Elijah Hedding
American Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church
Elijah Hedding (June 7, 1780 – April 9, 1852) was an American bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, elected in 1824.
Early life
Hedding was born near Pine Plains in Dutchess County, New York, to parents of English origin. He was trained in prayer by his mother, who was brought into the church under circuit preacher Benjamin Abbot. It is said that when he was only three years old, his mother taught him the first principles of the Christian faith and he felt the fear of God. For several years he practiced secret prayer.
When Abbott began preaching in the neighborhood, his ministry resulted in the conversion not only of Hedding's mother, but his grandmother and other relatives as well, all of whom joined the Methodist Episcopal Church. Hedding attended public worship with his mother and remained with her in class-meeting after the preaching.
Bishop Matthew Simpson related one occasion in Hedding's young life of Christian faith:
after Mr. Abbott had spoken to the class, he went to little Elijah and said, "Well, my boy, do you think you are a sinner?" He replied, "Yes, sir." Mr. Abbott then, with vehemence and loud voice, said, "There's many a boy in hell not as old as you are," and most impressively exhorted him to seek religion.
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This entry incorporates text from “Elijah Hedding” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.