Pentecostal Possibilities or "The Story of My Life"
by Milton Lorenzo (M. L.) Haney
CHAPTER 6
Early Methodism
My father being a minister, brought me into such contact with ministers in my, childhood and boyhood days, as will be a benediction to my spirit forever. Among my earliest memories are the presence and influence of such men of God as Janes, Sheldon, Bigelow and Christie, of the old Ohio Conference. The life of Russell Bigelow was as a burning lamp, and his gospel was well nigh irresistible. As a Presiding Elder he was simply an evangelist on fire. His quarterly meetings were seasons of wonderful power, when sinners never failed to be awakened and converted. At Jeromeville I heard him when a child. He looked to me like an angel while preaching, and the whole people seemed to my child mind as though melting in that gospel furnace.
Bro. Towner, of Troy Grove, Ills.--a most excellent brother--gave me this recital of one of Bigelow's Ohio camps. "By Sabbath morning the wicked had gathered in large numbers and were rude and unruly, so it seemed doubtful whether they could be governed. Bigelow took his text and preached till he seemed too hoarse to go further, and called sinners to the altar. The old time Methodist camp meeting altar was an enclosure with three doors, one in front and one at each side of the pulpit. This was filled, with many seats, which would not be occupied by any except seekers and those who instructed them. This was a necessary provision to protect penitents from disturbance by the rabble. "Immediately," said Bro. Towner, "the whole enclosure was filled with earnest souls crying for mercy. I knelt among them, but in a few minutes, hearing a noise I looked up, and saw Bigelow falling from a table they had fixed for him to stand upon; it had given way. The wicked had pressed toward the front, and B. met them there not with threats of police, but with the gospel he had received of the Lord Jesus! He read a second text, and his voice was as clear as a bell, and preached till he was hoarse as before. I had come into this second service, and when the preacher closed he filled the seats right and left with a host of those rebel men, and again we went down to prayer. While there I heard singing farther out, and looked. Bigelow had followed the retreating fragment of the mob to a long log, and took for his third text, "The great day of his wrath is come and who shall be able to stand?" His voice was as clear as at the beginning.
"When this sermon closed he made the log; his mourner's bench, and filled it with earnest penitents. From that time to the close of the camp, there was not a dog that could move his tongue."
Bro. Towner gave each of the three texts, but the first two I cannot recall. The above is in substance Bro. Towner's statement, but not in every case his exact words. Who can compute the effect upon human destiny of such a gospel and such ministers? William B. Christie seemed to have been a combination of Apollos and St. John, and his saintly life and ministry gave him a wondrous power with the people.
Quigley was a man of strength, and the instrument God used in a great revival in Savannah in 1835, in which my brother Thomas, with other relatives, was wonderfully saved. He was a strong defender of the Methodist doctrine of holiness, and a definite witness to that experience. In after years Bishop Thompson, who also was a professor of this grace, having great confidence in Mr. Quigley, asked him to describe his consecration. The following is the substance of his answer: "Well, Bishop, when I came to Christ to be made perfect in love, under the searching light of the Holy Spirit, I took all there was of my being and its possessions that I could see or think of and put them all in one bundle, and gave that bundle to Christ. Then I took all I could not see or know, involving all the possibilities of the future, and put them into another bundle, and I gave that bundle to Christ. From that time on I have had a clear consciousness that I am all and forever the Lord's. Whenever He is pleased to open that second bundle and show me any part of its contents I respond, 'Yes, Lord, that you know, was in the contract.' " If all God's ministers were in like manner to place and leave themselves in the hands of God the world could be reached in thirty years.
In the days of my childhood, in Ohio, holy ministers were prized beyond all others among the Methodists, as holiness was their central doctrine. Up to that time and after it, this experience was a marked feature in any candidate for the bishopric, and having it, other things being equal, he was doubly sure of election to that office. The same was true of all her General Conference officers. In a preeminent sense she was then the light of the world. My father's cabin was a preaching place for years after we came to Illinois. We were not long there till the pioneer Methodist itinerant knocked at the door. Barton Cartwright, Kirkpatrick, Chauncey Hobert, Henry Summers, Peter Boring, George Rutledge, and others brought us the simple gospel of the early Methodists. This consisted largely of persistent heralding of a free and full salvation. The fall of man, the redemption by Christ, pardon for the guilty, and full salvation for all believers were the leading topics of the day. The demand for repentance preceding saving faith was implied, or taught in nearly every sermon. All seekers must know their sins forgiven by the witness of the Holy Spirit, or their profession was accounted an abortion. These Western preachers largely lived with the people and were a part of them, and they did more to lay the foundations of society than any other class of men.
As settlements increased, camp meetings multiplied and were made of incalculable value to the cause of God. They rarely continued a whole week, but were often meetings of great power. It was in 1835 I first met with Peter Cartwright in a camp near Canton, Ills. He was then in early middle years, and people went great distances to hear him. The story of his life included many wonderful incidents, which have been doubted by people born later on, but from what came under my observation in those days I concluded its most extravagant recitals are worthy of confidence. The laws for the protection of society were so imperfect, and often the officers of law were so unreliable, that in many places Divine services had to be shielded by sheer physical force. In such cases the right arm of Peter Cartwright as an instrument of terror equaled a small battalion of soldiers! Rigid rules had to be enforced by main strength, or many camps would have been broken up by ruthless hands. "Uncle Peter" was the Samson of Methodism in those times, and though he did many things which others could not, God used him, and thousands are in heaven because he lived. His opportunities for culture were exceedingly meager, but he was a stalwart in common sense.