USA > Nebraska > A history of Nebraska Methodism, first half-century, 1854-1904 > Part 15
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These facts have been set forth in detail because the operation of these combined causes brought about in these few years the extension of the frontier almost or quite to the west line of the State. A line west of Jefferson County, in the south part of the State, and extending to the west of Cedar County in the north, with still much unsettled country east of that line, and being an average distance of about sixty miles west of the Missouri River, marked, with sufficient accuracy the extent of the settle- ments at the beginning of 1870, except along the Union Pacific Railroad, being less than one-sixth of the entire area of the State. To this narrow strip, averaging sixty miles in width, which it had required fifteen years to set-
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tle, much of it being still frontier work, there were sud- denly added 200 miles along the southern tier of counties, and 100 to 150 miles along the center and northern por- tions, being a scope of country nearly three times as great as was settled during the first fifteen years. East of the line referred to there were 117,000 people settled in 1870, while to the west there was not to exceed 5,000, and these principally along the line of the U. P. R. R., and they were mostly employees of the railroad.
Another fact of great significance must be noted in passing if we would understand what it meant to take and hold Nebraska for Methodism during this trying period. While the number of missions requiring help increased from thirty-one in 1870, to eighty-seven in 1879, and while at the same time the capacity of the people to support their pastors had diminished by reason of the grasshopper scourge, the Missionary Society had not been able to respond to this vast increase in the demand with any increase in the appropriations, these being $5,050 for 1870 and $5,000 for 1879. So the average for each mission receiving help in 1870, aside from what was ap- propriated to the district for the presiding elder, was $125, while in 1879 it had dropped down to $43.
About the same time, 1878, Dr. Maxfield, in his re- port, makes the following significant comparison : "The district (North Nebraska) has at work this year fifteen preachers, exclusive of the presiding elder. Of these, eight were appointed by the bishop and seven are sup- plies. To aid in their support the Missionary Society appropriated $1,170. Another Church having eight men in the same field appropriates for their support over $3,000. . That is, our appropriation, divided equally among
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sixteen men, gives about $73 to each, while theirs, divided in the same way among eight men, gives about $400 each. When we consider that the great difficulty to meet and overcome in this frontier work is the support of the preachers, we can understand the great disadvantage under which we labor when we are compelled, as we are, to work side by side with these competing Churches, backed by so much larger outlay of money than our own."
But to understand the full significance of this com- parison we must remember that all the $3,000 or more appropriated by our sister Church went to the eight pas- tors, while $400 of our $1,170 went to the presiding elder. Deducting this we have left $770 to be divided among fifteen pastors, reducing the average to a little over fifty dollars, a few dollars above the general average for 1879.
It is greatly to the credit of our sister denomination that she made such bountiful provision for the comfort of her missionaries in the home field. But is it not even more to the credit of Methodism that with one-eighth of the amount of missionary money for each pastor she could still find devoted and self-sacrificing preachers enough to man her work, and that they and their suc- cessors have done their work so well that the membership of the Methodist Church is nearly four times as great as that of this same sister denomination ?
This feature of Methodism by which she is able to keep up the supply of workers under all circumstances has been alluded- to before in a general way. To some of those who have been prominent as leaders in some of these sister denominations, who put special emphasis on the comfort of the home missionary, the fact has been inexplicable. One said to the writer: "I can't under-
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stand how you can keep men in the field on such small salaries ; we can't get our men to do it." Another asked nie how many presiding elders we had in Nebraska, and when I told him fourteen, he asked if they all hustled round like I did. I told him I hoped they were all doing better work than I was. He then said: "That is where you beat us, in providing this thorough supervision of the work." While the first could think of no explanation, the second was only partially correct, though doubtless the presiding eldership has been of great value in mustering and inspiring and directing the forces. Any complete explanation will place first of all the genius and ideals of Methodism and the spirit of self-renunciation and en- tire devotement to Christ and his cause, and conviction of duty, with which every one who enters her ministry must be possessed. Without designing. any invidious comparison, I venture to give quaint old Father Janney's putting of the case: "While some of the other Churches when they enter a field, put the emphasis on ministerial support, and say a preacher must have a fair salary, and after this is secured, the people may have the Gospel, Methodism approaches the same field, putting the em- phasis on the needs of the people, saying the people must have the Gospel, whether the preacher has a comfortable support or not." While this putting of the case may not be quite just to some of the other denominations, some of which worked side by side with us, their ministers making many sacrifices, it certainly puts well the case of the Methodistic view of Church work and ministerial duty. These preachers must have had a passion for souls, and a profound, overmastering conviction of duty.
All this is referred to as showing the tremendous re-
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sponsibility of the Church to conserve whatever there was of the religious life among this vast multitude of settlers, by hunting them up in the dugouts, organizing them into classes, circuits, districts, and Conferences, and supply- ing them with pastors. Some of the frontier districts when formed included vast regions of unorganized work, and sometimes less than half of the charges assigned were supplied with pastors from the Conference, leaving the work of finding men for the balance, and for the settle- ments not mentioned, or yet to be made, in the charges assigned him, to the presiding elder. Only men of the highest executive and organizing ability, with a spirit of self-sacrifice and devotion to the work, who would shrink from no hardship which the interests of Zion required, would meet the demand. They must somehow find the men to man this vast field, with little or nothing to offer in the way of an inducement, unless an opportunity for hard work on small pay in laying the foundations of the Church would be considered inducements. C. W. Wells, who entered the work as we have seen in 1871, and who was one of the most faithful and efficient pioneer preach- ers we have had, received from the people for the first seven years of his work less than an average of $175 a year. His experience could be matched by scores of others. Can these presiding elders find enough men to do this hard work on these hard terms.
This will be no easy task. When the Beatrice and Covington Districts were formed in 1871, and the Kearney District in 1873, more than half the charges on each of these districts were left to be supplied, and this was true of the Kearney District each year throughout A. G. White's administration. Where can they find the men ?
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Certainly they can not depend on the theological schools to turn out enough to supply this demand. Nor will they be able to secure the transfer of enough experienced men from other Conferences. In nothing has the Meth- odist Church showed its hard, sanctified, common sense in the administration of its work more than in the policy of getting the best material possible, and seizing on the best available talent to be had at the time, and by any and every means keep the work going, look after the scattered flocks, and get these organized into classes, and then get sinners converted. Or, reversing this order, have some itinerant or some local or superannuated preacher go into neighborhoods where there were no members, or not enough to effect an organization, hold a revival meeting, and in that way get enough to organize a class; and perhaps extend this process to a number of neighborhoods and soon have classes enough to form a circuit.
Methodism's readiness for this great emergency lay largely in the fact that in addition to her army of regu- lars, which consisted of the effective members of Con- ference, she had provided a great reserve force, consist- ing of her local preachers, supplemented in these times by the supernumerary and superannuated preachers. These may, as compared with the regulars, be called the militia, to be called into action on occasions when the regulars were not present in sufficient numbers, or not available. And the Church hesitated not to call out the militia when the battle was on, and the question at issue was whether Christ or Satan should have Nebraska. True, there were some in this militia that were not so well equipped by learning as might be wished, but they
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had the root of the matter in them. Though destitute of the training of the schools, they showed that they had "been with Jesus and had learned of him," and under- stood by experience the great plan of salvation. And as American independence had been won principally by men who were ill clothed, fed, or equipped, according to the prevailing military standards of the day, but being true patriots and understanding the value of liberty, and being led by such men as Washington, achieved success in the establishment of the cause of freedom for which they contended, so these untrained and poorly equipped local preachers, who yet like Stephen, the deacon, being "full of faith and power, did great wonders and miracles among the people," and being skillfully led by such men as Davis, Maxfield, Lemon, White, Pritchard, Giddings, and Van Doozer, contributed greatly toward the winning of that great battle and saving Nebraska for Christ.
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CHAPTER XIII.
THIRD PERIOD. (1870-1880.)
IN the beginning of this period at the Conference held at Fremont, March 31, 1870, only twelve preachers answered to roll call, and as there was no note made of members coming in later, and no roll of the Conference members, it is somewhat difficult to ascertain the exact number, but there were probably about twenty-five. This number included such men as T. B. Lemon, W. B. Slaughter, C. W. Giddings, J. B. Maxfield, David Hart, A. L. Folden, Jacob Adriance, J. J. Roberts, Gilbert De La Matyr, G. S. Alexander, Martin Pritchard, H. T. Davis, A. G. White, Jesse L. Fort, and J. M. Adair, many of them intellectual giants, and capable and willing to do efficient service. Thirty-four received their appointments from Bishop Clark, and eight places were left to be supplied. There were 2,670 persons in full membership and 876 probationers. There were twenty- one churches, valued at $117,000, and fourteen parson- ages valued at $15,000.
Will Methodism be equal to this great emergency, and with this little band of thirty-four members of Con- ference be able to keep pace with this rapidly advancing frontier ? Surely it will be tested severely, but as events prove, it is equal to the occasion.
Providentially there were at the beginning of this vast movement of population four of the best presiding
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elders Nebraska Methodism has ever had, whose four districts covered the ground of this advance. The Beat- rice District was placed in charge of J. B. Maxfield in 1871, and included Gage, Jefferson, Saline, York, Thayer, Nuckolls, Franklin, and Harlan Counties, and the sparsely inhabited but unorganized territory extending to the west line of the State. The same year Bishop Ames placed H. T. Davis, who was on the Lincoln District, in charge of the new settlements along the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad, which was extending its line west from Lincoln to Kearney. A. G. White was already on the Omaha District and had jurisdiction over the entire length of the Union Pacific Railroad and up the Loup River. The Covington District was formed in 1871 and placed in charge of that natural-born pioneer preacher, S. P. Van Doozer. It extended along the north tiers of counties in the State, from the Missouri on the east, to the limits of settlement in the west, embracing about 10,000 square miles. As might be expected, these leaders of the past were equal to the demands of the sit- uation.
Those were trying times for presiding elders, and for circuit riders who already had large circuits. Some Methodist settler, anxious that he and his few Methodist neighbors should be organized into a class and be sup- plied with preaching, would beseech the presiding elder to send them a preacher, or would visit the nearest cir- cuit rider they could hear of and urge him to "come over and help." The presiding elder moved by this clamor, would sometimes exercise less care than he would other- wise have done, and under the pressure of an urgent de- mand be tempted to send them the first man he could
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find, and who would sometimes turn out to be an eccle- siastical dead beat, and great harm would follow. Or the already overburdened circuit preacher would yield to the urgent appeal and launch out into unorganized settle- ments and add appointment after appointment to his charge, rendering it more difficult to do justice to the original appointments. When in the spring of 1871, the writer was assigned to Schuyler Circuit, it embraced all of Colfax and Butler Counties. He had to cross the Platte on a flatboat every alternate week to fill his three appointments already existing along the Platte Valley. But during that spring and summer all that table-land from the Platte Valley to the Blue, and west into Polk County and east into Saunders, was settled. The fol- lowing incidents will show how the work expanded in those days : On one trip during the summer, while crossing the river, an elderly man, an entire stranger, ap- proached me and asked if I was the preacher on that circuit. An affirmative answer brought an urgent re- quest that I go over to a new settlement some twelve miles southwest, on the table-lands and look after the re- ligious interests of some of his sons, with others, who, with their families, were located there. There was noth- ing to do but to promise, and in a few weeks what is now Rising Church was organized, the man making the re- quest being old Father Rising, after whom the town was named. About the same time, at the close of one of my services at the Rosenbaum appointment in the Platte Valley, in Butler County, a fine, intelligent looking man approached me, introducing himself as a new settler, and asked me to make an appointment at his house. The re- sult of this interview was that in a short time the David
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City Church was organized in the unfinished home of Captain A. F. Coon, the man who had hunted up the itinerant preacher and made the request.
The problem of gathering up these scattered Meth- odist settlers and organizing them into classes and cir- cuits proceeded along two lines, the spontaneous and the regular. There had come along with these very settlers many local preachers and some superannuated preachers, and some of the more zealous of these, seeing the need of immediate action, waited not for the coming of the presiding elder, but launched out into any unorganized territory and began work.
The regular line of work consisted on the part of the presiding elder largely in pushing out himself and holding meetings in new settlements and then finding some one to supply the work, perhaps some local or super- annuated preacher. The first of these movements, in order to distinguish it from the usual method, is called spontaneous, rather than irregular. In one sense it is the regular duty of the local preacher thus to supplement the regular.
It will be interesting and instructive to trace some of these spontaneous movements that antedated the con- ing and exercise of authority on the part of even these vigilant presiding elders.
A typical case of this kind of work is related by Rev. David Fetz, a local preacher at that time, who had set- tled in the northern part of Webster County in July, 1873: "Brother Moses Mapes, a local preacher, and I commenced work in the north part of Webster and the south part of Adams Counties, extending our work into Franklin and Kearney Counties. Wherever we could
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obtain a place to preach we soon had a class and Sunday- school organized. The Lord was with us in great power and numbers were converted and added to the Church. At Cloverton, in the north part of Webster County, a class was organized that year of over fifty members, tak- ing in nearly all the inhabitants for eight or ten miles around. Also at Daily's ranch, on the Little Blue an- other was organized of equal numbers, where infidels and skeptics, and all classes, had been swept into the kingdom of our Christ. One infidel was converted as he lay on his bed at the midnight hour reading his Bible. Immediately he arose, went out into the darkness, and going from house to house and calling the people out to tell them what the Lord had done for his soul. At other points equal victories were obtained. No presiding elder had reached that part of the country as yet, and the Conference knew nothing of our work until the fol- lowing year."
As early as 1869 that consecrated apostle, Rev. James Query, a local preacher, had preached the first sermon in Polk County, in (now) Governor J. H. Mickey's house, and organized the first class in Polk County, consisting of James Query and wife, J. H. Mickey and wife, Mrs. A. Roberts, Mrs. Jane Clark, and V. P. Davis and wife. The class was attached to the Seward County Circuit. This same James Query performed the first marriage ceremony ever solemnized in Polk County. In his report to the Conference of 1872, H. T. Davis, presiding elder, says of this zealous local preacher: "Brother James Query, a local preacher, organized this year a work on the Upper Blue, in Polk County, and reported to me 130 members, including probationers, two Sabbath-schools
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with sixty scholars. Assisted by George and Joshua Worley (also local preachers) a most gracious revival of religion took place and some seventy-five souls were con- verted to God, including some of the most influential citi- zens of Polk County. They desire the Conference to send them a preacher." This is the cry that came up from many settlements at that time.
The mention of the Worleys brings to view two local preachers that wrought diligently and efficiently in lay- ing the foundations of our Zion in the country contigu- ous to their homesteads, including portions of Lancaster, Saunders, Seward, Butler, and Polk Counties. The two older Worleys, George and Joshua, were constantly on the lookout for openings, and were constantly finding them, where they might hold a meeting and organize a class. Sometimes they were temporarily employed by the presiding elder, as supplies, but more frequently as- serted their right to pre-empt any unclaimed territory not occupied by the regularly appointed itinerant, and there raise the standard of King Immanuel, and take pos- session for Christ and the Church.
At Norfolk, W. G. Beels and John Allberry, local preachers, held the fort in Madison County till the regu- larly appointed minister came, or like Charles G. Rouse, assumed the aggressive and pushed out into new settle- ments, held revival-meetings, and organized and laid the foundation ready for the itinerant when he came. Or A. C. Butler in Cedar and Dixon Counties, in the ex- treme north, who organized the first Sunday-school in the Morton neighborhood, near where Hartington now stands, and afterwards going along with W. H. Carter into some neglected neighborhoods west of Hartington,
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held revival-meetings, resulting in the organization of the Oliver appointment on the Wausa Charge, with sev- enty members and a church.
Thus these zealous local preachers and devoted super- annuates, who were willing, and capable of doing the work needed at that time, were gladly utilized by these wise presiding elders, and they actually did much of the work of organizing the Church, work that could not pos- sibly have been done when it needed to be done, but for their help.
This will be a suitable place to speak more fully of the Worley family, a family that has played an impor- tant part in the history of Nebraska Methodism.
Besides these years of faithful and efficient service by these two brothers, George and Joshua Worley, both local preachers, it was the privilege of George Worley to give three sons to the Methodist ministry, who in both the home and foreign fields have wrought efficiently for many years. William McKendree Worley, the oldest of these, was born in Vermilion County, Illinois, Decem- ber 23, 1839, father and grandfather being stanch Meth- odists. He was converted at the age of fourteen, and soon became class-leader and Sunday-school superin- tendent in his home Church.
On the 18th of April, 1861, he enlisted in Company C, Twelfth Illinois Infantry, for a term of three months ; was mustered into the United States service May 2d, at Camp Yates, Springfield, Illinois, by Captain U. S. Grant. He afterwards re-enlisted in the 135th Illinois Infantry, and was finally mustered out of the service September 28, 1864.
Brother Worley removed to Nebraska in May, 1867.
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He was licensed to preach by Rev. C. W. Giddings, pre- siding elder of Lincoln District. He served one year as supply and junior preacher on the North and West Blue Circuit, which embraced all of Butler. Polk, Hamil- ton, York, and Seward Counties, and part of Saline County. There were twenty-two appointments on the charge.
He was the first Methodist to preach in York County. The service was held at the home of Mr. Anderson, a few miles west of Beaver Crossing. Besides sixty-two dol- lars which he received from the missionary appropria- tion to that circuit, he received eleven dollars in money, five of which was paid by J. H. Mickey. In addition to this he received one pair of socks. There was but one school-house on the entire circuit, so of course the serv- ices had to be held in the private homes of the people at a time when these homes consisted of dugouts and sod houses, and rarely had more than one room.
What he regarded as the greatest misfortune that came to him during that year was the loss of his saddle- bags and their contents while swimming Plum Creek, fifteen miles north of Seward. The contents consisted of a pair of socks, a Bible, Discipline, Wesley's "Plain Ac- count of Christian Perfection," and Fletcher's Appeal. This is doubtless a fair sample of an itinerant's library, and the swimming of the stream, not an uncommon ex- perience in those days of bridgeless streams.
Brother Worley was received on trial in 1873, and has had success on all the many charges he has served dur- ing his long career. New churches have been organized at Roca and Bancroft, and at Covington, Schuyler, Seward Street, Omaha, and other points, old debts have
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been paid and churches built at Alder Grove, Bancroft, Richland, and a new parsonage at Lyons.
There was some revival interest on every charge he served, and on some there were gracious revivals. At Albion a great revival occurred during Brother Worley's pastorate that brought into the Church such men as Dr. Lewis, C. G. Barns, and others, who proved to be a progressive element that has ever since carried the Church forward on lines of steady and healthy progress.
Brother Worley represented the North Nebraska Conference in the General Conference of 1888. In 1895 he was transferred to the Nebraska Conference and has been uniformly successful in the successive pastorates assigned him, and he is yet hale, hearty, and cheerful, after a third of a century in the Christian ministry. He was married to Miss Frances T. Worrell in 1874, and she has proved a faithful Methodist itinerant's wife through all these years.
Thomas, another one of the Rev. George Worley's "boys,".was born in Vermilion County, Illinois, October II, 1852, and converted in 1865. He was educated at the State University, and after two years at Garrett Bibli- cal School, was received on trial in 1876. After several years of efficient service in Nebraska, he was sent as a missionary to Central China, where he remained a few years and returned to the work in Nebraska.
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