History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

courtesy due him, was thought too pronounced to be passed uncriticized, and open exceptions were
made to what appeared invidious comparisons of the two systems. Clarke and Watson came to the
rescue and made cogistic remarks upon the American Episcopacy as "of a truly apostolic and
primitive character." He was delighted with his reception, and made a most favorable impression by
his eloquent preaching and social intercourse, for he was a scholarly Christian and a courteous
gentleman. The almost inspired vaticination he made in his address as an expression of human
forecast deserves embalmment here. He said: "We hope the time is not far distant when we shall join
hands on the Asiatic shores of the Pacific Ocean. We are constantly advancing in our labors toward
the West and you are extending to the East, not only on the continent, but over the islands of the sea.
Is it chimerical, then, to suppose that at some future day we shall have compassed the earth and
girded it round with glorious bands of gospel truth? Oh, no; faith says it shall be done." And it has
been done. The sun in his course is now followed by Methodist evangelism around the world.
This leads to consideration, briefly, of the missionary movements of the Wesleyan Conference
for this decade. From the beginning it was a characteristic; for a heart religion cannot be content with
a concealment of its treasure. If the Great Commission had not been uttered, it must "go into all the
world" and tell the marvelous story. Methodism stood for universal evangelization, and it has proven
true to it to this day. Beginning in the West Indies, under that devoted layman Gilbert, in 1760, and
in Nova Scotia, by Coughlin, in 1765, it came to America in 1760-66, through Strawbridge and
Embury, local preachers. Dr. Coke, the personification of missionary zeal and activity, projected a
mission for Asia as early as 1786; also in the Dutch, Swedish, and French islands. Notably, at St.
Eustatius, for which Coke ventured to ordain William Mahy in 1791, the only ordination he ever
attempted out of America, and for which he was severely rebuked by the Wesleyan Conference of
1792, so little virtue and authority did they attach to Wesley's third ordination of Coke and others;
but nothing dampened his ardor for the cause of missions, neither rebuke nor rebuff nor failure could
deter him from pushing the work. In 1796 a small colony was dispatched by him to Africa, but it
failed. It was fitting that this man should wind up his eventful career by becoming a missionary
himself and dying in pursuit of his great India mission.
His most successful labors were in the West Indies. Here he fairly revels amid spiritual trophies
and aggressive conquest. In his "History of the West Indies" he gives the religion experience of the
blacks, so genuine in spirit and so devoted in life. He bears testimony to their wonderful fidelity to
their masters amid uprisings and plots. Restrictive legislation was attempted in Jamaica, but an
appeal to the Home government thwarted the design. Wilberforce's great Emancipation Act was
pressing to a successful issue, and in 1807 it was proclaimed for all England's dependencies, dating
from the 1st day of August, 1834, $100,000,000 being paid to the masters for this species of
property. Neither Coke nor the Conference behind him gave any countenance to inflammatory
appeals or indiscreet measures by the missionaries, Stevens quotes from the official instructions:
"Promote the moral and religious improvement of the slaves without in the least degree, in public
or in private, interfering with their civil condition." He italicizes a sentence of his own: "No
Methodist slave was ever proved guilty of incendiarism or rebellion for more than seventy years,
namely, from 1760 to 1834." In 1791 there were Methodists in West Indies: 12 missionaries and
5645 members; when Coke died, 1814, 31 missionaries and 17,000 members; in 1839, 83
missionaries and 42,928 members.