May 31, 1802 — to Stith Mead

Stith Mead had written to Asbury, evidently in reference to moving a preacher from the North to the South. Asbury indicates that the suggestion is impractical. He is reporting on the work; and he is urging the brethren, as usual, to report.

NEW YORK, N.Y.

May 31, 1802

[TO STITH MEAD]¹

My very dear Mead:

We have received your letters of [?]. We can only say there are some very strange men in the work, that are good and useful men, to be good men, and he is one. I think it is time now at least that every conference should find some of its members to fill any and every place in the union. To think of sending a man at such expense and distance is altogether out of the question, we have uncommon calls and uncommon supplies in the north. I expect we take and make about fifty married men, some with three, others with five and some with eight or ten children.

As to the work, it is glorious in Milford, [N.J.]. We have added 1600 in Talbot, 2000 in the Conferences of Baltimore and Philadelphia, about ten thousand souls have been added in eleven months in the two conferences. As to brother Milligan,² you can put him or any other preacher you have in Augusta. I have and shall supply the west from the Baltimore Conference with volunteers. Tomorrow our Conference will begin in [New] York. We hope for a shake in this seat of pride, policy, and outside piety.

I am now in doubt about going five hundred miles farther east to the Monmouth Conference.³ This I can do, and reach Cumberland. I want the advice of Conference, and the consent of Nicholas⁴ to take my place westward to fill my appointments.

We have great and gracious openings. I wish you to be very accurate in your accounts of the work of God and as concise, and yet let nothing of moment slip. [I] desire the preachers to furnish you with testimonies extraordinary of the work. These accounts read in the cities make the people feel amazingly. I suppose if I had sounded a trumpet before I read the accounts of the Presbyterians and Methodists, in Kentucky, Cumberland, North and South Carolina; which I read in our old church⁵ yesterday I should have had thousands. We have taken a holding in Philadelphia last Conference. The Conference made an offer to them⁶ of a preacher and they accepted one George Roberts, the old side John McClaskey. We hope that division will be held by a wonder, but it will cost the separates twenty thousand dollars to purchase and prepare a church in one of the best stands in the city, an old academy turned into an elegant church so they will have to pay for their folly or virtue. I am with great respect, thine,

FRANCIS ASBURY

Drew University Library