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

its exemplars, and that fact expresses more of the philosophy of its history than any other except the
of the "baptism from on high." There is no human power above that of character. The character, not
the genius, of Washington has made him chief among the military or civic sons of men. The
character of a military leader can make a whole army an array of heroes or a melee of cowards. The
army of the Shenandoah was rolling back shattered and hopeless, but when its chief arrived on his
foaming steed, after that long and solitary ride, it stood forth again invincible; the drawing of his
single sword before it, flashed lightning along all its bayonets and banners, and it dealt back the blow
which sent the enemy reeling irrecoverably to destruction. The greatest of talents is character, and
character is the most attainable of talents.
Had John Wesley, when his cause was somewhat established, retired from his self-sacrificing
labors, and acted the dignified, well-endowed prelate in City Road parsonage, his whole system
would soon have fallen through. By traveling more, laboring more, and suffering more than any of
his preachers, he kept them all heroically traveling, laboring, suffering. Asbury kept Methodism astir
throughout this nation by hastening from Georgia to Massachusetts on horseback, yearly, for nearly
half a century, preaching daily. None of his preachers exceeded him in even the humblest labors of
the ministry. His power was military, and he used it with military energy; but, as has been shown,
he imposed on the ministry no task that he did not himself exemplify. Under his command the
Conferences moved as columns in the field of battle, for they knew that their leader would be in the
thickest fight, would be chief in suffering and labor as in authority and honor. Asbury's daily life was
a challenge to the humblest of them to endure all things. It became a point of chivalric honor among
them to evade no labor or suffering; they consented to be tossed from Baltimore to Boston, from
Boston to beyond the Alleghenies. How would all this have been changed if Asbury, at his episcopal
ordination, had housed himself in Baltimore, reposing on his dignity, and issuing his commands,
without exemplifying them! The Church should understand, then, that its great men must be great
workers in whatever sphere they occupy; that this is a requisite of the age, and has always been a
requisite of Methodism. An itinerant superintendency or episcopacy has ever been a favorite idea of
its people. They have instinctively perceived its importance, and the founders of the Church declared
in its constitutional law that the General Conference shall not "change or alter any part or rule of our
government so as . . . to destroy the plan of our itinerant superintendency." The unity of the
denomination, the fellowship of the Churches, their cooperation in great common undertakings, and
the self-sacrificing spirit of the ministry generally, have been largely attributable to this fact of their
system, a fact peculiar to Methodism among Episcopal Churches.
With changes of time must come changes of policy, if not changes of what have been deemed
fundamental opinions. Methodism has, through most of its history, been taking on new adaptations.
Unrestricted by any dogmatism whatever in ecclesiastical polity, and less restricted, as we have seen,
by theological creeds, than any other evangelical Church, it stands unequaled its future career. That
it will change, that it has changed, cannot be doubted; but devoting itself, as it has been increasingly,
to the elevation of its people, to education, literature, liberty, civil and religious, missions, the
amelioration of its own acknowledged defects, and all charitable works, there would seem to be, not
only possible, but feasible to it, a destiny hardly less grand than its history.
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