Wesley Corpus

To William Black Date: LONDON, October 15, 1784. Source: The Letters of John Wesley (1784) Author: John Wesley --- MY DEAR BROTHER,--A letter of yours some time ago gave me hopes of meeting you in England, as you seemed desirous of spending some time here in order to improve yourself in learning. [See letter of July 13, 1783.] But as you have now entered into a different state, [His marriage. See letter of May 11.] I do not expect we shall meet in this world. But you have a large field of action where you are without wandering into Europe. Your present parish is wide enough - namely, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. I do not advise you to go any further. In the other Provinces [The United States.] there are abundance of preachers. They can spare four preachers to you better than you can spare one to them. [Freeborn Garrettson and James O. Cromwell were appointed to Nova Scotia at the end of the year. See letter of June 26, 1785 (to Garrettson).] If I am rightly informed, they have already sent you one or two; and they may afford you one or two more, if it please God to give a prosperous passage to Dr. Coke and his fellow laborers. Does there not want a closer and more direct connection between you of the North and the Societies under Francis Asbury Is it not more advisable that you should have a constant correspondence with each other and act by united counsels Perhaps it is for want of this that so many have drawn back. I want a more particular account of the Societies in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. And I wish you would give me a full account of the manner wherein God hath dealt with you from the beginning. I am not at all glad of Mr. Scurr's intention to remove from Nova Scotia to the South. That is going from a place where he is much wanted to a place where he is not wanted. [Mr. Scurr, one of the Methodists in whose house Black preached, bought an estate near Norfolk in Virginia; but almost all his family fell victims to the diseases incident to the climate. He repented too late that he had not taken Wesley's advice. See Richey's Memoir, pp.