Smyrna times., 1869-11-03
.MiSceIIU 10 as.
Pioneer Methodist Preachers.

From Lamps, Pitchers, and TTumpets, a re-
cent work by Edwin Paxton Hood, an English
writer, we make the following extracts
The Methodist pulpit of the United States
is not one whit less interesting-rather more
so, think-than our own. Had not DR..
Sprague brought together. such an interesting
variety OF biography and anecdote in his An
mails of the american Methodist Pulpit, we
should have hoped that the subject would have
brought from DIR. Stevens fourth volume
and still there is room; and from his pen it
could only be most pleasant reading.
For very wonderful is the story of the lamp
and pitcheEin many of the dark places of that
great continent-the varied region of the Uni
ted States-the lives of bishops, not addressed
as . My Lord" wearing no episcopal title or
dignity, having no splendid palace, no magnif
cent cathedral, no snug diocese, no princely in
come. Scholars, men of genius like Asbury,
separating themselves from all the comforts
and cOnveniences of life, for sixty dollars a
year, with travelling equipage, not ofa chariot
and four, but of saddle bags and one plung-
ing into the wilderness to seek for lost sheep,
preaching in barns, on stumps of trees, in log
huts, in illimitable woods, in the houseless for
est, by blazed trees in deep prairies; founder
ing through swamps, swimming vast rivers,
drenched by pitiless rains scorched by suns,
bitten by frosts and driving SHOWS. From some
~S
sure and send us good swimmer; there was
considerable wonder as to what this could
mean, till it turned out that the district was
full of bridgeless streams, and the last minister
, had been drowned because he could not swim
Sometimes the travelling preacher or tishoE
found himself among the hostile Indians IL
the solitude of the forest he knew their tracl
and trail at night he heard their yell, and un
q expectedIy found him,ef in the neighborhoOC
v OF their camp fire and the crack of the lndiaI
o rife The intrepid aud heroic preacher urge,
& his way over the mountains and through val
leys, stirring the community, wherever h
% came, with hymn and sermon; reaching tn
6. villages and little settlements dotting the couu
try, amidst extensive wilderness, for the mos
part the undi>turbed abode of the wolf and tn
= panther Neither the cold nor storms of wit
ter, nor the abuse he received from wicked met
could weaken his energy or impede his progress
If the horse was not In the way, then often tn
sadde-bags had to be carried over the shoult
er, and be travelled on foot. Sometimes thel
were no sadde-bags George, said Bisho
% Asbury to George Roberts George, whei
= are your clothes p Bishop, they are on III
a, back. On receiving my appointment at yol
hand, sir, am not compelled to return to n
d. circuit for my clothes, but | am ready, at
ch moments warning, to go withersoever you
rect" His son, DIR. Roberts, says" ha'
in my possession the needle and thread ca
:. which was his constant companion. If
= clothes, from any unexpected cause, needed q
tention, he was in the habit of turning ash
. into some retired spot for the purpose OF ia
ing them off and mending them" In {
lives of Romish saints--St Francis or St.
minic-these would be thought most pictur,
llhna no que and wonderful relics. Sometimes {
preacher, in the depth of the prairie, came up
80 a band Of white heathen. Thus Richard NollC
sw one of those good and great men, discover
has the track OF an emgrant family, and follow
ion il. /" What said the man who was leadi
asst it into the wilderness, 8 a Methodist preache
S / quit VII ginia to be out tf the way of the