《Master Workmen》
Biographies of the Late Bishops of the Free Methodist Church During Her First Century 1860-1960
TABLE OF CONTENTS
DedicationAbout the Author of this Book
INTRODUCTION
PREFACE
Chapter 1 / BENJAMIN TITUS ROBERTS
New School Methodism Trial of Roberts Laymen's Convention Organization of the Free Methodist Church
Chapter 2 / EDWARD PAYSON HART
Chapter 3 / GEORGE WHITEFIELD COLEMAN
Chapter 4 / BURTON RENSSELAER JONES
Chapter 5 / WILSON THOMAS HOGUE
Chapter 6 / WALTER ASHBEL SELLEW
Chapter 7 / JOHN SAMUEL MACGEARY
Chapter 8 / DAVID SNETHEN WARNER
Chapter 9 / WILLIAM HENRY CLARK
Chapter 10 / ARTHUR DEFRANCE ZAHNISER
Chapter 11 / GEORGE WILLIAM GRIFFITH
Chapter 12 / BURTON JONES VINCENT
Chapter 13 / ROBERT HOPKINS WARREN
Chapter 14 / WILLIAM PEARCE
DEDICATION
To my sons
Richard and Edward
and to my daughter Lenys
and to the rising generation of Free Methodists
scattered over the continents
and the isles of the sea, this volume
is affectionately dedicated.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR AND THE BOOK
The author of this book was born in New Castle, Pennsylvania. He received his A. B. degree at Greenville College. He completed the work for the Master of Arts degree at Columbia University, received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Cornell University, and did research work at the University of Berlin in Germany. He has been dean of Greenville College, president of Evansville Junior College, and a member of the faculty of Cornell University for several years in the Department of Ancient History. Dr. Blews collaborated with Professor George Botsford of Columbia University in the publication of "The Roman Assemblies." He also furnished a translation of the municipal laws of Julius Caesar for the volume "A Source Book in Ancient History." For a number of years he has been actively engaged in the ministry, during which time he has also been a corresponding editor of the "Free Methodist," contributing many articles largely in the field of biography. He is also editor of "The Pennsylvania Challenge."
The first edition of Master Workmen was published in 1939. This Centennial Edition, with the addition of the chapter on the life of Bishop William Pearce is published by order of the General Conference of 1955.
INTRODUCTION
Not always does a liberal education confer skill and grace in verbal expression, but in Dr. Blews the scholar and the writer find a happy combination. Trained under eminent scholars in American and European universities he has the technique of the historian and the skill of the literary artist. His book, MASTER WORKMEN, will compare very favorably in attractiveness and strength of diction with the standard works of historians and biographers in general. Extensive research is evident, and the reader will derive both profit and pleasure from the perusal of the biographies of the eminent men whose lives and works the author vividly portrays -- our bishops now within the veil.
As in the political world, so in the ecclesiastical, strong movements stand virtually connected with men of mark. In the latter the power of the gospel of Christ is the main essential, while native endowment and the equipment of a comprehensive education are in their place of great value.
Evidently the design of God for the nineteenth century included the formation of the Free Methodist Church, whose cardinal distinction is the retention of the Wesleyan, the Scriptural, doctrine, together with the experience of entire sanctification, that grand climax in deliverance from sin.
Rev. B. T. Roberts became the chief founder of the church, and very naturally the author describes him and his ministry the most fully of all the deceased bishops. The writer has clearly used the balances of the sanctuary in his just character estimates. No one-sided account is given of the noble men so prominent in the life of the church, and who now rest from their labors.
Of course each one of the bishops differed from the other, for one common mold of personality would be impossible in a world that by the wisdom of God is filled with variety. Nor would it be desirable. One feature, however, was common to them all: In experience and in preaching they continually upheld the original doctrines, and the church has been unchangeably devoted throughout its area, and throughout its history, to the apostolic, the truly Christian standards.
No novelist can invest his fiction characters, or construct his plots, to evoke the same interest that attaches to real persons and their acts. The men of the book were very real, and they were "lovely and pleasant in their lives." The church immeasurably enjoyed the rich fellowship and fruitful ministry of those men, who now await the resurrection of the just, and the aroma of their godly, their exceedingly valuable, lives will increasingly abide.
All but the first three were my highly esteemed colleagues, and the first three I knew in gratifying estimation.
William Pearce
PREFACE
History is a great panorama of endless change and this is the secret of its spell. The story of the rise, greatness, and decay of a nation is like some vast epic which contains as subsidiary episodes the varied stories of the rise, greatness, and decay of creeds, of parties, and men.
This volume deals with that tributary to the great stream of history known as the Free Methodist Church. As was said of Methodism in the days of her primitive piety, so it can be truthfully said of Free Methodism -- "it is Christianity in earnest." Hers is the heroic task to hold high the torch from the hand of John Wesley, "to spread scriptural holiness over these lands." These studies of the church have been cast in biographical form illustrating the pregnant truth expressed by Carlyle that the history of any country or movement is in the biographies of the men who made it. The story of Luther is the history of the Reformation. When he arose from his knees on Pilate's stairway in Rome a converted man, the face of the world was changed. The thought of men and the curse of nations was changed that day. Carlyle declares that the moment Luther defied the wrath of the Pope at the Diet of Worms was the greatest moment in the modern history of men.
History is written by God in terms of human personality. Genesis gathers around eight men. The Bible presents eras and epochs but at the center of each is a human personality and frequently the man is the key to the age. An epitome of Old Testament History is summarized in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, but it is presented in terms of human personality. God's estimate of all is seen in the heroes of faith.
The world erects monuments to her soldiers who have led their legions to die on the field of battle; but
"Peace hath her victories
No less renowned than war."
In finality, ideas are the only things in the universe that are immortal. Monuments fall into decay with the passing of the silent centuries but the ideas and ideals of the race, if they be lofty, endure. We cannot add to the immortality of the departed. They do not need us but we forever need them. The glory trailing in the clouds behind them after their sun has set, falls with its benediction upon us who are left, and we are inspired by their examples and emulate the noble principles for which they stood. Their lives exhale a sweet perfume and constitute a priceless legacy which posterity should not willingly let die.
In these biographical sketches of the master workmen of the church, more extended space has been devoted to Bishops Roberts and Hart because they stood at the helm in the period of the church's organization, and because those fashioning forces which combined to give birth to Free Methodism have an increasing interest with the passing of the years.
They climbed the steep ascent of heav'n
Thro' peril, toil and pain;
O God, to us may grace be giv'n
To follow in their train!
Chapter 1
BENJAMIN TITUS ROBERTS
Founder of the Free Methodist Church
One Sunday afternoon in the year 1844, a stalwart, athletic young man, twenty-one years old, deliberately arose from his seat in the church, walked resolutely to the altar of prayer and gave himself to God. Special meetings were not in progress nor was there any visible moving of the Holy Spirit in the church; but history was in the making when that youth stepped out to make the surrender of himself to God. That young man was Benjamin Titus Roberts. That Sunday afternoon marked the pivotal point in his life.
In his own terse language, he gives the account of this great crisis:
"At length it pleased God to answer the prayer of my friends in my behalf. He awakened me to a sense of my lost condition. The instrumentality was very humble. A pious but illiterate cooper, a very bad stammerer, gave in his testimony at the regular Sabbath afternoon prayermeeting. I was there by the invitation of friends and his testimony found way to my heart. There was no special religious interest. The church was cold and sinners hard. God enabled me to start alone. Oh! the riches of His grace. I commenced to pray. It was hard work; but God encouraged me to persevere. As the light of the Spirit shone, I gave up one thing after another; but I clung to my profession. For three weeks I pled with God to convert me, but to let me have my choice in the business I would follow. Many who had power with God prayed for me; but I had to yield. Christ demanded an unconditional surrender; I made it. The joys of pardon and peace flowed into my soul. My cup was full, my happiness was unspeakable."
In the making and molding of a life, "God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform." Young Roberts had settled upon law as his chosen profession. In pursuit of this ambition he left his native hills in western New York in 1842 and went to Little Falls, New York, where he entered the law office of Mr. H. Link. He had secured a position teaching in the schools of the town and thus paid his way while bending all his energies to the study of law. During this time his godly parents were constantly praying for his conversion. With apostolic faith in God, they prayed that he might return home. Their prayer was answered and after an absence of two years he returned and studied law with Attorney C. Howe.
It was a momentous move, for he was to be admitted to the bar in a short time; but it resulted in his conversion and a complete change in his plans. He says: "From my earliest recollections God's Spirit strove with me and restrained me. I was ambitious, proud and worldly. At times I was powerfully convicted; but I thought it was a part of manliness to resist as long as possible; conviction left me and my heart became hard."
Back of this firm decision to turn from the tinselry of the world and its emoluments lay a favorable background. He was born on a farm, July, 1823, in the rich agricultural section of Cattaraugus County in western New York. His childhood was spent upon the farm, the prolific nursery of many of the nation's men of outstanding character. Far removed from the vices and contaminating influences of city life, he grew up near to nature's heart, free from vulgar associations and bad habits. While the necessities of life were amply supplied, there were no luxuries in the home and the boy was trained to honest toil from his earliest years. This schooling in economy and hard labor furnished splendid training for the hardships and difficulties of future years. His outward life was so exemplary that the Presbyterian minister of Gowanda, his native town, offered to educate him for the ministry in that church. "This generous and flattering proposal was refused with the statement, 'I can not accept it, as I have not been converted.' Much as he desired an education and hard as were his labors to secure it, he had too much rectitude of character to permit him to accept of aid bestowed with the thought that he would assume a relationship into which he was not prepared to enter. Yet the offer was renewed, his refusal being regarded as an evidence of unusual modesty and an additional mark of worth." This sincerity characterized his whole life.
Such was the providential setting of the early years of the young man who deliberately surrendered himself to his Maker that Sunday afternoon; whom God in turn designed to make one of His "chosen vessels." "Henceforth, God was to be all in all to him, and in the service of his Master his powers of mind and body were to be spent. But it was not a light struggle for a young man, just on the threshold of an active professional career, to lay aside his cherished plans and hopes, to abandon the results of years of study, acquired only through extreme exertions and sacrifice -- bending over his books when others slept, toiling when others enjoyed recreation. To make this sacrifice meant much; but with the eye of faith fixed on the eternal world, he chose with God. The divine choice for him, he made his own choice. He was thenceforth to plead not for wealth nor fame, but for immortal souls. He was to join the true apostolic succession, to become a Spirit-endued preacher of the glorious gospel of the Son of God." [1]
In April of the following year, 1845, he entered Lima Seminary in order to prepare for college. His work in the fundamentals had been so thorough that with only two terms' work at the Seminary he was able to enter the sophomore class at college.
According to plans, he entered the Wesleyan University at Middletown, Connecticut, an honored Methodist seat of learning. In this beautiful college town, with its classic repose, he spent three happy years. With characteristic determination and common sense he laid down these three rules of college life which he rigidly adhered to throughout his entire career: "I am resolved to make the interests of my soul of first importance, my bodily health second, and the improvement of my mind third."
During the pressure of his college course, he made ample room for the interests of his spiritual life. His sympathy for the downtrodden as well as his independence of action is revealed by the fact that he taught a Sunday School class in the Negro church, although at the risk of his social standing. As as ardent defender of the slave, his first public address was an abolition speech made when he was a law student.
He writes to his sister as follows: "They have too much of the slavery spirit here, even among the descendants of the Puritans, to worship the universal Father in the same temple with their sable brethren. They have, therefore, here in Connecticut, not Negro slips, but Negro churches, Negro preachers, presiding elders and conference.
"My class consists of young ladies, some of them, I believe, devoted Christians. I feel very much interested in them, and strive and pray to be a means of doing them good. They are both attentive and intelligent.
"I also meet a Bible class of young ladies in the Methodist church after morning service. So you see that having charge of a school of seventy scholars, and studying to keep up with my class in college, and reading, and leading classmeeting one evening, and prayermeeting another evening in the week, with two Bible classes, and boarding around from house to house, affords me quite constant employment."
Perhaps the most far-reaching contact of Mr. Roberts' college days was that with Rev. J. W. Redfield, M. D., who stirred both the school and the city with a mighty revival. This acquaintance led to the uniting of their forces in later years in propagating widespread revivals and in establishing Free Methodism. In 1864 he gave a description of this revival in the February issue of the Earnest Christian:
"We first heard Dr. Redfield preach in the city of Middletown, Connecticut. The state of religion in the church was extremely low. Professing Christians were chiefly distinguished for their conformity to the world. The Methodists had ceased to be persecuted and were fast becoming a proud and fashionable people ... Dr. Redfield's preaching produced a profound sensation. His deep-toned piety, the divine unction, that rested upon him, his fervent moving appeals to the throne of grace, and his unearthly, overpowering eloquence, disarmed criticism ... Had he lowered the standard to suit the pride and prejudice of his hearers, his popularity would have been unbounded ... The church was crowded and the people seemed amazed. It was for some time doubtful how the scale would turn. Dr. Olin heard the commotion. He was unwilling to take the representation of any but arose from a sick bed and went and heard for himself ... 'This, brethren,' said he, 'is Methodism, and you must stand by it.' Such a work of God as followed we never witnessed. Professors in the college, men of outwardly blameless lives, saw they were not right with God, frankly confessed it, and laying aside their official dignity, went forward for prayers. For some eight or ten weeks the altar was crowded with penitents, from fifty to a hundred coming forward at a time."