Asbury as his own physician — Variant opinions held by him of O'Kelly — Wesley did not recommission Asbury until 1784 — Heroic preachers of the time — Second Asbury conference at Judge White's, 1781 — Lee's account of it, and Baltimore Conferences of 1781-82 — O'Kelly's account of the tergiversation of Dickins — Muzzling of the Virginia preachers, and extirpation of their liberal polity — Jarratt helps his plans — Asbury's methods with Wesley — Lambert, Wyatt, Bruce, Everett, Moriarty, Hickson, Easter, the Abbott of the South; McKendree and George among his converts.
Before resuming the thread of this History let note be made of some incidental matters, and an embalmment of heroic names attached to this period. A few quotations from Asbury's Journal for 1780 will disclose his methods and convictions. November, 1779, he writes: "Began this morning to read books on the practice of physic: I want to help the bodies and souls of men." He was led to this course by his own physical ailments and the few physicians in the country. His bane was bilious complaints, quinsy, and, later, from so much exposure, rheumatism. It was not a fortunate thing, however, that he read medicine, for it will ever remain true that the man who is his own physician has a fool for a patient. He carried a lancet, and his saddle-pockets were crammed with pills and potions and plasters. Almost to the day of his death, thirty-five years later, his Journal is punctuated with bleedings and blisterings and black draughts and hierapicra. He dosed himself without mercy, and the marvel is that, between the drugs he took, the bleedings he inflicted on himself, and the diseases he struggled with, that he held out to seventy years. It was his way, however, of keeping himself well, though a lifelong invalid. In March, 1780, he writes, "I have been collecting all the minutes of our Conferences in America to assist me in a brief history of the Methodists; and an account of our principles." Again, a month later, "I was employed in writing a short history of the Methodists." But with this the subject is no more mentioned, — he abandoned the task, and there was no history until Jesse Lee issued his in 1810.
On his return ride to Maryland from Manakintown he writes, May 17, "I read and transcribed some of Potter's church government; and must prefer the Episcopal mode of church government to the Presbyterian." Two days afterward he writes, "I read and transcribed some of Potter's church government until ten o clock." The reader will remember an earlier reference to this saturation of his whole nature with High Church, apostolical succession arguments and sentiments. He not only read it into his memory, but he wrote it in, and probably conned it over as he rode along. To the same purpose, about the same time "I advised our friends to attend the Episcopal Church, that prejudice might be removed; then their people will attend us. If I could stay, some would attend." In June he writes, "Brother Dickins drew the subscription for a Kingswood school in America; this was what came out, a college in the subscription printed by Dr. Coke." This reference to Cokesbury College must have been inserted when he revised his Journal by association of ideas. What it shows, however, is that brother Dickins having been "labored with" by Asbury after the Manakintown Conference is now, and to the close of his career remained, a faithful adherent of his countryman.
Asbury is now on a tour among the Virginia and North Carolina brethren. In July he writes, "I have thought if I had two horses, and Harry a [colored man] to go with and drive one, and meet the black people, and to spend about six months in Virginia and the Carolinas, it would be attended with a blessing." Black Harry afterward became famous in his travels with Asbury. Reaching North Carolina at Cypress chapel he says, "Here James O'Kelly met me; he spoke, and appears to be a warm-hearted, good man; but he was troubled with the people about these times." A few days later,
"James O'Kelly and myself enjoyed and comforted each other: this dear man rose at midnight, and prayed very devoutly for me and himself." About twelve years later he changed his opinion of O'Kelly materially, and it seems that it was the "people" who continued to give trouble as against Asbury's Episcopal plan. Afterward he met brother Allen, "A promising young man, but a little of a Dissenter." Alas, that there should be any independent thinkers in the world except brother Asbury.
September 16, 1780, he says, "Wrote to Mr. Wesley at the desire of the Virginia Conference; who had consented to suspend the administration of the ordinances for one year." This must have been in addition to the letter they authorized sent through John Dickins before noticed. There is no contemporary evidence that the "Virginia Conference," as Asbury states, authorized formally the writing of this second letter. There is no way to reconcile the discrepancy, but to assume that after the Dickins letter had been forwarded, some of the Virginia preachers suggested to Asbury, nearly six months later, perhaps because Wesley within this lapse of time had made no answer, to write again, and the early practice of his taking the consent of the part for the whole led him to say that the
"Virginia Conference" desired him to do so. It met, no doubt, his personal approval, as it gave opportunity to fortify his position with Wesley. It was only a reflection of a monarchical idea: what is done by the Crown is done by the kingdom. That both the letters were written and sent is in evidence, because the answer to the Dickins letter, which the Conference at Manakintown did authorize, was received, Garrettson says, in time for the Baltimore Conference of April 24, 1781, while the answer to Asbury's second letter was delayed until 1784. Why delayed until three years[1]
after? It needs only a little reading between the lines to decipher the reason. Wesley's answer to the Dickins letter covered the ground as far as he saw his way at that time. It simply directed, as has been found from Garrettson 's semi-centennial sermon, that "we should continue on the old plan until farther directed." His counselors distracted him, for it was a well-known fact that he not only listened to all the statements made him, and was impressed by the last interviewer or the last letter, until a nature ingenuous and unsuspicious as was Wesley's when he was compelled to compare conflicting statements, hesitated and delayed. It accounts for the fact that his letter to the Conference of 1781 does not recommission Asbury as General Assistant, an office now vacant for four years, or since Rankin's return to England. Neither Rankin, nor Boardman, nor Shadford, nor Rodda, in fact none of Wesley's returned missionaries, except perhaps Pilmoor, were advocates of Asbury at home nevertheless, though three thousand miles distant, it will be seen in the sequel that he out generalled them all. In dismissing for the time these two famous letters it may be worth the remark that no other historian has developed their significance.
Pursuing his tour among the disaffected southrons he preaches at Manakintown in October, and finds his way to the Brokenback chapel, where the Conference was held. He is accompanied by brother Edward Bailey as a guide, but he became sick and hindered his progress. He returns rapidly to Maryland, and, as six months had expired, according to the rule, he met some of the preachers at Barratt's chapel and changed them. He had traveled during this tour, he says, 2671 miles. In November he writes, "I arranged my papers containing a brief account of the beginning and progress
of our divisions; it was transcribed into a book by Caleb Peddicord." As nothing more is heard of it he probably sent it to Wesley. About the same time he notes, "William Glendenning has handed me a book written by Jeremiah Burroughs, in the time of the Commonwealth, upon heart divisions and the evil of the times: in this work I promise myself good arguments against our separating brethren." He afterward issued it as an abridged pamphlet, together with Baxter's "Cure for Church Divisions," and made it do yeoman service against recalcitrants and dissenters from his views. It led him to the discovery that those who did not think as he did about church government had lost religion, and among such he distributed the pamphlet. Samuel Roe, a young preacher of the Virginia party, is reclaimed and takes an appointment. Asbury records his undisguised pleasure: "Samuel Roe is going to Sussex one that had happily escaped the separating spirit and party in Virginia, and the snares laid for his feet; and so also did poor William Spencer of late years. Eternal thanks to God!"
After such a devout exultation who can doubt the blind sincerity of the man? Early in January, 1781, he writes, "I received a letter from F. Garrettson, and another from T. S. C. (Chew), who promise me their filial obedience in the gospel." Chew was one of the Virginia brethren, and it is seen how one by one they came again under the spell of Asbury's genius and magnetism. He was but thirty-five years of age, but the citation just given foreshadows the habit he was forming, after the style of civil magnates, and with apostolical example, of calling the preachers his "sons in the gospel." Most of them, it is true, were still younger, but the paternal spirit animated him and prompted this address.
In this he imitated Wesley also.
John Hagerty was a convert of John King's about 1771, and he soon found his gift as a preacher, and successfully exercised it until 1792; when, owing to the illness of his wife, he located in Baltimore, where he continued to labor effectively, no sacrifice being too much for him, until 1823, when he triumphantly expired in his seventy-seventh year. Nelson Reed was converted under the ministry of William Watters, entered the itinerancy, was present at the Conference of 1784, and continued his course for sixty-five years, dying in Baltimore in 1840, in the eighty-ninth year of his age, having the distinction of being at that time the oldest Methodist preacher in the world. He possessed substantial abilities and great courage, a striking instance of which occurred about 1796 in a bout he had with Dr. Coke and which will be narrated in its current place. Philip Cox was an Englishman, and is first named in the minutes of Asbury's Conference in 1779. Though a very small man, not weighing over one hundred pounds; he was full of mental and moral force and great energy.
He remained single until he was fifty years of age. He had powerful revivals, and was cared for in his closing years by a well-to-do Methodist, with whom he languished out a life of much suffering from persecution, and died September, 1793, in peace. William Partridge, James O. Cromwell, and Thomas Foster must be mentioned. George Mair receives special notice from Stevens and deservedly. Ignatius Pigman was one of the most eloquent preachers of his day; also Stephen Black and Caleb Boyer. Pigman and Boyer received from Whatcoat and Vasey the extraordinary compliment, "they had not heard their equal in the British connection, except Wesley and Fletcher."
Most of these early preachers deserved memoirs or monuments, instead of sleeping as they often do in unmarked graves. Space allows only the perpetuation of their names.
The successful outcome of the so-called preliminary Conference, held by Asbury in 1779 at Judge White's in Delaware, led him to follow the precedent thus set by calling another at the same place April 16, 1781, the regular session not being appointed until the 24th, in Baltimore. He makes brief note of it in his Journal as nothing unusual, "After meeting we rode about twenty miles to brother
White's, where about twenty preachers met together to hold a Conference." It must have been that he named the place and time, and invited those who came. It was the way Wesley did for long years, the Conference was made of those whom he invited, and for any other to attend was an insubordination. There is no record as to who they were. Jesse Lee's "History" says of it: "1781 — On the 24th of April the ninth Conference met in Baltimore. But previous to this a few preachers on the Eastern Shore held a 'little conference' in Delaware state, near Choptank, to make some arrangements for those preachers who could not go with them; and then adjourned (as they called it) to Baltimore; so upon the whole it was considered but one Conference." The italicized words and the parenthetic sentence are Lee's. They smack of contempt. It will be remembered that the "History"
was written in 1809-10, ten years after his defeat for the bishopric. He had been encouraged by Asbury with his influence for the position. Henry Boehm says: "They elected Richard Whatcoat bishop, he having a majority of four votes over Jesse Lee. I witnessed the excitement attending the different ballotings. The first, no election; the second, a tie; the third, Richard Whatcoat was elected." It was a great disappointment to Lee, and he became afterward enough of a reformer to[2]
tell some things in his "History" Asbury did not relish, as will be seen farther on. Neither is there record as to what was done. It may be safely assumed that Asbury felt the pulse of them all, gauged them, and gave some hints of their appointments. Though there is no record of it, the circumstances make it probable that they largely journeyed together to Baltimore. His notice of the Conference in his Journal is almost as brief as that of the preliminary one. "Our Conference began in Baltimore, where several of the preachers attended from Virginia and North Carolina. 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." Turning to the printed Minutes it is found that thirty-nine preachers were in attendance out of fifty-four. A number of young men were received at this Conference. It seems that there were forty in all present, thirty-nine subscribing to the question which brought them again under Asbury's yoke. "What preachers are now determined after mature deliberation, close observation, and earnest prayer, to preach the old Methodist doctrine, and strictly enforce the discipline, as contained in the notes, sermons, and minutes published by Mr. Wesley, as far as they respect both preachers and people, according to the knowledge we have of them, and the ability God shall give, and firmly resolved to discountenance a separation among either preachers or people?" Jesse Lee says, "Most part, if not all, the preachers 'subscribed,'" but he was not present, not yet having been received.
Asbury, as found, says that "all but one" agreed. Who was this stanch dissenter? He is named by no one of the early annalists, but an examination of the minutes brings to light the fact that James O'Kelly's name disappears from the roll with this session, neither is he among those "who desist from travel," which now appears among the questions for the second time. They were Dickins, Tatum, Moore, Green, and Ruff, mostly because married men; for in these days, though plenty of young men offered, in three to five or, in rare cases, in ten years they located. O'Kelly returned home an unreconciled dissenter. Next to Asbury, and perhaps Watters, he was the most influential preacher in the connection. The sequel of this act is yet eleven years in the future. The statistics show 10,539 members, a gain of 2000, the principal increase being in Delaware, now returned at 1052 as against 150 the year before, Lee says, by reason of great revivals. Asbury, it appears, was not satisfied with the prior reason for a preliminary Conference as given, the accommodation of the preachers, so the additional question is asked, "Is there any precedent for this in the economy of Methodism? Answer,
Mr. Wesley generally held a Conference in Ireland for the same purpose." The reader has been made sufficiently acquainted with Wesley's Conferences to see how farfetched is the illustration and the cases without parallel. It suited the purpose, however, and no doubt satisfied not a few who were no better informed. Four general fasts were appointed for the year. The probation for membership in the society was now three months. Of the 10,500 members only 873 were north of the southern boundary of Pennsylvania, yet the war was ravaging Virginia and the Carolinas at this time, and it is a phenomenal fact that, despite the action of the Conference as to slavery, the South was, and ever has been, the principal theater of its most brilliant achievements for Christ. Revival work was also extensive in the South this year; but the preachers suffered many hardships; following Asbury, some were non-jurors, but were drafted and maltreated, some found refuge in the Episcopal Church, others made shipwreck of faith, and not a few perforce retired; but the depleted ranks were recruited by young converts to the heart-witnessing religion of Wesleyan doctrine, — and it must be repeated, not the system as such, — inspiring a zeal that consumed them for service and sacrifice.
Asbury was always on the wing, having entered upon those wonderful tours of the whole work, making the circuit about twice a year. His personal experience was always alive and flaming, except when the bile depressed him. The allusions are plentiful, "I am filled with love from day to day — I always find the Lord present when I go to a throne of grace." A few days after the last Conference adjourned he says, "I wrote to my father and to Mr. Wesley." He is down in North Carolina using the magic of his presence and persuasive force to win over the preachers and the people, who had been mightily convinced at both the Fluvanna and the Manakintown Conferences by John Dickins, the educated and intellectual Englishman, that the Presbyterian and not the Episcopal form of church government had the authority of Scripture and history, and who successfully withstood Asbury in the argumentative bout until he almost despaired of his purpose. O'Kelly's account of it is quaintly perspicuous, both for Fluvanna and Manakintown Conferences: "After there had been much disputing, John, whose surname was Dickins, made appear from Scripture that a Presbytery and not Episcopacy was the divine order. Then it pleased the Conference to form a Presbytery and ordain elders. We went out in the name of the Lord, and the pleasure of the Lord prospered in our hands."
It needs to be repeated parenthetically that this is true. For two or three years, in the absence of Asbury and his Episcopal leadership, unprecedented success up to that time attended these Presbyterian Methodist preachers of evangelical doctrine, and all the essentials of Methodism were preserved: and this is in evidence that equal success would have attended American Methodism, with a strong probability that its organic unity would have been conserved. O'Kelly resumes: "Tidings of this soon reached the northern preachers, and Francis (Asbury) wrote that we should meet in Conference at Manakintown, to consider the matter more minutely. We met accordingly; and Francis from the North and John from the South were chief speakers. Francis raised his argument from an author (Wesley), who advised the Methodists never to leave the established church. But John drew his arguments from the New Testament, proving thereby that the true church was not the Episcopal order. Conference broke, and a separation was the result." [3]
It may be in place to state another fact of a different character. This James O'Kelly was one of Asbury's presiding elders, and was noted for his rigid discipline and assertion of authority, and this has sometimes been availed of against him when he posed as a Reformer. It was also true of not a few of the later Methodist preachers and people who struggled and suffered in the Reform of 1820-30. But it is not intrinsically to their discredit. With increasing light came change of sentiment,