"Father Clark," or The Pioneer Preacher

by John Mason Peck

The answer he obtained in deep and lasting impressions of mind, was, never to marry and thereby entangle himself with the affairs of this world. The conflict was over; the victory was won, and he went on his way preaching, with renewed unction and great enlargement.

Though he had not mentioned marriage to the young woman, much less gained her affections and raised hopes, by solemn protestations and promises to be now blasted, he had that nice sense of honor; or shall we say Christian duty, to make her a final visit and avow his feelings, and the conclusion to which he had arrived on a point of duty to God and the church. He expressed the hope she would ever regard him with Christian friendship. His age at this period must have been about thirty-five years, and no one after ever heard him express a desire, or a regret concerning the connubial relation.

His anxieties about leaving the Methodist Episcopal church, and his feelings relative to slavery, were at a culminating point in 1795. His views of slaveholding were not discordant with the expressions of the church he served. This subject had been agitated in the Conferences for several years. In the minutes for 1784, we find this rule, in the forms of question and answer, and it remained in force during the whole period of Mr. Clark’s connection with the Conference:

“Ques. 12. What shall we do with our friends that buy and sell slaves?

“Ans. If they buy with no other design than to hold them as slaves, and have been previously warned, they shall be expelled, and permitted to sell on no consideration.”[24]

In answer to his oft repeated prayer for divine direction as to the field of his future labors, he received the impression, and it became a conviction of duty, that he must travel in a north-western direction. Tennessee and Kentucky were in that direction, and the Illinois country, and the Spanish province of Upper Louisiana far in the distance beyond; but he felt a calm confidence in Divine Providence, and that the specific field of usefulness would be pointed out in due season. All these questions were agitated and settled in his own judgment and conscience, before he made known his decision to his brethren.

The next Annual Conference would be in Charleston, January 1st, 1796, but it was not necessary for him to be present. His withdrawal could be tendered by some of the brethren. He attended the last Quarterly Conference in the district, where he gave notice of his intention of a withdrawal from the government and discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church. This he had a right to do without any forfeiture or implication of his ministerial character. His brethren respected his feelings and scruples, and would give a fair representation of his case to the Annual Conference.

The schism caused by Rev. James O’Kelley, in Virginia, had commenced in 1792, and at one period threatened a formidable rupture in the Methodist connexion throughout the Southern States. Mr. O’Kelley was troubled about the appointing power of the bishop, and other features of ecclesiastical authority. He was a very popular preacher, and had the qualifications and desire for the leader of a party. He made both personal and official attacks on bishop Asbury, but the Conference sustained the Bishop by a large majority. Doubtless Mr. Clark accorded with the opinions of Mr. O’Kelley in his views of the undue authority conferred on the bishop by the constitution of the Society, but he had none of his spirit as a partizan, was in both theory and practice a peace-maker, and respected the views and feelings of his brethren, though he conscientiously differed from them. His views were deeper and covered far more ground than those of O’Kelley. All his notions of church government and discipline were drawn from the New Testament, and he regarded that as sole authority in the case.

There were also points of doctrine wherein he differed from his Methodist brethren. He could not reconcile the dogma of “falling from grace,” with the entire dependence of the believer on the righteousness and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ; nor of sinless perfection with the universal fact of the moral infirmities and soul-humbling confessions of the best of Christians. And he preached repentance in a more evangelical form than many of his brethren, and always made the distinction plain between the awakened sinner, though under the most pungent convictions, and the truly penitent.

Such being his moral temper, and course of action, no unkind feelings took place when he announced his intentions, and sent to the Annual Conference the report of his circuit and announcement of his withdrawal.

His field of labor for most of the years he had been connected with the Conference, was on new circuits. Though not in name, he was in fact, the Conference missionary, and each year had extended the appointments in his circuit. At the Quarterly Conference to which we have alluded, the stewards brought in the collections for the preachers, and the deficiencies were made up. It had caused some uneasiness to the sensitive conscience of Father Clark that much the largest contributions came from the wealthy who were slaveholders, and he thought of the perquisites bestowed as the proceeds of the sweat and toils of servitude. He had heretofore received his share in the collections with many misgivings, and now as he was about to leave, he hesitated about taking such proceeds with him.