55. Chapter 50: The Church Moves West

CHAPTER 50 The Church Moves West

1. The Westward Movement Is a Challenge to the Church The first general census taken after the United States became an independent nation was that of 1790; it showed that there were four million inhabitants. Out of this reservoir of people there be­gan to flow westward three sepa­rate streams. One from New England moved along the valley of the Mohawk, a second moved through southern Pennsylvania and Maryland, and a third moved through the valley of Virginia and the passes of the Blue Ridge Moun­tains.

Endless processions of covered wagons carried the women, the old and feeble, the children and babies, and all the household goods. Men on horseback armed with rifles drove the herds of cattle. One of the great highways into the west­ern country was the Ohio River. Down this river floated huge flat­boats laden with westward moving settlers and all their belongings. A European traveling in this coun­try in 1817 said, "America is breaking up, and moving west­ward." This mass movement of the population from the old settlements along the Atlantic seaboard across the mountains into the western country is one of the great sagas of history. By 1820 this westward move­ment had populated the country both south and north of the Ohio. Twelve new states were added to the Union, ten of them west of the Alleghanies. The people who so rapidly filled the new western country were almost all native Americans; their ancestry was for the most part English, Dutch, Ger­man, and Scotch-Irish. The new western country be­tween the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River, seething with a vigorous, adventurous, and hardy population, presented to the Church a tremendous task. The future of the Church in America and therewith of the American na­tion itself would depend upon the way the churches took care of the spiritual life of these pioneers. The churches foremost in undertaking this all-important but difficult work were the Presbyterian, the Baptist, the Methodist, and the Roman Catholic.

2. The Presbyterians Enter the West The Scotch-Irish were the last Europeans to come to America in large numbers before the end of the colonial era. Naturally they had to find homes along the west­ern frontiers of the colonies. Wher­ever they settled they founded churches, and by 1760 there were Presbyterian churches along the frontier from New England to South Carolina. Consequently the Presbyterians were the most favor­ably located for taking up the work in the new West across the moun­tains; they were closest to it, and they were also most used to fron­tier conditions of life.

Thousands of Scotch-Irish Pres­byterians poured from Virginia and North Carolina into the coun­try out of which the states of Ken­tucky and Tennessee were to be carved. They carried the Presby­terian Church with them. By 1802 there were three Presbyteries in Kentucky. These were organized in that year as the Synod of Ken­tucky. The Plan of Union became of very great significance at this time. The Presbyterians and the Congre­gationalists, if they are both true to their Calvinistic confession, differ only in their form of church government. When the westward migration swelled to great num­bers, both churches came to realize how large was the task facing them in the new West. To perform that task more successfully they adopted in 1801 the Plan of Union. Under this Plan of Union the two churches agreed that it would be permissible for Congregational and Presbyterian settlers in the west­ern country to found churches to­gether, and that a church so or­ganized would be free to call a minister of either denomination. If the majority of members were Presbyterians, the church was to be conducted according to Presby­terian rules — even if the minister was a Congregationalist; if most of the members were Congrega­tionalists, their form of church or­ganization would be followed. Under the Plan of Union Congre­gational associations could be or­ganized as well as Presbyterian presbyteries. The Plan of Union came into operation in the western country chiefly in the region north of the Ohio. In this region large numbers of New Englanders had settled, as well as groups of Scotch-Irish from the Middle States. In most localities the Scotch-Irish Presby­terians were in the majority; con­sequently the Plan of Union turned out to the great advantage of the Presbyterians. It has been esti­mated that in central-western New York, Ohio, Illinois, and Michigan two thousand churches which were originally Congregational were transformed into Presbyterian churches.

There were other things which gave to Presbyterians an advan­tage over Congregationalists. They had a strong and active denomina­tional spirit, which the Congrega­tionalists lacked. The Congrega­tionalists felt that their loose form of organization was not as well suited to frontier conditions as was the more compact Presbyterian form of organization. The Ameri­can Home Missionary Society, though Congregational in origin, went so far as to advise all Con­gregational young men going out as missionaries to the West to be ordained as Presbyterians.

Throughout the new West, Pres­byterians and Congregationalists established schools and colleges. They made by far the greatest con­tribution to the educational and cultural life of the frontier.

However, the Baptist and Metho­dist churches grew in membership far more rapidly than did the Pres­byterian and Congregational churches. There were several reasons why the Presbyterians lagged so far behind the Baptists and Methodists. The Presbyterians demanded a well-educated minis­try; the Baptists and Methodists did not. A Presbyterian minister was required to give all his time to the ministry; the Baptist and Methodist ministers were employed in other work during the week, and functioned as ministers only on Sunday. You may not see at once how this favored the Baptists and the Methodists; but it did. It meant that a Presbyterian church could not be organized until there were a sufficient number of members to support a minister. It cost less to support a Baptist or Methodist church than a Presbyterian church. Besides, the frontiersmen felt closer to the Baptist or Methodist minister, who worked with his hands as they themselves did, than to the scholarly Presbyterian min­ister. They felt that a Methodist or Baptist preacher was "one of them." He spoke their language. His more or less crude, highly emo­tional sermon appealed to the rough frontiersmen more than did the scholarly sermon of the Pres­byterian minister. Among the Bap­tists and Methodists there was a deep-seated prejudice against edu­cated and salaried ministers.

3. The Baptists Work Effectively on the Frontier The general run of Baptists were poor and without much education. With self-supporting, uneducated preachers sprung from among the common people, and a purely demo­cratic form of church government, the Baptists were well fitted for the rough conditions of life on the frontier. The first Baptist church in Ken­tucky was organized in 1781 at Severn’s Valley. This church and its earliest records are still in ex­istence. As a rule the Baptists came in groups and brought their ministers with them. That was the case with the Baptist church founded at Gil­bert’s Creek in Kentucky. Its mem­bers came from Virginia in a body with their pastor, Lewis Craig. As these Baptists crossed the moun­tains their pastor preached when­ever they made camp, and several persons were baptized in the clear waters of the mountain streams. It was during their westward march that they heard the news of the surrender of Cornwallis, and they made the mountains echo with the firing of their rifles in joyous celebration. When they arrived at their chosen place of settlement, they gathered for worship around the same old Bible they had used back in Spottsylvania in Virginia. At first the Baptists would gather for worship in the rude cabins of the settlers, with perhaps six to ten members in a group. After a few years they usually built a church of round logs. Later they would build one of hewn logs with a fireplace and chimney of brick. The father of Abraham Lin­coln helped to build such a church in 1819 on Pigeon Creek in Indi­ana. Usually a frame or brick church was not built until fifteen or twenty years after the first set­tlement was made.

It was the custom in these Bap­tist churches on the frontier to hold monthly business meetings. These meetings were generally de­voted to matters of discipline for drinking, fighting, malicious gos­sip, lying, stealing, immorality, gambling, and horse racing. Even intimate family relations came under the watchful eye of the church. South of the Ohio River, where many church members held slaves, the Church watched pro­tectingly over the slaves. Slaves could be church members, and they were sometimes permitted to have a voice in church matters. From all this it is clear that the Baptist Church was a powerful factor in maintaining order and decency in the raw western communities.

After the local churches were founded, there came the problem of organizing associations. The first association west of the moun­tains was organized in 1785 and consisted of six churches in Ken­tucky; the next year an association of seven churches was formed in Tennessee. By 1801 there were three associations in Kentucky, and in that year they united to form one. As the Baptist churches in­creased in number they formed ad­ditional associations.

4. Methodism Has Strong Appeal Of all the churches the Metho­dist was the most successful in extending itself among the frontiers­men in the new western country. In the earlier days, at least, the Methodists were even more suc­cessful than the Baptists. Their greater measure of success in win­ning men and gathering them into churches was due to two things: their doctrine and their organiza­tion.

THE CIRCUIT RIDER
Although the official title of this famous statue of Francis Asbury is "Pioneer Methodist Bishop in America," it is popularly known as "The Circuit Rider." The statue is located at 16th and Mount Pleasant Streets, Washington, D. C. Augustus Lukeman was the sculptor. A similar statue has been erected at Drew University in Madi­son, New Jersey. The Presbyterians and Baptists were both Calvinists, though the Baptists preached a milder form of Calvinism than did the Presby­terians. As Calvinists both the Baptists and the Presbyterians preached the doctrine of predesti­nation, of God’s absolute sovereign­ty and electing grace. They preached that man’s destiny lies wholly in the hands of God. The Methodists were Arminians. They preached the doctrine of man’s free will — that man holds his destiny in his own hands. This doctrine had great appeal. The frontiersman felt that he was carv­ing his own destiny out of the west­ern wilderness. The doctrine of man’s free will preached by the Methodists fitted in admirably with frontier conditions. And so externally the Metho­dists were more successful than the Presbyterians and the Baptists. They were able to gain more mem­bers and establish a larger number of churches. But a church is not an end in itself. It is only a means ’ to an end. A small church that preaches sound doctrine is more to be desired than a large church whose doctrine has departed more or less from the truth of Scripture. The form of organization of the Methodists was also better suited to frontier conditions than that of the Presbyterians and the Baptists. Under the Presbyterian and Bap­tist systems the preachers, gen­erally speaking, were confined to their own local church. It was not so with the Methodist preachers. "All the world is my parish," was Wesley’s motto. Actually all Eng­land was his circuit, and in his pursuit of souls he rode that vast circuit throughout his long life. Thus circuit riding became an established Methodist practice. With Methodism, circuit riding was in­troduced into America. Nothing could have been better adapted to frontier conditions. It was just the thing. And the system of circuit riding was aided and fortified by the system of local lay preachers. The Methodist circuit riders traveled on horseback from settle­ment to settlement. Some of these circuits were so large that it took from four to five weeks to make the rounds. The circuit riders preached every day except perhaps on Monday. At various places they established "classes" with "class leaders" (ch. 40, sec. 8). On a cir­cuit of average extent there were from twenty to thirty classes. True to Wesley’s slogan, "The world is my parish," the circuit riders did not wait for a number of Method­ists to move into a settlement to organize a church. The overwhelm­ing number of frontiersmen did not belong to any church. And so the circuit riders rode across the mountains and plunged into the backwoods of the wild West, look­ing everywhere for frontiersmen to whom they could bring the Gos­pel and the Methodist doctrines. As bishop, Francis Asbury was at the head of the Methodist Church throughout the United States. Again and again he crossed the Allegheny Mountains to hold conferences with the preachers and assign them their circuits. He him­self also preached. As a result of the work of the circuit riders and the preaching in the regular churches the Method­ists experienced remarkable growth. At the beginning of the nineteenth century there were in the West less than 3,000 Method­ists; by 1830 the membership in that area had grown to over 175,­000. Of these, 2,000 were Indians and more than 15,000 were Ne­groes. The Western Conference in­cluded all the Methodist churches in the entire region west of the mountains.

5. The Roman Catholics Make Slow but Steady Progress

Very early there were in the new West a few Catholics who had come from Maryland. From time to time these were visited by priests. Bishop Carroll in Baltimore sup­plied the old French settlements along the Mississippi and around the Great Lakes with priests.

Stephen T. Baden was the first priest ordained for Kentucky. His coming marks the real beginning of the Roman Catholic Church in the West. By 1808 Catholic growth was such that a new diocese was organized with Bardstown, Ken­tucky, as its center. Its territory included the vast region of Ken­tucky, Tennessee, and the North­west Territory. In 1815 the dio­cese of Louisiana and Florida was organized, and in 1829 the diocese of Cincinnati. The growth of the Roman Catho­lic Church in the West was not rapid, but it laid the foundation for rapid expansion at a later date.