VOLUME 4 — BOOK VI — CHAPTER V
METHODISM IN THE MIDDLE AND NORTHERN STATES, 1804-1820: CONCLUDED

Methodism in the Interior of Pennsylvania and New York — Old Canaan Circuit — Peter Vannest crosses the Genesee River — First Class and first Camp-meeting beyond it — George Lane — Glezen Fillmore "Exhorting" — Thomas Smith's Northern Adventures — A Scene in Lyons, N. Y. — Organization of Genesee Conference — Methodism in Canada — William Case, the Apostle to the Indians — Progress in Canada — The War — Robert Hibbard perishes in the St. Lawrence — Declension of the provincial Church by the War — Its renewed Prosperity — Genesee Conference meets in Canada — Great Revival — Continued Success — Canadian Methodism in 1820 — Methodism of the Middle and North in 1820 — Obituary of Preachers — Asbury

Meanwhile the frontier movement of Methodism in the middle and northern states, which we have heretofore traced, was energetically advancing. The Susquehanna District, pertaining to the Baltimore Conference, with Owen, Griffith, Paynter, Christopher Frye, Draper, and a succession of similar men, as preachers, prospered greatly. In 1807 Draper was sent to form the Canaan Circuit, [1] of ancient renown, and the Church advanced rapidly among the Cumberland, Tioga, and Wyoming mountains and valleys. The local historian, referring to Canaan Circuit as an example of the hard field, says that its itinerant preachers "each received $49.98 and their traveling expenses. Let the present race of preachers survey the territory, think of the roads as they then were, and of the accommodations, and look at the scanty pittance which the preachers received, and ask themselves if the contrast presents no occasion for gratitude and contentment. Here is embraced the whole of the present Honesdale District, consisting of seventeen charges, besides portions of Wyoming, Wyalusing, and Binghamton Districts, and a portion of New York and New Jersey Conferences. This is the extent of Canaan Circuit in 1810. The roads cannot be conceived of now. We know what they were ten years later, and then mud, rocks, stumps and roots, pole bridges, and no bridges! To travel these roads in hunger, cold, nakedness, and weariness, and often to lodge in open cabins, among dirt and insects, and receive almost fifty dollars in the course of the year! This was the itinerancy in 1810 in the Genesee Conference."

In the more northerly interior the denomination extended among the New York lakes, planting itself in most of the small settlements which have since risen into flourishing towns and cities. It passed over the Genesee River, as we have seen, in 1804, represented by a useful layman, David Hamlin, who for three years gathered the settlers his own house for religious worship. Peter Vannest, who had been tending in this direction for years as an itinerant, forded the Genesee river in 1807, near the present city of Rochester, and delivered his first sermon in what is now Ogden Center. The first class was organized the same year in Newstead, at the house of Charles Knight. The next year a youth, George Lane, afterward well known throughout the Church, as a faithful itinerant, as Book Agent at New York, and as a saintly man, crossed the Genesee, and held the first camp-meeting of that region. He traveled Vannest's new circuit, laboring unceasingly, and spread out the cause in all directions, preaching as far as Buffalo. He reached at last the northernmost tracks of the ultra-Allegheny itinerants of Pennsylvania, in the region since known as the Erie Conference. In 1809 Glezen Fillmore, a young "exhorter," visited Clarence. "He had joined the Church in Westmoreland. He went to a place now called Skinnersville, to see a family with whom he had been acquainted at the East. He was invited to hold a meeting, and left an appointment for the next Sabbath. On Sunday morning he went, and, on his approach, he saw people wandering about carelessly; but upon arriving at the place of meeting he found no one there except the family. Wright, the man of the house, seemed distressed at the disappointment, and, rising under the influence of considerable excitement, said, 'I cannot stand it.' He went out, and returned with two persons, a man by the name of Maltby, and his wife. The family and these two constituted the congregation; but Fillmore, nothing daunted, proceeded with his meeting. Maltby and his wife seemed considerably impressed. At the close of the exercises Maltby said it had been 'a solemn meeting,' repeating the words several times. He invited Fillmore to hold another at his house the next Sabbath, to which he gave his cordial consent. When the time arrived the house was full, and a good religious feeling prevailed. A revival immediately commenced, and a society was formed. Maltby and his wife were among the converts, and he became a local preacher. Four of his sons are now members of the Erie Conference. Grand results often follow what appear to be small causes: Fillmore was licensed to preach, and continued his labors in a local capacity for the space of nine years, preaching in the newly opening settlements, and preparing the way for the traveling preachers. This period he considers as one of the most useful and successful portions of his life." He was to have a prominent place in the subsequent history of the Church.

In 1805 Thomas Smith, whose notable adventures in New Jersey and more southern regions have been related, was sent, with Charles Giles, to the Seneca Circuit, which comprised all the country between the Cayuga and Seneca Lakes, south and west of the latter, and north to Lyons, with few settlers scattered over it, and they extremely poor. Smith had his usual trials and success in this new field. On his way to it his life was periled by a highwayman, who attacked him in the Water Gap of the Blue Mountain. He found Indians still numerous on his circuit, and preached where "the shining tomahawk and glittering scalping knife" were within sight. He suffered from the diseases of the country, and at one time "lay six days, on three old chairs," in a log-cabin, sick with fever. He was, however, a dauntless itinerant. It was of himself that he spoke when, alluding to the sufferings of the ministry, he recorded that he knew "one that has rode four thousand miles, and preached four hundred sermons in one year, and laid many nights on wet cabin floors, sometimes covered with snow through the night, and his horse standing under a pelting storm of snow or rain, and at the end of that year received his traveling expenses and four silver dollars of his salary." [2] He held frequent camp-meetings among the settlers, and pushed forward on his circuit as if determined to conquer the whole country. Opposers could not stand before him. He assailed them sometimes in quite original modes of attack. At Lyons lived a highly respectable Methodist, Judge Dorsey, whose wife, Eleanor Dorsey, was one of those "women of Methodism "who ministered to Asbury and the other earliest itinerants in Maryland. [3] The general spirit of emigration had led them to this new country, and their house was now the home of Methodist preachers. Smith went to Lyons, and says: "Here we had a respectable society, and a small meeting-house. But the people of Lyons were generally wicked. They took pleasure in unrighteousness, in deriding the ways of God, and in persecuting the humble followers of Jesus Christ. They interrupted and insulted us in our religious worship, and on this evening they were worse than usual. I paused until I got their attention, and then remarked that I should not wonder if Lyons should be visited on the morrow in a way that it never had been before, and perhaps never would be again to the end of time. We then had quietness to the close of the meeting. When the congregation was dismissed, and I had come out of the house, the people gathered around me, and with one voice cried out, 'For God's sake, tell us what is to happen here tomorrow!' I replied, 'Let tomorrow speak for itself.' I went home with Judge Dorsey, a short distance from the town. After breakfast the next day I said to Mrs. Dorsey, 'I wish you to go with me into Lyons this morning, as there are some families to which I cannot get access without you.' She, being acquainted with the place, readily consented. At nine o'clock A. M. we entered the town. Scores from the country were already there, and the place was in commotion. We went to the house of Mr. _____, where we were politely received. I knew if we could storm that castle the day was ours. After conversing some time, I remarked that Mrs. Dorsey and myself were on a visit to Lyons, and, if it were agreeable, we would pray before we parted. 'By all means, Mr. Smith; by nil means, sir.' Before prayer was over there were scores of people at the door, and by this time the order of the day began to be understood, and they that feared God were at their post, coming up to the help of the Lord against the mighty. We then went, in large procession, from house to house, entering every door in order, and praying for the souls of the families. Our little band soon increased to some three or four hundred. When we came near the tavern, where we had been so derided, it was inquired, 'Will they admit us?' But the doors and windows being open, we entered in, and was there ever such a shout while storming Lucifer's castle? At four o'clock in the afternoon we called a halt to see what was done, and, storming a circle on the green, the new converts were invited within the circle, when thirty-two came in, who that day had found the pearl of great price, Christ in them the hope of glory. These thirty-two, and eight more, were added to the Church of God on that afternoon. Thanks be to God, this was another good day's work in the Lord's vineyard. This meeting produced a pleasing change in Lyons, and Methodism gained a footing in that place it never had before. To God be the glory!"

So rapidly had it spread through these interior regions that in 1810 Asbury organized it in a new Conference. Hitherto its territory had been strangely divided among the New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore Conferences. It was now to have unity, and to speedily grow into one of the strongest bodies of the denomination, and to yield in our day five Conferences. On the twentieth of July the preachers of the Susquehanna, Cayuga, and two Canada Districts, were convened at the barn of Judge Dorsey, in Lyons, and there formed the new organization, comprising all their recent territory, except Lower Canada. Asbury and McKendree presided. Increased efficiency was thus immediately given to it work. Its three districts, thirty circuits, and ten thousand seven hundred members of 1810 increased, by the end of the present period, to eight districts, seventy-four circuits and nearly twenty-four thousand members, more than doubling all its forces in a decade. It included Canada during the whole period.

In the latter country now appeared, (in 1805,) for the first time, two very important men, Henry Ryan and William Case. The former we have already met in Vermont, where he began his ministry in 1800, an energetic Irishman, and one of the sturdiest itinerants of his day. William Case will ever rank as one of the noblest acquisitions of the ministry. Known most generally as the "Apostle to the Canadian Indians," he was, nevertheless, a New Englander, born at Swansea, Mass., in 1780. [4] He was converted in 1803, received into the New York Conference in 1805, and, being young and zealous, was forthwith sent to Canada. He was subsequently tossed about for years in the Province and in the States, from the Ulster Circuit in New York to Detroit in Michigan. He was one of the original members of the Genesee Conference, and one of its first three presiding elders in 1810; Draper and Ryan being the two others. For eighteen years he had charge of districts — the Cayuga, Oneida, Chenango, Lower Canada, Upper Canada, and Bay of Quinte. In 1828 he was appointed superintendent of Indian missions and schools in Canada, and in 1830 general superintendent of the Methodist societies in the province. During several years he was missionary to the Indians, when a "sack, inclosed in a blanket, slung on the back by what was called a 'tumpline' across the shoulders, and a gun, with a small store of powder, constituted an Indian preacher's outfit." In 1852 he was allowed to travel and preach at large through the province till his death in 1855. He was esteemed for years as the patriarch and leader of Canadian Methodism, the chief of its great mission field, a truly apostolic man, fervid, genial, prudent, attractive and effective in the pulpit, singularly successful and beloved among the Indians. He was instrumental in the conversion of hundreds of the latter, and equally useful among the whites, and was especially conspicuous in a general revival in 1808, "when the voice of prayer and praise was heard by day and night in the houses and barns, in the fields and woods, all over the country." Canadian Methodism mostly grew up during his ministry in the province, and he lived to see it represented by three hundred and thirty itinerants, scattered over two hundred and ten Circuits. "He was," says a Canadian authority, [5] "the director of the rising ministry of the Methodist Church in Canada before she had a college in which to train them, and he was the friend of that institution from the moment it was projected to the day of his death, watching its progress and doings with the most lively interest. He would sometimes talk about 'his boys' in the pulpit in a way that set the young aspirants to usefulness weeping around him. Little children; too, he loved, and took a great interest in their schools. On this account he was a welcome visitant in the various families whose hospitality he enjoyed. The little Indian children, even, would literally pluck his clothes, 'to share the good man's smile.' Nor did they fail in their object. He would often pursue these tawny little ones, and, catching them, would kiss them with all the fondness imaginable."

In 1806 Canada has two districts, and twelve circuits, including two pertaining to New York Conference. Samuel Coate is at Montreal, and Nathan Bangs at Quebec. A Lower Canada District appears in the Minutes, and a mission to its French population is added to the appointments. Thomas Whitehead, a Wesleyan preacher of Nova Scotia, but born in the United States, is added to the little ministerial corps, and also Andrew Prindle, the second native Canadian itinerant. The first, Sylvanus Keeler, locates, but continues through his life to promote effectively his Church. They were the beginning of a powerful native ministry, which in a few years was to render Canadian Methodism independent of foreign laborers. In 1808 the first report of members in Quebec appears; hardly more than a single "class," thirteen in number. Methodism, however, was destined to find a stronghold in that city, though long harassed by public prejudice, and the coming war. In 1809 Detroit, Mich., is reached by Case. Bangs had been defeated there, as we have seen, but the new itinerant met with better auspices. "The gospel spread fast," says the Canadian Methodist historian,[6] "like fire through dry stubble." Detroit continued to be, for years, an appointment of the Upper Canada District; Methodist preachers took yet but little note of geographical demarcations, civil or physical; with Wesley, they considered "the world to be their parish." In the same year the Three Rivers Circuit, in Lower Canada, was reported, and traveled by Joseph Sampson, the third native Methodist itinerant, though he now came from Baltimore Conference.

At the organization of the Genesee Conference in 1810 the Upper Canada District was placed under its jurisdiction, while that of Lower Canada was retained by New York Conference; there were not yet, however, two hundred members in all the five appointments of the latter. Joseph Sawyer now located; Case went to preside over the Cayuga District, in New York; but reinforcements arrived. There were seventeen circuits and twenty-one preachers. Luckey was among them the next year, and found, on his remote Ottawa Circuit, a hundred and sixteen members. The whole country now became alarmed by the omens of the approaching war, and, in the next year, none of the preachers went to the Conferences in the states. That of New York gave up all the lower province to that of Genesee, except the Dunham Circuit. New England Conference retained Stanstead Circuit, where Charles Virgin, David Kilbourn, and other eastern itinerants had been laboring for some years, crossing the line of their Vermont territory. No returns of members reached the Genesee Conference from the upper province, but, in the lower, Montreal reported more than fifty, Quebec about half that number, Ottawa Circuit about a hundred, and that of St. Francis River one hundred and twenty. Bangs was appointed to Montreal, but did not reach it on account of the military obstructions between the two countries. Thomas Burch was sent to Quebec, and made his way thither; Luckey, appointed to St. Francis, failed to get there. Robert Hibbard, a native of New York, who had joined its Conference in 1809, and for two years had labored faithfully in Canada, where he had formed the St. Francis Circuit, gathering upon it more than a hundred members, consented to return notwithstanding the troubled times. He reached the Ottawa Circuit, and kept to his work, though the provincial government had, by proclamation, ordered all citizens of the United States to leave the country. Learning that the preachers for the St. Francis Circuit, so dear to him, as his own work, had not arrived, he resolved to go thither and encourage the Churches under their new trials. He reached Montreal, but in his further progress was drowned in the St. Lawrence; his horse escaped to the shore, but the evangelical hero was borne away, and was seen "going down with his hands lifted toward heaven." His body was never found. He was a sanctified man, "studious," and "indefatigable," and, say his brethren in their Minutes, "entered the watery grave to rise again to a glorious immortality at the last day." [7] Asbury delivered a "funeral sermon" on the event before the next New York Conference.

In 1813 the war had cut off all communication between the Churches of the two countries. The preachers could not attend the Genesee Conference, but they met together and made their own appointments as best they could. The circuits of the upper district were at least nominally manned, but in the lower, Quebec, Montreal, St. Francis, and Ottawa, were without preachers. Several itinerants in the upper province located; all, indeed, except Ryan, Rhodes, Whitehead, and Prindle. Those who located, however, continued to serve the Church in their respective localities, and some of the located veterans, Sawyer in Matilda, Keeler in Elizabethtown, and Dunham in Fredericksburgh, worked zealously in these and neighboring places. Methodism was thus sustained during the crisis. The Church in Quebec had no regular pastor for two years of the struggle; but a Methodist sergeant in a British regiment preached for them with much success. When his regiment was removed, a local preacher was raised up, who supplied them till the English Conference sent over pastors for Montreal and Quebec.

At the close of the contest in 1815 the Genesee Conference resumed its care of the country. Case was appointed presiding elder of Upper Canada District, Ryan of that of Lower Canada. There were now but nine circuits and twelve preachers. Montreal and Quebec were unsupplied; but the British Conference sent over three missionaries for these stations, and thus was brought on the question of territorial jurisdiction, which subsequently led to no small amount of discussion and negotiation, but was at last amicably settled with more intimate relations between the two bodies than ever existed before since the organization of the American Church. The war ended with a loss of nearly one half the membership in Canada, the returns of 1815 amounting to but one thousand seven hundred and sixty-five. But Methodism was too vital to suffer long from such a cause. The next year the Minutes show eleven circuits, with sixteen preachers, and two thousand five hundred members. They had yet but eleven churches or "meeting-houses," all built of wood except that of Montreal, which was of stone, but small. Freer scope than ever was now given to the denomination in the Canadas.

In 1817 the Genesee Conference, many of whose preachers were curious to see their foreign territory, held its session at Elizabethtown, Canada. About eighty of them assembled there, including twenty-two Canadian itinerants. Enoch George presided, and the occasion was a jubilee to the Church in the wilderness. There was daily and powerful preaching, and great revival was kindled. It was estimated that one hundred souls were awakened at the session, and a flame of religious excitement spread out among the circuits, so that an increase of one thousand four hundred members the ensuing year was attributed to this first Canadian Conference. The gospel was now preached in every English settlement of Upper Canada, for Methodism, besides its itinerants, traveling immense circuits, had a large corps of local preachers and exhorters, who were kept incessantly at work. Meanwhile the British Conference continued to send out Wesleyan missionaries. There were nine of them in the country in 1818, who extended their labors even to Toronto and the Bay of Quinte, and thus further complicated the question of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Correspondence between the American bishops and the Wesleyan Missionary Committee, London, followed; the relations of the two Churches were cordial, but unsettled in respect to Canada, and could not be adjusted till the next General Conference, when Emory was dispatched to England for the purpose.

In 1820 the Genesee Conference again met in Canada, at Niagara, the oldest town in the province. About a hundred itinerants were present, eighteen recruits were received, thirty young preachers were ordained, and one hundred and twenty-two appointed to circuits and stations. There were now in Upper Canada sixteen clergymen of the Church of England, fifteen Presbyterian and Congregational, and eighteen Baptist preachers. The Methodist itinerants (including the Wesleyan missionaries) were thirty-three, besides forty-seven local preachers, and sixty-five exhorters. [8] Many of the local preachers having been noted itinerants, continued to perform as effective work as any pastors of other nominations. The actual working ministry of Methodism must now have constituted more than one half of the pastoral supply of the province. William Case and Henry Ryan were at the head of its itinerants as presiding elders, the former on the Upper, the latter on the Lower Canada Districts. The number of Methodists in the country (including the Wesleyan charges) amounted to six thousand three hundred. They had much more than trebled in these sixteen years, though they had thus far only been planting in the wilderness, the germs of that harvest which was to yield, in our day, nearly one hundred thousand members in the various Methodist communions, and nearly a thousand traveling preachers, with Indian missions, publishing houses, periodicals, colleges, academies, and churches, many of them costly edifices, adorning the whole settled country. They were to keep pace with emigration, and reach westward to the Pacific coast; and eastward, till they should blend with the Methodism planted by Coughland, McGreary, Black, and Garrettson on the Atlantic coast, and the denomination become the most effective religious force of British North America.

The period closes then with a grand exhibit of strength and prospect for the middle and northern fields of the denomination. Not merely their numerical growth from two to three Conferences, from 40,415 to 82,215 members, and from 135 to 297 preachers, more than doubling their force in these sixteen years, in spite of secessions in Philadelphia and New York; but the intellectual advancement of their ministry, the rapid erection of church edifices, the ever memorable organization of the general Missionary Society, the beginning of periodical publications, and the recommencement of academic institutions, (all three events in New York city,) render this one of the most imposing epochs of American Methodism.

More than thirty itinerants of the middle and northern Conferences fell at their posts, by death, in these sixteen years. Besides some special cases, heretofore noticed, like those of Peter Moriarty, John McClaskey, Anning Owen, and Robert Hibbard, the obituary of the Minutes in 1805 records the name of Daniel Ryan, of Philadelphia, who died "overwhelmed with a sense of the presence and glory of God;" of Benjamin Hitt, of Bucks County, Pa., who sickened on his way from Conference, whose "happiness seemed to increase with his illness," and who died saying, "I have lost sight of the world; come, Lord Jesus, come quickly." In 1806 James Lattomus, of Delaware, who "departed in peace." In 1808 Richard Swain, of New Jersey, who, after long labors and sufferings, died "in confident peace, triumphant faith, and the smiles of a present God." In 1810 John Wilson, an Englishman, some years a preacher in the old country, from 1804 till his death Book Agent at New York, "an able divine," "conversant with the Greek and Roman classics," powerful in the pulpit, a preacher of "sanctification;" he died suddenly of suffocation by asthma. Thomas Daughaday, of Maryland, who fell in Pennsylvania, his last utterance being the words, "Glory! glory!" Thomas Budd, of New Jersey, who died in Philadelphia, harassed on his deathbed with doubts; "but the cloud suddenly burst, and his soul was filled with joy." William Keith, of Massachusetts, who died in New York city; troubled also, like Budd, and Bunyan's Pilgrim, as he approached the end, but declaring at last that "the fear of death and hell is wholly taken away and I have a hope of immortality;" a man of extreme humility and diffidence, but of great power in preaching. Gideon A. Knowlton, of Connecticut, a laborer in interior New York; he attended and helped to organize the first Genesee Conference, and returned to die, exclaiming, "I am now going to my eternal home; I know that my Redeemer liveth." In 1811 Lansford Whiting, who, after traveling three years in the state of New York and Canada, volunteered to accompany McKendree to the Western Conference, but on the way was attacked with small-pox, returned, and died in peace, a meek and useful man. In 1812 Samuel Thomas, of New Jersey, a very holy man, "yet subject to dejection, and frequently tempted and buffeted by the devil," but who died in great peace. John Smith, of Maryland, who had labored in the West. As well as the East, and departed, saying, "I am not afraid to die; I long to be dissolved and see the face of God." In 1813 John Russell, of New York city, who, on his deathbed, declared, "I have found that love which casteth out fear," and died "testifying of the comforts of the Holy Ghost." Ebenezer White, of Massachusetts, an eminent itinerant of Genesee Conference, where "he labored, traveling through storms, heat, and cold, when his infirmities indicated dissolution near;" when "not able to preach standing on his feet, he stood on his knees" proclaiming the word of God with power. He died suddenly, without a farewell word, except the text of his last sermon, which was, "There remaineth a rest for the people of God," William Mills, of New Jersey, an officer of the Revolution, some years a prisoner of war in the West Indies, a very zealous and useful preacher, and a guilless man. He fell under an attack of apoplexy while preparing to preach, and was found insensible in his chamber. Francis Ward, an Irishman, a successful preacher and good scholar, who died in peace. In 1814 Michael Coate, of New Jersey, whom we have met often, not only in the middle states, but in New England and Canada, a man of great meekness and usefulness, and a powerful preacher; tried "by inexpressible conflicts" in his last sickness, but, hearing the Scriptures read, "the power of God filled the place, and his soul was abundantly comforted," so that he departed in peace. William S. Fisher, of New Jersey, who died "crying out, Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly." To his friends he said, "All is peace within; I am going after Brother Coate." His last words in his last agony were "This once help, Lord." In 1815 John Van Schoick, of New Jersey, who died in great triumph, exclaiming, "Keep up prayer;" "come, Lord, roll on the victory; roll on the victory, holy Lord! O hasten the moment, my Lord!" and then adding, "I am going," fell asleep. Stephen Richmond, of New York, who departed, saying, "My work is done." In 1818 Joseph Totten, of Long Island, N.Y., a good and useful man, who was found dying and speechless on the ground in a garden. Daniel Moore, of Delaware, who left, as his dying testimony, the assurance that he "was going home to God." Thomas Thorp, of New Jersey, converted, as we have seen, under Marvin Richardson's first sermon on his first circuit, where young Thorp was a schoolmaster at the time. He traveled in New England, and in the Genesee Conference, and died "in peace and triumph." In 1819 Stephen Jacob, who "labored far beyond his strength, fell a martyr to his work," and departed in "holy triumph," saying, "heaven heaves in view."

Some twenty-five times did Asbury pass over the middle and northern states in the present period, penetrating once into Canada; but his notes of his routes have their usual brevity and vagueness, and admit of no satisfactory use. In his early tours he was sometimes accompanied by Whatcoat, who, however, was fast sinking under chronic maladies, and was "unable to ride"' much of the time "at a greater speed than a walk." In some of his later passages McKendree was with him, keeping good pace, and delighting him by his devout converse and eloquent preaching, for to no man, except Henry Willis, was Asbury more attached. At a session of the New York Conference, in this period, he says of McKendree, preaching, "It appeared to me as if a ray of divine glory rested upon him." Asbury, though quite broken with years and disease, still kept his rate of five or six thousand miles a year, writing often in his journal, "faint, sick, and lame." As early as 1807 he says, "We have traveled one hundred miles up the Mohawk; my feet are much swelled; I am on crutches; but I have been supported among strangers." He reaches the westmost fields of the interior preachers, the Pennsylvania valleys, and New York lakes, and organizes them into the independent Genesee Conference. He preaches there often to more than a thousand settlers, gathered in and about barns. "The swamps, sloughs, ruts, and stumps made it awful moving," he writes. He exulted, however, in the triumphs of the gospel and the prospects of the Church in these regions, and, as he rode away southward, wrote, "What hath God wrought in America! In thirty-six years we find 144,590 Methodists; our traveling preachers 536; the rest, local, about 1,400. "Not unto us, not unto us. O Lord, take thou the glory!" "My body is very feeble," he writes later, "but my soul enjoys perfect love and perfect peace." He was now, as he says, "a bishop who can neither stand to preach, nor kneel to pray;" "sick, lame, blistered," but still driving forward.

It was in 1811 that he crossed the St. Lawrence to encourage the itinerant pioneers of Canada. " Surely," he wrote, "this is a land that God the Lord hath blessed," he greeted there some of the remnants of the, first New York Methodist families, the Dulmadges, Hecks, and Emburys, spent two weeks traveling and preaching, "everywhere treated as the angel of the Churches," says Boehm, his companion, but "suffering like a martyr" from inflammatory rheumatism.

In the North as in the South he is now often reminded of the changes of time. In some places he finds only the grandchildren of his earliest hearers. He preaches the funeral sermon of his old friend Martin Boehm, and later writes out in the bereaved homestead his own "valedictory statement" for McKendree, [9] which gives evident proof that he himself is growing old, and is soon to depart. He meets the venerable McGraw, of the Protestant Episcopal Church, who had so early befriended the Methodists in Delaware, but who is now "quite broken to pieces." He finds Pilmoor old, but still at his post in Philadelphia, preaching three times a Sabbath. He has moments of profound sadness even of despondence, yet they are but moments; never before has he seemed so eager to travel; preach, and achieve well his great mission. His absorption in his work allows him to see, but hardly to feel, these changes of his life; continual suffering even cannot subdue him. "I groan one minute with pain, and shout glory the next," he writes in the summer of 1814. "I look back," he continues, "upon a martyr's life of toil and privation an pain, and I am ready for a martyr's death; the purity of my intentions, my diligence in the labors to which God has been pleased to call me, the unknown sufferings I have endured; what are all these? The merit, atonement, and righteousness of Christ alone make my plea."

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ENDNOTES

1 Peck's "Early Methodism," p. 158.

2 Smith's "Experience and Ministerial Labors," p. 116.

3 "Women of Methodism," p. 250. New York, 1806.

4 Carroll's "Past and Present," p. 230. Toronto, 1860.

5 Carroll, p. 222.

6 Playter, p. 97.

7 Minutes of 1813.

8 Letter of Case and Ryan (July 28, 1820) to Nathan Bangs. Playter, p. 191.

9 It has never been published. A copy, in thirty-four closely written duodecimo pages, is in my possession, from the papers of Rev. F. S. De Hass. It shows the decay of the bishop's intellect, being written between two and three years before his death, and contains nothing of historical importance.

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