CHAPTER V. PHILADELPHIA CONFERENCE—GREAT REVIVALS—BARRATT’S CHAPEL.

We reluctantly bade adieu to our kind friends in Baltimore on Saturday, May 24, 1800, and started for Duck Creek (now called Smyrna) Cross Roads, the seat of the Philadelphia Conference, in company with Dr. Chandler, L. M’Combs, Samuel Coate, John Chalmers, and Shadrach Bostwick. We went in a packet to Georgetown Cross Roads, and arrived just in time for a love-feast. Some of those present had been to Baltimore and beheld the wonderful works of God, and returned home full of the holy fire, and the revival extended to that place. On Monday Dr. Chandler and I went to Duck Creek Cross Roads, and were entertained at Brother George Kennard’s.

The revival at the Philadelphia Conference is a matter of history as one of the most remarkable that has taken place on this continent, and yet we have had few particulars. All the bishops and preachers who were there are dead, and I alone am left to give an account. Fortunately I kept a record of what took place every day. It was written with the utmost simplicity, and I transcribe it because every scrap of the history of that period is valuable. It shows the simplicity of the times, and how our fathers did in days of old.

“We had preaching on the evening of May 27. The power of God was among the people. Some were convicted of sin. On Thursday evening a prayer-meeting was held. God’s people were blessed, and went singing and shouting on their way home.

“On Friday, the 30th, Brother Chandler and I went to meet Bishops Asbury and Whatcoat. Bishop Whatcoat arrived, and preached from ‘Come out from among them, and be ye separate,’ etc. It was a season of refreshing from the presence of the Lord. Bishop Asbury had gone to Dover, and did not come till Sunday. On Saturday evening Brother John Chalmers preached. There was considerable of a move. The expectations of the people were greatly raised. Some were powerfully convicted, and others shouted aloud the praise of God.

“On Sunday, June 1, a prayer-meeting was held at sunrise. At eleven o’clock Father Whatcoat preached from Rev. xi, 18: ‘And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead,’ etc. He preached with great liberty; the word was powerful; many were convicted of sin, and others rejoiced in the God of their salvation. I never felt happier in my life. After preaching a love-feast was held, in which one was converted. There was preaching in the afternoon and evening, and great power among the people.

“On Monday morning, June 2, the conference commenced its session. At sunrise Anning Owen preached on Christian perfection; it was a theme he loved. Quite a number were present at this early hour. I never saw such a beauty in holiness before. There were sixty-six preachers present at the conference. The conference was held at a private house; the meeting-house was used for religious services. Tuesday was a great day. The work began in the morning, and went on all day and the greater part of the night, and numbers were converted.

“On Wednesday, about sunrise, there was a sermon preached, and the power came down upon the people. The work then went on all day and until three o’clock the next morning, and many were brought to rejoice in God their Saviour. I never saw such a glorious time; it exceeds what we have just witnessed in Baltimore. Sinners are flocking home; the people of God are getting happier and happier. I feel thankful that I ever came to Duck Creek Cross Roads.

“Thursday, 5. This morning we had a glorious love-feast. The power of God was among the people, and many rejoiced with exceeding great joy. The work of revival continued; sinners were crying for mercy, and many obtained pardon. Many were converted at Brother Kennard’s house. The work of God continued all this day and most of the night. Great numbers were converted. In the evening a sermon was preached, followed by an exhortation; both delivered with great power. God was among the people. Such a night I never beheld, such a shout I never heard. I think there were upward of two hundred people who shouted at one time. It was glory all over the house, and I hope it will be remembered throughout all eternity.”

Bishop Asbury mentions the revival in his journal, and says, “Over one hundred souls were converted to God.” Jesse Lee says “one hundred and fifty.” They both made too low an estimate.

There were great revivalists at this conference: W. P. Chandler, John Chalmers, Jesse Lee, each a host in himself, and many others, who entered heartily into the work. It was not confined to them; the preachers and people all had a mind to work. This conference will ever be memorable as the most fruitful in saving souls of any ever held in America. Those who were not present can form but a faint idea of the nature of the work. Meetings were held day and night with rarely any intermission. One meeting in the church continued forty-five hours without cessation. Many were converted in private houses and at family prayer as well as in the house of the Lord. This revival did immense good; the preachers returned to their work like flames of fire.

As the Philadelphia Conference held its session six hours each day, the members were obliged to be present; but as I was not a member I had nothing to interrupt me or to call off my attention from the revival, but devoted every moment to the blessed work. For several nights I did not take off my clothes, but lay down upon the sofa and rested a little while, and then up and right into the thickest of the battle. Thus was I employed for days and nights, and was an eye and ear witness to the joyful scenes that were occurring.

This was my second visit to Duck Creek. I was there in 1798 with Dr. William P. Chandler, and then we put up at Brother George Kennard’s. This was my home at the conference in 1800, and there we had the company of Bishops Asbury and Whatcoat. Brother Kennard was a gentleman, a merchant, a great business man, and a thorough Methodist. He used to correspond with Bishop Asbury. His house was one of the choice Methodist homes in that day, and there in after years I was made very welcome.

The scenes which I witnessed in the revival at Baltimore during the General Conference, and then so soon after in the one at Duck Creek Cross Roads, come up freshly before me after over threescore years, and I still feel the sacred flame. And yet a kind of melancholy comes over me when I remember I am the sole survivor that took an active part in the scenes that angels must have contemplated with delight. Like an aged oak, I remain while all the trees have fallen around me.

At this conference Richard Whatcoat first presided as bishop. A number of young men were received, who occupied prominent stations and made their mark in after years: Learner Blackman, Jacob Gruber, well known for his virtues and eccentricities, William Williams, and others.

This remarkable conference closed on the 6th of June, at nine o’clock, and I started for my father’s house, walking sixty miles to the rural district of Lancaster; having seen more, heard more, enjoyed more, since I left home, than in all my lifetime before. It was an ever-memorable period in my history.

Twice before I had been down the Peninsula with Dr. Chandler, and witnessed wonderful displays of the power of God; the first in 1798, the second in 1799, when there was a great revival on Cecil Circuit, the flame of which spread to Baltimore. I was permitted again to accompany him. The reason was, my health had suddenly failed. I was mowing in my brother’s meadow in August; the day was excessively hot, and I perspired most freely; while in this state I walked through cold spring water, and it checked perspiration and affected my whole system. I was so ill that I was obliged to leave the meadow and return home. When I reached the house I found Dr. Chandler, the circuit preacher, had just arrived. He was a physician and minister, and could attend to bodies as well as souls. His arrival seemed to be providential, and may have saved my life. He saw the critical state I was in, and that there was no time to be lost. He immediately bled me, which afforded instant relief. And yet I continued very weak and unable to work, therefore the doctor proposed that I should go with him to Cape Henlopen, where I could be benefited by sea-bathing. With great joy I accepted the invitation, and we soon were ready for our journey. Better company no one could have, and I had this to comfort me, my medical adviser was with me. I believe that tour not only benefited my health, but had a great influence in shaping my destiny in after years.

On our way we stopped at a quarterly meeting at “Barratt’s Chapel.” This chapel was twelve miles below Dover, in Delaware, between Dover and Milford. It was built of brick, on land belonging to Philip Barratt, who rendered much assistance, and therefore it was called “Barratt’s Chapel.” Francis Asbury encouraged its erection. He visited this place on March 20, 1780, and had an interview with Philip Barratt and Waitman Scipple, and he says, they “determined to go about the chapel.” They then fixed the site, concluding “to set it near the drawbridge.” Such was the origin of this chapel. Mr. Asbury, we see, was the prime mover. He also helped raise means to erect it, for on November 8, 1780, at Perdin’s, after lecturing, he “engaged the friends to subscribe seven hundred weight of pork toward the meeting-house at Barratt’s.”—Journal, vol. i, p. 410.

Philip Barratt was a noble man, and he and Francis Asbury were great friends. I did not know him, he was gone before my time, but I knew his children. He had three sons: Andrew was a judge, and a man of talents. He lived near the church, and we put up with him. Doctor Barratt was a practicing physician. Caleb was the only son who was a member of our Church; the others were friendly. How would the spirit of Philip Barratt (as well as that of Asbury) rejoice to know that he had a great-grandson a foreign missionary. The Rev. William Prettyman, formerly of the Philadelphia, then of the Baltimore Conference, married a daughter of Doctor Barratt, and his son, Doctor William Prettyman, is the Superintendent of our Methodist Mission in Bulgaria, Turkey. The Methodist seed among the descendants of Philip Barratt has not run out.

This is the famous chapel where Doctor Coke and Asbury met for the first time and embraced each other. Famous meeting! of great hearts and kindred spirits who have met long since in a far more glorious temple,

Here the plan was formed for the meeting of the Methodist Minister’s Conference in Baltimore, by which the Methodist Episcopal Church was organized in 1784.

In the love-feast at this quarterly meeting I made a covenant with God, that if he would restore me to health I would dedicate myself wholly to him, and would do the work of an evangelist to the best of my ability. I here made the promise, and the covenant I have always kept in mind; and I have not only taken “the cup of salvation and called upon the name of the Lord,” but have been enabled “to pay my vows in the presence of his people.”

I traveled that circuit some years after, and was presiding elder of the district, and often preached at this heaven-honored chapel; but never did I enter it without peculiar feelings, remembering the love-feast and my self-consecration to the work of the ministry.

Sunday being over, Dr. Chandler and myself started for Lewistown and Cape Henlopen. We put up at Caleb Rodney’s. The light-house was kept by a local preacher named J. R. Hargus. I stayed with him at the light-house and bathed in the salt water. I had never seen the ocean before. I was so weak that when I walked down upon the shore the breezes from the ocean almost deprived me of my breath. I went in to bathe at one time and the waves came rolling in from the ocean and threw me down, and I was greatly frightened. I did not know but the returning waves would carry me out where I could not get back. The fright and being thrown down set my blood circulating, roused it to action, and did me much good. Dr. Chandler, when he saw me thrown down by the undertow, and witnessed my fright, laughed, and said, “that was just what he wanted; he was glad of it; it would benefit me more than all the medicine I could take.” The doctor was right. In less than a week I had greatly improved; and there was prospect of soon recovering my strength. In a little time I was as well as ever: a happy soul in a sound body.

The next Sabbath, on our return, we attended a quarterly meeting at Milford. The place of worship was too small to hold the vast multitudes, and they were obliged to go in a grove to preach the word. There was a mighty outpouring of the Spirit of God, and many exclaimed, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” During the exercises, one man—a person of standing and influence—was so affected that he tried to hold himself up as he stood trembling by a sapling, but he could not stand. He got down on the ground and cried for mercy, and there he experienced religion. He united with the Methodist Church and became a very useful member.

The Rev. William Mills, of Philadelphia Conference, preached. His text was novel and his explanations original. It was 1 Sam. xxx, 24: “But as his part is that goeth down to the battle, so shall his part be that tarrieth by the stuff: they shall part alike.” He said the itinerant preachers were the ones that went to battle for God and truth—standard-bearers in the Christian army, achieving victory after victory over the king’s enemies; but they must not think they were to receive all the reward—as if they accomplished all that was done. He showed that it was as necessary for some to stay by the stuff as it was for others to go into the battle; both were doing the work of the Lord. The local preachers and exhorters and class-leaders and private members that stay by the stuff should not lose their reward, but their part shall be equal to those that went to battle. This is the order of Heaven, and nothing could be more just and proper than this law, that those who stay at home to defend house and property have equal right to the spoils of victory as those who go forth to battle.

The next day I returned to my father’s house a healthier, wiser, and better man than when I left. The scenes I witnessed on the tour are very vivid before me after the lapse of over threescore years. Dr. Chandler’s kindness to me was unparalleled. He lives in my affections, and I look back upon him as one of the finest specimens of a Christian gentleman with whom it has been my good fortune to be associated.

When I arrived at home my father was about to take a ministerial tour through Pennsylvania, Maryland, and the great valley of Virginia, or what was known as “New Virginia.” He wished me to accompany him, and I did so. We were absent from home about a month. It was in September and October. I kept a diary in the German language, written every day, of where we were and what we were doing. It is still carefully preserved. My father was a German preacher, then holding some connection with the “United Brethren.” The Rev. William Otterbein was with the same people. We traveled every day, and my father preached in German, and I exhorted after him, sometimes in German and sometimes in English. He preached with great life, power, and success, and had many seals to his ministry. We went as far as Winchester, Va., where he preached in the Methodist church, and under the sermon one was awakened, namely, Simon Lauck, who afterward became a traveling preacher and a member of the Baltimore Conference. My father also preached at the Rev. Henry Smith’s father’s. I remember his text and sermon well.

I had an opportunity of getting more particularly acquainted with the distinguished ministers connected with the United Brethren. They held great meetings that were often attended with power. Their annual meeting was held September 25, at Peter Kemp’s, in Frederick County, Maryland. This was important in many respects. First, they resolved to call themselves “The Church of the United Brethren in Christ.” Second, they elected bishops for the first time. William Otterbein and Martin Boehm (my father) were unanimously chosen. Here were assembled their great men: Gueting, Newcomer, Draksel, and the two brothers Crums. The meeting was full of interest. Reports were given from different parts of the work, and each minister gave an account of the progress of the work of God in his own soul. They had at that time but little order and discipline, and what I had seen of the order and discipline of the Methodists at the General Conference in Baltimore and at the Philadelphia Conference showed me the vast superiority of the latter, and I made up my mind to enter their itinerant ministry.