REV. FINIS EWING.*

1803-1841.

FINIS EWING was born on the 10th of July, 1773, in Bedford county, Virginia. His father and an uncle had settled there on their emigration from Ireland to this country, a number of years previous to the American Revolution. The two brothers seem to have ranked among the most respectable and prosperous farmers of the county. The older of the two, Robert Ewing, was for many years Clerk of Bedford County Court, and an elder in the Presbyterian Church. He married Miss Mary Baker. They had twelve children-nine sons and three daughters. The subject of this sketch was their twelfth and last child, and from his being the last, his parents gave him the fanciful name of Finis -the end.

Both the parents are said to have been pious, and to have trained their children in an exemplary manner. The subsequent lives of the children gave evidence of their correct training. All the sons who lived to maturity became prominent, engaged Smith's History

*Life and Times of Ewing, by Dr. Cossitt. of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church.

deeply in the business of the world, but still, I believe, maintained Christian characters.

Of Mr. Ewing's early history but little is known. He seems to have been fond of books, and acquired what was considered in his day a respectable education. He studied Latin somewhat extensively, and Greek to some extent, together with some of the more common branches of science. Where he obtained his education, is a matter of some doubtperhaps at Spring Hill Seminary, in Davidson county, Tennessee, under the instruction of Rev. Mr. Brooks. His parents had died in Virginia, and the family had moved and settled in Davidson county, near Spring Hill. Nashville, the county seat of Davidson county, and now the capital of the State, was then a poor village, hardly worth notice. The country was new, and had just passed through the horrors of an Indian war.

On the 15th of January, 1793, Mr. Ewing was united in matrimony with Peggy Davidson, daughter of Gen. William Davidson, formerly of North Carolina. Gen. Davidson was one of the heroes of the Revolution, and lost his life on the Catawba River, in endeavoring to oppose the advance of the British army under Lord Cornwallis. The Legislature of North Carolina consecrated his name, by giving it to one of the first counties organized in the Cumberland country. At the time of their marriage, Mr. Ewing, says his biographer, was in his twenty-first year, and his wife in her nineteenth. Soon after their marriage, they both joined the

Presbyterian Church, in their neighborhood, under the pastoral ministrations of Rev. Thomas Craighead. It seems, however, that at this time neither of them had any spiritual knowledge of religion.

After the birth of their first child, they removed from Davidson county, and settled in Logan county, Kentucky, about eight miles from Russellville, near the old Red River Meeting-house. Mr. McGready ministered to the congregation here. His ministrations were very different from those of Mr. Craighead. Mr. McGready was a preacher of great earnestness and power. They heard the new preacher with interest, and the result was that both soon became uneasy in relation to their spiritual condition. After some time spent in inquiry, prayer, and deep anxiety of mind, one morning, while engaged in family prayer, Mr. Ewing received an evidence of his acceptance. He was filled with peace and joy in believing. This he considered his conversion, and from this point he regarded his spiritual life to have begun. In a few days his wife was relieved in a similar manner.

A new path of duty was now opened up, in the providence of God, before Mr. Ewing. A history of the difficult times upon which we enter at this point has been written more than once. It is not the purpose of the writer of the present sketch to dwell upon them. Let it suffice to be said, that from the extensive spread of the revival, and the enlargement and multiplication of congregations, a great want of ministerial labor soon began to be

felt. Another thing is to be said, which may as well be said plainly: A considerable portion of the Presbyterian ministry were not adapted in their spirit and habits to the wants of the people. This statement is not made for the purpose of stirring up an old strife, which was certainly bitter enough in its day; but for the purpose of presenting those facts with which history should always deal. The prevailing religious preference, in the West, was Presbyterian. Presbyterian agencies were mainly employed in the revival. The new congregations wished chiefly to become and to remain Presbyterians; but there were not Presbyterian ministers enough, who sympathized with the new condition. of things, to supply them with the word and ordi

nances.

In this exigency, one of the oldest ministers in Kentucky, Rev. David Rice, advised the encouragement of a few young men of promise and unquestionable piety, to direct their attention to the work of the ministry, with such literary qualifications as they might have been able to acquire. Mr. Ewing was one of the young men so encouraged. In the fall of 1801 he, together with Alexander Anderson and Samuel King, presented himself before the Transylvania Presbytery, with a written discourse. The other two were similarly prepared. They were permitted to read their discourses privately to Mr. Rice. Mr. Anderson was received as a candidate for the ministry; Mr. Ewing and Mr. King were encouraged, but not received as candidates. In the

fall, however, of 1802, the three were licensed as probationers for the holy ministry.

At the sessions of the Presbytery in October, 1803, petitions were presented from the congregations of Spring Creek, McAdow, and Clarksville, for the ordination of Mr. Ewing. The Presbytery accordingly met on Friday before the third Sabbath in the following month, for his ordination, and he was duly set apart to the whole work of the ministry, Rev. William McGee preaching the ordination sermon, and Rev. James McGready presiding and giving the charge.

In December, 1805, the celebrated Commission of the Synod of Kentucky met at Gaspar Meetinghouse, in Logan county, Kentucky, for the purpose of conferring with the members of Cumberland Presbytery, which had in the meantime been formed from a part of Transylvania Presbytery, and adjudicating upon their Presbyterial proceedings. The result of the conference and adjudication was, that all the "young men," as they were then called, from Mr. Ewing down to those who had been most recently licensed, were declared to have been irregularly ordained to the ministry, and were solemnly prohibited from exhorting, preaching, and administering the ordinances, in consequence of any authority which they had received from the Cumberland Presbytery, until they submitted to the jurisdiction of the Commission, and underwent the requisite examination. The Presbytery had declined the jurisdiction of the Commission, for the very best of reasons, that a Presbytery alone has the right to