Loading...
535-03 Page 9 (1)sanet5^ggt-oppe a f every oor on on Sundays but on every day,p£ e way without a command.) the week for which they could "Well," that Methodist horseman make an appointment, Bangs' ser- would say with an innocent smile mons were given anywhere, in. the when he alighted, "Toby knows taverns of Oxford, on the dancing every sinner's house on the. road." floor of an Indian trader's house However, Bangs reports that his by the lake, in Quaker meeting - own rather sober offer gained him houses, in the settlers' cabins of admittance into most of the houses. Gosfield and in the open air any - "But above all, come even fire or where. The service consisted of flood, he had to meet his preach. songs, prayer and a sermon. Since ing appointments, often given out no one but Bangs had a hymn weeks in advance, and usually kept book he read two lines at a time at noon. If he came late on the and sang them while the congrega- errand the settlers departed and tion accompanied him .with a mu. thus a great awakening as de- i sical drone. layed or lost. S W.O. "Unhallowed" Many s time on his routes he Ali were not believers, however; met sickness and desolation and indeed, if Bangs' testimony is cor. not infrequently perils to, himself rect, the Canadian backwoods win and his horse. The Thames River an unhallowed region. was often high, and covered the "Settlers showed _openly what flats far and wide. Sometimes when they were by their words and ac .he crossed it safely himself, but tions, and either accepted religior with great difficulty on a log, his heartily or opposed it violently; horse, which he says he loved the great majority, though most of nearly as much as himself, .them would come to hear me .was carried down by the current and preach, were determined.. opposers.' escaped only. becausetheanima] There were often scenes of free was so strong. debate between preachers ant scoffer; some who. were apt)) Narrow Escape pe described as "sons of. thunder' " "I will relate one example," he _. leaningupon the door posts, sit wrote, "of a narrow escape in thug upon the sill of an unglazed crossing the Thames River, window or the low branches of a "This happened near Chatham. tree, questioned or defied the After heavy rains it rises very preacher who was using a bench rapidly. At the time of these fresh. or chair or barrel for a pulpit at ets my horse was on one side and the end of the room. I on the other. I wished very much Throughout the fall of 1801, right to cross, and went to the ferry after he had been given his license, for the purpose. The ferryman was with two other saddle -bag preach - not at home, but his wife said that ers riding parts of the circuit, her daughter, a girl about 14 years Nathan Bangs ministered in the old, could paddle me over. We ac- so-called Niagara region as far as cordingly started, and as the river the Mohawk settlements on the was much swollen and very rapid Grand River. But on the first of in the centre, and the flats over- December of that year the Long flowed to a considerable distance, Point part ofit was cut off ,and 'I requested the girl to take me the young minister was asked by above the usual landing -place be- his presiding elder to travel this -fore she launched out into the cur. western region alone, It was known rent. I stood on the stern of the that there were only two small canoe and she in the middle. We. Methodist societies in the whole finally turned into the rapid field from the Grand River to De. stream, which was filled with float- troit. Both of them were made up ing logs .and fragments of timber. chiefly of some New Jersey immi-. We paddled with all our might,. rants; one of them was headed but in spite of our efforts we by an enthusiastic settler or local floated some distance below the preacher who kept the society landing -place, and finally came into together. the top of a tree which stood on , Ingersoll,. Burford in 1801 the flat above the lower bank, I So, down the frozen road he cried to the girl to seize hold of jogged into the far western region. a branch and keep her feet steady Nathan .Bangs describes his jour- on the canoe;I did the same and ney up from Niagara thus: we held fast. This _._ -- gave ds some` "After passing through. several time to look around, and see how little' settlements, in which I might escape. I soon perceived stopped and preached, I came to that that beyond the tree shoreward the Town of Burford, a settlement the water backed and formed on the Grand River, about 10 miles eddy, and if we could manage to north of the Mohawk Indian vil- get the canoe on the side of the. lage. Here seemed to be a frank tree next to the land we should and generous people, and they re - 'be safe. I accordingly directed. ceived me with affection and re - the girl to pull from branchto spect, and listened to •the word branch, and doing the same my.. with apparent eagerness. While I self, we succeeded in moving was with them I heard. of a settle - ment about 25 miles distant, in the around the tree until we were bey, Town of Oxford (now Ingersoll), tween it and the land, when we where they were anxious to hear sprung to our paddles and behold the gospel. Accordingly I set off to we were safe at the. land. We then pay them a visit. It being the be - went up to the house, the man ginning of winter,.. the ,ground Hof which was a friend of mine, and I got him to take the girl back, partly frozen, the mud deep, and after paying her well for her the toad, if such it could be called, courageous efforts." running through a wilderness, --- _ _ though 1 made all the speed I has been pointed out before could, I traveled only about 14 -(It that the spiritual needs of the very miles that day. I put up at a small -"early pioneers were met only very log -hut with a family that had sketchily, that sermons were heard been educated as Baptists. I was only when a preacher rode treated withhospitality, but they on .seemed to have little sense of re - �ligion. horseback through the woods and The next day I reached the stopped where he could get an settlement and lodged with Major audience. Nathan Bangs was the Ingersoll, to whom I had a letter first of these itinerant preachers of introduction from Captain Mal - to come into this Western Ontario lory, of Burford. I was received region. He came in 1801 .from the with cordiality, and treated with New York conference of the great respect. I preached three Methodist Episcopal Church and times here, and under the two last was to work "beyond the Canada sermons many were awakened to line." a sense of their lost condition, and -::afterwards converted," &UiF: Seeing 'little immediate suc- dalous rumors about the life of cess on this journey, Nathan Wesley that cast him down, His Bangs was thoroughly discouraged. world was one of threatening and He resolved to return. to Niagara condemnation, that hard world of and give up his license. However, yesterday in which this tense, when he reached the Grand River Yankee dnerant would brook no and found that a January thaw interference with his calling. He had set in and that he could not who lived under a threat of public cross the stream, he returned to disapproval, frequently threatened Captain Mallory's at Burford. On the public in turn, calling down this visit the captain and others divine wrath upon the scoffer and in the settlement came under the the ,unbeliever, or any human wing of the new sect and thus en- stumbling block in the path leading couraged, Bangs revisited Oxford to the salvation of souls. It is said and won the Ingersoll family t that "he rebuked gainsayers cour- his church. ageously and they often cowered "The good work spread quickl before him." Such encounters with through the neighborhood," It men who were tainted outright says, "sweeping all before it. I with free-thinkfnr in religion ap- this way the revival prevailed 1 pear to have been Bangs' most both these places, so that larg interesting and satisfying adven- and flourishing societies wer established, and no less than at preachers were raised up; one o whom, by the name of Reynolds, became a bishop in the Methodist Episcopal Church of Canada. Thus )the rock was split, the reformation extended through many settle- ments, particularly Oxford, where large numbers were 'turned from darkness to light."' Disciplined Like all Methodist ministers Bangs lived under a severe dis- cipline imposed by the watchful- ness of his fellow -members._ For instance, at the very time that Bangs was traveling this circuit one of his brethren was hailed be. fore a conference bar and charged "'of having said that he composed 'a certain song, when in truth he did not; that he had the misfor- tain to get his horse's thye broke when it was not so; and that he has baptized contrary to the order of the M.E. Church." But apart from such overseeing they were disciplined by poverty. From 1800 to 1816 the salary for all preachers, even the bishops, was $80 a year; in 1816 it was raised to $100. Hardly anyone, least of all Bangs on this circuit, expected to be paid in full. After one year he found that his ex- penes had exceeded by $40 all that he had obtained to money; A Perverse prudence sometimes urged him to go back to teaching school. Physical Hardship. Circuit -riding was lonely and.un- rewarding and often also its min. isters were treated with contempt and punishment. Physically it was a calling that had no mercy upon the bodies of the itinerants. Routes through Canada, sometimes called the "Boreal region," were particu. larly hard upon the lives of the preachers. Of the first 737 to die in his conference — that is all who died up to 1847 — 203 were be. tween 25 and 35 years of age and 121 between 35 and 45. Nearly half of them died before they were 30 years old — just one less than 200 (withinthe first five years. It required great courage to ride this lonely and .frequently inhos. Pliable, circuit: Bangs confesses once to a deep despair: "One cold day, while riding through the woods, I was - deeply disturbed with thoughts of my loneliness and destitution, for my Pecuniary means were about ex. hausted; my salary was next to nothing; I could see no means for my future wants; I lived from house to house, from settlement to settlement, and the future seemed dreary and forlorn." By such temptations he was per- plexed for awhile but reading a' verse in his hymn book, he rode on with "a sudden glow of joy." Met Opposition He ,found among Universalists and Calvinists opposition to his lures. A frontier fiddler, in the preach. er's vocabulary a "devil's musi- cian" who lured away young peo. ple from meeting houses, he ad- dressed with fiery glance and rigid finger, as he says, "in the language of rebuke and warning, I told him that if he did not cease alluring. the young people intosinful amusements I would pray Godil either to convert him or take him, out of the way, and I had no doubt that God would answer my pray- er." Victory in these trials inspired, him with confidence and even with) "humble boldness." In the new settlement of Col- chester his missionwas checked) by a reprobate that. Bangs hid) under the initial "W." As the itin-I Brant was about to preach to an, audience of settlers who pretended) an interest in his teachings, W. arose and: took him by the shoul- ders and marched him out of doors, declaring that he was not to preach or visit in the neighbor- hood again. "No doubt the fiends in hell raised a shout of applause," com- mented Nathan Bangs. Then, .a the presence of all the people, the rejected minister solemnly took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped first from one foot and then from the other the dust of W's ground as a testi- mony against them." Before this year of circuit -rid- ing was up he was attacked by a bout of intermittent fever and weak and, very thin he returned to Niagara and took an eastern circuit for two years. However, he had gathered in the western re- gions many trophies of his evange- lical power.. In Burford and Oxford of the Long Point region he could now count 300 nameswhich had been added to the 320 on the rolls of the Niagara circuit of his Nathan Bangs, the itineran preacher, who had braved floods hunger, illness and criticism to bring his message to the people of the Niagara district and, later to Burford and the Long Point re- gions,had considerable influence also in the region farther -west 1 ng the Thames River. .When Nathan Bangs was at Ox- oreii (now Ingersoll),. in 1801, a letter had come to him from a Ger.' man Anabaptist, Messmore, living at Louisville, near Chatham, asking the preacher to visit settlements farther west on the Thames River, That unanswered letter lay heavy an his conscience. After two years In the Lake Ontario region, with the blessing of his bishop, Francis Asbury, a fresh horse and $11 con- tributed by his friends, he began Once more a mission into the west. From the statement of a later - circuit rider one may get some - idea of the extent of the circuit. that Bangs was to travel when he said: "It embraced all that section of Western Ontario from the Town- ship of Mosa in the County of Mid- dlesex in the east, to Detroit in the west, and all the settlements along Labe Erie through Tilbury, Romney, Mersea, Gosfield, Col- chester and Amherstburg, wherever there were settlers." This journey was not so lonely, for Bangs had the pleasure of a male riding companion. The two of them rode up the Grand River route to Burford and then to Ox- ford, meeting old friends of two years before at each place. "There- after," he says, "we journeyed about 30 miles to Delaware Town, where I preached and lodged in the last house of the settlement. My bed was a bundle of straw, my supper, 'mush and milk.' "August 10th we arose at break If day, took a little food, and started for a ride through the wilderness, 45 miles long, with no roads, and only 'blazed' or marked, trees to guide us. There being not even a beaten path; we were often at a loss to know whether we were right or wrong; but we got safely through at last. The flies and musltetoes were so troublesome that our horses could not stand to eat, though we stopped in a shady meadow for that purpose; we therefore rode through the woods without any other refreshment for them than what they nibbled as we passed along, As for ourselves, we had a little Indian bread and dried beef in our pockets, of which �we partook; but water we occasion. ally met looked so black that we dared not drink it. Our horses seemed as eager to get through as ourselves, for whenever practicable, thye would trot on with all their speed. We arrived about sunset, weary, hungry and thirsty, at a small log -hut, inhabited by a Frenchman. My tired horse lay down as soon as the saddle and bridle were taken off. I asked the woman of the cabin if she could give- me a drink of tea, but she had none. Being almost famished, I requested they man to procure us some water, which we sipped a lit- tle at a time, as if it were nectar; we then ate some Indian pudding and milk, the best food we could obtain. After praying with the family, we. lay down on a bundle of straw, slept sweetly, and arose In the morning much refreshed and invigorated in body and mind. The poor woman was so kind as to send early to a distant neigh. bor, to beg some tea for us; but. she had neither teakettle, tea-pot; nor tea -cup, she therefore boiled it in a'dish-kettle' and then poured it into a tin cup, from which we drank it with more relish than t ever a king drank wine from a golden goblet. I thought it the most refreshing beverage I had ever drunk. We allowed our horses to rest till about 10 o'clock, and then rode about seven miles to a Mora- . vian mission, a small Indian vil- lage on the River Thames. We dined with one of the missionaries, two of whom were stationed here. I had considerable conversation with him respecting their doctrines and usages, as well as their labors among the Indians. He was very sociable, and seemed to possess much of the simplicity of the Gospel. These good men had much trouble in their work, from the corrupting influence of the neigh- boring white settlers upon the In- dians, and it was hoped by them that our labors among the former would help their mission.