VOLUME 3 — BOOK V — CHAPTER II
METHODISM IN THE SOUTH, FROM THE SECOND TO THE THIRD GENERAL CONFERENCES, 1792 — 1796

Coke — His Proposition to Bishop White for the Union of the Methodist Episcopal and Protestant Episcopal Churches — Cokesbury College — Coke in Philadelphia — At New York — Perilous Accident — Asbury in the South — Among the O'Kellyites — His great Labors and Sufferings — At Rembert Hall — Hammett's Schism in Charleston, S. C. — Asbury in Georgia — At the Ruins of Whitefield's Orphan House — Among the Western Mountains — At General Russell's — Death of the General— Asbury at Baltimore — Scenes and Labors in the South — Death of Judge White — Further Travels and Labors

Coke and Asbury parted after the General Conference of 1792; the former to the north, the latter to the south. The character and results of the session had evidently relieved Coke's mind of much anxiety respecting the stability of the Church. Its treatment of himself and Wesley, in 1787, and, especially, its repudiation of Wesley's authority and name, had alarmed both of them with apprehension of further disturbances. Wesley, as we have seen, wished Asbury to renounce his office, and the Church itself, rather than seem to sanction this procedure. As early as April, 1791, a year and a half before the General Conference, and but five days before the news of the death of Wesley reached Coke, the latter had opened a correspondence with Bishop White, of Philadelphia, proposing a union of the Methodist Episcopal and Protestant Episcopal Churches, but on terms which in nowise compromised the honor or rights of the former. He was with Asbury at the time, in Virginia, yet seems not to have consulted him on the subject nor any other Methodist authority in Europe or America; but Asbury had discerned his discontent with the condition of American Methodism. [1] His proposition was rash and imprudent, characteristic of the man, who, ever catholic, confident, and full of hasty energy, was, nevertheless, one of the most admirable ecclesiastical personages of his day. It resulted in no harm; it was unknown to the public till disclosed by the Protestant Episcopal party in 1804; and, in 1808, came under the consideration of the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, when Coke made to his brethren an explanation, equally characteristic by its candor and good temper. We shall have occasion to review the facts of the case hereafter.

He now left the conference, confident and joyful in the prospects of the denomination. [2] He paused at Abingdon, Md., where he spent three days in examining the students of Cokesbury College. "We have more than seventy," he writes. "Dr. Hall, the president, and the three tutors, do honor to the institution; many from the southern states are sending their young men here to finish their education. The fear of God seems to pervade the college." He spent eight days with "the loving people" of Philadelphia, where there were three hundred Methodists, "in general solid and established in the grace of God." H prepared there a new edition of the Discipline, comprising all the regulations made at the late General Conference. On the 30th of November he reached New York, where he spent twelve days, preparing for the press his general conference sermon on "The Witness of the Spirit," and preaching some twenty sermons to thronged assemblies. There were now six hundred Methodists in the city; most of those who had struggled down to the war had been dispersed through the country; but though nearly new, the society had "incomparably more of genuine religion" than at any former period. By the middle of December he was afloat again for the West India Missions, but with "a deliverance," he writes, "never to be forgotten. I went to the wharves to look out for a convenient vessel to carry me to the West Indies, and in ascending the side of the brig my foot slipped. I alighted on something at the edge of the water, which supported me; and with the assistance of those who were near, was raised on board. But when I looked back on the situation in which I had been a few moments before, it was most awful. A pole had been tied to the side of the brig to preserve it from being damaged by striking against the wharf. This pole received me in my fall, or otherwise in a second or two I must unavoidably have been crushed between the brig and the wharf. Six times I have been in the very jaws of death, upon or near the water, and yet am still p reserved a monument of mercy in every respect!"

Asbury, as we have seen, struck forthwith to the south, to anticipate any schismatic measures of O'Kelly and his associates. We have already followed him in some of his movements among them; he held conferences, love-feasts, class and band meetings, preaching once or twice and riding forty or fifty miles almost daily. He excelled his humblest preachers in the humblest pastoral labors, and this was not his policy for a temporary exigency, like the present, but the habit of his long ministerial life. "Traveling," he says, "in such haste I could not be as much in mental prayer as I desired, although I enjoyed many moments of sweet converse God." At Alexandria he met the preachers in conference, and preached in "our small, neatly finished house." "The mischief has begun," he says, on arriving in Caroline county. He met the preachers, in band, at Manchester, where they had assembled for a conference. He "found their fears were greatly removed, and all things went on well" among the little loyal group, though the resignations of McKendree and Haggardy were sent in. "After all Satan's spite," he adds, "I think our sifting and shaking will be for good." Jesse Lee was with him, aiding in the pacification of the Churches. Asbury flew to all disturbed parts of the field in Virginia, and was successful in many, though in some he found incorrigible seceders. Not a few societies were rent to pieces, and the enemies of religion and hostile sectarists exulted in the hope of the immediate and final downfall of the denomination throughout the state. Asbury labored chiefly to promote among the distracted societies a deeper religious feeling, spiritual unity, as the best means of ecclesiastical harmony. He not only traveled and preached, but wrote many letters. His usual correspondence averaged about a thousand a year, and was a heavy burden added to his many other cares. Meanwhile he forgot no great interest of the Church. He took shelter at Dromgoole's, now in retirement on Brunswick Circuit, near North Carolina; "here," he writes, "I found a few friends, and formed a constitution for a district school, which, with a little alteration, will form a general rule for any part of the continent." By a "district school," he means a "conference" school, for, as we have seen, the Annual Conferences were now called "District Conferences." He had actually devised a system of general education for the Church, proposing a boarding academy for each conference, a scheme which the denomination has made effective in our day. He held another conference near Lewisburgh, whither about forty preachers had come from the two districts in North Carolina. When again on his route he writes: "The great love and union which prevailed at the late conference makes me hope many souls will be converted in the ensuing year: an account was brought in of the conversion of about three hundred last week within its limits, chiefly in the Lowland circuits. Glory be to God! I feel that he is with us; and I have good evidence that fifteen or eighteen hundred souls have professed to have been converted in the United States within the last twelve months."

He hastened through North and entered South Carolina, riding thirty, forty, fifty miles a day, "hungry" and "cold," for it was now December, but preaching at the close of nearly every day's journey in barns, private houses, and, occasionally, new chapels of "logs or poles," with "light and ventilation plenty." He was often drenched by storms; "the unfinished state of the houses, lying on the floor, thin clothing, and inclement weather, keep me," he writes, "in a state of indisposition."

In Sumter District, S. C., he found, by Christmas day, shelter in one of those wealthy and hospitable houses which, like Perry Hall, were always open to welcome him as a prophet of God, at distant intervals of his great field. "Although the weather," he writes, "was cold and damp and unhealthy, with signs of snow, we rode forty-five miles to dear Brother Rembert's — kind and good, rich and liberal, who has done more for the poor Methodists than any man in South Carolina. The Lord grant that he, with his whole household, may find mercy in that day!"

A bishop of Southern Methodism, speaking of "Rembert Hall," so often and so gratefully mentioned in Asbury's Journals, says: "The proprietor of this estate, James Rembert, Esq., was a Methodist gentleman of large property, who was strongly attached to Asbury. There was a room in his mansion that was appropriated to the bishop's use. Here he commonly spent a week during his annual visitation to South Carolina. It was a sweet haven, where the weather-beaten sailor found quiet waters, and bright skies, and a season of repose. Here he brought up his journal, wrote his letters, and lectured of an evening to the family and visitors and crowds of servants. Mrs. Rembert was a lady of the kindest heart: she not only had the bishop's apartments always ready and commodiously furnished, but; every year her seamstress made up for him a full supply of linen, which, neatly ironed, awaited the arrival of the bishop. Rembert Hall, in my time on the Sumter Circuit, was occupied by Caleb Rembert, Esq., his honored father and mother having long before gone to heaven." [3]

Reaching Charleston, he found "the little flock in peace and a small revival among them," though here also the Church had been scathed by division. William Hammett, one of Coke's missionaries to the West Indies, had come to the United States, and had taken charge of the society in Charleston, where his remarkable natural powers of eloquence soon rendered him generally popular. He was unrivaled in the pulpits of the city, and became restless under the disciplinary administration of Methodism. He accused Coke and Asbury of tyranny. "We are considered by him," wrote Asbury, "as seceders from Methodism, because we do not wear gowns and powder, and because we did not pay sufficient respect to Mr. Wesley." He headed a secession from the young Church of the city in 1791, briefly anticipating and severely exasperating the revolt of O'Kelly and his followers in Virginia and North Carolina. Thus agitation prevailed through much of nearly one half of the territory of the Church, for the schismatic spirit spread infectiously, pamphlets were published, letters written, personal visitations made by disaffected preachers; even the new and feeble Churches beyond the Alleghenies felt the evil. Asbury accuses them of "striving to scatter firebrands and arrows through the whole continent." He accuses himself for his excessive anxiety about the result. "I am not enough in prayer," he says. "I have said more than was for the glory of God concerning those who have left the American connection, and who have reviled Mr. Wesley, Mr. Fletcher, Doctor Coke, and poor me. O that I could trust the Lord more than I do, and leave his cause wholly in his own hands!"

Hammett's secession threatened for a time almost the ruin of Methodism in Charleston. His commanding influence enabled him to erect a spacious chapel on Hasell Street, with an adjacent parsonage and lot of land. He called it Trinity Church, and his people called themselves "Primitive Methodists." A local authority records that "this body continued a distinct connection till after the death of their leader. But, alas! man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward. And these good people found that ecclesiastical difficulties followed them even into their 'primitive' asylum. It is believed that their highly talented leader found that he had undertaken a task to which he was not adequate — the task of arranging and binding together the discordant materials which he had gathered from the Church and from the world. Suffice it to say, that before he went hence he had his troubles among his flock. Many of them returned to the fold where they had been formerly fed, some went to other Churches, and not a few went back to the world. After the death of Mr. Hammett the congregation was served by a Mr. Brazier, who had formerly been a missionary in the West Indies. This gentleman, after ministering to them a short time, concluded that his temporal interest might be better served by selling the church. He accordingly bargained it away to a Protestant Episcopal clergyman. The Protestant Episcopalians took possession of it, built pews in it, and had it dedicated according to their forms. But the original trustees were not disposed to submit tamely to these proceedings. A lawsuit was the consequence, which resulted favorably to the trustees; the Church was restored to them, and the congregation was served sometimes by one, and sometimes by another, until at length they remembered the days of old, and invited the Methodist preachers to occupy the pulpit, which at first they did only a part of the time. But finally an amicable arrangement was made by which they became identified with the Methodist Episcopal Church; the union so happily formed has been most graciously cemented by God's blessing; and we may only say further on this point, that all the Churches and parsonages built by the 'Primitive Methodists,' have passed to our use." [4]

Hammett built a second church in the suburbs of the city. Several local preachers joined him, and he evidently contemplated a somewhat general organization. His party erected a church in Georgetown, one also in Savannah, another in Wilmington, N. C., where they gathered a large congregation of blacks. William Meredith had charge of the latter society; he subsequently withdrew from Hammett, and dying in 1799, left his chapel, parsonage, and society to the care of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Most of the other societies returned to the parent Church. Bishop Coke and Thomas Morrell published pamphlets in reply to Hammett. He died in 1803, about eleven years after his secession, and the schism became extinct. [5]

Asbury spent about a week in the city, holding a conference and preaching incessantly; he then passed into Georgia, and rested at Washington, where he writes: "We met our dear brethren in conference. We had great peace and union; the Carolina preachers came up to change with those in Georgia; all things happened well. Bless the Lord, O my soul! We now agreed to unite the Georgia and South Carolina conferences — to meet in the fork of Seleuda and Broad Rivers, on the first of January, 1794. Our sitting ended in exceeding great love. We had sacrament, love-feast, and ordination. I felt very serious, and was very pointed on Acts xx, 26, 27. I have now had an opportunity of speaking in Washington: most of the people attended to hear 'this man rambles through the United States.' "

He turned toward Savannah, to "see the former walks of dear Wesley and Whitefield," whom "he hoped to meet in the New Jerusalem." On the last day of February, 1793, he reached the city, and the next day went twelve miles to view the ruins of Whitefield's Orphan House. He gazed on the blackened walls with sadness, deepening into "awe." "The wings" were "yet standing, though much injured, and the school-house still more." A mass of ruins, the only memorial of a great and benevolent scheme, it was also the memento of a great Methodistic evangelist, whom he revered as his own precursor in the new world, the man who had heralded the still advancing host of itinerants. If the ostensible design of the institution had failed, it had accomplished a greater result which was destined never to fail: it had been the center of American attraction to its founder, had prompted his thirteen passages across the Atlantic, and had thus led to those extraordinary evangelical travels and labors, from Georgia to Maine, which quickened with spiritual life the Protestantism of the continent, and opened the career of Methodism in the western hemisphere. Asbury returned with pensive yet hopeful reflections to Savannah and resumed his work, preaching the same night. "I reflected," he says, "upon the present ruins of the Orphan House, and taking a view of the money expended, the persons employed, the preachers sent over, I was led to inquire, Where are they? and how has it sped?" They were all "swallowed up;" the whole country looked "wretched" to him; "but," he adds; "here are souls, precious souls, worth worlds."

He was soon returning through South Carolina, "traveling through heavy rains and deep swamps, in dark nights, improving" himself; as his "horseback study, in the Hebrew tones and points." He paused again at Charleston, where he promoted a subscription for the erection of a new church, preached, held class meetings, assembled the leaders and stewards, and visited from house to house. His congregations included about five hundred hearers, three fifths of them blacks. He had now summed up the Minutes for the ecclesiastical year. "We have," he writes, "two hundred and seventeen traveling preachers, and about fifty thousand members, in the United States. Glory to God in the highest!" He spent about two weeks in Charleston fortifying the society against its schismatic troubles. We afterward trace him among the western mountains of North Carolina, "wrestling with floods," his food "Indian bread and fried bacon," and his "bed set upon forks, and clapboards laid across, in an earthen floor cabin." He crossed the Alleghenies through perilous difficulties, and was again in the Great West, where he spent about six weeks among the emigrant settlements of Tennessee and Kentucky, convoyed sometimes by armed guards, and enduring the severest privations and fatigues. By the middle of May he was again among the heights of the Virginia mountains, sheltered in the comfortable home of the widow of General Russell, the sister of Patrick Henry, and one of the "elect ladies" of Methodism. The most romantic passages of his journals are his brief records of his adventures among the Alleghenies, and often at the close of weary days does he write, in log cabins, that so many miles yet remain before he can reach "General Russell's," his longed-for resting-place. He now writes: "I am very solemn. I feel the want of the dear man who, I trust, is now in Abraham's bosom, and hope ere long to see him there. He was a general officer in the continental army, where he underwent great fatigue: he was powerfully brought to God, and for a few years past was a living flame, and a blessing to his neighborhood. He went in the dead of winter on a visit to his friends, was seized with an influenza, and ended his life from home. O that the Gospel may continue in this house! I preached on Heb. xii, 1-4, and there followed several exhortations. We then administered the sacrament, and there was weeping and shouting among the people; our exercises lasted about five hours." Such scenes often occurred there, for Mrs. Russell kept her mansion always open, not only for the shelter of the wayworn itinerants, but as a sanctuary for the mountaineer settlers, who flocked thither from miles around to hear the Gospel. "She was," says an itinerant who enjoyed her hospitalities, "eloquent like her brother, a woman of exemplary piety." [6] Like most of the Methodist women of her day, she exhorted and prayed in public. Her home was a light-house shining afar among the Alleghenies. [7]

But even here, in one of the most comfortable shelters then to be found on the frontier, Asbury could find little repose; the "care of all the Churches" was upon him, and he had again entered the state where the schismatic distractions of O'Kelly's party were rending the infant societies. "I have little rest by night or by day," he writes under this hospitable roof. "Lord, help thy poor dust! I feel unexpected storms — from various quarters; perhaps they are designed for my humiliation. It is a sin in thought that I am afraid of: none but Jesus can support us, by his merit, by his Spirit, his righteousness, his intercession; that is, Christ in all, for all, through all, and in every means, and word, and work."

In two days he was in the saddle and away again, among the mountain passes, and over the cliffs, forty five miles a day, "steeped in rain, and "hunger within." On the third day he was at Rehoboth, on the Green Briar, where he met the mountaineer itinerants in conference. "I was greatly comforted," he says, "at the sight of Brothers B. J. and Ellis Cox; we had peace in our conference, and were happy in our cabin." But the wayworn evangelists bring afflicting intelligence of the "mischief begun by O'Kelly" and "some of the local preachers in the lower parts of Virginia;" he "wrote many letters to the south district to confirm the souls of the people, and guard them against the division." Rains for more than a week had deranged the roads; but he pressed forward, troubled by nothing so much as by the "discord sown by Satan" among the societies. All along these routes, however, the people beheld his apostolic devotion and energy with wonder and veneration, and many were ready, "if it had been possible, to pluck out their own eyes" and give them to him. On his way "an old German," he says, "met me, shook me by the hand, and said he wished he might be worthy to wash my feet. Ah, thought I, if you knew what a poor sinful creature I am, you would hardly look at one so unworthy; but Jesus lives. O precious Christ, thou art mine and I am thine!"

By the middle of June he was again in Maryland, holding a conference at Old Town; where, he says, "we had much consolation in meeting the brethren of these districts, whose names only were known to each other." He preached to them on the troubles of the day from the text, "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem; they shall prosper that love thee." In three days he was again away. "Our roads are rough," he says; "I am sick; our fare is coarse; but it is enough — I am to die." Such was his Christian philosophy. He penetrates to the obscure societies, already reported, among the hidden valleys of the Juniata, to Northumberland and Wyoming [not Wyoming state — DVM], and soon we retrace him through Maryland.

Such are mere glimpses (all that we can get) of Asbury's first southern labors after the General Conference of 1792. But by the middle of September, 1798, he entered the same field. On his way he confronted the yellow fever, raging in Philadelphia, with no other inconvenience from his courage than the alarms of the towns through which he hastened, in Delaware and Maryland, and the opposition of the sanitary cordons [Oxford Dict. cordon n. a line or circle of police, soldiers, guards, etc., esp. preventing access to or from an area. — DVM]. In Virginia, light began to dawn upon the disturbed prospects of the Church, and he "felt his mind greatly eased relative to those who had lately separated, and set out as reformers." At Petersburg he held a conference. "The preachers," he writes, "were united, and the Lord was with us of a truth. There were fifty-five present. I had some difficulties respecting the stations; but there was a willingness among the brethren to go where they were appointed, and all was well. Our disaffected brethren have had a meeting at the Piney Grove, in Amelia circuit, and appointed three men to attend this conference. One of these delegates appears to be satisfied, and has received ordination among us since he was delegated by them; the other two appeared, and we gave them a long talk. My mind has been closely employed in the business of the conference, so that I have slept only about sixteen hours in four nights."

By the 9th of December he is in Lewisburg, North Carolina; and holds a conference, about a mile from the town, at Green Hill's. "Great peace and unity," he says, "prevailed among us. The preachers cheerfully signed an instrument, expressing their determination to submit to, and abide by, what the General Conference has done."

Through all sorts of hardships he again penetrates South Carolina, to face the trials of Charleston. Hastening from Camden about the end of December, be writes: "We set out early, and came through pine and oak barrens, twenty-five miles: about one o'clock I was willing to sit down and rest. I have lately felt all the grace I had put to trial; through mercy I am kept from sin, and long to be perfect in faith and patience, love and suffering: I am sometimes tempted to wish to die; but I fear it is wrong: I rather choose to wait the Lord's time."

On the last day of the year his brief record introduces us to a characteristic scene of the country and the times — a conference in the wilderness — no town or village is named as its locality, only the humble huts of the brethren. "We rode," he says, "forty-five miles to Brother Cook's, on Broad River; and the next day to brother Finch's: here we are to have about thirty preachers from South Carolina and Georgia. We were straitened for room, having only twelve feet square to confer, sleep, and for the accommodation of those who were sick. Brother B. was attacked with the dysentery. On Wednesday, January 1, 1794, we removed Brother B. into a room without fire. We hastened the business of our conference as fast as we could. After sitting in a close room with a very large fire, I retired into the woods nearly an hour, and was seized with a severe chill, an inveterate cough, and fever, and a sick stomach: with difficulty I sat in conference the following day and I could get but little rest; Brother B.'s moving so frequently, and the brethren's talking, disturbed me. Sick as I was, I had to ordain four elders and six deacons; never did I perform with such a burden. I took a powerful emetic. I was attended by Doctor D. I found I must go somewhere to get rest. The day was cloudy, and threatened snow; however, Brother R. E. and myself made out to get seven miles to dear old Brother A. Yeargin's house. The next day came on a heavy fall of snow, which continued two days, and was from six to ten inches deep. I had to let some blood. I must be humbled before the Lord, and have great searching of heart."

His next record is that of a thirty miles' ride, though he was so weak "that his exercise and clothing almost overcame" him. On the 20th of January, 1794, he was again in Charleston, where he spent nearly a month preaching; visiting from house to house, and confirming the Church. Meanwhile he writes, "I feel restless to move on, and my wish is to die in the field. I have had a time of deep dejection of spirits, affliction of body, loss of sleep, and trouble of soul. I find this to be a barren place; I long to go to my work. When gloomy melancholy comes on, I find it best to think as little as may be about distressing subjects. It seems as if a strange providence holds me here: I am sometimes afraid to eat drink, or even to talk unless it be of God and religion. I am now preparing to leave the city, where I have experienced consolation, afflictions, tribulations, and labor."

On the first of March he set out, and again we can trace him through difficulties such as, in modern times, seem incredible to the traveler in the same regions. "Isaac Smith, in all these difficulties and trials of swamps, colds, rains, and starvation, was my faithful companion. After riding twenty-seven miles without eating, how good were the potatoes and fried gammon! [Oxford Dict. gammon = the ham of a pig cured like bacon. — DVM] I confess my soul and body have been sorely tried. What blanks are in this country — and how much worse are rice plantations! If a man-of-war is 'a floating hell,' these are standing ones: wicked masters, overseers, and Negroes — cursing, drinking — no Sabbaths; no sermons. But hush! perhaps my journal will never see the light; and if it does, matters may mend before that time; and it is probable I shall be beyond their envy or good will."

By the time he reached the Catawba River he had ridden nearly a thousand miles in three months, "stopping three weeks of the time with great reluctance" at conferences, and on other important occasions. He completed the thousand miles at the hazard of his life in fording the river, wandering till after midnight, lost in the woods, under a storm of rain, thunder, and lightning, and finding unexpected shelter, at last, at a plantation, "with feet and legs wet for six or seven hours." He thus records the scene: "I directed my course, in company with my faithful fellow-laborer, Tobias Gibson, up the Catawba, settled mostly by the Dutch. A barren spot for religion. Having ridden in pain twenty-four miles we came, weary and hungry, to O.'s tavern, and were glad to take what came to hand. Four miles forward we came to Howe's Ford, upon Catawba River, where we could get neither a canoe nor guide. We entered the water in an improper place, and were soon among the rocks and in the whirlpools; my head swam, and my horse was affrighted; the water was to my knees, and it was with difficulty we retreated to the same shore. We then called to a man on the other side, who came and piloted us across, for which I paid him well. My horse being afraid to take the water a second time, Brother Gibson crossed, and sent me his, and our guide took mine across. We went on, but our troubles were not at an end; night came on, and it was very dark. It rained heavily, with powerful lightning and thunder. We could not find the path that turned out to Connell's. In this situation we continued until midnight or past; at last we found a path which we followed till we came to dear old Father Harper's plantation; we made for the house, and called; he answered, but wondered who it could be; he inquired whence we came; I told him we would tell that when we came in, for it was raining so powerfully we had not much time to talk. When I came dripping into the house, he cried, 'God bless your soul, is it Brother Asbury? wife, get up.' "

"My soul," he exclaims, "enjoys peace: but O! for more of God! This campaign has made me 'groan, being burdened.' Bad news on my coming to the mountains; neither preachers nor elders have visited Swanino since last October; poor people — poor preachers that are not more stable: but all flesh is grass, and I am grass. I desire the dear preachers to be as I am in the work: I have no interest, no passions, in their appointments; my only aim is to care and provide for the flock of Christ. I feel that my sufferings have been good preaching to me, especially in crossing the water. I feel resolved to be wholly the Lord's, weak as I am; I have done nothing, I am nothing; only for Christ I or I had long since been cut off as an unfaithful servant; Christ is all, and in all I do, or it had not been done; or when done, had by no means been acceptable. I have written several letters to the westward to supply my lack of service. I am mightily wrought upon for New Hampshire, Province of Maine, Vermont, and Lower Canada."

Such was this greatest apostle of modern Christendom. Scarcely recognized by the civil or ecclesiastical historians of the country, he was nevertheless unconsciously placing his name foremost on the ecclesiastical annals of the new world; nor can we wonder, after such labors, that in our day the followers of the evangelic banner which he thus bore forward, over mountains, wildernesses, and floods, constitute one half the Protestant communicants of the New World.

On reaching Charlotte county, Va., in the latter part of April, he learns that "there is sad work with those who had left" the denomination; yet matters were not desperate. "If the real cause of this division were known, I think it would appear, that one wanted to be immovably fixed in a district; another wanted money; a third wanted ordination; a fourth wanted liberty to do as he pleased about slaves, and not to be called to an account," etc.

He found it necessary to recite in his congregations the history of these disputes, to vindicate his episcopal administration, to encounter personal rebuffs from former Methodists. "O that I had in the wilderness a lodging-place!" he writes; "a dreadful rumor followed me from last Sabbath. I felt humble, and thankful that I could suffer; I think more of religion now than ever. O my God, I am thine; glory to Christ forever!" He rejoiced, however, to find in Bedford county "thirteen societies of Methodists, three or four of them large, and about ten local preachers, who labor for Christ and souls." Reaching the western mountains, he held a conference and greeted some of the Kentucky preachers, who had come across the Alleghenies to counsel with him. He found "a valuable chapel at Newton, and three local preachers;" at Charleston, "a good house and one local preacher;" at Winchester, "a good meeting-house." "Sick, wet, and weary," he journeyed on, still preaching, though hardly able to make the people hear. " My mind," he says, "is in peace, but I feel the spiritual death of the people. I am now on the head branches of Opecken. I stopped a while at J. H.'s, and then came on to Shepherdstown. It was a very instructing time to me; I cannot pretend to preach, yet I talk a little to the dear people, who flock to see and hear me by hundreds. I hope to be as much resigned to a life of affliction as a life of health; and thus may I be perfect in love and wholly crucified with Christ! I concluded, after my high fever, and my being forced to bed, that it was out of the question for me to attempt to speak; but when I saw the people coming on every side, and thought 'this may be the last time,' and considered I had not been there for nearly five years, I took my staff faintly ascended the hill, and held forth on 1 John i, 6, 7, and felt strengthened, having a clear view of the word of God. After meeting we administered the sacrament, and I then returned to my bed. I preached at Fredericktown. Rode to Liberty: when I came there I was so faint, and my strength so spent, that I felt as if I could by no means attempt to preach; but after Brother R. had sung a hymn and prayed, I made a feeble attempt on Gal. i, 11,12."

On the 15th of June he once more found genial shelter in Baltimore, then the headquarters of all his episcopal campaigns. He paused, however, but four or five days, and hastened on to the north and the east, as far as Boston and Lynn. By the middle of October he was back again; a day of hospitable shelter at Perry Hall, a week of labor in Baltimore, at the conference, and the southern campaign is reopened. Its events are stirring, but too similar to those already recorded to need recital; it was followed by another passage over the Alleghenies into Tennessee. On the 21st of May he was again in Baltimore, but saddened by the news of the death of one of his "best friends in America," Judge White, of Kent county, Md., whose important services to early Methodism have already made an interesting episode in our narrative. [8] "This news," writes the bishop, "was attended with an awful shock to me. I have met with nothing like it in the death of any friend on the continent. Lord, help us all to live out our short day to thy glory! I have lived days, weeks, and months in his house. O that his removal may be sanctified to my good and the good of the family! He was about sixty-five years of age. He was a friend to the poor and oppressed; he had been a professed Churchman, and was united to the Methodist connection about seventeen or eighteen years. His house and heart were always open; and he was a faithful friend to liberty, in spirit and practice; he was a most indulgent husband, a tender father, and a most affectionate friend. He professed perfect love, and great peace, living and dying. I preached twice in town, and was delivered from my gloomy state of mind. I spent part of the week visiting from house to house. I feel happy in speaking to all I find, whether parents, children, or servants; I see no other way; the common means will not do; Baxter, Wesley, and our Form of Discipline, say, 'Go into every house:' I would go further, and say, Go into every kitchen and shop; address all, aged and young, on the salvation of their souls."

Excessive work relieved him, but only temporarily; the ravages of death among his old companions in the struggles and success of Methodism, deeply affected him; he sought refuge and consolation with Bassett, at Bohemia Manor, a scene thronged with old memories. "I have great inward distress," he writes, for here he was again reminded that all things pass away. "Dear Brother B., who attended me with his carriage to North East the last time I was here, is now gone to rest. O how short is the life of man! O my Lord, help me through all my afflictions! Ah! what a comfortable thing it is to be among the ancient Methodists! But this is not always my place; indeed, it cannot be. Still under awful depression. I am not conscious of any sin, even in thought. I feel a degree of willingness to decline, die, and enter into rest." Yet he took courage. "I have a hope that God is preparing me for greater usefulness in my latter days. O how happy should I be, if after laboring thirty years to very little profit, as I sometimes fear, it should hereafter appear that hundreds have been converted by my ministry! I came to the dwelling-house of my dear friend Judge White; it was like his funeral to me."

Again to the north and east, to Boston, Mass., and round about to Bennington, Vt., and back to Baltimore by the middle of October, for another southern campaign — journeying, preaching, holding conferences, meeting classes, and still visiting from house to house in the places where he had occasion to delay a few days — such are the events which crowd his journals, that extraordinary record which hastens us along with eager interest, while almost vexing us with the slightness, the brevity of its notes — so meager in details, yet so burdened with romantic significance. In his next southern tour he found that "the connection had regained its proper tone in Virginia, after having been kept out of tune for five years by the unhappy division." And at Charleston, S. C., also, he was cheered with improved prospects. "My soul," he says, "felt joyful and solemn at the thoughts of a revival of religion in Charleston. I find several young persons brought into the fold of Christ. Several of the preachers came into the city to conference. We had a melting time at the love-feast at Brother Wells'. On Friday, January 1, 1796, I gave them a sermon suited to the beginning of the year, and the sacred fire was felt. Saturday, 2, we began our conference. Lord's day, 3, was a day of extraordinary divine power, particularly at the sacrament; white and black cried out and shouted the praises of God. Monday, 4, we again entered on the business of the conference; present, about twenty members and seven graduates. Tuesday, 5, continued our business; we have great peace and love — see eye to eye, and heart to heart. Thursday, 7, we observed as a day of fasting and humiliation, to seek the blessing of God on the conference. We began, continued, and parted in the greatest peace and union. Friday, 8, most of our brethren took their leave of the city, and I had time for recollection."

He continued there till the beginning of March, an unusual delay, but the welfare of the local Church required it. He had large congregations — from ten hundred to twelve hundred persons. He met severally all the classes, black and white, fifteen in number, and visited many families, and wrote more than three hundred pages on subjects interesting to the society and connection. He received here the sad news of the destruction of Cokesbury College by fire — the defeat of the first experiment of the Church in education, with a loss of fifty thousand dollars. On the 3d of March he departed for Georgia, and after itinerating there over more than two hundred miles, set his face toward the northwest again, passed into the Allegheny mountains and ranged about among them, sometimes in Tennessee, sometimes in North Carolina and Virginia, till he emerged on their west in Pennsylvania about the end of May. The difficulties of his way were incredible. Having no mercy on himself he yet scrupled to impose such hardships on any one else. "I doubt," he says, as he escaped from them, "whether I shall ever request any person to come and meet me again at the levels of Green Briar, or to accompany me across these mountains again, as Daniel Hitt has now done. O how checkered is life! How thankful ought I to be that I am here safe, with life and limbs, in peace and plenty."

By the 22d of June he had re-entered Baltimore; he had traveled on horseback, and over the worst of roads, twenty-three hundred miles since he last left it. The remainder of the time before the next General Conference was spent in another northern tour, whither, as over his journeys through the middle and western states during the four years, we shall hereafter have occasion to follow him. Meanwhile other laborers and events recall our attention to the south.

———————————————————————-

ENDNOTES

1 Asbury's Journals, April 25, 1791.

2 Etheridge (Life of Coke, p. 242) appears to suppose that the controversy at the conference of 1792, and the conduct of O'Kelly, alarmed Coke, and led to his correspondence with White; but, as the dates in the text show, the latter began before the former.

3 Bishop Wightman, "Biog. Sketches," p. 24, Nashville, 1858.

4 Bishop Andrew, in Meth. Mag., 1830, p. 20.

5 Lee's Hist. of Meth., p. 205.

6 Rev. Jacob Young's "Autobiography of a Pioneer," p. 128.

7 No doubt the reader would like to know the sequel of the Russell family. Rev. William Burke informs us that, "In the fall of 1792, General Russell and family made a visit to the eastern part of Virginia, among their old friends and relations. The general was taken sick, and died. His daughter, Chloe Russell, had just married a traveling preacher by the name of Hubbard Saunders. During their visit, Miss Sarah Campbell, Mrs. Russell's daughter, daughter of General Campbell, who distinguished himself at the battle of King's Mountain, was married to Francis Preston, Esq., of Virginia. Sarah was among the first-fruits of Methodism in the West. She became the mother of one of South Carolina's most gifted sons, whose eloquence has often been heard in the Senate chamber at Washington, namely, Hon. William C. Preston." — Wakeley's. "Heroes," p. 204. See also vol. ii, p. 350; and "Women of Methodism," p. 356. New York, 1866.

8 See vol. ii, p. 307.

---

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

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

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

If you have any questions regarding these files, please contact the Wesley Center for Applied Theology.