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

HISTORY OF THE
METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH
By Abel Stevens
CHAPTER VII
ASBURY AND LEE IN THE EAST
Asbury in the East -- His Views of New England -- At Buxton Conference, Maine -- Great
Religions Excitement -- At Lynn, Mass. -- Characters of Preachers -- Great Revival -- At Canaan,
N. H -- Travels and Labors -- At Boston -- The First Conference there -- at New London, Conn. --
Increasing Prosperity -- Newport, R. I. -- Captain Beale -- At Boston -- Conference at Monmouth,
Me. -- At Pittsfield, Mass. -- At Winchester, N. H. -- Lee Revisits the East -- Scenes on his Route
-- Final Views of New England Methodism -- Deaths of Preachers -- Statistical Progress
Asbury traversed New England each of these years down to the last before that of his death. He
always approached it with peculiar feelings; with mingled repugnance and hopefulness. He seemed
there as in a foreign land, while all the rest of the nation was his familiar domain. Everywhere else
he was welcomed by enthusiastic throngs; there he was repelled, and pursued his solitary journeys
comparatively a stranger, finding refuge in families which were proscribed as heretical by public
opinion, and in "meetings" which were impeached as fanatical "conventicles." Yet he believed that
Methodism would "radiate" over these elder communities. "I feel," he writes, "as if God will work
in these states and give us a great harvest; a glorious work of God will be wrought here. Surely we
shall rise in New England in the next generation." He lived to see the verification of his prediction.
To him the religious life of New England presented an example of the rigid Hebrew legalism,
strangely combined with the speculative dogmatism of the early Greek Church but unrelieved by the
spiritual mysticism of the latter, and nearly destitute of the vital charity and joyousness primitive
faith. Its distinctive theology he detested; it seemed to him to bind, as in iron bands, the souls of the
people; depressing, by its tenets of election and reprobation with uncomplaining but profound
distress, scrupulous, timid, and therefore often the best consciences; inflating the confidence and
Pharisaism of the self-reliant or self-conceited, who assumed their predestination to heaven;
enforcing the morality without the gracious consolation of religion; and giving to the recklessly
immoral an apology for their lives in their very demoralization, their lack of "effectual grace," of "an
effectual call." Devout Angustinian theologians would not indeed admit his logic; such was
nevertheless his honest estimate of the New England Church, and he continually returned to the East,
directing the best energies of Methodism against its traditional beliefs and ecclesiastical stagnancy.
There, more than anywhere else, we have to regret the scantiness of his journals, for there, in his
hardest field, his reflections as well as his facts would be most interesting to us. He re-entered it in
the spring of 1804, and on the fourteenth of July opened the New England Conference at Buxton,
Me. The ordination was held in a wood, where the bishop preached from a heavy heart. He describes
the occasion as "an open time." "The work of God broke forth," he says, "on the right and on the
left." A great sensation spread among the multitude, and before the session closed it was estimated
that fifty persons were converted. Snelling says, "There was a greater display of divine power at this
Conference than any I ever attended. Many of the people were wrought upon in a very powerful
manner; but, as is generally the case, there was some opposition. At one meeting a man, appearing