Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

mar-school in Woodford county. Quite a number of eminent men received their education under his training. In 1803, he preached to the Salem Church, and in 1804 took charge of the church of Walnut Hill, six miles east of Lexington, in connection with which he labored forty years. Discreet and prudent, and sometimes called a "Moses" for his meekness, he was capable, when occasion demanded, of keen antagonism to error; and the first publication which stung the Unitarian President of Transylvania University was from

his pen.

Wilson, of Irish descent, was a native of Virginia. Like Stuart, he performed missionary labor in his native State before his removal to Kentucky. For nearly twenty-five years he was settled at Washington, near Maysville; and the neighboring churches were greatly indebted to his exertions.

John Howe was a native of South Carolina, but completed his studies at Transylvania Seminary. He studied theology with James Crawford, and was licensed in 1795. For several years he preached alternately at Glasgow and Beaver Creek Churches, subsequently removing to Greensburg, Green county. was amiable, unostentatious, and useful and popular as a preacher. Fifty-three years of his ministry were spent in Kentucky. He then removed to Missouri, where he died in 1856.

From the date of this accession, the number of ministers multiplied rapidly, although not in proportion to the demand made by the increase of population. Before the formation of the Synod, in 1802, the Presbytery numbered on its list the names of Samuel Robinson, Samuel Finley, James Vance, James Kemper, Samue! B. Robertson, John Bowman, John Thompson, Matthew Houston, John Dunlavy, Isaac Tull, William Mahon, John Evans Finley, Peter Wilson,

William Speer, James Balch, John Rankin, Samuel McAdow, Samuel Donnell, Jeremiah Abeel, together with Robert G. Craighead, James McGready, and William McGee. The last three, with Bowman and Thompson, were from North Carolina; Houston, Vance, and Mahon, from Virginia; Tull, Robinson, Dunlavy, and McNemar, from Pennsylvania; and Finley, from South Carolina.

The field to be occupied was large and difficult. It extended over the whole region west of the mountains, with the exception of Tennessee and the field of Redstone and Ohio Presbyteries. Northward it extended beyond the Ohio, and to the east and west its respective boundaries were civilization and barbarism. A large population, in sparsely-settled districts, was spread over this vast area. The labor of reaching them was one of exceeding difficulty, and added new discouragements to itinerant missionary labor.

Nor was the moral aspect of the field at all inviting. The seeds of French infidelity had been sown broadcast over it. Societies affiliated with the Jacobin Club of Philadelphia were formed (1793) at Lexington, Georgetown, and Paris. Politically, they were violent and dogmatic; morally, they were corrupting, and in respect to religion utterly infidel. The nomenclature of towns and counties still attests the French sympathies of the first settlers. It is quite significant of the state of social morals that at this period French agents were able to enlist two thousand recruits within the bounds of the State to attack the Spanish possessions on the Mississippi.

Nor was this all. Years had passed in many settlements before they were visited by a single missionary, or were reminded, by his presence and words, of religious ordinances. A backwoods life created an irreressible passion for excitement. Lawlessness largely

prevailed. Family education and religion fell into neglect. The intense cupidity of the settlers, fed by constant speculation, and incited by land-jobbing, litigation, and feuds of various kinds, tended to social demoralization. The variety of religious bodies on the ground, each to some extent at variance within itself,the Baptists wrangling between Regulars and Separates, and the Presbyterians convulsed by the question of Psalmody,-greatly aggravated the difficulty. Evangelical effort, instead of presenting an unbroken front, was torn with intestine feuds and weakened by division. The enemies of religion were not slow to take advantage of this state of things. Jeffersonian influence was as strong west as east of the mountains. In 1793, the services of a chaplain to the Legislature were dispensed with. The measure was mainly significant as showing the influences which were ascendant in high places. A revolution was effected at the same time in the Transylvania Seminary by placing at its head a disciple of Priestley, and thus virtually alienating with utter contempt the early friends who had toiled and endured so much to lay its foundation on the basis of Christian truth. An apostate Baptist minister was chosen Governor of the State. No public remonstrance was raised in consequence of these proceedings. Before the close of the century, a decided majority of the population of the State were reputed to be infidels. As might naturally be expected, vice and dissipation attended this influx of fatal error.

It was no easy task-and it required no ordinary boldness to venture-to stem the tide. It seemed to roll, with irresistible power over the whole region. The few who should have girded themselves for the work were divided among themselves. The last hope of recovering the ground lost appeared to be fast dying away. Yet it was at this very crisis that a reaction

VOL. I.-36

commenced. The Great Revival, which marks the opening of the present century, with all its extravagances and excesses, effectually arrested the universal tide of skepticism and irreligion. It began when religion was at the lowest ebb, and spread over a region that to superficial view was proof against its influence.

CHAPTER XX.

RISE OF PRESBYTERIANISM IN TENNESSEE, 1775-1800.

RETURNING now to the fountain-head of Presbyterian emigration in Virginia, we take note of another branch of the current, following the line of the Holston. In 1785, Abingdon Presbytery was erected by a division of the original Hanover Presbytery. It embraced the churches of Southwestern Virginia, and extended so as to include the new settlements on the Holston, in what is now Eastern Tennessee. In 1797, twelve years from its formation,-although Transylvania Presbytery was formed from it in 1786,-it numbered thirtysix congregations; while three others which had been under its care had become almost, if not quite, extinct.1 Of these, eleven were within the State of Virginia, nineteen were in Tennessee, and seven were in the western part of North Carolina. More than two-thirds of the whole number were at that time vacant,-viz.: New Dublin, Austinville, Graham's Meeting-House, Adam's Meeting-House, Davis's, Upper Holston or Ebbing

1 Report to General Assembly, 1797.

Nearly all, however, were within the limits of what is now the State of Tennessee.

Spring, Glade Spring, Rock Spring, Sinking Spring, Green Spring, and Clinch Congregation, in Virginia; Upper Concord, New Providence, New Bethel, Hebron, Providence, Chesnut Ridge, Waggoner's Settlement, Charter's Valley, Gap Creek Congregation, Pent Gap and Oil Creek Congregations, Hopewell, Shunam, Lower Concord, and Fork Congregation, in Tennessee; and Rimm's Creek Congregation, Mouth of Swananoa, Head of French Broad, Tennessee Congregation, and Grassy Valley, in North Carolina.

The pastors at that time were John Cossan at Jonesborough, Samuel Doak at Salem, Hezekiah Balch at Mount Bethel, James Balch at Sinking Spring, Robert Henderson at Westminster, Samuel Carrick at Knoxville, and Gideon Blackburn at Eusebia and New Providence.

The oldest of the Virginia congregations, that of Upper Holston, or Ebbing Spring, had been in existence for twenty-five years, the others for shorter periods, varying from seven to twenty. In Tennessee, those of Upper Concord, New Providence, Salem, Mount Bethel, and Charter's Valley were organized in 1780; New Bethel, in 1782; Providence, in 1784; Hopewell, in 1785; Chesnut Ridge, Sinking Spring, New Providence, Pent Gap, Oil Creek, and Westminster, in 1787; Fork Congregation, Shunam,' and Hebron, in 1790; Waggoner's Settlement and Lower Concord, in 1791; Gap Creek Congregation, in 1792; Knoxville, in 1793; and Jonesborough, in 1796.

Meanwhile, the Presbytery of Transylvania, formed from that of Abingdon in 1786, and consisting of five members only at the time of its erection, had outgrown the parent Presbytery, and was fast attaining the dimensions of a Synod. Its field embraced the

1 Organized by Carrick perhaps a year or two later.

« ZurückWeiter »