EARLY BRANCHES OF THE CHURCH.

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It is said, that this circumstance procured them the name of Ranters, and the name of Ranter, which first arose on this occasion, afterwards spread very extensively. The work then spread to Derby and Nottingham, whence circuits were established, one circuit having been hitherto sufficient for the connection. The camp-meetings also had declined, but were thus revived.

In June, 1860, the Primitive Methodists in England had 2,267 chapels, 3,268 rented chapels and schools, 675 traveling preachers, 132,114 members in society, and 167,533 Sunday-school scholars. In 1883 they reported 1,147 traveling preachers, 15,982 local preachers, 10,994 elders, 4,437 chapels, 1,812 other preaching places, 4,184 Sunday-schools, 400,597 scholars, and 196,480 members.

In 1829 dissensions in Leeds gave birth to the PROTESTANT METHODISTS, who declared that the Wesleyans had violated their own laws by the erection of an organ in one of their own chapels in that town, contrary to the decision of a leaders' meeting.

In 1835 the establishment of the Theological Institution, the expulsion of Dr. Samuel Warren, and differences on the rights of leaders' meetings, gave existence to the ASSOCIATION METHODISTS. This denomination was so prospered that within a period of seventeen years it had secured 329 chapels and 171 rooms and other places for preaching, 90 itinerant ministers, 1,016 local preachers, 1,353 class leaders, and 19,411 members.

In 1850 the WESLEYAN REFORMERS were organized, in consequence of the expulsion, by the Conference, of certain ministers accused of anonymous writings against the powers claimed by the Conference. At a conference of delegates in the month of March, resolutions were adopted declaring that they approved of and adhered to the doctrines of John Wesley; and that they denied the right on any just or Scriptural ground of the Conference to assume to be the sole legislative body. They also resolved that leaders and officebearers should be chosen by the church; that admission into and expulsion from the church, and all disciplinary

acts, should be determined by a leaders' meeting, subject to an appeal to the quarterly meeting; that the quarterly meeting should consist of the traveling preachers of the district and an equal number of lay representatives, to be chosen at the March quarterly meetings; and that the Connectional Committees should consist equally of preachers and lay members of the society.

It was estimated that this secession drew off 100,000 members from the parent stock. Subsequently, a large number of the Reformers having joined the Wesleyan Association in forming the UNITED METHODIST FREE CHURCH, the Reform Union numbered about 60,000 members, with upwards of 3,000 places of worship, 3,000 preachers, and 500 class leaders. In 1883 the Wesleyan Reform Union had 216 chapels and preaching places, 457 preachers, 480 elders, 7,950 members, 187 Sunday-schools, with 3,140 teachers and 19,715 scholars. At the third annual meeting of the United Methodist Free Church in 1859, there were reported 825 chapels, 422 preaching places, 163 itinerant preachers, 2,522 local preachers, 2,095 leaders, 50,133 members, and 97,961 Sunday-school scholars; while in 1884 they had 1,350 chapels and 184 other preaching rooms, 373 itinerant preachers, 3,330 local preachers, 4,068 leaders, 75,841 members, 1,350 Sunday-schools, with 26,631 teachers and 196,509 scholars.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

THE METHODIST CHURCH.

The Methodist Episcopal Church of America-The Articles of Religion-Government of the Church-Centenary of American Methodism-Lay Representation-The Progress of the Church.

IN

THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF AMERICA.

N the preceding chapter a description has been given of the origin of the Methodist Societies in England under the Wesley brothers, and of the first attempts to introduce their peculiar doctrines into the United States. In 1758 John Wesley visited the county of Limerick, Ireland, where he found a singular community, settled in several villages, that were not native Irish, but of German descent; and being for nearly half a century without pastors who could speak their own language, had become greatly demoralized and noted for an utter neglect of religion. The Methodist itinerants penetrated to their homes and preached to them the Word of God. Many were converted, and the entire community were now a reformed and devout people. These GermanIrish were called "Palatines," from the fact that they had been driven from the Palatinate on the Rhine, by the Papal troops of Louis XIV. They found refuge under the kindly government of Queen Anne. In the spring of 1760 a company of these Palatines sailed from Limerick to America. A large company gathered on the quay to say farewell for the last time. One of their number, a young man with thoughtful look and resolute bearing, was evidently the

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leader of the party. He was their spiritual adviser and helper, and had often preached to them the Word of Life; many had been converted under his preaching, and then, surrounded by his spiritual children, he once more broke to them the bread of life. His name was Philip Embury. The company landed at New York, August 10, 1760, and were scattered abroad. It is not known that any meetings were held by them until in 1766 they were joined by other relatives and fellow-countrymen, and although the religious life of many had declined, Embury, at the earnest solicitation of his cousin, Mrs. Barbara Heck, called them to worship in his own house, on Barrack Street, now Park Place, where, after a stirring sermon, a class was organized. They continued to meet weekly thereafter, and in a short time Embury's house could not accommodate all the hearers, and he hired a large room in the neighborhood, providing for the rent by gratuitous contributions, and preaching to them regularly on the Sabbath.

In the year following they were visited by Captain Thomas Webb, a quartermaster. in the British army, stationed in Albany, N. Y., who had been licensed by Wesley as a local preacher. In 1767 a rigging-loft, sixty by eighteen, on. William Street, was rented, where Webb and Embury preached twice a week to crowded assemblies. It could not contain half the people who desired to hear the Word of the Lord and to join in the services of his devout company.

In 1768 the first effort was made to build a church. A site was selected and leased on John Street, and purchased two years later, and a stone building, faced with blue plaster, sixty feet by forty-two, was erected. Embury was chief architect, and also worked on its walls with other voluntary or paid workmen. On the 30th of October, 1768, he ascended its pulpit, and dedicated the building by the name of "Wesley Chapel," preaching a sermon on the occasion from Hosea x. 12: "Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy, break up your fallow ground; for it is time to seek the Lord till he come and rain righteousness upon you."

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Thus was Embury the originator of Methodist meetings in the New World, being its first preacher, first class leader, first treasurer, and first trustee of the first society organized. Captain Webb made frequent excursions to other parts of the country, preached, and formed classes in Philadelphia, Wilmington, and New Castle, and extended his labors as far as Baltimore.

While these two local preachers were laying the foundations of a great work in New York and elsewhere, Robert Strawbridge, another Methodist Irish emigrant, had arrived in the country and settled on Sam's Creek, in Frederick County, Maryland. As an evangelist he preached through all that neighborhood, and formed a Methodist Society, and not long after built a log meeting-house on Sam's Creek, and also founded societies in Baltimore and Harford Counties. The first chapel in the county was built near Baltimore, and here Richard Owen was converted, who, after laboring as a local preacher for some years, entered the itinerant rank and died in it, being the first native Methodist preacher in this country. Joined by Sater Stephenson, Nathan Perigo, Richard Webster, and others, they carried Methodism into the heart of Pennsylvania, aroused the population of the eastern shore of Maryland, thence passed to Georgetown and Alexandria, on the Potomac, through Fairfax County, Virginia, and winning great victories through Delaware and Maryland, and the entire peninsula. In 1769 Robert Williams, one of Wesley's preachers, came to America and gave himself up wholly to the work of an evangelist, and labored with great success in Petersburg, Norfolk, and through Eastern Virginia and North Carolina. John King, a local preacher, came from England in the same year and began his labors in Philadelphia, and extended them through Delaware, Maryland, and New Jersey.

On August 3, 1769, John Wesley announced in the Conference in England the cry that came from America for help, and asked, "Who is willing to go?" Richard Boardman and Joseph Pillmore responded to the call, and were set apart and returned on the Conference Journal as Mis