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History of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, Virginia Conference

by A. P. Funkhouser

CHAPTER IX

THE EARLY PREACHERS

Let us pass in review the "great meetings" that were so prominent a feature of the United Brethren movement in its early period.

Otterbein was a city preacher. With a single exception his pastorates were in places large for a time when American cities were few and small. And yet his greatest work was done in the country at those seasons of the year when meetings could be held in the open air or in large, tireless buildings. His leading associates, Boehm and Geeting, preached only to congregations of country people.

The great meeting took place once a year in a given locality, but sometimes twice. It began on Saturday and usually lasted three days. It was announced well in advance, and much preparation was made for the occasion. The great meeting was the event of the year, because some noted preachers came from a distance to hold it. Even the best settled parts of America were comparatively a wilderness to the end of the colonial age. Postoffices were exceedingly few, and the rates of postage were well nigh prohibitive. A letter was very often entrusted to some private person who could act as a messenger. Tidings of the meeting were therefore spread orally. Most of the attendants came on horseback or afoot, because there was no vehicle except the road wagon and not every trail could be used by it. Nevertheless, great crowds gathered, and the community was taxed to the utmost to feed and lodge them.

Sometimes the meeting was in the open air. But the thrifty farmer of German birth or parentage was quite sure to have an immense barn, and such a building served quite well to accommodate the throng. Newcomer once mentions a meeting in a mill.

These meetings were looked forward to with satisfac-

tion by the evangelists themselves. Finding themselves lonesome in their own formal denominations, they sought each other's society in religious gatherings. A leader in the great meeting found sweet fellowship in his associates. Other ministers were often present, and if they had the evangelical spirit they would take part.

The preaching was positive and dogmatic. "Thus saith the Lord," settled all questions. Great stress was laid on the new birth. The contrast was drawn between ruin and death by sin and salvation and eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ. Preacher and follower were alike spiritual and emotional. It was the common thing for penitents and converts to make their appearance at every service.

"The great tenet of this new preaching was a mystical union with God through Christ Jesus, causing a spiritual regeneration, which changed the heart so radically as to produce a new man in ideals and desires, and, therefore, in ethical conduct. Form and ceremony were nothing; everything was continued in spirit and life. From the nature of the case, the position assumed by these reformers on questions of morals and conduct was radical. Their religion was individual, their scriptural interpretation literal, and their ethical standards high. Hence they had little tolerance for what they deemed unscriptural."

During the intervals between two great meetings the people were left mainly to their class and prayer meetings. There was an occasional sermon if a preacher could be found. These prayer and experience meetings were held in private homes, the experience consisting in the feelings or ideas with respect to the inner and spiritual life. There were not yet any organized church activities, and all the people could talk of was what they thought or felt. Men and women accustomed themselves to oral prayer, and some of them could pray in public with great power and effect. These home meetings developed leaders, who were very instrumental in grounding in faith and hope the people who zealously followed them.

We now pass on to the period 1800-1830.

The United Brethren organization arose as a revival church. It took its adherents mainly from "Satan's side of the line," instead of from other folds or from people with a training in churchliness. "The early preachers were therefore heralds of salvation to lost men. When they had faithfully urged their hearers to flee the wrath to come, they considered their duty performed. After 'going over the circuit' and preaching gratuitously they went home. They built no houses of worship, gave no attention to the training of the young, set in motion no working activities, and collected no money, unless for the benefit of the poor."

So the preacher came, preached, and went home, and he paid his own way. He worked on his farm till well into Saturday, then rode a long distance, preached that night and two or three times Sunday, giving his religious experiences and his meditations on the Scriptures with special reference to the future life. All the people had to do was to hear the preacher, feed him and his horse, and then wait till he came again. It was the general opinion that preaching could be done by men almost wholly engaged in other callings and without previous training.

Otterbein and Boehm had licensed converts who felt it their duty to preach. This practice was continued and converts were often licensed immediately on their conversion. The preacher who could produce the greatest effect was considered to be moved by divine power. The convert called was in most instances in possession of a wonderful religious experience, and his sermon would enforce that experience with a powerful appeal calculated to stir the emotions tremendously.

It is not strange that with such a hasty method both ministers and members were often irregular and unreliable. Thousands of people know nothing of Christianity except as it is illustrated in the lives of those who possess it. Being unacquainted with the Bible and far from God, they have no other standards of measurement. Backsliding was likely to have a wide reaching influence. But a close discipline was put into practice in the new church. Hearing

complaints against ministers was a prominent feature in the proceedings of almost any conference.

A well-developed itinerant system did not come in a day. The early preachers in the United Brethren movement had some outside employment, on which they depended for support. They were really local preachers. Each formed a circuit about his own home, with the presence and assistance at irregular intervals of the leading preachers. He left home when he could do so with the least prejudice to his bread winning pursuit. It was ruled that those who preached only where they lived were to have no compensation, as d what they did collect they were to turn over to the benefit of the traveling preachers.

A regular itinerancy began in 1801, when ten preachers consented to travel as directed by their superior officers. Newcomer sought to improve the method thus begun. He considered the itinerancy an apostolic mode, and was quick to see its adaptability to new and thinly peopled districts, like those into which his church was penetrating.

The imperfect itinerancy of the pioneer epoch was criticized by Bishop Asbury. In his church the system was well organized and ran like clock-work. It was because of this efficiency that the Methodist Church was making its wonderful growth.

After 1830 there was better organization in the United Brethren Church, and a ministry that gave its whole time to the work, although its support was meager. The number of local preachers on the roll of the Virginia Conference has steadily diminished, and during the last quarter-century not one has been received.

Until 1841 the circuit-rider had a maximum salary of $80 a year if a single man, and twice that allowance if he were married. The salaries were then raised to $100 and $200, respectively. No higher compensation was allowed the bishop than to the preacher working under him.



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