MORGAN'S HISTORY OF THE NEW JERSEY CONFERENCE Page 213
and visionary, yet, like some of the strongest men in church and State of to-day, he was self-making up to the time of his death, constantly learning by his mistakes, and learning more from actual conflict on the field than from any acquirement made within the walls of college schools, attested by titles of parchment, which are often sham-proofs of what we know little or nothing about. He was a man of the nervo-sanguine and encephali temperment, which is active, always over-worked, impetuous and destructive to the physical organization; teaching all brain-workers by his death that they should husband their mental resources in keeping with their temperament, and hence the greater longevity. He often acted as if by intuition and upon first impression, but whatever deformity of disposition he may have possessed was but an evidence that he was kin to earth; far above them all he had characteristics which well deserve our highest emulation, inspiring every one with a noble purpose, pointing to a higher destiny, and like our exemplar, as a man among men, and a self-made scholar among scholars, enabling him to rise, pluck a branch from the laurel, and write his name high in the temple of fame.
He was converted in 1841, and in 1844, when only nineteen years of age, he was licensed to preach in the M. E. Church, but in 1857 he joined the Indiana Conference of the A. M. E. Church, and was received into the itineracy by Bishop D. A. Payne, at Albany, Ind., entering upon his first charge at Muscatine, Iowa. In 1859 he was ordained a Deacon by Bishop W. P. Quinn, and notwithstanding he was in the active ministry, anxious to better qualify himself, in 1860 he matriculated as a regular student at Wilberforce University, remaining probably not more than one year. In 1861 he was transferred to the New York Conference, Bridge street, Brooklyn, where he subsequently did a great work in organizing and building up the Fleet Street Church, which was the second organization of the denomination at that time in the great city of churches. In 1862 he was ordained an Elder by Bishop D. A. Payne, in Washington, D. C., and in 1865 he was transferred to the South Carolina Conference, and stationed at Charleston, where he organized and built the Emanuel A. M. E. Church, and also the Morris Brown chapel, both of which are still large and flourishing congregations.
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