The present year completes a full century since the first Methodist societies were formed in this country. The name of a church was not assumed till some years later. It had been about thirty years since the commencement of the remarkable religious movement in England, under the Wesleys and Whitefield. It was introduced here by some Irish immigrants of German ancestry. Missionaries were very soon sent over from England, and in no long time native preachers were raised up. The time was propitious and the field promising for the success of the simple, cheap, and every way available appliances of the new religious agency. The rapidly increasing and widely scattering population could not be adequately supplied by any of the ecclesiastical bodies which operated only through settled pastorates. These new propagandists, confined to no locality, but going everywhere with their off-hand discourse, their eagerness "to preach the word" to congregations of any size, of any character, and in any place, with their rude, but vigorous style of oratory, and direct, outspoken address, attracted and affected whole communities to an extraordinary degree. It is true, they were not always treated with much deference, and sometimes they were the objects of abuse and violence, in which their lives were imperilled. But still they pursued their way through the wilderness, seeking the lost sheep. An anecdote illustrates the persistency of this class of preachers, and also the grim humor with which, in spite of themselves, they sometimes invested their rather startling announcements. In those early days there was one Richmond Nolley, a preacher in the new Southern country. He was a man of great zeal, energy, and courage, and omitted no opportunity of doing good to persons of any color or condition in whatever obscure corner he could find them. On one occasion, while travelling, he came upon a fresh wagon-track, and following it, he discovered an emigrant family, who had just reached the spot where they intended to make their home. The man, who was putting out his team, saw at once by the bearing and costume of the stranger what his calling was, and exclaimed,—
"What! another Methodist preacher! I quit Virginia to get out of the way of them, and went to a new settlement in Georgia, where I thought I should be quite beyond their reach; but they got my wife and daughter into the church. Then, in this late purchase, Choctaw Corner, I found a piece of good land, and was sure I should have some peace of the preachers; but here is one before my wagon is unloaded."
"My friend," said Nolley, "if you go to heaven, you'll find Methodist preachers there; and if to hell, I'm afraid you'll find some there; and you see how it is in this world. So you had better make terms with us and be at peace."
Dr. Stevens, who has acquired some celebrity by his excellent history of the Wesleyan movement in England, has displayed in the present volume the same marked abilities which made his previous work so popular. There is not only evidence of laborious and conscientious diligence in gathering up, sometimes from almost inaccessible sources, the requisite materials, but the skill displayed in their arrangement and treatment, so as to make the narrative an absorbingly attractive one, is eminently praiseworthy. As a history, the work is not only creditable in a denominational and ecclesiastical point of view, but it is a valuable contribution to our national literature.
Much of this success doubtless may be attributable to the nature of the subject; for it is not easy to conceive of any movement, and especially a religious one, in which the melodramatic, mingled here and there with both the tragic and comic, forms so large a natural element. There was a new country, a rude society, daring adventures, great perils, marvellous escapes, terrible hardships, the stern, harsh realities of pioneer life, grand and unexpected successes, all which, seen from the distance of the present, have a romantic coloring, and produce an exhilarating effect. Any ordinary ability would have made a readable story out of such materials; but to make a history worthy of the name required the hand of a master.
There is something, perhaps, rather fanciful in the coincidence or parallel which the author would make out between the enterprise of John Wesley and that of James Watt. Yet it is not devoid of interest. While the one, toiling in poverty and obscurity, was preparing an invention which should incalculably multiply industrial productiveness and give a mightier impulse to modern civilization than any other material element, the other, incurring the opprobrium of his ecclesiastical order, and regarded as a reprehensible agitator and fanatic, was inaugurating a movement which should prove one of the most extraordinary and far-reaching of any in modern times; and both these agencies—the one employing a mighty material force in the interest of society, the other setting in operation vast moral energies for the uplifting of the masses—were to have their grandest results in the New World.
Dr. Stevens is especially happy in his sketches of character; only, possibly, in indulging too much his inclination for this sort of writing, he repeats himself, and in the recurrence of pet phrases wearies the reader. Yet some of these are very good. The description of Francis Asburey, the "Pioneer Bishop," is one not often excelled. He was one of the early missionaries sent over by Wesley, and became the great leader in the work and the principal organizer of the ecclesiastical machinery. He was the first bishop ordained in the country,—and a very unique and remarkable bishop he was. There was for him no splendid palace, no magnificent cathedral, no princely income. His salary was sixty-four dollars a year, his diocese a whole continent, to visit which he must find his way without roads, through almost illimitable woods, over nearly inaccessible mountains, floundering through swamps, wading or swimming vast rivers, scorched by hot suns, bitten by winter frosts, drenched with pitiless rains, smothered by driving snows, and often in divers dangers of death. His travelling equipage was not a chariot and four, but saddlebags and one. Often sick and suffering, he seldom allowed himself to be detained from his appointments. He went wherever he sent his preachers, and shared with them all the toils and privations incident to the work. He annually made the tour of the States, travelling never less than five thousand, and often more than six thousand, miles a year. He usually preached once every day, and three times on Sunday. A man, of course, of little literary culture, yet he possessed great good sense, a genial spirit, and large ability as an organizer. To him more than other men the denomination owes its early efficiency and extraordinary success.
The two volumes before us embrace a period of scarcely twenty-five years,—the period, as the author terms it, of the "Planting and Training" of the church. Several other volumes will be required to complete the history. But the future volumes can hardly be of so much general interest as these already published.
Arctic Researches and Life among the Esquimaux; being the Narrative of an Expedition in Search of Sir John Franklin in the Years 1860, 1861, and 1862. By Charles Francis Hall. With Maps and One Hundred Illustrations. New York: Harper and Brothers.
This book, with the Preface written on board the bark Monticello, June 30, 1864, when the writer was again bound for the Arctic regions, is in some respects the most remarkable account yet rendered to us of life and experiences near the North Pole. The purpose of the undertaking was to find something yet more satisfactory with regard to the fate of the hundred and five men who accompanied Sir John Franklin. Mr. Hall was convinced that life among the Esquimaux was possible, and that in no other way could trustworthy information be obtained from them. His indomitable spirit in pursuing this object is beyond praise. He could not be daunted. The result of this three-years' sojourn was the discovery of relics of the Frobisher expedition, by which the possibility of discovering news, at least, of the men of Franklin's expedition was made clear. The unfortunate loss of his expedition-boat made the journey to Boothia and King William's Land impossible; but Mr. Hall's prolonged existence during nearly three years among the "Innuits" determined his immediate departure again for those regions as soon as he could return and be properly fitted out for a second trip from the "States."