Selected from: William Henry Foote, Sketches of Virginia, Historical and Biographical (Philadelphia, 1856).
Three miles from our village was an old church, a favorite and memorable resort of the villagers on special occasions. Built of blue limestone, blackened by the pencil of time, with a steep stairway to the gallery outside on the front, crowning the summit of a beautiful knoll, and peering out from a dense grove of majestic old oaks, it was the very beau ideal of an ancient rural house of God. For many years it was under the same pastoral charge with our village congregation; and after this connection was severed, it was customary for our minister to assist the pastor on ‘Sacrament days,’ and for many of his people to resort thither. Most of the older people went on horseback, but the younger ones were afoot; and as the sacraments were usually in the spring and autumn, it was a beautiful walk over the hills, through the well-tilled fields, and amid the noble forests. Some of those bright autumn Sabbaths have left their pictures clear and strong in my memory; the delicious inspiring October air, the very atmosphere seeming to sparkle as with diamonds; the deep blue of the fathomless heavens, with fleets of white clouds floating lazily on its ocean bosom, and here and there one aground upon a mountain top: the grand old mountains in parti-colored livery of black, green, red, and yellow; the forests waving their lofty pennants of crimson and gold.
The scene as we gained the summit of the last hill, bringing us in view of the Church, was most inspiring. From every country road, old men and matrons, young men and maidens, in long processions, two abreast, came pouring in on horseback, emerging from the thick forests, and clattering across the limpid brook that murmured through the intervening vale; hundreds of impatient steeds tied under the trees of the grove, neighing salutations to newcomers, groups sitting upon rude benches, or on the moss-covered rocks, or clustered around the sparkling spring; the sound of sacred song floating from the old Church doors, mellowed and harmonized by the distance; friends meeting and greeting, and the crowd growing too great to be contained within doors. In the Session House adjoining the Church in the rear, the ministers and elders assembled at an early hour to exchange fraternal salutations, to spend a season in prayer, examine candidates for communion, and make arrangements for the day. Here baskets and napkins filled with provision were deposited till the “interval” between the public services, the stated time for taking refreshments; and here rustic mothers, who could not leave their babes at home, brought their infant charges, and sometimes remained during the sermons, listening with eager ears to the minister’s words, as they fell through the open door over head, adjoining the pulpit.
The interior of the meetinghouse wore an antique and time-worn aspect. The pulpit, unlike our primeval octagon box in the old Church at home, was long, and capable of accommodating a goodly number of ministers, and the sounding board overhead, suspended by a rusty iron rod, sufficiently extended to have shut them all in, had it come down from its fastenings; the pews were extravagantly tall, and the aisles depressed, so that when persons were in the latter, nothing but their heads and shoulders could be seen—the benches and backs, as you sat in them, being the perfection of discomfort, and to the young folks the most serious drawback to the favorite sacrament days. Not a speck of paint had ever touched pulpit, pew, or gallery; the yellow pine, grown tawny by the lapse of years, stood up in its native nudity. But when village, farmhouse, and mountain glen had poured their quotas into the old sanctuary, until every nook and crevice was filled, below and above stairs, leaving crowds at the doors and on the benches without, it was a congregation which might have fired the heart of any minister.
One sacrament day which occurred in my childhood will be remembered as long as one of those blackened stones stands upon another—as long, indeed, as lasts that sanctuary not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For some time previous there had been an extraordinary degree of religious interest in the village and surrounding country. Many had been inquiring the way of salvation, and not a few had found the pearl of great price. Prayer meetings and special services had been held night after night. Religion was the great theme of conversation in the streets and in domestic circles. Hardly was there a house where one or more of its inmates had not been wrought upon by the Spirit’s power. Spiritual songs, lively and stirring, or plaintive and heart-touching, were sung with zest and soul, and a pamphlet, containing a selection of them, was published for this special use. A dire and fatal epidemic which had prevailed, carrying off numbers to their graves, and filling almost every home in the village with sorrow, had brought death and eternity near, and prepared the way for the impressions of the gracious work. Not a few of the subjects of the revival were awaiting the sacrament, publicly to profess their new-born love. The session house and the adjoining grove, on the morning of that memorable day, presented a scene over which angels might have rejoiced. Here is a fond-hearted mother, giving words of counsel to a daughter convulsed with grief because of the burden of sin; here is a venerable father, with a favorite son beside him under that great old oak, to whom he is making solemn appeals, not to let this favored season and this affecting day pass without making his peace with God; and here on the rude bench against the wall sits our venerable pastor, with weeping eyes, listening to the delightful narrative of what God had just been doing for one of his flock, for whom he had so often prayed. Not a careless face was seen in all the throng which today has been drawn together in unusual numbers, by the tidings of the revival.
Our minister preached the morning sermon. He was always evangelical, solemn, and impressive, and at times there was a sublime and majestic roll in his utterances, which marked him the great man all acknowledged him to be. But today there is a power, a vivid spreading out of eternal things—a directness and earnestness altogether peculiar. At times his voice would falter, as he almost choked with the swelling emotion. A divine afflatus had breathed upon his heart, and from its profound depths he spoke as a dying man to dying men. To this day that discourse is remembered by many who heard it, as one of the most remarkable efforts of a man whose ordinary sermons would have honored any pulpit. The scenes in which he had recently mingled, and the stories of broken hearts, troubled consciences, and heavenly hopes, which had been poured into his ear, had unsealed the great fountains of his soul.
The sermon well prepared the way for the communion; and when the invitation was given to the young converts to assemble around the table spread before the pulpit in the cross aisle, there was a spectacle which moved every heart, and drew tears of joy from many an eye. Fathers, mothers, ministers, Christian friends, at last saw the answer to their prayers. Those who had been dedicated to God in infancy, and rededicated a thousand times since in the closet, at the family altar, and at this very sacramental table, had now, after tedious years of waiting, which had almost sickened the heart with hope deferred, come forward to avouch Jesus as their new Lord and Master. The village beauty, the ere-while careless and wild young man, the sturdy bronze-faced mountain farmer, and the old veteran with the weight of years upon him, together left their several pews, and made their way through the crowded aisles for the first time to sit at this affecting festival. The scene was too much for some of them. Hearts would overflow, tears would fall, and, in the midst of the minister’s address, as he spoke to them in touching terms, well suited to their present case, reminding them of what they had been by nature, of what grace had done for them in snatching them as brands from the burning, and of the debt of gratitude and love they owed to Him who had shed his blood to save them, one young man sobbed aloud, overcome by his emotions. This touched a sympathetic cord in all hearts, and the old meetinghouse became a Bochim—a place of tears—sweet tears of penitence, and a peace passing all understanding. The unconverted, who sat wondering spectators, felt the power of the eloquent appeal; they were cut to the heart, and resolved that they too must seek the Lord; and many a pious saint, feeling that his cup of joy was full, was ready to say with old Simeon, “Now, Lord, lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.”
One of the ministers, either on this or a similar occasion at the same period, held up the sacramental cup, and asked, in language that went to every unconverted heart, “Can you, will you longer reject and trample on this precious blood, poured from the wounds of a dying Saviour?” “I call God and this great assembly to witness,” said he, “that it is offered you afresh this day. Again dare to spurn it from your lips, and the record will be written against you on high, which, in the terrible day of God’s coming judgment will flame out to your astonishment and dismay in letters of fire.” Not a few, who felt the power of that appeal, were soon after drinking of that cup, in memory of Him who had washed them from their sins, and given them a hope, through grace, of drinking it with him hereafter in his heavenly kingdom.
The many hours of the services, protracted by the numerous successive tables of communicants, and the afternoon sermon, passed swiftly on, no one heeding the lapse of time, until at last, when the great festival was ended, and the crowds turned into the various roads and byways to their several homes, the long shadows of approaching evening were already spreading their sable mantle over mountain, field, and forest.
Years have passed since that memorable day. Some of those who shared its blessings have long since become ministers of the gospel, and valued officers and members in the household of faith. Some soon tired of the service upon which they had prematurely professed to enter, and turned back to the world, their last state being worse than the first; and others have died in the glorious hopes of the gospel, and are now in the company of the just made perfect, around the throne on high, blessing God and the Lamb for that sacrament day.
