A History Of The Rise Of Methodism In America - Media Sabda Org

A HISTORY
OF THE
RISE OF METHODISM IN AMERICA
by
John Lednum
INTRODUCTION
Believing that Introductions are often found in books in compliance with the spirit which bows
down to servile fashion, we hesitated to comply with this "mistress of fools," as Mr. Wesley calls
fashion; nevertheless, as it will give us an opportunity to present to the reader some items of
information which we did not possess in time to put in the work when it first went to press, we will
now furnish them as part and parcel of an Introduction.
If history implies the consecutive relation of events, after inquiry, research, and examination, all
this we have done: we have made the best use of books, periodicals, papers, and living people, that
we could. We have endeavored to throw together as many names of men and women, as well as
facts, as it has been in our power to do: that the reader might find in one volume the names of the
leading friends of Methodism in America during its first age in this country, of these names,
hundreds, not to say thousands, will be found. All that class which has been known as itinerant
preachers during the first twenty or twenty-five years of Methodism in America, with such a detail
of their labors, sufferings, and success, as we could collect, is given. We have paid equal attention
to that class which has been known as lay or local preachers, to whom Methodism is indebted to the
utmost that liberality will allow: they having been pioneers in a thousand instances. With equal
pleasure we have recorded the names, virtues, and usefulness, of hundreds of the first race of
Methodists in America, who were not known as preachers in their day. By making a permanent
record of their names, we have, in part, accomplished our aim: by presenting a religious movement,
in which Divine influence peers out ever and anon, we have sought our highest end.
Every incident deemed interesting to the reader, which we could collect, we have given. All that
we thought worth reading, in the already published accounts of the early laborers, -- such men as
Strawbridge, Embury, Webb, Williams, Boardman, Pilmoor, King, Asbury, Wright, Rankin,
Shadford, Watters, Gatch, Abbott, Garrettson, Rodda, Dempster, Lee, Ware, Vasey, Whatcoat, and
Coke, synchronizing with the times through which the narrative runs, will be found in a condensed
form, or a quotation. Other preachers, to the number of almost two hundred, have received a shorter
or longer notice.
We had supposed that Captain Webb was the first Methodist who preached in Philadelphia,
excepting Mr. Whitefield. Tradition says there was one before him. Mr. Adam Much, a member of
the Wharton St. M. E. Church, informed us that he knew an African, whose name was Peter Dennis,
who declared that he heard a follower of Mr. Wesley preach in a stable or a shed, near Dock Creek,
before Captain Webb began to visit Philadelphia. This Methodist was a ship-carpenter who had come
to this port, and Peter Dennis took much interest in proclaiming that he had heard a man of his own
calling preach.