History of the M.E. Church, Vol. IV - Media Sabda Org

HISTORY OF THE
METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH
By Abel Stevens
CHAPTER II
METHODISM IN THE SOUTH, 1804 --1820: CONTINUED
Job Guest -- Alfred Griffith -- Wilson Lee and Black Charles -- John Early -- His long Services
and Character -- Major Capers -- Conversion of William Capers -- Begins to Preach -- Interview with
Asbury -- A Negro Founds Methodism in Fayetteville -- His remarkable story -- Capers at Charleston
-- Colored Preachers -- Change of Anti-slavery Policy -- Capers' Success and Character -- Beverly
Waugh -- John Davis -- Alfred Griffith -- Robert R. Roberts
The name of Job Guest has incidentally but repeatedly occurred in our pages. His friend, Alfred
Griffith, who entered the itinerancy with him in 1806, says that "as to his toils and sufferings through
a long-continued and faithful service, he might justly have adopted the language of the apostle of the
Gentiles: 'In labors abundant, in fastings oft, in persecutions, in afflictions,' etc. From the shores of
Lake Erie on the north, with all the intermediate territory on the south, to the waters of Chesapeake
Bay, together with all Western Maryland, Western Pennsylvania, and Northern and Southwestern
Virginia, was formed the field over which, from time to time, his labors were distributed by the
proper authorities. And nobly did he fulfill his mission, 'to testify the gospel of the grace of God.'
And God gave him great acceptability among the people, and much success in winning souls to
Christ. He was a man of more than ordinary talents, and was instrumental in adding many hundreds,
not to say thousands, to the fold of the Redeemer during a ministry of nearly fifty years of effective
[1]
service, in which he filled nearly all the important appointments in the Conference." He died in
1857, aged seventy-two years, a man of the purest, the most faultless character, and of such extended
and long-continued labors as deserve a more thorough commemoration than the scanty records of
the Church will allow.
Alfred Griffith, himself, beginning his itinerant career at the same time, claims our attention here,
though, as he still lives, it will devolve on the future historian of the Church to give a fuller record
of a life so long and so replete with usefulness. He was born in 1783, in Montgomery County, Md.,
and brought into the Church in 1801, in a revival which began on Montgomery Circuit under the
exertions of Wilson Lee, who had recently returned, broken in health from his great western labors,
but was preaching with his usual zeal as a supernumerary of the circuit. At one of Lee's appointments
(in a private house) lived a remarkably devoted colored Methodist by the name of Charles. The
preacher having determined to open the campaign at this place, covenanted with the faithful African,
that at the next meeting, while he should be preaching in the principal room, Charles should be on
his knees, in a shed-room, opening into that in which the service was proceeding, engaged in
supplication for the success of the word. "When the time came, and the itinerant, of whom men stood
in awe while they admired him, arose in the crowded parlor, true to his engagement, Charles was on
his knees in the shed-room. There was present on that day in that place a power more than human.
The people fell on every side. They prayed, they wept sore. Into the midst of this scene now came
the pious Negro. He had heard the Lord's answer, and, not venturing to rise, he entered the room
walking on his knees, while the tears streamed down his black face, now made, if not white, at least