Saturday Evening Gazette/June 7, 1856/Western Preachers
Western Preachers.
Number II.
Written for the Evening Gazette.
The Iron Side or Hard Shell Baptists have always enjoyed a great degree of notoriety in the West, on account of their peculiar views of doctrine and practice. Of late the sermon upon the “Harp of a Thousand Strings,” reported by a Mississippi gentleman, (correctly, I have no doubt, not fancifully as some suppose) has had a circulation commensurate only with the bounds of our country, and now the Hard Shells are beginning to be known in New England. I have met with specimens of this genus of preachers frequently, and have occasionally heard them preach. In doctrine they are thorough fatalists, carrying out the Calvinistic doctrine of predestination to its logical consequences, unmodified by other and counter passages of Scripture. Hence they never preach to impenitent sinners, except to tell them that if the time ever comes for God to call them to repentance, they will be sure to know it, but they must wait God’s time to work, and not undertake to do anything for themselves, for their efforts would only spoil what God would do for them. I heard one declare that Adam was never a free agent, even if the days of his innocence—“nay,” said he, “there ain’t no sich a thing as a free agent, no whaw—nyther in heaven or earth. God himself isn’t a free agent, and never was.”
In consequence of their fatalism they oppose all Missionary Associations, Bible and Tract Societies and Sabbath Schools, as being mere human inventions, intended for the purpose of helping God, who does not ask or need the help of men. Whether it is in consequence of the same doctrines or not, they not only oppose all temperance societies, but are decidedly (ministers and all) the practical friends of good whisky. They expelled from their body a few years ago, in North Carolina, a large number of ministers, for the sin of joining the Sons of Temperance. I have myself heard one of their ministers, in the bar room of a public house in Paris, Illinois, defending the good creature against all comers, and particularly rejoicing when he found two thorough temperance men to deal with. For he was a debater that could never be beaten or driven from the field. He reminded me very much of a tiger or panther in a menagerie—when the keeper punches him out of one place he leaps over into another, and if punched there he leaps back again, and is ready to keep up his saltatory exercise as long as spectators are ready to look on. So he, when driven in argument out of one corner, had nothing to do but to leap into another, and when he felt the stick in his ribs there he jumped back again, and continued the sport till his opponents, in utter weariness of his folly, gave out and yielded the field.
One of their ministers, named Brown, believed not merely in the general and special doctrines of his sect, but ingrafted a new one. He found in the Bible that it was necessary to be like little children, if we would inherit the kingdom—so he insisted that his congregation should, every Sunday, get down on their hands and knees upon the floor of their meeting house, and crawl around for a few minutes, preliminary to the other exercise. Hence arose a small sect called Brownites, or the Children of God.
It is of this worthy gentleman that the following story is related. He got his living, not by preaching, for there is no class of sinners so fiercely inveighed against by the Hard Shells as hired or paid preachers. His trade was that of a churn maker, his amusement on Sunday, preaching. Now Brown had a neighbor who did not patronize his preaching, but who did have occasion for his services as a churn maker. But Mr. Brown, having cabbages to cultivate, and “funerals” to preach, and the discipline of the church to superintend, was sometimes dilatory in fulfilling his engagements in the matter of churns. His neighbor, Jones, had waited impatiently from week to week for the new churn promised, when at last Brown solemnly assured him the article should be ready on the following Friday, as sure as gospel. Jones told him he should have one day’s grace, but that if the churn was not delivered by Saturday afternoon he would come into his meeting the next day, and publicly charge him with the violation of his engagements. Brown told him there would positively be no failure this time, for the churn was already on the stocks, and required only a few hours’ work to complete it. Friday and Saturday and Sunday came, but no churn. The congregation assembled, the crawling and other solemn services were performed, and the sermon began in the usual style and tone.
“And, ur—he went up into the mountains, ah,—and he came down again into the plains, ah, and he visited their swine-gouges (synagogues?) and was turned out neck and heels into the street, ah—”
“Mr. Brown have you got my churn done!”
“All but the dasher, ah! And he visited, ah, their cities, and he took little children in his arms, and he was meek and mild, ah, and never returned evil for evil, ah, Mr. Jones.”
It is related that the congregation, many of whom had before considered their minister as little better than non compos mentis, and who before had scarcely honored him with a single present, (even Hard Shells are too soft to refuse presents) immediately made up a purse of $50 for him, and considered him thereafter as by far the smartest man in the country.
Though their ministers have generally very little education, book learning being with them one principal object of animadversion and contempt, some of them are shrewd men, having an eye to nature, and a force of illustration, which might profitably be studied by wiser and better preachers.
One of them called Father , who used to flourish in Missouri, not in any particular place, but itinerating or “bobbing around,” wherever duty called him, usually dressed in a blue jean coat, which on hot summer days, he was wont to divest himself of, and roll up his shirt sleeves before sermon, as if he had a severe job of moving or ploughing to get through with as quickly as possible.
This gentleman one day announced his text, the words, “the devil like a roaring lion goeth about seeking whom he may devour.” His exordium was as follows:
“Dear frins—the devil is not only like a lion, but is more like an animal we are middling familiar with. He favors exactly an old field-hog. He goes to one panel of your fence, sticks his nose between the rails, pushes and shoves, and tries to put his head through the rails, but can’t do it. So he says, ‘Ooh—oosh,’ (imitating the grunt of a large porker) cant get in there! Then he goes to the next panel and tries the same thing, but don’t succeed. ‘Ooh, oosh,’ can’t get in there, and pushes along to the next. By and by, he comes to a panel where there is a rail that is altogether too small. He gets his nose in, lifts it up, and in goes his head, ears and all, and brethring, I can tell you from experience, that if a hog once gets his head in there is no keeping his body out. He’ll wiggle through somehow, you’d better believe. And then whar’s your corn—whar’s your taturs—whar’s your garden truck? Echo, my brethring, answers whar! Now I remarked that the devil, though he might be more or less like a lion, for anything I know, yet as I never see no lion, but hev seed a smart chance of live pork, I contend that the devil’s resemblance to a hog is such as to commend itself to every man’s conscience. (Brethring I raised and sold upwards to 20,000 pounds this year.) Hasn’t the devil often tried this game in the corn-fields of your hearts? Hasn’t he come to one panel of your soul, and tempted you and tried to get in, and then when you bluffed him off, didn’t he straightway nose along to the next, grunting his disapintment? Then he went to the next, and next perhaps, and couldn’t get nothing but his nose in—ooh—oosh, can’t get in there. By and by he tooches the weak spot. The temptation is no longer barred out by nine rails and a rider—Stan gets his nose in up to the eyes—another push and in goes his head. Ah, brethring, the devil then wags his tail with delight, and thar’s a heap of joy in the bottermost caverns of Plutarch’s dominions. In a minute, in goes his foreshoulder—another wiggle fetches him in up to his hind quarters, and now even your feeble resistance is over, and I can see his tail a wagging, while his head is buried out of sight in the potatur hills of your soul, ah!”
Here, deep groans from the audience attest the eloquence of the preacher, and the force of his illustration.
