CHAPTER XIX.—The Great Awakening.
The first decade succeeding the Revolution was marked by a serious demoralization which found expression in an increase of vice and crime; and as never a crime wave sweeps state or nation that great reformers do not arise to combat it, so now Baptist, Methodist and Presbyterian preachers, enjoying at last a provident religious emancipation; preaching a gospel of law and retribution rather than of love, worked zealously and courageously combating the condition.
At the end of the second decade, they had not only checked the demoralization, but brought about a widespread revival, historically known as “The Great Awakening;” leaving in its wake a decidedly improved moral condition.
The converts at many of these meetings were smitten to the earth under paroxysms of religious fervor or excitement, locally known as “the jerks;” a name given by those criticising the demonstration.
Fully a half of the state was dominated by the spell of this extraordinary religious revival, generally exhibited at union or undenominational religious meetings. It began at the Gasper River Meeting House in Logan county in 1799 at a protracted meeting held by Calvin Campbell and William McGee, two Presbyterian evangelists, who were assisted by James McGee, a Methodist minister and brother of William McGee.
When it was reported that the converts were smitten to the earth under paroxysms of religions zeal, interest [pg 295] in the meeting grew rapidly. Thus advertised great crowds attended and many who came to scoff remained to pray. Every person physically able, living within a radius of fifty miles came to the meeting; some on foot, some horseback and some in rude farm wagons.
This vast crowd gathering in and around the church, slept in the fields and the forests. It was remarked that no one was stricken with sickness, and that no one seemed hungry; if they were the little they brought with them supplied their wants.
Services began at noon and were continued far into the night. Each lasted practically two hours, followed by a short intermission. The preachers alternated in their exhortations. As the meeting progressed the crowd grew so great, that not all, even with this arrangement, had an opportunity to attend one service daily.
It was suggested that a stand or pavilion be erected in an oak grove near the church. This was done and there twice daily, at three in the afternoon and at seven at night, the Rev. Calvin Campbell, as John was now generally known throughout the state, preached to the multitude. Under the influence of his preaching many were awakened and converted.
At night great fires were built on either side of the pavilion and in front an area a hundred feet square was cleared and covered with straw, on which the congregation sat and listened in rapt attention to his powerful exhortations.
What he said had a holy influence and burned its way into the hearts of the most hardened of his hearers. After he had been talking many began to weep softly, then rose to their feet and with eyes and hands upraised towards heaven prayed in a low voice for forgiveness; the more [pg 296] excitable, or as some said, those who most needed pardon, walked down the aisle, which was roped off through the center, to a small space just in front of the pavilion and were there taken with “the jerks.”
A man known as Red Jenkins, one of the toughest and most notorious characters in that section of the state, and who had been tried several times for murder (the charge was killing and robbing travelers who stopped at his station), but had never been convicted—though each jury, had it been in their power, would have rendered the Scotch verdict—had for several years been badly crippled by rheumatism and hobbled about from settlement to settlement on crutches. On the first night of the pavilion meetings he staggered forward and was seized by violent paroxysms, at the end of which he lay as one dead.
Calvin Campbell came down from the platform, tossed Jenkins’ crutches into the fire and lifting the man laid him on the floor of the pavilion. In a little while he arose, and walking down the aisle, resumed his former seat. When told about his crutches he replied: “I do not need them now; my body was bent and shriveled to accommodate a crooked, shrunken soul.”
Another night, just as the meeting was beginning, a young girl running behind the pavilion, fearful that some one would take her seat near her mother, was jostled and thrown into the edge of one of the fires. Her homespun dress blazed up, and enveloped in the flames she ran to the edge of the pavilion, where she was caught by Calvin Campbell and wrapped in the folds of his great coat. He laid her as one dead on the floor. The crowd began to gather around, but he said: “Take your seats, the girl is not dead, but has swooned. While she lies thus, we will ask God, who shields innocence from harm and who takes care of his lambs, to make her whole.”
[pg 297] While all stood in silent, prayerful reverence, he asked God to restore the girl sound in body and cleansed of sin to her mother. All, even the wicked and curious, joined in this prayer.
When it was finished, without so much as looking towards the girl, he began the regular service with song; and as there were less than a dozen books among them, he read the lines aloud.
At its close the girl sat up, wrapped about in the great coat and smiled at her mother. Turning to her he said: “Little one, keep the coat about you and go sit with your mother.”
He preached that night upon the power and purpose of prayer and began by saying: “Prayer is the only way in which a sinner can ask God for pardon and in which a saint can commune with his Saviour. It is man’s way of talking with God and God’s way of hearing what men have to say. Prayer is the powder of the Christian soldier and by it victories are won for the Cross. * * *” There were many conversions that night.
The meetings were continued until the end of the week. At the closing services the audience asked that each year at the same place and season open air union services be held. So in the summer of 1800, a great camp meeting was held and the pavilion was used as the rostrum. This was the first camp meeting ever held in Christendom and the practice was continued for many years at the Gasper River Meeting House and other places in Kentucky.
The hallowing influence of “The Great Awakening” thus started, spread to other communities and eventually throughout the state and into northwestern Tennessee. Similar meetings were held by other preachers, at Masterson’s Station in Fayette County, Clark’s Station in [pg 298] Mercer, Ferguson and Chaplin chapels in Nelson, Level Woods (now Larue county), Brick Chapel in Shelby, Ebenezer in Clark, Grassy Lick in Montgomery, Muddy Creek and Foxtown in Madison, Mount Gerizim in Harrison, Thomas Meeting House in Washington (now Marion), Sandusky Station, now Pleasant Run in Marion, and Cane Ridge in Bourbon county.
The first Gasper River camp meeting held in the summer of 1800 was attended by a great multitude and proved a success. Baptist, Methodist and Presbyterian preachers were each given the opportunity to expound their particular doctrine. There were many conversions and among them several who in later years became distinguished preachers.
In the early summer of 1801, Father Rice, James McCready and Calvin Campbell conducted a great camp meeting in the Cumberland country. Rumors of its success spread throughout Kentucky and many men rode weary miles through lonely forest trails to attend.
Among those who came a great way, was Barton W. Stone. In 1796 he had been licensed by the Orange Presbytery of North Carolina. Soon afterwards, emigrating to Kentucky he settled in Bourbon county and occasionally preached for the Cane Ridge and Concord churches. He was ordained in 1798 by the Transylvania Presbytery and received a unanimous call to become the pastor of these two churches.
Greatly impressed by the good work done at the camp meeting; filled with the spirit which took possession of all, the refined as well as the uneducated, he returned to his congregations and relating his experiences, fired them with the zeal of the meeting which yet inspired him; and by his preaching produced upon them the same effect, even to “the jerks,” or bodily demonstrations.
[pg 299] They decided to hold a camp meeting of their own; and did so from August 6 to 13, 1801, near Cane Ridge church, in a grove seven miles east of Paris. It was attended by more than twenty-five thousand persons and it is yet historically known as “The Great Cane Ridge Camp Meeting.”
Some even attended from Cincinnati and points north. They came on foot, on horseback and in all sorts of conveyances. Eleven hundred and forty-three vehicles were counted at the meeting; five hundred candles besides many lamps and fires were used for illumination; and more than three thousand persons, mostly men, were said to have made confessions and to have subsequently united with some church.
Among the Presbyterian preachers heard at the camp meeting were Father Rice, Barton W. Stone, Robert Marshall, Joseph P. Howe, who led the singing, and Calvin Campbell. Though the movement was instituted by Stone, then a Presbyterian, it was for all purposes a union service and the great crowd was addressed by Methodist and Baptist preachers as frequently as by Presbyterian.
As evidencing the interest manifested, it is conservatively estimated that more than one-tenth of the total population of the state attended the meeting. The census of 1800 gave the population of Kentucky at 220,955, and many estimated the crowd in attendance at exceeding 25,000.
The fifth day of the meeting was known as Roger Williams or Baptist day and only Baptist preachers were heard. The crowd was so great that three different congregations were addressed at a time. The principal sermon was preached by John Gano.
[pg 300] The sixth day of the meeting was known as John Wesley or Methodist day and only Methodist ministers spoke. The chief service was conducted by William Burke.
Sunday, August 9, was known as John Calvin day; and John Calvin Campbell conducted the afternoon service. He was mentally and physically in his prime; a man of great spirituality, great mental force, great voice and untirable physically. To his preaching was attributed the beginning of The Great Awakening, now sweeping Kentucky and marvelous tales were told of him and his work. As the crowd was very great, arrangements were made for others to address overflow meetings, including Barton Stone and Robert Marshall, both of whom were very able preachers; but when it became evident that the crowd wished to hear Calvin Campbell and that the range of his voice was such that all might hear him if closely grouped, the other meetings were dismissed and all gathered to hear him. It was said that more than eight thousand persons listened in marked attention to his sermon.
The scripture lesson was taken from the seventeenth chapter of Acts. His text was “Paul in Athens” or “Worshipping Our Own Handiwork” and a portion of the sermon is preserved.
“Paul, driven from Thessalonica, departed for Corinth. On the way he stopped at Athens waiting for Timothy and Silas.
“Visit the grave of the great, the tomb of one of the Pharaohs, and though you know the body is long since dust, you feel the spirit of a reflective greatness. Thus Paul visiting Athens must have been impressed by the mother of art, eloquence and philosophy. Decadent Athens, her liberty gone, paying tribute to Caesar. Even a Caesar could not take away the heritage of the children [pg 301] of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle; this her citizens alone could rob themselves of; and this they were doing by worshipping false gods, by following the precepts of an Epicurean philosophy, and by vain, wordy babbling. They still thought Athens the abode of wisdom, and like children of the great, still thought themselves the world’s great thinkers and philosophers because their fathers had been; when as Paul puts it, ‘They spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing;’ piling words on words, metaphysical and unfathomable; and knowing nothing of the beginning of wisdom, which is to fear the Lord and depart from evil.
“Paul’s biographer tells us that, ‘His spirit was stirred when he saw the city full of idols;’ gods of gold and silver and stone, with even a shrine to THE UNKNOWN GOD.
“Though such sights would have stimulated our curiosity, Paul had seen enough. There was work to do; he could not remain silent; and spoke first in the synagogues and the Agora, the market place. Then he was taken to the Areopagus. North of the market place was the Areopagus or Mars Hill, a spur of the Acropolis which towered three hundred feet higher and on which stood the citadel, the Parthenon and the Temple of Winged Victory. Whether Paul spoke from the top of Mars Hill or the Athenian Council, which having in earlier days met on the Areopagus and for that reason was so called, is immaterial. We know he spoke to an Athenian audience, who were curious to hear from a Jewish Socrates, a new man on a new subject, THE UNKNOWN GOD.
“From the summary of his discourse we know it was framed upon that pedagogical dictum that one should proceed from the known to the unknown. That he talked first of their gods, of their poets, of their belief that there [pg 302] was an unknown god; then of a universal God, unknown to them, but known to him, of Christ, of the resurrection. He quoted from their poet Epimenides; and considering the subject, we have a right to assume that he quoted from his own prophet, Isaiah. How a man taketh an ash log, and with part thereof he roasteth flesh ‘and is satisfied; yea he warmeth himself and saith, Aha I am warm, I have seen the fire; and the residue thereof he maketh a god, even a graven image; he falleth down unto it, and worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it, and saith, Deliver me, for thou art my god.’
“But man is wrong. God dwelleth not in temples made with hands. God is not an image of gold or silver or stone; but himself made the earth and all things therein; and in him we live and move and have our being.
“When Paul talked to them, not of gods of appetite and ambition, which sometimes rule in our hearts, or of hand made gods, such as decorated the streets of Athens and were enshrined in their temples, which even while we worship have a habit of disintegrating to dust and ashes, but of the Divine Creator, the Universal God, the Bountiful Giver, the Almighty Ruler, the Unseen Spirit, the Tender Father, the Righteous Judge, they called him a babbler; and when he spoke of the Eternal Son of God and the resurrection, many of them mocked, some said we will hear you again—and a few believed.
“Until he came to Athens, the opposition he had met was Jewish prejudice and mob violence; it was a tangible thing; but at Athens he encountered something harder to overcome, philosophy, conceit, contempt. Having delivered his message, discouraged, he departed in sorrow.
“We have heard many times the expression, ‘When Greek meets Greek, then comes the tug of war.’ That day in the Areopagus Paul started a tug of war that shall [pg 303] continue long after we and what we know of the tangible handiwork of man is in dust and ashes; started it because his spirit was troubled at beholding that the world’s greatest city intellectually, was given over to idol worship. His discourse on Mars Hill, or if you prefer in the Athenian Council, started the conflict between pagan philosophies and Christianity; and while Christianity prevailed, the converts from paganism brought into it too much of the metaphysical, the doctrinal, and that simple faith become contaminated by what was borrowed from these philosophies.
“The Epicureans taught that pleasure is the only possible end of rational action. They believed that everything started from an atom. That the gods were not interested in men and that there was no future life.
“The Stoics believed in the school of philosophy founded by Zeno. That man should submit to the inevitable; they were fatalists; did not believe in exhibiting joy or sorrow; lived lives of sternness and austerity and many believed in the immortality of the soul.
“Athens, a city posing as the most enlightened, where polemics and philosophers gathered to discuss metaphysical questions, did not relish being told by a barbarian, a mere Jew, that all they believed in and argued about was false; and that he knew things unknown to them; of a God concerning whom they had never heard. He discoursed of God, Christ, the resurrection, the unity of mankind, the sovereignty of God. He told of God the Father, whose habitation was not made with hands; who had made of one blood all nations and had fixed the bounds of their habitation. A God easily found because always near; and through whom we live and move and have our being. This being true, how foolish to worship gods of our own make. Rather let us worship the God I [pg 304] worship and whom I preach unto you; the God that made YOU. Then he spoke of the love of God for man; how he gave his Son as a vicarious atonement; how that Son living as a man among men, taught that a life of selfish pleasure, Epicureanism, was a sin; and that fatalism, Stoicism, was remorse without faith or hope. Then how that Son, crucified for men that they might live, rose and returned from the land of silence, a messenger to those who loved and trusted him, that they might have a pledge of glory and honor and immortality.
“But the ‘superior persons’ who in that day peopled Athens, were harder to win than the barbarians of Lycaonia, the land of the wolves, because they were men of intellectual sensitiveness and dead hearts; men who, though they do not know it, live in the dark and after death reaching out find nothing to lay hold on. Though as Paul says, God is not far from any one, He is farthest from them. God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb and those that hear best and are nearest are those who have fresh and simple hearts like children and heathen; for them the way is made straight and plain.
“That day on Mars Hill, Paul preached but three things: ‘Idolatry is foolish—Given the new light you must repent—On an appointed day you will be judged by Jesus, the righteous judge.’
“The application of the lesson I can put in a simple question: How many of us today are as the Athenians, worshipping false gods and spending our time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing? How many of us seeking new things are willing to trade the old lamp, the faith of our fathers, for a new one; even though the old is infinitely greater than Aladdin’s, when the new will prove a will o’ the wisp, a delusion and a snare.
[pg 305] “Suppose Paul should come to Lexington and spend a day or two looking about; would he say of the people of Lexington as of Athens: ‘Still spending your time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing;’ still seeking false gods. He might strengthen the charge: Still lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God; though the price of the Gospels is a farthing and all know of the mission of Christ and its fulfillment.
“What he told to the Athenians was a new story; many mocked, some said we will hear you again—a few believed. But Athens was Athens after Paul left. What Paul told to them is to us an old story. Do we love it? Do we love to tell it? We can hear it and mock and delay. We cannot tell it unless we believe.
“Listen to the word of God:
“‘Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign and the Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block and unto the Greeks foolishness but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God * * * but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty; * * * that no flesh should glory in his presence. * * * That according as it is written, he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.’”
The Rev. Calvin Campbell continued his preaching for more than an hour and it resulted in the conversion of some souls. Though many said his views were not [pg 306] wholly orthodox; all agreed that he preached the essentials of Christianity and was a faithful ambassador of his Lord.
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The effect of the “Great Awakening” was evidenced by the remarkable growth of the churches during and just succeeding it. The Baptists, then as now the strongest religious denomination in the State, exhibited a phenomenal growth. The Elkhorn Association at its annual meeting in 1801 reported 3,011 new members during the current year. The South Kentucky Association reported a practically similar growth; the Tate Creek Association 1,148 new members, the Salem Association more than 2,000 new members, and the Green River Association, organized in 1800 with 350 members, increased to over one thousand in less than a year.
Although much criticism attaches to the physical demonstrations as contrary to a sober Christian faith; there is no doubt but that these meetings were most potent in the development of a serious Kentucky spirit. It is estimated that at least half the population of the state was brought directly under their influence and their minds lifted from material to spiritual things. Thousands were converted who otherwise would never have attended a religious service. It would be a very narrow person who would condemn the great good done because of the attendant physical demonstrations.
Another result of these meetings was to revive the anti-slavery movement, which had been put to sleep by the action of the First Constitutional Convention.
This movement assumed a tangible form, when in 1804 an organization of Baptist ministers calling themselves “Friends of Humanity,” but known to others as [pg 307] “Emancipators,” declared with the members of their churches for the abolition of slavery: “* * * that no fellowship should be extended to slaveholders, as slavery in every branch of it, both in principle and in practice, was a sinful and abominable system, fraught with peculiar evils and miseries, which every man ought to abandon and bear testimony against.”
The Baptist Church, acting upon the matter, in assembly decided it was: “* * * improper for ministers, churches or associations to meddle with the emancipation of slavery or any other political subject,” and by resolution advised their ministers to have nothing to do with it in their religious capacity.
This resolution was offensive to the Friends of Humanity and they withdrew from the organization of the church. In 1807 they formed an association of their own, calling it “The Baptist Licking-Locust Association, Friends of Humanity.” Strong at the time of organization they soon dwindled in numbers, and in a few years the name became a mere memory.
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Though Presbyterian preachers instituted the series of meetings which resulted in the “Great Awakening” and were active at all the camp meetings, their denomination profited less, numerically, than either the Baptist or the Methodist.
The reason was that several of their most influential preachers, Barton W. Stone, Robert Marshall, John Dunlavy, Richard McNemar and John Thompson, began preaching certain schisms, contrary to Calvinism.
The orthodox of the church were not only worried but frightened by the growth of the schism of doctrine. For a long time they dared not oppose it, thinking that it [pg 308] would split the church. It was first officially considered by the Presbytery of Springfield, who placed Richard McNemar under dealings.
When the Kentucky synod met in Lexington on September 6, 1803, with Samuel Shannon as moderator, he called the attention of the body to a petition signed by eighty Presbyterians and letters from Mr. William Lamme, charging that Revs. Richard McNemar and John Thompson, of Washington Presbytery, were promulgating erroneous doctrines and that their Presbytery had refused to consider the petition implicating their orthodoxy. The synod decided to enter upon an examination and trial of the two members.
When this vote was announced they with Barton W. Stone, Robert Marshall and John Dunlavy protested and withdrew.
Two days later those withdrawing announced they had formed an organization of their own, which they called the Springfield Synod. Thereupon the Kentucky synod, over the protest of Calvin Campbell and several others, suspended them; leaving it to their respective presbyteries to restore them upon satisfactory proof of repentance.
The five suspended ministers were the founders of “The New Light Christians.” Already having large churches, the most of their congregations followed them and they immediately went to work and because of their popularity, zeal, force of character and the sympathy of many who believed them persecuted, their denomination spread rapidly. The organization continued to grow in strength until 1859, at which time they had sixty conferences, fifteen hundred ministers and more than two hundred and fifty thousand communicants. The sect has disappeared from Kentucky.
[pg 309] McNemar and Dunlavy joined the Shakers in 1805. In 1807 Marshall and Thompson, declaring their repentance were taken back into the presbytery. Barton W. Stone repudiated infant baptism; declared that the ordinance was for the remission of conscious sin and should be administered to all believing penitents, even though they had been baptized in infancy.
At a great meeting at Concord church he selected Acts 2:38 for his text and convinced a great many who had been baptized in infancy that they must be rebaptized. He afterwards said that he was never led into the full spirit of the doctrine “until it was revised by Bro. Alexander Campbell some years after.” Stone is the author of the hymn once so popular: “The Lord is the Fountain of Goodness and Love.”
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While the churches of Kentucky were adjusting themselves to and assimilating the new growth brought about by The Great Awakening, the State politically was again disturbed by the old Mississippi navigation question and threatened with another Spanish conspiracy.
After the treaty of 1795, making the river free, the State had made great growth; but on December 16, 1802, trade was suspended by order of Morales, the Spanish Intendant, who denied to Americans the right of deposit at New Orleans and refused to fix or grant another.
His proclamation excited the whole western country and was the first intimation the people had that Spain on October 1, 1800, by secret treaty at St. Ilfonso, had agreed to return Louisiana to France.
Governor Garrard received a copy of the proclamation by special messenger and submitted it to the Kentucky legislature which was in session at the time. On [pg 310] December 1, 1802, the Kentucky legislature passed a resolution calling upon the Federal Government to enforce the treaty provisions of deposit, declaring:
“We rely with confidence on your wisdom and justice and pledge ourselves to support at the expense of our lives and fortunes, such measures as the honor and interest of the United States may require.”
Then Kentucky, expecting immediate war with Spain, began organizing companies of volunteer militia and making preparations to invade New Orleans.
On January 18, 1803, President Jefferson wrote Governor Garrard acknowledging the receipt of the resolution; declaring he was informed that the action of the Spanish intendant was unauthorized by his government and—“In order however to provide against the hazards which beset our interests * * * I have determined with the approbation of the Senate to send John Monroe * * * with full powers to him and our ministers in France and Spain to enter with these governments into such arrangements as may effectually secure our rights and interests in the Mississippi.”
The spirit of Kentucky after the receipt of this letter is indicated by a communication printed in the Kentucky Gazette of March 8, 1803.
“If the result of Mr. Monroe’s mission should prove inauspicious one opinion will pervade all America. We shall then possess but one mind and one arm. The patriotism of the country will banish all party distinctions, and the breast of every citizen will burn with indignation. * * * Let us await with patience his return—with that silent expectation, which, prepared to meet with joy the news of a happy issue, is nevertheless, if disappointed, ready to inflict a blow that will let all Europe know [pg 311] that, though difficult to be aroused, America acts with vigor and effect.”
The same paper of July 19, 1803, contained news from Paris, under the caption, “Important if True—Paris, May 13, Louisiana is ceded to the United States on the most honorable terms; and indemnification will be made for French spoliation.”
This report proved correct. The great Territory of Louisiana had been ceded to the United States for eighty million francs.
On Tuesday, December 20, 1803, the United States took possession by her two commissioners, William C. Claiborne and General James Wilkinson.
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