276 History of Methodism 



elation that they must be married, and if the one thus addressed 

 did not consent, he or she must expect to be damned. Thus many 

 got married, and it was said some old maids, who had nearly gotten 

 antiquated, managed in this way to get husbands. But this was 

 condemned by the more sober part among Presbyterians and Meth- 

 odists, and it has now nearly subsided." 



Among the early preachers who made a deep and 

 lasting impression on the public mind, and to whom 

 Methodism is greatly indebted for its planting in por- 

 tions of Rutherford and Burke, and what is now Cald- 

 well county in North Carolina, was John Fore, who 

 entered the traveling connection in 1788, and located 

 in 1797. The celebrated Dr. Thomas Hinde, who ap- 

 plied the blister- plaster to his wife as a remedy for the 

 Methodism with which she was incurably infected, 

 was induced to attend one of his appointments in 1789 

 — four years before he preached in North Carolina — 

 and having taken a central position in the church, to 

 watch the movements of the young pulpit-orator and 

 afterward to make his observations, thus reports: "At 

 length a stripling appeared with his saddle-bags on 

 his arms — he looked like a school-boy — entered the 

 church and ascended the pulpit. He stretched his 

 neck, surveyed the congregation, and I thought he 

 fixed his eye on me. As he proceeded to address the 

 congregation a kind of shivering seized my frame; his 

 very look had pierced my heart, and now, alas ! I was 

 exposed to the full view of the whole congregation; 

 tears flowed, and it was a vain attempt to stop them. 

 I wiped and wiped my eyes till my handkerchief failed 

 to stop them; it was wet with tears. I was confound- 

 ed and overpowered, and left the house after service 

 under feelings of mortification and distress." 



He was soon soundly converted, opened his house 

 for Methodist preaching, and like a persecuting Saul 



