Or the early and efficient coadjutors of Asbury there are some of whom unfortunately little is known to the public of the present generation. Their history has never been written. Any sketch which we may make of them must prove faint and indistinct. Their names loom up dim and distant in the shadowy past. In their day they were stars of the first magnitude. In their course along the track of time they spread all about their path a glorious radiancy. In that brilliant light their cotemporaries walked and rejoiced. But to us is left only a dim, hazy, waning twilight. The generation that shall follow us may know little or nothing of them. Who will rescue their names from the oblivion that threatens to cover them? Are there not materials for the biography of these men of blessed memory? Where are they? and who will weave them into a beautiful, instructive, and entertaining narrative?

What few facts we have been able to gather we will use for a slight and temporary sketch, hoping we, or some other, may hereafter find materials for a more extended and interesting biography.

WILLIAM M'KENDREE was born in the state of Virginia, in 1757. His parents were members of the American branch of the Church of England. When very young he became seriously disposed from reading the Bible in the common school. Naturally quick in his perceptions, thoughtful in his habits, and sensitive in his moral nature, he was affected by the simple and evident truths of the Divine revelation. He read the story of Jesus. His highly sensitive soul was moved at the exhibition which that story presented of love, of mercy, of goodness, of virtue, and of suffering. His clear perceptive power and his strong understanding enabled him to see and to apprehend the nature and the design of the mission of Jesus Christ. He comprehended, so far as youth without personal instruction may do it, the doctrine of depravity, of the atonement, of repentance, of faith, and of regeneration. He became convinced of sin, and

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earnestly desired to be saved from it, and to flee from the wrath to come. He prayed, he wept, he read, he thought; but he had none to encourage, none to aid, none to guide him. Nor his associates, nor his teacher, nor his parents, nor his parish minister knew any thing of experimental religion. They had never felt the godly sorrow of repentance; they had never exercised the faith that brings justification; they had never passed through the struggles of the new birth.

The poor boy, in doubt and in darkness, in suspense and anxiety, wandered alone along the devious way, from childhood to youth, in search of that which he could not find; his soul found no place of rest; his heart found no object to grasp; his mind found nothing on which it could rely.

When he was about nineteen years old he heard, for the first time, a Methodist preacher. We have no means of determining who had, in the providence of God, the honor and the glory of being the first to shed the light of Gospel truth along the dark path of the youthful M'Kendree. What Wesleyan first applied the soothing doctrines of grace to that sensitive mind? Was it Asbury himself? Or was it one of the American worthies of blessed memory, raised up by Providence as heralds of salvation in those early days of Methodism? or Waters, or Dromgoole, or Pedicord, or Tunnel? The preaching of that Methodist, whoever it might be, carried conviction, deep and pungent, to the heart of M'Kendree. He yielded to the conviction; he resolved to lead a new life. In accordance with Methodist usage the usage of receiving as members on trial all such as desire "to flee the wrath to come, and to be saved from their sins”—he was admitted to the connection. The scene must surely have been a thrilling one, when the noble, the accomplished, the generous, the buoyant M'Kendree went forward, before the whole congregation, and gave his hand to the minister of God. Little did he then think how glorious a career was before him.

Though he became a member of the society, yet had he no evidence of conversion. He had only the form of godliness; the power he was seeking. Not, however, being yet fully aware of the illusory deceptions of the unregenerate human heart, nor

thoroughly instructed in the way of truth and righteousness, he retained his social connections with his irreligious companions. They were civil, respectful, and moral, and he thought no evil would result from keeping up his intercourse with them. Nor would any evil have thus resulted, had he been fully initiated in the way of holiness. But the seeker of religion should avoid intercourse with the careless and irreligious. Let him retire to the woods and pray alone. Let him wander along by the river side, or ramble over the pastures, where undisturbed he may reflect and pray. Let him pour out his soul in secret prayer before his God alone. Let him not, during the process of conviction, mingle with the world. When, however, he becomes converted, then he may strengthen his brethren; then he may safely mingle, if he but keep up his independence, freely with his former associates; then may he exhort them, pray over them, and exert among them a strong influence for good.

of sin. He exhorted them, he entreated them to seek salvation. He prayed devoutly and earnestly for them. He exhorted with eloquence, and prayed with power in the public prayer meetings.

Success, abundant and encouraging success, attended his efforts. Sinners were convicted, penitents were converted, and multitudes were added to the Church by his labors. His soul magnified the Lord, and his spirit rejoiced in God his Savior. Seeing the evident success of his humble labors in exhortation and prayer, and feeling an inclination, which he could not resist, to devote himself to the work of saving souls, he began to think of entering the ministry. His Christian brethren, too, urged him to the work, believing, as they did, that God had called him. But he was destined, before he could fully make up his mind to engage in the ministerial enterprise, to pass through severe trials of faith. He felt reluctant to take on himself so responsible a work, from the deficiency of his education, from his want of knowledge of men and of the world, from his slight acquaintance with theology, and from a fear that he might mistake the influence of his own impressions and of the solicitations of his friends for the call of God. Yet he had a strong conviction of duty, and he dare not disobey. He therefore determined to proceed according to his convictions, and trust Provi

Glorious is the memory of those days, when, perhaps more frequently than in our day, the power and the grace of God were manifested, as on the day of Pentecost, and hundreds, and sometimes thousands, were added to the Church, in a few months, on one circuit, and by the labors of one man. We have heard with our ears, our fathers have told us of such scenes, and we ourselves have seen such glorious displays, and have shared in them. Such a revival occurred in 1787 on the Brunswick circuit, where M'Kendree lived. In the blessings of that revival he largely shared. His convictions were renewed; his heart was deeply affected. After a few days of deep and sincere conviction, of bitter repentance, of fasting and prayer, as he was listening to the man of God, in a large and deeply affected congregation, he ventured his all on Christ. In a moment his soul was relieved of a burden too heavy to be borne, and joy succeeded sorrow. He spoke not a word, but sat in deep and profound silence, with his eyes closed and his hands uplifted, giving glory to God in his heart. It required no words to inform those who saw him of the change that had been wrought in him. His countenance indicated it. Had he seen a vision of angels, or caught a glimpse of the heavenly paradise, he could not have manifested more seraphic joy than beamed from his face.

No sooner had he experienced the joys of religion than he began to feel a deep interest for the salvation of his friends and associates. He went to his companions. He warned them of the danger

make plain his duty. He therefore joined the Virginia conference, and went to the circuit to which he was appointed, determined to labor on, till those who had the charge and ecclesiastical government over him should become convinced he was not called to the office, and should dismiss him. That time, however, never came. He was greatly encouraged by the success with which he met. The presence of God was often manifested in the meetings which he held. Souls were convicted and converted under his preaching. His own soul enjoyed union and communion with his Savior, both in his public preaching and in his private devotions. He soon, therefore, became satisfied of his call to the ministry, and he determined, with a firm faith, a manly heart, and an unwavering trust in Providence, to move on in the line of his duty.

Having joined the Virginia conference in 1788, he spent eight years traveling various circuits, and four as presiding elder on a district extending from the Chesapeake Bay to the Alleghany Mountains. Of the incidents of these twelve years we have no record in our possession. We may trace him on the Minutes from circuit to circuit; but we know nothing of the stirring scenes of revival through which he passed, nor of the lights and shades of itinerancy on which he looked.

He suffered during the time a slight eclipse in the cloud that passed over the sky of Methodism in 1792, when O'Kelley withdrew from the Church. O'Kelley had been for several years M'Kendree's presiding elder, and had, of course, acquired over

him much influence, which he failed not to use in procuring disaffection toward the Church. M'Kendree, however, did not become deeply involved. At the conference of 1792, when the difficulties came to a crisis, he declined taking an appointment, and sent Bishop Asbury his "resignation in writing." But a short time after the adjournment of the conference he met the Bishop, withdrew his resignation, and took a regular appointment at Norfolk.

In the autumn of 1800 Bishop Asbury and Bishop Whatcoat, passing through Virginia on their way to the west, took M'Kendree along with them. He was the very man, as the event proved, for a pioneer in the west. They gave him charge of the whole Western conference, including all the state of Ohio, of Kentucky, and of Tennessee, with all that part of Virginia lying west of the Kanawha, and with missions in Illinois and in Mississippi. The district was at least fifteen hundred miles in extent. Every three months he had to travel over it. The country was new, the rivers bridgeless, the woods pathless, and much of the territory houseless. It was his policy to advance with his corps of itinerants as fast and as far as emigration proceeded. Wherever the settler erected his log-cabin there stood M'Kendree to preach to him the Gospel. To reach the frontier settlements, and to pass from one settlement to another, he had often long, tedious, and dangerous rides. He must wade through swamps, swim over rivers, and pick his way through the woods. Night often overtook him far from any dwelling. In such emergency he would dismount from his horse at some convenient spot, gather up a lot of fuel, kindle a fire, eat a morsel of food kindly put up for him at the last cabin, lie down under a tree, with the forest leaves for his bed, his saddle-bags for his pillow, and the overhanging foliage for his covering, and soundly sleep till morning. He spent in these western wilds eight years. And they were years of wonderful interest. But we have no record in detail of the stirring scenes through which he passed. We only know that he preached with extraordinary power and success. He often preached at quarterly meetings and at camp meetings to immense multitudes. Effects followed similar to those which attended the preaching of Wesley at Bristol and at London, and of Whitefield at Kingswood and at Moorfields. Careless ones would be awakened to intense anxiety; hard-hearted veterans in sin would weep bitterly; athletic men would fall helpless as infants on the ground; deep conviction would seize on the sinner; earnest and fervent prayer would arise from lips from which but an hour before had proceeded only curses; then would arise songs of praise and shouts of victory, making the grand old forest ring with peans of triumph.

Fresh from the field of glory and of triumph, where for eight years he had been enjoying such success in his ministry as seldom crowns the labors of mortals, M'Kendree proceeded to the city

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of Baltimore, to attend the General conference of 1808. He was a stranger in the city, having not, as I can learn, ever before visited it. He was a stranger to most of the members of the General conference. Few of the junior preachers of the Eastern and Middle States, or of the Southern Atlantic States, had ever heard even the name of William M'Kendree. At that time mails and postoffices were few, and newspapers had hardly begun to be. There was not in any denomination a religious newspaper in America. The Methodists had no organ whatever of communication. Once in a great while a letter might be conveyed by the mail on some one of the great routes, and Bishop Asbury might thus, while in the south, be informed of the state of the Churches north and east. But very few of the preachers knew any thing of what was transpiring in a distant section of the country. Though, therefore, rumors of the wonderful displays of power and grace exhibited in the west might have reached some of the eastern preachers, yet few of them had any distinct information of the events, or any knowledge of the brave and chivalrous man who had so successfully led on the embattled hosts of the Lord.

Among the appointments for preaching on the first Sabbath of the General conference, there was announced for the Light-Street Church the name of William M'Kendree. When the hour of morning service arrived, there appeared an immense multitude of people, of all ranks and conditions of society congregating in a populous city. The members of the General conference were there, the polished and hospitable citizens were there, and the slaves were there. The house was crowded, positively packed full-full in the main body, full in the first gallery, full in the second gallery, and full in the pulpit. All eyes were turned to the stranger, as, at the appointed time, he entered the pulpit, and stood before them. He was a man of tall form and commanding appearance; but he was clothed in very coarse and homely garments, and his movements seemed to the genteel part of his audience awkward, and his manners rustic.

He read the hymn without much regard to rhythm or melody. He prayed with indistinct and faltering voice. He read his text without any regard to impressiveness. He introduced the main subject of his discourse with a few commonplace and uninteresting remarks. The spirit of the people died within them. Their expectations of an interesting discourse from the western stranger seemed wholly disappointed. They made up their minds, as Christian people should, to bear as patiently as possible the dull and awkward sermon about to be inflicted on them.

But when the discourse was about half finished a "change came over the spirit of their dream.” Sampson arose in his might and shook himself. The lion of the west made the walls of the LightStreet, as he often had made the forests of Kentucky, ring with his powerful voice. The effect

was tremendous. An electric impulse thrilled through every heart. The whole congregation seemed overwhelmed. Tears burst from the eye, and sobs and shrieks from the voice. Multitudes fell helpless from their seats, sudden as if shot with a rifle.

The preacher then changed the tone of his voice, and there followed from the enraptured multitude shouts of joy and acclamations of triumph and praise. He changed again, and a sweet and holy influence, like the mellow light of Indian summer floating over the autumn landscape, seemed to invest the assembly.

When he came down from the pulpit, the people gazed at him as they might at some messenger from another world, who had spoken to them in tones such as they had never heard before. The preachers, with one accord, said, "That is the man for a bishop." Accordingly the same week he was elected, with great unanimity, by the General conference, Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church. It might seem inexpedient, as a general rule, for an ecclesiastical body to elect a man to an office so important on an impulse so sudden. Yet in this case the choice was most fortunate. No man in the American Methodist Church at that time united in his person so many admirable qualifications for the office as did William M'Kendree. As a man, he was single-hearted, magnanimous, generous, and of most refined and exquisite sensibility. As a Christian he was deeply pious. As a minister, he was, in power and success, a prince among his brethren. He was thoroughly acquainted with the Discipline and government of the Church; probably better versed in ecclesiastical law than any of his cotemporaries, except Asbury. Under the excitement caused by the secession of Mr. O'Kelley, a secession in which M'Kendree himself came near being involved, he thoroughly examined the whole subject of Church government, and became exceedingly attached to the Methodist system. During his administration of the episcopacy the Church passed several crises of agitation respecting ecclesiastical regulations. During those trying seasons the sleepless vigilance and strong personal influence of M'Kendree were exerted to the utmost to preserve the constitution formed by Asbury and the fathers, and now acknowledged by all Methodists as the most efficient system of Church organization known among Protestants. Had it not been for M'Kendree there would have been carried, at the General conference of 1820, some measures which we all would now deprecate as inexpedient and mischievous. In resisting innovations and changes which he thought injurious, he often had to array himself against talented and estimable men. His own measures were often severely criticised, and sometimes censured. But he stood firm and unmoved, asking for nothing but what he deemed right, and submitting to nothing he thought wrong. He often, in the administration of the government confided to him, presented, by his

firm and independent course, a specimen of the moral sublime.

He held the office of bishop for twenty-seven years. During the first twelve years he was effective and vigorous, traveling annually from the Mississippi of the west to the Merrimack of the east, and from the St. Lawrence of the north to the St. Mary's of the south. For the last fifteen years of his life he was deeply afflicted by disease. He suffered at times intensely. Owing to his severe afflictions, the General conference, by unanimous vote, released him from all obligation to travel at large; yet still he pursued, so far as he possibly could, his usual rounds, often traveling from one end of the continent to the other when he was so infirm as to have to be assisted by his attendants in getting into his carriage or out of it.

He retained, during the twelve years of his effective service, all the energy, the eloquence, and the power of his early days.

I had once, and once only, the good fortune to see him, and to hear him. It was at the session of the New England conference at Durham, in the state of Maine, in the year 1814. I was then a small boy, but I had heard of the fame of Bishop M'Kendree. On Sabbath morning I made my way over the fields and pastures, and through the woods, to the old Methodist church, which stood in a rural region on the hill-side. When I arrived at the house, I found no room-not so much as about the door. Being, however, a little fellow, I contrived to work a tortuous passage through the crowd, and to reach a position near the altar, in full view of the preacher. He was just rising to give out his text. His tall and manly form, his dignified and commanding appearance, struck me with admiration. Distinctly and impressively he read his text: Deuteronomy xxx, 19, “I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live." Without apology or labored introduction, he proceeded at once to his main subject. His manner of speaking was different from any I had ever heard. He would speak for a few sentences rapidly in a colloquial style. Then he would rise in declamation, and make the old house ring with the powerful tones of his magnificent voice. Suddenly he would descend to a lower key, and utter tones sweet and soft as the Eolian lyre. At times the feelings of the audience would become, under his stirring appeals, most intense, and one simultaneous shout would leap from a hundred tongues. Young as I was, I was deeply affected with wonder and delight at the powerful eloquence and commanding appearance of the distinguished stranger. The man, the manner, the voice, and the discourse, all made on my youthful heart an impression which the long years that are past have failed to wear away.

During the tedious years of his physical decline, from 1820 till his death in 1835, he continued, whenever it was possible for him to move, or be

moved to his carriage by friendly hands, to travel over the continent, preaching occasionally, overseeing the interests of the Church, and aiding, by his counsel and advice, his associates and the preachers in the prudent and efficient discharge of their official duties. In the summer of 1824, after having attended the General conference at Baltimore, he made an extensive tour over the Alleghany Mountains to the Ohio river, across the country from Wheeling to Sandusky on Lake Erie, thence south through the central portions of Ohio to Shelbyville in Kentucky, and west through Indiana and Illinois to the Mississippi, and again south to Nashville. In 1828, after the adjournment of the General conference at Pittsburg, he made an extensive tour through Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia. Having visited the Churches, so far as his health admitted, all along this western and southern tour, he attended the annual conferences at Baltimore and at Philadelphia, and then returned south-west to Nashville.

In the autumn of 1830 he started from Nashville, with the intention of making a tour through all the southern and most of the northern Atlantic states, and of arriving at Philadelphia in the spring of 1832, to attend the General conference. He succeeded in reaching the seat of the Holston conference, in East Tennessee, near the North Carolina line, but was so prostrated by the journey as to be wholly unable to attend the conference. Being strongly urged by his friends to abandon his Atlantic tour, and to return by slow and easy stages to Nashville, he submitted, though, it is said, he wept; yes, the great, the good M'Kendree wept, when he found himself compelled by disease to be borne, like a disabled soldier, from the field. He feared that he should become useless, and a burden rather than a blessing to the Church.

Having succeeded, though with many difficulties and much suffering, in crossing the Cumberland Mountains, he spent the winter on the banks of the Cumberland river, near Nashville. In the spring of 1831 he again started for the north. He spent the summer in Kentucky and Ohio. In the autumn he crossed the Alleghanies, and spent the winter in Baltimore. In the spring of 1832 he proceeded to Philadelphia, to attend the General conference. On his arrival in Philadelphia, he was too feeble to attend regularly the sessions of the conference. Occasionally he would be seen feebly walking up the aisle, and taking a seat by the side of his colleagues; but he could remain in the room only a short time. His last visit to the conference room was made the day before the adjournment. Having remained as long as his strength would admit, he arose to retire to his lodgings. He was but too conscious of his approaching dissolution ever to expect to meet his brethren again in another General conference. Leaning on his staff, his tall and manly form bent with age and infirmity, his eyes suffused with tears, his voice faltering with

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emotion, he exclaimed, "My brethren and children, love one another!" Then spreading forth his hands, and raising his eyes to heaven, he pronounced, in impressive accents, the apostolic benediction. Then slowly and sadly he left the house, to return

no more.

By slow and wearisome journeys, being obliged, during the latter part of the route, to travel lying on a bed in his carriage, he reached Nashville in the autumn of 1832. During the year 1833 and 1834 he occasionally ventured on short excursions through parts of Western Tennessee, and on one occasion he passed in steamboat down the Cumberland, the Ohio, and the Mississippi, to New Orleans.

On the 23d of November, 1834, he preached, at the Methodist Church in Nashville, his last sermon. From this time he continued to decline till his death, which occurred at the house of his brother, near Nashville, on the 5th of March, 1835.

As this eminent soldier of the cross, this captain of the hosts of the Lord, this leader of the armies of the faithful, was standing, at the age of nearly fourscore years, on the last hights of earth, looking back on his heroic career for half a century, looking around on the spoils he had won from sin, and looking forward along the dark and perilous way to that "undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveler returns," he cried out, in accents of confidence, "All is well!" As he descended to the valley of the shadow of death, and stood looking on the "land of darkness as darkness itself, and of the shadow of death, without any order, and where the very light is as darkness," he cried again, in tones of faith," All is well!" As he plunged into the deep and dark shadows, and stood by that lethean stream, whose oblivious waters all of earth must cross, his voice again was heard resounding through the gloom, " All is well!" When, descending to the brink, he had committed himself to the stream, and the deep, dark, and returnless tide was bearing him on, the words again arose above the roar of the waters, "All is well!" Faintly yet sweetly the echo of those words, from the hill of the heavenly Zion, seems yet to come back to the children of earth, “All is well!”

PREPARING TO DIE.

THE amiable and gifted Jane Taylor, the last time she took up her pen-it was on the day preceding her death-wrote as follows: "O, my dear friends, if you knew what thoughts I have now, you would see, as I do, that the whole business of life is preparation for death."

One who had lived more than fifty years said, as the hand of Death was upon him, "I have all my days been getting ready to live, and now I must die."

How much time is spent in preparing to live!how little in preparing to die!