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

should not wonder if Lyons should be visited on the morrow in a way that it never had been before,
and perhaps never would be again to the end of time. We then had quietness to the close of the
meeting. When the congregation was dismissed, and I had come out of the house, the people
gathered around me, and with one voice cried out, 'For God's sake, tell us what is to happen here
tomorrow!' I replied, 'Let tomorrow speak for itself.' I went home with Judge Dorsey, a short distance
from the town. After breakfast the next day I said to Mrs. Dorsey, 'I wish you to go with me into
Lyons this morning, as there are some families to which I cannot get access without you.' She, being
acquainted with the place, readily consented. At nine o'clock A. M. we entered the town. Scores from
the country were already there, and the place was in commotion. We went to the house of Mr. _____,
where we were politely received. I knew if we could storm that castle the day was ours. After
conversing some time, I remarked that Mrs. Dorsey and myself were on a visit to Lyons, and, if it
were agreeable, we would pray before we parted. 'By all means, Mr. Smith; by nil means, sir.' Before
prayer was over there were scores of people at the door, and by this time the order of the day began
to be understood, and they that feared God were at their post, coming up to the help of the Lord
against the mighty. We then went, in large procession, from house to house, entering every door in
order, and praying for the souls of the families. Our little band soon increased to some three or four
hundred. When we came near the tavern, where we had been so derided, it was inquired, 'Will they
admit us?' But the doors and windows being open, we entered in, and was there ever such a shout
while storming Lucifer's castle? At four o'clock in the afternoon we called a halt to see what was
done, and, storming a circle on the green, the new converts were invited within the circle, when
thirty-two came in, who that day had found the pearl of great price, Christ in them the hope of glory.
These thirty-two, and eight more, were added to the Church of God on that afternoon. Thanks be to
God, this was another good day's work in the Lord's vineyard. This meeting produced a pleasing
change in Lyons, and Methodism gained a footing in that place it never had before. To God be the
glory!"
So rapidly had it spread through these interior regions that in 1810 Asbury organized it in a new
Conference. Hitherto its territory had been strangely divided among the New York, Philadelphia, and
Baltimore Conferences. It was now to have unity, and to speedily grow into one of the strongest
bodies of the denomination, and to yield in our day five Conferences. On the twentieth of July the
preachers of the Susquehanna, Cayuga, and two Canada Districts, were convened at the barn of
Judge Dorsey, in Lyons, and there formed the new organization, comprising all their recent territory,
except Lower Canada. Asbury and McKendree presided. Increased efficiency was thus immediately
given to it work. Its three districts, thirty circuits, and ten thousand seven hundred members of 1810
increased, by the end of the present period, to eight districts, seventy-four circuits and nearly
twenty-four thousand members, more than doubling all its forces in a decade. It included Canada
during the whole period.
In the latter country now appeared, (in 1805,) for the first time, two very important men, Henry
Ryan and William Case. The former we have already met in Vermont, where he began his ministry
in 1800, an energetic Irishman, and one of the sturdiest itinerants of his day. William Case will ever
rank as one of the noblest acquisitions of the ministry. Known most generally as the "Apostle to the
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Canadian Indians," he was, nevertheless, a New Englander, born at Swansea, Mass., in 1780. He
was converted in 1803, received into the New York Conference in 1805, and, being young and
zealous, was forthwith sent to Canada. He was subsequently tossed about for years in the Province