Wesley Corpus

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. 48, 128.] I think if he got 10,000 thereby, it would be but a poor bargain; that is upon the supposition, which you and I make, that souls are of more value than gold.