History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

into evil ways. Barbara Heck kept alive the flame of her early love, and, rebuking Embury for his
want of zeal, aroused him to a sense of their spiritual need. In 1766 he opened preaching in his own
house, having but four to attend the first service. They continued their meetings, and the peculiar
services were noised abroad, considerably increasing the attendance. Three musicians from a
neighboring barrack became converted and joined the little company. In February, 1767, they were
surprised, if not alarmed, at the appearance in one of their meetings of a military stranger in full
dress. He soon made himself known as Captain Thomas Webb of the King's service, but also a
soldier of the cross and a spiritual son of John Wesley. He was a local preacher. He was offered their
humble desk or pulpit, and thenceforth became one of the founders of American Methodism. He had
lost his right eye at Louisburg and was wounded in his right arm at Quebec. He was an impassioned
preacher, and on his final return to England often officiated at the Old Foundry, and was a favorite
with Wesley, who makes mention of him in his Journal, for some ten years. He lived to a good old
age. He continued to labor with Embury, and so successful were they, that it was found necessary
to rent a rigging loft sixty feet by eighteen on William Street in 1767. Here they preached thrice a
week until it also became too small for the congregation. Barbara Heck, not behind either of them
in zeal and labors, conceived an economical plan for building a chapel, and it was at once put into
effect. A site was leased on John Street in 1768 and purchased in 1770. They appealed for assistance
to the people, and a stone chapel was built sixty feet in length and forty-two in breadth, faced with
blue plaster, and provided with a fireplace and chimney to avoid the law, as Dissenters were not yet
allowed to erect a church. Embury worked on it with his own hands, being a carpenter by trade. He
dedicated it October 30, 1768. Within two years at least 2000 hearers crowded it and the area in
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front. At this time the city contained about 20,000 inhabitants and the colonies about 3,000,000.
Webb was very generous in its construction. He became an itinerant preacher after his army
retirement with the title and pay of a captain. At Jamaica, L. I., Pemberton, Trenton, Burlington, and
other places in New Jersey he formed classes and established preaching-places. He was the founder
of Methodism in Philadelphia, again started in a sail loft. He aided in the purchase of its first church,
St. George's, in 1770. He preached in New Castle, Wilmington, and on the shores of the Brandywine
in Delaware. In 1772 he returned to England and appealed for missionaries for America, and led
back with him Shadford and Rankin, Pilmoor and Boardman having come in response to his
numerous letters previously. He must be considered the principal founder of the American Methodist
Church, says Stevens, and justly. Embury continued in charge at New York until the arrival of
Pilmoor and Boardman in 1769, when he retired to Salem, in New York, on a small farm. While
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mowing in his field in 1775 he injured himself severely and died suddenly from its effects, aged
forty-five years. He was buried on a neighboring farm; and, after reposing fifty-seven years in his
solitary and unmarked grave, his remains were removed to Ashgrove burial-ground in the vicinage
and the spot properly marked by a monument. Some of his family removed to Canada, whither
Barbara Heck accompanied them and founded Methodism in that province.
Returning to Robert Strawbridge, a character quite as worthy of extended notice claims farther
attention. He did not tarry in New York when he landed, but traveled southward, until he found a
location in the backwoods; for Frederick County, Md., had but recently been reclaimed from savage
invasion. At his conversion his zeal for religion provoked such a storm of persecution that he was
compelled to remove from Drumsnagh, near the river Shannon in Leitrim County, to the county
Sligo, where he was eminently useful as a local preacher, and here he found his devoted young wife.
His name remains embalmed in the memory of its latest generations. Clearing a place on Sam's