October 17, 1806 — to Thomas Haskins
ASB_VOL3.PDF, PDF page 445
Thomas Haskins was a friend of long standing. From this letter it is evident that he had been appointed trustee of Dickins’ estate and that he was charged with settling the Book Concern business which had been in the hands of Dickins. It seems that a Mr. Amatt had first had responsibility but had died. This letter is printed in two sections in Francis H. Tees, The Beginnings of Methodism in England and in America.
HANGING ROCK, S.C.
20 MILES NORTHWEST OF CAMDEN
October 17, 1806
[TO THOMAS HASKINS]1
My dear Son:
Grace and peace from Him that was, and is, and is to come. Amen. John Dickins2 knew his real friends, both to his temporal and spiritual interests. He wisely made choice of you at his death as his friend and a friend to the connection, you performed your trust. Happy it might have been, had all things continued in your management to the end; but of that no more, it is done.
The widow3 writes me her friend Amatt is no more. May he rest in peace! I must request you if possible to take up the settlement of that broken estate; if you do not who will? I do not expect that the widow or her children will receive any more benefit; no they must seek support from other sources, as they have done for four years past. I wish only that the profits may go to the suffering creditors, only this I know that Mrs. Dickins will feel more ease of mind when she knows where she stands, although she has little or no hope of receiving any relief from that quarter, except it is mental. I hope you can begin where Mr. Amatt left it, as he had progressed.
For my part I have always been poor but now I am in debt. I gathered up the fragments of Williams4 books and deposited the hundred pounds sterling, which is burnt up in Cokesbury and Mr. Rankin5 made me executor, without my will. I told what I had done. He now demands the money and I must pay my Brother Rankin, or that part of my character will not come up to the other. I must pay 100 sterling out of my own pocket. You see now how you and I have gained by the College, with my ten years toil and drudgery, and abuse, if any are made, we may expect the College will come up. Our dearly beloved Coleman6 has published Jarratt’s7 Life in letters, with a kick at Cokesbury, (Shoemakers and Tailors) to set up a college.
I have this pleasure that we have the greatest possible harmony in the conferences. All the conferences are satisfied with your conduct, as trustees, your correctness and fidelity, and so they would [be] were you to publish as your fund expense, a few hundred copies of the charter, with a fervent begging letter, and you would have supplies from the living or the dead or both.
My dear Son I hope you are more than ever devoted to God in preaching; and living; time is short. I’m greatly amended in health, than when I wrote last. I have only to say I sit on a joyless height, a pinacle of power, too high to sit secure and unenvied, too high to sit secure without divine aid. My bodily and mental powers fail, I have a charge too great for many men with minds like mine. I hope not to jump down, fall down, or be thrown by haughty ambition, but I mean to step down as soon and safely and completely as I can; and not to stand alone, but break the fire by having more objects than one.
I am happy, the ship is so safe in harbor with an increase of 10,000 annually but how many more, if the dead, and removed and expelled were numbered. Understand me right I mean to live for life, but not alone, the executive is far too weak. 4 years my local labours were little inferior to many traveling preachers. In the year 66 I began my present line of labour, between 40 and 50 times I have [crossed] the Allegheny mountains, swamps, and rivers, of the south going and returning.
When a man is in his 62 year it is not safe to trust a great work in his trembling hands. A president of a state of the states ought to know when to retire for fear of damages, and if heaven would insure my life, bodily and mental powers, [I] would heartily advise my brethren to provide immediately for such a charge! and not to rest it with me, or any one man upon earth. Only to think, seven conferences, 500 traveling [preachers], possible two or three thousand local and official men, possible near ten millions in ——[?] or congregational charge, 100,000 in membership. Lord be merciful to me. Amen, pray for,
Your father,
FRANCIS ASBURY
Westminster Theological Seminary
Notes (7)
- Haskins was a grocer in Philadelphia and an official of St. George’s Church. He took the place of John Dickins. Ezekiel Cooper was soon appointed Book Agent. ↩
- John Dickins, the first Book Agent. ↩
- Mrs. John Dickins. ↩
- Robert Williams, who died near Portsmouth, Virginia, called the first Methodist preacher in Virginia. He located when he married. He had handled Wesley’s books until he was stopped by order of the conference. The conference took over his business. ↩
- Thomas Rankin and Asbury were the executors. ↩
- The Rev. John Coleman to whom Jarratt wrote his letters. (See note to letter, January 11, 1796.) ↩
- Devereux Jarratt, the minister of the Established Church who befriended the Methodist preachers in Virginia. The Coleman letters were published in 1806 in The Life of the Reverend Devereux Jarratt, written by himself. (Rare Book Collection, Library of Congress.) ↩