In the Midst of Early Methodism

Selina Hastings, the Countess of Huntingdon, was the chief administrator behind the Calvinistic wing of Methodism, and was its main organizer. She leased chapels, purchased advowsons (the right to nominate a person to hold a church office), and appointed chaplains and lay preachers to staff the far-flung connection of more than sixty-seven chapels and preaching posts. She established a college for the training of preachers and operated an orphanage. In the Midst of Early Methodism: Lady Huntingdon and Her Correspondence introduces the Countess of Huntingdon to a modern readership from the vantage point of her own letters and papers. As a friend and confidant to most of the leading figures of the Eighteenth Century, English revival, Lady Huntingdon was indeed, located In the Midst of Early Methodism. Among her frequent correspondents were John and Charles Wesley, George Whitefield, Philip Dodderidge, and many lesser-known evangelicals. Through the works of her most illustrious chaplain, George Whitefield, the Countess also became involved in religion and politics in North America. Hence, her voluminous correspondence includes letters to and from George Washington, John Jay, and Phillis Wheatley, an early African American Poetess. This is the first representative anthology of the letters and papers of Selina Hastings, which are presented chronologically from the early years of her marriage through her last days and death.