USA > Ohio > The Western Reserve of Ohio and some of its pioneers, places and women's clubs, Vol. I > Part 8
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He was free from drink then. I said, "God requires you to repent. He cannot repent for you. God requires you to be- lieve; he cannot believe for you. The Spirit of God is calling you." He said, "Is this, then, what the Spirit of God is doing? To show me all this. An evidence that I am not abandoned." I asked him to kneel down and submit and he did and said, "Oh ! if Dr. G. had only told us this, we would have been converted immediately; but my friends are lost; what a wonder I am saved."
A man who had a distillery, as soon as he was converted gave it up. "I shall take my distillery down. I shall neither work it, nor sell it to be worked." His family were converted, his brother and his brother's wife. This man soon died of con- sumption, but the day his family joined the church he said, "I am going to spend the Sabbath in heaven. All the family go and I will join the church above." I said, "Give my love to Dr. Green when you get to heaven," and he said, "Do you think I shall know him?" "Yes, undoubtedly." And he said, "I will, I will."
The Germans supposed they had been made Christians by Baptism. If I asked them, "When did you become Christians?"
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they would say, "I took my first Communion with Dr. M." or some other divine. That Dr. M. told me as we walked to Dr. Green's grave, he had made 1,600 Christians by Baptism, giving them the Communion, since he was pastor of that church. They thought to hold family prayer or give themselves to secret prayer was fanaticism, saying by it that their ancestors had all gone to hell. They spoke severely of those who forsook the way of their ancestors.
I had trouble from the daily press. The editors were drink- ing men, often carried home intoxicated. I took for my text one Sabbath, "Ye are of the your father, the devil, and the lusts of your father you do," pointing out in many ways how they would do his dirty work. These daily papers are what the children read. I would not allow them in my house for my children. The next day the papers were lying in the street.
I saw and heard no more opposition. I went from Reading to Lancaster, the then home of President Buchanan. A Mr. K. had been asked to be an elder in the church. He called me up in the middle of the night, said he knew he had never been con- verted. I gave him what advice I could. He professed at the time to submit and confess Christ. I established prayer meet- ings. The interest increased and hopeful conversions from day to day.
I was invited to New York City by Anson G. Phelps. He hired a vacant church at Vandveter and one on Princeton street. I, my wife and child boarded with Mr. Phelps. I noticed he would come from his business into our prayer meeting and enter into its spirit. One night I had occasion to go down stairs about twelve o'clock and there sat Mr. Phelps by the fire. He said, "After a nap at night I come down here for secret devotion and to have communion with God." He kept a journal. After his death we read of the real progress of his interior life.
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Lewis Tappan was a Unitarian and lived in Boston. He offered five hundred dollars to his brother Arthur to prove what unorthodox papers of Buffalo had said of Mr. Finney. Not get- ting the proof he became a convert. His brother was orthodox. The mother of the Tappans was a praying Godly woman. As soon as Lewis Tappan was converted he wished to organize a congregation and introduce new measures for the conversion of men. They called Mr. Joel Parker of Rochester. He came about the time I closed my labors in Princeton street.
The first "Free Presbyterian" church was formed in New York. They labored for those who had not been in the habit of attending meeting. They fitted up a warehouse in Dey street that would hold a good congregation.
I was in Whitestown with my wife and was pressed to go in different directions. I had an urgent invitation to take Mr. Parker's church in Rochester, they being left without a pastor, thought they would be soon scattered. I called a meeting of min- isters and they decided that I should go East. On retiring at night something seemed to say to me, "What are your reasons for not going to Rochester? You are needed at Rochester on ac- count of their difficulties. If all was right would you be needed?" I decided and told my wife in the morning that we would go to Rochester.
A lady came to see me; she was proud and fond of dress and ornaments. I said, "Except you become converted and be- come as little children ye shall in no wise enter the kingdom of heaven." Her mind was taken with that and she kept saying, "Except I become as a little child." From that moment she was outspoken in her religious convictions. Her conversion produced excitement among the class to which she belonged. The greatest obstacle with higher classes, is being known as "anxious in-
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quirers." A few days after the conversion of this lady, I asked all who would renounce their sins to come forward to certain seats I had vacated. A much larger number came than I had expected, and among them another prominent lady. This in- creased the interest among that class. Soon lawyers, physi- cians, merchants and indeed all of the more intelligent people were influenced. Three lawyers came to my room who had been on the anxious seat. I prayed and talked with them. They left, having found peace in the Lord Jesus Christ. The "Brick" church was thrown open to us. I preached three times on the Sabbath and nearly every night.
A high school had a teacher, Mr. B., who was a skeptic. The students attended our meetings. One morning Mr. B. found his classes could not recite. They were so deeply anxious for their souls that they wept. He said to his assistant that he had better send for Mr. Finney to instruct them. He did so and the revival took tremendous hold of the school. Forty of that school became ministers. Many of them missionaries, some in foreign lands. The revival made a great change in the morals of Roch- ester. The spirit of prayer was especially earnest. A Mr. Abel Clary, son of an elder in the church where I was converted, was a very silent man, almost all are who have that powerful spirit of prayer. He came to Rochester, he said, "Not to go to meet- ing, but to pray." Nearly all the time he was in prayer; some- times he could not stand or kneel, but lay prostrate "with groan- ing that cannot be uttered." He continued in Rochester as long as I did. He gave himself wholly to prayer.
A lawyer who was prosecuting attorney said, "There are a third less prosecutions than before the revival, although the population has doubled."
Mr. P. said to me, "I am a skeptic, and I want you to prove
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to me that the Bible is true." I said, "Do you believe in God?" "Yes." "Do you believe you have treated God right? Have you respected his authority? Have you done what you think will please him according to the light you have? Do you admit that you ought to obey him? Have you done so?" "No, I cannot say that I have."
"Then, why come to me for further information? When you do, I will show you why the Bible is from God." He said, "I think that is fair." The next morning he said, "God has wrought a miracle. I made up my mind that I would do as you say. I went down to the store and would have died, if Mr. Blank had not been there." From this time he was an earnest praying Christian, and has been one of the trustees of Oberlin. He has stood by us in all our trials. He has aided us with means and influence.
I preached in many places around Rochester. It seemed only necessary to present the law of God and the claims of Christ and they would be converted in scores.
When I was greatly fatigued I was told to rest, so went to Auburn. Rev. Josiah Hopkins was settled at the First Church. Those formerly against the revival had signed a paper for me to stop and preach. I said "I would preach twice on Sabbath but must rest on week days." Mr. Clary had a brother there and they sat in the same pew. They asked me to go home with them for dinner. We gathered at the table and he said, "Brother Abel, will you ask a blessing?" He said a word or two, then fled to his chamber. The Doctor followed and came and said, "Mr. Finney, my brother wants to see you." He said to me, "Pray, Brother Finney." I continued until his distress passed away. I felt the spirit of prayer was upon him. Every one of those who signed the paper was converted, a long list of names. I stayed
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at Auburn six Sabbaths. The pastor said in those six weeks five hundred had been converted. It seemed to be only a wave of prayer. It prepared the way for Buffalo. I went to Buffalo one month.
Dr. Lord was converted at that time. I said, "The sinner's 'cannot' is his 'will not.' They were wholly unwilling to be Christians." Mr. H. said, "That is false, I am willing." He drew around him many with whom he had no sympathy at all. He was shocked when he found those scoffers took refuge behind him. One went to a seat on the opposite side of the aisle, and would look toward him and smile. His heart rose up in indig- nation. "I am not going to be in sympathy with that class, I have nothing to do with them." The next morning he went to a grove to pray, to let out his voice and his heart to God. He could not pray, so he repeated the Lord's Prayer. Our Father, hallowed be thy name-He did not care to have his name hal- lowed. Thy kingdom come-he did not want his kingdom to come-Thy will be done on earth as it is done in Heaven-he was not willing God's will be done, for he did not do it him- self. Then with a mighty strength he said, "Thy will be done on earth as it is done in Heaven"-his will went with his words, he accepted the will of God and he said he prayed freely as soon as his will was surrendered. A sweet peace seemed to fill his soul. From that time, he became an earnest laborer for the promotion of God's work. His life attested the reality of the change.
Early in 1831 I accepted a call to Providence, R. I. I stayed only three weeks, but in 1842 I spent two months there. I was then the guest of Josiah Chapin. When in Providence Dr. Wister wanted me to come to Boston. Some from New York proposed to lease a theater and fit it up for a church for me. The Chatham Street Theater was leased by Lewis Tappan. We
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had an extensive revival, but the cholera appeared. I was taken with the cholera. The means used gave me a terrible shock. Toward spring I was able to preach again. I was to alternate with other preachers. I saw it was not the way to promote revivals and closed them. I appointed meetings for twenty evenings. The converts numbered five hundred. A col- ony went to the corner of Madison and Chatham street. The church was thoroughly united and a praying church. They went out to the highways and brought people in, taking slips of paper with the services on them. I told the members to scatter them- selves about the theater and speak to any who were visibly af- fected, invite them to the rooms near by and converse with them and thus gather up the results of the sermon. One Mr. H. came, and Mr. Tappan saw he was interested and took him by a button and urged him to stay for the conversation meeting. He said, "One ounce weight at my button was the means of saving my soul." I said at Chatham street I did not come to talk to Christians; we must labor for the ungodly. Seven free churches were organized to secure the salvation of souls, supported mostly by collections or by brethren.
I often alluded to slavery. Two cases came for discipline and the opposite judgments given. I remonstrated in vain. Then the subject of building a tabernacle was proposed. They built it for me to be the pastor. I took a sea voyage for my health and was gone six months. I returned to Chatham street until the tabernacle was completed. The plan was my own in regard to sound. The architect said, "It would not look well." I said, "You are not the man to construct it." It was built according to my ideas.
The New York Evangelist was founded because the New York Observer did not publish my answers to Mr. Nettleton's
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articles. Jonas Platte of Utica had a son and daughter con- verted in Utica. Judge Platte found in his law book a letter against the Evangelist Whitfield; he sent it to the New York Observer as a literary curiosity and asked them to publish it, as applying to Mr. Nettleton. I assisted in the first number of the New York Evangelist. Rev. Joshua Leavitt took it, after several changes. He espoused the cause of the slave.
On shipboard the spirit of prayer was on me for God's work. I was assured his help would come. Mr. Leavitt asked me to write a series of articles on revivals. I said I would give a course of lectures and he could publish them. He said, "I have so many new subscribers since then as would fill columns in a newspaper. They come from England, Scotland, Wales, Canada, East and West, and Nova Scotia. Three men said they read these revival lectures and they were the means of their becoming ministers." When published in the New York Evan- gelist, they resulted in revivals in many places in the country. But this was not of man's wisdom. It was from that agony of prayer at sea, that God would do something for revivals. He answered my prayers, also what I have since been able to ac- complish. In answer to that day's agony he has continued to give me the spirit of prayer. When at the Tabernacle many young men wanted me to give them lessons in theology, which I did. Most of them were new converts.
In 1835 Rev. J. J. Shippard of Oberlin and Rev. Asa Mahan arrived in New York and persuaded me to go as professor of theology to Oberlin. Mr. Shippard had founded a colony and got a charter, good enough for a university. Mr. Mahan had never been in Oberlin. A hundred pupils were in the academic department. The students of Lane Seminary had said, "They would go to Oberlin if I would accept the call."
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They offered me, if I would spend half the time in Oberlin, to endow the institution as far as professorships were con- cerned. I agreed, if the trustees would leave the regulations of the school to the faculty, and also receive colored students. When these conditions were forwarded to Oberlin they com- plied. New York said they would endow eight professorships, the probable needs of the institution. Still I hesitated, for it needed money for buildings and apparatus. Mr. Arthur Tappan said, "My income is $100,000 a year and I will give all of it, ex- cept what my family needs for support."
I took a tent to Oberlin for religious services. It had a streamer, "Holiness to the Lord." But alas! the great commer- cial crash came and Mr. Tappan wrote that he was unable to fulfil his pledge. We sent to England to raise $30,000, our debt for the buildings, by John Keep and William Dawse. The Eng- lish had read my revival lectures and gave us six thousand pounds ($30,000) and that cancelled our debt. Thanksgiving day came and I had no money for my family, but I laid the case before the Lord and preached as well as I ever did. At home my wife said, "The answer has come, my dear." It was a $200 check from Josiah Chapin. For several years he sent me six hundred dollars a year and on this we lived.
In Broadway Tabernacle I gave lectures to Christians, which were reported by Mr. Leavitt and published in the New York Evangelist. These were printed in a volume, in this coun- try and in Europe. The spirit of God was showing me many things on the question of sanctification. Some said it was an exhibition of the law, not the Gospel. But for me the law and Gospel have but one rule of life.
We must all apply God's law to the human conscience and heart. Why did Christians fall back from a revival state sooner
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than young converts? I often felt I was in the presence of temptation. I read the Bible to see if there were not promises for a higher Christian life. In these lectures to Christians, I defined what Christian perfection is. A life without known sin and the abundance of God's grace for it.
The trustees of Western Reserve College elected me as pro- fessor of Pastoral Theology and Sacred Eloquence and sent two men to meet me in Cleveland and take me to Hudson, but the winds of Lake Erie made me two days late and I went direct to Oberlin. The college at Hudson had its buildings, its apparatus, reputation and influence. Oberlin had nothing but its charter and one hundred students. The brethren here were in favor of building a school of radical reform. I therefore declined, in a letter to the trustees of Hudson, and took up my abode in Ober- lin. We kept about our own business and always had as many students as we knew what to do with.
Mr. Willard Sears of Boston purchased a church in Marl- boro street, open to discussion on all questions of reform. He purchased a hotel and connected with it a chapel. This was done at great expense. I went and began my labors in it and the Spirit of the Lord was immediately felt. In my room inquirers were obtaining hope every day. Elder Knapp, a Baptist, came from Providence and a great revival began. Mr. Josiah Chapin urged me to come to Providence.
In 1843 I went again to Boston. Mr. Miller, the Second Ad- ventist, was lecturing there. I had a talk with him and I said, "Instead of Christ coming personally to destroy his enemies, is it not Christ's Kingdom?" He gave an exposition of the proph- ecy of Daniel, "the stone was not Christ but the Kingdom of God that is to come and would destroy the image." I said, "Is it not the overthrow of the governments, by the influence of the
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Gospel?" But the excitement was too wild to be reasoned with.
Unitarianism had led the pepole to call in question all the doctrines of the Bible. They denied everything and affirmed almost nothing.
I boarded at the Marlborough Hotel and preached in the chapel of that name. I had the Spirit of prayer, the churches had not power with God, their want of power in the community in overcoming the errors of the city was very evident. I arose at four for prayer and my days were spent in searching the Scriptures. I read nothing else. A great deal seemed new to me. God led me to see the connections of things, the promises, the threatenings, the prophesies, the fulfillments, it seemed one blazed path of light. Then I said to myself, my will is not car- ried; this effect is on my sensibilities. I gave all up to the in- finite wisdom of God, and knew what a deeper consecration of my soul meant than ever before. I gave up my hope and rested on a surer foundation. Hell could be no hell to me if I accepted God's perfect will. Holiness to the Lord seemed inscribed on all the exercises of my mind. I would make only the prayer, "The will of the Lord be done." I learned the efficiency of his grace. My wife died and God said to me, "You loved your wife; is it for your own sake or for hers? If for hers are you not willing that I should take her? Can you not rejoice in her joy and be happy in her happiness?" From that moment my sorrow was gone. I no longer thought of my wife as dead but in the midst of the glories of heaven-to rest in the perfect will of God- that is heaven. And I could see why they are in such a state of blessedness. These are experiences in which I have lived a great deal since then. But in preaching it, few appreciate it. Most persons seem incapable of appreciating these precious truths of the Gospel. We need the testimony of Christians, in this state, to convert Unitarians and to see the salvation there is
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in Christ, and the giving up of all sin, as the condition of sal- vation.
The italics are mine .- Ed.
In 1849 I first visited England with my second wife, Mrs. Elizabeth Atkinson, of Rochester. There were no schools out- side of the church-schools for the poor, in England. Mr. Brown and a partner founded schools and churches. To one pastor Mr. Brown said, "You are not converting souls." His reply was, "Am I God, that I can convert souls? I preach to them the Gospel. Am I to blame?" The next pastor, Rev. Herbert, had some success. (But Mr. Brown had read How to Promote Re- vivals by Mr. Finney and gladly welcomed him.) He threw his home open morning and evening, invited his friends and they came in great numbers. Different persons each meal. The chil- dren of his partner were soon converted. It spread among the young people. A Mr. Roe of Birmingham invited me there and a Rev. Angell James who had written an Introduction to my Revival Lectures. But he had heard from America, my revivals had turned out disastrously. He gave a breakfast and told his friends that the people were going to destruction and something must be done.
The revival in Mr. Roe's church swept the whole congrega- tion. I spoke in other churches. Their largest vestries were packed with inquirers. He told me of the letters he had received against my revival and took my Systematic Theology to read. Dr. Redford came to hear me. He read the volumes critically through, and told me to come and preach for him. I was three months in Birmingham, the home of old Dr. Priestley, the first if not the principal Unitarian minister of England. I preached on "Ye stiff necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost." I dwelt on the divinity of the
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Holy Ghost, and in how many points they resist his teachings, while they are pleading their dependence on the Holy Ghost, they are constantly resisting him. They laid great stress on the Holy Spirit, but not on its persuasive influence. I said, "They were to obey its teachings and not wait for its physical influ- ence." A letter came from a minister who heard that sermon on the doctrine of responsibility, and a deep consciousness of sin. He said, "If I had not heard you, my awakened religious life would have been destroyed by continuous resistance to my convictions. My conscience would again have become hardened and I should have died in my sins. May God grant you a long life and greater helpfulness." I was then laboring with Rev. John Campbell. When he read it he said, "It was worth the coming to England for."
I went from Birmingham to Worcester to work for Dr. Red- ford; his opinions had great weight in England. Some wealthy men offered to give me a tent and move it from place to place, but on consulting the ministers, they thought it would be better to use the churches. I declined it, though I now believe that I could have accomplished more good.
Dr. Campbell was the successor of Whitfield at two chapels three miles apart. His voice was such he could not preach but edited two or more papers. His place would hold three thou- sand, as great as Exeter Hall. I preached morning and even- ing on Sabbath and three evenings in the week. Monday we had a general prayer meeting. I then called for inquirers. I said, "There are hundreds of inquirers in your congregation." We went to a British schoolroom that would hold sixteen hundred. Dr. Campbell said, "That would be too large," but we went to it at six o'clock and I preached a short sermon and told them, "Those who would like instruction to go to the British school-
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house down on Cooper's street." It was crowded with people. I addressed them on their immediate duty, to yield themselves entirely to his will and accept Jesus as their Redeemer. God's time is now. I called on the people to kneel and keep quiet to hear my prayer. I then dismissed the meeting. I had similar ones every Sabbath evening, and often in the church called on them to stand up in their places while we offered prayer. Many hundreds would arise, sometimes two thousand. I did not call on church members but inquirers to stand up and commit them- selves to God. About this time a census was taken of the Church of England and the Dissenters. The latter were in majority. They came to my study in vast numbers. Dr. Camp- bell asked me to go to the British school and I did. I asked them what was their education for? What a blessing it would be to the world if they used it aright. Dr. Campbell received many of them into his church who was at that time awakened. Ministers do not make the appeal, so there is a definite decision and they throw their ministry away. I became very hoarse after preaching four and a half months for Dr. Campbell. My wife had held meetings for women. I encouraged her. I preached on confession and restitution.
Mr. Brown of Houghton called and said, "You must go to France for a rest." He gave me fifty pounds. My wife was restored to health. In six weeks we returned to the Tabernacle and labored until April. Then came back to the United States.
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