History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

as a scandal upon Mr. Wesley, though it bore every mark of verisimilitude. It was pronounced a
fabrication, which compelled Snethen, who was much surprised at the turn given to it, to aver that
he received the incident from the lips of an English Wesleyan preacher, and had no doubt of its truth,
nor will any one else have in this day. Numerous illustrations of the exercise of authority and its
arrant abuse in those days of Episcopacy might be given. Any system may be abused. Yes, but here
is one that makes provision in its very nature, not only for abuse, but the cultivation of it as human
nature goes. One case in point amply verified. During the camp-meeting successes of the days of
[1]
1804-28, down in North Carolina, in 1828, a young preacher, zealous for the Lord and innocent
of wrong-doing, under the prompting of the brethren, announced a camp-meeting and pushed the
preparations to completion; when the presiding elder appeared upon the scene, took the young
preacher to task, rebuked the brethren, and ordered peremptorily that they recall the camp. Entreaty
and apology were in vain; he would teach them a lesson, was he not my Lord of Canterbury in that
region? The abashed young preacher recalled the meeting, and the brethren slunk away to their
homes. Such examples might be multiplied. [2]
McKendree rode through the connection, Asbury keeping up with him, and often in company, so
far as his physical infirmities would permit, a master in the pulpit and an autocrat in the Conference.
The last of the bachelor Bishops, he was untrammeled in his movements, and displayed an ability
to govern only second to Asbury himself. True, he introduced some innovations on the senior's plans.
His addresses to the General Conferences, in which he deferred to their opinion and advice; his
consultation at the Annual Conferences with the Elders before reading the plan of appointments, a
practice which since, by tradition and precedent only, has passed into the "Bishop's Cabinet." He kept
himself at the head of the strict constructionists of the law, and enforced it unsparingly. All this did
not prevent the submerged liberal minority from working to their end, so that it has been found that
in 1816 they prevailed to the extent of electing their choice to the Bishopric, in George and Roberts,
the former, if not the latter, differing from McKendree as to administration so widely that for a long
period there was a state of actual estrangement between them. He declined to be under the eye of
McKendree by traveling with him, and both attending the same Conference, as he had done with
Asbury, and this led to a distribution of Episcopal labors, which soon ripened into a custom. Soule
had been held in check by this liberal element, and kept by his friends in abeyance, though he was
immeasurably the superior of either George or Roberts; but he found his opportunity in 1820, and
his election, as will be found, precipitated the last struggle between an unlimited Episcopacy and the
liberal party, ending in the overthrow of the latter, but by such measures as finally defeated its own
end.
The camp-meeting era, when fully inaugurated, spread into all the Conferences, and the successes
of Methodist doctrine and zeal were unprecedented. From 1800, the first net increase is noted after
the O'Kelly defection, and the shock the agitation gave the whole connection, of about 3500. After
this, the camps, with their converts by the hundreds, multiplied the membership at a rapid ratio, five,
ten, and fifteen thousand increase, growing with the growing years, until at the death of Asbury, he
left 700 preachers and 218,307 members in the societies. In the accomplishment of this mighty work
space fails even to sketch the long line of heroes, who toiled, suffered, and died for the salvation of
souls. Some effort must be made to embalm their memories, even in this concise History of the old
Methodism. George Dougharty is a name never to be forgotten in the early annals of Southern
Methodism. He was ungainly, tall, slight, with but one eye, and slovenly in his dress, yet such was