In February, 1790, he received three helpers. Brush, Roberts, and Smith, and formed the New Haven Cir- cuit, He passed through Rhode Island, and appeared in Boston July 9. Boardman and Garrettson had before preached there, but no permanent fruit remained of their labors. Lee, finding no house opened, preached on the Common to 3000 hearers. Though Lee often returned to the city, no society was formed there till July 13, 1792. He had better success elsewhere, and constantly labored throughout New England in supervision of the work, till the General Conference of 1796. Soon after this date he began to travel at large with bishop Asburj', as his authorized assistant in preaching and iu holding Conferences. Thus employed, he revisited the scenes of his former labors in the South, and travelled also through New England. The period of his labors in that section closed in 1800. It had continued for eleven years, amid great dithculties, frequent theological controversies, and no small degree of persecution. The statistical result at this date was 50 preachers and 6001) members. At the General Conference held ]\Iay 6, 1800, at Baltimore, Lee was nearly elected a bishop, W'hatcoat being chosen over him by four votes. The subse(iuent portion of his life was spent mostly in the South, in earnest and successful labor as pastor and presiding elder. He preferred, says his biographer, the former position. At the Virginia Conference of 1807 his influence defeated, from an opin- ion of its unconstitutionality, the proposition to call an extraordinary General Conference, iu order to elect a bishop in place of bishop Whatcoat, deceased. He had, for like reason, opposed his own ordination as assistant bishop in 1796. In the Virginia Conference of 1808 he advocated a petition to the following General Confer- ence of May 20, 1808, to establish a delegated General Conference. This proposition had been urged by Lee as early as 1792. Such action was tjiken by the Confer- ence of 1808, and the powers of the General Conference,
as the supreme authority of the Church, were defined in what are termed the Kestrictive Rules. In the same year Lee maile a last visit and journey tliroughout New England, which was "an humble but exultant religious ovation." In the summer of 1807 he published at Bal- timore his History of Methodism in America, which was the first work of the kind. During that year he served the House of Representatives at Washington as chap- lain, as he did also in 1812 and 1S13. In 1814 he was chaplain of the Senate. At the General Conference of 1812, in New York, Lee strongly advocated, as he had previously done, the proposition to make the office of presiding elder elective. He opposed with equal zeal the principle of advancing local preachers to elders' or- ders. He continued his faithful career as circuit preach- er and as chaplain to Congress till 1816. He was present at the funeral services of his veteran colaborer, bishop Asbury, held by the General Conference of 1816 at Bal- timore, and did not long survive himself, but died at the age of fifty-eight, Sept. 12, 1816. Dr. Stevens closes his history of the Methodist Episcopal Chiu-ch with the following characterization of Jesse Lee : " A man of vig- orous, though unpolished mind, of rare popular elo- quence and tireless energy, an itinerant evangelist from the British Provinces to Florida for thirty-five j'ears, a chief counsellor of the Church in its annual and general conferences," " founder of Methodism in New England ... he lacked only the episcopal oflice to give him rank with Asbury and Coke. Asbury early chose him for the position of bishop. Some two or three times it seemed likely that he would be elected to it, but liis manly in- dependence and firmness of opinion in times of party strife were made the occasion of his defeat." "In public services he may fairly be ranked next to Asbury, and as founder and apostle of Eastern Methodism he is above any other official rank. In this respect his historic honor is quite unique; for, though individual men have in sev- eral other sections initiated the denomination, no other founder has, so completely as he, introduced, conducted, and concluded his work, and from no other one man's similar work have proceeded equal advantages to Amer- ican Methodism" (iv, 610, 511). The same author, in another place, thus presents his qualities as a preach- er: " Pathos was natural to him. Humor seems, in some temperaments, to be the natural counterpart, or, at least, reaction of pathos. Lee became noted for his wit; we shall see it serving him Avith a felicitous advantage in his encounters with opponents, especially in the North- eastern States. It flowed in a genial and permanent stream from his large heart, and played most vividlj' in his severest itinerant hardships; but he was fidl offen- der humanity and affectionate piety. His rich sensibili- ties, rather than any remarkable inttllectual powers, made him one of the most eloquent and popular preach- ers of his day. One of his fellow-laborers, a man of ex- cellent judgment, says that he possessed uncommon col- loquial powers and a fascinating address; that his readi- ness at repartee was scarcely equalled, and by the skill- ful use of this talent he often taught those who were disposed to be witty at his expense that the safest way to deal with him was to be civil. He was fired with mis- sionary zeal, and, moreover, was a man of great moral courage" (i, 413). " It was a kind of fixed priiuiple with him," says his biographer Lee (p. 350), "never to let a congregation go from his preaching entirely unatfccted. He would excite them in some way. He would make them weep if he could. If he failed in this, he would essay to alarm them with deep and solemn warning of words and manner; and, if all failed, he would shake their sides with some pertinent illustration or anecdote, and then, having moved them, seek. l)y all the appli- ances of truth, earnestness, and affection, to guide their stirred-up thoughts and sympathies to the fountains of living waters." — See Life and Times of Jesse Lee, by Le- roy M.Lee (Richmond, Va., 1848); Stevens, Bistort/ of Ike M. E. Church ; Memoirs of Rev. T. Ware. (E. B. O.) Lee, Robert, D.D., a noted Scotch Presbyterian