DEATH, FUNERAL, AND CHARACTER OF REV. MARTIN BOEHM.
A short time before the conference closed at Leesburgh Bishop Asbury
said to me, “Henry, as soon as conference adjourns you must have the
horses ready and we must go right to your father’s.” I reminded him of
appointments he had sent on to Baltimore and through the eastern shore
of Maryland. He said, “Never mind, we can get them filled; I tell you we
must go right to your father’s.” We were then one hundred miles distant.
The reason of the sudden change in his plans I believed to be, the bishop
had a presentiment or an impression that my father was dead. How else
could we account for his abandoning a long list of appointments, changing
his entire route, and hastening on to my father’s?
When we reached Samuel Brinkley’s, who lived about a mile from our old
homestead, the mystery was solved; there we heard my father was dead. The
aged Asbury wept, and I felt sad at the thought I should see him no more.
I learned that he was taken sick the 17th of March, and on Monday the 23d
he departed this life in great peace and triumph, so his mournful words
proved true that “we should never see each other again.”
The bishop makes this record: “Friday, a cold disagreeable ride brought
us across the country to Samuel Brinkley’s; here I received the first
intelligence of the death of my dear old friend, Martin Boehm.”
The next day, Saturday, we passed by his new-made grave to the old
homestead, where I found my mother in all the sorrows of widowhood. The
bishop writes thus: “Sabbath, April 5, I preached at Boehm’s Chapel
the funeral sermon of Martin Boehm, and gave my audience some very
interesting particulars of his life.” His text was, “Behold an Israelite
indeed, in whom there is no guile.” Immense was the crowd; and the
occasion was one of mournful interest. The bishop drew the character of
his lifetime friend with great exactness, and also that of many of his
cotemporaries, particularly William Otterbein.
“Martin Boehm,” he said, “was plain in dress and manners. When age had
stamped its impress of reverence upon him he filled the mind with the
noble idea of a patriarch. At the head of a family, a father, a neighbor,
a friend, a companion, the prominent feature of his character was
goodness; you felt that he was good. His mind was strong, and well stored
with the learning necessary for one whose aim is to preach Christ with
apostolic zeal and simplicity.
“Martin Boehm had frequent and severe conflicts in his own mind, produced
by the necessity he felt himself under of offending his Mennonist
brethren by the zeal and doctrines of his ministry. Some he gained, but
most of them opposed him. He had difficulties also with ‘The United
Brethren.’ It was late in life that he joined the Methodists, to whom
long before his wife and children had attached themselves. The head of
the house had two societies to pass through to arrive at the Methodists,
and his meek and quiet spirit kept him back.
“In his ministry he did not make the Gospel a charge to any one; his
reward was souls and glory.
“The virtue of hospitality was practiced by his family as a matter of
course, and in following the impulses of their own generous natures the
members of his household obeyed the oft-repeated charge of their head to
open his doors to the homeless, that the weary might be solaced and the
hungry fed. And what a family was here presented to an observant visitor!
Here was order, quiet, occupation. The father, if not absent on a journey
of five hundred miles in cold, hunger, and privation, proclaiming the
glad tidings of salvation to his dispersed German brethren, might, by his
conduct under his own roof, explain to a careful looker on the secret
of a parent’s success in rearing a family to the duties of piety, to
the diligent and useful occupation of time, and to the uninterrupted
exhibition of reflected and reciprocal love, esteem, and kindness in word
and deed.
“If it is true, as generally believed, that the mother does much toward
forming the character of her children, it will be readily allowed that
Martin Boehm had an able help-meet in his pious wife. The offspring of
this noble pair have done them honor. The son Jacob, immediately upon
his marriage, took upon himself the management of the farm, that his
excellent father might, ‘without carefulness,’ extend his labors more far
and wide.
“A younger son, Henry, is a useful minister of the Methodist connection,
having the advantage of being able to preach in English and German. We
are willing to hope that the children of Martin Boehm, and his children’s
children to the third, fourth, and last generations, will have cause
to thank God that his house for fifty years has been a house for the
welcome reception of Gospel ministers, and one in which the worship of
God has been uninterruptedly preserved and practiced. O ye children and
grandchildren! O rising generation, who have so often heard the prayers
of this man of God in the houses of your fathers! O ye Germans to whom
he has long preached the word of truth! Martin Boehm being dead yet
speaketh. O hear his voice from the grave exhorting you to repent, to
believe, to obey!”[38]
After the bishop had finished his impressive discourse, which was
listened to with tears and sighs by a numerous auditory, he called on me
to speak. I endeavored to do so, but when I stood in the pulpit where I
had so often beheld my father, in the church that bore his name, with my
venerable mother before me, tottering over the grave, my relatives all
around me, where I could look out of the window into the burying-ground
and see the new-made grave of my father, my eyes filled with tears, and I
was so overcome that I could only utter, “Let silence speak.”
The people were deeply affected all over the house. There was weeping
from many eyes. My father was greatly beloved in life, and deeply
lamented in death. I had heard the venerable Asbury often when he was
great, and he was peculiarly great on funeral occasions, but then he far
transcended himself.
He called upon Thomas Ware to make some observations. He had long known
and loved my father, and his remarks were very touching and appropriate.
The bishop then called upon Abram Keaggy, who had married my sister; but
his feelings overcame him, and he sat down and wept, and thus we all wept
together.[39] A spectator might have said, “Behold how they loved him.”
My father was in his eighty-seventh year when he died, and had preached
the Gospel fifty-five years.
It is a matter of deep regret that I am under the necessity of noticing
a grave attack upon the character of my father and of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, made by the historians of the “United Brethren in
Christ.”[40]
The attack was first made thirty-nine years after my father was in the
grave, and was repeated eleven years later. So half a century after my
father’s death I, an old man in my ninety-first year, am obliged to
vindicate his character from those who profess to revere his memory,
who eulogize him, who place him next to the great Otterbein. Beautiful
garlands they bring with which to adorn their victim. These historians
say:
In justice to his memory, to the Church in whose origin he was so
intimately concerned, and to the truth of history, we must pause at
the grave of this venerable patriarch to review an account of William
Otterbein and Martin Boehm, which first appeared in the Methodist
Magazine, volume vi, pp. 210-249. The sketch purports to have been
furnished to Bishop Asbury a short time previous to his death, by his
friend, F. Hollingsworth, the transcriber of the bishop’s journal; it has
also been embodied in the history of the Methodist Episcopal Church, by
Dr. Bangs, and may be found in volume ii, pp. 365-376. Here is the matter
referred to:
“Martin Boehm, of whom we desire to speak, was born in November,
1725. As a professor of religion and minister of Christ, the
labors and experience of his life may be pretty justly estimated
by what we learn from himself, communicated in answers to certain
questions propounded to him by his son Jacob, which we transcribe.
“_Ques._ Father, when were you put into the ministry?
“_Ans._ My ministerial labors began about the year 1756. Three
years afterward, by nomination to the lot, I received full
pastoral orders.
“_Q._ What was your religious experience during that time?
“_A._ I was sincere and strict in the religious duties of prayer
in my family, in the congregation, and in the closet. I lived and
preached according to the light I had: I was a servant and not a
son; nor did I know any one, at that time, who would claim the
birthright by adoption but Nancy Keaggy, my mother’s sister; she
was a woman of great piety and singular devotion to God.
“_Q._ By what means did you discover the nature and necessity of
a real change of heart?
“_A._ By deep meditation upon the doctrine which I myself
preached, of the fall of man, his sinful estate, and utter
helplessness; I discovered and felt the want of Christ within,
etc., etc.
“_Q._ Were your labors owned of the Lord in the awakening and
conversion of souls?
“_A._ Yes; many were brought to the knowledge of the truth. But
it was a strange work; and some of the Mennonist meeting-houses
were closed against me. Nevertheless, I was received in other
places. I now preached the Gospel spiritually and powerfully.
Some years afterward I was excommunicated from the Mennonist
church, on a charge truly enough advanced, of holding fellowship
with other societies of a different language. I had invited the
Methodists to my house, and they soon formed the society in my
neighborhood, which exists to this day. My beloved wife, Eve, my
children, and my cousin Keaggy’s family, were among the first of
its members. For myself, I felt my heart more greatly enlarged
toward all religious persons and all denominations of Christians.
Upward of thirty years ago I became acquainted with my greatly
beloved brother, William Otterbein, and several other ministers,
who about this time had been ejected from their churches as I
had been from mine, because of their zeal, which was looked upon
as an irregularity. We held many large meetings in Pennsylvania,
Maryland, and New Virginia, which generally lasted three days. At
these meetings hundreds were made the subjects of penitence and
pardon. Being convinced of the necessity of order and discipline
in the Church of God, and having no wish to be at the head of a
separate body, I advised serious persons to join the Methodists,
whose doctrine, discipline, and zeal suited, as I thought, an
unlearned, sincere, and simple-hearted people. Several of the
ministers with whom I labored continued to meet in a conference
of the German United Brethren; but we felt difficulties arising
from the want of that which the Methodists possessed. Age having
overtaken me with some of its accompanying infirmities, I could
not travel as I had formerly done. In 1802 I enrolled my name
on a Methodist class-book, and I have found great comfort in
meeting with my brethren. I can truly say my last days are my
best days. My beloved Eve is traveling with me the same road,
Zionward; my children, and most of my grandchildren, are made the
partakers of the same grace. I am, this 12th of April, 1811, in
my eighty-sixth year. Through the boundless goodness of God I am
still able to visit the sick, and occasionally to preach in the
neighborhood: to His name be all the glory in Christ Jesus.”
After giving this quotation, Mr. Spayth observes:
The first remark we make on the foregoing is that, as Father
Boehm spoke but little English at best, the foregoing questions
and answers were neither written or spoken by him in English. It
is true that he went to Virginia in 1761, but not as Jacob would
have it understood, before he had experienced a change of heart,
_but after that event_. As to the statement we have given of the
cause of his going to Virginia, we are safe to vouchsafe for its
correctness, for we had it _from his own lips_. For some reason,
or by some means, the statement given by Jacob may be warped in
the English version.
The second exception we take is to the idea conveyed in the
statement that his name was enrolled on a Methodist class-book
in 1802. That his name was placed on the class-book referred to
is true, but the circumstances were as follows: A meeting-house
had been built on his land principally by his aid and that of his
German brethren. At this meeting-house the Methodists had formed
a class previous to the year 1802, under the liberal construction
of their rules, and hence with the free assent of Bother Boehm;
but this liberality was some time after withdrawn, and the
restrictive rule relating to class-meetings and love-feasts was
insisted on, and even the venerable Boehm was not excepted. Here
was a dilemma. To admit Brother Boehm, the preachers said, was
in violation of an express disciplinary rule, and to deny him
the privilege in his own meeting-house was hard; but the law is
imperative and binding. Now comes the gist of the matter. Brother
Boehm was entreated, _for form’s sake_, at least, to allow his
name to go on the class, nominally, as a private member, and all
would be right. To this, for peace’s sake, he consented, and
nothing more.
How far the law of kindness, of Christian friendship, and
hospitality, and of pure love had to stand aside in this case we
leave to every one to say. As it was it did not give the Brethren
a moment’s concern, nor would we here have taken any notice of
it at all had not the Methodist historian made it a subject of
record. In concluding this topic we remark that Brother Boehm’s
relation to the Brethren Church was unbroken from first to last,
as has already been seen.
This our annual conference proceedings sufficiently show. Thus
in 1800, in connection with Otterbein, he was elected bishop. He
was prevented by sickness from attending the conference of 1801;
attended conference in Maryland in 1802, was re-elected bishop
in 1805, and attended the conference of 1809, which was the last
this devoted servant of the Lord enjoyed with his brethren in
the Church on earth. From this time to the time of his death,
great age, with its accompanying infirmities, prevented him from
attending an annual conference.
It is a duty I owe to my venerated father, to the memory of Bishop
Asbury, and to the ministers that were in charge of the Church at Boehm’s
Chapel in 1802, that I should correct the misrepresentations contained in
the history of the “United Brethren in Christ.”
There was a mistake in the account in the Methodist Magazine, and copied
in Bangs’s history and the “History of the United Brethren.” It says the
questions were asked by Martin Boehm’s son Jacob. It should have been
Henry. I asked the questions, and wrote the answers. This was fifty-three
years ago last March. I have the original copy with my father’s
signature, and the reader can see a fac-simile of his autograph. I asked
the questions, and took down the answers at the request of Bishop Asbury,
who wished the history of my father. The bishop had taken down from the
lips of Otterbein the answers giving his history. It was at my father’s
house where the questions were asked and the answers given. To the
animadversions that have been made to my statement I make the following
replies: 1. It is objected that my father did not understand English,
and that he wrote neither the questions nor answers. He did understand
English very well. He conversed very readily in English, and had quite a
library of English works, which he read with great pleasure and profit;
among others, Wesley’s Sermons and Fletcher’s Checks. These were great
favorites with him.
As my father was aged and infirm I wrote the questions and answers. He
fully understood them both, and it was voluntary on his part, and not the
least influence was exerted over him. I carefully wrote every word of the
answers from his mouth, and then read them over to him, and he pronounced
them correct, and then deliberately affixed his signature to them. My
father was not one who would sign a document when he was ignorant of its
contents, or that he knew to be untrue.
At that time neither Bishop Asbury or myself supposed it would ever be
a matter of controversy. It was not obtained for any such object, or
to prove my father was a Methodist, but simply to obtain his history
correctly.
2. Another error is this: that his son had warped the statement. This
is both uncharitable and unjust. It was not enough to hint that I took
advantage of my father’s ignorance of the English language, but now I am
accused of warping what he said. I would as soon have cut off my right
hand. If I had been guilty of an act so mean, so unjust to my father,
and so false to others, I should have despised myself all the rest of my
life. The insinuation has not the semblance of truth. Those answers were
not warped; there was no false coloring, but sober truth. I took them
down from his lips as he answered in honest simplicity, and in the same
spirit I wrote them down.
3. This historian speaks of Boehm’s Chapel being built on Martin Boehm’s
land, principally by him and his German brethren, and then the Methodists
denying him the privilege of his own meeting-house, etc. Now all this
is a mistake. It was not built upon my father’s land, but upon that of
my brother Jacob, who gave the site for the church. Nor was it built
principally by my father and “the German Brethren.” I suppose he means
by this the United Brethren. As a body they had nothing to do with it.
My father gave something, and so might some of them; but it was built
for the Methodists, and principally by the Methodists. It was not my
father’s church any more than it was mine, and it is sheer nonsense to
talk of the cruelty of shutting him out of his own church. No such thing
ever did or could take place, simply from the fact that he never owned
any church, and therefore the thing was impossible. It was built for a
Methodist church, the plan was furnished by a Methodist minister, and it
was deeded to the Methodist Episcopal Church. After the lapse of seventy
years it is still a Methodist Episcopal Church, and their ministers still
preach in it.
4. Another error is accusing the Methodists at Boehm’s Chapel of double
dealing. In the first place “forming a class under a liberal construction
of their rules,” so that Father Boehm, not a member, could attend a
class, and then “withdrawing such liberal construction,” and bringing it
to bear on Father Boehm, so he was excluded from the class-meeting and
love-feast. Any one acquainted with the Methodist Discipline knows that
no such thing could take place. No individual Methodist society makes
and unmakes terms of membership. We have a Discipline, and the terms
are fixed by the General Conference. We are not independent bodies to
make rules for ourselves. Furthermore, I was there at the time, and know
that no such thing ever took place. William Hunter then had charge of
the circuit, an honest man as ever came from the land of Erin. He was an
outspoken man, open as the light of day, and incapable of duplicity.
But to “the gist of the matter.” Father Boehm, says this writer, was
entreated, “for form’s sake,” to have his name go on to the class-book
nominally. So, according to this statement, he never joined the
Methodists, he was only a “nominal member.” Here the Methodists are
accused of deception, and my aged father of complicity with them: they
pretending that he was a member, and he allowing his name to be entered
as a member, all the while knowing that he was not one. My father would
never have stooped to such meanness. He did not consider himself a
nominal, but a real member of the Methodist Church. He was not only a
member of the class, and used to meet in it, but he was a member of the
Quarterly Conference; he used to meet and take a part there, by virtue of
his office, as a local preacher of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He was
an ordained minister and used to administer the ordinances, Baptism and
the Lord’s Supper.
But it is said “he was entreated to do this for peace’ sake.” For whose
peace? My father was not so easily persuaded to do a wrong action for the
sake of peace. He always preferred purity to peace: “First pure, then
peaceable.”