VOLUME 1 — BOOK I — CHAPTER VII
FIRST CONFERENCE — RETURN OF ENGLISH PREACHERS

First American Methodist Conference — Its Members — Statistics — Laxity of Discipline — Proceedings of the Conference — The Sacramental Controversy — Robert Strawbridge steadfast to the American Claim — Its Result — Germ of the "Book Concern " — Appointments — Return of Pilmoor and Boardman — Further traces of Boardman — His Death — Further traces of Pilmoor — He leaves the Denomination — Retains his interest for it — Richard Wright returns to England — Final traces of Captain Webb — His Death

The first American Methodist Conference began its session in Philadelphia on Wednesday the 14th, and closed on Friday, the 16th of July, 1773. [1] Rankin says, "there were present seven Preachers, besides Boardman and Pilmoor, who were to return to England." Asbury, detained on his New York Circuit, did not appear till the second day of the session; he was the tenth member, making the number the same as at Wesley's first Conference in England, held twenty-nine years before. The members of this first American Conference were all Europeans; they were Thomas Rankin, Richard Boardman, Joseph Pilmoor, Francis Asbury, Richard Wright, George Shadford, Thomas Webb, John King, Abraham Whitforth, and Joseph Yearbry [2] who had accompanied Rankin and Shadford from England.

The first reports of members in Society were made to this Conference: they were 150 in New York, 150 in Philadelphia, 200 in New Jersey, 500 in Maryland, 100 in Virginia; nearly half were therefore in Maryland, the most fruitful soil that the denomination has found in the country. The aggregate returns were 1,160. Rankin was disappointed; he expected to find a larger numerical strength in American Methodism. These, however, were only its members of classes; there were many more adherents who considered themselves members of its Societies. The preachers had formed Societies without classes; the exact discipline of English Methodism had not in fact, been yet fully introduced into America. Asbury labored hard to conform the American Societies to Wesley's model, but had met with no little resistance from both the preachers and laymen; Rankin had been sent out for this purpose, and to these two thorough disciplinarians we owe the effective organization of the incipient Methodism of the new world. Without them it seems probable that it would have adopted a settled pastorate, and become blended with the Anglican Church of the colonies, or, like the fruits of Whitefield's labors, been absorbed in the general Protestantism of the country. Rankin complained at the Conference of the prevailing laxity of discipline. "Some," he writes, "of the above number I found afterward were not closely united to us. Indeed, our discipline was not properly attended to, except at Philadelphia and New York; and even in those places it was upon the decline. Nevertheless, from the accounts I heard, there was a real foundation laid of doing much good, and we hoped to see greater things than these. The Preachers were stationed in the best manner we could, and we parted in love, and also with a full resolution to spread genuine Methodism in public and private with all our might."

The proceedings of the session had direct reference to the establishment of the genuine Wesleyan Discipline as the only guarantee of Methodism in the country. The published report of these proceedings forms but one page of those annual "Minutes," which have swollen, by our day, into ten stout octavo volumes. It consists of the following questions, answers, and appointments, besides the returns of members already cited.

"The following queries were proposed to every Preacher:

"1. Ought not the authority of Mr. Wesley and that Conference to extend to the Preachers and people in America as well as in Great Britain and Ireland? Yes.

"2. Ought not the doctrine and Discipline of the Methodists, as contained in the Minutes, to be the sole rule of our conduct, who labor in the connection with Mr. Wesley in America? Yes.

"3. If so, does it not follow that if any Preachers deviate from the Minutes we can have no fellowship with them till they change their conduct? Yes.

"The following rules were agreed to by all the Preachers present:

"1. Every Preacher who acts in connection with Mr. Wesley and the brethren who labor in America is strictly to avoid administering the ordinances of baptism and the Lord's supper.

"2. All the people among whom we labor to be earnestly exhorted to attend the Church, and to receive the ordinances there; but in a particular manner to press the people in Maryland and Virginia to the observance of this minute.

"3. No person or persons to be admitted in our love-feasts oftener than twice or thrice, unless they become members; and none to be admitted to the Society meetings more than thrice.

"4. None of the Preachers in America to reprint any of Mr. Wesley's books without his authority (when it can be gotten) and the consent of their brethren.

"5. Robert Williams to sell the books he has already printed, but to print no more unless under the above restrictions.

"6. Every Preacher who acts as an assistant, to send an account of the work once in six months to the general assistant." [3]

Asbury, arriving on the second day of the session, hints at the anti-Wesleyan tendencies of the times by saying that he "did not find such harmony" on that day "as he could wish for," and concludes his notice of the proceedings with the remark that "there were some debates among the preachers in this Conference relative to the conduct of some who had manifested a desire to abide in the cities and live like gentlemen. Three years out of four have been already spent in the cities. It was also found that money had been wasted, improper leaders appointed, and many of our rules broken."

Wesley, being then thoroughly loyal to the Established Church of England, had trained his people to humble submission to its arrogant policy toward them; Rankin enforced a like submission in this country, as the English Church was still recognized here in some of the colonies, particularly in Maryland and Virginia, where it was established by law; hence the rules numbered first and second. But the Revolution was already looming over the country. The English clergy were deserting it; and many that remained were of very questionable moral character. A great proportion of the colonists had no traditional attachment to the Anglican Church; the submissive policy of Wesley in England was therefore irrelevant in America. He was too distant to perceive the fact; and his representatives were too Anglican to recognize it, but many of the American Methodists, and some of their Preachers, were wiser. They insisted upon their right to the sacraments from their own Pastors. Theoretically none of us, now, can dispute their claim; practically Wesley himself conceded it, after the additional and decisive argument of the Revolution, by constituting them an independent Church, with full powers to consecrate the sacraments. The men who then seemed radical, in this respect, were so, simply, because they had a superior foresight of the predestined importance and needs of American Methodism. Robert Strawbridge, as we have seen, contended sturdily for the right of the people to the sacraments, and could not be deterred by Asbury or Rankin from administering them. He had founded the Church in the regions whence now nearly one half of its members were reported; he had administered to them the sacraments before any English itinerants appeared in the country, and being an Irishman, be shared not in the deferential sympathies of his English brethren for the Establishment; as for any other sentiments, the actual character of the representatives of the Establishment, clerical and lay, around Him, could claim none from him but pity or contempt. Its clergy were known chiefly as the heartiest card-players, horse-racers, and drinkers of the middle colonies. Robert Strawbridge was doubtless imprudent in the Irish resolution with which he resisted the policy of the English itinerants; for the intuitive foresight with which he anticipated the necessity of the independent administration of the sacraments, should have suggested to him the certainty of their concession in due time, and therefore the expediency of patient harmony in the infant Church till that time should come. Discord was extremely perilous at this early stage of the denomination. He was firm, however, and though the first rule adopted by this Conference seems absolute, yet we learn from Asbury that it was adopted with the understanding that "no preacher in our connection shall be permitted to administer the ordinances at this time except Mr. Strawbridge, and he under the particular direction of the assistant." A concession so singular shows the extraordinary consideration in which Strawbridge was held, the influence he had obtained over the Societies of Maryland and Virginia, perhaps also the conscious necessity of the independent administration of the sacraments in that chief field of the denomination. As we shall hereafter see, this just claim of American Methodism could not be effectually refused; it led to increasing contention., and at last, providentially, gave birth to the organization of the "Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States of America."

The allusion to Robert Williams and his books, though brief, is full of significance; it foreshadows the "Methodist Book Concern," in our times one of time most potent arms of the Church. A contemporary historian says that "Previous to the formation of this rule, Robert Williams, one of the Preachers, had reprinted many of Mr. Wesley's books, and had spread them through the country, to the great advantage of religion. The sermons, which he printed in small pamphlets, had a very good effect, and gave the people great light and understanding in the nature of the new birth and in the plan of salvation; and withal, they opened the way in many places for our preachers to be invited to preach where they had never been before. But, notwithstanding the good that had been done by the circulation of the books, it now became necessary for all the preachers to be united in the same course of printing and selling our books, so that the profits arising therefrom might be divided among them or applied to some charitable purpose." [4] The zealous Robert Williams had then, by his humble pamphlets, done a good work and provoked a better.

"We parted in love," writes Rankin. The first differences of opinion noticed by Asbury seem to have yielded to a unanimous sense of the importance of harmony.

The appointments for the ensuing ecclesiastical year were, New York, Thomas Rankin, and Philadelphia, George Shadford, to exchange in four months; New Jersey, John King, William Watters; Baltimore, Francis Asbury, Robert Strawbridge, Abraham Whitforth, Joseph Yearbry; Norfolk, Richard Wright; Petersburg, Robert Williams. Boardman and Pilmoor do not appear in this list, though they continued in the country nearly six months. They had labored in it about four years, New York and Philadelphia being their headquarters. Without intermeddling with the rife political questions of the times, they were loyal, as Englishmen, to the parent government; and when they saw the terrible certainty of war, they quietly retired from the country, embarking together for England on Sunday, the 2d of January, 1774, "after commending the Americans to God." They left 2,073 members in the Societies, 10 regularly organized circuits, and 17 Preachers.

Boardman immediately resumed his ministerial travels in Ireland, laboring on the Londonderry, Cork, Athlone, and Limerick Circuits, from 1774 to 1780. In the latter year he was appointed to London with Charles Wesley, Dr. Coke, and other leading preachers. In 1781 he returned to Ireland and traveled Limerick Circuit. The next year he was appointed to Cork, where he died in 1782. In the old Arminian Magazine for 1795 we have "The Experience of Mr. Zachariah Yewdall," a humble itinerant, who was Boardman's colleague on the Cork Circuit. It records that "Mr. Boardman tarried at Limerick till the end of September, and then came to Cork, where he had labored before, and was universally known and beloved by the people, who were anxious for his coming, and in great expectation that his ministry would be successful. On the Sabbath morning after his arrival he preached from Job viii, 15: 'Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him;' but was not able to preach in the evening. The physician made light of the disorder, though there were evident symptoms of an approaching apoplexy, so that no means were made use of to prevent what soon happened. Being some better the next day, he continued to preach every evening as usual till Friday, when he attended the Intercession at noon. He was observed to pray with uncommon fervor for the success of the Gospel, and for his brethren in the ministry. After the meeting he went to a friend's house in the city; as soon as he got there he lost the use of his speech, and with some difficulty was conveyed to his lodgings in a chaise.

From that time he sunk into a state of insensibility, and about nine o'clock was released from all his sufferings. He had preached the Gospel with much success a considerable number of years in various parts of Britain, Ireland, and America. He was an excellent and useful preacher, a kind friend, and of an amiable, engaging disposition; his life was devoted to the service of God, and employed in the salvation of souls, and he is now reaping the reward of his labors. At the time of his death I was at Bandon, keeping a watchnight, but a messenger was waiting next morning at my chamber door with the awful tidings. When I got to Cork I found our friends involved in sorrow and lamenting their loss, particularly his widow. They had been married only thirteen months, and had one son, who soon after lost his mother by death. On the Lord's day I preached Mr. Boardman's funeral sermon to a very crowded audience. His remains were placed at the foot of the pulpit, which added to the solemnity of the occasion. In my retirement, before preaching, the task I was to enter upon seemed too much for my feelings; but the Lord saw my tears and heard my cries; he lifted me up and strengthened me."

The next day, followed by "a great multitude of serious people," singing hymns on the way, his brethren bore the remains of the hero to St. Barry's churchyard, where a modest monument commemorates his services. He had been faithful to the end. "He preached," says Wesley, "the night before he died. It seems that he might have been eminently useful; but good is the will of the Lord." [5] "In his last prayer," says the contemporary biographer of Methodism, "at the Intercession on Friday, he prayed fervently for the people, and begged, that if this were to be their last meeting on earth, they might have a happy meeting in the realms of light. It is remarkable that when he was leaving Limerick he told Mrs. Boardman he should die in Cork. But this was no concern to him, as he knew that for him to live was Christ, and to die eternal gain. To him sudden death was sudden glory." [6]

Pilmoor hesitated to re-enter the itinerancy on his return. He is reported in Wesley's minutes as "desisting" from traveling in 1774. He does not appear in the Minutes again till 1776, when he was gratified with an appointment in the metropolis. During the next two years he traveled the Norwich circuit. We can trace him afterward to Edinburgh, Dublin, Nottingham, Edinburgh again, and York. In 1785 his name disappears from the appointments without explanation, and appears in them no more. In the preceding year Wesley had made provision for the Episcopal organization of American Methodism, and also, by his "Deed of Declaration," for the constitution of the Wesleyan Conference, by the appointment of one hundred preachers who should legally represent that body after his death. Pilmoor was not included in either of these great measures. He was offended and retired. [7]

Returning to America, he took orders in the Protestant Episcopal Church and labored in Philadelphia. In 1802 a hundred and twenty-two members of Trinity Church, New York, petitioned its authorities to appoint him an assistant minister in its parish. The petition was refused; the petitioners seceded and organized a new Church on Ann Street, and, at last, obtained him as their pastor. [8] He afterward removed again to Philadelphia, Where he was rector of St. Paul's Church, to the pulpit of which he often admitted Asbury, Coke, and other Methodist preachers. The University of Pennsylvania honored him with the title of Doctor of Divinity. He died in a good old age, generally venerated. He never lost his original affection for his itinerant brethren. While in New York he saluted them in their Conference sessions, and paid an annual subscription to their Preachers' Fund. Asbury alludes to him frequently and affectionately. He outgrew his resentment against Wesley, and sincerely mourned his death. On hearing of that event he wrote to Atmore: "This will be handed to you by Dr. Coke, who leaves this country sooner than he intended, on account of the death of that truly great man, John Wesley. For some years I have been pleasing myself with the thought of seeing him again before his departure to paradise; but I am too late. I always most affectionately loved him, and shall feel a special regard for him even in heaven itself. If there be anything which touches my heart it is a concern for those preachers who were in the work before you or I ever heard of Methodism; and I entreat you to treat them with most tender respect. Yes, my friend, I do and shall eternally love you; and if I must not see you any more upon earth, I shall shortly meet you before the throne of God. Wishing you a time of refreshing at your Conference, I remain, in immortal affection, most unchangeably yours." [9] As late as 1807 he wrote again to the same old friend, "On earth, in heaven, I shall eternally love you. My heart is ever toward you in the Lord. As I am now on the border of another world, I feel it to be my duty to examine closely the ground upon which I stand. Two things are essential, a title to the inheritance, and a meetness for the enjoyment of it. By the former the right to the inheritance is secured; and by the latter the qualification for an eternal possession of bliss unutterably full of glory. It is well for me that it is all of grace; for worthiness of merit belongs not to man, especially to one so imperfect as I am. I am happy to hear, from various quarters, that religion is gloriously prospering in England, and that the Methodists have great success. The vine, long since planted by the venerable Wesley, has spread its branches and well nigh filled the land. Blessed be God! Hallelujah! In this country too where we poor under planters we employed the word has taken a universal spread, and the Methodists bid fair to outnumber most of their neighbors. This is indeed the Lord's doing showing that life and zeal in religion are worth more than all the arts and sciences together. So it was in England, so it is in America, and so it will be in all the earth. 'Even so, Lord Jesus.' This sounds like his original Methodist vernacular. He never lost his Methodistic fervor. A veteran American Methodist itinerant says: "The truly evangelical spirit produced through his instrumentality in the congregations over which he presided, and a correspondent attention to some of the peculiar means of grace which he introduced among them, continued to manifest themselves for a number of years after his death." [11]

Though no minute accounts of the labors of these first Methodist itinerants, in America, remain, and we are left to the mere allusions of contemporary records for an estimate of their services, these scattered notices suffice to show that they laid substantially and broadly the foundations of the denomination, preaching from Boston to Savannah, and preparing effectively, during more than four years, the work which their successors were to prosecute with a success which has had no parallel since the Apostolic Age.

Richard Wright also returned to England in the early part of 1774. He had spent but one year in the British itinerancy before he accompanied Asbury to America. He labored chiefly in Maryland and Virginia, though there is evidence that he spent a part of 1772 in New York city. [12] On his return to Europe he continued to itinerate two or three years, when he located, and disappeared entirely from the records of the ministry.

Captain Webb lingered in the Colonies a year more; after the departure of Boardman and Pilmoor, laboring with his might to extend and fortify the young Societies, notwithstanding the increasing tumults of politics and war. But the contemporary records give us, further, only allusions to this noble man and devoted evangelist. We may here, therefore, properly take our final leave of him. He devoted at least nine years to the promotion of American Methodism, the periods of his absence in Europe being spent there in its behalf. I have not hesitated to pronounce him the principal founder of the denomination in the United States. No trace of his remaining life can, therefore, fail to be interesting to American readers.

On his return to England he secured a home for his family in Portland, on the heights of Bristol, but still traveled, and preached extensively in chapels, in market-places, and in the open air, attended by immense congregations. "How did he live the remainder of his life?" asks a British itinerant who knew him through most of his career; and he answers: "We add with pleasure that to him the promise was sure, 'He that hath clean hands shall grow stronger and stronger.' Having escaped so many dangers and deaths, he believed, like Jacob, that his 'Goel,' the good angel of the Lord, had redeemed him from all mischief. To the end of his days he was persuaded that a ministering spirit, a guardian angel, had, through divine mercy attended him all the way in his diversified pilgrimage. He left everywhere a high example of persevering diligence and zeal. From the year 1776 to 1782, a time of war by land and sea, he annually made a summer's visit to the French prisoners at Winchester, addressing them in their own language, which he had studied while in Canada. He proceeded thence to Portsmouth, where crowded auditories of soldiers and sailors listened to him with all possible veneration. In Bristol and the neighboring country, wherever he preached, spiritual good was effected."

In 1792 he was liberal and active in erecting the Portland Church at Bristol, "one of the most elegant chapels," says a Wesleyan author, "in the Methodist connection, if not in the kingdom." He preached his last sermon in it. "He appeared," says the same authority, "to have had a presentiment for some time of his approaching dissolution, and shortly before his death he spoke to an intimate friend of the place and manner of his interment, observing: "I should prefer a triumphant death; but I may be taken away suddenly. However, I know I am happy in the Lord, and shall be with him whenever he calls me hence, and that is sufficient." In the autobiography of one of the leading contemporary preachers we read: "Dec. 8th, 1796. I spent a profitable hour with that excellent man, Captain Webb, of Bristol. He is indeed truly devoted to God, and has maintained a consistent profession for many years. He is now in his seventy-second year and as active as many who have only attained their fiftieth. He gives to the cause of God and to the poor of Christ's flock the greater part of his income. He is waiting with cheerful anticipation for his great and full reward. He bids fair to go to the grave like a shock of corn, fully ripe." Again we read: "Wednesday, Dec. 21st. Last night, about eleven o'clock, Captain Webb suddenly entered into the joy of his Lord. He partook of his supper, and retired to rest about ten o'clock in his usual health. In less than an hour his spirit left the tenement of clay to enter the realms of eternal bliss. He professed to have had some presentiment that be should change worlds during the present year, and that his departure would be sudden." And again "Saturday, Dec. 24th. This afternoon the remains of the good old captain were deposited in a vault under the communion table of Portland Chapel. He was carried by six local preachers, and the pall was supported by the Rev. Messrs. Bradford, Pritchard, Roberts, Davies, Mayer, and McGeary. I conducted the funeral service, and Mr. Pritchard preached from Acts xx, 24. It was a solemn season, and will long be remembered by those who were present."

The venerable soldier and evangelist was thus laid to rest by "a crowded, weeping audience." The "Society showed him a great respect; the chapel was hung in mourning;" and the trustees erected a marble monument to his memory within its walls, pronouncing him "Brave, Active, Courageous, — Faithful, Zealous, Successful, — the principal instrument in erecting this chapel." His name must be forever illustrious in the ecclesiastical history of the New World, and American Methodists will close this final account of a character so historically important and so intrinsically interesting, with regret that the record must present such a paucity of facts.

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ENDNOTES

1 Asbury's Journals, i, p.80. Compare Rankin's Journals, in Jackson's Early Methodist Preachers, iii, p. 61. These references settle the question of the date of this Conference. It is surprising how many errors have appeared in our records respecting so important an event. "All agree as to the year 1773, but in the month and day differ. The history of the M. E. Church, by Bangs, says July 4; but July 4, 1773, was Sunday, and no Conference that I know of ever began on that day. Smith's History of Wesleyan Methodism says July 4; Life of William Watters, the first American Preacher, says June; Wakeley's Lost Chapters, July 16." — Letter of P. D. Myers, of Philadelphia to the author.

2 Lednum, p. 111.

3 Minutes of the Annual Conferences of the M. E. Church, vol.1, p. 5. New York. 1840.

4 Lee, p. 48.

5 Minutes, 1783.

6 Atmore, p.59.

7 Wes. Mag., 1845, p. 15.

8 Dr. Berrian's Historic Sketch of Trinity Church, p. 184.

9 Wes. Mag., 1845, p. 210.

10 Ibid., p. 532.

11 Rev. Dr. Sandford, Wes. Miss. to America, p. 26.

12 Wakeley, chap. 24.

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