The son of peasant parents, Asbury began to preach in Staffordshire, while yet a boy seventeen years of age; and, in 1771, came to Bristol to embark for America, without a single penny in his pocket. His first text in America was in perfect harmony with the forty-five years he spent in wandering through its woods and prairies: “I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.” As early as 1776, he made it a rule, besides travelling and preaching, to read a hundred pages daily, and to spend three hours out of every twenty-four in private prayer. Cabins of the most miserable description were, in thousands of instances, his happy homes; and often, when his horse cast a shoe in the wide wilderness, in the absence of a blacksmith’s shop, this grand old bishop of the American Methodists would make a piece of a bull’s hide, bound about his horse’s foot, serve in the place of iron. His daily rides were often from thirty to fifty miles, over mountains and swamps, through bridgeless rivers and pathless woods, his horse frequently weary and lame, and he himself wet, cold, and hungry. For forty-five years, when steamboats, stage coaches, railways, and almost roads, were utterly unknown, Asbury made a tour of the American states, travelling never less than five thousand, and often more than six thousand, miles a year, and this generally on horseback; climbing mountains; creeping down declivities; winding along valleys, whose only inhabitants were birds, wild beasts, and Indians; crossing extended prairies without a companion and without a guide; fording foaming rivers; and wading through the most dangerous swamps, where one false step might have engulfed him in a boggy grave. Usually, he preached at least once every week day, and thrice every Sunday; delivering, during his ministry in America, more than twenty thousand sermons. His custom was to pray with every family on whom he called in his wide journeyings; and if, as sometimes happened, he spent more days than one in some hospitable dwelling, he was wont to have household prayer as often as there were household meals, and to allow no visitor to come or go, without asking, on his knees, that God would bless him. Besides an unknown number of camp meetings and quarterly meetings, this venerable man attended and presided over seven conferences, widely separate, every year; and, during the same space of time, wrote to his preachers and his friends, upon an average, about a thousand letters. For this enormous service, his episcopal salary was sixty-four dollars yearly and his travelling expenses. Early educational advantages he had none. Most of his life was spent on horseback, in extemporised pulpits, or in log cabins crowded with talking men and noisy women, bawling children, and barking dogs,--cabins which he was obliged to make his offices and studies, and where, with benumbed fingers, frozen ink, impracticable pens, and