VOLUME 2 — BOOK IV — CHAPTER IX
CONFERENCES AND PROGRESS, FROM THE ORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH TO THE FIRST REGULAR GENERAL CONFERENCE, 1785-1792

Conferences after the Christmas Conference — Slavery— Children — Church Registers — Colored People — Coke and the Conference of 1787 — Wesley's Name Omitted from the Minutes — The Title of Bishop Adopted — Publication of Books — Reinsertion of Wesley's Name in the Minutes — The Book Concern Begun — Its Importance — The "Council" — Its Failure — Presiding Elders — The Bishops Address President Washington — Sunday-schools Ordered — Methodism and Sunday-schools — Asbury Establishes the First in America — Their great Growth in the Church — Statistical Progress of the Denomination from 1784 to 1790 — From the General Conference of 1784 to that of 1792 — From the First Annual Conference, 1773, to the First Regular General Conference, 1792 — Territorial Extension — The Native Ministry — Their Labors and Sufferings — Asbury's Poverty and Liberality — Locations and Deaths — Apostolic Character of the Ministry

After the General Conference of 1784 the Annual Conferences lose much of their historical importance. The organic measures of that session rendered much additional legislation unnecessary for a number of years. Down to that momentous assembly the two or more annual sessions were understood to be but one Conference, holding adjourned meetings. The Church, invigorated by its more thorough organization, now rapidly enlarged, and its Conferences multiplied. They were no longer considered to be adjourned sessions of the same body. [1] But few grave matters of legislation were brought under their attention. It is probable, however, that any such matters were, as heretofore, submitted to the vote of each Conference before they were inserted in the laws of the denomination. A vague expectation of another General Conference seems to have been entertained, and important measures, which at any time appeared desirable, were mostly held in reserve for such a session. In the course of a few years, as we shall presently see, a general Council, the semblance of a General Conference, was attempted, and its failure providentially led to a regular Quadrennial Conference, which has ever since been the supreme body of the Church. We can, therefore, pass hastily over the Annual Conferences, from the Christmas General Conference of 1784 to the first regular General Conference of 1792. Their Minutes record little besides the names of preachers and the statistical returns of the circuits.

In the year (1785) following the Christmas Conference three sessions were appointed. By the year 1790 they had increased to fourteen, extending from New York to Georgia, from Baltimore to the Valley of the Mississippi; three, at least, being held beyond the Alleghenies By the end of our present period they had increased to at least seventeen, one of them being held in New England. We cannot depend upon the Minutes for the number actually had. Some, as, for example, the first New York session, are unmentioned; others, like that designated in the printed list [2] as of "Connecticut" for 1791, did not meet. We have already had sufficient evidence that the official records cannot be relied on as to the number of these sessions.

In looking through the Minutes of these eight years we find but few items of historical interest, but some of them are of the highest importance. The only one recorded in 1785 is the suspension of the rules on slavery, accompanied, however, with the bold declaration that "we do hold in the deepest abhorrence the practice of slavery, and shall not cease to seek its destruction by all wise and prudent means." In 1786 the Minutes record nothing besides the usual routine questions and answers, and a few financial notices. In the ensuing year it is ordered that the children of the congregation shall be formed into classes; that register books shall be provided by the Societies for the record of baptisms and marriage, and an emphatic injunction on the preachers to leave nothing undone for the spiritual benefit and salvation "of the colored people" is inserted. It was at the Baltimore Conference of this year that Coke was severely rebuked for altering the time and place of Conference sessions, and for "writing improper letters to some of the preachers." [3] No man was ever more ready than he to make sacrifices for peace among his brethren; he therefore signed a certificate, which was witnessed by Tunnell, Haggerty, and Reed, declaring that he would "never exercise government whatever" in the Church during his absence from the United States, and use no other power when in the country than that of his Episcopal functions. It was also in this year that Garrettson and Whatcoat were appointed to the Episcopal office by Wesley, but not elected by the Conference. The reasons of Garrettson's failure have already been stated. [4] The chief reason for declining the election of Whatcoat was the apprehension of the Conference that if he were elected, Wesley would recall Asbury to England. Coke debated the matter, contending that the Conference was bound to obey Wesley by its pledge, in 1784, that "during Mr. Wesley's life we acknowledge ourselves his sons in the Gospel, ready, in matters belonging to Church government, to obey his commands." The argument was logical, but the pledge was unfortunate, and the Conference pleaded that "as they had made the engagement of their own accord, and among themselves, they had a right to depart therefrom when they pleased, seeing it was not a contract made with Mr. Wesley, or any other person, but an agreement among themselves." [5] It was also contended that Wesley's' distance rendered him unable to judge of their wants and men. The Conference wrote him an affectionate better, inviting him to visit America, but took the precaution to omit their former pledge from the printed Minutes, and thereby displaced his name from them. [6] It was in this year that the title of bishop first appeared in a new edition of the Discipline, as a personal designation of the superintendents, though it had been used otherwise in the Minutes from the organization of the Church. [7] The bishops themselves made the change, but it was approved at the ensuing Annual Conferences by the preachers. The new Discipline also contained a provision that the Conference shall be consulted respecting any publication of books, and that the profits of their sales shall be appropriated "to the college, the preachers' fund, the deficiencies of preachers, distant missions, and debts on the churches." "From this time," says the first historian of the Church, "we began to publish more of our own books than we had ever before, and the principal part of the printing business was carried on in New York." No Conference publisher was, however, yet named, but the "Book Agency" was vaguely anticipated as a possible means of great usefulness in the denomination, and was soon to take effect. The Minutes of the year 1788 present nothing noteworthy besides the usual routine record. In the next year Wesley's name was reinserted in the Minutes, though not with the original pledge of the ministry to abide by his authority in matters of Church government. It is ambiguously, not to say clumsily, given [8] in the answer of the first question: "Who are the persons that exercise the Episcopal office in the Methodist Church in Europe and America? John Wesley, Thomas Coke, and Francis Asbury, by regular order and succession." [9] Not only Wesley, but some of the American preachers, had been displeased by the omission of his name. It was readily restored as an act of respect, but was followed by another question and answer, which guarded the exclusive authority of the American Church: "Who have been elected, by the unanimous suffrages of the General Conference, to Superintend the Methodist connection in America? Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury." [10]

We now find in the Minutes further official provision made for the publication of books for the Church. John Dickins is appointed to Philadelphia, and designated as the "Book Steward;" and Philip Cox is left without a circuit, as "Book Steward" at large. The effusion of religious literature had evidently become an important consideration with the Conference. We have seen it gradually approximate this conclusion. Philip Cox's itinerant labors in the good work have also been mentioned; he died in it after more than three years' services, which, say the Minutes, "were great in circulating so many hundred books of religious instruction." [11]He seems to have been practically a colporteur — the first example of that useful office in the United States. Though he was appointed to the book stewardship as early as Dickins, the latter is considered the founder of the "Book Concern." He was its first editor and publisher, and began it with a capital of six hundred dollars, his own money, lent to the Church. The first entry in the books of the institution is in his handwriting, dated August 17, 1789, and shows that the first book issued was Wesley's abridged translation of the immortal "Imitatione" of Thomas a' Kempis. In this year were also issued the first volume of the Arminian Magazine mostly a reprint of Wesley's periodical of that name. Before the year closed a new edition of the Discipline, the Hymn Book, Baxter's Saint's Rest, and Wesley's Primitive Physic appeared. Such was the beginning of that gigantic Publishing House, which has become in our day one of the greatest powers of the denomination; with two publishing houses, five depositories, a capital of nearly $800,000, (aside from that of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, founded by a division of its funds) its twelve editors, its nearly five hundred clerks and operatives, its more than twenty cylinder and power presses, its nearly thirty thousand different publications, its fourteen periodicals, with an aggregate circulation of over one million copies per month. We shall hereafter have occasion to narrate its history and estimate its importance more in detail.

The necessity of a General Conference was now generally felt, but it seemed impossible to assemble the preachers, so widely dispersed over the country. The bishops therefore proposed, in the sessions of this year, the plan of a "Council," to be composed of "chosen men, out of the several districts, as representatives of the whole connection." Its members were to consist of the bishops and presiding elders, never fewer than nine, who were to have "authority to mature everything they should judge expedient" for the unity, the doctrinal and moral integrity of the Church, and the improvement of its "colleges and plan of education, provided, however, that only its unanimous decisions should be presented to the Church, and these be binding, "in any district," only when they "have been agreed upon by a majority of the Conference which is held for that district." The bishops were to have authority to convene the Council at their discretion, and its first meeting was appointed for the first day of December, at Cokesbury College.

Though a majority of the preachers approved this scheme, and it seems to have been a favorite conception of Asbury, it soon became the occasion of much dispute, and even perilous contention. Composed exclusively of the bishops and the presiding elders, it was, apparently without design, entirely under the control of the bishops, for they had discretionary power to appoint or displace the presiding elders. The dependence of its decisions upon the several districts, or Conferences, might tend to break up the uniformity, if not the unity, of the denomination; for, though some might approve and execute them, others, in which a majority dissented, could legally disregard them. The council held two sessions, in 1789 and 1790; it appointed a third for 1792, but the general opposition to it compelled the bishops to consent to substitute in its place a General Conference in the latter year.

The first occurrence of the title of Presiding Elder, in the official documents of the Church, was in the plan of this Council; it passed into the Minutes of the same year, doubtless for the purpose of conforming the latter to the former, for it disappears the next year, and does not reappear till the year 1797.

At the New York Conference for 1789 it was deemed expedient to recognize, in the name of the denomination, the new Federal Constitution lately adopted, and the chief magistrate, Washington, recently inaugurated. An address to the President was voted by the Conference. Dickins and Morrell were appointed to wait on him, and request him to designate a day for the reception of the bishops, who would present the address. May 29th was appointed, when Asbury, "with great self-possession," says Morrell, "read the address in an impressive manner. The President read his reply with fluency and animation. They interchanged their respective addresses; and, after sitting a few minutes, we departed. The address and the answer, in a few days, were inserted in the public prints; and some of the ministers and members of the other Churches appeared dissatisfied that the Methodists should take the lead. In a few days the other denominations successively followed our example." The Address of the Bishops was signed by Coke and Asbury. It said: "We, the Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church, humbly beg leave, in the name of our Society, collectively, in these United States, to express to you the warm feelings of our hearts, and our sincere congratulations on your appointment to the presidentship of these United States. We are conscious, from the signal proofs you have already given, that you are a friend of mankind; and under this established idea, place as full confidence in your wisdom and integrity for the preservation of those civil and religious liberties which have been transmitted to us by the providence of God and the glorious Revolution, as we believe ought to be reposed in man. We have received the most grateful satisfaction from the humble and entire dependence on the great Governor of the universe, which you have repeatedly expressed, acknowledging him the source of every blessing, and particularly of the most excellent Constitution of these states, which is at present the admiration of the world, and may in future become its great exemplar for imitation; and hence we enjoy a holy expectation, that you will always prove a faithful and impartial patron of genuine, vital religion, the grand end of our creation and present probationary existence. And we promise you our fervent prayers to the throne of grace, that God Almighty may endue you with all the graces and gifts of his Holy Spirit, that he may enable you to fill up your important station to his glory, the good of his Church, the happiness and prosperity of the United States, and the welfare of mankind. Signed in behalf of the Methodist Episcopal Church."

Washington, in reply, said: "I return to you individually, and through you to your Society collectively in the United States, my thanks for the demonstrations of affection, and the expressions of joy offered in their behalf, on my late appointment. It shall be my endeavor to manifest the purity of my inclinations for promoting the happiness of mankind, as well as the sincerity of my desires to contribute whatever may be in my power toward the civil and religious liberties of the American people. In pursuing this line of conduct, I hope, by the assistance of divine Providence, not altogether to disappoint the confidence which you have been pleased to repose in me. It always affords me satisfaction when I find a concurrence of sentiment and practice between all conscientious men, in acknowledgments of homage to the great Governor of the Universe, and in professions of support to a just civil government. After mentioning that I trust the people of every denomination, who demean themselves as good citizens, will have occasion to be convinced that I shall always strive to prove a faithful and impartial patron of genuine vital religion, I must assure you in particular, that I take in the kindest part the promise you make of presenting your prayers at the throne of grace for me, and that I likewise implore the divine benediction on yourselves and your religious community."

The year 1790 was signalized by an ordinance of the conferences establishing Sunday-schools for the instruction of "poor children, white and black." "Let us," say the Minutes, "labor, as the heart and soul of one man, to establish Sunday-schools in or near the place of public worship. Let persons be appointed by the bishops, elders, deacons, or preachers to teach (gratis) all that will attend and have a capacity to learn, from six o'clock in the morning till ten, and from two o'clock in the afternoon till six, where it does not interfere with public worship. The Council shall compile a proper school book to teach them learning and piety." [12]

This is supposed to be the first recognition of Sunday-schools by an American Church. Only about nine years had passed since they were begun in England. A young Methodist woman, afterward the wife of one of Wesley's most distinguished preachers, Samuel Bradburn, first suggested to Robert Raikes their organization in 1781 at Gloucester. She assisted him in forming the first school, attended with him the procession of ragged children from the school to the parish church, and was one of their most effective teachers. [13] John Wesley was the first man in England to publicly approve Raikes' plan, after the latter had published an account of it in the Gloucester Journal in 1784. Wesley immediately copied the account into his Arminian Magazine, and recommended his people to adopt the new institution. In the same year Fletcher, of Madeley, introduced it into his parish, and wrote an essay on "The Advantage likely to Arise from Sunday-schools." In the year 1786, four years before this order of the conferences, and five years before any other attention was given to the institution in this country, Asbury established the first Sunday-school in the new world, at the house of Thomas Crenshaw, in Hanover County, Va., and this first attempt prefigured one of the most important later advantages of the institution, by giving a useful preacher to the Methodist Episcopal Church. [14] The endeavor of 1790 to incorporate the institution into the Church, though for some time feeble, if not defeated, at last succeeded, and in our day there are nearly a million scholars, and more than a hundred and fifty thousand teachers, in the various Methodist Sunday-schools of the United States. The "Sunday-School Union" has become one of the most important auxiliaries of the Book Concern, with its four periodicals, having an aggregate circulation of more than 260,000 per number. Its catalogue of publications includes more than 1,800 different works, with an annual issue of about a million copies, and its Sunday-school libraries report nearly two and a half millions of volumes. More than two hundred and thirty thousand conversions have been reported, in its schools, in the last fifteen years. The Church, then, made a mighty stride forward in 1790.

No important acts of the conferences of 1791 and 1792 are reported in the Minutes. The General Conference of the latter year was to furnish all the legislation necessary for the period.

From the Christmas Conference to the sessions of 1790 — somewhat more than five years — the statistical progress of the Church was remarkable. The returns of the year, which was closed by the Christmas Conference, showed about fifteen thousand members, (14,988) and eighty-three preachers; the returns of the year 1790 amounted to more than fifty-seven thousand six hundred (57,631) members, and two hundred and twenty-seven preachers. The gains for these few years were, therefore, more than forty-two thousand six hundred (42,643) members, and one hundred and forty-four preachers. Estimating this period at six years, [15] it yields an average annual growth of more than seven thousand one hundred members, and of twenty-four preachers. The latter item needs, however, very considerable qualification, for only the preachers actually on the list of appointments are reported; there is yet no supernumerary or superannuated list; and we have had frequent occasion to notice how many every year retired from the itinerancy. Nearly all these entered the ranks of the local ministry, and continued to be habitual preachers. At least twenty-eight thus disappeared from the Minutes in the interval between the Christmas Conference and the year 1790; and besides these, not a few who were received on trial were not admitted into membership with the conferences, but were remanded to the local ranks, where they nevertheless did good service. We may safely estimate the increase of the ministry, in this brief interval, at one hundred and seventy-five, giving an annual average gain of nearly thirty.

If we pass on, two years further, to the end of our present period, we meet an equally gratifying result. The aggregate returns for 1792 (all made before the session of the General Conference) swell to nearly sixty-six thousand (65,980) members, and two hundred and sixty-six preachers. The gains, then, since the returns last preceding the Christmas Conference, were nearly fifty-one thousand (50,992) members, and one hundred and eighty-three preachers. Estimating the interval at eight years, it exhibits an average annual gain of more than six thousand three hundred members, (6,374) and of about twenty-three preachers. Qualifying the latter item, as above, the average ministerial gain must have been somewhat more than thirty. [16]

Such was the statistical strength of American Methodism when its second General Conference assembled in Baltimore, in about eight years after its organization in that city, as "The Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States." Most of its founders were still living: Barbara Heck, Captain Webb, King, Watters, Gatch, Pilmoor, and Shadford.

About nineteen years had passed since its first Annual Conference was held in Philadelphia, and its first general statistical returns were made. It then reported eleven hundred and sixty members, and ten preachers; it had gained in the nineteen years nearly sixty-five thousand (64,820) members, and two hundred and fifty-six preachers. Its average annual gains had been more than thirty-four hundred (3,411) members, and more than thirteen preachers. There had been but two years in which the Minutes record a decrease of members: the first was 1775, when the Revolutionary War raged without, and the sacramental controversy within the Church — the loss amounted to eight hundred and seventy-three members, and five preachers; the second was 1780, the culmination of the sacramental contest, when a loss of seventy-three members was reported. [17]

Its territorial extension had not only kept pace with the settlement of the country, but had transcended it; for Methodism was now established permanently in Nova Scotia and Upper Canada. At its first Conference of 1773 it reported but six circuits, reaching along a narrow line from New York city to Petersburg, Va. It now reported a hundred and thirty-six, extending from beyond the St. Lawrence, to Savannah, Ga.; from Lynn, Mass., to the most western settlements of Kentucky and Tennessee. The whole settled country was threaded with them. Seventeen Conferences were held in 1792, and twenty appointed for the next year, five at least of the latter beyond the Alleghenies.

In the Conference of 1773 all the preachers save one, William Watters, were foreigners; but since the Christmas Conference Wesley had dispatched no "missionaries" to America. All his former missionaries, except Asbury and Whatcoat, had returned to Europe; but American Methodism had now its native ministry, numerous and vigorous. Besides Asbury, Coke, and Whatcoat, it still retained many of the great evangelists it had thus far raised up, and who have been sketched in these pages: Garrettson, Lee, Abbott, O'Kelly, Crawford, Toy, Burke, Poythress, Bruce, Breeze, Reed, Cooper, Everett, Willis, Wilson Lee, Dickins, Ware, Brush, Moriarty, Roberts, Hull, Losee, and others. A Host of mighty men, who will hereafter claim our attention, had already joined these standard-bearers: McKendree, George, (both afterward bishops,) Roszel, Nolley, McGee, Smith, Gibson, McHenry, Kobler, Fleming, Cook, Scott, Wells, Pickering, Sharp, Bostwick, McCloskey, McCombs, Bartine, Morrell, Taylor, Hunt, and scores more. [18] These were to be soon followed, or rather joined, by another host of as strong, if not stronger representative men: Roberts, Hedding; Soule, Bangs, Merwin, Capers, Pierce, Winans, Kennon, Kenneday, Douglass, Redman, Thornton, Finley, Cartwright, Elliott, and many others equal to them; and amid an army of such were to arise in due time, to give a new intellectual development to the ministry, such characters as Emory, Fisk, Ruter, Summerfield, Bascom, Olin, and many others, some surviving into our day, men of not only denominational but of national recognition. Extraordinary indeed, a study full of inexpressible interest and profound lessons, is the history of that singular ministerial system of Methodism which we call the itinerancy. The development of character, of energy and success which it has revealed thus far in our narrative cannot fail to astonish us. Down to the final period of our record we shall find it as potent as ever. Its roll is glorious with heroes and martyrs. What clerical men since the apostolic age ever traveled and labored like these? What public men ever sacrificed equally with them the ordinary comforts of life? Their salaries or "allowance" (for they disclaimed the word salary) scarcely provided them with clothes. We have seen the sufferings of Asbury, their bishop and prototype, from labor and poverty. His allowance was sixty-four dollars a year. His horses and carriages were given by his friends, all donations of money from whom he assigned to his fellow-sufferers, his fellow-laborers. At one of the early Western Conferences, where the assembled itinerants presented painful evidences of want, he parted with his watch, his coat, and his shirts for them. [19] He was asked by a friend to lend him fifty pounds. "He might as well have asked me for Peru," wrote the bishop; "I showed him all the money I had in the world, about twelve dollars, and gave him five." Most of the early itinerants had to locate, at last, on account of their broken health, or the sufferings of their families. Of six hundred and fifty whose names appear in the Minutes, by the close of the century, about five hundred died located, and many of the remainder were, for a longer or shorter interval, in the local ranks, but were able again to enter the itinerancy. Nearly half of those whose deaths are recorded died before they were thirty years old; about two thirds died before they had spent twelve years in the laborious service. They fell martyrs to their work. [20]

If ever men presented the genuine credentials of Christian apostleship these men did. They were enthusiastic, sublimely so, but they were not fanatical. A remarkable selflessness and official decorousness characterized them as a body; an ecclesiastical dignity, which was the more commanding for being simple, unpretentious, laborious, and self-sacrificing. It was impossible that some eccentric, perhaps insane minds, should not be drawn into the ever-widening circle of their enthusiastic movement; but the rigorous discipline and exhaustive labors of the denomination controlled or expended their morbid energy; or, if these failed, the rapid but steady motion of its ecclesiastical system threw them off; and so far off that they ceased to be dangerous. Into whatever position they found themselves thrown — from the itinerancy to the local ministry, from the Conference to the class-meeting — they found themselves bound by the tenacious "Rules" of the Discipline. Hence, though untutored men, without a single collegiate graduate, besides Coke, in all their ranks thus far, no important doctrinal heresy had yet disturbed them. The theological symbol of general Christendom, the Apostles' Creed, and the Anglican Articles as abridged by Wesley, had never before had a purer or more effective promulgation among the masses of the people.

It has justly been observed by a high authority that Christ wrote nothing, but is himself the book of life to be read by all; that his religion is not an outward letter, but free, quickening spirit; not a literary production, but a moral creation; not a new system of theology or philosophy for the learned, but the communication of the divine life to human nature for the redemption of the whole world; that he spoke, and all the words of his mouth were and still are spirit and life; that the human heart craves not a learned, letter-writing, literary Christ, but a wonder-working, cross-bearing, atoning Redeemer, risen, enthroned in heaven, and ruling the world, yet furnishing, at the same time to men and angels, inexhaustible themes of holy thoughts, discourses, writings, and songs of praise." [21] The divine life, presence, power of Christ, quickening the souls of the people, is the spiritual life of the Church; and the men who have most of this life in their own souls, and most diffuse it among the common people, are its most genuine ministry, the truest copy of its original apostleship. Can we then dispute the apostolic character of the men whose humble names are here commemorated?

I have thus recorded the "Planting and Training" of American Methodism, and may here properly conclude this part of my narrative. I have indulged myself in much, perhaps too much detail, but not merely for the purpose of rescuing early facts, which were fast evanescing, and noble characters rapidly disappearing in oblivion, but to facilitate my future labors. If I have been able to ascertain the true genius of Methodism, and its early process of development, if its Theological and ecclesiastical platforms have been measured, its real substructure disclosed, the record of its further construction and enlargement can proceed readily and rapidly.

END OF VOL. II

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ENDNOTES

1 Lee, p.118.

2 Minutes of 1790.

3 Lee, p. 125.

4 Lee, p. 126, gives them incorrectly. Correct him by Bangs, i, 258.

5 Lee, p. 127.

6 Asbury, alluding to this pledge, said: 'I never approved of that binding minute. I did not think it practical expediency to obey Mr. Wesley, at three thousand miles distance, in all matters relative to Church government, neither did Brother Whatcoat, nor several others. At the first General Conference I was mute and modest when it passed, and I was mute when it was expunged. For this Mr. Wesley blamed me, and was displeased that I did not rather reject the whole connection, or leave them, if they did not comply. But I could not give up the connection so easily, after laboring so many years with and for them."

7 See p.191.

8 See Bangs, i, 278.

9 Both Lee and Bangs give the clause I have italicized, but it is not in the bound reprints of the Minutes. Bangs animadverts cautiously on the peculiar phraseology of the answer.

10 Of course the election referred to was that of the Christmas General Conference. The importance of some of the proceedings of the years 1787 and 1788 has led to the conjecture that their sessions may have been General Conferences, (articles of Rev. Messrs. De Hass and Coggeshall, in Christian Advocate, January and February, 1859,) a question which will be examined in my account of the General Conference of 1792.

11 Minutes of 1794. I am not aware, however, that any of cur historical writers have ever mentioned his services in that great interest, except an allusion in Lednum.

12 I cite this Minute from Lee's History, p. 162. It is not in the bound Minutes.

13 Memoir of Sophia Bradburn, in Wesleyan Magazine for 1884, p. 319.

14 "Strickland's Asbury, p. 217. History of the Religious Movement, etc., II, 483, et seq.

15 "The conferences being held at varied intervals in each year, it is difficult to make exact calendar estimates.

16 "No less than twenty-three preachers located in the last two years, not including such as retired from the list of probationers.

17 The Minutes also indicate a loss of seven preachers, but in the preceding year they give five too many, by twice inserting the appointments for Baltimore and Frederick circuits; the actual loss, therefore, could not be more than two.

18 Down to the Christmas Conference sketches have been given of almost all the preachers who entered the itinerancy. Since that season not a few important men have already appeared in the Minutes of whom no special notice has thus far been given. They will be introduced at more appropriate points of the narrative.

19 Biographical Sketches, etc., p. 35.

20 History of the Religious Movement, etc., II, p. 466.

21 Schaff, History of the Christian Church, p. 90.

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