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

Dunkers' meetings, but it was all German, which she did not understand. She next visited the Roman
Catholics, but heard nothing but mass said in an unknown tongue. Lastly she attended a Quaker
meeting, but there was nothing but solemn presence. Doomed to disappointment, she was compelled
to fall back upon her books and private devotions, and be a Church in herself.
Soon after her return to Salisbury, N. C., at the close of the war, it was announced that there
would be preaching in a school house by a new kind of people, called Methodists. She knew nothing
about that people, either good or bad, but greatly rejoiced at the prospect of hearing the gospel
preached. She went early to the place of preaching, and was expecting to see a minister resembling
the old Church parsons; but judge of her surprise, when, instead of a stout, good-looking, finely
dressed gentleman, with gown and surplice, in silk stockings and silver buckles, in walked a slender,
delicate young man, dressed in homespun cotton jeans. Though plainly attired, she perceived in his
countenance unusual solemnity and goodness. The preacher was the Rev. Beverly Allen.
The impressions made upon her mind and heart by this sermon -- the first she ever heard from a
Methodist minister -- have never been effaced from her memory. The subject was experimental
religion, explained and enforced. To her surprise, the preacher unfolded her entire experience, and
seemed to give in detail all the exercises of her mind, from her first conviction for sin, until she was
made happy in the love of God. Not till then did she know that she enjoyed religion; although happy,
she did not fully understand why. Her experience exactly agreeing with the word preached, she
concluded that the preacher, an entire stranger, could not have known so much about her, had not
God revealed it to him. At his third visit he formed a small class, of which she was one. Such was
the introduction of Methodism into Salisbury, N. C., in the summer of 1783.
In 1786, Bishop Asbury held Conference in Salisbury. Twenty-four preachers attended this
Conference, and seven of them, nearly one-third of the whole number, were entertained in the house
of Mr. And Mrs. Fishburn. The truly Christian deportment of these ministers of the Lord Jesus
Christ, with their preaching, was profitable, in a high degree, to many, and especially to Mrs.
Fishburn. About 1789, Mr. Fishburn returned to Maryland; but, soon after he went to Pennsylvania,
and settled in Bedford county In 1791, where Mrs. Fishburn has lived for the last sixty-four years.
In 1791, there was not, to her knowledge, a church of any description in this county; and she
remained here fourteen years before she heard a sermon by a Methodist preacher. During all this
period, her only place of worship was her closet, or a pine thicket, to which she repaired to pour out
her soul to God in prayer, as most of this time she was living in a cabin in the woods.
She moved to a place in this county called Bloody Run, deriving its name, in all likelihood, from
the melancholy circumstance that a party of whites had been massacred by Indians, and the water of
the run became stained with human blood. Here there were a few families, but very wicked for there
was not a symptom of religion or morality among them. Living in the midst of these people, without
the means of grace, where no Sabbath was observed, and being opposed by her husband, also, she
became greatly tempted and discouraged; and at last so far yielded to the temptation as to neglect her
closet and Bible more and more, until she found her religious comfort was gone, and she had fallen
from her state of acceptance with God. She soon discovered her loss, mourned over it, became very
miserable, and knew not how to regain her forfeited peace.