Chapter XXXV: Conclusion

Upon the third Sunday in November, while the congregation in Cane Ridge meeting-house was singing the opening hymn, Hiram Gilcrest entered, and, walking slowly down the aisle, seated himself upon the steps of the pulpit platform. All eyes were turned upon him, and for a moment there was a perceptible pause and break in the singing. Then Mason Rogers lined out the fifth stanza, and the congregation sang with redoubled zest.

"Let us pray," said Barton Stone, coming forward with uplifted hands at the conclusion of the hymn; but Gilcrest arose, and, arresting him, stood facing the assembly. "Brethren," he said, "before we pray, allow me a few words. I have been a professor of religion for over forty years, and for twenty years of this time I was identified with this church. My walk was orderly, my conversation seemly. I gave tithes of all that I possessed, I was instant in season and out of season, and ever jealous for the well-being of the church. In things outward and, I thought, in things spiritual, I was a Christian; and though I was as self-righteous as any Pharisee, I was not a hypocrite, for I was self-deceived. In all these years I was as Simon the sorcerer, still 'in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity,' having neither part nor lot in true Christianity. But, brethren, the Lord in his mercy did at last reveal unto me the dark places of my soul wherein lurked pride, prejudice, vindictiveness, and all uncharitableness; and, like the publican, I cried, 'God be merciful to me, a sinner!'

"For several years I have had at times an idea that in the position taken by this church in 1803, you were perhaps right and I wrong. A sermon by a strange preacher in a distant county last June further tended to convince me of this; but still I struggled with stubborn hardihood against the truth that was threatening to crush me. It was reserved for the Lord's own stroke to smite the rock and bring forth the sweet waters of repentance and confession. To-day I am here not so much because I have surrendered one jot or tittle of my former doctrinal tenets, as because of the conviction that no system of dogma, however true and logical, is of importance compared to this, that the professed followers of Jesus Christ should be a united people. I now see that whether the doctrines formulated by Calvin or those promulgated by Arminius be true, the acceptance of either interpretation of these disputed points does not constitute the vital essence of salvation. They are but matters of opinion, instead of the one supreme article of saving faith--belief in the redeeming efficacy of the sacrifice upon Calvary.

"As I now understand the position taken by this congregation in 1803, I see that so far as it may be considered a distinctive religious movement, it is distinctive only in its denial of the binding authority of human organizations, and in its renunciation of humanly devised creeds as unscriptural and as opposed to the simplicity and unity of Christian people. Therefore, leaving out of the question all matters of opinion upon doctrinal theology, and standing, as you do, upon the one sure foundation-stone, faith in and reliance upon our crucified Redeemer, I come to you to-day, begging forgiveness for my opposition and vindictiveness, and asking that my own and my wife's name be replaced upon your church book, and that we be restored to your fellowship."

Before he had finished, Barton Stone was beside him grasping his hand, but too overcome to utter a word. The congregation sat a moment in breathless silence, tears of sympathy and thankfulness in the eyes of even the most stolid. Then Mason Rogers, striding down the aisle, and facing the people, with one arm thrown over the shoulders of his old friend and comrade, lifted up his voice in thanksgiving. He prayed in his own homely words, but with fervency and fire as though his lips had indeed been touched with "a live coal from the altar."

"Amen!" and "Amen!" were the exclamations from all parts of the building. Then, in a clear, full voice, he started the hymn:

"I'm not ashamed to own my Lord,
Nor to defend his cause."

The congregation quickly joined in; and as the melody of noble old "Arlington" resounded through the building, the people left their seats, and, filing down the aisle, each in turn grasped the hand of the returned brother, and welcomed him again into fellowship.

Thus, like a sincere and peace-loving Christian, Hiram Gilcrest once more took his place among his brethren, humbly and lovingly, with never again a trace of his former spirit of prejudice and dogmatic intolerance.

As for the various other characters of this story, little more need be said.

Barton Stone labored for many years in various fields of usefulness in Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana and Missouri. In 1843 he returned for a last visit to Cane Ridge. He was then an old man, bent and palsied, and so feeble that he had to be helped into the pulpit; but his eyes kindled with the old-time light, his bent form straightened with something of the old-time vigor, and his voice became full and vibrant as he stood facing that assembly where many seats were now occupied by the children and grandchildren of those who in this old meetinghouse forty years before had as a church renounced all human authoritative voice in matters of religious worship, and had resolved that henceforward the Bible should be their only rule of faith and practice, and belief in Jesus as the Christ their only creed. Stone preached this last sermon from the text of Paul's farewell to the brethren at Ephesus, "And now behold I know that ye all among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God shall see my face no more." He was truly the old man eloquent as, standing for the last time in that pulpit, he reviewed the past, spoke approvingly of the present, and admonished to future zeal. He died in 1844 in Missouri, and the following spring his remains were brought to Kentucky by the members of Cane Ridge Church, and reinterred in the old churchyard.

Cane Ridge meeting-house is still used as a regular place of worship. Its log walls have been weather-boarded, its clapboard roof replaced by one of shingles, and its rough-hewn puncheon benches have given way to more comfortable seats. The quaint little window over the pulpit and the slaves' gallery opposite have been removed, and more modern heating appliance substituted for the old fireplace. Otherwise, the building is the same as it was one hundred years ago.

To one who knows the history of its venerable walls and of those who rest in its old-fashioned graveyard, where, underneath the arching boughs of walnut and pine, oak and maple, there sleep Barton Stone and many others who took part in the first great religious movement of the nineteenth century, it is indeed a hallowed place. "What Geneva was to Calvin, Wittenberg to Luther, Edinburgh to Knox, and Epworth to the Wesleys,"[3] this beautiful nook of Bourbon County is to that great reformatory or restoratory movement inaugurated in 1803, whose plea was and still is the restoration of the simplicity, the freedom and the catholicity of apostolic Christianity; and whose dominant effort has ever been for the union of God's people upon the only efficient platform of Christian union, faith in Jesus the Christ, the Son of God.

[3] J. T. Sharrard.

Mason Rogers and his bustling, kind-hearted wife lived to a ripe old age, happy in home, children and children's children, and in the affectionate regard of all who knew them. The warp of their daily life was plain and homely, but the bright threads of integrity and loving-kindness running through it, made it into a beautiful pattern, approved of all men.

Henry Rogers, after finishing his course at Transylvania, dedicated his splendid talents to the ministry, winning many souls to Christ, enduring many trials, encountering much opposition from those professed Christians in whom the spirit of sectarian intolerance still held sway. Bravely he endured, and nobly he deserved, at the end of his long life of unselfishness, the plaudit, "Well done, good and faithful servant!"

The strong bond of friendship between the Gilcrest, Rogers and Logan families was made still closer and stronger when John Calvin Gilcrest, at the close of the war of 1812, returned to Kentucky and married Susan Rogers.

For Abner and Betsy Logan, the years as they sped onward brought an ever-increasing measure of happiness; for their love for each other had that steady, faithful, fireside quality which endures, and fills the daily life with peace and charm long after the first blaze of passion has sunk into the smouldering glow of sympathetic affection.

Where once had stood their first humble log cabin, there arose in the course of a few years the new "Crestlands," a stately mansion of brick with spacious rooms, broad halls and pillared porches. This noble, historic homestead is to-day occupied by the fifth generation of Logans. Its founder, Abner Logan, realized his ideal; for his home became a center of peace and order, love and content--a radiating point, ever widening into increasing circles of beauty and usefulness; and the name, "Crestlands," is still a synonym for hospitality, integrity and Christian culture in that green and beautiful portion of "God's Country" called Cane Ridge.

THE END.