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

The 175th, at Monmouth, in the Province of Maine, on the 1st of July.
From the first to the last of these conferences was 9 months, which made it more inconvenient
for the preachers to get the annual minutes and circulate them among the people, than it had been
for some years before.
At these conferences we took in several new circuits: Broad River, in Georgia; Fredericksburg,
in Virginia; West Wheeling, near the Ohio river; Broad-Kiln and St. Martins, on the Eastern Shore;
Dauphin, in Pennsylvania; Cape-May, in New Jersey; Ulster and Weston, in New York; Adams and
Grand Isle, in the Pittsfield district; Athens, in the New London district; Lunenburg, Bridgewater,
and Woodstock, in Vershire district; Poplin, in New Hampshire; Hallowell and Falmouth, in the
Province of Maine. Our borders were greatly enlarged this year; we took in many new circuits, and
divided several of the old ones: and some change was made in the names of others.
I have been under the necessity of mentioning the names of some of the new circuits as belonging
to particular districts, without being able to tell what state they were in: owing to a change in the
form of the annual minutes. For some years back we took the numbers in society by states, and this
year for the first time they were taken by districts; of course we cannot tell how many members we
have in each state.
We admitted on trial near 70 young preachers this year, which was a pretty good supply for all
our circuits. We lost 8 preachers only out of the traveling connection, and each of them located. We
were more favoured in this particular than we had been for a long time; so few located: and there was
not a death among all the itinerant preachers.
We added 13,860 members to our society this year. This was the most prosperous year that the
Methodists had ever seen in the United States. However, there was one year, 1790, in which we
added almost 500 more; but the number of young preachers this year was considerably greater; and
withal, we kept so many of the old preachers in the work, that we might well say "The Lord is our
helper and we will not fear."
The work had spread through the middle states from the time of holding our general conference
in 1800, and had been going on for some time in Kentucky and Tennessee states. There was scarcely
any part of the country where the Methodist preachers traveled and laboured, in which there was not
a revival of religion.
The accounts given in the newspapers and in private letters, both by ministers and private
christians, of the number of souls converted at Camp-Meetings, and other meetings, far exceeded
any thing of the kind that I had ever heard of before in the United States.
In the south parts of Virginia where our societies had been kept in confusion for some years, by
a divisive party that separated from us; even there the Lord was pleased to pour out his Spirit upon
the people, and to cause Zion to lift up her drooping head. Old Christians became closely united; and
many sinners were brought into the favour and love of God. In that revival, it was remarkable to see