Annals of our ancestors; one hundred and fifty years of history in the ...

34
ANNALS OF OUR ANCESTORS
amounted to a declaration of war on creeds and man-made
confessions of faith which was destined to increase and grow
and propagate a simple faith in the Word of God. With the
immortal Chillingsworth he declared himself the advocate of
"the Bible alone, the religion of Protestants."
It was an actual crisis in our father's life when he met in
Cincinnati this learned and deeply pious man. He was great-
ly enthused by his scholarly advocacy of "the Bible alone,"
and was persuaded to give the doctrine the ardor of a rehgious
nature of intense activity. The plea for a return to the
primitive simplicity of the Gospel touched him with a force
which increased rather than abated through his long life; and
I could not picture our father naturally, correctly nor as he
would be remembered by his descendants, without telling of
this epoch in his life and its influence on his future. It was
at this time that he turned to the critical study of the New
Testament in the original Greek, becoming an authority
among the people with whom he associated on the text in
that language. People were very religious in that day, and
had time to read the Bible in the evening by the little gleam
of their candles. There was no pile of newspapers and maga-
zines on the round table where our grandmother kept the brass
candlestick, her work-basket and the old family Bible; they
read and reread their Book. Our foreparents tried to understand
it in the light of the accepted theology of the times,
which was somewhat hard to do. Our grandmother was a
Presbyterian, and grandfather, though an earnest believer in
the Bible, was not a member of any church at the time "the
Stone reformation" struck Cincinnati.
The whole family joined this religious movement and
with great earnestness followed the light they had. In the
little one-horse "Jersey wagon," with its green box and bright
red running gears, they drove to church. There they would
find the itinerant preacher, "Uncle Sammy" Rogers, John
O'Kane, and others. Lorenzo Dow was one of the most famous
of these. He was a man of strong conviction, and in his
own style fought many a fierce conflict with the powers of sin
and unbelief. As he passed through the country, the hungry