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

evil, it was providentially permitted as a means of directing universally the attention of the western
population to the consideration of religious subjects. Camp-meetings began, however, to fall into
disfavor. For some years there were few if any held in Kentucky; but being still deemed a great
convenience for the dispersed population, they were restored with improved order. State legislatures
enacted, at the instance of the Methodists, good laws for them, and they have continued to be a sort
of American "institution" -- summer religious festivals, not only in the West, but in all parts of the
nation.
I have already had occasion to notice the deaths of some of the most prominent itinerants of the
West. Besides these, the obituary of the Minutes commemorates William Lotspeich, a German, born
in Virginia, who, without extraordinary abilities, was a sound, studious, and useful preacher, and,
from 1803 to 1813, traveled in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Ohio, and died in the latter year, saying,
"Tell my old friends all is well, all is well." George Askin, an Irishman, began to travel in 1801,
labored successfully in Western Pennsylvania, Western Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio, and expired
in 1816, exclaiming, "My God is mine, and I am his. I have been in the dark mountains, but King
Jesus has given me complete victory. Glory be to God!" Hezekiah Harriman, of Baltimore, joined
the itinerancy in 1795, labored in Western Virginia, Western Pennsylvania, and Kentucky down to
1803, when he was sent to help Gibson in the Natchez country, and arrived in time to attend him in
death. In 1805 Harriman himself was diseased by the climate, and had to embark from New Orleans
for Philadelphia. He died on Baltimore Circuit in 1807, "testifying that he had no fear of death."
Toward the end of this period western Methodism, essentially a system of missionary
evangelization, became more distinctively missionary, by turning its attention to the aborigines,
thereby prompting at last the organization of the Missionary Society of the Church. Remarkably
providential events gave it this new direction. While Marcus Lindsey was preaching on a Sabbath,
in 1815, in Marietta, Ohio, a Negro addicted to drunkenness, and on his way to the river at the time
to drown himself, heard the voice of the itinerant, went to the door of the Church, and, after listening
to the sermon, returned home with an awakened conscience. On the next Sunday he joined the
society, and his neighbors soon saw that he was indeed a regenerated man. He endeavored, in a
humble way, to do good, and resolved at last to go among the Indian tribes a witness for the gospel.
He could read, and was a superior singer. With his Bible and hymn-book he traveled to the
Delawares, on the Muskingum, thence to a tribe near Pipetown, on the Sandusky, thence to another
tribe on the Upper Sandusky. In some places he was well received, in others fiercely repelled, and
in peril of martyrdom by the tomahawk; but he usually allayed the violence of the savages by his
melodious hymns, or by falling on his knees in prayer, an attitude which the Indians revered with
wondering awe. On the Upper Sandusky he found, among the wigwams of the Wyandottes, a captive
Negro, Jonathan Pointer, who had been taken by them in Virginia when a child, and who could act
as his interpreter. His first congregation consisted only of an old Indian man, "Big Tree," and an aged
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Indian woman, named Mary. But he soon had the whole clan under his influence, and thus went
forth, from the first settlement in the Northwestern Territory, the first American Methodist
"missionary," John Stewart, and he an African, the founder of that series of aboriginal missions
which has since been extended over most of the Indian countries, which has rescued, amid the
general decline of the tribes, thousands of immortal souls, and which opened the whole "missionary"
career of the denomination.