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Many sacred and holy
memories cluster round that historic spot, as indeed round all the ancient
churches in that region. At Buffalo the great revival at the beginning of
the last century had its climacteric, so far at least as that general
section of the country was concerned. It is safe to say that by far the
greatest and most general religious awakening this country ever knew, was
during the first five or six years of the nineteenth century. Judged by
its accompaniments and consequences, by its immediate and resultant
effects, it marked a veritable epoch in the history of this country. The
period following the Revolutionary War was one of great religious
declension and moral degeneracy. French Infidelity and English Deism
seemed to have taken the land. Many of the leading public men were
disciples of the one or the other. Earnest religion was mocked at by many
of the more intelligent classes. Colleges, like Harvard, Yale and
Princeton, had hardly a professing Christian among their students. Many
pulpits had fallen into a halting, hesitating and half-hearted declaration
of evangelical truth, or had ceased to declare it at all. Times were hard,
money nearly worthless, political and other strifes were rampant; personal
and social morals were at a low ebb, and in general, the mood of the
people was sceptical, bitter and reckless. In fact, it seemed that Baal
ruled the land. But there were the seven thousand in Israel who had never
bowed the knee to him. Yet these, as of old, were cowed, suppressed and
hidden out of sight. However, through all, they unceasingly cried unto God
with strong entreaties and tears, and at length their cry was heard, and
the Lord God of Elijah answered by fire. Then came a great and mighty
revival of evangelical religion which extended over the whole of the
country then settled, from New England through the Atlantic states to the
Carolinas, Georgia and Tennessee, as well as among the newer settlements
in Ohio, Kentucky, and to the westward and southwestward. It brought a
very great and lasting change to the religious life and the moral
condition of this whole country. It is not easy to fix precisely the spot
where this great revival had its first manifestation. It seems that the
sacred fire was kindled at several widely separated points at about the
same time. The region of which I am writing was one of these points, and
certainly one of the very earliest points where this great awakening
began. Some painstaking historians have traced the very earliest
manifestations of this movement to the congregation of Cross Roads, now
Florence, in Washington county, Pa., and to Philip Jackson, who was called
the "praying elder" in that ancient congregation. Whether this is so or
not, one thing is certain, in the woods round the old log meeting-house at
Upper Buffalo, was held what was probably the most remarkable camp-meeting
ever known in America. It was in October, 1802, when the surrounding
country was as yet but sparsely settled, and still mostly a vast forest;
and yet, there gathered together in the wilderness a concourse of above
ten thousand people, coming from all distances within a radius of a
hundred miles, on foot, on horseback, in clumsy vehicles, bringing
provisions with them, and tarrying for many days. There were a score or
more of ministers present, and services were held almost continuously all
day and far into the night, sometimes all night. The preaching was all
done by authorized ministers. These people believed that women should keep
silence in the church, and laymen very rarely addressed worshipping
assemblies. It is worthy of remark that in the most extensive, the most
powerful, and the most transforming revival of religion this country ever
knew, none of the sensational methods of modern services of this kind were
used at all. No doubt times have changed, and modern methods may be
required by modern conditions, but at the same time it may be a question
whether our Lord and His Apostles were not quite up to their own times,
and to all times, in the methods they used and authorized. This is a very
wise and very enterprising age, but possibly it is not greatly wiser and
more enterprising than our Lord, and His Apostles. One thing is certain,
the great religious revivals of history, those awakenings which have
permanently transformed communities, nations and races, have invariably
been conducted on apostolic and primitive lines. Modern evangelism, with
all its provision for paid evangelists, its newspaper advertising, its
processions and brass-bands, its sensations and trips through the slums,
may fall in with modern methods, and get glory for its leaders, but
whether this builds up the kingdom of God, and really saves lost men, may
be a question for serious and enlightened Christians. The great awakening
of which I am writing continued for several years, and during that time
the whole country was transformed. It was not the invasion of a community
by a lot of so-called evangelists, who must have the way prepared
beforehand, who go only into places where strong churches exist, but it
was the result of faithful work by pastors and other Christian people, in
the use of the ordinary and prescribed means of grace. Such was the great
awakening which continued for several years, and transformed the whole
country. For many years, evangelical religion was the chief, the absorbing
interest of the majority of the people. Looking back now we can see how
that great revival saved pure religion in this land. Not only were the
churches greatly strengthened and multiplied, but unbelief and immorality
were effectively rebuked, the mood and habit of the people were
permanently changed, and out of it grew the great missionary movement of
modern times, in this country. Mission Boards, Bible Societies, Tract
Societies, Sabbath-schools, multitudes of Christian schools and colleges,
the temperance movement, and many other such great agencies of evangelism
and reform, were the direct product of that great revival. I repeat, it
marked a veritable epoch in American history. Undoubtedly it was a mighty
work of the Spirit of God, but as always happens in such a case, Satan
entered in to pervert, counterfeit and counterwork the work of God. With
the veritable sacred fire came much wildfire. Extravagances and
fanaticisms flamed out on every side, and there came bitter controversies
and contentions by which the people of God were broken up into hostile and
belligerent factions. Out of these controversies came the Cumberland
Presbyterian Church, the Christian, or Campbellite, body, and many other
separations. But after all, the results were immensely great, valuable and
enduring. It can be easily shown that the Scotch-Irish ministers and
people were the main promoters of this great work.
These old pastors were paid
but scanty salaries. The pastor of my own childhood and youth had for a
long time no more than five hundred dollars a year, and this was paid him
in a lump at the close of the year. How he was expected to live in the
meantime, I do not know. Probably he was treated quite as generously, or
better said, no more stingily than other ministers in that general region.
For the most part these congregations were made up of thrifty farmers not
one in ten of whom was in debt except as he kept in debt by buying more
land and yet such pitiful sums they deemed sufficient for the support of
able and faithful pastors. As a rule these pastors managed to live
decently on such incomes, raise large families and educate them. With all
their fine traits these Scotch-Irish were not remarkable for liberal
dealing in money matters. They were apt to be excessively careful and
close in such matters. It ought to be said however that they had but
little ready money and what they had came from hard and persevering toil.
Fifty cents a day or less paid the wage of a farm hand. Farmers would
raise their wheat, reap it with a sickle, thresh it with a flail, have it
made into flour, paying one-tenth for toll, then haul it to Pittsburgh, a
three days' journey, and sell it for two to three dollars a barrel. The
people in general fared abundantly at their own tables, for their farms
and gardens yielded plentifully, but their cash income was very small.
Nearly everything that the people ate, drank, or wore was the direct
result of their own industry. I now refer to the earliest times, and for a
good many years after they settled in the country. The flax was raised,
cured, carded, spun and woven into fabrics which were made up into
garments for household use. So with the wool. The hides of their cattle
were tanned by themselves, and once a year, the shoemaker would come
round, stopping in the house for a week or more, and make the year's
supply of shoes for the entire family. All the supplies of the table
except tea, coffee, spices and the like, were the produce of their own
fields and gardens. In the early days even tea and coffee were but rarely
used. They did without coffee, and tea was made of sassafras, spicewood,
and other barks and herbs. Salt and pepper were hard to get and sparingly
used. Most things that they must have they somehow managed to get from the
field, the forest or the stream. Once a year, some man of the settlement
would make a pilgrimage over the mountains to Carlisle, to bring back a
supply of salt, iron, powder, lead, and such spices as they must have.
Neighbors would send their boys along under his guidance over the trail,
each with a string of pack-horses. I have heard my grandfather tell of
making such pilgrimages when a small boy, with several packhorses in tow.
Little wonder that they made careful use of what was so hard to get.
Everybody except the very
aged and infirm went regularly to church. If any man did not go, he was
looked at askance as some sort of Ishmaelite or Philistine, and deemed
hardly safe to associate with. No matter how rough the weather nor how bad
the roads, nor how long the distance, everybody went on the Sabbath day. I
can recall many a time when a very small boy, sticking like a big bug on a
horse behind my grandfather, and riding three miles to church of a bitter
winter morning, when the horse waded through deep snow, or floundered
through stiffest mud, or stumbled over roughest clods, and we were always
in time for Sabbath-school at nine o'clock. Our fathers kept the Sabbath
according to the commandment as expounded in the Larger and Shorter
Catechisms. This was sometimes rather irksome to a restless and
unsanc-tified boy, but there was much ultimate good in it. Like many
another affliction, for the present it was not joyous, but grievous;
nevertheless afterwards it yielded the peaceable fruits of righteousness.
Looking back now after sixty years of varied experience have come and
gone, how soft, how silent, how sweet and restful those old-time Sabbaths
seem! The memory of them has rested like a mellow benediction on all the
intervening years. The plow stood still in the furrow; the weary horses
fed ankle deep in pastures, or stood with their long necks over the gate
in luxurious rest; cows and oxen with their great, soft eyes, lay quietly
in the shade of oaks or hickories, contentedly chewing the cud, while
lambs gambolled on the green hillsides; all so peaceful, so soothing, so
sacred. Very many grey-headed men and women now widely separated in the
world, some in high places, some in humble, recall with deep and tender
emotion the memory of those far-away arcadian scenes. Amid the rush and
roar, the tumult and turmoil, the wild strifes, passions and confusions of
modern life, how sweet, and soft, and restful, how sacred and holy, the
memory of the quiet summer Sabbaths of our childhood and of our fathers.
Possibly they may have been
over-strict; very likely they were. When a small boy, if by any chance I
forgot and let out a little whistle on the holy day I was instantly
startled and shocked at myself, and looked round rather expecting the
heavens to fall or some other terrible thing to happen. All books not
strictly religious were put away. The Bible, the Confession of Faith,
Baxter's Saints Rest, Al-lein's Alarm, Doddridge's Rise and Progress,
Watts Psalms and Hymns, and such like exhilarating books were allowable.
Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress was permissible, as a sort of breeze from the
mountains. It is certain that nearly everyone of our current religious
weeklies would have been placed under the ban, and by far the greater part
of the books found in our Sunday-school libraries.
No matter how busy the
season nor how hard the farmers were pressed with their work, on the
Saturday evening everything came to a full stop, and there stood till
Monday morning. As far as possible, all preparations for the day were made
beforehand. No baking or needless cooking was allowed on the sacred day.
My grandfather and my father always went clean shaven, yet I do not
believe that so much as once in all their long lives did either of them
ever shave on the Lord's Day. I cannot recall ever having seen any one in
that community at any kind of worldly work or amusement on the Sabbath.
When as a young minister in Wisconsin, I saw a picnic going on, and heard
a band play within a short distance of where I was holding service on the
Lord's Day, I was shocked beyond speech. I had never before seen anything
of that kind. Once a pious neighbor of ours got wrong in his reckoning and
went out to his plow on the Sabbath morning, thinking it was Saturday.
Seeing people pass on their way to church, and learning his mistake he was
like to have had a fit of epilepsy. He was as much confounded as if he had
been caught stealing sheep. Swiftly he drove his horses to the barn,
unhitched and unharnessed, and rushed to the church in his working garb,
his head full of confusion, his heart full of penitence, and his mouth
full of explanations and apologies. He was forgiven by others, but it may
be doubted whether he ever forgave himself.
Family worship every
morning and evening was always leisurely and especially on the Sabbath,
lengthy. There was the reading of a full chapter however long; the singing
of a psalm or hymn clear through, and a comprehensive prayer, all devoutly
kneeling. Ah me, how significant a service was that! No wonder that Robert
Burns, wild and dissipated as he was, was so deeply moved when he wrote
his exquisite lyric, "The Cotter's Saturday Night." What holy memories and
influences of the unforgotten living and the no less unforgotten dead,
connect themselves with that sacred custom! The father, possibly the
grey-headed grandfather, gathering his household on their knees round the
altar of their Covenant God! What a protection for the present, what a
prophecy for the future! How sad it is that this holy and blessed
ordinance has so dropped out of the hurly-burly of our modern life. Nine
o'clock found us in Sabbath-school, whatever the weather or the roads. The
class work consisted almost wholly in reading from the Bible and in
memorizing long passages of scripture and hymns. This may seem very crude
in the light of modern methods, but it had certain great advantages. It
lodged large numbers of hymns and large portions of scripture safely in
the memory, and saved the children from the raw, silly, and misleading
instruction they sometimes receive now. It gave a ready familiarity with
the very language of the Bible and of standard hymns which could never be
lost. Some years ago, I spent two weeks in the same house with the late
Major-General Irvin M'Dowell of the United States Army. He was a very
eminent and meritorious officer, but in some respects an unfortunate one.
It was he who was forced by public outcry, to fight prematurely the first
battle of Bull Run. He was a most interesting man, and one of the race we
are thinking of. He went to his grave under the shadow of a vile slander
which was widely published about him after the battle of Bull Run. It was
published and generally believed that he was drunk that day, and lost the
battle in consequence. He never stooped to deny the wicked slander. The
fact was that he was a rigid total abstainer, and had been all his life. I
was surprised at his ready familiarity with the Bible. He seemed to know
the book from beginning to end, and could quote from it with wonderful
point and pertinence. At length I expressed my gratification, and in fact,
my wonder at finding one who had spent his life in camps and army posts,
and who yet had so extraordinary a familiarity with the holy scriptures.
He answered me by saying, that he had been brought up in the church and
Sabbath-school of Dr. James Hoge, the Presbyterian patriarch of Ohio, and
he added, "Where-ever you find one of dear old Doctor Hoge's boys, you
will be apt to find one who knows his Bible and Catechism."
Between Sabbath-school and
public service there was a short interval, during which, if the weather
was pleasant, boys and younger men would stand or stroll about among the
trees, surreptitiously talking crops, politics, or neighborhood gossip.
Meanwhile the women and more sedate men would pass into the church. At
first sound of the opening service, these groups in the grove would make a
rush for the church, and go thundering down the uncarpeted aisles in their
farmer boots, making as much noise as a drove of horses.
The singing was led by four
men called "clerks," or "clarks," who stood in a row on a little raised
platform in front of the pulpit, and facing the congregation. There was no
musical instrument of any kind, and the proposal to introduce one would
have raised a tempest. In the Seceder and Covenanter congregations nothing
was used but Rouse's version of the psalms, and the number of tunes was
very limited. In the regular Presbyterian churches, Watts Hymns and Psalms
were allowed, though the old version was much used. These clerks had no
music in their books, and probably few of them could have read it if it
had been before them. They took turn about in "raising" the tune, and
quite often the clerk started in apparently without having any particular
tune clearly in his mind, or at least without having any firm grip on it,
and so he would amble along and wabble about until sometimes he got to the
second or third line before it became clear to the people, to his
fellow-clerks, or even to himself precisely what tune he was headed for.
By that time he usually struck something in the way of tune, and if it
happened to be of the right metre and anywhere near the right key, his
fellow-clerks would strike in, followed by the entire congregation, and
then there would be a mighty volume of sound. If the metre did not fit, or
if the pitch was impossible, as often happened, then all hands stopped;
there was a clearing of throats on the little platform, possibly a blowing
of noses, with more or less expectoration, and then a fresh start was
made. This was kept up till success was achieved. There was never final
failure. That was not in the Scotch-Irishman's creed. When the clerks all
broke down, as I have seen happen, then some veteran singer in the
congregation would lilt up the tunc.
Practically everybody sang,
or made a stagger at singing, and if it was not in the highest style of
art, it was at least loud and hearty. Here and there over the
congregation, you might hear the shrill and fife-like voice of some dear
old saintly woman singing "counter", her shivering falsetto cutting its
way sharply through the volume of all other sounds. Connoisseurs, if any
had been present, would have curled the lip and stopped their ears, but I
fancy that this worship pleased the angels and the Lord very well, for it
was the best the people had to offer, and it was at least deeply sincere
and devotional. |
