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

class-meetings, and to no small extent in pastoral visitation, for wherever he stopped, for temporary
rest, in his episcopal travels, he gave himself with devout earnestness to such opportunities. He
suddenly died in his work, by disease of the heart, at Baltimore in 1858.
Beverly Waugh was both a good and an able man, and the Church suffers loss by the lack hitherto
of any biographical record of his useful life, by which his historic services might be adequately
appreciated. He was dignified in person, with calm, benign, though care-worn features, brilliant eyes,
shaded by heavy eyebrows, a voice of sonorous distinctness, and manners grave, but endearingly
cordial and affectionate. He retained to the last the original plain costume of the ministry. In the
pulpit he was often exceedingly powerful; in the episcopal chair prompt, without hurry; cautious,
though firm. He was staunchly "conservative" in his opinions, not only of Methodistic principles and
traditions, but of the public questions which kept the Church agitated with controversies during his
episcopal administration, a fact which will give him prominence in the historical record of those
memorable times.
John Davis joined the Baltimore Conference the year following Waugh's admission, and became,
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as his brethren testify, "a prince in Israel." He was born in Northumberland County, Va., in 1787.
His parents were Methodists of the primitive type, and trained him carefully in the doctrines of the
Church. He attributed his conversion, in his nineteenth year, to the ineffaceable impression of a
lesson of the Holy Scriptures, heard while sitting upon his father's knee while yet a child. "Ye must
be born again," was a truth in that lesson which perpetually sounded in his conscience. It drew him,
at last, to seek peace of mind in prayer, in a wood, where, after much anguish, he found it. He had
never seen any one converted, nor witnessed an example of religious ecstasy; yet his new experience
compelled him to "make the wood echo with the shout of 'Glory! glory! glory to God!'" He soon after
began to "exhort," and in 1809 was called out by Hamilton Jefferson, presiding elder, to Berkeley
Circuit. The next year he was received into the Conference. His earliest appointments were on
rugged circuits of the western mountains; but he soon became eminent among his brethren, and
occupied the most conspicuous stations in Baltimore, Washington, and elsewhere. He was presiding
elder during many years; a delegate to the General Conference at every session, save two, after 1816,
till his death, and a chief counselor there, though never given to speechmaking. He was a practical
and effective preacher, and gathered into the Church hosts of members. In 1818 his labors in
Baltimore were attended by an extraordinary religious impression, which resulted in the conversion
of about a thousand souls in a few months. He was devoted to all the interests of his denomination,
and especially labored for the endowment of Carlisle College. He persisted steadily in his itinerant
career till his infirmities compelled him to retreat to the honored ranks of his "superannuated"
brethren in 1846, and died in 1858, in the sixty-sixth year of his age and the forty-fourth of his
ministry, exclaiming, "Happy! Happy! peaceful! Tell the Conference all is peace!"
In stature he was tall, slight, but vigorous; he was energetic in his movements, always appearing
to have something to do. In familiar life he was exceedingly agreeable, a good converser, and given
to anecdote, especially respecting the adventurous life of the primitive itinerancy. With his friend,
Alfred Griffith, he was recognized by the Baltimore Conference as one of its chief sages and leaders.
So sound was his judgment, that his clearly expressed opinion was usually deemed decisive of
questions without further argument. He loved Methodism with an enthusiastic affection. In reviewing
his long and self-sacrificing career late in life, he said to his family, "I would rather be a Methodist