VOLUME 2 — BOOK III — CHAPTER I
PREPARATIONS FOR THE ORGANIZATION OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Dr. Thomas Coke — His early Life — He is "chimed" out of his Church — Joins Wesley — Importance of his Services — Sketch of Thomas Vasey — He sacrifices a Fortune for Methodism — His Services — Richard Whatcoat — His Appearance and Character — His early History — His Labors and Sufferings in Ireland — Necessity of Wesley's Measures for America — Condition of American Methodism — Condition of the Protestant Episcopal Church —Wesley solicits Ordinations from the Bishop of London for America — Fletcher's Interest for America — Rankin's Interview with him — Wesley's Consultation with Coke — The Ordinations at Bristol — Wesley's Opinion on Church Polity — Voyage of Coke and his Companions to America — Their Arrival at New York — At Philadelphia — At Dover — At Barrett's Chapel

In the year 1776, while pursuing his daily travels and ministrations in Somersetshire, England, John Wesley was saluted by a clergyman, who had come twenty miles to meet him. "I had much conversation with him," says Wesley, "and a union was begun then which, I trust, shall never end."' The stranger was Thomas Coke, LL.D., a man who was destined to become a chief character in the history of Methodism in both hemispheres.

Thomas Coke was born in 1747, at Brecon, a picturesque town of Wales. His father is commemorated, in the chancel of the ancient Priory church of the town, for his extraordinary benevolence and hospitality, and his services as "chief magistrate of the borough," a function which he administered "with universal approbation." [2]

The only child of a wealthy house, Thomas Coke began early his education for one of the learned professions. In his seventeenth year he entered Jesus College, Oxford, as a Gentleman Commoner. He there chose the Church as the future sphere of his life; but he did not escape the infection of the speculative infidelity then prevalent in the English universities. Sherlock and other writers rescued him from doubt, but failed to teach him genuine personal religion. He entered upon his office as incumbent of South Petherton Parish, Somersetshire, an unregenerate man, but a conscientious inquirer. An interview with Thomas Maxfield, Wesley's first lay itinerant, afforded him better views of evangelical Christianity. Visiting a family in Devonshire, he found among its laborers an untutored but intelligent Methodist, a Class Leader of the rustics of the neighborhood. He sought this good man's conversation, and was surprised at his knowledge of divine truth. The nature of faith, justification, regeneration, and the evidences which attend them — the "unsearchable riches of Christ" — were themes upon which the clergyman found he could be instructed by the unlettered peasant. They not only conversed but prayed together. The educated divine obtained from the lay Methodist his best knowledge on the profoundest subjects, and acknowledged that he owed to him greater obligations, "with respect to the means of finding peace with God and tranquillity of mind, than to any other person." [3]

His increased earnestness now surprised his parishioners; his church was crowded; its vestry declined to erect in it a gallery — for the accommodation of the throng, but he had it put up at his own expense; he preached no longer with notes; he held numerous evening meetings in distant parts of his parish, introduced the singing of hymns, and testified to his people his personal experience of "the forgiveness of sins," attained while preaching at one of his neighboring appointments, where his "heart," he says, "was filled with joy unspeakable and full of glory." A clamor was raised against him as "a Methodist," though he had yet no relations whatever with Wesley, or any of his Societies. His bishop admonished him; his rector dismissed him; mobs of his own parishioners menaced him; he was "chimed" out of his church; but on the two ensuing Sundays he took his stand in the street, near the church door, and preached with power. Stones had been collected in heaps for an assault upon him, but he was protected by some of his pious people. He was compelled to abandon his parish. On the day he departed the bells were merrily rung, and the mob was treated with hogsheads of cider. Petherton celebrated as a jubilee its deliverance from a Methodist curate; but it gave to the world a man who was to rank second only to Wesley in the history of Methodism, and to be the first Protestant bishop of the new world. In later years the Petherton bells were to ring again for him as he flew over the country, one of its greatest evangelists, ring for him a hearty welcome to his old pulpit.

It has been remarked that Coke's appearance in the Methodist movement, at this time, was one of those noteworthy providences which mark its early history. Wesley, advanced in years, had hoped that Fletcher might be his successor in his great work, but the saintly vicar of Madeley was fast declining in health, and was to precede him in the grave. Coke was thrust out of Petherton, and found refuge in the Wesleyan Conference at the opportune moment. Wesley needed now a practical, an energetic, an administrative coadjutor. He had himself legislated and matured the disciplinary system of Methodism, Whitefield had stirred the conscience of England and America for it, Fletcher had settled its theology, Charles Wesley had provided for it a psalmody which was to become its virtual liturgy throughout the world. The field of Wesley's operations and responsibilities had enlarged beyond his expectations and his powers; Methodism had already extended to foreign lands, and the time had come for grand foreign plans; the American Revolution was preparing the way for an American organization of the denomination. Coke now appeared by the side of the great but aged founder as the providentially commissioned man for the times. In travel and preaching he became as indefatigable as Wesley or Whitefield. He was to traverse continually the United Kingdom, the United States, and the West Indies. He was to have virtual charge, for years, of the Irish Conference, presiding at its sessions oftener than Wesley himself. He was to win the title of the "Foreign Minister of Methodism." He was to cross the Atlantic eighteen times, defraying himself his expenses; to organize, under Wesley, the Methodist Episcopal Church, as its first bishop; to originate the constitutional organization of English Methodism by Wesley's Deed of Declaration; to found the Wesleyan Methodism in the West Indies, in Africa, in Asia, in England, Wales, and Ireland; to represent, in his own person, down to his death, the whole missionary operations of Methodism, as their official and almost their sole director; lavishing upon them his affluent fortune, and giving more money to religion than any other Methodist, if not any other Protestant of his times. Dying at last, a veteran of nearly seventy years, a missionary himself, on his way to the East, he was to be buried beneath the waves of the Indian Ocean, "the greatest man of the last century," says Asbury, "in labors and services as a minister of Christ." Like most, if not all, great men, he had peculiar faults, as we shall have occasion to see; but they hardly mar the noble proportions of his character.

Such was the man that Wesley was now to send to America to introduce a new era in its struggling Methodism. He was to go as a "superintendent" or Bishop, and to be accompanied by two assistants, as Elders, that he might thus conform, in his ordinations, to the usage of the English Church, which required in that solemnity the co-operation of at least two presbyters with the bishop. These assistants were Thomas Vasey and Richard Whatcoat.

Thomas Vasey was early left an orphan. A wealthy uncle, who was a rigid churchman, adopted him as the heir of his property. His conversion among the Methodists excited the indignation of his rich patron, and he was threatened with the loss of all his expected inheritance if he should join any of Wesley's Societies. He obeyed his conscience, and, sacrificing wealth and ease and kindred, submitted in 1775 to the hardships of the Methodist itinerancy. He had traveled about nine years when Wesley ordained him as one of Coke's presbyters. He labored in America about two years. It appears that he was induced to accept reordination from Bishop White, of Philadelphia, but Wesley's liberalized views of Church polity enabled him to receive the returned missionary without severe animadversion on this caprice. It was Wesley's policy to keep his British Societies in union with the national Church, and to promote the appointment of his most able preachers to parishes in the Establishment, that the Methodists might have, without embarrassments, the holy sacraments. He encouraged Vasey, therefore, to accept a curacy. The latter was content with his new position only two or three years, and in 1789 re-entered the itinerancy, "in which, with much zeal and success, he persevered during the twenty-two following years." [4] From 1811 to 1826 he was retained, by the Conference, at City Road Chapel, London, where he performed the liturgical services regularly as enjoined by the will of Wesley, and, as an ordained clergyman, afforded important assistance to the Metropolitan Societies generally. He was at last recognized as a patriarch among the London Methodists, having labored till the eighty-fourth year of his age and the fifty-first of his ministry. Bending under infirmities, he retired, in 1826, to die in Leeds, a place sacred in Methodist history, not only for its missionary reminiscences and the agency of its Conferences in American Methodism, but for the primitive piety of its Societies. He found there a congenial sanctuary in its "Select Bands," an early institution, which had always been his delight, and which he deemed the best school for instruction in "the deep things of God." He attended them constantly, and ripened fast for heaven. During his residence in Leeds, says the Conference, "his Christian simplicity, His pious conversation, and his fervency and diligence in prayer were highly observable and exemplary. For a considerable time previous to his death nearly one third of his time appeared to be spent in prayer." He died suddenly on the 27th of December, 1826. He rose in the morning as well as usual, but in a few hours was seized with a convulsion, and expired instantly. [5]

Richard Whatcoat was one of the saintliest men in the primitive itinerancy of Methodism. Had be been a Papist, he might have been canonized. One of his American contemporaries says that "his personal appearance" was "genteel and grave, his soul comprehensive, vigorous, noble, great, active;" his "presence and aspect pleasant, yet solemn, often striking with reverence and awe such as looked upon him, especially when he was exercising the offices of his position." [5] The biographer adds that it might be said of him, as of St. Basil, "that so much divine majesty and luster appeared in him, it made the wicked tremble to behold him." "In him were seen majesty and love. His whole deportment was beautiful, and adorned with personal graces. His amiable, heavenly, and courteous carriage was such as to make him the delight of his acquaintances. He was a man of fortitude; he appeared to fear no danger when duty was plain, (as his labors and troubles showed,) believing that he who walks uprightly walks safely, though he pass 'through the valley and shadow of death.' " "He feared not the face of man, but where there was just occasion he would boldly admonish and faithfully reprove, yet with so much prudence, and with such expressions of tenderness, as made way to the heart, and rendered his work successful in winning souls to his heavenly Master." "His spirit was serious, his gesture reverent, his words well suited, well weighed, pithy, solid, and expressive. His deportment was such, as if at every moment he saw Christ, and had God's law, his own conscience, and covenant with the Holy Spirit, and the day of judgment before his eyes." "When he awoke in the night he was in meditation or prayer, exulting and praising God, like Paul and Silas, speaking to himself in spiritual songs, making melody in his heart with grace. This holy man was sent to the Church as if an example, to show to what a life of peace and holiness Christians may attain on earth."

He was born on the 23d of February, 1736, in the parish of Quinton, Gloucestershire, England. His remarkably devout character is doubtless attributable, in some measure, to his pious parentage and strict early education. "I believe," He says, "that my mother walked in the form and enjoyed the power of godliness more than thirty years, and died in the triumph of faith." "From the earliest period I can remember," he adds, "I had the fear of God, so as to keep me from the gross sins of the age; but in July, 1758, when I was about twenty-one years and five months old, I attended Methodist preaching regularly, and soon found the word was made light and power to my soul; for when the preacher was describing the fall of man, I thought he spoke as if he had known everything that was in my heart. When he described the nature of faith, I was conscious I had it not; and though I believed all the Scriptures to be of God, yet I had not the marks of a Christian believer; and I was convinced that if I died in the state wherein I then was, I should be miserable forever. Yet I could not conceive how I, that had lived so sober a life, could be the chief of sinners. But this was not long; for I no sooner discovered the spirituality of the law, and the enmity that was in my heart against God, than I could heartily agree to it. The thoughts of death and judgment now struck me with terrible fear. In this state I was when one told me, 'I know God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven all my past sins, that the Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirits that we are the children of God.' This gave me great encouragement, and I determined never to rest until I had a testimony in myself that my sins also were forgiven. But in the mean time such was the darkness I was in, such my consciousness of guilt, and the just displeasure of the almighty God, that I could find no rest, day or night, either for body or soul, so that life was a burden, and I became regardless of all things under the sun. On the 3d of September, 1758, being overwhelmed with guilt and fear, as I was reading, it was as if one whispered to me, 'Thou hadst better read no more, for the more thou readest the more thou wilt know; and he that knoweth his Lord's will and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes.' I paused a little, and then resolved, Let the consequences be what they may, I will proceed. When I came to those words, 'The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God,' I fixed my eyes upon them, and in a moment my darkness was removed, and the Spirit bore witness with my spirit that I was a child of God. In the same instant I was filled with unspeakable peace and joy in believing; all fear of death, judgment, and hell suddenly vanished. Before this I was kept awake by anguish and fear, so that I could not get an hour's sound sleep in a night. Now I wanted no sleep, being abundantly refreshed by contemplating the rich display of God's mercy in adopting so unworthy a creature as me to be an heir of the kingdom of heaven." But he could not be content. He aspired to the highest consecration possible to the soul of man. "Yet I soon found," he writes, "that though I was justified freely I was not wholly sanctified. This brought me into a deep concern, and confirmed my resolution, to admit of no peace nor truce with the evils which I still found in my heart. I was sensible both that they hindered me at present in my holy exercises, and that I could not enter into the joy of my Lord unless they were all rooted out. These considerations led me to consider more attentively the exceeding great and precious promises whereby we may escape the corruption that is in the world, and be made partakers of the divine nature. I was much confirmed in my hope of their accomplishment by frequently hearing Mr. Mather speak freely upon the subject. I saw it was the mere gift of God, and, consequently, to be received by faith. And after many sharp and painful conflicts, and many gracious visitations also, on the 28th of March, 1761, my soul was drawn out and engaged in a manner it never was before. Suddenly I was stripped of all but love. Now all was love and prayer and praise. And in this happy state, 'rejoicing evermore, and in everything giving thanks,' I continued for some years with little intermission or abatement, wanting nothing for soul or body more than I received from day to day."

During eight or nine years he labored humbly but effectively as a Band and Class Leader in Wednesbury, Staffordshire, where, as we have seen, Methodism was "tried as by fire" in terrible persecutions. In 1767 he began to hold public meetings, as an Exhorter, in rural neighborhoods. In 1769 the devoted John Pawson, who knew how to estimate his character, proposed him as a candidate at the memorable Leeds Conference, which sent the first Methodist missionaries, Boardman and Pilmoor, to America. The Conference might well have received their obscure young probationer with peculiar interest, could they have anticipated that he was providentially destined to follow their missionaries, and become one of the early bishops of the wide-spread Church they had thus been humbly founding in the distant West.

After traveling two years in England he was sent to Ireland. Before his departure he went home to take a last leave of his "dear old mother, dying with dropsy." "I stayed with her," he writes, "a fortnight, and then took my final farewell, until we should meet where parting is no more; she knew and loved the work I was engaged in, and therefore gave me up willingly. She lived a few weeks later; and then died in the faith." In Ireland he traveled an eight weeks' circuit, preaching twice or thrice daily, "meeting the Societies," "visiting the sick," and suffering severe hardships in the cabins of the common people. Nearly three hundred souls were gathered into the classes of his circuit the first year. In the second he was prostrated by his excessive labors, and disease. "I was taken," he says, "with an entire loss of appetite, a violent bleeding at the nose, and profuse night-sweats, so that my flesh was consumed from my bones, and my eyes sunk in my head. My sight also failed me, so that I could not distinguish my most intimate acquaintance at the breadth of a room. I was confined by this affliction twelve weeks; for some time I could not set my feet to the ground. But my mind being upon my work, I little regarded the pain of my body so long as I was able to sit on my horse, or stand and speak to the people." His life was despaired of; but he improved, and in 1773 was sent to travel among the mountains of Wales, where he continued two years. The remainder of his services, down to the time of his departure to America, were on various circuits in England. Shadford, who well knew the wants of the American Church, urged him to go with Coke; he hesitated, and observed a day of fasting and prayer for divine guidance. At last "my mind," he says, "was drawn to meditate on the subject; the power of God came upon me, and my heart was remarkably melted with love to God and man." He offered himself to be sacrificed, if need be, for his distant brethren. His name will often recur in our pages, and always to command our reverence.

These were the men whom Wesley selected to share with him the grave responsibility he was now about to assume, of organizing the "Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States of America." We have seen the necessity of this momentous measure. Methodism had extended greatly in the new world. It was the only form of religion that had thrived there during the Revolution. It now comprised more than eighty traveling preachers, besides many local preachers, hundreds of Class Leaders and exhorters, thousands of members, and tens of thousands of regular hearers. It possessed chapels in most of the principal communities of the middle states, and in many of the rural towns. It was rapidly extending its network of ministerial plans over the land. Its members could not be called "communicants," for they had not the sacraments. It received its converts into its Churches without baptism, in many places, and the children of its families [7] were growing up without that holy rite, except where the brief measures of the Fluvanna Conference had provided it. It was a Church without a sacramental altar, though as pure and valid as any then on the American continent. Its early but precarious dependence upon the English clergy for the sacraments had almost entirely failed since the outbreak of the Revolution. The colonial English Church had been generally disabled, if not extinguished; its clergy fleeing the country, or entering political or military life. Virginia had been the center of its American strength, but it had then quite fallen away. At the Declaration of independence it included not more than a third of the people of that province. When the war began the sixty-one counties of Virginia contained ninety-five parishes, one hundred and sixty-four churches, and ninety-one clergymen. At the conclusion of the contest many of her churches were in ruins, nearly a fourth of her parishes "extinct or forsaken," and thirty-four of the remaining seventy-two were without pastoral supplies; twenty-eight only of her ninety-one clergymen remained, and these with an addition, soon after the war, of eight from other parts of the country, ministered in but thirty-six parishes. In the year in which Wesley ordained an American Methodist bishop, "memorials" to the Virginia legislature for the incorporation of the "Protestant Episcopal Church in Virginia," and for other advantages to religion, were met by counter petitions that "no step might be taken in aid of religion, but that it might be left to its own superior and successful influence." The memorials were postponed till the next session, and then rejected; but a bill for the "incorporation of all religious societies which may apply for the same," was adopted. In other parts of the country the English Church never had been numerically strong, and its existence was now precarious, except in two or three large cities. [8]

It was in these circumstances that a majority, as has been shown, of the American itinerants, representing a majority of their circuits and people, attempted to provide the sacraments by the measures of the Fluvanna Conference of 1779, after years of compromise and delay. The temporary rupture of that year was healed by a further compromise and delay in 1780, till the counsel of Wesley could be obtained. The letters which Wesley received convinced him that something must be done, however extraordinary, for the relief of the distant and suffering societies. He endeavored, nevertheless, to avert the necessity of "irregular" measures. Four years before the ordination of Coke, Whatcoat, and Vasey, he addressed two letters to Lowth, Bishop of London, entreating the ordination of at least one Presbyter to administer the sacraments among the American Methodists. "I mourn," he wrote, "for poor America; for the sheep scattered up and down therein; a part of them have no shepherds at all, and the care of the most is little better, for their shepherds pity them not." [9] Lowth declined his request. Wesley turned now to his own chief counselors, among whom were Coke, and Fletcher of Madeley. The latter had long sympathized with his American brethren, and had thought of crossing the Atlantic, and of laboring and dying among them; but his declining health forbade him. Rankin, on his return to England, met him near Bristol. "His looks, his salutation, and his address," says Rankin, "struck me with a mixture of wonder, solemnity, and joy." They walked in a garden for retired conversation. Fletcher eagerly inquired respecting the condition of the American Societies. While Rankin was describing it, the saintly vicar "stopped him six times," under the shade of the trees, and broke out with prayer to God for the prosperity of the American brethren. "He appeared," says Rankin, "to be as deeply interested in behalf of our suffering friends as if they had been his own flock at Madeley. He several times called upon me, also, to commend them to God in prayer. This was an hour never to be forgotten by me while memory remains." [10]

In the year 1784 the Leeds Conference was again to be rendered memorable by its interest for America. Fletcher was there, and with his counsels the American question was brought to an issue. [11] Wesley had already discussed it with Coke, representing to him the actual circumstances of the transatlantic Societies, their new relation and that of their country to the British Church and State; and the providential necessity that seemed to devolve upon him, as leader of the Methodistic movement, to venture on the extraordinary measure of ordaining men to supply them with the sacraments. He cited the example of the ancient Alexandrian Church, which through two hundred years provided its bishops through ordination by its presbyters. Coke was already an ordained presbyter of the Church of England; Wesley now proposed to ordain him a bishop under the unpretentious, but synonymous title of "superintendent," and to send him to the relief of the American Methodists. [12] Coke required time to consider a proposal so momentous; after about two months he wrote to Wesley, acceding to it, though still suggesting delay, or, if possible, some modification of the plan. Wesley summoned him, with Rev. James Creighton, a presbyter of the Establishment, to meet him and Whatcoat and Vasey at Bristol, and there, on the first day of September, 1784, assisted (according to the custom of the English Church [13]) by the two presbyters, Creighton and Coke, Wesley ordained Vasey and Whatcoat deacons, and on the next day ordained them elders or presbyters. On the latter day he also ordained Thomas Coke superintendent or bishop of the Methodist Societies in America. By this solemn measure American Methodism was to take precedence of the Colonial Episcopal Church in the dates of their reorganization after the Revolution. The Methodist bishops were the first Protestant bishops, and Methodism was the first Protestant Episcopal Church of the New World; and as Wesley had given it the Anglican Articles of Religion, (omitting the seventeenth, on pre destination,) and the Liturgy, wisely abridged, it became, both by its precedent organization and its subsequent numerical importance, the real successor to the Anglican Church in America. [14] This great measure was not only dignified by solemn forms and justified by providential necessity, but Wesley had been providentially prepared for it. It has sometimes been attributed, by the opponents of Methodism, to the imbecility of his old age, and the ambitious influence of the men who were immediately concerned in it. No man who has studied the progress of Wesley's opinions, as shown in his minute autobiographical records, can doubt that it was the legitimate result of his matured judgment. He says, expressly, that it was "a step which he had long weighed in his mind." [15] He had begun his public career as a "bigoted high Churchman." His brother Charles still retained his original prelatical prejudices, and therefore was excluded from his consultations in this transaction. But Wesley himself had long since outgrown the Churchly errors of his education. Nearly forty years prior to these ordinations he had read Lord King's "Primitive Church," and renounced the opinion that there was any essential distinction of "order" between bishops and presbyters. Fifteen years later he denied the necessity, though not the expediency, of episcopal ordination. Stillingfleet had proved to him that it is "an entire mistake that none but episcopal ordination is valid." Nearly thirty years before the ordinations at Bristol he renounced all other regard for systems of Church government than that of scriptural expediency. "As for my own judgment," he wrote in 1756, "I still believe 'the episcopal form of Church government to be scriptural and apostolical;' I mean, well agreeing with the practice and writings of the apostles; but that it is prescribed in Scripture, I do not believe. This opinion, which I once zealously espoused, I have been heartily ashamed of ever since I read Bishop Stillingfleet's 'Irenicum.' I think he has unanswerably proved that neither Christ nor his apostles prescribe any particular form of Church government, and that the plea of divine right for diocesan episcopacy was never heard of in the primitive Church.' " [16] Twenty-nine years before the appointment of Coke and his companions Wesley had asserted, in his Notes on the New Testament, the scriptural identity of bishops and presbyters. "I firmly believe," he at last said, "that I am a scriptural episcopos as much as any man in England, for the uninterrupted succession I know to be a fable, which no man ever did or can prove." [17]

In accordance with these opinions, Wesley, at various times, ordained some of his other itinerants, some for Scotland, some for the West Indies, and at last some for England also. At least a score of them were thus, at intervals, solemnly authorized to administer the sacraments.

The little band, charged with their great mission, now prepared to embark. "As we passed through our Societies, from Leeds to London and Bristol," says Whatcoat, "our friends showed us many kindnesses, so that nothing was wanting to make our voyage as comfortable as the nature of things would admit." They set sail at ten o'clock on the morning of the 18th of September. [18] Storms immediately assail them. After about a week they are still struggling with tempests between the coasts of England and France, doubtful whether they shall not be compelled to take refuge in the port of Brest. Better auspices dawn at last, and they hasten on their destined course. Coke finds "one peculiar blessing, a place of retirement, a little secret corner in the ship" which he calls "his study." "It is so small," he adds, "that I have hardly room to roll about; but there is a window in it which opens to the sea, and makes it the most delightful place under deck. Here, God willing, I shall spend the greatest part of my time." He entertains himself there with books and prayer. He reads the life of Xavier, and exclaims, "O for a soul like his! But, glory be to God! there is nothing impossible with him. I want the wings of an eagle, and the voice of a trumpet, that I may proclaim the Gospel through the East and the West, the North and the South." Brainerd's life is his fitting counterpart to Xavier. "O that I may follow him," he writes, "as he followed Christ!" The "Confessional;" Hoadley on "Conformity and Episcopacy;" but, above all, except his Greek Testament, Augustine's "Meditations" are his delight. He fails not also to relieve the monotony of the voyage by indulging his scholarly tastes with the Pastorals of Virgil, which, "notwithstanding their many exceptional passages, by a kind of magic power convey me," he says, "to fields and groves and purling [purl v. intr. (of a brook etc.) flow with a swirling motion and babbling sound. — Oxford Dict. — DVM] brooks, and paint before my eyes all the feigned beauties of Arcadia, and would almost persuade me that it is possible to be happy without God. However, they serve now and then to unbend the mind." He usually spends two evening hours a day reading with his colleagues, the captain and his son and mate sometimes listening with interest. He, or one of his colleagues, reads prayers daily, and preaches on Sundays. They observe Fridays with fasting and prayer. On the 22d of October they are visited by a sparrow, which "informs them that they are not a great way from land; it probably came from Newfoundland." Eleven days are yet to elapse, however, before they reach their destined port. At last, on Wednesday, the 3d of November, they land at New York, after a voyage of more than six weeks, in which, says Whatcoat, "according to the sailors' measure, we sailed over four thousand miles."

They were conducted to the house of Stephen Sands, an influential member and trustee of the John Street Church, who entertained them with liberal hospitality. John Dickins, the Methodist preacher of the city, was soon introduced to them, and welcomed them heartily. Coke stated to him the scheme which he brought from Wesley. Dickins, being one of the Fluvanna brethren, emphatically approved it, and requested that it might at once be announced to the public, assured that it would be received with joy. Coke deemed it expedient to disclose it no further till he could consult Asbury. Intimations, however, of his official visit had preceded him, and he writes, that "by some means or other the whole country has been, as it were, expecting, and Mr. Asbury looking out for me for some time."

On the night of his arrival he preached his first sermon in the new world, in John Street Chapel. The next day, and still the next, he proclaimed his message, and on the afternoon of the latter set off with his colleagues for Philadelphia, where they arrived on Saturday evening, and were entertained by Jacob Baker, "merchant in Market Street." The next day Coke preached in the morning for Dr. McGaw, at St. Paul's, and in the evening to the Methodist Society at St. George's. On Monday Drs. McGaw and White (the latter afterward Bishop of Pennsylvania) paid their respects to him, and White invited him to occupy his pulpit on the ensuing Sabbath. He was presented to the governor of the state, an acquaintance of Wesley, and an admirer of the writings of Fletcher of Madeley.

By the latter part of the week they are traveling southward, and on Saturday are received by Bassett, at Dover, where the latter was now erecting a Methodist chapel. Coke meets Garrettson at Bassett's house and admires him as "an excellent young man, all meekness, love, and activity." On Sunday, 14th of November, he arrives with Whatcoat, at Barrett's chapel, "so called from the name of our friend who built it, and who went to heaven a few days ago." "In this chapel," he adds, "in the midst of a forest, I had a noble congregation, to whom I endeavored to set forth the Redeemer as our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. After the sermon, a plain, robust man came up to me in the pulpit and kissed me. I thought it could be no other than Mr. Asbury, and I was not deceived. I administered the sacrament, after preaching, to five or six hundred communicants, and held a love-feast. It was the best season ever knew, except one at Charlemont in Ireland. After dinner Mr. Asbury and I had a private conversation on the future management of our affairs in America. He informed me that he had received some intimations of my arrival on the continent, and had collected a considerable number of the preachers to form a council, and it they were of opinion that it would be expedient immediately to call a Conference, it should be done. They were accordingly sent for, and, after debate, were unanimously of that opinion. We therefore sent off Freeborn Garrettson, like an arrow, from north to south, directing him to send messengers to the right and left, and to gather all the preachers together at Baltimore on Christmas eve. Mr. Asbury has also drawn up for me a route of about a thousand miles in the mean time. He has given me his black, (Harry by name,) and borrowed an excellent horse for me. I exceedingly reverence Mr. Asbury; he has so much wisdom and consideration, so much meekness and love; and under all this, though hardly to be perceived, so much command and authority. He and I have agreed to use our joint endeavors to establish a school or college. I baptized here thirty or forty infants, and seven adults. We had indeed a precious time at the baptisms of the adults."

Asbury knew not that Coke was present till he arrived at the chapel. The occasion was a regular Quarterly Meeting of the circuit, and fifteen of the preachers and a host of the laity were there. A spectator of the scene says: "While Coke was preaching, Asbury came into the congregation. A solemn pause and deep silence took place at the close of the sermon, as an interval for introduction and salutation. Asbury and Coke, with hearts full of brotherly love, approached, embraced, and saluted each other. The other preachers, at the same time, were melted into sympathy and tears. The congregation also caught the glowing emotion, and the whole assembly, as if struck with a shock of heavenly electricity, burst into a flood of tears. Every heart appeared overflowing with love and fellowship, and an ecstasy of joy and gladness ensued. I can never forget the affecting scene. The sacrament of the Lord's supper was administered, by the doctor and Whatcoat, to several hundreds, and it was a blessed season to many souls, while, in the holy ordinance, they discerned, through faith, the Lord's body, and showed forth his death. It is the more affecting to my memory, as it was the first time I ever partook of the Lord's supper, and the first time that the ordinance was ever administered among the Methodists by their own regularly ordained preachers." [20]

Thus we reach again the memorable interview at Barrett's Chapel; and here, in the forest solitude, the momentous scheme of Coke's mission was fully disclosed, the first General Conference of American Methodism appointed, Garrettson "sent off like an arrow" to summon it together, and the project of Dickins, for a Methodist college, revived. It was with prayerful counsels, sacramental solemnities, liberal devisings, and with singing and shouting, that the young denomination prepared, in this woodland retreat, to enter upon its new and worldwide destinies.

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ENDNOTES

1 Wesley's Journals, Works, vol. iv. Moore's Life of Wesley, vol. ii.

2 Etheridge's Life of Coke, chap. 1.

3 History of the Religious Movement, etc., ii, 186.

4 Minutes of the British Conf., 1827.

5 Wes. Meth. Mag., 1827, p. 142.

6 Dr. Phoebus' "Mems. of Rev. Richard Whatcoat, late bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church; p. 58. New York, 1828."

7 We shall soon see that Coke, immediately after his arrival, baptized not only hundreds but "thousands."

8 See History of the Religious Movement, etc., vol. ii, book v, chaps. 6, 7, where I have endeavored to treat exhaustively the whole question of Wesley's measures and intentions respecting American Methodism. For the statistical statements of the text, compare Dr. Hawks' Contributions to the Ecclesiastical History of the United States of America, i,10, and Journals of the Virginia Assembly, 1784.

9 Wesley's Works, vol. vii, p. 231.

10 Benson's Fletcher, chap. vii.

11 Etheridge's Coke, pp. 162, 163.

12 The first consultation was in Wesley's study at City Road Chapel, London. Etheridge's Coke, p. 100. On Coke's hesitancy, see his letter in Etheridge, p. 101.

13 Whatcoat in his Journal (Phoebus' Life of Whatcoat, p. 17) says: "September 1, 1784, Rev. John Wesley, Thomas Coke, and James Creighton, presbyters of the Church of England, formed a presbytery and ordained Richard Whatcoat and Thomas Vasey deacons. And on September 2d, by the same hands, etc., Richard Whatcoat and Thomas Vasey were ordained elders, and Thomas Coke, LL.D., was ordained superintendent for the Church of God under our care in North America."

14 History of the Religious Movement, etc., ii, p. 215.

15 Journals, anno 1784.

16 Letter to Clarke, Works, vii, p. 284.

17 "On the Church," Works, vii, p. 312.

18 The date given by Coke. "Extracts of the Journal of the Rev. Dr. Coke's five visits to America," p. 7. London, 1793.

19 Dr. Phoebus' Life of Whatcoat says "Sept. 28," a typographical error, copied by Sandford in "Wesley's Missionaries to America," etc.

20 Ezekiel Cooper's Funeral Discourse on Asbury, p. 165. This meeting was further memorable as the occasion on which Cooper himself (one of the most important preachers of early Methodism) was induced, after long hesitation, to join the itinerant ranks.

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