341

“The last Sabbath I preached at St. John’s river,” continued Mr. Alline, “the people seemed so loth to go away, that we stopped at the meeting-house door, and sung and discoursed some time, and then I left them to go down the river.” He preached at Gagetown, encamped a night in the woods, and on the third day reached the mouth of the river where he preached at “Mahogany.” The next day was Sunday and in the morning a boat came to take him to “the town”—or settlement at Portland Point—where he was to preach. Evidently the people were disposed to hold aloof from his ministrations at this time, for he says, “O! the darkness of the place! * * I suppose there were upwards of 200 people there come to the years of maturity, and I saw no signs of any Christian excepting one soldier. Yet although I was among such an irreligious people, the Lord was kind to me, and I lacked for nothing while I was there.”

He returned to St. John in the latter part of August and preached on a Sunday. Major Studholme treated him with civility, and sent him up the river in his own barge. He found the church prospering. There was much interest in religion; a good many new members having been added to the roll in his absence, three or four of them upwards of fifty years of age. Two elders and two deacons were now appointed, and a formal call was extended to Mr. Alline to remain as their settled pastor. This call he did not see his way clear to accept, but promised to revisit them shortly. He got back to Fort Howe on the 6th of November, and preached there while awaiting a chance to cross the bay to Annapolis. He returned to St. John, April 22, 1780, staid a week and preached on Sunday, after which he again went up the river. Several weeks were devoted to visiting the various settlements and great interest was manifested, crowds of people attending his preaching. In his diary he tells us that much company went with him from place to place, some times six or seven boats loaded with people. Edward Coy’s daughter Mary (afterwards Mrs. Mary Bradley) who was then a child in her ninth year, gives, in her book her recollections of Henry Alline’s visit. “My parents,” she says, “took me with them twice to meeting. The first text was, ‘And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold the Bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.’ My attention was arrested, and for many days after I was engaged in ruminating and repeating over some parts of the sermon. * * After the sermon and worship was over, I was astonished to see the people talking and shaking hands as I never before had witnessed. Some looked of a cheerful, loving and happy countenance; others were in tears, and cast down. * * It soon became the common subject of conversation that such and such persons were converted.”

On Mr. Alline’s return from Maugerville to the mouth of the river he staid there a fortnight, waiting for a passage, and during that time preached and visited among the people. On June 25th he sailed to Annapolis.

Two years later he again visited the River St. John. He left Windsor on the 29th April and arrived at the mouth of the river in four days. “When I came to the river,” he says, “the vessel did not go up that I was in, but God gave me speed, for there was another vessel just going over the falls to go up the river, so that without the least delay I crossed Pot-Ash[135] and went immediately on board.... 342 I remained on the river, preaching from place to place among the people almost every day, and often twice a day until the 26th of May, during which time I had happy days and much of the Spirit of God moving among the people.” On the last Sunday of Alline’s stay at Sheffield the concourse was so great that he preached in the open field. “I had so much to say to them,” he writes, “and they seemed so loth to part that I was almost spent before we parted; and then I went ten miles down the river. But after I had refreshed the body, I preached again in the evening; and it was an evening much to be remembered.”

Mr. Alline’s opinion of the spiritual condition of the community in the vicinity of Fort Howe seems to have changed but little, for he writes under date, June 29th., 1782, “When I came to the port at the mouth of the river, there appeared no passage from thence; and I thought I could not content myself long in that dark place; but the very next day four or five vessels came in, all bound for Cumberland where I wanted to go.”

The story of Alline’s illness and death, which occurred in the town of Northampton, New Hampshire, February 2nd, 1784, is pathetic in the extreme, but we must pass on.

When Rev. Wm. Black visited Sheffield in 1792 the results of Henry Alline’s labors were yet in evidence, and were not entirely acceptable to Mr. Black, who says that he found among the people “many New-Lights, or more properly Allinites—much wild fire and many wrong opinions.”