02.02. Rev. Barton Warren Stone

Rev. Barton Warren Stone The Man Who Studied and Taught

It takes great strength to live where you belong When other people think that you are wrong;

People you love, and who love you, and whose Approval is a pleasure you would choose. To bear this pressure and succeed at length In living your belief--well, it takes strength.

--Charlotte Perkins Gilman. With every great movement is associated great men. Reforms are only accomplished through human agencies. Martin Luther and the Reformation are inseparable. The Wesleys and revivalism are linked together. The American Revolution and Washington, the elimination of American slavery and Abraham Lincoln, Evangelism and Dwight L. Moody, Christian Union and Barton W. Stone, are inseparable--to think of the man in each particular place is to think of the work he wrought.

Great men can only be estimated through the perspective of years. Paul was accounted a criminal, John Bunyan was imprisoned, Washington was defamed, and Lincoln was the victim of vilest slander. It remained for future generations to recognize and appreciate their greatness, and accord to them their true place among the world’s worthies. Even now we may be too near the days of Barton W. Stone to estimate properly his true value to the church, and to fully appreciate his real service in helping to clear the way for the great things the church is doing today. But when the history is written, and the final chapters are completed, it will be found that he made a large contribution to its triumphs. He, like Dr. Abner Jones, of New England, was born amid the stirring times of the Revolutionary War. His brothers were revolutionary soldiers, and the eventful scenes of those historic days were not only written upon his young mind, but influenced his whole life for all the years he lived. He drank so deeply of the spirit of political freedom that he could not do less than what he did for religious liberty.

Barton Warren Stone was born near Port Tobacco, Maryland, December 24, 1772. In 1793 he became a candidate for the ministry in the Presbyterian Church, in Orange County, North Carolina. The subject of his trial sermon, as assigned by the Presbytery, was "The Being and Attributes of God and the Trinity." His examination was satisfactory, but he did not accept license at that time. He went to his brother’s home in Georgia, and while there was chosen Professor of Languages in the Methodist Academy, near Washington. After a year he returned to North Carolina, and attended the next session of the Orange Presbytery, and received license to preach. When the license was granted a venerable father in Israel gave him a Bible and said, "Go ye into all the world and preach my gospel to every creature." He commenced his public ministry at Cane Ridge and Concord, in Bourbon County, Kentucky. In 1798 these churches extended him a formal call to become their pastor, which call he accepted, and a day was set for his ordination. Of his ordination he says: "I went into Presbytery, and when the question was propounded, ’Do you receive and adopt the Confession of Faith, as containing the system of doctrine taught in the Bible?’ I answered aloud, ’So far as I see it consistent with the word of God.’ No objection being made, I was ordained."

Elder Stone entered into the Trinitarian Controversy with much zeal and great assurance, and it would be strange if in the heat of controversy he had said, or written, nothing of a speculative character. In his more mature years he ceased all contentions and satisfied himself by speaking of the Son of God only as the Son of God had spoken of himself. He preached for the churches that had called him only for a few years, for he was in the Presbyterian ministry but seven years in all. His labors while pastor at Cane Ridge were excessive; he spared not himself that he might serve others, and indeed this was true of him throughout his whole life, for, like Paul, he was "in labor more abundantly." The Christian Herald (1825) describes him as follows:

"He is rather small in stature, but thickset and well proportioned, light complexion, hair curly, has a pleasant blue eye, expressive of great sensibility, his voice bold and commanding, his gestures natural and easy, his sermons characteristic and instructive. He never leaves any part of his text unexplained, and seldom do his hearers go away uninstructed."

He was, at this time, but a few years past fifty, and was in the prime of his manhood and the perfection of his strength. He was Secretary of the Kentucky Christian Conference, which evidently he had helped to organize in 1804. He was pastor at Cane Ridge during the time of the great revival there. Of this meeting he says:

"This memorable meeting came on Thursday or Friday before the third Lord’s day in August, 1801. The roads were literally crowded with wagons, carriages, horsemen, and footmen, moving to the solemn camp. The sight was affecting. It was judged by military men on the ground that there were between twenty and thirty thousand collected. Four or five preachers were frequently speaking at the same time, in different parts of the encampment, without confusion. The Methodist and Baptist preachers aided in the work, and all appeared cordially united in it,--of one mind and one soul, and the salvation of sinners seemed to be the great object of all."¹

It should be stated that the great revival in which Elder Stone participated did not begin at Cane Ridge. Rather, it was carried there. It began with the preaching of Rev. James McGready, on Red River. This man, McGready, was a remarkable man. It was said of him that he would so array hell before the wicked that they would tremble and quake, imagining a lake of fire and brimstone yawning to overwhelm them, and the hand of God thrusting them into the horrible abyss. Also, it was said of him that the fierceness of his invectives derived additional terror from the hideousness of his visage, and the thunder of his tones. And it was said, also, that if you came anywhere upon a group of McGready’s older people, you would find them weeping and talking about their souls, and the same was true of young people when found singly, or in groups. While B. W. Stone was yet in school he heard this son of Boanerges preach, and he describes the man, and the effect of his preaching, as follows:

"A crowd of people had assembled--the preacher came--it was James McGready, whom I had never seen before. He arose and looked around on the assembly. His person was not prepossessing, nor his appearance interesting, except his remarkable gravity and small, piercing eyes. His coarse, tremulous voice excited in me the idea of something unearthly. His gestures were sui generis, the perfect reverse of elegance. Everything appeared by him forgotten but the salvation of souls. Such earnestness--such zeal--such powerful persuasion--enforced by the joys of heaven and miseries of hell, I had never witnessed before. My mind was chained by him, and followed him closely in his rounds of heaven, earth, and hell, with feelings indescribable. His concluding remarks were addressed to the sinner to flee the wrath to come without delay. Never before had I comparatively felt the force of truth. Such was my excitement that, had I been standing, I should have probably sunk to the floor under the impression."

Rev. McGready had charge of Presbyterian churches on Red River, Gasper River, and Muddy River, in Kentucky. Peter Cartwright says that when his father settled in that country, in 1793, it was called Rogues Harbor, and for the reason that the majority of the citizens were murderers, horse thieves, highwaymen, counterfeiters, fugitives, bond-servants and absconding debtors who fled there from the clutches of the law. It was in this society that McGready, with his terrible countenance and thunderous voice, found the environment for which he was fitted, for no sooner did he begin his work there than a transformation began. It was here, in this modern Sodom, that the great revival had its beginning. Elder Stone was at the time pastor of the Presbyterian churches at Cane Ridge and Concord, in Bourbon County, Kentucky, and went over to attend the wonderful meeting of which he had heard. It was all, and more, than had been reported, and he carried back the fire to the Cane Ridge country, where it blazed with greater force than in any other section.

Elder Stone’s interest in this great awakening was intense from the opening day, and none among them all labored with greater zeal, more conquering faith, nor triumphant hope than did he. When the revival closed he, unexpectedly and without desire, found himself the central figure in a large group of converts who had not faced the question of church membership, nor given the subject any consideration at all. They had been converted, and that was enough for them. They were in the kingdom, and were satisfied. But they were as sheep having no shepherd. Many of them belonged to families, parts of which had been brought up in some one of the churches engaged in the revival. Sectarianism did not die with the birth of souls into the kingdom. Indeed, it seemed to be stimulated, for each of the sects laid claim to a large number of the converts, and set about to secure them. Religious energy was consumed in denouncing the creed of each other. Party spirit ran high, and sectarianism grew bold and aggressive. Elder Stone’s heart was broken over the wrangling of preachers, whose only aim seemed to be to add members to their church lists, and prove the correctness of their doctrine. It was not an easy task for him to decide his duty. He had been ordained a Presbyterian minister, had taken churches under his care, and was at that time pastor of the Cane Ridge Church, that was then in good standing and full fellowship in the Presbyterian Synod. He was harassed with misgivings at facing his old time co-laborers, and the doctrines which he himself had preached, and yet down deep in his heart he was conscious of the fact that creeds were divisive and believed that, when all human creeds and traditions should be set aside, Christians would find a simple, yet sufficient, rule of faith and practice in the Word of God. The processes by which he reached a conclusion disentangling himself from his former associates, and crossing the boundaries of sectarianism into the liberty of the children of God, were slow and painful. He was greatly misunderstood, and grossly misrepresented, but he remained unmoved in the course he meant to pursue. He was aided, no doubt, in reaching a decision by the sticklers for Calvinism complaining that he, and others, were preaching anti-Calvinistic doctrines, and finally the matter was brought before the Synod of Lexington, Ky., in 1803. Finding that the Synod would likely decide against them, the following persons withdrew: B. W. Stone, Robert Marshall, John Dunlavy, Richard McNemar and John Thompson. The Synod proceeded to pass upon the sentence of "suspension," for the crime of departing from the doctrines of the Confession of Faith. Stone had never promised to accept the doctrine. He promised only to "receive it so far as he found it consistent with the word of God."

Elder Stone now saw that his connection with the Presbyterian Church must soon terminate, and accordingly he called his congregation together and informed them of the situation. He told them that he could no longer sustain to them the relation of pastor, and while he loved them dearly, he must be true to his conviction of truth and duty. He informed them that he expected to continue to preach the gospel among them, but it would be the gospel, and not ism. Immediately he, and his associates, formed what they termed "The Springfield Presbytery," and went on preaching and organizing churches for about one year. They discovered, however, that the Presbytery they had organized was about as sectarian as the one they had left, and so they proceeded to dissolve it, and, discarding all man-made creeds and human names, they took the Bible alone as the rule of their faith and practice, and the name Christian as the only name for believers in Jesus Christ.² Of this event Elder Stone says:

"Having divested ourselves of all party creeds and party names, and trusting alone in God, and the word of His grace, we became a by-word and laughing-stock to the sects around us; all prophesying our speedy annihilation. Yet from this period I date the commencement of that reformation which has progressed to this day. Through much tribulation and opposition we advanced, and churches and preachers were multiplied." The Last Will and Testament appears in the Origin and Principles of the Christians, but being directly connected with the life and work of Elder Stone, who in all probability wrote it, it is reproduced here: