VOLUME 1 — BOOK I — CHAPTER VIII
NATIVE EVANGELISTS

William Watters, the first native Methodist Itinerant — His early Life — His Conversion — He becomes an Itinerant — Robert Williams — Rev. Devereaux Jarratt — Great religious Excitement in Virginia — Watters on the Eastern Shore of Maryland — Methodism in Trent County — Its first Chapel — Philip Gatch, the second native Itinerant — His early Life — Nathan Perigan — Gatch's Conversion — He begins to preach — Itinerates in New Jersey — Benjamin Abbott — His Character — His early history — His moral Struggles — His Conversion — The Fall of Abraham Whitforth — Abbott begins to preach — Power of his Word — A remarkable Example — Daniel Ruff

While some of the laborers were retiring from the field, others were entering it — more important, because native evangelists. William Watters' name appears in the list of appointments made at the first American conference, and to him is now universally conceded the peculiar distinction of being the first native American itinerant of Methodism; an honor never to be shared, never impaired. He has left us an unpretentious "Short Account" of his "Christian experience and ministerial labors." [1] He was born in Baltimore county, Maryland on the 10th of October, 1751. His parents were strict members of the English Church, and from his infancy he was addicted to religious reflections. "At a very early period," he writes, "I well remember to have been under serious impressions at various times, but when about twelve or fourteen years old he took, he says, "great delight in dancing, card-playing, horse-racing, and such pernicious practices, though often terrified with thoughts of eternity in the midst of them. Thus did my precious time roll away while I was held in the chains of my sins, too often a willing captive of the devil. I had no one to tell me the evil of sin, or to teach me the way of life and salvation. The two ministers in the two parishes, with whom I was acquainted, were both immoral men, and had no gifts for the ministry; if they received their salary they appeared to think but little about the souls of the people. The blind were evidently leading the blind, and it was by the mere mercy of God that we did not all fall into hell altogether." When sixteen or seventeen years of age he was considered by his associates "a very good Christian," but he thought of himself quite otherwise. "It was," he says, "my constant practice to attend the church with my prayer book, and to often read my Bible and other good books, and sometimes I attempted to say my prayers in private. Many times, when I have been sinning against God, I have felt much inward uneasiness, and often, on reflection, a hell within, till I could invent something to divert my mind from such reflections. Hence, strange as it may appear, I have left the dancing-room to pray to God that he might not be offended with me, and have then returned to it again with as much delight as ever."

Strawbridge, King, and Williams were abroad around him, preaching in private houses, and in 1770 he had frequent opportunities of hearing them. "I could not conceive," he writes, "what they meant by saying we must be born again, and, though I thought but little of all I heard, for some time, yet I dared not despise and revile them, as many then did. By frequently being in company with several of my old acquaintances, who had professed Methodism, among whom was my oldest brother and his wife, (who I thought equal to any religious people in the world,) and hearing them all declare, as with one voice, that they knew nothing of heart-religion, the religion of the Bible, till since they had heard the Methodists preach, I was utterly confounded; and I could not but say with Nicodemus, 'How can these things be?' While I was marveling at the unheard-of things that these strange people were spreading wherever they came, and before I was aware, I found my heart inclined to forsake many of my vain practices, and at the last place of merriment I ever attended, I remember well I was hardly even a looker-on. So vain did all their mirth appear to me, as did also their dancing, which I was formerly so fond of, that now no arguments could prevail on me to be seen on the floor. I had my reflections, though I was on the devil's ground; and, among others, while I was looking at a young man of property, who was beastly drunk and scarcely able to sit in his chair, a dog passed by, and I deliberately thought I would rather be that dog than a drunkard. Some, even of my friends, began to fear that I should become a Methodist; but I had no such thought, and yet I often found my poor heart drawn to them, as a people that lived in a manner I never had known any to live before."

By the religious care of his early education and the natural tenderness of his conscience, it was impossible that he could long resist the Methodist influences which now met him on every side. "I seldom, if ever," he adds, "omitted bowing my sinful knees before the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, four or five times a day. It was daily my prayer that God would teach the way of life and salvation, and not suffer me to be deceived. After being uncommonly uneasy for several days concerning the state of my soul, I went with my eldest brother and family to a prayer-meeting in his neighborhood on a Sabbath day; and while one was at prayer I saw a man near me, whom I knew to be a poor sinner, trembling, weeping, and praying, as though His all depended on the present moment; his soul and body were in an agony. The gracious Lord, who works by what means he pleases, blessed this circumstance greatly to my conviction; so that I felt, in a manner which I have not words fully to express, that I must be internally changed, that I must be born of the Spirit, or never see the face of God. Without this, I was deeply sensible that all I had done or could do was vain. I went home much distressed, and fully determined, by the grace of God, to seek the salvation of my soul with my whole heart. In this frame of mind, I soon got by myself and full upon my knees. But, alas! my sinful heart felt as a rock, and though I believed myself in the 'gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity,' and, of course, that if I died in that state I must die eternally, yet I could not shed one tear, neither could I find words to express my wretchedness before my merciful high Priest; I could only bemoan my forlorn state, and I wandered about through the afternoon in solitary places, seeking rest but finding none."

That night, however, in another prayer-meeting, both his heart and eyes melted. "I was so melted down and blessed with such a praying heart, that I should have been glad if they would have continued on their knees all night in prayer for me, a poor, helpless wretch."

The next day he was unfit for any business: he spent it in retirement. "I refused to be comforted but by the Friend of sinners. My cry was, day and night, Save, Lord, or I perish; give me Christ, or else I die. In this state I loved nothing better than weeping, mourning, and prayer, humbly hoping, waiting, and longing for the coming of the Lord. For three days and nights eating, drinking, and sleeping in a measure fled from me while my flesh wasted away and my strength failed in such a manner that I found it was not without cause that it is asked, 'A wounded spirit who can heal?' Having returned in the afternoon from the woods to my chamber, my eldest brother (at whose house I was) knowing my distress, entered my room with all the sympathy of a brother and a Christian. To my great astonishment he informed me that God had that day blessed him with his pardoning love. After giving me all the advice in his power, he kneeled down with me, and with a low, soft voice (which was frequently interrupted by tears) he offered up a fervent prayer to God for my present salvation." He received "a gleam of hope," but was not content with it. The next day several "praying persons," who knew his distress, visited him. He requested them to pray with him, and the family was called in, though it was about the middle of the day. "While they all joined in singing, my face," he says, "was turned to the wall, with my eyes lifted upward in a flood of tears and I felt a lively hope that the Lord whom I sought would suddenly come to his temple. My good friends sung with the spirit and in faith. The Lord heard and appeared spiritually in the midst of us A divine light beamed through my inmost soul and in few minutes encircled me around, surpassing the brightness of the noonday sun. Of this divine glory, with the holy glow that I felt within my soul, I have still as distinct an idea as that I ever saw the light of the natural sun, but know not how fully to express myself so as to be understood by those who are in a state of nature, inexperienced in the things of God; for 'the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, for they are spiritually discerned.' My burden was gone, my sorrow fled, all that was within me rejoiced in hope of the glory God; while I beheld such fullness and willingness in the Lord Jesus to save lost sinners, and my soul so rested in him, that I could now, for the first time, call Jesus Christ 'Lord, by the Holy Ghost given unto me.' The hymn being concluded, we all fell upon our knees, but my prayers were all turned into praises."

Such was the spiritual birth of the first regular Methodist preacher of the new world. This "memorable change," he says, took place in May, 1771, in the twentieth year of his age. In the same house where he was born "a child of wrath," he was also "born a child of grace." He immediately joined a Methodist class. All Methodists were, in those days, laborers in the evangelical vineyard. On the Lord's day, he says, they commonly divided into little bands and went out into different neighborhoods, wherever there was a door open to receive them, two, three, or four in company, and would sing their hymns, pray, read, talk to the people, "and some soon began to add a word of exhortation." "We were weak, but we lived in a dark day, and the Lord greatly owned our labors; for though we were not full of wisdom, we were blessed with a good degree of faith and power. The little flock was of one mind, and the Lord spread the leaven of his grace from heart to heart, from house to house, and from one neighborhood to another. It was astonishing to see how rapidly the work extended all around us, bearing down opposition as chaff before the wind. Many will praise God forever for our prayer meetings. In many neighborhoods they soon became respectable and were considerably attended. Two of his brothers were converted through his instrumentality, one of them became a zealous Local Preacher, and later, a Traveling Preacher.

One of Wesley s sermons, published by Robert Williams, led William Watters into a still deeper spiritual experience, and he became an advocate, by his life as well as his exhortations, of entire sanctification.

In 1772, when he was twenty-one years old, he began to preach. Robert Williams perceived his capacity for usefulness, and took him, in the autumn, to Norfolk, Va. The scene of his departure for an itinerant life was deeply affecting. His mother, whom he loved tenderly, offered him all her possessions if he would abandon his purpose. Many of his friends "wept and hung around" him; "but," he adds, "I found such resignation and so clear a conviction that my way was of the Lord, that I was enabled to commit them and myself to the care of our heavenly Father, in humble confidence, that if we never met again in this vale of tears, we should soon meet where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest. Calling at one of my brothers on my way to take my leave of them at parting my fortitude seemed all banished, and I was so exceedingly affected that it was with the greatest difficulty I could find any utterance to commit them in prayer to the Divine protection. O for a continual preparation to meet where all tears shall be wiped away. Even so Lord Jesus. Amen." And now he began in earnest his itinerant career. The two evangelists journeyed and preached, almost daily, through Baltimore, Georgetown, and other places, and arrived at last in Norfolk, where, under many discouragements, Watters soon formed a circuit, extending some distance among the neighboring towns. He was seized with the measles, but continued his labors. To my inexpressible consolation," he says, "several, both in town and country, were brought to know the Lord, which gave a fresh spring to my humble endeavors. I felt liberty and power to speak the words of eternal life, and often resolved to be more faithful in the important work, and to labor while it was called today."

Pilmoor had been preaching in Norfolk; he was now released by Watters to pursue his southern tour to Charleston. Williams also left the young itinerant and hastened to Portsmouth and further. Jarratt and McRoberts, "two English clergymen," received him with open arms, and welcomed him to their parishes. Jarratt became a staunch friend to the Methodist itinerants and the confidential friend of Asbury: his name often occurs in the early Methodist publications. He had the good sense, like Fletcher, Grimshaw, Venn, and Perronet, in England, to co-operate with them; and had his clerical brethren, of the colonies, more generally followed his example, the subsequent relations of the Protestant Episcopal and Methodist Episcopal Churches might have been very different from what they have been. Samuel Davies, the celebrated President of Princeton College, and the friend and correspondent of Wesley, had trained Jarratt for the ministry. The latter became rector of the parish of Bath, Dinwiddie county, Va., in 1763. His zealous labors produced a widespread sensation. "Revivals" prevailed around him for fifty or sixty miles during about twelve years. He held frequent meetings, and, like the Methodists, formed numerous societies, "which," he says, he ''found a happy means of building up those who had believed and of preventing the rest from losing their convictions." [2] In 1773 he wrote to Wesley, [3] "Virginia (the land of my nativity) has long groaned through a want of faithful ministers of the Gospel. Many souls are perishing for lack of knowledge, many crying for the bread of life, and no man is found to break it to them. We have ninety-five parishes in the colony, and all, except one, I believe are supplied with clergymen. But, alas you well understand the rest. I know of but one clergyman of the Church of England who appears to have the power and spirit of vital religion; for all seek their own, and not the things that are Christ's. Is not our situation then truly deplorable? And does it not call loudly upon the friends of Zion on our side the Atlantic to assist us? Many people here heartily join with me in returning our most grateful acknowledgments for the concern you have shown for us in sending so many preachers to the American colonies. Two have preached for some time in Virginia. Mr. Pilmoor and Mr. Williams. I have never had the pleasure of seeing Mr. Pilmoor, but by all I can learn, he is a gracious soul and a good preacher. With Mr. Williams I have had many delightful interviews. He has just now returned to my house from a long excursion through the back counties. I hope he will be able to write you joyful tidings of his success. But after all, what can two or three preachers do in such an extended country as this? Cannot you do something more for us? Cannot you send us a minister of the Church of England, to be stationed in that one vacant parish I have mentioned? In all probability he would be of great service. The parish I am speaking of is about forty miles from me. The people are anxious to hear the truth. The parishes around it afford a wide field of itineration; for I would have no minister of Jesus, as matters now stand, confined to the limits of one parish. Mr. A. McRoberts, the gentleman referred to above, is an Israelite indeed. He is a warm, zealous, striking preacher. He is constantly making excursions toward Maryland and Pennsylvania in the North and Northeast, while I make a tour of the parishes lying to the South and Southeast. Now if we had one to take his station forty miles to the West, we should he able to go through the country. I flatter myself it will be so. I shall wait with expectation till I am favored with an answer from you. I trust it will be such an answer as will rejoice my heart and the hearts of thousands."

He gratefully acknowledges that in the counties of Sussex and Brunswick "the work, from the year 1773, was chiefly carried on by the labors of the people called Methodists." He that year received Williams to his house and his church. "I earnestly recommended it to my Societies," he says, "to pray much for the prosperity of Sion, and for a larger outpouring of the Spirit of God. They did so; and not in vain. We have had a time of refreshing indeed: a revival of religion, as great as perhaps ever was known in country places in so short a time. In almost every assembly might be seen signal instances of divine power, more especially in the meetings of the classes. Here many old stout-hearted sinners felt the force of truth, and their eyes were open to discover their guilt and danger. The shaking among the dry bones was increased from week to week; nay, sometimes ten or twelve have been deeply convinced of sin in one day. Some of these were in great distress, and when they were questioned concerning the state of their souls were scarce able to make any reply but by weeping and falling on their knees before all the Class, and earnestly soliciting the prayers of God's people. Numbers of old and grayheaded, of middle-aged persons, of youth, yea, of little children, were the subjects of this work. Some of these children speak of the whole process of the work of God, of their convictions, the time when, and the manner how, they obtained deliverance, with such clearness as might convince an atheist that this is nothing else but the great power of God. Many in these parts who had long neglected the means of grace now flocked to hear, not only me and the traveling preachers, but also the exhorters and leaders. And at their meetings for prayer some have been in such distress that they have continued therein for five or six hours. It has been found that these prayer-meetings were singularly useful in promoting the work of God. The outpouring of the Spirit which began here soon extended itself, more or less, through most of the circuit, which is regularly attended by the traveling preachers, and which takes in a circumference of between four and five hundred miles. And the work went on, with a pleasing progress, till the beginning of May, when they held a quarterly meeting at B.'s chapel, in my parish. This stands at the lower line of the parish, thirty miles from W.'s chapel, at the upper line of it, where the work began. At this meeting one might truly say, the windows of heaven were opened and the rain of divine influence poured down for more than forty days. The work now became more deep than ever, extended wider, and was swifter in its operations. Many were savingly converted to God, and in a very short time not only in my parish, but through several parts of Brunswick, Sussex, Prince George, Lunenburg, Mecklenburg, and Amelia Counties."

It will be observed that this pious rector not only received the Methodists, but adopted many of their peculiar methods. We shall meet him again in the course of our narrative and find him long a faithful colaborer the itinerants in Virginia. Williams formed, in 1774, the old Brunswick Circuit, extending from Petersburg into North Carolina, the first reported in Virginia. Jarratt requested that his parish might be included in this circuit, that all who chose it might have the privilege of meeting in Class and of being members of the Society." He soon, "saw the salutary effects. Many that had but small desires before began to be much alarmed, and labored earnestly after eternal life. In a little time numbers were deeply awakened, and many tasted of the pardoning love of God. In a few months he saw more fruit of his labors than he had for many years. And he went on with the preachers, hand in hand, both in, doctrine and discipline."

This good work, the result as much of the Catholic co-operation of the rector as of the labors of the itinerants, continued down to 1775, when Shadford had charge of the circuit. He reported no less than " two thousand six hundred and sixty-four persons in the Societies; to whom eighteen hundred were added in one year. Above a thousand of these had found peace with God, many of whom thirsted for all the mind that was in Christ. And divers believed God had 'circumcised their heart to love him with all the heart and with all the soul.' The revival spread through fourteen counties in Virginia; and through Bute and Halifax Counties in North Carolina."

In the absence of Williams, on His visit to Jarratt, Watters was prostrated with nervous fever, and for some time he seemed suspended between life and death. It tested and proved his faith. Coming forth from the attack he exclaims, "O what inexpressible desires did I feel to devote the remnant of my days to the honor of God, who had done great things for such a poor worm!" He returned to his home after an absence of eleven months, in which he had been thoroughly initiated into the hardships and triumphs of the itinerancy. He met Asbury for the first time, and journeyed on horseback with him some miles; Rankin also came across his path, and he saw in these apostolic men the highest models of ministerial character.

At the Conference of 1773, which he did not attend, he was appointed, as we have seen, with John King, to New Jersey; but neither of them traveled that long circuit; another native preacher was to take his place there. Watters' sickness had detained him away, and Rankin altered his appointment to Kent, on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. The young itinerant again took affecting leave of his home, and rode forth on his evangelical adventures. "On my way," he says, " I felt a humiliating sense of my littleness of faith, and my unprofitableness in the Lord's vineyard; and, from my inmost soul, promised from that I would set out afresh both to live and preach the Gospel, and, through infinite mercy, I felt a divine evidence that he would be with me and bring me to the people to whom I was going in the fulness of the blessing of the Gospel of peace. In this circuit, which was a two weeks' one, and the only one then between the two bays, I continued four or five months with greater freedom and success in preaching than ever before. Many, in different places, attended our meetings, and I had one invitation after another into new neighborhoods. Though I had but a few places, when I first went into the circuit, in a short time I was not able to go through them all in two weeks, and before I left it the circuit might have been readily enlarged to four weeks. Many were awakened and soundly converted, and we had as powerful times, for the number of people, as I have generally seen. I was much blest in my own soul, and confirmed in my call to the work of the ministry. Day and night the salvation of the people was uppermost in my mind. Our little number was daily increased, and great were our rejoicings in the Lord our righteousness. The prospect was such, and our attachment to each other so great, that it was with some reluctance I returned home in the forepart of the spring following."

The Eastern Shore was thenceforth to be a "fruitful garden of Methodism." At the next Conference "Kent" was reported in the Minutes as a circuit, the first formed on the Peninsula, and in the same year its first church, Kent Meeting-house," was erected. The chapel rose amid hostility; the timbers prepared for it were carried away at night and burned; but the Society persisted, and at last entered, with prayer and praise, their humble temple. It has since been known as "Hinson's Chapel." "At this chapel," says an authority familiar with the locality, "rests the dust of John Smith, the first itinerant that came into the work from Kent county, Md. Here, also, sleep the remains of the Christian philosopher, William Gill, who with his fingers closed his own eyes as he was sinking into the long sleep of the grave; and were it said that he, while yet able, preached his own funeral sermon, we should receive it as characteristic of this man, who was so fully freed from the fear of death. It would seem at the first Society in Kent was formed in the beginning of 1773, and that it was in the neighborhood of the present Hinson's Chapel; nor does it appear that there was more than one Society at this time in the county." [4]

On retiring from the Eastern Shore, Watters labored, till the next Conference, in Baltimore and its vicinity. His success was not remarkable there, but he passed through inward experiences which tended to fit him for his future career. "I did not," he says, "find that life, power, and liberty in my ministrations as among the people I had left on the other shore. I frequently found, to my great grief, that my religion was too superficial, and that though sin did not reign in me, yet it remained and marred my happiness. I often mourned, wept, fasted, prayed, and truly longed to be sanctified throughout soul, body, and spirit, that I might be able to serve the Lord without interruption." He was still seeking for that "deep recollection and constant communion with the Lord which nothing for a moment should interrupt."

Such was William Watters, the first of the thousands, the tens of thousands, of American Methodist itinerants who have spread the Gospel over the North American continent, a man fervent in spirit, prudent in counsel, indefatigable in labor, saintly in piety.

Another native preacher, destined to become noted in the Church, entered the itinerancy in 1773, though his name, Philip Gatch, does not appear in the Minutes till the next Conference. As Watters had failed to reach his appointment in New Jersey, Gatch was now called out by Rankin to supply it.

Philip Gatch is one of the most admirable characters in early Methodist history, a founder of the denomination in both the East and the West, and worthy to have been commemorated by the pen of a public citizen who himself was worthy to be esteemed the most eminent lay Methodist of the United States. [5]

He was born near Georgetown, Md., in the same year as Watters, 1751; they began their public labors as Exhorters the same year, and they were the first two native Methodist preachers reported in the "Minutes." They were remarkably similar also in character, being early and deeply susceptible of religious impressions, a fact that, perhaps, more than any other, is the pledge of an upright life, of conscientious decision of character, and of distinguished usefulness. "I learned to read," he says, "when quite young, took delight in my books, especially those which gave a history of the times of pious persons. A sister older than myself used to watch over me with a tender regard. I recollect at one time, on using a bad word, the meaning of which I hardly knew, she reproved me in such a manner as to make a deep and lasting impression on my feelings. My conscience was quick and tender, and I felt the evil of sin, and endured great pain of soul on account of it. I seldom omitted my prayers, and strove to make my mind easy with the forms of religion; but this availed but little. Sinful acts in general I hated. I feared the Lord, and had a great desire to serve him; but knew not how. All was dark and dreary around me, and there was no one in the neighborhood who possessed religion. Priests and people in this respect were alike." In his seventeenth year a dangerous illness alarmed his conscience. "The subjects of death and judgment," he writes, "rested upon my mind. I determined to try a course of self-denial. I resolved to break down the carnal mind by crucifying the flesh with its lusts and affections. I found this course to be of great service to me. All this time I had not heard a Gospel sermon. I had read some of the writings of the Society of Friends, and had a great desire to attend their meetings, but had not the opportunity. I felt that I had lost my standing in the Established Church by not performing the obligations of my induction into it, and this was a source of great distress to me. I desired rest to my soul, but had no one to take me by the hand and lead me to the fountain of life. Indeed from a child, the Spirit of grace strove with me; but great was the labor of mind that I felt, and I did not know the way to be saved from my guilt and wretchedness. It pleased God, however, to send the Gospel into our neighborhood, in January, 1772, through the instrumentality of the Methodists. Previous to this time Robert Strawbridge had settled between Baltimore and Fredericktown, and under his ministry three others were raised up, Richard Owen, Sater Stephenson, and Nathan Perigan. Nathan Perigan was the first to introduce Methodist preaching in the neighborhood where I lived. He possessed great zeal, and was strong in the faith of the Gospel. I was near him when he opened the exercises of the first meeting I attended. His prayer alarmed me much; I never had witnessed such energy nor heard such expressions in prayer before. I was afraid that God would send some judgment upon the congregation for my being at such a place. I attempted to make my escape. I was met by I person at the door who proposed to leave with me; but I knew he was wicked and that it would not do to follow his counsel, so I returned. The sermon was accompanied to my understanding by the Holy Spirit. I was stripped of all my self-righteousness. It was to me as filthy rags when the Lord made known to me my condition. I saw myself altogether sinful and helpless, while the dread of hell seized my guilty conscience. Three weeks from this time I attended preaching again at the same place. My distress became very great; my relatives were all against me, and it was hard to endure my father's opposition."

Nathan Perigan was one of the most powerful of the Local Preachers who were now co-operating with Strawbridge in Maryland. Gatch, after five or six weeks of profound anguish, heard him again, and was "confounded under the word." The early Methodists were singularly exact in the matter of conversion, and the contemporary memoirs abound in grateful commemorations of dates in their spiritual history. Philip Gatch records that "on the 26th of April I attended a prayer-meeting. After remaining some time, I gave up all hopes, and left the house. I felt that I was too bad to remain where the people were worshipping God. At length a friend came out to me, and requested me to return to the meeting; believing him to be a good man I returned with him, and, under the deepest exercise of mind, bowed myself before the Lord, and said in my heart, If thou wilt give me power to call on thy name how thankful will I be! Immediately I felt the power of God to affect me, body and soul. I felt like crying aloud. God said, by his Spirit, to my soul, 'My power is present to heal thy soul, if thou wilt but believe.' I instantly submitted to the operation of the Spirit of God, and my poor soul was set at liberty. I felt as if I had got into a new world. I was certainly brought from hell's dark door, and made nigh unto God by the blood of Jesus. I was the first person known to shout in that part of the country. A grateful sense of the mercy and goodness of God to my poor soul overwhelmed me. I tasted, and saw that the Lord was good. Two others found peace the same evening, which made seven conversions in the neighborhood. I returned home happy in the love or God."

His father had threatened to drive him from his home, and the young convert now expected a harsh reception. "There is your elder brother," the father had said to him in his deep contrition, "he has better learning than you: if there is anything good in it why does he not find it out?" But this elder brother was "powerfully converted" at the same meeting with young Gatch and the father was now disarmed of his opposition. The brothers introduced family prayers immediately into the household, and Philip Gatch's first exhortation was at the altar of his home. "The Lord blessed me," he says, with a spirit of prayer, and he made manifest his power among us. I rose from my knees and spoke to them some time, and it had a gracious effect upon the family. Thenceforward we attended to family prayer."

They soon had Perigan preaching in the house. Classes were formed; Gatch's parents, most of their children, a brother-in-law and two sisters-in-law, were, in a few weeks, recorded among the class members. "The work was great, for it was the work of God." One of Robert Williams' cheap publications — Wesley's Sermon on Salvation by Faith — led young Gatch into a knowledge the deeper things of God, and while attending family worship, "the Spirit of the Lord," he writes, "came down upon me, and the opening heavens shone around me. By faith I saw Jesus at the right hand of the Father. I felt such a weight of glory that I fell with my face to the floor, and the Lord said by his Spirit, 'You are now sanctified, seek to grow in the fruit of the Spirit.' Gal. v, 22, 23. This work and the instruction of Divine truth were sealed on my soul by the Holy Ghost. My joy was full. This was in, July, a little more than two months after I had received justification."

Thus he "was taken fully into the school of Christ, and was being trained for the duties and sufferings that waited him as a pioneer-laborer in the extensive fields that were already whitening to the harvest in the colonies of North America."

In the latter part of 1772 Philip Gatch was abroad, a zealous Exhorter; he had formed "a humble circuit" of three appointments beyond the Pennsylvania line. In the following year he preached his first sermon at "Evans' Meeting-house, the oldest Society of Baltimore county." At a Quarterly Meeting in that county Rankin met him, and, commissioning him as a traveling preacher, sent him off to "the Jerseys," to fill the vacancy occasioned by the absence of Watters. "I found it," he says, "a severe trial to part with my parents and friends. My feelings for a time got the ascendency; it was like breaking asunder the tender cords of life, a kind of death to me, but I dared not to look back. He that will be Christ's disciple must forsake all and follow him. I met Mr. Rankin according to appointment. Mr. Asbury lay sick at the place of meeting. He called for me to his room, and gave me such advice as he thought suitable to my case. He was well fitted to administer to my condition, for he had left father and mother behind when he came to America."

The humble but successful John King, first Methodist preacher in Baltimore, had been appointed with Watters to New Jersey. He now met Gatch to introduce him to his new field and his untried life. John King was prompt and energetic, pausing not for ceremonious attentions. "In company with Mr. King," says Gatch, "I crossed the Delaware. He preached and held a love-feast. On the following morning, he pursued his journey, leaving me a stranger in a strange land." King was immediately away to distant regions, and Gatch was now alone in the whole state, as a ministerial representative of Methodism, a stripling of twenty-one years, of small stature and very youthful appearance, the first preacher sent as a regular itinerant to New Jersey. "Three considerations," he says, "rested on my mind with great weight: first, my own weakness; secondly, the help that God alone could afford; and, thirdly, the salvation of the souls of the people to whom I was sent. The Lord was with me, and my labors on the circuit were crowned with some success. Not many joined at that time to be called by our name, for it was very much spoken against. Fifty-two united with the Church, most of whom professed religion. Benjamin Abbott's wife and three of her children were among the number. David, one of the children, became a useful preacher. Though I found the cross to be very heavy while serving the circuit in my imperfect manner, when I was called to part with the friends for whom I had been laboring I found it to be a great trial, for we possessed the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." He continued in this extensive field till the Annual Conference of 1774.

About the year 1773 another notable evangelist appeared in New Jersey, who, though he was not yet recorded in, the Minutes, equaled his itinerant brethren in labors if not in travels. The name of Benjamin Abbott has already been cited; in our day that name is inscribed on a monument under the shadow of a Methodist Church in Salem, N. J., one of the principal scenes of his usefulness; thousands of Methodists have visited it in devout pilgrimage, and thousands will, as long as the denomination lasts, pondering the wonders of his strangely eventful life. Benjamin Abbott became one of the most memorable men of early Methodism. He was thoroughly original, unique in mind and character; religious biography hardly records his fellow except in the story of the "evangelical tinker" and "glorious dreamer" of Bedford jail. Like Bunyan, he had a rude, robust, but holy soul, profound in the mysteries of spiritual life; a temperament deeply mystic and subject to marvelous experiences which baffle all scientific explanation, unless we resort to the doubtful solutions of clairvoyance and somnambulism. He was a great dreamer, and his "visions of the night," recorded with unquestionable honesty, were often verified by the most astonishing coincidences. He was an evangelical Hercules, and wielded the word as a rude irresistible club rather than a sword. His whole soul seemed pervaded by a certain magnetic power that thrilled his discourses and radiated from his person, drawing, melting, and frequently prostrating the stoutest opposers in his congregation. It is probable that no Methodist laborer of his day reclaimed more men from abject vice. He seldom preached without visible results, and his prayers were overwhelming.

Like Bunyan, his early life had been riotously wicked. He first appears as an apprentice in Philadelphia, "where," he says, "I soon fell into bad company, and from that to card-playing, cock-fighting, and many other evil practices. My master and I parted before my time was out, and I went into Jersey, and hired with one of my brothers, where I wrought at plantation work. Some time after this I married, and when I got what my father left me I rented a farm, and followed that business. All this time I had no fear of him before my eyes, but lived in sin and open rebellion against God, in drinking, fighting, swearing, gambling, etc.; yet I worked hard and got a comfortable living for my family." [6] The moral sense, however, seldom dies out, even in the rudest and most reckless souls; and no fact is more clearly shown, in the history of the success of Methodism among the common people, than that the most apparently reprobate men, the drunken, blasphemous, uproarious leaders of the mobs which so frequently opposed the early itinerants, have borne, even in scenes of outrageous hostility, sensitive, trembling consciences; deep, hidden chords of moral susceptibility which, touched by the right appeal, have responded with the finest delicacy of religious feeling. God, who has made all men for immortality, has left none without the faculty, the instinct even, for religion. Scores, if not hundreds, of boisterous opposers, stricken by the preaching of Abbott, bowed in tears before him, ready to kiss his feet. He knew how to address them, for he had been one of them; and while yet himself in vice, he "went," he says, "often to meeting, and many times the Spirit of God alarmed my guilty soul of its danger; but it as often wore off again. Thus I continued in a scene of sin until the fortieth year of my age; yet many were the promises I made, during that period, to amend my life, but all to no purpose; they were as often broken as made; for as yet I never had heard the nature of conviction or conversion: it was a dark time respecting religion, and little or nothing was ever said about experimental religion; and to my knowledge I never had heard either man or woman say that they had the pardoning love of God in their souls, or knew their sins were forgiven. My wife was a member of the Presbyterian Church, and a praying woman; yet at that time she knew nothing about a heart-work."

Waking and sleeping, his strong soul was struggling against itself. The truths that he resisted by day overwhelmed him in the dreams of the night. Coming out of one of these visions, "I awoke," he writes, with "amazement at what I had seen, and concluded that I should shortly die, which brought all my sins before me, and caused me to make many promises to God to repent, which lasted for some time; but this wore off again, and I went to my old practices." Reports of a Methodist preacher reach him; he goes to hear him, and returns "thinking of his misspent life;" "in a moment," he says, "all my sins that I ever had committed were brought to my view; I saw it was the mercy of God that I was out of hell, and promised to amend my life in future. I went home under awful sensations of a future state; my convictions increased, and I began to read my Bible with attention, and saw things in a different light from what I had ever seen them before, and made many promises to God, with tears and groans, to forsake sin; but I knew not the way to Christ for refuge, being ignorant of the nature both of conviction and conversion. But blessed be God, he still gave me light, so that the work was deepened in my soul day by day. The preacher came to preach in our neighborhood, and I went to hear him again; it being a new thing in the place many came together to hear him. The word reached my heart in such a manner that it shook every joint in my body; tears flowed in abundance, and I cried out for mercy, of which the people took notice, and many were melted into tears. When the sermon was over, the people flocked around the preacher and began to dispute with him about principles of religion. I said that there never was such preaching as this; but the people said, 'Abbott is going mad.' "

And now, as with Bunyan, ensued a struggle with despair itself; "Satan suggested to me that my day of grace was over; therefore I might pray and cry, but he was sure of me at last." In passing through a lonely wood at night, he was tempted to commit suicide; but while looking for a suitable place for the deed, he was deterred by an inward voice, which said, "this torment is nothing compared to hell." This was logic too clear to be resisted; he forthwith mounted his wagon, and believing the tempter to be immediately behind him, drove home "under the greatest anxiety imaginable," with his hair "rising on his head." His mind had evidently become morbid under its moral sufferings. His dreams that night were appalling; the next day, seeking relief in the labors of the field, his "troubled heart beat so loud that he could hear the strokes." He threw down his scythe and "stood weeping for his sins." Such is the reclaiming, the sublime strength of conscience in the rudest soul when once awakened. This "strong man armed" in his vices, ignorant, boisterous, and dreaded among his neighbors, but now standing in the solitude of the field "weeping for his sins," was a spectacle for men and angels. "I believe," he adds, "I could not have continued in the body had not God moderated the pain and anxiety I was in, but must have expired before the going down of the sun." He flew to the end of his field, fell upon his knees, and for the first time in his life prayed aloud. Hastening the same day to a Methodist meeting, "I went in," he writes, "sat down, and took my little son upon my knee; the preacher began soon after. His word was attended with such power that it ran through me from head to foot; I shook and trembled like Belshazzar, and felt that I should cry out if I did not leave the house, which I determined to do, that I might not expose myself among the people; but when I attempted to put my little son down and rise to go, I found that my strength had failed me, and the use of my limbs was so far gone that I was utterly unable to rise. Immediately I cried aloud, Save, Lord, or I perish! But before the preacher concluded, I refrained and wiped my eyes; my heart gave way to shame, and I was tempted to wish I was dead or could die, as I had so exposed myself that my neighbors and acquaintance would laugh at and despise me. When meeting was over I thought to speak to the preacher, but such a crowd got round him, disputing points of doctrine, that I could not conveniently get an opportunity. That evening I set up family prayer, it being the first time I ever had attempted to pray in my family. My wife, being a strict Presbyterian, was a praying woman, and much pleased with having family prayer, so that she proved a great help to me and endeavored to encourage me in my duty; although, dear creature, at that time she knew nothing of experimental religion."

Thus did this rough but earnest soul struggle as in "the hour and power of darkness." The next day, accompanied by his sympathetic wife, he went more than ten miles to a Methodist assembly; he appealed to the itinerant for counsel and comfort, asking to be baptized, hoping it would relieve his distress, for he had yet no idea of justification by faith. "Are you a Quaker?" asked the preacher. "No," he replied, "I am nothing but a poor, wretched, condemned sinner," and burst into tears. The preacher comforted him with the promises of the Gospel. "He then said I was the very man that Christ died for, or he would not have awakened me. That it was the lost Christ came to seek, and the greatest of sinners he came to save, and commanded me to believe." That night (the 11th of October, for he is minute in such memorable dates) he awoke from terrible dreams and saw, as in a vision of faith, the Lord Jesus, with extended arms, saying, "I died for you." He wept and adored God with a joyful heart.

"At that moment," he says, "the Scriptures were wonderfully opened to my understanding. My heart felt as light as a bird, being relieved of that load of guilt which before had bowed down my spirits, and my body felt as active as when I was eighteen, so that the outward and inward man were both animated." He rose, and calling up the family, expounded the Scriptures and prayed, and then set off to spend the day in telling his neighbors what God had done for him. He had singular rencounters before night. "While I was telling them," he writes, "my experience, and exhorting them to flee from the wrath to come, some laughed and others cried, and some thought I had gone distracted. Before night a report was spread all through the neighborhood that I was raving mad." Rustic polemic discussions, imputations of self-deception and madness, met him on every hand. A neighboring clergyman tried laboriously to deliver him from the "strong delusions of the devil." The honest man was becoming perplexed. "It was suggested to my mind," he says, "he may be right." "But," he adds, "I went a little out of the road, and kneeled down and prayed to God if I was deceived to undeceive me; and the Lord said to me, 'Why do you doubt? Is not Christ all-sufficient? is he not able? Have you not felt his blood applied?' I then sprang upon my feet and cried out, not all the devils in hell should make me doubt; for I knew that I was converted: at that instant I was filled with unspeakable raptures of joy."

Benjamin Abbott had thus placed his feet securely in "the path of life." He had reached it indeed through darkness and terrors, stumbled into it, it may be said, through errors, morbid agitations, if not temporary insanity; but had evidently attained, at last, the fundamental truth of the Reformation and of Christianity, justification by faith i and he now and henceforth, till his last hour, stood out in the light, with unshakable steadfastness, on this rock of divine truth, a saved, a consecrated, a triumphant man.

He was soon to be tested by one of the severest trials, one that touched his tenderest Christian affections, and which was associated with an example of those mysterious workings of his strange mind that startle us so much in his autobiography; but his simple faith and good sense saved him. "Toward the dawn of day," he says, "in a dream I thought I saw the preacher, under whom I was awakened, drunk and playing cards, with his garments all defiled with dirt. When I awoke and found it a dream I was glad, although I still felt some uneasiness on his account. In about three weeks after I heard that the poor unfortunate preacher had fallen into sundry gross sins, and was expelled from the Methodist connection. The tidings of his fall filled me with such distress that I wandered about like a lost sheep with these reflections: If the head is thus fallen what will become of me, or what combats may I have with the devil? At length, when in prayer, under sore temptation, almost in despair, a new thought was impressed on my mind, that I must not trust in the arm of flesh, for, 'Cursed is he that putteth his trust in the arm of flesh.' I then saw that my salvation did not depend on his standing or falling; I had to stand for myself, and to give diligence, through grace, to save my own soul; that my soul must answer at the bar of God for my own deeds."

The fact here referred to has the peculiar and painful interest of being the first instance of apostasy that dishonored the struggling ministry of Methodism in the new world; its first case of expulsion. The name of Abraham Whitforth appears in the list of the little band of itinerants reported in the appointments of the first Methodist Conference. He was an Englishman, and had labored faithfully with his countrymen Webb, Asbury, and Shadford, in New Jersey, during the year 1772. His eloquence was powerful, and his usefulness extraordinary. It was under his ardent ministrations that Abbott had been saved. He subsequently preached with continued success on both the Eastern and Western Shores of Maryland. While on the Kent Circuit he fell by intemperance, and fell apparently to rise no more. "Alas for that man!" wrote Asbury, when the sad news reached him, "he had been useful, but was puffed up, and so fell into the snare of the devil." Years later, when Asbury first heard Abbott preach, he wrote, "here I find remains the fruit of the labor of that now miserable man Abraham Whitforth; I fear he died a backslider." The last trace we can discover of the fate of the unfortunate man is in the report of "the old Methodists," that he entered the British army to fight against the country and was probably killed in battle. [7]

Abbott now devoted himself to the study of the Bible, and to "exhort all that" he "had any intercourse with." He tells the story of his daily life with entertaining naivet‚ and honesty. The Scriptures "were wonderfully opened" to him. In his sleep texts occurred to his mind, with divisions and applications, and he woke up preaching from them. His good wife checked him, saying "you are always preaching;" "however," he adds, "it caused her to ponder these things in her heart. I saw that if ever I should win her to Christ it must be by love, and a close walk with God; for I observed that she watched me closely." He soon won her; Philip Gatch arrived; she was converted after hearing him preach, and when Abbott returned home he met her at the door with tears of joy in her eyes. "We embraced each other," he says," and she cried out, 'Now I know what you told me is true, for the Lord hath pardoned my sins.' We had a blessed meeting; it was the happiest day we had ever seen together. 'Now,' said she, 'I am willing to be a Methodist too;' from that time we went on, hand and hand, helping and building each other up in the Lord. These were the beginning of days to us. Our children also began to yield obedience to the Lord, and in the course of about three months after my wife's conversion we had six children converted to God."

From "exhorting" he at last began to preach; his first sermon was over the coffin of a neighbor. His word was now uniformly "with power;" the sturdiest sinners trembled, or escaped in alarm from his mongrel assemblies. He was a man of great natural courage, and though there was an unction of habitual tenderness and humility in his manners, often revealing itself in tears, yet woe to the man who dared in his presence to treat religion with ridicule or irreverence. His indignant exhortations overwhelmed and swept before him any such offender. He was an example of what the evangelical historians report of the apostolic ministry: "Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marveled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus." On one of his walks of prayer and exhortation he met an old friend, who invited him to dinner. He went, and when they were about sitting down at the table he proposed to ask a blessing; as soon as he began two journeymen burst out laughing: "at which," he says, "I arose and began to exhort them all in a very rough manner, thundering out hell and damnation against the ungodly with tears in my eyes. This broke up dinner, and neither of us ate anything." But a young woman present was much affected, and entreated him to visit her mother; the honest man went, palpitating with his holy indignation, but was soon in a happier mood. "The old lady," he writes, "and I fell into conversation. She was a pious Moravian. I was truly glad that I had found a witness for Jesus. She knew that God, for Christ's sake, had freely forgiven her sins. We had a comfortable time in conversing together on the things of God. She told me that I was the first person she had met with, in that place, who could testify that his sins were forgiven. I left her, with strong impressions on my mind, to preach the Gospel." "On one occasion while I was speaking with great zeal," he continues, "and exclaiming against the various abominations of the people, and pointing out their enormous sins, I cried out, 'For aught I know there may be a murderer in this congregation!' Immediately a lusty man attempted to go out, but when he got to the door he bawled out, and stretched out both his arms and ran backward, as though some one had been before him pressing on him to take his life, and he endeavored to defend himself from the attack, until he got to the far side of the room, and then falling backward against the wall lodged on a chest, and cried out very bitterly, and said, 'He was the murderer, for he had killed a man about fifteen years before.' Thus he lay and cried with great anguish of soul. This surprised me so much that I stopped preaching; the people were greatly alarmed, and looked on the man with the utmost astonishment. After a short pause, I went on again and finished my discourse. The man, who was in this wonderful manner wrought upon, recovered himself and went away, and I never have seen or heard of him since."

A Society was now formed in his neighborhood, he becoming its Class Leader; it was soon included in the circuit, and Methodism was permanently established in that region. Abbott spread it out in all directions. He broke up the ground around him for fifteen miles. He worked for his livelihood on week-days, held prayer and Class-meetings at night, and preached on Sundays. No itinerant in New Jersey did more to found securely the denomination in the State. He was its first Methodist convert that preached the Gospel. Asbury said, "he is a man of uncommon zeal, and of good utterance; his words come with great power." We shall have occasion to follow him hereafter in his extending labors and surprising successes.

Still another native preacher began his labors in 1773, though his name was not recorded in the list of Conference appointments till the following year. Daniel Ruff was converted in Harford County, Maryland, in the great religious excitement which prevailed in that and in Baltimore Counties during 1771. The next year his house, near Havre de Grace, became a "preaching-place" for the itinerants, and the year following Ruff himself became noted as an exhorter and local preacher, warning his neighbors to "flee from the wrath to come, and bringing many of them to the Saviour." [8] He was a man of sterling integrity, great simplicity, and remarkable usefulness. Asbury, visiting his neighborhood, March 4, 1774, rejoiced over his success, and preached on the appropriate text, "The Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad." "Honest, simple Daniel Ruff," he wrote, "has been made a great blessing to these people. Such is the wisdom and power of God that he has wrought marvelously by this plain man that no flesh may glory in his presence." Joining the Conference in 1774, Ruff traveled Chester Circuit, which then comprised all the Methodist appointments in the State of Delaware and in Chester County, Pa. He labored also in New Jersey. Freeborn Garrettson, one of the most successful preachers of Methodism, was converted after hearing one of his sermons, and Ruff first called him into the itinerancy. [9] Ruff was the first native preacher appointed to Wesley Chapel in New York.

Such were the principal native evangelists who began to appear in the field about the time of the first American Conference. But let us return to their more prominent fellow-laborers from whom we parted at that humble but memorable session. There are but few and vague reminiscences of their labors, but they are too precious to be lost.

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ENDNOTES

1 A Short Account of the Christian Experience and Ministerial Labors Of William Watters. Drawn up by himself. Alexandria. Printed by S. Snowden. The imprint has no date, but the preface is dated Fairfax, May 14, 1806.

2 See his "Brief Narration," addressed to Wesley through Rankin, Asbury's Journals, anno 1776.

3 Letter in Arm. Mag., 1786, p. 397.

4 Lednum, p. 127.

5 Sketch of Rev. Philip Gatch. Prepared by Hon. John McLean, LL.D., Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States, Cincinnati. 1854.

6 Experience and Gospel Labors of the Rev. Benjamin Abbott. To which is annexed a Narrative of his Life and Death. By John Firth. New York. 1854.

7 Lednum, p.129.

8 Lednum p.121.

9 Wakeley, p. 258.

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