Life and Work of Bishop Francis Asbury

Extract

Among the creators of the American nation is Bishop Francis Asbury. Not as a discoverer, a military chieftain, a philosopher, a legislator, or diplomatist, but as a purifier of the nation's morals in its germ. While a galaxy of great men like George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, and Alex. Hamilton were fighting for liberty, laying the foundation of government and building up a peerless system of free institutions, Asbury was devoting himself assiduously to the culture of the nation's heart. Nor did he do this with towering intellect like that of Jonathan Edwards, or classic writing like that of Timothy Dwight, or flaming oratory like that of George Whitefield, but by simple unsophisticated preaching, prayer, and expostulation throughout the length and breadth of the colonies and infant States.