Salvation to the uttermost

Preface

T?OE years the author of this volume has dwelt with supreme delight upon the theme — Salvation to the Uttermost.

For the last few years he has seemed moved, as by some invisible power, to pen his thoughts thereon for the benefit of others, realizing that they have been of unlimited benefit to himself. From this undertaking he has been hindered hitherto, from two considerations: (1) For want of time, being so constantly engaged in direct efforts to pluck mankind as " brands from the burning."

(2) He has felt that so much has been thought, said and written, in various forms, by greater minds and more skillful hands, that he has deemed it unadvisable for him to attempt to add anything to the vast river of knowledge from which a thirsty world has been invited to drink, and from which famishing multitudes with joy have drank.

As to the first hindrance, it was removed September,. 1885, when he was superannuated by his conference j

IV PREFACE.

but it seemed to him that the causes of his superannuation, and the necessity of his attempting to do something to aid the church in supporting his family, rendered it impossible to do such a work as writing out this subject. But there came a time when his physician decided he must quit all labor, and travel for his health; and in thus doing, when he so far recovered as to be able to write a little each day, then the moving to write upon this subject became more imperative. Still he hesitated on account of the second cause of hindrance mentioned before.

On reading the following remarks of Bishop E. S. Janes, this was so far removed as to encourage the writer to proceed. The Bishop says: " No one in the enjoyment of Bible holiness, and anxious for its spread and prevalence in the church and in the world, will doubt but that the circulation of this little volume will do good, will be promotive of the glory of God in the sanctification of his children. In order to this it is not necessary that a book should be better than the Bible, or even superior to the writings of Wesley and Fletcher, or Watson and Merritt and Bangs, and others on this subject. Without claiming this pre-eminence, the work may be highly useful. It may relieve some minds of their per-

PREFACE. V

plexities concerning the nature of sanctification, the way of ita attainment, or its evidences.

"'Each author on this subject will secure some readers that would not give attention to the writings of others. Here is a power for good that ought not to be lost. Verily, if there is any subject on which we need line upon line, and precept upon precept, the theme of this book is that subject. If there is any religious truth that should be urged upon the disciples of Jesus, with the sweetness of His constraining love, and the solemnity of His Divine authority, it is the truth that Christians may and ought to be holy. that tens of thousands, -filled with its bliss, and inspired by its power, were telling of its charms and inviting to its pursuit ! that tens of thousands of spiritual limners, the Holy Spirit guiding their pencils, were actively and ceaselessly engaged in portraying the glories of this subject to the vision of the church, until every member of it, ravished by its beauties and impelled by its attractions, would aspire to its attainment, by faith enter into its enjoyment, and then join in labors to spread it !"

Impelled as we believe by the Spirit of God to write, and encouraged so to do by this extract from the pen of one whom from personal acquaintance we regard as

VI PREFACE.

one of the most eminent men of God we ever met, we write, praying that the same blessed Spirit which we trust prompts us, may make our words a blessing to the hearts, and mould the lives of many readers into the image of Him who created them.

Though "entire sanctification" is a prominent part, yet it will be observed it is only one feature of our subject. We have endeavored to trace Salvation to the Uttermost to its bearings upon all, high and low, rich and poor, noble and ignoble, young and old, the moderate and immoderate sinner. To all such, in the name of God, we humbly commend our work.

Chapter I. Biographical.— Parentage And Childhood

I was of New England stock. According to a family genealogy written by a Judge Slaughter, of Boston, Massachusetts, the name Hazen is of Holland origin. The Judge married a Miss Lucretia Hazen, and seemed to think enough of his wife to trace out and write up her genealogy. Our attention being called to this, and finding that she was of the same original New England family as the writer, we conclude to take the Judge as authority for the name.

He says that, during an early Catholic persecution of Protestants in Holland, the Hazens, with some other families, fled to England and intermarried with the English ; that, a short time before the settlement of the New England colonies, these families went back to Holland; and that, with the next emigration (after the landing of the Mayflower) to the Plymouth Rock colony, the Hazens came.

Of this stock, my father, Hart Hazen, was born in Connecticut, January 2, 1 798, on a, farm about halfway between Hartford and New Haven. My mother, Harriet Adams, was not a very distant relative of John and John Q. Adams, former Presidents of the United States, and was born in Lisle, New York.

In early life both father and mother, with their parents, settled in the State of New York, where they became acquainted, married and settled on a farm in the township of Virgil, Cortland county, State of New York. There the writer was born, June 30, 1824.

My parents, during my early years, seemed quite religious, and were members of what was called an Open Communion Baptist church, which held services in a schoolhouse about two and a half miles from our home. Elder Hart was the pastor. He was a good man, of fair ability. Grandfather, Jabes Hazen, had one son (Lord) by his first wife, and Luke, Hart, Lucretia* Horace and John by the second.

Uncle Luke, his wife, and my grandmother belonged to the same church as my parents. I think I was quite religiously inclined in my childhood. Though only about eight years old when my parents moved from New York to Ohio, I can recollect, sometime before that event (for the first time in my life), of staying out of the church services, and spending the time in listening to the foolish talk and profanity of George Butterfield, a boy much older than myself ; and that I thought it would be manly to use profane words. Accordingly, with no occasion or expectation of benefit, except that I thought George Butterfield would think me a man, I said: "By Jesus." 0! how forbearing and kind my Saviour was to me then ; for (as I see now, but did not recognize it then) he sent the Holy Spirit to my heart, to make me feel, 0, how deeply, the terrible wickedness of that expression! I soon went into the church services, but I ought to have gone with my parents. Let all parents take heed by this incident, to see that their children go into church with them and stay there. And let all children see that they do not linger with the wicked, lest ruin will befall them. I do not recollect any religious persons of any other denominations than that to which my parents belonged, except a Methodist exhorter by the name of Tryon. He was an earnest, loud speaker, who seemed to possess a zeal and to inspire a spirit which I thought far excelled anything I saw in others. I used to get up into my little chair for a pulpit, and having my two sisters and sometimes my mother for an audience, preach to them (as I said) like Tryon. This may have been (as my brother regarded it) a kind of prophecy of my future life. I had a sister Louisa, two years older, and a sister Lucretia, two years younger than myself (born at the same place), and a sister, Mary Elizabeth, and a brother, Charles Wesley, who were born and died quite young at the same place. I have frequently thought that my father and mother must have had some predilections towards the Methodists, inasmuch as they named one of their children John and another Charles Wesley, while they did not belong to the Methodists. However, I do not recollect to have heard them say anything about that.

I went to school some, at the same schoolhouse where we attended church, to an elderly maiden by the name of Divinity Angel, who taught me my alphabet and gave me my first lessons in reading. I believe she was a Christian, and she seemed to me to be truly much like an angel. I also went two winters, I think, about one and a half miles, most of the time on a crust of snow which would bear me and my elder sister. The snow drifted at times over a stake and rider fence. This school was taught by Charles Sedam, who was somewhat severe in his discipline, though I think quite a good teacher for the times. Think I attended his school two winters and read through Cobb's spelling book, 1 pictures and all, and particularly the pictures. Could then read some in the testament, and a small reader, about equal to the first reader of the present time in regard to the difficulty of reading matter.

The farm on which we lived was stony and somewhat broken, and not very productive. For two or three summers I had aided my father some in hoeing corn, potatoes and garden produce and in haying and other farm work. Was particularly fond of aiding in the sugar bush, especially at sugaring off times (a part of which work I thought I could do well), and father was willing to acknowledge I could, and to let me work until I was satisfied, providing I would keep up the fires during boiling time. We had one of the best springs of water, near our house, that I ever saw, and this, with many other pleasant and useful things, gave me a strong attachment to my native home. I was a strong and pretty active boy physically; and, though I have not considered myself of a very brilliant intellect, yet, with the application to study I generally if not always maintained, there were few who had no

SALVATION" TO THE UTTEHMOST. 7

better opportunities for mental attainments ex* celled me. One of these was my dearly beloved sister, Louisa, to whom I was glad to yield the palm in everything except in mathematics. In that branch I was not willing to take off my hat to any in a long and difficult problem, though in rapid work I might.

In the year 1832, father, to better the condition of the family, as he supposed, sold out my native homestead and moved to Ohio, where his only sister, Lucretia, who had married Jered Barr, had gone. I felt quite an aversion to leaving my native land and friends, more especially ^G-randmother Hazen, Uncles Luke, Horace and John Hazen, and Uncles Moses and Edward Adams and their families, for whom I had formed strong attachments. My attachment was especially strong for my Uncle Edward whose given and surnames, as well as nature (they say), I inherited. I never thought I had any great love of myself, because I could see in myself so many faults, but I had a very strong affection for my Uncle Edward, and could see no faults in him. It is said love is blind, and it may be that this is why I could see no faults in him.

But with all these attachments, the thoughts of a new home, and forming new attachments in the then far West (as Ohio was considered), reconciled me to the contemplated change. So, business being all settled, a two-horse wagon being covered with white drilling, stretched over hoops, and seats prepared for the family, and the necessities for emigration being provided, special friends having been visited and told adieu, the last meeting and parting at the little church schoolhouse, was a scene that deeply impressed my young heart with the fact there was something more than human in Christian religion. Such tender expressions of pure affection, and such confident expectations that the little band of Christians, now about to be broken, would all meet again on a brighter and happier shore, to never part again, and that expression of affection and of confidence being given by the parting address of the pastor, and in the songs that were sung in a spirit that made me feel that it was a reality, I could but wish I was one of them.

Then came the time for starting, and (boy as I was), I began to feel some responsibility resting upon me, to see that all were aboard, the horses properly attached, and the great journey made safely. We made the first part of the journey to Skeneateles, the home of Uncle Horace Hazen and his amiable wife, whom I had never seen before ( though I had seen Uncle), who both received us so cordially, that it made me feel that there were loving hearts in the city as well as in the country, which, for some cause, I before was led to doubt. Staying only a short time at Uncle's, we struck out and traveled through the southwestern part of New York State, and the northern part of Pennsylvania into Geauga county, Ohio, where we found and had a pleasant visit with my grandmother Adams, who had married an old gentleman named Fuller for her second husband; with Charles and George

Adams, brothers of my dear mother, with their families, living on good farms adjoining each other. We enjoyed our visit among them very much. This being ended, we drove on in a north-westerly course through Cleveland, up into Lorain county, Avon township, where we found Uncle Jered Barr, to whom my father's only sister was married. They had the following children: Welthy, Acbsha 0., Luke H., Charles H., Mary B., Emma L., Lucretia C, and Sarah S. B. Barr. Uncle Jered and Aunt Lucretia belonged to a denomination of Christians calling themselves, and wanted others to call them' " Disciples/' but as I understand now call themselves " Christians. " Uncle preached to a little band of them in his neighborhood. I believe they solicited father and mother to join them, but I understood they made up their minds that if they could not find Open Communion Baptists, they would not join any. It is probable that for that reason father backslid and became wicked, and. mother became cold and indifferent.

Sometime in the fall of 1832, father bought a small farm, I believe about one and a half miles in a north-westerly course from Elyria, the county seat of Lorain county, Ohio, and we moved upon it. This is a small farm of about forty acres, with a good family orchard, a sugar bush, sufficient to make family sugar, enough improved to raise food for a small family and some to spare, a pretty good house and barn, a windfall timber lot, with sufficient pasture on it for a couple of cows and a pair of horses, etc., constituting a quite comfortable home for our family. On the opposite side of the road from our house, separated from the road by our field (not very wide), is a large and beautiful cranberry marsh, yielding a large quantity of beautiful fruit, free to all around to come and pick to their satisfaction. We children gathered annually all our family wanted to use, and quite a quantity for sale. Thinking this farm not sufficient to support our large and increasing family father went out to work some, while I had to work pretty hard to keep things going at home, so that I had little time to attend school. Do not remember to have attended church any, while we lived there. Here my brothers, George and John Wesley, were born.

After living there about two years, father, concluding that thq farm was not large enough to support our family, sold out, and went back to Geauga county and rented a farm of a Mr. Willson, which he, with my help, worked I believe for two years. This place was near Claridon. Here I have no recollection of any religious privileges. School privileges were limited, while the privileges and opportunities to attend dances, and to learn to dance and to frolic generally, were ample. These, I and my sister Louisa, began to improve pretty thoroughly. Here I also became quite profane and took my first lessons in infidelity, in which I seemed to be an apt scholar. I might relate many incidents connected with my life here, but it is the main object of this sketch to illustrate the subject of "Salvation to the Uttermost" by showing its work in me. Having written sufficient to show how I was continually drifting from God during this period I will write no more of it. In the latter part of the winter of 1836 father concluded, with his family, to emigrate to Lagrange county, Indiana, to which some families with which he had formed some acquaintance had gone, and where he learned from them that there was yet land to be had at government price. So, again our team was rigged for emigration, and on frozen ground the family (now consisting of father, mother, myself, two brothers and two sisters all aboard), were western bound.

Traveling nearly the whole width of the northern part of the State of Ohio, we had not completed the crossing of the Maumee swamp, until the roads had been so thawed as to make the mud fearfully deep and the traveling very difficult, though, as we were informed by those we met and of whom we inquired, "How is the bottom on ahead?" "It is good, but a good way down to it." We found this to be correct information, though not all we received was. We got through safely, however, and crossed the Maumee river on the ice, while it bent fearfully utfder our load, and we felt when we struck shore that money could not hire us to repeat the adventure. As for me, notwithstanding my wickedness, I could not help but feel thankful to God, if there was one who cared for us, that we were safe on the shore, though deep in the mud. We plodded through the mud of the Black swamp and then, the traveling being so bad, we stopped

12 SALYATIOtf TO THE UTTERMOST.

at a small hotel, where we and a family from Vermont (Green Mountains), obtained accommodations until the roads should become more passable.

The Lawrence family fell in with us in our journey through the Maumee swamp, and stuck to us until our routes separated somewhere in Michigan. They were a wicked, skeptical family, I think, from the oldest to the youngest member. I improved this opportunity to advance my education in that class of sciences and reasoning. We arrived in Lagrange county, Indiana, and stopped with the family of Amasa Durand, until we could get settled in a home of our own. Amasa was a brother to Andrew Durand, the two owning a saw mill and a tract of good sawingtimber land, and also a pretty good farm each. Father went promptly and looked out and selected a quarter section of land, went to the land office at Fort Wayne and entered it. It was a pretty well timbered, very level tract, of what was called oak openings or plains. It was not as rich a soil as that with but little, and that very scrubby oak, which was considered as good as prairie. Bat some preferred that with the better timber, because of the value of the timber and wood.

We next went to work in good earnest to put up what was called a double log-house (that is a log-house large enough for two rooms below), a story and a half high. The logs were hewn inside. This was soon up, a floor laid, a roof on, and we moved into it, leaving the finishing for an after consideration. Soon after our settlement here, a beautiful baby sister came to cheer our family circle, which we called, in honor of our mother, Harriet Eveline.

Amasa Durand and wife, Ira Hayes, wife and daughter, Father Grannis, wife, son Isaac and wife, all in the same neighborhood, were Methodists, of which Uncle Ira Hayes was the exhorter. This, at the time of our arrival, constituted the bulk of the neighborhood. As far as their religion was concerned I, for one, was disposed to give them a wide berth. Soon a large family came by the name of Hoagland, consisting of an old man between sixty and seventy years of age with his wife, his son Jacob and wife, and a ward named Lew Patrick, who all lived together ; and another son and wife with sundry children, who purchased another farm. The men were all terribly profane and wicked, and the whole family, jolly, fond of the dance and other amusements, but kind neighbors. Of course I was especially fond of their society, and made Lew Patrick, who was near my age, a boon companion. This summer and fall was spent by father and myself in close and hard work, opening our new farm, building stable, etc., and fitting up our home for the coming winter.

In this neighborhood (about four miles from Lima, the county seat) a part of a tribe of Indians still roamed the forests, and continued to for about a year and a half, when they were removed by the government to the Indian territory in the far west.

During the following summer (1837) there was a terrible drouth, and the sickliest season ever experienced in the Western States. Father was taken (first of our family) with a heavy ague shake, and it was followed up by a severe attack of bilious fever, with which he came near dying; and, soon after he was taken, I came down with the same fever, and, after some days, was so low that I was thought to be dying, just after father began to mend a little. For a large part of a day the family were standing around my bedside, weeping and expecting me to die, of which I was barely conscious, but was too weak to speak or fully realize anything. If I had died then I should undoubtedly have been lost ; but it pleased God in his infinite mercy to order otherwise. Glory! Glory! to His name.

SALTATIOX TO THE UTTERMOST. 15

Chapter II. Saltation" Came To My Father's Family

Salvation came to my father's family in 1837.

I stated in my last chapter that Father Grannis was one of the Methodist families composing the major part of the neighborhood into which we moved in 1836. Soon after this he bought a gristmill property, one and one-half miles west of Lima, and moved onto that. Shortly after settling there he arranged with my sister Louisa to go and teach a private school in his neighborhood, and to board in his family. She attended Methodist meetings with them at Lima, which were held in the court-room. She was converted and united with the M. E. Church. Thus did the Lord open the way of life and salvation to our family. When I learned that my sister had joined what were quite commonly called at that day the " Howling Methodists" I was very angry. She was naturally a very sweet-spirited girl and being two years my junior and, as I thought, a model of excellence I could not bear the thought of being deprived of her society, as I believed I now must be. But on her return home, I found that her disposition (naturally sweet) was now as much sweeter as one could imagine, indeed quite beyond my gross imagination. Her face shone with an unearthly brightness. Her whole being seemed to me to be so changed that indeed I seemed to myself quite unfit for her society, and yet she would, with her naturally sweet sisterly grace, now heightened immeasurably by a heavenly glow, so press her society upon me that I could not, with all my aversion to the Methodists, resist her or her religion. Soon the leaven of her religion worked upon the family, bringing mother back to Jesus, my younger sister into the fount of cleansing, and both into the M. E. Church.

Just before the sickness to which I referred in the last chapter I was riding upon one horse and driving another into a yard, when the one I was driving kicked me on the left shin-bone, severing a small piece therefrom. Stung with pain and boiling with rage, I caught and severely whipped the horse, swearing profanely, and then tied him in the stable, and went into the house still suffering intensely with pain. Mother tenderly bound up my injured limb, and then gave me such a sweet and heavenly admonition as a Christian mother only could give. This was the last admonition she ever gave me, and though I struggled hard and long to shake off its influence I never could fully do so.

As father and I began to amend from the sickness mentioned in the last chapter, my sisters and brothers took the chills and all were very sick a part of each day. Our dear mother kept quite well for several weeks, though working very hard in waiting on the sick, both at home and abroad. One day, I believe about the middle of July, after doing a large washing and waiting on all the sick at home, and saying, in answer to the question anxiously asked, " Mother, are you very weary?" " ,no, I feel quite well." She then began to prepare for bed, and on attempting to get into bed on the opposite side of the room from that where father and I were in bed, she fell by its side, seeing which father sprang from the bed and went to her relief, and said, " Mother, why didn't you speak?" as he lifted her into bed. She gasped out, with apparently great effort, " I couldn't," and these were her last words. A doctor was sent for in great haste. He came, pronounced her disease, yellow fever, incurable, and about two o'clock next morning mother went home.

By this event I sustained a loss which, at the time, I was too weak to realize; but as I got better, and yet suffered with chills aud fever, there was no mother's tender heart to sympathize with me, or with willing hand to sooth my fevered brow.

On the second day after her death her remains were laid to repose in the neighboring cemetery, where they will rest until the resurrection morn.

Whence they shall in full glory rise, To meet the Saviour in the skie3; Where, soul and body, joined again, With Christ shall live, and ever reign.

E'en now thy spirit sweetly rests, In yon bright regions of the blessed; And we will meet again, once more, On yonder bright, celestial shore. 3

We'll meet, but never more shall part From those who here are joined in heart; And there shall reign, with Christ our King, Forever more his praises sing.

Then rest thy body 'neath the clod, Thy spirit go, to meet its God ; Thou shalt with Christ, again descend, For all Heaven's host, shall Him attend.

Then, Mother dear, from glory's land, Look out for us, to join your band; And evermore the praises sing, Of Christ, our Saviour, Lord and King.

This sad event being past, father and I began to recover from the bilious fever, but the whole family had chills and fever, only occasionally broken by the use of quinine during the summer and fall, and, in case of father and myself, this continued nearly the whole winter. Sister Louisa was now installed as principal house-keeper, a position she filled admirably, for one of her age, assisted by sister Lucretia. The lives of my two sisters, as Christians, were excellent, but had little salutary effect upon me for nearly two years. I drove the team taking them to church at Lima, but I spent my time with wicked boys outside of church and Sabbath school until my sisters came out, and then would drive home. Sisters did not interfere much with this course, as they knew if they did I would not take them to church. In the meantime I was maturing, as it afterward appeared to me, quite beyond my age in infidelity and in general wickedness until the spring of 1839, when the prayers and sweet examples of my sisters prevailed and I began to attend church and Sabbath school. It was ordained by Divine Providence that I became a member in Sabbath school of the class taught by a Mr. Charles Fox, a class leader and exhorter in the M. E. Church. He seemed to know just how to get hold of the heart of such a boy as I was, and was, undoubtedly, led by the Spirit of God in so doing. I soon got interested in committing verses to memory on a strife with the other members of the class. I have often thought that if children could be induced to do this at the present day, and they would commit so many verses that the teachers could scarcely hear a small class recite them all during the time of Sabbath school, it would do them more good at the time and in all the future, than the course now practiced.