BRIEF BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. REV. JAMES M'GREADY.* 58 1788-1817. REV. JAMES MCGREADY was of Scotch-Irish descent, and was born in Pennsylvania. When he was quite young, his father moved from Pennsylvania, and settled in Guilford county, North Carolina. Here young McGready passed his early years. He is represented to have been of a thoughtful and serious. habit of mind, and otherwise promising, whilst still a youth. An uncle, who was on a visit to his father's family, from Pennsylvania, thought that a boy of such habits and promise ought to be educated for the ministry, and prevailed on his parents to allow their son to accompany him to Pennsylvania, with a view to the accomplishment of that object. The more reliable tradition is, that about the time. of his commencing his studies preparatory to the work of the ministry, he was convinced by a sermon *Annals of the American Pulpit, Smith's History of the Cumberland Presbyterians, Foote's Sketches of North Carolina. of a Rev. Mr. Smith, of the unsoundness of his previous religious hopes. Smith, in his history of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, says that his awakening to a true sense of his spiritual state was attributable to a conversation of two friends, overheard by Mr. McGready, in which they expressed their fears that he was not a truly converted man. Foote, in his Sketches of North Carolina, confirms the latter account. Whatever may have been the means of his awakening, he became an earnest inquirer, and soon, without doubt, a true Christian. In the fall of 1785, Mr. Smith, who, according to the first tradition, was the means of his awakening, opened a school for the purpose of assisting young men in preparing for the ministry, and young McGready immediately became one of his pupils. He remained here for some time, and then entered a school recently opened by Rev. Dr. McMillan, with whom he had spent some time after his arrival with his uncle from North Carolina. Dr. McMillan's school grew into what is now Jefferson College. The subject of this sketch having completed his literary and theological course of studies, was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Redstone, on the 13th of August, 1788, when he was about thirty years of age. In the autumn or winter following, he returned to North Carolina, and on his way spent some time with Dr. John Blair Smith, at Hampden Sidney College, in Virginia. Dr. Smith had been extensively connected with a powerful revival of religion, which occurred in his neighborhood about that time, and the mind of Mr. McGready seems to have been deeply affected by what he saw and heard of the manifestations of Divine grace in that revival. On his arrival in North Carolina, he found the churches in a low state. A great spiritual dearth prevailed, and his preaching was the means of awakening increased interest on the subject of religion. From one of my authorities we have the following: "His labors at an academy under the care of Dr. Caldwell, were instrumental in producing a revival of religion, in which ten or twelve young men were brought into the fold, all of whom became ministers of the gospel, and some of them were subsequently his fellow-laborers in the far West." About the year 1790 Mr. McGready married, and became the pastor of a congregation in Orange county. "Here he labored with his wonted zeal, and often with great success." His zeal provoked opposition. The cry was raised against him that he was running the people distracted, diverting their attention from their necessary avocations, and creating unnecessary alarm in the minds of those who were decent and orderly in their lives. "A letter was written to him in blood, requiring him to leave the country at the peril of his life; and a number of wicked men and women of the baser sort, on a certain occasion during the week, assembled in his church, tore down the seats, set fire to the pulpit, and burnt it to ashes." On the following Sabbath, when the congregation met for worship, a scene |