Columbia ©nto* tsitp 
 mtljeCttpoflrttigork 
 
 THE LIBRARIES 
 
 Bequest of 
 
 Frederic Bancroft 
 
 1860-1945 
 
KEV THOMAS H. PEARNE. 
 
 Ai the age of 30 years | 
 
SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT 
 
 CHRISTIAN LIFE 
 
 IN CHURCH AND STATE 
 
 THOMAS HALL PEARNE, D. D. 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 The World Harvest/' •' The Two Churches," " The Twentieth 
 
 Century," "Cincinnati Sunday Saloon," "Railroads 
 
 and Civilization." 
 
 %.& 
 
 m 
 
 printed for the Hutbor 
 
 CINCINNATI: CURTS & JENNINGS 
 
 NEW YORK: EATON & MAINS 
 
 1898 
 

 
 
DEDICATION. 
 
 To my dear daughter, 
 
 VIRGINIA WyOMING PEARNE, 
 
 Cbis Volume 
 
 Is affectionately dedicated. 
 
 Thomas Hall Pearne. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 HTHIS volume is due to the partiality of my 
 * brethren of the Cincinnati Conference, who, 
 by a resolution passed at their session in 1896, 
 requested that it be prepared. It was thought by 
 them that a record of my experiences and obser- 
 vations, extending through a ministry of over sixty 
 years, would be of interest and value to the Church, 
 and contain suggestions that might lead its readers 
 to a more active and better spiritual life. In ac- 
 cordance with this resolution the work was under- 
 taken, and the present book is the result. 
 
 The author has not written these pages in the 
 form of a diary, nor has he given a detailed nar- 
 rative of his life. He has attempted rather to 
 present the more striking events with which he 
 has been connected, and to depict some of the 
 great incidents of our ecclesiastical and civil his- 
 tory which came under his notice, together with 
 occasional sketches of the prominent actors with 
 whom he has been more or less associated from 
 his younger years. He has endeavored to be a 
 faithful chronicler, and to describe persons and 
 scenes as they were, or, at least, as they appeared 
 
 5 
 
6 PREFACE. 
 
 to him. Most of what is given has been written 
 from recollection. The events of my earlier life 
 still seem fresh and vivid. If I have lost some- 
 what of the buoyant spirit of childhood, I trust 
 that the high hopes then conceived have in a 
 measure been fulfilled through my ministry, and 
 that I have not labored in vain in the Lord. 
 
 For whatever success I may have had in 
 preaching the Word and in cultivating the field 
 given me by the great Head of the Church, to 
 him be the glory. T. H. P. 
 
 Hillsboro, August, 1898. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 THE influence of Methodism upon the marvelous 
 growth of what was once called the Great West, 
 upon its educational and its religious life, will never, 
 probably, be accurately measured nor fully acknowl- 
 edged. A distinguished jurist, judge of the Supreme 
 Court in one of the Western States — a professed 
 Deist — is reported to have said, on one occasion: "But 
 for the Methodist Church and the Methodist min- 
 istry, this country would have sunk into barbarism." 
 This may be an extravagant statement ; but the early 
 Methodist itinerants were, undoubtedly, a remarkable 
 class of men. It is said occasionally, in a half apolo- 
 getic tone, that these hardy and adventurous pio- 
 neer preachers were men for their times ; and so indeed 
 they were, and nobly did they fulfill their mission. 
 Some of these sturdy heroes were the vanguard of 
 our early frontiersmen, who, advancing westward 
 from the Atlantic seaboard, over the Alleghanies and 
 across the Mississippi Valley, swept onward over the 
 Rockies to the Pacific Ocean, thus spanning the conti- 
 nent with a splendid type of Christian civilization. 
 
 It is certainly within bounds to say that Meth- 
 odism has been second to no other human agency in 
 promoting the remarkable growth of the West; and if 
 so, the publication of the many biographies of the 
 pioneers of this pioneer Church, which have been is- 
 sued in recent years, is amply vindicated; for these 
 books are an important part of the history of the 
 country. 
 
 7 
 
S INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Many notable and most valuable contributions have 
 been made already to this biographical literature of 
 the Church, including sketches of such recognized 
 leaders as Francis Asbury, Jesse Lee, William Wat- 
 ters, Henry Smith, Elijah Redding, James B. Finley, 
 David and Jacob Young, James Quinn, Peter Cart- 
 wright, Thomas A. Morris, Granville Moody, William 
 I. Fee, and many others. The writer of this auto- 
 biography ranks easily with these and other distin- 
 guished men of the denomination, and it is eminently 
 proper that a life of such varied and protracted useful- 
 ness should find a permanent place in the history of 
 the Church. It may be said truthfully, I believe, that 
 no man in the ministry of American Methodism has 
 sustained an effective relation in the itinerant ranks 
 for so many years, consecutively, as are embraced in 
 this volume, and it will be the earnest prayer, I am 
 sure, of all who read these thrilling pages, that the 
 author may long be spared to the Church he has so 
 nobly served. 
 
 The sixty-one years of active and conspicuous 
 service which Dr. Pearne has given to the Church 
 already, covers a most interesting period in the history 
 of the world — the most remarkable period, perhaps, 
 in the nineteen centuries of the Christian era; for in 
 that time, and on this continent, and in this Republic, 
 humanity has reached its high-water mark of material, 
 intellectual, and political thrift. The fact that this 
 splendid Western civilization is the highest now exist- 
 ing, is due largely to the labors of the pioneer preach- 
 ers in the formative and history-making epoch in 
 which they lived. Certainly these born leaders of men 
 are worthy to be held in affectionate remembrance by 
 those of us who have entered into their labors. 
 
INTRODUCTION. g 
 
 And yet, worthy as is this volume of a place in 
 every Methodist library, it is not probable that its 
 preparation would have been undertaken but for the 
 action of the Cincinnati Conference, in 1896, as 
 follows : 
 
 "Whereas, Dr. Thomas H. Pearne, an honored and able 
 minister of this Conference, having had large experience in 
 public and journalistic service, has in many ways accom- 
 plished great good in both Church and State; therefore, be it 
 "Resolved, That we express to him our high regard, with 
 the hope that he will be able to place his Reminiscences in 
 printed form. If it be feasible, we suggest and request that 
 he prepare such a volume, which we believe will be of great 
 interest and value. 
 "C. W. Barnes, J. A. Story, C. L. Conger, 
 
 "D. LEE Auetman, "M. M. Kugler, John Pearson, 
 "F. G. Mitchell, G. W. Dubois, Wm. Runyan." 
 
 The reader of this volume will note the division 
 of the author's life into five periods, each marked by 
 distinctive conditions and duties. The first fourteen 
 years of his ministry — from 1837 to 185 1 — were spent 
 in Central New York and Northern Pennsylvania. 
 Here all the characteristics of the Church and of soci- 
 ety were marked by more or less culture and ma- 
 turity, even at that early time, rather than by the 
 rudeness and hardships of pioneer life; and yet it was, 
 after all, the transitional period between the old and 
 the new — the evolution from the earlier and simplor 
 forms of life to the higher civilization of the present 
 times. The common-school system was then in its 
 infancy; the Sunday-schools were crude and com- 
 paratively inefficient; railways were unknown; steam- 
 boats were in their earlier stage, limited to river trans- 
 portation ; there were then no ocean steamers ; the daily 
 newspaper was a luxury, only to be enjoyed in the 
 
j o INTR OD I 'CTIOJV. 
 
 largest cities; and telegraphic news from all parts of the 
 world, printed daily, was not even dreamed of as a 
 possibility. Methodism, then, was of the primitive 
 type. The class-meetings, band-meetings, love-feasts, 
 were given great prominence, and strangers were ad- 
 mitted to them cautiously, and not more than twice 
 or thrice. Instrumental music was very generally ex- 
 cluded from the services of the Church. Its intro- 
 duction was stoutly opposed as an innovation, for- 
 bidden alike by precedent, prejudice, and the claims 
 of spiritual worship. It would be a great mistake, 
 therefore, to suppose that the life of an itinerant Meth- 
 odist preacher, even in that favored region, would be 
 destitute of hardship, romance, and such thrilling in- 
 cidents as constitute the web of all human history. 
 Of Dr. Pearne's marked success as a preacher and 
 pastor in this initial period there is abundant evidence, 
 apart from that furnished, incidentally, by his auto- 
 biography. 
 
 The second period — 185 1 to 1865 — was that spent 
 in Oregon. No part of Dr. Pearne's ministry, it is 
 safe to say, has been more influential in molding opin- 
 ions and shaping results than the fourteen years 
 passed in Oregon. He was selected for that work by 
 one of the wisest men on the Episcopal Bench, and 
 the outcome fully vindicated the wisdom of .the choice. 
 The country was new, and the foundations of civil, 
 educational, and religious institutions were being laid. 
 A man of force, courage, and ability was needed 
 to take leadership in the plastic stage of our Church 
 life in that important and strategic field. Of Dr. 
 Fearne's work in Oregon, as a presiding elder and an 
 editor, this is not the place to speak at length. The 
 following pages will reveal how great was his oppor- 
 
INTRODUCTION, 1 1 
 
 tunity, and how fully he met the demands of the situ- 
 ation. That country was receiving, at that time, large 
 accessions to its population from all parts of the Re- 
 public; these accessions were swelled, no doubt, by 
 the contiguity of the recently-opened gold-mines of 
 California. Dr. Pearne's position naturally brought 
 him into close relations with the pioneer leaders of that 
 section, in religious, civil, and military life, and so 
 impressed were these leaders in civil affairs with the 
 Doctor's statesmanlike qualities that he was once 
 importuned to stand for an election to the United 
 States Senate. Dr. Pearne did not encourage this 
 movement, because, as he felt, he could not relinquish 
 the work committed to his hands by the Church. 
 
 The third term included five years spent in the 
 South, in the ''Reconstruction Days" following the 
 Civil War. His work was in East Tennessee, and in 
 connection with the first Conference of the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church organized in Tennessee after the 
 overthrow of slavery, and the rehabilitation of that 
 State with sovereignty. The war, indeed, was over, 
 and armed rebellion was subdued ; but the fierce pas- 
 sions aroused by the long and bloody struggle, and 
 the bitter prejudices excited by that unhappy, fra- 
 ternal strife, still existed. Dr. Pearne's position here 
 was a most delicate, difficult, and even dangerous one, 
 as will be noted by the reader in the thrilling narrative 
 of that period. 
 
 From this important work Dr. Pearne was called 
 by the Administration at Washington to serve his 
 country as United States consul in the British West 
 Indies. Of course, the duties of this position were 
 secular rather than sacred; and yet amid the engross- 
 ing duties of his official position in Jamaica, the Doctor 
 
1 2 INTROD I CTION. 
 
 found time to respond to the frequent calls made upon 
 him to occupy the various pulpits of the city, and 
 also of the island of Jamaica, in all of which he 
 preached frequently, except in those of the Roman 
 Catholic Church and the Church of England. 
 
 The last of the five periods into which the Doctor 
 has divided his life — from 1874 to the present time — 
 has been spent in the regular work of the itinerancy 
 in Ohio, as a member of the Cincinnati Conference. 
 Entering this body at an age when ministers are gen- 
 erally supposed to have crossed the "dead line," Dr. 
 Pearne took at once the position in the forefront which 
 he holds now, and is likely to hold until his voluntary 
 retirement from the effective ranks. Whether as 
 pastor or presiding elder, his rare ability as a 
 preacher, his genial personality, his fidelity to every 
 trust, and his faithful discharge of every duty, have 
 made him one of the most acceptable and useful min- 
 isters of his day. 
 
 The Church will be grateful to Dr. Pearne for this 
 valuable contribution to its pioneer literature, and it 
 will be read, I have no doubt, with increasing interest 
 as the years go by, and greater distance lends still 
 greater enchantment to the heroic days of American 
 Methodism. 
 
 JOHN F. MARLAY. 
 Springfield, Ohio, August, 1898. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 fnrst period -Beginning Xtinerant Life. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Ancestry — Birth— Conversion of Parents — Early Childhood — 
 Removal to New York Mills, Oneida County — Happy 
 Home-life — Father a Local Preacher, then an Itinerant — ■ 
 Old-time Veterans — Conversion, and Call to Preach— 
 School-life — Serious mistake, Page 21 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Begin preaching as a Supply — Truxton Circuit — First Appoint- 
 ment — First Sunday — Changed to Madison Station — 
 Marriage — Amusing Incident — Appointed to Marcellus — 
 Funeral — James Jay, an Old Wesleyan Preacher — Skane- 
 ateles— Visit there in 1864 — Auburn — Returned to Madi- 
 son — Revivals and Church Improvements, 31 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 General Conference of 1844 — Personal Recollections, ... 41 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Binghamton — Eel-pot Church — Wyoming — Great Revival — 
 Flisha Harris my Helper — Conversion of Payne Pette- 
 bone — Letter from Rev. R. W. Van Schoick, 53 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Francis Asbury, Personal Reminiscences — Wilkesbarre — 
 Bishops Soule and Waugh, who Ordained me — Bishop 
 
 Roberts, 63 
 
 13 
 
'4 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Associations and Experiences— Fathers of the Oneida Con- 
 ference - Marmaduke Pearce — John Dempster— Joseph 
 Castle— George Harmon— The Paddock Brothers— David 
 A. Shepard — The African Missionary— W. W. Ninde— 
 Elias Bowen Page 77 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 Jesse T. Peck,— George Peck— George Gary, 91 
 
 Second period Life in Oregon. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Transfer to Oregon — Conditions inducing — Voyage — Steamer 
 Associates— Delay in Aspinwall — Passage up the Chagres 
 River — Incidents — San Francisco Delay — Port Oxford — 
 Indians — Portland— J. H. Wilbur — Oregon City — Salem — 
 Ministers, 109 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The Name Oregon — Description — Columbia River and Valley 
 Willamette River — Umpqua and Rogue Rivers — Wash- 
 ington — Climate — Camp-meeting Lunatic — Rook Creek 
 Camp-meeting — " Two-seed" Baptist — Sautiam Camp- 
 meeting — Doctrinal Preaching, 123 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Toils and Hardships — Muleback Riding — Trip to Washington 
 in December, 1852 — An Inhospitable Priest — Lost — A 
 Hitter Cold Night— Narrow Escape from Freezing— Christ- 
 mas Walk in Deep Snow Twenty-six Miles — Floods 
 out, 134 
 
 CHAPTER. XL 
 Sloughs — Weddings and Funerals — Incidents, 124 
 
CONTENTS. 15 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Jargon — Wolves — Trip with Bishop Simpson — Bishop Ames in 
 Oregon in 1853 — Organization of Oregon Conference — 
 Educational Plants— F. S. Hoyt— Other Preachers— Con- 
 ference of 1854 — Bishop Simpson's Sermon — Reminis- 
 cences of his Visit to Oregon— Incident, .... Page 148 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 With Bishop Simpson on the Columbia River — Bishop Baker 
 at Oregon Conference, 1855 — Delegate to General Confer- 
 ence — Pacific Christian Advocate Founded — General 
 Conference Incidents — Elected Editor — Fortieth Anniver- 
 sary of the Advocate, 166 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Bishop Simpson's Last Visit to Oregon, 1862 — Buggy-ride 
 with him to Yreka — Appeal Case tried before Bishop 
 Janes — National Republican Convention in Baltimore, 
 1864 — Oregon a Free State — ContrastSj 180 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 A Stage Trip from Oregon across the Plains, in 1864, . . 194 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 Adventures with Indians and Wild Beasts, 215 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 Oregon and Slavery — Secession — Editorials in Advocate, . 224 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Thanksgiving Sermon, 1862 — Christian Patriotism — The Re- 
 bellion, 238 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Oregon and the Northwest Boundary — General Scott — Our 
 First Mission House in Oregon, 258 
 
1 6 CONTENTS. 
 
 Cbird period— Reconstruction. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 A Year's Absence from the Conference for Rest and for Work 
 in the Army— Christian Work in the Army— City Point — 
 Care of Hospital Ward — Work During a Bloody Engage- 
 ment at Hatcher's Run, Page 271 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 Bishop Clark's Visit and Work in East Tennessee in 1865 — Or- 
 ganizes the Holston Conference of the Methodist Episco- 
 pal Church— History of the Proceedings, 281 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 History of the Reorganization continued — Letter Concerning 
 Bishop Clark's Work in the South, 300 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 Letter from Nashville Concerning Reconstruction — Editorial 
 in Western Christian Advocate — Work on Knoxville Dis- 
 trict — Visit to Asheville — Perils — Misunderstandings, . 310 
 
 fourth period— Hs tlnited States Consul* 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 United States Consul to Kingston, Jamaica — Reasons super- 
 inducing — Duties of the Office — Cuban Excitements — 
 Steamer Edgar Stuart — Steamer Virginius — Captain 
 Fry's Farewell to his Wife — Editorial in Western Chris- 
 tian Advocate on " The Spanish Difficulty," 327 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 Events in the Consulate — Visit of Frigate Tennessee to King- 
 ston — Bishop Coxe — Commissioners to San Domingo — 
 History and Description of Jamaica, 339 
 
CONTENTS. 17 
 
 fifth period— Olork in Ohio. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 Return to United States— Secretary American Colonization 
 Society — Residence in Cincinnati— Illness and Death of 
 Mrs. Pearne— Resignation of Secretaryship— Transfers to 
 Cincinnati Conference— Appointed to Grace Church, Day- 
 ton—Second Marriage, to Miss McDonald— Dayton Dis- 
 trict—Unveiling a Painting— Address — Urbana — Wesley 
 Chapel, Cincinnati — Centennial Sermon, .... Page 363 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 Central Church, Springfield— God in the Constitution— Answer 
 to Ingersoll— First Church, Xenia— Semi-centennial Ser- 
 mon— Hillsboro District — Hillsboro College — Hillsboro 
 Charge — A Remarkable Event — The Gospel on Horse- 
 back—Closing Words, 410 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 ♦ 
 
 Thomas H. Pearne at the Age of Thirty 
 
 Years, Frontispiece. 
 
 Oregon Presiding Ei<der and his Faithfui, 
 
 Mui<e, Face Page 134 
 
 Thomas H. Pearne at the Age of Seventy- 
 eight Years, Face Page 410 
 
Firxt ^eritrri. 
 
 Beginning Itinerant Life. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 1WAS well born. Like Paul, I was free born. 
 My birth date is June 7, 1820. 
 
 "My boast is not, that I deduce my birth 
 From loins enthroned and rulers of the earth; 
 But higher far my great pretensions rise, 
 The child of parents passed into the skies." 
 
 My parents were, on my mother's side, of the hardy 
 Cornish stock; on my father's side, of Rochester 
 Bridge, Kent County, London. Father was strictly 
 a Cockney; i. e., a Londoner; mother was a York- 
 shire woman. The former inherited the culture 
 and keenness of observation of the civic conditions 
 of his birth and early years. Mother transmitted 
 to me the vigor and robustness of her own sturdy 
 constitution. Both lived to a ripe age, each of 
 them dying when about seventy-four. Both were 
 members of the Church of England. Mother's an- 
 cestors for two generations had been Wesleyans. 
 Her father and her grandfather were local preach- 
 ers in Mr. Wesley's Connection. The tradition 
 runs that on mother's side there was a dash of the 
 Wesley blood in our veins. 
 
 Yet while both my parents had the forms of 
 godliness by their membership in the Church of 
 England, neither of them knew its power. They 
 had never experienced what is understood, among 
 Methodists, as a change of heart. On their arrival 
 in New York, a Methodist and a relative inquired 
 
22 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 of father whether he had ever been converted, and 
 how his soul was prospering. It was the first time 
 in his life that such questions had ever been ad- 
 dressed to him. The same person invited them to 
 attend a revival-meeting, then going on in Duane 
 Street Methodist Episcopal Church, New York. 
 In the first Methodist meeting they ever attended 
 they went forward to the altar for prayers, and 
 united with the Methodist Episcopal Church as 
 seekers of religion. I have often heard my father 
 say that he was indebted, under God, for his salva- 
 tion to the zeal of the Newi York Methodists, and 
 to this wise provision for receiving persons as seek- 
 ers of religion on trial in the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church. 
 
 The earliest years of my life were spent in New 
 York. When I was five years old — i. e., in 1825 — 
 my father moved with his family into Central New 
 York. We settled in a place called New York 
 Mills, a cotton factory village in Oneida County, 
 which employed some five hundred operatives. 
 The place was three miles east from Utica, and one 
 mile west from Whitesboro. Father's family was 
 typically large. It consisted of ten children — seven 
 sons and three daughters. One died in infancy; 
 another in his ninth year. A third died at four- 
 teen. The others lived to adult age. Their names 
 were, respectively, William, Nathaniel, Thomas, 
 Francis, Mary, Harriet, Benjamin, John, and Hes- 
 ter. Hester was called home when fourteen, John 
 Wesley at twenty-three, Harriet at twenty-five, Na- 
 thaniel at fifty, and William at seventy-five. His 
 
THE FAMILY — INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC. 2$ 
 
 ministerial life began when he was twenty-one, and 
 continued fifty-four years. Nathaniel was a mer- 
 chant. For many years he was in the wholesale 
 store of A. T. Stewart, New York; and for a few 
 years he kept a retail store on Bleecker Street. 
 Benjamin was a mechanic. John Wesley was a 
 printer, a compositor in the office of the New York 
 Commercial Advertiser. Three of the family re- 
 main : the writer, sister Mary, and brother Benja- 
 min ; the latter, respectively, in Cortland and Ox- 
 ford, New York. Those Who have gone, died in 
 the Lord, after lives of piety and usefulness. All 
 the children in my father's family were converted 
 in early childhood, and united with the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church, most of them before the age 
 of twelve. 
 
 In my boyhood, the introduction of instru- 
 mental music in the Sunday service created much 
 agitation and violent contention. A maiden lady 
 of some maturity came into the church while the 
 first hymn was being sung. For the first time in- 
 struments had been introduced into the choir in the 
 gallery; but as she was under the gallery, directly 
 below where the choir sat, she did not observe the 
 musical instruments, and she sang from the same 
 hymn-book with my mother with apparent zest 
 and delight. After the prayer, and when the second 
 hymn was announced, the instruments sounded the 
 pitch. "What is that?" said she to my mother. 
 "Musical instruments," was the answer given. She 
 was seized with hysterical convulsions, which lasted 
 several days. 
 
24 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 Father and mother and my oldest brother, and 
 our hired girl, with three other persons, united with 
 the Methodist Episcopal Church by letter, and 
 were organized into a class by the Methodist min- 
 ister stationed in Utica, and my father was ap- 
 pointed class-leader. Father held a license as a 
 local preacher. For a time we had meetings in our 
 house, and then the mill company assisted the vil- 
 lagers in building both a Methodist church and a 
 Presbyterian church. In both these churches we 
 had sweeping revivals of religion. In the Presby- 
 terian Church, Rev. Charles G. Finney was the 
 evangelist. In one of these revivals a large num- 
 ber of children were converted. Among these were 
 two brothers and a sister of mine, and also Edward 
 G. Andrews, at present, and for twenty-five years 
 past, one of our honored and beloved bishops. My 
 father was a schoolteacher in England and in this 
 country, and he was also an accountant. For sev- 
 eral years he was the clerk and the cashier of the 
 factory. He was a man of large reading, of good 
 education, and of literary tastes and pursuits. He 
 had a somewhat full library. As I was a voracious 
 reader, I soon held its treasures in my possession. 
 
 Our home was a bright, Christian home, the 
 abode of content and piety. It was well ordered, 
 full of cheer and comfort. The family were taught 
 to fear and love and honor God. Family worship 
 was kept up morning and evening. The religion 
 of the family was sunny and joyous. Music was 
 much loved and enjoyed. We were a very happy 
 family. We knew and sang the old Methodist 
 
FATHER A TRAVELING PREACHER. 25 
 
 hymns and tunes. Mother was a very sweet singer. 
 Father sang some; but his voice was less musical 
 than mother's. Father regularly filled appoint- 
 ments as a local preacher in places not too far from 
 our home. 
 
 In 1832 father entered the traveling connection, 
 in which he continued thirty-six years. His death, 
 at the age of seventy-four, was peaceful and tri- 
 umphant. His last words were, "Happy! happy!" 
 Mother's last words were : "Though I walk through 
 the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no 
 evil: for thou art with me: thy rod and thy staff 
 they comfort me." At fourteen I was made a class- 
 leader of a large class, mostly of females, some 
 forty or fifty of them. Six months later I was 
 licensed to exhort, and at fifteen I was licensed 
 as a local preacher. In 1836-37 I attended school 
 at Cazenovia Seminary, in Madison County, New 
 York. The principal of the school was Rev. 
 George Peck, D. D., who later filled a large place 
 in the Methodist Episcopal Church as editor of the 
 Christian Advocate, New York, and the Methodist 
 Quarterly Review. 
 
 OLD-TIME VETERANS — PHCEBUS — MERWIN — BANGS. 
 
 The writer's feet first pressed the soil of old 
 Oneida Conference in his childhood. In his early 
 manhood he traveled the circuits and ministered in 
 some of the stations of that goodly field. There 
 were giants in those days. He saw them. He 
 heard them. He remembers them. However far 
 his path may have since diverged from those earlier 
 
26 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 scenes, and however diversified the experiences and 
 events of the later years, memory has emblamed the 
 recollections of those golden times. Those mem- 
 ories reach distinctly to 1828. 
 
 One of the well-remembered events of that 
 early period was about that time. It was the pres- 
 ence in my father's home, as guests, of three vener- 
 able preachers of the New York Conference. They 
 were men of large stature and fine presence: tall, 
 portly, and of courteous bearing. The third ses- 
 sion of the Oneida Conference was held in Utica, 
 N. Y., three miles distant from New York Mills, 
 the place of my boyhood home. These persons 
 were visitors at the Oneida Conference from the 
 New York Conference. New York Mills was then 
 a new charge. Two years before this the first class 
 of seven persons was organized in my father's 
 house; four of them, as already stated, were of our 
 family. The name of the new charge first appeared 
 in the Annual Minutes in 1826, with Charles Giles 
 as pastor. In four years it had grown to three 
 hundred and sixteen members. It was now assist- 
 ing in sustaining the Conference. The manly 
 guests, already named, were : Dr. William Phoebus, 
 Rev. Samuel Merwin, and Rev. Nathan Bangs. 
 
 Dr. Phoebus was then an old man. He had 
 been forty-seven years in the itinerancy. He began 
 his ministry in 1783, the year before the organiza- 
 tion of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Thus 
 my association with him in childhood relates me, 
 personally, with the beginning of our organic 
 Church life. Dr. Phoebus was well-preserved, vi- 
 
VETERANS — PHOEBUS, MERWIN. 2J 
 
 vacious, and most agreeable in his manners. He 
 was born in Maryland in 1754. After having trav- 
 eled ten years he located, and after a brief term 
 he re-entered the itinerancy. In 1798 he was again 
 located, and engaged in the practice of medicine 
 in New York. Eight years later he joined the New 
 York Conference. In 1824 he was superannuated, 
 in which relation he remained until his death, in 
 1 83 1. His mind was vigorous. His knowledge 
 was large and various. In men and books he was 
 well versed, and also in the early records of the 
 Church and in the different systems of Church 
 order and government. He was large in person, 
 and noble looking. His manner was genial. He 
 was quite attentive to children, who in turn loved 
 and admired him. He was fluent in speech, and 
 well stored in racy incidents, which he rendered 
 graphically. Upon my young imagination he made 
 a deep impression, never since effaced. He was a 
 leading member of the General Conferences of 
 1808 and 181 2. He was a strong man in Meth- 
 odism, aiding effectively in extending her borders 
 and strengthening her stakes during her immature 
 period. He helped to lay broad and deep her foun- 
 dations, upon which the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church has had a most astonishing growth in num- 
 bers, activities, and resources. 
 
 The second of these eminent ministers was Rev. 
 Samuel Merwin, who was yet in his vigorous prime. 
 He, too, was genteel and elegant. He was prob- 
 ably a little above fifty, and had been preaching 
 thirty years. He was above average height, of full 
 
28 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 habit, yet not corpulent. Dr. Bangs was less corpu- 
 lent than Phoebus, and taller than Merwin. He 
 baptized me in my early childhood, in Duane Street 
 Church, New York — of which fact I still hold a 
 very distinct recollection. As I recall him he was 
 slightly round-shouldered, with his head somewhat 
 inclined to one side. He, too, was a most genial, 
 interesting person. All the early Methodist preach- 
 ers were specially attentive to the children in the 
 families where they were guests. Dr. Jesse T. 
 Peck, afterward bishop, was also a frequent visitor 
 at our house, and we much enjoyed his visits. 
 
 My call to the ministry antedated my conver- 
 sion. It was very strong and clear, and I even 
 commenced to preach in my eighth year. My 
 entrance into the pastoral work was somewhat 
 peculiar. In the fall of 1837 I was attending the 
 Cazenovia Seminary, Rev. Dr. George Peck the 
 principal. I had no means. I boarded myself, and 
 did odd days' work, and I also did chores in the 
 morning. I lived on bread and milk and potatoes 
 and salt, renting a room and doing my own cook- 
 ing; my entire living costing me from fifty cents 
 to seventy-five cents a week. A vacancy occurred 
 on a circuit some fifteen or twenty miles away. 
 A junior preacher was needed. The presiding elder 
 came and offered the place to me. I remained on 
 this charge nearly two years. Near the end of the 
 second year I had two offers to go through col- 
 lege. An Episcopalian, who came to my semi- 
 monthly services, and whose generous hospitality 
 as a host I often shared, said to me one evening, 
 
AN EARLY MISTAKE. 29 
 
 "Are you very desirous of getting a classical edu- 
 cation?" Upon my returning an affirmative an- 
 swer, he offered to send me through the Geneva 
 College, an Episcopalian institution in Western 
 New York, and then through the theological 
 school at the same place, defraying all my expenses, 
 and then depending on me to repay the debt as I 
 might be able after graduation. I consulted my 
 father, who said that meant that I would enter the 
 ministry of the Protestant Episcopal Church. I 
 declined, with many thanks. A Methodist layman 
 made me the same kind of an offer. He wished 
 me to go to the Wesleyan University in Middle- 
 town, Conn., then our only collegiate institution 
 in the East. We had then no theological school 
 in our Church. That is the offer I should have 
 accepted. I would have done so, only that a pre- 
 siding elder dissuaded me, urging me to enter the 
 Conference at once, and educate myself while em- 
 ployed in the pastoral work. This wrong advice 
 I followed, and, being recommended to the Con- 
 ference from the charge on which I had been a 
 supply for almost two years, I was admitted into 
 the Oneida Conference in the early autumn of 
 
 1839. 
 
 I was then nineteen years of age. I pursued 
 my studies in Greek and Latin and Hebrew, gain- 
 ing a smattering knowledge in those languages. 
 But it was a mistake not to have obtained a clas- 
 sical education, which has been recognized and 
 regretted through my whole ministry. While per- 
 haps holding an average grade among my minis- 
 
30 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 terial brethren, I am satisfied I would have been 
 much more effective and useful in my ministry if 
 I had more fully prepared myself by education. 
 There was less blame for the wrong counsel of 
 presiding elders sixty years ago than now. Edu- 
 cated young men are waiting every year to enter 
 our itinerancy, and those whose education is in- 
 complete should not be allowed to enter the travel- 
 ing ministry. And there is now even less excuse 
 on the score of poverty for failing to secure edu- 
 cational preparation than there was in the earlier 
 times ; for we have a society in our Church, deserv- 
 ing high commendation for it, which will advance 
 the necessary means for attending school to those 
 who are needy. In this way the children's fund has 
 aided, by loans and gifts, six thousand young per- 
 sons who were called of God to labor in his work, 
 either as teachers or preachers. In the year 1897 
 sixteen hundred have been thus assisted. This list 
 for a single year includes persons of twenty-five 
 nationalities. If, with the knowledge I now have, 
 the life I have lived could be begun anew, I would 
 never commit the folly of my early manhood, and 
 omit the opportunities then offered for acquiring 
 an education. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE first year of my supply on the Onondaga 
 Circuit, James Atwell, of blessed memory, was 
 my colleague; the second year, Benjamin G. Pad- 
 dock. Both were veterans, and both gave me sym- 
 pathy, kindness, and abundance of excellent in- 
 struction. The early system of our itinerancy, of 
 going out in pairs, was very advantageous to the 
 young ministers. It answered a good part in their 
 training. 
 
 After my admission into the Conference on 
 trial, my first appointment was on Truxton Circuit. 
 Lyman K. Reddington was my senior colleague. 
 He died a few years ago, aged over ninety years. 
 Here I spent my first Sabbath after Conference. 
 I preached four times. The plan of the circuit for 
 that day was ten A. M., Truxton, preaching and 
 class-meeting. I led the class here, as also in Cuy- 
 ler, five miles away, where I preached at two P. M. 
 My plan named the third appointment at Kinney's 
 Settlement, and to stay at Kinney's— class-leader. 
 I reached here at five o'clock. I stopped with the 
 class-leader, Brother Kinney. His wife informed 
 me he had gone on to meeting. So I concluded my 
 plan was wrong, and that five o'clock was the 
 proper hour for my evening appointment. I rode 
 on half a mile. A large congregation was waiting 
 for the preacher. I entered, saddlebags in hand, 
 and at once I took my seat in the teacher's desk, 
 
 31 
 
32 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT tVORA*. 
 
 for it was a schoolhouse. The congregation looked 
 at me with apparent curiosity, for I was a total 
 stranger. After a few minutes a gentleman beck- 
 oned me to follow him out of doors. He said: 
 "You are a stranger. May I inquire your name?" 
 I gave him my name, and informed him that I was 
 the junior Methodist preacher, sent there from 
 Conference. He said: "My name is Kinney; I am 
 the class-leader. You will stay with me to-night. 
 Our meeting is across the creek at our church, at 
 early candle-lighting. This meeting here is a Bap- 
 tist meeting. The people are expecting a Baptist 
 minister from Tully. If he does not come, I doubt 
 not the people would like you to preach to them." 
 So we returned into the house, and I began, with 
 some shame, to take a lower seat. The expected 
 minister not arriving, I was invited to preach, which 
 I did, and then at evening at the Kinney Church, 
 making four sermons and two class-meetings in one 
 day and twelve miles of travel. 
 
 The next day I hired a buggy, and started for 
 my old circuit to get my books and my clothes. I 
 passed through Cazenovia, where my father was 
 stationed, and where my presiding elder, Dr. Elias 
 Bowen, lived. He changed me from Truxton cir- 
 cuit to Madison station, as the minister who was 
 appointed there was unable to serve them on ac- 
 count of ill-health. The year was a delightful one. 
 Revivals occurred, and some fifty or sixty persons 
 were converted. Here I became acquainted with 
 the daughter of Solomon Root, Esq., Miss Ann P. 
 Root, who, two years later, became my wife, and 
 
FIRST SUNDAY'S WORK'. 33 
 
 with whom, for thirtyrthree years, I lived in happy 
 and prosperous union of hearts and hands. An in- 
 cident in connection with the wedding will be en- 
 joyed : 
 
 I was married, October 5, 1841, by my father, 
 who at the time was stationed in Utica. As 1 
 wanted to take a wedding trip to Trenton Falls 
 in my buggy, and return to Utica for the Sabbath, 
 my father exchanged pulpits with me for that Sun- 
 day, and he went to Marcellus for me. I reached 
 Utica with my bride on Saturday night, putting up 
 at my father's house. I grew up three miles from 
 Utica, and I knew personally many of the leading 
 members of that Church, where I was to preach. 
 At Church-time my mother and myself, accom- 
 panied by my wife, made our way to the church. 
 As we were about to enter I saw Father Swartwout, 
 one of the veterans, standing on the doorstep a 
 little distance away, with others of the Official 
 Board, whom I knew. I told Mrs. Pearne to go 
 in with my mother, and I would go and speak to 
 my friends standing near. Of course, my wedding 
 suit was befitting. A fine silk hat, a white necktie, 
 kid gloves, morocco shoes, etc. Approaching my 
 venerable friend, I said, extending my hand, "How 
 do you do?" Instead of taking my hand, he eyed 
 me from head to foot, and inquired my name. I 
 told him my name. "What !" said he, "are you a 
 son of our minister?" "I am," said I. "Well," said 
 he, "do you call yourself a Methodist minister?" 
 "I do not so call myself," I replied; "but I am one 
 all the same." "Well, well," said he, "you do not 
 
 3 
 
34 SIXTY ONE YEARS OE ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 look like the fortieth cousin to a Methodist 
 preacher." 
 
 It should be remembered that Mr. Swartwout 
 was very plain in his dress. He wore a white, 
 broad-brimmed hat; a single-breasted, straight- 
 collared, cutaway coat, and straight boots — not 
 rights and lefts. They were round-toed as well. 
 He added, "I suppose you have a written sermon in 
 your pocket, which you will pull out and read to 
 us." "No," said I, "not that; I never read my ser- 
 mons, but I preach them. Come and hear me." 
 He did hear me. I had a fine time. He got very 
 happy under my sermon, and shouted, as did some 
 others. At the close of the sermon he met me at 
 the foot of the pulpit stairs, and shook hands with 
 me very cordially, saying: "I take it all back, what 
 I said to you about not looking like a Methodist 
 preacher. You are one, and I bid you God-speed. 
 God bless you, and make you very useful !" 
 
 My next station was Marcellus, in Onondaga 
 County. It adjoined the circuit in which my min- 
 istry began. We had two prosperous years, and 
 nearly one hundred souls professed conversion. 
 During this year I formed the acquaintance of a 
 young man and his father — artists, portrait-paint- 
 ers — who occupied rooms in a disused clock fac- 
 tory. They came to Church, and professed great 
 interest in me. I sat for my likeness in crayon. It 
 was not very satisfactory. There was an air of 
 mystery about them, and when I would call they 
 seemed embarrassed. The mystery was afterwards 
 solved by the discovery in their rooms of counter- 
 
A SINGULAR FUNERAL. 35 
 
 feiter's implements; and they were arrested for 
 counterfeiting. The portrait-painting was a blind. 
 During this year I attended a funeral some 
 eight or ten miles away. It was of a lady of nearly 
 ninety years. She was the mother of twelve chil- 
 dren, some forty-live grandchildren, and thirteen 
 great-grandchildren. They were Holland Dutch 
 by descent. The old lady came from Holland in 
 her young married life, with some two or three of 
 her children. The family had gone twenty miles 
 to secure a Dutchman to conduct the funeral. He 
 could not serve them, and, at his suggestion, they 
 came for me. They were wealthy people. The 
 funeral was in their house. It was elegantly fur- 
 nished, and they were evidently luxurious livers. 
 I had not been preaching more than fifteen min- 
 utes when they broke out in loud lamentations and 
 grief, which continued for some minutes. Indeed, 
 it seemed uncontrollable. It prevented any further 
 preaching. We rode two miles through a drench- 
 ing rain to the burial. I returned by request to the 
 house, and dined with the family. The dinner was 
 elaborate. Five or six courses of meat, including 
 beef, mutton and pork, venison, capons, turkey, 
 duck, and goose, and other courses of dessert. The 
 sideboard was laden with liquors of various kinds, 
 of which nearly all partook. I was urged to take 
 some wine or stronger stimulant ; which, however, 
 I declined. The hilarity of the dinner festival was 
 fully the counterpart of the demonstrations of sor- 
 row and mourning which had interrupted my 
 preaching. On leaving, I was presented with two 
 
36 SI XT V- ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK, 
 
 dollars for my attendance and with profuse compli- 
 ments for my sermon, which they averred had been 
 very satisfactory. This funeral will give an idea 
 of the prevalent customs of those early times. 
 
 On this station we had a large number of Eng- 
 lish people, who had come to America a few years 
 before, having been members of the Wesleyan so- 
 ciety in England. Among them was a venerable 
 superannuated minister of eighty-four years. He 
 was a fine preacher and a sweet-spirited man. His 
 name was James Jay, a relative of William Jay, of 
 Bath, an Independent or Congregational minister, 
 who had published a valuable collection of Scrip- 
 ture passages and comments for every morning and 
 evening. Benn Pitman, the stenographer, said a 
 few years ago in Cincinnati, "that he was probably 
 the only person in the United States who had seen 
 those who had known John Wesley and had 
 shaken hands with him and heard him preach. Mr. 
 Jay I knew intimately for two years. He often 
 preached in my pulpit. He and his family were 
 members of my Church. He had been for several 
 years one of Mr. Wesley's helpers or assistants be- 
 fore Mr. Wesley died. Mr. Jay knew him well for 
 four years before his death. My grandfather on 
 my mother's side, Thomas Hall, was a local 
 preacher in Mr. Wesley's Connection, and had 
 often heard him preach. Mrs. Lester, a venerable 
 old lady, whom I well knew, and who was a fre- 
 quent visitor at my father's house in my early teens, 
 was a member of Mr. Wesley's society for ten years 
 before his death. She had often heard him preach, 
 
INCIDENTS OF MR. WESLEY'S LIFE. 37 
 
 and had been present in his society meeting or 
 class-meeting when Mr. Wesley led the class. 
 
 Mr. Jay gave me two incidents of Wesley's life 
 which he witnessed. Mr. Wesley came into his 
 circuit and spent a day. At the dinner, at which 
 were several Wesleyan preachers and circuit offi- 
 cials, there was a little disposition to gossip. One 
 of the preachers remarked that one of Mr. Wesley's 
 preachers had become very gay in his apparel. He 
 had taken to wearing ruffled bosom shirts. "Well," 
 said Mr. Wesley, plucking Mr. Jay's coat, ''when 
 Jemmy can not preach without a ruffled shirt, he 
 shall have one if he wants it." After dinner, and 
 following the afternoon sermon, Mr. Wesley started 
 on his journey, accompanied by the ministers, all 
 well mounted. After going about two miles they 
 alighted, and Mr. Wesley sang a hymn with them 
 and pra'yed. Then they shook hands and parted. 
 
 From Marcellus I was sent to Skaneateles, 
 seven miles west from Marcellus. I remained 
 here only one year; but my return was earnestly 
 requested. Here also, as at Marcellus, was a large 
 sprinkling of English people. They were all fine 
 musicians, instrumental and vocal, and there were 
 four of them, each of whom wanted very badly to 
 lead the singing in the Church. Sometimes two 
 of them would hasten to select and start the tune 
 before the other could get in his work. The di- 
 vision of leaders divided the Church into segments 
 of about equal numbers. I announced that I would 
 dispense with the choir and choristers, and I would 
 lead the singing from the pulpit. This gave us 
 
38 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 pause from friction. I continued it through the 
 year. 
 
 In 1864, eighteen years later, I returned from 
 Oregon to attend the General Conference, to which 
 I was a delegate. I spent a Conference Sunday in 
 Skaneateles, where I was made most cordially wel- 
 come. I preached in the afternoon from 1 Samuel 
 ii, 30: "Them that honor me I will honor; but they 
 that despise me shall be lightly esteemed." Bishop 
 Simpson had preached one of his magnificent ser- 
 mons in the morning. The reunion was very 
 pleasant. The year I was pastor in Skaneateles was 
 successful. Large congregations attended upon 
 the preaching and upon the week-night services. 
 Our accessions and conversions amounted to one 
 hundred. 
 
 The following year I was sent to Auburn, five 
 miles west from Skaneateles. The stone church 
 was sixty by ninety feet ; a large congregation and 
 membership. The Millerite excitement ran very 
 high. I had twelve class-leaders. Six of them had 
 embraced the Millerite delusion, which was that 
 Jesus was coming in March, 1843, m person from 
 heaven to judge mankind, and to set up his millen- 
 nial kingdom. They converted their class-meetings 
 into Second Advent discussions, and dissensions 
 threatened permanently to disrupt the Church. I 
 took their class-books from them, and gave them to 
 those who would teach a more edifying doctrine. 
 My predecessor had taken a crowd of people of dis- 
 reputable notoriety into the Church, and for the 
 first six months of the year we were holding leaders' 
 
SECOND PASTORAL TERM IN MADISON. 39 
 
 and stewards' meetings weekly, dropping out the 
 unruly and disturbing elements, until we had dis- 
 posed of one hundred and twenty, by dropping or 
 expelling them. Then we had a powerful revival, 
 and one hundred and fifty were added to the 
 Church. 
 
 At the end of the year we were returned to 
 Madison, our first station. Family reasons induced 
 this. My wife's mother was in feeble health, and 
 requested that Mrs. Pearne should return to her 
 home and cheer her closing days. The year was 
 marked by great peace and some ingathering of 
 souls. In Madison, Marcellus, and Skaneateles we 
 made substantial improvements in church and par- 
 sonage property. In Madison we built a new 
 church, and introduced into it a pipe-organ, the 
 first one introduced into a Methodist church in 
 New York State west of the Hudson River. It 
 was not dedicated until my successor, Rev. A. J. 
 Dana, was in charge. When the dedication of the 
 church occurred, Dr. Bowen, the presiding elder, 
 was requested to dedicate the Lord's house. He 
 objected to do so, unless the organ was removed. 
 The committee waited upon Dr. Joseph Cross, the 
 stationed minister of Cazenovia, and asked him if 
 he would dedicate the church with an organ in it. 
 He promptly answered that he would, and he would 
 also dedicate the organ with every pipe in it. This 
 statement was announced to Dr. Bowen, and he 
 consented to officiate. This was in his dedicatory 
 prayer: "O Lord, we dedicate this beautiful church- 
 building, with all appropriate and necessary appur- 
 
40 SIXTY- ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 tenances thereunto belonging or in any manner 
 appertaining, to thy great name and worship." 
 The circumlocution was his way of avoiding and 
 evading the recognition of the organ. If interro- 
 gated upon the subject, he could make answer that 
 the organ was neither "appropriate nor necessary." 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 DURING the May of the Conference year, 1844, 
 I attended the General Conference of the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church, which met in Green 
 Street Church, New York, as a spectator, and saw 
 and heard all that occurred in that historic Confer- 
 ence on the subject of Bishop James O. Andrew 
 and Rev. Francis A. Harding, as slaveholding 
 bishop and minister. Bishop Andrew was sus- 
 pended from episcopal functions as long as the 
 impediment of his connection with slavery should 
 remain. The Conference refused to reverse the 
 action of the Baltimore Conference, by which Mr. 
 Harding had been expelled from the Conference 
 for being a slaveholding minister. There were 
 giants in that body on both sides of the great de- 
 bate, w r hich lasted through several days. That was 
 a very live question in our section of the country, 
 and some twenty thousand of our members in the 
 Eastern and Northern States seceded from the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church, and organized the 
 Wesleyan Methodist Connection. 
 
 The whole scene of that General Conference is 
 mapped out in my memory as vividly and strongly 
 as though it occurred yesterday. The great 
 speeches on the side of the North, were by Ham- 
 line, Peck, Bangs, Olin, Durbin, John A. Collins 
 of Baltimore, and others. On the South side, Will- 
 iam A. Smith, of Virginia; George F. Pierce, of 
 
 41 
 
42 SIXTY- ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT ICO A' A'. 
 
 Georgia; Ignatius A. Few, of Georgia; William 
 Capers, of South Carolina ; and John Early, of Vir- 
 ginia. The Ohio Conference delegation impressed 
 me very strongly. It included James B. Finley 
 and Joseph M. Trimble, whose resolution was the 
 one at last adopted, and it included, also, William 
 II. Raper, who impressed me as the noblest Roman 
 of them all. Edmund S. Janes and E. E. Hamline 
 were elected bishops. 
 
 In more orderly and elaborate form, a few years 
 ago I carefully wrote up my impressions of that 
 General Conference. It is too valuable as a his- 
 torical narrative, so detailed, not to put it into 
 these pages. It is as follows, viz. : 
 
 PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF THE HISTORIC 
 
 CONFERENCE OF 1844. 
 
 Some months since a call was made through the 
 press to ascertain how many members of the General 
 Conference of 1844 were still living. Six or seven 
 responded to the call. One of them — James M. Jame- 
 son, of the Ohio Conference — furnished the Western 
 several interesting papers on the subject, giving his 
 recollections of the men and the action of that body. 
 They had rare value as historical contributions. No 
 call has been made for papers from those who were 
 present as spectators only at that memorable Confer- 
 ence. Yet it may add a chapter, not without value, 
 if I shall furnish my personal recollections and im- 
 pressions of that historic body, not as a member, but 
 as a deeply interested onlooker. 
 
 Bishop James O. Andrew had become a slave- 
 holder by marriage with a lady who owned slaves. 
 He had been elected bishop twelve years before as a 
 
THE GENERAL CONFERENCE OF 1844. 43 
 
 non-slavehokling minister. He could not have been 
 elected bishop if he had been a slaveholder. There 
 has never been a moment in the history of the Meth- 
 odist Episcopal Church when a slaveholding minister 
 could have been elected a bishop. Francis A. Hard- 
 ing — a member of the Baltimore Conference — had 
 married a slaveholding woman, and so violated a rule 
 of the Discipline, as the Baltimore Conference held. 
 For this, as he refused to disentangle himself by manu- 
 mitting his slaves, the Conference suspended him. 
 From this decision he appealed to the General Con- 
 ference of 1844. The decision of the appeal sustained 
 the action of the Baltimore Conference. 
 
 Bishop Andrew's case was finally settled by adopt- 
 ing a resolution offered by J. B. Finley and J. M. 
 Trimble, which, after reciting the complications of 
 the episcopacy with slavery, and so marring Bishop 
 Andrew's acceptability as a general superintendent, 
 declared "that it is the sense of this General Confer- 
 ence that he desist from the exercise of this office so 
 long as the impediment remains." This was carried 
 by a vote of in to 69. Before the Conference assem- 
 bled in New York, and during its session, public ex- 
 citement had become strong and intense. Abolition- 
 ism had become widely prevalent in the non-slavehold- 
 ing States. Hence the meeting of the Conference, the 
 action expected to be taken, and the action, as stated 
 above, actually taken, aroused strong and general 
 agitation and excitement. The results of that action 
 in the division of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
 and later in the attempted dissolution of the Federal 
 Union, and also in the bloody Civil War which en- 
 sued, have ever since given a wide, living, and perma- 
 nent interest to the General Conference* of 1844 and 
 its action. 
 
 For two weeks, from day to day, with the liveliest 
 
44 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 interest in its doings as an Abolitionist, I sat as a 
 spectator in the gallery of Green Street Church, New 
 York, and watched the proceedings. The whole scene 
 was one of vivid, thrilling interest. It made an im- 
 pression on my mind never effaced. All the incidents 
 and conditions are as distinct in memory as though 
 occurring but yesterday. The grouping of the lead- 
 ing delegations, and also the persons, features, forms, 
 and voices of the chief leaders and movers of thought 
 in the body, as I now recall them, are as distinct in 
 memory as when I sat there forty-eight years ago, and 
 observed them. Upon the left of the pulpit were the 
 South Carolina and Georgia delegations. In the same 
 vicinity, and on both sides of the aisle, were the other 
 principal Southern delegations. 
 
 On the right-hand side of the pulpit, and extending 
 up the seats on that side of the house, were the New 
 York, Baltimore, and New England delegations. 
 Across the aisle from them, and extending toward the 
 rear of the house, were the Philadelphia, Oneida, Troy, 
 Genesee, Tittsburg, Ohio, and other delegations. In 
 fact, the Southern Conferences were ranged on one 
 side of the house, and the Northern and Border Con- 
 ferences were on the other side of the house. This 
 could not have been a coincidence. It must have been 
 designed. I do not claim exact accuracy in the detail 
 of these statements. Substantially, they are correct. 
 
 In the Virginia delegation were two noted men — 
 John Early, an elderly man, of coarse features and 
 severely plain countenance. He was afterwards a 
 bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. He 
 held the office some years. His marked persistence in 
 gaining and holding the floor, and his having his say 
 on nearly all questions, made him conspicuous. One 
 of his colleagues, a brilliant man, was William A. 
 Smith. His fervid eloquence, and bold, almost reck- 
 
PERSONNEL OF THE DELEGATIONS. 45 
 
 less statements, excited admiration. They utterly 
 failed to move the solid North from their convictions. 
 
 Among the many celebrities in that memorable as- 
 sembly who personally impressed me, I name the fol- 
 lowing, with the Annual Conferences they represented: 
 From the Georgia Conference were. A. B. Longstreet, 
 Ignatius A. Few, and Lovick and George F. Pierce — 
 father and son — both distinguished men, the latter 
 afterwards a bishop in the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church, South. 
 
 Of the ten New York delegates, four were strongly 
 marked — Nathan Bangs, George Peck, Stephen Olin, 
 and Peter P. Sandford. Of the seven from the Troy 
 Conference, Tobias Spicer, a veteran, and Jesse T. 
 Peck, for the first time a delegate, deserve mention. 
 Genesee Conference was ably represented by Gleezen 
 Fillmore, Samuel Luckey, and six others. Silas Com- 
 fort and D. Holmes, Jr., and five others, answered 
 from old Oneida Conference. William Hunter, 
 Homer J. Clark, and John Spencer, with their four co- 
 delegates, held up the credit of the Pittsburg Con- 
 ference. 
 
 Ohio Conference had a strong delegation of eight — 
 Charles Elliott, William H. Raper, Joseph M. Trimble, 
 James B. Finley, Leonidas L. Hamline, and others. 
 They were men of very fine presence. This Confer- 
 ence was honored in several ways. Finley and Trimble 
 presented the famous resolution in the Bishop Andrew 
 case. Finley looked the grand old pioneer and chief- 
 tain that he was. Trimble was youthful and ruddy. 
 L. L. Hamline made the eloquent argument which 
 carried the Conference as by storm to the adoption 
 of the Finley-Trimble resolution. Philadelphia Con- 
 ference had Levi Scott and John P. Durbin and four 
 others. 
 
 Kentucky Conference had Henry B. Bascom and 
 
46 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK'. 
 
 Hubbard H. Kavanaugh. Both of them afterward be- 
 came bishops in the new organization. Tennessee 
 Conference had Robert Paine, afterwards a Southern 
 Church bishop; John B. McFerrin, Book Agent and 
 editor, and later a missionary secretary ; A. L. P. 
 Green, and others. William Winans and B. M. Drake 
 were of the Mississippi Conference. 
 
 Prom Baltimore Conference, John A. Collins, 
 Alfred Griffith, and Henry Sheer showed themselves 
 strong men and masters in debate. W. M. Wightman, 
 William Capers, and S. Dunwoody, from the South 
 Carolina Conference, were conspicuous. The two 
 former became bishops in the new Church organiza- 
 tion. The personalities of Olin, Durbin, George Peck, 
 Nathan Bangs, H. B. Bascom, and others were 
 strongly marked. These gave them a ready and wide 
 recognition as men of power. 
 
 I can not distinctly recall the position in the audi- 
 torium of the delegates from the Mississippi Confer- 
 ence. One of them greatly and honorably distin- 
 guished himself — William Winans, D. D. He was a 
 native of Clermont County, Ohio. He had been many 
 years in the South. He had taken in slavery by inocu- 
 lation, as it were. It struck in on him deeply. He 
 was intensely and aggressively pro-slavery, a more 
 vehement and vigorous defender of the "peculiar in- 
 stitution" than were those "to the manner born." A 
 wide Byron collar, buttoned at the throat, and worn 
 without cravat, was the neck-dress ; heavy locks of 
 black, flowing hair, worn long. His general dress 
 was somewhat neglige. His voice was strong and ring- 
 ing. I heard him deliver an able and stirring address 
 on "African Colonization." He spoke loud and rap- 
 idly. During the speech of an hour his face was 
 flushed; the veins on his forehead stood out like whip- 
 
GENERAL CONFERENCE, 1 844. 47 
 
 cords ; his trumpet-tones rang out to the remotest 
 parts of the great Broadway Tabernacle. 
 
 A passage between Drs. G. F. Pierce and J. T. 
 Peck will have flavor. They were on opposite sides 
 of the house, and of the question as well. They fleshed 
 their maiden swords on the engrossing question. 
 Neither of them had ever been a delegate. Dr. Pierce 
 said: "We have unity and peace, and seek it because 
 of its effect on the connection ; and I believe to-day that 
 if the New England Conferences were to secede, the 
 rest of us would have peace. There would be religion 
 enough left among us to live together as a band of 
 brothers." He also spoke of New England as the 
 prime source of all the difficulty, and that, but for 
 her, he believed the residue of the Church would be 
 the gainer by it. 
 
 Dr. J. T. Peck said: "The brother from Georgia 
 says this measure will not save us from secessions. 
 We shall have secession from New England! Sirs, as 
 the name New England struck my ear, I felt a thrill 
 of the most intense interest. But the reverend gentle- 
 man proceeded to say, 'They are busybodies in other 
 men's matters! A thorn in the flesh! A messenger 
 sent to buffet us!' And alluding, as I understood him 
 to do, to a certain movement in New England, and 
 certain principles on which that movement was based, 
 he called it 'the foul spirit of the pit, the judgment of 
 perdition,' etc. . . . But my friend from Georgia 
 says: 'Let New England go! I wish in my heart she 
 would secede! And joy go with her, for I am sure she 
 will leave peace behind her/ Let New England go! 
 I can not forget this exclamation. It vibrates in my 
 soul in tones of grating discord. Why, sir, what is 
 New England, that we should part with her with so 
 little reluctance? New England! The land of the 
 
48 SI XT V- ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK'. 
 
 Pilgrims, the land of our venerated fathers in Israel, 
 the land of Brodhead, of Merritt, of the reverend 
 man at my side" — pointing to George Pickering — "and 
 a host of worthies whom we have delighted to honor 
 as the bulwarks of Methodism in its early days of 
 primitive purity and peril. Let New England go? 
 No, sir, we can not so easily part with the pioneer land 
 of the devoted and sainted Jesse Lee." 
 
 When the heat of the wordy battle had passed 
 away, apologies were in order for any severe, cutting 
 personalities, which, without intention, might have 
 been uttered. Those of Dr. Peck were profuse and 
 ample. Pierce's reply, in substance, was, that he 
 trusted that he had not said a word which would ruffle 
 a hair on the head of his worthy antagonist. When it 
 is remembered that Dr. Peck's head was completely 
 innocent of hair, the laugh which followed this sally 
 of Dr. Pierce will be easily accounted for. 
 
 After the Finley-Trimble resolution had been 
 adopted, and the time had come for the election of two 
 bishops, to the surprise of very many, Edmund S. 
 Janes, not a member of the Conference, was elected 
 bishop. George Peck had been much talked of as the 
 coming man for a bishop, lie had been editor of the 
 Christian Advocate and Journal and of the Quarterly 
 Reviezv for several years. If a bishop had been elected 
 in 1840, he would undoubtedly have gained episcopal 
 honors. There was a genuine disappointment at Dr. 
 Peck's failure to be elected, and, as intimated, a sur- 
 prise at Janes's success. 
 
 Bishop Janes's accession to the office was attrib- 
 uted to the solid vote of the Southern delegates, and 
 probably some votes from some of the Northern Con- 
 ferences. Three or four reasons were alleged as prob- 
 ably causing the preference for Mr. Janes over George 
 Peck. All through the hot debate in the Conference, 
 
ELECTION OP BISHOP JANES. 49 
 
 while Dr. Peck had not said severe and pungent things 
 upon the question in hand, yet he had voted with the 
 North on all the phases of the case as, one by one, they 
 reached the voting stage and it was well understood, 
 South and North, that Dr. Peck was a decided anti- 
 slavery man, if not actually an Abolitionist. Mr. Janes, 
 not being a member of the General Conference, he 
 antagonized no section nor party, and while it was be- 
 lieved that Mr. Janes was a Democrat in his political 
 leaning, and that his sympathies were with the South 
 and her institutions, he had, during the winter preced- 
 ing the General Conference, made the tour of the en- 
 tire South as financial secretary of the American Bible 
 Society; and so had visited all the Southern Confer- 
 ences and addressed them in that behalf, and had also 
 preached for them. It was also held and talked in 
 New York and elsewhere, at that time, that the South 
 would secede, and they were then preparing and pro- 
 viding to do so; and, from the stand taken by Bishop 
 Soule, it was conjectured and talked that he would go 
 with them, and, not unlikely, the Southern delegates 
 hoped that Janes also would go with Soule into their 
 Church when it should be organized. 
 
 My host, Mr. Francis Hall, informed me that Mr. 
 Janes was present when the Conference voted for 
 bishops. He sat in a seat near the rear of the church. 
 The tellers announced and counted the ballots in open 
 Conference. Mr. Janes kept the tally for his own 
 vote, and also of that for the other candidates. When 
 the vote for him had reached and passed the majority 
 line, he turned to Mr. Hall, who sat next him, and 
 said, "I am elected a bishop of the Methodist Epis- 
 copal Church." Whatever may have been the sus- 
 picions of some and the hopes of others, that Bishop 
 Janes would go with the South when they should 
 secede, I never heard his loyalty to the Methodist 
 4 
 
50 S I XT V- ONE YEARS OF IT EXE RANT WORK. 
 
 Episcopal Church called in question nor doubted. 
 Nor did I ever hear of his doing or saying anything 
 then, nor since, to confirm the suspicions expressed 
 by some at the time of his election, that the Southern 
 delegates had an understanding and a hope that he 
 would join the Church South when it should be or- 
 ganized. Mr. Hamline's election was the result of 
 his matchless speech, which carried the solid anti- 
 slavery vote of the Conference. The bishops who 
 were present during the discussion and decision as 
 to Bishop Andrew's case, were Soule, Hedding, 
 Andrew, Waugh, and Morris. During the pendency 
 of his case Andrew sat apart from his colleagues. 
 He presented a paper setting forth his relation as a 
 slaveholder. It was in substance as follows : Sev- 
 eral years before an old lady of Augusta, Ga., be- 
 queathed to him a mulatto girl, in trust that he should 
 keep her until she was nineteen years of age, and 
 that, with her consent, he should then send her to 
 Liberia ; and, in case that she refused to go to Liberia, 
 he should make her as free as the laws of Georgia 
 would admit. She refused to go to Liberia, and re- 
 mained legally his slave, although he received no 
 pecuniary compensation nor advantage from her. 
 Five years before the date of that Conference, the 
 mother of his wife left to his wife a Negro boy, and, 
 as his wife died without a will, this boy was legally 
 his slave. In the January preceding the General Con- 
 ference the bishop married his present wife. She 
 possessed slaves inherited from her former husband's 
 estate, and belonging to her. Shortly after marriage 
 he had secured them to her by a deed of trust. The 
 laws of Georgia did not admit of emancipation, so 
 that he was a legal slaveholder in those conditions. 
 
 The bishops were, by resolution, invited to speak 
 t<> Bishop Andrew's case, if they should so desire. 
 
THE GREAT CRISIS. 5 1 
 
 Bishop Soule made a long speech against the adverse 
 action proposed in reference to his colleague, as being 
 lacking in conservatism, and as opposed to the pre- 
 vailing usage of Methodism. Later the bishops pre- 
 sented a paper to the Conference, signed by J. Soule, 
 E. Hedding, B. Waugh, and Thomas A. Morris, re- 
 questing the Conference to postpone further action 
 in the case of Bishop Andrew until the ensuing Gen- 
 eral Conference, and that, in the meantime, the 
 bishops could assign to Bishop Andrew such work 
 in the slave States as would not be objectionable to 
 them, and would not thus offend those sections of 
 the work where the hostility to a slaveholding bishop 
 presiding in a Conference would not tolerate his 
 presence. 
 
 The next day Bishop Hedding withdrew his name 
 from the paper, the others adhering to their signa- 
 tures. The Conference laid the bishops' paper on 
 the table by a vote of 95 yeas and 84 nays. 
 
 I close this paper with a brief account of a most 
 delightful recollection I have of witnessing, while in 
 New York at that time, the debut of John B. Gough 
 in his brilliant career of marvelous power and success 
 as a temperance advocate. It occurred in the old 
 Broadway Tabernacle, at the May Anniversary of 
 the National Temperance Society. It was ten o'clock 
 at night. Edward C. Delevan, Esquire, Leonard 
 Bacon, D. D., and another, whose name I can not 
 recall, had held the vast audience of perhaps three 
 thousand souls spellbound by their burning words. 
 
 A seedy-looking young man was introduced to 
 the audience as John B. Gough. His name was un- 
 known. He had only been reformed some three or 
 four weeks. He was thin and cadaverous-looking, 
 and unpromising. From all parts of the house he 
 was hissed. I sat in the gallery, near to where he 
 
52 SIXTY-ONE VRARS OF ITINERANT WORK'. 
 
 stood on the platform. He took a firm standing po- 
 sition, and closed his lips tightly. I saw his eyes 
 flash, as of a purpose he would not relinquish. He 
 waited until the hissing ceased, and then began thus : 
 "Three weeks ago I was kneeling on the new-made 
 grave of my wife, murdered by my intemperance. I 
 solemnly promised God, that if he would give me 
 help, I would mount this fiery steed of the appetite 
 for strong drink, and I would draw upon the power- 
 ful curb-rein until I brought him back upon his 
 haunches." He suited the action to the word with 
 such dramatic power that the audience cheered him 
 with round upon round, and then for an hour he held 
 the vast audience by the magic of his fascinating elo- 
 quence, as he has so often done since. 
 
 Recurring to that famous General Conference, 
 it was from the sowing of dragon's teeth on that oc- 
 casion, from the muttering of division and of Church 
 separation, that, seventeen years later, secession oc- 
 curred, and the battalions of civil war were set in 
 this fair land. Our country ran red with fraternal 
 blood. Then God buried human slavery in the blood- 
 red gulf of war, thus freeing our country from the 
 blight and curse of human slavery, and rendering the 
 Nation homogeneous and united, a free and happy 
 people. 
 
 During my second pastorate in Madison, some 
 fifty were added to the Church. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 FROM this term of pastoral labor in Madison, 
 my next removal was to Binghamton, N. Y., 
 seventy miles south. Here were spent two happy 
 years. My father had preceded me in this charge, 
 and later my eldest brother succeeded me. And 
 later still, on my return from Oregon, in 1864-5, 
 I was for six weeks pastor of the same old Henry 
 Street Church in Binghamton, which I had rebuilt 
 during my first pastorate there. The name Pearne 
 seemed a favorite one in Binghamton, for the City 
 Council called a street by our name. Pearne Street 
 is still a full street in that city. Both years were 
 those of gracious awakening and outpouring. 
 Many souls were converted and added to the 
 Church. A very important murder trial was held 
 in Binghamton during my pastorate. From my 
 ability to write rapidly in shorthand, my services 
 were sought in taking down the evidence and the 
 arguments of counsel, especially the testimony of 
 experts on insanity. The man was acquitted. The 
 reason for this was, that the evidence was almost 
 entirely circumstantial, and the jury were reluctant 
 to convict for capital punishment one against whom 
 every particle of the evidence was circumstantial. 
 Henry Street Church, in Binghamton, when I 
 entered the charge was called, derisively, by the 
 toughs, "the old Eel-pot." It was nearly square, 
 very much like the four-square city described in 
 
 53 
 
54 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 the revelation of St. John the Divine. It was two 
 stories high, with a gallery on three sides. This, 
 under my earnest and unremitting labor, was trans- 
 formed into a modern church of due proportions, 
 beautiful, comfortable, elegant. The church edifice 
 was an education. That newly-modeled church 
 improved and elevated the tastes and spirit of the 
 people. It was before the days of the Church Ex- 
 tension Society. The official members of the old 
 Eel-pot Church had purposely nursed and incurred 
 an indebtedness of $250, which they would not 
 pay, that it might be used as a fender against any 
 troublesome Church beggar who might come to 
 them for a collection for a needy Church. That 
 debt was paid when I went into the repair business. 
 That church improvement, costing some $3,000 or 
 $4,000, had a charming effect upon the dear old 
 Church members. It was like life from the dead. 
 The unpaid balance was paid off on the day of dedi- 
 cation. For twenty years after its renewal, its walls, 
 frescoed and beautiful, echoed the songs of a jubi- 
 lant,, glad people, when it gave place to an elegant 
 structure of modern appointments, costing some 
 $40,000 or more. It is doubted that I ever achieved 
 so much for the welfare and life of a Church, as I 
 did in the remodeling of the old Eel-pot Church 
 into a modern and lovely church structure. Bing- 
 hamton can never fade from my memory. It was, 
 and it still is, a hallowed place to memory dear. 
 
 My next move was a great disappointment. It 
 was intended, doubtless, as a punishment from my 
 presiding elder, because I happened to differ with 
 
GREAT SUCCESS ON WYOMING CIRCUIT. 55 
 
 him. I was sent from a second-class station to 
 Wyoming, a circuit, almost in the stage of collapse, 
 without a parsonage and without much promising 
 character as a charge. It required all the nerve 
 and all the manliness I could summon to submit to 
 it, and go to the place to which I was sent. I 
 moved my goods, by pike, seventy-five miles, and 
 they stood in the street twenty-four hours, because 
 there was no place to store them. At last we put 
 them into an attic, and ourselves boarded the whole 
 year in the ladies' boarding hall of the Wyoming 
 Seminary. But it was the best year for results of 
 any in all my ministerial life up to that time. 
 Never since have I had a richer, riper year, nor one 
 more full of Divine power, and of grand, blessed 
 results. In Wyoming, six miles above Kingston, 
 the society seemed to be in a moribund condition. 
 I made two successive attempts to hold a pro- 
 tracted meeting, but both attempts were utter 
 failures. In Hartsough Hollow, Plymouth, and 
 Kingston we had precious revivals. 
 
 The fates seemed against us in Wyoming. I 
 sent over the mountains for Elisha Harris, an ec- 
 centric local preacher. We entered into a compact 
 to have a successful revival meeting in Wyoming, 
 or die. Instead of dying, we were the liveliest kind 
 of human beings. We visited from house to house 
 over a radius of three miles in diameter. At length 
 the skies gave forth a sound ; the slain of the Lord 
 were many. For six weeks the battle raged; the 
 work of God was mightily revived. In the whole 
 circuit three hundred souls were converted. The 
 
56 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 persons converted were some of them Deists, Uni- 
 versalists, and Newlights. My lieutenant, Elisha 
 Harris, staid right by me and with me until our 
 victory was won and housed. 
 
 I should describe him before narrating a scene 
 in which he very successfully wrought. He was 
 entirely unlearned. Beyond reading his Bible and 
 writing his name, he knew and could do nothing. 
 But then he knew Jesus. He knew the Holy Ghost. 
 He knew what salvation meant. He knew men 
 too well to be deceived in them or by them. He 
 was small in stature and spare; with hatchet face 
 and deep-sunken black eyes, which flashed and 
 blazed like orbs of fire when he was under full ten- 
 sion. His eyebrows were shaggy and overhang- 
 ing. He had the most percussive, piercing shout 
 I ever heard. After the revival was over, he lin- 
 gered a few days in Wyoming. A Universalist 
 preacher came to Wyoming to preach. Elisha 
 divined his mission. He came to me to say that he 
 would meet that vaunting Goliath. I advised him 
 to keep away. He said he had to meet him, and 
 God would take care of results. -When I found he 
 would go, I advised him to meet him with the Word 
 of God, and to ask God to keep him from making 
 great mistakes. The man came. His sermon w T as 
 a smooth, smart, moral essay. No one could tell 
 what his distinctive doctrine was from the sermon. 
 Elisha did not like the way the thing lay. When 
 the Universalist preacher was through, he gave 
 opportunity for any who doubted his positions to 
 rise up and call them in question. Elisha sat on the 
 
ELISHA HARRIS AND THE UNI VERS A LIST. 57 
 
 back row of seats, which were higher than the seats 
 in front, which had been made for the smaller schol- 
 ars. He jumped over the low seats into the middle 
 of the schoolhouse floor, and leaped up from the 
 floor, perhaps three or four inches. Then he 
 shouted "Glory to God!" at the very top of his 
 voice. "I say, sir," said he, addressing the minister, 
 his eyes flashing fire and his voice of piercing 
 power,- "how do they come up in the resurrection?" 
 The preacher was dazed and rattled. He did not 
 seem to know what to say. He scratched his head, 
 and repeated: "Come up? Come up? I suppose 
 they get up as a man would get up out of a chair. ,, 
 Then EHsha clapped his hands, and again shouted, 
 "Glory to God! I have got you." EHsha then 
 said: "You prowling wolf of hell, you come here 
 to steal back from God's sheepfold the lambs of 
 Christ's flock whom we have gathered, and you 
 do not know how they come up in the resurrec- 
 tion." Then he read in John v, 28, 29 : " 'Marvel 
 not at this : for the hour is coming in which all that 
 are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come 
 forth ; they that have done good, unto the resurrec- 
 tion of life ; and they that have done evil, unto the 
 resurrection of damnation !' And you do not know 
 how they come up in the resurrection?" The min- 
 ister, seizing his hat, said, "I did not come here to be 
 insulted." "Insulted! insulted!" said Harris; "and 
 you do not know how they come up in the resur- 
 rection!" The man started for the door. Elisha 
 started after him sans hat and sans overcoat. The 
 man broke into a trot. EHsha trotted after him, 
 
58 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 calling him a "wolf of hell," and telling him "he 
 did not know how they come up in the resurrec- 
 tion !" lie literally ran the man out of town. The 
 people were in sympathy with Harris, for they 
 knew him to be a conscientious, good man. The 
 man never came back to look after his lambs. 
 
 One of the converts was a Deist. He had not 
 been in Church for years. His conversion was very 
 marked. He and his wife joined the Church. They 
 were wealthy. They built a thirty-thousand-dollar 
 church, and a five-thousand-dollar or ten-thousand- 
 dollar parsonage. They sent for me to come and 
 dedicate the church. He died a few years since, 
 after a life of great usefulness. He was a very 
 godly, consecrated man. His wife also became an 
 earnest Christian. They have given blessed proof 
 of the genuineness of their religion, by their wise 
 and liberal gifts of money for benevolent and Chris- 
 tian causes. 
 
 During that great revival in Wyoming Circuit, 
 Elisha Harris and I visited all the families, shops, 
 stores, and manufactories and places of resort, 
 where we could find persons, and conversed per- 
 sonally with all we met about their souls and their 
 spiritual welfare. Among others, I visited Payne 
 Pettebone, the person referred. to above. I told him 
 that I had called to have a conversation with him, 
 and as there were others present, he took me into 
 his counting-room, and locked the door. I said to 
 him: "First, I wish to invite you to attend meet- 
 ing. We are holding special meetings, and it would 
 give me great pleasure to see you there." He re- 
 
A GREAT DAY — WONDERFUL INTEREST, 59 
 
 plied that he had not for ten years attended relig- 
 ions meetings, except at funerals. He did not be- 
 lieve in them. He was a Deist, he said. lie be- 
 lieved in God; but not in the Bible, nor in the 
 religion of the Bible ; but he was open to conviction, 
 and he would read any books 1 would furnish 
 him that would refute his ideas of Deism. I told 
 him I could bring him books that had refuted every 
 leading point in Deism; but there was a shorter 
 and a surer way to come to the truth on this sub- 
 ject ; and that way was prayer. The God who had 
 made him, if he approached him in prayer would 
 reveal the truth to him as to experimental religion ; 
 and then I proposed to him to spend a few min- 
 utes, at stated times, twice each day, and I would 
 stop at those times and pray specially for him. It 
 w T as specified that he also was to kneel down and 
 pray at those stated times. This was on Wednes- 
 day. I saw him no more until Sunday, when I 
 preached to a full house on "The Day of Final 
 Judgment." I asked all present who felt their need 
 of preparation for the judgment-day, and who 
 would pledge themselves to ask God to prepare 
 them for the judgment-day, to rise up, and indicate 
 both in that way. All in the audience, including 
 Mr. Pettebone, arose, except one person. He 
 was a very dissipated man. At evening, when 
 I invited seekers of religion to come to the 
 altar, Mr. Pettebone arose, and said he was going 
 forward, but he wished first to make a statement. 
 He spoke of the visit I made him on the Wednes- 
 day before, and said that the first time he prayed 
 
60 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 he was deeply impressed with a sense of God's 
 presence; that every time he prayed that impres- 
 sion deepened; that the result of it all was, he felt 
 himself a sinner in need of a Savior. Then he came 
 forward with many others, and the revival went 
 forward until hundreds were saved. 
 
 A letter was received by me recently from Rev. 
 H. W. Van Schoick, one of my successors on the 
 Wyoming Circuit, giving Mr. Pettebone's account 
 of his own conversion, which I introduce here : 
 
 Coldwater, Mich., April 28, i< 
 
 My Dear Doctor Pearne, — Have you forgotten 
 the call Brother Pettebone and I made on you in 
 Cincinnati on our way South? We did not stop with 
 you very long, but long enough to recall many pleas- 
 ant memories of your pastorate in Wyoming, Brother 
 Pettebone's home, where I, too, was pastor in the 
 early seventies. My pastorate there was very pleas- 
 ant and successful, as it was my good fortune to enter 
 into your labors of years before. William Swetland, 
 Payne Pettebone, Isaac Shoemaker, Daniel Van 
 Scoy, Daniel Jones, and others of great force of char- 
 acter, were my Official Board, having been converted 
 under your ministry there. 
 
 Payne Pettebone, as you know, was a remarkable 
 man. He was converted sitting in his pew while you 
 were preaching. As you were discussing the plan 
 of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ, making it very 
 plain and real, Mr. Pettebone said : "Yes, I see it as 
 never before ; Jesus Christ alone is the Savior of all 
 who receive him. I receive him. I receive him now 
 as my Savior." And right there in his seat he re- 
 ceived the evidence, which never left him, that God, 
 
A REMARKABLE CONVERSION. 6 1 
 
 for Christ's sake, had forgiven his sins. What a 
 glorious history he made for the Church of his choice ! 
 Sincere, conscientious, tried and true, a wonderfully 
 successful business man, his thousands, and even 
 millions, were all laid at the feet of the Master; and 
 how much good he did by his gifts to Wyoming Semi- 
 nary, W r esleyan University, Drew Seminary, and to 
 hundreds of struggling Churches, eternity alone will 
 reveal. He and his wife gave the beautiful church 
 at Wyoming as a thank-offering to the Lord for the 
 prosperity with which he had favored them. His 
 father-in-law, William Swetland, died before I became 
 pastor at Wyoming, but his memory of good deeds was 
 as ointment poured forth. Mrs. Pettebone, William 
 Swetland's daughter, still lives, and, if anything, goes 
 even beyond her father and husband in the munifi- 
 cence of her giving, having just presented to Wyom- 
 ing Seminary a gymnasium, complete, at a cost of 
 over thirty thousand dollars. How little you knew, 
 when you won William Swetland and Payne Pette- 
 bone to the Church, what you were doing for Meth- 
 odism and for the world ! 
 
 And Daniel Jones, one of the most useful men 
 in that Church, — have you forgotten how you cap- 
 tured him? He had the elements of a great char- 
 acter, but was emphatically a man of the world. Be- 
 fore you came he did not attend Church at all. But 
 you had a way of reading men, and said, ''There is 
 a man who will be a power in the Church if I can 
 once win him." So, in a wise way, you set about 
 it. He was very fond of a horse, and, as you saw 
 him driving past the parsonage nearly every day, 
 evidently watching his horse with admiration, you 
 said, "I think I have discovered the way to that man's 
 heart." One morning, seeing him start toward 
 Kingston, you found it convenient, an hour or so 
 
62 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 after, to take a long walk in the same direction. 
 Observing him returning far down the road, you 
 turned about, and trod your weary way toward home. 
 Your walk indicated that you were very tired. You 
 were red in the face. You were wiping the perspira- 
 tion from your brow. As he came near he could not 
 fail to see how fatigued you were, and, as a man of 
 generous impulse would be supposed to do under 
 like circumstances, invited you to ride. Of course 
 you accepted, and quickly turned the conversation 
 to the subject of horses. You saw that he was fond 
 of a horse, and remarked that you, too, loved a horse, 
 and were so pleased to ride behind such a noble 
 animal as his — did n't know when you had had such 
 a treat. All the way to Wyoming you conversed on 
 the good points of that horse, not even mentioning 
 religion to him. When he drew up in front of your 
 house, you said, as you were getting out of the buggy, 
 "How much I have enjoyed my ride and my chat with 
 you ! I do n't know how I can repay you, unless 
 you take it out in preaching. By the way, I do n't 
 remember seeing you at Church since I came." 
 "Well, to tell you the truth, I have n't been to the 
 Church in years, but I think I must drop in and 
 hear you," was his reply. He did "drop in," and 
 not many weeks afterward was converted, and soon 
 became one of the useful officiaries of that Church. 
 
 I rejoice that it has been my pleasure to know 
 you. I have watched your work with delighted in- 
 terest, and am so thankful that, after such a long 
 term in the ministry, both in the pastorate and pre- 
 siding eldership, your eye is not dim, your natural 
 force is not abated, and you are still abundant in 
 labors and in honors. God bless you ! 
 Very cordially yours, 
 
 R. W. Van Schoick. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 WHILE upon the Wyoming Circuit I gath- 
 ered up the items about Bishops Asbury 
 and McKendree which follow, and to these I sub- 
 join a legend of Asbury in Tennessee, from an eye- 
 witness, which enhances the value of the incident. 
 In addition, I furnish the proof of Mrs. Denison's 
 correctness in my narrative of her. 
 
 FRANCIS ASBURY-PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 
 
 My father's library, during my boyhood, contained 
 the standard Methodist books — Wesley, Watson, 
 Fletcher, and especially Asbury's Journal. The last, 
 and Wesley's Journal, were eagerly devoured by me 
 for the adventures they recorded. No work of fiction 
 ever so absorbed me, nor was equally interesting to 
 me, as these Journals. Asbury's Journal filled me 
 with the highest admiration for the first American 
 bishop and his marvelous heroism as a pioneer. I 
 often wondered whether I should ever, in any con- 
 siderable measure, equal his privations and the ad- 
 venturous incidents through which he so bravely and 
 cheerfully passed. And yet I myself have been in 
 perils of waters and perils of robbers as exciting as 
 those he records. 
 
 In my five years of itinerant labor in East Ten- 
 nessee, I have preached and held quarterly-meetings 
 at the eastern base of the Cumberland Mountains, 
 at a place called Bean Station, where Mr. Asbury 
 and his comrades were accustomed to wait until a 
 sufficient number of travelers would gather to enable 
 
 63 
 
64 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 them safely to cross the Cumberland Gap into Ken- 
 tucky. The legends of his sojourns at the station 
 were current when I traveled the Knoxville District, 
 in 1865 and later. 
 
 When, in my early teens, I became a traveling 
 minister, sixty years ago, I listened to the folk-lore 
 of the elder Methodists in my charges about the 
 movements of the earlier leaders of the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church. But I was always specially at- 
 tentive to those which related to the grandest hero 
 of them all. I record in this paper two legends of 
 the pioneer bishop, which have never been published. 
 In 1847, 1848, and 1849, I traveled the first of those 
 vears the Wyoming Circuit in Pennsylvania, and the 
 last two in Wilkesbarre. Wyoming Circuit included 
 all the west side of the classic American ground, 
 called the Wyoming Valley, which the pen of Camp- 
 bell has immortalized in his "Gertrude of Wyoming." 
 On the circuit, near New Troy, as it was then called — 
 Wyoming as more recently known — lived the widow 
 Elizabeth Denison, a lady of more than fourscore 
 years, who still retained her mental powers in full 
 vigor. She was a daughter-in-law of Colonel Nathan 
 Denison, a colonel in the Revolutionary army, de- 
 tailed at the time of the Wyoming massacre in the 
 Wyoming Valley. July 3, 1783, Colonel Denison and 
 Colonel Zebulon Butler led the forces of the volunteers 
 out from Forty Fort, near the middle of the valley 
 north and south, to the bloody holocaust which over- 
 took them, as the result of an ambuscade into which 
 they were decoyed by the apparent retreating of the 
 Indian and English troops, until those enemies had 
 surrounded them and slain them in cold blood. Of 
 two hundred and thirty persons, mostly boys and 
 young men, and quite old men in that forward move- 
 ment, one hundred and seventy were ,slain. Only 
 
BISHOP ASBURY IN WYOMING. 65 
 
 fifty escaped. Mrs. Denison, who was a member of 
 my Church in New Troy, and who was a girl of only 
 eight years when the massacre occurred, would nar- 
 rate to me the thrilling events of those perilous times. 
 The monument commemorating those scenes stands 
 just below New Troy. Among other incidents, she 
 related to me the particulars of a prolonged visit to 
 her home, made by Bishops Asbury and McKendree * 
 She was at the time a young bride, having married 
 the son of Colonel Denison. The two bishops had 
 called there for a stay of some days. 
 
 Asbury's Journal records three visits which he 
 made to Wyoming. The first one he mentions, oc- 
 curred July 2, 4, 7, 1793. He makes these notes on 
 that visit : 
 
 "July 2 — After preaching at Sunbury, June 28th, 
 on 'The Grace of God, which appeareth unto all men/ 
 
 * An article in the Northern Christian Advocate, April 13, 
 1898, enables me to fix the approximate date of this visit of 
 Asbury and McKendree in 1814. The article is illustrated by 
 a cut of the barn in which Asbury preached on that occasion. 
 The text from which Bishop Asbury preached is given. This 
 short article is of historic value : 
 
 "Barn in which Asbury Preached About the Year 1814. 
 
 "About the year 1814, Bishop Asbury, accompanied by 
 Bishop McKendree, passed through Brooklyn, Pa., when on 
 their way from a Northern Conference to the Baltimore Confer- 
 ence. They tarried long enough to hold a service in Brooklyn 
 in a barn, an excellent cut of which is herewith given. The 
 text from which Bishop Asbury preached was I Sam. xv, 14 : 
 'And Samuel said, What meaneth then this bleating of the 
 sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I 
 hear?' 
 
 "That the cut represents the identical barn in which the 
 sermon was preached is fully authenticated, though it does 
 not now occupy the same site that it did at that time. Many 
 years ago it was moved to the place it now occupies, and the 
 
 5 
 
66 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 we wrought up the hills and narrows to Wyoming. 
 We stopped at a poor house ; nevertheless, they were 
 rich enough to sell us a bushel of oats ; and they had 
 sense enough to make us pay well for them. We 
 reached Mr. P/s at about eleven o'clock P. M. I 
 found riding in the night caused a return of my 
 rheumatic complaint through my breast and shoul- 
 ders. But all is well. The Lord is with us." 
 
 "Thursday, 4th — Being the anniversary of the 
 American Independence, there was a great noise 
 among the sinners. A few of us went down to 
 Shawanee (Plymouth), called a few people together 
 from their work, and found it good for us to be there." 
 
 "Sunday, July 7th — The Lord has spoken in awful 
 peals of thunder. O what havoc was made there fifteen 
 years ago! [This was obviously a mistake, or a slip 
 
 addition on the right was constructed. The large open doors 
 show the audience-room in which the service was held. 
 
 " In 1888 Edward I,. Paine, son of the Rev. Edward Paine, 
 who owned the barn, was a lay delegate to the General Con- 
 ference from Wisconsin Conference, and was the oldest lay- 
 man of that body, being eighty-seven years of age. He 
 stated on the floor of the Conference that he heard Bishop 
 Asbury preach the sermon to which reference is made above, 
 and on that occasion, which was a memorable one, though 
 only thirteen years of age, he gave his heart to God and his 
 hand to the Methodist Episcopal Church, of which he re- 
 mained a faithful member until the day of his death. 
 
 "For the picture of the barn and the portrait of Mr. 
 Paine we are indebted to the Rev. G. E. Van Woert, pastor of 
 our Church in Brooklyn, Pa., who will furnish excellent pho- 
 tographs of the barn in two sizes; the larger, shown in the 
 cut, for thirty-five cents, and the smaller for twenty-five 
 cents. Brother Van Woert devotes one-half the profits of 
 sales within his charge, and all the profits of sales outside, to 
 the payment of the debt on the Missionary Society. The pic- 
 ture is worth preserving for its historic associations. Send 
 orders to Brother Van Woert." 
 
ASBURY AND M' KENDREE. 6 J 
 
 of the pen, for the scene to which he refers was the 
 Wyoming massacre of July 3, 1783, ten years before.] 
 Most of the inhabitants were either cut off or driven 
 away. The people might have clothed themselves in 
 sackcloth and ashes on the 3d, if in white and glory 
 on the 4th of July. The inhabitants here are very 
 wicked, but I feel as though the Lord would return." 
 
 The bishop must have staid in the valley until 
 the 8th, when he started up the Lackawanna over the 
 twelve-mile swamp. On this trip he must have trav- 
 eled alone, as there is no account of his having had 
 a traveling companion until later in life. 
 
 The second visit he made to Wyoming was July 
 17, 1807. He says in his entry of that date: 
 
 "Once more I am in Wyoming. We have wearied 
 through, and clambered over, one hundred miles of 
 the rough roads of wild Susquehanna! O the pre- 
 cipitous banks, wedging narrows, rocks, sidelong 
 bills, obstructed paths and fords — scarcely fordable — 
 roots, stumps, and gullies !" 
 
 Two days later he speaks of ordaining Thomas 
 and Christian Bowman, who were probably ancestral 
 relations of our venerable senior bishop, who was 
 born and reared near Berwick on the Susquehanna, 
 twenty miles below Wyoming Valley. The next 
 visit to Wyoming which he mentions, is in 1812: 
 
 "August 4th — We arrived at Father Bidlack's, and 
 went forward to Wilkesbarre. [Father Bidlack was 
 a Revolutionary soldier and a Methodist traveling 
 preacher, who lived across the river from Wilkesbarre, 
 at Kingston, and a mile distant.] The court was sit- 
 ting, and a sermon was expected. My subject was, 
 'Knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men/ 
 They gave me the court-room. 
 
 "August 5th — We came along down by the turn- 
 pike, and rough enough we found it. Farewell to 
 
68 SIXTY- ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 Merwine's. I lodge no more there, whisky-hell, as 
 most of the taverns here are. . . . We lodge 
 with George Custer, Wyoming." 
 
 "Friday, 7th — I am still. I abstain. In the even- 
 ing we had an assemblage of people, and Brother 
 Boehm spoke to them in German." 
 
 Henry Boehm was at this time Bishop Asbury's 
 traveling companion. He was nearly one hundred 
 years old, erect, and well preserved when I last saw 
 him. He was present at the dedication of the Metro- 
 politan Church in Washington in the sixties, and took 
 part in the services — pronounced the benediction or 
 offered a prayer. 
 
 It is quite evident that neither of these three visits 
 to Wyoming was the one detailed to me by Mrs. 
 Denison, because Bishop McKendree was not with 
 Bishop Asbury at either of these visits, and this is 
 apparent from the journal of the bishop. Asbury was 
 less regular and careful in his Journal as he ap- 
 proached the end of life, and he may have been too 
 feeble to journalize that last visit, which must have 
 been made between 1812 and 181 5, the year in which 
 he died, March 31st. 
 
 Mrs. Denison said to me that Bishop Asbury was 
 smaller in stature than Bishop McKendree, that he 
 was a great sufferer from the infimities of age and 
 from his lifelong infirmity, the rheumatism. He was 
 neither petulant nor brusque ; yet he was somewhat 
 abstract, taciturn, and reserved. He seemed at that 
 time to live apart, and to commune with himself. 
 Bishop McKendree was gentle, affable, and free in 
 his conversation, and very full of wisdom and instruc- 
 tion in his communications. Bishop Asbury was thin 
 and weak from his long and severe journeyings and 
 from his great sufferings. Bishop McKendree was of 
 full habit, apparently in perfect health, exceedingly 
 
ASBURY AND M ] ' KEN DREE. 69 
 
 approachable, putting his associates completely at 
 their ease. He was well informed ; a good converser, 
 drawing those in his company to himself by an irre- 
 sistible fascination of manners, and by a most mag- 
 netic personality. 
 
 Colonel Denison, who, at the time of the visit of 
 these two bishops, was himself well stricken in years, 
 was greatly charmed and delighted with Bishop 
 McKendree. He said that the bishop was so well 
 posted in all matters that he would elicit admiration 
 in any official public position he might have held. 
 "Indeed," said the colonel to Mrs. Denison, "Bishop 
 McKendree is well-fitted to have been a United States 
 senator. He would have graced the position." 
 
 Mrs. Denison said to me that Bishop Asbury im- 
 pressed all who saw him as being a very devout, 
 earnest, and godly man, who walked in close fellow- 
 ship with God. 
 
 Bishops Asbury and McKendree were scarcely 
 ever absent from the Annual Conferences. I read 
 of but two instances in the West where the Confer- 
 ence was presided over by any one but the bishops. 
 William Burke once presided in the absence of both 
 the bishops. In the Ohio Conference, which met in 
 Cincinnati in 1814, both the bishops, Asbury and 
 McKendree, were present. But Asbury was too ill 
 to preside, and McKendree had been injured by a 
 fall from his horse, and John Sale was appointed by 
 the bishops to preside. In his Journal, Asbury says : 
 
 "Monday, 5th (September)— I made an attempt 
 to speak a few words from Philippians ii, 2-5. We 
 have progressed in our business very well, though 
 deprived of the presence of the bishops to pre- 
 side. . . . John Sale presided with great pro- 
 priety. John Sale finished the plan of the stations 
 from a general draft I furnished him. We closed our 
 
70 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 labors in peace. One thing I remark, our Confer- 
 ences are now out of their infancy. Their rulers can 
 now be called from among themselves. . . . " 
 
 From 1865 to 1868 I was presiding elder on the 
 Knoxville District in East Tennessee. During this 
 term I learned several incidents about Bishop Asbury 
 from those who had been eye and ear witnesses of the 
 events described. I give but one of them, as this 
 gives a good, general idea of the bishop's habit in 
 his annual tours over the continent, always by private 
 conveyance, "and always sharing the hospitality of the 
 pioneers, which was accorded to him with a regal 
 largeness, freedom, and munificence. On one of my 
 tours near Dandridge I formed the acquaintance of 
 a gentleman who lived there, and who was then a 
 person of seventy years or more. He said that one 
 morning, when he was quite a young man, he was 
 going out through the gate which opened into his 
 father's extensive estate, and upon which his father 
 was yet living, when he met an aged man who had 
 just driven up to the gate in a light carriage. The 
 stranger informed him that he was Bishop Asbury, 
 and he was just about driving in to spend the day 
 and night with the young man's father. The bishop 
 inquired whether the young man's father still lived 
 there, and, learning that he did, the bishop said: 
 "Then I will go in, and stay with him for the day 
 and night." A young man accompanied the bishop, 
 whose name I have forgotten, said my informant. 
 This young man was John Wesley Bond, father of 
 the distinguished Rev. Dr. Thomas E. Bond, who, at 
 a later period, was editor of the Christian Advocate, 
 New York. My informant said : "I went back with 
 them. It was arranged to have preaching at our 
 house that evening. I was sent out through the 
 
AN INCIDENT IN BISHOP ASBURY'S LIFE. 7 1 
 
 neighborhood to give notice of the meeting, and to 
 invite the neighbors to attend it. A large number of 
 people assembled. The young man preached. Mr. 
 Asbury had retired. The bed was curtained in the 
 old-fashioned way, with high curtains and a canopy. 
 At the close of the sermon, the bishop said: Tlease 
 draw the curtains.' The bishop sat up in the bed, 
 and talked at some length with much freedom, pathos, 
 and power. 'The people/ said he, 'are hungry for the 
 Word of God. It should be dealt out to them in 
 plain, simple, and loving speech. The gospel needs 
 no flowers of rhetoric, no word-drapery. It is God's 
 message of love and peace to a fallen world and to 
 a perishing race. The message should be direct, clear, 
 urgent.' He then exhorted the people in a most ten- 
 der, pathetic, urgent manner to seek God, and to 
 prepare for eternity. 'This/ said he, 'is probably the 
 last time I shall ever be with you on earth. O, will 
 you not be entreated to be reconciled to God? Shall 
 we sit down together in the kingdom of God, to go 
 out no more forever?' There was a general time of 
 weeping and shouting. All seemed deeply affected 
 by the kindly, tender, persuasive words of the bishop." 
 This was his last visit in that State. On Sabbath, March 
 31, 1 816, he passed through the gates into the ever- 
 lasting city of God. This visit is recorded in Asbury's 
 Journal. It occurred in October, 1814, and it is thus 
 related in two or three lines : 
 
 "Monday, 17th — We came rapidly through Dan- 
 dridge to William Turnley's. Here are kind souls. 
 I was sick, and soon in bed ; but John Bond preached 
 for them." 
 
 The foregoing reminiscences are published in this 
 form by the Cincinnati Conference Historical Society, 
 with the permission of the Conference itself. The 
 
72 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 following incident anent Bishop Asbury in New York, 
 is furnished by the late Asbury Lowrey, D. D. It is, 
 of course, authentic : 
 
 "Richard Goodwin, a relative of my father, was a 
 local preacher, living at Goodwin's Point, Cayuga 
 Lake, New York. He was elected to elder's orders, 
 probably at some Conference when he could not be 
 present. He afterwards met Bishop Asbury on the 
 road somewhere. The facts being made known to 
 him, Bishop Asbury dismounted and ordained him an 
 elder, under a tree. Whether there were three elders, 
 or none, to lay hands on the head of Goodwin, with 
 the bishop's, I am not informed. The stream of apos- 
 tolic succession doubtless forms many eddies as it 
 comes down to us from Wesley and Asbury. 
 
 "A. Lowrsy. 
 
 "P. S. — Richard Goodwin was the father of the 
 Rev. William H. Goodwin, D. D., of East Genesee 
 Conference, of whom, perhaps, you have some 
 knowledge." 
 
 The next two years I was pastor of the First 
 Methodist Episcopal Church in Wilkesbarre, then 
 and now one of the richest and strongest Churches 
 of Methodism. It was then the best charge in the 
 old Oneida Conference. My compensation had 
 come in double measure and form, for what I had 
 supposed to be a punishment from my presiding 
 elder. We built a twenty-thousand-dollar church 
 the first year of my Wilkesbarre pastorate. It will 
 assist in understanding the financial conditions of 
 such charges in those earlier times, when the facts 
 are stated. The parsonage was a small, humble 
 dwelling, which could then have been built for six 
 
THE OLD AND THE NEW. 73 
 
 hundred dollars or seven hundred dollars. The sal- 
 ary, all told, was four hundred dollars a year and 
 the parsonage. This was the most they had ever 
 paid. A one-hundred-and-thirty-thousand-dollar 
 church has replaced the brick twenty-thousand- 
 dollar one of forty-eight years ago ; an organ, cost- 
 ing thirty thousand dollars, is its latest acquisition, 
 and a parsonage worth ten thousand dollars or 
 more has succeeded the humble six-hundred-dollar 
 house in which I and the men who preceded me 
 had lived. Many were added to the Church by pro- 
 fession during my pastorate in Wilkesbarre. The 
 last month of my stay here my wife was very ill with 
 the typhoid fever. She became well enough for 
 me to remove her to her sister's, in Madison, N. Y., 
 one hundred and forty miles away, while I should 
 attend Conference. 
 
 I was appointed from Wilkesbarre to Owego, 
 in New York State. I moved my goods to Owego 
 on wagons, seventy miles. I set up the furniture 
 in the parsonage, and put down the carpets, and 
 then I went up seventy miles to Madison, to re- 
 move my wife to my new charge. She was too ill 
 to be moved, for she had had a relapse. On Satur- 
 day I returned from Madison to Owego, and slept 
 in the parsonage. On Sunday morning I woke up 
 with a splitting headache. I was unable to eat. 
 But I took a strong dose of pepper-tea, and went 
 into the pulpit to preach my opening sermon for 
 the year. A high fever was on me. I soon be- 
 came delirious. I preached on incoherently. The 
 brethren took me out of the pulpit, and put me in 
 
74 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 bed, a victim of typhoid fever, as it proved to be. 
 I lay forty-two days in a state of coma; and as I 
 got better of the fever I was seized with pneumonia, 
 and came very near dying. The year was a broken 
 one. And yet we had a good degree of success. 
 About forty or fifty professed conversion. This 
 was my last charge in the old Oneida Conference. 
 The Conference met in 1850 at Honesdale, Pa. 
 I was appointed, by request of my host, a New- 
 light preacher, to preach in his church. I -had 
 ascertained that the Church was Arian in belief — 
 denying the Divinity of Jesus Christ, the depravity 
 of men, the personality of the Holy Spirit, and the 
 conversion of sinners by the washing of regener- 
 ation and the renewing of the Holy Ghost. My 
 character had passed as approved on Thursday. I 
 went to the Newlight, or so-called Christian, 
 church to preach. I said to myself: "This is your 
 last and only opportunity to free your skirts from 
 their blood, by openly opposing and exposing their 
 doctrinal errors, and warning them faithfully of 
 their delusions." My text was Deuteronomy xi, 
 16: "Take heed to yourselves that your heart be 
 not deceived, and ye turn aside after other gods, 
 to serve them and worship them." I dwelt upon 
 heart deceptions as the most alarming. I instanced 
 names and doctrines as being well adapted to mis- 
 lead the unwary, and then said: "You call your- 
 selves Christians, implying that you have a right 
 to that name over your fellow-Christians of other 
 names and denominations ; and while deceiving by 
 
ORDAINED DEACON AND ELDER. 75 
 
 bearing-, as exclusive, a name common to all Chris- 
 tians, at the same time, by your denial of the Divin- 
 ity of Christ and his atoning sacrifice, you crucify 
 the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open 
 shame." The next morning my character was 
 arrested, the first and only time in my life, for vio- 
 lating Christian courtesy. The case was tried, and 
 then the Conference passed my character, and the 
 affair ended. 
 
 I was ordained a deacon in 1841, in Owego, 
 New York, by Bishop Joshua Soule, having con- 
 cluded my two years of probation in the Confer- 
 ence, and having creditably passed through my 
 Conference examination. 
 
 In 1843 I was ordained an elder by Bishop 
 Beverly Waugh, in Wilkesbarre, Pa. The occa- 
 sion was one of great solemnity and much prayer. 
 The ordination took place in a grove. There was 
 no church that would hold half the people who 
 came out to the services. The sermon was 
 preached by John McClintock, D. D., one of the 
 most cyclopedic scholars in the entire Church, if 
 not in the whole land. 
 
 In the Conference, after my first year of 
 probationary Conference life had passed, Bishop 
 Robert R. Roberts presided. He was one of the 
 most noble and manly-looking of men, and withal 
 very saintly in countenance and appearance. He 
 preached from Luke xvi, 31: "If they hear not 
 Moses and the prophets, neither will they be per- 
 suaded, though one rose from the dead," In the 
 
76 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 course of his sermon, he said, instead of persuading 
 men to turn to God, a spirit from the dead would 
 terrify them, and cause 
 
 "Each particular hair to stand on end, 
 Like quills upon the fretful porcupine." 
 
 This quotation from Shakespeare quite won me, 
 for I was a great admirer of the English poet of 
 Stratford-on-Avon. The congregation was deeply 
 moved under the sermon. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 INCLUDING my two years of supply work be- 
 fore joining the Conference, and the time I 
 spent as a probationer and a member of the Oneida 
 Conference, there were fourteen years of service. 
 As I re-traverse in thought the well-remembered 
 scenes and associations of those early years, the 
 recollection affords me great satisfaction, and I am 
 led to exclaim in gratitude to God, 
 
 "In each event of life, how clear, 
 Thy ruling hand I see ! 
 Each blessing to my soul most dear, 
 Because bestowed by Thee." 
 
 In the work of the ministry, to which my call 
 had been strong and unmistakable, I had a glow, 
 an inspiration, and a joy exquisitely delightful. 
 The call I could not resist if I would, and I would 
 not if I could. While I was deeply conscious of 
 the weakness and slenderness of my resources — 
 educational and otherwise — still there was a charm 
 in my loved work which was wonderfully fasci- 
 nating. 
 
 One of the supremest pleasures of my life has 
 been the abiding conviction that I was in God's 
 hands, as an instrument of blessing to men and of 
 glory to God. In this feeling there was a singular 
 
 77 
 
78 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 freedom from care and doubt and uncertainty, and 
 from all concern and anxiety. Happy as the lark, 
 
 " My life flowed on in endless song ; 
 Above earth's lamentation 
 I caught the sweet though far-off strain, 
 That hails the new creation." 
 
 The spring season answered to a springtime in 
 my soul, day by day. The summer was sweet and 
 gentle and beautiful, in correspondence with the 
 green pastures into which the Good Shepherd was 
 leading me and the still waters that were flowing 
 about me. The rich autumnal tints seemed to 
 borrow their golden hue from the approaching 
 Beulah-land, and every bush aflame with God. My 
 Decembers were as pleasant as May. 
 
 Early on a lovely spring morning, as I well re- 
 member, when I was riding on my way to an ap- 
 pointment, the sunshine and showers were alternat- 
 ing, the carol of birds and the sighing of zephyrs 
 in the pine-tree tops above me, made a sort of para- 
 dise for the moment, and music filled my soul. The 
 words I sang I had long known, and while singing 
 them my whole soul drank in unutterable bliss. 
 These were the words: 
 
 " Lovely is the face of nature, 
 
 Decked with spring's unfolding flowers, 
 While the sun shows every feature, 
 Smiling through descending showers. 
 
 Birds, with songs the air beguiling, 
 Chant their sweetest notes with glee, 
 
 But to see a Savior smiling, 
 
 Is more soft, more sweet to me." 
 
MARMADUKE PEARCE. 79 
 
 At this point it will be in order to introduce to 
 my readers some of the strong, brave men with 
 whom I was associated in the old Oneida Confer- 
 ence. I published sketches of some of them in the 
 Northern Christian Advocate, of Syracuse, N. Y., 
 a few years ago. There, I speak of them as old- 
 time veterans. 
 
 In my childhood some of the earlier ministers 
 of Methodism were guests in my father's home. I 
 was old enough to listen intelligently to their re- 
 cital of incidents in their early ministerial travels. 
 
 MARMADUKE PEARCE 
 
 was a marked man. In my young manhood, fifty 
 years ago, he was one of my earliest and best- 
 known friends. He entered the traveling connec- 
 tion in 1811, in the Genesee Conference. After 
 four years on circuits, he was appointed presiding 
 elder on the Susquehanna District, Pennsylvania. 
 Two years more of circuit work within the bounds 
 of the Susquehanna District, and then he was trans- 
 ferred to the Baltimore Conference. Here, also, 
 he was presiding elder on the Northumberland Dis- 
 trict, some twenty or thirty miles below his old 
 district in the Genesee Conference. After this he 
 filled some of the most important charges in Meth- 
 odism. He was a delegate in the General Confer- 
 ences of 1820 and 1828. In 1848, when I was pas- 
 tor in the Wilkesbarre Station, he was my guest 
 for several days. He was then eighty-four years 
 of age. He was a man of fine presence. He 
 preached in my pulpit on that occasion a sermon 
 
80 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 twenty minutes long, from Psalm lxxxiv, n. The 
 effort was a masterpiece of eloquence and power. 
 
 JOHN DEMPSTER, D. D. 
 
 In his earlier years my acquaintance with John 
 Dempster was slight. Later, I knew him well. He 
 was the son of James Dempster, whom Mr. Wesley 
 sent to America in 1774. James Dempster was a 
 Scotchman, a graduate of Edinburgh University; 
 hence, probably, the marked intellectual power of 
 his son. He did not long remain in the Methodist 
 body. At the age of eighteen, John was the only 
 convert at a camp-meeting in Herkimer County, 
 New York. He nobly complemented the scant 
 service of his father by a long, brilliant career as an 
 itinerant, and by being the father and founder of 
 our theological schools. His ministry began in 
 1 81 6, and ended with his life in 1875. One year he 
 spent in great exposure and hard service in the. 
 wilds of Lower Canada. Six years he was a mis- 
 sionary in Buenos Ayres, South America. Of the 
 remaining forty-eight, eighteen were spent in New 
 York State, and the others in New Hampshire and 
 Illinois. On his return from South America in 
 1842 I met him often. His transcendent ability and 
 his deep personal devotion elicited admiration. In 
 1843, during my incumbency at Auburn, N. Y., he 
 was present in my congregation, and listened to a 
 sermon on the Laodicean Church. At evening he 
 was greeted by an immense audience. His sermon 
 was forcible and thrilling. Large numbers of his 
 former admirers, who had listened to his eloquent 
 
JOHN DEMPSTER. 8 1 
 
 sermons when he was pastor in that church nine- 
 teen years before, were among his auditors that 
 evening. In each of three towns of Central New 
 York — Auburn, Cazenovia, and Rochester — he was 
 for five years a pastor. In Cayuga District four 
 years, and in Black River District three, he was 
 presiding elder. Twenty years later, traveling over 
 parts of the Cayuga District, I found the fame of his 
 great achievements everywhere current. Probably 
 no Methodist preacher has ever, for two gener- 
 ations, more strongly and permanently than he, im- 
 pressed his personality upon a people. That whole 
 section, including the cities named, was shaken 
 with tremendous awakenings and revivals under 
 his ministry. 
 
 Dr. Dempster died November 28, 1863. The 
 writer published this notice of the great and good 
 man: 
 
 A great and good man has been translated to 
 his reward. The California Advocate of December 
 10th, announces the death of Rev. John Dempster, 
 D. D., at Evanston, Illinois, on the 28th tilt. He was 
 in his seventy-fourth year. More than fifty years ago, 
 Dr. Dempster was converted at a camp-meeting in 
 Herkimer County, New York. He was, we believe, 
 the only convert of the meeeting; yet eternity alone 
 can disclose the measure of good resulting from this 
 achievement of that apparently almost fruitless camp- 
 meeting. Mr. Dempster was poor and uneducated 
 when converted. Grace quickened his naturally vig- 
 orous intellect, and roused him, not in vain, to earnest 
 endeavor after high mental and moral acquisitions. 
 From a condition of marked illiterateness, he became 
 6 
 
82 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 an accomplished and profound scholar; from being 
 unpolished, even to positive awkwardness and pain- 
 ful hesitancy of speech, he reached eloquence of the 
 highest order. He was a close, vigorous thinker and 
 writer. In his early ministry, Dr. Dempster was emi- 
 nently zealous, and successful. Central and Western 
 New York have for forty years borne the impress 
 of his piety and ministerial efficiency. In Auburn 
 and Rochester revivals of unprecedented power and 
 extent attended his labors. The two cities named 
 have ever since felt the moral impulse then and 
 there given. Great as a Christian pastor, mighty as 
 an original thinker, masterly as a pulpit orator, Dr. 
 Dempster early took rank as a leading man in the 
 Church. In the quarterly-meetings which he held 
 as a presiding elder, he was g.eatly successful in oppos- 
 ing and confuting infidelity. An instance occurred 
 at Marcellus, New York. The leading infidel of the 
 place, himself highly intelligent and especially well 
 read in skeptical doctrines, made the Doctor his guest. 
 They spent the whole night in conversation on the 
 evidences and truth of Christianity, the Doctor grap- 
 pling and overturning every argument, fact, and 
 theory of the learned infidel against Christianity. 
 This was afterwards admitted by the infidel, who, when 
 pressed for the reason of his adherence to infidelity 
 after all its props had been swept away, stated that 
 where he found one man who could thus refute his 
 cavils, he found ten whom he could confuse and who 
 could not answer his positions, and he would not 
 give up his theory for one man in ten. Dr. Dempster 
 was not only great in defending Christianity against 
 the assaults of infidelity, but also in elucidating and 
 maintaining the doctrines of Christianity against er- 
 rorists. An example of this was given the writer 
 
JOHN DEMPSTER. 83 
 
 many years ago by a person who witnessed it. At 
 a camp-meeting in Jefferson County, New York, the 
 Doctor was preaching on the Divinity of Christ. A 
 Socinian, who had listened to him as he advanced 
 argument after argument and fact upon fact in sup- 
 port of the Savior's Godhead, when the Doctor ad- 
 duced the fact that, by the command of the Supreme 
 Father, the angels bowed in worship before the only 
 begotten Son, forgetting all restraints of time and 
 place, sprang to his feet and exclaimed, "He is God, 
 he is God !" Dr. Dempster was a member of the Gen- 
 eral Conferences of 1828 and 1832, and also of sev- 
 eral of the more recent, and at the time of his death 
 he was a delegate elect from the Rock River Confer- 
 ence to the General Conference of 1864. 
 
 For several years he was a missionary at Buenos 
 Ayres, South America, and the Church founded there 
 by his wisdom and zeal, still sheds its light and 
 warmth upon the surrounding gloom of a semi-barba- 
 rism. The specialty of Dr. Dempster for the last quar- 
 ter of a century has been ministerial education in 
 Biblical schools. To him belongs the high honor of 
 inaugurating and founding theological institutions 
 in American Methodism. The Biblical Institute at 
 Concord, N. H., and that at Evanston, 111., are monu- 
 ments of his zeal and constancy in this noble endeavor. 
 He had for several years cherished the purpose of 
 founding a Methodist Biblical Institute on this coast. 
 Our contemporary says of this : 
 
 "He had long cherished the desire and purpose 
 of visiting the Pacific Coast with the design of estab- 
 lishing such an institution here. If the California 
 Conference had been in circumstances to respond to 
 a very generous proposition which Dr. Dempster sub- 
 mitted to that body some four years since, his last 
 
84 SrXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 wish in regard to his probationary mission would 
 have been realized. Until very recently — perhaps to 
 the last — he looked to this coast with the deepest 
 concern, intending to visit us the present winter, and, 
 if might be, take initiative measures for the realiza- 
 tion of his long-cherished purpose. Summoned to 
 a higher sphere, he leaves to others the inspiration 
 of his earnest wish and the execution of his noble 
 purpose. His name is enrolled among the most emi- 
 nent of American ministers. His illustrious example 
 of successful devotion to the acquisition of knowledge 
 must powerfully stimulate our rising ministry to enter 
 and explore all the fields of science that lie within the 
 sphere of their high vocation. Dr. Dempster subor- 
 dinated all his learning and abilities to the Dominion 
 of the Cross." 
 
 We have no particulars furnished of the death 
 scene. That, however, is not of material moment. 
 Such a life, one so full of God and heaven and duty, 
 is ample guarantee of the eternal happiness and tri- 
 umph of its subject, whatever may have been the 
 immediate incidents of the dying hour. The last pub- 
 lic testimony we have from the Doctor was given at 
 a Conference love-feast recently, the last he attended 
 on earth. It is as follows: 
 
 "Speaking at the Conference love-feast at the 
 recent session of the Rock River Conference, he said 
 that he was converted at a camp-meeting. 'A long 
 night of struggle was my lot — a night whose dark- 
 ness bordered the world of despair; but on the rise 
 of the natural sun a new sun arose — the sun of eter- 
 nity. The clouds, the trees, the leaves, the very stems 
 of the trees, were vocal with music, and I joined the 
 great concert. My purpose in half a century has 
 not changed. You all see, brethren, that in the case 
 of John Dempster, the evening shades are lengthen- 
 
JOSEPH CASTLE. 85 
 
 ing. The day is far spent, the night is at hand, but 
 the path is bright beneath my feet, and bright be- 
 yond. I look for the crown of immortality.' " 
 
 " O, may we triumph so, 
 
 When all our warfare 's past 
 And dying, find our latest foe 
 Under our feet at last." 
 
 REV. JOSEPH CASTLE, D. D. 
 
 Among those well-known by me in the early 
 times was Joseph Castle. He was a commanding 
 figure. Tall, erect, muscular, but not corpulent, he 
 was graceful in form and action. His countenance, 
 while in repose somewhat grave, was expressive, 
 thoughtful, benignant. His sermons were distin- 
 guished by clearness and beauty of expression. 
 They were uttered in a full orotund voice. He 
 was quite popular and in large demand. His itin- 
 erancy began in the Genesee Conference in 1823. 
 His first appointment was in Augusta, Canada. 
 His next was in Wyoming, Pa. Between these two 
 places there were probably three hundred miles of 
 distance. Four years later he was stationed in 
 Oswego, N. Y. Five years from his joining the 
 Conference on trial he was appointed to Wilkes- 
 barre, Pa., then, as ever since, one of the leading 
 charges in Methodism ; then successively in Au- 
 burn (two full terms), Ithaca, Utica, Cazenovia, 
 Ithaca (second term), Berkshire District. By trans- 
 fer in 1839 he became a member of the Troy Con- 
 ference. His appointment there was Garrettson 
 Station in Albany. Later he went to the Phila- 
 
86 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 delphia Conference. In 1864, when I attended 
 the General Conference which met in Philadelphia, 
 he was present at a service at which my father and 
 brother and myself officiated. He was then pre- 
 siding elder of the Philadelphia District, although 
 approaching his eightieth year. 
 
 REV. GEORGE HARMON. 
 
 George Harmon was the patriarch of the Oneida 
 Conference, having entered the Philadelphia Con- 
 ference in 1808. Charles Giles preceded him one 
 year in his entrance into the same Conference ; but 
 Harmon was much longer effective. In 1831, Giles 
 took a supernumerary relation. In 1836, Giles be- 
 came a member of the Black River Conference, 
 while Harmon lived and died in the Oneida Confer- 
 ence. He was small of stature, silent, reserved, sel- 
 dom heard on the Conference floor except to an- 
 swer routine questions. And yet he must have been 
 a man of rare abilities, even among those about him 
 who were justly reputed foremost men. From him 
 the writer learned some incidents about Asbury, 
 which may hereafter be rehearsed. When the 
 writer entered the Oneida Conference in 1839 on 
 trial, Harmon was already a veteran in his thirty- 
 second year. He was yet vigorous. In that year he 
 was appointed to his fourth district, having been 
 presiding elder already twelve or fifteen years. Dur- 
 ing my acquaintance with him after that, he must 
 have been on districts some eight or twelve years 
 more. He was appointed presiding elder after hav- 
 
PADDOCK BROTHERS — DAVID A. SHEPARD. 87 
 
 ing been a traveling preacher only five years. His 
 pastoral charges were many of them first grade ; as 
 Geneva, Ithaca, Lyons, Utica, etc. After forty- 
 five or fifty years of most honorable, useful toil he 
 was retired. 
 
 THE PADDOCK BROTHERS. 
 
 Benjamin G. Paddock and his younger brother, 
 Zechariah, held leading positions in their day. 
 The former entered the traveling connection in 
 18 10, the latter six years later. Both were from 
 time to time effective presiding elders. Both filled 
 stations of more than ordinary grade. Benjamin 
 G. Paddock was my second colleague in my first 
 circuit. 
 
 DAVID A. SHEPARD. 
 
 David A. Shepard was fifteen years my senior in 
 the Conference. For several years he was my pre- 
 siding elder. He was an able, thoughtful, popular 
 preacher, always thoroughly acceptable and useful. 
 In one place, where the Reformed Methodists 
 were somewhat aggressive in denouncing the 
 bishops and leading ministers of our Church as hav- 
 ing and wielding great power, Mr. Shepard made a 
 speech on the subject. He set forth the truth that 
 for a great system, and which was grandly effective, 
 more power was required than for a small system. 
 "As for example," said he, "no one would think of 
 putting a hundred horse-power to turn a coffee- 
 mill." Then, applying the illustration to the Meth- 
 odist Episcopal Church, which employed so many 
 
88 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 itinerants and ministered to the spiritual needs of so 
 many hundreds of thousands of people, and com- 
 paring the Reformed Methodists, so few in number 
 and with so little connectional form, he showed 
 the inconsistency of caviling at the greater Church 
 for requiring and wielding its greater measure of 
 power. 
 
 THE AFRICAN MISSIONARY. 
 
 The short, glorious career of Squire W. D. 
 Chase ended at Syracuse, N. Y., in fifteen years 
 after it began, and during, or immediately after, 
 the session of the Conference of which, for some 
 years, he had been a member. His last sermon on 
 earth was preached at the Conference, which met 
 July 26, 1843, in Syracuse. He had been sev- 
 eral years a missionary in Liberia, Africa — long 
 enough to take into his system the seeds of death, 
 which, alas ! too soon grew to their fatal result. I 
 shall never forget the sermon. He knew and we 
 knew that the seal of death was upon him. Hence 
 he spake as a dying man to dying men. His text 
 was Romans i, 5 : "By whom we have received 
 grace and apostleship, for obedience to the faith, 
 among all nations, for His name." It was the su- 
 preme and final act of the missionary returning to 
 his home Conference, his farewell to them and to 
 earth. It was the grand enunciation and vindica- 
 tion of his stupendous work as a missionary, that 
 in benighted Africa he had been enforcing "obedi- 
 ence to the faith for His name." 
 
NOTABLE MINISTERS. 89 
 
 W. W. NINDE. 
 
 William Ward Ninde was an orator of great 
 ability and renown. He was an eminent, illustrious 
 minister of Christ, known far and wide for his holy 
 life and his able and brilliant, and all too brief, 
 career as a preacher and pastor. He entered the 
 traveling connection in the Genesee Conference in 
 1828. The charges he filled were mostly within 
 the present limits of the Northern New York Con- 
 ference. They were of fair grade : Oswego, Adams, 
 Pulaski, Syracuse, Lowville, Rome. In all of them, 
 except Pulaski and Lowville, he staid the full term. 
 In Oswego and Adams he was stationed two full 
 terms. After a year's work on the Herkimer Dis- 
 trict, he finished his short but glorious career Feb- 
 ruary 27, 1845. In company with Albert D. Peck, 
 his successor on the district, I visited him a short 
 time before his death. With one or more of his 
 children I saw his son, W. X. Ninde (now a bishop). 
 He was a bright-looking, flaxen-haired boy. The 
 father was fully ready for his departure — peaceful, 
 hopeful, happy. Pie impressed his strong person- 
 ality upon all that region. His name is as ointment 
 poured forth. 
 
 ELIAS BOWEN, D. D. 
 
 I must not omit this grand, colossal figure of 
 the early times. He was twice my presiding elder. 
 Dr. Bowen was a strongly marked man. Of fine 
 form and figure, of commanding presence, with 
 
9<D SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 abilities far above the average, he wielded a wide 
 religious influence. He was a strong, aggressive 
 preacher, rather than a popular one. His favorite 
 weapon was a battle-ax. He was a controversialist, 
 rather than an evangelist. He seemed never more 
 at home than when assailing and refuting what he 
 held to be erroneous. In his first district, the 
 Wilkesbarre, he preached a most severe and vio- 
 lent sermon against Hopkinsianism — a form of Cal- 
 vinism then prevalent. His opposition to what he 
 deemed untrue and injurious was relentless. On 
 one occasion, at a session of the Oneida Confer- 
 ence, when Dr. Dempster was present seeking to 
 enlist the Conference in favor of theological semi- 
 naries, Dr. Bowen preached a sermon, by Confer- 
 ence designation and by previous appointment, 
 directly and strongly against theological schools 
 in Methodism as subversive of the true mission and 
 intent of Methodism. During the anti-slavery agi- 
 tation he became a most violent and radical Abo- 
 litionist. Just before the late Civil War he pub- 
 lished a book denouncing the complicity of the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church with slavery. The 
 war ended slavery. Dr. Bowen's book was there- 
 fore unsalable. At the age of eighty he died, in 
 1 87 1. In his fifty-six years of itinerant labor he 
 filled the leading charges in New York and Penn- 
 sylvania. For twenty-four years he was a presiding 
 elder. He was a grand, glorious man. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 AMONG the early Methodist preachers in the old 
 i Oneida Conference, there were none with 
 whom my relations were so pleasant and service- 
 able as Jesse T. Peck, D. D., LL. D., who later 
 became a popular and useful bishop, and his elder 
 brother, Rev. George Peck, D. D. He was my 
 preceptor and the principal of the Cazenovia Semi- 
 nary, which I attended for two years successively. 
 He was present when I made my first public decla- 
 mation, and for which I had no relish. I iiad been 
 a local preacher some years, and I stated to my 
 principal, and my father's close friend, that I did 
 not want to appear on the stage and recite a speech 
 of somebody's preparation; that if he would allow 
 me, I would get up and make an address prepared 
 by myself; or, if he thought best, I would preach 
 a sermon. But he said the rules of the school 
 would not admit of my doing so; that perhaps it 
 might be well for me to begin in the second grade 
 of declaimers, where the declamations were private. 
 It was the worst advice he could have given me, 
 for it was usual for the lads present on such occa- 
 sions to have a roystering time in making fun, and 
 laughing at the unfledged orators and their awk- 
 ward ways. Then he said, "Pay no more attention 
 to the boys that are present than you would at so 
 many cabbage-heads." I went on the stage blow- 
 ing my nose to show my utter disregard of the 
 
 91 
 
92 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 presence of the audience; and when I stood upon 
 the stage I paid little regard to posture or to grace- 
 fulness of gesture and action. The boys roared, 
 and, to my horror, the principal himself joined in 
 the boisterous, tumultuous laughter. I had recited 
 one verse of several I had learned (nearly all begin- 
 ners select poetry for their declamation exercises), 
 when the storm was at its height. Then I stopped, 
 and indignantly rebuked the unseemly conduct of 
 the audience, including the principal, Dr. Peck. I 
 apprehend I became quite natural, and the amuse- 
 ment rose to a higher pitch. I was about to leave 
 the stage, when Dr. Peck said it would not do to 
 be written down a failure in my first attempts at 
 speaking in school. I went back and finished my 
 recitation. The scene was written by Dr. Peck to 
 my father, with the assurance that his son would go 
 through, and that he did not need to be concerned 
 as to the outcome. After that I did not any more 
 practice the speaking drill in the second grade dec- 
 lamation class. 
 
 Dr. George Peck attained great honors and dis- 
 tinction as editor of the Methodist Review and Chris- 
 tian Advocate. 
 
 GEORGE GARY. 
 
 George Gary was one of the finest-looking of 
 men, and one of the best equipped, most fascinat- 
 ing, and effective of the Methodist ministers of his 
 times. Lest this statement, and others which will 
 follow, should be deemed rather excessive and ful- 
 some, as the extravagant estimate of inexperienced 
 
A MOST REMARKABLE MAN. 93 
 
 boyhood before riper age had lent its more sober 
 and critical judgment, let it be observed: In my 
 boyhood for a year Mr. Gary was my honored and 
 loved pastor; in my early manhood, after entering 
 the Oneida Conference, Mr. Gary for a dozen or 
 more years was my contemporary in an adjoining 
 Conference (the Black River) while he was yet in 
 his full, vigorous manhood. During those years I 
 had many opportunities of seeing and knowing 
 him, at Conference sessions and at camp-meetings, 
 and on other like occasions. A dozen years later I 
 succeeded him in the Oregon Mission, and there I 
 learned incidents and estimates of him which could 
 not be ascribed to the extravagance of youthful 
 and immature admiration of one's hero. 
 
 Over one hundred and four years ago — viz., De- 
 cember 8, 1793 — George Gary was born in Middle- 
 field, Otsego County, N. Y. He was well born — a 
 Puritan of the Puritans. In 1630, Arthur Gary and 
 his two sons, Nathaniel and William, came from 
 England, and settled in Roxbury, Mass. Arthur 
 Gary and Nathaniel Gary were his ancestors. Na- 
 thaniel Gary was his great-grandfather. At the age 
 of nine or twelve years George Gary was converted 
 at the family altar in his childhood home. As the 
 morning prayer ceased, George still remained on 
 his knees by the woodpile in the chimney-corner of 
 the old log-cabin. He was weeping and sobbing. 
 The minister inquired the reason for his grief. He 
 was under conviction of sin. Prayer was offered 
 for him, and by him. Then and there, and once for 
 all, he was soundly converted. His childhood call 
 
94 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 was, like Samuel's, effectual. It staid with him 
 through a full and very useful life. 
 
 As now recalled, Mr. Gary was slightly below 
 the average stature, perhaps five feet eight, or five 
 feet eight and a half inches. He was a blonde, 
 with light, flaxen hair, and blue, expressive eyes. 
 His head was so faultless, and so well adjusted to 
 his body, that a Canova might well have envied it. 
 His form was somewhat full, but not too much so. 
 His pose was admirable. His movement and action 
 were grace itself. His manner was extremely 
 charming. He was altogether a most fascinating 
 man. 
 
 In several aspects his life-story was remarkable. 
 On the death of his mother, and while he was yet 
 quite young, he went with his uncle to live with 
 him in Pomfret, Conn. Thus he grew up in the 
 atmosphere of his ancestors, and in their native 
 land he began his ministry. Five years after he 
 began his ministry in New England, he was trans- 
 ferred to the Genesee Conference in New York, 
 the State of his birth ; and in the second year of his 
 itinerancy in New York he was preaching to the 
 people among whom he was born. In 1809, when 
 he was fifteen and a half years old, he was ad- 
 mitted on trial into the New England Conference. 
 His first charge was in Barre, Vt., as third preacher 
 on a large circuit. Elijah Hedding, afterward 
 Bishop Hedding, was his first presiding elder. The 
 next four years were spent on great circuits in 
 Maine. In 18 14 he was transferred to the Genesee 
 Conference, New York, and stationed on Herkimer 
 
GEORGE GARY. 95 
 
 Charge in the Mohawk Valley, below and probably 
 including Utica. In 1815 he was the third preacher 
 on the Otsego Circuit. In 181 6 he was on Sandy 
 Creek Charge, near Watertown, yet in Oneida 
 District. In 181 7 he was stationed in Utica. In 
 1 81 8, when he was twenty-four and a half years 
 old, he was presiding elder on Oneida District. His 
 light hair and ruddy complexion and his short stat- 
 ure gave him a most youthful, even boyish, appear- 
 ance, while at the same time he was bearing great 
 responsibilities. It is not the purpose in this sketch 
 to write a full biography of him, nor to give spe- 
 cifically the list of his appointments. It will suffice 
 to say that for nearly all his ministerial life he was 
 a presiding elder. 
 
 From 1844 to 1848 he was superintendent of 
 the Oregon missions, under conditions and for pur- 
 poses which will be better understood by a brief 
 preliminary recital of facts. Commodore Wilkes 
 had been sent to the Pacific Coast to survey and 
 sound and map our bays and sounds and rivers 
 upon the Pacific. While there he visited Oregon, 
 especially the Hudson Bay Company's posts, which 
 were then under the spiritual direction of the Ro- 
 man Catholics. He visited, also, the Methodist 
 missions there. By the former of these he was 
 toasted and feted. By the Methodist mission- 
 aries he was shown a cheerful, generous Christian 
 hospitality, and no more. In his reports to the 
 Secretary of the Navy he lauded the Hudson Bay 
 Company and the Roman Catholics; and he dis- 
 paraged the Methodist missions, as conducting a 
 
96 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 large colonization scheme, rather than a mission 
 for souls. 
 
 Dr. Bond, then editor of the New York Advo- 
 cate, took up the cry, and but too successfully urged 
 the reduction of our material and secular concerns 
 in Oregon. Mr. Gary was sent to Oregon to sell 
 out all our improvements and possessions there, 
 and to reduce the missions to purely religious in- 
 terests and movements. This he did, wisely and 
 successfully, so far as he was directed; although 
 the whole policy of the movement, as seen from 
 the present standpoint, was the gravest possible 
 mistake. The large establishments were then in- 
 dispensable to the missionaries remaining in Ore- 
 gon. The Hudson Bay Company would let the 
 missionaries have no cows, sheep, horses, or hogs 
 to raise flocks from, and Mr. Lee was obliged to go 
 to California, and procure these necessaries to the 
 continuance of the missionaries in Oregon. 
 
 On August 14, 1848, Congress passed an Act 
 organizing the Territory of Oregon, in which was a 
 clause granting, severally, to each mission station 
 then being in Oregon six hundred and forty acres 
 of land. Our Church had had six missionary sta- 
 tions in Oregon. But by Mr. Gary's direction, 
 acting under instructions of the Missionary Board, 
 these were sold or given away. But for this we 
 would have had three thousand eight hundred and 
 forty acres of land in the most eligible points in 
 Oregon ; a plant which would have been a founda- 
 tion for schools and churches in all that mighty 
 empire for all after generations. As it was, we 
 
SPECIAL TRANSFERS. 97 
 
 lost all that most desirrbk and deserved means; 
 while the Roman Catholics there, as in other of 
 the frontier Territories, laid the foundations of re- 
 ligious propagandism on the widest scale. 
 
 Mr. Gary's early educational advantages had 
 been very limited. Until he became a Methodist 
 traveling minister he had never studied grammar, 
 and yet he spoke and wrote the purest and most 
 correct English. He was a fluent, eloquent, and 
 accurate speaker, never violating any grammatical, 
 nor any of the rhetorical, rules of speech. This 
 skill we attributed to his close observation of the 
 best speakers, and to his reading of the most emi- 
 nent and correct English authors. If Mr. Gary, 
 after his marvelous pulpit abilities were fully ma- 
 tured, had become a star transfer from Conference 
 to Conference, as has become the usage since his 
 time, he would have filled the finest pulpits in the 
 strongest charges of Methodism. But at that 
 period several things prevented; e. g., he was un- 
 ambitious for place, position, and honors ; in those 
 times there were few star appointments; transfers 
 to special appointments were then rarely made. 
 One of the earlier of the kind was that of R. S. 
 Foster from the Ohio Conference to Mulberry 
 Street Church, New York, in which he nobly vin- 
 dicated the wisdom of the transfer. As indicat- 
 ing Mr. Gary's modesty and unaffected avoidance 
 of distinction, this example is in point: His friends 
 desired to procure for him the honorary degree of 
 Doctor of Divinity from Wesleyan University. In 
 this they would doubtless have succeeded, and if 
 
 7 
 
98 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 they had, never would such honors have been more 
 worthily borne. Yet his positive refusal to permit 
 such procurement of honors restrained his friends. 
 He lived and died an untitled Methodist minister. 
 
 Reckoning Asbury as the first American bishop, 
 and one of the earliest Methodist itinerants, Mr. 
 Gary, who was ordained by Asbury, was, therefore, 
 of the second generation of those eminent fathers 
 of our Church. This place he has most worthily 
 filled. A volume of incidents of his extraordinary 
 history, which would have living interest, could be 
 written. While Mr. Gary was in some respects a 
 brilliant man and a genius, yet he was a man of 
 unusually strong common sense. In the dialect of 
 these times he would be pronounced a level-headed 
 man. I was present at a session of the Conference 
 of which he was a member and a presiding elder. 
 The character of one of his preachers was under 
 examination. The question was asked officially, 
 "Is there anything against Brother Blank?" Mr. 
 Gary replied, as now remembered : "There are two 
 deaths which a Methodist preacher may die; one, 
 the end of this earthly life; the other, the loss of 
 the respect and confidence of his brethren and of 
 the Church, which means the death of his useful- 
 ness as a Methodist minister. The former is infi- 
 nitely preferable to the latter. I therefore move that 
 Brother Blank be requested to ask for a location. " 
 Without further discussion the motion prevailed. 
 
 Mr. Gary abounded in humor. Instances decid- 
 edly humorous and sometimes peculiarly funny oc- 
 curred in his ministerial life. 
 
AMUSING INCIDENT. 99 
 
 Traditions of amusing incidents in the career of 
 George Gary which display his prevailing genial 
 qualities are numerous. I could furnish many of 
 them, but brevity requires that I should select but 
 a few, and abbreviate them. 
 
 He was often an inmate of my father's house, 
 and an inimitable raconteur. Three years after 
 he left Oregon I arrived there. One of the first 
 things I heard of him after reaching that country 
 was that he was a man of habitual cheerfulness, 
 who greatly enjoyed relating the incidents of his 
 earlier itinerant life, and whose nature was genial 
 and kindly. It was also current that he was ap- 
 parently much shocked at the homespun freedom 
 and the rollicksome ways of the Oregon brethren. 
 He was accustomed to admonish them very gravely, 
 when starting out on an equestrian trip, to ride 
 quietly, either on a walk or a slow trot, and never 
 on a canter, and with the dignity becoming Meth- 
 odist ministers. They gave me the legend — though 
 I had heard it many years before — how on one of 
 his first charges he was well-nigh rejected because 
 he was so young-looking, his appearance making 
 him seem much younger than he really was. This 
 is the legend as heard in boyhood, and as rehearsed 
 to me in Oregon. Mr. Gary was the third preacher 
 on the circuit. The story that the circuit had a 
 boy preacher reached the charge before he did. It 
 preceded him at every appointment. Before seeing 
 him the stewards had laid in objections to the pre- 
 siding elder that he was too young and inexperi- 
 enced for the chief appointment, where the compe- 
 
IOO SIXTY- ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 tition was sharp and the people were critical. They 
 suggested that the boy preacher should be re- 
 stricted to the rural appointments, and the chief 
 places be left wholly to the service of the senior 
 preachers. To this the elder objected, that it would 
 be quite unfair to discriminate against the young 
 preacher, especially before having heard him at all. 
 In this sensible advice the stewards acquiesced. 
 When the Sabbath came for the young man to 
 preach in the county town his fame as a boy 
 preacher had preceded him. A full house awaited 
 his coming with no ordinary interest. Punctually 
 he came, and he marched up the aisle with the 
 veritable saddlebags. Ascending the pulpit stairs 
 and conducting the preliminary exercises with be- 
 coming words and manner, he announced as his 
 text John vi, 9: "There is a lad here, which hath 
 five barley loaves and two small fishes; but what 
 are they among so many?" In that sermon the 
 boy preacher won his right of way with the people 
 of that chief town, whether the stewards were rec- 
 onciled to him or not. His sermon was in keeping 
 with the genius which led to the selection of the 
 text. All admired him, and they said he was very 
 mature for such a boy in years and looks. 
 
 His immaturity when he acceded to the district 
 was the occasion of some surprise and questioning, 
 in which he vindicated his right to the place ac- 
 corded him by showing himself fully equal to the 
 great trust reposed in him. 
 
 Soon after his incumbency of his first district he 
 visited New York. He called Saturday evening on 
 
GARY AND DR. BANGS. IOI 
 
 Dr. Nathan Bangs, who inquired his name and 
 place of labor. He gave his Christian name, 
 George, and, withholding his surname, he stated 
 that he preached in Oneida, in the central part of 
 the State. Dr. Bangs gave him the freedom of his 
 library, and begged him to amuse himself with 
 books, and excuse the Doctor while he completed 
 his preparation for the next day's sermon. Sabbath 
 morning Gary went with his host to the church, and 
 followed him into the pulpit, taking such part as 
 was assigned to him. At the close of the sermon 
 Dr. Bangs announced a four o'clock afternoon 
 service at some uptown ward and schoolhouse, say- 
 ing to the audience that a young preacher from the 
 country was in the pulpit, who he hoped would fill 
 that out-appointment, in which case he, the Doctor, 
 would preach there in the church himself. Gary 
 arose and declined the schoolhouse service; but he 
 said if it was agreeable to them, he would preach 
 in that church at the hour named. "Then," said 
 Dr. Bangs, "I will preach uptown and the young 
 brother here." His able and vivid sermon pro- 
 duced a profound impression. Dr. Bangs saw him 
 no more for years ; but the fame of his sermon was 
 so great that the Doctor took down the General 
 Minutes, and found that his young guest was the 
 presiding elder of Oneida District. The next time 
 Mr. Gary visited New York, Dr. Bangs, having 
 found out his real rank, accorded him fuller cour- 
 tesies than on his first visit. 
 
 Mr. Gary was a born orator. The instances of 
 his transcendent power over his immense congre- 
 
102 SIXTY- ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 gations were most remarkable. His great strength 
 lay in his dramatic power in rendering thrilling 
 Scriptural incidents. He was greatly at home at 
 camp-meetings and quarterly-meetings before large 
 masses, who had gathered with high expectations. 
 He rarely, if ever, disappointed them. His voice 
 was clear, musical, penetrating. When animated 
 in preaching, his countenance was irresistibly at- 
 tractive and expressive. Some of his sermons were 
 masterpieces of skill and power. They can never 
 be forgotten. A few specimens are given. "Daniel 
 in the Lions' Den" is one. 
 
 In quiet, deliberate manner he briefly recounts 
 the story of the prophet's sentence. This fixes the 
 attention of all. Then he describes the den as a 
 vault or chamber beneath the surface of the earth. 
 The beasts are eagerly looked for. Their roar is 
 distinct. But when Daniel is committed to the den 
 the lions are as still as death. The sleepless night 
 of the king is set forth, and with the early dawn 
 the royal monarch approaches the den. Suiting 
 the action and voice to the occasion, the preacher 
 advances to the edge of the platform, and looks 
 down as if recognizing Daniel. In the most tender 
 and pathetic tones he cries out : "O Daniel ! O 
 Daniel ! is thy God whom thou servest continually, 
 able to deliver thee from the lions?" and then, in 
 changed voice and with ventriloquial effect, the 
 answer comes up from the prophet calm, serene, 
 confident: "O king, live forever! My God hath 
 sent his angel and hath shut the lions' mouths, that 
 they have not hurt me; forasmuch as before him 
 
GARY'S SERMONS. 103 
 
 innocency was found in me, and also before thee, 
 O king !" The pause, the hushed silence of the vast 
 throng, is almost painful. But when at the king's 
 command Daniel's accusers are committed to the 
 hungry lions, a rustle is heard, and the people re- 
 cover their breath. If it were anywhere else tumul- 
 tuous applause would break forth. As it is, many 
 are weeping, and some are shouting over Daniel's 
 deliverance. To eye and ear and heart the whole 
 scene has been most vivid and realistic. In another 
 sermon, but with like manner, the three Hebrews 
 in the fiery furnace were the theme of impassioned 
 words and expressive acting. The audience were 
 carried off their seats, and with mingled tears and 
 shouts the victory was announced. 
 
 One of his favorite sermons was on Isaiah lxiii, 
 1-6: "Who is this that cometh from Bozrah?" etc. 
 After a calm recital of the text and its brief exe- 
 gesis, he advanced to the front of the platform, and 
 seized the skirt of his coat and emphasized the 
 questions and answers, each in unlike tone and 
 manner, and yet in both thrilling his hearers as 
 though an angel from heaven had been speaking. 
 Besides his vivid impersonations of his characters, 
 Gary's voice when he was impassioned had always 
 marked expression of tenderness and pathos. The 
 other remarkable instances of Gary's power as a 
 preacher are these: The first was at a camp-meet- 
 ing in the Britain Settlement, north of Syracuse, 
 some fifty years ago. He first drew his audience 
 to their feet in a dense mass around him, tears flow- 
 ing from all eyes. The sermon was preached at the 
 
104 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 eight o'clock hour Sunday morning, when many 
 were all the time arriving upon the ground. The 
 external conditions were all unfavorable to marked 
 effect. The sermon was only twenty minutes in 
 length. Text, Genesis xix, 17: "Escape for thy 
 life." The minister was in tears. He depicted the 
 angel urging Lot to great speed and earnestness in 
 escaping from the awful, fiery storm. He then, with 
 signal emphasis, applied the warning to all present, 
 and in piercing tones and with a voice quivering 
 with emotion he uttered the cry of the text, "Es- 
 cape for thy life!" One hundred or more fell to 
 the ground as though stricken with sudden death. 
 Sinners cried for mercy, souls were converted, and 
 for hours afterward one continuous prayer-meet- 
 ing was kept up, in which scores of souls were con- 
 verted. The other instance of his power at camp- 
 meeting was given in the Advocate, by V. M. 
 Coryell, in 1879. It occurred in Danby, near Ith- 
 aca, seventy years ago. He had just arrived upon 
 the ground from the funeral of his wife. As he ap- 
 proached the end of his sermon his soul became all 
 absorbed in his overwhelming affliction. He was 
 now about for the first time to say good-bye to his 
 children as orphaned of a mother's tender care. He 
 referred to the unprotected loneliness of those dear 
 children. Then with overwhelming and indescrib- 
 able pathos and with flowing tears he repeated the 
 verse : 
 
 " O, what are all my sufferings here, 
 If, Lord, thou count me meet 
 With that enraptured host to appear, 
 And worship at thy feet?" 
 
AT CAMP-MEETING. 105 
 
 Then in still more tender tones, he repeated the 
 next lines: 
 
 " Give joy or grief, give ease or pain, 
 Take life or friends away ; 
 But let me find them all again 
 In that eternal day." 
 
 Then the great fountain of tears was broken up. 
 Men cried like children; others shouted amid tears. 
 Unsaved men and women uttered piercing cries. 
 Multitudes were converted, and many shouts of 
 glory and victory were lifted up. 
 
 Thirty-eight years ago this great and good man 
 went up to his crowning. His death was tri- 
 umphant. 
 
Sjraral f 'triad. 
 
 Life in Oregon 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 MY transfer to Oregon was peculiar and provi- 
 dential. In 1850 I went into Michigan to 
 consider and decide upon the question of seeking 
 a^ transfer to that Peninsula. I was so well pleased 
 with the country, that I greatly desired to remove 
 there, and I decided to do so if I could get a trans- 
 fer to the Michigan Conference. Bishop Waugh 
 presided at the Oneida Conference in 1850. I 
 waited o.n him, informing him of my wish. He said 
 the bishops were favorable to transferring men to 
 Michigan. It was a growing State, and more men 
 than they had were in demand. But it seemed diffi- 
 cult to supply certain places in Oneida Conference 
 for that year. He promised me a transfer to Mich- 
 igan the next year, if I would stay in my own Con- 
 ference the pending year. To this I agreed. 
 
 In 1 85 1 I went up to our Conference, which 
 met in Ithaca, N. Y., fully expecting to be trans- 
 ferred to Michigan. My goods were all packed in 
 readiness for that removal. Bishop Janes presided 
 at the Oneida Conference in 185 1. He wished to 
 transfer me to Oregon, then a foreign mission of 
 our Church. I suppose that wish was pursuant 
 to information he had had, that, in 1847, when a 
 call was made in the Christian Advocate for two 
 men and their wives to go to Oregon as mission- 
 aries, Rev. Albert D. Peck and myself had offered 
 ourselves in response to that call, with our wives, 
 
 109 
 
IIO SIXTY- ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 who were sisters. Our response came too late, 
 as William Roberts, of Newark, N. J., and James 
 H. Wilbur, of Northern New York, had offered and 
 had been accepted before our offer had reached the 
 Board. My heart had always been drawn towards 
 Oregon as a mission field. Jason Lee and his two 
 Flathead Indian boys, in 1839, had been guests at 
 my father's for a week, and I had talked much with 
 him and with the Indians, and had had my sym- 
 pathies strongly enlisted for Oregon. In the mean- 
 time, Rev. Mr. Peck had died. His wife had re- 
 married, and I had given up all thought or expec- 
 tation of ever going to that country. The call of 
 Bishop Janes made a strong impression upon me; 
 and yet I could not decide the matter alone. Mrs. 
 Pearne must be consulted. The bishop said, "Go 
 and see your wife, and come back as soon as you 
 can." He also said, that if I should conclude to 
 decline Oregon, he would transfer me to Michigan. 
 I went on Friday. I had to go by lake to Cayuga 
 Bridge, forty miles ; thence by rail to Utica, ninety 
 miles; and thence by stage to Madison, twenty 
 miles. On Monday morning I was back at the 
 seat of the Conference. Mrs. Pearne had readily 
 given her approval of the measure, and I informed 
 the bishop he might transfer me to Oregon. The 
 presiding elders and the Conference had unani- 
 mously approved of my transfer to that distant mis- 
 sion field, the Conference also agreeing that if at 
 any time I might wish to return, the Conference 
 doors would swing open to receive me. 
 
 The gold excitement as to California was still 
 
EN ROUTE TO OREGON. 1 1 1 
 
 at fever height. The bishop asked me if I thought 
 I could resist the temptation to go to the California 
 gold-mines when I should arrive in California en 
 route. I said I could. His transfer ran in the usual 
 form. The letter he gave me with the transfer said 
 in substance: "Go to Oregon, live there and work 
 there for Jesus, and die there for Jesus." It seemed 
 from that letter that I was expected to separate 
 myself, finally, from the associations of a lifetime 
 on the Atlantic Coast, and begin lifelong associ- 
 ations with a country I had never seen. But I had 
 put my hand to the plow. I would not look back. 
 In three weeks' time we were on the steamer 
 Illinois, en route for Oregon via Panama, Acapulco 
 in Mexico, and San Francisco. The steamer was 
 much crowded w r ith passengers for the new Occi- 
 dental El Dorado. I think there were over a thou- 
 sand passengers. Four ministers were on board ; 
 two for Oregon, and two for California. Three 
 of the preachers were Methodists, and one was a 
 United Presbyterian. After we went aboard ship, 
 we found that three of our wives had been put into 
 one stateroom, and their husbands into another, 
 with an alcove between the rooms. As we sat in 
 the alcove, before the steamer started, and had 
 made each other's acquaintance, I remarked that 
 while it was inconvenient for husbands and wives 
 to be separated, yet the alcove connecting the 
 rooms was convenient. We could have family 
 prayers without interruption from other passengers. 
 Later, the United Presbyterian minister demurred 
 to my proposal about prayers. He said it was not 
 
112 SIXTY- ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 practicable ; for we sang hymns, while in his Church 
 he sang Psalms. But said I, "That need not hinder 
 our praying together and singing together, if you 
 like ; for I can sing Psalms with you, and so can the 
 others, and I doubt not they would be quite will- 
 ing." "That is not it exactly," he replied; "we 
 do n't like to countenance hymn-singing by sing- 
 ing Psalms with those who sing hymns." So we 
 had no family prayers. As will be seen, he was very 
 greatly liberalized by living in Oregon. Ten years 
 later, he returned to the States. He wrote to me, 
 from up the country where he lived, that he was 
 coming to Portland, en route for the States, and he 
 would like to be my guest over the Sabbath, and 
 to preach in the Methodist Episcopal Church at 
 night; and the people of that Church could sing 
 their own hymns and use their own organ, and he 
 would preach, and sing a Psalm alone at the end 
 of the sermon. His name was Samuel G. Irvine. 
 He was made moderator of the United Presby- 
 terian General Assembly that year. 
 
 We arrived in Aspinwall, at the mouth of the 
 Chagres River, on Sunday morning. The ship 
 anchored in the Chagres Bay, two or three miles 
 from port. The purser had said we might stay on 
 shipboard, if we did not want to disembark on Sun- 
 day. So we staid. But in the afternoon the captain 
 ordered all the passengers to leave the ship, as they 
 were going down to Navy Bay, some ten miles 
 away, to coal up. This put us to a great disadvan- 
 tage, as all the boats from the shore had gone back 
 to port. But we overcame this, by going in the 
 
CROSSING THE ISTHMUS. 113 
 
 ship's lighter. Reaching port, we found that all 
 the best boats had gone up the river, and we had to 
 take, from what were left, such as we could get. We 
 chartered a sampan; i. c, a boat with a plank roof 
 over it. This, as a protection from sun and rain, 
 was desirable. It was the rainy season ; and the 
 flat-bottomed boat was very slow and unsuitable 
 for the river, which was in flood. The river was 
 too rapid for oars, and too deep for poling. We 
 had to cordelle it by the bushes or rope. The 
 bushes were loaded with a small, red ant, whose 
 bite was like fire, and we could not escape it. 
 
 We were a week crossing the isthmus ; five days 
 to Gorgona, a distance of sixty-five miles ; and one 
 day by mule, twenty-two miles, to Panama; and 
 one day in Panama. Our company consisted of 
 Rev. Mr. and Mrs. Irvine; Rev. Adam Bland, wife 
 and child (Brother Bland and William Taylor were 
 brothers-in-law) ; and Rev. Henry Ercanbrack, my- 
 self, and Mrs. Pearne and child. It rained in tor- 
 rents without premonition, and then instantly the 
 sun would scorch us with its torrid heat — a very 
 hazardous condition to encounter. Several of the 
 steamer's passengers died from yellow fever on the 
 passage up the river. We were in great peril at 
 one time. Our sampan had become wedged 
 under a lateral branch of a tree on the shore, the 
 river was rising every moment, and we were in dan- 
 ger of being sunk in the boiling, roaring flood. 
 Some of the ladies, especially Mrs. Bland, became 
 very nervous and highly excited. In another in- 
 stance, Mrs. Bland became much alarmed. The 
 8 
 
112 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 practicable ; for we sang hymns, while in his Church 
 he sang Psalms. But said I, "That need not hinder 
 our praying together and singing together, if you 
 like ; for I can sing Psalms with you, and so can the 
 others, and I doubt not they would be quite will- 
 ing." "That is not it exactly," he replied; "we 
 do n't like to countenance hymn-singing by sing- 
 ing Psalms with those who sing hymns." So we 
 had no family prayers. As will be seen, he was very 
 greatly liberalized by living in Oregon. Ten years 
 later, he returned to the States. He wrote to me, 
 from up the country where he lived, that he was 
 coming to Portland, en route for the States, and he 
 would like to be my guest over the Sabbath, and 
 to preach in the Methodist Episcopal Church at 
 night ; and the people of that Church could sing 
 their own hymns and use their own organ, and he 
 would preach, and sing a Psalm alone at the end 
 of the sermon. His name was Samuel G. Irvine. 
 He was made moderator of the United Presby- 
 terian General Assembly that year. 
 
 We arrived in Aspinwall, at the mouth of the 
 Chagres River, on Sunday morning. The ship 
 anchored in the Chagres Bay, two or three miles 
 from port. The purser had said we might stay on 
 shipboard, if we did not want to disembark on Sun- 
 day. So we staid. But in the afternoon the captain 
 ordered all the passengers to leave the ship, as they 
 were going down to Navy Bay, some ten miles 
 away, to coal up. This put us to a great disadvan- 
 tage, as all the boats from the shore had gone back 
 to port. But we overcame this, by going in the 
 
CROSSING THE ISTHMUS. 113 
 
 ship's lighter. Reaching port, we found that all 
 the best boats had gone up the river, and we had to 
 take, from what were left, such as we could get. We 
 chartered a sampan ; i. c, a boat with a plank roof 
 over it. This, as a protection from sun and rain, 
 was desirable. It was the rainy season ; and the 
 flat-bottomed boat was very slow and unsuitable 
 for the river, which was in flood. The river was 
 too rapid for oars, and too deep for poling. We 
 had to cordelle it by the bushes or rope. The 
 bushes were loaded with a small, red ant, whose 
 bite was like fire, and we could not escape it. 
 
 We were a week crossing the isthmus ; five days 
 to Gorgona, a distance of sixty-five miles ; and one 
 day by mule, twenty-two miles, to Panama; and 
 one day in Panama. Our company consisted of 
 Rev. Mr. and Mrs. Irvine; Rev. Adam Bland, wife 
 and child (Brother Bland and William Taylor were 
 brothers-in-law) ; and Rev. Henry Ercanbrack, my- 
 self, and Mrs. Pearne and child. It rained in tor- 
 rents without premonition, and then instantly the 
 sun would scorch us with its torrid heat — a very 
 hazardous condition to encounter. Several of the 
 steamer's passengers died from yellow fever on the 
 passage up the river. We were in great peril at 
 one time. Our sampan had become wedged 
 under a lateral branch of a tree on the shore, the 
 river was rising every moment, and we were in dan- 
 ger of being sunk in the boiling, roaring flood. 
 Some of the ladies, especially Mrs. Bland, became 
 very nervous and highly excited. In another in- 
 stance, Mrs. Bland became much alarmed. The 
 8 
 
114 SIXTY- ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 natives who were propelling- the boat landed at a 
 grassy bank, and, taking up their machetes, or long- 
 knives, they left us, and disappeared from sight. 
 Mrs. Bland insisted they were going for re-enforce- 
 ments, and then would return and kill us. In a 
 few minutes they came back, each man having a 
 stalk of sugar-cane, which they had brought to 
 chew. So the suspicion of murder was dismissed. 
 Reaching Gorgona, we spent the night there. I 
 was very ill, with strong symptoms of yellow fever. 
 I went to a druggist's, and bought thirty grains of 
 sulphate of quinine, divided into two equal parts. 
 One of them I took at nine o'clock and retired, tell- 
 ing my wife to give me the other at midnight ; if I 
 was delirious and refused to take it, to get help 
 and put it down me. The coercion proved unnec- 
 essary. My wife awakened me, and I took my 
 medicine. The next morning I was as clear as a 
 bell. But the night-shirt and the sheets were as 
 yellow as saffron. On the route to Panama, on 
 muleback, each lady was accompanied by a mule- 
 teer, who carried a child. After traveling on mule- 
 back some three miles, Mrs. Bland gave her babe 
 some food. She had the muleteer to tighten the 
 cinch, to make the saddle firmer. Remounting and 
 ascending a rise, her husband, who was following 
 his wife, asked a swarthy Frenchman about the 
 road. He gave a French shrug, and said, "Im- 
 passable." He held a rifle. She concluded he was 
 a brigand demanding a passport ; and as she knew 
 her husband had none, she supposed the end of 
 life had come for one or both of them. She 
 
AT SAN FRANCISCO. 1 15 
 
 whipped up her mule. The saddle-girth broke ; she 
 came to the ground, and running after me she de- 
 clared that the Frenchman was killing her husband. 
 This, too, proved a groundless fear. 
 
 At Panama we were divided; Ercanbrack and 
 Bland going on the steamer Republic, and Brother 
 Irvine and myself going on the California. We 
 missed connection with the Oregon steamer at San 
 Francisco, and were delayed a week in California, 
 making our trip from New York to Oregon six 
 and a half weeks. We touched at Acapulco in 
 Mexico. Arriving at San Francisco, we found that 
 the steamer Republic had knocked a hole in her hull. 
 Our vessel was sent down to tow her into port. 
 We reached San Francisco Sunday morning. At 
 evening I preached in Powell Street Methodist 
 Episcopal Church to five hundred men and two 
 women. The brethren pressed me very hard to 
 remain in California, and wait until they could 
 communicate with New York, and receive authority 
 from Bishop Janes for me to remain permanently 
 in California,, where they alleged we were more 
 needed than in Oregon. We declined. 
 
 I ought perhaps to mention that, by the re- 
 quest of Rev. William Taylor, the California street 
 preacher, and later Bishop of Africa, I preached 
 on the Plaza to his street congregation, at two 
 o'clock in the afternoon of the day of our arrival. 
 He sung them up by singing the hymn, "Hear the 
 royal proclamation." The people gathered from 
 all directions. There were probably from five hun- 
 dred to eight hundred persons present. I preached 
 
Il8 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 October morning, like a silver strip along the coast. 
 Above this, in the distance, was the dense, dark 
 ereen of the fir-timber on the mountain's side. 
 Above this we saw the snow-covered peaks of 
 Mount Hood, Mount Rainier or Tacoma (the In- 
 dian name), Saint Helen's, and Mount Jefferson, 
 which seemed like a setting for the mountain pic- 
 ture on which we gazed. I had never before seen 
 snowy mountains. The view was one of thrilling 
 enchantment. It can never be forgotten. The ship 
 stopped at Astoria for an hour. I went ashore. 
 The first man I met was Mr. Leonard, a gentleman 
 whom I had often seen in Owego, N. Y., my last 
 charge before leaving for Oregon. He addressed 
 me by name, and said he had often heard me preach. 
 We were five hours ascending the river to Portland, 
 a hundred miles distant. The last twelve miles we 
 had been sailing in the Willamette River. In Port- 
 land we met Rev. James II . Wilbur, pastor of our 
 Church in Portland, and Rev. C. S. Kingsley, prin- 
 cipal of the Portland Academy and Female Semi- 
 nary. 
 
 Mr. Wilbur advised that we should remain at 
 Portland until William Roberts, superintendent of 
 the Oregon and California Missions, could be in- 
 formed of my arrival, and could appoint me to my 
 work, which, Mr. W T ilbur said, might be up the 
 Willamette River or down the Columbia, or pos- 
 sibly over to Puget Sound. My letter of instruc- 
 tion from Bishop Janes directed me to report in 
 person to Mr. Roberts in Salem, his residence. So 
 I pursued my voyage up the Willamette River in a 
 
OREGON DISTRICT. 1 19 
 
 steamer. Thirteen miles from Portland is Oregon 
 City, where we encountered a portage and a fall 
 in the river of some eight or ten feet. Here was 
 erected the first Protestant house of worship on the 
 entire Pacific Coast from Cape Horn to the Straits 
 of Fuca. The distance from Oregon City to Salem, 
 fifty miles, was passed on an upper river steamer, 
 which in winter and spring was able to ascend the 
 river one hundred miles above Salem, the capital 
 of Oregon Territory. Mr. Roberts, by direction 
 of Bishop Janes, appointed me presiding elder on 
 the Oregon District, which included all the United 
 States territory from the Missouri River to the Pa- 
 cific, eighteen hundred miles east and west; and 
 from the California line in north latitude 39th de- 
 gree to the 49th degree of north latitude, six hun- 
 dred and fifty miles; including an area of 1,170,000 
 square miles. The States now included in the Ore- 
 gon District as existing forty-six years ago, are 
 Oregon and Washington, Idaho, Montana, and 
 North and South Dakota. 
 
 Fortunately, only the western part of this im- 
 mense area was sparsely settled ; and so the actual 
 distance east from the ocean was about three hun- 
 dred miles. There were from ten to twelve charges, 
 and about six hundred members. The following 
 itinerant ministers were employed in ministerial 
 work : William Roberts, superintendent of the Ore- 
 gon and California Mission Conference; Portland, 
 James H. Wilbur. In 1847, William Roberts and 
 James H. Wilbur came to Oregon. James H. Wil- 
 bur had been connected with the Black River Con- 
 
120 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OE ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 ference in Northern New York, and Mr. Roberts 
 had been successively a member of the Philadelphia 
 and the Newark (New Jersey) Conferences. C. S. 
 Kingsley was doing a very excellent educational 
 work. His school was well patronized. F. S. 
 Hoyt, a former member of the Newark Conference, 
 was exceedingly popular and useful, both as an in- 
 structor and a minister. He was secretary of the 
 Conference, and he joined with me later in offering 
 the Oregon circular resolution on Lay Delegation. 
 
 A. F. Waller and J. L. Parrish lived in Salem. 
 They both came to Oregon in the good ship Lau- 
 sanne in 1839, reaching Oregon some time in 1840. 
 L. T. Woodward, principal of Santiam Academy, 
 came in 1850; as did also N. Doane, one of the 
 earliest graduates of Concord Biblical Institute. 
 David Leslie was an early missionary, now super- 
 annuated. William Helm, of Kentucky, was a vet- 
 eran. John Flinn, an accession to the ministers, 
 in 1850, Dallas. D. E. Blain and John McKinney 
 were filling Calapooya Circuit. C. O. Hosford, a 
 native preacher. J. F. Devore, an accession in 
 1850. Joseph O. Rayner, stationed in Clatsop and 
 Astoria. J. S. Smith, Jacksonville. Later came 
 P. G. Buchanan, who preached in Portland a time ; 
 
 B. C. Lippincott and Benjamin Close labored in 
 Puget Sound ; G. M. Berry on the Columbia River 
 work; Isaac Dillon came in 1852 from Ohio. The 
 workers who had preceded my coming were earnest 
 and faithful men. Some of them had been in Ore- 
 gon a dozen or more years. Others, whose com- 
 ing was later than mine, approved themselves to 
 
MISSION CONFERENCE. 12 I 
 
 God and the Church by their devotion and zeal, 
 Gnstavus, J. M., and 11. R. Hines, brothers, es- 
 pecially. 
 
 The population of Oregon, as given by the 
 United States Census of 1850, was: Of whites, 
 13,294; Indians, about 100,000; perhaps more. 
 This population of whites was scattered over the 
 western part of Oregon. The vast regions between 
 the Cascade Mountains and the Missouri River 
 were peopled only by wild beasts and savages. In 
 Western Oregon the people were scattered at wide 
 distances apart, on respectively mile sections and 
 half-mile half-sections. There were perhaps six or 
 eight hundred people in Portland, two-thirds as 
 many in Oregon City, five hundred in Salem, a 
 hundred and fifty in Astoria, and twice as many in 
 Vancouver, on the Columbia. In Vancouver there 
 was a United States military post, and perhaps two 
 hundred settlers. Albany, Marysville, La Fayette, 
 Dayton, Eugene City in Willamette Valley, Rose- 
 berry in Umpqua Valley, and Jacksonville and 
 Phcenix in Rogue River Valley, were small villages. 
 The number of settlers was very small ; so it was 
 in the city of Dalles, where we had also a United 
 States military post. We had long horseback rides, 
 with rivers to ford and swim, making the work hard 
 and perilous. But we had kind, hospitable treat- 
 ment, excellent meetings, and some success. 
 
 In November, 1851, the Oregon Mission Con- 
 ference was held in Portland, Oregon, by William 
 Roberts, superintendent. He divided the work into 
 two districts: Oregon District, William Roberts, 
 
122 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 presiding elder ; including Salem and all below it to 
 the sea; including, also, Olympia, Steilacoom, Se- 
 attle, Mound Prairie, Cowlitz. Mary's River 
 District, Thomas H. Pearne, presiding elder. This 
 included Lebanon, Calapooya, Albany, Marysville, 
 Belknap's Settlement, Eugene City, Roseburg, 
 Jacksonville, Phoenix. Before detailing more at 
 length the progress of our work in Oregon, it may 
 be well to give a few general statements, which will 
 enable the reader to follow more intelligently and 
 with more interest the narratives and incidents 
 which may be recited later. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 AS to the name Oregon, which Bryant men- 
 l tions in his well-known lines in Thanatopsis — 
 he speaks of persons 
 
 " loosing themselves in the continuous woods, 
 Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound 
 Save its own dashing," — 
 
 there are two theories. One of these accounts for 
 its origin thus: The plains of Oregon are covered 
 with a wild herb, called origanum, or thyme; 
 whence, by a corruption of the word origanum, 
 came the word Oregon. This is much the more 
 probable of the two. The other theory is, that the 
 early Jesuit missionaries who visited Oregon found 
 a tribe of Indians dwelling on the banks of the 
 Lower Columbia, with large, pendent ears, whom, 
 because of this physical peculiarity, they called 
 Auricanes, or large-eared Indians, and that the 
 word Oregon is a corruption of the word Auri- 
 canes. But this account is shown to be improbable, 
 by the fact that if those early Indians had this pe- 
 culiarity, they would have transmitted it to their 
 descendants; whereas, no such descendants are 
 found. 
 
 DESCRIPTION OF OREGON. 
 
 Oregon, when I saw it in 1851, was a great 
 country, having the boundaries of an empire. It 
 rivaled in beauty many lands, and greatly excelled 
 
 123 
 
124 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 some others. Oregon abounds in magnificent 
 scenery. Its mountains are fringed with somber 
 cedars and pines and firs, and their being crested 
 with snow-peaks heightens the scenic effects. The 
 prairies are covered with countless sunflowers 
 growing on stalks, perhaps eighteen inches in 
 height, and abundance of daisies and violets carpet 
 the whole country with beauty, and perfume the 
 whole air with their fragrance. My first view of 
 Oregon from the sea produced the most delightful 
 impression. We were near enough to the mouth 
 of the Columbia to trace all the outlines of the 
 coasts ; the shore-line was covered by a fog looking 
 like a silver ribbon. Above that were the Cascade 
 Mountains, five thousand feet high, clothed to their 
 tops with fadeless green, which, however, in the 
 distance was slightly empurpled. Above the moun- 
 tain-line rose Mount Hood to the right, eighteen 
 thousand feet, and to the left Saint Helen's, four- 
 teen thousand feet. As the sun purpled the sum- 
 mits of these peaks, the combination of silver and 
 emerald and purple and white was indescribably 
 beautiful. 
 
 The scenery on the Columbia River is simply 
 magnificent. The shores are bold and bluff, piled 
 up with columnar basalt, as clearly outlined as the 
 Giant's Causeway and Fingal's Cave in Staffa, on 
 the shores of Scotland. Grand reaches of water 
 are seen; rocky islands, here and there, with co- 
 lumnar rocks like a stone church-spire; dashing 
 waterfalls adorn the steep river sides, — making up a 
 very lovely and sublime panorama. The ever- 
 
DESCRIPTION OF OREGON. 1 25 
 
 present snow mountains lend an indescribable 
 charm to the near or distant view. Along the 
 Willamette River the scenery is more subdued and 
 quiet than on the Columbia. But the beauty of the 
 Willamette Valley is unsurpassed by anything I 
 have ever seen in any other country in the whole 
 wide world. And yet, when in the thirties Senator 
 Thomas H. Benton advocated and urged the ac- 
 quisition of Oregon, it was decried as a land of 
 barren wastes and fruitless sand-dunes, not worth 
 the taking in. Relatively, Oregon will compare 
 favorably for loveliness, fertility, and productive- 
 ness with any other country. 
 
 Oregon has three natural divisions — the West- 
 ern, the Middle, and the Eastern divisions. The 
 Western extends from the sea to the Cascade 
 Mountains. It includes the coast-range of moun- 
 tains, ranging from fifteen hundred feet in height 
 to three or four thousand feet. Western Oregon 
 again is divided into three parts — the Willamette 
 Valley, running north and south, say two hundred 
 miles long and sixty miles wide. The Willamette 
 River rises in the Cascade and Coast Mountains, 
 two hundred miles south from the Columbia River, 
 and runs north, flowing into the Columbia one hun- 
 dred miles from the sea. It is navigable, except the 
 small portage at Oregon City Falls, for one hun- 
 dred and fifty miles, during eight months of the 
 year. On the west side are Tualitin, La Creole, 
 Yamhill, and Mary's and Long Tom Rivers, 
 which rise in the Coast Mountains, and enter into 
 the Willamette River at distances of thirty miles 
 
126 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 apart. On the east side of the Willamette, Clacka- 
 mas, Putin, Molalla, Santiam, Calapooya, and Mo- 
 hawk Rivers flow from the Cascades to the Willa- 
 mette, at greater or less distances from each other. 
 
 The Umpqua Valley lies east and west. It is 
 made by the Umpqua River, which, rising in the 
 Cascade Mountains and flowing westerly, de- 
 bouches into the sea, after cutting right through 
 the Coast Mountains. This valley is one hundred 
 miles long and fifty miles across. It is very pic- 
 turesque and productive. The soil possesses great 
 fertility. ■ Rogue River Valley is a repetition of 
 Umpqua, with perhaps wider valleys than the 
 Umpqua. 
 
 Washington State, north of the Columbia 
 River, has no considerable east and west rivers 
 traversing it. The Cowlitz River rises in Mound 
 Prairie, and flows southward to the Columbia, de- 
 bouching into the Columbia thirty or forty miles 
 from the sea. North of Mound Prairie is a com- 
 paratively level and heavily-timbered section, sepa- 
 rating the waters of the Columbia from the waters 
 of Puget Sound, Hood's Canal, and Admiralty 
 Inlet. North of these is the Gulf of Georgia, with 
 hundreds of islands, and receiving the waters of 
 Fraser River. North and east of this Gulf of 
 Georgia is our northern boundary-line of 49 de- 
 grees north latitude, running westerly until it 
 reaches the center of the Gulf of Georgia, thence 
 south by the main ship channel through the Gulf 
 of Georgia, around the south end of Vancouver's 
 Island, through the Straits of Fuca to the sea. 
 
CLIMATE OF OREGON. 127 
 
 These magnificent inland seas are surrounded by 
 inexhaustible fir forests, suitable for masts, spars, 
 and lumber, and navigable for the largest ships to 
 all their shores, containing twenty-eight hundred 
 miles of sea-line. 
 
 Middle Oregon is a high table-land, stretching 
 from the Cascade Mountains eastward two hundred 
 and fifty miles to the Blue Mountains. The rivers 
 which enter into the Columbia from the north in 
 Middle Oregon are, Spokane River and Louis 
 River; from the south, Des Chutes, Baker River, 
 John Day's River, Umatilla, Powder, and Walla 
 Walla Rivers. Eastern Oregon, as the territory 
 was originally bounded, runs eastwardly from the 
 Blue Mountains to the foot of the Rockies. 
 
 Oregon has three distinct climates, which are 
 determined by its mountain ranges. The climate 
 of Western Oregon is mild and humid. Roses and 
 strawberries are in bloom, and the grass is green 
 all through the winter. The thermometer is sel- 
 dom more than 90 degrees Fahrenheit in the sum- 
 mer, nor lower than 20 degrees in the winter. Mid- 
 dle Oregon is high table-land, unprotected from 
 the northern cold. It is intensely cold in winter, 
 and terrifically hot in summer. The climate of 
 Eastern Oregon is like that of the Middle, only 
 more so. 
 
 The average summer weather of Western 
 Oregon is 67 degrees, and the winter weather 
 46 degrees. The isotherm of Portland in lati- 
 tude 46.20 north is that of Charleston, S. C, in 
 latitude 32.20 degrees, nine hundred miles south. 
 
128 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 The cause of this unusually mild climate of West- 
 ern Oregon is twofold. The Gulf Stream of the 
 Pacific runs close to the shore in Oregon, and the 
 Cascade Mountains protect Western Oregon from 
 the arctic blasts of winter. 
 
 Oregon is an exceptionally fine country for 
 camp-meetings. From May to November scarcely 
 any rain falls. In fourteen years' residence in Ore- 
 gon, I never heard thunder but once, and then 
 that was very distant and light. One season I at- 
 tended and conducted seven camp-meetings in as 
 many weeks. In all that time I slept in a house 
 but one night, and we had no rain at any of those 
 camp-meetings. Beginning at a certain point in 
 the Willamette Valley on the east side of the river, 
 and descending the valley, I went with my wife to 
 four camp-meetings, and then, crossing over to the 
 west side of the valley, I ascended the river, and 
 held three more. Mrs. Pearne and myself attended 
 all these seven camp-meetings. We carried our 
 tent and clothing, including bedding, in a two-horse 
 open buggy, drawn by two horses. We carried our 
 tent in the buggy, and the tent-pole we fastened 
 to the front and rear axles, the pole extending 
 behind the buggy. We pitched and occupied our 
 own tent. The people furnished us our food, and 
 we furnished the transportation of tent and bed- 
 ding. The camp-meetings were usually seasons of 
 great power and blessing. Probably two hundred 
 persons professed conversion during the season in 
 which I held these seven meetings described. The 
 people attending and sustaining the camp-meet- 
 
CAMP-MEETINGS. 1 29 
 
 ings were very kind and hospitable. The climate 
 was usually so dry and cool, that quarters of fresh 
 beef hung up in the trees, and protected from the 
 yellow-jackets by cheesecloth, would remain fresh 
 and wholesome for two weeks at a time. 
 
 Several peculiar camp-meeting incidents are 
 recorded. On one occasion, when I was preaching 
 at a camp-meeting in Long Tom, in Lane County, 
 on the Sabbath, a man went deranged. He or- 
 dered me down from the pulpit, that he might 
 preach. I expostulated with him. He became 
 angry, and plucked off his shoes and pelted me. 
 His aim was so good, and his force in hurling the 
 shoes at me was so great, that I had to do some 
 expert dodging to save my face from mutilation. 
 Then he ran up into the stand to take me out. 
 Strong men seized and bound him, and carried him 
 out. There was no lunatic hospital in Oregon. A 
 log pen was made for him, into which he was put. 
 He was fed and cared for in that pen ; but he died 
 in a few months. 
 
 Usually, at all our camp-meetings, people of 
 all the different denominations would attend. They 
 seemed to feel as free and as much at home as the 
 Methodists did. One could not determine from 
 general observation who were Methodists, and who 
 were not. At a camp-meeting I held in Rock 
 Creek, Clackamas County, there were a large num- 
 ber of persons other than Methodists present. 
 They were urged by me to make themselves entirely 
 at home, which they appeared to do. One morning 
 I took a walk before breakfast. Half a mile from 
 9 
 
130 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 the meeting I found a man milking in his kraal, or 
 cow-pen, whom I had not seen at the meeting. I 
 entered into conversation with him, about as fol- 
 lows: "I do n't think I have seen you at our camp- 
 meeting up above here." "I presume not," said 
 he; "I never go to such places; they are about the 
 last places I would attend." "Why not?" I in- 
 quired. He replied, "I do n't believe in them." I 
 said, "Perhaps you do not profess religion?" "O 
 yes, I do," said he. "Of what Church are you a 
 member?" I asked. "Of the Baptist Church," said 
 he. "But," said I, "there are several Baptist fam- 
 ilies camped up here at our meeting." "They are 
 not my kind of Baptists," said he. "What kind of 
 a Baptist Church is yours?" I inquired. He an- 
 swered, "It is a Two-seed Baptist Church, or a Two 
 Principle Baptist Church, as they are sometimes 
 called." "Explain what you mean by Two-seed 
 Baptists," said I. This was his answer : "The Lord 
 has a seed and the devil has a seed. The devil's 
 seed are goats. The Lord's seed are sheep; and 
 there is no mixing them 'are breeds. The devil has 
 been trying to make goats out of the Lord's sheep 
 for six thousand years, and he has never made a 
 single goat out of a sheep. And at your camp- 
 meetings and protracted-meetings ministers of the 
 gospel have been trying to make sheep out of the 
 devil's goats, and they never made a sheep out of a 
 goat yet." I had never before met that variety of 
 Baptists. I said to him: "I see plainly why you 
 are called Two-seed Baptists; but I think there is 
 
A "TWO-SEED" BAPTIST. 131 
 
 another name which would be quite as appropriate. 
 I should call you Hard-shell Baptists. You do not 
 hold Sunday-schools, I suppose?" "No," said he. 
 "You do not try to have sinners converted into 
 saints, do you?" Again he replied in the negative. 
 "Do you," said I, "send missionaries to convert the 
 heathen?" To this the reply was negative. Again 
 I asked him, "Do you have Sunday-schools to teach 
 your children the Bible?" To this he replied, "No." 
 Once more I asked him, "Do you never hold re- 
 vival-meetings or protracted-meetings?" And as 
 before, he answered in the negative. I said : "My 
 friend, I do n't think you have given your Church 
 the right name; you should call it the Hard-shell 
 Baptist Church." 
 
 I held a camp-meeting once in the forks of the 
 Santiam. We had been somewhat annoyed by the 
 Campbellites, who denied conversion by faith and 
 the Holy Ghost, and who taught baptismal regen- 
 eration, or conversion by baptism. Weeks before 
 the meeting I announced far and wide that I would 
 preach on salvation by faith as being the Bible 
 teaching on that subject, rather than salvation by 
 water baptism or immersion, as held by the Camp- 
 bellites. My sermon lasted three hours and a half. 
 Beginning at eleven o'clock A. M., I finished my 
 discourse at 2.30 o'clock. Strange as it may seem, 
 I held the audience for all that time without a break. 
 We heard less about salvation by water after that 
 sermon than we had been accustomed to hear 
 before. 
 
132 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 At each of these seven camp-meetings there 
 were conversions. The number of professed con- 
 versions in all of them was something over one 
 hundred and fifty. 
 
 I was once invited to go to Sublimity and hold 
 a service, and baptize the child of the plucky little 
 German class-leader. He also desired that I would 
 preach on the subject of infant baptism; for all his 
 neighbors were Campbellites, who pooh-poohed 
 and ridiculed infant baptism, and he wanted to have 
 a logical justification for his cause. I made an ap- 
 pointment for that purpose. It was announced 
 that I would preach on Infant Baptism, and baptize 
 a child. A large crowd gathered. I preached faith- 
 fully and strongly on the subject. Two Campbellite 
 women found it too strong for them. One of them 
 said to her sister present, "Did you ever hear tell 
 of the like of that?" "No," was the reply. "And 
 that is not all," said sister Number 2 ; "I won't hear 
 any more of that kind of talk." They then both 
 left the church. The house being an unchinked log 
 building, they stood outside and kept up a chatter- 
 ing, which somewhat disturbed the people present. 
 I baptized the child, and then I inquired if any one 
 present desired to make any announcement; for 
 we were accustomed in that country to make an- 
 nouncements at all religious meetings, and an- 
 nounce religious meetings of all denominations at 
 one another's meetings. A Campbellite preacher, 
 who had been accustomed to preach in that school- 
 house, arose, and said, "Four weeks from to-day 
 I shall preach the gospel here, I shall." Said I, 
 
A CAMPBELLITE PREACHER. 1 33 
 
 "Brother, you do n't mean to say that you. have not 
 had the gospel preached here to-day?" "I say 
 nothing about that," said he; "but I do say that 
 four weeks from to-day I will preach the gospel 
 here, so I will." The class-leader seemed to think 
 it was his turn, and he observed, "If you do, it will 
 be the first time." 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 MY district required twelve weeks of travel four 
 times a year. I lived in Salem. I had six 
 appointments north of Salem, and as many south. 
 I had one rest-week each quarter, making twenty- 
 two hundred and fifty miles of travel in a year. I 
 traveled on muleback or horseback on the southern 
 half of my district ; by steamer, canoe, and horse on 
 the northern half. The work was sufficiently la- 
 borious, and quite full enough of exposure, hard- 
 ships, and peril. 
 
 The engraving on the opposite page represents 
 my faithful servant and bearer, who carried me on 
 my long and toilsome journeys for tens of thou- 
 sands of miles. Her name was Cynthian. My 
 friend, Hamilton Campbell, one of the early lay 
 missionaries, had lost one of his noble span of 
 matched mules. He kindly sold me the surviving 
 animal. I paid him one hundred and sixty dollars. 
 Cynthian was sixteen hands high; young, spirited, 
 yet dependable, docile, fleet, easy-gaited. In the 
 long summer days, lasting from four o'clock A. M. 
 until eight o'clock P. M., I often rode her from 
 seventy to eighty miles in a day. In all my travel 
 on her, on the Oregon District, as presiding elder, 
 I have ridden many thousands of miles. My full 
 equipment for these long rides, in which I never 
 carried an umbrella, and never was wet by the rain, 
 may be thus described : The broad-brimmed hat 
 
 134 
 
TRAVELING OUTFIT. 1 35 
 
 was covered with oiled silk, and so was waterproof. 
 The next piece of top-gear is the poncho, or Mex- 
 ican serape, a waterproof shawl, with a slit in the 
 middle, through which the rider's head was 
 put; and this covered his whole body, and fully 
 protected it from wind and weather. The indis- 
 pensable portmanteau, or saddlebags, is covered 
 from view by the poncho. The pommel of the sad- 
 dle rises high in front, and the kentil, or rear part of 
 the saddle, is also high ; so making a well-fitting seat 
 for the rider. From the pommel is suspended the 
 invariable lariat, a rawhide rope of perhaps forty 
 feet, and by which the mule or horse is staked out 
 for his feed of grass. The large wooden stirrup 
 makes an easy rest for the foot, and the tapidary, 
 or front cover of the stirrup, keeps the foot from 
 going too far through the stirrup, and protects the 
 foot from the rain. The mule and I were close 
 friends. She would always whicker for me when 
 I approached her; and when I lay out upon the 
 plains, with blankets beneath and over me, and the 
 saddlebags for my head, after she had filled herself 
 with the grass meal, she would come and lie down 
 beside me, and bear me company through the night. 
 When I attended the General Conference I parted 
 with her reluctantly; but I sold her, for fear she 
 would be stolen in my absence. I received four 
 hundred dollars in gold for her. 
 
 In December, 1852, I had to escort a mission- 
 ary with his wife and child, and a lay brother and 
 his wife and child, and a sea captain, from Port- 
 land to Olympia. We took steamer at Portland 
 
I36 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 in the morning, and went to the mouth of the Cow- 
 litz River. Before starting, I went into the bakery 
 at Portland, and laid in two or three loaves and 
 some crackers and cheese. We also carried our 
 blankets and wraps. It was snowing heavily all the 
 way down the river, and at Cowlitz it had reached 
 a depth of six or eight inches. We chartered a 
 whale-boat and a crew of four Indians, and started 
 up the rapid river, propelling our boat with oars 
 and poles. By dusk we reached a deserted bach- 
 elor's cabin on the river bank. We learned by the 
 Indians of a potato-patch near the dwelling. We 
 sent the Indians to dig potatoes, which, with sharp 
 sticks, they gathered. We washed them in the 
 river, and roasted them in the ashes. These, with 
 the stores I procured, made the supper and break- 
 fast for ten adults and two infants. 
 
 At noon we reached Gardner's, or "Hard-bread," 
 as he was called, because his biscuits were so hard. 
 I carried home one of his biscuits, which were blue 
 in color because of the blue pod in the wheat, which 
 the screen of the miller did not take out. The bis- 
 cuits were sodden and heavy and hard. One of 
 them shot from a cannon would kill a man as dead 
 as any leaden or iron ball. 
 
 The snow was deep, and deepening. The 
 weather was cold. The hotel was cheerless. It 
 would not do for the ladies and babies to stay at the 
 hotel, for it was too open and cold. They could 
 not go through from Gardner's to Olympia, fifty 
 miles, because the horses were all at the other end 
 of the line. I learned that Mr. Jackson, a farmer 
 
LOST ON THE PRAIRIE. 1 37 
 
 settler on the road eight miles towards Olympia, 
 had a comfortable house, and entertained travelers. 
 Three and a half miles away was a factory of the 
 Hudson Bay Company. The chief factor of the 
 company, Dr. McLaughlin, at Oregon City, had 
 often told me, if I was ever in want of anything 
 which the company could supply, to call on them 
 for it, and I should have it. I learned, on inquiry, 
 that they kept some fifty or sixty horses and sad- 
 dles as well, and I walked out to the factory in com- 
 pany with Captain Harland. The snow was knee- 
 deep and getting deeper, and the mercury was fall- 
 ing. I concluded I would get horses and saddles 
 for the men and their families, and send them to 
 Jackson's, where they could remain until the con- 
 ditions were more favorable. This was my errand 
 to the Hudson Bay Company's farm. We had gone 
 within half a mile of the place, and were kept in 
 the right direction by a lane or road, which termi- 
 nated half a mile short of our objective point ; and 
 that half mile was prairie, with untrodden snow 
 eighteen inches deep. It was almost dark. The 
 house at the end of the lane was the home of a 
 Catholic priest. I called in to inquire my way. He 
 said it was half a mile in the same direction as the 
 lane. I told him as soon as it became dark we 
 would be unable to see our way, and we were in 
 danger of being lost. I asked him to permit us to 
 stay with him until morning. He declined. We 
 started for the farms; night came down upon us, 
 and we were lost. We wandered in that prairie 
 for two hours. Fortunatelv, some Indians were 
 
I38 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 passing, whom we hailed. They were going to the 
 farms. We followed their tracks, and reached our 
 destination. We knocked for admittance. The 
 agent of the company refused to keep us, and re- 
 fused to furnish the horses. I told him we would 
 not leave there, for we had already been lost two 
 hours between the priest's house and the farms. 
 Then he admitted us, and seated us in a cold room. 
 After insisting on the horses for the travelers, we 
 were promised them on payment of sixteen dollars, 
 and two dollars extra for the horses we would ride 
 back to the hotel with. We went to bed supper- 
 less; i. c, we lay down on the floor in a cold 
 room and covered ourselves with blankets, and 
 slept till morning, when we left. I sent my guests to 
 Jackson's, where they were comfortable, and in a 
 few days they pursued their way to Olympia. I 
 hastened back home, for the indications were that 
 the rivers w r ould close up. 
 
 From Oregon City I went by steamer to Cham- 
 poeg, the boat breaking the ice. At Butteville the 
 boat could go no farther. With my saddlebags 
 and blankets on my shoulders, I walked through 
 the snow, breaking the roads, twenty-six miles, 
 reaching home at ten o'clock P. M., December 25, 
 1852, as tired as a man could be. I had eaten noth- 
 ing since early morning. My weariness and hunger 
 had been very severe. 
 
 About a month after reaching Oregon, I had 
 occasion, on one Saturday, to travel thirty-five 
 miles across the country, to hold a meeting at Dim- 
 mock's, on the French prairie. I went to the Willa- 
 
GETTING THE DIRECTION. 1 39 
 
 mette River, expecting to find a ferry-boat at 
 Champoeg, ten miles beyond which was Dim- 
 mock's. But the boat had been washed down the 
 river in a freshet. I had to go back from the ferry 
 and up the river six miles, to find De Gere's ferry. 
 Attempting this, I was lost in a fog. I met a cow- 
 boy driving his cows to pasture. He piloted me to 
 the house of a German, named Fulquarts. I in- 
 quired of him my way to the ferry. He directed 
 me thus : "Veil, den, you see mine farm down dere 
 in de pottom" (an inclosure of an acre or two for 
 a truck-patch). "You vill take dat farm up on your 
 right hand, und dat vill bring you to von ferry bad 
 slough ; dere you had petter get down and lead 
 your horse, or you vill mire down mit him ; den you 
 vill take anoder farm up on your right hand, and 
 turn anoder corner down on your left hand, and dat 
 vill pring you to de ferry." The ferryman was a 
 half-breed Indian. I had to inquire my way to 
 Dimmock's. I asked the Indian if he could speak 
 English. I could not make him understand me. I 
 said, "What is your name?" He said, "Icta," which 
 means "what?" I said, "Is your name Icta?" He 
 said, "Wake," which' means "No." Then I said, 
 "Your name is Icta Wake?" He laughed at my 
 verdancy. I could learn nothing from him. So 
 I pushed on, traveling three or four miles, fording 
 places of deep water. At last I came to a white- 
 washed house, surrounded by a peach-orchard. I 
 hailed. An Indian woman came to the door. I 
 said, "Who lives here?" She answered, "Lucy." 
 Supposing she had given me her Christian name, 
 
140 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 I inquired, "Is your husband's name 'Lucy?' " 
 "Nawitka," said she. "Then your name is Lucy 
 Nawitka?" She understood me, and she could 
 speak English. She laughed at my blunder, and 
 said, "My husband's name is Lucea." Nawitka is 
 the Indian word for Yes, or Certainly. I asked her 
 the way to some American's house. She said if I 
 kept on I would reach Champoeg in a mile and a 
 half; and then I would find Dr. Newell, an Amer- 
 ican. Here I staid all night ; but I had eaten noth- 
 ing since morning, and I went to bed supperless. 
 The next day the Doctor piloted me to Dimmock's, 
 which I reached at church-time. 
 
 I once attended a quarterly-meeting when the 
 floods were out; for we sometimes had very serious 
 floods there. I was water-bound at Marysville, 
 forty miles from home. Here I boarded a steamer, 
 tied my mule in the bow of the steamer, and rode 
 to Salem. Then I struck out for the hills to head 
 the streams, where I could ford them, on my way to 
 Oregon City, forty miles away. Bear Creek was 
 out of its banks ; for twenty or thirty rods each side 
 of the bridge there was water to wade or swim 
 through to and from the bridge. The bridge was 
 the only visible object before me. I took my sad- 
 dlebags on my shoulders and slung my blankets on 
 my back, and got on my knees on the mule's saddle. 
 The bridge was a pole bridge; i. e., fir poles from 
 four to six inches thick were resting on these string 
 pieces. The water was just up to the cross-poles. 
 I stepped off my mule on to the bridge, and, un- 
 fastening my lariat, said to the mule, "Now, Cyn- 
 
CROSSING A SWOLLEN CREEK'. 141 
 
 thian, you must be very careful, or you will get 
 into the creek, and you will have to swim out." 
 She seemed to understand me, and she did go care- 
 fully. Her weight and mine sprung the stringer 
 pieces, and the cross-poles drifted off from under 
 her. She sank down astride the middle stringer. I 
 pushed my foot against her neck, and she fell off 
 her perch into the creek. I gave her rope, holding 
 on to the end of it, and brought her round to me, 
 remounted her, and rode out, and went on my way 
 to my destination. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 1HAVE spoken of sloughs or swales. These were 
 numerous, and sometimes dangerous to cross. 
 I came to one, which looked so formidable that I 
 rode back some distance to inquire of a settler how 
 to cross the slough safely. He said: "It is pretty 
 bad. But you go to the worst-looking part, and 
 you will see the ears of dead mules sticking up. 
 You follow that sign, and ride over on the backs 
 of the dead mules, and you can cross that way." 
 Of course he was joking. Another man came to 
 a bad-looking slough. A boy on the hither side 
 was cutting wood. A dialogue ensued. "Boy, is 
 that a safe slough to cross?" "O yes." "Has it a 
 good, hard bottom?" "O yes," said the boy. The 
 man essayed to cross. His horse mired. He had 
 to dismount and wade out. He was very angry, 
 for he thought the boy had deceived him. He 
 cursed the boy roundly. "Why did you lie to me? 
 Did n't you say the slough has a good, hard bot- 
 tom?" "O yes," said the boy, and then applying his 
 thumb to his nose, with the other digits erected, he 
 said, "O yes, the bottom is good and hard, but you 
 did not get down to it." 
 
 I have mentioned the German's specific direc- 
 tions to me how to find the ferry. They were suffi- 
 ciently plain. I often found Americans who would 
 direct me thus: "Well, stranger, you will follow this 
 trail you are on a right smart, till you come to 
 
 142 
 
SOCIAL CUSTOMS. 1 43 
 
 where it forks; you will take the right-hand eend, 
 and follow that a right smart, till you come to the 
 second fork; you will take the left-hand eend, and 
 follow that till you come to a cabin, and there you 
 will do well to inquire." Often the cabin would be 
 a bachelor's home, and the occupant absent miles 
 away, and no other cabin in sight. 1 always carried 
 a pocket compass, but for which we should have 
 had serious trouble in rinding our way. 
 
 WEDDINGS AND FUNERALS. 
 
 Sometimes the character of people can be 
 learned by knowing their customs at funerals and 
 weddings. It will be found amusing, if not in- 
 structive, to consider the following Oregon exam- 
 ples, and a few, also, furnished from other periods 
 and places. In Oregon and in the South, from 
 which many of the earlier immigrants had come to 
 Oregon, it was customary for funeral sermons to be 
 preached, months, and even years, after the deaths 
 and burials of the deceased had occurred. In more 
 than a few instances I have conducted funerals 
 when the second wife or the second husband, as the 
 case may have been, sat with the mourners at the 
 funeral of the first wife or husband, respectively. 
 And, really, it sometimes seemed to me that the 
 second wife or husband was the most real and seri- 
 ous mourner of the whole group. This may have 
 been imagination on my part ; but I am candidly 
 giving my actual impressions at the time. 
 
 The Donation Land Law of Oregon, enacted 
 August 14, 1848, in the Act of Congress organ- 
 
144 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 izing the Territory of Oregon, provided for the gift 
 of three hundred and twenty acres to each adult 
 settler in Oregon then being single and living in 
 Oregon at the time of the passage of the law, or at 
 any time after the passage of the law up to Decem- 
 ber i, 185 1. If married, the law gave to each of 
 the parties, husband and wife, a half section of land, 
 making the donation to both a full section of a mile 
 square. As the time-limit of the land law ap- 
 proached, the matrimonial business was very act- 
 ive; and it was not too scrupulous as to the fitness, 
 in age or otherwise, of the parties marrying. It was 
 not unusual for old bachelors and widowers of forty 
 or more years to be married to girls entirely too 
 young to contract and enter into marriage relations. 
 Reaching Oregon in October, 1851, this feature 
 of the subject was strongly impressed upon my 
 attention., Soon after my arrival in Oregon, I 
 formed the acquaintance of an interesting girl of 
 apparently eight or nine years, whom I caressed 
 and petted as a child. A few weeks later, I saw her 
 in another part of the country from where I first 
 met her. I renewed my attentions to her as a child. 
 I inquired, "Have you left home to attend school?" 
 "La, no !" was her reply ; "I 'm married !" Amazed, 
 I let her down from my knee, saying: "I thought 
 you were a child. How old are you?" The answer 
 came, "I am ten, going on eleven." Before that 
 child was eighteen she had been several times mar- 
 ried and divorced. 
 
 In Washington Territory, near the mouth of 
 the Cowlitz, I married a couple, at a quarterly- 
 
A FASHIONABLE WEDDING. 1 45 
 
 meeting held on that occasion, in a Roman Cath- 
 olic church-building. When I asked the man the 
 usual question : "Wilt thou have this woman to be 
 thy lawful wedded wife, to live together after God's 
 ordinance in the holy estate of marriage so long as 
 ye both shall live?" quick and strong and percus- 
 sively he replied, "You bet yer!" The explosion 
 and force were terrific. The audience were con- 
 vulsed at the eager and novel way of his answer- 
 ing. I looked serious, and said, "Did you mean 
 yes by your answer?" He responded affirmatively. 
 The wedding proceeded to its conclusion. 
 
 In the fifties I attended a large "swell" wed- 
 ding. With the parties standing before me, I called 
 for objections, if any could be alleged, why the 
 parties named should not be united in holy mar- 
 riage. A brother present replied, "I object!" 
 "What," I inquired, "is your objection?" He an- 
 swered, "I ant older than she, and I have a right to 
 be married first." I said to the bride-elect, "Will 
 you wait a moment until I shall have married your 
 brother?" She assented. I said to her brother, 
 "Bring forward your bride-elect, and I will marry 
 you first." (There was no license required then.) 
 He said, "No one will have me." Several young 
 ladies stepped out in a row, and said to him, "Take 
 your choice." He looked at them for a moment, 
 and then said to me, "I withdraw the objection." 
 I said : "You have practically made an ofTer of your- 
 self in marriage, and have been accepted. Unless 
 you can render a reason for declining to carry out 
 your ofifer satisfactory to every one of these young 
 
146 SIXTY- ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 ladies, I can not release you." The reason he as- 
 signed, and which the ladies accepted as satisfac- 
 tory, was this: "I fear if I should marry one of 
 them, the others might die of broken hearts." The 
 objection of the brother being withdrawn, his sis- 
 ter's marriage ceremony proceeded to its close. 
 My fee, on this occasion, was a fifty-dollar gold 
 coin. It was octagonal in form, and weighed the 
 same amount in Troy ounces as two and one-half 
 double eagles. It was called a slug. 
 
 I attended a wedding in Hillsboro, Ohio, for 
 which I received, constructively, an immense fee. 
 The groom expectant engaged me to wait at my 
 home for him from twelve noon to one P. M. 
 This I did. At one he came, and requested another 
 hour's extension. It was granted. At two, he re- 
 quested a third hour's extension, which, also, was 
 admitted. Before three he was present with his 
 bride-elect. After marrying him, he requested that 
 we should furnish him some music. We sang for 
 him, the organ leading, "Vain delusive world, 
 adieu," and another piece. He seemed to enjoy 
 it. On leaving, he asked what my charges would 
 be. I replied : "I never make a charge. I leave that 
 to the parties." As he passed out, he said, "Min- 
 ister, I am ten thousand times oblccgcd to you." In 
 New York, in my boyhood, I had learned that every 
 "thank you" I received was worth eighteen and 
 three-fourths cents. I multiplied the value of a 
 "thank you" by ten thousand. By that rule, applied 
 according to arithmetic, he had paid me in "thank 
 you's" eighteen hundred and seventy-five dollars. 
 
COLORED WEDDING. 1 47 
 
 Before going to Oregon, I married a couple in 
 New York State. In doing this, I seriously ques- 
 tioned whether I might not have rendered myself 
 liable for cruelty to animals. At my instance, as 
 the bride was unusually long in dressing her hair, 
 the man to be married said to his espoused, "Sally, 
 the minister would like you to make more haste.'' 
 With a savage fierceness, she turned to him, and 
 said, "Joe ! you shut up, or I will slap you." When 
 it is considered that she was an Amazon, and he a 
 wizened, dwarfish man, the situation can be im- 
 agined. Having no personal fear of her power, I 
 said to her, "If you wish me to marry you to this 
 man, you must be ready within two minutes. " This 
 was effectual. She put up her long, luxuriant, 
 golden hair, and was married. As the groom ac- 
 companied me to the gate, and handed me a dollar 
 for my fee, he remarked : "She does n't hand- 
 some much ; but the way she has got to hoe my 
 potatoes and corn is a caution." I was relieved. 
 The match was more nearly even, with his grit over 
 against her size and her spirit, than I had feared. 
 
 In Binghamton, N. Y., I married my first col- 
 ored couple. This was an "upper-ten" affair, as a 
 colored wedding. Those present were all mulattoes. 
 After marrying them and wishing them joy, I said 
 to the groom, "Now you may salute your wife." 
 He stepped aside, with a most polite bow, saying, 
 "After you, minister." Of course, I politely de- 
 clined to avail myself of his offer. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 I HAVE referred to the jargon. It was a dialect 
 common to settlers and Indians and half-breeds. 
 It was easily learned, and very convenient in travel- 
 ing in Oregon at an early day. A stranger in Ore- 
 gon could make his way through the country with 
 great difficulty, unless he understood the Chinook 
 vocabulary. Indians and half-breeds abounded in 
 Oregon. The Indian words on the Pacific are far 
 more soft and liquid than the Indian words on the 
 Atlantic; and they are also equally significant. 
 Onondaga; Niagara, as pronounced in the days of 
 the Revolutionary fathers; Cattaragus — Seneca 
 words — are harsh and guttural, as contrasted with 
 the Oregon Indian words; as Umatilla, Multno- 
 mah, or the broad, open valley; Willamette, or the 
 long and crooked river; Yaquinna, Yakimah, Co- 
 quille, Molalla, Yamhill, Spokane, Walla Walla; 
 Wailetpu, pronounced Wa-i-fotf-pu. 
 
 Our life in Oregon contained now and then an 
 amusing incident or a perilous adventure. I was 
 holding a camp-meeting on the Callapooya River, 
 forty-five miles from home. A messenger reached 
 the camp-ground on Saturday evening, informing 
 me of the dangerous illness of my wife. On my 
 long ride of forty-five miles I had a rapid, deep, and 
 dangerous stream to cross. I started at nine 
 o'clock P. M. For twenty-four miles my way led 
 me over a pathless, unpeopled prairie. I took a 
 
 148 
 
TRAVELING IN OREGON. 1 49 
 
 course, steering for a butte beyond the prairie. 
 After I had traveled about six miles a pack of 
 wolves followed me, making night hideous with 
 their bowlings, and making din and noise enough 
 for twoscore of wolves. They sometimes came so 
 near that I could hear their breathing. My horse 
 was greatly excited, snorting and sometimes shriek- 
 ing with terror. Reaching the Santiam River, I 
 tried, by loud and prolonged calls, to arouse the 
 ferryman, who lived on the opposite side of the 
 river; but it was all in vain. I plunged into the 
 river, and my horse swam over in good form. I 
 reached my home about half-past three in the morn- 
 ing, having made the distance in six and a half 
 hours, making my rate an average speed of seven 
 miles an hour. My wife was very ill, and continued 
 so for weeks, during which time I had to stay at 
 home and nurse her. 
 
 In a trip from Portland to Yreka, California, in 
 an open buggy, over three hundred miles, with 
 Bishop Simpson, as we were rounding a rocky 
 point in Rogue River Valley, where the river makes 
 a short turn, my horses suddenly jumped forward 
 and sideways, greatly risking our going down a 
 precipice into the river. The cause of this was a 
 sudden, loud rattling by a rattlesnake. The warn- 
 ing noise startled the horses and us as well, for it 
 was very sudden and very fearful. After driving 
 past the point I procured a hazel rod, and, return- 
 ing, dispatched the snake and cut off his rattle, 
 which I presented to the bishop as a trophy. There 
 were thirteen rattles and a button, showing the 
 
150 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OE ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 snake to be about fifteen years old. He was four 
 feet long, and about two and a half inches in 
 diameter. 
 
 In March, 1853, Bishop Edward R. Ames, the 
 first bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church who 
 came to Oregon, and held our first Conference as 
 a full and regularly-organized Conference of the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church, visited us. He re- 
 arranged the work, making three districts: Willa- 
 mette River District, Thomas H. Pearne, presiding 
 elder — residence, Salem; Umpqua District, James 
 H. Wilbur, presiding elder; and Puget Sound Dis- 
 trict, John F. Devore, presiding elder. The bishop 
 also appointed me an agent of the Missionary Soci- 
 ety of the Methodist Episcopal Church, to make 
 a settlement of the accounts of the late superin- 
 tendent, Rev. William Roberts, and to close up the 
 secular business of the mission. We thus ceased 
 to be a mission. We became an integral part of 
 the system and connection of the Methodist Epis- 
 copal Church. After fourteen years of tutelage, we 
 were graduated to a full-fledged and fully-equipped 
 synod of Methodism. It was meet, therefore, that 
 the property interests of the Missionary Society 
 should be closed up. These consisted of certain 
 educational plants, which had been nurtured by the 
 Missionary Society, and notably Clackamas Female 
 Seminary in Oregon City, which was sold, and the 
 avails, in part, turned over to the assets of the 
 Willamette University, of which Rev. F. S. Hoyt, 
 a graduate of the Wesleyan University, Middle- 
 town, Conn. — a son of one of the veterans of the 
 
FRANCIS S. HOYT. 151 
 
 New Hampshire Conference, Rev. Benjamin 
 R. Hoyt — was the president. 
 
 Brother Hoyt was an able administrator of the 
 school under his care. He was a strong preacher 
 and a wise manager of those things within his pre- 
 scribed sphere. He was for several years — ten, 
 probably — the efficient secretary of the Oregon 
 Annual Conference. The university grew in means, 
 standing, and usefulness during his incumbency. 
 In i860 he was elected a delegate to the General 
 Conference, which met that year in Buffalo, N. Y. 
 Rev. Alvin F. Waller was his associate delegate. 
 Dr. Hoyt received from the Ohio Wesleyan Uni- 
 versity the well-deserved honor of a degree as 
 Doctor in Divinity, which he has ever since worn 
 with marked credit and distinction. His work as 
 a member of the Oregon Conference terminated 
 in i860. He became a professor in the Ohio Wes- 
 leyan University, and a member of the North Ohio 
 Annual Conference. Later, he was elected ed- 
 itor of the Western Christian Advocate, an office 
 which he filled with marked ability for twelve years, 
 when he returned, in 1880, to the active, effective 
 ranks of the itinerancy, being presiding elder of 
 the West Cleveland District for six years, and 
 then for six years more on the Sandusky District. 
 From these twelve years of active and laborious 
 itinerant life he returned to the educational work 
 of the Church, by a professorship in the Baldwin 
 University, in the line of pastoral theology. Dr. 
 Hoyt, while conservative in his mind and methods, 
 was also safely and thoroughly progressive and up- 
 
152 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 to-date. In the Oregon Conference he signed with 
 me a circular resolution in favor of lay delega- 
 tion, which was known as the Oregon Resolution, 
 and which received a large vote. He conducted the 
 Western Christian Advocate with ability and success. 
 Our relations for forty-five years have always been 
 cordial and unbroken. He has never failed to com- 
 mand my respect, confidence, and appreciation. 
 
 The episcopal visit of Bishop Ames in Oregon 
 was highly appreciated and enjoyed by the min- 
 isters and people of Oregon. His sermons at Salem 
 and Portland were popular and effective. He 
 showed himself a wise counselor. He was clearly 
 a man of affairs, and of large business ability. In 
 Salem he preached a Conference sermon on Faith, 
 from the words, "These are written, that ye might 
 believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God ; and 
 that believing ye might have life through his name." 
 (John xx, 31.) The sermon produced a profound 
 and permanent impression. He preached a char- 
 acteristic sermon in Portland, from the words, 
 "With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured 
 unto you again." When Bishop Ames returned 
 East, I accompanied him on the steamer down the 
 Columbia River as far as to Astoria. Father 
 Broulier, the head of the Jesuit order in Oregon, 
 was a passenger. For some two hours, in the rear 
 part of the dining saloon, I discussed with him the 
 work of the Roman Catholics in Oregon as com- 
 pared with that of the Protestants. The bishop 
 overheard most of the conversation, although he 
 did not mingle in it. He said I held the Jesuit 
 
OREGON PREACHERS. 1 53 
 
 father to a close and plain showing of the respective 
 merits and claims of the two competing systems 
 respectively represented by the Jesuit and myself. 
 The organization of the Annual Conference 
 came none too soon. A large overland emigration 
 from the Western States poured into Oregon. 
 These added several thousands to its population. 
 They were found by the Methodist ministers sta- 
 tioned in all parts of the Territory. Enlargement 
 and increase came to our Church. % Churches were 
 built, and revivals occurred. Sunday-schools were 
 organized in many places. A lieutenant in the 
 United States army, Mr. Roberts — a Baptist in his 
 Church affinities — stationed in Oregon, personally 
 gave five dollars to every Sunday-school so organ- 
 ized in Oregon. Some twenty or thirty Methodist 
 Sunday-schools were thus assisted by his bounty 
 in Sunday-school requisites and library books. 
 Among the additions to our Church, by the immi- 
 grations of that and the following years, we num- 
 bered the three Hines brothers heretofore named — 
 Gustavus, Joseph W., and Harvey K. were given to 
 us. They all came from the Genesee Conference. 
 Gustavus, the elder, had been one of the early mis- 
 sionaries. He and his wife had adopted the only 
 daughter of Jason Lee, the pioneer projector and 
 leader of the Oregon missions. She came with 
 them to Oregon, and married in Salem. These 
 brothers were men of marked zeal and ability. 
 Joseph W. removed to California, and died there. 
 Gustavus remained in Oregon, doing heroic work 
 for Christ, and died full of years and honor. Har- 
 
154 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 vey K. still remains a patriarch among his brethren. . 
 
 A large proportion of the immigration landed 
 from the plains in Southern Oregon. There were 
 two brothers, named Royal, with their families, 
 from Illinois. One of them, Rev. William Royal, 
 was a member of one of the Illinois Conferences. 
 He and one of his sons became members of the 
 Oregon Conference. Rev. James B. Royal, and a 
 nephew of his, T. B. Royal, also became members 
 of that Conference. The latter ran a career of great 
 honor and usefulness, and a few years since 
 preached his semicentennial sermon. His son, 
 Rev. Stanley O. Royal, after a full course in Drew 
 Theological Seminary, joined the Cincinnati Con- 
 ference in 1877. He has been secretary of the Con- 
 ference eleven years, and has filled important 
 charges. His wife is a daughter of Bishop Walden. 
 Crossing the Plains in 1852, they were in a large 
 body of emigrants. When the emigrant train 
 reached that part of the Plains where the Indians 
 were becoming troublesome, and where the emi- 
 grants found the feed and water scarce, a majority 
 of the party resolved to travel on Sunday for their 
 greater security and welfare. A minority, headed 
 by the Royals, resolved to rest on Sabbaths. They 
 separated. The majority encountered sickness and 
 drought and Indian marauders, and reached Ore- 
 gon in a disastrous condition, and very late in the 
 season, sans cattle, sans horses, sans wagons, and 
 came into Oregon on foot, and stripped and sore. 
 The division led by the Royals reached Oregon 
 earlier than the majority party, and in better con- 
 
MINISTERIAL WORK. 1 55 
 
 dition. Their stock and wagons escaped the loss 
 and wreck which came to the majority party. It 
 was a marked instance of a Divine vindication of 
 observing the Lord's-day. 
 
 The work prospered and prevailed in the year 
 following Bishop Ames's presidency in 1852. In 
 Southern Oregon Mr. Wilbur had built and opened 
 a seminary, called the Umpqua Academy. He had 
 organized and set going in orderly form the work 
 in the Umpqua and Rogue River Valleys. The 
 deserts and moral wastes of Southern Oregon were 
 wearing the bloom and the beauty of the Lord's 
 vineyard. The people were glad for the coming 
 of the messengers of gospel peace. The gathering 
 of the ministers to the next Annual Conference 
 was with rejoicing, and the bringing in of the 
 sheaves garnered in the Lord's house. Brother 
 Wilbur was a very hearty and earnest worker. His 
 spirit was contagious. His associates in the min- 
 istry caught the holy flame. They shouted the har- 
 vest home over precious souls gathered into the 
 fold of Christ. 
 
 In Puget Sound, Mr. Devore had wrought 
 prodigies of valor. New charges had been formed, 
 manned, and worked. In Seattle, Steilacoom, and 
 Olympia the cause had had uplift and enlargement. 
 The North and the South brought their joyful tid- 
 ings to gladden the center, which, too, had acquired 
 the swing of victory. Portland had received many 
 accessions. The Portland Academy and Female 
 Seminary was largely attended. Oregon City was 
 growing under the able ministry of P. G. Buchanan, 
 
156 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 and Yamhill was well served by Nehemiah Doane. 
 Astoria and Clatsop were in line. Vancouver Cir- 
 cuit was becoming stalwart. Salem, under the pas- 
 torate of William Roberts, was swinging into the 
 line of victory. Lebanon was enlarging. The San- 
 tiam Academy was full. Calapooya Circuit was in 
 a flame of revival. La Creole, Santiam Forks, 
 Mary's River, Long Tom, and Eugene City were 
 under vigorous march. Willamette University was 
 magnificently doing its great work. A Bible agent, 
 Rev. L. C. Phillips, had entered upon his blessed 
 service of disseminating Bibles. Isaac Dillon had 
 come from Cincinnati Conference to join the found- 
 ers of an empire in laying broad and deep the foun- 
 dations of many generations. 
 
 The Conference session of 1854 was held in 
 Belknap Settlement, in Benton County, Oregon, 
 fifty miles south from Salem. Bishop Simpson was 
 assigned to hold it ; but he was detained by an acci- 
 dent to his steamer. The writer was elected the 
 president of the Conference. The business of the 
 Conference was well forward by Sunday. The dea- 
 cons and elders were elected. On Sunday morning 
 the Conference sermon had been preached by me, 
 from Acts vi, 5-8 : "And they chose Stephen, a man 
 full of faith and the Holy Ghost. . . . And 
 Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders 
 and miracles among the people." 
 
 The audience was large. The interest was con- 
 siderable. I had just reached the peroration of 
 my discourse, when I saw a man, wearing a linen 
 duster and bearing a gripsack, enter the log 
 
BISHOP SIMPSON IN OREGON. 1 57 
 
 church and seat himself just inside the door. I 
 had never seen Bishop Simpson, nor had I ever seen 
 a likeness of him ; but I said : "If the gentleman who 
 has just entered the house is Bishop Simpson, for 
 whom we have been looking so long, he will 
 please come forward, and I will introduce him to 
 the audience." He came forward, and he was intro- 
 duced. He delivered an earnest exhortation, an- 
 nounced a discourse by himself for three o'clock, 
 when the ordination of deacons and elders would 
 take place. His sermon was one of great power. 
 In the course of it he quoted the words of Paul 
 to the elders of the Church at Ephesus, when he 
 said: "But none of these things move me, neither 
 count I my own life dear unto myself, that I might 
 finish my course with joy and the ministry, which 
 I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the 
 gospel of the grace of God." His rendering of 
 that part of his subject was exceedingly dramatic. 
 The people were intensely interested. Some wept, 
 and others shouted. Many who heard that sermon 
 will probably never forget it in time nor in eternity. 
 Then calling up the deacons-elect, he ordained 
 them. A brief recess was taken. The lunch was 
 eaten in the chapel yard. On reassembling, the 
 bishop preached a marvelous sermon, and then he 
 ordained the elders. The hold which Bishop Simp- 
 son had upon the hearts of his frontier audience, 
 in the log church in the Belknap Settlement, was 
 unmistakable. The Conference minute business 
 was concluded on Monday. On Tuesday the ses- 
 sion was adjourned. The members felt that they 
 
158 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 had been through a Jerusalem Pentecost, and were 
 now ready for another year of toil and struggle and 
 victory. 
 
 I insert here excerpta from a letter which I 
 published in the Western Christian Advocate, July 
 2, 1884, soon after the death of Bishop Simpson, 
 which occurred June 18, 1884. It will doubtless 
 have interest for the readers of this volume : 
 
 THE LATE BISHOP SIMPSON-REMINISCENCES OF 
 HIM IN OREGON AND ELSEWHERE. 
 
 When, on Wednesday morning, June 18th last, 
 the chariot stopped at 1334 Arch Street, Philadelphia, 
 for God's faithful servant, a good man, greatly be- 
 loved and honored, tried, true, and brave, entered it 
 and ascended to his crowning. Telegraphy had made 
 all the world as real spectators of Bishop Simpson's 
 ascension as Elisha and the sons of the prophets 
 were of Elijah's. As Elijah had asked his colleague 
 and successor what he should do for him, and had 
 promised to grant his request, so the good bishop, 
 standing amid his colleagues and his brethren of the 
 General Conference of 1884, at the close of the session, 
 said : "It is exceedingly gratifying to me, as I feel 
 that the shadows are gathering around me and others, 
 to see young men, truly cultured and devoted to the 
 cause of Christ, able to come forward and take the 
 reins of the Church and guide it so successfully on- 
 ward. May God be gracious to them, and make them 
 greater than the fathers !" 
 
 The purpose of this paper is to give incidents in 
 Bishop Simpson's life which came under my personal 
 notice. They will have interest to his many friends 
 and admirers, because they illustrate the man in 
 his less public and official life. Having never been 
 
REMINISCENCES. 1 5 9 
 
 published, they will have the added charm of fresh- 
 ness. Most of these occurred in Oregon. One of 
 them, and among the most thrilling, occurred in 
 Washington, D. C, on the next day after Mr. Lin- 
 coln's reinauguration. Bishop Simpson's first offi- 
 cial visit to Oregon was in 1854. Bishop Ames had 
 preceded him there in 1853. 
 
 I first saw Bishop Simpson in the Conference room 
 in Oregon. The Conference met that year in Bel- 
 knap Settlement, Benton County, about a hundred and 
 twenty miles above Portland, the chief seaport. 
 Steamboatingon the Upper Willamette was suspended. 
 There were then no stages nor other public convey- 
 ances up and down the valley. The bishop had been 
 hindered by an accident to his ocean steamer. He 
 reached Portland on Thursday, the day after the ses- 
 sion had opened. He procured a man to take him to 
 the seat of the Conference. But this person, not know- 
 ing where Belknap Settlement was, conveyed him to 
 Polk County instead of Benton. He entered the log 
 church on Sunday morning, just as the writer was 
 closing his sermon. No one there had ever seen him. 
 I said, "If the gentleman who has just entered the 
 room is Bishop Simpson, he will please advance to 
 the pulpit. ,, He came forward. I introduced him. 
 He gave the cause of the delay as a shipwreck, 
 through which he had just passed. He said that 
 when in imminent peril, and amid consternation and 
 alarm, he had been greatly comforted by the lines of 
 Henry Kirke White, some of which he repeated thus : 
 "Once, on the raging seas I rode; 
 
 The storm was loud, the night was dark; 
 The ocean yawned, and rudely blowed 
 
 The wind that tossed my foundering bark. 
 
 Deep horror then my vitals froze; 
 
 Death-struck, I ceased the tide to stem; 
 When suddenly a star arose, — 
 
 It was the Star of Bethlehem." 
 
160 SIXTY- ONE YEARS OP ITINERANT WORK'. 
 
 He told how sweetly thrilling the lines were, and how 
 deeply they had moved him, adding: 
 
 "Now safely moored, my perils o'er, 
 I'll sing, first in night's diadem, 
 For ever and for evermore, 
 
 The Star, the Star of Bethlehem." 
 
 The effect on the audience was strongly marked. 
 Many wept ; some shouted. The bishop spent sev- 
 eral weeks with me, visiting different points of inter- 
 est. One Saturday afternoon, in Salem, he inquired : 
 ''What did Bishop Ames preach on last year in 
 Salem?" I replied that Bishop Ames had preached 
 a most memorable sermon on "Faith." The next day, 
 in the same pulpit, and to many of the same people, 
 Bishop Simpson preached his matchless sermon on 
 "This is the victory that overcometh the world, even 
 our faith," and "Have faith in God." The effect was 
 indescribable. Breathless silence prevailed at times, 
 succeeded and broken by sobbing and weeping and 
 shouts. He carried his hearers up in thought and 
 feeling as far as science and reason, and sight and 
 promise, and experience and imagination, could go 
 toward the Invisible and the Eternal. And then, 
 while expectation was keyed to its utmost pitch, he 
 climaxed the thought, by quoting: 
 
 "Faith lends its realizing light; 
 
 The clouds disperse, the shadows fly: 
 The Invisible appears in sight, 
 And God is seen by mortal eye." 
 
 Tears of joy and shouts of rapture attested the magic 
 of his eloquence. . . . 
 
 The greatest triumph of his preaching power 
 which I witnessed was on the occasion of Lincoln's 
 
REMINISCENCES. 1 6 1 
 
 reinauguration. The inauguration-day, Saturday, was 
 dreary, cloudy, drizzly. Just as Mr. Lincoln took the 
 oath of office, the clouds parted, and sunshine flooded 
 the scene. The next day the bishop preached in the 
 House of Representatives to a most distinguished 
 audience. Senators, congressmen, diplomats, secre- 
 taries, judges, generals, admirals, and many others, 
 were present. Floors, galleries, aisles were crowded. 
 In front of the speaker's desk sat Mr. Lincoln. A 
 lady led the singing. Prayer was offered by Dr. 
 Thomas, afterwards killed by the Modocs. The 
 bishop's text was, "I, if I be lifted up, will draw all 
 men unto me." He spoke of the power of Christ to 
 diminish war and promote peace, and then, as if 
 recollecting himself, he referred to the Civil War then 
 flagrant, as though it might be considered fatal 
 to his argument, and he added : "I am not much of a 
 believer in signs and omens ; but when, yesterday, 
 just as the old Administration expired and the new 
 one began, the rifted clouds let God's sunshine flow, 
 I could not but regard it as an augury of returning 
 peace, and that the war would soon close, and the 
 new Administration would be one of peace." In- 
 stantly, as if by electricity, the audience were stirred ; 
 they cheered earnestly; many rose to their feet; hats 
 were thrown up ; men embraced each other, and wept 
 and shouted. Mr. Lincoln was vigorously rapping 
 the floor with his cane, the big tears' chasing each 
 other down his bronzed face. It was a masterly 
 triumph of human eloquence, set on fire by sympathy 
 and Christian patriotism. He subsequently delivered 
 the same discourse in Chillicothe to the wonder and 
 admiration of the preachers of the Cincinnati and 
 Ohio Conferences. I heard him repeat this dis- 
 course in Portland, Oregon. Its effect there was 
 marvelous. 
 ii 
 
1 62 SIXTY- ONE YEARS OE ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 Bishop Simpson impressed me, in a very inti- 
 mate association with him for three weeks, with 
 his deep spirituality and fellowship with God. He 
 was a man of rich religions experience; as much 
 so as any man I had ever known. Several remark- 
 able incidents of his visit are ineffaceably fixed in 
 my mind. They will remain with me as long as 
 memory shall hold her place. The incidents which 
 follow illustrate certain Scripture statements. They 
 also enforce them; as, ''Cast thy bread upon the 
 waters, and it shall be gathered after many days;" 
 and "Your labor shall not be in vain in the Lord ;" 
 and especially, "The eyes of the Lord run to and 
 fro in the earth, to show r himself strong in behalf of 
 them whose hearts are right with him." A trip to 
 the Dalles of the Columbia was crowded with ad- 
 venturous incidents, some of which were of thrill- 
 ing power. The French word Dalles denotes a 
 narrow passage of waters. At the place we were 
 to visit, the whole volume of the Columbia River's 
 waters rush and roar and tumble between perpen- 
 dicular basaltic walls, a hundred feet below, with a 
 power and a majesty of wonderful sublimity. The 
 passage is so narrow that a boy could easily throw 
 a stone from one bank to the other. This is one 
 of the great wonders of nature. It equals Niagara 
 in its weird enchantment. But it was not alone, 
 nor chiefly, to see the Dalles that we went. Our 
 passage there involved very important business 
 relating to our Missionary Society and our Church. 
 The passage to the Cascades, seventy miles from 
 Portland, was in a river steamer. A portage of five 
 
A WAYSIDE INTERVIEW. 1 63 
 
 miles obstructs the navigation of the Columbia. 
 Above the Cascades, a small steam-launch plied to 
 the Dalles, forty-five miles. This launch was dis- 
 abled at the time of our trip, and we were obliged 
 to make the passage by canoe. This was the bish- 
 op's first voyage by canoe. The canoe was forty 
 feet long. It contained fish-nets, dogs, three 
 squaws, two Indians, two half-drunken white men, 
 myself, and the bishop, to say nothing of innumer- 
 able fleas. The two white men were both drunk 
 on very mean, mischievous whisky. One of them 
 was coarse and brutal in his nature. The other was 
 more gentle, and evidently more educated and re- 
 fined. The latter, in the conversation the bishop 
 afterwards held with him, admitted that he was a 
 student in Indiana Asbury University when Simp- 
 son was its president. They were profane and ob- 
 scene in their filthy discourse. They were appar- 
 ently seeking to provoke and exasperate their cler- 
 ical fellow-passengers. The bishop was mild and 
 patient. After the coarse-fibered one had fallen 
 off into a stupor, his associate ceased talking. After 
 a while the bishop said to him very kindly, "My 
 friend, is your mother living?" "O yes," was the 
 reply. "Where does she live?" "In Indiana." 
 "Did you attend Asbury University?" "Yes," said 
 he. The bishop addressed other like questions. 
 "Is your mother a praying woman?" to which he 
 replied affirmatively. "Does your mother pray 
 for you?" "O yes," said he, "every day. I should 
 have been in hell long ago but for her prayers." 
 ( )nce more the bishop addressed him: "I would 
 
164 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 not like to seem impertinent ; but there is one other 
 question I would like to ask you." "Certainly," 
 said the now serious and thoughtful young man ; 
 "any question you please." In a tender, gentle 
 tone, and in a somewhat pathetic manner, the 
 bishop said, "Do you think your mother knows 
 what kind of a life you are leading?" The young 
 prodigal here quite broke down, burst into tears, 
 and said, "I would not have her know it for the 
 world ; it would break her heart." The bishop fol- 
 lowed this up with other kindly words. Reaching 
 Dog River, on the Oregon side, at dusk, the young 
 man crossed over the river to what is now Wash- 
 ington State, and the bishop saw him no more. 
 We staid in the Indian's tepee for the night. We 
 went to bed — our bed on the sand — supperless. 
 The dried salmon which the Indian offered us, after 
 he had toasted it upon a stick, smelled too 
 rank, and we could not eat it. This occurred in 
 March, 1854. 
 
 In October, 1864, I was going clown to the 
 Dalles from Umatilla, on a large river steamer on 
 the Columbia. There were many passengers re- 
 turning from the Salmon River mines. One of 
 them inquired my name, and, after I gave it to him, 
 he recalled the canoe ride from the Cascades to 
 Dog River, and he asked me if I remembered it. 
 He said he was one of those two passengers; that 
 the other one, whom he had then called "Sandy," 
 had been for several years in the State prison; and 
 then, in answer to my inquiries, he said that that 
 day had been a day of destiny for him ; the ques- 
 
BLESSED RESULTS. 1 65 
 
 tions of the bishop had led to his reformation. He 
 had ceased his drink-habit, and left off swearing, 
 and had begun a life of prayer. God had converted 
 him. He was a happy man. He had a wife and 
 three children, a half-section of land, and money 
 in the bank, and he was on his way to heaven, and 
 his wife also, and he owed it all to the wise counsel 
 and the kindly treatment of that good man, the 
 bishop ; and he desired me, whenever I should have 
 the opportunity, to tell the bishop that his faithful 
 seed-sowing of more than ten years before had 
 brought its harvest in due time. In June, 1868, 
 on the summit of the Rockies, I told the bishop the 
 story of his success in that wayside seed-sowing 
 which he did on the Indian's canoe fourteen years 
 before. It was a notable fulfillment of the promise, 
 "He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious 
 seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, 
 bringing his sheaves with him." 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 AFTER our first day's canoe-sailing and our 
 k night at Dog River, we embarked the next day 
 in the same canoe for the Dalles. The wind was 
 blowing a stiff gale up the river. The river being 
 in freshet, the wind caused high waves to roll across 
 the river; but we were plowing through them ten 
 knots an hour. The bishop became nervous, and 
 we went ashore. There was no shelter, and the 
 March wind was bleak and cold. We relaunched 
 our craft, and reached the Dalles in an hour's sail- 
 ing. After transacting our business at the Dalles 
 military post, we secured Indian ponies, and rode 
 up the river four or five miles to see the Grand 
 Coulee, where the river had once flowed, and to 
 see the Grand Dalles, or narrow passage of waters. 
 We had to ascend a canon to find safe crossing 
 of a small but swollen, unfordable stream. We 
 crossed on a log and descended the canon ; we saw 
 the wonderful passage of the great Columbia, which 
 carries nearly as much water as the Mississippi. 
 Returning up the canon for our log-bridge cross- 
 ing, we encountered a large, gray wolf, who for a 
 time refused to give us the right of way. By dint 
 of bold riding and loud hallooing and swinging our 
 lariats, we started his wolfship, and proceeded on 
 our way. Emerging later from the canon into the 
 open, we encountered a large cavalcade of Indians, 
 some two hundred, all mounted and armed. There 
 
 166 
 
ON THE COLUMBIA. 167 
 
 was a general unrest among all the Indian tribes 
 in Oregon. Several murders by the Indians had 
 occurred, and an Indian war broke out within a 
 few months after this. The procession halted. We 
 were in deadly peril. The bishop said, "Are we 
 not in great danger?" I told him that if the In- 
 dians should find us, or believe us to be, Indian 
 agents or traders, or United States military, our 
 scalps would be taken within half an hour; but if 
 I could convince them that we were Methodist 
 preachers, I believed we would not be harmed. We 
 boldly rode up to the head of the column. I ad- 
 dressed one of the chiefs in the Chinook jargon, 
 "Claihaiam six," which is "How are you, chief?" 
 He answered me in English, "I do not talk jargon." 
 "Where did you learn to talk English?" "In Ith- 
 aca, N. Y." "How did you go there?" "With 
 Commissioner Parker." I introduced Bishop 
 Simpson to him, and through him to the Indians 
 present, as a great ministerial "Tyee," or chief; and 
 Bishop Simpson introduced me as a great Oregon 
 chief, or minister of the gospel. We rode down 
 together to the Dalles, and had some interesting 
 conversation. 
 
 In descending the Columbia, the bishop pre- 
 ferred to sail in a larger craft than a canoe, which, 
 in our ascending the river, had given him so much 
 alarm. I secured passage on a sloop, which was 
 used for shipping wood and other freight up the 
 river. We were much baffled by the persistent up- 
 river winds. In trying to tack we were unable to 
 make progress, and for twenty-four hours we made 
 
1 68 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 only three miles. I became restless. I walked back 
 to the Dalles, and chartered a ship's lighter, and 
 secured a crew of six strong Indians. We took the 
 bishop and our baggage aboard, and pulled down 
 some two or three miles further to a bend in the 
 river, where for ten miles the river ran due west, 
 and where the wind had unobstructed sweep. We 
 rowed for two hours, without making any progress. 
 We landed and spent the night on the river bank, 
 under the lee of a great rock, with our feet to the 
 fire. The next morning the wind had changed to 
 the east. We were pulling our boat by oars ! The 
 sloop came by and passed us, arriving at the Cas- 
 cades some hours before us. Entering the Willa- 
 mette River, we noticed that the river craft had 
 colors at half-mast. Inquiry gave us the informa- 
 tion that the steamer Gazelle had, the morning be- 
 fore, blown up at the wharf, killing nearly all on 
 board. That was the boat we should have taken, 
 had not baffling winds delayed us. We felt that a 
 sheltering Providence had preserved our lives 
 against our persistent efforts to reach Portland at 
 an earlier moment. 
 
 The bishop's visit had been made a great bless- 
 ing to the entire Church and ministers of Oregon. 
 His counsels were wise. His appointments of the 
 preachers were judicious. 
 
 In 1855 we had Bishop Baker to hold our Con- 
 ference. That year we elected two delegates to 
 the General Conference; viz., William Roberts and 
 Thomas H. Pearne. The General Conference met 
 in Indianapolis, the first time it had ever met so far 
 
GENERAL CONFERENCE, /Sj6. 1 69 
 
 West. The session was a somewhat exciting and 
 contentions one. The great issue dividing the Con- 
 ference was the rule on slavery, which it was 
 thought should be made stronger; and the presid- 
 ing eldership, which it was claimed should be abol- 
 ished. The Conference was conservative, and 
 neither of the objects sought by the Abolitionists 
 on th^ one hand, and the reformers of the polity of 
 Methodism, prevailed. In discussing the slavery 
 question, a somewhat amusing episode occurred. 
 Dr. James Floy and Dr. John McClintock debated 
 in Shakespearean phrase, one of them remarking, 
 in the language of Antony in his oration : 
 
 " My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar, 
 And I must pause till it come back to me." 
 
 The other responded : 
 
 " Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's, 
 Thy God's, and truth's." 
 
 " To thine own self be true ; 
 And it must follow as the night the day, 
 Thou canst not then be false to any man." 
 
 Bishop Morris, who was presiding, said, "Brethren, 
 let us turn our attention from William Shakespeare 
 to the Methodist Discipline." 
 
 In discussing the presiding elder question, one 
 of the speakers, Barnes M. Hall, of the Troy Con- 
 ference, a man of splendid presence and of consider- 
 able ability as a speaker, made a statement, which 
 was unguarded and doubtless unwise, to the effect 
 that he had successively filled the office of presid- 
 ing elder in the Troy Conference on two of the best 
 
170 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 districts in the Conference. In his judgment, and 
 in the judgment of some of the best ministers and 
 laymen, while he had probably filled it as well 
 as any of his predecessors, neither he nor they be- 
 lieved that as a presiding elder he had earned the 
 salt in his porridge. I reached over to Peter Cart- 
 wright, and said to him, "I wish you would shoot 
 him between wind and water, for he has laid him- 
 self open, and he can be punctured." Cartwright 
 obtained the floor, and remarked that he had been 
 presiding elder continuously for thirty-six years, 
 and had known all the bishops of Methodism from 
 Asbury down, yet he thought the Episcopal Com- 
 mittee should go for the bishops who appointed 
 Brother Hall to districts for eight successive years ; 
 who, in his own opinion, and in the opinion of the 
 best ministers and laymen and ministers in the dis- 
 tricts he served, had not earned the salt in his 
 mush. Mr. Hall arose to a question of privilege. 
 Dr. Cartwright had misrepresented him; he had 
 said nothing about "mush ;" he spoke of porridge. 
 Dr. Cartwright said he had not misrepresented him 
 at all. In his country it was called porridge; but 
 in Cartwright's the same thing was called mush. 
 
 I met Bishop Morris in one of the lobbies of the 
 State House, in which the General Conference was 
 held, on the last night of the Conference — a very 
 hot night in June, the 8th — and asked him if he 
 would visit Oregon during the ensuing quadren- 
 nium. He said, "No; wouldn't I cut a fine figure 
 riding over the hills of Oregon on a mule?" When 
 it is remembered that Bishop Morris was immensely 
 
PA CIFIC CHRISTIAN AD VOCA TE FO UNDED. 1 7 1 
 
 corpulent, his reply will be better understood. Up 
 to that session of the General Conference the sta- 
 tistics of the Methodist Episcopal Church had been 
 limited to but few items. Upon my procurement, 
 the range of the statistics was made to include bap- 
 tisms, 'deaths, ministerial support, and the value of 
 Church property. 
 
 In 1854 it was determined by the preachers and 
 laymen of Oregon to issue a weekly religious news- 
 paper, to be controlled by a joint stock company. 
 T. H. Pearne was elected editor, and he was di- 
 rected to procure an office and a six months' sup- 
 ply of paper. But as this had to be shipped by 
 sailing vessel around Cape Horn, it was long in 
 coming. The name Pacific Christian Advocate 
 was finally adopted on the motion of Alvin F. Wal- 
 ler, one of the veterans of the Conference. The first 
 number was issued September 5, 1855. On Sep- 
 tember 5, 1895, the paper celebrated its fortieth 
 anniversary. The issue of that date bears a half- 
 tone likeness of myself and successors, Benson, 
 Dillon, Acton, H. K. Hines, W. S. Harrington, 
 and the present incumbent, A. N. Fisher, D. D. 
 At the request of the editor, I addressed the follow- 
 ing to the paper, which appeared in its issue of the 
 date last given: 
 
 SEPTEMBER 5, 1855-SEPTEMBER 5, 1895. 
 
 Between these dates four decades have rolled their 
 events into history. A generation has come and gone. 
 The Northwest has developed into populous, magnifi- 
 cent States. Slavery has gone down ; rebellion has 
 
172 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 been suppressed by a long, bloody Civil War. The 
 world has advanced. The kingdom of Christ has 
 been widely extended. The world has been approach- 
 ing its glorious destiny of truth and righteousness. 
 The end draweth nigh. 
 
 How the flying years have sped after one another 
 adown the swiftly-receding past! How long, and yet 
 how short, seems the term of forty years since the 
 Pacific Christian Advocate was launched in Salem, 
 Oregon ! Of all who then participated in the estab 
 lishment and conduct of the paper, and who were its 
 patrons and readers, how few, comparatively, remain ! 
 How many of the early Oregonians, who were then 
 active and potential, have since left these mortal 
 shores for the invisible and unknown realm into 
 which all of earth's former generations have entered ! 
 All this is the first suggestion of the occasion and the 
 hour. Only survivors of epochs and movements can 
 fully appreciate — if indeed they can — the great change 
 of actors and agents which forty years make. In a 
 new and forming period these changes are all the 
 more impressive. They stand out very vividly and 
 boldly in the receding perspective. 
 
 THE CHIEF ACTORS. 
 
 In the Oregon Methodist circles of that period, 
 that were active and effective, a few persons stand 
 out prominently in my memory. Foremost and com- 
 manding, was James H. Wilbur, the vigorous, self- 
 sacrificing, laborious, popular, and useful man, be- 
 cause he was so manly and noble. William Roberts, 
 the accomplished, gentlemanly minister and super- 
 intendent of the mission ; Alvan F. Waller, staid, se- 
 date, sensible, good ; J. L. Parrish, genial, practical, 
 and of strong personality ; David Leslie, the patriarch 
 ot the early comers, kindly, thoughtful, devout ; 
 
FOUNDERS OF THE ADVOCATE. 1 73 
 
 Nehemiah Doane, retiring, unobtrusive; Luther T. 
 Woodward; John Flinn, with his great, Irish soul, 
 full of sympathy and love ; Francis S. Hoyt, resource- 
 ful, meditative,' lovable, president of the Willamette 
 University; Dr. Wilson, one of the earliest of the 
 Oregon missionaries; Isaac Dillon, scholarly, cheer- 
 ful; Gustavus, Joseph, and Harvey K. Hines, the 
 strong, brave trio ; William Helm, an earnest, conse- 
 crated man. And of laymen, George Abernethy, 
 ex-governor; Alexander Abernethy, his brother; 
 Alanson Beers; George Holman and his noble wife; 
 James R. Robb ; Charles Craft; Hamilton Campbell. 
 Others there were: C. S. Kingsley, John McKinney, 
 Enoch, Joseph, and Abram Garrison, Fabritus 
 Smith, C. Alderson, S. Matthews, J. F. Devore, and 
 others; some of whom may yet be living. Of the 
 thirty-one named, I can recall but nine who yet re- 
 main. All of those named were persons of great 
 energy and influence, who left their impress upon the 
 new State. So many of them have gone to their 
 silent rest, — 
 
 " Time, like an ever-rolling stream, 
 Bears all its sons away ; 
 They fly, forgotten, as a dream 
 Dies at the opening day." 
 
 I forbear this line of somber reminiscences. 
 
 ORIGIN OF THE PACIFIC CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE. 
 In 1854, after repeated talks on the urgent need 
 there was for a religious paper as the organ of Oregon 
 Methodism, the purpose ripened into plans. It was 
 determined to organize a joint stock company to es- 
 tablish and issue a religious weekly in Oregon. It 
 was estimated to cost some three thousand or four 
 thousand dollars to purchase an office and a six 
 
174 SIXTY- OXE YEARS OF ITIXERAXT WORK'. 
 
 months' supply of paper. Articles of agreement were 
 prepared. George and Alexander Abernethy, James 
 R. Robb, Beers, Holman, Kingsley, Waller, Wilbur, 
 Parrish, Pearne, Hines, and perhaps one or two others, 
 subscribed the necessary amounts. I wrote to Francis 
 Hall, Esquire, a relative of mine, who was then the 
 publisher and proprietor of the New York Commercial 
 Advertiser, to purchase and forward to us the neces- 
 sary outfit, remitting to him the funds required. They 
 were nearly six months in coming around Cape Horn 
 to Oregon. 
 
 the name of the paper. 
 
 We had considerable study and care in agreeing 
 upon a name for the new paper proposed. The 
 Methodists of California had already projected and 
 started a paper called the California Christian Advo- 
 cate. The California Congregationalists w r ere issuing 
 The Pacific. The Southern Methodists of California 
 had started a paper, called, as I now remember, rather 
 indistinctly, the Pacific Methodist. The Oregon Chris- 
 tian Advocate was suggested, but rejected as being too 
 local and narrow. The North Pacific Herald was pro- 
 posed, but rejected as being entirely too long. At 
 last the Pacific Christian Advocate was suggested and 
 adopted. Forty years of history have vindicated the 
 wisdom of the name selected. 
 
 PLACE OF PUBLICATION. 
 
 The paper was first published in Salem. The office 
 stood back from the river in the sparsely-settled part 
 of the town. The building selected was small, incon- 
 venient, unsuitable ; but it seemed to be the only place 
 to be obtained. It was a humble, unostentatious be- 
 ginning. After a few months the paper was removed 
 to Portland, where it should have gone from the first. 
 
PACIFIC CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE. 1 75 
 
 THE FIRST ISSUE. 
 
 The first number of the paper was badly printed. 
 The impression was dim, indistinct, and blurred. The 
 ink was not evenly distributed by the roller upon the 
 form. It was difficult to read. The general appear- 
 ance was unpleasant and unsatisfactory. To me it 
 was especially disappointing, as, also, it was to most 
 of the friends of the enterprise. The selected and con- 
 tributed articles were of fair quality. These defects 
 were early remedied and soon forgotten in the im- 
 proved issues which were sent out not long after. The 
 first editorial, or leading article, filled about a column 
 and a quarter or a column and a third of the old style — 
 four pages, blanket sheet. Its subject was an outline 
 of the scope and purposes of the new weekly journal. 
 
 CIRCULATION, SALARY OP EDITOR, ETC. 
 
 The circulation of the Pacific Christian Advocate 
 was at first rather small. It slowly increased, until, in 
 the first year, it had grown to eighteen hundred or 
 two thousand. Many subscribed for additional copies 
 to the one for their own use, and sent them back to 
 the States to relatives on the Atlantic board. Some 
 subscribed and paid for three or four copies to send 
 East, to assist in building up and sustaining the paper. 
 It always had many good friends, who nobly stood 
 by it. The expenses of publishing the paper were so 
 large, and its income was so limited, that we were 
 compelled to use the strictest economy. The editor's 
 salary for several years was seven hundred dollars a 
 year. For this small sum he was obliged to do the 
 labor of two or three persons. His duties were various, 
 including a somewhat wide range. He kept all the 
 books for subscriptions and advertising; he mailed 
 all the papers sent out ; he collected all the accounts, 
 
176 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OE ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 and paid all the expenses of the publication; he was 
 publisher, bookkeeper, proof-reader, editor, and gen- 
 eral choreboy. For all this overwork and drudgery 
 there was never any extra pay nor specific remuner- 
 ation. It was often impossible to pay the printers 
 and meet current expenses without borrowing money. 
 This I often did, sometimes carrying a debt of several 
 hundred dollars. As I recall those early times, and 
 the buffet and struggle through which we came, I 
 am surprised that we succeeded as well as we did. 
 
 EVOLUTION. 
 
 The joint stock company fell through because of 
 the non-payment of subscriptions. I was soon the 
 sole proprietor of the plant, which had cost three 
 thousand five hundred dollars. I had to borrow money 
 to pay the purchase bills and current expenses. 
 
 In May, 1856, I was a delegate to the General 
 Conference which met in Indianapolis. William 
 Roberts was my co-delegate. The paper was edited 
 in my absence by Rev. Dr. Hoyt, then president of 
 Willamette University. The Conference bought the 
 plant, and instructed the New York book agents to 
 continue the publication. I was elected editor. In 
 i860 I was re-elected. In 1864 I declined a re-election. 
 
 MISSION AND HISTORY OF THE PAPER. 
 
 The paper has fulfilled a high and important mis- 
 sion. When the Constitution of the State was formed 
 and adopted, the paper made itself felt in favor of 
 Oregon as a free State. There was a strong effort 
 made to adopt a slavery clause. The presence of a 
 large part of the population of Oregon as immigrants 
 from slaveholding States rendered it strongly prob- 
 able that the slavery schedule would be adopted. The 
 
INFLUENCE OF THE ADVOCATE. 177 
 
 paper advocated a free State, and it opposed other ob- 
 jectionable features during the formation of the con- 
 stitution, so that its mission in that direction was 
 vitally important. Then, when secession was rife, and 
 the Breckenridge and Lane faction of the Democratic 
 party tried to swing California and Oregon into the 
 secession movement, the editor of the Pacific Advocate 
 rung the bell loudly for the Union cause, and against 
 secession, adding to his editorials on this behalf his 
 personal influence in the pulpit and on the rostrum 
 for the Union. 
 
 The paper has been an important factor in pro- 
 moting the growth, stability, and usefulness of the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church in Oregon and Wash- 
 ington and Idaho States. It has most amply repaid 
 all it has cost in its effective influence in conserving 
 and furthering the cause of truth and righteousness. 
 
 SUCCESSORS. 
 
 The honored men who have succeeded me in the 
 conduct of the paper have deserved well of the Church, 
 not only on the Pacific Coast, but also throughout the 
 connection. Noble men, able men, God-honoring 
 men, I love and admire them, and I pray for them 
 every day. I wish and I predict for the Pacific Chris- 
 tian Advocate a very glorious future, grander and 
 higher than its past. 
 
 THE LATE DWIGHT WILLIAMS. 
 
 In the anniversary issue of the Pacific Christian 
 Advocate for its fortieth year, the first article on the 
 first page is a hymn written by this modern poet 
 of Methodism, entitled, "Looking Backward." In 
 my first station, after my admission on trial into 
 the Oneida Conference in 1839, as I have elsewhere 
 12 
 
1 78 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 shown, fifty-nine years ago, Dwight Williams and 
 his saintly mother became members of my charge. 
 He was somewhat younger than I ; but our fellow- 
 ship was very sweet. When my father, some years 
 after my first pastorate in Madison, became pastor 
 there, he found Dwight Williams, then, as always, 
 true and faithful. It was fortunate that the Pacific 
 Christian Advocate could include this poetic genius 
 to write up the occasion. He has done it nobly 
 and well. All honor to him and to those who are 
 staying by the stuff! They will not fail of their 
 great reward. But to the poetic lines: 
 
 "LOOKING BACKWARD. 
 
 " Down to the vale of Long Ago, 
 
 That slumbers in the haze below, 
 
 We turn as from a mountain tower, 
 
 To feel the rapture of an hour, 
 As o'er the spaces measured 
 With trophies we have treasured, 
 
 We mark the iron path of power ; 
 
 Where rugged toil and bold design, 
 
 With hero faith and love benign, 
 
 Have led us to this outlook wide 
 
 With far-off visions beautified. 
 
 Four slow decades — a tale euscrolled, 
 And by ten thousand voices told, 
 Enversed in songs of liberty, 
 Inscribed on temples of the free — 
 
 Romantic years of story, 
 
 And new found fields of glory, 
 The preludes grand of what shall be ; 
 For ah, the Prince of Peace leaves not 
 The world beset with evil plot; 
 Yes, we have seen his charioteers 
 Along the valley of the years. 
 
LOOKING BACKWARD. 1 79 
 
 Is lie not here the 'Light of men,' 
 To diamond-point the living pen 
 That writes of Him and his great peace, 
 Till it shall run with no surcease? 
 
 Not chariots and horses, 
 
 We harness swifter forces; 
 For evil, too, with dread increase, 
 Rides sumptuously on paths of power, 
 Or sits defiant in his tower. 
 We ride as swiftly, and our star 
 Leads on to triumph fields afar. 
 
 What means it that our King and Lord 
 Came not to conquer by the sword ? 
 Could he take up so mean a thing 
 Whose orders take the lightning's wing, 
 
 Whose chariots go with wonder 
 
 From chambers of the thunder 
 While angel legions he could bring? 
 Ah no! he calleth heroes of his own 
 Invincible in him alone ! 
 Look down and see the archways grand, 
 As on the path of years they stand. 
 
 All praise to thee, thou lowly One, 
 Once here, now on thy star-gemmed throne ; 
 King of the present, King of the past, 
 Lord of the ages, First and Last. 
 
 The vision is before us, 
 
 Thy beauty shineth o'er us; 
 All power and love are thine, thou hast 
 The golden scepter evermore ; 
 No boast of ours ; thee we adore, 
 And bless thee as we look below, 
 Down to the vale of Long Ago." 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 IN 1862, I think, Bishop Simpson made his last 
 visit to Oregon, during my stay there. Three 
 things stand out in my memory in connection with 
 that visit. One was, the bishop's sermon at the 
 Conference, and his address to the candidates for 
 admission into the traveling connection. A second 
 was, his address on the state of the country to an 
 immense week-night audience in Portland, Oregon. 
 The demonstrations were not equal to what I wit- 
 nessed in Washington three years later, as already 
 described. Nor yet w T as it equal to what tradition 
 describes as to his discourse at Chillicothe, on 
 occasion of the reunion of the Ohio and Cincinnati 
 Conferences. Yet the effort was recognized by 
 those present as one of the finest and most effect- 
 ively eloquent of addresses ever heard. The third 
 was, a six or seven days' ride from Portland, Ore- 
 gon, in my buggy, with Bishop Simpson, to 
 Yreka, California. We usually drove forty or fifty 
 miles in each day. The weather was charming. 
 No rain fell during the whole trip. My two horses 
 carried us the day's trip usually by the middle of 
 the afternoon. A messenger was sent out to in- 
 vite in the neighbors to a religious meeting. The 
 bishop would give us a sweet, unpretentious fire- 
 side, or sitting-room, talk on some previous topic, 
 and the subdued and subduing influence of those 
 meetings I can never forget. 
 
 180 
 
INTERESTING TRIP. iSl 
 
 The bishop was in the spirit of genial and 
 blessed fellowship. The people were often moved 
 to tears, and sometimes to shouts, by his kindly and 
 stirring words. I never enjoyed a man's conver- 
 sation and spirit more than his on that occasion. 
 We never were without interesting and profitable 
 topics, and never was a person more able nor more 
 willing than he to give out his views and his kindly 
 fellowship to his traveling companion. The return 
 trip was beguiled of its loneliness by the memory 
 of the drive from Portland to California. He was 
 always welcomed and hospitably treated where we 
 stopped. I am sure that in all the families where 
 we stopped that visit will be remembered in years 
 to come by those who entertained us. I was led to 
 compare that drive with those which Bishop As- 
 bury and his traveling companion made all over 
 this continent a hundred years ago and later. The 
 social influence of the early ministers in these 
 fireside occasions was one of its most prolific of 
 blessings. 
 
 The Pacific Christian Advocate started out with a 
 subscription-list of about fourteen hundred. But 
 after a few months, it was found that the paper 
 could be much better issued in Portland; and it 
 was removed there. Its circulation and advertising 
 business greatly increased after its removal. In 
 1856 the General Conference ordered the purchase 
 of the outfit, and elected T. H. Pearne the editor. 
 In i860 he was re-elected ; but in 1864 he declined a 
 re-election. His salary was fixed at seven hundred 
 dollars, and for this allowance he edited and pub- 
 
182 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 lished and mailed the paper with his own hands for 
 four years. This sum was increased -later to one 
 thousand dollars. The paper became a very impor- 
 tant factor in promoting the interests of Methodism 
 in its work in Oregon. With varying measures of 
 success, the enterprise has been maintained for 
 forty-three years. It is still a vigorous and potent 
 agency for truth and righteousness in that most 
 interesting and growing field. 
 
 The action taken as to the Pacific Christian Ad- 
 vocate was as follows, viz. : 
 
 Resolved, i, That the Book Agents at New York 
 be directed to establish a Book Depository, and pub- 
 lish a weekly paper in Oregon Territory. 
 
 Resolved, 2, That we advise the Book Agents at 
 New York to purchase, at a cost not exceeding three 
 thousand five hundred dollars, the publishing office 
 already established, and continue the publication of 
 the Pacific Christian Advocate. 
 
 Resolved, 3, That the Oregon Conference be di- 
 rected to appoint a Publishing Committee of five, 
 who shall have power to fix the salary of the editor 
 of the Pacific Christian Advocate, audit his accounts, 
 and have a general oversight of his editorial conduct, 
 and make an annual report of the same to the Oregon 
 Conference and to the Book Agents at New York. 
 
 The same General Conference provided, also, 
 for a Committee on Appeals, to have the handling 
 and decision of appeals. A special committee of 
 not less than fifteen of the members of the General 
 
GENERAL CONFERENCE COURT OF APPEALS. 1 83 
 
 Conference was also provided for, and their duties 
 and powers are thus defined: 
 
 The General Conference may try appeals from 
 members of Annual Conferences who may have been 
 censured, suspended, expelled, or located, without 
 their consent, by a committee of not less than fifteen 
 of its members, nor more than one member from each 
 delegation, who, in the presence of a bishop presid- 
 ing, and one or more of the secretaries of the Confer- 
 ence keeping a faithful record of all the proceedings 
 had, shall have full power to hear and determine the 
 case, subject to the rules and regulations which govern 
 the said Conference in such proceedings; and the 
 records made, and the papers submitted, in such trial, 
 shall be presented to the Conference, and be filed and 
 preserved with the papers of that body. 
 
 Two years later I was appointed by the Ore- 
 gon Conference to defend its action in the case of 
 one of its members, who had been convicted of 
 traducing the character of one of his fellow-mem- 
 bers, and subjected to a reprimand from Bishop 
 Simpson, who presided in the Conference of 1862, 
 and which we were informed had been appealed to 
 the General Conference of 1864. I was a delegate 
 that year in connection with James H. Wilbur, who 
 was employed by the appellant to conduct his case. 
 When the case was called, I made a motion be- 
 fore the court that the appeal should not be enter- 
 tained, for the following reasons: The appellant 
 had forfeited his right to that appeal (1) by locat- 
 ing from the Oregon Conference, and (2) by his re- 
 
184 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 admission into the Baltimore Conference. Bishop 
 E. S. Janes decided that every traveling minister 
 had the right of appeal, and that my motion was 
 therefore out of order, and it could not be enter- 
 tained by him. From his decision I appealed, and 
 stated the grounds of my appeal, as follows: The 
 Court of Appeals must take into account the con- 
 ditions of this case, and must determine, before ad- 
 mitting an appeal, whether the possible results of 
 the appeal would be practicable. For example, sup- 
 pose the appellant, after locating, had remained 
 a local preacher; or, suppose he had then joined 
 another Church, could the Court of Appeals, in 
 such a case, admit his appeal? By location, he had 
 forfeited his right to appeal; for his right to an 
 appeal lay in his being a Methodist traveling 
 preacher. But the appellant had re-joined from lo- 
 cation the Baltimore Conference. And supposing 
 the appeal admitted, one of three things would 
 happen: the action appealed from might be con- 
 firmed, or reversed, or sent back for a new trial ; 
 and, in the latter case, if the case were sent back 
 for a new trial, it would require the Oregon Con- 
 ference to re-try a person who was not one of its 
 members, but was in fact a member of another 
 Conference. The court reversed the decision of 
 the bishop, so sustaining my appeal. 
 
 The General Conference of 1856 greatly en- 
 larged the statistical tables. Up to that date the 
 statistics of our Church were limited to five items 
 as to members, four items as to the number and 
 value of parsonages and collections for Bible and 
 
GENERAL CONFERENCE ACTION. 1 85 
 
 Tract Societies, collections for Conference claim- 
 ants and for the Missionary Society. 
 
 In response to a resolution I offered, and which 
 was referred to the Committee of Revisals, the 
 General Conference of 1856 added the following 
 questions of statistics, viz. : Number of deaths the 
 past year ; number of probationers ; number of local 
 preachers ; number of adults baptized the past year ; 
 number of children baptized the past year. This 
 Conference also provided for missionary bishops, 
 limiting their jurisdiction to their mission fields, 
 and providing that if they ceased to be missionary 
 bishops, or should be removed from their field per- 
 manently, they should fall back into the Annual 
 Conference of which they had been members there- 
 tofore. The Conference adjourned on the 8th of 
 June. The following action, on motion of William 
 Roberts, was had in reference to the representation 
 of the Pacific Conferences in the General Mission 
 Committee : 
 
 Whereas, The Conferences on the Pacific Coast 
 are too far removed from the Atlantic States to allow 
 of a personal representation in the General Mission 
 Committee without involving great expense; and 
 
 Whereas, The domestic missionary work in these 
 Conferences is constantly changing, and requiring 
 modification in its general arrangement, and needs 
 special representation in the said Missionary Com- 
 mittee; therefore, 
 
 Resolved, That, in the appointment of the Gen- 
 eral Missionary Committee, the bishop be directed 
 to constitute corresponding members of the said com- 
 
1 86 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 mittee for the Oregon and California Conferences, re- 
 spectively, who shall have a corresponding relation to 
 said committee, and shall be allowed to vote by proxy in 
 its annual meetings, on all subjects relating to domestic 
 missions on the Pacific Coast. 
 
 In Oregon I made myself familiar with public 
 affairs, and I criticised somewhat freely what I con- 
 ceived to be deserving of reprehension. For ex- 
 ample, the Legislature of Oregon had projected 
 a Sunday law, which left the subject wide open. A 
 coach and six could have driven right through it, 
 because of the laches it contained. I made an ap- 
 pointment to preach in Salem, the State capital, on 
 a certain Sabbath evening, and to review the pro- 
 posed Sunday law, which was then under consider- 
 ation. I expressed myself very plainly and fear- 
 lessly on the subject, and I compared the proposed 
 Oregon Sunday law with Sunday laws in some of 
 the older States. The result was, the Legislature 
 was plied with petitions and protests on the sub- 
 ject, until the law was amended, and Oregon took 
 her place alongside of her sister States in a manner 
 creditable to her good name as a young member 
 of the United States of America. Hon. Delazon 
 Smith, one of the first senators elected after the 
 admission of Oregon, was a leading member of the 
 Convention which presented the State Constitu- 
 tion. He was from New York. I conferred with 
 him upon the wisdom of giving Oregon ample size. 
 Referring to New York and Rhode Island, he and 
 I concluded that size and population will give a 
 State more recognition and influence in the Re- 
 
LARGE STATES — SLAVERY IN OREGON. 1 87 
 
 public than smaller dimensions and fewer people. 
 We both agreed in this as to size; and as to the 
 population we believed it would come in the course 
 of time, and he reported in favor of the present 
 dimensions of Oregon. It is about three hundred 
 and thirty miles east and west, by two hundred and 
 eighty north and south, containing 94,500 square 
 miles. The population has climbed to three hun- 
 dred and seventy-five thousand. All the Pacific 
 States have followed the example of Oregon. Cali- 
 fornia has 155,000 square miles; Washington, 78,- 
 750 square miles; Idaho, 96,150 square miles ; Mon- 
 tana, 274,400 square miles; Wyoming, 217,600 
 square miles; North Dakota has 100,000 square 
 miles, and South Dakota 180,600 square miles. 
 These States combined have an area of 1,275,600 
 square miles, one-third the area of the entire Re- 
 public. 
 
 During the pendency of the State Constitution 
 and the admission of Oregon into the sisterhood 
 of the States of the Republic, I attended all the 
 sessions of the State Constitutional Convention, 
 and took down in shorthand the principal discus- 
 sions and enactments of the Convention, freely dis- 
 cussing in the columns of the Pacific Christian Ad- 
 vocate the measures proposed. Among other 
 things, the attempt was made to have a slave Con- 
 stitution for Oregon ; a State the very soil of which 
 was dedicated to freedom by a law of Congress. 
 I vigorously opposed the movement. General 
 Joseph Lane, our delegate in Congress, was stump- 
 ing the State for re-election to Congress, and in his 
 
1 88 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 canvass he would put in arguments in favor of 
 Oregon as a slave State. We defeated the slavery 
 clause, scheduled for us to vote on, and defeated 
 the pro-slavery measure by a majority of over three 
 thousand votes, and the general's majority was cut 
 down from five thousand majority to less than three 
 thousand, as I now recall the result. 
 
 Oregon and California were settled, in large 
 measure, by immigrants from the slave States of 
 Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, and 
 Texas. Hence the effort to plant slavery upon the 
 State; and hence, also, the expectation of the 
 fomenters of the secession movement of i860 and 
 1 86 1, that the Pacific States would join their for- 
 tunes with the proposed Confederacy. We were 
 aware of this expectation during the election cam- 
 paign of Abraham Lincoln as a Republican candi- 
 date, and the candidacy of Breckinridge and Lane 
 of the ultra Southern wing of the Democratic party, 
 and of Douglas and Stevens of the Free Soil wing 
 of the Democratic party. It was probably because 
 of this stand which I took in favor of the Free State 
 party in Oregon, that I was sent as chairman of 
 the delegation of Oregon in the Republican Na- 
 tional Convention, which met at Baltimore in 
 1864. The Convention met where the first blood of 
 the War of the Rebellion was shed. When the busi- 
 ness of the Convention was advanced enough, Rev. 
 Dr. J. McKendree Riley made the opening prayer. 
 It was deeply affecting. He thanked the Lord 
 that after four years of bloody war we were enabled 
 to hold a National Convention in the city of Balti 
 
REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION. 1 89 
 
 more. His tones were pathetic. The Convention 
 stood during the prayer. Many of the members 
 wept freely. One man in particular, of the Ohio 
 delegation, which sat next behind us, could not 
 refrain from sobbing and weeping violently. In 
 the preliminaries of the Convention he had been 
 very chatty, and withal quite too profuse in using 
 profane words. After the prayer, and when the 
 Convention was seated, some one challenged the 
 sympathetic man who before had been so full of 
 profanity, thus: "I did not know that you were so 
 
 pious." "Well," said the other, "I do n't cry 
 
 very much nor very often as a rule ; but that prayer 
 
 was so good, it just drew the juice out of me 
 
 in spite of everything. ,, He rather sobbed this out 
 than said it. It was a singular mixture of religious 
 emotion and profanity. 
 
 When the Convention was quite ready for its 
 work, I arose to a question of privilege. I said: 
 "It seems to me it should always be in order to bear 
 good news to a body like this. Yesterday the State 
 election in Oregon occurred. A telegram just re- 
 ceived announces the fact that the election was a 
 Union victory by a majority of five thousand. It 
 is the first gun of the campaign. It shows that 'all 
 is fair in the West/ " The news was received with 
 vociferous cheering. 
 
 After Mr. Lincoln was nominated, for the nomi- 
 nation of Vice-President there was almost an even 
 race between Senator Daniel S. Dickinson, of New 
 York, and Andrew Johnson. Just before adjourn- 
 ment the evening before, Parson Brownlow made 
 
190 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 a speech, in which he named his old-time Demo- 
 cratic opponent, Andrew Johnson. He suggested 
 that the Convention should nominate him for the 
 reasons: I. He is a true Union man; 2. It will en- 
 hearten the Union men of the South; 3. It will 
 make the rebels mad. Before the chair announced 
 the result of the vote for Vice-President, I said to 
 our delegation, who had voted for Schuyler Colfax, 
 "If we change our vote to Johnson or to Dickinson, 
 other States will fall into line, and the man we vote 
 for will be nominated." After a brief moment, they 
 said, "Let us vote for Johnson." I arose, and said, 
 "Oregon changes her vote from Schuyler Colfax 
 to Andrew Johnson." The example was conta- 
 gious. In a few minutes Johnson was nominated. 
 I was one of a committee to inform Mr. Lincoln, 
 orally, of his renomination. He said in reply, that 
 there was no lack of Presidential timber when the 
 Convention met ; that there were a hundred men or 
 more as well capable, and as deserving of the honor, 
 as he; "but," said he, "I suppose the Convention 
 was very much in the condition of the Irishman, 
 who was crossing a swimming stream on a mare, 
 with a colt following. The Irishman was unhorsed. 
 He could not swim. The mare soon got out of his 
 reach. Pie seized the tail of the colt. The load 
 seemed too much for the colt. One on the shore 
 cried out to the man, 'Let go the colt and take the 
 mare's tail,' to which the Irishman replied, 'Faith, 
 sure, and this is no time to be afther shwapping 
 horses when I 'm in the swim.' So," said Mr. Lin- 
 coln, "the Convention probably felt that it was no 
 
ATTITUDE OF THE ADVOCATE. 19I 
 
 time to be swapping Presidents when we were still 
 in the midst of war." 
 
 I have referred to the stand I took in favor of 
 Oregon as a free State. When South Carolina 
 seceded, and State after State was falling into line 
 and swinging out of the Union, I took a very 
 prominent and determined position in favor of the 
 Union. There was a large number of persons who 
 were opposed to coercion to retain States in the 
 Union; others were in favor of the secession of 
 States. The politicians were afraid to strike out 
 for the Union. I took the ground that every true 
 man and true patriot must stand by the Union, even 
 if it came to war. I preached a sermon in Portland 
 on the duty of Christian loyalty, from the words 
 of Jesus, "Render unto Caesar the things that are 
 Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's." 
 An immense crowd heard it. The house was 
 crowded, and hundreds could not get in ; but they 
 thronged the doors and windows. One man, a 
 neighbor and an old man of seventy, climbed out 
 over the back seat, and went out swearing that he 
 
 would like to hang that black Republican to 
 
 the first lamp-post. He had held Federal offices 
 nearly all his lifetime. I made the Advocate ring 
 out for the Union, and I took the stump in favor 
 of the Union. The politicians recovered the use of 
 their tongues when they saw the tide setting in for 
 the flag and the Union. It was doubtless owing to 
 my activity in this behalf that attention was turned 
 to me as a proper person to be elected United 
 States senator ; and that induced the people to elect 
 
192 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 a majority in favor of my selection for that high 
 office. It was a great blessing to me that the move- 
 ment did not succeed. My life has been happier, 
 and probably more useful, as a minister, than it 
 could have been in another line. 
 
 CONTRASTS. 
 
 A beautiful prophecy in the seventy-second 
 Psalm says: "There shall be a handful of corn in 
 the earth upon the top of the mountains : the fruit 
 thereof shall shake like Lebanon : and they of the 
 city shall flourish like grass of the earth." It is 
 pleasant to see that the season of sowing and plant- 
 ing in Oregon when I was there, has given place 
 to the harvest. The handful of corn is beginning 
 to shake like Lebanon. They of the cities are 
 flourishing like the grass of the earth. The harvest 
 measures of "thirty, sixty, and a hundred-fold" are 
 being realized in that goodly field. The condition 
 of things in Oregon is represented in the highly- 
 figurative words of Amos ix, 13: "Behold, the 
 days come, saith the Lord, that the plowman shall 
 overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes 
 him that soweth seed." The figurative language 
 of the Oriental Scriptures seems all too pale and 
 weak to describe, adequately, the contrasts of the 
 present days with those in which forty-five years 
 ago I wrought for Jesus in the distant Occident. 
 
 The population then was 13,294; now it is 
 1,200,000. Then there was only one great Terri- 
 tory; now there are eight populous, thrifty States. 
 Then Methodism was small. There were, in 1851, 
 
COMPARATIVE FIGURES. 1 93 
 
 15 ministers; in 1897, 250; an increase of 1667 per 
 cent. Churches and halls in 1851, 4; in 1897, 685; 
 an increase of 1712.6 per cent. Value of Church 
 property in 1851, $3,000; in 1897, $2,061,185; an 
 increase of 687.5 P er cent. Church members in 
 1 85 1, 750; in 1897, 40,098; an increase of 534.6 
 per cent. 
 
 In 1 85 1, Oregon was a comparative solitude. 
 It is now populous, having all the arts and ele- 
 gancies of an advanced civilization. The exports 
 of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho amount to 
 $32,000,000. The agricultural, mineral, and tim- 
 ber products of these three States amount to $40,- 
 000,000. In those three States there are twelve 
 hundred miles of railroad. 
 
 It is something to have contributed to such 
 stupendous material and spiritual results. A man 
 who devoted the most vigorous and earnest years 
 of his life to aid in bringing about such great har- 
 vests of benefaction to man, and such revenues of 
 glory to God, may imitate the self-congratulations 
 of Paul, that he has not run in vain, nor labored in 
 vain, nor spent his strength for naught. Those 
 material and statistical facts may be measured and 
 tabulated. Humanity has no logarithms large 
 enough to compute spiritual results. "He who 
 reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto 
 life eternal." Who can fathom eternity? Who can 
 compute the fadeless glory of the immortal state? 
 13 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 ON April i, 1864, we started for the General 
 Conference, which met that year in Philadel- 
 phia. We went first to California ; thence by over- 
 land stage we proceeded to the Missouri River, and 
 from there by rail to Philadelphia, which was 
 reached on the fifth day of the session. Readers 
 will enjoy reading these hurried letters to the Pa- 
 cific Christian Advocate, headings and dates just as 
 they were published at the time : 
 
 AN EDITOR'S JOTTINGS.— I. 
 
 Ocean Steamship Pacific, April 5, 1864. 
 
 Dear Advocate, — By a good run, we reached 
 Astoria a little after midnight of the 2d inst. At 
 8 o'clock A. M., crossed the bar, which was quite 
 smooth. Before we had been out an hour, we encoun- 
 tered a very severe southeaster. It was the most so 
 of any the Captain had encountered during the last 
 winter, and it lasted until Monday noon. This hin- 
 dered us not a little. After being out some thirty 
 hours from the bar, we had made less than a hun- 
 dred miles. Has the reader ever been on shipboard 
 during a gale at sea? If he has, he can appreciate 
 our condition. The howling of the storm among the 
 shrouds, and the rushing waves, how hungry they 
 look ! Waves before us ; waves behind us ; waves to 
 right of us ; waves to left of us ; rushing, crashing, 
 foaming, seething waves. Long waves and short 
 waves, reguar and irregular ; waves gentle and waves 
 violent. "They that go down to the sea in ships, 
 
 194 
 
ON THE STEAMER. 1 95 
 
 that do business in great waters, these see the works 
 of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep." 
 
 But that our good ship takes the sea well and 
 has but a light cargo, our condition would be critical. 
 But she rides the waves like a duck, and, in the teeth 
 of a bitter head-gale, she makes progress. 
 
 There are about twenty passengers in the cabin, 
 and a like number forward. Captain Burns is an 
 admirable seaman, watchful, capable, and attentive, 
 and we feel that if disaster should befall us, it would 
 be through no fault of his. 
 
 The ship's officers and hands are well-trained and 
 at their posts. The steward's department is in com- 
 plete order, both as to quality of food, neatness, and 
 attention. Many of the passengers are suffering much 
 from sea-sickness ; but, as the storm has now abated, 
 we shall soon see them convalescent. 
 
 On board we have Mr. Pierson and family, and 
 Mr. W. S. Hussey and family, all except Mr. Pierson 
 on their way East. We hope to reach San Francisco 
 to-morrow evening, when, if time allows, I shall add 
 something more to this brief line. 
 
 River Steamer Yosemite, April 7, 1864. 
 
 Dear Advocate, — We arrived at San Francisco 
 at 5.30 o'clock P. M. of yesterday. The flags at the 
 forts and the Presidio were at half-mast on account 
 of the death of Major Ringgold, paymaster United 
 States army. San Francisco has grown almost be- 
 yond my knowledge since 1859, when I last saw it. 
 The North Beach has very much changed in five 
 years, being now densely built up. But the principal 
 change is in the southeastern part of the city, where 
 palatial residences and fine churches, and schools and 
 asylums, give evidence of solid, substantial improve- 
 ment. Our stay in the city was so brief as to mve 
 
196 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 little opportunity for sight-seeing; but by the kind- 
 ness of N. P. Perrine, formerly of Portland, I was 
 enabled to see the different parts of this New York 
 of the Pacific. Among other places, we, of course, 
 visited the office of the California Christian Advocate 
 and Methodist Book Depository. Brother Thomas, 
 the editor, and Brother McElroy, the agent, greeted 
 us cordially. The depository is a success, and our 
 California brethren are entitled to credit for their far- 
 sightedness and enterprise. 
 
 "Mine host" of the International, Brother Wey- 
 gant, is sharing a fair amount of patronage. His 
 present hotel is much more commodious, and con- 
 venient than the Tremont House, which he formerly 
 kept. 
 
 Brother Blain, the pastor of the Howard Street 
 charge, has erected a very fine church edifice, and is 
 sharing a good degree of prosperity. His congre- 
 gation is as large as that of any Protestant Church 
 in the city, and a very interesting work of revival is 
 in progress. 
 
 With Dr. Wyeth, pastor of the Powell Street 
 Church, a pleasant acquaintance was formed. This 
 church has been refitted and refurnished, and will be 
 reopened next Sabbath for public worship. 
 
 The Russ House, the Masonic Temple, and other 
 stately piles of masonry, are monuments of the enter- 
 prise and wealth of San Francisco. The work of re- 
 covering the sunken Comanche is said to be nearly 
 completed. It will be some time, however, before the 
 ironclad will be ready for use as a means of defense 
 for this port and city. A terrific storm has been rag- 
 ing over the line of the telegraph, between this place 
 and Salt Lake, stopping all communication East. To- 
 day it is resumed. 
 
 Rev. Brethren Taylor and Lucas, from British 
 
AT STRAWBERRY, CALIFORNIA. 1 97 
 
 Columbia, are on their way East, the former over- 
 land, and the latter by sea. I hope to overhaul 
 Brother Taylor at Virginia City, and proceed in com- 
 pany with him, East. 
 
 The Yoscmite, on board which I write this, is a 
 beautiful boat. Our number of passengers is not 
 large, perhaps a hundred in all. Among them is a 
 man who is peddling a pamphlet purporting to be 
 a heavenly dispatch by spiritual telegraph. It is a 
 singular compound of Scripture, nonsense, and hum- 
 buggery, and, from the way the peddler draws com- 
 parisons and illustrations, there is little doubt that he 
 will sell his book, whether the buyers get the worth 
 of their money or not. 
 
 I hope to be able to jot a brief line from Virginia 
 City, and another from Brigham Young's country. Mr. 
 Young, readers will observe, is described by Artemus 
 Ward as "somewhat married." Till my next, adieu. 
 
 AN EDITOR'S JOTTINGS.— II. 
 
 Strawberry, Cae., April p, 1864. 
 
 Dear Advocate, — This isa singular, out-of-the- 
 way place, and would never have figured in public 
 had not the glittering treasures of Washoe tempted 
 the cupidity of the great American people ; nor then, 
 except that Strawberry lies in the direct path of travel 
 to the silver-mines of Nevada Territory. There is 
 hope for some places in Oregon from this view of the 
 case. The silver and gold deposits of Idaho and 
 Southern Oregon will equal, if they do not rival, those 
 of Nevada, and who can tell what places, that had 
 seemed doomed to "waste their sweetness on the desert 
 air," shall come up into importance, and yet thrill 
 with the pulsation of active, earnest business, pursued 
 by theorizing multitudes? 
 
198 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 Our route from Sacramento was by rail to Folsom, 
 twenty-two miles. Hence we came by Concord 
 coaches to Placerville, twenty-seven miles. Three 
 coaches, each drawn by six horses, were crowded with 
 passengers, carrying, in all, some thirty persons. From 
 Placerville to this place, forty-seven miles, mud- 
 wagons supersede the coaches, and the travel is 
 slower, on account of the mud and the greater un- 
 evenness of the road. 
 
 California has put on her holiday attire. Ver- 
 dure and beauty smile from every hillside and val- 
 ley. The rains have come and gladdened the land, 
 giving good promise of "seed to the sower and bread 
 to the eater." Flour speculators who have counted 
 on a drought in California, and a high price of bread- 
 stuffs, may as well abandon their delusive hopes ; for 
 the wheat-crop in California, while it may fall short 
 01 the usual yield, will yet be a fair one. 
 
 We spent a pleasant evening with Rev. T. S. 
 Dunn, from whom we learned that his Sunday-school 
 numbered some one hundred scholars, his Church 
 eighty members, and his ordinary congregation from 
 two hundred and fifty to four hundred persons. The 
 church edifice is large and eligibly situated. It is of 
 brick, and has been costly. Unfortunately, a debt of 
 seven thousand dollars presses the trustees. 
 
 The mail is about to close, and this epistle must 
 be abruptly ended. Of the route to Strawberry and 
 Virginia City remark must be deferred until my next. 
 
 Strawberry V alley, April g, 1864. 
 
 . . . My last, from this place, was quite too 
 brief and desultory. In this it is proposed to speak 
 more in detail. The route from Placerville to Straw- 
 berry Valley is very mountainous, . and the scenery 
 of the grandest. We were twelve hours in making 
 
SIERRA NEVADA MOUNTAINS. 1 99 
 
 it, the roads being much injured by the late storms. 
 We are now within seven miles of the summit of the 
 Sierra Nevada Mountains, and are six thousand seven 
 hundred feet above the level of the sea. We pass, 
 to-morrow morning, a rocky point some ten thou- 
 sand feet above the sea-level. 
 
 Among our passengers are Professor Whitney, 
 well known as a geologist, and now engaged in 
 making a survey of the State of California, as State 
 geologist, and Professor King, of New York, also 
 a geologist. I learn from the former that Mount 
 Shasta is ascertained to be fourteen thousand four 
 hundred and forty feet in height. It is claimed 
 by some Californians that Shasta is higher than 
 Mount Hood. If Shasta overtops her Oregon 
 sister, Mount Hood is not as high as has been 
 supposed. We are in the midst of winter scenes. 
 The snow on the summit is nearly six feet deep, owing 
 to the recent heavy fall of snow. Had the ground 
 been frozen when it fell, it is supposed the snow 
 would have been ten feet deep. Sleighs are at the door 
 to carry us eleven miles over the snow-belts ; the air 
 without is sharp and bracing, and freezing; within, 
 a blazing fire on the hearth reminds one of the good 
 old New York winters. The hotel, kept by Crosby & 
 Swift, is large and well furnished for the place, and 
 yet they have not accommodations for their numer- 
 ous guests. Last night there were over a hundred. 
 To-night there are nearly as many. 
 
 At four and a half o'clock to-morrow the stage 
 leaves for Virginia City, which will be reached, it 
 is expected, by a little after noon. 
 
 The silver mines of Washoe are yielding more 
 largely of late than usual, and the excitement is cor- 
 respondingly increased. Numbers are rushing there 
 from all parts of California. Many of them will re- 
 
200 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 turn to their homes poorer and sadder than they 
 were when leaving. Till you receive a line from Vir- 
 ginia City, adieu. 
 
 EDITORIAL LETTER— TRAVEL ON THE PLAINS.— III. 
 Virginia City, N. T., April //, 1864. 
 
 Dear Advocate:, — This morning we are off at 
 six and a half o'clock for Reese River; but, before 
 starting, a few moments are snatched to pen the in- 
 cidents up to the present, and record such general 
 facts and reflections as they may suggest. From 
 Strawberry Valley to Virginia City the route passes 
 over the summit of the Sierras, through the valley 
 of Lake Tahoe, and thence over mountain ranges 
 to Carson Valley. Crossing the valley in a south- 
 eastern direction, and traversing the foothills of the 
 mountains skirting on the east, you ascend a spur 
 of the loftiest peak, Mount Davidson, and pass, in 
 succession, Silver City, Gold Mountain, and last, but 
 not least, Virginia City, probably about the busiest 
 place, according to its population, on the continent, 
 if not in the world. 
 
 The sleigh-ride was anything but pleasant. The 
 snow was so deep and the road so poorly beaten that 
 progress was slow and somewhat difficult. To add 
 to our trouble, we were meeting or overtaking pack- 
 trains and vehicles, and to get past them was no trivial 
 matter, detaining us vexatiously. In one instance 
 mula would not give road, and would not travel faster 
 than a walk, and several passengers and the driver 
 had, at last, literally to put him out of the way; but 
 not until he had fallen with his heavy pack. In an- 
 other, meeting a carriage with a family, all hands 
 were compelled to take hold and lift the carriage out 
 of the road, and afterwards, lift it back again. 
 
TAHOE LAKE — CARSON RIVER. 201 
 
 The road through the valley of the lake, and 
 from there to this point, is, nearly all the distance, 
 graded, and is an excellent one, as may be inferred 
 when it is stated that the drive over it is, in good 
 weather, at the rate of from six to ten miles an hour. 
 A good story is told of Horace Greeley in connection 
 with this route. He suggested to Monk, the driver, 
 that he wanted to be in Placerville at a given hour. 
 Over the mountains, along dizzy slopes, where craggy 
 peaks majestically frowned five hundred feet above 
 the road, and frightful declivities yawned as many feet 
 below, Monk drove his noble six-horse team in dash- 
 ing, furious style, until the old philosopher became 
 slightly nervous, and he suggested to our Jehu not 
 to drive so fast; that, if they should be a little late, 
 he would rather be late than to run such hazards. 
 Monk would whip up his hofses afresh, and tell his 
 agitated rider, "Hold on to your seat, Horace, and 
 we shall get through all right." 
 
 Tahoe is the Indian name for the lake along which 
 we passed. It denotes clear water. The lake is 
 nestled on the summit of the Sierras, and, in the 
 morning sunbeams, surrounded by snowclad peaks, 
 it glistened before us like a bright setting in a coronal 
 of beauty. The lake is twenty-two miles long, by 
 about eleven or twelve wide, and the water is almost 
 transparently clear. Carson Valley, how shall it be 
 described? Viewed from the heights adown which 
 we drove to reach it, the absence of timber or ver- 
 dure, and the jagged and ruptured mountains sur- 
 rounding it, made it appear grand ; but it was the 
 grandeur of desolation. It was awful. The Carson 
 River is a small stream, fed by mountain lakes, 
 and which evaporates some seventy-five or a hundred 
 miles below. The valley is in places from six to 
 ten miles wide, and in others from half a mile to 
 
202 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 a mile. Its length is about seventy-five miles. A 
 couple of miles from Carson City is a hot spring, and 
 the penitentiary incloses it; whether to douse the re- 
 fractory, or scour them from vice and vermin, does 
 not appear. Virginia City, about a thousand feet 
 above the valley, is six thousand two hundred feet 
 above the sea-level. It lies southeast by northwest. 
 Virginia City has sixteen thousand inhabitants, and 
 numerous quartz-mills and various mining operations 
 in this part of the country make these once dreary 
 solitudes vocal with the songs of industry and the 
 hum of business. The discoverer of these mines was. 
 a man named Finney, from Virginia, who went by 
 the name of Old Virginia, and hence the name of 
 the city. It is stated that he sold the Ophir or the 
 Gould and Curry claim since, and now worth mil- 
 lions, for a mustang pony and a bottle of whisky. He 
 afterwards became the owner, by discovery, of the 
 Gold Mountain mines, and, as he had fallen in debt 
 for a winter's washing, he commuted his account with 
 the washerwoman by giving her ten feet of his last 
 found claim. This she retains, and it is said it could 
 be cashed for ten thousand dollars a foot. Poor Old 
 Virginia died comparatively poor and prematurely. 
 He parted with his last claim, as he had the first, for 
 a mere song, and lost his life by mounting a spiking 
 pony, which threw him upon his head, inflicting a 
 fatal wound. A jolly fellow, who had come into pos- 
 session of fifty thousand or one hundred thousand 
 dollars by the sale of "feet," went and had a long 
 and heavy spree over his good fortune. He was a 
 passenger with us from Placerville to Strawberry 
 Valley, and, stepping from the stage while it was in 
 motion, his head being unbalanced by his too free 
 indulgence, he rolled down the mountain side some 
 two hundred or three hundred feet, and brought up 
 
SILVER MINING. 203 
 
 against a tree, nearly butting his life out. Poor 
 Charley! the fate of Old Virginia seems to have little 
 warning for him. 
 
 Only five years have passed since these Washoe 
 siver-mincs were fairly discovered, and now they are 
 adding many millions yearly to the bullion of the 
 world. When these facts are considered, the silver- 
 mines of Owyhee and Bannock and Santiam give 
 promise of a brilliant and not distant future for our 
 part of the world. 
 
 Brother Anthony, the Methodist pastor here, has 
 great prosperity. A spirit of revival prevails, and his 
 people cordially and well sustain him. A tasteful, 
 brick church edifice, worth some forty-five thousand 
 dollars, contains a weekly congregation of from two 
 hundred and fifty to four hundred. His membership, 
 all included, is one hundred and fifty. A funded 
 debt of twelve thousand dollars rests upon the prop- 
 erty, the interest upon which is paid from the rent 
 of pews. The writer preached last evening to a large 
 and attentive audience. Off now for Salt Lake, from 
 which place another line may be expected. 
 
 AN EDITOR'S JOURNEYINGS.— IV. 
 
 Great Sai/t Lake City, U. T., April i6> 1864. 
 
 Dear Advocate, — At the risk of being tedious 
 and repetitious, attention is again called to the silver- 
 mining operations in this part of the world. Silver 
 ledges have been discovered in the vicinity of Vir- 
 ginia City, and also on Reese River one hundred 
 and eighty miles east, on the Humboldt, and even in 
 the mountain ranges which border on Utah Territory. 
 To-day I examined specimens of silver and lead ore 
 t:iken from mines only twenty miles from this city. 
 
 During my stay in Virginia City I visited the far- 
 
204 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK'. 
 
 famed Gould and Curry mines and their silver mill- 
 ing works. Entering by a shaft at the top, a descent 
 of four hundred feet was made, and the various tun- 
 nels, penetrating the mountain seven hundred feet, 
 were traversed. As fast as excavations are made, 
 solid frameworks are constructed to support the pres- 
 sure of the earth from above. 
 
 The milling works of the company are of the finest. 
 They cost about one million dollars. The engine 
 they now have, and which drives their machinery, is 
 of one hundred and fifty horse-power. Another is 
 being erected, the present one being unequal to their 
 demand. The new one is to be of two hundred and 
 sixty horse-power. This mill has a battery of forty 
 stamps, and runs five large and five smaller amalga- 
 mators, besides grinding their quartz preparatory to 
 amalgamation. By the kindness of Mr. Frank Parke, 
 the superintendent of the amalgamation and refining 
 departments, the whole process of reducing the ore 
 to bullion was explained, and it is here repeated, for 
 the information of those curious in such matters. 
 
 The quartz is first subjected to the action of bat- 
 teries of stamps, which pulverize it fine. It is then 
 mixed with certain proportions of common salt, cop- 
 peras, and blue vitriol and quicksilver. When thor- 
 oughly amalgamated, the sand is sluiced off, and the 
 amalgam is then subjected to pressure, to strain off 
 the quicksilver, and the remaining quicksilver is sep- 
 arated from the mass by retorting. 
 
 The metal, including gold and silver, is melted 
 down into bricks, assayed and stamped, and sent to 
 England to be again refined and the gold separated 
 from the silver, our people not having yet acquired the 
 art of this last process. When it is remembered that 
 the silver-mines and mills already working yield some 
 two million dollars a month, and that new discover- 
 
DESERT PRODUCTIONS. 205 
 
 ies are constantly being made, this branch of enter- 
 prise, it is seen, will become increasingly important. 
 
 Our route from Virginia City to this place pre- 
 sented a field of observation and thought wholly new. 
 Mountains, valleys, and plains are the order of suc- 
 cessive days of travel, with the invariable accompani- 
 ment of sage, prickly pear, and alkali-beds. 
 
 Large fields of common salt are being discovered, 
 which must be of exceeding value in this remote 
 inland country. There is an almost total absence of 
 timber, except sage-brush and a variety of stunted 
 cedar. Water, too, is very scarce, and the Overland 
 Mail Company have to transport water a distance of 
 twenty or thirty miles. Carson, Truckee, Reese, and 
 Humboldt Rivers, receiving the melted snows of the 
 Sierras, bear them down the desert only a few miles, 
 when they are evaporated, and the river bed is dry. 
 
 It must not be omitted to speak of the total absence 
 of animal life. For six hundred miles, only one 
 prairie-hen, one hare, and a few ravens were seen. 
 Unbroken silence wraps the desert in profound gloom. 
 Fort Crittenden, the last point of importance passed 
 before reaching Salt Lake, is distant from this city 
 forty miles. Here, as at Austin, on Reese River, the 
 buildings are of adobes, a sun-dried brick, which, as 
 it seldom rains here, answer a good purpose. Gen- 
 eral Johnston caused some two hundred or three hun- 
 dred of these to be erected here while quartered in 
 Utah. 
 
 The prospect of reaching Philadelphia by the open- 
 ing of Conference is clouded by two facts : first, the 
 prevalence of an unusual snowstorm in the moun- 
 tains, blockading the roads ; and secondly, the news 
 which reaches us by telegraph, of a brush between 
 the Cheyennes and the Colorado troops on the stage 
 road, eighty miles east from Denver. But I hope, in 
 
206 SIXTY- ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 spite of these difficulties, to reach the Conference dur- 
 ing its first week. Of Salt Lake, notice will be made 
 in my next. 
 
 The following telegram, from the editor to his 
 wife, has been received since our last: 
 
 Atchison, K. T., May 2 y 1864. 
 
 ''Delayed — weary — well. In Philadelphia, Thurs- 
 day. No interruption from Indians." 
 
 AN EDITOR IN THE DESERT.— V. 
 
 Rock Point, 220 Mii.es East ) 
 
 Great Salt Lake, April 20, 1864. \ 
 
 Utah Territory embraces many features which 
 have interest for the public. Our route from Austin 
 to Great Salt Lake lay through an unpeopled soli- 
 tude, the path being literally strewed with the car- 
 casses of animals, and lined with the graves of emi- 
 grants. Of course we saw nothing of the southern 
 part of the Territory, which is said to be fertile and 
 considerably settled by Mormons. From the oppor- 
 tunities I had of observing Mormonism — and they 
 were rather limited — the conclusion is reached that, 
 in point of political economy, it is a failure. The 
 lands susceptible of husbandry are not well tilled, and, 
 while many of the people may be industrious and 
 some of them thrifty, they are generally poor, squalid, 
 ignorant, and degraded. They consist, in large part, 
 of foreigners: English, Welsh, Scotch, Norwegians, 
 and Danes. The polygamy does not tend to social 
 order and comfort, but the reverse. At one place 
 where we stopped, the landlord has two wives, who 
 have not spoken to each other since the second wife 
 was installed. They live in separate houses, within 
 a stone's-throw of each other ; and if they do not throw 
 
MORMONISM — MORMON CHILDREN. 207 
 
 stones at one another, there is no more intercourse 
 between them than between a Turk and a Christian. 
 The husband spends a week with one, and then a week 
 with the other. In another place where we dined, 
 the Mormon bishop, our host, has three wives, 
 sisters, and New Hampshire women. They did not 
 appear happy. The children of this arrangement are 
 far from being as comely, smart, and intelligent-ap- 
 pearing as those outside of Mormondom. You find 
 no books in the Mormon houses I entered, except 
 yellow-covered literature, which the female inmates 
 of these houses spend their time in reading. I cate- 
 chised the children two or three times, and they were 
 nearly as ignorant as horseblocks, and as stupid as 
 unwashed papooses. It may, perhaps, be supposed 
 that the writer is prejudiced, and that, therefore, his 
 statements should be abated somewhat. Let it be 
 observed that he states only what he saw and what 
 he gathered from those who claimed to be informed, 
 and who appeared to be truthful. 
 
 The population of Utah Territory is variously es- 
 timated at from sixty thousand to eighty thousand, 
 and even one hundred thousand. The latter is the 
 figure claimed by the Mormons. The first is probably 
 nearest the truth. The capital was located, some years 
 since, at Fillmore, one hundred and fifty miles south 
 from Salt Lake City; but the Legislature, from year 
 to year, persists in adjourning to Great Salt Lake 
 City. 
 
 Governor Doty being absent from the Territory, 
 the secretary of the Territory, Mr. Reed, is acting 
 governor in his stead. We formed a pleasant ac- 
 quaintance with him. 
 
 Great Salt Lake City lies on a declivity on the 
 eastern slope of the valley, and about two miles east 
 from the Great Salt Lake. The population is esti- 
 
2o8 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 mated at from eight thousand to twelve thousand. 
 The houses are mostly built of adobe, or sun-dried 
 bricks; they are small, unpainted, and with earthen 
 floors, usually covered with ducking or buffalo robes. 
 The streets are regularly laid out, and irrigated by 
 streams running along between the sidewalks and 
 roadways. 
 
 Take out the theater, the State-house, and a few 
 other public buildings, Brigham Young's, and a few 
 other private residences, the buildings of this city are 
 small, unsightly, and uninviting. 
 
 Brigham Young's residence, tithing-house, and 
 family schoolhouse, are inclosed within strong stone 
 walls, some ten feet high, and the entrances are 
 guarded by an armed sentinel. We did not see Mr. 
 Young, but we learned that he is sixty-three years of 
 age and in good preservation. His food is plain and his 
 habits are regular. He eschews intemperance in the 
 use of intoxicating liquors, and is evidently desirous 
 of living as long as he may. 
 
 We inspected the foundations of the great Mormon 
 temple, begun some eight or nine years ago, but not 
 yet raised above the level of the ground around them. 
 They are built of granite, the blocks being from three 
 to four or six feet by a foot thick. The walls are 
 about nine feet thick and twelve feet high. Under 
 each basement window and doorway are inverted 
 arches, and between the windows are erect arches. 
 At the two east corners are circular cisterns about 
 twelve feet in diameter by an equal depth. They are 
 probably baptismal fonts. The building is about 
 eighty by one hundred feet. We did not measure it. 
 It will never be finished. Mormonism can not sur- 
 vive. Already it contains the elements of its own de- 
 struction. Faction and strife are at work, and, at 
 Brigham's death, if not before, the whole system will 
 
ORE AT SALT LAKE DESERT. 200, 
 
 be whelmed in a common overthrow. It is a singular 
 and significant fact that many of the children of Mor- 
 mon parents are heartily disgusted with Mormonism, 
 and repudiate its sensual, polygamous institutions. 
 
 We recommend the American Bible Society to 
 scatter the word of God among the people, and Chris- 
 tian Churches to send missionaries there, and soon 
 Utah shall be redeemed. The Great Salt Lake is a 
 beautiful sheet of water, one hundred and thirty miles 
 long by from thirty to fifty wide. It is fed by the 
 Weber and Bear Rivers, and by other less consider- 
 able streams. It is said to have no outlet. The val- 
 ley of the Weber is fertile and well cultivated. Echo 
 Canon, through which we pass after leaving the 
 Weber, is about twenty miles long by from half a mile 
 to a mile and a half wide. Here, in 1857, the Mor- 
 mons fortified against the forces of Uncle Sam. The 
 ruins of their works are yet apparent. Camp Doug- 
 las is the military post, now occupied by General Con- 
 ner and some two regiments of United States troops. 
 It is about three miles from Salt Lake City. Our 
 progress eastward is slow, of which — more anon. 
 
 EDITORIAL CORRESPONDENCE.— V 
 
 Atchison, Kansas, May 2, 1864. 
 
 Dear Advocate;, — The trip to this place from 
 Salt Lake would have been a most pleasant one but 
 for two or three drawbacks which greatly mar it. 
 A full load of passengers — i. c, three on a seat, mak- 
 ing nine in all — may do for a few miles, or a few 
 score of them, but when this press is kept up for 
 one thousand one hundred and fifty miles, it becomes 
 anything but pleasant. When, to this, are added 
 various less discomforts, the journey hither by stage 
 becomes decidedly tedious. If the eastern part of 
 
2IO SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK*. 
 
 this line were as well constructed and as thoroughly 
 worked as the western, the overland trip would be 
 but an agreeable recreation. But justice to truth com- 
 pels me to show a different phase of the subject. The 
 stage-line from Salt Lake to the Missouri is badly 
 managed. The stock is poor and slow; many of the 
 drivers are cross and insolent ; the stages (mud 
 wagons) are contracted and inconvenient; the con- 
 nections are not well made, and mails and passengers 
 are laid over without so much as saying, "By your 
 leave, sir." Such, at least, was our experience. At 
 Weber River we were detained three hours ; at Green 
 River, twelve ; at Rock Point, twenty-four ; at Sulphur 
 Springs, eighteen or twenty; and at Fort Halleck, 
 fourteen hours. The reason alleged was that the 
 crowd of passengers from the East, and a severe snow- 
 storm which occurred about the first of April, had 
 deranged the plans of the agents, and had rendered 
 it impracticable to put us forward in schedule time. 
 We, however, failed to see the force of the argument ; 
 for when we were laid over, there were animals to 
 take us, and the roads and weather were favorable. 
 Only for about seventy miles of the entire route were 
 the roads in bad condition. In the Park, some fifteen 
 miles east of Salt Lake, and along the Bitter Water 
 Creek and over Bridgets Pass, the roads were heavy 
 from the melting of the snows. In the pass we rode 
 over drifts that were from four to six feet deep. The 
 fare along the line is rather coarse and ordinary than 
 otherwise. It consists of fried bacon and saleratus 
 biscuit and some indifferent coffee, served up in not 
 the most neat and inviting manner. The price for 
 such a meal was usually one dollar. Along toward the 
 Missouri seventy-five cents is charged, and, as you 
 enter Nebraska and Kansas, the food improves in 
 neatness, variety, and wholesomeness. 
 
NEBRASKA — KANSAS — A TCHISON. 2 1 1 
 
 So far we have traversed three States and five 
 Territories. The general description which was given 
 of the mines and mining interests of Nevada will an- 
 swer tolerably of Colorado, with this difference : Colo- 
 rado is a gold-quartz mining country, the climate is 
 more rigorous, and the water is both more abundant 
 and wholesome. 
 
 Nebraska is a level, cold country, with a light 
 soil, comparatively little timber, and evidently not well 
 adapted to agriculture, owing to its altitude and want 
 of strength of soil. Grass, however, does well, and 
 it is probably adapted to grazing purposes. The por- 
 tion of Idaho through which we passed is much the 
 same in its general features as Nebraska. 
 
 Kansas is a rolling, open country, with little timber 
 except along the streams. The swells are not high, but 
 they stretch out in length like long sea-waves. The 
 soil is of the best, especially along the Kansas River. 
 The timber is mostly black-walnut, hickory, cotton- 
 wood, and oak. Kansas is poorly farmed. The lack 
 of thorough husbandry is quite evident to the passing 
 traveler. The population is estimated at from one 
 hundred thousand to one hundred and twenty-five 
 thousand. The people of the State are loyal, and 
 they have given good proof of the same by furnish- 
 ing sixteen white regiments, and quite three colored 
 ones, to defend the endangered nationality and sup- 
 press the existing rebellion. 
 
 Atchison is a thriving town of about three or four 
 thousand resident population. Its chief interest lies 
 in its being the starting point of travel and commerce 
 across the desert. Outfits are here made, and hence 
 depart the emigrants and stage passengers for Colo- 
 rado, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, California, Oregon, and 
 Washington. This year the emigration westward is 
 much larger than ever before. Some are drawn 
 
212 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 thitherward by the lure of gold, some by the love of 
 adventure, some by a restless tendency which is 
 chronic among many of the American people, and 
 still others by a desire to escape the draft and evade 
 the consequences of the rebellion in which they have 
 participated. But whatever may be the cause, there 
 can be no doubt that the emigration across the plains 
 this year is immense. The whole of our route from 
 Salt Lake was made lively by the caravans constantly 
 met. Not a day passed in which we did not meet 
 from thirty to two hundred wagons, and we were told 
 that the tide of travel, by the way of Omaha and 
 other points, is little, if any, less than by this route. 
 Most of the emigrants are going to East Bannock 
 and Boise, Idaho. 
 
 After reviewing the advantages and disadvantages 
 of the several countries through which we passed, 
 we give the preference to Oregon over any of them. 
 Our climate, scenery, water, agricultural and mineral 
 resources, and our commercial prospects, place Ore- 
 eon far in advance of her sister Territories and States. 
 
 From the best information we could gather, the 
 conclusion is reluctantly reached that large numbers 
 of the present year's emigration are Copperheads and 
 Rebel sympathizers. 
 
 I shall be three days behind time in reaching the 
 General Conference; but not through any fault or 
 mismanagement of mine. I started early enough to 
 have reached Philadelphia in season, had not buffet- 
 ing winds and waves, and the mis-arrangements of 
 those whose actions I could not control, prevented. 
 A letter may next be expected from Philadelphia. 
 
 The preceding letters, giving account of my 
 stage journey across the Plains, leave some things 
 unsaid which should be of record. One of these 
 
MASSACRE OF STAGE PASSENGERS. 213 
 
 is an account of peril and escape and heroism that 
 our ordinary life does not furnish. I learned of this 
 in Oregon; for I have seen the lady and her chil- 
 dren, who escaped soon after her awful experience. 
 Then, also, I learned it on the Plains from the 
 driver, who, when I was present, was driving on the 
 same route where these things occurred ; but not on 
 this occasion. 
 
 A driver, two male passengers — one of them the 
 husband of a lady and the father of her two chil- 
 dren — were present in the stage. As the stage 
 was ascending a narrow canon, one of the wheel 
 horses was shot. The driver whipped up his team, 
 when he was shot in the breast and his left arm 
 broken. He gave the lines over to the passenger 
 sitting on the boot with him, and plied his horses 
 with the whip in his right hand. The new driver 
 was shot in the breast, and fell from the stage into 
 the road, the wounded driver seizing the lines. 
 Then the woman's husband, on request of the 
 driver, crawled out through the stage window, and 
 took the lines. Soon the husband was shot, and 
 he fell into the boot. Then the driver called on 
 the woman to come out and drive. The children 
 were left in the bottom of the stage, and the mother 
 made her way to the boot and took the reins. The 
 Indians were distanced. The stage arrived at the 
 station ; but in what a plight ! The wounded horse 
 fell dead, the driver was dead, her husband was 
 dead, and only she and her two children were liv- 
 ing. The station was burned. No one was about. 
 Just then the stage came up from the opposite di- 
 
214 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 rection. The woman and her children were taken 
 in. The stage returned on the route it came. The 
 mother and children were saved. She was a young 
 woman, not over thirty years. 
 
 Our passengers were becoming very uneasy. 
 We were in a section infested by bad Indians. It 
 was in the vicinity of the tragedy just recited. The 
 stage we should have met was ten hours late. Our 
 five-mule team — two on the wheel, and three in the 
 lead — were slowly and wearily making their way 
 through heavy sand. We saw a cloud of dust a 
 couple of miles to the right of our road. The driver 
 seemed excited when he saw it. As if talking to 
 himself, he said : "If that proves to be Indians, and 
 they come to us, I will cramp this trap and the 
 king-bolt will drop out. I will jump on the front 
 axle and yell at the mules, and they will pull me 
 out of it." "What do you think I '11 be doing when 
 that happens?" I said. "What will you be doing?" 
 I answered, "I '11 be putting daylight through you." 
 The passengers inside heard the chat, and they re- 
 sponded, "We will put some more daylight through 
 him." Fortunately, the alarm was unfounded. We 
 soon met the westward bound stage. Our anxieties 
 passed away. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 I DEVOTE this chapter to adventures with In- 
 dians and wild animals. Some of the incidents 
 I personally witnessed and participated in. The 
 others I can avouch as true. They will at least 
 amuse, and perhaps instruct, some of my young 
 readers. 
 
 When I first went to Oregon in 1851, it was 
 sparsely settled. The white population in 1850 
 was a little above thirteen thousand. These were 
 widely scattered through the Wallamet Valley, 
 now called Willamette, and through the Umpqua 
 and Rogue River Valleys. The Donation Land 
 Law gave to every single man a half-section of 
 land, and if a married man, a full section of land. 
 This induced a scattered population. 
 
 Oregon abounded with game and with wild 
 animals. In traveling over the country I frequently 
 came upon bands of deer who were comparatively 
 fearless, and who would remain grazing even after 
 they had seen me. I once encountered a cougar, 
 called also the ounce and the American lion. It 
 was only two miles from Salem, the capital of the 
 Territory. He was crossing a trail or cow-path, 
 on which I was ascending a gentle acclivity. It 
 was in an oak opening, covered with grass. He 
 was not more than two or three rods above me 
 when he crossed my path. After proceeding a few 
 yards he stopped. I had never seen a cougar 
 
 215 
 
2l6 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 before, and I did not know what animal he was. I 
 advanced upon him, and swung my lariat as if about 
 to noose him. He refused to move. His head was 
 down to the ground. His teeth were displayed. 
 His eyes turned green, and glared intensely. He 
 spit, growled, and whisked his tail furiously, as 
 though intending to spring upon me. Fixing my 
 eye sharply on him, I turned my horse obliquely 
 and rode away, perhaps a half a quarter of a mile. 
 Then I stopped and looked at him. He was still 
 crouched where I left him, and vigorously slashing 
 his tail. He was apparently about four or five feet 
 long, and of a brindle-brown color. He looked 
 like a giant cat. My feelings in that encounter with 
 the cougar can be better imagined than described. 
 I sweat profusely, and my hair seemed as stiff as a 
 quill. I presume I turned pale ; for I was very much 
 excited, and probably not a little bit afraid. 
 
 I was stopping with a friend. He came in one 
 morning, and said he had lost a fine, large, three- 
 months' old colt by a cougar. The animal had 
 seized the colt by the withers, carried it bodily 
 across a meadow, jumped a high rail-fence with the 
 colt in his jaws, and cached it in a hollow place in 
 the woods, covering it over with leaves. Mr. 
 
 W and I found the dead colt. He cut off a 
 
 hind-quarter, put some strychnine into it, and hung 
 it to the limb of a tree about two or three rods away 
 from the cache. The cougar, in returning from a 
 cache, makes a wide circle, and then reduces it in 
 his encircling rounds until within jumping distance, 
 and then he jumps upon his dead prey. This he 
 
A GRIZZLY'S TRACKS — MUCH TERRIFIED. 2 I J 
 
 did in the present instance, and so encountered the 
 bait, which he seized and devoured. We found 
 him the next morning, dead. He was eight feet six 
 inches long from his nose to the tip of his tail. We 
 secured the hide, which, in some measure, com- 
 pensated for the loss of the colt. It is not strange 
 that brave men will dread, and if possible avoid, a 
 passage at arms with one of these huge monsters. 
 A great fright came to me from simply seeing 
 the fresh tracks of a grizzly bear. I was riding in 
 the Upper Willamette Valley. I lay off at noon 
 to stop at a friend's house and spend the afternoon 
 and night with him. He proposed a deer-hunt. 
 We went down into a large island in the Willamette 
 River, each bearing a rifle. On the sandy shore of 
 the island I saw the fresh tracks of a grizzly. They 
 were large; say, fifteen inches long and seven or 
 eight inches wide. The bear had been clawing in 
 the sand for a mouse-nest or a mole's-nest. His 
 claws made tracks as large as my fingers. The trees 
 were large, and the undergrowth was dense. The 
 size of the trees made climbing to escape from 
 grizzlies impossible. The undergrowth afforded 
 concealment for the bears, and rendered surprises 
 easy. I was terrified, and immediately told my 
 friend I would not hunt deer in that island. My 
 friend insisted on a further hunt. We soon entered 
 an open. I saw a small herd of deer. Taking aim 
 for them, my rifle shook. My companion said: 
 "Do n't shoot ; your piece is unsteady, and you will 
 miss/' He shot one of the deer, and we returned 
 with our game. The fear was occasioned by my 
 
2l8 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 knowledge of the habits of the grizzly, and of the 
 helplessness of man in an encounter with the wild 
 beast. 
 
 John Rexford and his two manly sons were 
 noted grizzly bear hunters. On one occasion 
 John's brother William, a Baptist minister, and 
 therefore not much of a hunter, was visiting at 
 John's. All were at dinner, when they heard the 
 hounds baying the game. Looking out, they saw 
 the dogs chasing a she-grizzly with her cubs. The 
 bear and cubs, with dogs in pursuit, were making 
 for the Calapooya River, perhaps for the better 
 chance it would give the bear and her cubs to es- 
 cape. Each of the four Rexfords seized a rifle, and 
 joined in the chase. Reaching the river bottom, 
 they saw Mrs. Bruin sitting on her haunches in a 
 thicket of vine maples, with her cubs behind her. 
 She was held in this position by the active dogs. 
 On the way from the house, William had requested 
 of his brother John that he might have the first 
 shot, as he had never killed a grizzly. His brother 
 had consented, and he said to William, "Blaze 
 away, Bill ; that is a fine mark." William raised his 
 gun to take aim. The moment he did so, Bruin, 
 with open mouth, moved towards him, coming so 
 near him that she had nearly reached the muzzle 
 of his gun. Instead of shooting, William was petri- 
 fied with fear. He bawled out a strange, unearthly 
 yell, and fell to the ground, fainting dead away. 
 The bear, seeing the man fall and hearing his out- 
 cry, left him and went back to her position as be- 
 fore. John put a bullet in the bear's heart, and she 
 
GRIZZLY BEAR ADl'ENTURE. 
 
 219 
 
 died in a few moments. William had now recov- 
 ered from his swoon, and, seeing the bear dead, he 
 said, "I killed him, did I not?" "I shot him," said 
 John. "No," said William, "it was I." "Look at 
 your rifle," said John. The hammer of the trigger 
 had not been pulled. 
 
 In the early days of Oregon grizzly bears 
 abounded. They grew to an immense size and 
 weight. Some of them weighed a thousand pounds 
 or more. They had enormous strength. They 
 could travel very fast, outstripping the fleetest hu- 
 man runners. They never hesitated to attack a 
 man, and especially if surprised or cornered. They 
 fought with amazing fierceness and destructiveness. 
 They have great tenacity of life. It is said they will 
 live on and fight even after their heart has been 
 pierced with a bullet. 
 
 A man, in passing through a thicket where he 
 had to stoop in going through, fell over a log upon 
 the prostrate body of a sleeping grizzly. As though 
 he would compel respect for his gigantic strength 
 and resent his rude awakening, Bruin at once ad- 
 dressed himself to the work of doing up that un- 
 fortunate visitor, and divesting him of his clothing 
 and flesh. With his mighty claws he tore off his 
 clothes. With his grim, steel-trap jaws, he chewed 
 up his cheeks and limbs, gnawing the quivering 
 flesh from the bones. He ripped off the skin and 
 flesh from the man's arms and limbs and body, 
 and left it hanging in shreds. And as if to make 
 his work more complete and deadly, he hugged his 
 victim with a strong, warm embrace, and squeezed 
 
220 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 the breath from the body, and then cuffed and 
 slapped his helpless adversary. When the bear's 
 work with that man was over, he needed recon- 
 struction. It seems strange to say, and yet the 
 truth requires that it be said, that man, so lacerated 
 and chewed up, and so incontinently torn up and 
 wounded and mangled and bleeding, actually re- 
 covered from his injuries, although there was hardly 
 a spot about him or on him as large as one's hand 
 which was not torn or bruised. 
 
 I will give an account of a fatal encounter a 
 famous hunter had with grizzlies. A great wolf- 
 hunter in Southern Oregon made his living and 
 supported his large family by hunting wolves, and 
 obtaining the bounties which the State gave for 
 wolves' scalps. He and his hounds never failed to 
 attack any wild beast which came in their way, no 
 matter how ferocious or dangerous such animal 
 might be. One day his hounds stalled a he-grizzly 
 with his two she-bears in company. The hunter 
 shot the he-grizzly, breaking one of his hind legs. 
 The bear made for him. The brave man held his 
 rifle in his teeth, and climbed a small tree ; but not 
 until the grizzly had torn off one of his boots, and 
 laid open the calf of his leg to the bone. The 
 hunter dropped his rifle; but made his escape into 
 the tree. The bear went off a short distance, and 
 watched him. He set the dogs on the bear. While 
 the dogs were baying the bear, the hunter slipped 
 down the tree and began reloading his rifle, which 
 he had recovered. The bear saw him within reach, 
 and made for him. They fought. The hunter was 
 
A DUEL TO THE DEATH— INDIAN WAR. 221 
 
 clubbing his bearship with his rifle. The bear 
 knocked his rifle out of the hunter's hands and 
 reach, and embraced him. The hunter drew a 
 hunting-knife from his belt, and began stabbing 
 the bear. The bear knocked the knife from his 
 hand. The hunter reached around for a second 
 knife he carried, which was in a socket on his boot- 
 leg. He used this weapon vigorously, driving it 
 into the bear's body. The bear tore out one of the 
 hunter's eyes, and laid open his breast. The hunter 
 continued his work with the knife until the savage 
 monster fell over in death. The hunter made his 
 way to a cabin near by, called for a drink of water, 
 and died. The combat was fatal to both con- 
 tenders. 
 
 If the Indians were savage and bloodthirsty in 
 their mode of warfare, they have had dreadful 
 provocation. I saw a white man, who was sober, 
 jump on a drunken Indian, and so injure him that 
 he died in two days afterward. 
 
 Peo-Peo-mox-a-mox, or Yellow Serpent, a chief 
 of the Walla Walla Indians, had an only son, who 
 went on a mining expedition for gold to California. 
 He was shot down in cold blood. The old chief 
 never forgave that offense. He was a bitter fighter. 
 He was captured, and put under guard. It is al- 
 leged he was trying to escape. He was shot and 
 killed. Hence when the war broke out, some of 
 the whites who fell earliest in the war where hor- 
 ribly mutilated. 
 
 A stretch of country in Southern Oregon, in- 
 cluded in Rogue River and Umpqua Valleys, and 
 
222 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT IVOR A'. 
 
 extending for thirty miles, thinly settled, was raided 
 by the Indians. Some of the settlers had gone into 
 a stockade fort for greater safety. Others, who had 
 not found such a shelter were killed. A man named 
 Harris, and living two miles from the nearest neigh- 
 bor's, was assailed in his cabin by a band of In- 
 dians. It was near night. The family consisted of 
 a man, his wife, and a daughter of ten years. The 
 Indians fired upon the house. Mr. Harris, who had 
 two rifles and a good supply of ammunition, re- 
 turned the fire. When he was firing one of these 
 guns, his wife was reloading the other. He fired on 
 his savage enemies through the space between the 
 logs of his cabin. At length he received a fatal 
 wound, and very soon expired. He told his wife 
 to keep on firing until the ammunition was all 
 spent, or nearly so, and then to shoot her daughter 
 and herself, for it was worse than death to be cap- 
 tured by the Indians. Mrs. Harris took his place, 
 the daughter reloading her pieces as fast as neces- 
 sary. This action was kept up for some time, and 
 she found her ammunition was nearly gone. 
 
 Thus it continued until the twilight deepened 
 into night. Then a small body of white horsemen 
 came riding rapidly by. The Indians retired. 
 When the firing ceased, she and her daughter fled 
 into the adjoining forest. The Indians returned 
 to their assault. Their shots remained unanswered. 
 They fired the house, and in the light of the burn- 
 ing cabin they scoured the surrounding woods, 
 several times approaching very closely the con- 
 cealed fugitives. When the Indians retired, they 
 
INDIAN ATROCITIES — THE MODOC WAR. 12$ 
 
 spent the night in their hiding. The next day they 
 were rescued by a party of white settlers. Mrs. 
 1 1 arris received from Congress a medal and the gift 
 of a mile square of land for her heroism. 
 
 In a later Indian war the Indians occupied a 
 very strong retreat among the lava-beds of an 
 ancient volcano. The troops could get into the 
 vicinity of their Indian foes, but they could not find 
 their places of concealment. At length Captain 
 Jack proposed a treaty at a point agreed upon. 
 General Canby, of the regular army ; Mr. Dyer, of 
 the Indian service ; Rev. Dr. Thomas, of San Fran- 
 cisco, and perhaps others, repaired to the place. The 
 Indians slaughtered them in cold blood, except Mr. 
 Dyer and one or two others, who escaped. The 
 chief leader in this horrible massacre was brought 
 up among the whites. 1 knew him well. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 IT is not generally known that Oregon was in 
 some danger of becoming a slave State. A large 
 majority of the earlier emigrants to Oregon came 
 from slave States, chiefly from Missouri, Arkansas, 
 Texas, Tennessee, and Kentucky. There was a 
 strong determination on the part of the Southern 
 politicians, who were eager to extend the area of 
 slavery in the United States, to induce Oregon, 
 when she should assume Statehood, to become a 
 slave State. 
 
 When General Joseph Lane, the delegate in 
 Congress from Oregon Territory, ran in 1856 for 
 re-election, he could count on a Democratic ma- 
 jority in Oregon of five thousand. In canvassing 
 for his re-election, he sought to persuade his Demo- 
 cratic supporters to vote also for slavery in Oregon. 
 In his former election I voted for him, because 
 under the conditions I believed he could help Ore- 
 gon more than his opponent could. During his 
 canvass for re-election, he again solicited my vote. 
 I told him I had heard that, in canvassing for his 
 re-election, he spoke one word for his re-election 
 and two in favor of Oregon's becoming a slave 
 State. If that rumor was true, I said, I would not 
 only not vote for him, but I would also do all I 
 could against his re-election to Congress. I took 
 the field in favor of Oregon as a free State. Gen- 
 
 224 
 
A Gl TA 1 ION — CONTENTION. 225 
 
 eral Lane's majority was cut down from five thou- 
 sand to three thousand. The slave State schedule 
 was defeated by over three thousand. 
 
 I made the Pacific Christian Advocate an earnest 
 supporter of Oregon as a free State, and I also can- 
 vassed in the Willamette Valley in favor of free 
 Oregon. As may well be supposed, I encountered 
 opposition, and my course as an editor subjected 
 me to the misrepresentations and abuse of the ad- 
 vocates of the slaveocracy. I was a target for the 
 shafts of ridicule and falsehood by some of the 
 Democratic papers in Oregon and California. The 
 following article, which was printed in the Pacific 
 Christian Advocate in the fall of 1859, will show the 
 kind of conflict through which I passed, and 
 through which I carried my paper. It appeared 
 during the pendency of the slave State question in 
 Oregon : 
 
 THE PROOF. 
 
 "In Favor of Slavery. — The Standard, of the 19th inst, 
 contains a long letter of Joseph C. Lovejoy in favor of 
 slavery. It is addressed to his brother, a member of Con- 
 gress; and while it is written with evident ability, it goes 
 the whole figure for slavery." 
 
 The above extract we transcribe from the last issue of 
 the Advocate. The man who wrote the same, if it may be 
 taken as his real opinion given after reading the article, 
 should be classed with that other Solomon in ordinary to 
 some Siwash tribe, who, in the plenitude of his wisdom, ex- 
 claimed. "O. how good was Nature that placed great rivers 
 near great towns!" 
 
 If, on the other hand, he intended to mislead, then while 
 such writing is admitted to its columns, the Advocate should 
 drop the prefix Christian, and substitute the word Heathen. 
 
 We thus speak, because on the 14th inst., four days 
 15 
 
226 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 previous to its publication in the Standard, the letter re- 
 ferred to was published in this paper, and now, for the ben- 
 efit of the author of the lying paragraph which is quoted 
 above, we will continue to quote from the Fool's Experience: 
 
 "Page: He that 's first a hypocrite, and next a knave, the 
 year after is either an arrant fool or a madman. 
 
 "Master: How came your knavery by such experience? 
 
 "Page: As fools do by news; somebody told me so, and I 
 believed it." 
 
 The above is from the Times of the 28th ult. 
 We do not attempt a reply because the paragraph or 
 its author deserves it, but simply for the sake of the 
 cause to which we are devoted, and for the vindi- 
 cation of our veracity, so needlessly and ungentle- 
 manly called in question. We said that Lovejoy's 
 letter is in favor of slavery. Readers will please read 
 extracts from said letter given below, and we are 
 content that they shall determine upon the question 
 whether our statement is a "lying paragraph" or not. 
 Mr. Lovejoy, among other things, says as follows 
 (the italicizing is ours) : 
 
 But my convictions at the present time are, not only 
 that the slaveholders have a complete vindication of their 
 present position; but they are entitled to be looked upon as 
 benefactors to the country and to the human race. . . . 
 
 The South are impregnable. The Constitution pro- 
 tects them, the Bible protects them, and the experience of man- 
 kind protects them. . . . 
 
 It can not be denied that the idea of slavery runs through 
 all the Bible; it was stamped upon the entire history of the 
 Jewish nation, and upon the history of every vigorous na- 
 tion upon the face of the earth; indeed, I strongly suspect 
 this is the normal condition of large portions of a depraved 
 race, and I can readily believe that a man may sustain the 
 relation of slaveholder, in all good conscience, and with 
 the entire Divine approbation. . . . 
 
 American slavery has produced and cultivated more 
 African intellect, more social affection, more Christian emo- 
 tion in two hundred years, than all Africa (Central or 
 
SHOWING UP FALLACY. 227 
 
 • Southern) for two thousand years. American slavery is a 
 redemption, a deliverance from African heathenism. 
 
 The best thing that could be done for Africa, if they 
 could live there, would be to send them a hundred thou- 
 sand American slaveholders, to work them up to some de- 
 gree of civilization. ... 
 
 So far as Africa is concerned, the slave-trade was, and 
 is, humane in its operations; its abolition was the result of 
 sentiment, and not the determination of calm, deliberate 
 statesmanship. . . . 
 
 If more laborers are needed for Texas, Central America, 
 parts of Mexico, and Cuba, they ought to be brought,' 
 without objections, under such humane regulations as are 
 made in other cases for the comfort of passengers. 
 
 As to the influence of slavery on the character of the 
 whites, that is quite another question; but so far as the 
 political history of our country is concerned, it is not easy 
 to see how we could do without slaveholders. 
 
 If the author of these extracts is not in favor 
 of slavery, then he is an arrant hypocrite; and if 
 the extracts do not sustain our position, then we 
 confess we can not understand language. What con- 
 nection the previous publication of Mr. Lovejoy's let- 
 ter in the Times has with the conclusions of its new 
 editor, or how that should induce him to "thus speak," 
 it is difficult to conceive. The time is approaching 
 in Oregon, if it has not already come, when men 
 in public stations must evince self-respect and gentle- 
 manly bearing towards others if they would be re- 
 spected themselves. The predecessor of the present 
 editor of the Times commenced a similar tirade against 
 certain respectable citizens in Oregon. He commenced, 
 too, by quoting Shakespeare. He soon ran his inglo- 
 rious race and left the country, fallen beneath the 
 contempt of respectable men. We forewarn the pres- 
 ent editor that an equally ignoble but speedier fate 
 .'i waits him, unless he profits by the example just 
 cited. 
 
228 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 It was the expectation of the Secessionists in 
 the Southern States, that Oregon and California 
 would secede when the Southern States drew off 
 from the Union, and organized the Southern Con- 
 federacy. Political emissaries from California, who 
 were ministers of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
 South, and who had organized that Church in Cali- 
 fornia, came to Oregon, and made political speeches 
 in favor of the Breckinridge and Lane ticket, de- 
 nouncing the Black Republicans as disunionists, 
 and predicting that if Oregon went Republican, 
 and if Lincoln should be elected/the country would 
 be involved in civil war, and blood would run in 
 consequence up to the horses' bridles. The iri- 
 descent dream of the Southern fire-eaters and Se- 
 cessionists, that the Pacific States would join the 
 Southern Confederacy, had some little shadow of 
 probability in their knowledge that a large majority 
 of the emigrants to California and Oregon were 
 from Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Texas, and 
 Missouri. The following editorial was leveled 
 against the untruths of these secession agitators 
 in the issue of June 20, 1863: 
 
 MISREPRESENTATION. 
 
 While on a recent trip to Jackson County, we 
 learned that the emissaries of the Church South are 
 earnestly and persistently representing that the Meth- 
 odist EpiscopaJ Church is the seceding Church, and 
 that the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, is the 
 old organization. It will be remembered that Rev. 
 O. Fisher, when he was in the country two or three 
 years since, represented the same things, which we 
 
DEB A TES ON SLA VER Y— BISHOP ANDRE IV. 2 29 
 
 then denied, and we did not suppose it would be re- 
 peated, or, if repeated, believed; yet the old adage, 
 "a lie well stuck to is better than the truth," seems 
 to find support in this instance ; for we found persons 
 recently who actually professed to believe that the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church is the seceding body, and 
 the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, the original 
 one, holding the old organization and rights. We 
 propose to recite a little of the history of the Great 
 Secession of 1844-1845, for the correctness of which 
 we would vouch, and appeal, for those who desire the 
 proof, to Elliott's "Great Secession," and "The Meth- 
 odist Church Property Case," a stout, octavo pam- 
 phlet published by the Methodist Book Concern in 
 New York, in 185 1. In the General Conference of 
 1844, two cases came up for adjudication, viz. : First, 
 the appeal of F. A. Harding against the action of 
 the Baltimore Conference. The Baltimore Confer- 
 ence had suspended him from the ministry for refus- 
 ing to manumit certain slaves which came into his 
 possession by marriage. From this action Mr. Hard- 
 ing appealed. (See Methodist Church Property Case, 
 pages 57, 58, 59.) After full discussion, during four 
 days, a motion was made by John Early, of Virginia, 
 afterwards a bishop of the Church South, to reverse 
 the decision of the Baltimore Conference. The vote 
 stood as follows: Nays, 117; yeas, 56. The chair 
 decided that this vote virtually affirmed the action of 
 the Baltimore Conference. W. Capers took an appeal 
 from his decision. The decision of the chair was sus- 
 tained by in for, and 53 against. 
 
 The other exciting case which came up for action 
 in the General Conference of 1844, was that of Rev. 
 Bishop Andrew. Bishop Andrew was elected a bishop 
 when a non-slaveholder. Some years afterwards, by 
 bequests and by marriage, he became possessed of 
 
230 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 slaves, and this fact coming officially before the Gen- 
 eral Conference of 1844, the subject was discussed 
 variously for some two weeks, when the following pre- 
 amble and resolutions were adopted by a vote of no 
 yeas and 68 nays, viz. : 
 
 Whereas, The Discipline ot our Church forbids the 
 doing anything calculated to destroy our itinerant general 
 superintendency ; and 
 
 Whereas, Bishop Andrew has become connected with 
 slavery, by marriage and otherwise, and this act having 
 drawn after it circumstances which, in the estimation of the 
 General Conference, will greatly embarrass the exercise of 
 his office as an itinerant general superintendent, if not in 
 some places entirely prevent it; therefore, 
 
 Resolved, That it is the sense of this General Conference 
 that he desist from the exercise of his office so long as this 
 impediment remains. 
 
 Various resolutions, declaratory and otherwise, 
 and a protest, were offered, and, finally, a committee 
 of nine was appointed on a Plan of Separation. They 
 reported a plan, the very first condition of which was, 
 "That should the Annual Conferences in the slave- 
 holding States find it necessary to unite in a distinct 
 ecclesiastical connection, the following rule shall be 
 observed with regard to the northern boundary of 
 said connection ;" i. c, a majority vote of the mem- 
 bers of said societies, stations, and Conferences should 
 govern in deciding their relation, whether to the new 
 organization proposed, or to the old one. Provision 
 was also made to submit the Sixth Restrictive Rule to 
 a vote of all the Conferences, as to whether they 
 would sanction a division of the funds of the Church 
 should the Southern Conferences separate from the 
 Church. This last failed to receive the necessary 
 majority to authorize the division of property. The 
 delegates from the South held a meeting in the city 
 
ACTION OF THE SOUTHERN DELEGATES. 23 1 
 
 of New Yoik on the next day after the adjournment 
 of the General Conference, and called a Convention 
 in Louisville, Ky., for May 1, 1845, tnus forestalling 
 the action of the Conferences as provided for by the 
 General Conference. The Convention met, having 
 delegates from sixteen of the Conferences in slave- 
 holding territory, and, by a vote of ninety-four yeas 
 to three nays, erected the Annual Conferences repre- 
 sented in the Convention, "into a distinct ecclesi- 
 astical connection, separate from the jurisdiction of 
 the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church as at present constituted," adopting "the doc- 
 trines and rules and regulations of said Discipline, 
 except only so far as verbal alteration may be neces- 
 sary to a distinct organization," and "to be known 
 by the style and title of the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church, South." The whole proceedings of the 
 South to obtain what they claimed was their share of 
 the funds of the Church were upon the idea that the 
 Church from which they had separated was the orig- 
 inal, old organization, taking date in 1784. 
 
 If persons are ignorant or wicked enough to teach 
 the contrary in Oregon, in the year of grace 1863, 
 and there are those here who are weak enough to 
 believe such perversions, without informing them- 
 selves, we sincerely pity them, assuring them that the 
 means are within reach, fully to set them right in the 
 premises. 
 
 "HOWLING DERVISHES." 
 
 One of our Oregon contemporaries, who is "down 
 on the war," alluding to the Copperhead report of the 
 proceedings of the New York Conference, denounces 
 the preachers of that Conference severely for their 
 political proclivities, and calls them "howling der- 
 vishes." He says there are some in Oregon who re- 
 
232 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 semble those New York preachers. If to stand up 
 for one's country 
 
 "through storm and night," 
 
 and in every practicable way to defend the fair fame 
 and the just rights of the inheritance bequeathed by 
 our fathers, subjects them to the epithets of such men 
 and such sheets, probably the Oregon preachers al- 
 luded to will bear the odium thus cast upon them with 
 meekness, but without abating a jot of their efforts 
 for the good cause. 
 
 The following is in the same line as the fore- 
 going. The writer was a transfer from the Balti- 
 more Conference. It will indicate the animus of 
 those who opposed the war for the Union : 
 
 Mr. Editor, — As the writer's name appears under the 
 report "On the State of the Country," passed at the late 
 session of the Oregon Annual Conference, and may, without 
 qualification, create a wrong impression upon the minds of 
 his friends, it is deemed proper to beg the indulgence of your 
 readers to say that he voted against the fourth resolution 
 of that report as it now stands, because he thought its adop- 
 tion might possibly embarrass true Union-loving ministers 
 beyond the bounds of the said Conference. Second, because, 
 as it appeared to him, one Conference has no right to 
 indicate the line of conduct for their equals of another Con- 
 ference. This last objection is based upon the opinion that 
 the term "ministers," as used in the resolution and con- 
 nection, embraces ministers generally. For these reasons 
 an amendment was moved so as to make the resolution 
 applicable to the ministers of the Oregon Conference only, 
 leaving those of other Conferences and Churches to act on 
 the subject, without advice, according to their own sense 
 of duty, which the Oregon Conference claim the right ot 
 doing for themselves. Had more time for the examination of 
 the sixth resolution been allowed, he would have voted 
 against that also, unless the language of it had been so un- 
 
CONFERENCE RESOLUTIONS. 233 
 
 derstood as hyperbolically expressing the sentiment that the 
 Union is worth maintaining at a great sacrifice. 
 
 Respectfully, GEORGE M. BERRY. 
 August 28, 1861. 
 
 We regret that Brother Berry has deemed it neces- 
 sary to bring this subject, in this form, before the 
 public, lest the impression should be unfavorable to 
 him ; and also, lest it should be inferred that the Con- 
 ference was not generally agreed in its action. To 
 prevent misapprehension, we subjoin a brief state- 
 ment of facts : As a member of the committee, 
 Brother Berry agreed to the report before it was 
 submitted. In the discussion before the Conference, 
 Brother Berry opposed the fourth resolution, and he 
 and one other voted against it. On the adoption 
 of the report as a whole, the yeas and nays being 
 called, the vote was unanimous, Brother Berry's name 
 being recorded with the others in its favor. The Con- 
 ference acted deliberately, the report occupying a 
 considerable portion of two days. Brother Berry, 
 in common with the other members of the Confer- 
 ence, had full opportunity to discuss the resolution, 
 and his privilege was freely used. The report will 
 speak for itself. . It is quite unnecessary to re-argue v 
 the matter in our columns. 
 
 The following editorial, which appeared in the 
 columns of the Pacific Christian Advocate, May 3, 
 1862, needs no explanation. It shows with what 
 tenacity the opposers of suppressing the secession 
 and rebellion adhered to their cause: 
 
 " SECESSION— SCHISM." 
 The April number of the Oregon Churchman has 
 an article on "Secession — Schism." The ground 
 taken is that the separations among Christians are 
 
234 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 really schisms, and are generally and properly de- 
 nominated secessions. We quote two passages for the 
 purpose of comment (italicizing is ours) : 
 
 Unquestionably the strongest argument used against per- 
 mitting a secession from our Republic is, that if allowed in one 
 instance it will probably be repeated in others, until a total dis- 
 integration ensue, and thence universal anarchy. If this reason- 
 ing be sound, is it not equally applicable to our ecclesiastical 
 affairs? Nay, even more; for political separations are neces- 
 sarily territorial, while the others are indiscriminate. In the 
 State of Oregon alone, for example, there are at least four- 
 teen distinct ecclesiastical organizations, entirely independent 
 of each other. And where is this to end? for if the first se- 
 cession be justifiable, so is each successive one which has 
 occurred, or may yet occur. 
 
 The argument stated is by no means "the strong- 
 est used against permitting a secession from our Re- 
 public." A much stronger one is that State secession 
 is itself subversive of government and a crime be- 
 fore God, and it is as really so whether one State, or 
 many, secede. The principle is radically mischievous 
 and dangerous as well as wicked. The strongest ar- 
 gument against murder, or any other form of disobe- 
 dience to law, is not that if allowed in one instance 
 "it will probably be repeated in others, until" mur- 
 ders and other felonies are common. That is an 
 argument, but not the strongest. Wherein is the 
 reasoning against State secession different from that 
 against other forms of lawlessness? State secession 
 is not a question of policy or expediency ; it is a crime. 
 
 Nor, again, are "political separations necessarily 
 territorial;" i. e., they are not confined to the seceded 
 portion nor are they necessarily nor chiefly territorial. 
 State secession is such a violation of law as would 
 work territorial and political injury to the portions 
 seceded from as well as the portion seceding, and it is 
 
SECESSION — SCHISM. 235 
 
 a crime; it would work moral injury to both parties, 
 and, by example, to all nations. This reasoning, 
 therefore, is not sound in political separations, and, 
 if it were, it would not be sound, nor "equally ap- 
 plicable to ecclesiastical affairs," because it assumes 
 that conformity to one particular form of Church 
 order and organization is Scripturally enjoined, and 
 that, therefore, dissent and nonconformity are crim- 
 inal. We think it will trouble the Churchman to es- 
 tablish these positions. Nor yet does it necessarily 
 or logically follow, that "if the first secession be justi- 
 fiable, so is each successive one which may occur." 
 If "each successive one" were for the same cause or 
 causes, or for equally weighty ones as the first, the 
 first being justifiable, so would be the following ones. 
 That every Church secession is for the same or equal 
 reasons as all others, is assumption. Let it be proved. 
 The second paragraph we quote is as follows : 
 
 Another very grave inquiry suggested by this state of 
 facts is, as to the extent of its influence upon our social and 
 political relations. It is evident that men's religious edu- 
 cation and sentiments form the strongest element in their 
 character, and ultimately control all their leading principles 
 of action. Now all will admit that the tendency of our people 
 in ecclesiastical matters has been towards secession, and that 
 their practical training has been in that school. Of all the 
 leading Protestant bodies which existed at the time of the 
 adoption of our National Constitution, one only remained 
 a unit until the beginning of our present troubles. Each of 
 the others has, at different times, been divided, and sub- 
 divided by secession. The same is substantially true in Eng- 
 land. And the exceptional Church, identical in the two 
 countries, has ever protested against both the principle and 
 practice of separation, as well in her doctrinal teaching as 
 in her constitution. 
 
 There is one cogent fact which goes far to weaken 
 this reasoning : The portion of the United States most 
 loyal, and where State secession is most abhorrent, 
 
236 SIXTV-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 is by far more divided into sects and separate Church 
 organizations, and more afflicted with what the writer 
 calls schism, than the seceded portion. How is this? 
 Other facts may be cited. One of the supplications 
 in the Litany of the Protestant Episcopal Church, 
 and to which the congregations, South as well as 
 North, have been responding for generations, "Good 
 Lord, deliver us," is "from all sedition, privy con- 
 spiracy, and rebellion." Yet that Church, with all its 
 unity, orthodoxy, and prayers against rebellion, has 
 not prevented its ministers and members in the South 
 from joining the rebellious forces arrayed against the 
 Government, and one of them — Rev. Bishop Leonidas 
 Polk, of Tennessee — is leading armies against the loyal 
 citizens of his own country. If schism be so fruitful 
 of "political separations" and rebellions, and adher- 
 ence to the only undivided, national Church organ- 
 ization be so potent to conserve the State, as the 
 argument implies, what are we to think of this case? 
 
 More of the navy and army chaplains, previous 
 to the rebellion, have been of the Protestant Epis- 
 copal denomination than of any, and, we believe, of 
 all others, and that, too, while that denomination is 
 numerically one of the least in the Nation. Yet the army 
 and navy exhibited many sad and sickening examples 
 of perjury and foul treason. If the Churchman s 
 reasoning were good, and there were such political 
 benefit to be derived from the influence of a Church 
 which has "ever protested against the principle and 
 practice of separation, as well in her doctrinal teach- 
 ing as in her constitution," how comes it to pass 
 that some of the most flagrant examples of "sedition, 
 privy conspiracy, and rebellion," have occurred among 
 those who have enjoyed only the ministrations of the 
 Protestant Episcopal Church? 
 
 With all the writer's abhorrence of Church seces- 
 
CHURCHES NOT SCHISMATIC. 2tf 
 
 sion, he has not intimated — he ought, we think — that 
 State secession is inherently wrong, as well as of dan- 
 gerous tendency. We have no war to wage against 
 the Protestant Episcopal Church. We were born a 
 member of its elder sister. We honor that Church 
 for its fidelity to evangelical truth ; for its strong front 
 against infidelity ; for its stability ; and we glory in the 
 good it has done and which it is doing; but when 
 certain of its "chief ministers/' who maintain a marked 
 reticence upon the horrible crime of rebellion as now 
 raging, attempt to asperse those of other denomina- 
 tions as schismatics, and impute to their doctrines and 
 practice secession and rebellion, such impertinence 
 demands rebuke. In administering it, we would dis- 
 criminate, and except those who, like Dr. Tyng, of 
 New York, are truly catholic, and who say, "Grace 
 be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in 
 sincerity." 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE following Thanksgiving sermon was 
 preached by me in Portland, Oregon, Novem- 
 ber 27, 1 862, while the War for the Union was being 
 prosecuted. It was published by request. The 
 texts were Jeremiah xvii, 6, 10, inclusive, and the 
 one hundredth Psalm: 
 
 By official Proclamation of the Executive of this 
 State, we are summoned from the ordinary pursuits 
 of life to devote a day to thanksgiving and prayer, 
 to humiliation before God, and to devout gratitude 
 to the Sovereign Arbiter of human destiny, the Lord 
 of lords and King of kings. 
 
 The fact that all the loyal States of the Union, 
 with only two or three exceptions, have agreed upon 
 this as a day of public thanksgiving that the morning 
 sun as he sheds his early beams on the Atlantic slope 
 continues in his western circuit, to call successive 
 States — from Orient to Occident — to this delightful 
 and appropriate exercise, until a great and mighty 
 Nation -are prostrate before Jehovah, in supplication 
 or adoration, heightens the interest of the occasion, 
 and exhibits a sublime and most encouraging spec- 
 tacle. 
 
 There are two leading thoughts contained in the 
 Proclamation upon which I would fix your attention 
 with somewhat of detail. Theyare the duties of humili- 
 ation and prayer for national sins; thanksgiving and 
 praise for national blessings. 
 
 It is atheistic to deny national accountability and 
 dependence. Shall we admit a God in creation and in 
 
 238 
 
THANKSGIVING SERMON. 239 
 
 all the mighty framework of nature, and preclude him 
 from cognizance and supervision of human affairs, 
 whether personal or corporate? This is as irreligious 
 as it is unphilosophical. The Lord sitteth above the 
 iloods. He ruleth in the heavens, and doeth his pleas- 
 ure among the sons of men. While he numbers the 
 hairs of our heads, and not a falling sparrow escapes 
 his notice ; while 
 
 "There 's not a tint that paints the rose 
 Or decks the lily fair, 
 Or streaks the humblest flower that grows, 
 But God has placed it there," 
 
 it is equally true that by him "kings rule and princes 
 decree justice;" that "He setteth up one and putteth 
 down another;" that he holds ruler and subject alike 
 accountable for human conduct, rewarding and pun- 
 ishing, as that conduct is, or is not, according to his. 
 rule of right. Let no man, and no corporation, no 
 community, and no nation think to evade this account- 
 ability. God's government, like his presence, is uni- 
 versal. His authority, like his omniscience, extends to 
 all beings. 
 
 His moral government is as far-reaching and effect- 
 ive as to moral beings as his physical is as to material 
 objects. As well might a man think to escape the law 
 of gravitation while in the body, or to respire without 
 the vital air, as to avoid the moral control which God 
 exercises over men and nations. These conclusions 
 are inevitable if we admit the existence of God. Even 
 if there were no light of revelation to shine upon the 
 question, doth not nature herself speak with irresistible 
 conclusiveness? Doth not reason concur with nature 
 in proclaiming the sovereignty as well as the existence 
 of God, as really in morals as in physics? Admit God's 
 existence, and his control follows, alike in moral as in 
 material, equally in great as in small affairs. 
 
240 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 As God exists the Sovereign Lawgiver and Judge, 
 the dispenser and enforcer of law, national as well as 
 personal, righteousness or sin follows as we observe 
 or disregard his law. No time shall be lost in debating 
 whether that law is written in the Bible or voiced in 
 nature. Nature and revelation agree in this funda- 
 mental rule of equity as to persons, "All things what- 
 soever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye 
 even so unto them." And they also agree in this fun- 
 damental condition of national growth or decay, ele- 
 vation or depression, progress or retrogression. 
 "Righteousness exalteth a nation — sin is a reproach to 
 any people." "The powers that be are ordained of 
 God." They are ordained "as a terror to evil-doers, 
 and a praise to them that do well." 
 
 General commercial prosperity has attended our pro- 
 gress through another year. It is true that privateer- 
 ing has somewhat interrupted commerce in some parts 
 of the world, but this has not been general. Our ex- 
 ports have been carried in American ships, and our 
 navy has everywhere covered itself with glory by its 
 victorious career of defense against the rebellious ports 
 and vessels of the Southern Confederacy. The marts 
 of commerce have been open, and the centers of busi- 
 ness have been full and active. It was predicted when 
 the rebellion broke out that New York, Boston, Phila- 
 delphia, and other great business centers would be- 
 come wastes ; that the grass would grow in the streets, 
 etc. On the contrary, more activity and commercial 
 thrift has been realized than had been known in ordi- 
 nary periods. 
 
 There has been a happy exemption from disease. 
 Plague and pestilence have not been suffered to brood 
 over the land, filling it with shadows and tears. Sad 
 it is to think of the havoc of war, and of the sighs and 
 tears of widowhood and orphanage; yet we may well 
 
OUR NATIONAL PROGRESS. 24 1 
 
 be thankful before the Lord that he has granted us 
 health and plenty in all our borders. 
 
 Our progress in science, inventions, and religion has 
 been most gratifying. While the tread of armies and 
 the booming of war's dread artillery have shaken the 
 land, the schools, colleges, and academies have stood 
 open, and the young have been trained in sound learn- 
 ing, while literature and discovery have extended their 
 sphere and multiplied their triumphs. Inventions have 
 elevated us into the greatest of maritime powers in the 
 world. The naval engagements of the War of 1812 
 proved us then to be more than a match for the proud 
 British Empire, to which for centuries had been con- 
 ceded the naval supremacy of all the world. The 
 achievements of the Monitor excited at first the terror, 
 and then the admiration of other Powers. 
 
 Religion has held sway, even during the preva- 
 lence of grim-visaged war. Our army is a more re- 
 ligious one than was ever marshaled. The Sabbath is 
 respected, profane swearing is interdicted by army 
 orders. Our generals, and more recently our com- 
 mander-in-chief, President Lincoln, have issued orders 
 directing the observance of the Sabbath. A thousand 
 chaplains minister to the bodily and mental welfare 
 of our million troops ; and when our soldiers fall in 
 battle they afford them amelioration for their bodily 
 sufferings, and point them, when dying, to "the Lamb 
 of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." 
 
 Then, too, you will observe that the missionary 
 operations of the Church have progressed without in- 
 terruption or abatement. Though pecuniary pressure 
 has rested upon the country, yet the flow of voluntary 
 contributions to the channels of Christian benevolence 
 has been constant and undiminished. 
 
 Besides, consider with what a generous benevo- 
 lence the demands of the wounded and sick of our 
 16 
 
242 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 troops have been met. Untaxed by State enactments 
 and unenforced by legal claims, lint, clothing, nursing, 
 luxuries, have been procured, and bestowed with a 
 promptitude and profusion unparalleled in history. 
 Contributions for the Sanitary Commission have 
 flowed in from all parts, from the mountain and the 
 valley, from the forest dell and the broad prairies, from 
 agricultural and mining districts, uniting a thousand 
 rivulets to form a swelling river of benevolence. Silver 
 bricks from Washoe, golden bars from Lewiston, and 
 coin from other places, have gone singing with a 
 merry jingle to their merciful mission. 
 
 Another occasion of thanksgiving is the exist- 
 ence and exhibition of the noblest Christian patriotism 
 upon the grandest scale. 
 
 When the glorious banner was insulted at Sum- 
 ter, and its brave defenders were beleaguered by swarm- 
 ing thousands of rebels, an electric thrill of patriotic 
 sympathy pervaded the whole loyal States, and sev- 
 enty-five thousand men rushed at the call of their 
 President to defend the National Capital, and then a 
 half million, and afterwards as many more, ranged 
 themselves on the side of the country, the laws, and 
 the nationality. Brave, "constant as the polar star," 
 valorous, and invincible, a wall of living breasts sur- 
 rounds the rebel district, to conquer or to die. To say 
 that all this springs from love of country, simply be- 
 cause it is the place of our birth, or because it is a 
 great and glorious land, is to describe an inadequate 
 cause for such an effect. 
 
 That is not the brightest type of patriotism. There 
 are other lands as beautiful ; other regions where the 
 skies are as serene, where the drapery of mountain and 
 valley, woodland and lawn, is as lovely; where the air 
 is rs genial and balmy as in this ; and, besides, there are 
 adopted citizens from vine-clad France and from the 
 
CHRISTIAN PATRIOTISM. 243 
 
 forests of Germany, from the hills of Switzerland, Eng- 
 land, and from Ireland, whose patriotic zeal burns 
 as fervently as that of the native citizen. The patriot- 
 ism of the American citizen has a higher, nobler source 
 than this. It takes hold of the great principles of de- 
 mocracy. It battles for our institutions, and it intelli- 
 gently comprehends their exalted character and their 
 inestimable value. It is a Christian patriotism, such 
 as that for which the Pilgrims left the soil of op- 
 pression, and planted themselves 
 
 "On a stern and rock-bound coast." 
 
 Our Constitution is Christian. It does not indeed 
 enact Christianity as a State religion. Christianity 
 needs no such support. It is only burdened and in- 
 jured by such trammels. Christ said, "My kingdom 
 is not of this world." Yet while no clause in the Con- 
 stitution says that Christianity shall be the established 
 religion, and while we would not upon any account 
 have it so say, it gives free toleration to all sects and 
 opinions and creeds. It lays no edict of restriction 
 nor prohibition upon the creeds and consciences of 
 the people, leaving every man free to elect his own 
 theory, and to worship according to the dictates of his 
 own conscience, and it is pervaded throughout by the 
 principles and spirit of Christianity. 
 
 Our Government is based upon the acknowledged 
 rights of the masses. The divine right of kings is the 
 foundation of monarchies ; the possession of physical 
 power is the patent of despots; but the Government 
 under whose genial shadow we have been protected 
 and fostered recognizes the rights, God-given and in- 
 alienable, of all men to self-government. The ruler 
 and subject among us as to natural rights are equal; 
 in fact, the ruler is the servant of the people, from 
 whom he derives his right to govern them. 
 
244 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 The force of this view is not to be broken by aver- 
 ring that while this is the case in theory, in reality the 
 fact is otherwise. The slavery in the United States is 
 such by the force of State laws. "The Declaration of 
 Independence was the germ from which the Constitu- 
 tion grew into a goodly tree. While our fathers who 
 framed the Constitution were from slave States, they 
 were very careful not to allow the words slave and 
 slavery to enter it. They could not say one thing in 
 the Declaration, and the opposite in the Constitution." 
 
 See how they resisted the idea of rank and titles 
 and dignities. The South Carolinians, then, as now, 
 the evil genius of the Nation, sought to incorporate 
 slavery into that sacred instrument ; but their efforts 
 were vain. The Constitution, so far as the Federal 
 Union was concerned, is the product of a triumphant 
 struggle for freedom. In that struggle three things 
 were accomplished: "i. The foreign slave-trade was 
 doomed, and that before any other civilized power 
 had condemned it. 2. The word slave was not allowed 
 to occur in the Constitution ; the allusions to it were 
 circumlocutions such as the pious employ when quot- 
 ing an instance of profanity. 3. The Constitution 
 was framed with prophetic cunning for the day of uni- 
 versal liberty; and if the whole country should to- 
 morrow, either by the action of the States interested, 
 or as an incident of the war, contain none but free 
 States, the Constitution would not want an amend- 
 ment to conform it to the new state of things. There 
 would be marks to intimate its history, and to tell what 
 dangerous roads it had been called to travel, but it 
 would want neither piecing, nor patching, nor darn- 
 ing. This, I confess, gives to my affection for my 
 country the sanction of my reason, and enables my 
 religion all the easier to ally itself with and to invig- 
 orate and inflame my patriotism. And we may say of 
 
CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS FREEDOM. 245 
 
 the Constitution, in view of the struggles through 
 which it has triumphantly passed, as the dying Jacob 
 said of Joseph: 'The archers have sorely grieved him, 
 and shot at him, and hated him ; but his bow abode 
 in strength, and the arms of his hands were made 
 strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob.' ,; 
 
 Thus we find that our General Government, now 
 attempted to be overthrown, is in perfect agreement 
 with Christ's doctrines of the freedom of religion and 
 the brotherhood of men. So that not only are we 
 bound to our country by the ties of nativity or cordial 
 adoption, by its physical features, by its history, and 
 by its literature ; these are only as a beautiful frame 
 in which is set the living picture of our moral and 
 religious convictions. Our patriotism, therefore, with- 
 out scruple — nay, with joy — receives into its bosom the 
 element of religion, and feels that, in defending the 
 country, it is defending not merely mountains and 
 rivers, not merely geographical boundaries, but the 
 very cause of God himself. 
 
 These facts bring into the present conflict the 
 martyr element, rendering our soldiers heroic. It was 
 the conviction of a high sense of right and duty which 
 nerved their arm in battle and bore them on to noble 
 deeds, which animated them in the dreadful fight and 
 cheered them as they fell under the iron hail of battle. 
 A martyr is a witness unto blood for the truth of God. 
 "The unholy war now waging is waged by the enemies 
 of the doctrine of Christ, that freedom of religious 
 thought and action and universal brotherhood are the 
 rights of man." 
 
 The great idea of the gospel is man's right to self- 
 government and religious toleration; and for this not 
 only professed Christians, but the whole loyal portion 
 of the Union are devoting their blood and treasure. 
 They have drunk in this sentiment with their earliest 
 
246 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 food, and our adopted fellow-citizens have imbibed 
 it as they do our native air. It is a principle for which 
 they are fighting, and the result can not be doubtful. 
 Our path as a Nation may lie through fire and storm; 
 long years of trial and conflict may be before us; 
 France and England and Austria may intervene, and 
 the present army may melt away, only to be succeeded 
 by another and another; but through all and beyond 
 all I see the coming certain victory. This Nation will 
 survive ; freedom will live ; self-government will be per- 
 petuated ; and from the present darkness and strife and 
 disaster will emerge the Republic, regenerated by its 
 baptism of blood and fire. Our gallant ship of State, 
 however angrily the surges of rebellion and disaster 
 may dash against her, and through whatever storms 
 and tempests her course may lead, shall not founder. 
 The poetic prophecy shall become history — 
 
 "Her topsails feel the freshening gale; 
 
 She strikes the opening sea; 
 She rounds the points, she threads the keys 
 
 That guard the land of flowers, 
 And rides at last where firm and fast 
 
 Her own Gibraltar towers! 
 
 The good ship Union's voyage is o'er, 
 
 At anchor safe she swings, 
 And loud and clear with cheer on cheer, 
 
 Her joyous welcome rings; 
 Hurrah! Hurrah! it shakes the wave, 
 
 It thunders on the shore — 
 One flag, one land, one heart, one hand, 
 
 One nation, evermore!" 
 
 Has not God said, "I will overturn, overturn, over- 
 turn it?" Now such a patriotism, founded in such 
 principles, rooted in such a soil, and contending with 
 such enemies and for such a priceless inheritance, is 
 
EDITORIAL ON PATRIOTISM. 247 
 
 worthy of our gratitude. We may and we should unite 
 as a people to render praise to God that we live to 
 mingle in such a strife; that we are permitted to feel 
 the impulses of this Divine patriotism, and to share the 
 glory of that inexpressible victory, when, not in theory 
 only, but in deed and in truth, we, as a Nation, shall 
 have wrought out and fought out and maintained, bj 
 God's blessing upon our patriotism and our arms, that 
 glorious truth, "Liberty and Union, one and inseparable, 
 now and forever!" 
 
 The paper still continued to show its patriotism 
 and loyalty to the Government, as well as to pro- 
 mote the spiritual interests of its readers. The fol- 
 lowing editorials were inserted at the dates indi- 
 cated : 
 
 PATRIOTISM. (May 3, 1862.) 
 
 "The love of one's country; the passion which 
 aims to serve one's country, either in defending it 
 from invasion, or protecting its rights, and maintain- 
 ing its laws and institutions in vigor and purity," is 
 denned to be patriotism. It is certainly the "char- 
 acteristic of a good citizen," and "the noblest passion 
 that animates a man in the character of a citizen." 
 We go further, and aver that we can not see how a 
 man who lacks patriotism can be a Christian. If un- 
 true to his country, how can he be true to his God? 
 "He that is unjust in that which is least, is unjust also 
 in that which is much." If a man be true to his God, 
 he can not be untrue to his country; because the love 
 of country is implanted by the Creator, and fidelity 
 to one's country is enjoined in the Word of God. Yet 
 patriotism is not the whole of religion. The same law 
 which enjoins civil obedience, and the same I^awgivej 
 
248 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 who denounces resistance to the powers that be, de- 
 mand that while we render to "Caesar the things that 
 are Caesar's," we shall render to God the things that 
 are God's. The former Christians should do, and not 
 leave the latter undone. It is a matter of gratitude and 
 hope that this Rebellion is developing bright and glo- 
 rious examples of patriotism. What a record is that 
 of Anderson, and Slemmer, and Doubleday, and Hart, 
 and Brownlow, and Andrew Johnson, and Prentice, 
 and the six hundred and fifty thousand men who are 
 laying their lives on the altar of country! There are 
 many unwritten examples. Bankers have freely ten- 
 dered their money, artisans their labors and inventions; 
 women, amid their tears, and with well-nigh breaking 
 hearts, have yielded their husbands, fathers, sons, 
 brothers, and lovers for the common safety and de- 
 liverance. All this has been voluntary; there has been 
 no conscription or impressment. Self-moved and vol- 
 untary, twenty millions — with occasional exceptions — ■ 
 have tendered everything sacred and dear on earth 
 for the defense of their country. Who can look upon 
 this remarkable exhibition without thanking God that 
 he is an American citizen? The mind loves to linger 
 upon individual instances and admire them. An old 
 naval officer who had seen a half-century of service 
 under the Starry Banner, was approached by rebels, 
 who sought to seduce him from his allegiance. They 
 offered him money, promotion, honors, if he would 
 desert his flag, and raise the Palmetto standard. He 
 asked them whether, after fifty years of service in the 
 United States navy, rendered under his official oath, 
 they could trust him should he join them. They re- 
 sponded affirmatively. "Then," said the noble, scarred 
 veteran, "if after all that you could trust me, I could 
 not trust youT and the seducers desisted. 
 
PATRIOTISM. 249 
 
 Not less striking is an instance which occurred in 
 Charleston, South Carolina. We submit it as we find 
 it in one of our exchanges : 
 
 Poor F is dead. Before the fall of Sumter he ex- 
 erted all his influence, using both pen and voice against 
 rebellion, until he was thrown into prison. At first he was 
 treated as an ordinary criminal awaiting trial; but after tbe 
 battle of Manassas the Confederates seemed drunk with 
 triumph at their victory, and mad with rage over the vast 
 number of victims who fell in their ranks. I wrote you with 
 what pomp this city mourned for her dead; amid it all, when 
 
 the Confederate host seemed likely to win, F was offered 
 
 freedom and promotion if he would espouse the Confederate 
 cause. "I have sworn allegiance to the Union," said he, "and 
 am not one to break my pledge." When tempted with pro- 
 motion if he could be prevailed on to enlist beneath their 
 banner, he said, "I love Carolina and the South; but I love 
 my country better." 
 
 Finding him faithful to the flag he loved, he was made 
 to feel the power of his enemies. He was cast into a miser- 
 able, damp, ill-ventilated cell, and fed on coarse fare; half the 
 time neglected by his drunken keeper. His property was 
 confiscated, and his wife and children beggared. Poor fellow! 
 he sank beneath his troubles, and was soon removed from 
 the persecution of his oppressors. The day before his death 
 he said to his wife, "Mary, you are beggared because I would 
 not prove disloyal." "God be thanked for your fidelity!" re- 
 plied the wife. "They have taken your wealth and life, but 
 coulcU not stain your honor, and our children shall boast of 
 an unspotted name. My husband, rejoice in your truth." 
 She returned to her friends after his death, openly declaring 
 her proudest boast should be, her husband died a martyr to 
 his patriotism. Who shall say the day of heroism has 
 passed? 
 
 We will not cite further examples at the present; 
 but we take leave to suggest that religion also has de- 
 mands upon us as Christians, as ministers, and as men. 
 In the excitements raging around us, and while pa- 
 triotism summons us to the rescue, let us not be for- 
 
250 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 getful of the religious duties we owe to God, to our- 
 selves, to our fellow-men. The Pittsburg Advocate has 
 a timely article on revival excitements. We give a 
 portion of it, and commend it to our readers : 
 
 It is no longer an experiment what effect the war is to 
 have on the institution of Christianity. Ten months of trial 
 has settled the question. At the beginning of the rebellion 
 all seemed uncertain and conjectural, and the outlook into 
 the future was gloomy and forbidding. Now prominent and 
 well-defined landmarks lie all around us. Guided by the 
 lights of the past month, it is easy to take soundings and 
 see whither we are drifting. 
 
 Throughout the rebel States religion has greatly suf- 
 fered. The papers published in the interest of the various 
 denominations have mostly yielded to the pressure of the 
 hour, and suspended. Occasionally a voice reaches us be- 
 wailing the desolations of Zion, and pointing to the temples 
 of religion as deserted and silent. Evidences from the South 
 are cumulative, that the history of religion under the incubus 
 of rebellion is a history of gloom and sadness. Societies 
 scattered, ministers without flocks and without support, the 
 benevolent enterprises of the Church paralyzed, — these are 
 pictures of religious life at the South, as drawn by their own 
 limners. It is not so with us. Except along the border, re- 
 ligious institutions continue to be observed, and religious 
 enterprises continue to move much as was their wont in times 
 of peace. The religious press is in vigorous operation. 
 Churches are well attended, and the support of the various 
 religious establishments suffer enly in proportion with the 
 general monetary interests of the country. Prosperity, so 
 grateful to the religious sense of the Nation, and withal 
 so unexpected, is cause for gratitude to the beneficent Giver 
 of every good and perfect gift. To all this a new evidence 
 of the Divine benediction on the Churches of the loyal 
 States is now to be superadded. Revival notices begin to 
 appear in the most of our religious exchanges, and form, 
 indeed, a considerable department in our own Church papers. 
 At no former period were these "times of refreshing from 
 the presence of the Lord" more grateful and encouraging, 
 since they attest that, amid the din and smoke of battle, God 
 has not forgotten his Church. 
 
THE REBELLION. 25 1 
 
 But it is a question whether we. are enjoying the utmost 
 prosperity that might fall to our lot. Perhaps we have al- 
 lowed the vast interests of religion to be thrown too much 
 into the shade by the towering and irresistible war spirit 
 that rules in the land. Perhaps we have not talked too much 
 about patriotism and the war; but too little about the sal- 
 vation of souls. Jesus Christ and him crucified, salvation by 
 faith, and reformations that shall lead to a life of well-doing, 
 are the sublime themes of the gospel ministry. These topics 
 will make the pulpit successful in winning souls even during 
 war times. But they must not be assigned a secondary rank. 
 The welfare of the soul is, beyond all other questions, of in- 
 finite moment. Nothing should be allowed to paralyze ef- 
 forts for its salvation — not politics, nor the pursuit of wealth, 
 nor even patriotism in this hour when the national life is in 
 controversy. It is the one work of the ministry to save men. 
 And it is pleasant to reflect that this work is going on with 
 vigor, though the Nation is involved in all the horrors of a 
 gigantic war. The honored minister of God, favored with 
 success in his work of winning souls, is achieving nobler 
 victories than the greatest military captains. And though a 
 rival excitement has for months engrossed all minds and 
 occupied all thoughts, this is not a wholly unpropitious time 
 to enforce on men the claims of religion. We are -a chas- 
 tened Nation. The hand of God has touched us. And this 
 hour of great national sorrow may furnish a fitting occasion 
 on which to press men to turn to God. Subdued by a sense 
 of helplessness, and admonished by the perils of the times, 
 to whom should the Nation look for help but God, and what 
 better occasion can the Church have for lifting the Nation 
 up to God? 
 
 THE REBELLION. (August 30, 1862.) 
 
 The great rebellion has been in operation consid- 
 erably over a year. Has the determination of the 
 loyal people to suppress the rebellion faltered? So 
 far from that, the purpose is constantly becoming 
 stronger, to maintain the national integrity against 
 any and all enemies, whether domestic or foreign, and 
 also to prosecute the war with greater vigor and more 
 terrible earnestness. An immense mass-meeting of 
 
252 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK'. 
 
 loyal citizens was hekl in New York on the 15th of 
 July last, which was as large as that of April, 186 1, 
 if not larger. At the recent gathering the resolutions 
 of 1861 were reaffirmed. Others were adopted ex- 
 pressive of the conviction that this war is waged only 
 for the overthrow of disloyalty ; that no claims or privi- 
 leges beyond those conferred by the Constitution upon 
 our fathers are sought; that the establishment and en- 
 forcement of the Constitution in all its vigor, not a line 
 erased or interpolated, is the great object sought. This 
 resolution also was adopted: 
 
 Resolved, That we are for the Union of the States, the 
 integrity of the country, and the maintenance of the Govern- 
 ment without any condition or qualification whatever; and 
 we will stand by them and uphold them under all circum- 
 stances, and at every necessary sacrifice of life or treasure. 
 
 These, and others expressive of confidence in the 
 Administration, and of admiration for the valor and 
 prowess of our army and navy, were adopted with en- 
 tire unanimity ; all showing that so far as New York, 
 the moneyed and commercial center of the Nation, is 
 concerned, the great heart of the people beats true to 
 the Government through the darkest and wildest 
 storms of revolution. 
 
 This resolution, adopted with the utmost enthusi- 
 asm, has the ring of the true metal : 
 
 Resolved, That, steadily pursuing the wise policy of our 
 fathers, we never mean to interfere in the internal conflicts 
 of foreign States; but here, beneath this outstretched sky, in 
 the presence of Almighty God, and of one another, we pledge 
 our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor, never to aban- 
 don this struggle while there remains a traitor in the land, 
 and that any armed intervention by any foreign Power in 
 our present domestic affliction shall prove the signal for the 
 spirit of Liberty to commence its triumphant march through 
 Europe. 
 
PUTTING DOWN THE REBELLION. 253 
 
 While the moderation, conciliation, and wisdom 
 of the Administration have elicited the approval of all 
 conservative men, yet true and loyal men in the border 
 States, the soldiers in the field, and the great mass of 
 the loyal people feel that the war should hereafter be 
 more vigorously and decisively prosecuted; that the 
 day for temporizing and for gentle measures has 
 passed. To this conclusion, it is believed, the Presi- 
 dent, Congress, and the people are rapidly coming 
 with great unanimity. That noble patriot, Andrew 
 Johnson, uttered the following in a Fourth of July 
 speech at Nashville: 
 
 Some professed to entertain a holy horror of coercion. 
 Why, force and error have coerced the South into her present 
 position, and nothing but force and power will bring her 
 back. You were coerced by the violence and force of seces- 
 sion, and the spirit of secession must be subdued and con- 
 trolled by force. The strong arm of the Government must 
 be bared, and justice must do her work. We may as well 
 understand the fact first as last, and go to work rationally. 
 Without force and power to coerce, we have no Government. 
 How have matters gone on heretofore? Why, when the 
 Union army came, the first to run to it for protection and 
 privileges were Secessionists, who got promises of protec- 
 tion if they would remain neutral. On the other hand, the 
 poor Union men were terrified with threats of vengeance 
 if the rebel army should return. The Secessionist was pro- 
 tected by the Union army, and was equally confident of pro- 
 tection should the rebel' army return; so he felt perfectly 
 easy. The Union man dreaded utter ruin should a reverse 
 occur, and was filled with perpetual alarm. So, under this 
 strange policy the rebel had two guarantees, and the Union 
 man but one. It was time this was stopped. The time has 
 arrived when treason must be made odious, and traitors im- 
 poverished. These men have used their prosperity to destroy 
 the Government, and fill the land with bankruptcy and dis- 
 tress; they have given their wealth freely to aid rebellion 
 and treason, and drench the land in fraternal blood, and 
 crush out the last vestige of liberty, and their property should 
 be taken from them to defray the expenses of the war. They 
 
254 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 are the guilty ones; they are the real criminals. The poor 
 have been deluded and dragged into this war, while the 
 authors and instigators, who have kept up the war by their 
 money and contributions, have skulked at home and de- 
 manded the protection of the Federal Government. Why, 
 many of these elegant gentlemen rebelled to get rid of paying 
 tluir Northern debts. If a miserable, crippled Negro, worth 
 five hundred dollars, was stolen, the Government must be 
 overthrown if the Negro could not be recovered; but your 
 polite, fastidious, and chivalrous merchant can go among 
 what he calls, "blue-bellied Yankees," buy their goods on 
 credit, and then, when pay-day comes, tell his creditors in 
 the North, "O, 1 have seceded!" It is an outrageous crime 
 to steal a Negro; but it is gentlemanly financiering to de- 
 fraud a Northern creditor of fifty or a hundred thousand 
 dollars. 
 
 THE REBELLION. (Jui,y 5, 1862.} 
 
 Three questions force themselves, at this moment, 
 upon the American people ; viz., Will this rebellion 
 soon be suppressed? Will its suppression restore 
 union and harmony between the sections now discord- 
 ant and belligerent? Will the present rebellion leave 
 the Union stronger or weaker than it was before? 
 
 The first question hardly needs an argument or a 
 reply. The affirmative answer comes up from millions 
 of loyal men and women. Only the secession sympa- 
 thizers in Europe, and those in the States whose sym- 
 pathies are with the insurrectionists, pretend to dissent 
 from the unanimous conclusion of loyal Americans 
 that the end of rebellion and insurrection draws near. 
 Already Southern papers and insurrectionists are full 
 of apprehension and alarm at the gloomy future which 
 spreads itself out like an angry cloud along their 
 horizon. The reasons for the affirmative response 
 may be briefly stated, thus: 
 
 (t) The right is on the side of the Government. 
 The object of the Government was in the beginning 
 
CRUSHING THE REBELLION. 255 
 
 to defend itself, and suppress the rebellion. To that 
 single purpose, President, Congress, and the army 
 have adhered with unvarying constancy. This fidelity 
 to the one purpose is one of the most marked and re- 
 markable characteristics of the war. True, Fremont 
 and Phelps and Hunter have seemed to deviate from 
 this object, and to convert the war into an emancipa- 
 tion measure; but their acts were disavowed by their 
 superiors, and these instances proved the exceptions 
 and not the rule. Is it not right for a Government as 
 good and as beneficent as ours to defend itself against 
 armed assassins? Is it too much to expect that in such 
 a conflict God will be on our side? Has not Provi- 
 dence already shown himself to be in our behalf? 
 
 (2) In this case, the right is supported by a large, 
 well-organized, well disciplined and officered army; 
 an army brave, invincible, and fighting intelligently for 
 a principle. Its superior in these respects has never 
 been seen. 
 
 (3) The resources of the Government are equal to 
 all the demands of the exigency. Money, men, fer- 
 tility of invention, are all with the Federal side. 
 
 (4) The history of the war thus far gives presage 
 of its early and complete triumph. Missouri, Arkan- 
 sas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Western and Eastern Vir- 
 ginia, North Carolina, Florida, have been wrested from 
 the polluting presence of treason. Everywhere, in 
 those and other portions of the country, our Starry 
 Banner floats, in proof of past, and in pledge of future, 
 progress and victory. 
 
 (5) The momentum of our previous success in the 
 conduct of the war presages the more certain and rapid 
 conquests awaiting our forces. As our momentum 
 increases, in the same or a greater ratio the dismay 
 and demoralization of the enemy are augmented. 
 
The answer of the second question is similar to that 
 of the first, for the following reasons: 
 
 (i) The people of the South have never, intelli- 
 gently and at heart, been in favor of this Rebellion. 
 
 (2) If they had been, the oppressions under which 
 they have suffered, and which were imposed by the 
 leaders of this horrid conspiracy, such as conscription 
 and the spoliation of their estates, would have detached 
 their sympathies. 
 
 (3) The moderation and justice of our armies will 
 undeceive multitudes who were deluded with the be- 
 lief that "Beauty and Booty" were the design of the 
 "Northern invaders," as the Union army were desig- 
 nated. 
 
 (4) The rapturous acclamations of the people, as 
 with tears and shouts they hailed and welcomed the 
 returning flag of our Union, prove that their old love 
 for the national colors was not dead, but only stifled ; 
 and that it will burn again as before, except that the 
 patriotism rekindled will be stronger and more incor- 
 ruptible. Yes, we shall again be one people, with a 
 common sympathy, a common patriotism, and a com- 
 mon destiny, the cords of national unity and peace 
 confirmed and established. 
 
 These answers to the first two inquiries forestall 
 that to the last. This Nation will be stronger and 
 better than before. Our enhanced Federal consoli- 
 dation and our success will not only preclude the hope 
 and the attempt of any future insurrection, but it will 
 at once raise the Government above the power of any 
 foreign nation. The United States will not only stand 
 abreast with Great Britain, France, or Russia; she will 
 rank any one of them single, and equal all of them 
 combined. But the great national debt, it is feared 
 by some, will cripple our energies and impoverish our 
 people. The fear is unfounded. The United States 
 
THE NATION'S STRENGTH. 257 
 
 were never so strong in the elements of material wealth 
 and greatness as now, while conducting this memo- 
 rable campaign ; and when it is fully over, the Nation 
 will shake off this incumbrance as the lion shakes the 
 dew of the morning from his mane, and start forward 
 upon a career of progress unprecedented in the his- 
 tory of the world. It is sad to think of the tens of thou- 
 sands of noble lives that have been sacrificed upon the 
 altar of liberty and law, and of the still greater num- 
 bers who bear, and who will bear, the scars of terrible 
 battle. Yet these will embalm the more in the affec- 
 tions of a delivered and great people the cause which 
 demanded not in vain such a libation. Dark as has 
 been the stormcloud which has spent its fury upon 
 us, already the bow of promise spans the heavens, and 
 beyond the present hour may be seen the clear azure 
 and the shining sun. 
 17 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 BEFORE Oregon was admitted as a State in 
 1857, even before she was organized as a Ter- 
 ritory by Congress, which occurred August 14, 
 1848, emigrants in considerable numbers from Cali- 
 fornia and the Atlantic States had settled in Oregon. 
 In 1834, Oregon had received an accession to her 
 population, made up of missionaries sent thither 
 by the Missionary Society of the Methodist Epis- 
 copal Church. There were Revs. Jason and Daniel 
 Lee, and probably one or two others, who sailed 
 to Oregon by sea around Cape Horn. This action 
 was probably stimulated by the appearance in St. 
 Louis, some years before, of three Flathead In- 
 dians from beyond the Rocky Mountains, inquiring 
 for the white man's God and the white man's Bible. 
 The event created great interest throughout the 
 United States. After going to Oregon and sur- 
 veying the situation, Mr. Lee found it impossible 
 to plant Indian missions in Oregon unless a re- 
 enforcement of men and women should be sent, 
 who would be able to procure subsistence in Ore- 
 gon, and who should have within themselves the 
 power to produce the necessary provisions for sus- 
 taining life in that distant and unfurnished country. 
 The Indians could not feed the newcomers. In- 
 deed, it was all the Indians could do, by hunting 
 and fishing, to provide their own means of sub- 
 sistence, by hunting the game in that country, and 
 
 258 
 
METHODIST MISSION COLONY. 259 
 
 by gathering food from the rivers, which abounded 
 in salmon. 
 
 The Hudson Bay Company had possession of 
 Oregon, with their stockade forts and trading fac- 
 tories, in which they exchanged goods for peltries 
 and furs. They also produced from the soil, and 
 from flocks and herds of poultry and cattle, some 
 of the means of sustentation, and these they would 
 not share with the missionaries, whereby they 
 might raise those things themselves. It was sup- 
 posed that the Hudson Bay Company, with these 
 accessions, would be able to maintain by occupa- 
 tion the British right to Oregon, which then in- 
 cluded all that was later known as Oregon, Wash- 
 ington, Idaho, and Montana. 
 
 Jason Lee returned to the States from Oregon, 
 taking with him two Flathead 'Indians, with whom 
 he traversed the country, making speeches on Ore- 
 gon and displaying his Indian boys. His presence 
 and appeals produced a strong impression upon all 
 the people, especially upon the Methodists. Large 
 contributions of money were made, and a consider- 
 able re-enforcement of mechanics and farmers and 
 teachers and millwrights sailed for Oregon in the 
 good ship Lausanne in 1839, via Cape Horn and 
 the Sandwich Islands. They arrived in Oregon in 
 1840, when the mission colony numbered fifty-two 
 adults and twenty children. It was current rumor 
 that the United States assisted the outfit, by con- 
 tributions- from the secret service fund, and that this 
 was done with a view of furnishing the claim to 
 Oregon, as a part of the national domain, by the 
 
260 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK, 
 
 argument from occupation. It is generally be- 
 lieved that these early residents, colonists, and mis- 
 sionaries were potent factors in determining the 
 settlement of the north boundary contention in 
 favor of the United States. 
 
 A recent attempt has been made to claim for 
 Dr. Marcus Whitman, a Presbyterian missionary 
 to Oregon, the credit for having determined the 
 right of the United States to Oregon. The claim, 
 however, has not adequate support from existing 
 facts. Rev. H. K. Hines, D. D., one of the later 
 missionaries to Oregon, has, in my judgment, fully 
 established the claim of Jason Lee to the high 
 honor which has been sought for Dr. Whitman. 
 Dr. Marcus Whitman and his wife, Rev. H. H. 
 vSpalding and his wife, and W. H. Gray, crossed the 
 Plains in 1836, two years after the arrival of Jason 
 and Daniel Lee. Mr. Lee's re-enforcements 
 reached Oregon in 1840. Those of Dr. Whitman 
 four years later. Dr. Hines, in a very able and fair 
 historical article in the Methodist Review \ and in 
 papers since published in the Pacific Christian Ad- 
 vocate, has conclusively supported the superior 
 claims of Jason Lee and his associates over those 
 of Dr. Whitman to the high honor claimed for Dr. 
 Whitman. 
 
 The Hudson Bay Company would not furnish 
 sheep or cattle or horses or poultry to the mission- 
 aries. Mr. Lee went to California and procured 
 them, whereby flocks and herds and poultry were 
 grown, and thus the missionaries had meat for food. 
 In 1843 tne settlers in the Willamette Valley num- 
 
OREGON TERRITORY ORGANIZED. 26 1 
 
 bered two hundred and forty-two. Steps were 
 taken to secure a Government, by a choice of offi- 
 cers and the organization of a Provisional Govern- 
 ment for Oregon. George Abernethy, a layman, 
 and one of the re-enforcemnt of 1840, was elected 
 the provisional governor. Five years later the 
 United States Congress, August 14, 1848, organ- 
 ized the Territory of Oregon. The Act included 
 the Donation Land Law, by which every white set- 
 tler in Oregon, being there as such, and afterwards, 
 until December 1, 1851, was entitled to three hun- 
 dred and twenty acres of land, if a single man ; and 
 if a married man, his wife was also entitled to a like 
 quantity. That law also gave to every missionary 
 station then existing in Oregon six hundred and 
 forty acres of land, including the site of the mission. 
 The northwestern boundary-line was, however, 
 long a vexed question between the two Govern- 
 ments. Great Britain claimed Oregon from the 
 30th degree of north latitude to the 60th degree 
 of north latitude. The United States claimed Ore- 
 gon by virtue of the entrance of Captain Gray into 
 the Columbia River in 1792. We also held that 
 Oregon was included in the sale of Louisiana by 
 France in 1803. In 181 8 a treaty of joint occupa- 
 tion was made between the two Governments, 
 which left these lines as a vexed question. In 1842 
 the treaty fixing the northern boundary-line of the 
 United States at 49 degrees north latitude was con- 
 cluded between the United States and Great Brit- 
 ain, Daniel'Webster and Lord Ashburton the com- 
 missioners between the contracting powers. It was 
 
262 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 not ratified until 1846. Great Britain wanted the 
 whole island of Vancouver, which the 49th parallel 
 of north latitude bisected into nearly equal halves. 
 The Gulf of Georgia divides Vancouver Island from 
 the mainland. At the 49th parallel the gulf be- 
 tween the island and the mainland is quite narrow. 
 The boundary-line at the point of intersection of 
 the island is in terms as follows : "Thence (westerly) 
 on the 49th degree of north latitude to the center 
 of the Gulf of Georgia, and thence by the main ship 
 channel to the Straits of Fuca, and thence through 
 the Straits of Fuca to the sea." The part of the 
 Gulf of Georgia south of 49 degrees north latitude 
 is an immense body of water, with very many isl- 
 ands, large and small, and a shore-line of twenty- 
 eight hundred miles. There are two channels 
 through the Gulf of Georgia, viz. : The Canal de 
 Haro and the Straits of Rosario. The former is 
 plain, short, and direct to the sea. It hugs Van- 
 couver Island right around to the ocean. A ship 
 turned loose on the 49th parallel would follow the 
 channel current without guide or pilot out to the 
 sea. The channel called the Straits of Rosario is 
 long, crooked, difficult, and unsafe. It hugs the 
 shore of the bay, throwing all the islands in the 
 Gulf of Georgia south of the 49th parallel into 
 British America; whereas, the object in deflecting 
 the line on the east side of Vancouver Island was 
 to throw that island into British America, the 
 Straits of Rosario line would throw hundreds of 
 other islands south of 49th parallel to Great Brit- 
 ain. We claimed all those islands in the Gulf of 
 
NORTH BOUNDARY OF WASHINGTON. 263 
 
 Georgia, maintaining, and rightly, that the Canal 
 de Haro was the boundary-line around Vancouver 
 Island. The Legislature of Washington Territory 
 formed the county of Whatcom, to include the 
 islands in the Gulf of Georgia. The island of San 
 Juan lies on the south and east side of the Canal 
 de Haro, and the island of San Juan was then in- 
 cluded in the county of Whatcom. 
 
 An employee of the Hudson Bay Company had 
 squatted on the northwest end of San Juan with 
 a flock of sheep. A Yankee settler had taken up 
 his claim on the other end of the same island. His 
 stock consisted of hogs. The hogs had trespassed 
 upon the grounds of the Britisher; or, vice versa, 
 the sheep of the Britisher had trespassed upon the 
 lands of the Yankee. Both men were tenacious 
 and plucky; neither would yield. They would en- 
 force their several claims. The Britisher had re- 
 enforced himself with an armed company of ma- 
 rines. Brother Jonathan had re-enforced himself 
 by a company of United States infantry, under 
 command of Captain Pickett, later known as Gen- 
 eral Pickett of the Confederate army. Thus they 
 confronted one another with shotted guns. The 
 slightest mismove might have precipitated war. 
 This was the situation in the summer of 1859. 
 President Buchanan sent General Winfield Scott 
 to negotiate a truce, until King William of Prus- 
 sia should decide which of these two channels, 
 the Canal de Haro or the Straits of Rosario, was 
 the true boundary-line between Great Britain and 
 the United States, A few years ago he decided that 
 
264 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 the Canal de Ilaro was the boundary-line. When 
 I saw General Scott on his visit to Oregon upon 
 that mission, he was one of the finest-looking men 
 I ever saw. He was somewhat corpulent, but not 
 excessively so. He must have been some years 
 past seventy ; probably seventy-three. His express- 
 ive blue eyes, and his ruddy, blond complexion, 
 his style, and poise, deeply impressed me. I pub- 
 lished the following sketch of him about the time 
 when he was retired, by his own request, from act- 
 ive military life. He was brevet lieutenant-general 
 from January, 1841, to November 1, 1861 : 
 
 GENERAL SCOTT. 
 
 Our readers will have noticed that General Win- 
 field Scott, by his own request, has been placed, by 
 order of the President, upon the retired list, and thus, 
 after many years of service and honor, he ceases to be 
 the commander-in-chief of the military forces of the 
 United States. 
 
 General Scott was born the 13th of June, 1786. 
 He is, therefore, now over seventy-six years of age. 
 He studied law in Richmond, Virginia but through 
 the influence of a friend obtained, May 8, 1808, a cap- 
 taincy in the light artillery. In 1809 he was ordered to 
 New Orleans, where he gave offense to his command- 
 ing officer, Wilkinson, by his severe military criticisms, 
 and was tried by court-martial upon a charge of em- 
 bezzlement, and, second, that he used disrespectful 
 language towards his commanding officer. He was 
 acquitted of the first charge; but upon the second he 
 was sentenced to suspension from rank and pay for 
 one year. He spent the year at the house of Benjamin 
 Watkins Leigh in pursuing military studies, and prob- 
 
GENERAL WINFIELD SCOTT. 265 
 
 ably there laid the foundation of his future fame. In 
 July, 181 2, he was appointed lieutenant-colonel, and 
 was stationed at Black Rock. On the 13th of October 
 he was taken prisoner at the disastrous battle of 
 Queenstown Heights; not, however, till he had shown 
 of what he was capable when his blood was up. After 
 his exchange he joined General Dearborn as his adju- 
 tant, in which capacity he was of great use in organiz- 
 ing the several departments of the army. He led the 
 advance when Fort George was taken by storm, and 
 tore down the British colors with his own hands. In 
 July, 18 1 3, Scott was promoted to the command of 
 two regiments, resigning his adjutancy. In September 
 he burnt the barracks and public stores at Toronto, 
 took eleven armed boats, considerable ammunition, 
 and several cannon. The year 1813, upon the whole, 
 closed disastrously to the American arms. But Scott's 
 name loomed up as the coming man, and in March, 
 1814, he received the appointment of brigadier-general. 
 The army placed in quarters were drilled for more 
 than three months by Scott himself, and were perfected 
 in all the evolutions of war. On the 3d of July, Scott 
 took possession of Fort Erie, and on the 5th was 
 fought the battle of Chippewa, on an open plain. With 
 hardly equal numbers, our brave army met the veterans 
 of England, and displayed to the world that we were 
 of the old race, and that the blood of Crecy, Poitiers, 
 of Agincourt and of Blenheim, tingled in our veins. 
 Twenty days after was fought the battle of Niagara — 
 the most bloody, determined engagement which ever 
 took place on this continent, and, in proportion to 
 numbers engaged, the most bloody of modern warfare. 
 While Chippewa and Lundy's Lane are remembered, 
 we shall hear of no intervention on the part of Eng- 
 land. If Scott had done nothing more than given us 
 Chippewa and Niagara, it should render him immortal. 
 
266 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 They were the prelude of future greatness. They set- 
 tled, quite as much as Webster, the northeastern boun- 
 dary question, the Oregon question, the Mosquito 
 question, and will have an ever-living, abiding influ- 
 ence in all questions yet to come. 
 
 We have not time to mention the services of Gen- 
 eral Scott from the time he left Niagara, wounded, 
 to the present hour. It is known of all men. His 
 arduous, patriotic toil; his wisdom in the South Caro- 
 lina troubles, in the various disputes with England; 
 his triumphant march on the capital of the Monte- 
 zumas, worthy of Marlborough or Turenne; his wise 
 foresight in our present troubles in advising Mr. Buch- 
 anan to increase the force in the Southern forts. But 
 in our opinion, the service which he rendered his 
 country, high above all others — higher by far than 
 the glories of Niagara, Cerro Gordo, or Chapultepec; 
 higher, brighter, purer, more enduring than the most 
 resplendent military achievement — was the shield which 
 his great name afforded against the assaults of Con- 
 federate traitors, banded together to overthrow our 
 Constitution, to trample on our laws, dissever our 
 Union, and throw the pall of anarchy over the fairest 
 fabric of Constitutional freedom the world has ever 
 known. All honor to the gallant Massachusetts vol- 
 unteers, who again rendered illustrious the 19th of 
 April ; all honor to the New York Seventh, to all the 
 patriotic hosts who rushed to the defense of the be- 
 leagured Capital, — but had Scott not been there to 
 regulate and arrange, to create and discipline, we have 
 little doubt we should to-day have to mourn over the 
 burning embers of our smoking Capitol. Go, then, 
 leader of our armies ; thou hast led us to victory and 
 honor; thou hast saved us in the hour of our peril, 
 and as thou descendest into the dark night of the 
 tomb thou wilt be followed by the best wishes of a 
 
FIRST MISSION HOUSE IN OREGON 267 
 
 still great, happy, free, exulting Nation. Your name 
 and ours are forever united. Washington first, Scott 
 second; who shall be third? 
 
 When this sketch was written, Lincoln had not 
 yet achieved the glory which afterwards garlanded 
 him. Grant and Garfield were then unknown 
 quantities. 
 
 OUR FIRST MISSION HOUSE IN OREGON. 
 
 Our missionaries in Oregon having, in Sep- 
 tember, 1834, selected the spot on which to erect 
 a comfortable habitation, like pioneer settlers, as 
 well as teachers of our holy religion, they began 
 to clear the land and build a log house. They 
 labored under great inconveniences, as must be 
 supposed. Their oxen were but half-tamed, their 
 tools few and needing to be put in order, and their 
 best shelter, after the fatigue of the day, was a can- 
 vas tent. To add to their trials, a violent storm of 
 wind and rain visited them in the midst of their 
 labor, wetting their effects and flooding their 
 works. But all this they submitted to patiently, 
 and in a few weeks their tabernacle in this wilder- 
 ness was set up in the name of the great God, whom 
 this dark corner of the earth had never known, and 
 was so far completed as to shelter them from the 
 approaching rainy season. It was, doubtless, to 
 eyes accustomed to look upon the elegant man- 
 sions of civilized society, but a rude hut. Its di- 
 mensions were thirty feet in length and twenty feet 
 in width, separated into two rooms by a partition 
 in the middle. Rough doors split from the logs 
 
268 SIXTY- ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 and hung on wooden hinges, a plank floor, a chim- 
 ney made of sticks and lined with clay, and four 
 windows, the sashes made in part with a jack- 
 knife, constituted its finishing. Its furniture con- 
 sisted of a chair, a table, and stools, all of domestic 
 manufacture. Their cows afforded them milk, and 
 to the provisions of their outfit were added a little 
 flour from Vancouver, and occasionally game from 
 the Indians. Thus provided, they commenced 
 clearing the land to plant for their future suste- 
 nance, to teach the natives, and preach to the emi- 
 grants, as opportunities were presented. 
 
 The Methodist missionaries who went to Ore- 
 gon in 1834 had much to do in determining the 
 question of Oregon's entering into the national 
 domain. In 1846 the slogan of the Democratic 
 party, when Mr. Polk ran upon that ticket, was 
 "54 degrees 40 minutes, or fight." The treaty be- 
 tween Great Britain and the United States fixed 
 the 49th degree of north latitude as our boundary. 
 But we probably should not have obtained even 
 that if Oregon had not been in possession by the 
 emigrations induced to seek Oregon because the 
 Methodists had pioneered the way. 
 
Ttorri fetiai. 
 
 Reconstruction. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 IN asking a year's absence from the Oregon Con- 
 ference, the chief object was, that I might put in 
 some work for the Boys in Blue at the front. I 
 should have been in the service of the country as a 
 soldier, only that I was so situated that I could not 
 well leave the work placed upon me by my election 
 as editor of a religious paper in a new and distant 
 part of the country, however strong my inclination 
 might have been, without unfaithfulness to a trust 
 which had been accepted by me. 
 
 When mv nine years of service on the Pacific 
 Christian Advocate were up, I declined a re-election. 
 I placed my wife and our adopted daughter at a 
 friend's in Madison, New York, and made my way 
 to City Point, in Virginia, in January following, 
 as a delegate of the Christian Commission. The 
 Sanitary Commission and the Christian Commis- 
 sion were kindred voluntary associations for help- 
 ing the soldiers in the field. The former supplied 
 the soldiers with proper physical care and pro- 
 vision, thus supplementing the army rations with 
 delicacies and comforts, especially in the time of 
 military engagements, and then furnishing nursing 
 and care to the sick and wounded soldiers. The 
 latter also applied physical nursing and care to the 
 sick and wounded men at the front, and added to 
 these physical ministrations those of a moral and 
 spiritual character. While the country was heavily 
 
 271 
 
272 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 taxed for the war expenses, the people of the 
 United States could not resist the patriotic and 
 philanthropic impulse to send additional provisions 
 and help to the Union soldiers. In this behalf, ten 
 millions of dollars were contributed by each of these 
 benevolent associations to this humane purpose, by 
 means of the ladies and gentlemen co-operating 
 in this behalf. The Christian Commission raised 
 as much in their work for the moral and spiritual 
 welfare and comfort of the Union soldiers. 
 
 The two months I spent as a delegate of the 
 Christian Commission, while involving some hard- 
 ships and discomforts, nevertheless yielded a rich 
 compensation. I preached to soldiers two or three 
 evenings each week, and on Sundays once or twice 
 each Sunday. Many of them heard their last ser- 
 mon on earth from my lips. Some of the incidents 
 were of thrilling interest, and all of them were sadly 
 enjoyable. The reader will share somewhat in the 
 pleasure I found in ministering to my fellow- 
 patriots in their suffering and sore need on the field, 
 in the amputating-room, and in the hospital, by 
 re-traversing the service as here outlined, or by my 
 adducing of excerpta from my daily memoranda 
 of those weeks and months of this voluntary service. 
 
 General Grant extended his left line some three 
 or four miles to Hatcher's Run. This was some 
 five or six miles up the railroad from City Point. 
 Several of us went up the first day of the engage- 
 ment, and stopped at the railroad station there, to 
 attend upon some soldiers who had been wounded 
 in the battle, and brought down from the lines in 
 
WOUNDED SOLDIERS. 273 
 
 ambulances to be placed in cars, if able to endure 
 the trip, and to be transported by rail to City Point 
 hospital. Those unable to endure transportation 
 were to remain in tents for treatment, as their con- 
 dition might seem to require. It was a stinging 
 cold February night. The wounded boys had been 
 temporarily treated, and sent down to the railroad. 
 We gave them hot coffee and nourishing food, and 
 placed them in the cars. 1 carried one bright 
 young lad, and laid him gently in the car upon 
 straw provided for the purpose. After laying him 
 down, I saw in his overcoat breast-pocket a small 
 Bible. Said I, "Soldier, may I look at your book?" 
 He nodded consent. I opened the Bible, and read 
 the name inserted on the fly-leaf. The inscription 
 ran : "To my dear son, Edward , from his lov- 
 ing mother: My son, make this book the guide of 
 your daily life." I said to him, "Have you complied 
 with your mother's request?" "O yes," was the 
 reply. "Do you love this blessed Book?" He said, 
 "Yes, indeed." "Do you love the Lord?" He 
 made answer: "Yes, I do. He has been with me 
 every day since I left home and came into the army. 
 The Lord is very good, indeed, to me. He has 
 never forsaken me." 
 
 I found a man in the ambulance awaiting some 
 one or more to carry him to the car. He had been 
 severely wounded. He had lost much blood, and 
 he was suffering very greatly. I felt his pulse. It 
 was quite weak, denoting prostration. I gave him 
 some hot coffee, and put some cordial tonic into 
 it, hoping to rally and revive him before he should 
 18 
 
274 SIXTY- ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 be put into the car. He was an Irishman. He in- 
 quired, "Is it a chaplain yees are?" "O no !" said I ; 
 "I am a minister, and I came down in the service 
 of the Christian Commission to the field, to help 
 you in your need, and to show you that you are 
 not forgotten nor neglected by us." "Well ! well !" 
 said he; "I don't know much about that society; 
 but I do say from my heart, God bless all the likes 
 o' yees." I heard of another Irishman who was 
 
 dying, and Dr. M told him of Jesus and his 
 
 love, and prayed for him in his last moments. He 
 gave him his blessing in this form: "May God 
 Almighty bliss ye and kape ye, and whin ye die may 
 ivery blissed hair iv your head be a lighted candle 
 to light your soul through purgatory !" 
 
 After the cars were filled and the train had 
 started, I went into one of the tents. A soldier was 
 just brought in, who was shot in the neck. He was 
 unconscious. I assisted in holding him up in the 
 cot until they could get off his clothes to examine 
 his wounds. The tent was quite warm; the smell 
 of the blood and the grasp of my hand by the suf- 
 ferer overcame me. I called an orderly to take 
 my place, and went out into the cold and lay down 
 upon my back to prevent fainting away. I recov- 
 ered, and resumed the service for several hours, 
 going from tent to tent and from ambulance to 
 ambulance, to render help as needed. The next 
 day I went up to the battle-field. I took my place 
 in the rear of the lines, to assist with stretchers 
 to carry wounded men to ambulances, to be thus 
 conveyed to the field hospital. The bullets sang 
 
IN THE FIELD HOSPITAL. 275 
 
 in the trees above me, and the leaves clipped by the 
 shots were all the time falling. 
 
 In the afternoon I was assigned to duty at the 
 field hospital. We were very busy carrying 
 wounded men on stretchers into and from the hos- 
 pital. One noble young man, a colonel, had been 
 struck on the knee by an exploding shell, shatter- 
 ing the knee. His limb required amputation well 
 up towards the thigh. His leg was taken off, and 
 he was placed on a stretcher, and carried upon it 
 six or seven miles to the general hospital at the 
 Point by relays of, carriers. The case was pathetic. 
 His term of enlistment had expired the day before. 
 Some days after this I went into the hospital at 
 City Point. His wound had sloughed. The artery 
 had lost the ligature. The limb had been again 
 cut off higher up, and again it had sloughed. The 
 orderly was holding the artery closed by his thumb. 
 The soldier was delirious. He was muttering tus 
 commands. After holding the artery for some 
 time, the surgeon said, "Let go." In a very few 
 minutes he had passed away. 
 
 In the field hospital at the close of the day 
 there was a large and ghastly pile of dismembered 
 legs and arms to be seen. The field hospital was an 
 old-fashioned Viriginia house, with a large hall in 
 the center, and on one side the hall was the parlor, 
 converted into an operating-room. Over the man- 
 tel was an engraving oi Bishop Porteus's "Court 
 of Death." The floor was slippery with human 
 blood, and that picture was in keeping with the 
 gory scene of the amputating-room. On the other 
 
276 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 side of the hall was the residence room. At each 
 end of the house, and on its outside, was the inevi- 
 table chimney. During the day there was a lull 
 in the fighting, and in which no victims were 
 brought in. The surgeon had opened the piano, 
 which stood in the hall, an old, decayed instrument, 
 whose brassy, tinkling strings were unmusical and 
 discordant. An orderly was found who could play. 
 The women of the family were brought to the door, 
 and treated to Union music. The roar of the can- 
 non had become still. Behind the two white wo- 
 men were the black women of the place, as a setting 
 for the picture. Led by the instrument, the boys 
 sang, "John Brown's body lies a-moldering in the 
 grave," and "We '11 hang Jeff Davis on a sour 
 apple-tree." "Well, you '11 have to catch him first, ,, 
 said one of the angry women. I learned afterwards 
 that the reason for this infliction was this: A 
 wounded soldier lay in the yard, who had been dis- 
 emboweled by a shell. His dying agonies were 
 mocked by the woman, as having deserved and in- 
 curred this suffering by invading the sacred soil of 
 Virginia. After this musical entertainment the sur- 
 geon said he had got even with that inhuman fe- 
 male mocker, and he was satisfied. 
 
 During one of those days, D wight L. Moody 
 and I went together into the Negro quarters, and 
 he conversed with some of the colored women 
 awhile. He asked a Negress, "Aunty, do you think 
 the lord Jesus loves his colored children as much 
 as he does the whites?" After a slight pause, she 
 
IN THE FIELD HOSPITAL. 2JJ 
 
 replied, "Brother, the Lord Jesus loves all his re- 
 deemed children." 
 
 My main place of work was in the field hospital. 
 I had charge of a ward of two hundred patients. 
 Some were suffering from wounds, others from 
 fever or pneumonia or some other ailment. I vis- 
 ited them twice a day, and sometimes three times. 
 I conversed with them, wrote letters for them to 
 their friends, and prayed with any of them who 
 desired it. Generally, the evening call was the 
 most impressive, as usually the deaths occurred 
 during the night, and we buried from two to six or 
 eight each morning, burying them with military 
 honors. 
 
 One evening I passed the cot of a dear young 
 soldier with whom I had conversed freely, and who 
 had expressed himself as ready to die. I had writ- 
 ten for him several times to his parents and sisters. 
 As I was about passing his cot he seemed sleeping. 
 I laid my hand gently upon his head, and let it rest 
 there for some moments. He opened his eyes, and 
 fixed their large, expressive look upon me, and 
 said: "That was so sweet. I dreamed it was my 
 mother's hand upon my head." The next morn- 
 ing his cot was vacant, and I had the sad duty of 
 committing his body to the grave, "Earth to earth, 
 ashes to ashes, dust to dust." I wrote his mother 
 of the safe and beautiful death of her darling son. 
 
 I had a chat with a gray-haired Negro about 
 the war. Said I, "Uncle, I hear it said that you 
 colored folks do n't want to be free; that you would 
 
278 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 rather be slaves than be free." "Well," said he, 
 "massa, you shall tie up a dog to a tree, and give 
 him a long rope. He will go this way as far as he 
 can, and then go the other way as far as he can, 
 and then set up a dreadful howl. Now," said he, 
 "if a dog feels that way to be confined, how do you 
 suppose a man would feel to be a slave?" 
 
 Chaplain Hunt told me this story about a col- 
 ored man early in the war, before the Negroes had 
 been enlisted into the army. He said, "Uncle, why 
 don't you colored people fight?" He replied, "O 
 massa, we 's de bone." "Well, but," said the chap- 
 lain, "why don't you colored folks fight?" He 
 responded : "Masssa, we 's de bone. You see two 
 dogs fighting over de bone; de bone don't fight." 
 
 I attended a colored meeting in the 24th Army 
 Corps. It was a very lively meeting. One person 
 had had some difficulty in getting a chance to tell 
 his experience. He said: "I done left my wife and 
 my two offsprings in Norfolk, on de oder side of 
 our lines. Byme-by, when de cruel war is ober, if 
 we should never meet again on dis earth, we shall 
 meet in heaven. The city up dere have four gates, 
 and if she goes in at one gate, and I go in at an- 
 other, it will be all the same as if we bof went 
 through the same gate." Another man expressed 
 himself thus: "Brudders! Lub will gib de debil de 
 lockjaw. You think dat am a queer saying, but 
 I will prove him. When Massa Jesus converted my 
 soul, den T prays to him, and I said, 'O Massa 
 Jesus, convert Massa Tom, for he used de lash on 
 me heavy because I pray.' Den Massa Tom he was 
 
PASSING THE LINES. 279 
 
 converted. He say to me in de mawning, 'Now, 
 Jem, it is time to get up and come in to prayers.' 
 Befo' it was a crack of de whip and a bitter curse ; 
 now de whip is done gone, and Massa Tom he 
 prays instead." 
 
 I once went through Grant's lines before Rich- 
 mond without a pass. George H. Stuart, the presi- 
 dent of our Christian Commission, sent a number 
 of Philadelphia gentlemen down to the Point, who 
 were greatly interested in the work of the Christian 
 Commission, and they wished to go through 
 Grant's lines. Rev. Erastus Smith, the gentleman 
 in charge of our work at the front, desired me to 
 take the company through the lines. But our 
 passes had all been sent up to General Ord's head- 
 quarters for renewal, and none of us had the pass- 
 word. We entered the Christian Commission am- 
 bulance, which had our name painted upon it in 
 large, white letters ; and then, besides, I carried the 
 badge of all delegates of the Christian Commission 
 upon my right coat lapel. When we reached the 
 sentinel he demanded the password. I told him 
 the situation : "These gentlemen must go back to 
 Philadelphia to-day. They are great contributors 
 to our funds, and brimming over with loyalty. You 
 see this badge, and you see that is the Christian 
 Commission ambulance." "Well," says he, "it is 
 in violation of my orders." Said I, "Can not you 
 speak to your chief, the officer in command?" He 
 did so, and we went through without interruption. 
 He said, "You must take the risk about getting 
 through when you return," When I returned an- 
 
28o SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 other sentinel was on guard. He refused to let me 
 pass, and we could not get through until a messen- 
 ger was sent to General Ord's quarters. Then, 
 when I gave him the password, we got through. 
 My service in the army was exceedingly fasci- 
 nating. I would not be without it upon any con- 
 sideration. I was in only the one battle I have de- 
 scribed. War is a dreadful scourge. Patriotism 
 and philanthropy have large scope and verge when 
 war lifts its horrid front. These virtues shine con- 
 spicuously on the wrinkled visage of bloody war. 
 They show that, dreadful as war is, it has its offsets 
 in the charities which keep step with the army, and 
 display and dispense their divine, angelic healing 
 and help amid the shadows and bloody orgies of 
 war. I shall ever be thankful for the opportunity 
 which God gave me to minister for him to my fel- 
 low-citizens in the field of strife and death. And I 
 shall all the more appreciate the sterling patriotism 
 displayed, both in the field and by the citizenship 
 of the country generally, in sustaining the army. 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 THIS chapter opens with a new departure. My 
 transfer to East Tennessee seems to me quite as 
 providential as any other part of my checkered life. 
 My intense sympathy with the Union cause during 
 the war led me greatly to admire the patriotism 
 of the people in this Switzerland of the United 
 States. The heroism of the Waldensians and the 
 Albigenses on the southern slopes of the Alps, 
 during centuries of bloody papal persecution, al- 
 ways kindled my liveliest admiration. To them I 
 likened the East Tennesseeans and the Bridge- 
 burners, who took this method to impede the trans- 
 portation of Confederate troops and munitions of 
 war. This they did deliberately and fearlessly on 
 peril of their lives, and at the cost of their lives. I 
 have often wept while reading the story of their 
 intensely loyal deeds, and the dreadful work they. 
 so bravely, and even cheerfully, accepted. 
 
 I decided that if Providence would so direct, 
 it would give me great pleasure to serve them as a 
 minister. I had tempting offers to stay in Oregon. 
 I was offered the editorship of the Pacific Christian 
 Advocate. I was invited to become the pastor of 
 Union Methodist Episcopal Church in St. Louis, 
 and to re-enter my old Conference, and become 
 pastor of some of my former charges there : Bing- 
 hamton, N. Y., and Wilkesbarre, Pa. I decided 
 to come East, and get nearer the Hub. Oregon 
 
 281 
 
282 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 was on the periphery. All my relatives and those 
 of my wife were three or four thousand miles away. 
 I could not return to visit them, without incurring 
 several hundred dollars' expenses. During the war 
 my heart was with the flag and the Union it repre- 
 sented. I chafed under the inexorable conditions 
 which compelled my stay so far away from the cen- 
 ter of things. When my eight years of General 
 Conference editorship on the Advocate were up, I 
 declined a re-election, as already stated, so that I 
 might be more nearly in the midst of events. 
 
 Coming East, many tempting offers were made 
 me. Bishop Clark presided in the Oregon Confer- 
 ence, when, in October, 1864, I left on a year's 
 leave of absence, the first object of which was that 
 I might put in service in the field as a delegate of 
 the Christian Commission, a purpose which I ex- 
 ecuted at my own expense the last two months of 
 the war. Bishop Clark expressed the hope that he 
 could place me in the South in Church recon- 
 struction. Thus things were urged upon my atten- 
 tion. I attended the session of the Wyoming Con- 
 ference. The other calls were not yet imminent. 
 I was readmitted among my earlier Conference as- 
 sociates where I began my ministry. I took an 
 appointment in Binghamton, where a new and ele- 
 gant church was to be built in one of the last 
 charges I had filled before going to Oregon. Thus 
 and there I wrought for six weeks, telling the 
 Binghamton friends that my heart was in the 
 South, and that if the call came I would have to 
 obey it. Bishop Clark wrote to me, inviting me 
 
HOLSTON CONFERENCE REORGANIZED. 283 
 
 to accompany him in June to East Tennessee, from 
 which an urgent appeal had come from a large 
 laymen's and ministers' Convention, asking the 
 bishops of the dear old Methodist Episcopal 
 Church again to extend over them their sheltering 
 wing. I laid his letter before my Official Board, 
 and obtained their approval of my going and a 
 three weeks' leave of absence. They expressed the 
 hope that, however urgent the call for my transfer 
 might be, I would decline it, and return to them. 
 I went. The spirit of the men was contagious. 
 Their story of the sufferings and sacrifices they had 
 endured for the dear old flag set my heart all aflame 
 to enter into their joy, and assist them in their high 
 endeavor. I reported their experiences in the 
 Western Christian Advocate within a few days after 
 they had so feelingly rehearsed it in the Conference 
 love-feast. This report I here insert. I am sure 
 this history will give my readers great pleasure, and 
 I therefore insert it in full. 
 
 ORGANIZATION OF THE HOLSTON CONFERENCE 
 OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 
 
 Athens, East Tennessee, June /, 1865. 
 
 An eventful day for East Tennessee is this first 
 day of June, in the year of grace 1865. It was 
 scarcely less so when the loyal East Tennessee Meth- 
 odists met in Convention at Knoxville, on the 7th and 
 8th days of July, and determined to separate them- 
 selves from a Church which had been the apologists 
 and defenders of slavery, and the fomenters and sup- 
 porters of treason, secession, and rebellion, and con- 
 
284 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 nect themselves with the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
 which had always stood loyally by the Government 
 of the United States, and which had also been that 
 of their early choice, and upon which God had con- 
 tinued to put honor. A large audience assembled 
 to-day in the Methodist Episcopal Church at Athens, 
 East Tennessee, at nine o'clock. Rev. Bishop Clark 
 opened the services by reading the one hundred and 
 twenty-sixth Psalm and the fifteenth chapter of St. 
 John's Gospel. The hymn 
 
 "And are we yet alive?" 
 
 was sung, after which prayer was offered by the 
 bishop. The hymn, 
 
 " How beauteous are their feet," 
 
 was sung, and Rev. James Cummings and Dr. Adam 
 Poe addressed the Throne of Grace. . 
 
 Bishop Clark then remarked in substance : 
 
 "Beloved Brethren, — I am not insensible of 
 the responsibilities of this hour, nor of the solemnity 
 of the occasion that has called us together. Indulge 
 me for a few moments in reference to sundry matters, 
 that we may more fully understand ourselves, our re- 
 lation to the work before us, and the work we have 
 to do. On referring to the records of the Church, 
 I find that the Holston Conference was organized in 
 the year 1824, with a membership of fourteen thou- 
 sand nine hundred and thirty-four, and forty-one min- 
 isters. From that time forth there was a gradual 
 increase of members, till, in 1840, there was a mem- 
 bership of forty thousand and sixty-three, and a min- 
 istry of seventy-three. Twenty years ago the last 
 entry in the Minutes of the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church of the Holston Conference was made. But, 
 
bishop clark's opening talk. 2S5 
 
 since that time, what scenes have transpired! The 
 division of the Church, or, rather, the separation of 
 a large number of its members from its communion. 
 Strange coincidences, or rather providences, some- 
 times occur. I see that twenty years ago, according 
 to those Minutes, the Holston Conference was to have 
 assembled in this place. Before the time arrived the 
 separation had occurred. But here, in the very place 
 where it disappeared, we meet to reorganize it. I 
 do not know whether it was designed [a voice: "It 
 was"] ; but the coincidence is marked. I remember 
 with what reluctance the old Holston Conference went 
 out of the old Methodist Episcopal Church ; how tena- 
 cious the Quarterly Conferences were for adhering. 
 And, in connection with this, let me say, that not only 
 the whole Methodist Church, but the whole country, 
 has had its eye upon East Tennessee. Your love of 
 country was well in harmony with your love of the 
 old Church. And we felt deeply that it was not in 
 the power of the Government to afford you the pro- 
 tection you needed, and that you suffered so much 
 from your devotion. But, thanks be to God, deliver- 
 ance came to the Nation, and I trust deliverance will 
 come also to the Church, and, as you have taken 
 your place under the Stars and Stripes, that you will 
 also take your place under the old banners of the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church. [A voice : "We will."] 
 "Why am I here at this hour? Last year, after 
 our General Conference was held, a Convention, 
 largely representing your laity and ministry, was held 
 at Knoxville, and there and then you announced the 
 purpose to reunite with the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church, and invoked our aid. During the last year 
 we have done what we could to aid you in your work, 
 and I am here to organize your Conference. 
 
 "I touch upon a point which I had not intended 
 
286 SIXTY- ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK'. 
 
 to name ; but it seems proper, from facts which 
 have come to my knowledge, with regard to this 
 organization. The question has been asked, 'Why 
 reorganize?' The plan that has been suggested is 
 that it would be better to leave the Southern Church 
 territory undisturbed. Let us leave this gro.und un- 
 touched, and hold a General Conference of both 
 Churches, and reunite the Church South, by a simple 
 act, to the Methodist Episcopal Church. I do not 
 say the proposition has been made in a formal man- 
 ner ; for no Conferences have been held in the South- 
 ern Church to make it ; but it has been made by prom- 
 inent members and ministers of the Methodist Epis- 
 copal Church, South, with singular concurrence and 
 unanimity. 
 
 "I cite one reason why I think this proposition, 
 that we should stay out of the South, can not be enter- 
 tained. If we refuse to respond to these calls from 
 East Tennessee and elsewhere — for the calls are from 
 different parts of the South — the effect would be to 
 leave to the men, who have not been with the Gov- 
 ernment of the United States in its fearful struggle 
 against rebellion, the work of reorganization of the 
 Church. Now, if there is any class of men in the 
 South who should take part in the rebuilding of the 
 Church and the State, it is the loyal portion. I do 
 not feel that we should subject them to this depri- 
 vation. 
 
 "The division of the Methodist Episcopal Church 
 had one single ground, and that was slavery. You 
 can not find any other. No man under heaven can 
 find any other. We preach the same gospel, have the 
 same organization of Conferences and districts and 
 circuits, and the same allotments of labor, and no 
 man on the face of the earth can fasten upon any 
 other fact than slavery, and that is being taken out 
 
REASONS FOR REORGANIZATION. 287 
 
 of the way. What reason, then, is there for keeping 
 apart ? There is none. I can conceive of no other 
 than pride of position ; pride of place and power ; the 
 maintaining of power in hands that have wielded 
 it, other than for the peace and prosperity of the 
 Government. 
 
 "Why, again, am I here to organize the Holston 
 Conference? At our last General Conference, held in 
 May, 1864, provision was made especially for the re- 
 ception of ministers of the Church South into the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church. It was provided that 
 they should be received on the same conditions as 
 those on which we receive those from the British and 
 Canadian Wesleyan Conferences, with the proviso 
 that they should give assurances of their loyalty to 
 the United States, and of their agreement with us on 
 the subject of slavery. The old Methodist Episcopal 
 Church has been, all through this struggle, loyal to 
 the United States. All her influences have been un- 
 mistakably in this direction. Conferences, ministers, 
 and members, almost without exception, have all cast 
 their influence on the side of the Government. And 
 it was the purpose that, in the reorganization and ex- 
 tension of the Church, as we foresaw its extension, 
 no element should enter into the Church that should 
 disturb its harmony on the question of slavery, or of 
 loyalty to the Government. We have no doubt that 
 thousands, all through the South, have been led into 
 this rebellion by the influences, well-nigh irresistible, 
 thrown around them, and that, perhaps, tens of thou- 
 sands have been led into it conscientiously. But I 
 believe that, with the dawning of the signs of the 
 times, there must come a conviction that they were 
 mistaken, were in the wrong, and, with that con- 
 viction, if they are good men and true men, that they 
 will be with us in these matters of loyalty and slavery. 
 
288 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 And I can not see any other reason for their remain- 
 ing aloof from our Church, unless it be the want of 
 loyalty, or adhesion to a system now nearly defunct. 
 
 "In addition to the provisions for receiving min- 
 isters, the General Conference authorized the organ- 
 ization of Conferences in the South, when, in the 
 judgment of the bishops, they should deem it im- 
 portant or proper; and at a meeting of the bishops 
 they saw that the time had fully come to organize 
 a Conference in East Tennessee. 
 
 "In pursuance of these facts I am here. I recog- 
 nize the following ministers as comprising the Holston 
 Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church : W. C. Daily, G. A. Gowan, R. H. Guthrie, 
 transferred from the Kentucky Conference ; T. S. 
 Stivers, transferred from the Ohio Conference; 
 Thomas H. Pearne, transferred from the Oregon Con- 
 ference ; and J. F. Spence, transferred from the Cin- 
 cinnati Conference." 
 
 The bishop then announced that, in determining 
 the status of the ministers applying for admission, he 
 should take as his guide the published Minutes of 
 the Holston Conference of the Methodist Church, 
 South, for 1862. Since then no Minutes had been 
 published, nor had any session of the Conference been 
 held, other than a gathering of the treasonable por- 
 tion of it within the rebel lines. 
 
 Profound interest and considerable sensibility were 
 manifested during the address of the bishop. Brother 
 Spence, at the request of the bishop, acted as tem- 
 porary secretary. 
 
 The following brethren were severally admitted by 
 the vote of the Conference, each one making a state- 
 ment, as his name was presented, of his agreement 
 with the Methodist Episcopal Church as to loyalty 
 
PREACHERS ADMITTED. 289 
 
 and slavery; namely, E. Rowley, James Cumming, 
 James A. Hyden, W. H. Rogers, John W. Mann, 
 W. C. Graves, W. H. Duggan, William Milburn, J. L. 
 Mann, R. G. Blackburn, T. H. Russel, J. B. Little, 
 Andrew J. Greer, and John Alley. 
 
 Dr. E. Rowley said he had been a slaveholder; 
 did not consider himself so now; regarded slavery 
 as removed by the war, and accepted the fact as a 
 blessing for the whites, whatever its effect might be 
 on the blacks. 
 
 J. Albert Hyden said that he had been educated 
 to believe that slavery was religiously right; on that 
 subject he gave himself no uneasiness or trouble; but 
 that he had come to see differently. He believed, 
 with the former speaker, that the removal of slavery 
 would be a great blessing, the greatest blessing since 
 the gift of Christ, to us and to our children's children. 
 Let slavery go. He was never suspected of being 
 loyal to the Confederacy. He remained quiet during 
 the rebellion, and, as soon as practicable, he went into 
 the service of God and his country as a chaplain. 
 
 W. H. Rogers said: "It may have been my mis- 
 fortune that I never was a slaveholder. I was taught 
 to hate the institution of slavery. In 1828 I joined 
 the Methodist Episcopal Church. When the question 
 of secession came up, my mind was made up at once. 
 I was among the first in East Tennessee to put my 
 name to a card in favor of allegiance to the Govern- 
 ment. A few months afterward, nine gentlemen, 
 fully armed, came to my house. One of them, a 
 young man, said, 'I presume you will take the oath?' 
 I replied, 'You presume too much. What oath?' He 
 answered, 'That of allegiance to the Confederacy/ I 
 replied, 'No sir ! I do n't "cuss." ' I was taken to Knox- 
 ville, and thence to all the Southern prisons ; was in 
 19 
 
290 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 the penitentiary. I had heard of the palaces of the 
 South. I did not find them palaces except in the sense 
 of the poet : 
 
 'Prisons would palaces prove, 
 If Jesus would dwell with rue there.' 
 
 I had an opportunity 'to preach' Christ 'to the spirits 
 in prison' — the Union soldiers imprisoned. Many of 
 them were converted. I closed their eyes in death, 
 and they took their flight from prisons to the palaces 
 of light and glory. They went home. I returned, 
 and, when put on trial before an ecclesiastical court, 
 adhered to my loyalty." 
 
 John W. Mann said : "I am ready and willing to 
 take a place among you. As far as slavery is con- 
 cerned, my skirts are clear. I never owned a Negro. 
 My wife owned one or two, but they were sacrificed 
 on the altar of my country. I was arrested in this 
 town, and required to take the oath or go to prison. 
 Through the entreaties of my wife, I reluctantly took 
 the oath of allegiance to the bogus Confederacy. I 
 was called 'Lincoln' in this town ; was proscribed and 
 persecuted. I left here, and since then have preached 
 Mn Louisville one year ; afterward, in Kentucky, Ohio, 
 and Indiana." 
 
 A venerable brother, William Milburn, remarked : 
 "I was never connected with slavery ; was not raised 
 up to believe it was right ; was taught, from boyhood, 
 to believe it was wrong; there never was an hour in 
 which I approved it ; I do n't expect there ever will 
 be. Have tried to be loyal to God and loyal to my 
 Government ; I have suffered much for my loyalty ; 
 was three times arrested by the authorities of the 
 would-be Confederacy; I have had a saber presented 
 to my throat, and, with oaths, have been required 
 to take the oath. I said to the youth who made the 
 
WHAT THE PREACHERS SAID. 29 1 
 
 demand, 'Young man, your mother has taught you 
 better than this/ I was trotted off, lame as I was, to 
 Greensboro. My guard all sleeping, at about one 
 o'clock I arose, slipped off, and moved homeward, 
 and at daylight found myself five miles from my 
 prison. I had to remain concealed until John Morgan 
 was killed. I united with the army, and have been 
 with it ever since. I was ordained a deacon by Bishop 
 Roberts, and an elder by Bishop Morris. I love the 
 Church next to my life. I was arrested four times 
 by the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, for my 
 loyalty ; but they always had to write, 'We find noth- 
 ing immoral against him.' I understand that I was 
 expelled by the Abingdon Conference for my loyalty. 
 I would sooner live and die out of the Church, and 
 be unburied, than to be in connection with the Church 
 South. But for the clergy of the Church South this 
 rebellion could never have occurred. The power of 
 politicians was comparatively circumscribed; but when 
 the clergy undertook, in co-operation with them, to 
 rend the Nation, an influence was wielded which 
 reached to every hamlet and fireside. I would rather 
 have the artillery of a Bonaparte and the guns of a 
 Wellington directed upon me than the groans and tears 
 of the widows and orphans which have been caused 
 by the influence of those preachers. I want to live 
 in this Conference and to die here ; and I shall do so, 
 unless an element of treason gets into it with which 
 I can not, and will not, associate myself. I can not 
 describe my feelings when I first saw, in a gap of 
 the mountains, the honored flag of my country . Have 
 been forty-one years a member of the Church. " 
 
 J. N. S. Huffaker said he had been a Union man 
 until it seemed that secession was an accomplished 
 fact. The State had gone out, and it looked as though 
 the Confederacy were established. He had then taken 
 
292 SIXTY- ONE )EARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 the oath of allegiance. In this view and course he 
 was mistaken. But when the Federal Government 
 afforded protection to loyal men, he went to head- 
 quarters at Knoxville, and stated his desire to be a 
 loyal man, no oath being required ; that, as soon as 
 it was required, he took the amnesty oath. He was 
 a conservative man, was opposed to the proceedings 
 of the Holston Conference of 1862 touching the re- 
 bellion. He believed the organization of the Holston 
 Conference of the Church South would be required, 
 by the force of public opinion, to disband. 
 
 J. L. Mann said : "It was my fortune or misfortune 
 to be born in Tennessee. I was reared among all the 
 influences of Negro slavery, and efforts were made to 
 make me believe it was right. But I have ever been 
 an original, unmitigated, simon-pure Abolitionist. 
 I consider it my misfortune that I was ever con- 
 nected with the Church South. I joined this Confer- 
 ence in i860, at the brewing of the rebellion. I re- 
 mained in the northeast corner of the State two years. 
 The Conference of 1862 was not a Conference; it was 
 a political inquisition presided over by that embodi- 
 ment of treason, Bishop Early. I found it was too 
 hot for me. I went to the Federal army. I took my 
 saddlebags, and went to the Federal army, and for 
 sixteen months I served God and my country in 
 the army." 
 
 R. G. Blackburn said: "I was a member of the 
 Holston Conference. My heart is with this move- 
 ment, and it has been from the beginning. As this is 
 my country, and where I have been between the 
 gates, I may perhaps say, that I took the stand 
 that politics and religion should be separate, and that 
 it was not the business of a Conference to inquire 
 into a man's sentiments, and certainly not to require 
 him to support or favor a disloyal organization. I 
 
CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS. 293 
 
 regard it as the duty of every Methodist in this 
 country to give a hearty support to this movement. 
 I regard it as the blackest treason to attempt to keep 
 up the Methodist Church, South, in this country. Re- 
 bellion has been crushed ; but to keep up another 
 Methodist organization like that of the Church South, 
 it is in danger of rising again, and efforts would be 
 made to divide the country. And, if we expect to re- 
 main one people, we must have one Church in this 
 country." 
 
 Some of the speeches, which differed little from 
 those given, are omitted for want of room. T. H. 
 Russel, J. B. Little, John Alley, made similar state- 
 ments, and were received. 
 
 This occupied the forenoon session, constituting 
 one of the most interesting meetings I ever attended. 
 Tears and sobs, shouts and responses, were inter- 
 mingled with the exercises. 
 
 In the afternoon, fast-day services were held in 
 the Church, Bishop Clark and Rev. T. H. Pearne 
 making addresses. A large audience was present. 
 
 SECOND DAY'S PROCEEDINGS. 
 
 Conference was opened with the usual services, 
 conducted by Brother Hyden. P. H. Read, Augustus 
 F. Shannon, S. D. Gaines, E. E. Gillenwater, Samuel 
 B. Harwell, and David Fleming were received from 
 the Church South. H. B. Burkitt, a probationer of 
 the Kentucky Conference, was transferred by the 
 bishop. Brothers G. M. Hicks, T. S. Walker, T. P. 
 Rutherford, Joseph P. Milburn, and John Forrester, 
 probationers in the Holston Conference of the Church 
 South, were received. Joseph Milburn, a located 
 elder, was recognized and readmitted. Pending the 
 reception of several, a warm discussion arose touch- 
 ing the loyalty of applicants, the Conference carefully 
 
294 ST XT V- ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 guarding against admitting those who had been active 
 c iders of rebellion, and receiving those who had taken 
 the oath of allegiance to the Confederacy only upon 
 full confession and promises of amendment. 
 
 Chaplains Drake, Bowdish, and Black, and 
 Brother Webb, of the Minnesota Conference, and 
 Rev. Dr. Poe, were here introduced to the Confer- 
 ence. 
 
 SATURDAY'S PROCEEDINGS. 
 
 These were opened with customary exercises, con- 
 ducted by W. C. Graves. The session was occupied 
 in the work of examining candidates for admission 
 into full connection, and answering the questions, 
 ''Who are admitted on trial? Who remain on trial? 
 Who are the deacons ? Who are the elders ?" 
 
 The following series of resolutions, touching the 
 principles to govern the Conference in admitting per- 
 sons to the Conference who had been tainted with 
 disloyalty, was adopted : 
 
 Whereas, It is expected by the loyal Methodists of the 
 South, and especially of East Tennessee, that in the reorgan- 
 ization of the Holston Conference of the Methodist Epis- 
 copal Church strict inquiry will be made touching the 
 opinions concerning, and relations to, the late rebellion, of 
 applicants for admission and recognition as accredited min- 
 isters, and that said opinions and relations will shape, to a 
 greater or less extent, our official action in these cases; we 
 therefore deem it necessary to state briefly the general prin- 
 ciples controlling us in the premises; therefore, 
 
 Resolved, i. That it is the sense of this body that those who 
 entered into the late rebellion, and imbibed the spirit thereof, 
 are guilty of a crime sufficient to exclude them from the king- 
 dom of grace and glory, and must not be admitted into this 
 Conference, save upon full confession and thorough repent- 
 ance. 
 
 Resolved, 2. That those ministers who abandoned their 
 work and their homes, and absconded the country upon the 
 approach of the national flag, have so far forfeited claim to 
 
CONFERENCE REPORTS. 295 
 
 our confidence and Christian fellowship, that they should not 
 be recognized by members of this Conference as accredited 
 ministers till they shall have been restored by the proper 
 authorities of the Church. 
 
 Resolved, 3. That in the reception of preachers into this 
 body constant regard will be had, not only to their personal 
 qualifications and claims upon our Christian kindness and 
 charity, but also to the opinions, feelings, and wishes of our 
 people, and none ought to be admitted whose conduct, dur- 
 ing the late rebellion, has been such as to make them odious 
 to the masses, and whose usefulness as ministers of the 
 gospel has been sacrificed to the unholy cause of treason and 
 rebellion. 
 
 Resolved, 4. That, while we feel constrained thus to indi- 
 cate what is now the necessary policy of this Conference, we, 
 with hopeful hearts, look forward to the time, and hope it is 
 not far distant, when general confidence, friendship, and good- 
 will shall be restored, and when, as in better days, we shall 
 be one in heart, one in purpose, and one in our great work 
 and labor of love. 
 
 The report on the State of the Country was 
 adopted, as follows : 
 
 Your Committee on the State of the Country respectfully 
 report: 
 
 The Holston Conference of the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church, in resuming the place she occupied among her sister 
 Annual Conferences up to 1844, takes a decided position of 
 loyalty, and heartily agrees with them in their outspoken 
 antagonism to slavery. Our people have given costly proof 
 of their devotion to the National Government, and by their 
 votes slavery in Tennessee has been buried beyond, as we 
 trust, a hope of resurrection. In assuming this position, this 
 Conference makes for herself a very different record from 
 that of the Holston Conference of the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church, South, touching these questions. That Conference, 
 held in this place in 1862, expelled one of its members "for 
 joining the enemies of his country;" that is, for being a loyal 
 citizen and aiding his Government in suppressing rebellion. 
 It suspended another of its' members for a similar cause. In 
 an elaborate report, presented by John N. McTyeire, on these 
 
296 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 cases, and others similarly accused, "the continued agitation 
 of the subject of slavery" by the Churches North is falsely 
 assigned as the cause of the late wicked rebellion. We say 
 "falsely," because it was not the agitation of the slavery 
 question, but the ineradicable tendencies and vices of the 
 system itself, which brought about the unhappy events which 
 have transpired. 
 
 That report also openly avows and advocates the rightful- 
 ness of the late attempted disruption of the United States, 
 and gravely urges "the duty of the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church, South, alike because of her historical antecedents 
 and her doctrinal peculiarities touching Southern institutions 
 generally, and this institution — slavery — especially, to be 
 found arrayed side by side with the great masses of the South- 
 ern people in religiously contending in part for the same 
 rights — political, civil, and religious — for the security of which 
 they were compelled, in 1844, to adopt measures for a sepa- 
 rate and independent ecclesiastical organization." . . . 
 "But now that these questions — abstract political questions of 
 secession and rebellion — have assumed a concrete form, and 
 under the inspiration of Abolition fanaticism, have kindled 
 the fires of the most brutal and ruthless war ever known in 
 the history of man, involving every interest, political and 
 religious, held to be most sacred and absolutely vital to the 
 present and future weal of our people, it is the deliberate 
 conviction of your committee that no patriot, no Christian, 
 and, least of all, no Christian minister who claims to be a 
 citizen of the Confederate States of America, and who is pre- 
 sumed to be even partially acquainted with the merits of this 
 unhappy controversy, can throw the weight of his opinions, 
 words, or acts into the scale of our enemies against us with moral 
 impunity, or with a conscience void of offense toward God 
 and his fellow-countrymen." 
 
 Such treasonable deliverance, by a body of ministers in the 
 nineteenth century, and in the United States, as well as the 
 apparent spirit in which they were adopted, and the intolerant, 
 relentless, and bitter persecutions of dissentients by which 
 they were followed, justly produce surprise and astonishment; 
 for they present a most humiliating fact in the history of a 
 religious organization — a fact from which it would seem all 
 good, true, patriotic, and Christian men must turn away 
 with ineffable shame and regret. 
 
CONFERENCE RESOLUTIONS. 297 
 
 In view of the foregoing facts and considerations, it is 
 therefore 
 
 Resolved, That we hail, with intense, inexpressible pleas- 
 ure and profound gratitude to God the triumph of the 
 national arms over a gigantic, unprovoked, and wicked re- 
 bellion; the dispersion of the rebel armies which crimsoned 
 the land with the blood of our sons and brothers, swept our 
 homes with desolation, and filled our hearts with anguish; 
 the established unity and integrity of our country and Gov- 
 ernment; and also the assured future of our priceless national 
 heritage of peace and liberty, civilization and religion. 
 
 Resolved, That, as contributive to these results, we cherish 
 with liveliest interest the hope, and we will labor with earnest 
 zeal to realize its fruition, that soon the banners of true 
 Methodism, loyal to country, to freedom, to right, and to 
 God, shall wave in triumph over the whole country, from east 
 to west, and from north to south, as now waves the banner of 
 the Republic. 
 
 It was stated by Brother Spence that Brother 
 Fitzgerald had been waylaid by guerrillas, marched to 
 the woods, and robbed of watch, clothing, and money, 
 on his way to the Conference, and that he was expect- 
 ing to be appointed to North Carolina, and had no 
 money to go with. A collection of fifty dollars was 
 raised for him. 
 
 After the report on the State of the Country was 
 adopted, Brother Drake, of the Ohio Conference, and 
 other brethren, sang the Battle Hymn of the Republic. 
 
 CONFERENCE SUNDAY. 
 
 An immense audience crowded the church during 
 the entire exercises of the day. At nine o'clock a 
 Sunday-school meeting was had, under the direction 
 of Brother Spence. Brethren Black, Hyden, and 
 Gibson, army chaplains, and Pearne and Spence, ad- 
 dressed the meeting, the children singing sweet ho- 
 sannas. Bishop Clark preached, at 10.30 o'clock, an 
 
29-S SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 effective sermon. At times the audience seemed quite 
 transported by the eloquence and fervor of the bishop. 
 At the close of the sermon eight deacons were or- 
 dained. At three o'clock P. M., Rev. T. H. Pearne, of 
 Oregon, preached, at the close of which six were or- 
 dained elders. 
 
 MONDAY. 
 
 The Conference finished its session this morning 
 at 10.30 o'clock. Greeneville was fixed as the place of 
 holding the next session. Several preachers additional 
 were received from the Church South this morning. 
 Among them was Rev. L. W. Crouch, a prominent 
 member of the Holston Conference. 
 
 The Conference has received forty-three, including 
 probationers, making, with those transferred, fifty in 
 all. Besides these, there are eighteen appointments 
 left to be supplied. The Conference has preachers 
 stationed in Tennessee, North Carolina, and Georgia. 
 The statistics show a membership of 6,494, including 
 probationers, 51 Sunday-schools, 336 officers and 
 teachers, 2,425 scholars, 55 local preachers, and 101 
 churches. What a glorious result from the labors of 
 about a year spent in hunting up the sheep scattered 
 in the wilderness! What a precious, glorious future 
 may not, shall not, follow this wonderful beginning! 
 
 The following are the appointments of the Con- 
 ference : 
 
 Knoxville District — Thomas. H. Pearne, P. E. — Knox- 
 ville, J. F. Spence. Knox, Joseph P. Milburn. Rogersville, 
 E. E. Gillenwater; supply, G. M. Hicks. Sneedsville, F. D. 
 Crumley. Tazewell and Powell's Valley, J. B Walker; one 
 to be supplied. Maynardsville, Thomas S. Walker. Rut- 
 ledge, Philip Chambers. Jacksboro, John Forrester. Clin- 
 ton, John Mahoney. Dandridge, Andrew J. Greer. Sevier- 
 ville, Daniel Carter. 
 
APPOINTMENTS. 299 
 
 Athens District—/. Albert Hyden, P. E. — Athens, John 
 W. Mann, L. W. Crouch. Athens Circuit, John E. Moore. 
 Decatur, Joseph W. Peace. Philadelphia, J. B. Little, J. M. 
 Stamper. Madisonville and Jellico Mission, to be supplied. 
 Marysville, Thomas H. Russel. Louisville, T. P. Rutherford. 
 Little River, to be supplied. Kingston and Sulphur Springs, 
 Samuel B. Harwell, supply; one to be supplied. Mont- 
 gomery, to be supplied. E. Rowley, President of and Agent 
 for Athens Female College, and member of Athens Quarterly 
 Conference. W. H. Rogers, Conference Agent for Sunday- 
 schools, educational institutions, and embarrassed Churches, 
 and member of Louisville Quarterly Conference. 
 
 Chattanooga District.— William C. Daily, P. ^.—Chat- 
 tanooga, T. S. Stivers. Cleveland, J. L. Mann. Cleveland 
 and Benton, A. F. Shannon; one to be supplied. Hamilton 
 and Washington, M. H. B. Burkitt, G. A. Gowan. Pikes- 
 ville and Jasper, John Alley; one to be supplied. Ducktown, 
 to be supplied. Harrison and Lafayette, two to be supplied. 
 Dalton, to be supplied. Rome, to be supplied. Atlanta, to 
 be supplied. 
 
 Jonesboro District— L. F. Drake, P. E.— Jonesboro, to 
 be supplied. Jonesboro Circuit, to be supplied. Elizabeth- 
 town and Taylorsville, Harmon J. Crumley. Blountville and 
 Bristol, to be supplied. Kingsport, S. G Gaines. Rheatown, 
 Joseph Milburn. Greeneville, to be supplied. Morristown, 
 W. C. Graves. Fall Branch and Kingsport, to be supplied. 
 St. Clair, to be supplied. Newport, James Mahoney. North 
 Carolina Circuit, A. R. Wilson, J. B. Fitzgerald. William 
 Milburn chaplain in the army, and member of Rheatown 
 Quarterly Conference. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 ON the last day of the session of the Holston 
 Conference, just before adjournment, Bishop 
 Clark made the following closing remarks, which 
 were phonographically reported by Rev. C. G. 
 Bowdish : 
 
 Brethren, — Though the time for the departure 
 of the train which must bear us away is at hand, in- 
 dulge me in a few remarks at this closing hour. 
 
 And, first, allow me to return thanks for the kind 
 mention you have made of my services, and the gen- 
 erous expression of confidence and affection made by 
 you in the resolution just passed. Next to the ap- 
 proval of God and my own conscience, I hold that 
 of my brethren in highest honor. If my official serv- 
 ices among you, in the new and anomalous state of 
 affairs in which we have been placed, have received 
 your approbation, I am glad. And truly thankful shall 
 I be if they are approved by the great Head of the 
 Church, and shall tend to promote the great ends of 
 a pure Christianity among you. 
 
 The uniform kindness and courtesy that have 
 characterized your intercourse throughout, the har- 
 mony of thought, and purpose, and feeling, are worthy 
 of all commendation. We came together strangers 
 to each other. You were without organization. 
 Everything was in a chaotic state. You had to be- 
 come acquainted with each other's views, and feelings, 
 and purposes. You had to learn, to a great extent, 
 who among you could be relied upon, and how much 
 reliance could be placed upon the movement as a 
 
 300 
 
BISHOP CLARK'S ADDRESS. 3OI 
 
 whole. To see you, then, blending together so har- 
 moniously, becoming one in feeling, plan, and pur- 
 pose, and giving shape to your movement with as 
 much system and order as an old-established Confer- 
 ence, was not only a sight beautiful to the eye, but a 
 cause of profound gratitude to Almighty God, who 
 has given you this will and purpose. But into this 
 you have been schooled, in a great measure, by the 
 common perils through which you have passed, and 
 the common sufferings you have endured in this ruth- 
 less war, which has swept over and desolated so large 
 a portion of this land. From questions which have 
 been proposed to me, I judge it may not be amiss to 
 repeat the explanations which have already been given 
 on one or two points : First. With regard to the 
 specific conditions upon which ministers coining from 
 the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, are received 
 among us. You will observe these conditions are the 
 same as those required of ministers coming from the 
 Wesleyan Connection in England, with the addition 
 that they are to give satisfactory assurances to the 
 Annual Conference of their loyalty to the National 
 Government, and also of their hearty approval of the 
 anti-slavery doctrine of our Church. This was not 
 designed as a reflection upon any individual minister ; 
 but you are aware, brethren, that while the old Meth- 
 odist Episcopal Church has been intensely loyal to the 
 Government, the Church South has, in every depart- 
 ment, been tainted with treason. So, also, in regard 
 to slavery ; while the old Church has been developing 
 into clearer and more decisive forms of practical ap- 
 plication the anti-slavery doctrine she held from the 
 beginning, the case has been widely different with the 
 Church South. The cause of her separation from the 
 old Church, the corner-stone on which she built, was 
 slavery, and, as a result, she has not only received 
 
302 SIXTY- ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK'. 
 
 "the great evil" as a great good, but has become stained 
 all over with the crimes of oppression and treason. I 
 repeat it, then, that it is not a reflection upon any in- 
 dividual minister, but to guard against the possible 
 creeping in again of either of those two elements, that 
 the old Church has placed these two sentinels at the 
 door of entrance. No true man will wish them re- 
 moved. No one true to his allegiance to his country 
 or his Church would hesitate to assume the obligation. 
 
 Brethren, on going forth from this place to en- 
 gage in your work, I am aware that you are going 
 forth to a very delicate, as well as important, mission. 
 There is no Annual Conference in all the bounds of 
 Christian labor where the work is environed with so 
 many difficulties, and where so much wisdom, so much 
 gentleness of spirit, so much patience under provo- 
 cation, will be required as here in this work. 
 
 I do not say that we are utterly and entirely to 
 ignore the past, or that you can obliterate from your 
 minds the scenes through which you have been called 
 to pass. Those of you who have been called to suffer, 
 who have been fugitives from your homes, seeking 
 hiding-places among the mountains, whose substance 
 has been wasted, whose sons have been slain on the 
 battle-field, or foully butchered in the presence of be- 
 seeching mothers and sisters, I do not say that you 
 can obliterate these sufferings from your memory; 
 I do not say that, without hearty repentance and 
 amendment on their part, you can associate on familiar 
 or brotherly terms with those who have assisted in 
 bringing on this fearful state of things. And yet, 
 brethren, it does appear to me that you are placed 
 precisely of all others in the bounds of the Church, 
 where, in all her history, you can best exhibit the mag- 
 nanimity of Christianity ; where you can exhibit that 
 forgiveness and that love that rises above every injus- 
 
CLOSING ADDRESS. 303 
 
 ticc and wrong-. I pray God you may go forth bearing 
 this spirit in your heart, and may manifest it in all 
 your labors in the vineyard of your Lord and Master. 
 Wherever you go from this place, let it be seen that 
 you bear this spirit with you. See to it that the pre- 
 cious seed you sow be not rendered unfruitful. Your 
 provocations are great, but the indwelling spirit of 
 Christ will make you superior to them all. 
 
 Upon the point of reconstruction I will add an- 
 other word. If you wish to lay deep and broad the 
 foundations of the Church here, you can not do it 
 by excluding all who have been in any way connected 
 with this rebellion, as some propose. You can not 
 lift up your banner, and say, We will have no member 
 nor minister that has been swept away in this fearful 
 tide, of secession, this whirlwind of desolation that has 
 passed over this land ; but it appears to me that when 
 such persons become convinced of their error, that 
 they were mistaken, that they were led astray by the 
 leadership of others ; when men come feeling thus, 
 with open arms and Christian love, you should receive 
 them and press them to your breasts, and bid them 
 Godspeed in the way to heaven. 
 
 The announcement of the appointments of an 
 Annual Conference is always an hour of oppressive 
 sadness, and my feelings have ever shrunk from 
 this duty, as a burden I should never have willingly 
 undertaken, had not God, in his providence, placed it 
 upon me. I am aware that all my brethren here can 
 not be satisfied, that their views and their feelings 
 can not always be met; their convenience, their com- 
 fort, sometimes, must be sacrificed, and the comfort of 
 their families. The social relations of our itinerants, the 
 comfort of their wives and children, are to be con- 
 sidered. I do hold that the wife of an itinerant should 
 not be forgotten, but that her feelings and her inter- 
 
304 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 ests should be taken into account in the adjustment 
 of these appointments. These women, who share in 
 the labors of the itinerant, and do their part in carry- 
 ing forward the great work of an itinerant ministry — 
 all honor to their devotion, and the blessing of heaven 
 rest upon them ! 
 
 My brethren, your mission may sometimes seem 
 hard and uninviting, but you will remember that it 
 is the same mission that brought the blessed Redeemer 
 from heaven to earth. O, when you view it in this 
 light, when you remember that this work was con- 
 sidered of such transcendent importance as to bring 
 the blessed Redeemer to earth, how it swells into 
 grandeur and importance ! You go forth to-day upon 
 the same mission, and to work in the same vineyard. 
 You will remember that he came not here to enjoy 
 the palaces of ease and luxury. He came not here 
 to enjoy the comforts of home or the conveniences of 
 life ; but he came to be a homeless wanderer, that 
 fallen humanity might be blessed, redeemed, and 
 saved. You go forth to the same mission, and in all 
 your joys, in all your privations and toils in the vine- 
 yard of your blessed Master, remember your Savior 
 trod in the same path, endured the same toils, shared 
 in the same triumphs, and reaps the same rewards. 
 As you bow at this sacred altar, in these closing serv- 
 ices, take of the same love that was in the heart of 
 your blessed Master, let that spirit be kindled in your 
 hearts, go forth bearing this spirit, and God will bless 
 you and your labors in his vineyard. 
 
 I must now leave this work with you and with 
 God. O, may his blessing be upon you ! As your 
 beautiful country is just beginning to recuperate from 
 the desolations of war, and gives promise of returning 
 beauty and prosperity, so may the spiritual heritage 
 you cultivate ''bud and blossom as the rose." May the 
 
CLOSING ADDRESS. 305 
 
 Great Master go with you, may you be armed and 
 equipped as good soldiers for your work, and the 
 blessing of God be upon you, upon your families, 
 upon the Churches over which you have the over- 
 sight, and through your instrumentality sinners be 
 brought home to God ! And if you should fall in the 
 work — and this may be the case — it may be that some 
 of these fathers, full of toils and labors in the past, 
 may cease to live, and go to their reward ; or it may 
 be that some of the middle-aged, in the strength of 
 their manhood, and bearing the burden and heat of 
 the day, will pass away ; or it may be some young 
 man, just rising in the morning of life, and girding 
 himself for the work, may be called ; whoever it may 
 be, God grant that he may pass away with the light 
 of heaven shining all around, and go from these scenes 
 of toil to the immortal rewards at God's right hand! 
 Through all my life, down to my dying hour, shall 
 this session of the Holston Conference live in my 
 memory. I shall cherish with fond recollection the 
 thought that I have been permitted to come among 
 you, and that here the banner of the old Church, after 
 an interval of twenty years, has been again unfurled ; 
 that Church 'that has won so many victories in 
 the past, that is spreading her agencies all through 
 the land; that is following up the tide of life along 
 our Western frontier ; that is prosecuting her mission- 
 ary work all over the golden plains of the interior 
 of our country, and spreading along the Pacific Coast ; 
 that is raising her standard in India and China. I 
 rejoice to come among you, and, here in the South, 
 to raise up the fallen standard of the old Church, where 
 so many victories have been achieved in the past. 
 Amid these scenes of former toil and triumph may that 
 standard be lifted up forever, and onward may it be 
 borne to still greater victories in the future ! 
 20 
 
306 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 In the Western Christian Advocate of August 20, 
 1 89 1, I contributed the following personal recol- 
 lections of the events referred to in the last chapter, 
 with some additional particulars. As this was the 
 beginning of our new work in the South, they will 
 be of special interest to the reader. 
 
 BISHOP CLARK IN THE SOUTH. 
 
 The one feature of Bishop Clark's episcopal ad- 
 ministration which will most distinguish it is the lead- 
 ing part he took in replanting our Church in the 
 South, from which, twenty years before, slavery had 
 banished it. Hundreds have said, since reconstruc- 
 tion, that the division of the Church in 1845 na d given 
 them great dissatisfaction. Hence they hailed the re- 
 turn of the old Methodist Episcopal Church with the 
 liveliest satisfaction. In this movement Bishop Clark 
 was a chief actor. In conducting it he displayed rare 
 qualities as a leader and organizer. He was prudent, 
 yet wise, bold, resourceful. He showed good judg- 
 ment of men, and he handled men with skill. In 
 twelve years' experience as a presiding elder I never 
 sat in cabinet with a bishop more careful and wise; 
 and in the special work of reconstruction he displayd 
 these qualities in a marked degree. The great scope 
 and growth of the Methodist Episcopal Church since 
 1865 prove his far-sighted sagacity. They show that 
 he was divinely led. I was intimately associated with 
 him from the beginning of his work in that Southern 
 field. It is therefore fitting that I should detail such 
 events of that period as will best display his character- 
 istics in that delicate, difficult, and most significant 
 movement. 
 
 My personal acquaintance with him began in the 
 General Conference of 1864. Previous general knowl- 
 
ARTICLE IN ADVOCATE. 307 
 
 edge of him, as a successful educator and editor, had 
 prepossessed me in his favor. The later and closer 
 official and personal relations I had with him con- 
 firmed my impressions. Hence I voted for hinivfor 
 bishop in 1864, when he was elected. 
 
 In June, 1865, at nis request, I accompanied him to 
 Athens, Tennessee, where he reorganized the Holston 
 Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 
 Some months before a Convention was held in Knox- 
 ville, Tennessee, consisting of local and traveling min- 
 isters and laymen of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
 South. The members of that Convention had been 
 loyal to the United States during the then recent war. 
 They also expressed the views and wishes of some 
 thousands of other laymen, who also had been thus 
 true. They had suffered greatly because of such 
 loyalty. Some of them, for this reason, had been pro- 
 scribed, tried, and suspended by the Holston Con- 
 ference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. 
 Some of them had been in rebel prisons for their de- 
 votion to the national cause. All this was duly set 
 forth in the resolutions adopted by the Convention, 
 and which also declared their unwillingness longer 
 to recognize the pastors of the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church, South, as their pastors. 
 
 The Convention also requested the authorities of 
 the Methodist Episcopal Church to reorganize the 
 old Methodist Episcopal Church in East Tennessee. 
 In pursuance of these facts, Bishop Clark proceeded 
 to Athens to organize the first Methodist Annual Con- 
 ference in the late slave States since the division of 
 the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1845. Dr. Adam 
 Poe, then one of the Western Book Agents, was of 
 our party. The railroads in Tennessee were yet under 
 military control. We traveled over them on military 
 passes. 
 
308 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 In Nashville, Rev. J. B. McFerrin, D. D., of the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church, South, sought and ob- 
 tained an interview with Bishop Clark. By the 
 bishop's request, Dr. Poe and myself were present on 
 that occasion. I am the only survivor of the four per- 
 sons then present. Dr. McFerrin earnestly urged the 
 bishop to desist from, or to defer, his purpose to re- 
 organize the old Church in the South. He hoped to 
 see an organic union of the two Methodist Episcopal 
 Churches after the passions and animosities of the war 
 had subsided. He thought the reorganization of the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church in East Tennessee would 
 revive the smoldering embers of sectionalism, and de- 
 fer for a long time, if not forever, the fulfillment of 
 his hope of such reunion. He pleaded that the old 
 pastors of that section could better serve the people 
 there than new ones imported from the North. 
 
 The bishop replied, in substance, that most of the 
 East Tennesseeans had been loyal ; that some of their 
 ministers had be*en deposed for their loyalty, and had 
 been otherwise ill-treated; that the large Knoxville 
 Convention, including many preachers and laymen, 
 and representing thousands of others, had urgently 
 requested the re-establishment of the old Church ; and 
 that, in this request, the laymen were more strenuous 
 than the ministers. The bishop also showed that the 
 pastors he would appoint would be chiefly those who 
 had served that people as pastors before and during 
 the war; and that, if the petitioners could not have 
 the ministry of loyal preachers of their own denom- 
 ination, they would go to other Churches, and not to 
 the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. The bishop 
 said the Methodist Episcopal Church could not ig- 
 nore the Macedonian cry coming from those sheep 
 without shepherds and a fold ; and that, finally, to pro- 
 vide for these and any others in the South who might 
 
TRANSFER TO HOLSTON CONFERENCE. 309 
 
 ask or need such provision, would not, in his opinion, 
 retard, but, on the contrary, would hasten, the organic 
 unity desired, whenever the hour for it should really 
 strike. Dr. Poe said but little, and I said nothing. 
 I detail this conversation thus minutely as an act of 
 justice to Bishop Clark, and because it seemed to me 
 like a turning of the hinges of destiny. 
 
 I was transferred to the new Conference, and as- 
 signed to Knoxville District. Amid tears and shouts, 
 Bishop Clark organized the new Conference as the 
 Holston Conference. Four districts were formed and 
 manned. Carefully, wisely, and thoroughly the bishop 
 tended these new charges. He presided in two or 
 three Conference sessions during that quadrennium, 
 because, better than a stranger, he knew the needs 
 of the work. How wonderfully the planting of twenty- 
 six years ago has grown and multiplied, is demon- 
 strated by our Church statistics. In church-building 
 there, with suspended Church Extension drafts, he 
 strongly and kindly re-enforced his ministers in the 
 South with counsel and pecuniary relief, until we all 
 came to regard him more as a father and a friend 
 than as a leader and organizer, although he excelled 
 in both these latter qualities. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 In the Western Christian Advocate for June 7, 
 1865, appeared the following contribution from my 
 pen: 
 
 LETTER FROM NASHVILLE. 
 
 This has been a day of special interest in Nash- 
 ville. McKendree Chapel is occupied by us under a 
 military order. The title, I am informed, is in the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church. The building is seventy- 
 five feet by one hundred. The audience-room is there- 
 fore spacious and comfortable. A basement, with class 
 and Sunday-school rooms, is under the entire build- 
 ing. The congregation worshiping in old McKendree 
 is perceptibly changing, in the diminishing number 
 of soldiers who attend, and the greater proportion 
 of civilians, including ladies. The parsonage premises 
 are held and occupied by Brother McGee in similar 
 manner as the church. 
 
 Yesterday McKendree Chapel was crowded to lis- 
 ten to Rev. Bishop Clark, of your city. His sermon 
 was heard by the immense audience with profound 
 attention. Rev. Dr. Poe, of your Book Concern, as- 
 sisted in the services. They also attended and ad- 
 dressed the large Sunday-school which preceded the 
 public worship. In the afternoon the sacrament of 
 the Lord's Supper was observed, and nearly sixty 
 communicated. At evening, Rev. T. H. Pearne.. of 
 Oregon, preached. Owing to a sudden thunder- 
 shower, the attendance was less than in the morning, 
 yet a good degree of interest was apparent. This 
 is a memorable day for Nashville and Tennessee. 
 
 310 
 
LETTER FROM NASHVILLE. 311 
 
 "There are signs in the sky that the morning is 
 near." The Methodist Episcopal Church takes no 
 backward steps. The Daily Press and Times, of this 
 city, thus noticed the interview of Bishop Clark and 
 others with Governor Brownlow : 
 
 Interesting Meeting. — Calling in at the executive room 
 of the Capitol Saturday morning, we found Governor Brown- 
 low in conference — we might say Methodist Conference — with 
 the distinguished Bishop Clark, of the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church, of Cincinnati; Rev. Dr. A. Poe, of the Methodist 
 Book Concern, of the same city; Rev. T. H. Pearne, of Ore- 
 gon, late editor of the Pacific Christian Advocate, and some 
 three or four other Methodist clergymen, among them some 
 of our most active chaplains. The first three named are on 
 their way to attend the Holston Conference, which will meet 
 in Athens, East Tennessee, on the 1st of June next. We 
 learned that their purpose is, if possible, to effect a reunion 
 of the Methodist Church of this State with the Church, North, 
 so that the grand old denomination may "once more be a 
 national organization. May God speed the reunion! It will 
 be the welding of another of those golden links whose 
 breaking hastened our Civil War. The first was an involun- 
 tary meeting of the rebel preachers of this city, summoned 
 by Governor Johnson in 1862, to inquire into their purposes 
 and feelings toward the Government. Governor Johnson 
 presided with the dignity of a bishop; but the rebellious pas- 
 tors looked as sour as a barrel of pickles. 
 
 The editor is slightly incorrect as to the purpose 
 of Bishop Clark's visit. It is not exactly to effect a 
 union of the Methodist Church of the State with the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church, for in Middle and West- 
 ern Tennessee the Methodists have not generally in- 
 dicated a desire for such reunion ; but in East Ten- 
 nessee some five thousand laymen and nearly thirty 
 ministers have dissolved allegiance to the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church, South, and propose to unite with 
 the Methodist Episcopal Church. 
 
 On next Thursday Bishop Clark is to preside at 
 
312 SIXTY- ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 the reorganization of the Holston Conference of the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church, and he will appoint pas- 
 tors over the scattered Churches of East Tennessee. 
 These pastors will be mostly those who have remained 
 true to the Nation through the storm of rebellion, and 
 they and the laymen to whom they will minister, 
 prefer a Church which has never faltered in its loyalty 
 to the National Government. Of the Conference I 
 will write you more fully hereafter. 
 
 This place was the headquarters of the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church, South. Here was their Book Con- 
 cern and Publishing-house. The building and its ma- 
 chinery were converted — rumor says with the ap- 
 proval, if not at the instance of the agents — into an 
 official engineery for manufacturing munitions of war 
 for the now defunct Confederacy. When Nashville 
 was occupied by our troops, the house was employed 
 for holding military supplies. The building looks 
 desolate and dilapidated. 
 
 Rev. Drs. J. B. McFerrin and A. L. P. Green, 
 whose inflammatory speeches helped to "fire the 
 Southern heart" in this region, and gave impetus to 
 secession movements here, followed the Confederate 
 army as chaplains, or otherwise, until it disbanded. 
 They have lately returned, and taken the oath under 
 the Amnesty Proclamation. It is said they have be- 
 come convinced by events that the overthrow of re- 
 bellion and slavery is according to the will of God. 
 Their optics must have been very obtuse not to have 
 seen it long since. 
 
 Considerable is said here of a union of the two 
 Methodist Churches. The plan favored by leading 
 ministers of the Church South is for us to take the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church, South, back as a whole, 
 with its editors, book agents, bishops, and mission- 
 ary arrangements entire. How would that be relished 
 
LETTER FROM NASHVILLE. 313 
 
 in the North ? Bishop Soule resides six miles north of 
 this place, on the Gallatin Pike. He is in failing 
 health, both of mind and body. 
 
 There is a good deal of latent Copperheadism here. 
 Secesh ladies say "The South is conquered, but not 
 subdued," and the love for the Union is not as general 
 nor as strong as it should be. There is considerable 
 of the Copperish element in the Legislature, which 
 is now in session. Negro suffrage will not be allowed 
 at the present session. The same members will meet 
 next fall. They may provide for it then. It is their 
 only protection against the prevalence of anti-union, 
 anti-freedom, pro-slavery politics in the State of Ten- 
 nessee. If the Legislature does not give the Negroes 
 the protection of the elective franchise, it will not be 
 accorded in a generation without riots, and perhaps 
 serious disturbance of the peace and order of the 
 State. 
 
 Speaking of Governor Brownlow, he is in very 
 feeble health, and I shall not be surprised if he does 
 not live long. But his iron will and his inflexible 
 loyalty are quite as evident as ever. A characteristic 
 incident occurred the other day at the State-house. 
 Dr. McFerrin, on his return from Johnston's army, 
 called upon his excellency. The governor, recog- 
 nizing him, remarked, "Well, Mac, you know what 
 the hymn says, — 
 
 "And while the lamp holds out to burn 
 The vilest sinner may return," — 
 
 and God knozvs you fill the bill." 
 
 The governor, in his correspondence with the 
 president of the East Tennessee and Atlanta Rail- 
 road, who proposed to return the road to the gov- 
 ernor for the stockholders, after wasting and injuring 
 it in the service of the Confederacy, recites the wrongs 
 
314 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 and wickedness of the disloyal, rebellious president 
 and stockholders, and assures him that, instead of re- 
 ceiving indemnity from the State of Tennessee, or 
 from the Union, for damage to the road by the United 
 States military, the stock of disloyal men will be sunk 
 for the repairs the road may need. In his controversy 
 with Judge Trigg, the governor is clearly right, and 
 will be sustained. 
 
 Nashville is a queer city. It has a very fine natural 
 site. Its State-house is one of the best, if not the best, 
 in the Union. Some of its dwellings are elegant; 
 many of them are small and unsightly. Mrs. Polk's 
 residence and Mr. Polk's tomb are much visited. Her 
 loyalty is said to be slight. Nashville is a filthy city. 
 The hotels are mean, the fare indifferent, and the 
 prices exorbitant. But the South, free, shall yet as- 
 sume other and better aspects, and this city may yet 
 rival Cleveland, in Ohio, or Syracuse, New York, for 
 thrift and elegance. Meanness, affluence, and poverty, 
 refinement and boorishness, are in close propinquity. 
 An incident is related that transpired here when the 
 news of Mr. Lincoln's assassination was received. A 
 female rebel was exulting over the event in hearing 
 of a wounded soldier who was traveling on crutches. 
 Seizing one of them, he commenced cudgeling the 
 virago, who fled from him across the street. As he 
 could not follow her, he stooped down to the gutter, 
 and threw mud at her, soiling her costly dress. A 
 man came to the soldier, as her friend, to take up the 
 quarrel for her. The soldier drew his revolver, and 
 professed his readiness to settle the matter then and 
 there. The defender of the rebel in crinoline, evi- 
 dently deemed discretion the better part of valor, and 
 retired from the contest. OBSERVER, 
 
 Nashvii,i,e, Tenn., May 29, 1865. 
 
EDITORIAL IN ADVOCATE. 315 
 
 The following editorial in the Western Chris- 
 tian Advocate for June 14, 1865, accompanied my 
 report of the organization of the Holston Confer- ' 
 ence, which I have already inserted in this volume : 
 
 THE HOLSTON CONFERENCE. 
 
 We again consume our first page with a single re- 
 port, but so important that we think the length may 
 well be excused. By one means and another, it seems 
 that, all through the border region, information had 
 been given of a proposed reunion of the two great 
 organizations, North and South. The proceedings 
 clearly indicate with how little favor the proposition 
 met. Indeed, we are assured that a prospect of the suc- 
 cess of any such measure would have materially affected 
 it not defeated, the organization of the Conference. 
 We can now see clearly that there was no needless 
 delay in forming this Conference. The body is now 
 twice the size that it could have been a year ago, 
 and starts off with a prestige and power that augur 
 well for its future. Bishop Clark has been as wise in 
 his delay as he has been outspoken in his sentiments 
 and prompt in execution. We have now fifty men 
 in that field, with plenty of places to be supplied, 
 where heroic ministers can find a field for all they 
 will do and endure. Our brethren there ought to have 
 the prayers of the Church, and its contributions, too. 
 We adopt them heartily as our brethren, and shall 
 be glad to make the Western their voice to the uni- 
 versal Church. We shall yet circulate through their 
 territory, and labor together with them for the com- 
 mon good and the Redeemer's glory. Only think 
 of a North Carolina Circuit ! God bless the preacher ! 
 This indicates the true way to union. Here is a 
 
316 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 theory, and practice too. Let the truly loyal anti- 
 slavery sentiment of the South unite with us, and let 
 us wait for the others till they can see their folly. There 
 will yet be but one Methodist Episcopal Church, from 
 the Lakes to the Gulf, from ocean to ocean; but the 
 vision may tarry. Let us wait for it; it will surely 
 come; it will not tarry. Not one word of bitterness 
 for any; but the world is our parish, and our unre- 
 stricted commission is to preach the gospel to every 
 creature. Let us obey the Master, and our glory as 
 a Church, our numbers, and all else, will take care of 
 themselves. Nothing we could publish would be more 
 read than these very proceedings. The place of meet- 
 ing, as Bishop Clark states, was interesting for the 
 reason assigned ; the place of their next session will 
 be scarcely less so as the home of President Johnson. 
 
 I traveled the Knoxville District the first four 
 years of my work in the Holston Conference. The 
 district was large. It required travel by pike for 
 the most part. The country was traversed by 
 mountain ranges and by large creeks and rivers, 
 so making the labors of the incumbent severe. Yet 
 the loyal people were kind and hospitable. We 
 had some precious revivals each year of my incum- 
 bency on that district; but the country was in a 
 distracted condition. The rebels were coming back 
 to their old homes, and the loyal boys who had 
 worn the Blue and fought under the flag of the 
 Union, and who remembered the way the Confed- 
 erate authorities had treated some of the Union 
 people of that section during the war, did not treat 
 them very hospitably. The Church South preach- 
 ers were, in some instances, treated very roughly 
 
ON THE HOLSTON DISTRICT. 317 
 
 by their former neighbors and acquaintances. 
 They were whipped, and perhaps otherwise mal- 
 treated. I never heard of any of them being tarred 
 and feathered, although this might have been done. 
 They were shot from ambuscades. All this tended 
 to hinder the gospel. I wrote and published my 
 deep regret at this violence and private revenge 
 as being demoralizing, and I spoke openly and 
 strongly against this bloodthirsty spirit. I scarcely 
 ever held a public preaching or other service with- 
 out opposing violence towards any person for past 
 opinions or actions. I had heard that Captain 
 Sizemore — a captain in the Union army — had 
 threatened to kill a certain presiding elder of the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church, South, if he came 
 about near him attempting to preach or to hold 
 public religious services. I went many miles out of 
 my way to dissuade him, if possible, from carrying 
 his threat of murder into effect. I spent nearly the 
 whole night in urging him not to use any violence, 
 and certainly to refrain from visiting murderous 
 violence upon the presiding elder aforesaid, as it 
 was an example that might have found imitators 
 in dealing with loyal Tennesseeans. I prevailed on 
 him to promise me that he would not molest that 
 presiding elder irT his work. The reason he as- 
 signed for his purpose to shoot the Confederate 
 presiding elder if he should come into his neighbor- 
 hood was this: He said that that presiding elder 
 had wantonly caused the death of his young 
 brothers while he, the United States captain in the 
 Union service, was absent from his home. For this 
 
3l8 SIXTY- ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 conservative position I fell under the disapproba- 
 tion of many loyalist people in East Tennessee, and 
 I came near losing mv life because false statements 
 appeared in the public papers incriminating me, 
 and of those who had been in the Confederate serv- 
 ice, for my alleged complicity with the molestation 
 of Southern Methodist preachers. 
 
 I had occasion to attend the session of the Hol- 
 ston Conference of the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church, South, in Asheville, North Carolina, in 
 1866, the first one they held after the close of the 
 war. The year before the Conference had not been 
 held, because the ministers of that body were in 
 the rebel lines. I was set upon by several ruffians 
 in the Conference rooms, who sought to provoke 
 me into a wrangle, and then take my life. I was 
 informed, when I narrated the facts to a bookseller 
 in Asheville, that these toughs had been informed 
 that I was aiding and abetting the proscription and 
 abuse of Southern preachers in East Tennessee, and 
 that this was the cause and the inspiration of the 
 concerted onslaught made upon me. I was fired 
 upon in Knoxville before I had been there a month, 
 and when the murderer saw I did not fall, he ran 
 away as fast as he could. The way I came to be- 
 lieve that the shot was intended for me, was because 
 I wore a peculiar kind of hat, unlike all others worn 
 in Knoxville. As showing the animus of the ex- 
 Confederate Methodists in the Holston country, 
 this incident will be in place. I went up on a freight 
 train from Knoxville to hold a quarterly-meeting 
 a mile or two back from the railroad. The train 
 
EXPERIENCES. 3 1 9 
 
 did not stop at the station called Strawberry Plains, 
 but some half mile above it. The night was very 
 dark. In going down to the station, I fell into a 
 cattle-guard, and seriously wounded myself. The 
 only Methodist living there whom I knew was a 
 Mr. . He was a leading member of the Meth- 
 odist Episcopal Church, South, and he had been 
 an active sympathizer and worker in the Confeder- 
 ate cause. I think he had been in the Confederate 
 army. I called on him with my disfigured and 
 bleeding face, and requested him to lodge me and 
 care for me for the night. This was refused, and 
 I had to walk in darkness and over a strange road 
 two miles to get entertainment and care. He knew 
 me very well, and his was the only residence near 
 the station affording the conveniences and care I 
 required. I told him my situation, and said that I 
 did not know the way to the place where my meet- 
 ing was to be held, nor the name of any one there 
 to apply to for lodging and care; but he declined 
 my request in a rude and brusque manner. 
 
 On another occasion I went to a place to hold 
 a quarterly-meeting on Saturday and Sunday. In 
 that neighborhood there were quite a large number 
 of ex-Confederates. On reaching the church, a 
 friend took me aside, and informed me that threats 
 had been freely made in the community that I 
 would not be allowed to preach there, and he feared 
 that if I attempted to hold a meeting there I would 
 be injured, and perhaps killed. I thanked him for 
 his due and timely warning; but stated that I would 
 hold the meeting there, whatever the personal con- 
 
320 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 sequences to me might be. I entered the church 
 and kneeled down as usual to offer a brief prayer; 
 and then I stated to the large audience assembled 
 that I had been informed that I would not be al- 
 lowed to hold a religious service there; but that I 
 hoped the information was not true. I had no 
 other purpose than kindness in coming; and that 
 freedom of speech was a right I was not willing to 
 surrender. I should hold the meeting I said, and, 
 if molested, I was prepared to defend myself. I 
 displayed my revolver, and laid it down before me. 
 I then proceeded with the meeting without inter- 
 ruption. I received many anonymous letters, con- 
 taining pictures of coffins and skulls and cross- 
 bones, and warning me that unless I left that section 
 of the country I would be done up by the dagger, 
 and find my way into the coffin without further 
 notice. These missives were very alarming to my 
 wife; and yet she would not let me see any trepi- 
 dation nor apparent alarm. They were generally 
 signed "Ku-Klux." 
 
 My brother, Rev. William Hall Pearne, was en- 
 gaged in the work of reconstruction in West Ten- 
 nessee at the same time that I was operating in like 
 lines in East Tennessee. He informed me that he 
 repeatedly received Ku-Klux letters, and that he 
 never referred to them, so that the senders could 
 know his thought or feeling in regard to them. 
 On one occasion his train was held up by the Ku- 
 Klux. He had that day shaved off his mustache, 
 and he thinks his life was saved because of that fact. 
 He said the men who came into the sleeper where 
 
SOUTHERN SENTIMENT. 32 1 
 
 he was lying, drew aside the curtains, and ex-' 
 amined every cot and the occupant. When they 
 came to him he feigned sleep, and they did not 
 waken him. The porter told him afterwards that 
 he heard them say the Northern minister they were 
 in search of wore a mustache ; but that as there 
 was no one in the sleeper who had a mustache, the 
 man they were after they were unable to find, and 
 he probably had not taken that 'train, as they had 
 supposed. The passengers were not further mo- 
 lested ; and after the sleeper had been searched, the 
 train was permitted to proceed. Incidents of that 
 nature are not particularly reassuring to the vic- 
 tims of such treatment. It is to be hoped that the 
 day for conduct so barbarous has gone by forever 
 in our country. It was designed to frighten the 
 colored people, and to put Northerners, who, for 
 any reason, might be obnoxious to them, in such 
 dread that they would leave that section of the 
 country. In repeated instances white persons were 
 subjected to brutal treatment, and were driven 
 away by their terrific methods. 
 
 In 1867 I went down to Atlanta, to attend a 
 meeting of the Georgia Conference. I was return- 
 ing from meeting on Sunday morning to my hotel, 
 and met a man and a woman who seemed to want 
 to show a hostile spirit towards me as a Northerner. 
 As I was about to pass them they crowded as far 
 from me as possible, and the woman said to her 
 companion, in a loud and whining voice: "I 've no 
 patience with the Northern people, who come down 
 here where they are not wanted; let them stay in 
 
322 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 the country where they belong." As though he 
 did not hear her, but really because he wanted the 
 affront repeated, he said, ''What did you say?" 
 She piped out the same remark. When I saw her 
 evident effort to put distance between her and my- 
 self, I was strongly templed to blow my nose sig- 
 nificantly, and then, too, came the impulse to resent 
 the insult by some stinging remark ; but I had the 
 grace to keep silent. If I had made any sign, or 
 spoken any word which would have been severe 
 or sarcastic, the Southern press would probably 
 have made a sensational and scandalous note upon 
 the affair, charged me with some indecent or out- 
 rageous allegation of my maltreatment of a lady 
 in Georgia, and I could not have sent telegrams 
 fast enough to set myself right against her story of 
 wrong and violence. 
 
 The use of tobacco was very general. Not only 
 the men used it by smoking and chewing it, but 
 the women as well. Not only the boys chewed and 
 smoked, but the girls and young women also did. 
 The women, many of them, were snuff-dippers. 
 They would chew the end of a stick, and when the 
 part so chewed was soft and wet with their saliva, 
 they would dip it into snuff, and then lay the stick, 
 full of snuff, into their mouths. This stimulated 
 the saliva, and the expectoration of the snuff-dip- 
 pers was far more excessive than that of the men. 
 I would hold quarterly-meetings in East Tennessee, 
 where the amen corner occupied by the women 
 would seem clean and sweet enough when the 
 meeting began, and the women could kneel on the 
 
TOBACCO USING. 323 
 
 hardened tobacco spittle without soiling their silk 
 dresses ; but after the meeting had lasted one or two 
 days, no persons could kneel there without ruining 
 their dresses or clothes. I have seen young ladies 
 bite off the mouth end of their cigars, and request 
 the lighted cigar then being smoked, with which to 
 light their cigars, and the same is true of cigarettes. 
 The old-fashioned large families of the earlier 
 days of our Republic are still seen quite frequently 
 in the South. As a rule, the families are large. I 
 ate a Thanksgiving dinner in East Tennessee with 
 a most remarkable family. The husband was not 
 much, if any, above fifty, and the wife was not over 
 forty-five, with her youngest child yet unweaned. 
 And these persons were the parents of twenty-four 
 children, and of several grandchildren. They were 
 all present on the occasion named. Apparently in 
 perfect health, they were robust, vigorous, and stal- 
 wart. The people of East Tennessee were very 
 earnest and pronounced in their religious life. 
 They were demonstrative. They were not timid, 
 nor backward in making manifest their rapturous 
 shouts and hallelujahs. It is refreshing to witness 
 their zeal for the Master, and the matter-of-fact 
 way in which they live their religion. They dis- 
 play much sensibility. They are quite emotional. 
 
Ftrarllr ¥ mnri. 
 
 As United States Consul. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 MY appointment as United States consul came 
 about in this way. I was under very severe 
 strain during my five years of toil in reconstruction 
 work in the South. My nervous system and my 
 digestive organs gave way under the pressure. I 
 ran down in flesh and in strength, until the impair- 
 ment became very serious. The physician pro- 
 nounced me incurable, unless, by a change of cli- 
 mate and a sea voyage and absolute rest, the decay 
 could be arrested. Senator Brownlow procured my 
 appointment to the consulate at Kingston, Jamaica, 
 by President Grant. The appointment was im- 
 mediately confirmed by the United States Senate. 
 As an experiment, I took passage at New York 
 on a schooner, and I was upon the sea nearly three 
 weeks. During the voyage I became so much 
 worse, that it seemed unlikely that I should live 
 to reach the island. I made all possible prepara- 
 tions for the event, and gave the paper of directions 
 for the captain's action when the vessel should ar- 
 rive at Kingston, if in the meantime I should die 
 at sea. Providentially rny life was spared. As 
 soon as I landed I called a physician, who pro- 
 nounced me curable. His prescriptions were few 
 and simple. They were strictly followed. In a few 
 weeks an improvement was obvious. In a short 
 time it was apparent that the climate and the rest, 
 together with the treatment, would result in re- 
 
 327 
 
328 SIXTY- ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 covery. I returned by steamer for my family, and 
 we were soon domiciled in my new field, learning 
 the details of the office, and arranging for my offi- 
 cial consular residence in Kingston. 
 
 There is no secular calling which a minister 
 could follow that is less objectionable than that of 
 a consul of the United States. On the application 
 of the Secretary of State, through the United States 
 Legation at the Court of St. James, in London, an 
 exequatur was given by the Queen of England, au- 
 thorizing my official residence in Kingston, Ja- 
 maica, as a consul of the United States, so long as 
 my conduct should meet the approbation of the 
 British Colonial Government and that of Great 
 Britain. The duties are light. They would not 
 require more than an average of an hour's time for 
 each secular day, if they could be regularly dis- 
 tributed ; but sometimes there would be a rush, and 
 there would be crowded into three or four days 
 work enough for a week, and then there would be 
 an idle period of two or three weeks, when there 
 would be absolutely nothing to do. 
 
 The duties of the consulate relate almost ex- 
 clusively to maritime affairs — the care of American 
 ships which come into port. The vessels arriving 
 require to be officially certified by the consul, and 
 he gives them, when leaving, a clearance certificate. 
 The American seamen in a foreign port are under 
 the care of the American consul. Complaints of 
 ill-treatment are looked into by him. Sick seamen 
 are sent to a hospital, and proper nursing and care, 
 clothing and board, are furnished by the United 
 
DUTIES OF A CONSUL. 329 
 
 States for all destitute American sailors arriving 
 in American or in foreign vessels into the consular 
 port. Ship's dues are paid into the consulate for. 
 the Seamen's Relief Fund, and the consul is the 
 official guardian of all American sailors while in 
 port. If the vessel has been impaired by weather 
 or other misadventure, the consul may appoint a 
 Board of Survey, who shall determine whether any, 
 and, if any, what repairs shall be put upon the dis- 
 abled ship ; and whether the vessel is seaworthy or 
 otherwise. All this is necessary for the protection 
 of American shipowners and underwriters. The 
 consul charges certain specified fees for consular 
 service of any kind, and these are paid by the ship, 
 or by consignees or consignors of the vessel. In 
 addition to these duties, the consul would naturally 
 be expected to look after any American citizens 
 sojourning in the island for a longer or shorter 
 time. He has no funds at his disposal to relieve 
 destitute Americans in port; but he would, of 
 course, give them such needed attention and coun- 
 sel as he might find practicable. 
 
 The salary of the consul at Jamaica was two 
 thousand dollars per annum. The perquisites were 
 notarial fees for such extra copies of official papers 
 as might be demanded by shippers or consignees 
 or consignors, and also captains or others. These 
 might amount to two hundred and fifty dollars per 
 year. In addition to notarial fees, the consul has 
 the power to appoint consular agents in other ship- 
 ping ports of the island besides his own port, one- 
 half of the fees of which go to the consular agents, 
 
330 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 and the other half to the consul as perquisites. 
 There were seven ports of entry on the island, and 
 I appointed to these consular agents. The fees 
 from them amounted to several hundred dollars. 
 All of them increased the salary of the consul per- 
 haps nearly or quite one thousand dollars. In the 
 event of serious injury to an American ship coming 
 into port, the Board of Survey appointed and the 
 necessary processes required involve considerable 
 expense. But all the service demanded is furnished 
 at the expense of the shipowners or consignees for 
 original copies, which belong to the office of the 
 consulate. Then if certified copies are demanded, 
 these are paid for as notarial fees. 
 
 Sometimes, as the result of a survey, the ship is 
 condemned as unseaworthy, in which case the ship 
 is sold for the benefit of all concerned. It some- 
 times happens that collusion between the captain 
 and the consignee is suspected or charged. Then 
 the case becomes seriously complicated. Not sel- 
 dom, in such an event, suits are entered against the 
 suspected parties by the owners or underwriters. 
 In my consulate I found an American captain, who 
 had been sued and cast into prison. He had been 
 confined there for over a year, at his own cost for 
 board and expenses. After considerable corre- 
 spondence and delay I procured his release, and he 
 was returned to his own country. 
 
 During my consulate many of the natives of 
 Cuba were, as they are now, struggling for their 
 independence against the tyranny of Spain. Sym- 
 pathizers in the United States would assist them, 
 
THE STEAMER VIRGIN! US. 33 1 
 
 and furnish them transportation of war supplies and 
 ammunition. American steamers would come to 
 Kingston for shipping supplies, or for refuge, and 
 obtaining these, or perhaps finding Kingston a safe 
 harbor or refuge from pursuit by Spanish cruisers, 
 they would remain in my port for weeks. The 
 Edgar Stuart, a small steamer, was several times 
 in the harbor of Kingston, Jamaica, and remained 
 there for longer or shorter periods. In the autumn 
 of 1873, the steamer Virginias also came into my 
 port for escape from Spanish pursuers. The cap- 
 tain was chased into our waters by a Spanish war- 
 vessel. The captain was so sorely beset, and his 
 escape from capture was so narrow, that on his ar- 
 rival he forsook his vessel, and made his way back 
 to the United States by English steamer to Aspin- 
 wall, and thence by the Pacific Steam Navigation 
 lines to New York. I found the ship was duly 
 registered as an American vessel, although her his- 
 tory was not altogether regular and assuring. Dur- 
 ing our late Civil War the Virginias was engaged 
 in running the blockade of the Southern ports. On 
 one of her trips she was captured by the blockaders, 
 and condemned as a prize by the Government. 
 After the war she was sold in the port of Mobile, 
 February, 1866; but shortly afterwards she was 
 again acquired by the United States. In 1870 she 
 was resold to John F. Patterson. Patterson was 
 reputed to have been an agent of the Carlist rebel- 
 lion in Cuba. It was alleged that he purchased 
 the Virginius for the sake of Ouesada and Bam- 
 betta, well-known Cuban patriots. Bambetta was 
 
332 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 a passenger on the ill-fated ship when captured, and 
 he was the first one shot at Santiago. Patterson 
 obtained an American register from the port of 
 New Orleans, duly authenticated by United States 
 officials. In 1870 she sailed from New York, with 
 the right, as against all other nations, to carry the 
 American flag. When she sailed she cleared for a 
 port in the Caribbean Sea, to which she went. She 
 did not appear ever to have regularly cleared from 
 any port in the United States. The capture of the 
 captain, Joseph Fry, Bambetto, and many others of 
 the crew and passengers followed. 
 
 As the Virginius was left in the port of Jamaica 
 without a captain, it became my duty to appoint 
 a commander of the ship upon the nomination of 
 the consignees of the vessel. The law required, 
 however, that he must be an American citizen, and 
 of experience and nautical ability and skill to navi- 
 gate a ship safely over the seas of the world. Cap- 
 tain Fry was in Kingston at the time, and he was 
 often in the consulate. During this time the 
 United States frigate Tennessee, a war steamer, was 
 in port ; and at one time when he was present the 
 commander and some of the officers of the Ten- 
 nessee came into my office, and I introduced them 
 to Captain Fry. Their greeting was respectful; 
 but not apparently very cordial. They spoke of 
 having known Captain Fry when he was an officer 
 in the United States navy. After they retired, Cap- 
 tain Fry wept freely over the great mistake he had 
 made in resigning from the naval service of the 
 Republic, and in accepting a place in the Confed- 
 
CAPTAIN FRY'S LAST LETTER. 333 
 
 erate navy. "What a fool I was," said he; "I could 
 have been in a good position, honored and comfort- 
 able; but I lost all that, and now I am poor and 
 forsaken." He was nominated by the consignees 
 of the Virginias to be appointed to her command. 
 I told them that I thought he was lawfully in- 
 eligible, for the law requires that masters of Ameri- 
 can ships should be American citizens, and I sup- 
 posed he had lost his American citizenship by en- 
 gaging in the service of the Confederacy; but he 
 submitted to me his pardon papers from President 
 Andrew Johnson, which restored him to citizen- 
 ship. After some expostulations with him in view 
 of the dangers he incurred, and the sufferings his 
 family might be obliged to endure if mishap at- 
 tended his sailing, I appointed him captain of the 
 Virginius. He said he had considered it all, and 
 yet he must take the risks involved to gain bread 
 for his wife and children. His case was very pa- 
 thetic. I felt great sympathy for him, and when I 
 learned that he had been captured and shot the 
 news deeply affected me. His bearing during his 
 trial and execution was honorable. He personally 
 shook hands and said farewell to his comrades of 
 the ship. Before his execution, he addressed the 
 'following letter to his wife : 
 
 CAPTAIN FRY'S FAREWELL LETTER TO HIS WIFE. 
 
 On Board the Spanish Man-of-War Tornado, | 
 Santiago de Cuba, November 6, 1873. \ 
 
 Dear, Dear DiTa, — When I left you I had no 
 idea that we should never meet again in this world ; 
 but it seems strange to me that I should to-night, 
 
334 SIXTY- ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 and on Annie's birthday, be calmly seated, on a beau- 
 tiful moonlight night, in a most beautiful bay in Cuba, 
 to take my last leave of you, my own dear, sweet wife, 
 and, with the thought of your own bitter anguish — 
 my only regret at leaving. 
 
 I have been tried to-day, and the president of 
 the court-martial asked the favor of embracing me 
 at parting, and clasped me to his heart. I have shaken 
 hands with each of my judges, and the secretary of 
 the court and the interpreter have promised me, as 
 an especial favor, to attend my execution, which will, 
 I am told, be within a few hours after my sentence 
 is pronounced. 
 
 I am told my death will be painless. In short, 
 I have had a very cheerful and pleasant chat about 
 my funeral, to which I shall go a few hours from now ; 
 how soon, I can not say yet. It is curious to see 
 how I make friends. Poor Bambetta pronounced me 
 a gentleman, and he was the brightest and bravest 
 creature I ever saw. 
 
 The priest who gave me communion on board this 
 morning, put a double scapular around my neck, and 
 a medal, which he intends to wear himself. A young 
 Spanish officer brought me a bright, new silk badge, 
 with the Blessed Virgin stamped upon it, to wear 
 to my execution for him, and a handsome cross, in 
 some fair lady's handiwork. They are to be kept as 
 relics of me. He embraced me affectionately in his 
 room, with tears in his eyes. 
 
 Dear sweetheart, you will be able to bear it for 
 my sake, for I will be with you if God permits. Al- 
 though I know my hours are short and few, I am 
 not sad. I shall be with you right soon, dear Dita, 
 and you will not be afraid of me. Pray for me, and 
 I will pray with you. There is to be a fearful sacrifice 
 of life, as I think, from the Virginius, and, as I think, 
 
THE SPANISH DIFFICULTY. 335 
 
 a needless one, as the poor people are unconscious 
 of crime, and even of their fate up to now. I hope 
 God will forgive me if I am to blame for it. 
 
 If you write to President Grant he will probably or- 
 der my pay, due when 1 resigned, to be paid to you 
 after my death. People will be kinder to you now, 
 dear Dita; at least I hope so. Do not dread death 
 when it comes to you. It will be God's angel of rest — 
 remember this. I hope my children will forget their 
 father's harshness, and remember his love and anxiety 
 for them. May they practice regularly their religion, 
 
 and pray for him always. Tell the last act of 
 
 my life will be a public profession of my faith and 
 hope in Him of whom we need not be ashamed ; and 
 it is not honest to withhold that public acknowledg- 
 ment from any false modesty or timidity. May God 
 bless and save us all ! Sweet, dear, dear Dita, we will 
 soon meet again. Till then, adieu for the last time. 
 
 Your devoted husband, Joseph Fry. 
 
 The following article on the subject of the Vir- 
 ginius and our strained relations with Spain ap- 
 peared in the Western Christian Advocate, Decem- 
 ber 31, 1873: 
 
 THE SPANISH DIFFICULTY. 
 
 The war fever against Spain on account of the 
 Virgimus affair has entirely subsided. The Fish-Polo 
 protocol has been promptly and honorably carried 
 out by the Spanish Government. The Virginius has 
 been returned, and the remaining passengers and crew 
 have been surrendered. There is no reason to doubt 
 that the remaining provisions of the treaty will also 
 be observed. All this is matter for congratulation. 
 
 In the meantime, upon the showing of the case 
 before him, the Attorney-General has transmitted to 
 
336 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 the Secretary of State his written opinion upon the 
 questions, whether or not the Virginius, at the time 
 of her capture by the Tornado, was improperly, and 
 without right, carrying the American flag. Referring 
 to the provisions of our laws as to the ownership and 
 registry of American vessels, the Attorney-General 
 finds that the registry of the Virginius was fraudulently 
 obtained ; that, instead of being owned by Americans, 
 as the law requires, the ship was, in fact, owned by 
 foreigners ; that only by false swearing was a registry 
 obtained ; and, moreover, that the usual bond required 
 in such cases was defective in having no sureties upon 
 it. At the same time, the Attorney-General main- 
 tains "that she was as much exempt from interfer- 
 ence on the high seas by another power, upon that 
 ground, as though she had been lawfully registered." 
 The right of Spain to capture a vessel of American 
 register, and carrying the American flag, if found in 
 her waters, assisting, or endeavoring to assist, the insur- 
 rection in Cuba, is admitted by the Attorney-General, 
 who says : "But she has no right to capture such a 
 vessel on the high seas, upon an apprehension that, in 
 violation of the neutrality or navigation law of the 
 United States, she was on her way to assist said re- 
 bellion. Spain may defend her territory and people 
 from the hostile attack of what is, or appears to be, 
 an American vessel; but she has no jurisdiction what- 
 ever over the question as to whether or not such 
 vessel is on the high seas in violation of any law of 
 the United States. Spain can not rightfully raise that 
 question as to the Virginius; but the United States 
 may, and, if I understand the protocol, they have 
 agreed to do it, and be governed by that agreement ; 
 and, without admitting that Spain would otherwise 
 have any interest in the question, I decide that the 
 
SEIZURE OF THE VIRGINIUS. 337 
 
 Virginias, at the time of her capture, was, without 
 right and improperly, carrying the American flag." 
 
 The opinion of the Attorney-General as to the 
 wrongfulness of the seizure of the Virginius upon the 
 high seas is so fully in accordance with international 
 law, as held by nearly all civilized Governments, in- 
 cluding Spain, that we can not see how it can be 
 successfully called into question. The fraud in pro- 
 curing the register of the Virginius, and the unright- 
 ful carrying of the United States flag, were offenses, 
 not against Spanish law, but against American law. 
 Of such offenses, not Spain, but the United States, 
 is to be the trier and punisher. To allow for a moment 
 that, under the apprehension that the Virginius had 
 not regular papers, and did not lawfully carry the 
 American flag, Spain had the right to seize her upon 
 the high seas, adjudge, and condemn her, is utterly 
 absurd. Such an admission as to any foreign power 
 whatever, would place our commerce, our citizens, 
 and their property, at the mercy or the caprice of 
 any meddlesome Government which, with or without 
 reason, might choose to annoy us. The American 
 flag, when the right to carry it is covered by the 
 usual papers, entitles the vessel so bearing it to as 
 much immunity from assault as the soil of the United 
 States is entitled to freedom from invasion by a for- 
 eign power. To all legal intents, the deck of an Amer- 
 ican ship is American soil. Spain has no more right 
 to invade that soil on the deck of an American ship 
 when in neutral waters than she would have to invade 
 New York or Baltimore. It is granted that incon- 
 venience may sometimes result by vessels procuring 
 papers by fraud, but not half the wrong and injury 
 which the admission of tlje right of search and seiz- 
 ure upon the high seas would work. The illegal 
 
338 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 bearing of the United States flag is a violation of 
 American law. When the United States Government 
 is unable to compel the observance of its own laws, 
 or to punish their violation, it may choose a guardian, 
 and ask for assistance. Until our Government reaches 
 that unhappy condition, the assumption that Spain 
 may adjudicate for the United States is simply 
 monstrous. 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 THE war steam-frigate Tennessee was sent by 
 President Grant to Samana Bay, in the island 
 of St. Domingo, with a select company, acting as 
 a Commission, to make observations in that bay, 
 and learn whether or not the President had vio- 
 lated any law, or had compromised the Govern- 
 ment of the United States in his administration of 
 the affairs of that grant from the Haytians of the 
 use of the bay as a coaling station. The persons 
 composing that Commission included, Manton 
 Marble, of the New York World; A. D. White, of 
 the Cornell University; Frederick Douglass; Sena- 
 tor B. F. Wade, of Ohio; and perhaps others. 
 Bishop Arthur Cleveland Coxe, of the Western 
 Diocese of New York, was a passenger from Hayti 
 to New York by that vessel, as I now. remember. 
 The ship remained in Kingston Harbor a week or 
 more. 
 
 An incident connected with Frederick Douglass 
 interested me somewhat. On Saturday, as we were 
 riding about Kingston, Mr. Douglass inquired of 
 me where he could study the question of color- 
 caste to the best advantage. I told him Wesley 
 Chapel, and I tendered him the use of my pew in 
 that church, explaining that, as I was to preach in 
 another Wesleyan church on that day, I regretted 
 my necessary absence from Wesley ; but telling him 
 to inquire of the janitor for the American consul's 
 
 339 
 
340 SIXTY- ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 pew, and to occupy that, because from that he 
 would have a good view of the situation. The next 
 day after, I was with him again. He said he was 
 delighted with his attendance at Wesley. There 
 was a congregation of twenty-five hundred or 
 more. The seats were occupied by the same fam- 
 ily; the white father at one end of the pew, and a 
 black wife at the other end, with the children be- 
 tween them of various shades of mahogany; and 
 vice versa, the black father at the one end of the 
 line, and a blue-eyed English blonde at the other. 
 He said the singing, led by a powerful organ and 
 a chorus of two thousand sweet voices, more re- 
 sembled his ideal of heaven than any other he had 
 ever had. ■ As for the mingling of bloods and of 
 races, he described it as a mingling together of 
 pepper and salt all over the house. "Why," said 
 he, "there was not the faintest scent of color-caste 
 about it." 
 
 I greatly admired Bishop Coxe. He was gen- 
 ial, frank, refined, intellectual, and intelligent, and, 
 withal, a man of large catholicity. His father was 
 Rev. Samuel Hanson Cox, the once renowned 
 celebrity of Brooklyn, as a Calvinistic divine of the 
 Presbyterian denomination ; and yet his son was an 
 Arminian in doctrine and of prelatical Church pro- 
 clivities. This he explained by saying that his 
 mother was a Church woman of pronounced Armin- 
 ian views. He expressed a high respect for the 
 ministers and work of the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church. He said they were providentially God's 
 great breakwater to save this country from going 
 
MY RESIDENCE IN JAMAICA. 34 1 
 
 through Unitarianism, as a half-way house, into 
 open infidelity. Long before he was elected a 
 bishop, when he was rector of a wealthy Church 
 in Baltimore, he had planted a mission in Santo 
 Domingo, which he had ever since maintained, and 
 to which he had been accustomed to go as often 
 as once in a year, or once in two years, to study 
 the growth and the work of that Christian plant, 
 which he had established among the blacks of that 
 island. 
 
 My residence of three years in Jamaica with 
 my family afforded me very great pleasure. I trav- 
 eled with my family all over the island, preached 
 and made addresses in all the chief cities and towns, 
 shared in the generous hospitality of the people, 
 recovered my health, and I have ever since held in 
 delightful remembrance my three years of sojourn 
 as a consul in that "beautiful isle of the sea." It 
 would be an almost criminal omission not to speak 
 of my relations with the Wesleyan ministers and 
 their familes, who made us welcome to their homes 
 and chapels, and to the quarterly-meetings and 
 breakfasts and teas, which were quite frequent — 
 Rev. George Sargeant, the chairman of the district; 
 Samuel Smyth, Henry Bunting, George Geddes, 
 and many others. William West succeeded George 
 Sargeant as chairman of the district. He was a 
 veteran who had seen much service on the gold 
 coast of Africa. He and the other Wesleyan min- 
 isters and official laymen united in a beautiful and 
 highly appreciated testimonial, expressing their re- 
 spect and esteem for me, as did also the Masonic 
 
342 SIXTY- ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 bodies of Kingston. My relations with the min- 
 isters of other denominations were very pleasant 
 and enjoyable. 
 
 I must not fail to speak of John Martin, prin- 
 cipal for many years of the Lady Mico School — 
 a normal school for the training of teachers. He 
 was a fine scholar, and a wise and successful gov- 
 ernor and teacher in the institution of that name in 
 Kingston. I am not sure that, he graduated ; yet I 
 think he did. Upon my representation, the Athens 
 College conferred on him the degree of LL. D., 
 a dignity and honor which he richly deserved. 
 
 These recollections of the three years of my 
 stay in Jamaica will always be a green oasis in the 
 memories of life. I give the principal facts which 
 I learned of its history and condition, for the enter- 
 tainment and instruction of my readers. 
 
 Jamaica is an interesting island, whether viewed 
 as to its history, population, climate, soil, or pro- 
 ductions. Lying adjacent to our Republic, under 
 the very shadow of our country, and within four 
 or five days of steamboat sail of our chief Atlantic 
 seaports, she is related to us by important present 
 and prospective conditions. 
 
 Except the Bahama Islands, all the West India 
 islands are sometimes called the Antilles. Those 
 forming, like a string of pearls, the eastern boun- 
 dary of the Caribbean Sea, are called the Lesser 
 Antilles ; and those on the western rim of the Carib- 
 bean Sea, including Cuba, Jamaica, and Santo 
 Domingo, are called the Greater Antilles. The 
 Lesser Antilles stretch away eastward, from the 
 
POSITION OF JAMAICA. 343 
 
 Gulf of Mexico to the meridian of Paria in South 
 America, say sixteen hundred miles. The name 
 Antilles was given by mistake to the West India 
 Islands. Before the discovery of America by Co- 
 lumbus, a tradition existed, that lying west of the 
 Azores, which were west of Africa, there lay a land 
 called Antillse, whose position was faintly shown 
 on the early maps of the cosmographers. Nearly 
 eight months after Columbus returned to Europe, 
 it was held that the islands he had discovered were 
 the fabled Antilke, and Cuba and Hayti were 
 known as the Antillse before a single link of the 
 Caribbean chain had been discovered. 
 
 In the Greater Antilles lies Jamaica. There are 
 in the Lesser Antilles thirteen British islands, 
 scarcely five thousand miles in area, all of them of 
 much less than the area of Jamaica, and relatively 
 of far less importance. And so I am sure my read- 
 ers will have interest in my facts and descriptions 
 of that beautiful island. Those facts were gathered 
 from personal observation in a three years' resi- 
 dence in the island. Jamaica has been styled, "The 
 brightest jewel in the British crown." Its peerless 
 beauty has never been traced by^ the most skilled 
 painter. No statist has yet computed its undevel- 
 oped resources. Its geographical position and its 
 remarkable history have been the theme of able 
 writers. But there is a still more potent cause for 
 appreciating this singularly beautiful island. It is 
 my profound conviction, that all America, includ- 
 ing, also, its adjacent islands, should properly be- 
 long to the United States, and they are necessary 
 
344 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 to her fullest and destined development'; and for 
 these reasons I am deeply interested in all that 
 relates to the West Indies. Four hundred and six 
 years ago Columbus discovered America. Four 
 hundred and three years ago Columbus, probably 
 on his second westward voyage, sailed into Saint 
 Ann's Bay, on the north side of the island. In a 
 part of Saint Ann's Bay is a cove, called yet "Chris- 
 topher's Cove," where he anchored his ships and 
 wintered and where he lay in infirmity and suffer- 
 ing and mutiny, the gentle natives supplying his 
 wants. 
 
 Jamaica abounds with woods and streams, and 
 from the sea-line to the loftiest mountain summits, 
 eight thousand miles above the sea-level, the sur- 
 face is clad in richest livery of grass and flowers 
 and shrubs. Its vivid green and gorgeous flora 
 gained for it at the earliest of its settlement the 
 name, Xamaica — the land of springs and verdure 
 and forests. This aboriginal name, Anglicized to 
 Jamaica, it has ever since borne. Discovered by 
 Spaniards, it became a Spanish colony, and re- 
 mained such for one hundred and sixty-one years. 
 In that time the gentle natives, who had welcomed 
 the great discoverer and had ministered to his 
 needs, fell victims to the ruthless rapacity and vio- 
 lence of their conquerors. Like frostwork in the 
 sun, these natives melted away from a half million 
 to one hundred thousand or less. In 1655, Oliver 
 Cromwell, then Lord High Protector of England, 
 sent General Venable and Admiral Penn to the 
 West Indies, ostensibly to make reprisals in the 
 
HISTORY OF JAMAICA. 345 
 
 Spanish main for injuries done to British com- 
 merce; but really, to capture and subject Santo 
 Domingo, and all this without a formal declaration 
 of war. The expedition failed. The commanders 
 disagreed. It is alleged that one or both of them 
 were suspected of disloyalty to their chief. Feel- 
 ing, perhaps, that they should not return without 
 having achieved anything to add to their luster, 
 they attacked and conquered Jamaica, and planted 
 upon it the Cross of St. George, which has stamped 
 an immeasurable impress on the civilization of the 
 world. From that day to this, for two hundred and 
 forty years, Jamaica has been a British colony. 
 For two hundred and ten years she was a charter 
 colony; i. e., a self-governing colony. In 1865, 
 during a momentary panic from an alleged uprising 
 of the Negroes, she surrendered her charter, and 
 requested Great Britain to make her a crown col- 
 ony altogether, without self-governing power, hav- 
 ing even no authority to elect either a constable 
 or a police officer. 
 
 Venable and Penn were cast into the Tower of 
 London. They were tried by court-martial for 
 their treasonable failure to do something more sig- 
 nal. Vexed at the smallness of their acquisition, 
 Cromwell offered Jamaica to the Colony of Massa- 
 chusetts. This historical fact is not in the books. 
 It is not, however, any the less true. I give it as 
 authentic. My voucher is the Rev. Professor E. S. 
 Starbuck, of Berea College, in Kentucky, formerly 
 a missionary in Jamaica in the service of the Ameri- 
 can Missionary Society. He claims to have dis- 
 
346 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 covered documentary proof in Jamaica of the truth 
 of the statement. Whatever we have since become 
 as an expansive, acquisitive Nation, adding Flor- 
 ida, Louisiana, Texas, California, and later still 
 the icebergs and seals — aye, and the gold-fields of 
 Alaska — we were then but callow fledglings. 
 Cromwell's offer was declined. Had Massachusetts 
 accepted the largess of Cromwell, the history of 
 England and of the United States might have been 
 far different from what it has been. 
 
 Jamaica lies centrally in the Caribbean Sea, be- 
 tween north latitude 17 degrees and 39 minutes, and 
 18 degrees and 34 minutes. It is one hundred and 
 seventy-five miles long, by sixty-five miles wide. 
 It contains six thousand four hundred square miles, 
 and four millions and eighty thousand square acres. 
 Ohio is six times as large as Jamaica. Jamaica is 
 more than half as large as Maryland, three times 
 as large as Delaware, and five times as large as 
 Rhode Island in area, and six times as large in 
 population. On a clear day, Cuba can be seen 
 from the mountains of Saint Ann's, directly north 
 of Jamaica, ninety miles distant, and Santo Do- 
 mingo about as far east. Jamaica occupies a very 
 central position geographically. It is fourteen 
 hundred and sixty miles south from New York, 
 and five hundred miles from the Isthmus of Darien. 
 It is in the direct line between England and Aus- 
 tralia, and directly on the line between New York 
 and Rio Janeiro, South America. Its geographical 
 position and commercial importance are easily 
 shown. 
 
OCEAN AND LAND SURFACE. 347 
 
 It is not accidental that three-fourths of the 
 world's surface is water. The oceans of earth are 
 the highways of commerce. Intercourse and com- 
 merce are important factors in the civilization and 
 progress of the world. The distribution of the 
 oceans is peculiar. There is less land in the West- 
 ern than in the Eastern Hemisphere, and far more 
 north of the equator than south of it. The land is 
 distributed into four grand divisions. North and 
 South America, with their adjacent islands, make 
 the western division, or hemisphere. In area, this 
 division is 14,766,336 square miles. The conti- 
 nents of Europe, Asia, and Africa, with their sys- 
 tems of islands, have an area more than twice as 
 large as the Western Hemisphere, or 32,500,000 
 square miles. The area of the West India Islands 
 is one-sixteenth that of the Western Hemisphere; 
 i. e., 922,896 square miles. If now one should take 
 two maps of the world, say Mercator's projection 
 in duplicate hemispheres, and lay them alongside 
 each other, it will be seen that North America lies 
 between Europe, Asia, and Africa in the east, and 
 Asia on the west, with broad oceans on each side 
 of her. One of these oceans separating them is 
 five thousand miles w r ide, and the other three thou- 
 sand miles. No other continent in the world is so 
 situated. This is not accidental. Its importance 
 to North Asia and the West Indies can not be over- 
 estimated. With the single exception of Suez, one 
 hundred miles wide, in the Eastern Hemisphere, 
 and Darien in the Western, fifty miles wide, God 
 has made water communication around the world, 
 
348 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 on its most populous zone. Commerce has com- 
 pelled the opening of the Suez Canal. It will com- 
 pel a like canal in the Western Hemisphere, and 
 then the waterway of commerce and travel around 
 the world on its most populous zone will be com- 
 plete; and, by the way, Jerusalem will be on that 
 line. There is now a railroad from Joppa to Jeru- 
 salem, and it will be soon extended east to the 
 Gulf of Persia. 
 
 There is still another fact. Jamaica is in the 
 midst of a remarkable sea, directly on the water- 
 line of travel and commerce around the world, on 
 the zone of the world's greatest populations, and 
 therefore on the line where the business and travel 
 of the world will be the greatest, and it also lies 
 right on the line of the north and south commerce 
 and travel of the world between New York and 
 South America. In the earlier times, Washington 
 and others of the fathers of the United States held 
 that this separation of our country from all other 
 lands was a Providential fact, insuring us from 
 harmful contact with all other nations, so indicat- 
 ing segregation and isolation from all other nations 
 as the wisest policy. But steam and electricity and 
 commerce have forbidden us longer to indulge in 
 this dream. If we were disposed to hide within 
 our shell and avoid contact with other peoples, 
 we could not if we would, and we should not if we 
 could. Other nations would not let us, and our 
 aggressive nature and the demands of commerce 
 and travel and the world's progress would forbid. 
 We must intermeddle and intermingle with all other 
 
TWO GREAT MID-CONTINENT SEAS. 349 
 
 peoples, or fall into the rear, while other nations 
 lead the van ; or, asserting our vim, vigor, and vic- 
 tory, we must lead the procession, and we must 
 have virtue enough and wisdom enough to profit 
 ourselves and the race by this intermeddling and 
 intermingling. 
 
 There are two most remarkable seas in the 
 world, twin seas. One of them is in the Eastern 
 Hemisphere, and the other in the Western. They 
 are both so nearly alike in area and conditions 
 and relations, as to seem almost like twin seas. On 
 the shores of the one sea the cradle of science was 
 rocked. On the shores of the other, the mound- 
 builders and the Mexicans, if they are not one and 
 the same, roamed and hunted and offered their 
 human sacrifices. On the waters of the one, Solo- 
 mon's ships carried peacocks, ivory and gold, and 
 myrrh and spices. On the waters of the other, 
 the mound-builders propelled their bark canoes. 
 On the shores of the one sea dwelt Cadmus, the 
 father of letters, and Priam and Socrates and Sen- 
 eca, kings of men. The shores of the other sea 
 were traversed by unknown races. One of these 
 seas divides Europe from Africa. The other di- 
 vides North and South America. As on the shores 
 of the one sea the cradle of the infancy of science 
 was rocked, so on the shores of the other sea shall 
 the highest, grandest, and most glorious results 
 of science and morality and religion be reached and 
 illustrated. 
 
 The northern boundary of the great western 
 sea are the Bahama Islands and the United States. 
 
350 SIXTY- ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 The southern and western boundary are South and 
 Central America. The Windward West India Isl- 
 ands, or Lesser Antilles, like a setting of pearls, 
 are the eastern boundary. The western sea is 1,970 
 miles long by 560 miles wide. These seas have 
 practically a like area. The Mediterranean Sea 
 has an area of 1,000,000 square miles. The Carib- 
 bean has an area of 1,100,000 square miles. In the 
 eastern sea there are sixty-four islands, large and 
 small, some of them of great historic fame. These 
 islands have an area of 32,000 square miles, and a 
 population of 4,000,000, or 130 persons to the 
 square mile. There are seventy-five islands in the 
 Caribbean Sea, with an area of 86,000 square miles, 
 or nearly three times as many square miles as in its 
 sister sea, and a population of four million persons, 
 or forty-five to the square mile. 
 
 As America is centrally located between the 
 other continents, so is Jamaica to the other islands 
 in the Caribbean Sea, and also central to North 
 and South America. Jamaica is nearer to the Isth- 
 mus of Darien than any other islands in the Carib- 
 bean, and therefore it holds the key position of 
 the isthmus. Hence its incomparable commercial 
 value. When commerce and travel in largely in- 
 creased ratio shall take their way around the world, 
 Jamaica is on the direct line of that movement. 
 When the United States does tenfold its present 
 business with South America, Jamaica will be its 
 principal stopping-place. Populations that are 
 touched and connected by rivers and seas are most 
 important, and are soonest and most perfectly civil- 
 
POPULATION OF JAMAICA. 35 1 
 
 ized. Secluded peoples come on very gradually. 
 The East Indies are more important than Central 
 Asia or Central Africa. Insular countries, for the 
 same reason, are more advanced than continental 
 countries. And then, moreover, peoples lying in 
 the paths of the world's commerce and travel ac- 
 quire wealth and elegance and civilization. All this 
 applies to Jamaica. 
 
 By the census of 1871, the population of Ja- 
 maica is 506,154, as follows: Whites, 13,100, a de- 
 crease of 715 below the census of 1861 ; mulattoes, 
 100,346, an increase of 19,281 over the showing of 
 the census of 1861 ; blacks, 372,707, an increase of 
 46,333 over the showing of the census of 1861. 
 The total increase of population, 64,890, an in- 
 crease for the decade of 15 per cent, or an increase 
 of 1^ per cent per annum. The whites decreased 
 f of one per cent ; the colored (or mulatto) people 
 increased 2^ per cent, and the blacks 13 per cent. 
 By the census of 1881, the whites were 12,315, a 
 decrease of nearly one per cent. The whole popu- 
 lation in 1 88 1 was 585,000, an increase of 79,846, 
 or 16 per cent; mulattoes, 128,468, an increase of 
 28 per cent; blacks, 444,217, an increase of 13 per 
 cent. In the decade ending in 1881, the whites had 
 decreased 6 per cent, the mulattoes had increased 
 24 per cent, and the blacks had increased 13 per 
 cent. This showing proves two things: 1. The 
 healthfulness of Jamaica; 2. The greater virility 
 and fruitfulness of the mulattoes over the blacks, 
 and also the greater vigor of the mulattoes than 
 of the blacks. It has usually been thought that 
 
352 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 the mulattoes were more sterile and the blacks 
 more fruitful than the mulattoes. These figures 
 prove the contrary. 
 
 Educationally, the people of Jamaica display 
 creditable conditions. All the primary schools are 
 parochial schools. Each religious body has pa- 
 rochial schools. Forty per cent of the population 
 can read and write, and are attending school. Sev- 
 enty-one thousand are able to read and write. 
 Eighty-one thousand can read. Attending school, 
 forty-one thousand. In all, 194,000, or one in three 
 of the population can read or write, or both. 
 There are four hundred and forty schools under 
 Government inspection, and therefore receiving 
 money from the Government. The Government 
 pays $78,000 per year, $2.36 for each scholar. 
 There are two hundred endowed, or private, 
 schools, making one school for each ninety-nine 
 of the school population. Total sum annually ex- 
 pended for education, $200,000, an average of five 
 dollars for each enrolled scholar, and $3.25 for each 
 one of the school population. The branches taught 
 are primary. In studies requiring imitation and 
 memory, the blacks excel the whites and mulattoes. 
 In all others the blacks are little, if any, behind 
 them. Many of the blacks and mulattoes are thor- 
 oughly educated. Some of them are graduates of 
 Oxford, Edinburgh, and Dublin. Some of them, 
 both of men and women, are of commanding pres- 
 ence, graceful in form, and refined in manners. 
 The public offices are effectively filled by the col- 
 ored and black people; lawyers, editors, phy- 
 
MORALITY IN JAMAICA. 353 
 
 sicians, and ministers. Richard Hill (mulatto) was 
 an accomplished Belles Lettres scholar and natural- 
 ist. Edward Fraser, a Wesleyan minister, was both 
 learned and eloquent. So was Samuel Smyth, 
 under whose ministry I sat for three years. 
 
 A current but mistaken idea "held by foreigners 
 visiting Jamaica," is that the Jamaicans are people 
 of lax morals. Persons passing through the island 
 have seen only the coal-stokers and street gamins, 
 and have formed their conclusion as to the whole 
 people from the specimens they saw. The rural 
 population and very many of the townspeople own 
 their homesteads. The Churches administer rigid 
 moral discipline. One-half the people either at- 
 tend Church, or are members of Churches. There 
 are four hundred churches, or one church to every 
 three hundred and forty of the population. In the 
 United States the proportion is one church to each 
 five thousand of the population. There are sev- 
 enty-five thousand Church members, or one to 
 seven of the population. There are two hundred 
 thousand Church sittings, and one hundred and 
 fifty thousand regular attendants upon Divine wor- 
 ship. Surely these facts prove that the Jamaicans 
 are neither vicious nor degraded. Eighty-eight 
 thousand of the people are married. There are 
 six thousand widowers and seventeen thousand 
 widows. One-fifth of the whole population either 
 are married, or they have been married, and are 
 widowers and widows. Two-fifths of the whole 
 population are born in wedlock. Surely such a 
 people are virtuous and happy. 
 23 
 
354 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 Violent crimes are unknown. I have traveled 
 by night and by day all over the island with my 
 family, without the slightest fear of interruption. 
 The sugar estates have to send messengers on foot 
 ancl alone to bring money from the banks to pay 
 their hands, carrying upon their persons from 
 $1,500 to $3,000. They are never molested or 
 robbed. One instance occurred in half a century 
 where a messenger with money was robbed. In 
 1870 over $500,000 were deposited in savings 
 banks. When it is remembered that labor wages 
 are from twenty-five cents to thirty cents a day, 
 these deposits are wonderful. There are 18,000 
 Wesleyans, 90 churches, 20 parsonages, and 
 Church property valued at $500,000. In 1871 
 these Wesleyans raised for religious uses $50,000, 
 an average of three dollars per year per member. 
 Other denominations approximate the Wesleyans 
 in these figures. There are $2,500,000 in the sav- 
 ings banks. Only two-thirds of the island are 
 under cultivation. On estates where sugar-cane 
 has been grown on the same land for a hundred 
 years, the yield is still undiminished. 
 
 Kingston has a population of forty thousand. 
 There are a dozen other towns with populations 
 varying from one thousand to ten thousand. The 
 products of Jamaica are sugar, coffee, pimento, gin- 
 ger, arrowroot, sago, indigo, oranges, limes, shad- 
 dock, grapes, guava, figs, mangoes, mangosteens, 
 sour-sop, cherry moyer, sweet-sop, star-apples, nut- 
 megs, mace, cinnamon, yams, sweet potatoes, 
 
PRODUCTS OF JAMAICA. 355 
 
 achey, honey, cocoanuts, bread-fruit, senna, pine- 
 apples, bananas. 
 
 The woods are, logwood, fustic, ebony, brazil- 
 itis, fiddlewood, lignum-vitae, sandalwood, cedar, 
 sanders-wood, mahogany. Mangoes make a large 
 part of the food of the islanders. During the 
 mango season, the consumption of flour falls off 
 one-half. Cinchona and tea are successfully culti- 
 vated. Bananas are largely exported. 
 
 The flora of Jamaica is gorgeous. The night- 
 blooming cereus is abundant. The Victoria Regia 
 is one of the largest flowers I ever saw. The leaves 
 are varnished green, on stems capable of support- 
 ing a man. The leaves are two feet by five 
 feet, and the flower, which opens only in the night, 
 has a disk eighteen inches in diameter, of wonder- 
 fully brilliant hues. The palm-tree is indigenous. 
 There are ninety species. The baobab, or silk 
 cotton-tree, deserves special mention. It grows 
 immensely large. It is found in all tropical regions 
 in the world. Its roots and branches are lateral or 
 horizontal. A baobab-tree, near Kingston, casts 
 a shadow at noon of two hundred and fifty feet in 
 diameter. It has singular habits. One-third of the 
 tree is in bloom, one-third in fruit, and one-tfiird in 
 leaf only. The Fiats indicus, wild fig, is a parasite, 
 which has great affinity for the baobab. It fastens 
 its tendrils at the ground and surrounds the trunk, 
 winding itself in close coils around every part of 
 the tree, until the tree is literally choked to death; 
 and then, as the lateral limbs, when dead, could 
 
356 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 not bear the suspended horizontal coils of the fig, 
 unless supported, the fig drops lines to the ground 
 from the limbs, which take root and support the 
 overloaded limbs; and when the tree, which fur- 
 nished a scaffolding for the wild fig, is dead, the 
 parasite is supported by a hundred additional 
 trunks, and the wild fig becomes the banyan-tree 
 of the Indies. The cedar-tree of Jamaica, unlike 
 its kindred tree of the north, has open, spreading 
 branches and large leaves like those of the lime, 
 and yet the three varieties of tropical cedar, the red, 
 white, and yellow, have the perfume and colors of 
 the cedars of the north. 
 
 The climate of Jamaica is delightful. It is not 
 so hot at any time as the summer climate of Maine 
 or of Oregon. The trade-winds reduce the heat to 
 a comfortable degree. Its insular condition pre- 
 vents the heat from becoming insufferable. In 
 May and October, the rainy season, the trade-winds 
 cease, and then the temperature becomes extreme 
 and unpleasant; but by ascending the mountains 
 the heat can be graduated to the climate of the 
 temperate zone, at the pleasure of the person. 
 
 Hurricanes are of rare occurrence. Every 
 twenty or thirty years furnishes an occasional wind 
 storm, which sweeps with great fierceness and de- 
 structiveness. The tropical rains are most abun- 
 dant. I went once from my office to my hotel in 
 a rain. The streets in five minutes were deluged, 
 requiring me to wade in several inches depth of 
 water, and an umbrella was of little more protection 
 than an old-fashioned sieve. I have known the best 
 
CLIMATE OF JAMAICA, 357 
 
 climates of the different parts of North America. 
 I have breathed the dry air of Mexico and of Lower 
 California; I have scaled the Sierras and the 
 Rockies; I have traversed the deserts of our in- 
 terior; I have felt the bracing air of British Co- 
 lumbia and of Alaska ; but I have never, anywhere, 
 found a climate so delicious and agreeable as that 
 of Jamaica. The climate of Cuba and Santo Do- 
 mingo is almost precisely like that of Jamaica. 
 Earthquakes are common. Some of them are very 
 destructive. Mountains have been riven from sum- 
 mit to base. Enormous fissures have been made 
 by them. Mount Sinai, a few miles east from 
 Kingston, was riven, and a slice of the mountain 
 was cut down for two thousand feet as smooth as 
 a knife could cut through cheese, and thrown off, 
 covering a large penn,* and burying houses, men, 
 and animals. The mountains of St. Thomas in 
 the vale were severed to the base, and a river winds 
 its way through the cleft made by the earthquake. 
 In 1692 the great earthquake buried the larger part 
 of Port Royal in the sea, with the dwellings and 
 the thousands of people. In places the earth 
 opened, and then closed again. I read of Robert 
 Goldy, on his tombstone, that he fell into a crevasse, 
 and then was thrown out of that into the bay, and 
 escaped by swimming and survived the accident 
 many years. The bodies of the dead filled the air 
 with the noisome pestilence. Jamaica has no dan- 
 gerous beasts of prey. There are no venomous ser- 
 
 * Penn is the word for a ranch or an estate. 
 
358 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 pents. But there are lizards in plenty. Centipedes, 
 scorpions, and tarantulas abound ; but these are not 
 fatal in their sting. Chigres, or a species of ver- 
 min, will pierce the skin, and deposit their eggs 
 under it, which must be extracted, or serious injury 
 will follow. 
 
 Jamaica has a fine system of roads, well graded 
 and ballasted, across the mountains and around the 
 shores. The health of the island is widely cele- 
 brated. The yellow fever sometimes visits the 
 cities and becomes epidemic; but this results from 
 the filth of the larger cities. The island is beau- 
 tiful beyond description. Approached from the 
 north side, the land swells from the sea in grace- 
 fully-rounded hills, between which streams and 
 waterfalls are born. On the south side the sur- 
 face is more irregular and craggy. The irregular- 
 ities of surface, and the serrated, comb-like appear- 
 ance of the mountain profile cut against the blue 
 sky, are of thrilling majesty and power. Here a 
 chasm, there a bold outline; here the gentle slope, 
 there the sharp acclivity; forest, and field, and tilth, 
 and meadow, — make up a perspective never sur- 
 passed, and, once witnessed, never forgotten. Mr. 
 Trollope, quoting Christopher Columbus's de- 
 scription of Jamaica, describes it, as seen from the 
 southern approach, as resembling a sheet of writ- 
 ing paper crumpled and compressed, and then left 
 with all its creases and folds upon it. 
 
 The nearer view is none the less enchanting. 
 Take a buggy-ride through the famous Bog Walk, 
 rived by the earthquake from mountain summit 
 
LANDSCAPES IN JAMAICA. 359 
 
 to base, through which meanders the Rio Cobra; 
 cross Mount Diabolo, three thousand feet high, on 
 a grade so easy that your horses can trot up the 
 whole ascent; through the parish of Saint Ann's, 
 and see the well-inclosed meadows waving with 
 luxuriant guinea grass, and coffee-walks and orange 
 and pimento groves, redolent of the most exquisite 
 perfume, or gold and purple with their ample fruit- 
 age and foliage, and see the flocks and herds, — and 
 you have such a vision of beauty you are ready 
 to say with the delighted Queen of Sheba, "The 
 half has never yet been told." 
 
Fifth: VttbcaL 
 
 Work in Ohio. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 RETURNING to the United States from con- 
 sular service in October, 1873, from which I 
 had long before resigned, I accepted the position 
 of corresponding secretary of the American Colo- 
 nization Society, with headquarters at Cincinnati, 
 Ohio. I was elected to this position by the man- 
 agers of that Society, upon the recommendation of 
 Bishop Simpson. I removed to Cincinnati with 
 my family late in October of 1873. I attended the 
 annual meeting of the managers and members of 
 the Colonization Society, the same fall, in Wash- 
 ington, D. C. I preached on the colonization of 
 Africa from the colored freedmen of the South, in 
 Foundry Church, on the Sunday of my stay in 
 Washington. Soon after, I made a trip to Savan- 
 nah, Georgia, from which place I shipped some 
 thirty or forty freedmen and freedwomen from 
 Hawkinsville, Georgia. All went off in high spir- 
 its, except one, who was told by some meddlesome 
 person, that they would be taken away from New 
 York, and then, when out at sea, they would be 
 sent as slaves to some slaveholding country, prob- 
 ably Cuba. His suspicions got the better of his 
 wishes, and he declined to go. 
 
 Reaching home, I found my wife's health so 
 much worse that I resigned my secretaryship, to 
 spend all my time in caring for her. Her disease 
 was Angina pectoris, disease of the heart. In May, 
 
 363 
 
364 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 1874, after six months of distressing illness, her 
 gentle spirit passed away from earth to be with 
 God. Her disease caused her intense suffering, and 
 it superinduced dropsy. For nearly six months 
 she was unable to lie down. She described the 
 pain in her heart to be as torturing as though a 
 thousand needles were piercing it. When the 
 council of doctors pronounced her case hopeless, 
 in answer to her inquiries, she said to them : "It is 
 well. I am not surprised. I am ready." When 
 they had retired, she sang two verses — the first and 
 the last — of the hymn : 
 
 "When I can read my title clear 
 To mansions in the skies, 
 I '11 bid farewell to every fear, 
 And wipe my weeping eyes. 
 
 Then I shall bathe my weary soul 
 
 In seas of heavenly rest, 
 And not a wave of trouble roll 
 
 Across my peaceful breast." 
 
 When the end came, and for which she had 
 prearranged, it was morning. She said, "I think 
 the time has come for our responsive reading of 
 the twenty-third Psalm." She sat propped up in 
 bed, and she was leaning against me, every now 
 and then pressing against me, as if to escape the 
 torturing pain of her heart. I began, "The Lord 
 is my shepherd." She responded, "I shall not 
 want." I continued repeating, pausing at each 
 comma for her voice. When I read, "Yea, though 
 1 walk through the valley of the shadow of death," 
 she once more and feebly added, "I will fear no 
 
DEATH OF MRS. PEARNE. 365 
 
 evil." A moment after she peacefully expired. As 
 the last breath ceased, her face, which had been 
 drawn in lines of agony, relaxed, and a smile over- 
 spread her features. Her eyes were upturned, and 
 a look of surprise and delight illuminated her coun- 
 tenance. It seemed as though the new scenes un- 
 folding to her were enrapturing. 
 
 For more than thirty-three years she had been 
 a faithful, loving wife. Our hearts were wonder- 
 fully knit together in love. The honeymoon had 
 never gone down. For ten years she had shared, 
 unmurmuringly, the trials and crosses incident to 
 the itinerancy in New York and Pennsylvania. 
 For another fourteen years she had cheerfully ac- 
 cepted the rigors and privations of frontier life in 
 Oregon. Five years, without a complaint, she was 
 under the heavy strain of the reconstruction work 
 in Tennessee. Part of the time in Oregon I was 
 able to spend, each quarter, only one week in thir- 
 teen at our home, and she had remained almost 
 alone the other twelve weeks. She said to me, after 
 we had gone from Tennessee, that I had never left 
 her to go on my district there, that she did not 
 have a shuddering fear that I would be assassinated 
 and brought home dead. Three years we had lived 
 together in Jamaica, and nearly all the last year 
 of her life she was an invalid. In her last illness 
 she advised me to re-enter the active work of the 
 itinerancy, saying she believed I would be more 
 useful and happy in that service than in any other. 
 Noble woman ! Heroic and brave ! For all the 
 years of our union my home was the dearest and 
 
366 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 brightest spot on earth. We bore her remains to 
 Cortland, N. Y. In the beautiful cemetery of that 
 lovely village sleep the ashes of my mother and 
 father and of my child. There her dust will slum- 
 ber until the trumpet of the archangel and the 
 voice of the Son of God shall break the long silence. 
 The Methodist Preachers' Meeting of Cincin- 
 nati had been very kind to me during the year of 
 my residence in that city. They unanimously in- 
 vited me to become a member of the Cincinnati 
 Conference, which I did, by transfer, in September, 
 1874. The session that year was held in Wilming- 
 ton, Clinton County. Bishop R. S. Foster pre- 
 sided. Bishop Ames was present most of the ses- 
 sion. He strongly urged me to go with him to 
 Minnesota, and take work in a leading Church in 
 Minneapolis. I should probably have done so, but 
 for the invitation of the Cincinnati Preachers' 
 Meeting. Then, moreover, I had for ten years 
 been intimately associated in Oregon with Rev. 
 Francis S. Hoyt, D. D., who, in that new country, 
 had been the efficient president of the Willamette 
 University, and who was at this time living in Cin- 
 cinnati, and editing most effectively the Western 
 Christian Advocate. Then, also, I had become 
 pleasantly acquainted with the brave old hero, Rev. 
 R. S. Rust, in the years of reconstruction. For 
 ten years our fellowship had been edifying and 
 delightful. It is not strange, then, that under these 
 conditions I should prefer remaining in the Cin- 
 cinnati Conference, to adventuring again in the 
 new Northwest. I was stationed in Grace Church, 
 
AT GRACE CHURCH y DAYTON. 367 
 
 Dayton. I went there without seeking the ap- 
 pointment. Indeed, I did not personally know a 
 single member there, nor had I ever preached in 
 that church, nor seen it. to know it. 
 
 When I went up on Saturday to enter upon my 
 charge I went to the hotel, the Beckel House. 
 After supper I walked out, and, drawn by the lights 
 and the music, I went into the Public Square, 
 where the Woman's Christian Association were 
 giving a social entertainment. Here I met Rev. 
 W. A. Robinson, stationed that year in Raper, 
 Dayton, with whom I had had a Conference room 
 acquaintance, and he introduced me to several of 
 my members. Thus began my itinerant ministry 
 in Ohio. Grace Church had a lovely and elegant 
 church edifice, which cost one hundred thousand 
 dollars, and a membership of six or seven hundred. 
 Here were spent three happy, prosperous, and, I 
 trust, useful years. Some of the friendships formed 
 in this charge were among the most delightful I 
 have ever known. Two changes were effected dur- 
 ing this pastorate, which, I have no doubt, were 
 conducive to the welfare and usefulness of the 
 Church. The first was to change the Sunday- 
 school hour from afternoon to morning. It had 
 been an afternoon school for many years, perhaps 
 nearly fifty, and it was not a very easy thing to 
 change it; but I assured the brethren that if they 
 would keep the morning hour for a year in their 
 Sunday-school the change would vindicate its wis- 
 dom, and it would remain permanently the chosen 
 hour. And so it has done. The other innovation 
 
368 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERA XT WORK'. 
 
 was even greater, and more difficult to effect ; but it 
 'succeeded. That was for the Church to bear the 
 expense of the Sunday-school, and train the schol- 
 ars in Christian giving. I argued that to induce 
 the children to bring their offerings simply to pay 
 their expenses, the training would inculcate only 
 business justice and self-dependence; but it would 
 not cultivate the grace of giving; and then, more- 
 over, I urged upon the Official Board that the Sun- 
 day-school was an arm of the Church's working, 
 and its expense should be borne by the Church as 
 really as the salary of the janitor, the organist, or 
 the choir. This change, too, has vindicated its 
 wisdom by the experience of many years. The 
 missionary collections in this Church the year be- 
 fore I was pastor were: From the Church, $131.88; 
 from the Sunday-school, $486.68. The last year of 
 my pastorate missionary collections were : From 
 the Church, $298.68, an advance of 9J per cent ; 
 from the Sunday-school, $546, an increase of 12 \ 
 per cent; whole amount, $844, an increase of 30 
 per cent. 
 
 The first year of my pastorate in Grace Church 
 Bishop Foster spent a Sabbath with me, preaching 
 morning and evening. His preaching produced 
 a profound impression. He found that, wherever 
 he and I went on the streets, all the children 
 greeted me personally. He said it was a beautiful 
 sight to see this respect and love for a pastor 
 among the children. During my second year 
 Bishop Andrews spent a Sunday in my charge. 
 
REV. DAVID RUTLEDGE'S ADVICE. 369 
 
 In our boyhood he and I were Sunday-school 
 mates, and we grew up together in the same vil- 
 lage, New York Mills, Oneida County. His 
 preaching was very edifying and helpful to the 
 Church. He lias proved a wise and faithful bishop. 
 I was in the habit of preaching five-minute ser- 
 mons to the children of my charge, before preach- 
 ing the sermon to adults. The children quite 
 generally attended the preaching service in the 
 forenoon. The short children's sermons proved a 
 genuine attraction and blessing to the children. 
 
 During my second year's pastorate I had a visit 
 of nearly a week from a former Oregon associate, 
 Rev. David Rutledge, who was ten years in Ore- 
 gon, filling some of the best appointments we had. 
 He was a very popular and useful pastor. I esteem 
 him as a very faithful friend. He advised me that 
 I could be much more useful, and really more safe 
 in my reputation, and he believed more happy, if I 
 were to re-marry. I had not then given the sub- 
 ject a serious thought, and I so informed him. I 
 did not know of a person towards whom I had felt 
 drawn as a suitable person for a wife for me. He 
 advised me to visit Bishop Janes, and consult with 
 him on the subject. I took his advice. The bishop 
 recommended me to visit Miss Caroline McDonald, 
 a lady whom he had known from her birth. She 
 was a maiden lady of some thirty-five years, of good 
 mind and manners, and of high Christian character, 
 who was an efficient Church worker, a lady of ex- 
 cellent judgment, and at the same time of such 
 24 
 
370 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 domestic qualities, that he judged I could not fail 
 to appreciate and love her. He said she was in the 
 city, he thought, and that if I saw her and wished 
 a correspondence, I might refer her to him as to 
 my character and standing in the Conferences. I 
 learned that Miss McDonald was in Baltimore visit- 
 ing a friend. I procured the address, and went to 
 Baltimore. I saw her for an hour or two, and pro- 
 posed a correspondence. In July following, I at- 
 tended Round Lake Camp-meeting in New York, 
 and preached. Here, again, I met Miss McDonald. 
 We entered into a marriage engagement. October 
 12, 1875, we were married by Bishop Janes, in 
 Sand Street Methodist Episcopal Church, Brook- 
 lyn. Our marriage has been a happy one. God's 
 blessing has been upon it. I have no doubt my 
 ministry has been very largely more successful be- 
 cause of this union than it would otherwise have 
 been. She has been a faithful and earnest helper 
 in all Church work. Her exercises have been 
 helpful to very many persons, young and old. The 
 marriage has doubtless added years of useful labor 
 to my life, and gladdened my path by its fellowship 
 and by the children she has borne me. A son died 
 in infancy. My daughter still survives, and gives 
 promise of being a useful woman if her life shall 
 be prolonged. 
 
 The great iron wheel of the itinerancy rolled 
 me into Hillsboro, Ohio. The first Sabbath of my 
 pastorate here I raised a collection of $1,500, to 
 assist in repairing and furnishing the Hillsboro Fe- 
 
AT HILLSBORO STATION. 37 1 
 
 male College, which for many years had been doing- 
 most efficient service in educating young women in 
 classical and literary lines. Hillsboro Charge was 
 an old and large station, one of the oldest in the 
 Conference. In 1840, Rev. Randolph S. Foster 
 was upon the Hillsboro Circuit, before the station 
 was organized as a separate appointment. In 1841 
 he was the first stationed Methodist minister in 
 Hillsboro, bringing to the charge his young bride. 
 The small hired house in which he lived while here 
 is still shown. His subsequent illustrious course, 
 as a popular city preacher in New York, and later 
 as president of the Northwestern University in Chi- 
 cago, and afterwards a most efficient professor in 
 Drew Theological Seminary, from which, in 1872, 
 he was elected a bishop of the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church, is too well known to need more than a 
 mere mention. I learned some interesting personal 
 incidents in his pastorate in Wesley Chapel in Cin- 
 cinnati, which have probably never been published 
 until I published them, and which will be found in 
 another part of this book in the Centennial Sermon 
 I preached in 1888. Hillsboro Station has had 
 some of the strong men of Western Methodism as 
 pastors. The charge has always ranked as a large 
 and strong society. 
 
 T was removed at the end of the first quarter 
 of my second year's work in Hillsboro, and placed 
 upon the Dayton District, to fill a vacancy that 
 had occurred there, and James Kendall, an elo- 
 quent and able minister, was my successor. I shall 
 
372 SIXTY- ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 always hold delightful memories of this charge. I 
 was removed in the midst of the year by Bishop 
 Wiley, and appointed to Dayton District, January, 
 1879. The district contained twenty-six appoint- 
 ments: Dayton, with three charges, Grace, Raper, 
 and West Dayton ; Piqua, with two charges ; Troy, 
 Tippecanoe, Middletown, Miamisburg, and Frank- 
 lin, were considerable villages or cities. The other 
 charges were, Addison, North Hampton, Concord, 
 Lewisburg, Gordon, West Elkton, Lockington, 
 Casstown, St. Paris and Lena, Brandt, Red Lion, 
 Fairfield, New Carlisle, and Monroe. William 
 Herr was secretary of the Preachers' Relief Society. 
 The preachers on the district wrought in precious 
 unity and fellowship with one another and with the 
 presiding elder. I was reappointed to the district 
 by Bishop Simpson, in September, 1879; by Bishop 
 Peck, in 1880; by Bishop Wiley, in 1881. They 
 were years of hard but happy toil. The record 
 made has gone up on high, and it rests with God. 
 Of those who were effective ministers when I took 
 the district, as well as I can ascertain three have 
 died, two have located, thirteen have superannu- 
 ated, eight have remained in the effective ranks. 
 Of the twenty-six who were effective when I left 
 the district, two have died, fourteen are effective, 
 two have located, and eight have superannuated. 
 So the laborers come and go. 
 
 My residence during the term of the Dayton 
 District was in Dayton. I was called on to make 
 an address on occasion of unveiling a portrait of 
 Daniel J. Rouzer, who was the president of the 
 
COMMEMORATIVE ADDRESS. 373 
 
 Good Samaritan Society, and a very benevolent, 
 humane man. The following is the address de- 
 livered on that occasion : 
 
 ADDRESS. 
 
 We are met to unveil a portrait. Something which 
 has been obscured is to be disclosed. The obscurity 
 will soon be removed. Death has veiled from human 
 sight the loved form of our friend, Daniel J. Rouzer. 
 The sun had painted him while he was yet among us. 
 The artist has reproduced, on canvas, his visible form 
 and features. You will soon look upon them. You 
 will judge for yourselves how correctly the original 
 has been reproduced. While your eyes behold the 
 lines and lights and shadows that make up this beau- 
 tiful portrait, another unveiling of him will take place 
 in your minds. Memory will recall those acts of his 
 life, and those traits of his character, which made him 
 loved and lovable. This is being done by those whose 
 acquaintance with him was comparatively slight, but 
 who saw in the glance of his eye, who felt in the 
 pressure of his hand, who beheld in the out-acted 
 kindness of his inner heart, something which they 
 admired. Those who held near relation to him are 
 recalling his generous, unselfish kindness, manifested 
 so variously and so often, and also his manliness of 
 nature. His fellow-compositors are recalling his kind- 
 ness and trueness in the intimacy of daily office life. 
 One who was connected with him in business re- 
 lations, says of him : 
 
 In the death of Brother Rouzer the temperance people 
 of this section have lost one whose place can not soon be 
 filled, if ever, and the cause at large an earnest and zealous 
 worker. A reformed man himself, he could feel and appre- 
 ciate the difficulties under which men labored in trying to 
 redeem their fallen manhood, and his eloquent and burning 
 
374 SIXTV-OXE YEARS OF ITIXERAXT WORK. 
 
 words for God and temperance will long be remembered by 
 the thousands who heard him, and hundreds who, by his ex- 
 ertions, were led into the right way will ever cherish his 
 memory. 
 
 From long and intimate intercourse with Brother Rouzer, 
 as partner and friend, we learned to love him, and knew more 
 of his inner nature, and his terrible struggle against appe- 
 tite, than any others outside of his family. While battling 
 against himself, he was ever ready to help others; his hand 
 was ever open to assist the needy, and his heart ever beat in 
 sympathy for the fallen. 
 
 Farewell, brother, partner, friend! Your memory will 
 ever be green in the heart of him who has stood by your side 
 in the great battle of right against wrong, and who will still 
 continue to fight on until victory crowns our banners, or 
 he is called hence by the Master. 
 
 This is not the time nor the place for a eulogy. 
 Many good things can be said of our friend. Of his 
 faults — and who has none? — it is not my duty nor 
 my pleasure to speak. Nothing so sanctifies a name 
 as to write one dead. The society of Good Samaritans, 
 of which the departed was a member, a founder, and 
 its president, the National Christian Temperance 
 Union, to which he belonged, and also those who bore 
 a still nearer relation, are unveiling the man as he 
 was, to their conception. They are re-looking on 
 what has passed from human sight, but on what still 
 lives in human memory, in loving hearts — an unselfish, 
 earnest life ; a life full of struggles and conflicts — 
 sometimes winning, sometimes losing, but always 
 honest, always genuine. They are recalling what we 
 admired while he lived, and what is remembered, with 
 loving reverence, now that he has gone away. 
 
 Men are measured and estimated for what they 
 are, and not for what they seem ; for what they do, 
 and not for what they profess. Men rise or fall in 
 the estimation of others, not as they are brilliant and 
 talented, or rich, or mighty, or exalted in station, or 
 
COMMEMORATIVE ADDRESS. 375 
 
 learned, but as they are good and unselfish. This 
 position has the suffrage of the representative men 
 of all classes and of all times and countries. George 
 Herbert says, "A handful of good life is better than 
 a bushel of learning." Walter Scott says, "It is not 
 great learning which awakens men's respect, but the 
 nobler, truer qualities of goodness and truth." Shakes- 
 peare says: 
 
 "How far that little candle throws its beams! 
 So shines a good deed in a naughty world." 
 
 And so, also, shines the faithful, earnest doer of the 
 good deeds. The largest funeral I ever saw, of a 
 private individual, was that of Mr. Marshall, in this 
 city, some two or three years ago. You remember 
 the 'crowds that gathered in all the streets, and that 
 followed in long, sad procession to your beautiful 
 Woodland Cemetery. It was the spontaneous tribute 
 of a whole people to unostentatious, genuine good- 
 ness __goodness in the common walks of life. 
 
 These elements of truth and honor and nobility 
 may exist and shine in those of lowly lot, as well 
 as in those of higher station. Pope has very well 
 said, — 
 
 "Honor and shame from no condition rise; 
 
 Act well your part, there all the honor lies. 
 
 Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow; 
 
 The rest is all but leather or prunello." 
 
 This was the thought of Burns, in the well-known 
 
 lines — 
 
 "The rank is but the guinea's stamp, 
 The man 's the goud for a' that." 
 
 The Scotch bard came honestly by this truth, for 
 his father had inculcated the same in the forming 
 
376 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 period of Robert's life. Burns thus speaks of the les- 
 sons taught by his honored parent : 
 
 "He bade me act a manly part, 
 
 Though I had ne'er a farthing; 
 For without an honest, manly heart, 
 No man was worth regarding." 
 
 The merit is not in place nor surroundings, but in 
 the man himself. The elegance and beauty of a circle 
 lies not so much in its size as in its perfect round- 
 ness. At the summit of their influence in their re- 
 spective lines, Luther and Knox and Wesley and 
 Cowper and Burns were comparatively poor. They 
 owed nothing of their greatness to the distinctions 
 of wealth and place. It is not the clothes men wear, 
 nor the stations they fill, which give human immor- 
 tality. 
 
 When a man does some act with which humanity 
 is, for the time, in close, strong, wide sympathy ; when 
 he strikes some chord which vibrates in human hearts 
 extensively, that act will bring recognition and immor- 
 tality. The passengers on a steamship are startled 
 by the cry, "Man overboard !" Instantly the ship is 
 put about, the life-boat is lowered, a dozen men offer 
 to man her; but before the boat is lowered, a man 
 from the deck, who has had his eye on the strong 
 man struggling with the waves, doffs his coat, and 
 plunges in after the imperiled one. The one for whose 
 rescue he has risked his own life is a stranger to him. 
 He helps him into the life-boat; but, before he him- 
 self has entered that life-boat, a shark has seized 
 him, and he perishes ; the rescuer is lost. Whose 
 heart, of all those passengers, does not thrill with 
 profoundest sympathy at this self-sacrifice for a life? 
 A nation is in peril. Invaders or revolutionists have 
 arrayed armies against the nation's life or liberty. A 
 
COMMEMORATIVE ADDRESS. 377 
 
 man enlists for its deliverance. The nation honors 
 him. A multitude enlist. In bivouac, and march, 
 and bloody field, and deadly hospital, they sacrifice 
 themselves on the altars of a lofty patriotism. Those 
 who return from the wars are recognized and cher- 
 ished by their grateful fellow-countrymen. Those 
 who fall, sleep in honored graves. Flowers are 
 strewed upon their hallowed dust. 
 
 "How sleep the brave, who sink to rest, 
 By all their country's wishes blest! 
 When Spring, with dewy fingers cold, 
 Returns to deck their hallowed mold, 
 She there shall dress a sweeter sod 
 Than fancy's feet have ever trod. 
 
 By fairy hands their knell is rung; 
 By forms unseen their dirge is sung; 
 There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray, 
 To bless the turf that wraps their clay; 
 And Freedom shall awhile repair, 
 To dwell a weeping hermit there." 
 
 Luther drew the world to his side because he wab 
 struggling with giant antagonists to free the world 
 from the most cruel superstitions and utter bondage. 
 Wesley moved the great masses toward himself and 
 to a higher, better life, because he was unselfishly 
 teaching the world of rivers of blessings flowing for 
 them, and to be had without money and without 
 price. Wilberforce and Clarkson, Garrison and Phil- 
 lips and Lincoln, live in human hearts to-day, shrined 
 and crowned, because they took sides with the op- 
 pressed, the weak, or the unfortunate. This practical 
 sympathy with some intensely-absorbing thought or 
 need of humanity, something which humanity believes 
 urgent and important — this being equal to some great 
 crisis or to some felt emergency will always secure 
 fame and following, and earthly immortality. 
 
378 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 Why is the memory of the martyrs so green? 
 They died for the truth which to-day enriches the 
 world. Their firmness and constancy, amid martyr 
 fires, and flood, and sword, to maintain and preserve 
 for us truth and freedom, have given them their name 
 
 and their glory. 
 
 "They lived unknown, 
 Till persecution dragged them forth to fame, 
 And chased them up to heaven; their ashes flew, 
 No marble tells us whither." 
 
 It was a like unselfish consecration to the cause of 
 country, and home, and altars, which has made the pa- 
 triots, reformers, and confessors of all ages the world's 
 great heroes to-day. 
 
 We should never forget that the crowning of these 
 is as certain, even amid apparent defeat, as that day 
 succeeds to night. 
 
 "They never fail who die 
 In a just cause: the block may soak their gore; 
 Their heads may sodden in the sun; their limbs 
 Be strung to city gates and castle walls — 
 But still their spirit walks abroad. Though years 
 Elapse and others share as dark a doom, 
 They but augment the deep and sweeping thoughts 
 Which overpower all others, and conduct 
 The world at last to freedom." 
 
 The world respects and loves honest men, who 
 have energy of will and steadiness of purpose to work 
 their own way, though mountains and oceans lie be- 
 tween them and their goal ; strong men, mailed in 
 truth, and standing up for the right, as they see 
 the right, against overwhelming numbers. "Energy 
 of will — self-originating force" — as one has said, "is 
 the soul of every great character. Where it is, there 
 is life; where it is not, there are faintness, helpless- 
 ness, and despondency. The strong man and the 
 
COMMEMORATIVE ADDRESS. 379 
 
 waterfall channel their own path. The energetic 
 leader, of noble spirit, not only wins a way for him- 
 self • he carries others with him." Thus it has been 
 from the beginning. Washington, Napoleon, Crom- 
 well, Bismarck, Wesley, and Whitefield and Moody, 
 are examples in point. 
 
 The world respects and loves men of deep, strong 
 convictions— not senseless, graceless, sentimental 
 fops, sprigs of a windy, fleshless, fishy aristocracy 
 with gloved fingers and soft clothing; but men of 
 faith and power, with convictions that are living, 
 burning realities; men who dare to speak the truth, 
 even when it is unpopular ; men who recognize duty 
 and honor and right, and who follow them, constant 
 as the polar star. Such men are a power while they 
 live and the world will never let them be forgotten, 
 even when they are dead. Such a man in a workshop 
 will give tone to his fellows, and exalt them to a 
 better life Franklin is said to have reformed the man- 
 ners of an entire office in London, while he wrought 
 there as a printer. Such were the men whom Crom- 
 well chose for his armies, and whom he styled "Iron- 
 sides" and "Invincibles." John Brown, whose 'soul 
 o-oes marching on," once said to Emerson that, "for 
 a settler in a new country, one good believing man 
 is worth a hundred— nay, worth a thousand— men 
 without character." 
 
 "Tell me," said a French writer, "whom you ad- 
 mire and I will tell what you are as to your talents, 
 tastes and character. Do you admire mean men? 
 Your own nature is mean. Do you admire rich men? 
 You are of the earth, earthy. Do you admire men of 
 title? You are a toad-eater or a tuft-hunter. Do you 
 admire honest, brave, and manly men? You are, 
 yourself, of an honest, brave and manly spirit. 
 Washington and Franklin, Roger Sherman and Have- 
 
380 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 lock and Lincoln, and others, might be cited as ex- 
 amples and illustrations of the view I have given. 
 They were not brilliant, showy men, but they were 
 true men, honest men, solid men, men of integrity, 
 who would rather be right than to win a throne. 
 
 Lord Bacon said, "I would rather believe all the 
 faiths in the legends, the Talmud, and the Alkoran, 
 than that this universal frame is without a mind." He 
 said this when men were clamoring that he was heter- 
 odox. Brave men, men of courage, this world ap- 
 proves. 
 
 "If thou canst plan a noble deed, 
 And never flag till it succeed, 
 Though in the strife thy heart should bleed, — 
 Whatever obstacles control, 
 Thine hour will come — go on, true soul! 
 Thou 'It win the prize, thou 'It reach the goal." 
 
 Two thousand years ago, Aristotle drew a portrait 
 of the magnanimous man ; that is, the gentleman. 
 It is still true to the life. 
 
 "He will behave with moderation under good for- 
 tune and bad. He will know how to be exalted, and 
 how to be abased. He will neither be delighted with 
 success, nor grieved by failure. He will neither shun 
 danger nor seek it, for there are few things which 
 he cares for. He is reticent and somewhat slow of 
 speech ; but he speaks his mind openly and boldly 
 when occasion calls for it. He is not apt to admire ; for 
 nothing is great to him. He overlooks injuries. He 
 is not given to talk about himself or about others ; 
 for he does not care that he himself should be praised, 
 nor that others should be blamed. He does not 
 cry about trifles, and he craves help from none." 
 
 Self-sacrifice and devotion for the good of others 
 give men immortality. The plague was making a 
 
COMMEMORATIVE ADDRESS. 38 1 
 
 desert of Marseilles. It baffled all medical skill. The 
 physicians determined, in council, that a corpse must 
 be dissected. One of the number solemnly promised 
 that he would devote himself for the safety of others, 
 and that he would dissect a corpse. He made his 
 will. The next morning he redeemed his promise — 
 carefully made all the surgical and anatomical exam- 
 inations required, wrote down his observations, threw 
 the papers into a disinfecting vase, left the room, went 
 out, and died. 
 
 The cry of "mad dog" aroused the attention of 
 the blacksmith. He saw that unless he grappled the 
 animal his wife and children would be bitten and die. 
 He seized the dog ; was again and again bitten ; but 
 he held him until the dog was dispatched, and his 
 family were saved. He then chained himself to the 
 anvil, and met his awful death. 
 
 John Maynard, the pilot, remained at the wheel 
 of the burning ship, guiding the vessel to the nearest 
 shore, when the flames had surrounded and scorched 
 him, and where at last he died ; but every passenger 
 was saved. 
 
 John Howard devoted his fortune and his life to 
 the relief of suffering humanity, and at last he fell 
 a victim to the fever contracted in his visit to a fever- 
 stricken patient. His name is illustrious. His chaplet 
 grows greener as the years roll away. The thousand 
 forms of beneficence which now bless humanity owe 
 their origin and inspiration to his example, and to 
 the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, which burned in 
 his heart. 
 
 And Good Samaritan societies, and National 
 Christian Temperance Unions, and Red Ribbon and 
 Blue Ribbon brigades, and all other organizations for 
 helping humanity, are the outflow of the grace of 
 the Lord Jesus Christ. It was this which suggested 
 
382 SIXTY- ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 the publication of the Life-Boat, in which our lamented 
 friend and brother was so forward and so effective. 
 His life, his portrait, his memory, all enforce devotion 
 to the work of helping the needy, and rescuing the 
 perishing, and raising up the fallen. How much of 
 this needs to be done. 
 
 "There are lonely hearts to cherish, 
 
 While the days are going by. 
 There are weary souls who perish, 
 
 While the days are going by. 
 If a smile we can renew, 
 As our journey we pursue, 
 O, the good that we may do, 
 
 While the days are going by!" 
 
 The rule of John Howard in his beneficence was 
 this : "Our superfluities should give way to other 
 men's convenience. Our conveniences should give 
 way to other men's necessities. Our necessities should 
 give way to other men's extremities." How much 
 sunshine and gladness would come to homes and 
 hearts of sorrow if only these rules were adopted ! 
 How r much this world needs Good Samaritans ! 
 
 Thomas Carlyle says : "The whole world calls for 
 new work and nobleness. Subdue mutiny, discord, 
 widespread despair, by manfulness, justice, mercy, and 
 wisdom. Chaos is dark — deep as hell. Let there be 
 light, and there is, instead, a green, flowery world. 
 O, it is great, and there is no other greatness ! To 
 make some work of God's creation a little fruitfuller, 
 better, more worthy of God ; to make some human 
 hearts a little wiser, manfnller, happier, more blessed, 
 less accursed, — it is work for a god. Sooty hell of 
 mutiny, and savagery, and despair, can, by man's en- 
 ergy, be made a kind of heaven, cleansed of its soot, 
 of its mutiny, of its need to mutiny ; the everlasting 
 
APPOINTED TO URBANA. 3 8 3 
 
 arch of heaven overspreading it, too, and its cunning 
 mechanisms and tall chimney steeples as a birth of 
 heaven ; God and all men looking on it well pleased." 
 A dismantled hull was discovered on the ocean. 
 She was boarded. They found the skeletons of starved 
 men on the deck. One man they found still alive. 
 They took him off to their ship, nursed and revived 
 him. As soon as he could speak, he whispered, 
 "There is another man." They returned and found 
 him, and rescued him. Our brother and friend manned 
 the life-boat, and went to the rescue of perishing ones. 
 His mute lips on yonder canvas would say, if they 
 could speak, "There is another man." Go for him, 
 brothers ; seek him ; rescue him ; save him. 
 
 And never forget, in your need and weakness, Him 
 who is the Good Samaritan from heaven ; your brother, 
 my brother ; who never passes by on the other side ; 
 who supplies wine, and oil, and transportation, and 
 attendance, and nursing, and healing. Put yourselves 
 in his hands, and let him apply the balm of his mercy 
 to your weak, tempted, weary, despairing souls. 
 
 In 1882, Bishop Thomas Bowman appointed 
 me to Grace Church, Urbana. Here were spent 
 three happy, useful years. I have never had a more 
 pleasant, appreciative, and well-ordered officiary 
 and membership than I served in Urbana. Here, 
 too, were formed friendships of enduring value. 
 It is one of the best charges in the Cincinnati Con- 
 ference for its complete record in all lines of mem- 
 bers, Church support, Sunday-school, and benevo- 
 lent collections. Urbana is a most delightful city 
 of six or seven thousand persons. The people are 
 
384 SIXTY- ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK'. 
 
 intelligent, refined, prosperous, hospitable. Ur- 
 bana has a college under the care of the Sweden- 
 
 borgians. 
 
 From Urbana, I was sent in 1885 to Wesley 
 Chapel, Cincinnati, where, also, I remained three 
 years. The people desired and expected my return 
 for the remaining two years of my possible stay; 
 but I was removed from Wesley to Central Meth- 
 odist Episcopal Church, Springfield, in 1888. We 
 had three years of revival work in Wesley. The 
 two most notable events in the Wesley pastorate 
 were the thorough renovation of. the church, cost- 
 ing about three thousand dollars, all of which was 
 paid when the church was reopened. The other 
 event was the preaching of a sermon, June 17, 
 1888, on occasion of the celebration of the one 
 hundredth anniversary of the founding of Cincin- 
 nati. As this contains much historic information 
 in reference to early Methodism in Southwestern 
 Ohio, and especially gives a carefully-prepared 
 history of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Cin- 
 cinnati, it is presented here complete: 
 
 CENTENNIAL SERMON. 
 
 "Remember the days of old, consider the years of many 
 generations: ask thy father, and he will shew thee; thy elders, 
 and they will tell thee. When the Most High divided to the 
 nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of 
 Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the num- 
 ber of the children of Israel. For the Lord's portion is his 
 people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. He found him in 
 a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led 
 him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his 
 eve. As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her 
 young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them 
 
CENTENNIAL SERMON, 1 888. 385 
 
 on her wings: so the Lord alone did lead him, and there was 
 no strange god with him. He made him ride on the high 
 places of the earth, that he might eat the increase of the 
 fields; and he made him to suck honey out of the rock, and 
 oil out of the flinty rock ; butter of kiue, and milk of sheep, 
 with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and 
 goats with the fat of kidneys of wheat ; and thou didst drink 
 the pure blood of the grape." — Deut. xxxii, 7-14. 
 
 At the ripe age of one hundred and twenty years, 
 about to cease from being the leader of Israel, Moses 
 is giving his parting words to the people of the Lord. 
 This address contains memories and warnings. Moses 
 teaches them, in a most affecting manner, the duty of 
 remembering what God had done for them and for 
 their fathers. He urges this duty by several consid- 
 erations : 
 
 1. They would learn, thus, the true way to great- 
 ness, honor, and success. In "the days of old," when 
 they were obediently under God's direction and care, 
 this prosperity was real and grand. 
 
 2. To recall God's kindly and wonderful dealings 
 with them in "the years of many generations," would 
 be to excite living gratitude to God. 
 
 3. To remember the former times would assist 
 them in correcting any existing irregularities, or de- 
 viations from rectitude. By these back-sights the 
 crooked line could be straightened, and the future 
 advance in the way their fathers had walked, when 
 God led them in the wilderness, would be in right 
 lines. Paul teaches the philosophy of this when he 
 says: "Whereunto we have already attained, let us 
 walk by the same rule, let us mind the same things." 
 
 From this text, then, we gather several lessons, 
 
 viz. : God's people are his portion and the lot of his 
 
 inheritance ; and God takes care of them. God sets 
 
 bounds to his people's times and habitations. He 
 
 25 
 
386 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 gives them the lot of their inheritance — when men 
 recognize that they dwell safely and in content. The 
 review in the case of Israel presents such an advance 
 that the former times and these are in contrast. He 
 found them in bondage ; he brought them into lib- 
 erty. He led them through the wilderness ; but he 
 brought them and planted them in a land of corn and 
 wine. God led them ; compassed them about ; treated 
 them as an eagle treats her young in teaching them 
 to fly. God made them ride upon the high places of 
 power, that they might share the increase and fat- 
 ness of the land. As they remembered all this, they 
 would be kept in right lines. When surveyors are 
 running straight meridian lines they sometimes, with 
 great profit, take a back-sight, and compare that with 
 their fore-sights, so that the continuous line shall be 
 undeviating. And if all this was profitable for those 
 of the olden times, it will also be profitable for us to 
 "consider the years of many generations." 
 
 History must be studied as a whole, and not in 
 detached parts. All things and all people are parts 
 of a great system. If there had been no settlement 
 of Cincinnati a hundred years ago, there could be no 
 centennial now. If there had been no Wesley Chapel, 
 the civilization of Cincinnati would have been differ- 
 ent from what it is. Go into all the departments of a 
 cotton factory, and they all bear relation to one result — 
 the making of cloth. If Oliver M. Spencer had not 
 been rescued from the Indians, his life would have 
 had nothing to do with the progress of civilization in 
 our city. 
 
 A hundred and fifty years ago John Wesley went 
 up and down through England preaching of Jesus 
 and salvation. The civilization of this world of ours 
 feels the pulse and throb of John Wesley's life, and it 
 will continue to feci them to the end of time. The 
 
CENTENNIAL SERMON, l888. 387 
 
 influence of Christianity on civilization is shown in 
 several ways : Christianity forbids habits of conduct 
 fatal to a high civilization, such as idleness, profli- 
 gacy, dissipation, loose social relations. Christianity 
 inculcates and induces industry, energy, and the pro- 
 duction and accumulation of property. . Christianity 
 prevents strikes, and promotes harmonious relations 
 between labor and capital. While the showing of 
 Cincinnati Methodism is not what we could have 
 wished ; while, as will be seen, it has not kept pace 
 with the population, yet what would the civilization 
 of Cincinnati have been to-day if there had not been, 
 all through the last hundred years, the presence and 
 the power of an active, earnest Christianity? 
 
 This is Cincinnati's centennial year. Our Exposi- 
 tion opens on the coming Fourth of July. In noting 
 the various lines of progress made in a hundred years, 
 the Exposition Commissioners request pastors to 
 preach historical sermons, and all Churches to send 
 up to the Exposition halls photographs of their several 
 churches and of deceased ministers, and this depart- 
 ment is expected to contain the evidences of moral 
 and religious advancement. The Churches and their 
 history will be there. We can note their advancement 
 "that we may tell it to the generations following." As 
 we point to these monuments, we may well take up the 
 refrain, "This God is our God forever and ever. He 
 will be our guide, even unto death." 
 
 Within a hundred years the hills and forests 
 around this region echoed the strokes of the wood- 
 man's ax. Now, in six thousand manufacturing 
 establishments, the hum of industry makes music 
 every secular day of the year, and the smoke from 
 thousands of chimney-stacks rises toward heaven. 
 
 The capital brought here a hundred years ago was 
 limited to the barest necessaries of life. The taxable 
 
388 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 personal property of Cincinnati is assessed at $130- 
 000,000. The real estate is $50,000,000, yielding a 
 revenue of four millions of dollars. Ninety-five thou- 
 sand persons are employed in manufactories. Eighty 
 millions of dollars cash capital and fifty millions of 
 dollars in real estate are invested and employed in 
 manufacturing plants, yielding an annual product of 
 two hundred millions of dollars. The property of the 
 State of Ohio amounts to $3,198,062,000. 
 
 Then we had no churches and schools. Now, 
 churches are in all parts of the city, and every child 
 here can attend schools of various grades, from ele- 
 mentary to collegiate, while two large libraries, and 
 a full law library, afford the means of acquiring 
 knowledge. To gather and tabulate these astounding 
 facts of material progress is comparatively easy. Dol- 
 lars, and stocks, and farms, and houses, and bank cir- 
 culation can be counted without serious difficulty. 
 
 But moral results can not be measured nor tabu- 
 lated. They are intangible. A man receives a moral 
 impulse which sends him up and on in the path of 
 progress. A thousand, ten thousand, multiplied by 
 tens or scores, receive like impulses, and they in turn 
 communicate them to others. Moral influences curb 
 and restrain evil passions and criminal purposes, pre- 
 vent vagrancy, and promote industry and thrift. You 
 can see some of the effects of them ; some of the 
 achievements started or impelled by these moral in- 
 fluences ; but you can not measure nor weigh the 
 forces themselves. Let us to-day look over this field 
 of moral action, and see what we can gather of inspir- 
 ing truth, of encouraging precedent, and of stimulating 
 motive; and let us pray that God may assist our in- 
 quiries and bless our discoveries. 
 
 ( )ther denominations will trace the lines of their 
 history and achievements. It will be ours to follow 
 
CENTENNIAL SERMON, 1 888. 389 
 
 Up the history of our advent and progress, as Meth- 
 odists, in this part of the Ohio Valley. 
 
 Ninety-five years ago the first Methodist sermon 
 was preached in old Fort Washington, by a local 
 preacher named Francis Clark, from Kentucky. A 
 Methodist sermon was preached near Cincinnati, on 
 the road to Hamilton, two years later, by James 
 Smith. Flis theme was the angel's announcement to 
 the shepherds of Bethlehem. His text was, "Behold, 
 I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be 
 to all people." 
 
 Eighty-four years ago, John Collins, a local 
 preacher living in Clermont County, came to Cincin- 
 nati to buy salt. He made his purchases of Thomas 
 Carter, on Main Street, near the river. He then in- 
 quired if there were any Methodists in the town. 
 "Yes," said Mr. Carter, "and I am one." Overjoyed 
 by this news, Mr. Collins embraced Mr. Carter, and 
 wept upon his neck. Mr. Collins proposed to preach 
 if a place could be found. Mr. Carter offered a room 
 in his own house. That night Mr. Collins preached 
 with marked interest to twelve persons. In that 
 house, that evening, were gathered all the Methodists 
 Cincinnati then contained.* That was the second 
 Methodist sermon in Cincinnati. Yet Methodist 
 preaching had been heard and Methodist societies 
 had been formed at Milford and at Pleasant Hill. 
 
 In 1804, John Sale was appointed, by Bishop As- 
 bury, to the Miami Circuit, which then included nearly 
 or quite all the territory now within the bounds of the 
 
 *A writer in the Cincinnati Commercial Gazette, July 
 2ist, claims that Philip Gatch preached the first sermon in 
 Cincinnati in 1798. This is obviously a mistake. Judge 
 McLean, wl o had access to the papers of Mr. Gatch, and who 
 wrote his biography, and also that of Mr. Collins, ascribes the 
 honor to Mr. Collins and not to Mr. Gatch. 
 
390 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 Cincinnati Conference. Miami Circuit had been in 
 the list of Methodist charges since 1800, with a vary- 
 ing membership of from one hundred and fifty to five 
 hundred members. 
 
 Mr. Sale visited Cincinnati. He found a Meth- 
 odist class of eight persons not yet regularly enrolled. 
 He preached in a hotel kept by George Gordon, on 
 Main Street, between Front and Second Streets. After 
 preaching, he formed the members present in the first 
 properly-constituted Methodist class in Cincinnati. 
 James Gibson was appointed leader. The other mem- 
 bers were: Mrs. Gibson, Mr. and Mrs. St. Clair, and 
 Thomas Carter, his wife, a son, and a daughter. That 
 son became a judge of one of the Cincinnati courts. 
 The daughter became the mother of Ex-Governor 
 Dennison. 
 
 A Methodist Discipline of 181 2 was found recently 
 in Dayton, with this inscription, in substance : 
 
 To John Sale. — This Discipline got into my hands in 
 some way. It belongs to John Sale. 
 
 (Signed,) Francis Asbury. 
 
 From the time of Mr. Sale's first sermon in Cin- 
 cinnati, in 1804, it was made one of the regular 
 preaching places on the Miami Circuit, being visited 
 by one of the circuit preachers every two weeks. 
 There was no fixed place of meeting. Sometimes it 
 was held in a log school-house under the hill, some- 
 times at Brother Newcome's, on Sycamore Street, 
 sometimes at Thomas Carter's, and sometimes in a 
 barn, near the foot of Main Street. The number of the 
 Methodists steadily increased. In 1806, or in 1807, 
 probably in the former year, the first Methodist church 
 was built in Cincinnati, a stone edifice, on the pres- 
 ent site of Wesley Chapel, Fifth Street, between Syca- 
 more and Broadway, on the north side. It was a 
 
CENTENNIAL SERMON, 1 888. 39 1 
 
 small, square, one-story building. Soon, needing en- 
 largement, this was afforded by building unsightly 
 brick additions on the east and west sides. 
 
 The lot for the church and burying-ground was 
 deeded by James Kirby to five trustees, "for the use of 
 the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States 
 of America." The lot was originally two hundred 
 feet square, extending from the alleys, cutting the 
 block centrally north and south and east and west to 
 Broadway and Fifth Streets, and from Fifth to Sixth 
 Streets, being the entire southeast corner of the block. 
 
 In 1805 there were 734 members in the Miami 
 Circuit. Of these there may have been twenty-five or 
 thirty in Cincinnati. 
 
 In 1806 the enrollment was 893, of whom there 
 were perhaps thirty or forty in Cincinnati. 
 
 In 1807 the Minutes show Miami Circuit 757 mem- 
 bers ; Mad River Circuit, 332 members — 1,089 mem- 
 bers in all. Of the members on the Miami Circuit, 
 there may have been fifty or sixty in Cincinnati. 
 There was no separate enrollment nor designation of 
 members in Cincinnati until 18 14, when 226 mem- 
 bers are reported. 
 
 In 1809 the name Cincinnati first appears in the 
 Minutes. It obviously included a large part of Miami 
 Circuit. Twelve hundred and eighty-two members 
 are reported for that year, of whom perhaps one hun- 
 dred and twenty-five were in Cincinnati. In 1807, 
 Benjamin Lakin and John Collins were appointed on 
 Miami Circuit. Probably the stone church had al- 
 ready been erected. It was small, square, and un- 
 sightly. Three services were held on the Sabbath — 
 morning, afternoon, and evening. There were also a 
 Sunday-school and class-meeting held each Lord's- 
 day. Class-meetings have always been a special fea- 
 ture of Wesley Chapel. Mr. J. P. Kilbreth, of a later 
 
392 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 day, attended a sunrise class-meeting, in a small, frame 
 building, used also for an office, and which stood on 
 the spacious church lot. There he met Judge 
 McLean, who regularly attended, and who may have 
 been the leader. 
 
 Wesley and its predecessor have always been con- 
 spicuous places in Cincinnati. About the time of the 
 War of 1812, General Hull and his staff passed 
 through Cincinnati, and attended divine worship in 
 Wesley. 
 
 When Wesley was built it was often opened for 
 general purposes, because of its size. It was for many 
 years the largest audience-room in the city. Fourth 
 of July and Masonic celebrations were held in Wes- 
 ley ; the same was true as to school anniversaries ; and 
 notably those of the Cincinnati Wesleyan College. 
 In 1843, when Mt. Adams Observatory was publicly 
 opened by John Quincy Adams, his address was de- 
 livered in Wesley. 
 
 Nearly all the Cincinnati Methodist Churches 
 sprang from Wesley. One of the first colonies from 
 this goodly mother of Cincinnati Methodism w r as the 
 Old Brick Church, Plum and Fourth, commonly, for 
 years, called Brimstone Corner. After some years, 
 the members of the Old Brick bought land on the 
 west side of Western Row, now Central Avenue, and 
 built Morris Chapel. Twenty years ago they moved 
 to the corner of Smith and Seventh, and erected the 
 elegant and commodious structure known as St. Paul 
 Church. Later offshoots from Wesley w r ere McKen- 
 dree, Asbury, and Trinity. For a long time Asbury 
 and McKendree buildings were rented for day-schools, 
 Asbury for four dollars a month, and McKendree for 
 thirty-two dollars a year. Around the old Stone 
 Church the native trees were still standing, the wor- 
 shipers being accustomed to tie their horses to them 
 
CENTENNIAL SERMON, l888. 393 
 
 during divine service. But these soon disappeared, to 
 make way for the buildings and streets. 
 
 December 25, 1829, the Official Board of Wesley 
 decided to build a new church edifice. Josiah Law- 
 rence submitted a plan of a church drafted by Caleb 
 Williams. That board consisted of Matthew Benson, 
 Robert Richardson, Christopher Smith, Isaac Covalt, 
 Josiah Lawrence, Benjamin Stewart, William Bate- 
 man, Oliver M. Spencer. Mr. Spencer was father of 
 the late Henry E. Spencer, ex-mayor of Cincinnati. 
 The church was to be built of brick, ninety-five feet 
 long by seventy feet wide, two stories high above 
 ground, and a basement story ; a vestibule in the main 
 story ; a gallery on the sides, supported by pillars, but 
 no pillars in the gallery. The cupola was to have a 
 foundation carried to the roof. The house was to be 
 in rear of the stone church. O. M. Spencer, Isaac 
 Covalt, and Matthew Benson were the building com- 
 mittee. F. Hand was to superintend the carpenter- 
 work at one dollar twelve and a half cents per day. 
 I. Covalt superintended the brick-work. The plaster- 
 ing was done by Ezekiel Thorp. During the erection 
 of the building, religious services were held in the 
 court-house and in different churches of the city. 
 
 Among the honored names of the early members 
 of Wesley, besides those 1 have given, were those of 
 William Burke, a superannuated preacher, and, for 
 several years, city postmaster; Adonijah Peacock, 
 John and William McLean, John Elstner, James and 
 John Walls, Arnold Truesdell, William Wood, and 
 others. 
 
 After the church was built, the Official Board de- 
 cided that the women should occupy the seats to the 
 right of the aisles leading from the front down to the 
 pulpit, and the men the seats to the left of the 
 : isles. It was also provided that, if the men and 
 
394 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 women were found sitting together, the sexton or 
 the trustees should separate them. 
 
 May 31, 1833, the trustees passed an order forbid- 
 ding persons from leaving the house in time of pub- 
 lic worship, crowding into the pews past those who 
 were sitting in them, and slamming the doors in going 
 out of the house. The order declared that such con- 
 duct showed disrespect for the worshipers, and for the 
 worship of God, and was a mark of ill-breeding. 
 They also passed a resolution recommending that re- 
 spect was due, and should be paid, to aged persons, 
 and providing that the front row of seats should be 
 reserved for those of advanced years. 
 
 The lecture-room was erected in 1859, m P art ^ rom 
 the proceeds of a bequest of one thousand dollars left 
 for that purpose by some deceased member of the 
 church. 
 
 The building of Wesley Chapel was begun Decem- 
 ber 25, 1829. It was dedicated December 25, 183 1. 
 It is a very plain, substantial building, resembling, in 
 its main features, City Road Chapel, built by Mr. 
 Wesley in London. In its day it was one of the best 
 churches in the country. It cost about twenty thou- 
 sand dollars. It has been the birthplace of many hun- 
 dreds, perhaps thousands, of souls. Grand sermons 
 have been preached here by some of the noblest and 
 most renowned of ministers. Displays of Divine 
 power were witnessed here at times which were won- 
 derful. A lady is now living who saw, in Wesley, 
 scores lying prostrate and unconscious, overpowered 
 by religious influence. 
 
 For years Wesley was one of the finest and cost- 
 liest churches in Cincinnati. On that memorable 
 Christmas day, in 1831, three renowned and eloquent 
 ministers preached the three sermons. Bishop Soule, 
 then living in Lebanon, Ohio, was to have preached 
 
CENTENNIAL SERMON, 1888. 395 
 
 the first sermon and dedicated the church. He failed 
 tc appear. E. W. Sehon, one of the pastors, preached 
 the morning sermon. In the afternoon, Burr H. 
 McCown, a professor in Augusta College, preached. 
 At night, H. B. Bascom, also a professor in Augusta 
 College, officiated. 
 
 In the summer of 1858, under the pastorate of 
 Asbury Lowrey, Wesley Chapel was thoroughly re- 
 fitted and improved at a cost of three thousand dol- 
 lars, and on the 18th day of July, 1858, the reopening 
 sermon was preached by Rev. E. W. Sehon who, 
 twenty-seven years before, had preached the dedica- 
 tory sermon. At a like expense the Sunday-school 
 room was erected. In December, 1858, the lecture- 
 room, in the rear of the main building, was dedicated 
 by Bishop Morris. In these reopening services many 
 were present who witnessed the first dedication in 
 1 83 1. One was present, when the church was re- 
 opened in 1887, who attended the reopening in 1858, 
 and also in 1876. Under the pastorate of Sylvester 
 Weeks, in 1876 or 1877, the church was put in repair, 
 and was reopened with appropriate services. A some- 
 what fuller account of the repairs and improvements 
 put upon Wesley, in the spring of 1887, deserves 
 notice. 
 
 The improvements, which began the previous year 
 by the granite pavement fronting the church and par- 
 sonage, at a cost of about seven hundred dollars, con- 
 sisted of replacing the windows with beautiful cathe- 
 dral glass in elegant designs, those on the w T est side 
 being protected by wire screens on the outside. The 
 walls were refrescoed in terra-cotta tint and with suit- 
 able inscriptions about the pulpit walls, including the 
 Apostles' Creed and the Lord's Prayer. The pulpit 
 was projected from the rear wall, sufficiently to admit 
 of a choir and organ platform behind the pulpit. 
 
396 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 Triple gas-burners replaced the old, dim, and dingy 
 double ones. The wood-work was repainted and var- 
 nished. The vestibule was covered with hemp mat- 
 ting. The audience-room was recarpeted with well- 
 adapted carpets. The whole involved a cost of about 
 three thousand dollars. The improvements were con- 
 ceived and carried forward by the Wesley Chapel 
 Beneficent Society, whose members, male and female, 
 displayed great energy and liberality in promoting 
 the enterprise. It would be unjust not to make special 
 and honorable mention of William G. Roberts, James 
 G. Rutter, Charles R. Martin, Newton B. Collord, 
 J. A. Jones, I. F. Tunison, S. M. Martin, and their 
 ladies, who were active and effective in advancing the 
 work. 
 
 On the first day of May, 1887, the pastor, Rev. 
 Dr. Pearne, by special request of the W r esley Chapel 
 Beneficent Society, preached the reopening sermon. 
 The basket-collection amounted to some three hun- 
 dred and fifty dollars. In the afternoon a union love- 
 feast was held, conducted by the presiding elder, 
 Charles W. Ketcham. Dr. Isaac W. Joyce called for 
 subscriptions, and some five hundred dollars were pre- 
 sented. The debt for the improvements was all pro- 
 vided for, and the elegant audience-room of Wesley 
 is as comfortable and inviting as that of any church 
 in Cincinnati. Of the notable subscriptions toward 
 this expense, from those not members of Wesley, 
 should be mentioned those of Mrs. Jane Banks, $100; 
 Mrs. Bishop Clark, $50; a brother in Indiana, $50; 
 R. M. Moore, of Elizabeth, New Jersey, $50; and 
 Payne and Mrs. Pettibone, of Wyoming, Pa., $100. 
 
 Since Wesley was erected, how marvelous has been 
 the growth of this goodly city! The population of 
 Cincinnati in 1831, when Wesley was built, was per- 
 haps twenty-five thousand. There were five Meth- 
 
CENTENNIAL SERMON, 1 888. 397 
 
 odist churches, as many Methodist ministers, and one 
 thousand two hundred and forty-two members of the 
 Church. 
 
 When Wesley was dedicated, there was not a single 
 Methodist in Chicago, nor anything else, except a 
 small hamlet hovering about the United States mili- 
 tary post existing there. The next year Jesse Walker, 
 who went there and wrought as a missionary, returned 
 ten members. Now Chicago has far outstripped Cin- 
 cinnati in population, and commerce, and churches. 
 
 In 1858, when Wesley was reopened, the popula- 
 tion of Cincinnati was given at one hundred and sixty- 
 seven thousand. There were twenty churches, as 
 many ministers, and nearly four thousand members. 
 Now, after twenty-seven years, Wesley was again re- 
 opened. Including the suburbs on both sides of the 
 river, which are really a part of Cincinnati, the popu- 
 lation has probably doubled itself in those years. It 
 is a city of solid wealth and substantial dwellings, 
 warehouses, and manufactories. There are twice as 
 many Methodists ministers and churches now as then, 
 and some eight or nine thousand members. 
 
 From 1 80 1 to 1809 eleven different preachers were 
 stationed on the Miami Circuit, which included Ham- 
 ilton and Clermont Counties, and seven or eight coun- 
 ties north of them. From 18 10 to 1834 thirty-five 
 ministers in all were stationed in Cincinnati. From 
 1834 to 1840, when Wesley, McKendree, and Morris 
 Chapel (Fourth and Plum) were the only Methodist 
 Churches in the city (Wesley and McKendree were 
 either called Wesley or East Charge), eleven pastors 
 were stationed in Cincinnati. Since 1840 Wesley has 
 been a distinct charge, and twenty-six pastors have 
 succeeded each other, one of them, J. T. Mitchell, 
 serving two terms. Of these pastors, thirteen have 
 ascended. Those remaining are Bishop Foster, M. P. 
 
39S SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 Gaddis and J. L. Grover, Drs. Trimble, Miley, Low- 
 rey, Dustin, Weeks, Pearne, William I. Fee, A. N. 
 Spahr, G. W. Kelly, and T. J. Harris. 
 
 Of members of the Methodist Church in Cincin- 
 nati, including probationers, in the early years of the 
 century, the list is as follows, viz. : 
 
 1814, 226 
 
 1815, 264 
 
 1816, 310 
 
 1817, 318 
 
 1818, 462 
 
 1819, 633 
 
 1820 608 
 
 1823, 633 
 
 1825, 785 
 
 In Wesley and its predecessor thirty-one different 
 ministers have been stationed, one year each. Seven- 
 teen have been stationed in Wesley and the old stone, 
 each two years. Four have preached four years each 
 in the old stone and in Wesley. These are John Col- 
 lins^. W. Sehon, J. M. Trimble, and John T. Mitchell. 
 Fourteen have preached in Wesley or the old stone 
 three years each. The last eight pastors in Wesley 
 have been three years each. 
 
 W r esley has been a station since 1841. The first 
 four years of that term the station included Asbury 
 and McKendree. The last forty-three years it has 
 been a separate charge or a station by itself. Since 
 1845 twenty-one different pastors have ministered 
 here. Of these, four served only one year each. John 
 T. Mitchell served four years. Eight pastors staid 
 two years each, and eight three years each. This is 
 an honorable record, creditable alike to the pastors 
 who served and the Church which shared their abun- 
 dant and acceptable ministrations. 
 
 What has Wesley been as to its membership? 
 
 From 1841 to 1851 the average membership was 518 
 
 " 1851 " 1861 " " " " 304 
 
 1861 " 1871 " " " " 315 
 
 1871 " 1881 " " " " 325 
 
 1881 " 1888 " " " " 406 
 
CENTENNIAL SERMON, 1888. 399 
 
 Until the present pastorate, the largest number of 
 probationers and members reported was in 1844— five 
 hundred and thirty. 
 
 What has Wesley effected? Of course, in answer- 
 ing this question, only proximate facts can be given, 
 and these can not be measured in the sweep of their 
 influence. An average of forty conversions a year in 
 Wesley and its predecessor would give the aggregate 
 of three thousand and forty conversions. The average 
 is probably much higher than is here named. Under 
 seven pastorates, selected from personal knowledge or 
 reliable information, there were two thousand and 
 seven hundred, conversions, leaving fifty-five pastor- 
 ates, which would doubtless average thirty-five each, 
 adding nineteen hundred and twenty-five conversions, 
 making nearly five thousand and two hundred con- 
 versions in this God-honored Church. An average 
 of thirty deaths a year would give an aggregate of 
 two thousand four hundred, who, since this Church 
 was organized, have ascended to their crowning. 
 
 What Wesley has given for missions has been tab- 
 ulated in the General Minutes for only thirty-one 
 years. Prior to that, whatever was given can only be 
 conjectured, as no publication was made of it. 
 
 From 1857 to 1867 Wesley gave for missions, 
 $5,692 ; average per year of $570. The average per 
 year, per member, was $1.74- 
 
 From 1867 to 1877 Wesley gave for missions, 
 $5,519; average per year of $552. The average per 
 year, per member, was $1.85. 
 
 From 1877 to 1888 Wesley gave for missions, 
 $3,256; average per year of $296. The average per 
 year, per member, was 90 cents. 
 
 It will be seen that the contributions for missions 
 for the past eleven years have perceptibly shrunk. 
 The explanation is found in the fact that Wesley has 
 
400 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 been depleted of wealthy members by the Churches 
 of the city and suburbs, and that, up to the last decade, 
 the missionary collection was the principal and almost 
 the only one. Since then the Church Extension, 
 Freedmen's Aid, and other Conference collections, if 
 added to that for missions, would probably swell the 
 aggregate annual contributions of Wesley up to the 
 figures from 1857 to 1867. 
 
 In 1844, under the pastorate of J. M. Trimble, the 
 parsonage was built. Dr. Trimble himself dug the 
 vault for the cistern, which still remains, a mute wit- 
 ness to his industry. 
 
 It will be interesting to consider, with some atten- 
 tion, the names and characters of some of the grand 
 old ministers who have served as pastors in Wesley 
 Chapel. Among the honored names of those who 
 have ministered in the old stone church is that of 
 John P. Durbin. His senior colleague was the re- 
 vered and immortal William H. Raper. They suc- 
 ceeded the almost equally eminent Russel Bigelow 
 and Truman Bishop. The next year, 1826, Mr. Dur- 
 bin was a professor in Augusta College. His first 
 charge, to which he went from the cabinetmaker's 
 bench, was Greenville Circuit, which covered a large 
 part of Darke and Montgomery Counties, and nearly 
 all of Preble. In his first year he took rank as a vig- 
 orous thinker and an eloquent man. He possessed 
 rare dramatic genius. Richard Brandriff, of Piqua, 
 a member of the Cincinnati Conference, joined the 
 traveling connection in 1821. He died in 1887, aged 
 eighty-five years. He was a contemporary of Mr. 
 Durbin. He knew him intimately. Mr. Brandriff has 
 narrated to the writer repeated instances of Mr. Dur- 
 bin's early development as a man of recognized pul- 
 pit power. In the Eastern States he gave a lecture 
 on St Paul as man, irrespective of his greatness as an 
 
CENTENNIAL SERMON, 1888. 401 
 
 inspired apostle, which the press of the time highly 
 commended. His national fame as an orator contin- 
 ued for many years. A member of Wesley Chapel is 
 still living who sat under Mr. Durbin's ministry in the 
 old stone church. He always had large and admiring 
 audiences. The membership in the city in 1825 was 
 seven hundred and fifty ; colored, thirty-five. Dr. 
 Durbin's career affords a fine illustration of the op- 
 portunity this country afforded and affords earnest 
 and gifted young men for reaching eminent positions. 
 L. L. Hamline, afterward a bishop, was a minister in 
 Wesley in 1835 and 1836. He has probably never 
 been excelled in Ohio as a brilliant, clear, forcible 
 thinker and an eloquent divine. Some of his passages, 
 as now recalled, had surpassing sweep of thought and 
 diction, and overwhelming pathos. James Quinn, 
 John Collins, and W. B. Christie were men of wide 
 fame and usefulness. Of the three, Christie excelled 
 in invariable pulpit effectiveness. Even when he was 
 far gone in consumption, he would astonish and over- 
 power his audiences by vehement and eloquent pas- 
 sages. John Miley, of a period of ten years later, has 
 always been a superior preacher. He still retains the 
 mental fire and power of the earlier times. He is the 
 live and popular professor in Drew. It was while 
 Bishop Foster was pastor of Wesley that he had the 
 controversy with Dr. Rice, on Calvinism. During his 
 incumbency the cholera made its second appearance 
 in Cincinnati. He was with the sick and the dying, 
 never flinching nor shirking his duty to the stricken 
 members and families of his flock. In one instance, 
 a lady member of the Church, living on Sycamore 
 Street, called at the parsonage to solicit Mr. Foster 
 to visit her husband, who was very ill with the 
 cholera. He went, found the man in collapse, min- 
 istered to him, and remained with him until he died, 
 26 
 
402 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 smoothed his pillow, and laid him out decently upon 
 the bed. Returning, he found the man's wife dying 
 of cholera. The man, before dying, called for his bank 
 book, found a balance of one thousand five hundred 
 dollars, for which he gave Mr. Foster a check as a 
 personal gift, which, however, Mr. Foster, with the 
 self-sacrifice and generosity characteristic of the early 
 itinerants, gave to Wesley, to assist in paying off a 
 troublesome Church debt. 
 
 During this pastorate Mr. Foster had his famous 
 controversy with Dr. Rice on Calvinism. Lyman 
 Beecher, then a professor in Lane Seminary, came to 
 hear his sermons on Calvinism, and rendered him val- 
 uable assistance by the loan of books of reference 
 upon the subject under discussion. More than twenty 
 years later, Bishop Foster met, in South America, a 
 thrifty Scotchman, who had been rescued from infidel- 
 ity, caused by his difficulties with Calvinism, by read- 
 ing the bishop's book, entitled, "Objections to Cal- 
 vinism." 
 
 John Collins had much to do in molding and 
 directing Cincinnati Methodism. As already seen, he 
 visited Cincinnati in 1804, and preached to twelve 
 persons. In 1807 he joined the traveling connection, 
 and, with Benjamin Lakin as his senior colleague, he 
 was stationed on Miami Circuit, which then included 
 Cincinnati. He was then thirty-eight years of age. 
 In 182 1 and 1822, at the age of fifty-two, he was sta- 
 tioned in Wesley Chapel, Cincinnati. Again, in 1834, 
 he was pastor of this Church. There is a lady — Mrs. 
 Kierman — still a member of Wesley, which she joined 
 under Mr. Collins's pastorate. He was evidently, and 
 with good reason, a great favorite with the people of 
 Wesley. 
 
 John Collins was presiding elder here from 1826 to 
 1829. He was small of stature, compactly built, with 
 
CENTENNIAL SERMON, 1 888. 4°3 
 
 an expressive, mild blue eye, and possessing large sen- 
 sibility. He seldom preached without weeping, in 
 which his audiences almost always participated. He 
 was the honored instrument in the conversion of Jus- 
 tice John McLean, of the United States Supreme 
 Court. Mr. Collins's death was as peaceful and tri- 
 umphant as his long life had been useful and beauti- 
 ful. His sun-setting was without a cloud. His last 
 words were, "Happy! Happy!! Happy!!!" and all 
 was still. His history is identified with that of the 
 West. ' His usefulness as a preacher is unsurpassed 
 in Southwestern Ohio. As a successful pastor he had 
 no superior.* 
 
 At the age of twenty, William H. Raper was a 
 captain in the War of 1812, in which he distinguished 
 himself as a brave and successful soldier. In 1816 
 he joined the Methodist Episcopal Church. In t8to, 
 he became a member of the Ohio Conference. In 
 1825-1826 he was stationed in Cincinnati, which then 
 included Wesley and all the city. In 1837 and 1838 
 
 * Maxwell P. Gaddis, in his "Footprints of an Itinerant, 
 credits John Collins with having preached the first Methodist 
 sermon in Ripley, Ohio. He was passing through Ripley, 
 on his way to an appointment, and passed a funeral proces- 
 sion on its way to the grave with the deceased wife of an 
 infidel. After the burial services at the grave were concluded, 
 he requested the people to remain, and he preached to them 
 a sermon from the words, "I am the resurrection and the 
 life." (John xi, 25.) Many were in tears. The infidel was 
 converted. Mr. Collins, in 181 1, appointed the trustees and 
 made arrangements for building the first Methodist Episcopal 
 church in Urbana, Ohio. In the same year, John Collins, 
 then preaching on the Mad River Circuit, raised a subscrip- 
 tion to build the first Methodist Episcopal church in Day- 
 ton, Ohio. Tn 1840, in the great revivals under J. N. Mafntt, 
 in which seven hundred were converted in Wesley, and many 
 hundreds in Maysville, Ky., Father Collins is described^ 
 working effectively in a blaze of glory. 
 
404 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT IVORA'. 
 
 he was stationed in Wesley. In 1841 he was a presid- 
 ing elder in Cincinnati. He died in 1852, at the age 
 of sixty-one. He was remarkable for his refinement, 
 his rare conversational powers, and his great ability 
 as a preacher of the gospel. Noble, honored man! 
 After thirty-two years since his death, his personal 
 impress is still felt. 
 
 William B. Christie was born in 1803. He was a 
 proficient student in Augusta College, giving promise 
 then of his distinguished career. In 1830 to 1832 
 Mr. Christie was pastor in Wesley Chapel. In 1836 
 he was associated with L. L. Hamline as pastor of 
 Wesley. In 1837-8-9 he was presiding elder in Cin- 
 cinnati. In 1841-1842 he was stationed in Urbana. 
 In 1842, he died in this city, at the house of his 
 brother-in-law, Dr. M. B. Wright. When dying, he 
 said to E. W. Sehon : "Tell the brethren of the Con- 
 ference that I have not preached an unknown nor an 
 unfelt Christ. The gospel I have preached to others 
 sustains me now. Tell the brethren to preach Christ 
 and him crucified ; tell them my only hope, my only 
 foundation, is in the blood of sprinkling. O, the full- 
 ness, the richness, the sweetness of that fountain! I 
 am almost home. God is good to me. Jesus Christ 
 is my salvation." His funeral, from this church, was 
 attended by an overflowing crowd of all classes of 
 people. Persons attended who were never before nor 
 since within these walls. Bishop Morris preached on 
 that occasion. He says, while he had seen many happy 
 Christians die, he never saw a more signal victory than 
 that of William B. Christie in his death. 
 
 Bishop Morris was several times a pastor of Wes- 
 ley. In 1832 and 1833 he was pastor of Wesley, and 
 from 1834 to 1836 he was presiding elder in Cincin- 
 nati. 
 * Having spoken of some of the distinguished min- 
 
CENTENNIAL SERMON, 1 88 8. 405 
 
 isters of Wesley, it will be proper to make reference 
 also, to some of the eminent laymen who have been 
 honored members of this Church. 
 
 Josiah Lawrence, a native of Boston, was born 
 April 19, 1791. Early in the century he came to Cin- 
 cinnati, by way of South Carolina. For very many 
 years he was an active, useful member of the Official 
 Board of this Church. He possessed large wealth, 
 which he liberally used in sustaining the Church and 
 in its benevolent causes. His life was pure ; his ex- 
 ample was godly; his business integrity was prover- 
 bial. He was a merchant and banker in whom every- 
 body had confidence. His portrait adorns the walls 
 of the Chamber of Commerce. One of the oldest 
 members of Wesley said to me: "J os i an Lawrence 
 was a pillar in this Church, active, devoted, liberal, 
 loved by all the Church." 
 
 William Neff was for many years an official mem- 
 ber of Wesley. He was reared in the Episcopal 
 Church. But he formed a strong attachment for J. B. 
 Finley, under whose influence he was converted, and 
 he became a zealous and devoted Methodist. From 
 his birthplace, in Philadelphia, he came west by the 
 way of Savannah, Georgia, where he spent the earlier 
 years of his life. Like Lawrence, Neff was wealthy 
 and liberal. 
 
 Another eminent member of this Church was 
 a man whose early and thrilling history I read in 
 my childhood in a Sunday-school library book. 
 Oliver M. Spencer, in 1790, when a young lad, was 
 brought, by his parents, from New Jersey to Cin- 
 cinnati. At first they settled in Columbia, where 
 several years were spent. By permission, he came 
 down to Fort Washington, with his parents, on foot, 
 to attend a military drill and parade, which was 
 to continue several days. After the first day Oliver 
 
406 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 tired of the parade, and, with the consent of his 
 parents, he started back, on foot, and alone, for Co- 
 lumbia. On his homeward way he saw a boat with 
 persons in it, ascending the river. He signaled the 
 boat, hoping to obtain a ride to Columbia. Some 
 concealed Indians captured him, and carried him to 
 their own home, in the Wabash or Michigan region. 
 He had all the experience of Indian life, sleeping at 
 night on the ground, and faring in their rough, irreg- 
 ular way. He was taken by them to Pennsylvania, 
 Indiana, Michigan, and New York. Through the 
 offices of a friendly Indian, he was reclaimed while 
 yet a captive in New York. After his rescue he re- 
 mained a few years in New York, attending school, 
 and then returned to Cincinnati. Spencer was a lead- 
 ing member of this Church, at times president and 
 secretary of the trustees. He took an active and 
 leading part in the erection of Wesley Chapel. 
 
 Mrs. Bell, one of the oldest members of Wesley, 
 bears testimony to the excellent character and piety 
 of Christopher Smith, whom she described as the salt 
 of the earth. One of his daughters, Mrs. Edward 
 Sargent, died a year or two since. Another daughter 
 still lives on Walnut Hills. Brother Truesdell, a 
 teacher, was Sister Bell's class-leader. He was faith- 
 ful and effective. His widow became the wife of 
 Bishop Hamline. She died a few years since in 
 Evanston. She was a noble Christian woman, of 
 cultured mind and highly-refined nature. 
 
 Judge McLean, the distinguished jurist, was a 
 steady-going, earnest, consistent, and faithful Meth- 
 odist. He was always found in his place, right here 
 on the right-hand side of the pulpit, on the front seat 
 of the amen corner, just there next to that gallery 
 post. His piety was genuine; here he sat; here he 
 testified, by his life and his words, for Jesus. He 
 
CENTENNIAL SERMON, 1888. 407 
 
 was a class-leader. J. P. Kilbreth, who came to this 
 city wfien the century was young, frequently attended 
 his sunrise class in the little, one-story, one-room 
 frame building, called the church office, and which 
 stood on the church-lot near where the parsonage now 
 stands. Judge McLean wrote very beautiful sketches 
 of the lives of John Collins and Philip Gatch, pioneer 
 preachers of Southwestern Ohio. 
 
 But we may not overlook the women of Cincinnati 
 Methodism. In this city, fifty years ago, from woman's 
 wise forethought, came the Cincinnati Wesleyan Col- 
 lege, which has been graduating trained, godly women 
 for all the middle West. They have filled the land with 
 their blessed influence. Here, too, more recently, 
 was launched the Woman's Home Missionary Society 
 of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The Cincinnati 
 Branch, Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, has 
 been behind none in liberal, effective doing for 
 Christ. Under the ministry of some of the ablest 
 men of American Methodism, came into our Cincin- 
 nati Methodism some of its grandest women: Mrs. 
 Judge McLean, Mrs. Josiah Lawrence, Mrs. Benjamin 
 Stewart, Mrs. Christopher Smith, Mrs. Logue, Mrs. 
 Ezekiel Thorp, Mrs. Arnold Truesdell, afterward Mrs. 
 Bishop Hamline, Mrs. Collins, Mrs. Jemima Peacock, 
 Mrs. Sarah Mills, Mrs J. P. Kilbreth, Mrs. T. W. 
 Bakewell, Mrs. Sacker Nelson, Mrs. William Neff, 
 Mrs. Oliver M. Spencer, Mrs. Mary Coner, mother 
 of our own Aunt Jane Banks. Mrs. John Elstner, one 
 of God's own, the Lord's prisoner, still remains. In 
 her prime she was an active manager of the Home for 
 the Friendless. In her age and feebleness she does 
 not lack for friends. Nearly all of these were members 
 of Wesley; some belonged to the old stone church. 
 
 In the old brick church, Plum and Fourth Street, 
 next after the old stone church, there grew up, prior to 
 
408 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 the last half century, a class of noble Methodist 
 women, among whom may be named Mrs. Dr. Jesse 
 Smith, afterward wife of Rev. John F. Wright, and 
 of equally blessed memory. Mrs. William McLean, 
 Mrs. John Reeves, Airs. Thomas B. Anderson, Mrs. 
 Moses Brooks, Mrs. John Dubois, and her sister, Miss 
 Susan Lanphear. Most of these women had homes of 
 plenty and luxury, which were always open to the 
 ministers of Christ. The few surviving Methodists 
 of those early times recall the domestic delights of 
 those well-nigh apostolic days as a pleasant dream. 
 
 Nine years ago, at the ripe age of eighty-three, Ann 
 Davis, mother of the two doctors, John and William 
 B. Davis, went home, after seventy-two years of Chris- 
 tian life. For fifty years she had been honorably con- 
 nected with Cincinnati Methodism. Fifty years ago 
 she effectively aided Dr. Nast in planting German 
 Methodism in this city. In this roll of honor belong 
 Mrs. Samuel Lewis, Mrs. Gamble, Sr., mother of 
 James Gamble, who is still with us ; also Mr. Gamble's 
 sisters, Media Gamble and Airs. Rizer. Mrs. Gamble 
 had seen Wesley and heard Coke. Of those yet re- 
 maining, Mrs. Bishop Clark and Mrs. Glenn, of St. 
 Paul ; Mrs. Stewart and Airs. Perkins ; Airs. Wood, of 
 Walnut Hills; and Airs. Gamble, of Trinity, and so 
 many more, loved and cherished, I could say much. 
 
 I wish to give you some figures showing the ac- 
 tual and relative progress of Methodism in Cincin- 
 nati. It has been slower and smaller than in the 
 whole State, and as compared also with Alethodism 
 in other cities. Yet it has had peculiar hindrances 
 here not known in other cities and sections. Con- 
 sidering these, its march has not been discreditable. 
 
 The population given for i860 is an approximate 
 figure. The Methodist figures for 1880 and 1888 are 
 approximate, yet they are substantially reliable. They 
 
CENTENNIAL SERMON, 1888. 409 
 
 include the German and colored members, and also 
 members in suburban charges. 
 
 ACTUAL AND COMPARATIVE INCREASE OF MEMBERS 
 BY DECADES. 
 
 1800-1810. — Members, say 130; increase, 130 per cent. 
 
 Methodists to the population, one in nineteen. 
 1810-1820. — Members, 608; increase, 375 per cent. 
 
 Methodists to the population, one in sixteen. 
 1820-1830. — Members, 1,142; increase, 87 per cent. 
 
 Proportion, one in twenty-two. 
 1830-1840. — Members, 2,686; increase, 138 per cent. 
 
 Proportion, one in sixteen. 
 1840-1850. — Members, 3,223; increase, 20 per cent. 
 
 Proportion, one in thirty-five. 
 1 850- 1 860. — Members*, 4,461 ; increase, 39 per cent. 
 
 Proportion, one in thirty-seven. 
 1860-1870. — Members, 4,932; increase, ioj^ per cent. 
 
 One Methodist to forty-four of the population. 
 1870-1880. — Members, 7,000; increase, 42 per cent. 
 
 One Methodist to thirty-six. 
 1880-1888. — Members, say 8,000; increase, 14/2 pr. ct. 
 
 One Methodist to forty-two of the population. 
 
 POPULATION— ACTUAL AND RELATIVE INCREASE BY 
 
 DECADES. 
 
 Increase 
 Decade. Numbers. Per Cent. 
 
 1800-1810 2,510 230 
 
 1810-1820 9,242 280 
 
 1820-1830 24,831 58 
 
 1830-1840 44,338 79 
 
 1840-1850 115,403 165* 
 
 1850-1860 167,378 45 
 
 1860-1870 216,139 35 
 
 1870-1880 255,139 18 
 
 1880-1888 say 333,ooo 3 
 
 * Notwithstanding 4,832, one in twenty-four, or four per 
 cent of the population, died of cholera. 
 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 1WAS sent from Wesley Chapel, Cincinnati, to 
 Central Methodist Episcopal Church, Spring- 
 field, Ohio, at the Conference of 1888. I had been 
 in Wesley only three-fifths of the possible length 
 of the pastorate. It was the judgment of all the 
 members of the Official Board of Wesley that I 
 should fill out the full term, and in this view of the 
 case I was in full accord with them. Yet Central 
 Church was deemed to be in a peculiar condition. 
 It was the opinion of Bishop Warren and all the 
 presiding elders of the Conference that I should 
 be sent to Central Church, Springfield. I went 
 there, and while the conditions were somewhat 
 unique, I was never the pastor of any Church where 
 I had more fully the confidence of my officiary and 
 the appreciation of my congregation. All things 
 considered, they were very successful years. We 
 had almost a continuous revival. This is a work- 
 ing Church — a people's Church. During my two 
 years' pastorate in the Central Church, I wrote and 
 published a paper in reply to Colonel Robert G. 
 Ingersoll's article on "God in the Constitution." 
 His article appeared in the first number of the 
 Arena, a Boston review. I wrote a reply, and sent 
 it to the editor, who had promised me that my 
 paper should appear in the next number of the 
 Arena; but when I sent it the editor returned it, 
 saying that a Roman Catholic bishop and a Con- 
 
 410 
 
THOMAS H. PEARNE, D. D. 
 
 (At the age of 78 years,) 
 
REVIEW OF INGERSOEL. 4 11 
 
 gressman had sent him replies, which he deemed it 
 better to publish than to print my article. I then 
 published and circulated my own reply. It was 
 printed in pamphlet form in Cincinnati in 1890. 
 I here insert it as still opportune : 
 
 GOD IN THE CONSTITUTION. 
 
 "A REVIEW." 
 
 Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll has published, in the 
 Arena for January, a paper on "God in the Constitu- 
 tion." It holds the place of honor, being the first 
 article. While ostensibly opposing the insertion of 
 God's name in that instrument, he speaks one word 
 for his avowed theme, and three or four for the old 
 hobby he has been riding for the last fifteen years; 
 namely, venomous, unscrupulous attacks upon God, 
 the Bible, and the Christian religion. 
 
 The Colonel's article is characteristic. It is a sin- 
 gular mosaic of venom and fun, argument and decla- 
 mation, hyperbole and reasonable statement, satire 
 and sober truth. Bald assumptions and malignant in- 
 vective are indiscriminately commingled. 
 
 The stale chestnuts of Thomas Paine, who issued 
 a hundred years ago a ribald book, falsely named 
 "The Age of Reason;" the unworthy denunciations 
 of the Bible and religion by Thomas Hertell, a mem- 
 ber of Congress, some fifty years since; and the 
 rhetoric, wit, sarcasm, and exaggeration of the Col- 
 onel himself, are freely and loosely thrown about in 
 promiscuous, bewildering profusion. 
 
 He reminds one of the acrobat in the circus ring, 
 ealled Dandy Jack, who, after feats of ground and 
 lofty tumbling, pulls off his red cap, and waits for the 
 applause. 
 
412 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 The Colonel's production is a rare specimen of 
 intellectual vaulting and leaping, causing the gaping 
 crowd to stare and applaud, we may imagine, much 
 after the manner of those of the olden time, who won- 
 dered at the marvelous exploits of the village school- 
 master of the poet, — 
 
 "And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew, 
 How one small head could carry all he knew." 
 
 With the dogmatism of a pope, the Colonel asserts, 
 as though he believed his absurd proposition : 
 
 As to the existence of the Supernatural, one man knows 
 precisely as much, and exactly as little, as another. Upon this 
 question, chimpanzees and cardinals, apes and popes, are 
 upon an exact equality. 
 
 The Colonel puts the jabbering monkeys and the 
 priests into the same category. Such assumptions dis- 
 close astounding arrogance. In some of the para- 
 graphs there are more assumptions than lines. They 
 are used as though he considered his assertions argu- 
 ments, and as though the more extreme and bald the 
 assertion, the more utter the discomfiture of his op- 
 ponent, and the more certain and triumphant the 
 maintenance of his own propositions. Many of his as- 
 sumptions have no apparent probability, yet he repeats 
 them as though he believed them axiomatic. Consider 
 
 I. Examples of Colonel Ingersoll's Bold 
 Assumptions. — This is one of the opening para- 
 graphs : 
 
 In 1776 our fathers endeavored to retire the gods from 
 politics. They declared that "all governments derive their 
 just powers from the consent of the governed." This was a 
 contradiction of the then political ideas of the world; it was, 
 as many believed, an act of pure blasphemy — a renunciation 
 of the Deity. It was, in fact, a declaration of the independ- 
 
REVIEW OE INGERSOLL. 413 
 
 ence of the earth. It was a notice to all Churches and priests 
 that thereafter mankind would govern and protect themselves. 
 Politically, it tore down every altar, and denied the authority 
 of every "Sacred Book," and appealed from the providence 
 of God to the providence of man. 
 
 In ten lines here are a dozen assertions, each one 
 of which is unfounded, some of which are untrue, and 
 all of them misleading. 
 
 So far as known, the fathers of 1776 did not "en- 
 deavor to retire the gods from politics." Nay! If 
 the author did not "know enough to know this," he 
 is more obtuse than he has generally been considered. 
 Unless grossly ignorant, he knew that the signers of 
 the Declaration were not idolaters — were not believers 
 in gods many. They were not pagans. Three of 
 them, at least, were ministers, and perhaps others. 
 Yet he sets up a row of imaginary gods, and then em- 
 ployed "our fathers" in 1776, in knocking them down 
 and out by a decree, a declaration shall we say, a 
 constitution? He implies a constitution. 
 
 Their utterance as to the derivation of the powers 
 of government was not intended (so far as can be 
 seen) to strike out one god, not many. The signers 
 believed in God, the Creator, in his providence, and 
 in his justice and omniscience as well; for they appeal 
 to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude 
 of their intentions. In the first sentence of that im- 
 mortal document, they speak of "Nature's God" and 
 "Man's Creator." In the very last sentence they say, 
 "For the support of this Declaration, with a firm re- 
 liance in the protection of Divine Providence, we 
 mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, 
 and our sacred honor." 
 
 In view of these facts, what are we to think of the 
 candor and veracity of Colonel Ingersoll? 
 
 When he used the statement that our fathers of 
 
414 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 1776 "appealed from the providence of God to the 
 providence of man," he uttered what he must have 
 known was false. 
 
 Equally improbable, unsupported, and untrue, are 
 other statements in the same paragraph. Let us see : 
 
 This was, as many believed, an act of pure blasphemy, a 
 renunciation of the Deity. 
 
 Necessarily, this act, and the believing concerning 
 it, were contemporaneous. The act is patent, as we 
 have seen. It was neither blasphemy nor a renun- 
 ciation of the Deity; because, in the Declaration, four 
 times they recognized and named God. If many so 
 believed, they must have had some basis for their be- 
 lief outside the Declaration, and they must have felt 
 some statements of their thus believing, or the Col- 
 onel could not have known that they so believed. 
 What are those statements, and where can they be 
 found? Come forward, Sir Champion, and produce 
 them, or stand impeached of attempting to palm off, 
 upon an intelligent public, an unproved and improb- 
 able assertion. 
 
 "Optics keen it takes, I ween, 
 To see what is not to be seen." 
 
 Examine another remark : 
 
 It was, in fact, a declaration of the independence of the 
 earth. 
 
 It was not so in fact. It was not so, even in form. 
 The signers declared for themselves and their con- 
 stituents, and for no others, their renunciation and 
 independence of Great Britain. At the same time they 
 recognized their dependence upon their Creator. It 
 was a great document. It declared basal principles ; 
 but it was not a declaration of the independence of 
 
REVIEW OF INGERSOLL. 415 
 
 the whole earth. Our fathers of 1776 declared that 
 "all men are endowed by their Creator with certain 
 inalienable rights." This proved their faith in God 
 and their reverence for his authority. 
 
 Equally unwarranted and untrue is the statement 
 that the Declaration "was a notice to all Churches and 
 priests that thereafter mankind would govern and pro- 
 tect themselves." There is no reference here, ex- 
 pressed or implied, to Churches and priests. Nor is 
 there anything in the contemporaneous history of the 
 Declaration, or of the times, to support the gratuitous 
 assertions. 
 
 "Politically," says the Colonel, "it tore down every 
 altar, and denied the authority of every sacred book, 
 and appealed from the providence of God to the 
 providence of man." 
 
 All and singular these averments are proved false 
 by the witness the Colonel himself has introduced and 
 placed upon the stand. He may not, in any form or 
 to any degree, discredit his own witness. He is bound 
 to abide by what his own witness, fairly construed, 
 says. He can not escape this conclusion by saying 
 that he is talking about the Constitution and not 
 about the Declaration of Independence. He desig- 
 nates the latter by the date of its birth, 1776. He 
 quotes from it words found in the Declaration but not 
 in the Constitution. The Constitution was not framed 
 until thirteen years later. By his own witness, there- 
 fore, Mr. Ingersoll is convicted of dense ignorance 
 or of gross fraud and falsehood. 
 
 And is such a man, hurling malignant invectives 
 against God and his religion and ministers, to go un- 
 challenged ? 
 
 Is he to be virtually accredited, by the silent ac- 
 quiescence and non-protest of Christian people, in his 
 ruthless, fraudulent assaults upon the religion of the 
 
41 6 SIXTY- ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 great mass of the American people? Finding these 
 glaring perversions and untruths in one of the first 
 paragraphs of the Colonel's paper, it would be fair to 
 conclude that the remainder is also untrue and mis- 
 leading. We might, therefore, forego further exam- 
 ination, since it is a safe general conclusion that what 
 is false in one part is false, also, in all. And yet it 
 may be best to pursue our inquiries further. Let us 
 consider, then, that 
 
 II. In the Colonel's paper there are nu- 
 merous EXAMPLES OP BITTER PREJUDICE, WHICH 
 RENDER HIS CONCLUSIONS SUSPICIOUS, UNRELIA- 
 BLE, and misleading. — The following specimen is 
 pertinent . 
 
 And if there is to be an acknowledgment of God in the Con- 
 stitution, the question naturally arises as to which God is to 
 have this honor. Shall we select the God of the Catholics — he 
 who has established an infallible Church presided over by an 
 infallible pope, and who is delighted with certain ceremonies 
 and placated by prayers uttered in exceedingly common 
 Latin? Is it the God of the Presbyterian, with the Five Points 
 of Calvinism, who is ingenious enough to harmonize necessity 
 and responsibility, and who in some way justifies himself for 
 damning most of his own children? Is it the God of the 
 Puritan, the enemy of joy — of the Baptist, who is great enough 
 to govern the universe, and small enough to allow the destiny 
 of a soul to depend on whether the body it inhabited was 
 immersed or sprinkled? 
 
 What God is it proposed to put in the Constitution? Is it 
 the God of the Old Testament, who is a believer in slavery, 
 and who justified polygamy f If slavery was right then, it is 
 right now; and if Jehovah was right then, the Mormons are 
 right now. Are we to have the God ivho issued a command- 
 ment against all art — who zvas the enemy of investigation and of 
 free speech f Is it the God who commanded the husband to 
 stone his wife to death because she differed with him on the 
 subject of religion ? Are we to have a God who ivill re-enact 
 the Mosaic code, and punish hundreds of offenses with death? 
 What court, what tribunal of last resort, is to define this God, 
 
REVIEW OF INGERSOLL. 417 
 
 and who is to make known his will? In his presence, laws 
 passed by men will be of no value. The decisions of courts will 
 be as nothing. But who is to make known the will of this 
 supreme God? Will there be a supreme tribunal composed of 
 priests? 
 
 No intelligent person holds that the God of the 
 Romanist is a different being from the God of the 
 Protestants, or the Calvinists, the Puritans, the Bap- 
 tists, or the Jews. The Colonel distorts and arrays 
 the extreme views of each to discredit them all, and 
 to make it appear absurd and impracticable that the 
 Constitution should recognize God. 
 
 The assertion that the God of the Old Testament 
 was a believer in slavery and justified polygamy, is 
 an unsupported and misleading one. Plow does the 
 Colonel know what God believed? How can he un- 
 less God has told him ? And how can a myth, a mere 
 matter of opinion, believe or communicate? Where 
 is the proof that God believed in slavery and justified 
 polygamy? Because he permitted them? Then God 
 believed in sin, in murder, and idolatry, and adultery; 
 for God permitted them to exist. That God believed 
 in neither is shown beyond cavil, in the fact that the 
 moral law cuts up slavery and polygamy by the roots. 
 "Doth the same fountain send forth both bitter water 
 and sweet?" 
 
 The attempt to show that if God were recognized 
 in the Constitution, some authoritative tribunal to ex- 
 plain and interpret God's will would be necessary, is 
 prejudiced and sophistical. 
 
 The inquiry, "Will there be a supreme tribunal 
 composed of priests?" discloses the old bitter hate 
 against ministers, which, in the Colonel, seems a rul- 
 ing passion. The criminal codes of all civilized na- 
 tions are based upon the moral law as revealed in the 
 Bible. 
 27 
 
41 3 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 The common law of England, and which, also, is 
 the foundation of our judicial system, expressly recog- 
 nizes Christianity as a part of the English common 
 law. 
 
 There is not a civilized nation on the face of the 
 earth that does not recognize God in its laws. Black- 
 stone, section 2, says: "On these two foundations, the 
 law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all 
 human laws; and where there is no revelation, then the 
 human laws depend upon the laws of nature and on 
 God for their source." 
 
 All this is not only as true in our country as in 
 others, but it is more so. Does our brother — who 
 knows thes-e things as well as any one — find any diffi- 
 culty in that fact? Are priests therefore needed to 
 stand at the elbows of courts to teach them what is 
 and what is not criminal? 
 
 III. Colonel Ingersoll betrays a suspicious 
 
 ANIMUS AGAINST A CERTAIN CLASS OF HIS FELLOW- 
 CITIZENS. — He says: 
 
 Of course all persons elected to office will either swear or 
 affirm to support the Constitution. Men who do not believe 
 in this God can not so swear or affirm. Such men will not 
 be allowed to hold any office of trust or honor. A God in the 
 Constitution will not interfere with the oaths or affirmations of 
 hypocrites. Such a provision will only exclude honest and con- 
 scientious unbelievers. Intelligent people know that no one knows 
 whether there is a God or not. The existence of such a being is 
 merely a matter of opinion. Men who believe in the liberty of 
 man, who are willing to die for the honor of their country, will 
 be excluded from taking any part in the administration of its 
 affairs. Such a provision would place the country under the feet 
 of priests. 
 
 To recognize a Deity in the organic law of our country 
 would be the destruction of religious liberty. The God in 
 the Constitution would have to be protected. There would 
 be laws against blasphemy, laws against the publication of 
 honest thoughts, laws against carrying books and papers 
 
REVIEW OE INGERSOLL. 419 
 
 in the mails in which this Constitutional God should be at- 
 tacked. Our land would be filled with theological spies, with 
 religious eavesdroppers, and all the snakes and reptiles of 
 the lowest natures, in this sunshine of religious authority, 
 would uncoil and crawl. 
 
 In this remarkable passage several things are ob- 
 vious : 
 
 (1) We see the usual, sweeping sneer at religion. 
 In this instance it is that those who profess it are 
 ignorant. The Colonel says, "Intelligent people know 
 that no one knows whether there be a God or not." 
 What about- Chancellor Kent, Isaac Newton, Her- 
 schel, Strong, Marshall, and Chase? Were they in- 
 telligent ? 
 
 (2) We see here a denial of God's existence. "The 
 existence of such a being is merely a matter of opin- 
 ion." This is unmixed atheism. If God's existence 
 is only a matter of opinion, then there is no God ; then 
 the claim that there is a God — nay, the existence of 
 God — is only a myth. A mere matter of opinion about 
 God is not a fact as to God. In this averment Colonel 
 Ingersoll denies the consciousness of universal Chris- 
 tendom — hundreds of millions of people. That God 
 exists, that he fills human souls with his light and 
 presence and power, is not opinion at all, but fact — a 
 fact attested by millions of people, who have lived in 
 past ages, and by millions who are now living. 
 
 (3) These statements contain, also, a malignant 
 snarl against priests and ministers. But this is as 
 usual as the Colonel's restlessness when the subject 
 of hell is named, so that the editor of the Cincinnati 
 Gazette described him as "the man afraid of hell." I 
 would not say that the Colonel is afraid of priests, 
 for probably he is not ; but if any one should swear 
 that the Colonel does not hate ministers, he would 
 be quite likely to perjure himself. His hatred of them 
 
420 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 is unconcealed, unappeasable, and morbid. It survives 
 all accidents and changes. It is irrepressibly, offens- 
 ively obtrusive. On all occasions, and with no amiable 
 smiles, it ambles to the front, and, like a vicious horse, 
 is snaps its teeth at all within its reach. These out- 
 bursts of rage and hostility abound throughout the 
 entire paper ; and how unkind ! how untrue ! Among 
 the signers of *the Declaration was a Presbyterian 
 minister — president of Nassau Hall, Princeton, after- 
 wards Princeton College. Among the framers of the 
 Constitution was an eminent Lutheran minister, and 
 perhaps other ministers. During our Revolutionary 
 struggle, in repeated instances, ministers preached 
 and fought. The loyalty and courage of ministers in 
 the late Rebellion were exemplary. Ministers are or- 
 derly citizens. They pay taxes quite as honestly and 
 as cheerfully as any other citizens. They obey the 
 laws, and live useful, benevolent lives. Why should 
 the Colonel pursue them as he does? Take the fol- 
 lowing specimens : "Will there be a supreme tribunal 
 of priests?" . . . "What of the priest, the cardi- 
 nal, and the pope, who wrest from the hand of pov- 
 erty 'the single coin thrice earned?'" . . . "For 
 many years priests have attempted to give this Gov- 
 ernment a religious form." . . . "We have tried 
 the government of priests, and we know that such 
 governments are without mercy." . . . "The 
 priest was no longer a necessity." . . . "There is 
 a suspicion that the priest, the theologian, is not satis- 
 fied with this ; he wishes to destroy the liberties of the 
 people." 
 
 I pause to inquire. What means this unappeasable, 
 ferocious malignity against priests ? What is the mat- 
 ter with our choleric, atheistic brother? When a per- 
 son dwells exclusively, continuously, intensely, upon 
 one line of thought, the fact naturally suggests mental 
 
REVIEW OF INGERSOLL. 42 1 
 
 unbalance, want of mental equilibrium ; examination 
 is in order. Inquiry as to sanity or otherwise is at 
 once deemed the fitting thing. 
 
 This reiteration to weariness against ministers, 
 these suspicions and innuendoes and direct attacks 
 upon them as a class, painfully indicate a want of filial 
 respect and duty. They ominously denote a willful, 
 unfilial disregard of the Fifth Commandment, "Honor 
 thy father and thy mother." "It is an ill bird that 
 fouls its own nest." For be it remembered that the 
 man who so berates ministers is himself the son of a 
 priest. Does he derive his unforgetting dislike of min- 
 isters from his early associations as the son of one of 
 them? Was he relating a chapter from his own life 
 when he wrote, "We have tried the government of 
 priests, and we know they are without mercy?" Must 
 we then conclude that he was indeed so bad a lad that 
 his father's rule had to be "without mercy?" or, was 
 the father such a monster of cruelty that the best 
 thing the son could say of him, long after he had 
 passed away from earth, was that his "rule was with- 
 out mercy?" In either case, we commend to our 
 unhappy, blatant brother the Scripture which saith: 
 "He that is unfaithful in least, is unfaithful also in 
 much." A son who goes back on his earthly father, 
 is quite likely to go back also on God. 
 
 IV. The Colonel abounds in unjust, unfair 
 reasoning. — This is a specimen: 
 
 To recognize a Deity in the organic law would be the 
 destruction of religious liberty. 
 
 His assertions being groundless, his fears are un- 
 necessary. We already have a great deal of Christian- 
 ity in our civilization. Of our citizens, forty millions 
 are believers in Christ's religion. Besides these, 
 twelve or fifteen millions are children; of the remain- 
 
422 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 ing five or eight millions, probably not one in fifty is 
 of Colonel Ingersoll's unbelief. 
 
 The informal, incidental pressure of Christianity 
 upon the civil life of the country, and the infusion of 
 its genius and spirit into our laws and institutions, 
 are everywhere and every day seen. They can not be 
 denied nor repressed. They will be seen and felt. It 
 is inevitable. 
 
 God is recognized and Christianity is recognized 
 in every piece of gold and silver and paper money 
 issued by the Government, bearing a date ; in our re- 
 ligious and secular holidays established by law, in our 
 conveyances and charters, in our court and congres- 
 sional and legislative records, in the Anna Domini 
 which dates our time, in our diplomacy, and in all our 
 legal instruments and chaplaincies. And if, in all 
 these ways, God and the Christian religion have been 
 recognized without materially marring our religious 
 liberties, two things must be admitted: (i) That the 
 term God in the Constitution would not much im- 
 peril our liberties. (2) That our brother need not lose 
 sleep through his concern for the safety of our relig- 
 ious liberties. The Colonel makes a discovery, which, 
 however, does not turn out to be true. He says : 
 
 There has been in our country a divorce of Church and 
 State. This follows as a natural sequence of the declaration 
 that ''governments derive their just powers from the consent 
 of the governed.'' The priest was no longer a necessity. His 
 presence was a contradiction of the principle on which the 
 Republic was founded. He represented, not the authority 
 of the people, but of some "Power from on High," and to 
 recognize this other Power was inconsistent with free gov- 
 ernment. The founders of the Republic at that time parted 
 company with the priests, and said to them: "You may turn 
 your attention to the other world — we will attend to the 
 affairs of this." Equal liberty was given to all. But the 
 
REVIEW OF INGERSOLL. 423 
 
 ultra-theologian is not satisfied with this; he wishes to de- 
 stroy the liberties of the people; he wishes a recognition of 
 his God as the source of authority, to the end that the Church 
 may become the supreme power. 
 
 He says, "There has been, in our country, a di- 
 vorce of Church and State." This statement is not 
 true ; there has been no such divorce ; there can not 
 be a divorce where there has been no marriage; the 
 Church and the State have never been united in this 
 country. Possibly, in some of the New England col- 
 onies, and, perhaps, during their early Statehood 
 some of them may have drawn from the public treas- 
 ury moneys to support the Churches, as they did also, 
 and still do, to support the schools. But there has 
 been properly and really no union of the Church and 
 the State established by law, as is true in Great Britain 
 and Russia. 
 
 France and Belgium both contribute from the pub- 
 lic chest for the support of religion, and yet in neither 
 of those Governments is there a formal, legal union 
 between the Church and the State. If the Colonel 
 had said, "The union of Church and State in this 
 country has been prevented," that statement would 
 have been more exactly correct. 
 
 The Colonel says, "The priest was no longer a 
 necessity." The priest has never been a necessity, po- 
 litically considered, in this country. As a citizen he 
 has equal right with the lawyer, the politician, or any 
 other class, and, so far as known, he may be equally 
 useful. 
 
 We note, in the following paragraph, like hostility 
 to ministers, and like false assumptions : 
 
 For many years priests have attempted to give to our 
 Government a religious form. Zealots have succeeded in 
 putting the legend upon our money, "In God We Trust," 
 
424 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 and we have chaplains in the army and navy, and legislative 
 proceedings are usually opened with prayer. All this is con- 
 trary to the genius of the Republic, contrary to the Declara- 
 tion of Independence, and contrary really to the Constitution 
 of the United States. We have taken the ground that the 
 people can govern themselves without the assistance of any 
 Supernatural Power. We have taken the position that the 
 people are the real and only rightful source of authority. 
 We have solemnly declared that the people must determine 
 what is politically right and what is wrong, and that their 
 legally-expressed will is the supreme law. This leaves no 
 room for national superstition, no room for patriotic gods 
 or supernatural beings, and this does away with the neces- 
 sity for political prayers. 
 
 It is not true that for many years priests have 
 tried to give this Government a religious form. They 
 have never tried to do so. It is true that some of 
 them have sought to have God recognized in the 
 Constitution ; but to accomplish this would not give 
 this Government a religious form ; and that fact 
 achieved, would not be a union of Church and State. 
 To insert God's name in the Constitution would be a 
 recognition of a fact already existing, that this is a 
 Christian Nation ; and it is such because made up of 
 Christian people, and because its civilization is a 
 Christian civilization. Chaplaincies in our Legisla- 
 tures and hospitals and barracks and navy do not 
 give our Government a religious form ; nor is the fact 
 contrary to the genius of the Republic, the Declara- 
 tion of Independence, or the Constitution of the 
 United States; for while the first article declares 
 "Congress shall make no law establishing religion, " 
 it also declares, it shall make no law "prohibiting the 
 free exercise thereof." Congress does not make a law 
 establishing religion when it has opened its sessions 
 with prayer, and when it employs chaplains in army 
 and navy and in our eleemosynary institutions. If 
 
REVIEW OE INGERSOLL. 425 
 
 Congress should refuse to make provisions by law for 
 such religious services, it would, thereby, be "pro- 
 hibiting the free exercise thereof." 
 
 V. Coeonee INGERSOLE misconceives the 
 
 NATURE OF OUR CIVILIZATION AND THE TRUE 
 
 scope and spirit of our institutions. — The fol- 
 lowing paragraph, while true in some of its positions, 
 is as to others untrue and misleading: 
 
 The Government of the United States is secular. It de- 
 rives its power from the consent of man. It is a Govern- 
 ment with which God has nothing whatever to do — and all 
 forms and customs, inconsistent with the fundamental fact 
 that the people are the source of authority, should be aban- 
 doned. In this country there should be no oaths; no man 
 should be sworn to tell the truth, and in no court should 
 there be any appeal to any Supreme Being. A rascal, by 
 taking the oath, appears to go in partnership with God, and 
 ignorant jurors credit the firm instead of the man. A wit- 
 ness should tell his story, and if he speaks falsely should be 
 considered as guilty of perjury. Governors and Presidents 
 should not issue religious Proclamations. They should not 
 call upon the people to thank God. It is no part of their 
 official duty. It is outside of and beyond the horizon of their 
 authority. There is nothing in the Constitution of the United 
 States to justify this religious impertinence. 
 
 It is true the Government of the United States is 
 secular, but it is not therefore pagan, Mohammedan, 
 Brahmin, Confucian, or savage. Yet it can not fail 
 to recognize and protect the religious rights and obli- 
 gations of its Christian citizens. To fail to do so would 
 be to violate the very first article of the Constitution, 
 as we have seen. The Colonel says the Government of 
 this country "derives its powers from the consent of 
 man." This is not true ; its powers are "derived from 
 the consent of the governed?' The governed, in this 
 case, are, for the chief part, Christians and citizens. 
 They are to be governed, not as pagans, nor by means 
 
426 SIXTV-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 of a pagan civilization, but as Christians, and by a 
 Christian civilization. 
 
 Nor again, is it true that ours "is a Government 
 with which God has nothing whatever to do." From 
 the beginning of our history God has had very much 
 to do with us. He still has; he will continue to have 
 much to do with our Government and people. In the 
 infancy of our existence, he gave victory to our army. 
 He aided our fathers in founding our institutions and 
 in framing our Constitution. Our Nation owes its in- 
 tegrity to the Christian loyalty of its brave defenders, 
 to whom God gave victory in the late Civil War. 
 
 It is a non-sequitur to affirm, as Colonel Inger- 
 soll does, that "in this country there should be no 
 oaths," and that "no one should be sworn to tell the 
 truth ;" i. e., these conclusions do not follow from the 
 nature and genius of our Government, and certainly 
 not from the Constitution. Article 6 requires that "all 
 senators and representatives and the members of the 
 several Legislatures, and all executive and judicial 
 officers of the several States, shall be bound by oath 
 or affirmation to support the Constitution." 
 
 The expedient by which Colonel Ingersoll would 
 get testimony without administering oaths is imprac- 
 ticable and deceptive. He says, "A witness should tell 
 his story, and, if he speaks falsely, he should be con- 
 sidered as guilty of perjury ;" i. c, he should be pun- 
 ished as having committed perjury when he had not 
 committed perjury, and, indeed, could not have com- 
 mitted perjury, because he had not taken an oath 
 at all. 
 
 In his wish to avoid an appeal to God by a wit- 
 ness, he would enact a fraud into law, and use a trick, 
 and punish people for a crime not committed and not 
 possible to be committed. His objection to an oath 
 is peculiar. "The rascal, who appeals to God by an 
 
REVIEW OE INGERSOLL. 427 
 
 oath, appears to go into partnership with God, and ig- 
 norant jurors credit the firm instead of the man." 
 
 This is a shallow device to justify atheism in prac- 
 tice. It is implied that "the ignorant jurors" hold 
 evidence higher, in cases when the witness appeals to 
 God, than when he does not. Here is another char- 
 acteristic sneer at Christians. The jurors who believe 
 in oaths are "ignorant jurors." It is implied, also, 
 that the men who appeal to God in an oath, appear 
 to take God into partnership, and that, in doing so, 
 they adopt the policy of the rascal. 
 
 The safer way, the surer way to get the truth from 
 a witness, is to have him sworn. There may now and 
 then be a rascal who commits perjury; but I would 
 rather trust men who appeal to God than trust men 
 who discard God, and who, instead, form a partnership 
 with the devil. As at present advised, it is safer, all 
 round, to trust the firm of God and Company than 
 the firm of the devil and company. 
 
 It is no infraction of the spirit and intent of the 
 Constitution as it is; and, if it were, then the Consti- 
 tution should be changed so that it would not be held, 
 and could not be held, unconstitutional for presidents 
 and governors to issue proclamations, appointing 
 thanksgiving-days, and calling on the people to thank 
 God. This policy is in line with all the declared pur- 
 poses and objects of the Constitution, to recognize 
 the moral nature of the citizen and the God to whom 
 that moral nature holds relation, and whose provi- 
 dence is in the thought and moral consciousness of 
 nine-tenths of the citizens. The objects of the Con- 
 stitution are "to establish justice, to form a more per- 
 fect union, to insure domestic tranquillity, and the 
 common defense, the general welfare, and the bless- 
 ings of liberty-" These objects are all subserved by 
 exalting the sense of moral dependence and of moral 
 
428 SIXTY- ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 obligation to God. Thanksgiving-days and fast-days, 
 chaplains in army and navy, in Congress and Legis- 
 latures, and in eleemosynary institutions, have this ten- 
 dency, and therefore, in a high degree, they are con- 
 stitutional. 
 
 The Christians, who sustain this Government, and 
 who from time to time administer it, certainly have 
 as much stake in it, and as intelligently apprehend 
 how great that stake is, and they are certainly quite 
 as able and as well entitled to judge of the best way 
 in which the objects sought by the Constitution can 
 be subserved, as a man can be who declares that "the 
 being of God is a mere matter of opinion." 
 
 "One man should not be allowed to interfere with 
 the liberty of another," says our atheistic friend, and 
 so say I, and therefore I say to him, "Hands off." 
 His liberty is license, as seen in his advocacy of the 
 rights of D. M. Bennett to liberty after he had been 
 convicted of a crime against society. 
 
 The Colonel's by-play on God's ability to take 
 care of himself, and therefore as not needing our 
 help to get himself in the Constitution, is too flippant, 
 after he has reduced God's existence to "a mere matter 
 of opinion." Certainly God does not need our help 
 so much as we need his. He can better afford to be 
 non-recognized in the Constitution than we can afford 
 to be non-recognized by him. 
 
 The Colonel's account of God's government of the 
 nations, and of his tyranny and injustice, are gross 
 perversions and caricatures. It is proper to add as 
 to the Colonel's paper, that some parts of it, in which 
 he describes the nature and uses of an organic law, 
 are well enough and true enough taken by them- 
 selves, but he has marred and weakened their force 
 by his gratuitous and vitriolic objurgations against 
 the Bible and God and Christianity. 
 
RE VIE 'JV OF INGERSOLL. 429 
 
 We arc not tenacious for placing- the name of God 
 in the Constitution. This is a Christian Government, 
 administered by Christian people and upon Christian 
 principles, whatever may be in, or not in, the Consti- 
 tution. If it were not a Christian Government, it 
 would not long survive; and it is a Christian Govern- 
 ment, none the less, that it is not declared to be in 
 the organic law. 
 
 VI. The ideal government of Colonel Inger- 
 
 SOLL IS A LOGICAL ABSURDITY AND IMPOSSIBILITY. 
 
 I raise the question as pertinent, in view of the passion- 
 ate efforts of Colonel Ingersoll to make our Republic 
 atheistic. Where is there to be found, on the face of 
 the earth, where has there ever been found, a nation 
 of infidels or a civilization of atheists? What kind of 
 a Government would that be? Nobody knows. No- 
 body can conjecture. It would be a monstrosity the 
 earth has never seen. There would be no controlling 
 authority, no cohering vitality in it. 
 
 Chaplain McCabe some years ago gave, as a 
 dream, a picture of Ingersollville, a city from the civil- 
 ization of which God was excluded, and the city was 
 walled to keep God out. Lust and profanity and crime 
 and robbery and violence and disorder prevailed, 
 until the better class of atheists themselves fled from 
 it in dismay, as they would from a pest-house. Infidels 
 can not deny the existence, in our world, of death, and 
 grief and tears, and disappointment. What remedy do 
 they propose for the sorrows of earth, which, sooner 
 or later, come to all? What alleviation does atheism 
 or agnosticism offer ? 
 
 Christianity presents a balm for every wounded 
 heart, a cordial f or our fears. It is effective, it has 
 been proved adequate by millions of our race, by vast 
 numbers of our fellow-countrymen. Why seek to 
 knock that prop down, until another, and at least an 
 
430 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK'. 
 
 equal support, is found? Then, moreover, this Repub- 
 lic is to-day the richest and most potent on the face 
 of the earth, and in culture and learning and intelli- 
 gence and morals and civilization it excels every 
 other. And to what shall we ascribe it? All the other 
 nations who approximate us in power and resources 
 are Christian nations, and they are strong and pros- 
 perous as they are Christian. 
 
 What a terrible catastrophe it would be if Colonel 
 Ingersoll's ideas should become prevalent in this 
 country and world of ours ! Joy thus cut off from 
 human hearts and lives by a blank atheism, or a 
 blanker agnosticism, and the great Republic, so hon- 
 ored and so exalted and prosperous, relegated to the 
 dull stagnation and collapse which an atheistic con- 
 trol of its affairs would superinduce ; we should re- 
 semble that dead, ruined planet, the moon, upon whose 
 lifeless, waterless, treeless, verdureless surface the 
 fructifying light and warmth of the sun fall in vain. 
 Mr. Ingersoll, himself, is what he is, not as an atheist, 
 nor an agnostic, nor as the product of either, but as a 
 man of brilliant powers, the product of the Christian 
 civilization under which he was reared. He can not 
 produce a civilization of atheism anywhere ; nor a man 
 that was ever raised up under an atheistic civilization. 
 He was not himself. He has not the power, thank 
 God, to make of himself, because environed by Chris- 
 tian influences, what he would be if raised up exclu- 
 sively under the power of his own principles. 
 
 The Colonel's vaporings against the religiousness 
 of our civilization proceeds upon a false and vicious 
 theory of our institutions. Our Government is a rep- 
 resentative one. Tt should represent the Christian 
 civilization of its constituents. It must do this, or it 
 is not truly republican. Its constituency are not chim- 
 panzees, apes, idiots, or atheists. For the most part, 
 
CENTRAL CHURCH, SPRINGFIELD. 43 1 
 
 they are people of brains, good morals, and Christian 
 lives and characters. As already stated, forty millions 
 of them are such; fifteen millions more of them are 
 minors ; of the remaining five millions, not the fiftieth 
 part are of Colonel Ingersoll's peculiar atheistic views. 
 In its laws and administration our Government should 
 reflect and represent the better qualities of the sixty 
 millions of its constituents, and it should not punish 
 them in the way Colonel Ingersoll and his hundred 
 thousand atheistic associates would propose. In other 
 words, the dog should wag the tail, and not the tail 
 the dog. A republican government which does not 
 represent the learning, culture, brains, morals, and 
 religion of its people, is a mockery, a usurpation, and 
 a fraud. For the Colonel, himself, we have profound 
 sorrow and pity. He has abilities which, properly 
 wielded, might be greatly serviceable to his country 
 and his race; abilities which would qualify him to 
 govern men and guide the State. But these abilities 
 perverted, as he seems bent on perverting them, may 
 gain him the applause of libertines and base men, who 
 want religion shorn and debased, so that their pol- 
 lution and wrong may receive less rebuke and hin- 
 drance. 
 
 He may gain the plaudits of shallow thinkers and 
 surface men, and he may wreck the faith and the lives 
 of, here and there, a young man; but let him, as to him- 
 self, remember: 
 
 "One self-approving hour whole years outweighs 
 Of stupid starers and of loud huzzas." 
 
 Central Church, Springfield, numbered over 
 one thousand members. I deemed it too large, and 
 requiring too much labor to serve it longer, and 
 having received an earnest application from the 
 
432 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 First Methodist Eipscopal Church of Xenia to be- 
 come their pastor, I was appointed to that Church 
 by Bishop Harris from the Conference of 1890. 
 This is one of the oldest and most honored of the 
 charges in the Conference. It has had some of the 
 strongest and most eminent ministers in its long 
 list of pastors. It would have been gratifying to 
 have filled out the full term here. With this dear 
 people and in this most delightful charge three very 
 happy and not fruitless years were spent; but the 
 presiding bishop, J. F. Hurst, and the Cabinet 
 thought otherwise. Among the pastors who had 
 served the First Methodist Episcopal Church in 
 Xenia were Raper, Latta, Ancil Brooks, William 
 Herr; J. F. Marlay, who has served the Church 
 acceptably three full pastorates of two, three, and 
 five years, and he would be current for a fourth 
 term; Lucien Clark. 
 
 Great revivals have occurred here. The present 
 pastor, 1898, is John J. McCabe, who completes his 
 fifth year the present September. His great revival 
 the first year of his term was a glorious work, in- 
 deed. Some three hundred souls professed con- 
 version. The present membership has increased 
 from some four or five hundred to eight hundred. 
 During his fourth year a large Church improve- 
 ment has been projected and carried to comple- 
 tion. It increases the seating capacity from six 
 hundred to twelve hundred. The appointments are 
 all of the most modern type. They include church 
 parlors, Sunday-school class-rooms, and committee- 
 rooms, electric-lights, sheds for tli£ country mem- 
 
Cincinnati conference resolution. 433 
 
 hers' horses and carriages ; complete steam-heating 
 arrangements are furnished. The outside is fin- 
 ished in dark-brown and light-brown stone for 
 foundations and front elevation, and the side walls 
 in Milwaukee pressed brick. A new church with 
 all these appointments would not cost less than 
 thirty thousand dollars. The acoustic quality is 
 perfect. The ventilation is of the best. The ex- 
 pense is all provided for. 
 
 The Cincinnati Conference of 1890 has the fol- 
 lowing entries on the third day of the session : 
 
 The following paper, offered by F. G. Mitchell, 
 was adopted : 
 
 "Whereas, Our brother, Thomas H. Pearne, will 
 close, in 1891, fifty years of connection with the Meth- 
 odist itinerancy, during which time he has passed 
 through exceedingly varied and interesting experi- 
 ences; therefore, 
 
 "Resolved, That we respectfully request Dr. Pearne 
 to preach a semi-centennial sermon at some time dur- 
 ing the next Conference session. F. G. Mitchell, 
 George H. Dart, J. P. Porter, Thomas Lee, W. I. Fee, 
 R. H. Rust, W. L. Hypes, J. T. Bail, J. F. Marlay. 
 
 "On motion of J. F. Conrey, the time for the 
 service was fixed for the evening preceding the Con- 
 ference." 
 
 On the fourth day of the same session, on mo- 
 tion of J. F. Conrey, the time for Dr. Pearne's 
 semi-centennial sermon was changed from Tues- 
 day evening to some morning hour. During the 
 year, by correspondence with Bishop Foster, who 
 28 
 
434 SIXTY- ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 was to preside at the Cincinnati Conference in 189 1, 
 the time was fixed for the morning of the. opening 
 session, as a part of the opening exercises. 
 
 In the opening Proceedings of the Conference, 
 it is stated : 
 
 "By request of the Conference, at its last year's 
 session, Thomas H. Pearne, D. D., preached a semi- 
 centennial sermon." 
 
 On the second day of the session, Dr. J. F. Mar- 
 lay presented a resolution as follows, viz. : 
 
 "Resolved, That, having listened with great delight 
 and satisfaction to the semi-centennial sermon of Rev. 
 Thomas H. Pearne, D. D v at the opening session of 
 our Conference, we do earnestly request its publica- 
 tion in pamphlet form, as a part of the permanent his- 
 torical literature of our Church. Signed by William 
 Herr and J. F. Marlay. The motion was adopted by 
 a rising vote." 
 
 I have been advised to reprint the sermon in this 
 volume, and I do so for the following reasons: 
 I. Much of the matter in it is not found in this 
 book; 2. There is no provision for issuing subse- 
 quent editions of the sermon ; 3. The first edition 
 was long ago exhausted. 
 
 SEMI-CENTENNIAL SERMON. 
 Dear Fathers and Brethren : 
 
 In attempting a special sermon like this, I can 
 not escape a feeling of timidity and shrinking, lest 
 it should seem too much like self-appreciation. 
 Pray, dear brethren, that self may sink from view, 
 
MY SEMI-CENTENNIAL SERMON. 435 
 
 and that Christ may be exalted. I trust I can say 
 
 I know I want to say — most sincerely, in the words 
 of Charles Wesley's hymn : 
 
 " Whate'er in me seems wise or good, 
 Or strong, I here disclaim ; 
 I wash my garments in the blood 
 Of the atoning Lamb." 
 
 And so we are brought to the chosen theme of this 
 discourse, which is: "The supreme aim of all true 
 Christians is, that God may be honored and magni- 
 fied." This being the fact as to Christians in general, 
 it is pre-eminently so of those who have for a long 
 term, and in God's higher ministries, shared his abun- 
 dant mercies. 
 
 The following Scripture texts illustrate and en- 
 force this duty: 
 
 " I will bless the Lord at all times ; his praise shall con- 
 tinually be in my mouth. My soul shall make her boast in 
 the Lord: the humble shall hear thereof, and be glad. O 
 magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name to- 
 gether!"— Psai^m xxxiv, 1-3. 
 
 To magnify the Lord is to recognize him con- 
 tinually by praise ; to boast in him ; to exalt his name 
 of wisdom, power, and grace as shown to his servants. 
 
 "Let all those that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee: 
 let such as love thy salvation say continually, The Lord be 
 magnified."— Psai^m xi<, 16. 
 
 Those who seek the Lord rejoice and are glad 
 in him. Those who love his salvation have no other 
 desire but that God should be magnified. 
 
 "I will praise the name of God with a song, and will 
 magnify him with thanksgiving."— Psai.m i,xix, 30. 
 
 "And this was known to all the Jews and Greeks also 
 dwelling at Ephesus; and fear fell on them all, and the name 
 of the Lord Jesus was magnified."— Acts xix, 17. 
 
436 SI XT V- ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 "According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that 
 in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as 
 always, so now also, Christ shall be magnified in my body, 
 whether it be by life or by death." — Phiuppians I, 20. 
 
 This service of magnifying the Lord is due for 
 personal and official blessings ; for the pleasure God 
 has in the prosperity of his servants ; for God's sav- 
 ing strength, and for the work that God does in men 
 and by men, and especially by means of consecrated 
 men, and for the honor God confers in making us 
 "workers together with him." 
 
 I. 
 
 I find abundant reasons, in my personal expe- 
 rience of God, for all these years of blessing in his 
 service, for magnifying the Lord. For the zeal and 
 constancy God has given me through a long and 
 diversified career; for his providential care in all the 
 remarkable conditions of a life of more than an aver- 
 age of incident through which I have come ; for en- 
 abling me to learn and love and practice, to some de- 
 gree, Mr. Wesley's golden maxims; namely, "Do 
 all the good you can, by all the means you can, in 
 all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all 
 the times you can, to all the people you can, and as 
 long as you can" — for all this I magnify the Lord. 
 
 A few weeks ago, I received a letter from a pre- 
 siding elder in one of the largest and most influential 
 Conferences in the connection. He stands in the 
 front rank of the men of power among us, although 
 he is nearing his threescore and ten. His district 
 has over seventy-five appointments, on a string one 
 hundred miles long and no width, with a growing city 
 on one end. He writes, with typewriter, fourteen hun- 
 dred letters in a year on the business of his district. 
 
M Y SEMI-CENTENNIAL SERMON. 437 
 
 Such a man, with such a capacity and success, should 
 magnify the Lord. His life does. And yet there were 
 preachers who, after he had preached twenty-live 
 years, advised him to retire and give the young men 
 a chance. He replied, in substance: "I will not stand 
 in your way. If you want my place, prove your bet- 
 ter right to it by your doing, and the Church and 
 God will give it to you." I magnify the Lord's name 
 that this noble, glorious man had the grace to decline 
 to step down and out until God should clearly so 
 direct him. 
 
 Some one has well said that the union of age and 
 youth in Church-life — the fire and energy of the one 
 and the chastened caution of the other — should ever 
 be blended in the work for Christ. We do not retire 
 bishops and college presidents and professors when 
 they reach a ripe age. Our cause suffers no harm in 
 consequence. On the contrary, it, is subserved. The 
 same writer adds : "Young ministers and laymen who 
 are full of the Holy Ghost are charged with enthu- 
 siasm as a battery is charged with electricity. They 
 have had no defeats and little experience in Church 
 work. It is well that there are always some in the 
 Church who have not had much experience. Inex- 
 perienced Christians have their mission. To balance 
 and guide this youthful energy, there are the con- 
 servatism and caution of the older members. Let not 
 the young become impatient of the counsels of the 
 old, and let not the old despise the zeal and hope of 
 the young. Separate them, and neither will prosper. 
 Unite them, and let the love of God blend them into 
 perfect harmony, and the Church will be 'fair as the 
 moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with 
 banners.' " 
 
 As a preparation for the life God has enabled me 
 to live, he gave me, for three generations, a god 1 -/ 
 
438 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 Methodist ancestry, and a holy father and mother, 
 in a beautiful Christian home. That is to say, I was 
 well-born. For forty-two years my father was a Meth- 
 odist traveling preacher. My maternal grandfather 
 and great-grandfather were local preachers in Mr. 
 Wesley's connection. They doubtless received their 
 licenses to preach from his hands. 
 
 My eldest brother, who went to his reward last No- 
 vember, answered the Conference roll-call for fifty- 
 five years ; my own name has stood on the list fifty 
 years ; making for my father and his two sons one hun- 
 dred and forty years of ministerial work, an average 
 for each of forty-six and one-third years.* At eight 
 years of age, during a great revival among children 
 in my boyhood village, in Central New York — New 
 York Mills — I was graciously saved. I knew the re- 
 newing and adopting grace of God. Rev. Bishop 
 Edward G. Andrews was also converted in the same 
 revival. After a year or two, I declined in piety ; but 
 at thirteen I was powerfully reclaimed. At fifteen, in^ 
 the same village, I was appointed a' class-leader, with 
 a class numbering forty members. Six months later, 
 I received a license as an exhorter from Rev. Schuyler 
 Hoes, preacher in charge of New York Mills Station. 
 At sixteen I was licensed as a local preacher. From 
 that time forward I have been engaged in the blessed 
 work of the Christian ministry. 
 
 For the grace, which has cheered and sustained 
 me through a long and happy life, and which, for the 
 last seventeen years, has kept me under the power 
 
 * This was printed several years ago. It should be cor- 
 rected thus: Father's ministry as an itinerant extended from 
 1832 to 1874 — forty-two years; ni}' brother's, fifty-five years; 
 and my own, sixty-one years; in all, one hundred and fifty- 
 eight years, an average of fifty-two and two-third years, 
 
MY SEM r-CENTENNIAL SERMON. 439 
 
 of the cleansing blood of Christ, and which, as junior 
 circuit preacher, preacher in charge, presiding elder, 
 missionary, and Christian editor, has kept me going, 
 and given me success, I magnify the Lord. Twenty- 
 eight years I have served as a pastor. Twelve years 
 I have been presiding elder, and ten years editor of 
 Christian journals. Mr. Wesley requested one of his 
 preachers to write an account of his life. He was 
 reluctant to do so. Mr. Wesley said : "I really think 
 you owe it (in spite of shame and timidity) to God, 
 to me, and to your brethren." 
 
 II. 
 
 After having passed my threescore and ten years, 
 and more than two-thirds of them in the ministry, 
 I present this brief sketch to the honor of God, and 
 upon the call of my brethren. 
 
 God makes honorable mention of the aged. Of 
 Moses, when he had reached sixscore years, it is said : 
 "His eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated." 
 At eighty-five, Caleb said he was as strong as at forty- 
 five. When Joshua was five and a half score years old, 
 God commended his piety, fidelity, and success. 
 
 God requires respect to be shown to the aged, and 
 especially to those who have grown old in his service. 
 He recognizes the value of the experience and wis- 
 dom which age should gather and dispense. By a 
 wise provision, God links different generations to 
 each other by a few long lives. These gather and 
 transmit historical truth from the earlier times to the 
 later ; and for this we have warrant in the following : 
 "Remember the days of old, consider the years of 
 many generations : ask thy father, and he will shew 
 thee ; thy elders, and they will tell thee." (Deut. 
 xxxii, 7.) Between Adam and Noah, there was but 
 one life, and that life was his father's. When Adam 
 
440 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 died. Noah's father was fifty-six years old. Noah may 
 have seen and conversed with those who had known 
 Adam. 
 
 Abraham was born fifty-eight years before Noah 
 died. Methuselah, Noah's grandfather, lived two hun- 
 dred and fifty years before Adam died. He was con- 
 temporary with Noah several hundred years. Really, 
 Noah's, Lamech's, and Adam's lives spanned the years 
 between Abraham and the creation. Abraham may 
 have talked with some of his ancestors, who had seen 
 and talked with some of Adam's contemporaries. 
 
 III. 
 
 During the present year we observed the anniver- 
 sary of John Wesley's death. Blessed man ! honored 
 of God, and revered by millions on earth and in 
 heaven, for the work he did for God and man ! Yet 
 in Wesley's ancestors of three or four generations, 
 God connected Wesley's times with those of Luther, 
 Zwingli, Melanchthon, Knox, and Calvin. 
 
 Through my ancestors I touch the generation that 
 touched the great reformers of the fifteenth century. 
 Benn Pitman, the stenographer, claims to be the only 
 man in the United States who has shaken hands with 
 one who has shaken hands with John Wesley. I chal- 
 lenge this statement. Mrs. Lester, of New York Mills, 
 N. Y., where I grew up, had often heard Mr. Wesley 
 preach, and had shaken hands with him. I have re- 
 peatedly shaken hands with Mrs. Lester. In 1840 
 and 1 841, Rev. James Jay was a member of the charge 
 I filled during those years. Mr. Jay had been a mem- 
 ber of Mr. Wesley's Conference for years before Mr. 
 Wesley's death. He gave me many touching and 
 beautiful incidents of Wesley. He had often shaken 
 hands with Mr. Wesley, and I have, not seldom, 
 shaken hands with him. Thus long lives connect not 
 
MY SEMI-CENTENNIAL SERMON. 4^. 
 
 only distant generations, but great historic events. 
 The Wyoming massacre occurred July 3, 1783. I have 
 shaken hands and conversed with a lady in that val- 
 ley, who was present when Brandt and General Butler 
 entered the fort after that bloody killing. In the same 
 valley, a matronly lady, Mrs. Dennison, daughter-in- 
 law of Colonel Dennison, who commanded the United 
 States forces on that dreadful day, entertained Bishops 
 Asbury and McKendree in her house for over a week 
 when she was a bride. She gave me interesting in- 
 cidents of that memorable week. My father saw and 
 heard Bishops McKendree and George. He also 
 heard the eminent John Summerfield, who, at twenty- 
 five, was deemed one of the most eloquent preachers 
 in America. My personal acquaintance with Meth- 
 odist bishops began with Bishop R. R. Roberts, who 
 presided at the Conference when I was admitted on 
 trial. Bishop Roberts was the first married man who 
 filled the office of a Methodist bishop in America. 
 He was elected in 1816. He was tall and elegant in 
 form and bearing. I heard him preach a sermon of 
 great power on Luke xvi, 29, 30, 31 : "They have 
 Moses and the prophets, let them hear them," etc. 
 He remarked that a visitant to our world, sent from 
 the place of torment to warn men against going there, 
 would be much more likely to terrify them than to 
 persuade them to be saved. In that connection he 
 . quoted the well-known lines of Shakespeare, thus : 
 "Causing 
 
 'Each particular hair to stand on end, 
 Like quills upon the fretful porcupine.' " 
 
 Except Roberts and Burns, Bishops of Liberia, I have 
 personally known all the bishops since elected. Soule, 
 who ordained me a deacon, had dignity, amounting 
 almost to hauteur. Hedding was the Webster of the 
 
442 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 Episcopal College. He was well stocked with judicial 
 sense. Waugh ordained me an elder. He was cour- 
 teous and refined. Emory was scholarly. Janes was 
 brimming with authority. Morris, like the great West 
 whence he came, was large, strong, sensible, and 
 kindly. Hamline was one of the most eloquent of 
 preachers. At times his preaching was overpower- 
 ing. I have seen audiences swayed under his elo- 
 quence as trees of the forest in a mighty wind. Of 
 the bishops later elected, I need not speak more spe- 
 cifically. The rank and file of this Conference have 
 seen the most of them. They will soon see and know 
 the remainder and their immediate successors. 
 
 I personally knew some of the earlier celebrities 
 of our Church, who, while not reaching episcopal 
 honors, were not a whit behind the chiefest of our 
 bishops in talents, in pulpit power, and in wide, far- 
 reaching influence. Of these I name William Case, 
 the missionary to the Indians in Canada. Dr. Nathan 
 Bangs entered the Nevv York Conference in 1802, 
 only eighteen years after our Church was organized. 
 He was often in our home in my early childhood. 
 He baptized me in Duane Street Church, in New 
 York. Rev. Dr. William Phcebus, who entered the 
 traveling connection 1783; Samuel Merwin, Daniel 
 Ostrander, Billy Hibbard, Marmaduke Pearce, Ben- 
 jamin Bidlack, George Lane, George Peck, Alfred 
 Griffith; Henry Boehm, Asbury's traveling compan- 
 ion; John A. Collins, John P. Durbin, Elias Bowen, 
 and so many more, laid their hands in blessing on my 
 head in my boyhood. 
 
 IV. 
 
 George Gary was a man of marvelous eloquence 
 and power. Fifty odd years ago I heard him preach 
 a sermon at a camp-meeting, which first drew his 
 
MY SEMI-CENTENNIAL SERMON. 443 
 
 audience to their feet in a dense mass around him, 
 and then I saw probably a hundred or more of them 
 fall senseless to the earth as though stricken with 
 death. His sermon was preached at the eight o'clock 
 hour, Sunday morning. Great numbers were gather- 
 ing to the service, and the conditions under ordinary 
 circumstances would have been unfavorable to marked 
 effect. His sermon was only twenty minutes in 
 length; the text, Gen. xix, 17: "Escape for thy life." 
 There was no more preaching on the ground that day. 
 Prayers and conversions and shouts and songs were 
 continued all over the camp all day long. 
 
 I cite another example of "the falling exercise," 
 as it was called. It was in the midst of a sweeping re- 
 vival. Many had been converted. A great snow- 
 storm made the attendance on this occasion small. 
 Not over forty persons were present. The previous 
 night five hundred were in the church. My father, the 
 pastor, was talking in a subdued tone. The meeting 
 was very quiet. No apparent excitement was seen. 
 All at once, as the people sat listening to the preacher, 
 they began to fall over, and became unconscious. 
 Some of them at once fell to the floor. Others fell on 
 the seat. There was no outcry, no shouting, no dem- 
 onstration except the falling. Only three maintained 
 an upright position — my father, another, and myself. 
 All others were unconscious. Some of them remained 
 thus for twenty-four hours. Some became conscious 
 in a few minutes. Some recovered silently, others 
 awoke shouting, and still others were singing. Some 
 of them were rigid. Some were limp. 
 
 V. 
 
 In my childhood days my father's library was well 
 supplied with Methodist biography and history. These 
 to me were very fascinating. They kindled in me a 
 
444 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 love of adventure in Christ's work, and sent me, later, 
 as a missionary to Oregon. I read Wesley's and As- 
 bury's Journals with great avidity. As I read Asbury's 
 adventures in crossing the Alleghanies in West Vir- 
 ginia, and the Cumberland Mountains in Tennessee, 
 and of his having to wait at Bean's Station for his 
 party to become numerous enough to make the cross- 
 ing into Kentucky safe from Indian assaults ; of his 
 escapes from Indian ambuscades and attacks ; of his 
 perils by flood and field, — I wondered whether such 
 heroism could ever again be repeated. But frontier 
 life has been quite as full of exciting passages since 
 Asbury's time as it was before. In my fourteen years' 
 sojourn in Oregon I had probably as many intensely 
 thrilling adventures and experiences as he had in his 
 early ministry in the W r est. I often swam rivers on 
 horseback. I have been pursued and fired upon by 
 bandits. I have had stirring passages with hostile 
 Indians. I have slept under God's stars in the open 
 prairie, with saddlebags for my pillow and my faith- 
 ful mule as my only companion. 
 
 In March, 1854, in company with Bishop Simpson, 
 I slept on the banks of the Columbia River, under 
 blankets, our camp being behind an immense rock, 
 on a cold night, a rousing fire at our feet to keep us 
 warm and protect us from ravenous wolves and cou- 
 gars. I give two or three other incidents with Bishop 
 Simpson. 
 
 We ascended the Columbia from the Cascades to 
 the Dalles in a large Indian canoe. In the canoe were 
 nets and squaws and dogs, innumerable fleas, and gen- 
 eral discomfort. Two drunken white men were in the 
 canoe. Their speech was coarse, profane, and ob- 
 scene. They were more degraded than the Indians 
 and their dogs. One of them was a graduate of In- 
 diana Asbury University. Gently and kindly the 
 
MY SEMI-CENTENNIAL SERMON. 445 
 
 bishop spoke to. him, making tender reference to his 
 mother and her prayers. We parted company at night 
 at Dog River. The two white men crossed the river. 
 The bishop and I slept in the Indian's wigwam. Ten 
 years and a half afterward, on the Upper Columbia 
 River, I met the Indiana student of the canoe inci- 
 dent. He was well-dressed and well-looking. He told 
 me he was then a married man, with three children, 
 having a good Christian home, a fine farm, himself 
 and wife Christians, on their way to heaven. He 
 owed it all to the timely words of Bishop Simpson. 
 
 We were much baffled in descending the Columbia 
 by strong up-river winds. Repeated attempts to go 
 down the river were vain. The bishop chided my 
 impatience, remarking that it was doubtless a provi- 
 dential detention for some good purpose. It was on 
 this occasion that we slept on the river bank. Reach- 
 ing Portland we found that the steamer, which con- 
 trary winds had prevented us from getting to in time, 
 and on which we should have been if unhindered, 
 had blown up at her wharf, instantly killing twenty- 
 nine of the thirty passengers on board. 
 
 On another occasion, the bishop and I suddenly 
 came upon a cavalcade of several hundred Indians, 
 all well mounted and armed. The Indians were hos- 
 tile. Among them we found an Indian who could 
 talk English. Through him we were introduce:! to 
 the other Indians as Methodist preachers, and we were 
 safe. Tf they had believed us Indian agent ,, Indian 
 traders, or United States military, and we could not 
 have convinced them to the contrary, we should have 
 been killed. 
 
 VI. 
 
 In the golden age of memory, those earlier times 
 have a rich autumnal tint. If too free a rein be given 
 to fancy, the glamour may be distorting and mislead 
 
446 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 ing. There were many excellencies then. There 
 were also serious defects. In many ways the present 
 period shows a marked superiority over the former. 
 
 The refinement of to-day puts to blush the ruder 
 coarseness of the past. The impure jest, the profane 
 word, the seclusion and inferior lot assigned to 
 woman, the lack of comfort in hospitals and infirm- 
 aries, the brutal treatment of the insane, idiots, and 
 paupers, were common to that earlier period. 
 
 Political partisanism was harsh. Public manners 
 were coarse. Drunkenness was open and shameless. 
 Ignorance and prejudice were conspicuous in many 
 ways, in comparison with the present more general 
 diffusion of education. All these prove that the former 
 times were not better than the present. They were 
 much worse. 
 
 Fifty years ago I conducted a funeral service. The 
 deceased was a very aged lady. Twelve children, fifty 
 grandchildren, and twelve great-grandchildren — in 
 all, seventy-four descendants of the deceased — were 
 present. After the burial, all the family, and other 
 relatives and guests, repaired to the mansion and 
 dined. Costly viands tempted the appetite through 
 eight courses. Wines and all the various kinds of 
 distilled liquors were on the sideboard. 
 
 The dwellings and churches of the fathers were 
 severely plain and rude. Woman was accorded less 
 respect and freedom than now. Fewer occupations 
 were open to her for earning a living. In the home, 
 on public occasions, on the rostrum, in legislatures 
 and courts, and in general intercourse, there was less 
 of refinement than now. The schools and colleges 
 were less advanced in grade than at present. As to 
 the comforts and luxuries and refinements of life, in 
 all lines, the present is far in advance of the former 
 period. 
 
MY SEMI-CENTENNIAL SERMON. 447 
 
 Members and ministers of the different Churches, 
 our own included, bought and sold slaves, and held 
 them for gain. More, they defended slavery from the 
 Bible. But for the sturdy resistance which conscien- 
 tious Abolitionists in our Church, lay and ministerial, 
 made to the encroachments of the slave-power, slavery 
 would have captured and dominated all the States and 
 Territories of the Republic. The fidelity and firmness 
 of our fathers of half a century ago, and more, caused 
 the Church secession of 1845. From that came, six- 
 teen years later, the Rebellion of 1861, and so the 
 Nation was saved to liberty. In Christian homes was 
 the sideboard, with intoxicating beverages. Treating 
 at elections and at raisings was prevalent. The license 
 system tolerated and protected the drink-traffic. It 
 would be difficult to-day to find any Church in the 
 Nation with moral hardihood enough to tolerate the 
 traffic. All intelligent Christians regard the licensing 
 and taxing of the system as of the nature of a bribe 
 to induce compliance with the infernal traffic, and as 
 a moral complicity with the sin. Taxing the drink- 
 traffic, as in Ohio, is a clever dodge of the politicians 
 working in the interests, and possibly in the pay, of 
 the venders and manufacturers of intoxicants. Against 
 this form of complicity with the infernal business, as 
 well as that of the license system, our Discipline very 
 properly levels its prohibition. 
 
 In resolute, unflinching hostility to the drink- 
 habit and the drink-traffic, and in favor of the total 
 prohibition of both, the Methodist Episcopal Church 
 has led the way ; and as surely as that God lives, and 
 right is stronger than wrong, the American saloon will 
 become a thing of the past. As surely as slavery has 
 disappeared from our Nation, so surely will the deadly, 
 Satanic liquor-traffic disappear. Political parties will 
 be smashed, and slates will be broken, and contention 
 
448 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 and bloodshed may be seen — aye, even riot and war 
 may precede that victory; but come it will; 
 
 "For right is right, since God is God, 
 And right the day must win; 
 To doubt would be disloyalty, 
 To falter would be sin." 
 
 In large measure the honor of the grand achieve- 
 ment will be given to our beloved Church. May 
 the Lord hasten the day of its utter overthrow! How 
 I would like to witness its annihilation, and to join 
 in the bannered procession which shall celebrate the 
 abolition of the American saloon! 
 
 Zealous as were many of our fathers in extend- 
 ing religion, marked improvement has come, both as 
 to modes of working and economy of forces, and also 
 as to the ratio of progress made. Persons yet living 
 can remember when there was no regular, liberal, 
 systematic support of missions in our Church; when 
 Liberia and South America were our only foreign mis- 
 sions; when we had no Church Extension Society; 
 when there were no organized, effective, educational 
 movements, no Christian libraries nor Christian liter- 
 ature worth the name; when our Church journalism 
 was weak and scantily patronized; when our Book 
 Concerns were small and feeble; when our Church 
 edifices were plain and unattractive; when our semi- 
 naries, colleges, and universities were unendowed and 
 weakly; when the support of our effective ministers 
 was scanty and precarious, and when the support of 
 our superannuates was still more stinted and inade- 
 quate; when our statistics were meager and imperfect. 
 It was not until the General Conference of 1856 that 
 our statistics included the number of deaths and of 
 baptisms of infants and adults; the number and value 
 
MY SEMI-CENTENNIAL SERMON. 449 
 
 of churches and parsonages; and the contributions 
 for missions from Sunday-schools, and other benevo- 
 lent collections and doings of our Church. In their 
 insertion into our Discipline I took a leading part. 
 
 VII. 
 
 In all these, and many other things, wonderful 
 changes have come. I cite a few examples : 
 
 Forty-two years ago, I was stationed in Wilkes- 
 barre, Penn., then and now one of the wealthiest of 
 our Methodist charges. I was pastor of the only 
 Methodist Church in that borough. Since then four 
 strong Churches have swarmed from the old hive, 
 each of them having better churches and parsonages 
 than mine were when I went to that charge. My 
 allowance was four hundred dollars, the highest salary 
 paid within the Conference. Our church, erected dur- 
 ing my incumbency, was a brick structure, costing ten 
 thousand dollars. It was plain and unpretentious. 
 The parsonage was worth perhaps six hundred or 
 eight hundred dollars. 
 
 After settling these four daughters in their sev- 
 eral Church homes, the mother Church, which I 
 served, has an elegant edifice, of modern appointments, 
 costing, say, one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. 
 The pastor lives in a fine parsonage, costing, say, 
 fifteen thousand dollars, on a salary of three thousand 
 five hundred dollars. Prior to the Wilkesbarre pas- 
 torate was that of Binghamton, N. Y. The church 
 in that place was a square, unsightly object, called 
 "The Eel-pot." My allowance was three hundred and 
 fifty dollars. Here is noted a like advance, as in the 
 former case. 
 
 These are only samples. In the march of civ- 
 29 
 
450 SIXTY- ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 ilization the whole country has advanced with giant 
 strides. Our Church has kept pace with the material 
 and intellectual progress. Other improvements await. 
 
 "Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward let us 
 
 range ! 
 I,et the great world spin forever down the ringing grooves 
 
 of change. 
 Through the shadow of the globe we sweep into the 
 
 younger day; 
 Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay." 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Of the five years of service I put into the recon- 
 struction of our Church in the South I may not 
 speak in detail. It was harder than the Oregon work, 
 and quite as perilous. I was fired upon in Knoxville 
 before I had been there a month. I was threatened 
 by Ku-klux and conspired against by ex-rebels. 
 Under the severe pressure, my health completely gave 
 way, compelling a suspension of my work there, and 
 my temporary retirement into the less arduous duties 
 of United States consul in Kingston, Jamaica. 
 
 In company with Bishop D. W. Clark and Dr. 
 Adam Poe, I was present at the organization of the 
 Holston Conference of the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church, in June, 1865. I also accompanied them to 
 Atlanta, Ga., assisting in reorganizing and arranging 
 our work there. I have never placed as high an esti- 
 mate upon my service in the South as upon that in 
 Oregon. I hope God will make all he can out of it. 
 Fruitless my labors there were not, yet I should like 
 to have scored a larger, mightier success. 
 
 IX. 
 
 The best work of my life was in Oregon. From 
 185 1 to 1865 — fourteen years — I served the Church 
 as presiding elder and editor, helping to lay, in that 
 
MY SEMI-CENTENNIAL SERMON. 451 
 
 then most distant of our Territories, the foundations 
 of eivil, social, and religious liberty. 
 
 Before and after Oregon was organized into an 
 Annual Conference, 1 wrought to extend our work 
 in that held. It was a foreign mission when I went. 
 Before its organization as a regular Annual Confer- 
 ence, I was organizing circuits and placing mission- 
 aries upon them, and I was doing evangelistic work. 
 One summer I attended seven camp-meetings in as 
 many successive weeks. In these seven weeks myself 
 and wife slept in a house but one night, and in them 
 all we had no rain. In each of them we had precious 
 revivals. At the camp-meeting in the forks of the 
 Santiam, one of the seven, I preached a doctrinal ser- 
 mon on baptism, of three and a half hours in length. 
 Remarkable as it may seem, the hearers all staid until 
 the close. After Oregon was organized as a part of 
 our regular domestic work, I was appointed the first 
 presiding elder. I was also the first editor and pub- 
 lisher of the Pacific Christian Advocate, the first and 
 only Methodist journal ever issued in Oregon. In 
 1854 I was elected to the presidency of the Oregon 
 Conference, a position I held from Wednesday until 
 Sunday afternoon, when Bishop Simpson reached the 
 seat of the Conference. I found Oregon a sparsely- 
 settled wilderness. I left it a blooming, beautiful 
 garden. It has since become far more attractive and 
 productive than any other equal area of Methodism 
 in any part of the world within my knowledge. Allow 
 a comparison. When, forty years ago, I went to Ore- 
 gon, we had one district. There were three churches, 
 worth, say, $15,000; and two parsonages, worth, say, 
 $5,000. There were fifteen traveling and seventeen 
 local preachers, and there were four hundred members. 
 The figures which show the marvelous result seem 
 incredible. Within the limits of the field I literally 
 
452 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK*. 
 
 traversed, twoscore years ago, there are 4 Annual Con- 
 ferences, 195 traveling and 179 local preachers, 19,000 
 members, 223 churches, worth $885,000, and 109 par- 
 sonages, worth $176,000, equaling $1,061,000 as the 
 value of our church property. 
 
 There are to-day fifteen times as many traveling 
 preachers, ten times as many local preachers, forty- 
 seven and one-half times as many members, seventy- 
 four times as many churches, and fifty-four times as 
 many parsonages. The value of the church and par- 
 sonage property has increased forty-fold. Consider 
 another aspect of this amazing growth. 
 
 It is furnished by later statistics, and these in- 
 clude the following facts as to Oregon alone, and 
 in relation, also, to the statistics of four other lead- 
 ing denominations of Oregon: 
 
 Societies, Methodist, . . . 
 
 107 
 
 211- 
 
 —Members, . 
 
 . . . . 10,050 
 
 Baptist, . . . . 
 
 << 
 
 • 
 
 • 5,043 
 
 " Presbyterian, . . 
 
 70 
 
 
 << 
 
 • 3.575 
 
 " Episcopalian, . 
 
 32 
 
 
 « 
 
 . 1,600 
 
 " Congregational, 
 
 29 
 
 
 «« 
 
 . 1,609 
 
 
 
 237 
 
 
 11,827 
 
 Thus it is seen that in Oregon, alone, there are 
 almost as many Methodist societies and members, as 
 in the other four leading Churches, altogether. 
 
 I have spoken of the Pacific Christian Advocate, 
 now in its thirty-seventh volume. You will be inter- 
 ested to learn of its genesis and early history. 
 
 The publishing of a weekly religious paper in 
 connection with our work in Oregon was frequently 
 discussed by the leading ministers and laymen — nota- 
 bly by J. R. Robb and Ex-Governor Abernethy, 
 wholesale merchants and lumber-dealers in Oregon 
 City, and by Alexander Abernethy, of Oak Point. 
 Several meetings for consultation were held at Ore- 
 gon City, Salem, and Portland. These resulted in the 
 
MY SEMI-CENTENNIAL SERMON. 453 
 
 creation of a joint-stock company, with a subscription 
 of $3,500, the supposed cost of the necessary outfit. 
 
 The subscribers to the stock, as I now recall them, 
 were James R. Robb, Alexander Abernethy, laymen; 
 and Revs. C. S. Kingsley, Alvin^ F. Waller, Josiah 
 L. Parrish, Thomas H. Pearne, and perhaps, also, 
 Gustavus and Harvey K. Hines, and others; but of 
 these last names I can not be certain. 
 
 I was selected editor of the projected paper, and 
 was instructed to order the necessary office fixtures 
 and material. Subsequently the joint-stock company 
 dissolved, and I became sole proprietor, publisher, and 
 editor of the paper. 
 
 The first number of the Advocate was issued in 
 Salem, early in the summer of 1855. 
 
 There was then no provision of the Discipline 
 by which a member of an Annual Conference could 
 be appointed to the conduct of an unofficial religious 
 paper. I was therefore appointed agent of the Willa- 
 mette University, a nominal appointment, to enable 
 me also to conduct the paper, and still remain a mem- 
 ber of Conference. 
 
 Although the necessary stock was subscribed, the 
 payments were tardy. I at last assumed the respon- 
 sibility of ordering an office and a six months' supply 
 of paper. A relative of mine, Francis Hall, Esq., pub- 
 lisher of the New York Commercial Advertiser, selected 
 and forwarded the fixtures and material for the new 
 paper. As these had to be shipped via Cape Horn, 
 it was nearly six months from the time of ordering 
 them before we received them. 
 
 At the ensuing Annual Conference session of 1855, 
 I was elected a co-delegate to the General Conference, 
 which met in Indianapolis, May, 1856, with the late 
 Rev. William Roberts, formerly a superintendent of 
 Methodist missions in California and Oregon. 
 
454 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 The General Conference directed the New York 
 Book Agents to purchase the plant of the Pacific 
 Christian Advocate, at a cost not to exceed $3,500, and 
 continue the publication of the Pacific Christian Advo- 
 cate in Oregon. I # \vas elected editor of the paper in 
 1856, by the General Conference, and re-elected in 
 i860. I was urged by many laymen to be a candidate 
 in 1864, and my Conference urged it upon me to con- 
 tinue in the editorship; but I declined. 
 
 The first size of the paper was a mistake. It was 
 a large blanket sheet of four pages. It was unwieldy, 
 inconvenient, and unattractive in size and form. The 
 first issue was badly printed, and on this account it 
 was more unattractive. Yet it succeeded. The pub- 
 lishers have done well to bring it into more portable 
 and compendious form for reading and for preser- 
 vation. • 
 
 There was some diversity of view as to the proper 
 location of the office. Some thought Oregon City 
 the better place, as it was between Salem and Port- 
 land. Portland was vigorously urged, and really it 
 should have been located there at the start, as it was 
 after several months' publication in Salem, then the 
 capital of the Territory, and afterward of the State. 
 The Salem office of publication was a small, one-story, 
 unpainted building, where cases, press, imposing- 
 stone, and paper supply, were very inconveniently 
 huddled together. 
 
 My sanctum was a small room eight or ten feet 
 square. When letters, editorials, and contributions 
 got promiscuously piled in heaps on my table, the con- 
 fusion was bewildering. It was often the case that 
 answers to important letters were delayed, and edi- 
 torials were "lost to sight, and yet to memory dear." 
 
 The exact date when the first number was issued 
 in Salem I can not now give. An amusing incident 
 
MY SEMI-CENTENNIAL SERMON. 455 
 
 occurred in that Salem office, the recital of which will 
 perhaps be enjoyed. 
 
 A man who had crossed the Plains on foot, an 
 enthusiastic reformer as to the Indian policy, came 
 into the office. He inquired of me where he could 
 find Rev. Mr. Pearne, the editor of that paper, as he 
 greatly desired to see him. I said: 
 
 "Look at me, and you will see the man who bears 
 that name." 
 
 "What!" said he, "vou Mr. Pearne? It can 
 not be!" 
 
 "Why can not it be?" said I. 
 
 "Well," said he, "ever since I was a boy I have 
 been reading articles written in Church papers by you, 
 and I expected to see a man of threescore years at 
 least, wrinkled, bowed, and tottering." 
 
 "Well," said I, "Pearne is the name I have always 
 borne. I came honorably by it. I am not ashamed 
 of it. I am glad I favorably disappoint you as to my 
 age; and really, I never expect to get old and wrinkled 
 and bowed." 
 
 It was somewhat difficult to fix upon a suitable 
 name for the new paper. The following names were 
 proposed: North Pacific Christian Herald, The Pa- 
 cific, The Pacific Methodist, Oregon Christian Advo- 
 cate, Oregon Banner, Oregon Banner and Messenger. 
 The first and last names were entirely too long. The 
 Congregationalists in San Francisco were issuing a 
 paper bearing the name, The Pacific; for that reason 
 that name was laid aside. The Pacific Methodist was 
 next considered. It was suggested that an aggressive 
 Methodist, or a zealous Methodist, or a shouting 
 Methodist would be in order; but scarcely a Methodist 
 of pacific characteristics. 
 
 The California Christian Advocate was already 
 under full movement, with Rev. S. D. Simonds as 
 
456 SIXTY- ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 editor, and to have an Oregon Christian Advocate 
 would make it too local. The Oregon Banner, and 
 the Oregon Banner and Messenger were soon dis- 
 missed. The name Oregon Christian Advocate was 
 again considered. Rev. Alvin F. Waller, as I now 
 recollect, suggested the name, Pacific Christian Advo- 
 cate. It at once struck all with favor, and it was 
 unanimously adopted. I am glad to credit this sug- 
 gestion to that grand and true man, Rev. Mr. Waller. 
 He left the impress of his strong personality upon 
 Oregon as perhaps few others have done. Subsequent 
 events have fully vindicated the wisdom of the selec- 
 tion. It preserves the family patronymic, Christian 
 Advocate. The word Pacific sufficiently locates the 
 patronizing territory of its circulation. If the name 
 Oregon Christian Advocate had been selected, when 
 Washington and Idaho became contiguous Terri- 
 tories, now States, the name would have been offens- 
 ively exclusive. 
 
 It was no small undertaking to publish such a 
 paper in Salem — a hamlet, then, of perhaps six hun- 
 •dred souls. A semi-monthly steamer brought us all 
 the news from the outside world. We had to depend 
 upon home talent and upon indomitable energy and 
 industry to make a current, readable paper. I had 
 heard of Bishop Morris's first editorship of the West- 
 ern Christian Advocate, when he was compelled to 
 write his own correspondence and communications 
 from imaginary places and with fictitious signatures, 
 and also write his own editorial matter as well. I 
 copied his example, doing a larger share of such work. 
 
 There was a remarkable improvement in the facili- 
 ties Portland afforded for news, and other matter for 
 our columns. There was also in Portland, a larger 
 and better class of advertisers. I found it much easier 
 to make a paper in Portland than I did in Salem. 
 
MY SEMI-CENTENNIAL SERMON. 457 
 
 But even under the more favorable conditions in 
 Portland, it was at the same time, drudgery and severe 
 toil, successfully to conduct the Pacific Christian Ad- 
 vocate. Probably few, if any editors of our Church 
 papers ever had a berth so hard, or so poorly com- 
 pensated as was ours in the earlier years of my edi- 
 torial life. I had no assistants, because there was 
 nothing from which to pay them; no clerks, no book- 
 keeper, no typewriter; scarcely an errand-boy. I did 
 all the editing of the paper, wrote all the editorial 
 matter, conducted all the business correspondence, 
 kept all the accounts, hired and paid all the hands, 
 mailed all the papers, and, with my own hands, di- 
 rected all the papers, fifteen hundred in number. 
 When all this is considered, as I look back over it, 
 it seems simply to have been impossible that I could 
 accomplish so many things with anything like pass- 
 able efiiciency or correctness. But still more signifi- 
 cant, and well-nigh incredible, is it, that for the first 
 few years the compensation was so small. My salary, 
 in the beginning, was only seven hundred dollars a 
 year. For this very inconsiderable compensation I 
 did work fairly worth two thousand dollars a year. 
 Afterwards, it was increased to one thousand dollars 
 a year, and a mailing clerk was allowed me. It was a 
 very hard struggle to keep the concern afloat, and 
 avoid running it into hopeless insolvency. I borrowed 
 and advanced money until, at one time, the Advocate 
 owed me four thousand dollars. 
 
 I give two incidents of my editorial life in Port- 
 land. In the first, the editor was hoaxed. A young 
 man came over to me from Puget Sound, to be bap- 
 tized by me, as the minister in his circuit was unor- 
 dained, and could not baptize him. He was a bright 
 lad, and apparently sincere. He came to me well rec- 
 ommended. I baptized him. He went into the Ump- 
 
45$ SIXTV-ONE I'EARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 qua Valley, in Southern Oregon, to attend school. 
 A few weeks later I received a letter from a gentleman 
 I knew there, a class-leader, stating that this lad in 
 felling a tree had been suddenly killed by the tree 
 falling upon him. The letter stated the sincere and 
 earnest grief of the people over the young man's un- 
 timely and shocking death. The letter requested that 
 the name should not appear. I published the incident, 
 withholding the name, as requested. After the paper 
 containing the alleged incident reached the Umpqua 
 Valley, the class-leader informed me that I was the 
 victim of a cruel hoax, as no such event had occurred 
 there. Sending back the copy of the letter I had pub- 
 lished, to this class-leader, I found that my young neo- 
 phyte had practiced this deception and forged the 
 name of the class-leader to the untrue story. His ob- 
 ject was notoriety. He gained it. 
 
 In the other incident, I fooled a bucking horse. 
 He jumped stiff-legged and tried to unhorse me. My 
 hat went one way and my spectacles another. I 
 spurred him, and rode bareheaded around the square 
 to the no small diversion of gaping crowds. Then re- 
 turning to the stable, my hat and spectacles were re- 
 covered, and I made the trip undertaken. 
 
 Everything occurring in those long-gone days is 
 as fresh and vivid as though but of yesterday. How I 
 recall the forms and characters of the living actors 
 contemporary with me in laying the foundations of 
 many generations in Oregon, — the venerable David 
 Leslie, the patriarch of them all; Waller, the typ- 
 ical itinerant; C. S. Kingsley, the versatile teacher, 
 preacher, business man; Gustavus, Harvey K., and 
 Joseph Hines, who have made their imperishable im- 
 press upon that land and its dwellers; the suave, dig- 
 nified, elegant, and eloquent William Roberts; Nehe- 
 miah Doane, L. T. Woodward; the saintly man whom 
 
MY SEMI-CENTENNIAL SERMON. 459 
 
 everybody loved, James II. Wilbur; Clinton and Al- 
 bert Kelly; Francis S. Hoyt, ten years president of 
 Willamette University; J. L. Parrish, C. O. Hosford, 
 William Helm, Isaac Dillon, John F. De Vorc, John 
 W. Miller, John Flynn, John Spencer, the Royals of 
 three generations. Glorious men! Most of them have 
 already ascended to their crowning. Erelong their 
 few survivors will rejoin them. 
 
 Portland is now a city of seventy thousand. When 
 I first saw it, it was a hamlet of perhaps five or six 
 hundred people, in the midst of a dense fir forest. 
 For years the only streets practicable for drays, on 
 account of stumps of trees, were First and Second 
 Streets, running parallel with the river. Portland 
 Academy stood in the midst of timber. I assisted Rev. 
 James H. Wilbur in felling stately fir-trees by boring 
 into them transversely, and firing the intersecting 
 apertures. The trees were so resinous, that those fires 
 so kindled would burn the trunk through, and fell 
 the tree as surely as the woodman's ax could. 
 
 X. 
 
 Many changes have come to Methodism in the 
 last fifty years. Some of them were important, and 
 some comparatively unimportant. I note a few: 
 
 The preaching of the earlier period was of the 
 law and its demands, rather than of the gospel. The 
 guilt and danger of sinners were earnestly enforced. 
 After this, usually in the same sermon, but not always, 
 the remedy was offered. The sermons and exhorta- 
 tions were "not with enticing words of man's wisdom;' 
 but with plain, convincing, direct speech, and "in the 
 demonstration of the Spirit." They were largely doc- 
 trinal and controversial. They were distinctively Ar- 
 menian. In later years, they are more didactic and 
 ethical. As a rule, the sermons of the earlier times 
 
460 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 were long. The hearers seemed to expect them to 
 be somewhat long. Their length was rarely criti- 
 cised, unless they extended considerably beyond the 
 usual regulation hour. The hymns were read, and 
 then lined. The prayers were long. 
 
 .Before my ministry began, and for a few years 
 thereafter, it was not unusual for some matronly and 
 gifted woman to follow the sermon with a rousing 
 exhortation. This fact occasioned but little surprise, 
 as the practice, if an innovation, would have caused; 
 hence I conclude the usage may have had long and 
 general precedent. Some of these exhortations by fe- 
 males produced a profound and overwhelming im- 
 pression. One I recall was at a quarterly-meeting. 
 After an effective, forceful sermon by Rev. Charles 
 Giles, the presiding elder, the Widow Blair, his sister, 
 asked leave to offer a few words. Her addition was 
 timely and able. On another occasion, during a re- 
 vival in Paris, N. Y., a lady arose, on the close of my 
 father's sermon, and made an earnest exhortation to 
 the people to come to Christ. Many came forward 
 and were converted, and the revival received a power- 
 ful impetus. 
 
 In those earlier days there were some men of 
 marked power; yet the rank and file of the early 
 Methodist preachers were not men of eminent genius 
 nor of brilliant abilities. While some of them were 
 scholarly and learned, the most of them were com- 
 paratively unlearned. The Rev. George Gary, of 
 whom I have already spoken, was almost entirely un- 
 learned when, in his boyhood, his ministry began. 
 He learned grammar on horseback as he rode his 
 earlier circuits, yet no skilled grammarian could con- 
 struct sentences more correctly than he. 
 
 The Arminian doctrines of free-will, universal 
 atonement, and free grace, equally for all men, ap- 
 
MY SEMI-CENTENNIAL SERMON. 46 1 
 
 pealed to the average American mind as more equi- 
 table and equal than the limited atonement and the 
 sovereign decrees of Calvinism. In these stirring 
 times of higher criticism and dissent and doctrinal re- 
 vision, it is a gratifying fact, and one full of the most 
 encouraging promise, that there has never been any 
 considerable deviation from sound doctrine among the 
 millions of Methodists in the last hundred and fifty 
 years. Now and then a man like Priestley, or Thomas 
 Paine, or Robert Collyer, or H. W. Thomas has de- 
 scribed a theological tangent or turned away from 
 Scriptural teachings about Jesus as the Divine Re- 
 deemer; but such sporadic deviations have never 
 touched the heart of the Church, which has been as 
 true to sound doctrine as the needle to the pole and 
 the flower to the sun. 
 
 A stronger body of Methodist preachers fills the 
 pulpits of Methodism to-day than those of any former 
 period of which I have had knowledge. I believe 
 them equally as consecrated and spiritual as the fathers 
 were, with less of the frontiersman in garb and speech, 
 and with more of refinement and culture and intelli- 
 gence. They are systematic, learned, and successful. 
 The change from the circuit system to that of stations 
 has come within the last half-century. It has greatly 
 modified the character and form of our ministerial 
 training. The circuit plan was the school in which 
 the younger preachers were trained under the eye and 
 hand of the senior colleague, and also while trainer 
 and trained were both in the work. The advantage 
 of this plan, in our early stage of evolution, was un- 
 doubtedly great. When the circuit system ceased, 
 theological schools became a necessity. Their eminent 
 usefulness can not be questioned. Our itinerant sys- 
 tem requires annually, say, eight hundred recruits of 
 ministers, and but for the theological schools, we 
 
462 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 would be unable to keep the ranks full by accessions 
 of trained men for our work. With the introduction of 
 the railway, travel by buggy and on horseback ceased. 
 Thus the time-honored hospitality of the Methodist 
 home to the travel-worn itinerant was no longer 
 needed nor practicable. In large measure the im- 
 proving, molding influence of the ministerial guest 
 upon the children was wanting. 
 
 From the period of the meeting-house, and the 
 chapel, as then called, humble and rude, and severely 
 plain and cheap, we have passed quite over into that 
 of costly, elegant, beautiful churches, challenging the 
 admiration of all persons of refined taste. In these 
 magnificent churches as devout and earnest Chris- 
 tians worship God as ever their rude forefathers were, 
 and as effective workers and planners, and as liberal 
 givers for Christ as ever bore the honored name of 
 Methodist. 
 
 Lay delegation has come within the last twenty 
 years. I always favored it. One of the circular reso- 
 lutions on that subject, which went the round of the 
 Conferences, and which received many votes, was the 
 Oregon resolution, introduced by me into the Oregon 
 Conference in 1859. Lay delegation works well. Per- 
 haps two houses will give more equality or parity of 
 the orders. 
 
 One of the most marked changes has come in the 
 economy of forces, by the systematic, organized, con- 
 nectional movements of these times. These mark 
 the transition and contrasts from the irregular to the 
 ordered, from the partial to the general, from the oc- 
 casional to the constant, steady giving and doing; 
 from the solicitation and contribution and adminis- 
 tration of the few, for great and good objects, to regu- 
 lar, organized, systematic giving and doing for Christ 
 on a large scale, with the breadth of a continent for 
 
MY SEMI-CENTENNIAL SERMON, 463 
 
 its field. Take, for example, the Church Extension 
 Board, which in twenty-five years has received and 
 disbursed $4,000,000, aided in the erection of 7,500 
 churches, and which has $1,500,000 of active capital 
 as a loan fund to perpetuate its mission of blessing. 
 The value of the churches aided is $99,500,000, a gain 
 of 12,000 churches aided, and of net value of churches, 
 $75,000,000. 
 
 This is only a sample of Christian giving and doing 
 in one line. There arc many. We raised last year, for 
 missions alone, Home and Foreign, in our three Con- 
 nectional Missionary Societies, over $1,500,000; Board 
 of Church Extension, $300,000; Freedmen's Aid and 
 Southern Education Society, $322,632 — increase of re- 
 ceipts over the former year, $55,000; Conference 
 Claimants, $217,000, — in all, $2,339,632, in one year, 
 for Christ's kingdom, where, twenty years ago, the 
 offerings were less than one-quarter as much, and fifty 
 years ago they were, all told, for one year, $140,000, 
 or just one-seventeenth as much. The sum given by 
 Methodists fifty years ago, for all purposes, made an 
 average per member, for that year, of fifteen cents. 
 The amounts raised for benevolences last year, per 
 member, are more than $1.25, an increase of 1,100 
 per cent. 
 
 Since its organization, seventy-two years ago, the 
 Missionary Society has laid upon the altar of Chris- 
 tian missions an average of $347,222 a year, and an 
 aggregate of twenty-five millions. 
 
 Let us contrast this connectional form of benefi- 
 cence, as to Church Extension, with the usage which 
 preceded it. In a village in Chenango County, New 
 York, a Methodist church was much needed; but the 
 society there was unable to build it, and so was the 
 circuit. A wealthy layman, after liberally contribut- 
 ing to the enterprise, entered his buggy, and rode over 
 
464 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 a radius of one hundred miles, privately soliciting 
 funds to complete the erection of the church. He was 
 out two months in this service, and so gathered some 
 $250 or $300. 
 
 One church, of which I had personal knowledge, 
 actually carried a debt of $250 for years, to be able 
 to turn away all private solicitors for aid to build 
 churches. I do not doubt they saved themselves the 
 giving of thousands by this device. Reference has 
 been made to the smallness of our Book Concerns. 
 In 1836 the New York house burned down. The 
 Church contributed $90,000 to restore it. In that con- 
 tribution every member of my father's family partici- 
 pated. The capital has grown to $2,500,000. For 
 purposes outside of its regular business, the Concern 
 has paid out more than its working capital. For the 
 quadrennium closing in 1848, the sales were $612,- 
 625.19, slightly less than $1 a member. For the quad- 
 rennium closing in 1888, the sales were $6,920,743.17, 
 or over $3 a member. 
 
 According to Dr. Dorchester, the entire value of 
 the religious literature published in the United States 
 by the different denominations was estimated at $140,- 
 000,000, of which the Methodist Episcopal Church 
 has issued $50,000,000, or over one-third of the whole, 
 and more than half of this amount in the last sixteen 
 years. 
 
 In the modes of conducting Annual Conference 
 business there has been marked improvement. The 
 fcope and accuracy of all Conference statistics have 
 been subserved by the changes. Much time has been 
 saved in one particular line of Conference Proceed- 
 ings. I refer to the passage of character. When the 
 name of a member of Conference was called, and the 
 question was asked, "Is there anything against him?" 
 
MY SEMI-CENTENNIAL SERMON. 465 
 
 he retired from the Conference-room, while, in his 
 absence, the presiding elder represented him and his 
 year's work, sometimes with words of criticism, some- 
 times with words of eulogy, or both, taking for this 
 considerable time. All this has given place to the 
 present more suitable, and equally thorough and ef- 
 fective mode. 
 
 Equal improvement is noted as to the mode of 
 conducting General Conference business. In the first 
 of which I was a member, in 1856, the appeal cases 
 were heard and decided by the whole body of the dele- 
 gates, taking for the decision of three or four appeals 
 several days. In the General Conference of 1820 two 
 cases of appeal for the location of preachers took parts 
 of nine days, and two cases of appeal for maladminis- 
 tration occupied parts of nine days. 
 
 In 1864 a Court of Appeals was held during the 
 General Conference, over which one of the bishops 
 presided. This was followed by the present arrange- 
 ment of triers of appeals in General Conference Dis- 
 tricts. 
 
 There has been a growing tendency in the wealthier 
 charges, for the laymen to make choice of their pas- 
 tors, instead of, as in the earlier stage of our history, 
 leaving the matter in the hands of the bishop. 
 
 Unless all charges should alike be practically al- 
 lowed to designate their pastors, and all ministers to 
 select their charges, the usage is a usurpation of dan- 
 gerous possibilities. 
 
 Love-feast tickets have been used and disused in 
 my time. Band-meetings, within my recollection, have 
 passed into innocuous desuetude. 
 
 As a rule, the Sunday-noon class was always held 
 by the officiating preacher when present. I usually 
 led the class after preaching, sometimes, when really 
 30 
 
466 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 I should have been resting and recovering from the 
 exhaustion induced by the preaching-service. This 
 custom was retained only on circuits and very small 
 stations. 
 
 XI. 
 
 From this review of changes we turn to the present, 
 with its improved adjustments and methods, and with 
 its more systematic and easy working, and its multi- 
 plied facilities for doing for Christ. 
 
 Our progress in Christian achievements should 
 keep pace with our increased facilities. 
 
 In the earlier times we rode to our circuits and 
 around them on horseback. In the same way we rode 
 to the Annual and General Conferences, four miles 
 an hour. We do these things now by train, thirty 
 miles an hour. By electric power we shall yet travel 
 to Conference, and over presiding elder districts, one 
 hundred miles an hour. We sail the seas twenty miles 
 an hour. In the near future we may fly through space 
 one hundred and fifty miles an hour. 
 
 Pessimistic views of the present are wrong. The 
 past was not better. It was not so good. Badness 
 kills itself. It is short-lived. Goodness has inherent 
 and persistent vitality. The stability of a bad cause 
 is only apparent. Slavery thirty years ago seemed a 
 solid institution. It was imbedded in the Constitu- 
 tion, intrenched in commerce and in the social habits, 
 industries, and conditions of the people. It even flour- 
 ished; and it boasted defenders from the Bible. But 
 how quickly God withered it in the hot flames of the 
 war which its injustice and greed had kindled! It 
 would be as impossible to revivify it as to reanimate 
 the mummy of old Pharaoh. 
 
 Within my memory, dueling existed in this coun- 
 try, almost unchallenged. The breath of an enlight- 
 ened public opinion smote dueling as unmanly and un- 
 
MY SEMI-CENTENNIAL SERMON. 467 
 
 christian; and although hoary with age, it died, and 
 there are none so poor to do it reverence. 
 
 Never since Jesus hung in bitter agony on Cal- 
 vary have the forces of truth been so potent, active, 
 and aggressive as at this moment. Of these forces 
 none are wider in their sweep nor grander in their 
 triumph than this Church of our fathers and of us, 
 their rons, planted in this land by our founder, John 
 Wesley, one hundred and seven years ago. 
 
 Dm.ng 1890, eight million copies of the Holy 
 Scriptures have been issued and circulated by the 
 British and Foreign Bible Society and the American 
 Bible Society— from each in equal numbers. A 
 greater number, this, than had been issued in the first 
 eighteen centuries of the Christian era. 
 
 Five thousand heathen converts in one of our India 
 Conferences in one year, and in all our foreign mis- 
 sions eleven thousand, are reported in the year 1890. 
 Our total annual increase of members the last year, 
 including deaths, is 108,696; and not including the 
 deaths, the net increase is 80,352. That means an 
 average of nearly three hundred accessions every day 
 in the year. 
 
 XII. 
 Let us cast the horoscope for a hundred years, 
 and see what it reveals. At the rate of increase in 
 the Methodist Episcopal Church since Mr. Wesley 
 died—a hundred years ago— we shall have, in 1991, 
 of traveling ministers, 3,187,000; of members, 1,102,- 
 867,000; of churches, 25,216,849, a seating capacity 
 of fifteen billions. Imagination staggers before these 
 stupendous figures. We must use hyperbole to ap- 
 proximate the expression of the glory God will put 
 upon us. 
 
 Isaiah's metaphors, in his sixtieth chapter, assist 
 our words faintly to foretell the sweep of the gigantic 
 
408 SIXTY- ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 extension of God's kingdom in the earth. Gentiles 
 and kings shall come to her light and to the grandeur 
 of her ascension. Her sons shall come from far. The 
 abundance of the sea shall be given her. Even the 
 abundance of the desert shall be hers, brought to her 
 altars by the camels and dromedaries, the ships of the 
 desert. The forces of the Gentiles shall come as clouds 
 and as doves. The queens of Sheba and Seba shall 
 bring gifts. Yea, all nations shall serve her. The 
 gates shall not be shut night nor day. "For brass God 
 will bring gold, for iron silver, and for wood stones, 
 and for stones iron," "A little one shall become a 
 thousand, and a small one a strong city." It is com- 
 ing, brethren. God shall bring it to pass in his own 
 time. Hallelujah! Let the Lord be magnified! 
 
 1. I am glad and thankful that my life has been 
 spent from childhood in God's service in the Meth- 
 odist Episcopal Church. In my early boyhood I en- 
 listed under the banners of Christ. As the lengthen- 
 ing shadows creep on, there, to the last, my feet shall 
 stand. 
 
 2. I wish to say to the young men of the Confer- 
 ence, your possibilities for earth and heaven in the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church are better and grander 
 than in any other. 
 
 3. The system of Methodism does not need mend- 
 ing, but working. It is impossible to modify it essen- 
 tially without destroying it. It should be loyally 
 worked for all there is in it. "Whereunto we have al- 
 ready attained, let us walk by the same rule. Let us 
 mind the same thing." 
 
 In 1893 I was appointed presiding elder of the 
 Hillsboro District, which I have served continu- 
 ously ever since, and am now closing my fifth 
 year of that work. 
 
HILLSBORO COLLEGE. 469 
 
 In October, 1896, our church in Blanchester 
 was burned. The lire in which it perished was a 
 very sweeping and destructive one. Compara- 
 tively, as to populations and the wealth of the two 
 places, it was more destructive than the famous 
 Chicago lire of a few years since, which attracted 
 the sympathy of the whole world, and elicited con- 
 tributions from very many cities of our own and 
 foreign countries. This Church, with a few hun- 
 dred dollars' assistance from other charges, was 
 rebuilt by a finer and more commodious edifice. 
 
 HILLSBORO COLLEGE. 
 
 It is worth while to consider a brief sketch of 
 the history of this noble institution, Hillsboro Col- 
 lege. The following address was delivered by me 
 at the reopening of the college, January 19, 1896: 
 
 This is a memorable occasion. It is a day of retro- 
 spect, reaching backward almost seventy years. It 
 is also a day of prospect. Bright with the resplendent 
 achievements of its past, the future beckons us on- 
 ward by its large promise of intellectual and moral 
 development; the waving harvest of sixty years of 
 sowing. Hillsboro has long been honored as the seat 
 of higher educational institutions. 
 
 Threescore and eight years ago, Rev. Joseph Mc- 
 Dowell Mathews, D. D., began his illustrious career 
 in this city as an educator of females. For early his- 
 torical facts on this subject, I am indebted to Hon. 
 James H. Thompson, as I find them in his history of 
 Highland County. In 1829 the Hillsboro Academy 
 was organized. Governor Allen Trimble was the first 
 president of its Board of Trustees, in which relation he 
 
470 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 continued for twenty-five years. His successors were 
 General Joseph J. McDowell and Samuel E. Hibben, 
 Esq. In this academy Dr. Mathews taught from 1827 
 to 1836. In 1839, Oakland Female Seminary was es- 
 tablished by Dr. Mathews, at the east end of Main 
 Street, between the Chillicothe and Marshall Pikes. 
 Here for eighteen years he taught. During this time 
 one hundred graduates were catalogued, "who," as 
 Judge Thompson attests in his history, "are the 
 mothers and grandmothers of a posterity, which, in 
 every part of our grand country, from the front line of 
 human progress, have justly distinguished themselves." 
 Many of them were then in middle life and in old age, 
 as they had been, with established characters from 
 girlhood the zealous advocates and brave guardians 
 of a very high, pure, and undefiled type of woman- 
 hood, which fixes, defines, and gilds the true outline 
 of all chaste society. Judge Thompson pays a high 
 tribute to two historic teachers: "From 1845 to ^S 1 * 
 Professor Isaac Lewis taught a school in every grade 
 of mathematical, classical, and English learning." 
 
 Of Dr. Mathews, Judge Thompson adds, that "he 
 has for forty-five years been engaged in founding Oak- 
 land Female Seminary, and in teaching females. Dr. 
 Mathews established the first female school in Ohio, 
 in which a thorough collegiate education was given to 
 girls." Some of Dr. Mathews's graduates were among 
 the leading matrons of the past generation. I cite a 
 notable example: the widow of the late Major W. D. 
 Rickham, of Dayton, Ohio. She was one of the lead- 
 ing projectors and managers of the Woman's Christian 
 Association of Dayton. She still holds an important 
 place in its management. Her vigorous and able 
 administration has contributed to make it a model 
 institution of its kind, — a name and a praise in all the 
 land. 
 
JOSEPH M'D. MATHEWS. 471 
 
 To the wise and faithful work of Dr. Mathews is 
 due the elevated and noble character of the women 
 of Highland County for the last half-century — the 
 mothers and grandmothers of the former and present 
 generations of the people of this section. These 
 worthy matrons of his training have impressed their 
 strong personality upon this community, and have 
 made it, for brains, vigor, and enterprise, second to 
 none. 
 
 In 1857 the Hillsboro Female College took the 
 place of the Oakland Female Seminary. For three 
 years he was its first president. He was succeeded by 
 Rev. W. G. W. Lewis, Rev. Henry Turner, Rev. 
 Allen T. Thompson, Rev. D. Copeland, then Dr. 
 Mathews, a second term of five vears; Rev. 'John F. 
 Loyd, D. D., Rev. W. C. Helt, and Mr. Gall. 
 
 In 1877, as pastor of the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church in Hillsboro, I visited Dr. Mathews, who was 
 then aged and in precarious health. Two years later 
 he died in your midst, full of years and honors. I re- 
 call two beautiful incidents. On my first visit, in reply 
 to my inquiry as to his condition, he recited to me, 
 with feeble voice, Charles Wesley's well-known hymn, 
 dictated on his death-bed when he was over fourscore 
 years of age : 
 
 " In age and feebleness extreme, 
 Who shall a helpless worm redeem? 
 Jesus, my only hope thou art, 
 Strength of my failing flesh and heart; 
 O could I catch a smile from thee, 
 Then drop into eternity!" 
 
 On my last visit, some six or eight months before 
 his death, in answer to my inquiries, he whispered: 
 "I am waiting on this side Jordan until my Joshua 
 shall come and divide the waters, and lead me through, 
 dry-shod." A beautiful ending of a lovely life. 
 
472 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 Forty-one years ago, out of the Oakland Female 
 Seminary grew the Hillsboro Female College, which 
 a few years ago was made a mixed institution for per- 
 sons of both sexes. Later still, came Miss Emily 
 Grand-Girard's Female Seminary. Hillsboro College 
 cost fifty thousand dollars. The fathers of the former 
 generation deserve great credit for their self-sacrificing 
 and tireless efforts to create and sustain this edifice, 
 which we are met this day formally to reopen with 
 fitting services, thus dedicating it to its great work of 
 higher education among the young men and women 
 of this community. The graduates from this college 
 alone number one hundred and fifty. May 18, 1894, it 
 was consumed by fire. May we not hope that, like 
 the fabled phoenix, this large and elegant structure, 
 improved in style and finish beyond its predecessor, 
 shall yet be successful in a more extended sphere than 
 its predecessor, and in grander and better work? 
 When the flames on that May-day sent up in smoke 
 and cinders the combustible parts of this dear old 
 college, they left standing the strong, non-combustible 
 walls; and, what was incomparably better still, its 
 friends and patrons have rebuilt it in better form. In 
 doing this they have displayed an energy of purpose 
 and of spirit, which are an assuring prophecy of its 
 success and continuous benefactions. 
 
 Rev. Dr. Bashford (President of Ohio Wesleyan 
 University) : On behalf of the trustees of the Hillsboro 
 College, I present you this building for appropriate 
 dedicatory services. 
 
 Dr. Bashford delivered an eloquent address, and 
 then formally dedicated the building in an appro- 
 priate prayer. 
 
 Hillsboro Charge is now a very strong Church. 
 Rev. Marion LeSourd is pastor. I have resided 
 
HILLSBORO CHURCH. 473 
 
 here for the last five years. I recently held a quar- 
 terly-meeting in Hillsboro. It has over seven hun- 
 dred members. The sacramental service was very 
 largely attended. I have never seen so many com- 
 municants participate at one service in this church, 
 as at this meeting. Probably not less than four 
 hundred received the holy sacrament. The love- 
 feast in the afternoon was almost as largely at- 
 tended. It was a most spiritual and powerful serv- 
 ice. The following article appeared in the News- 
 Herald the next day : 
 
 During the sacramental service in the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church last Sunday, Dr. Pearne announced 
 some historic facts, as follows: 
 
 "This Church was organized in 1805, ninety- three 
 years ago. For ninety-three years our fathers and 
 mothers have sent up prayers to the Lord, and have 
 received showers of blessings in response. Here souls 
 for more than ninety years have come to the mercy- 
 seat, and have found healing and adoption and life. 
 During the last twenty-five years this Church has 
 raised $10,764 for missions, and for general Church 
 purposes $91,761, including the money given for 
 building and improving the church and parsonage. 
 During the same time, in the last twenty-five years, 
 the Sunday-school has given $3,216 for missions, and 
 $2,970 for current Sunday-school expenses; in all, 
 $6,186. 
 
 "Eighty-eight ministers and twenty-nine presiding 
 elders have served this Church. Brother M. LeSourd 
 is the eighty-eighth pastor who has officiated in this 
 Church, and I am the twenty-ninth of the presiding 
 elders who have served this people. This Church has 
 sent out two missionaries, Miss Loyd and Miss Ayres, 
 
474 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 to Mexico. It has sent out an Official Board Blank 
 Record Book, which one of your earnest, working 
 men, L. Detwiler, has prepared, and it is now in nearly 
 two thousand Methodist charges, and it will doubtless 
 be so used as long as Methodism shall continue as a 
 Church. The first preacher in charge in this station, 
 nearly sixty years ago, was Randolph S. Foster, for 
 the last twenty-seven years one of her honored bishops, 
 and one of the grandest and noblest of veterans." 
 
 A REMARKABLE BIRTHDAY ANNIVERSARY. 
 
 In September, 1894, Rev. R. S. Rust, D. D., 
 LL. D., celebrated the eightieth anniversary of his 
 birthday, at his residence on West Fourth Street, 
 Cincinnati. His friends, in large numbers, crowded 
 his home on the evening of that day. A friend, in 
 Delaware, Ohio, Mrs. Professor L. D. McCabe, 
 sent eighty beautiful white roses, a most fitting and 
 elegant offering. Speeches and music and prayer 
 enlivened and graced the occasion. The writer of 
 this volume, who had been for nearly thirty years 
 a devoted friend and admirer of the noble hero 
 whose life had been full of great and blessed service 
 for the Master, was present, and, being called on, 
 he offered the following remarks : 
 
 I am both honored and delighted to be present on 
 this joyous occasion, and to share with you in these 
 most appropriate festivities. As representing the 
 Freedmen's Aid and Southern Education Society, with 
 which our venerable friend has been so long and ef- 
 fectively associated, I am to contribute some brief and 
 befitting statements. 
 
 In traveling in different countries, certain marked 
 
DR. RUST'S lUR HI DAY ANNIVERSARY. 475 
 
 features of the landscape have greatly impressed me 
 with their beauty. Repeated observation of these rare 
 but fascinating objects has only augmented their 
 weird spell over my imagination. Two examples are 
 cited for illustration: Thirty years ago I traversed the 
 defile in the mountains of Jamaica, called the bog- 
 walk, through which flows the Rio Cobra. For eigh- 
 teen or twenty miles the Cobra meanders through a 
 canon — mountain cleft from summit to base three 
 thousand feet. Between these towering walls, which 
 seem almost to touch each other, in tortuous windings 
 the bold stream pursues its serpentine way, disclosing 
 with every bend of the canon new forms of beauty. 
 Through this remarkable defile I have often traveled, 
 and always with deepened interest. Fifty-three years 
 ago I first saw Niagara. The majestic crescent, a mile 
 in circuit, over the brink of whose awful depth the 
 waters are foaming and rolling and thundering in a 
 ceaseless downpour, produced an overwhelming ef- 
 fect. I wanted to be silent. I found myself quoting 
 the poet's invocation: 
 
 " Come, then, expressive silence, muse his praise." 
 
 Eternity seemed very near. God was revealed in his 
 stupendous works. Many times since I have revisited 
 the mighty waterfall. That gorgeous display of Divine 
 power has always deeply impressed me. 
 
 When I recently visited Niagara, a singular marvel 
 had been wrought. The great cataract was still there: 
 its sublime features all unchanged. The human engi- 
 neer had chiseled in the rocks which shore the floods 
 an unseen chamber, through which a small part of the 
 unused water is diverted and made to fall upon tur- 
 bine wheels, so generating electricity. This electricity 
 is transmitted over an area of three hundred square 
 miles to flood the populous State of New York with 
 
476 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OE ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 millions of incandescent lights, and to make that vast 
 area vibrant with the whirr and buzz of countless 
 spindles and shuttles, and with hundreds of forges. 
 And all this without at all diminishing the magnificent 
 glory of Niagara. Human genius had utilized God's 
 hidden power. 
 
 In this social gathering these material illustrations 
 are suggestive. They furnish most fitting analogies. 
 The earthquakes might have cleaved the mountain 
 to its base, so making a way for the stream and a road 
 for the wayfarer along the picturesque river. For two 
 centuries and a half the mountain of slavery had been 
 growing in this country. God smote it with the terri- 
 ble thunders of war. In the words of Liberty and 
 Union, the battle-cry of freedom was sung: 
 
 " I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel, 
 As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall 
 
 deal; 
 Let the hero born of woman, crush the serpent with his 
 heel ; 
 
 Our God is marching on. 
 
 I have seen him in the watch fires of a hundred circling 
 
 camps; 
 They have builded him an altar in the evening dews and 
 
 damps ; 
 I have read his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring 
 
 lamps ; 
 
 His day is marching on. 
 
 In the beaut}' of the lilies, Christ was born across the sea, 
 With a glory in his bosom, which transfigures you and me, 
 As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, 
 While God is marching on. 
 
 In this case the mountain has become a plain. Slavery 
 has gone down forever. God's own hand buried it in 
 the red gulf of battle. 
 
 While the immeasurable power of Niagara has 
 
DR. RUST'S BIRTHDAY ANNIVERSARY. 477 
 
 been tapped by man's device, so transmitting force to 
 be wielded for human uses and needs, so when the 
 mountain of slavery disappeared, God opened in the 
 desert streams of healing and relief for his long-op- 
 pressed children. There flowed forth from millions of 
 loyal Christian men and women, first through the 
 channels of the Freedmen's Bureau, and later by the 
 Freedmen's Aid Society, tides of blessing for God's 
 poor; refreshing streams of beneficence in rich abun- 
 dance. Never has Christian devotion yielded larger 
 nor more prolific results for human uplifting and en- 
 richment. 
 
 Eighty years ago to-day God sent into this world, 
 in Massachusetts, one of the chief New England 
 States, a man-child, who contained within himself pos- 
 sibilities as actual as, and relatively far more signifi- 
 cant than, the giant oak in the tiny acorn, the Rio 
 Cobra in the Jamaica mountains, and the grand Ni- 
 agara in the scanty streamlets of Canadian forests. 
 The name given to this newcomer was Richard Sutton 
 Rust. His early years were spent in conditions admi- 
 rably befitting him for the important place he was so 
 soon and so nobly to fill. He was made of martyr 
 stuff. In his early manhood he championed the then 
 unpopular cause of the slave. He "fought with beasts 
 at Ephesus," where he was mobbed for his Abolition- 
 ism; and when he was pleading and working for the 
 freedom of his Brother in Black — "God's image 
 carved in ebony" — he was still further prepared for 
 his great life-work by his direction, for three years, of 
 the educational forces of New Hampshire, as Commis- 
 sioner of the Public Schools of that State. 
 
 Then he came West for a broader theater of action. 
 For some years he was president of the Cincinnati 
 Wesleyan Female College. His first grand achieve- 
 ment in his new field and in his chosen line was in 
 
478 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 planting and directing Wilber force University for peo- 
 ple of color. It still stands, a growing monument of 
 his wise philanthropic zeal. Later he became corre- 
 sponding secretary of the Freedmen's Aid Society, 
 which, with steadily increasing efficiency, he admin- 
 istered for twenty-two years. The conditions were 
 peculiar. The mountain of slavery had become the 
 wide plain of freedom for five millions of freedmen 
 then — seven and a half millions now — who for two 
 centuries and a half had been held and accounted as 
 goods and chattels personal. Just as Niagara's hid- 
 den forces were developed by human skill and genius 
 into myriad forms of activity and light, so this Freed- 
 men's Aid and Southern Education Society, so ably 
 wielded by our venerable brother, Rev. Dr. Rust, has 
 filled eleven States in the Black Belt with its incalcu- 
 lable benefactions, alike to whites and blacks. He 
 will never be dissociated from the colossal beneficence 
 which he assisted to create and so beneficently admin- 
 istered. That service, in the thought and sympathies 
 of millions of the Freedmen and their descendants, has 
 forever linked him inseparably with our martyr Presi- 
 dent, Abraham Lincoln. Fourteen years ago the di- 
 rection of the Society, whose infancy he had nursed 
 and developed to stalwart maturity, passing into other 
 hands, Dr. Rust was elected by the General Confer- 
 ence honorary corresponding secretary of this God- 
 honoring and God-honored philanthropy. 
 
 As the child of destiny and man of mark, he is still 
 living at the ripe age of fourscore years, far beyond 
 the ordinary term of human life, to behold in his ad- 
 vancing years the ever-widening circles of beneficence 
 which he set in motion, filling earth and heaven with 
 abundant ripe and golden fruit. For thirty years I 
 have been in touch with him. For a score and a half of 
 
METHODISM ORGANIZED IN OHIO. 479 
 
 years I have known and loved and honored him, and 
 my own life has been the nobler and better for the 
 association. 
 
 The cradle is the prophecy of the bridal altar, and 
 that foretypes the cerements of the casket and the 
 grave. But the monuments he has reared in his long 
 life will endure throughout the history of time and 
 the endless cycles of eternity. A higher crowning 
 awaits him, which I expect to witness, amid the splen- 
 dors of eternity, when God shall place upon his im- 
 mortal brow the unfading coronal of righteousness, 
 so recognizing and rewarding the triumphs of Chris- 
 tian philanthropy, in augmenting which our distin- 
 guished friend bore so eminent and illustrious a part. 
 
 Methodism was first organized in Ohio by John 
 Kobler in 1798. The Methodists of the State 
 having determined, by a concerted action of the 
 several Annual Conferences, to celebrate the cen- 
 tennial of its introduction, a committee of one from 
 each Conference was appointed to make the neces- 
 sary arrangements. They were authorized to ap- 
 point the place, devise the program, invite the 
 speakers, attend to transportation and entertain- 
 ment, and look after the comfort of their guests. 
 The committee fixed upon Delaware as the place, 
 and Commencement-week of the Ohio Wesleyan 
 University as the most suitable time. The exer- 
 cises began on Tuesday, June 21st, and continued 
 till Friday, June 24, 1898. 
 
 Having been requested by the committee to 
 prepare for that occasion a paper on " The 
 Gospel on Horseback," I delivered the following 
 
480 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 address to a large audience assembled in Gray 
 Chapel: 
 
 THE GOSPEL ON HORSEBACK. 
 
 The theme assigned me for a brief essay is entitled, 
 "The Gospel on Horseback." With permission, I 
 would like to change it thus: "The Methodist Itinerant 
 on Horseback." Except as the early Methodist 
 preachers carried in their saddlebags the Bible, the 
 hymn-book, the Discipline, and Christian literature 
 for distribution, the gospel can scarcely be said to be 
 on horseback. In Methodist terminology the word 
 itinerant describes neither the fact nor the mode of 
 traveling. In our usage the word itinerant means a 
 pastor who often changes his pastorate, in contradis- 
 tinction from one who holds a settled or permanent 
 pastorate, and who therefore does not change at all. 
 A Methodist itinerant who rides on horseback is dif- 
 ferentiated from a stationed minister, who does not 
 travel, because his position does not admit of his trav- 
 eling. And yet, in Methodist parlance, the one is as 
 really an itinerant as the other. 
 
 The intent of my assigned theme, as I construe it, 
 is to describe the early Methodist preachers who 
 reached their appointments by horse, or who thus 
 rode their circuits. I was probably programmed for 
 this subject, because from my long ministerial life I 
 was supposed to be personally, and from observation, 
 familiar with this subject; and such is, indeed, the fact. 
 Sixty-one years ago I rode on horseback, each Satur- 
 day, from Cazenovia Seminary, twenty miles away, 
 to Onondaga Circuit, as a supply. I continued to 
 travel that circuit by horse nearly two years. My cir- 
 cuit lay from four to ten miles south from Syracuse, 
 N. Y. For eight or ten years this was my mode of 
 travel. Fourteen years later, when sent as a mission- 
 
THE GOSPEL ON HORSEBACK. 48 1 
 
 ary to Oregon, both myself and all my Conference 
 associates traveled by horse. For this mode of travel 
 there is ample precedent. Pharaoh's military, who 
 pursued Israel to the Red Sea to recapture and re- 
 enslave them, and who met their awful fate by drown- 
 ing, included horsemen. Miriam's song of victory 
 celebrated this event. "The Lord hath triumphed 
 gloriously. The horse and his rider hath he thrown 
 into the sea." Sennacherib's army, which came hun- 
 dreds of leagues to besiege Jerusalem, included horse- 
 men. How awful their doom! 
 
 " There lay the rider, distorted and pale, 
 With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail ; 
 The tents were all silent, the banners alone, 
 The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown. 
 
 And there lay the steed, with his nostril all wide ; 
 But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride ; 
 And the foam of their gasping lay white on the turf, 
 As the spray of the sea on the wave-beaten surf. 
 
 Mounting his fiery Bucephalus, Alexander went forth 
 from Macedon to the conquest of the world. Cortez 
 conquered Mexico by four hundred infantry and fif- 
 teen horsemen. Napoleon's marshals and battalions 
 subjugated Europe to his insatiate sway. 
 
 It would be strange, indeed, that horses could be 
 used only for purposes of ambition, blood, and death. 
 Nor is it true. The bishops and curates in the days 
 of the Bloody Mary, probably including Latimer and 
 Ridley and others of the Smithfield martyrs, traveled 
 their bishoprics and curacies in this manner. John 
 Wesley and his ministerial and lay helpers rode up 
 and down in Great Britain in the eighteenth century 
 upon horses. It is equally true that to this day some 
 of the large Wesleyan circuits keep a circuit horse 
 for the use of the circuit preachers. For a hundred 
 31 
 
482 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 and fifty years these mounted knights of the cross 
 have been setting the United Kingdom "on a blaze." 
 
 In the Colonial times, the Colonists almost exclu- 
 sively traveled by horse. In the Revolutionary War 
 all the officers, and the cavalry of course, were 
 mounted. Washington traversed Virginia, Ohio, and 
 Pennsylvania on horseback. Circuit judges, barris- 
 ters, litigants, and doctors rode their routes on horse- 
 back. Tradition affirms that the Great Commoner, 
 Henry Clay, and President Andrew Jackson, rode back 
 and forth, to and from Washington, on horseback. In 
 Oregon, at my quarterly-meetings, nearly all the wo- 
 men, as well as the men, who attended the meeting 
 from a distance, came on horseback, some of them 
 with a child in arms and one or two children behind. 
 They were expert riders. I have seen mothers come 
 riding in a lope or canter, with a babe in arms and one 
 or two children behind. All the early Methodist 
 preachers traveled on horseback. This habit pre- 
 vailed, as late as 1830, all through the Connection. 
 Asbury, Whatcoat, McKendree, George, and Roberts, 
 the first five American Methodist bishops, made their 
 extended continental tours by horse. Nathan Bangs 
 and John Dempster traversed the forests and swamps 
 of Lower Canada in like manner. For the pioneer 
 preachers and people in her extended prairies and 
 forests this was almost their only mode of travel. 
 
 When, some sixty or seventy years ago, horse- 
 riding in New York State gave place to buggy-riding, 
 an amusing incident occurred. The Conference met 
 in Wilkesbarre, which was at the southern extreme 
 of the Conference. For the last twenty miles of the 
 distance all the roads converged into one. The bug- 
 gies were placed upon elliptic springs. They had as 
 great popularity as our modern bikes. As the Con- 
 ference day approached, the ministers came along this 
 
THE GOSPEL ON HORSEBACK. 483 
 
 common highway* in their buggies. There seemed no 
 end of the long procession. A German and his son 
 were working in a field along the pike. The father 
 threw down his hoe, and cried out, "Vel, den, Hance, 
 py sure, hell is proke loose." But this mode of travel 
 had for the itinerants its special advantages and com- 
 pensations. While thus riding, they read their Bibles 
 and studied their sermons. They had much time for 
 thought and prayer. They were men of much prayer 
 and deep thought. In this way they mingled freely 
 with the common people. They were, therefore, all 
 the more esteemed, and accounted as of the common 
 people. This gave them large influence and follow- 
 ing. None of the people escaped their visits. They 
 found all the settlers. A man and his family emigrated 
 from Northern Georgia into Western Alabama. Be- 
 fore he left Georgia the Methodist itinerant had se- 
 cured the conversion of the man's wife and children. 
 So he emigrated to get beyond their reach. He had 
 selected his new home and gone upon it; but on the 
 very day of his arrival, and before his household goods 
 were unloaded, the itinerant rode up and sought their 
 acquaintance. The pioneer gave it up. It was no 
 use, he said, to try to get away from these ubiquitous 
 circuit-riders. 
 
 Then, moreover, travel on horseback had still other 
 adaptations and compensations. Life in God's open 
 air and sunshine and exercise gave the itinerants stal- 
 wart physiques and robust, vigorous, bounding 
 health: large capacity for enduring the exposures, 
 perils, and fatigues of their laborious callings. They 
 had large lung capacity, and loud, strong voices for 
 preaching. In their long rides they sometimes en- 
 countered men of keen intellect and of marked skill in 
 debate. I recall and rehearse two notable examples: 
 one of them of intellectual grapple, the other of phys- 
 
484 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 ical contention. Jacob Gruber entered the traveling 
 connection in 1800, in the Philadelphia Conference. 
 He was eccentric in manner and style, fearless in 
 speech, and a man of unusual capacity for irony, sar- 
 casm, and ridicule. In these lines he very rarely met 
 his superior. Two mounted lawyers overtook him, 
 and conversed with him for several miles. One of 
 them rode on his right hand, and the other on his left. 
 To test his scholarship, they addressed him in Latin. 
 He answered them in German. They probably knew 
 as little of his German, as he did of their Latin. They 
 asked him whether he did not sometimes make mis- 
 takes in reading and speaking. He admitted that that 
 was quite probable. They said, "When you make mis- 
 takes, do you always stop to correct them?" He re- 
 plied: "Not always. When the mistake is trivial, I 
 would hardly deem it necessary to stop and correct it. 
 For example, if I were reading the passage, 'Woe 
 unto you, scribes, Pharisees, lawyers,' and if, by mis- 
 take, I should read it, 'Woe unto you, scribes, Phari- 
 sees, liars,' I would hardly deem it necessary to stop 
 and correct that." They said, "Mr. Gruber, we 
 scarcely know where to place you; i. e., as to whether 
 you are a fool or a knave." "Just now," said he, "I 
 am probably between the two." 
 
 They were as badly "left" as Mr. Wesley is re- 
 ported as having left a bishop of the Church of Eng- 
 land in London. Wesley and two of his ministers 
 happened to meet on the pavement the bishop and two 
 of his curates. The bishop held the sidewalk, remark- 
 ing audibly, "I do n't give up my place on the pave- 
 ment for a fool." "But I do," said Mr. Wesley, who 
 bowed to the bishop, and stepped off the curb. If 
 that event really occurred, Mr. Wesley answered a fool 
 according to his folly. 
 
THE GOSPEL ON HORSEBACK. 485 
 
 The next example was of physical prowess. Rev. 
 Joseph S. Collins, a local preacher, father of the cele- 
 brated John A. Collins, of the Baltimore Conference, 
 was a man of gigantic strength. Collins's encounter 
 was quite equal, in its way, to that of Gruber. If 
 Collins had not, like Paul, "fought with beasts at 
 Ephesus," he had had serious grapple with contentious 
 toughs, who required severe handling. A well-mounted 
 stranger overtook Mr. Collins as he was on his way 
 to a certain camp-meeting, which he was to conduct. 
 After exchanging pleasant greetings, the stranger 
 asked him if he could direct him to a certain camp- 
 meeting in that vicinity, and also whether he could 
 inform him whether Mr. Joseph Collins would prob- 
 ably be present. Mr. Collins promised to show him 
 the way, and inquired why he had asked whether Mr. 
 Collins would attend. He said Mr. Collins had put the 
 toughs living in that vicinity under cover. Mr. Col- 
 lins asked the stranger whether Mr. Collins had ever 
 done him any harm. He answered, "No;" but that he 
 had come forty miles to give Mr. Collins a licking, 
 and put the toughs in heart. Mr. Collins said, "If I 
 were you, and Collins had never done you any harm, 
 I would let him alone." They rode on together several 
 miles. As they drew near the camp-ground, Mr. Col- 
 lins inquired of him whether he was still of the same 
 mind as when they had first met. The stranger said 
 he was. Mr. Collins dismounted and hitched his horse, 
 and invited the stranger to alight, remarking: "My 
 name is Collins. I am the man you want to lick. We 
 are near the camp-ground, and we may as well have 
 the trial of strength here, and now." When the man 
 had alighted and hitched his horse, Mr. Collins seized 
 him by the collar and the slack of his trousers, and 
 flung him over the fence. The stranger, picking him- 
 
486 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 self up and rubbing the part on which he had fallen, 
 is reported to have said, "Mr. Collins, if you will kindly 
 hand my horse over, we will call it quits." 
 
 Mr. Gilruth, the Hercules of the Ohio Conference, 
 is said to have seized an antagonist around the waist, 
 and lifted him off the ground; then raising the bottom 
 rail of the fence with one of his hands, he pushed the 
 man's head under and dropped the rails over his neck, 
 and left him thus in limbo, while Gilruth began to ride 
 off with the honors. The man cried after him for 
 mercy, and was released. He was afterwards con- 
 verted under Mr. Gilruth's preaching. Many of the 
 old-time veterans could tell of encounters with camp- 
 meeting disturbers. 
 
 We are celebrating their entrance into Ohio a hun- 
 dred years ago, led by the intrepid John Kobler and 
 Henry Smith. Ninety-one years ago the first Meth- 
 odist Annual Conference was held in Chillicothe, on 
 the Scioto. At that historic session sixty-six Meth- 
 odist itinerants were present. Bishop Asbury pre- 
 sided. All the preachers who attended that Confer- 
 ence came on horseback. Some of them had ridden 
 by horse a thousand miles to attend. Five presiding 
 elders were present. They were the seniors of the 
 body. William McKendree had entered the traveling 
 connection nineteen years before; William Burke, fif- 
 teen; Thomas Wilkerson, fourteen; John Sale, thir- 
 teen; and Learner Blackman, seven. Their districts 
 covered four States, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, and 
 Mississippi. Nearly all the others were recent recruits. 
 Thirteen of them were received in 1805. These in- 
 cluded the eccentric and renowned Peter Cartwright, 
 one of the great men of the century; James Axley, the 
 intrepid opposer and denouncer of slavery and the 
 liquor-traffic; Jacob and David Young, long the hon- 
 ored pillars of the old Ohio Conference; Jesse Walker, 
 
THE GOSPEL ON HORSEBACK. 487 
 
 who later was the chivalrous missionary of St. Louis; 
 John Collins, of precious memory; Ralph Lotspeich, 
 the weeping Jeremiah of those early prophets of the 
 Western Conference; and the saintly Samuel Parker. 
 Eleven had joined the Conference in 1806, and eleven 
 men in 1807. 
 
 Not alone in the West, but all over the country, 
 some of the greatest men in American Methodism 
 were trained and developed among these early circuit- 
 riders. What a mighty, illustrious array! Freeborn 
 Garrettson, who itinerated on horseback from Halifax 
 to Virginia; Jesse Lee, the first historian of his Church 
 and his times; William Beauchamp, the unequaled 
 theologian; John Dickins, the father of our publish- 
 ing-houses; Ezekiel Cooper, his eminent successor; 
 George Pickering; John P. Durbin, one of the most 
 distinguished of our educators, an eloquent orator, and 
 for many years the great organizer of the Missionary 
 Society of our Church ; John Emory, one of our early 
 bishops; Henry B. Bascom, long a chaplain of the 
 United States Senate, and later a bishop of the Meth- 
 odist Episcopal Church, South; William Nast, a nona- 
 genarian, one of the earliest of our German annex; 
 L. L. Hamline, John Strange, Joshua Soule, Elijah 
 Hedding, W. B. Christie, Edward R. Ames, Matthew 
 Simpson, Arthur and Charles Elliott; George W. 
 Walker, physically, mentally, and morally one of the 
 grandest of men; Russel Bigelow, Jason and Daniel 
 Lee, and their early associates, who planted our ban- 
 ners in far-off Oregon; and so many more whom time 
 would fail me to mention. They were God's noble- 
 men. Men of brain and brawn, stalwart, sturdy, God- 
 honoring, and God-honored. 
 
 This potential equestrian brigade achieved at least 
 three mighty results. They impressed thejr strong, 
 unique personality upon their age, their century, and 
 
488 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 their country. They formed the effectual breakwater 
 against the reaction of the American mind from the 
 horrible Augustine theology, which threatened to land 
 the masses of our people, first in the half-way house 
 of Unitarianism, and then into the utter and blank 
 infidelity of Volney, Voltaire, and Rousseau. They 
 arrested this trend by turning the rank and file of the 
 people into the more thinkable and evangelical doc- 
 trines of Arminianism. They led the van of our ad- 
 vancing civilization from the Atlantic to the Missis- 
 sippi. They planted and promoted our cause in the 
 most distant and inaccessible parts of our great Re- 
 public. They induced the inclusion of Oregon and 
 Washington and Idaho and Montana into the Na- 
 tional domain. The pulsations of American Meth- 
 odism throb with the impulses of their tremendous 
 and concentrated genius and energy. They climbed 
 the eastern foothills of the Rockies, scaled the Sierras, 
 and planted our system and our agencies amid the 
 golden placers of the Sacramento and along the shores 
 of our mighty Northwest. 
 
 In closing this narrative of sixty-one years of 
 itinerant life, I take occasion to make a few infer- 
 ential statements. The life I have lived has been 
 a very happy one. I had my choice in the begin- 
 ning to be what my father intended and hoped I 
 would become, a doctor of medicine or a minister. 
 The "necessity" which God put upon me when he 
 called me to the work of the ministry hardly left 
 me to an option, or left an option to me. I felt 
 the inevitable "woe is me, if I preach not the gos- 
 pel." I yielded to that, and God has given me 
 abundant seals to my ministry. I trust I may have 
 many stars in my crown; but whether or not, I 
 
CLOSING REMARKS. 489 
 
 have most certainly had a very successful life. 
 "The hundred-fold in this world" has been my 
 guerdon. I am firmly presuaded that the life ever- 
 lasting awaits me. Reviewing all that I now know, 
 if I had my life before me at the present to begin, 
 I would most certainly choose the kind of a life 
 I have had. 
 
 It is my firm conviction that many young men 
 whom God calls into his ministry, who refuse to 
 yield to God's call, make an awful mistake, and, in 
 very many instances, the mistake has cost them, O 
 so dearly! Their religious experience has been 
 blighted, and not unfrequently their temporal pros- 
 perity has either failed to come, or, if it came, it has 
 been delusive and disappointing. "Seek first the 
 kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all 
 these things shall be added unto you," is just as 
 true now as it was when the Divine One an- 
 nounced it. 
 
 The success of Methodism — and it has been 
 great, indeed — has been in very large degree, be- 
 cause the Methodist ministers have firmly known, 
 and held by conviction and experience, the blessed 
 reality of the gospel they have preached. Instead 
 of going about to see if they can not find some 
 higher criticism, they have found with delight how 
 abundantly the Word of God has found corrobo- 
 ration in their experience. And what has been true 
 of the ministers who have preached a salvation 
 which they have consciously found true in their 
 own hearts, has been equally true of the laity, rank 
 and file. The testimony of the lay members, men 
 
490 SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF ITINERANT WORK. 
 
 and women, has been re-enforcing to the ministry 
 of Methodism. It would be a sad mistake for the 
 ministers to put forth neat and artistic moral essays 
 for pungent, earnest gospel preaching; and, if pos- 
 sible, a greater mistake for the laymen and lay- 
 women of Methodism to switch off and turn aside 
 from the experience and the practice of the fathers, 
 both in the pulpit and the pew. "Forsake not the 
 old landmarks. Rather inquire for the old paths, 
 and walk therein." 
 
 In noting the changes which have come during 
 my long service in the itinerancy, I must name two 
 things. Lay delegation is one of them. It has 
 already done much in promoting our efficiency as 
 a Church, and it will yield yet more fruit in the time 
 to come, and as the system shall be more fully com- 
 pleted to make the lay and ministerial numerically 
 equal. The other noticeable change is the won- 
 derful fact that the Christian women of the world 
 have come to the front as a result of the crusade 
 of the women against the saloon. They are mak- 
 ing themselves a great power for God in humani- 
 tarian and Christian lines, and in pushing forward 
 the great missionary work in home and foreign 
 fields. 
 
 While I have a large measure of catholicity, 
 and can say and mean every word of it, "Grace be 
 to all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sin- 
 cerity and truth," I also have the most clear con- 
 viction that Methodism is a chosen plan of God to 
 uplift and to save men; and I advise all young 
 Methodist preachers to "abide in the calling 
 
FINAL REMARK. 49 j 
 
 wherein they have been called," and not seek to 
 mend Methodism and improve upon it ; but to work 
 it for all there is in it. It needs only an earnest 
 ministry full of faith and the Holy Spirit, and a 
 consecrated, devoted laity full of pentecostal fire 
 and power, to make it even more grandly successful 
 and soul-saving than it has ever been. To your 
 tents, O Israel ! 
 
 A final remark is this : I address it to the young 
 men and women of Methodism — Have a cheerful 
 religion. Do n't allow yourselves to become 
 gloomy, discouraged, depressed. "Be strong in 
 the Lord." Have for your strength "the joy of the 
 Lord," and you will be invincible; nay, more, you 
 will be victorious, triumphantly, immeasurably 
 conquerors, and more than conquerors, over all 
 enemies, obstacles, and difficulties. 
 
DUE DATE 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Printed 
 in USA 
 
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES 
 
 0045460620 
 
 OCT 2 7 1953 
 
 938.6 
 
 P316 
 
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