History of the M.E. Church, Vol. IV - Media Sabda Org

HISTORY OF THE
METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH
By Abel Stevens
CHAPTER III
METHODISM IN THE SOUTH, 1804 -- 1820: CONCLUDED
Asbury's Last Visits to the South -- His Episcopal Equipage -- John Bond -- Rembert Hall -- Perry
Hall -- Last Interview with Otterbein -- Asbury in Old Age -- Ministerial Celibacy -- Prosperity --
Asbury's indomitable Persistence -- Southern Methodism -- Obituary Notices
Asbury spent a portion of every winter of these years in the South. He made it an official visit
every year of his episcopal life save one, and, including his prior excursion thither, traveled over
more or less of its territory seventy times, including both trips to and from it, which were always on
different routes. His journals have more than their wonted brevity during the present period, and are
hardly capable of historical use. He was repeatedly accompanied by his colleagues, Whatcoat and
McKendree, and habitually by an elder as traveling companion. Snethen, Hutchinson, Morrell, Jesse
Lee, and Hitt had, thus far, successively attended him. Crawford, Boehm, French, and Bond were
with him through the present journeys. He rode, most of the time, in an unpretentious carriage. On
one occasion, accompanied by McKendree, in Georgia, he writes: "We are riding in a poor
thirty-dollar chaise, in partnership, two bishops of us; but it must be confessed it tallies well with the
weight of our purses. What bishops! But we hear great news, and we have great times, and each
Western, Southern, and the Virginia Conference, will have one thousand souls converted to God;
and is not this an equivalent for a light purse? and are we not well paid for starving and toil? Yes;
glory be to God!" An ax was a necessary accompaniment to clear the roads. "O my excellent son,
John Bond!" he exclaims in South Carolina; "a tree had fallen across our way; what was to be done?'
Brother Bond sprung to the ax fastened under our carriage, mounted upon the large limbs, hewing
and hacking, stroke after stroke, without intermission, until he had cut away five of them, hauling
them on one side as he severed them, so that we passed without difficulty. Is there his equal to be
found in the United States? He drives me along with the utmost care and tenderness, he fills my
appointments by preaching for me when I am disabled, he watches over me at night after the fatigue
of driving all day, and if; when he is in bed and asleep, I call, he is awake and up in the instant to
give me medicine, or to perform any other service his sick father may require of him, and this is done
so readily, and with so much patience, when my constant infirmities and ill health require so many
and oft-repeated attentions. The asthma presses sorely upon my panting breast. Lord, sanctify all my
afflictions!"
The shadows of the evening of life were falling upon his great career, and his pensive allusions
to the passing away of his old friends, and the changes of his old homes, increase in frequency and
sadness with every year. "My old Virginia friends have disappeared from the earth!" he exclaims in
1805. He still finds yearly shelter at Rembert Hall, S. C.; but he buries members of the endeared
household, and, in 1814, writes there, "How my friends move or waste away! yet I live; let me live
every moment." This was his favorite home in the further south; at its north he always paused with
delight at Perry Hall; but this, too, now reminds him of the changes of life. In 1805 he says there, "At
Perry Hall I spent a night; the house, spacious and splendid, was newly painted, and the little