Who built this chapel, whether English Methodist soldiers or some of Whitefield's followers, who might have been pressed out of the dead churches, we do not know, but it was a _Methodist_ chapel. It might have been the former; it may have been the latter. We admit the work did not abide. But that was not the first time that Methodism failed in Boston. Boardman came to Boston, and is said to have formed a class here in 1770, or near that time. But when Freeborn Garrettson visited Boston, in 1787, no trace of Boardman's class could be found. When William Black came, a few years later, he found no trace of Freeborn Garrettson's work; and though Mr. Black had a great revival, when Jesse Lee came, in 1798, no fruit of Mr. Black's labors were found. It still remains true, on the authority of Dr. Cutler, who wrote from personal observation, that there was a Methodist chapel in Boston in 1750; and, if so, it was the first ever erected in America. CHAPTER XVI. WESLEY AND AMERICAN METHODISM. SO far as we are able positively to determine Methodism in America originated with immigrants from Ireland. To Barbara Heck must be given the honor of delivering the first Methodist exhortation, which aroused Philip Embury to return from his backslidings to God and give himself to the work of the ministry of Methodism. Blessed be the name of Barbara Heck! An angel would rejoice to share her honors! Who can estimate the value of that earnest personal appeal to that card-playing company? Soon a cry reached the ear of England's "flying evangelist" that a fire had been kindled in America, where thirty years before he had sought in vain to plant a Gospel the power of which he did not feel. Thomas Ball, of Charleston, speaks of the sheep in the wilderness needing a shepherd. "They have strayed," he says, "from England into the wild woods here, and they are running wild after the world. They are drinking their wine in bowls, and are jumping and dancing, and serving the devil in groves and under the green trees. And are not these lost sheep? And will none of the preachers come here? Where is Bromfield? Where is John Pawson? Where is Nicholas Manners? Are they living, and will they not come?" This was the cry in and from the wilderness. A call for assistance came also from Philip Embury.