OUR LEGACY FROM THE PAST - NCCUMC

86
CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION -1928 & 1929
The following address was delivered by Dr. O. P. Fitzgerald,
pastor 1927-1928,on the occasion of the Centennial Anniversary of
Methodism in First Church, Williamston, North Carolina,
February 22, 1928.
HISTORICAL SPOTS OF
WILLIAMSTON METHODISM
When John Wesley began his revival of religion in Oxford,
made a brief missionary stay in Georgia, went back to England to
undergo his great spiritual awakening which he afterward called
his conversion, and then began the greatest revival of religion
England ever experienced; it was the Rev. George Whitefield, colaborer
with Wesley, who crossed and recrossed the Atlantic,
sweeping up and down the American Colonies with his inspiring
eloquence, moving like a flaming fire from Maine to Georgia,
opening men's hearts, melting their wills and changing their lives.
Whitefield's work in America was almost a religious movement
within itself. Robert Williams and John King took up his work in
Virginia and North Carolina, and formed Methodist Societies in
these states. Then came Francis Asbury, delegated by John
Wesley to be the assistant superintendent over the new formed
societies. Asbury was afterward elected Bishop, and for fifty
years this remarkable man, great in character and ability,
unwearied and unceasing in travel and preaching, led and
governed the growing hosts of Methodism in America.
At the close of the Revolution, the strength of Methodism was
centered in Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. From these
older states went forth her evangels as religious pioneers to the
South and West. No settlements were too sparse, no road too
rough, no wilderness too wild for the itinerant Methodist
preacher. They rode forth confident of their message, trusting in
God, unafraid of man or beast. The "circuit rider" is, doubtless,
the most significant figure in the religious movements of the
South. He was a strong, stern man, repressing fun and gaiety as
worldly pleasures dangerous to the soul; with no worldly goods
save that which he carried on his back and in his saddle-bags,
breaking the stillness of the forest with his prayers as he rode to