The place of Lorenzo Dow in the American pulpit is peculiar. He might
be called “The Great Disowned.” He passed his life a wandering,
outcast preacher; did a great work alone, generally unacknowledged by
any religious body; opposed by the societies and maligned by many of
the clergy, whom he powerfully aided; and in death his name and work
would have sunk into undeserved oblivion, but for his own writings in
which, with prophetic instinct, he preserved the record of his own
sacrifices and successes, and the scant recognition accorded them. He
also recorded with impartial fidelity his own “fantastic tricks” and
erratic independence, which furnish the only excuse for the treatment
he received. He called himself a Methodist, and refused to work inside
church lines. A zealous, even bigoted sectarian; he preached in open
defiance of all denominational polity. He was a clerical bushwhacker.
The time in which Dow flourished was a remarkable one politically,
commercially and religiously. It was the formative age of the
Constitution and of the American Republic. It saw the creation of
American commerce and the opening up of the continent to settlement. And
it has been well called “the heroic age of American Methodism.”
As the sense of dependence on the mother country, and of subjection to
royal authority wore off, the people began to grow rapidly in mental
and moral stature. The population which had timidly hugged the Atlantic
coast, as if afraid to lose sight of the British navy, now turned its
eyes inland, its thoughts over the whole world. The pioneer spirit awoke.
The “Northwest Territory” was organized for settlement; Louisiana and
Florida were purchased and the great Mississippi basin was opened up.
Indian nations were subdued and “city lots were staked for sale above
old Indian graves.” A second war was fought with Great Britain, to drive
her from our path of advance on land or sea. Settlers in a thousand
directions ramified the wilderness with the nerves and arteries of
civilization. The growth of men’s ideas was to correspond with expansion
of territory—for “the spirit grows with its allotted spaces.” It became
evident, even in the first generation of the Republic, that a new people
had been raised up—almost as Roderick Dhu’s men sprang from the brake—to
subjugate a continent and to create sovereign states out of the rudiments
of empire which yet lay plastic and warm in the wilderness.
The spirit of unrest, of adventure, of expansion, seized all classes and
occupations; and the pioneers of the Cross pressed into the wilderness
side by side with the bearers of the ax and rifle.
Not the least remarkable feature of the evolution of this people was
the deepening of the religious spirit. Wars, indeed, are generally
followed by seasons of revival; but now the sobered thoughts of the
American people seemed to increase as they receded from the war period,
and realized the burdens of a new nationality, of self-government, and
of continental subjugation which they had taken upon themselves. They
had not only cut loose from the mother country, but had cut loose from
all the ancient traditions of government and the experience of mankind.
Responsibility brought seriousness; daily perils inclined men’s thoughts
to hear whoever would discourse of eternal things. Thus the movement of
the time at once prepared the way for the work of gospel spreading, and
raised up strong men to do it.
One of the young men who was “set on fire of freedom” to this work was
Lorenzo Dow. Never was more unpromising candidate for the ministry. He
was eighteen years of age (1795), thin, angular, ungainly, eccentric in
manner, illiterate, diffident, and, worst of all, an invalid, supposed to
be a consumptive. No wonder the proposition of this sick, gawky boy to go
upon circuit without any preparation met with opposition from his parents
and brethren, was discouraged by those who dared not contradict his
solemn protestations of an irresistible call, and was rejected by all the
authorities of a church most liberal in its requirements of licentiates
of any then extant.
“I do not believe God has called you to preach,” bluntly declared the
minister in charge after having Dow try to preach, and seeing him faint
dead away in the pulpit.
“Why?” demanded the weeping candidate.
“For five reasons.—(1) your health; (2) your gifts; (3) your grace; (4)
your learning; (5) sobriety.”
“Enough, enough!” exclaimed the boy, aghast. “Lord, what _am_ I but a
poor worm of the dust?”
Just the same, all this did not change his determination one whit. Nay,
in a foot-note to this incident in his book he makes this finishing
reference to his critic of this time with evident satisfaction: “He is
since expelled the connection.”
Those who opposed him little knew of the reckless earnestness of his
character—the trait which lay at the bottom of his whole remarkable
career, and brought him success in spite of all his disabilities and
all the external chances against him. He seemed to have accepted as his
all-sufficient credentials the Lord’s charge to his disciples in the
tenth chapter of Matthew; accepted it as literally and confidently as if
it had been delivered specially to a sickly young convert in Connecticut
about the close of the eighteenth century, instead of having been given
to certain other illiterates in Judea eighteen centuries before. He
always took the whole Bible literally, and acted and talked it in dead
earnest. So providing neither gold, silver, brass nor scrip in his purse,
nor two coats, nor shoes, nor staff for his journey, he started to “go
into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” He stood
not on the order of his going, but went at once. If any would receive
him, well; if not, worse for them, as saith Matthew x:14. He asked
no gifts nor collections; rejected most of that which was voluntarily
offered—giving frequent offense thereby—taking only what would suffice
for the day. Sleeping in woods and under fences was small privation to
him, for he never slept in beds, any way; the floor or a bench was his
choice, on account of the asthma, he said. He was used to long fasts,
and would travel fifty miles and preach half a dozen times without food.
Indeed, his defiance of all precautions against sickness, and reversal of
all physical conditions gave him rather a grewsome reputation with the
simple folk among whom the invalid exploited, and some were afraid to
entertain him. What a saint he would have made in those good old times
when asceticism, energy, fanaticism, piety and dirt were of the popular
odor of sanctity! A modern Peter the Hermit on a crusade!
To talk and to walk were his chief functions, and he rarely intermitted
either. At that time the qualifications of a circuit preacher were
said to be covered by these points: “Is he converted; is he qualified
to preach; has he a horse?” Lorenzo had no need of the last of these
qualifications. He was the champion pedestrian of the day. He could
out-travel the public conveyances and tire out any horse over such roads.
He was known throughout the south as “the walking minister.” But through
New England, New York and Canada his quaint figure, queer actions and
rude and vehement exhortations soon got him the general sobriquet of
“Crazy Dow.” We read in his journal:
“As I entered the meeting house, having an old borrowed
great-coat on and two hats, the people were alarmed. Some
laughed, some blushed, and the attention of all was excited.
I spoke for two hours, giving them the inside and outside of
Methodism. I besought God in public that something awful might
happen in the neighborhood if nothing else would do to alarm the
people. For this prayer many said I ought to be punished.”
Again:
“Here, too, it was soon reported I was crazy. I replied, people
do not blame crazy ones for their behavior; last night I preached
from the word of God, when I come again I will preach from the
word of the devil. This tried our weak brethren.”
Hardly to be wondered at, one would say. At one time he got an audience
into a school house, and planting his back against the door so they could
not escape, preached at them two hours, hot and strong. At another time
he hired a woman for a dollar to give up one day to seeking her soul’s
salvation; and again, following a young woman on the road importuning
her to seek God, when she took refuge in a house; he sat on the steps,
declaring he would not let her proceed till she had promised to pray. His
nervous impatience of rest often impelled him to steal from a hospitable
house at dead of night, and at daylight he would be found in another
county drumming up a meeting.
These eccentricities, perhaps, brought him as much success as opposition;
but the chief source of his troubles came from his independence, and even
defiance of his own church. His impatience of limitations, regulations
and authority of any kind caused an irrepressible conflict between him
and the church from the beginning to the end of his labor. Four times
the first year of his ministry did they try in vain to send him home.
Though constantly, and with many tears, besieging conferences, bishops
and elders for license, as soon as a circuit of appointments was given
him, he would fly the track and be found traveling on another minister’s
round, as complacent as a hen setting on the wrong nest. Regularity was
death to him. Once he had been persuaded to take a circuit, and he says,
“I had no sooner consented to try for a year, the Lord being my helper,
than an awful distress came over my mind.” He staid the year, with an
occasional escapade into other circuits, but says of it: “Scarce any
blessing on my labors, and my mind depressed from day to day.” Yet he
insisted, to the day of his death, that he was a Methodist preacher,
and refused indignantly all propositions of his admirers and converts
to organize a following of his own—“Dowites,” as they would call
themselves, “Split-off Methodists,” as he dubbed all such schismatics.
When his presiding elder, the renowned Jesse Lee, sent him injunctions
against irregular traveling, under pain of expulsion, he replied to the
messenger: “It does not belong to Jesse Lee or any other man to say
whether I shall preach or not, for that is to be determined between God
and my own soul. It only belongs to the Methodists to say whether I shall
preach in their connection.”
“But,” said his monitor, “What will you call yourself? The Methodists
will not own you, and if you take that name you’ll be advertised in the
public papers as an impostor.”
“I shall call myself a friend to mankind,” said Dow, expansively.
“Oh,” exclaimed the advocate of regularity, “for the Lord’s sake—_don’t_!
You are not capable of that charge—who is!”
One would think so, for Dow was at this time only eighteen years old,
and the callowest fledgeling in all green New England. It was no use.
This young eccentric would not work to any line. He obeyed only dreams,
impulses and “impressions,” which he accepted as divine guidings. At
one time they thought they had laid out for him in Canada a field
sufficiently large, wild, unorganized and forbidding to give him “ample
scope and verge enough” wherein to wander, preach and organize churches.
It did seem that almost the whole boundless continent was his. But a
continent has limitations. That thought tormented him. He tramped till he
got to the edge, and then was seized with “a call” to carry the gospel
into Ireland! and despite all remonstrance, opposition and threats
he sailed for Ireland without a government passport, without church
credentials of any kind, minus an overcoat and change of linen. Three
dollars, a bag of biscuits, and unlimited confidence in his ability to
“get through some way,” constituted his missionary outfit. His real
reason for going, however, was the hope that a sea-voyage would improve
his health, as he admits in his “Journal.”
Thereafter, wherever Dow pushed his peculiar mission he found the
reputation of a schismatic and rebel against church authority had
preceded him, and turned the Methodist clergy and laity against him,
and generally closed their homes and houses of worship to him. This
coldness, and sometimes enmity, he had to overcome before he could begin
his work in any place. Nevertheless, he prosecuted it vigorously for over
forty years with few interruptions, diverting all the converts of his
ministry into the Methodist church that he could, and giving not only
his services, but much of the proceeds of the sale of his books to that
body. To the last he declared, like Wesley, “my parish is the world!”
and extended his circuits to all parts of the Union, to Balize, the West
Indies, and the United Kingdom. He would lay out routes of three or four
thousand miles, covering appointments months or years ahead, and he
rarely failed to appear on time or to find an audience awaiting him.
“The camp meeting era,” which began about the commencement of Dow’s
ministry, was his great opportunity. These meetings were free, catholic,
and welcomed all workers. They were the legitimate outcome of the
religious necessities of the time. The land was ablaze from backwoods
to sea-beech with that popular excitement which soon got the expressive
name of “The Wildfire.” A host of preachers—Methodists, Presbyterians,
Baptists, Quakers—went from camp to camp preaching, singing, exhorting.
The meetings were going continuously. The country seemed to give up all
other pursuits for religion. Twenty thousand often assembled at one
place, coming hundreds of miles. One Granada, “the western poet,” wrote
many “Pilgrim Songs,” rude but spirited, for camp meeting use, and these
traveled, unprinted, on the air. That peculiar psychological phenomenon
called “The Jerks,” appeared and spread like an epidemic. Penitents in
this death-like trance were laid in long ranks under the trees and the
weird torchlights, as if ready for interment. Three thousand fell in
one night at Caneridge, Kentucky. It was common practice to prepare the
camp meeting grounds by cutting all the saplings about six feet from the
ground, leaving the stumps for the infected ones to grasp, to keep them
from falling, and Dow records that the ground around them was torn up as
if horses had been hitched there. At times a sudden influence would come
over the multitude, which would strike preachers, singers, mourners and
listeners speechless, so that not a word could be spoken for a period—a
hush more awful and inexplicable than the jerks or the shoutings.
Into this work Dow plunged with the abandon of a knight-errant, and with
wonderful success. His thin, skeleton frame, pale, sharp face, luminously
black eyes, long hair, curling to his waist, sharp, strident voice,
fierce, jerky sentences, qualified him to add intensity to the prevalent
excitement. And he was fond of appealing to the fears and superstitions
of humanity. He was full of dire predictions. The world was in travail
for the last day. Napoleon was wading knee-deep in the blood of Europe.
The last vial of wrath seemed to have been poured out upon the earth.
The prophecies and the apocalypse were drawn on for texts, which he used
literally. Any local calamity—and a long list of sudden or accidental
deaths within his ken—were worked upon the minds of his hearers, as
links in the chain of these awful portents. If there was any “scare”
in a man or woman or child, he’d frighten them to their knees. He used
the _argumentum ad hominem_ liberally, and if there were a conspicuous
atheist reprobate or Calvinist in the audience—all of whom he classed
together—the man was sure to be singled out for direct attack. A favorite
device was to ask the audience to grant him a favor, and require all who
were willing to do so to stand. When up, he would bind them to pray three
times a day for a week for salvation, and abjure them not to add the
perjury of a broken promise to their many other sins. This he exultantly
calls “catching ’em in a covenant,” he expecting to make converts of
nine-tenths of those who kept the promise into which they had been thus
trapped.
The quality which gave Lorenzo Dow his greatest power with the “lower
million”—to whom, after all, his mission went—was his courage. He was as
bold as a man seeking martyrdom. His mien was defiant and his language
brusque and aggressive. He belonged to the church militant by one of
those contrasts which make the tender-hearted and sensitive seem rough
and pugnacious. He fought against the wild beasts, on two legs, not at
Ephesus, but from Boston to Balize. Rowdies dreaded his tongue more than
any physical force, to which he never resorted. At New Kent, Va., a
large billet of wood was hurled at him through a window. He immediately
leaped through the window and gave chase to the assassins, yelling “Run,
run, the Old Sam is after you.” Returning, he took the billet, cut the
words “Old Sam” in it, and nailed it to a tree, installing it as “Old
Sam’s monument.” He then proceeded logically to this demonstration: “You
disturbers of the meeting, your conduct is condemnable—which expression
means damnable; hence, to make the best of you, you are nothing but a
pack of damned cowards, for not one of you durst show his head.” “Old
Sam’s monument” stuck to the tree for years, and Dow records with great
satisfaction that one of the ringleaders in this assault, a few months
later had his _nose bit off_ in a fight, and another was flung from a
horse and had his neck broken—all of which he cited as redounding to the
glory of God and the vindication of Lorenzo Dow.
On another occasion, being apprised of the approach of a mob of several
hundreds, sworn to take his life, he left the pulpit, took his wife by
the hand, and marched out to meet the enemy. When met, he mounted a stump
and poured out upon them a tirade of hot reviling, the very boldness of
which overawed them. The result was that he led them back to camp, and in
a short time had the most of them on the anxious seat.
At times, however, his enemies and opponents were too much for him.
Detraction and back-biting hurt him worst, coldness cut him deeper than
opposition. At one time, every man’s hand was so against him that he cut
his way into the depths of a Mississippi cane swamp, built a hut, and
there he and his wife lived recluse for months, surrounded by wolves and
snakes, whose society he found less objectionable than that of the best
friends he had in the country. One of the chief causes of enmity was
jealousy, because he had made a little money by the sale of his writings.
I fancy, too, that the popular feeling was mingled with one of contempt
for a circuit-rider, who could be so easily beaten in a horse trade—a
man who, equipped with a gallant mount on Monday morning, would turn up
before the week was gone on a sorry, broken-down “plug,” against which
he had paid beside more “boot” than his own horse was worth—could not
command the respect of such people as he labored among.
It is hard to realize that the man is an invalid, working without fee or
reward, unrecognized, and receiving more curses than coppers, of whose
exploits we read such passages as these:
“_August 24._—After preaching at Ebenezer, Pa., I silently
withdrew, and taking my horse, traveled all night until ten
next morning, when I spoke at Bethel, and then jumping out at a
window from the pulpit, rode seventeen miles to Union; thence to
Duck Creek Cross Roads, making near eighty miles travel and five
meetings without sleep. These few weeks past, since the eruption
was dried up and the asthma more powerful and frequent, I feel
myself much debilitated.”
“I returned to Dublin, having been gone sixty-seven days, in
which time I traveled about 1700 English miles and held about two
hundred meetings.” “To Warrington, having been about fifty-two
hours, held nine meetings and traveled about 50 miles.” “Sunday,
July 20, my labors were equal to seven sermons, which gave me a
fine sweat that was very refreshing, and added to my health. In
speaking twice in the street I addressed five thousand.”
“In the space of twenty-two days I traveled 350 miles and
preached seventy-six times, beside visiting some from house to
house and speaking to hundreds in class meetings.”
“_October 28, 1803._—After an absence of about seven months, I
arrived back in Georgia, having traveled upward of four thousand
miles (through the Mississippi Territory and Florida). When I
left this state I was handsomely equipped for traveling, by
some friends whom God had raised me up in need. But now on my
return I had not the same valuable horse, my watch I had parted
with to bear my expenses. My pantaloons were worn out. I had no
stockings, shoes, nor moccasins for the last several hundred
miles, nor outer garment, having sold my cloak in West Florida.
My coat and vest were worn through to my shirt. With decency, I
was scarcely able to get back to my friends.”
But we can not forget Peggy. Peggy was one of Lorenzo’s earliest
converts, and throughout the most of his crusades was his faithful
companion, through exposures and trials, through evil report and good
report. She was the loveliest trait in his character. The courtship was
unique. Let him tell it:
“Dining at the house of her foster parents, he learned that she
had declared if she was ever married it should be to a traveling
preacher.”
He continues:
“As she then stepped into the room, caused me to ask her if it
were so. She answered in the affirmative; on the back of which I
replied: ‘Do you think you could accept of such an object as me?’
She made no answer, but retired from the room.”
When about going away, he remarked that he was going a circuit of a year
and a half in the South.
“If during that time,” he said to her, “you live and remain
single, and find no one that you like better than you do me, and
would be willing to give me up twelve months out of thirteen, or
three years out of four, to travel, and that in foreign lands,
and never say, ‘Do not go to your appointment,’—for if you should
stand in my way I should pray God to remove you, which I believe
he would answer, and if I find no one that I like better than I
do you—_perhaps something farther may be said on the subject_.”
An ardent popping of the question, surely! But she waited, and they were
married, and were happy. He was a very devoted husband, subsidiary to
his appointments. He was away preaching when both their children were
born, and on one occasion left his wife among strangers in England,
ill, so that her death was hourly expected, and their infant child also
being ill and dying in another place, for a chance to preach. Neither
parent attended the child’s funeral. Peggy never murmured. She was as
consecrated to his work as he—perhaps more unselfishly so. Minister’s
wives often are, I have heard.
Applying to Lorenzo Dow a purely intellectual analysis, I should say
he was a man born with a morbidly nervous temperament, which only
ceaseless activity could satisfy. Rest was physical and mental poison
to him. This helps explain his extraordinary energy. Egotism took the
form of conceit for haranguing and influencing masses of people, and of
believing himself competent to fill a world-wide field. Consciousness
of his own weakness and supersensitiveness led him to shrink from the
restraint and criticisms and evade the duties of church affiliation. He
wanted the notoriety and gratification of ministerial life, without its
responsibilities; he could not take the responsibility of becoming the
founder of a sect.
In short, as I read Lorenzo Dow, he had a mania for haranguing people,
and he gratified it in the easiest and most popular way then open to an
uncultured, lawless, irresponsible nature, with strong natural tendencies
toward religious exercises. If Dow had been born seventy-five years
later, he would have made a first-rate demagogue and communist, but it is
doubtful if he could have got any one to hear him preach in these days.
He served the time and purpose well, and reached hundreds whom perhaps no
one else could have influenced.
His eccentric behavior was due partly to lack of education and culture,
and partly to physical causes, viz.: A morbid, nervous organization,
which could only keep keyed up by excitement. His seeming violence and
extravagance were probably assumed at first to cover diffidence and
sensitiveness, and afterward became habits of pulpit address. He was
affectionate, honest, sincere and brave.