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

and Tuesday to take breath and medicine. I find myself so hardly put to it at times that I can only
journalize a little. We concluded, as there are not proper stations on the Cumberland path, it will not
do for me to lodge on the ground; the general opinion is against it. We are to try to go to Kentucky
next week."
He was now suffering terribly from intermittent fever; the attacks of which sometimes lasted thirty
hours. It had become almost chronic, for he had not rested enough at any one place to subdue it.
Some of the preachers met him in Tennessee, and, valuing his life more than their own local
advantage from his visit, insisted upon his immediate return to the East as his only safety. He saw
that he "must give up the cause," and "make the best of his way to Baltimore." "Live or die," he
writes on the 29th, "I must ride. After all the disappointments, perhaps every purpose is answered
but one. I have sent Brother Kobler to take charge of Kentucky and Cumberland, by visiting the
whole every quarter. Brother Bird I have stationed in the Holston District. I have written a
circumstantial letter to Brother Poythress and the Kentucky Conference. I have made a plan for the
stationing of the preachers, at least those of any standing, and now I will make the best of my way
to Baltimore." The backward journey was severe, for, besides his ill health, he had sometimes to ride
"thirty miles to get to a house." "I must," he says, "be made perfect through sufferings." He took
refuge at last in a "retreat" near Baltimore, but in a few weeks he was abroad on his usual northward
route. In the latter part of the year, however, he was compelled, as we have seen, to lay by in
Virginia, and give his work chiefly into the hands of Lee.
In September, 1800, he was again on his way westward, with Whatcoat and McKendree, for the
purpose of introducing the latter as chief of the great field. We have already briefly glanced at their
expedition. By the first of October they were in Kentucky, and on the fourth were at Bethel, the site
of Poythress' academy, where they held the Western Conference. Whatcoat and McKendree, he says,
"preached. I was so dejected I could say little, but weep. Sabbath day it rained, and I kept at home.
Here is Bethel. Cokesbury in miniature, eighty by thirty feet, three stories, with a high roof, and
finished below. Now we want a fund and an income of three hundred per year to carry it on, without
which it will be useless. But it is too distant from public places. Its being surrounded by the river
Kentucky in part, we now find to be no benefit; thus all our excellences are turned into defects.
Perhaps Brother Poythress and myself were as much overseen with this place as Dr. Coke was with
the seat of Cokesbury. But all is right that works right, and all is wrong that works wrong, and we
must be blamed by men of slender sense for consequences impossible to foresee -- for other people's
misconduct. Sabbath day, Monday, and Tuesday, we were shut up in Bethel with the traveling and
local ministry and the trustees that could be called together. We ordained fourteen or fifteen local
and traveling deacons. It was thought expedient to carry the first design of education into execution,
and that we should employ a man of sterling qualifications, to be chosen by and under the direction
of a select number of trustees and others, who should obligate themselves to see him paid, and take
the profits, if any, arising from the establishment."
Besides Asbury's companions, the only preachers at the Conference were Burke, Sale, Harriman,
[37]
and Lakin. Its journal covers not a page of cap paper. After the session, still accompanied by
Whatcoat and McKendree; Asbury made his way, through formidable difficulties, to Cumberland.
By the nineteenth they were at Nashville, Tenn., where he reports a congregation of a thousand
people, in a "stone church, which, if floored, ceiled, and glazed, would be a grand house." On the