[December 17, 1796] — to Mrs. Parker
ASB_VOL3.PDF, PDF page 193
There are only a few of the Asbury letters that cannot be dated definitely upon internal evidence or otherwise. This is one that cannot. However, the name Thorne provides the cue. She was a noted woman class leader and was both a Pennsylvanian and a North Carolinian. She had also been familiar with Charleston, South Carolina, as she had been originally a convert of the Rev. Oliver Hart, a Baptist preacher, who led her to Christ in North Carolina. He later lived in Charleston, South Carolina. She lost her husband and later married Captain Parker, a sea captain, and moved to England.
[NEWBERN, N.C.]1
[December 17, 1796]
[TO MRS. PARKER]2
My dear Sister:
It is possible that you have so far forgotten your own country and your Father’s House. Long have I wished, oft have I sighed [?] (about sister Thorne but no account, so have you changed your name and former friends and country [where?]). Surely you sometimes think how often we have sat and talked together at your own house and the houses of others, about the precious things of God. In per conversation last evening, the Doctor3 gave me the most perfect information of your state. Your friends have thought strange indeed you never wrote. I do most earnestly desire you will send me a letter every year as long as you and myself live. You know I have faithfully and frequently lent you my feeble hand in tenderness and love to pluck you out of the low dungeon when your soul has been covered with an awful gloom.
You are become a joyful mother of children. Oh, let not these dear little creatures draw your heart from God. Remember pious Watts “The fondness of a creature’s love, how strong it strikes the sense” and so on. Oh my dear sister what poison lies rapt up in every sweet connection of life; once you thought so, but now you painfully feel it. I desire you would write me all your heart that when I know your case, though at this distance, I may give you some advice and —— [?] my pastoral charge. The prospect of religion, the glory of Zion, and the increase of the sons and daughters, the opening we have in your native soil, the building a church in Charleston and the joyning some thousands, in that state. Doctor Coke who is the missionary of the churches will inform you. I have been rather sharp in my present letter but unless you write me with great freedom and acknowledge your fault in neglecting me and your American friends may be I shall be more severe.
I shall be pleased to represent you to your old friends, as being as ever and more than ever given up to God. I charge you before God be much in prayer, spend when able not less than an hour in the morning and the same in the evening in solemn private meditation and prayer with God every day and step aside at noon to speak with God if you can. Seek perfect love, seek it now. Brother and Sister Baker4 and Wilmer5 yet alive. Sister Patterson went from home a few weeks past into the unseen world. There I expect to see you. It appears providence has given me your country and strangely united my heart to the country and people so it is with you in respect to my country. I am with affectionate regards as ever yours, F. ASBURY
Historical Society of Pennsylvania
Notes (5)
- There is no date or place on this letter. It could have been written from Newbern, North Carolina, and in December, 1796. Coke was with Asbury. He would likely have been reminded of Mrs. Thorne there because she had lived there. ↩
- Mrs. Mary Thorne, the first woman class leader in Philadelphia, was appointed by Joseph Pilmoor. She was born in Bristol, Pennsylvania; but her family, named Evans, soon moved to Newbern, North Carolina. She married a Mr. Thorne and became a member of the Baptist Church. Her husband died; and she went to her parents in Philadelphia, where she became a teacher. She came under the influence of Joseph Pilmoor’s preaching and joined the Methodists. However, for some time she continued in fellowship with the Baptists. After a while, along with nine others she was expelled from the Baptist Church for fellowshiping with the Methodists. She was forsaken by her family. She became Mrs. Parker and moved to England in 1778. She was a loyal Methodist and was greatly appreciated by John Wesley. Her husband lost several ships, and they became quite poor. However, she retained her great faith. (See Atkinson, The Beginnings of the Wesleyan Movement in America, 208-21, and Lednum, Rise of Methodism, 42- 44.) ↩
- Bishop Coke. ↩
- Jacob Baker. (See note to letter written November 17, 1776, to John Dickinson.) ↩
- Lambert Wilmer and his wife were charter members of the first Methodist church in Philadelphia. He was an officer in the militia in the Revolution, and he and his wife became class leaders in St. George’s Church. (See Pioneering in Penn’s Woods, Philadelphia Conference Tract Society, 183.) (Jacob S. Payton.) ↩