THE CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM: A SKETCH OF ITS HISTORY, THEOLOGY, PRACTICAL PREPARED BY ORDER OF THE CENTENARY COMMITTEE OF THE GENERAL CONFERENCE OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. BY ABEL STEVENS, LL.D. WITH A STATEMENT OF THE PLAN OF THE CENTENARY CELEBRATION OF 1866, BY JOHN M'CLINTOCK, D.D. New York: PUBLISHED BY CARLTON & PORTER, 200 MULBERRY-STREET. 1866. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, by CARLTON & PORTER, in,the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. DEDICATORY PREFACE. OLIVER HOYT, Esq. MY DEAR SIR:-Aside from our personal friendship and those distinguished services which have connected your name with some of the most important interests of the Church, I deem it proper to submit this work to you as the author of the resolution, in the Cleveland meeting of the Centenary Committee, appointing me to "prepare a centenary volume, setting forth such facts and showings as should properly come within the scope of such a work;" and the Rev. Dr. M'Clintock, "to co-operate" with me "by adding a chapter embodying the action of the Centenary Committee, and reflecting the spirit which pervaded its discussions." The Committee were doubtless determined, in their choice of a writer of the proposed book, by the fact that it has been my task for a number of years to prepare for the denomination a "History of the Religious Movement of the Eighteenth Century, called Methodism," etc., and "The History of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States of America." In the familiarity with the historical facts of Methodism which these writings have afforded me, I have found, however, my chief difficulty in preparing the present volume. There is so much that is heroic, and even romantic, in the early history of Methodism, that a writer, in whose mind such data are fresh and vivid, must be perplexed to know where to stop, what to record, or, at least, what to omit. Unless he would risk the design of his work, by its magnitude and consequent high price, he must, with whatever reluctance, omit names sacredly memorable, and incidents as marvelous as any in modern religious history. I have been able to relieve myself from this embarrassment at last only by binding myself rigidly to the practical design of the volume: to the preparation of such a brief yet comprehensive exhibit of Methodism as might most directly promote the purposes of the Centenary Celebration, by showing the true character and claims of the Church, and by setting them forth in such manner that they shall be intelligible to the most uninformed reader. As stated in the Introduction, I have also avoided, as much as possible, except in the last chapter of the volume, any merely didactic treatment of its subjects, but have studied to give it throughout popular attraction and effect, by historical facts and style. The first three chapters, however, are alone in purely narrative or chrono logical form, and are such only so far as the founding of Methodism in England and America is concerned, or as they can best answer historically the question, What is Methodism? by showing its evangelical stand-point. This chronological narrative could not be further extended without making the work too large; and it must be borne in mind that it is the founding of Methodism that is to be celebrated in the Centenary Jubilee. Its subsequent results are classified and embodied in other chapters. It would seem desirable that the good and, in many instances, truly great men who have built up the denomination during its first century, should have some record in the volume, but this is obviously impossible; they have their place in its history, but this is not its history. I indulge the hope that you, and other readers, who have followed me through my larger works on Methodism, will not find this more compendious and more classified review of its first century in America uninteresting, though it must necessarily be, to a great extent, a repetition of my former data, and in some instances, with but slight modifications of style. The similar books, officially published by different branches of the denomination at its General Centenary in 1839, have been retained as manuals in their literature. I have endeavored to secure to the present volume the same advantage, by so presenting the history and official statistics of the various institutions and interests of the Church as to make the book a permanent standard for reference, affording, in the most convenient form, the chief data which may be needed by writers, preachers, or others, respecting its history, theology, discipline, literature, education, missions, Sundayschools, etc. I shall always consider it no small honor to have co-operated, however slightly, with you and your colleagues of the Centenary Committee in the onerous labors with which you have been preparing the Church for its approaching festival, an occasion which I doubt not will be rendered forever memorable. ་་་ |