December 2, 1802 — to Thornton Fleming
BLACK RIVER, NEAR CAMDEN, S.C.
ASB_VOL3.PDF, PDF page 315
Here is another letter to Thornton Fleming in which Asbury is giving reports and asking for reports. It seems that there had been no camp meetings in Fleming’s territory. Asbury urges Fleming to start camp meetings. He is also sending a list of some preaching appointments in Fleming’s district.
BLACK RIVER, NEAR CAMDEN, S.C.
December 2, 1802
[TO THORNTON FLEMING]1
My dear Brother:
May grace and peace attend you and yours. The God of all grace hath manifested Himself gloriously. In our Western Conference we have had in this year upwards of 3,000, and our Southern Conference will be but little short of that number, from the present appearances: and I calculate, if the Lord is with us and we are with Him, we shall have a general and yearly increase of 21,000 in the seven conferences.
The campmeetings are as extraordinary in North and South Carolina, and Georgia, as they have been in Cumberland and Kentucky; hundreds have fallen, and many have been soundly converted. It would not be the work of God if there were not some opposition; but it is not worth our notice to stand to parley with the enemies of the work. I have heard of two men that preached against the work, one in particular, that was suddenly called away by death. If a man should thus sin against God by opposing his work, who shall entreat for him? But some may do it ignorantly and in unbelief. Of these men I have written upon, one was in North Carolina, and the other in Georgia. I have the name and efficient testimony of one, the other I have not.
My brother, perhaps you would do well, when you can, to keep a register2 of your quarterly meetings, as we do of our conferences; and that, especially, when your members are numerous and your business is critical, and not trust yourself to memory in the important matters of the Church of God. By this means you will put it greatly out of the power of deceitful and designing men to misrepresent your proceedings, by having it in your power to apply to your church records.
I wish you would also hold campmeetings; they have never been tried without success. To collect such a number of God’s people together to pray, and the ministers to preach, and the longer they stay, generally, the better—this is field fighting, this is fishing with a large net. I have formed a design of coming, next Fall, through your District. The Western Conference, next year, will be held in Kentucky, the first October.3 My plan and purpose is to be at Bath4 the second Sabbath in August, and to call a general meeting for three or four days to attack Satan’s seat. Thence take my route up the Allegheny,5 on to Redstone, and to the new state, and down the west side of the Ohio to Kentucky;6 if you can mark the route, and give me a view of the plan at conference, we shall know more about it. I presume Brother Whatcoat will be with me, as I cannot consent to be absent from any conference without I am prevented by sickness. I think we had better travel together next year. We have brought all the conferences as forward as we can in the year, in order to go and spend what time we can in the western country. And although I have had a powerful rheumatic shock, such as I never had in my life, and that by being exposed in the wilderness, I must try it again, and take my tent with me in future. I must have something to try me and keep me down, under such gales of prosperity of the church of God, that I may not be exalted above measure. I must have something to humble me and keep me in my place. I hope Sister Fleming is in a good state of health. The work is going on in Winchester.7
I had also to cut off 1,000 at this end of the continent, as I had laid on near 1,000 at the other end. Brother Snethen8 supplied my appointments to Kentucky, and then went on my route to Georgia. I came upon a straight easy course to Camden, South Carolina, and have a few days upon hand to write letters. Jesse Lee writes that they have a blessed work in the south district of Virginia, in Norfolk, Portsmouth, and most of the circuits, and on those where the work first appeared in ‘87, Sussex and Brunswick.9 In Salisbury District near a thousand souls have been added. I am, as ever to you two, that are but one.
Affectionately, Farewell,
FRANCIS ASBURY
The Pittsburgh Conference Journal, February 15, 1834.
Transcribed with notes by W.G. Smeltzer
Notes (9)
- Presiding elder, Pittsburgh District. ↩
- Asbury is again instructing Fleming to keep records and make reports. (See letter, August 21, 1802.) ↩
- The Western Conference referred to was held at Mount Gerizim, Kentucky, October 2, 1803. (Source—The General Minutes.) ↩
- This is now Berkeley Springs, West Virginia. Asbury stopped there whenever his journeys took him along the Potomac that he might avail himself of the curative properties of the mineral springs located at that place. ↩
- This refers to the Allegheny Mountains over which he needed to pass, not to the river of the same name in western Pennsylvania. ↩
- Asbury did make this trip in 1803. It was the first of his western journeys in which he passed through Ohio. He made this journey annually from 1803 to 1815 except in 1804 and 1806, coming from Baltimore or Philadelphia over the mountains, through the Pittsburgh region, and continuing on into Ohio. ↩
- There is an omission here in the letter as printed in the Journal. The editor explains as follows: “Here is a chasm of 12 lines in the letter owing to a part being torn off, and from the fragment left the sense could not be ascertained.” ↩
- Nicholas Snethen, his traveling companion. ↩
- The first great revival in Brunswick was in 1775-76, the second in 1787. ↩