made a rule permitting the preachers to receive marriage fees. But, in the event of the preacher having received his full annual allowance, he was to pay over his marriage fees into what was called the Preachers' Conference Fund, for the purpose of aiding to meet, as far as possible, the necessities of such members of the Conference as had not received their annual allowance. For, small as the allowance was, it fell fifty per cent. short much oftener than it was paid in full. The original sum of sixty-four dollars for the preacher, the same for his wife, and sixteen and twenty-four dollars for each of their children, according to their respective ages, having, after a fair trial of sixteen years, been found to be painfully inadequate, was by the General Conference of 1800 increased to eighty dollars for the preacher, the same for his wife, and for each child under seven years sixteen dollars, and for each over seven and under fourteen years twentyfour dollars. No provision was made for children over fourteen years. It seems to have been taken for granted that they were then capable of earning their own living. This continued to be the allowance down to 1816, when the General Conference of that year raised the compensation to one hundred dollars per annum for the preacher, the same sum for his wife; but there was no increase for the children, the sum remaining as it was fixed in 1800. This was still the allowance or salary when I became a travelling preacher. It is but fair to state that subsequent legislation of the General Conference repealed the rule fixing a specific sum for the support of the preacher and his family, and substituted for it the following rule: "It shall be the duty of the Quarterly Conference of each circuit and station, at the session immediately preceding the Annual Conference, to appoint an estimating committee, consisting of three or more members of the church, who shall, after conferring with the preacher or preachers, make an estimate of the amount necessary to furnish a comfortable support to the preacher or preachers stationed among them, taking into consideration the number and condition of the family or families of such preacher or preachers, which estimate shall be subject to the action of

the Quarterly Conference. The travelling and moving expenses of the preachers shall not be reckoned as a part of the estimate, but be paid by the stewards separately." The law, you perceive, is ample for the preacher's comfort, whether the disposition and ability of the church to which he is appointed be ample or otherwise.

All things considered, Asbury, who was chief of the flying cohort, was also the greatest. There were greater preachers than he, though, when at his best, he was a great preacher. But in perception of character, soundness of judgment, force of will, personal influence over men, and in administrative talent he had no equal, while in zeal, earnestness, activity, courage, self-denial, and devotion he could have no superior. He never married. His reasons for remaining a bachelor are thus given in his Journal, under date of January 26, 1804:

"If I should die in celibacy, which I think quite probable, I give the following reasons for what can scarcely be called my choice. I was called in my 14th year, and began my public exercises between sixteen and seventeen. At 21 I travelled, and at 26 I came to America. Thus far I had reasons enough for a single life. It was my intention to return to Europe at 30 years of age; but the war continued, and it was ten years before we had a settled and lasting peace. At 39 I was ordained Superintendent Bishop of America. Among the duties imposed upon me by my office was that of travelling extensively; and I could hardly find a woman with grace enough to enable her to live but one week in fifty-two with her husband. Besides, what right has any man to take advantage of the affections of a woman, make her his wife, and, by a voluntary absence, subvert the whole order and economy of the marriage state, by separating those whom neither God, nature, nor the requirements of civil society, permit long to be put asunder? It is neither just nor generous. I may add to this that I had but little money, and with this little I administered to the necessities of a beloved mother till I was fifty-seven. If I have done wrong I hope God and the sex will forgive me. VOL. XII.-14

It is now my duty to bestow the pittance I have to spare upon the widows, and fatherless children, and poor married men of the conferences."

How many married preachers of the present day could give as good reasons for getting married as Bishop Asbury gave for remaining unmarried? He kept house in his saddle-bags. When not presiding in Conferences he was on horseback, and preaching wherever he found an open door. The original thirteen States and their territories constituted his diocese, and he traversed it annually from east to west and north to south, inspecting the field with his own eye, scaling mountains, fording rivers, threading pathless forests, exposed to the savage Indian, sleeping in the lofts of cabins, or on the ground, beneath the stars of God.

Jesse Lee, of Virginia, was unequalled in wit and unexcelled in popular oratory. And not even Mr. Asbury was a match for him in getting a foothold for the Methodist gospel in the midst of prejudice and opposition, or in handling the case of a persistent enemy.

Here mention might be made of Ezekiel Cooper, the strongest intellect and the most acute logician in the ranks of the Methodist ministry of that day; of William Penn Chandler, a Doctor of Medicine, who was converted and abandoned his medical practice to preach the gospel at his own expense, who was orator, revivalist, and administrator all in one; of Henry Boehm, son of a Mennonite preacher, who preached in English and German, and died recently, the oldest Methodist preacher in the world; of Thomas Ware, a worthy companion of the best, and excelled in gifts of mind and grace by few; of Lawrence McCoombs, who was a strong-backed and strong-willed man; a son of thunder and a son of consolation; great in the pulpit before an audience that would give him time to get warm; estimating learning, but valuing power with God and men most of all; a great presiding elder; of Lawrence Lawrenson, the most diffident of men, but of preachers at times one of the most overwhelming, whose sermons were heard by men who fancied that they shook the solid continent beneath their

feet, and were remembered, with tears in the eyes of their hearers, after the preacher had been in his grave for fifty years.

A few sentences only remain for two of the most remarkable of all the preachers whose names are associated with the introduction of Methodism into Pennsylvania, Solomon Sharpe and Henry White. Solomon Sharpe was a man of handsome and commanding presence. His intellectual powers were quick, vigorous, comprehensive, and highly original. To be brief, he was a genius, and was therefore necessarily, as some think, a man of eccentricities. His whole ministry was illumined with lightning-like displays of the divine presence to attest his message.

Henry White was born on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, was of poor but worthy parentage, and was in early life apprenticed to learn the trade of a blacksmith. He spent twenty years on districts as presiding elder, and so anxious were the people to hear him that many counted the weeks in eagerness for the Quarterly-Meeting Sabbath to roll round.

The growth of Methodism till it has encircled the globe, with all its influences of education and of benevolence and charity, did not come within the compass of the writer's plan. It was of the introduction only that this paper was to treat, and to this extent it is submitted to the pleasure of the Society.

REV. WILLIAM FRAZER'S

THREE PARISHES,-ST.

THOMAS'S, ST. ANDREW'S, AND MUSCONETCONG, N.J.,-1768-70.

BY HENRY RACE, M.D.

[Since the historical sketch of St. Thomas's Church of Alexandria, Hunterdon County, N.J., was published (PENNA. Mag., Vol. X. p. 256) there have been discovered copies of several letters written by Rev. William Frazer to Rev. Dr. Benton, one of the officers of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. Mr. Frazer, under the patronage of this society, was missionary in charge of the parishes of St. Thomas's, St. Andrew's, and Musconetcong from May, 1768, until the Revolution, and of the former two from the close of the war until his death, which occurred in 1795.

The copies are in Mr. Frazer's handwriting, and purport to have been made from the letters sent by him to Dr. Benton.

In addition to these Mr. Frazer's Marriage and Baptismal Records have also been found. The latter appears to be incomplete.

These interesting relics were discovered among old papers left by Mr. Robert Sharp, who was a warden of St. Andrew's Church in 1785.]

COPIES OF LETTERS FROM REV. WILLIAM FRAZER TO THE REV. DR. BENTON, IN ABINGDON STREET, WESTMINSTER, LONDON.

REVD SIR

Mr. Ayers and I sail'd from London a few days after our taking leave of you at your house in Abington Street and safely arrived at Philadelphia on 21 April after an agreeable passage of 7 weeks.

I repaired to my mission in two weeks after my arrival and met with a very kind reception from my three Congregations of Amwell, Kingwood and Muskenedkunk, and at their request my time is equally divided among them.

In Amwell there is the shell of a small stone church,'

1 St. Andrew's, at Ringoes, in the township of Amwell, Hunterdon County. This church has been rebuilt (1867) at Lambertville, a short distance from its former location, where there is a flourishing parish, under the rectorship of Rev. E. K. Smith, D.D.