CHAPTER 07 BARNABAS McHENRY

CHAPTER 7 BARNABAS McHENRY The Rev. Barnabas McHenry was among the first apostles of Methodism in the western country. He entered the itinerant connection in the year 1787. He was then but a youth, scarcely having reached his majority. Considering the dangers and hardships to which wandering itinerants were exposed at that early day in the west, the leaving all the endearments of a happy home, must be considered as an act of moral heroism of which but few would be capable at the present day. But as God raises up the men for the times in which they live, we must not be too exact in running our parallels or contrasting the past with the present. If we have not the men for scenes of toil, and hardship, and danger, it may be a comfortable reflection, at least, to know that they are not wanted, and the circumstances of the times do not demand them. We believe there is as much genuine zeal and devotion in the Church now as there ever was, even in the days of the apostles and primitive Christians, though not as generally diffused among the membership.

If Methodist preachers in those days had, in the language of President Harrison, to live just as though they had taken the vows of poverty upon them, and had to face the dangers and difficulties that beset their path alone and unattended, we should rejoice that though the offense of the cross has not ceased, yet the times have been so wonderfully changed by the mild, humanizing, and ever progressive spirit of Christianity, that none are called to pass through the same trials and persecutions for Christ’s sake. In those early days Methodism was a thing of contempt, and a Methodist preacher was considered as a special object of ridicule. Every conceivable method was resorted to for the purpose of caricaturing the preachers and their doctrines. Songs were written and sung, while specimens of Methodist sermons, perverted and distorted, were published broadcast, to bring odium upon the society. Grave preachers and pious deacons and elders were found, who would engage unscrupulously in this work. We knew ourselves a reverend divine who, at parties, would amuse his flock by getting up a mimic class meeting, interspersing it with occasional ditties and a shout. We do not say this because we wish to revive unpleasant memories; or to show up the conduct of those who claimed all the religion, and learning, and decency of the land; but simply as a specimen of the general contempt which prevailed in certain quarters for these "rude, uneducated circuit riders." Sometimes the very almanacs would be filled with Songs and caricatures of Methodist preachers; and they were in as great demand as Davy Crockett almanacs were a few years ago. We were taught to believe that Methodism was of the devil, and no better than witchcraft. Here is a specimen of the sermons preached by Methodist preachers, and believed by many to be genuine. We found it in the almanac:

"Breathren, breathren, breathren! The word breathren comes from the tabernacle, because we dwell therein. If you are drowsy I will arouse you. I will beat a tattoo on the parchment cases of your consciences, and will whip the devil about like a whirligig among you."

It cost something in those days to be a Methodist, and especially to be a Methodist preacher. Young McHenry, however, counted the cost, and joined the despised people. In process of time he was licensed to preach, and, being admitted into the traveling connection, was appointed to Yadkin circuit, North Carolina. In the year 1788 he was appointed to the Cumberland circuit, on the very borders of the white population. Here we find him, in company with a few others, occupying the entire field, and following the tides of immigration to their most distant homes for the purpose of preaching to them the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Traveling, in those days, was attended with great danger as well as difficulty. The Indians, on seeing their hunting grounds invaded by the pale faces, were wrought up to the greatest fury, and would, in revenge, mercilessly attack their invaders. The missionary band was obliged to take their lives in their hands and risk all in the great enterprise in which they were engaged. They had no missionary society, with its funds and sympathies, to support and cheer them in their toilsome work; but the best of all was, God was with them, and hundreds of those wanderers from civilization were happily converted to God, while the cabin and block-house were made to resound with the praises of the Almighty, and the wilderness and solitary places often resounded with the shouts of the converted.

Speaking of this band the eloquent Bascom once said, in reference to a narrative of their deeds: "To give the story an intense and thrilling interest, it need only be told true to nature and to the actual developments of experience. There is something so fresh, so racy, so charming in calling up the historical reminiscences of by-gone days, that in whatever form or garb I meet the facts, it is only to wonder and admire. How little is known of the courage and heroism of the early apostles of Methodism in the western world! What a mere tithe of information has even the Church respecting her worthiest sons! The modern methods of missionary toil throw very little light upon this subject. More is said now and less done. We report to the full amount of our achievements, and facts are often anticipated by a detail of hopes. Not so with these early pioneers; they labored, suffered, and triumphed in obscurity and want. No admiring populace cheered them on. No feverish community gazetted them into fame. Principle alone sustained them, and their glory was that of action, Many of these men had minds of no common mold, and richly stored with varied knowledge.

Even a century in a single community produces few such men as Barnabas McHenry and Valentine Cook. They were men by themselves, and their memory would adorn the history of any Church in any age. The same is true of others; and I am anxious that the recollections, as far as practicable, concerning them, may be saved from oblivion. How much worthless stuff is now recorded, while incidents of so much interest are looked upon as unworthy of record or inquiry? Do not too many prefer the shallow and the meager, if it be modern, to the deep and lofty traits of character belonging to an era anterior to ours? Is there much hope that really great men will multiply among us, unless we duly appreciate and study the character and elements of greatness in those by whom we have been preceded? If I have been of any service to the Church, or to the world, much of the result is owing to the study of character in early life. Providentially thrown into the pulpit and upon the field of ministerial action at the age of sixteen — the mere dawn of manhood — I taught myself to learn the formation of character, in view both of goodness and greatness, by observing closely the striking characteristics both of the living and the dead claiming these attributes." The father of the writer of this sketch once preached a thanksgiving sermon, in which he said, "We backwoods people ought to thank God most heartily for two things; namely, the Indians and the Methodist preachers; for in the settlement of this great country the Indians kept the white population from scattering into clans and taking possession of certain districts of country, claiming it, and forming a government of their own, and finally going to war with each other, thus confining them to the government of the country. While the waves of population rolled out westward the Indians rolled them back again, and kept them together. Then the itinerant Methodist preachers, in the true spirit of their Master, followed up the emigrant from block-house to block-house, and from station to cabin and camp, and the voice of mercy and salvation was heard, and the Sabbath regarded." To this work McHenry addressed himself with a zeal and devotion worthy of so great a cause, In the year 1789 he was appointed to the Danville circuit, in company with Peter Massie as a colleague. While on this circuit he encountered much opposition from the Baptists, who verily thought they were doing God’s service in making the most extraordinary efforts to hedge up the way of Methodist preachers. The preachers of that denomination published, from their pulpits and elsewhere, the most exaggerated and ridiculous statements imaginable about Methodist doctrines and usages, and every means was resorted to to prevent the people from going out to hear the preachers; but the very course they took only excited their curiosity to hear, and thus brought them into notice. Thus the foolishness, if not the wrath of man, was made the means by which hundreds were brought to hear the Gospel of a free salvation, and multitudes embraced its provisions and were saved. Persecution always has failed, and ever will fail, to put down the truth. The history of Paganism and Romanism is abundant proof of this. The apostle says, "We can do nothing against the truth but for the truth;" and we have often known systems of error themselves dragged into notice, and made an object of sympathy, solely on account of a mad, misguided opposition. The best way in the world to put down error is to preach up the truth. The fire that a crazy zealot would call down from heaven to consume the adversaries of his peculiar faith or practice, will be as likely to consume himself as his opposers. So it was, all the opposition these "free-grace preachers," as they were termed, met with, only served for the furtherance of the Gospel; and like the persecutions against Paul, which carried the Gospel to Rome, and introduced it to the palace of Caesar himself so were the persecutions of the early Methodist preachers made the instrument, in the Divine hand, of bringing the doctrines of repentance, and faith, and salvation, to many who would not, in all probability, have heard them as dispensed by itinerants. In the year 1790 McHenry was sent to the Madison circuit. This field of labor was at that time said to be the most stubborn and unpromising, occupying, as it did, the most uncivilized portion of Kentucky. It seemed to be a place of grand rendezvous for fugitives from justice from the older states. The whole district of country was missionary ground, as this was the first time it was found upon the Minutes. In this field the laborious itinerant did the work of an evangelist. Though men may be guilty of crimes which may send them abroad from the haunts of justice and civilized society, yet it would be difficult for them to flee to any place where the Methodist preacher would not find them, and in their dark retreats offer to them the blessings of pardon and salvation. They might escape from the law and the rigors of justice, but the Gospel, with its offers of pardon, would find them out, and their sin-burdened souls would be invited to partake of its full and glorious provisions.

Those upon whom others were disposed to look as reprobates, shut out from the pale of God’s mercy, and doomed by an irreversible decree to death and hell, were regarded by these heralds of the cross as redeemed by the Son of God; and though their crimes were of the deepest dye, even unto "scarlet and crimson," yet the blood of Jesus could wash them white as mountain snow. It was, doubtless, on account of this indiscriminate offer of salvation that their preaching was so obnoxious to the reigning orthodoxy of that day. Many a dark, unrighteous heart was changed through the instrumentality of such preaching, from nature and sin to grace and holiness, and lawless men were made obedient subjects of government and respectable members of society, who otherwise might have continued the enemies of God and man. As the result of his labors this year, there were left on the circuit at its close two hundred and twelve white members and eight colored. The following year the subject of our sketch was appointed to the Cumberland circuit. Here he labored with great success and usefulness. The population was quite sparse, and the rides long and fatiguing. Notwithstanding all this, however, he girded himself for the work, and labored on in faith and hope. The Methodist preacher then had but one work, and he devoted himself exclusively to that. Being fully impressed with his call to preach the Gospel, he could not turn aside to engage in land and stock speculations, or enter into the noisy, wrangling field of politics, nor even sit down to the more honorable and useful employment of teaching school or taking a professorship or presidency in a college, or an editorship or agency, however important; the Holy Ghost had moved him to call sinners to repentance, and the great work of saving souls was all in all to him. Nor had he any time for writing books, and precious little for reading any but his Bible and Discipline. Being shut up to these to a great extent, as John Bunyan, in Bedford jail, was confined to an old Bible and a Concordance, like that man of God, he could map out the path of life, and picture the glories of heaven and the glooms of hell with a vividness and a power that made all hearts feel their reality. The preachers of those days did not suffer themselves to be carried away into the endless mazes of metaphysical speculation, or to be lost in the fogs of an occult philosophy; but bathing their vision in the eternal sunshine of God’s truth, they came down, like Moses from the burning mountain, full of love and radiant with glory. In the year 1792 McHenry was appointed presiding elder of the Holston district, including Green River, New River, and Russell circuits, embracing an extent of country that would now cover a half dozen conferences. Here he was exposed to the savages and all the difficulties of traveling, without roads, bridges, or ferries to cross the streams; yet he would, with the most indomitable zeal, urge his way through the tangled thicket and dense forest, and across the rapid rivers and over the craggy mountains, preaching Christ and him crucified to the dwellers in the log-cabins of the most desolate regions. Burning with a love to save souls for whom his Master died, he was borne onward in his glorious career, and many precious seals to his ministry will hail him on the shores of immortality as the instrument of their conversion to God. The succeeding year he was appointed to the charge of a yet larger district, including Bedford, Bottetourt, Greenbrier, and Cowpasture circuits, It is almost incredible, at this day, for one to be told the labors and hardships of the early pioneers of Methodism.

We fear that the zeal of the preachers of the present day would be severely tested, if they were required to cultivate similar fields; and yet such is our faith in the power of Methodism, under God, that we believe if the field were here there are men of God who would say to the bishop, "Here am I, send me." They labored, and we have entered into their labors. God be praised that the Church had such men for such times! The two succeeding years find him on Salt Creek circuit, the latter of which he was the third man, giving a strong indication that, through his excessive toils and hardships, his vigorous constitution had been impaired, and he was, from overtaxed exertions declining in strength. Such was the fact; for in the following year he was obliged to cease from his labors as an itinerant, and take a local relation. During the years in which he continued in this relation his zeal for the cause of Christ did not in the least abate, as he continued to preach whenever opportunity would present itself, and his health would permit. In the great revival of 1800 he took an active part, and was very efficient in leading on the sacramental hosts of God’s elect to glorious war. In 1819 he re-entered the traveling connection, and again took rank with his brethren in the itinerant field. He was appointed presiding elder of the Salt River district, Tennessee conference, where he labored with great success through the year, and at its close was reappointed. His constitution, however, was too much broken down to enable him to continue long in his much loved employ as an itinerant. Like an old soldier, he only felt at home on the field; and it was with the greatest reluctance that he was obliged, at the close of the year, to lay down his charge, and retire from the itinerant ranks; yet he did not cease to preach. With trembling frame and faltering tongue he would, like the beloved John, gather around him the disciples of Jesus, and exhort them as dear children to love one another. But the day of his departure at length came. That dreadful scourge, the cholera, which spread lamentation and mourning throughout the length and breadth of our land, visited the region where he lived, and was made God’s messenger to open to him the gates of life. On the 16th of June, 1833, after this man of God had preached the Gospel for half a century, he was called from labor to reward. The full salvation which he preached to others, and so richly enjoyed in his own soul, sustained him in the dying hour, and fitted by grace he was admitted to heaven. He spent a laborious but happy life, and died a blessed death. He fought his last battle, and finished his course.

"Life’s labor done, as sinks the clay, Light from its load the spirit flies, While heaven and earth conspire to say, How blest the righteous when he dies!"

Brother McHenry possessed a high order of intellect, and for the opportunities enjoyed in those days he had acquired a good share of learning. As a pioneer Methodist preacher, he thoroughly understood the doctrines of the Church, and took great pleasure in their exposition to all with whom he was brought in contact. He also loved the spiritual and temporal economy of the Church, and labored for their defense. To our young brethren in the ministry, who may read this rapid and imperfect sketch, suffer us to exhort you to study the character, and endeavor to imitate the virtues, and zeal, and self-sacrificing devotion of this faithful itinerant. You have entered into his labors. For God’s sake, suffer not the work so well begun, and successfully carried on by the pioneers of Methodism, to die in your hands. To carry on this glorious work no self-indulgence can be tolerated for a moment. Let a zeal for God and a love for souls burn in your heart and urge you onward. Courage, and zeal, and perseverance are as much demanded now, and perhaps more so, than at any former period in the Church’s history. Study, therefore, to show yourselves approved of God, workmen that need not to be ashamed; then you will truly share in their labors on earth and their rewards in heaven.