children, living about a mile and a half distant. In his intervals of
comparative calmness, he would set out to visit them. On his way, the
evil spirit would come upon him, and transform the husband and father
instantly into a fury. Then he would run toward the house, raving like a
wounded tiger, and roaring like a lion upon his prey. He would spring
against the door, and shatter it into fragments; while the poor wife and
children fled through the back door to the neighbors, or concealed
themselves in the cellar. Then he would spoil the furniture, and break
all the dishes, and bound away howling again to his home in the cemetery.
The report of this mysterious and terrible being had spread through all
the surrounding region, and everybody dreaded and pitied the man among
the tombs. Jesus came that way. The preacher described the interview,
the miracle, the happy change in the sufferer, the transporting surprise
of his long afflicted family. Then, shifting the scene, he showed his
hearers the catastrophe of the swine, the flight of the affrighted
herdsman, his amusing report to his master, and the effect of the whole
upon the populace. All this was done with such dramatic effect, as to
convulse his numerous hearers with alternate laughter and weeping for
more than half an hour. Having thus elicited an intense interest in the
subject, he proceeded to educe from the narrative several important
doctrines, which he illustrated so forcibly, and urged so powerfully,
that the people first became profoundly serious, then wept like mourners
at a funeral, and finally threw themselves on the ground, and broke forth
in loud prayers for mercy; and the preacher continued nearly three hours,
the effect increasing till he closed. One who heard that wonderful
sermon says, that, during the first half hour, the people seemed like an
assembly in a theatre, delighted with an amusing play; after that, like a
community in mourning, over some great and good man, cut off by a sudden
calamity; and at last, like the inhabitants of a city shaken by an
earthquake, rushing into the streets, falling upon the earth, and
screaming and calling upon God! {27}
SANDEMANIANISM AND SABELLIANISM.
About this time arose among the Baptists of North Wales a bitter and
distracting controversy, concerning Sandemanianism and Sabellianism,
which had been introduced by the Rev. Mr. Jones, a man of considerable
learning and influence in the denomination. Mr. Evans was at first
inclined to fall in with these doctrines, and participated largely in the
strife of tongues. He says:—
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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