A History Of The Rise Of Methodism In America - Media Sabda Org

more than conversing on the things of God. His heavenly-mindedness, and uniform simplicity of
deportment, greatly endeared him to his brethren. Nearly his last words were, "I am not afraid to die:
Farewell, vain world, I'm going home, My Jesus smiles and bids me come."
Mr. William Wren appears to have been used to supply a place occasionally. It is possible that he
was from the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Mr. Hartley will be noticed more fully hereafter.
Mr. Asbury did not attend the Conference held in Baltimore; he was in Pennsylvania, in an
afflicted condition. He was appointed to Baltimore Circuit. Mr. James Foster was one of his
colleagues; and, coming from Virginia, where the work of God was gloriously prospering, he
brought the spirit of the work with him to Maryland.
Mr. James Foster was a native of Virginia, and among the first that came into the itinerancy from
that part of the work. He was an excellent man, a zealous and useful preacher. The toils and
privations of the itinerancy soon broke down the energies of his slender constitution, and he married,
and settled in life. Losing his wife, he moved into South Carolina. Here he found several Methodist
families that had moved from Virginia, and he commenced holding meetings and preaching, and
formed a circuit that was called Broad River. It appears that he re-entered the traveling connection,
and finally desisted in 1787.
"Mr. Foster possessed good preaching abilities, was remarkably amiable in his disposition, and
interesting in his personal appearance, and labored with great acceptance and usefulness. He was,
however, so abstemious in his habits of life, that that, together with his labors in the ministry, proved
too much for his physical strength, so that his mind sank with his body. Under mental derangement,
he wandered about for years, till he was relieved by death. In this state, he was still strict in his
habits, and inoffensive in his intercourse with the families he visited. He continued to take part in
family worship, when called on, with much devotion and propriety." Memoirs of Gatch, p. 84.
The health of Mr. Asbury was so poor that, for several months, it interrupted his regular work in
traveling and preaching.
After several days confinement at Mr. Gough's, he resolved to try the Warm Springs at Bath, in
Berkley county, Va. While at the Springs the circuit was supplied by Mr. Webster, now retired from
the itinerancy; and Mr. Lynch, one of Mr. Asbury's sons in the gospel, now a local preacher, and Mr.
Foster. Messrs. Gough and Merryman were with him at the Springs. That they might be useful they
held a meeting for prayer and exhortation every evening at one or the others lodgings; and Mr.
Asbury frequently preached.
But, he observes, "The zealous conversation and prayers of Mr. Gough seemed to move and melt
the hearts of the people more than my preaching." While at the Springs he met with a man that had
never before seen or heard a Methodist, and yet he was a Methodist in principle, experience, and
practice, having been brought to the knowledge of God by affliction, reading, and prayer. On one
occasion he rode seventeen miles to see a saint indeed, a woman that had been confined to her bed
for fifteen years, and happy in the love of God, though she had never seen a Methodist, nor any other
truly religious people. These cases show what God can do without human instrumentality. On