Back Online!

After a nine-month hiatus the Methodist Library blog has returned. Over the next months I will post new updates and also highlight informational tidbits from Wesleyan and Methodist history.

Here's one of my favorite "digital Wesley" letters as I go....

Even legends have sisters! In this letter, John Wesley's older sister Emilia, in addition to filling him in on all the family gossip, criticizes his habit of walking everywhere as undignified. :-)

Are there really body parts in the Methodist Library?

This is a post I have always wanted to make, so thought I'd share it with you during my last week.

Archives and rare book collections are supposedly famous for having "dusty" and rarely consulted books and manuscripts. First of all, the "dusty and unconsulted" part is not true (we have about 500 on-site visitors a year and 500 questions from off-site users). Secondly, sometimes we have some pretty weird stuff as well.

To wit: it is true that the Methodist Center contains what purports to be the dessicated thumb of famous Methodist evangelist George Whitefield. If you want to read more about the story, historian Clifton Guthrie has written about it here:
http://www.bts.edu/Guthrie/GuthrieCV&Pubs/Touching%20Whitefields%20Bones.htm

The thumb has also been featured in Christian History and Biography (Winter 2004) and The Chronicle of Higher Education (October 28, 2005), although both articles are now on copyright-protected pages, so I can't send you there electronically.

That's the only actual body part, although we do have (as Guthrie mentions) Wesley's death mask (making death masks was actually a fairly common 18th-century way of memorializing the dead). Also, the archives of the Greater New Jersey Annual Conference, which are in our building, have the shoes of a woman who was struck by lightning and survived.

Cheers! :-)

Methodist Librarian leaving post

I will be departing this job on August 15, 2006 to move to Indiana for family reasons. If you are someone interested in becoming the Methodist Librarian at Drew, or if you know someone, a link to the job ad and other information about the position can be found at
http://depts.drew.edu/lib/staff/methodist_lib.php

Stay tuned for a couple more posts before I leave....and hope that my successor continues blogging!

Full-text Wesley

This recently came across my email from the Wesley Center at Northwest Nazarene University:

The Wesley Center Online is pleased to announce the availability of John Wesley's Christian Library with enhanced indices online at http://wesley.nnu.edu/john_wesley/christian_library/index.htm. Special thanks is due to Drs. Stanley Crow of Boise, Idaho, and Herbert McGonigle of the Nazarene Theological College, Didsbury, England, for allowing the Wesley Center Online to scan their personal copies of the these priceless volumes. Thanks is also due to Dr. Randy Maddox of Duke University for allowing us to use his index of Wesley's sources and his expanded table of contents.

For more links to full-text Wesley sources, and other useful websites for research in Methodist history, visit the Methodist Library's Weblinks Page.

John Wesley's birthday

John Wesley's birthday (303, if you're counting) is June 17, 2006. For worship resources and other helpful information, see

http://www.gbod.org/worship/default.asp?loc_id=639,626&act=nav_loc (worship resources)

http://www.gbod.org/worship/default.asp?loc_id=639,624&act=nav_loc (articles)

http://www.gbod.org/worship/default.asp?loc_id=639,625&act=nav_loc (preaching resources)

http://www.gbod.org/worship/default.asp?act=reader&item_id=7121&loc_id=639,623 (books about the Wesleys)

1956-2006: Resources to Celebrate 50 Years of Women’s Full Clergy Rights in the Methodist Tradition

For general information on this important historical anniversary, see
http://www.gcah.org/HeritageSunday2006.htm

For worship resources, see
http://www.gbod.org/worship/default.asp?loc_id=9,1115&act=nav_loc
http://gbhem.org/clergywomen/home.asp
(including a service by Drew University’s own Heather Murray Elkins)

For a transcription of the full debate at the 1956 General Conference of the Methodist Church, see
http://www.gcah.org/1956%20women.htm

For an interview with Maud Jensen (including an audio excerpt), see
http://www.gcah.org/Jensen.htm

Finally, for a historical retrospective of important firsts for women clergy, see
http://www.gcah.org/women_ministry.htm
and our online exhibit at
http://www.gcah.org/Museum/home.htm

Reception to welcome Dr. Robert Williams, and booksale

On February 21, 2006 the Methodist Center will host a welcome reception for Dr. Robert Williams, the new General Secretary of the General Commission on Archives and History of the United Methodist Church. (In other words, he is in charge of the United Methodist Church part of what goes on in this building.) The reception, from 11:30-12:50, is sponsored by the Wesleyan/Methodist Studies area of Drew's Ph.D. programs. Cookies and drinks will be provided.

Also, beginning on February 21 stop by the two carts in the front lobby with Methodist publications for sale at $1 per book--Disciplines, theology, history, liturgy, spirituality, and many children's books.

Some websites for the Christmas holidays

In the spirit of the season, here are a few Christmas-related Methodist links:

All of Charles Wesley's hymns in the current United Methodist Hymnal (words and midi sound files), where you can find "Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus" and "Hark, The Herald Angels Sing," among others

The complete text of Charles's Hymns for the Nativity of Our Lord (1745)

Charles Wesley honored with a Christmas stamp in Britain in 1999

Reflections on offering worship services on Christmas day from the UMC's General Board of Discipleship

Some images from exhibits on the Changing Faces of Santa Claus and Toys of the Past at the historical Society of Ocean Grove museum (Ocean Grove is a historic Methodist camp meeting town in New Jersey; check out the HSOG's newly revamped website for more photos and historical tidbits).

Blessed Christmas to all....

Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace!
Hail the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and life to all he brings,
risen with healing in his wings.
Mild he lays his glory by,
born that men no more may die,
born to raise us from the earth,
born to give us second birth.
Hark! the herald angels sing,
"Glory to the new born King!"

As promised, more "digital Wesley"

From time to time, I will be posting some of the images created from our Wesley manuscripts digitizing project. Here's one: the last letter John Wesley ever wrote. In it he urges young abolitionist and member of the British Parliament William Wilberforce (1759-1833) to continue his fight against slavery until even American slavery, the "vilest that ever saw the sun,"was vanquished.

"We Gather Together"

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal on the history of the Thanksgiving hymn "We Gather Together" noted that the hymn, originally brought to the U.S. by Dutch settlers, got its "big break" in American popularity when it was included in the 1935 Methodist Hymnal (a joint production of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Methodist Episcopal Church South, and Methodist Protestant Church before their 1939 merger). Other mainline Protestant hymnals soon followed suit.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

Our latest exhibit: Wesley goes digital

Are You Ready for Your Close-Up, John Wesley? Digitizing a Special Collection Methodist Center Gallery, Fall 2005

On display in this exhibit are a selection of digital images representing items from among nearly 300 Drew-owned manuscripts (at left is a letter from John Wesley to Thomas Rankin, written January 22, 1767). This extensive collection of letters by John and Charles Wesley and other members of the Wesley family was digitized with a $5000 grant from the American Theological Library Association's Cooperative Digital Resources Initiative, Phase Three. The exhibit also includes an explanation of the digitization process. We sometimes think that "everything" is available on the Internet, but have you ever wondered how you create digital images? Or where you store them? How much does it cost? How long does it take? Your questions are about to be answered! Come visit the exhibit in person, or check out our exhibit brochure.

Inclusively covering the period 1719-1887, the Wesley correspondence and poetry shed light not only on the history and development of Methodism, but also life in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Britain, and are of use to both scholars and religious researchers with interests in Wesley studies and British history. With the support of the Luce Foundation, the ATLA Cooperative Digital Resources Initiative provides a freely available, web-searchable, central repository of digital resources contributed by participating libraries. All the resources in the CDRI database, which include images and text from many centuries of Christian history, are public-domain and available for use in classroom, church, and other settings free of charge.

Also participating in this round of grants were libraries at Princeton, Vanderbilt, Boston University, Andover Newton, Southern Methodist University, Ohio State, and Southwestern Baptist. Visit ATLA's website for more details about the other schools who participated in previous phases, and the resources available in the CDRI database.

Stay tuned: I'll post some more images soon!

Welcome to the Methodist Library blog

...highlighting news and other interesting tidbits from Drew University's Methodist Center. The Center is a cooperative endeavor between the Drew University Library and the archives of the United Methodist Church (for more on the UMC's archives and the activities of the General Commission on Archives and History, see the General Commission website.)

I hope to post here about once a week with happenings (exhibits, receptions, new services for our users, new books and manuscripts acquired, and the occasional booksale); intriguing or little-known facts from Methodist history; or glimpses behind-the-scenes at the Center (who are we? what do we do all day? and why can't you check out books from here, anyway?).

General thoughts and comments are always welcome. If you have a specific reference question, send it to me via email for the quickest response...unless you want to post it here and let your fellow commenters have at it....