February 6, 1801 — to Thomas Morrell

Thomas Morrell had not been well. There was a question as to whether he could continue in the work. His father was an old man. Evidently Asbury had thought of placing him in New York where he would have been near his father in Elizabeth Town or in Jersey. Asbury shows his great sympathy for Morrell. The next year he was moved to New York. The remainder of the letter is taken up with news and concern for the connection.

KINGSTON, S.C.

February 6, 1801

[TO THOMAS MORRELL]

My very dear and loved Brother:

Grace, mercy and peace be abundantly multiplied to thee now and ever. Your letter came late to hand, by our sending a messenger to Charleston, after conference. We happily received them at Kingston, on our way to Wilmington. What is done, cannot be done over again: we cannot tell what advice to give, or how we should act ourselves had we been in circumstances, like you and Brother Roberts. I have thought, I should advise the preachers at such seasons to go and see their parents. You will advise concerning your continuance in the work. I am well persuaded that you ought to take a station in New York, once more, and when health and weather will permit, if it was every week, visit your father and spend as much time as you can, a day or two. I am clear with Mr. Wesley, the obligation of children to parents never closeth but with life; and that parents ought to demand and children give their parents services, and support, if they need it, that parents have a natural, and divine right over their children. You ought to cheer the setting hour of your father’s life: hold and stay long. My dear mother is going swiftly, if not gone: after praying fifty five years for me. I have often thought very seriously of my leaving my mother as one of the most doubtful sacrifices I have made. I am more peculiarly tender on this subject, when written to by my Brethren. We have held our conference in Camden, in great peace, as if Providence had over ruled our removal from that seat of —— ¹ Indeed it is a doubt with me if one yearly conference ought to be held at all: or more than once in three years in any city or large town.

Take this hint. I wish to do nothing with duplicity though I am sometimes charged with it from my professedly best or real friends near the center. The preachers will soon return to their work they are going through and need not learn the habits of citizens, they should attend with the greatest strictness to our task. At conference there, preaching is no great object at conferences, the keeping thirty or 40 horses is no object in the country but it is a great matter in town, if the country people must have the horses, they may as well have the man.

I have need of great solitude, of mind and to retire in a country house, to think and meditate with my partner, who is always to be consulted, as we are one. You know the state of families, you know what frequent calls we may have from business, the most momentous concern that ever filled the hands, the heads, the hearts, of man, for the peace, good order of the general works. I hope Brother Roberts and you will both attend the conference: we need the aid of wise and gracious and frank counsellors; let no trifling excuse be admitted.

I hope that the collection will be noble, not less than the interest of 8 or 10,000 Dollars, that should have been paid into the preachers fund. I am easy how they raise it upon honorable means. We shall want money, and the rise of salary will demand it.

The poor people of the south have paid about 48 dollars and we had to pay a moderate sum for board. The removal of Conference will save 4 or 500 dollars, at the rate they pay for house rent and board and the burden of small pox and other things will be removed.

If this money is not wanted in the Maryland Conference, our poor brethren upon the Lakes or away among the rocks of New England, will dispense with it. Several married preachers are returned to the connection in the south and the north, many will and perhaps ought to marry and to continue in the work, and we shall receive married preachers and [some may] be carried from one Conference and hands, and be drawn out of book money in the hands of the preachers, thus we need not transmit cash but keep it where it is.

There is a most glorious work in Cumberland, in the Tennessee State, in the union of the Presbyterians and Methodists. In Vermont it is great also. In these southern states after we have been trod down like the mire of the streets, God will raise and lift us up, and make our enemies lick the dust of our feet, if we are faithful.

I cannot say if the address was not of God and it may or will have its influence, it only lanced the impostume [abscess] of deep rooted enmity, that has been swelling for years. Politicians are very apt to over do themselves, the history of all nations, and people will teach this in sacred and civil books. Will you be so ——² as to procure your two pamphlets [?] clean copies. I wish to have all of them bound in a book, to transmit to any that wish in my life or death, to know about that or those matters. I want justice at least from men, and especially from Christians. You will favour me with a letter to Norfolk, the last of March. If the presiding elders, in the cities and towns and country would give me once a year circumstantial accounts of the work. I would ———³ annually of Methodism, like Prince’s History for a select collection of original papers. thine as ever

F. ASBURY

Drew University Library

[A note is appended which seems to be from Richard Whatcoat.]