“‘11. The bitterly condemning any that oppose, calling them wolves, etc., and pronouncing them hypocrites, or not justified!’
“These are Wesley’s words, and you have been doing here nearly all he so severely rebukes. What you call the work of God, he calls the work of Satan.”
“Let us pray,” said the Elder, with an awful groan. And such a prayer! It was not praying, but rather the ravings of a mad man, and the crowd raved with him. He called me the devil, and said I had slandered the sainted Wesley, and had come there to stop the work of God. He beseeched the Lord, either to convert my soul or send me to hell. When he was through, I told him that his performance was more like the ravings of a maniac, than the simple prayer of a Christian, and bid him good by.
After spending six months in this region, traveling and preaching constantly, and seeing but slim prospect for establishing our cause permanently there, and receiving hardly any compensation for all my hard labor, and many privations, I resolved to go to Pittsburg, Pa. The truth is, I was much discouraged. I had labored one year in Maryland, and found but few sympathizers with me or my faith, and had not received fifty dollars for all my toil. I was tired of traveling, and longed for an abiding place where I could preach without being constantly on the wing, and where I could pursue my studies. I was not avaricious, but thought, as I devoted all my time to the ministry, I ought to be comfortably supported. I regretted having come to the state, and certainly should not have been there, had I known the religious character of the people, and how few friends we had in that region.
CHAPTER II.
In Pittsburg—S. A. Davis, Wife and Daughter—The West—Preaches in Pennsylvania and Ohio—Western Reserve—Talk with a Bigot—Conversation on a Steamboat—Forbidden to Preach—Grave Creek—A Mound—My Study—What is Salvation?—Proceedings in Bainbridge—Mud—In Cincinnati—General Harrison—In Rising Sun, Patriot—Preaches in Louisville, Ky.—E. M. Pingree—On the Mississippi River—Preaches in a Steamboat—In New Orleans—Battle Ground.
I went to Pittsburg by stage, stopped at several places on the road, and delivered my message. Arriving in that city, I became acquainted with S. A. Davis, pastor of the church there, and publisher of the Glad Tidings, a paper devoted to the good cause. His church was numerically feeble, for liberal principles had just begun to take root in that city as in the West generally. Mr. Davis worked hard in the double capacity of pastor and editor. He was a pleasant speaker, fair writer, and a very excellent man. His wife, who long since went to the better world, possessed much talent, and wrote clever articles for the Glad Tidings. He now resides in the East, and is still in the Master’s service. His daughter, Minnie Davis, is one of the best female writers in the denomination. She has written several excellent books, and contributes liberally to our periodical literature.
I had crossed the mountain barrier between the East and the West, and was then in the Mississippi Valley—merely though on its border. Its hills and vales, its forests and prairies, its rivers and lakes, were all before me towards the setting sun. Compare the West then to the West now. Never since earth’s foundation was laid, has any country exhibited such rapid progress in so few years. The West has made a thousand years growth in twenty-five years. And is it destined to continue to grow at that rate? The signs of the times indicate that it is even so. The most vivid imagination can form but a faint conception of the future greatness of the West. Columbus, romantic and extravagant as were his visions, could not have dreamed of half the glory of the future West. Here fiction has already become fact, and dreams realities.
I effected arrangements to travel and preach in Pennsylvania and Ohio, for I soon learned that our friends were few in the West, and that I should have to travel extensively. I submitted to my fate and went to work. Visited several places in Pennsylvania, but meeting with little encouragement, I passed into Ohio, where I found more friends. Preached in many places in the Western Reserve, generally had large congregations, and found many devoted believers in the Great Salvation. A large portion of the population of the Reserve were from the Eastern states, and they brought industrious habits, correct moral principles, and liberal religious sentiments with them—the right kind of soil for Universalism to grow in. But where wheat grows, there grows chaff, and I encountered some intolerable bigotry in that region. In Ashtabula a vinegar-faced gentleman accosted me thus:
“I understand you are a Universalist preacher.”