Classic Poem

This wayside chapel ready lay
Upon a churchly Saturday,
To hold the traveling preachers' trysts
And Bishops give the Methodists.

Astray, Asburys tears awoke;
Wesley to greet in Doctor Coke,
Who, Oxford graduate in bands,
Prescribed the laying on of hands.

They two invoked the heavenly host,
With Wesley for the Triune Ghost;
By zeal and independence led,
To give the Western church a head.

Rectors of old had fled afar,
Their forty parishes in war,
And Wesley left his fold a prey
Over the long Peninsula.

The vacant see Coke saw and filled,
By education eagle-willed,
Founded a college and no more
His mitre wore on sea or shore.

Asbury, Bishop-hearted, won
The sole command, like Washington,
Marshalled his army till it pressed
To North and South and East and West.

I lay my chaplet at his kirk,
Who set plain men to higher work,
Made pastors loved, of humble ones,
And moved earth farther for their sons.