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

"in the wilds of Virginia, where he had his courage and fidelity tested in breasting the dangers and
hardships of a pioneer preacher. His next circuit was the Mattamuskeet, in the lowlands of the state.
Added to the necessary hardships connected with traveling this circuit, it was a very sickly region,
and much dreaded by the itinerant; but as no scenes could disgust or dangers deter the preachers of
those days, wherever, in the providence of God, their lot was cast, Sale went, in the name of his
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Master, and entered upon the work assigned him, ready to die." From these preparatory trials he
went, in 1799, across the mountains to Holston Circuit. During four years he labored indefatigably
in the Holston Mountains and among the Kentucky settlements. In 1803 he passed into the
Northwestern Territory, and now, for nearly a quarter of a century more, he alternates between Ohio
and Kentucky, a successful circuit preacher, a commanding presiding elder. Worn out by his
ministerial labors, he fell at last in his work, in 1827, crowned with the veneration of the Church,
and exclaiming, "My last battle is fought, and the victory sure! Hallelujah!" One of the most eminent
Methodist citizens of the country, who long enjoyed and prized the friendship of this humble but true
evangelist, has recorded an estimate of him, and says: "He was a man of fine presence, of erect and
manly form, and of great personal dignity. He was naturally of a social turn, and had excellent
powers of conversation, though nothing ever fell from his lips that even approached to levity. I was
always struck with the excellent judgment and accurate discrimination which he evinced in his social
intercourse. His mind could not be said to be brilliant, and yet he sometimes produced a very
powerful effect by his preaching. His distinct enunciation, earnest manner, and appropriate and
well-digested thoughts, always secured to him the attention of his audience; but I have sometimes
heard him, when, rising up with the dignity, and in the fullness, of his subject, he seemed to me one
of the noblest personifications of the eloquence of the pulpit. His words were never hurried. Without
the least tendency to extravagance, there was still a luster in his eye, and a general lighting up of his
features that revealed the workings of the spirit within. In some of his more felicitous efforts, I think
I have heard him with as much interest as I have heard any other man. And I never heard him without
being deeply impressed with the conviction that, among all the men known to me at that early period,
I should have selected him as the man to fill up, under all circumstances, the measure of his duty.
He was an eminently useful one, and he adorned every relation that he sustained, and every sphere
that he occupied. His character was so pure that every one felt that it was formed by a close
conformity to the Divine Model." [19]
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