July 28, 1805 — to Daniel Hitt
NEW YORK
ASB_VOL3.PDF, PDF page 411
There is no date or place attached to this letter. It was written after the New England Conference of July, 1805, which was held in Lynn, Massachusetts. The Journal records that Asbury took a day to write letters at Manley’s, near Philadelphia, on the third of August. It was evidently here that the letter was written. NEW YORK
July 28, 1805
[TO DANIEL HITT]1
My dear Daniel:
May great grace attend thee. My letters were waiting in this city. I marked the contents, especially upon Redstone: it may be the case; but Stoneman2 we all know has his crooks; Budd3 has his peculiarities. I am going to see and hear for myself, if God permit. If you can relieve Brother Fleming,4 he may return; but there can be no change till Conference. We must take care how we step back; if we step wrong, sometimes we may step upon a log, or into a pit. I shall not (indeed the Minutes are in the press, and partially done) make any alterations. I am happy to find that we have great union in the New York and New England Conferences. Letters addressed from these Conferences to the West and succeeding Conferences announce the same.
In Lynn5 God was glorious; the work of God was begun in the Society; several souls were in distress; the preaching-house crowded at five o’clock; preaching in the morning. Necessity and choice drove us to a grove near the meeting-house; two, if not three, thousand souls upon Sabbath day; many souls convicted, some converted, and an awful power. I suppose we had twenty sermons, near one hundred exhortations, and multitudes of prayers in six days. Satan was obliged to go to Boston to bring men to oppose the work. Lynn was thunderstruck; meetings held till midnight, as in Baltimore.
O Glory! Superstition falls in New England. I look for great persecution; all hell is in motion. I think some of us shall be martyrs yet, we make such conquests in every direction. Perhaps it is best to let alone G. Roberts;6 but say to our Conferences, if they want to go, let them go: so says Francis! Let us have volunteers. I have a zealous, active young man to attend me, by consent of the New England Conference, (Joseph Crawford).7 The Northern preachers appear to be greatly in the work; their poverty is great, but they are not at all discouraged. Dearly beloved Ralph8 is fixed in Strebeck’s9 remains.
I am happy to find one spirit animates the whole, for seventeen hundred miles: the same hymns, prayers, and language salute my ears and heart. This I say, we ought to be wise as serpents in the management of our meetings. I find testing and preaching ought to give way to exhortation. We had all preaching and very little exhortation at the New York Conference: in Lynn exhortation prevailed, and the work went on. We ought to communicate all we can, one to another. Brother Dougharty10 writes they serve God all manner of ways, jerking, dancing, etc.; yet the work goes on. They say the fellowship revives among the Presbyterians in the Camden District. I shall be pleased to have a letter from you at Union Town.11 Be sure to be full in a letter to me, if I live, at Camden, South Carolina Conference, and you shall hear (if I am able) from the West. I am, as ever, thine,
F. ASBURY
The Quarterly Review of the M.E. Church, South, XV
(Nashville, 1861), 629-30
Notes (11)
- Presiding elder on the Baltimore District. ↩
- Jesse Stoneman was at Pittsburgh in 1805 as pastor. ↩
- Thomas Budd had been on the Redstone Circuit, Pittsburgh District, in 1803 and was changed to the Berkeley Circuit in 1804 and to Clarksburg Circuit in 1805. ↩
- Thornton Fleming was on the Monongahela (Pittsburgh) District in 1804. For some reason he had been absent. (See Journal, September 1, 1804.) At the conference of 1805 he was placed at Annapolis on the Baltimore District. (See letter to Thornton Fleming, July 28, 1805.) ↩
- Asbury was at Lynn for conference from July 12 to 16. (See Journal.) ↩
- George Roberts was pastor in Baltimore under Daniel Hitt. He located in 1806 but practiced medicine and served as a local preacher. ↩
- Presiding elder of the Vermont District in 1804. Appointed to travel with Asbury. (See Minutes, 1804.) ↩
- Ralph Williston. At Frederick-Town, Maryland, in 1805. He is noted in the Minutes as withdrawn in 1806. He had become the pastor of “Strebeck’s” Mort Street Episcopal Church. ↩
- George Strebeck joined the New York Conference in 1792 and was appointed to New York. In 1793 he was at Long Island. His name dropped out after that. J.B. Wakeley, Lost Chapters, Recovered from the Early History of American Methodism, 386-87, tells how he first became a Lutheran preacher, pastor of a little church in Pearl Street. Later another church was built on Mort Street. This became Episcopal, and Williston was pastor here. Strebeck died in Charleston or Savannah. ↩
- Presiding elder on the Camden District, South Carolina Conference. ↩
- Pennsylvania. ↩