forbidden,) and a fire is kept burning in different parts of the camp, where the water is boiled. After the afternoon preaching, things take nearly the same course as in the morning, only the praying groups are upon a larger scale, and more scope is given to animated exhortations and loud prayers. Some who exercise on these occasions soon lose their voices; and, at the end of a camp-meeting, many, both preachers and people, can only speak in a whisper. At six o'clock in the evening the horn summons to preaching, after which, though in no regulated form, all the above means continue until morning: so that, go to whatever part of the camp you please, some are engaged in them: yea, and during whatever part of the night you awake, the wilderness is vocal with praise.

"At this camp-meeting, perhaps, not less than one hundred persons were awakened and converted to God. I have heard many say, that they never heard such praying, exhorting, and preaching, anywhere else; and those who engage feel such a divine afflatus, that they are carried along as by the force of a delightful torrent; indeed, this has been so much the case with myself, the several times I preached and exhorted at these meetings, that I was sensible of nothing but a constraining influence, transporting me beyond myself, carrying me along with a freedom and fulness, both of emotion and language, quite unusual, and yet I had no very friendly views of camp-meetings until I attended them; however, I am now satisfied that they are the right-hand of Methodism in the United States, and one main cause why the societies have doubled and trebled there within these few years."

The camp-meetings of the Ranters were first suggested, and then revived, by the camp-meetings held throughout several parts of the United States of America *.

Methodism in

Methodism was introduced into the United States about the year 1766, at which time a few Methodists came from Ireland, and established themselves in New York. Preachers were sent over in the United States. Successive years by Mr. Wesley, and in 1773 the first regular conference was held in Philadelphia. In 1784 the Methodists in America became independent of those in England. At this time Mr. Wesley solemnly consecrated Thomas Coke as bishop; and having delivered to him letters of episcopal orders, commissioned and directed him to set apart Francis Asbury, then general assistant of the Methodist Society in America, for the same episcopal office; he, the said Francis Asbury, being first ordained deacon and elder. In consequence of which the said Francis Asbury was solemnly set apart for the said episcopal office by prayer, and the imposition of the hands of the said Thomas Coke, other regularly-ordained ministers assisting in the sacred ceremony. At which time the General Conference, held at Baltimore, did unanimously receive the said Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury as their bishops, being fully satisfied of the validity of their episcopal ordination. The annual conferences of the Methodists in the United States are

twenty-two in number. These assemblies consist of all the travelling preachers in full communion, and no others. Without the election of an annual conference no man can be ordained either deacon or elder. These bodies, when preachers offer them

Annual Conferences.

Evans's Sketch.

selves for admission, receive them first on trial, and afterwards, if they choose, into full connexion and membership. In other words, each annual conference is a corporation, which perpetuates itself by the election of its own members, and into which there can be no admission in any other way. This body has also the exclusive right of sitting in judgment on the character and conduct of its members. No itinerant preacher can be permanently censured or silenced, except by the conference to which he belongs; and from their decision he can make no appeal, except to the general conference.

The bishops, of whom there are at present six, are elected by the general conference, and are ordained "by the laying on of the hands of three bishops, or at least of one bishop and two elders." To Bishops. them it belongs to ordain elders and deacons; to preside in the conferences, annual and general; to appoint the presiding elders, giving to each his district, and changing or removing them at discretion; to assign to every preacher the circuit or station in which he shall labour, for a term not exceeding two years in succession; to change, receive, or suspend preachers, pro tempore, in the intervals of the conferences, as necessity may require, and the rules of discipline dictate; and, finally, to travel at large among the people, and " oversee the spiritual and temporal concerns of the church." Presiding elders are assistant bishops, having each the special charge of a particular district; and each within his own district is, as it were, the bishop's vicegerent.

It belongs to the travelling preachers to appoint all the class-leaders within the circuit or station to which he is sent; and he may remove them at pleasure. He also appoints the receivers of the Travelling Preachers. quarterly collections, nominates the steward, and such exhorters as he thinks qualified. When a member is accused, the preacher in charge selects a committee, before whom the trial as to facts must proceed. If that committee, in which of course the preacher presides, finds the accused guilty, the appeal is not to the "society," the whole body of his brethren and equals, but to what is called the quarterly conference, consisting of all the travelling and local preachers, stewards, and class-leaders of the circuit. If the committee before whom the accused is tried in the first instance, finds him not guilty of the charge, he is not therefore acquitted; the preacher may send the whole matter up to the quarterly conference, and from that body the accused, if then condemned, has no appeal.

Local Preachers.

The privileges and prerogatives of local preachers are of an inferior character. The local preachers in each district are assembled annually by the presiding elder, in what is called the district conference. This body has power to license as preachers such persons as have been recommended by the quarterly conference; to recommend whom they choose to the annual conferences for ordination as deacons or elders "in the local connexion," or for admission on trial in the "travelling connexion ;" and by them local preachers, when accused, are to be tried as travelling preachers are tried, by the annual conference, with the same right of appeal.

SEC. X.-QUAKERS.

THE Quakers owe their origin to George Fox, who was born in Leicestershire about the year 1624. It is reported of him, that in his Origin. youth he was of a particularly thoughtful temper, and loved to be by himself. At an early age he became apprentice to a shoemaker. While in this situation, he devoted himself with great diligence to the perusal of the Scriptures, and, as opportunity presented, was wont to exhort his fellow-shoemakers, from whom, however, he received no great encouragement. As he was one day walking alone in the fields, reflecting according to custom on the disorderly lives of men, and considering of the most proper means to reform them, for the glory of God, and their own temporal and eternal happiness; he thought he heard a voice from heaven, or rather he felt one of those sudden impulses, which the Quakers receive as special motions from the Holy Ghost. This impulse set before his eyes a lively representation of the corrupt and abandoned lives of men, from their cradle to extreme old age, at which time nothing is left to return to God, but weak and decayed senses, and a second childhood; exhorting him at the same time to retirement and an absolute separation from the general corruption of the world. This is the true epoch of Fox's vocation: considering that he had received a call from heaven, he lived in a closer retreat than before; he searched narrowly into the state of his conscience; retrenched whatever he found superfluous, and followed his trade no further than was necessary for his subsistence. He went about preaching from place to place, and boldly entered into disputes with divines and ministers, trusting solely to and being guided only by what he considered to be that divine voice, which interiorly speaks to the heart, and draws men as it pleases. This caused Fox to be looked upon as a seditious person; on which account he was seized at Nottingham, in 1649, and imprisoned. This first imprisonment occurred when he was twenty-five years of age. On being released from Nottingham jail, he preached in other places, where he was roughly handled by the mob for his eccentric behaviour, and the boldness with which he interrupted the ministers in their sermons. At Derby, he was shut up for six months in a house of correction; and when he came out of it, in order to be examined by Jeremy Bennet, a justice of the peace, the name of Quakers was given to him and his disciples, because, in his answers and public exhortations, he often said quaking and trembling were necessary dispositions to hear the word of God with profit.

Nottingham and Derby were not the only places in which Fox was punished on account of the very eccentric course he pursued; he had been cast into prison, and whipped in those towns; at other places he was put in the pillory, and underwent some punishments equally ignominious; he was often stoned or beaten almost to death: but he endured all those affronts according to the literal sense of the gospel precept; he desired the judges to order a second execution of the sentence pronounced against him; he presented his cheek and his back to those who had struck or whipped him; and in the midst of these temporal afflictions he rejoiced, and was comforted by the daily increase of the number of his adherents.

Cromwell was soon acquainted with Fox's reputation, and the progress of his sect at first he despised them and their principles, not thinking a body of men, who preached and practised literally evangelical patience, who presented themselves to be beaten and abused, and who gloried in suffering for the love of God, could be of any use to him in the government of the state but upon consideration, and perceiving how quickly that sect spread itself throughout the whole kingdom, his contempt turned to wonder. He employed the most pressing solicitations, he offered large sums of money to win over those enthusiasts to his interest, but without any success; they were above corruption, and behaved like worthy disciples of the gospel; and forced that tyrant to praise this new species of men, whom he could not engage to his party by either gifts or favours, which means he had tried upon all other sects without ever missing his aim.

The Quakers flattered themselves with the hope of enjoying some quiet at the restoration of Charles II., but refusing to take the oath of allegiance to that monarch, because in their opinion all oaths are forbidden, a grievous persecution was raised against them. While suffering these persecutions, they were considerably strengthened by the accession to their fraternity of the well-known William Penn, who, on account of his talents and ample fortune, soon acquired no small influence and reputation among them. About the same time, also, the persecution against them abating, they employed themselves in reducing their views to a more regular system, and in adopting rules according to which they were to govern themselves. These we shall briefly notice.

General

Both sexes have general meetings, which may be called classes, colloquies, and synods. In those assemblies, which are either provincial, and held every three months, or general, and called together every Meetings. year, censures are pronounced, ecclesiastical affairs reviewed, books examined, and the most material occurrences registered in their records. In England the Quakers' general meeting is fixed to the third day after Pentecost; not out of superstition, they say, as if they expected their deputies should be more particularly inspired at a time when the commemoration of the Holy Ghost's coming down upon the Apostles is celebrated, but solely out of a principle of regularity in meeting on a fixed day, and at a convenient season; and it is notorious that the Quakers keep no holydays, and solemnize no festival. The Holy Ghost, the spirit within, neither knows nor admits any such distinctions. Deputies from all the Quakers dispersed through the whole world meet at these assemblies; in which there is a secretary to register, or propose the matters to be debated, or copy out the decisions: but the Holy Ghost is the invisible president; and they do not admit of a visible one.

Their outward exercises of devotions consist in a profound contemplation, whilst some one of them, man or woman, rises up either with a

Public Devotions.

sedate and composed motion, or in a kind of transport, as if actuated by an irresistible power, and often with sighs, groans, and tears. This variety of behaviour is caused, as they say, by the impression of the spirit, which often dictates to the man or woman preacher, sermons two or three hours long, after a deep silence of an equal duration. This quietude, the Quakers say, disposes them to enter into

a serious consideration of the state of their own souls, into a deep meditation, by means of which the Spirit prepares to itself hidden ways to penetrate into their hearts: then it breaks forth in sermons and exhortations, or in prayer or psalmody: during which those who are not inspired to speak, remain in a state of recollection, examine themselves, and make a suitable application of what they hear to the circumstances in which they find their own souls. From that inward conflict of the spirit against the flesh; from the devil's furious assaults to keep the mastery, proceed sometimes those bodily motions, those shakings and tremblings with which many of them are seized. It not unfrequently happens that a meeting is concluded without any sermon, exhortation, or public prayer.

Meditation, prayer, recollection, contemplation, and reading the Bible, are the chief devotions which the Quakers use at home; they are longer or shorter, more or less frequent, and alternately diversified, Private De- as the impulses prevail. Their children are brought up to votions, &c. those exercises from their infancy, have a very plain and modest education, without any ornaments, fine clothes, what is called a genteel behaviour, or endeavouring to please other men. The Quaker's dress is brown, or of some plain dark colour, somewhat like a waistcoat, without plaits on the sides, without buttons on the pockets or sleeves, their hats broad-brimmed and horizontal; all the politeness they aim at is an open, frank access, and natural easy conversation.

They keep no festivals, but may meet on any day; in England and Holland they meet regularly every Sunday: they neither pray nor speak, either in public or private, with a loud voice, but when, as Time of worship. they affirm, the spirit within bids them. If this spirit do not move them, they are only to think at church, at table, at going to bed.

The Quakers place no great value on the knowledge of languages and learning, which although they do not think entirely useless, yet they say, Estimation of are not necessary for the ministry: they express a great knowledge,titles, contempt of philosophy and divinity, chiefly as taught in honours, &c. the schools, and esteem them no otherwise than as the inventions of Satan.

They likewise reject all titles of honour, either in the state or in the church, and have no regard to academical degrees. All these marks of distinction are only apt to set up so many masters, which the gospel expressly forbids, we being all equally brethren: they give the name of hirelings to Protestant clergymen, on account of the income they receive from the lands they possess, from tithes, salaries, or pensions. And according to their system, it is evident they cannot approve of a limitation in the number of ministers, nor of that function being appropriated to a particular order of men, since the spirit within is not and cannot be confined. Moreover, they think the number of pastors is too small to comply with all the duties required of them; and that there ought to be missionaries, who might, as amongst Catholics, labour without intermission for the propagation of the faith; and are of opinion, that the present behaviour of other Protestants in that particular paves the way for antichrist.

Duties, taxes, great salaries, and profits, all other means employed in