February 14, 1790 — to His Parents

Asbury came to Charleston on February 10. Here he evidently received considerable mail and mentions the good news that had come from Baltimore and New York. He says on the tenth that he had been writing letters to Europe and many parts of the continent. Here is some evidence of the large correspondence he carried on and, on the other hand, how little is preserved. This is the only letter for these days at Charleston. The Conference began on the fifteenth. The fourteenth was Sunday.

CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA

February 14, 1790

[TO HIS PARENTS]

My dear Parents:

My mind is at rest with respect to your temporalities, from the assurance I have had that brother Coke will supply you at my desire. O that your souls may grow in grace and that you may make sure work for eternity. My head and hands and heart are all full. Being so continually on the stretch in traveling, I have little time to write to my dearest friends. Glory be to the LORD, we have a glorious work. Hundreds are coming home to God:—east, west, north, and south. I praise God I ever was born to see the glory of God in this new world. My dear children, and their children, the poor Indians, are the subjects of my charge. If God’s people throughout the world would begin to pray for and strive to believe that the Lord would awaken thousands, it would soon appear in every town, country, parish, house, and individual. O that God may make his power known in my poor native land, and break like thunder and lightning on the people that have long been sleeping in the form of sentiments of religion. I am not pleased at our Wednesbury friends, if they have received my letter, for not writing. I wish you would get some person to write to me, a large satisfactory account. Where is aunt Sarah Rogers? Where is uncle Nathaniel Rogers? Where is his son John Rogers? Where, what, is Joseph Groves? Tell me the whole.

I am as ever, your dear son,

F. ASBURY

Drew University Library