James Jackson McIlyar, Preacher-Evangelist-Freemason - An Autobiography #245181

Since the days of Robert Strawbridge and Philip Em bury the Methodist intinerant has been in the van of every pioneer movement. From the first migration across the Alleghenies to the conquest of the last frontier, one can follow the trails of these sturdy preachers of righteousness who offered to sinful men and women not a creed, but an experience, not an ecclesiastical system, but a living Christ. It is not too much to say that those who write the story of the splendid civilization which has developed in the West ern Reserve, the Louisiana Purchase, and the Pacific North west must give large place to the influence of intrepid Methodist preachers who were among the very first to lay the foundations of Christian empire in the Western wilder ness.