234 History of Methodism 



was the last of the cards. Afterward God made of 

 him the best and truest Christian I ever knew." Mr. 

 Jenkins was 'jealous for Zion with great jealousy, 

 and he was jealous with great fury;' his ministry was 

 emphatically a ministry of rebuke. He attacked with 

 boldness sin in every form, and in every place, and set 

 his face as Hint against every thing that threatened the 

 purity of the Church. His vigilant supervision of the 

 young preachers, and his prompt correction of their 

 errors, caused him to be known among them as " the 

 Conference curry-comb." "Here" (Sawney's Creek, 

 in 1§09), says Bishop Capers, " lived that most remark- 

 able man James Jenkins, whose goodness no one ever 

 doubted, but whose zeal was always brandishing in the 

 temple a scourge of not very small cords, as if for fear 

 that some one might be present who did not love the 

 temple well enough to take a scourging for it, and who 

 ought therefore to be driven out; and in full faith that 

 the more men were beaten the better for them, as it 

 would make them more humble and less worldly-mind- 

 ed. His was the first house I entered in my new field 

 of labor (his first circuit), and if I might have been 

 driven off by the first discouragement, that might have 

 been my first and my last appearance in that quarter. 

 I seemed to be younger, greener, and a poorer pros- 

 pect for a preacher in his estimate than even in my 

 own; and he was an old preacher, and withal a famous 

 one. That first introduction to the responsibilities of 

 my new charge was after this sort: 'Well have they 

 sent you to us for our preacher? ' 'Yes, sir.' 'What 

 you? and the egg-shell not dropped off of you yet! 

 Lord have mercy upon us! And who have they sent 

 in charge?' 'No one, sir, but -myself.' 'What, you 

 by yourself? You in charge of the circuit? Why, 



