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

deserts, five thousand miles a year? Nothing, when we reflect it is done for God, for Christ, for the
Church of God, the souls of poor sinners, the preachers of the gospel in the seven Conferences, one
hundred and thirty thousand members, and one or two millions, who congregate with us in the
solemn worship of God; O it is nothing!"
On Monday he was again away. He preached at Vergennes and Bridgeport during the day, and at
Hampton the day following. Sabbath, the 28th, be spent at camp-meeting in Sharon, Conn., the
results of which he speaks of as important. "We had," he writes, "abundant spiritual harvests. Glory
to God !" On July 1, he reached New York city. He had been accompanied through New England
by Joseph Crawford, "who now," he says, "came over the ferry with me. When about to part he
turned away his face and wept. Ah, I am not made for such scenes! I felt exquisite pain." This strong
man, armed, carried under his cuirass [Oxford Dict. cuirass n. a piece of armour consisting of
breastplate and back-plate fastened together. -- DVM] of strength the sensitive affections of a child.
New England now had eight districts and part of a ninth, sixty-four circuits and stations, and
ninety-seven preachers. It had gained in a year two districts, eight circuits, and nine preachers.
In May, 1807, Asbury entered the East again by way of Vermont, accompanied now by Daniel
Hitt as his traveling companion. They pressed forward into Maine, and thence southward to Boston,
where, on the first of June, he met the Conference. It sat through the whole week, and was the first
session in the New England metropolis; a bold attitude for the struggling cause in its combined
ministerial strength. It had now two Churches in the city, and more than a hundred preachers and
about thirteen thousand members in the eastern states. It had gained one thousand two hundred
members the last year. The Conference had preaching five times a day, and fifty-nine candidates
were ordained at the two humble Boston altars. It was a prophetic week for New England. Baltimore
again sends three hundred dollars, her Book Concern dividend, for the suffering itinerants, for,
though growing vigorously every year, they are still poor in money. After all collected funds and
donations are handed in, the Conference is nearly three thousand dollars insolvent.
On Saturday Asbury refreshed them by reading letters from Delaware and Virginia, giving
accounts of remarkable revivals in those sections of the Church. The business of the session was then
concluded, and "an hour or two was spent in conversing on the state of the Lord's work among the
people under our charge, and our own souls," says the secretary. Asbury read the appointments, and
the itinerants were the same day pursuing their way on horseback, some in groups, some alone, to
their scattered posts of labor. The bishop immediately departed for "the pleasant town of Lynn,"
where he preached on the Sabbath. On Monday he shook hands with his Waltham friends at the
home of Bemis, but was away the same day. On Tuesday he reached Wilbraham, "in spite of heat
and lameness." "I am in peace, he writes; "I dare not murmur, though in pain." On Tuesday, 12, he
was on Pittsfield Circuit. "Methodism," he writes, "prevails in this quarter. In two societies two
hundred members have been added." On Saturday, by "a great ride of forty miles," he entered the
state of New York "faint, sick, and lame," his "feet much swelled," and he can walk only "on
crutches." Thus he pressed on in his course over the continent, aged and debilitated, but advancing
daily.