Salvation in the Old Southern Way

I am currently reading "Recollections of an Old Man - Seventy Years in Dixie" by David Sullins

https://ia902607.us.archive.org/21/...d00sullrich/recollectionsold00sullrich_bw.pdf

...Introduction...

THOUGH not an old man, my memory goes back for somewhat more than half a century. The things that happened then are as clear in my mind as if they took place only yesterday. In 1854-55, or thereabouts, Brother Sullins —they did not call any preacher Doctor, except Sam'l Patton, those days—was station preacher in my native town of Jonesboro. How distinctly he stands out before me as he then was: six feet and over tall, with a great shock of coal black hair on his head, blue-grey eyes that kindled when he talked to you, and a voice that could be as caressing as a mother's and as martial as a general's on the field of battle.

My mother was a Methodist of the old pattern, and Brother Sullins was often in the home. Two of my sisters went to school to him and loved him dearly. In social life he was a charmer, often breaking out into mirthful stories. Now and then he did not hesitate to play the boy. But for the scruples of his flock, I am sure he would have been glad on the frosty October mornings to follow the hounds after a fox; for the breath of the country was in his nostrils. He was even then a wonderful preacher; at least there was one little boy in his congregation that thought so. But I loved best to hear him exhort and sing. Once in the midst of a great revival, he came down out of the pulpit, his arms outstretched, the tears streaming from his eyes, and walked up and down the aisles, beseeching his hearers to accept Christ. There was nothing studied in it, and the spontaneity of it thrilled me. I wonder if he dreamed how much he was stirring my childish heart. And how he could sing! There were no choirs in those days, and he did not need one, as he was entirely competent to "set and carry" any tune. Now and then he would sing a solo before the morning service, usually one of the great old Methodist hymns; but occasionally something new. When he went away, everybody was sorry; the whole town was devoted to him. It was a long, long time ago! One whole generation has since passed into eternity, and a large part of another. But in the providence of God, Brother Sullins—now and for many years Doctor Sullins—still lingers with us; the old man eloquent of the Holston Conference, every man's friend and the friend of every man. More than four score years have passed over his head. He has been preacher, teacher, soldier. A few years ago, at the urgent request of many friends, he began to write some reminiscences of his early life for publication in The Midland Methodist. He will not be offended when I say that even those who knew him best were surprised at the facility with which he used his pen. They had recognized him as an almost incomparable orator, but that very fact had perhaps blinded them to his other gifts. Anyhow the reminiscences were eagerly read, with a constant demand for more. Ever since the series ended there has been a succession of inquiries as to whether they would not be put into a book. And here they are! From New River to Lookout Mountain, they will be read again and again, often with tears and sometimes with laughter. I take great pleasure in introducing them to the general public. - EE Hoss - Nashville, TN, 1910


The Rev David Sullins 1827-1919

 

...Birth....

I was born two miles west of Athens, McMinn County, Tenn., in July, 1827. And I was well born. That is, I as born of well developed, healthy, sensible, religious parents, and on a, farm. All of which is much in my favor, but nothing to my credit. And here I begin thus early to thank God. First, that I was born at all, and then that I was not born cross-eyed nor club-footed nor deaf nor blind nor of cranky, irreligious parents. That last clause is a climax. I fear that we stalwart men and graceful women, each with five good senses, a sound body, and lithe limbs, do not sufficiently appreciate the parental care.

My ancestors were Scotch-Irish. I remember while yet a boy to have heard my father tell that somewhere about 1750 his father and two brothers, came from "the old country" to America. These brothers were Scotch-Irish, and all unmarried. They separated after they arrived in this country. One stopped in Pennsylvania, and married there; one went to North Carolina, married, and located near Guilford Courthouse; the third came to Virginia, married a Miss Mays in Halifax County, and settled on Dan River. This was my grandfather. Here my father was born. When he was twelve years old, his father came, among the first pioneers, to Tennessee, and settled on Poplar Creek, in Knox (now Roane) County, near Oliver Springs, in 1795. Here my father grew up to manhood in the wilderness of the new country.

My mother was the youngest of a large family of brothers and sisters. My father married her when she was sixteen years old. He was not religious then, but mother was. In those days the preachers used to call on the women sometimes to lead in prayer. My mother was known as the "praying young woman on the south side of the river” O, how I have heard her pray a whole camp meeting onto its feet! "And there was the sound of going in the mulberry trees." It was said at her funeral that "her father, four brothers, two sons, and eleven nephews were Methodist preachers." It was in the blood of that old pioneer local preacher and his blessed old wife, and it had come down through their children and children's children for four generations; and if there has ever been a pauper or a "jail bird" among them, I have never heard of it. This is our family testimony or the truth of God's promise of "mercy unto children and children's children to such as fear him." Who hath ears to hear, let him hear. - The Rev David Sullins 1827-1919

 

...The Family Altar...

My father was not religious when he married mother. And indeed I think that what religious bent there was in our family was largely due to the Mitchell blood and training in mother. The Sullins stock in my father was strongly marked by the blood of his Virginia mother, Mary Mays. The Mayses were more noted for their love of fine horses, fox dogs, and handsome women, than for their piety. Yes, and I know one living grandson of Mary Mays in whom have always been some troublesome streaks of fondness for these things. Then how did my unconverted father come to be holding family prayers? Well, mother told me, in substance, this: It was not long after marriage till father, through the exhortations of grandfather and the prayers of mother, was deeply convicted and was induced to join the Church as a "seeker on probation." Matters stood thus for some time. But the children were growing up, and mother was much concerned about them. So in the middle of a sleepless night of prayer she said to father: "Nathan, we can never bring up the children right without family prayers."

"Well," said father, "what are we to do, Becky? I can't pray." But mother insisted that he could and ought to, and then added: "If you will try, I will take it time about with you holding prayers." That brought the question to an issue, and so finally father, almost with a groan, said: "I’ll try." The die was cast. So next morning mother held prayers. Father went to his work. He plowed and prayed all that day, he said. After supper mother got the children all quiet, and said: "Nathan, we are ready for prayers”

Father dropped on his knees and, stammering and choking, began. Soon, under a crushing sense of sin and helplessness, he began to confess and cry for pardoning mercy. Mother prayed and cried, and the Comforter came and light broke in and father was converted at family prayers.

Amen and amen! And that forever settled the question of family prayers at our house. No wonder! It settled many other things in the family, too, as it always will in any family. Of the thirteen children born in the home, eleven have already "fought the good fight" and gone to join father and mother in glory. Today there is a family altar in the home of every living child and every grandchild, and every great-grandchild old enough to know and love Jesus is a Christian and in the Church, as far as I know. Here I want to bear testimony to the honor of my brothers they are all dead now. I never heard a profane oath from the lips of one of them. So much for a faithful family altar. And still more. There are but two of us living. One is my youngest sister, Mrs. Rebecca Dodson, of Knoxville, Tenn., the mother of a religious family. We are old, but we are still singing: "Father, I Stretch My Hands to Thee." The day is far spent ; but our faces are turned toward home, and we expect to get there by sundown. If these reminiscences are to be continued, I must leave the field of tradition and write from memory. And here let me beg the reader of these crude sentences to bear in mind that I am not writing history or tabulated statistics for books; but am writing of men and things carried in memory through this turbulent world, many of them for seventy years and more.

 

...Camp Meeting...

My very earliest recollections of persons and things, outside of the family, are of the preachers who came to our house and of the meetings they held—"circuit preaching” quarterly meetings, and especially camp meetings. We lived in the Athens Circuit, which had some twenty preaching places. Athens was in the circuit then. Indeed, there were perhaps not a half dozen stations in the bounds of the Conference, including the two districts in North Carolina. We generally had two preachers, a senior and a junior. I recall very vividly the first preachers I ever saw at our house. It was just after an Annual Conference. In those days was a memorable event; for, as a rule, the preachers were changed every year, and we looked for a new man, except the presiding elders. The Conference had been in session several days, somewhere up the country, and it was time the new preachers were putting in their appearance. Father had taken me, a boy eight or ten years old, out on the farm to help him lay a fence worm. I could put a rock or a chunk under the end of the rail to level it where the ground was uneven. The house was in full view on the hill, among the big oaks a quarter of a mile away. Very soon the men came out and started toward the barn with their horses. Father said: "I expect they are preachers going from the Conference." The preachers put up their own horses in those days when the hands were in the fields.

Not long after we saw them coming out to us. I was curious to see them, and in a kind, frank tone of voice said: "And this is Brother Sullins? Glad to see you. My name is Haskew. Let me introduce Brother Brownlow." And Brownlow shook hands with father and turned and pinched my ear. Of course, the transaction made a lasting impression on me, and I recollect Joseph Haskew and William G. Brownlow as the first preachers seen at our house. They were our circuit riders for that year, and for the next fifty years I knew them well. Joseph Haskew was for many years one of the most popular and efficient preachers in the Holston Conference. A good man, full of faith and the Holy Ghost, he was a good preacher, but a better exhorter. He was by nature both a wag and a wit. I always loved him; for he waited on himself, put up and caught his own horse; and if he wanted a fire, he got the wood and made it. I liked that. Many pleasing stories are told of his kind ways and witty words. You can find them in the "History of Holston Methodism” by Dr. R. N. Price. (Full text of "Holston Methodism : from its origin to the present time")

Rev. W. G. Brownlow was altogether one of the most remarkable men our Holston country ever produced. But for me to write of him is to unkindly assume that the reader is ignorant of the common history of the country. He was a mighty man with both tongue and pen, as many had occasion to know. He was not so lovable a man as Haskew. I loved Haskew all the time, but Brownlow part of the time only. I shall try to tell you of their camp meetings next.

CAMP MEETINGS SEVENTY years ago camp meetings were very common here in these Holston hills between the Great Smokies on the east and the Cumberland Mountains on the west. The Methodists took the lead, but were closely followed by the Presbyterians and Baptists. Taking our circuit for example, there were three Methodist camp grounds, two Presbyterian, and one Baptist. And it was about the same on other charges in the district. So it was not uncommon to find twelve or fifteen in one presiding elder's district, to be held along from the middle of August to the last of September. These meetings have almost disappeared in the last few years. A brief account of them may not be uninteresting. Our old people who know all about them, why they were established and how conducted, need not take time to read this chapter of recollections. It is written more for the young people, who know little or nothing about their origin, the why and the what and the how of those great religious gatherings. Let us make it very clear in the outset to our young friends that they were not great annual assemblies for social enjoyment and pleasure. True, there was a measure of social pleasure when old friends and neighbors who rarely met elsewhere came with their families and tented side by side for days together. But these meetings had their origin in a profound concern for the souls of men, to build up the faith of believers and call sinners to repentance. The particular form of service as seen in the camp meetings was not an accident, but the deliberate adoption of the best methods under existing conditions to compass the end in view—the salvation of men. And they did it gloriously. Some argue that their discontinuance is an evidence that the Church is less concerned now than then, but this is perhaps not true. Conditions have changed. Then churches were few and small; pastors were overworked on large circuits sparsely settled; religious workers in any given neighborhood, were few and timid. Camp meetings met these conditions. First, by providing comfortable places large enough for whole communities to worship together, and thus giving the pastors an opportunity to see and serve their people, gathered from far and near. Then they called Christian workers from different neighborhoods to sustain the song and prayer services and instruct penitents. They created interest enough to bring the scattered people from the fields and flocks to the place of worship. In a word, they were great religious rallies.

 

...Camp Meeting...

The recollections of my boyhood are full of these camp meeting occasions. Our camp ground was at Cedar Springs. There was a small log church here, and here my father and Jacob Hoss, a kinsman of the Bishop, built a shed one hundred and twenty-five feet long and seventy-five feet wide, with wings on hinges. When these wings were down, it was a great house; and when up, would seat two thousand. The tents were rude shacks made of logs, many of them with bark on. There were no fireplaces. Beds were scaffolds along the sides of the tents. All floors were dirt, covered with straw. Some used sawdust, but I liked the straw better. It had associated with it the smell of the fields and the bantering ring of the reapers' blades and the metheglin that mother made for the three-o'clock lunch for the harvesters and the cheery whistle of Bob White from his rail perch, piping to his old mate on the nest hard by. So I liked the straw better. We and our neighbors usually moved to the camp ground on Friday, which was fast day. At night, after things were arranged in the tents, we had short introductory services under the shed. Shed; pavilion, and auditorium belonged to a later period. At this service the leader, who was usually the presiding elder, announced the regulations for the government of the meeting. "The ground and groves on the south are reserved for the women, and those on the north for the men," was generally the first rule. The second rule was: "The women will occupy the seats on the right of the center aisle in the congregation; the men, those on the left." And this rule was strictly observed. If a man should take a seat on the side assigned to the women, some officer would quietly call his attention to the rule in a general way. If this modest hint did not move him, he was waited on and told plainly that he must take his seat on the other side of the aisle. I saw this done again and again. These were queer old ways our fathers had. But they were wise, and broke up much of the whispering and giggling which disturb public worship often in promiscuous assemblies.

We were next told that at the first sound of the horn all must get up and prepare for the day. (Mother took her dinner horn and hung it in the preacher's tent.) This first horn was blown about sunup if one of the young preachers had to blow it; but if Uncle Haskew had it in charge, it sounded out about the peep of day. All subsequent soundings of the horn were to call the people to worship. At this time all persons must leave the tent, save one, and the tent be closed. The hours for service were 9:30, noon, 3PM, and "candle-lighting." At night the whole encampment was lighted up with candles under the shed, and around it with blazing pine knots. These candles were fastened to the posts and set on the pulpit board. It was the special duty of some one to keep the pine knots going. At the close of the three-o'clock service the people were exhorted and urged to go to the grove and form praying circles, women and men to their separate groves. And here was done much hand-to hand and heart-to-heart work. Neighbor with neighbor and neighbor's children, with songs and prayers and exhortations and personal pleadings, out in the woods with God at the holy, quiet hour of sunset. O, what scenes I have witnessed and what thrills of pious joy have I felt on these occasions, boy as I was! And now, old man as I am, as I walk back in memory over those holy hours, my soul "doth magnify the Lord." Often when there was a little lull in our grove we would hear the women over in theirs, led on by some modern Miriam, singing and shouting. And we knew and felt that God was among them and that his hosts were pressing the enemy and the cry of victory was in the air. Listen! I can hear them now over the seventy intervening years, singing:

"Our bondage here will end by and by, by and by ;
From Egypt's yoke set free, hail the glorious jubilee,
And to Canaan we'll return by and by, by and by."

These praying groups would sometimes return to the encampment about dusk singing, bringing a half dozen penitents, and when they met at the altar, there was the shout of a king in the camp. Usually under these conditions we had no preaching that night. The leader would throw his voice over the great, surging mass of people and invite sinners to come to Jesus. No preaching and no supper that night. The tenters would keep a pot of coffee hot out at the back of their tents for the workers. The altar service would last all night. I have seen more than one man converted at daybreak, as Jacob was at the Jabbok, after an all-night's wrestle with the angel. Here is a custom which was wise but queer, the benediction was never pronounced until the close of the last service of the meeting. Why? Well, this was then a new country. There were many rude, bad men in it, and whisky made them worse. We needed the protection of the State as a worshipping assembly. So we never closed the services, but were a worshipping people all the while we were there. There are very many other interesting features left out of this report of camp meetings of seventy years ago. It is long enough. Let us have the benediction and close and go home to do better and be better, having been to another camp meeting. One smile before we go. As I run back in thought to those days there is one incident recalled which still provokes a smile. The old church was used for the preacher's tent. Mother was a sort of self-appointed superintendent there to see that these men of God had at least moderate comforts: straw for their beds; a bucket and a dipper; a good big lump of home-made soap, which was hardened by putting salt in it as we stirred it off; some home-made flax towels, which sometimes scratched a little if you rubbed hard; and a wash pan for those who did not want to walk down to the spring with Uncle Haskew to wash. As the clans gathered on Saturday, mother slipped off to reconnoiter, to count noses and beds. When she came back, she said to father: "Nathan, we must take another bed up to the preacher's tent." "Well," said father, "we'll attend to it after supper."

 

[Tennessee]

THESE recollections will be very incomplete if, having spent the ever-to-be-remembered days of my childhood and youth on the farm, I do not give a chapter to that period and tell how a farmer and his family lived in those days in this East Tennessee country, with all its bears and wolves and deer and turkeys still roaming over the mountains and valleys. During those seven years the country had been settled up by young families, most of whom had been renters, as father had been. These had, by industry and economy, made and saved enough money to buy a few acres of government land in the woods. Here they built a cabin and began their life work. When I was a boy, they had cleared a few acres around the cabin and about the pens where they stacked the fodder and kept the horses.

There was plenty for us all to do on that thousand acres of forest—grubbing and brush burning and rail-splitting and fence-making. Yes, and then came the plowing. Mother was good on a stone bruise with a big, warm flax seed or mush poultice, or a piece of fat meat at night. In fact, mother knew a heap of things to help a boy when he got hurt—a stumped toe, a splinter under his nail, or a bee sting—but a stone bruise had to run its course. To meet the numerous wants of his family for food and clothes, almost every farmer had, in addition to his main crops of corn and wheat and oats, vegetables of all kinds, patches of cotton and flax, a flock of sheep, a drove of geese, some hogs, a good milch cow or two, a young bullock for beef and his hide for shoes, a few bee-gums, and a little tobacco around by the pigpens. Look at this list, and you will see that he had his eye on the coming wants of his family. And well he might, for it all had to come out of the farm. And mother, blessed helpmeet! Was just as thoughtful and wise as he to utilize the material furnished by the flocks and farm to feed and clothe us all—cotton and flax from the fields and wool and hides from the flocks. I never had an article of "store clothes" until I was half grown. As for hats, and shoes, we furnished the wool and hides, and old Mr. Blankenship made our wool hats and Uncle Sam. Hogue made the shoes. These were for winter. Our summer hats mother and sisters made of plaited straw. For summer shoes we wore our calf skins, as we used to say when we turned barefoot in the spring. Corn was our main crop—corn and hogs, "hog and hominy." Corn will produce four times as much as wheat per acre, and requires only one-tenth of the seed to seed it down and only one-third of the time from planting till it can be used for food. Wheat must have a well-prepared soil, and be sown in the fall and watched and guarded for nine months before it is even ready to harvest; whereas a woman can take a "sang hoe" in April and with a quart of seed plant a patch around the cabin, and in six weeks she and the children can begin to eat "roastin' ears;" and when it gets too hard for that, she can begin to parch it. She needed to gather only what she used for the day; for it will stand all winter, well protected by its waterproof shucks. Not so with wheat. It must be all gathered at once when ripe, and thrashed, cleaned, and garnered. Corn was king when I was a boy. Mother and sisters, with Polly Shook to help them, worked the cotton and wool and flax into clothes and other needful articles for the family.

As to amusements (better called pleasant occasions), we were not wholly without them. We knew the happy art of combining work and pleasure. Our log-rollings, house-raisings, corn-shuckings, quiltings, singing schools, and an occasional dash with the dogs after a deer or fox were seasons of real enjoyment. The quiltings we were careful to bracket with the others wherever we could; thus, a houseraising and quilting, at such and such a home, day and date, or a log-rolling and quilting. The quilting brought out the girls, who were, and always have been, essential to a good social time, I reckon. "Well you say, "if you could find pleasure in tugging your arms off rolling logs and wearing your finger tips sore at a corn-shucking, you must have been easily pleased." Even so, even so—happy faculty, secret of a contented life, easily pleased ; sweet bud from the plant, heart's-ease, that flowers and fruits in the life of our best friends and companions.

 

[Salvation and Love Feast]

THESE chapters have run in a somewhat similar strain long enough. Let us vary the exercises, as the preacher would say, and hold an "experience meeting” I like experience meetings, especially when I feel religious, and I believe most people do under similar circumstances. As a Church we have used this kind of service with great spiritual profit. The love feast and the class meeting were of this character. The love feast is still known among us, often in a very modified form. But many of our young people, even members of the Church, who have never attended a class meeting, know nothing of them, how they are conducted, or why established. The love feast was more a testimony meeting, while the class meeting was designed as a special opportunity for helpful oversight, counsel, and exhortation by one called the leader. The old preachers used to set great store by these meetings. A few sentences giving an account of them, I think, may meet the approval of the reader, and at least preserve some knowledge of a religious exercise so much esteemed in the early history of the Church. They were peculiar to us as people, and subjected us to criticism, and sometimes to ridicule. They were primarily and almost exclusively designed for members of the Church. Strangers and outsiders were allowed to be present as a special privilege. The exercises consisted in an inquiry by the leader into the spiritual condition of the members, particularly the younger members of the class, and giving such admonition and exhortation and encouragement as might be needed and helpful. And many young Christians had occasion to bless God for such help. The preacher in charge usually held class meeting immediately after services. I think I never knew Uncle George Ekin to fail. They called it "meeting the class" and the preacher was leader. The class book was an interesting and important volume. It contained the names of the leaders and the members, usually in families. It was ruled in columns running perpendicularly and marked so as to show at a glance the following facts: The first column was to show whether the member was married or single, and was marked M or S; the second column was to indicate the spiritual condition of the member, whether a believer or seeker, and was marked B or S; the third column recorded the amount of quarterage paid by that member; the other columns were marked P or A or D, for present or absent or distant (from home). The roll was called at every meeting, unless the leader knew who were there and so marked the book. This book was inspected by the pastor at every round, if he desired it, and furnished him particular information concerning every member of that class. If a member were absent twice consecutively, the leader called to see if he were sick. The preacher would sometimes say to me, with kindly concern, after looking over our class book: "David, I see you were not at class the last time." Ah, those frequent reckonings with self and one another wrought careful living and much prayer in a boy, as I well remember. I know no adequate substitute. But I rejoice in all our young people's meetings, and pray God to make and keep them spiritual. But I proposed to have an experience meeting, and here I am writing about an experience meeting. Did you ever notice how much easier it is to talk about a thing than it is to do or be that thing—to talk about religion than it is to be religious, to talk about charity than to be charitable? There is a man staying here in my room and sleeping in my bed who has made observations and had experience on that very subject, and he sometimes gives me a dig in the ribs about it. Have you ever had such a fellow about your house? And now, kind reader, let me explain a little about the next few chapters of these recollections. Two years ago my children asked me to write out for their use my early life—that part with which they were not acquainted. I copy in part from that sketch, which will explain why certain family affairs are made prominent. It was for the children to read at their leisure.

I was converted, as I verily believe, on a cold Sunday in the old log church in the town of Athens, Tenn., when I was in my twelfth year. Our place of worship was two miles in the country, at Cedar Springs; but occasionally when there were no services at our church, we went to town to preaching. It was a cold day; but my parents were going to church, and father asked me if I did not want to go. So I got my colt, and was looking about for a saddle when my father said: "Son, I don't think I would get a saddle; just spread your blanket on the colt, and he will keep you warmer than if you had a saddle.” So I did, and we went to church. Rev. Frank Fanning was the preacher. There were not twenty persons present, perhaps—just a few old people hovering around the stove. I sat with my hands between my knees to keep them warm, and listened to the preacher. He preached about Jesus, but what he said I do not now. But there came into my childish heart a feeling unknown before—a strange sense of the nearness and love of Jesus, of whom mother had so often spoken to me. I felt that I loved him. A simple, childlike tenderness filled my heart and I felt that he loved me. It was a most delightful sensation. I think I wept for very joy, but said nothing. It was all so new and strange and sweet that I knew nothing to say. I looked over to the seat where father and mother were seated, and such a flood of love for them swept through me that I could hardly repress the desire to run and hug them. I did actually love everybody and everything. And that sweet feeling stayed with me after the benediction, and went home with me and made the colt ride better. His coltish ways, worming in and out of the road, did not fret me. It stayed with me all about the house and barn, singing in my hear when alone in the woods; and I wanted to pray, and did not want my dog to catch that little rabbit and kill it. Do you ask, "What was it?" I never once thought what it was. I was happy and peaceful, and everybody was good, and that was enough. Sometimes I would stay around mother and wish she would tell me to do something, that I might have the pleasure of showing her how quickly and well I could do it. It did not occur to me that I had religion. Indeed, I hardly thought a boy could get religion except at Cedar Springs Camp Meeting. But that sweet, love-everybody feeling staid with me till camp meeting. I was glad when that came. At the first call I went to the mourners' bench, and down in the straw father and mother and brother and sister came, and we prayed together, and I began to laugh and hug them. It was the same old feeling of love and tenderness which I felt on the cold Sunday six months before. I said: "I've got religion. Hallelujah!" It was true, and I have never had any better, and all I want now is more of it. So I sometimes tell my friends that I was converted six months before I got religion. Maybe somebody will look religiously wise and shake his theological head at this. But if you will be careful to use these terms in the sense here employed, I do not believe they will hurt your good creed, and perhaps maybe help somebody who does not know what religion is.

Here is the law on this subject: "He that loveth is born of God." Now let us sing with Mrs. Prentiss No. 367. And as the disciplinary "one hour" for love feast is now out, we will for the next chapter have the experience meeting continued.

 

***School Days****

MY place was on the farm till I was about eight years old, with father and mother, happy brothers and sisters; often in the field with playful colts, skipping lambs, singing birds, and my ever-present dog—a happy boy. I went to school two or three months during the winter till I was fifteen. These were subscription schools, made up and supported by the neighbors. We had no public schools then. The first school I attended was at Rocky Mountain, on the back of my father's farm. The little house was made of logs with the bark on, a weight-pole roof and puncheon floor. After I was fifteen, I had two years at Forest Hill Academy, under Charles Patrick Samuel, a tall, scholarly Kentuckian, "Old Pat," of blessed memory. After this I went to Emory and Henry College in Virginia. How this conclusion stirred the household, and especially the boyish heart of the writer and that of his mother, will never be forgotten. I was soon fitted out for the trip, and the morning for my departure had come. Family prayers that morning were perhaps a little longer and tenderer than usual, and breakfast was almost in silence. Mother cried, and I said: "Don't cry, mother. I will soon be back." She replied: "No my son, not back with us at home. When you have finished your college course you will go to your life work, and only be a visitor at home hereafter."

EARLY DAYS AT EMORY NOW that I am back again to my college days, a thousand memories come trooping up, and I hesitate to attempt to make a selection where each is so dear. It was in the early years of old Emory and Henry history. There were only three houses there then: the old college building on the hill, the brick house at the west end of the campus (both still standing), and the farm house in which Mr. Crawford lived when the Church bought the property (long since burned). We paid six dollars per month for rooms, board, and fuel, furnished our own rooms, made up our beds, cut the wood and made our fires, and carried water from the spring. Roll call and prayers came morning and evening morning prayers at 5:30 (which was before daylight in the winter) and no fire in the chapel. I jumped out of bed many times, hurriedly dressed, ran into the chapel to answer "Present" and shiver while the Professor read—by the light of a tallow candle which he brought in with him—a few lines from the morning lesson and repeated the Lord's Prayer, the snow a foot deep and the north wind howling through the hills and whistling at the keyhole. Dr. Collins held evening prayer, and Drs. Wiley and Longley morning prayers.

I began to look to my life work. Thank God, I did not have the trouble of determining what that work should be. That had been settled for me and by me while I was yet a little boy. When I was converted in my twelfth year, if indeed not before, I felt that I must and would be a preacher some day. I read my Bible, went to prayer meeting and to Sunday-school, and prayed in the haymow when I went to feed my colt, and finally went to college with that fact ever present. I am not conscious of ever having been tempted to give it up, thank God! While in college we enjoyed several gracious revivals, in which I gladly took part. One I will tell you of. It was brought about in this way: Four of we boys seemed to be moved simultaneously to go to the woods and pray for a larger measure of faith and deeper consecration of life. After a little talk together, we agreed to slip off to the forest next evening when school close —Richard Childers, James S. Kennedy, James Bailey, and I. We walked down by Dr. Collin's and out toward the old stage road. Soon we left the road and struck into a hollow where we thought no one would see or hear us. There we found the fallen trunk of a forked tree, and sat down on its limbs, facing each other two and two. Here we sang several songs and prayed all prayed with snatches of songs between prayers—sang softly, fearing someone might hear us. The Father of the woods did hear us and gave delightful evidence of his presence as we waited for Him in that great forest temple. We got back to college just at supper time. Some of our special friends looked at us with a sort of inquiring gaze, as much as to say, "Where have you been ?" We told a few of the more religious boys.

So it got noised abroad. Next evening, when we started, there came a dozen and more following after us. We were glad and felt less afraid of being heard, so we did not go more than half as far till we found a good place to pray. The other boys came up close about us and sat at the roots of the trees and joined in the singing and prayers. We sang louder that evening. The supper horn called us before we got back. The next evening we began to sing by the time we struck the woods, and scores of boys were with us.

After a few songs and prayers, it was evident that a great solemnity was resting on many hearts. Kennedy, I think it was, made a short talk and invited any who desired to be saved and wished the counsel and prayers of their fellow-students to come and kneel down about a big stump in our midst. Ten or a dozen came, weeping, and fell down on the leaves. Now all hands had work, instructing, encouraging, and praying. Two or three were converted, and we made the woods ring with our praises. We went to supper two and two with locked arms. As we passed by the gate at Dr. Collin's, I ran in and reported, and asked him if we might not have a service in Dr. Wiley's recitation room that night (that was the largest room except the chapel). He was delighted and said that he would come and worship with us. The announcement was made at the supper table. We arranged the room and carried our tallow candles to light it. Soon we were singing at the top of our voices. The Doctor joined us—not in the songs, for he could not sing a bit, but with much emotion and great earnestness he preached and called for penitents. What an hour that was! As the boys came he stood, his handsome face all aglow, while he invited the "young gentlemen" (that is what he always called us) to come to Jesus. The appointment was made for the next night for the chapel. The meeting had right of way now, and for many nights we rallied, and many boys were converted, who made leaders in Israel's host for many years to come. Some of the neighbors came in, and occasionally a motherly hand was laid on a boy's head whose mother was far away. It made me think and sigh for home. Thank God for Christian colleges!

WHEN my college work was done, I knew what came next. WG Cunnyngham was the preacher in charge and T. K. Catlett presiding elder, it was quarterly meeting. And Cunnyngham said to me: "You have no license, and you may not find a Quarterly Conference when you get home. Deposit your Church letter with us, and I will ask the Quarterly Conference to give you a license to preach and recommend you to the Annual Conference." It was done—June, 1850. I went home a young Methodist preacher, but it was all new.

 

Note! Back to Cripple Creek in Southwest VA, where Georgle Clark Rankin gives an account here, Salvation the Arminian Way, where he describes, "The famous Cripple Creek Campground was on that work. They have kept up campmeetings there for more than a hundred years. It is still the great rallying point for the Methodists of all that section. I have never heard such singing and preaching and shouting anywhere else in my life. I met the Rev. John Boring there and heard him preach. He was a well-known preacher in the conference; original, peculiar, strikingly odd, but a great revival preacher."
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As the Civil War was coming to an end the Federal forces were pressing in on all sides, guided and encouraged by Union friends, of whom there were many. The worst elements of society were aroused in Tennessee, and bad men took occasion to vent their spite on such as they did not like, old family feuds broke out afresh, and the land was full of murder and robbery. Bands of the worst men seized the opportunity, and scoured the country by night, calling quiet old farmers to their doors and shooting them down in cold blood. This caused other bands to unite and retaliate. It was the reign of terror — war at every man's door, neighbor against neighbor. Neither property or life was safe.

Many refugees moved to the area of Cripple Creek, Wythe County, Va. Here we stayed eighteen months, from April, 1864, to October, 1865. And many recollections cluster here. I could not go back to Tennessee after the war without being arrested on the charge of treason, and so we remained in the cabin and I taught school for a few months.

 

The tale of William "Laughing Bill" Horn….

And now I will tell you of an amusing incident that occurred at the Cripple Creek Camp meeting at the end of the Civil War,. The neighbors were all there, a most excellent and harmonious people. Many were campers, and among them two of the most successful farmers and traders, who often swapped horses and traded cattle: Isaac Keesling and William Horn (familiarly known as "laughing Bill Horn"). And laughing Bill he was. I saw him almost break down an exercise at Emory and Henry College on a commencement occasion, when Dr. Slade, of Virginia, was delivering the literary address in the big tent on the campus. Horn was sitting on the steps of the platform, and an immense audience of Virginia's best families crowded the pavilion. The Doctor, in his address, to illustrate and fix a thought, related a ridiculous story just in point. Horn was giving serious attention to the speaker, who was moving along in rather a quiet, dignified way. The laughable part of the story came most unexpectedly, and struck Horn in his funny place. Suddenly he was seized by a spell of laughter, and trying to suppress an explosion, he threw his hand over his mouth and held his breath for a moment; but finding it all of no avail, he gave up the hope of suppressing the spasm, and leaping off the steps he ran along the aisle emitting peal after peal of side-splitting laughter; and when outside of the pavilion, he gave full vent to his powers, the whole audience, both within and without the tent, caught the spell and joined him. Dr. Slade could do nothing but wait till Horn and his sympathizers got through. This lasted two or three minutes, for Horn was subject to returning spasms. Quiet being measurably restored, the Doctor was about to begin again, when Horn started back to hear the rest of the address; but just as he got inside of the tent another spasm took him, and all order gave way for several minutes, and Horn left the grounds laughing, till you could hear him for half a mile away.

Well, it is of this William Horn and Isaac Keesling I started to tell you something at the opening of this chapter. Keesling, one of the choice citizens of the country, was religious; Horn, though big-hearted, good neighbor, and kind husband, was not religious. His wife was deeply pious, and, like all good wives, was very anxious that her husband should be religious. So she asked Christians to join her in prayer for his salvation during the meeting. The preachers all loved the big-hearted sinner, and special prayer was made for him. The Lord heard the good woman and her friends, and soon Horn was a penitent at the mourners' bench. But he found no peace, though he came again and again. Finally the two old preachers, John M. McTeer and George Stewart, went to him in the altar with sympathy, prayers, and counsel to encourage his faith and lead him into the light if possible. As they probed into the case, seeking for the hindering cause, McTeer said: "Brother Horn, genuine repentance includes not only sorrow for sin, but restitution for wrong somewhere. Think along that line, and see if there is anything in the way there.'' Horn was silent for a moment, as it in a heart Struggle, and then said: "Call Isaac Keesling here.' Keesling came quickly, hoping, no doubt, to find his neighbor and friend happy in the sense of a conscious pardon. As soon as Horn saw him he pulled out his pocketbook, and, finding a twenty-dollar bill, handed it to him, saying: "Here, Isaac, take this; it is yours! Keesling drew back and said: "Why, Bill, you don't owe me anything. ,, "Yes, I do” said Horn, "for the last time we swapped horses I got you twenty dollars in the trade!' "No, no," said Keesling, "you didn't." "Yes, I did," replied Horn, "take it: And laying the bill down on the bench, he turned and went on with his praying. But Keesling would not take it. They say that when men swap horses neither is willing to confess that he got the worst of the bargain. Well, there was the bill, and neither of the men would have it. What to do with it was a question for the preachers to settle. And after a little pious consultation McTeer and Stewart concluded to put it in the missionary collection, as the charge was a little behind there. And I was told Horn was then happily converted.

 

And now, dear reader, we have rambled over seventy years together, touching some of the bright and some of the dark places, and only some. Let us have a few parting words, and then you go on your upward way of duty and service, happy in your work, singing as you go, and I will drop out of the
company, and join those "who from henceforth are blessed, and do rest from their labors."

Of the seventy years we have been together, sixty of them I have been a preacher, and received my appointments annually from the Bishop. Fifty of these appointments have been to school work. How many sermons I have preached, or couples married, or children baptized, or funerals conducted, I do
not know. It never occurred to me to keep an account. I did keep an account of the number of churches I dedicated, one hundred and twenty-seven in Virginia, West Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina and Tennessee. And now, looking back from what seems to be a sort of table land to which I have come in this my eighty-third year, In these chapters of life's review, I have often stood by the dying bed of dear ones and watched them pass over the river, and in imagination saw them go through the open gates into the City. And I have been much in sympathy with Bunyan when Hopeful and Christian entered the gate he said: "Now just as the gates were opened to let the men in, I looked in after them, and behold the City shone like the Sun; the streets also were paved with gold, and in them walked many men with crowns on their heads, palms in their hands, and golden harps to sing praises withal. And when I had seen I wished myself among them.' And now, having passed more than four score years of life, and nearing its end, I adopt, as my own, Mrs. Barbauld's exquisite lines:

Life ! I know not what thou art,
But know that thou and I must part ;
And when, or how, or where we met,
I own to me's a secret yet.
Life ! we've been long together,
Through pleasant and through cloudy weather;
'Tis hard to part when friends are dear —
Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear ;
Then steal away, give little warning ;
Choose thine own time ;
Say not Good-night, but in some brighter clime
Bid me Good-morning.
Brother, friend, meet me when the day
breaks over the hills.


Excerpts from

Recollections of an Old Man: Seventy Years in Dixie 1827-1897
David Sullins
Cleveland, Tenn.,
March 28, 1910.