THE PROTRACTED MEETING.
The day after the Quarterly Meeting, Elder Ryan drove to his home
if home it could be called, where he spent not one-tenth part of
his time--at the Twenty Mile Creek. Neville who travelled thus
far with him, thought nothing of the twenty miles walk to the
Holms, where he had left his horse.
One of his plans for the spiritual welfare of his scattered flock,
was the holding of a series of protracted meetings at the various
settlements. One of these was held at the wooden school-house of
the little hamlet of Queenston. An old pensioner of the
Revolutionary War had gathered a few children together and taught
them their catechism, and as much of "the Three R's" as he knew.
He was a staunch Churchman, but had a friendly feeling to the
Methodists, because Mr. Wesley had been himself a clergyman of the
Established Church.
The meeting awakened a deep and wide-spread interest. The awful
scenes of carnage and death, of which the little village and its
immediate vicinity had been the theatre, seemed to have brought
the realities of another world more vividly before the moral
consciousness of the community. Moreover there were few families
that had not lost some friend or acquaintance, or perchance--
A nearer
One atill, and a dearer
One yet than all other.
Under these chastening influences many hearts were peculiarly open
to the reception of divine truth. The gracious invitations of the
Gospel, and the warnings and admonitions of the Law, were alike
faithfully and affectionately urged by the young preacher. It was
a characteristic of the preaching of the times that it had in it a
strong back-bone of doctrine. It was very different from the
boneless jelly-fish-like preaching we sometimes hear,--vague and
indefinite, without a single clear conception from beginning to
end.
A very profound impression was made by one sermon especially, on a
subject on which Neville seldom preached, but which on this
occasion was strangely impressed upon his mind. The text was that
sublime Scripture and its context: "And I saw a great white
throne, and Him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the
heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them."
The solemn impression of the sermon was greatly deepened by the
singing, to a weird wailing sort of tune, of the hymn which
followed. The hymn, whose majesty of imagery--a majesty derived
from the Scriptures themselves--and whose resonant cadence gave it
much of the character, in English, of the sublime _Dies Irae_,
in Latin, was as follows:--
"The chariot! the chariot!--its wheels roll in fire,
As the Lord cometh down in the pomp of His ire;
Lo! self-moving, it drives on its pathway of cloud,
And the heavens with the glory of God-head are bowed.
"The trumpet! the trumpet! the dead all have heard,
Lo! the depths of the stone-covered charnel are stirred!
From the sea, from the earth, from the south, from the north,
All the vast generations of men are come forth.
"The judgment! the judgment!--the thrones are all set,
Where the Lamb and the white-vested elders are met!
There all flesh is at once in the sight of the Lord,
And the doom of eternity hangs on His word."
A picket of soldiers was billeted in the village, several of whom
attended the meeting ostensibly for the purpose of making game of
the "Yankee preacher." But such was the intense earnestness of the
man and the spiritual power that attended his message, that all
attempts to "make game" of the services were soon abandoned, and
not a few who "came to mock remained to pray."
A deep seriousness pervaded the entire neighbourhood. The usual
winter amusements and dancing parties were, to a great extent,
forgone--and even the utilitarian paring bees in the great farm
kitchens were shorn of much of the fun and frolic and divinings of
the future by means of apple-parings thrown over the left
shoulders, or apple-seeds roasted on the hearth. The present was
felt to be too sad, and the future too full of foreboding to
encourage fore-readings of the book of fate. The great revival was
the subject of fireside conversation at many hearths, and of deep
questionings in many hearts. Some of the most notorious ill-livers
of the neighbourhood had experienced the emancipating spell of the
Truth that maketh free, and were no longer the slaves of vice and
drunkenness.
Katharine Drayton pondered these things in her heart. She was
conscious of many good impulses, and her life had been marked by
many generous and noble traits. But she felt in her inmost soul
that these alone would not suffice. She could not from her heart
repeat the words which she often sang in the congregation with her
lips,--
"Jesus, thy Blood and Righteousness,
My beauty are, my glorious dress;
'Midst flaming worlds in these array'd.
With joy shall I lift up my head.
"Bold shall I stand in thy great day,
For who aught to my charge shall lay?
Fully absolved through these I am,
From sin and fear, from guilt and shame."
She still felt an aching yearning of her soul for a perfect
sympathy that she had never known since her mother died. Often as
a little child, in some childish grief or trouble, she had flung
herself on that loving mother's bosom and wept out her sorrow
there. And now, with the burden of the dreadful war impending like
a hideous night-mare on her soul; with her constant foreboding and
solicitude for her brother, so thoughtless--nay reckless in his
daring--a yearning for his soul's immortal welfare, if he should
be stricken down untimely, even more than for his body, she felt a
deep soul-longing for--she knew not what--but for some support and
succour for her filtering spirit. She knew not that it was the
wooing of the Celestial Bridegroom for the young love of her soul;
that it was the voice of the Heavenly Father, saying, "Daughter,
give me thy heart."
One night, heavy with a weight of care, and full of vague yet
terrible apprehensions of the future, she flung herself upon her
pillow and bursting into tears, sobbed out the pitiful cry, "O
mother, mother! see thy sorrowing child." As she lay sobbing on
the pillow, she seemed to hear a voice of ineffable sweetness,
whispering to her soul the words of a familiar Scripture: "As one
whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort thee."
The holy words inspired a sense of hope and confidence in her
soul, and led her to lift up her heart in prayer to that loving
Saviour who hath promised to send the Comforter to them that
mourn. As she knelt in prayer in her little chamber, the moonlight
flooding with radiance her white-robed form like the exquisite
picture described in Keats' St. Agnes' Eve, and pound out her
whole soul to God, she felt the sweet assurance of acceptance
filling her heart as the Master said once more: "Daughter, be of
good cheer, thy sins are all forgiven thee."
She felt, however, that if she would experience the fulness of
that Divine comfort she must not seek to hide it in her heart, but
confess it before men. And from this she experienced an
involuntary shrinking. Her nature was one susceptible of great
depth and tenderness of feeling, but it was also one
constitutionally reserved and sensitive. She knew, moreover, that
such an act as joining the Methodists would be exceedingly
distasteful to her father, whom she loved with a deep and
impassioned affection. He had made the Methodist preachers welcome
to his house with the characteristic hospitality of a Virginia
gentleman, and because he respected their character and work; but
he himself retained his allegiance to the Church of England, which
he seemed to think identified with his fealty to the King.
Almost unconsciously the thought of Captain Villiers obtruded
itself into Katharine's mind, not without some misgivings as to
his opinion of the course which she felt to be her duty. Not that
for a moment she entertained the thought of any right on his part
to influence her performance of duty, or of any purpose on hers to
be influenced by him.
Accompanied by her brother Zenas, Kate, on the next evening,
attended the protracted meeting. The school-house was crowded.
Towards the close of the service, those who had, since the last
meeting, accepted the yoke of Christ, were asked to confess Him.
"That," thought Kate, "means me; but how can I do it?" She had
never even dreamt of speaking in public. It seemed impossible. But
she heard the words sounding in her ears, "Whosoever will confess
Me before men, him will I also confess before My Father which is
heaven." Necessity seemed laid upon her; yet she shrank from the
ordeal.
At this moment a pure, sweet, contralto voice began to sing with
great fervour of expression, which gave assurance of the deep
feeling with which the words were uttered, a hymn of rather
uncouth rhythm, with an oft-repeated refrain which, however,
thrilled many a heart. It ran as follows:--
"Come, ye that love the Lord,
Unto me, unto me;
Come, ye that love the Lord,
Unto me;
I've something good to say
About the narrow way,
For Christ the other day
Saved my soul, saved my soul--
For Christ the other day saved my soul."
"He gave me first to see
What I was, what I was;
He gave me first to see
What I was.
He gave me first to see
My guilt and misery
And then He set me free.
Bless His name, bless His name,
And then He set me free, bless His name!"
As if constrained by a spell-like influence, Kate rose to her
feet, and in a modest but clear and concise manner made her
confession of filial trust in the Saviour, and of conscious
adoption as His child. When this young and timid girl had thus
taken up the cross of confession, others were emboldened to follow
her example. One after another paid their tribute of thanksgiving,
while at intervals glad songs of praise welled forth from greatful
hearts. Some of these, great favourites at the time, are now
almost unknown. A general characteristic of these songs was a
simple refrain, first sung as a solo, but gradually taken up by
one after another, till a grand chorus rose and swelled like the
organ chant of the winds among the neighbouring pines. One of
these, sung to an exultant measure, ran thus:--
"O brothers, will you meet us
On Canaan's heavenly shore?
O brothers, will you meet us
Where parting is no more?"
CHORUS.--"Then we'll march around Jerusalem,
We'll march around Jerusalem,
We'll march around Jerusalem,
When we arrive at home."
Another, of touching pathos--with tears, as it were, in every
line, and often bringing tears of greatful emotion to many an eye,
sung as it was to a sweet plaintive air--ran thus:--
"Saw ye my Saviour? Saw ye my Saviour?
Saw ye my Saviour and God?
Oh! He died on Calvary,
To atone for you and me,
And to purchase our pardon with blood.
"There interceding, there interceding?
Pleading that Burners might live--
Crying, 'Father! I have died!
Oh! behold My hands and side!
O forgive them, I pray Thee, forgive."
Another, of similar strain, thus set forth in a sort of recitative
the story of the resurrection of our Lord:--
"Oh, they crucified my Saviour,
They crucified my Saviour,
They crucified my Saviour,
And they nailed Him to the cross.
"Then Joseph begged His body, etc.,
And he laid it in the tomb.
"Oh, the grave it could not hold Him, etc.,
For He burst the bars of death.
"Then Mary came a-running, etc.,
A-looking for her Lord.
"Oh, where have you laid Him, etc.,
For He is not in the tomb.
"Oh, why stand ye gazing? etc.,
Oh, ye men of Galilee?
"Don't you see Him now ascending! etc.,
There to plead for you and me.
"By-and-by we'll go to meet Him, etc.,
Where pleasures never fade."
While the incomparably superior lyrics of Wesley and Watts were
generally sung in the public service of the Sabbath, when the
preacher gave out the hymns from the book; yet these simpler and
ruder strains were the greater favourites at the revival meeting.
By these the godly forefather's of Methodism in Canada nourished
their souls and enbraved their spirits for the heroic work in
which they were engaged, of consecrating the virgin wilderness to
God.