Archive: Francis Asbury

The Man Who Launched American Methodism

By William K. Quick

The famous statue of Francis Asbury in Washington, D.C. depicts a rider in bronze, a weary rider astride a weary horse. Fatigue weighs heavily upon the man. There is a feeling of intense exhaustion. But under the wide brim of the low hat two burning eyes look out. They remind us not of Asbury’s incredible toils but of his boundless vision.

Methodism has produced few giants. Wesley was for real—the most authentic and, without doubt, our greatest. Asbury does not compare in talent or accomplishment to the founder of Methodism. Yet Asbury is equally praiseworthy. His place in American Methodism is unsurpassed.

Born in an obscure English village; sent as a stranger to another shore, without influence, wealth, or position; and called to assume control of a scattered band of churches in an hour of chaos—this man rode to the service of his fellows until thousands came to new life at his word, and all the nation held his name in honor. Mail was delivered to him with the simple address: “The Reverend Francis Asbury, America.”

An entry in Asbury’s Journal dated December 21, 1795, captures the spirit of his vision and his work: “We came down Brunswick County, North Carolina, 20 miles to Normans, within the line of South Carolina.

“This country abounds with bays, swamps and drains; if there were no sinners I would not go along these roads. I am in want of rest and would be glad to better fare. O for patience, faith, courage and every grace! Sometimes I feel as though I could rejoice to die and go home, but at other times the work of God is in my way, and sometimes my own unworthiness.”

Young Asbury was born to common people. His peasant father was a gardener, his mother, actively religious and devout. “My mother used to take me with her to the female meeting,” wrote Asbury, “which she conducted once a fortnight for the purpose of reading Scriptures. Then they thought, Frank might venture a word of exhortation, so after reading I would venture to expand. … ”

Asbury began to hold public meetings at age 17 and was not quite 18 when he started to preach. At about 21 he became an itinerant, supplying for an absent preacher. At the controversial Bristol Conference in 1771, when delegates were agitated over Calvinistic and Arminian theology, John Wesley asked for volunteers: “Our brethren in America call aloud for help. Who are willing to go over and help them?”

Five responded and two were appointed, including Asbury. He left the only home he’d ever known and set sail from Bristol.

At age 26 this studious, introspective lay preacher—with a thoughtfulness tinged with melancholy—wrote in his Journal, “Whither am I going? To the new world? What to do? To gain honor? No, if I know my own heart. To get money? No, I am going to live to God and bring others so to do.”

Great purpose

Those words may sound commonplace and unimpressive. But study them and you see the dominating force of a great purpose. In those days most people came to America either to get money, win honor, or seek adventure. None of these aims were in the mind of Francis Asbury.

He wrote, “If God does not acknowledge me in America, I will soon return to England.” He never returned. He came an Englishman; he became an American.

Arriving in Philadelphia, Asbury grew concerned about the preachers staying in the city. He began riding in the country to “show them the way.” “Gazing around” he called it. He preferred to tackle the back country’s raw, new settlements.

Asbury drove himself through all sorts of weather. And it made him so ill he nearly died. He so weakened his throat that it was repeatedly infected for the rest of his life.

Next he turned South, and the pattern of his arduous lifetime schedule became set. He preached mornings at 5 o’clock, some afternoons, most evenings, and two to three times on Sunday. He held prayer and worship meetings, visited prisoners, preached funerals, and rode 20 to 50 miles a day on horseback.

Crowds came to hear his preaching, and Asbury began to see results. Careless men became new men. Vigorous young converts joined the ranks of Methodist preachers.

However, success did not come cheaply. Listen to him: “Few hearers, few inhabitants, fewer still with any sense of religion” … “wicked people” … “inattentive.”

“At Island Creek I was poorly provided for against the weather, the house unfurnished and, to make matters worse, a horse kicked open the door. I took a cold, had a toothache, with a high fever. … If there were no sinners here, I would not go!”

Asbury suffered from a catalog of ailments: boils, fevers, inflammatory rheumatism, sore throat, weak eyes, bronchitis, asthma, toothache, ulcers in the throat and stomach, neuralgia, intestinal disorders, swollen glands, skin diseases, and finally “galloping consumption.” And all this in a day without aspirin, Anacin, Bufferin, Alka-Seltzer, or Preparation H.

He might have fared better had he chosen to marry. But Asbury was married to Methodism. He explained his choice of celibacy on the grounds of his calling: “I could hardly expect to find a woman with grace enough to enable her to live one week out of 52 with a husband; besides what right has any man to take advantage of the affection of a woman, make her his wife and by voluntary absence subvert the whole order and economy of the marriage state. … It is neither just nor generous.”

This first-elected bishop of American Methodism wanted his preachers to be poor, unworthy, and celibate—like himself. But the system floundered at this last point. Asbury’s preachers were red-blooded creatures who fell in love and wished to marry. They did, at a great rate, and he located them by the hundreds. He recalled one day to a friend, “The women and the devil will get all my preachers.”

Yet, Asbury had love and sympathy for the preachers whose lives and interests so largely were in his hands. He saw them as the fighting force of the church. If they succeeded, the church advanced. If they failed, the church lagged.

He knew all the preachers by name and face, and he made it a regular habit to pray for them. On occasion he’d write to them to advise, suggest, encourage. He worked side-by-side, not above them, not asking for himself any more than they had. He even drew the same salary: $64 per year from 1784 to 1800, then $80 per year until his death.

Potshots

Asbury’s dedication is evident. But he was never without his critics. He was the target of potshots from the beginning, when there were fewer than 1,000 American Methodists and less than a dozen pastors.

His preachers attacked him. Pilmoor complained that Asbury was “bossy.” O’Kelly called him a tyrant and accused him of “popery.” Some called him the biggest villain in America. They said his preaching would empty the church … that he sought power over men to drive and enslave them … that he was a tyrant over the poor preachers, vain and wanting honors, determined to rule or ruin. Even John Wesley accused Asbury of “strutting ” and calling himself a bishop because it was a higher sounding word than superintendent.

If Asbury at times seemed autocratic, it can be argued that this was necessary to bring order and discipline out of a chaotic condition. He was a sensitive person and felt deeply the attacks upon him. So he prayed that he might bear them patiently.

I find it interesting, however, that in Ezekiel Cooper’s funeral sermon for Asbury he said, “Probably in candor, we ought to admit he was more deficient in the exercise of patience than in any of the Christian graces.”

Asbury was no doubt irritable and impatient at times. The best of men are only men at best. Francis Asbury had his defects. Yet he endured what few men could or would have borne. He prayed constantly for patience, faith, courage, and every grace. Sometimes, however, he admitted feeling “as though I could rejoice to die and go home.”

His best purposes, at times, were misrepresented and distorted. The weight of all the church was upon him. Concern for the churches brought restless nights and sorrowful days. What grieved his soul as much as anything was discord and division among the brethren. He writes of one local society where “the leading members cannot speak of each other, or to each other, without bringing heavy accusations.”

He was indignant over the way blacks were treated. He records in 1802 a visit to a church where, “100 blacks [slaves] were standing outside peeping in at the door while the house was half-empty. They were not worthy to come in because they were black. Farewell, farewell to that house forever.” He never returned.

In the years just prior to his death, Asbury increasingly shifted from attempts to emancipate blacks to attempts to evangelize. Still, his early encouragement to the black Methodists was perhaps one of the most socially significant works of his life.

The work of God was so important that no season, no weather stopped him. He pressed on—an itinerant ever in the saddle; a preacher whose one business it was to win men to God.  If some didn’t think Bishop Asbury worthy of his title or equal to his influence, let it be said how well aware he was of his own unworthiness. His tender conscience never allowed him to think lightly of his own faults and imperfections.

In his Journal he is constantly taking his spiritual temperature or stretching his soul: “For my unholiness and unfaithfulness, my soul is humbled. … My heart is too cool towards God: I want to feel it like a holy flame.”

Blind hearers

He marveled that God could even use him. Not the most popular Methodist preacher, he never counted himself a skilled pulpiter. He often noted the response to his sermons and admitted they were “dry” or “dull ” or “heavy.” And the laymen sometimes agreed.

Once, because he was sick, Asbury asked Jesse Lee to preach in his place. Then Asbury exhorted following the sermon. The people thought Lee was Asbury and murmured, “The Bishop was fine but we didn’t like what the old man said who spoke afterwards.”

Asbury’s humor seldom comes through in his writings. But once he wrote, “I attempted to preach on the lame and the blind. I fear the sermon was very lame and it may be I left my hearers as I found them—blind.”

Asbury had a sense of unworthiness but it did not dim his vision: “God hath given us hundreds in 1800, why not thousands in 1801, yea, why not a million if we have the faith. Lord increase our faith.”

America has many statues of men on horseback—generals with sword in scabbard or unsheathed and waving aloft, beckoning their followers to advance. Methodism’s Man on Horseback has his sword in hand, too. But it is a different sword: “The Sword of the Spirit—the Word of God.”

Other monuments honor military greatness. The reason for Asbury’s monument is his total dedication to the invincible Christ, proclaimed in the Word of God.

During his 45-year ministry Asbury traveled over 270,000 miles on horseback, preaching 16,425 sermons, conducting 224 annual conferences, and ordaining over 4,000 ministers. When he came to America in 1771 there were fewer than 1,000 Methodists. When he died in 1816 there were 215,000. And by 1850 one out of every three church members in America was Methodist! Truly, as Bishop Hamilton said, “He printed the map of his ministry with the hoofs of his horse.”

President Calvin Coolidge said at the dedication of the Washington statue: “Who shall say where his influence, written upon the immortal souls of men, shall end?”