USA > Ohio > Early history of the Disciples in the Western Reserve, Ohio : with biographical sketches of the principal agents in their religious movement > Part 14
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boyhood passed during the war of 1812-14 and the years subsequent, when the chivalrous anecdotes and the mili- tary deeds of that stirring history formed the staple of conversation of the times. With eager ear and acute mind, he caught up the recitals of those exploits and deeds of valor-a discipline for achievements on a far different field.
In March, 1828, in the great religious awakening in Mentor, under Bentley and Rigdon, the amiable M. S. Clapp was the first to yield. He was baptized by Bro. Bentley. Many predicted for him a bright course as a herald of the gospel. The late venerable Thomas Camp- bell fully confirmed his purpose to devote his talents to the ministry of the Word. Under this devout and su- perior man, Clapp began his study of the classics. He availed himself of whatever aids were within his reach, yet in this instance the student was himself the chief teacher. His application was so complete, that he be- came not only a respectable Greek scholar, but also a good Latinist. During all these studies he was preaching, vis- iting the newly-founded churches, and increasing the number of the converts.
In the fall of 1830, he married Miss Alicia Campbell, sister of Alexander Campbell. This proved a happy union. He spent some time in Bethany, West Virginia, where he diligently improved the favorable opportunities which he found in Mr. Campbell's family, for enriching his stores of knowledge, and for forming acquaintance with gentlemen of education, who were almost constantly guests in Bro. Campbell's family. He also resided a year or more in West Middletown, Pennsylvania, with Mat- thew McKeever, Esq., another brother-in-law, while "Father and Mother Campbell," models of gentleness, dignity and Christian excellence, were in their full ripe- ness and strength, sitting as king and queen amidst the family.
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After this short episode, he returned to Mentor, which became his permanent abode. He continued his public labors, visiting weak communities of brethren, receiving little compensation, often none, for his labors. From necessity, quite as much as from choice, he resorted at times to farming, interlacing its labors with his public duties. Experience proved to him as it has to thousands, that the world will not pay for its own reformation ; that the pioneer advocate of new and revolutionary principles must go forth, like the martyr-apostles, suffering and to suffer.
Bro. Clapp saw-rightly saw-in the Christian religion the germs of all good to man in this world, as well as the sure and only basis for hope hereafter. Every attack upon its claims he was consequently prompt to repel. Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of Man, as well as the Son of God, and he lived for the good of the world in every possible condition. As a friend to his race he must defend the Lord Jesus, the helper of the poor, the Savior of the world. So when a shrewd, young, accomplished, eloquent, lawyer in Elyria, Joel Tiffany, Esq., walked into the arena, and threw down the glove, M. S. Clapp took his "sling and five smooth stones gathered from the brook," and stood before the boaster. He so fully exposed the dark counsels of atheistic sophistry, that Mr. Tiffany de- clared at the close of the discussion, " It is the last time I will ever stand in opposition to the Christian religion." And it was. Soon after he was baptized in Elyria, and became a quasi member of the Episcopal church.
His happiness in his family was not suffered to continue without interruption. A sad day came. He looked for the last time on the living form of his excellent companion. One by one all the children of his first marriage went be- fore him down to rest. 'The last of them, Campbell Clapp, was killed in the State of New York, by the falling of a cattle train through a defective bridge. He was a
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young man of much promise. A large concourse attended his funeral services in Mentor.
April 26, 1840, he married Miss Lucy A. Randall, of Mentor, a union whose felicity was not marred or broken till the last sad stroke which left her a widow, and her four living children without a paternal head. The winter after their marriage they spent in Pompey, Onondaga County, New York, laboring in the gospel. The friendship they established there with many of the citizens continued through life. The next season he spent, by invitation, preaching for the church in the city of New York. Here his skill as a peacemaker found scope for useful exercise. His ministrations for good were signally blessed, less in gathering many into the fold than in purifying and regu- lating the fold itself. His friends, Drs. Eleazer and Sam- uel Parmly, received him with marked and merited hos- pitality. His residence in the great commercial metropo- lis was a bright and useful epoch in his history. While in the city, he received instructions in Hebrew under Sexias, a Hebraist of note, the very same son of Abraham who came to Kirtland, Ohio, in 1830, and instructed the Mor- mons in the "unknown tongues," the boasted proof of inspiration of the disciples of Smith, and the marvel of many well-duped outsiders.
It should be noted that Bro. Clapp was not a clergyman in any restricted or exclusive sense. His eye was open to the widest views. He was ready to second all legiti- mate measures for the elevation and amelioration of men in all departments of society. With him the pulpit was not a theological chest, or box, containing a few well as- sorted and labeled wares to be cried on sale. It was rather a veritable throne of power, and the incumbent was bound to deal with all the active, moral questions that affect society. Hence his early, and open, and uncon- querable opposition to intemperance. Hence, also, he stood out, when he had to stand quite alone, on the anti-
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slavery question. Of these and kindred subjects he took the broadest views. The poorly-paid laborer, the unpaid · seamstress, were objects of lively and sympathizing interest to him. He had faith in appeals to heaven for their re- dress ; but with equal faith, he appealed to the benevo- lence and conscientiousness of men for their relief. So ardent were his feelings, so fixed his principles, that he took radical ground, and plead so uncompromisingly that at times he provoked the charge of ultraism. Yet no such charge moved him. His principles in regard to war were equally radical and decided. He opposed all war, at all times for any purpose. It is due him to say that all these great moral subjects he viewed from the Bible ground, and not as a partisan, or in coalition with any special or- ganization, social or civil. Yet his known opposition to war, slavery, and intemperance, brought him at times alongside persons whose advocacy of these reforms was prompted by no higher than merely temporal, and some- times selfish, considerations.
It was his conviction that he could serve these great ends in a wider and different field, which gained his consent to a nomination as candidate to the Legislature. The polls confirmed the nomination. His acceptance was upon a platform which, in his judgment, invited the play of his principles on a grander stage. He returned from Columbus conscious of having performed his duties faith- fully, and satisfied with the general approval of his con- stituency.
The last few years of his life he spent in Detroit, preaching, and in various ways shedding the light and warmth of his genial and religious nature on society around him. During the last year before his death, it became ap- parent that his "natural force was abated." As the prog- ress of his frailty rendered his departure an event more and more certainly near, the anchor of his hope maintained the steadiest hold on its deep fastenings in the Rock. The
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calmness of his mind was wonderful. " I do not ask you to pray for my recovery," he said to his brethren, " but that with unfaltering trust and bright hope I may pass into the world of light."
He had often expressed a feeling of the happiness it would afford him to be summoned away to the Lord just in the midst of the memorial scenes of the Lord's Supper. His thought was an accepted prayer. His departure to Jesus was on the Lord's day. One week before he died the brethren assembled in his room and partook with him the loaf of blessing. The next week, December 17th, at his request, they came again, and again the blessed Supper was administered. All bore witness of the deep earnest- ness of his devotions. His voice was almost too feeble for utterance. He spoke but little. All seemed aware that the messenger was at the door. The service ended ; scarcely had the communicant members reached their homes when the word came that he was at peace in Abra- ham's bosomn.
His remains, accompanied by his family and his friend, Colin Campbell, of Detroit, were brought to Mentor, the home of his childhood. Many of his early friends came and stood silently and sadly around him. Six preachers participated in the funeral services, when we consigned to the dust the remains of this patriotic citizen, this gener- ous friend and devoted preacher.
He had nearly completed his sixty-fourth year. His memory was capacious, retentive, and peculiar. It was remarkable for its verbal power. It was richly stored with the exact language of the Holy Scriptures. From his co- pious stores he could draw with great readiness and cor- rectness. His scholarship in general history, and es- pecially in English literature, was very complete. He had read with care the standard poets, and was familiar with the opinions of the leading critics on most subjects of in- terest. His own taste, critical and chaste, furnished him
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a style in writing and public address, correct, pure, and expressive. He was often ornate, sometimes eloquent, but never pompous nor declamatory.
His manners were simple, dignified, urbane, courteous to inferiors, respectful to all. His conversation and his speeches were marked by delicacy, flavored with wit and anecdote, always pure, and manifested great liberality of views. His piety and honesty held sway supreme among his qualities of character. Sometimes his ardor led him to undue bounds-but none could feel more keenly the excess, or make amends more heartily when convinced of overstepping the limits of prudence.
Few men among us were more widely known or more sincerely respected. For him no monument is needed, especially in his own dear family, where he is embalmed in the tenderest and most durable affection.
When the call was sounded for a return to Jerusa- lem and Pentecost, it called out many noble advo- cates. Some of them had "professed religion," as the phrase ran, but they lay in spiritual torpor under the confused and bewildering exhibitions of Chris- tianity which they were accustomed to hear. When they saw the gospel scheme, the Bible became intel- ligible; and under the impulse of their joy at the discovery, they "did run to bring the disciples word" of the clearer views of the gospel which gave them such joy. These men are worthy of a good record.
In the fall of 1821, William Waite, emigrated from Saratoga County, New York, on the head waters of the Susquehanna, and settled on the plateau since known as Waite Hill, in Willoughby. He and his wife were Baptists. His sons, Erastus and Alvan- the latter in his eighteenth year-had come in ad-
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L
vance, in February before. The next autumn, his son-in-law, Dexter Otis, in his twenty-eighth year, arrived and settled in Kirtland. Otis united with the Baptists under the preaching of Elder Steven- son, better satisfied with the scriptural mode of bap- tism, than with the creed and close communion, matters on which his mind was never at rest. El- der Goodall came to Waite Hill, baptized Erastus Waite and others, and so arose a church in the Bap- tist order. When Elder T. Campbell came to Mentor, soon after, these brethren, E. Waite and D. Otis, were so delighted ·with the new light which beamed on the gospel from his preaching, that they pressed him to come to Waite Hill. His sermons made a marked impression, powerfully advancing the more liberal and correct views of the New Testa- ment order of things. Rigdon coming in about that time, and following up the well begun work by his earnest and animating appeals, several were bap- tized, among whom was Alvan Waite, then in his twenty-sixth year. This was in 1829. In the same movement, and by the same hands, E. B. Violl, Sam- uel Miller, and Noah Wirt were brought into the kingdom. This was the beginning of the Church of Christ on Waite Hill.
These men all made their mark. Dexter Otis was appointed overseer, and he soon began to preach. In 1835 he moved to the township of Chardon, and there gathered a church. It flourished while he lived-it declined at his death. He worked hard with his own hands, yet he was so diligent in study that he became a good Bible scholar, and was well informed in history as it relates to prophetic subjects.
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His candor was proverbial. He was conscientiously opposed to display in dress, and to all forms of pride, and was himself in these respects a consistent ex- ample. He was so humble, zealous, earnest, and in- structive in his lectures on Bible themes, that all heard him with delight. His speech, like his garb, was plain, but it went to the hearts of the people. He turned many from infidelity to the faith, and from sin to righteousness. His very useful life termi- nated March 15, 1845. His works follow him, and the memory of him is a fragrant odor in all that region.
Equally useful, but a different type of manhood was Alvan Waite. He was a man of full size and manly form, a man of superior judgment and great weight of character. His timidity kept him in the shade, till strongly urged, especially by Bro. Otis, he took a bolder and more public stand for the gos- pel. All the rising churches around him felt the weight of his presence and edifying sermons. Can- dor, kindness, sincerity, and good sense prevailed in his instructive discourses. He was cheerful, hope- ful, and confiding. In 1844 he went with William Hayden, in a tour through western New York, in which he gained much respect for his affectionate manners, and his clear exhibitions of the truth. Soon after, consumption began to appear. In the summer of 1846, he journeyed to the new West in hope of recuperation, visiting the churches in north- ern Indiana and Lake County, Illinois, and helping them by his wise counsels. He steadily declined till May 20, 1847, when he passed in among the shining ones. He died at his home on Waite Hill,
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with his affectionate family, surrounded by many friends who mourned the loss of so useful a man.
Ezra B. Violl who came to Christ with these no- ble men, and who was their close companion all the way, was still left in the field. He had consecrated the powers of intelligible speech and sound reason- ing, which God gave him, to the proclamation of his truth. He traveled into other counties, and was abundant in labors in his own regions. He was born in the year 1806. He turned to God in 1829, and began almost immediately to hold forth the word of life. He preached with great fervor, not only in Willoughby and Mentor-in Perry also, and Euclid, and is gratefully remembered in Camden and other towns in Lorain County. He served in the cam- paigns for about twenty years. He fell a victim to the fatal malady consumption, which terminated his days on the 9th of April, 1851. He was visited near the time of his departure by Bro. M. S. Clapp, whose conversation cheered the feeble saint. Bro. Clapp said to him : " Bro. Violl, it must seem hard to you to leave the world in the midst of your life and usefulness, and to part with your kind and affec- tionate companion !" " Yes, Bro. Clapp, it is hard in that view, but not so hard as you think. I used to think so when I was out there where you are ; but when you come in here where I am, you will not find it so hard!" Strikingly coincident were the clos- ing scenes of these dear friends. In about twenty years, Bro. Clapp came by the same path in slow approaches to the dark stream. Perhaps he then thought of his friend Violl's words, and had an ex- perience of their truth !
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Samuel Miller, of the same church, was the peer of these noble men, in all that constitutes broad and generous manhood. His parents-John and Catha- rine Miller, came into Ohio when it was yet a terri- tory, from Gettysburg, Pa., a place now memorable in American history. They settled in Willoughby, where Samuel was born, August 30, 1802 ; the first white male child born in that town. The country was a wilderness, and the red man, with the game he chased, ranged the interminable forests. February 26, 1828, he was married to Miss Maria Storm. He had been trained in the Lutheran church. When in 1829, the great wave of religious reformation broke along the shore of the lake, he heard, examined, and with his usual independence, candor, and decision, he confessed the Lord; his wife joining him in this consecration to Jesus Christ ; also Bro. Violl, Wirt, and others, who were his companions in the support of the gospel. When the overflowing scourge of Mormonism burst forth, these three men, with Otis and Waite, withstood the shock, though Rigdon himself, their leader to Christ, had reeled and fallen under its blow.
Bro. Miller was distinguished for superior business capacity, great probity, and for his consistent and liberal benefactions. Hiram College and the Ohio Christian Missionary Society received liberal dona- tions from his hand.
He lived to bow at the grave of nearly all who started with him in the gospel. As he saw the pain- ful disease leading him slowly and certainly to death, with wise forecast he made ample provision for the comfort of his faithful wife, and left the bal-
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ance of his property in the hands of a faithful and competent Christian friend, A. Teachout, to be used for the gospel. Business done, his attentions were devoted to his friends as they came about him, and to contemplations on the things that are eternal, in the heavens. In the calmness of an unfaltering trust he fell asleep, September 6, 1867, aged sixty-five years.
The church on Waite Hill was organized in 1830. Dexter Otis and Steven Tinkham were the over- seers, and John Violl and Noah Wirt, deacons. Bro. Wirt was afterwards called to the eldership. His active life in the ministry was a great support to the church till his removal to Wisconsin.
With these, Bro. Ransom R. Storm was long as- sociated. He was a man of superior gifts, an easy speaker, and a pointed reasoner. He was born in 1818, in Shenango County, New York, but was brought up in Ohio. He confessed his faith in Christ in Mentor, under the preaching of Bro. Wil- liams, and soon began to proclaim the gospel. He became much devoted to his work. At the call of some churches in Lake County, Illinois, he settled among them, where he spent the last years of his ministry. Disease seized him, and as he became weaker, he was brought, by his desire, to pass the last of his days among his numerous friends in Willoughby, where he died June 1, 1871, in the full hope of immortality in Christ.
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CHAPTER IX.
THE ADVENT OF MORMONISM.
T' 'HIS was in the fall of 1830. This coarse im- posture was not born of chance. Characterized by much that is gross, and accompanied by practices repulsive for their lowness and vulgarity, it yet had a plan and an aim, and it was led on by a master spirit of delusion. It marked out its own course, and premeditated its points of attack. Its advent in Mentor was not accidental. Its four emissaries to the " Lamanites" in the West, like the four evil messen- gers from the Euphrates (Rev. ix: 15), had Rigdon in their eye before leaving Palmyra, N. Y. On his part, Rigdon, with pompous pretense, was travailing with expectancy of some great event soon to be re- vealed to the surprise and astonishment of mankind. Gifted with very fine powers of mind, an imagination at once fertile, glowing and wild to extravagance, with temperament tinged with sadness and bordering on credulity, he was prepared and preparing others for the voice of some mysterious event soon to come.
The discomfiture he experienced at the hands of Mr. Campbell at Austintown, when seeking to intro- duce his common property scheme, turned him away mortified, chagrined and alienated. This was only two and a half months before he received, in peace, the messengers of delusion. Another fact : A little
18
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after this, the same fall, and before the first emissa- ries of the Mormon prophet came to Mentor, Parley P. Pratt, a young preacher of some promise from Lo- rain County, a disciple under Rigdon's influence, passing through Palmyra, the prophet's home, turned aside to see this great sight. He became an easy convert. Immediately an embassy is prepared, com- posed of this same P. P. Pratt, Oliver Cowdery and two others, for the "Lamanites."
The next scene opens in Mentor. About the mid- dle of November, came two footmen with carpet bags filled with copies of the book of Mormon, and stopped at Rigdon's. What passed that night between him and these young prophets no pen will reveal ; but inter- preting events came rapidly on. Next morning, while Judge Clapp's family were at breakfast, in came Rigdon, and in an excited manner said : "Two men came to my house last night on a c-u-r-i-o-u-s mis- sion ;" prolonging the word in a strange manner. When thus awakened, all around the table looking up, he proceeded to narrate how some men in Palmyra, N. Y., had found, by direction of an angel, certain plates inscribed with mysterious characters ; that by the same heavenly visitant, a young man, ignorant of letters, had been led into the secret of deciphering the writing on the plates ; that it made known the origin of the Indian tribes ; with other matters of great interest to the world, and that the discovery would be of such importance as to open the way for the introduction of the Millennium. Amazement ! They had been accustomed to his stories about the Indians, much more marvelous than credible, but this strange statement, made with an air both of wonder
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and credulity, overcame their patience. "Its all a lie," cried out Matthew, quite disconcerting the half apostate Rigdon ; and this future Aaron of the new prophet retired.
These two men who came to Rigdon's residence, were the young preacher before named, P. P. Pratt, intimately acquainted with Rigdon, and therefore, doubtless, chosen to lead the mission, and Oliver Cowdery. This Mr. Cowdery was one of the three original witnesses to Mormonism ; Martin Harris and David Whitmar were the other two. Harris was the first scribe to record the new Bible at the dictation of Smith ; but through carelessness he suffered the devil to steal 116 pages of the manuscript, and then Cowdery was chosen in his stead.
These men staid with Rigdon all the week. In the neighborhood, lived a Mr. Morley, a member of the church in Kirtland, who, acting on the community principles, had established a " family." The new doc- trines of having "all things in common," and of re- storing miracles to the world as a fruit and proof of true faith, found a ready welcome by this incipient " community." They were all, seventeen in number, re-immersed in one night into this new dispensation.
At this, Rigdon seemed much displeased. He told them what they had done was without precedent or authority from the Scriptures, as they had baptized for the power of miracles, while the apostles, as he showed, baptized penitential believers for the remis- sion of sins. When pressed, they said what they had done was merely at the solicitation of those persons. Rigdon called on them for proofs of the truth of their book and mission. They related the manner
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in which they obtained faith, which was by praying for a sign, and an angel appeared to them. Rigdon here showed them from Scripture the possibility of their being deceived : " For Satan himself is trans- formed into an angel of light." "But," said Cowdery, "do you think if I should go to my Heavenly Father, with all sincerity, and pray to him, in the name of Jesus Christ, that he would not show me an angel- that he would suffer Satan to deceive me ?" Rigdon replied : " If the Heavenly Father has ever promised to show you an angel to confirm any thing, he would not suffer you to be deceived ; for John says : 'If we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us.' But," he continued, "if you should ask the Heavenly Father to show you an angel, when he has never promised such a thing-if the devil never had an op- portunity before of deceiving you, you give him one now."
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