Nathan Bangs · 21 of 29

Chapter 14. From the Close of the General Conference of 1836 to the Commencement of the General Conference of 1840. · 1838

The work of God in the conversion of souls, judging from accessions which were made to the Church, was much more prosperous than it had been for the two past years. Revivals were prevalent, and the spirit of missions and the cause of education were advancing more and more.

In the northwestern part of the Illinois conference, efforts had been made to introduce the gospel among the Winnebago, Sioux, and Crow Indians, with some degree of success, and a few schools had been established for the education of their children. This year they were more regularly supplied with laborers, and with a better prospect of success, though the good work by no means prospered as it had done among the other tribes for whose salvation we had labored. But among the Potawattomies about one hundred were added to the Church.

In the summer of l837 a spirited effort was made to establish missions in the republic of Texas. This extensive and fertile country, first visited by La Salle in 1685, lying south of the state of Arkansas and west of Louisiana, formed a part of the Mexican republic, and contains not less than 193,000 square miles. Its climate is remarkably mild and healthy, the soil rich and productive, bringing forth an abundance of cotton, sugar-cane, corn, and other staples common to the southern states and to Mexico. Into this fertile region many of the citizens of the United States had removed, being invited by the beauty and fertility of the country, and the favorable terms on which grants of land had been made to actual settlers by the Mexican government. Hence large settlements had been formed along the Rio Colorado and Rio Brasos, and some towns had become places of considerable trade, and were fast rising into importance. The eastern part of Texas, more especially, was settled principally by emigrants from the United States.

These, together with those Mexicans who took the liberty of thinking for themselves, became very restless under the oppressive government of Mexico, the intolerant spirit of which proscribed all religious sects except the Roman Catholic, and otherwise exacted obedience to laws which pressed heavily upon those who had been accustomed to breathe the free air, and to enjoy the immunities of citizens of the United States. Hence an insurrectionary movement commenced, which eventuated in the severance of the union of Texas with Mexico, and the establishment of an independent government. The battle of San Jacinto, in which the American arms triumphed over the prowess of Santa Anna, the Mexican general, decided the fate of Texas, and left the inhabitants at liberty to establish a government according to their own choice; and they proceeded to frame one after the model of the United States, in which civil and religious rights and privileges were secured alike to all sects and parties. This opened the way for the missionary of the cross to enter and proclaim salvation unto the people.

Among those who removed into Texas, there were several members of our own Church, some of whom were local preachers; and with a view to preserve their piety, they assembled together for mutual edification and comfort, sending, in the mean time, a loud and urgent call to their brethren in the United States for help. The Missionary Society responded to this call, and accepted of the services of the Rev. Dr. Ruter, a member of the Pittsburgh conference, and president of the Allegheny College, who resigned his presidency, and offered himself as a missionary for Texas. Accordingly, in the summer of 1837, accompanied by two young preachers, Dr. Ruter entered upon his work in this young republic. They found the people ripe for the gospel. Though vice and ignorance of spiritual things prevailed to an alarming extent, yet the missionaries were received with great respect and affection, and they soon succeeded in forming circuits, and establishing preaching in different parts of the country. In St. Augustine, Nacogdoches, Houston, and Washington, they commenced building houses of worship, the people subscribing liberally toward the expense, besides contributing about $1000 toward the support of their preacher.

This promising state of things induced the proper authorities of the Church to send the next year additional laborers into that fruitful field, and they have been gradually increased until, at the last General Conference, the Texas annual conference was organized, and they have now nineteen preachers, and about one thousand Church members, nearly as many as there were in the United States at the first conference in 1773.

Soon after the arrival of Dr. Ruter in Texas, he adopted measures, being encouraged by the liberal offers of the government and the people, for establishing a college. And though he did not live to realize the object of his wishes in this respect, being cut off in the midst of his usefulness, yet the enterprise has been prosecuted by his successors in the work, and the college has been erected and gone into operation tinder the most favorable circumstances. The government appropriated eight thousand eight hundred and eighty-three acres of land for its endowment, granted a liberal charter, and “Rutersville,” the name of the township in which the college is located, commemorates the talents and zeal with which its founder prosecuted the noble enterprise, and the veneration which is felt for his memory by his survivors. It is pleasantly situated, in a healthy and delightful part of the country, and promises much usefulness to the rising population of that growing republic.

This, therefore, is a most promising field of missionary labor, giving sure indications of an ample harvest of souls to its enterprising cultivators.

The constant influx of Germans into our country, especially into some of the cities and villages of the west, suggested the necessity of establishing missions for their special benefit. Accordingly, in 1836, a mission was commenced in Cincinnati, and it was given in charge of the Rev. William Nast, a young German preacher of sound education and deep piety, who could preach and write both in the German and English languages. He entered upon his work with an enlightened zeal, and was successful in making good and lasting impressions upon the minds and hearts of many of his countrymen. The work has gone on steadily from that day to this, spreading in various directions in the states of Ohio and Pennsylvania, in Wheeling, Pittsburgh, and a number of other places, so that there are now 1840) six German missionaries employed, and there are on the several circuits upward of four hundred members of the Church.

These missions have been much aided by the American Bible and Tract Societies, which have made liberal donations of German Bibles and tracts for gratuitous distribution among the people.

In the city of New York a mission was commenced this year for the benefit of the French population who were resident here. A young Frenchman by the name of Williamson had recently been made a partaker of pardoning mercy, had become a member of our Church, and be felt a great concern of mind for the salvation of his countrymen, many of whom were “as sheep without a shepherd.” There had, indeed, been a society of French people attached to our Church in the city of New York for a number of years, the germ of which was imported here from the island of Guernsey, where our British brethren had labored with success for a series of years.

Mr. Williamson hired a room for preaching, and has continued his labors with diligence to the present time; but such are the prejudices of the greater proportion of the French population, that his congregation has been but small, and the prospects of success are rather gloomy. A few, however, have been brought from darkness to light, who, it is hoped, may “be faithful until death.”

These, together with the constant enlargement of our work in the new countries, and the more vigorous action generally throughout our borders, gave us an increase to our membership this year of upward of forty thousand.

The Georgia conference, stimulated by the example of their brethren in other places, had made, and were now making, spirited and successful efforts in the cause of education. In 1835 they had commenced a classical and manual labor school in Covington, Ga., which was soon in successful operation, exerting an enlightening and hallowing influence upon the youth intrusted to its tuition and care. A literary institution was also established for the education of females, which bids fair to confer substantial blessings upon that class of the population. In 1836 the Emory College was founded, and it has since gone into operation under the presidency of the Rev. Ignatius A. Few, whose classical learning and deep piety eminently qualify him for his station. These institutions are gathering around them the youth of the country, of both sexes, and prove the’ capabilities of our people to educate their own sons and daughters, provided suitable mean are used to call them into action.

Ninety-eight preachers were located this year, six expelled, two had withdrawn, one hundred and six returned supernumerary, two hundred and sixteen superannuated, and seventeen had died.

We have already seen that the Texas mission was placed under the superintendence of Dr. Martin Ruter. Here he ended his days. He commenced his itinerant career in the early days of Methodism in New England, when he was only sixteen years of age, and was admitted on trial in the New York conference in 1801. In 1804 he went as a missionary to Montreal, in Lower Canada, where he gave great satisfaction to the people by the diligence and ability with which he discharged his duties. Though young in the ministry, he evinced a thorough acquaintance with the truths of the gospel, having applied himself with great assiduity to study, and particularly to the study of the Bible.

After filling some of the most important stations in the bounds of the New England conference, after that conference was formed, when a branch of the Book Concern was established in Cincinnati, in 1820, brother Ruter was appointed by the General Conference to the charge of that institution. In this station he continued, by a re-election in 1824, eight years, discharging its duties with great fidelity.

Before the expiration of his term as book agent, he was elected president of the Augusta College, and entered upon its duties in 1828, where he continued for about four years, when, on resigning his office, he was transferred to the Pittsburgh conference. Soon after his transfer he was called to preside over the Allegheny College, an institution which he was chiefly instrumental in establishing and putting into successful operation. This office he filled for about three years, when he resigned his station for the purpose of embarking in the more laborious and hazardous enterprise of carrying the gospel and establishing Methodism in the republic of Texas. He entered upon his work in the month of October, 1837, and soon laid plans for systematizing the labor and enlarging the boundaries of that extensive vineyard of the Lord, so is to comprehend as much as practicable within the several circuits which were formed by him and his colleagues in the missionary work.

Not content with the simple routine of labor appertaining to a Methodist preacher, being encouraged by the leading men of the republic, he devised a plan for establishing a college and other seminaries of learning; for he was always an ardent friend of literature and science. In these various labors he was incessantly engaged from the time he entered Texas until sickness compelled him to desist. His sufferings were somewhat protracted and severe. He bore them, however, with patience and submission to the divine will, and finally ended his days upon earth in peace, and the hope of eternal life.

Dr. Ruter deserves great credit for his attainments in literature and science. Born in humble circumstances, receiving nothing more than a common school education, and then entering the itinerancy at the early age of sixteen — an example not to be imitated if it can be consistently avoided-he was deprived of those literary advantages in his youth, which are generally considered essential to eminence it a more mature time of life. Yet he surmounted the difficulties of his situation, and astonished both himself and his friends by his literary and scientific attainments. To the study of the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages, as well as the French, he applied himself with successful diligence, and gave evidence of how much may be accomplished by a constant application of our powers, and an assiduous improvement of our time and opportunities, even in the midst of discouraging obstacles, and the want of the most appropriate means of instruction.

It is not, indeed, pretended that his mind was of the first order. For strength of intellectual powers, and for depth and variety of learning, many others stood far in advance of Dr. Ruter. But, possessed of a good understanding, and being impelled by an ardent thirst for knowledge, he “sowed beside all waters,” and in due time reaped a plentiful harvest. It would, indeed, be a reflection upon the discernment of those who awarded to him the honors of a college twice, by conferring first the degree of A. M., and secondly of B. D., to suppose that his literary and theological attainments were not respectable, and his deportment irreproachable Equally strong in his favor is the fact of his having been elected to the presidency of the Augusta and Allegheny Colleges, and of their having prospered tinder his oversight though it may be admitted that in these stations he did not shine with a brilliancy equal to general expectation.

Divine grace had done much for him. Having been made a partaker of justification by faith in Jesus Christ in the days of his youth, and having entered upon the duties of an itinerant minister ere he had attained maturity of age and experience, he won for himself, by the blessing of God on his exertions, the character of a faithful servant of God, living and dying in the confidence and affection of his brethren. As a preacher of righteousness he was “in doctrine uncorrupt,” “in labors abundant,” and in success considerable. His forsaking the inviting fields of literature and science, in which he had moved with so much ease to himself and satisfaction to his friends, to encounter the hardships and privations of a missionary of the cross in the wilds of Texas, evinces at once the strength of his faith, and of his sincere devotion to the cause of Christ. He was now about fifty-two years of age, was surrounded with domestic comforts, lived in the midst of his friends, and might therefore have spent the remainder of his days in comparative ease and comfort; but the wants of the sons and daughters of Texas came up before him, accompanied with those impressive motives which, to a heart like his, were irresistible; and he obeyed the call and ran to the rescue of those who were ready to “perish for lack of knowledge.” He went; and before he fell, he had established a reputation among the people of Texas as imperishable as the town of “Rutersville,” which name was designed to perpetuate the memory of the man who sacrificed his life for their salvation.

Others might be mentioned, no less eminent for their Christian virtues and ministerial usefulness, “whose praise is in all the Churches” where they were known and their worth duly appreciated. But their “record is on high,” and their reward is with their God, in the midst of those who “turned many to righteousness. Such were John A. Waterman, of the Pittsburgh conference, and Robert L. Kennon, of the Alabama conference, who, by their early piety and great assiduity in their calling, rose to eminence among their brethren, and died equally honored and lamented. Andrew Hemphill also, of Irish extraction, gave evidence of that unreserved devotion to God which distinguished most of the early Methodist preachers, and who, for about thirty-five years, maintained the purity and dignity of the Christian ministry.

Numbers in the Church: Whites This Year: 615,212; Last Year: 575,077; Increase: 40,135 — Colored This Year: 79,236; Last Year: 76,240; Increase: 2,996 — Indians This Year: 2,101; Last Year: 2,695; Decrease: 594 — Local Preachers This Year: 5,792; Last Year: 4,954; Increase: 838 — Traveling Preachers This Year: 3,332; Last Year: 3,147; Increase: 185 — Total This Year: 705,673; Last Year: 662,113 — Increase: 43,560