USA > West Virginia > Memorial of the centenary celebration of the French Creek Presbyterian Church : August twenty-third & twenty-fourth nineteen hundred and nineteen > Part 2
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Therefore, I am taking as my theme: One Hundred Faithful Years. And I indicate as my text this fifth verse of the first chapter of Second Timothy: "I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois and thy mother Eunice, and, I am persuaded, in thee also."
For without impiety and with no ineptness in any case I might run through all the old families of this community and apply the text with equal fitness to each; The unfeigned faith that dwelt first in thy grand- mother Mehetabel and thy mother Eliza; or thy grandmother Anne and thy mother Virginia; or thy grandmother Sophronia and thy mother Josephine; or, taking the male line and beginning with the sturdy old patriarch Nathan Gould, of the fourth generation from Zachehaeus Gould of the Mayflower passenger list, who at the age of 83 made the 600-mile journey from Massachusetts to French .Creek-The unfeigned faith that dwelt in thy great-great-grandfather Nathan, thy great-grand- father Nathan, thy grandfather Gilbert and thy father Benjamin.
Ah, it is a great thing to have an unbroken line of ancestors like that-men and women who held to the "Faith once delivered to the Saints" -- lived in it, championed it; taught it, died in it! It is an inheritance "incorruptible, undefiled, that fadeth not away." We can say of these sturdy New England forefathers of French Creek, in a sense and to a degree which can be said of the forebears of few communities, they were "holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners."
I .- We name then, as the first characteristic of those who founded
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this church one hundred years ago, Faith-unfeigned Faith. There was something simple and downright about it. It was unmixed with sophistry or hypocrisy. It was of genuine stuff-strong and enduring.
It was faith that brought our ancestors from New England to what were then the remote forests clothing the western foothills of the Virginia Alleghenies. The poetic lines of Mrs. Hemans apply not only to the pilgrimage of those who sailed from Holland to Plymouth in the Mayflower, but to the subsequent journeys of their sons and daughters to the Connecticut Valley-to Western Massachusetts, and to Vermont and Connecticut, and thence to Western New York and Ohio, and to Western Virginia :
"What sought they thus afar? Bright jewels of the mine? The wealth of seas; the spoils of war ?- They sought a faith's pure shrine.'
By faith Zedekiah Morgan, listening to the stories told by Daniel Stebbins and other promoters, of the sunny, fertile lands of Virginia, left his home in Connecticut and came with his family in 1801 as the first settler to the banks of the Buckhannon near the mouth of French Creek.
By faith Aaron Gould came to the site of French Creek in 1808 and established his righteous seed as the progenitors of a large and pious population. Listen to the Scripture names of his eleven children- Samuel, James, Hannah, Daniel, Ebenezer, Aaron, Lydia, Isabel, Mehetabel, Sarah and Anna.
By faith in 1811 my grandfather, Robert Young, and his brother- in-law, Gilbert Gould, with their numerous children and with others of their kinfolk came from Charlemont in Northwestern Massachusetts in wagons drawn by horses and oxen, and established themselves on Mulberry Ridge a mile or two south of this church. They came at the beginning of that strange series of frosty summers which extended from 1811 to 1816 throughout New England and the State of New York ; when frosts occurred every month in the year; when, notably in 1812 and 1816 snow fell in June to a depth of five or six inches, and ice formed on standing pools half an inch thick ; when all tender vegetation was frost-bitten, the brilliant leaf-hues of October appeared in July, and the corn and wheat crops failed again and again.
No wonder that our grandparents listened with faith and hope to the tales of land speculators who told of frostless summers and rich, black soil; of noble forests of oak, chestnut, hickory, maple, walnut and cherry, and wide, well watered valleys, where ten acres of rich land could be purchased for the price asked for one of the stony acres of New England. No wonder that family after family of the Morgans, the Gould's, the Youngs, the Phillipses, the Sextons, the Leonards. the Perrys, the Brockses and other names to'led hopefully the hundreds of weary miles to the new land of promise.
They brought their New England piety and faith with them. My
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father was a chubby little lad of five years when his father, Robert Young, and his mother, Lydia Gould Young, with their five sons, Pascal, Anson, Gilbert, Festus and Loyal; and their two daughters, Anne and Louisa, made the trip in October and November, 1811. from Charlemont, Mass., to French Creek, Va. Although so young he could remember, or else he had been told them so often that it seemed like memory, many of the incidents of that trip.
They traveled in a covered wagon, drawn by three horses. Father used to tell us that the lead horse was called . Old Whitey, and that Loyal and Festus used to gather grass to feed this friendly old nag. Father carried to his grave a scar on one of his fingers made by the teeth of Old Whitey when the little boy's hand went into the horse's mouth with the grass.
Aunt Annie was then a girl of fifteen, and she with her mother and baby Louisa often found shelter at night in the hospitable houses of settlers along the way, while the father and boys slept in the wagon. Many nights, however, they camped together in the woods, making big fires to scare away the panthers and wolves, whose eerie voices could be heard throughout the night.
One fact stood forth always when father told us children the story. Every morning before the journey began and every evening before retiring Robert Young gathered his family around him for a chapter from the Bible and prayer. On Saturday they always camped early, trying to time their journey so as to be near some church where they might all attend Sabbath services. Religion was a very vital thing to the Youngs and the Goulds.
So Robert Young and Gilbert Gould went clear to the end of the forest road and commenced their little clearings on Mulberry Ridge, putting up their log cabins, with the huge stone and mud chimneys at the end, large enough to accommodate big hickory and oak logs which required two men at least to handle them.
From the very first they had religious services every Sabbath day. Robert Young brought some books with him from Massachusetts, including some volumes of sermons, and at the services held in his house and that of Aaron Gould immediately after arriving at French Creek, commenced the custom of reading a sermon to the assembled congre- ration. a practice which has continued to this day whenever there was no minister. Such sturdy old teachers of orthodoxy as Jonathan Edwards, Thomas Hooker, Thomas Chalmers, Archibald Alexander, Porter, McLeod, and later, John Hall, William Taylor, Charles Spurgeon, Monfort and Cordon have thus moulded the intellectual and spiritual life of this community, and given the services held every Sab- bath a consistent dignity and thoughtfulness above those held in almost any other church of any denomination in a radius of at least a hundred and fifty miles.
These weekly meetings with Robert Young as reader were started in the fall of 1811 and were held in his house and that of Aaron Gould. They were the only regular religious meetings held in a very
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wide region until the arrival in 1816 of Rev. Asa Brooks. During this shepherdless period this little Puritan flock was visited by only two ordained preachers, both Scotch-Irish Presbyterians from Western Penu- sylvania, Rev. Thomas Hunt and Rev. Moses Allen, who each preached one sermon in the house of Aaron Gould. A Presbyterian licentiate. Micaiah Fairfield, who afterwards left the Presbyterian Church and became a Free-Will Baptist, stayed a short time on French Creek.
In 1814 and 1815 came more relatives and friends from Massa- chusetts-John Loomis, Elijah Phillips and David Phillips, Loomis being then a bachelor, the Phillips brothers having large families. They pushed the road farther south along Mulberry Ridge and towards Centerville, and made clearings.
In 1816, the coldest summer recorded in New England, there fled to sunny Virginia the patriarch of the Goulds, Nathan Gould, 83 years of age, who survived the journey only two weeks, and found his restful grave in the wilderness. He came with his son, Nathan, Jr. Other families came the same year --- Jonathan Alden, John Burr, Noah Sexton, Daniel Haines, Ebenezer leonard and others. They all bought farms in this vicinity, and, almost without exception, reared large families.
But the most notable arrival at French Creek during 1816 was Rev. Asa Brooks, a young Congregational minister, twenty-two years old. He was sent as a missionary into this southern wilderness by the Hampshire County. Mass., Missionary Society, who pledged his sup- port at $400 00 a year, the colony being expected to provide as much of this in various kinds of produce as they could.
Mr. Brooks preached at French Creek, Buckhannon and Beverly, ministering also to. new settlements as they arose. After a year's earnest labor he returned to Massachusetts to marry his childhood's friend, Miss Polly Sumner, who returned with him to French Creek in 1818.
The Congregational and Presbyterian Churches had the same sys- tem of doctrine, both adhering to the Westminster Confession of Faith, and only differing in their form of government. Therefore, Mr. Brooks followed the almost universal custom at that time of the Congregational ministers who moved into New York, Pennsylvania or Virginia-he became a Presbyterian, uniting with the Presbytery of Redstone in Western Pennsylvania April 20, 1819, and receiving and accepting calls from the, as yet, unorganized congregations of French Creek and Buckhannon.
Mr. Brooks lost no time in perfecting a church organization bere. The difficulty of deciding upon the correct month and day for this Centenary Celebration arose from the successive steps of the organiza- tion. The call for Mr. Brooks' services was informal. There was no other Presbyterian minister within more than a hundred miles. On July 5. 1819, a meeting of the congregation was held, and Aaron Gould and Robert Young were unanimously elected Elders of the
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new church. The organization was completed September 10th at the house of Samuel Gould, on the hill opposite this church.
Listen to the charter membership of this little church in the wilder- ness -- few names, but of great faith --- Aaron Gould and Lydia, his wife; Nathan Gould and Esther, his wife: Robert Young and Lydia, his wife; Mrs. Rebecca Morgan, Samuel Gould, Aaron Gould; David Phillips and Anna, his wife; Mrs. Mehetabel Gould, Mrs. Lucy Alden and Mrs. Polly Brooks-fourteen faithful ones.
Of course, God's blessing descended on the infant organization; there was a quiet but genuine revival and eighteen new members were received the next year, all but two on confession of their faith-Capt. Gilbert Gould, Jonathan Alden: Daniel Gould and Margaret, his wife; Pascal Young and Cynthia, his wife: Mrs. Rhoda Gould, Mrs. Esther Gould, Mrs. Nice Gould, Mrs. Mary Knowlton, the Misses Chloe Conkey, Anne Young, Sally Gould, Nancy Gould, Elizabeth Gould and Sarah Peebles; Roswell Knowlton and Prudence, his wife. The membership was now thirty-four, six of whom were still living when my father preached the semi-centenary sermon forty-nine years later.
Mr. Brooks served the church until 1824. when he returned to Massachusetts. That fall the seed sown unsparingly by this good husbandman sprung up into an abundant harvest, and thirty-three new members, among whom were six of Robert Young's family, including my father, were received into the church on confession of their faith. Mr. Brooks returned to French Creek in 1825, residing here until 1831 when he removed to Clarksburg, continuing, however, his pastorate at French Creek until the year of his death in 1834.
The preaching of Mr. Brooks was like almost all of the preaching of that time-severely logical and sternly orthodox, unenlivened by cheerful illustrations or appeals to the emotions. Although my father testified to the keen sense of humor and lively social qualities of his first pastor, yet I suppose that Asa Brooks was never in all his life guilty of exciting a smile in church. One of his grand-nephews, in whose custody are some of Mr. Brooks' manuscripts, furnishes me the following extract from one of his sermons:
"But how can man be profitable unto God? The praises of myriads of men and angels can make no essential addition to His glory. Strictly speaking, He would be as happy and as glorious if the whole human race were punished after the example of the fallen angels as He is at present and ever has been. Even as the sun in the firmament would shine equally bright if this globe, which is illuminated by it, were annihilated. We can neither add to nor detract from God's happiness or glory in the smallest possible degree."
Such hard and cold statements of doctrine are not often heard in the preaching of the present day, and the thought of listening for an hour or more, on a winter Sunday in the old log church, which had no stove or fire place, to a sermon like that would be rather appalling
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to the young people of the present generation. But their grandfathers and grandmothers stood it bravely and imbibed from such preaching a firmness of Christian character and an unquestioning faith that their descendents might well imitate.
I would not picture these ancestors of ours as models in all respects nor their customs and beliefs as infallible. They did many foolish things in their daily business and were inconsistant in many ways. Oh! Those priceless walnuts of mighty girth, those bird's-eye and curly maples, those golden oaks, those towering cherry trees and poplars which our grandfathers chopped down, split into rails or burned in log heaps, any one of which, if preserved, would now be worth three or four acres of the land which they were so laborously clearing! And the scrubby native cattle, and ragged sheep, and razorback hogs and domineck chickens, which they were so slow to exchange for the blooded shorthorns and Cotswolds and Berkshires and Plymouth Rocks of the present !
And in matters of religion and morality they seem to us just as inconsistant. How little fellowship there was between the different denominations and how exclusive the various sects! Universal fellow- ship and brotherhood were comparatively unknown terms. Our ances- tors very often seemed to keep their eyes fixed upon what we call now "the infinitely little" to the exclusion of the "weightier matters of the law." Religion was then too often negative-a succession of "Thou shalt nots," rather than any call to the service of God and humanity. Woe to the Elder or Deacon who, on Sunday, with a thunderstorm coming, would gather Widow Smith's hay into her barn to save it! And woe to the boy who, on a hot August Sunday, would dip his melting body in a sheltered pool in French Creek, or the clear, cool waters of the Buckhannon! And yet, on that same Sunday, when Mr. Jones was sick, there would be a long line of neighbors from far and near, sitting on his rail fence or lolling under his trees, discussing every subject on earth except religion; while their wives within the afflicted house were perspiring before the hot fire in the great chimney in their efforts to feed the visiting men. And how instant and severe was the condemnation of the church, sometimes resulting in a trial before the session, if the sprightly young men and women would indulge even in such a romping dance as the Virginia reel; while kissing games were the correct thing, and the usual procedure when young men would call upon young women would be to "sit up" together until late at night in the dark and alone!
These questions of casuistry seem trifling to us now, and the customs of our ancestors provoke a smile. We claim to stand upon a higher plane in these days. We question old doctrines, old methods, old customs; we even criticise Christian, in the Pilgrim's Progress, for leaving his wife and children in the City of Destruction, while he made all haste to escape himself, and thought only of attaining felicity in the Celestial City, regardless of what happened to his family and neighbors.
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We question the old creeds and even the Shorter Catechism. I confess that from the age of twelve, when I earned a Brewster Bible by perfectly repeating the Shorter Catechism, I have questioned, with inward shrink- ing and disapproval some of the answers of that splendid compendium of Christian doctrine.
"God, having out of His mere good pleasure, elected some to ever- lasting life." I did not like that word mere, and I don't yet. It seems to present my Infinite Father in a hard, selfish, unfeeling light.
And that first question and answer-
"What is man's chief end?"
"Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever."
What has man's enjoyment of God or anything earthly to do with his christian life as a motive? Is he to become a Christian simply to go to heaven? I have always felt like re is'ng that answer by saying: "Man's chief end is to glorify God by serving his fellowmen."
In many respects I think we do stand on a higher plane in these days. And we should. In the universal progress that this age is making is tlere not a progress of christian doctrine as well as of chris- tian life? Are we not getting nearer the Christly example of sacrifice and service? Shall we take as our example that saintly divine, Jonathan Edwards, who said:
"Henceforth my one object in life is to save my soul."
Shall we not rather adopt the impassioned exclamation of the young soldier in a hospital in France last year, when witnessing the agony of fifty of his comrades who, gassed by German fiends, were struggling, gasping and dying for twenty-four hours before death relieved their sufferings, he exclaimed in anguish, "Oh, Christ, who died for men, would that I could go through all this once for all for these other fellows!"
We are, I think, learning more and more the Christlike beauty of self-forgetfulness, and are making sal ation not a matter of selfish fears and hopes, but a question of saving others. We are learning this, I think, more perfectly than our fathers could. We no longer try to scare and coax men into heaven.
But in this respect of faith I bel eve we are far behind our ancestors who founded this church in the wilderness. Many incidents crowd upon my memory to illustrate this. Let me select one or two.
My father, when a child, had been taught that if he wished any- thing he should pray for it, and that God answered all worthy prayers. Our grandfathers and grandmothers made little of the festival of Christmas, regarding it as a relic of barbarism or as a Popish institu- tion. And that was also prior to the universal observance of Thanks- giving Day. New Year's Day was the great festival of the year-that and the Fourth of July. On New Years the scattered members of the family all came home, and there was feating and rejoicing and merriment.
The Youngs were no hunters. They left that duty to the Phillips
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9 Dr. S. Hall Young seated beneath the rock where his father prayed for a New Year's dinner and received a wild turkey.
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tribe, although almost the only meat they ate was wild game with. now and then, a chicken, or a lamb from the flock. Grandfather Young and his family depended on their neighbors for their venison and other game. Robert Young was so tenderhearted that he could not wield the rod upon his own children, but left that duty entirely to his wife. He would not kill anything except snakes, and did that from a sense of duty, quoting Scripture :
"The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head."
My own father would never kill a chicken, and when we brought to him our bloody toes or fingers he would sometimes faint away. So, although deer, rabbits, wild turkeys and pheasants abounded on Big and Little Bushrun, the Young family often went hungry in the midst of plenty. There came a New Year's eve when the family was gather- ing together. My Uncle Pascal and his wife were coming and other friends, and there was nothing provided for the New Year's dinner. Grandmother was in distress and voiced her perplexities in the presence of her children.
Loyal, then about ten years old, listened and quietly stole out of the house and into the woods to the base of a great oak tree, where . there was a shelving rock where he used to retire for study and prayer. He knelt and prayed most earnestly that the Lord would send to the Young family a New Year's dinner. He had not risen from his knees when he heard a great thrashing and flopping among the branches o' the big oak, and down at his feet fluttered a big twenty-pound turkey gobbler.
Joyfully he seized his prize, and although he could hardly carry the magnificent bird, he lugged it up to the cabin and burst in upon his mother, crying, "Here it is, your New Year's dinner. I prayed for it and the Lord sent it."
When they examined the bird they found a bullet hole, but were never able to discover the far-away lunter that had shot and wounded it.
When I was a boy my father often used to tell us of this answer to prayer, and my Uncle Anson confirmed the incident, both accepting it, without question, as a direct answer to the boy's petition.
Another instance of "unfeigned faith": My grandfather was poor. Somehow, the Youngs, as a tribe, have never been what the people here call "forehanded." Uncle Edwin Phillips had a dry, and sometimes caustic wit. He it was who, when provoked by some acts of the storekeepers of French Creek village, dubbed it Snatchburg- a name which stuck for a generation or two. He married father's youngest sister, dear, gentle Aunt Phronie. Once when somebody (I think it was one of the thrifty Goulds) was speaking slightingly of the Youngs and their incapacity for money-making, Uncle Ed quietly remarked, "Well, I reckon you'll find that they'll all git to heaven."
Grandfather was a good carpenter, as well as a farmer, and worked at his trade. He was magistrate, and cases were brought to him for trial from far and near. He was county assessor for Lewis County --
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then very large-and traveled from one end of it to the other on foot, assessing and collecting taxes. He was once elected to the most lucra- tive office in the county, that of sheriff. He ought to have been well off. But he was too soft-hearted. He was reported to have sometimes himself paid the fines he imposed as magnistrate when he thought the culprit unable to comply with the law. In like manner he would pay the taxes of poor people rather than collect from them. And he surrendered the office of sheriff because he feared that he might have to execute some criminal.
So he was poor, in spite of his popularity and industry. When successive claimants to his land won their cases in the courts, he would pay again for his farm rather than fight the case. His boys and girls handled no money. In fact, very little currency changed hands in this region. Commodities and services were bartered in kind. The wage for a day's work in the harvest feld was fifty cents, payable in produce.
Therefore when Festus and Loyal were approaching manhood and were crazy for an education, their father could not help them. Grand- mother, who was a wonderful woman, self-educated, taucht her chil- dren the common branches. Then their pastor, Asa Brooks, started them in Latin, Greek and algebra. Both boys desired to study for the ministry.
They had no money to buy books. They walked up to a slate quarry on the Little Kanawha and manufactured the'r own slates and soapstone pencils. Mr. Brooks loaned them books and they took turns in studying them. He pondered their case with deep sympathy. Then he called them together into his study.
"Boys," he said, "a college and seminary education is very expen- sive. Your father can help you but little. I see my way clear to assist one of you to an education, if the other will work with all his might for his brother and give up all hope of education for himself. Choose between you which shall go to college."
Immediately, with that spirit of self-abnegation which was their strongest characteristic, each began to urge the claims of the other. When he saw that a decision was impossible in that way, Mr. Brooks said, "I see that this is a matter for the Lord to decide. Let us ask His guidance."
Kneeling, he prayed earnestly that God would show whom He had chosen for His ministry. Then, quoting the text, "The lot is cast into the lap, but the whole disposal thereof is with the Lord," he wrote "go" on one slip of paper, "stay" on the other, and had the lads draw. The lot fell on the younger. Loyal was the Lord's choice.
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