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

extraordinary learning, of tireless labor through a protracted life, and of most genial character. He
was born in Ireland, in 1792, where he was early brought into the Church by Wesley's itinerants.
Believing himself divinely called to preach, he studied assiduously, and prepared himself for college,
but was refused admission to Dublin University because he could not subscribe its theological tests.
He came to the United States a local preacher in 1814, and plunged immediately into the woods of
Ohio. In 1819 the Ohio Conference received him on probation, and sent him, with Thomas A.
Morris, (afterward bishop,) to Zanesville Circuit, under the presiding eldership of Jacob Young. The
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next year he appears in our present field on the Erie Circuit. For years he was a principal founder
of the Church as circuit preacher and presiding elder in these regions, and one year he spent as
missionary among the Upper Sandusky Indians. But his superior education fitted him for more
exigent services. From 1827 to 1831 he was Professor of Languages in Madison College, which
pertained to the Pittsburgh Conference. After presiding two years more on Uniontown District, he
was appointed editor of the Pittsburgh Conference Journal; in 1836 editor of the Western Christian
Advocate, at Cincinnati; in 1848 presiding elder of Cincinnati District; in 1852 again editor of the
Western Christian Advocate; in 1850 president of Iowa Wesleyan University; in 1860 editor of the
Central Christian Advocate, at St. Louis, where he courageously maintained the loyal party during
the war of the rebellion, while surrounded with and menaced by treason. He subsequently served the
Iowa Wesleyan University till the infirmities of age required him to retire in 1866.
Besides his fragmentary writings, (almost innumerable editorials and other contributions to the
periodical literature of the Church,) he has written "Delineations of Roman Catholicism," a standard
work, republished in England; "Sinfulness of American Slavery," an exhaustive investigation of the
subject; and the "History of the Great Secession" of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, from
the parent body in 1844, a large volume, in which the history of that momentous proceeding and of
the antecedent ecclesiastical controversy on slavery is thoroughly given.
Alfred Brunson was one of his successful co-laborers in the Erie country. He was born in
Connecticut in 1793, and converted in 1809 at Carlisle, Penn., whither he had gone " a runaway
apprentice " from New England, a wayward youth, like so many others whom the powerful
ministrations of Methodism arrested and converted into useful men. He was brought into the Church
under the labors of Jacob Gruber, returned to Connecticut, purchased the time of his apprenticeship,
joined Jesse Lee's first eastern class, and was licensed to exhort in 1810. In 1812 he moved to Ohio,
spent a year in the army under General Harrison, was licensed to preach in 1815 by Jacob Young,
and called out to travel, by Finley, in 1818, when he formed the Huron Circuit, Ohio. In 1819 he was
sent to the Erie Circuit by Swayze, and was signally successful, reporting an increase of three
hundred members. In 1820 he was received into the Ohio Conference, and appointed to Mahoning
Circuit. During these early years he laboriously extended the denomination, forming many new
societies. He was subsequently located for some time, but resumed the itinerary, and after serving
the Church thirteen years "with distinguished ability on circuits and stations" in remoter parts of the
West, reappeared on the scene of his first travels as presiding elder. In 1835 he was transferred to
the Illinois Conference, and, placing his family at Prairie du Chien, "spent several years as a
missionary among the Indians on the Upper Mississippi; then was presiding elder a while, then state
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legislator, then returned to the regular work of the ministry." He was chaplain in the army in 1862,
and retired to the superannuated ranks in 1864, "a veteran of long and useful services."