PRE-03-Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Student and Teacher—Preacher and Temperance Lecturer—Success In the Ministry-Method of Working- Analysis of his Character-Sketch by T. W. Caskey. His true vocation was found at last, and to it he felt all his powers must be made tributary; and his future life showed an entire consecration to his work. His education at this time was little more than begun, and for some time he was teacher and pupil—teaching what he knew in the district school, and at the same time learning as he could, what was most important for him to know in regard to the life work on which he had entered.

One of his pupils at that time, but now a lawyer in Rush County, says, "the district in which Shaw taught had rather a bad name, the boys generally managing the school instead of the teacher. The first day of the term we were all on hand, wondering how he would suit, and from what we had heard of him rather inclined to think that our rule would continue. Our teacher was a very tall man, three or four inches over six feet, rather slender, with large hands and feet—able, from all appearance, to enforce whatever rules he might prescribe. He had an agreeable voice, and quite a pleasant expression of countenance; and the first impression was a favorable one. He called the school to order, and gave us his rules; indeed, he had but one, which he announced somewhat as follows: ’Boys, I expect you to do as I do; what I do and say you are at liberty to do and say; if I lie, you can lie; if I swear, you can swear if I fight, you can fight; but if you do any of these things and I don’t, you will get a whipping.’ No one was whipped that term. There was crying done at the close of the term by nearly all of us, but it was because we had to part with our teacher, whom we had soon come to regard as our best friend. When there was any work to be done about the school-house or yard he was always first to begin, and then say, ’Come on’ to the boys, who never refused to follow his example. We all got to like him, and when he preached we were sure to be present. We also got him to make temperance addresses, and we all did our part to make such meetings a success. I remember well when he was to make his first temperance speech, that an old toper who was there was talking very hard about Shaw before he came, on account of his views on temperance; but when he came the old man went in to hear him, and before the lecture was over he was crying like a child, and said he had never seen the subject in that light before."

All this time he was preaching, whenever and wherever, he found an opportunity. His improvement was very marked. He began to receive invitations to preach at various places in the county, and when scarcely a year had passed after he entered fully upon his work, he was regarded as a useful man, and one who gave great promise of increased usefulness in the future. His musical talent, too, now began to attract far more attention than when his skill on the violin was the admiration of all the pleasure-loving people for miles around; even more than by his preaching, were multitudes moved and melted by his songs; and soon he was widely known as the "Singing Evangelist."

He was now fairly launched upon his wonderful career, which brought so much toil to him, and so much blessedness to those for whom his labor was given. Conversions began to attend his labors, and this only stimulated him to greater effort. God, he felt, was thus owning his work in the salvation of his fellow-men. The first record we can find of his success is in the Millennial Harbinger for 1861, only about two years after he began to preach. It is as follows: ’’Brother Knowles Shaw, a young evangelist, writing from Rushville, Indiana, says: ’At all my meetings this year some sixty persons have enlisted under the banner of Christ.’” Under date of August 28th, of the same year, we hear from him again in these terms: "At our meeting in Hamilton County there were three additions by confession and immersion. Brother Van Winkle was with us during the meeting. At a meeting at New Hope, of ten days’ continuance, there were fifty-one additions-forty-three by confession and baptism. Brother H. R. Pritchard was with us a part of the time. We also held a meeting in Madison County, where there were seventeen additions. And during our last visit to the brethren at Little Flat Rock there were four additions. We have determined to preach the gospel, the whole gospel, and nothing but the gospel, to the best of our ability." His life had always been one of great activity. It was not less so now, but in an entire different direction. He knew nothing of the usual routine of a preacher’s life, either in his preparation for his work or the actual performance of it. Of theology he knew nothing, only as he had heard it from the pulpits of the various religious parties, and he had no narrow creed of his own to cramp and fetter his powers. Instead of living in a library, with books only for his companions, and bringing before the people once or twice a week the results of his reading and study, he came before them with a message drawn from the one Book, and suited to the wants of men in all the various conditions in which they are found. He was the farthest possible remove from the conventional preacher in almost every particular—in dress, manners, habits, and intercourse with men; and the reader will fail utterly in his conception of him if he thinks of him as an average modern preacher, differing in only a few unimportant particulars from all the rest of his class. He lived among the people whom he taught and strove to save, as one of them; his visits were not of a solemn and formal character; he sought them in the shop, the forest, the field; a street conversation was often the occasion of impressing serious reflections on the minds of those he met. Instead of delaying the work of those he called upon, he would take hold and help while he talked, and thus release them from anything like constraint; learn all their wants, doubts, troubles, and also enter into their joys, and leave them better far for the call and with minds made up, even without an invitation, to hear him preach the next Sunday without fail. He had a song for the children of the families that he dropped in to see, and cheered the parents, while apparently seeking to please the children. If the clock was out of order, a few touches from his hand would often set it right; if the sewing-machine would not work it was soon in smooth running order, and the good wife thought no less of the preacher who was so handy, and not at all stuck up, but just like other folks.

Few men could get better acquainted in a strange place sooner than he. During one of his meetings he would be going nearly all the time, from morning till night, going into nearly every place of business, and getting acquainted with everybody. If a death took place he needed no invitation to attend the funeral, and sometimes gave consolation, which was all the sweeter to the sorrowing from the fact that it was the offering of a stranger. Once when in a strange city he wandered out to the graveyard. While there a young child was brought for burial; the parents were not members of any church; he joined the sad company, talked a little at the grave, sang one of his tender songs, and made such an impression on the mourning ones that they came to hear him preach that same evening. In this way he made himself acquainted with human life in all its phases, and by mingling freely with society during the week, he knew how to meet their various wants when he met them on Sunday at the house of God. His chief studies were the Bible and human nature, and the great secret of his power over men consisted in first learning their precise needs, and then meeting those needs with what the word of God furnished. This made his sermons often lack in unity; but if varied they were not more so than the circumstances of his hearers, and when the greatest number of those was reached his end was accomplished. He was fertile in illustration; his knowledge of men and things gave him a rich store of striking similes and figures. He drew largely, also, from his own experience, and, though neither learned nor profound, he seldom failed in one way or other to reach every one of his hearers. But, above all, he was deeply in earnest; all who came in contact with him realized that. He needed not the inspiration of a crowd to call forth his powers; if he had hut few, or, as on a few occasions, but one or two, he seemed to realize the value of the soul, and talked earnestly and tenderly, as did the Master to a few disciples, or to the woman at the well. He did not seem to have the wish, even if he had the power, to make fine speeches; he spoke more for effect, to tell the sick of a cure, to point out the way to the lost.

One or two carefully-prepared sermons per week did not come up to his ideal; the souls of men were always in danger; to save them he felt that he must be always at work. A discourse for every day in the week even was not deemed enough; three per day were not uncommon, and sometimes four. Besides this, he labored much from house to house, doing good as he had opportunity—when opportunity seemed lacking he made one. His powers were so varied that during the progress of a meeting he reached the case of all the classes who came to hear him. One of our most eminent preachers in the South, Elder Caskey, a fine judge of human nature, and who met Shaw when in the height of his usefulness and made him his study, observed this peculiarity to which we have called attention, and to it attributed much of his success.

He says: "He had his peculiar style of saying things and doing things; he conformed to no standard, either of oratory or action; as a logician he was not profound; as a word painter I have heard him excelled; as for pathos, I have heard others who were his superiors in that respect. I am under the impression that his power was owing to a combination of these three elements, that, singly or combined, make up the greatness of all eminent speakers. This combination he possessed in greater degree than any speaker I have ever heard. The reason, perhaps, why he excelled in neither was the absence, to some extent, of what phrenological science calls continuity of thought. When he played the logician, which he could do, it was sharp, cogent, incisive, but always short, never exhaustive. He seemed not to have the power to drive his mental machinery along the track for any considerable length of time, or chose not to do it; his transitions from logic to rhetoric, from reasoning to description, from the serious to the humorous, from tragedy to comedy, were sudden and frequent; consequently there was often a mingling of smiles and tears among the impressible of those who heard him. Versatility was a leading element of his nature. As a musician he had few equals; his power of imitation was wonderful; he could imitate the joyous, strong-faithed Christian, by gestures, looks and words, until you could almost see the sparkle of his eye, the flush on his face, the happy smile on his lips, and hear his glad shout ringing in your ear; then suddenly he would put on a long face, the woe-begone look, the drooping form, and heave the burdened sigh of some poor, doubting, halting, and fearing, John Bunyan-made-Christian, on his way to the Castle of Giant Despair. " This versatility, so well sketched above, was characteristic of him in the beginning of his evangelical labors, as well as at the period when the above picture was drawn—not under as perfect control, perhaps, at first, as in after years, but, nevertheless, the great and marked peculiarity of the man. With this key to his character we can understand fully why it was that success and usefulness were attained so early. What others reached, in even a small degree, after years of study and patient toil, he reached in a high degree without their advantages, in a much briefer period. In 1860 his work was only fairly begun, but in the ten years following he held more successful meetings than any man in our ranks. Within four or five years from the beginning of his public labors he attracted much attention, and met with great success; and at that early day, when only about thirty years of age, held meetings not inferior in interest and results to those with which we have become so familiar in the later years of his life. He was a growing, a successful preacher from the beginning; he never slackened his efforts, but worked while it was called to-day.

Among his earlier meetings, one held at Tipton, Indiana, is especially worthy of note. This was in May and June, 1864. It was held in the Courthouse, and was attended by great throngs of people. The excitement is compared, by one who was present, to that of a heated political campaign-the people coming from far and near, and resulting in one hundred and thirty-two additions to the church. Among them was a youth only thirteen years of age—at this writing twenty-eight years of age, who has been preaching the gospel for years, and has persuaded hundreds to turn from the evil of their ways. In connection with Brother Pritchard, he had even greater success in a meeting at Jonesville, Indiana, in 1865. This brings us to the most active period of his life, his work fully entered upon, his purposes formed to spend, and be spent, in the work to which he was providentially called. The future chapters will contain the progress of that work, which was one of battles which were victories.