W ESLEYAN H ERITAGE L IBRARY
Reference
T HE J OURNAL AND L ETTERS OF
F RANCIS A SBURY
V OL . I
“Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord” Heb 12:14 Spreading Scriptural Holiness to the World
© 1998 Wesleyan Heritage Publications
The Journal and Letters of
FRANCIS ASBURY
EDITORIAL BOARD Elmer T. Clark J. Manning Potts
Jacob S. Payton
Illustrator Erie Prior
Maps by Lewis Akin Thoburn Lyon
FRANCIS ASBURY
Portrait by John Paradise at New York, 1812. From the steel engraving by B. Tanner, 1814.
Frontispiece
The Journal and Letters of FRANCIS ASBURY
In Three Volumes
VOLUME I
The Journal
1771 to 1793
ELMER T. CLARK Editor-in-Chief J. MANNING POTTS
JACOB S. PAYTON
Published Jointly By
EPWORTH PRESS ABINGDON PRESS
London Nashville
FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1958
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY HAZELL WATSON AND VINEY LTD
AYLESBURY AND SLOUGH
EDITORIAL STAFF EDITORS
ELMER T. CLARK, A.B., M.A., B.D., S.T.D., Litt.D., LL.D.
Secretary of the World Methodist Council; Secretary of the International Methodist Historical Society; Executive Secretary of the American Association of Methodist Historical Societies; Author of The Warm Heart of Wesley, An Album of Methodist History, etc.;
Editor of What Happened at Aldersgate, etc.
J. MANNING POTTS, A.B., M.A., Th.M., D.D.
Editor of The Upper Room; Member of the Executive Committee of the World Methodist Council and American Association of Methodist Historical Societies; Vice-President of the International Methodist Historical Society; President of the Southeastern Jurisdictional Methodist Historical Society; Collector of Asbury's Letters.
JACOB S. PAYTON, A.B., B.D., D.D.
Sometime Washington Correspondent for The Christian Advocate;
President of the Northeastern Jurisdictional Methodist Historical Society; Member of the Executive Committee of the International Methodist Historical Society and American Association of Methodist Historical Societies; Author of Our Fathers Have Told Us, The History of Methodism in Western Pennsylvania.
REGIONAL RESEARCH EDITORS FRANK BAKER, A.B., M.A., Ph.D.
Executive Secretary of the Wesley Historical Society of Great Britain;
Secretary of the International Methodist Historical Society; Author of A Charge to Keep, The Methodist Pilgrim in England, An Introduction to the People Called Methodists, Charles Wesley as Revealed by His Letters, etc.
ALBERT DEEMS BETTS, A.B., M.A., B.D.
Author of History of South Carolina Methodism.
CULLEN T. CARTER
President and Member of Commission on Historic Places and Relics of the Tennessee Conference Methodist Historical Society; Secretary of the Southeastern Jurisdictional Methodist Historical Society;
Author of Methodist Doctrinal Beliefs, History of the Tennessee Conference of The Methodist Church.
JOHN OWEN GROSS, D.D., L.H.D., Litt.D., LL.D., S.T.D., D.Sc.Ed.
Executive Secretary of the Department of Educational Institutions of the Board of Education of The Methodist Church.
VERNON BOYCE HAMPTON, Ph.D., Litt.D.
President, Newark Conference Methodist Historical Society; Author of Francis Asbury on Staten Island, etc.
WALLACE H. HARRIS, A.B., B.D., S.T.M.
Vice-President of the Northeastern Jurisdictional Methodist Historical Society; Biographical Secretary of the Philadelphia Conference Methodist Historical Society.
LEWIS O. HARTMAN, Ph.D., D.D., Litt.D., L.H.D.
Bishop of the Methodist Church; Librarian of the New England Methodist Historical Society. (Deceased.)
BROOKS B. LITTLE, A.B., M.A., B.D.
Editorial Associate and Librarian of The Upper Room; Associate Research Director and Collector of the Letters of Francis Asbury.
ISAAC P. MARTIN, D.D.
Librarian-Historian of the Holston Conference Methodist Historical Society; Author of Elijah Embree Hoss, History of Methodism in Holston Conference, Church Street Methodists, A Minister in the Tennessee Valley.
ARTHUR BRUCE MOSS, A.B., M.A., B.D.
Pastor of Old John Street Methodist Church, New York City;
Secretary of the New York City Methodist Historical Society.
LOUIS D. PALMER, B.A.
Author of Heroism and Romance: Early Methodism in Northeastern Pennsylvania.
LAWRENCE SHERWOOD, B.A., B.D.
Research Historian, West Virginia Conference Methodist Historical Society.
WALLACE GUY SMELTZER, B.S., S.T.B., D.D.
Historian of the Pittsburgh Conference Methodist Historical Society;
Vice-President of the Northeastern Jurisdictional Methodist Historical Society; Author of Methodism on the Headwaters of the Ohio.
WILLIAM WARREN SWEET, Ph.D., Litt.D., D.D.
Sometime Professor of American Church History at the University of Chicago and Southern Methodist University; Author of The Methodist Episcopal Church in the Civil War, Circuit Rider Days in Indiana, The Rise of Methodism in the West, The Story of Religion in America, Religion on the American Frontier, Methodism in American History, Virginia Methodism, A History, etc.
LESTER A. WELLIVER, A.B., M.A., B.D., D.D., LL.D.
Sometime President of Westminster Theological Seminary; President of the Northeastern Jurisdictional Methodist Historical Society.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ATTENTION is called to the authorities cited in the footnotes and to the bibliography. The whole range of early Methodist literature, including periodicals, has been carefully searched.
Contemporary maps have been studied to trace the routes of Asbury's travels. For local details scores of histories of states, counties, cities, and churches have been ransacked. The archives of most of the states through which Asbury passed have been investigated, and archivists and librarians have been uniformly helpful. County historians and genealogists have been contacted; and these have searched the old public records for deeds, wills, and other documents that might throw light on passages in the Journal. The Editors have traveled widely in all the states to trace the exact movements of the great Circuit Rider. It would be impossible to mention by name the hundreds of persons who provided local data and co-operated with unfailing kindness in the vast volume of research which has gone into the production of the work.
Without their help thousands of local facts would not have been secured.
High credit is due to Mrs. Louise Stahl, my own secretary, who was responsible for a considerable part of the research and for drafting the whole Journal in its final form. She read numerous microfilms and photostats, accurately interpreted difficult handwritten documents, transcribed all the annotations, and with her helpers carried on the voluminous correspondence with the many persons who contributed much or little to the project.
Similar credit must be accorded to the Misses Annie and Clarice Winstead, secretaries to Dr. J. Manning Potts, for indefatigable work on the Letters. They co-operated in deciphering a large number of documents and transcribed all the Letters and the notes thereon.
In Washington the secretary to Dr. Jacob S. Payton, Miss Margery E. Rohman, rendered highly important service on large sections of the Journal. Proximity to the Library of Congress greatly enhanced her usefulness during the whole period of research.
Mr. Thoburn C. Lyon and Mr. Lewis Akin were responsible for making the maps used in this work. Each of Asbury's trips in each state was traced on an outline map of the state involved, and the hundreds of maps thus resulting were furnished to Mr. Lyon for guidance. Our indebtedness to Mr. Erie Prior of Washington, the illustrator, is evident throughout the book.
To express suitable gratitude to all the persons who have co-operated in the present work would involve listing the ministers in nearly all the areas through which Asbury moved for nearly half a century. Among the hundreds who deserve the thanks of the Editors the following must be mentioned:
GEORGIA: Mrs. Z.W. Copeland, Professor E. Merton Coulter, Dean S. Walter Martin, The Rev. Dr. A.M.
Pearce, North Georgia Conference Historical Society, Professor Robert C. Wilson.
DELAWARE AND MARYLAND: Dr. William H. Best, Miss Annie P. Dalton, Mrs. S.J.L. DuLaney, Carlyle R.
Earp, Dr. William M. Hoffman, Dr. Arthur J. Jackson, Ralph F. Martz, Dr. Walter M. Michael, Miss Hannah S.
Parker, The Rev. Kenneth Ray Rose, The Rev. Edwin Schell, The Rev. Melvin Lee Steadman, The Rev. R.T.
Thawley, Library of Congress, The Library of the Daughters of the American Revolution, Historical Society of the Peninsula Conference, Maryland Historical Society, Methodist Historical Society of the Baltimore Conference, The Rev. William O. Hackett.
KENTUCKY: The Rev. O.B. Crockett, Russell Dyche, Sr., C.H. Greer, W.S. Hudson, E.C. Watts.
NEW ENGLAND: Mrs. William Kirk Kaynor, The Rev.
Dwight H. McMahon, Mr. E. Farley Sharp, The Librarians of the Kent Memorial Library, The Public Library at Providence, R.I.
NEW JERSEY: Dr. Lynn H. Corson, Dr. B. Harrison Decker, The Rev. Frank D. Dennis, The Rev. John L. Ewing, Dr.
William R. Guffick, The Rev. Albert E. Hartman, The Rev. George T. Hillman, Walter W. Hoover, Dr. Roland L.
Luerich, Loring McMillen, The Rev. Raymond E. Neff, Dr. John B. Oman, The Rev. Frank Ostertag, Dr. Olin Y.
Shute, Dr. Harold N. Smith, Dr. Frank B. Stanger, Miss Laura Yetman, William H. Zelley.
NEW YORK: The Rev. C.W. Christman, The Rev. Robert H.
Dolliver, Dr. Robert C. Hunsicker, Mrs. Elizabeth D.
Meier, The Trustees of John Street Methodist Church, Bishop Frederick B. Newell, Miss Dorothy Woodruff.
NORTH CAROLINA: Miss Alma Browning, Mrs. Mary L.
Browning, The Rev. G.W. Bumgarner, W. Frank Burton, D.L. Corbitt, Department of Archives and History, Leon M. McDonald, Society of County Historians, Miss Amy Muse, S.T. Peace, William S. Powell, University of North Carolina Library, J.F. Pugh, Mrs. G.D.B. Reynolds, Stanley County Historical Society, Colonel Jeffrey F.
Stanback, William S. Tarlton, Mrs. Stanley Whitaker, Mrs.
Laura S. Worth, Randolph County Historical Society.
PENNSYLVANIA: Dr. Raymond Martin Bell, Ellsworth H.
Bringinger, The Rev. Charles C. Chayer, The Rev. A.L.
Cliffe, Mrs. Gladys DuPuis, William H. Irelan, Miss Ernestine M. Kashlin, S.S. Lesh, The Rev. Howard N.
Reeves, Jr., Miss Catherine T. Shulenberger, The Rev.
Edgar F. Singer, L.E. Wilt, Dr. T. Kenneth Wood, Libraries of the Philadelphia Conference Historical Society, Pennsylvania Historical Society, The Friends' Historical Society, The Germantown Historical Society, Delaware County Historical Society, The Historical Society of the Presbyterian Church, The Free Library of Philadelphia.
SOUTH CAROLINA: Dr. J.H. Easterby, South Carolina Historical Commission, Miss Cora Page Godfrey, Herbert
Hucks, Jr., Wofford College Library, Dr. R.L. Meriwether, Library of the University of South Carolina.
TENNESSEE: The Rev. Dr. E.P. Anderson, Judge W.W.
Faw, Dr. Robert L. Kincaid, Judge H.B. McGinis, Mrs.
James K. Taylor.
VIRGINIA AND WEST VIRGINIA: Emory P. Barrow, Joseph Minton Batten (Deceased), Mr. and Mrs. H.
Carstairs Bracey, Chaplain (Major-General) Charles I.
Carpenter, Carroll C. Chowning, S.G. Cowan, Mrs. J.W.
Dixon, Wallace R. Evans, R.H. Forrester, Bishop Paul Neff Garber, Miss Mabel F. Gardiner, The Library of Garrett Biblical Institute, Otis L. Gilliam, Garland E.
Hopkins, J. Aubrey Hughes, H.H. Hughes, Frank A.
Johnson, William A. Mabry, George Carrington Mason (Deceased), Mariner's Museum, Fred Newbraugh, Mrs.
Theodore G. Owen, Major T.T. Perry, Jr., George S.
Reamey, Roland P. Riddick, Henley S. Roane, Ellis W.
Shuler, John C. Simpson, C.A. Steiding, Leland B. Tate, C.L. Wilkins, L.H. Youell.
INTRODUCTION Elmer T. Clark
THE place of Francis Asbury in American history is secure. In Washington there stands a noble equestrian monument of the great Circuit Rider which was unveiled and presented to the nation by the President of the United States, who said on that occasion: "His outposts marched with the pioneers, his missionaries visited the hovels of the poor, that all might be brought to a knowledge of the truth. . . . Who shall say where his influence, written on the immortal souls of men, shall end? . . . It is more than probable that Nancy Hanks, the mother of Abraham Lincoln, had heard him in her youth.
Adams and Jefferson must have known him, and Jackson must have seen in him a flaming spirit as unconquerable as his own. . . . He is entitled to rank as one of the builders of our nation." And Bishop Hamilton declared at the same ceremony: "He said, 'I must ride or die.' He printed the map of his ministry with the hoofs of his horse."
At Drew University there stands another memorial in bronze, depicting the man and his horse. Several American cities and towns, and numerous streets are called "Asbury."
Many artists painted him in various moods and at different periods in his career. Across the land hundreds of churches and thousands of individuals bear his name, and notable institutions have been named for him. In stained-glass windows in many places the worshiping multitudes look into his blue eyes. In England his boyhood home has been
designated as a notable site of history to be preserved by the Corporation which knew him as a lad.
Asbury was one of the greatest explorers of the American frontier. He was more widely traveled than any other man of his generation, and was known by more people. He was the welcome visitor in thousands of humble homes, and such notables as Washington, Meriwether Lewis, Ramsay, Rembert and Calhoun of South Carolina, Gough of Maryland, Bassett of Delaware, General Russell of Virginia, Governor Tiffin of Ohio, Lieutenant Governor Van Cortlandt of New York, and a multitude of others were numbered among his friends. For nearly fifty years he had no home save the road, and but a few months before his death he told a British correspondent that his mailing address was simply "America";
any postmaster would know that "the man who rambled America" would in due time pass that way. More than sixty times he crossed the eastern mountains; his annual circuit stretched from New England or New York to Charleston; his total mileage was more than a quarter of a million.
As the bearer of a moral culture and its civilizing consequences to the frontier settlements of America, Francis Asbury has no peer in history. He and his circuit riders went into every new community and nearly every log cabin in the wilderness; they were never more than a few weeks behind the earliest pioneers. In their saddlebags they carried the fundamentals of civilization—the Bible, the hymnbook, and religious literature of a varied nature. They brought news of the outside world. They fought intemperance and every form
of wrongdoing; and they made godly, law-respecting citizens out of people who might otherwise have been ruffians.
Asbury preached a gospel of personal salvation, as did all others in his day. Our modern social problems and the so- called "social gospel" did not exist. But on nearly every page of his Journal there is evidence of his keen social conscience, and his message bore fruit in social betterment.
Asbury was the educational pioneer of his day. He has long been credited with having established the first Sunday school in America. His preachers, most of whom had little formal education, were required to preach annually on education.
Furthermore, they dotted their wide circuits with schools. As early as 1780, as will be noted in the Journal, a plan was drawn and money given for a school in North Carolina, although it was not opened for several years. In Virginia, Georgia, Kentucky, and both the Carolinas, Methodist schools were established; and the General Conference which organized the Church also founded a degree-conferring college in Maryland.
"How many institutions of learning, some of them rejoicing in the name of Wesleyan, all trace the inspiration of their existence to the service and sacrifice of this lone circuit rider!" exclaimed President Calvin Coolidge. Across the years Asbury's successors have established hundreds of schools and colleges in practically all the states. Many of these were suspended when the progress of public education, learning from the preachers, rendered them no longer necessary; but they blazed the way and laid down the challenge to the states.
More than 150 of them are in operation today, and some of these are among the greatest in America.
In 1789 Asbury was instrumental in starting a publishing house which today is the world's largest religious publisher.
In the same year he started a periodical which, under different names and with some lapses, has continued until this day. At once books and papers began to pour from the presses in a stream which has been constantly increasing in volume for more than a century and a half and is today far greater than it has ever been. He may almost be said to deserve the title of American Publisher Number One.
Such contributions give Francis Asbury a lasting and unique place in the history of the New World.
Asbury's Early Life
It has been pointed out that John Wesley's intemperate attack on the American cause in his Calm Address to the American Colonies cost the great founder of Methodism his influence in the New World. Francis Asbury inherited that[1]
influence. He became the organizing genius and virtual father of American Methodism, and "the second man in Methodist history," as Dr. James Dixon called him, second only to John Wesley himself. Wesley's greatest biographer, Tyerman, regarded Asbury "with an almost equal veneration," and declared that "if the reader wishes to see his monument, we invite him to step within the living walls of the present Methodist Episcopal Church of America, and there, while surveying the grand edifice of spiritual order and beauty, we ask him, as the inquirer in St. Paul's Cathedral is asked, to 'look around.'"[2]
His Journal and Letters and the annotations thereto cover his entire career except sections of his early life in England and his last days following the end of his record; and while no interpretative biography is here intended, there seems to be need for information covering these sections even though it[3]
covers ground already familiar to informed students.
Elizabeth and Joseph Asbury were poor but godly parents whose home was open to the preachers and whose hearts were turned seriously to religion by the death of a small daughter, their only other child. Francis was sent to school at Snails' Green, a mile away from the family home on Newton Road;
and he was so apt in his studies that he could read the Bible at the age of six or seven years. The schoolmaster was a tyrant, however, and the boy's formal education ended when he was thirteen years old. For a few months he was in service in the home of a prosperous but irreligious family, and then he became an apprentice at the Old Forge nearby.
His immediate superior at the forge was a Methodist named Foxall. The work was of the manual sort, and all biographers have pointed out that the muscular strength developed by the hard labor admirably equipped Asbury for the tasks which were later to face him in the American wilderness. He also became an intimate of the superintendent's son, Henry Foxall, who in after years became a rich iron merchant in America and built and named the Foundry Church in Washington, reminiscent of the forge in England and the business in which the donor had prospered.
Bishop Francis Asbury dedicated the noted premises in 1810.
The Asburys attended the parish church at Great Barr, which was a chapel-of-ease to Aldrich, and also All Saints' Church in West Bromwich. At the latter the young man heard the famous Edward Stillingfleet, who sympathized with and participated in the Wesleyan Revival. Among the parishioners was the rich and pious Earl of Dartmouth, who was a friend of Selina, Countess of Huntingdon, and whose seat at Sandwell Hall was open to the evangelical preachers like George Whitefield and Howell Harris, who were patronized by the Countess. Asbury himself has pointed out that he heard
many notable preachers such as Ryland, Talbot, Mansfield, Hawes, and Venn.
Young Asbury naturally heard of the Methodists through Foxall and others, and with his mother's consent he attended one of their services at Wednesbury. This town was the scene of the bitterest persecutions which Wesley and his preachers had endured, and a large society developed there. It was embraced in the Staffordshire Circuit and under the ministry of Alexander Mather, who was to become the second president of the British Conference after the death of John Wesley. Asbury was most favorably impressed by the singing and the extemporaneous nature of the prayer and sermon.
Among Asbury's other intimates during the period were William Emery, Edward Hand, Thomas and Jabez Ault, James Bayley, Thomas Russell, and Richard Whatcoat, all of whom are mentioned in Methodist annals. He was converted[4]
while he and young Emery were praying in the old barn at the Asbury home. In a matter of weeks he was reading the Scriptures and giving out the hymns in the women's meeting to which he accompanied his mother, and soon he was exhorting. At the age of eighteen he became a local preacher and delivered his first sermon while standing behind a chair in a cottage near Manwoods, a quarter of a mile south of Forge Mill Farm, a house erected in 1680 by a great-uncle of Dr. Samuel Johnson.
Events now moved rapidly. Asbury was still a blacksmith, but he says that he traveled widely through the region and
preached several times each week. In 1766 he left his work and took the place of an ailing itinerant for nine months in Staffordshire and Gloucestershire. During this service he was rebuked gently by the "assistant" or preacher in charge of the Staffordshire Circuit, W. Orp, because of certain alleged neglect.[5]
The following year he was admitted on trial as a traveling preacher and appointed to the Bedfordshire Circuit. Other assignments followed regularly: 1768, in full connection and appointed to Colchester; 1769, Bedfordshire again; 1770, Wiltshire. Up to this time it appears that Asbury had never attended a conference. But he had served well and made[6]
many friends.
Asbury seems to have had a sweetheart at Great Barr, named Nancy Brookes; and Dr. Tipple said that their romance was broken off by his mother. The message that he sent to[7]
his "dear heart" in a letter to his mother seems to indicate that she took offense because he left abruptly without seeing her, although he tried to do so. He apparently treasured his[8]
memories of her and declared that "what once befell me in England" was the first cause of his life-long celibacy,[9]
although in later years he mentioned other reasons.
The fact that Asbury was held in affection by those among whom he ministered is attested by letters from his parishioners at Whitchurch and a preacher who in 1768 had served the Staffordshire Circuit on which Asbury's parents
lived, but who at the time of writing was stationed in London.[10]
Such was the twenty-six-year-old man who attended the Bristol Conference in 1771 and answered, "Here am I, send me," when John Wesley declared, "Our brethren in America call aloud for help."
Francis Asbury was five feet and nine inches tall. He was a slender man, with bright and piercing blue eyes and a lofty forehead with flowing fair hair; his voice was clear and full, his presence dignified and commanding. It surprises many people to learn that he had a preference for light blue clothing,[11] He was a deeply serious man, though he had his moments of levity. His Journal is filled with references to his illnesses, and he suffered prolonged sickness on more than one occasion. Asbury was in general a robust and healthy man, and the fact that he traveled constantly and endured incredible hardships for nearly fifty years is proof enough of his strong constitution.[12]
Building the Church
Francis Asbury holds first place as the builder of American Methodism. Others were in the New World before him and more followed him, but to this day none rivals him as the supreme factor in establishing the church and enabling it to sweep the land in the face of manifold difficulties. He has never had a peer in American Methodist history, just as John Wesley has had none in Britain.
His greatest contribution was his successful insistence upon the principle of itinerancy, which he learned from Wesley. This was undoubtedly the secret of Methodism's amazing success during the frontier period. As the Journal reveals, he had been in the country only three weeks when he discovered the preference of the preachers for the city, and with prophetic insight he discerned that this would mean failure for the evangelical movement. So the new arrival did not hesitate to rebuke his superiors and seniors. They did not want to leave the cities, but he would show them the way! He desired "a circulation of preachers, to avoid partiality and popularity!" "I am fixed," he wrote, "to the Methodist plan, and do what I do faithfully as to God. I expect trouble is at hand. This I expected when I left England, and I am willing to suffer, yes to die, sooner than to betray so good a cause by any means."
Thus stubbornly did he stand against those who presumably knew America better than he did. In the end he won, and the Conference adopted a time limit of six months for the preachers, with three months for those in New York.
Under this rule they rode the eastern seaboard and continued everywhere, until the words "Methodist circuit rider" became and remained a part of the American vocabulary. Not otherwise could they have kept up with the advancing frontier. They were responsible for the amazing growth of Methodism in America. They moved with the pioneers everywhere, and their Church far outgrew the population and outstripped those which had been established a century or more before the Methodists came.
Asbury was called a dictator, and in a sense the charge was not wholly unfounded. When Dr. Thomas Coke came to ordain him and set up the Methodist Episcopal Church, Asbury insisted upon a democratic election, but he did not administer in democratic fashion. Had he done so, he might have averted some misunderstandings and schisms; but his church would not have spread to the Father of Waters and grown from 1,000 to 200,000 members in his lifetime. His control of the preachers and their appointments was the main element in this success, and he could not have exerted such control and escaped the charge of tyranny.
But if he was a dictator, he exercised a benevolent dictatorship. He loved his preachers next to God. He accepted the same small salary, endured the same hardships, lived the same life, and traveled more than any of them. He asked nothing of them that he did not impose on himself; and they knew that if he sent them on hard rounds, he had already made harder rounds and would make more. There were little rebellions, but they came to nothing. The schism led by O'Kelly was serious at first, leading even McKendree away for a brief period, and it gave the church a temporary setback;
but when the Methodists numbered ten million souls, the O'Kellyites had grown not at all and had barely been able to survive.
If Francis Asbury was a dictator, he learned the art from John Wesley; and his dictatorship saved Methodism and built it into the largest Protestant body in all the land.
Asbury's Journal
For more than a hundred years the great church which Francis Asbury built neglected his writings; his letters were never collected and his famous Journal, the basic document of the church, became unknown to two generations of people.
In 1951 the National Historical Publications Commission of the United States Government included Asbury among the sixty-six great Americans whose works the body recommended for proper editing and publication, along with Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Lincoln, and the other immortals of the land. That recommendation was accepted by two Presidents and both Houses of Congress.
Then world Methodism moved in the matter. In September, 1951, the World Methodist Council at Oxford, England, acting unanimously on a report of its affiliated International Methodist Historical Society, endorsed the preparation of a Standard Annotated Edition of the Journal and Letters of Francis Asbury, and the implementation of the resolution was turned over to the Association of Methodist Historical Societies in the United States.
Following the example of John Wesley, Asbury opened his Journal on the ship which carried him to the New World. He continued it until he could no longer move unaided; and the pen fell from his faltering fingers at Granby, South Carolina, on Tuesday, December 7, 1815, three months and seventeen days before his death. From his Letters it will be observed that he expected what he had written to constitute something
like a history of the Methodist movement in America during the early period.
He was well aware of his literary shortcomings and took the most careful steps to ensure that his Journal would be in the best form when it was published. To this end he enlisted the aid of some of the outstanding Methodists of the day in selecting and editing the material to be preserved. Just what was eliminated we do not know, but much was undoubtedly discarded. A glance at one of the documents written by his own hand will show that extensive editing was necessary to cast his manuscripts in proper form.
The first publication of any part of Asbury's Journal consisted of extracts which were printed in the Arminian Magazine. This publication, fashioned after the periodical of the same name started by Wesley in England, was launched by Asbury and John Dickins in Halifax County, North Carolina, in 1788. The first volume appeared the following year, and there was a second in 1790; both were printed in Philadelphia under the editorship of Dickins, who thus became the first publishing agent of American Methodism.
The periodical was then discontinued, to be revived in 1818 under the name of the Methodist Magazine.
In the first volume of the Arminian Magazine Asbury published an extract from his Journal covering the period of August 7, 1771, to February 27, 1772. In the second appeared the Journal from March 26, 1772, to April 14, 1773. These extracts are of considerable interest because (1) they contain
the full names of most of the persons who are referred to by initials only in the Journal which was published in book form thirty years later, and (2) they contain numerous passages which were omitted from the three-volume Journal which first appeared in 1821. Reference is made to these hereunder in the explanation of the method of the present work.
The Journal passed through many later hands. On one occasion all or part of the manuscript was lost; in a letter to Ezekiel Cooper on October 4, 1798, Asbury declared that he had left his "long lost manuscript journal" with Mrs. Betsy Dickins, widow of the recently deceased John Dickins.
Probably Dickins and his wife were the first editors.
Dickins was educated at Eton and London, drew the plan for the first Methodist school in America, edited the first Discipline in the present form, edited the Arminian Magazine and its successor, the Methodist Magazine, and was the first book editor and publishing agent of American Methodism. He was well qualified to serve as redactor of his chief's literary remains.
Asbury paid a hundred dollars to a second and unknown man who corrected his papers.[13]
Then Thomas Haskins worked on them. He was a notable Methodist of the period, a member of the Christmas Conference in 1784, whose diary now reposes in the Congressional Library at Washington. His wife was Martha Potts, the granddaughter of Mrs. Rebecca Grace of
Pennsylvania, who entertained Washington and his officers when the army was encamped at Valley Forge; she refused the marriage proposal of Benjamin Franklin because of his religious beliefs, or lack of them, but at his request she sat by his bedside when he died and pointed him to "the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world."[14]
Others who assisted Asbury with his documents were Joseph Lanston, Dr. Henry Wilkins, and Mrs. Ann Willis.
Lanston was a preacher of prominence and the spiritual father of Henry Willis.
Dr. Wilkins was born in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1767, the son of Joseph Wilkins, who was a pioneer Methodist in Anne Arundel County before he moved from Annapolis to Baltimore. Dr. Wilkins was the editor of a book of family remedies entitled The Family Adviser; or, A Plain and Modern Practice of Physic; Calculated for the Use of Families Who Have Not the Advantages of a Physician, And accommodated to the Diseases of America, To Which is Annexed Mr. Wesley's Primitive Physic. This book passed through several editions and had a large circulation among Methodists and the general public. It contained a preface addressed "To the Members of the Methodist Episcopal Church" and signed by Coke and Asbury. Dr. Wilkins was the host of the sick Bishop McKendree at his home north of Baltimore when John Wesley Bond's messenger brought news of the death of Asbury.[15]
Ann Willis was the cultured widow of Henry Willis, the first preacher on whom Asbury laid ordaining hands, the daughter of Jesse Hollingsworth, a leading Baltimore merchant, and a sister of Francis Hollingsworth, the final transcriber of Asbury's Journal.[16]
Francis Hollingsworth was the last editor through whose hands the Asbury documents passed. He prepared the prefatory statement, "Notice of the Transcriber," and sent the material to the press. He lived near Baltimore and was a member of a prominent Methodist family. That he had the cultural ability to edit the Journal is brought out by a statement in the Journal of Bishop Beverly Waugh under the date of November 25, 1825:
I called in the afternoon to see Mr. Francis Hollingsworth, a man of eccentricities, but possessing a mind highly cultured.
He was the particular friend of the late venerable Asbury. I found him sitting by his table upon which his Bible and spectacles were laid. After some conversation relative to his health, he remarked that he saw clearly that he was afflicted.
He had not read the Bible as much as he should have done;
that such had been his fondness for literature that he had been too much occupied in examining Greek, Latin, French, and Spanish works.[17]
Asbury and Hollingsworth met at York, Pennsylvania, on June 29, 1815; and the bishop made this entry in his Journal:
"I sit seven hours a day, looking over and hearing my transcribed journal; we have examined and approved up to
1807. . . . I have buried in shades all that will be proper to forget, in which I am personally concerned." Asbury had previously printed the extracts from his Journal up to 1780, and copies of this edition are in the Library of Congress and at Westminster Theological Seminary. It has been said that an
"extension" of that extract was printed later, but such has never come to light. In Hollingsworth's "Notice of the Transcriber," which is included in this work, it will be seen that he did not see the published extract of Asbury's Journal but confined his work wholly to the period following 1780.
He points out that Asbury's manuscript contained numerous errors of chronology and mistakes in the names of persons and places, and expressed the fear that his editorial work was not always correct.
Having undergone the scrutiny and revision of the numerous persons above-mentioned, the Journal, including the previously printed extract up to 1780, was published in 1821 by Nathan Bangs and Thomas Mason, the Methodist publishing agents at New York. It was reprinted in 1852 and again reprinted about two years later without date.
But before the first edition was published, there was another episode in the history of Asbury's documents.
At the Baltimore Conference in March, 1817, Bishop McKendree presented the matter of a biography of Bishop Asbury, to which the conference responded by naming a committee to carry the plan into execution. The committee, composed of N. Reed, S.G. Roszel, J.W. Wells, W. Ryland,
and Dr. Henry Wilkins, employed Samuel K. Jennings, M.D., who had been president of Asbury College at Baltimore, to prepare the volume. The unpublished manuscript of the Journal, other papers secured by Bishop McKendree from Hollingsworth, "one small package sent from the west by Mr.
Thomas L. Douglass," and twenty-five letters were turned over to Dr. Jennings as materials for the biography.
In 1818 Jennings outlined his plan orally to the conference, and it was "favorably received." The following year he reported further progress, and in June of that year he delivered a manuscript of 269 pages to a special committee which had been appointed to consider it. This committee read the document twice and unanimously decided that it was not worthy of publication. This episode led to an unfortunate controversy. Dr. Jennings contended that the material delivered by him to the committee was not a finished biography of Asbury but a collection of notes and data from which a biography was to be prepared, and he charged the committee with prejudice because of his Reform principles which later led him to become one of the founders of the Methodist Protestant Church. The arguments for the committee were published in the Methodist Magazine (1831, 82-94), to which Dr. Jennings' supporters replied in the appendix of his book An Exposition of the Late Controversy in the Methodist Episcopal Church (230-47).
Dr. Jennings reclaimed his materials and declined to deliver them again to the committee, and the final disposition of his manuscript or notes is not known. He returned the
Journal, letters, and other materials to the committee. A number of the letters had been secured by John Emory, who later became a bishop; and his papers were deposited in the Emory Collection at Drew Theological Seminary. The manuscript Journal was burned in a fire which destroyed the publishing house in 1836. The Journal of Jesse Lee was lost in the same fire.
Editorial Method
The above history of Asbury's Journal largely determined the method employed by the Editors in producing the present work. They were not dealing with original manuscripts but with printed materials which had already been edited by several persons. Numerous alterations had admittedly been made, and there were numerous admitted inaccuracies.
Asbury had little formal education, and his written documents had literary crudities and grammatical errors. His published letters were carefully edited. It was not possible to print his original work, and the Editors were not concerned about adhering exactly to the work of Hollingsworth.
The purpose has been to produce an accurate and readable edition of Asbury's Journal, never deviating from the bishop's words and meaning but without perpetuating the chronological, biographical, geographical, and grammatical errors which appeared throughout the earlier transcription. In this the Editors followed the advice of experts in the field, especially the officials of the National Historical Publications Commission.
It will be recalled that Hollingsworth mentioned the fact that he found certain chronological errors in Asbury's manuscripts. These were indeed numerous. All the dates in the first edition of the Journal were carefully checked with Fitch's The Perfect Calendar for Every Year of the Christian Era (Revised Edition, 1930), and it was discovered that more than three hundred mistakes were left by Hollingsworth in the first volume alone. Most of these were corrected in the second edition published in 1852, an indication that further editorial work was done after Hollingsworth. Many of these errors remained, however, and they were corrected without footnotes in the present work.
Scripture quotations were likewise checked, and numerous mistakes were found. These were also corrected without comment when possible.
The names of all persons and places which were referred to by their initials only were inserted in the text when they could be identified. An interrogation (?) was added when identification was highly probable but not actually established.
Mention has been made above of the differences among the extracts which Asbury published in his own lifetime in the Arminian Magazine. These concerned the names of persons and places as well as several sentences which were omitted from the text as published by Hollingsworth. Inasmuch as the magazine extracts antedated the first printed Journal by thirty-two years and were evidently inserted by Asbury
himself, the Editors have in general followed the magazine in the matter of the names, and they have included the omitted sentences in brackets.
ADVERTISEMENT
THE FOLLOWING IS THE PREFACE WHICH MR.
ASBURY PREFIXED TO THE FIRST NUMBER OF THE SECOND VOLUME OF HIS JOURNAL, WHICH WAS PRINTED DURING HIS LIFETIME.
IN the month of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-one, I embarked in England for America; at which time the memoirs I have written of my life commenced. As I considered my station on the American continent, in the order of Divine Providence, as a situation in which I should frequently be exposed to censure and jealousy, I thought it highly expedient, for my own satisfaction and the confirmation of my friends, to keep an impartial diary of my intentions, resolutions, and actions, as a Christian and a minister, that I might have, through this medium, a constant and reasonable answer for mine accusers.
From the nature and design of the work, it must have in it many things both unpleasing and uninteresting to curious and critical readers; and perhaps some things exceptionable even to those who enter into its spirit, and read it with affection. In keeping a journal of my life, I have unavoidably laboured under many embarrassments and inconveniences; my constant travelling, the want of places of retirement and conveniences to write, my frequent calls to the pulpit, my extensive epistolary correspondence, and my debility, and sometimes inability of body, have all been inseparable from my station in the Church, and so many impediments to the perfection of the account of my labours and sufferings in this country. The
first volume of the extract of my journal was published, many years after it was written, under the management of others, it being out of my power to attend the press, or even to read over the copy before it was printed:[18] several inconveniences attending that volume will be avoided in this.
For many years I did not determine to publish a second volume of the extract of my journal: but the advice of my friends, and the prospects of my approaching dissolution, have determined me on its publication.[19]
As I have had no certain dwelling-place in America, my manuscripts have frequently been exposed to be lost and destroyed; but, by the permission of Divine Providence, I have collected them together.
The Methodists of late years have become a more numerous body, consequently more obnoxious to their enemies. The Scripture is fulfilled even amongst us, "Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them." Some, who were for a long time our confidential friends and fellow-labourers, are now become our most inveterate foes, and have written and published books against our characters, government, and discipline. And as I am considered the most ostensible character in the Methodist Church in America, I have frequently to bear the greatest weight of their invectives. But impartial readers will not, I am persuaded, give an implicit assent to the asseverations of those who may be under personal resentment against the body, or individuals, without
duly considering the possibility of their being influenced by self-interest, jealousy, or prejudice. And as I have been (under God and my Brethren) the principal overseer of the work in America, and have constantly travelled from the centre to the circumference of the Connexion, I flatter myself that reasonable men will acknowledge that I have always had an opportunity of obtaining better information relative to the true state of the whole work than any other man could possibly have. Would it not then be highly injudicious to prefer a history of Methodism, written by men of small and contracted information, (and apostates from its principles,) to such a history of its progress as will be presented to the public in my journals? And, if I may be credited, I can declare, that in the critical and delicate circumstances that I have been necessitated to stand in relative to the characters of men, I have never knowingly deviated from the principles of that sacred charity which obligates us to treat each other with all possible tenderness.
If I have injured the character of man, woman, or child, in journal representation, I have done it inadvertently, and sincerely ask their pardon. In stationing the preachers I have known no man after the flesh; but have, to the utmost of my power, endeavoured to keep an eye to the glory of God, the usefulness of the ministry, and the benefit of the people. I have attempted to give a simple narration of facts in the integrity of my heart, and in the fear of God.
My intention is, as much as possible, to remove every hinderance out of the way, and to give no occasion for offence
to any man. But if, after all, my attempts prove unsuccessful, I can, in the approbation of my own heart, and in the company of my old, faithful, and constant American friends and brethren, through the medium of my journal, look back upon what God has wrought, and say, "Hitherto the Lord hath helped." We can thus comfort and console ourselves with the past lovingkindness of the Lord; and the years in which his right hand hath been bare, will thus, to us, be rendered more delightful.
I had thoughts of leaving my manuscripts to the executors of my will, to be published by them after my death, but found, upon reconsideration, that their contents respecting persons and things were of such a nature that no person could do it so well as myself.[20] Should my life be spared, the volumes will be brought forward in course. As soon as one is disposed of, another will be put to press, until the whole is published.
FRANCIS ASBURY
NOTICE OF THE TRANSCRIBER
THE name of the venerable author of the following journal will create for the work so deep and enduring an interest, in the hearts and minds of those for whom it was more especially prepared, that it becomes proper the transcriber should give some account of the manner in which he conducted the work of transcribing, so that those who are concerned may have satisfactory assurances of its genuineness. The ill health by which Bishop Asbury was so much of his life a sufferer; the crowds in which he was too often compelled to live in the west and south; the succession of visitors he thought it his duty at all times of leisure to receive; his ministerial labours; and, above all, the constant occupation of mind which the important concerns of a Church, so great in membership, so widely extended and rapidly increasing, necessarily occasioned, left the first Superintendent of that Church few means of rendering his journal more perfect. The transcriber has not attempted to improve it by giving his own for the author's. Some things in the original work he has taken the liberty of leaving out of the transcript; but there are not many of these, and they are most of them in that part of it which the bishop himself examined during his life. The transcriber not unfrequently found a confusion of dates; and sometimes, as he thinks, a mistake in the names of persons and things, more especially in the author's geographical notices of the districts through which he made his annual tour; the emendations, in this last particular, are not, it is to be feared, always correct. In places where the author has left, by inadvertence, a sentence unfinished, a thing
not uncommon, the transcriber has always tried to supply what was wanting; and where hurry has occasioned evident mistake, as is the case in a few instances, he has ventured upon correction; but he is not sure that in every attempt he has been successful. To those persons yet living, who had, by habits of intimacy with Bishop Asbury, become acquainted with the peculiarity of his conversational and epistolary manner of expressing himself, the style of the present work may not be so pleasing; because it is not so exactly the style they expected—not so decidedly the bishop's. But they must recollect that the author's intention in keeping his journal was, to make a faithful record for posterity; and the transcriber never forgot that its value, in this respect, would be better understood and more highly appreciated by those who can only know the author by his work. The abruptness of sentence in its beginning or its break—the sudden light flashed upon a subject by a suggestion conveyed in words few and strong; the names, descriptive as painting, he was wont to bestow upon persons and things—all these live only in the memory of his surviving friends; and with them must pass away; but that which is of more importance—the identity of Bishop Asbury in the commencement, the continuance, and wonderful increase of Methodism in this country, will give a perpetuity of interest in the record here offered which nothing else can give. The transcriber would not, however, have it supposed that he has entirely departed from Bishop Asbury's style; on the contrary, he presumes he has been enough observant of this to satisfy most readers, inasmuch as the bishop himself, when he examined what had been transcribed up to 1807, altered but once, and then not much. The public may rest
assured that the work is the author's: but here the transcriber must be permitted to speak in the first person. When I give this assurance, I must be understood to mean from the year 1780 to the end of the journal; the original manuscript of all that preceded that date, I never saw: I only know that when printed it did not please the author. The journal of Bishop Asbury might have been better. I once ventured to express my unavailing wishes to him that he had left out many of the uninteresting incidents and travelling notices we find in it, and had put in more of the deep reflections and acute remarks on men, books, and passing events continually afloat in his powerful and observant mind; and that, for the sake of his brethren in the ministry who should follow him, he had made the skeletons of his sermons more perfect, and had added many more. His reply, uttered with much feeling, would have satisfied every candid mind that it was by no ordinary effort so much had been done.
F. HOLLINGSWORTH
March 28, 1821
ENDNOTES
————————
[1] Lewis, Francis Asbury, 11.
[2] Tyerman, Life and Times of John Wesley, III, 250.
[3] A sketch of Asbury's life after he closed his Journal at Granby, South Carolina, on December 7, 1815, will be found at the end of the present work.
[4] See Briggs, Bishop Asbury, ch. ii.
[5] See the letter from W. Orp, May 23, 1766, in the Letters;
also The Methodist Magazine, 1831, 189-91.
[6] Briggs, op. cit., 23. But see note on the first entry in Asbury's Journal.
[7] Tipple, Francis Asbury, the Prophet of the Long Road, 316.
[8] See Asbury's letter to his parents, October 26, 1768.
[9] See the letter to his parents June 7, 1784.
[10] See the letter from his four parishioners on August 27, 1771, and the letter from the Rev. John Allen on January 20, 1772, in The Methodist Magazine, 1831, 194-96.
[11] See his letter to George Roberts on June 6, 1801.
[12] For descriptions of Asbury see Tipple, op. cit., 302-7;
Briggs, op. cit., 3; Stevens, Memorials of Methodism, 145.
[13] See letter dated June 26, 1801.
[14] See Journal note under June 23, 1776.
[15] Smith, Recollections of an Old Itinerant, 266-68; Paine, Life and Times of Bishop McKendree, 182.
[16] Warriner, Old Sands Street Church of Brooklyn, 76;
Roberts, Centenary Pictorial Album.
[17] In his Centenary Pictorial Album, 56, Roberts says that the inscription at Hollingsworth's grave states that he "died on February 4, 1826, age 32 years and six months." He would thus have been only twenty-eight years old when he completed his work on the Journal, and only thirty-two when Waugh visited him. Miss Annie P. Dalton of Baltimore thinks that Roberts probably mistook the date of birth, 1773, for 1793, and that Hollingsworth finished the Journal at the age of fifty-two.
[18] This volume, now reprinted, was corrected by the author.
[19] This determination was not carried into effect, except one small number, which is now republished with the corrections of the author.
[20] The greater part of the journal which follows was left in manuscript, but revised under the author's inspection as far down as the year 1807. See the Notice of the Transcriber.
August 7, 1771-December 29, 1772
Asbury preaching in a gale on his way to America.
CHAPTER ONE
August 7, 1771 - December 29, 1772
On the 7th of August, 1771, the Conference began at Bristol, in England. Before this, I had felt for half a year[1]
strong intimations in my mind that I should visit America;
which I laid before the Lord, being unwilling to do my own will, or to run before I was sent. During this time my trials were very great, which the Lord, I believe, permitted to prove and try me, in order to prepare me for future usefulness. At the Conference it was proposed that some preachers should go over to the American continent. I spoke my mind, and made an offer of myself. It was accepted by Mr. Wesley and others, who judged I had a call. [It was my duty to go where the conference ordered; only one or two objected.]
From Bristol I went home to acquaint my parents with my great undertaking, which I opened in as gentle a manner as possible. Though it was grievous to flesh and blood, they[2]
consented to let me go. My mother is one of the tenderest parents in the world; but, I believe, she was blessed in the present instance with Divine assistance to part with me. I visited most of my friends in Staffordshire, Warwickshire, and Gloucestershire, and felt much life and power among them. Several of our meetings were indeed held in the spirit and life of God. Many of my friends were struck with wonder, when they heard of my going; but none opened their mouths against it, hoping it was of God. Some wished that their situation would allow them to go with me.
I returned to Bristol in the latter end of August, where Richard Wright was waiting for me, to sail in a few days for[3]
Philadelphia. When I came to Bristol I had not one penny of money; but the Lord soon opened the hearts of friends, who supplied me with clothes, and ten pounds: thus I found, by experience, that the Lord will provide for those who trust in him.
On Wednesday, September 4, we set sail from a port near Bristol and having a good wind, soon passed the channel.[4]
For three days I was very ill with the seasickness; and no sickness I ever knew was equal to it. The captain behaved well to us. On the Lord's day, September 8, brother Wright preached a sermon on deck, and all the crew gave attention.
Thursday, 12. I will set down a few things that lie on my mind. Whither am I going? To the New World. What to do?
To gain honour? No, if I know my own heart. To get money?
No: I am going to live to God, and to bring others so to do. In America there has been a work of God: some moving first amongst the Friends, but in time it declined; likewise by the Presbyterians, but amongst them also it declined. The people God owns in England, are the Methodists. The doctrines they preach, and the discipline they enforce, are, I believe, the purest of any people now in the world. The Lord has greatly blessed these doctrines and this discipline in the three kingdoms: they must therefore be pleasing to him. If God does not acknowledge me in America, I will soon return to England. I know my views are upright now; may they never be otherwise.
On the Lord's day, September 15, I preached on Acts xvii, 30: "But God now commandeth all men everywhere to repent." The sailors behaved with decency. My heart's desire and prayer for them was, and is, that they may be saved: but O! the deep ignorance and insensibility of the human heart!
The wind blowing a gale, the ship turned up and down, and from side to side, in a manner very painful to one that was not accustomed to sailing; but when Jesus is in the ship all is well. O what would not one do, what would he not suffer, to be useful to souls, and to the will of his great Master! Lord, help me to give thee my heart now and forever.
Our friends had forgotten our beds, or else did not know we should want such things; so I had two blankets for mine.
I found it hard to lodge on little more than boards. I want faith, courage, patience, meekness, love. When others suffer so much for their temporal interests, surely I may suffer a little for the glory of God, and the good of souls. May my Lord preserve me in an upright intention! I find I talk more than is profitable. Surely my soul is among lions. I feel my spirit bound to the New World, and my heart united to the people, though unknown; and have great cause to believe that I am not running before I am sent. The more troubles I meet with, the more convinced I am that I am doing the will of God.
In the course of my passage I read Sellon's Answer to Elisha Cole on the Sovereignty of God; and I think, no one[5]
that reads it deliberately can afterward be a Calvinist.
On the Lord's day, September 22, I preached to the ship's company on John iii, 23; but alas! they were insensible creatures. My heart has been much pained on their account. I spent my time chiefly in retirement, in prayer, and in reading the Appeals, Mr. De Renty's life, part of Mr. Norris's Works, Mr. Edwards on the Work of God in New England, the Pilgrim's Progress, the Bible, and Mr. Wesley's Sermons. I[6]
feel a strong desire to be given up to God—body, soul, time, and talents: far more than heretofore.
September 29, I preached to the ship's company again, on these words, "To you is the word of this salvation sent." I felt
some drawings of soul towards them, but saw no fruit. Yet still I must go on. Whilst they will hear, I will preach, as I have opportunity. My judgment is with the Lord. I must keep in the path of duty.
On the 6th of October, though it was very rough, I preached on deck to all our ship's company, from Heb. ii, 3:
"How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?" The Lord enabled me to speak plainly, and I had some hopes that the interesting truths of the Gospel did enter into their minds.
I remember the words of the wise man, "In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thy hand." As to my own mind, I long and pray, that I may be more spiritual. But in this I comfort myself that my intention is upright, and that I have the cause of God at heart. But I want to stand complete in all the will of God, "holy as he that hath called me is holy, in all manner of conversation." At times I can retire and pour out my soul to God, and feel some meltings of heart. My spirit mourns, and hungers, and thirsts, after entire devotion.
October 13. Though it was very windy, I fixed my back against the mizen-mast, and preached freely on those well- known words, 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 felt the power of truth on my own soul, but still, alas! saw no visible fruit: but my witness is in heaven, that I have not shunned to declare to them all the counsel of God. Many have been my trials in the course of this voyage; from the want of a proper bed, and proper provisions, from sickness, and from being surrounded
with men and women ignorant of God, and very wicked. But all this is nothing. If I cannot bear this, what have I learned?
O, I have reason to be much ashamed of many things, which I speak and do before God and man. Lord, pardon my manifold defects and failures in duty.
Philadelphia
October 27. This day we landed in Philadelphia, where[7]
we were directed to the house of one Mr. Francis Harris,[8]
who kindly entertained us in the evening, and brought us to a large church, where we met with a considerable[9]
congregation. Brother Pilmoor[10] preached. The people looked on us with pleasure, hardly knowing how to show their love sufficiently, bidding us welcome with fervent affection, and receiving us as angels of God. O that we may always walk worthy of the vocation wherewith we are called! When I came near the American shore, my very heart melted within me, to think from whence I came, where I was going, and what I was going about. But I felt my mind open to the people, and my tongue loosed to speak. I feel that God is here;
and find plenty of all we need.
November 2. I find my mind drawn heavenward. The Lord hath helped me by his power, and my soul is in a paradise.
May God Almighty keep me as the apple of his eye, till all the storms of life are past! Whatever I do, wherever I go, may I never sin against God, but always do those things that please him!
November 3. We held a watch-night. It began at eight o'clock. Brother Pilmoor preached, and the people attended with great seriousness. Very few left the solemn place till the conclusion. Towards the end, a plain man spoke, who came out of the country, and his words went with great power to the souls of the people; so that we may say, "Who hath despised the day of small things?" Not the Lord our God: then why should self-important man?
November 4. I was sent for to visit two persons who were under conviction for sin. I spoke a word of consolation to them, and have hopes that God will set their souls at liberty.
My own mind is fixed on God: he hath helped me. Glory be to him that liveth and abideth forever!
November 5. I preached at Philadelphia my last sermon, before I set out for New York, on Romans viii, 32: "He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him freely give us all things?" This also was a night of power to my own and many other souls.
New Jersey and Staten Island
November 6. I went to Burlington on my way to New York, and preached in the court house to a large, serious congregation.[11] Here also I felt my heart much opened. In the way from thence to New York I met with one Peter Van Pelt,[12] who had heard me preach at Philadelphia. After some conversation, he invited me to his house on 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.[13] Still I believe God hath sent me to this country. All I seek is to be more spiritual, and given up entirely to God—to be all devoted to him whom I love.
On the Lord's day, in the morning, November 10, I preached again to a large company of people, with some enlargement of mind, at the house of my worthy friend Mr. P.
Van Pelt; in the afternoon preached to a still larger congregation; and was invited to preach in the evening at the house of Justice Hezekiah Wright,[14] where I had a large company to hear me. Still, evidence grows upon me, and I trust I am in the order of God, and that there will be a willing people here. My soul has been much affected with them. My heart and mouth are open; only I am still sensible of my deep insufficiency, and that mostly with regard to holiness. It is true, God has given me some gifts; but what are they to holiness? It is for holiness my spirit mourns. I want to walk constantly before God without reproof.
New York
On Monday I set out for New York,[15] and found Richard Boardman[16] there in peace, but weak in body. Now I must apply myself to my old work—to watch, and fight, and pray.
Lord, help!
Tuesday, 12.[17] I preached at New York to a large congregation[18] on 1 Cor. ii, 2: "I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified,"
with some degree of freedom in my own mind. I approved much of the spirit of the people: they were loving and serious;
there appeared also, in some, a love of discipline. Though I was unwilling to go to New York so soon, I believe it is all well, and I still hope I am in the order of God. My friend Boardman is a kind, loving, worthy man, truly amiable and entertaining, and of a child-like temper. I purpose to be given up to God more and more, day by day. But O! I come short.
Wednesday, 13. I preached again at New York. My heart is truly enlarged, and I know the life and power of religion is here. O how I wish to spend all my time and talents for him who spilt his blood for me!
The Lord's day, 17, I found a day of rest to my soul. In the morning I was much led out with a sacred desire. Lord, help me against the mighty! I feel a regard for the people: and I think the Americans are more ready to receive the word than the English; and to see the poor Negroes so affected is pleasing,[19] to see their sable countenances in our solemn assemblies, and to hear them sing with cheerful melody their dear Redeemer's praise, affected me much, and made me ready to say, "Of a truth I perceive God is no respecter of persons."
Tuesday, 19. I remain in New York, though unsatisfied with our being both in town together. I have not yet the thing which I seek—a circulation of preachers, to avoid partiality and popularity. However, I am fixed to the Methodist plan, and do what I do faithfully as to God. I expect trouble is at
