Biography
Francis Asbury was born on August 20, 1745, in Handsworth, England, near Birmingham. His father was a gardener, and his mother was a devout woman who loved to read the Bible and pray. He was a thin and sickly child, and he had little schooling. He left school at the age of twelve to work as an apprentice in a blacksmith's shop. In his teens he was drawn to the Methodist meetings that were being held in the area. He was converted at about the age of fifteen and soon began to preach as a lay preacher. At twenty-one, he was admitted on trial as a traveling preacher for John Wesley's societies.
In 1771, at the age of twenty-six, he volunteered to go to America, where Methodism was young and weak. He sailed in a ship that carried few passengers, and he wrote in his journal that he was uncertain but willing. He arrived in Philadelphia in October 1771. He saw that the leaders of the Methodist societies were staying in the cities, and he went out into the countryside. He took to the road on horseback, preaching in barns, houses and fields. He often rode forty or fifty miles a day. He lodged in rough cabins, ate coarse food and slept on floors.
When the Revolutionary War broke out, most of Wesley's English preachers returned home. Asbury stayed. He was suspected of being a Tory, and at times had to hide. He kept riding and preaching in the face of danger. In 1784, after the war, Wesley sent Thomas Coke to organize the Methodist societies in America into a church. At the Christmas Conference in Baltimore, the Methodist Episcopal Church was formed, and Asbury was ordained deacon, elder and bishop in successive days. He insisted that his election by the preachers be a condition of his acceptance, rather than only Wesley's appointment.
As a bishop, he traveled constantly. For more than forty years, he rode about 270,000 miles on horseback and preached some sixteen thousand sermons. He visited every state in the Union and crossed the Appalachian mountains many times. He appointed preachers to their circuits, held conferences and kept the discipline of the church. He demanded much from his preachers and expected them to be unmarried or to remain poor. Many of them died young. He himself never married, and he spent his life in the saddle.
Under his leadership, the Methodist church grew from about six hundred members in 1771 to more than two hundred thousand by the time of his death. It became the largest Protestant denomination in America. The circuit riders carried the gospel to the frontier, and the camp meetings were part of the spread of the Second Great Awakening. His success rested on the discipline of the system and on the willingness of ordinary men to give their lives.
He was a stern man. He was often harsh with the preachers and was accused of being autocratic. He held strong views on the consecration of the church, and on the matter of slavery, he spoke against it early on and then, as the church grew in the South, did not press the issue as hard. This has remained a point of criticism. He also suffered from poor health throughout his life, with asthma and fevers. He kept going in spite of the pain.
He died on March 31, 1816, in Spotsylvania, Virginia, on the way to a conference. He was seventy years old. He had never owned a home or any property. His life shows what perseverance and discipline can do, and how a single man with a horse and a Bible can shape a nation.