In South Carolina. 415 



resisting meekness till he had worn his persecutors 

 out. At one time he was put in jail, and he obliged 

 them to let him out by preaching through the grates 

 of his window to whoever might be in the street be- 

 low. And when, after several years, things becoming 

 more quiet, he ventured to build a meeting-house, it 

 was burned to the ground. At last, however, Mr. 

 Meredith gained the public confidence, and at his 

 death willed in fee simple to Bishop Asbury a second 

 meeting-house, built on the site of the first, the par- 

 sonage-house above described, and the lands belong- 

 ing to them, all which, of course, the Bishop turned 

 over to the Church, which, along with the property, 

 acquired also the congregation and communicant 

 members. 



" The negro church, or meeting-house, was a com- 

 mon appellative for this Methodist church long after 

 it had been occupied by whites on the lower floor, 

 with the negroes in the galleries. And it was so in 

 my day. But notwithstanding all this, gentlemen and 

 ladies, of high position in society, were to be found 

 from Sabbath to Sabbath attending our preaching. 

 Could it have been that they wanted to participate in 

 the Methodist religion of passion without principle ? 

 Or was it that their superior sort of religion having 

 taught them to condescend to men of low estate, they 

 were only practicing the principle of humility? How- 

 ever it may have been with them, the sermons they 

 heard for the whole year from my pulpit were taken 

 up in stating, proving, and urging justification by 

 faith, and its cognate doctrines of original depravity, 

 regeneration, and the witness of the Spirit. These 

 themes appeared inexhaustible to the preacher, and 

 this portion of his hearers never grew less for his 



