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

amounted, at the close of the year, to 10,096; it had advanced 1,21 since the previous returns. If we
add the returns of the New England circuits pertaining to the New York Conference, the aggregate
number of Methodists in the eastern states, exclusive of the preachers, amounted to 15,98, and the
aggregate increase of the year to 1,968, the largest gain of any one year since the introduction of
Methodism into New England.
Accompanied by Henry Boehm, Asbury was again in the East in May, 1809. On Monday, the
18th, he was at Norwalk, Conn., where he preached, and stirred up the young Church to build a
chapel. They were "poor," it was alleged. "Poor may they ever be," was his reply. "I must needs
preach in New London I gave them a discourse on 1 John ii, 6. The house was soon filled, an many
went away who could not get in; surely the society, and preachers too, have been blind to their own
interests, or they would have occupied every foot of ground; but we have never taken advantage of
circumstances as they offered in this place, and have lost by our negligence. We crossed Narraganset
Bay on Friday, and came into Newport. Grand house, steeple, pews, by lottery; the end is to sanctify
the means. Ah, what pliability to evil!" He dreaded such innovations in Methodism. "I spoke," he
adds, "with difficulty, and with little order in my discourses. From New York thus far we have had
dust and rough roads, and I have been much tired and greatly blessed. We have rode two hundred
miles in six days." The next day he visited Capt. Beale, at Fort Wolcott. The captain was a good
Methodist, and one of the chief founders of the society in Newport. Asbury preached to his garrison;
"baptized some children, visited the school, prayed with the sick in the hospital, exhorted the poor
sinners to turn to God; but ah, I might have said and done more. Here I saw discipline, order,
correctness; it was grand and pleasing. What changes I pass through! How hardly shall they who
travel much keep a constant eye on duty, the cross, holiness, and God!" He pushed on, rejoicing at
many indications of prosperity, but lamenting also, with perhaps unfounded apprehension, over what
he deemed evidences of declension. "On Tuesday, 30," he writes, "we came to the pleasant town of
Bristol. The Methodists here have a house with pews, and a preacher who has not half enough to do.
Poor work! I gave them a discourse on 1 Cor. xv, 58. I have as much as I can bear in body and mind.
I see what has been doing for nine years past to make Presbyterian Methodists."
On Saturday he reached Boston, and the next day, though too feeble to stand in the pulpit, he
preached twice. "Had I not," he says, "spoken sitting, pain and weariness would have prevented my
finishing. May the Lord water his own word! I hear of a considerable revival in several places." On
Monday he reached the mansion of Bemis, at Waltham, "dripping wet." "I found," he writes, "the
four generations in health, and I got (O how sweet!) a comfortable night's sleep, the first I have had
for many nights." By Thursday, the 15th of June, he had arrived at Monmouth, Me., where, on that
day, he opened the New England Conference. McKendree was present, but we have no notice of the
share he took in the proceedings. On Monday, June 19th, the session closed: committees, which there
were yet but two or three, reported, and the devoted band of itinerants, about again to scatter to all
parts of their widely-extended field, "spent an hour and a half in relating their former experiences
and present exercises." Martin Ruter, by request of the bishops, read the appointments, and, by night,
many of them were on their way to the conflicts of another year. On Sunday, before the adjournment,
Asbury preached to a great throng, estimated at three thousand, from Isaiah's exultant words: "Sing,
O ye heavens, for the Lord hath done it, etc., for the Lord hath redeemed Jacob, and glorified himself
in Israel." Isa. xliv, 23. "It was," he says, "an open season." "We have ordained," he remarks,
"twenty-one deacons, and seven elders. We have located eleven elders, readmitted one, and added