A Short History Of The Methodists... - Media Sabda Org

Supposed to be in Kentucky, Tennessee and those circuits that sent in no account to me, about 60
In all 850 local preachers, some of them are only licensed to preach, others of them are ordained
deacons; and many of them were formerly in the traveling connection, and are elders in the church.
In 1799, we had only 6 conferences, and they were begun in the South.
The 148th conference was held in Charleston, on the 1st of January 1799.
The 149th, at Jones's chapel, Virginia, on the 9th of April.
The 150th, at Bethel Academy, Kentucky, on the 1st of May.
The 151st, in Baltimore, on the 1st of May.
The 152d, in Philadelphia, on the 6th of June.
The 153d, in New-York, on the 19th of June.
It was a little more than six months from the beginning to the end of these conferences. The
minutes were soon circulated among the people; at which both the preachers and people were much
pleased; as they could see where the preachers were stationed; and knew who were dead or located,
before the close of the year.
At these conferences we took in about forty young preachers upon trial. But we lost almost as
many out of the traveling connection. 29 preachers located, and three died. Those who died, were
John Norman Jones, William Wilkerson, and Hezekiah Calvin Worster.
Mr. Jones was a native of Virginia, and had been a traveling preacher upwards of eight years. He
was a man of great zeal, and preached with much animation. He was a very plain man in his dress
and manners. He was a man of afflictions and weakness of body, and almost worn-out with his
sufferings, yet he was unwilling to leave the work of God; and when unable to travel through the
changing seasons of the south, he was stationed first in George-town, and then in Charleston: in
which places he shewed himself to be a Christian, and a minister of Christ. In his last affliction, he
appeared to have an unshaken confidence in God, through Jesus Christ. He died in the city of
Charleston, in the state of South Carolina, in 1798.
William Wilkerson, was a native of Virginia; he entered as an itinerant preacher in 1793, and
closed his useful life in Gloucester county in the same state in 1798, with a short illness of a bilious
fever. When he was first taken with the fever, he had a strong impression on his mind that his
sickness would be unto death. Of course he manifested no desire for men or means in that case. He
was from all that we could discover in his life and death, a good minister of Jesus Christ.
Hezekiah Calvin Worster was admitted as an itinerant preacher in 1793. After traveling in a few
circuits in the states of Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey, he offered himself a missionary