VOLUME 2 — BOOK II — CHAPTER VI
CONFERENCES AND PROGRESS FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR TO THE ORGANIZATION OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Annual Conferences before the Organization of the Church — Their Character and Powers — Philadelphia Session of 1775 — Important Success — John Cooper — Robert Lindsay — William Glendenning — William Duke — John Wade — Daniel Ruff at Abbott's Family Altar — Edward Dromgoole — First Baltimore Session, 1776 — Its Character — Freeborn Garrettson joins it — Great Prosperity — Methodism tends Southward — Nicholas Watters — James Foster — Isham Tatum — Francis Poythress — Richard Webster — Session of 1777 — Scenes at it — Continued Success — The "Sacramental Question" — Caleb B. Pedicord — John Tunnell — Reuben Ellis — Le Roy Cole — John Dickens — John Littlejohn — Prominent Characters of the Ministry of these Times — First Conference in Virginia, 1778 — Troubles of the Times — The "Sacramental Controversy" — James O'Kelly — Richard Ivey — A Scene in his Preaching — John Major — Power of his Eloquence — Henry Willis — Philip Gatch retires — Garrettson's Reminiscences of the Early Ministry

For some years the infant Churches of American Methodism were content with humble "Quarterly Conferences" as their only judicatories or synods. These were held mostly in obscure places, their sessions occupying but a day or two, their members consisting of a few Itinerants, Local Preachers, Exhorters, and subordinate officials, gathered from neighboring circuits, and their records so slight, or deemed so unimportant, that I am not aware that an official copy of any of them remains. Not till Rankin arrived, as "assistant" of Wesley, did they hold an Annual Conference. But two of these annual sessions were held prior to our present period, both in Philadelphia, the first in 1773, the second in 1774. The printed records of both scarcely cover a page and a half of the octavo Minutes. Both have already been as fully noticed as these records, and other contemporary sources of information, allow. In the ten years now under review one session at least was held annually; in five of these years (1779 — 1783) ten took place; in the last year of the period (1784) there were no less than three, the final one being the memorable epoch of the Episcopal organization of Methodism. [1]

Seventeen sessions were held in these ten years, and yet their records do not exceed fifteen pages in the printed Minutes. The contrast of their original humility with the greatness of their historical results, can hardly fail to strike us as sublime. In obscurity, if not ignominy, amid poverty, persecutions, and public strifes of politics and arms that swept over them like tempests, they were laying, stone by stone, the foundations of an ecclesiastical edifice, whose dome was to cover the continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the frozen zone to the Gulf of Mexico. Some of their obscure laborers were to see this grand consummation. The humble coral builders work in the obscure depths of the seas, but lay the foundations of beautiful and extended lands, upon which nature may rear her magnificent growths, and man his communities; and science traces their work, in the foundations of the globe, as far back as the Silurian period, and, in heavenward monuments, thousands of feet above the level of the seas.

All these Annual Conferences and all subsequent sessions, down to the organization of the General or Quadrennial Conference, were considered adjourned meetings of the undivided ministry, held at different places, often widely apart, for the local convenience of the scattered itinerants. The enactments of no one session were binding, till they had been virtually adopted at all the other sessions of the same ecclesiastical year, and had thus become the expression of a majority of the ministry. [2]

The Conference of 1775 began in Philadelphia on the 17th of May, not quite one month after the outbreak of hostilities at Concord and Lexington, and but a few months after the session of the Colonial Congress in the same city. The country was surging with agitation and martial preparations. An extemporized colonial army of fifteen thousand men were confronting the royal troops before Boston. Philadelphia itself was a focus of excitement. Rankin says, "We conversed together, and concluded our business in love. We wanted all the advice and light we could obtain respecting our conduct in the present critical situation of affairs. We all came unanimously to this conclusion, to follow the advice that Mr. Wesley and his brother had given us, and leave the event to God. We had abundant reason to bless God for the increase of his work last year. We had above a thousand added to the different Societies, and they had increased to ten circuits. Our joy in God would have been abundantly more had it not been for the preparations of war that now rang throughout this city." Asbury, believing that the consecration of the preachers, exclusively to their own work, was now more than ever needed, spent the day preceding the session in "friendly but close conversation" with them. "We spoke," he says, "plainly of our experience and doctrine." He reports the Conference to have continued from Monday till Friday, "with great harmony and sweetness of temper." He gives but three sentences to the occasion. Watters was present, but gives it only a sentence Gatch was there, but merely gives its date.

Three candidates were admitted on trial, six probationers were received into full membership, and nineteen preachers were enrolled on the list of appointments. The returns of members amounted to 3,148, the increase was therefore 1,075, more than a third of the whole number. Considerably more than one half of these gains were south of the Potomac; nearly all of them were south of Pennsylvania, there being but an increase of forty-five in all the country north of Delaware. New York and Philadelphia, the scenes of great political excitement, had lost. Baltimore had gained more than one hundred, Norfolk more than fifty. The Brunswick Circuit, the scene of greatest prosperity and interest during these years of strife, had advanced nearly six hundred. The growth of the denomination numerically, during the three years represented in its first three Conferences, had been remarkable. It had nearly trebled its membership, and nearly doubled its traveling ministry.

The only proceedings of this Conference, aside from the reception and appointment of preachers, related to the exchange of circuits, in some instances to take place quarterly, in others semi-annually; to the expenses of preachers from the session to their circuits, which was to be paid out of the public collections; and to a general fast in behalf of the prosperity of the Church and the "peace of America." The latter was repeated in the three ensuing years.

Of the three preachers admitted on trial — John Cooper, Robert Lindsay, and William Glendenning — we know but little. John Cooper has already been noticed as the colleague, this year, of Philip Gatch, on Kent Circuit; the youthful evangelist who after severe persecution had been expelled from his father's house. "He was probably from the Western Shore of Maryland;" [3] and he traveled Circuits on the Peninsula, in New Jersey, in Pennsylvania, in Virginia, and North Carolina. The bare list of his appointments shows that he was thoroughly tossed about by the rapid transitions of the itinerancy of that day — from New Jersey across the Alleghenies to the Redstone wilderness, from Philadelphia to Tar River in North Carolina. He traveled fifteen years and fell at last in the field. The Minutes of 1789 record, with their usual brevity, his obituary: "Fifteen years in the work; quiet, inoffensive, and blameless; a son of affliction, subject to dejection, sorrow, and suffering; often in want, but too modest to complain, till observed and relieved by his friends. He died in peace."

Robert Lindsay, though reported as "admitted on trial" at this session, was so reported also in the Minutes of the preceding year. His labors in America and England have already been noticed. William Glendenning was a Scotchman, of eccentric character. He came to America, as we have seen, with Dempster and Rodda, in 1774, a volunteer missionary, probably failing, through his very noticeable peculiarities, to obtain the authorization or approval of Wesley. The American Conference, in its extreme need of laborers, received him in 1775. After traveling some nine or ten years, his mind, always infirm, sunk into a species of mania, on the Brunswick Circuit, Va., where he probably overtasked his energies in the great religious excitements of that region. At the Conference of 1784 he was appointed a missionary to Nova Scotia, but positively refused to go. At the same session his brethren declined to ordain him among its new elders, alleging his "want of gifts." This fact plunged him deeper in dejection, and in a few months he ceased to travel. "He was a very unstable man," [4] and had trances and visions. He located in 1786, but applied again for admission to the Conference, when his request was declined, the Conference believing him to be insane. He wandered about among the Societies in Virginia and North Carolina, hospitably supported by them, till an advanced age. [5]

Among the probationers admitted to full membership at this session, besides some already noticed, are William Duke, John Wade, Daniel Ruff, and Edward Dromgoole. Duke has already been alluded to as the intimate friend of good Captain Webb, to whom the captain presented his Greek Testament, still a precious relict. He had been brought up in the English Church, and, being an itinerant in Virginia, at the time of the sacramental controversy among the Methodists there, he located and returned to his original denomination, after spending some six or seven years in the Methodist ministry. Like Pilmoor, Spraggs, and so many more of his fellow-itinerants, he became a Protestant Episcopal clergyman in Elkton, Cecil County, Md., where he died in 1840. "He was very small, wore the old-fashioned Methodist coat, was loved and respected as a good man, and was generally called 'Father Duke.' " He died in a good old age, and was buried at the old church in North East, Cecil County.

John Wade is supposed to have been a Virginian; his name appears but two years in the Minutes, at the end of which he disappears forever from the records of Methodism. It is presumed that he also entered the ministry of another Church. [6] Daniel Ruff has been already presented in our pages as connected with the early religious history of Garrettson. He called Garrettson into the itinerancy. He was a native of Harford County, Md., and was converted in the revival that prevailed in that region in 1771. The next year his house, near Havre de Grace, became a preaching-place for the itinerants, and in one year more Ruff himself was exhorting among his neighbors. A year later we find him in the itinerant ranks. Asbury describes him as "honest, simple, plain," but remarkably useful. His first appointment was to Chester circuit, Pennsylvania, (1774,) where he was greatly successful. In 1775 he traveled with similar usefulness the Trenton circuit, New Jersey. Abbott's house was now one of his homes. Ruff was powerful in prayer; and it was while conducting the family devotions of his humble fellow-laborer that the latter believed he received the grace of sanctification. It was a characteristic scene, as we have observed, Abbott being prostrated to the floor by his uncontrollable emotions. "Glory to God!" exclaimed the hearty evangelist, years afterward, "glory to God for what he then did, and since has done for poor me!" It is said that Ruff labored more in New Jersey than any other itinerant of his time. He did much to found Methodism throughout that state. In 1776 he was sent to John Street, New York city — the first native American preacher stationed there. It was the last appointment made for New York during the Revolutionary War. Like most of his ministerial brethren of those times, he located, after traveling about seven years, having done effective service from Virginia to New York. Judging from the slight allusions to him in our early records, he appears to have been "a good soldier of the Lord Jesus" in the hard-fought fields of that age.

The name of Edward Dromgoole [7] appears, frequently and honorably, in the primitive publications of Methodism. We have had occasion already to notice his early co-operation with Strawbridge. His itinerant labors were extensive, mostly in Virginia and North Carolina, and continued down to 1786, though his name appears very irregularly in the Minutes. [8] After his location he settled in Brunswick County, Va., near North Carolina, and continued to be a useful laborer till his death in 1835, at the age of eighty-three. [9] As late as 1815, Asbury, passing trough Virginia, preached in his house, and ordained the veteran as an elder." He has been," says the bishop, "a faithful local preacher, respected and beloved. Two of his sons are local Deacons."

All the Annual Conferences had thus far been held in Philadelphia, but the numerical preponderance of the denomination had been fast tending southward, and the next session was begun in Baltimore on the 21st of May, 1776. [10] Asbury was not present; he set out on horseback for the city, but in such exhausted health that he had to return. Rankin makes no reference to the session, except in a later allusion to its Love-feast. Watters was present, and says: "It was a good time, and I was much refreshed in meeting with my brethren and companions in tribulation, and in the kingdom of Jesus Christ. We were of one heart and mind, and took sweet counsel together, not how we should get riches or honors, or anything that this poor world could afford us; but how we should make the surest work for heaven, and be the instruments of saving others. We had a powerful time in our Love-feast a little before we parted, while we sat at our divine Master's feet, and gladly heard each other tell what the Lord had done, for and by us, in the different places in which we had been laboring."

This was the first Conference attended by young Freeborn Garrettson; he entered it with insupportable anxieties; he had been preaching irregularly; but the question of the consecration of his whole remaining life to the labors and trials of the itinerancy was now to be decided, and he recoiled at the prospect. "The exercise of my mind," he writes, "was too great for my emaciated frame. I betook myself to my bed and lay till twelve o'clock; then I rose up and set off. I got into Baltimore about sunset. The Conference was to begin the next day: I attended, passed through an examination, was admitted on trial, and my name was, for the first time, classed among the Methodists, I received of Mr. Rankin a written license. My mind continued so agitated, for I still felt an unwillingness to be a traveling preacher, that, after I went from the preaching house to dinner, I again fainted under my burden and sank to the floor. When I recovered I found myself in an upper chamber on the bed, surrounded by several preachers. I asked where I had been, as I seemed to be lost to all things below, appearing to have been in a place from whence I did not desire to return. The brethren joined in prayer, and my soul was so happy, while everything wore so pleasing an aspect, that the preachers appeared to me more like angels than men. And I have praised the Lord ever since, that, though unworthy of a seat among them, I was ever united to this happy family."

The Conference began on Tuesday, and concluded on Friday. It was held in the second Methodist Chapel built in the city, on Lovely Lane. This edifice had been erected about two years, but was yet hardly furnished; the seats had no backs, it had no provision for warming, and no galleries. It was still "the day of small things," though of vast hopes, with American Methodism. Rankin presided as Wesley's "assistant." The aggregate membership reported was 4,921; the increase for the year was 1,773, [11] the largest gains yet recorded. These advances were entirely in the southward fields: New York had declined during the year from 200 to 132; Philadelphia from 190 to 137; New Jersey from 300 to 150; Baltimore had advanced from 840 to 900; and Brunswick circuit, hitherto the southernmost field, reported no less than 1,600, doubling its returns of the preceding year, after a deduction of 1,600, assigned to the new North Carolina circuit. Twenty-five itinerants were on the roll of the Conference, a gain of five. [12] Four new circuits were recognized: Fairfax, Hanover, Pittsylvania, and Carolina; all in Virginia except the last, which was in North Carolina, and is the first appearance of that state in the Minutes. Methodism had been energetically pushing its conquests into the state for about three years. Pilmoor, as we have seen, passed through it preaching in 1773. Robert Williams entered it the same year, and, in the next, formed Societies within its bounds. Halifax County especially gave the denomination a hearty reception, and was the scene of many of its earliest Societies, and, for years, of its principal strength in the state.

Nine candidates [13] were received on trial, and five probationers were admitted to full membership. Among the former was Nicholas Watters, brother to the first native itinerant, William Watters. He was now about twenty-seven years old; beginning to exhort in 1772, he graduated to the regular ministry by 1776, and entered the Kent circuit, Md. He located in 1779; but, after several useful years, spent in that relation, he resumed his travels, and died an itinerant in Charleston, S. C., in 1804. He was a consecrated man, distinguished by moral courage, ardent zeal, and unintermitted labors for the Church. "His heavenly-mindedness and uniform simplicity of deportment greatly endeared him to his brethren." Nearly his last words were, "I am not afraid to die!" [14]

James Foster, a Virginian, was among the earliest itinerants afforded to Methodism from that state; he was a "good preacher," and noted for his amenity, his "fine personal appearance" and usefulness. But excessive fasting, with excessive labors in the open air, destroyed his constitution, and his intellect at last gave way under his infirmities. [15] Before his prostration, however, he located, and retired to South Carolina, where, finding some emigrant Methodist families from Virginia, he formed among them a circuit and supplied them with preaching. Afflicted, obscure, and in distant loneliness, he was thus providentially honored as one of the founders of Methodism in that state. He re-entered the itinerancy, but retired from it finally in 1787. In his last years of mental prostration, his pious amiability never failed; he maintained the strictness of his religious habits, and the inoffensiveness of his deportment, as he, wandered among Methodist families, conducting their domestic devotions with much propriety, when no longer able to minister to them in the pulpit.

Isham Tatum was a South Carolinian. After five years of useful labors in the traveling ministry he retired, and removed to the further South, where, through a long life, he diligently served the Church as a Local Preacher. He was highly respected for his deep piety and great local usefulness. In his last days he was venerated as the oldest Methodist preacher in America, if not in the world.

Francis Poythress became one of the itinerant heroes of these times; and though his last years were darkened by clouds, he is still recalled by aged Methodists with vivid interest. He was a Virginian of large estate, but of dissipated habits in his youth. The conversations and rebukes of a lady of high social position arrested him in his perilous course. He returned from her house confounded, penitent, and determined to reform his morals. He betook himself to his neglected Bible, and soon saw that his only effectual reformation could be by a religious life. He searched for a competent living guide, but, such was the condition of the English Church around him that he could find none. Hearing at last of the devoted Jarratt, he hastened to his parish, and was entertained some time under his hospitable roof for instruction. There he found purification and peace about the year 1772. It was not long before he began to co-operate with Jarratt in his public labors and the extraordinary scenes of religions interest which prevailed through all that region. Thus, before the arrival of the Methodist itinerants in Virginia, he had become an evangelist; when they appeared he learned with delight their doctrines and methods of labor, and joining them, became a giant in their ranks. In 1775 he began his travels, under the authority of a quarterly meeting of Brunswick circuit, and the present year, appears, for the first time, on the roll of the Conference. Henceforth, in North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and Kentucky, he was to be a representative man of the struggling cause. In 1783 he bore its standard across the Alleghenies to the waters of the Youghiogheny. [16] From 1786 he served it, with preeminent success, for twelve years as a presiding elder. Asbury nominated him for the episcopate. "From the first," says one of the best antiquarian authorities of the Church, "he performed all he work of a Methodist preacher with fidelity and success, and for twenty-six years his name appears without a blot upon the official records of the Church among his brethren. Most of the time he filled every office, except that of superintendent, and was designated for that place by Bishop Asbury, in a letter addressed to the Conference at Wilbraham, in 1797. The preachers refused to comply with the request, simply upon the ground that it was not competent, in a yearly Conference, to elect bishops. Poythress, in a word, was to Methodism generally, and to the southwest particularly, what Jesse Lee was to New England, an apostle. His name stands in the Minutes of 1802 for the last time among the elders, but without an appointment, after which it disappears, and we hear no more of him until we are roused from our anxious thoughts concerning his probable fate by the startling announcement of Bishop Asbury." [17]

This "startling announcement" is an allusion of Asbury's Journals, as late as 1810, when the bishop, traveling in the wilderness of Kentucky, discovers the once "strong man armed," broken and prostrated, not by apostasy, as has sometimes been surmised, but by insanity. A relieving light breaks over his last days. We shall hereafter have occasion to refer to them.

Richard Webster retired at this Conference. He has already been noticed as one of the first Methodists of Harford County, Md.; a convert under the ministry of Strawbridge. After four years of faithful services, domestic necessities required him to limit his labors; but he pursued them zealously in his own vicinity, and lived a long, a pure, and useful life. Nearly half a century after the date of his location, we catch a glimpse of the veteran as he was just stepping into heaven. His old friend, Freeborn Garrettson, visiting the scenes of his own early ministry in Maryland, writes: "On the Lord's day morning I preached with much satisfaction in the Abington Church, and then rode six miles, and preached in a neat church lately built in the forest under the direction of old Mr. Webster, who at this time was dangerously ill. I was sent for to visit him, and found him nigh unto death, joyfully waiting until his time should come. He was among the first who embraced religion, when the Methodist preachers made their entrance into this part of the country, about fifty-six years ago. He is now about eighty-five years of age, and has been a preacher more than forty years. He has a large family of children and grandchildren, settled around him, while he, like a ripe shock of corn, is waiting to be taken to the garner of rest. I had sweet fellowship with him. A few days after I left him he took his departure. I bless God for this opportunity of conversing with him."

The session of 1777 began on the 20th of May, at a "preaching house," say the Minutes, "near Deer Creek, in Harford County, Md." It was the "preaching house" of John Watters, at this time one of the chief rural centers of Methodism in the state. Though the storm of war was now howling through the land, "and there were," says the historian, "fears within and fightings without in all directions," [18] the small ministerial band assembled, not only in peace, but with gratulations over the evangelical victories of the last year. The returns showed a gain in the ministry of fully one third, and in the membership of considerably more than one third. Asbury writes: "So greatly has the Lord increased the number of traveling preachers, within these few years, that we have now twenty-seven who attend the circuits, and twenty of them were present at this Conference. Both our public and private business was conducted with great harmony, peace, and love. Our brethren who intend to return to Europe have agreed to stay till the way is quite open. I preached on the charge which our Lord gave his apostles: 'Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.' Our Conference ended with a love-feast and watchnight. But when the time of parting came, many wept as if they had lost their firstborn sons. They appeared to be in the deepest distress, thinking, as I suppose, they should not see the faces of the English preachers any more. This was such a parting as I never saw before. Our Conference has been a great time, a season of uncommon affection. And we must acknowledge that God has directed, owned, and blessed us in the work."

Watters was present, and gives a similar record of the occasion. "It was," he says, "a time much to be remembered. The Lord was graciously with us. There appearing no probability of the contest between Great Britain and this country ending shortly, several of our European preachers thought that, if an opportunity should offer, they would return to their home in the course of the year. To provide against such an event five of us, Gatch, Dromgoole, Ruff, Glendenning, and myself, were appointed a committee to act in the place of the general assistant in case they should all go before the next Conference. It was also submitted to the consideration of this Conference whether in our present situation, of having but few ministers left in many of our parishes to administer the ordinances of baptism and the Lord's supper, we should not administer them ourselves, for as yet we had not the ordinances among us, but were dependent on other denominations for them, some receiving them from the Presbyterians, but the greater part from the Church of England. In fact, we considered ourselves, it this time, as belonging to the Church of England. After much conversation on the subject, it was unanimously agreed to lay it over for the determination of the next Conference, to be held in Leesburgh, the 19th of May. I never saw so affecting a scene as the parting of the preachers. Our hearts were knit together as the heart of David and Jonathan, and we were obliged to use great violence to our feelings in tearing ourselves asunder. This was the last time I ever saw my very worthy friends and fathers Rankin and Shadford."

Garrettson attended this Conference, with feelings very different from those which oppressed him at the preceding session. "I was greatly refreshed," he wrote many years afterward, "among these servants of God, some of whom I have never seen since, nor shall again on this side of eternity."

The membership amounted to 6,968, its increase being 2,047, the largest yet reported. The ministerial roll recorded thirty-eight names; [19] there were fourteen circuits supplied by thirty-six preachers. Two new circuits, Sussex and Amelia, were detached from that of Brunswick, Va.; two, Chester and Norfolk, which had been abandoned, were restored. Asbury's defeated plans, on the latter, were now to be resumed, notwithstanding the city lay in ashes. The name of New York is retained in the Minutes, but without an appointment; it is about to disappear in the northern clouds of the war. Before the year closes Rankin and Rodda are to disappear in them also, and all the English preachers, except Asbury, now ask for certificates of ministerial character, that they may return home honorably; but the ministry already feels strong in its native men. Watters, Poythress, Garrettson, Dromgoole, Cooper, Gatch, Ruff, and others now joining their ranks; Pedicord, Tunnell, Gill, Dickens, besides not a few who, like Abbott, were strenuously active, though not yet in the Conference: these, headed by Asbury, formed a force which rendered the denomination independent of England. Some of them were men of essential greatness of intellect and character, swaying the popular mind, through much of the middle states, for years, and recognized, at the beginning of our century, throughout the whole range of Methodism, as its leaders; but the obscurity or brevity of our primitive records has allowed them to fall into oblivion, though their works remain in ever-enlarging greatness. The historian of their cause may justly deem it a sacred duty to gather, with filial solicitude, the fast perishing memorials of their devoted lives, though he may be able to collect but vague and incoherent allusions.

Though New York receives no appointment, its returns of members are given. They are but ninety-six, less by thirty-six than in the preceding year. Philadelphia also reports but ninety-six, a loss of forty-one. New Jersey has but one hundred and sixty; she has gained but ten. The war has thinned most of the northern forces of the Church. Baltimore reports her unimpaired nine hundred. North Carolina, though but one year on the list of appointments, returns nine hundred and thirty. The chief movement of Methodism is still southward.

The question was asked in this Conference whether "in the present distress the preachers are resolved to take no step to detach themselves from the work of God the ensuing year?" It was answered, "We purpose, by the grace of God, not to take any step that may separate us from the brethren, or from the blessed work in which we are engaged." A public fast was appointed; no other business of importance is recorded; but the "question of the sacraments" was again discussed, as the citation from Watters intimates. This momentous "contest," as it was called, received no allusion, in the Minutes, from the Conference of 1773 to that of 1780. But according to Philip Gatch, [20] it was formally revived at the present session. The question, "What shall be done with respect to the ordinances?" was asked. "Let the preachers pursue the old plan as from the beginning," was the answer. It appears, however, that already the sacramental party were too strong to be thus peremptorily silenced; and, to appease them, the possibility of an accommodation was admitted, for it was further asked, "What alteration may we make in our original plan?" And the answer was, "Our next Conference will, if God permit, show us more clearly." The subject was, accordingly, not allowed to sleep, as we shall hereafter see. Garrettson, speaking of this session, says, "The question was asked, I think, by Mr. Rankin, 'Shall we administer the ordinances?' It was debated, but the decision was suspended till the next Conference, which was appointed to be held in the following May in Leesburgh, Va. I shall never forget the parting prayer of that blessed servant of God, Mr. Shadford. The place seemed to be shaken with the power of God. We parted, bathed in tears, to meet no more in this world. I wish I could depict, to the present generation of preachers, the state of our young and prospering Society. We had Gospel simplicity, and our hearts were united to Jesus and to one another. We were persecuted, and at times buffeted; but we took our lives in our hands and went to our different appointments, weeping and sowing precious seed, and the Lord owned and blessed his work." [21]

Fourteen preachers were received on trial, and eight admitted to membership. Among the former was Caleb B. Pedicord, one of the saintliest men of his age. His personal appearance is remembered as peculiarly interesting; [22] his aspect was beautiful in its combined expression of intelligence, moral refinement, and pathos. His voice in both singing and preaching, had a dissolving power of tenderness. Marvels are told of the quiet, pathetic force of his sermons. He was a native of the Western Shore of Maryland, and was probably an early convert of Strawbridge in Frederick County, where was also his first appointment by the Conference. He continued in the itinerancy till his death, traveling and preaching with great popularity in Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, and Virginia. He was on Baltimore circuit at the time of the Episcopal organization of the denomination in that city, and probably shared in its proceedings. His gentle, yet commanding, character could not protect him from the persecutions of the times. Soon after he had entered upon his circuit, in Dorchester County, Md., he was attacked, on the highway, till the blood dripped down his person. He took shelter in the house of a friend, and, while his stripes were being washed, a brother of his assailant entered, and ascertaining the cruel grievance, mounted his horse, and hastily rode away, indignantly threatening to chastise the persecutor. The latter was soon overtaken, and so severely beaten that he promised never to trouble another itinerant. Pedicord could not approve such a vindication, but he might well rejoice afterward over one of those striking coincidences which so often attended the labors and sufferings of the early itinerants, for both these brothers were subsequently seen sitting, "in their right minds," in the communion of the persecuted Methodists. The itinerant bore the scars of his wounds to his grave.

Pedicord's labors in New Jersey, in 1781, were greatly successful. He found Abbott in his new home, on Lower Penn's Neck, where the honest evangelist was much perplexed and dejected at his own comparatively slight success. "I had preached again and again," says Abbott, "and all to no purpose. I found there a set of as hardened sinners as were out of hell." Gladly, therefore, did he welcome Pedicord, hoping for a word of consolation in his discouragement. Pedicord was so distressed by Abbott's statements that he could not eat his breakfast, but retired to his chamber to pray. After some time he reappeared with a cheerful aspect. "Be not discouraged," he cried to his host, "these people will yet hunger and thirst after the word of God." In a few months "there was a great work going on in this Neck. This prophet of the Lord had such access to him as made him confident that the Lord would work." [23]

A memorable instance of his usefulness occurred on this circuit. He was an excellent singer; while riding slowly on the highway to an appointment at Mount Holly he was singing,

"I cannot, I cannot forbear,

These passionate longings for home;

O! when shall my Spirit be there?

O when will the messenger come?"

A young soldier of the Revolution, wandering in a neighboring forest, heard him, and "was deeply touched not only with the melody of his voice, which was among the best he ever heard, but with the words, especially the last couplet." "After he ceased," writes the listener, "I went out and followed him a great distance, hoping he would begin again. He, however, stopped at the house of a Methodist and dismounted. I then concluded he must be a Methodist Preacher, and would probably preach that evening." That evening the youthful soldier heard him, and Caleb B. Pedicord thus became "the spiritual father" of Thomas Ware, one of the most pure minded and successful of early Methodist itinerants — for fifty years a founder of the denomination from New Jersey to Tennessee, from Massachusetts to the Carolinas, and, by his pen, the best contributor to its early history. [24] Pedicord's fine insight could perceive the pure worth of his young disciple, and when the latter began to labor in public the itinerant wrote him, from Delaware, an earnest summons to the itinerant field. "He who claims all souls as his own, and wills them to be saved, does sometimes, from the common walks of life, choose men who have learned of him to be lowly in heart, and bids them go and invite the world to the great supper. The Lord is at this time carrying on a great and glorious work, chiefly by young men like yourself. O come and share in the happy toil, and in the great reward! Mark me! though seven winters have now passed over me, and much of the way has been dreary enough, yet God has been with me and kept me in the way, and often whispered, 'thou art mine, and all I have is thine.' He has, moreover, given me sons and daughters too, born not of the flesh, but of God; and who can estimate the joy I have in one destined, I hope, to fill my place in the itinerant ranks when I am gone! Who then will say that mine was not a happy lot? 'Tis well you have made haste; much more than I can express have I wished you in the ranks before mine eyes have closed in death on all below. When Asbury pressed me to become an itinerant, I said, God has called me to preach, and woe unto me if I preach not; but I had no conviction that he had called me to itinerate. 'No conviction, my son,' said he to me sternly, 'that you should follow the direction of him Him who commissioned you to preach? Has the charge given to the disciples, "Go and evangelize the world," been revoked? Is the world evangelized?' He said no more. I looked at the world; it was not evangelized. The world must be evangelized; it should long since have been so, and would have been so, had all who professed to be ministers of Christ been such as were the first Gospel preachers and professors; for who can contend with him who is Lord of lords and King of kings, when they that are with him in the character of ministers and members are called and chosen and faithful? Here the drama ends not; but the time, we think, is near — even at the door. Nothing can kill the itinerant spirit which Wesley has inspired. It has lived through the Revolutionary War, and will live through all future time. Christendom will become more enlightened, will feel a divine impulse, and a way will be cast up on which itinerants may swiftly move, and in sufficient numbers to teach all nations the commands of God." Thus, not long before his death, did he in this prophetic letter call out his "son in the Gospel" to bear forward the standard which was about to fall from his own trembling hand, and to verify, to no small extent, his sanguine predictions. "The fruit of his ministry in New Jersey was visible for at least half a century after he had passed to his reward, and the effects of his labors are probably felt to this day." [25] In 1785 the Minutes record the decease of Pedicord in one sentence: "A man of sorrows, and, like his Master, acquainted with grief; but a man dead to the world, and much devoted to God." He was the first that fell in the itinerant field after the Episcopal organization of the Church.

John Tunnell was received on probation at the Conference of this year; a name fragrant to the Methodists of that early day, though familiar to few of our times. "He was truly an apostolic man; his heavenly-mindedness seemed to shine on his face, and made him appear more like an inhabitant of heaven than of earth." [26] He was appointed one of the original Elders at the organization of the Church in 1784, though he was not at the memorable Christmas Conference. He had gone in quest of health to the West India Island of St. Christopher's, where he was offered a good salary, a house, and a slave to wait upon him, if he would remain as a pastor; but he declined the offer, and returning, was ordained, and resumed his travels in the states with great success. "His gifts as a preacher," says Lee, "were great." He was sent in 1777 to the famous Brunswick circuit, Va., where he labored with much usefulness; the next year he traveled Baltimore circuit. After several years of indefatigable labors in the middle states, he was sent, by the Conference in 1787, with four itinerants, among whom was young Thomas Ware, beyond the mountains, to the "Holston country, now called East Tennessee." [27] He thus scaled the Alleghenies, and, though comparatively forgotten by us, takes historical rank among the founders of Methodism in the great valley of the West, its most important arena. His last appointment was in this frontier held, (1789,) where he fell at the head of a little corps of seven itinerants, who were on four circuits, after thirteen years of faithful services, a victim of consumption — a constitutional tendency developed by his exposures and fatigues. He died near "Sweet Springs," in July, 1790; his brethren bore his remains over the mountains, about five miles east of the Sweet Springs. Asbury preached his funeral sermon at Dew's Chapel, and interred him there, among the hills of Western Virginia, where he sleeps without a memorial; but his name will live forever in '' the record on high," if not on earth. The Minutes of 1790 record in three sentences his obituary, and testify that he was "a man of solid piety, great simplicity, and godly sincerity; well known and much esteemed by ministers and people." He had traveled extensively through the states, and "declined in much peace." Lee say, "he was greatly lamented." "In the Conference of 1787," says Thomas Ware, "I volunteered, with two other young men, who esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than earthly treasures, to accompany Tunnell to the Holston country" — words, though brief, yet pregnant with volumes of history. Tunnell was one of the most eloquent preachers of that age; and, though bearing about with him the infirmities of incurable pulmonary disease, he traveled and labored without faltering till smitten down by death, and the hardships of the frontier fields. Alas! that our imperfect records admit of so slight a commemoration of such saintly heroism. Asbury, in laying him in the grave, wrote: "I preached is funeral sermon; my text, 'For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.' We were much blessed, and the power of God was eminently present. It is fourteen years since Brother Tunnell first knew the Lord; and he has spoken about thirteen years, and traveled through eight of the thirteen states; few men, as public ministers, were better known or more beloved. He was a simple-hearted, childlike man; of good learning for his opportunities; he had a large fund of Scripture knowledge, was a good historian, a sensible Preacher, a most affectionate friend, and a great saint. He had been declining, in strength and health, for eight years, and, for the last twelve months, sinking into a consumption. I am humbled. O let my soul be admonished to be more devoted to God!"

William Gill was the bosom friend of John Tunnell, and one of the most eminent itinerants of his times; yet, like his heroic friend, is hardly known in our day. He was a native of Delaware, and the first Methodist traveling preacher raised up in that state; a man of superior intellect and acquisitions, which so impressed Dr. Rush, who attended him during a period of sickness in Philadelphia, as to dispose that great man ever afterward to defend the Methodist ministry against the prevalent imputations of ignorance and fanaticism. Rush pronounced him "the greatest divine he had ever heard." [28] The first historian of Methodism says: "From the long acquaintance I had with Mr. Gill, I am led to conclude that we had scarcely a preacher left to equal him in either knowledge or goodness. Indeed, I knew none who had such a depth of knowledge, both of men and things, as he possessed. Both his conversation and preaching were entertaining, and with much wisdom." He was ordained an elder at the organization of the Church, "standing among the foremost." He was esteemed the most profound, the most philosophic mind in the Methodist ministry of his day. He labored in Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey, and Delaware, successively, occupying important appointments, and for some years the office of "Presiding Elder," as it was afterward called. His last field was on Kent circuit, Maryland, in 1788, where he died declaring "all is well," and closed his eyes with his own hands as he expired. He was buried at the oldest Methodist chapel in Kent County. The Minutes of 1789, noticing his death, say "William Gill, a native of Delaware; an elder in the Church and a laborer in it for about twelve years; blameless in life, of quick and solid parts, sound in the faith, clear in his judgment, meek in his spirit, resigned and solemnly happy in his death." One of his contemporaries remarks: "Jonathan and David were not more ardently attached to each other than were Tunnell and Gill. What raptures must they have felt at meeting in their Father's house above! Few purer spirits, I verily believe, ever inhabited tenements of clay." He suffered from the usual poverty of the itinerancy. Asbury says, "I feel for those who have had to groan out a wretched life, dependent on others — as Pedicord, Gill, Tunnell, and others whose names I do not now recollect; but their names are written in the book of life, and their souls are in the glory of God." "Even," adds another authority, "a gravestone, with an inscription sufficient to designate his resting place, was denied him. A person who visited his grave writes: 'He died in Chestertown, Kent County, Md.; and, when a few more of the older men of this generation pass away, the probability is no one will know the place of his sepulcher, as I was unsuccessful in endeavoring to persuade the Methodists there to erect at his grave only a plain head and foot stone; but his record is on high." [29]

Of these men, once so deservedly eminent, but now so slightly known, one of their best contemporaries says that next to Asbury, "in the estimation of many stood the placid Tunnell, the philosophic Gill, and the pathetic Pedicord. It would be difficult to determine to which of these primitive missionaries, as men of eminent talents and usefulness, the preference should be given. Tunnell and Gill were both defective in physical strength. Pedicord was a man of much refined sensibility. They were all the children of nature, not of art; but especially Tunnell and Pedicord. A sailor was one day passing where Tunnell was preaching. He stopped to listen, and was observed to be much affected; and on meeting with his companions after he left, he said, 'I have been listening to a man who has been dead, and in heaven; but he has returned, and is telling the people all about that world.' And he declared to them he had never been so much affected by anything he had ever seen or heard before. True it was, that Tunnell's appearance very much resembled that of a dead man; and when, with his strong musical voice, he poured forth a flood of heavenly eloquence, as he frequently did, he appeared indeed as a messenger from the invisible world. Gill was eagle-eyed, and, by those whose powers of vision were strong like his, he was deemed one of a thousand; but, by the less penetrating, his talents could not be fully appreciated, as he often soared beyond them. In conversation, which afforded an opportunity for asking questions and receiving explanations, on deep and interesting subjects, I have seldom known his equal. Pedicord was a man of fine manly form, and his countenance indicated intelligence and much tender sensibility. His voice was soft and remarkably plaintive, and he possessed the rare talent to touch and move his audience at once. I have seen the tear start and the head fall before he had uttered three sentences, which were generally sententious. Nor did he raise expectations to disappoint them. Like Tunnell, he arose as he advanced in his subject; and if he could not, with him, bind his audience with chains, he could draw them after him with a silken cord. Never was a man more tenderly beloved in our part of the country than he; and if the decision of their relative claims devolved on me, I should say there was none like Pedicord. But he was my spiritual father. Besides these, I might mention perhaps twenty others of nearly equal standing; and a number of them, perhaps, the superiors of those I have mentioned, in some respects. It is a pity that so few of this class of primitive American Methodist preachers have left any written memorial of themselves and their early labors." [30]

Such were some of the mighty agents, providentially raised up about these times, for the founding of the new Church in this new world. Through men of renown in their own day, the surprising development of the results of their own labors, under their successors, has tended to eclipse them; we scarcely find their names in our historical books; hardly should we know anything, from the many volumes on Western Methodism, of Tunnell, who carried the Methodistic banner across the mountains into Tennessee as early as 1787. Yet no heroes have appeared in that field more worthy of record than he.

But these were not the only important men who head in the itinerancy at this period. Reuben Ellis was another; he was born in North Carolina, and was one of the earliest itinerants raised up in that state. During nearly twenty years he traversed the colonies from Pennsylvania to Georgia, "sounding the alarm" amid the din of the Revolutionary War. His brethren honored him, by an election as one of their original elders, at the organization of the Church. He fell at his post, in Baltimore, in 1796, "leaving few behind him who were, in every respect, his equals." [31] At his death the Conference recorded an emphatic testimony of his worth and services; he was "a man," they said, "of slow but very sure and solid parts, both as a counselor and a guide in his preaching weighty and powerful; a man of simplicity and godly sincerity. He was a faithful friend; he sought not himself; during twenty years' labor, to our knowledge, he never laid up twenty pounds by preaching; his horse, his clothing, and immediate necessaries, were all he appeared to want of the world. And although he married, in the last year of his life, he lived as on the verge of eternity, enjoying much of the presence of God. He was a man large in body, but slender in constitution. A few years before his death he was brought to the gates of eternity, and, the fall before his dissolution, was reduced very low by affliction; but he was always ready to fill any station to which he was appointed, although he might go through the fire of temptation and the waters of affliction. The people in South Carolina well knew his excellent worth as a Christian and a minister of Christ. His way opened to his everlasting rest, and he closed his eyes to see his God. It is a doubt whether there be one left in all the connection of higher, if of equal standing, piety, and usefulness."

Le Roy Cole, a Virginian, was received this year on probation. He also was one of the first elders of the Church, and served it more than fifty years as a traveling and local preacher. He "triumphed over death" in 1830 aged nearly eighty-one years, [32] having lived to see the cause, for which he so long labored and suffered, prevail over all the land.

John Dickens was also a notable man of these times. He was born in London in 1746, studied at Eton College, emigrated to America before the Revolution, joined the Methodists in 1774, and traveled extensively in Virginia and North Carolina from 1777 till 1782, when he located, but continued to labor diligently in the latter state. Asbury met him there in 1780, when Dickens framed a subscription paper for a seminary, on the plan of Wesley's Kingswood School; the first project of a literary institution among American Methodists. It resulted in Cokesbury College.

At the close of the war Asbury induced him to go to New York, where he took charge of John Street Church in 1783; the first married preacher who occupied its parsonage. His salary was a hundred pounds a year. [33] His labors were successful in gathering together the fragments of the Church, so seriously broken by the late war. Asbury arrived among them the next year and said, "They appeared more like Methodists than I have ever yet seen them." Dickens was here, the first American preacher to receive Coke and approve his scheme of the organization of the denomination. He had an important agency in that great event. In 1785 he traveled Bertie Circuit, Va. He was reappointed to New York in 1786, '87, '88. In 1789 he was stationed in Philadelphia, and there began one of the greatest institutions of American Methodism, its "Book Concern;" there also we shall see him depart to heaven by a triumphant death, in the memorable outbreak of the yellow fever in 1798.

John Dickens was one of the soundest minds and ablest preachers of the early Methodist ministry; a good scholar in English, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Mathematics; singularly wise and influential in counsel, and mighty in the pulpit — "one of the greatest and best men of that age; as it was said of Whitefield, he preached like a lion." [34] "He was," says Ware, "not only one of the most sensible men I ever knew, but one of the most conscientious." "For piety," says Asbury, "probity, profitable preaching, holy living, Christian education of his children, secret closet prayer, I doubt whether his superior is to be found either in Europe or America."

John Littlejohn was so a distinguished man of these times; an Englishman whose parents brought him to this country and settled in Virginia, about his eleventh year. In his seventeenth year he was converted under the ministry of John King. In 1774 he was one of twelve Methodists who formed the first Society in Alexandria, on the Potomac. He became their leader, and the next year began to preach. Watters called him into the itinerancy in 1776. He was driven from the field by the persecutions on Kent circuit in 1778, and, having married, settled in Leesburgh, Va., where he swayed no small influence, in both civil and religious life, down to 1818, when he removed to Kentucky. During many years he was laborious as a local preacher. The Baltimore Conference of 1831 readmitted him; he was immediately transferred to the Kentucky Conference as a superannuated preacher, and "died triumphantly" in 1836, in his eightieth year, after a ministerial life of sixty years. His superior intellect, and "especially his great eloquence," [35] gave him pre-eminence in the pulpit above most of his brethren.

In reviewing the recruits of the ministry for the present year, a Methodist historian remarks that "Never before had such a class of strong men, such talented and useful preachers, entered into the itinerancy, to labor in the American field of Methodism. Reuben Ellis was a 'weighty and powerful preacher.' Le Roy Cole lived long, preached much, and did much good. John Dickens was in literature, logic, zeal, and devotion, a Paul among the preachers. John Littlejohn was but little his inferior. William Gill was preeminently astute and philosophic. John Tunnell was an Apollos, and Caleb B. Pedicord was everything that could be desired in a Methodist preacher." [36]

The sixth Annual Conference began at Leesburgh, Va., on the 19th of May, 1778. It was the first session held in that province, then the chief field of Methodism, comprising nearly two thirds of its members. But a graver reason led the Conference to this interior and comparatively remote locality. It was a desolate year to both the country and the Church. Philadelphia and New York were both in possession of the British; the waters of Maryland were occupied by the royal fleet, and general dismay prevailed. All the English itinerants, save Asbury, had fled, and he was in confinement at the house of Judge White. A few days before this Conference he records, there, that "two of our preachers have been apprehended, rather than do violence to conscience; but the men by whom they were both taken were dangerously wounded within a few weeks after they had laid hands upon them. I am now resigned to my confinement, and am persuaded that God, by his providence, will show me when and which way to go." On the day on which his fellow-laborers assembled in the session, he preached with tender sensibility, "in his asylum, on an appropriately significant text, "Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children, and those that suck the breasts: let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber, and the bride out of her closet. Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare thy people, O Lord, and give not thy heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them: wherefore should they say among the people, Where is their God? Then will the Lord be jealous for his land, and pity his people."

"The hearts of the people were greatly melted under the word; and the power of the Lord was with us in the afternoon also. We were quiet and undisturbed; and I hope the word will take root in the hearts of some who were present."

The statistics of the Conference show the effect of the public troubles. Its Minutes barely occupy a page in print the returns of the individual circuits are not given; the aggregate membership is hastily inserted, and is but 6,095, showing a loss of 873. The ministry has diminished from 38 to 30; the list of circuits indicates important changes: New York, Philadelphia, Norfolk, and others are omitted, amounting to no less than five; but there is an addition of six, making fifteen, a gain of one. All the new fields were in the South: four in Virginia, Berkley, Fluvanna, James City, and Lunenburgh. The other two were in North Carolina, which had hitherto appeared as a solitary circuit in the Minutes, but now reports three, Roanoke, Tar River, and New Hope. [37]

The early historian of Methodism laments the decrease of members as the first example of the kind, thus far, in the history of the infant Church; he justly ascribes it, however, to the "breaches made in many of the circuits by the distresses of the war;" but the lost fields were to be won again, and to be the scenes of signal triumphs. "This," he adds, "was a year of distress and of uncommon troubles: by the war on the one hand, and persecution on the other, the preachers were separated from their flocks, and all conspired to increase the burdens of Christians." Eleven probationers were received into membership in the Conference, and nine candidates admitted on trial. The additions being nine, and the decrease eight — no less than seventeen — nearly half the ministry of the preceding year must have retired at this session. We shall hereafter see, however, that locations, temporary or permanent, were not the exceptions, but the rule, down to the end of this century. Few itinerants could continue in the onerous service after their marriage, and many, unmarried, broke down their constitutions, and were compelled to retire after the labors of a few years.

As Rankin had retreated and Asbury was in seclusion, William Watters, the senior native itinerant, presided at this Conference, [39] though he was not yet twenty-seven years old. He had been appointed, as we have noticed, at the preceding session, with Gatch, Dromgoole, Ruff, and Glendenning, a committee of superintendence in case the "assistant" should leave the country before the expiration of the ecclesiastical year. Watters says of the session that, "Having no old preachers with us, we were as orphans bereft of our spiritual parents; but though young and inexperienced in business, the Lord looked graciously upon us, and had the uppermost seat in all our hearts, and of course in our meeting. As the consideration of the administration of the ordinances was laid over, at the last Conference, till this, it of course came up and found many advocates. It was with considerable difficulty that a large majority was prevailed on to lay it over again till the next Conference, hoping that we should, by that time, be able to see our way more clear in so important a change."

The sacramental question was now, in fine, irrepressible; the clergy of the Church of England, upon whom the Methodists were mostly dependent for their baptism and the Eucharist, had nearly all fled the country. The scriptural right of the young Church to these ordinances was unquestionable among themselves; expediency alone seemed to interfere. The controversy will soon culminate, amid general alarm and no little peril, but it will finally prove itself to have been one of the most providential events of the incipient history of the denomination, the provocation and reason of its effective and permanent organization. Besides this controversy we have intimations of no other business, done at the session, except the appointment of two "general stewards" to receive and distribute its collections, and, owing to the depreciation of the paper currency, the increase of the preachers' allowance from six to eight pounds, per quarter, Virginia money.

About half the probationers, received at this time, traveled but two or three years. Some of the others became more or less distinguished in the Church. One of them, James O'Kelly, will hereafter appear in an unfortunate contest with the denomination; in these early times, however, he was highly esteemed for his talents and his fervent devotion. Asbury first met him, two years after the present Conference, and described him as "a warmhearted, good man," and "very affecting" in his preaching. He adds that they "enjoyed and comforted each other; this dear man rose at midnight and prayed very devoutly for me and himself." O'Kelly was one of the most laborious and popular evangelists of that day, and occupied important appointments, as circuit Preacher, Presiding Elder, Member of the "Council" of 1789, and also of the first General Conference, 1792, soon after which he withdrew from the Church to organize the "Republican Methodists." In the fifteen years, during which he continued in the denomination, he labored successfully in North Carolina and Virginia; about half these years he traveled large districts as presiding elder, [4]0 and wielded a commanding influence over the preachers of the South.

It is an example of the capriciousness of fortune or fame, that while the name of James O'Kelly is familiar in Methodist history, that of Richard Ivey, an incomparably more deserving man, is hardly remembered. "As a Methodist preacher he was known from Jersey to Georgia. He possessed quick and solid parts; was a holy, self-denying Christian, that lived to be useful. Much of the eighteen years that he was in the work he acted as an elder at the head of a district. He located in 1794 to take care of his aged mother, and died in peace in 1795. [41] His unrecorded services contributed greatly to the early outspread of the Church. He was one of its original elders, and one of its most eloquent preachers. Thomas Ware, to whom we are indebted for some of our most interesting reminiscences of these obscure times, speaks of him in emphatic words. Ware heard him on a critical occasion in West Jersey. "Learning," he says, "that a company of soldiers, quartered near one of the appointments, had resolved to arrest the first preacher who should come there, and carry him to headquarters, I determined to accompany him, hoping, as I was acquainted with some of the officers, to convince them that he was no enemy of his country. The preacher was Richard Ivey, who, at that time, was quite young. The rumor of what was about to be done having gone abroad, many of the most respectable inhabitants of the neighborhood were collected at the place. Soon after the congregation was convened a file of soldiers were marched into the yard, and halted near the door, and two officers came in, drew their swords, crossed them on the table, and seated themselves, one on each side of it, but so as to look the preacher full in the face. I watched his eye with great anxiety, and soon saw that he was not influenced by fear. His text was, 'Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.' When he came to enforce the exhortation, 'Fear not,' he paused, and said, 'Christians sometimes fear when there is no cause for fear;' and so, he added, he presumed it was with some then present. Those men who were engaged in the defense of their country's right meant them no harm. He spoke fluently and forcibly in commendation of the cause of freedom from foreign and domestic tyranny, looking at the same time first on the swords, and then in the faces of the officers, as if he would say, This looks a little too much like domestic oppression; and in conclusion, bowing to each of the officers, and opening his bosom, said, 'Sirs, I would fain show you my heart; if it beats not high for legitimate liberty may it forever cease to beat.' This he said with such a tone of voice and with such a look as thrilled the whole audience, and gave him command of their feelings. The countenances of the officers at first wore a contemptuous frown, then a significant smile, and then they were completely unarmed: they hung down their hands, and before the conclusion of this masterly address, shook like the leaves of an aspen. Many of the people sobbed aloud, and others cried out, Amen! while the soldiers without (the doors and windows being open) swung their hats, and shouted, 'Huzza for the Methodist parson!' On leaving, the officers shook hands with the preacher, and wished him well; and afterward said they would share their last shilling with him."

Though he had located, his brethren commemorated him in their Minutes of 1796. "He was a native," they say, "of Sussex County, Va. He traveled extensively through Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia: a man of quick and solid parts. He sought not himself any more than a Pedicord, a Gill, or a Tunnell, men well known to our connection, who never thought of growing rich by the Gospel; whose great concern was to be rich in grace and useful to souls. Thus Ivey, a man of affliction, lingered out his latter days, spending his all with his life in the work. Exclusive of his patrimony, he was indebted at his death. He died in his native county in Virginia in the latter part of 1795."

John Major was distinguished by his pathetic eloquence. He was known as the "Weeping Prophet." His usefulness is said to have been "seldom equaled." His congregations were usually melted, and his own voice lost in their sobs and cries. He was one of the earliest missionaries sent by the denomination to Georgia, where he was surpassingly popular, without as well as within the Church. Through ten years of itinerant labors and sufferings he devoted his utmost energies to the founding of Methodism in the extreme South, and fell at last in his work near Augusta, Ga., in 1788, "dying a witness of perfect love." Of course such a man could not fail to be very useful. The most obdurate hearts dissolved under his appeals. Even at his grave a hardened sinner, reflecting on his devoted life, seemed to hear again, in mute echoes, his pathetic warnings, and was awakened and converted. The Conference recorded his obituary in a single but significant sentence: "John Major, a simple-hearted man; a living, loving soul, who died, as he lived, full of faith and the Holy Ghost; ten years in the work; useful and blameless." [42] One of his fellow-laborers describes him as "armed with the irresistible eloquence of tears:" as so beloved by the people that "they would have risked their lives to rescue him from insult or injury." "I have seen," he adds, "an audience sit quietly and listen to a masterly discourse without a tear to moisten the eye of an individual, and then Major, by an exhortation of five minutes, produce such an effect that all seemed to melt before him, so that there was scarcely a dry eye in the whole assembly. I once heard this good man, when the Methodists principally for forty miles around, and some for more than fifty, were collected at a quarterly meeting on the favored Peninsula. His text was, 'Unto you who believe he is precious.' Before he closed his pathetic discourse, his voice was lost in the cries of the people; and at the close of the meeting we had occasion to rejoice over many sons and daughters redeemed by power as well as by price." [43]

Henry Willis is another, now obscure, but once pre-eminent name, that history should not willingly let die. He was born on the old Brunswick Circuit, Va., and was the first man that Asbury ordained deacon and elder after the Christmas Conference. [44] his brethren, mourning his death, say, in their Minutes, "that he was a man of very improved mind;" that "with him system, spirit, and practice were all united." [45] After years of apostolic labors his lungs failed, but he had such an estimate of the ministerial vocation, that he deemed it his duty never to abandon his post till death should cancel his commission. Repeatedly did he temporarily locate to regain his health, but as repeatedly did he resume his work as he had strength. "Possibly," say the Minutes, "not many such cases as that of Henry Willis have been known. He lingered along the shores of death, apparently dying, and then reviving and re-reviving for years, but finally the feeble taper sunk quietly in the socket and disappeared. He died with an unshaken confidence in his God, and triumphant faith in Christ Jesus as his Saviour. Perhaps the real worth of a Willis, and many others of the primitive Methodist preachers in America, will never be known till the great day of universal judgment." They describe him as having "an open, pleasant, smiling countenance; great fortitude, great courage tempered with good conduct; as "cheerful, without levity, and sober, without sadness." They speak of him as a great man of God, who extended his labors from New York, in the North, to Charleston, in the South, and to the Western waters. In these stations the name of Willis will be held in venerable remembrance. We shall meet him again, as the first Methodist preacher stationed in Charleston, and one of the first who pioneered Methodism across the Alleghenies. After thirty years of ministerial sufferings and labors be died in 1808 at Pipe Creek, Md., the scene of Strawbridge's first labors. Asbury esteemed no Methodist preacher higher than Henry Willis. On visiting his grave be exclaimed, "Henry Willis! Ah, when shall I look upon thy like again! Rest, man of God!"

It was at this Conference that Philip Gatch ceased to itinerate, on account of his health, enfeebled by excessive labors. Though he soon afterward married and settled on a farm, he had the superintendence of some of the circuits in the neighborhood of his residence, in Powhattan County, Va., and preached continually. In the sacramental controversy, which produced a temporary rupture the next year, he was one of the committee of three (including Reuben Ellis and John Dickins) who had charge of "the southern part of the work." Though no longer on the Conference records, his services were hardly diminished, and the Church owes to him one of its most momentous legislative measures: the trial of accused members by committees, in place of the previous clerical power of excommunication.

It has been remarked that at least four of the men who entered "the itinerancy, this year, were preachers of note. John Major was universally beloved and useful, remarkable for tenderness and tears. Richard Ivey stood High as a Christian and as a preacher. Henry Willis was unequaled, in the judgment of high authority. James O'Kelly was a warm Southern man, and a warm, zealous preacher, who acquired great influence; he did much good while he continued in the ranks with Asbury. [46]

Nearly half a century after our present period, Freeborn Garrettson, then a patriarch of fifty years' ministerial service, commemorated, before the New York Conference, some of the men noticed in this chapter. Of John Dickins he said: "he was a wise and good man, and a great preacher. He commenced our Book Concern by printing a small Hymn Book, principally with his own funds. Before his death it acquired a considerable degree of magnitude. He compiled that most excellent Scripture Catechism which has been used so long in our Church. His piety was ardent, his reproofs pointed, and he strictly enforced our discipline; but he was more rigid toward himself than toward others." Of Tunnell he said, that "he was a man of slender habit, who, early in life, wore himself out in the work of God, and went home to glory. He was a preacher much beloved and greatly blessed. A sweet singer in Israel, he had a soft, clear voice; and his demeanor was humble, meek, and gentle. He was a son of consolation and of affliction." Of Henry Willis he said, that "he was a light in the Church for many years. At a very early period in the work I met him in Virginia, took him by the hand, and thought he would be a blessing to the Church; and so he proved. His habit was slender, though he traveled many years; but want of health at length induced him to take a supernumerary station. His zeal and love for the cause continued to the day of his death, and rendered him exceedingly useful in his neighborhood. What I have said of him would be also descriptive of my brother, Richard Garrettson, who entered the ministry about the same time. They have gone as ripe grain to the garner of the Lord. William Gill was a man of a remarkably strong mind, and though called from an humble situation in life, before he had traveled eight years he might be accounted a learned man, so greatly had he improved himself in theology and philosophy. He was powerful in prayer, his petitions seeming to wing their way to heaven. His sermons were deep and scriptural. He paid very little attention to dress, and was diminutive in appearance; but his good sense, usefulness, and piety commanded respect; and he displayed so much wisdom, and such a profusion of excellent matter in his discourses as greatly surprised those who had judged of him only from personal appearance. Caleb B. Pedicord was instrumental in bringing many souls to God; he was constitutionally subject to dejection, which sometimes led him to doubt his call to preach, and induced him to think of returning home. I remember a speech he made in a Love-feast, (during the sitting of the Conference at Baltimore,) which moved the whole assembly. He rose up, bathed in tears, and said: 'My friends, I have labored under heavy trials the past year. I was afraid that I was doing no good, and that I was not called to preach; but shortly before I left my circuit I went to a house where I met an aged Negro woman, who told me that what I had said to her, when I was there on a former occasion, had been the means of awakening her, and of bringing her to God. "I bless the Lord," said she, "that ever I saw you; for I am now happy in God my Saviour!" O how greatly did this encourage me! for I thought it was better to gain one soul to Christ than to acquire all the riches of the world. And now I am encouraged to go forward in the good work; and, God being my helper, I will spend the remainder of my days wholly in his service!' After this he served the Church several years, and then went home to glory. Shall I mention a Ruff, a Watters, a Boyer, a Baxter, a Mair, an Ellis, a Bruce, a Poythress, a Tatum, a Hartley, etc. These were early in the field of labor; and although I had the honor of entering it a little before them, they have been gathered home long before me. In the midst of war, commotion, and persecution, we had great peace and prosperity in the Church; and we thought not our lives dear unto us if we could accomplish the great work of spreading the Gospel through every part of the continent; and, blessed be God! he was with us, and his word had free course and was glorified. The Carolinas, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and some parts of New York, shared in the blessed work; for while we were traversing the wilds of our afflicted country, mingling our tears with the Gospel word, thousands were brought to taste the sweets of religion." [47]

Such were some of the great men who laid our ecclesiastical foundations; oblivion has been fast gathering over their graves and their names; the historians of the Church may well attempt to replace them in its grateful recognition, though it be by the scantiest reminiscences.

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ENDNOTES

1 Minutes of Conferences, etc.., vol. i, pp. 5-19. The proceedings of the session which organized the "Methodist Episcopal Church," in 1784, are not given in the Minutes of that year, but in those of 1785. One or the sessions of 1780 is not mentioned in the Minutes. It will be noticed hereafter.

2 I say "virtually adopted," for the determination of questions in these early Conferences was a prerogative of the General Assistant, qualified, however, by the opinion of the majority when this was obvious.

3 Lednum, p. 145.

4 Lednum, p. 152.

5 He published the "Life of William Glendenning." Philadelphia, 1795.

6 Lednum, p. 141.

7 Our records give the name as Drumgole; but his son, the late Hon. Geo. C. Dromgoole, Member of Congress, gives it as in the text.

8 "Edward Dromgoole is a good preacher, but entangled with a family," says Asbury, (Journals, anno 1780,) a probable explanation of the fact stated in the text.

9 Lee's Life, etc., of Lee, p. 109.

10 Bangs says 24th of May, (i, p. 116,) erroneously. Compare Minutes Watters, Asbury, and Lee.

11 Bangs (i, 117) erroneously states it as 1,875.

12 "The Minutes say twenty-four, but include not the Assistant or Superintendent.

13 "Lee (p. 60) says eleven, erroneously.

14 Minutes, 1805.

15 Gatch, p. 84.

16 Rev. G. Scott, in Finley's Western Methodism, p. 158.

17 Rev. Dr. Hamilton to the author.

18 Lee, p. 62.

19 The estimate in the Minutes is incorrect, as it omits the superintendent or "assistant," and Asbury, in the appointments. There were thirty-six appointed besides these. Lee is also inaccurate, p. 61.

20 Gatch's MS. Journal, in possession of Rev. Dr. C. Elliott. See Lee's Life of Lee, p. 78, and Gatch's Mem., p. 67.

21 "Garrettson's Semi-centennial Sermon before the New York Conference.

22 Those who have seen Mr. Pedicord have testified to the beauty of his person, and this casket contained a jewel of the finest polish." Lednum, p. 201.

23 "Lednum, p. 310.

24 Compare Lednum, p. 310, with "Sketches of the Life and Travels of Rev. Thomas Ware," etc., p. 54. This autobiography is the best written book in our numerous catalogue of similar works. It is replete with interesting incidents and able sketches of character. It is little known, however, and has been negligently published, without index or table of contents.

25 Atkinson's Memorials, p. 204.

26 "Lednum, p. 200.

27 "Ware's Life, p. 132.

28 Atkin's Memorials, p. 171.

29 Atkinson, p 171.

30 Rev. Thomas Ware.

31 Lednum, p. 195.

32 Minutes, 1832.

33 Wakeley, p. 300.

34 Lednum, p. 198.

35 Ibid., p. 199.

36 Lednum, p. 201.

37 The last two do not appear in the Minutes till the next year, but Lee (p. 68) gives them for this year. They were probably provided for at this session without being yet formally recognized. Lee, however, abounds in errors.

38 Lee, p. 64.

39 Garettson's Life, p. 111.

40 I have used the title "presiding" elder before it appears in the Minutes, as the office was substantially the same before and after the adoption of that title by the Conference.

41 Lednum, p. 23.

42 Minutes, 1778. Lednum, p. 224. Major's name is not among the candidates of this year, but is in the list of appointments. The old Minutes, I repeat, are full of errata.

43 Ware, p. 175.

44 Lednum, p 224.

45 Minutes, 1808.

46 Lednum, p. 226.

47 Garrettson's Semi-centennial Sermon.

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