Thirty Years in the Itinerancy eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 315 pages of information about Thirty Years in the Itinerancy.

Thirty Years in the Itinerancy eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 315 pages of information about Thirty Years in the Itinerancy.

The part borne by Father Chicks, as he was called, the head chief of the Stockbridge nation, also added not a little to the interest of the occasion.  He had been but recently converted, and his heart was overflowing.  To see such a religious demonstration on his own premises filled him with joy, and awoke within him the fiery ardor of those other days when his burning words had swayed his people to the good or evil, as the tempest bends the forest at its will.  Tall and erect in form, with a brow to rule an empire, he rose in the midst of the great assembly and came forward to the stand.  Every eye was fixed upon him.  Turning to the writer, that he might have assistance, if necessary, in the use of the English, by the timely suggestion of the right word, he proceeded to say:  “Me been a great sinner, as all my people know.”  For the moment he could go no farther.  His noble form shook with emotion, and his manly face was flooded with tears.  The whole audience wept with him, for his tears were sublimely eloquent.  Recovering himself, he simply added, “All me want now is to love him, Christ.”  Then turning to his people, with a face as radient as the sunlight, he began to address them in his own language.  I could not understand the import of his words, but the tones of his voice to our ears were entrancingly eloquent.  As he advanced in his address, his frame, now bearing the weight of four score years, grew lithe and animated.  Soon the whole man was in a storm of utterance.  Had there been no living voice, the attitudes and swayings of the body, the carriage and transitions of the head, and the faultless, yet energetic gestures of the hand, were enough to move the human soul to the depths of its being.  But to these were added the human voice divine with its matchless cadences, now kindling into a storm of invective, before which the audience shrank, like shriveled leaves in autumn, then sinking to sepulchral tones that seemed to challenge a communion with the dead; now wailing an anguish of sorrow utterly insupportable, and then rising in holy exultation, as one redeemed from sin and inspired with the triumphant shout of victory.

The address occupied only twenty minutes.  But for effectiveness I never saw its equal.  Bending forms and tears, groans and shouts, strangely commingled in the scene.  Eternity alone can reveal the results of the day.

Among the converts at Brothertown were several interesting cases.  I will only refer to one.  It is that of a very noted character, who “feared not God, nor regarded man.”  This man, whom I shall not name, was specially bitter against all ministers, and lost no opportunity to treat them rudely.  His family had taken the precaution to notify me of his bearing, assuring me that my visits to the house would be agreeable to them, yet they might subject me to abuse on his part, if not expulsion.  I at once resolved to make an effort to reach him, and in due time found an opportunity.  I discovered

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Thirty Years in the Itinerancy from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.