If its adaptation to England was eminent, it was pre- eminent in America, where the customary local iiast orate of otlier denominations seemed to afford no adequate provision for the prodigiously advancing pojiulation and settlement of the country. " Methodism, with its ' lay niinistry' and its ' itinerancy,' could alone afford the min- istrations of religion to this overflowing population ; it was to lay the moral foundations of many of the great states of the West, The older churches of the colonies coiUd never have supplied them with ' regular' or edu- cated pastors in any i)roportion to their rapid settlement. Methodism met tliis necessity in a manner that should command the national gratitude. It was to become at last the dominant jxipular faith of the country, with its standard planted in every city, town, and alniost ever}'
ITINERANCY
village of the land. Moving in the van of emigi ation, it was to supply with the means of religion the frontiers, from the Canadas to the Gidf of Mexico, from Puget's Sound to the Gulf of California. It was to do this in- dispensable worJc by means peculiar to itself; by dis- tricting the land into circuits which, from one hundred to five hundred miles in extent, could each be statedly supplied with religious instruction by one or two trav- elling evangehsts, who, preaching daily, could thus have charge of parishes comprising hundreds of miles and tens of thousands of souls. It was to raise iqi, without delay for preparatory training, and thrust out upon these circuits, thousands of such itinerants, tens of thousands of ' local' or lay preachers and ' exhorters,' as auxiliary and unpaid laborers, with many thousands of class-lead- ers, who could maintain pastoral supervision over the infant societies in the absence of the itinerant preach- ers, the latter not having time to delay in any locality for much more than the public services of the pulpit. Over all these circuits it was to maintain the watchful jurisdiction of travelling presiding elders, and over the whole system the superintendence of tra\elling bishops, to whom the entire nation was to be a common diocese" (Stevens, Jlistori/ qfjfethodisin). "Without any dis- paragement of other churches, we may easily see that they were not in a state to meet the pressuig wants of the countrj'. The Episcopal Church was much shat- tered and enfeebled, was destitute of the episcopal or- der, had to wait long, and urge her plea ardently upon the attention of the bishops of England before they could procure consecration for any of her ministers (and, as is well known, the non-existence of a bishop involves amongst the Episcopalians the non-existence of the Chvurch), so that this community was not in a ])osition to undertake to any great extent an aggressive service. The principles of the Independents, which subordinate the call of a minister to the voice of the Church, placed a bar in the way of (heir seeking the outlying popula- tion, inasmuch as there were no Churches to address this call ; and, thoifgh the Presbyterian system is not nec- essarily so struigent in these matters as Independent churches acting on their theories, yet, as they cannot move without the action of their synodical bodies, there was little prospect of their doing much missionary work. Thus this work fell A-ery much into the liands of the JMethodist itineranc}'. The men were admirably fitted for their task. Eich in religious enjoyment, fuU of faith and love, zealous and energetic, trained to labor and ex- ertion, actuated by one single motive — that of glorifying God, they thought not of privation, but inihesitatingly followed the emigrants and ' squatters' in their peregri- nations wherever they went. American society was thus imbued with Christian truth and principle, as well as accustomed to religious ordinances, in its normal state" {London Quarterhj Bevieu; October, 1854, p. 125).
Wesley started with no " theorj'" of ministerial itin- erancy. The expediency of the jilan alone led to its adoption ; but he died believing in it as a theorj-, as, in- deed, the apostolic plan of evangelization. In liis esti- mation, it not only had a salutary effect on the evangel- ists, by keeping them energetic and chivalrous, but it had the capital advantage of enabling one preacher to minister the truth to many places, and it made small abilities available on a large scale. He says that he be- lieves he should himself preach even his congregation " asleep" were he to stay in one place an entire year. Nor could he " believe that it was ever the Lord's will that any congregation should have one teacher only." " We have found," he writes, " by long and constant ex- perience, that a frequent exchange of teachers is best. This preacher has one talent, that anotlier. No one whom I ever yet knew has all the talents which are needful for beginning, continuing, and perfecting the work of grace in a whole congregation." (A. S.)
There can be no question that an itinerant ministry has the sanction of the highest scriptural examples. Christ was an itinerant. His mmistry in the tiesh was
ITINERANCY
713
ITINERANCY
not a settled pastorate ; he went about doiiiff good. | The twelve disciples were itinerants, both before and after the crucifixion and resurrection. They went from city to city preaching the Gospel of the kingdom. And the prophets before them were itinerants. Samuel had his circle of appointments; Elijah, and, after him, Eli- sha, had no settled abode even, but moved about from place to place. These were all itinerants. If in the early Christian Church, even while the apostles were yet at work, there are evidences that a stationary min- istry was occasionally introduced, it does not appear to have entered into the original plan of the Gospel of Je- sus Christ. "Is there one word," says Beauchamp {Letters on the Call and Qualifications of Ministers of the Gospel [Charleston, S. C, 1849, 18mo], page 97), perhaps too strongly, "in the New Testament from which anything can be inferred in favor of a settled ministry?' The whole of this sacred book breathes the spirit of itinerancy; and all the transactions record- ed in it, in reference to the ministry, agree with this spirit." Nay, it is unquestionably true that in the early Christian Church, though many were in favor of a set- tled ministry, and numerous the efforts to bring it about, most of the Christian preachers were " itinerants." In the Latin Church, itinerant preachers have ever been employed : they form a special religious order — a class of preaching monks (comp. D'Aubigne, Ilistoire de la Reformation, v, 102). Thus Bercnger, in France, em- ployed itinerant ministers to spread liis objections to the doctrine of transubstantiation ; Wycliffe, in England, introduced the system of itinerant preaching, and the Swiss historian goes so far even as t« assert that the re- formatorj' movements among the Christians of England have all been marked by an effort to introduce the sys- tem of itinerant preaching. " This kind of preaching always reappears in England in the grand epochs of the Church" (^ibid. p. 103). But if Wycli'ttc and the Reform- ers were first in their efforts to introduce itinerantpreach- ing, it is to Wesley, nevertheless, that alone is due the credit of organizing " itinerancy" as a permanent and universal scheme of ministerial labor throughout a large denomination.