VOLUME 4 — BOOK VI — CHAPTER X
METHODISM IN THE WEST, CONTINUED: 1804-1820

John Strange — His great Eloquence — Russell Bigelow's Character and Eloquence — Bishop Thomson's Account of one of his Forest Sermons — Sketch of Henry B. Bascom — Of Thomas A. Morris — Of John P. Durbin — Advance of Methodism in the Southwest — Elisha W. Bowman In Louisiana — His Explorations and Hardships — Scene between Asbury and Jacob Young at Governor Tiffin's Home — Young in the Southwest — Lorenzo Dow there — Axley's Sufferings and Achievements — Sketch of William Winans — Other Southwestern Itinerants

John Strange, a Virginian, born in 1789, was one of the most successful evangelists of Methodism in Ohio, whither he went in his twentieth year. He commenced preaching in 1811; in many parts of the northwestern territory he labored powerfully, though oppressed with chronic disease, down to 1882, when he "died in great peace," at. Indianapolis, while at the head of the Indianapolis District. "He was," says a fellow-laborer, "one of the brightest lights of the American pulpit, in the Valley of the Mississippi, in the early part of the present century. He was formed by nature to be eloquent. He was tall and slender, and stood remarkably erect. His bearing was that of one born to command; and yet combined with this there was a gentleness and softness of manner that never failed to win the hearts of those with whom he came in contact. His hair was raven-black, and his eyes blue and generally mild; but, when he was animated, they became remarkably brilliant and penetrating. His voice was unsurpassed, as far as my knowledge extends, for its compass, and the sweetness, richness, and variety of its tones. He could elevate it, without apparent effort, so as to be heard distinctly twenty or thirty rods in the open air; and yet it would retain all its melody. He could sing, pray, or preach for any length of time, without becoming in the least degree hoarse. Such was the power and attractiveness of both his matter and manner, that, when he could ascend the stand at camp-meeting, many who were scattered through the surrounding woods would hasten with all possible speed to the camp ground, that they might lose nothing that he should say. There were times when his audience were held spell-bound by his eloquence, and sometimes they were even raised 'en masse' from their seats. Few men were ever more devoted to the interests of the Church, or more habitually under the influence of an all-pervading sense of duty, than John Strange. When, in 1814, he traveled White Water circuit, then a sparsely settled frontier, he would go from one block-house to another in the exercise of his ministry, while he was actually obliged to carry his gun from his shoulder, to defend himself from the Indians. Such self-sacrificing efforts greatly endeared him to the people, and his monthly visits to the block-houses and forts were hailed with delight. Language cannot describe the pathetic and impressive manner in which, on such occasions, he would sing the hymn beginning, 'And are we yet alive!' The hymn itself was most touching; and, taken in connection with his manner of singing it, and the circumstances which it so aptly described, it was quite irresistible." [1]

A bishop of the Church describes his appearance in the pulpit as "peculiar, most angelic." He "had a certain ethereal expression of countenance. When he opened his lips you heard a voice, clear and shrill, of immense compass and perfect melody, that well-nigh entranced you. Presently the spirit within would begin to kindle, and then his countenance would take on a seraphic glow, as if it were a fountain of sunbeams. His intonations, his emphasis, his pauses, every thing pertaining to his elocution, seemed exactly adapted to convey his thoughts in the most fitting, graceful, and effective manner. There was no appearance of any great effort in his preaching; it seemed rather like the simple moving of a wonderful mind, in the bright and lofty path which the Creator had constituted as its native element. I should pronounce him unhesitatingly a man of the highest style of genius. He had a great fund of ready wit, and always knew how to say the best thing, at the best time, and in the best manner.[2]

Traditions of his eloquence and usefulness are rife through all Ohio. He was an accomplished and heroic soldier of the cross, and won innumerable trophies. Just before he died, his last words to a friend were, "Serve God and fight the devil."

Superior even to Strange, as a preacher, was Russell Bigelow, a man of inferior presence, but of astonishing eloquence, of which the elder Methodists of Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio never tire of speaking, though they can only describe it as "indescribable." He was born in New Hampshire, lived in Canada, where he became a Methodist, and emigrated to Ohio in 1812. In his twentieth year he began to exhort, and in 1814 joined the conference, and commenced his itinerant labors in Kentucky. In 1816 he was sent to Ohio, where he continued to labor as circuit preacher, Indian missionary, and presiding elder, down to 1834, when he was returned superannuated, and the next year died, "shouting the praises of his heavenly King." [3] President Thomson, (afterward bishop,) when a young student, was attracted by his fame to hear him at a camp-meeting. "Never," he writes, "was I so disappointed in a man's personal appearance. He was below the middle stature, and clad in coarse, ill-made garments. His uncombed hair hung loosely over his forehead. His attitudes and motions were exceedingly ungraceful, and every feature of his countenance was unprepossessing. The long hair that came down to his cheeks concealed a broad and prominent forehead; the keen eye that peered from beneath his heavy and over-jetting eyebrows, beamed with intelligence; the prominent cheek bones, projecting chin, and large nose, indicated any thing but intellectual feebleness; while the wide mouth, depressed at its corners, the slightly expanded nostrils, and the 'tout ensemble' of his expression, indicated both sorrow and love, and were in admirable keeping with the message, 'Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.' His words were pure and well-chosen, his accent never misplaced, his sentences grammatical, artistically constructed, and well arranged, both for harmony and effect. Having stated and illustrated his position clearly, he laid broad the foundation of his argument, and piled stone upon stone, hewed and polished, until he stood upon a majestic pyramid, with heaven's own light around him, pointing the astonished multitude to a brighter home beyond the sun. His argument being completed, his peroration commenced. The whole universe seemed now animated by its Creator to aid him in persuading the sinner to return to God, and the angels commissioned to descend from heaven to strengthen him. As he closed his discourse, every energy of his mind and body seemed stretched to the utmost point of tension. His soul appeared too great for its tenement; his lungs labored; his arms were lifted the perspiration, mingled with tears, flowed in a steady stream from his face, and everything about him seemed to say, 'O that mine head were waters!' The audience were well-nigh paralyzed beneath the avalanche of thought that descended upon them. I lost the man, but the subject was all in all. I returned from the ground, dissatisfied with myself, and saying within me 'O that I were a Christian!' he preached to audiences as large, and with results as astonishing, as I have ever witnessed. He was a perfect gentleman. While the circles of fashion delighted to honor him, he 'condescended to men of low estate.' He asked no one to stand in his place in the hour of trial; yet, after the sharpest conflict and most glorious mental conquest, he was ready to wash the feet of the humblest saint. Moreover, he seemed to have a method of hiding and diminishing his own excellences, while he sought to magnify those of others. He was, however; as far as possible from anything mean or groveling; indeed, there was an exquisite delicacy about all his thoughts, illustrations, and manners. His mind seemed filled with beautiful analogies, by which he could rise from the material to the spiritual, and make an easy path to heaven from any point of earth. Wherever he went he was hailed as a messenger of God; and whenever he departed, it seemed as if an angel were taking leave."

Along with these extraordinary men young Henry B. Bascom appeared in the Western itinerancy. Born in Pennsylvania in 1796, he removed to Kentucky, and thence to Ohio in 1812, and the same year became a class-leader and exhorter. The next year he joined the conference, and began the itinerant career, which soon rendered his fame national, as one of the most noted pulpit orators of the new world. Down to 1823 he filled laborious appointments in Ohio, Western Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky. In the last year he was elected chaplain to Congress, through the influence of Henry Clay. At the close of the session of Congress "he spent some time in Baltimore and its neighborhood, and by the remarkable power and splendor of his preaching well-nigh entranced a large portion of the community. From Baltimore he proceeded to Philadelphia, and thence to Harrisburg, and, wherever he preached, attracted an immense throng of admiring hearers. Having finished this eastern tour he obtained a transfer to the Pittsburgh Conference, an was stationed in the city of Pittsburgh. In his second year in this conference he was appointed the conference missionary. In 1827 he was elected president of Madison College, in Uniontown, Pa. He accepted the place, and, in his inaugural address, displayed a degree of rhetorical force and beauty that quite electrified his audience. In 1829 he resigned the presidency of Madison College, and accepted an agency for the American Colonization Society. In 1832 he was elected professor of Moral Science and Belles-lettres, in Augusta College, Kentucky. Here he remained about ten years. In 1838 the degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred upon him by the Wesleyan University, at Middletown, Conn.; and the same degree was subsequently confirmed by two or three other institutions. In 1845 he was honored with the degree of Doctor of Laws from the La Grange College in Alabama. [4]

He was a delegate in the General Conference of 1844, when the Church was divided, was prominently active in that event, and shared in the Southern Methodist Convention at Louisville in 1845, and also in the Southern General Conference of 1848, by which he was appointed editor of the Southern Methodist Quarterly Review. The General Conference of 1849 elected him bishop. On the last Sunday of July,1850, he preached his last sermon in St. Louis; an effort of great eloquence, occupying two hours. In the ensuing September he died at Louisville, aged fifty-four years.

In person he was a model of physical dignity and beauty; tall, well-proportioned, with perfectly symmetrical features, black and dazzling eyes, and a forehead expanded and lofty, "a very throne of intellect." He was fastidious in his apparel, reticent in his manners, and habitually seemed morbidly self-conscious. He published a volume of sermons; but they give no explanation of his peculiar eloquence, and will hardly bear critical examination. He was self-educated, and though very thoroughly so, escaped not the usual defects of self-training. His style was elaborate, abounded in new coined words, and was sometimes grandiloquent; his imagination was exuberant, too often excessive; his argumentation complicated, his thoughts abrupt and fragmentary. His sermons were brilliant mosaics, apparently composed of passages which had been laboriously prepared, at long intervals, and without much relation to the discourse as a whole. They lacked simplicity; were artificial, without the facility or ease which characterizes the mastery of art by disguising its labor. But, in spite of his defects, his power has seldom been rivaled in the American pulpit; he was a wonder of genius to the people, and drew them in multitudes which no temple could accommodate.

Thomas A. Morris, a man entirely contrasted with Bascom, and destined to much more extensive service in the Church, joined the itinerancy in 1816. He was born on the west side of the Kanawha River, Kanawha County, five miles above Charlestown, in Western Virginia, in 1794[5] In an affectionate tribute to his friend, David Young, he makes some allusions to his own religious history: "Mr. Young," he says, "was one of the few Methodist preachers whom I knew prior to my becoming a Methodist. Our acquaintance began in the fall of 1812, when he was presiding elder on Muskingum District, then including in its ample range Zanesville, Marietta; and Northwestern Virginia, where I resided, and where he was perfectly at home, being himself a native of Washington County, Virginia. Most of my early impressions and views of Methodism were derived from him. It is true, I had felt conviction for sin from childhood, and that Robert Caseboult, then a class-leader, had taken interest for me, and talked with me, before I heard Young, and I was seriously inquiring for the way of life. But in July, 1813, while I listened to David Young, preaching at a camp-meeting on the parable of the sower, I was brought to form solemn purpose to seek earnestly for salvation till I should obtain it. In August I joined a small country class on trial. I had prayed in secret for months, but made little progress till I took this decisive step, and thus drew a separating line from my irreligious associates. The conflict with sin thus renewed continued till some time in November, when I obtained some relief and comfort, and on Christmas-day I received a clear sense of pardon and a full 'spirit of adoption.' In the mean time I missed none of Young's quarterly meetings. At one of them he baptized me in the presence of a multitude; and the same day on which he poured the water on my head the Lord poured plentifully his Spirit into my heart. When I was recommended by the society for license to preach, he examined me before the quarterly conference. He also wrote and signed my first license to preach, dated April 2, 1814. In 1815 he employed me as junior preacher on a circuit, and in 1816 I was admitted on trial by the Ohio Conference. From that till 1818, being separated in the work, our acquaintance was perpetuated by free correspondence; but from 1818 to 1820, he, being superannuated, was my constant hearer in Zanesville, where he resided. He continued his efforts in every practicable way for my improvement, and, indeed, till I graduated to elder's orders, he took as much interest in my ministerial education as if I had been his own son." [6] Years later he remarks: "Reared in a rural district of a new country, amid agricultural pursuits, I was inured to toils and perils, which have been of service to me in every relation of subsequent life. 'By grace I am what I am.' An experience of over fifty years confirms my conviction that in Christ alone are pardon, peace, and heaven. With him in view none need fail. 'Wherefore, he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.' The first seven years of my regular ministry were years of some affliction and much discouragement consequent thereon. Among the forms of disease under which I suffered were liver complaint, erysipelas, chills and fever, nervous prostration and depression, and inflammatory rheumatism, to all of which was finally added paralysis of my left foot, hand, and eye. I have ever continued in the work through all these afflictions; and by God's blessing upon constant horseback exercise, irrespective of season or weather, I recovered my health."

His itinerant ministry in the West was extensive and successful down to 1834, when he was appointed the first editor of the Western Christian Advocate, at Cincinnati, and issued the first number of that influential paper on the 2d of May. In 1836 he was elected bishop, which office he has continued to sustain with pre-eminent wisdom down to our day, being for many years the senior of the episcopate. During the perilous crises of the denomination, in the antislavery controversy and the southern secession, he has guided the Church with unwavering prudence. In the hour of our greatest national trial he wrote with characteristic serenity, and a foresight which now seems prophetic: "I am buoyant in spirit, very seldom feel discouraged. I am hopeful as to the world's conversion; believing that will be the final result of Christ's Gospel. I am confident that Methodism will contribute its share in that enterprise; that it will survive all opposition, and triumph gloriously. I am decidedly hopeful as to our country. I believe that the rebellion will be entirely conquered, the union of states re-established, slavery abolished, the law vindicated, confidence and social order restored; that we shall have a stronger government, a greater and better country than ever, more respected at home and abroad, with a increasing tide of prosperity; and, finally, that the gospel of the grace of God will have less obstruction, and will operate mere effectively hereafter than heretofore. It is true, I may not witness all these desired results, for with me 'time is short;' yet I take a lively interest in them. I desire the prayers of all good people, that the grace of Christ in me may triumph over all the evils of my fallen nature, and save me in heaven."

Bishop Morris is short in stature, corpulent, with a ruddy complexion, and an intellectual brow; extremely cautious in speech, and reserved in manners; brief in his sermons, not usually exceeding thirty minutes, but exceedingly pertinent in thought, and terse and telling in style; among his familiar friends a most entertaining talker, given to reminiscences of early itinerant adventures and humorous anecdotes; a man of most wholesome mind, tranquil piety; and soundest judgment. He has contributed considerably to the literature of the Church in a volume of sermons, remarkable for their condensed sense, practical appropriateness, and pure and vigorous style; a volume of biographical and historical sketches of the western ministry, and numerous editorial and other fragmentary productions. He lingers in broken health, but in the unbroken affection and veneration of the Church.

Another pre-eminent preacher, John P. Durbin, entered the western itinerancy in 1818, though his name does not appear in the Minutes till 1820. He was born in Bourbon County, Ky. in 1800. His education up to his fourteenth year was of the commonest kind of the frontier. At fourteen years of age he was apprenticed to a cabinet-maker in Paris, Ky., and served out his time. In the autumn of 1818 he was converted. One of his young friends was pungently convicted, struggled hard and long, and was powerfully and suddenly converted in his presence. He assumed that his experience must be of the same kind in order to be genuine; but as it was gradual and tranquil, without violent signs, he began to distrust it, when, by a gentle, yet clear impression on his mind, he was convinced that God, for Christ's sake, had pardoned his sins and accredited him in the Redeemer.

He soon felt that it was his duty to preach the gospel, although he had not yet become a member of the Church. As if by inspiration, his grandfather, a pioneer of Methodism in Kentucky, said to him suddenly one day, "Are you not concerned about preaching the gospel?" It was to him like a flash of lightning in a clear sky. He took counsel of that early frontier apostle, Benjamin Lakin, joined the Church one week in November, and in the next week another of the apostles of the West, Absalom Hunt, asked a recommendation for him to the quarterly Conference, where he was licensed to preach, by still another western apostle, Alexander Cummings, and sent to Limestone Circuit. The next year the "old Western Conference" was divided, and he went alone into the northwest corner of Ohio, where the Indians still roved, to look after some one hundred members of the Church, who were scatted through the wilderness over a circuit of some two hundred miles.

Here he began his studies in the cabins, where the was but one room, which served for chapel, parlor; kitchen, dining-room, and chamber for the whole family. On this circuit he found an old German who had Dr. Clarke's Commentary in numbers. He borrowed them, slipped two numbers at a time into a tin canister about four inches in diameter, and lashed it behind his saddle, and thus carried it round his circuit. As soon as preaching was over, and the class dismissed, he sat down in the midst of a frontier family, with pen and ink, to study and take notes of Clarke, especially on the Pentateuch and New Testament. Not a line escaped him. To this book he added Wesley's and Fletcher's works, all of which he thoroughly mastered in the western huts, generally reading in the winter by firelight, which was made by pine-knots and dry wood, prepared by the boys, who used to wonder at him as a living marvel.

The next year he was sent into Indiana, and had for his colleague James Collord, later, for many years, the printer of the Methodist Book Concern, New York. At Collord's instance he began to study English grammar, and from him he received much instruction. He used to commit the rules to memory, and read the examples and notes as he rode on horseback from one appointment to another.

Toward the close of the year he attracted the notice of Dr. Martin Ruter, who advised him to study Latin and Greek, and gave him a grammar or two. He studied indefatigably, and, as he was stationed the third year in Hamilton, Ohio, about twelve miles from the Miami University, (at Oxford,) he used to go to the university on Monday, stay all the week, pursuing his studies, and return on Friday evening to prepare for the Sunday. At first this caused some dissatisfaction among the people; but when they saw his thirst for knowledge, and his fidelity and efficiency on Sunday, they had the good sense to approve his course. The next year he was stationed in Lebanon, and was still guided by the counsels Ruter. The family in which he resided there still relate with interest the peculiar industry of their boarder. He transcribed the Latin and Greek grammars, and putting the copy on pasteboard, suspended it before him for more easy reference. The next year he was stationed in Cincinnati, an was admitted to the Cincinnati College, with the personal countenance of Dr. Ruter and the late President Harrison. Here he finished his collegiate course, and was admitted to the degree of A. M. without being required to take first the degree of A. B.

After taking his degree at Cincinnati, he was appointed Professor of Languages in Augusta College, Ky., and spent the ensuing year in traveling to recruit his health, and to collect money for the college. In this way he first became known in the eastern cities. In 1831, without his knowledge, and in his absence, the Senate of the United States, by a large vote, elected him chaplain. His sermons in the capitol are remembered still for their originality and power.

In 1832 he was elected professor of natural sciences in the Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn., but resigned immediately upon being elected editor of the "Christian Advocate and Journal." In 1834 he was elected president of Dickinson College. In 1842 he had leave of absence to visit Europe and the East. He returned in 1843, was a member of the General Conference of 1844, and took a prominent part in the great struggle which divided the Church His speech in reply to Bishop Soule, and the rejoinder to the Protest of the southern party, are notable evidences of his power in that body. In 1844 he published his "Observations in Europe," and in 1845 his "Observations in the East." He retired from the college in 1845, and subsequently had charge of stations in Philadelphia, and also traveled the Philadelphia District. In 1850 he was appointed unanimously, by the bishops, missionary secretary, in the place of Dr. Pitman, who had resigned on account of ill health. The General Conference of 1852 re-appointed him to the same post, which he has ever since occupied with admirable ability.

Dr. Durbin is distinguished both as a preacher and an executive officer. It is difficult to describe his preaching. He begins with a tone, look, and style which would at once damp all favorable expectation were it not for his general fame. The statement of his subject, and the outline of his discourse, are not usually remarkable; but as he advances some unique thought, or some ordinary thought uniquely presented, startles the interest of the hearer, and his attention is riveted through the remainder of the sermon. The entire self-possession and agreeable facility with which the preacher proceeds in his discourse delights the hearer by the relief which his manner thus affords to his feeble and peculiar voice. It is similar to pleasant, artless, but intelligent conversation. The frequent occurrence of striking passages, striking often by their beauty, but often also by the mere manner of their utterance, yet always endued with a strange, a mystic power over the soul of the hearer, calls forth spontaneous ejaculations or sudden tears. He has also a habit of introducing into almost every discourse some odd or equivocal speculative suggestion which never fails to provoke thought on the part of his hearers.

His sermons are usually long, but no one tires of them; no one hears the last sentence without regret, nor leaves the church without a vivid, if not a profound, impression of the discourse. His language is remarkbly simple. He excels in illustration, in picturesque description, and in pathos.

Men of genius are usually men of strong sensibility — and this is one secret of their power; but at the same time it renders them liable to variable moods, especially to failures in public speaking. Dr. Durbin's failures were not infrequent; but his hearers, if sent away sometimes with a downright disappointment, knew that at the next time they should probably be more than compensated by one of his triumphant efforts; that the sun, temporarily behind the mists, will again burst forth and blaze in the zenith. A writer in the "Southern Christian Advocate," speaking of his first sermon in Philadelphia, says: "In the Academy it was that the western professor preached his first sermon to an eastern audience; nor did his effort justify his fame more than his appearance, for it was a failure. And the wiseacres said loudly, 'I told you it was a goose, and not a swan.' The young professor was disheartened, so that although he preached other sermons, not so unsuccessful, yet he left the people only in a state willing enough to hear him again, but not especially anxious. A year elapsed, and he was again in the Academy pulpit, and the subject of his first sermon was pronounced: the divinity of our Lord. It was then a swan's song, sweet, clear, full, transcendent; only not a death-burst."

He has been distinguished by executive ability in every sphere of his public life; in no one of them has he ever failed. A capacity for details, practical skill, promptness, energy that never tires, because it moves always calmly, though incessantly, the power to carry with him the interest of the people, these have been the elements of his strength, and have rendered him one of the most capable officers in the Church.

Thus did the West raise up, in these years, men who were not only adapted to its own peculiar frontier work, but some of whom, by their genius and self-culture, were fitted to take the highest positions in the denomination, and to become the chief attractions of its eastern pulpits. They were now extending Methodism, with a sort of triumphal march, all over the "Redstone country," the Northwestern Territory, the Holston Mountain Valleys, Kentucky, and Tennessee. It had already become the predominant form of religion in these vast regions, and was molding into Christian civilization their rapidly growing populations. Meanwhile its itinerants were extending their victories southward in the Valley of the Mississippi. We have followed Gibson in his romantic and heroic mission to Natchez as early as 1799, and seen the labors and sufferings of his first humble itinerant reinforcements, and the arrival of Learner Blackman in 1804, as also the westward advance of the South Carolina Conference itinerants, and the southward progress of those of Eastern Tennessee into Alabama, all pushing southwesterly toward the standard planted on the distant Mississippi by Gibson.

From the Western Conference of 1805 Asbury dispatched Elisha W. Bowman to survey the still farther South, and introduce Methodism among the English settlements of Louisiana. He made his way to New Orleans and Opelousas, and the next year the name of the latter appears, for the first time, in the annual Minutes, with Bowman as its circuit preacher. It is placed under the control of Blackman, who had hitherto been traveling the solitary circuit of the South Mississippi, that of Natchez, but who now, became presiding elder of the "Mississippi District," which was first reported in 1806. There remains a long letter from Bowman to Burke, giving an interesting account of his exploration, in which he says his passage was "through a perilous wilderness to the city of New Orleans." [7] "As for the settlements of this country," he continues, "there are none that are composed of Americans. From Baton Rouge, the Spanish garrison, which stands on the east bank of the Mississippi River, down two hundred miles, it is settled immediately on each bank of the river by French and Spaniards. When I reached the city I was much disappointed in finding but few American people there, and a majority of that few may truly be called the beasts of men. On Sunday, when I came to the Capitol, I found the doors all locked, and the house inaccessible. I found a few drunken sailors and Frenchmen about the walks of the house, and I preached to them in the open air. The next Sunday, when I came with my landlord and a few others, we found the doors again locked, and I again preached to ten or twelve persons in the open air. I went again to the officers, but got no satisfaction. In the evening, as I passed along the street, I heard them pouring out heavy curses on the Methodists, and saying, 'He is a Methodist; lock him out.' And they told me plainly I was not to have the privilege of the house. One of the officers told me that the Methodists were a dangerous people, and ought to be discouraged. The next Sunday I preached to a few straggling people in the open street. The Lord's day is the day of general rant in this city. Public balls are held, merchandise of every kind is carried on, public sales, wagons running, and drums beating; and thus is the Sabbath spent. I sought in vain for a house to preach in. Several persons offered to rent me a house, but I have not money to rent one. My expenses I found to be about two dollars a day for myself and horse, and my money pretty well spent. I tried to sell my horse, but could not get forty dollars for him. Thus I was in this difficult situation, without a friend to advise me. I was three hundred miles, from Brother Blackman, and could get no advice from him; and what to do I did not know. I could have no access to the people, and to go back to Natchez is to do nothing, as there was a sufficient supply of preachers for that part; to leave my station without Mr. Asbury's direction was like death to me, and to, stay here I could do nothing. But, by inquiring, I heard of a settlement of American people about two hundred miles to the west and northwest. By getting a small boat, and crossing the lakes, I could reach the Opelousas country; and, as I was left to think by myself; I thought this most advisable. I accordingly, on the 17 th day of December, shook off the dirt from my feet against this ungodly city of New Orleans, and resolved to try the watery waste and pathless desert. I traveled fifty miles up the Mississippi River, and crossed to a river that forces itself out of the Mississippi, and runs into the sea in a southwest direction, down which river I traveled fifty miles, and then turned a western course fifteen miles, through a cypress swamp, to the lake. Here the mosquitoes like to have eaten up both me and my horse. A few Spaniards lived on this lake. I got two large canoes of them, and built a plat form on them, on which I put my horse. I hired two of the Spaniards to go with me across the lakes, for which I paid them thirteen dollars and a half; and, through the mercy of God, I had a safe passage through four lakes and a large bay. I landed a little south of the mouth of the river O'Tash. A few Frenchmen are living at the mouth of the river, and a few American families are scattered along this bay and river. I have now three dollars left, but God is as able to feed me two years on two dollars as he was to feed Elijah at the brook, or five thousand with a few loaves and fishes I traveled up the west side of the river O'Tash eighty miles. A few families of Americans are scattered among them, but I could not find two families together. I then passed through a small tribe of Indians, and crossed the Vermillion River, which runs into the sea in a southwest direction. The next day I reached the Opelousas country, and the next I reached the Catholic church. I was surprised to see race paths at the church door. Here I found a few Americans, who were swearing with almost every breath; and when I reproved them, they told me that the priest swore as hard as they did. They said he would play cards and dice with them every Sunday evening after mass. And, strange to tell, he keeps a racehorse; in a word, practices every abomination. I told them plainly if they did not quit swearing they and their priest would go to hell together."

About twenty miles farther he found another settlement of American people. "They know," he says, "very little more about the nature of salvation than the untaught Indians. Some of them, after I had preached to them, asked me what I meant by the fall of man, and when it was that he fell. Thus they are perishing for lack of knowledge, and are truly in a pitiable condition. I have to teach them to sing, and in fact to do everything that is like worshipping God. I find it also very difficult to get them to attend meetings, for if they come once they think they have done me a very great favor."

About thirty miles farther he found still another small settlement of English people, who were in as low a state of ignorance as the others. "But," he says, "I get as many of them together as I can, and preach Jesus Christ to them." "O, my God, have mercy on the souls of this people!" adds the adventurous itinerant. "Every day that I travel I have to swim through creeks or swamps, and I am wet from my head to my feet; and some days, from morning till night, I am dripping with water. I tie all my 'plunder' fast on my horse, and take him by the bridle, and swim sometimes a hundred yards, and sometimes farther. My horse's legs are now skinned and rough to his hock joints, and I have the rheumatism in all my joints. About eighty miles from here, I am informed, there is a considerable settlement of American people; but I cannot get to them at this time as the swamps are swimming for miles; but as soon as the waters fall I intend to visit them. I have great difficulties in this country, as there are no laws to suppress vice of any kind, so that the Sabbath is spent in frolicking and gambling. What I have suffered in body and mind my pen is not able to communicate to you; but this I can say, while my body is wet with water, and chilled with cold, my soul is filled with heavenly fire. Glory to God and the Lamb! I have not a wish but that the will of God may be done in me, through me, and by me. And I can now say, with St. Paul, that 'I count not my life dear unto me, so that I may save some.' I am now more than one thousand miles from you, and know not that I shall ever see you again; but I hope to meet you one day in the land of rest."

Such was the spirit of these pioneer evangelists of the West. Bowman could not be driven from those morally desolate regions. He kept his ground two years, formed a circuit, and in the second year was joined by an equally heroic missionary, Thomas Lasley.

In 1807 Jacob Young, whose extraordinary ministerial achievements have already often claimed our attention and wonder, was present with Asbury and other itinerants at the house of Tiffin, Chillicothe, Ohio, attending the Western Conference. Asbury took him into an apartment, aside, read to him Jacob's journey from his father's house to Padan-aram, pausing where the patriarch stopped to rest at night, with a stone for a pillow. Rising, the bishop placed his hands on the head of the young itinerant, and commissioned him to go down the Mississippi, and take charge of the Natchez District. "Go," he said, "in the name of the Lord, do your duty, and God will be with you" Then turning away, he left Young alone, startled at the order, and said no more to him on the subject till the adjournment of the session, when he "read off the appointments," announcing "Mississippi District, Jacob Young." Five circuits, with as many preachers, were assigned him. After the doxology and benediction Young proclaimed to his little band that they would rendezvous at "Cage's Bend, on Cumberland River, Tennessee." McKendree conducted him on his way. They reached the house of Dr. Hynes, (famous in the local annals of Methodism in Kentucky,) in Clarke County, Ky. There, after writing him instructions for his work, McKendree "knelt down and commended me," writes Young, "to God in solemn prayer. Dr. Hynes shouted aloud, his pious lady praised the Lord; the pious Martha wept bitterly. My fine Arabian horse being brought to the gate, I took my saddle-bags on my arm, and gave my friends the parting hand. Martha followed to the gate, and gave me a vest pattern and a silver dollar. I mounted, and rode away, traveling nearly two hundred miles alone. The vows of the Almighty were upon me. My field of labor was large, in a strange country, far from home. In due time I came to the place of rendezvous. The preachers met me according to appointment, and we spent two or three days making preparations to pass through the wilderness, from Nashville to Nachez, which was then considered a dangerous road, often infested by robbers. We bought a pack-horse and saddle, and other things necessary for a long journey. Here we held a three days' meeting, which was attended with much good. From this place we rode to Liberty Hill, between Nashville and Franklin, where we met with James Ward, presiding elder of the district, and Joseph Oglesby, circuit preacher in charge. Here we 'had an excellent camp-meeting. We then rode to the town of Franklin, put up with Major Murry and Lewis Garret, where we laid in our stores for the wilderness. The first day we rode about thirty miles. About sundown we halted, and tied our horses to the trees. One of our company being still behind, came up while we were cooking supper. We had our camp-kettle, every man had his own knife, and we made wooden forks."

Thus they journeyed on, forty or fifty miles a day, through Indian tribes — the Chickasaws and Choctaws — and all kinds of frontier hardships. Arriving at Fort Gibson, they pitched their tent "on 'the Common," and soon after met Blackman, Bowman, and Lasley, the only three preachers of the country. These were about to return; but with Young were Richard Browning, John Travis, Zedekiah McMinn, James Axley, (a host in himself;) and Anthony Houston. In two days the new itinerants had dispersed to their hard work.

About two years Young continued to travel this great district, through scenes of wild life the most incredible, often swimming rivers, losing himself in woods and swamps, making his way by Indian trails, lodging in filthy cabins, and encountering at many of his appointments the most godless, reckless, hardy, and degraded population of the whole American frontier; many of them men of high crimes, who had escaped thither from the retributions of justice in older settlements. Lorenzo Dow, in his eccentric wanderings, reached these regions, and for some time co-operated strenuously with the pioneers. Though a New England man, Young found him as competent as any of his itinerants for frontier service, and bore him along over his immense district, both of them preaching night and day to rude, half-civilized throngs in the forests. Axley's field was the Catahoolah and Washita [8] Circuits, where he labored mightily, and was in great favor with many of the rudest settlers, though fiercely persecuted by others. He was "out of money," says Young, "and his clothing very ragged; we made him up some money to buy him some clothes, and sent it to him, but he paid the money out for flooring-boards. He then went into the forest, and cut down pine-trees, and hewed them with his own hands; next, borrowed a yoke of oxen, and hauled them together; finally, he called the neighbors to raise the house, which he covered with shingles made with his own hands. He built his pulpit, cut out his doors and windows, bought him boards, and made seats. He then gave notice that the meeting-house was ready, and if the people would come together he would preach to them. They all flocked out to hear him. He preached several times, then read the General Rules, and told them if they would conform to those rules he would take them into the Methodist Church. But he warned them faithfully, if they did not intend to conform, not to join. The first day he opened the church door eighteen joined. Axley informed me almost every week how he was succeeding. A friend wrote me a letter informing me that the chapel was finished, and he had named it Axley Chapel; that Axley had conducted himself with so much propriety, that neither man nor devils could find any fault with him." Axley thus built with his own hands the first Methodist Church in Louisiana.

After toiling there one many months "our beloved Brother Axley returned," says Young, "from Louisiana to the Mississippi territory. He met us at William Foster's. When he went to Louisiana he was a large, fine-looking man; but his flesh had since fallen off and he looked quite diminutive. His clothes were worn out, and when be saw his brethren he could not talk for weeping. The people soon clothed him, his health became restored, his spirits revived, and he came to our camp-ground in pretty good order." His fellow-laborers also suffered much. Travis was prostrated with typhoid fever, and had to be left on the route homeward to the North.

John McClure succeeded Young, and had charge of the district two years, when (1810) [9] Miles Harper took command of it for one year, with a reinforcement of preachers, enlarging the little corps to ten. It was now that its most eminent evangelist, and one of the most notable men of the American ministry, William Winans, appeared there. He was born in 1788, among the rudest population of Western Pennsylvania, "on the top of the Alleghenies, near Braddock's Grave."[10] He was left an orphan when only two years old; but his mother as a woman of rare capacity and piety, and taught him to read in their home in the mountain woods, where he became a diligent student of their only two books, the Bible and the Pilgrim's Progress. In his sixteenth year he moved, with his courageous mother, to Clermont County, Ohio. When about eighteen years old he received "thirteen and half days'" instruction at school, the only academic education of his life. He had heard Valentine Cook, and other celebrated itinerants, who had preached in his mother's cabin, and through most of his early life was addicted to religious reflection. In 1808 he was licensed to preach, and sent to Limestone Circuit, Ky. The next year he was thrown into Indiana, to the famous Vincennes Circuit, which included "all the settlements on the Wabash and White Rivers from the Indiana line to the Ohio River." It was there that he acquired the lifelong friendship of General Harrison, (afterward President,) with whom he was associated in Indian perils, and who has left an eloquent estimate of the services of Methodist preachers to the West. "Confer," wrote Harrison, when president, to one of his political associates, "confer with my old friend William Wimans; he is one of the best and wisest men known to me." [11]

The conference held at Shelbyville, Ky., in 1810, dispatched him to the Southern Mississippi, where he traveled the Claiborne Circuit. At that session Asbury wrote: "We have an open door set wide to us in Mississippi; the preachers there sent but one messenger to conference, they could not spare more; they keep their ground like soldiers of Christ, and men of God." Winans made his way thither through the Indian and other dangers of the wilderness route, like Gibson, Blackman, Young, and their associates, and at once proved himself the right man for the peculiar exigencies of the pecuniary. None of his predecessors had borne to it more gigantic energies of mind or body. The bare catalogue of his appointments shows the devotion with which he labored through a long life for its religious improvement, persisting in spite of untold trials, and at last fearful struggles with disease: ." Claiborne Circuit, Wilkinson, Natchez and Claiborne, two years; New Orleans, 1813-14; Natchez and Claiborne, Wilkinson; local five years, on account of ill health; Natchez Circuit, 1821; Mississippi District, four years; Washington Station; Washington District, three years; missionary agent three years; superannuated, 1833; New Orleans District; Wilkinson, supernumerary; Woodville station; agent for New Orleans Church, 1837; New Orleans District; Natchez; four years; New Orleans district, three years; agent for Centenary College, 1846; Natches District, two years; Woodville Station; agent for Centenary College; superannuated four years; a delegate to General Conference nine times, and a delegate to the convention which organized the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, embracing a period of forty-five years." "And during this long term," continues our authority, "he never sought inglorious ease; he never grew weary of well-doing; he never became selfish and worldly. With persevering and undaunted spirit he labored on. The generation that witnessed his coming, and most of his colleagues, went down to the grave; and still his enthusiasm, and energy, and masculine intellect survived, and his spirit glowed like some eternal flame upon the altar of a ruined temple. Often have I seen him, on his tours of circuit duty, scarcely able to sit in the saddle; dragging himself into the pulpit, preach for two hours with surpassing power and unction, and then fall down, faint and exhausted, his handkerchief stained with blood, and, for days thereafter, motionless, hovering, as it were, between life and death. Thirty years ago, and at intervals since, he was thought to be in a rapid decline; he was afflicted with hemorrhages, bronchitis, derangement of the vital organs, and general debility, and physicians prohibited the excitement of the pulpit. But he would preach; he felt called of God to preach. And what changes he witnessed! In 1810 the work of the Mississippi preachers extended over what is now the territory of Louisiana, Mississippi, and. Alabama Conferences. There were but ten itinerants in this great field of labor, and the whole number of Church members five hundred and nine. Now, in these conference bounds there are more than three hundred itinerants, and between eighty and ninety thousand Church members! The number of preachers had increased thirty-fold, the Church members upward of one hundred and sixty-fold! Nor is this all. The Mississippi Conference has contributed largely to the Memphis, Arkansas, Florida, and the Texan conferences, and somewhat to the California Conference. It has likewise sent forth missionaries to heathen lands; contributed nobly to the dissemination of the Scriptures, and has endowed schools and public journals, seminaries and colleges. In this great work William Winans has been, under Providence, mainly instrumental."[12] William Winans became the most representative character of Southwestern Methodism. His last appearance in the North was at the memorable General Conference of 1844 in New York, where the secession of the Southern Church, on account of slavery, was initiated. He took a chief part in that controversy, for he had himself become a slave-holder, under the plea of domestic necessity. He was then, next to Peter Cartwright, the most unique man in the assembly; tall, thin, weather-worn, and looking the very image of a frontier settler who had worn himself lean by the labors of the field and the hunts of the woods. He wore no stock or neckerchief; his shirt collar lay slouchingly about his neck, and his whole attire had the appearance of habitual neglect. And yet this rough backwoodsman was a doctor of divinity, and a voracious reader of light and polished literature, carrying around his district saddlebags crammed with the works of the most popular writers. In discourse he was most intensely earnest, the tight features of his face became flushed and writhed with his emotions, his eye gleamed, and his voice (strong but harsh) thrilled with a stentorian energy and overwhelming effect. In contrast with these traits (unrelieved as they were by a single exterior attraction) was a mind of astonishing power, comprehensive, all grasping, reaching down to the foundations and around the whole circuit of its positions; not touching subjects, but seizing them as with the claws of an eagle. He threw himself on his opponent as an anaconda on its prey, circling and crushing it. It was a rare curiosity to critical observers to witness this rude, forbidding-looking man exhibiting in debate such a contrast of intellectual and physical traits. His style was excellent, showing an acquaintance with the standard models, and his scientific allusions proved him well read if not studied in general knowledge. With the secession of the South and the consequent civil war, much of the great work he had done in Mississippi and Louisiana was undone; but after the restoration of peace its germs were still found vital in the soil, and promise again to cover those extended regions with evangelical harvests.

Of most of the co-laborers of these chief itinerants of the southwest hardly any records remain. What intimations, however, we occasionally find respecting them show that they were generally remarkable men. "The earliest recollections I have of Methodism," writes a distinguished citizen of Mississippi, "begins with an old brick meeting-house in the village of Washington, six miles east of Natchez. It was built mainly by the efforts of Randall Gibson, who had removed to the Mississippi Territory, then in the hands of the Spaniards, about the close of the revolutionary war. [13] He settled in the neighborhood of Natchez, subsequently moved to Jefferson and Claiborne counties, but during the last years of his life resided in Warren, where he died, at an advanced age, leaving a numerous family, all, I believe, in connection with the Church. His connections and descendants, consisting of the Gibsons, Fosters, Newmans, Lums, Gillespies, Smiths, Collins, Harrisons, etc., are scattered all over Mississippi and Louisiana, and have for half a century been the props of Methodism in these two states. He was an apostolic-looking man, realizing my idea of St. John the Baptist, and was remarkable for his singular mildness, his persuasive powers, good sense, and perseverance. In that old meeting-house I heard, when a child, the celebrated Lorenzo Dow, who preached then, punctually to the minute, in pursuance of an appointment he had made some five or six years previous. On that previous visit he had contributed one hundred dollars to the building of the meeting-house. The first camp-meeting I ever attended was in the Foster settlement, Adams County, and the preachers whom I remember are, Randall Gibson, Miles Harper, Thomas Griffin, and William Winans. The latter was then recently from Indiana; a tall, thin, raw-boned and awkward young man, arrayed in home spun pants, with a long, brown, straight-breasted coat, no neckerchief; and a coarse pair of boots. There was nothing prepossessing about him but his small, burning eyes, that glowed like coals of fire. His manner was slow, deliberative, self-possessed; but the first sentence he uttered arrested the attention of the audience, and told that he was no ordinary man. Miles Harper and Thomas Griffin were brothers-in-law, having married daughters of one of the patriarchs of the Church. They were both then young men, and used to 'hunt in couples,' as often as circuit duties permitted, and it was seldom they failed to 'tree their game.' I often heard them during a period of twenty years, and as camp-meeting and revival preachers I have never met their superiors. They were both men of striking physiognomy, of rough manners and severe aspect, and full of pungent, and sometimes very bitter satire. They had clear, powerful, stentorian voices, whose loudest tones would ring through the forest with terrible distinctness, and whose lowest notes were perfectly audible. Harper's voice was peculiarly remarkable, full of volume and melody. He had a sparkling eye; a smile, when he chose to smile, particularly persuasive; and a fund of anecdote at command, which he brought to bear with great effect. Griffin was rather harsh and sardonic. He would make the congregation quail, and shriek, and hide their heads with fear and shame, and then Harper would solace and comfort them; and between the two, whenever they preached, a revival was sure to follow. Both these good men began life with no advantages of education; they were pioneer Methodists, saddle-bag preachers, the great instruments of civilization and Christianity. In the wilderness, by the torch of the camp-fire, on the circuit exposed to toil, privation, and personal peril, they studied the Bible; and I doubt if any ever understood it better, or preached it with more effect. Harper died, not many years since, in the parish of Tensas, Louisiana, leaving there several sons, who inherit his talents and virtues."

____________________________________________

ENDNOTES

1 Rev. F. C. Holliday, in Sprague, p. 505.

2 Bishop Ames, in Sprague, p. 511.

3 Finley's Sketch, p. 414.

4 Sprague, p.536, and Memoir by Bishop Kavanagh

5 Extract from one of his letters, In Western Christian Advocate.

6 "My Father in the Gospel," by Bishop T. Morris, in Ladies' Repository.

7 It is given entire in Bishop McTyeire's account of Nolley, in Biographical Sketches of Itinerant Minister," p. 254.

8 Young so represents it. The Minutes say Opelousas.

9 But his appointment does not appear in the Minutes in 1811. All the early western appointments antedate that publication one year.

10 Letter from his friend, Colonel G. F. W Claiborne of Mississippi, to the author.

11 "Letter of President Harrison to Colonel Claiborne.

12 Col. Claiborne.

13 Before Tobias Gibson went to the southwest some of his kindred had settled about Natchez. Randall Gibson was his brother.

---

Text scanned and proofread by Rev. & Mrs. Duane V. Maxey
Holiness Data Ministry
P. O. Box 482
Coeur D' Alene, WA 99208

HTML conversion by Paul Leclerc and George Lyons
Copyright 2000 by the Wesley Center for Applied Theology
of Northwest Nazarene University,
Nampa, Idaho 83686.

Text may be freely used for personal or scholarly purposes, provided this notice is left intact.
This text may not be redistributed in any for-profit form or mirrored at any other website without the expressed, written consent of the Wesley Center.

If you have any questions regarding these files, please contact the Wesley Center for Applied Theology.