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My Two Month’s Tour in Georgia.
I have always been a great lover
of home, and have pretered to read
the travels of others rather than
travel myself. And, in His great
and most unmerited mercy, the
Lord has blessed me with a delight
ful home —the home of my child
hood and youth and early manhood
the home consecrated by the
prolonged residence and godly ex
ample of my devout, venerated and
* beloved father and step-mother,
and by tens of thousands of their
humble, loving,and fervent prayers
around the family alter; the home
where thirty-two years ago, as I
reverently hope, my gracious and
Divine Saviour appeared in His
dying agonies upon the cross to my
/eyes, anointed with His Spirit and
spoke eternal peace to my sin-bur
dened soul. And, since the death
of my last dear companion six
years agOj and the severe bodily
afflictions that came upon me five
years ago, I have been still more
loath to leave the comforts of home
and the company of kind relatives
and friends and of my four little
motherless children. And it is
a pain to me to part with the daily
priveledge of consulting my in
structive library, and of visiting
the poor and afflicted members of
my own church and people of my
native town. Were it not, there
fore, for the solemn impressions
made, as I believe, by the Lord up
on my mind, and the urgent invi
tations of dear brethren for me ti
visit them on preaching tours, I
would never again turn my back
for months upon all that is most
dear to me by nature, and subject
myself, in the frail and uncertain
condition of my health, to the se
vere labors, privations, exposures
and hardships of many kinds, by
day and by night, incident to con
stant travel in all states of the
weather and roads, mostly by pri
vate conveyance, and to attempt to
preach one# or twice everyday!
As for clearing money above rail
road expenses by travelling and
FrimiiM Bnin
Tists, I do not know oi any other
business in which an educated, in
dustrious man could make less
money; and, as for the insinuation
of covetousness, my past life ought
to be sufficient to prove the injus
tice of such a suspicion. On my
preaching tours, I do not even so
licit a subscription for the Gospel
Messenger; and I dislike to hear
one word said about even paying
my expenses.
In accordance with the requests
of both ministering and private
brethren, I left home Feb, Ist (Re
turning April Bth) and tried to
preach sixty-three times, mostly
in Southern Georgia. My labors
were in Bulloch, Loundes, Echols,
. (Hamilton County, Fla.,) Thomas,
Berrien, Colquitt, Worth, Irwin,
Wilcox, Dooly, Houston, Monroe,
Taylor, and Wilkinson Counties,
Georgia; and I met with Elders
M, F. Stubbs, A. W. Patterson,
J. L. Smith, A. V. Simms, Wm
Tomlinson. Lucius. Register, 0.
W. Stallings, Isom. Wethering
ton, David. Johns, Aaron. Par
rish, R. H. Barwick, I. P. Por
ter, Ansel. Tucker, W. W. Wil-,
liams, P. G. McDonald, Richard
Hall, D. W. Taylor, W. C.
Cleveland, T. J. Head, W. W
Childs, S. T. Bentley, W. E.
Pittman, Isaiah. Grant, J. T.
Reynolds, J. G. Murray, and
Bennett. Stewart. My preaching
appointments were mostly in
Primitive Baptist meeting houses,
and New School Baptist meeting
houses.
I encountered a great deal of se
vere weather, storms, snow, and
sleet, and had to travel over very
rough roads and deep waters. I suf
fered much with cold, and with
nervousness, and sleeplessness;
and with pains in my heart and
bowels; but was blessed of the Lord
to obtain relief by the occasional
use of the Oxy donor, (I have used
no meeicine for more than three
years). Southern Georgia is a re
gion of pine forests and wire grass,
lumber, turpentine, cattle, and
sheep. The land is very cheap,
having risen in value during the
last tew years io two or three dol
lars an acre. The people are gen
erally poor, and live mostly in log
houses, and produce rice, corn
syrup, sweet potatoes, and meat,
(some making light brown sugar
out of their syrup) and they are
beginning to grow peaches, pears
and long-staple cotton, [which is
worth two or three times ar-much
as the short-staple cotton], scarce
ly any of the meeting-houses have
stoves; and some have no glass win
dows. One meeting-jiouse in Bul
lock County has an organ, left
for sale by an agent, and used in
the meetings.
I was received and treated with
great kindness; and many deal
brethren and sisters, some very
poor and some very afflicted, assur
me that they believed the Lord had
sent me to strengthen and comfort
them. A dear sistei who has been
an invalid the most of her life, and
has long been confined to her bed,
said that, by my discourse at hei
home,she felt repaid for all her suf
ferings; and a dear, poor, afflicted
ministering brother said that, while
listening to me, he felt glad that he
was poor. Such assurances from
the dear tried children of God are
more precious to me than all the
riches, honors, and pleasures of the
world.
Os the eighteen thousand Prim
itive Baptists said, in the United
States Census of 1890, to be in
Georgia [which is more than there
are in any other State] I believe,
from what I have seen and heard,
that the great majority are sound
in doctrine and orderly in practise.
But, during the last thirty years
departures, in doctrine, or practise,
or affection, from the main body of
our brethren in Georgia have been
made by the Towahgians, Coonites
Battleites, Youngites, Sikesites,
Wilsonites, and Hallites. The par
ticular causes of these fleshly sedi
tions [Gal. v. 20; Ist. Cor iii. 3;
James iv. I.] have been Secret So-
AjefeJEwo-seelkm, ArmidanjspL
political ambition, ministerial jeal
ousy, and personal envy. The en
tire membership of these “slab-off”
as they are called, is probably less
than two thousand; and I was in
formed that the larger proportion
of those are sound in the doc trine
of salvation by grace.
I found that a few of our best
brethren m Georgia have an opin
ion that Judas Iscariot was a child
of God and is now in Heaven.
This, of course, is no matter of
doctrine or order, but a peculiar
interpretation of certain Scriptures.
The following Scriptures' prove
to my mind, as they have to the
minds of nearly all God’s people,
that Judas, though chosen and gift
as an Apostle, and probably a
preacher of the truth [as was the
inspired, but covetous and devilish
Balaam] and a worker of miricles,
was not a subject of regenerating
grace, and is now in Hell:—John
vi. 70, 71; Markxiv. 21; John xvii
12, Math, xxvii. 3—5; Acts 1,18,
25; 2 Cor. vii. 10; 1 Cor. xii; Math
vii. 22, 23; 1 John iii. 15; Rev. xxii
15. The general language of
Christ to His Apostles in Math. x.
16, 20; and in reference to His peo
ple in John vi. 39, is shown not to
apply to Judas, in the sense of his
regeneration eternal salvation, by
John vi. 70, 71; xvii. 12; Mark xiv.
21; and Acts, i 25.
Another strange, and I think er
ronious opinion that I found en
tertained by a few of our worthiest
brethren in Georgia, is that the
blasphemy against the Holy Ghost
the unpardonable sin, [Math, xii,
31,32;-Mark iii, 28-30; Luke xii,
10,) can be committed by none
except the children of God!
As I told some of these breth
ren, all the other Primitive Bad
tist among whom I had traveled
while claiming not to know what
this terible sin is, felt sure of this
one thing about, it that a child of
God could never commit it, sot
Jesus gives repentance andforgiv
ness of sins to His people, and His
blood cleanses them from all sin,
and they have eternal life and can
lever perish [Acts v 31; 1 John i
7,9; John x 28-30.]
When the child of God is under
conviction he sometimes fears that
he has committed the unpardon
able sin, but, as proved by his sub
sequent experience, this is a delu
sion of.the Devil. The context in
Math, xii, Mark, iii, shows that
Christ’s language in reference to
the blasphemy against the Holy
Ghost was called forth by, and ad
dressed to the Scribes and Phari
sees who had ascribed His miracles
to Satan, when they had the fullest
and clearest natural evidence that
the miracles ofChrist were wrought
by the infinite power and goodne&s
of the DivlneSpirit in Jesus. [Com
pare Acts vii, 51-53; Math, xxiii.]
In studying Primitive Baptist
literature on this subject, I find
that some of our wisest brethren,
North andSouth,doubt whether this
sin could be committed by any oth
ers except those who witnessed the
miracles of Christ during His min
istry on earth. Certainly not His
humble, trembling, penitent peo
ple, but only His scoffing, malig
nant, pertinatious enemies could,
or can commit this sin. Heb, vi,
4-6 and x. 26-21, as proved by
THESE PASSUGES THEMSELVES AND BY
THE REMAINDER OF each OF THESE
chapters, and by 2 Pet. ii 1 20-22,
and Math, xii, 43-45, refer primari
ly, not to the gracious children of
God, but those who, in the apostol
ic age, were partakers or witnesses
of miraculous gifts, and then fully
and finally deliberately, malicious
ly and stubbornly apotatized from
the profession of Christianity to
Judaism, whose legal sacrifices
were fulfilled and virtually ended
in the anti-typical sacrifice of the
Son of God [Dan. ix. 24, 27; Heb,
x, 1-18] hnd were literally abolish
ed forever by the destruction of
Jerusalem a few years after the
Epistle to the Hebrews was writ
ten, the God of Israel and of prov
idence thus tremendously emphe
sizing the argument of His in
spired Apostle [see Math. vii.
21]. And if Heb. vi, 4-6 and x. 26-
31 are applicable to any since thV
apostolic age, they refer, as prov
ed by Heb vi. 9 and x. 39, not to
heart diciples, true believers, the
elect, redeemed, regenerated peo
ple of God, but to head diciples,
stony-ground, temporary believers
the merely nominal people of God,
never really cleansed by God’s
grace any more than a the nature
of the sick dog, and the washed
sow is changed, who, after mental
illumination and a brief profes
sions, and walk no more with
Christ even in name, but become
His scoffing and implicable, ad
varsaries who shall, at the judg
ment of the great day,be consigned
co everlasting fire prepared for the
Devil and his angels (John vi. 66;
Mat. xiii. 20, 21; 2 Pet. ii. 1, 20, 22;
Mat. vii. 21, 23; xxv. 41-46.) God’s
fatherly chastizements of his
children for their spiritual good
are refered to in Heb. xii. 1-13,
and are nowhere called in the
scriptures "a sacrifice for sin; the
only real, efficacious, divinely ap
pointed and accepted sacrifice for
sin mentioned in all the scriptures
is the atoning death of Christ. A
single one of our sins, before dr
after regeneration, left unatoned
for by the blood of Jesus would
sink us into everlasting perdition.
The child of God who has sinned,
under the influence of the Holy
Spirit, humbly, sincerely, and
penitently confesses and forsakes
his sin, is, for the alone sake of
Christ, freely forgiven of all man
net of sin, (Mat. xii. 31; Job
xxxiii. 27, 28; Psalm xxxii. 5;
Prov. xxiii. 13; Acts v. 31; Eph
1.7; 1 John 1: 7,9.)
I was sorry to be informed that
one of the able ministers whom I
met believes in the annihilation
of the wicked. This doctrine is as
thoroughly unscientific as it is
thoroughly unscriptural. Science
proves that nothing is annihilated;
and the following Scriptures
prove that the wicked will not be
annihilated, out wm suffer forever,
both In soul and body: Dan. xii.
2: John v.'2B, 29; Mat. 4, 27; xxv.
41, 48; Mark ix. 43, 58; Luke xvi.
23, 27; 2 Thess. i. 7, 10; Rev. xiv.
11; xix. 20; XX. 10,15; xxt 8, xxii.
11,15. Such has always been the
belief of the people of God.
i I learned that a worthy brother,
chosen to be a deacon by his
church, refused for several months
to be ordained, because he said
he could not believe the article oi
faith of his church and Assocation
that there are three persons in the
Godhead:” but that, after havemg
been long labored with in vain by
several Elders, he was finally and
feelingly convinced by the argu
ment that the “person” of the
.Father is plainly refered to in
Heb. i. 3, and that the word,
“image” must refer to the“person”
of the Son, one that, if the Father
and Son are “persons” the Holy
Ghost must also be a “person.”
The Green word hypostasis ren
dered person in Heb. i. 3. is per
haps better rendered subsistence
(as in the London confession,
Chap iii. Sec. 3); it does not mean
an entirely separate one, or dis
tinct individual, but that personal
distinction, in the one individual
Godhead, which arises from the
peculiar mode of existence of
Father, Son and Spirit, as set
forth in the Scripture (no more
and no less,) and which occasions
a mutual love and concurrence in
council, and the use of the per
sonal pronouns, I Thou and He,
}d a distinct order of operation,
the three Divine Persons being
eternal, co-substantial, and co
ual, having Jhe same identical
numerical essence and the same
attributes, and constituting the
One Only Living and True God,
as revealed in the Scriptures and
and by His Spirit in the hearts of
His people, and as totally distin
guished from all the false gods of
of men’s imagination and inven
tion. The Three-oneness of God is
shown in of
’*'***’* ** p vry-'
behever in Christ, and in the apo?-
tolic benediction (Mat. iii. 16, 17;
xxViii 19. 2 Cor. xiii. 14).
At one of my appointments in
Hamilton county Florida, a minis
tering brother was silenced, and
then, at his own request, excluded
from the church, for preaching the
absolute predestination of all
things in such away as to charge
the real blame of sin upon God,
declaring that we can not do dif
ferently from what we do, because
we are predestinated to do so, and
that it is perfectly useles to ex
hort or admonish the children of
God to do any better than they do.
In regard to God’s connection
with sin, he denied all the force
of the word meaning to permit,
used fourteen time in the Scrip
tures (2 Chron. xxxii. 31; Ps.
Ixxxi. 12; Mark i, 34; v. 13; Luke
iv, 41; viii. 32; Acts ii. 23; vii. 42;
xiii. 18; xiv. 16' Rom. i. 24, 26, 28;
ix. 22,) and uttered the most
diabolical blasphemy that I ever
heard fall from human lips, say
ing: “If I should take that little
child and carry it to the river
bank and leave it, and a rattle
snake should come and bite, and
kill it, I of course could say, I
didn’t do it, I didn’t do it, but
then I did do it.” Thus hemost
blasphemously represented the
eternally and infinately Holy God
as vainly trying to excuse Him
self from the blame of sin in al
lowing His creatures to sin. The
human being who takes the little
child to the river-bank, in the
above illustration, is indeed a mur
derer, but the Holy Creator and
Judge of man is perfectly righte
ous to make man upright in His
own jmmage, and put him under a
hcly law, and. if he wilfully and
rebelliously violates that law, to
reflect upon him the just penalty
of his transgression. The most
Holy One that inhabiteth eternity
is of purer eyes than to behold
iniquity; He is light, and in Him
is no darkness at all; He does not
even tempt, muchless compel, his
creatures to sin; he is, to sin in
every form and in every being, a
consuming .fire; even his sinless
Son, when representing his sinful
people, was forsaken of his holy
and loving Father, and delivered
up to suffer the horrible death of
the cross(lsa. Ivii. 15; Habak. i. 13;
1 John i. 5, James i. 13, 15; Heb.
xii. 29; Mat. xxvii. 46; Acts ii.
23,)
I have heard of a great many weak
minded and deluded Methodists
and New School Baptist in Geor
gia claiming to have attained sin
less perfection in the flesh, some
of whom disgraced and injured
themselves by vainly trying to fly
and to walk on the water, and of
one, while professing holiness, in
dulging in the grossest sin.
On the same train with myself
one day in Georgia, the notorious
infidel, R. G. Ingersol, asked an
illiterate Primitive Baptist if he
had seen God, and the Baptist an
swered “yes, in my experience.”
Ingersol confessed that the Bap
tist had the advantage of him, as
he himself had never had such an
experience; but he added that he
did not deny that there is a God,
and said that there might be three
or four of them, but he had never
seen them. Our brother then
asked him if he believed he (In
gersol) had any brains, he replied
that he did, and, when asked if
he had ever seen his brains, he
had to answer “No.” A still more
appropriate and convincing ques
tion would have been, whether
he had ever seen his mind. The
realty of the invisible mind is as
certain as the invisible, onni
present Divine spirit is as certain
as the reality of the visible and in
visible works made and upheld by
Him. The oneness of the uni
verse proves the oneness of God;
and in the Noted American Re
view of August 1881, Ingersol ad
mitted that if there is a God of Na
ture, He is the same as the God of
the Bible.
Gfi met with the
admirable little book, “My Rea
sons for Leaving the New School
or Missionary Baptists,” by Elder
John H. Fisher, of Collinsville,
Texas, who mails it for 25 cents
per copy or $2.50 per dozen copies.
It contains 127 pages, and is di
vided into 18 chapters, nine of
which treat of the unscriptual
doctrines, and nine of the un
scriptual practices of the New
School Baptists. Eld. Fisher was
the pastor of four of their churches,
with a salary of SBOO per year,
and a student at the Southern
Baptist Theological Seminary, at
Louisville, Ky. He had a great
struggle of mind in leaving them
and joining the few, poor, and des
pised Primitive Baptists. He
writes ably and kindly of his former
brethren. I would be glad if all
the subjects of grace in all the de
nomination could read this little
work.
The ninth chapter of Elder
Fisher’s book, speaks of the af
filiation (of New School Baptist)
with nearly all kinds of secret in
stitutions of men,” while he shows
it to be plainly condemned by
such scripture as Mat. x. 27, 27;
Eph. y. 11, 13; Lukexiv. 33; Col.
ii. 20, 23 ; 2 Cor. vi. 14, 18; Judg.
ii. 1,2 ; Mat. vi. 21; and Rev. xviii.
4. The Masonic, claimed to be
the most ancient of these Secret
Societies, is explained (in its pur
poses, ceremonies, signs, degrees,
and awful oaths, with an authen
ticated account of the abduction
and murder of tlfe author in the
mouth of Niagara river, in 1826)
in Captain William Morgan’s
“Freemasonry Exposed” (sold by
L. Fitsgerald, 18 Ann street, New
York, for 25 cents ),’under specu
lative Fremasonry, as critical
scholars know, while having some
vague anologies with the secret
heathen rites of ancient Grecj and
Egypt, can not be traced back, by
authentic history, to Solomon, or
Moses, or Adam or the first day of
his creation, as some credulous
Masons believe, but finds its true
historical precusor in the building
corporations of the mildle ages,
and itself actually originated' in
London, June 24th, 1717, (see the
Ninth Edition of the Encyclo
paedia Britannica, Vol. ix. page
729.) The Masonic traditional ad
ditions to the scriptures (see Rw.
xxii. 18.) are as mythical and in
creditable as those of Roman
Catholicism. The church of
Christis the only divine Society
on earth and it needs none of the
additions or pretended improve
ments of men. The anti-christian
ity of Secret Societies is proved by
their ignoring the name and sal
tion of Jesus Christ. A Youngite
Baptist told me that he had been a
Mason thirty years, and that it
had never done, and he was satis
fied never would do him, 25 cents
worth of good. One of the most
intelegent Masons in the United
States, the late Mr. E. J. Hale, of
North Carolina, and then of New
York, wrote a few years ago in the
Raleigh (N. C.) Observer, that he
had long since quit attending the
Lodges, because his time could be
much more profitably employed.
I met on my trip with perhaps
the youngest Primitive Baptist in
the world, sister Ada Moran, of
Ohapilco, Brooks county Ga. She
is eleven years old, and was bap
tized last October, after telling a
satisfactory and touching ex
perience reaching back two years.
And the most remarkable family,
in some respects, that I ever visi
ted, is that of brother Wm. W.
Williams, of Ty Ty, Worth cpsn
ty Ga.; he and his wife are living,
and have thirteen children, .bf
whom ten are at home, five boys
and five girls; five are Primitive
Baptists, and four others have a
hope, and all are excellent singers '
and performers, carrying all the
different parts in music, and seem
to be able to sing every hymn ■in
the note books, and make
commodious house seem a heaven
ly place. This dear brother .is
himself about to build a good
meeting house near his home.
I was glad to learn that one of
■HHLiost able
had been faithful
and bold enough to teach and
train his four churches to obey the
apostle Paul’s injunction, in 1
Cor.ix. to furnish their paster a
temporal support, and that two
others of our worthiest elders
there are following in the same
scriptural line.
I attended a Union Meeting of
the Echleconnee Association with
Mount Carmel church, near Cul
loden, Monroe/ county Ga., the
last three days in March; and it
was a union time gs
blessed and wonderful peace and
love and joy—-a most interesting,
tender, and melting not only
the speakers; but hundreds of the
eager attentive hearers seeming to
be blessed with an outpouring of
the Divine Spirit.
Elder W. C. Cleveland took me
eight-teen miles in his buggy from
the Union Meeting, Monday, April
Ist, to Butler, Ga., where, when I
hoped to meet dear brother Res
pess on the first of April—my first
idea of making this trip, having
been suggested by him to mewhen
I was last with him at his home in
Feb. 1894; but the freed and puri
fied spirit of the humble, self-sacri
ficing, and afflicted servant of
Christ had, on. February 4th, as
cended I believe, to the immediate,
holy, and blissful presence of God;
and it was a most mournful pleas
ure to me to visit and try to speak
words of comfort to his lonely,
bereaved family and church.
Patriachs. prophets, apostles, min
ister?, and members pass away;
but the Divine Head of the church
ever lives, and will never leave nor
forsake His people, but will be
with them, in His gracious and
saving presence, to the end of life,
the end of time, and the never
ending ages of eternity. ,
8. Hassell.
Williamston, N. C.
Reproye not a scorner, lest ho
hate thee: rebuke a wise man, and
he will love thee. Prov.ix. 8. ■