November 13, 1795 — to Nelson Reed
LANCASTER, VIRGINIA
ASB_VOL3.PDF, PDF page 173
Nelson Reed was the presiding elder over Cokesbury, and it seems here that he exercised some functions over the college even to the curriculum. Asbury discusses the Preachers’ Fund.
LANCASTER, VIRGINIA1
November 13, 1795
[TO NELSON REED]2
My truly dear Brother:
I wish you to be particularly cautioned against corrupt Latin authors being taught in the College,3 it is this that causeth such places, and filleth the minds of youth with infidelity, and lust. And it is strange the poets have not been purified or banished from the schools. After the Grammars, and Cordini,4 they ought to read Eutropius,5 Cornelius Nepos,6 Selectae Profanis,7 and the Latin Testament. The poets ought to be purged or burnt and not to be used in Christian schools. We might as well teach them Aristotle’s Masterpiece. I am inclined to think Brother Dickins8 could procure some pure elegant Latin authors fit to read. I have had some labour and consolation. Oh, that our preachers could but feel for the souls of the congregations of hundreds who wait for the message. When I think such a poor hobbling man as I am should travail through 4 circuits before they come to the charge in Lancaster; and yet I stopped a week in Baltimore. I do not regret my visit to the Ridges, Georgetown, Alexandria, and Lancaster, where we have a very good ——.
To —— John Moss came —— I have thought powerfully about having trustees incorporated in Philadelphia for the Preachers’ Fund, this would help me out of the care; satisfy the connection and be a means of commanding legacies. I wish Tommy Haskins9 to make a bill to lay before the General Conference. I have a design should the fund ever be reduced or not reduced soon, below the appointed sum, that the sixty pounds might lie in your hands only giving an acknowledgment. I feel mightily eased of the burden. Mr. Fouks has payed John Potts10 nine pounds Virginia [currency], he must breathe a while before he will pay the balance. He frowned at Dawson for keeping an order on a person in Georgetown till he supposed it was lost, yet and hoped the College debt was paid. If you truly acknowledge God the College can be made a paradise, a Bethel to your souls.
I am as ever thine
FRANCIS ASBURY
P.S. Dear Sister Reed will play the soft counter of love and tender feelings when you are a little rough. Read Blair on Gentleness.
Drew University Library
Notes (10)
- Asbury stayed at the Widow Woodland’s. (See Journal.) ↩
- Presiding elder on the Baltimore District. ↩
- Cokesbury College, which was within Reed’s district. ↩
- Reference seems to be to Cremutius Cordus, whose Roman history, rabidly republican in tone, was made a ground for a charge of treason in A.D. 25. (Encyclopaedia Britannica, XIII, 751.) ↩
- Eutropius, fourth century A.D., Roman historian who wrote a complete compendium in ten books of Roman history. ↩
- Cornelius Nepos, first century B.C., Roman historian who wrote Chronica, epitome of universal history, letters to Cicero, and lives of Cato and Cicero. ↩
- Selections from profane works. ↩
- Book Agent. ↩
- Thomas Haskins, who had formerly been a preacher, then a trustee at St. George’s Church, Philadelphia. He was a grocer. ↩
- One of the early preachers who served with devotion and distinction. Asbury stayed with him in Manchester (now part of Richmond) shortly before Asbury’s death. Across the James River in Richmond, Asbury preached his last sermon. (W.W. Bennett, Memorials of Methodism in Virginia, 611-12.) ↩