"The Free Methodist Church had its origin in necessity and not in choice." Its existence is not due to the efforts of ambitious men who Sought notoriety by founding a new sect, but rather to the self-denying labors of those who obeyed their conscience and left results with God. What are usually referred to as "her issues" are incidental rather than fundamental.

     The men providentially raised up as the founders of this movement stood solidly upon the platform of Scriptural Holiness, and were jealous only for moral purity. But the righteousness for which they contended was the same in character as that ascribed to the Son of God:

     "Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore God, even Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows." Heb. 1: 9. The holiness they demanded was not of that sentimental kind which, baptized in the name of Christianity, is loud in its protestations of love for righteousness, but dares not strike one effectual blow at iniquity. These bold reformers, in their Uncompromising opposition to iniquity, soon came to questions involving moral issues, and they were not slow in taking their stand, nor equivocal in defending their position.

     Early in the latter half of the nineteenth century the Rev. B. T. Roberts, the Rev. Loren Stiles and other members of the Genesee Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, saw, as they believed, evidences of a growing departure from Scriptural Christianity and original Methodism. By a heaven-quickened, spiritual intuition these men felt and saw the oncoming flood of worldliness, and by the help of God were enabled to raise up a standard against it.

     With careful and painstaking research the author has, in the following pages, been successful in giving a true and impartial account of the self-sacrificing labors of the men who, under God, were instrumental in originating the movement which resulted in the formation of the Free Methodist Church. With equal impartiality he has traced throughout its existence of over half a century the development and growth of the Church thus organized.

     The Free Methodist Church is fortunate in having for its historian a man so eminently qualified for his work as Bishop Hogue. He was personally acquainted with many of its founders, and has spent much of his life traveling throughout its boundaries. He therefore writes with a personal knowledge of his subject. He is also qualified for his task by his balanced judgment and by his mastery of the English language. Nine years in the editorial chair of the Free Methodist cultivated his natural facility for elegant English, so that he undertakes the present work with a mastery of style which is both charming and forceful.

     Some one has said that a reform seldom outlives the lives of the reformers. We are glad to note that, while all of those who were most prominent in the beginning of this movement have passed away, other hearts and hands are actively engaged in maintaining the same standard of unworldly and aggressive Christianity. For this there is an imperative need. For while many, in a spirit of Laodicean boasting, are saying, "We are rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing," there are those with anointed vision who are grieving over the departure not only from sound doctrine, but from practical Christianity as well. Many still have the form of godliness who deny the power thereof.

     If, in the perusal of this work, the arraignment of some of the characters seems severe, the reader must remember that this is to be charged up not to the author but to the facts.