Undated — Asbury’s Defense of His Celibacy

This is not a letter but is a page taken from the Journal. It is most interesting because Asbury gives what is equivalent to a defense of his “celibacy.” It was written in Georgetown, South Carolina. He prefaces the statement by saying, “I have suffered in my flesh, and have had ‘deep waters’ of a temporal and spiritual nature to wade through.” Though Asbury makes many statements about his preachers marrying, some of which may seem to be derogatory to women and the married state, he was not a woman hater. Witness how often he stayed at widows’ homes and how frequent were his references to women, to their affairs, to the preachers’ wives, to women’s ministrations to him. He corresponded with many. Before he left England, he seems to have seriously considered marrying Nancy Brookes.

ASBURY’S DEFENSE OF HIS CELIBACY

January 27, 1804

We reached Georgetown. I have suffered in my flesh, and have had “deep waters” of a temporal and spiritual nature to wade through. If I should die in celibacy, which I think quite probable, I give the following reasons for what can scarcely be called my choice. I was called¹ in my fourteenth year; I began my public exercises² between sixteen and seventeen; at twenty-one I travelled³; at twenty-six I came to America⁴; thus far I had reasons enough for a single life. It had been my intention of returning to Europe at thirty years of age; but the war continued, and it was ten years before we had a settled, lasting peace; this was no time to marry or be given in marriage. At forty-nine I was ordained superintendent bishop⁵ in America. Amongst the duties imposed upon me by my office was that of travelling extensively, and I could hardly expect to find a woman with grace enough to enable her to live but one week out of the fifty-two with her husband: besides, what right has any man to take advantage of the affections of a woman, make her his wife, and by a voluntary absence subvert the whole order and economy of the marriage state, by separating those whom neither God, nature, nor the requirements of civil society permit long to be put asunder? it is neither just nor generous. I may add to this, that I had little money, and with this little administered to the necessities of a beloved mother⁶ until I was fifty-seven; if I have done wrong, I hope God and the sex will forgive me: it is my duty now to bestow the pittance I may have to spare upon the widows⁷ and fatherless girls, and poor married men.⁸ Asbury’s Journal, January 27, 1804.