History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

1820-30. Many of them sleep in unmarked graves, and more of them have no historical embalmment.
It has been a great labor to incorporate these biographical mentions, from a line or two to a page or
more, as the judgment of the writer dictated or the material at command made possible. these
interjections may seem to the critical reader to mar the flow of the narrative, but they often contain
important facts, and no careful reader will pass them over. Many worthy men, for lack of obituary
notice in the periodicals of the Church, or by inadvertent oversight, are no doubt unmentioned,
despite the diligence of the writer to avoid such omissions. Then, in covering that section of the
Church history from 1858 to 1877, marking the division and reunion of the denomination, that the
author might be impartial, a double history has been written. He has not knowingly omitted any fact
or argument for either side, and if his personal convictions anywhere appear, the feature is
inseparable from an historical work, not a simple summary of naked figures and facts. The personal
equation of a historian ought not, and indeed cannot, be excluded from his work. He has assurances
from some who have read the History in manuscript, that this period will not prove unsatisfactory.
It was a part of the original design of the work to include in appendices brief histories of the
several annual conferences, but it was found impracticable and was abandoned. The appendices
which have been furnished are essential and invaluable, and the writer earnestly requests every reader
and critic to make a careful perusal of them in their close connection with the running text, as
indispensable to a right understanding of the subject. Brief histories of the Book concerns as such,
as well as of the official colleges — Adrian, Western Maryland, and Kansas University — have been
omitted, for the reason that they have been largely incorporated in the running text, and more
extended data are easily obtainable. The appendices for Ministerial Education, the Women's Foreign
Missionary Society, the Foreign and the Home Missionary Boards, etc., have all been added to the
first volume, though properly belonging to the second, in order that the relative size of the two books
may in this way be preserved.
The principal claim of this History is, that it discloses and verifies a whole class of facts not
heretofore given their proper accent by Methodist historians because not in alignment with the
received opinions and traditional views of the great actors in the evangelistic movement, on both
sides the ocean, called Methodism. It also places these received opinions and traditional views in
other lights than those reflected by such historians, keeping in mind the great equity of all history:
hear the other side.
Many portions of the first volume, dealing as it does with general Methodism, are rigidly
condensed, while in the second volume the critical reader, especially if not denominationally
connected with the Methodist Protestant Church, will discover minutiae of detail not always
consonant with the dignity of history. Much of this period is within the memory of participants in
it, and for the latter half within the personal recollection of the Author, so that many things are
named by reason of an importance thus exaggerated.
The numerous illustrations were largely an afterthought, and are the best that could be secured at
considerable expense and much labor. The likenesses of early Reformers and some others are given
with as much regard to sections and conferences as was possible. The writer regrets that no portrait
of W. W. Hill, A. G. Brewer, Adjet McGuire, and others could be obtained. No living men appear
for a reason that must be obvious, however worthy.