Christian Messenger. (Bonham, Tex.), Vol. 11, No. 31, Ed. 1 Wednesday, October 14, 1885 Page: 6 of 8
This newspaper is part of the collection entitled: Fannin County Area Newspaper Collection and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the Bonham Public Library.
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SAM JONHS AT MURFREES-
BORO.
scious of any very remarkable spiritual
impressions. In fact, it has grown to
be an adage in the church as elsewhere,
that “empty barrels sound loudest. ’
ym
Sam Jones has preached they will not them in all things.
find so much to do in that way.
An agreement to this would unite the
Ulitt Urtxicio ouuuu ------ - , _ - , , »
Still they cling with great tenacity to It was somewhat amazing to hear church to-day and upon all essential
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Rutherford county has been for many
years one of the strongholds of Metho-
dism.
In the first quarter of this century
were witnessed at its camp grounds,
what were then almost universally re-
garded as miraculous manifestations of
the Divine Spirit, seldom vseen any
where else and which has done much to
give shape to the religion of this coun-
try to this day.
At all the Methodist revival meetings
one of the first things to be done is, or
was, to pray for the out pouring of the
Holy Ghost, both upon saint and sin-
ner. The evidence of this was to be
J seen in shouts, and ungovernable rap-
tures and transports among the saints,
while it fell upon the sinners with its
converting power, often felling them to
the earth as dead men.
Their cries of anguish at the “mour-
ner’s bench”were mingled with the ear-
nest prayers of friends, to God to
send his Spirit into their burdened
souls in its converting power.
Th^ mourner (I have been a mourner)
was told to pray on, and to believe right
now that he is saved, or pardoned, and
that at that very moment he would get
the. blessing. That is, the Holy Spirit
would come into his heart like the flash
of an eclectric light, producing a feeling
so remarkable and unmistakable that
it could never be forgotten. His cries
of anguish were in this case suddenly
changed to shouts of rejoicing. This
was by some very aptly called “coming
through” and by others “getting relig
the doctrines upon which such super-
structures are built.
I attended very closely upon the
preaching of Sam Jones while here, and
was pleased to knowthat the main drift
of his teaching upon those points were
quite out of the fog. Occasionally he
crosses his path with some little muddy
construction currents of Methodist the-
ory, but his general course is clear and
sound. He assumes as a fundamental
fact that God will not do for a man
what he can do for himself. .This in-
volves another fact asserted by him,
that a man is held responsible for be-
lieving the divine revelations as they
are given, without any help, consequent-
ly he says, “Some men have little
enough sense to pray for faith. If I tell
you the truth, you need not come whin-
ing around me to make you believe my
word.” He said in one discourse that
“he never in reality prayed God to go
after sinners, but prayed sinners to
come to God.” He advises the sinners
when he makes up his mind to become
a Christian quietly and resolutely to
quit his meanness and do right with the
Bible as his guide. He should not stop
or wait for feelings, “he does not run on
feeling.” Nor should he lose time in
mourning, and praying over his sin.
That he stigmatizes as a “blubbering
religion” in which he had once believed,
but had learned better now. He Com-
pares the mourner praying over his Sins,
to the drunkard who comes home off of
a spree, and blubbers his confessions
him tell his hearers that no such a term matters. * A refusal to do it will divide
as “getting religion” was to be found in
the Bible; that we heard nothing of
Matthew, Luke or any of the apostles
ever “getting religion.” That was
doubtless news to many of them.
TKe evil tendencies of this system of
religion are fully known to those on-
ly who have grown up under it, as I
have.
1. Such mystic, irrational and un-
scriptural ideas of religion keep many
good, well-intentioned people from be-
coming Christians, and make them un-
believers.
it forever.
We are satisfied that Mr. Jones treats
baptism with an indifference that a
proper respect for the Bible does not
allow.
He teaches that obedience is the
highest test of true love to God.
It is difficult to believe that a sane
mind, sincerely inquiring after the truth
can, after investigation, conclude that
the Bible teaches anything but immer-
sion as the baptism practiced by the
apostles.
It is true that a large majority of pro-
2. By measuring one's spiritual state ' fessed Christians set it aside, but most
by feelings rather than the Bible’s test, * of them doing so, agree that the Bible
_ _ . .t i I 4 1 •• TV H • *1 . *1___- * v
we disparage and place in the back-
ground the revealed word. For that
reason Sam Jones’ preaching upon prac-
tical religion is most effective, and
strikes with the force of a new revela-
tion, the minds and consciences of most
church people.
3. It deludes the minds of many with
false conceptions of spiritual influences,
giving full scope to all sorts of exagger-
ations, both real and pretended, and
suggesting to the minds ’ of observing
people the thought that the leaders in
these movements sometimes ascribe to
supernatural power, that which they
have brought about by their own manip-
ulation and management.
teaches it. Very few indeed compara-
tively, profess to adopt any substitute
for immersion because the Bible teach-
es it.
While it is a matter of rejoicing that
Mr. Jones has held the Bible above the
creeds of parties, the conventional i ties
of society, and the uncertain prompt-
ings of human feelings, let ns hope that
he will bring all men who hear him to
a prayerful study of that solemn or-
dinance that our Savior himself placed
at the very threshold of his kingdom,
coming to us as a commandment that
we have no more right to alter or evade
jS
than we have to set at naught every
commandment in the decalogue.
*8
-H
To ascribe the works of the Savior, to 1 This great question must be settled
the devil, was held by him as highly before there can be unity in the church
criminal, and to see the works of men of God. If we desire unity of the church,
a spree, and blubbers his confessions; ascribed to God, gives to the observer a
and remorse and determination to quit very low, contemptible idea of the reli
drinking etc., to his wife, who as a sen-
ion.
Some “came through” pretty soon,
but others wrestled on for years faith-
fully before* they received the bless-
ing.
I saw two at least, • now old men, at
Sam Jones’ meeting, who for several
years were, to my personal knowledge,
hard and faithful wrestlers at every
mourning bench that occasion present
ed. They both “came through” at last,
and are now consistent members of the
church.
One of them would not now advise
others to take the course he did, the
other, I presume would.
• To have suggested at that day that
those remarkable psychological pheno-
mena, such as trance, ecstacy and rare
convulsive affections were the result of
©motional excitement, would have been
taken as a reflection upon the honesty
and good sense of those who were the
subjects of them, and the suggester
would have been declared a skeptic or
an infidel.
The man who without this experience
would have undertaken to change his
life, and simply by faith in Christ and
obedierce to the teaching of the Bible,
to form a Christian character that would
sible woman tells him to hush up his
blubbering and quit his drinking. That
was what she wanted him to do, and all
' le need do. »
In his invitation to sinners, he told
them that all the fitting they needed in
the way of conviction was to know and
feel that it is right todo right and wrong
to do wrong, and quoted from Paul, “If
thou shalt confess with thy mouth the
Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine
heart that God has raised him from the
dead, thou shalt be saved, for with the
heart man believeth unto righteousness,
and with the mouth confession is made
unto salvation.” “When you do this,
you know you are pardoned, because
God says so. Whatever is put between
this surrender, and the pardon of sins,
whether weeping, praying, or what not,
is unnecessary and out of place. Reli-
gion is loyalty to God.” In support of
this teaching he relates instances of
men who became the best of church
members without being conscious of
having “got religion” as he often ex-
presses it.
Thus you see he has entirely removed
the foundation upon which the mourn-
ing bench system of religion rests, and
I think he is sustained in it by nearly
we cannot afford to make any compro-
mises of the teachings of tho Bible on
gion of Christ. { [this important subject.
Sam Jones knows all about this, and If we would have a united church, to . ,
gives no countenance to any such the Bible we must come, not to direct
shams. * us in some things, but in all things.—*
He taught John Sharp for the first Gospel Advocate
time in his life, that his shouting and , -■
clapping of hands were not the irre-| A NOBLE REPLY.
pressive work of the Holy Ghost, and
X*
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entirely beyond his control. The preach- One evening in a parlor at a summer
er well knew when John’s shouts and watering place the young people were
convulsive movements commenced, that dancing. One young lady was not tak-
with a well-timed rhetorical effort he ing any part in the exercise.
could have thrown that vast crowd of “Does not your daughter danco?”
five thousand persons into a state of ..No „ WM the ,
wild and turbulent excitement, which
might well have passed for an over- “Why, how will she get on in th»
whelming, or baptism, of. the Holy wor^d •
Spirit. “I am not bringing her up for tha
But his purpose was neither to prac- world,” was the quiet answer.
tice such a deception, nor to address the i That young lady is now a woman,
emotional nature of his hearers. He and the influence of her consecrated
felt that he had more important work i life is felt in many of the Christian in-
on hand than that. He wanted to ad- terests of a great city.
1 . i -1 • y • . 11 i -I _ _ i „ - I
dress the higher or intellectual nature, j$ut £or wliat are you bringing up
to iorma onnsuan cuaraciei tuai «uum j- n- . - ...
,,. , all Bible reading Methodists in this
fit him for heaven, would have been con-
sidered little better than an infidel. countr^'
That was what was called “head reli-
gion.” “It would do to live with but
1 He ridicules the idea generally en-
tertained here among his people, in
not to die with.”
In these matters, the more considerate
and well informed Methodists have un-
dergone a considerable change in their
way of thinking of late years. They
have observ ed tlmt the subjects of the
reference to the call to the ministry. A
preacher has to read and think before
he can preach. Some of them think
that they have only to open their mouths
and they will be filled with the Spirit,
----------0-------- - . uui xui wuat juc yvu up
and make impressions that would ha\ e y0Ur daughters, dear mothers of other
a practical and lasting bearing upon y0ung gi^g ? Wbat aim have you for
their lives and characters. He there- ^em $
fore turned to the locality where he Are you bringing them up for the
observed evidences of the gathering U or(j or for worid g What are your
storm, and very quietly, but resolute- J Yearns and ambitions for them ? What ,
ly said, “Let us have perfect quiet, or IL0 y0U want to see them become ? Do
shall have to stop these sen ices. | y0U want them to shine in society, to
His preaching after that was not in- ‘‘marry well” and to live in wealth * Is
terrupted. It is true that there were | that the vision that fills your soul when
some shouting and rejoicing after his > you think of them ? Look on a little
discourse, but he was particular to have j further. Life is short. Suppose
the congregation to understand that it ] dream is fulfilled—is it anything
was only the rejoicing of anxious moth- than a dream ? '
ers over the coming to Christ of their
children.
your
more
Thus far it has afforded me much
pleasure to speak in connection of the
most s5^eVtCieman!SLfi!ns- oWhumbug gre'^work JttiTg^'p^chJr, fin
so-called—do S”alAJTJ™ i'Test | air‘f?un8 shoot oft' I holdin« u? the Bible 'Wth its Practlcal
so-caiiea—uo noi always give me uesi i ^ “
results, and on the other hand, some of I The preachers who have occupied, teachings, against human feeling and
the best members of the church and so-1 our pulpit here, have generally found it J compromis rs with the world. It is a
What lies beyond! The curtain is
drawn and there is the hushed chamber
of death. Wliat do you want for your
child then ? The curtain is drawh again
and eternity opens. What would your
fond affections choose for her .then! It
is better to think matters of this kind
through to the end.
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Burnett, Thomas R. Christian Messenger. (Bonham, Tex.), Vol. 11, No. 31, Ed. 1 Wednesday, October 14, 1885, newspaper, October 14, 1885; Bonham, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth914238/m1/6/?q=corinth: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Bonham Public Library.