USA > Florida > The History of Methodism in Georgia and Florida: From 1785 to 1865 > Part 35
USA > Georgia > The History of Methodism in Georgia and Florida: From 1785 to 1865 > Part 35
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The first Sunday-school among the Methodists of which we can find trace was established in Milledge- ville, by Sam'l M. Meek, in 1811. The second of which we get a view was in Shiloh, Jackson County, and the father of Jesse Boring was its superintendent. He was a remarkable father of some remarkable children. IIe had grown to manhood without even learning to read, and was a married man with children large enough to go to school, before he had an opportunity for securing even elementary education. He went regularly with his children to school and learned to read. He im- proved his mind rapidly, and afterwards represented the county of Gwinnett for several years in the legisla- ture. He superintended the first country school of which we can find any mention.
In 1820 a school in Savannah was established, and abont the same time one was established in Augusta, which was on the union plan. In 1831, James O. An- drew and Lovick Pierce brought the subject prominently before the Georgia Conference, and a new impetus was given to the work. In all the stations and in the country villages Sunday-schools were established. The catechism and spelling-book and an abridged hymn- book, with Bibles, constituted the outfit for work, and 22*
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the schools were far from being as attractive as they are now. The size of the circuits, the want of acquaint- ance with the mode of conducting thein, and the failure to recognize the importance of them, caused this work to be much neglected in the country ; but steadily there has been an improvement, and the Sunday-schools of Georgia connected with the M. E. Church South num- bered at the conference of 1876, in the North Georgia alone, 571 schools, with 29,296 scholars, and $5,807.11 raised to meet the expense of conducting them.
The leading men and women of the Church in the State are connected with them, and thousands of the children are converted annually. In all the circuits and stations they exist and afford a place for lay-work- ers to put forth all their powers for good.
The Methodist Episcopal Church has always been a missionary church, but an organized society for the pur- pose of establishing and sustaining missions was not founded until the year 1819. From April, 1819, to April, 1820, the total amount of disposable funds re- ported was $2,658.162. During the four years from 1819 to 1823 the whole amount collected was $14,716, much less than one conference often in one year now contributes. Of this the South Carolina Conference contributed in one year $1,374. In 1821 the South Carolina Conference Missionary Society was organized, and held its first anniversary in Augusta in 1822. The officers were: Lewis Myers, President; W. M. Ken- nedy, James Norton, Vice-Presidents; Wm. Capers, Corresponding Secretary ; John Howard, Secretary, and Whitman C. Hill, Treasurer. The total receipts for the year were $443.732. One mission in Ohio, among the Wyandots, was established by the parent society, and
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the second mission established in the world by this afterwards great society was among the Creek Indians at Fort Mitchell, seven or eight miles from Columbus, in the then new State of Alabama. To Wm. Capers was delegated the office of establishing it. On the 19th of August, 1821, Capers left Augusta for the station. This tour was undertaken to ascertain whether the Indians would receive the missionaries. Bishop Wightman says : " At Clinton he was joined by Col. R. A. Blount, a personal friend, and an invaluable ally in this enter- prise. Gov. Clark waited on him in Milledgeville and tendered him the official recommendation under the seal of the executive department. On the 29th, Col Blount and he set out on horseback, each with a blanket, great-coat, saddle-bags, and wallet. They entered the Creek Nation the 1st September. On the next day, Sunday, he preached the first missionary sermon ever heard between the Flint and Chattahoochee Rivers. This was at the house of a Mr. Spain. In a day or two they reached Coweta, the principal part of this Indian town, lying on the east side of the Chattahoochee, in Georgia." There he witnessed a ball play, of which Wightman gives a graphic account in his life of Capers. He had an interview the next day with McIntosh, who was afterwards murdered by his own people. The matter was taken by the chiefs under advisement, and was to be submitted to a general council. It was held in November, consent being secured. The Rev. Chris- tian G. Hill, then from the Black Swamp Circuit, in South Carolina, was left in charge of the mission, and and Capers returned to the conference. At this session the Rev. Isaac Smith, then presiding elder of the Athens District, was selected as superintendent of the
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mission. He was thus placed in charge of the second mission established in the world by a Church which has since almost girdled the globe with its missions. He, with his wife and his son James, now Dr. James R. Smith, went to the wilderness, and he began aschool. In it were twelve Indian children. Bishop McKendree remarked, " that the appointment of Mr. Smith was preceded by much prayer, and surely nothing short of a single desire to promote the glory of God could have prompted him, in the decline of life, to embark in such a hazardous enterprise. The manner in which he conducted him- self amid the difficulties that surrounded him evinced the wisdom of the choice in selecting Mr. Smith for this station."
Through the prudent management and persevering industry of Mr. Smith, and his pious consort, the school prospered. In September 23, Mr. Capers again visited the Mission. As soon as he was seen, the hills resounded with " Mr. Capers is come," and presently, he says, "I was surrounded with a crowd of eager, affectionate, and rejoicing children. They sing sweetly, and behave, on religious occasions, with great decorum. One of our boys in three months has learned to read in the Testament." Andrew IIaminill had gone out to pre- pare the way for the old missionary and his wife, and on the fourth day of May, 1822, they arrived.
Difficulties sprang up between Col. John Crowell,* the Indian agent, Big Warrior, one of their chiefs, and the superintendent, Mr. Capers, calling for the inter- position of Mr. Calhoun. Crowell was directed to give all countenance to the Mission. The missionaries were
* History of Miss., p. 118.
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permitted to teach the children, but not to preach to the adults.
The faithful old laborer, and his assistant, McDaniel, went on patiently doing what they could. "Last Tues- day night at our family devotions," he says, in a letter dated October 23, 1823, " Brother McDaniel appeared unusually drawn out in prayer. After he had done, several of the children appeared very serious, and they went into our bed-room to bid my wife good-night, as many were accustomed to do. One of them, I suppose about fifteen years old, was much affected. My wife began speaking to her; in a few minutes she had them all around the door on their knees, a number of them in deep distress. One young lad, I suppose about six- teen, who cannot speak any English, stood by the door, serious for some time ; he then got upon his knees in great distress, weeping, and I believe praying as well as he could. Several of the children prostrated them- selves on the floor. I counted seven kneeling around my wife as close as they could get, besides a number that were at a little distance from her in the room. During the exercise, one girl came to me and told me she felt very happy, that she loved God, and that she felt the love of God in her heart. She is, I suppose, in her . thirteenth year. After about two hours, the most of the girls went to their own room. We soon heard them at prayer. Upon opening the door, I saw a sight truly affecting : they were all down on their knees, pleading with God for mercy. The power of the Lord was felt by all present. We have reason to believe that three of the children are converted. Two of the lesser ones, one a daughter of General McIntosh in her tenth year, the other about the same age, agreed to mneet every
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evening to pray together. They were soon joined by others, and that evening I believe the greater part of them had been praying in the woods. Whenever it shall please the Lord to remove the opposition that lies against our preaching I cannot doubt that the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose."
This remarkable revival went on until near all in the school were converted. The noble old missionary says : "I am ready to cry out-Let ine live and die with these poor outcasts." Alas, however, for the mission ! The difficulties between Georgia and the General Gov- ernment, the sale of the lands by McIntosh, and the dissatisfaction resulting in the death of McIntosh, the difficulty between Crowell and Mr. Capers, and Crowell and the Governor, all united to prevent its success, and it was abandoned in 1830, to be renewed under far more promising auspices in the Creek Nation in the far West.
The Cherokee Nation of Indians occupied the lower part of East Tennessee, western North Carolina, Upper Georgia, and western and northern Alabama. They were a fine tribe, and gladly received the missionaries who were sent to them. The Moravians had a mission among them in Murray County where is now the village of Spring Place. The American Board begun its work in 1817, and before Methodism entered had several stations in Upper Georgia. Job Guest, a native, invented an alphabet, and the testaments, and many hymns were translated for them. Some of their most promising youths were well educated. They had beau- tiful farms, and some of them really elegant homes. In 1822, at the request of Richard Riley, a native of the nation, the preacher from the Point Rock Circuit, in
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Alabama, Rev. Richard Neely, came among them, and Rev. Wm. McMahon held a quarterly meeting at the fort. Before the next conference, such were the hopeful results of the meeting, that a missionary was appointed. The principal part of his circuit was in Alabama, but he came across the line into Georgia. Great success attended his labors, and they had a camp-meeting in the nation. In 1824 three missionaries were appointed to the work, and before 1827 over 400 were in the Church. To assist the travelling preachers, there was now a native, Turtle Fields. He was then a young man of twenty-seven, was soon received in the Tennessee Con- ference and afterwards transferred, when his people re- moved West, to the Indian Mission Conference. He worked well, and died peacefully in 1846, in the forty- seventh year of his age. The mission work was now very prosperous, and at the conference of 1828, over 800 members were reported. In 1831 the Cherol.ee Nation was in a state of great excitement. The laws of the State were extended over the nation ; the mission- aries of the American Board refused to take the oath of allegiance to the State which was required, and were arrested and tried, and two of them condemned to im- prisonment. This is not the place to give an account of this sad affair, and it is sufficient to say that the missionaries were not inhumanly treated, and were soon released. The Methodist preachers were not interfered with, and the work went on steadily. In 1829, John B. McFerrin, now Dr. McFerrin, was on the Wills Valley and Oustanaula Circuit ; North Fields on the Cuosawattee in Murray County ; Greenbury Gar- rett on the Chattooga ; and Thos. J. Elliot on the Conesauga. The work continued to prosper under the
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charge of the Tennessee Conference, but the Indians were continually moving to their new homes in Arkan- sas; and in 1835 the Holston Conference took charge of the remnant left. There was still 521 Indians in the various charges in 1836. At this conference the Newtown District, under the charge of D. B. Cum- ming, was formed, and the few remaining stations fell under its care. Although the commotion among the Indians was great, the work prospered, and 752 Indians were reported as meinbers at the next conference. But the time of their departure was fixed, and soldiers marched through the nation, and gathered them up, and marched them away to a distant and to thein unknown land. The religious life of the faithful Cherokees never shone more brilliantly. They had fasted and prayed, that God would avert this doom from them ; but when it came they bowed their heads sub- missively. They left the graves of their fathers, their own humble homes, their beautiful mountains and valleys, and made their way sadly to the new land ; only God and God's faithful servants went with them. When they reached the far West, they found the mission- ary, and the mission school already there, and there still the work goes on. The punic faith of the white man has been their curse in days gone by, and shall they again be driven from their prairies as they have been driven from their mountains ? God in his mercy, and man in his justice forbid it !
We have already given in the current history a full account of the domestic mission work; but the work among the slaves, while it might be justly placed in this category, deserves a special notice.
The negroes of Georgia were of two very different
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classes. The negroes of the interior were nearly all of them from Maryland, Virginia, North and South Caro- lina. They were American born, and many of them had descended from Americo-African parents. Their ancestry had been imported into this country a century or more before. They had received some early train- ing, and if they had not become Christians, they had at Jeast ceased to be heathens. They were cared for by the Methodist preachers from the beginning of their work, and many of them were faithful Christians. The large plantations of after time had not yet become com- mon, and as in every county church there was a place for thein, and in every town church there were galleries for their special use, the negroes received as regu- lar church services, as the whites. But there was another and a very large class of negroes under the charge of the Georgia Conference. These were those who had been more lately introduced into Georgia from Africa. The trustees of the colony forbade the intro- duction of slaves or rum ; but after the surrender of the charter to the crown, these laws were re- pealed, and even before the revolution, large numbers of slaves were imported chiefly to cultivate the rice plantations, which were being then opened and success- fully conducted. The Sea Islands, in which the Sea Island cotton alone was made, were now settled, and the culture of this variety of cotton extensively entered into. This industry demanded much labor, and Afri- cans were imported in large numbers. As they lived on large plantations, remote from negroes of American birth, and subject to no direct civilizing or Christian- izing influences, they preserved in many respects their Pagan features, alinost unchanged. After the invention
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of the cotton-gin, a great impetus was given to cotton- producing, and as the slave trade was to be forbidden by law after 1808, a great impetus was given to it before that epoch, and as land and slaves were both cheap, and cotton high, many new negroes were settled in gangs upon the higher lands of the interior. It will be seen from this survey that the African negroes introduced into these Sea Island sections, were likely to preserve forever their African features of character. The owners of these plantations were living in the cities, or if on the plantation at all, only there for a few months in winter time ; and their slaves had little intercourse with them.
The culture of rice and the culture of Sea Island cotton was comparatively light labor; though, at sea- sous, it demanded a very lengthened and constant work, and as it suited these poor heathens, they increased rapidly. Living in their own colonies, they were not discontented. They were preserved, by the slave gor- ernment under which they were, from the gross vices to which, in their African life, they had been subject, such as murder and rapine; but in the vices of theft, lasciviousness, lying, they were steeped. Such was the condition, not of the whole negro-race in the South, but of the very considerable part of it. It was the condition of these semi-barbarians, and more than semi-heathen, that moved the great heart of William Capers, and led him to work for the founding of mission stations among them. He found among the largest planters efficient coadjutors, one especially, Col. Morris, a son of Gover- neur Morris, of New York, and an Episcopalian, entered into it with all his earnestness and zeal .*
* In 1859, while returning from New York to Georgia, I had the privilege of passing several days on a steamer with this excellent
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This work was now to be commenced in Georgia.
The first work among the negroes was, however, done in 1831, among the more intelligent negroes of the up- country, on the large plantations on the rivers. In 1833, Willis D. Mathews and Saml. I. Bryan were sent to the rice plantations; preachers were detailed to work among the negroes especially, through all the charges, where there were many of them.
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It was the purpose of the Church to give religious instruction to these people, and to catechise them with care. This was attempted on the larger plantations, and to some extent carried out ; but, gradually, it became the usage of the missionary to the blacks, mainly to preach to the large congregations of colored people who came out to hear the word.
It is our office more to relate facts than to read homi- lies ; but we can but feel that a work of much greater permanence would have been done in the domestic field, both among whites and slaves, if our preachers had not preached less, but had taught more.
The missionaries met with many trials. While there was much sympathy lavished, and justly so, upon the man who went across the seas on a foreign mission : while he was abundantly provided for, the missionary to the blacks received a scanty support, and but little consideration. To many of the fields of labor it was exile from refined society, life among the degraded and ignorant, toil put forth without much apparent result,
man. He mentioned the intense opposition of his neighbors to this work, but as he had the missionary on his plantations, they soon saw its beneficent effect and withdrew it, and spoke with much delight of the wonderful change which came over them when they came under the fascinating influence of Wm. Capers.
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the inhaling of malaria, and often meeting early death ; but, despite all this, the work went on, and successfully. The negro on the rice plantations did not become, in a generation, as intelligent, consistent, and Christian as the Anglo-Saxon who had been surrounded by ele- vating influences for centuries. His moral tone was not · high, his views were crude, his errors many ; but he ceased to be a heathen, and often-time sincerely loved and sincerely strove to serve his great Father in IIcaven, and his Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. We have already spoken of the great work among the more intelligent colored people of the up-country, and espe- cially of the towns and cities. In 1860, there was 27,000 colored people in the Church in Georgia.
When the war ended, and with its end came a change so radical as that of emancipation from slavery, it was not unnatural that a race so easily influenced should be persuaded that they ought to change their Church rela- tions, especially when military power was brought to bear to effect it. So the Methodist Episcopal Church South lost, perhaps, one-half of her colored members. They joined the African Methodist, the Zion Methodist, and the Methodist Episcopal Church; many did, but not all. Many of the more intelligent still clung to their old church relations, and often at great risk to themselves. Among them were Sandy Kendall, Lucius Holsey, David Deas, David Bentley, John Zorn, minis- ters, and many private members. A Conference was organized for them. The property of the Church occu- pied by them was transferred to them, and they are prosperous. As strife has now nearly ceased, we trust the day is not distant when all the colored people will forin a compact body of pious Methodists.
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BENEVOLENCE.
The early days of Methodism were days of poverty and trial. The early Methodists in Georgia were most Of them poor, and save the quarterly collections which were carried to conference, there was no appeal to them for any kind of pecuniary contributions. There was, as yet, no provision made for worn-out preachers, or for their widows or orphans. The first society organized for this purpose in the South Carolina Conference was, as we have seen, organized in Sparta, in the December of 1806. It was called the Society for Special Relief ; the funds collected were distributed among needy travel- ling and local preachers and their families; and the first . contribution made by it, was to Isaac Smith, when his house was burned in Camden. Its resources were not considerable. It received now and then a bequest, and Thomas Grant left it, on his death, quite a quantity of wild land in the then western counties of the State, and at least three thousand dollars in money. Josiah Flournoy made it an annual contribution of a hundred dollars, and Lewis Myers left it quite a legacy. This society still exists, and at every conference distributes several hundred dollars to the needy. It was after the Georgia Conference was organized that an effort was made to provide for the support of superannuated preachers, their widows and orphans, by a general col- lection. This conference collection aimed not only to do this, but to supply the deficiency in the allowance of the preachers. The funds used for this purpose are ap- propriated by the Finance Board to all claimants, annu- ally ; but, for some years past, effective preachers have had no claim upon it, and it is distributed among the worn-out preachers and their families alone.
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In 1836 Silas Griffin left nearly $4,000, the interest of which was to be added to this collection ; and, in 1836, a society was incorporated to hold this and other funds for the same purpose. It, too, was called the Relief Society; but the similarity of names between it and the Society of Special Relief, led to a change of name, and it is now known as the Preacher's Aid Society. A sum of nearly $3,000 was paid to the Georgia Conference for her interest in the Book-room in Charleston, which was added to this bequest of Griffin. The charter for- bade more than six per cent. to be paid out annually, and the remainder was to be added to the principal. In the course of thirty years the original property of the conference in the fund was doubled ; but losses from bankruptcy, and especially from collecting its funds in Confederate money, reduced its assets to about one-half. This society still exists and receives much less attention than its merit deserves.
Another society has been recently organized among the preachers and laymen, to provide homes for the widows and orphans of preachers. It has no vested funds, and collects a mortuary fee, on the death of each member, from the remaining ones ; preachers only bene- ficiaries. The clerical members pay three dollars ; the lay members, one. It has been in existence but a short time, but has already done much good.
Through the exertions of Dr. Jesse Boring, a home, both in North and South Georgia, was established for orphans. The North Georgia home is near Decatur, the South Georgia near Macon. The prospects for each are bright, and each will become a place of refuge for the orphans of all the Methodists in the States, in time to come. The missionary collections we have already
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noted, under their proper head. We have now fulfilled our design in tracing the history of Methodism in Georgia, from its beginning, in 1786, to the division of the Georgia Conference, in 1866.
If Georgia civilization is a failure; if there is gross corruption in her public men ; if there are grievous here- sies over the land ; if life and liberty and property are imperilled; if education and the finer features of life are neglected, Methodism is largely responsible for it. The Baptists and Methodists have moved side by side in the onward march of the white settlers into the wilds of Georgia. They have alike aimed to preach a pure Gospel, and a like success has attended them ; and the influence they have exerted upon Georgia civilization has been immense. This influence is seen in the colleges, the churches, the orthodox evangelical Christianity, and the law and order of the Georgia people. When they began their work, there was ram- pant infidelity in high places, and almost total religious darkness in the low; but they were peculiarly fitted for the work of evangelizing, and they have gone on together. As fair historians of religious events, while we tell the story of our own Church: while we tell of Ivy, Humphries, Major, Lee, Hull, Pierce, Olin, Few, we cannot pass over Silas Mercer, the Marshalls, Bottsford, Holcomb, Screven, Jesse Mercer, King, Milner, and Dawson.
These were true men of God, who preached repent- ance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and had no fellowship with unrighteousness. The an- nals of the Baptist Church in Georgia are rich in stories of self-denying Christian effort. The Presbyterian Church is, perhaps, from its economy, better suited to
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the thickly peopled country than one which has its pop- ulation to gather ; but Cummings, Doak, Wilson, Wad- dell, and many others, have been earnest workers, side by side, and nearly always in harmony with their Metho- dist brethren. For nearly one hundred years Georgia Methodism has been an almost unbroken harmony. Save a few small secessions from it, there has been no strife in its borders ; and, even in these secessions, the doctrines of Methodism have been preserved, and only some fea- tures of her polity have been given up.
The same doctrines have been preached which Wesley preached. The same church-government which Asbury directed is controlling now, save as it has been modified; and the saine simple usages in worship which belonged to our fathers belong to us.
Some changes have passed over the Church, but they have been often more changes in the names of things than in the things themselves. The class-meeting has given way to the social prayer-meetings; the old quar- terly conference to the district conference.
The rigid rules on dress are no longer in force. These are some of the changes which have passed over the Church.
The district conference has more than supplied the place the largely attended quarterly meeting left vacant. Pastoral care has done much to supply the lack of class- meetings. The Sunday-school has become a potent in- strument of good, and religious newspapers come in as an assistant of great value to the Pastor.
The support of the ministry, and of all the institutions of the Church, is far beyond that accorded in the first and second eras of the Church.
Prone as we are to magnify the past, at the expense
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of the present, we cannot study the story of our past years without feeling that the aggregate of good now goes beyond that of any equal period in past years.
There is as much heroism in the ministry, as much self sacrifice in the laity as a inass, as there has been in days gone by. Revivals of religion are more frequent, and religious declensions are less so. The Church for the last fifty years has known no such period as that between 1810 and 1823. The ministry, and the people are better educated, and piety is not less sincere, though it may be somewhat less demonstrative. The civiliza- tion of Georgia is of a higher order ; there are no such gross revelries now as were known then on muster-days; no such open immorality and infidelity tolerated among public men. No regular prize-fights, with their disgust- ing attendants. Josiah Flournoy nearly lost his life because he strove to persuade the State to establish a prohibitory liquor law; but now whole sections of country have forbidden, by popular vote, any liquor- shops in their territory. While Georgia is not a pure State, but one regularly elected legislature was ever known to be bribed, and that was in 1794; and while she has many criminals, the number of white con- victs is far below that of many of the older American States.
A church which numbers nearly one hundred thou- sand white communicants, and as many colored ; which reaches with its influence at least half the people of a State, so powerful as that of Georgia, has certainly a responsibility resting upon her, immense in its magni- tude, and we who have entered into the labor of our fathers, have learned from these pages how these re- sponsibilities should be met.
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We now somewhat reluctantly lay down our pen.
To no one is this work less satisfying than to him who has written it. He only asks the reader, with whom he now parts, to believe that he has labored earnestly to tell the true story of Methodism in Georgia and Florida.
FINIS.
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