Sermon Central
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As America Was Being Settled "…men Of Genuine ...
Contributed by Sermon Central on Jun 18, 2007 (message contributor)
As America was being settled "…men of genuine greatness of character and talents were continually rising up in the western itinerancy. Samuel Parker, born in New Jersey in 1774, and converted in his fourteenth year, was a man of genius, and was called the Cicero of the western ministry. After laboring four years as a local preacher, he was received into the Western Conference in 1805. For three years he traveled in Kentucky, and in 1808 was sent to Miami Circuit, Ohio, which included Cincinnati. Here his natural eloquence attained its climax. The people thronged from great distances to hear him; his word was irresistible, and "wherever he went," says one of his contemporaries, "wondering and weeping audiences crowded about him." [10] He possessed an exceedingly musical voice, a clear, keen mind, an imagination which, though never extravagant, afforded frequent and brilliant illustrations of his subject, while his ardent piety imparted wonderful tenderness and power to his appeals. Withal, his personal appearance was striking before he became attenuated with disease, he was nearly six feet high, had a remarkably intellectual countenance, with a full forehead, and a black, piercing eye.
In 1809 he became presiding elder on a district which included Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri (And we think South Texas has big Districts). "From the White River, in Indiana, to the farthest settler in Missouri," says Finley, "did this herald of the cross proclaim the glad tidings of salvation" through four years, and "so ’mightily grew the word of God, and prevailed,’ " that the district had to be divided. Its three hundred and eighty-two members, at his beginning, had increased to more than two thousand when he left it. He continued north and west of the Ohio, with increasing influence and success, till 1815, when he was made presiding elder in Kentucky, where his great eloquence commanded general interest. In 1819 he was appointed to lead the itinerants who were extending the Church in the far southwest, on the memorable Mississippi District. They needed such a man; but his health was broken, and it seemed but an appointment to martyrdom. He was ready for it, nevertheless, and when it was announced, at the close of the Conference, in Cincinnati, " it seemed," says a spectator, "that a wave of sympathy rolled over the whole Conference."
His malady (pulmonary consumption) rapidly advanced when he reached his new field. He was never indeed able to perform any labor on the district. He sank down and died in 1819. William Winans, whom he had called out to preach, in Ohio, was now in the south, and attended him in death, and followed him to his grave, in Washington, Miss. "He died," says Winans, "not only peacefully, but triumphantly." "Love inspired his whole being, breathed from his lips, and beamed with heavenly radiance from his countenance." (1) Samuel Parker was an itinerant preacher who pioneered the faith for Jesus Christ.
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