In South Carolina. 147 



a local or supernumerary relation became inevitable. He was pos- 

 sessed of great gifts, natural, spiritual, and acquired ; he gave him- 

 self greatly to reading, especially in the earlier part of his life. His 

 prominent features were an open, pleasant, smiling countenance; he 

 possessed great fortitude and courage, tempered with good conduct ; 

 he was cheerful without levity, and sober without sullen sadness or 

 gloomy melancholy. He possessed the relative virtues in a very 

 high degree : a pleasant, obedient, and dutiful son ; a most endear- 

 ing, discreet, and affectionate father; a loving, faithful, and tendei 

 husband ; and a firm, open, and familiar friend, much given to hos- 

 pitality. He considered the traveling ministry as the most excellent 

 way, and nearest the apostolic plan of spreading the glorious gospel 

 of Christ with success, and his great argument for continuing in the 

 itinerancy, notwithstanding his physical infirmities and family cares, 

 was that his call and qualifications were of a divine nature, and not 

 to be dispensed with but by unfaithfulness, debility, or death. This 

 great man of God extended his labors from New York in the North 

 to Charleston in the South, and from the Atlantic to the western wa- 

 ters, and greatly rejoiced to see the pleasure of the Lord prosper 

 through his instrumentality. Not many such cases, perhaps, as that 

 of Henry Willis have been known even among the primitive Meth- 

 odist preachers in America. 



He lingered along the shores of death apparently 

 dying, and then reviving and re-reviving, for several 

 years, until finally the feeble, sickly taper sunk quietly 

 in the socket and disappeared. He died in 1808, at 

 Pipe Creek, Frederick county, Maryland, with an un- 

 shaken confidence in his God, and triumphant faith 

 in Christ Jesus as his Saviour. "Henry Willis! " ex- 

 claimed Bishop Asbury on visiting his grave, "ah, 

 when shall I look upon thy like again ? Rest, man of 

 God!" 



Beverly Allen was also elected elder at the Christ- 

 mas Conference; but, not leaving his appointment in 

 Wilmington to attend it, did not receive ordination 

 till the first Conference held in North Carolina, at 

 Green Hills, beginning Aioril 20, 1785. He had been 



