July 28, 1805 — to Thornton Fleming
NEW YORK
ASB_VOL3.PDF, PDF page 410
Thornton Fleming was a special friend and confidant of Asbury. It seems that Fleming was wanting to move, and Asbury is giving him advice.
NEW YORK1
July 28, 1805
[TO THORNTON FLEMING]2
My very dear Brother:
May grace and peace attend you. All stations, all places have their difficulties. If Brother Hitt3 can relieve you, I am content; if Ridgway4 is unfit to labor on a circuit, for want of health, he perhaps might replace you. We have glorious times in the north; it is growing. New England is catching fire; field meetings prevail in number and power. The New England Conference has carried the palm of victory. God was gloriously present; such a time was never known in or about Boston, or any part of New England. I believe hundreds felt the power of God at the Conference in Lynn. Oh, my brother, I have hard toiling, to ride through the burning sun, like the mail stage, 230 miles in six days, to redeem a day to write or preach.
I wish that when any of my brethren write to me, that they would give me all the information they can of the work of God, it cheers my soul, and I can also communicate it to thousands.
I am, as ever, thine in Jesus,
FRANCIS ASBURY
P.S. I have but little time to read or write a letter. I do everything on the wing of time, ministers and moments fly with me. On reading your letter a second time, you express, if I understand it right, a desire to go west at the next Conference. You must think seriously, and pray God to give you light, if it is your duty to leave Annapolis sooner. I am not in haste to give changes. I should have many solicitations, if known, and all examples will be pleaded. I only say, I leave the matter with our beloved brother Daniel,5 and yourself, and, above all, with the Lord. F.A.
The Pittsburgh Conference Journal, March 1, 1834
Notes (5)
- Asbury and Crawford, having passed through New Haven when there was yellow fever, were barred by proclamation from entering New York. Therefore they stopped at George Suckley’s nearby. (See Journal, July 28, 1800.) ↩
- In 1805 Thornton Fleming had completed his first four-year term as presiding elder on the Monongahela District, and in the appointments had been sent East to ride the Annapolis Circuit. This letter is obviously in response to a letter from Fleming requesting a retransfer to the West at the next annual conference, and possibly before conference, if possible. In the appointments for 1806 we find Fleming beginning his second term as presiding elder of the Monongahela District. (See Minutes, 1805-6.) ↩
- In 1805 Daniel Hitt was presiding elder of the Baltimore District in which Annapolis Circuit was located. ↩
- William Ridg(a)way had been admitted on trial in the Baltimore Conference in 1805 and assigned as the third preacher on the Harford Circuit. This circuit was under Daniel Hitt in the Baltimore District. (See Minutes, 1805.) (Notes by W.G. Smeltzer.) ↩
- Daniel Hitt. ↩