USA > Maine > Ancient dominions of Maine : embracing the earliest facts, the recent discoveries, of the remains of aboriginal towns, the voyages, settlements, battle scenes, and incidents of Indian warfare, and other incidents of history, together with the religious developments of society within the ancient Sagadahoc, Sheepscot, and Pemaquid precincts and dependencies > Part 26
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FENCING THE SACRAMENTAL TABLES.
Appropriate services of worship were performed on the Sabbath ; but were concluded by an exercise peculiar to the occasion, called " Fencing the table." This was a formu- lary debarring in various particulars all those characters supposed to be comprehended under the terms described " as the ignorant, the unbelieving, and profane."
The act of fencing ended, the communicants were invited to be seated, to give opportunity for which a hymn was sung ; and during the singing, the minister descended from the pulpit, and took his seat at the "Element table " in the cen- ter. Then, as the tokens were taken up by the elders, the minister arose and spoke; and as he begun, the officers uncovered the bread and vessels on the table before him. The tables were then served, and the elements distributed to the communicants. A solemn thanksgiving was then offered to God, and a conclusion of the sacred scene was had in the benediction ; and on the Monday following, at eleven o'clock, a thanksgiving sermon was preached, "and the solemn work was closed."
THE FIRST GREAT REVIVAL.
It will not seem strange that the narrative should proceed to relate " that it had been very observable 1767. through the whole of the winter that a very unusual seriousness and solemnity appeared amongst the generality
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of the people, accompanied with an insatiable desire after the word." Several persons were awakened to an anxious concern for their souls, but nothing remarkable until the sacramental season described. Then there were such symp- toms of the powerful and special presence of the God of grace as every one might discern. It was a solemn, sweet, and glorious season. Many of God's children were filled with the joy of their Lord, and many poor souls brought in to see their need of that Savior they had shamefully neglect- ed. The facts were evident the ensuing week, and on the next Sabbath.
RAPID SPREAD OF RELIGIOUS INTEREST.
Immediately the pastor, at the call of several of the neigh- boring towns, visited them on the gospel errand. "Begin- ning with Squam [ now Westport ] and Freetown, [ now Edgecomb ] he visited Pownalborough, [ Dresden and Wis- casset ] Sheepscot, the head of the tide, [ Alna ] Walpole, Harrington, &c." During this tour, Mr. Murray preached every day for two weeks which it consumed. The work of God was glorious. Every day it appeared some were awak- ened. Many souls, old and young, were pricked to the heart, many obliged to cry out in their distress : some were clearly brought into the light of the gospel. "It seemed in all these places that the Almighty hand was displayed with such power as if the Lord was resolved to make his word bear down every thing before it."
REMARKABLE FEATURES OF THE REVIVAL.
On Mr. Murray's return from his extended round of labor in the neighboring towns on this glorious occasion, he told the wonderful works of God, both from the pulpit and at the society and the Wednesday exercise. The news was very joyful to all who had ever tasted anything of religion - very alarming to the sinner-and it confirmed greatly the
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convictions of such as had been awakened. Religion became the conversation of all companies. The voice of opposition was struck dead. Upon almost every occasion of public worship ( which then was more frequent than usual ), the congregation was drowned in tears, and some new instances of conviction or comfort appeared. The pastor's lodgings were then daily crowded with poor wounded souls, that knew not what to do, with whom he often found sweet em- ployment day and night, sometimes till three o'clock in the morning, and often till midnight. The intermission seasons on the Sabbath were taken up entirely in the works of piety. Some would repair wherever they saw any person deemed an experienced Christian ( all of whom were found greatly quickened at that time ) to lay their cases open to ; some to the minister, some to secret prayer, and great companies would retire to the woods to sing hymns of praise, so that one might almost all the time hear the wilderness singing hosannas ! It seemed sometimes as if heaven was come down to dwell on earth. The Wednesday exercises were also greatly blessed, especially on the young people ; and the children's days, in some of which we could see the dear little babes, by forty in a company, crying and weeping on account of their state, while their tender parents, with bursting hearts and streaming eyes, stood by, and in some- particularly once in the west end of the town-the whole congregation seemed to be taken hold of. After the bless- ing was pronounced, their hearts were so wounded that near thirty persons, men and women, cried out, whilst a goodly number of God's children were overcome with joy at the sight.
Thus it continued all that summer. " What fruits may appear, what numbers were brought home, we presume not to guess," says the narrator ; " but for the sake of fol- lowing ages, into whose hands these records may fall, we cannot help leaving this our joint public testimony to the
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glory of God, that there has been an evident, powerful, and glorious work of God's Spirit carried on in this and the neighboring Towns." 1
Such are the original records of the causes, fruits, and agencies of the first and most extensive and glorious revival that ever occurred within the precincts of the ancient Sheep- scot, Pemaquid, and Sagadalioc ; for it appears that Mr. Murray, at this time, and from the midst of these scenes of deep and thrilling interest and importance, " was called to visit Pemaquid, Muscongus, Broad Cove, Walpole, and Har- rington, consuming two weeks, in which he preached every day ; and it appeared that the work of God was not small in any of them, especially at Broad Cove." At the call of the town of Bristol, on another visit a church was organized and elders ordained by him. 1
This revival must have worked deeply among the elements of society, insinuating its saving power into the adjoining towns, where a thin and scattered population had recently planted themselves. 2 The heterogeneous mass developed many interesting features under the ferment of this grand religious impulse, made up as society was of Quakerism, formalism, and error. " Mary Allen of the district of Free- town ( Edgecomb ) and certain others, her family," Quakers by education and profession, became awakened and con- verted, and soon after connected with the Presbyterian Church, publicly renouncing their former views, and enter- ing into covenant with God and his church. How pungent, then, must have been this truly great and glorious work !
This great revival spread throughout the Dunbar towns in the Province of Sagadahoc ; and at the ancient central points it concentrated its life-giving power, and lingered in the hearts and memories of that generation till it left inef-
1 Records of Session Book, Boothbay, pp. 23, 24.
2 Greenleaf's Ecclesiastical Sketches, p. 138.
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faceable impressions on the age. Georgetown 1 shared largely in this wonderful effusion of the Spirit of God.
As an illustration of the religious enthusiasm of the day, and the zeal of Presbyterian matrons, and the influence of Murray as a religious teacher, a fact in the history of Mrs. Miller, an early settler of the town of Warren, is here given. She is represented to have been an amiable and godly wom- an, and in plain attire-always scrupulously clean and neat -she would always attend church, walking bare-footed thither, after the fashion of her country, but putting on her shoes and taking off her bonnet when she reached the place of worship. During the revivals attendant on the preach- ing of the Rev. John Murray of Boothbay, whenever he held meetings at Damariscotta, with others of her country- women, Mrs. Miller would foot it thither, through the almost pathless woods, to hear him. 2
BROAD BAY PLANTATIONS.
The German colonists, though destitute at first of regular preaching, constantly sustained religious worship, led by a Mr. Ulmer. Such was their habit till the settlements were broken up, as we have before related. After the return of the colonists, this personage combined in himself the offices ยท of priest, prince, and general. 3
John M. Schaffer followed. A great singer and smart preacher, he led the hearts of the people captive. 1762. His moral character was clouded ; his heart was self- ish and destitute of virtue. A woman of great personal charms, the wife of another, was too powerful for his virtue. He seduced and eloped with her to this country, abandoning his own wife in the father-land. He gained wealth and fame
1 In Georgetown about this time (1765) there was a great revival of religion. - Hon. M. L. Hill.
2 Eaton's Annals, p. 122.
3 Annals of Warren, p. 115.
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as physician of both soul and body. Inspection of urine, blood-letting, and nostrums made up his practice ; and a sloop's hold of wood often went to pay his poor parishioner patients' bills.
Profane, intemperate, and extortionate, he can be viewed in no other light by the historian than a wolf in sheep's clothing, who, recognizing his own monstrous double char- acter, was wont to excuse and explain, or apologize, by say- ing, -" When I have my plack coat on, den I am a minis- ter, and you must do as I say : but when I have my green coat on, den I am a toctor." 1
A Moravian from Germany, by the name of Cilley, 1768. visited the Broad Bay plantations. Spiritual and devoted in his services, many were converted to his views. His flock with himself, two years after, emigrated to and settled in North Carolina. Three hundred families thus departing, left a void in the heart of the Ancient Dominions. The vacant fields and clearings were 1770. not left to solitude and decay, but soon were reoccu- pied by colonists from Massachusetts ; and were again filled with busy life and labor.
1 Eaton's Annals, p. 117.
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