History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

supplied for the purpose of emphasizing this portion as a sweeping and irresistible answer to all
quibbles and extenuations and pretenses and sophistries as to this substitution of Bishop for
Superintendent by Asbury.
There can be no doubt that Asbury made the change because he wished to augment authority by
its use. He made no mistake — it has subserved this very purpose, as the future will demonstrate.
The whole question will be exhaustively treated under the McCaine-Emory controversy, though the
gist of it is thus succinctly presented aside from the mass of literature extant upon the subject. The
concluding paragraph of the letter seems dewed with tears of the good old man, now in his
eighty-fifth year: "Thus, my dear Franky, I have told you all that is in my heart; and let this, when
I am no more seen, bear witness how sincerely I am your affectionate friend and brother, John
Wesley." It was his familiar, paternal style. A letter sent to William Black, missionary, and
superintendent afterward for the British dominions, a year before, is subscribed "Dear Billy." The
letter was written according to a well-known rule he had adopted through life: "Tell every one what
you think of him, and that plainly, else it will fester in your heart. Make all haste to cast the fire out
of your bosom." The concluding paragraph is tenderly pathetic. He wishes the letter to stand as a
witness of his true friendship for Asbury. The reader will marvel how he could suppress and destroy
it; and how Moore, who held the only other copy, could conceal it for thirty-six years. It is mildness
itself to declare that this was a part of the Wesley-Coke-Asbury proceedings, "questionable and
unwarrantable." Let the painful subject be dismissed.
Asbury and Coke traveled together and slept together for the next three months, but there is no
hint that the former ever named to the latter the Wesley letter, or, if he did, they agreed together, to
use a choice word of Asbury, as to other questionable conduct of his, to be "mute" about it. They
visited together the eleven Conferences of this year, extending in a chain from Georgia to New York.
Lee says, "Several of these Conferences were within thirty or forty miles of each other, which was
pretty generally disliked; but at that time the bishop had the right of appointing as many Conferences
as he thought proper, and at such times and places as he thought best." The ruling practical reason
probably was that it saved both time and expense to the preachers; and the prudential one probably
was that it secured dispatch of business and kept the preachers from concentrating and criticizing the
methods of the Bishops. There was much difference of opinion, and not a little opposition, now that
the bud of Episcopacy was nearly full blown. They discovered that voting, introduced by Asbury in
1784, if tradition be true, for his own establishment in the Primacy, is now discarded by him. He
wishes no more advice in the way of suffrage — it is found by him inconvenient. And then he was
justified because it was Wesley's way. Indeed, as has been found, when Coke made his former visit,
in 1787, he brought instructions from Wesley, already quoted: "Put as few things as possible to vote.
If you [Dr. Coke], brother Asbury, and brother Whatcoat are agreed, it is sufficient." It stands, also,
as a tacit protest against the voting in 1784, for Wesley "gave his sanction to none of those things."
Both Asbury's and Coke's account of their travels depict hardships almost incredible in the
American wilderness of the South; but their hearts were cheered everywhere with the news of
remarkable revivals of great power. Fourteen new circuits and stations were added; forty-five young
preachers received: for the itinerancy had a certain romantic charm and offered a vent for the burning
zeal of these new converts. There was a net increase of 5911 and a total of over 43,000, the vast
majority, as in the past, in the South. The six months' probationary rule was enacted in 1788, and has