XI.
When evening came, time being precious, our conductor drew the reins over Mr. Drury’s best roadsters, and about midnight deposited his passenger at the doorway of an old-fashioned house, with gable to the street, wing projecting northward, and a large elm tree nearly in front, standing on Federal Hill, in what is now South Erie, and for the first time XXX greeted officially a most redoubtable Keystone agent, known as the “Doctor,” in those days one of Erie’s well-known characters. He had gained some knowledge of herbs and roots, which he learned to apply medicinally, thus acquiring his appellation, which he wore with great satisfaction, soon coming to look upon all mere “book doctors” in great contempt. He was accustomed to drive about town with an old brown horse attached to a kind of carryall vehicle; always took his whisky straight and in full allopathic doses, though he affected to despise the practice generally, and prided himself on being the most reliable agent in Erie county.
Into the Doctor’s private sanctum Jack was at once admitted, and properly cared for for a number of days, until measurably recuperated from his weeks of incessant vigil and solicitude, when he was taken in charge by Thomas Elliott, Esq., of Harborcreek, and conveyed to Wesleyville, four miles east of the city. Here, inasmuch as fresh news was obtained of his pursuers, it was thought best to secrete him anew, and he was therefore deposited in Station “Sanctum Sanctorum”—the garret of the Methodist Church.
Whoever passes through the village on the “Buffalo Road,” fails not to notice this unpretentious little brick structure standing by the wayside. Like most churches built so long ago, it has undergone various remodelings. The “battlements” have been taken off; doors and windows have shifted places, but within it is little changed; the seating below and the three-sided gallery remaining much as of old.
From the time of its first dedication onward, it has been the scene of many a revival, and for years it was the “horn of the altar” upon which the panting fugitive laid his hand, and was safe, for its use as a “station” was known only to a “selected few.”
OLD CHURCH, WESLEYVILLE, PA.
At the time we speak of, a protracted meeting had already been begun, for the bleakness of winter had early set in. The services were conducted by Rev. Jas. Gilfillin, a sterling old Scotchman, who had received a large part of his training in the collieries of his native land, and before the mast as a sailor on the high seas, assisted by Rev. William Gheer, a young man of timidity and all gentility of manner. The interest was most marked, and crowds came nightly to listen, to weep, to become penitents, not only from up and down the “road,” but from Gospel Hill, and far beyond, bringing even grand old father and mother Weed, who had assisted at the formation of the society over thirty years before, from away up in the “beechwoods,” and with them Nehemiah Beers, an exhorter, particularly felicitous in the construction of unheard-of words and expressions.
Under such circumstances Jack was deposited, early one morning, in his rude apartment, measurably warmed by the pipe which came up from the great box-stove below, and cautioned that he must keep particularly quiet during the devotional exercises below. Here he remained for several days, listening to the praises of new-born souls and the hosannas of the older brethren during meeting hours, and then descending and making himself comfortable in the well-warmed room when all was quiet and safe. Indeed, so well did he play his part as fire-tender, that the Chambers boys, who chopped the wood, which was hauled to the church “sled-length” by the brethren, emphatically declared, as they wondered at the marvellous disappearance of fuel, “It takes a power of wood to run a red-hot revival, and we shall be glad when the meeting closes,” and it required no little effort on the part of their father, the main source of supply, to induce them to persevere in their “labor of love.”
Thus matters passed until Sunday evening came, when the interest of the meeting seemed to culminate in a Pentecostal shower. The Rev. James Sullivan, then a young man, preached a sermon of great eloquence and power, encouraged by many a hearty Amen from Father Weed and the older brethren, and the responsive hallelujahs of hale old Sister Weed and the other “Mothers in Israel.” The sermon ended, men clapped their hands in ecstatic rapture, and struck up that grand old revival hymn,
“Come ye sinners, poor and needy,”
whilst the old pastor rose in his place, and earnestly exhorted sinners to come to the “mourner’s bench” and find pardon and peace, until the feeling of excitement burst forth in one simultaneous, “Amen, hallelujah to God!”
The Spirit had reached the garret, and in the fervor of excitement Jack forgot himself, and, “Amen, hallelujah to God!” came back in responsive echo, sufficiently loud enough to attract the attention of those in the gallery, who looked at each other in startled amazement.
Down on his knees went Brother Beers, and in the midst of an impassioned prayer, exclaimed: “O! Lord-ah, come down to-night-ah, and rim-wrack and center-shake the work of the devil-ah.”
Influenced more by the Spirit than the phraseology of the prayer, there went up from the worshipping throng a hearty “Amen, and Amen!”
“Amen, and Amen!” came down from above, only to increase the astonishment of the crowded gallery, most there believing that an angel hovered over them. As if in perfect accord with the surroundings, Parson Gheer struck up,
“Behold the Savior of mankind,”
without waiting for
“Nailed to the rugged cross,”
the stentorian voice of the old pastor rang out, “Yes, He comes! He comes!”
“Yes, He comes! He comes!” shouted the embodied seraph in the garret, in tones sufficiently loud to catch the ear of the sexton, who immediately mounted aloft, as he often did to adjust the stovepipe, and though the meeting continued for an hour longer, there were no farther angelic demonstrations, yet some in the gallery long persisted that they had that night been permitted to listen to seraphic strains.
Before daylight Jack was shipped by way of Col. Moorhead’s and North East, to Conductor Nutting, at State Line, and by him to Syracuse, where he safely arrived and remained until the breaking out of the war, when he went south and rendered valuable service to the Union cause, in a way that may be told in due time.