History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

date — " We have ridden two hundred miles since we left New York, and have preached every day,
and the preachers there are hardly starting to their stations, but they have wives." And now a touch
of nature of which the whole world is kin: "We stopped at Dickson's, where I gave ninety dollars for
a mare to supply the place of poor Spark, which I sold for twenty dollars; when about to start he
whickered after us; it went to my heart — poor slave, how much toil he has patiently endured for
us!" November, 1811 — "Hilliard Judge is chosen chaplain to the legislature of South Carolina; and
O, great Snethen is chaplain to Congress; so we begin to partake of the honor that cometh from men;
now is our time of danger." Jesse Lee had also been chaplain to Congress. In Virginia, March, 1812
"Doctor Jennings was at Conference, and preached often for us, and was much followed." May, 1813
— "Bishop McKendree preached. It appeared to me as if a ray of divine glory rested on him." June
6, 1813 — "knowing the uncertainty of the tenure of human life, I have made my will, appointing
Bishop McKendree, Daniel Hitt, and Henry Boehm my executors. If I do not in the meantime spend
it, I shall leave when I die, an estate of two thousand dollars, I believe: I give it all to the Book
Concern. This money and somewhat more I have inherited from dear departed Methodist friends,
in the state of Maryland, who died childless, besides some legacies which I have never taken. Let
it all return and continue to aid the cause of piety." And here is a specimen of his Christian nobility
of soul which it would have been well if his successors in the ministry of 1827-30 and since then,
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both at home and in Japan, had imitated as to the building of altar against altar to circumvent
Reform Methodists. June, 1813 — "I never knew the state of the Methodist chapel in New Durham
[New York] until now. It was bought of the Presbyterians, carried five miles, and rebuilt or replaced
within hearing of the Independents' Church [the Britt Bailey Reformers' movement?] there is surely
little of the mind of Christ in all this, and I will preach no more in it, if I can avoid it. Should the
Methodists have imitated the Low Dutch, who treated them exactly thus in Albany?" Bravo, for the
good Bishop. And now an item not so commendatory. Win. B. Lacy in 1812 was an active advocate
of an elective Eldership, and after the General Conference of 1812, in despair of Reform, he
withdrew from his circuit (Herkimer) in New York, in an unofficial manner, and subsequently united
with the Protestant Episcopal Church. At the New York Conference of 1813 his case was
adjudicated, and a messenger sent, Asbury says, "To demand his parchments; the culprit refused to
deliver up his credentials in a very peremptory manner," etc. And now what did the Conference do,
both the bishops being present? Instead of simply recording his name in the minutes as "Withdrawn,"
the usual practice, they pilloried him and shot him through with a Parthian arrow in a review of his
case, the conclusion of which is: "he had attempted to sow discord among the people of our charge,
and left the connection in an improper manner. If this conduct entitles him to the wisdom of the
serpent, does it not deprive him of the harmlessness of the Dove." Lacy's conduct was naughty as a
Methodist Reformer, but does it merit to be stigmatized as of the Serpent? How easy it seems to
ascribe the work of our opponents to Satan; much easier than even the silence of charity. Asbury has
made record that O'Kelly's secession was instigated by "Satan," and the Reformers of 1820-30 were
gazetted by their quondam friends as in league with the Devil, and as to Alexander McCaine, he had
clearly sold himself to the nether powers, and so was by name excluded from the conditional
amnesty offered his associates by the General Conference of 1828.
August, 1813 — "I addressed a valedictory statement of my opinion to Bishop McKendree on the
primitive church government and ordinations; I shall leave it with my papers." And so he did.
October he says," On the peaceful banks of the Saluda I wrote my valedictory address to the
presiding elders." It will call for notice later. His premonitions of approaching end grew upon him,