 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
TABLE OF CONTENTS
SECOND PERIOD—1774-1800 Ch.4—Mr. Otterbein called to Baltimore Ch.5—The Otterbein Church in Baltimore Ch.6—The Movement Toward a Separate Church Organization Ch.7—The First and Second Conferences THIRD PERIOD—1800-1815 Ch.10—The Conferences of 1801-1814 Ch.12—The Departure of the Leaders FOURTH PERIOD—1815-1837 Ch.13—The First General Conference—1815 Ch.14—The General Conferences of 1817-1833 FIFTH PERIOD—1837-1885 Ch.15—The General Conferences of 1837 and 1841 Ch.16—The General Conferences of 1845 and 1849 Ch.17—The General Conferences of 1853-1861 Ch.18—The General Conferences of 1865-1881 SIXTH PERIOD—1885-1897 Ch.19—The Nineteenth General Conference—1885 Ch.21—The Twentieth General Conference—1889 Ch.23—The Twenty-First General Conference—1893
PART II DEPARTMENTS OF CHURCH WORK Ch.1—The United Brethren Publishing House Ch.2—The Home, Frontier, and Foreign Missionary Society and Its Work Ch.3—The Church-Erection Society Ch.4—The Woman's Missionary Association Ch.9—The Young People's Christian Union Ch.10—The Board of Trustees of the Church
PART III THE ANNUAL CONFERENCES Ch.1—A Group of Early Conferences Ch.2—Other Conferences Organized from 1835 to 1853 Ch.3—Conferences Organized Since 1853
PART IV HISTORICAL AND STATISTICAL TABLES Appendices Index
NOTICE OF ATTRIBUTION Work originally published in 1897. Scanned, proofed and minor spelling corrections by the United Brethren Historical Center. Electronic edition ©2006 United Brethren Historical Center Suggested Citation:
|
History of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ by Daniel Berger |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF THE United Brethren in Christ PART I GENERAL HISTORY Introductory Period—1752-1774 Preliminary p.17 The Church of the United Brethren in Christ had its origin in the revival movement which prevailed in America during the latter half of the eighteenth and the earlier years of the nineteenth century. The state of religion in the colonies previous to this revival period had fallen to a very low plane. The historic New England revival, in which Jonathan Edwards was a leading figure, popularly called "The Great Awakening," was followed by a strong reaction, and spirituality had declined to a condition lower if possible than in the period preceding. Elsewhere in the colonies the same unhappy conditions existed. Dead formalism in the church services and open and unrebuked immorality among communicants broadly prevailed. The great revival in the British Islands, under John and Charles Wesley and their assisting lay preachers, was not yet felt on the western side of the great waters. The brief visit of the Wesleys to Georgia, in the early beginnings of their career, was undertaken chiefly as a mission to the Indians of that colony, and p.18 but little permanent fruit resulted. The visits of George Whitefield to the same colony were extended northward along the Atlantic Coast as far as Maine, and wherever he went his preaching awakened the profoundest interest. Whether cooperating, as he did, with Edwards, or pushing his extended journeys up and down the line of the colonies, thousands hastened to hear his brilliant eloquence, and everywhere religious enthusiasm was kindled to a white heat. But notwithstanding all this apparent success, and the fact that many hundred professed conversion under his preaching, and that in his burning zeal he thirteen times crossed the Atlantic, it remains true that soon after his death the work lapsed so effectually that Methodism does not date its origin in America to the visits of any of these distinguished apostles of that period. It was about this time, in the opening years of the second half of the eighteenth century, that a young man of scholarly accomplishments, and a heart burning with holy zeal, came as a missionary to America, who, after his more perfect enlightenment and deeper experience in the mysteries of the gospel, was to become, under the direction of Divine Providence, the principal founder of the Church of whose origin and progressive development these pages are to speak,—the Rev. Philip William Otterbein. The early history of any denomination is largely the history of the men under whose labors such denomination took form. Hence the story of the founding will be best told by a sketch of some of the men whose work assumed the larger proportions, with such review of their labors as may be practicable. And here we are met, at the outset, with a fact that has proved a most serious difficulty to the historians of nearly all the older religious denominations—the extreme paucity of materials in the earlier periods of their history. In the case of p.19 the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, this is conspicuously true. The founders of the Church for a long time had little thought of forming an independent church organization, and when once Providence so clearly marked out their course that they could not do otherwise than take those steps which must lead to a separate denominational life, they for the most part gave themselves little concern as to what the world coming after them should know of their personal history, or of the labors they undertook, and the rich vintage which, through great toil and sacrifice, they succeeded in gathering for the Master. |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| NEXT | |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
