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

In the frequent accounts of him in these pages I have not disguised his faults; for, though there
was essential greatness in his character, he had, doubtless, characteristic weaknesses also. There have
been few great men without them. The faults of such men become the more noticeable, either by
contrast with or by partaking of their greatness; and the vanity of ordinary human nature is eagerly
disposed, in self-gratulation, to criticize as peculiar defects of superior minds infirmities that are
common to all. Coke's attempt with Bishop White to unite the Methodist and Protestant Episcopal
Churches has been regarded as a blunder, if not worse than a blunder; but had it been successful it
might have appeared quite otherwise. Unquestionably it betrays a want of that keen sagacity which
passes for prudence, though it is oftener guile. There was a vein of simplicity running through his
whole nature, such as sometimes marks the highest genius. He was profound in nothing except his
religious sentiments. A certain capaciousness of soul, really vast, belonged to him, but it never took
the character of philosophic generalization. It is impossible to appreciate such a man without taking
into the estimate the element of Christian faith. The Christian religion being true, he was among the
most rational of men; that being false, he was, like Paul, and all genuine Christians, "of all men the
most miserable," and the most irrational. Practical energy was his chief intellectual trait, and if it was
sometimes, effervescent [bubbly -- DVM], it was never evanescent [transient -- DVM]. He had a
leading agency in the greatest facts of Methodism, and it was impossible that the series of
momentous deeds which mark his career could have been the result of mere accident or fortune.
They must have been legitimate to the man. Neither Whitefield nor Wesley exceeded him in
ministerial travels. It is probable that no Methodist of his day, it is doubtful whether any Protestant
of his day, contributed more from his own property for the spread of the Gospel. His biographer says
that he expended the whole of his patrimonial estate, which was large, on his missions and their
chapels. He was married twice; both his wives were like-minded with himself, and both had
considerable fortunes, which were used like his own. In 1794 was published an account of his
missionary receipts and disbursements for the preceding year, in which it appeared that there were
due him nearly eleven thousand dollars; but he gave the whole sum to the cause. Flying, during
nearly forty years, over England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland; crossing the Atlantic eighteen times;
traversing the United States and the West Indies; the first who suggested the organization of English
Methodism by Wesley's Deed of Declaration; the organizer, under Wesley, of American Methodism;
one of the first, if not the very first, of Protestant bishops in the Western hemisphere; the founder of
the Methodist missions in the West Indies, in Africa, and in Asia, as well as in Ireland, Wales, and
England; the official and almost sole director of the missionary operations of the denomination
during his long public life, and the founder of its first Tract Society, he must be recognized as one
of the chief representative men of modern religious history, if not, indeed, as Asbury pronounced
him, "the greatest man of the last century" ''as a minister of Christ.''
On the 31st of March, 1816, Francis Asbury fell in death at the head of the hosts of Methodists
who had been marshaled and led on, chiefly by himself, over all the republic for nearly half a
century. If a distinct portraiture of his character had not been attempted, in the outset of his American
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career, it would now be superfluous, for he has thus far been the most familiar actor in our story,
the dominant hero of American Methodist history. Though not the first, he was the chief founder of
the denomination in the new worlds. The history of Christianity, since the apostolic age, affords not
a more perfect example of ministerial and personal devotion than was presented in this great man's
life. He preached almost daily for more than half a century. During forty-five years he traveled, with
hardly an intermission, the North American continent from North to South, and East to West,