quaintance with some of the first class of Methodist preachers on this continent: such as Jesse Lee, Philip Bruce, Nelson Reed, and others of the same class, the most of whom have since gone to their rest and reward. Perhaps the venerable Ezekiel Cooper is now the only survivor who can be considered as having belonged to that class of preachers. The conference at an early period of the session resolved to remove the remains of Bishop Asbury from Virginia, where he had died, and been buried in the latter part of March preceding, to the city of Baltimore, to be deposited in a vault which was to be prepared for that purpose under the pulpit or recess of the church in Eutaw-street. John W. Bond, who had attended the bishop during the latter years of his life, and at his death, was commissioned by the conference to superintend the removal. The original coffin was inclosed in lead, and put into another lined with pitch. When it arrived in front of the church in Lightstreet, the conference immediately adjourned, and formed itself as a family of mourners, followed or attended by a numerous throng, supposed by some to be thirty thousand, and proceeded to the Eutaw-st. church, where a short discourse was delivered by Bishop M'Kendree, whose health was too feeble to permit him to

speak more than fifteen or twenty minutes. A funeral anthem was then sung by the choir, after which the body was deposited in the vault which had been prepared.

While this service was being performed, and the multitude were pressed together, a swarm of pickpockets were busy at their accustomed work, and many lost their pocket-books, and some with a considerable amount of money. One preacher lost $400 of book money, and several others a less sum. Funeral sermons on the death of Bishop Asbury were preached in all our churches in the city on the following sabbath. Bishop Asbury was certainly, in several respects, a very extraordinary man, and had I the ability to do so, I would with pleasure delineate his character, and the more readily, as I think too little has been said and written of the zeal, labors, and sufferings of this apostolic man. He commanded a respect and veneration which no superintendent of our church at the present day can reasonably expect to receive: for though our present bishops may be worthy of honor, and perhaps "double honor," as "ruling well," yet they are but brethren; while Asbury had a claim to the title and relation of father, which no other man in our church had, or can have. I do not mean to say that he stood upon,

or urged this claim, but that it was voluntarily rendered to him by most of those who were capable of discerning his character. When his lameness and decrepitude are taken into the account, the labors which he performed, in traveling and preaching, from one end of this continent to the other, are truly astonishing. What his sufferings and privations were in an earlier day will probably never be fully known in time. But in the later years of his life I witnessed some circumstances which are still fresh in memory, one of which I will give.

When, in 1810, the bishop was on his way to attend the first session of the Genesee Conference, accompanied by Daniel Hitt, Henry Boehm, and several other preachers, he called and spent a few days with us at a camp meeting on Delaware circuit, where I was then stationed. From this meeting I accompanied them for a day or two, being acquainted with the geography of that part of the country. It was in the heat of summer; and after traveling until man and beast were weary and needed refreshment, we knew of no friendly family on whom we might call, for Methodists in that country were then few and far between; and I do not know that any of our company had money sufficiently plenty to justify our calling at a public house. So

riding on slowly and faint, we came to a wood, when the bishop ordered a halt. When all had dismounted, and our beasts were nipping the stinted growth of grass by the wayside, the bishop announced that under the seat of his two-wheeled chair, on which he rode, he had a few almond nuts, and directed that they should be taken out and spread upon the trunk of a fallen tree. When this was done, he devoutly asked a blessing thereon, and we were all invited to share therein. When we had finished our little repast, we started on again-the bishop appearing as cheerful as though he had dined at some richly furnished table.

But to return to the conference. Our deliberations proceeded with great unanimity of feeling, except when what was called the presiding elder question came up; and even then there was great decorum in debate.

At this session of the General Conference, the Rev. R. R. Roberts and Enoch George were elected bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church: with the latter I afterward became more familiarly acquainted than with any other of our superintendents, having been his traveling companion at different times for many hundred miles. And for apostolic simplicity and zeal, I believe he has had few equals, and no

superiors, since the commencement of the present century. Many solemn and pleasant seasons have I spent with him in prayer, when in the evening shades we have walked together into the fields or groves. But I shall wish to write more of Bishop George than my present sheet will contain. I will therefore reserve the remainder for another number.

NUMBER XIX.

I PROPOSED in my last to say something more of Bishop George. But I am aware that my powers of description are quite too meagre for my subject; yet I will state a few things of the man, and his manner or style of preaching. He had an utter aversion to everything like show or parade; and cared but little for appearances, or the customs of the world, and therefore could never be persuaded to sit, that his likeness might be taken. He once said to me when speaking on this subject, "If any painter ever gets my likeness to exhibit, he shall steal it, or catch it flying." Though he was a warm friend of learning and science, and spent a great number of years in teaching, yet he loathed the appearance of a pedantic display, or the foppery of learning.