VOLUME 3

PREFACE

THOMAS L. RUSHMORE, ESQ.

My Dear Sir: I submit to you the third installment of my narrative of the History of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The name of your family appears honorably in its pages, connected with one of its most interesting episodes, the introduction of Methodism into Canada. Many of its subjects have been meditated under the summer shelter of your trees, and its labor has been relieved by neighborly attentions which will ever associate the memory of your family with my task.

In the two preceding volumes I have recorded the planting of the Church, and sufficiently defined its theological and ecclesiastical systems; in the present the story proceeds directly along its chronological line, suspended somewhat abruptly for the convenient size of the volume, but continued, with no further interruption, in the next, which is now passing through the press. Some important questions and topics, requiring more classified treatment, I have reserved for distinct chapters in the fourth volume, though they receive passing notice at their proper dates in the narrative.

Many difficulties, some insuperable ones, have beset my labors. While we have abundant and well-verified documents for particular sections of the Church, for others, not less important, we have hardly any. Of some early preachers we have more or less ample biographies; of others, and of not a few who were chieftains of the cause, we have but scattered notices, incapable of being wrought into satisfactory sketches. I have done the best I could, perhaps all that any pen can now or ever do, to present these cases in their proper historical positions. Many an evangelist, who labored as an apostle, or died as a martyr, in the early itinerancy, but whose name has been almost lost in the oblivion of our first traditions, reappears in my humble record in heroic but unexaggerated proportions; yet of some of the noblest characters we can catch but glimpses, sufficient to show that they were men of genuine greatness, but insufficient to satisfy our interest for them. In the first two volumes I have given some space, however small, to almost every preacher recorded in the Conference Minutes of his day. In this, many a once eminent name can hardly be more than mentioned; some, however, which may here seem to be ignored, will appear at more apposite points of the narrative in the fourth volume.

These volumes will have at least one peculiarity — the history of American Methodism will appear in them mostly, if not entirely, new; for our historical publications have not heretofore attempted any such minute record. Precisely for this reason will my attempt be liable to criticism. It is impossible that a first endeavor of the kind can be entirely correct. I expect, and shall gratefully receive, new names and facts, perhaps important corrections, from many, and especially from the remoter portions of our Church territory. However serious may be the deficiencies of these pages, I venture to hope that intelligent readers, who can appreciate the difficulties, of my task, will acknowledge that I have not failed in the research and diligence which it merits. It may be doubted whether it has ever devolved upon an ecclesiastical historian to record a more curious, a more marvelous story than I have attempted in these volumes; more replete with heroic characters, romantic incidents, extraordinary labors and successes. A high foreign authority (the "London Quarterly Review") has said that "American Methodism is the most wonderful instance of Church development which the world's history has yet shown." I have felt deeply the importance of its lessons for the future of Methodism, if not indeed for the general Christian Church. It has been my study, therefore, to present it with all truthfulness, and especially to give, as fully as possible, its earliest events and characters, such as reveal its real genius and genetic conditions, and thereby afford its most valuable lessons. If the public will accord the work the generous forbearance with which I know you will accept it, I shall be more than satisfied.

Affectionately,

Abel Stevens.

Orienta, Mamaroneck, N.Y.

February, 1867