VOLUME 2 — BOOK IV — CHAPTER I
EPISCOPAL TRAVELS OF COKE AND ASBURY, FROM THE CHRISTMAS CONFERENCE TO THE FIRST REGULAR GENERAL CONFERENCE, 1785—1792 

The New Church — Its Statistical Strength — Its Territorial Range — General Approval of the New Organization — Coke Journeying Northward — Southward — Perils and Adventures — Jarratt and Slavery — Primitive Quarterly Meetings — Contests with Slavery — First Conference in North Carolina — Coke and Asbury Dining with Washington — Position of the Church on Slavery — Its Failure — Coke Returns to Europe — Asbury Itinerating — In Charleston — Lays the Cornerstone of Cokesbury College — Sketch of the Institution — Its Destruction by Fire — Coke in Europe — He is Attacked by Charles Wesley — Vindicated by John Wesley — Projects Methodist Missions — The Wesleyan Mission Scheme an Inspiration of the Christmas Conference — Coke Sails with Missionaries for Nova Scotia — Providential Adversities — Sublime Results — West India Methodist Missions — "Emancipation Eve" — Coke at the First South Carolina Conference — Methodism in the Farther South — Coke Itinerating Re-embarks for Europe — Asbury Itinerating — Is Mobbed in Charleston — First Conference in Georgia — Asbury Crosses the Alleghenies — First Conference beyond the Mountains — Conference in Western Pennsylvania — First Ordination in the Valley of the Mississippi — Other Conferences — Proposed Seminary in Georgia — First Conference in New Jersey — Coke Returns to Europe — Asbury — Coke again in America — Usefulness of a Tract — Death of Wesley — Coke Embarks for England — Returns to America.

The little ecclesiastical bark, built amid such troubled auspices, was now fairly launched upon the subsiding tumults of the country. Methodism presented itself to the new nation, an Episcopal Church, with all the necessary functions and functionaries of such a body; the only one, of Protestant denomination, now in the nation, for the colonial fragments of the English Establishment had not yet been reorganized. [1]

The new Church had now eighteen thousand members, and one hundred and four itinerant preachers, besides some hundreds of local preachers and exhorters, who were incessantly laboring in its service. [2] The number of its habitual hearers or adherents, aside from its members, was greater, in proportion to its actual members, than at any subsequent period of its history, for many of the members of the English Church in Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia now had no other ministry than that of the Methodist itinerancy. The novelty of the methods, if not the teachings of the new denomination, attracted the people in extraordinary multitudes, and the long intervals at which the itinerants returned to any one place, on their four-weeks' and six-weeks' circuits, did not allow the popular interest readily to subside. Their congregations, whether in chapels, barns, or groves, were the largest in the country. It would be safe to estimate the Methodist community at this time at about two hundred thousand, including, besides actual members, habitual attendants on its worship. It had more than sixty chapels, the names of which are recorded, and which were regularly used in its service, [3] but these were a small proportion of even its regular preaching places. Wherever it found human beings it found sanctuaries, in log-cabins, barns, or forests. It had organized Societies in the State of New York as far north as Ashgrove, on Long Island, and on Staten Island. In every county of West Jersey it had them, and in several counties of East Jersey. In Pennsylvania it had them, not only in Philadelphia, but in Bucks, Montgomery, Chester, Lancaster, Berks, and York Counties, and in the southern tier of counties as far as Bedford; and it had carried its standard across the Alleghenies and planted it in the Redstone settlement. It was also extending its march rapidly up the Juniata. It had established itself strongly in every county of Maryland and Delaware, and was already the dominant popular religious power in these states. In Virginia it had not only unfurled its banner, but planted it in impregnable positions in almost every county east of the Alleghenies, and was bearing it successfully to the heights of the western mountains. It had crossed them at one point at least, and its joyous melodies were sounding at the headwaters of the Holston, and evoking welcoming echoes from its emigrant people in the primeval forests of Tennessee and Kentucky. With the exception of some of the southwestern, and a few of the southeastern counties of North Carolina, it had extended over that state, and had won important fields in South Carolina and Georgia, whither preachers were dispatched the next year.

The new Episcopal organization appears to have been quite unanimously approved by the Methodists. Watters assures us that in the Christmas Conference, which adopted it, there was not one dissenting voice. [4] I know of no recorded dissent in the entire Church of that day. The people flocked to the newly ordained preachers for the sacraments, of which they had so long been deprived. The labor of baptizing their children became onerous to the itinerants; hundreds were sometimes thus consecrated at a single meeting. Doubtless some of the adherents of the English Church, who had favored Methodism, now retired from its assemblies, and the devoted Jarratt could not sacrifice his churchly prejudices for the new and providential order of things. He treated Coke and his Wesleyan credentials with ill temper, if not with contempt; and his useful co-operation with the Methodists wavered, if it did not turn into caviling opposition; but he could never break away from the magic influence and friendship of Asbury, and we shall see the latter preaching his funeral sermon, and weeping tears of affectionate remembrance over his grave.

With liberty and peace in the land, and organized order in the Church, the itinerants dispersed from the Christmas Conference to resume their labors with a confidence and hopefulness such as they had never known before. They had fought a good fight, had kept the faith, had outridden the storms of the Revolutionary War, and now the whole opening continent, illuminated with the gladness of a new era of freedom and prosperity, lay before them. The heroic era of the country had become the heroic period of the Church, and the humblest itinerant felt the greatness of the epoch.

Coke spent five months in the states, after the Christmas Conference, laboring incessantly. He was not content with the organization of the Church, but, as we have seen, projected, with Asbury, its first educational institution, and, while the Christmas Conference was yet in session, made arrangements and begged funds for the mission of Garrettson to Nova Scotia. After one of his sermons, at the session, he took up a collection of about a hundred and fifty dollars for it. On the 3rd of January he left the city and rested for the night at Perry Hall, but was away the next morning for the North. At Abingdon he "gave orders that the materials for the erection of the college should be procured forthwith." He crossed the Susquehanna on the ice, and spent more than ten days in Philadelphia rejoicing as "perfectly at home" among its zealous Methodists. He spent three weeks in New York, preaching, publishing his sermons, delivered before the Conference in Baltimore, and collecting funds for Nova Scotia. Early in February he passed rapidly through New Jersey, preaching almost daily. Arriving again at Philadelphia, he records: "They are now going in reality to repair our Chapel here: the scaffolding is already put up. I have united above a hundred, I think, in band, and they seem to be in good earnest about it, determined to meet. There is certainly a considerable revival in this city."

He hastens through Delaware, still preaching by day and by night, and, in the last week of the month, finds shelter again in the home of Gough. He spends a week laboring in Baltimore. "The work of God," he writes, "does indeed prosper in this town. The Preaching-house will not contain even my week-day's congregations; and at five in the morning the Chapel is about half full. I think I have prevailed on our friends in this place to build a new church. They have already subscribed about five hundred pounds sterling. I have now formed the believers into bands."

It was now that the Lovely Lane Chapel was sold, and the noted Light Street Church begun: The latter was adjacent to the existing church of that name, being on the corner of Vine Alley and Light Street. Ten years later it was burnt down, and in 1797 Asbury opened the present edifice. Breaking away from this stronghold of Methodism, Coke directed his course southward. "I must post on," he writes, "as fast as I can for between two and three hundred miles." He meets with many adventures in these new regions, and has hairbreadth escapes; sometimes wandering ten miles from his route in the woods, at others wading dangerous streams, or carried down their currents. "I had two runs of water," he says, "to cross between Alexandria and Colchester. When I came to the second (which was perhaps two hours after I had crossed the first) I found that I had two streams to pass. The first I went over without much danger; but in crossing the second, which was very strong and very deep, I did not observe that a tree, brought down by the flood, lay across the landing-place. I endeavored, but in vain, to drive my horse against the stream, and go round the tree. I was afraid to turn my horse's head to the stream, and afraid to go back. In this dilemma I thought it most prudent for me to lay hold on the tree, and go over it, the water being shallow on the other side of the tree. But I did not advert to the danger of loosening the tree from its hold; for no sooner did I execute my purpose so far as to lay hold of the tree, and that instant the horse was carried from under me, but the motion that I gave it loosened it, and down the stream it instantly carried me. Some distance off there grew a tree in the middle of the stream, the root of which had formed a little bank or island, and divided the stream, and here the tree which I held was stopped. Instantly there came down with the flood a large branch of a tree upon my back, which was so heavy that I was afraid it would break my back. I was now jammed up for a considerable time, (a few minutes appeared long at such a season,) expecting that my strength would soon be exhausted, and I should drop between the tree and the branch. Here I pleaded aloud with God in good earnest. One promise, which I particularly urged, I remember well, 'Lo, I will be with you alway, even to the end of the world.' I felt no fear at all of the pain of dying, or of death itself; or of hell, and yet I found an unwillingness to die. All my cases which I had built in the air for the benefit of my fellow-creatures passed in array before my mind, and I could not consent to give them up. It was an awful time. However, through the blessing of my almighty Preserver, to whom be all the glory, I at last got my knee, which I long endeavored at in vain, on the tree, which I grasped, and then soon disengaged myself; and climbed up the little bank. Here I panted for breath for some time; and when I recovered, perceiving the water between the little island and the shore not to be very deep, or very strong, I ventured through it, and got to land. I was now obliged to walk about a mile, shivering, before I came to a house. The master and mistress were from home, and were not expected to return that night. But the principal Negro lent me an old ragged shirt, coat, waistcoat, breeches, etc., and the Negroes made a large fire, and hung my clothes up to dry all night. Before bedtime a man, who came to the run on a small horse, and perceived mine near the brook, concluded the rider was drowned, and wanting to cross the stream on urgent business, mounted my horse, and being well acquainted with the run, came over safe. He then perceived the footsteps of a person on the side of the water, and concluded they were made by the owner of the horse, and following the track, brought horse and bags safe to me. As he seemed to be a poor man I gave him half a guinea. At night I lay on a bed on the ground, and my strength having been so exhausted, slept soundly all the night. Thus was I wonderfully preserved, and I trust shall never forget so awful but very instructive a scene."

He had given away his money so liberally at the Conference that he was now nearly out of funds, but pressed forward alone and among strangers. Arriving at Portsmouth, Va., March 15, he writes: "Here I got into my work, blessed be God I having only part of a dollar left, and preached to an attentive but chiefly unawakened congregation, and baptized." He penetrates into North Carolina, returns to Virginia, and again to North Carolina, inspecting the new circuits, inspiriting the Societies and preachers, and baptizing their children. At Roanoke Chapel he meets Jarratt, who disputes the expediency of the rule of the late Conference on slavery. "The secret is," says Coke, that "he has twenty-four slaves of his own; I am afraid he will do infinite hurt by his opposition to our rules." Two days later he writes: "I now begin to venture to exhort our Societies to emancipate their slaves." We have noticed the stringent measures taken by the Conference against slavery. Coke now, in the midst of the barbarous evil, boldly expounded and defended these rules in the largest gatherings of the people. "The Quarterly Meetings on this continent," he writes, "are much attended. The brethren for twenty miles around, and sometimes for thirty or forty, meet together. The meeting always lasts two days. All the traveling preachers in the circuit are present, and they, with perhaps a local preacher or two, give the people a sermon one after another, besides the love-feast, and now the sacrament. On Saturday, April 9th, I set off with the friends to Brother Martin's, in whose barn I preached that day. The next day I administered the sacrament to a large company, and preached, and after me the two traveling preachers. We had now been six hours and a half engaged in duty, and I had published myself to preach in the neighborhood for the three following days, so they deferred the second love-feast till Wednesday. There were thirty strangers, I think, in Brother Martin's house only, which obliged us to lie three in a bed. I had now for the first time a very little persecution. The testimony I bore in this place against slave-holding provoked many of the unawakened to retire out of the barn, and to combine together to flog me (so they expressed it) as soon as I came out. A high-headed lady also went out and told the rioters, as I was afterward informed, that she would give fifty pounds if they would give that little doctor one hundred lashes. When I came out they surrounded me, but had only power to talk. Brother Martin is a Justice of the Peace, and seized one of them; and Colonel Taylor, a fine, strong man, who has lately joined us, but is only half awakened, was setting himself in a posture of fighting. But God restrained the rage of the multitude. Our Brother Martin has done gloriously, for he has fully and immediately emancipated fifteen slaves. And that sermon which made so much noise has so affected one of our brethren (Norton) that he came to Martin, and desired him to draw up a proper instrument for the emancipation of his eight slaves. A brother, whose name is Ragland, has also emancipated one. Monday, 11th. I preached at Brother Baker's. Here a mob came to meet me with staves and clubs. Their plan, I believe, was to fall upon me as soon as I touched on the subject of slavery. I knew nothing of it till I had done preaching. But not seeing it my duty to touch on the subject here, their scheme was defeated, and they suffered me to pass through them without molestation. Tuesday, 12. I rode to Brother Kennon's, preaching a funeral sermon on the way at a planter's house. Brother Kennon has emancipated twenty-two slaves. These are great sacrifices, for the slaves are worth, I suppose, upon an average, thirty or forty pounds sterling each, and perhaps more. Thursday, 14. We rode about forty miles to a brother of Mr. Kennon. There are nine of the family in Society. I have now done with my testimony against slavery for a time, being got into North Carolina, the laws of this state forbidding any to emancipate their Negroes. Tuesday, 19. We came to Br other Greenhill's, where we held our Conference. There were about twenty preachers, or more, in one house, and by laying beds on the floors there was room for all. We spent three days, from Wednesday to Friday inclusive, in Conference, and a comfortable time we had together. In this division we have had an increase of nine hundred and ninety-one this year, and have stretched our borders into Georgia. Beverly Allen has all Georgia to range in. We also sent an elder and a preacher to South Carolina. Mr. Asbury has met with great encouragement in his visit to Charleston. A merchant (Mr. Wells) opened his house to him, and was convinced and justified before he went away. We have now one hundred and ten members in that state by the assiduity of a local preacher who lately settled there. We have also drawn up a petition to the General Assembly of North Carolina, signed by the Conference, entreating them to pass an act to authorize those who are so disposed to emancipate their slaves. Mr. Asbury has visited the governor, and has gained him over."

This was the first Conference held in North Carolina. Asbury was present. He says it was held at "Brother G. Hill's," not "Greenhill's," as Coke records. It was "held in great peace," adds Asbury. As soon as the session was over Coke hastened into Virginia, where he could again denounce slavery, and he did so courageously. "On Sunday, May 1," he says, "about twenty preachers met Mr. Asbury and me at Brother Mason's. One night we all slept at the same house, but it was so inconvenient to some of the preachers, that they afterward divided themselves through the neighboring plantations, by which we lost about an hour in the mornings. A great many principal friends met us here to insist on a repeal of the slave rules; but when they found that we had thoughts of withdrawing ourselves entirely from the circuit, on account of the violent spirit of some leading men, they drew in their horns, and sent us a very humble letter, entreating that preachers might be appointed for their circuit. We have increased about two hundred in this division in the course of the last year. After mature consideration we formed a petition, a copy of which was given to every preacher, entreating the General Assembly of Virginia to pass a law for the immediate or gradual emancipation of all the slaves. It is to be signed by all the freeholders we can procure, and those I believe will not be few. There have been many debates already on the subject in the Assembly. Many of our friends, and some of the great men of the states, have been inciting us to apply for acts of incorporation, but I have discouraged it, and have prevailed. We have a better staff to lean upon than any this world can afford. We can truly say, 'The harvest is great, but the laborers are few.' "

He goes westward till he sees the Blue Ridge, and returning, travels with Asbury to Mount Vernon, where they dine, by appointment, with Washington. "He received us," says Coke, "very politely, and was very open to access. He is quite the plain country gentleman. After dinner we desired a private interview, and opened to him the grand business on which we came, presenting to him our petition for the emancipation of the Negroes, and entreating his signature, if the eminence of his station did not render it inexpedient for him to sign any petition. He informed us that he was of our sentiments, and had signified his thoughts on the subject to most of the great men of the State; that he did not see it proper to sign the petition, but if the Assembly took it into consideration, would signify his sentiments to the Assembly by a letter. He asked us to spend the evening and lodge at his house, but our engagement at Annapolis the following day would not admit of it."

Such was the interest of the young Church against slavery; it seemed, as by a divine inspiration, to be conscious, from the beginning, of the importance of this question to the religious and political well-being of the new nation. Ever since its Conference of 1780, it had uttered its voice against the evil. Down to our day it has not failed one hour to bear its recorded testimony in favor of the "extirpation" of the unchristian institution. It seemed now about to meet the crisis, for the solution of the great problem, and what stupendous consequences, as we have since learned, in tears, devastation, and blood, depended upon this crisis! The Revolution had inspired everywhere the sentiment of liberty. Large portions of the country were prepared for the emancipation of their slaves. The Methodist preachers, with very few exceptions, were emancipationists, and they had an almost irresistible moral power among the people. Many of them, besides Coke and Asbury, preached bravely against slavery. O'Kelly especially, the most influential itinerant in Virginia, opposed it energetically. Now was their sublime hour, and the critical hour of the nation in respect to this question. But they failed, and history must not evade the fact. They were persecuted and threatened, and sometimes mobbed; but many of their people, many slave-holders, sustained them. Emancipations were becoming frequent. The leading statesmen of the nation were with them in opinion. But Asbury and Coke both shrunk before the unavoidable difficulties of the question. It was natural that, in after years, they should believe it had been expedient to compromise with their opponents. The Church long believed so, but we have lived to see the consequences of their policy in a vast ecclesiastical schism, an unparalleled political rebellion, the loss of thousands of millions of treasures, of hundreds of thousands of lives, and the devastation of half the continent. Few careful students of the civil and ecclesiastical history of these times can doubt that, had Methodism courageously fought out the contest which it had now begun, it would at last have triumphed, and have saved the history of the civilized world from the darkest record in its pages since the horrors of the French Revolution. Not many weeks after Coke had left Virginia he and Asbury conceded to the Conference in Baltimore the suspension of the rules on slavery, and they were never fully again in force, though a decided declaration of opinion against the evil was recorded.

On June 1st, Coke met Asbury and the preachers in Conference at Baltimore. As he was to leave for Europe the next day, they sat till midnight. He preached before them at noon, urging ministerial faithfulness; and also early the next morning, on "St. Paul's awful exhortation to the elders of the Church at Ephesus, Acts xx." In a few hours he was sailing out of the harbor, with feelings sadder than he had for years experienced in taking leave of his ministerial brethren.

Asbury preached his first sermon, after his ordination, in the evening of the day on which the Christmas Conference adjourned, Jan. 3, 1785, at Baltimore, on Eph. iii, 8, "Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ." He found no new ministerial virtue in his new dignity. "My mind was unsettled," he says, "and I was slow in my testimony." The next day he was in the saddle, riding forty miles through the snow to Fairfax, Va. He traveled an average of thirty miles a day on horseback, preaching, reading prayers, and baptizing almost daily, and occasionally ordaining an itinerant. The fatigues of the route broke down his horse, but he obtained another. Jesse Lee and Henry Willis joined him, and accompanied him as far as Charleston, S.C. He found the people generally gratified by the Episcopal organization of the Church, and its provision of the sacraments. "Nothing could have better pleased our Church folks," he says, "than the late step we have taken in administering the ordinances. To the catholic Presbyterians it also gives satisfaction, but the Baptists are discontented." They were hospitably entertained in Charleston about two weeks, and preached every day. Before they departed their host was converted. Willis was left to maintain the Methodist standard in the City.

Leaving Charleston, Asbury returned through North Carolina and Virginia, proclaiming his message along the whole route, attending Conferences with Coke, accompanying him to Mount Vernon, and parting with him at the Baltimore Conference. On Sunday, 5th of June, 1785, two days after the adjournment, he laid, with solemn forms, the cornerstone of Cokesbury College, at Abingdon, Md. As early as 1780, John Dickins suggested to Asbury, as has already been recorded, the plan of a Methodist academic institution. At the first interview of Coke with Asbury, at Barrett's Chapel, Asbury submitted the proposition to the doctor, who zealously approved it, and procured from the Christmas Conference [5] a vote that it should be immediately attempted as a collegiate establishment. Nearly five thousand dollars were quickly raised for the purpose. Coke had now contracted for the building materials, but could not stay to witness the beginning of the work. The site, about twenty-five miles from Baltimore, is one of the most commanding in the state; magnificent views extend in some directions twenty, in others fifty miles. The picturesque landscapes of the Susquehanna valley lay on either side of the river, and the magnificent Chesapeake Bay stretches away in the distance till lost in the ocean. [6] "Attired in his long silk gown," says his biographer, "and with his flowing bands, the pioneer bishop of America took his position on the walls of the college, and announced for his text the following: 'The sayings which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children, showing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done. For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children: that the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born: who should arise and declare them to their children: that they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments.' The Spirit of the Lord was with him as with Elijah at the school of the prophets at Bethel. As he dwelt upon the importance of a thorough religious education, and looked forward to the effects which would result to the generations to come from the streams which should spring from this opening fountain of sanctified learning, his soul enlarged and swelled with rapturous emotion." [7]

John Dickins published a description of the building in 1789, and says: "The college is one hundred and eight feet in length from east to west, and forty feet in breadth from north to south, and stands on the summit and center of six acres of land, with an equal descent and proportion of ground on each side. The whole building is well painted on the outside, and the windows completely glazed. The house is divided into rooms as follows: at the west end are two rooms on the lower floor, each twenty-five feet by twenty; the second and third stories the same. At the east end are two rooms, each twenty-five feet by twenty; the second and third stories are the same. In the middle of the lower floor is the college hall, forty feet square, and over that, on the second floor, two school-rooms, and on the third floor two bed-chambers. At the end of the hall are square spaces for four sets of staircases, two at the north and two at the south end, with proper doors opening on the staircases. The carpenters' work on the first and second floor, with one staircase, is almost completed. The plastering and painting of four rooms at the west are nearly finished; the school-rooms are also chiefly done, and one room at the west end partly plastered." It had at this time thirty students within its unfinished walls. A preparatory school of fifteen students had been opened under its roof by Truman Marsh, a Quaker, an excellent teacher. Wesley sent out a middle-aged clergyman, Rev. Mr. Heath, as principal. In September, 1787, an examination of the preparatory school took place, Asbury presiding, surrounded by leading friends of the institution; and, in December, Heath was publicly inaugurated as president, and Marsh and Patrick McCloskey as professors. The number of student was now twenty-five. Three days were devoted, with religious ceremonies, to the occasion, Asbury preaching on the first of them from Psalm xxxvii, 3: "Trust in the Lord and do good;" on the second (Sunday) from 2 Kings iv, 40: "O thou man of God, there is death in the pot;" and on the third from Isa. lxv, 23: "They shall not labor in vain, nor bring forth for trouble; for they are the seed of the blessed of the Lord, and their offspring with them."

Abingdon soon became a favorite resort for families desiring a beautiful locality, and the advantages of a good school. It accommodated the Conference in 1786; it became customary, indeed, for the Baltimore Conference to begin its session in the city, and adjourn to Cokesbury College for the conclusion of its deliberations. Joseph Everett, heretofore noticed as one of the notable preachers of the day, acted as chaplain to the institution for some years. Joseph Toy, who was converted under the preaching of Captain Webb, at Burlington, N. J., and was a good mathematical scholar, became a professor; "he was one of the purest men and soundest preachers known to Methodism." In 1789 an extraordinary religious interest prevailed among the pupils. In 1792 it reported more than seventy students. Its curriculum included, besides the English branches, the Latin, Greek, Hebrew, German, and French languages. In the Discipline for 1789 is given a detailed statement in the designs and order of the institution. "It is to receive for education and board the sons of the elders and preachers of the Methodist Church, poor orphans, and the sons of the subscribers, and of other friends. It will be expected that all our friends who send their children to the college will, if they be able, pay a moderate sum for their education and board; the rest will be taught and boarded, and, if our finances will allow of it, clothed gratis. The institution is also intended for the benefit of our young men who are called to preach, that they may receive a measure of that improvement which is highly expedient as a preparative for public service. The college will be under the presidentship of the bishops of our Church for the time being, and is to be supported by yearly collections throughout our circuits, and any endowments which our friends may think proper to give and bequeath. Our first object shall be, to answer the design of Christian education, by forming the minds of the youth, through divine aid, to wisdom and holiness, by instilling into their tender minds the principles of true religion, speculative, experimental, and practical, and training them in the ancient way, that they may be rational, scriptural Christians. And this is one principal reason why we do not admit students indiscriminately. For we are persuaded that the promiscuous admission of all sorts of youth into a seminary of learning is pregnant with many bad consequences. It is also our particular desire that all who shall be educated in our college may be kept at the utmost distance as from vice in general, so in particular from softness and effeminacy of manners. We shall therefore inflexibly insist on their rising early in the morning; and we are convinced, by constant observation and experience, that this is of vast importance both to body and mind. The employments which we have chosen for the recreation of the students are such as are of the greatest public utility, agriculture and architecture — studies more especially necessary for a newly settled country; and of consequence the instructing of our youth, in all the practical branches of these important arts, will be an effectual method of rendering them more useful to their country. In teaching the languages, care shall be taken to read those authors, and those only, who join together the purity, the strength, and the elegance of their several tongues. And the utmost caution shall be used, that nothing immodest be found in any of our books. But this is not all. We shall take care that our books be not only inoffensive, but useful; that they contain as much strong sense and as much genuine morality as possible. As many of the students as possible shall be lodged and boarded in the town of Abingdon, among our pious friends; but those who cannot be so lodged and boarded, shall be provided for in the college. The price of education shall be four guineas. The sons of the traveling preachers shall be boarded, educated, and clothed gratis, except those whose parents, according to the judgment of the Conference, are of ability to defray the expense. The orphans shall be boarded, educated, and clothed gratis. No traveling preacher shall have the liberty of keeping his son on the foundation any longer than he travels, unless he be superannuated, or disabled by want of health."

The regimen of the institution was remarkable for its rigor, if not for its wisdom. Examples may be cited as curious, if not as affording valuable suggestions to educators. Students were required to rise at five o'clock in the morning, summer and winter, and to be in bed at nine o'clock, "without fail;" to study seven hours a day, with intervals of exercise or recreation, three hours being given to dinner and its following recreations. No studies were allowed after seven o'clock in the evening. The "recreations were gardening, walking, riding, and bathing, without doors; and the carpenter's, joiner's, cabinet-maker's, or turner's business, within doors." A large plot of land, of at least three acres, was appropriated for a garden, and a person, skilled in gardening, appointed to overlook the students when employed in that recreation. A master, or some proper person by him appointed, was always present at the time of bathing. Only one was allowed to bathe at a time, and no one to remain in the water above a minute. "Each student must have a bed to himself; whether in or out of the college. He must lie on mattresses, not on feather beds. The bishops shall examine by themselves, or their delegates, into the progress of all the students in learning, every half year, or oftener, if possible. The elders, deacons, and preachers, as often as they visit Abingdon, shall examine the students concerning their knowledge of God and religion. The students shall be divided into proper classes for this purpose."

During its ten years' history, Cokesbury College acquired an extensive fame. It was a shelter to the children of the preachers, a favorite resort of the itinerants, and an honor to the Church. But Asbury suffered hardly less trouble, in supporting and managing it, than Wesley did in sustaining Kingswood Seminary. It was destroyed by fire, at midnight, December 7, 1795. Asbury was in Charleston, S. C., when he received the news; he wrote in his Journal: "We have now a second and confirmed account that Cokesbury College is consumed to ashes, a sacrifice of œ10,000 in about ten years. If any man should give me œ10,000 per year to do and suffer again what I have done for that house I would not do it. The Lord called not Mr. Whitefield nor the Methodists to build colleges. I wished only for schools — Dr. Coke wanted a college. I feel distressed at the loss of the library."

Returning from the ceremonies at Abingdon, Asbury reposed a short time at Perry Hall, and then resumed his episcopal itinerancy with his usual energy, preaching from Baltimore to New York, from New York to Charleston, and passing and repassing over the same route till he again met Coke in Charleston, in March, 1787, and found there a spacious house, or chapel, prepared for them.

On his arrival in Europe, Coke had been attacked by Charles Wesley [8] for his episcopal doings at Baltimore; he successfully vindicated himself by appealing to the authority of John Wesley for all his official acts, and by acknowledging that in one of his sermons, at Baltimore, he had used imprudently severe language toward the Anglican establishment. John Wesley replied to his brother: "I believe Dr. Coke is as free from ambition as from covetousness. He has done nothing rashly that I know; but he has spoken rashly, which he retracted the moment I spoke to him of it ... He is now such a right hand to be as Thomas Walsh was. If you will not or cannot help me yourself, do not hinder those who can and will." Fully sustained by Wesley, Coke traversed the United Kingdom, preaching to great congregations, and awakening in them the consciousness of a new era in the history of Christianity. He seems to have received in America the anointing of that missionary spirit which originated, at last, through his agency, the whole Wesleyan missionary system. It was at the organization of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in Baltimore, that he heard the appeal of Black for Nova Scotia. He responded to it with his whole heart; begging money for a mission to that province, ordaining preachers for it, and, especially, commissioning Garrettson for it. During his present visit to Europe, this and similar missionary opportunities kept his soul kindled with interest, and were the themes of his appeals to the people in England, Scotland, and Ireland. His biographer says that "the grand but neglected provisions of the Gospel, which can save not a few, or many, but all who need them — and the guiltily ignored obligations of duty incumbent on the drowsy and unfaithful Churches at home to send its message of mercy to all the tribes of our race — had risen before him with the light and awfulness of an apocalypse from God, and had given the final stamp to the character of his life." [9]

He published an "Address to the Pious and Benevolent" in behalf of missions, the first Wesleyan document of the kind. [10] He raised funds for Nova Scotia, and induced Wesley to send with him to that distant field three preachers, Hammet, Warrener, and Clark, as a reinforcement to Garrettson and his few follow-laborers.

On the 24th of September, 1786, he embarked with them for the new world. And now extraordinary scenes awaited him on the high seas; apparent reverses and disasters, but real and marvelous interventions of providence, as seen in the history of their results. Starting on their destined route for Nova Scotia, they were a month in reaching the mid seas. There on the 24th of October they sprung a leak. Three days later "a tempest blew with fury greater than the captain had known for ten years. The mainmast betrayed signs of weakness, and the axes were in readiness to cut it away, if needful. The leak increased. Wafted to the very confines of eternity, the doctor had deep searchings of heart. Here is the result: 'What reason have I to desire to live? I have really forsaken all for Christ, and have neither motive nor desire to live but for his Church. Yet why should my desires be so strong on that account? With what perfect ease can the Lord fill up my province with one infinitely better qualified! I am therefore willing to die. I do love God, and have an indubitable assurance that whatever is wanting he will fully supply, before he takes me into the world of spirits.' In the following week the two mainstays of the mainmast gave way, and the tackling in general, by the strain of unbroken gales, was fast hastening to ruin. The poor doctor was regarded by the captain as a kind of evil genius, whose presence filled him with disquiet. His very prayers seemed to increase their danger; and the more he prayed, it was the captain's opinion the weather became worse. 'We have a Jonah on board, that's plain enough,' said he. These bad feelings rose with the storm, till one day, when the hurricane was at its height, and Coke was engaged in his cabin in earnest prayer, the poor man, in a frenzy of superstition, broke in, and, seizing some books and papers, threw them overboard. Then returning he laid hold of the doctor, as if for the purpose of completing the sacrifice by sending him after them. Some remains of common sense, however, prevented his going to such a length of wickedness, and he contented himself by administering sundry cuffs and shakes, which, though not very edifying to Coke, had the effect of giving some relief to the morbid feelings of the rough-handed sailor. On Thursday, the 30th, the gale became awful. 'At ten at night I heard the captain's wife crying out in the most dreadful fright; and presently one of the passengers came running, exclaiming, "Pray for us, doctor, for we are just gone!" I came out and found that the ship in the hurricane was in her beam-ends. They were just going to cut away the mainmast. My brethren and self at this awful moment retired into a corner to pray, and I think I may say we all felt a perfect resignation to the will of God. Through grace I was entirely delivered from the fear of death. But Brother Hammet was superior in faith to all of us. His first prayer, if it could be called by that name, was little short of a declaration of the full assurance he possessed that God would deliver us; and his second, a thanksgiving for our deliverance. It was not till after this, and we had sung a hymn together, that the foresail was shivered, and by that means the masts were saved, and probably the ship itself.' The captain, in describing the paroxysm of the tempest, said, 'It appeared at one time as if the clouds, the air, and the waves were all commingled.' They then drove before the stupendous gale with bare spars. On the night of Monday, December 4th, the storm seemed yet to gather new strength; and the ship, oozing at every joint, was as if in her last agony. A council was held. The captain expressed his despair of reaching Halifax; and the unanimous opinion was, that their only chance of safety, under God, was to go before the wind in the direction of the West Indies. As for three weeks they had gained only one hundred and twenty miles, provisions began to fail, and a short allowance was agreed upon. 'But,' says the doctor, 'the greatest trial of all to me is the hardly having any candles remaining; but to the glory of God I can say, that to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. I have a strong persuasion we shall be driven to the West Indies.' Eleven days afterward they found their expectations verified. The weather gradually abated; the clouds broke away in dissolving forms of beauty; a splendid tropic bird floated in the air before the ship, as if to welcome them to its own region; and the shattered bark, on the gentle ripples of the Caribbean seas, bore them to a grateful though unexpected haven in Antigua, on the Feast of the Nativity — a day of good omen to those islands of the West, for whose sable myriads, fast bound in the shadows of death, it brought the messengers of their redemption for time and eternity. No man on that morning could form a presage of the great results which were to accrue from this unlooked-for visit; but could we who live in later days, and witness its developing consequences, have heard the notes of the first hymn of the congregation who gathered round the missionaries, we should have discerned the echo of the birth-song of the great Deliverer, when 'suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will toward men.' "

The language of his eloquent biographer is not too emphatic, nor too glowing; the history of the modern Church hardly presents a record of results more interesting, more beneficent, than those which attended this apparent defeat of Coke's voyage, and his consequent arrival in the West Indies.

Twenty-eight years before the arrival of Coke at Antigua, John Wesley, as he careered through the United Kingdom, paused to preach at Wandsworth. Nathaniel Gilbert, a West India planter, and Speaker of the House of Assembly in Antigua, was there, seeking health. He and two of his female slaves heard the Methodist apostle and were converted. Wesley baptized the two slaves, remarking that they were the first regenerated Africans he had ever seen, and adding, "Shall not his saving health be known to all nations?" a prophecy by which his act of that day was to tend mightily to fulfill. Gilbert returned with his converted slaves to Antigua. He became a correspondent of Wesley; he opened his mansion for weekly religious services, which he conducted himself as class-leader and local preacher, and founded a Society of nearly two hundred members. After years of successful but solitary labors he died, leaving the infant Church without a pastor. Two pious Negro women kept it from dissolution by holding prayer-meetings every evening. In 1778 John Baxter, a London mechanic and local preacher, arrived there; he found out the lingering Society, and immediately took charge of it, becoming, practically, a missionary to the island; and in 1788 he succeeded, by the contributions of slaves, in erecting a chapel, the first Methodist Church of the West Indies. It was eight years after his arrival, that Coke was driven by the winds of heaven to his relief. Coke saw at once the divine providence which had cast him in this island world. He scattered his missionaries immediately among its isolated communities, withdrew Baxter from his mechanical business and commissioned him as a missionary, passed himself from island to island, preaching and breaking up the ground for the good seed; and thus was founded that powerful West India Methodism which, in our day, reports in Antigua alone between two and three thousand Church members, and, aggregately, throughout the islands, five districts, forty-eight circuits, nearly a hundred missionaries, besides many local preachers and exhorters, and nearly fifty thousand communicants; and which contributed more than any other agency to the sublime scene that, in the year 1834, solemnized to tears the Christian world; for at midnight of the last day of July, in that year, the Christian missions of the British West Indies culminated in "Emancipation Eve." It was "a night much to be remembered." All the chapels were crowded, all the assemblies were upon their knees a few minutes before the sublime midnight hour struck, and when it struck, eight hundred thousand slaves rose up freemen, while a rapturous doxology rolled to the rejoicing stars from all the British Antilles. "Such strains," says a Methodist missionary, "for such an event, had never before been heard since the foundations of the world were laid." [11]

Having organized the mission work of the islands, Coke departed on the 10th of February, 1787, for Charleston, S. C., where he again met Asbury, dedicated the new Methodist chapel, which accommodated fifteen hundred hearers, and presided, with his colleague, in the first Conference of South Carolina. We have but few traces of the occasion. Coke says: "The preachers who labor in this state and Georgia met us here, according to the direction of Mr. Asbury; and in our Conference which we held together, the spirit of concord and love did eminently preside. All was peace and harmony. And at the public ordination of two deacons the Lord was pleased to pour out his Spirit largely upon us. As there are no more than forty whites here in Society, the building of a church worth a thousand pounds sterling has filled the people in general with amazement. Great has been the work of God both in this state and that of Georgia for the little time that we have labored in them. My soul is exulting in the prosperity of Zion." [12] Asbury provided him with a vigorous horse, and they both set out together to travel and preach through nearly the length of the continent. They passed over three hundred miles in one week, preaching everyday. Asbury says they had to "swim upon their horses several times." The roads were generally bad, the forests dense, the swamps frequent and frightful. "The preachers," writes Coke, "ride here about a hundred miles a week; but the swamps and morasses they have to pass through it is tremendous to relate. Though it is now the month of April, I was above my knees in water on horseback in passing through a deep morass, and that when it was almost dark ... In traveling our rides are so long that we are frequently on horseback till midnight."

But he delights in his adventurous ministry. "I have got," he continues, "into my old romantic way of life, preaching in the midst of great forests, with scores and sometimes hundreds of horses tied to the trees, a sight which adds much interest to the scene." He was surprised at the triumphant progress of Methodism in these Southern regions. "Much of the glory and of the hand of God," he writes, "have I seen in riding through the circuit called Pedee, in South Carolina. When I was in America before there were but twenty in Society in this circuit; and it was much doubted at the Conference whether it would be for the glory of God to send even one preacher to this part of the country. But now, chiefly by the means of two young men, Hope Hull and Jeremiah Maston, the Societies consist of eight hundred and twenty-three members; and no less than two and twenty preaching-houses have been erected in this single circuit in the course of the last year.

They reached Halifax County, Va., where Coke, in his former tour, was presented by the grand jury as a seditious person on account of his antislavery exhortations. They now received him "with perfect peace and quietness ." A rampant slave-holder, who had pursued him with a gun in order to shoot him, had been converted to God, and become a member of the Society. In Mecklenburgh County he preached to the largest congregation he had ever seen in America, about four thousand people, though "there was no town within a great many miles." A Conference was held there in the primeval forest, and on such occasions, as well as at the minor Quarterly Conferences, the preachers and people came scores of miles. These were the high religious festivals of the nation in those early times. At this Conference good news reached them from beyond the mountains. Haw, "one of our elders," says Coke, "who last year was sent with a preacher to Kentucky, on the banks of the Ohio near the Mississippi, wrote to us a most enlivening account of the prospect in his district, and earnestly implored some further assistance. 'But observe,' added he, 'no one must be appointed for this country that is afraid to die! For there is now war with the Indians, who frequently lurk behind the trees, shoot the travelers, and then scalp them; and we have one Society on the very frontiers of the Indian country.' After this letter was read, a blessed young man (Brother Williamson) offered himself as a volunteer for this dangerous work. What can we not do or suffer when the love of Christ constrains!"

They held a Conference at Baltimore on the 1st of May. It had been appointed the preceding year for Abingdon, on the 24th of July, but was anticipated to accommodate Coke. He met with some severe opposition at this session, and alludes to it as follows: "Conference began, when, behold, Satan exerted his utmost subtilty. Never surely was more external peace and liberty enjoyed by the Church of God, or any part of it, since the fall of man, than we enjoy in America, and everything seems to be falling before the power of the word. What then remained for the infernal serpent but to sow the seeds of schism and division among ourselves. But glory be to God! yea, glory forever be ascribed to his sacred name, the devil was completely defeated. Our painful contests, I trust, have produced the most indissoluble union between my brethren and me. We thoroughly perceived the mutual purity of each other's intentions in respect to the points in dispute. We mutually yielded and mutually submitted, and the silken cords of love and affection were tied to the horns of the altar for ever and ever. The Lord has done marvelous things in this land in the course of the last year. No less than six thousand six hundred have been added to the Society on the balance in the United States alone. And praised be the Lord, the work is deep as well as wide. O that I myself may be watered under this glorious shower, and lose nothing of my share in the blessings which the heavens are pouring down! At this Conference another young man offered himself as a volunteer for Kentucky, and the two preachers are to be sent off as soon as possible, breathing the true spirit of missionaries. I felt much of the power of God in all my public administrations at Baltimore, and I have no doubt but many of my hearers felt it too. The divine Comforter was also very graciously present at the ordination of two elders and eleven deacons."

His troubles arose from an alleged abuse of his power by his changing, while yet in Europe, the time and place of this session, a fact which will hereafter come under our attention.

After the session Asbury and Coke pressed forward to New York. Coke returned to Philadelphia, whence he embarked again for Europe on the 25th of June, 1787.

Asbury, again alone in his vast Episcopal labors, paused not for rest. He hastened over much of Long Island, thence up the Hudson, crossing the romantic mountains of West Point to Newburgh. In four weeks more he had gone over the middle states as far as Bath, Va. He sometimes addressed a thousand people in the woods. He was often sick, dragging his infirm body along by an energetic will. "Faint," he says," yet persevering." His soul glowed meanwhile with the spiritual exhilaration of his labors. An hour of retirement, especially in the forest, was always gratefully and devoutly refreshing to him. "I am happy," he writes, "in being alone. I poured out my soul to God for the whole work, and the dear people and preachers of my charge. My body is weak, my soul enjoys peace. I have power over all sin, and possess a spirit of prayer and watchfulness: I feel myself dead to all below, and desire to live only for God and souls." "O what a weariness would life be without God and love and labor!" His great Spartan soul was not incapable of sentiment. "O how sweet are labor, and Christian society, and the solitary woods to me!" He hastened to the farther South, and wrote, as he journeyed, "I seldom mount my horse for a ride of less distance than twenty miles on ordinary occasions, and frequently have forty or fifty, in moving from one circuit to the other. In traveling thus I suffer much from hunger and cold." He reached Charleston again, held there a Conference, and was mobbed in the church. The crowd was great outside and within the building. "A man made a riot at the door, and an alarm at once took place. The ladies leaped out at the windows, and a dreadful confusion ensued. Again, while I was speaking at night, a stone was thrown against the north side of the church, then another on the south; a third came through the pulpit window and struck near me inside the pulpit. I, however, continued to speak on. Upon the whole, I have had more liberty to preach in Charleston this visit than I ever had before, and am of opinion that God will work here; but our friends are afraid of the cross." He went into Georgia, and held the first Conference in that state. The only notice I can discover of it is in his Journals: Wednesday, April 9, "Our Conference began at the Forks of Broad River, where six members and four probationers attended. Brother Major was sick, and could not meet us. Soon after he made his exit to his eternal rest. I felt free, and preached with light and liberty each day. Many that had no religion in Virginia have found it after their removal into Georgia and South Carolina. Here at least the seed sprung up, wherever else it may have been sown. Our little Conference was about sixty-one pounds deficient in their quarterage, nearly one third of which was made up to them."

From Georgia Asbury directs his course to the northwestward through the wilderness and ascends the Alleghenies. On April 28, 1788, he says: "After getting our horses shod we made a move for Holstein, and entered upon the mountains; the first of which I called steel, the second stone, and the third iron mountain: they are rough, and difficult to climb. We were spoken to on our way by most awful thunder and lightning, accompanied by heavy rain. We crept for shelter into a little dirty house, where the filth might have been taken from the floor with a spade. We felt the want of fire, but could get little wood to make it, and what we gathered was wet. At the head of Watauga we fed, and reached Ward's that night. Coming to the river next day we hired a young man to swim over for the canoe, in which we crossed, while our horses swam to the other shore. The waters being up we were compelled to travel an old road over the mountains. Night came on: I was ready to faint with a violent headache. The mountain was steep on both sides. I prayed to the Lord for help. Presently a profuse sweat broke out upon me, and my fever entirely subsided. About nine o'clock we came to Grear's. After taking a little rest here, we set out next morning for Brother Coxe's on Holstein River. I had trouble enough. Our route lay through the woods, and my pack-horse would neither follow, lead, nor drive, so fond was he of stopping to feed on the green herbage. I tried the lead, and he pulled back. I tied his head up to prevent his grazing, and he ran back. The weather was excessively warm. I was much fatigued, and my temper not a little tried. I fed at I. Smith's, and prayed with the family. Arriving at the river I was at a loss what to do, but providentially a man came along who conducted me across. This has been an awful journey to me, and this a tiresome day; and now, after riding seventy-five miles, I have thirty-five miles more to General Russell's. I rest one day to revive man and beast."

He had thus scaled the grand barrier of the West; and the great Mississippi Valley, destined to become the chief theater of his Church and of the nation, lay below him in boundless range and primeval wildness. He meets and encourages Tunnel, and, hastening into Tennessee, holds its first Conference at Half-Acres and Keyswoods, in May. [13] "We held," he says, "our Conference three days, and I preached each day. The weather was cold, the room without fire, and otherwise uncomfortable. We nevertheless made out to keep our seats until we had finished the essential parts of our business." This is all the record he has left respecting the first ultra montane Methodist Conference. There were "brethren from Kentucky" present, for on his route he had met them and preached before them. He proclaimed the Gospel continually among the scattered settlements, and, returning into North Carolina, passed into Virginia, still among the mountains, and at last reached Pennsylvania. On the 10th of July he writes, as an example of his Episcopal fare, "We had to cross the Allegheny Mountain again at a bad passage. Our course lay over mountains and through valleys, and the mud and mire was such as might scarcely be expected in December. We came to an old, forsaken habitation in Tyger's Valley. Here our horses grazed about, while we boiled our meat. Midnight brought us up at Jones', after riding forty or perhaps fifty miles. The old man, our host, was kind enough to wake us up at four o'clock in the morning. We journeyed on through devious, lonely wilds, where no food might be found, except what grew in the woods, or was carried with us. We met with two women who were going to see their friends, and to attend the Quarterly Meeting at Clarksburg. Near midnight we stopped at A's., who hissed his dogs at us; but the women were determined to get to Quarterly Meeting, so we went in. Our supper was tea. Brothers Phoebus and Cook took to the woods; old _____ gave up his bed to the women. I lay along the floor on a few deerskins with the fleas. That night our poor horses got no corn, and next morning they had to swim across the Monongahela. After a twenty miles' ride we came to Clarksburg, and man and beast were so outdone that it took us ten hours to accomplish it. I lodged with Colonel Jackson. There attended about seven hundred people, to whom I preached with freedom; and I believe the Lord's power reached the hearts of some. After administering the sacrament I was well satisfied to take my leave. We rode thirty miles to Father Haymond's after three o'clock, Sunday afternoon, and made it nearly eleven before we came in. About midnight we went to rest, and rose at five o'clock next morning. My mind has been severely tried under the great fatigue endured both by myself and my horse. O how glad should I be of a plain, clean plank to lie on, as preferable to most of the beds; and where the beds are in a bad state, the floors are worse. The gnats are almost as troublesome here as the mosquitoes in the lowlands of the seaboard. This country will require much work to make it tolerable. The people are, many of them, of the boldest cast of adventurers, and with some the decencies of civilized society are scarcely regarded. On the one hand, savage warfare teaches them to be cruel; and on the other, the preaching of Antinomians poisons them with error in doctrine. Good moralists they are not, and good Christians they cannot be, unless they are better taught."

He reached Uniontown, Pa., where, with Whatcoat and eleven other preachers, he held a Conference on the 22d of July, and consecrated what is supposed to have been the first Methodist ordination beyond the Alleghenies. He devotes but few lines to the occasion. "We felt great peace while together, and our counsels were marked by love and prudence. We had seven members of conference and five probationers. I preached on 1 Peter v, 7; and Brother Whatcoat gave us an excellent discourse on 'O man of God, flee these things!' Friday, 25. We concluded our Conference." Asbury was now making history, and had no time to write it. A pioneer preacher, then a youth, witnessed the session, and thus alludes to it: "Mr. Asbury officiated, not in the costume of the lawn-robed prelate, but as the plain presbyter in gown and band, assisted by Richard Whatcoat, elder, in the same clerical habit. The person ordained was Michael Leard, of whom it was said that he could repeat nearly the whole of the New Testament from memory, and also large portions of the Old. The scenes of that day looked well in the eyes of the Church people, for not only did the preachers appear in sacerdotal robes, but the morning service was read as abridged by Mr. Wesley. The priestly robes and prayer-book were, however, soon laid aside at the same time, for I have never seen the one nor heard the other since." [14]

Asbury continued to traverse the states from New York to Georgia, from the Atlantic to the Alleghenies, having the whole Episcopal care of the Societies till March, 1789, when Coke rejoined him in South Carolina. He held important Conferences in these years, but gives us little or no information, of historical interest, about them. Of the first New York session he records but a sentence: "Tuesday, 30th of September, 1785, our Conference began, and continued until Saturday, the 4th of October." We can glean from the rescued records of John Street Church only a few unimportant particulars respecting it. That Society was at some expense to prepare for the occasion. "Green baize" and "red marine" draperies were obtained for the chapel. About fifty dollars were expended for it. "The Church was cleaned for the occasion. There were sundry expenses at the time of the Conference, and they footed the bills, besides taking good care of the bishop's horses and throwing in a bridle." [15] Coke had spent the interval of his absence in unintermitted labors in England and in the West Indies, and arrived at Charleston, from Jamaica, on the 24th of February. Asbury, after waiting there for him, had to leave, alone, for Georgia. Coke immediately set out in pursuit of him, and "riding," he says, "in two days as much as I had in three, overtook him. The elder stationed in Charleston accompanied me. The first day we rode forty-seven miles, for about two miles of which or horses were up to their bellies in water, with two great invisible ditches on our right hand and left. One of the grandest objects to be seen in this country is the fires in the woods in the spring. The people set fire to the grass and little shrubs, to burn up the dry leaves which cover the ground, that the grass which grows up afterward may be accessible to the cattle. Late one evening I saw a most astonishing illumination while traveling through the woods. I seemed surrounded with fires. Sometimes the flame catches the oozing turpentine of the pine trees, and blazes to the very top. I have seen old rotten pine trees with their trunks and branches full of fire. We had congregations all the way after I met Mr. Asbury, but our journeys in the back parts of Carolina and Georgia were very trying. Sometimes we lost our way; in one instance, twenty-one miles. In general, nothing but bacon and eggs, with Indian corn, to eat. Mr. Asbury had brought with him some tea and sugar. In several places we had to lie on the floor, which indeed I regarded not, though my bones were a little sore in the mornings. The great revival, the great rapidity of the work, the peculiar consolations of God's Spirit, and the retirement I met with in these vast forests, far overbalanced every trial. Many other circumstances also amply compensated for the disagreeable parts of my journey. Sometimes a most noble vista of a mile in length would open between the lofty pines. Sometimes the tender fawns and hinds would suddenly appear, and on seeing or hearing us, would glance through the woods and vanish away. Frequently, indeed, we were obliged to lodge in houses built with round logs, and open to every blast. Often we rode sixteen or eighteen miles without seeing a house or a human creature, and often were obliged to ford deep and dangerous rivers, and creeks. Many times we ate nothing from seven in the morning till six in the evening, though sometimes we took our repast on stumps of trees near some spring of water." [16]

Asbury says the Georgia Conference began "at Grant's," Sunday, 8th of March. "Here we have a house for public worship, and one also at Merreweather's. On Thursday we appointed a committee to procure five hundred acres of land for the establishment of a school in the State of Georgia. Conference being ended, we directed our hasty steps back to Charleston, calling at the several places we attended on our journey hither." Coke gives us fuller information of the session "On the 9th of March we began our Conference in Georgia. Here we agreed (as we have ever since in each of the Conferences) that Mr. Wesley's name should be inserted at the head of our small Annual Minutes, and also in the form of Discipline: in the Small Minutes as the fountain of our Episcopal office, and in the form of Discipline as the father of the whole work under the divine guidance. To this all the Conferences have cheerfully and unanimously agreed. We have two thousand and eleven in Society in the State of Georgia. The increase in the last year has been seven hundred and eighty-four. At this Conference we agreed to build a college in Georgia, and our principal friends in this state have engaged to purchase at least two thousand acres of good land for its support. For this purpose there was twelve thousand five hundred pounds' weight of tobacco subscribed in one congregation, which will produce, clear of all expenses, about one hundred pounds sterling. We have engaged to erect it, God willing, within five years, and do most humbly entreat Mr. Wesley to permit us to name it Wesley College, as a memorial of his affection for poor Georgia, and of our great respect for him." On the 17th "we opened," says Coke, "our Conference in Charleston for the State of South Carolina. My congregations were very large in this city, as well as Mr. Asbury's, and great liberty the Lord was pleased to give me. We were bitterly attacked in the public papers, but our mild answer, I believe, did us more service than the illiberal attempts of our persecutors did us hurt. In this state we have three thousand three hundred and seventy-seven in Society: the increase is nine hundred and seven."

The two bishops again traveled northward together preaching continually, holding Conferences, and organizing circuits. On the 20th of April they began the "Conference for the State of North Carolina at the house of a planter in the country (McKnight) on the borders of a fine river called the Yadkin. Nineteen preachers met us there, some of whom came from the other side of the great Allegheny Mountains. The numbers in this state are six thousand seven hundred and seventy-nine, the increase seven hundred and forty-one. We here received most reviving letters concerning the progress of the Work in Kentucky, the new western world, as We call it. In these letters our friends in that country earnestly entreat to have a college built for the education of their youth, offering to give or purchase three or four thousand acres of good land for its support. We debated the point, and sent them word that if they will provide five thousand acres of fertile ground, and settle it on such trustees as we shall mention under the direction of the Conference, we will undertake to complete a college for that part of our connection within ten years." "In Halifax County, Va.," Coke continues, "where I met with much persecution four years ago, almost all the great people of the county came in their chariots and other carriages to hear me, and behaved with great propriety. The were not less than five colonels in the congregation. On the 18th we opened our first Conference for the State of Virginia in the town of Petersburg, and both in the public and private meetings the Lord was very present with us. Thirteen preachers were received on trial, all well recommended. In the former Conferences there was not a sufficient number of new preachers to answer all our calls, but in this Conference every deficiency was supplied."

Coke was startled at Annapolis by an example of "revival" excitement, but found no great difficulty in excusing it. "After my last prayer," he says, "the congregation began to pray and praise aloud in a most astonishing manner. At first I felt some reluctance to enter into the business, but soon the tears began to flow, and I have seldom found a more comforting or strengthening time. What shall we say? Souls are awakened and converted by multitudes, and the work is surely genuine, if there be a genuine work of God upon the earth. Whether there be wildfire in it or not, I do most ardently wish that there was such a work at this time in England."

At the Baltimore Conference, begun on the 4th of May, still more demonstrative scenes occurred. After an evening sermon by Coke, the crowded assembly spent the night till two o'clock in prayer and praise. "Out of a congregation of two thousand people, I suppose," he says, "two or three hundred were engaged in praising God, praying for the conviction and conversion of sinners, or exhorting those around them; and hundreds more were engaged in wrestling prayer either for their own conversion or sanctification. One of our elders was the means that night of the conversion of seven poor penitents within his little circle in less than fifteen minutes. Such was the zeal of many, that a tolerable company attended the preaching at five the next morning, notwithstanding the late hour at which they parted. Next evening Mr. Asbury preached, and again the congregation began as before. This praying and praising aloud has been common in Baltimore for a considerable time, notwithstanding our congregation in this town was for many years before one of the calmest and most critical upon the Continent. Many also of our elders, who were the most sedate of our preachers, have entered with all their hearts into this work. And it must be allowed, that gracious and wonderful has been the change, our greatest enemies themselves being the judges, that has been wrought on multitudes, on whom this work begun at those wonderful seasons." He notices with interest "a custom peculiar to the American preachers. If there be more preachers than one in a congregation, the preachers that have not preached give each of them a warm exhortation. And as far as I can judge, by external effects wrought on the congregations, and by consequent inquiry and information, more good has been done in most instances by the exhortations than by the sermon; more souls have been awakened and converted to God."

On the 23d, the first Conference in New Jersey was held at Trenton. The bishops give us but glimpses of the session. Asbury says, "We opened it in great peace. We labored for a manifestation of the Lord's power', and it was not altogether in vain. Sunday, 24th. We had abundance of preaching." Coke says: "All the preachers seemed full of love. The few friends we have in this town did everything, I believe, that they could conceive, to make us comfortable; but, alas! the work is, and ever has been, at a very low ebb in this place. The numbers in Jersey are 1,751; here has been a decrease of 295. This will necessarily happen sometimes in so extensive a work; yea, where the ministers have been most faithful. Rotten members, be they ever so numerous, must be lopped off; or we should soon become like other men." Conferences are now as numerous almost as the earlier Quarterly Conferences were, and are always festival occasions. In four days the two bishops were sitting in another in New York. We are dependent upon their brief notices for most, if not all, that we know of it. Asbury writes: "Thursday, 28. Our Conference began. All things were conducted in peace and order. Our work opens in New York State. New England stretched out the hand to our ministry, and I trust thousands will shortly feel its influence. My soul shall praise the Lord. In the midst of haste I find peace within. Sunday, 31. We had a gracious season to preachers and people, while I opened and applied Isaiah xxv, 6-8: 'And in this mountain shall the Lord of Hosts in make unto all people a feast of fat things; a feast of wines on the lees; of fat things full of marrow; of wines on the lees well refined.' " Coke says of the New York session: "A Conference, like the others, all peace and concord — Glory! glory be to God! In this city we have a great revival, and a great increase; in consequence of which we are going to build a second church. In the country parts of this state, Freeborn Garrettson, one of our presiding elders, has been greatly blessed, and is endued with an uncommon talent for opening new places. With a set of inexperienced but zealous youths, he has not only carried our work in this state as high as Lake Champlain, but has raised congregations in most of the states of New England, and also in the little state of Vermont, within about a hundred miles of Montreal. The numbers in the state of New York are 2,004; the increase, 900. The whole number in the United States is 43,265; the whole increase, 6,111; which is very great, considering that not more than eight months, or thereabouts, have elapsed since the last Conference. Of the above-mentioned number, 35,021 are whites, 8,241 are blacks, and 3 are Indians. We have now settled our printing business, I trust, on an advantageous footing, both for the people individually and the connection at large, as it is fixed on a secure basis, and on a very enlarged scale. The people will thereby be amply supplied with books of pure divinity for their reading, which is of the next importance to preaching; and the profits of the books are to be applied partly to finish and pay off the debt of our college, and partly to establish missions and schools among the Indians. And, through the blessing of God, we are now determined to use our efforts to introduce the Gospel among the Indians." Significant intimations! as we shall hereafter see. The Methodist Book Concern had now been founded, Methodism had effectually broken into New England and was spreading to its remotest parts, and the scheme of its Domestic Missions had dawned.

In a few days Coke was again on deck for Europe, his spirit kindled by what he had witnessed in the New World. Asbury, after taking leave of him, writes, "My soul retires into solitude and God!" But not long; that very night he was preaching in New York "alarmingly," and "the power of God and a baptizing flame came upon the people." He passed up the Hudson, and then through New Jersey, over Pennsylvania to Pittsburgh, and thence to Union town. He is hopeful of all this trans-Allegheny region. "Now I believe," he says, "God is about to work in this place; our circuits are better supplied than formerly; many of the people are alive to God; and there are openings in many places. I wrote a letter to Cornplanter, chief of the Seneca nation of Indians. I hope God will shortly visit these outcasts of men, and send messengers to publish the glad tidings of salvation among them. I have constant consolation, and do not feel like my former self." He re-entered Maryland, and reached Baltimore to preach, on Tuesday, 8th of September, amid extraordinary interest. "The last Quarterly Meeting," he writes, "was a wonder-working time: fifty or sixty souls, then and there, appeared to be brought to God; people were daily praying from house to house; some crying for mercy, others rejoicing in God, and not a few, day after day, joining in society for the benefit of religious fellowship. Praise the Lord, O my soul! I spent some time in visiting from house to house, and begging for the college. Many of the children of the Methodists are the happy subjects of this glorious revival. We have more members in Baltimore (town and point) than in any city or town on the continent besides."

Whatcoat had accompanied him to Pittsburgh, and in December rejoins him to accompany him southward. They pass rapidly, but continually preaching, through Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, to Charleston, where they hold another Conference, February 15, 1790. "The Lord was present in power," writes Whatcoat; "the saints were glad, and the wicked offended." Asbury says: "here I received good news from Baltimore and New York; about two hundred souls have been brought to God within a few weeks. We feel a little quickening here. Brother Whatcoat preaches every night. Saturday, 13. The preachers are coming in to the Conference. I have felt fresh springs of desire in my soul for a revival of religion. O may the work be general! It is a happy thing to be united as is our Society. The happy news of the revival of the work of God flies from one part of the continent to the other, and all partake of the joy. Sunday, 14. I preached twice. Next day (Monday) our Conference began. Our business was conducted in great peace and love. We had some quickening seasons and living meetings. Several young people came under awakenings. Wednesday, 17. I preached on, 'If thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth.' It was a searching season. The evening before an extract of sundry letters, from New York and Baltimore, was read in the congregation, at which saints and sinners were affected. But we have not a sufficient breastwork. Our friends are too mute and fearful, and many of the outdoors people are violent and wicked. I have had a busy, trying time or about nine days past, and I have hopes that some hundreds in this city will be converted by this time next year. Our Conference resolved on establishing Sunday-schools for poor children, white and black."

They go into Georgia, sounding the alarm through its scattered settlements, and hold, Wednesday, 10th of March, another Conference "at Grant's." Asbury gives it two brief paragraphs, its only remaining history: "We had preaching every day, and there were some quickenings among the people. Our business was conducted in peace and unanimity. The deficiencies of the preachers, who receive a salary of sixty-four dollars per annum from this Conference, amounted to seventy-four pounds for the last year. Thursday, 11. We had a rainy day, yet a full house, and a living love-feast. Some souls were converted, and others professed sanctification. I had some opening in speaking from Ezek. ii, 7. We have a prospect of obtaining a hundred acres of land for every one hundred pounds we can raise and pay, for the support of Wesley and Whitefield school. On Monday we rode out to view three hundred acres of land offered for the above purpose. My soul has been much tried since Conference began. I must strive to keep from rising too high, or sinking too low." They now direct their course through the wilderness northwestward, and are soon among the mountains; but we shall have occasion hereafter to notice their adventures there.

On the 14th of June Asbury held a Conference at Petersburgh, Va. "We had," he says, "some little quickenings, but no great move among the people at our public preaching. Mr. Jarratt preached for us; friends at first are friends again at last. There were four elders and seventeen deacons ordained; ten young men who offered to travel, besides those who remained on trial. We have good news from a far country — Jersey flames with religion; some hundreds are converted. The work of God revives here, although not in the same degree as it did two years ago. In the midst of all my labor and trouble I enjoy peace within." He extended his travels in all directions, until the 23d of February, 1791, when he again met Coke at Charleston, S. C. The doctor, after traversing the United Kingdom and the West India Islands, had sailed from Jamaica for the United States with Hammett, one of his missionaries. They were wrecked on Edisto Island; the Conference at Charleston had finished its business, but remained in the city one day longer, hoping for his arrival. He had the pleasure of spending that day with them "in many solemn and useful conversations." The two bishops departed, on separate routes, to the Georgia Conference, which was opened by Coke with a sermon on the 13th of March. They journeyed onward toward the North, "preaching the word," "instant in season and out of season." They visited and preached among the Catawba Indians. Coke records his usual American adventures, bewildered wanderings in the pathless forests, out of which the way is found "by the preachers' mark — the split bush." [17] the fording of dangerous streams, lodgings in cabins, great congregations in groves. He meets a preacher, Samuel Cowles, who cheers him with an unexpected account of himself. "Six years ago," says the doctor, "he lived with his mother near Williamsburgh, in Virginia. None of the family were converted, or acquainted with the Methodists at that time. In the course of my tour through the states, in the year 1785, I called at their house for some reasons which I have forgot. Before I parted with them I made them a present of the extract of Mr. Law's Treatise on the Nature and Design of Christianity, which is printed among us. By the means of this little tract they were so stirred up to seek the Lord, that now the mother, the preacher, six children who are married, and their husbands and wives, fourteen in all, are converted, and have joined our Society. Indeed, the young preacher is a flame of fire. How blessed an employment it is to be sowing the divine seed everywhere, to be instant in season and out of season! O how willing the Lord is to be gracious!"

The bishops reached the Yadkin River, where, on the 2d of April, they held the North Carolina Conference. "There were," writes Coke, "in all about thirty preachers, several of whom came from the other side of the Appalachian Mountains. At this Conference a remarkable spirit of prayer was poured forth on the preachers. Every night, before we concluded, heaven itself seemed to be opened to our believing souls. One of the preachers was so blessed in the course of our prayers that he was constrained to cry, 'O, I never was so happy in all my life before! O what a heaven of heavens I feel!' At each of our Conferences, before we parted, every preacher gave an account of his experience from the first strivings of the Spirit of God, as far he could remember; and also of his call to preach, and the success the Lord had given to his labors. It was quite new, but was made a blessing, I am persuaded, to us all."

They continued their route together till they arrived at Port Royal, Va., where, on the 29th of April, they heard of the death of Wesley. Coke was stunned by the news. For nearly a day he was not "able to weep; but afterward some refreshing tears gave him almost inexpressible ease." He hastened away, seeking an immediate passage to England, but found none till the 16th of May, when he embarked at New Castle, Del. Asbury thus alludes, briefly but significantly, to the mournful event. "The solemn news," he says, "reached our ears that the public papers had announced the death of that dear man of God, John Wesley. He died in his own house in London, in the eighty-eighth year of his age, after preaching the Gospel sixty-four years. When we consider his plain and nervous writings; his uncommon talent for sermonizing and journalizing; that he had such a steady flow of animal pints; so much of this spirit of government in him; his knowledge as an observer; his attainments as a scholar; his experience as a Christian; I conclude, his equal is not to be found among all the sons he hath brought up, nor his superior among all the sons of Adam he may have left behind. Brother Coke was sunk in spirit, and wished to hasten home immediately. For myself, notwithstanding my long absence from Mr. Wesley, and a few unpleasant expressions in some of the letters the dear old man has written to me, (occasioned by the misrepresentation of others,) I feel the stroke most sensibly. I shall never read his works without reflecting on the loss which the Church of God and the world has sustained by his death."

America, and the whole Methodist world, was struck with solemnity by the death of Wesley. It was like the fall of a monarch. Few could doubt, what his least partial biographer has declared, that "he was the most influential mind of the century — the man who will have produced the greatest effects centuries, or perhaps millenniums, hence, if the present race of men should continue so long." [18] his last sermon was delivered at Leatherhead, on the very day on which Coke grasped again the hand of Asbury in Charleston, the 23d of February, 1791; on that day ended his public life, and then fell from his lips a trumpet of the truth which, probably, had sounded the everlasting Gospel oftener and more effectually than that of any other man for sixteen hundred years. The Reformers of Germany, Switzerland, France, and England wrought their great work more by the pen than by the voice. It has been admitted that Whitefield preached more eloquently, with few exceptions to larger assemblies, and traveled more extensively (though not more miles) than Wesley, within the same limits of time; but Wesley survived him more than twenty years, and his power has been more productive and permanent. Whitefield preached eighteen thousand sermons, more than ten a week for his thirty-four years of ministerial life. Wesley preached forty-two thousand and four hundred, after his return from Georgia, more than fifteen a week. His public life, ending on the 23d of February, 1791, stands out in the history of the world unquestionably pre-eminent in religious labors above that of any other man since the apostolic age.

Wesley not only saw the initiation of the Methodistic movement, but also conducted it through the successive and critical gradations of its development, and lived to see it at last an organic, a settled and permanent system, in the Old World and in the New, with a thoroughly organized ministry, a well-defined and well-defended theology, the richest psalmody then known to English Protestantism, a considerable literature, not of the highest order, but therefore the better adapted to his numerous people, and a scheme of ecclesiastical discipline which time has proved to be the most effective known beyond the limits of the Papal Church. By his episcopal organization of his American Societies, and the legal settlement of his English Conference, he saw his great plan in a sense completed; it could be committed to the contingencies of the future to work out its appointed functions; and, after those two great events he was permitted to live long enough to control any incidental disturbances that might attend their first operations, and to pass through a healthful, serene conclusion of his long life. He traveled about four thousand five hundred miles a year; and these travels, at the rate of more than the circumference of the globe every six years, were pursued on horseback down to nearly his seventieth year, with from two to four sermons daily, beginning at five o'clock in the morning. His publications, including abridgments and translations, amounted to about two hundred volumes, and were the groundwork of the extensive literature of Methodism, and of its important "Book Concerns." His most invidious though most entertaining biographer has acknowledged his ability as a legislator, and conceded that "whatever power was displayed in the formation of the economy of Methodism was his own." [19] He began his great work not only without prestige, but in entirely adverse circumstances. The moral condition of the nation which required his extraordinary plans, was the most formidable difficulty to their prosecution. He threw himself out upon the general demoralization without reputation, without influential friends, without money, with no other resource than the soul within him and the God above him. Before he had fairly begun his great career, he was reduced even below the ordinary advantages of common English clergymen; he had become already the object of derision; he had no church, and was turned out of the pulpits of his brethren. Excepting some insignificant Societies, like that of Fetter Lane, the highway or the field and the reckless mob were all that remained to him. But he began his work; he united his rude converts into "Bands," formed "Classes," built chapels, appointed trustees, stewards, leaders, exhorters; organized a lay ministry, and rallied into it men of extraordinary characters and talents; founded the Conference; gave his Societies a discipline and a constitution, a literature, a psalmody, and a liturgy; saw his cause established in the United States with an episcopal organization, planted in the British North American Provinces and in the West Indies, and died at last with his system apparently completed, universally effective and prosperous, sustained by five hundred and fifty itinerant and thousands of local preachers, and more than a hundred and forty thousand members, [20] and so energetic that many men who had been his co-laborers lived to see it the predominant body of Dissenters in the United Kingdom and the British Colonies, the most numerous Church of the United States of America, and successfully planted on most of the outlines of the missionary world. [21]

He lived to see his cause so prosperous in the new world, from Nova Scotia to the Antilles, as to afford to his dying eyes the vision of its triumph throughout the western hemisphere. His last letter to America was written on the 1st of February, one month and one day before his death. [22] "See that you never give place to one thought of separating from your brethren in Europe," he said; "lose no opportunity of declaring to all men that the Methodists are one people in all the world, and that it is their full determination so to continue,

" 'Though mountains rise, and oceans roll,

To sever us in vain.' "

On receiving the news of his death all the Methodist churches, in the principal communities of America, were draped in mourning, and Coke and Asbury preached funeral sermons from Baltimore to New York, especially at the sessions of Conferences.

Asbury, again alone in his episcopal labors, continued his travels. He passed, for the first time, into New England, whither we shall follow him hereafter. Returning, he hastened southward to Georgia, and thence again over the Alleghenies to Tennessee and Kentucky; thence through the middle states, northward, into New England, as far as Boston and Lynn; thence westward to Albany, southward to Virginia, and back again to Baltimore, where, on the 30th of October, 1792, he writes: "While we were sitting in the room at Mr. Rogers' in came Dr. Coke, of whose arrival we had not heard, and whom we embraced in great love." While Coke was yet in England, he received from Asbury (suffering from imputations from some of his brethren) a letter in which he says: "If yet in time, this brings greeting. Rejoice with me that the last year has been a general blessing to the Church of God in this wilderness. We humbly hope two thousand souls were born of God, one of which is well ascertained in Jersey and York. I have served the Church upward of twenty-five years in Europe and America. All the property I have gained is two old horses, the constant companions of my toil six if not seven thousand miles every year. When we have no ferry-boats they swim the rivers. As to clothing, I am nearly the same as at first; neither have I silver nor gold, nor any other property. My confidential friends know that I lie not in these matters. I am resolved not to claim any property in the printing concern. Increase as it may, it will be sacred to invalid preachers, the colleges, and the schools. I would not have my name mentioned as doing, having, or being anything but dust. I soar, indeed, but it is over the tops of the highest mountains we have, which may vie with the Alps. I creep sometimes upon my hands and knees up the slippery ascent; and to serve the Church, and the ministers of it, what I gain is many a reflection from both sides of the Atlantic. I have lived long enough to be loved and hated, to be admired and feared. If it were not for the suspicions of some, and the pride and ignorance of others, I am of opinion I could make provision, by collections, profits on books, and donations in land, to take two thousand children under the best plan of education ever known in this country. The Lord begins to smile on our Kingswood School. One promising young man is gone forth, another is ready, and several have been under awakenings. None so healthy or orderly as our children, and some promise great talents. The obstinate and ignorant oppose, among preachers and people; while the judicious in Church and State admire and applaud." [23]

In two days after Coke's arrival at Baltimore the first regular General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church was opened — the beginning of those quadrennial synods which have ever since been the supreme assembly of the denomination. Before, however, we can record its proceedings, we must repeatedly retrace our present period, for the episcopal labors we have been detailing were but a comparatively small portion of the historical achievements of the Church during these times.

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ENDNOTES

1 Their first general convention for reorganization was not held till the autumn of 1755, and the Episcopal consecration of Coke for America by Wesley was prior to that of Seabury by the Scotch nonjuring bishops.

2 The statistics of the next Minutes after the Christmas Conference.

3 Lednum enumerates them, p. 417. "They had founded a number of chapels, such as Wesley Chapel in New York, one in New Jersey, in 1773, supposed to be Bethel, in Gloucester County — the New Mills House — one in Trenton, and a fourth in Salem. In Pennsylvania they had bought St. George's, were using Bethel in Montgomery; also Old Forest, in Berks; had erected Benson's, and the Valley, or Grove, in Chester County. In Delaware, Forrest or Thomas', Barratt's, White's Chapel, Bethel and Moore's, in Sussex County; Cloud's, Blackiston's, Friendship, in Thoroughfare Neck, and Wesley Chapel, in Dover. In Maryland, the Pipe, or Sam's Creek, Bush Forrest, Gunpowder, Black River Neck, Middle River Neck, Fell's Point, one in Baltimoretown, Kent Meeting-house, Mountain Meeting-house, Bennett's, Hunt's, Deer Creek, Dudley's, Tuckahoe, Quantico, Annamessex Chapel, and one still lower in Somerset County, Line Chapel, Bolingbroke Chapel, Newtown-Chester, or Chestertown Chapel, and Werton Chapel. In Virginia, Yeargin's, Lane's, Boisseau's, Mabry's, Merritt's, Easlin's, White's, Stony Hill, Mumpin's, Rose Creek, Adams', Ellis', Mason's, Howel's, Nansemond, and some sort of houses in Norfolk and Portsmouth. In North Carolina, Nutbush, Cypress, Pope's, Taylor's, Henley's, Lee's, Watson's, Parish's, and Jones's. Here were more than sixty houses of worship claimed and occupied by the Methodists. True, they were humble temples, none of them were stuccoed or frescoed; and yet the mystic shekinah, the glory, was manifested in them."

4 Life, p. 104.

5 Not the Conference of 1785, as Strickland states. Life of Asbury p. 162

6 "Previous to the departure of Dr. Coke for England fifteen trustees had been appointed, five of whom were from among the traveling preachers. The remaining trustees were chosen, not only for their high standing in the Church, and for their known ability for exercising the trust, but also from places sufficiently near to the college to make it convenient for them to attend the examinations of the students, which occurred 'one full month' previous to the time of the annual commencement. The traveling preachers chosen to represent the college in the board of trustees were John Chalmers, Henry Willis, Nelson Reed, Richard Whatcoat, and Joseph Everett. Of the lay trustees, Judge White and James Anderson were taken from Delaware; Henry Ennalls and John Carnan, from the Eastern Share of Maryland; William Wilkins, from Annapolis; Philip Rogers, Samuel Owings, Isaac Burneston, James McCannon, and Emmanuel Kent, from Baltimore." Dr. Hamilton in Methodist Quarterly Review, 1859, p. 178.

7 Strickland's Asbury, p. 163.

8 In "Strictures on Dr. Coke's Ordination Sermon, preached at Baltimore, in the State of Maryland, in December, 1784."

9 Etheridge's Coke, p. 156.

10 An Address to the Pious and Benevolent, proposing an Annual Subscription for the Support of Missionaries, etc., by Thomas Coke, LL.D. 1786.

11 See Hist. of the Relig. Movement, etc., iii, p. 323.

12 Coke's Journals, p. 67.

13 Asbury records the locality of the session as in Tennessee. I have somewhere seen it placed within the western limit of Virginia, but in either case it was beyond the mountains.

14 Rev. James Quinn's Life, by Rev. J. F. Wright, p. 51. Cincinnati. 1851.

15 Wakeley, p. 319. "This Conference," adds Wakeley, "is not noticed in the printed Minutes, nor in Bangs' history of Methodism. He notices seven Conferences held in 1788, but not this. Had it not been for the 'old book,' we should have been ignorant of it. I am glad it is confirmed by Asbury's Journal. It was the first Conference held north of Philadelphia; the first held in the city of New York. It was an era in our history as a Church. Since the above was written I have a further confirmation of it; testimony that cannot be doubted. The Rev. Thomas Morrell, in his unpublished journal, that now lies before me, says, 'At the Conference in New York, in October, 1788, I was ordained a deacon, and appointed to the Trenton Circuit. At the June Conference, 1789, I was ordained an elder.' I have seen his parchments, which show he was not mistaken in regard to dates as far as these Conferences are concerned. It is a most singular thing that the session of the first Conference in New York should have been omitted, not only in the General Minutes, but also by our ecclesiastical historians."

16 Asbury in his Journal writes, while on this journey, "Riding late has much disordered me, having taken cold, with fever and pains in the head." In another place, "We rode forty miles, hungry and weary."

17 Coke says: "This circumstance may appear to many immaterial; however, as it may convey some idea of the mode in which the preachers are obliged to travel in this country, I will just enlarge upon it. When a new circuit is formed in these immense forests, the preacher, whenever he comes in the first instance to a junction of several roads or paths, split two or three of the bushes that lie on the side of the right path, that the preachers who follow him may find out their way with ease. In one of the circuits the wicked discovered the secret, and split bushes in wrong places on purpose to deceive the preachers."

18 The language is not in Southey's Life of Wesley, but in one of his letters to Wilberforce. Wilberforce's Correspondence, ii, 388.

19 Southey's Wesley, chap. 29.

20 Adding to the figures given at Wesley's last Conference the subsequent increase in America before his death.

21 History of the Religious Movement, etc., book v, chap. 12, where is given a resume of his ministerial and literary labors.

22 To Rev. Ezekiel Cooper, Wesley's Works, vii, p. 287.

23 "Etheridge's Coke, p. 232.

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