The Memories of Fifty Years: Containing Brief Biographical Notices of Distinguished Americans, and Anecdotes of Remarkable Men; Interspersed with Scenes and Incidents Occurring during a Long Life of Observation Chiefly Spent in the SouthwestSparks, W. H. (William Henry)
History
The Memories of Fifty Years: Containing Brief Biographical Notices of Distinguished Americans, and Anecdotes of Remarkable Men; Interspersed with Scenes and Incidents Occurring during a Long Life of Observation Chiefly Spent in the Southwest
Sparks, W. H. (William Henry)
Georgia -- History -- 1775-1865; Southwest, Old -- History; United States -- Biography
How well the scene and the worship accorded! There was congruity in
all--the woods, the tents, the people, and the worship. The impressions
made that day upon my young mind were renewed at many a camp-meeting in
after years; and so indelibly impressed as only to pass away with
existence.
The preacher rose upon his elevated platform, and, advancing to the
front, where a simple plank extending from tree to tree, before him,
formed a substitute for a table or desk, where rested the hymn-book and
Bible, commenced the service by reading a hymn, and then, line by line,
repeating it, to be sung by all his congregation.
Whoever has listened, in such a place, amidst a great multitude, to the
singing of that beautiful hymn commencing, "Come, thou fount of every
blessing," by a thousand voices, all in accord, and not felt the spirit
of devotion burning in his heart, could scarcely be moved should an
angel host rend the blue above him, and, floating through the ether,
praise God in song. In that early day of Methodism, very few of those
licensed to preach were educated men. They read the Bible, and
expounded its great moral truths as they understood them. Few of these
even knew that it had been in part originally written in the Hebrew
tongue, and the other portion in that of the Greeks; but he knew it
contained the promise of salvation, and felt that it was his mission to
preach and teach this way to his people, relying solely for his power
to impress these wonderful truths upon the heart by the inspiration of
the Holy Spirit. For this reason the sermons of the sect were never
studied or written, and their excellence was their fervor and
impassioned appeals to the heart and the wild imaginations of the
enthusiastic and unlearned of the land. Genius, undisciplined and
untutored by education, is fetterless, and its spontaneous suggestions
are naturally and powerfully effective, when burning from lips
proclaiming the heart's enthusiasm. Thus extemporizing orations almost
daily, stimulated the mind to active thought, and very many of these
illiterate young Methodist preachers became in time splendid orators.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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