type which must
give expression to its faith in hearty song, and lively preaching, and
these sturdy settlers were an acquisition to the province, which the
politicians were sufficiently alert to see, could not fail to supply
the elements of stability and growth.

The majority of these people settled in the county of Cumberland, and
began life anew, with intense loyalty to the institutions, and high
ideals. The province had not fully recovered from the effect of the
spirit of disloyalty which culminated in the expulsion of the
Acadians, although there followed a period of peace, but despite the
efforts of the Government in making roads, and instituting public
works, the settlements were sparse, and the Indian was still in the
land. There was only one minister in the county, the Rev. John
Eagleson, who had been sent out in 1769 by the Society for the
Propagation of the Gospel, while in the province there were a few
Anglican, Congregational, Presbyterian and one Baptist church, but
places for holding religious worship were few and far between, and the
first Methodists consequently began prayer meetings in their homes,
and through them souls were led to Christ. Whatever religious services
were held they attended, and thus kept alive the glowing embers of
their faith and zeal.

An incipient rebellion, induced by the Revolutionary war, and
maintained by the sympathy of the colonists who had revolted in New
England, unsettled the minds of the people, and made it dangerous for
them to attend religious worship, and consequently the cause of
religion suffered, and many forsook the faith of their fathers. A few
still remained true, and amid many discouragements prayed for the dawn
of a new day.

Without any propagandist effort, Methodism was spreading.
Spontaneously it had gone out over Great Britain and Ireland, and into
what is now the United States, to the West Indies, and Nova Scotia,
but the time was ripe for complete organization as a missionary
church. The time had come and with it the man in the person of Thomas
Coke. While Nova Scotia and the American colonies were suffering from
the Revolution, Wesley and Coke had met for the first time, and thus
began a union which made Methodism a great missionary organization.
The man for America had not yet come to the fullness of his power,
but Francis Asbury was reaching out and getting ready to become
essentially the founder of Methodism in the United States. The man for
Nova