Preface to American Methodism - 1838
Nathan Bangs, Methodist editor and author of a massive history of American Methodists.
Introduction
Nathan Bangs was a publisher for the Methodist Episcopal Church. When he took control of the Methodist Book Concern in 1820, production was small, the Concern was in debt, and its few books sold poorly. He changed all that, producing magazines with large circulation numbers (by the standards of the day) and books that people wanted to buy. He wrote fourteen books himself, including a four-volume History of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Here is an excerpt from the preface of its first volume, dated this day, 14 July, 1838, telling of a significant disaster that set back all his work.
Quote
“About sixteen years since I commenced writing a History of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and had actually brought it down to about the year 1810; but the whole manuscript was consumed by the disastrous fire which destroyed our Book Room and its valuable contents in the winter of 1836. Of this casualty I was not apprised until my return from the last General Conference, when, on searching my private desk at home, where I thought it had been deposited, my manuscript was not to be found; and hence the fact was disclosed that it must have been consumed, together with some other documents of a similar character, in the conflagration of our book depository.”
Bangs, Nathan. History of the Methodist Episcopal Church, vol. 1.