THE LADIES' REPOSITORY. NOVEMBER, 1852. JOHN EMORY. BY THE EDITOR JOHN EMORY was born in Maryland, on the 11th of April, 1789. His father and mother were members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The father was a class-leader in the Church. The mother was a woman of noble heart, of generous spirit, of strong mind, and of sincere piety. Their house had long been the home of the early coadjutors in their itinerant visits to the eastern shore of Maryland. The children were accustomed from infancy to the company and conversation of these holy men of God, and to the hallowing exercises of family devotion. Thus early trained in the doctrines and usages, and subjected to the influences of the Church, they were easily susceptible of religious impressions, and exhibited early an affinity for Methodism. They were accustomed to attend, with their parents, class meetings, love-feasts, quarterly meetings, and camp meetings. Two of the children were converted at home during family prayer, and others at very early ages were converted at social and public meetings, and became excellent and exemplary Christians. cation was conducted by his teachers on a classical and very liberal scale. He spent four years at a classical academy at Easton, Md.; one year at an academy in Strasburg, Penn.; and two years at Washington College, eastern shore of Maryland. During these seven years he was thoroughly trained in a liberal course of study. At the close of his academic course he entered as a student of law in the office of Richard Tilghman Earle, Esq., of Centerville, Md. Having pursued diligently and thoroughly the study of law for three years, he was, at the age of nineteen, admitted to the bar. Immediately he opened an office, business flowed rapidly on him, and he had every prospect of rising to wealth and fame in the profession which his father had chosen for him. But a change came over his spirit, and his whole plan of life was modified. He had not in his attention to the classics abandoned the Bible, nor in his devotion to the law forgotten the Gospel. His mother at the time of his birth had consecrated him to the Lord. She had hoped he might become a minister at the sanctuary of God. She had constantly prayed for him. The influence of the religious impressions he had received in his childhood had not departed from him. While at school at Easton, when not more than eleven or twelve years old, during a religious excitement, he had become seriously disposed, and had joined a Methodist class, consisting of small boys, led by a faithful and pious man. He might have continued in the path of early piety, without deviation or retardation, had he not been seduced by a classmate to do an act which wounded his tender conscience. The act itself was wholly harmless, merely climbing a tree, in a retired wood, to see a distant horse-race. But he thought it wrong. He, however, did it, and thereby violated the dictates of his conscience. The injury, therefore, to him was as great as though he had com The father it seems had some notions very common, but altogether erroneous, respecting the education of children. Instead of giving his children a thorough and general education, qualifying them for any business or profession in life, and then leaving them, when they should become of age, to choose for themselves a profession, according to their own taste, inclination, or judgment, he classified his children, when at a very early age, for different pursuits and professions, and then educated each one for the specific department of business to which he had appointed him. One was to be a farmer, one a merchant, one a doctor, one a statesman, and one a lawyer. In this capricious allot-mitted some act in itself criminal. The effect on ment John was set apart for the lawyer. His education, therefore, was directed to this specific end. At the early age of ten years he was sent from home to attend a classical school. Fortunately, though designed for a specific profession, his edu VOL. XII.-31 his mind was unfortunate. He became discouraged, neglected his class, gave up his religious profession, and returned to a life of worldly ambition. The good Spirit did not, however, give him up. It followed him still, nor could he forget the prayers don his position, with all its advantages and prospects. All these sacrifices, however, he could cheerfully make. All the privations and inconveniences of an itinerant life he could with fortitude endure. But there was in his way another difficulty of formidable import. His father flatly and plumply refused consent to his becoming a traveling preacher. What could he do? No man held in higher respect than did John Emory parental authority; yet he acknowledged a law higher still-a law emanating from the authority that is over all, and made known to him by the Spirit of God operating on his heart. He had the witness of the divine Spirit testifying through his conscience that he was called to preach. While he conceded, according to the established order of civilized society, the right of his father to control his business pursuits during his minority, he could not acknowledge any such right to form for him any engagements to extend beyond the age of twenty-one years, or to dictate his course of life after he had passed to the age of independent manhood. During his twentyfirst year he suffered most intensely from conflicting emotions. He would most willingly do all in his and instructions of his pious mother. In August, 1806, while a student at law, he attended a quarterly meeting in the neighborhood of his family home. It was a season of gracious revival. His brother and sister had shared in the heavenly visitation. He had been for some time unusually serious, though he had concealed his feelings from the family. The evening before the commencement of the meeting there was a social gathering of several members of the family at the house of an elder brother. The evening was spent in singing, in religious conversation, and in prayer. John took no part in the exercises; but remained a quiet, serious, and respectful spectator. Early on the ensuing Sabbath the family proceeded to love-feast. John, though not yet a member of the Church, accompanied them by invitation, and took a seat in the crowded assembly. In the course of the exercises, Emory, to the surprise of the people, arose from his seat, and in the most solemn manner called God, and angels, and the people there present, to witness that he had that day determined to seek the salvation of his soul. He then fell upon his knees, and remained during the love-feast, silently praying the Lord to pardon his sins. Much interest was excited among the people by the unex-power to gratify the feelings and meet the wishes pected and interesting circumstances of the occasion. His sisters, who sat near the door, when they heard his voice, and knew it was their brother, were nearly overcome with emotion and joy. A circle of pious, devoted, and praying Christians was formed about him. While they were praying for him, he suddenly arose from his knees, and with indescribable composure declared that he felt peace and comfort. A smile of angelic loveliness was lighted up on his countenance. He was the very personification of peaceful, tranquil bliss. From this happy moment his course was onward and upward. He led ever after a life of piety and of active Christian zeal. He was always in the way of duty, never deviating from the path of righteousness. of his father; but he could not refrain from giving up himself to the work of the ministry. After much "reading, prayer, and meditation, he made a covenant on his knees, wrote and signed it, to give up the law," and become a preacher. His father was sorely displeased at the decision to which his son had come. He well-nigh for a time disowned him. He would neither hear him preach nor allow him to write to him. The day of reconciliation, however, at last came. Some three years after the son had entered the ministry the father fell sick. No sooner had he ascertained that his end was nigh, than he dispatched a messenger for that son whom he had so obstinately discarded. The son hastened home, sat down by the bed of his dying father, watched assiduously over him, administered to him the consolations of the Gospel, received his last blessing, and saw him depart in peace and in hope of eternal life. In the spring of 1810, on the very week of his twenty-first birthday, Emory joined the Philadelphia conference. The first two years of his ministry he traveled on the circuits called Caroline and Cambridge, on the eastern shore of Maryland. For the next twelve years he occupied stations at Philadelphia, Wilmington, Washington City, Annap Soon after his conversion he was appointed classleader, an office for which he was peculiarly qualified. Believing it to be his duty to labor still more extensively for the salvation of the people, he obtained license to preach in a local capacity. While yet a student at law, he preached every Sunday, either in the town where he resided or some place in the neighboring country. Continuing his practice of preaching Sunday after he commenced the practice of law, he began soon to feel a desire to devote himself wholly to the work of the Chris-olis, and Hagerstown. Of the incidents of his life tian ministry. But his course in this direction was encompassed by difficulties. To abandon his legal profession and lucrative practice would subject him to great personal sacrifices. He was in the line of safe precedents, and on the direct road to honor, fame, and fortune. His talents were of the highest order, his reputation unsullied, his popularity rapidly increasing, and his success certain. To become an itinerant Methodist preacher he must aban during the fourteen years he spent on circuits and stations we have no account; for he kept no journal. The fact that he remained uniformly in each station he occupied the second term allowed by the law of itinerancy, is evidence that he sustained himself well in the work to which he had devoted his life. The fact of his being elected by the Philadelphia conference, when he was barely eligible from age, a member of the General conference of 1816, and JOHN EMORY. of his being appointed by authority of the General conference of 1820 the delegate of the Methodist Episcopal Church of America to the British Wesleyan conference, would seem to exhibit the high rank he held among the preachers. The mission to England was a work of much importance and great delicacy. Originally Methodism had been one in England and in America. The early American conferences placed the name of Wesley on their Minutes, and acknowledged him as their ecclesiastical head, and willingly obeyed his wishes in all matters of Church organization and government. After some few years, conceiving that Mr. Wesley, from his great distance from America, and his want of personal knowledge of the everchanging circumstances of a new world, like America, could not be qualified to make wise and prudent decisions on various matters relating to American matters, and fearing lest, should they continue to acacknowledge his jurisdiction, he might claim the right to recal Mr. Asbury, and appoint to the superintendency some one not agreeable to the American conference, they dropped his name from their Minutes, and so, in effect, dissolved all ecclesiastical connection with the British Methodists. No official intercourse had been held between the British and American connections for many years. In the mean time serious difficulties had occurred between the preachers of the American and those of the British connection in Canada. As early as 1791 missionaries had been sent from the conferences in the United States to Canada. Success had attended their labors, societies had been organized, and circuits and districts formed. In 1820 there were in Upper and Lower Canada two districts, about twenty circuits and stations, nearly thirty preachers, and upward of five thousand members. Yet there was still room in the Canadian provinces for a greater number of laborers in the vineyard of the Lord, and the Missionary Society of the British connection had, with the best intentions in the world, began, about 1812, to send missionaries to Canada. Unfortunately difficulties soon sprung up between the British missionaries and the American preachers in Canada. The parties often came in ecclesiastical collision. The British missionaries, instead of entering on unoccupied ground, began to interfere with the societies already formed, and occupy the churches already built by the American connection. Each party had its adherents among the people. Some of the Canadians adhered to the British missionaries on account of political sympathies. Others adhered to the American connection on account of old associations, of gratitude, and of sincere affection. Soon, therefore, a condition of things peculiarly unfortunate, and utterly destructive of all religious prosperity, and uncongenial to Christian feeling, began to exist. To effect a settlement of these difficulties, and to renew the friendly intercourse between the two great sections of the Methodist community, the General conference of 1820 resolved to send a delegate to the British 403 conference, with instructions "to endeavor, by all prudent and practicable means, to effect an amicable and permanent adjustment of the unpleasant difficulties existing in Canada," and to propose, in order to restore and preserve friendly and harmonious relations between the British and American connections, a mutual interchange of delegates every four years. The Board of Bishops were authorized to appoint the man who, in their judgment, would be most likely to succeed in accomplishing the objects of this mission. They unanimously selected Emory; and never was a selection more fortunate. He was yet but a young man, hardly passed the age of thirty, yet his talents, his prudence, his learning, and his urbanity marked him as the one most likely of all men in the Methodist Episcopal Church to make a favorable impression on the British conference, and to effect the object of the General conference. Mr. Emory on his arrival in England held an interview with the Missionary Committee at London, and then proceeded to meet the British conference at Liverpool. His success was triumphant. He obtained of the Missionary Committee and of the conference all he could reasonably ask, and accomplished all the American conference could hope. A settlement of the Canadian difficulties, on the basis proposed by the General conference in their instructions to Mr. Emory, was readily effected. The Canadian territory was divided. The British took Lower and the Americans Upper Canada, and the ministers of each connection devoted their services to their own province. The impression made by Mr. Emory on the British conference was most favorable to himself and to the American Church, whose minister he was. He was treated with uncommon attention and with great consideration. His address before the conference, explaining the objects of his mission, was a masterly exhibition of the origin, progress, success, and prospects of American Methodism. His sermon before the conference, preached and afterward published at their request, was one of the finest specimens of pulpit oratory ever exhibited in England or America. It received the highest encomiums from Clarke, Watson, Benson, and others, whose names stand highest among the illustrious successors of Wesley. At the General conference of 1824 Mr. Emory was elected Assistant Agent of the Methodist Book Concern, and in 1828 he was promoted to the place of Principal Agent. In the office of book agent he exhibited a comprehensiveness of plan and an energy of execution which have never been equaled by any of his predecessors or successors. When he entered the Concern, a common store, with a counting-room in the rear, sufficed for the transacaction of all the business in the establishment. The books were printed at other offices, on contract. They were bound in the basement of the Wesleyan Seminary, in Crosby-street, and then conveyed in a wheelbarrow to the Book-Room, in Fulton-street. |