Thence we hurried on to Dover with the afflicted Bishop Whatcoat. He was taken with a severe fit of the gravel, and suffered most intense agony. We did not know but he would die on the road. Bishop Whatcoat remained at the house of Hon. Richard Bassett, while Bishop Asbury went on to meet the Philadelphia Conference. Here these great-hearted, noble-souled, true yoke-fellows, who had known each other in England, met in class together when boys, who had traveled all over the mountains and valleys of this country in pursuit of the lost sheep of the House of Israel, looked upon each other’s faces for the last time. How touching the scene of the separation of those patriarchs, whose hearts had beat responsive to the other for so many years! CHAPTER XIII. FIRST CAMP-MEETING ON THE PENINSULA, 1805. The introduction of camp-meetings into the Peninsula formed a new era in Methodism in that section of country. Worshiping in the groves, God’s first temples, was a novelty, and called out the people by thousands. The ministers preached with unusual power, for crowds inspired them, and converts were multiplied as the drops of the morning. I attended all these meetings and kept a record of them. Camp-meetings had their origin in Tennessee, in 1799. Two brothers, named Magee, one a Methodist the other a Presbyterian minister, had the high honor of originating them. With John Magee, the Methodist, I was acquainted for several years; I traveled with him many miles, and heard him in preach. He was the father-in-law of the Rev. Thomas L. Douglas. Jesse Lee introduced camp-meetings into Virginia and Maryland, and then to Delaware. But the first camp-meeting in the East was held by the Rev. William Thatcher, in Carmel, New York, in 1804. The meeting of which I now speak was the first held on the Peninsula, and the beginning of a series that were greatly honored of God and a blessing to thousands. It was held in a beautiful grove three miles south of Duck Creek Cross Roads, (now Smyrna,) and commenced on the 25th of July, 1805. There were multitudes of tents, and thousands came to the feast of tabernacles. Worshiping in nature’s magnificent temple, the preachers and the people got new inspiration. A notice of the ministers who preached, and their texts, may seem dry to some, but by others the record will be read with interest, for all who preached on that ground at that camp-meeting have long since been in Paradise. The opening sermon was by Jesse Lee, who had attended many camp-meetings. He was then in his palmy days, and was a host in himself. His text was Isaiah xxxiii, 12: “And the people shall be as the burnings of lime, as thorns shall they be burned in the fire.” This was a singular text. The sermon was terrific, showing the awful end of the wicked. Jesse Lee was occasionally a “son of thunder.” His texts were often novel, and therefore attracted attention.