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 Engraved by J. H.BaKer.
 
 BISHOP ASBURY: 
 
 A BIOGRAPHICAL STUDY FOR CHRISTIAN 
 WORKERS. 
 
 WITH A PORTRAIT. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. FREDERICK W. BRIGGS. 
 
 Published for the Autlior at the 
 WESLEYAN CONFERENCE OFFICE, 
 
 2, CASTLE STREET, CITY ROAD 
 1874.
 
 H. ASBURY. 
 
 SECRETARY. 
 
 42, PASSEY flOAD, 
 MOSELEY. 
 
 Watson and Hazell, Printers, London and Ayleabury.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTION 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 YOUTH AND EARLY MANHOOD _ . 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 THE PLANTING OF METHODISM IN AMERICA . 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 INITIATION OF ITINERANCY 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ESTABLISHMENT OF DISCIPLINE .... . .51 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 MODES OF ADMINISTRATION 
 
 CHAPTER VH. 
 
 IN TROUBLOUS TIMES 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ALONE AND IN CONCEALMENT 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 PILOTING THROUGH PERILS 108 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 ESCAPED AND ON THE WING . .120
 
 VI CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. PAGE 
 
 THE NEW CHURCH DEVISED AND PROJECTED ... .129 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE NEW CHURCH ORGANIZED 136 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 EPISCOPAL ITINERANCY : THE SOUTH 149 
 
 CHAPTER XIY. 
 
 CONSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH . . 160 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 EPISCOPAL ITINERANCY : THE WEST . . . . . . . 172 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES . . ' . '"'.' v"- : '"v' ' ' "'.' .'' : 188 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 EPISCOPAL ITINERANCY : NEW ENGLAND . . . . . .198 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 A CONSTITUTIONAL DIFFICULTY 214 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 EPISCOPAL ITINERANCY : THE CIRCUIT OF THE STATES . . . 224 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 PIETY AT HOME . 239 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 LATEST YEARS 248 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 LAST DAYS . .... . . . .i . . . .265 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 LIVING FOR A PURPOSE . . . .-, 276
 
 NOTE. 
 
 THXCEPTING the facts relating to the early life of Bishop 
 Asbury, for the accuracy of which I must hold myself 
 responsible, my principal authorities for the statements con- 
 tained in this volume are the following : 
 
 Asbury's Journal. 
 
 Wesley's Works. 
 
 Minutes of the Methodist Conference. 
 
 The Arminian and Methodist Magazines. 
 
 "History of the Methodist Episcopal Church," by Abel 
 Stevens, LL.D. 
 
 " History of the Methodist Episcopal Church," by 
 Nathan Bangs, D.D. 
 
 " Life of Dr. Coke," by Dr. Etheridge. 
 
 For the portrait I am indebted to my friend, Mr. W. E. 
 Whitehouse. Asbury sat twice for his portrait, and each 
 was engraved and published ; but I may safely say that 
 that which I have the satisfaction of prefixing to this volume 
 is a truer likeness than either of them. It is the work 
 of a competent artist, who has spared no pains to gain 
 a true appreciation of the character of his subject, who has 
 the great advantage of being himself in moral sympathy
 
 Vlll NOTE. 
 
 with that character, and who has thoroughly studied and 
 striven to faithfully reproduce the distinctive features as 
 represented in the engravings referred to, but with a more 
 natural expression. That he has been successful cannot be 
 doubted. Mr. Whitehouse has generously presented his 
 fine oil painting to the Trustees of the Asbury Memorial 
 Chapel, Hands worth. I am under obligation to another 
 friend, Mr. W. H. Wilkinson, for the admirable photographs, 
 the originals of the engravings with which the volume is em- 
 bellished, the one being a view of Manwood's Cottage, 
 near West Bromwich (at one time a noted centre of Metho- 
 dist activity and influence), where Asbury preached his 
 first authorized sermon ; and the other a view of his parents' 
 residence, the home of his childhood and youth, and also a 
 preaching-place for half a century.
 
 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTBODUCTION. 
 
 The Writer's Purpose Asbury's Character and Appearance The single 
 Aim of his Life. 
 
 AT the Methodist Conference of 1768 it was said, "In 
 many places the work of God seems to stand still. What 
 can be done to revive and enlarge it?" And one recom- 
 mendation in reply to this momentous question was, ' ' Let 
 every preacher read carefully over the ' Life of Mr. Brainerd.' 
 Let us be followers of him as he was of Christ, in absolute 
 self-devotion, in total deadness to the world, and in fervent 
 love to God and man." Had Mr. Wesley framed a similar 
 answer to the same question in our time, he would have 
 probably associated the name of Francis Asbury with that 
 of Brainerd ; perhaps still more likely he would have sub- 
 stituted the one for the other. 
 
 "I reckon him," said Dr. Dixon, in a letter to the Rev. 
 Luke Tyerman, the latest biographer of Wesley, " the 
 second man in Methodist history ; and, in the extent of his 
 labours, and the variety of incidents connected with them, 
 he is not the second but the first man in our community." * 
 
 * " Life of Dr. Dixon," p. 416. 
 
 1
 
 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 Mr. Tyerman's own estimate of him he expresses in these 
 words : " Among the self-denying, laborious Christian 
 ministers of the past eighteen hundred years, we believe 
 that Francis Asbury has no superiors, and but few that can 
 be considered equals. And yet, how little does the Church 
 Catholic indeed, how little does the Methodist section of it 
 know concerning this great and grand because good old 
 man ! " * 
 
 In the confidence that no man of competent knowledge 
 and ability will dissent in opinion from these verdicts, and 
 acting on the principle of the above-quoted advice, I put 
 forth this biography as a fit " study for Christian workers." 
 Yet I am not without good hope that it will be found attractive 
 and useful to Christian readers generally, whether they are in 
 a position to be specifically designated workers or not. The 
 fault must certainly lie with the writer or reader, if, in any 
 case, the contemplation of so noble a character as that which 
 I have undertaken to delineate, one of the noblest that the 
 Church of Christ, the most fertile nursery of noble characters, 
 has ever produced is not found to be gratifying, stimulating, 
 and improving. 
 
 But I venture, with sincere respect, to commend the study 
 particularly to recognised workers in the Church of Christ ; 
 to ministers, preachers, Sunday-school teachers, and all 
 others who in any sense " watch for souls," and in any form 
 " labour in the word and doctrine." If I may mention any 
 class of persons whose thoughtful attention I am most of all 
 anxious to secure, it is that of young men who are preparing 
 for ministerial service. If they are sincere in their profession 
 of a belief that they are called of God to the office they hope 
 to fulfil, and real in their desire to discharge its duties with 
 
 * "Life of Wesley," iii. 248.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 efficiency and success, they will find the study of so genuine 
 an example of ministerial fidelity helpful to them in a variety 
 of ways. It must have the effect of strengthening their 
 sense of responsibility. It will serve to impress them with 
 the value of time by shewing them how much successful work 
 for the benefit of the world may be crowded into a single 
 devoted life. It will reveal to them the true secret of suc- 
 cess. It will teach them how well and safely a man whose 
 purposes and motives are right may guide himself through the 
 folds of tangled difficulties and snares, and how nobly he may 
 bear up and acquit himself under formidable tests and trials. 
 It may serve to convince them also that spiritual experiences, 
 sympathies, and ends, do not tend to contract the mental 
 powers, but to expand and develope them. One of the 
 greatest thinkers of our age has recorded with commenda- 
 tion that his father, who was his sole instructor and 
 educator, was " fond of putting in his hands books which 
 exhibit men of energy and resource in unusual circumstances 
 struggling against difficulties and overcoming them." Such 
 a man, and much more than this description includes, was 
 Francis Asbury ; and I cannot think that any active Chris- 
 tian can ponder his history without deriving from it, not 
 instruction only, but suitable guidance, encouragement, and 
 a fresh quickening of all his best powers of thought and 
 feeling. 
 
 In person, Asbury was tall, slender, and sinewy, and his 
 constitution, though not robust, was healthy, remarkably 
 elastic, and happily had never been impaired by vice or evil 
 habits. He had a lofty forehead, an open and benignant 
 countenance, and a clear, full voice which he could modulate 
 at will from tones of tenderness and pathos to those of 
 the most thundering declamation. His most characteristic 
 endowments were firmness of will, and the capacity of prompt,
 
 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 guarded, and sustained exertion. He was emphatically a 
 man of action. His intellectual gifts were not of the highest 
 order, and his educational advantages were but few and 
 meagre. What he became is to be ascribed chiefly to his 
 possession of that which every other man may possess in an 
 equal degree not genius, not showy talents ; but strength, 
 constancy, and consistency of religious principle. But for 
 his early conversion, his complete surrender of himself to 
 the sway of truth and duty, and, it may be added, the pro- 
 vidential concurrence of favouring circumstances which he 
 was prompt to use, he probably would have lived and died 
 in his native parish, respected it may be for his good sense, 
 discretion, and steadiness of conduct, but otherwise undis- 
 tinguished from his humble neighbours ; and his name would 
 have been rarely heard beyond a limited circle. No man 
 could have appropriated to himself more truly those words 
 of St. Paul: "By the grace of God I am what I am, and 
 His grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain, but 
 I laboured more abundantly than they all ; yet not I, but 
 the grace of God which was with me." 
 
 Greatness of character is usually attained through the 
 predominant force of a single principle or passion. A man 
 becomes great by his enthusiasm of devotion to one thing. 
 A single aim or end commands the approval of his under- 
 standing, captivates his feelings, and engrosses the energies 
 of his soul ; then, as carried out into practice, it takes a 
 deeper and firmer hold on his whole moral nature, and 
 eventually subdues every opposing motive, and becomes the 
 fixed, ever-present, guiding, and ruling passion of his life. 
 The result is the moral heroism which we admire in the 
 world's greatest benefactors. In the case of Asbury, this 
 ruling passion was an enthusiasm to save men by the power 
 of the Gospel. From the moment when the Divine impulse
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 toward this end was first imparted to him in the surrender of 
 himself to Christ, to the very close of his marvellous career, 
 his all-absorbing aim was to bring sinful men into union with 
 Christ as their Saviour, and to keep them beneath His yoke. 
 It was under the promptings of this noblest passion that he 
 began to instruct and discipline his mind, and to devote 
 himself to spiritual service, first, in his own neighbourhood, 
 and afterwards in the stations to which he was appointed by 
 the Conference in his own country ; it was this which urged 
 him, when the occasion offered, to go out to labour in 
 behalf of his countrymen settled in America; and, as we 
 shall be frequently reminded, it was this which impelled him 
 there to encounter and overcome all but insuperable obstacles, 
 to undertake and accomplish all but impracticable tasks, and 
 to go steadfastly forward from year to year "in weariness 
 and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, 
 in fastings often, in cold and nakedness," till in age and 
 feebleness he was carried into the church to preach Christ 
 with almost his last breath. From day to day, morning, 
 noon, and night, he might have heard whispered to his soul 
 one of those " Rules of the Helper" which he had eagerly 
 accepted for the guidance of his life : " You have nothing to 
 do but to save souls. Therefore spend and be spent in this 
 work ; and go always not only to those who want you, but 
 to those who want you most."
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 YOUTH AND EARLY MANHOOD. 
 
 Scantiness of Material Place of Asbury's Birth His Parents His 
 Mother's Conversion Her solicitude for his Spiritual Welfare His 
 churlish Schoolmaster His Apprenticeship Fitness of his Training 
 by means of Manual Labour His Spiritual Awakening The " Evan- 
 gelicals " at West Bromwich The Methodists of Wednesbury The 
 old Barn His godly Companions Becomes a Local Preacher 
 Appointed to a Circuit Offers himself for America The Parting. 
 
 WITH reference to the early life of Asbury, I might 
 almost adopt the words with which Izaak Walton 
 introduces his " Life of Hooker " : " Though I have under- 
 taken it, yet it hath been with some unwillingness, foresee- 
 ing that it must prove to me a work of much labour to 
 inquire, consider, research, and determine what is needful to 
 be known concerning him. For I knew him not in his life, 
 and must therefore, not only look back to his death (now 
 sixty-four years passed), but almost fifty years beyond that." 
 But I have this advantage which quaint old Walton had not, 
 that the subject of my biography has left a concise account 
 of his parentage and early history, which, although evidently 
 written in haste, and contained within little more than a 
 page of his Journal, suggests the facts to be sought out, and 
 indicates sources of information concerning them. The 
 following account is that of Asbury himself, with such 
 superadded details, associated facts, and illustrations as I 
 have been able to gather up by careful personal research in 
 the localities familiar to his youth.
 
 YOUTH AND EARLY MANHOOD. 
 
 "I was born," he says, " in old England, near the foot of 
 Hamstead Bridge, in the parish of Hands worth, about four 
 miles from Birmingham, August 20 or 21, 1745." Some 
 of the aspects of this locality have been changed since 
 Asbury's time ; but the spot he describes may be easily 
 identified by any person who visits it, when the changes 
 that have taken place are pointed out. The domain of 
 Hamstead, or Hamstead Hall, the seat of the ancient family 
 of Wyrley, lies at the north-east of the extensive rural parish 
 of Handsworth, and is intersected by the pleasant old road 
 between Birmingham and Walsall. At a distance of about 
 two miles to the north-west of the spot referred to, is the 
 town of West Bromwich, at present spread out over what 
 was then Bromwich Heath ; and a mile or two further on in 
 the same direction, and in the very heart of the "Black 
 Country," is the old Saxon town of Wednesbury. Through 
 the broad and beautiful valley of Hamstead winds the river 
 Tame, which at that time was crossed by the bridge which 
 Asbury indicates ; but half a century ago it was turned into 
 a new and straighter channel, the public road being also 
 diverted, and a new bridge built, to which the name of 
 Hamstead Bridge has been transferred. The former bridge, 
 however, still remains, with the vestiges of a river beneath 
 it ; but its only use is to connect the road with the coal- 
 wharf adjoining the Hamstead and Great Barr Railway 
 Station, and to mark the spot where the great evangelist 
 was born. At the point where the present old Walsall road 
 (for there is a newer one still) diverges from the older one, 
 and at the south end of the old bridge, is a rather large 
 ivy-clad house, with its front towards the former road ; and, 
 in a corresponding situation across the bridge, stood the 
 house where Asbury first saw the light. 
 
 His parents, he informs us, who " were people in common
 
 8 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 life, were remarkable for their honesty and industry, and 
 had all things needful to enjoy. Had my father," he adds, 
 " been as saving as he was laborious, he might have been 
 wealthy. As it was, it was his province to be employed as 
 a farmer and gardener by the two richest families in the 
 parish." His mother belonged to a Welsh "family, ancient 
 and respectable, of the name of Rogers." She was " an 
 ardently affectionate," quick-witted and strong-minded 
 woman, perfectly contented with her lowly social condition, 
 and only concerned to fulfil its duties wisely and well. 
 The death of her only daughter, Sarah, in infancy, plunged 
 her " into deep distress, from which she was not relieved 
 for many years." This event, however, was the means of 
 leading her to give such attention to her spiritual interests 
 as " terminated in her conversion." Under a profound con- 
 viction of sin and of her spiritual helplessness, " she sought 
 religious people " who might afford her sympathy and 
 guidance, and became distressingly conscious that she lived 
 " in a very dark, dark, dark day and place." Then she 
 betook herself to religious books ; and " many were the 
 days she spent chiefly in reading and prayer." This 
 arrested his attention as a child, and filled him with sur- 
 prise. It was " strange," he thought, that his " mother 
 should stand by a large window poring over a book for 
 hours together." Shortly after she had "found justifying 
 grace and pardoning mercy," she removed with her family 
 to a house in Newton Road, Great Barr, just over the 
 parish boundary of Handsworth, where "for fifty years her 
 hands, her house, her heart, were open to receive the people 
 of God and ministers of Christ." This house still stands, its 
 immediate surroundings but little altered ; and the memory 
 of Mrs. Asbury, one of its earliest occupants, is lovingly 
 cherished by a few old people who knew her personally, and
 
 YOUTH AND EARLY MANHOOD. 
 
 by many others to whom her excellencies of character have 
 been often told. About the time of her death a chapel was 
 built " within two or three hundred yards of her dwelling," 
 to which the congregation and class she had been the means 
 of forming were transferred ; and " thus a lamp was lighted 
 up in a dark place." A sermon on the occasion of her death 
 was preached by the Rev. Samuel Bradburn. Both parents 
 lived to a good old age, the father to his eighty-fifth, and 
 the mother to her eighty-eighth year ; and they sleep to- 
 gether in the quiet burial-ground which surrounds the Great 
 Barr Church. 
 
 After her own conversion Mrs. Asbury, by a natural 
 instinct of piety, sought the conversion of her husband, and 
 " strongly urged him to family reading and prayer." She 
 also became the more earnestly watchful over Francis, her 
 only son, guarding him especially against forms of insincerity, 
 and impressing him with the solemn obligation of being 
 always simply truthful. This had the restraining effect 
 upon him which she prayerfully laboured to produce ; SQ 
 that, although " the love of trutfc is not natural, the habit of 
 telling it" he "acquired very early." He "abhorred mis- 
 chief and wickedness " such as the boys of his age were 
 addicted to, and frequently "returned home" from their 
 company "uneasy and melancholy." "Sometimes" he 
 " was much ridiculed, and called Methodist parson, because " 
 his "mother invited any people who had the appearance of 
 religion to her house." 
 
 He was early sent to school, and " began to read the Bible 
 between six and seven years of age, and greatly delighted in 
 the historical part of it." But unhappily his " master was 
 a great churl and used to beat him cruelly." " My father," 
 he says, " having but the one son, greatly desired to keep 
 me at school, he cared not how long ; but in this design he
 
 10 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 was disappointed, for my master by his severity had filled 
 me with such horrible dread that with me anything was 
 preferable to going to school." 
 
 He was allowed to leave it with what effect upon his 
 after life cannot be conjectured. But when only " about 
 thirteen years and a-half old," he was apprenticed, by his 
 own " choice," to a laborious trade. Within a short distance 
 of his father's house was a famous forge, the only one ever 
 built in that neighbourhood, and one of the first in the whole 
 district. At night, the lurid flames flashed up from its fur- 
 naces cast an unearthly glare over the whole valley. Its 
 ponderous machinery, worked by four huge water-wheels, 
 he thought of with wonder and eager curiosity ; and the 
 skilful and active energy displayed within its precincts, con- 
 trasting so strongly with the tame and quiet plodding of his 
 father's employment, captivated his boyish fancy. Some of 
 the youths engaged in it had become his personal friends, 
 and they seemed to him to have acquired by their manly 
 toil a strength of character which had raised them to a higher 
 level than his own. The* work, he knew, was hard; but 
 this rather strengthened his desire to have the satisfaction 
 of doing it. 
 
 Forge-operations then, as now, were earned on in several 
 associated departments. Besides the process of smelting, 
 there was that which is now called puddling, the agitation 
 of the liquid mass with rods till it has got rid of its foreign 
 matters, and is formed into spherical balls called blooms ; 
 there was the process of flattening out these blooms by sub- 
 jecting them to the blows of the heavy forge-hammer, now 
 more effectually accomplished by the rolling-mill ; there was 
 the process of slitting, by which the iron when made malle- 
 able was cut into bars suitable for the use of the smith ; and 
 there was also the smith's department where tools required
 
 YOUTH AND EARLY MANHOOD. 11 
 
 by the forgemen were made and repaired. At the head of 
 this department was a godly man named Foxall, who had 
 recently come from Monmouthshire, where he and his wife 
 had been converted to Christ under the preaching of Mr. 
 Wesley. Between Mrs. Foxall and Mrs. Asbury there had 
 begun to grow up an intimate friendship, which originated 
 where so many pure friendships take their beginning at 
 some homely religious gathering. On these grounds it was 
 specially satisfactory to the parents of Francis, when he had 
 declared his desire to work within the forge, to find that Mr. 
 Foxall was willing to take him as an apprentice. An arrange- 
 ment was made with this result, and for " about six years 
 and a-half " he exercised, developed, and strengthened his 
 muscles, expanded his chest, and hardened his whole bodily 
 frame, by learning and practising the honourable craft of 
 smith. " During this time," he says, gratefully, "I enjoyed 
 great liberty, and in the family was treated more like a son 
 or an equal than an apprentice." 
 
 No better training of its kind for his great future work 
 could have been given to him. Had he been called to 
 found, organize, and direct the Methodist Societies in the 
 conditions of social life in England, he might have needed 
 for his task the erudition, dialectic skill, and courtly refine- 
 ment which John Wesley acquired under the influence 
 of his extraordinary mother, and at the university of Oxford. 
 But the work that Asbury was to accomplish in America 
 called for qualifications of a different kind. It demanded 
 practical good sense, a love of method, and an active and 
 well-balanced mind; and this Asbury had in common with 
 Wesley. But it required also a muscular frame, fortified by 
 early discipline against exposure to the power of the churlish 
 elements, ability and readiness to contrive on sudden emer- 
 gencies, and the capacity of sustained bodily exertion and
 
 12 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 endurance ; and he could have been placed in no better 
 school to be trained for all this, than the blacksmith's shop 
 of that Old Forge. Modern improvements in machinery, 
 and the substitution of steam for water-power, have caused 
 that once noted forge to be removed from the locality ; and 
 the very "cinder-field," where its scoriae were deposited, is 
 now as green as the meadows which surround it ; but the 
 anvil on which Francis Asbury wrought is still reverently 
 preserved as a precious memento of his providential early 
 training. 
 
 But a fitness for spiritual work of another and higher 
 kind was necessary, more necessary than physical training, 
 or even a liberal education. A successful evangelist lives 
 and acts in fellowship with Christ and under His guidance. 
 In order to do this he must be converted, and become as a 
 little child. The life and experience of a true disciple of 
 Christ must be a matter of personal consciousness to him. 
 
 A boy of right natural sensibilities necessarily feels the 
 time when he is first put to a business to be a serious crisis 
 in his history ; and a word of spiritual counsel judiciously 
 spoken to him then, may leave an impression for good which 
 is never afterwards effaced. Asbury at the time of his 
 apprenticeship did not lack the prayerful advice of his 
 mother ; but it happened also that a godly man, previously 
 unknown to her, had just come to reside in the neighbour- 
 hood, and was beginning to pay occasional visits at Mrs. 
 Asbury 's house. She quickly discerned in him a power of 
 spiritual usefulness to her son, and enlisted his sympathies 
 and co-operation in his behalf. It was arranged that he 
 should call at times when Francis could meet him ; and 
 it was not long before he had won his confidence and 
 succeeded in putting great and stirring thoughts into his 
 mind. "By his conversation and prayers,'' says Asbury,
 
 YOUTH AND EARLY MANHOOD. 13 
 
 " I was awakened before I was fourteen years of age. It 
 was now easy and pleasing to leave my company, and I 
 began to pray morning and evening." 
 
 Gradually, as his knowledge, insight, and earnestness 
 increased, he grew dissatisfied with the ministrations of the 
 " dark priest " who officiated at the church which the family 
 attended (the church at Great Barr, at that time a chapel-of- 
 ease to Aldridge), and went on Sundays to All Saints', the 
 old parish-church of West Bromwich. Here he found 
 something more suitable to his spiritual wants. The rector, 
 the Rev. Edward Stillingfleet, M.A., had participated in the 
 Methodist revival, and, together with his like-minded curate, 
 the Rev. Mr. Bagnall, was preaching with almost Methodist 
 plainness, fidelity, and fervour. Besides these, the youthful 
 inquirer now heard " esteemed Gospel ministers," whose 
 occasional services were procured by the Earl of Dartmouth. 
 This nobleman, who was Stillingfleet's parishioner, was a 
 friend of the Countess of Huntingdon, and Sandwell Hall, 
 his seat, was the frequent resort of the Evangelical clergy- 
 men whom the good Countess had gathered around her as 
 earnest fellow-labourers. The rector was a member of this 
 elect circle, and welcomed them to his pulpit. 
 
 Amongst others whom Asbury now heard, and whose 
 fervid discourses remained fresh in his memory in mature 
 life, he enumerates " Ryland, Talbot, Mansfield, Hawes 
 and Venn." Under the light and guidance and holy 
 influence which came to him from this varied spiritual 
 agency, his mind was exercised more and more respecting 
 his personal relations to God. He " became deeply serious ; 
 reading a great deal of Whitefield's and Cennick's Sermons, 
 and every good book he could meet with." These sermons 
 had probably come into his hands through the Calvinistic 
 clergyman he so gratefully mentions, or as having been put
 
 14 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 in circulation by the Dartmouth family. Their theology 
 was not altogether of such a character as he would have 
 accepted in after life ; but they contained the essential 
 truths of the Gospel, their earnestness of tone and direct- 
 ness of appeal harmonised well with his state of feeling, and 
 they no doubt strengthened his longings for spiritual 
 realities. In some sense also they were the productions of 
 Methodists on whose labours, sufferings and sayings he 
 was daily hearing favourable or contemptuous and jeering 
 comments. 
 
 All this, and the affection he was beginning to acquire for 
 his Methodist master, made him eagerly curious to know by 
 personal observation what Methodism was. He says, " I 
 began to inquire of my mother who, where, what were the 
 Methodists. She gave me a favourable account, and directed 
 me to a person that could take me to Wednesbury to hear 
 them." The Society at Wednesbury, as Mrs. Asbury must 
 have heard, was large, active and full of life and energy ; 
 and she must have been able to give him accounts of its 
 history since the time when the Wesleys had first preached to 
 assembled thousands " in a large hollow not half a mile from 
 the town," which would naturally create in his mind feelings 
 of interest and wonder. He and his guide set off buoyantly 
 together; and he says that he was impressed with every- 
 thing he witnessed. " I soon found this was not the church 
 but it was better. The people were so devout men and 
 women kneeling .down saying Amen. Now, behold ! they 
 were singing hymns sweet sound ! Why strange to tell 
 the preacher had no prayer-book, and yet he prayed wonder- 
 fully ! What was yet more extraordinary, the man took his 
 text, and had no sermon-book : thought I, this is wonderful 
 indeed ! " But he experienced something more than a sense 
 of surprise ; for there suddenly passed into his soul an
 
 YOUTH AND EARLY MANHOOD. 15 
 
 inspiration from the Holy One which filled him with a deep 
 and stirring consciousness of his spiritual relations to an 
 unseen world. It was not yet, however, that he could say, 
 " Being justified by faith, we have peace with God." He 
 continued to attend the Methodist services at Wednesbury 
 with his young friend, whose name, I believe, was William 
 Emery ; but he did not obtain the spiritual satisfaction he 
 sought until some time during the summer of 1760, when he 
 was in his sixteenth year. Alexander Mather had then come 
 fresh into the Staffordshire Circuit, and was holding prayer- 
 meetings at Wednesbury, at which he urged penitents with his 
 characteristic fervour "to believe now; to come to Christ 
 now ; without any other qualification than a sense of their 
 own sinfulness and helplessness."* Asbury was roused by 
 these enthusiastic exhortations to increased earnestness ; and 
 when he and Emery were praying together in his father's barn 
 he was brought, he says, " to Jesus Christ, who graciously 
 justified my guilty soul, through faith in His precious blood." 
 That old barn thus became invested for him with an attrac- 
 tive sacredness. It appears to have been in a tumble-down 
 condition ; and Asbury so regularly resorted to it for personal 
 communion with God that, as I have been told by an aged 
 person who knew his mother, neighbours were wont to say 
 gaily, but not flippantly, that it was kept standing by young 
 Asbury's prayers. 
 
 From this time he was a decided and happy Christian, 
 ready to be in any way in which he was competent a " worker 
 together with " Him who came to seek and to save the lost. 
 In a month or two, youth as he was, he began to hold meet- 
 ings for prayer, Bible-readings, and exhortation, in his father's 
 house, in a house which he opened for these purposes at 
 
 * "Lives of Early Methodist Preachers," ii. 179.
 
 16 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 Sutton Coldfield, and elsewhere ; and he records gratefully 
 that " several souls professed to find peace through my 
 labours." * His " friend and father," Mr. Mather, became in- 
 spired with so much confidence in his good sense and stability, 
 that before the completion of his seventeenth year he gave him 
 authority to form and lead a Society-class at Bromwich Heath, 
 where a house had been recently opened for public worship. 
 Thus sanctioned, he obtained additional influence over youths 
 of his own age, and he soon became the centre of a group 
 who clung to him with sincere and warm affection, and not 
 only looked to him for guidance at the weekly meeting, but 
 were his chosen and constant companions. One of them, 
 recalling in his old age those days of youthful fervour, says 
 in an autobiography written for the gratification of his 
 family : "In 1761 my father and mother came to live at Barr, 
 where I soon became acquainted with Francis Asbury ; and 
 he, I, and three or four more used to go to Wednesbury in the 
 morning of the Lord's-day to the preaching at eight o'clock, 
 and, when that was over, twice to West Bromwich Church, 
 and at five in the evening to Wednesbury again." 
 
 The writer of this account was Thomas Ault, a fellow- 
 apprentice of Asbury and of exactly his own years. He 
 lived to the mellow old age of eighty ; was identified with 
 the West Bromwich Society from its first beginning under 
 Asbury to the time of his death, when it had become large 
 and influential ; was for twenty "years the clerk of the parish- 
 
 * The occupier of this house at Sutton was Edward Hand, an ancestor 
 of the Sunderlands, an estimable family now resident in Birmingham, 
 several branches of which are attached friends and supporters of 
 Methodism. Mr. Hand was violently persecuted for his religious 
 earnestness by his ignorant neighbours : twice they set fire to his house. 
 He and Asbury were fast friends through life. They are said to have 
 spent together in prayerful conversation the last evening before Asbury 
 finally quitted home.
 
 YOUTH AND EARLY MANHOOD. 17 
 
 church, and he sleeps beneath a stone in the parish grave- 
 yard on which affection inscribed the lines now scarcely 
 legible : 
 
 " Here lies the body of Thomas Ault, 
 Who, to human ken, was without a fault." 
 
 Another of the youths referred to in the extract was Jabez 
 Ault, the brother of Thomas, whose son, the Rev. William 
 Ault, was one of the six devoted young men who 'sailed with 
 Dr. Coke to Ceylon, and the first of that distinguished band 
 to pass from the Mission field to the rest and reward of 
 Heaven. Two others were James Bayley and Thomas 
 Russell, whose names are gratefully remembered as those of 
 ardent youths associated with Asbury in the erection and 
 subsequent enlargement of the room on Bromwich Heath, in 
 which the West Bromwich Methodists worshipped till 1806, 
 and another, of whom more particular mention may be made, 
 was Henry Foxall, Asbury's master's son. 
 
 Henry, who was three years younger than Asbury, was 
 taken specially under his care and watched over by him with 
 the solicitude of a loving elder brother. Whether he ever 
 became a member of his class I have not been able to ascer- 
 tain, but he certainly accompanied him to public services both 
 at All Saints' Church and the Methodist preaching-houses, 
 paid him frequent visits at his mother's house, and was 
 deeply influenced and affected by his consistent piety. Some 
 years after Asbury had quitted the neighbourhood, Foxall 
 undertook the superintendence of extensive ironworks in the 
 North of Ireland. There " one Lord's day, while riding out 
 on horseback, he saw a number of people gathered together 
 under some trees in a field. Curiosity induced him to 
 approach the assembly, when he found a preacher of Mr. 
 Wesley's Connexion calling sinners to repentance. He
 
 18 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 listened with deep attention. The words reached his heart ; 
 he was convinced of sin." The religious impressions of his 
 youth were revived, and for some months his mind was in 
 a state of great agitation and distress. He at length found 
 peace in believing ; became an active member of the Method- 
 ist Society ; and, eventually, " a highly respectable local- 
 preacher." After a year or two he removed to America, and 
 fixed his residence in George Town, near Washington. There 
 he amassed considerable wealth, a portion of which he 
 appropriated to the erection of a Methodist Church in the 
 city of Washington, which, in 1810, his intimate, and then 
 venerable, friend, Bishop Asbury, had the satisfaction of 
 dedicating to the worship of God. This church in allusion 
 to the Old Foundry, the cradle of Methodism, in Finsbury, and 
 also to the iron business by which Foxall had acquired his 
 wealth, and at which the now hoary -headed friends had spent 
 their youth together, they agreed to call The Foundry, and 
 to this day the " Foundry Church " of Washington is known 
 throughout American Methodism. Foxall finished his mortal 
 career at Handsworth. " Five days before his death," says 
 the Rev. Joseph Entwistle, from whose account some of these 
 details are taken, " he took a ride in his carriage to shew his 
 now disconsolate widow the house in which Mr. Asbury was 
 born." * 
 
 But the most noteworthy of all Asbury 's youthful asso- 
 ciates was Richard Whatcoat, whom we shall meet again as 
 an ordained companion of Dr. Coke on his mission to America 
 to constitute and organize the Episcopal Church, and who 
 was eventually raised to the office of Coadjutor-Bishop with 
 Asbury. Whatcoat came to reside in Wednesbury in 1757, 
 joined the Methodist Society there in 1758, was moved, and 
 
 * Methodist Magazine, 1824, pp. 69 and 505.
 
 YOUTH AND EAKLY MANHOOD. 19 
 
 guided to the attainment of more abundant life in Christ under 
 the same earnest preaching which was the means of Asbury's 
 conversion, and they were employed together as leaders of 
 Society-classes. He is spoken of with reverent affection as 
 one of the most saintly men that ever lived. The American 
 Methodist Conference say of him in their published Minutes 
 for 1807: "We will not use many words to describe this 
 almost inimitable man. Who ever saw him light or trifling ? 
 Who ever heard him speak evil of any person ? Nay, who 
 ever heard him speak an idle word ? He was dead to envy, 
 self-exaltation and praise ; sober without sadness ; cheerful 
 without levity ; careful without covetousness ; and decent 
 without pride. He died not possessed of property sufficient 
 to have paid the expenses of his sickness and funeral, if a 
 charge had been made ; so dead was he to the world."* 
 
 What degree of intimacy subsisted between him and 
 Asbury can only be a matter of reasonable conjecture ; but 
 that they often met as fellow- labourers and as friends, is 
 certain ; and it may be well supposed that the influence of 
 so holy a man, who also was the senior of Asbury by nine 
 years, contributed much to the formation of his character. 
 
 When eighteen years of age, Asbury was raised to the 
 rank of an authorized local-preacher. The first occasion 
 of his conducting a public service in this capacity, or per- 
 haps rather in the usual way of trial, with reference to the 
 office, is spoken of by descendants of some members of his 
 little congregation to this day. The place was Mamcoods 
 Cottage, at Bromwich, a lonely and antique dwelling, stand- 
 ing in subordinate relation to an old ecclesiastical building a 
 short distance from it, known by the name of Manwoods, 
 which at that time was the residence of the Earl of Dart- 
 
 * "Livea of Early Methodist Preachers," v. 319.
 
 20 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 mouth's steward. Standing behind a chair in the spacious 
 living-room of that 
 
 " Quaint old gabled place, 
 With church stamped on its face," 
 
 to be henceforth invested with an interest of which the 
 founders of Manwoods never dreamed, on account of the 
 mighty issues dependent on that " trial sermon" with many 
 of the workmen at the neighbouring forge, or members of 
 their families present, as hearers, he delivered his message 
 with agitated feelings, but with a full heart and a hopeful 
 spirit, and with an impressive simplicity, directness, and 
 force which has never been forgotten. Some words of com- 
 mendation or encouragement must have been spoken, which 
 he modestly attributes to a want of ''knowing how I had 
 exercised elsewhere." " Behold me now a local-preacher," 
 he continues, " the humble and willing servant of any and of 
 every preacher that called on me by night or by day ; being 
 ready with hasty steps to go far and wide to do good, visit- 
 ing Derbyshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire, 
 and indeed almost every place within my reach, for the sake 
 of precious souls ; preaching generally, three, four, and five 
 times a week, and at the same time pursuing my calling." 
 
 In 1766 he was called to quit home and manual work, 
 and for nine months he " went through Staffordshire and 
 Gloucestershire in the place of a travelling preacher " 
 whose health probably had failed. The next year (1767) 
 he was regularly " admitted on trial" for the itinerant 
 ministry, and appointed to the Bedfordshire Circuit ; the 
 year following (1768), having acquitted himself satisfac- 
 torily, he was "fully admitted," and appointed to Colches- 
 ter; in 1769 was re-appointed to Bedfordshire ; in 1770 he
 
 YOUTH AND EARLY MANHOOD. 21 
 
 travelled in Wiltshire ; and at the Conference which began 
 in Bristol, on the 6th of August, 1771, he was accepted 
 as a volunteer for what was to be the work of his life in 
 America. It was the first Conference he ever attended, 
 and he went to it fully resolved, under a deep sense of 
 obligation, to offer himself for that trying mission. For six 
 months previously " strong intimations " that it was his duty 
 to do so had occupied his thoughts day and night ; and he 
 had earnestly sought definite Divine guidance with reference 
 to it. Profoundly moved, as he sat reverently in the large 
 room in the Horsefair, with the venerable leaders of the 
 Methodist agency before him, he listened to statements 
 freshly received from America respecting the encouraging 
 success of efforts already made in behalf of that vast con- 
 tinent ; and, when the words were pronounced, " Our 
 brethren in America call aloud for help, who are willing to 
 go over and help them ? " he rose with a palpitating 
 heart, but with a composed and unfaltering mind, to proffer 
 his services. The trial of five years in laborious circuits in 
 England had sufficiently attested his fitness for the enter- 
 prise, and, with the concurrence of the whole Conference, the 
 appointment was given to him. With a disburdened mind, 
 he returned to Barr to communicate the tidings to his 
 parents. This was a difficult and painful task, for both 
 father and mother clung to him, their only child, with the 
 utmost strength and tenderness of affection. He " opened " 
 the matter to them " in as gentle a manner as possible ; " 
 and they, being " blessed," as he believed, " in the present 
 instance with Divine assistance," consented to " let him go." 
 The moment of final severance from them must have 
 presented a scene peculiarly affecting. His father, whom, he 
 says, " I seldom if ever saw weep," was " overwhelmed 
 with grief and tears ; " his great-hearted mother, on the
 
 22 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 contrary, being calm and self-restrained. How he mani- 
 fested or subdued his own swelling emotion he does not 
 intimate, but a fact which my investigations in the neigh- 
 bourhood have disclosed speaks all that needs to be told con- 
 cerning this. He wished to leave with his mother a keep- 
 sake, a token of his deep, admiring, and grateful affection for 
 her. What should this be ? His earthly treasures were few ; 
 but there was something his large silver watch, the dear 
 companion of his solitary travels in circuits at home, the 
 thing which he could least conveniently spare when going 
 abroad, but which would afford, for this reason, if freely 
 given, the best proof of the reality and strength of his love. 
 Might he not ask his mother to accept and retain this as a 
 perpetual remembrancer of him ? No ; he would not request 
 this favour he would not give that considerate mind the 
 opportunity to speak its refusal or remonstrance ! Sobbing 
 out his last farewell, he thrust his watch impulsively into his 
 mother's hand, and fled ! * A day or two later he found him- 
 self again in Bristol, in a state of readiness for his voyage. 
 He had " not one penny of money; but," he says, " the Lord 
 soon opened the hearts of friends, who supplied me with 
 clothes and ten pounds." 
 
 Wesley expected his lay-preachers to think of themselves 
 " as learners, rather than teachers as young students at the 
 University, for whom, therefore, a method of study is 
 expedient in the highest degree ; " and he advised them to 
 rise early, to devote the whole of the forenoon to systematic 
 study, and to read, in particular, a selection of works which 
 
 * This watch is preserved with reverent care by an aged couple now 
 living, from whom I heard the above, no doubt oft-repeated, tradition 
 concerning it.
 
 YOUTH AND EARLY MANHOOD. 23 
 
 he enumerates, "in order, slowly, and with much prayer." 
 So faithfully did Asbury follow this advice during the five 
 years in which he laboured in English circuits, that, although 
 when he first entered upon his work he felt himself to be 
 " exceedingly ignorant of almost everything a minister of the 
 Gospel ought to know," by the time of his embarkation for 
 America he had not only mastered the books recommended 
 by Wesley and many other choice theological works, but had 
 acquired a fair knowledge of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew.
 
 24 
 
 CHAPTER IE. 
 
 THE PLANTING OF METHODISM IN AMERICA. 
 
 The " Palatines " in Ireland Embury and Mrs. Heck in America First 
 Methodist Sermon Captain Webb The Sail-loft Wesley Chapel 
 Webb in Philadelphia Strawbridge in Maryland Appeal to Wesley 
 Boardman and Pilmore Mary Redfern First Missionaries in New 
 York George Whitefield. 
 
 ASBURY was not the first Missionary whom 
 -L Wesley sent to America ; and it may be convenient, at 
 this stage of our history, to trace from its origin the progress 
 of the work which he was appointed to promote. 
 
 In the beginning of the eighteenth century there settled 
 in Ireland, in the county Limerick, a colony of about fifty 
 families of refugees from those so- long-distracted provinces 
 on the Rhine called the Lower Palatinate. Mr. Wesley dis- 
 covered these persecuted people during his visit to Ireland 
 in 1756, and lingered with them some days. His labours 
 among them were attended with unusual success ; he formed 
 many of them into a Society, and left them pleasantly im- 
 pressed with the evidences of their artlessness and sincerity. 
 In 1765, however, he writes, sorrowfully, " I preached at 
 Ballygarane to the small remains of the poor Palatines. 
 As they could not get food and raiment here, with all their 
 diligence and frugality, part are scattered up and down the 
 kingdom, and part gone to America." 
 
 How different would have been the tone of this record if 
 its writer could have foreseen the future issues of this
 
 PLANTING OF METHODISM IN AMERICA. 25 
 
 lamented dispersion ! One of the " poor Palatines " whom 
 he missed on this occasion was a young carpenter, named 
 Philip Embury, who had been approvingly engaged in his 
 connection with the Society as a local-preacher and leader. 
 He had emigrated to New York in company with two of his 
 brothers and a few other friends, including his cousins, Paul 
 and Barbara Heck. They had all gone out under the 
 pressure of want, and, unhappily, on their settlement in the 
 new country, they made worldly success their absorbing 
 aim, and suffered spiritual declension and loss. At the time 
 of Wesley's visit to " the town of Palatines " in 1765, as 
 just stated, another party of them was preparing to join 
 Embury and his relations. Some of these, also, were 
 Methodists ; but, after settling at New York, they, like their 
 predecessors, lapsed into a state of spiritual carelessness. 
 One of them was Paul Ruckle, the eldest brother of Barbara 
 Heck. Whether or not he had made profession of godliness 
 before his departure from Ballygarane is unknown, but in 
 America he gave himself up, without restraint, to worldly 
 frivolities and amusements. One day, when on a visit to 
 his house, Barbara found him engaged in a game of cards. 
 Suddenly she was seized with compunction of conscience. 
 The ruinous spiritual state in which the whole company 
 were living, flashed startlingly upon her recollection. She 
 grasped the cards and dashed them into the fire ; then, 
 vanishing out of the apartment, she ran down to the house 
 of her cousin, Philip Embury, and, reminding him of happier 
 times when, as a consistent Christian and an approved local- 
 preacher, he had laboured for their spiritual benefit, she 
 said, as if consciously speaking by Divine authority, "You 
 must preach to us here, or we shall all go to hell, and God 
 will require our blood at your hands." Roused by this 
 abrupt and earnest appeal, he confessed his unfaithfulness,
 
 26 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 and admitted his responsibility ; but urged a variety of pleas 
 in his excuse, which she promptly repelled. In compliance 
 with her resolute entreaty, he ultimately consented to hold 
 a religious service in his own house. She persuaded three 
 or four persons to attend it with her ; and probably the first 
 Methodist sermon ever preached in America was addressed 
 to that congregation of not more than five persons, including 
 a black servant, Betty, by that penitent local-preacher, re- 
 awakened to a sense of obligation and accountableness, in 
 his own dwelling. When the sermon was ended the hearers 
 formed themselves into a Society- class, with Embury as their 
 leader. This was the germ of the Methodist Episcopal Church 
 of America. 
 
 From week to week Embury preached and his congrega- 
 tion multiplied. In a short time the class was divided into 
 two ; and, the congregation having outgrown the dimensions 
 of the apartment in his house, a larger room in the neigh- 
 bourhood was hired for their purposes. This was situated 
 near the barracks ; and three members of the military band, 
 John Buckley, James Hodge and Addison Low, attracted 
 by the singing, came and heard words whereby they were 
 saved. All of them were eventually associated with Embury 
 as leaders. 
 
 A month or two later, in February, 1767, a strange 
 military officer in full uniform joined the congregation after 
 the service had begun. His presence naturally attracted the 
 attention of all assembled. The unwelcome surmise passed 
 quickly into every mind that he had come with authority 
 from the governing powers to scatter them, and prohibit a 
 continuance of their meetings. But they were reassured in 
 a moment ; for, on entering the room, he knelt reverently in 
 silent prayer; then he united in their singing, responded 
 audibly and heartily to their petitions, and conducted him-
 
 PLANTING OF METHODISM IN AMERICA. 27 
 
 self throughout the service in a manner which convinced 
 them that he felt at home with Methodist worshippers. 
 Before the congregation dispersed he introduced himself as a 
 soldier of Jesus Christ, and a spiritual son of John Wesley, 
 and gave an account of his religious history by which all 
 were deeply affected and encouraged. They thankfully 
 received him into their fellowship, and his name, Captain 
 Thomas Webb, honourably associated as it is with stirring 
 and important events in our national history, will be always 
 still more honourably connected with the planting of Method- 
 ism in America. 
 
 The facts by which this remarkable man surprised and 
 interested his new friends were of no ordinary character ; 
 and we are able to state them " in almost his own words," 
 as one of his oft-repeated recitals of them was heard by the 
 late venerable Joseph Sutcliffc, and reported by him in a 
 paper contributed to the Methodist Magazine for 1849. " He 
 had sailed with General Wolfe for the conquest of Canada," 
 in 1759. " The fleet having anchored near Quebec the 
 general called the crew on deck, and apprised them that the 
 French, aware of their coming, had so pointed their guns as 
 to be able to destroy both ships and men, in case they 
 attempted to land near the batteries. He then asked them, 
 ' Can you drag my cannon up those steep heights ? ' The 
 voices being all ' Ayes ' the army landed during the night ; 
 and next morning when Montcalm, the aged French general, 
 was told that Wolfe had gained the Heights of Abraham, he 
 was heard to say, ' that boy has outwitted me ! ' The battle 
 followed in the open ground near the city. There was very 
 severe fighting. Wolfe was twice wounded without being 
 obliged to leave the field ; but he next received a wound in 
 his chest, which closed his career. He only lived to hear 
 the first shouts of ' Victory ! " Webb was near him when the
 
 28 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 heroic man fell, and was himself wounded in the arm ; but, 
 as the wound was not serious, he was soon afterwards 
 engaged with the detachment sent to reduce the fortress of 
 Louisburg, where a shot struck his right eye and burst the 
 eye-ball. " His only recollection was a flood of light which 
 accompanied the destruction of the eye. The wounded were 
 put into a boat, and, having crossed the water, all were 
 assisted to land, excepting Webb, of whom one of the men 
 said, ' He needs no help ; he is dead.' His senses had 
 returned, and he was just able to reply, ' No ; I am not 
 dead ! ' ' For three months he was under surgical treatment, 
 then he returned to England, and was taken by some 
 Methodists in Bristol, with whom he had business transac- 
 tions, to hear Mr. Wesley, under whose ministry he was 
 spiritually awakened and converted. This great event had 
 taken place two or three years previous to this visit to 
 New York. At that time he was residing at Albany, where 
 he was stationed as barrack-master ; and, having heard of 
 the labours of Philip Embury, he had come over to help 
 him. 
 
 Such was in substance the story with which Webb inter- 
 ested his hearers on that memorable Sunday night ; and, 
 producing his credentials, he told them further that Mr. 
 Wesley had authorized him to exercise his gifts as a local- 
 preacher : henceforth he was associated with Embury as a 
 recognised fellow-labourer. 
 
 Through the combined efforts of these godly men, 
 Embury preaching with increased earnestness, as encouraged 
 and sustained by his gallant helper ; and Webb preaching in 
 his turn, with characteristic simplicity, power, and feeling, 
 dressed in military uniform, his sword girt by his side or 
 placed on the desk before him, a green shade over the 
 destroyed eye, and his face radiant with benignity, the
 
 PLANTING OF METHODISM IN AMERICA. 29 
 
 congregation grew so rapidly that it was found necessary 
 to procure a much larger room, and a " rigging-loft," sixty- 
 four feet long, was rented and fitted up for their accommo- 
 dation. This place became immediately crowded with 
 attentive hearers ; and the necessity of procuring something 
 still more commodious impressing itself on many minds, it 
 was agreed, on the suggestion of Mrs. Heck, to apply them- 
 selves forthwith to the erection of a regular meeting-house. 
 A suitable site was obtained in John Street ; money, time, and 
 labour were cheerfully contributed ; and a chapel was built, 
 which has since given place to the more stately John 
 Street Methodist Church, which its projectors lovingly 
 called Wesley Chapel. 
 
 Never was the building of a sanctuary undertaken with 
 more joyous and self-denying zeal ; never was a " head- 
 stone " brought forth with more devout and gladsome sliout- 
 ings of " Grace, grace, unto it! " Webb gave thirty pounds 
 towards it, and lent upon it three hundred pounds without 
 interest ; Embury devoted to it his strength and skill as a 
 carpenter ; Mrs. Heck white-washed the walls with her own 
 hands ; Thomas Bell, a hearty Yorkshire Methodist, who 
 arrived while the work was in progress, told his friends at 
 home, to whom he sent an account of it, that he found every 
 member working with a steady good will and strength of 
 determination which astonished him. He says, " They 
 made several collections about the town ; they went to 
 Philadelphia and got part of the money there ; I," he adds, 
 with satisfaction, " wrought upon it six days." * At length 
 on the 30th of October, 1768, the chapel was ready to be 
 opened for the sacred purposes of its erection ; and Philip 
 Embury, who had constructed the pulpit, himself preached 
 
 * Methoditt Magazine for 1806, p. 46.
 
 30 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 from it the first sermon to as large a congregation as could 
 find accommodation.* 
 
 During the time that this building was in hand, Captain 
 Webb took a house in Long Island, which he opened for 
 preaching, and paid occasional visits to Philadelphia, where 
 he gathered a good congregation into a sail-loft and formed a 
 small but prosperous Society. " The Captain," as Mr. 
 Wesley said a year or two later when he had had the oppor- 
 tunity of hearing him, "was all life and fire; therefore, 
 although he was not deep or regular, yet many who would 
 not hear a better preacher flocked together to hear him. 
 And many were convinced under his preaching ; some justi- 
 fied ; a few built up in love." f About the same time Robert 
 Strawbridge, another Irish emigrant, and an Irishman of the 
 true type, generous, impetuous, and full of energy, began 
 to preach in his own house in a new settlement called Sam's 
 Creek, in Maryland. He also was encouraged with success, 
 and his house being soon found to be too small to accommo- 
 date the numbers who desired to hear him, they built, a 
 short distance from it, a curiously constructed " log meeting- 
 house." 
 
 At New York the fast-increasing Society felt more and 
 
 * " The chapel was built of stone, faced with blue plaster. It was 
 sixty feet in length, forty-two in breadth. Dissenters were not yet 
 allowed to erect ' regular churches ' in the city ; the new building was 
 therefore provided with ' a fireplace and chimney,' to avoid ' the diffi- 
 culty of the law.' Though long unfinished in its interior, it was 'very 
 neat and clean, and the floor was sprinkled over with sand as white as 
 snow.' " Stevens' s Women of Methodism, p. 175. 
 
 t Wesley's Jowrnal, Feb. 2, 1773. He had previously described him 
 in a letter as " a man of fire. The power ,pf God constantly accom- 
 panies his word." Charles Wesley hit off his character exactly when he 
 told Mr. Benson that he was " an inexperienced, honest, zealous, loving 
 enthusiast. "
 
 PLANTING OF METHODISM IN AMERICA. 31 
 
 more deeply the need of having placed over them some 
 regular and responsible preacher ; and resolved to lay the 
 matter before Mr. Wesley, with the hope that he would 
 sympathize with their solicitudes and send them one. The 
 most active part in this measure was taken by Thomas 
 Taylor, who came over from England shortly after Embury 
 and Webb had began to preach in the rigging-loft. On the 
 llth of April, 1768, he addressed a long letter to Mr. Wesley, 
 in which he gave him a clear and concise account of the 
 work from its beginning, and implored him, "not only in 
 his own name, but also in the name of the whole Society," 
 to send them " an able and experienced preacher ; one who 
 has both gifts and grace ... a man of wisdom, of sound 
 faith, and a good disciplinarian ; one whose heart and soul 
 is in the work ; " adding, " with respect to money for the 
 payment of the preacher's passage over, if they could not 
 procure it, we would sell our coats and shirts to procure it 
 for them." 
 
 This letter Mr. Wesley read to the Conference which met 
 at Leeds in 1769, " one of the most loving Conferences," he 
 says, " that they ever had." The result is best described in 
 the characteristic record contained in the published Minutes 
 for that year : 
 
 Ques. 18. " We have a pressing call from our brethren 
 at New York (who have built a preaching-house) to come 
 over and help them. Who is willing to go ? " 
 
 Ana. " Richard Boardman and Joseph Pilmore." 
 
 Ques. 14. " What can we do further in token of our 
 brotherly love? " 
 
 Ans. " Let us now make a collection among ourselves." 
 (This was immediately done ; and out of it 50 were allotted 
 towards the payment of their debt, and about 20 given to 
 our brethren for their passage.)
 
 32 BISHOP 
 
 How far these first volunteers, in response to an appeal 
 for so trying a mission, satisfied all the requirements of the 
 work as they are stated in Mr. Taylor's letter, is a question 
 which will unavoidably suggest itself as we proceed, but 
 which, with our scanty information, must not be met with too 
 absolute an answer. In regard to the matter of experience, 
 there would be in the appointment all that could have been 
 looked for. Boardman was about thirty years of age and 
 had been in the work six years ; and Pilmore, who had the 
 advantage of an education at Kingswood School, had laboured 
 successfully for about four years. They were also without 
 doubt " able preachers and of sound faith," and they seem 
 to have had moral endowments suited especially to some of 
 the conditions of their work. Wesley describes Boardman 
 in his Obituary (in 1788), in agreement with all other testi- 
 monies concerning him, as " a pious, good-natured, sensible 
 man, greatly beloved by all that knew him." So far he was 
 eminently qualified for his position as superintendent of the 
 hastily and loosely constituted, and heterogeneously composed, 
 Societies of New York and Philadelphia. But we shall find 
 reasons to think that in administrative capacity he was not 
 equal to his position. He had not the firmness of will 
 necessary to a "good disciplinarian," and both he and 
 Pilmore were probably more prudent than enterprising. 
 
 They embarked together from Bristol at the end of August. 
 Boardman, whose last circuit was in the Dales of Yorkshire, 
 travelled to that city through the Peak of Derbyshire ; and 
 an incident occurred in that part of his journey which would 
 have been sufficient in itself to immortalise his name. 
 Arrived at the village of Moneyash, he inquired whether there 
 were any Methodists there, and was directed to a cottager 
 who gladly proffered him entertainment for the night. In 
 the evening he preached. He was a widower, and his choice
 
 PLANTING OF METHODISM IN AMERICA. 33 
 
 of a text was probably dictated by his depressed state of 
 feeling under the consciousness of his recent loss, as well as 
 by its suitableness to his great undertaking. The words he 
 selected were these: "And Jabez was more honourable 
 than his brethren ; and his mother called his name Jabez, 
 saying, Because I bare him with sorrow. And Jabez called 
 on the God of Israel, saying, Oh ! that Thou wouldst bless 
 me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that Thine hand might 
 be with me, and that Thou wouldst keep me from evil that it 
 may not grieve me ! And God granted him that which he 
 requested." (1 Chron. iv. 9, 10.) 
 
 One of his hearers on this occasion was Mary Redfern, an 
 intelligent and earnest girl, who had previously felt her need of 
 a Saviour, and to whom the sermon afforded the guidance she 
 sought ; soon afterwards she found " peace in believing." Ten 
 years later Mary Redfern became the wife of William Bunting, 
 and when William and Mary Bunting presented their only 
 son for baptism, they gave him the name of Jabez, in grateful 
 remembrance of this casual discourse which had been made 
 the means of his mother's conversion.* Thus remarkably 
 was this earliest mission to America connected with one of 
 the greatest preachers, one of the most distinguished 
 missionary advocates, and by many degrees the most eminent 
 legislator and ruler, that Methodism ever produced. 
 
 On their arrival in America the missionaries took charge 
 at once of the Societies already formed, Pilmore remaining 
 for the present in Philadelphia, and Boardman, who was to 
 act as " assistant," or superintendent under Wesley, going 
 forward to New York. Both were gratified with what they 
 saw of the state of the work, and were encouraged by the 
 immediate success of their own labours. Pilmore, writing to 
 
 * " Life of Dr. Bunting," i. 9, 10.
 
 34 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 Mr. Wesley on the 81st of October (six days after their 
 landing), informed him that he had found at Philadelphia a 
 Society of about a hundred persons ; that he had already 
 preached several times to large congregations ; and that on 
 the Sunday evening he had preached from the Grand Stand 
 on the Race-course to, he thought, "between four and five 
 thousand hearers, who heard with attention still as night." 
 Boardman also wrote soon after (November 4th, 1769) from 
 New York, stating that the new preaching-house would hold 
 about seven hundred people, but was much too small. 
 " About a third part of those who attend get in ; the rest 
 are glad to hear without." And he adds, with a conscious- 
 ness of obligation with reference to one branch of his work, 
 which probably was not always thereafter equally fresh and 
 undim : "They have no preaching in some parts of the back 
 settlements." 
 
 These first regular preachers from England were followed, 
 shortly after their departure, by Robert Williams and John 
 King, two earnest local-preachers, who, the next year, were 
 received and duly recognised by Wesley as " helpers," with 
 their names entered on the published Minutes. 
 
 Five weeks after the arrival of Boardman and Pilmore at 
 Philadelphia, George Whitefield landed for the last time (his 
 thirteenth passage across the Atlantic) at the same port. 
 He met Mr. Pilmore and his friends there and "gave them 
 his blessing." On the 21st of February following, Mr. 
 Wesley wrote the last letter he ever addressed to him. 
 Referring to rumours which originated in tidings of his 
 tempestuous voyage which had reached this country, Mr. 
 Wesley says, "Mr. Keen informed me some time since of 
 your safe arrival in Carolina ; of which indeed I could not
 
 PLANTING OF METHODISM IN AMERICA. 35 
 
 doubt for a moment, notwithstanding the idle report of your 
 being cast away, which was so current in London. I trust 
 our Lord has more work for you to do in Europe, as well as 
 in America. And who knows, but before your return to 
 England, I may pay another visit to the New World ? I 
 have been strongly solicited by several of our friends in New 
 York and Philadelphia. They urge many reasons, some of 
 which appear to be of considerable weight ; and my age is 
 no objection at all, for I bless God, my health is not barely 
 as good, but abundantly better in several respects, than when 
 I was five-and-twenty. But there are so many reasons on 
 the other side, that as yet I can determine nothing ; so I 
 must wait for further light. Here I am : let the Lord do 
 with me as seemeth Him good. For the present I must beg 
 of you to supply my lack of service, by encouraging our 
 preachers as you judge best who are as yet comparatively 
 young and inexperienced by giving them such advice as 
 you think proper ; and, above all, by exhorting them, not 
 only to love one another, but, if it be possible, as much as 
 lies in them to live peaceably with all men." Six months 
 after Whitefield received this letter (September 80, 1770), he 
 entered triumphantly into the joy of his Lord.
 
 36 
 
 CHAPTER IV, 
 
 INITIATION OF ITINERANCY. 
 
 Arrival in America Philadelphia Staten Island New York No 
 arrangements for Country Work Asbury disappointed First Preach- 
 ing Tour Second Tour Staten Island Third Expedition Fourth 
 Tour Falls unwell New York Circuit formed Philadelphia His 
 Example begins to be followed Philadelphia Circuit formed. 
 
 the good work had been well begun before it came 
 -L under the fostering care of Asbury. It had reached 
 indeed just that stage of progress which required for its 
 further successful prosecution the leadership of a man of his 
 never-failing good sense, quick and true discernment, sound 
 discretion, steadfastness of purpose, and ardent devotion. 
 Accompanied by Richard Wright, a young man who, after 
 the experience of a year or two, returned to England and 
 retired into private life, he landed at Philadelphia on the 
 27th October, 1771. 
 
 Full of quiet enthusiasm, grave, calm, dignified, self-pos- 
 sessed, eager for action, deeply conscious that his sufficiency 
 was only of God, and looking every moment to Him for 
 wisdom and strength, he finds himself at length on that vast 
 continent which had so long occupied his thoughts, with his 
 work immediately before him, and his eye fixed directly upon 
 it, or the indications of his Divine Master's will concerning 
 it. On the evening of his arrival he heard Mr. Pilmore 
 preach in "a large church" which the hopeful Society at 
 Philadelphia had lately bought of Reformed Germans. He 
 felt encouraged by the affectionate greeting with which he
 
 INITIATION OF ITINERANCY. 37 
 
 was welcomed ; by evidences of spiritual prosperity which 
 he witnessed ; by the freedom and comfort which he expe- 
 rienced in preaching; and he wrote in his Journal, "The 
 Lord hath helped me by His power, and my soul is in 
 paradise." 
 
 On Tuesday, Nov. 6, he says, " I preached my last sermon 
 before I set out for New York." On his way thither he 
 preached at Burlington, "in the Court-house, to a large, 
 serious congregation," where he also felt his "heart much 
 opened." Setting out thence the next morning for his 
 destination, he "met with one Peter Van Pelt, who had 
 heard me preach at Philadelphia. After some conversation 
 he invited me to his house in Staten Island ; and, as I was 
 not engaged to be at New York on any particular day, I 
 went with him and preached in his house." The day fol- 
 lowing was Sunday, and he preached morning and afternoon 
 to as large a congregation as could find accommodation in 
 Mr. Van Pelt's house, and in the evening " in the house of 
 Justice Wright, where " he had also " a large company to 
 hear " him. " This was probably the first Methodist preach- 
 ing in the beautiful island, and opened the way for it to 
 become one of the garden-spots of the denomination, with 
 its six Methodist churches of our day, though it is only 
 fourteen miles in length, with but from two to four in 
 breadth. .Peter Van Pelt and Justice Wright continued to 
 be steadfast friends of the infant cause, and their houses 
 were long favourite homes of Asbury and his fellow-labourers. 
 Benjamin Van Pelt, the brother of Peter, became a useful 
 local-preacher, and one of the founders of Methodism in 
 Tennessee, then the furthest West."* 
 
 Asbury arrived at New York ou Monday, November 12, 
 
 Stevena'a " History of the Methodist Episcopal Church," i. 124.
 
 38 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 "and found Richard Boardman there in peace, but weak in 
 body." The next evening he preached to a large congrega- 
 tion on a text which might have been taken as the motto of 
 his life, "I determined not to know anything among you, 
 save Jesus Christ and Him crucified." He was gratified 
 with his reception by the people ; was favourably impressed 
 with what he saw of their spirit and character ; was more 
 thoroughly persuaded than ever that he was " in the" order 
 of God ; " and was irresistibly drawn to Boardman, whom he 
 found to be " a kind, loving, worthy man, truly amiable and 
 entertaining, and of a child-like temper." 
 
 During the week he made himself acquainted with the 
 condition and requirements of the Society, visited the people 
 at their homes, preached to them with his "heart truly 
 enlarged," and, having remained with them over the Sunday, 
 was ready the next day to sally forth to appointments in the 
 country. .But no such " appointments " existed. No system 
 of regular itinerancy had been introduced or deemed practic- 
 able. There had been an exchange of cities at stated 
 intervals between Boardman and Pilmore, each labouring for 
 a continuous term of three or four months at New York or 
 Philadelphia, and at the end of this term taking each other's 
 place ; but this was the only form in which the Methodist 
 principle of periodical change had been recognised. No 
 attempt had been made to form a circuit, and, with the aid 
 of local-preachers and exhorters, to do the proper work of an 
 evangelist. Asbury was disappointed. He had not, he says, 
 " the thing which he sought, a circulation of preachers. 
 I remain in New York, though unsatisfied with our being both 
 in town together." He expostulated with the Society ; but 
 his pleas, instead of enkindling sympathy, and moving to the 
 immediate use of effort to rectify the defect he pointed out, 
 only provoked opposition. Calm and dauntless, he then
 
 INITIATION OF ITINERANCY. 39 
 
 declared himself "fixed to the Methodist plan," whether 
 others rose to the level of his own conceptions and purposes 
 or not. Filled with uneasy feeling, he wrote : " I am willing 
 to suffer yea, to die, sooner than betray so good a cause hy 
 any means. It will be a hard matter to stand against all 
 opposition, ' as an iron pillar strong, and steadfast as a wall 
 of brass ; ' but, through Christ strengthening me, I can do all 
 things." 
 
 It would be unjust to the excellent men who had preceded 
 him to omit to say that they had not been unmindful of the 
 wants and claims of the scattered, outlying populations. 
 When they first landed in America in 1769, they were no 
 doubt animated with a similar zeal to that of Asbury on his 
 first arrival, two years later. How could they, as trained 
 and approved Methodist preachers, have been regardless of 
 the spiritual destitution of the surrounding settlements, 
 hamlets, and small towns ? Boardman, in his first letter to 
 Wesley, had expressed his concern with reference to them, 
 and his hope that " an effectual door would be opened 
 among them ; " and Pilmore, writing subsequently from 
 Philadelphia, had said, "We are chiefly confined to the 
 cities, and therefore cannot at present go much into the 
 country, as we have more work upon our hands than we are 
 able to perform. There is work enough for two preachers 
 in each place." Not unlikely the attractions of agreeable 
 society and of a quiet fire-side, as time advanced, and 
 facilities for extending their labours into the rural districts 
 were neglected, contributed unconsciously to the maintenance 
 of the opinion that their strength was not equal to the work 
 they saw it necessary to undertake ; but that they were 
 sincere in holding and acting upon that opinion there can be 
 no doubt. Nor can it be alleged against them that they 
 were unemployed. Boardman, and probably Pilmore also,
 
 40 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 "preached at least four sermons weekly, and met the Society 
 on Wednesday night. He had but two leisure evenings, a 
 week." * Their mistake seems to have been that of reconciling 
 themselves to the omission or postponement of an irksome 
 duty, until they had acquired an unconquerable reluctance to 
 do it, and a readiness to evade it by specious but insufficient 
 arguments perhaps, until they had lost a true and perfect 
 sense of its importance. So persuaded were they, at least, 
 that the time for it had not yet arrived, that they strove to 
 retain Asbury himself in New York, on the plea that, for the 
 present, he could most usefully employ himself in assisting 
 Boardman to consolidate and extend the work among the 
 fast- growing population of that thriving city, as a centre. 
 
 But Asbury could not see it his duty to yield to their 
 wishes. What they urged upon him, and had partially 
 established, was not Methodism. It was not that which had 
 made Methodism so mighty and efficient an agency in 
 England ; it was not what he had been appointed to carry 
 out in America. Whatever force there might have been in 
 the plea that this was the only thing practicable so long as 
 the preachers were single-handed, or assisted only by their 
 local brethren, this plea was now taken from them ; and 
 for two men regularly set apart for evangelistic and pastoral 
 work to remain together in the same town, seemed to him 
 an incongruous and inexcusable waste of power. "I am 
 dissatisfied," he writes again ; " I judge we are to be shut 
 up in the cities this winter. My brethren seem unwilling 
 to leave the cities ; but I think I shall shew them the way. 
 I am in trouble." There was no possibility of restraining 
 him. He was resolved ; he would forthwith begin, despite 
 the protest of those whose friendship he most desired to 
 
 Stevens' s " History of the Methodist Episcopal Church," i. 104.
 
 INITIATION OF ITINERANCY. 41 
 
 win. " Whomsoever I please or displease, I will be faithful 
 to God, to the people, and to my own soul." 
 
 Accordingly, on the second Saturday after his entrance 
 into New York, he took with him two friends as guides, and 
 started for West Chester, a distance of about twenty miles. 
 Arriving there in the evening, they waited upon the mayor 
 to solicit " the use of the Court-house, which was readily 
 granted; and," he says "on the Lord's-day morning, a 
 considerable company being gathered together, I stood up in 
 the Lord's power. . . . Seriousness sat on the faces of 
 my hearers, and the power of God came on me and them. 
 ... In the afternoon the congregation was increased both 
 in number and seriousness ; some of the chief men of the 
 town, the mayor and others, were present. ... In the 
 
 evening I preached at one M 's, at a place called West 
 
 Farms, to many persons, on the love of God. The next day 
 I preached at West Chester again to a large company, and 
 felt the presence and favour of God, and much love to 
 the people. Being detained another day by the roughness 
 of the weather, I preached another sermon on this text : 
 ' Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade 
 men.' In the evening we went to the mayor's, where we 
 lodged that night ; and the next day at noon set out for 
 New York." 
 
 The next Sunday he preached in the city, and had " much 
 liberty, both in the morning and evening." His report to 
 Boardman of his bold and encouraging attempt to initiate 
 itinerancy, failed to persuade him to follow his example ; 
 but, as he was willing to be still left in sole charge of New 
 York, Asbury set out again at the end of the week on a 
 second tour. He returned to West Chester, and " lodged at 
 the house of one Dr. White." The next morning he preached 
 in the Court-house ; but was disturbed by riotous boys and
 
 42 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 " the ill-behaviour of the unhappy, drunken keeper." In 
 the afternoon he was " informed that the door of the Court- 
 house was shut against" him. " I felt myself at first a little 
 troubled ; but soon after a tavern-keeper gave mo the offer of 
 an upper-room in his house, where I spoke on those words, 
 ' If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us 
 our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.' The 
 power of God was with us, and many of the vilest of those 
 present will, I trust, remember it as long as they live. In 
 the evening I made another visit to West Farms, and 
 preached there ; and my heart was there also touched with 
 the power of God. I lodged that night at the house of Mr. 
 y. After supper I asked the family if they would go to 
 prayer. They looked at one another and said there was 
 need enough. The next morning, when I asked a blessing 
 before breakfast, they seemed amazed." In the evening of 
 Monday he preached at East Chester ; on Tuesday " rode to 
 New Rochelle, and was received with great kindness by Mr. 
 Devoue and his family, and preached there to a few. The 
 next day also I preached to a large company, and found 
 liberty, and believed the power of God was among us. 
 From thence I rode to Rye, where a few people were 
 collected together to hear the word ; and the next day 
 preached to them again. On Saturday, 14th, I rode back to 
 East Chester, and preached to a large company. On the 
 Lord's-day I preached at New Rochelle in the church. 
 ... I published myself to preach again in the afternoon, 
 and those who had most opposed me before came to 
 hear, and behaved well. In the evening I preached in the 
 house of my friend, Mr. Devoue. The next evening I 
 preached again at Mr. Devoue's, and on Tuesday went to 
 Rye, where I had many to hear, and felt some freedom of 
 spirit. The next day I preached at Mairnock, to a company
 
 INITIATION OF ITINERANCY. 43 
 
 of people who at first took but little notice of the worship 
 of God ; but I trust some of them felt the power of truth in 
 their hearts. On Thursday I returned to New York." 
 
 Sunday and Christmas-day he spent in pleasant labours 
 in the city, and on Friday started in another direction. We 
 have just seen that on his way to New York, on his first 
 arrival in America, he was induced to tarry and preach in 
 Staten Island, about six miles distant from the city. With 
 the certainty of finding a welcome and a congregation there, 
 he now paid it a second visit. " On the 28th, we arrived at 
 Justice Wright's, where we were entertained with the best his 
 house afforded. From thence I went to my old friend Van 
 Pelt's, who received me with his former kindness, and col- 
 lected a congregation in the evening, to whom I preached ; 
 but had a violent pain in my head. After service I went to 
 bed and was very ill. However, the next day being the 
 Lord's-day, I preached in the morning and also in the after- 
 noon, with some freedom of mind. In the evening I returned 
 and preached at Justice Wright's. Having received an invi- 
 tation to preach at the house of one Mr. W d, at the east 
 end of the Island, I visited that place on my return to 
 New York," where he assisted in holding "a very solemn 
 Watch-night" service, at which "many felt the power of 
 God." 
 
 The next day, January 1, 1772, he made a further 
 attempt to persuade Boardman, and the recognised local- 
 preachers in the city, to work with him on ' ' the Methodist 
 plan " of itinerancy. He shewed them, by an account of his 
 own labours and successes, how possible it was to establish 
 a regular system of circuit-preaching which might be de- 
 veloped and extended as they had additional means and oppor- 
 tunity ; he urged this as an obligation imposed upon them 
 by considerations of consistency, by the spiritual destitu-
 
 44 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 tion of families scattered abroad as colonists on that wide 
 continent from the centres of Christian life, and as necessary 
 to keep those centres themselves living, prosperous, and 
 forceful. But they were still unmoved by either his argu- 
 ments, or his statements of experience. They admired his 
 zeal, they could not deny the desirableness or necessity of 
 his self-denying mode of procedure ; but they continued to 
 plead their inability, as yet, to adopt and carry it out effi- 
 ciently. Their objections seemed to him to be dictated by 
 their preferences rather than their unfettered judgment, and 
 he wrote in sadness, " The preachers have their friends in 
 the city, and care not to leave them." 
 
 Once more, however, he would " shew them the way." 
 The next evening he preached his " last sermon for a time " 
 in New York, and the following day set out on his fourth 
 expedition. In the evening he preached again at West 
 Farms, where a person who acknowledged that he had led a 
 godless and wicked life, and that the Word came home to 
 his conscience, shewed him much kindness, "favouring him 
 with a man and horse all the time he was there." In that 
 village, and in neighbouring places, he preached three times 
 on the Sunday and every evening in the week, and " many 
 people felt the power of truth." Thence he proceeded to 
 Eye, where at first the people were indifferent, and raised 
 against him the cry of " The Church the Church ; " but where 
 eventually he had " a large company " of hearers, and " felt 
 the Master near." There he " was taken ill of a cold," not- 
 withstanding, the next morning, he pushed forward to New 
 City Island, where " a congregation was assembled to receive" 
 him. " During the whole night I was very ill. My friends 
 behaved very kindly, and endeavoured to prevail on me to 
 stay there till I was restored ; but my appointment required 
 me to set off for East Chester, where I preached, and rode near
 
 INITIATION OF ITINERANCY. 45 
 
 eight miles in the evening to New Kochelle. On the 19th, 
 the Lord's-day, I preached three times, though very ill. 
 Many attended, and I could not think of disappointing 
 them." 
 
 In a state of increasing pain and weakness he continued to 
 travel and labour until he was completely prostrated by a 
 severe quinsy, by which he was all but suffocated. But 
 God, he says, " ordered all things well " ; and not only did 
 the doctor do "all that he could for me gratis," but the 
 friends in whose house he was entertained, stranger though he 
 was, " treated me as if I had been their own brother." By 
 Sunday, February 10th, he had returned to New York, feeble 
 in health, but able to preach. 
 
 Thus, by his firm and independent action, he had, as he pur- 
 posed, shewn his brethren a way which it was impossible 
 they should much longer decline to pursue. Before the 
 expiration of the term for which he and Boardman were to 
 be associated as fellow-labourers at New York, he had formed 
 around the city an extensive circuit. Preaching-places had 
 been opened, homes for the preachers had been procured, 
 and people of all classes had been prepared to come together 
 under approved guidance, as stated congregations and 
 Societies. The preachers were, as yet, too few in number to 
 visit these places some of them remote from the city, and 
 widely apart from each other very frequently ; but it was 
 not necessary that any of them should be wholly neglected, 
 and their requirements, if duly kept before the Society, would 
 call forth and develope latent ability for their suitable supply. 
 Already several young men, fittingly equipped for this work, 
 were waiting to be commissioned to undertake it. John 
 Mann may be mentioned as an example. He was attracted to 
 Wesley Chapel, in the first instance, by the fervid preaching of 
 Captain Webb. There, under a sermon preached by Mr. Board-
 
 46 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 man he obtained "peace in believing"; and on Asbury's 
 arrival was already employed as a leader and occasional 
 exhorter. He was now, through the representations and 
 appeals of the earnest evangelist, added to the band of 
 accredited local-preachers, and soon became a valuable helper 
 in the aggressive work which Asbury had initiated. This 
 again prepared him for greater services, at that time unfore- 
 seen. For a considerable period during the Revolutionary 
 War, when the regular preachers had forsaken the city, Mr. 
 Mann took charge of the Society and kept the chapel open 
 for worship. Ultimately he and his brother were ordained 
 elders together by Dr. Coke and Bishop Asbury, and appointed 
 to labour as missionaries in Nova Scotia.* 
 
 On the 2nd of April the preachers met by arrangement at 
 Philadelphia, for prayer and conference, and the re-distribu- 
 tion of their work. "Brother Boardman's plan was, that 
 he should go to Boston ; Brother Pilmore to Virginia ; 
 Brother Wright ^to New York, and that I should stay three 
 months in Philadelphia. With this I was well pleased." 
 Settled in this new sphere, he immediately irradiated from 
 the city to the surrounding towns and villages, preaching in 
 taverns, court-houses, private dwellings, or in the open air, 
 to congregations large or small, serious or "wild" and 
 irreverent, as the case might be, and thus constituted the 
 Philadelphia Circuit. On his return to head-quarters, after 
 his first expedition of a fortnight, he was comforted with 
 the tidings that his example and earnest pleadings were 
 beginning to tell on the conduct of his brethren, and that 
 they too had, in several instances, extended their labours 
 into the country districts, and were encouraged with decisive 
 signs of success. No announcement could have been more 
 
 * Methodist Magazine, 1818, p. 641.
 
 INITIATION OF ITINERANCY. 47 
 
 welcome. Full of satisfaction he wrote, "I humbly hope 
 that before long about seven preachers of us will spread over 
 seven or eight hundred miles, and preach in as many places 
 as we are able to attend." With similar feelings shortly 
 afterwards he wrote again, " Received a letter from Mi 1 . 
 Pilmore, replete with accounts of his preaching abroad, in 
 the church to a lai-ge congregation, and the like." At last 
 he saw the initiation of what he had so earnestly longed 
 and laboured to establish, a regular " circulation of the 
 preachers." Methodism, with its essential plan of itinerancy, 
 the simplest, mightiest, and most rational engine for the 
 spread or revival of religion, was at length fairly introduced 
 into the country, where at that time especially it was most 
 urgently required. 
 
 The importance of this achievement it would be almost 
 impossible to overstate. The preachers had every induce- 
 ment, on personal grounds, to confine their labours to the 
 large towns, and might have put forth good and substan- 
 tial reasons for continuing to do so. They were never 
 wholly without solicitude on behalf of the outlying popula- 
 tions ; but their sense of duty towards them had not been up 
 to this time sufficiently strong and clear to make a post- 
 ponement of effort for their benefit unendurable. Had 
 Asbury shewn the same spirit of timid adventure, how 
 different a thing might have been the Methodism of America 
 at this day from that widely-extended and mighty agency it 
 is ! How different also must have been the moral and spiri- 
 tual condition of the whole country ! The tendency of the 
 human mind to ignore its noblest relations and destinies, and 
 to become absorbed in worldliness, is sufficiently powerful 
 even where it is subject to the restraints of religious ordi- 
 nances ; and, left without them amidst the corroding anxieties 
 incident to a settlement in a new country, its natural results
 
 48 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 must be a state of mere moral heathenism. Proofs of this 
 were found by Asbury in distressing abundance: " Congre- 
 gation about sixty people : very dead ; their minds and 
 mouths were full of the world ; " " Found about thirty 
 people, and they quite dead ; " " Had an insensible people, 
 full of the spirit of the world ; " "I never felt more in earnest, 
 and hardly a person moved." " I had about three hundred 
 people ; but many of them were wicked whiskey-drinkers, who 
 brought with them so much of the power of the devil that I 
 had but little satisfaction in preaching." " Went to a place 
 called Hell Corner, and so named because of the desperate 
 wickedness of the people ; yet even here hath God brought 
 many poor souls to Himself." " Oh, how many thousands 
 of poor souls have we to seek out in the wilds of America 
 who are but one remove from the Indians in the comforts of 
 civilised society ; and, considering that they have the Bible 
 in their hands, comparatively worse in their morals than the 
 savages themselves ! " Left to themselves, these people, 
 already sunk down into a state of semi-barbarity, must, in the 
 nature of things, have degenerated more and more ; yet, 
 sought out and rescued by an itinerant ministry, many of 
 them became the brightest examples of spiritual excellence. 
 
 In the formation of the Philadelphia Circuit, Asbury 
 passed through experiences similar to those which attended 
 his previous travels around New York. No time was lost 
 before entering upon the work. Beginning on the Sunday 
 in the city, by first preaching " to many poor mortals in the 
 Bettering-house " (House of Correction), and afterwards to 
 " a very large audience in the church," he is off the next 
 morning to Bohemia, and, making arrangements for preach- 
 ing there on his return, pushes forward to Wilmington, and 
 thence to Newcastle ; comes back to Bohemia, where he 
 finds that " some mischievous persons have thrown the
 
 INITIATION OF ITINERANCY. 49 
 
 people into confusion," then departs to Chester, and returns 
 " through a heavy rain to Philadelphia." He is a few days 
 there; preaches repeatedly "with freedom;" meets the 
 Society, and reads " Mr. Wesley's epistle to them ; " then 
 starts afresh, first to the Jerseys, next to Trenton, to Bur- 
 lington, to Greenwich, to Gloucester, and has " serious 
 thoughts of going to Baltimore ; but the distance, which is 
 ninety miles, seems too much at present." At one place he 
 preaches to "a few people," but meets with opposition; 
 at another to " the wildest congregation he has seen in 
 America;" at other places to "a serious people," or "a 
 few simple people," and falls in with a company " so 
 stupidly ignorant, sceptical, deistical, and atheistical, that I 
 thought, if there were no other hell, I should strive with all 
 my might to shun that." Then he is filled with gratitude 
 to God, " who opens the hearts of the people to receive 
 him, and his heart to deliver His counsels to them." He is 
 "heavily afflicted;" rides in "great pain;" finds himself 
 unwell; preaches "twice at New Mills with great liberty 
 and life, but was very ill that night." He is entertained at 
 one place by "a tavern-keeper;" at another, he finds it 
 difficult to procure lodgings anywhere ; and at a third, is so 
 well and hospitably treated that he writes involuntarily, 
 " I admire the kindness of my friends to such a poor worm 
 as I. my God, remember them ! " At Chester he visits 
 prisoners under sentence of death. He found them peni- 
 tent, " and two of the four obtained peace with God, and 
 seemed very thankful. I preached with liberty to a great 
 number of people under the jail-wall. The sheriff was 
 friendly and very kind. The executioner pretended to tie 
 them all up, but only tied one, and let the rest fall. One 
 of them was a youth about fifteen." Again at Burlington 
 he visits a condemned prisoner, and trusts that, " through 
 
 4
 
 50 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 the mercy of God the poor man was humbled." In another 
 case he first preaches under the jail-wall, then "for the 
 benefit of the prisoner attends him to the place of execu- 
 tion," and, having seen him "tied up," he steps "on a 
 wagon," and warns the crowd "to flee from the wrath to 
 come, and improve the day of their gracious visitation." 
 Amidst all this sustained exertion of mind and body, he 
 diligently watches over his own soul, is troubled at times 
 that he is not " more devoted,'' and longs "to do the will 
 of God with all purity of intention, desire, and thought; 
 that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus 
 Christ."
 
 51 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ESTABLISHMENT OF DISCIPLINE. 
 
 Influence over others Importance of Discipline Asbury begins to 
 enforce it Opposed, but unmoved New York again Richard 
 Wright spoiled The Society placed under improved Regulations 
 Long unsettled Asbury appointed " Assistant " to Wesley Prince- 
 ton Maryland Success of Straw-bridge Watters Williams King 
 Gatch Garrettson Willing Hearers Clerical Opposition The 
 Question of the Sacraments Difficulties involved in it Baltimore 
 Happy and Successful Labour More Anxiety The Character of a 
 Quarterly Meeting Mission of Rankin. 
 
 A SBURY'S influence over his brethren during this 
 -JL_ period increased, naturally, more and more. Had 
 they been less sincere and earnest than they were, they 
 might have rebelled against the restless energy of a man, 
 the last to come into the field with them, which would let 
 neither himself nor them have a moment's repose. But 
 they, happily, surrendered themselves to its sway, and were 
 moved at last to enter upon work from which they had so 
 long timorously shrunk as irksome, hard, and perilous ; and 
 to devote themselves to it with a hopeful enthusiasm like 
 his own. 
 
 But he had now to grapple with difficulties of another 
 kind. Next in importance to the preaching of the Gospel, 
 was the gathering of awakened and converted men into 
 well-regulated and disciplined Societies. Mr. Wesley, 
 speaking of the comparative failure of Whitefield's labours 
 in America, says : " What wonder ? for it was a true
 
 52 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 saying which was common in the ancient Church, ' The soul 
 and the body make a man ; and the spirit and discipline 
 make a Christian.' But those who were more or less 
 affected by Mr. Whitefield's preaching, had no discipline at 
 all." Asbury, who had given his intelligent and hearty 
 adhesion to the form of godly discipline which Mr. Wesley 
 had instituted, as " simple, natural, and entirely founded in 
 common sense ; " who felt its importance as deeply as he, 
 and whose zeal was equally practical, was distressed to 
 find that in America it had been greatly and generally 
 neglected. This grave defect he now most resolutely 
 laboured to rectify. He says, April 25th, a few days after 
 his appointment to Philadelphia : " Preached with some 
 sharpness. In the evening I met the Society, and kept the 
 door." A day or two later he writes : " Many were 
 offended at my shutting them out of the Society-meeting, as 
 they had been greatly indulged before. But this does not 
 trouble me. While I stay the rules must be attended to ; 
 and I cannot suffer myself to be guided by half-hearted 
 Methodists." It was not without much harassing opposi- 
 tion, and many painful symptoms of those usual accompani- 
 ments of wounded pride, when flaws of character are pointed 
 out, and efforts are made to remove them jealousy, insult, 
 and detraction, that he persevered in carrying out his 
 purpose. But he never swerved from duty through con- 
 siderations of self. He was required, as a Methodist 
 preacher, not only to preach the doctrines of the body to 
 which he belonged, but also to enforce the observance of 
 its discipline ; he approved the one as conscientiously as he 
 believed the other ; and he would do his duty. " I have 
 nothing to seek but the glory of God ; nothing to fear but 
 His displeasure. . . . and I am determined that no man 
 shall bias me with soft words and fair speeches ; nor will
 
 ESTABLISHMENT OF DISCIPLINE. 53 
 
 I ever fear (the Lord helping me) the face of man, or know 
 any man after the flesh, if I beg my bread from door to 
 door." The result of this fidelity was that many half- 
 awakened hangers-on to the Society were separated from 
 it ; and thus, though its numbers were reduced, its strength 
 and purity were increased, and its influence on the outside 
 world intensified. 
 
 In July he was transferred again to New York. On his 
 re-arrival in that city he found that Richard Wright, whose 
 place he had to take there, had not only preached the usual 
 " farewell sermon," at the expiration of his term of labour, 
 but had " told his congregation that he did not expect to see 
 them any more. I have always dealt honestly with him," 
 Asbury adds, " but he has been spoiled with gifts ! " He is 
 said to have had pre-eminently " the art of pleasing." No 
 doubt he was social, genial, and sprightly ; and therefore 
 sought after, petted, and flattered. Thus he came under 
 influences which, as he yielded to them, predisposed him to 
 self-indulgence, until the discomforts and hardships incident 
 to the life of a faithful Methodist preacher had become 
 intolerable to him. Within a few months of this time, he 
 not only withdrew from the continent, but retired alto- 
 gether from the itinerant ministry. Asbury does not fail to 
 note that the selfishly indulgent people who had spoiled this 
 young man were the first to condemn him ! 
 
 During his former connection with New York Asbury was 
 associated with Boardman, who was the responsible head of 
 the Society. He was now himself put in charge of it, and 
 began immediately to enforce the observance of its rules. 
 This task severely tested his piety, temper, and judgment ; 
 for, through the short-sighted forbearance and compliances of 
 Boardman, and the carelessness of Wright, he found the 
 Society in a state of depressing disunion and disorder. He
 
 54 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 had much to endure from occasional outbursts of pettishness 
 on the part of opposers ; but records his determination by 
 the grace of God to keep on in the way of duty, even if it 
 should be his lot to stand alone. " My business is, through 
 the grace of God, to go straight forward, acting with honesty, 
 prudence, and caution, and then leave the event to Him." 
 It was long before the Society was raised into what he 
 considered a healthy and prosperous condition. Continually 
 on his return to the city, after a few days' absence to visit 
 the country parts of his circuit, he discovered some new 
 cause of anxiety ; but he always found comfort in the con- 
 sciousness " of having acted uprightly before all men, and 
 having no by-ends in view." 
 
 On the 10th October (within the year since he first 
 stepped on shore at Philadelphia), he records: " I received 
 a letter from Mr. Wesley, in which he required a strict 
 attention to discipline; and appointed me to act as Assistant." 
 He was thus placed in charge of all the American Societies, 
 the office of an Assistant being "to feed and guide, to 
 teach and govern the flock ; " and also placed over all the 
 preachers, even Boardman himself. This may seem extra- 
 ordinary, considering how short a time he had been in 
 America, and that he had only just completed the twenty- 
 seventh year of his age. But, in our ignorance of the im- 
 mediate cause of his elevation, it is enough to say that 
 Wesley made appointments to office with a simple regard to 
 what he believed to be the requirements of the work which 
 he and his agents were prosecuting ; that if, on the trial, it 
 seemed to him that a change was necessary, he never 
 hesitated to make it ; and that, if this failed, he as readily 
 changed again, or reverted to former arrangements. He 
 had not lost his confidence in Boardman, as " a pious, good- 
 natured, sensible man ; " but he had probably ascertained
 
 ESTABLISHMENT OF DISCIPLINE. 55 
 
 that, as a superintendent, he wanted energy and a spirit of 
 adventure. His change of relations between him and 
 Asbury, however, made no difference in their affection for 
 each other. They met shortly afterwards, took counsel of 
 one another with reference to it, and, says Asbury, "we 
 agreed in judgment about the affairs of the Society, and 
 were comforted together." 
 
 This meeting took place at Princeton, a place which he 
 says he had " long wished to see for the sake of the pious 
 Mr. Davis, late President of the College there." He was 
 then on his way to Maryland, where, in agreement with his 
 wishes, Boardman had appointed him to labour during the 
 ensuing winter. He had received encouraging accounts of 
 the prosperity of the work in that colony, and was eager to 
 witness, guard, and promote it. And he found it to exceed 
 his expectations. " Men who neither feared God nor regarded 
 man, swearers, liars, cock-fighters, card-players, horse-racers, 
 drunkards, and others, are now so changed as to become new 
 men ; and they are filled with the praises of God ! " 
 
 Maryland, it will be remembered, had been the scene of 
 the labours of Robert Strawbridge, a strong-willed, some- 
 what eccentric, but right-hearted, and devoted local-preacher, 
 who emigrated from Ireland shortly after Embury, had 
 settled as a farmer in Frederick County, and may be regarded 
 as the founder of Methodism in the South, as Embury was 
 in the North. "He became virtually an itinerant, journey- 
 ing to and fro in not only his own large county (then com- 
 prehending three later counties), but in Eastern Maryland, 
 Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Virginia; preaching with an 
 ardour and a fluency which surprised his hearers, and drew 
 them in multitudes to his rustic assemblies. His frequent 
 calls to preach in distant parts of the country required so 
 much of his time that his family were likely to suffer in his
 
 56 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 absence ; so that it became a question with him, ' Who will 
 keep the wolf from my own door, while I am abroad seeking 
 after the lost sheep ? ' His neighbours, appreciating his 
 generous zeal and self-sacrifice, agreed to take care of his 
 little farm, gratuitously, in his absence."* 
 
 In Asbury's records of his first labours in Maryland, we 
 find ourselves introduced to names with which the student 
 of the early history of Methodism in America is familiar, as 
 those of men who became distinguished for their zealous 
 activities and successes. He says, "We proceeded to Henry 
 Watters's, whose brother is an exhorter and now gone with 
 Mr. Williams to Virginia." Mr. Williams has been already 
 mentioned as having gone out to America about the same 
 time as Boardman and Pilmore. He had Wesley's authority 
 to labour as a local-preacher before he left England, and in 
 1773 his name was inserted in the Minutes as regularly 
 appointed to the American work, with that of John King, 
 who also went out as a local-preacher shortly after him. 
 Henry Watters and his brother William, " an exhorter," 
 were both brought to a knowledge of the truth under the 
 preaching of Strawbridge, Williams, and King. William 
 Watters has the distinction of being the first native convert 
 to enter the itinerant ministry in America. Others on this 
 part of the Continent who had been converted and raised 
 into the rank of preacher or exhorter before Asbury's arrival, 
 were Richard Owen, the first native local-preacher, and 
 Philip Gatch, "one of the most admirable characters in 
 early Methodist history." These names Asbury also men- 
 tions at this time : " At friend Gatch's the family were called 
 together;" "Friend Gatch treated me with great kindness;" 
 " Many people attended the word at Mr. Gatch's ; and after 
 
 * Stevens's " History of the Methodist Episcopal Church," i. 73.
 
 ESTABLISHMENT OF DISCIPLINE. 57 
 
 preaching John King came in. The next morning I returned 
 to J. C.'s, where the congregation was large, at twelve 
 o'clock. This man's friends have rejected him on account 
 of his religion . The family seem very serious ; and I hope 
 there will be a great and good work here. Then rode to 
 Richard Owen's, where some people came to see me, with 
 whom we sung and prayed." 
 
 Another name connected with Asbury's first visit to Mary- 
 land which he does not mention, but which must not be 
 omitted, is that of Freeborn Garrettson, a man whose " me- 
 morable ministerial career," says Dr. Stevens, "was to 
 extend over half a century, and to leave historical and 
 ineffaceable traces on the Church, from North Carolina to 
 Nova Scotia."* We learn from a narrative written by him- 
 self, and reprinted in the Arminian Magazine, that he was 
 under deep religious concern before Asbury came into his 
 neighbourhood. " One day, as I was riding home," he says, 
 " I met a young man who had been hearing the Methodists. 
 He stopped me in the road and began to talk so sweetly 
 about Jesus and His people, and recommended Him to me 
 in such a winning manner, that I was constrained to believe 
 there was a reality in religion, and that it was time for me 
 to think seriously on the subject. . . . Some time after Mr. 
 Francis Asbury came into our county, and I went to hear 
 him. The place was much crowded ; but I got to the door 
 and listened with attention. The Word was sweeter than 
 honey or the honey-comb ; I could have tarried there till 
 the rising of the sun. I followed him to another preaching- 
 place, where the discourse came to my heart and I was ready 
 to cry out, ' How does this stranger know me so well ? ' " f 
 
 * " History of the Methodist Episcopal Church," i. 352. 
 t Arminian Magazine for 1794, pp. 4, 5.
 
 58 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 After passing through a variety of experiences, he, one day, 
 while riding on horseback, seemed to come suddenly under 
 an extraordinary Divine influence. He involuntarily threw 
 the bridle upon the horse's neck, and, clasping his hands, 
 cried aloud, "Lord, I submit," and became consciously 
 reconciled to God. 
 
 An incident which Asbury records at this time will show 
 the eagerness of the people to hear him, and some of the 
 inconveniences to which they and the preachers willingly 
 submitted : " Dec. 6, 1772 : Went about five miles to preach 
 in our first preaching-house. It had no windows or doors : 
 the weather was very cold, so that my heart pitied the peo- 
 ple when I saw them so exposed. Putting a handkerchief 
 over my head, I preached ; and, after an hour's intermission, 
 the people waiting all the time in the cold, I preached 
 again." 
 
 But there were also many adversaries. " A poor unhappy 
 man abused me much on the road ; he cursed me and 
 threw stones at me." And some of the clergy became his 
 open opponents. "Before preaching, one Mr. R., a Church 
 minister, came to me and demanded who I was, and whether 
 I was licensed." He then denounced him, " in great swell- 
 ing words," as a needless intruder ; charged him with 
 creating a schism in his parish, and with drawing the people 
 away from their work ; laughed at him in the presence of a 
 gathering crowd, and sneeringly called him a "fine fellow ! " 
 then followed him into the house " in a great rage," as if 
 determined to put him down. 
 
 Nor were these the only or most serious difficulties with 
 which Asbury had to grapple at this time. Outward opposi- 
 tion and persecution gave him no anxiety ; and, so long as he 
 found willing hearers profiting under the ministration of the 
 Word, he was content to endure any form of unavoidable
 
 ESTABLISHMENT OF DISCIPLINE. 59 
 
 exposure and hardship. But the people converted under his 
 preaching and that of his fellow-labourers naturally thought 
 of themselves as a charge committed to them by Christ 
 Himself, and looked to them for pastoral oversight, and for 
 all the rights and privileges which appertain to a Christian 
 flock. And in many respects they were not disappointed. 
 Unlike Whitefield, who had preached in these parts with his 
 usual effectiveness, but had made no provision for the reli- 
 gious fellowship of his converts, the preachers commissioned 
 by Mr. Wesley were required to invite those who evidenced 
 a desire to flee from the wrath to come, and to save their souls, 
 to combine together in regularly organized and disciplined 
 Societies, and, as one body, to " have the same care one for 
 another." But these Societies were to regard themselves as 
 subsisting within the Episcopal Church, and were expected 
 to attend its ordinances, and to receive the Holy Communion 
 at the hands of its clergy. This, to some of their members, 
 was intolerably repugnant. Why, they asked, should they be 
 required to place themselves in a relation so peculiarly sacred 
 to men who had been utterly regardless of their spiritual 
 welfare, between whom and themselves there was so little 
 sympathy, and whose personal character they could so little 
 respect ? It was vain to plead their authority as " a special 
 order consecrated unto the service of the Most High in 
 things wherewith others may not meddle." The ready 
 answer was that "orders" may be conferred, upon men 
 whom God has not authorized. Was the Church of Christ 
 a mere human and political institution ? and was the validity 
 of the Sacraments dependent on authority as pertaining to 
 office ? It was not pretended that this extreme view was 
 tenable ; but it was replied that neither did the validity and 
 blessing of the Sacraments depend on the character of those 
 who administered them ; and that, from a necessary regard to
 
 60 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 ecclesiastical order and propriety, for the avoidance of strife 
 and contention, and in deference to the authority of Wesley 
 and the English Conference, the requirements of Methodist 
 rule should be faithfully observed. 
 
 This was Asbury's position ; but how was he to maintain 
 it in the peculiar circumstances of the people of America ? 
 In England he could have allowed no compromise. As a 
 Methodist superintendent he must have enforced a strict and 
 definite compliance with rule on this as on all other points. 
 But in America, particularly in Maryland, and one or two 
 other colonies, the circumstances of the people were essen- 
 tially different from those of Methodists in England, and 
 seemed to him to give rise to different and conflicting obliga- 
 tions. Besides, he found that the rule had been already 
 infringed. The people whom Strawbridge had brought to 
 Christ demanded the sign and seal of their union with Him, 
 and Strawbridge had complied with this demand, and was ready 
 to maintain his right to do so. Moreover, Boardman himself 
 had, three months ago, quietly conceded the same right. 
 
 How was Asbury to deal with these elements of com- 
 plexity ? He was distressed, but not in despair. To indulge 
 silent regret would be useless and enervating ; to protest 
 without acting would be a perilous declaration of weakness ; 
 and to put down the practices it was his duty to disapprove, 
 by an arbitrary exercise of his authority, would be to pro- 
 voke violent opposition, which would probably issue in a 
 disastrous disruption. He would therefore see what could 
 be done by a calm appeal to the Christian judgment and 
 conscience. He would introduce the subject at the approach- 
 ing quarterly meeting, and endeavour to secure for it a calm, 
 orderly, and deliberate consideration. 
 
 This meeting was held on the 24th December. It was 
 numerously attended, many of its members having come
 
 ESTABLISHMENT OF DISCIPLINE. 61 
 
 from distant places. Asbury preached at the opening, from 
 Acts xx. 28 : " Take heed therefore unto yourselves and to 
 all the flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made you over- 
 seers, to feed the church of God, which He hath purchased 
 with His own blood." Matters of routine were quickly dis- 
 patched ; the appointments of the preachers for the next 
 three months were agreed to ; and the question was then 
 solemnly proposed : " Will the people be contented without 
 our administering the Sacrament ? " Every person was 
 encouraged to speak freely, as having no private ends to 
 serve, and the preachers were appealed to severally for their 
 decision. The result was unsatisfactory. " John King was 
 neuter ; Brother Strawbridge pleaded much for the ordi- 
 nances ; and so did the people, who appeared to be much 
 biassed by him." Asbury told them plainly that it was 
 contrary to " the Methodist plan," and that he could not 
 agree to it ; but he wisely forbore to coerce them. He thought 
 it right "to connive at some things, for the sake of peace." 
 His strength was to stand still. His account concludes 
 thus : " Brother Strawbridge received 8 quarterage ; 
 brother King and myself 6 each. Great love subsisted 
 among us in this meeting, and we parted in peace." 
 
 His own appointment was to Baltimore. Starting for it 
 the next morning (Christmas -day) he preached at various 
 places on his way thither, and first entered the city on the 
 3rd of January, 1773. This was Sunday, and, though in 
 feeble health, he preached " to a large congregation at the 
 house of Captain Paten, at the Point," in the morning, and 
 in the afternoon and evening, in the town. " The house," 
 he says, " was well filled with people, and we have a com- 
 fortable hope the work of the Lord will revive in this place." 
 Nor was he disappointed. The arrival of Asbury at this par- 
 ticular juncture is said to have been "the happiest event
 
 62 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 which could have occurred to Methodism in Baltimore, as 
 well as to the cause of religion generally." A preparatory 
 work had been carried on there by King, Pilmore, and 
 Boardman, and in the surrounding country by Strawbridge 
 and Williams ; but its extraordinary prosperity from that 
 time to the present is unhesitatingly ascribed by competent 
 authorities to the impetus and right direction which was 
 given to it at this early period by Asbury.* 
 
 " Man., 4th. Rode to S. S.'s, and was much affected in 
 preaching to the people. I then met and regulated the 
 class. Tues., 5th. They were kind enough to offer me the 
 court-house in the town ; but, judging it unfit, I preached in 
 another house ; then met the Society and settled a class of 
 men. Wed., 6th. We had a pretty good gathering at N. 
 Perrig's about six miles from the town ; I then rode back 
 to town, and, after preaching with comfort in the evening, 
 I formed a class of women. Thurs., 7th. Rose with a deter- 
 mination to live more to God. Preached twice in the coun- 
 try, met two classes, and settled them as well as I could." 
 This is a sample of the records from day to day, for the 
 next three months. Sometimes he " suffers a little " through 
 " lodging in open houses," and from the cold, which was at 
 one time so severe that " a friend said the water froze as it 
 came from his eyes ; " but " this was a very small thing," 
 and he found an ample recompense in the readiness of the 
 people to hear him, and " the life and power he felt in dis- 
 pensing the Word among them." Never previously had his 
 influence been so powerful ; never had his congregations 
 been so large and attractive ; never had he found more satis- 
 faction in " settling the classes," and meeting the Societies ; 
 and he was never happier in his work. 
 
 * Stevens's " History of the Methodist Episcopal Church," i. 134, seq.
 
 ESTABLISHMENT OF DISCIPLINE. 63 
 
 But, in his office of "Assistant," or General Superinten- 
 dent, he was required to care for the Societies at a distance, 
 and some of them continued to give him cause for anxiety. 
 He says (Thursday, February 25th) : " Two letters came to 
 hand to-day ; one from New York, and one from Philadel- 
 phia. They entreat me to return, and inform me that 
 trouble is at hand. But I cannot fear, while my heart is up- 
 right with God. I seek nothing but Him, and fear nothing 
 but His displeasure." 
 
 It was clear that he required the aid and sympathy of other 
 and experienced fellow-labourers, untrammelled by Ameri- 
 can prepossessions. This he had fully set forth in a letter to 
 Mr. Wesley, which Captain Webb had gone to England to 
 support by his earnest personal pleadings. Asbury's hope 
 was, that Wesley would be induced to come over himself, 
 and judge, from his own observation, what it was right and 
 expedient to do. lu this hope, or that he would at least 
 commission some man of sound judgment and weight of 
 character to take the work under his guidance, Asbury de- 
 layed his departure from his present prosperous sphere of 
 service, notwithstanding the calls he had received simultane- 
 ously from New York and Philadelphia. But the unwelcome 
 tidings from those great centres never ceased to harass him. 
 " Satan," he wiites shortly after, "has assaulted me very much 
 of late, but hitherto the Lord hath helped and delivered me." 
 And again, a few days later, " To-day my mind was de- 
 pressed in such a manner as I hardly ever felt it before. In 
 my journey my heart sank within me ; and I knew not why." 
 
 The next quarterly meeting was held on the 80th 
 March ; and, to show the character of such meetings at that 
 early period, I transcribe Asbury's account of it. He says : 
 " Monday, 29th. Rode twenty miles to the Susquehanna ; 
 and just got in, almost spent, time enough to preach at three
 
 64 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 o'clock. Hitherto the Lord hath helped me. Praised for 
 ever be His dear and blessed Name ! Tuesday, 30th. Our 
 quarterly meeting began. After I had preached we proceeded 
 to business ; and in our little conference the following queries 
 were propounded, namely 1. Are there no disorderly 
 persons in our classes ? It was thought not. 2. Does not 
 dram- drinking too much prevail among our people ? 3. Do 
 none contract debts without due care to pay them ? We 
 found that this evil is much avoided among our people. 
 4. Are the band-meetings kept up ? 5. Is there nothing im- 
 moral in any of our preachers ? 6. What preachers travel 
 now, and where are they stationed ? It was then urged 
 that none must break our rules, under the penalty of being 
 excluded from our Connexion. All was settled in the most 
 amiable manner. Mr. Strawbridge preached a good and use- 
 ful sermon from Joel ii. 17 : ' Let the priests, the ministers 
 of the LORD, weep between the porch and the altar,' &c. 
 Many people were present at our Lovefeast, among whom 
 were some strangers ; but all were deeply serious, and the 
 power of God was present indeed. Brother Owen preached 
 a very alarming sermon, and Brother Strawbridge gave a 
 moving exhortation. The whole ended in great peace. And 
 we all went, in the strength of the Lord, to our several 
 appointments." 
 
 Asbury then went back to Baltimore to preach and make 
 arrangements for his absence ; and, leaving John King in 
 charge, at length set out for New York. On his way through 
 Philadelphia he was relieved to find that there " all seemed 
 to be in peace." In what state he found the Society in New 
 York he does not mention. But, after spending a few days 
 there in preaching, meeting and giving suitable advice "to 
 the people," and "regulating" the classes, in all which his 
 " mind was clear, his heart was fixed on God, and Christ
 
 ESTABLISHMENT OF DISCIPLINE. 65 
 
 was precious," he revisited some of the country places, and 
 then returned to Philadelphia. 
 
 Here he writes on the 6th May : " This day a letter from 
 Mr. Wesley came to hand, dated March 2nd, in which he 
 informs me that the time of his coming over to America is 
 not yet, being detained by the building of the new chapel." 
 Instead of the personal visit, which he, as well as Asbury, 
 saw to be most desirable, he had decided to comply with 
 the alternative suggestion of sending out a specially trusted 
 Assistant, with full powers to act in his name. This elect 
 man was Thomas Rankin, a strong-minded Scotchman, the 
 senior of Asbury by seven or eight years, who had already 
 superintended the work satisfactorily in several circuits at 
 home, and had commended himself to Wesley by his earnest 
 sobriety. Rankin chose as his companion George Shadford, 
 who had laboured with him in more than one circuit, and 
 approved himself by his singular devotedness and fervour. 
 A few days before their departure, Wesley met Rankin by 
 appointment at Birmingham, and gave him definite instruc- 
 tions with reference to his mission ; and he, together with 
 Shadford, Captain and Mrs. Webb, and another preacher 
 whose name was Yearby, and who seems to have gone out 
 of his own accord, though with Wesley's concurrence, set 
 sail from Bristol on Good Friday, the 9th April. 
 
 Thus they were on their passage when Asbury received 
 Mr. Wesley's letter, and on the 3rd June they landed at 
 Philadelphia, where Asbury was in waiting to receive them. 
 The relief to his own mind was unspeakable. " To my great 
 comfort," he wrote, "arrived Mr. Rankin, Mr. Shadford, 
 Mr. Yearby, and Captain Webb." Quietly but eagerly he 
 cast his eyes towards the chief man of this welcomed group. 
 With an intelligence which it is said never failed in such 
 matters, he read the signs of character the new superin- 
 
 5
 
 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 tendent displayed ; he heard him preach " a good sermon ; " 
 he scrutinized his carriage towards the Society, heard his 
 questions, weighed his comments and observations ; and then 
 noted in his Journal, " He will not be admired as a preacher ; 
 but, as a disciplinarian, he will Jill his place." He would 
 enforce Methodist discipline that was evident ; and, if he 
 should do this wisely and considerately, he would effect a 
 much-needed good. But how much depended on the manner 
 and spirit ! A coincident record occurs in the Journal of 
 Rankin himself. He says, " From what I see and hear, and 
 ao far as I can judge, if my brethren who first came over 
 had been more attentive to our discipline, there would have 
 been by this time a more glorious work in many places of 
 this continent. Their lovefeasts and meetings of Society 
 were laid open to all their particular friends ; BO that their 
 number did not, increase, and the minds of our best friends 
 were thereby hurt." 
 
 In a day or two they both set out for New York, where 
 (on Saturday, June 12) they were met and welcomed by a 
 body of hospitable friends. The next day they both preached. 
 Asbury's text, which was no doubt taken with reference to 
 the coming of his adviser, was Ruth ii. 4: "And, behold, 
 Boaz came from Bethlehem, and said unto the reapers, The 
 LORD be with you. And they answered him, The LORD 
 bless thee." " Mr. Rankin found his spirits raised, and was 
 much comforted." His own text in the evening was equally 
 characteristic: "I have a message from God unto thee." 
 The following morning at five o'clock Asbury expounded the 
 text, "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children 
 walk in truth," and then started for a fresh tour of evange- 
 listic labour. On his return he wrote, " I found Mr. Rankin 
 had been well employed in settling matters pertaining to the 
 Society. This afforded me great satisfaction."
 
 67 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 MODES OF ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 Object of Rankin's Mission His Fitness His personal Character The 
 first regular Conference Its Minutes The Sacrament Difficulty 
 Aflbury's re-appointment to Baltimore The Non-compliance of 
 Strawbridge Asbury's Toils and Illness A memorable Quarterly 
 Meeting Review and Survey Revelation of Character Successful 
 Efforts in behalf of Individuals Moore and Rogers Rev. W. Otter - 
 bein and " The United Brethren in Christ "Trials at New York 
 Rankin's Imperiousness Dempster and Rodda. 
 
 I) ANKIN'S mission to the Methodist Societies of America 
 J-\J was similar in its object to that of Barnabas to the 
 newly- formed Church at Antioch. He was sent with 
 authority to investigate the state of the work as it had 
 been begun and carried on at a distance from its governing 
 centre ; to check and rectify what he might find in it to be 
 injuriously irregular ; and to aid and guide its extension. 
 And, in the most essential respect, he had the same personal 
 fitness for this duty for he was undoubtedly " a good man." 
 But, in regard to personal character, there was one important 
 point of dissimilarity between them. Rankin was not, like 
 the apostolic envoy, liberal and large-hearted. He had too 
 great a disposition to detect and magnify imperfections ; and 
 so, " when he came and had seen the grace of God," he was 
 not " glad," but restrained and cold. He failed to make 
 sufficient allowances for the unfavourable circumstances of 
 the people ; and, not finding among them the completeness 
 of character he had inconsiderately expected, he became
 
 68 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 depressed and unforbearing. From the first he was too 
 eager to assert and exercise his authority. His manner also 
 towards both preachers and people was harsh, dry, and un- 
 bending. He had come over, he said, " to spread genuine 
 Methodism with all his might ; " and by genuine Methodism 
 he meant simply a strict and literal compliance with Method- 
 ist regulations. The question which was always present 
 to his mind was not, How would Mr. Wesley apply the 
 discipline, in particular cases, if he had been there ? but, Is 
 the discipline MI all cases rigidly enforced ? He was one of 
 that class of godly and well-meaning men who do excellent 
 service to an infant cause by giving it a true bent, and guard- 
 ing it against hurtful and deforming ingrafts ; but whose 
 influence upon it beyond a certain point ceases to be bene- 
 ficial, tends rather to stunt and impoverish "the fruitful 
 bough," so that " the branches " do not " run over the 
 wall." 
 
 Rankin lost no time in calling the preachers together for 
 conference. This, which is counted the first regular Con- 
 ference in America, was held at Philadelphia. It began on 
 Wednesday, the 14th July, 1773, and continued its sittings 
 for three days. Its members were Thomas Rankin, Richard 
 Boardman, Joseph Pilmore, Richard Wright, George Shadford, 
 Thomas Webb, John King, Joseph Yearby, Abraham Whit- 
 worth, and Francis Asbury, who, however, did not join it 
 till the second day. Its Minutes were published. They 
 were these : 
 
 " The following queries were proposed to every preacher : 
 
 " 1. Ought not the authority of Mr. Wesley and that Con- 
 ference to extend to the preachers and people of America, as 
 well as to Great Britain and Ireland ? 
 
 " Ans. Yes. 
 
 " 2. Ought not the doctrine and discipline of the Method-
 
 MODES OF ADMINISTRATION. 69 
 
 ists, as contained in the Minutes (i.e. of the English Con- 
 ference), to be the sole rule of our conduct who labour in 
 connection with Mr. Wesley in America ? 
 
 " Ans. Yes. 
 
 "8. If so, does it not follow that, if any preachers deviate 
 from the Minutes, we can have no fellowship with them till 
 they change their conduct ? 
 
 " Ans. Yes. 
 
 " The following rules were agreed to by all the preachers 
 present : 
 
 " 1. Every preacher who acts in connection with Mr- 
 Wesley and the brethren who labour in America, is strictly 
 to avoid administering the ordinances of Baptism and the 
 Lord's Supper. 
 
 " 2. All the people among whom we labour to be earnestly 
 exhorted to attend the Church and to receive the ordinances 
 there; but in a particular manner to press the people in 
 Maryland and Virginia to the observance of this Minute. 
 
 "8. No person or persons to be admitted to. our Lovefeast 
 oftener than twice or thrice, unless they become members ; 
 and none to be admitted to the Society-meetings more than 
 thrice. 
 
 " 4. None of the preachers in America to reprint any of 
 Mr. Wesley's. books without his authority (when it can be 
 gotten), and the consent of the brethren. 
 
 " 5. Robert Williams to sell the books he has already 
 printed, but to print no more unless under the above 
 restrictions. 
 
 " 6. Every preacher who acts as an Assistant, to send an 
 account of the work once in six months to the General 
 Assistant " (i.e. to llankin). 
 
 Asbury records that he did " not find such perfect har- 
 mony as he wished for; " which can bo easily understood,
 
 70 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 when ihe nature of the questions in discussion is considered. 
 Rule 2 arose out of the irregularities of Strawbridge, as 
 already referred to. In Maryland and Virginia, where his 
 success had been achieved, the English Church was estab- 
 lished by law ; so that, in the judgment of that loyal little 
 Conference, they were under the same obligation to attend 
 its services and communicate at its altars there, as in England. 
 Yet it was in those very colonies that Methodist rule on this 
 point had been systematically violated. Asbury mentions 
 that, in consideration of the peculiar circumstances of Straw- 
 bridge, leave was given to him to administer the Sacraments 
 "under the particular direction of the Assistant;" that is, with 
 the consent of his Superintendent for the time being, as any 
 case should be shown to be sufficiently urgent. The con- 
 cession to him was no doubt obtained by the pleadings of 
 Asbury himself. He adds : " There were some debates 
 amongst the preachers in this Conference relative to the con- 
 duct of some who had manifested a desire to abide in the 
 cities and live like gentlemen. Three years out of four had 
 been already spent in the cities. It was also found that 
 money had been wasted, improper Leaders appointed, and 
 many of our rules broken." Rankin refers in a similar tone 
 to causes of dissatisfaction ; but concludes his comments with 
 the statement, that " the preachers were stationed in the best 
 manner we could, and we parted in love." 
 
 Asbury was re- appointed to the extensive circuit of Bal- 
 timore, as Assistant or Superintendent, with Robert Straw- 
 bridge, Abraham Whitworth, and Joseph Yearby for his 
 colleagues. As soon as practicable after his return thither 
 he assembled his Quarterly-meeting, in order to lay before it 
 the decisions of the Conference with respect to the vexed 
 question of the administration of the Sacraments. He had 
 fondly hoped that Strawbridge would appreciate the effort
 
 MODES OF ADMINISTRATION. 71 
 
 he had made to conciliate him, and submit to the rule as 
 specially modified in his favour. But it was not BO : the 
 resolute man would brook no interference or restraint of 
 any kind. " He appeared to be inflexible," says Asbury : 
 " he would not administer the ordinances under our direction 
 at all. Many things were said, on the subject, and a few of 
 the people took part with him." 
 
 Asbury, with his profound regard for his colleague, on the 
 one hand, and his concern for the peace, unity, and con- 
 tinued prosperity of the Society, on the other, found his 
 position to be one of painful anxiety. But he could not 
 repudiate the force of Strawbridge's pleas, and he would not 
 enforce discipline rashly. He would wait and forbear. 
 
 So, leaving the impracticable man to steer his own course 
 for the present, he applied himself afresh to his evangelistic 
 labours. The next day he is in the saddle, and off for the 
 city. He is taken ill on the road, yet presses forward 
 "though it was sometimes through hard rain and heavy 
 thunder." Day after day he is travelling, preaching, visit- 
 ing the sick, meeting the Societies, " settling " the classes 
 and " bringing them to peace and order," encouraging godly 
 young men to stir up the gifts that were in them for useful 
 service, and giving " licences " to any whom, after due 
 examination, he judged to be called and qualified to preach 
 or exhort. He is leading the devotions of " a congregation 
 assembled under a tree," when an unusual and overpowering 
 Divine influence is felt ; he is accompanied on his way from 
 one place by a company of grateful people, and when " we 
 came to the water-side we knelt down and prayed, recom- 
 mending each other to the grace of God ; " his " mind 
 is much stayed on God," and he feels "but little weariness, 
 though some days he preaches four times." But, in the 
 midst of all this happy and incessant toil, and whilst re-
 
 72 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 joicing over many clear instances of success, he is again seized 
 with a threatening illness. " Though exceedingly indisposed 
 and in great weakness of body," he continued for a time to 
 "go through the public duties of the day;" but at length 
 was completely laid aside by quartan ague and fever. "I 
 went to bed in great torture, and thought my frame could 
 not long endure it. . . This is my greatest trouble and 
 pain to forsake the work of God, and to neglect the people 
 whose spiritual interest and salvation I seek with my whole 
 soul . . . Felt some patience, but not enough. that 
 this affliction may answer the . intended end ! My will is 
 quite resigned to the will of God, so that I cannot ask ease 
 in pain; but desire to be truly thankful, and leave the dis- 
 posal of all things entirely with Him." 
 
 He had scarcely recovered when the General Assistant 
 came down to preside at the Circuit Quarterly-meeting, on 
 the 2nd November. Eankin himself refers to this occasion 
 in strains of exultation. He says, " I have not had such a 
 season since I left my native land." But to Asbury the 
 meeting was not a happy one. The position which he had 
 seen it right to take in relation to his superior in office, on 
 the one hand, and his colleague, on the other, and to their 
 friends and sympathisers, exposed him to the assaults of both 
 parties. " Some of my brethren," he says, " did not alto- 
 gether please me. My hand appeared still to be against 
 every man. Mr. Rankin," he adds significantly, " conducted 
 the meeting." 
 
 It is impossible to misinterpret the meaning of these 
 plaintive words "My hand appears still to be against every 
 man ! " Strange, an inexperienced reader may think, that it 
 should be so, in the case of a man so manifestly free from 
 selfish ends, associated in spiritual service with fellow- 
 labourers who might be supposed to be as earnest, single-
 
 MODES OF ADMINISTRATION. 73 
 
 minded, and self-renouncing as himself! Yet perhaps this 
 ought not seriously to surprise us when our expectations 
 from men are based on their character as we find it, and 
 not as we fondly fancy it ought to be. 
 
 When men of various temperaments, casts of mind, and 
 educational biases, are united as kindred spirits in the prose- 
 cution of the same important practical end, there must needs 
 be diversities of opinion in regard to particular forms of 
 action. And the more sincere and earnest they are as 
 workers, the more sharply will their differences be denned. 
 Too often earnestness produces narrowness and egotism ; 
 but where it exists, in combination with breadth of views 
 and sympathies, with a readiness to attach due importance 
 to the opinions of others, and with efforts to conciliate those 
 from whom it is necessary to differ, by patience and forbearance, 
 earnestness will always eventually attract their confidence 
 and good will, and will frequently not only overcome their 
 opposition but command their co-operation. The history of 
 Asbury affords already decisive illustrations of this. He 
 had been as ye,t but little more than two years in America ; 
 and what had he accomplished by his almost single-handed 
 efforts ? Where do we behold him ? 
 
 1. He found his predecessors working on the safe and 
 pleasant, but unaggressive, plan of an exchange of cities at 
 stated intervals, where they had good congregations, hospit- 
 able friends, and many home comforts ; rarely, if ever, visit- 
 ing distant and small, but neglected, populations ; taking no 
 pains to call forth, train, and employ native talent ; and 
 making no attempt to establish a regular system of itinerancy. 
 All this he had changed. Almost wholly through the force 
 of his firm and independent example, and his importunate 
 advocacy, the itinerancy was now in full and triumphant 
 operation around six separate centres.
 
 74 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 2. He found the Societies in a state of perilous disorder ; 
 but, under his wise and energetic management, they were 
 now regularly constituted and disciplined; members were 
 settled in suitable classes ; leaders were appointed with a 
 due regard to their relative and personal fitness ; stewards 
 were beginning to discharge their duties with comfort and 
 efficiency. 
 
 3. He found one of his zealous fellow-labourers assuming 
 and exercising, on his own authority, those ministerial func- 
 tions to which Methodism at that early period made no 
 pretension. He foresaw that this, if continued, would inevit- 
 ably disturb the harmony, and destroy the unity, of the 
 Societies, as well as create fresh obstacles to the spread of the 
 Gospel through Methodist agency. He strove to dissuade 
 and restrain this indiscrete man ; but in vain. Strawbridge 
 believed himself Divinely entrusted with all the prerogatives 
 of the pastoral office, and refused to be withheld from their 
 enjoyment. 
 
 4. Anxious to retain the services of so excellent and useful 
 a man, but also to uphold the system to which he refused to 
 yield a loyal allegiance, Asbury appealed to Wesley for 
 guidance and help, and his appeal was answered by the 
 mission of Rankin, whom Wesley invested with authority to 
 superintend the whole work. But this arrangement, while it 
 relieved Asbury of responsibility, increased his difficulty. 
 For Rankin, with every disposition to execute his commis- 
 sion with conscientious zeal, was wanting in sympathy and 
 considerateness, and too often repelled the best friends of the 
 holy cause by his austerity of manner. He laboured hard 
 to conserve and build up the Societies ; but exercised his 
 authority over them, unintentionally, with the " severity " 
 which "breedeth fear," and even, in some cases, with 
 " the needless roughness " which " breedeth hate."
 
 MODES OF ADMINISTRATION. 75 
 
 6. At the first Conference which this faithful but exacting 
 man held with his brethren, measures were proposed, which, 
 if carried into effect everywhere, must have either coerced 
 Strawbridge and his converts into conformity to Methodist 
 rule, or driven them away from the Methodist body. Asbury 
 succeeded in modifying those measures in their favour, and 
 hoped to conquer the difficulty by mutual concession and com- 
 promise. But he found Strawbridge " inflexible." He 
 would submit to no limitation of what he claimed as a 
 Divinely-given right and trust. Asbury's conciliatory temper 
 was thus sorely tried ; but his good sense and liberal spirit 
 dictated the propriety of still forbearing to use force ; and, 
 leaving the determined man to act for the present as he saw 
 good, he exercised his influence to restrain others from 
 following his example, and patiently left himself for the 
 future to the guidance of Providence. 
 
 6. But this did not satisfy the vigorous General Assistant. 
 Rules and resolutions had been adopted to be consistently 
 carried out ! In this determination he had come down into 
 Maryland to preside at Asbury's Quarterly-meeting ; and it 
 is clearly, with reference to certain hard speeches on both 
 sides, and the attitude of apparent antagonism to both, which 
 Asbury found it necessary to assume in the interest of peace, 
 charity, and prosperity, that he saw himself a very Ishmael, 
 " his hand against every man ! " 
 
 We, in the review of this testing struggle and its issues, 
 behold him in a different character. We see that at the very 
 time when he seemed, to himself, to be standing defiantly 
 alone, he was throwing a spell over the understandings and 
 affections of his brethren, and drawing them irresistibly to 
 himself. 
 
 After three months of persistent labour, carried on in great 
 bodily weakness among the twenty-four places which at this
 
 76 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 time formed his circuit, Asbury again met his colleagues, 
 local preachers, and others, in the Quarterty-meeting held on 
 the 31st January, 1774, which he gratefully records was 
 " all harmony and love." This was also the character of the 
 meeting held on the 3rd May, with this drawback that, 
 "when inquiry was made relative to the conduct of the 
 preachers, there were some complaints of a few who had been 
 remiss in meeting the Societies and catechizing the children." 
 
 Throughout his career Asbury was most remarkably 
 successful in his efforts for the conversion of men taken 
 individually. No man could have felt more deeply the im- 
 portance of dealing with people separately ; no man had 
 better opportunities of studying varieties of human character, 
 and of understanding how to deal with particular cases ; and 
 no man ever used more wisely and successfully the oppor- 
 tunities which Providence gave him. This may be said 
 most especially with reference to the upper classes. " He 
 had a notable power over them," says Dr. Stevens ; " and 
 his personal influence probably brought more of them into 
 the Church than that of all his ministerial associates together. 
 His simple piety, his natural dignity and greatness of cha- 
 racter, together with his fine conversational powers and 
 cheerful humour, had a magical charm both to command 
 respect and afford delight in any circle."* 
 
 Many examples of this will be presented in the course of 
 this history; but I here introduce two, as supplied by his 
 own brief jotting at this period in his daily Journal. The 
 persons concerned are William Moore and Mrs. Rogers and 
 her son. It is unnecessary to amplify the records. I give 
 them as the business-like notes of an observant, patient, 
 painstaking man to whom the sacred calling was a reality. 
 
 * "Women of Methodism," p. 199.
 
 MODES OF ADMINISTRATION. 77 
 
 William Moore is induced to open his house for preaching, 
 which is " crowded with people who attend to hear the 
 Word." Soon afterwards follows the natural statement, 
 " I held a private c6nference with William Moore and 
 Captain Stone, who both appeared to be convinced of sin." 
 An active member of the Society, Mrs. Hurlings, introduces him 
 to the family of Mrs. Rogers, who has expressed her willing- 
 ness to entertain him ; and he is seized involuntarily with 
 concern for her spiritual interests. "I have great hopes 
 that my acquaintance with the family of Mrs. Rogers will be 
 rendered a blessing to them ; and I expect to see mother 
 and son bow to the cross of Christ." " On my return home, 
 I had great hopes that Philip Rogers will yet become a 
 disciple of Jesus Christ" " There is an apparent alteration 
 in this family ; and I must conclude the Lord directed my 
 steps among them." " William Moore and Philip Rogers 
 seem to be in earnest about their salvation." A little later, 
 when preaching, " a company of men, who would wish to 
 support the character of gentlemen, came drunk, and at- 
 tempted an interruption ; however, Philip Rogers, once their 
 intimate associate in sin, had courage enough to defend the 
 cause of God." "William Moore gave me a pleasing ac- 
 count of the unspeakable peace with which God has blest 
 him." " While preaching at the house of Mr. Moore, his 
 father and mother were moved by the word of God." Next, 
 within about six weeks after his first introduction to them, 
 we find them both heartily employed in chapel-building. 
 " Was much pleased to hear of the success which William 
 Moore had met with in raising a subscription of more than 
 J6100 for our building. Thus doth the Lord give us favour 
 in the sight of the people. Mr. Rogers took up two lots of 
 ground for the purpose of building ; and Mr. Moore seemed 
 determined to prosecute the work at all events." And
 
 78 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 prosecuted it was with complete success. On Monday, 
 April 18th, 1774, he writes : " This day the foundation of 
 our house in Baltimore was laid. Who could have expected 
 that two men, once among the chief of sinners, would ever 
 have thus engaged in so great an undertaking for the cause 
 of the blessed Jesus ? This is the Lord's doing, and it is 
 marvellous in our eyes. He hath touched and changed their 
 hearts." 
 
 This was the Lovely Lane Chapel to have an additional 
 interest given to it, and to be rendered for ever memorable 
 in the history of American Methodism, as the chapel in which 
 the great Conference held its sittings ten years later which 
 organized the Methodist Episcopal Church. 
 
 It was during this period that Asbury first made acquaint- 
 ance with the Rev. W. P. Otterbein, a learned and eloquent 
 Lutheran minister, who, under his guidance, became the 
 founder of " The United Brethren in Christ," sometimes 
 called " The German Methodists ; " and to whose personal 
 character he frequently refers in terms of esteem and affec- 
 tion. Methodism in America, as in this country, diffused the 
 blessings of the Gospel indirectly and collaterally, as well as 
 by its direct agencies. The history of Mr. Otterbein is a 
 notable example of this. On the 4th January, 1774, 
 Asbury writes, "Mr. Swoop, a preacher in High Dutch, 
 came to see me. He appeared to be a good man, and I 
 opened to him the plan of Methodism." The object of this 
 visit was to submit to Asbury the desirableness of their 
 uniting their efforts to bring Mr. Otterbein into Baltimore, 
 who was at that time suffering persecution in Pennsylvania, 
 on account of his distinguished devotion and zeal. It hap- 
 pened that a congregation of English-speaking Germans had 
 been recently formed in the town, and Mr. Swoop was 
 anxious to secure the services of Mr. Otterbein in its behalf.
 
 MODES OF ADMINISTRATION. 79 
 
 Asbury saw, as by instinct, what a power for good this 
 excellent man would be, especially if his great influence 
 could be extended, by means of lay-helpers, beyond the 
 limits of a single congregation ; and he took the opportunity 
 of pointing out the advantages of systematic itinerancy. 
 "We agreed to promote his settling here," he says, "and 
 laid a plan similar to our own to wit, that gifted persons 
 amongst them who may at any time be moved by the Holy 
 Ghost to speak for God should be encouraged." Otterbein 
 came to Baltimore, the three conferred together on " the 
 Methodist plan of Christian discipline, and," says Asbury, 
 " they agreed to imitate our method as nearly as possible." 
 Thus, without secession from another community, solely by 
 means of combined evangelistic labour among the masses 
 lying outside all organized Churches, originated " The United 
 Brethren hi Christ," a body which numbers at this day 
 nearly a hundred thousand members. Otterbein and Asbury 
 were attached friends and mutual helpers till separated by 
 death, the one surviving the other only about eighteen 
 months. " Great and good man of God," wrote Asbury, on 
 hearing of his aged friend's departure, " an honour to his 
 Church and country ; one of the greatest scholars and divines 
 that ever came to America or was born in it 1 " 
 
 At the next Annual Conference which was held at Phila- 
 delphia on the 25th May, 1774, Asbnry had the satisfac- 
 tion of reporting an addition to the Societies which had been 
 under his care of 563 members. The aggregate number in 
 the American Societies was ascertained to be 2,078, being a 
 total increase of 918 within a little more than ten months. 
 Five preachers were " fully received," and seven admitted 
 on trial : the circuits were multiplied into ten, the Baltimore 
 circuit being divided into four. Asbury was re-appointed to 
 New York, which was still associated with Philadelphia, "to
 
 80 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 change in three months" with Rankin. He says, "Our 
 Conference was attended with great power, and, all things 
 considered, with great harmony. All acquiesced in the 
 future stations of the preachers." But he had been, and 
 still was, under painful constraint. " If I were not deeply 
 conscious of the truth and goodness of the cause in which I 
 am engaged, I should by no means stay here. Lord, what 
 a world is this ! yea, what a religious world ! " 
 
 He started promptly for his former sphere, although with 
 many misgivings, and in a state of great bodily weakness, 
 praying that he might be prepared "to act and suffer in all 
 things like a Christian." The Society received him with 
 affection, and his "heart was warmed towards them." But 
 he soon discovered that " too much of the old party spirit 
 
 remained in a few." "Mr. C , not content with his unkind 
 
 and abusive letter, is still exerting all his unfriendly force. 
 I feel myself aggrieved ; but patiently commit my cause to 
 God." Strawbridge, also, continued to give him anxiety, 
 though now removed to a distance from him. Notwith- 
 standing all his efforts to restrain him from the violation of 
 Methodist rule, he still remained stubbor-oly uncompliant. 
 "What strange infatuation attends that man! " he exclaimed, 
 on hearing that he was, as before, " officious in administer- 
 ing the ordinances ; " " why ivill he run before Providence? " 
 But, most harassing of all, was the continuance of discord in 
 his subordinate relation to Rankin. ',' Discipline, discipline," 
 perpetually cried the General Assistant " see that the rules 
 are strictly kept ; enforce our discipline ! " Asbury, as we 
 have seen, did not require to have this duty harshly enjoined 
 upon him, for he was not less deeply impressed with its 
 importance than his chief. But he knew that the best and 
 nearest way to the attainment of a definite end is not always 
 that which at first sight seems the directest. He felt that
 
 MODES OF ADMINISTRATION. 81 
 
 people _in the condition and circumstances of the Americans 
 ought to have a degree of consideration shown them which 
 might not be due to Englishmen. He looked at things from 
 their point of view, entered into their feelings, and realised 
 in his own mind how forms of order presented themselves to 
 them ; and, as Rankin was indisposed or unable to do this, 
 he was in constant dread of the work being marred and 
 enfeebled at its foundation through his arbitrary rule. 
 
 So intolerable became the bearing of this good man in the 
 course of this year that Asbury found it difficult to suppress 
 the desire to sever his connection with him, and withdraw 
 for a time from the continent. First he entertained the 
 thought of going to Gibraltar, on being invited to visit that 
 town as a promising sphere of labour ; and he afterwards 
 wrote : "I received a letter from Miss Gilbert, of Antigua, in 
 which she informed me that Mr. Gilbert was going away ; 
 and, as there are about three hundred members in Society, she 
 entreats me to go and labour among them. I feel inclined 
 to go." Nor would Rankin have been unwilling to part 
 with him. He not unlikely suggested to Mr. Wesley the 
 expediency of his being recalled : he certainly complained of 
 his want of co-operation. In a letter to Rankin, dated March 1, 
 1775, Mr. Wesley says, " As soon as possible, you must 
 come to a full and clear explanation both with Brother 
 Asbury (if he is recovered) and with Jemmy Dempster. But 
 I advise Brother Asbury to return to England by the first 
 opportunity." 
 
 James Dempster, a well-educated Scotchman, who was 
 appointed to America by the Conference of 1774, could have 
 scarcely entered upon his work there, when Rankin asso- 
 ciated him with Asbury in some unfavourable representation 
 to Wesley. He seems to have incautiously declared his 
 sympathy with some members of the New York Society, 
 
 6
 
 82 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 when they told him their grievances, and sought to induce 
 him to join them in opposing Rankin's administrations. 
 Wesley says to him, in a letter dated May 19, 1775 : 
 " That one point I earnestly recommend to Brother Rankin, 
 you, and all the preachers, by prayer, by exhortation, and 
 by every possible means, to oppose a party spirit. This has 
 always, so far as it prevailed, been the bane of all true 
 religion." To Rankin himself he says, in a letter of the 
 same date, assuming that Asbury would, immediately after 
 his last, return to England, " I doubt not that Brother 
 Asbury and you will part good friends. I shall hope to see 
 him at the Conference. He is quite an upright man." 
 Happily and providentially, however, when the former letter 
 came to hand Asbury was not within reach of its summons. 
 Released from his duties in the New York Circuit by the 
 arrival of Dempster and Martin Rodda, who were appointed 
 with him, he had gladly gone back to Baltimore. Not long 
 afterwards Mr. Wesley wrote again, " I am not sorry that 
 Brother Asbury stays with you another year. In that time 
 it will be seen what God will do with North America ; and 
 you will easily judge whether our preachers are called to 
 remain there any longer." 
 
 Wesley's confidence in Thomas Rankin's integrity and 
 earnest piety never faltered; but he was not blind to his 
 characteristic failing. " My dear brother," he wrote to him, 
 " nothing can hurt you if you are calm, mild, and gentle 
 toward all men, especially to the froward." "Among our 
 Societies," he admonishes him again, " we must enforce our 
 rules with all mildness and steadiness. 1 '
 
 83 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 IN TROUBLOUS TIMES. 
 
 Conference of 1775 Advice from the Wesleys The coming Struggle 
 Asbury at Norfolk New Schemes and Labours Heroic Resolution 
 Chaotic state of Society The Preachers suspected Wesley's "Calm 
 Address " Death of Williams Asbury with Shadford Character of 
 Shadford The great Revival Rev. D. Jarratt The miseries of War 
 Asbury again 111 Conference of 1776 Re-appointed to Baltimore 
 Mr. Gough, of Perry Hall His Conversion Asbury with him at 
 the Virginia Springs Returns to Baltimore The States declared 
 Independent Departure of Rankin and Rodda. 
 
 THE third Conference began at Philadelphia on the 17th, 
 and ended on the 19th, of May, 1775. It reported 
 an addition to the united Societies of 1,075 members, the 
 total being 8,148. Asbury records thankfully that all the 
 sittings were characterized by " great harmony and sweet- 
 ness of temper." Rankin says also, " We conversed together, 
 and concluded our business in love." He adds, " We wanted 
 all the advice and light we could obtain respecting our con- 
 duct in the present critical situation of affairs. We came 
 unanimously to this conclusion, to follow the advice that Mr. 
 Wesley and his brother had given us, and leave the event to 
 God." This advice was communicated in the following 
 letters which had just come to hand : 
 
 "LONDON, March 1, 1775. 
 " MY DEAR BRETHREN, 
 
 " You were never in your lives in so critical a situation as you are at 
 this time. It is your part to be peace-makers to be loving and tender 
 to all ; but to addict yourselves to no party. In spite of all solicitations,
 
 84 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 by rough or smooth words, say not one word against one or the other 
 side. Keep yourselves pure ; do all you can to help and soften all ; but 
 beware how you adopt another's jar. 
 
 " See that you act in full union with each other : this is of the utmost 
 consequence. Not only let there be no bitterness or anger, but no shy- 
 ness or coldness, between you. Mark all those that would set one of 
 you against the other. Some such will never be wanting. But give 
 them no countenance ; rather ferret them out, and drag them into open 
 day. 
 
 " The conduct of T. Rankin has been suitable to the Methodist plan : 
 I hope all of you tread in his steps. Let your eye be single. Be in 
 peace with each other, and the God of peace will be with you. 
 
 " I am, my dear Brethren, 
 
 " Your affectionate Brother, 
 
 "JOHN WESLEY." 
 
 " March 1, 1775. 
 " MY DEAR BROTHER" (addressed to Rankin), 
 
 " . . . . As to the public affairs, I wish you to be like-minded with 
 me. I am of neither side, and yet of both ; on the side of New Eng- 
 land, and of Old. Private Christians are excused, exempted, privileged, 
 to take no part in civil troubles. We love all, and pray for all, with a 
 sincere and impartial love. Faults there may be on both sides, but 
 such as neither you nor I can remedy ; therefore, let us, and all our 
 children, give ourselves unto prayer, and so stand still and see the 
 salvation of God. My love to Captain Webb when you see him, and to 
 Mr. Bowden, to whom I owe letters, and much love. Shew yours for me 
 by praying more for me and mine. 
 
 " Yours in the old love, 
 
 " CHARLES WESLEY." 
 
 The long-continued struggle between the Mother Country 
 and her American colonies had reached at length its terrible 
 crisis. Blood had been already shed in the skirmishes at 
 Lexington and Concord, and a more serious engagement 
 was then imminent at Boston. A portentous cloud was 
 drifting over the whole continent, and men's hearts failed 
 them for fear.
 
 IN TROUBLOUS TIMES. S5 
 
 Asbury was appointed to Norfolk, Virginia, where a 
 Society had been formed by Robert Williams, which, how- 
 ever, had not been regularly organized, and was as yet 
 unconnected by circuit arrangements with contiguous places. 
 Arriving there on the 29th May, after a disagreeable and 
 fatiguing passage of seven days, he says, " I found about 
 thirty persons in Society, after their manner ; but they had 
 no regular class-meetings. However, there are a few who 
 are willing to observe all the rules of our Society. Their 
 present preaching-house is an old, shattered building, which 
 has formerly been a play-house." He quietly subjoins, 
 " My heart is filled with holy thoughts, and deeply engaged 
 in the work of God." And again, " My body is weak, but 
 my soul is in a sweet, pacific frame. May the Lord brace 
 up my feeble bodily frame, and by His grace I am deter- 
 mined to use it for His glory and the service of His Church." 
 
 He was immediately occupied with fresh schemes of use- 
 fulness. Beginning with a sermon at five o'clock in the 
 morning in Norfolk, he is off the same day to Portsmouth ; 
 plunges " through such a swamp as he never saw before," to 
 preach to a neglected people " of a simple heart " at the 
 furthermost part of the parish ; preaches to a small congre- 
 gation about six miles from town ; encourages the Society at 
 Norfolk to subscribe for the erection of a chapel ; and labours 
 there, and wherever he finds a few members, to bring them 
 into conformity to Methodist rule ; " telling them that every 
 civil society has its proper rules, and persons appointed to 
 see them kept, and that every member forfeited his rights to 
 membership if he wilfully transgressed them." " Without 
 discipline," he notes, "we should soon be a rope of sand; 
 so that it must be enforced, let who will be displeased." 
 Within a few weeks he had formed a circuit, including eight 
 regular preaching-places.
 
 86 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 On the 7th August he writes, "I received a letter from 
 Mr. T. Rankin, in which he informed me that himself, Mr. 
 Rodda, and Mr. Dempster had consulted, and deliberately 
 concluded it would be best to return to England. But I can 
 by no means agree to leave such a field for gathering souls 
 to Christ as we have in America. It would be an eternal 
 dishonour to the Methodists that we should all leave three 
 thousand souls who desire to commit themselves to our 
 care, neither is it the part of a good shepherd to leave his 
 flock in time of danger ; therefore, I am determined, by the 
 grace of God, not to leave them, let the consequence be 
 what it may." 
 
 The whole country was seething with political excitement. 
 The discontent which the oppressive legislation of the Mother 
 Country had created, but which had been long loyally 
 smothered, or expressed only in respectful remonstrance and 
 protest, was at last venting itself in one loud and general 
 demand for Home-rule. Traffic with England was sus- 
 pended ; officers of the British Crown were publicly insulted 
 and maltreated ; preparations for an impending war were 
 being hurried forward with enthusiasm, and society was in 
 a state bordering upon anarchy, "Martial clamours," says 
 Asbury, "confuse the land." Methodist preachers especially 
 were in peril of their lives. The most eminent of them 
 were Englishmen, with, it was naturally presumed, English 
 proclivities ; they were also the missionaries of John Wesley, 
 who, it was well known, was a distinguished and warm- 
 hearted Loyalist. For these reasons, even if they had con- 
 ducted themselves on those principles of strict neutrality 
 which they had agreed to adopt, they would have been sus- 
 pected for a time. But, unhappily, one of them, Martin 
 Rodda, had irritated the people by vaunting his attachment 
 to the British Constitution and acting the part of an ardent
 
 IN TROUBLOUS TIMES. 87 
 
 partisan ; and through his indiscretion, not only he, but all 
 hie English brethren, and the native preachers associated 
 with them, were indiscriminately denounced and proscribed 
 as the foes of the country. Even Wesley himself unwit- 
 tingly became the means of strengthening the popular preju- 
 dice against them by the publication of his " Calm Address 
 to our American Colonies," in which he told them that they 
 were the dupes of " a few men in England who were deter- 
 mined enemies to monarchy." It is true that this pamphlet, 
 which consisted mainly of extracts from Dr. Johnson's 
 " Taxation No Tyranny," was intended to influence the 
 people of this country rather than the Americans ; * but that 
 it soon found its way among the Colonists is certain from 
 Asbury's lament that " that venerable man ever dipped into 
 the politics of America/' and its effects on the public mind, 
 with reference to the Methodists, were most disastrous. 
 
 With his mind fully made up to brave all the consequences 
 of his steadfastness in these threatening circumstances, Asbury 
 steadily pursued his calling, notwithstanding frequent inter- 
 ruptions " by the clamour of arms and preparations for war." 
 "My business," he says, "is to be more intensely devoted 
 to God." A letter from Mr. Rankin informed him of his 
 purpose to delay his return to England ; and another from 
 Mr. Shadford told him " of about two hundred souls brought 
 to Christ within the space of two months. Glory to God," 
 he exclaims, " for the salvation of sinners ! " 
 
 On the 25th September he writes : " Brother Williams 
 died. The Lord does all things well. Perhaps Brother Wil- 
 liams was in danger of being entangled in worldly business, 
 
 '' Need any one ask from what motive this was wrote ? Let him 
 look round. England is in a flame ! a flame of malice and rage against 
 the King, and almost all that are in authority under him. I labour to 
 put out this flame." Journal, Nov. 11, 1775.
 
 88 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 and might thereby have injured the cause of God." At the 
 time of Asbury's arrival, he had retired from the itinerancy, 
 and was residing near Norfolk, where he opened his house 
 for preaching. When tidings of his death reached Asbury 
 he was himself " very ill with the fall- fever, and being able 
 to take but little nourishment was much reduced." How- 
 ever, he " ventured to preach a funeral sermon at the burial 
 of his friend," and records his belief that probably " no one 
 in America has been an instrument of awakening so many 
 souls as God has awakened by him." He was the first of 
 the English preachers to rest from his labours. 
 
 In October of this year Asbury was invited by his attached 
 friend, Mr. Shadford, to assist him to extend the work in 
 the Brunswick Circuit, where he was then stationed. No- 
 thing could have been more seasonable, or more in accord- 
 ance with his wishes. "My heart rejoices," he said, as he 
 looked forward eagerly to this visit, "in hopes of seeing 
 good days, and many souls brought to God." On taking 
 leave of Norfolk he writes, " Some that had been displeased 
 with my strictness of discipline, were now unwilling to let 
 me go." It was not long after that he had to note, " We 
 have awful reports of slaughter at Norfolk and Great Bridge ; 
 but I am at a happy distance from them, and my soul keeps 
 close to Jesus Christ." A week later he says, with sadness, 
 "We are informed that Norfolk was burnt by the Governor." 
 
 November 2nd he writes: "By the good Providence of 
 God I entered Brunswick Circuit, and am now within a few 
 miles of dear Brother George Shadford. God is at work in 
 this part of the country, and my soul catches the holy fire 
 already." On the 5th he says, " Met Brother George Shad- 
 ford. My spirit was much united to him, and our meeting 
 was like that of Jonathan and David. We had a large con- 
 gregation, and I was much comforted among them." He
 
 IN TROUBLOUS TIMES. 89 
 
 arrived on the eve of the Quarterly-meeting, concerning 
 which he says, " There might be seven hundred people pre- 
 sent. What great things hath the Lord wrought for the 
 inhabitants of Virginia ! At this meeting we admitted 
 Francis Poythress, James Foster, and Joseph Hartley " (all 
 of them to be thenceforward distinguished in the early 
 history of American Methodism) " as travelling preachers. I 
 had great satisfaction in preaching, and was much pleased 
 with the manner and matter of the Christians' testimony in 
 the Lovefeast, having a corresponding witness of the same in 
 my own breast." 
 
 George Shadford was one of the most successful preachers 
 that Methodism ever produced. For earnestness, singleness 
 of aim, and directness of appeal, he may be compared to the 
 better known John Smith ; but he was also characterized by 
 a winning simplicity of manner, a frankness of disposition, 
 and a tenderness of spirit, peculiarly his own. His auto- 
 biography, as included in the " Lives of the Early Methodist 
 Preachers," is one of the most charming of that series. 
 Wesley's estimate of him may be inferred from the laconic 
 epistle he sent to him, as commissioned to accompany 
 Rankin : 
 
 " DEAR GEORGE, The time is arrived for you to embark for America. 
 You must go down to Bristol, where you will meet with Thomas 
 Rankin, Captain Webb, and his wife. I let you loose, George, on the 
 great continent of America. Publish your message in the open face of 
 the sun, and do all the good you can." 
 
 The great revival which was being carried on at this time 
 under his preaching had taken Shadford himself by surprise. 
 " I was amazed," he says ; " for I seldom preached a sermon 
 but some were convinced and converted often three or four 
 at a time." Rankin himself hastened down to witness it. 
 He preached, and records that towards the close of his
 
 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 sermon his " soul was so filled with the power and love 
 of God that he could with difficulty speak. Very soon," 
 he adds, " my voice was drowned amidst the pleasing sounds 
 of prayer and praise. Husbands were inviting their wives 
 to go to heaven with them, and parents calling upon their 
 children to come to the Lord Jesus." A detailed narrative 
 of this movement was drawn up by the Rev. Devereux 
 Jarratt, a minister of the English Church, and was sent 
 through Asbury to Mr. Rankin to be forwarded to Wesley. 
 It is full of statements of the same remarkable character. 
 " The shaking among the dry bones," says Mr. Jarratt, 
 " was increased from week to week. Numbers of old and 
 grey-headed, of middle-aged persons, of youth yea, of little 
 children, were the subjects of this work." 
 
 Much of the preparatory work had been accomplished 
 under the faithful ministry of Mr. Jarratt himself, who had 
 been trained for his duties by President Davis, and who now 
 not only sympathized with the movement, but directly aided 
 and encouraged it. He has been worthily called the Ameri- 
 can Fletcher. He always welcomed the preachers into his 
 parish, and to the hospitalities of his home ; and co-operated 
 with them heartily in preaching, prayer-meetings, love- 
 feasts, and in the visitation of the classes. Asbury first met 
 him on the 10th January, 1776, when he says, he " gave 
 me a long narrative of a great work under Brother George 
 Shadford." The same night they held a Watch-night service ; 
 "and," says Asbury, "Mr. Jarratt and I stood about two 
 hours each. There appeared to be a great degree of Divine 
 power among the people." 
 
 After having spent about two months in the Brunswick 
 Circuit in visiting and preaching at various places, partly in 
 company with Shadford or Mr. Jarratt, and partly unattended, 
 he returned to Philadelphia at the call of Rankin, having, he
 
 IN TROUBLOUS TIMES. 91 
 
 says, "rode about 3,000 miles since I left it last. . . . Here 
 I met with Mr. Rankin, in the spirit of love. I also received 
 an affectionate letter from Mr. Wesley." 
 
 For the next two months his daily records of labour and 
 personal experience are everywhere interspersed with 
 lamentations over the miseries of war. " A friend from New 
 York has informed us," he says in one place, " that troops 
 were raised, and entrenchments made, in that city. Lord, 
 we are oppressed ; undertake for us ! " Before the ensuing 
 Conference he was again seized with a perilous sickness, and 
 carried to his lodgings. " My poor frame," he writes, " is 
 much afflicted and shattered ; but my mind is full of Divine 
 tranquillity, ardently desirous to submit to the Providence of 
 God with inflexible patience. How amazing is the goodness 
 of God ! He raiseth up the best of friends, such as love for 
 Christ's sake, to show the kindest care for me in my afflic- 
 tion. My great desire to be at Conference induced me to 
 make an attempt to travel ; but, by the time I had rode 
 three miles, I found if I travelled it would be at the hazard 
 of my life, and was therefore obliged to decline it, though 
 the disappointment was very great. Let it be, Lord, not as 
 I will, but as Thou wilt." 
 
 This year the Conference was held for the first time in the 
 city of Baltimore. It began on the 24th May, and reported 
 an increase in the Societies attributable almost wholly to 
 the " revival " in Virginia of 1,873 members, the entire 
 number being 4,921. The circuits were eleven in number, 
 and the preachers twenty-five. Asbury was re-appointed to 
 Baltimore. 
 
 Here he came among people who not only received him 
 with satisfaction as a messenger of good tidings, but many 
 of whom welcomed him with affection and confidence, as his 
 spiritual children. He met again with his " good friend,
 
 92 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 Mr. Philip Rogers, and his wife," and rejoiced over their 
 continuance in the faith of the Gospel. He renewed his 
 intercourse with his reverend friend, Mr. Otterbein, with 
 whom he always found "so much unity, and freedom in 
 conversation;" and he is treated " with the greatest affec- 
 tion in the family of Mr. Harry G-ough. " At the same time 
 he is made to feel the disquietude of the times, and in one 
 place in his circuit is "fined five pounds for preaching the 
 Gospel." 
 
 Mr. Gough had enjoyed the blessing of peace with God, 
 and a renovated heart for about twelve months. He was a 
 man of wealth. His wife was the daughter of Governor 
 Ridgeley, and his country residence Perry Hall, about 
 twelve miles from the city was one of the most spacious 
 and elegant mansions in America at that time. But for a 
 long period he was an unhappy man in the midst of his 
 luxury. His wife had been deeply impressed by the preach- 
 ing of the Methodists, but he forbade her to hear them again. 
 While revelling with wine and gay companions one evening, 
 it was proposed that they should divert themselves by going 
 together to a Methodist assembly. Asbury was the preacher. 
 As they returned one of them exclaimed, " What nonsense 
 have we heard to-night ! " But Gough replied sharply, start- 
 ling them with sudden surprise " No ; what we have heard 
 is the truth, the truth as it is in Jesus." " I will never 
 hinder you again from hearing the Methodists," he said, as 
 he entered his house, and met his wife. The impression of 
 the sermon was so profound that he could no longer enjoy 
 his accustomed pleasures. He became deeply serious, and 
 at last depressed and melancholy, under the awakened sense 
 of his misspent life. Riding to one of his plantations, he one 
 day heard the voice of praise and prayer in a cabin, and, 
 listening, discovered that a negro from a neighbouring estate
 
 IN TKOUBLOUS TIMES. 93 
 
 was leading the devotions of his own slaves, and offering 
 fervent thanksgivings for the blessings of their poor condition. 
 His heart was touched, and he exclaimed, "Alas, Lord! 
 I have my thousands and tens of thousands, and yet, un- 
 grateful wretch that I am, I never thanked Thee as this poor 
 slave does, who has scarcely clothes to put on, or food to 
 satisfy his hunger." He returned home with a distressed 
 and contrite heart. He retired from his table, which was 
 surrounded by a large company of his friends, and threw 
 himself upon his knees in his chamber. While there, im- 
 ploring the mercy of God, he received conscious pardon and 
 peace. In a transport of joy he went to his company, 
 exclaiming, " I have found the Methodists' blessing ; I have 
 found the Methodists' God ! " " Both he and his wife now 
 became members of the Methodist Society, and Perry Hall 
 was henceforth an asylum for the itinerants, and a preaching- 
 place. The wealthy convert erected a chapel contiguous to 
 the Hall, the first American Methodist church that had a 
 bell ; and it rung every morning and evening, summoning 
 his numerous household and slaves to family worship. 
 They made a congregation ; for the establishment comprised 
 a hundred persons. The circuit-preachers supplied it twice 
 a month, and local-preachers every Sunday." * 
 
 For more than two years Asbury had suffered under 
 impaired health. The references in his Journal to attacks 
 of fever, ague, and sore throat, are so frequent that we won- 
 der how he could have continued in his trying labours. At 
 length, however, he was persuaded by Mr. Gough to make 
 arrangements for his temporary absence from his circuit, and 
 to accompany him to the warm sulphur-springs of t Virginia. 
 "Perhaps," he says, as with difficulty he brought himself 
 
 * Dr. Stevens.
 
 94 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 to the decision to try them, " my strength may be thereby 
 so restored for future services that, upon the whole, there 
 may be no loss of time." On their way, " that no opportunity 
 might be lost," he lectured at the tavern where they tarried 
 for the night. On their arrival at this celebrated resort, 
 lodgings were found to be so scarce that he and his friend 
 were obliged to stay at different houses. His own accommo- 
 dation was not such as we should deem most suitable to the 
 requirements of an invalid. The size of his room was 
 " twenty feet by sixteen ; and there were seven beds and 
 sixteen persons therein, and some noisy children." Nor 
 should we judge his mode of spending this season of rest the 
 most conducive to the end he desired. His plan was, "to 
 read about a hundred pages a day ; usually to pray in public 
 five times a day ; to preach in the open air every other day, 
 and to lecture in prayer-meetings every other evening." But 
 he had his reward. "It clearly appears," he says, three 
 or four days after his arrival, " that I am in the line of duty 
 in attending the Springs : there is a manifest check to the 
 overflowing tide of immorality." 
 
 Within about six weeks he had returned to Baltimore 
 " with more health and perhaps more grace," praying, 
 " Now, Lord, only make and keep me pure, and let me 
 be wholly and only Thine ! " But he had come back to be 
 harassed everywhere by the baleful spirit of war. Two 
 months previous, July 4, 1776, the Congress of "Patriots " 
 had declared the thirteen colonies which it represented to 
 be free and independent States; and a thrill of delirious joy 
 had spread throughout the country. Loyalty to the British 
 Crown had suddenly become a crime. Every man who did 
 not declare himself in favour of a total disruption with 
 England was counted an enemy to the liberties and rights of 
 the State in which he lived. It was, therefore, impossible
 
 IN TROUBLOUS TIMES. 95 
 
 for the clergy of the English Church to prosecute their duties, 
 and almost equally impossible for Methodist preachers to 
 carry on systematic itinerancy. Prayer for the King was 
 forbidden on the penalty of imprisonment. No man could 
 travel from place to place without a legal pass, and he could 
 obtain no pass but by taking the test-oath, which pledged 
 him to take up arms in defence of the national independence 
 if called upon to do so by the authorities. What remained, 
 then, to the preachers from England, but to make immediate 
 arrangements for returning home ? 
 
 So it was thought by all but one . At the close of a public 
 service, a messenger from Rodda and Shadford, who were 
 at the time the guests of Mr. Gough, informed Asbury that 
 they were waiting to consult him with reference to this ques- 
 tion. He promptly met them, as desired, and they told him 
 that they had resolved to embark for England, and begged 
 him to accompany them. But his simple reply was an 
 appeal to his previous determination, "not to depart from 
 the work on any consideration." Rankin was sent for, and 
 the matter was earnestly and prayerfully reconsidered. 
 Ultimately it was agreed that " dear George Shadford " 
 should linger with his friend a little longer, and the other 
 two prepare to return. They tarried till the next Con- 
 ference, "a season of uncommon affection," says Asbury, 
 " many weeping, when the time of parting came, as if they 
 had lost their first-born sons ; " and soon afterwards they 
 disappeared from the American continent. Rodda, whose 
 indiscretion had culminated in his last circuit in the distribu- 
 tion of copies of the King's Proclamation, found it necessary 
 to escape to the coast by the assistance of slaves, yet arrived 
 safely at Philadelphia and took refuge in the British fleet ; 
 and Rankin " through divers dangers," as he states, suc- 
 ceeded eventually in reaching the same port.
 
 96 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ALONE AND IN CONCEALMENT. 
 
 Conference of 1777 Position of Methodism Providential Relation of 
 Asbury to it Refuses to leave it Jonathan and David Asbury 
 alone Declines to take the Test Oath Retires into Delaware Judge 
 White He is taken Prisoner Asbury's Usefulness at this Season 
 His Hiding-places Forms of Labour Delaware becomes his Circuit 
 Senator Bassett Miss Ennalls Methodism brought into Dor- 
 chester Rev. D. McGaw Judge Barratt. 
 
 rriHE Conference just mentioned (the fifth in order of 
 -L time) was held at Deer Creek, in Maryland, in May, 
 1777, and consisted of twenty preachers. The number of 
 - members had risen to 6,968, being an increase in the year 
 of 2,047, and the number of preachers to thirty-six. 
 
 Thus had Methodism struck its roots deeply into American 
 soil, and grown to important dimensions. Its 7,000 mem- 
 bers would represent many times that number of regular 
 hearers, and of others who occasionally attended its services ; 
 and it already included several families of extensive social 
 influence. It is clear that it had acquired powers and con- 
 ditions for yet more rapid progress, and that its chief 
 requirement for this end was a wise and suitable leadership. 
 It was to be severely tested by the fearful storm which was 
 then sweeping over the land ; but the process of testing 
 would serve, under a judicious and fostering oversight, to 
 develope more fully its living energies and promote its 
 greater fruitfulness. How, then, was this necessary superin- 
 tendence to be insured ? Who, of all the men of that trying
 
 ALONE AND IN CONCEALMENT. 97 
 
 day, was there to whom the task could be safely entrusted of 
 watching over, guiding and guarding, the holy cause when 
 exposed, at so peculiarly susceptible a stage of its growth, to 
 the influence of circumstances which so naturally tended to 
 damp its enthusiasm, to corrupt its simplicity, and to thwart 
 the purposes of its zealous promoters ? 
 
 If ever the agency of Providence is to be recognized in 
 the events of history, is it not in the position assigned to 
 Asbury at this time ? He came to America at the very 
 moment when Methodism most needed the presence of a 
 man of his peculiar gifts of mind and heart ; he was retained 
 there, when Wesley, under misguidance, recalled him, 
 simply in consequence of being out of reach of the summons 
 to return ; and now, under an unfaltering conviction of 
 duty, he abides there, when others depart, and is left in 
 sole charge of the work when exposed to the disorders and 
 convulsions of a protracted war. But what if he, too, had 
 withdrawn, or if his place of responsibility had been taken 
 by any of his English brethren ? What if the Methodism of 
 America had been abandoned at that crisis of its history to 
 the guidance of Boardman, who, with all his excellencies, 
 seems to have been physically disqualified for sustained 
 aggression ; or to Strawbridge, with zeal to extend rather 
 than skill to consolidate ; or to Rankin, with his brusque 
 and stern severity ; or to any man less earnest and con- 
 scientious than Asbury in the considerate enforcement of 
 godly discipline ? It must be admitted that the conditions 
 which combined so happily in him were such as do not often 
 all meet in a single man ; yet they are such as most men 
 may attain to whom the gifts and calling of God are felt to 
 be a reality ; for are they not all traceable to the exercise 
 of good sense, under the guidance of faith that workfth by 
 love? 
 
 1
 
 , 98 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 Asbury at once resumed circuit work after the Conference, 
 though amidst " great commotion on every side." Soon 
 afterwards he was informed that the vestry of " Garrettson 
 Church " had resolved to invite him to become their pastor ; 
 but his prompt reply was, " I shall do nothing that will 
 separate me from my brethren. I hope to live and die a 
 Methodist." Shadford, who was still with him, and pain- 
 fully disinclined to quit the continent without him, urged 
 him again to consider whether it was not his duty to return 
 home, and suggested that they should set apart another 
 day for fasting and prayer together, with reference to this 
 question. He readily acceded to this proposal, but the 
 issue was not what Shadford so anxiously desired. "My 
 convictions," he said, when appealed to for his decision, 
 " are as clear and strong as ever, that it is my duty to 
 remain." "I, however," rejoined Shadford, "believe my 
 work in America to be done. I feel with as much cer- 
 tainty that it is my duty to return now, as I felt it to 
 be my duty to come hither four years ago." " Then," 
 said Asbury, tentatively, " one of us must be in error ! " 
 " Not necessarily so ; " was the reply, and was it not 
 right ? " I may have a call to go, and you to stay." 
 Asbury 's affections clung with unwonted tenderness to 
 " dear George Shadford," and he prevailed on him to delay 
 his departure a few days longer ; and the friends then 
 separated to meet no more. Barely three weeks had 
 elapsed before the heroic man had to write, " George Shad- 
 ford has left me ! " and the next entry shows how deeply 
 he felt his bereavement : "I was under some heaviness 
 of mind. But it was no wonder: three thousand miles 
 away from home my friends have left me I am con- 
 sidered by some as an enemy of the country every day 
 liable to be seized by violence, and abused. However,
 
 ALONE AND IN CONCEALMENT. 99 
 
 all this is but a trifle to suffer for Christ, and the salvation 
 of souls. Lord, stand by me ! " 
 
 The peril of life in which he laboured was indeed but 
 too evident. Already his chaise had been shot through, 
 and he was reminded continually of what might befall him 
 any hour, by the reports which reached him of the ill-treat- 
 ment by mobs, or by the prejudiced magistracy, of his 
 brethren, although all of them now native Americans. 
 The same day that Shadford left him (March 10, 1778), 
 officers of the State of Maryland, where he then was, sub- 
 jected him to the usual test of allegiance to the State 
 authorities. As an Englishman and a preacher of the 
 Gospel, he declined to pledge himself to take up arms in 
 defence of American independence, and was, therefore, 
 ordered to quit the State. He withdrew into Delaware. 
 At first he says he was at a loss what to do, whether " to 
 deliver myself into the hands of men, to embrace the first 
 opportunity to depart, or to wait till Providence should 
 further direct." Ultimately, he decided to tarry and wait. 
 " It appears to be the will of God that I should be silent 
 for a season, to prepare me for further usefulness hereafter ; 
 therefore my time shall be employed to the best advantage. 
 I am happy in the family where I stay, and my soul is 
 fixed on God. I have a private chamber for my asylum, 
 where I comfort myself in God, and spend my time in 
 prayer, meditation, and reading." 
 
 His refuge was the house of Judge White, and, as he 
 abode there, at considerable intervals, for nearly two years, 
 it may not be unsuitable to give some account of this 
 excellent man and his more remarkable wife. The following 
 particulars, not found in the Journal, are from Dr. Stevens: 
 
 Thomas White, Esq., was the Chief Judge of the Court 
 of Common Pleas for the County of Kent, in the State of
 
 100 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 Delaware. His devout wife, hearing the Methodists preach, 
 was drawn to them as by a natural affinity, and soon in- 
 duced him also to hear them. The preachers were invited 
 to their mansion, which they opened for public worship, and 
 which remained a preaching-place until they had erected 
 a chapel in the neighbourhood, which is known to this day 
 as White's Meeting-house. Mrs. White not only led her 
 husband to " the Methodist Communion, but became his best 
 guide to heaven. She was the priestess of the family, 
 a woman of rare talents, of remarkable but modest courage, 
 and of fervent zeal." 
 
 Aabury records April 2nd (shortly after he had become a 
 refugee in this godly dwelling) : " This night we had a scene 
 of trouble in the family. My friend, Thomas White, was 
 taken away, and his wife and family are in great distress of 
 mind. The next day I sought the interposition of God by 
 fasting and prayer." He states in explanation that a body 
 of light-horse patrol came to the house by stealth, seized the 
 Judge on the absurd charge of being a Methodist, and, 
 therefore, presumably a " Tory," and conveyed him to 
 prison. Stevens says that when he was apprehended his 
 wife " clung to him, defending him, and declaring to the 
 ruffians, who brandished their swords over her, that she 
 feared them not, until, overpowered by their numbers, he 
 was borne away. She soon followed them, found out the 
 place of his confinement, and rested not till she effected 
 his restoration to his family." 
 
 On the review of this season of retirement thirty years 
 afterwards, Asbury describes it as the "most active, the 
 most useful, and most effective part of my life ; " and adds 
 that " the children and the children's children of those who 
 witnessed my labours and my sufferings in that day of peril, 
 now rise up by hundreds to bless me." A few extracts from
 
 ALONE AND IN CONCEALMENT. 101 
 
 his daily records may be sufficient to indicate the secret of 
 this great success : 
 
 " Saturday, April 4th, 1778. This was a day of much 
 Divine power and love to my soul. I was left alone, and 
 spent part of every hour in prayer; and Christ was near 
 and very precious. The next day I preached with great 
 
 solemnity at E. W 's, on 2 Cor. vi. 2 ; and on Monday 
 
 found freedom to move. After riding about fifteen miles I 
 accidentally stopped at a house where a corpse was going to 
 be buried, and had an opportunity of addressing a number 
 of immortal souls. I then rode on through a lonesome 
 devious road like Abraham, not knowing whither I went ; 
 but, weary and unwell, I found a shelter late at night. 
 
 " Tuesday, 7th. My soul was kept in peace, and I spent 
 much of my time in reading the Bible and the Greek 
 Testament. Surely God will stand by me and deliver me ! 
 ... At night a report was spread which inclined me to 
 think it would be most prudent for me to move the next day. 
 Accordingly I set out after dinner, and lay in a swamp till 
 about sunset ; but was then kindly taken in by a friend. 
 
 " Thursday, 9th. I felt strong confidence in God, that He 
 would deliver me ; being conscious that I sought neither 
 riches nor honour, and that what I suffered was for the sake of 
 His spiritual Church, and the salvation of my fellow men. I 
 was informed that Brother John Hartley was apprehended last 
 Lord's- day. May the Lord strengthen and support him, while 
 he suffers for righteousness' sake ! He shall be faithfully 
 remembered by me in my addresses to the throne of grace. 
 This evening I was called upon to visit a person in distress of 
 mind ; and the Lord gave him rest for his soul. Perhaps Provi- 
 dence cast my lot in this place for the assistance of this man. 
 " Friday, 10th. My heart was kept pure, and panting after 
 God, though I was in some sense a prisoner. . . . My
 
 102 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 practice is, to keep close to God in prayer, and spend a 
 part of every hour, when awake, in that exercise." 
 
 A little further on he says : "I purpose to spend ten 
 minutes out of every hour, when awake, in prayer. ... I 
 am reconciled to my condition, and in faith and prayer com- 
 mit all events to my Divine Protector. This is an excellent 
 season for dressing my own vineyard." 
 
 But it was impossible for him to be unemployed for others. 
 His " dumb Sabbaths " were but few, at the beginning 
 of this season of seclusion; and on Sunday and week-day 
 alike, when not engaged in spiritual exercises, or in reading 
 and study to prepare himself for greater usefulness in the 
 future, he catechized the children of the family ; he stole 
 out after dark, and through the gloom of the woods, to visit 
 the neighbouring cottages, speaking words of instruction or 
 encouragement to the heads of households, and, taking their 
 children upon his knees, taught them the comprehensive 
 little lesson 
 
 "Learn to read, and learn to pray; 
 Learn to work, and learn to obey." 
 
 He never left them without prayer; and, when he could 
 induce them to invite a few friends to hold with them a 
 quiet domestic service, he preached and exhorted: "I met 
 a small congregation, and my soul was blessed in speaking 
 to the people;" " as a congregation was collected to hear 
 the Word, I ventured to preach ; " " our family meetings 
 are attended with great power;" "the Lord favoured me 
 with great assistance in preaching three times to-day ; " 
 "this week the Lord has given me two, as the children of 
 my bonds." 
 
 Gaining confidence by freedom from assault at these more 
 retired essays, he gradually extended his labours and made
 
 ALONE AND IN CONCEALMENT. 103 
 
 them more public, until within a few weeks he had extem- 
 porized for himself a large circuit, which he systematically 
 itinerated on the plan to which he had been accustomed. 
 As early as July 18th he says: "I laid a plan for myself 
 to travel and preach nine days in two weeks. This was one 
 step towards my former regularity, in what appears to me 
 as my duty, my element, and my delight." 
 
 This arrangement he carried out and exceeded, despite 
 the difficulties of his situation, and notwithstanding per- 
 petually-recurring attacks of fever and other forms of illness. 
 Once, in a state of extraordinary depression, he wrote: "For 
 some time it seemed as if I scarcely knew whether to fight 
 or fly. My usefulness appeared to be cut off; I saw myself 
 pent up in a corner ; my body in a manner worn out ; my 
 English brethren gone, so that I had no one to consult ; and 
 every surrounding object and circumstance wore a gloomy 
 aspect." Happily, however, seasons of gloom in his experi- 
 ence were but occasional, and never of long continuance. 
 He was too busily occupied, even at this period, to dwell 
 morbidly upon his ailments and sorrows ; and was frequently 
 cheered under them by tidings of the success which attended 
 his own, or his brethren's , labours. "Upon mature reflec- 
 tion," he says, when informed of " a gracious work" near 
 him, " I do not repent my voluntary retirement; . . . the 
 prosperity of the work far exceeds my expectation." 
 
 One instance of his usefulness at this time, remarkable in 
 itself, and in its effects upon the subsequent history of 
 Methodism in America, may be given in some detail. It is 
 referred to in his Journal ; but I am indebted for the interest- 
 ing facts of the case to the same painstaking historian to 
 whom I have had repeatedly to acknowledge my obligations. 
 
 Richard Bassett, Esq., a lawyer of note and influence, 
 resident at Dover, Delaware, was travelling into Maryland
 
 104 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 on professional business, and called at the house of Judge 
 White on his way, intending to spend the night there. On 
 his arrival he unexpectedly found other guests present. 
 Passing a half-opened door of the room in which they were 
 sitting, he was surprised to see men " dressed in sable gar- 
 ments," and inquired of Mrs. White who her company were. 
 " Some of the best men in the world," was the ready reply ; 
 " they are Methodist preachers." " Then," he said, haugh- 
 tily, "I cannot stay here." By a little adroit coaxing his 
 scruples were overcome ; and he consented to remain over 
 night, as he had purposed. Supper was announced, and 
 they all sat down together at the table. Asbury, always 
 dignified, genial, and affable in society, impressed Mr. Bas- 
 sett favourably; and before leaving the next morning he 
 invited him, " more," he afterwards said, "from custom and 
 compliment, than from desire," to stay at his house when 
 next he came to Dover. Asbury did not misunderstand the 
 character of this invitation ; but he saw that he had gained 
 an influence over him, and determined to strengthen and exer- 
 cise it for his spiritual benefit. Not long after he was seen 
 in the streets of Dover inquiring his way to the lawyer's 
 house. Mrs. Bassett had been told by her husband of his 
 unexpected interview with him, how much he had been 
 charmed with his nobility of spirit and his cheerful conver- 
 sation, and that he had involuntarily invited him to become 
 their guest ; but had assured her that it was most unlikely 
 he would come. However, to their consternation, they saw 
 him wending his way towards their house. Mr. Bassett 
 received and treated his visitor courteously, and his visitor's 
 desires were happily accomplished in the conversion of both 
 husband and wife. Shortly after he first entered their house, 
 Asbury had the satisfaction of writing: "Mrs. Bassett is 
 under great distress ; she prays much." Within a few days
 
 
 ALONE AND IN CONCEALMENT. 105 
 
 or weeks she rejoiced in God her Saviour, and her husband 
 shared her consolations. " They became zealous and exem- 
 plary Methodists ; " and " for nearly twoscore years Richard 
 Bassett was Asbury's unfailing friend." 
 
 Mr. Bassett became Governor of Delaware; "he was 
 also a member of the Convention which framed the Consti- 
 tution of the United States, a senator in the first Congress, 
 and a judge of the United States Court for the circuit com- 
 prising the districts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Dela- 
 ware. He often preached, and was the chief founder of 
 Wesley Chapel in Dover. He had three residences : one in 
 Dover ; one in Wilmington ; and another at Bohemia Manor, 
 a famous locality in the early Methodist annals. All of them 
 were favourite homes of the Methodist itinerants." 
 
 Growing out of this is another important and pregnant 
 fact which I should not omit to mention. About the time 
 of Mr. Bassett's conversion, his sister-in-law, Miss Ennalls, 
 " niece of Judge Ennalls," came to his house on a visit, and 
 was brought by him to obtain life in Christ. Her home was 
 in Dorchester, in Maryland, a county which the Methodists 
 had not yet visited. Returning thither in the fervours of 
 her first love, her relations, who were strangers to spiritual 
 experience, "thought her beside herself." Soon, however, 
 she became the means of the conversion of her sister Mary ; 
 and Mary Ennalls, visiting a Mr. Airey, who resided in 
 another part of the county, led him to the attainment of like 
 precious faith. Mr. Airey an educated, wealthy, and in- 
 fluential magistrate began immediately to exert himself in 
 behalf of his ignorant and godless neighbours. He com- 
 municated with Asbury and urged him to send a preacher 
 into the county, and Asbury, in compliance with his request, 
 appointed Freeborn Garrettson. " On the 10th February, 
 1780, Mr. Garrettson rose early in the morning and called
 
 106 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 upon God, and his soul was greatly strengthened ; and, being 
 commended to God in prayer by Asbury for this mission, he 
 set out from Judge White's for Mr. Airey's. . . . For three 
 days Mr. Garrettson laboured at Mr. Airey's, and the con- 
 gregation were deeply affected. The work of salvation was 
 begun." A persecution broke out shortly afterwards, and 
 Garrettson was seized by ruffians who "lodged him in a 
 prison, and" took away the key, that his friends might not 
 minister to him. He had a dirty floor for his bed, his saddle- 
 bag for his pillow, and a cold east wind blowing upon him." 
 With difficulty his friend, Mr. Airey, obtained his release at 
 the expiration of a fortnight. But all this " turned out for 
 the furtherance of the Gospel ; " so that, " after two years' 
 labour and suffering on the part of the preachers, they 
 reported almost eight hundred Methodists in the county."* 
 
 Among the especial friends and helpers whom Asbury ac- 
 quired during this period of comparative retirement, particular 
 mention must be made of the Rev. Dr. McGaw, of Dover, a 
 clergyman of the same devout and disinterested spirit as Mr. 
 Jarratt; and also "the pious Judge Barratt." Both of them 
 afforded Asbury protection, and greatly aided the extension 
 of Methodism in Dover and the neighbourhood. Judge 
 Barratt built a chapel in the outskirts of the town, which 
 was called the "Forest Chapel." It was the first Methodist 
 chapel erected in the State of Delaware, and was opened for 
 worship by Dr. McGaw. Here, as we shall find, Asbury 
 and Dr. Coke first met. Asbury frequently refers to it by 
 the name of "Barratt's Chapel." April 26, 1809, he says, 
 "At Barratt's Chapel I preached and baptized some children. 
 I had powerful feelings of sympathy for the children and 
 grandchildren of that holy man in life and death, Philip 
 
 * Stevens's "Women of Methodism," 214218.
 
 ALONE AND IN CONCEALMENT. 107 
 
 Barratt." And again, April 14th, 1815, a few months before 
 his death, " I preached at Barratt's Chapel, in great feeble- 
 ness of body. Must I needs dine with Judge Andrew 
 Barratt ? ' Ah ! I know that my father and mother thought 
 more of him than of any man upon the earth ; and well 
 does it become their son to respect him.' And is this all ? 
 God forbid ! "
 
 108 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 PILOTING THROUGH PERILS. 
 
 Sacramental Controversy Wesley's Difficulties Condition of the Angli- 
 can Church Demands of the Methodists Conference in Delaware 
 Conference in Virginia The Schism Asbury's Anxiety respecting 
 it Prepares to deal with the Difficulty Delaware Conference of 
 1780 Virginia Conference The Debate and its Issues Final Result 
 The Pacification of the Societies Conferences of 178117821783 
 1784. 
 
 the beginning of the war, the question whether it 
 -L was not right and expedient for the preachers to 
 administer the Sacraments, and whether the Methodists were 
 not called to take an independent position as a Church, rose 
 more and more into serious dispute. The agitation which 
 originated in the assumption of pastoral functions by Straw- 
 bridge, as early as 1773, had been allayed, not because 
 either preachers or people were convinced he was in error, 
 but mainly through the influence of Asbury, and in deference 
 to the will of Mr. Wesley. They were persuaded to waive 
 for a time what they continued to believe to be their rights ; 
 and to wait, and watch the order of events. 
 
 Wonder has been expressed that Wesley so long delayed 
 to provide his American Societies with the spiritual privileges 
 they demanded. But those who condemn his " temporising " 
 or hesitancy in this matter, do not always give due consider- 
 ation to the difficulties by which he was beset. Had he been 
 less deeply and conscientiously attached than he was to 
 the Church of England; less loyal in his subjection to the
 
 PILOTING THROUGH PERILS. 109 
 
 Crown and civil government ; or less under the sway of 
 prepossessions derived from his High Church education, he 
 might have allowed himself to sympathize with his people 
 in their privations, and might have adopted some of the 
 numerous suggestions made to him by his friends to provide 
 for their requirements. But Wesley was too unambitious, 
 and too true to his oft-declared determination not to secede 
 from the Established Church, to give any serious thought to 
 schemes which would have had the effect of placing his 
 Societies in a position of isolation and independence. Nor 
 could he have failed to see how directly any measure that 
 he might adopt to supply the wants of his people in America 
 would affect the relations of the Societies to the National 
 Church at home. But we are called to recognize in the 
 delay the operation of other than human motives and princi- 
 ples. Wesley was restrained from hasty legislation on this 
 question by fidelity to his principles, and the strength of 
 his attachments and prejudices ; and his slowness to act 
 was overruled to secure the more successful carrying out of 
 his arrangements when they were at length completed. The 
 Methodist Episcopal Church was constituted at precisely 
 that stage in the progress of the great spiritual work of 
 which it was the product, which was most conducive to its 
 permanency. 
 
 The war-storm, as it swept over the Colonies, shook the 
 Anglican Church to its very foundation. Its relations to 
 them had been always anomalous and defective. In the 
 North it had never been established by law; and in the South, 
 " colonized to a considerable extent under Cavalier influence, 
 it was indeed established, but it lacked one very important 
 element of Episcopalianism, the presence of a bishop. The 
 whole jurisdiction of the thirteen colonies was vested in the 
 Bishopric of London ; but this supervision was merely
 
 11 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 nominal, and was not even persistently asserted ; the cautious 
 Gibson refused, from doubts about his authority, even to 
 appoint a commissary. Two of the Stuarts, Charles II. and 
 Anne, intended to supply the want; but the intentions of 
 both were interrupted by death, and the Episcopal clergy 
 had all to cross the Atlantic for ordination." * Indeed the 
 English Episcopacy, as planted in America, was little better 
 than an untended exotic in an uncongenial soil. The Eng- 
 lish clergy, as pledged upholders of the principle of Church 
 and State, were compelled, after the declaration of American 
 Independence, to withdraw from the country ; and, as natives 
 could not obtain Episcopal ordination, adherents to the 
 Episcopal Church, whether Methodists or non-Methodists, 
 were left to a great extent without the sacraments. " Of 
 ninety-one clergymen of Virginia, twenty-eight only remained 
 when the contest was over, who had lived through the 
 storm, and these, with eight others, who came into the State 
 soon after the struggle terminated, supplied thirty-six of the 
 ninety-five parishes. Of these twenty-eight, fifteen only 
 had been enabled to continue in the churches which they 
 supplied prior to the commencement of hostilities." t 
 
 It can be but little surprising that in these circumstances 
 the question was raised with greater determination than ever 
 Why are the Methodist people to have the sacraments any 
 longer withheld from them by their preachers and rightful 
 pastors ? At the Conference of 1777, the last which Bankin 
 attended, this question was solemnly introduced and con- 
 sidered, but left undecided. At the following Conference, 
 held in 1778, which was attended by the native preachers 
 only, Asbury being in his retreat at Judge White's, it was 
 
 * Wedgwood's " John Wesley," p. 385. 
 t Hawks, quoted by Stevens, i. 276.
 
 PILOTING THROUGH PERILS. Ill 
 
 resumed, and debated with greater earnestness than ever ; 
 but, in the absence of Asbury, it was considerately agreed to 
 let the question stand over for a year longer. The majority, 
 who were in favour of the change, were with great difficulty 
 persuaded to concur in this decision ; and it was unanimously 
 resolved that at the Conference of 1779, which was appointed 
 to be held in Fluvanna County, Virginia, the important 
 question should be finally settled. 
 
 In consequence of the continuance of the war and the 
 inability of many of the preachers to assemble at Fluvanna 
 as arranged, two Conferences were held this year, one of 
 them, for the convenience of Asbury, at Judge White's. 
 This section held its sittings a week or two in anticipation 
 of the other. Asbury 's account of it is as follows: " Our 
 Conference for the northern stations began at Thomas 
 White's. All our preachers on these stations were present, 
 and united. We had much prayer, love, and harmony ; 
 and we all agreed to walk by the same rule, and mind the 
 same thing. As we had great reason to fear that our 
 brethren to the southward were in danger of separating from 
 us, we wrote them a soft, healing epistle." Asbury was at 
 this gathering formally recognized as General Assistant, 
 and it was agreed that the power to determine questions, 
 after a free discussion, should be vested in him as President. 
 The decision on the sacramental controversy was that " by 
 all means they must guard against a separation from the 
 Church, direct or indirect." 
 
 Very different was the decision of the Fluvanna and more 
 regular Assembly. Watters, who had been President of the 
 Conference the preceding year, and was a member of Asbury 's 
 meeting at Judge White's, had been sent to attend the 
 Fluvanna Conference, as the bearer of the " healing " letter 
 referred to. But, despite his influence and the message of
 
 112 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 affectionate expostulation which he had brought from Asbury 
 and their brethren in the North, it was determined that 
 henceforth the two sacraments should be administered 
 generally " to those who are under our care and discipline ; " 
 and a committee, composed of Gatch, Foster, Cole, and Ellis, 
 these being some of the older preachers, was appointed, 
 "first, to administer the ordinances themselves; and, secondly, 
 to authorize any other preacher or preachers, approved by 
 them, by the form of laying on of hands." They accordingly 
 first ordained one another, and afterwards such of the 
 preachers present " as were desirous of receiving ordination." 
 
 Thus a serious schism had occurred ; and, but for the 
 godly tact and skill of Asbury, and the spirit of conciliation 
 eventually shown by those thoroughly sincere and devout 
 young preachers, that rent would probably have been per- 
 manent. And in that case what would have been the con- 
 dition of American Methodism by this time ? 
 
 On receiving information of these proceedings Asbury wrote 
 in sadness, *' I learn that the preachers of the Virginia Con- 
 ference have been effecting a lame separation from the Epis- 
 copal Church. I pity them. Satan has a desire to have us, 
 that he may sift us like wheat." The matter was too serious 
 to be disregarded. He at once addressed letters of remon- 
 strance to all the leaders of the movement, freely admitting the 
 purity of their motives, and the reality and strength of their 
 pleas ; but condemning the action they had taken as pre- 
 mature and unauthorized, and such as he foresaw would be 
 most damaging in its results to the cause which they had 
 all so much at heart. It was his chief source of anxiety 
 
 jaKV J 
 
 , throughout the year ; and too soon his apprehensions began 
 to be realised. November 13, 1779, he writes : " I received a 
 etter from Mr. Jarratt, who is greatly alarmed ; but it is too 
 late he should have begun his opposition before. Our
 
 PILOTING THROUGH PERILS. 113 
 
 zealous Dissenting brethren are for turning all out of Society 
 who will not submit to their administrations. I find the 
 spirit of separation grows among them, and fear that it will 
 generate malevolence and evil- speaking." " I am troubled," 
 he says again, " about our separating brethren in Virginia. 
 I tremble to think of the cloud of the Divine Presence 
 departing from us : if this should be, I hope not to see it ; 
 and, with Mr. Wesley, desire that God may rather scatter 
 the people to the ends of the earth ! " 
 
 As the time for holding the next Conference approached, 
 he naturally became growingly anxious with reference to its 
 probable character and issues. 
 
 " Friday, April 14th. A day of fasting. I was employed 
 in preparing my paper for Conference. I am under some 
 apprehensions that trouble is near. 
 
 "Saturday, 22nd. Rode to Mr. Gough's, Baltimore County. 
 My friends appeared very joyful to see me. Brother Glen- 
 denning has his objections to make, and pleaded some in 
 favour of the Virginian brethren. I had cause to talk 
 more than I desired ... I am kept in peace through grace, 
 and am casting my care upon the Lord. Spent some time 
 in private, and prepared some conditions for a partial recon- 
 ciliation, in hopes to bring on a real one, in Virginia. I 
 prayed with my heart full." 
 
 It had ben arranged by the Delaware Conference that its 
 sittings for the year 1780 should be held at Baltimore in 
 April; the Virginia Conference had decided to re-assemble 
 at Manakintown in May. Asbury determined to attend them 
 both. Respecting the earlier one he says, " Our Conference 
 met in peace and love. We settled all our northern station's : 
 then we began in much debate about the letter sent from 
 Virginia. We first concluded to renounce them. Then I 
 offered conditions of union : (1) that they should ordain 
 
 8
 
 114 BISHOP ASBUBY. 
 
 no more ; (2) that they should come no farther than 
 Hanover Circuit ; (3) we would have our delegates in their 
 Conference ; (4) that they should not presume to adminis- 
 ter the ordinances where there is a decent Episcopal minister ; 
 (5) to have a Union Conference. This would not satisfy 
 them as we found upon long debate, and we came back to our 
 determination ; although it was like death to think of parting. 
 At last a thought struck my mind to propose a suspension 
 of the ordinances for one year, and so cancel all our griev- 
 ances, and be at one. It was agreed on both sides ; and 
 Philip Gatch and Eeuben Ellis, who had been very stiff, 
 acceded to it, and thought it would do." 
 
 Two days afterwards he writes cheerily, "Myself and 
 Brother Garrettson are going to the Virginia Conference to 
 bring about peace and union." Blessed and noble mission ! 
 By what means was its end to be attained ? Let those who 
 believe themselves similarly called to promote unity of 
 spirit and action among brethren, ponder this simple 
 record : 
 
 " May 4th. Prepared some papers for Virginia Conference. 
 I go with a heavy heart ; and fear the violence of a party of 
 positive men : Lord give me wisdom. 6th. We found the 
 plague was begun. 1th. I expect trouble, but grace is 
 almighty ; hitherto hath the Lord helped me. 8th. We rode 
 to Granger's, fifteen miles. Stopped and fed^our horses. 
 These people are full of the ordinances ; we talked and 
 prayed with them. Went to friend Smith's, where all the 
 preachers were met. I conducted myself with cheerful 
 freedom, but found there was a separation in heart and 
 practice. I spoke with my countryman, John Dickins, 
 and found him opposed to our continuance in union with 
 the Episcopal Church. Brothers Waiters and Garrettson 
 pleaded with their men, but found them inflexible.
 
 PILOTING THROUGH PERILS. 115 
 
 ," Tuesday, May 9th. The Conference was called. Bro- 
 thers Waiters and Garrettson and myself stood back, and 
 being afterwards joined by Brother Dromgoole, we were 
 desired to come in, and I was permitted to speak. I read 
 Mr. Wesley's thoughts against a separation ; showed my 
 private letters of instruction from Mr. Wesley ; set before 
 them the sentiments of the Delaware and Baltimore Con- 
 ferences ; read our epistles ; and read my letter to Brother 
 Gatch, and Dickins's letter in answer. After some time 
 spent this way it was proposed to me that, if I could get 
 the circuits supplied, they would desist ; but that I could 
 not do. We went to preaching : I spoke on Euth ii. 4, and 
 spoke as though nothing had been the matter. In the after- 
 noon we met. The preachers appeared to me to be farther 
 off; there had been, I thought, some talking out of doors. 
 When we, Asbury, Garrettson, Watters, and Dromgoole, 
 could not come to a conclusion with them we withdrew, and 
 left them to deliberate on the condition I offered which was 
 to suspend the measures they had taken for one year. After 
 an hour's conference we were called to receive their answer, 
 which was that they could not submit to the terms of union. 
 I then prepared to leave the house to go to a near neigh- 
 bour's to lodge, under the heaviest cloud I ever felt in 
 America. Oh, what I felt ! nor I alone, but the agents on 
 both sides ! They wept like children, but kept their opinions. 
 
 " Wednesday, Wth. I returned to take leave of the Confer- 
 ence, and to go off immediately to the North ; but found 
 they had been brought to an agreement, while I was praying, 
 as with a broken heart, in the house we went to lodge at ; 
 and Brothers Watters and Garrettson had been praying up- 
 stairs, where the Conference sat. We heard what they had 
 to say. Surely the hand of God has been seen in all this ! 
 There might have been twenty promising preachers and
 
 116 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 three thousand people seriously affected by this separation ; 
 but the Lord would not suffer this. We then had a Love- 
 feast. Preachers and people wept, prayed, and talked." 
 
 Thus the dreaded separation, with what would have been 
 its necessarily disastrous consequences at that early period 
 of Methodist history, was happily averted. The concession 
 speaks favourably for the whole Conference. It shows that 
 in that assembly of earnest Christian workers, the prosperity 
 of the cause of God asserted its supremacy over every 
 other consideration. No longer disunited, they now re- 
 joiced together as men rejoice when they divide the spoil ; 
 and henceforth, as one closely-embodied host, devoted 
 themselves to their warfare against the powers of evil, 
 with redoubled zeal. 
 
 But Asbury's work was not yet complete. It was much 
 to have brought about so perfect an amnesty within the 
 Conference ; but the disunited Societies had yet to be 
 conciliated, and he felt it to be his duty to visit the most 
 distracted of them, and strive to pacify them by his per- 
 sonal influence. The very next day after- his exhausting 
 efforts at the Conference he rode to Petersburg, a distance 
 of thirty-five miles, and preached the same evening, though 
 so unwell that he found it difficult to speak. The next 
 day he wrote an account of the whole transaction, in a 
 letter to Mr. Wesley ; then set out afresh on his mission of 
 pacification. He says, "There seems to be some call for 
 me in every part of the work. I have travelled at this time 
 from North to South, to keep peace and union ; and oh ! if 
 a rent and separation had taken place, what work, what 
 hurt, to thousands of souls ! " In some weeks subse- 
 quently his records are interspersed with similar reflec- 
 tions. In one place he says, " I find some left the Society 
 here at the time of the division. It is a sorrowful day
 
 PILOTING THROUGH PERILS. 117 
 
 with me; " and, on the other side, immediately afterwards, 
 " Went to White Oak ; and spoke on Titus ii. 2 5 ; then 
 met the Society. Mr. Jarratt wept, and all the people, 
 at the joy of union." 
 
 The Conference of 1781, preceded by a preparatory 
 gathering under Asbury in Delaware, was held at Balti- 
 more, and begun on the 24th April. It reported an in- 
 crease during this year of restored internal harmony of 
 2,035 members, the entire number being 10,529. The 
 number of travelling-preachers was fifty-five. Forty of 
 them were present, and thirty-nine subscribed a declaration 
 of their purpose, " to preach the old Methodist doctrine, 
 and strictly to enforce the discipline as contained in the 
 Notes, Sermons, and Minutes published by Wesley " ; also 
 " to discountenance a separation among either preachers or 
 people." Asbury's record is : "All but one agreed to return 
 to the old plan, and give up the administration of the 
 ordinances. Our troubles now seem over from that 
 quarter, and there appears to be a considerable change in 
 the preachers from North to South. All was conducted in 
 peace and love." He adds, "I am relieved in mind, and my 
 soul is kept in peace, whilst I feel power to trust the Lord 
 with all." 
 
 The Conference of 1 1782 was begun at Ellis's Preaching- 
 house, Sussex County, Virginia, on the 17th April, and 
 continued, by adjournment, at Baltimore on the 21st May. 
 At this Conference Wesley's appointment of Asbury as 
 General Assistant was unanimonously re-affirmed. The 
 increase of members during the year was reported to be 
 1,246. The Virginia Session was attended by the Rev. 
 Mr. Jarratt, who assisted at many of the public services, 
 and administered to the preachers the Lord's Supper. 
 Asbury says, " As there had been much distress felt by
 
 118 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 those of Virginia relative to the administration of the 
 ordinances, I proposed to such as were so disposed to 
 enter into a written agreement to cleave to the old plan in 
 which we had been so greatly blessed, that we might have 
 the greater confidence in each other, and know on whom to 
 depend. This instrument was signed by the greater part 
 of the preachers, without hesitation. Next morning I 
 preached on Phil. ii. 1 5. I had liberty, and it pleased 
 God to send it home. One of the preachers, James Haw, 
 who had his difficulties, was delivered from them all; and, 
 with the exception of one, all the signatures of the preachers 
 present were obtained." On the review of this session he 
 writes, " I am persuaded the separation of some from our 
 original plan about the ordinances will, upon the whole, 
 have a tendency to unite the body together ; I feel abun- 
 dant cause to praise God for what He has done." Respect- 
 ing the Baltimore Session he says, " We had a full meeting. 
 The preachers all signed the agreement proposed at the 
 Virginia Conference, and there was a unanimous resolve to 
 adhere to the old Methodist plan." 
 
 In 1783 the Conference was again held, for the accommo- 
 dation of the widely-scattered preachers, first, at Ellis's 
 Preaching-house, and afterwards at Baltimore. It reported 
 in increase of 1,955 members. Asbury's account of it is 
 especially satisfactory for its brevity. He says of the 
 Virginia Session, " Some young labourers were taken in to 
 assist in spreading the Gospel, which greatly prospers in the 
 North. We all agreed in the spirit of African liberty ; and 
 strong testimonies were borne in its favour in our Lovefeast. 
 Our affairs were conducted in love." Respecting that held 
 at Baltimore, he merely notes that there was a full attend- 
 ance, and that " we had a Lovefeast and parted in peace." 
 
 The year most memorable for its Conferences was 1784.
 
 PILOTING THEOUGH PERILS. 119 
 
 In the spring two sessions were held according to precedent. 
 An increase of 1,248 members was reported, making a total 
 of 14,988 ; and the number of preachers was eighty-four. 
 The Conference held at the close of the year was exceptional 
 and extraordinary. It must be considered separately.
 
 120 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 ESCAPED, AND ON THE WING. 
 
 Resumes Evangelistic Labour Settlement of Families Inland They are 
 followed by the Methodist Preachers Visited by Asbury General 
 Character of his Travels and Toils Outline Sketches from his Journals 
 Old and New Clothes Death of a Companion Tampering with his 
 Horse The Eastern Slopes of the Mountains Sleeps among the 
 Rocks Arrival of Dr. Coke. 
 
 IN the preceding chapter we have passed rapidly from 
 Conference to Conference, with reference to the demands 
 of a section of the people to be provided with the sacra- 
 ments and constituted a complete church. We shall soon 
 have before us the admirable scheme which Mr. Wesley 
 devised for satisfying these demands, and for carrying for- 
 ward efficiently the whole business of church extension and 
 conservation. Here, however, we pause awhile to glance at 
 the evangelistic labours which Asbury had resumed, and 
 which, during this interval, he was prosecuting with unfalter- 
 ing energy of will in scenes and circumstances of extra- 
 ordinary difficulty. 
 
 The outbreak of hostilities with England had naturally 
 tended to swell the tide of emigration to the West. Families, 
 singly or in groups, travelled in close succession, inland, and 
 settled in wildernesses, forests, valleys, and the recesses of 
 the Appalachian mountains. The state of destitution of 
 religious advantages in which many of these adventurers 
 had to live weighed heavily on the minds and hearts of the 
 Methodist preachers generally, and some of them cheerfully
 
 ESCAPED, AND ON THE WING. 121 
 
 offered to brave the hardships and perils of labouring among 
 them in the Gospel. It was impossible that Asbury should be 
 indifferent towards them. He saw in a moment, especially 
 when told that some of the emigrants were local-preachers 
 and class-leaders that however difficult a task it might be to 
 bring the extensive tracts over which they were scattered 
 within circuit arrangements, this was not impracticable ; 
 and that it was his duty to undertake it. This, therefore, 
 after his release from confinement in Delaware, he made his 
 immediate object. Equipped for his protection against 
 military interference with a certificate of citizenship, and a 
 note of recommendation from the friendly Governor of the 
 State, he gave himself up to this most trying work with a 
 sustained ardour of devotion which never has been, or can 
 be, surpassed. 
 
 His first year of restored liberty (1780-1) was divided 
 between Virginia and North Carolina ; and his efforts were 
 directed to the accomplishment of two principal results the 
 extension of the work ; and, as we have seen, the pacifica- 
 tion and re-establishment of the disturbed Societies. Lay- 
 ing it down at starting, as a never-to-be-forgotten principle, 
 that he " ought always to be employed," and resolutely 
 resuming the practice of "twelve times of prayer" daily, 
 he is away for congregations, large or small, brought 
 together in cabins, barns, or woods, over rough roads and 
 bridgeless rivers, through swamps and pathless forests, 
 riding ten, twenty, thirty miles at a stage. He is " much 
 tried on the way, and his horse is lame," but he " lifts up 
 his heart to God," and is refreshed and comforted ; he rides 
 " through a steep dangerous place into the river, but, 
 though it was frightful, comes safe over." He is taken ill, 
 and is so distracted with intolerable pain that he " cannot 
 read, write, think, pray, or speak much ; " but he reminds
 
 122 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 himself that it is "for souls he labours and suffers," and 
 renews his strength. He preaches to an attentive audience 
 of three hundred people, who, grateful for his services, offer 
 him a small remuneration ; but he declines to take it, lest 
 his doing so should impair his usefulness. 
 
 His "soul breathing after the Lord at all times," he 
 unfalteringly passes through toils, hardships, and sufferings, 
 of which the following continuous but curtailed statements 
 in his Journal afford a sample : 
 
 " Sun. Bode six miles to the Tabernacle : about 400 
 people, rich and poor, attended. I spoke near two hours to 
 little purpose ; held a Lovefeast, then rode eight miles. 
 Mon. Rose early ; my legs so inflamed I cannot tell what 
 to do. But we must bear all things. Preached at Turner's. 
 Had liberty in the Word : the hearers were stirred up. 
 Tues. Preached at Price's. Many came to hear. Bode to 
 Haw-tree. Had great freedom, and held a Lovefeast. Was 
 much refreshed : rode through the woods a blind path, 
 to a friend's. Wed. Bode to Todd's, six miles. About 
 seventy people, but very insensible. Laboured in public, 
 and hope some will take it home. Thurs. Bode to 
 widow Pegram's ; had about sixty people. Then rode to 
 Capt. Burrows's. The people in many places are but chil- 
 dren in understanding. Preached at Burrows's : about sixty 
 people. Came off to the widow Ellis's, and found the Lord 
 was there. Fri. Bose with a deep sense of God. Met 
 with Henry Jones, a serious young man, and believe he is 
 called to the work of the ministry. I advised him to go 
 with me. Sat. My soul pants after God more and more. 
 Preached had liberty, and spoke as searchingly as I could 
 to saints and sinners. 
 
 " Sun. Bode to Lindsey's, a rough road ; had about seventy 
 people. Mon. Set out for Tar Biver, After riding about
 
 ESCAPED, AND ON THE WING. 123 
 
 five miles I was told that I could not cross Bear Swamp ; 
 but, by the guidance of a Baptist friend, came through that 
 and two very deep creeks. Kode three miles further and 
 was stopped by what was called Ben's Creek. The bridge 
 was gone, and a man said it was ten feet deep. Then made 
 for Falcom's bridge ; but the low ground was covered, and 
 no bridge to be seen. Lodged at Mr. Falcom's ; was known, 
 and kindly entertained. I laboured to make Mrs. Falconi 
 sensible of her danger, and hope not in vain. Prayed even- 
 ing and morning in the family. Tues. Rode by Miller's 
 Cross-toads a rough way, but got safe along. Stopped at 
 Sandy Creek, where I found a kind old man with whom I 
 lodged. Wed. Set out to Green Hills ; but with difficulty 
 I got along. On account of the waters, I have ridden about 
 thirty miles out of my way. Thurs. Rode twenty-six miles. 
 My horse suffered greatly. About seventy people. Fri. 
 A day of fasting. I was weak, and lodging on the floor was 
 uncomfortable. Sat. Rode to Cypress Chapel; about 100 
 people. Spoke at Ross's. 
 
 " Sun. Preached at Green Hills to about 400 souls : 
 dead Gospel- slighters. Mon. Made my journey to Jones's. 
 About sixty people ; God was with us. Tues. Had a heavy 
 night; slept in pain. Rose at four o'clock; set off at six. 
 After riding five or six hours, spoke to about 100 people. 
 Wed. Rode to Cooper's. Had about 120 people. Rode to 
 a friend's, and had great difficulty on the way, but am kept 
 from murmuring. While labouring for other souls my own 
 is blessed. Thurs. Rode to the chapel. Laboured hard 
 to preach. Fri. God was with me. I was much comforted 
 in the preaching-house this morning. I suffered much for 
 want of a place of retirement. I cannot go into the woods : 
 there are so many ticks, chiegoes, and such insects at this 
 season upon the ground. Retired into the chapel ; it has
 
 124 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 been a Bethel to me. Sat. After spending some time in 
 the chapel alone, I set out to Paschal's, about six o'clock ; 
 came in before twelve, and spoke very close and plain to 
 about thirty people. Eode on to B. Hartfield's, about twenty 
 miles, much fatigued with the badness of the road. 
 
 " Sun. I rose unwell, and somewhat dejected. Spoke 
 on 2 Thess. i. 6 9. Mon. I set out about five o'clock, 
 and rode about twenty miles alone. There were many peo- 
 ple. Tues. Rode sixteen miles crossed Neuse River. I 
 spoke from Rom. viii. 24 26. After dinner I was alone in 
 the woods for an hour ; had sweet meltings. Wed. Rode 
 to A. Hill's, and had great liberty in speaking from Heb. iv. 
 10, &c. Thurs. Rode twelve miles : hilly, rocky roads. 
 About eighty people. While I was speaking General Hugine 
 came in, and heard part of the sermon. He is a polite, well- 
 behaved, conversable gentleman. We dined together. After 
 dinner I set out on my journey. We came to a desperate 
 creek where the bridge was carried away by the freshet. 
 We had to go through among rocks, holes, and logs. I was 
 affrighted. Sat. We set out for Crump's over rocks, hills, 
 creeks, and pathless woods and lowlands. With great diffi- 
 culty we came in about two o'clock, the people looking 
 almost as wild as the deer in the woods. I preached on 
 Titus ii. 1012. 
 
 " Sun. We passed Haw River wide, but shallow ; bad 
 going down and coming up. Then we had to travel the 
 pathless woods and rocks again. After much trouble, fear, 
 and dejection, we came to Taylor's, where I spoke on 2 Pet. 
 i. 5 12. I have travelled thirty miles ; and could not avoid 
 travelling on Sunday, for I had not where to stay. Rode to 
 Brother Beck's, and was much fatigued. Mon. Rose with 
 a sense of God's presence. Have only time to pray. Always 
 upon the wing, as the rides are so long and bad roads. In
 
 ESCAPED, AND ON THE WING. 125 
 
 general I walk my horse. I crossed Rocky River rocky, 
 sure enough. I can see little else but cabins in these parts, 
 built with poles. I crossed Deep River in a flat-boat, and 
 the poor ferryman-sinner swore because I had not a silver 
 shilling to give him. Rode near six miles to get three, as 
 we were lost. When we came to the place there were about 
 sixty people. I spoke on 1 Pet. v. 9 12. Was glad to get 
 away, for some were drunk and had their guns. Tues. 
 Forded Deep River, and rode to a settlement of people from 
 Pennsylvania. Preached to about twenty people. Was very 
 unwell. Then rode sixteen miles to B. Kennon's. It was 
 rainy, and we rode two miles in the dark through the woods. 
 Wed. I preached to about 100 people. Thurs. I acknow- 
 ledge the goodness of God in preserving my health, life, and 
 horse from these people. They are very vile ; rob, steal, 
 and murder one another with impunity. Rode twelve miles 
 to West's ; about 100 people. My trials are great. Riding 
 twenty miles a day, or more ; rocky roads, poor entertain- 
 ment, uncomfortable lodgings ; little rest night or day. 
 Fri. Rode twelve miles to the chapel and preached to 
 100 people, on 1 Pet. iv. 18. Exceedingly rough road, 
 through woods, over rocks, through creeks, &c. Rode 
 seven miles to Mr. Trice's ; was kindly entertained. Had 
 the pleasure of seeing and conversing with Brother Bailey, 
 from Ireland, a good and sensible man. I slept well, and 
 am better. Sat. Rode to Roades's, and preached to about 
 200 people. Brother Bailey spoke." 
 
 Here is a section of the panoramic picture of the evangel- 
 ist's work, rapidly pencilled by his own hand. Bailey, he 
 found, had capabilities of great usefulness, and in the next 
 day's record we are told that he agreed to go with him as 
 his companion and helper. They travelled together for five 
 weeks during which his experiences were similar to those
 
 126 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 just recited, and he then re-entered Virginia, his clothes in 
 a state which " approached raggedness," and his bodily 
 frame enfeebled by intermittent fever. For about -a week 
 he tarried among his old friends, while they fitted him out 
 with a new suit made of " Virginia cloth; " preaching, as 
 " this tertian " allowed him, in barns, in private houses, 
 and once in a chapel " unfinished and- one part lying open 
 to the sun," a company of gay young fellows within sight 
 diverting themselves the while under the trees. He met 
 the Societies, which he rejoiced to find in " peace " and 
 " united in love." He refreshed himself by repeated inter- 
 views with Mr. Jarratt ; and then, in company with Bailey, 
 started on another tour. But poor Bailey was soon taken 
 ill, and within a few days removed from him by death. " I 
 have lost poor Bailey," he exclaims in pensive astonishment 
 "so suddenly called away!" "I have great cause to 
 weep," he adds ; " but the Lord hath ordered it. It may 
 be that I suffer more than those who weep away distress." 
 
 No pause. Daily services ; long and toilsome rides ; poor 
 accommodation, and indifferent fare ; frequent returns of 
 illness ; " pain, pain, pain ! " a few instances of contemp- 
 tible persecution, as when some " sons of Belial " practised 
 upon his horse and caused him to run away with him, 
 though, " by the mercy of the Lord, he stopped near a point 
 of woods, which, had he entered, I might probably have lost 
 my life : " amidst all this, " peace " a "sweet sense of the 
 nearness of God," and comfort derived from a confidence, 
 wonderfully justified by the event, that he would hereafter 
 find fruit of all his labours : so month after month passed 
 away. 
 
 Immediately after the Conference of 1781 he carried out 
 his purpose of visiting " the outcasts of the people " in " the 
 distant wilds " of the Alleghanies, thankful for " health and
 
 ESCAPED, AND ON THE WING. 127 
 
 peace." William Partridge, who had been a year in the 
 work, accompanied him. He says, " We found some diffi- 
 culty in crossing Great Capon River. Three men very 
 kindly carried us over in a canoe, and afterwards rode our 
 horses over the stream, without fee or reward. I laid me 
 down to rest on a chest, and, using my clothes for covering, 
 slept pretty well. . . . We had to hear away among the 
 mountains. In some places the breaks in the slate served 
 for steps : in other parts of the ascent there were none. We 
 at length reached the place appointed, and preached to about 
 twenty, as I think, prayerless people. ... I came to a 
 Dutch settlement. Could we get a Dutch preacher or two 
 I am persuaded we should have a good work. ... I was 
 led to wonder at myself when I considered the fatigue I 
 went through travelling in the rain ; sleeping without 
 beds, too. . . . Brother Partridge and myself kept on until 
 night overtook us in the mountains among rocks and woods, 
 and dangers on all sides surrounding us. We concluded it 
 most safe to secure our horses, and quietly await the return 
 of day. So vre lay down and slept among the rocks, al- 
 though much annoyed by the gnats. ... I have been 
 obliged to sleep on the floor every night since I slept in 
 the mountains. Yesterday I rode twenty-seven miles, and 
 to-day thirty. I adore the goodness of God that I am kept 
 in health." 
 
 Thus he journeyed on to Leesburg and thus he con- 
 tinued to travel and toil and suffer in Maryland, Pennsylvania, 
 Virginia, and North Carolina ; again on the slope of the 
 western mountains, worshipping " by the side of the stream 
 for want of a house,'' comforted with the attention shown by 
 " nearly 200 people in this newly-settled country " but 
 " much fatigued," and his " poor horse so weak from the want 
 of proper food that he fell twice ; " until, after similar records
 
 128 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 continued uninterruptedly for three years, we find it a relief 
 to read : 
 
 " Sunday, Nov. 14, 1784 : I came to Barratt's Chapel. 
 Here, to my great joy, I met those dear men of God, Dr. 
 Coke and Richard Whatcoat. We were comforted together."
 
 129 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE NEW CHUECH DEVISED AND PBOJECTED. 
 
 Wesley and theBishop of London Wesley's perplexity His Resolution 
 Proposal to Dr. Coke The Plan Approved by the Conference The 
 Ordination of Coke, Whatcoat, and Vasey Other and consequent 
 Ordinations Results. 
 
 E United States having achieved their independence, 
 -L and the supremacy of the Anglican Church within 
 any of them being abolished, Wesley felt that he could no 
 longer withstand the importunity of his American Societies 
 to provide them with church and pastoral privileges. But, 
 true to his ecclesiastical leanings, his first thoughts were to 
 procure those privileges for them from Episcopal hands. 
 Four years before his own decisive action he applied to the 
 Bishop of London, "to ordain a pious man who might 
 officiate as their minister." But his lordship refused to 
 recognize piety as a qualification for the office, and preferred 
 to send " other persons, who knew something of Greek end 
 Latin, but who knew no more of saving souls than of 
 catching whales." Wesley was distressed, yet utterly at a 
 loss how to act. He was impelled by an ever-deepening 
 sense of duty to do something, but feared to stir. " I mourn 
 for poor America," he exclaimed; "for the sheep scattered 
 up and down therein. Part of them have no shepherds at 
 all, particularly in the southern colonies ; and the case of the 
 rest is little better, for their own shepherds pity them not. 
 They cannot, for they have no pity upon themselves." 
 He felt that the most suitable men to administer the 
 
 9
 
 130 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 sacraments to the Methodist people were the preachers who 
 had won their allegiance to Christ. But might he declare 
 them at liberty to exercise this function ? " Not until they 
 were regularly ordained," was his prompt and natural reply. 
 On this point his views were perfectly identical with those 
 expressed by his brother Charles : " Let a man be proved first, 
 and then let him exercise the office of a deacon, which was 
 to baptize ; of a presbyter, which was to administer the 
 other sacrament. Ye have been proved. Ye are therefore Jit 
 persons to receive commission to seal the covenants. But ye 
 have not a right to do this without any ordination at all, Epis- 
 copal or Presbyterian. No church in Christendom allows its 
 members to take upon them this office merely upon their own 
 judgment. What confusion would follow if they might ! "* 
 How, then, was this official authority to be obtained ? 
 Wesley pondered the problem continually and with earnest 
 prayer. He conferred with the best informed and most ex- 
 perienced of his preachers ; he took counsel of Fletcher ; 
 and at length his hopes of a solution of the difficulty centred 
 in Dr. Coke, a clergyman who for eight years had been 
 more intimately associated with him in labour than Fletcher 
 himself. Slowly, but with growing confidence, he came to 
 the resolution which he felt to be the gravest of his whole 
 career, not simply to provide the American Societies with 
 what they requested, the regular administration of the 
 sacraments, but to form them, through Dr. Coke, into an 
 independent church, with Coke and Asbury for its chief 
 ministers. And, as most suitable to the exigencies of the 
 vast country over which his people were scattered ; as most 
 agreeable with the existing relations of the several Societies 
 to each other, under a common government ; as most con- 
 
 * See Methodist Magazine, 1867, p. 622.
 
 THE NEW CHURCH DEVISED AND PROJECTED. 131 
 
 ducive to the purposes of indefinite aggression ; and as most 
 in harmony with the convictions and preferences of his 
 education, he determined that the new organization should 
 be Episcopal in form, while differing from every other form 
 of Episcopacy, except that of the primitive Church, by ignor- 
 ing a distinction of order between bishops and presbyters. 
 
 The first to whom he explained this great conception was 
 Dr. Coke himself. Taking him into his study in the newly- 
 built house in the City Road, he reminded him that the English 
 Church had ceased to exist in the States of America, except 
 as a voluntary and imperfectly regulated institution, and 
 that, in consequence, the Methodists there were destitute of 
 the holy sacraments. He told him that he had been re- 
 quested by Mr. Asbury, in the name of the devout and patient 
 people under his superintendence, to make provision for 
 these necessary rites being regularly administered to them ; 
 and that, having long and prayerfully weighed the subject 
 in his mind, he had resolved to adopt a plan which he 
 would submit to his consideration. He said he had been 
 for many years convinced that a distinction of orders in the 
 Christian ministry was not of Divine authority ; that he 
 especially admired the mode of setting apart a presbyter to 
 be a bishop, which the church of Alexandria had practised 
 for about two hundred years, the bishop or superintendent 
 being ordained to this office (that office not being a distinct 
 order) by his brother presbyters ; and that, being himself a 
 presbyter, he desired Dr. Coke to accept ordination to this 
 office at his hands, and to go out to America, ordain the 
 American preachers, and, in conjunction with Asbury, take 
 the oversight of the entire American Societies.* 
 
 * Etheridge (in substance), on the authority of Mr. Drew, who, he 
 believes, obtained the account from Dr. Coke himself. (" Life of Coke," 
 p. 100.
 
 132 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 Coke was taken by surprise and shrunk from the project ; 
 but promised to consider it, as Mr. Wesley had desired. He 
 forthwith gave himself up to the study of the Scriptures and 
 of the Fathers with reference to it ; and, at the expiration of 
 two months, wrote to Mr. Wesley, apparently in reply to 
 some inquiry or appeal from him, to suggest that, before 
 anything was finally decided, some competent person should 
 be sent to America to gather and bring home further infor- 
 mation respecting the condition and wants of the Societies. 
 Mr. Wesley, however, thought that the time was come to take 
 immediate steps rather than any further preliminary action, 
 and the doctor thereupon placed himself unreservedly at his 
 service. 
 
 In July they met again at Leeds, where the Conference 
 was to be held, and resumed the discussion of the proposal 
 in person. Then, as was usual in matters of great import- 
 ance, the plan was laid before Mr. Wesley's Select Com- 
 mittee of Consultation, where he was once more confronted 
 with expressions of surprise and objection. " To a man," 
 says the Rev. Luke Tyerman, on the authority of Mr. Paw- 
 son, who was one of them, "they opposed it," so contrary 
 was it to their habits of thought, and so truly did they 
 breathe the spirit of their leader ! Ultimately, however, they 
 unanimously concurred in the measure, as did also the Con- 
 ference, and an affirmative resolution was solemnly agreed 
 to Mr. Fletcher, who was present, giving it his hearty 
 approval. 
 
 With Dr. Coke two other preachers were appointed as his 
 companions and assistants, namely, Thomas Vasey, a man of 
 great strength of character, who had been in the Methodist 
 itinerancy about nine years ; and Richard Whatcoat, the 
 humble, holy, and self-devoted man, whom Asbury had 
 known as a fellow class -leader at Wednesbury, so many
 
 THE NEW CHURCH DEVISED AND PROJECTED. 133 
 
 years previously. Mr. Wesley arranged to meet them all at 
 Bristol, on the eve of their embarkation, and there to set 
 them apart for the high functions they were called to exer- 
 cise. In the interim Dr. Coke submitted to Mr. Wesley his 
 views of the manner in which this should be done, being 
 in effect probably what they had already considered together. 
 He said : 
 
 " The more maturely I consider the subject, the more expedient it 
 seems to me that the power of ordaining others should be received by 
 me from you, by the imposition of your hands ; and that you should 
 lay hands on Brother Whatcoat and Brother Vasey, for the following 
 reasons : (1) It seems to me the most scriptural way, and most agree- 
 able to the practice of the primitive churches ; (2) I may want all the 
 influence in America which you can throw into my scale ; . . . (3) In 
 respect of my Brethren Whatcoat and Vasey, it is very uncertain indeed 
 whether any of the clergy mentioned by Brother Rankin will stir with 
 me in the work, except Mr. Jarratt, and it is by no means certain he 
 will choose to join me in ordaining ; and propriety and universal 
 practice make it expedient that I should have two presbyters with me 
 in this work. In short, it appears to me that everything should be 
 prepared, and everything proper be done, that can possibly be done this 
 side the water. You can do all this ; and afterwards, according to Mr. 
 Fletcher's advice, give us letters of testimonial of the different offices with 
 which you have been pleased to invest us. For the purpose of laying 
 hands on Brothers Whatcoat and Vasey, I can bring Mr. Creighton 
 down with me, by which you will have two presbyters with you." * 
 
 All this Mr. Wesley approved and carried into effect. On 
 the last day of August they met in Bristol, and on the 
 1st September, in that still-called "New Room" where 
 Asbury had made the offejr of his service for America, and 
 which had been tho scene of so many memorable events in 
 Methodist history, Mr. Wesley took the step which, he 
 says, " I had long weighed in my mind, and appointed Mr. 
 Whatcoat and Mr. Vasey to go and serve the desolate sheep 
 
 Etheridge's "Life of Coke," pp. 102, 103.
 
 134 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 in America." Without any blowing of trumpets, quietly, 
 privately, and before it was yet day, assisted by Dr. Coke 
 and the Rev. James Creighton, he set them apart to the 
 office of deacon ; and the next day, assisted by the same 
 presbyters, he further ordained them to the office and 
 ministry of the Word and sacraments, as elders or presbyters. 
 He then, on the same occasion, "being assisted by other 
 ordained ministers," set apart Dr. Coke as a superintendent, 
 " by the imposition of my hands and prayer." 
 
 Never previously had Wesley innovated so seriously on 
 church order, and no act in his whole history was equally mo- 
 mentous in its inevitable results. It was naturally succeeded, 
 the next year, by the ordination, in the same solemn and im- 
 pressive manner, of three preachers for Scotland ; the following 
 year (again in the " New Room ") by the ordination of five for 
 Scotland and the West Indies ; and eventually the principle 
 now being fully conceded, by the ordination of at least 
 three, Alexander Mather, Thomas Rankin, and Henry 
 Moore for England. As necessarily, Methodism drifted, 
 after the death of its founder, by a slow and faltering but 
 natural process, into its present definite position as an inde- 
 pendent church. Others discerned the logical issues of the 
 act at the time, as Wesley did not. They saw and declared 
 that "ordination was separation." His brother Charles 
 could scarcely believe, he said, that, in his eighty-second 
 year, his "old, intimate friend and companion should have 
 assumed the episcopal character, ordained elders, conse- 
 crated a bishop, and sent him to ordain our lay-preachers in 
 America." But how different from these plaintive regrets, 
 and from the bitter reproaches of less friendly critics, is 
 the voice of history ! 
 
 No man, in our time, who closely studies "the whole 
 transaction, with true conceptions of Wesley's character, will
 
 THE NEW CHURCH DEVISED AND PROJECTED. 135 
 
 be able to avoid the conclusion respecting it to which Miss 
 Wedgewood was brought with reference to the earlier inno- 
 vation of field-preaching, that " he was led to it by a Wis- 
 dom that was not his own." He was dragged into the 
 fields " reluctantly, as he was afterwards, with equal 
 reluctance, led to sanction lay-preaching, by the urgency 
 of his mother." Yet it was this " which gave the whole 
 movement that aggressive character which fitted it to cope 
 with the evils of that turbulent evil age in which it arose, 
 and it was exactly this which gave the clergy of the day 
 the most offence." In the same manner he was driven by 
 the force of events, and by the urgent appeals of those 
 whose judgments he respected, to devise a measure for the 
 relief and profit of his people in America, in contravention 
 of his most cherished prepossessions, which has produced 
 results such as he had not powers to foresee. In both cases 
 we are compelled to recognize the inscrutable agency of the 
 Supreme Will ; both alike came " forth from the LORD of 
 Hosts, who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in working !"
 
 136 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE NEW CHURCH ORGANIZED. 
 
 Coke in America Meeting in Barrett's Chapel Coke's Estimate of 
 Asbury The Scheme explained Asbury's Resolution respecting it 
 Seeks Divine Guidance At Perry Hall Conference opens at Balti- 
 more Characters of some of its Members Message of Wesley 
 Resolutions of the Conference Ordination of Asbury Ordination of 
 Elders Importance of the New Arrangements Signs of Divine 
 "'Approval. 
 
 elect three, duly equipped, set apart, and dismissed 
 J- for their great embassy, set sail from Bristol on the 
 18th September, 1784, and landed at New York on Wed- 
 nesday the 3rd November. John Dickins, the preacher 
 in charge at that city, welcomed them on their arrival, and 
 heard Dr. Coke's account of the purpose of their mission 
 with unbounded satisfaction. The doctor preached three 
 times at New York ; then proceeded with his companions to 
 Philadelphia, where he arrived on Saturday the 6th. The 
 next day he preached in the morning at St. Paul's Church, 
 on the invitation of the vicar, Dr. McGaw, the minister pre- 
 viously mentioned as one of Asbury's influential friends in 
 Delaware ; and in the evening in the Methodist Chapel. By 
 the succeeding Saturday, the 13th, he and Whatcoat had 
 reached the house of Senator Bassett, at Dover, now one of 
 the most generous supporters of Methodism, and at that 
 very time engaged in the erection of a chapel in the city. 
 The next morning at six Mr. Whatcoat preached in the 
 Court-house, and at ten o'clock Dr. Coke preached in Bar-
 
 THE NEW CHURCH ORGANIZED. 137 
 
 rett's Chapel, so-called, says Coke, "from the name of our 
 friend who built it, and who went to Heaven a few days ago." 
 Here he and Asbury first met. The doctor was just ending 
 his discourse when Asbury, way-worn and weary after a 
 long journey, presented himself unexpectedly within the doors. 
 " A plain, robust man," says the preacher, " came up to me 
 in the pulpit and kissed me. I thought it could be no other 
 than Mr. Asbury, and I was not deceived." The Rev. 
 Ezekiel Cooper, an eye-witness of the scene, states that 
 " a solemn pause and deep silence took place, as an interval 
 for introduction and salutation. Asbury and Coke, with hearts 
 full of brotherly love, approached, embraced, and saluted each 
 other. The other preachers at the same time were melted 
 into sympathy and tears ; the congregation also caught the 
 glowing emotion, and the whole assembly, as if struck with 
 a shock of heavenly electricity, burst into a flood of tears." * 
 The public service ended, Dr. Coke, assisted by Mr. 
 Whatcoat, administered the Lord's Supper to five or six 
 hundred communicants, and afterwards held a Lovefeast. 
 He then retired with Asbury to lay before him Mr. Wesley's 
 scheme of church organization. His own account of this 
 interview is given in these words : " Mr. Asbury informed 
 me that he had received some intimations of my arrival on 
 the continent, and had collected a considerable number of 
 the preachers to form a Council ; and that, if they were of 
 opinion that it would be expedient immediately to c all a 
 Conference, it should be done. They were accordingly 
 sent for, and, after debate, were unanimously of that 
 opinion. ... I exceedingly reverence Mr. Asbury ; he has 
 so much wisdom and consideration, so much meekness and 
 love ; and, under all this, though hardly to be perceived, so 
 
 * " Stevens," ii 172.
 
 138 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 much command and authority." Asbury himself says, " I 
 was shocked when first informed of the intention of these 
 my brethren in coming to this country : it may be of God. 
 My answer then was, ' If the preachers unanimously choose 
 me, I shall not act in the capacity I have hitherto done, by 
 Mr. Wesley's appointment.' The design of organizing the 
 Methodists into an independent Episcopal Church was 
 opened to the preachers present, and it was agreed to call 
 a General Conference, to meet at Baltimore the ensuing 
 .Christmas; as also that Brother Garrettson go off to Vir- 
 ginia to give notice thereof to our brethren in the South." 
 
 The condition of taking the office assigned to him by 
 Wesley, which Asbury here specifies, namely, the unanim- 
 ous concurrence of his brethren, is to be specially noted 
 as a mark of his surprising legislative ability. Placing 
 himself as by instinct at their point of view, he saw 
 that they might justly claim the power of electing to their 
 chief office as their right ; he also saw that to cede this 
 right would be necessary to secure the influence which 
 ought to belong to the office ; and he saw, with equal 
 clearness and certainty, that to exercise it would effectually 
 prevent the office of General Superintendent from becoming 
 identified eventually with the notion of a higher order of 
 ministers. Had he accepted it simply in virtue of Mr. 
 Wesley's appointment, it would naturally have fallen to 
 him and Dr. Coke to appoint and ordain colleagues or 
 successors to themselves, and gradually, there can be little 
 doubt, a superior rank of ministers would have been 
 established. Another thing notable in Asbury's records of 
 this crisis is the character of his phraseology. It is clear 
 that Coke had explained to him the nature of the proposed 
 new regime by the use of ecclesiastical terms : the new Church 
 is to be Episcopal, therefore, under the government of bishops.
 
 THE NEW CHURCH ORGANIZED. 139 
 
 There was an interval of about six weeks prior to the 
 assembling of the Conference. This Dr. Coke spent in 
 visiting places along the route of about 1,000 miles which 
 Asbury had just taken ; and Asbury, himself, in various 
 new preaching excursions, and in earnest prayer for 
 Divine guidance with reference to the projected new 
 church. On the following Tuesday he wrote, " Rode to 
 Bohemia, where I met with Thomas Vasey, who came over 
 with the Doctor and R. Whatcoat. My soul is deeply 
 engaged with God, to know His will in this business." On 
 Thursday he says, " Brother Poythress and myself had 
 much talk about the new plan " ; and again, on Friday, 
 " I observed this day as a day of fasting and prayer, that I 
 might know the will of God in the matter that is shortly to 
 come before our Conference, The preachers and people 
 seem to be much pleased with the projected plan. I, my- 
 self, am led to think it is of the Lord. I am not tickled 
 with the honour to be gained I see danger in the way. 
 My soul waits upon God. that He may lead us in the 
 way we should go ! " In his next record he mentions an 
 interesting conversation between him and the Rev. M. 
 Weems, " on the subject of the Episcopal mode of Church- 
 government." 
 
 From Saturday, the 18th, to Friday, the 24th December, he 
 spent at the magnificent residence of his friend, Mr. Gough, 
 ' ' preparing for Conference. " Dr. Coke had previously arrived 
 there with Mr. Black, an English preacher, then stationed 
 in Nova Scotia, who had come into the States to obtain 
 ministerial recruits for that province, together with four 
 other preachers. Coke speaks of it as " a most elegant 
 house," and adds, "I have a noble room to myself where 
 Mr. Asbury and I may, in the course of the week, mature 
 everything for the Conference."
 
 140 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 Early in the morning of the 24th, the day looked for- 
 ward to with so much solemnity of feeling, the visitors set 
 out together from Perry Hall to Baltimore, a ride of about 
 twelve miles, where the Conference was appointed to be 
 held. The preachers, sixty-four in number, out of the 
 eighty-four then in the work, assembled in Lovely Lane 
 Chapel. The Conference opened at 10 o'clock : Dr. Coke 
 presided. 
 
 Who compose this Conference ? Who are these men so 
 strangely convened, without canonical authority, for the 
 organization of a church ? A little while ago they were all 
 unknown to the world and to each other. Some of them 
 were living in retired corners or recesses of that broad con- 
 tinent, as plain, simple, and comparatively illiterate peasants ; 
 some were rough mechanics in the towns ; a few of them 
 were men of social and educational advantages ; and one or 
 two of them owners of considerable wealth. But all dis- 
 tinctions are here merged and absorbed in one. Every man 
 in that Council has been brought, through the agency of 
 Methodism, under the action of ennobling and transforming 
 spiritual influences. All have been made partakers of life in 
 Christ ; and spiritual life has quickened and enlarged their 
 mental powers, endowed them with force of moral character, 
 and impelled them to devote their renewed energies to the 
 task of seeking, in order that they might save, that which is 
 lost. They are a brotherhood of earnest and honest spiritual 
 men, assembled under a consciousness that they are called 
 to labour together in, with, and for Christ, and for the sal- 
 vation of the world. Here they are, in the freshness and 
 vigour of early manhood, their hearts unworn, their spirits 
 buoyant, their strength firm, their souls fired with holy love, 
 ready to go forth with eager haste, at the bidding and under 
 the protection of their Lord, on any enterprise of toil and
 
 THE NEW CHURCH ORGANIZED. 141 
 
 hardship for the extension of His kingdom. They are men 
 of that character precisely who, in all ages, have most 
 directly worked-out the purposes of Christ in the institution 
 of His Church. 
 
 To Asbury the scene displayed within that chapel, itself a 
 monument of his successful early labours, on an occasion so 
 peculiarly solemn and sacred, must have been overwhelm- 
 ingly impressive. Every man present is well known to 
 him ; all are debtors to him, more or less directly, to a 
 greater or more limited extent, for the best elements of 
 their character; some of them are his personal converts. 
 Here is John Dickins, a Londoner by birth, who came to 
 America at about the beginning of the Revolutionary war, 
 and who, having found Christ and salvation under the 
 guidance of the Methodists, entered into the itinerant minis- 
 try about seven years ago. He was educated at Eton Col- 
 lege, is a proficient classical scholar, and conducts himself 
 with the quiet tact and self-possession which bespeak the 
 gentleman. Asbury described him soon after he came into 
 the work as " a man of great piety, great skill in learning, 
 drinks in Greek and Latin swiftly ; yet prays much, and 
 walks close with God." Here are William Phoebus, a man 
 of literary attainments, like Dickins, a careful student of the 
 Bible, and a trustworthy expositor ; William Gill, a man of 
 philosophical cast of mind, a deep and calm thinker, yet a man 
 of fervid spiritual aspirations, a native of Delaware, and 
 probably a child of Asbury's "bonds;" Freeborn Garrett- 
 son, distressingly self- diffident, yet full of fiery heroism, of 
 whom Asbury said, he "will let no person escape a lecture 
 that comes in his way ; " John Haggerty, robust alike in 
 mind and body; Reuben Ellis, cautious, taciturn, express- 
 ing himself when necessary in a few well- chosen and weighty 
 words which always command respect ; Francis Poythress,
 
 142 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 who, like Garrettson, had " great possessions," which he 
 gladly abandoned that he might carry the Gospel over the 
 frowning Alleghanies into "the great and terrible wilder- 
 ness ; " and here are two, strangely linked together by what 
 might seem a mere casual incident, whose names are Caleb B. 
 Pedicord and Thomas Ware. Pedicord, a man of distin- 
 guished piety and zeal, was also noted for his fine tenor 
 voice and his skill in singing. He was labouring in New 
 Jersey in 1781, when, one day, " while riding slowly on the 
 highway to an appointment at Mount Holly, he was singing, 
 
 " ' I cannot, I cannot forbear 
 These passionate longings for home; 
 ! when shall my spirit be there ? 
 ! when will the messenger come ? ' 
 
 A young soldier of the Revolution, wandering in a neigh- 
 bouring forest, heard him, and was deeply touched, not 
 only with the melody of his voice, which was among the 
 best he ever heard, but with the words, especially with the 
 last couplet. ' After he ceased,' writes the listener, ' I 
 went out and followed him a great distance, hoping he 
 would begin again. He, however, stopped at the house of a 
 Methodist and dismounted. I then concluded he must be a 
 Methodist preacher, and would probably preach that even- 
 ing.' That evening the youthful soldier heard him, and 
 Caleb B. Pedicord thus became the spiritual father of 
 Thomas Ware, one of the most pure-minded and successful 
 of early Methodist itinerants, for fifty years a founder of the 
 denomination from New Jersey to Tennessee, from Massa- 
 chusetts to the Carolinas, and by his pen the best contributor 
 to its early history."* 
 
 * "Stevens," ii. 31. A week or two after this Conference, Pedicord 
 reached the " home " for which he sighed.
 
 THE NEW CHURCH ORGANIZED. 143 
 
 All these were certainly present, as were probably Joseph 
 Everett, said to have been " rude in speech, yet not in 
 knowledge," and raised, through Asbury's labours, out of a 
 state of deep degradation to be included in the first rank of 
 successful pioneers ; Wilson Lee, another of the brave 
 mountain and western wilderness band ; William Jessup, 
 also converted under Asbury's ministry in Delaware, who 
 had been greatly persecuted by his ungodly father, a large 
 landholder, but who gladly sacrificed all his worldly interests 
 to " go and preach the Gospel ; " and William Partridge, 
 before mentioned as a companion of Asbury, and who 
 is declared to have "not only professed sanctification, but 
 had it." These, and men of whom these are examples, 
 were the constituents of [that memorable Council. " Per- 
 haps," says the visitor, Mr. Black, " such a number of holy, 
 zealous, godly men never before met together in Maryland." 
 Perhaps, may we not respond ? rarely in Christendom. 
 
 The proceedings were introduced by reading the following 
 official document : 
 
 "BRISTOL, Sept. 10, 1784. 
 
 " To Dr. COKE, Mr. ASBUBY, and our Brethren in North America : 
 " 1. By a very uncommon train of providences, many of the pro- 
 vinces of North America are totally disjoined from their mother country, 
 and erected into independent States. The English Government has no 
 authority over them, either civil or ecclesiastical, any more than over 
 the States of Holland. A civil authority is exercised over them, partly 
 by the Congress partly by the Provincial Assemblies. But no one 
 either exercises or claims any ecclesiastical authority at all. In this 
 peculiar situation, some thousands of the inhabitants of these States 
 desire my advice ; and, in compliance with their desire, I have drawn 
 up a little sketch. 
 
 "2. Lord King's "Account of the Primitive Church " convinced me 
 many years ago, that Bishops and Presbyters are the same order, and 
 consequently have the same right to ordain. For many years I have been 
 importuned, from time to tune, to exercise this right, by ordaining 
 part of our Travelling Preachers. But I have still refused, not only for
 
 144 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 peace' sake, but because I was determined as little as possible to 
 violate the established order of the National Church to which I belong. 
 
 " 3. But the case is widely different between England and North 
 America. Here there are bishops who have a legal jurisdiction. In 
 America there are none neither any parish ministers. So that for 
 some hundred miles together there is none either to baptize or to 
 administer the Lord's Supper. Here therefore my scruples are at an 
 end ; and I conceive myself at full liberty, as I violate no order and 
 invade no man's right, to appoint and send labourers into the harvest. 
 
 " 4. I have accordingly appointed Dr. COKE and Mr. FRANCIS ASBDRY 
 to be joint Superintendents over our brethren in North America : as 
 also RICHARD WHATCOAT and THOMAS VASBY to act as Elders among 
 them, by baptizing and administering the Lord's Supper. And I have 
 prepared a Liturgy, little differing from that of the Church of England 
 (I think, the best constituted National Church in the world), which I 
 advise all the Travelling Preachers to use, on the Lord's-day, in all the 
 congregations, reading the Litany only on Wednesdays and Friiays, 
 and praying extempore on all other days. I also advise the Elders to 
 administer the Supper of the Lord on every Lord's-day. 
 
 " 5. If any one will point out a more rational and scriptural way of 
 feeding and guiding those poor sheep in the wilderness, I will gladly 
 embrace it. At present I cannot see any better method than that I 
 have taken. 
 
 " 6. It has indeed been proposed to desire the English Bishops to 
 ordain part of our Preachers for America. But to this I object (1) I 
 desired the Bishop of London to ordain only one, but could not 
 prevail ; (2) if they consented, we know the slowness of their proceed- 
 ings but the matter admits of no delay ; (3) if they would ordain 
 them now, they would likewise expect to govern them and how 
 grievously would this entangle us ? (4) as our American brethren are 
 now totally disentangled, both from the State and from the English 
 hierarchy, we dare not entangle them again, either with the one or the 
 other : they are now at full liberty simply to follow the Scriptures, 
 and the primitive Church ; and we judge it best that they should 
 stand fast in that liberty wherewith God has so strangely made them 
 
 free. 
 
 " JOHN WESLEY. 
 
 The first act of the Conference was to receive this Letter 
 as the basis of its gravest deliberation ; the next, to adopt 
 its principle and general plan. This, as stated by William
 
 THE NEW CHUKCH ORGANIZED. 145 
 
 Waiters, the first of the native itinerants, was done " in a 
 regular formal way, with not one dissenting voice." " It 
 was agreed," says Asbury, " to form ourselves into an 
 Episcopal Church, and to have Superintendents, Elders, and 
 Deacons." The question of a title was next considered, and 
 John Dickins is said to have proposed that by which it has 
 ever since been designated, THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL 
 CHUBCH IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ; which, after 
 a free discussion, was also unanimously adopted. Then 
 followed the question arising out of Asbury's resolution not 
 to take the office unless with the declared concurrence of his 
 brethren. The Conference would have been perfectly con- 
 tent to recognize the appointment of Mr. Wesley in this 
 instance, as in all cases heretofore ; but, in deference to the 
 strongly-expressed determination of Asbury, it unhesita- 
 tingly took the responsibility upon itself. " Dr. Coke and 
 myself," he says, " were unanimously elected to the superin- 
 tendency of the Church, and," he adds, " my ordination 
 followed, after being previously ordained deacon and elder, 
 as by the following certificate may be seen : 
 
 " ' KNOW ALL MEN BY THESE PRESENTS that I, Thomas Coke, Doctor of 
 Civil Law, late of Jesus College, in the University of Oxford, Presbyter 
 of the Church of England, and Superintendent of the Methodist Epis- 
 copal Church in America, under the protection of Almighty God, and 
 with a single eye to His glory, by the imposition of my hands, and 
 prayer (being assisted by two ordained elders), did on the twenty-fifth 
 day of this month, December, set apart FRANCIS ASBURY for the office 
 of a Deacon in the aforesaid Methodist Episcopal Church. And also, on 
 the twenty-sixth day of the said month, did, by the imposition of my 
 hands and prayer (being assisted by the said elders), set apart the said 
 FRANCIS ASBDRY for the office of Elder in the said Methodist Episcopal 
 Church. And, on this twenty-seventh day of the said month, being 
 the day of the date hereof, have, by the imposition of my hands, and 
 prayer (being assisted by the said elders), set apart the said FRANCIS 
 ASBCRY for the office of a Superintendent in the said Methodist Epis- 
 
 10
 
 146 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 copal Church, a man whom I judge to be well qualified for that great 
 work. And I do hereby recommend him to all whom it may concern, 
 as a fit person to preside over the flock of Christ. In testimony where- 
 of I have hereunto set my hand and seal this twenty -seventh day of 
 December, in the year of our Lord 1784. THOMAS COKE.' " 
 
 In the rite of consecration tb the office of "Superin- 
 tendent," Asbury*s early Lutheran friend, the Rev. W. P. 
 Otterbein, was associated with Coke, Whatcoat, and Vasey.* 
 Dr. Coke preached on the occasion on the great character- 
 istics of the Christian ministry, and maintained that " of all 
 forms of Church-government a moderate Episcopacy is the 
 best, the executive power being lodged in the hands of one, 
 or at least a few, whereby vigour and activity are given to 
 the resolves of the body, and those two essential requisites 
 for any great undertaking are sweetly united, calmness and 
 wisdom in deliberating, and acting with expedition and 
 force." The last act of the Conference was to elect and set 
 apart, by ordination, twelve preachers as elders (having been 
 previously ordained "deacons") "to serve our Societies 
 in the United States, one (Jeremiah Lambert) for Antigua, 
 and two (Garrettson and James 0. Cromwell) for Nova 
 Scotia," in compliance with the appeal made by Mr. Black. 
 Whatcoat's account of the proceedings is succinctly given in 
 these words : " We agreed to form a Methodist Episcopal 
 Church, in which the Liturgy, as presented by the Rev. 
 John Wesley, should be read, and the Sacraments be admin- 
 istered by a superintendent, elders, and deacons, who shall 
 
 * " I will tell the world," says Asbury, with reference to certain 
 cavils about apostolic succession, " on what I depend (1) Divine 
 authority ; (2) seniority in America ; (3) the election of the Confer- 
 ence ; (4) my ordination by Thomas Coke, William Philip Otterbein, 
 German Presbyterian minister, Richard Whatcoat, and Thomas Vasey ; 
 (5) the signs of an apostle which have been seen in me."
 
 THE NEW CHURCH ORGANIZED. 147 
 
 be ordained by a presbytery, using the Episcopal form, as 
 prescribed by the Rev. Mr. Wesley's Prayer-book. Persons 
 to be ordained are to be nominated by the superintendent, 
 elected by the Conference, and ordained by imposition of 
 the hands of the superintendent and elders ; the superin- 
 tendent has a negative voice " (power of veto). 
 
 Thus, then, after much inquiry, deliberation, and prayer 
 on both sides of the Atlantic, was the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church solemnly instituted and organized. The importance 
 of the transaction in its bearing upon the spiritual, and even 
 the political, well-being of the American Republic, it would 
 be scarcely possible to exaggerate. No other church was at 
 that time in a condition to supply to the people their lack of 
 spiritual privileges. The Anglican Church was a wreck ; 
 the Presbyterians were too much shackled and restrained to 
 undertake the aggressive operations which the times re- 
 quired; and the Independent and Baptist were too exclusive 
 in both theory and practice, and too limited in their re- 
 sources, to give such a movement their serious thoughts. 
 But for Methodist agency, henceforth to be maintained in a 
 state of impressive completeness, and of redoubled energy 
 and effectiveness ; taking the place of the English Church 
 in many places where that had ceased to exist ; following the 
 people where they emigrated and forming settlements in new 
 territory ; and multiplying itself with the increase of popu- 
 lation, the spiritual destitution of the country must have 
 been appalling. Even aside from purely spiritual results, the 
 service which the new Church rendered to the cause of civi- 
 lization, public order, and social progress, was incalculably 
 valuable. Looking at the measure comprehensively, at this 
 distance of time ; considering its immediate influence on the 
 new-born Republic, and its influence on all classes of society 
 subsequently ; considering its marvellous growth, its pre-
 
 148 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 sent powerful position in relation to all the other Protestant 
 Churches of Christendom, it being the largest and mightiest 
 of them all ; considering also the work it has accomplished, 
 and is now successfully carrying on by its missionary 
 agencies, all over the world, it is scarcely too much to say 
 that the acts of that Council of sixty devout, unselfish, 
 and pure-minded men at that Christmas-tide of 1784, are 
 not surpassed in grandeur and importance by any act of any 
 assembly of men in the whole history of the Church of 
 Christ. 
 
 Here are its unchallengeable credentials here is the hea- 
 venly impress, which condemns all forms of objection to the 
 measure, it has succeeded beyond all other examples of 
 success : it was therefore suitable to the wants of the people 
 and the times, and has been attended with the blessing 
 of God. 
 
 An apostle to whom "the keys of the kingdom of Heaven" 
 were committed, acting in violation of the Law to which he 
 continued to acknowledge allegiance, "opened the door of 
 faith " to uncircumcised Gentiles, and even admitted them 
 to social intercourse with him. He did this with great 
 personal reluctance, but in obedience to what he was made 
 to understand was the Divine Will ; and his brethren, per- 
 plexed and scandalized, called him to account for his 
 inconsistency. But his ready reply was, " Forasmuch as 
 God gave them the like gift as He did unto us who believed 
 on the Lord Jesus Christ, what was I that I could with- 
 stand God ? " And " they held their peace."
 
 149 
 
 CHAPTER XHI. 
 
 EPISCOPAL ITINERANCY : THE SOUTH. 
 
 THE Title "Bishop" Overruling of Providence New Duties Asbury 
 mounted again Ordination of Willis North Carolina South 
 Carolina Mr. Wayne Methodism introduced into Charleston 
 Conversion of Mr. Wells New Chapel Virginia The Bishops wait 
 on Washington Conference of 1785 Coke's Departure Asbury 
 " Overdone " Climbs the Alleghanies The Dismal Swamp Georgia 
 Conference of 1786 The Hudson New Jersey Mobbing at 
 Charleston. 
 
 DID not Dr. Coke, however, exceed the powers delegated 
 to him by Wesley ? Probably, yes ; but not to the 
 extent which has been alleged against him, and, through 
 the timely resolution of Asbury to make his brethren respon- 
 sible for his taking a chief place among them, with ultimate 
 results of a beneficial, and not of an injurious character. His 
 great error if it was an error consisted in assuming the 
 canonical title of Bishop. This Wesley did not authorize, 
 but disapproved and condemned. 
 
 It is perfectly certain that Wesley intended the Church to be 
 Episcopal in its structure. But the kind of Episcopacy which 
 he desired it to take was not the "diocesan"* or modern, but 
 that of the primitive Church, which recognized a difference 
 of rank, though not a distinction of orders, in the ministry. 
 
 * " If any one is minded to dispute concerning diocesan episcopacy, 
 he may dispute. But I have better work." Minutes of Conference. 
 1785.
 
 150 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 But the title " bishop " had been appropriated for many ages 
 to a separate order which mediaeval credulity had held to be 
 traceable in regular succession to the apostles, and to be 
 rightfully endowed, in virtue of that succession, with powers 
 and prerogatives exclusively its own. Used simply with 
 reference to its etymology, the name was not inconsistent 
 with Wesley's design ; but it was commonly used and 
 understood in its acquired, and not in its derivative, mean- 
 ing, and, moreover, was invested with unapostolic notions 
 of worldly dignity and importance. Wesley, therefore, 
 with his nice sense of congruity and fitness, adopted the 
 title of synonymous meaning, " Superintendent." But Coke, 
 more vehement and aspiring perhaps more " ambitious," 
 although as far as Wesley himself from a self-seeking and 
 pernicious assertion of priestly power ventured to sanction 
 perhaps to suggest the use of the name " Bishop." 
 
 And was there not a guiding or overruling Providence in 
 this, just as in the prior anomaly committed by Wesley ? 
 He had declared himself " determined to violate as little 
 as possible the established order to which he belonged;" 
 yet, in despite. of this determination, he set up a system of 
 church polity in independence and implied condemnation of 
 it and we recognize in this the purpose and agency of God. 
 And now, Coke, who is commissioned by Wesley to carry 
 out his plans, acting strangely in disregard of his wishes, 
 if he knew them, and, on other grounds, acting with obvious 
 inconsistency, adopts an ecclesiastical title pertaining to an 
 " order " which the entire scheme ignores. Yet is it possible 
 to contemplate the whole proceeding and its results, without 
 perceiving how truly this also contributed to the working 
 out of the will of Providence ? Coke may have desired to 
 avail himself of any additional influence which a venerated 
 name attached to his office might command ; he may have
 
 EPISCOPAL ITINERANCY: THE SOUTH. 151 
 
 discerned in the conditions of American society a favourable 
 opportunity for divesting an apostolic word of its worldly 
 and vain-glorious attributes, and of restoring it, together 
 with a restored system of primitive episcopacy, to its prim- 
 eval use ; he may have been moved by the aim to raise the 
 church system he had come to establish upon a true basis of 
 thought and conception ; or he may have been merely 
 carried away, by his ardent temperament and his intense 
 religious zeal, to the use of means which he never strictly 
 scrutinized. But a practical man will not waste his energies 
 in speculating on the particular motive of an individual 
 agent : he will rather fix attention upon the great principles 
 of his operations, and their fruit. 
 
 Asbury's new office devolved upon him new duties and 
 responsibilities. The mere administration of the sacra- 
 ments was a heavy immediate addition to his labours ; for, 
 the people having been so long deprived of them, offered 
 themselves or presented their children for baptism every- 
 where, and came in extraordinary numbers to the Lord's 
 Table. 
 
 The Conference adjourned on Monday, Jan. 8, 1785, and 
 the same day Asbury preached his first sermon since his 
 consecration. His text was Ephes. iii. 8, " Unto me, who 
 am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that 
 I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches 
 of Christ." He was experiencing a reaction of depression 
 from the state of mental strain and excitement through 
 which he had passed, and says, " My mind was unsettled, 
 and I was but low in my testimony." The next day he 
 rode on horseback about fifty miles " through frost and 
 snow to Fairfax, Virginia, and got in about seven o'clock." 
 He continued his journey southward to Prince William, then 
 onward to the north branch of the Rappahannock, which
 
 152 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 he "found about waist-high and frozen from side to side." 
 On Sunday he "read prayers, preached, ordained Brother 
 Willis deacon, and baptized some children, feeling nothing 
 but love : but sometimes afraid of being led to think some- 
 thing more of myself in my new station than formerly." 
 
 Taking Willis with him, whom a day or two later he 
 ordained " elder." he pressed forward into North Carolina, 
 experiencing his usual difficulties and trials. "It was so 
 dark that we could not find the ford. We rode back a mile, 
 and engaged a young man who undertook to be our guide, 
 but he himself was scarcely able to keep the way. We rode 
 with great pain to Waggoner's Chapel ; and, after pushing on 
 through deep streams, I had only nine hearers." His horse 
 failed ; but he borrowed another, and rode off seventeen 
 miles to preach to " a few poor people " at Fisher's River ; 
 thence over barren mountains, and across " frequent rivers," 
 to minister to other small congregations ; gratified to learn 
 that the " old Church folks and Catholic Presbyterians " 
 very generally expressed their satisfaction at the recent 
 action of the Conference. In one place he " plunged four 
 adults, at their special request, they being persuaded that 
 this was the proper mode of baptism." 
 
 Having ridden his borrowed horse " nearly three hundred 
 miles in about nine days," he left it to rest, and, borrowing 
 another, was again mounted and off, in company with 
 Willis and Jesse Lee, in the direction of Charleston, South 
 Carolina. Arriving at Georgetown, on his way thither, " a 
 Mr. Wayne, a nephew of the celebrated Gen. Wayne," 
 introduced himself to the Bishop. This gentleman afforded 
 him entertainment, and in a way not foreseen facilitated the 
 prosecution of his mission. He gave him letters of intro- 
 duction to Mr. Wells, an influential merchant in Charles- 
 ton, which secured him an hospitable reception on his
 
 EPISCOPAL ITINERANCY: THE SOUTH. 153 
 
 arrival. These letters he sent forward by Willis, who was 
 also charged with the duty of making arrangements at one or 
 two places on his way for Asbury to preach. 
 
 When Willis presented himself at the door of Mr. Wells, 
 he found him preparing to go to the theatre. This intention, 
 however, he readily abandoned, and spent the evening with 
 his visitor in conversation and worship. A day or two later 
 he as cheerfully received Asbury and Lee as his guests. 
 Partly by his aid, an old Baptist meeting-house, some time 
 previously closed, was engaged for a series of services. 
 First Willis, next Lee, and afterwards Asbury, preached. 
 The bishop's text was 2 Cor. v. 20: "Now then we are 
 ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by 
 us ; we pray you, in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God." 
 " I told my hearers," he says, " that I expected to stay in 
 the city but seven days ; that I should preach every night if 
 they would favour me with their company, and that I 
 should speak on subjects of primary importance, and explain 
 the essential doctrines taught and held by the Methodists." 
 One of the first to give evidence of spiritual concern was his 
 host himself. On Saturday he writes, " This afternoon 
 Mr. Wells began to experience conviction of sin. My soul 
 praised the Lord for this fruit of our labours, this answer to 
 our prayers." The next day he preached to " a large, wild 
 company his soul in travail for Mr. Wells ; " and on 
 Wednesday he says, " I had a good time on Matt. vii. 7. 
 In the evening the clouds about Mr. Wells began to disperse; 
 in the morning he could rejoice in the Lord. Now we 
 know that God hath brought us here, and have a hope that 
 there will be glorious work among the people." Mr. Wells 
 was henceforth a steadfast, liberal, and consistent Methodist 
 to the day of his death. 
 
 Asbury left at the expiration of a fortnight, and Willis
 
 154 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 remained to carry on the work. He was shortly afterwards 
 informed that he could no longer occupy the Baptist chapel, 
 and a lady opened her house for worship. This became 
 inconveniently crowded, and better accommodation was 
 offered by another lady. Then the project of building a 
 chapel was entertained, and exactly two years after Asbury 
 first visited the place a Conference was held there. On that 
 occasion he wrote, " Here we have already a spacious house 
 prepared for us ; and the congregations are crowded and 
 solemn." " This was the house in Cumberland Street, 
 which will long be remembered with affection as the birth- 
 place of many scores of precious souls, who there received 
 awakening and converting grace. The opening of this house 
 was of vast importance to the interests of Methodism. It 
 not only relieved the congregation from great inconvenience, 
 but gave to them an .established and permanent character. 
 It was a public declaration that we had driven down our 
 stake, and intended to hold on." * 
 
 Asbury returned from his first visit to this maritime city 
 by nearly the same route that he went. Re-arriving at 
 Georgetown, he found the wife of his late host, Mr. Wayne, 
 anxiously inquiring the way of salvation, and not long 
 afterwards could write, " In this place the scene was greatly 
 changed : almost the whole town came together to hear the 
 Word of God." In several places through which he passed 
 he records the baptism of children, and states that the 
 people in their generous ignorance of his principles offered 
 him fees " The poor mother held out a piece of gold to 
 me ! " 
 
 Coming back into Virginia, he met Dr. Coke, who had 
 been extending his labours in a similar manner through that 
 
 * Bishop Andrews.
 
 EPISCOPAL ITINERANCY: THE SOUTH. 155 
 
 State, Maryland, and Delaware. For a while they travelled 
 in company, then took their divergent routes, and on the 
 26th May met again on the banks of the Potomac, and 
 had the honour of an interview with General Washington, 
 " who," says Asbury, "received us very politely, and gave 
 us his opinion against slavery." Dr. Coke states, more par- 
 ticularly, that the object of their visit was to obtain his 
 signature to a petition which the Conference had agreed to 
 address to the Virginia Assembly, for the emancipation 
 of the slaves, " if the eminence of his station did not render 
 that inexpedient." The General assured them that his sen- 
 timents were identical with their own, and that, if he had 
 the opportunity, he would not fail to give expression to 
 them in a letter to the Assembly. They dined with him, 
 and were treated with great consideration and courtesy. 
 
 The next regular Conference opened at Baltimore, on the 
 1st June, 1785. Asbury attended it, although unwell. 
 Coke was on the point of his return to England. On his 
 account the first sitting was continued till midnight. Early 
 the next morning the Conference re-assembled, and at eleven 
 o'clock the Doctor delivered an impressive farewell address, 
 based upon St. Paul's discourse to the elders of Ephesus, 
 and immediately embarked on board the " Olive Branch," for 
 home. Asbury says, " We parted with heavy hearts." The 
 increase of members during this year was 3,612 ; the entire 
 number being 18,000. The number of preachers had become 
 104. The number of regular hearers is believed to have been 
 greater in proportion to the membership than ever previously 
 or subsequently. This is ascribed partly to the greater in- 
 fluence and attractiveness of the new institution, and partly 
 to the still dilapidated condition of the Anglican Church. 
 They are estimated at not fewer than 200,000. 
 
 Alone in the discharge of episcopal duties over a Church
 
 156 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 not yet perfectly established, and rapidly extending its 
 borders, Asbury felt more deeply than ever that every 
 moment was precious. The following is a sample of his 
 records at this period : "Preached in Baltimore, on ' Ye know 
 not what manner of spirit ye are of.' In the town I spoke 
 three times, and at the Point once. . . . Rode to the 
 springs called Bath; now under great improvement. I 
 preached in the play-house, and lodged under the same roof 
 with the actors. Some folks, who would not hear me in their 
 own neighbourhood, made now a part of my audience, both 
 night and morning. . . . My congregation was large. Hard 
 
 labour has almost overdone me. I rode to S s's, where 
 
 I found some life among the people. A long dreary ride 
 brought us to Morgantown. I preached and baptized, and 
 was much spent. . . . From preaching so frequently in the 
 evenings, and consequent exposure to night air, I have 
 suffered a relapse, and the inflammation of my throat has 
 returned. It is a school of affliction to me ; but I am thank- 
 ful that in my sufferings I have a skilful physician, and 
 constant attendance from my kind nurses ; and I am in a 
 house where prayer is wont to be made. I am taught the 
 necessity of walking more holily and humbly with God ; 
 to pray more frequently, and to preach more faithfully." 
 
 During the year he traversed the continent from Mary- 
 land to New York, back through New Jersey, Delaware, 
 and Maryland, into Virginia ; thence onward to North and 
 South Carolina ; again northward, into Pennsylvania, and ulti- 
 mately climbed to the very summit of the lofty Alleghanies. 
 For the first time he took " a peep," as he says, " into 
 the Indian land." In this expedition he found much 
 to gratify him, much to stimulate and sustain his powers of 
 thought and action, as he cast his eyes over the boundless 
 plains of the west ; he felt himself amply repaid for the
 
 EPISCOPAL ITINERANCY": THE SOUTH. 157 
 
 toil and suffering he endured, in the knowledge that he 
 ministered comfort to his self-denying brethren who were 
 stationed on those rugged heights, and in meeting many 
 " old friends from Maryland " who had settled there. But 
 he could not forbear writing on his return, " I have been 
 greatly tempted to impatience and discontent. The roads 
 are bad ; my horse's hind-feet without shoes, and but 
 little to eat. To this I may add that the lodgings are 
 unclean and uncomfortable. I have in six days ridden 
 about one hundred and fifty miles, on as bad roads as any 
 I have seen on the continent." 
 
 At the beginning of 1787 he again journeyed southward. 
 On the 2nd January he rode fifty miles through the snow, 
 and continued to ride fifteen or twenty miles a day, preach- 
 ing and exercising all the other functions of his office ; 
 "indisposed and suffering bodily pain," but "feeling un- 
 common affection for the people," and gladdened with signs 
 of their spiritual earnestness. " I had a crowd of careless 
 sinners at Mrs. Ball's," he says with satisfaction ; " she is a 
 famous heroine for Christ." He met his brethren at their 
 quarterly -meeting, and "was in their company." "Brother 
 Poythress frightened me with the idea of the Great Swamp, 
 the east end of the Dismal. But I could not consent to 
 ride sixty miles round ; so we ventured through, and 
 neither we nor our horses received any injury. Praise the 
 Lord ! I preached in the new chapel, I hope not in vain. 
 I am now surrounded with waters and hideous swamps." 
 
 At Charleston he welcomed the return of Dr. Coke from 
 Europe, who arrived in time to assist at the opening of the 
 new church, and to hold a Conference in it. They ordained 
 two deacons, and Coke gave " the charge." He expresses 
 his thankfulness to witness the rapid progress which the 
 work had made there, and prepared to accompany Asbury
 
 158 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 on a tour through that and the adjoining States. Provided 
 with strong horses, they set out together first for Georgia, 
 then northward, through the Carolinas, Virginia, and 
 Maryland, frequently on horseback till midnight, preaching 
 alternately day by day, and making it a point, says Asbury, 
 " to pray in the families where we lodge, whether public or 
 private ; and generally where we stop for refreshment." 
 In one week they rode three hundred miles. 
 
 On the 2nd May they held another Conference at Balti- 
 more. Dr. Coke shortly afterwards re-embarked for Eng- 
 land, and Asbury was again left to prosecute his episcopal 
 labours alone. First he visited Long Island and preached 
 in a paper-mill, then took the course of the Hudson, " rode 
 over the mountain, and was gratified with a sight of a 
 remarkable recess for the Americans, during the late war ; " 
 and remarks that " the names of Andre and Arnold, with 
 which misfortune and treachery are so unhappily blended, 
 will give celebrity to West Point, had it been less deserv- 
 ing of notice than its wonderful appearance really makes 
 it." Arriving at Newburgh, he preached, administered the 
 Lord's Supper, and held a Lovefeast, occupying " nearly 
 seven hours." The next day he addressed about seven 
 hundred hearers, baptized several adults and many child- 
 ren, and was entertained by a Dutch lady " like a queen" 
 He came back to New Jersey, " preached at the stone 
 church, after riding upwards of thirty miles ; then rode 
 until ten o'clock in the night through a heavy rain, and had 
 nothing to eat but a little bread and milk." The next day, 
 after preaching and sacrament, " another long ride after 
 night ; " and the next (being Sunday), he held one of those 
 impressive services which were so frequent at this early 
 period. " I preached in the woods," he says, " to nearly 
 a thousand people," many of them having rode considerable
 
 EPISCOPAL ITINERANCY: THE SOUTH. 159 
 
 distances, and having tied their horses to the adjoining 
 trees. After the sermon he, " like Jonah, went and sat 
 alone," then administered the Lord's Supper, and " bap- 
 tized a number of infants and adults, by sprinkling and 
 immersion. I felt my body," he quietly adds, " weary in, 
 but my spirit not of, the work of God." Again he travelled 
 southward through all the States to South Carolina, and 
 says, " I seldom mount my horse for a ride of less distance 
 than twenty miles on ordinary occasions ; and frequently 
 have forty or fifty, in moving from one circuit to another. 
 In travelling thus I suffer much from hunger and cold." 
 
 By the middle of March he had again reached Charleston, 
 where the preachers from the neighbouring circuits were 
 summoned to meet him in Conference. But while one of 
 them " was speaking in the morning of the Lord's-day to a 
 very crowded house, and many outside, a man made a riot 
 at the door. A general alarm took place ; some of the ladies 
 leaped out of the windows of the church, and a dreadful 
 confusion ensued. Again, whilst I was speaking at night, 
 a stone was thrown against the north side of the church ; 
 then another on the south ; a third came through the win- 
 dow and struck the pulpit : I, however, continued to speak 
 on ' How beautiful upon the mountains ! ' ' 
 
 Leaving Charleston he rode again into Georgia, where he 
 held a Conference with the ten preachers, including four 
 probationers, who were labouring successfully in that State, 
 so recently brought within circuit arrangements. At the end 
 of April he again scaled, and for the first time passed over, 
 the Alleghany mountains.
 
 160 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 CONSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 Principles of Episcopacy previously recognized Their Declaration 
 Definition of Offices : Bishop ; Elder ; Deacon ; Preachers Leaders' 
 Meeting ; Quarterly - meeting Conference ; Annual Conference ; 
 General Conference Picture of Annual Conference The Discipline : 
 how improved by Asbury Notes appended by Coke and Asbury 
 The Character of Public Services Practical Results : how achieved. 
 
 r I THE organization of the Church by the Conference of 
 -J- 1784 is not to be thought of as the institution of an 
 essentially new system of church polity in all its complete- 
 ness. It was rather the establishment of the Societies, on 
 principles which they had already recognized in practice, in 
 a state of greater unity, consistency, and order ; and with a 
 definite regard to their peculiar conditions and wants. The 
 event certainly constituted an epoch in the history of the 
 Church, just as the political independence of the States was 
 an epoch in the national history of the country. But it was 
 not the introduction of anything of a revolutionary character. 
 The very framework of the organization existed previously 
 in its rudiments ; for the United Societies, in their common 
 subjection to the government of the Conference, and under 
 the administration of a " General Assistant " or Superinten- 
 dent, were a true embodiment of an episcopacy. This was 
 the character of Methodism when planted in America, as 
 obviously as it was its character in this country under Mr. 
 Wesley ; and this character, modified to answer the demands 
 of the different conditions of civil life, it continued to preserve
 
 CONSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH. 161 
 
 as it extended itself over the continent. Its erection into 
 an orderly Episcopacy was but the act of giving more sym- 
 metrical form and greater force to the whole system, as 
 already developing itself in agreement with its external con- 
 ditions out of its own unconscious energies. 
 
 Looking back upon the work of that great Conference, 
 Asbury said, " We debated everything freely, deciding ques- 
 tions by a majority of votes. We were in great haste, and 
 did much business in a little time." The system in all its 
 fulness of detail was no doubt grasped by his own mind, 
 and apprehended more or less completely by the minds of 
 others ; but probably little more was absolutely settled than 
 the principles affirmed in the declaration which was shortly 
 afterwards published, namely, that, "following the counsel 
 of Mr. John Wesley, who recommended the Episcopal mode 
 of government, we thought it best to become an Episcopal 
 Church, making the Episcopal office elective, and the elected 
 Superintendent or Bishop amenable to the body of ministers 
 and preachers." 
 
 I subjoin a brief account of the constitution of the Church 
 as then accepted generally, and since gradually elaborated 
 and matured. It will show how substantially it is identical 
 with the Methodism of this country, and how natural was its 
 growth out of its previous adaptations to existing circum- 
 stances in America. 
 
 The " General Assistant " became under the new regime 
 a General Superintendent.jOverseer, or Bishop ; the "Assist- 
 ant" became an Elder or Presbyter; and the "Helper," a 
 Deacon. 
 
 The functions of the Bishop are defined to be, besides 
 presiding as moderator in the Conferences, to station the 
 preachers, " and, in the intervals of the Conference, to 
 change, receive, or suspend preachers as necessity may 
 
 11
 
 162 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 require ; to travel through as many circuits as he can, and 
 to direct in the spiritual business of the Societies, as also to 
 ordain bishops, elders, and deacons." He is the first among 
 equals, with the same amount of salary as his brethren. 
 This was fixed at sixty-four dollars per annum with a por- 
 tion of his travelling expenses. 
 
 The duties of the Elder are to administer both sacraments ; 
 to take charge of the other preachers, the local-preachers, 
 and exhorters, within the sphere allotted to him ; to change, 
 receive, or suspend preachers ; and to enforce the several 
 parts of church-discipline. Elders are of two classes the 
 one having charge of a single circuit, or station, only ; the 
 other, who are distinguished as Presiding -elders, being put in 
 charge of a group of circuits, called a district. It is the 
 duty of the presiding-elder to visit each circuit in his dis- 
 trict once a quarter, and to preside over the Quarterly 
 Conference. 
 
 The duties of Deacons are, to preach, to baptize, to assist 
 the elder in administering the Lord's Supper, to visit the 
 sick, and to meet the leaders weekly. 
 
 Preachers are authorized to preach only, whether sepa- 
 rated to the ministry as travelling preachers, or engaged in 
 secular business, as local or occasional preachers. 
 
 The Society is composed of classes, each in charge of its 
 duly-appointed Leader ; and it has its Society-meetings and 
 Lovej 'easts, and its Stewards. 
 
 The Church-courts are : 
 
 (1) " The Leaders' Meeting, which is composed of all the 
 class-leaders in any one circuit or station, in which the 
 preacher in charge presides. Here the weekly class-collec- 
 tions are paid into the hands of the stewards, and inquiry 
 is made into the state of the classes, delinquents reported, 
 and the sick and poor inquired after.
 
 CONSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH. 163 
 
 (2) " The Quarterly -meeting Conference, which is com- 
 posed of all the travelling and local preachers, exhorters, 
 stewards, and leaders belonging to any particular station or 
 circuit, in which the presiding- elder presides, or, in his 
 absence, the preacher in charge. Here exhorters and local- 
 preachers are licensed, and preachers recommended to an 
 Annual Conference to be received into the travelling ministry ; 
 and likewise appeals are heard from any members of the 
 Church who may appeal from the decision of a committee. 
 
 (3) " The Annual Conference, which is composed of all 
 the travelling preachers, deacons, and elders within a 
 specified district of country. These are executive and 
 judicial bodies, acting under rules prescribed them by the 
 General Conference. Here the characters and conduct of 
 all the travelling preachers within the bounds of the Con- 
 ference are examined yearly ; applications for admission into 
 the travelling ministry, if accounted worthy, are received, 
 continued on trial, or dropped, as the case may be ; appeals 
 from local-preachers which may be presented are heard and 
 decided, and those who are eligible to deacon's or elder's 
 orders are elected. An Annual Conference possesses original 
 jurisdiction over all its members, and may therefore try, 
 acquit, suspend, expel, or locate any of them, as the Discipline 
 in such cases provides. 
 
 (4) " The General Conference assembles quadrennially, and 
 is composed of a certain number of delegates, elected by the 
 Annual Conferences. It has power to revise any part of the 
 Discipline, not prohibited by the restrictive regulations ; to 
 elect the book-agents and editors, and the bishops ; to hear 
 and determine appeals of preachers from the decisions of 
 Annual Conferences ; to review the acts of those Conferences 
 generally ; to examine into the general administration of the 
 bishops for the four preceding years, and, if accused, to
 
 164 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 try, censure, acquit, or condemn a bishop. This is the 
 highest judicatory of the Church. It is composed of one 
 member for every twenty-one members of each Annual Con- 
 ference, to be appointed either by seniority or choice, at the 
 direction of such Annual Conference."* 
 
 " The Christmas Conference was the first General Con- 
 ference; that is to say, all the Annual Conferences were 
 supposed to be there assembled. It was, therefore, the 
 ' supreme judicatory of the Church. It was not yet a de- 
 legated body, but the whole ministry in session. It made 
 no provision for any future session of the kind ; but for 
 some years legislative enactments were made, as hereto- 
 fore, every new measure being submitted to each Annual 
 Conference by the superintendents, and the majority of all 
 being necessary to its validity. Another General Con- 
 ference was held, however, in 1792, no official Minutes of 
 which are extant. The third session was held in 1796, 
 a compendium of the Minutes of which was published. 
 Thereafter a session has been held regularly every four years, 
 and the Minutes of each preserved. In the session of 1808 
 a motion was adopted for the better organization of the 
 Conference as a ' delegated' body. In 1812 it met in New 
 York City as a ' Delegated General Conference ' under con- 
 stitutional restrictions, which gave it the character of a 
 renewed organization. 
 
 " Until the appointment of stated or regular General 
 Conferences, the Annual Conferences continued to be con- 
 sidered local or sectional meetings of the one undivided 
 ministry, held in different localities for the local con- 
 venience of its members, every general or legislative 
 measure being submitted to all the sessions, before it could 
 
 * Bangs's "History of the Methodist Episcopal Church," L 245-248.
 
 CONSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH. 165 
 
 become law."* The term Annual Conference is now used 
 to indicate a certain defined tract of country ; it is an 
 ecclesiastical division of territory, of similar meaning to the 
 word "diocese." 
 
 The annual gatherings of the preachers from the several 
 circuits which constitute one of these Conferences naturally 
 became, in the early period of the Church's history, occasions 
 of peculiar interest. " A bishop presided. There was 
 preaching in the early morning, in the afternoon, and at 
 night. The daily proceedings were introduced with religious 
 services, and were characterized by an impressive religious 
 spirit. They continued usually a week, and it was a 
 jubilatic week, gathering the war-worn heroes of many 
 distant and hard -fought fields, renewing the intimacies of 
 preachers and people, and crowned alike by social hospita- 
 lities and joyous devotions. They had their particular 
 regulations prescribed in the Minutes or Discipline. ' It is 
 desired,' say their Rules, 'that all things be considered as in 
 the immediate presence of God ; that every person speak 
 freely whatever is in his heart. How may we best improve 
 the time of our Conferences ? While we are conversing let 
 us have an especial care to set God always before us. In 
 the intermediate hours let us redeem all the time we can for 
 private exercises. Therein let us give ourselves to prayer 
 for one another, and for a blessing on our labour.' 
 
 " The presiding bishop made out the appointments to 
 circuits for the next ecclesiastical year, of all the preachers 
 within 'the territory of the Conference. He had no ' cabinet ' 
 of presiding elders ; for this office was yet unknown in the 
 Church, as the new elders, ordained at the Christmas Con- 
 ference, were appointed only to administer the sacraments. 
 
 * Stevens'a " History of the Methodist Episcopal Church," ii. 219, 220.
 
 166 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 At the close of the Conference, after singing and prayer, he 
 read to a crowded house, amid breathless stillness and deep 
 solemnity, the ' list of appointments ; ' most, if not all, of 
 the appointed preachers having had no previous knowledge 
 of the fate thus assigned them for the ensuing year. Many 
 of them were torn up by it from endearing localities, and 
 sent to distant, often to hostile and perilous, fields. The 
 reading of the list was like the announcement of an order of 
 battle. It was heard by the militant itinerants with ejacu- 
 lations of prayer, with sobs and shouts. Few, if any, 
 revolted. The post of greatest difficulty was considered the 
 post of greatest honour. The list ended, the Doxology, sung 
 to the Old Hundredth by preachers and people, rang through 
 the church, and reverberated through the neighbourhood ; the 
 apostolic benediction was pronounced ; and, usually before 
 the sun went down, but sometimes at midnight hour, the 
 itinerant band and their bishop, after many an affecting 
 leave-taking, were in the saddle, hasting to their new fields 
 of combat and triumph. Few or no scenes of early Metho- 
 dism were more heroic or more affecting than its Annual 
 Conferences."* 
 
 These stated local Conferences have gradually increased 
 in number with the territorial extension of the Church ever 
 since its formal establishment in 1784. The following year 
 (1785) three were held : ten years later there were twenty. 
 Their present number (1874) is seventy, and the present 
 number of bishops thirteen. These belong equally to the 
 whole Church, and attend the several Conferences according 
 to arrangements of their own. They meet in the autumn 
 of each year, and distribute the duties of their office among 
 them, as judges arrange for the discharge of their duties 
 
 * Stevena's " History of the Methodist Episcopal Church," il 221, 222.
 
 CONSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH. 167 
 
 in their several circuits ; and they preside over the Confer- 
 ences assigned to them with a calmness, self-possession, 
 tact, and delicacy which only men of their natural refine- 
 ment and large experience can display. 
 
 The system of Rules of Life, which the Church has adopted 
 as its " Discipline," was gradually evolved out of plans and 
 principles which originated in the earliest labours of Method- 
 ism, in the same manner as its outward order. The basis 
 of the whole are, (1) the tractate known in this country as 
 "The Large Minutes," being minutes relating to life and con- 
 duct accepted by successive Conferences, and compiled by 
 Mr. Wesley ; and (2) the general " Rules of Society." To 
 these, which the Methodists of America, as elsewhere, 
 recognized as authoritative and obligatory, additions were 
 continuously made by the special enactments of their own 
 Conferences. But, in anticipation of Dr. Coke's arrival, 
 Asbury had carefully revised the various super-additions, 
 and was prepared to submit them in their revised form to the 
 Conference which organized the Church. They were pro- 
 bably read and accepted without debate, and by the time of 
 the next regular Conference in June they had passed through 
 the press. The whole was bound up with the " Sunday 
 Service," or Abridged Liturgy of the English Church, and a 
 "Collection of Psalms and Hymns," which Mr. Wesley had 
 sent over in sheets. Asbury says that the day after this Con- 
 ference he spent three hours profitably in reading this work, 
 and probably in considering how it might be re-arranged 
 and improved. He was evidently dissatisfied with its want 
 of system. On the 27th December of the same year he 
 writes : " For some time past I had not been quite satisfied 
 with the order and arrangement of our Form of Discipline ; 
 and persuaded that it might be improved without difficulty, 
 we (John Dickins and himself) accordingly set about it, and,
 
 1G8 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 during my confinement in James City (through illness), com- 
 pleted the work, arranging the subject-matter thereof under 
 their proper heads, divisions, and sections." 
 
 In this revised form the work was brought before the Con- 
 ference of 1786, and, in compliance with one of its resolutions, 
 Asbury and Coke prepared and appended to it a body of Notes 
 and Illustrations, consisting mostly of Scripture warrants. 
 This was published with the title, " The General Minutes of 
 the Conferences of the Methodist . Episcopal Church in 
 America, forming the Constitution pf the said Church." The 
 next year (1787) this was re-published still further modified, 
 with the title, " A Form of Discipline for the Ministers, 
 Preachers, and Members of the Methodist Episcopal Church 
 in America, considered and approved in a Conference held 
 in Baltimore, and in which the Rev. Thomas Coke, LL.D., 
 and the Rev. Francis Asbury, presided ; arranged under 
 proper heads, and methodized in a more acceptable and easy 
 manner." In this edition the word "bishop" was substituted 
 everywhere for the title " superintendent." In April of the 
 year 1788 Asbury says again, " I compiled two sections, 
 which I shall recommend to be put into our ' Form of Disci- 
 pline,' in order to remove from our Societies, by regular steps, 
 either preachers or people that are disorderly." We know 
 therefore, from his own repeated reference to the manual, how 
 much it occupied his thoughts, and how greatly it is indebted 
 to the suggestions of his devout, sagacious, and practical mind. 
 It is the work of Asbury, based upon " The Large Minutes " 
 of Wesley, in almost as exclusive a sense as that work was 
 the production of Wesley himself. In 1804 the briefer title 
 was given to it which it still bears, "The Doctrines and 
 Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church." Its doc- 
 trines are those of the Articles of the Church of England, 
 reduced to twenty-five, and modified in some places in their
 
 CONSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH. 169 
 
 phraseology ; its rules of discipline, so far as they relate to 
 the ministry, are such as George Herbert and Richard 
 Baxter would have placed next in rank to St. Paul's 
 Epistles to Timothy. 
 
 Reference has been made to the Abridged Liturgy, and a 
 Collection of Psalms and Hymns which Mr. Wesley sent over 
 for the use of the new Church, and it may be asked whether 
 they were adopted. The following statement from Dr. 
 Stevens is a reply to this inquiry. He says, referring to the 
 observation of Whatcoat that the Christmas Conference of 
 1784 "agreed to form a Methodist Episcopal Church, in 
 which the Liturgy, as presented by the Rev. John Wesley, 
 should be read," " This organic provision has never been 
 formally repeated. The General Conference has, indeed, at 
 a later session, directed that for the ' establishment of uni- 
 formity in public worship, the morning service shall con- 
 sist of singing, prayer, the reading of a chapter out of the 
 Old Testament, and another out of the New, and preaching ; ' 
 but is has not directed what the two lessons shall be, nor 
 what the form of prayer ; its prescription would nearly 
 correspond with the original ' Sunday Service,' and, as the 
 latter has never been formally abrogated, any Methodist 
 Society could legally adopt it. Public opinion has, however, 
 silently but effectually rendered it obsolete, and few Method- 
 ists now know that their Church was organized with a 
 Liturgical Service by the direction of Wesley himself. 
 It was used for a few years, in both cities and country, in the 
 principal churches ; but Sabbath-lovefeasts, or other extra 
 services, frequently preoccupied the time allotted to it, and, 
 from being occasionally omitted, it at last fell into entire 
 disuse. It was published in but two editions, both printed 
 in London. In 1787 the ' General Minutes,' or Discipline 
 proper, was published in a separate pamphlet ; the Articles
 
 170 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 of Religion, the Sacramental, Ordination, and other admin- 
 istrative forms of the Ritual, or ' Sunday Service/ were sub- 
 sequently copied into the Discipline, and the Collection of 
 Psalms and Hymns were changed into ' The Hymn-book/ 
 But there are traces of recognition of the Liturgy down to 
 1792, when all allusions to it disappear. Many, if not most, 
 of the early Methodists had been brought up in the English 
 Church ; to these the Prayer-book was not unacceptable ; but 
 the later extension of Methodism comprehended, doubtless, a 
 majority of members whose early education had given them 
 no such predilection. Gowns and bands were also used for 
 some time by the superintendents and elders, but passed 
 away in like manner." 
 
 The system of church institutions and agencies which was 
 established in America in its rudimental state with the 
 planting of Methodism in that country, and which had been 
 more fully developed in 1784, by the organization of the 
 Societies into an Episcopal Church, had at the period at 
 which we have arrived acquired stability and vigour ; and 
 what has been its practical results ? The number of mem- 
 bers at the Christmas Conference was not quite fifteen 
 thousand ; ten years later (1794) it was 67,648 ; ten years 
 after this, 103,134 ; at the time of Bishop Asbury's death 
 (1816) the number was more than 200,000 ; and now, 
 ninety years after its formation, the Church constructed, 
 animated, and extended by the life and activity of which 
 Francis Asbury was the principal medium, and, in the sub- 
 ordinate sense, the centre and source, numbers, with its 
 ten off-shoots, nearly 3,000,000 members, and includes in 
 its congregations about 8,000,000 souls. And the church 
 property alone of the Methodist Episcopal Church is esti- 
 mated at 74,875,000 dollars I 
 
 But these prodigious results have not been obtained with-
 
 CONSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH. 171 
 
 out self-sacrificing effort. A philosophical analyst of the 
 movement would no doubt point out a vast accumulation of 
 conditions which were more or less favourable to its pro- 
 gress ; but no philosophical principles can adequately account 
 for its unparalleled success, which do not recognize Divine 
 agency as the prime cause of that success, and, subordinately, 
 in union and sympathy with the Divine, the agency of men 
 who, like St. Paul, had the mind of Christ, and were self- 
 denying " workers together with Him." The movement 
 was promoted by the combined efforts of many like-minded 
 men, who quickened, aided, and encouraged one another; 
 and circulating amongst them all, as their life, guide, and 
 " ensample," was FBANCIS ASBUEY.
 
 172 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 EPISCOPAL ITINERANCY I THE WEST. 
 
 Tennessee Character of the Population Ware in Peril A Woman 
 Killed by an Indian This Event turned to Account Asbury's First 
 Difficulties General Russell Conversion of the 'General and Lady 
 Conference at Half Acres Journey to North Carolina Virginia 
 Conference Re-crossing the Alleghanies Mr. Whatcoat Kentucky 
 Methodist Settlers and the Preachers Asbury and Whatcoat 
 Horses strayed The Grassy Valley Conference at Lexington 
 Bethel School A Caravan Ordinations Letter from Poythress 
 Second Visit to Kentucky Perils in the Wilderness Wordsworth's 
 Apostrophe. 
 
 WE return to the point in the course of our narrative 
 from which we a little while ago departed. We 
 left the adventurous Bishop in the western parts of North 
 Carolina, preparing (April, 1788) for his journey over the 
 Alleghany mountains into Tennessee, to visit the recently- 
 formed stations in that region, and hold a Conference with 
 the few toiling and suffering preachers there. One of these 
 preachers, the presiding-elder, was John Tunnell ; another 
 was Thomas Ware, who, in an account of the visit, supplies 
 certain details which Asbury has characteristically omitted. 
 
 Speaking of the moral character of the people, Ware says, 
 " Many were refugees from justice. Some there were who 
 had borrowed money, or were otherwise in debt, and had 
 left their creditors and securities to do the best they could ; 
 some had been guilty of heinous or scandalous crimes, and 
 had fled from justice ; others had left their wives, and were
 
 EPISCOPAL ITINERANCY : THE WEST. 173 
 
 living with other women." The country was also infested 
 with infuriated Indians. Ware stated that he once narrowly 
 escaped being murdered by one of them. " My course led 
 through a fine bottom, covered chiefly with the crab-apple 
 tree. I passed along very slowly, making observations 
 upon the richness and beauty of the country, and had 
 thoughts of halting to muse a little in the grove." But, 
 reminding himself that he was in the region of subtle and 
 incensed Red men, he quickened his pace. He had not 
 proceeded far when his horse suddenly stopped and wheeled 
 about. " The same moment I caught a glimpse," he says, 
 "of an Indian, but at too great a distance to reach me with 
 his rifle. I gave my horse the reins, and hastened to the 
 nearest settlement to give the alaum. I had been told that 
 some horses were singularly afraid of an Indian. Be that 
 as it may, I have reason to suppose that the sudden fright 
 which mine took at seeing one was the means, under God, 
 of saving me from death or captivity." In further proof of 
 the reality of the peril in which he and all the preachers 
 lived, he adds, " I was preaching at the house of a man who 
 had invited us by letter to visit their settlement, when we 
 were" alarmed with the cry of ' Indians.' The terror this 
 cry excited at the time none can imagine, except those who 
 witnessed it. Instantly every man flew to his rifle, and 
 sallied forth to ascertain the ground of the alarm. On 
 coming out we saw two lads, running with all speed, and 
 screaming, ' The Indians have killed mother ! ' We followed 
 them about a quarter of a mile, and witnessed the affecting 
 scene of a woman weltering in her blood. The savages were 
 concealed in a cane-brake, and, coming up slily behind a 
 fallen tree, so as not to be discovered by her, they drove 
 the tomahawk into her head before she knew they were 
 near. The Indian who did the bloody deed was seen by the
 
 174 BISHOP ASBUEY. 
 
 boys just as he struck their mother ; but they were at a 
 sufficient distance to make their escape." This event the 
 preacher turned to account by basing upon it an admonitory 
 funeral sermon, which brought many of his hearers, some of 
 whom had been sadly degraded by immorality, to a better 
 state of mind and life. They entreated him with tears 
 to visit them again, and on his re-arrival there, ten or 
 twelve were found united in fellowship as earnest and 
 humble Christians. 
 
 Starting for this district on a Monday morning, with 
 hopeful feelings with reference to his Sunday's labours, 
 Asbury says, " After getting our horses shod, we made a 
 move for Holston, and entered upon the mountains ; the 
 first of which I called Steel, the second Stone, and the 
 third Iron mountain. They are rough and difficult to climb. 
 We were spoken to on our way by most awful thunder and 
 lightning, accompanied by heavy rain. We crept for 
 shelter into a little dirty house, where the filth might have 
 been taken from the floor with a spade. We felt the want 
 of fire, but could get little wood to make it, and what we 
 gathered was wet. At the head of the Watawga we fed, 
 and reached Ward's that night. Coming to the river the 
 next day, we hired a young man to swim over for the 
 canoe, in which we crossed, while our horses swam to the 
 other shore. The waters being up we were compelled to 
 travel an old road over the mountains. Night came on. I 
 was ready to faint with a violent headache. The mountain 
 was steep on both sides : I prayed to the Lord for help. 
 Presently a profuse sweat broke out upon me, and my 
 fever entirely subsided. About nine o'clock we came to 
 Grear's. After taking a little rest here, we set out next 
 morning for Brother Cox's on Holston River. I had trouble 
 enough. Our route lay through the woods, and my pack-
 
 EPISCOPAL ITINERANCY: THE WEST. 175 
 
 horse would neither follow, lead, nor drive, so fond was he 
 of stopping to feed on the green herbage. I tried to lead, 
 and he pulled back. I tied his head up to prevent his 
 grazing, and he ran back. The weather was excessively 
 warm. I was much fatigued, and my temper not a little 
 tried. I took refreshment at I. Smith's, and prayed with 
 the family. Arriving at the river, I was at a loss what to 
 do ; but providentially a man came along who conducted 
 me across. This has been an awful journey to me." 
 
 Entertainment had been procured for him at General 
 Russell's, " a most kind family in deed and truth." He 
 arrived there on Saturday, and henceforth his gallant host 
 welcomed to his home an oasis in the desert all the 
 preachers who laboured within its reach. The intention of 
 Asbury was to have gone forward without delay to a place 
 called Half Acres, where a Conference was appointed to be 
 held. " But," says Ware, " as the road by which he had 
 to travel was infested with hostile savages, so that it could 
 not be passed over except by considerable companies, he 
 was detained for a week after the time appointed to com- 
 mence it. But we were not idle ; and the Lord gave us 
 many souls in the place where we were assembled, among 
 whom were General Russell and lady, the latter a sister of 
 the illustrious Patrick Henry. I mention these particulars 
 because they were the firstfruits of our labours at this 
 Conference. On the Sabbath we had a crowded audience, 
 and Tunnell preached an excellent sermon, which pro- 
 duced good effect. His discourse was followed by a 
 number of powerful exhortations. The Bishop preached 
 on Phil. ii. 6 9. When the meeting closed Mrs. Russell 
 came to me and said, ' I thought I was a Christian ; but, 
 sir, I am not a Christian ; I am the veriest sinner upon 
 earth. I want you and Mr. Mastin to come with Mr.
 
 176 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 Tunnell to our house, and pray for us, and tell us what we 
 must do to be saved.' So we went and spent much of the 
 afternoon in prayer, especially for Mrs. Russell. But she 
 did not obtain comfort. Being much exhausted, the 
 preachers retired to a pleasant grove, near at hand, to 
 spend a short time. On returning to the house, we found 
 Mrs. Russell praising the Lord, and the General walking 
 the floor and weeping bitterly. At length he sat down 
 quite exhausted. This scene was in a high degree interest- 
 ing to us. To see the old soldier and statesman, the proud 
 opposer of godliness, trembling, and earnestly inquiring 
 what he must do to be saved, was an affecting sight. But 
 the work ended not here. The conversion of Mrs. Russell, 
 whose zeal, good sense, and amiableness of character were 
 proverbial, together with the penitential grief so conspicuous 
 in the General, made a deep impression on the minds of 
 many, and numbers were brought in before the Conference 
 closed. The General rested not until he knew his adop- 
 tion ; and he continued a faithful and an official member of 
 the Church, constantly adorning the doctrine of God our 
 Saviour, unto the end of his life." 
 
 The Conference continued three days, on each of which, 
 besides presiding at the sittings, the Bishop preached. 
 " The weather," he says, " was cold ; the room without fire, 
 and otherwise uncomfortable. We, nevertheless, retained 
 our seats until we had finished the essential parts of our 
 business." 
 
 He returned to General Russell's, but only for a night ; 
 and, visiting the distant settlements, he jotted down these 
 notes of his journeys : " Sun. Rode to a chapel near New 
 River, where I preached. After eating a morsel, we hasted 
 on our way. A twenty miles' ride through the mountains 
 brought us to our lodgings for the night. Mon. We rode
 
 EPISCOPAL ITINERANCY : THE WEST. 177 
 
 about fifty miles, and were weary enough. Tues. After 
 riding nearly thirty miles, we came to McKnight's Chapel in 
 North Carolina. Here I preached on Peter's denial of Christ. 
 Thence we went to Hill's. After meeting we proceeded to 
 the neat and well-improved town of Salem. Came to the 
 Quarterly-meeting. The Word appeared to have effect. 
 Frid. was a damp, rainy day, and I was unwell with a 
 slow fever and pain in my head. However I rode to Smith's 
 Chapel and preached ; and thence to Brother Harrison's, on 
 Dan River, and preached. In the space of one week we have 
 ridden, through rough mountainous tracts of country, about 
 three hundred miles. Brothers Poythress and Tunnell, and 
 myself, have had serious views of things, and mature counsels 
 together." 
 
 In North Carolina he continues his perilous daily rides of 
 twenty or thirty miles, and his daily preachings in barns or 
 newly and roughly-built chapels, until he re-enters Virginia, 
 where he holds a Conference, ordains elders and deacons ; 
 has " a gracious season," and is " much blessed " in preach- 
 ing ; and, recording that he finds " the town-folks remarkably 
 kind and attentive the people of God in much love," he 
 again climbs the mountains, and passes over into West Vir- 
 ginia. " And now," says he, " our troubles began. 
 
 " Tues., July 8, 1788. Reached McNeal's, where almost 
 the whole settlement came together. I found freedom in 
 preaching from, ' Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are 
 heavy laden.' Our brother Phoebus had to answer questions 
 propounded to him until evening. Wed. We rode to a very 
 remote and exposed house, where we found good lodgings, 
 for the place. Thurs. We had to cross the Alleghany moun- 
 tains again, at a bad passage. Our course lay over mountains 
 and through valleys, and the mud and mire were such as 
 might scarcely be expected in December. We came to an 
 
 12
 
 178 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 old forsaken habitation in Tygart's Valley. Here our horses 
 grazed about while we boiled our meat. Midnight brought 
 us up at Jones's, after riding forty or perhaps fifty miles. 
 The old man, our host, was kind enough to wake us up at 
 four o'clock in the morning. We journeyed on through 
 devious lonely wilds, where no food might be found except 
 what grew in the woods. We met with two women who 
 were going to see their friends, and to attend the Quarterly- 
 meeting at Clarksburg. ' Near midnight we stopped at A 's, 
 
 who hissed his dogs at us ; but the women were determined 
 to get to the Quarterly-meeting, so we went in. Our supper 
 was tea. Brothers Phoebus and Cook took to the woods. I 
 lay along the floor on a few deer-skins, with the fleas. That 
 night our poor horses got no corn, and next morning they 
 had to swim across the Monongahela. After a twenty miles' 
 ride we came to Clarksburg, and man and beast were so out- 
 done that it took us ten hours to accomplish it. I lodged 
 with Colonel Jackson. Our meeting was held in a long close 
 room. After administering the sacrament I was well satisfied 
 to take my leave. We rode thirty miles to Father Raymond's 
 after three o'clock on Sunday afternoon, and made it nearly 
 eleven before we came in. About midnight we went to rest, 
 and rose at five o'clock next morning. how glad should 
 I be of a plain clean plank to lie on, as preferable to most of 
 the beds ! The gnats are almost as troublesome here as the 
 mosquitoes in the lowlands of the seaboard. The people 
 are, many of them, of the boldest cast of adventurers." 
 
 On the return journey he held a Conference at Union 
 Town, and met Mr. Whatcoat, who had been circulating 
 among the settlements of that tract, preaching and adminis- 
 tering the sacrament. Leaving this Conference, which was 
 marked by " great peace, love, and prudence," he and What- 
 coat, "both sick," travelled together over the mountains
 
 EPISCOPAL ITINERANCY: THE WEST. 
 
 "along a very bad road," and came to the Virginia Baths, 
 where, daring heavy rains which obliged them to rest from 
 travelling, he was " closely engaged in reading, writing, and 
 prayer." 
 
 In 1790 he and his early friend, Mr. Whatcoat, crossed 
 the mountains together again, to hold the first Conference in 
 the interior of Kentucky. Not many years had elapsed 
 since Colonel Boone first penetrated the wilds and woods of 
 this district, and proclaimed the luxuriant fertility of its soil, 
 and its extraordinary facilities for forming settlements. His 
 reports induced many adventurers, principally Virginians, 
 to pour into it, and settle in groups of families in its rich 
 and beautiful valleys. Some of these hardy men were 
 Methodists a few of them local -preachers ; and one object 
 of their accompanying their friends was to hold religious 
 services among them. In 1786, six years before this fine 
 region had been made a State of the Union, two preachers 
 were appointed to it, as the Kentucky Circuit. This was 
 now divided into three, which numbered thirteen hundred 
 members. The privations and sufferings of the preachers 
 had been extreme ; but they had been sustained under them 
 by extraordinary success. Poythress was the presiding- 
 elder of the district. 
 
 The Bishop set out with his companion from the south- 
 east. The first night they slept in " a cabin without a 
 cover, except what a few boards supplied ; " and they 
 " had very heavy thunder and lightning, and most hideouts 
 yelling of wolves around." The next morning they pro 
 ceeded on their way "through the rain, and crossed the 
 Stone Mountain. Those who wish to know how rough it 
 is," says the Bishop, " may tread in our path ! We came 
 on to the dismal place called Roan's Creek. Here we took 
 a good breakfast on our tea, bacon, and bread. Reaching
 
 180 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 the river we had to swim our horses, and ourselves to cross 
 in a canoe. Up the Iron Mountain we ascended, where we 
 had many a seat to rest and many a weary step to climb. 
 At length we baited for the night. Now it is that we must 
 prepare for danger in going through the wilderness. I re- 
 ceived a faithful letter from brother Poythress in Kentucky, 
 encouraging me to come. This letter I think well deserving 
 of publication. I found the poor preachers indifferently 
 clad, with emaciated bodies, and subject to hard fare ; yet I 
 hope they are rich in faith." 
 
 A day or two afterwards he wrote, "We came on to 
 brother Bull's, who wrought for us, gratis, what we wanted 
 in shoeing our horses. Thence we went on groping through 
 the woods. We are now in a house in which a man was 
 killed by the savages ; and, poor creatures, they are but 
 one remove from savages themselves ! I consider myself in 
 danger ; but my God will keep me." They had pushed for- 
 ward to this spot in the expectation of meeting there an 
 escort of Kentucky people, but none had arrived ; and, 
 turning out their horses to graze, they strayed off " so 
 here," says Asbury, "we are anchored indeed ! " In a day 
 or two the horses were found. "We then," says Mr. 
 Whatcoat, who also describes this expedition, "travelled 
 about the settlement, and held meetings for about a fort- 
 night. One morning Bishop Asbury told me that he had 
 dreamed that he saw two men well mounted, who told him 
 they were come to conduct him to Kentucky, and had left 
 their company in the Grassy Valley. So it was. After 
 preaching they made their appearance. We then got our 
 horses shod, mustered up a little provision, joined our com- 
 pany, and passed through the wilderness, about one hundred 
 and fifty miles. The first day we came to the new station. 
 Here we lay under cover ; but some of the company had to
 
 EPISCOPAL ITINERANCY : THE WEST. 181 
 
 watch all night. The next two nights we watched by turns, 
 some watching while others lay down. As there was not a 
 good understanding between the savages and the white 
 people, we travelled in jeopardy ; but I think I never 
 travelled with more solemn awe and serenity of mind. As 
 we fed our horses three times a day, so we had prayer three 
 times." 
 
 The Bishop says, " Besides brother Whatcoat and myself, 
 we were sixteen men, having thirteen guns only. We 
 moved on very swiftly, considering the roughness of the 
 way, travelling, by my computation, thirty-five miles the 
 first day, forty-five the second, about fifty the third ; also 
 the next day forty-five, passing the branches of Hock 
 Castle river. On our journey we saw the rock whence the 
 river derives its name. It is not unlike an old church or 
 castle in Europe. I was strangely outdone for want of sleep, 
 having been greatly deprived of it in my journey through the 
 wilderness, which is like being at sea, in some respects, 
 and in others worse. Our way is over mountains, steep 
 hills, deep rivers, and muddy creeks ; a thick growth of 
 reeds for miles together ; and no inhabitants but wild beasts 
 and savage men. Sometimes, before I am aware, my ideas 
 would be leading me to look out ahead for a fence ; and I 
 would, without reflection, try to recollect the houses we 
 should have lodged at in the wilderness. I slept about an 
 hour the first night, and about two the last. We ate no 
 regular meal ; our bread grew short, and I was much spent. 
 I saw the graves of the slain, twenty-four in one camp. I 
 learnt that they had set no guard, and that they were up 
 late, playing at cards. A poor woman of the company had 
 dreamed three times that the Indians had surprised and 
 killed them all. She urged her husband to entreat the 
 people to set a guard, but they only abused him, and cursed
 
 182 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 him for his pains. As the poor woman was relating her last 
 dream the Indians came upon the camp ; she and her hus- 
 band sprung away, one east, the other west, and escaped. 
 She afterwards came back and witnessed the carnage. These 
 poor sinners appeared to be ripe for destruction. I received 
 an account of the death of another wicked wretch who was 
 shot through the heart, although he had vaunted, with 
 horrid oaths, that no Creek Indian could kill him. These 
 are some of the melancholy accidents to which the country 
 is subject for the present ; as to the land, it is the richest 
 body of fertile soil I have ever beheld." 
 
 The Conference was held at the house of Mr. Masterson, 
 near Lexington, where the Bishop was entertained in com- 
 fort. The business, he says, was conducted "in great love 
 and harmony. I ordained Wilson Lee, Thomas Williamson, 
 and Barnabas McHenry elders. We had preaching noon and 
 night, and souls were converted, and the fallen restored. 
 My soul has been blessed among these people, and I am 
 exceedingly pleased with them. I would not, for the worth 
 of all the place, have been prevented in this visit, having no 
 doubt that it will be for the good of the present and rising 
 generation. It is true that such exertions of mind and body 
 are trying. But I am supported under them ; if souls are 
 saved it is enough. Brother Poythress is much alive to 
 God. We fixed a plan for a school, and called it Bethel ; 
 and obtained a subscription of upwards of J6300, in land and 
 money, towards its establishment." 
 
 He 'spent about a fortnight in visiting the preaching- 
 places under the care of the few heroic men who were 
 stationed in that wild region ; was gratified to meet with an 
 old Methodist friend from Virginia who offered him a 
 hundred acres of land for the projected school ; preached 
 repeatedly to congregations of varied character ; recorded
 
 EPISCOPAL ITINERANCY: THE WEST. 183 
 
 that under one sermon "four souls professed to be converted 
 to God;" lodged one night under a tree, "very feverish 
 and unwell ; " then set out with a large and helpless com- 
 pany on his return to Holston. He says, " We had about 
 fifty people, twenty of whom were armed, and five of whom 
 might have stood fire. To preserve order and harmony we 
 had articles drawn up for, and signed by, our company ; and 
 I managed the people for travelling according to the regu- 
 lations agreed upon. Some disaffected gentlemen, who 
 would neither sign nor come under discipline, had yet the 
 impudence to murmur when left behind. The first night we 
 lodged some miles beyond the Hazel-patch. The next day 
 we discovered signs of Indians, and some thought they 
 heard voices ; we therefore thought it best to travel on, and 
 did not encamp until three o'clock, halting on the east side 
 of Cumberland river. We had gnats enough. We had an 
 alarm ; but it turned out to be a false alarm. A young 
 gentleman, a Mr. Alexander, behaved exceedingly well ; 
 but his tender frame was not adequate to the fatigue to be 
 endured, and he had well-nigh fainted on the road to Cum- 
 berland Gap. Brother Massie was captain ; and, finding I 
 had gained authority among the people, I acted somewhat in 
 the capacity of an adjutant and quarter-master amongst 
 them. At the foot of the mountain the company separated ; 
 the greater part went with me to Powell's river. Here we 
 slept on the earth, and next day made the Grassy Valley. 
 Several of the company who were not Methodists expressed 
 their high approbation of our conduct, and most affectionately 
 invited us to their houses." The journeys of each day were 
 as follows : " Monday, forty-five miles ; Tuesday, fifty 
 miles ; Wednesday, sixty miles." 
 
 On Thursday he reached Captain Amie's, " where," he 
 says, with thankfulness, " I had a bed to rest on." The
 
 184 BISHOP ASBUBY. 
 
 next day he returned to the house of General Russell, where 
 he tarried till Monday, witnessing and rejoicing over the 
 signs of a spiritual change in Mrs. Russell, preaching on 
 the Sunday, and ordaining two local-preachers to the office 
 of deacons; one of them being Mr. Benjamin Van Pelt, a 
 brother of the Mr. Van Pelt of Staten Island, one of his 
 earliest friends in America. On Monday, after riding forty- 
 five or fifty miles, he visited " the pioneer hero," John 
 Tunnell, now in the last stage of consumption. He found 
 him " a mere shadow ; but very humble and patient under 
 his affliction." Very shortly afterwards he laid him in his 
 mountain grave, and preached a funeral sermon on the 
 occasion, from words not less applicable to him than to the 
 Apostle who wrote them: "For me to live is Christ, and 
 to die is gain." 
 
 On re-entering North Carolina he hastened to McKnight's 
 to attend the Conference, which he found had been waiting 
 for him nearly a fortnight. " We rejoiced together," he 
 says, " and my brethren received me as one brought from 
 the jaws of death." A few months after his return he 
 received a letter from Poythress, in which that fervid 
 fellow-labourer says, " There is a general revival through 
 my district. At our last Quarterly-meeting we had, it was 
 supposed, seven hundred souls. ... my dear father, I 
 think that I am as willing to suffer for my dear Master as 
 you are. I believe that you feel much for the rising 
 generation in America. May God bless you with a long 
 and useful life, and success in all your labours ! The 
 Indians are still doing mischief. Not far from the first 
 house you came to after you passed through the wilderness, 
 they killed seven men and wounded one." 
 
 These bold and hurriedly-penned descriptions are best 
 left to produce their own impression. To read them as
 
 EPISCOPAL ITINERANCY : THE WEST. 185 
 
 they stand, is to be reminded involuntarily of the chief 
 causes of the success which those consecrated men achieved. 
 They evidently felt that life was real ; that the spiritual 
 world on which they verged was a reality ; that the Gospel 
 was a true message from God, and a real power unto sal- 
 vation unto every one that believeth ; that none are so 
 deeply degraded as to be beyond its influence ; and that 
 their call to preach it was not a sham or a fancy, but a true 
 call from Him who said, " Lo, I am with you always." 
 They were men of might, because men of faith. 
 
 The Bishop's next journey into Kentucky occurred in the 
 spring of 1792, and was as eventful, perilous, and trying as 
 the former. I again give the account of it in his own 
 words. His companions were immigrants, and a hired 
 guard. He says, " We took half-a-day in having the 
 smith's work done, in fitting our horses for the journey. 
 We have confused accounts of Indians. Our guard rested 
 on the Sabbath-day within four miles of the wilderness. I 
 preached to all the people I could collect. On Tuesday we 
 reached Richland Creek, and were preserved from harm. 
 After crossing the Lamel river, which we were compelled 
 to swim, we came to Bock Castle Station, where we found 
 such a set of sinners as made it next to hell itself. On 
 Wednesday we again swam the river. My little horse was 
 ready to fail in the course of the day. I was steeped in the 
 water up to the waist. About seven o'clock, with hard 
 pushing, we reached the Crab Orchard. How much I have 
 suffered in this journey is only known to God and myself. 
 What added much to its disagreeableness is the extreme 
 filthiness of the houses. I wrote an address on behalf of 
 Bethel Schools." Arrived at that place, he met the preachers 
 and a large concourse of settlers from all parts of the 
 district. " I found it necessary," he says, "to change the
 
 186 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 plan of the school, to make it more comfortable to the 
 scholars in cold weather. I am too much in company, and 
 hear so much about Indians, convention, treaty, killing and 
 scalping, that my attention is drawn more to these things 
 than I could wish. I found it good to get alone in the 
 woods and converse with God. In the Conference I was 
 closely employed with the travelling and local preachers, 
 with the leaders and stewards." And it is not difficult to 
 understand how invaluable his guidance was felt to be by 
 those simple, rustic, and, many of them, inexperienced men ; 
 how immense the comfort they found in his sympathy with 
 them ; and how greatly his example of self-sacrifice, and 
 his intense ardour of spirit, must have served to sustain 
 them in their work. He adds that "vast crowds of people 
 attended public worship." 
 
 On Monday, April 80, he says, " An alarm was spreading 
 of a depredation committed by the Indians, on the east and 
 west frontiers of the settlement. In the former, report 
 says one man was killed. In the latter, many men, with 
 women and children. Everything is in motion. There 
 having been so many about me at Conference, my rest was 
 much broken. I hoped now to repair it, and get refreshed 
 before I set out to return through the wilderness ; but the 
 continual arrival of people until midnight, the barking of 
 dogs, and other annoyances, prevented. Next night we 
 reached the Crab Orchard, where thirty or forty people 
 were compelled to crowd into one mean house. We could 
 get no more rest here than we did in the wilderness. We 
 came the old way by Scagg's Creek and Bock Castle, sup- 
 posing it to be safer, as it was a road less frequented, and 
 therefore less liable to be waylaid by the savages. My 
 body by this time is well tried. I had a violent fever and 
 pain in the head, such as I had not lately felt. I stretched
 
 EPISCOPAL ITINERANCY: THE WEST. 187 
 
 myself on the cold ground, and, borrowing clothes to keep 
 me warm, by the mercy of God I slept four or five hours. 
 Next morning we set off early, and passed beyond Richland 
 Creek. Here we were in danger, if anywhere. I could 
 have slept, but was afraid. Seeing the drowsiness of the 
 company, I walked the encampment, and watched the sen- 
 tries the whole night. Early next morning we made our 
 way to Robinson's Station. We had the best company I 
 ever met with thirty-six good travellers, and a few war- 
 riors ; but we had a pack-horse, some old men, and two 
 tired horses these were not the best part. On Saturday, 
 May 5th, through infinite mercy we came safe to Crabb's. 
 Rest, poor house of clay, from such exertions ! Return, 
 my soul, to thy rest ! " 
 
 A few days afterwards he writes : "I am more than 
 ever convinced of the need and propriety of Annual Con- 
 ferences, and of greater changes among the preachers. I 
 am sensible the Western parts have suffered by my absence. 
 I lament this, and also deplore my loss of strict communion 
 with God, occasioned by the necessity I am under of con- 
 stant riding, change of place, company, loss of sleep, and 
 the difficulties of clambering over rocks and mountains, and 
 journeying at the rate of seven or eight hundred miles per 
 month, and sometimes forty or fifty miles a day." 
 
 Ought it not to have been BISHOP ASBUEY whom Words- 
 worth apostrophized thus 
 
 " To thee, saintly man, 
 Patriarch of a wide-spreading family, 
 Remotest lands and unborn times shall turn, 
 
 Tothee, 
 
 As one who rightly taught how zeal should burn ; 
 As one who drew from out Faith's holiest urn 
 The purest stream of patient energy " 1
 
 188 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES. 
 
 Proposal to build a "Kingswood School" Coke prefers a College The 
 name Cokesbury invented Foundation-stone laid The Site The 
 Dimensions Principles on which to be Conducted True End of In- 
 struction The College opened Other Schools projected Cokesbury 
 Burnt down A new College and Church at Baltimore These also 
 Burnt School in Georgia Bethel in Kentucky Bethel in South 
 Carolina. 
 
 EFERENCE has been made to Bethel School in Ken- 
 JLl; tucky. This, however, was not the first or only edu- 
 cational institution that Asbury founded. No man could 
 have felt more deeply than he the value of Christian educa- 
 tion as an auxiliary to the work of evangelization ; and no 
 man could have been more solicitous that all education 
 should be Christianized. More than four years before the 
 arrival of Dr. Coke he had projected the erection of a 
 seminary, to be conducted on the same principles as that 
 which Mr. Wesley had founded at Kingswood, and to be 
 called Kingswood School in America. John Dickins, he 
 tells us, assisted him to procure subscriptions for this pur- 
 pose : "Gabriel Long and brother Bustion were the first 
 subscribers, which I hope will be for the glory of God and 
 good of thousands." He was not able to undertake this 
 work immediately ; but he never lost sight of it as a neces- 
 sary accessory, took every opportunity of interesting the 
 minds of his people in it, and at his very first interview
 
 SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES. 189 
 
 with Dr. Coke at Barrett's Chapel proposed it as one of the 
 schemes of usefulness to be taken into their consideration. 
 
 The Doctor naturally regarded the proposition with favour, 
 and it was agreed to lay it before the approaching Conference. 
 But he enlarged the conception. He looked with sanguine 
 eagerness into the future ; saw the Methodist Church be- 
 coming a great and efficient power in the country, and the 
 Methodist people becoming numerous, wealthy, and occupiers 
 of high positions in social rank ; and suggested that, not a 
 school but a college should be the object of contemplation. 
 This design was duly brought before the Conference, which 
 adopted it by a resolution, and also suggested that, in honour 
 of its projectors, as the first bishops of the Church, the col- 
 lege should bear their name in the compound form of Cokes- 
 bury. The whole scheme- was warmly approved by the 
 people, and nearly five thousand dollars were quickly sub- 
 scribed towards its execution. In the course of a few 
 months a site was procured, plans were prepared and ap- 
 proved, and on the 5th June, 1785, five months after the 
 proposition had been accepted by the Conference, Asbury 
 wrote: "I rode to Abingdon to preach the foundation ser- 
 mon of Cokesbury College. I stood on the ground where 
 the building is to be erected, and spoke from Psalm Ixxviii. 
 8 6 : ' I will utter dark sayings of old, which we have 
 heard and known and our fathers have told us. We will 
 not hide them from their children, shewing to the genera- 
 tion to come the praises of the LOKD, and His strength, and 
 His wonderful works that He hath done. For He established 
 a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which 
 He commanded our fathers, that they should make them 
 known to their children ; that the generation to come might 
 know them, even the children which should be born, who 
 should arise and declare them to their children." "
 
 190 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 The site of the college was on rising ground near Abing- 
 don, and is said to have been one of the most commanding 
 spots in Maryland. Dr. Coke was delighted with it. He 
 says, " There is not, I believe, a point of it from whence the 
 eye has not a view of at least twenty miles ; and in some 
 parts the prospect extends even fifty miles. The water-part 
 forms one of the most beautiful views in the United States ; 
 the Chesapeake Bay in all its grandeur, with a fine navigable 
 river, the Susquehanna, which empties itself into it, lying 
 exposed to sight through a great extent of country." 
 
 The building, as described by John Dickins, was " one 
 hundred and eighty feet in length from east to west, and 
 forty feet in breadth from north to south, standing on the 
 summit and centre of six acres of land, with an equal descent 
 and proportion of ground on each side." 
 
 The principles on which the college was to be conducted 
 were expounded at large in a prospectus drawn up and cir- 
 culated by the bishops. This document is worthy of being 
 well considered by a student of the movement as a declara- 
 tion of their views of the province of education, as a help- 
 meet to godliness. It is impossible to mistake Asbury's 
 conceptions on this subject. His business was to save men 
 by the power of the Gospel ; but he believed that where the 
 Gospel was effectual it would give freedom and stimulus to 
 the intellectual faculties, and that these, as developed and 
 energized by the Gospel, would conduce by their action to 
 the more complete accomplishment of its great end. He 
 thought of education as the gift of a new power ; and was 
 anxious that this power should be used, under the guidance 
 of Christian principle and of a sense of responsibility, not 
 only for the good of the person in whose individual mind it 
 had been created, but for the benefit of the world. " Our 
 first object," said the promoters, " shall be, to answer the
 
 SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES. 191 
 
 design of Christian education, by forming the minds of the 
 youth, through Divine aid, to wisdom and holiness." The 
 curriculum included mathematics, philosophy, the natural 
 sciences, Hebrew, German, French, and the classics. " In 
 teaching the languages," it was said, " care shall be taken 
 to read those authors, and those only, who join together the 
 purity, the strength, and the elegance of their several tongues. 
 And the utmost caution shall be used that nothing immodest 
 be found in any of our books. But this is not all. We shall 
 take care that our books be not only inoffensive, but useful ; 
 that they contain as much strong sense and as much genuine 
 morality as possible." 
 
 A preparatory school was established in connection with 
 the premises, while they were in process of completion ; 
 and the college was formally opened on the 6th December, 
 1787. Under this date Asbury says, " We opened our 
 college and admitted twenty-five students. I preached on 
 'jTrust in the LORD, and do good,' " a text beautifully 
 appropriate to his own experience and life at all times. 
 What led him to the choice of another text from which he 
 preached on the occasion, is not so evident. " On the 
 Sabbath," he adds, "I spoke on, '0 man of God, there is 
 death in the pot ; ' and on Monday, ' They are the seed of 
 the blessed of the LORD, and their offspring with them.' " 
 The principal of the college was the Rev. Mr. Heath, 
 a catholic and devout clergyman, recommended by Mr. 
 Wesley. Bishop Asbury was ex officio the President. 
 
 So far all seemed to go on well ; and Asbury, actuated by 
 a deep sense of the value of a religious education, promoted 
 the erection of schools of the same character, though of a 
 lower grade, elsewhere. But it imposed upon him an 
 immense additional burden of anxiety. The task of raising 
 the necessary funds at that early period placed him under a
 
 192 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 perpetual strain ; and he continually received intelligence 
 respecting the condition and working of the institution 
 which filled him with disquietude. On August 10, 1788, a 
 few months after the opening, he writes, " I received heavy 
 tidings from the college. Both our teachers have left one 
 for incompetency, and the other to pursue riches and 
 honours. Had they cost us nothing, the mistake we made 
 in employing them might be the less regretted." On the 
 9th December he records an attempt to burn the college by 
 fire, put maliciously by some person into one of the cup- 
 boards. And after many other references, most of them of 
 a sombre cast, we find this sad and regretful note : " We 
 have now a second and confirmed account that Cokesbury 
 College is consumed to ashes a sacrifice of about 10,000 
 in about ten years ! The foundation was laid in 1785, and 
 it was burnt December 7, 1795. Its enemies may rejoice, 
 and its friends need not mourn. Would any man give me 
 10,000 per year to do and suffer again what I have done 
 for that house, I would not do it. The Lord called not Mr. 
 Whitefield nor the Methodists to build colleges : I wished 
 only for schools ; Dr. Coke wanted a college. I feel dis- 
 tressed at the loss of the library." 
 
 Asbury, it is evident, was disheartened, and the sight of 
 the spot never failed thereafter to rouse within him feelings 
 of gloom. Shortly afterwards, however, Dr. Coke had 
 recrossed the Atlantic, and was again by his side. He had 
 not been under the same pressure of care and toil respecting 
 it as his colleague ; and, undaunted, not only proposed its 
 immediate restoration, but induced many gentlemen, both at 
 Abingdon and Baltimore, to subscribe liberally for this pur- 
 pose. As it happened, however, that a building at Balti- 
 more was then being offered for sale which could be more 
 quickly made available for college uses, this was purchased
 
 SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES. 193 
 
 and suitably fitted up, and the re-erection of Cokesbury 
 abandoned. The friends of the Bishop persistently called 
 this new place Asbury College ; but he declined to give it 
 any other designation than the Academy. A new church 
 was at the same time wanted and in contemplation ; and, as 
 more land was connected with the premises than they re- 
 quired, it was built upon the same site. 
 
 This college was eventually opened with a fairer prospect 
 of success as an educational institute than its predecessor. 
 " The academy," said Asbury, " is crowded. They have 
 five teachers and nearly two hundred scholars." Too soon, 
 however, he was called to refer to this also in a different 
 strain. "Through the imprudence," says Dr. Bangs, "of 
 a few boys who had been making a bonfire with some 
 shavings in an adjoining house, the flames were communi- 
 cated to the house in which they were assembled, and 
 thence to the church and college, which were, after in- 
 effectual attempts to extinguish the flames, entirely con- 
 sumed. Thus were the hopes of the friends of education 
 again blasted." " Serious news from Baltimore," exclaimed 
 Asbury ; " the academy, and our church in Light-street, 
 with Brother Hawkins's elegant house, all destroyed by fire ! 
 The loss we sustain in the college, academy, and church, I 
 estimate from fifteen to twenty thousand pounds. But I 
 concluded God loveth the people of Baltimore, and He will 
 keep them poor, to make them pure." 
 
 His school projects at this period were scarcely more 
 successful, and each of them was a source of intense 
 anxiety to him. In March, 1789, he records the appoint- 
 ment of a committee " to procure five hundred acres of land, 
 for the establishment of a school in the State of Georgia," 
 This was at the first Georgia Conference. Dr. Coke was 
 present, and gives an account of the same transaction. The 
 
 13
 
 194 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 representations of each writer are sufficiently characteristic. 
 " Wa agreed," says the Doctor, " to build a college in Georgia, 
 and our principal friends in this State have engaged to pur- 
 chase at least two thousand acres of good land for its sup- 
 port. For this purpose there were twelve thousand five 
 hundred pounds' weight of tobacco subscribed in one congre- 
 gation, which will produce, clear of all expenses, about one 
 hundred pounds sterling. We have engaged to erect it, God 
 willing, within five years, and do most humbly entreat Mr. 
 Wesley to permit us to name it Wesley College, as a memorial 
 of his affection for poor Georgia, and of our great respect for 
 him." 
 
 But Dr. Coke must have misinterpreted the purposes of 
 the people of Georgia, and over-estimated their capabilities, 
 when he wrote this. Asbury, with his better acquaintance 
 with them, had more limited and sober expectations. He 
 saw that the most suitable and the only feasible project was 
 not a collegiate institution, but a school for the children of 
 the poor, to be supported by private charity. This accord- 
 ingly he zealously promoted. " The school for charity 
 boys," he says in the autumn of the same year, " much 
 occupies my mind. Our annual expenditure will amount to 
 200, and the aid we get is but trifling. The poverty of 
 the people and the general scarcity of money are the great 
 source of our difficulties. The support of our preachers, 
 who have families, absorbs our collections, so that neither 
 do our elders nor our charity-school get much. We have 
 the poor, but they have no money ; and the worldly, wicked 
 rich we do not choose to ask." " I received some relief for 
 my poor orphans," he gratefully subjoins a day or two 
 later ; and again, full of hope and satisfaction : " We have a 
 prospect of obtaining a hundred acres of land for every 
 hundred pounds we can raise and pay, for the support of
 
 SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES. 195 
 
 Wesley and Whitefield School. On Monday we rode out to 
 view three hundred acres of land offered for the same 
 purpose." 
 
 It was with this scheme fresh in his mind, and with these 
 prospects of encouragement from the Legislature by grants 
 of land for the endowment of the institution that, two 
 months after the entry just quoted, he proposed to Francis 
 Poythress to endeavour to establish a similar school in 
 Kentucky. A hundred acres of land were offered for this 
 purpose by " an old acquaintance from Leesburg," whom 
 Asbury had met in the newly- settled country, and the work 
 was duly entered upon and completed. But, like the kindred 
 institutions, it imposed upon those with whom rested the 
 responsibility of maintaining it a terrible burden of anxiety. 
 Poor Poythress, as presiding-elder in charge of the Kentucky 
 district, is said to have sunk under the weight of care it 
 imposed upon him into a state of temporary insanity. 
 " Bethel Academy," says Dr. Stevens, " started well, but 
 failed, and in its fall dragged down the noble intellect of 
 Poythress." Asbury struggled hard to raise funds for its 
 support. Three whole days, when in another part of the 
 country, he occupied in writing " subscription papers to be 
 sent abroad for the purpose of collecting one hundred pounds ; 
 but," says he, "my expectations are small, the people gene- 
 rally have so little sense of God and religion." Eventually 
 the Legislature was moved to make a grant of six thousand 
 acres of land for its endowment ; but this, in the condition 
 in which it was given, was like the donation of a stone when 
 the children asked for bread. " It remained for a long time 
 unproductive, and proved rather a bill of expense than 
 otherwise." 
 
 It is impossible to contemplate this succession of abortive 
 attempts to provide the country with the sound and healthy
 
 196 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 education it so urgently needed without admiration of the 
 intelligent zeal and forethought of the noble man who 
 originated and directed the movement, and without sym- 
 pathy with him and his co-workers in their disappointment. 
 But the institutions, like the men who founded them, were 
 in advance of their time. Failure, in some forms of effort, 
 is incident to all reformers, and most of all to moral and 
 religious reformers. After the pause of a few years the 
 work was resumed and carried forward with almost unex- 
 ampled unanimity and heartiness by the Conference, the 
 people, and the country alike ; and at this day Methodist 
 schools, colleges, and universities stud the whole domain 
 of the States. 
 
 As a pleasant set-off against this series of failures, I sub- 
 join the following account of a high-school founded by 
 Asbury in South Carolina, as copied by Dr. Strickland from 
 a paper furnished to the Southern Advocate : 
 
 " Edward Finch gave thirty acres of land as a site for the Institution. 
 
 , .. During the year 1794 the building was completed, and was 
 formally dedicated by Bishop Asbury on his next annual visit, on the 
 20th of March, 1795, with a sermon from 1 Thess. v. 16, and was named 
 Mount Bethel. On the succeeding Sabbath Asbury preached again, and 
 held a Lovefeast, which proved to be a blessed season of spiritual re- 
 freshing. The school was for six years under the rectorship of the Rev. 
 Mark Moore, a man eminently qualified for the post, assisted by two 
 other teachers, Messrs. Smith and Hammond. At the close of this term 
 of service Mr. Moore resigned, and took charge of a school in Columbia, 
 where, by his influence and preaching ability, which was of the first 
 order, he materially aided in the permanent establishment of Methodism 
 in that city. On the retirement of Mr. Moore, Mr. Hammond, father 
 of ex-Governor Hammond, took charge of the school, and taught it with 
 signal ability for many years. For a number of years Mount Bethel 
 and Willington Academy (in Abbeville District, under the control of the 
 celebrated Dr. Waddell) were the only schools of high grade in the 
 interior of the State, and did much in the educational training of the 
 young men of South Carolina. Mount Bethel was largely patronized,
 
 SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES. 197 
 
 and had from time to time students from Georgia and North Carolina. 
 A number of the leading men in our own State in subsequent years were 
 prepared for college at Mount Bethel, among whom were the Hon. John 
 Caldwell and Chancellor James J. Caldwell, of Newberry District, Judge 
 Earl, the first ex- Governor Manning, of South Carolina, and William and 
 Wesley Harper, sons of the Rev. John Harper. The first and second classes 
 who graduated in the South Carolina College, received the preparatory 
 training here also. Wesley Harper graduated in the second class of the 
 college, and died soon after. William Harper graduated in the third 
 class in 1808, and subsequently became, as is well known, one of the 
 first jurists in the country."
 
 198 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 EPISCOPAL ITINERANCY : NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 Spiritual Condition of the Eastern States Jesse Lee Preaches under an 
 Apple-tree Other Preachers Garrettson and "Black Harry" Lee 
 at New York Conference Asbury begins his New England Tour 
 First Impression " Good News ! " New Haven Yale College 
 Home Feeling Christian Philosophy The City of the Puritans 
 Lynn Salem the " Calvary of Witches " Returns to Lynn 
 No Divisions ! Re-arrival at New York Probable Results Humour 
 of Lee (note) First New England Conference. 
 
 ~1V /FETHODISM has never been forward to build upon 
 -LVJ_ another man's foundation, or to obtrude itself where 
 other agencies were doing the work efficiently which it 
 believed itself specially called to prosecute. For this reason 
 probably it extended its operations on the American con- 
 tinent southwards as far as Georgia, and westwards among 
 the scattered settlements in the great valley of the Missis- 
 sippi, before it made any regular attempt to establish itself in 
 New England. There, it might have been presumed, if any- 
 where in that vast region, there would be no lack of spiritual 
 labourers, and no religious destitution. Descendants of the 
 "Pilgrim Fathers," or inheritors of the spiritual advantages 
 which they had laboured so hard to secure in Church and 
 State for all generations, what deficiency of holy light and 
 influence could there be to deplore in their behalf? 
 
 But men are not spiritual and God-like by natural descent, 
 nor are they made so by creeds, formularies, and elaborate 
 external appliances ; and to become bigotedly attached to 
 particular forms and dogmas, without possessing the clear
 
 EPISCOPAL ITINERANCY: NEW ENGLAND. 199 
 
 thought they were intended to express, and without ex- 
 periencing the spiritual life they were given to feed and 
 guard, is to become narrow, pharisaical, and intolerant. 
 And this, too generally, was at this period the character of 
 New England. With its religious belief defined, its religious 
 rites formalised, its ordinances of religious worship pre- 
 scribed and established, its religious dogmas interwoven 
 with its political enactments, and with its towns and villages 
 well supplied with churches, colleges, and schools, its 
 population had long settled into a dead religious calm ; 
 and, " trusting in lying words," were saying, " The temple 
 of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the 
 LORD, are these ! " 
 
 At length the duty of endeavouring to rouse these formal 
 and exclusive people to a degree of religious earnestness began 
 to press itself upon the attention of some of the preachers. 
 The first to be appointed to this task was Jesse Lee, whom 
 we last saw with Asbury at Charleston, South Carolina. He 
 had become well imbued with the spirit of his leader, and, 
 receiving his commission from him at the New York Con- 
 ference of 1789, he promptly entered upon the work, and 
 for twelve months prosecuted it alone, amidst many dis- 
 couragements, but with regularity and unfailing energy and 
 persistence. " I set out," he said, " with prayer to God for 
 His blessing on my endeavours, and with an expectation of 
 many oppositions." He preached his first sermon under an 
 apple-tree on the public way near the town of Norwalk, in 
 Connecticut, after having been first refused the use of a 
 private house, and afterwards of an old building, for which 
 he had applied. Taking his lonely stand, he began to sing 
 and pray, and gradually about twenty people gathered 
 around him, to whom he preached from the text, " Ye must 
 be born again." After the service " I told the people, " he
 
 200 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 says, " that I intended to be with them again in two weeks ; 
 and, if any of them would open their houses to receive me, 
 I should be glad ; but, if they were not willing, we would 
 meet at the same place." Thence he hastened to Fairfield, 
 asked for and obtained the use of the court-house, and, with 
 the aid of the schoolmaster and his own lusty singing, 
 succeeded in collecting a congregation of thirty or forty 
 hearers. He went on to New Haven and to Stratford, 
 where also he obtained the use of the court-house. And 
 thus he continued his untiring labours, journeying and 
 preaching, without the aid or sympathy of a single colleague, 
 until the 27th of February, 1790, when he received, at 
 Dantown, the unexpected and joyful intelligence that three 
 preachers were on their way to join him. 
 
 These were Jacob Brush, George Roberts, and Daniel 
 Smith. The field had been prepared for these additional 
 labourers by their courageous pioneer ; but so few persons 
 had been as yet enrolled as Methodists that their number 
 barely doubled that of the preachers. The four at once 
 distributed themselves over the ground previously traversed 
 by Lee alone, carrying on their work on the evangelistic 
 principles now so well understood; and they shortly 
 welcomed amongst them Freeborn Garrettson, accompanied 
 by the eloquent and effective negro-preacher, called " Black 
 Harry." This man, whose name was Harry Hosier, had 
 now been doing valuable service for about ten years. 
 Asbury first took him, when travelling in the South, to preach 
 to the coloured people, and he afterwards attended Dr. 
 Coke in one or two of his excursions, occasionally preach- 
 ing to white as well as coloured congregations. He was 
 popular in New England as he had been elsewhere, and 
 contributed to rouse among the staid and stately inhabit- 
 ants of those States an unwonted interest in the Methodist
 
 EPISCOPAL ITINERANCY : NEW ENGLAND. 201 
 
 movement. But this interest was not unmixed with strong 
 antipathy to Methodist doctrine. " We have hard work," 
 said Garrettson, " to plant what they call Arminianism in 
 this country. We stand in need of the wisdom of the 
 serpent and the harmlessness of the dove." 
 
 On Monday, October 4th, 1790, Lee " entered the 
 Conference in New York city, to solicit additional labourers 
 for New England. What could he report of his services 
 since he left the same body in June of the preceding year ? 
 A tale of as hard fare and as hard labours, doubtless, as any 
 one there could relate, except possibly the venerable man 
 who sat in the chair the unequalled Asbury. But not of 
 toils and trials alone could he speak. Much had been 
 achieved. Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Eastern Massa- 
 chusetts had been thoroughly surveyed for more definite 
 plans of labour. He, himself, had proclaimed, the principles 
 of Methodism in all the five New England States. He had 
 removed much prejudice, and put the whole country more 
 or less in expectation of further efforts. Prior to his depar- 
 ture from Connecticut to Boston he had formed definitively 
 two circuits, Stamford, or Reading, as it was afterwards 
 called, and New Haven, and subsequently the general 
 outlines of another in Eastern Massachusetts. His fellow- 
 labourers had also extended their travels in many directions, 
 so that five circuits were recorded on the Minutes at the 
 Conference of 1790. Nearly two hundred souls had been 
 united in classes, a remarkably large number if we consider 
 the formidable obstacles which obstructed every movement 
 of the few labourers in the field. Two chapels, at least, 
 had been erected ; one in the parish of Stratfield (town of 
 Stratford) by the Society of Weston (now Easton), called 
 Lee's Chapel the first Methodist one built in New England ; 
 the second, in Dantown, partially built when Lee welcomed
 
 202 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 into it his newly-arrived assistants on the 27th February. 
 Such were the results, thus far; and, with these for his 
 arguments, he could not fail to intercede successfully for his 
 new field. He spent three hours in a private interview with 
 Asbury, discussing its claims. That good and far-seeing 
 man not only complied with his wishes so far as to despatch 
 with him additional labourers, but resolved to visit the 
 Eastern States himself in the course of the ensuing year." * 
 Asbury left New York for the States of New England on 
 the 1st June, 1791 ; travelled through heavy rain to New 
 Eochelle, where he introduced Methodism immediately after 
 his arrival in the country twenty years before ; and where, as 
 the result, there was now a large Society. He preached 
 there in the church ; proceeded the next day to White 
 Plains, and preached in the court-house; the same day to 
 Northcastle and preached again ; the following day he rode 
 to Bedford, and preached in the town-house to about two 
 hundred hearers ; and on the 4th he came to Wilton, within 
 the State of Connecticut, where he preached to a serious and 
 attentive audience in a private house, and then rode forward 
 to Reading. " We have travelled about twenty-four miles 
 this day," he says, " over very rough roads. This country 
 is very hilly and open ; not unlike that about the Peak of 
 Derbyshire. I have confidence in God that this visit to 
 New England will be blessed to my own soul, and the souls 
 of others. We are now in Connecticut, and never out of sight 
 of a house. Sometimes we have a view of many churches and 
 steeples, built very neatly of wood, either for use, orna- 
 ment, piety, policy, or interest, or it may be some of all 
 these. I do feel as if there had been religion in this country 
 once, and I apprehend there is a little in form and theory left. 
 
 * Dr. Stevens.
 
 EPISCOPAL ITINERANCY : NEW ENGLAND. 203 
 
 There may have been a praying ministry and people here ; 
 but I fear they are now spiritually dead, and am persuaded 
 that family and private prayer is very little practised. 
 Could these people be brought to constant, fervent prayer, 
 the Lord would come down and work wonderfully among 
 them." 
 
 On the 5th, which was Sunday, he preached in the morn- 
 ing to about three hundred attentive hearers assembled in a 
 barn at Beading, and in the evening to "a multitude of 
 people " in a Presbyterian meeting-house at Newtown, 
 " the young laughing and playing in the galleries, and the 
 aged below seeming to be heavy and lifeless." He "was 
 sick and weary." On Monday he gave an exhortation to a 
 little gathering in a private house at Stepney ; then moved on 
 to Chestnut-hill, where, as proper notice of his coming had 
 not been given, his congregation was at first but small ; 
 before he had concluded, however, many other persons 
 were added to it, and he began again speaking, he says, for 
 about forty minutes in as pointed a manner as he well could. 
 He conclude^ the day with " a small family meeting" in a 
 friend's house. On Tuesday he arrived at Stratford, where 
 Mr. Lee had formed the first class in New England. " Time 
 was," he said, as he entered this town, "when I should have 
 thought 'the prospects here were very great, the people 
 attend in great multitudes. I find it necessary to guard 
 against painful anxiety, on the one hand, as well as against 
 lukewarmness, on the other. Good news ! They have voted 
 that the town-house shall be shut ! Well, where shall we 
 preach ? Some of the select men, one, at least, granted 
 access. I felt unwilling to go, as it is always my way not 
 to push myself into any public-house. We had close work 
 on Isaiah Iv. 6, 7. Some smiled, some laughed, some 
 swore, some talked, some prayed, some wept. Had it been
 
 204 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 a house of our own, I should not have been surprised had 
 the windows been broken. I refused to preach there any 
 more ; and it was well I did two of the esquires were quite 
 displeased at our admittance. We met the class and found 
 some gracious souls. The Methodists have a Society con- 
 sisting of about twenty members, some of them converted ; 
 but they have no house of worship. They may now make 
 a benefit of a calamity ; being denied the use of other 
 houses, they will the more earnestly labour to get one of 
 their own." The next day he preached in the house of one 
 of the members. " Finding that most of those who attended 
 were serious, I spoke on our blessed Lord's invitation, 
 Matt. xi. 28 30. It was a time of comfort to the few 
 seekers and believers present." 
 
 On Thursday he reached New Haven, where an unusual 
 audience awaited him. His appointments, he found, had 
 been published in the newspapers. "Everything was quiet. 
 We called on the sheriff. We then put up our horses at the 
 Bull Tavern, near the College-yard. I was weary and unwell. 
 I had the honour of having President Styles, Dr. W., and 
 the Rev. Mr. E., with several of the collegians, to hear 
 me. When I had concluded, no man spoke to me. I thought 
 of dear Mr. Whitefield's words to Mr. Boardman and Mr. 
 Pilmore at their first coming over to America : ' Ah,' said 
 he, ' if ye were Calvinists, ye would take the country before 
 ye.' We visited the College-chapel at the hour of prayer : I 
 wished to go through the whole to inspect the interior 
 arrangements, but no one invited me. The divines were 
 grave, and the students were attentive ; they treated me like 
 a fellow- Christian in coming to hear me preach, and like a 
 stranger in other respects. Should Cokesbury or Baltimore 
 ever furnish the opportunity, I, in my turn, will requite 
 their behaviour by treating them as friends, brethren, and
 
 EPISCOPAL ITINERANCY: NEW ENGLAND. 205 
 
 gentlemen." Cokesbury, which so soon afterwards perished, 
 did not afford him the opportunity of requiting, in the way 
 he proposed, the attentions shown him at Yale. But other 
 Methodist bishops have had the pleasure of conducting 
 other learned professors and divines of New Haven, over a 
 college situated much nearer that town than Baltimore ; 
 and they, in turn, have been equally ready to receive and 
 treat with courtesy bishops of the Methodist Church, and 
 professors of the neighbouring Methodist College at Middle- 
 town. 
 
 With more love than ever, he says, for his own warm- 
 hearted people, he pressed onward the next day to Walling- 
 ford, and preached in a meeting-house belonging to the 
 Separatists, a strange home feeling coming over him as he 
 traced resemblances in the country through which he passed 
 to the rural scenery of England. After preaching at five 
 o'clock the next morning " in a large room, to a small com- 
 pany," he rode forward to Wallingford -Farms, and preached 
 on the strait gate and narrow way that leadeth unto life ; 
 " then," he says, " I came to Middlefields, and lodged at the 
 house of a niece of David Brainerd. Here we enjoy the 
 quiet use of a meeting-house." He was "very unwell" on 
 the Sunday ; but he, notwithstanding, preached three times, 
 in the morning and afternoon at Middlefields, and in the 
 evening in the Congregational Church at Middletown, " to 
 a very large, serious, and attentive congregation," not one 
 of whom had the considerateness to inquire, "Master, where 
 dwellest thou ? " After the service he had to ride a mile 
 out of town to find accommodation for the night ; but he 
 reminded himself that " it was to the poorer classes that this 
 preaching was anciently blessed," and was comforted. 
 
 On Monday he proceeded down the Connecticut to 
 Hoddam, " where David Brainerd was born," and thence to
 
 206 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 Lyme, where he arrived late at night, and was hospitably 
 received by " a free, open-hearted Baptist minister who rose 
 from his bed" to welcome him. Onward he went "over 
 rocks, and through heat and dust, to New London. " My 
 mind," he observes, "has felt but little temptation to im- 
 patience until yesterday and to-day. But, through grace, I 
 do not yield thereto. It is both unreasonable and unchris- 
 tian to murmur. It betters nothing. To deny ourselves, 
 and to take up our cross daily, is our duty. Let us not 
 flee from it." After preaching at New London his church 
 the court-house, his subject 2 Peter iii. 15 he continued 
 his journey " over a most dreadful road " to Stonington, to 
 Westerly, Rhode Island, to Charleston, and thence, cross- 
 ing the Narragansett "in a spacious open boat," to Newport. 
 Here, he says, "we stayed two nights. I lectured the 
 second night from Isaiah Ixiv. 1 7. There was some life 
 amongst the people, although it was late, and the congrega- 
 tion like our Lord's disciples before His passion. I expect 
 before many years the Methodists will have a house of 
 worship here. I feel the state of this people, they are 
 settled upon their lees, and want emptying from vessel to 
 vessel to quicken them." 
 
 On Saturday, he writes, " We go hence to Providence. 
 On this journey I felt much humbled. I am unknown, and 
 have small congregations, to which I may add, a jar in senti- 
 ment ; but I do not dispute. My soul is brought into close 
 communion. I should not have felt for these people and for 
 the preachers as I now do, had I not visited them ; perhaps 
 I may do something for them on a future day. We came to 
 Bristol, and should have gone further, but Captain G. 
 saw us and took us to his house. At the request of a few 
 persons, I preached in the court-house to about one hundred 
 people, and enforced, ' The Son of man has come to seek and
 
 EPISCOPAL ITINERANCY : NEW ENGLAND. 20? 
 
 to save that which is lost,' and found a degree of liberty. 
 Some time ago there was the beginning of a work here, but 
 the few souls who began are now discouraged from meeting 
 together. I fear religion is extinguished by confining it too 
 much to church and Sunday service, and reading of sermons. 
 I feel that I am not among my own people, although I be- 
 lieve there are some who fear God." He preached in the 
 town, and was gratified to find a few inquirers, and to meet 
 with " an old disciple," who gave him an account of his con- 
 version under the ministry of Gilbert Tennant, and told 
 him much about Mr. Whitefield and the olden times ; and, 
 though under deep depression while there, he left it believing 
 that the Lord would " shortly visit the town again, and that 
 even we shall have something to do in it." He says that he 
 rested a day at Easton, though he preached once and " the 
 people felt the word. We have had a solemn, happy, and 
 solitary retreat, and my soul entered into renewed life. 1 ,' 
 
 He arrived at length at Boston. Boardman had once 
 visited this city, and had induced two or three persons to 
 meet together as Methodists. Lee and Garrettson had been 
 recently there, and had preached on the Common. But little 
 of a decisive character had been accomplished, and Asbury 
 entered the city of the Puritans in depression. " I felt much 
 pressed in spirit," he says, " as if the door was not open. 
 As it was Court time, we were put to some difficulty in 
 getting entertainment. It was appointed for me to preach at 
 Murray's Church, not at all pleasing to me ; and that 
 which made it worse was, that I had only about twenty or 
 thirty people to preach to in a large house. It appeared to 
 me that those who professed friendship for us were ashamed 
 to publish us. On Friday evening I preached again ; my 
 congregation was somewhat larger. Owing perhaps to the 
 loudness of my voice, the sinners were noisy in the streets.
 
 208 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 My subject was Rev. iii. 17, 18. I was disturbed, and not 
 at liberty, although I sought it. I have done with Boston 
 until we can obtain a lodging, a house to preach in, and 
 some to join us. Some things here are to be admired in the 
 place and among the people ; their bridges are great works, 
 and none are ashamed of labour. Of their hospitality I 
 cannot boast. In Charleston, wicked Charleston, six years 
 ago, a stranger, I was kindly invited to eat and drink by 
 many here by none. There are, I think, nine meeting- 
 houses of the Establishment (Congregational Churches), one 
 Roman Catholic, two Episcopalian ; the Methodists have 
 none. But their time may come." And his faith in the 
 future has been justified. " In our day," says Dr. Stevens, 
 " some ten churches, some of them among the best orna- 
 ments of the city, are occupied by his sons in the ministry, 
 and are more numerous than its Puritan churches at that 
 time." 
 
 Leaving Boston, he says, "I preached at Slade's Tavern, 
 on my way to Lynn. Here I was agreeably surprised to 
 find a house raised for the Methodists. As a town, I think 
 Lynn the perfection of beauty. It is seated on a plain, 
 under a range of craggy hills, and open to the sea. There 
 is a promising Society, an exceedingly well-behaved congre- 
 gation ; these things, doubtless, made all things pleasing 
 to me. Here," he adds, with prophetic confidence which 
 facts have verified, " we shall make a firm stand ; and 
 from this central point, from Lynn, shall the light of 
 Methodism and of truth radiate through the State." Re- 
 specting Marblehead, which he next visited, he writes, 
 " When I entered this town, my heart was more melted 
 towards its inhabitants than to any in these parts, with the 
 exception of Lynn. After consultation, and some alterca- 
 tion among themselves, the Committee invited me to preach
 
 EPISCOPAL ITINERANCY : NEW ENGLAND. 209 
 
 in Mr. Storey's meeting-house, which I did accordingly at 
 four o'clock, on Acts xxiv. 17, 18. I was led to speak 
 alarmingly, while I pointed out the Gospel as descriptive of 
 their misery and need of mercy. Brother Lee preached in 
 the evening to a great number of people, in and about 
 Mr. Martin's house. Next morning, weak as I was, I could 
 not forbear speaking to them on, ' Seek ye first the kingdom 
 of God.'" 
 
 He proceeded to Salem, where he found five churches, 
 " two of them on the New Divinity plan, that is, regenera- 
 tion the first work no repentance, prayer, or faith till 
 this is accomplished." He was refused the use of any of 
 them. "I lectured, however," he says, " in the court-house, 
 on Romans v. 6 9. I looked upon the greater part of my 
 congregation as judges ; and I talked until they, becoming 
 weary, began to leave me. I have done with Salem until 
 we can get a better stand. I had the curiosity to visit the 
 Calvary of the Witches that is, those who were destroyed on 
 the charge of witchcraft " (in the time of Cotton Mather). 
 " I saw the graves of many innocent, good people, who were 
 put to death, suffering persecution from those who had suffered 
 persecution, such, and so strangely contradictory, is man." 
 He next visited Manchester; preached, by permission of 
 "the select men," in the parish church; was heard with 
 attention, and offered a fee which he respectfully declined to 
 accept; and then returned to Lynn, where he tarried ten days. 
 
 In this place a Society had been formed about four months 
 previously, by Jesse Lee. He had come thither under the 
 discouragement of repeated repulses at Boston, and was com- 
 forted by receiving unexpectedly a cordial welcome from a Mr. 
 Johnson, who opened his house for preaching. The news of 
 his arrival and purposes quickly spread through the village, 
 and a congregation was collected, among whom were several 
 
 14
 
 210 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 persons who had sat under the ministry of the Methodists in 
 the South, and who expressed a desire to be united in Chris- 
 tian fellowship. Mr. Lee did not accede to their proposal 
 immediately ; but, leaving with them copies of the " General 
 Rules," returned to Boston to make another attempt to 
 obtain a preaching-place. After a month's absence he 
 came again to Lynn, and formed there the first Methodist 
 Society in Massachusetts. It was composed of eight persons. 
 They met as a Society- class for the first time on the 20th 
 February, 1791 ; but on the 27th June, when Asbury 
 arrived, had increased to nearly a hundred persons, and had 
 already erected a wooden meeting-house, by which he was 
 greatly surprised and gratified. During his sojourn in 
 this place he preached repeatedly in this hastily-built chapel 
 (a mere shed, probably) to an attentive congregation, enjoy- 
 ing, he says, sweet peace, and full of confidence that " God 
 would work in these States, and give us a great harvest." He 
 visited and " conversed freely " with the families, baptized, 
 and administered the Lord's Supper, and met the classes, 
 and was engaged for a time in " close reading." 
 
 On the 18th July he began his return journey, passing 
 rapidly through several towns which he enumerates in order ; 
 but without any observation, except that at one of them 
 where he stopped to dine he was not allowed to preach, 
 because the people were united, and did not wish to divide 
 the parish. "Their fathers," however, he drily subjoins, 
 " divided the kingdom and the Church too, and, when they 
 could not obtain liberty of conscience in England, they 
 sought it here among wild men and beasts." At Springfield 
 he preached in a private house, where his hearers "were a 
 little moved," and one person was under deep conviction. 
 Re-entering Connecticut, he preached at two places, where 
 he had "large and very criticising congregations," though
 
 EPISCOPAL ITINERANCY: NEW ENGLAND. 211 
 
 " some present had feeling hearts." At Windsor the minister 
 received him kindly, he says ; " but did not fail to let us 
 know how lightly he thought of us and of our principles." 
 
 At Hartford he preached in Mr. 8 's meeting-house, and 
 
 was attended by three ministers ; and at Litchfield preached in 
 the Episcopal Church, remarking, " I think Morse's account 
 of his countrymen is near the truth. Never have I seen any 
 people who would talk so long, so correctly, and so seriously 
 about trifles." By a rocky, mountainous way he journeyed 
 on by Cornwall and New Britain to Albany, and thence to 
 New York, " weak and unwell, yet happy in God." 
 
 On estimating the distances he had travelled during the 
 eight weeks of his absence, he says, " I judge that my jour- 
 ney to Lynn, and my rides through the country thereabouts, 
 have made a distance of little less than five hundred miles ; 
 and thence to Albany nearly the same ; and from Albany to 
 New York not much less." And with reference to the in- 
 fluence of Methodist agency upon the Established churches 
 in this part of the continent, he says, " I am led to think 
 the Eastern Church will find this saying hold true in the 
 Methodists, namely, ' I will provoke you to jealousy by a 
 people that were no people ; and by a foolish nation will I 
 anger you.' " He did not look for large numerical gains as 
 the immediate result of efforts put forth in this district. His 
 hope was that the little leaven of evangelistic zeal deposited 
 there would quicken into new life the mass of cold and 
 formal dogmatism with which it came in contact, and that 
 indirectly vaster results would be achieved than could be 
 computed and represented by figures. On the 28th May, 
 1789, he had written, with reference to his appointment of 
 Jesse Lee* to labour in these States: "New-England 
 
 * Lee waa specially fitted for thia difficult mission, by his kindly and
 
 212 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 stretcheth out the hand to our ministry, and I trust that 
 thousands will shortly feel its influence. My soul shall praise 
 the Lord." And already thousands had felt its influence, 
 besides the multitudes who had been gathered into its 
 Societies and congregations. The increase of membership 
 during this single year of Asbury's tour of inspection and 
 evangelizing was nearly nine hundred ; and only twelve 
 months later he had the satisfaction of again visiting Lynn, 
 to encourage and strengthen the few labourers scattered 
 over that vast and thorny field, and to give them the benefit 
 of his personal survey of it, on the first occasion of their 
 coming together as a Conference. I close this chapter with 
 his brief but suggestive account of this first New England 
 Conference. 
 
 He says : " Thursday, August %nd. Our Conference met, 
 consisting of eight preachers, much united, besides myself. 
 In Lynn we have the outside of a house completed; and, 
 
 genial disposition and his irrepressible humour. Nothing discouraged 
 him, and his ready tact and aptness of repartee never failed. Dr. Stevens 
 gives the following amusing example as an illustration. When on his 
 way to Lynn from Boston after his repulse from that city, as related a 
 page or two forward, he saw two lawyers "hastening after him on horse- 
 back, with evident expectations of amusement. They entered into con- 
 versation with him on extemporaneous speaking, one on each side of him. 
 ' Don't you often make mistakes ? ' ',Yes.' ' Well, what do you do with 
 them ? Let them go ? ' ' Sometimes I do,' replied the preacher, drily ; 
 ' if they are very important, I correct them ; if not, or if they express the 
 truth, though differently from what I had designed, I often let them go. 
 For instance, if, in preaching, I should wish to quote the text which 
 says, the devil is a liar and the father of it, and should happen to mis- 
 quote it, and say he was a lawyer, etc., why, it is so near the truth I 
 should probably let it pass.' 'Humph,' exclaimed the lawyer, 'I don't 
 know whether you are more a knave or a fool.' ' Neither,' replied Lee, 
 looking from one to the other; 'I believe I am just between the two.' 
 The gentlemen of the bar looked at each other, and were soon in advance 
 hasting on their way."
 
 EPISCOPAL ITINERANCY : NEW ENGLAND. 213 
 
 what is best of all, several souls profess to be converted to 
 God. I preached on 1 John iv. 1 6, and had some life. 
 There was preaching every night. Saturday, th. I preached 
 an ordination sermon to a very serious congregation, from 
 the words, ' Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think 
 anything as of ourselves ; but our sufficiency is of God.' 
 Sabbath Morning, 5th. I preached from the text, 'What, know 
 ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, 
 which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your 
 own ? For ye are bought with a price : therefore glorify 
 God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.' In 
 the afternoon Brother Allen preached; and I afterwards 
 gave them a farewell exhortation, and there were some 
 affectionate feelings excited amongst the people. Many were 
 moved, and felt a great desire to speak in the Lovefeast, but 
 they had not courage. Monday, Qth. We took leave of the 
 town, making a hasty flight," to another and similar gather- 
 ing elsewhere.
 
 214 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 A CONSTITUTIONAL DIFFICULTY. 
 
 Gradual Growth of the Organization Occasional Jars in the Working 
 The Alleged Excessive Power of the Bishop Eights claimed by 
 Wesley Bishops his Successors Objections raised The Answers to 
 them The Eev. James O'Kelly's demands A " Council " proposed 
 O'Kelly's Antagonism The Bishop's Remonstrance General Con- 
 ference demanded Asbury's Letter O'Kelly's Resolution The 
 Debate " The Republican Methodists " Comments of Dr. Coke. 
 
 I HAVE already called attention to the gradual growth of 
 the Methodist Church system in the case alike of the 
 parent stem in this country, and of its vigorous and fruitful 
 offshoot in America. This, as before pointed out, affords 
 the explanation of some parts and provisions of the organi- 
 zation, which outside critics have unsparingly censured. 
 Had the system been constructed on premeditation for the 
 promotion of all conceivable ecclesiastical purposes, with 
 a due regard to all the possible requirements of both 
 preachers and people, a fairer and more shapely exterior 
 would probably have been given to it ; but, whether in that 
 case it would have worked more satisfactorily, is not so easy 
 to determine. But we have to deal with the actual, and 
 not the problematical. Methodism, in all its incidental 
 details, if not in its essential principles as a Church institu- 
 tion, is as much the creation of circumstances as is the 
 British Constitution ; and just as the gradual growth of the 
 British Constitution accounts for some of its theoretic
 
 A CONSTITUTIONAL DIFFICULTY. 215 
 
 anomalies, which, notwithstanding, work very satisfactory 
 results, so the incongruities which a bystander may detect 
 in the practical system of Methodism are attributable to its 
 gradual adaptation to new conditions and wants as they 
 have successively arisen, and probably fulfil the purposes of 
 the system more effectually than would a more logically 
 perfect organization. But the machinery of Methodism, like 
 that of the British Constitution, has not acquired complete- 
 ness without an occasional jar or shock, which has led to a 
 renewed inspection, and, it may be, a readjustment of some 
 of its parts. 
 
 One thing which gave dissatisfaction to some of the 
 preachers, not long after the formation of the Church, was 
 the power which the constitution lodged in the hands of the 
 bishop of appointing them wherever he pleased. Nothing 
 could have been more natural than the vesting of this power 
 in the episcopal office, and it was not without constitutional 
 checks. The election to the office belonged to the Con- 
 ference itself ; and, not only was the bishop responsible to 
 the Conference for the character of his administration, but 
 was liable to be deposed or expelled for acts of maladminis- 
 tration. He occupied Mr. Wesley's seat, but with a limita- 
 tion of his rights. Mr. Wesley always claimed the power to 
 appoint his preachers to the kind of work for which he 
 deemed them most suitable. Godly and zealous men, he 
 said, came to offer him their services as his sons in the 
 Gospel, to labour when, how, and where he might desire. 
 This was the understood condition between them and him, 
 when he accepted their assistance. If they grew weary of 
 this condition, they were at liberty to withdraw from him ; 
 and he, if he saw sufficient cause, claimed the liberty to 
 withdraw from any of them. Jji continuing with him on 
 these terms, he said, they did him no favour, except as his
 
 216 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 reward was with the Lord. At present it brought upon him 
 nothing but trouble and care. 
 
 It was inevitable that men whose habits of thought and 
 feeling had been moulded by their relation to Mr. Wesley 
 on this condition, should think of themselves, when called 
 to act as his representatives, as invested with similar power 
 in relation to the men who by their own election placed 
 them at their head. Nor was the power likely to be 
 abused by such a man as Asbury, any more than by Wesley 
 himself. But it was not long before questions and pleas of 
 expediency with reference to it, began to suggest them- 
 selves. Ought any man to be entrusted with almost 
 unrestricted power over his brethren ? Apart from all con- 
 siderations of a partial or an impartial exercise of his 
 lunctions, was it not hard, however abstractedly regarded, 
 that a body of men, some of whom might be personally 
 equal in all respects to the bishop, should be so completely 
 at his disposal ? Besides, was it to be expected that he, 
 however gifted and good, should have so just an acquaint- 
 ance with the wants of localities, and the special fitness of 
 preachers to satisfy them, as would be a sufficient guarantee 
 against his commission of great and cruel mistakes ? 
 
 None denied that there was weight in these pleas ; but 
 how was the difficulty complained of to be overcome ? The 
 present method of stationing was not new, and had hitherto 
 given satisfaction ; and much might be pleaded in favour of 
 its continuance among men who were all aiming to promote 
 the same ends, who had at heart the prosperity of the same 
 good work. For, as the bishop had the advantage of 
 being free from local bias, and was possessed of such a 
 knowledge of the whole work as only a man of his oppor- 
 tunities of observation could have, there would be less 
 danger of unsuitable appointments being made by him than
 
 A CONSTITUTIONAL DIFFICULTY. 217 
 
 by others ; and, if the number of ministers increased beyond 
 the possibility of his knowing each of them sufficiently, that 
 difficulty could be met by an increase in the Episcopate. 
 Let them beware, it was urged, lest, in the attempt to 
 obviate one contingent or actual evil, another of equal mag- 
 nitude was not produced. 
 
 To Bishop Asbury, any change shown to be adequate to 
 the requirements of the work, would have been a coveted 
 relief; for the load of responsibility which he willingly bore 
 for the sake of the cause, was a burden which brought with 
 it no personal advantage. But what was to be the nature of 
 the change demanded ? The answer returned to this ques- 
 tion by the leader of the agitation, a preacher of popular 
 gifts, whose name was James O'Kelly, was, " Let the 
 preachers severally have the right of appeal from the act of 
 the bishop to the Conference over which he presides." But 
 how was this right, which implied a change in the constitu- 
 tion, to be conferred? For no single Conference had the 
 power to grant it ; and the number of annual Conferences 
 was rapidly multiplying with the progress of the work. 
 
 On other grounds, the institution of a central and repre- 
 sentative body had been found necessary, and at the Con- 
 ference held at New York, in May, 1789, the two bishops 
 presented the following scheme for the formation of a 
 convention to be called a " Council," which the Conference 
 approved and adopted : 
 
 " Ques. Whereas the holding of General Conferences on 
 this extensive continent would be attended with a variety of 
 difficulties, and many inconveniences to the work of God ; 
 and whereas we judge it expedient that a Council should be 
 formed of chosen men out of the several districts, as repre- 
 sentatives of the whole Connection, to meet at stated times, 
 in what manner is this Council to be formed, what shall be
 
 218 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 its powers, and what further regulations shall be made con- 
 cerning it ? 
 
 " Ans. Our bishops and presiding- elders shall be the 
 members of this Council ; provided that the members who 
 form the Council be never fewer than nine. And, if any 
 unavoidable circumstance prevent the attendance of a pre- 
 siding-elder at the Council, he shall have authority to send 
 another elder out of his own district to represent him ; but 
 the elder so sent by the absenting presiding-elder shall have 
 no seat in the Council without the approbation of the bishop, 
 or bishops, and presiding-elders present. And if after the 
 above-mentioned provisions are complied with, any un- 
 avoidable circumstance, or any contingencies, reduce the 
 number to less than nine, the bishop shall immediately 
 summon such elders as do not preside to complete the 
 number. 
 
 " (2) These shall have authority to mature everything they 
 shall judge expedient : (1) To preserve the general union ; 
 (2) to render and preserve the external form of worship 
 similar in all our Societies through the continent ; (3) to 
 preserve the essentials of the Methodist doctrines and dis- 
 cipline pure and uncorrupted ; (4) to correct all abuses and 
 disorders ; and, lastly, they are authorized to mature every- 
 thing they may see necessary for the good of the Church, 
 and for the promoting and improving our colleges and plan 
 of education. 
 
 " (3) Provided nevertheless that nothing shall be received 
 as the resolution of the Council, unless it be assented to 
 unanimously by the Council ; and nothing so assented to by 
 the Council shall be binding in any district till it has been 
 agreed upon by a majority of the Conference which is held 
 for that district. 
 
 " (4) The bishops shall have authority to summon the
 
 A CONSTITUTIONAL DIFFICULTY. 219 
 
 Council to meet at such times and places as they shall 
 judge expedient. 
 
 " (5) The first Council shall be held at Cokesbury, on the 
 1st day of next December." 
 
 It met as appointed, and consisted of Asbury, as bishop, 
 and eleven elders, including O'Kelly. It did not deal with 
 the question of stationing the preachers, and could scarcely 
 have been intended to allay the growing feeling of discontent 
 with reference to that question. It had, in fact, the effect of 
 fomenting and increasing the disaffection. A few days after 
 it met Asbury wrote, " I received a letter from the presiding- 
 elder of this district, James O'Kelly. He makes heavy 
 complaints respecting my power, and bids me pause for one 
 year, or he must use his influence against me." And again 
 a little later, " I have felt grieved in mind that there is a 
 link broken out of twelve that should form a chain of union. 
 I hope God will sanctify some providence to the explanation 
 of this matter, and heal the whole." O'Kelly had at length 
 declared war against what he called the bishop's assumption 
 of power, and' against the Council, as a concentration and 
 increase, rather than a reduction of it ; and was moving the 
 people wherever he had influence to demand the calling of a 
 General Conference, for inquiring into the matter. Would 
 he be content to abide by the decision of such a Conference ? 
 We shall see. 
 
 So intense was the bishop's anxiety to keep the unity of the 
 Spirit in the bond of peace that, to use again his own words, 
 he wrote to O'Kelly to declare his willingness to take his 
 seat in the Council as another member, and, on that point, at 
 least, to waive the claims of Episcopacy; "yea," said he, 
 " I would lie down and be trodden on, rather than know- 
 ingly injure one soul." And if ever utterance was guileless, 
 it was this passionate effusion of a full heart. But O'Kelly
 
 220 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 was not to be moved from his purpose by a generous appeal 
 to his nobler feelings. The Council reassembled on the 
 1st December, 1790, as had been arranged, he protesting 
 against it by his absence. But the opposition to it, and the 
 demand for a General Conference became so widespread and 
 violent through his incessant agitation, that though it did 
 not formally dissolve itself, it never met again. On the 
 23rd March succeeding Asbury records the re-arrival of 
 " long-looked-for Dr. Coke," who had been shipwrecked on 
 his fourth voyage from England. " I found the Doctor's 
 sentiments," he says mournfully, " with regard to the 
 Council, quite changed. James O'Kelly's letters had reached 
 London. I felt perfectly calm, and acceded to a General 
 Conference for the sake of peace." 
 
 It was forthwith arranged for, and was duly held, at Bal- 
 timore, on the 1st November, 1792. Dr. Coke had mean- 
 time again crossed and re-crossed the Atlantic, and was 
 present to preside on the occasion. Asbury, who had looked 
 forward to it with great anxiety, says, " I felt awfully. At 
 my desire they appointed a moderator and preparatory com- 
 mittee to keep order, and bring forward the business with 
 regularity. We had heavy debates on the first, second, and 
 third sections of our Form of Discipline." As the preroga- 
 tives of the Episcopacy were the subjects of discussion, 
 Asbury says, " I gave up the whole matter to them (to con- 
 sider, unembarrassed by his presence), and to Dr. Coke, who 
 presided ; and sent them the following letter : 
 
 " MY DEAR BRETHREN, 
 
 " Let my absence give you no pain : Dr. Coke presides. I am hap- 
 pily excused from assisting to make laws by which, myself am to be 
 governed. I have only to obey and execute. I am happy in the con- 
 sideration that I never stationed a preacher through enmity, or as a 
 punishment. I have acted for the glory of God, the good of the people,
 
 A CONSTITUTIONAL DIFFICULTY. 221 
 
 and to promote the usefulness of the preachers. Are you sure that if 
 you please yourselves, the people will be as fully satisfied. They often 
 say, ' Let us have such a preacher,' and sometimes, ' We will not have 
 such an one.' Perhaps I must say, ' His appeal forced him upon you.' 
 I am one, ye are many. I am as willing to serve you as ever. I want 
 not to sit in any man's way. I scorn to solicit votes. Speak your 
 minds freely ; but, remember, you are only making laws for the present 
 time. It may be that, as in some other things, so in this, a future day 
 may give you further light." 
 
 O'Kelly's resolution was in the following terms : 
 
 " That, after the bishop appoints the preachers at the Conference to 
 their several circuits, if any one thinks himself injured by the appoint- 
 ment, he shall have liberty to appeal to the Conference and state hie 
 objections, and, if the Conference approve his objections, the bishop 
 shall appoint him to another circuit." 
 
 It is easy to understand that much might be said on this 
 proposition, both for and against ; and we are told that the 
 debate was protracted over three days, but that the motion 
 was eventually lost by a large majority. The sequel, in the 
 case of the leader of the agitation, shall be stated in the calm 
 words of the Bishop. He says : " Mr. O'Kelly, being disap- 
 pointed in not obtaining the right of appeal from any station 
 made by me, withdrew from the Connexion, and went off. 
 For himself, the Conference well knew that he could not 
 complain of our regulation. He had been appointed to the 
 south district of Virginia for about ten succeeding years ; 
 and upon his plan might have appointed himself, and any 
 preacher, or set of preachers, to the district, whether the 
 people wished to have them or not." 
 
 Unhappily, as is common with disappointed men of an am- 
 bitious and turbulent spirit, Mr. O'Kelly retired from the Con- 
 ference to continue his opposition without. He had already 
 gathered around him a body of sympathizers, who, now that 
 he was defeated, pronounced him an injured man, denounced
 
 222 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 the Conference, with Bishop Asbury at its head, as a body 
 of tyrants, appealed to the tribunal of Public Opinion, and, 
 of course, evoked from the multitude, who knew, and could 
 know, nothing of the merits of the case, a decision adverse 
 to the whole Methodist system. The result was, that in 
 South Virginia, where O'Kelly's influence was the greatest, 
 the Societies were rent, decimated, or irrecoverably scattered ; 
 a body of seceders, with the popular rallying-cry of Freedom 
 and Reform, constituted, under O'Kelly's leadership, " the 
 Republican Methodist Church " ; and the progress of the 
 evangelistic movement was seriously impeded. But the 
 triumph of revolt was of short duration. When the schism 
 and the purposes of its leader were mentioned to Asbury 
 he quietly remarked, " I hear that there was a Conference at 
 Reese's Chapel, in Charlotte County, Virginia, to form what 
 they call a free constitution and a pure Church ; and to re- 
 ject me and my creatures. Only let them settle in congre- 
 gations, and tax the people, and I know how it will work ! 
 Whenever the people are unwilling to receive us, we will 
 peacefully withdraw from them ; and if those who wish the 
 change can serve them better than we have done, well. 
 
 Perhaps some of them can think with , that I am the 
 
 greatest villain on the continent. I bid such adieu, and 
 appeal to the bar of God. I have no time to contend, having 
 better work to do. The Lord judge between me and them." 
 And the new organization was as ephemeral as he foresaw 
 and predicted. The seceders soon began to contend for pre- 
 eminence among themselves ; and this counsel and work, 
 which was not of God, " came to nought." 
 
 This harassing business being disposed of, "the General 
 Conference," says Asbury, " went through the Discipline, 
 Articles of Faith, Forms of Baptism, Matrimony, and Burial 
 of the Dead ; as also the Offices of Ordination. The Con-
 
 A CONSTITUTIONAL DIFFICULTY. 223 
 
 ference ended in peace, after voting another General Con- 
 ference to be held four years hence. By desire of my brethren 
 I preached from the text of St. Peter, ' Finally, be ye all of 
 one mind ; love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous.' My 
 mind was kept in peace, and my soul enjoyed rest in the 
 Stronghold." 
 
 Speaking with reference to the whole session, Dr. Coke 
 says, " I have always entertained very high ideas of the 
 piety and zeal of the American preachers, and of the con- 
 siderable abilities of many ; but had no expectation, I con- 
 fess, that the debates would be carried on in so very masterly 
 a manner ; so that, on every question of importance, the 
 subject seemed to be considered in every possible light. 
 Throughout the debates they conducted themselves as the 
 servants of the people ; and therefore never lost sight of 
 them on any question. Indeed, the single eye, and spirit 
 of humility, manifested by the preachers throughout the 
 Conference, were extremely pleasing, and afforded a comfort- 
 able prospect of the increase of the work of God in the whole 
 continent."
 
 224 
 
 CHAPTEB XIX. 
 
 EPISCOPAL ITINERANCY : THE CIRCUIT OF THE STATES. 
 
 Auxiliary Institutions Foreign Missions The Book Concern Sunday 
 Schools Asbury's Annual Tour Virginia South Carolina Savan- 
 nah Whitefield's Orphanage Incidents of Journey to Charleston 
 To the Mountains In the Wilderness Kentucky Tennessee 
 Mrs. Russell The Baths To the North Faint yet Pursuing In 
 the Mill-race New York Yellow-fever at Philadelphia Review 
 Bishops Whatcoat and McKendree. 
 
 T3ETWEEN the Christinas Conference of 1784 and the 
 -LJ General Conference of 1792 this being the beginning 
 of the quadrennial General Conference, and like so many 
 other of the provisions of Methodism, the answer of Provi- 
 dence to a generally felt want the Church had gradually 
 increased its auxiliary institutions and appliances. Its 
 Foreign Missions may be said to date from the period of its 
 organization, when Garrettson and Cromwell were set apart 
 as Missionaries to Nova Scotia. In 1787 definite arrange- 
 ments were made for the religious instruction of the children 
 of Methodists. In reply to the question, "What can we 
 do for the rising generation ? " the Baltimore Conference of 
 that year said, " Let the elders, deacons, and helpers place 
 the children of our friends in proper classes, as far as it is 
 practicable, meet them as often as possible, and commit them 
 during their absence to the care of proper persons, who 
 may meet them at least weekly; and if any of them be 
 truly awakened, let them be admitted into Society." In 
 1789 a Methodist publishing-house was opened in Phil-
 
 THE CIRCUIT OF THE STATES. 225 
 
 adelphia ; John Dickins was appointed the Book Steward, 
 and under his editorship the first volume of the Arminian 
 Magazine, mainly a reprint of Mr. Wesley's, was issued. 
 Thus began the present gigantic Book Concern, " with its 
 two publishing houses, five depositories, a capital of nearly 
 800,000 dollars, its twelve editors, its nearly five hundred 
 clerks and operatives, its more than twenty cylinder and 
 power presses, its nearly thirty thousand different publica- 
 tions, its fourteen periodicals, with an aggregate circulation 
 of over one million copies per month." * 
 
 The next year (1790) is rendered memorable by the 
 inauguration of Sunday-schools. Four years prior to this a 
 successful trial of one had been made by Asbury. " In the 
 year 1786, five years before any other person moved in this 
 matter, he organized a school in Hanover county, Virginia, 
 in the house of Thomas Crenshaw, and, as one of its first- 
 fruits, John Charlston was converted to God in that school, 
 and afterwards became a useful and successful minister of 
 the gospel in the Methodist Episcopal Church." f Now (in 
 1790) it was agreed that the effort to promote their establish- 
 ment should be systematic and general. " Our Conference," 
 Asbury writes, with satisfaction, " resolved on establishing 
 Sunday-schools for poor children, both white and black." 
 " Let us labour," say the Minutes for that year, " as the heart 
 and soul of one man, to establish Sunday-schools in or near 
 the places of public worship. Let persons be appointed by 
 the bishops, elders, deacons, or preachers, to teach (gratis) 
 all that will attend and have a capacity to learn, from six 
 o'clock in the morning till ten, and from two o'clock in the 
 afternoon till six, where it does not interfere with public 
 worship." 
 
 * Stevens' His., ii. 500. f Strickland's Asbury, p. 217. 
 
 15
 
 226 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 Stevens remarks on this Minute that it is supposed to be. 
 the first recognition of Sunday-schools by any American 
 church. " Only about nine years had passed since they 
 were begun in England. A young Methodist woman (Miss 
 Cooke) afterwards the wife of one of Wesley's most dis- 
 tinguished preachers, Samuel Bradburn, first suggested to 
 Eobert Raikes their organization in 1781, at Gloucester. 
 She assisted him in forming the first school, attended with 
 him the procession of ragged children from the school to the 
 parish church, and was one of their most effective teachers. 
 John Wesley was the first man in England to publicly 
 approve Raikes' plan, after the latter had published an account 
 of it in the Gloucester Journal, in 1784. Wesley imme- 
 diately copied the account into his Arminian Magazine, and 
 recommended his people to adopt the new institution. In 
 the same year Fletcher, of Madeley, introduced it into his 
 parish, and wrote an essay on ' The Advantages likely to 
 arise from Sunday-schools. . . . The endeavour of 1790 
 to incorporate the institution into the Church, though for 
 some time feeble, if not defeated, at last succeeded, and in 
 our day there are nearly a million and a half scholars, and 
 nearly two hundred thousand teachers (according to the 
 latest returns) in the various Methodist Sunday-schools of the 
 United States. The Sunday-school Union has become one 
 of the most important auxiliaries of the Book Concern, with 
 its four periodicals, having an aggregate circulation of more 
 than 260,000 per number. Its catalogue of publications 
 includes more than 1,300 different works, with an annual 
 issue of about a million copies, and its Sunday-school 
 libraries report nearly two and a half millions of volumes. 
 More than two hundred and thirty thousand conversions 
 have been reported in its schools in the last fifteen years." 
 Through the good management of Mr. Dickins, the book
 
 THE CIRCUIT OF THE STATES. 227 
 
 establishment had begun to be remunerative, and the 
 General Conference determined that a portion of its profits 
 should be appropriated to the relief of distressed preachers, 
 and that the bishop should be allowed to devote another 
 fixed sum to the establishment of " district-schools ; " that 
 is, day-schools, to be under the supervision of the pre- 
 siding-elders of the several districts. 
 
 The business of this important Conference concluded, 
 Dr. Coke prepared to embark for the West Indies, and 
 Bishop Asbury set out with eagerness on his annual tour of 
 the States. His route lay first southward, as far as Savan- 
 nah ; thence through South and North Carolina, across the 
 mountains to Tennessee and Kentucky ; back to the Holston, 
 and along the western slope of the Alleghanies into West 
 Virginia ; onward along the rugged mountains into Mary- 
 land ; then northward to Albany and the States of New 
 England. Under the guidance of his faithful Journal we 
 will follow him over this immense circuit, and look at his 
 character in the light thrown upon it by some of its thickly- 
 set incidents. 
 
 Leaving Baltimore the day after the Conference adjourned, 
 he rode forty miles to Alexandria, in Virginia, to preside at 
 a District Conference. Here he ministered to the guidance 
 and encouragement of his brethren by an expository dis- 
 course, and by a close sitting with them dispatched the 
 business of the Conference in a single day. Then he is off 
 in company with five of them into Carolina county, riding 
 fifty-three miles before sunset. " So much," he says, play- 
 fully, "for an American episcopos ; " and more seriously 
 adds, " travelling in such haste, I could not be as much 
 in mental prayer as I desired ; although I enjoyed many 
 moments of sweet converse with God." By the next 
 Sunday he has arrived at Manchester, where again he
 
 228 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 preaches, presides over a District Conference, meets the 
 preachers "in band," and rejoices over their "union and 
 love." His next halting-place is Petersburg, where, and 
 in the surrounding places, he preached repeatedly, spoke 
 encouragingly to the young people, met the Societies, 
 comforted a dear dispirited old Christian in his recent 
 bereavement, and projected and "formed a constitution for 
 a district-school." Thence he directed his course for 
 Lewisburg, met about forty preachers in Conference, with 
 whom he was diligently employed for four days ; then 
 giving thanks to God for the hundreds of conversions 
 reported from their circuits, presses onward into South 
 Carolina. 
 
 " Sunday, Dec. 23. We attended from ten till one 
 o'clock in ^a house built of poles ; here were light and 
 ventilators plenty. We rode this evening twenty miles to 
 Mr. Blakeney's. The rain caught us in the woods, and we 
 were well steeped. Arriving, we found a .good house, 
 table, and bed, which was some relief to weather-beaten 
 pilgrims. Christmas Eve. We rode in the rain twenty-five 
 miles to our kind brother Horton's, and found many people 
 had gathered. Christmas Day. Rode forty-five miles to dear 
 brother Rembert's ; kind and good, rich and liberal ; who 
 has done more for the poor Methodists than any man in 
 South Carolina. The Lord grant that he, with his house- 
 hold, may find mercy in that day. Wednesday, 26. Preached 
 at Quarterly-meeting on the words of St. Peter, ' Rejoice, 
 inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings ; that 
 when His glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with 
 exceeding joy.' I was pleased to hear the young men after 
 the sacrament. I felt uncommonly melted ; tears involun- 
 tarily burst from my eyes. God was there. Thursday, 27. 
 I had a long, cold ride of forty-five miles. The unfinished
 
 THE CIRCUIT OF THE STATES. 229 
 
 state of the houses, lying on the floor, then clothing, and 
 inclement weather, keep me in a state of indisposition. 
 Friday, 28. We had to cross the Santee, and ride thirty- 
 five miles to dear sister Brewing's. Saturday, 29. Rode 
 thirty-three miles to Charleston, and found our little flock 
 in peace, and a small revival amongst them." 
 
 At Charleston he lodges in comfort with his hospitable 
 friend, Mr. Wells, who, he thankfully notes, gives evidence of 
 increased spirituality ; he preaches on the Sunday on " the 
 Child born ; the Son given ; " he holds a Conference which is 
 prolonged over three days ; then, on Friday, starts for 
 G 's, on the Edisto River, where " unwell, and weary, 
 and sleepy, and very unfit for public exercise," he neverthe- 
 less preaches Christ as the wisdom and the power of God. 
 The next day he rode fifty miles, and by Thursday reached 
 Washington, in Georgia, where he again presided at a 
 Conference. On the Sunday he preached, nearly the whole 
 town coming to hear "this man that rambles through the 
 States ; " and administered the Lord's-supper, held a love- 
 feast, and ordained. His next remove is direct to his 
 southernmost bourn, Savannah, "where," said he, on start- 
 ing for it, "I may see the former walks of dear Wesley and 
 Whitefield, whom I hope to meet in the New Jerusalem." 
 
 Making Savannah his head-quarters for a few days, he 
 visited the outlying places, passing in one direction through 
 " rice plantations for nearly two miles," and becoming 
 " entangled in the swamp ; " and in another direction, 
 " getting pretty well scratched by the trees." " A wretched 
 country this ! " he remarks, " but there are souls, precious 
 souls, worth worlds." He naturally went out to see the 
 ruins of Whitefield's Orphan-house, and was filled with 
 oppressive emotion as he gazed on the confused heaps, and 
 the dreary walls of the wings, as weird sentinels standing
 
 230 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 over them. Of course in that distant district the General 
 Conference, and the secession of O'Kelly, were freely 
 commented on ; and with reference to the part he took in 
 conversations on this agitating subject, he enters this char- 
 acteristic note : "I am not enough in prayer. I have said 
 more than was for the glory of God concerning those who 
 have left the American Connexion, and who have reviled 
 Mr. Wesley, Mr. Fletcher, Dr. Coke, and poor me. Oh ! that 
 I could trust the Lord more than I do, and leave His cause 
 wholly in His own hands ! " 
 
 On Saturday, February 2nd, 1793, he began to retrace 
 his course to Charleston. On Sunday, preached at Black- 
 swamp Church ; Monday, at Purisburg, " to a house full." 
 Was faint and low-spirited ; stopped at a bridge to pay his 
 fare, " but oh ! the scent of rum, and men filled with it ! " 
 " Hoped for entertainment at Bed Hill ; but the gentleman 
 refused to receive us for love, money, or hospitality's sake. 
 At length we providentially reached a Mr. C 's, a school- 
 master and minister. We bought some corn for our horses, 
 and had tea, and bread and cheese for ourselves." Re- 
 arrived at Charleston, he writes : " Travelling through 
 heavy rains, deep swamps in dark nights, makes both man 
 and beast feel the effects of yesterday's journey of forty-five 
 miles. My mind has been severely agitated this tour. I 
 have ridden about six hundred and fifty miles in one month, 
 wanting one day." 
 
 After a few busy days at Charleston, he struck out west- 
 ward to Columbia, the capital of the State, thence by daily 
 rides through woods and across rivers and swamps, to "the 
 multitude of mountains." Coming to T 's, "in the cove," 
 after a ride of thirty miles, he " rested in peace, after getting 
 a little Indian bread and fried bacon, and drinking some of 
 our tea. Our lodging was on a bed set upon forks, with
 
 THE CIRCUIT OF THg STATES. 231 
 
 clap-boards laid across, in an earthen-floor cabin. Bat worse 
 than all the rest was the absence of religion. I feel awfully 
 for the people on this account." Ascending the mountain, 
 he stopped at S 's, and preached to a few people, hastily 
 brought together, on " The promise to you and to your chil- 
 dren." " My soul felt for these neglected people," he writes. 
 " It may be, by my coming this way, Providence will so 
 order it that I shall send them a preacher. We hasted on 
 to Cove's Creek, and invited ourselves to stay at C 's, 
 where we made our own tea, obtained some butter and milk, 
 and some most excellent Irish potatoes. We were presented 
 with a little flax for our beds, on which we spread our coats 
 and blankets, and three of us slept before a large fire." 
 Early the next morning he began to climb the " iron moun- 
 tain," which was " steep like the roof of a house, and greatly 
 trying to his lungs ; " and, at length, through indescribable 
 difficulties, and oppressed with an intermittent fever, he 
 came to " new territory," in Tennessee, where, as yet, there 
 were but four or five Methodist families, but where the much 
 suffering preachers came joyously together to meet and re- 
 ceive fresh quickening and counsel from their sympathizing 
 bishop. Here he records peace in the Conference, " a melt- 
 ing among the people," "a happy time" in spiritual con- 
 versation with an old friend who had settled there, though 
 "pained for his children, who are yet unconverted;" and 
 despite the appearances of danger on the road, he prepared 
 for his journey " through the wilderness." 
 
 " Monday. Our guard appeared. I found that the reports 
 relative to the Indians were true ; they had killed the post 
 and one or two more, and taken some prisoners : I had not 
 much thought or fear about them. Tuesday. We came off. 
 I went to Robinson's station, where the soldiers behaved 
 civilly. We gave them two exhortations, and had prayer
 
 232 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 with them. They honoured me with the swinging hammock 
 (a bear-skin), which was as great a favour to me as the 
 governor's bed. Here I slept well. Wednesday. We hasted 
 on our way (along the line of the mountains). Fed on the 
 banks of Cumberland river, and pushed on to Hood's station. 
 Here there was high life below stairs. We had a troop of 
 poor, very poor sinners. I gave dreadful offence by a prayer 
 I made." By Saturday he had arrived at a settlement in the 
 interior of Kentucky, where there was a little Methodist 
 Society. He attended the Quarterly-meeting ; warned its 
 members of the perils of spiritual declension ; " had some 
 light, life, and liberty in preaching ; " and " closed the meet- 
 ing after several had engaged in prayer," crying, " Lord, let 
 not Thy faithful word fall to the ground ! " On Sunday he 
 had a large congregation, to whom he discoursed on the 
 deliverances vouchsafed to the righteous in times of trouble. 
 " Tuesday. Rode thirty miles without food for man or beast. 
 There is a falling away among the people. Lord, help me 
 to bear up in the evil day. Thursday. Rode sixteen miles 
 to Clarke's station to attend the Quarterly-meeting. Blessed 
 be God, I live continually in His presence, and Christ is All 
 in all to my soul ! " 
 
 He spent about three weeks visiting the several settle- 
 ments, preaching daily, and on the Sundays, also administer- 
 ing the sacraments and holding lovefeasts ; he held a Con- 
 ference with the preachers from all parts of the district, 
 which was characterized by frankness and freedom, and 
 "ended under the melting, praying, praising power of God ; " 
 and left persuaded that under his last sermon "good was 
 certainly done among old and young." With a select com- 
 pany he pushed forward through the wilderness on the 
 return journey, " under great suspicion of the Indians ; " and 
 on reaching the house of Mr. Van Pelt, in Tennessee, he
 
 THE CIRCUIT OF THE STATES. 233 
 
 wrote, " I have travelled between five and six hundred miles 
 in the last four weeks, and have rested from riding fifteen 
 days for Conference and other duties. I have been much 
 distressed with this night-work, the want of regular meals, 
 and of sleep ; and it is difficult to keep up habits of prayer 
 in such rude companies as we have been obliged to travel 
 with. I have also been severely afflicted through the whole 
 journey." 
 
 Here he rested on the Sunday; but the next day rode 
 forty-six miles, and at night narrowly escaped being burnt 
 in the cabin where he lodged. Weary, and in pain, he came 
 at last to the mountain-side mansion, where he had been so 
 often greeted with warm welcomes from his friend, General 
 Kussell. Mrs. Russell received him with her wonted cour- 
 tesy ; but she was a widow. " I am very solemn," he says ; 
 "I feel the want of the dear man who, I trust, is now in 
 Abraham's bosom, and hope ere long to see him there. He 
 was a general officer in the continental army, where he 
 underwent great fatigues. He was powerfully brought to 
 God, and for a few years past was a living flame, and a 
 blessing to this neighbourhood. Oh that the gospel may 
 continue in this house ! I preached on the cloud of witnesses, 
 and there followed several exhortations. We then adminis- 
 tered the sacrament. Our exercises lasted about five 
 hours." The next day he was busy planning for the 
 establishment of a district school ; then off for a ride of 
 forty-five miles to a congregation waiting for his ministry, 
 and onward " over the hills with rain without, and hunger 
 within, to Green Briar country, in Virginia, where he held a 
 Conference, and was " greatly comforted." 
 
 Rest had become an absolute necessity, and he sought it 
 where he could also use means to alleviate his bodily suffer- 
 ing. He says, " We rode to Bath. Here we continued to
 
 234 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 rest ourselves. My public work was a sermon on the 
 Sabbath. Members of our Society, from various parts, being 
 here, I have an opportunity of receiving and answering 
 many letters. I am afraid I shall spend nine or ten days 
 here to little purpose., I employ myself in reading Thomas 
 a Kempis, and the Bible. I also have an opportunity of 
 going alone into the silent grove, and of meditating on the 
 state of the continent, and examining my own heart. I hope 
 to find some relief from my rheumatic complaint which has 
 so oppressed me for six months past." Scarcely allowing 
 himself the time for rest he had proposed, he hastened for- 
 ward to Oldtown, in Maryland, where he " had no small 
 consolation in uniting the brethren of three districts in 
 Conference." Three successive days he is "very closely 
 employed ; " he preaches from the words, " Pray for the 
 peace of Jerusalem ; they shall prosper that love thee ; " ad- 
 dresses a " careless and unfeeling" congregation on David's 
 charge to Solomon ; and, each of the succeeding days, rides 
 thirty-five miles towards the Juniata. The next day he was 
 detained a few hours through the straying of 'his horse, but 
 this afforded an opportunity of urging a woman, whom he 
 happened to meet, to begin to pray, which, " with tears, she 
 promised to do." " Perhaps," he says, " this labour may not 
 be lost. I have had the happiness to hear that an effort of 
 
 this kind at widow N 's, when there last, was successful." 
 
 His next remove was to Northumberland, where he found 
 " a few kind, respectable friends, whose circumstances are 
 comfortable," to whom he preached Christ as "the Way, the 
 Truth, and the Life," and then " wrought up the hills and 
 narrows to Wyoming." "Being the anniversary of the 
 American Independence, there was a great noise among the 
 sinners. A few of us went down to Shawanee ; called a 
 few people from their work, and found it good to be there."
 
 THE CIRCUIT OF THE STATES. 235 
 
 He preached here to a small congregation in a private house, 
 but scarcely knew " where to get a quiet, clean place to lie 
 down ; " and continued his journey the next morning over 
 the mountains, and through the " twelve-miles swamp " to 
 the Delaware ; and thence up the Hudson to Albany, where 
 he met the New England preachers, with whom he had 
 brotherly fellowship in Conference. Here he found himself 
 worn down with fatigue, and in great bodily weakness, which 
 caused him to feel the more deeply the want of hospitality, 
 of which he had to complain. " The people of Albany," he 
 says, " roll in wealth ; yet they have no heart to invite any 
 of the servants of God to their houses." 
 
 Coming down from Albany, he crossed into Connecticut, 
 visiting and preaching at every place where an opening had 
 been obtained ; and so forward to Massachusetts to attend 
 a Conference at Lynn ; and back into Connecticut, " lame 
 in both feet," and so completely exhausted that, he says, 
 " I laid myself down on the road side, and felt like J6nah, 
 or Elijah. I took to my bed at Reading." In two days, 
 however, he started again. " Rode ten miles on horseback, 
 and thirteen in a carriage, to Bedford, and rested a day at 
 dear widow Banks', where I was at home. Oh how sweet is 
 one day's rest ! " 
 
 On the day after the morrow he started again for New 
 York. " When I came near the White Plains my horse 
 started, and threw me into a mill-race, knee deep in water, 
 my hands and side in the dirt ; my shoulder was hurt by 
 the fall. I stopped at a house, changed my clothes, and 
 prayed with the people. If any of them are awakened by 
 my stopping there, all will be well." 
 
 At New York he held a Conference, at which he collected 
 forty pounds for the relief of the suffering preachers in New 
 England, and then proceeded to Philadelphia, notwithstand-
 
 236 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 ing accounts from that city, which, he says, made him feel 
 " too much like a man, and too little like a Christian." 
 
 The yellow fever was at that time ravaging the city, and 
 friends strove to dissuade him from exposing himself to the 
 infection. He was never rash ; but he believed it to be his 
 duty to brave the peril, and he unshrinkingly proceeded. 
 As he approached the city he met on the road multitudes of 
 the inhabitants who were fleeing for their lives. " Ah," said 
 he, " how the ways mourn ! how low-spirited are the people 
 while making their escape ! I judge the people die from 
 fifty to one hundred a day. Some of our friends are dying, 
 others flying. Sunday I preached from the words, ' Cry 
 aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show 
 My people their transgressions, and the house of Jacob 
 their sins ! ' The people are alarmed, and well they may be. 
 I went down to Ebenezer Church, but my strength was 
 gone. However I endeavoured to open, and apply, the 
 words of the prophet Micah : ' The LORD'S voice crieth unto 
 the city, and the man of wisdom shall see Thy name : hear 
 ye the rod, and Who hath appointed it.' The streets are 
 now depopulated, and the city wears a gloomy aspect. Poor 
 Philadelphia! ' The lofty city, He layeth it low.' I am very 
 unwell." He appointed a day of humiliation ; preached on 
 the occasion from 1 Kings xiii. 37 40, to a large and im- 
 pressible congregation ; and then " left the city, solemn as 
 death," and hastened forward into Maryland. On his way 
 thither he stopped to attend a Quarterly-meeting at the Cross- 
 roads, where he preached to a crowded audience from the 
 words, " Yea, in the way of Thy judgments have we waited 
 for Thee." On his re-arrival at Baltimore he found that a 
 certificate of health was required before admission into the 
 city. This he obtained from the health-officer, and passed 
 the guard, exclaiming, " Oh the plague of sin ! Would to
 
 THE CIRCUIT OF THE STATES. 237 
 
 God we were more guarded against "its baleful influence ! " 
 Here he "sounded the alarm " on the words, " Give glory 
 to the LORD your God, before He cause darkness ; " then 
 hasted to Annapolis, attended a Quarterly-meeting held in a 
 large tobacco-house, and returned to Baltimore to preside at 
 the Conference. 
 
 This tour of the States he accomplished in a little less 
 than eleven months. On the 16th of November, 1792, he 
 left Baltimore for the south, and on the 10th of October, 
 1793, he re-entered this city from the north, having 
 travelled in the interval not less, probably, than six thou- 
 sand miles ! Seated beneath our own pleasant vine, or fig- 
 tree, we have in thought hastily traced his route. We have 
 glanced at the difficulties he boldly faced and surmounted ; 
 the hardships he cheerfully endured ; the perils to which he 
 unhesitatingly subjected himself. We have perhaps sym- 
 pathized with him in his weak and suffering physical con- 
 dition ; have admired his self-devotion, and have been 
 edified with the insight he has occasionally given us into his 
 inner experiences. But is this all ? I do not take upon me 
 to point out to the reader the lessons, important to himself, 
 and all within the sphere of his own activities and influence, 
 to be derived from the facts upon which we have dimly 
 gazed. I will not pay him so ill a compliment as to assume 
 that he will neglect to make a suitable use of them for his 
 own quickening and encouragement. But I ask him to join 
 with me in glorifying, not Francis Asbury* but the grace of 
 God that was in him : at the same time remembering that 
 that grace was given according to an eternal principle of the 
 Divine administration, which applies equally to us all. "To 
 him that hath (through diligent use) shall be given (more) ; 
 and to him that hath not (as the result of his own diligence), 
 shall be taken away even that which he hath," by Divine gift.
 
 238 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 With varied incidents, the Bishop took the same circuit of 
 the States from year to year, so far as his enfeebled constitu- 
 tion permitted, until the General Conference held in Balti- 
 more, in 1800. He then signified his inability to discharge 
 efficiently the multiplied duties of his office, and the Con* 
 ference proceeded to the election of another bishop, to be his 
 assistant and colleague, " earnestly entreating a continuation 
 of his services, so far as his strength would permit." The 
 minister of their choice was Mr. Whatcoat, his early and 
 peculiarly attached friend, with whom, until his death, in 
 1806, the labours of the episcopate were equally shared : 
 the two bishops sometimes travelling in company, and 
 dividing the duties of their office between them, but more 
 frequently taking different routes. On the 8th of July, 
 1806, Asbury sadly inscribed in his Journal these words : 
 ' ' I found a letter from Dr. Chandler declaring the death of 
 Bishop "Whatcoat, that father in Israel, and my faithful friend 
 for forty years. . . A man so uniformly good I have not 
 known in Europe, or America." For two years longer 
 Bishop Asbury had to prosecute his labours unaided, or 
 with such assistance as he could himself procure, and at the 
 General Conference of 1808 another assistant was given to 
 him in the person of the hardy, lion-hearted, and powerfully 
 eloquent William McKendree ; and Asbury had the satisfac- 
 tion of writing, " The burden is now borne by two pairs of 
 shoulders instead of one : the care is cast upon two hearts 
 and heads."
 
 HOME OF ASBVBY'S CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH (FROM A PHOTOGRAPH). 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 PIETY AT HOME. 
 
 Asbury's genial Affability His large Circle of Friends Reasons for his 
 Celibacy His Mother's House a Preaching-place Remittances of 
 Money to his Parents Proposes to them to go out to America Doubts 
 the Expediency of this Proposal Explains to them his Circumstances 
 His Father's Death Letter to his bereaved Mother Tribute to his 
 Mother's memory Proof of the Reality of his Philanthropy. 
 
 IfVEW men have been more remarkable than Bishop 
 -*- Asbury for the warmth and tenderness of their domestic 
 affections. We have hitherto regarded him so exclusively 
 in his official relation to the Church, that a distinct recogni- 
 tion of this fact is necessary to preserve us from taking a 
 partial and faulty impression of his character. A more 
 loving and lovable man has rarely occupied an influential 
 position in public life. His nature was irrepressively suscep-
 
 240 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 tive of tender emotion, and the interchange of social affection 
 was one of the principal enjoyments of his life. Not many 
 men have ever had so large a circle of firmly attached friends. 
 His homes in his later years dotted the entire region of the 
 States, and wherever, after a long and fatiguing journey, or 
 after the discharge of his exhausting public duties, he joined 
 the household at the fireside or table, he never failed by his 
 sweet and easy manners, and his childlike simplicity, play- 
 fulness, and benignity, to diffuse an air of cheerfulness 
 through the whole dwelling. If, as so frequently occurred 
 at the commencement of his career, he had to be indebted 
 to strangers for temporary accommodation, he was always 
 welcomed to their hospitalities when he revisited the same 
 neighbourhood ; and eventually the return of his annual visit 
 was looked forward to by scores of families as one of the 
 most jubilant events of the year. As in the case of nearly 
 every man who has exerted an extended moral influence in 
 the world, his character was most truly discerned and revered 
 by godly women, whose kind offices and ministry were never 
 wanting to supply him with any comfort at their command. 
 
 No doubt the most suitable thing for a man of his tempera- 
 ment and character of mind would have been to marry, and 
 find that scope for the exercise of his affections which is 
 afforded within the family circle. But there were public 
 considerations which, in his estimation, far outweighed all 
 considerations of self, and which inflexibly determined his 
 choice of a single life. What those considerations were is 
 best stated in his own words. " If I should die in celibacy," 
 he says, " which I think quite probable, I give the following 
 reasons for what can scarcely be called my choice. I was 
 called in my fourteenth year. I began my public exercises be- 
 tween sixteen and seventeen. At twenty-one I travelled. At 
 twenty-six I came to America : thus far I had reasons enough
 
 PIETY AT HOME. 241 
 
 for a single life. It had been my intention to return to 
 Europe ; but the war continued, and it was ten years before 
 we had a settled, lasting peace. This was no time to marry or 
 be given in marriage. At forty-nine I was ordained bishop in 
 America. Among the duties imposed upon me by my office 
 was that of travelling extensively, and I could hardly expect 
 to find a woman with grace enough to enable her to live but 
 one week out of the fifty-two with her husband. Besides, 
 what right has any man to take advantage of the affections 
 of a woman, make her his wife, and, by a voluntary absence 
 from her, subvert the whole order and economy of the mar- 
 riage state, by separating those whom neither God, nature, 
 nor the requirements of civil society, permit long to be put 
 asunder? It is neither just nor generous. I may add to 
 this that I had little money, and with this little / ministered 
 to the necessities of a beloved mother until I was fifty-seven. 
 If I have done wrong, I trust that God and the sex will 
 forgive me. It is my duty now to bestow the pittance I 
 may have to spare upon the widows and fatherless girls, and 
 poor married men." 
 
 This is unanswerable ; and so far as it concerns the 
 question to which it refers, may be left without comment. 
 It is clear that if he had married he must have relinquished 
 work to which he believed himself Divinely called, or matri- 
 mony must have been to him, and all to whom it brought 
 him into intimate and sacred relations, a bitter practical 
 irony. But one part of this plea calls for more particular 
 attention, as based upon a fact which reveals one of the most 
 beautiful features of his genuine character. His parents in 
 their declining years were in narrow, and even, at times, 
 necessitous circumstances. This was not generally known ; 
 and their cottage, always neat and clean, wore from year to 
 year the same appearance of quiet respectability and comfort. 
 
 16
 
 242 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 For nearly half a century its principal room was used as a 
 preaching-place, and as such was put in order for worship 
 punctually at the appointed hour, a cheerful fire always 
 glowing on the hearth in the winter evenings ; and the 
 preacher, after the service, was always offered refreshment 
 before taking his, in some cases, long and dreary walk to his 
 home. But a never-failing contributor to the cost which 
 this incurred was the distant, but ever-mindful and affection- 
 ate, son of the venerable pair who tenanted that well-known 
 dwelling. Throughout his long and perilous travels, and 
 amidst all his personal trials and his incessant solicitudes in 
 behalf of the great work he was superintending, that homely 
 little abode in England, the scene of events which marked 
 his childhood and youth, and of such social joys as he had 
 never since experienced ; the scene of his mother's prayers 
 and anxieties in his behalf, and of the weekly gatherings of 
 neighbours for public worship, Christian fellowship, and 
 prayer, was continuously present to his thoughts and his 
 heart. The amount which the Societies placed at his dis- 
 posal for personal expenses was sixty-four dollars per 
 annum, occasionally supplemented, as we learn from grate- 
 ful acknowledgments in his Journal, by small donations 
 from his friend, Mr. Gough ; and the greater part of this he 
 carefully laid aside, and, as he had the opportunity, remitted 
 to his parents, to provide them with a few personal comforts 
 of which they must otherwise have been deprived, and to 
 enable them to keep their house open for the religious 
 benefit of their neighbours. 
 
 He had cherished the hope, from the time of his leaving 
 England, that sooner or later he would return, and had 
 expressed this to his parents when he took his final leave of 
 them, though his less sanguine father had passionately "cried 
 out," in reply, as he tells us, " Never ! I shall never see
 
 PIETY AT HOME. 243 
 
 him again ! " He had also repeatedly given intimations to 
 his American friends of his desire to revisit his country and 
 parents, though only for a limited period; but had uni- 
 formly suppressed this desire in deference to their pleadings 
 against even a temporary absence from them, and in obedi- 
 ence to his clear sense of duty. Ultimately it occurred to 
 him to suggest to his parents the alternative of their joining 
 him in America. This suggestion, -with reasons for and 
 against it, he put before them sometime during the year 
 1795, in the following letter : 
 
 " I have received several letters expressive of your paternal love and 
 gratitude toward me. I have often revolved the serious thought of my 
 return to you. I have frequently asked myself if I could retire to a 
 single circuit, step down and act as lay preacher. This, if I know my 
 own heart, is not my difficulty. With humility I may say, one hundred 
 thousand respectable citizens of the new world, three hundred travel- 
 ling and six hundred local preachers, would advise me not to go. 
 I hope the voice of the people is the voice of God. At present we have 
 more work than faithful workmen. I am like Joseph ; I want to have 
 my parents near me. I am not ashamed of your poverty, and I hope, 
 after so many years professing religion, you will not be wanting in 
 piety. I have considered you have that which is my joy and my glory ; 
 that you have had for forty years open doors for religious exercises, 
 when no other would or even dare do it. It is a serious subject, whether 
 you think it is your duty still to keep a place for preaching, or if on 
 your removal the Gospel will be taken from the place. Yet when I 
 think you have no child with you, nor friend that careth for you, the 
 distress of the land, and the high prices of provisions, I wish to see you, 
 and have you near me. It is true, while I live you will live also, if I 
 keep my place and piety. I study daily what I can do without. One 
 horse, and that sometimes borrowed, one coat, one waistcoat the last 
 coat and waistcoat I used about fourteen months four or five shirts, 
 and four or five books. I am in doubt, if I should be called away, you 
 will not be provided for so well in England as in America, among those 
 for whom I have faithfully laboured these twenty-four years. It is 
 true you are not immortal, any more than myself, and judging accord- 
 ing to the nature of things, you may go first, one or both of you. All 
 these things I have weighed in my mind. I wish you to consider the
 
 244 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 matter, and ask much counsel of God, and of your best and most 
 impartial friends. I wish, you, after considering it, to send me another 
 letter. Whether I be present or absent, dead or alive, I trust my 
 friends in Baltimore will take care of you by my help. You have spent 
 many pounds upon Christian people, I know, from my childhood. 
 Happy was I when this was done, and I hope it will come home to you 
 in mercy. You must make it a matter of much fasting and prayer 
 before you attempt anything. You must not expect to see me more 
 than twice a year." 
 
 A few months afterwards he wrote, "Perhaps I was 
 constrained, from the high sense of filial duty I had, to 
 invite you here. I now think you much better where you 
 are. I sincerely wish I could come to see you ; but I see no 
 way to do so without sinning against God and the Church." 
 With reference to a remittance of money, he adds, " Were 
 it ten thousand per year, if I had it in my possession, you 
 should be welcome, if you had need of it." 
 
 In another letter, addressed to them a year or two before 
 his father's death, he says : 
 
 " I have had considerable pain of mind from information received 
 that the money was not paid. I last evening made arrangement for a 
 remittance to you. It will come into your hands in the space of three 
 or four months. My salary is sixty-four dollars. I have sold my 
 watch and library, and would sell my shirts before you should want. 
 I have made a reserve for you. I spend very little on my own account. 
 My friends find me some clothing. The contents of a small pair of 
 saddle-bags will do for me, and one coat a year. Your son Francis is a 
 man of honour and conscience. As my father and my mother never 
 disgraced me by an act of dishonesty, I hope to echo back the same 
 sound of an honest upright man. I am well satisfied that the Lord 
 saw fit you should be my parents rather than the king and queen, or 
 any of the great. I sometimes think you will outlive me. I have 
 made my will, and left my all to you, and that is soon done. While I 
 live and do well, I shall remember you every year. Oh ! that your last 
 days may be your best, and that you may not only live long, but live 
 well and die well ! " 
 
 June 17th, 1798, he thus expresses himself with
 
 PIETY AT HOME. 245 
 
 reference to his father's death, " I now feel myself an 
 orphan with respect to my father. Wounded memory 
 recalls to me what took place when I parted from him 
 nearly twenty years ago. For about thirty-nine years my 
 father hath had the Gospel preached in his house. The 
 particulars of his death have not yet come to hand." They 
 were not long delayed, however, and though few and briefly 
 expressed, conveyed all that he most desired to know. 
 " Mr. Phillips, of Birmingham," he says, " writes thus of my 
 father, ' He kept his room six weeks previous to his death. 
 The first month of the time he ate nothing but a little 
 biscuit, and the last fortnight took nothing but a little 
 spirits and water. He died very happy" The following 
 is his letter to his aged mother with reference to her 
 bereavement : 
 
 " From the information I have received I fear my venerable father is 
 no more an inhabitant of this earth. You are a widow and I am an 
 orphan, with respect to my father. I cannot tell how to advise you in 
 this important change. You have made to yourself respectable and 
 extensive friends, who, though they cannot give to you, can comfort 
 you. I have been, as you have heard, afflicted by excessive labours of 
 mind and body. I had to neglect writing, reading, and preaching for a 
 time. I had to stop and lie by in some precious families, where parents 
 and children, in some measure, supplied your absence. I lay by in 
 Virginia. When you hear the name you will love it unseen, for you 
 will say, ' That is the place where my Frank was sick.' I am now 
 much mended. I move in a little carriage, being unable to ride on 
 horseback. Were you to see me, and the colour of my hair nearly 
 that of your own ! My eyes are weak, even with glasses. When I was 
 a child, and would pry into the Bible by twinkling firelight, you used 
 to say, ' Frank, you will spoil your eyes.' It is a grief to me that 
 I cannot preach as heretofore. I am greatly worn out at fifty-five ; 
 but it is a good cause. God is with me ; my soul exults in God. " 
 
 As is common with men of healthy and refined moral 
 sensibilities, his affection for his mother was peculiarly
 
 246 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 strong and tender. She died in January, 1802, and this is 
 his tribute to her memory : " I may speak safely concerning 
 my very dear mother : her character to me is well-known. 
 .... She was an afflicted, yet most active woman ; of 
 quick bodily powers and masculine understanding ; never- 
 theless, ' so kindly all the elements were mixed in her ' that 
 her strong mind was most susceptible to the subduing in- 
 fluences of that Christian sympathy which weeps with tlwse 
 who weep, and rejoices with them that do rejoice. As a woman 
 and a wife she was pure-minded, modest, and blameless : as 
 a mother (above all the women of the world would I claim 
 her as my own) she was ardently affectionate : as a mother 
 in Israel, few of her sex have done more by a holy walk to 
 live, and by personal labour to support, the Gospel, and to 
 wash the saints' feet : as a friend, she was generous, true, 
 and constant." 
 
 A thoughtful reader will dwell with especial satisfaction 
 on the feature of character which is now before him, as an 
 evidence of the genuineness of that spirit of self-renunciation 
 in which he has seen the good Bishop conduct himself as a 
 preacher and chief pastor. Love for the souls of men which 
 prompts to the denial of self is not different in nature from 
 the love of kindred : it is the same affection elevated, 
 expanded, and refined. The one is the true outgrowth of 
 the other under the fostering influences of Divine grace. 
 True charity for the world implies and presupposes charity 
 at home, and that man is under a strange illusion who per- 
 suades himself that the fervour of his religious zeal com- 
 pensates for the neglect of " those of his own household," 
 and most of all for the desertion of aged and dependent 
 parents. " Let him learn first to show piety at home, and to 
 requite his parents." How greatly Asbury's beloved mother 
 needed the aid, which, by the practice of a rigorous self-
 
 PIETY AT HOME. 247 
 
 denial, he occasionally afforded her, he never fully under- 
 stood : to what painful straits she was reduced to maintain 
 her position of self-respect and liberality it was well for him 
 that he never knew. He records with astonishment, "I find 
 that a certain Mr. Emery has taken all her property." He 
 had never been informed, therefore, that she had made over 
 all her effects to Mr. Emery, the brother of a friend of his 
 youth, as her landlord, by a bill of sale, in lieu of the pay- 
 ment of rent ; and that she thus lived rent free from about 
 the time of her husband's death !
 
 248 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 LATEST YEARS. 
 
 Origin of Camp-meetings Asbury's Account of the First Their Popu- 
 larity and Success McKendree's Personal Qualifications for them 
 Asbury's Chronic Debility His Happiness in Privation and Pain 
 Death of Mr. Jarratt Death of an early Convert The Natural Bridge 
 Revivals Conference in Tennessee Sleeps under a Tree Painful 
 Accident Wilderness Experiences Letter to Rev. C. Atmore 
 General Conference of 1804 Letters to Dr. Coke General Con- 
 ference of 1808 Consecration of Bishop McKendree Death of Mr. 
 Gough Cincinnati Conf erence ( in an Encampment The two Bishops ! 
 General Conference of 1812 Death of Otterbein Serious Illness 
 of Asbury Death of Coke. 
 
 WITH the opening of the present century was instituted, 
 without preconception or design, like so many other 
 of the institutions of Methodism, that peculiar form of evan- 
 gelistic agency called the Camp -meeting. An account of this, 
 as promoted by Bishop Asbury, remains to be given, and we 
 must then hasten onward towards the serene end. 
 
 Two brothers, John McGee, a Methodist local-preacher, 
 and the Rev. William McGee, a Presbyterian minister, were 
 settled, the one as an agriculturist, the other in charge of a 
 small congregation, in the west of Tennessee. Though be- 
 longing to different churches, they agreed in religious senti- 
 ment, and frequently worked together on the same plans for 
 evangelizing the rapidly-increasing, but spiritually careless, 
 populations of the western States. In July, 1799, they set 
 out in company to visit and preach to certain new settlements 
 in Kentucky. At one of them, in Logan county, there was
 
 LATEST YEARS. 249 
 
 a small Presbyterian Church, under the care of the Rev. James 
 M. McGready, which, at the time of their arrival, was hold- 
 ing one of its usual sacramental services. Mr. John McGee 
 was invited to preach on the occasion, and spoke with extra- 
 ordinary power and impressiveness. He was followed by 
 his brother, and by another Presbyterian minister, whose 
 name was Hodge, under whose discourse a woman gave 
 expression to feelings beyond her control, in loud and start- 
 ling ejaculations of praise. Other members of the congrega- 
 tion were simultaneously wrought upon in a similar manner ; 
 and the Presbyterian ministers present, except Mr. William 
 McGee, embarrassed and overcome with emotion, retired 
 from the place, leaving the meeting in charge of him and his 
 brother. For a time they also were overpowered with feeling ; 
 and, seized with a strange tremor, they sat in silence on the 
 floor. At length John arose and exhorted, " as the Spirit 
 gave him utterance," his hearers responding involuntarily in 
 loud sobs and cries. Many previously thoughtless persons 
 were suddenly filled with spiritual concern : some fell to the 
 ground as if through a stroke of paralysis. This unlooked- 
 for manifestation led to the appointment of another meeting 
 for the Holy Communion and prayer, which was similarly 
 characterized. The impossibility of tracing the ecstatic and 
 other phenomena witnessed on these occasions to natural 
 causes, and the evident change of character experienced by 
 those who were affected by them, convinced the earnest men 
 in charge that they proceeded from a superhuman agency ; 
 and in the full confidence that they were acting in agreement 
 with the will of God, they arranged to hold other and larger 
 meetings for the same spiritual purposes elsewhere. 
 
 Asbury heard that preparations were being made to hold 
 one of them on the Cumberland River, Tennessee, when 
 presiding over the Conference in Kentucky, in 1800; and
 
 250 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 he, with his companions, Bishop Whatcoat and Mr. McKen- 
 dree, resolved to attend it. They arrived, the Bishop states, 
 at "the close of the sacramental solemnity, that had been 
 held four days," and each of them, on the invitation of the 
 " Presbyterian officiating ministers," gave an address, As- 
 bury's subject being the work of God. " In the intervals 
 between preaching," he says, "the people refreshed them- 
 selves and their horses and returned upon the ground. The 
 stand was in the open air, embosomed in a wood of lofty 
 beech trees. The ministers of God, Methodists and Presby- 
 terians, united their labours, and mingled with the childlike 
 simplicity of primitive times. Fires blazing here and there 
 dispelled the darkness, and the shouts of the redeemed 
 captives, and the cries of precious souls struggling into life, 
 broke the silence of midnight. The weather was delightful ; 
 as if heaven smiled while mercy flowed in abundant streams 
 of salvation to perishing sinners." 
 
 He discerned in the proceedings a new and powerful form 
 of evangelistic action, and at once entered into them with 
 heart and soul. Something of the kind he had long seen to 
 be necessary to bring the sparse and widely- scattered popu- 
 lations of the west under spiritual instruction and quickening ; 
 and this he regarded as a providential interposition to supply 
 the means wanted for this end. He did not expect the work 
 to be carried on by such means without a continuance of 
 the bodily affections, extravagances, and other disadvantages 
 which had marked its first stage. He foresaw in its pro- 
 gress the collateral development of human elements, which 
 would have a tendency to mar the manifestations of Divine 
 working, and to give occasion for the sneers and jibes of 
 profane or sceptical men ; but he was too sagacious and 
 practical, and too much in earnest, to allow this to deter 
 him from adopting what, if suitably guarded, might become
 
 LATEST YEARS. 251 
 
 so immense a power for good ; and henceforth encampments 
 in the wilderness or in forests, for continuous religious ser- 
 vices, became one of the recognised forms of Methodist 
 labour. Their immediate popularity and success exceeded 
 all calculation. People thronged to them from the most 
 remote and isolated localities of the neighbourhood in which 
 one was appointed to be held, with their tents, beds, and 
 provision, as to the most attractive public festival. Of course 
 their motives were various. Some came to receive spiritual 
 aid and invigoration ; some to meet distant friends ; some 
 from motives of curiosity ; and some probably to be enter- 
 tained and amused. But all were brought under the faithful 
 exposition and enforcement of Gospel truth, and more or 
 less under the power of spiritual influences; and many " who 
 came to scoff remained to pray." 
 
 Nothing could have afforded more suitable occasion for 
 the exercise of the great gifts of McKendree, and probably 
 he, more than any other preacher, contributed to bring them 
 into repute. A man of commanding presence ; of clear, 
 powerful, and musical voice ; and of great natural eloquence 
 both of speech and action, he drew the strong-minded, 
 though rough and untutored, inhabitants of the western 
 wilds around him in vast crowds, and with every manifes- 
 tation of unusual interest. The next year he was stationed 
 among them as the presiding-elder of the Kentucky district ; 
 and through his labours in connection with Camp-meetings 
 thousands of persons were brought under the power of the 
 Gospel whom no other human agent had been able to reach. 
 Thus began a new era in the history of the Methodist Epis- 
 copal Church : from this period the Camp-meeting was one 
 of its settled institutions. 
 
 For some years past, and from this time^to the end of life, 
 Asbury had to carry on his episcopal work in almost in-
 
 252 BISHOP ASBTTRY. 
 
 cessant fightings with disease. His constant exposure to 
 malaria, cold, and rain ; his want of suitable food for days 
 together, and his frequent loss of sleep ; with consequent 
 exhaustion and continual attacks of fever, sore-throat, and 
 rheumatism, had at length completely shaken and impaired 
 his once healthy constitution. The references in his daily 
 registers to his debilitated and suffering bodily condition 
 are painfully numerous, but are always accompanied with 
 devout acknowledgments of the all-sufficient succours of 
 Divine grace. We envy at the same time that we pity him. 
 " Here let me record the gracious dealings of God to my 
 soul," he writes, after his last journey from Kentucky: "I 
 have had uncommon peace of mind, and spiritual consolations 
 every day, notwithstanding the long rides I have endured, 
 and the frequent privations of good water and proper food 
 to which I have been subjected. To me the wilderness and 
 the solitary places were made as the garden of God." " My 
 soul is at peace," he writes again, shortly after; "Jesus, 
 Jesus is my all. My soul is love to God, to Christ, to His 
 Church, and to all souls." "I have fevers and feebleness, 
 but a soul entirely swallowed up in God." Involuntary 
 utterances such as these, which are of continual recurrence, 
 assure us that he was one of the happiest, as he was one of 
 the most laborious and suffering of men. 
 
 In 1801 he records the death of his friend, the Eev. 
 Devereux Jarratt, and writes this tribute to his memory : 
 " He was a faithful and successful preacher. He had wit- 
 nessed four or five periodical revivals of religion in his parish. 
 When he began his labours he knew of no other evangelical 
 preacher in all Virginia ! He travelled into several counties; 
 and there were very few parish churches within fifty miles 
 of his own in which he had not preached ; to which labour 
 of love and zeal he added the preaching of the word of life
 
 LATEST YEARS. 253 
 
 on solitary plantations and in meeting-houses. He was the 
 first who received our despised preachers. When, strangers 
 and unfriended, they came into his parish, he took them into 
 his house. I have reason to presume that he was instrumen- 
 tally successful in awakening hundreds of souls to some 
 sense of religion in that dark day and time." 
 
 I transcribe another reference to the removal of one of his 
 early friends, on account of its suggestiveness of the untold 
 success of the itinerant labours on which he entered im- 
 mediately after his arrival in America. On one of his first 
 excursions from New York he visited New Rochelle, and 
 found accommodation at the house of a Mr. Devoue. In 
 June, 1802, he preaches a funeral sermon for one of the 
 daughters of this gentleman, and remarks that he was the 
 first in the city to receive and welcome the Methodist 
 preachers, and that through him New Rochelle " became the 
 gate by which we have had such an abundant and permanent 
 entrance into the State of New York. After sitting under 
 the ministry of the gospel above thirty years, the saint," he 
 says, " the daughter of Mr. Devoue, and his own child in 
 the faith, died very happy in God." 
 
 In a paragraph or two I here condense his account of the 
 adventures and experiences which in 1802 marked his annual 
 visit to the Western Conference. 
 
 " I have one day to call my own. I write, I read, I think, 
 and refit for the mountains. My mind is in great peace, 
 and has so been kept in all my labours. I rejoice to find 
 the work of God spreading and growing in Frederick circuit. 
 In Fredericktown at last, after more than thirty years' labour, 
 we have a house of worship and thirty souls, or upwards, 
 in fellowship. . . . We passed through Lexington, and 
 being so near, I gratified my curiosity by a view of the 
 Natural Bridge. I walked down the hill to look at the arch
 
 254 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 thrown, in a regular ellipsis, about 160 feet above a stream, 
 which, in the rainy season, foams and roars beneath. The 
 breadth of the bridge may be 60 feet, and the distance 
 across 160 feet. We have good news, the work of God 
 revives in all the circuits. . . We came to the Holston. I 
 found the people praising God. A blessed revival had taken 
 place. Fourteen or fifteen times have I toiled over the 
 mighty mountains, and nearly twenty years have we laboured 
 upon Holston ; and lo ! the rage of wild and Christian 
 savages is tamed, and God hath glorified himself. Sweet 
 peace fills my mind, and glorious prospects of Zion's pro- 
 sperity cheer my heart. We have not, shall not, labour in 
 vain. Not unto us, not unto us, but to Jehovah, be all the 
 glory on earth and in heaven for ever ! 
 
 " I attended a Camp-meeting, which continued to be held 
 four days. From my stand in the woods I spoke from the 
 words, ' Let me go, for the day breaketh.' I felt that the word 
 was given me and applied to the hearts of the people. We 
 made towards West Point. In the morning we started in good 
 spirits. We were somewhat shaken in going the old path 
 down Spencer's Hill. I walked, fearing every moment a fall 
 for myself or my horse. It was late when we arrived at 
 Obee's River, and I imprudently lay too far from our encamp- 
 ment fire, and took a cold, which fixed upon my throat. 
 Late the following evening we came into Shaw's, where we 
 lay upon the floor. I was sick indeed. . . . We rode for- 
 ward to Station Camp, and found the Conference seated. 
 By this time my stomach and speech were pretty well gone. 
 I applied to Mr. William Hodge and to Mr. William McGee, 
 Presbyterian ministers, to supply my lack of public service, 
 which they did with great fervency and fidelity. With great 
 pleasure and pain I heard them both. I was able to ordain, 
 by employing Brother McKendree to examine those who were
 
 LATEST YEARS. 255 
 
 presented, and to station the preachers. . . After eight days' 
 suffering of severely acute pain, the inflammation descended 
 to my feet. . . I spoke on Heb. iii. 7, 8 : some wept, all 
 were attentive. 
 
 " We took our departure at five o'clock, a.m., and continued 
 on till half-past six o'clock in the evening. We then stopped, 
 struck a fire, and encamped under a heavy mountain dew, 
 which, when the wind shook the trees, fell like rain upon 
 us. Brother McKendree made me a tent of his own and 
 John Watson's blankets, and happily saved me from taking 
 cold while I slept about two hours under my grand marquee. 
 Brother McKendree threw his cloak over the limb of a tree ; 
 and he and his companion took shelter underneath, and slept 
 also. . . . After riding fifty miles, a part of ninety-three miles 
 in two days, we came again to West Point. At a rocky 
 run, in attempting to dismount, my horse gave a sudden 
 turn, and swung me against the rocks in the stream ; the 
 rude shock to my tender feet made me cry out bitterly. . . . 
 I have been sick for twenty-three days. My dear McKendree 
 had to lift me up and down from my horse, like a helpless 
 child. . . I have ridden about five thousand five hundred 
 miles. In the midst of all I am comforted with the prospects 
 of the Western Conference. We have added three thousand 
 members there this year ; have formed Cumberland into a 
 district, and have sent a missionary to the Natchez." 
 
 On his return from the Kentucky Conference of 1803, he 
 wrote cheerfully, after mentioning how many hundreds of 
 emigrants to the west he had seen on the roads : " A man 
 who is well mounted will scorn to complain of the roads, 
 when he sees men, women, and children, almost naked, 
 paddling barefoot and barelegged along, or labouring up 
 the rocky hills, while those who are best off have only a 
 horse for two or three children to ride at once. ... I, too,
 
 256 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 have my sufferings ; no room to retire to ; that in which you 
 sit, common to all, crowded with women and children, the 
 fire occupied by cooking, much and long-loved solitude not 
 to be found, unless you choose to run out into the rain, in 
 the woods. Six months in the year I have had, for thirty- 
 two years, occasionally to submit to what will never be 
 agreeable to me. The people are amongst the kindest in 
 the world. But kindness will not make a crowded log 
 cabin, twelve feet by ten, agreeable. Without are cold and 
 rain, and within six adults, and as many children, one of 
 them all motion. The dogs, too, must be sometimes admitted. 
 Amongst my other trials I have taken a foul skin disease ; 
 and considering the filthy houses and filthy beds I have 
 met with, in coming from the Kentucky Conference, it is 
 perhaps strange that I have not caught it twenty times. 
 I do not see that there is any security against it but by 
 sleeping in a brimstone shirt. Poor Bishop ! But we must 
 bear it for the elect's sake ! " 
 
 A heavy demand on his time, thought, and sympathies 
 was made in his later years by his ever increasing corre- 
 spondence. The following letter, written under the pressure 
 of a mass of business which he was preparing for the Boston 
 Conference of 1803, may be taken as a sample of the 
 friendly epistles he was throwing off continually. It is 
 addressed to the Kev. Charles Atmore : 
 
 WaUham, near Boston, June 3, 1803. 
 
 "MY VERT DEAR BROTHER, 
 
 " Not less so by being only known by name. The present 
 year is marked with great grace to the inhabitants of the United 
 States. Great things have been done in the Western States of Ten- 
 nessee, Kentucky, and Ohio, by meetings held by encampments for 
 several days and nights together. These meetings have obtained in 
 Georgia, South and North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware. 
 Some of these meetings have been held four, others six, and one nine
 
 LATEST YEARS. 257 
 
 days and nights, with small intermissions. One hundred and seven 
 have been added in a town in Virginia of about one hundred families, 
 at a nine days' meeting. The Presbyterians, over half the continent, 
 are stirred up, and are in church and congregational union with the 
 Methodists. And they both feed their flocks together, like the ministers 
 and people of God. We are always pleased to hear from, and honour the 
 members and ministers of, the ancient Connexion in Europe. We are 
 one Body. We have one Name, one Gospel, one Christ, one God, one 
 Holy Spirit, one Heaven. And as it comforteth us (when we find 
 some barren spots) that there are so many fruitful hills of Zion, you 
 will rejoice that God is with a branch of the Methodist Connexion in 
 this country. I hope we shall continue to preach a present and full 
 salvation, and fill up life to the best of purposes. 
 
 " I am now in the 58th year of my age, frequently subject to an 
 inflammatory rheumatism, sometimes disabled for a season. Then I 
 revive again, and limp along. Now my constitution is broken, through 
 heats and colds, and I have grey hairs in abundance upon me. I have 
 been thirty-seven years in the Connexion, and thirty-two in America. 
 I hope to hold out a little longer, and then to meet my dear English 
 brethren, preachers and people, in a better world. 
 
 " ' There all the ship's company meet, 
 Who sailed with the Saviour beneath.' 
 
 " I thought, when I came to America, four years would be long 
 enough for me to stay; but the children whom God had given us 
 asked, ' Will you leave us in our time of distress ? ' And so here I am. 
 Give me your prayers, and present Francis Asbury in love to all you 
 please, as their and youc friend and brother in Jesus." 
 
 At the General Conference of 1804 Dr. Coke was asso- 
 ciated in service with Asbury for the last time. It opened 
 at Baltimore, on the 7th of May ; was the fourth General 
 Conference ; and was distinguished by a further revision of 
 the Book of Discipline, and the fixing of the boundaries of 
 the several Annual Conferences. At its conclusion Asbury 
 accompanied Dr. Coke on a visit for a day to their friends 
 at Perry Hall, and they then finally parted : he to attend 
 the Conference at Philadelphia, and proceed on his New 
 England tour ; and the Doctor to recross the ocean. But a 
 
 17
 
 258 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 union of spirit had been established between them which 
 grew stronger with advancing age. " My very dear 
 brother," he wrote to him two years later (May 7th, 1806), 
 "if we should never have the happiness of seeing each 
 other again, can we ever forget the days and nights we have 
 spent comfortably together ? our spirits being sweetly joined, 
 and not a jar existing, unless Diotrepheses, here or there, 
 formed for discord, whispered evil. Ah ! my brother, the 
 deep rivers, creeks, swamps, and deserts we have traversed 
 together, glad to see a light, or hear the voice of any human 
 being, or domestic animal ! . . . After riding chiefly on 
 horseback, till last summer, I have bought a very light 
 wagon ; and by this mode of travelling can visit the seven 
 Conferences, with most of the cities and towns, in the year. 
 In five of the Conferences we have an increase of 8,273 
 members of Society, and of fifty-eight preachers, last year. 
 During the times of sitting of the five past Conferences we 
 calculate that about five hundred persons were made par- 
 takers of converting or restoring grace." " My dear Coke," 
 he wrote again, in 1808, " great grace, great peace, great 
 usefulness attend you and your dear wife ! God is gloriously 
 visiting our continent. . . . We visit, almost every part 
 within, and over the lines of, the United States. We have, 
 after your example, sent out missionaries into the interior 
 and exterior of Pennsylvania, New York, and Jers'ey. You 
 need not wonder that I am remiss in writing, since I have 
 to ride on horseback five thousand miles in eight months, 
 and to meet seven Conferences, that comprehend nearly six 
 hundred preachers. ... I have received your many loving 
 letters, and feel my obligations to you. If I write you one 
 circumstantial letter in a year, well : my eyes, my time, my 
 powers fail. Think how many hours I must be on horse- 
 back, when I only ride three, or at most four, miles in an
 
 LATEST YEARS. 259 
 
 hour. Everlasting love embrace you, my dear brother 
 Coke ! The past is gone with me the present and future 
 are in sight ! " 
 
 The General Conference of 1808, as before mentioned, 
 was rendered for ever memorable by the adoption of a prin- 
 ciple for which Asbury had long earnestly pleaded, by which 
 this, the supreme and only legislative court of the Episcopal 
 Church, became select and strictly representative. Instead 
 of being open to all the members of the several Annual Con- 
 ferences who choose to attend it, the quadrennial General 
 Conference was to be composed in future of Delegates only, 
 to be elected by the Annual Conferences according to a fixed 
 ratio. 
 
 This Conference was further signalised by the election 
 into the episcopate of the first of the native American 
 preachers who filled that office. The vacancy occasioned by 
 the death of " that dear man of God," as he was so justly 
 called, Bishop Whatcoat, had to be supplied ; and, by a large 
 majority of votes, Mr. McKendree was chosen to occupy it. 
 On the occasion of his consecration, Asbury preached from 
 St. Paul's charge to Timothy: " Take heed unto thyself and 
 unto the doctrine ; continue in them ; for by doing this thou 
 shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee ; " Messrs. 
 Jesse Lee and Freeborn Garrettson presented the Bishop- 
 elect to the venerable Bishop ; and, assisted by four Pres- 
 byters, he solemnly set him apart for his responsible 
 functions by the laying on of hands. Asbury then re- 
 ascended the pulpit and delivered a fervid discourse, in 
 which he reviewed the whole history of the Church from its 
 origin in the labours of Embury, Captain Webb, and Robert 
 Shawbridge. " And now," said he, in winding up an im- 
 pressive peroration amidst general expressions of thanks- 
 giving and praise, " God has, after forty years, raised up a
 
 260 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 bishop from among yourselves, a man full of faith and of 
 the Holy Ghost ! " 
 
 A day or two before the opening of the Conference, 
 Asbury's influential friend and convert, Mr. (rough, of Perry 
 Hall, was removed by death. The event, with the pensive 
 reminiscences it called up, had a subduing effect on many 
 minds, and at the funeral several members of the Conference 
 walked in procession behind the remains and the mourners 
 to the end of the town. Asbury preached a funeral sermon, 
 which "was very much a portraiture of his religious ex- 
 perience and character." He " was a man much respected 
 and beloved," says the Bishop. "As a husband, a father, 
 and a master, he was well worthy of imitation. His 
 charities were as numerous as proper objects to a Christian 
 were likely to make them ; and the souls and bodies of the 
 poor were administered to in the manner of a Christian who 
 remembered the precepts and followed the example of his 
 Divine Master." 
 
 He remained a few days in Baltimore after the Conference ; 
 preaching in and around the city ; and says, after enume- 
 rating various services in which he had been engaged, "lam 
 kept at work by my friends. But they do what they can, 
 Methodists and others, to pay me in affection, in attentions, 
 in honour. Lord, keep me humble and holy ! " They had 
 learnt to make the most of his too occasional and too brief 
 visits, though at the cost to himself of continual and un- 
 relieved weariness. Within a week or two he was again 
 beyond the reach of their solicitations. Taking with him, as 
 his companion, Henry Boehm, a German, to preach to the 
 numerous German settlements in the west, he started on his 
 annual tour over the Alleghanies ; and despite an attack of 
 inflammatory rheumatism in his feet, which deprived him of 
 their use, he proceeded to Cincinnati, then a town of about
 
 LATEST YEARS. 261 
 
 ten thousand inhabitants, and even as far as Indiana. 
 " We came," he says, " to Lawrenceburgh, the first town in 
 the Indian territory. In this wild there may be twenty 
 thousand souls already. I feel for them." 
 
 Returning through Kentucky he held a Camp-meeting in 
 that State in association with Bishop McKendree, who after- 
 wards accompanied him into Tennessee, where the Western 
 Conference was to be held. The preachers, eighty in 
 number, assembled from all parts of that vast region, and 
 formed an encampment in the wilderness, eating and sleep- 
 ing in their tents. " We sat six hours a day," he says, 
 " stationed eighty-three preachers, and all was peace. On 
 Friday the sacrament was administered, and we hope there 
 were souls converted, strengthened, and sanctified. The 
 increase of the Western Conference for the year will be two 
 thousand five hundred." Boehm, who wrote a narrative of 
 this journey, one of the greatest events of his life, says, 
 " To my great surprise Father Asbury bore up under all the 
 toil and labour of travelling and preaching, together with the 
 care of all the churches, and, notwithstanding, he was a very 
 agreeable companion on the road. He would often indulge 
 in a vein of innocent pleasantry." 
 
 From "the Conference ground" in Tennessee the two 
 Bishops travelled in company across the wilderness, over 
 the mountains, and through the Carolinas into Georgia, 
 attending Camp-meetings and Quarterly-meetings, preaching 
 in chapels, private houses, and in the open air, the more 
 aged and infirm of them suffering, yet always rejoicing. 
 " Great news ! " he exclaims. " Baltimore taken fire ! 
 Bohemia has a great work ! Camp-meetings have done 
 this ! Glory to the great I AM ! " On his way from 
 Augusta to Savannah he says, in his lively and cheery 
 manner, " We are riding in a poor thirty-dollar chaise, in
 
 262 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 partnership, two bishops of us ; but it must be confessed it 
 tallies well with the weight of our purses. What bishops ! 
 Well ; but we have great news, and we have great times. 
 Each Western, Southern, and the Virginia Conference will 
 have one thousand souls truly converted to God ; and is not 
 this an equivalent for a light purse ? And are we not well 
 paid for starving and toil ? Yes ! Glory be to God ! " 
 
 On the first of May, 1812, the General Conference, con- 
 vened as a representative Assembly, in agreement with the 
 regulations adopted in 1808, was held in New York. Asbury 
 had the opportunity of attending it, and of witnessing the 
 operations of his latest great legislative measure ; and he 
 refers to it with satisfaction. It was the last General Con- 
 ference he attended. 
 
 In March, 1814, he notes the death of another of his 
 venerable and beloved friends, "the holy, the great Otter - 
 bien. Forty years," he says, " have I known the retiring 
 modesty of this man of God; towering majestically above 
 his fellows in learning, wisdom, and grace, yet seeking to 
 be known only of God and the people of God. He had 
 been sixty years a minister, fifty years a converted one. I 
 am at Perry Hall," he adds, pathetically, " where I have 
 been for three days very ill." 
 
 He endeavoured, notwithstanding, to go forward on his 
 accustomed tour, at this season of the year, through New 
 England, but in vain. He attended the Conference at Phila- 
 delphia, and went on as far as New Jersey, when a violent 
 fever seized him, and he was laid aside for twelve weeks. 
 From this attack he never completely rallied. He says with 
 reference to it, after " clambering over the rude mountains 
 to Greensburg," " I would not be loved to death, and so came 
 down from my sick-room and took to the road, weak enough. 
 Attentions constant and kindness unceasing have pursued
 
 LATEST YEARS. 263 
 
 me to this place, and my strength increases daily. I look 
 back upon a martyr's life of toil, privation, and pain ; and I 
 am ready for a martyr's death. The purity of my intentions ; 
 my diligence in the labours to which God has been pleased 
 to call me ; the unknown sufferings I have endured ; what 
 are these ? The merit, atonement, and righteousness of 
 Christ alone make my plea. My friends in Philadelphia 
 gave me a light, little four-wheeled carriage ; but God and 
 the Baltimore Conference made me a richer present. They 
 gave me John Wesley Bond for a travelling companion. Has 
 he his equal on the earth for excellences of every kind as 
 an aid ? I groan one minute with pain, and shout Glory 
 the next." 
 
 With the aid of his little carriage and his thoughtful, 
 attentive, and devout travelling companion, he continued 
 his travels and labours in the east, again in the west, and 
 as far as Charleston, in South Carolina. In May, 1815, he 
 attended the New York Conference, which this year was held 
 at Albany, arid writes, " Sunday, 21sf. By vote of Confer- 
 ence I preached the funeral sermon for Dr. Coke, of blessed 
 mind and soul, of the third branch of Oxonian Methodists, 
 a gentleman, a scholar, and to us a bishop ; and, as a minister 
 of Christ, in zeal, in labours, and in services, the greatest 
 man of the last century. Poor wheezing, groaning, coughing 
 Francis visited the Conference chamber on Tuesday and 
 Thursday." 
 
 A venerable minister now living, the Rev. Daniel De Vinne, 
 who was present at this Conference, and heard the funeral 
 sermon referred to, has lately written his recollections of 
 the appearance of the invalid preacher on the occasion. He 
 says that " time, sickness, and continued hardships had 
 left their indelible marks upon him. He was considerably 
 bent, his steps were slow and feeble, and his hair was thin,
 
 264 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 and nearly white. He presented the appearance of a man 
 worn out. In ascending the long stairs to the elevated 
 pulpit the venerable man was nearly exhausted. He took 
 with him only Thomas Drummond, a member of the Con- 
 ference, to assist in the exercises. During the sermon he 
 was supported by a high stool. For one so enfeebled his 
 voice was remarkably strong. It was at once full and dis- 
 tinct, and filled the church. He dwelt briefly on the life and 
 labours of Dr. Coke. In a few days the Conference ended ; 
 the preachers went to their respective circuits, and Bishop 
 Asbury went on his northern and last tour."
 
 265 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 LAST DAYS. 
 
 New England Conference The Bishop in Confinement Ashgrove and 
 its Memories The Travellers' Rest Senator Bassett Paralyzed The 
 Bloody Run The Mite Subscription Rough Roads Cheerfulness 
 of Old Age A Missionary Meeting Camp-Meetings Distributes 
 Copies of the New Testament Again 111 Wends Southward Affect- 
 ing Decision Father Holt Last Recorded Text Bond Preaching in 
 a Kitchen Last Record Last Sermon Last Scene Reinterment 
 The Epitaph. 
 
 STARTING from the Conference just mentioned, we will 
 now follow the tottering but happy patriarch to the 
 end of his earthly career. 
 
 He left Albany, Saturday, May 27th, 1815, to go forward to 
 the New England Conference, which was to be held at Unity, 
 Massachusetts, on the 7th of June. By the following Satur- 
 day, June 3rd, he had reached Boston, but was " greatly 
 outdone " and in much pain. In the evening of Sunday, how- 
 ever, he preached, though, he states, " in weakness and much 
 trembling." Arrived at the Conference, he could do little 
 more than watch its proceedings and give advice from his 
 sick-chamber. " Poor Francis," he says, pleasantly, " was 
 shut up alone as at Albany." He " ordained twelve deacons 
 and twelve elders," but resigned the presidential chair to 
 George Pickering ; "and," he adds with satisfaction, "our 
 business progressed well." At the end of the week he found 
 it necessary to " reduce his projected tour of sixteen hundred 
 miles to a straight ride of three hundred and eighty miles to
 
 266 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 New York. As I passed through Ashgrove," he says, "I 
 preached in the chapel." The Society here was formed by 
 Philip Embury. When Boardman came by Wesley's ap- 
 pointment to New York, in 1769, Embury gave up the work 
 in that city into his hands, and retired to this remote and, 
 at that time, uncultivated district ; where he, with Paul and 
 Barbara Heck, a few other " Irish Palatines," and Abraham 
 Bininger, one of the Moravian Brethren who sailed to Georgia 
 with Wesley in 1737, formed a settlement, which they called 
 Ashgrove. Embury for six years was their chaplain and 
 class-leader. In 1775 he died ; but the work continued to 
 be carried on, and at the time of this last visit of Asbury 
 Ashgrove was a considerable town, with a good Methodist 
 church and congregation. 
 
 Leaving this interesting and noteworthy spot, Asbury 
 travelled onward through Troy, to the mansion of his beloved 
 and hospitable friend, Freeborn Garrettson, at Rhinebeck, 
 at this period his favourite retreat. Garrettson, himself a 
 man of wealth, had married the accomplished and wealthy 
 daughter of Judge Livingston, who had been won to Christ 
 and to Methodism by the godly spirit and character of her 
 servant-maid. He was for many years the presiding-elder 
 of the Hudson district ; and in the decline of life he built 
 this house on the banks of the noble river, and retired into 
 it for the remainder of his days. Continuing to labour to 
 the full extent of his strength, he welcomed to the hospi- 
 talities and comforts of his home all his brethren who were 
 stationed within its reach. Asbury called it The Travellers' 
 Rest ; and, as his infirmities increased, occasionally resorted 
 to it with thankfulness. He describes it as " a good, simply 
 elegant, useful house for God, His people, and the family." 
 " We rested at Travellers' Rest,''' he says, in one place, 
 " with my dear friends, Freeborn Garrettson and his prudent
 
 LATEST DAYS. 267 
 
 pious wife ;" subjoining two days afterwards, " I had to tear 
 myself away from these precious souls ; I do believe God 
 dwells in this house." On this occasion he tarried with 
 them five days, including Sunday, when he " preached for 
 them ; very feeble." Going on to New York, he warned a 
 large congregation there against the evils of religious for- 
 mality ; preached in " the African Chapel, both colours being 
 present ; " proceeded through Burlington to Philadelphia, 
 where he preached in the City Road Chapel ; then went 
 forward to Wilmington, to one of the three residences of his 
 friend and spiritual son, Senator Bassett. " Ah, the changes 
 we witness ! " he exclaimed. "My long-loved friend, Judge 
 Bassett, some time past a paralytic, is lately re-stricken, and 
 suffers much in his helpless state." One day with his 
 afflicted friend, and he pushes on " across the wide Susque- 
 hanna," now spanned by an elegant bridge, to "son Francis 
 Rollings worth's, Little York." "Here," he says, " I tried 
 to preach, but wanted strength. My audience was partly 
 composed of the respectables of the borough, who were no 
 doubt disappointed." 
 
 A Sunday at Carlisle, where he " spoke in the new 
 chapel, and the truth was felt ; " and, recording gratefully 
 that his health was better, he advanced with great speed to 
 the mountains, which he crossed to Bloody Run. "The 
 stones of this stream," he explains, " are tinged red as with 
 blood, and the story is, that three men were killed in it by 
 the Indians shortly after Braddock's defeat." Here he 
 preached in the " little chapel in the state in which it was ; 
 said a few words to a few people, and lodged at a grand 
 tavern at night." The next day he proceeded to Bedford, 
 and thence to Somerset, where he preached in " the court- 
 house, and the Lord spoke His own truths through a totter- 
 ing tenement of clay, accompanied with conviction to many
 
 268 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 minds." The next morning his host, William Ross, "stepped 
 round the town with our mite subscription, and the citizens 
 were liberal," this mite subscription being in aid of his 
 funds for the relief of the half- starved preachers of the 
 extreme west, whom he expected shortly to see gathered 
 around him. Going forward to Freeport, over the rough 
 " western Pennsylvania roads," which his " poor arms would 
 feel for days to come," he preached for about thirty 
 minutes at Brightwell's, and ordained John Phillips a 
 deacon. Here he forded the Monongahela, and "ascended 
 the dreadful hills to Briggs's, to whom we failed not to 
 give our parting charge. Briggs is a Marylander, and an 
 ancient Methodist. Down went the fence, and through 
 the flax and corn he conducted us, and onward we toiled 
 to Newkirk's mill a clean house and kind souls. We 
 might not stay. Forward we drove up the valley to Rock 
 meeting-house, a handsome edifice, and thence along the 
 Williamsport-road to Washington. We were lodged like 
 a president at Haslett's. Is it possible?" he continues, 
 characteristically, in a still happier undertone. " Can it 
 be true ? A revival at Steubenville ! Not far from two 
 hundred converts there, most of them young people ! I 
 rejoice exceedingly." 
 
 At Washington he preached in the Court-house, and 
 assisted at a kind of Missionary Meeting. As a Baptist 
 Missionary was there, " collecting for foreign lands, I 
 thought," says he, " that I might help with a few words. 
 I related that, a few years past, a London Methodist had 
 complained to me that the kingdom and the Church had 
 given so largely to support distant missions. I observed, in 
 reply, that the Methodist preachers, who had been sent by 
 John Wesley to America, came as missionaries. And now 
 behold the consequences of this mission ! We have seven
 
 LATEST DAYS. 269 
 
 hundred travelling-preachers, and three thousand local- 
 preachers ! " 
 
 Onward he progressed to West Liberty, on the banks of 
 the Ohio, where he preached on the shortness of time ; to 
 Zanesville, where, immediately on his arrival, he heard that 
 a Camp-meeting was being held five miles from the town, 
 and, proceeding thither in haste, preached from the words, 
 " Knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men ; " and 
 thence to Chilicothe, where he first preached in the chapel, 
 and then hasted away to a Camp-meeting nine miles 
 distant, and preached on the repentance of Peter. He had 
 brought with him, in his convenient little carriage, a large 
 quantity of New Testaments, which here, in the far west, 
 he distributed to the poor, his young companion, Mr. Bond, 
 reading a few verses to each person who was asked to 
 accept the gift, and he basing upon them an affectionate 
 exhortation. "On our route," he records, " we called upon 
 many of our old friends, who treated us like presidents." 
 
 He was again taken ill, with inflammation of the face, yet 
 presided over the Ohio Conference, and writes concerning 
 it, " Great grace, peace, and success have attended our 
 coming together. We hold in this Conference sixty-eight 
 preachers, sixty-seven of whom are stationed. Ten delegates 
 have been chosen for the General Conference." Bishop 
 McKendree was with him here, and accompanied him to 
 Cincinnati. In this growing town he preached from the 
 words, " Only let your conversation be as it becometh the 
 Gospel of Christ," and distributed copies of the New Testa- 
 ment ; then, going southward, he came to Georgetown, 
 Kentucky, where he preached in the Court-house on, "To 
 you is the word of this salvation sent," and thence pro- 
 ceeded to Lexington. Here he wrote, " My soul is blest 
 with continual consolation and peace, in all my great weak-
 
 270 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 ness of body, my labour, and in crowds of company. I am 
 a debtor to the whole continent, but more especially to the 
 north-east and south-west. I have visited the south thirty 
 times in thirty-one years. I wish to visit Mississippi, but 
 am resigned. I preached in Lexington on, ' I will also 
 leave in the midst of thee an afflicted and poor people, and 
 they shall trust in the LOBD ! ' A day or two after he 
 says, "I took counsel of my elder sons, who advise me not 
 to go to Mississippi this year." 
 
 In this town the Kentucky Conference was held, and was 
 marked by " great peace, great order, and the great deal of busi- 
 ness done." Here he wrote, after stating that on the Sunday 
 he ordained deacons, and preached a sermon with reference 
 to the death of Dr. Coke, " My eyes fail. I will resign the 
 stations to Bishop McKendree I will take away my feet. 
 It is my fifty-fifth year of ministry, and forty-fifth year of 
 labour in America. My mind enjoys great peace and Divine 
 consolation. My health is better, which may be owing in 
 part to my being less deeply engaged in the business of the 
 Conference. But whether health, life, or death, good is the 
 will of the Lord. I will trust Him. He is the Strength of 
 my heart, and my Portion for ever. Glory! glory! glory!" 
 
 From Conferences his feet were indeed withdrawn. This 
 was the last he attended. But he could not refrain from his 
 loved work of preaching Christ. He was " daily drawing 
 nearer home," as he was deeply conscious ; but so long as 
 any measure of strength remained for service on earth he 
 was anxious to use it. The following Sunday he again 
 occupied the pulpit, and the next day continued his journey, 
 still struggling hopelessly against the growing power of 
 disease. On one day during the preceding week he drove 
 over roads which he denounces as a disgrace to the State, a 
 distance of forty-three miles. Arriving two hours after night
 
 LATEST DAYS. 271 
 
 at the house of " Father Holt," he says, playfully, with 
 reference to the name, " This will not do; I must halt or 
 order my grave." After a day or two here, " very unwell," 
 he set out again, exclaiming, " Oh, what kindness and atten- 
 tion I receive ! " and came to the house of Wesley Harrison, 
 in Harrisonburg, Virginia, whose father, he remarks, received 
 him as his guest on his first visit to the town. He and his 
 pious wife, he says, " are, I trust, both in glory." 
 
 The next Sunday he attended a Quarterly-meeting, and 
 " bore a feeble, but a faithful testimony to the truth ; " and 
 the Sunday following he again preached, his text being 
 Acts xxvi. 17, 18 : " Unto whom now I send thee, to open 
 their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and 
 from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive 
 forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them that are 
 sanctified by faith that is in Me." Lingering over this, the 
 last text he mentions, when entering the record in his Journal, 
 he says, " Ministers must be sent ; and to be qualified for 
 their mission must, like Paul, be convicted, converted, and 
 sanctified. Like him, they must be preserved from the 
 violence of the people ; but especially from their indulgences 
 and flatteries. And a faithful minister will have the signs 
 following," which the text enumerates. " I die daily," he 
 adds, "I am wasting away with a constant cough," so 
 steadfastly and relentlessly was ulceration of the lungs doing 
 its fatal work ! For a day or too the friends with whom he 
 was staying prevailed on him to rest. "My children," he says, 
 " will not let me go out." Once more, however, on the Sun- 
 day, he preached, and " we had," he says, " a time of great 
 feeling." On Tuesday he came to the house of " Widow 
 Means. The lady," he says, " was not at home, but thff 
 servants are attentive. John Wesley Bond preached in the 
 kitchen."
 
 272 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 " Sunday, December 3rd, 1815. Preached at Columbia. 
 I have passed three nights at Brother Arthur's, two at friend 
 Alexander McDowell's, and one night at Colonel Hutchin- 
 son's. My consolations are great. I live in God from moment 
 to moment. Thursday, 7th. We met a storm, and stopped 
 at William Baker's, Granby." 
 
 So the wonderful story, so far as it is told by himself, 
 abruptly ends. These are the last words of the Journal, 
 and probably the last the dying saint ever wrote. His hand 
 had lost its cunning. In charge of his faithful and beloved 
 attendant, Mr. Bond, he continued to travel from place to 
 place for three months longer, preaching when he thought 
 his trembling feebleness would permit, though in each case 
 against the remonstrances of his friends, and without power 
 to stand for the purpose. Gently, calmly, and in softened 
 radiance, did his sun go down. By the 24th March he had 
 returned northward as far as Richmond, Virginia, still hoping 
 to attend the General Conference, to be held at Baltimore on 
 the 2nd of May. Here he preached his last sermon. With- 
 out strength to walk into the church, even with the support of 
 his friends, he was carried into it in their arms, and placed 
 on a table. In faltering tones he read for his text Rom. ix. 
 28: "For He will finish the work, and cut it short in right- 
 eousness : because a short work will the Lord make upon the 
 earth." His audience, deeply affected, frequently gave vent 
 to their feelings in loud, choking sobs. Though unable to 
 speak many sentences together, he, with frequent pauses to 
 recover his breath, occupied nearly an hour ; and was then 
 carried out of the church, as he had been borne into it, in 
 the arms of loving friends. 
 
 Continuing his journey in the direction of Baltimore, he 
 by Friday, the 29th, reached the house of his friend, Mr. 
 Arnold, in Spottsylvania, about eighteen miles from Frede-
 
 LAST DAYS. 273 
 
 ricksburg. The next day his watchful companion, Mr. Bond, 
 described his hopeless condition to the Rev. Daniel Hitt, one 
 of his executors, in these words, " Since I wrote last it has 
 been a scene of suffering indeed with our venerable father, 
 Mr. Asbury. His cough almost prevents him from taking 
 rest. He reclines on the bed, but is chiefly propped up with 
 a chair. I find that his appetite has forsaken him, and he is 
 very weak. We have, however, been enabled to travel 
 slowly to this place. The two last Sabbaths our aged father 
 preached, but I fear the exertion he then made was too great 
 for him." 
 
 Continuing his letter the next morning, Mr. Bond wrote, 
 " Our dear father appears much worse. He has had a very 
 restless night, and is, I think, in more apparent danger of 
 approaching dissolution than I ever s&w him, even in his 
 attack in the State of New Jersey. He says himself that he 
 is apprehensive the scene will soon close." At eleven in the 
 forenoon he requested that the family might be called into 
 his room for worship. Mr. Bond then read the twenty-first 
 chapter of the Book of Revelation, sang a hymn, and offered 
 prayer. During these exercises he appeared to be abstracted 
 in thought, as if by the aid of the imagery used in the 
 chapter read to describe the heavenly Jerusalem, he had 
 already passed to the intended reality. He then looked 
 at his young friend with a smile of unearthly benignity, 
 as if to dispel the expression of distress which his coun- 
 tenance betrayed. In an hour or two Mr. Bond inquired 
 affectionately if Christ continued to be precious, and with- 
 out power to enunciate a syllable, he simply raised his 
 hands ; and then, reclining his head upon his beloved com- 
 panion's arm, he calmly entered into rest. " Our dear 
 father," wrote Mr. Bond, " has left us, and has gone to the 
 Church triumphant. He died as he lived, fall of confidence, 
 
 18
 
 274 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 full of love ! at four o'clock this afternoon." Sunday, 
 March 31st, 1816. 
 
 So the redeemed spirit, purified by faith, and, like the 
 Captain of our salvation, made perfect through suffering, 
 passed away to be for ever with the Lord : so the faithful 
 and successful servant entered into his Lord's joy. The 
 transition was the gentlest conceivable. As he approached 
 the heavenly world, and his bodily infirmities increased, 
 his personal meetness for the inheritance of the saints in 
 light had become more and more manifest, and he had 
 realised the earnest in a proportionately increasing measure. 
 The change he experienced was but the putting off this 
 tabernacle to enter into a condition of being where the 
 spiritual activities in which he delighted would be continued 
 without weariness, in the perpetual keeping of a Sabbath 
 reserved for the people of God. 
 
 The body was interred in the family vault of Mr. Arnold. 
 It was understood, however, that this was not to be its final 
 resting-place ; and when the General Conference assembled 
 in Baltimore, in May, it ordered its removal to that city. A 
 vault, at the request of the Methodist people of Baltimore, 
 was prepared for it beneath the pulpit of Eutaw Street 
 Church ; and at the reinterment the funeral was attended 
 by thousands of true mourners. The body was followed 
 from Light Street Church, where the Conference was holding 
 its sittings, by the whole assembly, by many clergymen of 
 other churches, and by a vast concourse of the citizens ; the 
 immense procession being headed by Bishop McKendree 
 and the Rev. W. Black, the representative of the British 
 to the American Conference. Bishop McKendree delivered 
 an impressive address to a deeply affected audience, and 
 funeral sermons were afterwards preached throughout the 
 city, and in almost every part of the continent. A marble
 
 LAST DAYS. 275 
 
 monument was erected over the vault, which bears this 
 inscription : 
 
 ibt 
 REV. FRANCIS ASBURY, 
 
 BISHOP OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHUBCH. 
 
 HE was born in England, August 20, 1745 ; 
 Entered the Ministry at the age of seventeen ; 
 
 Came a Missionary to America 1771 ; 
 
 Was ordained Bishop in this city December 27, 1784 
 
 Annually visited the Conferences in the United States ; 
 
 With much zeal continued to "preach the Word " 
 
 For more than half a century ; 
 
 and 
 Literally ended his labours with his life, 
 
 Near Fredericksburg, Virginia, 
 In the full triumph of faith, on the 31st of March, 1816, 
 
 Aged 70 years, 7 months, and 11 days. 
 
 His remains were deposited in this vault May 10, 1816, 
 
 By the General Conference then sitting in this city. 
 
 His Journals will exhibit to posterity 
 
 His labours, his difficulties, his sufferings, 
 
 His patience, his perseverance, his love to God and man. 
 
 Two years before his death Asbury made his will, 
 appointing Bishop McKendree, Daniel Hitt, and Henry 
 Boehm his executors. With reference to this act he says, 
 "If I do not in the meantime spend it, I shall leave, when I 
 die, an estate of two thousand dollars, I believe : I give it 
 all to the Book Concern. This money, and somewhat more, 
 I have inherited from dear departed Methodist friends, in the 
 State of Maryland, who died childless ; besides some legacies 
 which I have never taken. Let'it all return and continue to 
 aid the cause of piety."
 
 276 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 LIVING FOB A PURPOSE. 
 
 The Author to the Reader Summary of Asbury's Labours His Mo- 
 tives not Worldly or Selfish His great Success His life Governed 
 by his Aims Appeal to Preachers Appeal to Christian Reader. 
 
 MY pleasant task is completed ; and, by dint of persistent 
 plodding and thrift of time, I trust that I have been 
 able to accomplish it, without, in consequence, omitting or 
 lightly discharging any of the duties which pertain to rny 
 official relation to the people of my charge. On account of 
 the great mass of material with which I have had to deal, 
 and the crowding of collateral subjects, as suggested by the 
 facts which have come before me, I have found the work 
 heavier than I at first anticipated, and much heavier than 
 you, my reader, can well conceive. But I have not found it a 
 work of drudgery, but of delight, and I hope also of spiritual 
 profit. And now, on the eve of our parting company, let 
 us glance again for a moment at the picture which we have 
 been contemplating, for one or two immediate practical ends. 
 We are amazed at the amount of work which Asbury 
 accomplished, and scarcely less so at the spirit of sustained 
 self-abnegation in which it was prosecuted. According to 
 the sober calculation of Dr. Bangs, during the forty-five 
 years of his ministry in America he preached no fewer than 
 sixteen thousand four hundred and twenty-five sermons; 
 travelled over the worst of roads, generally on horseback, 
 not fewer than two hundred and seventy thousand miles ; 
 sat in no fewer than two hundred and twenty-four Annual 
 Conferences, their entire business generally devolving upon 
 himself; and probably consecrated, including travelling and
 
 LIVING FOR A PURPOSE. 277 
 
 local-preachers, more than four thousand persons to the 
 sacred ministry. Yet with all this he was attentive to all 
 the duties of the pastoral office, a diligent reader, and a close 
 and minute observer of the scenes of nature, and the move- 
 ments of civil and public life. 
 
 To what is this unparalleled amount of work done by a 
 single human life to be ascribed ? Under what constraining 
 or impelling power was it steadfastly carried on ? Earthly 
 ambition ? The lust of fame ? The " accursed lust of 
 gold ? " You repel any such suggestion with scorn. 
 
 The amount of success which he achieved was propor- 
 tionate to the extent of his disinterested labours. Thousands 
 of men and women were spiritually enlightened and saved 
 under his personal ministry, and the multitudes more or less 
 benefited by the omnipresent spiritual activities of which he 
 was the mainspring are too vast for computation. To what 
 is his prodigious practical influence to be attributed ? To 
 his extraordinary intellectual endowments, his great scholastic 
 attainments, or his elevated and commanding social position ? 
 The answer is obvious. 
 
 But I need not multiply these inquiries. The explanation 
 of the whole is that Francis Asbury ever felt life and its 
 visible and revealed relations to be real, and ever lived for a 
 purpose and aim, an aim and purpose which were never 
 absent from his consciousness ; which gained over him ever 
 increasing governing power ; which gave shape and character 
 to his thoughts, tone to his feelings, a right direction and a 
 true force to his exertions ; which were a well of life within 
 him springing up continually and renewing his sanctified 
 energies day by day. What this life purpose was might be 
 stated in such oft-repeated and passionate utterances as 
 these : "I found my heart led out in prayer for those to 
 whom I cannot preach. The Lord is my Witness, that if
 
 278 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 my whole body, yea, every hair of my head, could labour 
 and suffer, they should be freely given up for God and souls." 
 " Our total for the year 1803 is 104,070 members. In 1771 
 there were about 300 Methodists in New York, 250 in Phila- 
 delphia, and a few in Jersey. I then longed for 100,000 ; 
 now I want 200,000 nay, thousands upon thousands." 
 Go through his marvellous life, from the time when, as a 
 mere youth, he exhorted his neighbours to flee from the 
 wrath to come, until, as we have seen, he persisted in set- 
 ting forth Christ as the Saviour of helpless men in the 
 feebleness of his advanced age and disease, and you will 
 find it radiant throughout with the brightness of this con- 
 suming zeal for God and souls. 
 
 You admit that the character commands your admiration. 
 Probably, as we have surveyed together the outlines of the 
 wonderful history, you have spontaneously exclaimed to your- 
 self more than once. How noble ! How heroic and glorious ! 
 How Christ-like ! But will you content yourself with this ? 
 
 Perhaps you are set apart to the same holy work to which 
 Francis Asbury so unreservedly devoted his powers. You 
 are happily free from his heavy trials. But you may thank- 
 fully lay aside all considerations with reference to them ; 
 for they were but the distressing accidents of the times, and 
 with a will as firmly fixed in its determination for God and 
 the welfare of your fellow-men, you would probably bear up 
 under privation and hardships as heroically as he. But how 
 is it in regard to the will and purpose ? Have you a definite 
 aim in your vocation, such as it so imperiously requires, 
 and so necessarily implies ? Is this aim a real and practical 
 thing, and something of which you are clearly conscious ? 
 
 Supposing your aim in pulpit preparation to be the profit 
 of your hearers, and not self-display, it will naturally govern 
 your choice of texts and subjects, with reference to the
 
 LIVING FOR A PURPOSE. 279 
 
 spiritual condition of your congregation, and will as naturally 
 mould your style of address. A man who does not merely 
 profess to labour for the profit of all, as a thing to be taken 
 for granted in a Christian minister, but is moved by this as 
 his ruling purpose, will pray as Asbury did, " Lord, keep 
 me from preaching empty stuff to please the ear instead of 
 changing the heart;" like him, he will "labour hard to 
 make the people understand," and, like him, will be able to 
 say, "I gave it to them, as the Lord gave it to me plain 
 enough." Plainness was, in fact, a character of all his'com- 
 positions, whether written or spoken ; clearness and strength 
 of thought, expressed in plain racy English, which told 
 equally on the ear of the educated and the uneducated. 
 
 So we might say, with reference to the example we have 
 had before us, that if a preacher is real in his views and 
 sentiments, and if his aim is to save himself and those that 
 hear him, evidence of this will appear in his intercourse with 
 his people in their own dwellings ; " in word, in conversa- 
 tion, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity ; " in his care 
 for their children, and his wisely directed efforts to win 
 them to Christ ; in his readiness to use suitable opportunities 
 for dealing with men in their separate individuality, where 
 this is seen to be necessary ; in his estimate of the value of 
 time, and his avoidance of habits of listlessness, indolence, 
 and "dawdling"; in the direction of his private studies; 
 and, above all, in his habits of devotion, his "fellowship 
 with the Father, and with His Son, Jesus Christ." 
 
 But you are not set apart to the ministry : if you were 
 you would be as wholly devoted to your work as all this 
 implies ! Are you sure that there is no self-deception in 
 this feeling? We are not all called to do spiritual work 
 publicly and officially. " If all were the head, where were 
 the members ? " But is it impossible for us to promote that
 
 280 BISHOP ASBURY. 
 
 work by noiseless and unostentatious efforts, and by our 
 spirit and general character ? Is it not certain that we 
 shall do this if our hearts are set upon it ? 
 
 The first, supreme, and all-important thing for each of 
 us is to come under the great law of holy love, by a true 
 conversion, and, from the moment that we do so, to live 
 for the accomplishment of such a purpose as the Christian 
 conscience approves. For assuredly if you have a life- 
 purpose, your actions and character will be governed by it. 
 Suppose any man, in any station of life, to take the glory of 
 God and the welfare and spiritual salvation of men for his 
 aim and end ; then think how it must influence his intel- 
 lectual powers, unconsciously, perhaps, moving, guiding, and 
 expanding them ; how it must act upon his natural dis- 
 position and temper ; how it must bear upon his conduct in 
 his relation to the individuals or bodies of men with whom 
 he is called to associate in daily life, or within the circle of 
 his friends ; how it would and must govern him in the use 
 of his money, in the employment of his hours of relaxation 
 and recreation, in the choice of his books and companions, in 
 the indulgence of his intellectual tastes ; and how readily it 
 would determine his course of action on those frequent occa- 
 sions in the history of every man, when two lines of conduct 
 lie before him, the one certainly right, the other doubtful ! 
 
 Let you and me, my dear reader, look well to the founda- 
 tions, in the first instance. Let us see to it that our relations 
 to God are safe, and let us then keep ourselves in His love ; 
 and, in order to this, live, as Francis Asbury did, in real and 
 unbroken communion with Him. This will give Tightness 
 and strength to our purposes, and purity to our motives ; 
 and however obscure our situation in life may be, it will be 
 found hereafter that perhaps in ways unknown to us our 
 lives have been useful to others.
 
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