[236:1] See B. B. Tyler, "History of the Disciples," pp. 11-17; R. V. Foster, "The Cumberland Presbyterians," pp. 260-263 (American Church History Series, vols. xi., xii.).
[238:1] Tyler, "The Disciples"; Foster, "The Cumberland Presbyterians," _ubi supra_.
[240:1] Let me add an illustrative instance related to me by the distinguished Methodist, Dr. David P. Durbin. Standing near the platform from which he was to preach at a camp-meeting, he observed a powerfully built young backwoodsman who was manifestly there with no better intent than to disturb and break up the meeting. Presently it became evident that the young man was conscious of some influence taking hold of him to which he was resolved not to yield; he clutched with both hands a hickory sapling next which he was standing, to hold himself steady, but was whirled round and round, until the bark of the sapling peeled off under his grasp. But, as in the cases referred to by Dow, the attack was attended by no religious sentiment whatever.
On the manifestations in the Cumberland country, see McMasters, "United States," vol. ii., pp. 581, 582, and the sources there cited. For some judicious remarks on the general subject, see Buckley, "Methodism," pp. 217-224.
[241:1] So Dr. Buckley, "Methodism," p. 217.
[242:1] American Church History Series, vol. xii.
[243:2] "Autobiography of Lyman Beecher," vol. i., pp. 43, 44.
When the Presbyterian General Assembly, in 1803, made a studious review of the revivals which for several years had been in progress, especially at the South and West, it included in its "Narrative" the following observations:
"The Assembly observe with great pleasure that the desire for spreading the gospel among the blacks and among the savage tribes on our borders has been rapidly increasing during the last year. The Assembly take notice of this circumstance with the more satisfaction, as it not only affords a pleasing presage of the spread of the gospel, but also furnishes agreeable evidence of the genuineness and the benign tendency of that spirit which God has been pleased to pour out upon his people."
In New England the like result had already, several years before, followed upon the like antecedent. In the year 1798 the "Missionary Society of Connecticut" was constituted, having for its object "to Christianize the heathen in North America, and to support and promote Christian knowledge in the new settlements within the United States"; and in August, 1800, its first missionary, David Bacon, engaged at a salary of "one hundred and ten cents per day," set out for the wilderness south and west of Lake Erie, "afoot and alone, with no more luggage than he could carry on his person," to visit the wild tribes of that region, "to explore their situation, and learn their feelings with respect to Christianity, and, so far as he had opportunity, to teach them its doctrines and duties." The name forms a link in the bright succession from John Eliot to this day. But it must needs be that some suffer as victims of the inexperience of those who are first to take direction of an untried enterprise. The abandonment of its first missionary by one of the first missionary societies, leaving him helpless in the wilderness, was a brief lesson in the economy of missions opportunely given at the outset of the American mission work, and happily had no need to be repeated.[247:1]