CHAPTER XIV.

LEARNER BLACKMAN.

THE subject of our present sketch was born in the state of New Jersey; but in regard to the exact date of his birth we have no opportunity of knowing. He was descended from pious parents, and many members of the family, at different periods of life, became religious. Our acquaintance with brother Blackman commenced in the year 1808. He was a brother-in-law of the Rev. John Collins, through whose instrumentality he was brought into the kingdom of grace, and made an heir of salvation. The personal appearance of Blackman was prepossessing, and impressed one, in looking upon his tall, slender form, and dark, flashing eye, that he had genius and eloquence; but when engaged in conversation, the brilliance and fascination of his manners would demonstrate that fact in a remarkable degree. To judge of his eloquence, however, he must be heard; and none who were permitted to listen to his silvery voice, when engaged in description, or its impassioned strains when in declamation, would go away without being impressed with his power over the heart. He may have taken the pathetic Collins for his model as a pulpit orator. Of this, however, we can not speak assuredly; but whoever was his model, or whether he had any that he copied after, one thing is certain, he was an eloquent divine.

We have been favored with a description of western preachers by one who has lived to witness what he calls the various phases through which the pulpit style has

passed in his day. Among the first class of Methodist preachers there was a marked, if not an exclusive attention and devotion to doctrinal preaching. In all their sermons the distinctive doctrines of Methodism occupied the chief place. Repentance, faith, justification, sanctification, the possibility of falling from grace, with the doctrine of the atonement as contradistinguished from the Calvinian view, and occasional brushes at Church polity and ordinances as held by other denominations, formed the staples of the sermons of these early preachers. But not only was Calvinism attacked; Arianism, Universalism, and other forms of error were made to feel the lash of these sturdy pioneers of the faith of Wesley.

The next class which immediately succeeded these, in a great measure lost sight of polemic theology, and turned their attention to the graces of oratory. Their sermons were profusely interlarded with poetry, and some of the preachers possessed a peculiar penchant for blank verse. We recollect to have heard it said of one of the preachers of this class, that "he would break a square any time to make a jingle." Nicely-rounded periods, beauty of expression, and fine rhetorical flourishes, were regarded as of more importance than orthodoxy itself. Still, however, there were exceptions to this general rule, as also in regard to the first class.

This class had its day, and was followed by a third, and succeeding one, whose characteristic consisted in a didactic style of preaching. Their sermons, though not elaborately ornamented with poetry and flights of fancy, were, nevertheless, illustrated, from beginning to end, with anecdotes and incidents, some of which were so appropriate, that they are told by preachers of this class with thrilling effect, even to this day. A well-authenticated anecdote or incident, in the hands of a skillful preacher, will frequently accomplish more in arresting

the attention and stirring up the soul to action, than the most powerful declamation itself. We shall have occasion, in another part of this book, to relate some of these.

This peculiar style of preaching, however, did not last always. It served its allotted time and gave way, not to a new class, but to the revival of an old one; and it seems that it did not stop in a medium in regard to its predecessors, but bounded back to the old stock, and revived the good old doctrinal style, mixing it up, however, with a little more of the historical and exegetical. How far this applies to the Methodist pulpit of the present day, your old friend will leave some graphic delineator of the times to describe. We do not profess to wield such a pen as would claim for us the qualification to enter upon the task of describing the Methodist pulpit of the present day, though were we to assume it we would not be disposed to consider it as being marked by any one striking characteristic distinguishing it from the pulpits of other denominations. We believe the Methodist pulpit to have vastly more learning at the present time than at any former period; but whether it possesses more zeal, and devotion, and wisdom, such as is adequate to win souls to Christ, is a question we shall not at present discuss, only so far as to say that our Church seems, in the hands of the present ministry, to be enlarging her borders beyond all precedent, in every section of the country.

But we ask pardon of our readers for having digressed so far from our subject, and shall resume our sketch of the young and talented Blackman. At the early age of nineteen he commenced his itinerant life. He was admitted on trial in the year 1800, and sent to Kent circuit. After this he traveled in regular succession Dover, Russell, New River, and Lexington circuits. Concerning

his labors in these respective fields we have no information. In the year 1805 he was sent as a missionary to Natchez, thus passing rapidly over a vast extent of country.

The new field of labor to which he was destined was then the farthest west. To reach his appointment it was necessary for him to travel through a wilderness seven or eight hundred miles in extent, untenanted, except by savages and beasts of prey. But no, there were worse men than savages and beasts of prey-more cruel than the panther. We allude to those Indian traders who, to rob the red man of his skins and furs, would give them ardent spirits to drink and make them drunk, so that they would, in turn, rob and murder the traveler. It is the example of the white man that gave to the Indian character its desperate savageness; and as an old soldier and statesman, well acquainted with the history and policy of the nation, the other day remarked in Congress, "In every treaty that has been violated by the Indians the white man has been the aggressor."

Nothing daunted, our young hero missionary started on his journey. For fourteen days and nights he traveled alone and unattended through the wilderness. At night he would hitch his horse, and taking his saddlebags for a pillow and his blanket for a covering, he would lie down in the woods, commending himself to the keeping of his God. At length he arrived at the place of his destination. Methodism had scarcely gained an existence in the place. Yet there were a few who had been awakened and converted to God through the labors of Rev. Tobias Gibson, and they were struggling to keep alive the spark of grace in the midst of the superabounding wickedness. Notwithstanding there were some reputable persons friendly disposed to religion and morals, yet it was a lamentable fact that the vast majority were totally

bankrupt in morals, and their proud hearts and vicious lives made them decided opponents of the Gospel of Christ; but their opposition was more strictly arrayed against those who preached it. At one time, when a plain, unlettered man was preaching, the wicked portion of the audience had great merriment on account of his ignorance of correct language. It seems that they had set themselves up to be judges, not hearers, of the word. We have such hearers at the present day. They will make a man offend for a word, and they will tax their shallow brains so much to recollect that, such is their anxiety to criticise, that if one should ask them about the division of the subject, or even the text itself, their feeble brains can not recall it. They are unable to hold but one idea at a time. At one time the grammar of this preacher was at fault, at another time his rhetoric, and then his logic, besides his gestures were awkward, etc. They did all they could to hedge up the poor man's way, and said he was not competent to preach. How

ever, he was not to be intimidated by the laugh and sneer of his ungodly hearers. On one of his visits he took for his text the following: "Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell!" Then said he, in tones of thunder, "Gentlemen, is that grammar?" He was divinely assisted in his sermon, and having greatly the advantage of his censors, who sat as if taken by surprise, he kept it by pouring upon them passage after passage of divine denunciation upon the wicked, frequently asking the annoying question, "Gentlemen, is that grammar?" So successful was that effort, that ever afterward there was a studied silence in regard to the preacher's defects, and his grammar never afterward was called in question.

In the midst of such society young Blackman commenced his labors in that distant region. He was a