Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 September 1879 — The Fathers of the Church. [ARTICLE]

The Fathers of the Church.

Some racy stories are yet extant in Virginia and Pennsylvania of the old Methodist and Presbyterian clergymen, who, when the country was first settled, used to wander up and down the wilderness, like Elijah, preaching and warning the ungodly. One of the most noted was Lorenzo Dow, who, it is said, once followed a robber into the forest, arrested hinq single-handed, brought him into the “ meeting,” set him in front of the pulpit, and preached the terrors of the judgment to him until the poor wretch fell on his knees and confessed where he had hidden the booty. On another occasion, Dow had a public argument with a man who professed infidelity. The good old preacher’s righteous rage waxed hotter and hotter, until, exclaiming, “'V’engfeance is the Lord’s, but He chooses His instruments,” he leaped from the pulpit, and then and there gave the astonished scoffer a sound threshing. Another godly old man was troubled with a most vicious, scurrilous wife, He

bore her revilings meekly for years, until, finding the cow dead in the barnyard, a way of escape suggested itself to him. He brought her out, placed her at the head of the cow, and he stood at its feet. “ I promised to bear with you, Peggy, till death us do part,” he said. “ Now I’m free! ” and he walked away, never to return. A diary kept by one of these primitive pastors is still extant, hnd is a curious record of humble, unflinching faith in God in petty trials. “ Canrot go to the synod without a hat,” is one entry. “ Have no hat at all. Mentioned it in my prayer to-night. So did wife.” A week later, he writes: “ Have no hat yet, although I have spoken to the Lora about it every day. Must go bareheaded, and humble my vanity.” However, the next day he writes: “ Rec’d $2 from Joseph Bright. Bought a hat. lam thankful to Him who sent it.” These men were ignorant, probably, but they made up in sincerity and zeal what they lacked in education. They had, too, shrewdness, experience and virtue, and were usually the advisers the “sense-carriers,” to use a homely term, for large districts of country. “ The minister ” settled many a dispute, quieted many a domestic feud which now would end in a lawsuit or a divorce.