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

Conferences of 1784 — Wesley's Counsels to the Preachers — Proceedings — First Obituary Notice — Methodism Crosses the Alleghenies — Mountaineer Local Preachers — The "Three Bishops" — Memorable Pioneers — Historical Importance of the Local Ministry — Sketches of Preachers — Isaac Smith — Wilson Lee — John Smith — William Jessup

The Conference held two sessions in the year 1784, the first at Ellis' Preaching-house, Virginia, on the 30th of April, the second in Baltimore on the 25th of May. [1] An extraordinary session, forever memorable as the "Christmas Conference," was also held at the close of the year in Baltimore, but its momentous proceedings claim separate consideration. The two regular sessions are reported, as one Conference, in the official Minutes. Asbury alludes but briefly to the Virginia session. On the 29th of April he writes that he "rode to Ellis' Chapel, in Sussex County, where we held our Conference the two ensuing days. Brother O'Kelly gave us a good sermon: 'I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection,' etc. Mr. Jarratt gave us a good discourse on 1 Tim. i, 4. Our business was conducted with uncommon love and unity. From this Conference I proceeded on and crossed James River, on my way to the North, and was led to cry to God to go with us and meet us there." He reached Baltimore on the 20th of May, after a ride of fifty miles, and on the 25th opened the second session. He gives it but four brief sentences in his Journal: "Our Conference began, all in peace. William Glendenning had been devising a plan to lay me aside, or at least to abridge my powers. Mr. Wesley's letter settled the point, and all was happy. The Conference rose on Friday morning." Young Thomas Ware was present. He says: "It was the first I attended. There was quite a number of preachers present. Although there were but few on whose heads time had begun to snow, yet several of them appeared to be wayworn and weather-beaten into premature old age. I doubt whether there ever has been a Conference among us in which an equal number could be found, in proportion to the whole, so dead to the world, and so gifted and enterprising as were present at that of 1784. They had much to suffer at that early period of our history, and especially during the Revolutionary struggle. Among these pioneers, Asbury, by common consent, stood first and chief. There was something in his person, his eye, his mien, and in the music of his voice, which interested all who saw and heard him. He possessed much natural wit, and was capable of the severest satire; but grace and good sense so far predominated that he never descended to anything beneath the dignity of a man and a Christian minister. In prayer he excelled." "He prayed," says Garrettson, "the best, and he prayed the most of any man I ever knew."

The letter, by which Asbury silenced the opposition of Glendenning, was addressed by Wesley to the Conference. It was dated the 3d of October, 1783, and admonished them "all to be determined to abide by the Methodist doctrine and discipline, published in the four volumes of Sermons, and the Notes upon the New Testament, together with the Large Minutes of Conference. To beware of preachers coming from Great Britain or Ireland without a full recommendation from me; not to receive any preachers, however recommended, who will not be subject to the American Conference, and cheerfully conform to the Minutes both of the American and English Conferences, and not to receive any who make any difficulty on receiving Francis Asbury as the general assistant." "Undoubtedly," he adds, "the greatest danger to the work of God in America is likely to arise either from preachers coming from Europe, or from such as will arise from among yourselves speaking perverse things, or bringing in among you new doctrines, particularly Calvinism. You should guard against this with all possible care, for it is easier to keep them out than to thrust them out." It will presently be seen that the Conference conformed to these counsels in some of its measures.

The returns of members amounted to 14,988, showing an increase of 1,248. There were but 1,607 Methodists north of Mason and Dixon's line, and 13,381 south of it. There were eighty-four itinerant preachers, a gain of but two, though at least fifteen new laborers were received. [2] Thirteen, or nearly one sixth of the whole ministry of the preceding year, must, therefore, have retired from the ranks. Forty-six circuits were reported; their increase was seven. [3] Among the new ones were Long Island, N. Y., Redstone, and Juniata, Pa.

It was ordered at these sessions that subscriptions, for the erection or relief of chapels, should be made on all the circuits, the preachers to "insist that every member who is not supported by charity" should "give something;" that "the preachers should carefully avoid every superfluity in dress," and "speak frequently and faithfully against it in all the Societies;" that members who "buy and sell slaves," if "they buy with no other design than to hold them as slaves, and have been previously warned, shall be expelled, and be permitted to sell on no consideration;" and that "Local Preachers who will not emancipate their slaves in states where the laws admit," shall be called to account; those in Virginia "to be borne with another year," those in Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey to be suspended; that "traveling preachers who now are or hereafter shall be possessed of slaves, and shall refuse to manumit them, where the laws permit," shall "be employed no more;" that, "for the reform of singing," "all preachers who have any knowledge of the notes of music should improve it by learning to sing too themselves, and should keep close to Mr. Wesley's tunes and hymns;" that, in accordance with Wesley's advice, if "European preachers" come "recommended by Mr. Wesley," and will "be subject to the American Conference, preach the doctrine taught in the four volumes of Sermons and Notes on the New Testament," and submit to Asbury's superintendence, they shall be received, "but if they walk contrary to the above directions, no ancient right or appointment shall prevent their being excluded from the connection." Asbury's "allowance," as general assistant, or superintendent, was fixed at twenty-four pounds ($60) per annum, "with his expenses for horses and traveling." [4]

For the first time the obituary question occurs in the Minutes, "What preachers have died this year?" The answer records two, their names only, William Wright and Henry Metcalf. Of the first we have but a slight trace; he was an Irishman, had traveled one year on Dorchester Circuit, died at his post, and was buried with a funeral sermon by Asbury. Lee says of Metcalf, "He was a man deeply rooted and grounded in the faith, and very much devoted to God." When dying he got out of his bed, and bowing down in prayer on the floor of his chamber, expired on his knees.

Four fasts were appointed, for each year, on every circuit, and the preachers were ordered to write on all class papers: "The first Friday after every Quarterly Meeting is to be observed as a day of fasting and prayer." The earliest historian of Methodism remarks that it was the custom of its people "to observe, formerly, all Fridays as days of fasting or abstinence."

Lee states that there was "a gracious revival this year in many of the frontier circuits, and the way was opening fast for us to enlarge our borders, to spread the Gospel through various places where we had never been before. The call of the people was great, for more laborers to be sent into the harvest." Some of the new circuits indicate this extension of Methodism on the frontiers. In the preceding year Jeremiah Lambert had charge of the Holston Circuit, with sixty members of Society, at the head waters of the Holston River; Henry Willis followed him there the present year. Redstone Circuit now appears, as the first organized form of the ministerial work of the denomination, beyond the Pennsylvania Alleghenies. Braddock's Road over the mountains had opened that ultramontane region, and emigration naturally took this prepared route. About three years before this Conference Methodism had crossed these mountains; but John Cooper and Samuel Breeze were now appointed to the first circuit in Western Pennsylvania; [5] and, before the year closed, Asbury scaled the Alleghenies for the first time, to counsel and encourage them. Poythress, Haw, Roberts, and others, who had been laboring for two or three years on the "Allegheny Circuit," had reached the Redstone region, and opened the new field for their itinerant successors.

Many Methodists had emigrated, during the war, to the mountains of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia; and local preachers among them were the real founders of Methodism in these Alpine regions, as they were in so many other parts of the world.

As early as 1768, John Jones, of Maryland, built his cabin on Redstone Creek; Robert Wooster, a local preacher, was the first Methodist that he heard in those then remote regions. About 1781 Wooster seems to have been casually preaching there. Jones went ten miles to Beesontown or Uniontown, to hear him, was awakened under his first sermon, invited him to his own house, and was there converted while the humble lay evangelist was conducting family worship. Jones gave a son to the Western itinerancy in the early part of the century and became a pillar in the Church at Uniontown, the first Methodist Society in Western Pennsylvania. We shall hereafter see that as early as 1788 the second Conference west of the Alleghenies, comprising seven members and five candidates, was held by Asbury in Uniontown.

Among the mountaineer local preachers, founders of the denomination in the wilderness, were William Shaw, Thomas Lakin, and John J. Jacob; they were all ordained by Asbury on the same day, and were familiarly known as "the three bishops," a title won by "their indefatigable labors." [6] Lakin was a native of Maryland, and a Methodist from the year 1780. A few years before the present Conference he emigrated beyond the Tuscarora Mountains, to Bedford County, Pa., and there became one of the frontier founders of the Church. He had superior talents as a preacher, he was diligent in visiting the sick and dying, and was a sort of chaplain of that distant region on funeral occasions and other public solemnities. He often mounted his horse and went preaching from appointment to appointment over a six weeks' circuit, and attended every Quarterly Meeting in his own and many on the neighboring circuits. In fine, this good man was a pioneer of religion on the frontier, doing more effective work than most regular preachers of later times. As population pressed westward he moved with it, and died at last, in Ohio, aged more than seventy years. He left a sanctified name in the Church.

John J. Jacob was also a native of Maryland, a brave and good man, at the age of twenty a lieutenant in the American army, and a hero in the battles of Brandywine, Germantown, Monmouth, and Camden. He became a Methodist at Old Town, Md., in 1783. He refers to his conversion as attended by remarkable circumstances and "an indescribable ecstasy." "My whole frame," he adds, "especially my heart, seemed penetrated and wrapped in a flame of fire and love; and I think I felt like Peter, James, and John on the Mount." Of course his susceptible spirit rendered him one of the most zealous of the three bishops" of the mountains. He lived and preached in the rugged regions of Hampshire County, Va. He was "abundant in labors." "In the latter part of his life he gave up the world, and yielded his soul entirely to the service of his Saviour. It may be said that his life was full of benevolence, and that he lived only to glorify God. When he was nearing the heavenly country he took tender leave of his wife and children, saying, 'I shall soon meet Bishops Asbury and George. Now, Lord, receive me to thyself. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course.' " [7] He expired exclaiming, "All is well — safe!" in 1839, a veteran of more than eighty-two years.

Simon Cochrane was also a frontier pioneer of the local ministry. He was born in Harness Fort, in 1755, was a soldier in Dunmore's War, and also through the Revolutionary struggle. After eight years of military service, he joined the Methodists and devoted the remainder of his long life to "fighting the good fight of faith," a mountaineer champion of his Church, though always in its "local ranks." He began to preach in 1781. Asbury ordained him, and in the latter part of the century he emigrated to the wilderness of Kentucky, and thence, some years later, to Ohio, where, after sixty-four years of diligent ministerial labors, accompanied with the privations and perils of the frontier, he died in the faith, nearly ninety years old.

The Juniata Circuit, Pennsylvania, appears for the first time, this year, in the list of the appointments. It lay among the Tuscarora Mountains. As early as 1775, only about nine years after the epoch of American Methodism, Michael Cryder, a local preacher, penetrated to near the present town of Huntington, on the Juniata River, built himself a mill, and labored diligently at his humble avocation, and as diligently to found Methodism among the scattered settlers of his wild and beautiful neighborhood. "From this Society Methodism was propagated through the valleys and hills of this part of Pennsylvania. Circuits and stations have been growing up from it for the last seventy-five or eighty years." [8] To the northeast of this mission field of Cryder lies Penn's Valley, "one of the most famous in the state." Robert Pennington, one of the earliest Methodists of Delaware, emigrated to this romantic region and settled in Center County, where he founded Methodism. He is honored among its people as "the first Methodist of this valley." He built a log chapel among the mountains, which is still familiarly known as "Father Pennington's Church." From this obscure source refreshing streams have gone forth through the whole valley; all the Methodism of that region dates from the labors of Robert Pennington. The historian may well rescue such names from the oblivion which has been so rapidly obliterating them. Scores of other local preachers and laymen of those times, faithful and invincible pioneers of Methodism, westward and southward, men who not only labored before the itinerants arrived, and afterward with them, but provided them food and houses and "preaching houses," should be commemorated forever by the Church. It has, however, failed to record, not only their deeds, but, in most cases, even their names. It may suffice for them, but not for us, that their "record is on high." And the historical student, as, groping through the dim obscurities of our early annals, he ever and anon catches glimpses of extraordinary characters and great achievements, which, though they have left indelible impressions on the condition of subsequent and grand commonwealths, still elude his attempts to recover their historical details, is compelled to close sadly his research with the conviction that the true history of American Methodism can never be written but in heaven. While recording the services of many truly great characters, he perceives that not a few greater men, men who led their van, must remain forever unknown on earth.

It may, in fine, be affirmed that not only was Methodism founded in the New World by local preachers — by Embury in New York, Webb in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, Strawbridge in Maryland, Neal in Canada, Gilbert in the West Indies, and Black in Nova Scotia — but that nearly its whole frontier march, from the extreme north to the Gulf of Mexico, has been led on by these humble laborers; that in few things was the legislative wisdom of Wesley more signalized than in providing, in his ecclesiastical system, the offices of Local Preacher and Class Leaders, a species of lay pastorate which, alike in the dense communities of England,and the dispersed populations of America, has performed services which can hardly be overrated. The history of the denomination affords a lesson in this respect that should never be forgotten by Methodists while Christendom has a frontier any where on our planet. They have been accustomed to consider their "itinerancy" the pre-eminent fact of their history; they have demanded that all things should bend in subordination to this, and they have never exaggerated its importance; but they have failed to appreciate both the historical and prospective value of these humbler functions of their system. Most, if not all the itinerants we have thus far noticed, did inestimable service for the denomination as local preachers before they entered the itinerancy; most of them again became local preachers and labored on faithfully for the common cause. Their intervals of "regular" service have secured them historical recognition; but hundreds of their "irregular" and hardly less useful co-laborers have been forgotten.

Of the fifteen preachers received on trial at the Conference of 1784, a third retired from the itinerancy in less than three years; nearly another third in about five years; some of the remainder became men of renown by their faithful and successful services.

Isaac Smith's name is still a household word in Methodist families of the South. He was born in Virginia, in 1758. He served as a private, and later as an officer, in the Revolutionary War, sharing in many severe fights North and South. He was one of the gallant band that crossed the Delaware at night for Trenton. At Princeton, Brandywine, Germantown, Monmouth, and Stony Point, he periled his life for his country, and he bore honorable scars to his grave. In 1783 he became a Methodist, and ever afterward was as devoted a "soldier of the Lord Jesus" as he had been of his country. In the same year Asbury sent him to preach on Norfolk Circuit, Va. The present year he was Jesse Lee's colleague on Salisbury Circuit, N. C. Two years later he formed the Edisto Circuit. "In this region," says one of our authorities, "the name Methodist was scarcely known until he visited it. The new name, and his heart-searching preaching, caused much stir among the people, as they had heard but little preaching before, and knew nothing of experimental religion. Many were convicted and converted, and a number of Societies were formed. It was no uncommon event for persons to fall under his pungent preaching as suddenly as if they had been shot. The doctrine of the new birth was no better understood by the people then than it was by Nicodemus, until they were enlightened by his preaching. The pioneer of Methodism not only has to take people as he finds them, but the gold has to be worked out of the ore. When Mr. Smith was forming Edisto Circuit, a gentleman who was not a professor of religion invited him to his home. While at his house, his host observed that he frequently retired into the woods, and on one occasion followed him; when, to his great astonishment, he found him on his knees, engaged in fervent prayer. This struck him under conviction, and was the cause of his embracing religion soon after. The happy mixture of dignity, pleasantness, and meekness in his countenance was calculated to win the good opinion of such as beheld him. His appearance and his manners qualified him for the missionary work; and many of those whom he found dead in sin, and their tongues defiled with most profane language, he soon rejoiced to hear praising God. He, like most of his brethren that were engaged in planting Methodism, did not weary his congregations with dry and tedious discourses; but their sermons were short and energetic. They enforced their preaching with the most consistent deportment in the families where they sojourned, always praying with and for them, and speaking to each individual on the great matter of salvation. Such were our fathers." [9]

In 1790 he was appointed to Charleston, S. C., and in 1793 was presiding elder of almost the entire South Carolina Conference. In 1795 he superintended a still larger district. His labors were too great for his strength, and in 1796 he had to retire. But in 1820 he reappeared in the itinerant ranks. He extended his labors into Georgia, and was presiding elder there in 1821. When a veteran, full of years and honors, he devoted himself to the Creek Indian Mission, "where," say his brethren," he continued, a light in a dark place, till the infirmities of age compelled him to take a superannuated relation to his Conference in 1827." [10] "His labors among the Indians had been signally blessed, and his parting with them was a scene of uncommon tenderness. He left the nation in February, 1828, and arrived in safety on Pearl River, in Mississippi, some time in March. Here he employed himself in preaching, and traveling, and doing good in various other ways, some two or three years. His two elder sons had now been providentially brought together in Macon, Ga., and they sent a united and urgent request to their aged parents to come and spend their remaining days with them. They accepted the invitation, and in due time the parents and the children were once more in the enjoyment of each others' society." [11] He was regarded now as the "father of the South Carolina Conference." Having long labored and suffered as an apostle, he was yet to be purified through some years in the fiery furnace of physical pain. He died of a cancer in 1834, "full of faith and the comfort of the Holy Ghost," after more than half a century of ministerial life, aged seventy-six years. "Amid all his sufferings, he continued to preach, until his strength absolutely failed him, and then his greatest pleasure seemed to be to commend the religion in which he found such ample support to the friends who came to visit him in his affliction. His dying scene was eminently serene and cheerful, worthy to crown the life he had lived." His Conference, recording his death, said: "He was one of the fathers of the Church in this country, and entitled to be had in everlasting remembrance. We cannot trust ourselves to speak fully of him. He was the oldest, and, what was well becoming the father of the Conference, the most honored and beloved of all the preachers. Believing every word of God, meek above the reach of provocation, and thoroughly imbued with the spirit of love and devotion, he was a saint indeed." His son writes: "I can truly say that I never knew him [to] indulge in an expression, or in any way manifest a feeling unbecoming the character of a Christian. His faith in God was unbounded, and his conversation was habitually in heaven. From his conversion, or very soon after, he attained to the blessing of perfect love, and never lost the evidence. I watched him in early boyhood, as well as after I had reached maturity, and I can say, in the fear of God, that he was the most perfect model of Christian excellence I have ever seen; and if I had ever been tempted to doubt the truth of Christianity, I should have had no occasion, in meeting the temptation, to look beyond the daily tenor of his life. I well remember that a Jewish physician, with whom I studied medicine, was so much impressed with the holiness of my father's life as to remark one day, that if he could only hold on to his skirts at the Judgment he should feel safe; a strange expression indeed to come from a professed unbeliever in Jesus; but it will give you some idea of the confidence and veneration with which his Christian character was regarded. To the poor and destitute it was his delight to minister. His kitchen was thronged every Sabbath day by slaves from the neighboring plantations, who were sure to receive a liberal supply of food. Sometimes he would be called several miles from home to preach at the funeral of some poor old slave, who had left a dying request that 'old Master Smith' might perform that service for him. While he was especially considerate of the poor, and felt that his message was peculiarly to them, he was always welcome in the houses of the opulent, and he felt it his duty to converse with them in respect to their immortal interests as freely and as faithfully as with those in the humblest walks of society. He had a strong affection for all who loved the Lord Jesus. Among his warmest friends were Presbyterians and Baptists; for both these denominations he often preached, and with the former he always communed when he had opportunity." At one period, about the year 1817, there was a disposition among the slaves in and about Camden to get up an insurrection. They afterward confessed that they were to have murdered all the white men except Isaac Smith, and him they intended to spare that he might preach to them! As a preacher he was very earnest in manner, and concise and energetic in language; and in his younger days his sermons produced very powerful effects, insomuch that many fell prostrate under them. He was of stout frame, and nearly six feet in height. The expression of his countenance combined great dignity with uncommon gentleness; and these qualities were reflected in his manners as well as in his face. In his old age he is said to have been surpassingly venerable and lovely. His silver locks, and face beaming with goodwill, together with an almost unearthly air and manner, rendered him an object of great interest wherever he was; and he left an impression, even upon those who only saw him casually, that was little likely ever to be effaced. It is said his most remarkable characteristic, and that which gave to his preaching its greatest power, was his elevated piety, and especially his habit of intimate communion with God. In the year 1786, while riding upon the banks of the Santee, he felt the need of a deeper consecration to God; and, dismounting from his horse in a grove beside the river, he had a season of wrestling with God in prayer, and from that time the assurance of God's love toward him never forsook him for an hour. After remaining an hour upon his knees, he would come from his closet with his face fairly glowing with a heavenly light. It was in his house that Bishop Capers, then a boy, recently converted, began to pray in the presence of others. In relating the fact in his autobiography, the bishop says: "It was that Brother Smith whose praise was in all the Churches, and whose memory is still precious, as one of the purest and best of Methodist preachers." "When he died, there were found upon his knees formations, evidently occasioned by his having spent so much time in a kneeling posture." His fellow-citizens of Camden had his portrait painted, and hung in the town hall. In fine, this good man preached louder by his example than by his voice. He was the St. John of the early Methodist apostolate.

Wilson Lee was one of the most zealous, laborious, and successful Methodist preachers of his times. Many stars bestud his crown of rejoicing in heaven. He was born in Sussex County, Del., in 1761, and entered the traveling ministry in 1784. The scene of his first year's labors was the Allegheny Circuit, among the mountains of the Allegheny ridge. The ensuing two years he traveled respectively the Redstone (Pa.) and Talbot (Md.) Circuits. In 1787 he penetrated to what was then the wilderness of the West, and labored on the Kentucky Circuit, where we shall hereafter meet him. He continued to travel in Kentucky and Tennessee during the next six years, laboring night and day, suffering great privations, and encountering the severest hardships. "It may be truly said," remark his co-laborers, [12] "that Wilson Lee hazarded his life upon all the frontier stations he filled, from the Monongahela to the banks of the Ohio, Kentucky, Salt River, Green River, Great Barrens, and Cumberland River, in which stations there were savage cruelty and frequent deaths. He had to ride from station to station, and from fort to fort, sometimes with, and at other times without, a guard, as the inhabitants at those places and periods can witness." He left the West with a shattered constitution in 1793, and traveled the Salem (N. J.) Circuit. He still panted, however, for the harder and more adventurous labors of the new fields into which Methodism was bearing its ensign; we accordingly find him, the next year, in New England, traveling New London Circuit, as colleague of Enoch Mudge, David Abbott, and Zadok Priest. Mudge, the first native Methodist preacher of New England, says: "Wilson Lee was my senior on this circuit, but, owing to ill health, was unable to fill all his appointments. He was distinguished for shrewdness, piety, and correctness in his deportment. His penetrating eye saw the proper thing to be done, and when and how to do it. His administration of discipline was prompt and prudent. His zeal was unbounded, and he would not rest while it was possible for him to stir. When unable to be abroad he would have class and prayer-meetings at his lodgings. He was truly a revival preacher; his public discourses were full of rich experience, wholesome doctrine, pointed remarks, and practical theology." [13] We shall hereafter have occasion to trace more fully his labors in the East.

He was compelled, by his declining health, to seek a more genial climate. He left, however, a trail of light behind him a New England. He was appointed to New York city in 1795; the three subsequent years he labored in Philadelphia. In 1799 he traveled Montgomery (Md.) Circuit; the next year he was supernumerary, and during the ensuing three superintended the Baltimore District. In 1804 he was returned as superannuated, and departed to his final rest, the same year, in Arundel County, Md. He was taken, while praying with a sick person, with a copious discharge of blood from his lungs. A blood vessel of some magnitude was supposed to break, so that he was suffocated in a few minutes. He had distinguished himself by his administrative powers as a Presiding Elder, as well as his overpowering abilities as a Preacher, and his personal qualities as a Christian. "He was neat in dress," say the old Minutes, "affable in his manners, fervent in his spirit, energetic in his ministry, and his discourses were fitted to the character of his hearers. His constitution was very slender, but zeal for the Lord would urge him on to surprising constancy and great labors." [14] "After full trial he has immortalized," says the same record, "his ministerial, Christian, and itinerant character." Jesse Lee writes that "he professed to be a witness of the perfect love of God for many years before he died; that he was a very animated speaker, and spared no pains in trying to bring souls to God; that in private conversation he was cheerful and solemn; and that he had a good talent in taking care of the Church of God. A few months before he died, when he was so low that he could not speak louder than his breath, he said to me with great solemnity, 'I have given up the world; I have given up the Church; I have given up all.' " [15]

John Smith was a native of Maryland; he became a Methodist in 1780, and, entering the itinerancy at this Conference, labored faithfully, notwithstanding the infirmities of a feeble constitution, for ten or twelve years, a part of the time beyond the Alleghenies, in the Redstone region. He died in 1812, aged fifty-four, in Chestertown, Md., and rests at "Hinson's Chapel, near the great and good William Gill." [16] His death was remarkably triumphant: "Come, Lord Jesus," he exclaimed, "come quickly and take my enraptured soul away. I am not afraid to die. I long to be dissolved, and see my Saviour without a dimming vail between. Death has lost its sting."

William Jessup, a native of Delaware, began his itinerant career under great difficulties, pursued it with unyielding courage, and ended it with a death of triumph. He joined the Methodists about the year 1779, in Sussex County, Del. His father "was an ungodly man, and opposed his son in becoming a Methodist and in serving God. He suffered him to go to meeting on the Sabbath day in no better clothes than he allowed his Negroes; this he did to keep him away from meetings; but, however coarse or ragged his apparel, he was found worshipping regularly among the Methodists. When he began to itinerate, his father, though a large landholder, refused him a horse and suitable clothes to appear in public. His brethren, who believed God had called him to the work, gave him his outfit." "Few such holy, steady men have been found among us," says Asbury. He traveled about eleven years in Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York, and Nova Scotia; and died in Pennsylvania in 1795, shouting with his expiring breath, "My work is done! Glory! glory! glory!" He was buried at good Martin Boehm's chapel, in Lancaster County. Such heroes should never be forgotten; but their brief introduction, thus far, has not been designed as a mere tribute to their personal merit; it is preparatory for the reappearance of most of them in important future scenes.

We have thus repeatedly passed over the present period of our narrative, gleaning and adjusting, into what orderly arrangement has been possible, the scattered fragments of the history of these obscure times. Again we are brought to the epoch of Asbury's interview with Coke at Barrett's Chapel, the epoch of events which were to give a new and formal development to American Methodism. Hitherto its progress has been but preliminary; hereafter it takes a more historic shape. From gathering the broken materials of its annals, dispersed over an indefinite field, we come now to witness the spectacle of the laying of the broad and permanent foundations of its ecclesiastic and historic structure. We shall see its walls rise in massive strength, and, entering its gates, shall find ourselves walking symmetrical streets, not only in a suburb, but in a citadel of the "city of God." If not perfect, if here and there marred by marks of both internal and external combat, yet shall we find it not altogether unworthy of the vision, of the civitas Dei, which illuminated the studious vigils of Augustine, and continues to illuminate the hopes of Christendom.

——————————————————————

ENDNOTES

1 The Minutes say it "ended" on the 28th. Asbury gives the date of its beginning.

2 Lednum, p. 398. Lee says twelve, p. 86.

3 Twice as many new names of circuits appear in the Minutes, but some are new names of old circuits; others represent divisions of old circuits. The numbers of circuits are seldom appreciable indications of the growth of the Church.

4 In about a fortnight after the Baltimore session, Asbury wrote to his parents in England, with whom he shared his small salary, "My allowance is twenty-four pounds currency, (about $60,) with my traveling expenses paid. I know not that I could call my one coat and waistcoat, and half a dozen shirts, two horses, and a few books, my own if my debts were paid."

5 Lednum, p. 391.

6 Lednum, p. 392.

7 Lednum, p. 392.

8 Lednum, p. 394.

9 Lednum, p. 402.

10 Minutes, 1835.

11 Sprague's Annals, etc., vol. vii, p. 105.

12 Minutes, 1805.

13 Letter to the Author.

14 Minutes of 1805.

15 Lee's History, etc., p. 307.

16 Lednum, p. 402.

---

Text scanned and proofread by Rev. & Mrs. Duane V. Maxey
Holiness Data Ministry
P. O. Box 482
Coeur D' Alene, WA 99208

HTML conversion by Paul Leclerc and George Lyons
Copyright 2000 by the Wesley Center for Applied Theology
of Northwest Nazarene University,
Nampa, Idaho 83686.

Text may be freely used for personal or scholarly purposes, provided this notice is left intact.
This text may not be redistributed in any for-profit form or mirrored at any other website without the expressed, written consent of the Wesley Center.

If you have any questions regarding these files, please contact the Wesley