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THE NEW YORK
PUBLIC LIBRARY
163948

ASTOR, LENOX AND

TILDEN FOUNDATIONS.

1899.

Southern District of New-York, ss. BE IT REMEMBERED, That on the eighteenth day of April, A. D. 1826, in the fifty-first year of the Independence of the United States of America WILLIAM PIEBUS, of the said District, hath deposited in this office the title of a book, the right whereof he claims as proprietor, in the words following, to wit:

"Memoirs of the Rev Richard Whatcoat, Late Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church. By William Phœbus, M.D.

'Smitten friends are angels sent on errands full of love;

For us they languish, and for us they die :

And shall they languish, shall they die in vain?
Ungrateful, shall we grieve their hov'ring shades,
Which wait the revolution in our heart?

Shall we disdain their silent, soft address;

Their posthumous advice, and pious prayer?.... Young.'"

In conformity to the Act of Congress of the United States, entitled "An Act for the encouragement of Learning, by securing the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the time therein mentioned." And also to an Act, entitled "An Act, supplementary to an Act autitled an Act for the encouragement of Learning, by securing the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned, and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching historical and other prints."

FREDERICK I. BETTS,

Clerk of the Southern District of New-York.

To the Superintendent of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

REVEREND AND DEAR SIR,

I AM much indebted to you for the care and good counsel you have favoured me with for more than twenty years. All the compensation I can render you is, to ask you to accept some Memoirs of your late friend and brother, Bishop WHATCOAT :-a man universally respected by all who knew him;-useful while he was among us; and, though now with us no more on earth, his experience and active life say "follow me."

While I sit among his papers, I am like one on the top of a mountain, in view of two armies, one already victorious, and the other going on from one victory to another.The Bible being my glass, I am able to see by what means my precursor made such progress; namely, by order and heavenly influ

ence.

The sacred Scriptures inform me of the progress the student made under the direc

tion of the holy Prophet Samuel. By reading the poetry of David, I am constrained to say "Oh, what an age of golden days!". On turning to the lectures delivered by David's Lord, and David's Son, I perceive the proficiency the fishermen made in Christ's school, by the wisdom and zeal he inspired, so as to make them fishers of men, and the order they pursued in their holy conference for many years, while they were engaged in sowing precious seed and in saving souls from ruin, according to the Acts. of the Apostles. After having admired the glorious days of the apostles, next I turn to the martyrs in different ages of the world, and confessors of different countries, with the holy influence attending their words in a manner astonishing to the world. There is a connection with the word, the spirit, and the bride; and this connection is to be continued till the end of the world.

I now look over the history of my own times, the eighteenth century, (an age of wonders: the fragments saved by Bishop. Whatcoat, proving it to be no less,) and the disinterested benevolence of the Oxford Methodists; especially of that wonderful man John Wesley, late Fellow of Lincoln College,. Oxford, who has been under Christ, the apostle to our once heathen, but now happy country-once a wilderness, but now as the

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eden of the world; the habitation of dragons, but now as the garden of the Lord, made so to us in a special manner, through the men sent by the patriarch of my day, from the eastern to the western world, with that compact you now hold sacred in your hand, having received a charge not to mend, but to keep it; which has been the means of guiding many in the unity of the spirit, and the hond of peace. Therein every member of the community can read his duty, and his privileges are pointed out distinctly; so that thereneed be no mistake; or if any misconstruction, or undue application be made, it is presently apprehended. If any alteration should seem to be necessary, it must be from want of understanding, or in departing from the rule. Then, all that is requisite will be, to turn back to first principles, which are so self-evident, and expressed in language so appropriate to the divinity of the subject, that it must ever remain a monument of the wisdom of the man who made it, and the Conference which rendered it permanent by a fixed constitution. The Methodist Episcopal Church is one;-is truly federal; in all its stations and circuits it exhibits this same feature: as a wheel within a wheel.

It

began so, and has continued so, to my great joy, these fifty years. No annual or general Conference can alter it, without such a de

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parture as would be considered a breach of

trust.

It has been lately asserted, that Mr.Wesley appointed Richard Whatcoat a joint superintendent with Mr. Asbury. If it were so, I never heard of it till very recently; neither do any of his documents hint any thing like it. I have in his journal very minute circumstances mentioned, and, perhaps, every letter he ever received from Mr. Wesley; but nothing like such an appointment is mentioned directly or indirectly. If Mr. Wesley had done so, it would have been out of his way of doing things. I have never found in the Minutes of Conference that HE ever appointed more assistants to one circuit than one: one rector being sufficient to one parish, two would be more than enough. One head in a federal compact; that such was the opinion of Mr. Wesley, is evident from all his appointments and stations; also of Dr. Coke, Mr. Asbury, and Mr. Whatcoat,-whose place I am glad. to say you have filled by order of Providence. and Grace, and still do fill, to the joy of thousands.

Your obedient Servant,

THE AUTHOR.

New-York, April, 1828.

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