History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

preacher of those days, and all the juniors as non-voters in the Conference, and they always made
a large minority, occupied themselves in soul-saving, with a living experience of saving grace in
their hearts, and a sublime gospel of justification by faith under a witnessing Spirit. The terrors of
the law were preached with stentorian lungs — terrors of fervid lightning as from a gaping hell to
the unawakened sinners to whom such fiery declamation was a strange revelation, and they cried out
in repentant throes, and fell prostrate under the "power," so that Pentecostal scenes were revived and
of frequent occurrence, as the preacher with tearful eyes and profound emotion invited these seekers
to the Saviour, and they entered into the joys of the new birth with exulting shouts of praise which
left lifelong impressions under the sealing of the Holy Ghost. They preached for immediate effects,
and their faith was not disappointed. The "revival" followed the track of the itinerant around his
circuit of hundreds of miles, with preaching every day and three times on Sabbath, with as many
classes to lead and prayer-meetings to hold. And then a wide-awake lookout was kept for promising
converts among the youths, who found their "call to preach," and they came up to Conference in
groups of fifties and sixties to replenish the more slowly depleting ranks as the veterans dropped on
the field or retired to win a livelihood out of the soil for a growing family, and at the same time
beating every bush in all their vicinage for stray sinners. The preacher was welcomed to the homes
of the people with reverence, and the best they had was at his service, even though that best consisted
of a heap of deer or other animal skins in the corner of the house loft, and jerked venison graced the
rural table. He was an authority in the household, and came to exercise it as he grew into
consequence, and earned his way by a like reverence and obedience to his "preacher in charge," and
the presiding elder, and the awesome Bishop, as he knew full well, if at all aspiring, that these were
the steps to the throne.
It was a unique system, as powerful for evil in this educational trend as it was for good in its
coercive and cohesive force. For the most part the great leaders of the American Methodistic
movement were sincerely of opinion that the "general superintendency" and the round and round
circuit of the preachers, under the absolute leadership of Asbury, had all the virtue of its successes.
His power to appoint the preachers, where, when, and how he wished, he guarded most jealously to
this end. He honestly believed that if he were divested of it he "would no more be able to send
missionaries to the Western States and Territories in proportion to their rapid population. The grand
circulation of ministers would be at an end. The surplus of preachers in one Conference could not
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be drawn out to supply the deficiencies of others." It was one of the arguments unanswerable in
its day used by Bishops Coke and Asbury in favor of the extremist interpretation of the powers
vested in them. And yet nothing is more evident from the early Conference records and traditional
remains that, when forlorn missions were demanded, appeals were made for volunteers and
responses were sure to be made, evidencing that the moving quality after all was not the Bishop's
power, but the constraining love of souls, that animated these heroic men. And the administration
of those days is not wanting in plentiful examples of arbitrary differences of treatment in the
disposition of these itinerants. Colbert, one of the early preachers, tells that Sylvester Hutchinson,
a powerful and acceptable preacher of his times, was left off the minutes and without appointment
by Asbury, without the consent of the Conference, while he was on a visit to his childhood's home.
Colbert says, "Finding on his return that his name was dropped, he remonstrated with Asbury and
offered to continue in the ministry. Mr. Asbury finally offered him a circuit on which he was not
acceptable. There was also another preacher who was not very acceptable where he had been sent,
and Hutchinson and he proposed to Asbury that they should be exchanged; but this was refused, and,