USA > Ohio > History of Ohio Methodism : a study in social science > Part 11
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desolate habitation till the Lord poured down upon me a blessing, and I shouted and traveled on in the rain. As night approached I reached the mouth of White- water, which I crossed, and stopped at a tavern. I told the tavern-keeper I would like to stop with him, but had nothing to pay. He took my horse, and, after putting him in the stable, he came in and asked me who I was. I gave him my name and vocation. While I was drying my pants by the fire, supper was an- nounced, which I ate with great relish. After prayers, and conversation on a variety of topics, I went to bed. While sitting in the morning by the fire, trying to rub some pliability into my now dry and hard leather breeches, the landlord came in and presented me with a fine pair of new leggins, and a dollar in the bargain. This kind act so filled me with gratitude to God that I made the bar-room ring with shouts of praise. I realized the truth of that proverb, 'He that hath pity on the poor, lendeth to the Lord; and he shall be re- paid again.'"
Such evangelists as these were true patriots and citizen builders. They worked on the hidden life of men. They called to penitence, faith, and regener- ation, and incited men to righteousness. They dealt with life more than with habit itself. These silent forces of Christianity are powerful, and tell wonder- fully on human progress. They are the springs which feed modern civilization, and become the precursor of a new life for the people.
The results of their perils and labors are seen in the Christian character of multitudes in our day.
Many of us have bright visions of these godly men
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in connection with the blessed memories of our child- hood homes. Their character and services left a last- ing impression on our minds. They brought the rich gift of the grace of God to us. Their life touched ours, and awakened noble impulses. It was about our fam- ily hearthstones that they kindly admonished us, and inspired in us a reverence for righteousness and a love for God. They gave us courage in many a bitter struggle, and cheered us on through difficulties. The young and old of our day need their spirit to carry forward the unfinished tasks of these men of God, who might well lay claim to kinship with the early apostles.
Chapter VII. Organizations of Methodism. 191
ETHODISM is simply earnestness organized for Christ; and what could stand before a holy consuming zeal, which con- templates a single all-comprehending object, and for its sake counts all things but as nothing, gladly making one grand holocaust of time, talents, influence, fortune, fame, health, and even life itself, to accomplish it? The instrumentalities of Methodism were born of this very spirit, and are wonderfully adapted to their purpose. To know them is to admire them, and to be penetrated with enthu- siasm and hope in respect to them."-J. M. Reid.
F we believe that Methodism has been wonderfully honored of God in advancing his kingdom, and with God's blessing is now performing a part unequaled by any other religious body in evangelizing and saving the world, these are all-sufficient reasons for our existence as a distinct denomination. These are reasons, too, why Methodism should be made to do her best. Let Method- ism be more thoroughly and zealously worked. Improve it, we should, if we can; but, at all events, work it ! work it ! Let every Methodist work Methodism."-Dorchester.
E must see Methodism in the mustard-seed stage of its devel- opment; we must detect the place of the hiding of God's power ; we must see in action the agencies employed, and follow out causes to their practical results."-Moore.
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M ETHODISM is organized Christian energy. This is an age of organization, when men co- operate and work together on a large scale. It is like- wise the natural outcome of the Spirit of our Lord. Organized Christianity enhances and strengthens each individual unit, and makes the composite whole an avalanche of power for the uplifting of humanity. No worker can be at his best without combining and co- operating with fellow-Christians in using modern methods and improvements for waging war on all forms of sin, and for the upbuilding of the kingdom of God.
Methodism in Ohio has been fruitful in originating and projecting great and wide-reaching Christian and philanthropic organizations. These were not born of sentiment, butwere forced into being by the great needs of the kingdom of Christ. On Ohio soil, consecrated by noble and pious Christians, sprang into existence the Missionary Society, the Freedmen's Aid Society, the Epworth League, the National City Evangelical Association, the Woman's Home Missionary Society, the Christian Temperance Union, the Chautauqua Movement, and several other great enterprises that have girdled the globe with their influence. Each So- ciety mentioned above is a child of Providence, "born not of human suggestions, but of Divine indication."
The fact that these organizations took their initial step in Ohio, and found support and encouragement
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in the great heart of the Church, shows that here were great forces at work for the betterment of the world. The Methodist Church in Ohio, having a strong and noble ancestry, planted in a fertile section of the coun- try, with prolific resources, furnished the conditions essential to organize Christian effort on a great scale.
The geneses of some of these noble benevolent movements of the Church are inspiring, and possess historic value.
The first regular missionary work done by the Methodist Cl urch in this country was started in Ohio in 1816, by John Stewart, a colored man. His evan- gelistic work among the Wyandot Indians was the inspiring cause of the organization of the Missionary Society. Stewart was converted under the preaching of Marcus Lindsey in Marietta. "Soon after I em- braced religion," he says, "I went out into the fields to pray. It seemed to me that I heard a voice like the voice of a woman praising God; and then another as the voice of a man, saying to me, 'You must declare my counsel faithfully.' These voices ran through me powerfully. They seemed to come from a northwest direction. I soon found myself standing on my feet, and speaking as if I was addressing a congregation." He set out with the conviction of a Divine call, and went toward the northwest, following in the direction from which the voices seemed to proceed. He arrived at Goshen, where he found the Delaware Indians. He preached and sang to them songs of Zion. From here he went to Upper Sandusky, and in an artless manner began to preach, through an interpreter, to the Wyandot Indians. The first sermon was delivered
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to one old squaw. The next day his congregation numbered two, and the third day eight or ten attended the services. Within a short time crowds came to hear him, and many notable conversions followed. The evangelistic success of Stewart awakened deep interest throughout the country, and revealed to the Church an opportunity to extend the work of salvation among the heathen.
Stewart labored among the Wyandots for three months, with uninterrupted success and joy. "At the end of this period he left for Marietta, preaching a fare- well sermon amid many tears, and promising his chil- dren in the gospel to come back when the corn should shoot." In March, 1819, the Quarterly Conference at Urbana, Ohio, granted Stewart a license to preach. On the 17th of December, 1823, he died in great peace, having given seven years of service as a preacher of the gospel. "The good work of this hum- ble man, a chosen instrument in the hands of God, shall never be forgotten; and when this world shall be emancipated from heathenism he will be more re- vered than ever." Others heard of this work, and were moved to help Stewart in his work of love. Among the number was Miss Harriet Stubbs, who left her home and joined Stewart in the work for the redemption of these savages. "She possessed more courage and fortitude," says J. B. Finley, "than any one of her age and sex that I have ever been ac- quainted with. In a short time the intrepid female missionary was the idol of the whole nation. They looked up to her as an angel messenger sent from the spirit land to teach them the way to heaven."
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In August, 1819, the Ohio Conference appointed Rev. James B. Finley to Lebanon District, in which this field was located. Some excellent quarterly-meet- ings were held during this year, in which the Indian converts participated with profound reverence and gratitude. The Wyandot converts were so deeply interested in the work among their own people that they sent a delegation of Christians to attend the Ohio Conference at Chillicothe, in 1820, to petition for a missionary to be sent them. Moses Henkle, not yet ordained a deacon, was appointed to serve them, which he did, and labored successfully for one year. Afterward, Rev. James B. Finley took up the work, and succeeded in forming a class among the Wyandots, composed of twenty-three persons. He labored ear- nestly to build up the Church, and likewise taught them agricultural and industrial pursuits. He helped to erect a sawmill, schoolhouse, and mission-house, and taught them many useful arts.
The Ohio Conference, in 1823, instructed Mr. Fin- ley to inquire into the practicability of establishing a mission among the Chippewas, on Saginaw River, Michigan. The following December he started on a tour of inspection, in company with three Wyandot Indians. The work was so promising that Rev. Charles Elliott was appointed assistant to Mr. Fin- ley, with a view of extending labor to the Wyan- dots on Huron River, and to the Canara, Upper Canada. Here they formed a class of fifteen, to which twenty-seven were added during the year, and the entire mission then numbered two hundred and sixty. Missions were established at various points among
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the Indians, and continued to grow under such men as Finley, Elliott, and Gilruth. The news of this mission work spread, and great interest was aroused throughout the Church. The Missionary Society was
MISS ISABELLA THOBURN.
organized April 5, 1819. The aggregate financial results for the first year were $823.64. From these small beginnings the Missionary Society has continued to expand, and now a network of missions is spread throughout the world. The Society counts her con-
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verts by the hundreds of thousands, and in 1897 the receipts of the Society were $1,131,940. Of this amount, the Churches of Ohio contributed nearly $100,000.
Ohio, as has been seen, is the leader in the mis- sionary work of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Every foreign missionary field has representatives from among her noble sons and daughters. Rev. William Goodfellow, the first superintendent of mis- sions in South America, came from Ohio, and the present superintendent, Dr. C. W. Drees, is from Xenia. Miss Isabella Thoburn, a sister of Bishop Thoburn, was the first woman sent out as a foreign missionary under the auspices of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society. One of the most remarkable missionaries is Mary Reed, an Ohio woman, who to-day is a missionary to the lepers in an asylum on the Himalayas.
Through the influence of Dr. Adam Poe, a mem- ber of the Ohio Conference, William Nast, the "Father of German Methodism," an educated young German, then living in Cincinnati, was led into the pulpit, and became a missionary in the same city. Under his preaching, Dr. Jacoby was awakened and converted, and in 1349 was sent to Germany, to begin evangelistic work among his countrymen. The result of his labor was the foundation of the Methodist Epis- copal Church in that country. The membership is now counted by the thousands, and the good work goes forward encouragingly.
The Ohio Wesleyan University, with its hundreds of students, is the center of missionary intelligence
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and enthusiasm. More missionaries have gone forth from her halls of learning into foreign countries than from any other college in Methodism.
Another great institution of a charitable nature is the Freedmen's Aid and Southern Education Soci-
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FOLDER CINE
BISHOP D. W. CLARK.
ety, which was organized in Cincinnati, August 7, 1866. Bishop D. W. Clark and Dr. J. M. Walden (now bishop) were the first to move in the organiza- tion. The former had rendered special services to the Southern work of the Church, while the latter was
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corresponding secretary of the Freedmen's Aid Com- mission, which was an undenominational organization. The separate organization now projected was designed to meet the constant and pressing demand for schools to educate the Freedmen. The General Conference of 1868 gave a fresh impulse to the work by sanction- ing its organization, and commending it to the liberal support of the people. Four years later the General Conference adopted the Society as its own.
Since the organization of the Society nearly $4,500,- 000 have been expended, and there have been nearly fifty schools of high grade established in various cen- ters of the Southern States, with a total value of property amounting to $2,000,000. More than one hundred thousand students have been sent out from these halls of learning to lead lives of honor and use- fulness. Their education and success place them in the front rank of Christian leaders and messengers of a better and higher civilization.
The Methodist Church has likewise been closely identified with the cause of temperance. The Church at the beginning forbade "drunkenness, buying and selling spirituous liquors, or drinking them, unless in case of extreme necessity." Bishop Asbury, speaking of the liquor-traffic, said: "This is the prime curse of these United States, and will be, I fear much, the ruin of all that is excellent in morals and government in them. Lord, interpose thine arm!"
James Axley and J. B. Finley were among the most eminent pioneer ministers of Ohio who became the foremost opponents of the liquor-traffic. They took a firm and outspoken stand on the question that
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was so destructive to the morais of society. The earnest and forcible appeals of the Methodist preachers aroused opposition and obloquy, but furthered the temperance cause. J. B. Finley relates his temper- ance experience, in the year 181I, at Dillon's Iron Mills, six miles from Zanesville. He says:
"One of the greatest, if not indeed the greatest, sources of wickedness and misery resulted from the manufacture, sale, and use of intoxicating liquor; and the evil, lamentable to be told, existed in the Church as well as elsewhere. Ardent spirits were used as a preventive of disease. It was also regarded as a neces- sary beverage. A house could not be raised, a field of wheat cut down, nor could there be a log-rolling, a husking, a quilting, a wedding, or a funeral, without the aid of alcohol. In this state of things there was great laxity on the subject of drinking, and the min- isters as well as the members of some denominations imbibed pretty freely. The only temperance society that then existed, and, consequently, the only standard raised against the overflowing scourge of intemper- ance, was the Methodist Church. The General Rules of the society prohibited the use of intoxicating drinks as a beverage, and only allowed their use when pre- scribed as a medicine by a physician. No other de- nomination having prohibited the use of ardent spirits as a beverage, it followed, as a necessary consequence, that all persons who refused to drink were called, by way of reproach, Methodist fanatics. But few came out publicly against this monster evil, and manufac- turers, venders, and users were out against the Church. I often met with opposition for my advocacy of the
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cause of temperance. On my first round I was taken into a room at one of my stopping-places where there was a ten-gallon keg. I asked my host, who was said to be a pious man, what the keg contained, and he re- plied that it was whisky, and that he had procured it for the purpose of raising a barn with it. I asked him if he did not know that this drink was the worst enemy of man, and that it might occasion the death of some person, and be the cause of a great deal of swearing, and, perhaps, fighting. I further asked him if he did not know that God had pronounced a curse against the man who putteth the bottle to his neighbor's mouth, and maketh him drunken. At this he became excited, and angrily said, 'There is no law against using whisky, and I'll do as I please.'
" 'Very well,' said I, 'it is a poor rule that won't work both ways. If you do as you please, I will do as I please; and unless you take that keg out of this room I will leave the house; for I would rather lie out in the woods than to sleep in a Methodist house with a ten-gallon keg of whisky for my room-mate.' I furthermore said, 'Now, sir, if anything transpires at your barn-raising of an immoral nature, through the use of that infernal stuff, I will turn you out of the Church.'
"He refused to move the keg, and I took my horse and went to another place. Encouraged in my efforts to promote the cause of temperance, I suffered no opportunity to pass that I did not improve in por- traying the physical, social, and moral evils resulting from intemperance. I dwelt particularly upon its sad and ruinous effects in a religious point of view, and
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made strong appeals to the religion and patriotism of my congregation. Frequently I would pledge whole congregations, standing upon their feet, to the temperance cause; and during my rounds I am certain the better portion of the entire community became the friends and advocates of temperance, and on this cir- cuit alone, at least one thousand had solemnly taken the pledge of total abstinence. This was before tem- perance societies were heard of in this country. It was simply the carrying out of the Methodist Disci- pline on the subject. My efforts, as a matter of course, awakened the ire and indignation of the makers and venders of the ardent, and their curses were heaped on me in profusion. They would gladly have driven me from the country if they could, but this was be- yond their power."
If such a temperance spirit characterized all the ministry, the saloon would soon be abolished.
The greatest temperance movement of modern times is the American Anti-saloon League, inaugu- rated by Rev. H. H. Russell, D. D., the Wendell Phillips of temperance reform. It had its beginning in Ohio. It is omni-partisan and interdenominational, but the heartiest response to the movement is found in the Methodist Church.
The Methodist Church has always acknowledged and encouraged the influence and power of women for the uplifting and purifying of the race. The organiza- tions of women for foreign and home missions, for temperance, and almost every phase of moral reform, have greatly developed her power.
The desire of Methodist women for Christian use-
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fulness has not been restrained by the conventionalities and prejudices of society. The authorities of the Church have extended to them a welcome in the work of social reform and Christian service. No one need wonder, then, that Methodist women are among the foremost leaders and ablest advocates of moral reforms and aggressive Christian movements. Their conscious power is not born of ambition, but inspired by faith, meekness, humility, and a zeal for usefulness. The outgrowth of woman's religious impulses and inspira- tion has resulted in organizations of world-wide influ- ence and power for good.
The Woman's Christian Temperance Union, one of the grandest reformatory movements of the age, had its origin in Ohio, the birthplace of so many grand ideas. Through the influence of the famous lecturer, Dio Lewis, the Woman's Temperance Crusade began in Hillsboro, December 23, 1873, and swept over the great State of Ohio. Mrs. Eliza J. Thompson, a mem- ber of the Methodist Church, was chosen to lead the first band of women on its first visit to a saloon. On the 24th of December this band slowly and timidly approached the saloon of Robert Ward, and, after appealing to him in a few earnest words, the heroic women bowed together, and the leader offered a prayer that touched all hearts. "The scene that fol- lowed," says Miss Willard, "was one fit for a painter or a poet, so beautifully was the spirit of our holy religion portrayed. Poor wives and mothers, who, the day before, would have crossed the street rather than walk by a place so identified with the woes and heartaches of the 'lost Eden,' were now in tearful
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pathos pleading with the deluded 'brother' to accept the world's Redeemer as his own."
On December 24th, Dio Lewis had likewise lec-
ELIZA J. THOMPSON.
tured, and aroused the good women of Washington C. H. to inaugurate a like crusade against the saloon. Two days after, fifty-two women, with Mrs. George
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Carpenter as the central figure in the marvelous pic- ture, started forth on their errand of mercy. "Here, as in every place, they entered singing, every woman taking up the sacred strain as she crossed the threshold. This was followed by the reading of the appeal and prayer, and earnest pleading to desist from this soul-destroying traffic, and to sign the dealer's pledge." While the women, with trembling feet and tearful eyes, went from place to place and pleaded their cause, some good Christian men would remain in the Church and pray for the workers. The interest in the mission of these women increased rapidly, and soon created the wildest excitement. Monday, December 29th, the workers had increased to nearly one hundred women, and on this day the first liquor-dealer yielded to their prayers and entreaties, and turned over his stock of liquors to them. "Nearly one thousand men, women, and children witnessed the mingling of beer, ale, wine, and whisky as they filled the gutters and were drunk up by the earth, while bells were ringing, men and boys shouting, women singing and praying to God, who had given the victory." This campaign of prayer and song lasted eight days, when the eleven saloons of the town were all closed. This new move- ment attracted the attention of the press of surround- ing towns and cities.
The temperance flame enkindled, spread like wild prairie-fire throughout Ohio and into other States. The outgrowth of this great awakening was the organ- ization of many independent temperance leagues. The grand and good women saw that the temperance cause needed the united effort of all the women of the coun-
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try. Mrs. Mattie McClellan Brown, of Alliance, sug- gested the idea of forming a Temperance Union. The idea was accepted, and a National Convention was called, to meet in Cleveland, November 18, 19, and 20, 1874. State Conventions were held, and delegates appointed. The Convention proved a grand success, and the organization of the Woman's Christian Tem- perance Union was effected. Mrs. Annie Witten- myer, who was born of Methodist parentage and educated in Ohio, was chosen president; Mrs. Mary Bigelow Ingham, a prominent Methodist of Cleveland, treasurer. Mrs. L. D. McCabe, of Delaware, Ohio, prepared the Constitution, and Mrs. Charles Little, of the same city, suggested the name. The declaration of principles, the plans of organization, the appeal to the women of the country, placed this movement in the vanguard of temperance reform. The Union, with its mighty army of women, now encircles the globe with faith and work.
One of the rare Ohio daughters of Methodist par- entage was Mrs. Lucy Webb Hayes, a woman of exceptional ability, solid worth, and a symmetrical Christian character. To her is due the honor of ban- ishing from the White House, during her residence in it, all intoxicating liquors. Americans delight to honor the memory of this noble woman, who had the courage of her convictions.
The veteran temperance worker and inspirer of the British Woman's Association is Mrs. Eliza D. Stewart, known the world over as "Mother Stewart." She is a native of Ohio, and a member of the Methodist Church in Springfield. She ranks among the repre-
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sentative women of reform. For many years she has given her voice and pen to organizing and rallying the forces of temperance. Her effective services in this country opened a door to Great Britain. "The English say few women ever visited their homes who received the attention paid to Mother Stewart, the Crusader, throwing all her enthusiastic nature into her work. She attracted great throngs to her meetings,
LUCY WEBB HAYES.
and instilled a new spirit into the stanch workers over there. The result of her meetings was the forma- tion of the British Woman's Temperance Association, which is wielding a blessed influence among all classes in that country."
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