Memorials of the early progress of Methodism in the eastern states : comprising biographical notices of its preachers, sketches of its primitive churches, and reminiscences of its early struggles and successes : second series

Front matter

li OL'iN '

Cornell University Library

The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library.

Contents

CHAPTER I. — Introduction. — Methodism in the laat Century. — Theology of New England. — Ecclesiastical Institutions. — Declension of vital Keligion, — The Methodist Ministry. — Asbury. — Lee. — Pickering. — Religious Inquiry. — Spirituality of Methodism. ■ — Its Modes of Worship. — Its Hymnology, .... 9

CHAPTER II. — Ecclesiastical "Sear 1800-1. —General Conference of 1800. — New England Conference. — Previous Conferences in New York and New England.— Lee a Candidate for the Episcopal Ofl5ce. — He reenters New England.

— Asbury and Whalcoat in New England. — General Lippet, 25

Introduction

Methodism in the last Century. — Theology of New England. — Ecclesiastical Institutions. — Declension of vital Religion.- — The Methodist Ministry. — Aebury. — Lee. — Pickering, — Keligious Inquiry. — Spirituality of Methodism. — Its Modes of Worship. — Its Hymnology.

We have traced, in a former work, the introduction of Methodism into New England, from the time (1789) when Jesse Lee commenced his mission, by proclaiming on the highway at Norwalk. Conn., "Ye must be bom again," down to the close of the eighteenth century.* The ecclesiastical year 1800-1 is the appropriate epoch for the resumption of our narrative, — not only because it begins a new century, and is the date of the organization of the New England Conference, by its separation from that of New York; but also because what may properly be called the introduction of Methodism into the Eastern States had then been completed, and its remaining history is the record of successful progress, rather than of preliminary struggles.

We propose, then, in returning, at this date, to our task, to record such memorials of the progress of the denomination, in the early part of the present century, as we may be able to gather from the scattered and fast evanescing data which still remain within our reach.

It may not, however, be out of place, before entering upon our subsequent narrative, and while yet standing between the two

* Memorials of the Introduction of Methodism into the Eastern Statas, &c. Peirce, Boston ; Scott & Lane, New York.

centuries, — the introductory struggles and more regular progress of our cause, — to re-survey those preparatory years of labor and sacrifice — their successful results, and the conditions which affected, favorably or unfavorably, those results.

Lee spent three months of incessant travel and labor before he succeeded in forming his first Class ; and formed it, at last, of but three "elect ladies." Three months more passed before the second Class was organized ; and this consisted of but two members. The prospect was most discouraging and repulsive. In selecting Connecticut as the first scene of his operations, he chose the most impracticable portion of the whole field before him ; for no part of New England was more thoroughly prepossessed by the traditional sentiments of the Puritans, or more completely controlled by the rigid but simple mechanism of their ecclesiastical organization. He was not only denied, generally, the use of the parish pulpits, but sometimes had, himself, to light up the school-houses and court-rooms in which he preached, and ring the bell to announce the time and place of the service. Looked upon as a dangerous fanatic, he was frequently refused even the usual hospitalities of the community ; and repeated his visits in some instances as often as three times, before any one invited him home, or even accosted him in the common language of courtesy. The pulpits assailed him, and his few coadjutors, as " wolves in sheep's clothing ;" and if their rustic hearers admitted them to their domestic hospitalities, it was, not unfrequently, to dispute with them about " principles," and to dismiss them as incorrigible heretics, to be received no more. Of all extant illustrations of that theological rigor which deformed so much not only the religious but the social life of our fathers, we know of none more chiUing than the brief, unexaggerated, but ever-recurring notices of Lee's receptions, recorded in his journals.

His determination conquered these grievous difficulties. In three months he had formed the first Methodist circuit in New England, comprising a reach of country which is now interspersed with scores of flourishing churches. In about seven months the third Class was organized, consisting of but four persons. After eight months of invincible persistence in his

INTRODUCTION. 11

solitary labors, and through mortifying treatment, three additional laborers, Jacob Brush, Daniel Smith and George Roberts, "men of might," from Maryland, entered the field, as his companions in labor and suffering ; and the faithful pioneer describes significantly, though briefly, the emotions with which he hailed their approach : " When I saw them riding up, I stood and looked at them, and could say from my heart, ' Thou hast well done that thou art come.' No one knows, but God and myself, what comfort and joy I felt at their arrival. Surely the Lord has had respect unto my prayers, and granted my request.' Relieved by this timely aid, Lee immediately commenced a comprehensive survey of the whole New England field, preaching, day and night, as he went; and the first ecclesiastical year (of about sixteen months) closed, with four, laborers in the field; two hundred members in the church; two chapels, at least, erected; one district and five circuits formed; Connecticut, Rhode Island and Eastern Massachusetts, definitely surveyed for more systematic labors, and the principles of Methodism proclaimed by Lee himself in all the New England States.

The next Conference year included only about eight months ; but during that period Lee preached at most of his former appointments in Connecticut; traversed, with incessant labors, the eastern part of Massachusetts ; founded, in Lynn, the first Methodist society of that state, consisting of about sixty members, and succeeded, after repeated and prolonged and almost insurmountable failures, in permanently introducing Methodism into the metropolis. His colleagues, in the west of New England, had also been successful ; and at the Conference, held in New York city, six circuits were reported, containing four hundred and eighty-one church-members, being a gain of about three hundred in eight months. Methodism had taken permanent root in New England ; and the following year began with one district, six circuits, — four in Connecticut and two in Massachusetts, — eleven circuit preachers, and one presiding elder. Lee, as leader of the little band, travelled in Rhode Island, Massachusetts east and west, and New Hampshire. Asbury deemed the new field important enough by this time for an episcopal visit I and passed over Connecticut, Rhode Island and Eastern Massachusetts, preaching daily, and counselling and inspiriting his laborious itinerants. Special revivals cheered them this year; and they reported, at its close, three additional circuits, and thirteen hundred and fifty-eight members, giving an increase of eight hundred and seventy-seven. The first chapel in Massachusetts vras erected in Lynn ; the first Class in Boston, comprising fifteen members, and the first circuit in Ehode Island, were formed. During the ensuing Conference year (1792-3), the infant church continued to advance. The first New England Conference was held in the first and still unfinished chapel of Methodism in Massachusetts. Eighteen itinerants travelled the Eastern States, and the year closed with returns of seventeen hundred and thirty-nine members, an advance of more than one-fourth on the returns of the preceding year. All the circuits, except one, reported an increase, and four circuits made returns for the first time. The first returns from the State of Ehode Island were made. Three years had not yet passed since the formation of the first society at Stratfield, Connecticut; but the average gain of the struggling cause had been four hundred and thirty-five per year. The year ITQS-d began with two Conferences in New England (at Lynn and Tolland), and five additional circuits ; the Province of Maine was added to the systematic plan of labor ; the itinerant band comprised twentyfwe evangelists, and among them was the first native Methodist preacher in New England — a youth whose subsequent life and hoary years did not detract from the peculiar and honorable distinction. The year closed with an addition of one-fourth to the number of circuits, and three hundred to the returns of members.

Thus closed the first five years of the history of Methodism in New England. The next year commenced with the addition of New Hampshire and Vermont to the regular itinerant work. The ecclesiastical field included two districts, and a part of a third ; eighteen circuits, an increase of five ; and thirty preachers, Jive more than were appointed the preceding year ; and, though a year of adversity and loss in the general church, it closed with

INTKODUCTION. 13

an increase in New England of five hundred and thirty-six members. The first Methodist chapel in Maine had been erected ; and from that province, though without a society at the beginning of the year, its solitary itinerant returned three hundred and eighteen members.

The ensuing year (1795-6) was one of severe conflict, and some reverses. It began with no increase of circuits or laborers, and closed with a decrease of fifty-six members ; but the ecclesiastical plans of the infant cause were brought into more thorough organization, and its general interests were invigorated ; two new circuits were formed in Maine, and extended systematic arrangements adopted for both Vermont and New Hampshire. From Norwalk in Connecticut to the Penobscot in Maine, and from Provincetown in Massachusetts to Montpelier in Vermont, Methodism had established its powerful itinerant system.

The year 1796-7 began with twenty-one circuits, and thirty-one preachers ; and the returns, at its close, show an aggregate membership of three thousand — an increase for the year of four hundred and eighty, being about one-fourth the gains of the whole denomination during that period. There was an addition of three new circuits, though the numerical gain appears by the minutes to have been but one, owing to the incorporation of two former circuits into neighboring appointments. The following year was the most prosperous one yet enjoyed in the east by the new evangelists ; they did not increase much the number of circuits, but extended them greatly. Several chapels were erected, many new societies were formed, and wide-spread revivals took place. Vermont yielded its first returns of members, and the whole returns for New England amounted to four thousand one hundred and fifty-five, a gain of twelve hundred and sixteen, or more than one-third, on those of the previous year. The increase in New England was more than three times as great as that of the rest of the church, in both the republic and Canada. A band of at least twenty-five local preachers had been raised up ; and all the New England States, for the first time, were reported among the returns of the denomination. 2

The year 1798-9 was distinguished by the session of the first Conference in Maine, in which state Methodism had taken deep root. The itinerant corps in New England now included a host of men, of no ordinary character and talent ; and their labors, pursued with scarcely the intermission of a day, spread the doctrines of Methodism in all directions. Extended revivals occurred during the year, especially on the recent circuits in Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire. Three new circuits were formed in Vermont alone. The aggregate membership at the end of the year was about five thousand ; the increase about eight hundred — more than two-thirds of the gains of the whole denomination in the same period.

At the Conference for the ecclesiastical year 1799-1800, five new appointments were made in the Eastern States — four circuits and one station. The first decade of Methodism in New England had closed, and the results were three districts, and a large portion of a fourth, which reached into its limits, from the State of New York ; about thirty circuits, more than forty preachers, and about jwe thousand members. The average increase of its circuits had been three per year, its itinerant ministers four, its membership five hundred,. The ensuing Conference year closed the century, and what we have chosen to consider the introductory labors of Methodism in the east. It was distinguished by the addition to the ministry of an apostolic band of twelve itinerants, and by extensive revivals of religion ; nearly every section of the new field was favored with success. Another circuit was formed in Ehode Island. Considerable additions were made to the church in Connecticut. In Massachusetts there were local declensions, but great general advancement; the first returns of members from Nantucket were reported in the minutes, amounting to sixty-five; and on one of the western circuits of the state, no less than one hundred and eighty were received into the societies. A new circuit was organized in New Hampshire. The small but heroic band of laborers in Maine passed through severe struggles ; both the pulpit and the press attacked it. One of its hardy laborers, the devoted Joshua Taylor, was mobbed, and drummed with

INTRODUCTION. 15

tin kett\es out of Castine ; yet the persecuted cause advanced, extensive revivals prevailed, and large additions were made to the church. The evangelists in Vermont met virith extraordinary success ; a new circuit was added to their field of labor, and nearly five hundred members to their societies. About four years had passed since the first regular itinerant preaching of the new denomination began in that state ; now there were about deven hundred Methodists within its limits ; they had nearly quadrupled in three years.

Methodism had laid substantially its foundations in all the New England States. Its itinerants had extended their regular labors from Fairfield, in Connecticut, to the remotest settlement of Maine, and from the southernmost islands of Massachusetts to St. Albans, in Vermont. They assumed the confidence, the certainty, of permanent success; they had established their cause for ages, for all future time, as they believed ; and at the close of these eleven years, it included four districts, thirty-one circuits, nearly fifty itinerant preachers, and nearly five thousand members, — an average of one hundred and twenty to each preacher.

Such, then, was the introductory progress of Methodism in New England. Comparatively insignificant as it may appear at this day, it was great, and even signal, in those times.

It may not be uninteresting to view, in connection with these results, some of the conditions which promoted or retarded them.

Doubtless the traditional theology of New England was the chief difficulty with which the new denomination had to contend. No population had ever, perhaps, been more generally imbued with dogmatic religious ideas. The primitive rigor of theological opinion in these states had begun to relax, especially since the Revolution ; but it is difficult for a people of a common and almost unmixed lineage to throw off, generally, the sentiments of their early national education. If all did not believe the prevalent theology, yet all were familiar with it, and were prepared by it to repel the Methodistic doctrines, as novelties, if not fatal heresies. The Methodist pioneers, while they occasionally met with earnest and inquiring minds, who had not found repose in the Puritan theology, and who welcomed a more liberal and more vital faith, were nevertheless beset in all their travels by theological assailants. Even the popular mind had acquired from the system of Calvin a habit of metaphysical subtilty, and the new comers found themselves compelled often to waive their more express and vital themes of preaching, and enter the arena of polemics. Lee's journals abound in ludicrous notices of such rencontres, and they were so common as to produce a characteristic effect on our first ministry ; though it was composed of " flaming witnesses " of the great doctrines of spiritual religion, yet was it notable for its downright polemical power, and its skill in the Genevan controversy. They had the sagacity to perceive, in the outset, that no compromise could be made between the polemics of the two systems, and that any success obtained by concession must be but temporary ; they therefore accepted at once the challenge of their theological opponents, and perseveringly rebutted the Calvinistic dogmas, courageously enduring, till they vanquished, the hostility which such a course could not fail to provoke.

These adverse opinions had the additional influence of a simple but well-organized ecclesiastical system. Congregationalism has little apparent machinery ; but its colonial prevalence in New England had extended it everywhere over the Eastern States in a net-work of related parishes — related to each other by a common relation to the state, as well as by common religious interests. Every town, village and hamlet, had its ecclesiastical provisions and regulations, The chief characteristics, in fact, of the civic and domestic life of New England, grew out of its ecclesiastical institutions and theological education. The "meeting-house" was not only universal ; it had precedence in its erection, and in the eligibility of its site, before tlie school-house or the court-house, and the clergyman predominated, in public respect and influence, over all other functionaries. A most favorable indication did these facts present, notwithstanding many attributes of ecclesiastical rigor, polemical bigotry, and social as well as religious intolerance. But though such was the prevalence

INTKODUCTrON. 17

of religious ideas and ecclesiastical provisions, the new evangelists felt themselves justified in entering the Eastern States, by the general declension of spiritual religion which had befallen the Puritan churches. The decay of piety was, as we have heretofore seen,* profound and universal, and began to develop its usual results of both doctrinal and practical corruption. The mission of Methodism, as recognized by its adherents, was the revival of personal religion in the world, — the spread of Scriptural holiness over Christian lands, more than the propagation of Christianity in heathen countries ; the plans of Wesley himself even extended not beyond this design. The Methodist Itinerants came preaching repentance and holiness of heart and life ; but notwithstanding the directly spiritual purpose of their labors, the settled clergy everywhere met them vdth opposition ; they were beset on every hand with, and often entangled in, the web of the established ecclesiastical arrangements. Disregarding the minutely defined parish boundaries, they were rebuked, and often repelled with astonishment, as unscrupulous intruders. Religious taxes, though somewhat modified since the Revolution, were still in force, and the converts to Methodism were refused recognition as an independent religious body ; they were forced to pay tribute to their persecutors, their cattle were driven to the auctioneer's stand, and they themselves cast into prison, for refusing to support a creed at which both their hearts and their understandings revolted.

Still more effectually adverse to them than these direct results of the established religious system, was the moral advantage which the churches and pastors of the latter had above them, by a long and well-endowed respectability, that could not but be contrasted by the popular mind with the poverty and obscurity of the new " sect everywhere spoken against." Custom is more ppvverful than law ; and fashion, with its all-controlling influence, is but habitual custom. The established religion had the advantage of this unequalled power, though generally destitute of vital influence over the popular mind, and not a little impaired in the hold of its doctrines on the popular understanding. The " minis-

* Mem. of lot, of Methodism, chap. n..

2* ter," and " deacon," and " squire," were at once the representatives of the respectability and of the Congregationalism of the village. The dissenting sects which had dared furtively to intrude into the parish bounds had gathered to themselves usually only a few of the poor and unpretending class. What, then, could be the reception of these itinerant fanatics, as they were deemed ? what the consideration of a sect which met in barns, court-rooms, or farm-house kitchens, whose clergy, notwithstanding their acknowledged talents, had not learning (then more indispensably associated with the sacred office than now), and whose people were gathered chiefly from among citizens, the circumstances or pretensions of whom were too humble to render important to them the public sentiment or village vogue ?

The declension of personal religion to which we have alluded, while it was a reason for the labors of the new evangelists, was also one of the impfediments in their way. Their distinctive sentiments were principally such as related to inward religion — direct and immediate conversion ^ vital piety, of which external observances and even practical morals were not so much the substance as the fruit and evidence; this -Witness of the Spirit, giving to the devout mind comfortable assurance of acceptance with God ; Sanctification, which, under the Scriptural name of "Perfection," taught an entire consecration of heart and life ; the final danger of backslidden professors of the faith (a doctrine everywhere repelled), — these were tenets to win the interest of those who, here and there, were hungering and thirsting after righteousness, but not to conciliate either the mass of formal adherents to the predominant worship, or even the eccentric or discontented few who, in every community, are always found ready for changes.

We would not depreciate the true condition of the New England church at this period. It unquestionably possessed a very salutary and almost omnipresent influence over the popular mind ; but the Revolution, with all its advantages, had introduced general irreligion, and a fearful relaxation of morals. One immorality alone threatened a general desolation of society, and had placed the marks of its ravages on almost every

INTKODUCTION. 19

village ; — the prospect was that we were becoming a nation of drunkards. While the exterior observances of religion had become too habitual to be readily cast off, and the traditional theology was, as we have stated, universally known and generally avowed, infidel tendencies, nevertheless, were beginning to develop themselves, A mis-called Arminianism, quite anti-evangelical in its character, and alarming to the more devout clergy of the time, was rapidly infecting the public mind. Socinianism, or at least the Arianisra of later times, had already germinated ; and Universalism, always in this country more practically than theoretically corrupt, had taken obscure root in the church generally ; both these forms of error in a few years assumed an independent and organic existence.

Revivals of religion had once prevailed in New England, but none of any importance had been known within a half-century before Lee's arrival. The great religious interest produced by Whitefield's visits had not only long since subsided, but had been defeated, to a considerable extent, by public and formal opposition from the clergy. Edwards' revival labors had been attended by a hostile reaction; he was dismissed from the scene of his apostolic ministry in Northampton, and retired to labor among the Stoclibridge Indians, and to die out of New England. While, therefore, the traditional religious ideas and usages were yet prevalent enough to oppose everywhere the pioneers of Methodism, irreligion and heretical tendencies also obstructed their course. They presented a hostile aspect to both, and made no compromise with either. Yet, as we have seen, they advanced into the new field with a success which must be pronounced quite extraordinary, under these inauspicious circumstances.

Let us look now at some of the conditions which favored their success.

An important reason for it was, doubtless, the really great character of the men who composed the first Methodist ministry in New England. It may be questioned whether our subsequent ministry in the Eastern States, or any other portion of the church, has equalled in substantial ability the Methodist Itinerants who entered New England before the end of the eighteenth century. Their successors have had more literary training, but this has not yet been sufficiently thorough and general to give them a marked distinction from their fathers ; while, on the other hand, the latter had the stem and effective education of extraordinary circumstances, — such circumstances as could not fail to convert them into heroes, or drive them individually from the field.

Asbury was one of the most sagacious of men. He appreciated the difficulties of the new cause in the east, and showed his sagacity in the selection of evangelists for it. Most of them were men of remarkable talents and character, — Lee, Roberts, Smith, Bloodgood, Mills, Hunt, Taylor, Mudge, Pickering, Ostrander, Mitchell, McCoombs, Brodhead, Merritt, Sabin, Bostwick, Beauchamp, Soule, Hedding, Webb, Kibby, and many others who were " giants in those days." Such of them as have survived till our day have, amidst the infirmities of old age, stood prominently in the church for their extraordinary traits. Some of them were distinguished by marvellous natural eloquence, the effects of which on popular assemblies have seldom been equalled in our times; others were noted for polemical shrewdness and successful championship against the theological metaphysics of their day. If they were not the best scholars, they were, as a body, the best theologians, our ministry has yet had.

They were, with scarcely an exception, men of indomitable energy. We doubt, indeed, whether they have been exceeded in their labors and travels in any age of the church. Asbury, their superintendent, preached, upon an average, one sermon a day for fifty years, besides incessant other public labors ; he surpassed Wesley in his ministerial journeys. His travels more than averaged 6000 miles a year, and equalled the circumference of the globe every four years. And these were to a great extent performed on horseback, and over the new roads of our frontier wildernesses. All New England was but one circuit under Lee ; and he actually preached in all its states, during his first year. When others came to his help, it was but one District under his Presiding Eldership. He often travelled with two horses, leading one for a relay when the other should

INTRODUCTION. 21

be fatigued. Pickering's district, as Presiding Elder, at the end of the century, began at Providence, extended down the Providence river, taking in the circuits on each side to Newport ; thence it reached to the islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, thence over the whole of Cape Cod, and returning took in all the eastern portion of Massachusetts, and all the interior circuits of the state, except one on its western extremity, and penetrated through New Hampshire, to beyond the centre of Vermont. Many of the earlier circuits were 500 miles in compass, and often, with daily travelling, required six weeks to supply their appointments. With these vast fields of travel they combined continual preaching, exhortation, and Class leading. They averaged two sermons a day (three on the Sabbath), besides a class or prayer meeting almost daily.

Their continual change of air, and exercise on horseback, were favorable to health ; and it was not unusual to meet among them men of extraordinary robustness ; yet most of them suffered from excessive labors, poor shelter in the cabins of the wilderness, the fatigue of night preaching, and travels through the storms of winter. Catarrh, asthma, bleeding of the lungs and pulmonary consumption, were common diseases among them, and often compelled them to " locate." Of 650 travelling preachers, who had been on the Minutes in the United States by the end of the last century, about 500 died located, and many of the remainder were a longer or shorter time in the local ranks, but were able to resume their ministerial travels, and died in the " regular work." There are, indeed, very few of our elder ministry still lingering among us, who wear not the marks of their early sufferings, the honorable scars of their evangelical heroism. Our Conference records show a host of martyrs, if not to persecution, yet at leasl to devotion to the ministerial mission. The tables of mortality scarcely afford a parallel. From 1773 to 1846, there died in the Itinerant ministry of the M. E. Church 737 preachers, beside? the large proportion who, as we have just seen, must have died, during that period, in a local relation to the ministry. The ages at which these recorded deaths occurred furnish a striking evidence of the peril to health and life which attended the Itinerant

MEMORIALS OF METHODISM.

work. There were among them 41 who died between 20 and 25 years of age ; 203 between 25 and 35 ; 121 between 35 and 45 ; 88 between 45 and 60 ; 42 between 60 and 70 ; 35 between 70 and 80, and 9 between 80 and 91. Nearly half of all whose deaths are recorded fell before they were 30 years old. These facts become doubly startling when we learn the very short periods of service which these self-sacrificing men were enabled to endure. The time spent in the Itinerant work by 672 has been ascertained : 199 spent from 2 to 5 years ; 209 from 5 to 12 ; 129 &om 12 to 25 ; 90 from 25 to 40 ; 32 from 40 to 50 ; and 13 from 50 to 61. About two-thirds died after twelve years' Itinerant service.*

Men of such talents and such devotion could not fail of success. The popular mind, however disposed at first to be merry at them, as eccentric or fanatic wanderers, soon came to recognize them as apostles and " sons of thunder." And despite all the prestige of the established church, and the machinery of its opposition, they left an abiding impression on all their extended courses, and, as we have seen, in ten or eleven years had founded Methodism forever in the Eastern States.

The spirit of speculative inquiry to which we have referred as in part adverse to Methodism, by reason of the heresies which it had been gradually introducing, was not without a favorable effect also. Many minds, revolting from the severities of the Calvinistic theology, had not yet seized on the errors of Socinianism or Universalism, but were prepared for views more liberal than the prevalent creSd, and yet as evangelical. Methodism met their demand. The most rigid dogmas of Calvinism had been taught them ; even the damnation of infants, a logical result of Calvinism not usually avowed in our day, was then an item in the elementary instruction of the schools.! Independent minds, thinking for themselves and rejecting such tenets as inadmissible, if not blasphemous — and self-distrusting ones, sink-