Life and labors of Mrs. Maggie Newton Van Cott, the first lady licensed to preach in the Methodist Episcopal church in the United States

Front matter

'AN COT

J LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. $

| UNITED STATES ,OF AMERICA. }

Dedication

ffo all the fjotmg Converts,

WHO HAVE FOUND THE SAVIOR, IN THE PARDON OF THEIR SINS,

AND

Preface

|RS. MAGGIE NEWTON VAN COTT had scarcely commenced her labors at Barrington, 111., before she was struck down with a fearful attack of erysipelas. For six weeks she bore her sufferings patiently, and, under the skillful medical treatment of W. M. Burbank, M. D., and the blessing of God, she was fully restored.

While convalescent she communicated the facts herein narrated to the Author.

We are much indebted to the Rev. J. B. Peat for valuable services rendered during the progress of the work.

The artist, J. C. Buttre, of New York, has succeeded in producing a very correct steel

VI PREFACE,

engraving, from a photograph by A. E. Alden, of Springfield, Mass.

We are confident that this little volume will be read by thousands who have listened to her ministrations, and prized by hundreds who have been led to Christ through her efforts.

THE AUTHOR.

Contents

Introduction, by Gilbert Haven, xin

Woman's Place in the Gospel, by Rev. D. Sherman, xxix

Chapter I. Parentage And Early Home

William K. Newton — Rachel Primrose — First Impressions of Methodism — Death of William P. Primrose — Influence of Mr. Newton — First Love — At School — Haunted House — Death of Willie — Home at Williamsburg — Desires to Attend the Methodist Church, .... pages i-io

Chapter II. Married

Peter P. Van Cott — Late Hours — Mother's Opposition — Preparations for the Wedding — The Nuptials — Home at Mr. Van Cott's — The First-Born — Death of Little Rachel — Gloom in the Household — Birth of Sarah Ellen — Death of Mr. Newton, 11-22

Chapter III. New Struggles In Life

Work in Church — Singing — Colonel Conselyea — Mr. Van Cott in Poor Health — Plans for the Future — "Yankee Peddler" — Leaving Home — Mr. Seabury — First Sale of Drugs and

VII via CONTENTS.

Patent Medicines — Success — Next Trip — Staten Island — Long Island — Sewing-Machines — Manufacturing Patent Medicines for Wholesale — Father-in-law Deranged — His Death — Home in New York City — Convictions of Duty to God — Happy Conversion, PAGES 23-55

Chapter IV. Exultant Joy

Mr. Van Cott Better — Work in the Laboratory — Fulton- Street Prayer-Meeting — Prayer-Meetings — Attends Class-Meeting—- Shouting — Husband's Approval of Her Attending Class- Meetings — Home Readings for the Sick One, . 56-71

Chapter V. Deepening Shadows

Sickness of Mrs. Van Cott — Mr. Van Cott Worse — Neglect of Business — Comfort of the Scriptures — Dream of the River of Death, and Interpretation by Mr. Van Cott — Calls of the Clergy— Efforts Made to Save the Dying Man— " Thy Will be Done" — Communion — The Last Hours — Triumphant- Death— The Funeral, 72-88

Chapter VI. Resuming Business

Confusion in the Store — Change of Location — Trip Abroad Among the Merchants — Whisky Trader " Living by Faith " — Places Visited — Lonely Walk Past a Graveyard — A Warm Welcome, 89-103

Chapter VII. Mission Work

First Invitation Rejected — Protest of Kindred — Five Points Mission — First Meeting a Failure — Second Effort a Success — Dislike to Speak Before Negroes — Trials in Refusing to do Her Duty — Victory in the Meeting of Colored People — Mrs.

COA 7 T£A T 7S. IX

Cuffy — Father Thompson — The Sailor's Speech— Watch- Night — Text Given About the " Wheels " in Ezekiel — Forming a Sunday-School — "Street Arabs" — "Lizzie" — Parting with Her Jewelry — Maria, . . , pages 104-134

Chapter VIII. Clouds, Temptations, And Sorrows

Loss of Property — Edgar Bedell — Urging Him to Attend Church — His Resolution — Struck with Death — u It is Too Late" —The Heavy Blow — Alfred Battersby— The "Little Sister" — Trip to Greene County— Cornellsville — The Snappish Church-Member — Shouting — Rev. J. Battersby — The " Little Sister's " First Visit to New York — Mother-in-law Afflicted — Sufferings — Death, .... 135-148

Chapter IX The Widening Field

Second Visit to Greene County — Ride from Catskill — "You Must Preach" — A Dream — Crowded House — Hervey-Street Baptist Church — In the Pulpit — Six Weeks in a Revival — Plunter Village — "That are Woman" — Windham Center — Rev. A. C. Morehouse — Return to New York, . 149-164

Chapter X. Revival Incidents

The Penitent — Bonds of Satan — Colonel R. — " Was You Ever an Actress " — Mr. Bloodgood — Lady who Hated Her Sister-in-law — Dying Man — First Funeral Sermon — Five Weeks' Labors — Prayer-Meeting in a Hotel — " The Devilish Woman," 165-1S3

CHAPTER XL

GIVING UP BUSINESS — WHOLLY IN THE WORK.

Closing up Business — Testimonials — Cairo, Greene County, New York — The Sleepy Pastor — The Young Ladies' Meeting — The

X CONTENTS.

Men's Meeting — "Remember You're a Woman" — Happy Result of the Meetings, .... pages 184-192

Chapter XII. New Difficulties

Nine Weeks at Cairo, Greene County, New York — Grove Meetings — Legal Rights — Petition to the Presiding Elder — Checkmated — Mr. Ransom — $2,800 Lost — Sunday-School Anniversary at Leeds — Short of Means — No Breakfast — Ride in the Rain and Mud — At the Home of a Friend — Roast Turkey — Prattsville — Rich Old Gentleman wants to Engrave Her Name on the Rocks — Boys Saying the Lord's Prayer — Extorter's License — Severe Mental Struggle — Brother Palmer — Two Hundred Souls Asked For — Two Hundred and Thirty-Five Given, 193-212

Chapter XIII. The Good Work Spreading

A Young Man in Agony — His Conversion — Scores Converted — Joining the Sons of Temperance — At Madeline, Dutchess County, New York — Stone Ridge, Ulster County — Before the Official Board — Disciplinary Questions — Given Local Preacher's License— First Year's Work — At Paterson, New Jersey — Rev. Dimmick — " Snubbed " — Political Strife — Delivers a Fourth of July Oration — Fireworks — Rev. W. H. Dickinson — Will God Hear the Prayers of the Two Actresses Converted? 213-229

Chapter XIV. In New England

At Chicopee Falls — Springfield, Mass. — Chelsea — The " Wickedest Man " in the Place — Letters of William Henry Jones — Ten Weeks at Chelsea — Four Hundred Converted — At Wilbraham, Mass. — Seventy- Five at the Altar the Third Night — Zeal of the Faculty — Again at Springfield — Experience of De Forest B. Dodore — Clarence Smith Drowned — Windsor

CONTENTS. XI

Locks — Eight Weeks at Shelburne Falls — The " Bully Euchre Player" Converted — J. H. Wilder's Conversion — The Praying Band — Greenfield — Webster — Seventy Devils Cast Out of a Young Man — Again at Windsor Locks — Conversion of John Anderson — At North Manchester — Rev. G. W. Fuller — Meriden, Conn. — Rev. John Pegg — A Swede Converted — Happy Coincidence, pages 230-266

Chapter XV. Victories In The West

Leaving the Home of Her Childhood — Chicago — Rev. W. H. Daniels — At Fond du Lac, Wisconsin — Rev. W. H. Window — Cotton-Street Church — Work Begun — " Religion Takes All the Swear Out of a Fellow" — Conversion of an Editor — Many Incidents — Summary of the Year's Labor — At Oshkosh — Rev. W. P. Stowe — Incidents — Letter Received — Eastward Again — One Night at Fond du Lac — Reception — At Clark-Street Church, Chicago — Remarks of the Tribune, ' . 267-284

Chapter XVI. In The Pulpit

Sketches of Two Sermons — 1. Hebrews x, 23 : " Let us hold fast the profession of our faith ;" 2. Isaiah lv, 6, 7 : " Seek ye the Lord while he may be found," etc, . . 285-303

Chapter XVII. Shall Women Preach?

Historic Sketch — Testimony in Favor — Dr. Clarke's Opinion — Dr. Priestly — Review of First Corinthians — New Testament Authorities — Dr. Whedon — Dr. Mosheim — Dr. Lange — Facts — No Barrier when Correctly Viewed, . 304-315 xii CONTENTS.

APPENDIX,

REMARKS OF THE PRESS.

What They Say About Mrs. Van Cott — Daily Guardian — Christian Advocate — Times — -Tribune — Poughkeepsie Daily Eagle— The Methodist — The World — The Independent — Harper's Bazar — Daily Union, Springfield — Boston Traveler — Springfield Republican — Herald, Boston — New York Sunday Times — Heathen Woman's Friend — Zion's Herald — Greenfield Gazette — Meriden Daily Republican — Fond du Lac Commonwealth — Chicago Evening Journal — Northwestern Advocate — London Watchman — Methodist Home Journal, Philadelphia — Boston Chronicle, . page 317

Introduction

BY GILBERT HAVEN,

EDITOR OF ZION'S HERALD, BOSTON, MASS.

volume.

j>Y first knowledge of Rev. Mrs. Van Cott so forcibly illustrates some traits in her character that it may well serve as an introduction, both to this tribute and this One day Rev. Mr. Mars entered my office with an air of perplexity not usually witnessed on his kindly countenance, which, if kissed by the sun's heat into a proper brownness, also retains much of the sun's light in its steady, illuminating smile. Said he, "I am in a fix. I have been at Chicopee Falls assisting in a protracted meeting with sister Van Cott. I asked her to come and preach in my church. She consented, and agreed to begin next Sunday; and now I have just received this note from her." He read the note, which asked him to get board for her among her people. Then he added, " I have been telling my Church that she was not like the rest of the

xni

XIV INTRODUCTION.

white folks, that she would not regard our color with any dislike, or treat us any differently from other people. They said they did n't believe it, she was just like all the rest of them ; and here comes this note, confirming their opinions. What shall I do?"

"Write her instantly not to come," was the advice given. " Do n't disgrace yourself by any humiliations such as this prejudice demands."

He was wiser than his adviser, went to a desk, and soon returned with a note very nearly as follows :

"Dear Sister, — I don't know who your people are. When the Lord Jesus comes to us he stops at my house. If you can not accept like quarters I have no others to offer. Please let me know your answer by telegraph.

[Signed,] " J. N. MARS."

That keen thrust did not need a second. This was Friday. She received the note Saturday morning, telegraphed instantly that she would be present, and that night, probably for the first time, stayed in the humble parsonage of a colored brother, with whom she faithfully and sacrificially labored for two weeks.

His " people " never saw any sign of the wicked contempt of the " pale-faces " in her w r ords or manner. She went among that congregation as if it were the Fourth Avenue society. She put her arm around the necks of those young men and women, calling them "my son," "my daughter," as thoughtless of the cruel and criminal feeling of most white ministers as was the Holy Spirit which was working together with her in their troubled breasts. She walked the streets

INTRODUCTION. XV

daily to and from church by the side of the pastor, as fine a lady in looks and manners, with as fine a gentleman as trod any of its sidewalks at the same moment.

This, too, it should be noticed, was not done by a New England woman, who had been dinned her life long with talk on the equality of all men, and who stiffened herself up to the discharge of a duty, however irksome, by this pressure of conscience and conviction, or who had grown into this grace by this true culture, as many of her men and women have grown. Mrs. Van Cott was a New York city lady born and bred. Her atmosphere had never been filled with these agitations. She had been taught to look on these brethren and sisters as of another race. The idea of social intimacy with them had never entered her mind. She as innocently asked for a separate boarding-place as she would have asked for a separate room.

But the instant that arrow from the Lord Jesus struck her heart her strong nature yielded entirely — never a reserve, never a question. " It is the Lord ; I am the Lord's." And the flying telegram was not so swift in its leap of a hundred miles as was her soul to hear and answer, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord \ be it unto me even as thou wilt." Such an act stamped her as of a very high order of nature. She had nobility of blood. The petty critics might yet censure her work and words ; they could not her character. In that she left their contempt and conduct equally far behind.

xvi INTRODUCTION.

The lady who commenced her labors in the city of Boston in an African church, is fair to look upon, of large frame, of full form, of small, delicate features, light, clear complexion, an eye of melting blue, with the pose and ease of a queen of the drawingroom. Her dress is elegant to the top of propriety, but not a whit beyond. Not one lady in a thousand, if one in ten thousand, equals her in that French "how to do it" gift of appropriate dress, at once individual and general, unnoticed and most noticeable. The chief of the interviewers and bureau men of the country, the founder of the first and the expander of the second, who knows more public men and women than any other person in America,* remarked to the most popular of our lady speakers, " Mrs. Van Cott is the best-dressed woman that appears on the platform. She is not overdressed, nor dowdily dressed, nor common and indifferent in her appearance, but she is perfectly dressed." r JThis is true, and this is no small commendation. It shows the womanly elegance of her nature. It disarms criticism as to her boldness in entering the pulpit, and her modes of discourse and of appeal, by which she wins such multitudes to Christ. She is mistress of their eyes before she opens her lips. Grace is in her face and her apparel. As becomes the king's daughter, " all her garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia." They conform to the laws of beauty and propriety.

But some may say, "Why dwell on these outward

* James Redpath to Anna Dickinson.

INTRODUCTION. xvn

traits ? What have they to do with her career as an evangelist? Is she fit to preach? Can she preach because she will swallow down her prejudice, perhaps under the impulse of a false ambition, or because she wears goodly raiment in a goodly manner ?" Nay, but if these show both strength and womanliness they are two grand essentials to success. The first proves she follows duty unflinchingly, as soon as it is revealed, almost unconsciously; the second that she never forgets her ladyhood in this boldness of daring. They are typical of her whole career. She rarely does a new thing until it is suggested by others, and then she does it with a swiftness and a propriety that make it both a triumph and a delight.

She refused to attend class-meeting until a few years ago, because she said it was a shame for a woman to speak in such places. Enticed to one by an invitation to sing, and a promise that she should not be compelled to speak, she broke forth, on the privilege being offered, in a fullness of testimony and power that carried all the class captive, and at once made her leader of the leader. When asked to let her daughter go to a mission at Five Points to play the piano, she said to herself, "Why not go with her?" and no sooner said than she was off. When urging the pastor of this dying mission to revive it by more frequent meetings, and was told that she only could make them live, she accepted the unexpected burden instantly, and crowded them every night in the week. When told by a friend in the country back of Newxviii INTRODUCTION.

burg, who knew of her success in this city work, that she must preach to the scattered hamlet, she replies, " Preach ? impossible ! I preach ?" But the reply is, " What is that but what you do in New York, except to take a text ?" She sees it, and enters the school-house, takes a text, and the house is far too strait for the crowds that throng it. " You must go to a little church near by," says her friend. She goes. The platform is far from the light. Her eyes fail to see the hymns. He whispers, "Go into the pulpit." " Horror !" again leaps first from her lips ; " I in a pulpit? Never!" The sober second thought rushes after the first, and she thinks, " What is a pulpit but a place where the speaker better sees the audience and the audience the speaker?" And up she enters, never to leave it until her work is done.

In that section hundreds are converted under her preaching. The ministers say, "You must attend to this work all the time." " I can not," she answers ; "my business is on my hands ; I must get my living." But she follows the voice, gives up a lucrative business, and devotes herself wholly to the work. They say, "You must be licensed as a local preacher." Again she objects, again submits. Thus every step in her public career has been forced upon her, and thus every step has been a victory.

It is not our purpose, nor have we space here, to discuss the questions involved in the labors of this elect lady. That they have taken the Church by surprise is true. It did not expect to have this duty set

INTRODUCTION. xix

before its face. It did not dream that it would be called to license women as preachers, to ordain them as such, to station them as such. The Methodist Episcopal Church, and all its affiliated branches, as well as its parent stock, give women large liberty in its services. Born of a woman — Susanna Wesley being almost as directly the mother of Wesley an ism as of Wesley — it from the start encouraged woman in all works of spiritual activity. She was active in the visitations of hospitals, prisons, alms-houses, poor and neglected people. She participated freely in all social meetings, of which, like the land of the rich man, this new movement "brought forth abundantly." She was organized into classes and band-meetings, where she was required to speak and pray. She knelt around the altar, and poured forth her strong cries and tears with her brothers over the returning prodigals. She uttered her sweet, love-feast testimonies in perfect oneness with her leaders and her brethren. In fine, there was not a single department of the service of the Church in which her silver treble did not chime in with his manly bass, and made the harmony all the richer, except possibly in the purely clerical or pulpit portion. Here an attempt was made to draw the line. John Wesley had recognized uneducated men as ministers, and appointed them their charges. He had even made unordained men ministers, on whose heads he dare not lay his own hands; on whose heads no hands were ever laid. They filled large appointments, did a great work for God, and obtained a good report as xx INTRODUCTION.

ministers of Jesus Christ, and yet died as they had lived, without a single, formal, ecclesiastical recognition as clergymen. This* was done in hundreds and probably in thousands of instances. Hardly a score of all his preachers did he ordain, and these only near the close of his life.

The bold discretion that ever marked this mighty leader, made him hesitate against too much liberty. He had enough to carry in this burden of making into popular and regular clergy those whom Sydney Smith, seventy years after this had been going on, could call "consecrated cobblers/' with the approval of all fashionable Britain, and which, had he called them "unconsecrated cobblers," would have been yet more pleasing, because to their judgment yet more true. Surely Wesley might well hesitate before casting away all barriers and admitting women as well as men to all the hedged-about dignities of the profession and the pulpit.

Yet he scarcely hesitated. His mother had harder work to make him let Thomas Maxfield preach than Jhe had to let Mrs. Fletcher and others. His latest life, by Tyerman, relates some of these difficulties, and his usual mixed policy, wrought out of his steadfast maxim, haste slowly. In 1769 he addresses Sarah Crosby, a female preacher, a* note, in which he allows her to pray and exhort in public, but forbids her to take a text, or to speak continuously over five or six minutes. Thirty-two years later he had grown in wisdom, or events had grown up to him. A Miss Cam-

INTRODUCTION, xxi

bridge was preaching in Ireland, and many Methodists, and Methodist preachers even, had so far forgotten their own origin as to oppose her, and refused to tolerate her. Whereupon she wrote to Mr. Wesley, and received this reply :

London, January^!, 1791.

"My Dear Sister, — I received your letter an hour ago. I thank you for writing so largely and so freely ; do so always to me as your friend, as one that loves you well. Mr. Barber has the glory of God at heart, and so have his fellow-laborers. Give them all honor, and obey them in all things as far as conscience permits. But it will not permit you to be silent when God commands you to speak; yet I would have you give as little offense as possible ; and, therefore, I would advise you not to speak at any place where a preacher is speaking at the same time, lest you should draw away his hearers. Also, avoid the first appearance of pride, or magnifying yourself. If you want books, or any thing, let me know; I have your happiness much at heart. During the little time I have to stay on earth, pray for

" Your affectionate brother, John Wesley."

Thus his latest words confirm the spirit of his earliest. He who had made all England accept a noncanonical clergy as the most approved before God and all the people of any in the realm, with his latest breath, hardly a month before he died,* threw the door wide open to all those called of God to this ministry, and answered all objections of his own followers, at least, if not of any in any Church, who might still be possessed of the spirit of the persecutors of Miss Cambridge.

There was a good stroke of satire, too, in his advice to her not to preach when a preacher was preaching . * He died March 2, 1791. This letter was written Jan. 31.

xxn INTRODUCTION.

at the same time, lest "she might draw away his hearers" — a stroke not inapplicable to some modern objectors to the modern Miss Cambridge, who would be sure to have a very empty house if they should dare to hold meetings near her own.

Methodism has ever accepted the clear leadings of Providence. Its success has been largely because of this acceptance. It knew not what would be on the morrow, but did know that whatever the Lord then declared should then be done, it would cheerfully do.

Has He called women to preach? That is the question, and the only question. If He has, every true son and daughter of His will say "Amen. So let it be. Come in this way, if so Thou wilt, only come, Lord Jesus!"

This book will,, go far toward answering that question. It narrates the wonderful works of God done through a woman. It shows how she captures country, and village, and city, East and West ; how multitudes come, and keep coming, to her services; how hundreds seek Christ, and find him, under her skillful guidance ; how astonishingly she labors. Day and night his hand is heavy upon her. The zeal of the house of the Lord eateth her up. The "hardest cases" bow to her entreaties. Men who have not been inside of a church for a score of years come, hear, tremble, fall before the Lord, and come forth new creatures in Christ Jesus. And her fruit remains. Not all of it. No revivalist gathers up permanently all his results. John Wesley, in one of his last

letters, writes : " To retain the grace of God is much more than to gain it; hardly one in three does this." The parables of the sower and of the man casting a net into the sea are proofs that this is the law of revivals, as announced by their Divine Author. She scatters this seed on wayside, rocky, and thornyhearted hearers. She brings to the shore all sorts of fish ; but much seed falls on good ground. Many fish are caught by this skillful fisher of men who abide in their new grace, and will grow in it unto eternal life. She is, without doubt, to-day, the most popular, most laborious, and most successful preacher in the Methodist Episcopal Church. She has more calls, does more work, and wins more souls to Christ than any of her brothers. She does this by her genius and her faith. Genius is naught without faith ; faith is not all-powerful without genius.

Her sermons are not finished orations \ Peter's were not, nor Paul's, nor Christ's. It is doubtful if any true Gospel sermons should be. Sermon means conversation, and a sermon should be a conversation on Christ. Her learning is not of the schools. She knows little about theology as a science, probably nothing, scholars being judges. She never had the least "theological education," so-called, which is often an education without theology. She never was trained to public speaking. She prepares no discourses, in the usual sense of pulpit preparation. Like Marc Antony, and most successful platform leaders, and especially all our early, greatest Methodist xxiv INTRODUCTION.

preachers, she only "talks straight on." She tells "them that which they themselves do know," shows them their sins and their Savior. She is as dramatic as Gough, or any actor, with the difference that her pictures are as original as her delineations, while theirs are simply narrations of stories, or portraitures of characters others have formed. Thus she tells the story of Abraham offering up Isaac, so that all feel the knife descending upon their own naked flesh, and are as relieved and delighted as Abraham when the substitute appears, and the son marches down the mountain side safe to his mother's arms. She paints the Deluge so that you hear the windows of heaven opening, and the rain pouring its waves on the roof of the ark, the ark wherein is salvation. When Peter sinks slowly and steadily down, the audience feel that they too are drowning, and each shivers in affright, and almost bursts forth, for himself, in the cry of the apostle, "Lord, save, or I perish 1" Victor Hugo's sinking crews are not so powerfully put. Said a frequenter of theaters, "She is the greatest actor since Fanny Kemble !" But she is no actor. It is dead earnest with her. Her appeals are more thrilling than her descriptions. Nor does she content herself with pulpit efforts. These are only preliminary to her prayer-meetings, and altar work. She is over all the congregation, addressing every one she can reach, and gathering more to the Lord by personal address than by her pulpit portrayals and appeals. She leaves no stone unturned to save souls. Ceaseless in

INTRODUCTION. xxv

prayer, spending whole nights on her knees, visiting from house to house, holding meetings all the day through, instant in season and out of season, she tires the stoutest man with her immense capacity for work, as well as astonishes all by her ease and felicity in doing it.

To her own Master she stands or falls. She feels a call higher than any of earth. She obeys, and all recognize its authenticity. She has made a name in the Church annals that will not die. She has done for Christ what has so long been done for antichrist — made woman his public helper. People can crowd the theaters to see female performers of high or low repute, and no one condemns them merely for that desire. Lydia Thompson' may beguile, with her lascivious troup, myriads of young men to ruin, as she, with base, " voluptuous motions, fires the blood of inconsiderate youth." Charlotte Cushman, Matilda Heron, Ellen Tree, Fanny Kemble, all the good or bad actresses of the stage, draw hundreds of thousands to their fascinations, and no voice objects to them because they are women. Songstresses of fame, for a century, have led the opera, and alone, almost, have made it attractive ; not one male voice to ten female acquiring distinction in this sphere. Ladies appear at last on the platform, and all the world runs after them; some uttering, in graceful words and mien, the most graceless doctrine of devils, and scattering firebrands of hell among the gunpowder sensibilities of society.

xxvi INTRODUCTION.

It was time that fire should fight fire ; that the Lord should choose and send forth his daughters to offset these daughters of error and sin, and to bring back to Christ, through a mother's and a sister's voice, those who had been led, by like soft tones and manners, into a ruin that, but for this interposition, had been eternal.