In South Carolina. 251 



says: "The first Methodist preacher who visited this 

 county was the noted Beverly Allen, a celebrated 

 preacher who visited this county immediately after 

 the Revolutionary War (1784). He was followed by 

 sundry other itinerant and circuit Methodist preach- 

 ers. They were at first successful. They formed 

 several societies and classes in the county. These, 

 however, were not all permanent. Many who had 

 joined and professed themselves members of that 

 Church began to think the rules and discipline of it 

 too strict to be by them constantly adhered to. Many 

 fell off and resumed their former practices, and some 

 joined other Churches." 



Mr. Allen was succeeded by John Baldwin in 1785; 

 but the prestige of the old-established Church of En- 

 gland, and an obstinate and avowed infidelity in the 

 most influential circles of society, made the country 

 around Wilmington so unfavorable to the development 

 of Methodism, or, indeed, of any form of vital relig- 

 ion, at this period, that under the rule of the Confer- 

 ence before recited, the circuit was discontinued, and 

 substituted in 1787 by the Bladen Circuit. Method- 

 ism, however, continued to progress on the Upper Cape 

 Fear and Deep River, under the active labors of the 

 preachers on the New Hope Circuit and on the Haw 

 River Circuit, and after 1796 of the preachers of the 

 South Carolina Conference, until at length the grow- 

 ing numbers and prosperity of the Methodist Church 

 awakened an apprehension that it would become the 

 dominant religion in a territory strongly preoccupied 

 by the Presbyterians and the Baptists. A writer of 

 intelligence, giving an account of the religious condi- 

 tion of Moore county in 1810, says : " There are at pres- 

 ent but three regular Presbyterian congregations in 



