Nathan Bangs · 9 of 23

Chapter 5. From the Close of the General Conference of 1800, to the End of the Year 1803. · 1801

There were only seven annual conferences held this year, the first commencing in Camden, S. C., January 1, and the last in Lynn, Mass., July 17.

The work of God which had commenced last year under such favorable auspices, and which has been so fully detailed, continued this year, in many places, with increased rapidity and power. Bishop Asbury and his colleague, Bishop Whatcoat, made their annual tour of the continent, not only in visiting and presiding in the conferences, but also preaching to the people in the various cities, towns, and villages, as well as the new and scattered settlements through which they were enabled to pass. The revivals of religion which had been witnessed, the unabated confidence and attachment which had been manifested toward Bishop Asbury by the conference, and the relief afforded him in his arduous labors by the consecration of Mr. Whatcoat as a colleague seemed to put new life into him, so that he remarks, after attending a conference in Philadelphia, “My health is restored to the astonishment of myself and friends.”

“Surely,” he says in connection with his allusion to the Philadelphia conference, “we may say our Pentecost is fully come this year.”

Having so fully narrated the progress of the work of God in the western country under date of 1800, it is not necessary to add any thing in respect to it here. In other parts of the country, however, the work went on under somewhat different circumstances, but with equal indications of divine power and goodness. In New Hampshire and Vermont there were signal displays of the grace of God in the awakening and conversion of souls. One of the preachers writes in the following strain respecting the state of things there: —

“Landaff circuit, is New Hampshire, is all in a flame. Upward of one hundred have been converted to God; and the work goes on still in a glorious manner. In Chesterfield circuit nearly one hundred have joined our society, and the prospect is now brighter than it has been. In Vershire circuit, in Vermont, there is a good work. More than one hundred have joined society, and the power of the Lord is remarkably displayed; many fall down, being overwhelmed with the power of the Lord. Weathersfield circuit has been gradually gaining ground the whole year, and now the times of refreshing are come from the presence of the Lord. In the town of Athens we had a most melting time. The power of the Lord was present to heal, and eighty-three joined society on that day, although there was no society there before.”

It seems that the revivals in Canada and the western country began to exert an influence in other parts of the work, and lead to a similar method in promoting the cause of God. In the latter part of May of this year, in the town of Dover, Delaware state, a meeting was held for several days, at which time the Lord wrought powerfully upon the hearts of the people, so that on the last day of the meeting one hundred and thirteen persons united with the Church. Many more took their departure to their homes under a deep conviction of their sinfulness, and earnestly groaning for redemption in the blood of Christ.

In the Baltimore district, which included a number of large circuits, it was estimated that upward of a thousand souls were converted to God in the space of a few months. In Annapolis, the metropolis of the state of Maryland, many were brought to the knowledge of salvation by the remission of sins, and there was great joy in that city.

In Upper Canada, the glorious revival which has been already mentioned had extended along up the shore of Lake Ontario, even to the head of the lake, to Niagara, and thence to Long Point on the northwestern shore of Lake Erie, including four large four weeks’ circuits. The district this year was under the charge of the Rev. Joseph Jewell, who traveled extensively through the newly settled country, preaching in log houses, in barns, and sometimes in groves, and everywhere beholding the displays of the power and grace of God in the awakening and conversion of sinners, as well as the sanctification of believers. A great work of God was carried on this year under the preaching of Joseph Sawyer, whose faithful labors on the Niagara circuit will be long and gratefully remembered by the people in that country; and it was during this revival that the present writer, after four or five years of hard struggling under a consciousness of his sinfulness, was brought into the fold of Christ; and here he wishes to record his gratitude to God for his distinguished grace, in snatching such a brand from the fire, and to his people for their kindness, and more especially to that servant of God, the Rev. Joseph Sawyer, under whose pastoral oversight he was brought into the Church.

Nor should the labors and privations, the prayers and sufferings in the cause of Christ of that faithful servant of God, the Rev. James Coleman, be forgot. Ten. He preceded Mr. Sawyer in the Niagara circuit and though not distinguished for shining talents as a preacher, he was beloved by the people of God for his fidelity in the work of the ministry, and for his deep devotion to their spiritual interests, evinced by his faithful attention to the arduous duties of his circuit. He had many seals to his ministry. And the writer of this remembers with gratitude the many prayers which James Coleman offered up to God in his behalf while a youthful stranger in that land, and while seeking, with his eyes but half opened, to find the way of “peace and pleasantness.”

The work also prevailed on the Bay of Quintie and Oswegochie circuits, under the labors of Sylvanus Keeler, Seth Crowell, and others. The latter was a young preacher of great zeal and of the most indefatigable industry; and going into that country he soon caught the flame of Divine love which had been enkindled by the instrumentality of Messrs. Wooster, Coate and Dunham. He entered into the work with great energy and perseverance, and God blessed his labors with much success. So greatly had God prospered the labors of his faithful servants in this province, that there were returned in the minutes of conference for this year 1,159 members of the Church. It had, indeed, extended into the lower province, on the Ottawa River, an English settlement about fifty miles west of Montreal. This new circuit was traveled by John Robinson and Caleb Morris, and they returned forty-five members in the Church.

Like the new settlements in the western country, Upper Canada was at that time but sparsely populated, so that in riding from one appointment to another, the preachers sometimes had to pass though wildernesses from ten to sixty miles’ distance, and not infrequently had either to encamp in the woods or sleep in an Indian hut; and sometimes, in visiting the newly settled places, they have carried provender for their horses over night, when they would tie them to a tree to prevent their straying in the woods; while the preachers themselves had to preach, eat, and lodge in the same room, looking at the curling smoke ascending though an opening in the roof of the log house, which had not yet the convenience of even a chimney.

But in the midst of these labors and privations, they seemed to be abundantly compensated in beholding the blessed effects of their evangelical efforts, and the cordiality and high gratification with which they were received and treated, more especially by those whose hearts God had touched by his Spirit. For though these people were in the wilderness, and many of them poor, they seemed to be ripe for the gospel, and it was no less gratifying to its messengers than it was pleasurable to its recipients to behold its blessed effects upon the hearts and lives of such as “believed with a heart unto righteousness.” While those who resisted the truth, often manifested their enmity by persecuting those who proclaimed it, such as did receive it in the love of it,” evinced their affection and gratitude to those who published it, by making them welcome to their habitations, and entertaining them in the very best manner they could. For these self-denying labors, and sacrifices of these early Methodist preachers, thousands of immortal beings in Canada will doubtless praise God in that day “when he shall come to make up his jewels.”

A very serious affair occurred in Charleston, South Carolina, about this time. In 1801 and 1802 the Rev. Messrs. George Dougherty and John Harper were stationed in that city. Hearing that Mr. Harper had received some pamphlets from the north, containing resolutions to memorialize the legislature against slavery, notwithstanding the offensive documents were burned in presence of the mayor of the city, a lawless mob collected to avenge themselves on the person of Mr. Harper. He, however, providentially escaping from their fury, they seized on Mr. Dougherty, dragged him though the street to the pump, and having placed his head under the spout, commenced pumping water upon him, and in all probability they would have suffocated him, had not a pious woman, a Mrs. Kingsley, interfered in his behalf. With an intrepidity worthy of all praise, she resolutely placed herself between the infuriated populace and their intended victim, and stuffed her shawl into the mouth of the spout, and thus stopped the flowing of the water. This heroic act filled the persecutors of Dougherty with astonishment. In silent amazement they paused from their murderous work. At this moment of suspense, a gentleman with a drawn sword stood in the midst of them, and, taking Dougherty by the hand, boldly declared his intention to protect him from their violence at all hazards; and he then led him away, no one daring to interfere. Thus completing the victory which the “weaker sex" had so daringly begun, the man of God, thoroughly wet by the water of the pump, was rescued from the hand of violence, and restored to his friends in safety — although it is said that his sufferings in this cruel affair laid the foundation of that pulmonary disease with which he afterward died. It is furthermore stated, that of all those concerned in this persecution not one prospered; most of them died miserable deaths, and one of them acknowledged that God’s curse lighted upon him for his conduct in this affair.

Thirty-two preachers located this year, three were returned supernumerary, and four, namely, James Tillotson, Abraham Andrews, Salathiel Weeks, and Charles Burgoon, after a faithful discharge of their duties as ministers of Christ, had died in the hope of everlasting life.

Numbers in the Church: Whites This Year: 57,186; Last Year: 51,442; Increase: 5,744 — Colored This Year: 15,688; Last Year: 13,452; Increase: 2,236 — Total This Year: 72,874; Last Year: 64,894 — Increase: 7,980 — Preachers This Year: 307; Last Year: 278; Increase: 29.

There was no account rendered of the numbers in Kentucky and Tennessee, where those great revivals of religion had occurred, otherwise the increase would have appeared much larger than it does. As it is, however, it shows the blessed results of those revivals which have been before detailed.

On the 29th day of January of this year, the Rev. Devereaux Jarratt departed this life in the 69th year of his age; and though he was never in connection with the Methodists, yet as he favored them in the early period of their ministry, and was greatly instrumental in promoting the work of God in Virginia in those days, it seems proper to give some account of his character, labors, and death. Mr. Jarratt was born in New Kent county, in Virginia, on the 6th of January, 1732, O. S. He was awakened to a sense of his lost and guilty condition by the reading of one of Mr. Flavel’s sermons, and after a long course of mental discipline, a severe struggling against the inordinate corruptions of his heart, when about twenty-eight years of age, he was made a partaker of justifying faith in Jesus Christ. In his 30th year he began to prepare for orders in the English Church, and after due preparation he went to England and received consecration on Christmas day, in the year 1762. Before his return he preached several times in London, and such was the zeal with which he spoke in the name of his divine Master, that he even then was called by some a Methodist, an appellation commonly given to those who manifested more than usual zeal in their ministry.

On his return to America, in 1763, he was settled in the parish of Bath, Dinwiddie county, Virginia, and became a zealous and evangelical minister of Jesus Christ, by which means he incurred the displeasure of the lukewarm clergy of his own Church, a well as of those members who had “the form of godliness, but denied the power thereof.” This, no doubt, led him to seek for spiritual associates elsewhere, and we accordingly find him, as we have already seen, receiving and aiding the Methodist preachers when they came into his neighborhood — for which service they to several instances recorded their gratitude.

Mr. Jarratt continued his friendship for his Methodist brethren in general until the organization of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1784, when he manifested, if we may believe in the genuineness of the letters attributed to him which were published after his death, no little displeasure in their proceedings, and uttered some hard things against Dr. Coke, Bishop Asbury, and some others.

But while he was dissatisfied with the Methodists, on account of their becoming an independent Church, he seemed equally as much so with most of the clergy of his own Church, because of their dereliction from the doctrines of their Church, and their manifest want of a conformity to the formularies of their religion, and especially those parts which enjoined experimental and practical piety. In this frame of mind he laments, in pathetic strains, the low state of religion in his Church, the want of evangelical zeal and enlightened piety in her clergy, and the general deadness to spiritual things throughout the country.

I have made this short record of Mr. Jarratt, 1. Because I think it due to him as an active, zealous, and successful minister of Jesus Christ, whose friendship for the Methodists when they first visited Virginia, and for a considerable time after, greatly aided them in promoting the cause of God. For a number of years he was indefatigable in his gospel labors, and was instrumental in the conversion of many sinners.

2. Because his posthumous letters have been referred to as an evidence of his regret that he had contributed so much to subserve the cause of Methodism. It is, indeed, to be lamented that any thing should have occurred to interrupt, in any degree, that harmony of Christian fellowship which evidently subsisted between him and the Methodists, and which had been for a number of years mutually beneficial, and had, accordingly, been reciprocated with the utmost good will. But on the organization of our Church, Mr. Jarratt found himself between two fires. On the one hand, he could not approve in his judgment of that organization, while his feelings held him to his old friends; and in this conflict between his judgment and feelings, the latter became somewhat irritated, and prompted him to say things which, it may be presumed, his more sober judgment would have condemned. On the other hand, while his judgment approved of the doctrine and formularies of devotion recognized in his own Church, he could not fellowship the conduct of her lukewarm clergy and members; and hence, on perceiving this inconsistency between faith and practice, he loudly condemned the one, while he warmly applauded the other. In this dilemma, a situation much to be deprecated by every conscientious minister of Jesus Christ, he seems to have said some things which may justly be regretted by his friends in both communions.

It is not doubted, however, considering his general character, course of conduct, and the predominant tone of his writings, that his last end was “peace and assurance for ever" — and that with Wesley and Fletcher, whom he so much admired, and with those Methodist preachers with whom he once took such sweet counsel, as well as with all those of every name who loved the Lord Jesus Christ, he is now united in ascribing salvation and honor to him who loved them and washed them in his own blood.