tion, or some modification of it, is only a question of a little time. In our European missions the cause is growing rapidly. In Nor- way and Sweden we have many flourishing chapters. In Italy our cause has taken firm hold. The struggling Bulgarian Mission is pushing the work. In the India Conferences encouraging advance has been made. Bishop Mallalieu says the League is a positive spiritual force in the churches there. In China we have several chapters, and in Japan an excellent start has been made. The work in Mexico and in our South American missions has opened auspiciously. The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, has also introduced the League into its missions in Japan and elsewheie, and they are co-operating with us in a forward movement, which will soon establish our cause firmly in every land where we have gone in the name of the Lord to plant the Methodist standard. A back- ward look fills one with gratitude. A look into the future makes one joyful because of the certainty of more glorious conqutits. \*>*>i. ^1 share. In trast of M CHAITICR LXIV. Future Methodism. U C 1 1 more t h a !i the prcscMit is the future in a well-ordered life. It f'T^'U// / m? /'7^/ ^ ^ is wider, bri^^hter and f /^^.^iritiSlOTi more effective. It is J^ClS^^^ ^^^ ^'" ^ "^^"' ^^'l^^ther of this world or the world to come, if to-morrow has no charm, and it is for an institution just as sad. The glory of Christianity and of the Church, which is its visible organism and tlwelling- place, is that its assured future is broad, glowing and immense. It is to subdue and control the earth, and in it the race of man is to find rest, and all pure and noble longings their con- summation. In that consummation, we believe Methodism is to have its full share. In all this Story there has been no comparison or con- trast of Methodism with other branches of the great Christian I I ._JJ^'''!i m\ 86o TIIK STORY <)|- MI/riU)|)|SM. Cluirch. The narrative flows within its own borders. If we b( - heve that Methodism is to stay and {j[row in the world, it is not because we think tiiat it will supersede or crowd out any ol!u r Church. There is room enouj^h, there is work enough, for all. liishop Meade, of the Protestant I^piscopal Church, in Vii- {^inia, once said: " h'ifty years ajjjo, when I bej^an my ministry, I was sure that the Protestant l4)isc()pal Church so perfectly em- bodied the ideas and usages of the Christian faith that I believid it would soon be the Church of America, and come to control the Christianity of the world. The Haptists were {^rowinfjj, and I was confidentiall)' told by a preacher of theirs that he was certain they would early dominate this land. The Methoilists were sin^^- ing: "The Methodists are gaining; ground. Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord !" After fifty years, we stand not much ilitVerently from ()iir standing at that time. All have grown, some faster, S()me slower, but none prevails. If it were true that the growth of one Churcli meant the decline of any other, thanksgiving even might be a doubtful exercise. Hut it is with Churches as with gardens, where the thriving of one helps the thrift of all, or as with regiments, where the success of one helps the general victory. There are reasons why the future Stor)- of Methodism should be a cheerful one. One is this — that its doctrines and usages are well settled. No new dogma can enter. The Pope, thirty years ago, announced a new tloctrine, the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception, and Montalembert, the ablest lawyer of France, said : " I bow my intellect to my faith." When the intellect straightens itself, beware ! Nor is there room for any new usage or any sjrious change of usage in Methodism. There is nowhere any complication, except in the voluntary and decieasing usage of the District Conference. All else is simplicity itself, and the working of the system in order and freedom bears the test of now five generations. According to the reliable identity of the human nature, one cannot see why it may not wear for hundreds of generations. There has been no loss of piety and devotion. We might have given, from the jour- nals of early men, ample proof that their days were days of trial from the unworthy living of many. Aged men of wide and care- ful sight and insight affirm improvement under their own eyes. Persoi active streng Ii increa.-- Cinrrcl all Mc eleven the inc now th, an avei /hience of pcoj In the incr the inci gained i of the ui The and fifty is not ea? but from. West, cv growing It is leading a the origii Looking become t ties. The religious, broad. T of the glol odist .systt gelize and As m action of i sionary in to aid Chu '^AiSM- ';T'7,'P'"fv^J?^>^^Ci^7*^finC"***li lire of |cccpt Mice. )rclcr why tn no Ijoui- trial Icarc- Icyos. KUTUKK MKTHODISM. 86i Personal lK)lincss, dcop, Scriptural experience, intelligent &nd active benevolence, j^rovv witli the growth of the Church and strengthen with its strength. In Churches, as in private business, increase of capital means increase of spread, energy and result in business. The M, IC. Cnurch has now a niagnificent accumulation. Its preachers (in all Methodism) are now local and itinerant, one hundred and eleven thousand. Its members are five and one-half millions, and the increase, as reported by its weekly journals, is more rapid now than ever. If as is often saiil, one member in fact means on ;m average four persons influenced, then there are under the in- ihience of Methodism to-day twenty-seven and one-half millions of people, and these figures are not extravagant. In the United States, since the takings of the census began, the increase of Methodists has been about six times as great as the increase of the whole population. And this increase, not gained from other Christian Churches, but from the great throng of the unchurchly, the undevout, the unsaved. So may it ever be ! There are now, in all, small and large, about two hundred and fifty institutions of learning in the Methodism of America. It is not easy to get the exact number in other lands, as in Australia, but from the best data one may count them as fifty. In our far West, every year sees new ones rising. These schools must be a growing power in society. It is but a hundred and sixty years since John Wesley was leading a few friends at Oxford in reading the New Testament in the original tongue and in the daily practice of its teachings. Looking back upon the movement thus begun, it is seen to have become the greatest Christian revival since the days of the apos- tles. The impress of this revival, called Methodism, upon the religious, moral and social conditions of mankind, is deep and broad. The field it occupies reaches almost to the extremities of the globe. The gradual and providential growth of the Meth- odist system has given it particular fitness and power to evan- gelize and organize, both at home and in foreign lands. As missionaries are winning other lands, the action and re- action of foreign and home societies increase. A Baptist mis- sionary in Burmah has this year sent home five hundred dollars to aid Church work in this country, and thus help his mission at f^^} u 862 THE STORY OF METHODISM. its source, and on the same principle success in India insures suc- cess in America. Methodism must therefore have in prospective such a future as will gladden the earth with joy and singing, and for its suc- cess, not its adherents only, but all friends of mankind, must ever pray. THE STORY OF METHODISM IN THE- DOMINION OF CANADA. THE WESLEY CENTENARY STATUE. [This Statue, , located in fi ont of City Road Chapel, London, £ng.,is the work of Mr. Adams Acton, the gift of the iWesleyaii Methodist Connexion, and wasjunveiied Centenary Day.] THB STORY OF METHODISM IN TIIK DOMINION OF CANADA INCLUDINCi AN A((OUNT OK The Wesleyan Methodist Church, The Methodist New Connection, The Methodist Episcopal Church, The Primitive >'ethoi)ist Church, The Bible Christian (Jhurch and The United ('hurch. >,:7 » H RY HUGH JOHNSTON, M. A., D. E). AUTHOR OF 'Towards the Sunrise," " Memcrial of Rev. William Morley Punshon. D.D.," "Shall We or Shall We Not :■"' Etc. WITH PORTRAITS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. Ims Acton, Entered .iccortliriK lo Act ot ConRresn iii iMe year 1891, hy Willcy Ik Co., iti tli*j ofTite ol TKe Librarian ol Congress, at Washingtun, I). C. CONTENTS. ■ THE STORY IN CANADA. CHAPTER I. Wesleyan Methodism in the Eastern Provinces— Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland, CHAPTER n. ^Veslevan Methodism In Lower Canada, CHAPTER III. Wkslevan Methodism In Upper Canada, CHAFFER IV. Wkslevan Methodism In a Spatk of Ini>f.pendence, , CHAPTER V. OiHER Branches cr the Methodist Household in Canada — The Methodist New Connex'on — The Methodist Episcopal Church in Canada — The Primitive Mfthodist Church — The Bible Christun Church — ^The United Church, Page. 8G9 877 885 901 .si :1j I 'i| 919 CLASSIFIED INDEX. Is." l-r- l\ III KKV. 1>K, II. I'K'KAKl). Kii>l rirviilcni Mount Allisun I'lUvcnily, Sackvillt, N. U Th salilc r» r()vincc w iuicJ as wc waters ovc waters, wi ft'llovv to tl I»lf ciiArri'K t. \ nil; l',Asii'KN I'uoviNCKs, Nova SrniiA, Nkw Hkunswick, rKiN':K l.nwAKi. Island ani» Nkwkoundland. Oi '"*v: Tin: l)(iininif>ii ,(xx> s()iiaiT miles, I Ik? tniilory of a people, in not only an indisp'^n- sal)le contlilion of national lif(% Init a fletrrminin^ factor in its iiev(>|upni''nt. Here is a bell of the earth's surface washed hy three oceans, larjM-r than the whole c(»ntinent of ICiirope, larger liian the entire (l(iniini(»n of the United States, under one ^overn- nient ; the niagiiilicenl heritajjc of the Canadian peoph . Over this territory in itn vast extent, in the wealth and variety of its resources, Methodism exerts a salutary influence. Throughout the len^'th and br(;adth of this vast domain there is fjiit one Mcth- iidist Church; fcr by the nni(»n of 1HS3 the variotis sections of Methodism in this land were brought into one household of faith ; liie United Church being called " the Methodist Church." HIes.scd unity of Canadian Methodism! "All one body we." f^ne in doctrine and discipline, one in fellowship and spiritual activity, one in hyinnody, faith and charity. We are t(» trace the rise, progress, and present j^osition of Methodism in Canada. Mefore the Confederation of the liritish Provinces in 1867, each province was struggling along in a state of mutual independence; iiul as we trace this river of salvation which rolls its affluent waters over the northern half of this Continent, back to its head- waters, we come upon several distinct branches which we must follow to their source. fs S/o THE STORY OF METHODISM. i \L~ We begin with the history of Methodism in the Eastern Prov- inces, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland ; for although Newfoundland is not yet embraced in the Dominion it is a part of the Methodist Church in Canada. In 1765 a year before the introducHon of Methodism into the United States, Laurence Coughlin, an Irishman, who was received on trial as a Methodist preacher by Mr. Wesley himself, began his itinerant labours in Newfoundland, the oldest transatlantic possession of Great Britain. But William Black, one of Mr. Wesley's converts, is recognized as the Apostle of Methodism in the Eastern Provinces. He began his work in 1781, preaching his first sermon in Nova Scotia, his text being the first also of Francis Asbury on this continent, "I determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified." Con- gregations overflowed everywhere, an immense circuit was formed, many were converted, classes were established, love-feasts held, and Methodism fairly organized. In 1783 came a great accession to the population by the landing of 20,000 loyalists in the Mar- itime Provinces ; and the little societies at Halifax, Windsor and other places along the Annapolis Valley were strengthened. The Province of New Brunswick was created, having an area of 20,000 square miles. Black went everywhere, visiting Newfound- land where at Carbonear, Harbour Grace and around Conception Bay a mighty impetus was given to the cause ; strengthening the work in the settlements of the two Provinces, and kindling a flame of revival over the beautiful Island of Prince Edwaid. There was great need of more laborers. And wben the memorable Christ- mas Conference of 1784 was held at Baltimore, Mr. Black at Wesley's suggestion, was there to plead for help. His eloquent appeal evoked a sympathetic response, and the heroic Freeborn Garretson and James O. Cromwell were ordained and appointed to the work, reaching Halifax early in 1785. Garretson had the oversight of the entire field. That young but seasoned veteran in the Master's service, never witnessed more triumphant scenes of saving mercy than in these Provinces, and when after two years of self-sacrificing toil he returned to the United States, being needed for a larger field, he left as the fruit of his labors 700 members. In 1788 James Wray was ordained by Wesley and Coke, for the supervision of the work in the Eastern Provinces ; |s 700 and] Snces ; y//A DAVID ALLISON, ESQ., LL, D. Principal Mount Allison Wesleyan University, Sackville, N. B., Canada. :^3 872 THE STORY OF MEIHODISM. but the appointment did not give satisfaction and Wray requested relief from his responsibiUties. In 1789 Nova Scotia did not appea*- on the Minutes of Wesley's Conference and the death of that great Founder in 179 1 seemed to sever this work from Eng- lish Methodism. The first Methodist Cliurch erected in the Lower Provinces was at Sackville, in 1790. Another was built the same year at St. Stephen. The Argyle Street Chapel in Halifax was erected in 1792, mainly through the self-denying exertions of Mr, Black. The first Methodist Church erected in the Loyalist town of St. John was in 1807, the precursor of those goodly structures which perished in the great confl?' ration of 1877, and of those later splendid ecclesiastical structuies of Centenary and Queen's Square. OLD CHURCH, TADOUSAC. Oldest Church in the Dominion. For a few years after Wesley's death the mission was brought into close contact with the American Church and the New York Con- ference of 1 79 1 appointed six preachers to accompany Black to Nova Scotia. But the work was not congenial to them and sooner or later they all returned. It was necessary to look again to the English Wesleyans ; and in 1799 the Apostolic Black crossed the Atlantic, visited the British Conference and pleaded for laborers. The response was generous and four missionaries were appointed to the Provinces. From that time until 1855 this work formed a part of the colonial and foreign missions of the Wesleyan Confer- ence and was managed by the London Missionary Committee. At ern Britis and the > odist Chi isters hac f 2,000 to The into the E -spread of '883 anot IN THE KASTKKN PROVINCES. 87.5 the end of ..alf a century these missions under the guidance of Rev. Dr. Beecham were organized into an Affiliated Conference called the Weslcyan Methodist Church of Eastern British America, which then numbered 13,000 members and over 60,000 adherents. Among its 88 ministers were men of distinguished ability, fore- most of whom were the eloquent Dr Richey, the judicious Enoch l/oodf the theological Dr. McLeod and the scholarly Dr. Mc- Murraj . In 1874 came another vital change in the ecclesiastical organization of l^astern Methodism, when the Conference of East- REV. ENOCH WOOD, D. D. Late Secretary of Missions. ern British America, the Canada Wesleyan Methodist Conference, and the New Connection Conference were formed into the Meth- odist Church of Canada. During those nineteen years the min- i.sters had increased from 88 to 204 and the membership from 12,000 to 20,000. The Confederation of the Provinces .-ind their consolidation into the Dominion of Canada furnished new opportunit'es for the spread of Methodism, and its consolidation into one body. In 1883 another union wave swept over the Church, resulting in the V. )| Wm .^.^ I- :,-'^*- ''m REV. NATHANIEL RURWASII. S. O. D., I.L. D., Chancellor Victoria I'niversity, Toronto. Cinada. IN THE EASTERN PROVINCES. 875 unification of Methodism from Ocean to Ocean. Since the con- summation of a United Church the story of Methodism in the Eastern Provinces has been one of extraordinary progress, for its ministers now number 262 and the roll of membership has swelled to over 36,000. S^'-^ » FUENCH CANADIAN VILLAGE. REV. ALEXANDER SUTHERLAND, I). I). Cieneral Missionary Secretary, Canada. J M iii ij i» t . ■ ww w ,i >i > r chaiti-:r II. 'I'liK SroRv IN LowKR Canada. The first Methodist preacher in Lower Canada was a Mr. Tuffey, a Commissary of the 44th Re^^imcnt which came to Quebec in 1780 when this pious and zealous man began to preach to the soldiers and Protestant emigrants of that city and continued to do so until his regiment was disbanded and he returned home. The first Methodist itinerant in Lower Canada was that eccen- tric character, Lorenzo Dow, called "Crazy Dow." He was sent in 1799, by Mr. Asbury, to break up fresh ground and form a new circuit in the vicinity of Missisco Bay which is partly in Vermont and partly in Lower Canada. He traveled through Durham and Sutton Townships, made his way to Montreal and sailed down the river to Quebec. He believed that the Lord had called him to visit Ireland and while waiting for a vessel to cross the sea began to preach. He collected a congregation of about i 50 and during his short stay about 20 persons were stirred up to seek the Lord. In 1804 Martin Ruter laboured in Montreal with some suc- cess. In 1806 we find that imperial soul, Nathan Bangs, in Lower Canada supplying for a few weeks in Montreal until the arrival of their preacher, Samuel Coate. Then he sets out for Quebec, his field of labor. He formed a small society there and the sacred fire has ever since been kept alive in this stronghold of Romanism. Durham and Stanstead are now mentioned as circuits, the former belonging to the New York Conference, the latter to the New ■-i^-^i 8/8 THK STORY OF METHODISM. England Conference. Three Rivers was also added to the list. This old town, midway between Montreal and Quebec, had just received a new influx of Knijlishmen who were employed in its iron forges and this year Mr. Molson put his first steamboat, "The i\c- commodation," the second built in the world, on the St. Lawrence, The first Methodist Church of any pretensions in Canada was built in Montreal. It was constructed of stone and with it a dvvd- ing house for the minister. The building was begun in 1807 and completed in 1809. This chapel stood on St. Sulpice Street and was an elegant one for that day ; but the expense was greater than the society in Montreal could bear and Samuel Coate solicited help from Upper Can- ada, the United States and England. Coate was a man of extraor- dinary personal ap- pearance and great natural eloqi:ence. The grace and power attending his early ministry were remark- able, and he was the FIRST METHODIST CHURCH, MONTREAL. honored instrument in the conversion of hundreds. But his star declined, he lost his zeal and piety, and finally abandoned the ministry. In 181 1 there were five preachers i 1 Lower Canada and 242 members. But the peaceful work of spreading the gospel is interrupted by the dark prospects of war between the two Anglo-Saxon nations. During; this unnatural and unnecessary strife all the Lower Canada circuits were unoccupied except Quebec. The Methodists there were without a regular minister but a pious sergeant of the 103d regi- ment, named Webster, kept the society together until 18 14 when the English Conference appointed Rev. John Strong to Quebec, and Rev. Samuel Leigh to Montreal. On the restoration of peace, the British Government sought to increase by emigration the population of Canada which now numbered only about 300,000; 220,000 being in Lower Canada and about 80,000 in Upper Canada. Through the immigrant Gates of Quebec began to pour in thousands from Great Britain Icuits Iwcrc rcgi- /hen :;bec, REV. W. H. WITHROW, D. D. Editor "Methodist Magazine" and S. S. Periodicals. Toronto, Canada. |ugbt now Inada rrant htain 880 THK STOKY OF MK IllODISM, OLD ST. JOHN'S GATE, QUEBEC. aiul Ireland and among these were many Wesleyans from the Old Land. When the Gen*" <)c Conference of 1815 resumed its vvcirk in Canada they resolved to he very careful in the choice ol preachers that no offence might be given to a sensitive p e o pie. T h c; preachers selected were principally of British birth a .1 d I h c y were carefidly enjoined not to interfere with politics. Montreal and Quebec were left to be supplied. The F^ng'ish Con- ference had this year appointed Richard Williams to Quebec and John Strong to Montreal, who coming to the city desired to use the Chapel already erected by the Methodists. A dispute arose over the occupancy of the Church, part of the Society sidinp^ with the new Preacher, the remainder holding with their old friends. Bishop Asbury wrote to the Missionary Committee in London and the Committee replied that in consequence of an application being mu'e to the British Conference from the Society at Montreal a M'.ssionary had been appointed to that place. But representatives were sent to the General Conference, then meeting in Baltimore and a Committee appointed to make, if possible, an amicable adjustment of the differences. The division however continued, the General Conference being unwilling to give up any part of their Societies, or any of their Chapels in the Provinces to the superintendence of the British Connection, while the Missionary Committee were reluctant to withdraw their Missionaries. Two Methodist bodies were growing up together in mutual envy and variance. The Wesleyan Missionary Society had been formed and was just entering upon that vast work which has made Wesleyan Methodism famous in all lands. In its Gospel spirit and The s'j'Dfiv ivr , "^ orKanixcd, cITcctivc work !, , , ' *l'y then should it „„t JnclcT, '™ "^'"^■•'"f.' all land, ■ con„e„i„ ,„ the ,,■.„, and fcd „ r'"*-"'"' '"^^■■•'^''cr,, were mo e -^-::^rii;i-ir^^ -" House instructions with abt u"",' '"'■ ""''°"^' ''"h--' Mis J»-ph Taylor as General Secretlri ''' '*""""' ^^'»"» and -"-=• The Missionaries «""»'' "'"","' ""•■ '"""' an.icable P by the preachers appointed I^L he A™ "' ^°"'^"^^ "■->' 'v-e not to continue their labour^i , '""" ^"°"f"«>ce and •;;' ''y "■= American brethren .''t^-^'''"'" '"•^■""-'y °ccu- -o large or so scattered, that T'T^' ^''"'^ '^o population was "-t be neglected. Neve 1^11"^ "'"'^ """'- "^ '"^ a" att,tude of aggression and "erl *!'T'"" ""^ "'aced i„ -I.O had come to divide if „o take a 'u "P°" "' ^"PPlanter '"•othren. Contentions and d v" ^^ "''' ""'"itancc of their and so the Rev. John Kmory wl T" ""' ""'"'^ "" all side, ;-^l- Conference to adjust theVffi u j::,"':"'" ""^'^^^'^ '° '"= «^"- cquest a regular interchange of R '" """"'"'"S Canada and to '^■-nce to another. The EnlhT?'"'™^ ''"•" »- Con! pleasure •■ the opportunity of 1. .Conference embraced with >e W s, M':thodi:r:reTnT'l':r"^^-- ''"■-'P'-blt world and acceded to fh^ ^ '" every part nf ^u ;;-." --ave the tZ::^'^^!'^" '"""^^^'^^ M.ss,onariesthatofLowerCan.,d A ^'""'''' ^"^ '^e British -™ary War " closed, the E„d ,1 ' r r "'" '™^ ^^''™ 'he " m" ;;^ 744 members while the l"otr Ca^ Tn" """ ""- =•-'"- t^onference which extended from Iffi "'"' °'' ""■■ Genesee Quebec numbered 3,000 menber " '='■=* =^^'*ard to i;ende;cr:rth: Rirrr"!:"" '""'"^ '"-^o-- superm. K-ary Society Auxilit/rt: -^ ^ar ,s„, .h^ «: I parent Society ,„ London WARRING KKNNl'.DV, V.SQ. First Layman electetl as Secretary of a Methodist Annual Conference, Toronto, 1891. -f-^ 4^ W.ls rirsi too s <'I1C||;' ./•'llll f'itlllxi ./aiiu's u.is |„ Til is 'II r.S,|5 llillIo\i/; A c:ii,n •''>Iy li/iic 'listory ,,f I'l tlio ( ""^'ti'ojjoli; ""la.tlicr.-i <•'' /Votcsi (Jticl)cc ai '''•^"1. and , uorld, 'n 18: t^''i Mission ^Iv.ctiuyr^ in I'lit they wc 'iced were h '■"■ni i;, JAMK.s- ^^"-•''cc and i,ovv s„ccr..I » . ' ''^^''■«'''^'- '"'t they were fr. • rV ■'' '^'''•^* ^'•'«ys of sm-d , r " ^'"^^'''^t '■'Jtirch r„ fi . " Jastinrr rem,-,,.] "'""•''C Jabours ^ '-rc Alder, one of fi,„ AT- . '^ti'^'n to Uorv'r r- '^nclanrf f^ . "le Miss un-inr q *-'PPcr Canada •^iand to preside over the 7v .^ '^^'^'■^'^''''"''•^. arrived fr. "'"l^yan ministers to Upper Ian ! i; 884 THE STORY OF METHODISM. Canada. To prevent strife a Union between the Upper Canada Conference and tiie British Conr.?ction was proposed and accom- pHshed in 1833. At this time the membership in Lower Canada stood at 2,203. Iri 1835 the Rev. Wm. Lord came out to fill the chair of the Lower Canada District and preside over the Upper Canada Conference ; the following year came Wm. M. Harvard, and with him many gifted men labored extensively and successfully in this field. In 1 840 the Union between the British and the Upper Canada Conference was ruptured and for seven years the bitter fruits of alienation and division were manifest. The evils were principally felt in the West, but the unnatural strife divided brethren in Christ ' ^d produced alienation .1 Reeling in the East until the healing and uniting in- fluences were again applied. The reunion of the two branches of the Methodist family was happily con- summated in 1847 and thenceforth unanimity and peace prevailed. Then came a growing desire on the part of the ministers RUNNING THE RAPIDS. and , : H b c r s of the churches in the Eastern Canada District tr ' ', .orporated with the Western Canada Conference. The proposa or amalgama- tion had the hearty concurrence of the British Conference and in 1855 the old regime was ended and the 20 ministers and 4,000 members of the East became incorporated ecclesiastically with the Upper Canada Conference. Thenceforth the river of Wesley's Methodism flows on in one unbroken current until the change takes place which we have already mentioned — the Methodist Union of 1874. CHAPriCR III. TiiK Stokv ]n Uri'KR Canada. r h c n c on listers the with •ama- |e and 4,000 with isley's Ihange hodist The first Methodist preacher in Upper Canada was also a British officer, who in 1786 began to preach on the Niagara frontier. The first regular itinerant who came to Canada was William Losee, a one-armed but whole-souleo evangelist, who in Jan- uary, 1 790, made his way from Lake Champlain circuit to Kings- ton, and kindled along the Bay of Quinte shores a flame of re- vival. The following year Losee was appointed to Canada with instructions to form a circuit. The field was indeed wide and hard, yet an inviting one, and he was soon back again, preaching with self-sacrificing zeal the words of life and salvation. The first class in Canada was formed on the Kay Bay shore, February 20, 1 79 1. The plant of Methodism had taken root and the tiee was rising. The first Methodist chapel was built at Hay Bay, a humble structure, but it was the beginning of the many costly temples that have since been erected for the worship of God by the Methodists in Canada, This was organized Methodism. There had been a class formed in Augusta, in 1788, made up of Paul and Barbara Heck and their three sons, some of the Em- burys, John Lawrence, and a few others, who, influenced by feel- ings of loyalty, had left New York and come to reside in British territory. The Irish Palatines, who bore the "precious seed" M), 886 THE STORY OF METHODISM. across the sea and became the founders of Methodism in New York, were afterwards the Ibundf.rs of Methodism in Canada. At the New York Conference of 1792, held in Albany, Losee re- ported 165 members. He was appointed to form another circuit between Kingston and Cornwall, and Darius Dunham, an ordained minister, was appointed to the charge already organized. Losee was a one-armed man, but a bold horseman and usu- ally rode upon the gallop. He was a man of solemn aspect and often administered effective rebukes. One evening,, returning from a meeting at the house of Mrs. Roblin, he asked her son OLD "BLUE CHURCi:," AND BARBARA HECK'S G-^AVE, NEAR MAITLAND. John how he felt. " Oh," he replied, " what I heard was only as a tinkling of a bell; it went in at one ear and out at the other." Said the preacher : " I know what is not like a bell, and which will make you feel." " What is that ? " asked the youth. '* Death," answered the preacher, in the most solemn tones. The gaiety of the young man was at once stopped. Next evening he was seeking the salvation of his soul and went home converted. He went to his room and returning with his frilled shirt, said, " Mother, as soon as you can, take off these frills. I shall wear them no more. Oh, mother, the Lord has converted my soul ! Oh, let us al.' ^iiP REV. J. W.SPARLIXG, Principal Wesley College, Winnipey:, Manitoba, Canada. 888 THE STORY OK ivIETHODISM. kneel down and pray ! " And for the first time, he prayed with his mother and brothers and sisters. Young Roblin visited other families, warning them and praying with them. Dancing was the fashionable frivolity of the times and John Roblin was the leader. Hut this amusement was broken up and prayer meetings were held instead. He afterwards became a local preacher and a most use- ful man, and was elected a member of two of the early Parlia- ments of Upper Canada. During this first revival, a tavern-keeper, who was also a merchant, opened his house for the Gospel, and when the truth entered his heart he deliberately took his axe and cut down his sign-posts. Convinced that he ought to have prayers in his fam- ily, he got an old book, found a form of prayers and kneeled down; but when on his knees he could not read the first sentence, but began weeping and calling for mercy, which he found, and lived and died a man of God. The first Quarterly Meeting was held on September 15, 1792, in Mr. Parrot's barn, first concession of Ernesttown. Freeborn Garretson, the Presiding elder, was not present, but the preacher in charge took his place, and following the church business on Saturday, there was held on Sabbath morning a love-feast and the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, when for the first time the little flock in the Canadian wilderness received the Broken Bread and the Cup of the Communion from the hands of a Methodist preacher. Dunham was a fearless, faithful preacher of the Gospel, and these two heroic men entered upon their work with invincible zeal and activity. The moral desti*^^ution of the country was great, for in the two Provinces there were only seven or eight ordained min- isters to care for the entire Protestant population. These Gospel rangers had to endure unspeakable hardships, traversing forests, crossing streams and rivers, making their way over almost impas- sable roads, while as to worldly support, they asked only to sub- sist ; but they itinerated in the power of the Spirit, and at the end of the year Dunham returned a membership of 259, and Losee 90 members where there had been none. Others came to break ground : James Coleman and Sylvanws Keeler, Elijah Woolsey,. inured to toil and privation, consecrated and anointed for the work; Samuel and Michael Coate, two brothers, graceful in : ii THE STORY IN UPPER CANADA. 889 person and impressive in speech, and Hezekiah C.Wooster, a man of mighty fai«^h and prayer, from whom the unction never de- parted, whose flaming zeal consumed him, who, near the end of his triumphant ministry, unable to speak above a whisper, yet with ilhmiincd countenance, would so preach with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, that sinners trembled and fell under his words like men slain upon a battle-field. These pioneer preach- ers belonged to the Icgio ionans, and so greatly were their labors owned that when this nineteenth century dawned nearly one thousand members had been added to the Church in Canada. Dunham, who so greatly helped to build up the infant Church, was severe in his ministry, and obtained the name of Scolding Dunham, liut he was excellent in repartee. A newly- made " Squire " was bantering him about riding so fine a horse, and told him that he was very unlike his humble Master, who wa.s content to ride on an ass. The preacher, with his usual imper- turbable gravity, responded that he would most assuredly imitate his Master, only for the difficulty in finding the animal named, because, he said, " the government had made up all the asses into magistrates." One day he was preaching with more than usual animation when a person responded " amen." The preacher paused, and looking around said, "Amen do I hear? i did not know that there was religion enough left to raise an amen. Well, then, amen — so be it," and resumed his sermon. Yet he was a man of great power in prayer. Once, called to visit a woman who had lost her piety, and her reason and was pronounced to be *' possessed of the devil," he kneeled in front of her, and though she blasphemed and spit in his face, yet he never flinched, but went on praying and exorcising by turns, shaming the devil for getting " into the weaker vessel," and telling him " to get out of her," until she became subdued and fell upon her knees and began to pray and plead with God for mercy, and rose from her knees in possession of reason and rejoicing in the light of God's counte- nance. He was afraid of unhallcwed fire, and on one occasion while he as Presiding Elder was holding an official meeting, the brethren, led by Calvin Wooster, remained in the prayer meetings and were so overcome that all were prostrate on the floor. The elder, coming into the room, beheld these things with a mixture of wonder and indignation, and kneeling down began to pray to 'H\ "fvpf REV. W. S GRIFFIN, D. D., Treasurer of the Superannuation Fund, Toronto, Canada. Ood Calvi knelt Lord trate fire w I from ] ncnt, ; to Yoi to the from I Morav Saturd want t swered occupa " I hav. morrow fore I g man rc^ lodging mission. " Peace rode ten When th count ol motives ' with, " I to stand preach w me in thi: method." lft!^W THE STORY IN UPI'ER CANADA. 891 Ood to " stop the raging of the wild-fire." In the meantime, Calvin, whose soul was burning with the fire of the Holy Ghost, knelt beside the elder, praying, " Lord, bless brother Dunham ; Lord, bless brother Dunham," when suddenly Dunham fell pros- trate on the floor, and ere he arose received a baptism of that very fire which he had deprecated as the effects of a wild imagination. In 1802, Nathan Bangs, a young man destined to be heard from in the history and development of Methodism on this conti- nent, labored on a circuit extending from the village of Kingston to York, and in 1804 he obtained an appointment as Missionary to the New Settlements on the River Thames, his work extending from London to Detroit. Passing down the Thames River from Moraviantown he reached a settlement about three o'clock on a Saturday afternoon. Calling at a house he enquired, " Do you want the Gospel preached here ? " The man of the house an- swered, " Yes, that we do. Are you a preacher? " "That is my occupation." "Then get off your horse and come in, will you?" *' I have come a great distance to preach to the people here. To- morrow is the Sabbath, and I must have a house to preach in be- fore I get off my horse." After a few moments deliberation, the man replied, " I have a house for you to preach in and food and lodging for yourself, and you are welcome." Thanking him, the missionary entered the house in the name of the Lord, saying, " Peace be to this house." A young man mounted a horse and rode ten miles down the river, inviting the people to the service. When the young Missionary rose up he first gave them an ac- count of his birth, conversion and call to the ministry, and the motives which induced him to come among them, and concluded with, " I am a Methodist preacher, and our manner of worship is to stand up and sing, and kneel in prayer, then I stand up and preach while the people sit. As many of you as see fit to join me in this method can do so. If not, you can choose your own method." When he gave out his hymn, they all arose , when he knelt in prayer, they all knelt. Having concluded his sermon, he said, "All who wish to hear any more such preaching rise up." Every man, woman and child stood up. He then told them that they might expect him again in two weeks. The people were loose in their morals and flagrant in their lives, totally ignorant of spiritual things, yet ready to receive the 892 Tilt STORY OF METHODISM. Gospel, and thus a now field was explored and mapped out. IK- was succeedeil by another young preacher, who became one ol the strongest, sturdiest and most trusted leaders of Canadian Methodism. Thi:> generation of Methodists cannot turn its face backward without, seeing on the far horizon the stalwart form of William Case, the " Father of Indian Missions " in Canada. About the same time there labored on the Bay of Quinte circuit another REV. E. B. HARPER. D. D. Preached his Jubilee heimom, Toronto Conference, 1891. preacher destined to play an important part in the history of the Church: Henry Ryan, of massive form, swarthy complexion, and great energy of character. These were days of heroic sacrifices and self-denying labors on the part of this noble army of itinerants. Into the lonesome, solemn forest they plunged, the road being only " blazed," or marki^d trees to guide them ; they had often to sleep in the woods, or should they find a friendly settler, their bed would be a bundle THE STORY IN UIM'ER CANADA. «93 I of the )n, and labors isomc, [d," or l^voods, )undle of straw, their supper and breakfast "mush and milk." Their allowance was the most meagre pittance, and they often received nothing by way of support except wh;;t they ate and drank. Hut they toiled on for the welfare of men and the ^lory of God, preaching in scattered settlements, organizing classes and laying the foundations of future churches. James Coleman, while pass- ing up the Mohawk river en route to Canada, was obliged to go on shore fifteen nights in succession and kindle a fire to keep off the wild beasts, and his U)()d failing him he was reduced to a cracker l)er day. The venerable Ca.so, in his Jubilee Sermon preached in 1855, reviewing his perils and labors, says, " Five times have I been laid low by fevers ; once I was shipwrecked on Lake On- tario ; five times have I been through the ice with my horse on the bays, rivers and lakes of Canada." Yet with zeal and self- sacrifice, with energy and devotion, these heroic founders oi em- pire pursued their way, though there awaited them certain pov- erty, cruel privations, and often an early death. They were men whose hearts God had touched. They had not the learning of the schools, but were endowed with wisdom, gifts and graces necessary for the work of saving men. They had not the author- ity of the Church in its formal sitnis and seals, but they derived their patent of nobility, as well as their call, direct from the Almighty. They were filled with a consuming passion for their country's good and for the souls of men, and like Stanley, who has just plucked the heart out of the mystery of the Dark Conti- nent, or like Loyola, whose flaming devotion to the Crucifix en- compassed the world, these devoted servants of Jesus Christ were glad to sacrifice earthly comforts, preach the Gospel to the poor and destitute, and be hurried to heaven that others might obtain like " precious faith." In 1810 Henry Ryan is Presiding Elder of the Upper Canada District with a membership of 2603 and Joseph Samson Presiding Elder of the Lower Canada District with a membership of 193. The following year the Venerable Bishop Asbury, who had appointed these Missionaries to Canada made his first visit to the country crossing the St. Lawrence at St. Regis opposite Cornwall, and preaching at all the principal places as he passed along until he reached Kingston, from which point he crossed over to Sack- etts' Harbor on his way to the Genesee Conference. Of the 894 THK STORY OK METHOIJISM. people he says in his journal "My soul was much united to them.'* Me confesses to the "strange feclin^js which came over him as he was crossing the line." He had left his native Land in 1771 ami when the war of the Revolution broke out had remained faithful to the infant cause which he had established, preaching and enforcing; the saving truths of the Gospel. Patiently, bravely, heroically he had stood his ground to save the Church and had the satisfaction of finding at the close of the war in 1783 that while other denomina- tions had decreased, Methodism had increased nearly fivefold, the little band of less than 3,000 having grown to nearly 14,000. He has lived to see the United States become a Mighty Rei)ublic antl the Church whose affairs he had been called to superintend grow to the thronging multitude of 175,000 souls. Now he is again under the old Flag in a Province of the Mother Country to visit people who have been raised up by his own sons in the Gospel. No wonder that he had "such new feelings in Canada". Beside all this there was doubtless thrown over his sainHy spirit the shadow of another conflict between the United Stat' ul the Paternal Government from which he had expatriated hi . forty years ago for the sake of building up the Kingdom of Christ. The war of 18 12 followed. Along the frontiers were invasions, bloodshed and plunder. The work was interrupted ; circuits disturbed, for among the men in the Methodist societies all the able-bodied and the young, v/ere under constant drill and ready for the call to battle. The American preach- ers were all withdrawn ; several others located, and when at the close of the unhappy strife, in 181 5, the Genesee Conference resolved to go on with the work in Canada, it was renewed at serious disad- vantage; and not until an able corps of native-born preachers had been raised up could the work be fully and efficiently carried on. The American preachers found themselves in a position of extreme delicacy. But they acted with peculiar circumspection and when in 1817, the Genesee Conference was held at Elizabeth- town, Bishop George presiding, a revival broke out during the five days session ; so profound was the religious impression made upon the public mind that the increase of members during the year was about 1,400. In 18 18 the first Methodist service was held in York, now Toronto ; David Culp being appointed to the circuit. A society- was organized and a meeting-house erected. That little wooden^ kt THE STORY IN UPPER CANADA. 895 :, now jociety^ the south side of conimodioiis Meth- Capital of Ontario. York was then the seat of government although only a Ut- tle village of 1,200 or 1,400 inhabi- tants but it soon, become a Meth- odist centre both for the Canadian "FIR'^r METHODIST CHURCH. ^'^"'''^^^ ''^ " ^.^ .^ ^ ^* Toronto, on kite of present R.ink of Commerce, cor. King and JorJan Street*. Wcslcyan M ISSlOn- aries. But the enemies of Methodism and of religious freedom were ready to mal ■ a sinister use of the fact that its teachers were citizens of a foreij^ji nation ; and so, to remove these political objec- tions the General Confer- ence of 1820 gave authority to establish an Annual Con- ference in Canada by and with the advice and con- sent of the Genesee Confer- ence. The Genesee An- nual Conference met this year on the Canadian side of the Niagara on the fa- mous battle-ground of Lundy's Lane and on Sun- day the little meeting-house being too small to accom- modate the congregation assembled, they repaired to trinity methodist chukch, Toronto. the grove and worshipped God on the very spot where six years before the two contending armies had engaged in deadly strife. Of the 122 ministers and preachers receiving appointments, 28 had their fields of labour in the Province. The presiding Elders of the two Canadian districts were Henry Ryan and William Case and according to the estimate of these brethren who were thor- .^lr:y';'W. 896 THE STORY OK MKTIIODISM. oiighly ;u:qiuiintccl willi llu- religious condition of the rrovincc there were then about 211 public rcli<;ious teachers in Upper Canada and of these including Local Preachers and I'^xhorters 145 were Methodists. The liritish Missionaries were now withdrawn from Upper Canada and the Societies of Lower Canada placed under the pastoral care of the Lnglish Wesleyans. There was peace in the Methodist household but no numerical p. -ogress; indeed at the conference of 1821 a decrease of 659 was reported. This is to be accounted for because of the foreign jurisdiction of /Tn. rn'^fif^ygltr'^. t.ll- ■■ .SHERBOURNt STREET METHOOIST CUDRCH, rORONTO. originally-organized Methodism. Many settlers coming from the old land had a strong repugnance to anything from the United States and this feeling was encouraged by the Canadian author- ities. When therefore according to the amicable arrangement made between the two connections the VVeslcyan Missionaries withdrew, many families refused to join the American branch and either united with no church whatever, or joined other communions and became lost to Methodism. To remove this objection of foreign ecclesiastical jurisdiction the ministers who were laboring in Canada urged upon the Genesee Conference of 1822-3 the necessity of forming at once a mmm TMK S'lORV IN ri'I'KR CANADA. 897 Canadian Conference. More am! more tin: civil tlisabilitie;' were l)eing felt. A bill was introduced to allow Methodist ministers to solemnize matrimony in Upper Canada, but thouj^h it passed the Assembly it was rejected by the Legislative Council. Why was this manifest right denied to the largest body of Christians in the Province? In 1822, the great work of In'Man Iwangeli/.ation began. The devout Alv'n Torry laboring on the Grand River was obliged to pass an Indian reservation made up of Irocjiiois and other tribes all pagan except the Mohawks who though pro- MErHODIST INDIAN VILLAGK, PORT CREDIT. fesscdly Christian were no better than the heathen around them. Torry visited these tribes and became interested in their welfare the I ^iiifl when the Presiding I'^lder, the Rev. V^^m. Case, came to his bited I i^^ld of labour and heard from the Missionary what had already thor- I been done he said, "Brother Alvin jjrepare to go as a Missionary lent I t^^ those Indians after Conference. We must enter upon the work larics I of Christianizing those Tribes." Shortly after, the conversion of and I 'HI Indian youth named Peter Jones opened a great door for the lions I evangeii;:ation of the Mohawks and Delawares and a remarkable work of grace began among the Red-men, which has gone on ;tion I v,!th increasing power to the present. In 1824 the first Indian the I Church was built on the Grand River and day schools and Sab- kce a I l>ath Schools were established. ■m < Q < W H u. O w H THE STORY IN UPPER CANADA. 899 I— > O /. % < ►J w H o (d Ph W H Amoiij^ tlu; c[ucstions before the General Conference of i8?4 were Lay Dele^ati.>n and the making of the office of the Presid- ing Elder elective. The Canadian portion of the Genesee Con- ference were in favour of the reform and the two presiding ciders were left out of the delegation to Baltimore. lioth however attended the Conference, Mr. Case to urge the immediate organization of an Annual Conference for Canada, Mr. Ryan as the head of a deputation asking for entire separation. It was decided to organize an Annual Conference for Upper Canada, but the disappointed Inkier began an agitation for an immediate breaking-off from the American Church. Meetings were held and much uneasiness created until two of the Bishops, George and Hcdding, accompanied by Nathan Bangs made an Episcopal vis- itation, traveling over the principal Circuits of the Provinces, explaining the state of affairs and assuring the people that if they desired independence the next General Conference would readily give it. The agitation subsided and when the Conference was held, August 26th, at Hallowell nowPicton, general harmony prevailed. During the next three years the spirit of dissension was rife. Elder Ryan was a firm, persistent, irrepressible man. He had commenced his itinerant life in 1800 and had labored zealously, self-denyingly, devotedly for the Church. A "Son of Thunder," he had given ,orth in mighty sound the word of God. Now he had become estranged from his fellow-laborers and adroitly availing himself of the political agitations of the day, he inveighed against the domination of Republican Methodism. In 1827, he withdrew from the Conference. The following May the General Conference held at Pittsburg authorized the Canada Conference to form themselves into a separate, independent Church. This did not satisfy Mr, Ryan. Instead of returning to the Church, the indom- itable man began to traverse the country, making inroads upon the Societies, and sowing broadcast the seeds of discord and division. A convention was called and a new Church denomi- nated the Canadian VVeslcyan Church was organized. The new cause struggled feebly on until it was saved from utter extinction by becoming united with thi New Connection Methodists in England. This was the first schism in Canadian Methodism and it had its root in the disappointed ambition of an able and useful man. SHOOTING THE RAPIDS. CHAPTKR TV. Upper Canada Methodism in a State of Independence. We have followed the river of Weslcyan Mctliodism in Canada from its two head-waters in England and in America. One stream is flowing along in increasing strength and volume through Lower Canada, in connection with British Methodism. The other stream is broad and full and well-defined, though hitherto connected v/ith the Methodism of the United States. It is flowing in widening influence through Upper Canada. In October 1828, the Confer- ence assembled in Switzer's Chapel, Earnesttown, Rev. Bishop Hedding presiding, and formed itself into the Canada Methodist Episcopal Church. It was decided to continue the Episcopal form of Church government and Rev. Wilbur Fisk was elected as first Bishop. He however declined the oflice as did also Nathan Bangs and John B. Stratton, who were afterwards elected, so that the independent church was never Episcopal except in name. Rev. William Case was made President and appointed Super- intendent of all the Indian Missions in the Province. The mem- bership at this time was 9,67^ of which 915 were Indians. So great progress had been made in the evangelization of the Aborigines on the Grand, Credit and Thames Rivers and on Lakes Simcoe, Mud, Schugog and Rice, that it was as if a nation had been born in a day. 902 THE STORY OF METHODISM. Let us glance at the bead-roll of worthies, the heroic and venerable figures who compose the Ministers and Preachers of the Church at this time. There are four gifted men of the name of Ryerson, men of inherited ability and of the highest intellectual power. George has just been received on trial. Egerton is still a probationer having entered the Ministry in 1H25 but he already displays a broad, vigorous, intellectual grasp, and his achievements- as a writer and debater foreshadow his still greater influence. William, who entered the work in 1821, is Presiding Klder of the Bay of Quinte District and in the zenith of his power, the most popular and effective Minister in the Province. John who began in 1820 is presiding Elder of the Niagara District, controlling spirit in the Church, clear-minded and accurate, with a singularly calm and well-balanced judgment. The Presiding Elder of the remaining District, the Augusta, was Philander Smith, bright^ active and successful. Laboring among the Indians were Edmund Stoney, Joseph Messmore, William Smith, John Beatty, Peter Jones and William Case, who directed the work, and who during his long and eventful life did far more for Indian evangelization than an Elliot or a Brainerd. Among the fathers were Samuel Belton, Joseph Gatchell, James Wilson and David Youmans. In the energy of mid-life were James Richardson, Wm. Griffis, Matthew Whiting,. George Sovereign, John H. Huston, George Ferguson, diminutive in body but great in spirit and full of Divine unction, Robert Corson, Hamilton Biggar, David Wright, handsome and gifted, J. C. Davidson, Ezra Healy, George Bissell, Charles Wood, Jacob and George Poole, Cyrus A. Allison, Wm. H. Williams, Thomas Madden, courtly, methodical and convincing, John Black, witty^ genial and greatly beloved, and Franklin Metcalfe, fascinating and eloquent, already entered upon his brilliant career. Among the young men were Alvah Adams, the portly George Parr, Asahel Hurlbert, the first of four brothers, Thomas, Sylves- ter and Jesse, who were to render important service to the Church, John S. Atwood, Anson Green, ardent and full of enthusiasm, giving signs of great promise ; Ephraim Evans of logical acumen, luminous speech and pulpit popularity, and Richard Jones, zeal- ous, forcible, practical, full of that fire, fervor which was to blaze for more than three score years on the altar of the Church. mm METHODISM IN A STATE OF INDEPENDENCE. 903 brge ,'CS- rch, ism, icn, leal- laze ich. Andrew Prindlc had become too corpulent and unwieldy of body for the itinerant work. Wyatt Chamberlayne was superannuated. So also was James Jackson, but he espoused the cause of Mr. Ryan so warmly and actively that the movement became known as the Ryan-Jackson division. The following year the " Christian Guardian " was established and Egerton Ryerson elected editor. The "Clergy Reserves" agitation was then in full blast. These " Clergy Reserves " con- sisted of one-seventh of all the surveyed lands of Upper Canada, which had been set apart by the Constitutional Act of 1791 for the support and maintenance of a 'Protestant Clergy." The Church of England in the Colonies which had the powerful coun- tenance of official favor now claimed that the " Protestr.it Clergy" were the Clergy of that Church alone, and in addition to these lands large English Parliamentary grants were applied for, and a large land-endowment granted for a University, which was to be the monopoly of the Church of lingland. The noxious system involved not only the support of the Church of England as a State Church in Canada, but the extermination of the other Protestant bodies, particularly the Methodist Church. In July 1825, the venerable Archdeacon of York, the late Right Reverend Dr. Strachan had delivered a sermon on the death of the Bishop of Quebec, Rev. Dr. Mountain, in which he not only defended Church Establishments but assailed the other Denominations, particularly misrepresenting the motives and con- '•tct of the Methodist Preachers in the Province. This sermon was not printed until the following year and as soon as it appeared Egerton Ryerson, then only twenty-three years of age and just entered the ministry; published an indignant and eloquent reply in which he did not hesitate to pronounce Dr. Strachan's state- ments to be "ungenerous, unfounded and false." This Review produced a profound sensation. It was the first shot fired against the exclusive claims of a dominant Church and the battle ceased not until the equality of all religious denominations, before the law, was established and the constitutional rights of the people of Upper Canada secured. The agitation continued for twenty-five years. In 1840, the Church of England was deprived of an exclusive interest in the Clergy Reserves; but not until 1854 was the con- 904 Till-; SroRV OF MElli^iDlSM. troversy settled, when the Canadian Lei,nslatiirc, authorized by Imperial Parliament, passed an Act by which the Clerj^y Reserves were finally alienated from religious to secular purposes. In this long struggle other Protestant denominations took an important part; but the Methodist Church was the precursor, the first, con- stant and most efifective promoter of civil and religious liberty ^ and equality for the entire country. Conspicuous above all other KEY. EGF.RTON RYERSON, L\ D., LL. D Late. Chief Superintendent of Education. leaders of the public mind was Dr. Ryerson, who gave to this cause the energy of his rarely-equalled powers and placed his native land under an obligation which can never be too fully acknowledged. This was the opus magnum of his life, although he also planned and perfected for Ontario, a national system of education which is unsurpassed if indeed it is equalled by any other Public School System in the world. Honor, all honor to the name of Egerton Ryerson. ''R g IrII''"'' M'"' .iji IjA: S i.-i> The united mcml„M-.i,- '''^^'- "^"""'"k^ the year work scc„,ed to prosper ^ department of Connectional In i854,Wesleyan Methn,!,- ^y 'he amalgamation of tt p tLr""" f""''- consolidated Canada Conference of that yea The " "''"""^ «"* '"e ""° "■'-"'■^'-Poration and'the twltcl^l'^f w" ^^ ^^^'^^ ctionsofWesleyanMeth- REV. WILLIAM BRIGGS, D. D., Book Steward, Methodist Book and Publishing House, Toronto, Canada. -IVuii-Wfei^iV. tr'r METHODISM IN A STATIC OF INDEPENDENCE. 907 odism in Upper and Lower Canatla now united j^avc a total mem- bership of 36,333, with a ministerial strength of nearly 200. The two streams of Wesleyan Methodism in Canada, one of which had steadily preserved its connection with the parent Wesleyan Church, the other having its/^;/.y et origo in the Church which Mr. Wesley organized on this Continent, had flowed along with American Methodism, till 1828, then became distinct and separate, then united with liritish Methodism, again independent, once more reunited now coalesce and flow on together with well-dcfineil and widening banks, calm waters and deepening current, and destined to flow on through two decades, when other kindred streams uniting it should widen with the nation's history and fertilize a still broader area. But fraternal relations were likely to be disturbed by the Wcsleyans determining to re-enter Upper Canada, and when the Rev. Dr. Alder and three other Wesleyan Ministers arrived in Toronto, consultation was held and proposals made for conserving the peace and unity of the Church were made. The Missionary Secretary, Dr. Alder, remained in Canada until the meeting of the Conference which was held in Hallowell, now Picton, on the 1 8th of August 1832, when articles of union were adopted. The British Conference the following year acceded to the arrangement and thus the Union with the Parent body was accomplished. This Union was almost universally approved of by the Members of the Conference and the membership of the Church. The Dis- cipline, Economy and form of Church government of the Wesleyan Methodists in P>ngland were adopted and the Canadian Church with a membership of 16,090, with 70 itinerant preachers and So- churches, was merged into the original body. This union which had been accomplished without any sacrifice of conscience or of principle, and was to afford a practical illustration of the truth that the Wesleyan Methodists are one in every part of the world, was attended with sore troubles. By the Articles of Union, the Episcopate was not only changed but the ordination of local preachers was discontinued, while District Conferences gave way^ to the Local Preachers Meeting on each circuit. This change gave umbrage to several Local Preachers, who began to exert a disturbing influence. In the early months of 1834 little confer- ences were held and resolutions adopted condemning the " Local 9o8 TiiK sTouv or MrriloDlSM. Treachcrs Resolutions" of the conference, and expressing disap- proval of the Union. Three such meeting's were held before the confcHMice in 1S34. Hut after the meeting of the Weslcyan Conference at Kings- ton, on the 25th of June, 1S34, there met at Cummer's Meeting- house nine miles north of Toronto, three elders, one deacon ami several local preachers. This was preliminary to the calling of a (icncral Conference of elders, when John Reynolds was consecrated Hishop and the Mi-thodist l*!piscopaI Church in Canada organized. The newchu'rch claimed to be the old Methodist I^piscopal body, the original church, whose name and constitution had beer, 'egally changed to VVesleyan Methodist, i.itigations followed and the spirit of dissension was rife. There was want of harmony also in the united chuich. Misunderstandings grew, until in 1840 com- plete separation took place. Then followed seven ycais of alien- ation and divisive conflict. On both, sides self-sacrificing men toiled to advance the interests of true religion, but the evils of division were manifest everywhere. At length peace was restored between the Wesleyan Missionary Societ) and the Canada Con- ference. In June, 1847, Articles of Union, honorable to both parties were agreed upon and adopted with great unanimity of sentiment. Space will not allow more than a pa^^ing reference to these remaining twenty )ears of Canadian Wesle>'an history when the Church had rest and entered upon an era of unprecedented pros- perity. The truth of God as proclaimed by the Methodist itin- erants no longer made its way under many and heavy disadvant- ages ; and the peculiarities of Wesleyan usages, doctrine and polity were firmly maintained. The stand'trd of personal and family piety was raised to a higher level. All the resources of Church streng'' were actively developed. Men rich in gifts and culture and "full of the Holy Ghost and faith" entered the min- istry and under their zealous labours "muci; people were added unto the Lord." From year to year the increase of church mem- bership was continuous. A richer baptism of the spirit of holiness and of active power rested alike upon pastors and people. Sabbath Schools increased in numbers and greatly improved in efficiency. The educational facilities of the chu:''h were vastly enlarged. In 1836 a Royal Charter had been obtained for the Upper Canada acumen, to presid He gave deeper in f>f Highe Facu increased lame and MKTIIODISM IN A STAI'K Ol" INDKI'KNDKNCE. 909 isap- L- llie ings- i ;itul ■? of a :ratcd nized. body, cgally kI the also in ) com- alicn- g men evils of cstored a Con- [o both jity of \c\ these n the pros- ist itin- idvant- ne and al and rces of its and le niln- : added 1 mem- loliness abbath ciency. ilarged. Canada Academy ami after five years of successful Academic work by act of IV(Jvinciai Parliament, the institution was enilowetl with University powers. The honor of leading the way in University work in Ui)per Canada belongs to the Methodist Church ; for in October, 1841. wuh ICgerton Ryerson, I). D., as Principal, Vic- toria College began its University career. In September, 1S50, Rev. S. S. Nclles, M. A., a scholar of rare genius, philosophic REV. S. .'^. NELLES, D. D. Late President Victoria University. I acumen, brilliant eloquence, and glowing enthusiasm was called to preside over the dcstir.ies of the Denominational University. lie gave himself unsparingly to the work and made a wider and Idceper impression upon the Church than any other man in favor |of Higher Education. Faculties of Medicine, Law and Theology were established, [increased endowment given, and Victoria University became a lame and power in the land. The "spirit of the Methodist people .,»;i,w^,^;;.;r;« w>\tmft' ^^i-!f^7^!mmW REV. OEORGE DOUGLAS, D. D., LL. D.. Principal and Professor of Theology, Wesleyan Theological College, Montreal, P. Q., Canada. METHODISM IN A STATE OF INDEPENDENCE. 911 was quickened in the direction of Higher Learning, a circle of Ladies' Colleges established, as well as another Theological Col- lege in Montreal in affiliation with Victoria, under the Principal- ship of Geo. Douglass, LL. D., whose peerless gifts as a preacher and rich mental endowments eminently fitted him as an inspiring teacher and Head of a " School of the Prophets." ;;anada. * ■;' . ,*;1 */.. /yjf^'- i!.'IBfcl- ,; r ..' f^:fJ 1 i. ■■ '! '4-Ni._V 1 .^ ^ ■ ■ "-S, ■ - .1 wT ■ '" ■': i I^^^I^^^^^^^^^^^^^kb^^La ^ ' fe^r*'^' "' ? f 0- REV. JOHN POTTS, D. D. General Secretary of Education, Canada. The Christian Guardian continued to exert its educating, reforming, elevating influence ; and the Book and Publishing Estab- lishment to diffuse a healthy and attractive Christian Literature. In Missionary work the church continued to "lengthen its cords and strengthen its stakes" and having crossed a Continent to enter wide and inviting fields of labor it dared to cross an Ocean to establish a foreign mission and preach to the millions of Japan *'the unsearchable riches of Christ." The material prosperity of the Church was manifest in the increasing number of its sanctuaries and the improved character ^ ^ •■•■■■■•■Mia mmmt^wmmmmmmmiim^:^. Z H >< O •— « O ili filiti I : F 914 THE STORY OF METHODISM. of its Church architecture. Thus the growing wealth, numbers^ and power of Methodism were realized in her educational work» her missions and her churches. While these spirited forces were shaping society a new power was also being developed. As the Annual Conference grew to embrace a larger care and a wider range of topics, the need of lay- men in the highest councils of the Church began to be felt; and honored and trusted lay-officials were found on the Educational^ Sabbath-School, Temperance and Church extension Committees. From each District, laymen were appointed to attend these several Conference committees. The sentiment in favor of lay co-operation was growing rapidly, and the Church was ripening for a change in its administration and government. By the Articles of Union the English Conference was annually to appoint one of their number as President of the Canadian Con- ference, These were always men of commanding gifts and influ- ence and the church owed much of its growing prestige and power to their administration and energy, their apostolic zeal and labors, their far-reaching views and sublime consecration to the one work of saving men. Among these must be mentioned James Dixon, wise in council, robust and mip^hty in speech with native powers singularly rich ; Matthew Richey, a Chrysostom in the pulpit, dignified in manner and genial of soul; Enoch Wood, of fervent piety, sound judgment, tender and powerful in his pulpit ministrations, unwearied in his devotion to the interests of the church and re-appointed to the high office for seven suc- cessive years by unanimous request of his brethren ; Joseph Stinson, wise in administration, of fine presence, attractive speech and broad culture, for four years occupying the Presidential chair ; W, L. Thornton whose saintly character, thorough culture and spirit-baptized sermons -and addresses, can never be forgotten; and Wm. Morley Punshon whose extraordinary gifts were for five years devoted to the church in Canada, whose peerless eloquence not only elevated the tone of the entire Canadian pulpit but whose influential character, executive ability, marvellous energy and enthusiasm promoted every department of church work, par- ticularly the Educational, the Missionary and the Church Exten- sion. To his interest and exertions were largely due the erection of the Metropolitan church in the City of Toronto, the buildings METHODISM IN A STATE OF INDEPENDENCE. qiS. of which gave such, an impetus to church improvement through- out the cities, towns and country places of Canada. On four occasions the Conference nominated for the chair honored and beloved brethren among themselves ; in 1862, Anson Green, who had rendered illustrious service to Canadian Method- in 1865, Richard Jones, who fulfilled a long and noble min- is m istry; in 1867, James Elliott, genuine in his religious life and an exceptionally gifted preacher; and in 1873 and 1874, Samuel D. Rice, of vigorous and well furnished intellect, a born administrator his ts of suc- Dseph RRV. GEO. R. SANDERSON, P. D. Former Book Steward. and who discharged the duties of the office with pre-eminent success. The time would fail us to tell of other men whose gifts, graces and services were given to the Church. In the Book and Publishing Department, George R. Sanderson, who had already given five years to Editorial work and after five years service in this Department, returned to the pastorate to render eminent 'mrmmmwiW^ 916 THE STORY OF METHODISM. service in many a pulpit. Samuel Rose honored and beloved who filled the office of Book Steward for fourteen years. As Editors of the Christian Guardian, James Spencer, wielding his trenchant pen for nine years, followed by Wellington Jeffers, another Jupiter tonans, who after nine years resigned the Editorial chair to Edward Hartley Dewart the distinguished occupant who has held it to the present time. REV. SAMUEL D. RICE, D. D. Late General Superintendent Methodist Church. Egerton Ryerson, though Chief Superintendent of Education, still exci-cised great influence in Conference deliberations. The time would fail to tell of other leading spirits whose names are indissolubly connected with this period of the church's history. The men are the real events of history. About the year 1870, Methodist Union became a vital ques- tion. The Official Board declared in favor of Lay-Delegation in the Conference. This aided the pending negotiations with the METHODISM IN A STATE OF INDEPENDENCE. 917 ^tion, The are Jtory. ^ues- )n in the Methodist New Connexion church. In 1874 came the Union to which we have already referred. Fifty years have elapsed since the organization of the Canadian Conference consisting of 36 travel- Hng and superannuated Ministers with a membership of 6, 150 and a church property comprising 21 small wooden places of worship. In those five decades, the church had exchanged weak- ness for strength, poverty for wealth, the plain meeting-house for REV. EOWARD HARTLEY DEWART, D. D. Eduor of "Christnn Guardian." the costly temple. The roll of ministers had increased to 718; the membership to 76,455 ; the churches had increased to 1,800 ; and the value of church property from a few thousand dollars to $3,500,000, a record of achievement which is scarcely surpassed in Christian annals. REV. GEORGE McDOUGALL; D. D. Miirtvr Missionary. CHAPTER V. Other Branches of the Mf:thodist Household in Canada.. The Methodist New Connexion. The first organized secession from the parent body in Eng- land took place in 1797, when the Methodist New Connexion was established. The points that led to this new organization were : the rights of the people to have lay representation in all the courts of the Church, and to receive the ordinances, from the hands of their own ministers and in their own places of worship. In 1837 it was determined to open a mission in Canada, and two years later a union was formed with the Canada \Vesleyan Church, which had been organized by the Rev. Henry Ryan. The minis- ter appointed to break ground in Canada was the Rev. John Addyman, a man of devoted piety and great administrative ability. He was succeeded by Rev. Henry O. Crofts and Rev. William McClure, both men of rare zeal, energy and ability. In 1 85 1, Rev. J. H. Robinson, one of the most able and popular ministers of the Connexion, came to this country and for fifteen 3'ears filled the office of Superintendent of Missions. With such leaders to give their counsels and services to the church the cause prospered,- and when negotiations were opened for union with the Wesleyan Methodists, the basis providing for the principle of lay representation, the union of 1874 was accomplished, and the his- tory of the Methodist New Connexion in Canada ended as a dis- tinct organization. This church entered the union with thirteen ministers and 7439 members. If; I 1f I ii u 920 THE STORY OF METHODISM. The united body, consisting of the Wesleyan Methodist in Canada, the Wesleyan Methodists in ICastcrn British America, and the Methodist New Connexion, assumed the name of " The Meth- odist Church of Canada," having a membership of 101,946, and an efficient ministry of over 1000. REV. JOHN SUNDAY. Indian Preacher. When the first General Conference of the united bodies met in the MetropoHtan Church, Toronto, it was the first time in the history of Methodism on this continent, that the laity were given equal representation in the chief Court of any large Metht)dist Church. The venerable Dr. Ryerson was elected first President; followed, four years after by the Rev. George Douglass, LL. D. The great prosperity of the Church and the practical success ol ackn( Bishc when of lo the when In 18 f^nivc OTHKR HRANCHES OF THE METHODIST HOUSEHOLD. 921 this union, prepared the way for the more comprehensive union of 1883. Happily there has been no controversy in Methodism over Christian doctrine ; the only occasions of division beinj; (juestions of policy and administration, so that with any disposi- tion to heal the wounds of division, organic union is a compar- atively easy task. These nine years were marked by the death of many of the standard-bearers of the Ciuirch. Among them Dr. Anson Green, Dr. Lachlin Taylor, Dr. Freshman, a converted Jewish Rabbi, Rev. John Sunday, a widely known Indian Mission- ary, and Rev. George McDougall, a heroic pioneer in the North- west, who under the shadow of the Rocky Mountains, in a blind- ing snowstorm, lost his way and was found calmly lying in the sleep of death, with the snow and ice as his winding sheet. " And had he not high honor, The hillsiile for hisp.iU; To lie in state while angels wait, With stars for tapers tall?" ies met c in the c given -thodist esident ; ,LL.D. ccess ot The Methodist Kpiscoi'al Church in Canada. When the union with the Wesleyan Methodists of England took place in 1833 there was a change of name and of several important features of church government. The union did not meet with the unanimous approval of the whole church, and those who determined to continue their allegiance to Episcopal Meth- odism called a preliminary conference in 1834. On the 27th of June, 1835, tlie Rev. John Reynolds was elected General Super- intendent, and the new church now embraced twenty-one preach- ers and 1243 members. At the end of the year the ministers had increased to twenty-four and the membership to 2390. At the Conference of 1843 the membership had grown to 8880. In 1847, Rev. Philander Smith, a minister of great piety and acknowledged ability as a preacher and administrator, was elected Bishop, and served the church with self-denying zeal until 1870, when he passed away. In 1858, Rev. James Richardson, a man of lofty patriotism and eminent ministerial gifts, was elected to the same office, and he served the church until the year i875» when, full of years and fi;ll of honors, he ascended to the skies. In 1874^ Rev. Albert Carman, D. D., then President of A lbert \Jniversity, the denominational college at Belleville, was raised to fr ^VPf gtt|^^^ m 1 ■ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^Sf|^ W^^^^^^ .,,,.i^ 2 ^^^^^B'l 1 ^P^'"jHp' 1 H '^m^HR i^^^^S ^^^yt^jffli^^BB^^'sjPs ^^^1 ^H BvL^ '^^. .'•-"i^^w ^^^H 1^^' Vfj^W,^^ ^^^^H^Bu'W^^^.^J^I ^^m ■^^ ^M I 1 M,\ B^^-ji r K .1 ^siiP ■ " .1 ' REV. S. F. HUESTIS, Book Steward, Halifax, N. S., and General Secretary of Conference, 1892-6. f OTIIKK UUANCIIKS OF THE METHODIST HOUSEHOLD. 923 the office of Bishop, and filled the episcopal chair with wonderful zeal and dcvotedness until the union, when he surrendered the title of Bishop only to be elected a General Superintendent of the united cluirch, where his peerless abilities as an administrator and presiding officer have fountl their fullest scope. When the ques- tion of union became a vital one, and a basi^ was agreed upon, conceding to each branch of the church in fair degree the central principles of its polity, the Methodist Episcopal Cliurch entered with 228 ministers and 25,671 niemoers. Primitive Metiiuw.st Church. Primitive Methodism arose in Stafford, England, in 18 10, under Mugh Bourne and William Clowes, two zealous Weslevan local preachers who would persist in holding field-meetings, con- trary to the decision' of the church court to which they were amenable. The work spread with amazing rapidity and in 1820 the Connexion contained sixteen circuits, with 16,394 members. In 1829, Mr. William Lawson.a zealous local preacher, came with his family to Canada, and reaching Little York in June, began at once preaching in the market square, and continued to hold these open-air meetings until October, when a school-house on Duke street was secured. A class was organized, and in this first class- meeting were three worthy laymen, William Lavvson, Robert Walker and Thomas Thompson, who, with their families, exer- cised a controlling influence over the destinies of the church in Canada. The following year a regular minister was sent out. In 1832 a church was erected on Bay Street. Accessions were made to the ministerial ranks, among them the Rev. William Lyle, whose name is as ointment poured forth. His first words when converted in 1816 were "Glory! glory! glory!" and his last words when dying, in 1 873, were, " Christ is all in all." In 1844, the Canadian work was visited by the venerable Hugh Bourne. He found ten traveling preachers and eighty-three local preach ■ ers and over 1000 members. In 1850 the members reported were 1630. Among the ministers now sent out from the home Confer- ence were Rev. Thomas Adams and Rev. John Davison. Mr. Davison had rendered distinguished service in many important centres in England, and coming to Canada hQ entered with great "f*?? ¥^ ^l-'^'r'* r >; i^*f'^' w? ' V-v ' 'v.r k^' iv^; iVV-f'i' -CW . REV. JOHN LATIIERX, Editor of "The Wes.leyrn," Halifax. N, S., Canada. ';P%P!S??|*l«.W!l^'Jl;^*)i'J^^ fflH OTHER liKANCHES OF THE METHODIST HOUSEHOLD. 9^5 '^cal and success upon the pastoral work until appointed general Missionary Secretary and Book-Steward. After forty-three years of service he superannuated, and in 1884 passed away, with the words, " I have done what I could for the Church and the world ; my work is ended." His aged widow, the daughter of William Clowes, still survives, a mother in Israel. In 1870 there were eighty-one traveling preachers and 6,432 members. The church continued to prosper, having among its laity men of whom any denomination might feel proud, and ministered to by preachers of superior ability, among them Robert Boyle, James Edgar, M. D., William Bee, William Rowe, Thomas C -trey, J. C. Antlifif, D. D., Thomas Criffith, Ph. D., and others. \Vhen the church lost its distinctive name and separate position it numbered eighty-nine ministers and 8090 members. The Bhjle Christian Church. This church came into existence in Devon, England, Oc- tober 29, 181 5. The first conference was htld in Cornwall, 1 8 19, and represented twelve circuits with 16 male and 14 femah- preachers, and over 2,000 members. From the fust the denomi- nation was not only evangelical and Methodistic, but liberal in church government, ministers and laity having equal rights in all church courts, and vomen being recognized as teachers and preachers. In 1831 this little denomination of 6,650 members resolved to send out two missionaries to America. Francis Metherall established a prosperous cause in Prince Edward Is- land ; but the father of the denomination in Canada was John H. Eynon who landed in Coburg in 1833 and with his devoted wife began evangelistic work throughout the scattered settlements. In 1836 a church was opened in Coburg; and in 1845 a strong cause was established in Bowmanville. In 1846 the missionaries were reinforced by the arrival from England of Paul Robins, William Hooper and Henry Abbott. Mr. Robins became one of the most trusted leaders of the church and to his genius and devo- tion, his wisdom rnd abilitv the denomination owed much. The first Canadian conference was held in 1855 with 21 nreachers and 2,186 members. In 1865 Prince Edward Island district was uni- ted to Canada when the statistics shovveu 132 churches, 54 minis- ters and 5,000 members. Under able and energetic leaders like 5SK5i REV, JOHN A. WILLIAMS, D. D. Late General Supeiiniendent Methodist Church. ■TTTiyftilirni- OTHER BRANCHES OF THE METHODIST HOUSEHOLD. 9-7 those we have named, with Chappie, Barker, Pascoe, Kenner, Roberts, Weber, Rice and others, the church grew vigoroudy; and after 50 years of useful and successful labour closed its inde- pendent existence, having 80 ministers 7,400 members and 30,000 adherents. The United Church. The Methodist Church of Canada had made wonderful strides. Entering the union with over 1,200 ministers and 128,642 members, when the various sections enuiuprnted, came together to adopt the constitution, enact the discipline, :uid set in motion the machinery of the united church there were 1643 ministers, 169,803 members, 3,159 churches and a total value of church property exceeding $9,000,000.00. l he last few years have been years of rapid development and lofty achievement. The true spiritual life of the church has been intensified. In these seven years the increase in membership has been 64,000 or 38 per cent. The Missionary Society has now an annual income of nearly $250,000. Schools and colleges have been enlarged and improved. The publishing interests have grown to gigantic proportions. Churches have been increased and beautified. Two additional conferences, British Columbia and Japan have been organized. The Sunday School work is expanding and of the Protestant schools, in the Dominion, more than one half the scholars are Methodist scholars and nearly one half the teachers are Methodist teachers. Epworth Leagues have been actively promoted. The Methodist adherents, according to the census, number 1,000,000, being one-fiflh the entire population. Its Missionaries are pushing forward to the outposts of civiliza- tion, following closely upon the footsteps of the settler. Nay, going in advance of the settler, in the effort to bring the Gospel to the Indian. The Church though strong and wealthy, has lost none of its sympathy with the poor ; and Methodism in Canada is seeking to carry out the purpose of its great founder in "Spreading Scriptural Holiness over the world." I t II Brrata in index. Haygood, Atticus Q., portrait of, McFerrln, J. B., portrait of, Moore, David H., portrait of, Ranliin, Miss Lochle, portrait of, 488 Transition 542 University of Denver, . 700 Wesley's Statue, picture of, 641 346 699 083 II ./r|^. INDEX. •XJ«i/' . 340 . 699 . 682 PAOK Abbott, Benjamin. Sketch of . . . 876 labors in New Jersey .... 876 considered crazy 876 the Methodist Uunyan .... 876 In New Jeroey and Pennsylvania . . 898 raobB greet him ..... 898 the Presbyterian and .... 899 in the storm . . ... 399 death of . . . , , . 436 Adams, Daniel 557 Advocate, The N. Y. Christian . . . C61) Africa, Methodium in . . j • . 561 Airicau Methodists separate . . 483 M. B. Church formed . . 483 Bethel Church ..... 485, 548 Zioii Church 485 first, converts 545 relation to Church South . . 546 many Churches of the .... 548 schinms in 4S6 Africa's Luminary 567 African M. E. Church, sicetchea and portraits of bishops of . 766 Africa, Colonies in 567 missionary bishops for . . . .57) Alrey, Mr 5596 Alabama, First Protestant sermon ia . 472 Albrights, The 457 portrait of Jacob 458 Allen, John, mention of, with portrait . . 439 Allen, Bishop liichard Portrait and Sketch of . . . .... 486 founds the first African Church in America 7C6 monument to 766 Allen, Youuc J., mention and portrait of . 687 Allhallow'8 Church, View of . . . .177 interior view of SJ07 AhuH, Wesley j?l''ltig, eppraviug of, . . 140 Amazoriians, at VVorahio, View of . , 31«6 America, South, Ale'hodism l\\ . . , fllfi Pagarism uiid Knmanism in. . . . 619 condition of sucfety la ... . 631 AmovJcan Bible Socletv . > . . .199 American Visitors I (iSngland . , BH,8U American Revolntiow ..... 821 AmtilM, MI.-<»ioti Work ta, Vo1imte«r8 for . S63 want, of disc'.Tj'un;. tn . . . .871 liiftil;ntlon>s admtiw ... MO flr.rt. itinerant in 378 bi« record STB teCiiJItinciantin 876 ]?nK»li*h Chnrchlii 407 iLut Methodist t tea '.utlons In . . -^2% PAGk America, cause of differences in Methodism 614 anti-slavery society founded . . . 635 arrival o£ negroes in .... 645 Ames, Bishop Kdward K., Sketch of . . 711 portrait of 712 sagacity of 711 and the Indians 711 Andrew, James U., sketch and portrait of . 637 and slavery 63? Andrews, Edward O.. Bishop, sketch and portrait of 784 v^uaker descent of 724 Senator liawley and ... - 724 Angels, LegenJof 644 Anne, Queen, Portrait of .... 80 Annesley, Dr., Father of Mrs. Wesley • . iJ7 Anneslcy, Susanna, Mrs. Samuel Wesley . 89 portrait of 29 Antigua, Methodism in 423 picture of flri^t sermon In . . . . 168 Apologete, Die Christlicho .... 663 Apotitolic Succession, Wesleyn view of . 154 Appeal, Wesley's to the Clergy . . . 175 Arminins, Portrait of 415 Armiuianism, Methodist 414 Arminian Magazine 268 Arretton Church, View of . . . .278 Amett, Bishop, B. W., sketch and Portrait 774 Asbury, Francis, the Wesley of America . 363 portrait of 348 portrait of at 26 364 view of his homo in childhood . . 865 his choice in life 864 Hitonlbal of Mnthodl; m . ... 864 pergonal jnngnetism .... 804 picture of Manwood cottage . . . 8(» foresight ot RHO Bymputhy, with American Revolution . 880 predictt freedom sas labors in Now York and Philadelphia . 86? made Ainerican suneriuteiident . .867 end Otterbetn . * . . . . .877 falls sick 887 coorne d.aring the revolution , . . 884 rests Weeieyan tasblon .... 889 meets Coke' 890 letter of recall by Wesley , . .892 Bftla'-y and pfrsona! property of . . 405 lays nor uer-stono of Coknsbury College 424 mi ambitious of worldly honors . . 425 begins in New England .... 489 In the wild West 445 acd "doole liushnp" . . . .452 In the wild West again . ; . . 46P ii INDEX. of Aebury loves Bonthem brethren . lost days and death . inonuincnt to — engraving of . Ashuiituo and tho hero of Asbury, Elizabeth, Portrait of Ashton, Annuity left by . AsBociate Mcthodiut KeformerB . ABBuraucc, Doctrine of . . . AuBtralia, Methodiera in . . . Azley, James and the Bishop Axley Chapel Bachelor, Conference Baker. Bitihop OBiuon C, Sketch of i)ortraltof .... Baldwin, S. L. and Mrs., in China portrait of .... Ball, ilannah, opened first Sunday-Bchool Baltimore, First sermon in, picture of first Churches in Mt. Vernon Place Church, picture < Light Street Parsonage, picture of , Lovely Lane Church, picture of Methodism in, now . Bands, The Bangs, Nathan .... portrait of aa missionary secretary . early experiences of labors along the Hudson Bangs, Ueniau .... Baptism, manner of . . , Baptist Kvangelist helps Baptists and McthodistB imprisoned Barratt, Philip .... Chapel, view of . . . Barrow, mentioned Bascom, Bishop Henry B., Sketch of portrait of .... eloquence of ... . BasBCtt, Richard .... regards lor Asbury . Battles and Victories Ban, view of city of . . . Baxter mentioned .... Bayards, The Beau Kash and Wesley, with picture Beard, Thomas, the first Martyr . Beebcc, B. C, In China, with portrait Belfast College, with picture . Bells, in dlBfavor .... Benevolence, Crusade of Benevolences, Methodist Bengeworth, Mob at . . , Benham, J. B., in Africa Bennet, John Benson, Joseph . , . . fourth commentator . Sortrait of iBmissed by the Countess is refused ordluatioji driven from her Church . becomes editor Berean Series Berean Leaf, in Germany Borea, O., College in Berridge, Jolm Btthel, pit'; eofm-. )flng Buthesda, VViutefield'j, with picture destroyed Bible, Scene of Translating into Chineae Birmingham, Wesley at Bishop, The title of, appears . first protcBtant in America Wesley's view of . . . other viowB of . proposed abolition of board of. In i '^4, port-alts BiiiiopB, Divine right of, rejected ofM. E. Church of M.E. Church South . of African M. E. Church PAOB . 40» . 2.S9 . H8 . 801 . 897 . 4» .406 . 487 . 4M . 6C .485 . 480 . 670 PAoa 477 Black Harry and his Master, picture 480 Blucksmith, The Village, picture of 479 Black Country, The .... 829 Boardman, liichard, with portrait. 866 Boardman, Kichard 866 Bocardo, picture of . 518 Botihm, Henry .... 166 portrait oi 832 Boehm, Martin .... 499 Bohler, Peter, with portrait . 498 Book Concern founded . 606 first publications of . 476 present proportions, with pictore 709 removed to New ifork .... oo« 711 new edifice of 070 681 Bond, Dr. Thomas E., with portrait . . 686 681 Bosaaquet, Mary 240 205 establishes Orphan School . . . 24). 353 her call to preach 240 368 marries John Fletcher . . . .240 8G0 death of, and portrait . . . .809 807 Boston, Lee at 429 807 first chapel in, picture of . . . .448 ifOH first Church in 430 79 Boston Theological School, with engraving 69U 428 Boston University 698 4G0 Bowman, E. W., in Louisiana . . 604 085 Bowman, Bishop Thomas, Sketch of . . 718 461 portrait of 718 483 organizes Wllliamsport Seminary . . 717 48 i the children's BiBhop . . . .713 412 Boyne, Battle, View of 142 397 Braddock's Grave, view of . . . . 60C 440 Branch, Thomas 492 390 is refused burial 492 391 Bradburn, Samuel 222 19 Btrategy of 22S T52 Bradburn, Sophia, and the Sunday-school . 26b 6U1 Bradford, Revival at 301 502 Brazil, Church South enters . . . .088 390 Brazilian Missions 620 890 Brecon, Coke Memorial Schools at, with cut 220 121 Bremen, Tract House, View of . . .657 335 Breedon Church, engravine of . . . 1«0 19 Bridgeport, First Church in, view of . . 428 3ii6 Bristol, Old, view of 74 70 Whitetteld first preaches at . . . 67 120 first Methodist chapel built at . . 75 680 British and Foreign Bible Society . . 199 343 Broughton, Portrait of 174 478 Brown, Bishop Morris, Bketch and portrait 767 238 Brown, Bishop John M., sketch and portrait 7T1 686 Brush, Laura, in Africa . . . .670 8H Bulgaria, McthodiBm in 648 6'iu mission view of 047 168 Priests beg Bibles 647 221 first convent In 648 101 view of school in 660 282 raassacrcBin 061 281 Buckley, J. M., D. D., Portrait of . . 070 221 Buenos Ayres, View of 622 221 M. E. Church in, picture of . . . 023 221 Carrowin 683 799 first Spanish sermon in .... (188 063 Bugbee, Lucius H., with portrait . . .802 664 Bunhill Fields, View of .... 104 178 Buntinj;, Jabez, with portrait . . .298 369 Burchard, J. L., Indian Agent . . .668 180 Bums, Francis, Bishop for Africa . .571 180 sketch of, with portrait . . . .744 261 edits Africa's Luminary . . . .744 166 Bums, IJohert, Portrait of . . . .80 430 Burton's Chapel 453 392 Butler, William, goes to India . . .699 408 portrait of 699 410 Butler, J. W., Portrait of . . . .681 617 Butler's, Bishop Censure .... 19 70u Uiitlcrs, Parson, Attack, View of . . 146 160 Buddhist Ti'mple, Sacred gardens, view of . 866 708 Buxton, T. I'., Portraitof . . . .822 751 urges emancipation 888 766 Cab Stand estubliBhed by Wesley, picture . 864 poi M(, if tAa* . 409 . 8$» . iia . 861 . asT . 49 .4fi6 . 457 .4M . 60 .485 . 480 . 670 . 668 . OTO .626 . 240 . 247. I 240 240 , 80« , 429 . 448 , 430 69U . C98 . B04 .718 . 718 . 71T . 718 . 142 . 50C . 492 . 492 . 222 . 22S . 26b . 301 . 688 . 620 It 220 . 057 . im . 428 . 74 . 67 . 76 . 199 . 174 it 767 lit 771 . 570 . 648 . 04T . 647 . 648 . 660 . 661 . 070 . 623 . 623 . 683 . m . 808 . 104 . 298 . B6B . 571 . 744 . 744 . 80 . 46;) . 699 • 6w .681 , . 19 . 146 825 328 883 864 ewof Iture INDEX. iii FAOE Cain, Bishop, R. H. sketch and portrait . 773 Calcutta, »lirl8 School. View of . . . 614 portraits ot graduutiug class . . . 615 sailor's resort in 616 Calhoun on Indian Missions .... 562 California, First Church In, with picture . 529 Japanese mission In, with picture . . 530 separation from Orcf^on . . . .531 China Town 632 University in, with picture . . . 536 Calvin, Jotin, portrait ot .... 49 Calvinism ot Wliitetleld 90 Calvinistic Methodism 178 Calviuistic Controversy 191 Calvinistic Struggle 202 Camp-Meetings introduced .... 453 First i'^nglish 308 picture or first in Kentucliy . . . 440 coolclni : at, picture of ... . 480 Campbell, iJartley 311 Campbell, Biohop J., sketch and portrait . 770 Canada, Methodist Church organized in . 447 early labors in 448 first Church built in .... 460 jurisdiction of 612 unity of 448 separation from Church in U. 8. . . 4ttl Indian Missions in 566 largest Church in world in . . .814 Canoe Circuit 449 Cannibalism 336 Capo Coast Castle and picture of . . . 328 Cape Town and view of 330 Capers, Bishop William, with portrait . 475 labors among Creek Indians . . .751 Capers, Major William 475 Cape May Commission 544 Capital Punishment 218 outrageous instances of . . . .219 Toid's influence on 219 Caporali, Portrait of 642 edits Citiarterly Review .... 640 Cardoza, Conversion of 625 Carman, Itev. A., with portrait . . . 449 Cartwright, Peter, with portrait . . . 499 Carvosso, William, with portrait . . .307 Case, William, with portrait . . . .487 Catholic, Conversion «i: a , . . ,148 Cazenovla Semlnaiy, view of , . . 699 Cazenovia, view of village In 1840 . . 660 Cennick, J., mention ot with portrait . . 87 Centenary, The English 342 Cestius, pyramid ot, view of . . . . 634 Ceylon 324 Chautauqua, Descripton of with view . . 795 the, idea 796 view on lake 796 work done at 797 moonlight view of . . . . .797 assembly 802 all denominations unite at . . . 801 Literary and Scientific Circle . . , 802 first graduation at 808 courses of study SOT reading and musical societies . . 807 College of Liberal Arts . . . . 805 Phliosopliy Hallrtt, viewof . . .805 School of Theology 806 lltoratiiro and Teaihers' It^itnut , . 806 iufliK'iieti of the movement , , . 808 cut of, 'lerusal'mi (/'Immber at . . 800 gpreud of the Idea 806 portrait of ISdltor Flood . , , .607 Monthly of 808 Orlciiliil House at, with view . . ,798 Chalmei »< portrait of 89 Chapels, Building of , , . •W Chiipultepec, view of nynri'!,r, gardorm . •HW Charleston, View of ill iTHi ... 418 Cherokees, Metli'KlIgm aiuong the . . oAii native pranclii^r ot 552 driven by bayonets . , . ,664 PAOK Cherokees, high standard of . . . . 664 Charter House School, view of . . .40 view of grounds 41 Cheshunt, view of Church at ... 803 CheHterlleld, Lord, portrait of ... 99 Chicago, Beginning in . , ... 498 ChickasawH, Methodism among . . . 564 Children's Day 074 Children's Bishop, The 718 Chinese Ouestion, 631 Chinese Mission, California, view of first convert Chinese Pagoda, altar of, engraving of scribe picture of ... . first convert with portrait first minister, portrait of. girl life in . . • . . . China, Methodism in ... , resolutions of students concerning first Sunday School in, with picture foundling hospital in view of great wall of mobs in Chapels in .... Memorial Hospital In, view of a village forsaking heathenism remarkable cities of retaliation in (iirls School Foochow, view of Choctaws, Methodism among Christmas Conference . Christian perfection Christian and Savage contrasted, picture Christian Recorder, The ( 'hristiana, view of Church at Church government Church music .... Church of the Strangers Church Extension Society of Church South Churches not warmed . Cincinnati entered . first German society formed In view of in 1811 . City Road Chapel, view of interior view of old . exterior view of 1887 Interior view of 1887 John Wesley's grave and monument at . 212 Claflin University, picture Clarke, Adam .... strange passage hi history of commentaries of missionary views of in Isle of Jersey portrait of . church and school hooso view ot . . , . simplicity of , . . and the coin after Wesley's heart striking InterpretatlonB of monument to . . , Clark, D. W., Bishop, portrait of HiiilorB' life Abolitionist . . . edits Ladiei' Repoiitnry . death ot , , . . Clark University, with view • Clarkson, portrait of . . Clapham, 'The sect . . . good men of . . . Class, The .... Clay, Henry .... Clayton, portrait of , , Clive, Lord, portrait of . , filowos. Wra., with portrait . (;oke, Thomas premi' r of Methodlsin urges uit KmM India Mission In Franco .... 631 , 678 , 678 , 328 579 581 . 582 , 683 , 575 , 675 , 576 , 580 , 583 , 584 684 , 585 , 580 588 591 . U83 554 410 414 , 333 . 485 , 638 . 403 064 549 089 090 352 407 052 444 208 209 211 211 031 2U 248 247 250 276 245 248 248 844 246 846 847 806 713 713 718 718 714 .680 838 804 204 666 509 174 884 308 . 286 227 . 228 , 275 i iv INDEX. Coke, ThomBB. takes Daniel Graham to West IndluH .... In India dcatli of Eortrait of, and Memorial Schools iHirregiilaritiuH COMHCqUunCCB of . . . coincBas UrMt JJishop portrait of nia iraprcBtfiont) of America . views on slavery haa intisrview with WaHhington relieved from oAlce in America Cokesbury ColleRO, corner stone of, laid destruction of . Coluuitt, A. II., with portrait Collins, John .... Collins, J. D Color line, ThT Common Prayer, Book of Conference, The First, with picture the first Methodist . the second statistics of Thirty-fourth rules of ... . Conference, Asbury's ilrnt Conference, First American . want of discipline at doings after Second . Christmas .... description of Quarterly . at Wilbraham, 1794 . doings, 179(5 doin;;8 of two general doings, 1804 the llachelor doings, 1876 Conference, General composition of . restrictive rules its preaching . statistics .... of 1888 .... day and place , Metropolitan Opera house Sersonal ot . . . elegates at . . . lay question deaconesHCs at . Buperunnuttted preachers iit presiding elders term extended at world divided into conferences England, represented Congress appoints a fast day . members converted . Connecticut, imprisonments in Controversy, the Calvinirtic . Conversion, a reniiirkublu Converts, nnbaptized Constitutions, U. S., framers of, picture Cook's, Valentine, debate Cookman, George G., with portrait Coomassie .... Cooper, Kzekiel opposes slavery Con*. Methodism in, with picture Oorawall, picture of rock, pulpit at Coniwallis, surrender of Cork, attack of chapel at, with cut. Cooiicil, Ecumenical CoK, Melviiie B., in Africa Coarper. William, with portrait Cnwrtord, Beth Creek Indians .... f reighion, 24 »i!U 227 226 220 a92 408 408 42U 420 462 422 422 540 467 675 C80 24 128 127 163 224 228 a«7 871 371 377 410 410 440 451 4«3 468 468 6H 610 610 610 611 632 S16 810 817 817 817 818 818 819 819 819 823 392 376 440 191 148 407 389 405 675 329 669 394 596 117 430 146 823 562 199 556 65i 249 273 28 Dairyman's Daughter, The . Dartmouth, Lord C'owper on ... Darney and the Mob Day Schools, Weslevan . Davis, Jefferson, with portrait Deacon, Samuel Debts, Wesley's views on Debtors, prison, engraving of Deems, Charles F., with portrait Debate, public De Quettevlllo .... De I'ontavlee of Deed ot Declaration controversy over De Courcy Demarara Dettlngeii, Methodist Soldiers in Battle Delaware, Metliodisn in revival in cypress swamp Dempster, James .... Dempster, John, with portrait Delegates, First (Jeneral Conterenco of Denmark. Methodism in Depuy, W. II., portrait of in group Deveau, Mrs., Dream of Deserter and Duncan Detroit, first sermon in . UoinaiilHii in ... ■ Dickens, John .... projects a college Dickens, Chus. mentioned Dickerson, Bishop, W. F., sketch and portrait Distiller converted .... DIsosway, Israel .... Discipline, origin of . . . of backsliders .... Disnev, Bishop. K. ]{., sketch and portrait Dissyllabic sermon of Wesley Dissenting Schools .... Doctrines defined .... Dodd, Dr., Sad case of . Doggett, Bishop D. S., sketch of . portrait of .... edits (Quarterly Beview . death of Doddridge, Pliilip, mention of with portrait 168 Dorsey, D. B 517 Dow, Lorenzo, admitted to Conference . 463 preaches first I'rotestant sermon In Alabama 472 sketch of 778 on the Connecticut 778 warns the government .... 778 portrait ot 778 Dougherty, Geo 464 Drew Seminary 695 Drew, Samuel, with portrait . • . .247 Dunwell, John 329 Duncan, Bishop W. W., sketch and portrait 7C2 Chaplain in the war 763 Dunwoody, Suniuel 471 Durbin, J'olin P., with portrait . . . 603 missionary secretary . . . .660 struggles for education .... SOS Dublin, view of 143 PAOS . 97T ISt, 19» . 184 . SIS . 841 . 648 . 88 . 228 . 4» 640, 049 . 465 . vn . 876 266, 266 . 281 19» 88» 181 883 806 884 388 611 036 242 868 160 468 468 408 101 490 772 44S 866 267 164 773 286 . 341 253. 271 . 210 756 755 756 750 new college in, with engraving Easingwold Early," Bishoi) John, founds Bandolph Macon Collego sketch of portrait of among Jettoreuii'8 il^reg , tUlilii'lKlit-iiiiivi'iHliiMii tinker . iirnuHt riiiiijliiii, '|'||(i mI liiillaii ('(iiiijiiiiiv, iippoiiilliilt p'- 3 hikI o|>liifotrii 813 801 Ear lOlM I..I ./()lr!ifh.-iii M , run of , ill! »-, f ri -" itaLji^A. Tl I 773 446 860 267 154 773 , 2S5 . a41 , 271 . 210 . 750 . 766 . 768 . 750 rait 156 51T 40* 472 778 778 778 778 464 . 695 . 247 . 329 :ait 702 762 471 503 080 608 , 143 . 313 . 801 . 474 . 764 474 m . iriR . Ml . 1D6 074 098 fAOk Educational Society, lioard .... 074 Kdiicatioii 'M9 Klliot, (ieorgu mid puitrait uf . , .29:1 Klectoral Confereuco 520 Klliott, Charlu-4 ...... 039 £mbury, Philip, flrut McthodiHt prunchcr iu America 849 foriiiH flrHt class in Canidun . . . :i56 death ut 360 portrait of 860 of German blood 849 builds a pulpit 362 his many duiii'H 862 leads Kmit;raiits 349 lands in N. Y 849 Emory, Bishop John, with portrait . 482, 486 Kmory, John, visits England . . . 814 Kmanolpation In Uritish Empire . . . 323 Enprland in Wesley's time . . . .19 En^'land, William 214 Kuijlish Church In America .... 407 Methodist missions 319 Enfrlixh visitor, Oeorgo Marsdcn . . . 470 Knclianter, The 581 Eniiiskillen, first Irish martyr at, with cut . 147 Epworth parsounKe, old view . . .31 parsoiiHue, lute view . . . .32 strange noises at 39 hymnal ..',... 44 John returns to 83 Wesleys vanish from . . .62 Episcopal Protestant proposed union . .510 Evangelist, JXt 05.') Evangelical Association, The . . . 468 Evangelists, Kecent, sketches and portraits 776 the four young 472 female 782 Evans, Henry 475 Evans, John . 131 Evans, Dinah and portrait .... V!91 Evans, Seth 290 Ersklae's, Lord, Defense of Methodism . 304 portrait of 304 ■' . . 036 . 600 . 01 . 394 . 414 . 661 . 271 . 427 . 663 Europe, Methodism in Kurasiana .... Extempore prayer . Exhorter, tlio Military , Experience .... Expulsion, opposed Faith . . . . . Jairflcld, view of old Town Hall Eai'rington, Miss, in Africa . returns home 564 Fasting, day of 392 Fetter Lane ' 67 Chapel in, engraving of . . . .67 FiccolaLa ....... C46 Fielding, portrait of 19 1 'eld Preaching, first, by Whitefleld . . 68 Wesley's first 60 Fiji 886 pleaching in, cut of .... 702 Five Points of Methodijm .... 129 viewof mission in 784 Finch, Hon. J. U., portrait of . . .814 Finley, James B., with portrait . . . 492 conversion of 492 Mission to Indians 498 Finsburv Dispensary 201 KIrst thlntiH in America 349 i'ttdi Will, in with porirait , . .489 I I I • ' ■ ■ • '*88 t iMMM HiiiifM I'lilversit) Tlsli, I liulDii li, portrnii of jUuerald, O. ' ■ ' lUltof l^'F 1: ir. porirnii (it . j'., pdrtijilt of (i.i|., wm l)ort.ii of . ■' . . •m in PAOt Fletcher, John, at Thirty-fourth Conference 224 marriage ot 240 at Madelev 266 portrait ot 40t death ot 241 Fletcher, Mary nosanquet, with portrait 309, 404 ~ - . . - gQ7 404 684 674 877 083 132 132 720 720 729 403 77 340 n 788 738 78B 278 276 276 56 829 069 600 077 678 678 603 330 292 260 824 05H 774 Flood, T. L., portrait of Fluvanna, Hacruinentc at Foochow, Methodism t-iiters views of on river Mln Mission 8. S. and picture view of school in Fontenoy, Ituttio ot, Methodist iSoldlcrs view ot Foster, MiNhop Randolph S., Sketch of portrait of Fobs. Hlsliop C. D.. Sketch and portrait Founders of Methodism, portraits of Foundry Chapel picture of . Foundry School .... engraving of . Fowler, Bishop 0. II., sketch of . portrait of Missionary Secretary France, Methodism enters through priKoners of war statistics of Methodism in Franklin, Ben., portrait ot Freeman. T. B Free Methodist Church. The some change of usage Freedinen, Methodism among the Freedman's Aid Society Freedman's Hureau Free Seats Friendly Islands .... Fry, Elizabeth and portrait of Fund, Preachers' . , . . Future Methodism (Jaddis', Mrs., Indian Work . Gaines, Bishop W. J., sketch and portrait Galloway, Bishop C. B., sketch with liortrait 763 Gammon School of Theology, picture of . 690 Gumliold, portrait of . ' . . . .174 Garrett Biblical Institute . . . .073 view of 096 Garrettsoi., Freeborn, Conversion of . . 393 sketch and labors ot .... 804 ]iortrait of ..... 894 Gatrh, Philip 375 trials and triumphs of ... . 38S Gay, Dr., with portrait 041 Garibaldi, mentioned 641 Geneva, Lake, picture of . . . .170 View of city of 645 Gentry, mob of 428 Georgia, Coke and Asbury in ... 434 George, Enoch, with portrait . . 613 Georgo III.. Methodist Class Leader . . BT ))ortrait of 98 General Hul<» for tlie United Society . .109 (Jeneral Hul" s for Preachers .... 129 (iermaiis In Ireland 168 in a storm, picture of .... 62 German Methoaism ... . 059 Gibson, Tobias 470 Gibson, Otis, with port «it . . . . 688 Gibraltar, view of 83T Gilbert, Nathaniel ICT engraving of 168 Glasgow, John Wesley at .... 166 view of 164 tjiniebrnok, James I (mkIciiiiIii im . Goi II \ .Ul|.|))iurtraitot hlMht>l««««f »""itlSl;4'''' ew u{, -^'oltlrt t I ' I I i I VI INDEX QowTiB used , ^1^ UowHii, Jiiincf! ^^ tiraut'H, PruMldont, Indian f jllcy . . ,' (jo, portrait of 557 Grant, A., hlshop, eketch aii76 Guess, Geo., with picture . . . . 068 Habersham, Portrait oil 192 Ilabal 3!{4 Hall, Robert, Greatest Baptist Preacher , 288 portrait of 89 Hakodati S98 vlewof semlnnrj'ln 592 view of M. K. Cliurch lu ... 6«a baptisms in 593 Hammett's schisms 484 Uamline, Biphop L. L., Sketch of . . 703 portrait of 704 Handel . , 271 Hannibal, The of Methodism . , .304 Happy KcRion 57r> Harciing, F. A., Suspension of . . .537 Hargrove, Bishop H. K., sketch with portrait 761 Harris, Howell 70, K'O, 194 portrait of 72 Dcautiful home of 190 raises recruits 190 becomes a soldier preacher . . .196 strategy of 197 first itinerant in Wales . , . .198 Harris, M. C, with portrait . .532 preaches first protestaut sermon in Japan 591 Harris, IHshop William L., Sketch of . . 718 portrait of 719 C. Wesley's tomb, 1887, portrait of, at . 24'2 struggle for education . . . .719 the Missionary Bishop .... 720 death of 720 Harrison, Thomas, Labors of . . . 780 portrait of 786 at Talmages Tabernacle . . . .787 in Philadfclphia 788 in Indianapolis 788 In San Francisco 789 in Cincinnati 789 Horrison, President W. II 508 Harry, Black, Portrait of . . . .409 Uartsough, Lewis 569 Harvard, Preaching in India, picture . . 820 Haven, Bishop Gilbert. Sketch of . . T25 portrait of 726 Haven, Bishop E. 788 portrait of T38 teaches in a Seminary . . . .732 teaches in a Micliigan University . . 733 Hayle, Wesley fords tfie river at . . . 118 Haworth, Church, Engraving of . . .138 Heathen Woman's Friend, The . . .691 Heathenism Banished 555 Healy on Athlone Circuit, cut of , . .145 Heck, Barbara 351 portrait of 251 retarcs to Canada ^7 death of 401 MOB HecR Hall, plcltirfc .690 Uodaing, Bishoii Kllion Hiwtcii at 468 portrait ol . • • 464 Hodntroni, O. «. . . • • 0W» He., Neck ^ . 888 Hendnx, Bisno)) b.. It Skewn xnih utirtralt 764 Heresy, Truil -oi . 284 result ol . • 28S Heroic Tiiiits . .108 Herrnhut ... .08 Hervey's attack on Wesley . ITS i)ortralt ot . . . • . U4 Ulbbard, Billy .... . 4BS wit of 4M Ulbbard, Freebonii.arrottson . . . 4M Hicks, VVoolniHii 40fr Hick, Snniiiel.|)i(tiir( of In Smithy . .294 Highlanders, hiigrnviiigot . . . .159 Highwaymen and Itlnvrants . . . 260 Hill, Howland 187 portrait of 18T offends I.iuly Huntingdon . . , \^'» oiHins lli>t S. S. iu London . . .281 Hill, Bichttid 181 Hflls, The reninrkable history of . . . 187 Hinson'sChiipcl 874 Hindoo Women, (lit ot 807 Clara M. Hwttiii among . . . . 6ii9 view of Sclioiil 611 Holy Club, The, ciigruving of . . . 4S Hopper, ChrlKtian 16» Hopper, Mather 297 Home Missions 302 llouda, Bev \., portrait .... 590 Horiic, Melville i:4S Horner, John Morton College, Tasmania, picture ot ward. John callo on Wesley portrait ol pioneer m philnnthrophy common Iidmii with Wesley Howe mcntioi d .... llumnhrcy, 1)1 , in India Huntingdon, Selinii, Countess of . i)ortrait ot incliiies to Cnhinism harmoni/.lng f liend of Wesley aud Whitefleld .... loses control of her Churches death of HuPoMi portrait of .... Hurst, Bishop J. F. portrait of , . . . Hn Sung Eng Hymns and Sacred Poems specimen writaig of compared with modem . Ingham, Portrait of . . . Incersoll, Hob. and Chaplin McCabe India, Mcthodixm in . . . first native preacher outrages In ... . first convert .... orphanage in . Chiids' marriages . . . land of Schools failure of Theological School in gifted men nrise 111 . Indiana, Mot liudism in . Indians, Methodism among the . Indians, perils among Amazonian, sun M'orship, view of preaching oijposed . Secretary Calhoun interposes . alnhabet invented for, picture of whiskey banished from . learn English .... baptism among, picture of statistics concerning eacriflcestor .... 881 283 288 288 21s 238 1» 602 97 9& 101 9a 200 202 .■>80 r.80 731 731 582 19 70 271 174 690 597 590 590 COO 605 606. 010 Oil 618 408 551 443 62& 552 552 . 658 55^ 5S5. , 555 , 560 , 66tt ii Ir Ir Iti Jac Jaci Japi J apt I ( I Jani' Janoi Jane, Jerst'l Je\v( JobB( John I> rt ol C J"'inf ac Johns Joice, Jones, Jonif JoncH, Jones, 1)0 CO It I Janes, ast Jorda Joss, 'i am Joyce, coi Re Juarez Jubilee Judson Justiflc Ka\an!i con dea Keener, por proi ficei on I Kenned Kent's I 4U 005 . 888 764 884 . 880 . 108 . oa , ITS . '.T4 . 458 . 458 . 459 . 405 . 204 . 15» . seo . 18T . 18T . 1S» . Btfl . 181 . 181 . 3T4 . «07 . 60» . CU . 48 . 16» . 29T . 30» . 590 . U48 , 82T . 881 . 288 . 238 . 238 . 218 . 238 . 19 . 002 . 9T . 9(V . 101 . 98 . 200 . 202 . .->80 . r>8» . 731 . 731 . 582 . f» . 19 . 271 . 174 . 090 . 597 r)99 . 599 . 000 . 005 . 606- . 010 . CU . 018 . 408 . 551 . 443 . 020 . 552 . . 552 . 658 . 556 . 555 . 555 . 560 , 56ft INDEX. vii i>4ak Infant Baptism .... . 418 Inttdulity, Spread of ■ 19 Irciunii, MvtiKKliim. Beginnings In . lit projircHH 111 (iennniiH in . - 1.-* . 188 WcHlej B larnwell to picture of . 101 Irish I'riiuchcrH iu Kiigluiid . . 810 Irlnli ICmlKFRtloM .... . 8i;t IrviiiR, Mer.iott, Mary (liu Sunn Knu) . 5«4 Itliienincy, Tho . 8:.8 ori)riu of . 2JT tiio hor«e tlio Byinbol . 2m policy of . ... . 8.^9 rules of 859, -iOO hardohipHof .... . 200 a blow lit . 884 inteneitled .... . 879 Wo»i>'y'B . 406 preciirious ... fifty vciirH of .... . 48.1 . 437 first American Itinerant . . 454 David » wives of Itinerants . 418 Jacobs, Kicliurd .... . 488 Jacoby, I.udwig 8., with portrait . . C.33 predictions of .... . 0.^."> returns to America . . 6-.7 Japaiuso Mission, California . 583 Japan, Methodism in . . 590 hymns in discipline in ... . . 594 . 1594 Atcricultural College In . ministerial "'ducat on In . . 594 , fi9."> Cobleigh University in . . 590 Khig of, favors Methodism . 590 Janiver, Joel T . 599 Janes, Bishop Kdward S. Slcetch of . 705 portraits of ... . . 705 Jane, John, Devotion of . l.->8 Jersey, Isle of . 275 Jewess, Conversion o£ . . . . 64H Jobson, F. J., with portrait of . 344 John Street Chai».'l, Old, with picture . 3-.8 parsonage, old, with picture . :;os rebuilt, view of ... . 377 old view of . . . . 858 Churches developed from . Ii5!i Jf^hnson, Dr., on John Wesley . 210 WHsley and. engraving of . 210 activities contrasted . 210 Johnson, Pres. Andrew . . 540 Joice, Matthew .... . 250 Jones, Gritlith .... . 09 Jones, John . 4M! Jones, Peter . n.-,o Jones, Sam P., Life and Labors of . 790 portrait of .... . 790 conversion of . . . . 791 "Jones' story" . 791 Janes, Hishop E. S., Slcetch and portrn « of 705 assistunt of, hung . . 705 Jordan, Mingo . . . . . . 828 Joss, Torial . 1H8 and Whiteileld .... . 1H4 Joyce, I. W., Bishop, with portrait of . 7il conversion of . . 741 Revival Bishop . 741 Juarez . 028 Jubilee, The Double . . . . . 343 Judsou, liuptist Missionary . . 228 Justification, Doctrine of . . . l.->5, 271 Ka^uuaugh, 11. 11., Bishop, with portrt lit . 754 converted printer . 755 death of . 755 Keener, Bishop J. C , Sketch of . . 759 portrait of . 759 prosperous business man licensed to preii'h . . 7.59 . 759 on Post Oak circuit . . 750 Kennedy, William M . 473 Kent's meeting-house . . . . . 374 WAQ» Kentncky, Ashnrrin . . . . .448 ThoB. Hcott in 444 first •'iimp-in(H>tinB In, wltb pictare . 44(1 first I liiirch in, with picture . . 44T Presbyterian in 458 Kfv, KiHhop J. H., Sketch with portrait . 7(»4 advocat<*H holiness 7*14 Kidder, I). P.. Portrait and Sketch of . . il'Jl Kllham. Alexander 'JM8 trial of 7H4 result of 2H» portrait of 288 founds a sitct 285 Kllputrick, Miss Maruarot. In Africa . .671 King, John, Sketch of 3.^7 preaching in Baltimore, view of . . 8.W at St. I'aul'8 Bift Klugslev, Bishop (Calvin .... 715 portrait <»f 710 call of 716 edits Western Christian Advocate . .710 d.-ath of 71T Klngswood '.104,2(15 engraving of school at ... . 204 Kingston, View of 821 Kleptomaniac, Conversion of . . .024 Knox, John, portrait of .... 46 Koran, The 285 Laity, Tliu 286 Lall, (^himman ^Yt Lall Bagh home, view of . . . . OOB Laiina, Dr., with portrait .... 041 Ijiw, MetlKMliHin's effects on ... 214 delays ot, i)' Kngland . . . . '218 Larsson . 087 Lay Delegation 510, 5U> Lay Uepreseiitation 525 delegates at coiit'eronce In 188S . .819 feeliiig against /i25 Lay Kvanpelists 3.W Lay College of Dr. Talmago . . . . "8(i Leatherhead, wltli iiicture .... 286 Ltie, Jesse, Sketcli and labors of . . . 357 invader Maine 431 Baptist and 400 monument to, picture of . . . . 479 I.,eo's Chai)ei 4'28 Lee, Wilson, Conversion of . . . .438 Lee, Thomas 169 Lee, .Tasou 627 Legal Hundred, The .... 2.55,802 Legislation and Usage 509 Le Suer 274 Leviugs, Noali 4'(6 Llbby Prison, Chaplain McCabe at . .087 Liberlu, Methodism In 505 extent of 661 heathenism of 561 various missions in 5ti2 Seys in i5t!4 conversion in ,'505 annual conference in .... 505 Light Street Church, Burning of . . . 452 picture of old 867 Lincoln, Abraham, I'ortralt of . . . 541 and Methodism 710 Methodiht support of ... . 540 Lincoln College, view of . . . .49 Li(iiior trattlc denounced .... 404 Literature, feeble, tgainst Evil . . 19 > ondition of, at Wesley's death . . 203 I.Icthodlst 067 Llvhii^-stono. David, and portrait of . .249 Liverpool. View of 105 Livesey, Josepli, Portrait of . . . .806 Loan i 'und 202 Local Ministry 261 Loudon Missionary Society .... 249 London University 840 London (Quarterly Review .... 068 London, view of from Moorfielda . . .71 misery of 810 y IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 I.I If ^ 1^ 1^ m llll^ 1.8 1.25 1.4 1.6 = ^ 6" ». ^n Photograpliic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET W£BSTG-R,NY. 14580 (716) 872-4503 ^ ^ ,V \\ S ^<> ^ A 4 . 8T . ti04 . a(>7 . 4«if . cm . 602 . (102 . (m . cm . (loa . 010 . 4.5 . ;i27 . .')70 . 207 . 17(1 . 21.5 . 'Jo.') . 004 . 004 . 737 . 730 . iJ37 . 13T . 302 . 3S3 . 19.') . 3(Mi . 412 470 Ml 0,57 204 7i)'i 757 21 30.5 377 440 632 103 340 78.5 148 (>H9 090 0,5,5 445 444 444 430 406 511 433 ,512 501 .501 501 601 501 311 758 758 758 7,58 455 45 130 728 728 FAOB Merrill, Bishop Stephen M., attainments of 723 edits Western Christian Advocate . . 72o Methodism, what it is 17 Ih! time ill wliieh it arose . . .17 Soiilhey's opinion of .... 18 literature ot the times of ... 19 arose mnid corniiitioii . . . .18 truly begins HT birth year of 75 lieadway of 88 calnmuics circulated about . . . 121 live points ot 12'.) hopes to blend m ilh Kstablished Churcli 1.50 first t'vi years ot 150 next ten years of 103 Influence on Welsh morals . . . li'A eviction of 107 national iiiHueiiee ol .... 203 ama^ting growlli ol 229 financial system ot 250 olllcial syutem of 250 doctrines of 271 still clung to State Church . . . 295 overtlirow ot. attfm))t('(i .... 310 the Monieii of 28» itineracy ot , 257 defections from 256 malcontents ot 256 Ihe nobility and 203 spreads into otluM- lands .... 273 among the islands ..... 275 extent ot in France 270 in the isle ot Wight .... 277 Methodist Kpiscopal Church in America . 404 planted in Americu 301 /ising lieioes in American . . . 371 American, iij) to the Hevolutiou . .379 founders of, portraits of . . . . 403 forming ot 404 entirely tree from Church of England . 410 wisdom ot, discipline ot . . . . 411 slavery denouiiccu 412 doctrines and institutes of the . . 413 unwritten creed of 415 at end of ei;;hteenih century . .419 objectio!'s t>. in New England . .429 eminent .tharucters 432 in 'he Wild West and Canada . . 443 separation from Canadian . . .401 doings in the South 471 doings in the North .... 481 means to prcviuit disorganization . . 508 Legislation and usage .... 500 Constitution and representation of 510 differs Irom Wesleyanisn, . . . 514 adopts plan of lay representation . . 522 some c"..aii;_'e ot usage in ... 005 Ixelps to fruidincu 077 separation ot Church South . . .538 work in China 580 enters the South again .... 541 reconciliation witli Church South . .542 union desirahle 548 Indian ineniliership ..... 555 benevolences ot 085 domestic iiilluence of ... . Cin'j future, prospects of . . . . 81ti Methodist i'.piseopal Church South . . .535 causes ot separation .... 530 Plan of Separation 63S Supreme Court decision . . . .539 Iocs of colored members . . . .640 Conlerenceot IsTo 643 border troiiblt-s and \tar record of . 540 reconciliation 542 relation ot, to the negroes . . . 540 union with, desirable . . . .548 missions ot 549 Btatistics, 18'^ f6o Foreign Missions . , , , . C,s7 outgrowth of 45H footing in Maryland 808 IXPKX. M. E. Church South, first Sunday School apoKtatcien from Bt'cret Bocictlcs anj . utteinptB at reunion . failure of . rigid rules of . . . Boo|{ Concern, picture of and Mexico Methodist Churoh. The . caunes of sejedlng by, cto. Methodist Protestant Church diffcis from M. E. Cliurch statistics of, in 1h:<4 . absorbs the Methodist Cliurch statistics of, in 18KG . abolishes blehopB private opinions allowable establishes a book concern organ of . . . . Methodist Fi. re Churcli . chanjje ot organization . doctrines of . . . discipline of . . . model of ... . Periodicals of . Methodist li*eratuB3 Methodist beiievolenjcs . Methodist New (,'onnection . Metliodist, Origin cf tlie name arrested for being a . , Metlicdist, The Metropolitan ("hurcli. View of police district . Mexico, Chuic'.i South and . view ot the city Halls of Montezuma, view of view of Mission Buildings BtiUggle of Catholcism in union of Episcopalians and Methodists mcbs raised and dispersed W. F. M. S. Orphanage in Metliodi.-'t Literature m . opened to Protestantism . morals versus religion in . . (131, Meyers, Lewis Michigan entered . Middletown, Invasion of Mikado, Portrait of Miller, Chas. W,, in India Miller, Lewis, labors at Chautauqua Milton. Portrait of . Miners, The .... Miraflores, view of Mission buildings Missionary Plan, The first Misi'-ion, name first used Missions, Eng'''*h NVesleyan . Mission, East India Mission Tea Party, picture of contemporaneous with Judson's Mi Central china, planted Missionary Tent Life, View ot apprenticeship of the bishop of . . picture of, found frozen . Mississippi Valley . Gibson in . Missouri, First sermon in Mobs at Sheffield . St. Ives .... (Jrimsby .... llepworth Moor Wexford .... Athlone .... Cork rate!cy Bridge . Moffat, Dr. Kolwrt, with portrait Mohawks. Methodism among the Molokans. The Monks, Worthless, fed . Montagu, Lady, Portrait of Monrovia, View of President's house Montevideo l'A1 and the priest 7(tu . C7'i and the merchant 7H0 . (WS builds II church 7sO . 4(11 in Kurope 7sl . r,2\ tabernacle of 781 . 517 uses barren land 78a . r>19 Moorlields. Whitefleld'sgreate'it day at . 93 . .')2C Moore, Henry " . . 228 . .'i2l is refused ordination . . .- .228 . .Tj;) ordained by Wesley .... 228 . .TIQ subject to indignities .... 2'28 . 520 Moravians 5a . 52U historical sketch Ol 59 .520 direct the Wesleys to salvation .ill . ;)17 becoming quiete'sts 78 . '.i5'.) Morris, Bishop Thomas A , and Axley . 41)8 . f>!)9 sketch ot, with portrait . . " . . 502 . t)(i2 Morrison, Translator, View ot at work . 2.U . 0(12 Mormons, Methodism among tlie . . . ."li.s . fi()2 ten.lile of 558 . G()7 M. K. Church among, view of . . 558 . (-85 tabernacle, view of 5 >9 , 285 Methodist seminjiry among . . . 5.'iU . j7 hill of, where Bible found, pict.ire . 5((0 . :ts8 Mt. Vernon, Church, View of . . . :!()0 . 52() Murray, (irace i;i<.t . K21 itineracy of 20'.» . ;tt)(! graceful horsamansh'p of . . . 2U'.» . ()8H WetOey's r(!gard for 210 . (;.t2 Mutual Itig its .-)i7 . ()20 Nankin, Hospital at, with picture . . 5Sa . t)29 Meihodist Church at, w itli picture . 380 (i;iO Nantes, Edict of -ub (i;tO Nashville, cut of McKendree (hurch . .512 6;U Nast, William, Sketch and labors of . (K2 ();)2 portrait ot 052 (i;)2 Natal, First Cliapel in |J27 ('.28 Nazery, JJishop \V., sketch and portrait . 703 (W2 Negro ai.d A ■'bury 451 47:) and Methodisin 47a 4(>8 Negroes, (irs-t licens(!d to preacii . . 4(i'.i 470 428 teaching little, picture of ... 078 589 Nelson, ,Iolin io4 (ili; refuses to n'ork on Suudav . . . lOT 8(10 portrait ot . . . ." . . . io« 270 piciking berries for food . . . .110 244 jiersecuttd 123 (>29 in the army 123 2t) mobbed at'difterent plac(,'s . . . la* 2?5 i)reache8 first lay sermon . . .130 :jl9 death of 220 228 Newburyport, Whitefleld's tomb at . . ISU (101 Newcastle, view of 82 228 Newcastle Orphan House .... 210 5S(i viow of, old 80 tlio view of new Orphan Hquse at . 26,5. 749 Newgate Jail 2 10 720 view of 217 4"i0 Wesley preaching in .... 219 4.!i! Newman, ilishop. with portrait . . .742 4i 9 chaplain in tl. S. Senate .... 742 495 in consular service 742 114 in congregational church . . 742 115 home of 743 12:i Newton, Itobert 300 135 birth place, view of 299 144 portrait of 3uo 145 ability and labors of .... 300 141 burial place of 30I 1(J9 Newton, Joliii, with portrait . . . .199 2".o New Orleans, Sundays in . . , .504 .550 pen-ecuticns 604 ("48 New Orphan House '205 (i:IO New England, Beginnings in ... 428 38 N-.-w England, Calviuistic struggle in . .441 5r,8 persecution of Methodistsln . . . 403 Oi2 lirst academy In 490 • .ti . INDEX. New Haven, MethodiBtn in New Jersey, McthodiHm in , flr . ; 46» 664 :.Ji^ £r/.^.-t^.^^- INDEX. XI '283- 38 01 450 S'^O 18'2 195 •264 4i:! 469 8'.;0 47.! 517 404 1308 Isu 1218 1276 l441 Lot 1452 1345' |0»L ll8!> |417 |25T l41(> 1664 ut, Quebec, Webb wounded at . ijuinn, Thoman l) . 616 . 228 . 475 . 381 . 292 . 368 . (142 . 644 . 641 . 646 . 667 . ^97 . 271 . 350 . 45 684 686 305 2n3 373 384 385 385 386 View .■593 442 441 264 277 316 342 332 351 466 466 6()0 467 527 569 f68 509 •trait 754 261 384 384 223 . 290 . 186 . 641 . 643 . 6M . 25U . 235 . 218 . 644 . 198 . 30 . 370 . 473 . 649 . 490 . 240 . 455 . 454 . 454 . *54 . 403 . 2S3 . 5.58 . 659 . 332 15.5, 271 . 408 . 780 . 780 . 781 Sunkey, Ira D., at Dublin ill London in Kdinburgb .... inShellleld .... San Francisco, Beginnings in view of in 185U .... tu^t church, with pirture Japanese mission, with picture Japanese class, with i)ortraits Chinese in Chinese Mission, with picture Saratoga Savannah. First class in Memorial Church in, picture of Whitefleld's Orphan Mouse in view of Scandinavia, Methodism in . Scilly Isles Scotland, V.'hitefleld in . John Wesley in ... Scott, Jonathan .... Scott, Tliomaii, with portrait . Scott, Bishoj) Levi, vlt.it to Africa sketch of loves music .... conversion ot . courage of .... portrait O; .... Secret Societies condemned . Soliiia, ('ountess, portrait of . Sellon, portrait ot . Senegambia Seneca Mission, view of . Senora de Norhoiia Seoul, Corea, view of . . . Separation, Wesley's views on Seys, John, Labors in Africa has trouble with the governor Shadlord athlete of the town . leaves Asbury .... Shanghai, University at . Sheffield mob at Wesley College at . . . view of College view of the town Shinn, A 'a founds a Church Ship Preaching, view of . Shirley, Walter .... ridiculous charge ag .mst Shoreham (. hurch, engraving ot Shorter, Bisliop, J. A., sketch and portrait . 770 Sia Hek Ong, with portrait . . . 817, 684 Sierra Leono 32* Sikhs 59» Simpson, Rishop Matthew, as preacher . 708 sketch of 709 portrait of 700 practices medicine 708 edits Christian Advocate .... 708 oratory of 708 portrait in later years .... 710 intlrinity of 710 Sims, C. N., portrait of 700 Six Nations, the, Methodism among . . 536 Slavery, First public nttc-ance against . 402 first mob at Charleston .... 45i li-ial of Jacob Gruber . . . .481 some progress made against . . . 513 forbidden by Discipline in 1808 . . 53ft condemned oy .larrett .... 420 Asbiiry's inttuence against . . . 42C Wa»hington and Coke confer about . 421 propositions from the South against . 469 Methodism's attitude .... 194 Oglethorpe forbids 194 Cowper's stanza on 194 Slavery, picture of slave ship . . • 56!> Small, Sam. Life ar J labors . . . .792 portrait of 798 PAOR . 781 . Ul . 781 . 781 . 620 . 624 . 52» . o3(> . 531 . 53a . 678. . 38T . 472 , 3:»4 . 192 . 180 . ((3.5 . 279 . 93 . 164 . 182 . 444 . 570 . 708 . 707 . 707 . 70» . 708 . 536 . 96 . 186 . 328 . 5.56 . 627 . 595. , 225 . 563 . 567 . 36» . 369 . 388 . 688 . 112 . 114 . 337 . ;i4i . 113 . 465 . 466 . 63i . 185 . 186 15» Xll IMJliX. 8iiiith, JuiiiuM aniUh, I'hiliiiitliT, llusui'al. Nuiikin, view Hiblicul InHtitiitf, Tokio, with vK'w Smith. ThomiiH, I'luyiiifr cliallt'iij,'!,' ot at Lyons, N. Y. , . . Smythe, Kdwiird .... jSnuthuii, ISichulQH .... iiortrait of ... "Soldiiirnof Chrint" Soulu, JoHliua, with pdrtrait . organi/cd MiHsionarv Soctetv . South Carolina, Coiifert'iico lorii"u;d in boolv conoern ot . . . South Leigh Church, picture ot . Southern Organi/.ationH hopes ol union ot Southey's, The I'oet, predictions . j)ortrait of South America, WcaleyauH in Metlioditini in . " . South S'mn, WeHlcyatis in Spaiige il)urg . " . Spanish America, Methodism in . Si)iriiual J)ecadence Spirits, i^tningL' notions concerning Spicer, Tobias, ii, Troy . Standing Order .... Stanley, 11. M., with portrait . Staniforth, Bampson State C!hurch and Methodism Statistics, at Wesley's deatli . in 1H05 inlHlf) Englisli centenary , at Asbury's coming . at First conterence, 177:! . at beginning of M. K. Church at beginning in 17iV2 at beginning in 17!)() ofSunday-scliool, iHSn . educational, of Church South of Missionary Society of M. K. Sunday-school Union of Sunday-schools ... Staten Island, Beginnings in . Staunton, Miss, dies in Africa Sterling, James .... Stevenson, (Jeo. Jnc, portrait in grou| Stewart, John ..... among the Indians ... Stoclcton, liev. F. U., with portrait Stokes. Dr. E. 11 Strangers Society .... Straw-berry Alley .... Strawbridge, Kobcrt, with portrait administers sacraments independently George's Church, Philadelphia view of Giles, view of ... . Giles portrait of Wesley preacliiiig at Si. Ives, Mob at, with view of St. Uartholome-vs, picture of St. Louis. Takiii" .... Romanism in ... . view of third church in ... Japanese Mission in Class of St. Mary's Church, Islington, view of St. Paul's Church, N. Y. City, picture of St. Vinceiit'B, view of Kingston, . Succession, Apostolic, A faole Summerfield, John .... Summers, T. O., 1). D., with portrait Sunday-school, First, in America . Sunday-school Instruction Sunday-school Union Sunday-schools .... SuudaV-Bchool Army Sun, Worship of, view of Sun, Land of the Midnight . St, St St I'AOF. 455 r)H5 DV4 4ri0 4!t(i 44'J 4:i7 ;t74 440 0«3 485 4H5 r,.i 54« .548 801 'iH7 :v2i (ilS) •,m 010 •2U COli 486 440 5G'2 1»2 •S02 345 301 30> 345 3ti5 ii7I 41!) 43-2 450 G71 081 U84 087 OilO 305 .570 3i)0 2)'2 508 085 518 813 202 360 355 350 365 359 28 232 230 115 272 4!>8 495 490 529 5rtO 531 05 354 321 408 074 701 430 797 671 265 206 626 636 Surrey (-'haptil, with '/iew of Surgeon, A, turr.s preacher Susquehanna. Valley ot . Suttee, tlie, ot India Sutcliffe, Joseph "Swaddlers" . Swain, Carru! M.. in India, with portrait Sweden, Methcdisin in . Swedish M. K. Church formed Swahlen, John .... Syracuse Univergify, View of Table. Wesley's, Engraving of Tahiti Tuhnage's Lay College . Tambiran Aruinavs Taney, Itoger H., d(^fonds (Jruber . Tanner, .'Jishoj) H. T., and portrait Tauntim College, with picture Taraia, the savage, portrait . Taylor. l';(lHart f eigmnouth, Lord, with portrait, . Tennessee, First Conference in Temperance Legisli-tion objections to ... . Terms of i)rea(hors extended Tlicater. Ifurnii^g of . . . Thirtv-Nine Articles. The Tlionisoii, Hishop Kd. T., in Cliina sketch and present labors of . jiortrait of Thomas, i).W Tliorp. Joli'i Thornton, John .... Thornton, llciny. Home of . Thompson, Thomas Thukombau Theological Schools Thobiirn. ISisliop J. M. . poitiait ot Thoburn, Isabel, with portrait Thurman's Patent, Martyrs in Thurles, iiictun' of chapel at ""■ a-A lloli Tiona Titlin, Edward Tieg, An^' Tokio, University .... Toplady portrait of Told, Silas Toleration Act .... Tongas Jubilee at first mission Iiouse at, picture of Torrey, Alviii Toronto, view of Metropolitan ( hurcli Trimble, Jane Travis, John ..... Tract Society Trevecca College, with picture of . first anniveifcary festival at commencements at . Trimble, Jos. M., witli portrait Trinity Hall School, with picture of Turner, Uishop H. M., sketch and portrait . United Hrethien United .States Man-of-war captures slave ship Unit of Methodism, The Urquiza .... Usage, Some changes of PAQK . 188 . lul . 480 . 666 , 27? . 144 . 609 . 638 . 039 . 652 . 684 . iin . 247 . T80 . H27 . 483 . 775 . 341 . 333 . 490 . 49U . 629 . 529 . 572 . 746 . 613 . 746 . 749 . 796 . 81 . 333 . 306 . 303 . 424 . 512 . 522 . 620 . 472 . 411 . 58-4 . 714 . 714 . U13 . 136 . 200 . 202 . 305 . 344 . 341 . C13 . 749 . 018 . 459 . 100 . 817 . 444 . 578 . 595 . 442 . 189 . 210 . 305 . 329 . 329 . 334 . 550 . 821 . 492 . 494 . ■!49 . 100 . 185 . 131 . 191 . 494 340 772 478 570 OGi 625 66tt '»1 ' INDEX. Xlll 494 :i4u 772 ,478 J 670 ; t>6K . 625 . 06« I'AOE Van Cott, Mr. Maggie, portrait and Hkctch 783 in HaxterSt., I?(i\v York . . . 78:J Vniulcrbilt UniviTsify 647 vitiw ol ">47 Vamlerbilt, Cornelius, Gifts of . . .697 portrait of f>48 Van I'elt, Peter H66 Vunnesl, I'eter 4*-6 Vussey, Tliouius 4I)!> Vuvau 3'26 Venice, Methoilisni in 644 Venn, llenry 17V Vernon, Leroy M., with portrait . . .0:19 Vincent, Jolin 11., S. S. work ot . . 67a Clniutan(|ua work ot .... 795 portrait of 7;19 residence of 740 Vicious, the Methodisinn worlc anionfj; the . 216 Vine, Wesley's at Oxford, picture . . . I'i.'S Virginia, Heginning in !i67 Wiliiain Watters in 3V4 great revival in 177.") .... 374 Ycarfjoii's Clnipei built .... 379 Asburv 1 :{84 clergynun hostile in .... 45:; church in tlie wilderness, picture of . 3'"' first circuit in Mi Visitors to American Methodism . . . 3i6 Vizelle, Mrs., VVito of John Wesley .173 Voltaire's Boast 61 Walden, Bishop .T. M., sketch and pr)rtralt . 395 Walker, Jesse 491 hardshipf- of 495 menial tasks of 497 and the episcopalian . . . .497 Wallace ('ollejro 657 Walsh, Thomas 148, 1(11 Wales 204 Warren's (irand CcMitral Association . 317 Watch-night, The first 07 Waters, Bishop Kd., sketch and p-jrtrait . 707 Watts, Isaac, portrait of 20 Watson, Iticinird, with portrait . . 280, 315 Warren, Samuel, with port'ait . . . 317 Ware, Thomas, with portrait . . . 434 \S'ard, Bishop T. M. 1>., sketch and portrait 771 Wandorlich 0.50 Warren, Bishop II. W., sketch and portrait 728 Warren, William, Mei'tion of ... 055 Watters, William 372 labors of a92 Washington, George. Fir.-^t contact with Metliodisi.i, and portrait of . . . 197 portrait of, in mature years . . . 421 and Coke 421 Methodist address to ... . 431 Waugh, Bishop Beverly, sketch and i)oitrait470 Wayman, Bishoi) A. \V., sketth and iiortrait769 Webb, Captain, sketcli and labors of . . 351 carries Methodism to I'liiladeljiliia . 354 portrait of 355 goes to England for i)reachers . . 308 conducting service, picture of . .373 old ago and death ot . . . .312 Wellington, Duke of, portrait . . . .43 Wesley, Bartholomew 22 Wesley, Charles, portrait ot . . . ,42 offer of adoption by Itiehard Wesley . 41 personal description of . . . .43 mission to CJeorgia Indians . . .53 helps form the iloly (;lub . . .49 conversion of 62 autograph music of, cnt of . . .79 preaches at Newcastle ... 85 mobbed at Sheffield . . . .114 persecuted in Wales .... 138 marries Miss Gwynne .... 139 labors in Wales 139 jioetical genius of 27C doatli of 241 review of life of 242 in advance of John 249 PAUB. 4-1 Wesley. Charleo. holds meettngs In church nour>- view of tomb in 1HH7 is a higli church nnin author of six thousand poems picture of son at harpsichord . picture of church where married . portrait of in group . Wesley, Jo^'ni portraits of, frontispiece escapes l>urnim:. jiicture of . recovers from small-po.K .... personal deserintion ot . •inters Charter House School . -naxim of life at Oxford scholarsliip ot invited to i)astoiate at Kpwortli mission to (ieorgia Indians the conversion ot early relltrious rellectioiis of . elected from church at Islington . simpli! stock of theology of . tests for self (ixaininations piciure ot his teapot .... and Beau Nash, with cut . . . prt'aches at father's tomb, with cut dilters in iloetriiK! with W hitelleld genius for statmenshlp displayed . hit t sermon at I'liiversity at Oxford i.-'sunderstands some American lueds . advice during Kevolution recalls Asbury on chureii government .... letter read at ( 'hristmas Conference enjiraviii!,' ol birthplace .... engraving ot fire liortrait of, at 2:i engravint; of church in which he first ])reaehed and Count /inziiidorf, engraving of preacliing in Bagshaw's house, engrav- ing ot portraits of eminent prcacheis in t'me of his favorite portrait .... clock of I)icking berries, engraving of . and the ostler, with cut . picture! vl his table .... pictui(! ot monument in VVeiJtininsler picture of vino at Oxford ap|)eal to men ot reason and religion mobbed at \Vednesl)iiry and cut . picture ol, givini: alms . picture of, ar.d lliglilanders . f)icturu of fan: well to Ireland . aboiH in Scotland .... labors in Ireland .... marries Mrs. Vizella Ilervey's attack on . sickness of u " soft answer." etc., picture . at three-score and ten later work of larg(!st audience of . sermon of, at All Hallows last niglit at the foundry . views ou American Uevolution calumnies cireui'vted about picture of bookcase .... at seventy-seven years j)icturc of arm chair and Dr. Johnson, picture of . and Howard, the iihilantliropist at eighty-four years . at eighiy-six decay begins last sermon at Newcastle last field sermon, wiih cut of tree last letter to Wilberforce dcatli and burial of . call of journal of 267 writings of 26T 24'2 24S 2«i 24:i 2m 277 403 102 37 :<» 44 40 49 49 49 .52 52 54 58 05 05 00 81 70 84 88. 10S« 120 :t72. 3,S5 ;i92 407 4' . 15'.) . 161 . 104 . 107 . 173 . 173 . 17;i . I'.IO . 200 . 20. . 208 . 208 , 208 . 213 . 121 . 220 . 229 . 229 210, 232 . 233 . 233 . 235 . 235 . 230 . 239 . 239 . 25B XIV INDEX. Wesley. John ,book room tract Hoclety .... ediicutionaf work of unci VVllburforco, eii(rrnvlnjr of tli(! inoHt nerHccuted mid lionorcd i Kiit;liiii(i .... tiortriiit of, preiichiiif,' ut St. Qiles nuK no oilinentH tree of, at Wiiichelaea, inHtitutioiib of . preuchiiiK to liin pronchers, Rcenc of flln^inu; in a llHher boat . literary work of ... good reading for tlie poor surgical operation of old a^u and death of after death of . hlH intcreHt in art and literature kifcea u child .... f)icturo of death bed scene alxirH amid intlrniitieH . dincH witli a KonianiHt . his diBByllubic sermon picture "of writing lust letter . sermons, number of funeral directions of picture of book-case work as a physician education and literature at death of engraving of death mask ; left, right and front view . . . . . Bible of, at conference of 1688 150th anniversary of conversion of monument to at City iioud engraving of view of tomb of at City Koad, 1887 . portrait of in old ago picture of cab stand, 1H87, founded by engraving of statue of . . . portrait of, in group Wesley Chapel Wesley (. ollege, Sheflield, with picture Wei^leyaiif , l"'our j^reat, after Wesley . Wesleyan Kdueational Work . M issionary Society, w ork of repository Westley and the Bishop, picture ot White I hurch, Wiuterbourue, view of . Wesleyan Connection, The . Methodism grows .... Wesleyan University, Middletown Wesleyan University, Delaware, Ohio . view of ... . • . Wesley, Matthew Wesley, Samuel, portrait of . picture of tomb ot, restored , Weslev, Samuel, Jr., portrait of . Wes!oV, Susanna 29, the mother of Methodism care of liome 28 training of children JS holds home meetings .... :i;t death of, and picture of grave. . .104 Wesleyan Hymns and Sacred Poems . 79, J"! Western Christian Advocate .... rm Westminster Abbey, witli engraving . . 1J4 monument to WesieyaniKin . . . I-li \\'esloyan Normal School at, with picture 3,39, :i« Western Keserve, Methodism in the . .191 Whatcoat, Bishop Kichard .... 4'tr) death of Ml portrait of 40C Wheeling, First Germau Methodist Church built at ■!""> White, Thomas ;iT8 White. M. C. and Mrs., go to China . . ■)75 Whitefleld, (ieorge. portraits of . . ''t. 5') joins Holy Cmb .'iO ■AOB 1!(18 2I>9 :i:t9 201 206 2itO 231 2;)0 ■MS 2.59 2T4 2(17 2t>8 20B 200 2;il 2H|) 2:12 2:12 2Hr 235 2:1.-) 2 ir, 238 230 232 2.52 2C,9 ■Ji;3 S 8 810 8.0 212 237 23it 105 254 346 403 353 341 301 3,;!l 511 22 •j3 ,')35 221 (i95 1)95 i;9t; 24 24 85 34 105 FAOn Whiteflc^ld, George, vicious youth of . .50 mission to Georgia 54 convei-Hlon and oriliiiatioii of . . .SO farewell nu'etiiig^^ in Urihtol and Loudon 67 expelled from • liurclies .... 06 begins open air pn^acliing . . .57 pictureot open air iireachlng . . . 08 wonderlul elfects of the preaching of . 09 among the W'eish 09 returns to London 70 separation ot 83 tour in America 88 dillers in doctrine with Wesley . . 90 cut ot Tabernacle '.)2 labors in Scotland 93 triumph at Moorr.elds .... 93 among the aristocracy . . . .99 again in America 150 picture of him prencliing . . . 151 preaches during eartlujuake In London 152 makes last tour ot (Jreat Britain . .178 picture of Orphan House . . .180 wearied by popularity . . . .180 worn out l)y service ISO statue of 340 his letter to John Wesley . . .179 last days in America . . . .180 last sermon and death, with picture . J 82 place of burial Mnd tomb, with picture . 1*1 disposition of his property and slaves . 194 Whitelleld Orphan House . . . .4:15 Wlchir, John I)., portrait of . . . 43,185 Wightmaii, Bishop W. M 751 portrait of 750 441 441 484 323 5.58 577 721 death of 280 iiortr Wilbniham. ( onference at Weslevan Academy at, with picture Wilbe.force University, with picture . Wilberforce, William, portrait . . 194, Wilbur, J. 11 Wiley, Bishop and Mrs., in China portrait of visit to .Japan Mission . . . .594 sketch of 721 Willard, Miss Frances E , with portrait . 785 WIKiams, Hoberr, as Book Concern . .372 .John, with portrait 357 William and Mury, with portraits . .21 Willamette University 526 Wilkins, Ann, .viih portrait .... ,506 her sacrifices and deatii .... 506 Wilson, Bishop A. \V. sketch and portrait . 760 Winans, William, with portrait . . .,500 Witworth, Abraham, First apostate . . 376 Witness of the Si)irit 414 W. F. M. Society in China and Japan . . 590 W. F. M. Society (1H8 Woman's HoineMissionary Society . . 679 Women, some, of Methodism . . . 289 Woolston, The Misses 581 WoodhouBC Grove Academy 340 Wooster 450 Wrangle meets Wesley 361 Wright, Kichard 363, 364 goes to Maryland 366 Wright, Uuncan , 160 Wyandotte Indians .551 Wyoming Valley, View of ... . 435 Yakimas Indians .587 Yeargon's ( liapel 378 Yoirig, Jacob 460 in the Lioiitliwcst 505 Youth's Instructor C09 Zenana, The, teaching in, with pictare . . 606 Zion's Herald 069 beginning ot 669 Zinziudorf, < ouiit of, portrait of . . .59 Zoda, The Queali Chief 667 apostacy 0' 670 INDEX TO THE STORY IN CANADA. By references marked * the reader la referred to the preoodlnfr Index for portrait or picture FAOK. Abbott, Henry 085 Adams, Alvah 902 Adauis, Thomas 0^3 Addyman, .John 923 Albert University 909 Alder, Kobert 883, (K)r Allison, Cyrus A 902 American Preachers withdrawn . . 894 Annapolis Valley 870 Autleff, .1. C; 925 ♦Asbury, Francis 893 Atwood, John S 9C2 •Bantrs, Nathan 891 Bariier, Kev 927 aeatty, John 902 Beecham. Rev. IDr 873 Bee, William 9<5 Bible (.'hrlstlan Churcli, The . . .025 BissHll, (Jeorge 902 Black, John 902 Black, William . . . . . .002 •Bourne, Hugh 923 Boyle, Kobert 925 British Connection 880 •Bunting, Jabez 88i Canada M. E. Church formed . .901 ♦Carman. Albert 921 ♦Case, William . . . 8!)2, 895, 897, 901 Chamberlayn, Wyatt 903 Christian Guardian . . .903,011,916 Chiistmas Conference 870 Oler/y Keserves 903 •Clowes, William 923 CoatP. Samuel, abandons ndnlstry . . 878 and Michiai 888 Colman, James 888, 893 Confederation of Provinces . . 809, 87'3 Conference of E. British-Amerlcau . . 873 Canada Wesleyan Methodist . . 878 New l,'onnection 873 Corson, Robert 902 Coughlln. Lawrence 870 Cowles, William 8^ Crofts, Hervey 919 Cromwell, James 870 Culp, David 894 Davidson, J. C 902 Davison, John 023 Dewart, Edward Hartley . . . .916 portrait of 917 Dissension, spirit of 899 Dissension 908 District Meeting 883 Dixon, James 914 Douglass, George 911, 920 •Dow, Lorenzo 877 Dunham, Darius 880 Scolding 889 Durham Circuit 877 Fdgar, James M. D 925 Elliott, James 915 ♦Embury, Philip 883 English Conference, appointments of . 883 English Wesleyans help . . . .872 ♦Emory, John 881 PA OB. Epworth League (WO Evans, Ephraim W. Kynon, John II 02d Ferguson, George 008 Festur, Daniel 8HH French-Canadian Village, picture of . N75 Freshman, Dr., converted Jewish Rabbi . 921 •Oarrettson, Freeborn, goes to Halifax . 870 ♦Garrettson, Freeborn 8H8 Gatcheli 002 General Conference of 1820 . . . .896 Genesee Conference 894 •George, hlshop 894 Green. Anson 902,914,981 Griffls, William 002 Griffith, Thomas 926 Guttrey, Thomas 985 Halifax, First work in 870 Argyle Street Chapel built . . .872 Harvard, William M 884 Hay Bay, First Chapel built . . . 8'*6 Healy, Ezra 908 ♦Heck, Paul ana Barbara . . . .878 •Hedding, Bishop 901 Hooper, William 935 Hulbert. Ashahel 008 Jesse it02 Mylvester 908 Thomas 908 Huston, John H 884 Indian Evangelization SO? Methodist Village, picture of . . «97 teppees of the plain, picture of . . 898 Jackson, James 003 Jeffers, Wellington 916 Jones, Peter 897.908 Jones, Richard 016 Keeler, Sylvanus 888 Ladies' Colleges 911 Lawrence, John 885 Lawson, William 983 Lay Delegation 016 Laymen Needed 014 Leigh, Samuel 878 London Missionary Committee help . . 878 Local Preachers' Meeting .... SH)7 Lord, William 884 Losse, William 884 Love Feast, Fii-st 888 Lower Canada, Wesleyan Methodists in . 877 first Preachers in 877 Loyal Preachers' Resolutions . . .008 Lusher, K. L 881 Lyle, William 923 McClnre, William 919 McDougall, George, portrait of . . . 918 McDougall, George 931 McLeod, Dr 878 McMurray. Dr 878 Madden, Thomas 908 Messmorc, Joseph 908 INDEX. K Metheral), Francos .... ity.'i Metciiir, Knink . , ' \h2 MettKiilIsm, Unity of " njjy IniirBdHO (liirlnic the Kevolutlon . 8114 KrowInK power of .... 014 MothodlHt Church, Ths.of ( unudufoiniHii 878 Kpl-copul Church In ( aiuila . . 1(81 inliiiHtcrH iiiKl niarrlatfc . . .81(7 Mcir'polltan t'huich, Toronto . .1)14 MethodlHl New t'onnt'ctldii . . . . ]»)<• union with Wur ul (i nice, SaniufI D 915 portrait of 9I« Kichey, llvv. Dr 873 Richardson, James .... iiiy, 9yi Hobhins, Paul 9-.;,') Kobinson. J. II 919 Roblin, John and Mrs 9^0 Rose, Samuel 91 1; Rowe, William '.rib Royal Charter obtained .... 908 Ruter, Mar. in 8^7 Ryan, Her.ry .... m-j, h'X\ h'm, 919 Jackson Davison .... Ryarson, Kdtterton . . !i(W, 914, 91(1. flijo portrait of iKM GeorRe 902 William 902 Sackvllle, First Church at . .872 St. John, FIrdt Church at . . . . 872 (.'entenary Church at . . . . B72 Queen's S(iuai(! Church . .872 St. Lawrence, Klrst .steamboat on . 878 St. Stephen, First Church at . . . 872 Samson, Jo.-eph 89.3 Sanderson, George K 0(19,91") Schism, 'I h« First 899 Separation Urged f'99 Smith, Philander 9(i:>,9;;i William !()8 Sovereign, George iH2 Spencer, Jawes 91(i Statistics, lilble Christian Church . Oa.') of Knfriiah Conference . . .881 Canadian Conference .... 917 in Lower Canada .... H7H. 893 at formation of Methodist (.hurch :n Canada 873 of Wesleyan Methodist Church of Eastern British America . . .873 Methodist Church of Canada . iM), 923 Eastern Provinces in 1890 . . 87.') In Lower Canada in 1810-11 and 183;^ . 878 statistics M. E. Church In Canada In Upptr < imada In 18.S0 and 1810 of (ienesee 1 oiiference of Primitive .Metliirtllst Church Un'tfld cliurcli WeHleyuM .Methodism . Methddisi New Connection . Htato ChuM-ii In Canada Htanstead ( idiilt .... miiison, .Ic (icpli .... Stonily, Kdimiiid .... StronK. Jolin Stratton, John B h'rach«ii, lii>liop .... Sunday .loliii. portrait of . mentl'iicd .... Sutherland, Alex., portrait of . TadousBc, picture of Old Chunjh at 'I'aylor, Josei h . . . . Taylor. Lmliliu .... ThroH Rivers 'I'heoloKlcHi ColleKe Tiiompson, Ttionias Thomi)soii. W. L Toronto, Kir.slClnu-ch In . picture I if Nherbenie street Cliurch, picture of . Trinity Meiliodist Cliurch. p:cturt) of . *Metro)i(ililiin Methodist Chuich Torrance, .lohn Torry, Alvlii PAOR. . 021 . 8IM . N8t 023, 03ft . IW . 017 . 010 . 007 . «77 . 040 . \m 878,880 . 001 . oos . 02a . 021 . 87ft Upper Cnnada Storv In First Preachers In . Methodism .... Methodism, Independence of Confernae .... Acrtdemy Union. Articles of . ef Metti(i(iisni .... United, tlie Church Victoria Collere OOO IM17, 872 881 921 878 Oil 023 914 80.5 805 8i)ft SOV 883 897 8a'> 883 VH»1 901 8H4 900 914 917 927 WalkevjRobert War, Kttecis of Webster ai Cjucbec .... ♦Watson, Jiiciiiinl Wesleyan .Meth. Cli u-ch In S. Provinct In New biunswick . . . . In Nova .Scotia .... Prince Ed wBrd'sLsland Newfoundland L'lyallst Accesiihjns to . Wesleyan Conference . Wesleyan Methodist Church of Kasi British Ann rica , durlnf,' War of 1812 Wesleyan Mt-tliodists consolidated Wesl- van Mi-si' nary Society Whitiiiff, Matthew .... Williams, John, portrait of . Williams, Richard .... Williams. William H. . Wilson, James .... Winnipeg, picture of in 1872 picture of ill 1HS4 W'ood, Charles .... Wood, Enf'ch portrait of .... Woolsey, Eli.isih .... Wooster, Calvin .... Wiioster. Ilezekiah C. . Wr.iy, James, orda'ned Wright, David .... ern 873, York, now Toronto, first Church in first service at . Youmans, David .... 023 878 8Hl 800 870 870 870 870 870 9U8 873 878 907 880 902 926 880 902 902 912 013 902 014 873 888- 880 880 R70 002 895 894 . ooa <^ 1>' .ii>efi inanVHm Mill '^i^^fH^Si^KHh MOB. . 031 . ma . N8I • im,f . 89« 1 of . 8a^ .' 883 . 8»r . 885 . 883 ' . SKIl . 901 . 884 . OOO 9(17, 914 . 917 . 9i»7 . OOO . 923 . 878 . 8x1 s . 8(i9 . 870 . 870 . 870 . 870 . 870 . 9U8 . 873 . 878 . !>07 . 880 . 902 . 026 . 880 . 902 . 902 . 912 . 933 . 902 r:i, 914 . 873 . 888 . 889 . 889 . 870 . 902 908 /' «&