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

directions, preaching as far as Buffalo. He reached at last the northernmost tracks of the
ultra-Allegheny itinerants of Pennsylvania, in the region since known as the Erie Conference. In
1809 Glezen Fillmore, a young "exhorter," visited Clarence. "He had joined the Church in
Westmoreland. He went to a place now called Skinnersville, to see a family with whom he had been
acquainted at the East. He was invited to hold a meeting, and left an appointment for the next
Sabbath. On Sunday morning he went, and, on his approach, he saw people wandering about
carelessly; but upon arriving at the place of meeting he found no one there except the family. Wright,
the man of the house, seemed distressed at the disappointment, and, rising under the influence of
considerable excitement, said, 'I cannot stand it.' He went out, and returned with two persons, a man
by the name of Maltby, and his wife. The family and these two constituted the congregation; but
Fillmore, nothing daunted, proceeded with his meeting. Maltby and his wife seemed considerably
impressed. At the close of the exercises Maltby said it had been 'a solemn meeting,' repeating the
words several times. He invited Fillmore to hold another at his house the next Sabbath, to which he
gave his cordial consent. When the time arrived the house was full, and a good religious feeling
prevailed. A revival immediately commenced, and a society was formed. Maltby and his wife were
among the converts, and he became a local preacher. Four of his sons are now members of the Erie
Conference. Grand results often follow what appear to be small causes: Fillmore was licensed to
preach, and continued his labors in a local capacity for the space of nine years, preaching in the
newly opening settlements, and preparing the way for the traveling preachers. This period he
considers as one of the most useful and successful portions of his life." He was to have a prominent
place in the subsequent history of the Church.
In 1805 Thomas Smith, whose notable adventures in New Jersey and more southern regions have
been related, was sent, with Charles Giles, to the Seneca Circuit, which comprised all the country
between the Cayuga and Seneca Lakes, south and west of the latter, and north to Lyons, with few
settlers scattered over it, and they extremely poor. Smith had his usual trials and success in this new
field. On his way to it his life was periled by a highwayman, who attacked him in the Water Gap of
the Blue Mountain. He found Indians still numerous on his circuit, and preached where "the shining
tomahawk and glittering scalping knife" were within sight. He suffered from the diseases of the
country, and at one time "lay six days, on three old chairs," in a log-cabin, sick with fever. He was,
however, a dauntless itinerant. It was of himself that he spoke when, alluding to the sufferings of the
ministry, he recorded that he knew "one that has rode four thousand miles, and preached four
hundred sermons in one year, and laid many nights on wet cabin floors, sometimes covered with
snow through the night, and his horse standing under a pelting storm of snow or rain, and at the end
[2]
of that year received his traveling expenses and four silver dollars of his salary." He held frequent
camp-meetings among the settlers, and pushed forward on his circuit as if determined to conquer the
whole country. Opposers could not stand before him. He assailed them sometimes in quite original
modes of attack. At Lyons lived a highly respectable Methodist, Judge Dorsey, whose wife, Eleanor
Dorsey, was one of those "women of Methodism "who ministered to Asbury and the other earliest
[3]
itinerants in Maryland. The general spirit of emigration had led them to this new country, and their
house was now the home of Methodist preachers. Smith went to Lyons, and says: "Here we had a
respectable society, and a small meeting-house. But the people of Lyons were generally wicked.
They took pleasure in unrighteousness, in deriding the ways of God, and in persecuting the humble
followers of Jesus Christ. They interrupted and insulted us in our religious worship, and on this
evening they were worse than usual. I paused until I got their attention, and then remarked that I