VOLUME 3 — BOOK V — CHAPTER XVII
METHODISM IN THE EASTERN STATES: 1796 — 1804

New England Methodism — Robert Yellalee — Escape from an Assassin — John Brodhead's Services and Character — Timothy Merritt's Character and Labors — Lee in the East

We have traced the progress of Methodism, in the Eastern States, down to the Thompson (Conn.) Conference, held in September, 1796, with considerable detail; for, fortunately, the early records of the New England Church are more ample than those of any other portion of the denomination.

Important laborers were now added to the small band of itinerants. Robert Yellalee commenced his ministry in England when twenty-two years old, and had there a good training in the toils and trials of his brethren. While on his way to an appointment, he was informed of an intended attempt upon his life. Nothing daunted, trusting in God, he went forward and commenced the meeting. After the introductory services he selected for a text, "Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker," Isaiah xiv, 9. He beheld before him a man whose countenance betrayed contending passions, but the sermon proceeded; "the power of the Most High descended;" a long knife dropped from the sleeve of the man to the floor, and at the close of the discourse he came forward trembling and weeping, "confessed the intention of his heart, and begged for the prayers of his proposed victim."

In 1796 Yellalee was ordained elder by Bishop Coke for the Foulah Mission, Africa. In company with others he embarked for Sierra Leone. War some time afterward broke out, and, together with other circumstances, rendered it necessary for the missionaries to leave. [1] He sailed for America, joined the Methodist itinerants of New England in 1796, and was appointed to Provincetown, Mass. In 1797 he was colleague of Joshua Taylor, on Readfield Circuit, Maine, and the next year, of Aaron Humphrey, on Bath and Union Circuits, in the same state. In 1797 his domestic circumstances compelled him to locate. He resided, till his death, in Maine, usefully employed as a local preacher. He founded the society at Saco, and planted the germs of many others while traveling in that state. It was his happiness to receive into the Church the senior bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, Joshua Soule. [2] He died July 12, 1846, in the seventy-eighth year of his age. He was a man of ordinary talents, but of an excellent heart, and his death was attended with the peace and victory of faith. "The Sun of righteousness, which had been," says one who attended him, "his light for above sixty years, shone with higher brightness in the hour when he was called to enter the vale of death." [3]

John Brodhead's name, which we have incidentally met already, is endeared to New England Methodists. He was born in Smithfield, Northampton County, Penn., October 5, 1770. Like most of the distinguished evangelists noticed in these pages, he was blessed with the lessons and examples of a pious mother, and was the subject of deep religious convictions when put a child. "He has been heard to say that he never forgot the impressions made upon his mind, while kneeling at his mother's feet, learning his little prayers." [4] This early seriousness disappeared amid the gayety and temptations of youth, but about his twenty-second or twenty-third year he became a regenerated man. He entered the itinerant service in 1794, a year in which Beauchamp, Snethen, Canfield, Joseph Mitchell, and other New England evangelists, commenced their travels. His first circuit was that of Northumberland, Penn. In 1795 he was appointed to Kent, Del. The next year he came to New England, and took the distant appointment of Readfield, Me., then one of the only three circuits in that province. In 1797 he passed to Massachusetts, and was appointed to Lynn and Marblehead; the following year he was removed to Rhode Island, and labored on Warren Circuit. In 1799 he returned to Maine, and resumed his labors on Readfield Circuit; the next year he passed through a long transference to Connecticut, and took charge for two years of the New London District, where he superintended the labors of Ruter, Branch, Vannest, Sabin, Ostrander, and other "mighty men." In 1802 he traveled the Vershire District, chiefly in Vermont. The next year he was appointed to Hanover, N.H., and the three following years had charge of the New Hampshire District. He returned to Massachusetts in 1807, and traveled during two years the Boston District, with a host of able men under him, among whom were Pickering, Webb, Munger, Steele, Kibby, Merwin, Ruter, etc. The next four years he was appointed, respectively, to Portsmouth and Newmarket, (two years at each,) after which he was four years on the superannuated list, but took an appointment again, in 1820, at Newmarket and Kingston, as colleague of Joseph A. Merrill. He was now advanced in years, and afflicted with infirmities and his subsequent appointments show much irregularity. He was again in the superannuated ranks in 1821, but took an appointment the next two years as colleague of Phineas Crandall at Newmarket; the ensuing three years he was on the supernumerary list, but labored as he was able at Newmarket and Epping, N. H. In 1827 he took an effective relation to the Conference, and labored two years, respectively, at Newmarket and Poplin, N. H.; the following two years he was left without an appointment at his own request. In 1831 he was again placed on the supernumerary list, and continued there till 1833, when he resumed effective service, and was appointed to Salisbury and Exeter, N. H. The next year we find him among the supernumeraries, where he continued until 1837, when he once more entered the itinerant ranks, and, as was befitting a veteran so distinguished, died in them after a year's service at Seabrook and Hampton Mission, N. H. He spent forty-four years in the ministry, forty-two of them in the East, laboring more or less in all the New England States. He died April 7, 1838, of a disease of the heart, from which he had suffered for a number of years. His departure was peaceful and triumphant. The Boston Post paid the following tribute to his memory at the time: "Possessing naturally a strong mind, warm affections, and an imposing person, he was a popular as well as an able and pious preacher; and probably no man in New England had more personal friends, or could exercise a more widely extended influence. He was repeatedly elected to the Senate of his adopted state and to Congress, yet was always personally averse to taking office; and though he spoke but seldom on political subjects, the soundness of his judgment, and the known purity of his life, gave much weight to his opinions. In the early days of his ministry he endured almost incredible fatigue and hardship in carrying the glad tidings of the gospel to remote settlements, often swimming rivers on horseback, and preaching in his clothes saturated with water, till he broke down a naturally robust constitution and laid the foundation of disease, which affected him more or less during his after life. In his last days, the gospel, which he had so long and so faithfully preached to others, was the never-failing support of his own mind. To a brother clergyman, who inquired of him, a short time before his death, how he was, he said, 'The old vessel is a wreck, but I trust in God the cargo is safe.' "

He "was a good man," say his ministerial brethren in the Minutes; "deeply pious, ardently and sincerely devoted to the interests of the Church and world; it is known to all who were acquainted with the untarnished excellence of his character, that a great man and a prince has fallen in Israel." [5] This brief but significant remark is all that the public records of the Church have noted respecting the character of one of the most beloved names of its early history. Brodhead was a true Christian gentleman, courteous, unaffectedly dignified, and of a temper so benign that all who approached him loved him, and even little children found in him an endearing reciprocation of their tender sympathies; he was universally a favorite among them. He was always hopeful, confiding in God and in man, forbearing toward the weak, co-working with the strong, instant in prayer, living by faith, entertaining large and apostolical views of the gracious provisions of the gospel and the gracious purposes of Providence. All felt in his company that they were in the presence of a large-minded, public-hearted, and unlimitedly trustworthy man. With such a character he could not but be generally popular; and such was the esteem entertained for him by his fellow-citizens of New Hampshire, that, besides important offices in their State Legislature and Executive Council, and a term of four years, as their representative in the Congress of the United States, his consent alone was necessary to have secured him the supreme office of the state: While in civil positions he retained unabated the fervency of his spiritual zeal; in Washington he maintained, at his lodgings, a weekly prayer-meeting, which was composed of his fellow-legislators; and on Sabbaths he preached, more or less, in all the neighboring Methodist churches.

As a preacher, he possessed more than ordinary talents; his clear understanding, combined with quick sensibilities and a vivid imagination, could not but render him eloquent on the themes of religion. He was partial to the benigner topics of the gospel, and often would his congregations and himself melt into tears under the inspiration of his subjects. When he treated on the divine denunciations of sin, it was with a solemnity, and at times with an awful grandeur, that overwhelmed his hearers. "I heard him," says a fellow-laborer, [6] "when I was a young man, preach on the Last Judgment, in Bromfield Street chapel, on a Sabbath evening, and if the terrible reality had occurred that night its impression could hardly have been more alarming." At such times, "seeing the terror of the Lord," he persuaded men with an irresistible eloquence, his large person and noble countenance seemed to expand with the majesty of his thoughts, and he stood forth before the awestruck assembly with the authority of an ambassador of Christ.

He was six feet in stature, with an erect and firmly built frame. Though slight in person when young, in his maturer years he became robustly stout, and toward the end of his life somewhat corpulent, but retained to the last the dignified uprightness of his mien. His complexion was light, his features well defined, his forehead high and expanded, his eye dark, large, and glowing with the spontaneous benevolence of his spirit. In fine, his "tout ensemble" rendered him one of the noblest men in person, as he unquestionably was in character.

Timothy Merritt was "a prince and a great man in Israel." He was born in Barkhamstead, Conn., October, 1775, and trained in "the nurture and admonition of the Lord" by devoted parents, who were early members of the Methodist Episcopal Church in that state. About the seventeenth year of his life he experienced the renewing grace of God. Religion entirely imbued his nature, and marked him, from that period to his death, as a consecrated man. One who first led him into the pulpit, and who held with him during life the communion of a most intimate friendship, [7] says: "I became acquainted with him at his father's, in the town of Barkhamstead, in the northwestern part of the state of Connecticut, in the year 1794. I was introduced to him as a pious young man of great hope and promise to the infant Church in that place and vicinity. After attending the usual preaching and other exercises at Barkhamstead, on the forenoon of the Sabbath, he accompanied me about five or six miles to another appointment, and, probably for the first time, took a part in the public exercises of the sanctuary. He had before been in the habit of improving his gifts in private and social meetings. He entered the traveling connection in 1796, and was stationed on New London Circuit, on which I had traveled in 1794. This circuit, at that time, was about three hundred miles in extent. Here he was both acceptable and useful. The next year, 1797, he joined me in my labors on Penobscot Circuit, in the province of Maine. His presence to me was as the coming of Titus to Paul, (2 Cor. vii, 6.) We entered heart and hand into the arduous labors required of us in that new country, where we had to cross rivers by swimming our horses, ford passes, and through our way into new settlements by marked trees. The Lord gave him favor in the eyes of the people, and his heart was encouraged and his hands strengthened by a good revival, in which much people were added unto the Lord. Here our sympathies and Christian friendship were matured and strengthened as the friendship of David and Jonathan."

The next year, 1798, he was sent to Portland Circuit, where he continued two years. In 1800 and 1801 he was on Bath and Union Circuit; and in 1802 on Bath Station. In 1803 he located, and continued in Maine about ten or eleven years, and then removed to the place of his nativity, where he remained till 1817, when he again entered the itinerancy.

The fourteen years of his location were years of great labor, toil, and hardship. He did not locate to leave the work, but that the infant Churches might be eased of the burden of supporting him and his growing family, and that they might have no excuse for not supporting their regular stationed preachers.

Besides the constant and arduous labors required for his own support, he filled appointments in different towns constantly on the Sabbath, and delivered occasional weekday lectures; as most of the stationed preachers were unordained, he had to visit the societies to administer the ordinances, and assist in organizing and regulating affairs necessary for the peace and prosperity of the cause. Occasionally he attended quarterly-meetings for the presiding elders, from twenty to a hundred miles from home, taking appointments on his way. He went to them in canoes, and skated to them in winters, on the streams and rivers, ten, twelve, or fourteen miles.

When he re-entered the traveling connection, in 1817, he was stationed in Boston. He continued in important appointments down to 1831, when he was stationed at Malden, and devoted much of his time to the editorial duties of Zion's Herald. In 1832-1835 he was at New York, as assistant editor of the Christian Advocate and Journal. Thence he returned to the New England Conference, and was stationed at Lynn, South Street, where he continued two years. His health and physical energies failing, he received a superannuated relation to the Conference, which continued till his life closed.

Merritt possessed rare intellectual vigor. His judgment was remarkably clear and discriminating, grasping the subjects of its investigation, in all their compass, and penetrating to their depths. He lacked fancy and imagination, but was thereby, perhaps, the better fitted for his favorite courses of thought — the investigation and discussion of the great doctrinal truths of religion. His predilection for such subjects was not a curious propensity to speculation, but an interest to ascertain and demonstrate the relations of fundamental tenets to experimental and practical piety. This was the distinguishing characteristic of his preaching. Like St. Paul, he delighted to discuss the "mystery of godliness," and illustrate its "greatness." Dangerous error shrunk in his presence. The doctrine of Christian perfection was his favorite theme, and he was a living example of it. "Holiness to the Lord was his constant motto," says his friend, Enoch Mudge; "he was emphatically a man of a single eye, a man of one work. He literally forsook all to follow Christ and seek the salvation of his fellow-men. Both his mental and physical system were formed for the work. He had a muscular energy which was fitted for labor and fatigue. I remember his saying to me one morning, after having performed what to me and others would have been a fatiguing journey, 'I feel as fresh to start, if it were needful, on a journey of a thousand miles, as I did when I started on this.' His mind was of a thoughtful and serious turn, and of great activity. He was constantly grasping for new subjects of inquiry and new scenes of usefulness. In prayer he was grave, solemn, and fervent. In public devotions I have sometimes seen him when he appeared as if alone with his God. An undue familiarity of expression never fell from his lips in prayer; he truly sanctified the Lord God in his heart, and honored him with his lips. When his physical energy gave way, his active mind felt the shock and totterings of the earthly tabernacle. This was the time for the more beautiful development of Christian resignation and submission. He wrestled to sustain himself under the repeated shocks of a species of paralysis which weakened his constitution and rendered it unfit for public labor, by clouding and bewildering his mind. But here patience had her perfect work. A calm submission spread a sacred halo over the closing scenes of life. Even here we had a chastened and melancholy pleasure in noticing the superiority of the mental and spiritual energies, which occasionally gleamed out over his physical imbecility and prostration. We saw a noble temple in ruins, but the divine Shekinah had not forsaken it." He did extraordinary service for Methodism. His preaching and devout life promoted it; he was continually writing for it, and some of his publications ranked high in its early literature; he was a champion in its antislavery contests; he was active in its efforts for missions and education. No man of his day had more prominence in the Eastern Churches, for either the excellence of his life or the importance of his services. He died at Lynn, Mass., in 1845.

Such were some of the men who gave character to New England Methodism at the opening of the present period; with them were associated a remarkable number of similar characters, such as Pickering, Ostrander, Mudge, Snethen, McCoombs, Woolsey, with Lee still at their head, and Garrettson and Hutchinson supervising much of their Western territory. After his visit to Virginia, Lee resumed his labors in the East at the beginning of 1797. His district comprised the whole Methodist field in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts, except two western circuits in the latter; Ostrander, Pickering, Brodhead, Mudge, Snethen, and other strong men were under his guidance. One who witnessed their labors thus describes them: "It is now both pleasing and profitable to reflect with what divine power the gospel was accompanied, and the surprising effects it produced in the hearts of the people, as it was preached by the Methodist ministry at that time. 'It came not in word only, but in power.' The preachers from the South came among us in the fullness of its blessing; in faith and much assurance in the holy Ghost; fearing nothing, and doubting nothing. A divine unction attended the word, 'and fire came out from before the Lord, and consumed upon the altar the burnt offering and the fat: which when the people saw, they shouted and fell on their faces.' They ran in every direction, kindling and spreading the holy flame, which all the united powers of opposition were unable to quench, for it burned with an inextinguishable blaze. Hence reformations became frequent, deep, and powerful, and many ran to and fro, saying, 'These are the servants of the most high God, who show unto us the way of salvation.' Thus the preachers became 'a spectacle to angels and men.' Sometimes persons felt the gospel to be the power of God unto salvation before they left the house, and went home praising God. This work was so powerful that whole towns and villages, in some instances, were arrested by the influences of the gospel. Not only the poor and obscure, but the rich and great in some cases bowed down under the majesty of the gospel. The great work of God, through the instrumentality of the pioneers of Methodism in New England, subjected them to many, very many sufferings and privations. Their labor was great and extensive. They traveled and preached almost every day. But they endured hunger and thirst, cold and heat, persecutions and reproaches, trials and temptations, weariness and want, as good soldiers of the cross of Christ; not counting their ease and pleasure, friends and homes, health and life, dear to themselves, so that they might bring sinners to God and finish their work with joy." [8]

Such were the labors of the strong men whom Lee led in the early battles of New England, himself; meanwhile, excelling them all. He traversed his immense district with his usual rapidity, proclaiming the word continually, encouraging the preachers in the privations and toils of the remoter circuits, comforting feeble Churches, and inspiriting them to struggle with persecutions and poverty, to erect chapels, and spread themselves out into adjacent neighborhoods.

END OF VOL. III

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ENDNOTES

1 Zion's Herald, July 16, 1845.

2 Ibid., Aug. 10, 1846.

3 Bishop Soule.

4 Letter from Rev. S. Norris to the author.

5 Minutes of 1838.

6 Rev. T. C. Peirce to the author.

7 Rev. Enoch Mudge's letter to the author.

8 Rev. Epaphras Kibby, letter to the author.

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