CHAPTER XXI
How an Anti-Mission Church was Converted
During the summer of 1833 two brethren of the committee of correspondence at Alton, Elder J. M. Peck and Doctor B. F. Edwards, hearing of my affliction, paid me a visit of sympathy and prayed with me. The doctor was still of opinion that I would recover so as to ride and preach. They inquired into my pecuniary matters, and found that my family were on the eve of suffering, and that something must be done for their relief, and that soon. The doctor himself advanced me $80, a favor which will not be forgotten. They also wished to know if I would accept an appointment from the Home Mission Society for $100 a year, and give myself wholly to preaching the gospel. I told them it would be a great favor, indeed; yet I was resolved to do as I had always done, preach as much as I could, pay or no pay. As for any I help from our antimission people, I expected none. And my own views on the subject of missions, I said to Dr. Edwards, had not changed since the time he was acquainted with me in Kentucky. They then gave me to understand, that I might expect an appointment from the Society, and to hold myself in readiness to go to work.
On December 21 the appointment came to hand. I let the brethren of Pleasant Grove church know that I had received it, and that I felt myself under many obligations to the Society for their kindness, not only to me as an individual but to the church, and to the people generally in the west. But the brethren took a different view of the subject. They looked on it as an insult, and called me to account for accepting such an appointment.
"Why," said one, "it will be reported all over the country that our pastor is a missionary!" But it appears to have been no disgrace to have it reported all over the country that their pastor and his family were suffering for the necessaries of life! After long debate it was resolved that I must send back my appointment to the Board without explanation or thanks. I told them it would be necessary to give reasons why I could not accept, and the church agreed that I should do so.
I prepared the letter, stating the act of the church in the case, and submitted it for approval. They rejected it. It must not go in that shape, for all the blame would fall. on the church. I wrote a second
[p. 72]
letter, and that was rejected. I framed a third, which they thought would answer. The church then appointed one of the deacons to take the letter and my commission to the postoffice and see it was safely deposited, that the offending paper might go back whence it came.
Now came a trying time in the history of my family. I had borrowed money at 20 percent to buy bread and meat, and now the question was how I was to pay that money. One of the deacons started a subscription among the members of the church, but got two names besides his own. He said to me, "There is so much opposition to it that I shall make no further attempt." "Bum the paper," I replied, "for I see they are determined to starve me out. They would not be satisfied until I sent back the commission which promised me $100, and now they are unwilling a subscription paper should be circulated because it looks a little like being missionary."
Six weeks after my commission had been returned it came to hand again. I told one of my friends in confidence, and that I did not intend the church should know it. But the church did know it, and at the next meeting charges were preferred against me for receiving back my commission, knowing the church was opposed to it. After discussion the matter was laid over to the next meeting, and the two deacons were appointed to labor with me and report. They let me know what night I might expect a visit from them, and in the meantime I wrestled with God, pleading the promise given me in the woods of Kentucky, before I began to preach: "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee."
The evening came, and the deacons came. After prayer they commenced their labor, and I heard them patiently until they were through. Then I made my defense: "Brethren, both of you were acquainted with me in Kentucky, and heard me all the time I preached there; and you know my views have not changed on the subject of missions. You have heard me speak of Judson and wife. You recollect when I went twice to a schoolhouse in your vicinity and addressed the Sunday school. You know I approved of the Bible society in Russellville, and though I was not a member Elder Warden and Elder Tatum were, and they both distributed Bibles and Testaments. Look here, deacon; has not your wife got a Testament with P. Warden's name on it, and "American Bible Society" stamped on the Cover?
"Yes."
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"Again you know that Sandy Creek church, in which you, brother C., had your membership, had every year a subscription paper for the benefit of brother Talbert. And you know it was the custom in the churches to pay annually a subscription for their pastors. What is the reason that the same Baptists who used to do it in Kentucky dare not do it in Illinois? "You are wonderfully alarmed at the word, 'Missionary,' and I doubt whether either of you know what it means. Here is Jones' Dictionary; look for the word and see the definition. What do you read? "'MISSIONARY -- One sent to propagate religion.'
"Very well; one sent to propagate religion. Do you suppose that is a true definition?" "I suppose it is," one of them replied.
"Jesus Christ was the first gospel missionary," I continued. "Hear him: 'I am not come to do mine own will, but the will of him who sent me. As the Father sent me, so send I you. Go ye into all the world and propagate religion among all nations.' One sent to preach is a missionary. You have often heard me say that if I did not believe God had sent me to preach I would not preach another sermon. I am a missionary for God sent me. Now if you consider me a preacher of the gospel, and have no other charge against me than that of being a missionary, you must report to the church that your labor with me was unsuccessful, and if the church exclude me I shall have to stand alone. The Presbyterians and Methodists are in favor of missions, but they practice sprinking instead of baptism and I cannot unite with them on that account. The Campbellites teach remission in baptism, and deny the agency of the Holy Spirit in conversion; I cannot travel with them. I cannot go with any church but the Baptist, and if they exclude me I must stand alone; I have no alternative."
"No," exclaimed the deacons, rising to their feet, while tears stood in their eyes, "you won't stand alone; we will stand with you, and if the church excludes you they must exclude us!"
It was a weeping time; the God of missions was in the midst. They took their leave, assuring me they would stand by me. At the next church meeting they made their report:
"We found Elder Bower steadfast. We can do nothing with him. We found he was of the same mind as when he was our pastor in Kentucky. He made it plain to us that he was right and we were wrong. So if the church excludes him she will have to exclude us likewise!"
[p. 74]
There was much consultation by the brethren, and by some of the sisters, and then it was voted that the church was satisfied with Elder Bower. There were but two dissenting votes, and these two suffered exclusion rather than live with a church that had a missionary for a pastor. The next question was to know what the Elder should do with the commission from the society. It was decided that he should keep it and act under it.
Thus a whole church except two members were converted in one day to be in favor of missions. And it was the only missionary church in the state of Illinois that I had any knowledge of, except Rock Spring, Edwardsville and Upper Alton." (Viz, outside the Friends of Humanity, who numbered at the time 26 churches in Illinois, with 850 members and 25 preachers. They comprised the great bulk of our missionary Baptist churches, but on account of their radical position on slavery, their fervency and their peculiar name, there was a lack of full sympathy between them and the churches organized by Elder Peck.)
Elder Bower continued to be pastor also of the Winchester church, which remained in the Morgan Associaiton, but after the deliverance against missions at the associational meetings in 1832, they dismssed him as pastor for fear of exclusion from the Association. Yet the very thing they feared came upon them, for being wrongfully accused to the Association as being missionary and in "disorder," the church was dropped from fellowship. The thoroughly antimission part then constituted themselves into a separate church, giving it the name of Friendship, and were received back into the Association. The two churches still exist side by side, but the younger has never prospered as has the older. =================== [Edward P. Brand, Illinois Baptists -- A History, 1930, pp. 71-74. -- jrd]
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A biography of Jacob Bower is here.
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