June 3, 1803 — to Charles Atmore
WALTHAM, NEAR BOSTON, MASS.
ASB_VOL3.PDF, PDF page 326
Charles Atmore was known to Asbury through Atmore’s
biographies of Methodist preachers. Asbury is giving Atmore a report of the work in America.
WALTHAM, NEAR BOSTON, MASS.
June 3, 1803
[TO CHARLES ATMORE]1
My very dear Brother, not less so by being only known by name: The present year is marked with great grace to the inhabitants of the United States. Great things have been done in the western states of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Ohio, by meetings held by encampments for several days and nights together. These meetings have obtained in Georgia, South and North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware. Some of these meetings have been held four, others six, and one nine days and nights, with small intermissions. One hundred and seven have been added in a town in Virginia of about one hundred families, at a nine days meeting. The Presbyterians, over half the Continent, are stirred up, and are in church and congregational union with the Methodists. And they both feed their flocks together, like the ministers and people of God.
We are always pleased to hear from, and honour the members and ministers of the ancient Connection in Europe. We are one body. We have one Name, one Gospel, one Christ, one God, one Holy Spirit, one heaven. And as it comforteth us, (when we find some barren spots,) that there are so many fruitful hills of Zion, you will rejoice that God is with a branch of the Methodist connection in this country. I hope we shall continue to preach a present and full salvation, and fill up life to the best of purposes. I am now in the 58th year of my age, frequently subject to an inflammatory rheumatism, and sometimes disabled for a season. Then I revive again, and limp along. I was born and brought up in a temperate climate with great indulgence, and lived in retirement till I was twenty-one years of age. Now my constitution is broken, thro’ heats and colds, and I have grey hairs in abundance upon me. I have been thirty-seven years in the connection, and thirty-two in America. I hope to hold out a little longer, and then to meet my dear English brethren, preachers and people, in a better world. “There all the ship’s company meet
Who sail’d with the Saviour beneath.’’2
I thought when I came to America, four years would be long enough for me to stay; but the children whom God had given us, asked, Will you leave us in our time of distress? and so here I am. Give me your prayers, and present Francis Asbury in love to all you please, as their and your friend and brother in Jesus.
FRANCIS ASBURY
The Methodist Magazine, 1804, 135. Transcribed by Frank Baker
Notes (2)
- Charles Atmore (1759-1826), converted under Joseph Pilmoor, sent out as a preacher by John Wesley in 1781. His Methodist Memorial, published in 1801, was the first collection of the biographies of Methodist preachers who had died during the eighteenth century. In 1811 he was president of the Conference. The Methodist Memorial noted a few who served overseas; but in 1802 Atmore published a separate Appendix, “containing a concise history of the Introduction of Methodism on the Continent of America, and short Memoirs of the Preachers who have departed this Life since that period.” In his introduction Atmore says: “Of all the Preachers who had been sent over from Europe, Mr. Francis Asbury (to his honour be it recorded) alone resolved to continue in America, and determined not to desert his post nor forsake the flock in that ‘day of trouble and rebuke.’“ It seems most likely that Atmore came in touch with Asbury by means of his Methodist Memorial and its Appendix. (Frank Baker.) ↩
- This is from one of Charles Wesley’s best-known and best-loved Funeral Hymns. (Frank Baker.) ↩