Ohio History Journal

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196 Ohio Arch

196       Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.  [VOL. 3

 

The following is an abstract of the discourse delivered to

the Methodists of Gallipolis by the Rev. David H. Moore, D. D.,

of Cincinnati, Editor of the Western Christian Advocate.

 

THEME -PHILOSOPHY OF METHODIST SUCCESS; WITH SPECIAL,

REFERENCE TO THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY.

Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God hath led

thee.-Deut. viii. 2.

It is worthy of note that the successful peopling of North

America was providentially delayed until the Pilgrim Fathers

were ready to plant Christianity in the colonies settling the new

world. But the Pilgrim Fathers were only one remove from

bitter persecutions, and schooled in enforced obedience naturally

became themselves dogmatic and arbitrary. A freer polity and a

more genial faith were needed for the expanding populations of

the colonies; one whose reactions upon the various forms

of Puritanism should be liberalizing and quickening. This new

religious factor--coeval with the political birth of the United

States and ordained to far reaching influence upon its develop-

ment and destiny--was that form of belief and life known as

Methodism. It was unique in its absolute separation from the

arm of flesh, its constant dependence upon the Holy Spirit, and

its single aim of spreading Scriptural holiness throughout the

lands. It was little thoughtful of numbers, no stickler for form;

it feared God, honored the King, and believed in the equal par-

ticipation of all men in the benefits of the atonement through

Christ. It was conceived in Epworth rectory, born in Oxford

University, and reached the strength and beauty of maturity in

free America.

We who sometimes despair of the cause of God amid the

Sabbath-breaking, drunkenness, sensuality, worldliness and in-

fidelity of the day, need only look at the origin of Methodism

to be assured that our fears are idle. The reign of George II

seems to have had swept down into it from the corrupt court of

Charles the accumulated frivolity, coarseness, libertinism, and

unbelief of all the past. True, some lights were unquenched,

but they were rush-lights disputing with midnight gloom. Over-

whelming wickedness rolled over the land.