DEALINGS OF PASTA GOD, MAN, AND THE DEVIL: AS EXEMPLIFIED IN THE LIFE, EXPERIENCE, AND TRAVELS OF LORENZO DOW, IN A PERIOD OF OVER HALF A CENTURY: TOGETHER WITH HIS POLEMIC AND MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS, COMPLETE. TO WHICH IS ADDED THE VICISSITUDES OF LIFE, BY PEGGY DOW. Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.—David. WITH AN INTRODUCTORY ESSAY BY THE REV. JOHN DOWLING, D. D., OF NEW YORK, TWO VOLUMES IN ONE. VOL I. CINCINNATI: APPLEGATE & COMPANY, 43 MAIN STREET. 1858. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1849, by J. S. GLASENER, & R. C. MARSHALL, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Ohio. INTRODUCTION THOSE of our reade 3 who have lived long enough to remember the first thirty years of the present century, will easily call to mind a remarkable and eccentric individual, who for nearly the whole of that period, prompted by an inward impulse, devoted himself to a life of singular labor, self-denial and sacrifice. One month he would be heard of laboring for the good of souls, in his own peculiar way, in the neighborhood of his native New England home; the next, perhaps, braving the frost and snow of a Canadian winter; the next, on his way to Ireland or to England, in the prosecution of the same benevolent purpose; and six months afterwards, perhaps, encountering the dangers and hardships of a Georgia or Kentucky wilderness, or fleeing for his life from the tomahawk or the scalping knife of the Indian savage, in the then untrodden wilds of the great valley of the West. That individual was Lorenzo Dow. Pale, sallow, and somewhat consumptive in the appearance of his countenance; dressed in the plainest attire, with his single-breasted coat, often worn thread-bare; and in his later years wearing a long flowing patriarchal beard; his whole appearance was such as to awaken a high degree of curiosity and interest. Then, the suddenness and the promptitude of his advent in a town or village, at the very hour and minute that he had appointed, perhaps some twelve or eighteen months before; the boldness with which he would attack the ruling vices, and denounce wickedness-either in high places or low, the general adaptation of his dry and caustic rebukes to the sin and follies prevalent in the places he visited, and which he seemed to know almost intuitively; together with the biting sarcasm and strong mother-wit that pervaded his addresses ;all served to invest the approach to any place of the "crazy preacher," (as he was frequently called,) with an air of singular and almost romantic interest. And most extensively has the influence of the labors of this strange and eccentric man been experienced and felt. Scarcely a neighborhood, frcm Canada to Georgia, or from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, that has not some tra 10940 dition to relate, or some tale to tell of the visit and the preaching of Lorenzo Dow; and scarcely an old man in all those regions that has not some one or more of the witty sayings of Lorenzo Dow to relate to his children and his grandchildren. The history of such a man, however mysterious the impulses which prompted him, and however strange his movements, belongs to the history of the race; nor will justice to the race permit that the extensive memorials which he has left of himself should be lost in silence or forgetfulness. In the minute and extensive journals of his travels and sufferings and labors, and in his various mental exercises, upon a great variety of matters of doctrine and opinion, which Lorenzo Dow has left behind him, he has bequeathed to posterity a mental daguerreotype of himself. And however outré may be many of his expressions, however eccentric and amusing, and frequently inconclusive may be much of his speculation and reasoning-yet it is frequently instructive; it is always entertaining; it is always characteristic; it is part of the history of mind. The reader is satisfied that there is no interpolation here; that it is Lorenzo Dow himself who speaks, and no one else. And for the very plain reason, that his expressions, if not his thoughts, are entirely sui generis; they are strictly peculiar to himself. It is not denied that some of his ideas may have been uttered by others. It is safe to say that no man ever expressed them in the phraseology of Lorenzo Dow. If it were not for the fear of transcending the limits of the brief introductory essay, and of touching upon subjects that might lead us to diverge too much from the more immediate object with which this Introduction has been written -it might be interesting to examine somewhat minutely a variety of questions that naturally arise in the mind of the reader who carefully peruses the mental portraiture of himself, embodied in his life and writings. Thus for instance, we might be disposed to ask-was Lorenzo Dow, in truth, a man of piety, savingly converted to God, or not? What were the motives that prompted him to so extraordinary and laborious a life? What were his reasons, while retaining his connexion with the Methodist Church, for declining to submit to the regular course of labors and control prescribed by the Methodist discipline? Are there any reasons to doubt whether he was in truth a sane man, or partially deranged? What was the secret of the prejudice so early imbibed, and so constantly exhibited through all his writings against whoever differed from himself in the Arminian scheme of doctrine he had adopted? |