History of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Volume II.

Perhaps no one was better suited to provide a written history of the Methodist Episcopal Church than Nathan Bangs. The brilliant, self-educated theologian had not only served as president of Wesleyan University, but he had also volunteered himself as an itinerant preacher in Canada during a time of war. Later, he founded the Methodist Missionary Society. The second volume of Bangs’ four-volume history covers the proceedings of the first few General Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal in North America as well as the events of the revivalist camp meetings at the turn of the 19th century. Bangs closes the volume with the Methodist Episcopal Church’s response to the War of 1812 and the simultaneous decline and death of one of the church’s first bishops, Bishop Asbury.

Kathleen O’Bannon
CCEL Staff