VOLUME 4 — BOOK V — CHAPTER XIX
METHODISM IN THE WEST, 1796 — 1804

Western Methodism — The Redstone Country — Valentine Cook — His great Public Debate — Daniel Hitt — James Quinn — His long Services and Character — Lasley Matthews and Chieuvrant, Converted Papists and Heroic Evangelists — Thornton Flemming — Asa Shinn — Methodism Penetrates to the Erie Country — The Roberts Family — Local Preachers — Robert R. Roberts — His Early Life and Character — He becomes a Bishop — His thoroughly Western Character — His Episcopal Residence a Log-cabin — Illustrations of his Character — Curious Rencounter with a Young Preacher: Note — Methodism in the Erie Conference — Reaches Ohio — Progress in Western Virginia — Quinn's Labors there — Ministerial Recruits — General Morgan — The Holston Country — McKendree and Bruce — The "Western Conference" — Benjamin Lakin's Labors and Character — Valentine Cook in the Holston Country — His subsequent Life His Death and Character — Henry Smith — James McCull — John Sale — Judge McLean's Estimate of him

The apparent incoherency of our record of Western Methodism must still continue, for thus only can it be true to the real condition of the Church in these early times. An individual itinerant, traveling a circuit of five hundred or more miles; a solitary layman or local preacher, like McCormick in the Northwestern territory, ministering to his emigrant neighbors; "small classes," the germs of societies, rising like far-scattered lights in the wilderness, such were yet, in much of the great West, the only facts of the denomination; but they are soon to assume continuity and consistence, and to present one of the most consolidated and effective systems of religious provisions in the new, if not indeed in the whole world, with stations, circuits, districts, Conferences, Sunday-schools, academies, colleges, presses, and hundreds of thousands of communicants, and millions of congregational adherents. It is now, however, in the minute study of its inceptive history that we are to learn its real genius and its best lessons for the future.

We have seen its progress, down to 1796, in its first field, the ultra-Allegheny region of Pennsylvania, called the Redstone country. The present period opens there with five circuits and nine preachers, comprehended in one district. Valentine Cook commands the little band as presiding elder. We find in it James Paynter, who had pioneered among the Tioga Mountains, and Nathaniel B. Mills, whom we have met in the Wyoming Valley, its first itinerant preacher, and also an associate of Lee in the earliest struggles of the Church in New England. Such was the itinerancy of these days. Cook was the champion of the field. He flew over his district like a herald — a king's messenger — proclaiming the gospel, night and day, directing his preachers, and rousing the scattered settlements. The West made little use of the press in his day; public debate, in the shade of the woods, was the usual resort of the people and their leaders for the solution of both political and theological questions. Though Methodist preachers disliked this doubtful mode of discussing divine truth, they sometimes had to conform to the custom. In the Redstone country Cook was challenged to such a debate by a clergyman of the Scotch Seceders, a denomination somewhat prevalent there. The irascible Scot had severely attacked Wesley and Methodism as especially heretical respecting the "doctrines of grace." Bishop Roberts, who was then a young Methodist on Cook's district, and who "really thought that a greater or better man had never existed," [1] witnessed the controversy, and we owe to him an account of the scene. The people thronged from many miles, eager to witness the combat; crowding the taverns the preceding night, and disputing, with spirit, the subject and the claims of the contestants. On the appointed morning they gathered in hosts around a lofty pulpit which had been erected in the midst of a forest, and was surrounded with a vast number of seats for the immense concourse. These arrangements appeared to have been exclusively prepared by the votaries of the old Scotch minister. In truth, Roberts saw no one who was at all inclined to favor Cook, or his cause. Upon the whole, it was perfectly clear, from all that he could see and hear, that a great victory, in the estimation of the dominant party, was that day to be achieved on the side of Calvinism. It was at last announced that the Methodist preacher had arrived. Roberts found him, a little beyond the limits of the congregation, quietly seated on the trunk of a fallen tree. His presence, however, appeared to put a quietus for the time being on the rampant spirit of the opposition, especially as their champion had not yet made his appearance. At length the aged Scotchman drove up, until he had well-nigh reached the center of the crowd. He was a well-set, broad-shouldered, venerable-looking man of about sixty. His features were strongly marked, and indicated a due proportion of "iron" as well as intellect. When interrogated by one of his friends as to the cause of his delay, he promptly replied with a heavy Scotch brogue, " I'm here in ample time to gi'e the youngster a dose from which he'll not soon recover." The parties had never seen each other, and, of course, had no personal acquaintance. When introduced, as they soon were, though in a very awkward manner, Cook was treated with marked incivility. With an air of authority the Scotchman ascended the pulpit, and, without prayer or explanation, commenced a furious attack on Wesley and Methodism in general. He soon became greatly excited, "raved, stamped, and literally foamed at the mouth." By the time he entered on the support of Calvinism, properly so called, his voice was well-nigh gone. In about two hours he brought his remarks to a close, and sat down greatly exhausted. Cook then rose in the pulpit, and after a fervent appeal to Almighty God, for wisdom and help to defend the truth, he commenced under much embarrassment. His hand trembled, his tongue faltered, and at times it was with difficulty he could articulate with sufficient clearness to be heard on the outskirts of the assembly. He first took up, and refuted with great power, the allegations that had been made against Wesley and Methodism. By this time his embarrassment had passed off; his voice became clear and distinct, and, withal, there was a strange sweetness in his delivery, that seemed to put a spell on the whole assembly. He then entered his solemn protest to the exceptionable features of the Calvinistic theology. He opposed to the opinions of reputedly great and learned men, on which his opponent had mainly relied, the plain and positive teachings of Moses and the prophets, of Christ and his apostles; and in conclusion presented an outline of the scheme of human salvation, as taught by Wesley and his followers in Europe and America; not in its theory only, but in its experimental and practical bearings. At an early period in his discourse his opponent rose to his feet, and exclaimed, with all the voice he had left, "Wolf! wolf! Wolf in sheep's clothing! Cook, however, had become so perfectly self-possessed, and so entirely absorbed in his subject, that this rudeness had no effect upon him. As he advanced he appeared to acquire additional strength, physical, mental, and spiritual. The fixed attention of the vast multitude seemed to inspire him with new powers of argument and eloquence. His voice, usually soft and soothing, rolled on, in thunder-tones, over the concourse, and echoed far away in the depths of the forest; while his countenance lighted up, kindled, and glowed, as if he were newly commissioned from on high to proclaim the salvation of God. The Scotchman could endure it no longer. He again sprang to his feet, and shouted at the top of his shattered voice, "Follow me, follow me, and leave the babbler to himself." Only some two or three obeyed him. Cook was too much absorbed to pay the slightest attention to the ravings or flight of his opponent. He pressed directly forward with his argument, dealing out at every step the most startling demonstrations against error in faith and practice. Long before the mighty effort was brought to a close the whole assembly were on their feet, all eagerly listening, and unconsciously pressing toward the speaker. Every eye was fixed, every ear was opened, and every heart was tremblingly alive to the importance of the theme. When he took his seat all faces were upturned, and for the most part bathed in tears. The great multitude stood for some time like statues, no one appearing disposed to move, utter a word, or leave the place. All seemed to be overwhelmed, astonished, and captivated. At last the spell-bound multitude retired, "silent as a funeral procession.'' "It is well known," adds Cook's biographer, "that this controversy was the means of opening to her ministry a 'great and effectual door' of usefulness. From that day forward the Methodist Church, in all that mountain range of country,

The next year Daniel Hitt had charge of the vast district, a Virginian, who began to travel in 1790, and became distinguished, throughout the Connection, as an effective laborer, the traveling companion of Asbury and McKendree, and for eight years the Book Agent of the Church in New York city; and who died, after a ministry of thirty-five years, in Washington County, Md., in 1825, in the hope of the gospel. For eighteen years he had charge of districts which comprised more territory each than most present individual Conferences. Like Asbury, McKendree, Lee, and many of the early leaders of Methodism, he remained unmarried, through life, that he might give himself entirely to his work. He was exceedingly particular and neat in his dress, the customary Quakerlike costume of his brethren, the single-breasted coat, broad-brimmed hat and long hair. He was of grave if not stern manners, a good counselor, a plain but, at times, very powerful preacher, and inflexibly decided in his opinions, not to say prejudices.

James Quinn, to whom we have been already indebted for many historical reminiscences of this region, appears for the first time on the list of its appointments in 1709. He was born in it (in Washington County) in 1775, and lived to be its most venerable representative of his Church. His family early moved to Fayette County, where they heard the first Methodist itinerants who crossed the Alleghenies, and became their disciples. It was not till the eleventh year of his age that young Quinn heard a sermon; he had then the great privilege of hearing the saintly Peter Moriarty. [2] In his thirteenth year he witnessed the second Conference beyond the Alleghenies, at Uniontown, Pa. [3] He was converted, and joined the Methodists in 1792, under the ministry of Daniel Fidler and James Coleman, whom we have already met in far off fields of labor. He was immediately pressed into active service in the Church, and in 1790 was received on probation by the Baltimore Conference, and appointed to Greenfield Circuit, which extended into three counties. Before the year ended he was tossed about on at least three similar circuits. Thus began his long and faithful career, in which we shall often meet him again, for his life, during more than half a century, was almost a history of Western Methodism. More than half a century after he began his ministry he stood in a Conference in Ohio, and could say, "And now here I am, 'a reed shaken with the wind,' a feeble old man, trembling as I lean upon the top of my staff; but where am I? In the midst of a Conference of ministers, near one hundred and fifty in number, most of whom have been twice born since the time of which I speak. Among them are the sons, the grandsons, and great-grandsons, of those who kindly received me, and to whom I ministered in their humble dwellings. No doubt I have taken some of these ministers in my arms, and dedicated them to God in holy baptism; and on some of them I have laid my hand in consecrating them to the sacred office and work of the ministry. O! why should my heart yield to fear? The Lord of hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is yet our help."

As a preacher he was very instructive, and not infrequently exceedingly powerful; when, himself "overwhelmed with his subject, manifestly endued with power from on high, and a sacred unction and divine influence accompanying every sentence, the enchained multitude stood in solemn awe, till finally the awful silence was broken by a sudden outburst of the groans and cries of sinners, and joyful acclamations of Christians from all parts of the densely crowded congregation."

There was a deep vein of poetry in his nature. He loved the great bards, and his sermons abounded in fine citations from them. His manners showed a singular blending of dignity and amenity, the truest style of the real gentlemen; solemnity and pathos characterized him in his religious exercises; his form was manly, nearly six feet in height, and well proportioned; his forehead prominent and broad; his eyes dark, deeply set, and shaded by heavy brows.

Lasley Matthews was also a pioneer itinerant of these times, an Irishman, and a papist, who had served in the Revolutionary war. While in camp, he was associated with Chieuvrant, who himself had been a papist, but who now read to his comrade a small Bible which he carried in his pocket, and thus led him to a religious life. Both became zealous preachers and founders of the Church in the West. We have met Chieuvrant repeatedly, and seen him last preaching in moccasins and pursuing with his rifle the murderous Indians on the Monongahela, a brave man as well as a devoted evangelist. Matthews began to travel in 1780, and preached during twenty-seven years, mostly in the hardest parts of the work. After doing chivalric service he was crowned with a fitting victory. He died in 1818, on his way to meet his brethren in Conference. "When," wrote one of his friends, "he could no longer articulate, by putting my ear to his lips, I could hear him attempting to say, 'Glory! Praise him! My Jesus come!' " [4]

Thornton Flemming had charge of the district in 1801. Born in Virginia in 1764, he joined the Methodists in about his twentieth year, and the itinerancy in his twenty-fourth year, and continued to labor with his might through a ministry of more than fifty-seven years; part of the time in Virginia, on some of its most mountainous circuits; part as presiding elder among the Tioga and Wyoming Mountains and New York interior lakes, where we have already met him; but most of the time in the ultra-Allegheny region of Pennsylvania, where he did much to found the Pittsburgh and Erie Conferences, and was one of the first members of the former. For fifteen years he filled the laborious office of presiding elder. He was to suffer much, and perish at last, by a cancer in his left eye, but to die in the assured hope of the gospel, the oldest member of the Pittsburgh Conference, a man "of rare endowments" and distinguished usefulness. [5]

Asa Shinn now also appears in the Redstone Circuit, a man of more than ordinary historic importance in the Church, who will claim our attention in some future and momentous events. We have already seen him struggling, in the western woods, for intellectual and moral improvement, under the aid of Quinn, and beginning to preach "before he had ever seen a meeting-house or a pulpit." [6] He began to itinerate in 1800, on Pittsburgh Circuit, though he was not received in the Conference till the next year. [7] he was a pioneer of Methodism in many regions, in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, and Kentucky, suffering much from miasmatic fevers, and mobs. In his later ministry he occupied prominent appointments in the Eastern states. He wielded a strong and sharp pen, and became a champion of the secession which led to the organization of the Methodist Protestant Church. Four times he suffered attacks of mental derangement, and died in an insane asylum in 1853. He published several works, of no ordinary ability: in 1813, "An Essay on the Plan of Salvation;" in 1820, a treatise on "The Benevolence and Rectitude of the Supreme Being;" in 1824 he commenced his numerous and spirited articles on Methodist reform "in the "Mutual Rights," a periodical of Baltimore. He was, at least in his latter years, a robust, corpulent man, with an expressive eye, an ample forehead, large mouth, pale complexion, black hair, and richly mellow voice; his in intellect was of the highest order found among the strong but uneducated men of the Methodist ministry of his times. As a preacher he was pre-eminently able and powerful logical, clear, and full of suasive force. "Among all the sons of men, I never found one superior to him in ministerial qualifications," writes one who knew him during forty years. [8] He had no imagination, no poetical ornamentation; his power arose solely from concentrated thought and moral feeling. Throughout the remainder of the present period he did brave service for the Church on Redstone, Chenango, Hockhocking, and Guyandotte Circuits. With such men were associated, through more or less of this period, Robert Manly, Jesse Stoneman, James Hunter, Joseph Shane, Joseph Chieuvrant; Thomas Daughaday, Thomas Budd, Shadrach Bostwick, and others, some of whom did notable service, to be hereafter recorded. By 1804 they had extended the Redstone District (now called after the Monongahela) far and wide; it reached into the Erie country, the wilds of Ohio and Western Virginia, and embraced nine vast circuits, over which fourteen itinerants were heralding the gospel and organizing Churches.

In penetrating into the more northern region, now the vigorous Erie Conference, Methodism had its usual frontier struggles. In 1798 a family by the name of Roberts settled in Chenango; about the same time two Irish local preachers, Jacob Gurwell and Thomas McClelland, ("very respectable preachers,") [9] began to labor among the settlers, proclaiming the word in their cabins and in the open air under trees. They formed a class this year, and appointed a youth, Robert R. Roberts, its leader; he thus became the first leader of the first class in the Erie Conference, and was destined to become one of the most effective evangelists and bishops of the Church which had found him in these remote woods.

He was born in Frederick County, Md., in 1778. [10] In 1785 the family emigrated over the mountains to the Ligonier Valley, Westmoreland County, Pa. There they lived, in the woods, for some years, without other religious means than their domestic Bible. When young Roberts was about ten years old, Jacob Lurton, Lasley Matthews, and James O. Cull reached this settlement, and preached to them the doctrines of Methodism. Cull was a "son of thunder," and under one of his sermons both Roberts and his mother were deeply affected. Subsequently he heard the voice of his sister in secret prayer, and his heart was more deeply stirred. It was not long before the entire family joined the Church. Young Roberts was now a stalwart youth, wearing, says his biographer, the common backwoods costume: the broad-rimmed, low-crowned, white-wool hat, the hunting shirt of tow linen, buckskin breeches, and moccasin shoes. He read assiduously the books of Wesley and Fletcher. His home was the Methodist place of worship, the class-meetings were held, and the itinerants entertained there, and from them he obtained advantages which he prized through life.

In 1795 he went to Chenango, now Mercer County, which he thoroughly traversed and examined, carrying his food on his back in a knapsack, and sleeping under the trees; and in 1797, accompanied by others, he settled there. He suffered much in this new location, and lived mostly by hunting; but before the close of the next year he had around him the whole of his family, as also other settlers, and soon Methodism was successfully planted among them by Gurwell and McClelland, its little class being under his own leadership. About 1800 Flemming gave him license to exhort; but his almost morbid diffidence kept him from using it; the next year Quinn called upon him often "to speak to the people," which he did with trembling, but with success. In 1802 he was preaching, and the same year was received on probation by the Baltimore Conference, and sent to Carlisle circuit, under the presiding eldership of Wilson Lee. Here his work was excessive, and before the year closed he had suffered attacks of small-pox and measles, and lost two horses. His subsequent labors were mostly in westward circuits in Virginia and Pennsylvania, including the Erie and Pittsburgh regions; but his commanding talents led to his removal to the East, where he filled important appointments in the Baltimore and Philadelphia Conferences. While presiding elder of Schuylkill District, including Philadelphia, a session of the Philadelphia Conference occurred at which no bishop was present. A pro tempore president must be elected, in such a case, by ballot from the presiding elders. Roberts, though youngest of them all, was chosen. He presided with such manifest ability and dignity that the Conference and other preachers, visitors, on their way to the General Conference, where the episcopate was to be reinforced, decided to propose him for that high function. He was elected, and thus passed, in sixteen years, from the humble position of a young backwoods itinerant to the highest office of the ministry. "He possessed," says one of the most competent judges, "by nature the elements of an orator: an imposing person, a clear and logical mind, a ready utterance, full-toned, melodious voice; and when to all these were added an ardent love of souls, and an unction from above, he of course became a powerful preacher. He did not aim, however, at display, but at usefulness, and therefore commanded the more respect and confidence as an able minister of the New Testament."

When he first presented himself in the Baltimore Conference he had traveled thither, from the western wilds, with bread and provender in his saddlebags and with one dollar in his pocket; but his superior character immediately impressed Asbury and the assembled preachers. His episcopal appointment was providential. The great field of Methodism was in the West. He was a child of the wilderness; he had been educated in its hardy habits; his rugged frame and characteristic qualities all designated him as a great evangelist for the great West. There he had built his log-cabin, and dwelt comparatively out of sight of civilized man, tilling the earth in summer, and hunting the bear, the deer, and the raccoon in winter. He became one of the most expert huntsmen in his day, and, in after life, often surprised veteran marksmen, on the far frontier, by the deadly certainty of his fire. The entire winter had he spent at his solitary cabin, twenty miles away from any human habitation, and cheered only by the faithful company of his favorite sister, who prepared his repasts of wild meat.

The refinement of the Atlantic cities could not repress the ruling passion of his youth — it followed him through life and was strong even in death; he lived a circuit preacher as he had a "settler," and a bishop as he had a circuit preacher, in a log-cabin; and died in a log-cabin. No sooner had he been elected a bishop than he fixed his episcopal residence in the old cabin at Chenango; and his next removal was to Indiana, then the far West, where his episcopal palace was a log-cabin built by his own hands, and his furniture rude fabrications from the forest wood, made with such tools as he had carried in his emigrant wagon. The first meal of the bishop and his family in his new abode was of roasted potatoes only, and it was begun and ended with hearty thanksgiving. Here he lived in the true simplicity of frontier life, toiling, at his occasional leisure, in the fields. The allowance for his family expenses, besides two hundred per annum for quarterage, was, during most of his episcopal career, from two hundred to two hundred and fifty dollars per annum; at least this was the case till 1836.

Simple and severe as this western life was, it was legitimate to the character and position of Roberts; it comported with the new field, the great diocese of the Mississippi Valley, into which he was thrust. There was in it a compatibility with the genius of the country, with the circumstances of time and place. Such was the life for such a field; and Roberts was the man for both such a field and such a life.

Naturally cheerful and amiable, his piety was never gloomy, though seldom ecstatic. He was one of the most agreeable of companions; he could calmly endure afflictions, and compassionately forgive offenses; he was fitted for domestic life and permanent friendships. As is natural with such a disposition, he was generous and liberal. Those who knew well his private affairs have estimated that his pecuniary contributions, during his ministerial life, amounted to more than all his receipts from the Church for domestic expenses. He was especially liberal to literary institutions. He prized learning from a sense of his own need of it, having had but about three months' instruction after his seventh year. On an episcopal visitation to New Orleans he found the brethren attempting, with few resources, to erect a church; he sold his horse, and, giving them all it brought, a hundred dollars, made his way with many difficulties to Nashville, where his friends provided him with another and funds with which to finish his journey. While at home, in the periods between his episcopal tours, he worked hard in the fields that he might have the means of indulging this propensity of his generous mind. He was as whole-hearted in his ministerial labors. According to his routes, the last year he lived, he must have traveled between five and six thousand miles, visiting some half dozen states, and nearly an equal number of Indian nations.

As a preacher he was always interesting, and frequently eloquent, though his passions never had undue play in the pulpit. A thoroughly systematic arrangement of his subject, readiness of thought, fluent and generally correct diction, and a facile yet dignified manner, were his characteristics in the desk. His large person — corpulent, and nearly six feet in height, his strongly-marked features, elevated forehead, and manners of extreme simplicity and cordiality, gave to his presence the air of a superior man — one to be remembered, revered, and loved.

It is certainly no small tribute to his character to say, that its greatest apparent defect was the excess of a very amiable quality — he was constitutionally diffident. In his earlier life this disposition rendered him painfully modest, and throughout his career it deterred him from many bold and energetic measures which his position and abilities justified, and which might have been of wide influence on the Church. He often referred facetiously to instances of his early embarrassment. For a long time after his appointment as class-leader among his rustic neighbors, he could not assume courage enough to address them individually, and he had actually to be superseded by another leader till he conquered this timidity. In his first attempt at public exhortation; he suddenly sat down appalled at the intent look of a good man whose favorable interest he took for disapprobation. At another time, when he was expected to exhort, he was so alarmed as to retire in agony and conceal himself in a barn. In the third attempt he proceeded some time with good effect, but, fearing he had made a blunder, stopped short in confusion.

In after years this extreme diffidence became a subdued modesty, not interfering with his ordinary duties, but deterring him from most novel or experimental plans, however hopeful, and leading often to ludicrous mistakes among persons who did not know him. When stopping in his travels among strangers, he usually assumed no other pretensions than those of a private Christian; and frequently it was not till the family worship revealed his spirit and talents that his ministerial character was supposed. Under such circumstances he has sometimes attended class-meeting with his host, and received warm and pointed exhortations from zealous leaders." [12]

Methodism, beginning within the Erie Conference by the formation of Roberts' little class in Chenango, soon spread out to other settlements. Emigration poured into the country, bringing many Methodist families from the East. Settlements sprung up rapidly on each side of the Pennsylvania and Ohio line. By 1801 the Pittsburgh District, as this whole region was now called, took in all the present Erie, Pittsburgh, and Western Virginia Conferences. It reported two northern circuits within the present Erie Conference, the Erie and Chenango, traveled by Quinn and Shane. Quinn's whole field had not yet a single society or class. He went forth to organize it. Asbury, in appointing him to it at the Conference, called him forward and, pressing him to his bosom, gave him a Discipline, and said, "Go, my son, and make full proof of thy ministry." His whole journey was performed on horseback, along steep and rugged mountain paths. He entered upon his work with true apostolic zeal, and soon was enabled to see "streams breaking forth in the wilderness." His circuit, when formed, contained twenty appointments, requiring him to travel four hundred miles every four weeks. The, first class he organized was near a place called Lexington, in Springfield township, Eric County, Pa. A settler says, "I heard him preach at the house of Stephen Maxwell, a cabin twelve by seventeen feet, no floor in it, a black ash bark roof, the room overhung with pumpkins prepared to dry." Such were many of his preaching places. Quinn says: "I suffered a little in the flesh this year. Breadstuff was very scarce, and what flesh we ate was chiefly taken from the woods with the rifle; but about midsummer we got plenty of potatoes. Once, however, having been several days without bread or meat, I indulged, when very hungry, in eating too freely of half-ripe blackberries, which caused an attack of bilious colic, that held me two days. Upon the whole, I look back with as much pleasure upon the labors and sufferings of that year as any of the many years I have been employed in the vineyard of the Lord."

Some half dozen classes were formed on his circuit before the ecclesiastic year closed, and some sixty-five members reported; while the Chenango Circuit returned about sixty members: a hundred and twenty-five Methodists in all, the nucleus of a Conference which now (1866) reports nearly thirty thousand, and has covered the country with religious provisions.

The next year Asa Shinn labored with success through these regions, and Henry Shewel, a local preacher from New Jersey, who had lived some time in Redstone, penetrated (the last forty miles through an unbroken wilderness, without a settler,) to Deerfield, Portage County, Ohio, and extended the Church thither, so that in 1803 we find Deerfield reported as the title of a new circuit. By 1804 there were three circuits, with three preachers, besides Flemming, the presiding elder, in these northern regions, and the membership had increased to more than five hundred. The whole district reported nine circuits, fourteen preachers, and more than three thousand three hundred (3,327) members.

Meanwhile, farther southward, within Virginia, the denomination was pressing forward energetically. Reese Wolf, a local preacher, and Beauchamp, whom we lately left in New England, had arrived on the banks of the little Kanawha, and founded it there. Quinn was sent in 1802 to a large field, formed by the union of Berkeley and Winchester Circuits. He has left a sketch of his work, written in his old age, but full of the zest of his youthful itinerancy. "At Whitehouse, on Bull-skin, Bartholomew Smith's, father of old Henry Smith, of Baltimore Conference; Scurff's, near Battletown; Green's, near Paris, or the Blue Ridge; Northern's, in Sniger's Gap; Weekly's; Leehewtown, on Shenandoah; North's; we had classes at all save one; and some revival influence, and refreshing from the presence of the Lord, in the course of the year. This last section was a very rough portion of the circuit, as we had to cross the Blue Ridge and Shenandoah River each twice. But we minded not the toil, for in those days Methodist preachers were wont to find their way into every nook and corner where there were human, beings, provided they could find an open door, and procure an audience, be the fare rough or smooth. But we have not got round yet. We have still another important scene, and this will bring us to Stevensburgh, White Post, Middletown, the Cove among the mountains, on Cedar Creek, Spackelford's Meeting-house, and Sadler's. At all these stands we had societies. That at Spackelford's, however, was very feeble. I think only four in number. At Stevensburgh we were favored with a most blessed revival; scores of precious souls were brought from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God. Out of this revival several preachers came forth — a White, Talbot, Pool, Brison, and others. I have met some of the subjects and witnesses of that revival in the West, where we have talked and thought of the subject till our hearts have burned within us. In Winchester we had a charming set of young men, to whom I became much united in spirit, and with them I often took sweet counsel. Fry had laid down the carpenter's tools, and gone forth at the Master's bidding to labor in the vineyard. His brother Joseph was still pushing the plane, and Michael boot and shoemaking. Joseph Carson was making shoes, and Simon Lauk making guns. They all believed that they heard the Master say, 'Go ye also into my vineyard;' and they were using all diligence and exerting all their energies to get ready. I often visited their shops; found on the bench, or near at hand, the Bible, a grammar, logic, some book on science or theology — proofs, this, that they gave attention to reading — no filthiness, foolish talking or jesting, but such as was good to the use of edifying. They were young men, but sober minded; and yet they had a cheerfulness and buoyancy of spirit that sweetened society, and made the heart better. O, brothers of my heart, how I loved them! As might have been expected, they all became useful, yea, able ministers of the New Testament. I reached my circuit in poor plight, for I had traveled on Muskingum, Hocking, and Kanawha in 1800, and on Erie in 1801; and, as there were no missionary funds in those days, my purse was empty, and my clothes threadbare. Nevertheless I was not ashamed, for I believed I had been sent by Him who sent out his first missionaries without purse or scrip, while he himself had not where to lay his head, and they suffered from hunger, cold, and nakedness. Permit me now to mention my visit to the sick room and dying bed of General Daniel Morgan, that terrible thunderbolt of war. The thunder and din of war had passed, and the hero had retired to wear in private life the fading laurels accorded to him by a nation. He reached out his hand, and looking me full in the face, said, 'O, sir, I am glad you have come to see me, and I hope you will pray for me, for I am a great sinner, about to die and I feel that I am not prepared to meet my God.' I ventured to show him the way of salvation by faith in Him who suffered the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, then prayed with him. He wept much, and I left him bathed in tears. Never did I see tears flow more copiously from man, woman, or child. Ah, thought I, how little can the honors or riches of the world do for poor man when death comes! There was some ground of hope in his death. I now took my plan of thirty-eight appointments, besides six or eight appointments at night, for the special benefit of the people of color; and went on, from day to day, with fear and trembling, feeling a deep sense of my great inadequacy. The territory of three large counties was embraced in our bounds, namely, Frederick, Berkeley, and Jefferson; and we must have rode near four hundred miles in reaching all the appointments, as they stood arranged on the plan. The local preachers helped much, and our excellent host of young men of Winchester sallied forth like so many young Davids, each with his gospel sling and pouch of pebbles from the brook. In the mean time along came Asbury, giving us, as he passed through our circuit, six sermons, many exhortations, and prayer almost without ceasing; and commending us to the grace of God, on he went to Holston. Now the gospel car began to move gloriously, increasing in velocity to the end of the year, and we wound up with the addition of three hundred souls to the Church. O, glory! my soul gets happy while I think and write."

Pushing still farther westward and southward, we are again among the evangelists of the Holston Mountains. These heights are as watch-towers to them, and we find them, during these years, now descending to the westward, now to the eastward, "sounding the alarm" through all the wilderness, from the Blue Ridge to the farthest Kentucky and Tennessee frontier. Already the gospel was proclaimed, by Methodist itinerants, through most of the hither mountain valleys, those grand and fertile domains which stretch away, between their rocky barriers, from the interior of Pennsylvania through Virginia into North Carolina. Our present period opens with McKendree on a district which extends through Bottetourt County over the ridges and valleys to the Greenbrier, a stream that flows into the great Kanawha, and thence into the Ohio; and another district, under Philip Bruce, sweeping, in like manner, far westward over the more northward counties.

The year 1796 is memorable as the epoch of the formal designation of the Western field by the General Conference, as "The Western Conference," taking in Kentucky and Tennessee, for years the only one in the valley of the Mississippi. In the Holston region itself we find now, in the outset, four immense circuits, under the presiding eldership of Jonathan Bird, and traveled by six itinerants, Burke being chief among them. Beyond them lies the vast opening westward field, all yet come in one district, which is traveled by Kobler, who has six circuits and ten preachers under his care.

Among his itinerants is Benjamin Lakin, for many years an endeared name in the West. He was born in Montgomery County, Md., in 1767, but, infected with the emigrant spirit of the times, his family moved, in his childhood, to the Redstone frontier of Pennsylvania, and stopped not till they were located far among the canebrakes of Kentucky. Here the itinerants discovered them, and young Lakin became an ardent Methodist. His hardy habits were congenial with the itinerancy, and Poythress had him out traveling as early as the winter of 1794. The next year he was on Greenville Circuit, the next on Danville, and in 1797 he was admitted to full membership in the Conference, ordained, and sent to Lexington. The following year, having married, he was compelled to locate. In three years he had provided for his family, and re-entered the itinerancy, and thenceforward performed incredible labors and travels in Kentucky and Ohio, till 1818, when his broken health required him to be placed on the supernumerary list, but with scarcely less devotion to his ministerial work. The Minutes say of him that in 1819 his health had so failed that he was wholly unable to perform the work of an effective traveling preacher, and he was placed on the superannuated list. This relation he sustained till he was removed from labor and suffering to his reward in heaven. "For many years it had been his custom to have an appointment to preach every Sabbath, unless a quarterly, or some other special meeting interfered, and at such meetings he helped us much in the Lord. Perhaps there never was a superannuated minister who labored so much, or was more useful. He had three appointments out at the time of his death." [13]

He was a giant amid those great revivals which prevailed in the West about the beginning of this century. One of his contemporaries says, that "in the greatest excitement the clear and penetrating voice of Lakin might be heard amid the din and roar of the Lord's battle, directing the wounded to the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world. Day and night he was upon the watchtower, and in the class and praying circles his place was never empty, leading the blind by the right way, carrying the lambs in his bosom, urging on the laggard professor, and warning the sinner in tones of thunder to flee the wrath to come. While he was in the relation of a worn-out preacher he never had a dumb Sabbath, always having his appointments ahead, except when quarterly or camp-meetings would intervene. He was always on hand at time, and would preach and labor with all his remaining strength. Great success attended his efforts, and he was universally accepted and beloved as a minister of Jesus. 'Father Lakin' did not suffer his calm, benignant features, in his last days, to be wrinkled with a sour godliness. There was no whining about everything going wrong in the Church and among the preachers. He had a contempt for croakers, and would look up and thank God for a good conservative progress in all the departments of Methodism. Quiet and peaceful and glorious, as when the descending sun throws his last rays on a receding world, tinging the trees and mountains with his mellow light, did this venerable servant of the cross pass down to the grave. He preached his last sermon in McKendree Chapel, Brown County, Ohio, on the 28th day of January, 1848. [14] In about a week afterward, visiting a Christian family, he sank down to the floor, and quietly expired in the eighty-second year of his age, and the fifty-fourth of his ministry. He was of ordinary height, but of "spare habit," excessively given to fasting or abstinence, of singularly tender conscience; but, "though sedate, there was a spice of quiet humor in his conversation." He was diligent in his self-culture, notwithstanding his local inconveniences for study, reading much, making abstracts of his books and outlines of sermons, and writing some of them entirely. "His appearance, in advanced life, was that of a cheerful, placid old man, and such indeed he was." [15]

In 1798 Bird and Poythress lead, as presiding elders, the Holston corps, though there is yet but one district; and we meet again the tireless Valentine Cook at the head of the solitary district which comprises the more western field, with its six long circuits and seven itinerants.

Before the close of the century Cook was broken down in health. He married, and settled in Kentucky, where he took charge of the Bethel Seminary, in Jessamine County, the first Methodist school of the West. He subsequently conducted a similar institution at Harrodsburgh, and, finally, located in Logan County, where he lived on a small farm, about three miles from Russellville. He devoted himself to education, and was esteemed one of the best instructors in the West. Not a few eminent professional men were trained by him. Meanwhile he preached powerfully, not merely in his own vicinity, but often in extensive excursions through the state, and at quarterly meetings and camp-meetings. He was venerated as a saint for his singular piety; and it is probable that no man of his day wielded, in the West, greater power in the pulpit. "Prayer-meetings," says his biographer, "were established, classes revived, societies raised up, and new Churches organized, wherever his labors were employed, or his influence felt. There are hundreds, and perhaps thousands, still living throughout the great West, who, under God, are indebted to the instrumentality of Valentine Cook for all their hopes of immortality and eternal life."

The people believed that, like the original apostles, he "spoke from inspiration," and that by his prayers miracles were wrought among the sick. Marvels are told of the power of his word. A young preacher, who had never seen him, learning that he was expected to preach at a private house, rode some miles from his own circuit to hear the noted evangelist. On arriving he inquired if Cook was to preach that evening. "Yes," was the reply; "he has just walked out into the grove." His habits of devotion were proverbial, and as it was the custom among Methodist preachers of that day to prepare for preaching by hours of reading, meditation, and prayer in the woods, it was not difficult to conjecture the cause of his retirement. "Anxious to see one of the most extraordinary men of his age, I took," says the visitor, "a position on the portico that looks out unto the beautiful grove into which he had retired. At the approach of the venerable stranger, a sense of awe came over me. There walked God's devoted ambassador, lacking only the seer's gift to make him an awful prophet. My thoughts and feelings were so concentrated upon him that I could scarcely speak. Valentine Cook was slightly above the medium height and size. There was no symmetry in his figure; his limbs, being disproportionately long, seemed more like awkward appendages than well-fitted parts of a perfect whole. He was what is called 'stoop-shouldered' to such a degree, that his long neck projected from between his shoulders almost at a right angle with the perpendicular of his chest. His head, which was of peculiar formation, being much longer than usual from the crown to the point of the chin, seemed rather suspended to than supported by the neck. A remarkably low forehead, small, deeply-sunken hazel eyes, a prominent Roman nose, large mouth, thin lips, a dark, sallow complexion, coarse black hair, with here and there a thread of gray, formed a "tout ensemble" in which nature seemed to have paid no regard to order, strength, or beauty. His singularly eccentric appearance, his homely apparel, and humble attitude, as he slowly approached the house, are imprinted upon my mind as vividly now as when, for the first time, I looked upon him as I sat in that 'little portico. He laid his hand gently upon my head, and in the most solemn accents said, 'Be thou faithful unto death, and God will give thee a crown of life.' He uttered not another word; these were enough. They seemed, as they fell from his lips, to possess a weight of meaning which I had never seen in them before, and made an impression upon my mind which thirty-six years of toil and affliction have not been able to obliterate. As the shadows of the night deepened, the people from town and country began to assemble, and, though the rain was descending in torrents, every apartment of the house was soon filled to overflowing. The hour for preaching arrived, he took his position in the entry by a small table, upon which lay the 'old family Bible.' Resting his hand reverently on that blessed volume, he commenced repeating, in a somewhat indistinct undertone the affecting hymn beginning with

"I saw one hanging on a tree

In agony and blood;

He fixed his languid eyes on me,

As near the cross I stood.'

Before he reached the last stanza his voice had become perfectly clear, and so pathetic and impressive, that many faces were suffused with tears. After reading the hymn, he raised the tune himself, and the audience united with him in singing. The prayer which followed was simple, solemn, and affecting. On rising from his knees he straightened himself up, and after looking round upon the congregation a few moments, without opening the Bible, on which his right hand again rested, he announced as his text, Mal. iv, 1: 'For, behold, the day cometh.' I occupied a seat immediately before him. I knew full well that I was in the presence of a great as well as good man. Every word that fell from his lips, and every expression of his countenance, proclaimed to all, as I verily thought, the transcendent goodness of his heart, the purity of his motives, and the elevated character of his purposes. Man's responsibility to God was the leading thought. In the commencement he dwelt at some length and with great effect on the all-pervading presence of Him with whom we have to do. Never until then had I been so deeply impressed with the fact that God was all around me, above me, beneath me, within me. The sinfulness of sin and its dreadful consequences were portrayed in language and imagery most powerful and startling. I felt persuaded that no unconverted sinner, not wholly given up to hardness of heart, could listen to that discourse without exclaiming in the bitterness of his anguish, 'The arrows of the Almighty stick fast within me, and the terrors of God do set themselves up in array against me.' I could distinctly hear the partially suppressed groans and prayers that rose from different parts of the house. In conclusion, the great remedial scheme was brought to view. The ability and willingness of Almighty God, as revealed in Jesus Christ and him crucified, to save, to save now, to the uttermost and forever, were presented in such strains of simple, fervent, loving, melting eloquence, that the entire assembly was roused, excited, and overwhelmed. Some were pale with fear, others radiant with hope. Prayer and praises, cries and songs, were commingled. While the wail of awakened sinners was heard in various parts of the house, from other directions came the shouts of rejoicing saints. Christ, by his Holy Spirit, had spoken through his minister to the understandings and hearts of the people. The midnight watch had come and gone before the people could be induced to leave the strangely consecrated place. Such a sermon as that, for clearness, directness, power, and effect, I have never heard. I left at an early hour the next morning for a distant appointment, rejoicing in God for the privilege of having seen and heard such a man as Valentine Cook. I never saw him more." [16]

Such was this rare man, his appearance, his spirit, and his preaching. His habitual absorption, in prayer or study, gave him an air of singularity or eccentricity. He was absent-minded in company. In his devotional retirement in the woods, he would sometimes forget his congregations. He has been known to walk home from his appointments, leaving his horse behind, unconscious of the fact till reminded of it by his family. He loved music excessively, and felt that the old Methodist singing was one of the best preparations for powerful sermons. The young people of his neighborhood, who loved him much, gratified his taste by frequently serenading him at night. In 1819 he was impressed with the thought that his end was near. He wished once more to preach in some of his old fields, and "return home and arrange his affairs for an early departure to his inheritance above." He went preaching through Kentucky, parts of Ohio, and his old battle grounds in Pennsylvania. Passing on to Pittsburgh, New York, Philadelphia, he reached Baltimore, where he spent some time preaching "to vast crowds," and "scores and hundreds were converted through his instrumentality." He returned through the Greenbrier country of the Alleghenies, visiting his early friends, kneeling at the graves of his parents, giving his final warnings to the people, and re-entered his home in Kentucky singing a triumphant hymn. He settled his temporal affairs, and in the ensuing year died, uttering, as his last words, "When I think of Jesus, and of living with him forever, I am so filled with the love of God, that I scarcely know whether I am in the body or out of the body."

Good Henry Smith, whom we have so often met, was still braving the frontier trials of Kentucky. At the beginning of this period he was on Danville Circuit, where he was aided much by James McCull, once a stalwart itinerant, now broken down, and located, but still faithful. "I never," writes Smith, "saw a man more anxious to speak for God than my friend McCull; but this was out of the question. I, however, on two occasions saw him mount the stand, and look round on the congregation, the tears streaming down his face, and, in a half whisper, say a few words; and although half the congregation could not understand what he said, yet it ran like fire from heart to heart, till all were melted to tears. On one of these occasions I was deeply affected; it seemed as if my heart would burst. I certainly ought to have profited more by beholding such a spectacle, and hearing the lectures he sometimes gave me; for he was a charming, sweet-spirited man, and a humble Christian. I loved these people very much; but, thank the Lord, I never labored among a people that I did not love, and take a deep interest in their welfare: generally, the last I was with I loved the most. My last quarterly meeting was held at Jessamine meeting-house, April 22 and 23, 1797; and as our annual Conference was held at Bethel this year, we had all the Holston preachers at our meeting. Bishop Asbury was not with us, in consequence of affliction; and having the wilderness to go through, he was advised not to venture; but the great Head of the Church was with us, and it was a time of harmony and love among ourselves, and of great power in the congregation. Our business was done in peace; for there was no jealousy among our little band of brothers; no scrambling for the best circuits; (we had no stations;) if we got a bad circuit, we went to it with a willing mind, determined, if possible, to make it better; if we got a good circuit, we went with a cheerful heart, resolved to show ourselves worthy of a good place. From this Conference I went to Salt River again; the Lord gave me favor in the eyes of these people, and also added seals to my ministry. In this circuit I got acquainted with the widow of Colonel Harden. He was a devoted Methodist. He was sent out, in company with another man, with a flag of truce to the Indians; but the savage wretches killed them both. This good sister was sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; often shouting aloud, and expressing the strongest confidence of meeting her beloved husband in heaven. Barnabas McHenry, one of the early preachers, married into this worthy family: he was a man of strong mind, and able in argument, and stood upon the walls of our Zion, and defended her bulwarks when she was assailed by an enemy."

In 1798 he was under Poythress and Bird in Green Circuit, within the Holston District, and the next year reached Ohio, where he meets again his old friend, McCormick, and whither we shall soon follow him.

In 1799 the whole field, Holston, Kentucky, and Tennessee, and a circuit in Ohio, was one immense district under Poythress, with an apostolic band of twelve preachers, including such men as Burke, Kobler, Smith, and Sale.

John Sale was one of the most heroic evangelists and founders of western Methodism, though only five lines are given to his memory in the official Minutes, and we know not the precise place of his birth. He was born somewhere in Virginia in 1769, [17] and, about his twenty-first year, became a zealous Methodist. In 1796 he joined the itinerant evangelists, and was sent to Swanino Circuit, "in the wilds of Virginia, where he had his courage and fidelity tested in breasting the dangers and hardships of a pioneer preacher. His next circuit was the Mattamuskeet, in the lowlands of the state. Added to the necessary hardships connected with traveling this circuit, it was a very sickly region, and much dreaded by the itinerant; but as no scenes could disgust or dangers deter the preachers of those days, wherever, in the providence of God, their lot was cast, Sale went, in the name of his Master, and entered upon the work assigned him, ready to die." [18] From these preparatory trials he went, in 1799, across the mountains to Holston Circuit. During four years he labored indefatigably in the Holston Mountains and among the Kentucky settlements. In 1803 he passed into the Northwestern Territory, and now, for nearly a quarter of a century more, he alternates between Ohio and Kentucky, a successful circuit preacher, a commanding presiding elder. Worn out by his ministerial labors, he fell at last in his work, in 1827, crowned with the veneration of the Church, and exclaiming, "My last battle is fought, and the victory sure! Hallelujah!" One of the most eminent Methodist citizens of the country, who long enjoyed and prized the friendship of this humble but true evangelist, has recorded an estimate of him, and says: "He was a man of fine presence, of erect and manly form, and of great personal dignity. He was naturally of a social turn, and had excellent powers of conversation, though nothing ever fell from his lips that even approached to levity. I was always struck with the excellent judgment and accurate discrimination which he evinced in his social intercourse. His mind could not be said to be brilliant, and yet he sometimes produced a very powerful effect by his preaching. His distinct enunciation, earnest manner, and appropriate and well-digested thoughts, always secured to him the attention of his audience; but I have sometimes heard him, when, rising up with the dignity, and in the fullness, of his subject, he seemed to me one of the noblest personifications of the eloquence of the pulpit. His words were never hurried. Without the least tendency to extravagance, there was still a luster in his eye, and a general lighting up of his features that revealed the workings of the spirit within. In some of his more felicitous efforts, I think I have heard him with as much interest as I have heard any other man. And I never heard him without being deeply impressed with the conviction that, among all the men known to me at that early period, I should have selected him as the man to fill up, under all circumstances, the measure of his duty. He was an eminently useful one, and he adorned every relation that he sustained, and every sphere that he occupied. His character was so pure that every one felt that it was formed by a close conformity to the Divine Model." [19]

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ENDNOTES

1 See the bishop's account of the debate, in D. Stevenson's "Biographical Sketch'' of Cook, p. 84.

2 Sketch of the Life, etc., of James Quinn, by John F. Wright, p. 18. Cincinnati, 1851.

3 Not the first, as the biographer of Quinn supposes. See vol. ii, p. 353.

4 Minutes of 1813.

5 Minutes of 1847.

6 Vol. ii, p. 343.

7 Sprague, p. 363.

8 Rev. George Brown, D. D.

9 History of Methodism in the Erie Annual Conference, etc. By Samuel Gregg, vol. i, p. 28. New York, 1865.

10 Life of Bishop Roberts. By Rev. Dr. Charles Elliott, p. 13. New York, 1851.

11 Bishop Morris.

12 On returning to the West, after a General Conference, he once applied at the house of a Methodist family to which he had been recommended for entertainment. He was as usual humble in dress, and dusty and weary. The family, taking him to be a rustic traveler, permitted him to put up and feed his horse, and take his seat in the sitting-room. Supper was over, and no one took the trouble to inquire if he had taken any on the way. The preacher of the circuit was stopping at the same house; he was young, frivolous, and foppish, an occasional though very rare example among Methodist preachers, and spent the evening in gay conversation with the daughters of the family, alluding occasionally and contemptuously to the "old man," who sat silently in the corner. The good bishop, after sitting a long time, with no other attention than these allusions, respectfully requested to be shown to bed. The chamber was over the sitting-room, and, while on his knees praying with paternal feeling for the faithless young preacher, he still heard the gay jest and rude laugh. At last the family retired without domestic worship. The young preacher slept in the same room with the bishop. "Well, old man," said he as be got into bed, "are you asleep yet?" "I am not, sir," replied the bishop. "Where have you come from?" "From east of the mountains." "From east of the mountains, aye — what place?" "Baltimore, sir." "Baltimore, aye — the seat of our General Conference — did you hear anything about it? We expect Bishop Roberts to stop here on his way home'' ''Yes, sir,'' replied the bishop, humbly, it ended before I left." "Did you ever see Bishop Roberts?" "Yes, sir, often; we left Baltimore together." "You left Baltimore together?" "Yes, sir." "What's your name, my old friend?" "Roberts, sir." "Roberts! Roberts! Excuse me, sir, are you related to the bishop?" "They usually call me Bishop Roberts, sir." "Bishop Roberts! Bishop Roberts! are you Bishop Roberts, sir?" said the young man, leaping out of bed, and trembling with agitation. Embarrassed and confounded he implored the good man's pardon, insisted on calling up the family, and seemed willing to do anything to redeem himself. The bishop gave him an affectionate admonition, which he promised with tears never to forget. The venerable and compassionate man knew the frivolity of youth; giving him much parental advice, and praying with him, he would not allow the family to be called, though he had eaten nothing since breakfast. The next morning, after praying again with the young man, he left before the family had risen, that he might save them a mortifying explanation. This fact was a salutary lesson to the young itinerant; at the next Conference he called upon the bishop, a renewed man; he wept again as he acknowledged his error, and became a useful and eminent minister. Bishop Roberts often alluded to the incident, but, through a commendable kindness, would never tell the name of the young preacher. The story has been extensively circulated, with some exaggeration, and with Bishop George substituted for Bishop Roberts. Bishop Roberts was its real subject. The fact has been doubted, but his biographer says, "that it was a real occurrence is certain."

13 Minutes of 1849.

14 Finley's Sketches, p. 183.

15 Professor S. Williams, in Sprague, p. 273.

16 Biographical Sketch," p. 34.

17 Minutes of 1828; Finley's Sketches, p.185.

18 Finley, p.186.

19 Chief Justice McLean, in Sprague, p. 257.

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