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

the toil and sufferings, of another year. I had no sad forebodings of the ills which might befall the
Church; it is the Lord's, not mine. Nor did I say to myself; What will become of wife and children?
These I have not. But what am I to learn from these ills and aches? 'These are counselors that
feelingly persuade me what I am.' I am no longer young; I cannot go out as at other times. I must take
the advice of friends who say,' Spare thyself:' I have ridden about five thousand five hundred miles;
and in the midst of all I am comforted with the prospects of the Western Conference. We have added
three thousand members this year, have formed Cumberland into a district, and have sent a
missionary to the Natchez." He reaches South Carolina again, having completed six thousand miles
of travel in about a year and a quarter.
In August, 1803, we find him pushing westward of the Pennsylvania Alleghenies. He passed
through the Redstone settlement, to "which he gave the preference over almost any in America" for
its "good soil, lofty timber, iron and coal," and reached Pittsburgh, where he preached for the first
time. Through Northwestern Virginia he penetrated into Ohio, his first visit there. On the 24th of
September he was at Chilicothe, the guest of Governor Tiffin, and preached in the Courthouse.
Before the month was ended he had passed into Kentucky, and on the first of October was preaching,
with Barnabas McHenry, at Mount Gerizim, near Cynthiana, where, on Sunday, he proclaimed his
message in the woods to about two thousand people, and on the next day, the third, "we entered,"
he says, "fully upon our Conference work; but I had to preach nevertheless. We had preaching every
day; and the people continued singing and prayer, night and day, with little intermission. On
Wednesday the meeting closed. We hope there were twenty souls converted to God, besides five who
are reported to have been converted at a family meeting. Our Conference ended on Thursday the 6th.
I found my mind devoutly fixed on God. I accomplished two things in Conference: namely, 1.
Formed the Ohio circuits into a district; 2. Sent two missionaries to Natchez, and one to the Illinois."
We have had a transient view, the best we can now get, of this session in Jacob Young's account of
it. The bishop and Snethen hastened on through Kentucky and Tennessee. On reaching Claiborne
Court-house, in the latter, after a desperate day's travel, he gives a fuller than usual detail of the life
of the times in the West, and of his episcopal comforts and dignities there. "What a road have we
passed!" he exclaims, "certainly the worst on the whole continent, even in the best weather; yet, bad
as it was, there were four or five hundred crossing the rude hills while we were. I was powerfully
struck with the consideration, that there were at least as many thousand emigrants annually from east
to west: we must take care to send preachers after these people. We have made one thousand and
eighty miles from Philadelphia; and now, what a detail of sufferings might I give, fatiguing to me
to write, and perhaps to my friends to read! A man who is well mounted will scorn to complain of
the roads, when he sees men, women, and children, almost naked, paddling bare-foot and
bare-legged along, or laboring up the rocky hills, while those who are best off have only a horse for
two or three children to ride at once. If these adventurers have little or nothing to eat, it is no
extraordinary circumstance; and not uncommon to encamp in the wet woods after night -- in the
mountains it does not rain, but pours. I too have my sufferings, perhaps peculiar to myself: pain and
temptation; the one of the body, and the other of the spirit; no room to retire to -- that in which you
sit common to all, crowded with women and children, the fire occupied by cooking, much and
long-loved solitude not to be found, unless you choose to run into the rain in the woods: six months
in the year I have had, for thirty-two years, occasionally, to submit to what will never be agreeable
to me; but the people, it must be confessed, are among the kindest souls in the world. Yet kindness
will not make a crowded log-cabin, twelve feet by ten, agreeable: without are cold and rain; and