Who is Your Fav Saint?

Robert Sayers Sheffey


And to describe the guy I turn to George Clark Rankin, who had the privilege of attending service with the guy in the late 1800's..

Page 240

The circuit was a large one, comprising seventeen appointments. They were practically scattered all over the county. I preached every other day, and never less than twice and generally three times on Sunday.

I had associated with me that year a young collegemate, Rev. W. B. Stradley. He was a bright, popular fellow, and we managed to give Wytheville regular Sunday preaching. Stradley became a great preacher and died a few years ago while pastor of Trinity Church, Atlanta, Georgia. We were true yokefellows and did a great work on that charge, held fine revivals and had large ingatherings.

The famous Cripple Creek Campground was on that work. They have kept up campmeetings there for more than a hundred years. It is still the great rallying point for the Methodists of all that section. I have never heard such singing and preaching and shouting anywhere else in my life. I met the Rev. John Boring there and heard him preach. He was a well-known preacher in the conference; original, peculiar, strikingly odd, but a great revival preacher.

One morning in the beginning of the service he was to preach and he called the people to prayer. He prayed loud and long and told the Lord just what sort of a meeting we were expecting and really exhorted the people as to their conduct on the grounds. Among other things, he said we wanted no horse- trading and then related that just before kneeling he had seen a man just outside the encampment looking into the mouth of a horse and he made such a peculiar sound as he described the incident that I lifted up my head to look at him, and he was holding his mouth open with his hands just as the man had done in looking into the horse's mouth! But he was a man of power and wrought well for the Church and for humanity.

Page 241

The rarest character I ever met in my life I met at that campmeeting in the person of Rev. Robert Sheffy, known as "Bob" Sheffy. He was recognized all over Southwest Virginia as the most eccentric preacher of that country. He was a local preacher; crude, illiterate, queer and the oddest specimen known among preachers. But he was saintly in his life, devout in his experience and a man of unbounded faith. He wandered hither and thither over that section attending meetings, holding revivals and living among the people. He was great in prayer, and Cripple Creek campground was not complete without "Bob" Sheffy. They wanted him there to pray and work in the altar.

He was wonderful with penitents. And he was great in following up the sermon with his exhortations and appeals. He would sometimes spend nearly the whole night in the straw with mourners; and now and then if the meeting lagged he would go out on the mountain and spend the entire night in prayer, and the next morning he would come rushing into the service with his face all aglow shouting at the top of his voice. And then the meeting always broke loose with a floodtide.

He could say the oddest things, hold the most unique interviews with God, break forth in the most unexpected spasms of praise, use the homeliest illustrations, do the funniest things and go through with the most grotesque performances of any man born of woman.

It was just "Bob" Sheffy, and nobody thought anything of what he did and said, except to let him have his own way and do exactly as he pleased. In anybody else it would not have been tolerated for a moment. In fact, he acted more like a crazy man than otherwise, but he was wonderful in a meeting. He would stir the people, crowd the mourner's bench with crying penitents and have genuine conversions by the score. I doubt if any man in all that conference has as many souls to his credit in the Lamb's Book of Life as old "Bob" Sheffy. - http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/rankin/rankin.html

Daniel from the bible!!!!

BigHardMuscleman...Darn good story! Thanks for sharing!

LaSorcia said:

and why?

I'm posting this here, because I know that at least EE, RC and Anglicans/Episcopalians acknowledge special Christians and call them saints. I didn't want to limit answers to just one denomination, and various traditions have sainted different people.

I also wanted Protestants (like me) to be able to answer, too. Also, there might be someone from another faith tradition or none who has read about a Christian saint and really relates to or admires them.

I really like St. Therese of Lisieux. She's so sweet and innocent and honest. She didn't let losing her mother make her bitter against God. She tried hard to be nice to the grouchy nuns she lived with, and I can really relate to that! Not that I live with grouchy nuns lol. In her few years on this earth, she's made a lasting impact. Reading her autobiography, I feel like we could have been good friends.

I also really like Don Bosco. I love his work with vulnerable teens. He had such a heart of caring, and he loved people actively. I love his focus on the positive. I get a feeling of peace and gentleness reading about him.

Click to expand...

St. Hilarion Troitsky

He was a brilliant budding Russian Orthodox theologian at the time just before the Russian Revolution, author of "Holy Scripture and the Church" and "Christianity or the Church". Because he was a member of the clergy (he was both a monk and a bishop), he was sent to a special concentration camp for priests north of the Arctic Circle, on the Solovetsk islands. He died after being imprisoned there for six years.

There is a story that a particularly brutal guard named Suhov was caught in the open sea during a fierce Arctic storm. Acting against the orders of the other guards, Bishop Hilarion gathered a handful of fellow prisoners and rowed out to sea in an open boat and rescued Suhov, after having searched for him all night during the storm.

.

I have some favorites (plural).

St. George: http://oca.org/saints/lives/2015/04/23/101184-greatmartyr-victory-bearer-and-wonderworker-george (A martyr that inspires.)
St. Herman of Alaska: http://oca.org/FS.NA-Saint.asp?Saint=Herman (I had a personal experience of being delivered from extremely negative thoughts- that had been plaguing me for days- immediately after being blessed with oil from his lampada and venerating his relics after his akathist.)
St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco: https://oca.org/saints/lives/2000/0...e-saints-john-maximovitch-archbishop-of-shang (The real deal right here.)
St. Mary of Egypt: http://oca.org/reflections/lenten-reflections/reflecting-on-the-life-of-st.-mary-of-egypt (She shows that someone that lived a life of major sin can repent and become a saint. I find this inspiring.)
St. Michael the Archangel (my patron saint): http://oca.org/saints/lives/2013/11...changel-michael-and-the-other-bodiless-powers
St. Nectarios: https://oca.org/saints/lives/2000/11/09/103251-st-nectarius-kephalas-the-metropolitan-of-pentapolis (An extremely humble and prayerful man.)
St. Seraphim of Sarov: http://oca.org/saints/lives/2015/01...-venerable-seraphim-the-wonderworker-of-sarov (An amazing ascetic- he is very quotable- and his love for Christ and the Theotokos was amazing.)
St. Xenia of St. Petersburg: http://oca.org/saints/lives/2000/01/24/100297-blessed-xenia-of-st-petersburg (A dedicated fool-for-Christ. I find her life inspiring.)

Joan of Arc.

For me there is no one but The Holy Theotokos, Mater Ecclesiae <3
Purely unique, even the greatest of saints are nothing in comparison...