Last Sunday, I preached on the 23rd Psalm. Today, I thought I would share the story of another shepherd, a man I knew when I lived in Utah.
Eddie O. Larson (late 1990s)
“How are we today,” Eddie asked with a big grin.
I always found him cheerful even though he’d known his share of heartache. His wife, Ned, the love of his life, had died of cancer in 1990, a few years before I met him. In his living room was a photograph of a large aspen tree. When the tree was small, Eddie had carved a heart and added his name along with the names of his wife and daughter. Carving on aspens was common among sheepherders. Eddie had forgotten about this tree, but as it grew so did the carving and one day a hunter came upon it. He photographed the tree, framed it, and presented it to Eddie as thanks for allowing him to hunt on his land. Eddie was pleased.
Eddie also loved his daughter. He doted on her and made sure she was well cared for. She was a few years older than me and mentally challenged. Although I never asked, I couldn’t help but wonder if his wife’s cancer and his daughter’s limited mental capacity had anything to do with those blinding predawn sunrises from the west Eddie and his wife experienced back in the early 50s when the herd was on the winter range in Nevada. Above ground nuclear testing was common in that decade as Eddie started out in the sheep business. Although the government said it was safe and there was nothing to worry about from the white ash that sometimes fell afterwards, we now know otherwise.
Eddie’s early life
The old Community Presbyterian Church 1927-1997
Eddie Oscar Larson was born in Southern Utah to Swedish sheepherders. His father, Oskan Ludig Larsson changed his name to Oscar Larson. He and his wife, Alma, had only one son rather late in life. Oscar was in his mid-50s and his wife in her forties when Eddie was born.
They were gentiles in a land in which most people followed the Mormon religion. There were three Swedish sheepherder families, along with a few government and railroad workers who made up the Presbyterian Church in Cedar City in the 1920s. The other two families were the Lindells, who sold out and moved in the 1950s, and the Lundgens, who are still in the area. I recently wrote about Roy Lundgen and his wife in this blog.
Eddie was first local resident to be baptized in the new church which was built in 1927, just a few years before his birth. The first baptism was for a child of the pastors, but they soon moved on. While often shunned in this religiously dominated world, his father was successful. They never lived extravagantly, but Eddie was able to go away to school. He first attended a Presbyterian boarding high school, Wasatch Academy, in Mount Pleasant, Utah. From there, he headed to Utah State in Logan, but had a hard time finding a place to stay as he was a gentile. If my memory is right, Eddie graduated from Westminster College in Salt Lake City. While he was in college, his father died.
Eddie had set out to be a coach but decided to follow his father’s footsteps and began to build a herd of sheep. While he never had the size of a herd as his father, he was very successful and limited the size to better manage his land. Eddie would run his herd, with the help of a hired hand, for most of adult life. Right before I left Cedar City and maybe five years before he died, Eddie finally sold his sheep. By this point, he was having trouble with his eyes. About a year before he died, he was moved into a nursing home. Age and illness had robbed this man of the things he enjoyed, running up and down the mountain in all kinds of weather and basking in the beauty of God’s creation.
A Proud Sheepherder
Eddie always proudly proclaimed to everyone that he was a sheepherder, even though for him it was business. For most of his time as a sheepherder, he hired another herder to stay with the sheep. This man lived in a sheep wagon and generally liked being alone. Occasionally his herder would come to town for supplies and drink, and after a few days of the latter, go back up on the mountain or out in the Nevada desert, where he’d dry out while tending and protecting the sheep.
Eddie made almost daily trips to check on his herder and the herd, bringing in groceries and feed for the horses. He’d help haul water for the sheep. Eddie kept around 1600 ewes in his herd. When that many animals are away from a watering hole, a lot of water had to be hauled. He had an old oil truck that allowed him to carry several thousand gallons of water. Such a herd also required many rams, along with horses and dogs to help with the work.
At night, Eddie did the books and dealt with government leases. Although Eddie was one of the largest landowners around, he still leased land for grazing, especially for winter pasture in eastern Nevada. The annual livestock banquet in Cedar City often honored Eddie. There, this humble man seemed larger-than-life. People knew he worked hard, and it paid off. Not only did he have a successful operation, he own a huge parcel of land up on the mountain, some in Nevada including a four acre spring that was the envy of Las Vegas, and a lot of commercial real estate in Cedar City.
The Seasons according to a sheepherder
Eddie lived by the rotation of the earth. In the summer, the ewes and lambs would feast on the grass in the high mountain plateaus. In late summer or early fall, he culled the lambs from the ewes and trucked them to market. It was always a guess as to how long to wait. The longer the lambs ate the mountain grass, the heavier they were and the more profit they’d bring. However, there was always the risk of early snows trapping the herd and then Eddie would have to haul in feed. This would eat up any profit he might have made.
Some years were harder than others. There was the year of the fire. With much of the grass on his range burned, the lambs had to be sold off early, when they were a good 20 pounds light. On another occasion, he told me about an early snow. The lambs had already been sold, but the ewes remained on the mountain. His truck was stuck in the deep snow. It took him a day to walk out. Hhis herder stayed with the herd which was nearly immobilized by deep snow. Getting back to town, he hired a bulldozer to come and clear a path so the sheep could make it down the mountain.
In the fall, as the aspen turn bright yellow, he’d ride a horse, trailing the sheep down the mountain and around the south end of town, using a 100-year-old livestock trail. As the days shortened, he and his hired herder would move the sheep from one alfalfa field to another, where the sheep would eat the remains left from the harvest as they moved toward their winter pasture in Nevada.
By December, the sheep roamed around the deserts of eastern Nevada, between Caliente and Pioche, where they ate sage and what grass remained from the summer. If there was snow on the ground, it was easy work. The sheep could also eat snow for moisture. But if there was no snow, Eddie and his herder had have to drive the old tank trunk to the warm springs at Panaca or another spring on the west side of his property, where they would fill it up and haul the water back to the sheep.
At the end of winter, Eddie’s sheep got to ride in trucks back livestock trailers as they headed east to the lambing barns near Kanarraville. They first sheared the sheep. Usually by men from Australia and New Zealand sheared the herds in the American West from late February through April. These crews would then returned home, shearing sheep Down Under in their spring which is our fall. Lambing always came after shearing. A sheared ewe had less problems giving birth. For a few weeks, Eddie would hire a host of people to help him by serving as mid-wives to the ewes. He was always in church on Sundays, except for this time of the year in which Easter often fell. During lambing, he lived by the lambing sheds.
Finally, as the weather warmed and the snows retreated on the mountain, they’d move the herd up to higher elevations, where the cycle would repeat itself.
My experience with Eddie
Part of the reason I felt called to Community Presbyterian Church in 1993 was the congregation’s vision of expanding and building a new church building. Eddie, the first local child baptized in the old church, volunteered to help raise the money for the new complex! He shared the vision for the church to grow and to serve the community he loved and helped us achieve it. We moved into a church complex in 1997. Just before I left Cedar City, in January 2024, Eddie donated mountain land to the congregation for use as a camp and perhaps a future conference center.
I am thankful for the few times I took Eddie up on his invitations to take a day off and ride with him. We’d head out early. Sometimes we stop for breakfast or coffee. In his truck, he’d have some groceries and a few tools to repair fences or gates, maybe a salt block or two. Depending on where the herd was located, we’d drive an hour or two, all the while Eddie told stories about his dad and about the sheep business and about how lazy the cattlemen could be.
There is little love between sheepherders and cattlemen, a feud that goes back into the 19th Century. Part of the anger between the two groups is that sheep can eat grass down to the dirt and if the cattle come in after the sheep, they are unable to graze. Another source of conflict came, according to Eddie, from the sheepherders who work harder, but also tend to make a lot more money than those who tend cattle. However, after World War II, many sheepherders sold their lambs for cattle.
When we were on the range, lunch was always at the sheepherder’s wagon. In the summer, we’d sit around under cottonwood trees. In winter, we’d all crowd inside the wagon, to get out of the cold and wind. The smells were enchanting. Pinion burned in the stove as coffee perked. Mutton was always served. Some days we’d eat it with potatoes and carrots, other days we’d have it in a sandwich, the bread slathered with mayonnaise and cheese. We’d wash it all down with coffee.
Some afternoons we’d scout out the next spot for the camp. Others, we’d take the tank truck out to the spring for water. As we drove around, Eddie would talk about the land. He showed me where he worked to stop erosion and to restore the grass that use to be more abundant. Over-herding animals in the first half of the 20th Century had taken its toll. When Eddie got into the business, he decided to run half as many sheep on the land as his dad and the previous tenants. His decision was slowly paying dividends and he was proud of his work and of his land. After he’d finished with the chores for the day, as the sun dropped in the sky, we’d head back toward town.
Eddie’s death
“When I was in my 20s and just starting out, I was told by another herder that sheepherding was a young man’s business,” Eddie confided in me one day. “Now I believe him.” Eddie died in 2008 at the age of 79. He was finally able to relax and let the Good Shepherd take over.
Sheep forging in an aspen grove on Cedar Mountain, 2008
Years ago, I read several books by Martin Clark and reviewed them in an old blog. Clark, a retired judge, just down the mountain from me in Stuart, Virginia. I meet him in person about a year ago. I’ve finally have read and now reviewed his most recent book. Much of his recent book takes place around where I live and serve in ministry.
A note about my reading: We’re 1/3 of the way through 2023. When I reviewed my readings from 2020, I noted that I needed to read more fiction and books by women authors. So far, I have exceed my 2022 totals for both categories.
Martin Clark, The Substitution Order
(2019, New York Vintage Books, 2020), 338 pages.
A substitution order is a legal term for when an attorney turns over a case to another attorney and a judge has to sign off on the exchange. This is just one of a string of events Protagonist Kevin Moore secretly arranges to obtain revenge on those who had scammed and helped ruin his life even more than he had already done. On his own, attorney Kevin Moore quickly developed a cocaine habit after trying it at a law conference. The urge to get high led to his quick downfall, ending in an arrest, the loss of his law license, and his divorce. While he confesses his mistake, he didn’t need someone trying to scam him from legal malpractice. But that happened.
With his life in ruins, Moore lives in a cousin’s house in Meadows of Dan, Virginia. Disbarred, he leaves his legal career and now spreads mayonnaise on sandwiches at the SUBstitution, a Subway knock-off in Stuart, Virginia. Substitution orders and orders at SUBstitution, Clark is a master at double-entendres. While working at the restaurant, Moore saves a puppy from a dumpster. He names the dog Nelson, and he becomes a part of Moore’s life. A stranger offers him an opportunity to benefit on a scam. Moore who (except for three months) appears to have lived the life of a Sunday School superintendent, declines. The stranger who offers Moore the chance also threatens him if he doesn’t participate with them.
It appears Moore’s life couldn’t get worse, but it does. A crooked probation officer plants dirty urine in his drug test as well as a gun and bags of drugs in his car. Moore finds himself in real trouble.
In the middle of his problems, Moore has a stroke. Thankfully, a farmer who was renting farmland from Moore’s cousin, happened to be driving by and see’s Moore collapse. As a member of the local rescue squad and fire department, he rushes in. Seeing the obvious symptoms, he takes Moore in his truck down the mountain to the hospital. Moore slowly gets better and falls for a home health nurse.
While he is getting better, he must deal with a legal malpractice scam. His insurance company is willing to settle, but Moore has an idea of what’s happening. To everyone else, Moore’s theory seems farfetched, and he must take things in his own hands. But everyone is skeptical.
It looks like Moore is going to attempt to run from the law. But there are some twists in the plot. Despite a somewhat happy ending, Moore spends time behind bar. He also would prefer everything would not have happened and that he would have never tried cocaine.
I enjoyed this book and surprised by the ending. My copy of the book came from a gift without an expectation of a review.
Martin Clark, The Many Aspects of Mobile Home Living
( )
This is one crazy book. My life has been crazy for the past few weeks and it has been a pleasure to occasionally retreat into Evers Wheeling’s world. Wheeling, a young district court judge in Norton, North Carolina is bored and ready for adventure. It arrives one day when the beautiful Ruth Esther English, one of the top car sales associates in the Southeast, seeks his help with her brother’s trial. She must get her brother Artis out of jail to help her recover money and a letter left by her father. Wheeling refuses to do anything illegal to help Artis, but when his case comes up, the police have screwed up the evidence so that he has no choice but to free him.
Soon everyone, including Evan’s brother Pascal, are off on a trip to recover the hidden money in Salt Lake City. Pascal, like Evers, had inherited a small fortune from their parents. Unlike Evers, Pascal lived as the Prodigal (except there was no father to come home to), and after blowing much of his inheritance, spends his days living in a double wide, smoking pot. Evers also has a fondness for the weed and seems to get most of his caloric intact in the form of distilled spirits.
When I reviewed Clark’s other novel, Plain Heathen Mischief, I noted that it had more twist and turns than Lombard Street, San Francisco. The Many Aspects of Mobile Home Living has more twist and turns than the highway out of Owen’s Valley and into Yosemite via Tioga Pass.
There are many characters and more than a few deaths and a lot of “who-done-it” questions. Those who die include Evers’ non-live-in wife (she refused to live in Norton). After Evers discovers her in bed with a “cow farmer,” they are locked in a divorce battle. Although her death seemed to be a suicide, it was also suspicious. At first, Evers seems a likely suspect, but then Pascal confesses although he later recants. Due to the many problems with his confession, he is offered a plea bargain that nets him only a couple of months in jail.
Of course, there’s more to the story but to tell it all would be to ruin the story. Read it and laugh. And don’t get too hung up on all the characters, because some just disappear without explanation and not all questions that are raised by the story get answered. The book may not be neat and tidy in that way, but such is life in a double-wide inhabited by a bunch of lazy pot smokers.
There are also many characters in the book. Paulette is a sharp dressed African American attorney from Charleston, West Virginia. Paulette represents Ruth Ester and later defends Pascal. Ruth Esther’s brother Artis is short and African American and obviously not blood related to his stately “white” sister. There are also boozing doctor and a handful of good ole boy cops. And then there are some mysteriously white tears. A hint of mysticism is found in the pages of the novel and at one point, I wondered if I was reading a legal thriller or fantasy. The mix-mash of characters create lots of humorous moments—such as when Judge Wheeling does a double take when he’s introduced to Artis, Ruth Esther’s brother, realizing there is no way they’re real siblings.
There are a few things in this book that I will have to blog about later. The first is the town of Climax, NC (yes, there is a town and when I was a high school debater, we often drove through it going to tournaments in the High Point, Greensboro, and Winston Salem area).
Next is William Jennings Bryan. The letter that Ruth Esther wanted was written by Bryan to a “teenage” lover of his, a letter which is real would have tarnished Bryan’s Puritan image. When I was in college, I did a paper on Bryan and discovered that I wasn’t at all interested in the Scopes Monkey Trial (for which he is remembered) but as him being a populist (probably in reality a socialist) candidate for President in 1896. He carried much of the nation. Although many in the religious right revere Bryan for being the prosecutor in the Scopes Trial, they would be horrified to realize that his political philosophy wasn’t anywhere near theirs.
The final thing I should blog about sometime is Salt Lake City. I’ve spent a lot of time in that city when I lived in Utah. Two corrections that I might suggest to Clark, you don’t need a cab to get from the Hilton to Temple Square (if I remember correctly, the Hilton is only two blocks west). Secondly, Mormons don’t’ wear crosses.
Martin Clark, Plain Heathen Mischief
(New York: Alfred Knopf, 2004), 398 pages. Reviewed in 2007
The Reverend Joel Clark has lost everything. The pastor of Roanoke’s First Baptist Church pleads guilty to having sex with Christy, a 17-year-old parishioner. He’s sent to jail for six months. When released, his wife serves him with divorce papers. He’s also issued a lawsuit from Christy. She hopes to receive five million for her emotional damages. With his world crumbling, he left with only one loyal friend, Edmond, who picks him up when he’s released and takes him to his sister’s house in Missoula, Montana.
On the way, they stop to see Sa’ad X Sa’ad, Edmond’s Las Vegas lawyer friend (Las Vegas, Edmond assures Joel, is just a little detour on the way from Virginia to Montana). Both guys are flim-flam men. They offer Joel a stake in an insurance scam. The disgraced preacher at first rejects the temptation, but when he’s unable to secure a job and he finds himself with a crook for a probation officer, he accepts the offer to make some quick cash so that he might help his sister and his former church (Good motives, bad ideas). As soon as he agrees to participate in the scam, Joel’s luck changes and he lands two jobs, one as a dishwasher and the other as a weekend fishing guide on Montana’s rivers.
Plain Heathen Mischief has more twist and turns than Lombard Street in San Francisco. Every time I thought I had the plot figured out, Clark threw another twist. This book was anything but predictable; making it both enjoyable to read while keeping me from doing other things because I was unable to put it down. I will not spoil the ending of the book by giving additional details of the plot except to say that Joel’s interpretation of “having sex” is a lot broader than our former President’s interpretation.
Through the misfortunes of Joel, many which he brings upon himself, Martin Clark explores ethics and morality. By seemingly resigning himself to the notion that he must do something, and the end justifies the means, Joel finds himself deeper and deeper in trouble. Although he preached grace, Joel appears to have little of it for himself. He seems to think it’s up to him to keep his former congregation and his sister afloat. Such a burden almost drowns him. The book also demonstrates how wrong we can often be about other people and their motives. Although Joel is an educated man with a master’s degree, he is naïve, which provides many comic scenes throughout the book.
I wonder about Martin Clark positioning Joel as a Baptist minister. In many ways, he seems Baptist in name only. I don’t know too many Baptist ministers (or any or ministers for that matter) who keeps Aquinas’ Summa on the nightstand. Joel also reads Tillich, Bonhoeffer, Niebuhr and Barth. Although Joel doesn’t drink, he doesn’t have a problem being with those who do, as we learn when he enjoys a night in Vegas, accompanied by Edmond and Sa’ad and three beautiful women.
My favorite characters in the book are Sophie (his sister) and Dixon (his boss at the outfitting service). Like Joel, Sophie’s life crumbled when her well-off doctor husband left her and took off for France in the hopes to make it as an artist. Although she has problems with organized religion, she comes off as a good person who refuses to cut corners or to do anything that’s morally questionable. Likewise, Dixon is a person who tries to do right. I love his comparing churchgoing to the blues.
Churchgoin’ to me is a lot like blues music. Everybody always talks it up, says great things about it, and you know its supposed to boost your soul, but when you actually do it, when you go sit in a smoky club for two hours hearing some old brother with a bum leg an a pair of Ray-Bands play the same slow, self-indulgent, strung-out three notes and squeeze his eyes shut, you start thinking, man, his crap ain’t so hot. Truth is, you’d rather be down at the Holiday Inn lounge tossin’ back dollar shooters, pawing the strange women and dancing to disco… (page 263)
My only complaint is that the book is a bit long. The story could be tightened up a bit, which I think might make the book funnier. However, I’m really shouldn’t complain. Not only did I enjoyed the book, I didn’t want it to end. I’m looking forward to reading Clark’s other book, The Many Aspects of Mobile Home Living. Martin Clark is a circuit court judge who lives in Stuart, Virginia.
Martin Clark, The Legal Limit
(New York: Alfred Knopf, 2008), 356 pages
Mason Hunt, the Commonwealth Attorney, has come a long way from his horrific childhood with an abusive father. Respected in the community, he’s married to a devoted and sexy wife. They have a beautiful daughter and live on a gentleman’s farm. He also has a dark secret, one that can destroy him. And then, fate turns against him. His wife is killed in a tragic car accident and his convict brother, with whom he shared the secret, decides he’s going to use the secret to get himself out of jail. Life unravels.
Gates Hunt, Mason’s older brother, took the blunt of his father’s blows, often protecting his younger sibling. Gates was a promising football player, but couldn’t hold it together and as a young adult, slipped into the world of drugs and crime. Mason graduates from college and goes on to law school. Home one weekend, Mason and Gates are riding together when they have a run-in with Wayne Thompson, Gates’ girlfriend’s ex. They were on a remote road, no one was around. Threatened, Gates pulled out a pistol, shoots and kills Wayne. The two of them flee. Mason creates alibis, which they rehearse over and over. He also takes his brother’s pistol and disposes of it. The crime goes unsolved.
Twenty years later, Mason has come back to his hometown as the prosecutor. His brother, having shunned a plea bargain and demanded a jury trial for a drug bust, is serving a long sentence in the state penitentiary. As a single parent after his wife’s death, Mason finds himself struggling to raise a teenage daughter. He also finds himself being wooed into supporting a business opportunity for the country, an opportunity which promises short-term jobs and is funded with money from the state’s tobacco settlement. Then, to get out of prison early, his brother fingers him in the unsolved murder of Wayne Thompson.
I won’t spoil the ending, but it suffices to say that Mason’s troubles are never truly over. The book demonstrates how secrets come back and haunt us. We also see howitzers are nearly unredeemable. Finally, we see how we get caught in our lies. Except for his youthful mistake, helping his brother beat a murder rap, Mason is a good man. In fact, his honesty and integrity (in all but this one area of his life) causes his downfall (he wasn’t about to let an innocent man take the fall for his brother’s crime).
This book raises many questions for the reader to ponder. What role does fate play? Why was Gates the older brother? Why does one’s wife die in an accident? It also raises questions about the evil intentions of some people (Gates, prosecutors, those in law enforcement, and those involved in schemes to spend tobacco money on a questionable development which only promise that they’ll be financially rewarded). Another question is about loyalty to family (Mason to Gates, Mason’s mother relationship to Gates, Mason to Curtis, his colleague who also have secrets, and Mason to his daughter). And finally, as the reader I pondered the question of justice. Was justice done in the case? Not really. We’re reminded of the Thompson family and their questions. A better question might be, “Could justice be done in this case?”
I enjoyed this book. The Legal Limit is not as funny as Clark’s other two novels, but in many ways, this is a more serious and tightly constructed work. I’m still pondering the ending of the book. Although I think I understand what Clark is driving at, I also feel that the ending is the weakest link in Clark’s cleverly told story.
(Random House Audio, 2013) 17 hours and 3 minutes.
I can’t say I have given much thought of what happened in the summer of 1927, but Bryson is able to make the year come alive. It was a time when America was on top of the world in most areas except for aviation. Partly due to the Great War and the invocations made before our entrance into the war, Europe held the lead. By 1927, commercial passenger flights were flown between London and Paris. While few American cities had airports, most cities in Europe did. Against this background was the “race” to fly non-stop from the United States to Paris. Most people thought larger planes with a crew to handle the flying and the navigation were required. Many of the top contenders were Europeans. Then Charles Lindberg comes on the scene, flying solo in plane without even a front window. Lindberg had barnstormed and flew across country for the postal service. He would surprise the world as he flew across the Atlantic and landed in Paris. Afterwards, New York City gave Lindberg the largest ticker tape parade seen up to this point in history. He would tour the country receiving parade after parade.
Other things also happened in America in 1927. This included Babe Ruth hitting a season homerun record that stood until the early 1960s. It was also a great year for another support, boxing.
In the political world, President Calvin Coolidge, not known for many words, made a sparse announcement. He was on vacation in South Dakota, where he informed gathered reporters that he would not seek his party’s nomination for the Presidency in 1928. Also in South Dakota, workers started carving on Mt. Rushmore. Others feared archaists and the summer would include the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti, two suspected archaists. America feared communists and radicals led to restricted immigration. Others took an interest in eugenics, a pseud-science that sought to create a better humanity by discouraging births of those supposedly of those of an inferior race. The Klux Ku Klan also enjoyed a national revival with their anti-black, Jewish, and Catholic views.
Ford Motor Company shut down its production of the Model T during the summer as it retooled for the Model A. Henry Ford, himself, who had shown his antisemitic strips in his newspapers, would cease making such statements. In Hollywood, motion pictures began to shift toward the “talkies.” A private meeting between the top bankers from the United States, Great Britain, France, and Germany were held. Their decisions would guide the world toward the Great Depression.
Bryson ties together these stories and more in a readable and sometimes even in a humorous manner. At the conclusion of the book, he looks ahead to the troubles of the Great Depression and the rise of fascism which led to Lindberg’s downfall from the public eye. America’s beloved aviator had befriended many in Nazi Germany and encouraged the United States to remain neutral as war clouds began to gather.
As I have enjoyed all the books I’ve read by Byson (especially A Walk in the Woods and Thunderbolt Kid, this book was a delight. I recommend it as a look back at our country almost a century ago.
Fleming Rutledge, The Undoing of Death: Sermons for Holy Week and Easter
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002), 360 pages plus copies of historical artwork depicting Jesus’ passion and resurrection appearances and notes.
These 42 sermons begin on Palm Sunday and continue through Easter Week, with most falling on Good Friday. The cross is central to Rutledge’s theology. She develops her theology of God reaching out to humanity through the cross. She defends the cross from distractors who either ignore or downplay its role in salvation history. Most of these sermons were not preached on Sunday morning. Rutledge often humorously builds up her audience by congratulating them on their faithfulness for showing up at worship.
These sermons are faithful to scripture. Rutledge not only builds her message from the text supplied. She also draws on other passages from the Bible to support her message. Her sermons reflect on issues going on in the larger world. Sometimes, she mocks the Jesus Seminar and others who like to “publish” scandalous ideas about the faith around Holy Week. She also makes it clear in many sermons that all of us are responsible for Jesus’ death, that it is not something to be pinned on the Jews.
This is a classic series of sermons and I’ll return to this resource during holy week. While I have known of Rutledge’s work and have read her articles and sermons in magazines, this is only the second book of hers that I read. During the last Season of Advent I read her book, Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ. Like her Advent book, I recommend this collection of sermons.
Caroline Grego, Hurricane Jim Crow: How the Great Sea Island Storm of 1893 Shaped the Lowcountry South
Read by Diane Blue (University of North Carolina Press, Tantor Audio, 2022), 12 hours and 35 minutes.
A late August 1893, a hurricane struck Hilton Head and the South Carolina lowcountry. The death toll included an untold number of African Americans who lived and worked in the region. The storm brought environmental destruction. Most of the crops died on the vine while salt water inundated many of the wells. Thousands of homes were unlivable, and the main industry (phosphate mining and fertilizer production) was ruined. The storm along with the rise of white supremacy would greatly change the region forever.
The 1893 storm occurred in the aftermath of the Reconstruction and as Jim Crow laws were enacted in the South. This created even more hardship for the former slaves in the low country. Grego explores the development of the region with its crops of sea island cotton and rice cultivation. Because the climate and disease, most of the whites who controlled the region abandon it during the summer months. The slaves in the low country developed a certain autonomy. Early in the Civil War, the Union captured parts of the low country. This allowed them places to refuel and supply ships setting up the blockade of the southern ports. And while the slaves were not immediately freed, this allowed them to live without the oppressive oversight of their owners. After the war, former slaves were able to own much of the land. Beaufort even had a black sheriff during this era. Most of the African Americans owned small farms that raised some cash crop along with subsistence food.
The storm was so destructive that it set in force a series of events that decreased the African American hold on the region. The Red Cross responded to the storm. They found themselves torn between those wanting white control of the region and the needs of the former slaves. Some white organizations within the state responded to a mistaken belief the Red Cross gave preferential treatment to blacks by creating a white-only relief organization. Grego explains how the white controlled governments surrounding the low country along with the state worked to encourage black migration. Theysought to bring this region into the Jim Crow era. Such events continued even into recent history as the region was “rediscovered” and many of the islands are converted to gated communities.
Of course, it was not only the storm that helped create an unfavorable environment that forced many of the blacks within the low country to move or to lose their land. Grego acknowledges the role of technology and cheaper production methods. Rice in the low country died out. This was because of fewer workers and cheaper methods of growing it in the Mississippi delta. The same is true with cotton, which also suffered from the boll weevil.
At the end of the book, Grego speaks of the “rediscovery” of the region. As it becomes a more popular destination, property prices and taxes go up, which continue to force out those whose families have lived on this land for centuries.
MY interest in the book and recommendations
I have been interested in this book since I first learned of it. From 2013 to 2020, I lived on Skidaway Island, in the low country of Georgia. This island was settled by former slaves after the Civil War. They abandoned the island after a later storm in the 1890s, I was curious as to the parallels. Grego mentions the other storms that destroyed communities along the coast and set up new communities on the mainland like “Pinpoint.” The residents of Pinpoint were known for seafood, especially oysters. Sadly, they lost their income in the 1960s when a causeway was built between the mainland and Skidaway Island. The causeway changed the salinity of the water and much of the area no longer produced oysters.
Grego mentions white “Red Shirts” who terrorized the black population in the later part of the 19th Century. I am curious about this group. A similar group also known as Red Shirts existed at the time in Wilmington North Carolina. In 1898, they brought terror on the black population of Wilmington and led a violent coup against the local government.
I wish I had read instead of listened to this book. The book is academic. While the woman who reads the book is clear and easy to understand, I found it choppy. By increasing the speed, I was able to mitigate this to some extent. As a warning, I am sure that many people might consider this book within the genre of “Critical Race Theory.” However, it’s history and we need to deal with it. I am glad to have read learned more about a region I called home for over six years.
12 years earlier, at the beach (and obviously going to church) with my grandparents and my uncle. I must have been about one and have no memory of this trip..
From the time I was twelve till I started working at the age of sixteen, I spent at least two weeks every summer with my grandparents. These lazy summer days were spent doing odd chores around their house and yard, racing bicycles with the kids next door, and occasional going with my grandmother to visit relatives, dead and alive. Some were living and others were dead. She felt I should know where all my ancestors were buried.
Every afternoon, my granddad would come home a little after five. Getting out of his truck, he’d yell, “Ready to go fishing?” Grandma had dinner ready. As soon as we finished, the two of us could take off to a lake, a beaver dam, or some farm pond where we’d fish till either a cloud blew up or the light had drained from the sky. Then we’d head home. Out back, under the floodlights by the porch, we’d clean our catch. Often, the next day, my grandma would fry up a mess of them for our dinner.
It was wonderful to fish with my granddad, but he wasn’t much of a talker when fishing. Instead, he allowed me to have a bit of independence and freedom, as he’d go one direction and send me off the other. I valued the freedom, but now wonder if the real reason was my granddad’s belief that fish could hear you talking. To fish, one needed to be quiet.
On this one evening, we fished in a rather large pond downhill from a house that belonged to people my granddaddy knew. They were not home. We drove around the house and my granddad parked his truck by the dam. With his fly rod, which is now one of my prize possessions, he fished one side of the lake. I crossed the dam and fished the other. I used a spinning rod and a Rebel, a top floating lure that when pulled fast would dive to about a foot under the surface and wiggle in a way that sometimes drove bass crazy.
After a few minutes of casting and coming up without a strike, I heard the muffled cry of a woman calling for help. I looked, but didn’t see anyone. The voice seemed to come from behind my grandfather, yet he didn’t seem fazed. When the cry came again, I shouted at my grandfather. He waved, said it was okay and that I was disturbing the fish. Well, it certainly didn’t sound okay and if someone was in peril, that should take precedence over fishing. When the cry came a third time, I knew someone was in trouble.
I dropped my rod. Checking to make sure my Kabar knife was safely stowed in its sheath on my belt, as I ran as fast as I could around the dam and up the hill. I kept yelling for my grandfather to join me., I couldn’t believe his hearing had gotten so bad, yet granddad didn’t budge. Instead, he yelled, “Come back here.” But I kept running. In my mind I had an image of saving some beautiful damsel in distress. I topped the hill, near the house, and started looking around frantically.
There was no woman in peril. Instead, there was peacock. Its feathers were displayed like the NBC logo. I didn’t think much about it, except that it was strange. Peacocks are not native to the Sandhills of North Carolina. After a few minutes of looking around and seeing nothing, I walked back down the hill toward my granddad. About halfway down, the cry came again. I turned and saw the peacock up on top of the hill emitting that high pitched cry and heard my granddad laugh behind me. Feeling a bit foolish, I went back to my fishing.
It’d have to wait for another day before I could make my debut as the new Lone Ranger.
Click here for another memoir piece of fishing with my grandfather.
I enjoyed HopeWords Writer’s Conference so much last year, that I attended it again last week. It’s amazing the conference can draw such talent and so many attendees to Bluefield, West Virginia. The city which grew up around a railroad hub to serve the coal mines in Southern West Virginia isn’t an easy place to access. There are few flights to the city, there is no longer passenger train service, and even the main interstate bypassed the city by nearly a dozen miles to the north. But this year, the conference sold out of in-person tickets and brought in an incredible line up of authors.
A tour of Bluefield and the surrounding area
Bramwell
This year they offered something new, a tour of the Bluefield area before the conference began, which took us around the city and to Bramwell, a city at the end of the Pocahontas coalfields. In our bus tour we saw some incredible scenery as well as examples of poverty of the region. After driving around Bluefield, our first stop was Bramwell, a town located west of the city. In the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, Bramwell was where the bigwigs who managed the Pocahontas mines lived and many of their mansions have been restored. During this time, the miners lived in shacks in small communities close to the mines. Today, Bramwell is famous for those wanting to four-wheel through mud. While touring this town, we were treated with the best milkshake in West Virginia at a restaurant in the old pharmacy. Our tour also took us east of Bluefield, up the winding highway 58, to overlook the city. This was the way you traveled through the mountains before the interstate with its mile-long tunnels was completed forty years ago.
Highway 52 overlook of Bluefield
The Conference
Miroslav Volf
The conference began with the keynote speaker, Miroslav Volf, a professor of theology at Yale. I reviewed his book, A Public Faith earlier this year. Volf spoke with sadness on how the university has given up on helping students understand how to have a meaningful life. Instead, starting in the 70s, the shift has been more on the means to a good life with the emphasis on students to “follow their dreams.” As he points out, when we follow our dreams, we pursue our means. The means then become our goals. A second challenge is that the old order in western philosophy has been replaced by a more pluralistic idea. In response to this shift, while acknowledging that we live in a pluralistic world, Volf began at Yale a program to have students explore what a good life looks like in different traditions around the world. As each tradition have claims on the truth, his goal was to have students seriously consider each claim by asking thoughtful questions about the good life and to whom we are responsible.
The question about to whom we are responsible led Volf into a discussion of his own faith in Jesus Christ and on how the myth that we are individuals disturb our world. We are not just individuals, but individuals who depend on one another and share a common vision. With Christians, this includes not just the living but also the dead (the community of saints).
Volf left us with two questions that disciples (and all people) need to ask themselves.
1. How do we want to make the world better, and
2. To whom are we responsible.
Volf on Saturday afternoon
Saturday, after lunch, Volf reappeared on stage with a discussion led by HopeWords’ founder, Travis Lowe. Here are some highlights:
“The story of the Bible is that God decided to make home among us.”
“I never write with the idea of audience in mind, instead when I write, I wrestle with ideas I’m interested in.”
“The chief virtue of a theologian is to be humble. We want to say something true about God.”
“We hope in God which means the future we hope for might be different than what we now think.”
Quoting N. T. Wright: “The future is not for us to be raptured, but for the earth to be restored.”
After Volf left the stage on Friday evening, we were treated with a concert by a bluegrass band, “Chosen Road.” We were also served delicious deserts made by members of local churches.
Saturday morning’s marathon session
Saturday morning was a marathon session with four back-to-back speakers.
Ann Voskamp
First up was Ann Voskamp. I have read some of her online writings but while I was interested in hearing what she had to say, her presence wasn’t what drew me to the conference. However, her talk, for me, was the highlight of the two day event. Voskamp began with the Biblical concept of the scribe (Judges 5:14, Ezra 7:6, Matthew 8:19, etc). She encouraged us to be scribes and to tell our stories within God’s larger story. Drawing on quotes from Martin Luther (“Satan hates the use of pens.”), T. S. Eliot, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and others, she offered inspiration for us to explore the gritty parts of our lives. “Jesus’ choses the small and the slow,” she reminds us, “so he can be glorified.”
She shared three ways to handle the pen:
Immerse yourself in the Word (read, understand, & live the Word).
Realize the power in a parable.
Trust that something happens beneath our pens.
And four ideas of stories
What is this book/story a theology of (suffering, creativity, community, etc). Dig into the truth
What is this book a psychology of (trauma, grief, love, etc). How do we understand, what are our felt needs.
What is this book a story of? Story is what moves us through a book.
What is this book an activity of? What is we want people to do after reading our books/stories?
Closing quote: “Shame dies when stories are told in sacred places.”
Esau McCaulley
Next on the agenda was Esau McCaulley. Having read his book Reading While Black several years ago, I was glad when it was announced that he would be one of the presenters. McCaulley, an African American evangelical scholar who studied under N. T. Wright, has found himself in a unique position as he critiques both the white evangelical tradition as progressive Christians.
McCaulley began his presentation by proclaiming that he never dreamed of becoming a writer. His plan, from his childhood, was to be a preacher within the black community. But after writing a few opinion columns, he found the Washington Post and New York Times reaching out to him. Pointing out that most writers speak of the need to find their voice, McCaulley said that for him it was finding his place. Coming from the black church in northern Alabama, going to an evangelical college in the Midwest, then doing doctoral work in Scotland allowed him to learn about place.
He spoke about culture which relates to our places in the world. Culture involves both God’s glory and human failure.
Drawing on 1 John “I am writing to make your joy complete” McCaulley outlined three insights into his writing:
It must come from me.
It must involve culture making (adding beauty and tearing down that which is wrong).
It must involve courage and joy.
Hannah Anderson
Last year, Hannah Anderson told her story, which is mostly outlined in her book, Humble Roots, which I read after last year’s conference. This year, she used her 45 minutes as an introduction for our last speaker, Katherine Paterson, to whom she insisted on referring to as “Mrs. Paterson.”
Anderson pointed out the changes that have come to writing as we live in a social media age. The goal of a writer is not to reveal everything, she suggests. Instead, we are to create characters or to reveal parts of our selves. There are stories we may not want to tell and that’s okay. She points to. Mrs. Paterson as a writer who tells “true” stories through fiction and reminded us of the truth of the Velveteen Rabbit, that real is what happens to you. She ended with a quote from Paterson’s first book, a primer on the Christian faith that was published in 1964, in which she reminds us that “grace tells you that you are not a commodity,” but that God wants to make you real.
In a way, Anderson provided an introduction for the President of Bluefield College to come out and present Katherine Paterson an honorary doctorate.
Katherine Paterson
Paterson began with a quip. “One of the advantages of being old is that you can’t hear praise. Because if you did, you might believe it.” I looked her up on my phone and learned that she is 90 years old! Paterson used the theme of the spies being sent into the promised land and suggested that writers need to be like Joshua and Caleb, who offer hope. She also pointed out that Jesus was a storyteller. Quoting Barbara Brown Taylor, she reminds us that stories need “pockets of silence,” or spaces where we can lay down our defenses and not be demanded for a decision. Instead, story is a place where transformation begins. Jesus does this by letting us decide who to identify within the parables.
Katherine Paterson speaking in the beautiful Granda Theater
Bridge to Terabithia
Years ago, I read Paterson’s book, Bridge to Terabithia, but I didn’t know the backstory of this book, which is her most famous one and won the Newberry Prize. She told about how, when her son was eight, his best friend was a neighbor girl who was struck by lightning while at the beach. Her son felt he had done something bad for her to have died. She struggled with this because she didn’t have a satisfactory answer why the world is a “dark land where bad things happen to good people.” Because we deal with a God of justice and mercy, we must struggle with such situations. Otherwise, we could just pass it off as random event. She wrote Bridgefor herself, as she tried to understand both the girl’s death and her son’s reaction to it. She also noted how there were those who criticized the book and acknowledged that any story that has power also has the power to offend. Then she offered several examples of people who had read the book as a child and reached out to her later in their lives, telling her how the book helped them through dark periods.
Drawing on an analogy of a waiting room for a children’s ICU, she suggested there are two kinds of parents who sit there. One is the Psalm 23 parents who see themselves and their child walking with God through the darkness. The other parents are the Psalm 22 ones who cry out to God in anger.
Quotes:
“We who work with words are loaded with dynamite, but can bring hope and healing to the world.
The most important thing is for the word to become flesh.
Afternoon session
The afternoon session included a discussion with Volf (see above) and a presentation by S. D. Smith and Lewis Brodgan. Because of another commitment, I had to leave before Brogdan spoke, but this year I came away with one of his books which I look forward to read. Last year I found him to be an engaging and thoughtful speaker.
S. D. Smith
Smith, along with Anderson and Lewis, is one of the original founders of HopeWords. He is a fantasy author, which is a genre I seldom read. As a speaker, he’s funny and began by making fun of himself and his lack of awards. His message warned the church that we often push the “creative types” into the enemy’s camp, but that we need such people in the church to help us make sense of the world.
While he doesn’t have an MFA, he used the letters in a different way to illustrate his discussion on writing.
M is for modesty (we write from our own center)
F is for fidelity (we are to be faithful to Christ and his church). “If our writing is not doxological, it will be diabolical.”
A is for audaciously (we are to be bold).
Smith also reminded us that in the big picture, we are between redemption and restoration (R&R, but it doesn’t feel so relaxing and restful). We are to live “until our death scene.”
HopeWords 2024
Part of next year’s lineup has already been set. The keynote speaker will be Daniel Nayeri, who is an Iranian-American Christian writer and author of Everything Sad is Untrue. Here is the link: https://madetoflourish.regfox.com/hopewords-2024 I hope I can attend again, but I am also hoping to once again attend the Festival of Faith and Writing at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan. God willing, I plan to attend one of these two events.
Through a series of essays, Muse sews together a patchwork memoir of his life in a quilt-like fashion. Some of these stories are humorous and while others are quite sad. Together, they provide important details of Muse’s life as a middle-aged man dealing with life changes along with environmental and racial issues facing our country. Muse looks at how his family background, his love of nature, the authors he’s read, and being a white male influences his views and creates the man he is today. Many of us reading these essays will find a helpful voice as we struggle through similar issues.
Born in Indiana, Muse is a Hoosier. His father was an alcoholic from rural Kentucky. In several essays, Muse explores his Appalachia roots, from his early travels to his grandparents with his father, to his return to Kentucky as an adult, long after his father’s death. Muse’s parents split when he was a child. He was mostly raised by his mother who struggled raising two boys. Muse found a place for himself playing football.
In college he met a student from Astoria, Oregon. Visiting her home, they took a car trip down the Pacific coast which changed his life. While the relationship didn’t work out, Muse fell in love with the West. Later, he fell in love with Paula, a ranger for the National Park Service. They married. Parts of this book feels like a love-letter to her. However, Muse is careful to protect her. While he mentions the harassment she experienced in the Park Service and the lawsuits, he doesn’t go into detail. Instead, he lets his readers know that’s her story to share.
Muse has worked in a variety of positions as he followed his wife’s career around the country. His employment mostly involves outdoor education and park interpretation. Starting in the Pacific Northwest, they have also served at Pipe Spring National Monument (where she worked as Muse took seasonal positions at nearby Zion National Park). They have lived in the Upper Midwest, where he worked on a boat taking tourist up the headwaters of the Mississippi. When the National Park assigned her to Charleston, SC, Muse took a job at a local plantation teaching about slavery. This position allows Muse to explore his white privilege and deal with the issue of race. Shocking, the fire towers in the American West, where one seasonal employee lived, are approximately the same size as slave cabins in which whole families lives in the American South. At the end of the essays, Muse and Paula leave the South and return to the West.
Along his travels, Muse studied creative writing. One of his professors in an MFA program taught “you can only come from one place.” Muse uses this concept to dig into his Hoosier background, but I found myself thinking these combined essays refute this idea. While he’s from Indiana, each new place and experience adds to his experience and combined creates him into the person he has become. While a Hoosier, I think he’s also a Westerner, drawing from the rainy Pacific Northwest and the arid southern deserts.
As I read these stories, I found myself pondering my own experiences and decisions. Surprisingly, there are many similarities, such as how a futile attempt to woo woman brought us both into an appreciation of the American West. Muse often quotes authors who have influenced his thinking, and I have read most of their works. Finally, Muse attempts to understand issues of race while working in South Carolina. Growing up Southern, I have been very conscious of race and its role in my life going back to at least the third grade.
Dear Park Ranger contains eighteen well-crafted essays. I recommend the book, especially for those who enjoy the wilderness or learning how a person’s experiences inform their lives. I was provided an advance review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
The author’s mini biography:
Jeff Darren Muse
From crawdad creeks and public wildlands to college classrooms and prison gardens, Jeff Darren Muse has worked throughout the United States as an environmental educator, historical interpreter, and park ranger. As a writer, he is inspired by Brian Doyle’s dictum: “The essay is a jackdaw, a magpie, a raven. It picks up everything and uses it.” He has published in Ascent, The Common, High Country News, and River Teeth, among others. Today, while working seasonally as a wilderness ranger in northern New Mexico, Muse lives with his wife where the aspen-studded Sangre de Cristo Mountains tumble into Santa Fe.
I wrote this back in 2015 and pulled it out as a piece for a memoir. It’s a true event that occurred when I drove West for the first time. On the way out, I stopped first in Nashville, where I met a friend that’d hike with along the Appalachian Trail. Then I headed to St. Louis, where I stayed at my great uncle and wife’s home on the western side of the city. Leaving their home, I was entering land that was new to me (I’d been to St. Louis a few times and once flew into Kansas City for an assignment in St. Joseph. But I had never step foot on the land between Kansas City and California. I’ve attached two photos (somewhat scratched) from that trip across Kansas. Sadly, I never got a photo of the red and black ’55 Buick.
My destination for this trip was to visit a seminary classmate at Hill Air Force Base in Ogden, Utah, then to Camp Sawtooth in Idaho where I’d spend the summer. From there, I would go on Virginia City, Nevada where I would spend a year as a student pastor. I have posted a number of stories from that time: Becoming a preacher,Matt,Doug, Christmas Eve 1988
A Katy Train in Eastern Kansas, June 1988 (copied from a print)
My stomach growls, but I want to get through the congestion of Kansas City and Topeka before stopping to eat. It has been five hours since breakfast outside of St. Louis at Homer and Bebe’s home. Since leaving their home in Pacific, I’ve only stopped for gas and to pick up a new map at the Kansas welcome center. As I put the miles behind me, I’m in unfamiliar territory. I’d spent time in Missouri but had only flown over the vast territory between Missouri and California.
As I drive west, I notice a strangely familiar car, a ‘55 Buick with a red body and black top. It’s travelling just a little slower than me. I turned on my blinker and moved into the left lane to pass. When I pull beside the car, I looked over at the driver. His left elbow sticks out of the window, and he holds the steering wheel with his right hand. He’s wearing a white tee-shirt and a beige hard-shelled jungle hat.
“It can’t be,” I think.
I take a second look. Is this an aberration? The car is identical to the first car I remember riding in and the man driving looks just like my dad did when he was younger. I remember as boy fishing in Dunk’s Pond with my dad. He wore that same style of hat and a white t-shirt. And, in the days before air conditioned vehicles, he often hung his left elbow out the window.
“What had happened to the car and dad’s hat” I wonder as I pulled around the Buick. As I sped down the highway, I kept glancing back in my rear-view mirror, thinking about my dad and wondering about that man who could have been his twin.
I decide to stop at the next intersection with a place to eat, but after passing a few exits with nothing, I gambled on the next town. I pull off at Paxico. There’s nothing at the interchange, but I followed the signs across the Southern Pacific railroad and then, paralleling the tracks, into a small town with a decisively western feel. The air is stifling hot as the humidity builds, but I need to stretch my legs. I walk the length of the commercial district, the few buildings that still exist each having an awning over a wooden sidewalk to shade those passing by. Then I head out by the railroad tracks and watched a west bound train rush through without slowing down.
After a few minutes of walking and watching the train, I head back to the bar and grill. It’s cool and dark inside. It takes my eyes a few minutes to adjust as I grab a seat at a table and ordered a hamburger. A radio plays in the background. Between country music songs, there are advertisements for farm implements and reports on crop prices. At the bar, three men in overalls drink drink beer and discuss the weather, hoping they’ll get some rain out of the storms forecasted for later in the day. I eat, taking it all in. I feel free as I’m on my own and have been racking up the miles.
Thirty minutes later, after paying my bill, I’m back in the car heading west. I watch in fascination as the clouds builds on the horizon. I dreaded this drive across Kansas, but I find myself intrigued by these gentle hills and rich dirt. As the clouds become darker, I notice a bolt of lightning and then another and then it hits. A tremendous wind is blows against my car. I hold on to the steering wheel with both hands. Then comes the rain, racing in sheets across the prairie. Soon, drops of rain and hail pound the roof with such force that it drowns out Steely Dan cassette playing in the car’s stereo. I slow down. Under an overpass, I notice a group of motorcyclists seeking shelter.
Soon, the storm passes. Steam rises from the highway, making distant views hazy. I pick up speed. Ahead, out of that haze, I see the car again, that 55 Buick. It’s way ahead, but I’m gaining on it.
I will pass him several more times today and even tomorrow morning, the last being just before I leave I-70 and take 1-25 north toward Cheyenne, Wyoming.
Sunset over western Kansas (copied from a print photo)
I’ve been gone for the last nine days. Last week, I attended the Theology Matters Conference at Providence Presbyterian on Hilton Head Island in South Carolina. This is their third conference and they’ve all had excellent presentations. This was no exception. Then I headed down to Skidaway Island, where I lived outside of Savannah. There I met up with some friends I used to gather with for late Friday afternoon board meetings. I also got in some sailing with other friends. Then I drove up to Wilmington, NC, to see my dad, along with one of my brothers, my sister, and some friends. While the wind kept us off the water, I did do some hiking around Carolina Beach State Park. I came home yesterday. Below, I review three books I read while away:
Douglas W. Tallamy, The Nature of Oaks: The Rich Ecology of Our Most Essential Native Trees
(Portland, Oregon: Timber Press, 2021), 197 pages including references, planting guides, and index. Many photos.
The author moved to a new home in Pennsylvania in 2000. Shortly afterwards, he collected an acorn from a nearby white oak tree. Planting it in a container, it sprouted. After it grew some, he replanted on his property. After 18. years, the white oak is still young, but nearly forty feet tall. He author comes back to this tree, which serves as his laboratory for studies and his example for talking about the lives associated with oaks. This book is organized month by month as we gain insight into what’s happening to the oak as well as those whose lives depend on oaks. Such lives include not just insects and caterpillars living on the oaks, but also birds and other animals that feed such animals.
This book is a delightful read. While I have known that trees often have bumper crops of acorns and other fruit, I never knew it had a name (masting). I always assumed this phenomenon helped overwhelm animals depending on certain seeds, knowing that they couldn’t eat all of a bumper crop and some seeds will help the plant reproduce. I learned this is only one of three possible answers to the question of “masting.” Nor did I know that blue jays will often bury acorns up to a mile from the oak that produced the seed. Nor did I know that oaks provide a larger percentage of the insects needed by songbirds to survive than other trees. While I certainly knew that oaks and even more so, birch, hold their leaves sometimes through winter, I know why or that there was a name to describe this phenomenon (marcescent). Even more amazing is Dolbear’s Law, which accounts for how fast crickets chirp based on the temperature. These are just a few of the interesting facts presented by Tallamy in his book of wonder.
Tallamy warns us of overusing insecticides, which have devastating impact on wildlife (especially birds). He shows how the oak is quiet resultant, often surviving attacks by insects and even plants like mistletoe that live in its limbs. Because of this book, I’m going to find some white oak acorns and plant them on my property! Of course, don’t expect this book to teach you how to tell the difference between a white, red, or black oak. This is not a guidebook, but a book that describes how a specific tree can benefit our world.
Thorpe Moeckel, Down by the Eno, Down by the Haw: A Wonder Almanac
(Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2019), 127 pages.
I picked up this book because when I was younger, I felt the call of the Haw River and wanted to spend as much time as possible running its rapids. I’d never paddled the Eno, but I knew of it. I was expecting to learn more about these two streams. Reading the book, I was shocked to learn that wasn’t what the book is about. Instead, the author who is also a poet, spent a year collecting these thoughts while living in the North Carolina piedmont. He’s drawn into the woods. While he mentions rivers, he doesn’t identify which one. Other times, he’s visiting a pond instead of a river or describes walking in the woods. His focus is to describe in detail what is going own around him. It must have been a year with many hurricanes striking the coast for Moeckel describes their aftermath after they pour out their water over the piedmont and mountains.
Like The Nature of Oaks, Moeckel divides his thoughts by months. In each month, he makes multiple trips into the woods. He’s observant and his writing reads like a prose poem. It took me a few months to really get into his writing. By the end, I was sad there were no more months. To read about my first experience with the Haw and another book review of the river, click here.
Rick Bragg, A Speckled Beauty: A Dog and His People
(2021, Audible), 6 hours and 22 minutes.
The thing about dog stories which have haunted me since I watch Old Yeller as a kid is that in the end, the dog dies. And I have shed more than my share of tears over the death of dogs, both those I’ve known in life and those I’ve read about. The good thing about this book is that Speck doesn’t die. He lives on with us, still chasing cars and animals and rolling in stinky dead stuff. As Bragg claims, his dog isn’t a “good boy,” but he still uses that term. When Bragg is away from home, his mother, or his brother (who lives next door) are likely to throw Speck in jail (the outdoor pen). But Bragg has a soft heart from this stray dog that showed up one day at his house. The dog was missing an eye and beaten up, having obviously been in a few fights. Bragg cleans him up and as he recovers, takes him to the vet. It was just what a man, who had a host of health issue, needed. He nurses the dog back to health and in a mysterious way, the dog helps him overcome heart and kidney failure, cancer, and other ailments of a man beginning his sixth decade.
I listened to this book. The author reads the story. His slow voice tells the story in a way that I might have been out on the back porch listening. Of course, I wasn’t. I was in a car on a six-hour drive to a conference on Hilton Head Island. While this book might be classified as a memoir of him and his family, he doesn’t focus on himself. Furthermore, Bragg’s humor is often self-effacing. He says he’s living in his mother’s basement (but if I remember correctly, in one of his other books he admits to buying his mother a house and land). And once COVID hits, the dog becomes a cherished companion.
Bragg will have you laughing and crying, sometimes in the same paragraph. This is how storytelling should be done.
I am going to do something different and post an old article from a peer review journal. I became interested in A. B. Earle and his west coast revivals while I was writing my dissertation. Afterwards, I spent much time searching out sources of his travels to complete this narrative This involved spending lots of time looking at microfilm of old newspapers. The article was published in the American Baptist Quarterly, volume XXV, #3 (Fall 2006). I apologize for the length of the article. Save yourself some time and skip the footnotes!
Bringing in Sheaves: The Western Revivals of the Reverend A. B. Earle, 1866-1867Charles Jeffrey Garrison
“Away with it! Away with him! Away with the evidence!” Over and over, the Reverend A. B. Earle slightly changed the phrase to emphasize Jesus’ continual rejection by the Pharisees. Each story recalled accentuated the danger of not accepting Christ, the implication being that those who rejected him had lost their chance at salvation. Basing his sermon titled “The Unpardonable Sin” on Matthew 12:32, Earle described the sin as continually saying “‘no, no, no’ to the offers of mercy until you are a sinner let alone or given up by the Holy Spirit.”
In setting out his argument, Earle asked and answered four questions:
What is the unpardonable sin?
Who commits the unpardonable sin?
How does this sin show itself after it has been committed?
Why can this sin not be forgiven?
This sermon encouraged his listeners to act, not wait, for there is an eternal urgency for them to accept Christ as their Savior. After making his case, Earle draws the sermon to close, telling a story from the Civil War the nation had recently experienced, emotionally tugging upon the hearts of his listeners.
According to the story, a soldier had a wound that required a surgeon to amputate a limb near the joint where it attached to the torso. It appeared the surgery had gone well, but then he began bleeding. The surgeon was called over and he found the open vein and sewed it up stopping the bleeding. This happens several times. Earle, a good storyteller, provided detail to build suspense. After having stopped the blood on several occasions, blood then began to flow even more freely. A nurse, placing his thumb over a large artery, called again for the surgeon. This time, the surgeon discovered he couldn’t sew up the vein without the nurse removing his thumb. The artery was so large if the thumb was removed, the soldier would die immediately. The soldier was given the news and arrangements made for him to prepare for death. He dictated letters to loved ones and made arrangements for his death. When he was done, he thanked the nurse and told him he could remove his thumb. The nurse then faced a severe trial for he knew he could not go on holding the artery forever, but also knew that as soon as he removed his thumb, the man would quickly bleed to death.
“I think I feel very much as this nurse did,” Earle told those gathered, “fearing, as I do, that with many in this congregation the crisis has come when you are to decide where you will spend eternity.” Then after a few more remarks, he asked those who intend to serve God to rise. Earle preached this sermon throughout his revivals on the West Coast during 1866 and 1867 and credited it with bringing “no less than five thousand souls… to embrace Christ.”[1]
For nine months during 1866 and 1867, the Pacific Coast of the United States buzzed with excitement about the Reverend A. B. Earle, a popular preacher from the East. During this time, Earle traveled up and down the coast, from San Francisco to Portland and inland into the mining districts, leading revivals. Because many of those in the West had roots in New England and New York, they were familiar with revivalism and turned out in large numbers to hear this celebrated preacher. This paper examines the work of the Reverend A. B. Earle in the American West in the years following the Civil War. During this time he was one of the two most popular evangelists in the United States, the other being William Boardman.[2]
In order to understand Earle’s revival methods, one must first have an understanding of the context with which he worked and from which he came. First, this paper will review the role revivalism played in the Northeastern United States in the first half of the nineteenth century. Then, it will review Earle’s life and ministry prior to accepting the invitation to preach throughout the West. Next, it will discuss Earle’s work in the American West, looking at both where he labored as well as the style of his revivals. Finally, the paper will examine impact of Earle’s revivals.
The Context of Revivalism in American
Shortly after the turn of the nineteenth century, America entered a second period of intense revivalism. Starting on the frontier, with a rural communion meeting in Bourbon County, Kentucky, these revivals spread throughout the young nation.[3] On the frontier, these revivals helped bring a new generation, one that had moved away from the established churches in the East, back into the fold. But the frontier genesis of the Second Great Awakening quickly shifted to the cities under the leadership of evangelists such as Charles Grandison Finney. Instead of bringing religion to settlers who had moved away from organized churches, Finney brought religion to individuals living in the shadows of church steeples. Finney and others like him adopted several new techniques to cultivate the revivals and ensure their success. In advance of his revivals, Finney organized prayer meetings to prepare the hearts of those involved. He also employed every available means to advertise the meetings. The printed word excited the young nation and Finney printed handbills and posters as well as utilizing newspapers to his advantage. Finney also arranged for special music which drew crowds, held special services for women who were allowed more freedom in his meetings, scheduled them when most people were free to attend, cultivated lay leadership and worked across denominational lines. Converts from Finney’s revivals provided leadership for Abolitionism and other reform movements, even though Finney himself did not support legislating morals. Instead, he focused on evangelizing individuals in the hope conversions would lead to a change of heart and behavior that would eventually transform a nation.[4]
In the aftermath of the Second Great Awakening, America witnessed an explosion of lay-led, religious-based organizations focusing on single issues such as Abolition, temperance, labor reform and Sunday School promotion. Even though the excitement of the Second Great Awakening ebbed during the mid-1830s,these groups flourished, bringing religion into the public sphere.[5]
The next major nationwide revival began in the September 1857 when Jeremiah Calvin Lanphier, a former businessman and lay leader in the New York City’s Fulton Street Dutch Reformed Church began holding prayer services at lunchtime for businessmen in the financial district of the city.[6]The telegraph and newspapers spread the excitement throughout the nation. This “national Pentecost,” as Timothy Smith called the revival, led many to hope that an “America baptized in the Holy Spirit” could “destroy the evils of slavery, poverty and greed.”[7] Although Smith may overstate the goals of the revival, it impacted the entire nation, with a number of its converts playing a major role in the nation’s religious history for the next half century.[8]
The revival that began in 1857 marks several shifts in American religious history. While earlier revivals provided opportunities for women to participate, the mid-century revivals began during a resurgence of masculine Christianity. At his first businessmen prayer meeting, Lanphier asked a woman to leave because he felt her attendance would discourage men from attending. However, as with the earlier revivals, women soon played a role, and church membership statistics for the period indicate that more women than men made a formal commitment to join a congregation.[9] The mid-century revivals were known for their civility. Order was a primary concern in these revivals and revivalists were proud of the business-like attitude of the services. Of course, this does not mean that feelings or emotions played no role in the revivals. Prayer, testimony and hymns, which had gained popularity in churches during the first half of the nineteenth century, were all employed to set the stage for conversions.[10]
One major difference in the revivals of the late 1850s, when compared to earlier revivals, is the lack of a groundswell of ethical concerns following the revival. Converts from earlier revivals provided volunteers for the “benevolent empire.” The only volunteer association to come into national prominence following the 1857-58 revivals was the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), which had been imported from England in 1851. Kathryn Teresa Long’s in-depth study of the revival found no other social or ethical impact from the revival. Instead, she discovered evidence to the contrary, that revival leaders sought to privatize religion and avoided topics such as slavery that might offend businessmen with interest in the South.[11] Supporting Long’s thesis that the revival encouraged a conservative and privatized faith, Sandra Sizer’s study suggests that the conservative and businesslike pre-Civil War revivals were a forerunner to Moody’s revivals later in the century.
Even though the revivals of 1857-58 were more businesslike than the Second Great Awakening, there were also more radical shifts taking place in American religion during this same era. Perfectionism, or the second blessing as it was commonly called, played a limited role in these revivals.[12] This radically Arminian concept maintained that one could, through prayer, overcome sinfulness and thereby obtain a perfect state while on Earth. The doctrine was a precursor to the holiness movements that would occur toward the end of the century. The Reverend A. B. Earle, during this period, began to seek a “second blessing” or, as he called it, “the rest of faith.” He would experience this “rest,” according to his autobiography, at Cape Cod, on November 2, 1863 at 5 P.M. Earle refused to call this a “sinless perfection,” preferring to describe it as a “rest of faith” in the “fullness of Christ’s love.”[13] From available sermons, it appears he downplayed this experience in his evangelistic preaching. Even though Earle considered this an important experience for himself, he never made it an issue in his preaching which allowed him to work with a variety of denominations, including those that eschewed such beliefs.[14]
Revivals in California
As historian Kevin Starr notes, during the first year of the Gold Rush, almost half of the ships anchoring in San Francisco Bay were from New England ports. These ships contained men who had grown up with revivalism, some of whom shared New England’s messianic hope to be the “founding race” of California. Joseph Augustine Benton, a graduate of Yale and founder of First Church Sacramento, in his Thanksgiving sermon of 1850, visualized California in the same way his Puritan ancestors saw New England. California, with all its abundance, was to be “America’s City on a Hill by whose example the Orient would be brought to Christ.”[15] A common assumption among early religious leaders was that gold in California had been hidden by God until the region was firmly in the hands of the United States so that the state’s wealth could bless America.[16] However, even with such an optimistic outlook, the clergy who came to California during the state’s early years found themselves with an impossible task. Although churches in cities like San Francisco and Sacramento flourished, there were still large sections of the population shunning organized religion. But religious leaders continually tried to “civilize” California, which included bringing one of their own, the Reverend A. B. Earle, to lead the first concentrated set of revivals throughout the region.
Some religious leaders on the West Coast understood the challenges they faced in California. An 1865 editorial in The Pacific, a religious newspaper published in San Francisco,[17] called for a new type of evangelism for California. The editorial compared attempts to build permanent churches in mining camps to that of building a church for Mississippi raftmen along the banks of the river. Neither were stable communities. The editorialist went on to encourage all denominations to work together for the common goal of evangelizing the Pacific Coast and to avoid competition which wasted resources. Often, several denominations strove to build the first church in a town, a policy that often resulted in a surplus of churches once the initial mining boom was over. The Pacific, aware that the challenges they faced in the West were complicated by efforts of the Eastern denominations to rebuild churches destroyed in the South during the Civil War, called for unity in establishing a Western theological seminary to educate clergy for the West Coast. Furthermore, the newspaper called for a unified revivalistic campaign, a “new Great Awakening,” that would strengthen California’s churches as earlier awakenings strengthened the church in the East.[18]
Revivals and revivalistic preaching were not unheard of in California. During the early days of the Gold Rush, Methodist pastor and revivalist William Taylor conducted a street preaching campaign in San Francisco. Taylor would return to the East where he played a role in the 1857-58 revivals. Like the circuit riders in the Eastern Frontier, Taylor traveled throughout the state preaching wherever he could find an audience, from saloons to wharves, and ministering to those in need. Taylor was especially noted for his work in hospitals. From 1848 to 1856, Taylor worked in California, impressing those who heard him.[19] The Awakening of 1858-59, which rocked the rest of the nation and especially the Northeast, was felt to a lesser degree, in California.[20] In 1859, the brother of Charles Finney moved to California. Although not a revivalist like Charles, George Finney spent his time organizing new Congregational Churches and promoting temperance.[21] In the 1860s, Protestant Churches in many communities, heeding the call by the Evangelical Alliance, joined together for a week of evening prayer services each January.[22] Many revivals were felt locally such as the one at the Methodist Church in Santa Clara in 1863 when more than a hundred joined the church.[23] The mining community of Columbia, California experienced a period of revival arising from the 1866 New Year’s prayer services.[24]
California did not experience the horrors of the Civil War, but like the rest of the nation, they were relieved at the war’s conclusion. Many saw the war as an “Apocalyptic contest.” Those on the Northern side identified their cause with the establishment of the Kingdom of God. At the end of the war, there was great hope the evangelical cause would continue to advance.[25] Although there were Southern sympathizers in California, the state was strongly Union and mourned the death of President Abraham Lincoln. In California, as with the rest of the country, memorial services were held in honor of the slain president who was revered for holding the union together and removing the stigma of slavery from the nation.[26] The optimism at the war’s end and the recent religious interest demonstrated during the Lincoln memorial services set the stage for the revival.
The first concentrated attempt at a unified revival in California by the Protestant Churches occurred shortly after the Civil War when, in July 1866, the San Francisco Ministerial Union invited the Reverend Absalom B. Earle to labor on the Pacific Coast. The Ministerial Union selected another nationally known evangelist, the Rev. E. P. Hammond, known as a children’s evangelist, as their second choice.[27] In preparation for the expected arrival of a well-known revivalist, ministers were encouraged to preach repentance. The Ministerial Union also instituted a daily inter-denominational prayer meeting held at Calvary Presbyterian Church during the noon hour, obviously borrowing on the success of such meetings during the 1857-58 revivals. On August 30, 1866, The Pacific reported that Reverend Earle had accepted the invitation and noted his plans to visit San Francisco.[28] Earle believed “that Christians of every name should work together” for the “Redeemer’s cause.”[29] His emphasis on “union revivals” was what the ministerial society hoped to see on the West Coast.
A. B. Earle
Absalom B. Earle was born in Charleston, New York. On November 13, 1830, at the age of 18, he preached his first sermon in the small upstate town of Truxton. His text was Matthew 28:20, “Lo, I am with you always.” Two yoked Baptist Churches soon called him as their pastor. Later, Earle would develop an evangelistic talent and leave the pastorate for what became known as the sawdust trail. Following Finney’s example, Earle devoted his work to “union revivals.” By his own admission, after 50 years of ministry, he had conducted over 800 series of revival meetings representing twenty-two denominations.[30] In addition, Earle wrote an autobiography and a spiritual autobiography as well as a collection of devotions for individual and family worship and edited a revival hymnal.[31]
Earle’s preaching style was generally praised for his lack of sensationalism, but Earle had a stock of stories designed to tug at the hearts of his listeners. In his autobiography, Earle devoted a chapter to two such “incidents.” Both cases involved a young girl who died. The first story is about a girl dying, but who hung on to life until her mother promised to accept Jesus as her Savior. The girl then died in peace and was with her Lord while her mother worked on her father’s soul. In the second story, the daughter of a skeptic had died. The broken father could only say as they closed the casket, “I’ll never hear her call me father again.” After the service, Earle told the man that he wasn’t so sure that he wouldn’t hear her call him again, that she was now “walking those ‘golden streets,’ and perhaps is this moment saying, ‘I wish my dear father was up here—it is so beautiful.’” After some thought, he proclaimed his intention to “seek Jesus.” According to Earle, the man later set out “preaching the glorious gospel of the blessed God; and little Josephine, who is waiting ‘across the river,’ may again call him ‘father.’”[32]
Like other revivalists, Earle utilized music to set the stage for the revivals, urging anyone interested in promoting revivals to “have the best singing you can in all your meetings.” In a sermon titled “Faith,” Earle referred to 2 Chronicles 20:21-22 and reminded his hearers that “one of the greatest victories ever won by Jehoshaphat was won by singing.” He further noted that “God blessed his people when they sung his praises.”[33] After a lull in the first two decades of the nineteenth century, hymn writing revived in the 1820s and continued to increase as the decades passed. With time, hymns became more passionate. Like the later revivals of Moody and Sankey, Earle published his own collection of revival hymns in 1865 which he used to reinforce his revival efforts.[34]
Earle on the Pacific Slope
Earle’s leadership of revivals in California, Oregon and Nevada are documented in his own autobiography, Bringing in Sheaves, as well through on-going reports in the religious newspaper The Pacific. Although these sources are not a critical account of Earle’s revivals, and report on the activities of Earle only with glowing terms, they provide a framework for understanding the scope of his work. Additional accounts of the revivals can be found in local newspapers, especially during the time of his revivals. In recreating the following story, the author of this paper draws from all three sources.
Earle and his wife left New York City on September 11, 1866. The night before their departure, a prayer service for safe travels and success was held at Strong Place Church in Brooklyn. The Earle’s arrived in San Francisco in early October and he immediately began to preach in churches throughout the city.[35] The first Sunday afternoon he preached at the Stone Church (Congregational). On Monday afternoon and evening he preached at the Presbyterian Church on Howard Street and Tuesday afternoon and evening at First Baptist Church. According to Earle, “the harvest had already commenced,” upon his arrival in the city.[36] Mid-day prayer meetings had been on-going since July in anticipation of his arrival.
Earle spent five weeks in San Francisco preaching twice a day and three times on Sunday. The luxury of preaching the same series of sermons over and over again allowed him to enter the pulpit nearly 20,000 occasions in fifty years of ministry.[37] Such practice, without regular pastoral responsibilities, made it possible for Earle to maintain such a rigorous schedule. While in San Francisco, Earle held most of his revival meetings in Pratt Hall, although a few services were held in Union Hall. It was decided to rent these facilities, at a cost of $15,000, since they had a larger capacity than any church in the city. Services were generally held at 3 and 7:30 P.M.[38]
In addition to his regular preaching, Earle conducted special Saturday afternoon meetings for children. These were held in various churches around the city in order to allow more children to attend. In one such service, held at First Congregational Church, 200 youth expressed their “desire to become children of God,” and a number of children from the Blind Asylum said they wanted to “see Jesus.”[39]
One of the leading San Francisco newspapers, Alta California, reported, in the middle of Earle’s work in the city, a revival, “such as has never before been experienced on this coast, is now in process.” The detail in which Earle covers the revivals in San Francisco and others throughout the West in his autobiography indicates the success he felt while laboring in the region.[40] Earle closed his work in San Francisco on November 11, 1866. On that day, he preached at Pratt’s Hall at 3 P.M. and at Union Hall at 7:30 P.M. After his departure, the daily noon prayer meetings continued. Although the attendance was lower, the spirit of the meetings had greatly improved, according to reports.[41]
After leaving San Francisco, Earle traveled to Columbia and Sonora, sister towns in the southern portion of the gold mining region. For eight days Earle preached in these two towns, spending the afternoon in one community and the night at the other. This was his first experience in the mining camps and Earle was favorably impressed. He had feared miners would be apathetic to his message, but to his surprise discovered a religious hunger among the miners.[42] Although the mining industry played an important role in these two towns, the boom had already past and a more stable society had emerged. In the three years before Earle’s visit, the community of Columbia had enjoyed two periods of revival. In 1864, the Reverend William Mulford Martin, pastor of the Presbyterian Church, led the first revival following the construction of a new church building.[43] The second revival began with all churches celebrating the Week of Prayer in early January 1866 and continued through late March. The Rev. David Henry Palmer, pastor of the Presbyterian Church, had been instrumental in leading this revival and had left Columbia for New York shortly before Earle’s arrival.[44]
After Columbia and Sonora, Earle traveled back to the San Francisco Bay and spent ten days preaching in Oakland. Services were held at the Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist and Congregational Churches.[45] Earle later reported that the “windows of heaven were opened wide,” and the revival was especially successful among school students. The Pacific’saccount of this revival supports Earle, noting most of the large numbers of people indicating their desire to become a Christian were young.[46]
Next on Earle’s itinerary was Stockton, California, a city situated on the banks of the San Joaquin River. A physician and a leading citizen of the community there who had, according to Earle, “long been an infidel,” was moved by the “love between the denominations” and converted. He renounced his former beliefs and appealed to others who didn’t believe to embrace Christ.[47] Afterwards, Earle headed north to California’s capital, Sacramento, where he described “the spiritual rain” as “more abundant and powerful than the natural.” The winter rainy season had begun, discouraging travel from outlying areas. Although the weather was an obstacle, the revival was successful enough for Earle to extend his stay in the capital city for an additional week.[48] As in other communities, the four main established churches—Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian and Congregational—worked in harmony. In all, he labored twenty days in the city, closing the revival on the sixth of January.[49]
After Sacramento, Earle traveled west to the town of Petaluma, where he preached to overflowing crowds at Hinshaw’s Hall, the largest facility in the city.[50] During part of the revival, a traveling theater group had rented the hall and the revival services were moved into a local church. However, after the first night, in which only eight people attended the play, the theater postponed the show. According to Earle’s autobiography and the local newspaper, the revivals were successful with many prominent citizens converting and dedicating themselves to the Christian life. Included in the list of converts were the Honorable J.B. Southard, Judge of the Seventh Judicial District, and two actors of the traveling theater companies whose performances had been postponed. Following the revival, 120 persons united with the three churches involved.[51]
Late in his life, the Rev. William Pond, pastor of the Congregational Church in Petaluma, recalled Earle’s revivals and gave a contrasting opinion as to their success. According to Pond, only a few of those who joined the three churches remained “staunch” in their faith. The Methodist minister confessed to him, three months after the revival, that all his “converts” had fallen away. During this same time, the Baptist congregation had dismissed their pastor and in its aftermath declined in strength. Seeing no long term results, Pond said he “believed most heartily in evangelistic effort, but not of that sort in which hypnotism masquerades as the very Spirit of God.”[52] Most reports of Earle’s ministry were positive; however, as we will later see, William Pond was not his only critic.
Following Petaluma, Earle traveled south, by steamboat and railroad, to San Jose. During his travels, a fellow passenger discouraged him, saying that the smallest church in San Jose would be large enough for the all the people interested in attending a revival. Rejoicing afterwards, he noted that soon no church in the city could accommodate the crowds.[53] The revival began on the 23rd of January in the Methodist Episcopal Church and after six days moved to the Presbyterian Church. In the thirteen days Earle ministered in the city, he recorded the names of 250 who participated in “the joy of salvation, either new or restored, during the meetings.” All churches set aside Tuesday, January 29th as a day of fasting and prayer. Even the public schools closed.[54] In his autobiography, Earle relates many incidents of conversion, but also tells of one man who rejected the call of Christ in San Jose. The man was an innkeeper and felt he couldn’t convert because he would have to close his bar and would, thereby, deprive his family of support. However, Earle noted another innkeeper who answered the call and closed down his bar that same evening. While in San Jose, Earle was reunited with old friends from New York who were also converted. On another occasion, while working in San Jose, a teacher who denied the divinity of Christ came to his room and the two spoke about his beliefs. The man left, unconvinced, but promising that he would not “grieve the Spirit by disobeying his voice.” Earle noted that the man felt safe in making such a promise and, in three days, rose at a meeting and admitted his sinfulness and his need for an “Almighty Savior.” A few days later, full of confidence in Christ, he spoke before a meeting. One of the fruits of the San Jose revival came after Earle had returned to the East. A Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) was established and Earle was made an honorary member. Following the revivals, the First Presbyterian Church in San Jose received sixty-eight new members.[55]
Santa Clara, a city a few miles west of San Jose, was Earle’s next stop. He preached seven days in the city. As had become his custom, a day of fasting and prayer was observed. All the meetings were held in the Methodist Church although at one meeting it was noted there were twenty-four ministers present from seven different denominations, some having traveled forty to sixty miles to hear the Reverend Earle. The Pacific noted that approximately 150 signed his “register” as “recipients of grace,” while Earle reported 200 unconverted men, women and children rose in this last meeting asking for prayers.[56]
After Santa Clara, Earle moved inland to the Marysville, a city founded at the junction of the Feather and Yuba Rivers. The rainy season continued and the city, a hub for mining activity, probably had more miners present due to the difficulty of work “diggings.” Though the city was thought to have been hostile to religion, several churches started the revival before Earle’s arrival on Saturday, February 16. That evening Earle preached the first of his sermons at the Presbyterian Church where most of the union meetings in Maryville were held. Wednesday, February 20th, was set aside as a day of prayer and many businesses closed for the services. The meetings were often crowded, at times so much so that those wanting to go forward were unable to make their ways down the aisles. Earle planned to spend just a week in Marysville, and then move on to Carson City, Nevada, but was persuaded to stay longer. He agreed to stay another week provided the people of Marysville would “devote the week to Christ.” In all, he labored in the city for 17 days.[57] On Sunday evening, March 4th, he preached “The Unpardonable Sin” sermon, one that was becoming famous on the West Coast, at the Marysville Theater. An estimated 1200 people crowded into the theater to hear him. The gallery was packed. Some left fearing it might collapse under such weight.[58] It was reported that 350 people in Marysville were converted under Earle’s preaching and that a total of 240 had united with the Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist and Episcopal Churches.[59]
In a rather detailed article on the revival, in the Marysville Daily Appeal, the editor credited Earle’s success to the laying aside of political and sectarian differences and his ability to unite various churches and minister toward a common goal. It was noted that ministers and laymen who had never met in religious worship had been united and, “if they allow the ‘old Adam’ to revive in their hearts, will never again meet for such purposes.” A correspondent confessed he attended Earle’s revivals not because of his eloquence or captivating gifts, but because he was sincere, earnest, and is “happy and wishes others to be happy.”[60]
Earle was not a hell-fired preacher. In one of his published sermons, “Joy Restored,” based on Psalm 51:12, “Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation,” Earle tells about an incident early in his ministry in which he preached a series of five sermons to two congregations in New York State. “The fifth was prepared with a scorpion in the lash; it was a severe one, and the last harsh sermon I have preached,” Earle noted. After the sermon, which he describes as powerless, Earle and one of the ministers united in prayer, admitting that their hearts were not filled with love. Then, Earle returned to the pulpit and preached a sermon with “no lash, nothing harsh about it,” and witnessed the congregation break down and confess and commit themselves to the work of revival.[61] Even though this sermon was about the duty of every Christians to enjoy Christ love, Earle’s message had revivalistic overtones. “[W]hen a Christian carries about a sad, dejected countenance, he misrepresents religion,” Earle argued. Further, he noted, when a church becomes cold, it will “never do her duty to her members, nor take care of young converts.”[62]
Leaving Marysville behind, Earle changed his plans. Instead of going to Nevada, he headed to Placerville where he began the revival in the Presbyterian Church. It was said that the church was “filled with people more curious to see and hear him than from any immediate concern for their eternal welfare.” When the invitation was issued at the end of one meeting, many wives came forward to request prayers for their husbands.[63] A pastor from Placerville wrote Earle saying, “The people of our city will feel under a lasting obligation to you, and will, at least during the present generation, keep your memory green.”[64]
Earle left Placerville for Oregon, accepting the invitation from ministers and businessmen of Oregon to come before Spring when the mining population would scatter throughout the countryside. In mid-March, Earle boarded the Steamer Ajax for Portland. Methodist Episcopal congregations in the upper Willamette Valley had recently experienced a revival although there is no indication these revivals were connected to Earle’s “Union Revivals,” that followed. On the trip to Oregon, the steamer stopped at Astoria, located at the mouth of the Columbia River, to pick up firewood and water. A local man, who had been ministering in absence of an ordained minister, came aboard the ship and requested Earle to preach for there were no ministers within 100 miles. Earle obliged and preached in a local hall while the ship was refueled.[65]
According to a letter from the Congregational, Methodist and Baptist pastors of Portland, which appeared in the Pacific Christian Advocate, Earle spent approximately three weeks in Oregon. Most of his work was to be done in Salem and Portland with two days set aside for Oregon City. These pastors called on all to attend his meetings.[66] As elsewhere, Earle’s work in Portland stirred interest in religion. The Oregonian, a Portland newspaper, reported: “It is remarkable that, go where you will, on the street, into business houses, down upon the wharf, among families, everywhere, the subject of ‘Rev. Mr. Earle’ and the revival meetings is sure to be broached and discussed. The talk is not confined to church-going people.”[67] Evening services were held in the Presbyterian Church and were so crowded that many in attendance had to stand. At one service, the opportunity for individuals to give their testimony was presented and over 200 people spoke. On Sunday, the meetings moved to the Courthouse. In Salem, the state capital, Governor Woods used his office to encourage the revivals and it was said that people traveled up to forty miles to hear the Rev. Earle. The meetings in Salem were held in the University Chapel. It was the largest room in town, but insufficient to hold all who wanted to hear Earle.[68]
Leaving Oregon behind, Earle took a steamer south to San Francisco and then traveled inland, across the Sierra Nevada, to the Comstock, the great mining center in the young state of Nevada. The Rev. William Mulford Martin, formerly the pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Columbia and now pastor in Virginia City, had invited Earle to Nevada.[69] Earle was already known in the Silver State from reports of his preaching throughout the California mining camps. A week before his arrival, the Territorial Enterprise, a leading newspaper in Virginia City, reported;
First Presbyterian Church of Virginia City and me, 122 years after Earle (1988)
Rev. Mr. Earle—This talented gentleman, of whose eloquence we have heard so much, is expected to arrive here this week from Oregon, in case the steamers make their trip in the usual time. He will meet with a hearty welcome in the city. On Monday afternoon the ministers of Virginia and Gold Hill will meet at the residence of Rev. Mr. Martin, #75 South B. Street, at 2 o’clock, for the purpose of making arrangements in regard to the time of holding services in the various churches.[70]
The revival began in the Presbyterian Church on Sunday morning, May 5, 1867. Alf Doten, editor of the Gold Hill News, attended the meeting and made the following observations about Earle in his journal:
About 60, tall, good appearance—hair mostly gray—earnest and impressive manner—common & not flowery, but truthful language—familiar & common style of similes—Appeals to home feelings & proclivities of hearers—none of your ranting sensational revivalist—Calculated to lead all who are in darkness to truth and light.[71]
Earle’s revivals in Virginia City continued through May 23rd. For the first week, he preached in the new Presbyterian Church on “C” Street. The services were moved during the second week to the Methodist Episcopal Church at the corner of “D” and Taylor Street. The final week of services was held back in the Presbyterian Church. The climax of the revival came during the second week at the Methodist Episcopal Church when Earle preached the “Unpardonable Sin” sermon to an overcrowded church. Reporting on the meeting, The Trespass, a Virginia City newspaper wrote:
[N]o effort for excitement, no strange, startling statements; but the simple, conclusive setting forth of the subject brought the whole mass, almost without an exception, to their feet, a most solemn testimony of a fixed purpose to cherish the interest each felt in his personal salvation.[72]
Alf Doten, who had earlier expressed approval of Earle’s style of preaching, was critical of the “Unpardonable Sin” sermon. In his journals, Doten wrote:
This [the unpardonable sin] he makes out to be people not coming forward & becoming converts to his, Earle’s, teaching and “accepting Christ”—All who “reject Christ” he says cannot be pardoned by God & will consequently go to hell—In view of the fact he has thus far made not two hundred converts in this City out of a population of 10,000, it would seem that an extremely small proportion have any chance of getting into heaven—His views on the subject are decidedly limited.[73]
Doten again attacked Earle in a letter, writing:
The Rev. A. B. Earle’s revival conquest of the West [was] somewhat checked by the common sense of Virginia City, which finds it hard to believe that only Christians can enter Heaven and still harder to believe that the only way to Christ is through Earle.[74]
Four days later, Dote notes in his journal that the Presbyterian Church was “literally packed full,” crowded with more people than he’d seen before with aisles full, the entry full and people even sitting around the altar. Doten called Earle’s sermon on Samuel meeting Rebecca at the well “pretty good.” [75] However, a few days earlier, Doten attended a revival meeting at the Episcopal Church where he noted there was a good house but the sermon was “not much.”[76]
Even though Doten gave Earle mixed reviews, the churches in Virginia City considered themselves blessed with the three largest—the Presbyterian, Methodist and Episcopal—sharing equally in the fruits of the revival.[77] The Presbyterian Church received 24 new members the Sunday after Earle’s departure and another 14 new members in June. Rev. Martin of the Presbyterian Church and Rev. Wickes of the Methodist Church continued nightly preaching for a period of time after Earle’s departure.[78]
After three weeks in the mining metropolis of Virginia City, Earle moved to Carson City, the capital of Nevada. As a guest of Governor Henry G. Blasdel, Earle remained in Carson City for 12 days. After his first meeting on Thursday, May 23, preaching to a full house at the Presbyterian Church, Earle informed those gathered that he needed rest and would not preach again until Sunday. He had been preaching several times daily, with never more than two days of rest, since the seventh of October. On Sunday, May 26, Earle preached in the Methodist Church at 11 A.M. and 7:30 P.M. The Presbyterian Church canceled services so their members could join in the revival. Later in the week the meetings moved back to the Presbyterian Church, at 3 and 7:30 P.M., and then back to the Methodist for the final service on 4th of June.[79] Two weeks later, the Reverend A. F. White of the Presbyterian Church received 30 new members. A total of 48 new members were added to the roll of the Carson City Presbyterian Church in 1867.[80] The effects of Earle’s ministry were certainly felt.
In a sermon preached on the occasion of his 50th anniversary of ordination, Earle recalled an event from his ministry in Carson City. A Welshman, who had heard of Earle’s preaching, traveled twenty-five miles to meet him. Two decades earlier, in Wales, this man heard a sermon which had impressed him, but had not changed his life. Upon meeting Earle, he “gave himself to Christ and went to work for others.” Earle noted that he had only been “permitted to reap what the Welsh minister had sowed.”[81]
After Carson City, Earle canceled plans for a trip to Austin, in central Nevada, due to fatigue.[82] He decided to move toward the coast and quickly wrap up his revivals in order to sail back East as soon as possible. He crossed the Sierras, into California, and commenced work in the twin towns of Nevada City and Grass Valley. These two towns, only four miles apart, were mining centers. In Earle’s biography, he placed his work in Nevada City first and then Grass Valley, but newspaper accounts reverse the chronology.[83] Grass Valley was a hard rock mining district with gold ore imbedded in quartz. It was said of the town that “everyone talked quartz, ate quartz and drank quarts.”[84] The local newspaper welcomed Earle to a promising field of labor, one in which many “consider themselves fire-proof.” The reporter hoped Earle could move “some of their flinty hearts.” In another article, the columnist compared Earle to Goldsmith’s description of a minister in Deserted Village, “fools who came to scoff remained to pray.” While in Grass Valley, Earle held afternoon meetings in the Congregational Church and evening meetings in the Methodist Church. The crowds were so thick that many “anxious listeners” gathered around the church’s windows to hear and see Earle.[85] After leaving the area, it was reported that the Congregational Church in Grass Valley had added 12 new members. A month later they added another 16 new members. In Nevada City, the Congregational Church had increased by 28 with 10 more considering making a commitment. The Methodist Church added 44 members and “quite a number of converts joined the Baptist Church.”[86]
The final city on Earle’s Pacific Coast tour was Santa Cruz, a coastal resort town south of San Francisco known as “the Newport of the Pacific.” Earle was only able to stay a few days in the city, working with the Congregational and Methodist Churches.[87] Upon leaving Santa Cruz, Earle made quick preaching stops in San Jose, San Francisco and Oakland, before boarding a steamer for the East Coast. According to a letter he wrote to The Pacific, Earle had preached five hundred sermons and worked with eleven different denominations in his nine-month journey through California, Oregon and Nevada.[88]
On board the ship bound for Panama, the Reverend A. B. Earle and his wife were joined by the Rev. William M. Martin and wife, from Virginia City. Martin had recently resigned as pastor of the church and left the Pacific Coast due to his wife’s health.[89]
The Impact of Earle’s Revivals
The Protestant Church on the Pacific Coast never enjoyed the influence it had on the Northeast; nonetheless, the revivals of A. B. Earle were successful. The Reverend William Martin of Virginia City may have overstated it a bit when he reported to the Presbyterian Home Mission Society that “the Pacific is blossoming like the rose.”[90] Yet most if not all churches that participated in the revivals grew, if only for a short while. At the end of 1867, the California Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church reported 1,200 new members, an increase of more than twenty-five percent. “This must be largely attributed to the labors of the Rev. A. B. Earle,” the annual report noted.[91] In an editorial late in the year, The Pacificreported an encouraging increase in moral and religious life in mining communities.[92] Due to pressure upon the owners, mines in Nevada began closing on the Sabbath for a short while and four years later a Virginia City newspaper recalled Earle’s revivals as an important religious event in the life of the community.[93]
A detailed study of those joining First Presbyterian Church in Virginia City provides a portrait of Earle’s work in the city. In the six weeks following Earle’s revivals, the Presbyterian congregation received forty new members, a significant number for a small congregation. Nine members joined by baptism indicating they had no previous church experience. Twenty-two individuals joined by making a profession of faith. These individuals would not have been active in a church with which they could have transferred their membership. Only nine individuals joined the church by transferring their membership from another congregation and most of these were from one extended family. Interestingly, in an overwhelmingly male community, twenty of those joining the church, half of the total, were women. Of those who joined the Presbyterian Church, half had moved out of state by the 1870 census, a statistic that demonstrates the transient nature of mining communities. However, many of those who joined were active into the 1880s and two remained members well into the twentieth century.[94]
Church membership gains within a mining community were short-lived. “Neither sinners nor the godly would remain in the towns to reap what they had sown, according to Ralph Mann’s history of Grass Valley and Nevada City.”[95] Mining communities were transient by nature. Even larger communities with long producing mines, such as in Grass Valley and on the Comstock, experienced a frequent turnover in population.[96] This mobilization created problems for churches depending on a stable population base. “Get in, get rich, and get out,” had been the mining philosophy since the beginning of the gold rush in 1849.[97] This mobility created problems for ministers used to a stable population with whom to labor.
Two other problems are often cited as hindrances to church work in the West during the mid-19th century. One was the lack of women. However, as the Virginia City congregation demonstrated, women were drawn to Earle’s revivals. Even though there may not have been as many women, as a percentage of the population, as compared to the East, women were present and active in the churches. A second hindrance cited has been the youthfulness of most residents of the West. Certainly, the West was younger than the rest of the nation, and many of these single young men interested in adventure were either drawn into the saloons or willing to experiment with new forms of religion.[98] However, it was the prevailing opinion in the nineteenth century that the ideal time for conversion was when a man or woman was young, still in their teens.[99] If the population was youthful, by this belief, they should have been more receptive to Earle’s preaching. But the truth is that, by the time Earle revivals began, the West was aging. Miners who had headed to California in their late teens would have been in their thirties by the mid-1860s, far past the ideal age for conversion according to nineteenth century wisdom.
Finances were another concern for western churches. Earle, however, didn’t experience this problem. Alf Doten, the newspaper editor from Gold Hill, Nevada recorded what he called “profits” from Earle’s revival. According to Doten, Earle raised “$6,000 from Marysville, $6,500 from Placerville, a probable $3,000 from Virginia City and proportional amounts from other towns and cities.”[100] From previous comments, we can see that Doten didn’t approve of Earle’s work and felt the “profits” were excessive. Even if he exaggerated Earle’s income, the offerings at the revivals had to be considerable to pay the cost of some of the halls used for the revivals. As has already been shown, the rent in San Francisco was fifteen thousand dollars, an enormous sum in 1866. Although Earle didn’t record his “revival profits,” he did note that the citizens of Virginia City gave him a thirty-pound brick of silver upon his departure. The Wells Fargo & Company shipped it back east for him, free of charge.[101] Interestingly, Alf Doten noted in his journals that Earle received two “big bricks of bullion,” one from Virginia City and another from Gold Hill.[102] Whether these were used to cover the cost of the revivals or considered by Earle as salary is unclear. Near the end of his ministry, Earle calculated his average income at three dollars a sermon, a sum averaging $1,188 a year.[103]
Throughout Earle’s West Coast travels, newspaper reporters continually remarked that Earle was not a raging sensationalist as they’d expected. As one columnist in Sacramento put it, “his words were plain, homely Saxon—intelligible to children; his imagination, which some thought deficient, was powerful grasping subtle spiritual truths.”[104] Another reporter in Petaluma wrote, “His language is plain, and his rhetoric far from perfect, but he rivets attention and seems to enforce conviction by his very earnestness.”[105] The sermons Earle included in his autobiography, “The Unpardonable Sin” and “Joy Restored,” which have already been reviewed, show two approaches Earle used in the pulpit. The first emphasized the urgency of the gospel while the second lifted up the benefits of Christian living. Like the revivals of 1858, the revivals Earle conduct had none of the excesses of the Cane River revivals early in the Second Great Awakening that had raised the eyebrows of many Protestant ministers in the East. Earle’s simple style endeared him to many of the ministers he worked with and his autobiography contains many letters of thanks from those with whom he’d labored.[106]
It appears that Earle concentrated his efforts on reaching the Anglo-population. Newspaper reports as well as his own accounts of the revivals do not mention any efforts to reach other ethnic and racial groups. Earle’s revivals mirror the 1857-58 revivals, strengthening the Anglo-Protestant majority, even though their majority status would be short-lived.[107] By not taking this into account, the Protestant leaders in California set themselves up to fail for the West experienced religious and ethnic plurality before the rest of the nation.
Toward the end of the 1857-58 revival, an editorial in the New York Observer asked “what fruits the revival should yield?” The newspaper reported the revival had converted thousands in the city and tens of thousands across the country, but noted that was small when compared to the “vast multitude” who are unchanged. Therefore, the editorialist suggested that things would not change much. A few criminal converts wouldn’t make a dent in crime, nor would there be less fraud on Wall Street, he assumed.[108] The same could be said for Earle’s West Coast revivals. He emphasized the necessity for individual reforms without challenging the social evils of the West such as prostitution, slavery among Chinese, gambling, as well as widespread business fraud, especially in mining stocks. Instead, Earle focused his ministry on preaching to individuals with hopes that those changed by the gospel would, in turn, change society. High expectations and naiveté concerning reality are hallmarks of Western history, according to Patricia Nelson Limerick.[109] Protestant leadership in the West demonstrated both. The Pacific Coast never became the bastion of Protestantism as those who had invited Earle had hoped. The revivals by the Reverend A. B. Earle strengthened the Anglo-Protestant Churches in the short term, but the seeds for a changing religious landscape had already been sown. By the end of the nineteenth century the Golden State had the feel of a “new burned over district” as various new religious groups flooded the American West and reaped their harvests.[110]
[1] The Reverend A. B. Earle, Bringing in Sheaves (Boston: James H. Earle, 1872), 128-144.. Earle preached this sermon throughout his revivals on the West Coast. In his autobiography, Earle indicated the sermon was preached at October 14, 1866 at the Union Hall in San Francisco. Interestingly, a transcription of that sermon in The Pacific (San Francisco: 1 November 1866) does not have the Civil War story at the end. Instead, Earle ended by drawing upon the story of Moses’ response in the wilderness when serpents attacked the people of Israel. The two different published versions of the same sermon probably illustrate Earle’s continual reworking of sermons that he preached over and over again.
[2]Timothy L. Smith, Revivalism and Social Reform in Mid-Nineteenth-Century America (New York: Abingdon, 1957; repr., Baltimore, John Hopkins Press University, 1980), 141.
[3] Paul K. Conkin, Cane Ridge: America’s Pentecost (Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990).
[4] William G. McLoughlin, Revivals, Awakening, and Reform (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), 128-120. Also see Keith J. Hardman, Charles Grandison Finney: Revivalist and Reformer (Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 1987).
[5] Sandra S. Sizer, Gospel Hymns and Social Religion: The Rhetoric of Nineteenth Century Revivalism (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1978), 85. The years 1830-1860 were known as the “Sentimental Years” due to the organization of benevolence societies that, according to William Warren Sweet, were the “legitimate children of revivalism.” See William Warren Sweet, Revivalism in America: It’s Origin, Growth, and Influence (New York: Abingdon, 1944), 159
[6] Kathryn Teresa Long, The Revival of 1857-58: Interpreting an American Religious Awakening (New York: Oxford, 1998), 13. For additional description of this awakening, see Hardman, Charles Grandison Finney, 430-433.
[7] Smith, Revivalism,, 62. It should be noted that the revival was popular in the South and although many hoped for an end to slavery, the revivals themselves tended to be conservative and its leaders discouraged the discussion of divisive issues. See Richard J. Carwardine, Evangelicals and Politics in Antebellum America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), 294 and Long, The Revival of 1857-58, 125.
[8] Those converted or influenced by the revivals include D. L. Moody; Lottie Moon (later to be a Baptist missionary to China), Charles Briggs (later to be a renounced “liberal” professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York City); and Charles Crittenton (a wealthy owner of a drug company who became a revivalist later in his life and funded rescue homes for wayward women). See Long, Revival of 1857-58, 127-132. Others having their careers boosted by in the revival included Methodist John S. Inskip (later to be a leader in the holiness movement), Alfred Cookman, Reuben A. Torry and J. Wilbur Chapman. See Smith, Revivalism and Social Reform, 74. Another lesser-known convert of the revival was David Henry Palmer, a college student converted in Rochester, New York. After college, Palmer attended Auburn Theological Seminary and became the first Presbyterian pastor in Virginia City, Nevada. See Charles Jeffrey Garrison, “David Henry Palmer: A Pastoral Baptism in Western Mining Camps, American Presbyterians: Journal of Presbyterian History, Vol. 72, No. 3 (Fall 1994), 181-2
[12] Timothy Smith,in his 1957 study of the mid-century revivals, suggests that perfectionism, as well as the holiness and ethical concerns played a more significant role. Smith uses Earle as an example the role perfectionism played in the mid-century revival. See Smith, Revivalism and Social Reform, 139. Later studies have challenged Smith’s conclusions. See Long, The Revival of 1857-58, 4.
[13] Rev. A. B. Earle, The Rest of Faith (Boston: James H. Earle, 1881), 62, 76-81. Other historians have dated Earle’s sanctification during the 1858-9 revivals. See Smith, Revivalism and Social Reform, 139.
[14] Presbyterian and Reformed Churches, in particular, had a difficult time accepting this doctrine. The two warring Presbyterian factions, the Old and New School, were united in opposition to perfectionism. See George Mardsen, The Evangelical Mind and the New School Presbyterian Experience (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970), 80-81.
[15] Kevin Starr, Americans and the California Dream, 1850-1915 (New York, Oxford University Press, 1973; rptr, Santa Barbara: Peregrine Smith, 1981), 71-72, 85-86.
[16] The idea that California’s gold was hidden until the state was securely in American hands was taught not only by mainline Protestants. The famous Unitarian preacher, Thomas Starr King also preached God’s providence in bringing California into the Union. See Edward Arthur Wicher,The Presbyterian Church in California, 1849-1927 (New York: Frederick H. Hitchcock, 1927), 28 and Starr, Americans and the California Dream, 103-104.
[17]The Pacific began publishing on 1 August 1851 as a joint effort of Congregational and New School Presbyterians. The goal of the newspaper was to encourage the work of Protestant Churches on the West Coast. See P. Mark Fackler and Charles H. Lippy, editors, Popular Religious Magazines of the United States (Westport, Connecticut: Gleenwood Press, 1975), 373-380.
[18]”Evangelization on the Pacific Coast: Mistaken Policy,” The Pacific, San Francisco: 17 August 1865; The Pacific, 7 September 1865; ”The Possible Results of Revivals in California,” Ibid, 23 March 1865.
[19]Smith, Revivalism and Social Reform, 74, 118-119. For a description of Taylor’s activities in California, see Starr, 78-82.
[20] Starr, 73, Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp, Religion and Society in Frontier California (New Haven: Yale, 1994), 94-95.
[21] “Welcome Home, A Sermon preached in Memory of Rev. Geo. W. Finney at the 1st Congregational Church, Oakland, 18 April 1865,” The Pacific 27 April 1865.
[22]Smith, 142. “The Week of Prayer at the New Year,” The Pacific, 13 December 1866. See also Charles Jeffrey Garrison, “How the Devil Temps Us to Go Aside from Christ:’ The History of First Presbyterian Church of Virginia City, 1862-1867.” Nevada Historical Society Quarterly, Vol. 36, No. 1 (Spring 1993), 22; and “David Henry Palmer: A Pastoral Baptism in Western Mining Camps, American Presbyterians: Journal of Presbyterian History, Vol. 72, No. 3 (Fall 1994), 181-2.
[23] “Revival in Santa Clara,” The Pacific, 20 November 1863.
[24] For a summary of this revival, See Garrison, “David Henry Palmer”, 182.
[25] See George M. Mardsen, Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth-Century Evangelicalism, 1870-1925 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), 11-13, and James H. Moorhead, American Apocalypse: Yankee Protestants and the Civil War, 1860-1869 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978), 56.
[26]For a study of Lincoln memorial sermons, including two from California, see David B. Cheesebrough, “‘God Has Made No Mistake:’ The Response of Presbyterian Preachers in the North to the Assassination of Lincoln” American Presbyterian: Journal of Presbyterian History 71:4(Winter 1993), 223-232. Many of the Lincoln memorial sermons were published. West Coast examples include the Reverend J. D. Strong, “Discourse on the Death of Abraham Lincoln” published by the Larkin Street Presbyterian Church of San Francisco and the Reverend C. C. Wallace, “Funeral Address, On the Occasion of the Funeral Obsequies in Memory of Abraham Lincoln by the Placerville Tri-Weekly News. Copies of the above sermons from a box titled “Presbyterian Church in California” Box 3, Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley, California.
[27]”Meeting of the S. F. Ministerial Union,” The Pacific, 12 July 1866. The Rev. E. P. Hammond, the “children’s evangelist’s” would later spend eight weeks in San Francisco in 1875, drawing large crowds. See Douglas Firth Anderson, “San Francisco Evangelicalism: Regional Religious Identity, and the Revivalism of D. L. Moody,” Fides et Historia: Official Publication of the Conference on Faith and History, vol. 15 (Spring/Summer 1983), 47-8.
[28]”Meeting of the S. F. Ministerial Union,” The Pacific, 12 July 1866; “Religious Intelligence,” The Pacific, San Francisco, CA, 30 August 1866.
[30]Rev. A. B. Earle, D.D., Work of an Evangelist: Review of Fifty Years, (Boston: James H. Earle, Publisher, 1881), 9, 12 & 14.
[31] Earle’s autobiography, Bringing in Sheaves, spiritual autobiography The Rest of Faith, and hymnal titled Revival Hymns are quoted elsewhere in this paper. The book of devotions was titled The Morning Hour (Boston: James H. Earle, nd).
[33] Ibid, 28. The Reverend A. B. Earle, D.D., “Faith” The Evangelistic Cyclopedia: A New Century Handbook of Evangelism. (New York: George H. Doran, 1922, 306.
[34] Sizer, Gospel Hymns, 23, 39 & 20; A. B. Earle, collector, Revival Hymns (1865; Boston: James H. Earle, 1870), title page. At the 1870 edition, 30,000 copies of this little hymnal had been published. The hymnal measured only 3 inches by 5 inches and contained 109 hymns.
[35] Ibid, 285. Most likely, Earle traveled to California through Panama, taking a steamer from New York to Panama, crossing the isthmus, and then taking a steamer up the Pacific Coast to San Francisco.
[39] Earle, Bringing in Sheaves, 293. See also Alta California (San Francisco), 20 October 1866 and 10 November 1866; “Union Meeting for Children,” The Pacific, 25 October 1866.
[40] “Religious Revival,” Alta California, 19 October 1866. Earle’s autobiography, Bringing in Sheaves, published in 1872, contains over 90 pages dedicated to his nine month experience in the American West.
[41]Alta California, 11 November 1866. See also The Pacific, 15 November 1866. “The Daily Prayer Meeting,” The Pacific, 22 November 1866.
[43] A brief description of the revival is found in a letter from Henry Kendall in the Sheldon Jackson’s Scrapbook (35a), Manuscript Collections, Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia. A quote on this clip can be found in Garrison, “How the Devil Tempts Us to Go Aside from Christ, 19. See also the Toulumne Courier (Columbia, CA) 20 February and 5 March 1864.
[44] For a detail examination of this revival, see Garrison, “David Henry Palmer,” 182. The Pacific, 18 October 1866.
[45]Sandra Sizer Frankiel suggests Laurentine Hamilton, pastor of First Presbyterian Church, Oakland, was thumbing his nose at revivalism during Earle’s tenure on the West Coast. The Presbytery of San Jose defrocked Hamilton in 1869, after he challenged orthodox views on immortality and eternal punishment. However, since Presbyterians were supportive of Earle’s work, it seems more likely he either kept his views to himself or developed his unorthodox thoughts after these revivals. See Sandra Sizer Frankiel, California Spiritual Frontiers: Religious Alternatives in Anglo-Protestantism, 1850-1910 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 32-37.
[46] Earle, Bringing in Sheaves, 297-299; The Pacific, 20 December 1866.
[49]The Pacific, 17 January 1867. It is interesting that Earle’s preaching in Sacramento was over Christmas and New Years. No mention of these holidays are in Earle’s or The Pacific’s accounts of the revival.
[50]Petaluma Journal and Argus (Petaluma, California), 17 January 1867.
[51] Earle, Bringing in Sheaves, 305; “Thinking and Acting,” Petaluma Journal and Argus 24 January 1867. William C. Pond, Gospel Pioneering: Reminiscences of Early Congregationalism in California, 1833-1920 (Oberlin, Ohio: The News Printing Company, 1921), 96-97. According to The Pacific, 7 February 1867, 36 persons joined the Congregational Church in Petaluma.
[54] “The Revival in San Jose” The Pacific 21 February 1867: Ibid, 7 February 1867.
[55] Earle, Bringing in Sheaves 307-310; The Pacific, 28 February 1867.
[56] Earle, Bringing in Sheaves, 311-312; “Revival in Santa Clara,” The Pacific, 7 March 1867.
[57] Earle, Bringing in Sheaves, 312; Marysville Daily Appeal (Marysville, California), 17 February 1867. Earle refers to the city’s hostility to religion in Bringing in Sheaves, 312. The beginning of the revival was reported in the Marysville Daily Appeal 3 February 1867. It was later suggested that 100 persons were converted before Earle’s arrival. Ibid, 6 March 1867. Ibid, 19 February 1867; 24 February 1867. The Reverend William Wallace Brier organized the Presbyterian Church in Marysville in 1850. See Earl Ramey, “The Beginning of Marysville, Part III,” California Historical Society Quarterly, 15:1 (1936), 47. Marysville Daily Appeal, 21 February 1867, 24 February 1867. Earle, Bringing in Sheaves, 315.
[58] “A Large Meeting,” The Pacific, 14 March 1867; Marysville Daily Appeal, 5 March 1867.
[59] “Marysville Religious Items,” The Pacific 11 April 1867. This same article indicated 84 had sought admission with the Presbyterian Church and 70 had been accepted into membership with 23 baptisms. 20 individuals were baptized at the Baptist Church a week after Earle departed. Marysville Daily Appeal, 10 March 1867. Before Earle’s arrival, the Methodist Church had already received 38 new members. Ibid, 12 February 1867.
[65]The Pacific, 21 March 1867; “Notes from the Pacific Coast,” The Christian Advocate, (New York) 7 February 1867. Interestingly, The Christian Advocate, which was a newspaper of the northern Methodist Episcopal Church, did not report on Earle’s revivals in the American West from August 1866 through July 1867; Earle, Bringing in Sheaves, 319.
[66] “Rev. Mr. Earle,” The Pacific, 18 April 1867.
[67] As quoted in Earle, Bringing in Sheaves, 320-321.
[68] Ibid, 322, 327; Territorial Enterprise (Virginia City, Nevada) 28 April 1867.
[69] Earle, Bringing in Sheaves, 331; First Presbyterian Church of Virginia City, “Minutes of Session” 22 April 1867. Manuscript Collections, Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia.
[77] Editorial Visits” The Pacific, 11 July 1867. This article stated that Virginia City also had a Baptist congregation meeting in the Courthouse and two colored [sic] churches meeting in their own buildings. No mention was made of these three churches benefiting from Earle’s labor.
[78] “First Presbyterian Church of Virginia City, “Minutes of Session.” 27 May 1867, 9 June 1867; Departure of Rev. Mr. Earle,” Territorial Enterprise, 23 May 1867.
[79]The Daily Appeal (Carson City, Nevada) 22 May 1867; 24 May 1867; 26 May, 28 May 1867; 7 June 1867.
[80] “First Presbyterian Church of Carson City, Nevada—75th Anniversary Celebration Program,” 7 June 1936. A copy of this program is in the Manuscript Collection of the Presbyterian Historical Society in Montreat, North Carolina.
[81] Earle, “Revival Like A Harvest,” Work of an Evangelist, 41-42.
[82] William M. Martin, “Nevada” Presbyterian Monthly October 1867.
[83] Earle, Bringing in Sheaves, 341-344. Grass Valley Union (Grass Valley, California) 2 June 1867, 25 June 1867; The Pacific 4 July 1867, 11 July 1867.
[84] Ralph Mann, After the Gold Rush: Society in Grass Valley and Nevada City, California, 1849-1870. (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1982), 131.
[85] “Rev. Mr. Earle,” Grass Valley Union, 25, 29, and 22 June 1867.
[86] “Religious Intelligence,” The Pacific 11 July 1867, 25 July 1867.
[87] Earle, Bringing in Sheaves, 344; “Revival of Religion,” The Pacific 18 July 1867.
[88] Ibid, 245-246; “To the San Francisco Ministerial Union,” The Pacific 1 August 1867.
[89] Earle, Bringing in Sheaves, 349; Minutes of Session, First Presbyterian Church of Virginia City, 9 August 1867. According to this entry, Martin had informed the Session of his resignation on 14 July 1867.
[90] William M. Martin, Presbyterian Monthly (October 1867).
[91] C. V. Anthony, A.M., D.D., Fifty Years of Methodism: A History of the Methodist Episcopal Church Within the Bounds of the California Annual Conference from 1847 to 1897 (San Francisco: Methodist Book Concern, 1901), 282.
[92] “Editorial Visits,” The Pacific 24 October 1867.
[93] “The Observance of the Sabbath in Nevada,” Ibid, 15 August 1867. The closing of mines did not continue for very long. During most of its history, mines on the Comstock ran seven days a week. Even when they were closed, the miners had to do their shopping and laundry on Sunday: Territorial Enterprise, 18 April 1871.
[94] Data for those joining the Presbyterian Church in Virginia City obtained from Session Minutes and the 1870 census. For a complete breakdown of those joining the church in the aftermath of Earle’s revivals, see Charles Jeffrey Garrison, “Presbyterians and Miners: The Church’s Response to the Comstock Lode,” Doctor of Ministry Dissertation, San Francisco Theological Seminary, San Anselmo, CA (2002), 219-220.
[96] For a summary of population trends, see Marion S. Goldman, Gold Diggers and Silver Miners: Prostitution and Social Life on the Comstock Lode (Ann Arbor, University of Michigan, 1981), 15-16.
[97] Patricia Nelson Limerick, The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West (New York: W. W. Norton, 1987), 100.
[98]See Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp, Religion and Society in Frontier California (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994).
[99] Thomas R. Cole, The Journey of Life: A Cultural History of Aging in America (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 80-82.
[100] Doten, 927. On financial concerns of churches see Maffly-Kipp, Religion and Society in Frontier California 98.
[103] Earle, Work of an Evangelist, 20. Earle’s salary was above most ministers of the era. One report which sought information from 1,000 ministers found that three fourths of all ministers made less than $1,000 a year, most making $350-$750. See “Ministers’ Salaries,” The Pacific 5 September 1867.
[104] “The Revival in Sacramento,” The Pacific 17 January 1867.
[105] “Revival,” Petaluma Journal and Argus 17 January 1867.
[106] See Earle, Bringing in Sheaves, 156-165, 178-183.
[107] Limerick, The Legacy of Conquest, 290. In one incident during the 1857-58 revivals, a freed African-American man was excluded from a New York revival. See Long, The Revival of 1857-58, 106. Although it may have occurred in isolated instances, the reports of Earle’s revivals never mention any work among Orientals or African Americans. Both groups lived and had churches in California and Nevada.
[108] “What Fruits the Revival Should Yield? New York Observer, (April 12, 1858), as quoted by Long, The Revival of 1857-58, 102.
Last year, I noted in my reading summary that I didn’t read enough women authors or fiction. So here are two reviews of books I’ve read that meet both categories. I have read several of McKenzies books including Not Guilty which I reviewed in this blog. I have also read Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible, which I have also reviewed here. Both books appealed to me. Shattered because I enjoy skiing and have a daughter that skied in high school and was a coxswain on a college crewing team. Demon Copperhead is set just west of where I live in Virginia.
C. Lee McKenzie, Shattered
(Evernight Teen, 2021), 295 pages.
This story begins with Libby Brown heading out to get a few runs on the ski hill early in the day as she prepares for the Olympic tryouts. We’re taken along with the 19-year-old as she makes her way to the lift and rides to the top. McKenzie captures all the details, from her friendliness with the lift operator to how one sits back as the lift chair swings into position. Then, as she makes the run, an out-of-bound snowboarder runs her down. Libby wakes up in the hospital to a nightmare. She can’t move her legs. From here, the story continues as Libby struggles to rebuild her life. At first, she’s bitter. She lost her chance at the Olympics. But slowly, especially with the help of another young patient who was swimming star who lost a leg in an accident, she begins her comeback.
Once Libby is out of rehab, she must move downstairs as she can no longer navigate the stairs. Her parents try to make the best of things, but they have another surprise, her mother is pregnant. But she meets and dates guys, wondering how she can have a relationship while confined to a wheelchair. When the suggestion is made that she learn to ski sitting down, she’s reluctant. But in time, she gives it a try. Without her legs, she gains upper body strength and joins a girls crewing team made up of those with disabilities. In time, she gets her life back together. She finds love and makes the Para-Olympic team and finds independence on her own.
My daughter learning to ski
As the story unfolds, she learns that her accident wasn’t accidental. She had been set-up to take her out of the Olympics. I read it thinking that the other woman whom she was in competition for the place was the culprit, but at the end there is a surprise.
This is a quick read designed for young adults. This is the third book of McKenzie’s that I have read. The author often tackles with issues faced by young adults and show them learning and thriving despite limitations. As a skier who have generally seen snowboarders as someone unwanted on the hillside (they tend to cut up the snow into ruts and are often rude), I tried not to smirk too much as I read this book.
Barbara Kingsolver, Demon Copperhead
(2022, Audible Books, 2022), 21 hours and 3 minutes or 546 pages.
This is an incredible novel. Kingsolver deals with rural poverty, drug abuse, race relationships, sexual identity, and hopelessness. Yet, as I listened to this book, I found myself cheering on the protagonist, Damon Fields (known as Demon Copperhead for his red hair). The novel begins at his unique birth to his teenage mother and follows him throughout his childhood and teenage years. Demon faces challenges after challenges and while he makes many bad decisions, he always seems to land on his feet as he hopes on day to see the ocean.
The setting for the story is Lee County, Virginia, in the far western part of the state. It’s coal country, but the mining has mostly moved on, leaving behind impoverished towns where people unite around the high school football team. Demon’s father died before his birth (he later learns the details). Then his mother dies of an overdose on his 11th birthday. He becomes a ward of the state.
He is sent to Mr. Crickson’s farm. The old farmer takes in troubled boys no one wants to work them in his fields and to tend his cattle. Here, Kingsolver shows the hard work that goes raising into Burley tobacco. At the farm, Demon meets several other boys who will remain with him for good (Tommy) or bad (Fast Forward) for the rest of the novel.
After Crickson, Social Services moves him to the McCobb family who provides him a bed to sleep in the room where the washer and dryer were located. This had been where they kept the dogs when they had tried breeding them for income. We’re shown how many of those in the foster care system only looking to the money they receive to care for the kids. Mr. McCobb forces to take a job recycling hazardous material. But he also gets to know an Indian who runs a store, who tells him about the underclass in India. Now in America, he helps Demon by giving him plenty of food, something he’s not receiving from his foster family. Demon saves his money and runs away. A truck stop whore steals his money.
Penniless, he finds his paternal grandmother, Betsy Woodall. He’d never seen her before, but she recognizes him because he looks just like the dad who’d died before his birth. She arranges for him to stay with a football coach (Coach Winfield), the husband of her late daughter. He has a daughter, Angus, who becomes another positive force in Demon’s life. The coach appears to care for Demon, but he has his owns “demons” with alcohol. But things begin to look up for Demon as he becomes a star tight end, until he messes up his knee. While he had often used drugs (smoking pot or popping pills at a party with the other foster boys at Crickson’s farm), with his injury, he slides deep into drug use.
Then we think he’s saved when he meets Dori, a girl he describes as an angel. But she is also deep into drugs as she cares for her father whose lungs were destroyed in the mines. After her father’s death, they move in together. Later, Demon realizes that if he wants to get clean, he’ll have to leave her. Then she dies of an overdose.
When he hits bottom, Demon finally agrees to leave the region for treatment, afterwards, he says in a half-way house… The book ends with him visiting Lee County and reuniting with Angus. Kingsolver leaves the reader with hope for Demon, but also with the knowledge he has a lifelong struggle ahead of him.
Along his journey, there are many who try to help Demon. At the forefront is the Peggot family. Demon’s mother had rented a trailer from them. The Peggot’s look out for him. They are elderly, but with a daughter in the state prison for killing her husband, they raise her son, Maggot (most everyone in this book has nicknames). He is a weird child, but a good friend. As they grow older, he’s gay and, like many others, has a drug problem. One of their daughters, June, who had been a nurse in Knoxville. She becomes a nurse practitioner and moves back to Lee County. Through her efforts, Kingsolver provides insight into how so many people have become addicted to opioids. She also helps Demon get help.
Other helpful individuals include an art teacher who encourages Demon’s drawings. Her husband, an African American counselor and teacher from Chicago, strives to help the kids see how the area has been devasted by outside forces. One of the social workers (Miss Banks) is helpful but realizes she’s in a dead-end job and returns to school and becomes a teacher. She sees being a teacher to provide economic security in an area where there are few opportunities.
Those who pull Demon in the wrong direction include Fast Forward. At the farm, he was a high school student and given special privileges because he is the school’s quarterback. Fast Forward introduces Demon and others to pill popping. Later, he gets more involved with drugs and their distribution, leaving a wake of broken people behind him.
This should be an eye-opening novel for many people. Kingsolver used Charles Dicken’s David Copperfield, as a model for this story. While I haven’t read David Copperfield, they both deal with how the poor become trapped, but also provide a glimmer of hope. This is a long novel but provides the reader with insight into the rural poor in America and the challenges they face. I like the voice of Demon, who tells this story that helps educate the rest of us about the hopelessness that many people face as well as the lure and the entrapment of the drug culture.
A quote: to end with: “Certain pitiful souls around here see their whiteness as their last asset that hasn’t been totaled or repossessed.”
Foster Falls along the New River in Western Virginia
