USA > Florida > The History of Methodism in Georgia and Florida: From 1785 to 1865 > Part 12
USA > Georgia > The History of Methodism in Georgia and Florida: From 1785 to 1865 > Part 12
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expect an attack from this censor omnium. He did much very hard work, and did it cheerfully ; and when old age and mental weakness prevented him from doing regular and efficient service, he was always engaged in trying to do good.
IIe was wonderfully gifted in prayer, and was a man of mighty faith. IIe was as well known and as highly respected as any man of his time, for " e'en his failings leaned to virtue's side." His good wife died some time after him, and his oldest son, Jno. Wesley, himself a very useful man and a travelling preacher, passed away not long after his father.
Thomas Stanley was from Greene County. He had applied for license to preach, and recommendation to the annual conference; but, before the presiding elder left for conference, his heart failed him, and he re- quested the elder to withhold the application for admis- sion. After Lovick Pierce, his presiding elder, had gone to conference, Stanley's conscience gave him no rest, and he rode rapidly after him, and breaking down one horse, secured another, and reached the conference in time to have his name presented. IIe did good work for six years, and then located, and settled in Athens, where he was made rector of the Female Academy. While there, Athens was made a station and he was employed to take charge of it, and was thus the first stationed preacher there. During his residence his oldest son, a promising boy, died. While he bowed his head submissively, the stroke was a heavy one to him, and life was no more to him what it had been; and although he lived for a few years afterward, that blow was thought to have broken his heart. He removed to La Grange in its early settlement, and there ended his
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pilgrimage. He was a gentle, gifted, and for that day cultivated man. His piety was of the deepest nature, and he was always devoted to the church of his early love.
Nicholas Talley, who came this year to the Louisville Circuit, was one of three brothers who all entered the South Carolina Conference and did good work in it. They were Nicholas, Alexander, and Jno. Wesley ; of them only one now remains, an aged, superannuated preacher, in the South Georgia Conference. Nicholas Talley was located to preach by Dr. Lovick Pierce, when he was on the Oconee District. IIe was at the time living in Greene County. He entered upon his work and continued in it till his death fifty years afterwards. IIe was often in Georgia before the division of the South Carolina Conference. He then remained with that body, and continued to labor in it to the last. IIe was a very useful and a very solid man. The Church was always built up wherever he went. He lived in Column- bia, S. C., for many years, and was much beloved. He was an elegant old gentleman, full of grace and cour- tesy.
Lucius Q. C. De Yampert, now in his second year, was stationed in Augusta. He was from Oglethorpe County, and was of French extraction. In our chapter of Methodism in the cities we have been able to give a sketch of him, furnished by Bishop Wightman, who knew him well. As is usual in times of war, there was but little religious prosperity. Georgia was threatened by the Indians on the west, and by the English fleet on the sea-shore, and troops were drafted, and some of them called for. There was but little to report to the conference, which met in Fayetteville, N. C., January
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12, 1814. At this conference Lovick Pierce, Osborn Rogers, James E. Glenn, Joseph Travis, all of whom had labored in Georgia, were located.
Lovick Pierce had now been a married man for two years. Up to this time no man had continued long in the itinerancy after his marriage, and, indeed, it was a necessity that a married man should locate. There were no parsonages. The circuits were of immense size. There was no provision to shelter or feed his family. His promised income was only $80 per year. So well recognized was this fact, that no preacher was under any disapproval who retired, and a glad welcome always awaited him when he was able to come back. For sev- eral ycars the name of Lovick Pierce is no more seen on the minutes, and two general conferences convene, and his is not among the list of delegates. We can but deplore the sad necessity which drove him from the field at the time he was so inuch needed. . He married a Miss Foster. Her father, Col. Foster, was an energetic, active, and successful planter, and a leading member of the Church; and her brother, Col. Thos. Foster, & lawyer of distinction, and afterwards a member of Con gress. She was a woman of remarkable character, and has a right to a place in the History of the Church in Georgia. She was one of those women who labored not with Paul, but with one of Panl's successors in the Gospel, for many weary years. She had married a Methodist preacher. She loved his work, and she never impeded him in his way. A home was neces. sary, and she remained at it and brought up the children, while her faithful husband was away at his appointments. She never complained of her lot, but bore her part bravely. She deserves a place beside
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him, so honored and so loved, in the affections of the Church.
The same presiding elders were appointed at this conference to the same districts. There were but four travelling elders in the State, apart from Myers and Tarpley, and the three best workers among them, Mason, Hill, and Russell, had small stations. The circuits were left almost entirely to the charge of young and inex- perienced men.
The war, too, was upon the country still. Financial depressions, losses and anxieties, were on every hand. The Church suffered, and there was decline during the year.
In December, Bishop Asbury came on his last tour to Georgia. Sick and aged, he still worked on, and was now on his way to conference. Crossing the river at Elbert County, he met Joseph Tarpley, and they went thence to Samuel Remberts'. ITis heart was cheered with the accounts Tarpley gave him of camp-meetings on the various circuits, and while at Remberts', he re- ceived from John Early an account of that famous camp-meeting in Prince Edward County, Va., where a thousand persons were converted. IIe left Elbert and came to Athens, where he found Dr. Brown had much improved things at the college. Ile went thence to Milledgeville, stopping at John Turner's, in Hancock, Nicholas Wave's, and Bro. Holt's, and reached Milledge- ville. This was the last conference he ever attended in Georgia, and the last Hope Hull ever attended at all, as it was the first to which Jas. O. Andrew, then closing his second year, had come. Milledgeville was a spright- ly young town ten years old, the capital of the State. A church had been built, which was not yet finished,
i
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and Bishop Andrew mentions in his reminiscences that the stumps were still in the streets. Bishop Asbury was suffering much with his cough, and could barely preach, but tried to do so, and for the last time spoke to the church in Georgia, and to the preachers who loved him so well, and who now wept most of all that they should see his face no more. There were a number of valna- ble men who retired from the field-men who had done faithful work in Georgia-Jonathan Jackson, Wm. Capers, Henry D. Green, James C. Rogers and James Russell, all located, and while there were a number who entered the work, there were none among them who afterwards reached any considerable distinction. Lewis Hobbs, the beautiful Christian of whom we have spoken, who had worn out his life in hard labor in the West, died during the year.
Lewis Myers and Joseph Tarpley still continue on the districts. Milledgeville, which has been a station, ceases to have independent existences, and becomes an appointment in the Cedar Creek Circuit. There was a very small decrease in the membership, and there are evidences of a state of stagnation in church work.
The conference met in Charleston, Dec. 23, 1815. It was a sad meeting. Only once, since the South Carolina Conference was organized, had Francis Asbury ever been absent ; but now he came not, and would come no more forever. IIe, resolute to the last, had made an earnest effort to reach the conference, and had come nigh to the city, when he grew too feeble to travel farther, and reluctantly consented to remain in his sick-room. Mc- Kendree was present, and presided ; daily communica- tion was kept up between Asbury, thirty miles away, and his brethren. We know nothing, other than the
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minutes tell us, of this last conference Asbury strove to reach.
The appointments to the districts continued as they had been. A few new preachers came to the State, and Thomas Darley was sent to the Lonisville Circuit. There were a few other elders in the conference besides himself-Hill, Dickinson, IIutto, Sewell, Jno. B. Glenn, and Whitman C. Hill. The most notable man of the corps of preachers was Thomas Darley, an Englishman by birth, and had been one of Tarleton's troopers.
Of his encounter with Samuel Cowles, of Washing- ton's Legion, we have already told. By some means Darley was left in America when the English troops were withdrawn, and under the ministry of Isaac Smith he was converted. He travelled a few years, then located, then re-entered the work, and in it died. His family resided in Jefferson County, and he travelled the works to which he was sent until 1830, when he was superan- nuated. He removed to Harris, then a new county, in 1832, and died there in great peace during that year. Dunwoody says of him : "He was a powerfully awak- ening preacher, and many a hard-hearted sinner was made to quail before the convincing power of the truth." He was eminently successful in winning souls to Christ.
Among the new names which appear this year we find the familiar name of Dabney P. Jones. He was on the Broad River Circuit. He was a homely little man, of good mind, and of great sprightliness of char- acter. He travelled some years, and then located, and thus remained until his death long afterwards. He was a devoted temperance man, and an eminently success- ful worker in the cause for which he was State lec- turer. He was very popular and very useful; he 8*
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labored efficiently in the local ranks, and moving in the early settlements of the new purchase west of the Flint River, he found ample field for all his labors. IIe preached the first sermon ever preached by a Methodist in the city of Newman.
James Bellah was a junior preacher of the Sparta Circuit. He was already a married man, and had a home. He was a man of good parts, and very useful. IIe travelled many of the hardest and some of the best circuits in Georgia. IIe was a tall, slender man, of dignified and impressive look, and preached with much earnestness and pathos. IIe belonged to the third class of Methodist preachers, and was the peer of any among them. Ile came after the unmarried pioneer had laid out the fields for tillage-when there was hard work and rough work demanded, when the majority of the people were comparatively uneducated, but when the coarser features of the frontier had passed away. IIe came when married men of experi- ence were in demand, but when the Church had made no provision for their support, and who must, as he did, support themselves. IIe came from the purest motives, and labored hard, and died in the work. He was the brother of Morgan Bellah, who, the very year his health failed, took up his work where he laid it down, and who has continued a good and useful man to this day.
Elijah Bird was sent to the Saltilla Circuit. IIe was a Sonth Carolinian, a good man, possessed of marked peculiarities, but noted through a long life for his love for the Church. For many years he was local and his home was long a preachers' resting-place. IIis wife was remarkable for her saintly character, and did much to assist him in his work.
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The minutes-our only authority-tell a sad story this year, for there was a decline of over 700 members reported. As most of the preachers were young men, inexperienced in keeping records, it is probable there were statistical errors, but still the fact remains that the decline which began in 1812 still goes steadily onward.
At this conference the delegates to the general con- ference, which was to meet in May, 1816, were elected. They consisted of Lewis Myers, Daniel Asbury, Joseph Tarpley, W. M. Kennedy, Thomas Mason, Hilliard Judge, Sam'l Dunwoody, Anthony Senter, Jno. B. Glenn, James Norton, Solomon Bryan, Henry Bass, Reuben Tucker, and Alexander Talley, not one of whom are living now.
The conference adjourned, and Asbury, as soon he could, turned his face northward. IIe wished if it were God's will that he might be able to reach Baltimore by the time the general conference met in May. IIe had gone by slow stages towards Baltimore. Ile had reached Richmond, and preached his last sermon sitting upon a table in the old church there. IIe began his journey again, and in the house of a kind friend in Spottsylvania County, March 21, 1816, God gave to his beloved sleep, and Francis Asbury rested from his toils. From 1767 to 1816 he had been unwearying in his labors ; nearly fifty years he had spent in striving to win souls. IIe had worked on two continents, and had travelled more miles on horseback over America, than perhaps any man in it. He had suffered inch physical pain, for he was never at any time perfectly well. He had braved every danger and been exposed to every privation, yet he had never swerved. Than Francis Asbury a nobler soul never lived-a braver,
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truer, gentler, more unselfish ; and to no man does Georgia owe a greater debt than to him. With his death we may close this chapter and resume our story with the account of the General Conference in 1816.
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CHAPTER VII. 1816-1823.
GENERAL CONFERENCE OF 1816-NEW BISHOPS-THE CABINET-R. R. ROBERTS-CONFERENCE AT COLUMBIA-ANDREW HAMMILL-DEATH OF HULL-ASBURY-MORGAN-R. GREEN-GEORGE HILL-JNO. L. JERRY-JOHN SIMMONS-THOMAS SAMFORD-GENERAL CONFER- ENCE OF 1820-ISAAC SMITH-JNO. B. CHAPPELL-JAMES DUNWOODY -JOHN HOWARD-WM. J. PARKS-THOMAS L. WYNN-PEYTON L. WADE-ELIJAH SINCLAIR-CONSTANT DECLINE-CAUSE OF IT.
THE General Conference met in May, 1816, in Balti- more. McKendree, the only Bishop living, was present and presided. This was an interesting and an impor- tant session. The dread of episcopal power seems to have been growing, and the same spirit which had called forth the effort to make the presiding elder's office elective, for the protection of the travelling preachers, now gave being to a petition from certain local preachers in Georgia, for redress of grievances. Who these were we do not know; but we may conjecture that Epps Tucker and Britton Capel, who afterwards united with the Methodist Protestant Church, and were strong men, were the leaders in the movement. The right to deacons' and elders' orders had already been accorded to the class petitioning, but this memorial asked for representation for them in the Annual Con- ferences, and the privilege of having salaries for their ministerial services .* This was probably the first ap-
* General Conference Journals.
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pearance of that cloud which burst forth in such a storm six years later. The usual committees were elected, and Lewis Myers was placed on his old com- mittee on Episcopacy. Again the question of electing presiding elders was up on a motion from New Eng- land. After a very prolonged discussion the vote was taken, and the motion lost by a large majority.
Two additional Bishops were elected-Enoch George and R. R. Roberts. The amount to be allowed a trav- elling preacher was increased from $80 to $100 per annum, and for the first time it was required of the charges that provision should be made for the family sustenance of the preachers. A course of reading and study was recommended for candidates for membership in the conference .*
A committee was appointed, called the Committee of Safety. It consisted of Joshua Soule, Enoch George, and Samuel Parker. The report of this committee is an interesting document. The committee found the Church infected with many heresies. Pelagianism and Socinianism were preached in many of the societies. The discipline was not properly enforced. Pews were sold. The civil law was used to collect ministerial sup- port ; this was evidently in New England, though not so stated. The rule on dress was disregarded. Some preachers were arbitrary in administering discipline. The circuits were too small, and there was too great a tendency to confine ministerial labor entirely to the Sabbath.
A Methodist magazine was again ordered, which be- gan its life in 1818.
* Journala
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IN GEORGIA AND FLORIDA, 1785-1865.
James Axley brought forward his favorite measure to forbid the members of the Church from distilling and selling whiskey, and at last he had a resolution passed forbidding preachers from doing it. At this conference the report of the committee on the vexed question of slavery was carried after a motion of concurrence had been made by George Pickering, a leading member from New England. This resolution was as follows : " Therefore, no slaveholder shall be eligible to any offi- cial station in our church hereafter, where the laws of the State in which he lives will admit of emancipation, and permits the liberated slave to enjoy freedom." This resolution was long known as the compromise measure, and was the cause of much after-discussion.
The Book Concern, though it had grown from nothing in 1796 to a capital of $80,000 in 1816, was somewhat embarrassed; a change of officers was made, and .Joshua Soule and Thomas Mason, who had travelled in Geor- gia, were elected agents. On the 24th of May, 1816, the conference adjourned .*
With the death of Asbury, and the senior episcopacy of McKendree, some very silent but important changes entered into episcopal methods. From that time the cabinet, as the assembly of the presiding elders and Bishops was called, became an institution. Asbury con- sulted no one in making his appointments. He knew every part of the work ; he knew every preacher ; he had great and not unwarranted confidence in his own judg- ment ; he had been invested with this almost absolute anthority when the Church was small and the preachers few, and, conscious of purity in its exercise, he was un-
* Journals.
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willing to surrender any part of it. But McKendree, with more caution and better judgment, clearly saw that appointments could not be wisely made by the mere motion of any one man's mind, and he felt the need of and called for consultation with the elders ; from this time it became a fixed custom. To many of our readers, unfamiliar with the mode of making appoint- ments at conference, an explanation of the manner of making them may not be uninteresting.
The Bishop calls the presiding elders into secret ses- sion soon after the meeting of the conference. In this council each presiding elder is the guardian of his own district, secing after the interests of both preachers and churches under his care. He states to the Bishop and the council what he thinks is best for the Church in his district ; what circuits shall be formed; what stations established ; what preachers shall be changed, and where they shall be placed. The whole council consider the matter and make suggestions. The Bishop sits as um- pire, and, after making his own views known, makes the final decision.
McKendree was now almost an old man. Years of the hardest work had worn him down, and though he was still a stronger man than Asbury had been for many years, he was by no means vigorous. Enoch George and R. R. Roberts, two men of full strength and in middle life, were now his colleagues.
Roberts was a Western Marylander, who had spent his youth in the wilds of Western Pennsylvania. He was a mighty hunter and loved the frontier and frontiers- men with all their ways. He had been converted carly, and had early begun to preach. His preaching was of high order, and he especially evinced fine administra-
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tive qualities, and after having been a presiding elder, was selected at the General Conference of 1816 for Bishop. He was a man of large brain, large body, and large heart. Ile removed, after his election to the Episcopacy, to the wilds of Indiana, and lived and died in a log-cabin. His modesty was of the highest order, and the story of some of the most striking manifesta- tions of it has been carefully preserved. One of these had its scene in South Carolina, and Travis knew the preacher concerned in it .* Roberts, on his way to con- ference, had reached the home of a Methodist in South Carolina, after dark one evening. The family had al- ready supped. The Bishop made the ordinary request of a benighted stranger for lodging ; this was granted, and he came in. Ile was a man of huge form, was dressed very plainly, and had nothing about him that betokened a man of position. The family were in a pleasant mood ; the young preacher, a sprightly and agreeable man, was with them, and the Bishop was expected. The hours passed merrily by, but the Bishop did not come; the quiet stranger in the corner did not receive much attention, and when the hour came for retiring he went to his room. In a little while the young preacher followed. He found the old man on his knees in prayer and became assured that he was a Christian. When he arose from prayer he said to him :
"You are a member of the Church ?"
" Yes, sir."
" Which way are you travelling ? "
" To Columbia."
* Travis' Autobiography.
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" Why, that is where our conference meets ; we are expecting the Bishop; do you know him ?"
"Yes, sir; I travelled with him."
" Why ! did you ? What is your name ?"
" Roberts."
" Roberts ! why, not Bishop Roberts ?"
" Well, that's what they call me."
The young preacher insisted upon calling the family up and having supper, but the Bishop would not con- sent, nor would he allow him to make him known. The next morning the Bishop left, and when he met his young brother in Columbia he was especially kind to him.
The conference met at Columbia, December 25, 1816. Bishops McKendree and George were present. Bishop George had visited his old friends in Georgia, and now joined Mckendree at Columbia. McKendree had made his journey through the Cherokee Nation to the seat of the conference .* There was considerable change, as there always had been, among the Georgia preachers, but none in the shape of the work; church affairs were moving in the old ruts.
Charles Dickinson was appointed to the Ocmulgee Circuit. "It was," says Dunwoody, "a large and labo- rious circuit, consisting of twenty-eight appointments for twenty-eight days. It included Twiggs, Wilkinson, parts of Jones and Pulaski Counties. The rides were long-a distance of from twelve to eighteen miles was between them." Dickinson needed a helper, and Lewis Myers employed James Dunwoody, the younger brother of Samuel Dunwoody, to assist him. There were some
. McKondree's Life.
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parts of the circuit in Twiggs, where the population was considerable and the people wealthy; but in the larger part of the work the people were few and very poor. Charles Dickinson was a good man, of no great gifts,* but full of zeal and of very deep piety. lle only trar- elled a few years, when he was taken sick at his home in Washington County, where he died in great peace. t
Whitman C. IIill had with him on the Little River Circuit a young man who was to do great and good work for the Church. This was Andrew Hammill. Ile was from South Carolina, and was of Irish descent; he had been early a Christian, entered the conference at twenty years old, and travelled for nearly eighteen years, when he died. IIe was a man of remarkable gentleness and piety, a diligent student, and distinguished for the purity and clearness of his style as a preacher. We shall often see him in the progress of this history, since he was from this time to that of his death con- stantly engaged in the Georgia work.#
Anderson Ray, who was this year on the Warren Cir- cuit, was for a long time a useful travelling and local preacher. IIe was a man of moderate gifts, but of great industry and piety. The corps of preachers in Georgia was not at this time remarkable for mental power. There were some men of excellent capacities, but the most of the preachers were young and inexpe- rienced men, of ordinary ability, and either from this or some other cause to us unknown the Church continued to lose ground, and a further decrease of 500 members was reported this year. The next conference was to meet in January, 1818, and was to have met in Louis-
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