History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

ENDNOTES
1 November 6, 1820, Kingston, Canada, the Wesleyan Society petition the British Conference to
restore them their British missionary, remonstrating against his withdrawal under the plan of
adjustment. The action had, and published in the Canada newspapers was based upon the
"presumption that misrepresentations had been made to the committee by the American Delegate."
See McCaine's "Defense of the Truth," p. 102.
2 Indebted to Rev. Dr. G. B. McElroy of Adrian College, Michigan, for this copy.
3 "Extracts from Letters containing some account of the work of God, since the year 1800, written
by the preachers and members of the Methodist Episcopal Church to their Bishops, New York."
Published by Ezekiel Cooper and John Wilson, 1805. l6mo. 120 pp. Paper binding.
A copy of this now exceedingly rare book — the only other known to the writer was in the
possession of the late Rev. Isaac P. Cook of Baltimore, Md — was presented to me by the late Rev.
Thomas McCormick in 1879, when he was in the eighty-fifth year of his age. He lived to his
ninety-second year. It contains three letters on this first camp in Maryland, one by Snethen, one by
Fanny Lewis, and one by Samuel Coate. Snethen says that after spending three days preparing the
ground, the camp began September 24, 1803. It began on Saturday morning, and ended "three o'clock
Monday morning," so that they were more in the nature of what afterward were known as woods'
meetings than the subsequent camps of from one to two full weeks. Snethen exults over it — "O!
happy day! O day of mercy and salvation, never to be forgotten! Twice I fell prostrate upon the stand,
beneath the overwhelming power of saving grace. The day is canonized; it is memorable in the
church, to numbers, as the happy Monday, the blessed 26th of September, 1803. The number
converted cannot be ascertained; but all will agree that there were a hundred, or upward, who were
subjects of an extraordinary work, either of conviction, conversion, or sanctification." Fanny Lewis
says, after describing the location of the tents and wagons: "There was scarce any intermission day
or night. . . . No sound was heard except Glory to God in the highest! Mercy! mercy! . . . On Monday
morning there was such a gust of the power of God, that it appeared to me the very gates of hell
would give way. All the people were filled with wonder, love, and praise. Mr. S— (Snethen) came
and threw himself in our tent, crying Glory! glory! this is the happiest day I ever saw! . . . The time
between services was not taken up with 'what shall we eat, and what shall we drink?' . . . The
preachers all seemed as men filled with new wine. Some standing crying, others prostrate on the
ground." Samuel Coate says: "There were twenty or more traveling and local preachers. Our number
of people on the week days were from one thousand to fifteen hundred, and about five thousand, or
upward, on the Sabbath. . . . Two or three hundred camped on the ground. . . . Tents, wagons, carts,
coaches, stages, and the like, were ranged in a circular form. The stand was in the center, and at night
pine knot fires, lanterns, and candles in the trees, gave a spectral light, though it was the time of the
full moon. . . . I was informed that there was not three minutes for one whole night but what they
were in the exercises of singing or prayer." It was held fifteen miles from Baltimore, a little to the
east of Reisterstown road.