rious Call, Christian's Pattern,] Baxter's Saint's Rest, (both the last abridged by Mr. Wesley,) —, Mr. Wesley's Sermons, -, together with two or three dozen of tracts selected from our own list; to these may be added, [Portrait of St. Paul, Mrs. Rowe's Devout Exercises, Christian's Manual, &c,] as opportunity may allow, the Lives of [John and Charles Wesley, Fletcher, Benson, Garrettson,] John Nelson, Hester Ann Rogers, Lady Maxwell, &c. He who is thus furnished, and who has already tasted that the Lord is gracious,' and both earnestly desires. and steadfastly purposes, that his 'spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord,' is prepared for a profitable course of devotional reading. I do not mean to say that they who can afford the more expensive sacrifice should confine themselves to the pair of turtle doves and two young pigeons; I only wish to remind the Methodists, that the poorest of them may have on their closet shelf, if a small, yet an invaluable devotional library. And by the proper use of such books as I have mentioned, closet exercises would be rendered more advantageous by being made more delightful; and the certain union of delight and profit would produce such an attachment to the duty whence they were derived, that omission would never occur but when really unavoidable; and, then, there would be a feeling of real disappointment. Now, let us suppose, that in the course of the day only fifteen minutes could at one time be spared,—and that, surely, is an estimate so low as only to be applicable in few cases,-but take fifteen minutes. On entering your closet, breathe an earnest prayer for the promised presence and blessing of God. Give seven or eight minutes to reading and meditation; and then, with a mind thus composed, with affections thus rekindled, 'pour out your heart before God,' and commune with Him who seeth in secret.' Let the immediate matter of your communings be as your spirit may then and there prompt. Whether they chiefly consist of adoration, or praise, or confession, or prayer, or intercession, it signifies not. You are waiting upon God, and you shall renew your strength. Of the wisdom which is unto salvation,-of the love which elevates, and comforts, and purifies,-you shall receive a large increase. Thus using the appointed means, God'shall preserve you from falling;' and you shall not be of the number of them that draw back to perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.' And while your closet is a spiritual armoury, whence you may come prepared for battle and strengthened for victory, often shall it be as those delectable mountains, so delightfully alluded to by honest John Bunyan. Wide, and rich, and clear shall be your prospects of the promised land; and while you are thus animated by an ever-brightening hope, earthly things shall lose their power over you, and you shall pass through things temporal so as not to lose things eternal. And in this way shall you prove, that if religious declension ordinarily begins at the closet, a practical and diligent

attention to its sacred duties is one of the most effectual means of your establishment in the grace of God here, and your full and glorious salvation hereafter. E. T.

LIFE OF BISHOP ASBURY.

In a review of the Life of the Rev. F. Garrettson, in our number for July last, we took occasion to express our regret, 'that notwithstanding the employment of a gentleman for the purpose, some twelve or thirteen years since, and the payment of a considerable sum of money, a Life of Francis Asbury has not yet been produced.' We added:The gentleman originally engaged to furnish it, failed in the execution. The task was subsequently committed, by the General Conference, to another hand, which was soon after paralyzed by death, and the work with it. And we know of no farther attempt to complete it since.'

In a paper published in Baltimore, Dr. Samuel K. Jennings of that city, thought proper, some time in October last, to issue an article on this subject, which he introduces thus:

'MR. ASBURY'S LIFE.'

The editor of the Quarterly Review of the Methodist Episcopal Church, on the last page of his July number, in expressing his regret, that the Methodist public and the world had not been favored with a biography of Mr. Asbury, very obviously indicates a want of information on that subject. It is due to the Baltimore Annual Conference, that the necessary facts should be supplied by the subscriber, to whom the editor has an allusion.'

It is not our intention to enter into the details of Dr. Jennings's statement, farther than in regard to those respecting which we have personal knowledge and to what extent our former brief allusion to the subject indicates a want of information,' the reader will probably be better able to judge from what follows.

After reciting the resolution of the Baltimore Annual Conference that a Life of Bishop Asbury should be written; the appointment of a committee to carry the resolution into effect; his own engagement to become the writer, and that of a committee to assist him in procuring documents, facts, &c, and in the selection and arrangement of the materials, Dr. Jennings proceeds to state the difficulties and delays which subsequently occurred. He admits, however, that the greater part of Mr. Asbury's Journals then in manuscript, and unpublished, were afterward left with him; which, nevertheless, he considered altogether deficient for the production of a respectable biography. Nothing further, he says, was supplied, 'except a small bundle of papers of little value to the intended work, which was found by Mr. M'Kendree on a second visit to Mr. Hollingsworth; one small package sent from the west, by Mr. Thomas

L. Douglass; and one letter from South Carolina.' To which, in a subsequent paragraph, he adds, except only about five or six letters brought by Mr. Emory from England, which had been written by Mr. Asbury to his friends in that country.'

If Dr. Jennings, even after engaging to become the biographer of Bishop Asbury, on becoming convinced that, with his want of sufficient personal acquaintance with his subject, the documents and materials furnished were altogether inadequate, had thought proper to decline the task, with any reasonable notice to the committee, and without subjecting them to useless expense, we apprehend no censure could or would have been attached to him, from any quarter. And, supposing that part of his statement to which we have thus far alluded to be correct, it seems to us that, in such circumstances, this would have been the only course of propriety, whether in respect to his own reputation as a biographer, to the committee who had employed him, to the Baltimore Annual Conference, to the Methodist public,' or to 'the world.' Dr. Jennings, however, pursued a different course, and proceeds to give such a farther account of the matter as is to us surprising beyond measure. The reasons for this we will assign, after first quoting his statement.

Throughout the time of these delays, [he continues,] the subscriber still hoping that something more effectual would be done, had continued to write out scraps and paragraphs, in prospect of various topics, which he expected to notice in the contemplated work; amounting to several hundred pages; intending when the necessary materials should be collected, to submit his scraps, together with those materials, to the judgment of the committee, expecting their assistance in selecting and arranging them, agreeably to his understanding with Mr. Roszel, at the commencement of the undertaking.

Having read the manuscript Journal, and written many extracts from ît, in addition to the scraps and paragraphs above named, the subscriber considered it was necessary to bring the business to a close. With this intention, he waited on the Conference at Alexandria, and requested a meeting of the committee. Some time after the rising of the Conference, the committee met and sent for the manuscripts of the subscriber; but neither invited, nor summoned him to attend in person, nor asked for note, comment, or explanation. The committee however proceeded with great formality to read the scraps, all crude as they were; and not being informed of their expected or intended connexions or applications, they must have been to them unintelligible. They nevertheless took notes upon this miscellaneous collection of scraps, as if it had been submitted by the subscriber, all ready for the press ;-his best effort, as the writer of Mr. Asbury's Life. They continued to meet and read, and take their notes for several days; and at length formally adjourned, having directed their secretary to serve the subscriber with a copy of their notes, and a formal report condemning his work. The subscriber has never understood these proceedings of the committee, which were inevitably as offensive as they were unjust, unexpected, and apparently

hostile; and he felt determined to have nothing more to do with the business.'

If Dr. Jennings intended this statement as an argumentum ad ignorantiam, it might, perhaps, at some other period, in some other place, and in other circumstances, have had its effect. It might at least have served to exhibit the committee of the Baltimore Annual Conference, as a set of very rude, unjust,' and 'apparently hostile' simpletons-men who could send and demand from him a parcel of unintelligible' miscellaneous scraps,' all crude as they were,' written merely in prospect of various topics,' and proceed 'with great formality' to read and take notes on this miscellaneous collection of scraps, as if it had been submitted by the subscriber, [Dr. Jennings,] all ready for the press;-his best effort as the writer of Mr. Asbury's Life.' But that Dr. Jennings should attempt to place this committee before the public in such a light, and to take credit to himself on such grounds, while all the members of the committee are yet living, while the thing as it was is fresh in their recollection, and while such an amount of original and authentic documents in the case is lying before us, is a proceeding which would have been beyond our belief were not the fact before our eyes. He must be aware, too, that we are in possession not only of 'information' on the subject, but of personal knowledge; and how, in view of this, he could persuade himself to put forth such a statement as he has, is utterly beyond even our power of conjecture, except on the single supposition that his memory had entirely failed him, which, in regard to this matter, we charitably hope has been the case. That he could be so regardless of what is due to the committee and to the public, as well as to himself and to truth, as wilfully to make what we know to be so gross a misstatement, would be contrary to any opinion that we had entertained of him.

Dr. Jennings has, inadvertently we hope, left his readers liable to misapprehension, from confounding two distinct committees, appointed by the Baltimore Annual Conference in relation to the subject in question. The first committee which he mentions, and of which he says, (though erroneously,) Mr. Roszel was chairman, was that by which he was engaged to become the writer of Bishop Asbury's Life, and whose assistance he was to have in collecting, collating, and selecting materials for the work. But the committee appointed by the Conference held in Alexandria, which he also mentions promiscuously with the other, was a new committee, then first appointed, in consequence of Dr. Jennings's communication to that Conference, and whose sole and express business was to receive and examine his manuscript, so far as he had stated it to be then ready, and if they approved it, to place it in the hands of the book agents for publication. When Dr. Jennings, therefore, after caricaturing the proceedings of this last committee, says, in immediate connexion with it, Afterward, however, the committee again assembled, and invited his attention,' &c, his readers, we

presume, must necessarily understand him to mean this latter committee. If so, it is an error; for this committee had no such afterinterview, and any such proceeding on their part would have been wholly foreign from their instructions, and the purpose of their appointment.

The true history of this business, as Dr. Jennings now compels us to give it, is, in brief, as follows:

At the Annual Conference held in Baltimore, in March 1817, Bishop M'Kendree first introduced the subject of compiling a Life of Bishop Asbury. The Conference concurred in his views, and a committee to carry them into execution was appointed, consisting of Rev. Messrs. N. Reed, S. G. Roszel, J. Wells, W. Ryland, and Dr. H. Wilkins; with authority to employ a compiler. It was by this committee that Dr. Jennings was subsequently employed.

At the Annual Conference held in Baltimore in March-April 1818, Dr. Jennings came before the Conference, and gave, we believe, a verbal outline of his plan, which was favorably received. It does not appear that the complaints which he now makes, were then made to the Conference; nor even at the Conference a year afterward, in March 1819. How his outline' was to be filled up, remained still to be seen. That much was expected from him, is highly probable; and the Conference was, doubtless, most kindly disposed to render him its prompt encouragement.

At the Annual Conference held in Alexandria, (D. C.,) in March 1819, Dr. Jennings appeared in person before the Conference, and made a verbal communication of his successful progress in the biography. It was thereupon resolved by the Conference,

That the book agents be and are hereby requested to publish the Life of Bishop Asbury, as soon as the manuscript shall be placed in their hands by the committee who may be appointed to examine the manuscript for publication. It was also ordered, that the secretary do give notice to the book agents of this resolution. It was, on motion, [farther] resolved, that a committee of seven be appointed to examine the manuscript Life of Bishop Asbury, with a view to its publication; whose duty it shall be to take time, and diligently and carefully to examine the said manuscript, and if in their judgment it ought to be published, to put it into the hands of the book agents; but if in the opinion of the committee it ought not to be published, it shall be their duty to report to the next Baltimore Annual Conference. In the above examination it shall always require at least five of the committee to constitute a quorum to act. Brothers N. Reed, Roszel, Wells, Burch, Waugh, Griffith, and Emory, were appointed the above committee.'

From the above resolutions, passed on the spot, and immediately after hearing Dr. Jennings, it is perfectly manifest that the Conference understood him to offer his manuscript, so far as he had proceeded, as then ready for the press. With this specific view the committee to examine it was appointed; and the instruction given to this committee was simply, if in their judgment it ought to be VOL. II.-January, 1831.

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