ing the gospel to all classes
alike. Returning to the North, he found that once more he could not come to
terms with his conference. He went back to the South, going now by land for
the first time. He went as far as Mississippi, then the wild southwestern
frontier, and penetrated far into the country of Indians and wolves.
Returning in 1804, he became one of the first evangelists to cultivate the
camp-meeting as an institution in central Virginia. Then he threw down the
gauntlet to established Methodism, daring to speak in Baltimore while the
General Conference of the church was in session there. The church replied
at once, the New York Conference passing a law definitely commanding its
churches to shut their doors against him.

Notwithstanding this opposition Dow continued to work with his usual zeal.
About 1804 he was very busy, speaking at from five hundred to eight hundred
meetings a year. In the year 1805, in spite of the inconveniences of those
days, he traveled ten thousand miles. Then he made ready to go again to
Europe. Everything possible was done by the regular church to embarrass him
on this second visit, and when he arrived in England he found the air far
from cordial. He did succeed in introducing his camp-meetings into the
country, however; and although the Methodist Conference registered the
opinion that such meetings were "highly improper in England," Dow prolonged
his stay and planted seed which, as we shall see, was later to bear
abundant fruit. Returning to America, the evangelist set out upon one of
the most memorable periods of his life, journeying from New England to
Florida in 1807, from Mississippi to New England and through the West in
1808, through Louisiana in 1809, through Georgia and North Carolina and
back to New England in 1810, spending 1811 for the most part in New
England, working southward to Virginia in 1812, and spending 1813 and 1814
in the Middle and Northern states, where the public mind was "darkened more
and more against him." More than once he was forced to engage in
controversy. Typical was the judgment of the Baltimore Conference in 1809,
when, in a matter of difference between Dow and one Mr. S., without Dow's
having been seen, opinion was given to the effect that Mr. S. "had given
satisfaction" to the conference. Some remarks of Dow's on "Church
Government" were seized upon as the excuse for the treatment generally
accorded him by the church. In spite of much hostile opinion