Asbury died in Virginia, about two months
before the session of the General Conference, aged more than
seventy years, and after preaching more than half a century.
He had labored, as a founder of Methodism in America, about
forty-five years. His last sermon was delivered in Richmond,
Va., on the 24th of March, 1816; he had to be assisted into
the pulpit, and to sit while preaching. He was buried in
Spottsylvania, but his remains were disinterred and taken to
Baltimore, where the Conference entombed them, with solemn
ceremonies, beneath the pulpit of Eutaw-street Church. Dr.
Bangs, to whom he had been as a father, has recorded his
best eulogy: "His attitude in the pulpit was graceful,
dignified, and solemn; his voice full and commanding; his
enunciation clear and distinct; and sometimes a sudden burst
of eloquence would break forth in a manner which spoke a
soul full of God, and, like a mountain torrent, swept all
before it. During the forty-five years of his ministry in
America, allowing that he preached on an average one sermon
a day — and he often preached three times on a Sabbath — he
delivered not less than sixteen thousand four hundred and
twenty-five sermons, besides lectures to the societies, and
meeting classes. Allowing him six thousand miles a year,
which it is believed he generally exceeded, he must have
traveled, during the same time, about two hundred and
seventy thousand miles, much of it on the very worst roads.
From the time of the organization of the Church, in 1784, to
the period of his death, thirty-two years, allowing an
average of seven Conferences a year, he sat in no less than
two hundred and twenty-four Annual Conferences, and in their
infancy their business devolved chiefly upon himself; and he
probably consecrated, including traveling and local
preachers, more than four thousand persons to the sacred
office! Here then is a missionary bishop worthy of the name,
whose example may be held up for the imitation of all who
engage in this sacred work. His deadness to the world, to
human applause, to riches and honors, and his deep devotion
to God, made an impression upon all who witnessed his spirit
and conduct that he was actuated by the purest and most
elevated motives. This pervading impression wrought that
confidence in the uprightness of his intentions and the
wisdom of his plans, which gave him such a control, over
both preachers and people, as enabled him to discharge the
high trusts confided to him with so much facility and to
such general satisfaction. Hence the apparent ease with
which he managed the complicated machinery of Methodism,
guided the councils of the Conferences, fixed the stations
of the preachers, and otherwise exercised his authority for
the general good of the entire body" (History of the
Methodist Episcopal Church vol. 2, bk. v, ch. 2).
In his manuscript notes of this
Conference I find equally emphatic words in praise of this
great man, but qualified by frank though tender
animadversions on his administration. "There are," he says,
"two particulars in which I always thought Bishop Asbury
erred. I speak indeed with great deference when I presume to
differ from such a man, for I cannot but feel a profound
veneration for his character. I think, however, that he
showed not enough interest for the intellectual improvement
of the preachers and too great a solicitude to keep them
poor. If he had encouraged measures to provide a competency
for men of heavy and expensive families, and promoted human
learning as a subordinate help to the ministry, I think he
would have thus rendered essential service to the Church.
Having no family of his own to provide for, he did not
sympathize with parental affections and anxieties as he
otherwise would have done; and hence I am inclined to think
that he was not sufficiently attentive to the sufferings of
many of the preachers and their families in the frequent and
distant removals to which they were subjected. That there
were faults in his administration I think all who witnessed
it must allow. He knew well the history of the early Church;
he knew that wealth of 'science, falsely so called,' had
corrupted it, and he feared their influence on Methodism.
But whatever defects there might have been in these
particulars of his policy, his inextinguishable zeal for the
salvation of men, his large views of God's immense love for
our lost world, his thorough knowledge of theology, his deep
experience of the grace of God, his manly as well as his
Christian virtues, his unparalleled labors, his patient
sufferings for so long a time, unequaled by those of any of
his preachers, his masterly ability in directing the
operations of the Church over much of the continent, justly
secured to him the confidence of his brethren and the
veneration and wonder of all who knew him"