Sam Jones Eyewitness Account

In the rural town of Thompson, Georgia, in 1877, there was an eyewitness account of a Sam Jones meeting where a revival took place. The eyewitness was a local resident, a lawyer by the name of Tom Watson, a very distinguished individual who would rise to national prominence in his day, and this is his recollection of that revival under Sam Jones' pointed preaching. In the good year of 1877, Sam Jones lit down in this veritable town of Thompson and began to go for the devil and his angels in a manner which was entirely new to said devil, also new to said angels.

Someone happened to remark in my hearing that there was a little preacher up at the Methodist Church who was knocking the crockery around in a lively style and who was dusting the jackets of the Amen Corner brethren in a way which brought the double grunts out of those fuzzy fossils. I was not ravenously fond of sermons. I did not yawn the day I went to hear Sam Jones, but there he was, clad in a little black jumptail coat and looking very little like the regulation preacher.

He was not in the pulpit. He was right next to his crowd, standing within the railings and almost in touch of the victims. His head was down as if he was holding on to his chain of thought by the teeth, but his right hand was going energetically up and down with all the grace of a pump handle.

And how did the hammer, and how did he hammer the brethren? How he did peel the Amen Corner. How he did smash their solemn self-conceit, their profound self-satisfaction, their peaceful partnership with the Almighty, their placid conviction that they were the trustees of the New Jerusalem. After a while, with solemn, irresistible force, he called on these brethren to rise in public, confess their shortcomings, and kneel for divine grace.

And they knelt with groans and sobs and tears. These old bellwethers of the flock fell on their knees and cried aloud in their distress. Then what? He turned his guns upon us sinners.

He raked us fore and aft. He gave us grape and canister and all the rest. He abused us and ridiculed us.

He stormed at us and laughed at us. He called us flop-eared hounds, beer kegs, and whiskey soaks. He plainly said that we were all hypocrites and liars.

And he affirmed somehow broadly that most of us would steal. Oh, we had a time of it, I assure you. For six weeks the farms and the stores were neglected, and Jones, Jones, Jones was the whole thing.

And the pleasant feature of the entire display of human nature was the marked manner in which the Amen Corner brethren enjoyed his flaying of us sinners. Well, the meeting wound up. The community settled back into its old ways.

But it has never been the same community since. Gambling disappeared. Loud profanity on the streets was heard no more.

And the ballrooms were run out of the country. Well, friends, that was an excerpt from my new biography on Sam Jones entitled Sam Jones, A New Biography. And you can get your copy on amazon.com.