[March 4, 1816] (?) — to William Mckendree
ASB_VOL3.PDF, PDF page 682
This is the last extant letter of Asbury. Two great concerns are still with him. These are his preachers and the German-speaking people. He shows his especial love for John Wesley Bond, who was his traveling companion and who was with him at the end.
MYRICK’S, BRUNSWICK COUNTY, VIRGINIA
[March 4, 1816] (?)1
[TO WILLIAM MCKENDREE]2
My dear Son:
Were it proper and possible, I should greatly enjoy to be near thee and the conferences, but perhaps I should weary myself, as I have done, and hinder more than help you.
1. If I may say anything of the stations: does Joseph Frye3 hold his zeal? If so, there is no man more fit to preside in the Monongahela District.
2. If we take up German missions, it must be spiritedly. I wish we had four men who would offer freely, and serve faithfully, married or single; our hymn book translated; a thousand copies of Discipline,4 correct from the General Conference. If they will not sell, give them away to the people. Send a missionary to Schuylkill District, Susquehanna, Carlisle, and Monongahela, presiding elders holding cash to pay the missionaries quarterly, the missionaries making collections and being accountable for these also to the conferences.
I wish the change of Boehm and Roberts,5 because of Henry’s usefulness in German.
We have covered the three hundred dollars to Virginia Conference. If either Baltimore or Philadelphia is deficient one or two hundred, we are ready.
Had I power to be present, the stewards would have a correct account of all we have received at conferences and expended upon road expenses. In 1815 I asked thirty dollars, they sent forty.
The incredible toil of Wesley Bond6 is only known to me; I must reward him. His character is good; he has attempted to moderate his sermons; preaches to acceptance, generally beloved by the preachers and the people. I have written to the General Conference,7 wish you to see it. I have written to Mr. Benson, and wish the General Conference to hear a copy of the letter read.
In great love,
F. ASBURY8
Robert Paine, Life and Times of Bishop McKendree, 181-82
Notes (8)
- The letter is undated. It is clear it is in 1816 and after Asbury’s letter to Joseph Benson of January 15. Paine says that this letter is “perhaps the last he ever wrote” and that it was sent by John Wesley Bond with his letter to McKendree of March 4, 1816. (See Life and Times of Bishop McKendree, 179-81.) ↩
- Bishop McKendree. ↩
- Joseph Frye was presiding on the Potomac District and Christopher Frye on the Monongahela District. ↩
- The references here are to the German editions of the Hymn Book and Discipline. The Journal of Bishop Christian Newcomer throws much light on Asbury’s relationships to the United Brethren. Newcomer first visited a Methodist conference at Pipe Creek, Maryland, 1801. He attended the General Conference in Baltimore in 1804. He relates what happened at the Harrisonburg Virginia Conference in 1809. He names those who preached—Asbury, Roberts, Pitts, and George in English, and Boehm, Gruber, and himself in German. A committee was appointed to talk with him about union between the two churches. Newcomer took with him a resolution to be presented to the United Brethren Conference. It dealt with union and the exchange of tickets for the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. The United Brethren decided that they would recognize each other’s tickets for the Lord’s Supper, but on other matters “we must have time to think.” As long as Asbury lived, there were frequent visits of the United Brethren preachers to the Methodist Conferences. Union was often discussed among the preachers. See Christian Newcomer’s Journal for repeated references to Asbury and the Methodists. (Samuel S. Hough, Christian Newcomer, His Life, Journal and Achievements, 1941.) ↩
- Henry Boehm was presiding elder on the Chesapeake District, and Robert R. Roberts was presiding elder on the Philadelphia District. ↩
- John Wesley Bond was with Asbury. ↩
- Address to the General Conference of 1816. ↩
- Asbury’s last letter was written in Virginia, the state which had seen more of his travels than any other state. Tipple and others indicate that he visited the state 84 times. However, the investigations that have been made in reference to his visits to Old Virginia (including the present West Virginia) show that he visited this area more than 120 times. Asbury traveled on from Myrick’s in Brunswick County, Virginia, to Richmond. About the middle of March he reached Manchester (now South Richmond) and stayed with his old preacher friend John Potts (retired). Father Courtney came to see him there, and they made plans for the local preachers. After remaining a few days in Manchester, he crossed the James River to Richmond and lodged with Archibald Foster. Here he remained for a week. He interviewed Bishop Moore of the Episcopal Church here. They talked of the work of the two churches. Then on Sunday, March 24, he preached his last sermon, having to be lifted into the pulpit. On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday he traveled from Richmond to Mr. George Arnold’s in Spotsylvania County, Virginia. On Sunday about eleven o’clock he called on John Wesley Bond, his traveling companion, to sing, pray, and expound the twenty-first chapter of Revelation. “When he could no longer swallow or speak, seeing the distress of his friends, he looked joyfully at Brother Bond and raised his hand. When asked if he then felt the victory complete, exerting all his remaining strength, he raised both his hands, and in a few minutes died without a struggle or groan, as a weary child sinks to sleep upon its mother’s breast. He died on March 31, 1816.” (See Paine, Life and Times of Bishop McKendree, 183, and Bennett, Memorials of Methodism in Virginia, 606-15.) See map of Asbury’s journeys in Virginia facing page 238. ↩