December 24, 1788 — to Ezekiel Cooper
WOOLARD’S, VIRGINIA
ASB_VOL3.PDF, PDF page 88
Asbury in this letter to Ezekiel Cooper shows his remarkable insight into the work of the pastor and preacher. Asbury himself had the heart of a pastor and preacher, and he yearned for his preachers to be likewise. WOOLARD’S, VIRGINIA1
December 24, 1788
[TO EZEKIEL COOPER]2
My dear Brother:
I have had my solitary hours since I left Baltimore. I wish you to be blessed with health to do your duty. If possible visit from house to house, and that regularly once a fortnight for no other purpose than to speak to each in the family about their souls, that they may be ready for your help. Appoint preaching every other night, if able visit the classes every other week. Take some one of the poor Negroes and also the children. Remember the sick. The pastoral charge is very great. Whether our circle is large or small we may find work. The society should be put under bands. I wish something might be done to revive the work in town and keep it in motion; these people I know, I feel, will settle on their lees. Sermons ought to be short and pointed in town, briefly explanatory and then to press the people to conviction, repentance, faith and holiness.
I am sure the whole method of preaching will be changed as we come near the golden age. So shall we speak not so much by system but by life and application in the heart, little illustration and great fervency in the spark of life.
We have cold weather but we may have warm hearts, faith to head to mountains of sin and rivers of ice.
I am in much love thine
F. ASBURY
Garrett Biblical Institute Library
Notes (2)
- Asbury was evidently at Mrs. Woolard’s in the northern neck of Virginia (territory between the Rappahannock and Potomac Rivers). He seems to have spent Christmas there. The Woolards were early friends and Methodists. She was now a widow. ↩
- Pastor at Light Street Church, Baltimore. (See Minutes, 1788.) ↩