Very rare on the market, the first edition of the Funeral Discourse for the apostle of American Methodism, Francis Asbury. Far more than a funeral sermon, it was nigh near a spiritual biography of Asbury and a memorial of the founding years of the Methodist movement in America. 

Preached by Ezekiel Cooper [1763-1847], one of the earliest and most celebrated of the American Methodist preachers. He joined the Conference in 1785; labored from Boston to Baltimore as a traveling preacher for many years, and was editor and general agent of the Methodist Book Concern from 1799 to 1804.

His abilities for this office were soon shown to be of the highest order. He gave to the "Book Concern" an impulse and organization which has rendered it the largest publishing establishment in the New World. After managing its interests with admirable success for six years, during which its capital stock had risen from almost nothing to forty-five thousand dollars, he resumed his itinerant labors, and continued them in Brooklyn, New York city, Wilmington, Del., Baltimore. etc., He remained in the latter relation during eight years, when he re-entered the traveling ministry, but was soon afterwards placed on the supernumerary list in the Philadelphia Conference. He was distinguished for his pulpit eloquence, logical ability, earnest spirituality, and especially for his multifarious knowledge, which obtained for him among his brethren the title of "the Wallking Encyclopaedia." His influence could not be more adequately communicated than to know that upon Asbury's death, he was the one requested to address the Conference. 

Cooper, Ezekiel. The Substance of a Funeral Discourse Delivered at the Request of the Annual Conference, on Tuesday, the 23rd of April, 1816, in St. George's Church, Philadelphia: on the Death of the Rev. Francis Asbury, Superintendent, or Senior Bishop, of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Now Enlarged. By Ezekiel Cooper, Presbyter of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Philadelphia. Published by Jonathan Pounder. 1819. 229pp.

A good - copy, bound in original leather, shaken, with tender hinges, handled pages, and toned throughout.