ORIGINS OF METHODIST PUBLISHING IN AMERICA*

The colophon of the Methodist Publishing House depicts a circuit-riding preacher, book in hand, on a high-stepping steed striding over the words "Since 1789. " A history of American Methodist publishing, upon which we are at work, is planned to cover a 175-year span. Seemingly, it is a task Horatio Alger, Jr., might have envied us-writing a business success story. It would start in 1789, that historic year when George Washington was inaugurated President in New York City where the five-year-old Methodist Episcopal Church of America also met and ordered John Dickins, a young Eton-schooled preacher with nose smudged by printer's ink, to go to Philadelphia and found the Methodist Book Conoern. This he did-and ever after its career has been onward and, usually, upward. In brief, that was it. But research barely began before we dis-covered the Algerian formula failed to fit. The Methodist Book Con