VOLUME 1 — BOOK II — CHAPTER V
FURTHER REVIEW OF THE PERIOD OF THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR

Philip Catch itinerating — John Cooper's Trials — Gatch and Parson Kain — His Rencounters on Frederick Circuit — He is "Tarred" by a Mob — Escapes Conspirators — His Courage — On Hanover Circuit — Jarratt — Trials on Sussex Circuit — He Locates — His continued Usefulness — Emancipates his Slaves — Simplicity of the Primitive Minutes — Benjamin Abbott in New Jersey — Wonderful Physical Effects of his Preaching — Methodist Opinion on such Phenomena — Abbott's Character — His Colloquial Ministrations — He goes abroad preaching in New Jersey — Remarkable Examples of his Usefulness — James Sterling — Abbott and Sterling in Delaware and Pennsylvania — Remarkable Scenes — Martin Boehm — Abbott among the Germans — "Physical Phenomena" again — Scenes in Maryland — Abbott's "Thunder-gust Sermon — Revisits Delaware — Extraordinary Effects — Jesse Lee — He preaches in a Military Camp — Description of a Primitive Conference — His labors and Character — Methodism during the Revolution — Church building — Startling Scene in Salem, N.J. — The British in New York — John Street Church — John Mann and Samuel Spraggs — British Persecutions — Central Methodism

During most of the period now under review (1775 — 1784) Philip Gatch was "abundant in labors" and sufferings. Though he escaped imprisonment, "he was, perhaps, the subject of as much, or more, persecution for his Master's sake than any of his contemporaries." [1] He was sent by the Conference of 1775 to Kent Circuit, in Maryland. His colleague was John Cooper, a young man whom he first met on Frederick Circuit, and had recommended to the Conference; a "man of a solemn, fixed countenance, who had suffered much persecution." Cooper's family had opposed him; his father seeing him once on his knees, in a chamber, threw a shovel of hot embers upon him, and afterward expelled him from his home. His trials only confirmed him in his faith; he joined the itinerant band of evangelists, and lived and died in their ranks. Gatch encountered some trials on the Kent Circuit, especially from "Parson Kain," the noted opponent of all itinerants who appeared in that region. The evangelist, however, quietly but adroitly foiled him, and the clerical persecutor's flock was soon scattered, "his place was lost, and he troubled the Methodists no more."

While attending the Conference at Philadelphia Gatch had unconsciously taken the small-pox, which now broke out violently, arresting his travels and endangering his life. A Methodist family hospitably took care of him, though the father and a daughter of the home perished by the infection. He struggled through the attack, "suffering indescribably," and again mounted his horse and went forth preaching from town to town. Our borders, he says, were enlarged. In the fall he passed to Baltimore Circuit, where he traveled some time with success. Thence be pressed forward to Frederick Circuit. Hostilities still prevailed there, and he met with vexations, or more serious trials, at almost every settlement. At one of His appointments two Baptist preachers had lately been driven away, dragged from their preaching-stand; when he arrived, three leading citizens confronted and threatened him, but his calm courage could not be daunted. One of them examined his theology, and finding it not Calvinistic, succumbed; the others deemed it politic to follow this example, and all finally concluded to allow him to preach, and to stay and hear him. He won the field, His opponents could hardly tell how; but it was by the power of that combined courage, calmness, and religious suavity which preeminently characterized him, and which compelled most of his opposers to feel that it was necessary to their own self-respect to treat him with respect. At his third appointment a stout persecutor thrust him from the door of the house in which he was to preach. A "small man," witnessing the scene, took him to his own house, defying the ruffian, and the itinerant courageously preached within hearing of the family from which he had been expelled.

Between Bladensburg and Baltimore he was to meet severer treatment. Under the ministry of one of his predecessors, the wife of a hardened opposer had been converted. The enraged husband determined to take revenge on the next itinerant who should make his appearance. As Gatch was riding along to his appointment, toward evening, followed by a procession of men, women, and children, on their way to hear him, two men seized the bridle of his horse and stopped him; others, till then in concealment, hailed the assailants, and the preacher was led up to the mob. They had made preparations for him and proceeded to tar him, "beginning at his left cheek." "The uproar," he writes, "now became very great, some swearing and some crying. My company was anxious to fight my way through. The women were especially resolute they dealt out their denunciations against the mob in unmeasured terms. With much persuasion I prevented my friends from using violent means. I told them I could bear it for Christ's sake. I felt an uninterrupted peace. My soul was joyful in the God of my salvation. The man who officiated called out for more tar, adding that I was 'true blue.' He laid it on liberally. At length one of the company cried out in mercy, 'It is enough.' The last stroke, made with the paddle with which the tar was applied, was drawn across the naked eyeball, which caused severe pain, from which I have never entirely recovered. In taking cold it often becomes inflamed, and quite painful. I was not taken from my horse, which was a very spirited animal. Two men held him by the bridle, while the one, elevated to a suitable height, applied the tar. My horse became so frightened that when they let him go he dashed off with such violence that I could not rein him up for some time, and narrowly escaped having my brains dashed out against a tree. If I ever felt for the souls of men I did for theirs. When I got to my appointment, the Spirit of the Lord so overpowered me that I fell prostrate before him for my enemies. He again conquered, not withstanding this outrageous treatment; for the leader of the mob, who had applied the tar, and several of his associates, were afterward converted. But a conspiracy was formed by others to waylay, if not to murder the preacher. A number of ruffians concealed themselves under a bridge with weapons to attack him when he should pass over it. The design was revealed to some of his friends, and one of them rode over the bridge, while he was sent around on another road. The conspirators rushed upon his friend, but were confounded when they discovered not the preacher, but one of their own neighbors. Gatch escaped, and went on his way rejoicing and preaching.

Having failed in this attempt, his enemies circulated the worse slanders against him. They reported hat he had been shot for robbing a man; that he had blacked himself for the purpose; but on being washed was found to be "Gatch the Methodist Preacher." No part of the country needed more such evangelical laborers as Gatch, for not a few of its population were in extreme demoralization. They had nearly destroyed the life of a young exhorter by waylaying and whipping him; the "shirt upon his back, though made of the most substantial material, being literally cut to pieces." Gatch and his fellow itinerants were no cowards; they gathered courage from their trials; and though they followed the Scripture precept, when persecuted in one city to flee to another, yet it was their policy to return in due time to the scene of hostilities, and never finally succumb. In four weeks he rode again to the same appointment where he had been "tarred" and threatened at the bridge. He thus refuted the report of his death as a robber. His friends had formed a guard for him, but he had no need of their aid. "I never," he says, "missed an appointment from the persecutions through which I had to pass, or the dangers to which I was exposed. I sometimes felt great timidity, but in the hour of danger my fears always vanished." The persecutions on Frederick Circuit were thus ended.

His next appointment was on Hanover Circuit, in Virginia. It extended along both sides of James River through six counties. The Baptists had preceded the Methodists in all this region, and "had rolled back the wave of persecution." Shubal Stearns and Daniel Marshall, two of their faithful evangelists, converts of Whitefield, had traversed it, sowing "the good seed." John Hailer had endured fiery trials, being imprisoned at different times a hundred and thirteen days. Jarratt and McRoberts had also repeatedly passed through the settlements, sounding the alarm, and there were now large congregations and zealous worshippers at the circuit appointments. Gatch had to preach mostly in the open air, for no house could contain his hearers. His health gave way. "It seemed at last," he says, "that his lungs were entirely gone. Frequently I would have to raise myself up in the bed to get my breath. I felt it even a difficulty to live. The sensation of my whole system was as though thousands of pins were piercing me. While in the North I had to contend with persecution; now bodily affliction attended me."

Jarratt sheltered and consoled him. "He lived," says Gatch, "in the bounds of this circuit. He labored extensively, and was very useful. Several preachers were raised up under his ministry, who became connected with our Society, and some of them itinerated. He fitted up his barn for our accommodation, and it became a regular preaching-place, where quarterly meetings were occasionally held. The hospitalities of his house were generously conferred upon us, and he was truly a nursing father to Methodist preachers. Mr. Shadford had spent the principal part of his time, for two years, on this circuit. His ministry had been owned of the Lord. Great numbers had embraced religion; some professed sanctification, and the Societies were comfortably established in the Gospel of their salvation."

In 1777 he was sent to Sussex Circuit, Va., but his enfeebled health rendered him comparatively ineffective. Here also he had trials from persecutors. While riding to an appointment on a Sabbath morning, he was seized by two strong men, who caught hold of his arms and turned them, in opposite directions, with such violence, that he thought his shoulders would be dislocated, causing a torture which he supposed must resemble that of the rack — the severest pain he had ever felt. His shoulders were so bruised that they turned black, and it was a considerable time before he recovered the use of them. His lungs were also worse than ever. It seemed necessary for him to give up his work, but the circuit being divided, he attempted to take charge of the part of it which lay on the north side of James River. "We enlarged our borders," he writes; "doors were freely opened, many received the Gospel in the love of its benefits, and by the Conference, we had formed a four-weeks' circuit."

His ill health continued, and he was compelled to retreat; he was also now a married man; at the Conference of 1778 his name disappears from the list of appointments. There was then no "supernumerary relation" recognized by that body; a preacher without an appointment was therefore without a record. Gatch located his family on a humble farm in Powhattan County, Virginia, but continued to labor in the ministry as his health would allow. One of his friends, referring to this period of his retirement, records that "He generally preached twice on the Sabbath, sometimes from ten to fifteen miles distant, attended many funerals, frequently administered the ordinance of baptism and matrimony. Many became convicted and were converted through his instrumentality. His house was a retreat for Methodist preachers, and his company much desired by them. He stood high as a preacher among ministers of other denominations, as well as those of his own Church, and was beloved by all Christians."

It was here that he liberated his slaves, nine in number, who had come into his possession by his marriage. He declared manfully in the deed of emancipation, "Know all men by these presents, that I, Philip Gatch, of Powhattan County, Virginia, do believe that all men are by nature equally free; and from a clear conviction of the injustice of depriving my fellow creatures of their natural rights, do hereby emancipate and set free the following persons."

Asbury regretted the disappearance of Gatch's name from the Minutes, and frequently recommended its reinsertion, insisting that he still belonged to the itinerant ministry, for he still labored extensively in his new neighborhood, and he had never, by his own act or that of the Conference, been formally dismissed from that body. After his removal to the West, whither we shall hereafter follow him, it was restored to the record. We shall have occasion to retrace his important services during the present period in the sessions of the Annual Conference, particularly in connection with the sacramental controversy. He and Watters, the first two native Methodist itinerants, were in the opposite parties of that controversy, and by their prudence and conciliatory loyalty saved the denomination from imminent disasters. He did active service for the Conference even when his name no longer appeared in its list of appointments. As the English preachers had retired before the storm of the Revolution, and Asbury was in confinement, the session of that body in 1777 appointed a committee of five to take the general superintendency of the denomination. It consisted of Gatch, Dromgoole, Glendenning, Ruff, and Watters. Gatch served in this capacity till Asbury could again venture into the open field. His services are however unnoticed in the published Minutes. It was yet the day of primitive simplicity in the Church; its annual records or Minutes seldom exceed a page in print; they record no names except of men who actually take appointments, save only that of Asbury; those who fall martyrs in their work are left in silence to the "record on high;" there are no "superannuates," no "supernumeraries," and down to 1779 no "locations" noticed. Even at this date the "locations" are not yet distinguished from secessions — all who retire from the itinerancy are classed as "desisting from traveling," and disappear from the record, however laborious may be their subsequent services as "local preachers."

It is difficult to trace with exactness, through he present period, the labors of Benjamin Abbott, in many respects the most remarkable evangelist in the eventful field. This mighty but simple-minded apostle, intent only on the spiritual results of his humble mission, seldom pauses to note dates or localities. It is his "next appointment," and again, and still again, his "next appointment," with the marvelous effects of the truth that he records; hurrying us forward with intense interest, with frequent and bewildering surprises at the mysterious power of the man, and at both the spiritual and physical phenomena which it produces. If we can pause at all over his exciting narrative, it is to wonder at the moral, the beneficent efficacy of his ministrations, the peculiar, the magnetic eloquence of his unpolished discourse, and the questionable if not inexplicable problems of its physical effects. Seldom does he preach without some of these "physical phenomena;" his hearers by tens and scores fall like dead men to the earth. If he is himself, at first, astonished at these wonders, his simple and honest mind has a very direct logic respecting them. They are "insanity," they are "demoniacal," cry out shrewd and self-possessed spectators. Wait, replies the evangelist, let us see how these slain come to life again. If they are insane they will show it; if these strange things are of the devil they will recover their self-possession blaspheming and be worse than they were before. They "come to," not in general, but invariably, with words of praise upon their lips, with grateful tears, with resolutions and strength to live a new life. "Stand still," cried Abbott to gainsayers, "stand still and see the salvation of God." Intellectually he was incapable of other reasoning on the subject, and went forward preaching, swaying and prostrating his wondering congregations. The preaching of no early Methodist itinerant was attended with more of these marvels, but they were not peculiar to him. Edwards had recorded them in his account of the "Great Awakening." They had occurred in the scene of Abbott's present labors in New Jersey, as we have seen, under the preaching of the Presbyterian evangelists of Whitefield's day. Among the severe-minded Scotch Whitefield's preaching had produced them, and cool, stout-hearted men had been carried out of his great congregations "as if slain in battle." They had attended Wesley's calm, perspicuous preaching, even before the powerful oratory of Whitefield produced them. Wesley could never reach any conclusive opinion of their character, though he instituted, at Newcastle, a sort of scientific investigation of their causes and symptoms. At one time he admits them to be the effect of divine influence; at another he suspects a diabolical cause. Charles Wesley conclusively condemned and endeavored to repress them. Richard Watson has expressed the general sentiment of Methodists respecting them, that though they are evidently physical, arising from some occult nervous susceptibility, peculiar, perhaps, to certain constitutions, they do not prove that an extraordinary work of God is not at the same time going on in the hearts of persons so affected; that by the exercise of a firm discipline, then most of all to be exerted, they are as far as possible to be repressed, "for the power of the work does not lie in them," and that yet discipline, though firm, ought to be cautious, for the sake of the real blessing, with which at such seasons God is crowning the administration of his truth. [2]

We shall hereafter have to record frequent examples of these "phenomena," especially in the West, not always arising from Methodistic influence, but, in the most extraordinary instance, from the ministrations of another denomination. Apparently a specific effect of religious excitement, on a peculiar cerebral susceptibility, they have been common to all religions. The tranquil Friends owe their name of "Quakers" to them. The devotees of Brahma and of Bhudda, the Dervishes of Islamism, the Convulsionaires of France, the Mystics of all faiths and all ages, have afforded examples of them. In our day they have occurred almost on a national scale in Ireland, in connection with a salutary religious interest. Our future science can alone give their just solution. But science has its pride and its Pharisaism, as unbefitting to it as the same vices are to religion; it affected at first to ridicule Hervey, Jenner, Galileo, and Copernicus. A fastidious repugnance to the charge of charlatanism has led it, in the present age, to ignore or impute solely to imposture, falsely called "spiritualistic" phenomena, which have deluded half the civilized world, which have afforded the most palpable data for investigation, and in which imposture has evidently been but exceptional, while an occult and profoundly interesting scientific law has been indicated; a law the ascertainment of which would probably disclose the as yet dim and misty intermediate region that connects the material and immaterial worlds. The scientific solution of these mysteries might dispel a vast amount of superstition, and afford beneficent reliefs to our psychological and theological science.

To the student of such marvels the autobiography of Abbott offers the most curious data; a magnetic power, if such it can be called, which, intensified by his piety, was as irresistible, to certain temperaments, as the electricity of lightning — a seemingly clairvoyant discernment, a somnambulic insight and foresight, in dreams; facts that would be incredible, were not his honesty absolutely unquestionable, and were they not so circumstantially given, and so well known in the community among whom his narrative was circulated, as to silence all denial. Few if any men were better known, in his day, throughout New Jersey, than Benjamin Abbott. He was not only generally respected, but beloved. The natural kindliness of his temper, the unction of his religious feelings, the purity and simplicity of his life, his quiet courage, the fatherly tenderness of his manners, the richness, in fine, of his nature in all those qualities which make "the whole world kin," and to which the unsophisticated common mind so readily responds in popular assemblies, made him dear, not only to all devout but to all honest men. He was generally addressed as "Father Abbott;" many delighted to call him their "spiritual father;" and not rarely were public assemblies melted into tears by the sight of robust men, hardy but reclaimed sinners, rushing into his arms and weeping with filial gratitude upon his neck. [3]

He traveled and preached for years without one cent of compensation, except his hospitable entertainment among the people. Frugal and industrious, he sustained his family by tilling a small farm, hiring laborers that he might alternate his manual toils with itinerant excursions; and, when he preached, within convenient proximity to his farm, he led his workmen to his meetings, paying them for their time at the rate that he paid for their labor. All his family were members of the Church, and shared his zeal; one of his sons went forth an itinerant; the remainder of the household made their home a sort of chapel; it was the resort of earnest inquirers, often from a distance; and at such visits not only the father, but the mother, and child after child, took part in the customary prayers and exhortations. Many a visitor went from the door with his face turned forever heavenward. He had a chapel erected in his neighborhood, for which he begged money and timber, from house to house. Though he was not yet fifty years old, his appearance was unusually paternal, if not patriarchal; his person was large, his countenance bland, his manners marked by religious tenderness. He dressed with Quaker-like simplicity, and his broad-brimmed hat and straight coat added not a little to the attraction of his devout temper among the numerous "Friends" of New Jersey. They frequented his appointments, entertained him at their homes, and urged him to preach in their Meeting-houses. "Thee appears so much like us we will welcome thee," said their own preachers to him. They liked him the more for his Quaker doctrine about war, then raging in the land. He was a sound patriot, but could not approve fighting, though in early life a formidable pugilist. "My call is to preach salvation to sinners," he said; "to wage war against the works of the devil. He was sometimes assailed by troops. Then more than ever be blew the "trumpet of the Gospel," and never failed of victory. A major angrily attacked him for not "preaching up war." "I related to him," he says, "my conviction and conversion, and he was calm and wished me well." While the state was distracted with the marching and counter marching of troops, he was allowed to go on, in his own evangelical warfare, through its length and breadth. Like Christ on the highways, his preaching was "talk" to the people; he entered no house but as an evangelist, and his colloquial ministration of the truth probably did more good than His public discourses. "On my way to my next appointment," [4] he says, "I came to a small village, stopped at a house, and asked the man if they had any preaching there. He said, 'No.' I said; 'I am a preacher, and if you will give notice I will preach to the people.' But he replied, 'They do not want preaching here,' and appeared angry. I then told my experience to the man, his wife, and two young women; and the dreadful state that man is in by nature, and then pointed out a Saviour. One of the young women began to weep. I was very happy, and asked the man if I might pray; he gave me leave, and I said, 'Let us pray.' I had no sooner began than they wept aloud." Such was his simple method, as he "went about doing good," and it could seldom fail to be effectual. In this case the weeping family offered him dinner, and food for his horse. "I left them," he says, "all in tears. I saw one of the young women some time afterward, and she told me that she was awakened at that time, and had since found the Lord precious to her soul, and had joined a Methodist class."

He went to Trenton, but found the Methodist Chapel used as a stable by the army, and preached in the Presbyterian Church. He went forward and "preached in the evening to a crowded congregation," he writes, "and God poured out his Spirit in such a manner that one fell to the floor. A captain and some soldiers came to take me up, but the Spirit of God took him up in such a manner that he returned home crying to God for mercy. I saw him some time after, happy in God. We spent a precious time together, and parted in love. This meeting was a time of God's power; many were awakened to a sense of their danger, and the people of God were happy, and, for my part, I was very happy." He visits an uncle, whom he had not seen for seventeen years, and says: "As I sat my foot on the steps of the door the Spirit of the Lord came upon me. After asking them all how they did, I told them my experience. My uncle and aunt wept sore, and I cried out, 'The Lord is here!' A friend present said, 'He is come, for I feel his Spirit upon me,' which caused my aunt to wonder what this meant." They all accompany him to his next appointment, where there is "a melting time." He soon after meets them again, and finds his aunt thoroughly "awakened." Other relatives of his family learn the news; they meet him; and we had a weeping time," he writes, "all the evening. They said this is the religion of Jesus!" He forms a class among them, and sends to it a leader from Trenton. Many a Society does he form in this manner. He continues: "I went to my next appointment, where they had threatened to tar and feather me. Some advised me to go some other way; but when I arrived at the place I found a large congregation assembled, to whom I preached, and God attended the Word with power — many shed tears in abundance." They were now unwilling to let him go away. "As I was about to depart, two young men came to me; one took hold of my leg, and the other held my horse by the neck, and said, 'Will you go!' I sat on my horse for some time, exhorting them to per severe, and the Lord would bless them. Many more stood weeping; so we parted, and I went to the New Mills, (Pemberton,) where the people came out by hundreds, to whom I preached my farewell sermon. I returned home, and by Thursday night a letter was sent, informing me that sixteen were justified, and two sanctified. The reading of this letter filled my soul with love, and I was determined to preach sanctification more than ever. I received a letter from a Presbyterian in Deerfield, that his house and heart were open to receive me, adding, 'When you read these lines look upon it as a call from God.' I accordingly wrote to him to make an appointment for me on the Sunday following. I attended, and found a large congregation, to whom I preached, and some few wept. I attended again that day two weeks, and we had a melting time. I then made an appointment for the traveling preacher. This and several other places in the neighborhood were taken into the circuit. The Lord began to work in a powerful manner, and we soon had two classes; then the devil roared horribly; but God worked powerfully, and blessed the Word, and sent it with power to many hearts; many fell under it like dead men, being alarmed of their danger. We appointed a watch-night. This brought so many to see what it meant that the house could not contain the people. One of our preachers preached, and then an exhortation was given; the Lord poured out his Spirit in such a manner that the slain lay all over the house; many others were prevented from falling by the crowd, which stood so close that they supported one another. We continued till about midnight; some stayed all night, and in the morning others came; several found peace, and many cried to God for mercy; it was a powerful time to many souls."

He went to a Quarterly Meeting on Morris River, "and," he writes, "we had a powerful time; the slain lay all through the house, and round it, and in the woods, crying to God for mercy, and others praising him for the deliverance of their souls. At this time there came up the river a look-out boat; the crew landed and came to the meeting; one of them stood by a woman that lay on the ground, crying to God for mercy, and said to her, 'Why do you not cry louder?' She immediately began to pray for him, and the power of the Lord struck him to the ground, and he lay and cried for mercy louder than the woman. This meeting continued from eleven o'clock till night."

These extraordinary effects sometimes spread through nearly his whole congregation, few escaping, except such as rushed out of the doors, or leaped out of the windows. If a temporary tumult ensued it was soon allayed, while the moral impression seemed to be permanent and salutary; many of the most noted reprobates of the county being reformed and converted at once into good Christians and good citizens.

He attended another quarterly meeting soon afterward, where "the Lord made bare his arm, and some fell to the floor, and others ran away." When he was about to depart an "old lady," he says, "put two dollars into my hand. This was the first money that I had ever received as a preacher; but He that was mindful of the young ravens was mindful of me. I had always traveled at my own charge before. When I received this I had but fifteen pence in my pocket, and was above two hundred miles from home."

His labors in all the region about Salem, noted at that time for its demoralization, were surprisingly successful. Some able preachers were raised up by him. Often a single sentence in his conversation left an ineffaceable impression. Taking leave of a family, he gave his hand to a military officer at the door, saying, "God, out of Christ, is a consuming fire. Farewell." "And so," he adds, "we parted; but God pursued him from the very door, and gave him no rest; before twelve o'clock that night he was out of bed on the floor at prayer. In about two months his soul was set at liberty, and he is a member of our Church at the present period." At one of his appointments near his residence one of his friends (a Quaker) and his family attended. "Before I concluded," he says, "himself, his wife, son, and daughter, were all struck under conviction, and never rested until they all found rest to their souls and joined our Society. About six months after the son died in a triumph of faith; the father was taken ill at the funeral and never went out of his house again, until carried to his grave. He departed this life praising God in a transport of joy. By this time there was a general alarm spread through the neighborhood. We had prayer-meetings, two or three times a week, and at almost every meeting some were either convinced or converted. Next morning a young man came to my house to know what he must do to be saved. I applied the promises of the Gospel, and then prayed, and after me my wife, and then my daughter Martha. While supplicating the throne of grace on his behalf; the Lord, in his infinite goodness, spoke peace to his soul; and we were all made partakers of the blessing. He joined Society, lived several years, and died clapping his hands, and shouting, 'Glory to God! I am going home!' "

Such humble labors with such positive results (however fastidiously we may criticize their incidental irregularities) could not fail of a general impression. The Society in the neighborhood of his residence increased; hitherto he had preached to them under the trees of the forest; he now projected his chapel, and Methodism was thus securely founded in that vicinity, and spread out dominantly into many neighboring towns.

For some time Abbott had been intimate with James Sterling, Esq., of whom the historian of the denomination, in New Jersey, says that probably no layman in the state "ever did more to advance religion and Methodism." [5] A merchant of rare ability and great wealth, an officer in the American Revolution, a citizen of universal esteem and influence, this zealous layman devoted himself to the new Church in the day of its deepest humility. He accompanied Abbott in many of his excursions, and often exhorted in his congregations. His house at Burlington was the home of not only Methodist itinerants, but of Christian ministers of all denominations. His friend, Rev. Ezekiel Cooper, says that "It is believed he has entertained in his house and contributed toward the support of more preachers of the Gospel than any other man in the state, if not in the United States." For half a century he thus consecrated his home and his secular business to the promotion of religion. [6]

In the latter part of 1780 Abbott writes: "I had been pressed in spirit for some time to visit Pennsylvania, and, in the love and fear of God, I set out with my life in my hand, it being a time when war was raging through the land." He crossed the Delaware at New Castle, and opened his mission in that town to "a pack of ruffians" who had met to mob him. One of them stood before him with a bottle of rum in his hand, threatening to throw it at his head. Abbott preached on, however, dealing out to them "the terrors of the law" in a manner he had seldom done before. At his second appointment, in Wilmington, the usual "physical phenomena" of his preaching took place; one of his hearers fell to the floor. He pressed forward, preaching daily. On his way to a place near Newark, Del., [7] not knowing his route, he stopped at a house to inquire about it; his informant promised to accompany him, remarking that a Methodist itinerant was to be there that day, and that his own preacher designed to meet and entrap the intruder. A neighbor, who was a constable, soon joined them; "so," writes Abbott, "we set off, and they soon fell into conversation about the preacher, having no idea of my being the man, as I never wore black, or any kind of garb that indicated my being a preacher, and so I rode unsuspected. The constable, being a very profane man, swore by all the gods he had, good and bad, that he would lose his right arm from his body if the Methodist preacher did not go to jail that day. This was the theme of their discourse. My mind was greatly exercised on the occasion, and what added, as it were, double weight, I was a stranger in a strange place, where I knew no one. When we arrived at the place appointed I saw about two hundred horses hitched. I also hitched mine, and retired into the woods, where I prayed and covenanted with God on my knees, that if he stood by me in this emergency I would be more for him, through grace, than ever I had been. I then arose and went to my horse with a perfect resignation to the will of God, whether for death or for jail. I took my saddle-bags and went to the house; the man took me into a private room and desired I would preach in favor of the war, as I was in a Presbyterian settlement. I replied I should preach as God should direct me. He appeared very uneasy and left me; just before preaching he came in again and renewed his request that I would preach up for war; I replied as before, and then followed him out among the people, where he made proclamation as follows: 'Gentlemen, this house is my own, and no one shall be interrupted in my house in time of his discourse, but after he has done you may do as you please.' Thank God, said I softly, that I have liberty once more to warn sinners before I die. I then took my stand, and the house was so crowded that no one could sit down. Some hundreds were round about the door. I stood about two or three feet from the constable who had sworn so bitterly. When he saw that I was the man he had abused on the way, with so many threats and oaths, his countenance felt and he turned pale. I gave out a hymn, but no one offered to sing; I sung four lines and kneeled down and prayed. When I arose I preached with great liberty. I felt such power from God rest upon me that I was above the fear of either men or devils, not regarding whether death or jail should be my lot. Looking forward I saw a decent looking man trembling, and his tears flowing in abundance, which I soon discovered was the case with many others. After preaching, I told them I expected they wanted to know by what authority I had come into that country to preach. I then told them my conviction and conversion, the place of my nativity, and place of residence; also, my call to the ministry, and that seven years I had labored in God's vineyard; that I spent my own money and found my own clothes, and that it was the love that I had for their souls, for whom Christ died, that had induced me to come among them at the risk of my life, and exhorted them to fly to Jesus for safety; that all things were ready; to seek, and they should find, to knock, and it should be opened unto them. By this time the people were generally melted into tears. I then concluded, and told them on that day two weeks they might expect preaching again. I mounted my horse and set out with a friendly Quaker for a pilot. We had not rode above fifty yards when I heard one hallooing after us. I looked back and saw about fifty running toward us. I then concluded that to jail I must go. We stopped, and when they came up, 'I crave your name,' said one; I told him, and so we parted. He was a justice of the peace, and was the person that I had taken notice of in time of preaching, observing him to be in great anxiety of mind. No one offered me any violence; but they committed the next preacher, on that day two weeks, to the common jail. I went home with the kind Quaker, where I tarried all night. I found that he and his wife were under serious impressions, and had had Methodist preaching at their house. They were very kind, and we spent the evening in conversing on the things of God."

He soon penetrated to Soudersburg, a German settlement, where "the Lord wrought wonders; divers fell to the floor, and several found peace. Many tarried to hear what I had seen through the land of the wonderful works of God. The people cried aloud, and continued all night in prayer." He was welcomed by Rev. Martin Boehm, in Lancaster County. Boehm, as we have seen, was one of the founders, and at last one of the bishops of the "German Methodists," or, "United Brethren." Strawbridge had visited and labored with him; Peter Allbright, founder of the "Allbright Methodists," was one of the good German's converts. Boehm had formed a sort of circuit, consisting of four appointments; one of these, near his residence, was made a regular preaching place for the Methodist itinerants, and his own house was their hospitable home. The region became a stronghold of Methodism. Asbury visited it often; Boehm was one of his most confidential friends and counselors, and his son, Henry Boehm, joined the Methodist itinerancy, and became the bishop's traveling companion. [8]

Abbott was accompanied to Boehm's Village by quite a procession, twenty at least of the zealous Methodists of Soudersburg following him on the route. His introduction to this new scene was attended, in an extraordinary manner, by those "physical demonstrations" which had occurred under his preaching in New Jersey, and which were comparatively unknown among these quiet, rustic people. They began spontaneously as soon as he appeared among them. "When I came to my appointment," he says, "the power of the Lord came in such a manner that the people fell all about the house, and their cries might be heard afar off. This alarmed the wicked, who sprang for the doors." To tranquilize the excitement, he read a hymn and called upon a friend to raise the tune; but as soon as the latter attempted it he was struck down, and lay as a dead man. Another repeated the attempt, but fell in like manner. Abbott himself then began to sing, but, he says, "as soon as I began, the power of God came upon me in such a manner that I cried out, and was amazed. Prayer was all through the house, upstairs and down." The veteran Boehm looked on with wonder, and exclaimed that it was a return of the apostolic Pentecost. After some time Abbott and he retired for refreshment, preparatory for a watchnight service, which was to begin at five o'clock. On their return they found prostrate multitudes weeping, praying, or apparently dead, in all parts of the house. Invariably, as they recovered their self-possession, they appeared in unimpaired health, uttering rapturous adorations. Boehm, and other German preachers, shared in the exercises of the watchnight. Under the discourse of Abbott many fell to the floor, and many fled out of the house. The services continued all night. At sunrise the next morning some were still lingering in prayer. A sensation spread through all the regions round about, and scores of the people followed the wonderful itinerant to his next appointment.

History cannot ignore these facts, to whatever doubtful construction they may be liable. Science, physiological, psychological, and theological, claims them as her data for future and important inquiries. If it be said that they arose from some peculiarity of the physical temperament of the preacher; that men of equal piety and superior ability, passing over these same regions, never produced them; that Asbury himself, gathering into the denomination its most valuable members at this period, seldom or never witnessed them as effects of his own powerful ministry; still these suggestions do not solve them, nor impeach the moral efficacy of Abbott's preaching. Hundreds of reprobate men were reformed amid such scenes, and, after long and holy lives, died repeating, in their last utterances, the shouts of praise which at these meetings appeared clamorous disorders. If they are condemned as human infirmities, still may there not be a genuine operation of divine grace amid, and in spite of, such infirmities, and is it indeed possible that so profound a revolution as the awakening and regeneration of the human soul can take place without involving more or less its infirmities? Even if these anomalous effects be attributed to a peculiar physical power of Abbott, still does such a fact render questionable the genuineness of the moral effects of his ministry? Are not the natural, even the physical peculiarities of public speakers, legitimate sources of their power — their vocal peculiarities, the sensibility of their temperaments for pathos, sublimity, or fear? And if there be, in the human constitution, some yet unascertained power of sympathetic action on surrounding minds, may not this be sanctified and used by the divine Spirit, as are other physical or mental qualifications, especially in extraordinary periods, like that through which Methodism was now awakening the land amid demoralization and war? If it be said that such extraordinary excitements need peculiar repressive caution, Methodists generally assent, believing, however, with one of their highest authorities, already cited, that the exercise of discipline in such cases, while it "should be firm, should also be discriminating, for the sake of the real blessing," which may be attending the preaching of the truth.

Abbott passed on to his next appointment convoyed by forty persons. "God there laid to his helping hand. Many cried aloud for mercy; many wept around" him when he dismissed them: "some were truly awakened, and others deeply convicted." He had written to his friend James Sterling, of Burlington, giving an account of the wonders of his journey, and inviting him to hasten to his help. Sterling reached him at Upper Octorara, and, though a layman, worked energetically with him; and at times his own vigorous mind was so overpowered by the prevailing excitement that he too fell, as dead, among the many who were slain by the mighty word of the preacher. At their first appointment the house was crowded, and many fell to the floor. An aged Presbyterian accosted Abbott, and declared the strange scene to be diabolical. "If it be so," he replied, "when these people revive they will prove it by their language; wait and see." "Soon after one of them came to, and he began to praise God with a loud voice; and soon another, and so on, until divers of them bore testimony for Jesus. 'Hark, hark,' said I to my old opponent, 'brother, do you hear them? this is not the language of hell, but the language of Canaan.' I then appointed prayer-meeting at a friend's house in the neighborhood. After the people had gathered I saw my old opponent among them. I gave out a hymn, and Brother Sterling prayed, and after him myself. I had spoken but a few words before Brother Sterling fell to the floor, and soon after him every soul in the house, except myself and my old Presbyterian opponent, and two others. I arose and gave an exhortation, and the two men fell, one as if he had been shot, and then there was every soul down in the house, except myself and my old opponent. He began immediately to dispute the point, telling me it was all delusion, and the work of Satan. I told him to stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. As they came to they all praised God." The next morning Sterling and others were again prostrated in a prayer-meeting. They hastened to another appointment, where Abbott was again surprised to observe his "Presbyterian opponent." In a few minutes after the sermon began an alarm was given in the congregation. "I looked around," says Abbott, "and saw it was from my old opponent. He was trembling like Belshazzar. I told them to let him alone and to look to themselves, for it was the power of God that had arrested him. They let him go, and down he fell as one dead. Next morning we went to our appointment, where we had a large congregation. Looking round I saw my old Presbyterian friend again. This was nine miles distance from my former appointment. I felt great freedom in speaking. A woman began to shake in a powerful manner, and fell on the floor. I bid them to look to themselves, and went on with my discourse. Some wept, some sighed, and some groaned. When I dismissed the people, not one offered to go. I gave them an exhortation: they wept all through the house. I then said, 'If any can speak for God, say on, for I can speak no more.' Who should arise but my old Presbyterian opponent, and began with informing them that he was not one of this sect; that he had been with me four days, and that he never had seen the power of God in this way before; and added, 'It is the power of God!' and gave a warm exhortation for about three quarters of an hour."

Abbott and his companion, Sterling, continued their travels and labors without intermission, almost everywhere attended with such remarkable scenes. They passed over all the ground, then cultivated by Methodism in Pennsylvania, except Philadelphia, Bethel, (Montgomery County,) and Germantown. [9] In about thirty days he had preached twenty-nine sermons, and held nearly twenty other meetings. Scores, if not hundreds, of his hearers were awakened or converted. Large districts of Delaware and Pennsylvania were aroused with astonishment and religious interest. He returned by way of Wilmington and New Castle so exhausted that when he reached his home his friend supposed he "could never preach again;" but it was not long before he was again crossing the Delaware, on his way to Kent Circuit, Maryland, now traveled by his son, David Abbott. There the same singular power attended his word, kindling extraordinary interest from town to town. He opened his commission at Elkton. It is the first time that we hear of Methodism in that neighborhood. There was no class there at the time. He next appeared at the head of the Sassafras River, where he had a "powerful time." "Some were awakened, and inquired what they must do to be saved;" and he rejoiced to find a small class already gathered. The next day "God attended the word with power; many wept, both blacks and whites." In the Class-meeting "many fell to the floor, among whom was the man of the house." The following day, being Sunday, similar effects attended him in a barn; the people fell as if shot in battle, while "others cried for mercy." He was now on Bohemia Manor, so notable a place in early Methodism. At another appointment, the same day, more than a thousand hearers gathered around him in the woods. "The Lord preached from heaven in his Spirit's power, and the people fell on the right and on the left. Many were ready to flee." He told them "to stand still and look to themselves, for God Almighty is come into the camp." They kept their places, and he continued to invite them "to fly to Jesus for safety. It was a great day to many souls." He hastened to his afternoon appointment, leaving the slain and wounded on the field. At the next place he found "a large congregation assembled," and preached "with great liberty; many fell to the earth, both white and black, some as dead men," while others "cried aloud to God." Thus he continued, from place to place, with scarcely varying effect, till he arrived near Kent Meeting-house, (Hinson's Chapel,) where a still more remarkable scene occurred. Many hundreds were collected at a funeral service, which was conducted by a church clergyman, who, after the usual forms and a sermon, invited Abbott to address the assembly. A tempest had been rising, covering the heavens; "two clouds appeared to approach from different quarters and met over the house. The people crowded in, upstairs and down, to screen themselves from the storm. With some difficulty the evangelist made his way through the throng, and took his stand on one of the benches. Almost as soon as he "began, the Lord out of heaven began also." The tremendous claps of thunder exceeded anything he had ever heard, and the streams of lightning flashed through the house in "a most awful manner. The very foundations shook, the windows jarred with the violence thereof." He lost no time, but "set before them the awful coming of Christ, in all his splendor, with all the armies of heaven, to judge the world, and to take vengeance on the ungodly." The people wept, cried aloud, and fell all through the house. One "old sinner" attempted to escape, but fell to the floor as dead. The lightning, thunder, and rain "continued for about one hour in the most awful manner ever known in that country," during which time he continued to "set before the people the coming of Christ to judge the world, warning and inviting them to flee to him."

Many were "convinced and many converted" on that great day. Fourteen years later, while Abbott was passing through the same region, he met "twelve living witnesses," who informed him that they dated their salvation from it, and enumerated others who had died in the faith, and some who had moved out of the neighborhood, who began their Christian life at that memorable time. It was long an occasion of general interest in the neighborhood, and old Methodists of Kent County were accustomed to speak with wonder of what they called "Abbott's thunder-gust sermon." "Between the voice of the Lord from heaven and the voice of his servant in the house, the people had never known such a time. [10] Sterling again joined him in this neighborhood, and they pursued together their travels and labors from town to town, among whites and blacks, attended constantly with these astonishing demonstrations. After a fortnight, during which the whole territory of Kent Circuit had been aroused with interest, they returned to New Jersey. "I desire," wrote Abbott when again under his own humble roof "to be ever truly thankful to the great Author of all good, who has brought me in safety to my habitation in peace, and has attended his unworthy dust, when absent in his service, with his Spirit's power, for which my soul adores the God and Rock of my salvation.

In October, this tireless laborer was again in Delaware, relieving his son on Dover Circuit, and scenes, equally extraordinary with those already cited, were of almost daily occurrence, as he advanced from town to town; the same questionable physical effects, the same unquestionable moral results. His simple logic respecting the former sometimes hesitated, but not long. He records an instance which affords a fuller description than has yet been given of the symptoms of this "religious catalepsy." [11] "Next day I went," he writes, "to my appointment, where I was informed the children of the devil were greatly offended, and intended that day to kill me; here I had a crowded congregation. The word was attended with power. Several attempted to go out, but the crowd about the door obliged them to stay in. They began quickly to fall to the floor and to cry aloud. One young man that was struck to the floor was for three hours apparently dead; his flesh grew cold, his fingers so stiff, and spread open, that they would not yield. His blood was stagnated to his elbows. Many said, He is dead. I now began to be greatly exercised, it being the first time I ever had any fears that any one would expire under the mighty power of God. Very great and various were my exercises at this time, and I concluded I would go home, and not proceed a step further, as killing people would not answer; but at last he came to, and as soon as he could speak he praised God for what he had done for his soul!"

If he met with opposition, as he often did, from his own brethren, on account of these startling effects of his discourses, he was only the more confirmed in his own honest interpretation of them by his opponents themselves; for they usually became the most striking examples of his mysterious power. He records, in this excursion, an appointment in a Methodist local preacher's house; "he having heard what was going on, began to tell me he looked upon it all as confusion, for that God was a God of order. However, the people gathered, and I preached. The power of God seized a woman sitting before me; she began to tremble and fell to the floor. Many wept. I had not spoken long before the slain and wounded lay all through the house, and among the rest the local preacher; some crying for mercy, and others praising God for what he had done for them, testifying that he had justified them, and set their souls at liberty. I desired the class to stop, and I spoke first to the local preacher. What do you think of it now, my brother — is it the work of God or not? O! said he, I never thought that God would pour out his Spirit in such a manner, for I could not move hand or foot, any more than if I had been dead; but I am as happy as I can live."

He reached Judge White's house, where he met Asbury and a score of other preachers, on their way to a quarterly meeting at Barratt's Chapel. The itinerants were astonished at the simplicity and power of Abbott. His sermon in the chapel was overwhelming; some of the hearers fell to the floor, others fled out of the house, many sobbed and prayed aloud. Asbury sent him to a neighboring gentleman's house for lodging during the night, but there, while at family prayers, three persons fell, as dead, under the singing of a hymn, one being the lady of the house, and under the prayer "several others" were prostrated; the "man of the house, who was a backslider, was restored;" they continued in prayer three hours. Of course the love-feast the next morning was a joyous scene. Abbott had never been in so large and goodly a company of preachers. The crowd of people was great; as many around the house as in it. "It was a precious time — attended with power." His expedition ended here; it had been successful, and he returned home with a thankful heart. He was now known through much of the land as one of the most extraordinary preachers of Methodism — a Boanerges — before whom gainsayers, persecutors, mobs, either yielded, or were prostrated. He was soon to leave house and lands, and, entering the "regular itinerancy," extend his labors and triumphs to other parts of the country, where we shall meet him again.

Meanwhile one of the most distinguished itinerants of the times had entered the field in the South. [12] We have already seen the youthful Jesse Lee introduced into the Church, on Robert Williams' Circuit, in Virginia, a convert in the great revival which was so long maintained by Williams, Jarratt, and their fellow-laborers. As this great awakening advanced in 1775, he says, "I felt a sweet distress in my soul for holiness of heart and life. I sensibly felt, while I was seeking purity of heart, that I grew in grace and in the knowledge of God. This concern of soul lasted some time, till at length I could say, I have nothing but the love of Christ in my heart. My soul was continually happy in God. The world with all its charms was crucified to me, and I crucified to the world."

Thus endued with power from on high, while yet in His eighteenth year, he was maturing for the great work before him. Several occasions for the exercise of his gifts in public exhortation occurred about this time, but his natural diffidence made him shrink from them, and might have long interfered with his entrance into the ministry, had not domestic circumstances providentially led, in 1777 to his removal to North Carolina, where, away from the embarrassing associations of his native neighborhood, he felt more courage for such untried efforts. Here he was appointed a Class Leader, and was soon exhorting in public. In 1779 he preached his first sermon in North Carolina. Endowed with quick sensibility and ready utterance, he immediately became a popular speaker; yet he writes, "I was so sensible of my own weakness and insufficiency that, after I had preached, I would retire to the woods and prostrate myself on the ground, and weep before the Lord, praying that he would pardon the imperfections of my preaching, and give me strength to declare his whole counsel in purity."

In 1780 his destined career, as a preacher of Methodism, seemed about to be defeated by an unexpected trial. He was drafted into the Revolutionary army, and was compelled to go into camp. His conscience revolted from war. "I weighed the matter over and over again," he says, "but my mind was settled; as a Christian and as a preacher of the Gospel, I could not fight. I could not reconcile it to myself to bear arms, or to kill one of my fellow creatures. However I determined to go, and to trust in the Lord, and accordingly prepared for my journey." He was nearly two weeks on his way to the camp. On the evening that he came in sight of it he "lifted up his heart to God, and," he adds, "besought him to take my cause into his own hands and support me in the hour of trial." He was ordered on parade. The sergeant offered him a gun, but be would not take it; the lieutenant brought him another, but he refused it. The lieutenant reported the case to the colonel, and returned again with a gun and set it down against him; he still declined to take it; he was then delivered to the guard. The colonel came and remonstrated with him, but unable to answer his objections, left him again to the custody of the guard. Far away from his brethren, solitary amid the clamors and vices of the camp, considered as a fanatic or a maniac, he knew not what would be the issue of his singular condition, but he was determined to obey his conscience, to test Providence, to "stand still" in the strength of his religious faith, "and see the salvation of God."

He not only refused to violate his conscience by bearing arms, he remembered that he was panoplied for a higher warfare, and immediately set himself about it. "After dark I told the guard," he says, "we must pray before we sleep, and, there being a Baptist under guard, I asked him to pray, which he did. I then told the people that if they would come out early in the morning I would pray with them. I felt remarkably happy in God under all my trouble, and did not doubt but that I should be delivered in due time. Some of the soldiers brought me straw to lay upon, and offered me their blankets and great coats for covering. I slept pretty well that night, which was the first and the last night I was ever under guard. As soon as it was light, I was up and began to sing; some hundreds soon assembled and joined with me, and we made the plantation ring with the songs of Zion. We then knelt down and prayed; while I was praying my soul was happy in God; I wept much and prayed loud, and many of the poor soldiers also wept. I do not think that I ever felt more willing to suffer, for the sake of religion, than I did at that time."

He went further. A neighboring innkeeper, while yet in bed, heard his early prayer, was affected to tears, and came entreating him to preach. In a short time the man of God was standing on a bench near the tent of his commanding officer, proclaiming as his text, "Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." "I was enabled," he says, "to speak plainly and without fear; and I wept while endeavoring to declare my message. Many of the people, officers as well as men, were bathed in tears before I was done. That meeting afforded me an ample reward for all my trouble. At its close, some of the gentlemen went about with their hats, to make a collection of money for me, at which I was very uneasy, and ran in among the people begging them to desist." When his colonel heard of his preaching, "It affected him very much," says Lee, "so he came and took me out to talk with me on the subject of bearing arms. I told him I could not kill a man with a good conscience, but I was a friend to my country, and was willing to do any thing I could while I continued in the army, except that of fighting. He then asked me if I would be willing to drive their baggage-wagon. I told him I would, though I had never driven a wagon before. He said their main cook was a Methodist, and could drive the wagon when we were on a march, and I might lodge and eat with him, to which I agreed. He then released me from guard."

For nearly four months was he detained in the army, suffering severe privations and trials, fatiguing marches, want of food, the clamorous profanity of the camp, and sickness that, in one instance, endangered his life, but during which he was "comforted to find that he had no doubt of his salvation," "for," he adds, "I believed that should the Lord see fit to remove me from this world, I should be called to join the armies of heaven."

During these sufferings he continued to preach whenever circumstances admitted, and not without effect on his hardy hearers. "Many of them," he says on one occasion, "were very solemn, and some of them wept freely under the preaching of the word. I was happy in God, and thankful to him for the privilege of warning the wicked once more. It was a great cross for me to go forward in matters of so much importance, where there were few to encourage and many to oppose; but I knew that I had to give an account to God for my conduct in the world; I felt the responsibility laid upon me, and was resolved to open my mouth for him. I often thought I had more cause to praise and adore him for his goodness than any other person. For some weeks I hardly ever prayed in public, or preached, or reproved a sinner, without seeing some good effects produced by my labors." Disease prevailed among the troops, and many died. He not only preached to them on Sundays, but practically became their chaplain, going among them where they lay in barns, talking to them about their souls, begging them to prepare to meet their God, attending the funerals of those who died, and praying at their graves.

For more than a year after his discharge from the army he was zealously occupied in preaching in his native neighborhood. He was, meanwhile, frequently impressed with the conviction that it was his duty to enter the traveling ministry, but hesitated, under a consciousness of the responsibility of the sacred office. In this state of suspense he attended the session of an Annual Conference, held at Ellis' Chapel, in Sussex County, Va., April, 1782. Thirty preachers were present, a heroic band of itinerant evangelists. The spectacle of these devoted and self-sacrificing men, their ardent zeal for God, their sympathy and forbearance for each other, touched his heart, as the like scene often has the hearts of thousands of others. He thus speaks of it: "The union and brotherly love which I saw among the preachers exceeded everything I had ever seen before, and caused me to wish that I was worthy to have a place among them. When they took leave of each other, I observed that they embraced each other in their arms, and wept as though they never expected to meet again. Had heathens been there they might have well said, 'See how these Christians love one another!' By reason of what I saw and heard during the four days that the Conference sat, I found my heart truly humbled in the dust, and my desires greatly increased to love and serve God more perfectly than I had ever done before. At the close of the Conference, Mr. Asbury came to me and asked me if I was willing to take a circuit. I told him that I could not well do it, but signified that I was at a loss to know what was best for me to do. I was afraid of hurting the cause which I wished to promote, for I was very sensible of my own weakness. At last he called to some of the preachers standing in the yard, a little way off and said, 'I am going to enlist Brother Lee.' One of them replied, 'What bounty do you give?' He answered, 'Grace here, and glory hereafter, will be given if he is faithful.' Some of the preachers then talked to me, and persuaded me to go; but I trembled at the thought, and shuddered at the cross, and did not at that time consent."

Though thus hesitating, he went home and prepared his temporal affairs, that he might be able to obey the divine call, and enter more fully upon what he now began to feel was the destiny of his life. Before the end of the year he was on his way, with a colleague, Edward Dromgoole, to North Carolina, to form a new and extensive circuit. [13] The next year he was appointed to labor regularly in that state; and being now fully in the sphere of his duty, he was largely blessed with the comforts of the divine favor, and went through the extensive rounds of his circuit "like a flame of fire." His word was accompanied with the authority and power of the Holy Ghost. Stout-hearted men were smitten down under it, large congregations were often melted into tears by irrepressible emotions, and his eloquent voice was not infrequently lost amid the sobs and ejaculations of his audience. Often his own deep sympathies, while in the pulpit, could find relief only in tears. A better illustration of his character as a preacher cannot, perhaps, be cited than the profound and thrilling effect of his preaching on both himself and his hearers. He records numerous instances: "I preached at Mr. Spain's with great liberty to a good congregation; the Spirit of the Lord came upon us, and we were bathed in tears. I wept, and so loud were the people's cries that I could scarcely be heard, though I spoke very loud. I met the class; most of the members expressed a great desire for holiness of heart and life, and said they were determined to seek for perfect love." "I preached at Howel's Chapel, where the Lord was pleased once more to visit my soul. I spoke with many tears, and was very happy. The hearers wept greatly. It was a time of refreshing from the presence of the Lord. When I met the class the people could hardly speak for weeping. It was a precious day to my soul." "I preached at Howel's Chapel, from Ezek. xxxiii, 11: 'Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord,' etc. It was to me a time of uncommon comfort. When I came to the last part of the text, and to show what Christ had done for the people that they might not die, many of the hearers wept, and some of them cried aloud. I saw so clearly that the Lord was willing to bless the people, even while I was speaking, that I began to feel distressed for them; at last I burst into tears, and could not speak for some moments. After stopping and weeping for some time, I began again, but had spoken but a little while before the cries of the people overcame me, and I wept with them so that I could not speak. I found that love had tears, as well as grief."

Such a spirit could not fail to captivate the multitude. It was characteristic of Lee through his long and successful career. Pathos was natural to him. Humor seems, in some temperaments, to be the natural counterpart, or, at least, reaction of pathos. Lee became noted for his wit; we shall see it, serving him with many a advantage, in his rencounters with opponents, especially in the Northeastern States. It flowed in a genial and perennial stream from his large heart, and played most vividly in his severest itinerant hardships; but he was full of tender humanity and affectionate piety. His rich sensibilities, rather than any remarkable intellectual powers, made him one of the most eloquent and popular preachers of his day. One of his fellow laborers, a man of excellent judgment, says that he possessed uncommon colloquial powers, and a fascinating address; that his readiness at repartee was scarcely equaled, and by the skillful use of this talent he often taught those who were disposed to be witty at his expense that the safest way to deal with him was to be civil; that he was fired with missionary zeal, and, moreover, a man of great moral courage. "He preached with more ease than any other man I ever knew in the connection." [14] It is no matter of surprise that in preaching his farewell sermon, in these new southern fields, the people wept so much that he could not proceed. "I sat down," he says, "and wept several minutes. I then left the house, but before I could get far, they came around me weeping. I began to bid them farewell, and to speak a few words to them; but my grief was so great that I was soon forced to stop."

During the year 1784 be labored on Salisbury Circuit, in the west of North Carolina, and here the same traits characterized, and the same results followed, his ardent ministry. In four days after his arrival on the circuit we find him writing in the following strain: "I preached at Hern's to a large company of solemn hearers. While I was speaking of the love of God, I felt so much of that love in my own soul that I burst into a flood of tears, and could speak no more for some time, but stood and wept. I then began again, but was so much overcome that I had to stop and weep several times before I finished my subject. There were very few dry eyes in the house. O, my God, what am I that thou art mindful of me? It was a cross to me to come to this circuit, but now I feel assured that the Lord will be with and support me."

While on this circuit his labors were indefatigable, his journeys incessant, his health at times prostrated, and his life endangered by exposure to the weather and the fording of rivers. Still we hear from him but one language, expressive of unabated fervor, triumphant faith, and yearning, weeping sympathy for souls. During these labors he was repeatedly transferred, for half a year or more, to other circuits. From Norfolk in Virginia to the southwest of North Carolina he hastened to and fro, sounding the alarm, reorganizing Societies which had been nearly destroyed by the disturbances of the war, pioneering Methodism into regions which it had not before penetrated, and raising up some energetic men for the itinerancy. By the latter part of 1784 he had become recognized as an important if not representative man of his denomination. In December of that year he was summoned to meet his ministerial brethren with Dr. Coke in Baltimore, for the organization of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He was five hundred miles distant, and chose to remain on his frontier circuit, where he was journeying and preaching almost daily. He thus failed to share in the momentous proceedings of which he was to be the earliest historian, and one of the ablest defenders.

We have followed, through the stormy period of the Revolution, the principal evangelists of Methodism by such imperfect traces as the scanty records of the times afford. Meanwhile scores of other laborers entered the field, many of them men of might, who have left historic impressions on the denomination and on the country; whose labors have been gigantic in results, but unrecorded in detail. As we further review this eventful period, to collect the fragmentary notices of the proceedings of their Annual Conferences, some of them will appear briefly on the scene; but many, among the most saintly and heroic, whose record will be forever on high, can never be duly commemorated on earth. The energy and progress of Methodism during these tumultuous times are surprising. Revivals prevailed in some places throughout the whole period of the Revolution, and the ministry was rapidly reinforced. But many of the Societies, says the contemporary historian, were dispersed or could not assemble, many of their male members were drafted, and when the militia were called out, had to go into the army to fight for their country. Some lost their lives, and some made shipwreck of their faith; some were bound in their consciences not to fight, and no threatenings could compel them to bear arms or hire substitutes. Some of them "were whipped, some fined, some imprisoned, others were sent home, and many were persecuted. The Societies had much to discourage them and little to help them forward. But notwithstanding their difficulties they stood fast as one body, and waxed stronger and stronger in the Lord." [15] He assures us, however, that no sooner had the war ended than the evangelists saw the fruits of their former labors in most of the land, and that the sufferings and dispersion of so many of the Societies proved to be a signal advantage. Many Methodists had, through necessity, fear, or choice, moved into the back settlements, or new parts of the country, some even beyond the great mountain ranges. "As soon as peace was declared, and the way opened, they invited us to come among them; and by their earnest and frequent petitions, both oral and written, we went. They were ready to receive us with open hands and willing hearts, and to cry out, 'Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.' " In fine, the providential design and adaptation of Methodism, for the new nation, are revealed all through this period of its preparatory operations.

The erection of chapels was retarded, if not arrested, through most of these years. Asbury's project of a building in Norfolk was defeated, and the city laid in ashes; the other scattered chapels in Virginia were hardly more than wooden shells: the two in Baltimore had the rudest accommodations. The rural meeting-houses of Maryland could hardly shelter their congregations from the weather. St. George's, in Philadelphia, was used as a riding-school by the British cavalry; but the military authorities, probably through respect for Wesley and the English itinerants in America, gave the Society the use of the First Baptist Church, on Lagrange Place, Front Street. The chapel in Trenton, N. J., was occupied by troops. That of Salem was not projected till about the close of the war; it was the fourth in the state after Bethel, Pemberton, and Trenton, and was hardly better than a barn. It was often besieged by mobs, till at last the magistrates interfered and protected the feeble Society. A profane club of the town continued the persecution, in burlesque imitations of the Methodist worship, but was suddenly arrested by an appalling occurrence in one of their assemblies. While they were amusing themselves with jocular recitations of hymns and exhortations, a female guest rose on a bench to imitate a Methodist class. "Glory to God!" she exclaimed; "I have found peace, I am sanctified; I am now ready to die!" At the last word she fell to the floor a corpse. The club, struck with consternation, never assembled again, and Methodism became eminently influential in the town and all its vicinity. [16] It has been erroneously supposed that John Street Chapel, in New York, was occupied by the British troops during a part of the Revolutionary War. [17] Seven Annual Conferences were, indeed, held without an appointment to that city. The defeat of the Americans on Long Island, August 27, 1776, by which they lost more than two thousand men, including important officers, compelled them to evacuate the city. From that event down to the peace of 1783 the Conference had no official access to this its original church. The chapels of most denominations in the city were appropriated by the enemy. All the Presbyterian churches were occupied by his troops: the Middle Dutch, the North Dutch, and the French were crowded as prisons; the Baptist used as a stable; the Quaker as a hospital; [18] John Street, however, was spared, through deference to Wesley and his English representatives in the colonies. The Methodists were allowed to use it themselves on Sunday nights; the Hessian troops, with their chaplain, occupied it in religious services on Sunday mornings. The little flock, though much reduced by the dispersion of many of its members, met regularly, and was providentially provided with pastors. We have already seen that John Mann was converted and received into the Society under the ministry of Boardman. He had graduated, as Class Leader and Exhorter, to the rank of an effective Local Preacher, by the time that the Revolution rendered his services most indispensable to his suffering brethren. They now placed him in charge of their deserted pulpit; he preached in it all through the war, and during the same time acted as Class Leader, Trustee, and Treasurer. His services were of the highest importance in this critical period. They probably saved the Methodism of New York city from at least temporary extinction.

Mann received timely assistance in his solitary ministrations. We have heretofore witnessed the last sad interview of Shadford with Asbury at Judge White's mansion, where they spent a day in fasting and prayer before deciding whether they should remain in the colonies through the perils of the war, or return to England, and the opposite conclusions which they reached, and their final leave-taking. Before their separation both of them had to keep themselves concealed, a part of the time, in an outhouse, hidden in a neighboring skirt of wood, whither the good judge's wife furtively carried their meals. When they parted, Asbury wrote in his Journal: "S. S. came in from the Upper Circuit, but on Tuesday March 10, 1781 both he and G. S. left me. However I was easy; the Lord was with me; let him do with me as seemeth good in his sight." S. S. and G. S. were doubtless Samuel Spraggs [19] and George Shadford. We have but indistinct traces of the former. He was received on trial at the Philadelphia Conference of 1774, and appointed to the Brunswick Circuit, Virginia, where he labored in the extraordinary revival which was spreading through all that region under the labors of Jarratt and Williams. The next year, by a sudden and long transition, he appeared in Philadelphia, where he continued two years; an evidence of his superior abilities. In 1777 he took charge of Frederick Circuit, Maryland, and it was thence that he went to Judge White's house to meet Asbury and Shadford. He was probably an Englishman and a royalist, and, with Shadford, left Asbury to take refuge within the British lines. On arriving at New York, Shadford took passage for England, but Spraggs was induced to join Mann in supplying the John Street pulpit. His name now, naturally enough, disappears from the Minutes, as had that of John Street Church. [20] It appears no more in that record till the end of the war, 1783, when it is again inserted with that of the New York appointment, and also among the list of "assistants." In 1784 it disappears forever; now not without mystery. By this date the Minutes record deaths and locations, but the name of Samuel Spraggs is unmentioned. [21] At John Street he had received the largest salary given to any Methodist preacher of those times; about three hundred dollars per annum. It is probable that the prospect of harder work, with poorer support, elsewhere, when, according to usage, he must be removed, discouraged him; it is possible that his domestic necessities by this time rendered better support indispensable. He left the denomination and became pastor of the "Old Protestant Episcopal Church" in Elizabethtown, and his name is commemorated on a tablet on its walls." [22]

During the war, after the battle of Long Island, no other itinerant crossed the Hudson. The little church in New York was totally isolated from the rest of the Methodist communion. Before the war it reported more than two hundred members; at its close but sixty. As most of the churches in the city were shut, during its occupation by the British, the congregations of John Street were unusually large, notwithstanding the declension of the membership of the Society. Its weekly collections were also extraordinary. If some of its communicants were royalists, at the arrival of the foreign troops, yet, by frequent removals to Nova Scotia and elsewhere, they left a decided majority who were loyal to the colonial cause. These, however, were wary; under military domination, they availed themselves quietly of any indulgence which the foreigners, out of respect to Wesley's opinions, were disposed to grant them. The higher officers showed them much regard; but subordinates and the common troops often treated them with disrespect, probably knowing better their real sentiments on the war. They would stand in the aisles during worship with their caps on, and sometimes ventured on more significant offenses. On one occasion, at the concluding hymn, they sung the national song," God save the king," as a test of the opinions of the people. The latter were familiar with a lyric of Charles Wesley adapted to this tune. Their indignation, or patriotism, for once overcame their wonted caution, and they followed the royal song with their own triumphant hymn:

"Come, thou almighty King,

Help us thy Name to sing,

Help us to praise:

Father all-glorious,

O'er all victorious,

Come, and reign over us,

Ancient of Days.

"Jesus, our Lord, arise

Scatter our enemies,

And make them fail!

Let thine almighty aid

Our sure defense be made;

Our souls on thee be stay'd;

Lord, hear our call!" etc. [23]

Occasionally some of the more important men of the army, from mischief; perhaps, rather than malice, interrupted their humble worship. "Upon a Christmas eve, when the members had assembled to celebrate the advent of the world's Redeemer, a party of British officers, masked, marched into the chapel. One, very properly personifying their master, was dressed with cloven feet and a long forked tail. The devotions of course soon ceased, and the chief devil, proceeding up the aisle, entered the altar. As he was ascending the stairs of the pulpit, a gentleman present, with his cane, knocked off his Satanic majesty's mask, when lo, there stood a well-known British colonel! He was immediately seized and detained, until the city guard was sent to take charge of the bold offender. The congregation retired, and the entrances of the church were locked upon the prisoner for additional security. His companions outside then commenced an attack upon the doors and windows, but the arrival of the guard put an end to these disgraceful proceedings, and the prisoner was delivered into their custody."

During most of the war Methodism had its chief successes in its southern fields. Abbott and his fellow laborers kept it alive and moving in New Jersey, and at the peace that state reported more than one thousand members; but, out of the nearly fourteen thousand returned in 1783, more than twelve thousand were in Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. There were more within the small limits of Delaware than in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, or New York. New York had but about sixty, Philadelphia but a hundred and nineteen, Baltimore more than nine hundred. Nearly all the preachers who entered the itinerant ranks during these years were raised up south of Pennsylvania. It was, in fine, during these stormy times that Methodism took that thorough possession of the central colonies which it has ever since maintained, and began to send forth those itinerant expeditions which have borne its ensign over the South, over the West, and even to the Northeast as far as Maine; for we shall hereafter see that not only Lee, but many of his assistant founders of Methodism in New England, were from these middle provinces. While the war lasted they pushed their way southward and westward, but as soon as the struggle closed they broke energetically into the North. Methodism thus took much of its primitive tone from the characteristic temperament of the colonies of Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia — a fact which had no slight influence on its history for more than half a century. The subtler intelligence and severer temper of the North, and especially of the Northeast, were to intervene at the opportune moment, to develop its literary, theological, and educational interests, and to embody it in effective and enduring institutions and forms of policy; but it needed yet the animation, the energetic temperament, the social aptness and vivacity, the devotional enthusiasm, of the more Southern communities. At the end of the Revolutionary War there was probably not a Methodist in the Eastern States; for the Society formed by Boardman, in Boston, had become extinct. It was to achieve its chief triumphs, for some time yet, southward and westward, and to encounter in those directions adventures and hardships for which the ardent and generous spirit of its present people and ministry peculiarly fitted it. It went forward, not only preaching and praying, but also "shouting," infecting the enterprising, adventurous, and scattered populations of the wilderness and frontiers with its evangelic enthusiasm, and gathering them by thousands into its communion. It pressed northward, at first, with the same zealous ardor, but became there gradually attempered with a more deliberate, a more practical, yet a hardly less energetic spirit. The characteristics of both sections blended, securing to it at once unity, enthusiasm, and practical wisdom, especially in its great fields in the West, where, for the last half century, and probably for all future time, it was destined to have its most important sway.

END OF VOL. I

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ENDNOTES

1 Sketch of Rev. Philip Gatch, by Judge McLean, p. 49.

2 History of the Religious Movement, etc., called Methodism, vol. ii p 126, where will be found a more extended examination of the subject.

3 His memoir abounds in simple if not comical illustrations of human nature. There is probably no better disclosure to be found of the familiar and intimate life, the homely sentiments and style, of the lower but honest classes of New Jersey in the last century. Their grateful affection for good "Father Abbott" (notwithstanding his rencounters with mobs, always sooner or later subdued by him) was one of his sorest trials, for it troubled his conscience as a tribute to the creature that belonged only to the Creator. "One old woman," he says, "to whose soul the Lord had spoken peace, clapped her hands, and began to praise the creature rather then the Creator. I stepped up to her and said 'I have done nothing for you; if there be any good, it is the Lord who has done it, and therefore praise God.' 'O, said she, 'but you are a dear good creature for all!' I turned away and went among the people." His book is full of similar examples of popular heartiness and weakness.

4 When and where I cannot precisely ascertain; he even forgets to tell, in his Memoir, the place and date of his birth.

5 Atkinson's Memorials of Methodism in New Jersey. 1860, p. 151. Atkinson says that Sterling was converted under the ministry of Asbury; Lednum says under that of Abbott.

6 He died in the faith, Jan., 1818, in the 76th year of his age. His name is still familiar and revered among Methodists in New Jersey.

7 As usual he gives us few names of places; Lednum identifies them, p. 285, et seq.

8 Henry Boehm still survives, (1864,) one of the most venerated patriarchs of Methodism. Martin Boehm is described as a saintly and very useful preacher. "He continued to wear his beard at full length, never shaving his chin; his white locks and fresh countenance gave him a venerable aspect in old age. He lived to be almost ninety years old, and died suddenly some time in March, 1812. Soon after, Bishop Asbury preached a funeral discourse at his chapel, where he is buried, giving the interesting particulars of his life." Lednum, p. 212.

9 Lednum, p. 292.

10 Lednum, p 321, who identifies the localities.

11 Such is the title given to these marvels by a Methodist authority who has discussed them with more scientific ability than any other writer that I have met with. (See Meth. Quart. Rev., April, 1859. To be thrown," he says, "into the cataleptic state in conversion is no criterion of the genuineness of that change. The proof must be sought, and will be found, elsewhere. Religious catalepsy is not a safe standard by which to estimate a religious state, growth in grace, or personal piety in any stage of experience. Because the same amount of divine influence shed upon a person, under one class of circumstances, which would result in catalepsy, would to another person in the same circumstances, and to the same person in other circumstances, be followed by no such result."

12 Thift's Life of Lee; and Rev. Dr. L. M. Lee's Life and Times of Lee.

13 Well known afterward as Camden Circuit. Lee's biographer says, "The district of country embraced by it remains to the present time (1848) full of the good fruits of that first planting. Methodism has struck its roots deep in the affections of thousands."

14 Rev. Thomas Ware, Life and Travels, p. 207.

15 Lee, pp. 77, 84.

16 Lednum, p. 370.

17 Bangs, I, p. 119, and Gorrie's History of Episcopal Methodism, p. 70. Wakeley corrects the error, p 267.

18 Wakeley, p. 270.

19 His name is spelled "Spragg" in the Minutes; but in the Old Record of John Street Church, where it often recurs for years, it is invariably given as "Spraggs." — Wakeley, 281.

20 Wakeley says "strangely disappears," etc. Usually only the names of appointed preachers were yet inserted. John Street was no longer an appointment, being within the British lines.

21 Bangs,in his Alphabetical List, vol. iv, App., marks him as withdrawn.

22 Wakeley, p. 290.

23 G. P. Disosway, Esq., in Wakeley, p. 458.

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