USA > Delaware > Methodism of the peninsula, or, Sketches of notable characters and events in the history of Methodism in the Maryland and Delaware peninsula > Part 6
USA > Maryland > Methodism of the peninsula, or, Sketches of notable characters and events in the history of Methodism in the Maryland and Delaware peninsula > Part 6
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hole in it." And again, for the third time we gave forth the responsive chorus : "And so have I." But his final charge disarmed his competitors, and "brought down the house." With the provoking air of triumph of a consciously victorious gladiator, he quietly but con- fidently announced : "Well, braithren; I've got an Irishman's tooth !"
While some portions of our country are so marred by the ignorance, vice and lawlessness of the lower order of immigrant Irish ; it is a cause for hearty congratulation that our beautiful Peninsula has attracted few, except of the better class of these swarming multitudes. In our fields and orchards ; in our work-shops; in society; in our churches and in our conference, the sons of Erin have wrought with honest hands and earnest hearts. The impress of their personality remains on our terri- tory and upon our church ; and their well and deeply graven record is in heaven.
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CHAPTER IV.
PATRIARCHS OF THE CHESAPEAKE.
ITHE isles of the beautiful Chesapeake are already I renowned in story if not in song. The weird and fascinating annals of "The Parson of The Islands," written by Rev. Dr. Wallace, have both amused and astonished the church; and perhaps many who have read that book, have arisen from its perusal with the skeptical conviction that the reverend author was gifted with a glowing imagination, on which he drew very freely for his facts. From personal contact with many of the scenes and persons therein mentioned, the author of these sketches is fully prepared to vindicate the faithfulness of the historian. For some of the incidents herein detailed, the writer acknowledges his indebtedness to the above mentioned book. If this chapter shall induce many to buy and read "The Parson of The Islands," it will have demonstrated its right to existence.
The ranks of the Methodist local ministry have never produced a more pious, laborious and successful man than Rev. Joshua Thomas. He was born in Somerset County, Maryland, amid the stirring and heroic events of the American Revolution, soon after the Declaration
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of Independence; and lived to see three-score-and-ten of its returning anniversaries.
It will, of course, be impossible, within the prescribed limits, to give any sketch of Mr. Thomas' remarkable and valuable career that will do justice to the subject. The author can only give a little glimpse, here and there, of some of those incidents in his life, where the quaint and facetious side of the good man's nature so pleasantly protrudes.
Joshua Thomas, lived to be more than thirty years of age, with a growing family about him, before he had any experimental knowledge of the truth and power of the Christian religion ; nevertheless he had been, from childhood, a believer in the truths of Revelation. On his way to the camp-meeting where he was converted, he stopped at the house of his uncle, Levi Thomas-a solid churchman -- who, learning his intention, tried to dissuade him from going. Among other things, his uncle said: "Joshua if you do go there, they will have you down to worship them. They are nothin' but a lot of villainous Irishmen, who have run away from their own country to keep from being hanged. They have a great deal of larnin', but know. no honest way of gettin' a livin'; so they go around the country a raisin' the Devil by their preachin' and carryin' on ; and then they make people worship them and give them money to support them in their deviltry."
"No, uncle;" responded Joshua, "they will not get me down to worship them," and proceeded to the meeting.
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While they did not ask or receive his homage, they did lead him to His shrine whom the wise men of the East worshipped in Bethlehem.
While Mr. Thomas' early opportunities for learning much of God and religion were very small; yet, long before he knew anything of practical godliness, he was in the habit of praying God to direct his fishing excur- sions to those locations where the Rock, the Tailor or the Sheepshead most plentifully abounded, in order that he might be successful in his business of catching them. Like the apostolic fishermen, he was destined to become a great fisher of men.
His early ignorance of God and religion is strikingly illustrated by an incident he relates of himself, con- nected with the ministry of Lorenzo Dow. "When I was about thirty years old " says he, "I attended a meetin' in Virginia; L. Dow was preachin' very power- ful. A woman in the audience begun to shout. Dow stopped and cried out: 'The Lord is here! The Lord is here!' Immediately I jumped to my feet, and stretched my neck every way to try to see the Lord, but I could not see him;" whereupon the simple- minded child of thirty years tells us he reached the con- clusion that the preacher was a base deceiver and fraud.
When Joshua was a young gent twenty-three years old, he says he "began to think he had rather' have a good wife than anything in the world." There really does not seem to be anything very wonderful in Mr, Thomas' fancied precocity. The author thinks he has
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known some instances where young gentlemen have graduated to the same conclusion at sixteen or seventeen years of age. It isn't, however, every youth who acts in that emergency as did Mr. Thomas. Says he: "I immediately begun prayin' to the Lord that I might obtain a wife and the means to support her; promisin', in that case to do a good deal better than I ever had done." It was not long till he heard of a certain nice girl, who had given a mutual friend to understand that she "liked Joshua real well." At this good news he says his "very soul was transported ;" he "never was so glad to hear anything" in his life; in a word, it made him "feel just like a man." On second sober thought, however, his poverty greatly perplexed him : how in the world could he provide for a wife? But, although not an experimental Christian, he took the matter to the Lord in prayer; and finally reached the conclusion to make sure of the nice, good girl who "liked" him, at a venture; and leave to the future the solution of the problem of support. Would that all young men were equally wise. Joshua's determination was evidently in the line of God's usual order, and the pretty little romance was appropriately finished up, of course. Nothing in the world was more natural. A neat little cabin on the Tangier Island; a straw bed; a broken table; a few wooden stools; a barrel of meal, and two little pigs; with a fisherman and his bride in the midst of their honeymoon, and you have a picture of complete earthly happiness !
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But years passed away, and then came a sad, dark day that bereft Joshua of this loving girl, leaving him and several little children to mourn their loss. The widowed father had learned, meantime, the sweet lesson of holy trust at the camp-meeting heretofore alluded to; and he was therefore the better prepared to "commit his ways unto the Lord." In the exercise of a spirit- ually illumined faith he began, very soon, to pray the Lord to supply the vacant place in the cabin. As he kneeled in a thicket and made known to his Divine Friend his desires, and asked for his direction, a certain Miss Lottie Bradshaw's image was presented to his mental vision. Instantly he expostulated : "Lord; she is too young!" Retiring to another place, he again bowed before the Lord, and presented his request. In- stantly, and for the second time, the image of Miss Bradshaw flitted before him. "Oh, Lord! She is too ugly!" exclaimed the unfortunate petitioner; at the same time arising to seek another part of the thicket, that might prove a more lucky and propitious Bethel. Long and earnest was this third prayer. Like Jacob, he wrestled with the angel for the answer of full assurance; and finally the answer came, but it was the old answer repeated-Miss Lottie Bradshaw's homely, but kindly smiling face again beamed upon the lonely widower. He calmly arose' from his knees, submis- sively saying : "Well, Lord, I reckon you know better'n I do;" and the matter was finally settled to his un- questioning faith. Untieing his canoe, he pushed out,
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hoisted sail and steered for the Bradshaw homestead on Holland's Island. On arrival the following dialogue ensued :
"Good morning, Brother Bradshaw."
"How d'ye do Brother Thomas?"
"Brother Bradshaw, I think it is the will of the Lord that you should let me have Lottie to be my wife."
"Well, Brother Thomas; Lottie is rather young; but we will leave the matter to her. You can go see what she says about it : you'll find her out at the cow-pen, milking."
Mr. Thomas started and soon encountered the rosy maiden in the back yard, straining the milk. After the usual friendly salutation had passed, said Joshua :
"Sister Lottie; I've come on special business this mornin'. I've been prayin' over the matter; and I think, Lottie, understand, that it's the will of the Lord that you and I should git married !"
"The will of the Lord be done, Brother Thomas !" responded Lottie, in the spirit of humble submission to her divinely ordered fate; and, in a few days after this matter-of-fact popping, there was an equally matter-of- fact wedding ; and what seemed to be God's order was cheerfully consummated.
Many years afterwards, at a camp-meeting on Deal's Island, the dear old saint said to a company of preachers, after relating to them the above story: "Brothers; when I married her, understand, I thought she was one of the ugliest women in the world; but now, I tell you, I
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think she is the purtiest. She has made me a lovin' wife, and a good, faithful mother to my orphaned chil- dren ; and I know, brothers, understand, that the good Lord picked her out for me."
Mr. Thomas was in the habit of giving the Scriptures a literal interpretation; and accepted the directions he found therein, apparently applicable to his circumstances at the time, as the sole rule of his action. At one time he was the subject of a protracted and painful illness. Various remedies had been tried without material relief. Reading his New Testament, as he lay helpless on his bed one day, he came to the passage in James, where the Apostle says : "Is any sick among you ? Let him call the Elders of the Church ; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up."
The suffering saint fixed his mind on two elderly and leading members of the church-Messrs. John and Zachariah Crocket-as likely to meet the divine pre- scription as to "Elders," and he sent post-haste for John, who forthwith appeared at his bedside. After citing to Mr. Crocket the passage above quoted, Mr. Thomas said : "Now, Brother John ; you must do ex- actly as the good Book directs. I have no Scriptural oil; but yander, on the shelf, understand, is a plenty of excellent goose-grease, that I suppose, understand, will do just as well. Use some of that to anoint me, Brother John ; and then pray in faith."
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"Brother John" was no little startled by this novel proposal, and confessed his want of confidence in the arrangement. However, to gratify his respected neigh- bor and Christian friend, he proceeded with the grotesque formalities of the sacred goose-grease anointing, and offered prayer for the patient's recovery. But there was no apparent relief or improvement, and Mr. Thomas said the fault was in the weakness of their faith. "Go, John ;" said he, " and tell Brother Zachariah to come and try it." On "Zach's" arrival, learning all the particulars, he clapped his hands in joyous enthusiasm and exclaimed : "Why, Brother Thomas; that is the very thing! I believe it will do you good !"
"Go on, then !" shouted Joshua, "and let us believe !"
Brother Zach then went at his work with good- Samaritan zest and interest; and after a repetition of the unctuous application, he kneeled down at the patient's bedside and prayed vociferously till he got shouting-happy. Strange to tell, at this point, Joshua Thomas leaped from the bed-whole in body and in soul, and joined his friend in "walking and leaping, and praising the Lord."
An esteemed local preacher, Dr. R. W. Williams, late of Dorchester County, Md., and well known to many ministers of the Wilmington Conference, related to the writer the two following incidents, which have never before appeared in print. While Dr. Williams resided at Onancock, Va., Mr. Thomas sailed across from Tangier in his canoe, the "Methodist," to make him
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a visit. Upon his arrival, he learned of the dangerous illness of one of his lady friends, a Mrs. Mister, residing near the town ; and at once remarked to Dr. Williams : "It comes to me, understand, Doctor, that we ought to go over and pray for Sister Mister." Although at first hesitating, on account of the apparent professional dis- courtesy, Dr. Williams finally yielded to Mr. Thomas' earnest importunity and accompanied him. The lady's physician was in attendance, and her friends were gath- ered about what, to all seeming, was her dying bed. Mr. Thomas inquired of her physician as to her condi- tion, and received this reply : "Mr. Thomas, Mrs. Mister is in extremis." "What's that ?- got the tremors?" inquired the simple-minded man. The doctor then ex- plained that he had exhausted the last remedy without avail, and that the lady was at that moment actually dying. At his suggestion, Dr. Williams examined the sinking patient, and coincided with his brother physi- cian's opinion.
"Have you any objection to my prayin' for her?" inquired Mr. Thomas.
"Pray if you feel like it;" responded the doctor. "Nothing can now do her either good or harm."
"Let us pray, then," said Mr. Thomas, at the same- time dropping upon his knees; while her physician, a high Churchman, sat upon the side of the bed looking his utter astonishment, if not his contempt, for the strange proceeding. The prayer was as follows:
" Lord; this here doctor, understand, has given this
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dear Christian woman up, and says he can't do nothin' more to help her. You must take her case in hand, if you please, Lord, or else she must die. When you was here on the earth, Lord, you gave blind people new eyes ; you made lame people run and jump ; you healed the sick, and put life into the cold, stiff bodies of the dead. It comes to me, understand, that this good woman oughtn't to die yet; and, O Lord, I want you to make her well again, if you please, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen."
Having made this matter-of-fact, business-like pre- sentation of her case and of his own desire unto the Lord, he and Dr. Williams left her bedside and started for Onancock, with every indication pointing to the con- clusion that a few minutes, or an hour or two at most, would terminate Mrs. Mister's earthly history. Reaching a woods that lay in their pathway to the village, Mr. Thomas suddenly stopped, and quietly remarked : " It comes to me, understand, Doctor, we ought to pray again for Sister Mister ;" and down he went on his knees, calling on Dr. Williams to lead in the petition.
The doctor obeyed the request, but confessedly with " little faith ;" and then Mr. Thomas followed, winding up with a shout of victory. The same thing was repeated at family prayers ; and the good old man literally shouted himself off to bed, and shouted out again next morning. His explanation of this extraor- dinary expenditure of wind and muscle, was that the Lord had told him the sick woman was getting well.
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After breakfast, Mr. Thomas said, "Come, Doctor, let's go over and see Sister Mister." As they neared the house, they espied the bed and bed clothing spread out doors for airing. The appearances were very sus- picious, and Dr. Williams remarked, "Bro. Thomas ; Sister Mister is dead." "No she's not," said the man of mighty faith ; "the Lord never tells me a not so." At that moment the husband came out to meet them ; and, in reply to Mr. Thomas', confident inquiry, informed them that his wife was able to leave her bed and to be about superintending her household affairs. It was a transition from death to life and health, in a few hours, in harmony with, if not in answer to, the simple unques- tioning faith of an illiterate oysterman.
On another occasion, Mr. Thomas came in the "Methodist" to convey Rev. Jas. A. Massey, the pastor at the time, to Tangier to fill his appointment. It being inconvenient for Mr. Massey to leave home, Dr. Williams consented to take his place; and the two local preachers were soon gliding over the waters of the beautiful Pocomoke Sound. But while on their way, a dark cloud arose, and a furious storm swept down the Chesapeake upon them, driving them before it into a little inlet haven on the Accomac shore. It looked as if the appointment was doomed to prove a disappoint- ment; but, in the emergency and amid the howling storm, Mr. Thomas said, " Let us pray ;" and, kneeling in the tossing canoe, said :
"Lord; I'm on my way to the Island with a preacher
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to fill an appointment. I can't go, understand, in this here storm ; and if it lasts any longer, we shall be too late; and thy poor children there will have to go hungry for the bread of life for two weeks more. Lord; you once rode on a storm across the sea of Galilee; and you know all about 'em and can manage this one better 'n I can, though I'm a good sailor ; and I want you to speak to these winds right away, if you please, and tell them to be quiet, so I can go on and get Bro. Williams to the Island in time to preach, for thy own sake and for the sake of thy cause. Amen."
Arising from his knees, and without waiting a moment to ascertain the result of his petition, he began at once to hoist sail. And, strange to tell, by the time his can- vass was spread, the furious tempest had moderated to a propitious breeze, and the voyagers reached their desti- nation in ample time. Numerous similar incidents may be found in the memoirs of his wonderful life. These stories there is no room to doubt. They are quaint and strange, but it may be they are so, only because the Christian Church is so profoundly unconscious of her privileges.
Mr. Thomas was an intimate friend and a great admirer of Rev. Laurence Laurenson. His admiration of this flaming herald's preaching led him to attempt once to imitate him. It being another case of David in Saul's armor, without the timely wisdom of the shepherd boy to discover its unfitness; poor Joshua, with his lofty soaring, his unsteady flopping, and his toploftical tumb-
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ling, cut a most painfully ludicrous figure, and was deeply but healthfully humiliated. He never tried to be anything but fisherman Joshua Thomas afterwards. It was some relief to his wounded feelings, when Lauren- son made him a present of two of his elegant shirts. While Mr. Thomas never again attempted the folly above described; it is said that whenever he had an appointment to preach on any special occasion, in after years, he always put on one of the Laurenson shirts, imagining this arrangement to be the nearest possible approach to Elijah's mantle !
At a certain quarterly meeting in Somerset, a number of ministers-Laurenson and Thomas included-were guests at the same farm-house. After retiring for the night, the brethren engaged in the discussion of various Scripture passages ; Mr. Thomas expressing his convic- tion that a particular passage he had mentioned would " make a first-rate tex' for a sermont." Laurenson, who, in his periods of cheerfulness, was keenly alive to the ludicrous, proposed that Thomas should preach them a sermon from the text, right then and there as they lay in bed. The "Parson" accepted the challenge, and began at once to work out a sermon. By the time he got through the introduction he was sitting upright on his bed. On firstly, he warmed up until he slid out and stood upon the floor. On secondly, he got excited and walked the room back and forth, with most earnest voice and gesticulation. But when he reached thirdly, he became so jubilant that he could stand it no longer ;
5
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but "went off" into a regular "spell" of boisterous rejoicing. John Parks, one of the company, equally inflammable, caught the electric current; and, leaping from his bed, joined in the shout with Mr. Thomas; while Laurenson and the other preachers sat up in bed, responding " Amen" to their resounding "Glory !" Meantime, the family and friends, sleeping in the lower rooms, were awakened by the "big meetin'" going on above; and arose, dressed hastily, and came up to par- ticipate; when, alas! some one struck a light! The ludicrous spectacle upset all gravity; and the descent from the sublime to the ridiculous was immediate, precipitous, astonishing, overwhelming; and threw the whole company into hysterical convulsions ! Laurenson, it is said, could never think of this scene, when the light was thrown upon it, without the most immoderate laughter.
Mr. Thomas' remarks in public as often provoked mirth as seriousness and tears. Speaking at an experi- ence meeting at Ross' woods camp-meeting in Sus- sex, Del., on one occasion, the quaint old man said : "Brothers ; the Devil sometimes bothers God's people right smart by suggestin' that things is not a goin' on right at home. This very mornin', understand, he's been a tellin' me that the hogs are in my pertater patch, down on the Island. But I told him, understand, if they were, and ate up all the pertaters, I'd eat up the hogs next winter, understand, and that'll make accounts all square."
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It was Mr. Thomas' custom, wherever he took a meal in his journeyings, at the close to call the family to prayer. On such occasions it was his habit to remem- ber and mention each person of the company by name, and adapt his prayers to the peculiarities of their re- spective conditions. Having learned on one occasion of dining out, that three of the ladies constituting the company were widows, he prayed most devoutly for them, telling the Lord all about their bereft and lonely condition ; and asking that they might all in due time be made happy in the possession of loving husbands and pleasant homes. Coming finally in his petition to the young gentleman visitor present, whose intentions he had divined, he prayed : " Lord, bless this nice young man ; give him favor in the eyes of this lovely lady he's so much interested in ; and so dispose her heart that his suit may be successful." However much this petition may have embarrassed the parties, it surely afforded the young gentleman an excellent opportunity to "pop the question."
Mr. Thomas was an earnest advocate for "decency and order" in worship, and could illy brook any inter- ruption calculated to interfere with a devotional frame of mind. His special antipathy was to the annoyance of crying children in meeting. It was no unusual thing for him to interrupt the speaker, to volunteer needed suggestions to thoughtless mothers. One day at a camp-meeting, the parson stopped a minister in the midst of a fine oratorical flight, to appeal to a mother in
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the congregation, whose baby, for fifteen minutes, had kept up an annoying squall. "Sister," said he, in tones tender and pleading, "Sister, do please give that 'ere child a tater !"
With regrets we must now take our leave of the good veteran, and pass to other scenes and characters. Peace to the ashes of Joshua Thomas.
Not far away from the Tangier and Deal's Islands, in the same queenly waters, is Smith's Island, or more properly islands ; for the low, marshy emerald that barely rises above the storm-tides, is divided by various little straits serving as highways, into a multitude of islands, thickly dotted over by cabins and cottages, where dwell the thrifty oystermen who inhabit those regions, and gather their sure and remunerative harvests from the bottom of the deep.
Until the era of emancipation in Maryland, with its natural accompaniment of free schools for all sec- tions, these primitive folk were generally innocent of the offence of reading pernicious literature,-or any other literature, for that matter,-for the schoolmaster, although abroad, had never wandered that far from home.
Some years ago it was the writer's good fortune to enjoy a trip to Smith's Islands, partly in quest of healthful relaxation, but also to aid the pastor, Rev. John Shilling, in what the islanders called a camp- meeting, which, however, was held in the spacious chapel. These chapel camp-meetings are held usually
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about the last of August or first of September, that being a season of leisure ; and all the inhabitants-men, women and children-seem to esteem it almost a dis- grace not to be in attendance. The men come in their shirt-sleeves and the matrons in their slat, or sun bonnets ; . only the bronzed youths and rosy maidens apparently making any effort at "dressing up" or adornment. More than half the families bring to this great gathering from one to three or four live babies, varying in dimensions from the month old "squaller "to the rollicking youngster of three or four summers. A juvenile at home, during these meetings, is a rare exception. Peter's declaration ; " The promise is unto you and to your children," is literally accepted on these islands, as it ought to be everywhere.
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