CHAPTER IV.

RAPID PROGRESS OF METHODISM IN AMERICA.

METHODISM broke out almost simultaneously, as we have seen, in both the north and middle of the the opening continent. By the end of the Revolu tionary war it had laid securely its foundations in both regions. From these its first humble positions it was now rapidly to advance till it should dot the whole country with its temples, and growing with the growth of the population, become the predominant religious faith of the nation. Its history henceforth develops too rapidly and largely to admit of more than a few further allusions in this part of our volume; nor are its details indeed required by the plan of this brief work; for its Churches are about to commemorate its origin in America, and thus far its origin has been sketched.* In other sections of the volume we shall have occasion to present much of its remaining history in outlines of its Disciplinary and

* For its fuller history I must take the liberty of referring the reader to "The History of the Religious Movement, etc., called Methodism, 3 vols., and "The History of the Methodist Episcopal Church,” etc., 2 vols., works in which I have endeavored to gather most of the remains of its annals, and from which I have condensed much of the present volume.

Doctrinal systems. A few additional chronological and statistical statements must here suffice.

In 1773 was held its first Annual Conference, in the city of Philadelphia, consisting of 10 preachers, and reporting 1,160 members of society. In 1781 it crossed the Alleghanies and began that grand work of western evangelization, which has become the most important portion of its subsequent history, giving birth to the "old Western Confer ence," which extended from the Northern Lakes to Natchez, and every one of whose original "dis tricts" comprehends in our day several conferences. There are now, west of the Alleghanies, 33 conferences, 2,816 traveling preachers, (besides superannuates,) and nearly 438,000 members, not including the Southern and other branches of Methodism.*

In 1784 its first General Conference was held in Baltimore for the organization of "the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States of America," Dr. Thomas Coke having been ordained by Wesley a bishop, and Richard Whatcoat and Thomas Vasey elders, for the purpose of consecrating Francis Asbury a bishop over the new Church, and of ordaining other preachers to the orders of elder and deacon, that the sacraments might be administered among the scattered Societies. A system of government, with its Liturgy, Articles of Re

* Compare Appendix, Table No. III, with the Minutes.

ligion, Discipline, Hymn Book, etc., was formally adopted, and the denomination thus took precedence, in its episcopal organization, of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States. Its bishops were the first Protestant bishops of the western hemisphere.

In 1785 Freeborn Garrettson extended its labors to the northeastern British Provinces; in 1789 Jesse Lee extended them into the New England States; and in 1790 William Losee extended them into Upper Canada. In New England it was destined to become the second religious denomination in numerical strength and the first in progress, reporting in our day about a hundred thousand members, nearly a thousand preachers, at least one academy for each of its conferences, a university, and a theological school. In Canada it was destined to raise up many mighty evangelists, to keep pace with emigration, and reach westward to the Pacific, and eastward till it should blend with the Methodism planted by Coughlan, M'Geary, Black, and Garrettson on the Atlantic coast; Indian missions were to arise; Methodist chapels, many of them elegant structures, to adorn the country; a Book Concern, periodical organs, a university, and academies be provided; and Methodism, as in the United States, to become numerically the predominant faith of the people apart from the Church of England; its dif

ferent branches* reporting in our day more than a hundred thousand members and nearly one thousand traveling preachers.

Before the end of the century Methodism had planted its standards from Nova Scotia to Georgia, from the Atlantic coast to the furthest western line of emigration. It ended the century with eight Annual Conferences, or Synods, with three bishops, Coke, Asbury, and Whatcoat, with two hundred and eighty-seven traveling preachers, besides hundreds of local preachers, and with nearly sixty-five thousand church members, of whom more than thirteen thousand were Africans. In the first Annual Conference, 1773, all the preachers save one, William Watters, were foreigners; but after the first General Conference (1784) Wesley dispatched no “missionaries" to America. All his former missionaries, except Asbury and Whatcoat, had returned to Europe, or located; but American Methodism had now its native ministry, numerous and vigorous. Besides Asbury, Coke, and Whatcoat, it still retained many of the great evangelists it had thus far raised up, Garrettson, Lee, Abbott, O'Kelly, Crawford, Burke, Poythress, Bruce, Breeze, Reed, Cooper, Everett, Willis, Dickins, Ware, Brush, Moriarty, Roberts, Hull, Losee, and others. A host of mighty men,

* The Canada and other Wesleyan Conferences, and the Methodist Episcopal and New Connection Churches.