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Francis Asbury (//, August 20, 1745 – March 31, 1816) was one of the first two bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States. As a young man in October 1771, the Englishman traveled to America and, during his 45 years there, he devoted his life to ministry, traveling on horseback and by carriage thousands of miles to those living on the frontier. Asbury spread Methodism in America, as part of the Second Great Awakening. He also founded several schools during his lifetime, although his own formal education was limited. His journal is valuable to scholars for its account of frontier society. ==Biography== Francis Asbury was born at Hamstead Bridge, Staffordshire, England on August 20 or 21, 1745, to Elizabeth and Joseph Asbury. Wanting him to become the Archbishop of Canterbury, his mother read the Bible to him, sang him hymns, and prayed over him.〔Asbury, Herbert. 1927. ''A Methodist Saint: The Life of Bishop Asbury, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., pg. 1〕 Asbury became a local lay preacher for Methodist meetings at age 18. At age 22, John Wesley appointed him as a traveling preacher. His boyhood home still stands and is open as a museum in West Bromwich, England. In 1771 he volunteered to travel to America. Within the first 17 days of being in the colonies, Asbury had preached in Philadelphia and New York. During the first year he was Wesley’s assistant and preached in 25 different settlements. When the American War of Independence broke out in 1776, he and James Dempster were the only Methodist ministers to remain in America.〔The Story of Barratt's Chapel, http://barrattschapel.org/story.html accessed 11 September 2015〕 In 1780, he met the freedman "Black Harry" Hosier, a meeting Asbury considered "providentially arranged".〔 Hosier served as his driver and guide and, though illiterate, memorized long passages of the Bible while Asbury read them aloud during their travels. He eventually became a famous preacher in his own right, the first African American to preach directly to a white congregation in the United States.〔Smith, Jessie C. ''Black Firsts: 4,000 Ground-Breaking and Pioneering Historical Events'' (3rd ed.), (pp. 1820–1821 ). "Methodists: 1781". Visible Ink Press (Canton), 2013. Accessed 17 October 2013.〕 In 1784, John Wesley named Asbury and Thomas Coke as co-superintendents of the work in America. The Christmas Conference that year marked the beginning of the Methodist Episcopal Church of the United States. For the next 32 years, Asbury led all the Methodists in America. However, his leadership did not go unchallenged. His idea for a ruling council was opposed by such notables as William McKendree, Jesse Lee, and James O'Kelly. Eventually a General Conference to which delegates could be sent was established on the advice of Asbury's fellow bishop Thomas Coke in 1792. Like Wesley, Asbury preached in myriad places: courthouses, public houses, tobacco houses, fields, public squares, wherever a crowd assembled to hear him. For the remainder of his life he rode an average of 6,000 miles each year, preaching virtually every day and conducting meetings and conferences. Under his direction, the church grew from 1,200 to 214,000 members and 700 ordained preachers. Among the men he ordained was Richard Allen in Philadelphia, the first black minister in the United States. In the fall of 1800, Asbury attended one of the events of the Revival of 1800 as he travelled from Kentucky into Tennessee. The combined Presbyterian and Methodist communion observance made a deep impression on Asbury as an early experience with multi-day meetings which included camping on the grounds of the meeting house. The experience, recorded in his journal, illustrates an early identity between religious revivalism and what would later become a staple of nineteenth-century Methodism, the camp meeting. In 1813, Asbury wrote his will. This was a time when “the greatest membership gain in the history of the church” was achieved.〔Duren, William Larkin. 1928. Francis Asbury, Founder of American Methodism and Unofficial Minister of State, New York: The Macmillan Company. Pg. xiii〕 In 1814 his health started to fail and he became ill. In 1816 he started to regain strength and continued his preaching journey. He “preached his last Sermon in Richmond, Virginia” on March 24, “and dies at the home of George Arnold near Fredericksburg” on March 31.〔 In an exciting time in American history, Asbury was reported to be an extraordinary preacher. Biographer Ezra Squier Tipple wrote: "If to speak with authority as the accredited messenger of God; to have credentials which bear the seal of heaven ... if when he lifted the trumpet to his lips the Almighty blew the blast; if to be conscious of an ever-present sense of God, God the Summoner, God the Anointing One, God the Judge, and to project it into speech which would make his hearers tremble, melt them with terror, and cause them to fall as dead men; if to be and do all this would entitle a man to be called a great preacher, then Asbury was a great preacher." Bishop Asbury died in Spotsylvania County, Virginia. He was buried at Mount Olivet Cemetery, in Baltimore, near the graves of Bishops John Emory and Beverly Waugh. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Francis Asbury」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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