Biography of Jonathan Weaver, D. D., a bishop in the church of the United Brethren in Christ for thirty-five years

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Preface

At the request of the executive committee of the Board of Missions, we have sought to gather together and arrange in consecutive order the important facts in connection with the life of Bishop Jonathan Weaver, so the Church might know more clearly the life he lived and the work he wrought. To do this in the brief space of time allotted was no easy task; especially, when it is remembered that during his long and eventful life he kept not a line of diary, which would have given definite information as to his whereabouts at any particular time. In his earlier years he did not see the importance of it. He did not anticipate such honor as the Church conferred upon him. He was more concerned in the making than in the recording of history. In his later years, it seemed as if to keep a diary then would be a little immodest.

Then, too, he never kept a copy of a single letter which he wrote to any one, which might have helped to fix dates, or to show the trend of his thoughts at certain periods. Nor did he keep the letters written to him by other parties ; some of them were unkind and severe, and, in mercy to the writer, he did not wish others to see them. Compelled to move about as he was, these files of letters, becoming bulky, were destroyed whenever he prepared to move; so it is easy to see that his biographer could not get much help from any of these sources.

He was, however, a frequent writer for the Telescope, and in these communications he mentions not a few things vi

Preface in connection with his earlier life. He gives, in these, very fully and freely his views of life and of church polity. We have carefully examined all these Telescopes of past years, making note of his communications. We have corresponded with acquaintances and friends, and thus received many facts which throw side-lights on an interesting life.

In short, we have allowed Bishop Weaver, as far as possible, to tell the story of his own life, and express his opinions in his own words. It is too much to think that we have made no mistakes. We have sought, however, to deal faithfully and honestly with the record he has made. An intimate personal acquaintance of a number of years, beginning when he was an agent, has helped us, in a measure, to interpret him. We hope the material has been so adjusted as to give the average reader a fair and intelligent conception of the life he lived, and the manner in which he wrought for the Church he loved. Let us be stirred by its record to high and holy endeavors, and seek to follow him in so far as he followed the Master.

"Gone before us, O our brother, To the spirit land, Vainly look we for another In thy place to stand."

(3) Asa Bishop, 421

Sermons:

Introduction

When a great and eventful life closes its earthly career, and passes down under the shadows of death, we at once fall to asking how such a life may best be rescued from the oblivion of the grave, and how turned to the service of continued usefulness in the memory of the living. When the highest prophecies of a life are fulfilled, and its highest hopes and plans realized, and in the memory of the living must ever be regarded a success, it would be a very grave neglect to permit such a career to perish from the annals of the church. It should be relived and reenacted, as nearly as possible, in future time. When a life has been in harmony with the true, the good, the beautiful, blameless in conduct, radiant with hope, yielding in service to the divine will, and given to others in the broadest philanthropy, shall death conquer and the grave hide such a life in oblivion? Is death to end all, and thus rob the world of a salutary influence and a noble example? Is all to be buried from sight, and are no reminders to survive this solemn eclipse?

There is a provision in nature that nothing be lost. Though we are born to die, "and be as water spilt on the ground," yet, like the water, the pious dead are to continue their ministry of good to the living. "Their works do follow them." Influence is imperishable. All our principles and all our actions are like so many threads of gold, the spinning of which is continued from genera-

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X tion to generation. It is the mission of the historian and the biographer to gather up these shining threads and weave them into a garment of beauty and praise. As in nature, so in influential life, God has unmistakably meant "the survival of the fittest," Future ages are to read the records and be influenced by the deeds of the noble and true of to-day. The lives that are embalmed in the sacred records have a more enduring memory than the splendid mausoleum or colossal monument can give. Marble will crumble, bronze will corrode, and canvas will fade, but the life associated with the now risen Christ is thereby made immortal. So Jesus said of the woman that anointed him, "Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her.'' "The righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance." "And they that turn many to righteousness shall shine as the stars for ever and ever."

Mankind is not to be robbed of the salutary influence of a good life. Such a life is to live on, and repeat itself by many times its natural and earthly length. What a privilege given to the living to thus lengthen out the years and extend the usefulness of those they love! Here is the noble mission of biography. It, in a measure, puts into enduring form the influence of lives that have blessed the world. Such reading is often more fascinating than a romance. Who that has read "The Dairyman's Daughter," by Leigh Richmond, containing an account of the brief days of a humble peasant girl, does not know the charm of such tender records ? So of the lives of the more distinguished.

The law of association has a wonderful sway over human life. This is a wise economy of God in our nature. It prompts to provisions against loss in a world where everyxi thing is so fitful and fleeting. When the Israelites passed the swelling flood in triumph in their journey to Canaan, twelve stones were made voiceful of the event. The Egyptian obelisks, the statue of William Tell, Pompey's Pillar on the Alexandrian Hill, Bunker Hill Monument at Charlestown, and the mausoleum of General Grant at Kiverside Park, New York, are all striking and illustrative memorials. They take the place of the human tongue, and to a vivid imagination are full of meaning. The form may be unpretentious, but rich in significance.

The effort to make abiding the life and labors of eminent churchmen is worthy of careful study. It is not a trivial thing, that we may dismiss with little thought and effort. It is a work of loving service to put up a memorial at the grave of one who fell asleep in Jesus. A believer "being dead yet speaketh." This is true of the Old Testament dead. The eleventh chapter of Hebrews opens up a wonderful perspective. Here Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, Samuel, and a host of others, appear in marvelous history, romance, and biography. Back to these the Hebrew mind ever turned. The fathers were to repeat these histories to their children, and thereby incite them to nobility of character. What a blessing to Israel that they had such biographies to rehearse! Such memories are blessed.

I am sure that in the life of Bishop Jonathan Weaver, D. D., the Church has a memory worthy of cherishing, perpetuating, and rehearsing to coming generations. If it were for the sole purpose of making him known to the Church of the United Brethren in Christ in America, or, for that matter, beyond the seas, a biography would be unnecessary. His life is too well and too widely known for this.

It is too early since his departure to rightly estimate his value to the Church and the cause of truth. We have hardly wakened to the conscious realization that he has gone from us. This will come to us more and more as the years multiply between us and the sad event. He was a conspicuous figure in our midst, and impressed his personality very widely on the Church, molding and shaping its organic life to a degree beyond that of any other one in his day. A member of the Church for the period of over half a century, and a prominent participant in all its leading interests, working with great singleness of purpose and an unflagging energy through all his years, made him one of the most striking and characteristic personages of his time.

He was a leader among men. Entering the ministry of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ when there was an early and growing demand for true leadership, and with this element largely in his nature, though unconscious to himself, he easily succeeded to this position early in his official career. Had his calling been in the line of the politician or the statesman, he would have distinguished himself and taken first rank as a leader. His splendid leadership in the Church rendered possible, in very large measure, the great achievements it has made in recent years.

Bishop Weaver deserves to be classed among the great men of his day. He is easily accorded this distinction in a physical sense. Few men were more conspicuous and princely in physical bearing. Tall, erect, and stately to a degree far beyond the ordinary, he, in any company, became the cynosure of all eyes.

He was great in intellect. Without the culture of the schools, he, nevertheless, succeeded to a well-rounded, thoroughly capable, and preeminently efficient ministry of the word. His sermons were rich in theological thought, xiii fortified and embellished by strong logic and fine illustration. They were always edifying to the people. "The common people heard him gladly."

He often championed the cause of truth in the field of debate, and it may be said of him that he never measured swords with his antagonist without carrying away the laurels of the victor. Orthodoxy and Protestant, evangelical religion never cowered or lost when he was in the defense. With a massive brain, and an intellect keen, penetrative, incisive, and of great activity and force, he easily held the mastery in the theological arena. He kept himself well informed in the current literature and religious thought of the time, and seemed never lacking in the knowledge essential to the defense of his positions. Quite a favorite expression with him, during the years of his controversies, was the statement of the Apostle Paul, "I am set for the defense of the gospel."

Bishop Weaver was, in a sense, a pioneer in the Church of his choice. He belonged to the skirmish line of the army of religious and spiritual conquest. He helped to kindle the beacon-fires on the hilltops of religious thought, to blaze the way through tangled forests of difficulty, to discover and point out the fords and construct bridges across what to others seemed impassable rivers, to find the sites for great religious enterprises, and aid in their founding. He belonged to the true architects and builders of churches and nations.

As a speaker and writer, he excelled. The pulpit was the throne of his power. The gospel message fell from a firelit tongue, and rolled in volume like the billows of the sea. His terminology, always of the simplest, made him the delight of any audience, and put him in happy relation with both the scholar and the unlettered. Childhood never wearied of hearing him, and it may be said that he called xiv them unto him and blessed them. No difference what the grade of intelligence among his hearers, all were instructed and impressed. His sermons were doctrinal, evangelical, and warmly revivalistic. While his style was vigorous and transparent, it was never nervous. He was the most cool and self-possessed of men. He had perfect command of himself. He ruled his own spirit.

This excellent type of ministry was maintained down to the latest period of it. If any difference, it was richer and riper in thought, mellower and deeper in spirit, coming as from out the invisible glory. The echoes of some of his words are still in the hearts of those that hung upon his lips in his later ministry, and eternity alone will tell the glory and usefulness of such a ministry.

His sermons were always full of Christ. He gave him the largest place, the most prominence of all. Every thought, every illustration, all imagery gathered around Christ, awaiting his bidding as to the service to be rendered. The preacher's heart and brain seemed filled and crowded with this wonderful personage. He never allowed anything to crowd Christ out of his sermon or out of his own life. This was the secret of his power and of his attraction. He lifted up Christ and held him before a perishing world. This will be very apparent to the reader as he traces his life in his biography and reads some of his sermons and addresses that are published therein.

As a writer on religious subjects, he was one of the most fascinating as well as edifying. The spirit that pervaded his sermons breathed through his written productions. His pen was always ablaze with the old-time gospel and old-time revival fire. His writings were models of purity of thought and expression. He was self-made, but so well and gracefully made as to leave no unsightly scars. A ready wit, that never had a sting, and a humor that never xv appealed to an unworthy sentiment, made all his writings, as well as his conversations, pleasingly popular. He was primitive in the spirit of the gospel, while he was modern and progressive in its statement and in his adaptation to present-day conditions and needs.

He was thoroughly orthodox in his creed. He had no faith in the agnosticism of the day. He knew he had something beneath him on which to stand, and something above him to which to hold. He felt the power of this certainty within, when in the pulpit, and it often transfigured his face to the glow of a soft summer sunset.

In charity, he was broad and unbounded. While he loved his own Church, he courted fellowship with every soldier of our Lord Jesus Christ. This led him, by urgent invitation, into leading pulpits of other churches, where he was always popular, and in great demand. Who ever heard him utter an ungenerous word or a harsh invective against a fellow-Christian?

Occasions were not wanting, possibly, during his long association with men, and during seasons of heated discussion on questions regarded vital to the interests of the Church, for the exercise of sharp and biting sarcasm. But who ever heard it from his lips ? He was always courteous and genial, affable and dignified on all occasions, however provoking an occasion might be. He was true to his friends, he was not unkind to official enemies. It seemed that nothing changed his spirit or his manner. His deportment was always the same — unaffected, simple, honest, candid, seeking no advantage, displaying no pomp or pride, no ostentation in public or private life, always a plain, open-hearted Christian.

In counsel, he was one of the wisest and most reliable, especially in matters pertaining to the affairs of the Church. For the period of thirty-six years he had the xvi hearty approval, every four years, of the General Conference. His administration as bishop was always eminently satisfactory, so that his official character is as much a legacy to the Church as was his active service. His wisdom seemed adequate to the correct decision of nearly every question submitted to him. The Church will readily recall some of the most important questions that have ever been brought before its council boards upon which his opinion was required. In the chair, as presiding officer, he was always found adequate to every exigency that might arise. It is safe to say that none of his associates ever gave higher satisfaction in this than did he.

He was permitted to live beyond the scriptural limit of human life. While this would not be a blessing to all, in this case length of days was a blessing to the Church and the world. His memory was strong, his intellectual faculties clear, and his judgment unimpaired to the last. His strength in these respects was unabated.

Now, it is eminently proper that a character so conspicuous in our Church life, and one that has so largely shaped its polity for the last quarter of a century, should have his memory perpetuated and his influence continued and extended to the largest degree possible. With a view to this his biography has been written. This will unfold in successive chapters this great life. The reader will be charmed as he traces it through the various stages of evolution, or growth, from its primitive and rugged beginning to its ripened maturity. Such a life and such a record as are here given will be read by thousands of admiring ones, who will readily associate them in memory with the most important period and achievements of the Church in the past.

This biography will add another rich and treasured volume to the growing literature of the Church, the perusal xvii of which, we may hope, will be a great stimulus to both old and young, both in the ministry and in the laity, leading to larger loyalty to God and duty, and the achievement of nobility of character here, and finally of eternal life hereafter. N. Castle.

Philomath, Oregon, April 25, 1901,

BIOGRAPHY OF JONATHAN

WEAVER.

CHAPTER I. Ancestry — Parentage — Birth

Says Oliver Wendell Holmes: "Each of us is only the footing of a double column of figures that goes back to the first pair. Every unit tells, and some of them are plus and some minus. If the columns do not add up right, it is commonly because we cannot make out all the figures."

The ancestry of Ralph Waldo Emerson was remarkable for a long succession of clergymen in its genealogy, and for the large numbers of college graduates encountered in its rolls. Says one, "If the ideas of parents survive as impressions or tendencies in their descendants, no man had a better right to an inheritance of theological instincts than this representative of a long line of ministers." Emerson himself believed in the transmission from parent to child of certain characteristics. He says: "Though nature appears capricious, some qualities she carefully fixes or transmits, but some of those, and those the finer, she exhales with the health of the individual as too costly to perpetuate. But I notice, also, that they may become fixed and permanent in any stock by planting and replanting them on every individual, until, at last, nature adopts them and bakes them on her porcelain."

Dr. Elam, in "A Physician's Problems," says: "The idiot almost always engenders idiots; no man of talent ever had an imbecile or an idiot for his father or mother. It is a matter of daily observation that the ordinary run of children have about the same intellectual capacities as their parents, one or both ; the education may be different, but the original nature seems to be about the same standard. . . . The two Scaligers, the two Vossiuses, the two Herschels, the two Coleridges, the Malesherbes, the father and son Montesquieu, the two Sheridans, and the Kemble family furnish additional illustrations as to how frequently talent is allied to talent. Mirabeau, the father, contained, so to speak, Mirabeau, the tribune. The family of iEschylus numbered eight poets. The father of Torquato Tasso had the gift as his son had the genius of verse. This sort of succession of gift or ability in the family, followed by genius in the son, is not rare. Flaxman was the son of a molder of plaster casts. Thorwaldsen, the rival of Canova, was a son of a poor sculptor. Kaphael's father was himself a painter. The mother of Vandyke had a talent for painting. Parmigiano was of a family of painters; so was Titian ; so is Horace Vernet The father of Mozart

His Ancestry was a violinist of some reputation; his children inherited part of his talent. Beethoven was the son of a tenor singer. A whole host of composers have emanated from the family of Bach." 1

"I have a feeling/' wrote Emerson, "that every man's biography is at his own expense. He furnishes not only the facts, but the report. I mean that all biography is autobiography. It is only what he tells of himself that comes to be known and believed." . This is true of our subject, as of all others. What we know of him we must learn from what he has written of himself, or what we have learned by associating with him. This is just as true of his ancestry. They were common people, whose names were never emblazoned on the roll of fame. They were not in the councils of kings, nor did they lead the armies of the nation. They were not the leaders of fashionable society, whose deeds were paraded in the columns of the fashionable newspapers, nor the pampered millionaires, whose word ruled the markets of the state. They were plain, unlettered people, whom God must have loved, as some one says, for he placed so many of them here. They secured a little piece of land, and went to work to erect a modest home, and to bring up the children whom God gave them, teaching them to be good citizens, to fear God, to obey the law, and to love their fellow-men. They were nature's noblemen, who bowed the knee to none, and acknowledged no master save the King of kings.

1 "A Physician's Problems," p. 36.

Bishop Weaver's grandfather on his father's side came from Germany, about the year 1750, and for a time lived in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, He was a member of the Lutheran Church. Speaking of the influx of Germans about this time, Dr. Drury says : "From the general oppression and discontent, it is easy to see. that large numbers would flock to the new land. The great majority sought homes in Pennsylvania. Here they constituted about one-third of the population, occupying almost exclusively some parts of the country. In 1751, it was estimated that in Pennsylvania there was a German population of ninety thousand, thirty thousand of the number being traditionally attached to the Reformed Church. The Germans were without a knowledge of the language of the provinces, and, to a large extent, without pastors and schools. The time of many of the Germans was sold for a term of years to pay their passage money. The most of them had come from homes of the peasant class.

"Though in their new situation they were generally industrious and thrifty, the condition of religion among them became the most deplorable. The German immigrants brought little in the form of religious help with them, and they found the least in their new settlements that would guard and nourish spiritual life. In their homes in Europe, religion was too often an outward form; and now, in these wilderness homes, in their unwillingness to part with all religion, it was, to a great extent, a mere dead form that they made more or less effort to establish.

His Ancestry

Their minds were hardened by the treatment they had met; their energies were taxed in the straggle to build homes and secure subsistence, and the very atmosphere of the new world encouraged a wild and reckless life." 1

In 1751, the town of Lancaster contained five hundred houses and two thousand inhabitants. It was not until 1792 that the turnpike was located between Philadelphia and Lancaster — the first located in that country, and not until several years later was it completed. There was not even a passenger stage route between these places before 1784. Thus we see how unsubdued and new the country was.

About 1752, his grandfather removed to west* em Pennsylvania, and took up his residence in Washington County. The grandfather on Bishop Weaver's mother's side was a native of this county, but the place of his birth cannot now be definitely ascertained. He was of German origin, and settled in an early day in Washington County, Pennsylvania.

This was in part settled by Scotch-Irish, who were inclined to the Presbyterian faith. A young Presbyterian clergman, who came there in 1778 to look after the spiritual wants of the people, and who became the founder of the first college west of the Alleghenies, leaves this record: "When I came to this county, the cabin in which I was to live was raised, but there was no roof on it, nor chimney, nor floor in it. The people, however, were very kind, assisted me in preparing my house, and on the 15th of De-

»Life of Otterbein, pp. 60, 61.

cember I moved into it. But we had neither bedstead, nor table, nor chair, nor stove, nor pail, nor bucket; all these things we had to leave behind us, there being no wagon road at that time over the mountains ; we could bring nothing with us but what was carried on pack-horses. We placed two boxes on each other, which served for a table ; and two kegs served for seats ; and, having committed ourselves to God in family worship, we spread a bed on the floor and slept soundly until morning. The next day, a neighbor coming to my assistance, we made a table and a stool, and in a little time had everything comfortable about us. Sometimes, indeed, we had no bread for weeks together; but we had plenty of pumpkins and potatoes, and all the necessaries of life, and as for luxuries, we were not much concerned about them. We enjoyed health, the gospel and its ordinances, and pious friends. We were in the place w T here we believed God would have us to be, and we did not doubt he would provide everything necessary, and, glory to his name, we were not disappointed." 1

To have journeyed from Lancaster to western Pennsylvania a quarter of a century before this, in the midst of the privations which they must have encountered, took no little pluck and energy.

The father and mother of our subject were both born in Washington County, Pennsylvania, and in the same .year. USTo record was kept of these events, or, if there was any, it has long since been lost, but it was about the year 1775. They were mar-

• Rev. Dr. McMillan.

His Ancestry ried in Washington County, Pennsylvania, in 1798. They went to Carroll County, Ohio, about 1810. This was very soon after Ohio was admitted into the Union as a State. Like almost all of their neighbors, they were uneducated. They could read and write in the German language, and learned to read and write in English after they were married. Ohio was a wild section then, with wonderful possibilities. When Ohio was admitted to the Union, in 1803, it had but 60,000 population. "The feeble and remote beginnings in Ohio's history hardly prepare us to comprehend the remarkable growth in everything that goes to make up civilized life. For several years the cost of transportation checked the settlers by limiting them to a domestic market. The only means they had of communicating with occasional markets was by pack-horses. The first railroad was open in 1838, to connect Dayton with Sandusky, and was completed in 1841. The men who came here at this early day were usually men of sterling character. They possessed a spirit of industry, integrity, and the fear of God. They came into the country without wealth, but they had what was far better — noble purposes, elevated aspirations, and a firm faith in God. Our history is the outcome of what was folded up in the nature of these pioneers.

"Their toilsome journey to their future homes was made without a road to guide them. They entered a dreary and unbroken forest, to find no hotel, and were often separated by miles from their nearest neighbor. 'Their first necessity,' says Rufus King,

'was to girdle the trees and grub a few acres for a corn crop and a truck patch sufficient for the season. As soon as the logs were cut, a cabin was built with the aid of neighbors. But food rather than shelter was the severest want of the pioneers. True, the woods were full of game, but venison, turkey, and bear meat all the time became tiresome enough. There was no bread or salt. The scanty salt springs were therefore precious. The Indian corn, when once started, was the chief reliance for man and beast. The furniture of the cabins and the dress of the people necessarily partook of the same absolutely rustic simplicity. Excellent tables, cupboards, and benches were made of poplar and beech boards. The buckeye furnished not only bowls and platters for all who had no tin or queensware, but also the splitbottom chair, still in popular use. Bearskins were bed and bedding. The deerskin, dressed and undressed, was very much used for clothing; and the skins of the raccoon and rabbit formed a favorite headgear. But wool and flax soon abounded, and spinning-wheels and looms became standard articles in every home. The home-made tow, linen, and woolens, or mixed flannels, linseys, or jeans, constituted the chief materials for clothing.'