USA > Florida > The History of Methodism in Georgia and Florida: From 1785 to 1865 > Part 29
USA > Georgia > The History of Methodism in Georgia and Florida: From 1785 to 1865 > Part 29
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A careful business man, he was blessed with abuu- dance, and he was a very Publius in his devotion to Church interests.
He was emphatically a Methodist. His household, his private life, his business affairs, and indeed all his movements were methodical. On the same day in May, in every year, by the same route, stopping at the same houses, he went to the same home in Buncombe County, N. C., and on the same day in October, he returned to Augusta. Without him, or one like him, it would have been almost impossible for Methodism to have retained the footing she had gained in Augusta, since the support of a pastor would have been an impossibility. In 1809, John H. Mann, whose mother was among the first Meth- odists in the city, joined the Church ; for over sixty years
-
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IN GEORGIA AND FLORIDA, 1785-1865.
he was a leading member in it. He was a man of great humor, and preserved his love of fun despite his consis- tent Methodism even to his old age. A careful, competent business man, he was blessed by a kind Providence with sufficiency, and was always ready to do what he could for his struggling Church. He was an official member of the Church for over sixty years, and an active one for a large part of that time. He was as steady-going as a clock. The services of the Sabbath, the class- meetings during the week, and the prayer-meetings might always rely upon him. His house was the home of all the preachers who passed through the city after Asaph Waterman died. Capers, Andrew, Dr. Pierce, Stephen Olin, were all sharers of his hospitality, and were his cherished friends. He was the father of Dr Alfred T. Mann, of the North Georgia Conference, and of the first wife of Rev. Dr. Clark, of the South Georgia Conference. His wife, who travelled beside him for over fifty years, and after passing her threescore and ten years sank to sleep, was a meet companion for such a man. She was of those saintly women who made the Church of An- gusta such a power for good in after-time. While Meth- odism in most communities made her conquests among the poor and humble, yet among those who were drawn to her, there were always some from the upper and the mid- dle classes of the people. It required much courage in those days for a woman, especially a young and beanti- ful girl moving in the higher circles of society, to go to the humble meeting house on the commons, and to abjure the vanities of the world by surrendering ribbons and feathers and bows, and when one did this, it was proof of the fact that she was fully determined to give up the world ; and this many did.
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Nor were these from among the poorer classes alone. The most distinguished and wealthy families in the State were represented in the early Church. Flournoys, Taits, Remberts, Glasscock, Cobbs, Few, Meriwether, Gilmers and many others were among the early Method- ists, and there were some of these even in fashionable Augusta, but the bulk of the membership were plain people-artisans and laborers. The wealth of the Church was small, and it was with some difficulty that they could support a single man. Of Collingsworth we have already spoken. Abda Christian and Henry D. Green followed Collingsworth, although there was a great revival in the country, and although there had been precious meetings in Augusta, the number of members continued near- ly the same as during the stay of Hugh Porter, and of Lovick Pierce. Now there was increase and then again decline, but the number varied little. It was a period of trial to the young Church. Angusta was a godless, fashionable young city. In that inimitable book the Georgia Scenes, in the account of the gander-pulling, we have not a more fanciful conception of what might have been but an accurate account of what a shrewd fun-loving boy saw himself ; and in that sketch we have a view of what boys in Augusta sometimes saw, and an account of the surroundings of the city. Campbellton, near where Hamburg now is, and Harrisburg were vil- lages near by ; the trade of the city came by wagons from the West and Northwest, and the Sonth and Southwest ; and flatboats came with their loads of cot- ton, and corn, and bacon from up the Savannah. There was much business done, and there was much fun, frolic, and dissipation. Methodism was as new in its features to the gay people of that city when Stith Mead first
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IN GEORGIA AND FLORIDA, 1785-1863.
preached there and began his revival exercises, as Christianity was new to the people of Corinth ; and while it does not seem to have met with the active persecution which was its part in Charleston, and while no Intend- ant forbade the assembling of the people before sunrise, and no angry mobs dragged the preacher to the pump, as in Charleston, yet the Church did not advance rapidly, neither among the whites nor the negroes. The colored people of the city, as in Savannah, were most of them Baptists. This is easily explained when it is remember- ed that the Baptists in Virginia were for many years almost the only evangelical body, and that most of the colored people who came South were Baptists. This was not so in South Carolina, and now Methodism reaped a great harvest among the negroes there, and this per- secution in Charleston arose largely from a misconcep- tion of the aims of the Methodists in relation to the in- stitution of slavery, and the social position of the negroes. In Augusta and Savannah, no such great success attend- ed the efforts of the preachers among the colored people as in Charleston.
In 1812 John Porter, the brother of Hugh, came. He was a small, slender man whose sermons were full of pathos, and who was called the weeping prophet. He had good success in his work, and during the year there was a net increase of over twenty members. Save these lifeless figures which the minutes give us, we know nothing of the history of these years, and but little of the workers in the city and of their co-laborers among the laymen.
In 1813 Lucius Q. C. de Yampert, whose name be- came afterward so famous in Alabama for princely benevolence, was sent to the station. Bishop Wight-
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man, who knew him well, has kindly furnished the fol- lowing sketch of him :
"I saw Lucius Q. C. de Yampert for the first time at his own residence in Perry County, Alabama. On my way to Greensboro', in the summer of 1859, I stopped and spent a night with him. The stage-coach drove up to his gate about dinner-time, and I passed through grornds very tastefully improved to a stately mansion. When my name was announced, brother de Yampert came to the door with a most cordial greeting. I had known him years before by reputation, having often heard my friend Thomas W. Williams, of Abbeville District, speak of him in terms of affectionate admira- tion. His appearance was different from the notion I had formed of him. Instead of being a small, spare, elastic man, I found him large, venerable-looking, courtly in his manners, deliberate, and weighty in speech- the vivacity of the French blood that was in him break- ing out only occasionally. I have rarely, in a long life, enjoyed, as I did that evening, the flow of animated conversation. The Southern University, of which he was one of the founders, and which was to open its doors in a month or two, came in, of course, for the 'lion's share' of talk. ITe made the impression, fully confirmed by many a subsequent conversation, that he was a man whose mental habit led him carefully to the root and principle of things ; who sought to apprehend the causes of facts and events, instead of resting in mere facts ; who had pushed his investigations fearlessly into all sorts of questions, while yet restrained by & sound understanding from extravagant speculation for the mere sake of speculation. I considered him a man of profound practical wisdom, and certainly his energy
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IN GEORGIA AND FLORIDA, 1785-1865.
and activity were in good keeping with his wisdomn. The management of his large plantations in the most fertile lands of Alabama, would bear a weighty charge to a man twenty years younger, yet he always had time to devote to the society of his friends.
" After I had become intimate with him, on one occa- sion returning from church, where he had enjoyed a season of special religious refreshment, he reverted in conversation to the days of his active but brief ministry. He said with peculiar emotion, 'Sir, those few years when I was a young Methodist preacher, though strug- gling with poor health and narrow means, were un- doubtedly the happiest of my life.' He then gave me the outline of those years. In 1812 he was admitted on trial in the South Carolina Conference in a class that consisted of twenty-one, several of whom rose to emi- nence in the ministry. His first circuit was Sparta, Jos. Tarpley being presiding elder of the district. The next year he was preacher in charge of Augusta. This was an indication of great promise on his part, he being not yet in orders. His resources were of course taxed, both in the pulpit and the pastoral field.
" His style of address was always earnest, sometimes very impassioned ; and his health became impaired. Nevertheless, having great force of will, he did not suffer himself to be discouraged. He hoped that an appointment in the up-country might restore his health. Accordingly he was sent the next year to the Reedy River Circuit, in the Piedmont country of South Caro- lina. His fourth and last appointment was the Broad River Circuit in Middle Georgia. Here his health broke down utterly. He was forced to the conclusion that he could do nothing more in the travelling minis
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.
try. Most reluctantly he gave it up. As soon as he was again able to ride, he made, in company with John Porter, a young preacher who was also in bad health, & long journey on horseback to the North-west, travelling such stages as his strength could bear, and returned somewhat improved in health. But his deliberate con- viction was that he would never again be able to do the hard work required of a travelling preacher in those days. Sorrowfully he turned his face toward secular life; purchased a farm, married, and went into agri- cultural pursuits, just as his health allowed. In the course of years he recovered entirely. While at this home in Abbeville District, S. C., Dr. Olin, who was an invalid, spent several months with him in the springs of 1825 and 1826. Of the latter of these visits Dr. Olin writes to Bishop Andrew the following : ' I have been so busy with the plough, or so weary with it, that I could not conveniently write before. I commenced my rustic exercises immediately after my return from Angusta. From half an hour's work, with which I began, I have gradually risen to four or five hours per day. My bodily strength has perceptively improved, and that without any injury, to say the least, to my ·lungs. I am more and more persuaded that my nerves have been and are the chief sufferers.' This plough experiment may be safely recommended to other young preachers temporarily laid aside from the active work of the ministry by nervous disorders or threatened soft- ening of the brain, especially if they should be so fortu- nate as to fall into the hands of people as kind and as congenial as the De Yamperts.
" My old friend, some five or six years afterward, left Abbeville and removed to Alabama. He was fortunate
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IN GEORGIA AND FLORIDA, 1785-1865.
in purchasing canebrake lands at government prices. His sagacity and energy soon secured an ample estate. He was, to his last days, the kind friend to Methodist ministers. His religious convictions were fixed and his religious enjoyments increased as time went on. He bore his last illness with the calm fortitude of a Christian philosopher, and died with his faith and hope resting on the old foundation."
Whitman C. Hill, Solomon Bryan, and John B. Glenn, came in 1814 and 1815 and 1816. They were efficient circuit preachers, and no doubt did good work in the city ; but it was a period of religious stagnation, and Augusta stood almost at the same point she had occupied from 1806. There were not more members in the Church when Samuel Dunwody came in 1817, than when Lovick Pierce left in 1807. In 1817 Samuel Dunwody came. He was a preacher of rare ability, and was a great favorite in Augusta, though he reaped no great harvest. But the Church was on eve of a great revival, and ere another twelvemonth had passed, the blessed shower of grace was to fall. The Church had now been established in the city for nearly a score of years. Although its membership was not large, it was a devoted body. The very scorn heaped upon it made its members a more earnest people. Henry Bass was sent to the city in 1819. Samuel K. Hodges was pre- siding elder. Henry Bass, who had joined the confer- ence in 1812, had now, for seven years, been a laborious and successful preacher. He was not perhaps a brilliant man, nor a man of very warm emotions, but he was a clear-headed and decided one, whose heart, sanctified by divine grace, was in his work. Samuel K. Hodges, the presiding elder, was an efficient, earnest preacher. Hc
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was in Augusta holding the quarterly meeting. At the love-feast, an opportunity to unite with the Church was given, and twenty-six persons offered themselves for membership. It was as unexpected as it was gratify- ing. Among these was a young widow, afterward the wife of Asaph Waterman. Her parents had occupied prominent positions as people of influence and wealth. She had been taught to love the Methodists by a saintly old lady who taught her in school in Louisville, when she was a little child. She would have joined the 80- ciety, but her dread of the peculiarities of dress was followed by a sense of her own unfitness, as she thought, for church membership ; but the excellent Mrs. Genl. Flournoy encouraged her, and that morning she rose, and gave her hand to the preacher, and twenty-five followed her. The work went on during the whole year, and at the end of it Augusta reported 133 members. Henry Bass left the city this year, but not alone, for, having served the Church faithfully for seven years, he felt that he was entitled to a helpmeet, and married a Miss Love, one of the most excellent of the young sisterhood, aud James O. Andrew came. He was now a married man with two children. For the first time the station had a family to support. Asaph Waterman gave the young family a home until a parsonage could be built. The church lot was a large one, and on one corner of it a little wooden house was erected. This was the second parsonage in the State. But as yet the church had no financial system, and although James O. Andrew was in the glory of his strength, and although the splendor of his eloquence delighted his people, yet the support accorded him was entirely insufficient, and at last his heart began to fail him, and he determined
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IN GEORGIA AND FLORIDA, 1785-1865.
to locate and go into a profession. It was for the sake of Amelia and her children, that this resolution was reluctantly made ; but when he mentioned it to her, she would not hear of it. He should preach, and she would work, and so she plied her busy needle to support the family .* He remained that year and returned the next.
At that time the labors of a preacher were very heavy. Sunday at 11 A.M., 3 P.M., and nights, and Wednesday night there was a sermon ; Friday night, a prayer-meeting, and then at other times special classes for the preacher to lead. This in connection with pas- toral service made his life a busy one.
John Howard came after Andrew. He, too, was, as we have seen, a very gifted and attractive preacher, and while he was here it became necessary to enlarge the church, which was done by adding twenty feet to its length. There was a gracious revival during this year, and Methodism continued to grow stronger. Then came Lovick Pierce, who had returned to the work.
It had been seventeen years since, a timid boy, he came to Angusta as his first station, but these intervening years had been spent in constant labor for improve- ment. He had secured an advanced medical educa- tion, and had spent his term at the Philadelphia Medi- cal College, but while giving himself to scientific studies, he had made them tributary to his ministry. His family were located in Greensboro', and he did not remove them, but he spent three-fourths of his time on his station. He was succeeded by George Hill. Augusta had now over 300 members, black and white, and de- manded such a pulpit supply as the conference could
* Bishop Andrew told this to my father, Dr. G. G. Smith .- G. G. S. 19
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not always furnish. For four years it had been served by James O. Andrew, John Howard, and Lovick Pierce, the leading preachers of the conference. Geo. Hill, while a most devoted and useful man, was not equal in ability to either of them, and the church did not in- crease, but rather declined under his pastorate. Samuel Dunwoody came again, and there was still decline. Wil- liam M. Kennedy, whom we have noted as being on the Washington Circuit years before, had now reached the front rank among preachers in his conference, and was sent for two years in charge of the station. These were fruitful years, and at the end of the second, the membership was greater than it had ever been, amount- ing to nearly 400 members, black and white. Nicolas Talley was the presiding elder. After such a succes- sion of gifted men, the church had become somewhat fastidious, and earnestly solicited the presiding elder to have Dr. Capers appointed to the station. The presid- ing elder was not unwilling for such a result, and it may be, promised to use his influence to secure it. But who knows the secrets of the Bishop's portfolio? To the dismay of Talley, when the appointments were read out, not Win. Capers, but Nicolas Tulley, was sent to Augusta. It would have been painful enough for the presiding elder for any other man but Win. Capers to have been sent, but when that man was the very one who was expected to secure his appointment, it was doubly painful. The people were bitterly disappointed, and perhaps resentful, and the preacher thought at first that he must ask to be released, but he did better. He went to the station, and to hard work ; he prayed and preached, and the result was a great revival, and Angusta reported nearly 100 new members that
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IN GEORGIA AND FLORIDA, 1785-1865.
year. Elijah Sinclair came in 1829, and there was a decrease of sixty members. Henry Bass came to his old charge in 1830, and spent his last year of service in Georgia in the community in which he had such success years ago; but there was still further decline, and Augusta, which had reported nearly 300 members, reported only 225 at the end of the year 1830. In 1831, James O. Andrew was sent a second time to his old charge, and Wm. Arnold was the presiding elder. At no period of his life was Bishop Andrew ever more powerful in the pulpit and more useful in the pastorate. During the year there was a net increase of over 100, white and colored. Of these a large number were colored. It was a notable fact that that great man who was immolated on the altar of a professed devotion to the colored race, had all his life been so remarkable for his disinterested love for that people, and his untiring labor for their benefit. The work of the pastorate in Augusta was very heavy, and as he was selected for the delegate to the general conference, an assistant was decided upon, and Geo. F. Pierce was selected for the place. When the preacher in charge returned from Philadelphia a Bishop, the assistant was made pastor. Acting upon the rule we adopted in the beginning of this history, which was to leave all enlo- gium upon living men to an after-time, and yielding to what we know would be his wish, we are not now to speak of the wonderful success of the young preacher in his first pastorate. The office fell upon young shoulders, for he was but little past his ma- jority, but he bravely met the demands made upon him. During the year there was a precious revival, and a net increase of over 100 members.
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. Elijah Sinclair returned to Augusta a second time in 1833. There was no increase reported during that year. The next year Jesse Boring was sent to the station. He had done much hard work and had been very successful in the western part of the State. He was now about thirty years of age, and had diligently improved, from his first entrance into the work, his wonderful native powers. He spent only one year on the station, and George F. Pierce came again, when he was placed on the District. The next year Whiteford Smith, a young Carolinian, not yet an elder, was sent to take his place. He was then, as he is now, a preacher of great accepta- bility, and his labors were blessed during the year with a revival, and a net increase of over forty was reported to the conference. Although Augusta had been so blessed in her preachers since 1833, there had been de- cline in numbers as they are reported in the minutes : the report of this year showing 245 in 1836, against over 300 of the year 1833. These fluctuations are accounted for by the mode of keeping the old records where pro- bationers were reported as being in the society. Often the whole list of probationers was cleared by dropping those who were not ready for membership, after they had been borne with sufficient time, and we may con- jecture that this was the case in Augusta. Whiteford Smith was returned the second time in 1837. Isaac Boring, who had been serving one of the hardest districts in Georgia, was now sent to this city with young Walter R. Branham in his second year as assistant. It was the first considerable city Isaac Boring had served, and he and his colleague entered upon the work with much distrust of themselves. They, however, gave themselves to hard pastoral work, to faithful preaching, and their
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IN GEORGIA AND FLORIDA, 1785-1865.
labors were richly rewarded, and sixty-five new mem- bers were reported to the conference. This was in 1838.
In 1839, Judge Longstreet, who had removed to Au- gusta, and who had determined to give himself to the service of the Church, was sent as junior preacher with Caleb W. Key, who was preacher in charge. During the year, while the senior preacher was on a visit up the country, the fearful yellow fever made its appearance in the city. Judge Longstreet resided on the Sand Hills, but came to town every morning to his office. He now laid aside everything else, and all the day was assiduous in attentions to the sick. As soon as the senior preacher heard that the epidemic was raging, he returned, and locating lfis family near the city, he gave himself to his labors until he was attacked by fever himself. It was a dark year. From the midst of the summer till the white frosts of autumn fell, the air was poisoned, and one after another sank under its deathly influence. But when frost came the fever ceased, and the conference was able to assemble at its regular session in December.
In 1840 James Sewell, who had been in the Baltimore Conference for many years, was stationed in Angusta. He was a very eccentric man, but one of real gifts. He made his congregations weep often, and smile always. Ilis gestures were oddly expressive. In describing the yoking of oxen he would imitate the motions of patient animals, and do such things in so natural a way that serions looks were almost impossible. Nor were his oddities confined to the pulpit. Walking the streets of Charleston, one day, he saw a drunkard who had fallen at the door of a saloon. He walked into the room and told the barkeeper politely his sign had fallen down, and then left him to discover the real state of the caso.
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On taking a collection in Baltimore after his return from the South, and looking at the quantity of copper coin, he said: " Alexander the coppersmith has done me much harm." While this odd preacher amused the con- gregations and interested all, he does not seem to have accomplished much, and left the station, with diminished numbers, to Alexander Speer, who, as always, was suc- cessful in increasing the membership, which he did this year over fifty members; but still the Church record does not present so many names as it did ten years before ; only 285 againt 300. Why was this? Apart from the fact that the gracious revival influence which had pervaded the Church from 1820 to 1830 had to some extent ccased, the condition of the Church in the city was to be attributed to its own want of aggres- siveness. The only church-building of the Methodists was that which had been erected by Stith Mead, and to which additions had been made when John Howard was pastor. Although the city had increased so much in wealth, and the other church-buildings were so much more comely, and although many of the Methodist peo- ple were now wealthy and living in handsome homes, yet the old uncomely church of nearly fifty years ago, and the little four-roomed parsonage, were all the Meth- odists had in the city. This old church, though it was so endeared by precious. memories, was no longer fitted for the needs of the congregation; and, although the old parsonage had furnished a home for some of the princes of Methodisin, yet it was unworthy of the city ; so it was decided to have better buildings. Then, too, the work of the pastorate was too heavy for any one man. There were nearly 600 members, black and white, and all were under care of the preacher in charge. The
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