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

Master. From these blessed worthies I learned that saving of souls is the true work of a missionary,
and felt somewhat ashamed that I so little resembled men who appeared as much dead to the world
as though they had been the inhabitants of another planet. The bishops, Asbury and Whatcoat, were
plain, simple, venerable persons, both in dress and manners. Their costume was that of former times,
the color drab, the waistcoat with large laps, and both coat and waistcoat without any collar; their
plain stocks and low-crowned, broad-brimmed hats bespoke their deadness to the trifling ornaments
of dress. In a word, their appearance was simplicity itself. They spoke but little, and appeared utterly
averse to the frivolous compliments of the world. They were perfect antipodes to 'the thing that
mounts the rostrum with a skip,' and had something truly apostolic in their general demeanor. I felt
impressed with awe in their presence, and soon perceived that they had established themselves in
the esteem and veneration of their brethren; not by the trappings of office, or the pomp and splendor
of episcopal parade, but by their vast labors, self-denying simplicity, and disinterested love. These
obtained for them the homage of the heart; they were the first in office, because they were first in
zeal. Most of the preachers appeared to be young men, yet ministerial labor had impressed its
withering seal upon their countenances. I cannot contemplate, without astonishment, the great work
God has performed in the United States by means, humanly speaking, so utterly unlikely. Methodism
has spread throughout the whole extent of this vast country. Along its mighty lakes and sylvan
solitudes, where the population is but thinly scattered, circuits have been formed, chapels built, and
the remote settlements, out of the reach of regular pastoral help, have greatly benefited by the visits
and labors of the preachers. It is in America we see Methodism in its grandest form. All is here upon
a scale of magnitude equal to the grandeur of the lakes, rivers, forests, and mountains of the country.
In England Methodism is like a river calmly gliding on; here it is a torrent rushing along, and
sweeping all away in its course. Methodism in England is the Methodism of Wesley, methodical,
intelligent, and neat; in America it resembles Asbury, it has more roughness and less polish. The
good they have done to the blacks is beyond calculation, and the new settlements in different parts
of the interior, without such a ministry, might have degenerated into heathens. Methodism has been
a peculiar blessing to this new world, which, having no religious establishment, is in many of its
remote parts more dependent on such a ministry than can well be conceived by those who never
visited the country. Many thousands of the settlers would have been left to precarious and contingent
religious instruction, had not the Methodist preachers, with an alacrity and zeal worthy the apostolic
age, spread themselves abroad in every direction, and become every man's servant for Christ's
sake." [2]
Of the twenty-four itinerants who died in the field, in this period, we have already noticed
Hezekiah C. Wooster, the Canadian pioneer, Tobias Gibson, the Southwestern founder and martyr,
and William Ormond, the Southern "abolitionist," who fell by the yellow fever. That pestilence
prevailed along the Atlantic coast from the South even as far north as Portsmouth, Me., spreading
terror everywhere. It desolated Philadelphia in 1793, and reappeared in the North in 1798. Asbury,
returning from New England, wrote, in September of the latter year: "The fever is breaking out again
in Portsmouth, and it is awful in Philadelphia. It seemeth as if the Lord would humble or destroy that
city, by stroke after stroke, until they acknowledge God. Very serious appearances of this fever are
now in New York." Later he wrote: "Most awful times in Philadelphia and New York, citizens flying
before the fever as if it were the sword. I now wait the providence of God to know which way to go."
The General Conference had hitherto been held in winter or autumn, but in 1800 it met, for the first
time, in May, through fear of a return of the plague, though it had been appointed for the autumn,