VOLUME 4
PREFACE

George I. Seney, Esq.

My Dear Sir: In committing to the press this concluding volume of the "History of the Methodist Episcopal Church," I would gratefully acknowledge my obligations to you. If I have succeeded, to any satisfactory degree, in my task, it has been largely owing to the reliefs which your kind attentions have afforded me from cares and anxieties, that would have seriously interfered with it. Your honored father appears briefly in my narrative; the first collegiately educated native preacher of his Church, except Fisk, and a man of most sterling talents and character, the friend and co-laborer of Bangs, Emory, Soule, Ostrander, Rice, and the other strong men of the second generation of American Methodist preachers, he will be one of the most interesting subjects of the later history of his denomination. The Church is happy to recognize in you the worthy son of so worthy a father. It finds, in this its third generation, the descendants of its early and heroic itinerants not only thronging its ministry, but founding, on enduring financial basis, its educational and other great institutions.

In my former work (the "History of the Religious Movement of the Eighteenth Century, called Methodism," etc.) I brought the narrative down to 1839, the Centenary of British Methodism, and designed to conclude the present work at the same period. There was no important reason, however, for the latter purpose, as American Methodism has its own distinct centenary. But it would be as inexpedient to extend the record to the latter date as to limit it to the former; our recent controversies cannot yet be satisfactorily narrated; the chief-actors in some of them are still living, the families of many of the actors in the earlier ones still survive. There is also a hopeful tendency of reunion among our denominational parties which should not be disturbed by a return, however guarded, to their old disputes. Not till years hence can the historian safely review these unfortunate events.

I have had a twofold design in this narrative first, to show the real development of Methodism on this continent, Its interior life, and its genetic conditions; for in these we must find the best reasons of its history for all time. Secondly, to keep within such chronological limits as should not require an inconvenient number of volumes, and yet should allow of a substantially complete history of the Church, of its inception, its organization, its chief personal agents, its theological and disciplinary systems, and finally those adjuncts of its practical system — Publishing, Educational, Sunday-School, and Missionary institutions which have, for the present at least, rounded, if not perfected its scheme. These, brought out in a closely consecutive record of events and character, have seemed to me the genuine constituents of such a history as the denomination now needs. I do not presume to think that I have adequately prepared for it such a history; but I have done what I could toward it. The period at which I close admits, with peculiar convenience, of this comprehensive plan. All these adjuncts of our practical system had appeared before that date; and without violence to the canons of historical writing, I have been able to trace these institutions down to our own time, estimating their original significance by their prospective results. The period also fittingly closes with the disappearance of Coke, Asbury, Whatcoat, Lee, and most of the great original leaders of the denomination from the scene, A historian, or even an epic poet, could hardly demand a more befitting denouement [conclusion — DVM] to his story, or more interesting and romantic materials for it.

What, therefore, remains unrecorded in my volumes is but the chronological continuation of the system here described, its continuous working, without much, if anything, essentially different, except a new generation of preachers, and the occasional controversies and schisms which have disturbed, but hardly impaired it, and which I trust my readers will be as happy as myself to escape.

In following my main design, of exhibiting the vital principles and workings of Methodism, I have necessarily been most minute in the earliest data, condensing as I advance toward our own times. From the peculiar organization of the Church, Methodist history is peculiarly biographic, a fact which enhances much its popular interest, but also the difficulties of the writers. Scores, if not hundreds, of personal characters are more or less sketched in these volumes; and, in order to relieve the biographical tone of the story, many are portrayed at their introduction to the ministry, others at some important event in which they took a prominent part, and still others not till their obituary in the Conference Minutes. Not a few important characters are hardly more than mentioned; they were necessarily referred to the times of their obituary record, which come after my final date; they will afford precious material for another volume, for one volume more will be necessary to bring the history down to its centenary year. I have no design of writing that volume, at least not within the next ten or fifteen years. I have gathered ample materials, for it, but they will be left in the library of the Drew Theological School for the use of some abler hand. After many years of hardest toil, and the postponement of other literary plans, my design has been accomplished as well as I feel myself able to do it; that design has been, not to exhibit the Church merely in what is sometimes called its "heroic period," but in its full maturity, its complete structure, as it stands before us today, excepting only the extension of some of its outer works. Its "heroic period," I trust, still continues, and will, while it has indefinite frontier fields to invade, its history will be equally indefinite, in continuance, at least. I gladly give way to my successors in the grateful task of recording its later triumphs.

Abel Stevens

Orienta, Mamaroneck, N. Y., July, 1867