orough
and careful training, which it has gained in its history of eighty
years.

COKESBURY COLLEGE.

In Maryland was the first Methodist Church in America, and it was
natural that here too should be the first Methodist College in the
world. There was no permanent organization of this denomination in the
United States, until John Wesley, on the petition of the American
churches, consecrated Rev. Thomas Coke, Superintendent for the United
States, in 1784. Dr. Coke sailed directly from England, and arrived in
New York on November 3, 1784. He thence traveled southward and, on the
15th of the same month, met Francis Asbury at Dover, Delaware. At this
first meeting, Coke suggested the founding of an institution for higher
education, to be under the patronage of the Methodist Church.[25] This
was not a new idea to Asbury; for, four years previous to this meeting,
John Dickins had made the same suggestion to him. The earlier idea had
contemplated only a school, on the plan of Wesley's at Knightwood,
England, and for that purpose, a subscription had been opened in North
Carolina in 1781.[26]

Coke's suggestion, to have a college, was favorably received and, at the
famous Christmas Conference at Baltimore in 1784, the Church was
formally organized, with Coke and Asbury as Bishops, and the first
Methodist College was founded. Thus the denomination which has increased
to be the largest in the United States, recognized the paramount
importance of education at its very foundation.[27] To the new
institution, the name of Cokesbury was given, in honor of the two
Bishops, from whose names the title was compounded. For this College,
collections were yearly taken, amounting in 1786 to L800 and implying
great self-denial by the struggling churches ill-supplied with
wealth.[28]

As early as January 3, 1785, only two weeks after the College was
decided on, its managers were able to report that L1,057 had been
subscribed, a sum that put the enterprise on a firm footing. The site
was next to be chosen, and Abingdon in Harford County was pitched upon.
Of the 15,000 Methodists in the Union in 1784, over one-third were in
Maryland, and hence, it had the best claim for the College, and the
beauty of the situation of Abingdon charmed Coke so much that he
determined upon placing the College there. It was also a place easy of
access, being on the direct stage line from Baltimore to Philadelphia
and near the Chesapeake Bay. Bishop Coke, the m