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

was going to die. She went to the door to call some near neighbors, but could not speak. She then
went to prayer again, and fell to the floor as one dead; when she came to, she knew God had
sanctified her soul. This caused others to seek the same blessing.
The next preaching day a number fell to the floor. "One man attempted to run off, but God laid
him down at the door." A woman made the same attempt, and fell back into the house as she was
going out of the door. In class several were on the floor: some found peace, and others professed
sanctification. One very wicked woman was arrested by the power of God, and scrambled out of the
door, and laid hold of a cheese press to keep herself from falling. She set off for home; and
concluded it was only a fright from seeing others agitated; but the Spirit of God arrested her again
on her way home. When she reached her house, she threw herself on the bed, and lost her usual
command of herself; and shook until the bed trembled beneath her. The alarmed neighbors gathered
around her; she lay shaking the bed; and then exhorted the people not to live as she had lived she
admonished them for an hour; and many wept, while terror was depicted on the countenance of every
sinner present. She continued two days and nights in this strange way before she was able to get out
of bed. In the evening of the third day she came to the house of Mr. Abbott, and in family prayer the
Lord set her soul at liberty; and she returned home rejoicing in God -- joined society, and continued
faithful for about six months. Then, her husband had a church trial which went against him. She took
umbrage at it, and came no more to meeting. She soon returned to her old practices, and was worse
than ever for cursing, swearing, and blaspheming. About eighteen months after she sickened and
died. In her sickness she sent for Mr. Abbott, who exhorted her to try to turn to God. But she could
not see how God could have mercy on one that had sinned against light, as she had done. She
exhorted the backsliders that were around her to turn to God before it was too late; Mr. Abbott
endeavored to pray with her, but it seemed as if his mouth was stopped; and he had no access to the
throne of grace. He exhorted her to try to pray. She replied, "I have no heart nor power to pray." After
advising her to beg God to give her a heart to pray, he left her and returned home. Her son came after
me saying with tears, "O, do go, for she frightens us so that we are afraid to stay in the house." Again
Mr. Abbott could not go, he sent his daughter Rebecca. She found several of the neighbors there; and
the sick woman pointing with her hand and saying to the bystanders, "Do not you see the devils there
ready to seize my soul and drag it to hell?" Some of them said there are no devils here, she is without
her senses; but she replied, "I have my senses as well as ever I had in my life." She then cried out,
"I am in hell, I am in hell!" Some of them said, "You are not in hell, you are out of your senses." She
replied, "I am not out of my senses; but I feel as much of the torments of the damned as a mortal can
feel in the body!" "Her flesh rotted from her bones; and fell from one of her sides, so that her entrails
might be seen. In this awful state she left the world."
In all the region of country round about Salem, in New Jersey, it appears that Methodism was
introduced through the preaching of Mr. Abbott: he established it in Mannington between 1777 and
1780; he moved into Lower Penn's Neck about the beginning of 1781, and planted Methodism there.
This same year he established preaching at Benjamin Wetherby's at Quinten's Bridge, near Salem.
Here he raised a class this year, or in 1782. Henry Firth and John McClaskey, his brother-in-law,
were chief men in this society. Mr. Wetherby became a zealous laborer in the cause of Methodism,
and afterward fell away. It seems that he was the person that Mr. Abbott performed one of his last
acts of duty to at the burial of Sister Paul, in Salem, in 1796, by "Particularly exhorting him to call
to mind the happy hours they had spent together in days when they rejoiced as fellow laborers in the