VOLUME 4 — BOOK VI — CHAPTER IV
METHODISM IN THE MIDDLE AND NORTHERN STATES, 1804 — 1820

Condition of the Church — Camp-meetings — John Emory — He forsakes the Bar for the Pulpit — Emory's further Career and Character — Jacob Gruber tried for opposing Slavery — Garrettson and Ware — Marvin Richardson — A Camp-meeting — Nathan Bangs — Heman Bangs — Robert Seney — Samuel Luckey — Origin of the African Methodist Episcopal Church — Richard Allen becomes a Bishop — Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church — Methodism up the Hudson — In Troy — Noah Levings "Exhorting" — Albany — Schenectady — Ministerial Reinforcements

The maturer fields of the Church, in the middle and northern states, had almost continual prosperity during the present period. It was a time of church building, in which the primitive temporary structures began to give place to more commodious but hardly more pretentious edifices; of local growth, in membership and influence, and of rapid and important accessions to the ministry. But these sections had not much frontier work, except in Western New York and Canada, and, therefore, fewer of those salient events, which still marked the progress of the denomination in the South and West, and to some extent in the yet reluctant states of New England Their published records continue to be singularly scanty in historical data. Men now entered the itinerancy, whose names are familiar through the whole Church, but who are known only by vague traditions of their pulpit eloquence and great usefulness, and the meager allusions or brief obituaries of the Conference Minutes. [1]

Beginning the period with forty thousand four hundred and fifteen members, the two Conferences of this region ended it with three Conferences and eighty-two thousand two hundred and fifty-four members. They had more than doubled their numerical strength. In 1810 they detached a large and thriving portion of their territory, and formed of it the Genesee Conference, under which has grown up the flourishing Methodism of interior and western New York. Steady progress was made in the principal cities. Philadelphia nearly doubled its communicants, notwithstanding it lost some thirteen hundred by the secession of its colored members under Richard Allen. New York more than trebled its members, though it also lost nearly a thousand by a similar African schism in 1819, and three hundred more the next year by a secession of whites under William M. Stillwell, the founder of the "Stillwellites," a faction which has utterly dwindled away. Great revivals had prevailed there, especially in 1808 and 1809, adding nearly six hundred members in the two years, so that in 1810 two new churches were erected, those of Allen and Bedford streets, both of which became fountain-heads of Methodism for the whole city. John Street was also rebuilt before the period closed, (in 1817, and rededicated January 4, 1818;) its old timbers were used in the construction of another church, at the "Two Mile Stone," from which sprung Seventh Street Church. The other chief cities were still mostly heads of circuits, and have not distinct enough returns in the Minutes for the estimation of their progress, but their circuits show generally large gains. It was a time of almost universal revivals, and especially of successful camp-meetings; checked somewhat by the war with Great Britain, but only temporarily, for the energy of Methodism had now become irrepressible. Asbury, in the summer of 180, wrote: "I have good reasons to believe that upon the Eastern Shore four thousand have been converted since the first of May, and one thousand sanctified, besides souls convicted and quickened and restored. Our Pentecost for sanctification is fully come in some places. Ten camp-meetings north of New York in about two months, and more laid out. Now, I think, we congregate two millions in a year, and I hope for one hundred thousand souls converted, convicted, restored, or sanctified. The whole continent is awake. I am on a route of three thousand miles from and to Baltimore. Such a work of God, I believe, never was known for the number of people."

Among the eminent men who entered the ministry in this period none attained a more important historical position in the middle states than John Emory, born in Queen Anne County, Md., 1789. His parents were Methodists, and belonged to the best class of the community. They trained him strictly in their faith, and from his childhood he maintained an unsullied character. In his seventeenth year he joined the Church, a consecrated youth. He was classically educated, and early devoted himself to the profession of the law. At the time he abandoned its ambitious hopes of wealth and honor for the Methodist itinerancy hardly any young man in his native state had more flattering prospects. An inflexible will, the most assiduous habits of study and application, thorough manliness and uprightness, remarkable self-possession, clearness, and comprehensiveness of mind, readiness of speech, in style of equal perspicuity and vigor, and an extraordinary logical faculty, marked him as a man to whom success was beyond any other hazard than that of life itself. He was not eligible to the bar, according to usage, till his majority, but was admitted two years earlier, and soon had, says one of his legal contemporaries, "every product of wealth and fame"' by a successful practice. "Had he continued," says another of his legal colleagues, "he would have attained a most conspicuous eminence." In these times, more than in ours, the law was the highway to political distinction, and John Emory could have hopefully aimed at the highest places of public power and fame, but his luminous mind saw the, superior honor of an apostolic life of labor and suffering, and the "glory which shall follow." He turned away from his professional prospects. The self-denial cost him a fearful struggle. He lost his religious comfort before he yielded; but in 1809 he made a "covenant," wrote and signed it, to give up the law and preach the gospel. "The moment," he says, "I entered into this covenant on my knees, I felt my mind relieved, and the peace and love of God flow through my soul, and ever since I have enjoyed closer communion with him than ever before." His father, though a pious man, persistently opposed his resolution, refused him a horse with which to begin his itinerant career, and refused for two years to hear him preach, or to receive letters from him. Borrowing a horse from a friend, he went forth, however, and traveled, "under the presiding elder," till the session of the Philadelphia Conference in 1810, when he was received into its membership, and sent to Caroline Circuit, on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. His father at last became reconciled to his course, encouraged his labors, and, when dying, sent for him to attend and console his last hours. From 1810 to 1813 young Emory rode circuits, but never afterward. He was ready for the hardest service; and when Asbury, in 1812, called for volunteers for Canada, he offered himself for that difficult field, as also for the West. But his peculiar talents fitted him for other work. In 1813 he was appointed to the Academy (Union) Station in Philadelphia.

In 1815 he was appointed to Wilmington, Del.; in 1816, re-appointed to Union Church in Philadelphia, and the same year was elected a delegate to the General Conference. It was the first session to which he was eligible, and there was no subsequent session during his life in which he was not a delegate, except that of 1824, when, being in the minority in his Conference on a disputed question, he was not elected. In 1817 he first appeared as an author by "A Reply" to an essay of Bishop White, entitled "Objections against the Position of a Personal Assurance of the Pardon of Sin by a direct Communication of the Holy Spirit." The doctrine assailed is vital in Methodist theology, and Emory defended it with an ability which fully disclosed his capacity for the future literary service of the Church. He wrote a "Further Reply." The two pamphlets were noticed by White in a review of the whole question, with which the controversy closed. In 1818 he was stationed in Washington city, where also he issued, in a local controversy, a pamphlet entitled "The Divinity of Christ Vindicated," etc. In 1820 he was sent as representative of his Church to the British Conference; in 1824 appointed Book Agent, with Nathan Bangs; and in 1832 elected bishop, positions which identify him with important questions and advancements of the Church. In them all he showed the qualities of an extraordinary man, down to his sudden death in 1835, when he was found, bleeding and insensible, on the highway, having been thrown out of his carriage on his route from his home to Baltimore. He died the same day without the restoration of his consciousness. In person he was below the ordinary size, slight, not weighing over one hundred and twenty-five pounds, but well proportioned, and etc. His features were expressive of tranquil thoughtfulness, firmness, and kindliness. He was long a sufferer from gastric ailments, but was a persevering worker, a thorough student, an early riser, and rigorously systematic. Down to his day the Church had not possessed a more scholarly, a better trained, intellect. He was pre-eminent as a debater in Conferences, especially in the General Conference, and his legal skill solved for it some of its most difficult legislative problems. Withal he was remarkably versatile, and successful in all that he attempted. His writings in defense of his denomination, both its theology and polity, were always authoritative and conclusive. His piety was profound, steady, yet fervent. He saw in his own Church the mightiest system of agencies for the evangelization, not only of the new world, but of the whole world, that Christendom afforded, and he consecrated himself entirely to the development and application of its force.

Jacob Gruber's labors in this period down to 1814 were beyond the western mountains, but after one year more, spent in Baltimore, he had charge of the Carlisle District, Penn., which reached into Maryland. In the latter state he held a camp-meeting in 1818, at which he preached before three thousand hearers against slavery, no very uncommon thing among the leaders of the early itinerancy; but a warrant was issued, and he was arrested at one of his quarterly meetings. The grand jury, at Hagerstown, Md., produced an indictment against him, and in 18l9 he was solemnly tried for felony in the Frederick County Court. [3] The case produced general excitement, especially among the Methodists, now eminently influential in the state. Many of his chief ministerial brethren, especially Roszell and Snethen, zealously sustained him. Ignatius Pigman, once an itinerant, now an eloquent lawyer, and local preacher; Roger B. Taney, afterward chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, and two other lawyers, were employed to defend him. Hon. J. Buchanan, chief judge, Hon. A. Shriver, and Hon. T. Buchanan, associate judges, composed the court. The trial proceeded with intense public interest. Roger B. Taney's addresses were eloquent and conclusive. He justly affirmed that the Methodist Church "has steadily in view the abolition of slavery;" that "no slave-holder is allowed to be a minister in it;" that its "preachers are accustomed to speak of the injustice and oppression of slavery;" that "nobody could doubt the opinion of Gruber on the subject;" and he "fully vindicated Gruber and his Church in this opinion and policy." "Slavery," continued the distinguished lawyer, "is a blot on our national character, and every real lover of freedom confidently hopes that it will be effectually, though it must be gradually, wiped away, and earnestly looks for the means by which this necessary object may be best attained. And until it shall be accomplished, until the time shall come when we can point without a blush to the language held in the Declaration of Independence, every friend of humanity will seek to lighten the galling chain of slavery, and better, to the utmost of his power, the wretched condition of the slave." Citizens of the United States had occasion, in later years, to recall these utterances when the speaker sat on the supreme bench of the nation. The jury, after a few minutes' retirement, pronounces a verdict of "not guilty." Gruber, hearing that the "trial" was to be published in a pamphlet, addressed a letter to its editor for publication with it, arguing the subject bravely, and at considerable length. "Some," he wrote, "have been in hopes that I have learned a useful lesson in my trial; but whatever I have learned, I can assure you I have not yet learned to call good evil, or evil good. I hope while I keep my senses I shall consider involuntary perpetual slavery miserable injustice, a system of robbery and theft. I hope I never shall rank men, women, and children with horses and cows and property, and countenance or justify such sales and merchandise. May our merciful God save us from this sin and reproach, and let every honest man say amen." This was well said in the circumstances, but it was nothing extraordinary for a Methodist preacher of that day to say it. He went forthwith to the session of his Conference at Alexandria, D. C., and was appointed for the ensuing year to Frederick Circuit, named after, and comprehending, the town in which he had been tried.

Freeborn Garrettson labored strenuously in all this period in the middle states, mostly on the Hudson, in stations from New York city to Rhinebeck, but much of the time as Conference missionary, an appointment which allowed him to circulate at large among the Churches. His venerable character, as a founder of the denomination, made him everywhere welcome, and his power and unction as a preacher revivified the societies generally. During some of these years he again commanded the large New York District, leading a host of the ablest men of the northern ministry. Toward the close of the period he was among the supernumeraries, but with hardly diminished labors.

Thomas Ware, worn by protracted labors in the hardest fields of the Church, continued to travel down to 1809, part of the time in New Jersey District, (comprehending the whole state,) and part in Philadelphia, where his health failed, and compelled him to retire till 181l, when he was again at work at Lancaster, till the General Conference of 1812 appointed him to the Book Concern, where, during four years, he did valuable service for the publishing interests of the Church. From 1816 to 1825 he was again abroad as an itinerant, but in the latter year was compelled by age to retreat into the "ineffective ranks," after forty years of service in almost all parts of the country accessible in his times.

Marvin Richardson, born. In Stephentown, N. Y., 1789, was awakened at the old Sands Street Church, Brooklyn, in 1805, and, in the next year, converted at a camp-meeting held at Tuckahoe, Westchester County. William Thatcher presided over this gathering, and Asbury and a host of preachers were present. It was an extraordinary occasion. Asbury said that it exceeded any camp-meeting he had ever attended. "From it," writes Richardson, "revivals spread east, west, north, and south; the Spirit of the Lord was poured out upon the city of New York in an unusual manner. Under the faithful labors of Aaron Hunt, Trueman Bishop, Seth Crowell, Freeborn Garrettson, and John Wilson, many were led to Christ, and among the number, to my great joy, our whole family, consisting of father, mother, three brothers, and three sisters, found peace with God, and connected themselves with the Methodist Episcopal Church. Brooklyn also, where were stationed Ezekiel Cooper and Samuel Thomas shared largely in the refreshing from the presence of the Lord. Many were added to the Church, and out of the number two became preachers, namely, Josiah Bowen and myself. These were indeed happy and joyous days, sweetened as they were by the delights of Christian fellowship. We were truly of one heart and of one mind." [4]

In 1808 Ostrander announced him ["him" — who? — Abel Stevens seems here, and in several succeeding paragraphs, to refer to Josiah Bowen, or someone other than himself — DVM] to preach in Brooklyn without his knowledge. With great diffidence and agitation he thus began, when but nineteen years old, his long and successful itinerant life. The same year he was called out by his presiding elder to the Croton Circuit. Thomas Thorn, later a useful preacher, was one of the fruits of his first sermon on this circuit; yet such was the self-distrust of the young evangelist, that he determined to give up preaching, and return home; when Woolsey met him, and by urgent and fatherly admonitions forced him back to the circuit. A second time he attempted to retreat, but his colleague, Isaac Candee, met him on his homeward route, and again turned him back. He was received into the Conference in 1809, and sent three hundred miles to Charlotte Circuit in Vermont, along the shores of Lake Champlain. He went to it on horseback, carrying his clothing and books, all that he possessed, in his portmanteau. He had formidable labors on his circuit, but was sustained by a "powerful revival in Middlebury, Vt.," which so strengthened the Church there as to enable it to become a "station." Two hundred souls were added to the membership of the circuit.

During the remainder of these years he was appointed to Granville, Mass., Buckland, Mass., Dutchess, N. Y., New Haven, Conn., New York city, Jamaica, L. I., Middletown, Conn., New Rochelle, N. Y. On some of his circuits he suffered severely, receiving but little salary, sometimes hardly enough to buy clothing for the year, having poor fare, impaired health, and terrible exposures in winter, with "face, hands, and feet frozen;" but he was faithful to his charge, and, as his future appointments will show, became one of the representative men of the New York Conference. He was called the "finest looking" member of that body — in person well-proportioned and dignified, with an expressive face, simple but most courteous manners, of few words, extreme modesty, great prudence in counsel, and a tranquil uniformity of temper and life — the perfect Christian gentleman, and unblemished Christian minister. "The oldest member of the New York Conference," says one of his brethren, "he has attended fifty-eight of its annual sessions, having never failed of one of them, and being forty-two years 'effective.' For the last sixteen years he has been superannuated. He is now seventy eight years old, but is still remarkable for his noble personal appearance, agreeable manners, sweetness of spirit, and firmness of character. He has held a place in the front rank of his Conference, and in the regards of the people."

In 1808 Nathan Bangs returned from Canada, and was appointed to Delaware Circuit, N.Y., where, among many other fruitful incidents of his ministry, was the reception into the Church of his brother, Heman Bangs, whose faithful and vigorous services in the itinerancy have continued to our own day. "He was esteemed," writes the latter, "a powerful preacher. I remember that at a quarterly meeting; after the presiding elder had preached, he rose and began to exhort. In a few minutes the power of his word was like an electrical shock, and the whole assembly rose simultaneously to their feet. He had a notion that it was my duty to preach, and wrote me a long letter about it, especially cautioning me not to marry, as that would interfere with the itinerant work. I was fearful myself that I should have to preach, but determined not to do so if I could avoid it, and yet save my soul. I was willing to be a local preacher, but not an itinerant. I drew the inference from his letter that a wife would be a sure barrier to the traveling ministry, so I determined to marry as soon as I could, and did take a wife three months after I was twenty-one years old. His letter so vexed me that I would not read it a second time for a long while, and yet I thought so much of it that I kept it for fifty years, but it is now mislaid. Nathan and myself have ever lived in sweet fellowship. Independent in our own opinions, we often differed, but never quarreled. He afforded me many profitable reflections by judicious criticisms when I was young in the ministry." Heman Bangs joined the Conference in 1815, and became one of its strongest men. Tall, robust, of powerful voice, and more powerful brain, an incessant preacher, and able disciplinarian, assiduously devoted not only to the perfunctory labors of the ministry, but to all the philanthropic undertakings of the Church; a man of fervent zeal, of great practical sense, of good humor, and no little adroitness, he has been one of the most successful Methodist preachers of the last half century.

Nathan Bangs occupied important posts during these years: Albany Circuit, New York city, and Rhinebeck and New York Districts. His pen was busy in publications in defense of Methodism, and, with Emory, he was now beginning the literature of American Methodism. He was greatly useful in New York city from 1810 to 1812. Methodism had one circuit in the city, with but little more than two thousand members, when he began there. A profound religious interest prevailed during both years of his appointment. More than two hundred and fifty members were added to the Church by the close of the first, and nearly one hundred and fifty more by the close of the second. On the Rhinebeck District he had almost continual revivals. His quarterly meetings were especially effective, assembling great hosts of Methodists and their neighbors from all the country around, and sending out quickening influences over the circuits. He began that liberal provision of Churches and parsonages which has dotted the whole region of the old Rhinebeck District with Methodist edifices; a chapel and a preacher's house in almost every village. He reformed the finances of the circuits, insisting on a better support of the ministry. By the end of his four years on the district its nine appointments had increased to thirteen, its nineteen preachers to twenty-five, and it had gained nearly a thousand members. Besides this numerical success, nearly all its economical interests had improved chapels and parsonages were springing up all over its territory. Methodism had, in fine, secured in this extensive region not only a lodgment, but a strength which no subsequent adversities have been able to shake. The district has since received the title of "the garden of Methodism." "In all that region of country," writes one of his preachers, [6] "no one stood higher in public esteem. Quarterly meetings were great occasions, calling out vast multitudes, many of them from a distance of thirty or forty miles. No church edifice would begin to accommodate the crowds of people, and in the summer season an orchard or grove frequently served as our temple of worship, and mighty displays of awakening and saving power were often witnessed under the fervid and heart-searching preaching of our presiding elder."

He led many a useful laborer into the ministry during his presiding eldership in these years, some of whom were to take historical rank in the Church, though at a date too late for present notice. It was toward the close of this period that he called out Robert Seney, his lifelong, and perhaps his dearest friend, one of the first three graduates of college in the ministry, a man who sacrificed the profession of the law and high social rank for the heroism of the itinerancy, which he maintained for more than thirty years; "an excellent general scholar," writes Bangs, "a well-read theologian," a successful preacher in the most important appointments of New York Conference, a staunch friend, a perfect Christian gentleman; of extraordinary memory, intuitive discernment of character, rare humor and profound modesty. It may be doubted whether Bangs' usefulness during these years was, in any other respect, greater than in his success in recruiting the ministry with similar men.

In 1810 Samuel Luckey, then in his twentieth year, was called out by Henry Stead, his presiding elder, to supply a vacancy on Montgomery Circuit, N.Y., which comprised between thirty and forty appointments in schoolhouses, barns, cottages and workshops, requiring about three hundred miles ride in four weeks, and almost daily preaching. In 1811 he was received by the New York Conference, and sent to Ottawa, in Canada. He made his way as best he could to Montreal, and thence fifty or sixty miles, through the French settlements, to his circuit. He was thus, in the very outset, thrown upon the heroic tests of the early itinerancy. He carried with him a few text-books in theology, and in the Latin and Greek languages, and there, in the wilds of the far North, began that course of faithful public service, which has identified his name with the history of the Church for more than half a century. As circuit preacher, presiding elder, principal of Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, at Lima., N. Y., from 1832 to 1836; editor of the Book Concern from 1836 to 1840, regent of the State University of New York for many years, chaplain to the charitable institutions of Rochester, where he still survives, and preaches thrice every Sunday, he has done an amount of public labor hardly surpassed by any of his contemporaries in the ministry. Self-educated, beyond the average culture of his early ministerial associates, steadfastly devoted to his work of vigorous heath even in old age, a successful preacher, a participant in many General Conferences, and in almost every enterprise of his Church, he has contributed greatly to its prosperity, not only in the state of New York, but throughout the country.

While Dr. Emory was in charge of the Union Station, Philadelphia, in 1814, he had a reluctant agency in the events which gave rise to the African Methodist Episcopal Church. An unChristian public opinion had always repelled and oppressed the free men of color, North as well as South. With all its devotion to their religious welfare, Methodism had not dared to fully recognize their Christian parity in its congregations, and thousands of it African members, gradually advancing under its care in intellectual and moral improvement, justly felt the disabling and humiliating disparagement. As early as 1787 some of them, in Philadelphia, convened to consider their grievances. Withdrawing from the Church, they undertook to build a chapel for themselves, and Bishop White, of the Protestant Episcopal Church, ordained a colored preacher for them. Richard Allen, once a southern slave, but self-redeemed, had become wealthy, and influential among his people in Philadelphia, and, in 1793, erected for them a church on his own land, which was dedicated by Asbury, and named Bethel. In 1799 Allen was ordained a deacon, as we have noticed, and in 1800 the General Conference made provision for the ordination of colored men in similar cases. Allen and his brethren had entered in 1796 into an engagement, by a "charter," to remain under the disciplinary regulations of the Church, and the jurisdiction of a white elder, appointed in the Philadelphia Conference; but contentions soon arose respecting their relations to the Conference; an appeal was made to the law, and the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania responded in favor of the Bethel Society. They thus became independent. Emory in 1814 addressed to them a circular letter, announcing that the white preachers could no longer maintain pastoral responsibility for them. [7] They called a general convention of colored Methodists in April, 1816, to organize a denomination; and "taking into consideration their grievances, and in order to secure their privileges and promote union among themselves, it was resolved that the people of Philadelphia, Baltimore, and all other places, who should unite with them, should become one body under the name and style of the 'African Methodist Episcopal Church.' " Thus arose the most important Protestant body of Africans in the United States, or indeed in the world. Later events in our national history indicate that it was a providential provision, and it depends only on its leading minds, under God, to secure to it a sublime mission and destiny among the liberated African population of the nation. It adopted substantially the Discipline and Doctrines of the parent body, modified by lay representation through the local preachers. Allen was elected bishop by its General Conference in 1816, and consecrated by five regularly ordained ministers, one of whom was a presbyter of the Protestant Episcopal Church. He died in 1831; but the denomination has had a succession of able superintendents, some of whom have been remarkable for administrative talent and pulpit eloquence. Of its eight bishops, three of whom have died, all were slaves except one. One of them, Willis Nazrey, has episcopal charge of the Colored British Methodist Episcopal Church in Canada, now an independent body. In the United States they have (in 1867) ten Conferences, 550 preachers, including five bishops, but exclusive of 1,500 local preachers, and about 200,000 members, seven eighths of whom live in the southern states. They have Church property to the amount of four millions of dollars, a Book Concern in Philadelphia, a weekly newspaper, and a college in Ohio. [8] A later organization of colored Methodists has also acquired some importance, reporting more than 90,000 members, with about 400 traveling and many local preachers. It sprung indirectly from the "Allenite" secession. The latter established a congregation in New York city, over which their bishop appointed a colored local preacher of the Methodist Episcopal Church, first giving him ordination. There were about eight hundred and forty Africans in the city Methodist Churches in 1818, but in 1821 only sixty-one remained. A schism had been working during the interval by the influence of Allen's congregation, but it became hostile to his jurisdiction, and resulted in the second African Methodist Episcopal Church, distinguished usually by the prefix "Zion," as the first usually is by that of "Bethel," taken from the titles of their original Churches in the respective cities. The two denominations are quite distinct, though maintaining cordial relations with each other.

As these bodies differ in no fundamental respect from the parent Church, and as a difference of the human skin can be no justifiable reason for a distinction in Christian communion, the time may come when the parent Church may have the opportunity of making an impressive demonstration against absurd conventionalism, and in favor of the sublime Christian doctrine of the essential equality of all good men in the kingdom of God, by receiving back to its shelter, without invidious or discriminative terms, these large masses of the American people, and by sharing with them its abundant resources for the elevation of their race. Such an act would seem to be the necessary consummation of that revolution of public opinion which has been providentially effected by the great war of the rebellion [The Civil War — DVM].

Methodism continued to extend up the Hudson through all this period. Its long depressed prospects in Troy began to brighten, and as early as 1809 a small chapel was erected in State Street, its only one for a score of years. [9] In 1810 it is first reported as a station under Dr. Phoebus. The next year it was again merged in an adjoining circuit; but, in 1813, Laban Clark had charge of it as a station. In 1815 Tobias Spicer preached there with great success. A revival prevailed about two years. He reported two hundred and fifty communicants, and doubled the membership. During his ministry a young man by the name of Noah Levings became active as an exhorter. "After working at the anvil, through the day, he would throw off his apron and paper cap, wash, and change his dress, and walk, with Spicer, to Albia, where he exhorted at the close of the sermons." Naturally gifted with energy, rare tact, and vivid eloquence, young Levings rapidly rose to eminence not only in his own denomination, but in the general religious community. In 1817 Samuel Luckey had similar success in Troy, adding about one hundred and fifty members. In 1813 the erection of Division Street church in Albany gave a new impulse to the denomination in that city, and it has advanced, though with occasional and severe trials, ever since. Zealous Captain Webb had preached in Schenectady an early as 1766 or 1767, but its first Methodist society was not formed till when Andrew McKain, of Albany Circuit, united some fifteen or twenty members who had been converted, in social meeting, at the house of Richard Clute. The same year Samuel Howe was appointed their circuit preacher. They worshipped in private houses, and, later, in a schoolhouse, till 1809, when they built a humble temple, and in 1816 became a station under the charge of Laban Clark, though yet a "little flock," comprising but fifty members. Nearly the whole Ashgrove District was astir with revivals during these years. Camp-meetings were now in more general vogue than ever, and rekindled, summer after summer, religious interest throughout the whole territory of the middle and northern Conferences.

In each year of the period, able young men, besides those already mentioned, and destined to become generally recognized as ministerial leaders, but of most of whom no adequate records remain, entered the itinerancy: in 1805 Charles Giles, George Lane; in 1807, Peter P. Sandford, Phineas Rice, Lewis Pease, George Harmon; in 1808, Friend Draper, Thomas Neal, William Jewett; in 1809, Stephen Martindale, Isaac Puffer, Loring Grant, Coles Carpenter, George Gary; in 1810, Arnold Scolefield, Benjamin G. Paddock, Seth Mattison; in 1811, Joseph Lybrand, Manning Force, John B Matthias, Benjamin Griffin, Marmaduke Pearce; in 1812, David Daily, George Baughart, Tobias Spicer, Elisha Williams, William Ross, Gad Smith, Gideon Lanning; in 1813, John Potts, Israel Chamberlayne; in 1814, Joseph Rushing, Buel Goodsell, Elias Bowen; in 1815, Richard W. Petherbridge, Josiah Bowen; and in the remaining five years John Dempster, George Peck, Fitch Reed, John J. Matthias, Charles Pitman, Noah Levings, Seymour Landon, Zachariah Paddock, Glezen Fillmore, men of pre-eminence in the pastorate, or in educational institutions, editorial positions, the missionary secretaryship, the American Bible Society, but who were yet in their youthful preparatory training. Scores of others joined the itinerancy with these, many of them scarcely less important laborers, if not so familiar to the present generation of Methodists, and whose names, with these, may hereafter be more conveniently commemorated.

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ENDNOTES

1 Bangs, though his narrative is in the form of Annals, could give hardly a half score strictly local facts of the middle states for all these years.

2 Life of Rev. John Emory, D. D. By his eldest son, p. 48. New York, 1841.

3 Strickland reports the case quite fully. "Life of Gruber," p. 130.

4 MS. Autobiography.

5 Letter of Rev. John Campbell, of New York Conference, to the author. 1867.

6 Rev. Dr. Fitch Reed, who began his ministry on this district in 1815.

7 In the preface to their Discipline they say he declared them "disowned by the Methodists." His letter was temperate and kindly, and simply stated the facts of the case as enacted by the charter and the laws of the Church.

8 Memorial to the General Conference of the M. E. Church, South, 1866. See Meth. Quart. Rev., 1866, p. 438. New York.

9 The date is uncertain. It was about the year 1807 to 1809. "Park's Troy Conf. Miscellany, p. 48.

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