Died – on the 19th inst., at the seat of Mr. Edwin BECTON, Jones County, the Rev. Selby H. WYES, aged about 43.
Mr. WYES was a gracious and useful man. He was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church and freely gave himself up to seek and save perishing sinners. Though not regularly attached to the travelling connexion, he had been a laborious itenerant Preacher nearly three years. His ministry was not without seals in New River; and in Raleigh Circuit, his meekness, love, prayers, tears, sermons, and exhortations will not soon be forgotten.
He wanted no appeal from labor, danger, or suffering. His willing soul said with Isaiah, “Here am I, send me,” – -and, when struggling with the king of terrors in the arms of death, his supreme desires appear to have been, “to recommend his Savior to others and to make a speedy believing application to him for safety and happiness.” As he lived, so he died, a Christian, in full expectation of a blessed immortality.
“Far from a world of toil and strife,
He’s present with the Lord,
The labors of his mortal life,
End in a rich reward.”
Source: New Bern Sentinel. 1 Dec 1821. pg. 3.