Parker, Samuel (4)

Parker, Samuel (4), a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, one of the most eminent pioneers of Methodism in the West, was born in New Jersey about 1774. He was converted at fourteen; in the year 1805 he entered the itinerancy; in 1809-1813 was presiding elder on Indiana District, which was then one of the most important fields of the Church, and was greatly improved and enlarged under his labors; in 1814 he was on Miami District; and in 1815- 1819 on Kentucky District. An important position in the Mississippi Conference needed a strong man, and thither the bishops sent him in 1819, but he was soon stricken down with disease, and died Dec. 20 of the same year. His preaching was of the most eloquent and irresistible character. He possessed an exceedingly musical voice, a clear, keen mind, an imagination which, though never extravagant, afforded frequent and brilliant illustrations of his subject, while his ardent piety imparted wonderful tenderness and power to his appeals. Withal his personal appearance was striking. He was nearly six feet in height, and had a remarkably intellectual countenance, with a full forehead and a black piercing eye. Parker's whole life was one of ceaseless and glorious toil for the kingdom of Christ. He was one of the princes of Israel, and his early death deprived the Church of one of her most needed laborers in the West. He was a man of genius, and was called the Cicero of the Western Methodist ministry. See Minutes of the Annual Coferences, 1:358; Meth. Mag. 1825, art. Wm. Beauchamp, et al.; Stevens, Hist. of the Meth. Epis. Church 1:365),378; — Finley, Sketches of Western Methodism, p. 206; McFerrin, Hist. of Methodism in Tennessee, 2:321 sq.; Redford, Hist. of Methodism in Kentucky (see Index in vol. 2). (J. H.W.)