History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

and overloaded with documents. In his last years he exhibited petulance and discontent with Church
leaders, and went so far as to prefer charges against Dr. T. E. Bond, Sr., for his management of the
Advocate during his last term, but they were dismissed. He lived to old age, and died like a faithful
Methodist, peacefully. He was tall and commanding in physique, carrying a very large head on
stalwart shoulders, with a pose to one side. It led to the singular proof of the imitative tendency of
the young preachers that some of them who came under his eldership arrived at Conference carrying
their heads on one side à la Bangs.
Jacob Gruber, Freeborn Garrettson, and Thomas Ware have left biographies which do ample
justice to their memories. Marvin Richardson was a strong man in his day, of fine personal
appearance, gentlemanly manners, and unblemished reputation. He lived to old age. Scanning the
minutes, the careful reader is struck with familiar names of heroic men who filled conspicuous
places in the Methodism of these days. Some of them by reason of close association with Reform
movements will be brought forward in the second volume, but it would thwart the direct purpose of
this work to enter at present more fully into these sketches. Wilbur Fiske must be noticed, as he
looms above his contemporaries. Entering the ministry in 1818, Stevens says: "It may be said to have
dated a new epoch in New England Methodism." Collegiately educated, of attractive presence,
brilliant intellect, and steady piety, he linked himself with the educational work of the Church, and
was too great in his sublime elevation to accept the election of Bishop of the Canada Church in 1828,
and afterward Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1836, declining each time and remaining
in his chosen vocation of a teacher. Called to the Presidency of Wesleyan University, of which he
was one of the founders, he closed a career of rare usefulness and undying reputation in its employ
February 22, 1839, when only forty-eight years of age. Edward T. Taylor is another whose career was
so wonderful that, as Stevens has nervously said, "It forces upon the historian the suspicion, not to
say the discredit, of writing 'romance' rather than fact." As a preacher he disputed the palm with the
ablest divines of any denomination in the city of Boston. Pickering also shared largely the honors
of his day. In the West James B. Finley, William Swayze, and Charles Elliot, as also Truman Bishop,
were foremost in the itinerant ranks. Jane Trimble had a career in the West as a mother in Israel
unexcelled for heroism in the annals of the world, not as a preacher, but as a pathfinder and an
undaunted Methodist. She with her husband pushed the work into the very heart of the Indian
country. Dying as late as 1839, in her eighty-fourth year, she deserves to live as one of the "elect
ladies" of a form of Christian life which has done more than all other denominations to emancipate
womanhood from all disabilities of tradition and prejudice. Mention is made of Jesse Walker and
his pioneer adventures, Samuel Parker, the Cicero of the West, James Anley and his crusades against
slavery and whiskey, Peter Cartwright and his marvelous revivals and extraordinary character, David
Young, and John Collins. To these must be added John Strange, Russell Biglow, and Henry B.
Bascom, who entered the itinerancy in his sixteenth year to be hereafter fully considered; Thomas
A. Morris, afterward Bishop; John P. Durbin, who deserved this crowning honor if he did not reach
it; William Winans, the sturdy oak of Southern Methodism, and a host of others; Richmond Nolly,
Lewis Hobbs, Drury Powell, and Thomas Griffin, a quartet of as intrepid men as ever blazed the
forest, swung the axe, and preached the gospel in the far southwest, or in the world, the peers of the
self-immolating men known to song and story. This record is worthily closed with the name and
deeds of Harriet Stubbs, sister-in-law to Judge McLean, one of the converts to Methodism in these
days, who went to the Wyandotte Indians as a missionary, and soon won their confidence and love
in such a degree that five of their leading chiefs were converted. Of nearly all these founders and