The Saint of the Wilderness - Jess Carr

[rockytopva]

There was only one person who kept notes on the Cripple Creek meetings and that was a Francis McTeer. On asking a Robert Vejnar, Archivist, Emory & Henry College and Holston Conference he could not find anything. The only thing he could find on the old Cripple Creek meetings was a document dated September 1823 giving the rules to govern the camp meeting. It is interesting to note that the people of my Pentecostal Holiness church here in SW VA would still occupy the first few pews with the men sitting on the left side (as you walked down the aisle) and the woman on the right side... Just like the Methodist did 250 years before them. I have notes that this camp meeting existed in the 1740's... Not long after Wesley 'Aldersgate Experience' in 1738.

Rules to govern the Cripple Creek Camp meeting beginning on the 12th day of September, 1823.
1) At the first sound of the trumpet in the morning all the people will arise from their tent to dress for church.
2)At the second sound there will be prayer in each tent.
3)At the third sound and every subsequence throughout the day the people will come to the stand.
4)No loud talking is allowed on the campground during the divine service.
5)No person or persons are allowed to stand or walk on the gates at any time during the meeting.
6)No person or persons are allowed to drink any kind of ardent spirits on the campground or any of the fringes or waters belonging to the same.
7)No drunken man or woman are allowed to come on this campground or any of the waters used by the camp.
8)All persons not having a camp or tent to stay in are to leave the campground when the congregation are dismissed or in the night.
9)No person or persons are allowed to occupy the stand except the preachers and the exhorters.
10)The alter is to be occupied by the official characters..
11)The people are not allowed to come in to any camp or camps without an official invitation by the occupant.
12)The people are not allowed to tie their horses to the fence.
13)No cooking on the Sabbath day except tea or coffee.
14)The females are to occupy the seats on the left hand from the stand and the males on the right hand.
15)The females are to enter from the west from the stand and the males from the north.
16)The people are requested to keep their camps illuminated during the night.
17)No merchandise of any kind is allowed on the campground or at any of the waters belonging to the same.
18)Every settler at this meeting is to act as a guard and a committee of safety to guard our privileges.
19)Names of those to guard
20)The committee to guard the alter… Names of those to guard
21)No persons are allowed to hurt any timbers or young growth on any part of the campground.
We the undersigned do agree to bind ourselves to observe the above rules to do what we can to make others do the same.

***This document was signed by 27 people. ***




There was a man named George Clark Rankin who records this account in his "The Story of My Life or More Than a Half Century as I Have Lived It and Seen It Lived" George Clark Rankin. The Story of My Life Or More Than a Half Century As I Have Lived It and Seen It Lived Written by Myself at My Own Suggestion and That of Many Others Who Have Known and Loved Me who was the only other one to have recorded anything of the old Cripple Creek Meetings.

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.

It is interesting the premium these people put in their exhorters. I have listened to Joel Osteen encourage his men's group to be 'encouragers' ... Not far away from exhortation!

 

[rockytopva]

The Last Words of Robert Sayers Sheffey...

“Dear Aurelius … I have not done all … I should have done for the . . . sweet L-Lord.”

“If you haven’t, Brother Sheffey, no man ever has,” Aurelius whispered.

“You must promise me . . . all of you . . . that you will continue . . . continue the work. Somebody… somebody must carry the . . . load. Make the people like . .. crawling babes that know not a stranger . . . and, grab hold of each other … tell all who love me to .. to do that. . .”

“We will all do it,” Aurelius said.

“Do you … Answer me, Aurelius .. I can’t hear .. you … well .. “

For a moment he thought he heard his friend and felt is hand, but the voice faded and faded and the touch must have been drawn away, for now there was nothing but a creeping coldness that had reached his neck. . . .


"Make the people like . .. crawling babes that know not a stranger . . . and, grab hold of each other … tell all who love me to .. to do that. . .”


In which these two videos demonstrate this mans last wishes... And that is worship with the true and a perfect heart.

Baby worship!!!!! (As Seen On TV) This honestly shocked me to see baby Ava worshipping - YouTube
Ava Grace Baby Worship #2 - YouTube

 

[rockytopva]

The conversion of Robert Sayers Sheffey on You Tube.

(RS 1 of 4) The Conversion of Robert Sayers Sheffey - YouTube

 

[rockytopva]

Here is an old photograph of Robert Sheffey. The 'liquor people' had a fear of the man. Here is the countenance of Robert Sheffey, like an old time prophet, before he would call down the wrath of God on the area's moonshiners...

 

[rockytopva]

James Sheffey, Robert's third son, would visit Robert in his last days. Though I do not not have a picture of James I do have one of Daniel, his fifth son by his first marriage, along with his wife Mary Polly Allison Sheffey.

 

[rockytopva]

I am currently reading "The Life of George Clark Rankin" located at

George Clark Rankin. The Story of My Life Or More Than a Half Century As I Have Lived It and Seen It Lived Written by Myself at My Own Suggestion and That of Many Others Who Have Known and Loved Me


This mans life was very similar to that of the Rev RS Sheffey and comparisons will be apparent as the story progresses. If you have an Ipad you can join in with me by...

1. Open the above URL in Microsoft IE (won't work in Firefox)
2. Select all and copy (CTL C)
3. Open Microsoft Word and paste (CTR V) Microsoft Word will make this work readable!
4. Save as a PDF file
5. Download and open Good Reader
6. Copy the PDF file to your Ipad
7. Enjoy the book!

George Clark Ranking was born in 1849 in East Tennessee and became a preacher for the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (which would later form into the UMC). Mr. Rankin would move and spend the rest of his years in Dallas, Texas. A good life! Here are some excerpts from his book...

...Excerpts (I will add at the most a dozen posts to this thread)...

CHAPTER III

In the earlier days, long before the railroads ran through that section, East Tennessee was a country to itself. Its topography made it such. Its people were a peculiar people - rugged, honest and unique. I doubt if their kind was ever known under other circumstances. Hundreds of them were well-to-do, and now and then, in the more fertile communities, there was actual wealth. Especially was this true along the beautiful water-courses where the farm lands are unequaled, even to this good day.

Among them were people of intelligence and high ideals. No country could boast of a finer grade of men and women than lived and flourished in portions of that "Switzerland of America." Their ministers and lawyers and politicians were men of unusual talent. Some of the most eloquent men produced in the United States were born and flourished in East Tennessee.

Those evergreen hills and sun-tipped mountains, covered with a verdant forest in summer and gorgeously decorated with every variety of autumnal hue in the fall and winter; those foaming rivers and leaping cascades; the scream of the eagle by day and the weird hoot of the owl by night - all these natural environments conspired to make men hardy and their speech pictorial and romantic. As a result, there were among them men of native eloquence, veritable sons of thunder in the pulpit, before the bar, and on the hustings.

But far back from these better advantages of soil and institutions of learning, in the gorges, on the hills, along the ravines and amid the mountains, the great throbbing masses of the people were of a different type and belonged almost to another civilization. They were rugged, natural and picturesque. With exceptions, they were not people of books; they did not know the art of letters; they were simple, crude, sincere and physically brave. They enjoyed the freedom of the hills, the shadows of the rocks and the grandeur of the mountains. They were a robust set of men and women, whose dress was mostly homespun, whose muscles were tough, whose countenances were swarthy, and whose rifles were their defense. They took an interest in whatever transpired in their own localities and in the more favored sections of their more fortunate neighbors. They were social, and practiced the law of reciprocity long before Uncle Sam tried to establish it between this country and Canada.

Who among us, having lived in that garden spot of the world, can ever forget the old-fashioned house-raisings, the rough and tumble log-rollings, the frosty corn-shuckings, the road-workings and the quilting-bees?

And when the day's work was over - then the supper - after that the fiddle and the bow, and the old Virginia reel. None but a registered East Tennessean, in his memory, can do justice to experiences like those. No such things ever happened in just that way anywhere on the face of the earth except in that land of the skies.

Therefore, the man who even thinks of those East Tennesseans as sluggards and ignoramuses who got nothing out of life is wide of the mark. They had sense of the horse kind; and they were people of good though crude morals. No such thing as a divorce was known among them. It was rare that one of them ever went to jail in our section; and, if he did, he was disgraced for life.

I never knew, in my boyhood, of but one man going to the penitentiary and it was a shock to the whole country.

 

[rockytopva]

Gems out of the George Rankin Book... In which George Clark Rankin experiences salvation just about in the same Methods of RS Sheffey. They both came out of Presbyterian type churches into the Methodist movement...

"Grandfather was kind to me and considerate of me, yet he was strict with me. I worked along with him in the field when the weather was agreeable and when it was inclement I helped him in his hatter's shop, for the Civil War was in progress and he had returned at odd times to hatmaking. It was my business in the shop to stretch foxskins and coonskins across a wood-horse and with a knife, made for that purpose, pluck the hair from the fur. I despise the odor of foxskins and coonskins to this good day. He had me to walk two miles every Sunday to Dandridge to Church service and Sunday-school, rain or shine, wet or dry, cold or hot; yet he had fat horses standing in his stable. But he was such a blue-stocking Presbyterian that he never allowed a bridle to go on a horse's head on Sunday. The beasts had to have a day of rest. Old Doctor Minnis was the pastor, and he was the dryest and most interminable preacher I ever heard in my life. He would stand motionless and read his sermons from manuscript for one hour and a half at a time and sometimes longer. Grandfather would sit and never take his eyes off of him, except to glance at me to keep me quiet. It was torture to me." - George Clark Rankin

Then he got it good in the Methodist church in Georgia...

...Quote...

After the team had been fed and we had been to supper we put the mules to the wagon, filled it with chairs and we were off to the meeting. When we reached the locality it was about dark and the people were assembling. Their horses and wagons filled up the cleared spaces and the singing was already in progress. My uncle and his family went well up toward the front, but I dropped into a seat well to the rear. It was an old-fashioned Church, ancient in appearance, oblong in shape and unpretentious. It was situated in a grove about one hundred yards from the road. It was lighted with old tallow-dip candles furnished by the neighbors. It was not a prepossessing-looking place, but it was soon crowded and evidently there was a great deal of interest. A cadaverous-looking man stood up in front with a tuning fork and raised and led the songs. There were a few prayers and the minister came in with his saddlebags and entered the pulpit. He was the Rev. W. H. Heath, the circuit rider. His prayer impressed me with his earnestness and there were many amens to it in the audience. I do not remember his text, but it was a typical revival sermon, full of unction and power.

At its close he invited penitents to the altar and a great many young people flocked to it and bowed for prayer. Many of them became very much affected and they cried out distressingly for mercy. It had a strange effect on me. It made me nervous and I wanted to retire. Directly my uncle came back to me, put his arm around my shoulder and asked me if I did not want to be religious. I told him that I had always had that desire, that mother had brought me up that way, and really I did not know anything else. Then he wanted to know if I had ever professed religion. I hardly understood what he meant and did not answer him. He changed his question and asked me if I had ever been to the altar for prayer, and I answered him in the negative. Then he earnestly besought me to let him take me up to the altar and join the others in being prayed for. It really embarrassed me and I hardly knew what to say to him. He spoke to me of my mother and said that when she was a little girl she went to the altar and that Christ accepted her and she had been a good Christian all these years. That touched me in a tender spot, for mother always did do what was right; and then I was far away from her and wanted to see her. Oh, if she were there to tell me what to do!

By and by I yielded to his entreaty and he led forward to the altar. The minister took me by the hand and spoke tenderly to me as I knelt at the altar. I had gone more out of sympathy than conviction, and I did not know what to do after I bowed there. The others were praying aloud and now and then one would rise shoutingly happy and make the old building ring with his glad praise. It was a novel experience to me. I did not know what to pray for, neither did I know what to expect if I did pray. I spent the most of the hour wondering why I was there and what it all meant. No one explained anything to me. Once in awhile some good old brother or sister would pass my way, strike me on the back and tell me to look up and believe and the blessing would come. But that was not encouraging to me. In fact, it sounded like nonsense and the noise was distracting me. Even in my crude way of thinking I had an idea that religion was a sensible thing and that people ought to become religious intelligently and without all that hurrah. I presume that my ideas were the result of the Presbyterian training given to me by old grandfather. By and by my knees grew tired and the skin was nearly rubbed off my elbows. I thought the service never would close, and when it did conclude with the benediction I heaved a sigh of relief. That was my first experience at the mourner's bench.

As we drove home I did not have much to say, but I listened attentively to the conversation between my uncle and his wife. They were greatly impressed with the meeting, and they spoke first of this one and that one who had "come through" and what a change it would make in the community, as many of them were bad boys. As we were putting up the team my uncle spoke very encouragingly to me; he was delighted with the step I had taken and he pleaded with me not to turn back, but to press on until I found the pearl of great price. He knew my mother would be very happy over the start I had made. Before going to sleep I fell into a train of thought, though I was tired and exhausted. I wondered why I had gone to that altar and what I had gained by it. I felt no special conviction and had received no special impression, but then if my mother had started that way there must be something in it, for she always did what was right. I silently lifted my heart to God in prayer for conviction and guidance. I knew how to pray, for I had come up through prayer, but not the mourner's bench sort. So I determined to continue to attend the meeting and keep on going to the altar until I got religion.

Early the next morning I was up and in a serious frame of mind. I went with the other hands to the cottonfield and at noon I slipped off in the barn and prayed. But the more I thought of the way those young people were moved in the meeting and with what glad hearts they had shouted their praises to God the more it puzzled and confused me. I could not feel the conviction that they had and my heart did not feel melted and tender. I was callous and unmoved in feeling and my distress on account of sin was nothing like theirs. I did not understand my own state of mind and heart. It troubled me, for by this time I really wanted to have an experience like theirs.

When evening came I was ready for Church service and was glad to go. It required no urging. Another large crowd was present and the preacher was as earnest as ever. I did not give much heed to the sermon. In fact, I do not recall a word of it. I was anxious for him to conclude and give me a chance to go to the altar. I had gotten it into my head that there was some real virtue in the mourner's bench; and when the time came I was one of the first to prostrate myself before the altar in prayer. Many others did likewise. Two or three good people at intervals knelt by me and spoke encouragingly to me, but they did not help me. Their talks were mere exhortations to earnestness and faith, but there was no explanation of faith, neither was there any light thrown upon my mind and heart. I wrought myself up into tears and cries for help, but the whole situation was dark and I hardly knew why I cried, or what was the trouble with me. Now and then others would arise from the altar in an ecstasy of joy, but there was no joy for me. When the service closed I was discouraged and felt that maybe I was too hardhearted and the good Spirit could do nothing for me.

After we went home I tossed on the bed before going to sleep and wondered why God did not do for me what he had done for mother and what he was doing in that meeting for those young people at the altar. I could not understand it. But I resolved to keep on trying, and so dropped off to sleep. The next day I had about the same experience and at night saw no change in my condition. And so for several nights I repeated the same distressing experience. The meeting took on such interest that a day service was adopted along with the night exercises, and we attended that also. And one morning while I bowed at the altar in a very disturbed state of mind Brother Tyson, a good local preacher and the father of Rev. J. F. Tyson, now of the Central Conference, sat down by me and, putting his hand on my shoulder, said to me: "Now I want you to sit up awhile and let's talk this matter over quietly. I am sure that you are in earnest, for you have been coming to this altar night after night for several days. I want to ask you a few simple questions." And the following questions were asked and answered:

"My son, do you not love God?"

"I cannot remember when I did not love him."

"Do you believe on his Son, Jesus Christ?"

"I have always believed on Christ. My mother taught me that from my earliest recollection."

"Do you accept him as your Savior?"

"I certainly do, and have always done so."

"Can you think of any sin that is between you and the Savior?"

"No, sir; for I have never committed any bad sins."

"Do you love everybody?"

"Well, I love nearly everybody, but I have no ill-will toward any one. An old man did me a wrong not long ago and I acted ugly toward him, but I do not care to injure him."

"Can you forgive him?"

"Yes, if he wanted me to."

"But, down in your heart, can you wish him well?"

"Yes, sir; I can do that."

"Well, now let me say to you that if you love God, if you accept Jesus Christ as your Savior from sin and if you love your fellowmen and intend by God's help to lead a religious life, that's all there is to religion. In fact, that is all I know about it."

Then he repeated several passages of Scriptures to me proving his assertions. I thought a moment and said to him: "But I do not feel like these young people who have been getting religion night after night. I cannot get happy like them. I do not feel like shouting."

The good man looked at me and smiled and said: "Ah, that's your trouble. You have been trying to feel like them. Now you are not them; you are yourself. You have your own quiet disposition and you are not turned like them. They are excitable and blustery like they are. They give way to their feelings. That's all right, but feeling is not religion. Religion is faith and life. If you have violent feeling with it, all good and well, but if you have faith and not much feeling, why the feeling will take care of itself. To love God and accept Jesus Christ as your Savior, turning away from all sin, and living a godly life, is the substance of true religion."

That was new to me, yet it had been my state of mind from childhood. For I remembered that away back in my early life, when the old preacher held services in my grandmother's house one day and opened the door of the Church, I went forward and gave him my hand. He was to receive me into full membership at the end of six months' probation, but he let it pass out of his mind and failed to attend to it.

As I sat there that morning listening to the earnest exhortation of the good man my tears ceased, my distress left me, light broke in upon my mind, my heart grew joyous, and before I knew just what I was doing I was going all around shaking hands with everybody, and my confusion and darkness disappeared and a great burden rolled off my spirit. I felt exactly like I did when I was a little boy around my mother's knee when she told of Jesus and God and Heaven. It made my heart thrill then, and the same old experience returned to me in that old country Church that beautiful September morning down in old North Georgia.

I at once gave my name to the preacher for membership in the Church, and the following Sunday morning, along with many others, he received me into full membership in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. It was one of the most delightful days in my recollection. It was the third Sunday in September, 1866, and those Church vows became a living principle in my heart and life. During these forty-five long years, with their alternations of sunshine and shadow, daylight and darkness, success and failure, rejoicing and weeping, fears within and fightings without, I have never ceased to thank God for that autumnal day in the long ago when my name was registered in the Lamb's Book of Life.

.../Quote...

 

[rockytopva]

I am finding that the life of GC Rankin closely parallels the life of RS Sheffey.

1. The were both orphaned at an early age
2. They relied upon relatives other than mom and dad to keep them up.
3. They both went to colleges where they would have to work the college farm
4. They were both ordained by the Methodist Episcopal Church, South
5. They both would befriend the local slaves and grieve over their plights.
6. On going to college, they both would have issues with it when it came to doubting their faith.
7. They both were school teachers
8. They both were sworn enemies to the liquor trade
9. RS Sheffey would attend Emory and Henry, GC Rankin would almost attend Emory and Henry.

I am reading, on page 158, about GC Rankin's teaching experience was similar to RS Sheffey's in that they both had challenges in their schoolroom...

Rest from labor for a season is a sound policy. It gives the tired body and exhausted nerves not only an opportunity to unbend, but also to regain their resilience with new vigor and elasticity. No human spirit, however blithesome and alert, can maintain its strength and power of exertion under the pressure of incessant strain in one direction. Variety is the spice of life in all active pursuits, as well as in social recreation and diversions. It rehabilitates the system, exhilarates the mind and spirit and it restores the fagging energies. It introduces into the tenor of routine duties an element of relish and it scatters along the dreary pathway of monotony the warmth and radiance of sunshine. Neither absolute rest nor persistent and unremitting toil is the best for the human organism.

The best type of rest is found in a change from one department of activity to another. It is this that brings profitable relaxation to the tired body and the overtaxed mind. Life is real and earnest, and there is no provision made for elegant leisure within the sphere of an aspiring spirit. Persistent effort along some department is one of the fundamental conditions of development and progress. It is a principle demonstrated in the history of mankind that if the stream of life is allowed to stand still, even for a limited time, it will stagnate and produce mental disease and moral weakness; but if permitted to flow on in some well-selected channel it will increase in capacity and strength and retain its freshness and purity even to the period of old age and feebleness. Under such conditions life reaches its highest altitudes and invests its energies and efforts to the best and noblest advantage.

Therefore after the intervening of a few weeks I was not content to remain inactive at home. It did not require very long for my physical condition to take a rebound, and I was ready for some active employment. The growing crop did not need me, so I started out to find some order of employment. I went into a remote section of the county and applied for and obtained a country school. It was a five months' public school. It was in a community where school teaching had been the bane of the ordinary teacher's existence. It was in a very good community of farming people, where there were quite a large number of grown-up young people. They were not only backward in matters of education, but they were strangers to home discipline and control. They had been permitted to have their own way, and they were hostile toward school government and restraints. As an invariable result teachers had a hard row of stumps in that school district. Many of the parents gave them no co-operation, but took the part of their refractory children. I was apprised of this state of things when I accepted the school, and the local board put me on notice that I was chosen with a view of not only teaching that school, but of controlling it; they were tired of the failures that had been made by my predecessors. I faithfully promised them that if they would stand by me there would be discipline in that school and that its rules would be enforced to the letter. They gave their pledge.

The first morning that school opened there were about sixty present, and I proceeded to organize the work and to classify the students. It took pretty much all day. Then I laid down a few simple rules and put them on notice that I was there to do them all the good possible and to aid them in getting a reasonable knowledge of the books to be studied; that I would expect every boy and girl to do his or her duty, not only in preparing the lessons, but in aiding me to control the school; for there could be no school without obedience and discipline. I wanted to love all of them and I wanted them to love me, but I was the teacher and had to be respected accordingly.

After a few weeks I soon detected the few larger boys and girls who were not in school for study, but for mischief; and, as I was a young fellow, they would make a rough house for me whenever they saw proper. I sniffed trouble in the atmosphere of that school and determined to meet it firmly and without wavering. There were two who were the leaders - a large boy and a large girl. They were neighborhood sweethearts. The boy was named Morgan, and he was a strapping big country bully; the girl was named Missouri, and she was about seventeen, haughty and disrespectful. I bore with them patiently and good humoredly and tried all my powers of moral suasion.

Instead of this accomplishing the desired result it seemed to impress them with the belief that I was afraid of them and was doing my best to avoid trouble. I concluded at once to disabuse their innocent minds. So that morning, on the way to school, I provided myself with two or three good hickories and put them in a conspicuous place near where I sat. I hoped that the sight of them would have some restraining effect and supersede the necessity of their use. As the youngsters filed in they eyed those new pieces of extra furniture with a good deal of curiosity and I saw Morgan wink at Missouri. It was not long until her willfulness manifested itself. I called her up before me and my tone of voice and manner indicated to her that I meant business.

I said to her: "You are too large to whip; you are nearly a grown young woman. But you seem determined not to keep the rules of this school. Now you take this note and go home and give it to your father and mother. It will tell them exactly the state of your case. If they do not keep you at home, but send you back here, then you will either obey me or you will take the consequences. I am going to run this school if I have to thrash every boy and girl in it."

She rather demurred, but I would take no protest or promise from her. The next morning she returned and brought a note from her father telling me to make her behave and that she had been put under me for that purpose.

For a week she and Morgan were reasonably civil, but evidently they held a council of war and agreed to break the truce. One afternoon, just before the hour for closing and without any apparent provocation, she got into one of her tantrums and threw the whole school into confusion. I gathered up one of those well-seasoned switches, gave her the left hand of fellowship and the way I made the dust fly from her thin shirtwaist was a sight to behold. When I had finished the job she was in tears and moans. Morgan at once arose and said he would see me just as soon as school closed. I picked up a bench leg and as I made at him I remarked that he would not be put to the trouble of seeing me when school closed; that I would see him on the spot. He made tracks from the house before I got a single blow at him. Then I reduced the confusion to order, for it was general by this time. The larger pupils looked amazed and the smaller ones were frightened out of their wits. I told them that school would promptly open the next morning and that I was prepared to hold the fort against all comers.

The news spread that night throughout the whole community and the next morning the members of my board called on me to know the cause of the difficulty. I laid the facts before them and they not only authorized the expulsion of Morgan and Missouri, but voted me a resolution of thanks for my timely effort to run that school. My fame as a schoolteacher spread for miles and my name was on nearly everybody's lips. They had never known anything just like it, and I awoke to find myself a hero. I had no semblance of trouble in that school again. My discipline was tiptop and the order fine. The County Superintendent, who was an able Cumberland Presbyterian minister, congratulated me at the close of the term on my success and offered me nearly anything he had in the county.

I delighted in the school the rest of the term. I had some bright boys and girls, and to see them develop was an inspiration. One boy particularly appealed to me. He was about fifteen years old, but rather small for his age. He was as bright as a dollar. I used to go home with him to spend the night and would give him extra help in his work. Along toward the close of the school I said to him one day: "Bob, school will soon close and I do not want you to stop your studies. You are gifted and will make a scholar some day. Your father is able to send you off to school and give you a chance, and I am going to talk to him about it before I leave the neighborhood. What do you think about it?"

He looked at me seriously and replied: "Professor, I do not want to go to school any more. I have learned enough to attend to business, and I am not going to make a scholar; I want to make money. I can read and write and figure very well, and to be a money-maker I don't need any more schooling."

Well, that settled it. Whenever a boy of that age makes up his mind and fixes the standard of his ambition, it is my experience and observation that you had just as well let him alone. And it is also true that no boy rises higher than the ideal he places before him. So Bob had all the learning he wanted, and no more school for him.

 

[rockytopva]

Revival in Virginia around the old, Methodist Episcopal Church South mourners bench! The Life of George Clark Rankin and beginning on page 220...


About the middle of the seventies I was again off to conference at Asheville, North Carolina. This time it was Holston, and Western North Carolina was then in this conference. I made it convenient to stop at Mossy Creek, the place where a few years before I had taken the train for Dalton; and from there made a short excursion into the Dumpling Creek neighborhood to visit my father's relatives. I had not been among them since boyhood.

I do not remember anything specially interesting that transpired at that conference, except the reading of the appointments. This part of any conference session is always interesting. Along with a large class I was received into the conference and I was read out junior preacher under Dr. J. H. Keith, on the Marion Circuit, Smyth County, Virginia. I had never heard of the place before, but the next morning with my three companions I started back down the same road over which we had come in order to reach the East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad to take passage for my field of labor. All four of us were assigned work back in Tennessee except myself. With high hopes and buoyant spirits we discussed our plans and prospects. I was transported with the thought that I had been received into the conference and was given a place to work. It made no difference to me if it was away up in Virginia where everything and everybody were strange to me. It was an open field and that was enough for me.

When I reached Marion I found it the shire town of Smyth, situated in one of the most beautiful blue-grass valleys in the world. A branch of the Holston River flowed through it and the mountains in the distance and on either side guarded its sanctity like supernatural sentinels. It is one of the most beautiful sections of country upon which my eyes have ever gazed. Throughout the county I found the people well-to-do farmers and cattlemen; thrifty, hardy, moral and intelligent Many of them had been educated at Emory and Henry College, not far below. The town itself was made up of most excellent people.

The very afternoon that I arrived a man came in from Greenwood Church to see if either one of the new preachers had come. He said they had a good meeting in progress. I joined him and held service that night. I remained a day or two and dropped out long enough to go back to town and preach Sunday morning. In the afternoon I went to Mount Carmel, three miles up the valley, and preached. In the progress of my discourse Uncle John Killinger, whom I did not know, got happy and emitted a regular warwhoop that knocked me clear off the track. He often did that, as I afterwards learned. That night I held service again in town. I was given a splendid reception. I was the first young preacher that they had ever had on that circuit, and the young people took to me. On my way home after service to spend the night with old Brother Henry Sprinkle I overheard a conversation among some girls. One of them said: "Well, he has knocked all our chance at him out, for he distinctly said that 'he was determined not to know anything among us except Christ and him crucified'." The remark was a little irreverent, but it was witty.

My cash had run low, I had no horse and the railway did not reach the remote portions of the work. So imagine my surprise when one day a committee waited on me and presented me a spanking black horse with a brand-new saddle, bridle and saddlebags. He was a beauty. I was never so set up in all my life. He was the pride of the valley. I learned to love him like a brother. And my love for those good people had no words to express itself. I did not spend much time in town, but careered over that valley and those hills and among the hospitable families on the work.

I finished the meeting at Greenwood and plunged into another one down at Mount Zion. It was on the river out in the mountains among a mining population. They worked the Baryta mines. A few were substantial farmers. The meeting developed a marvelous interest from the word go. The house was crowded and the altar was filled with penitents at every service. It was the noisiest meeting I ever attended. Sometimes it was tumultuous. In that meeting I had scores of conversions, but one of them was the most remarkable in my experience. It was Z. N. Harris. He was a heavy-set fellow, about forty years old, with a striking face, a big head covered with reddish hair and a long, flowing beard of the same complexion. He had the most determined look upon his face that I had ever seen. At one of the night services he was present - the first time he had ever been seen at Church. To the surprise of everybody he came to the altar and became greatly concerned. He said to me: "Preacher, I am the hardest case you ever tackled. I am as mean as the Devil. For years my life has been an awful life. Do you reckon there's any chance for me?" I encouraged him all I could, but he left without any comfort.

On my way home to spend the night with Brother Meek he said: "That man Harris is the terror of this community. He dropped in here a few years ago after the war and took up with a woman and they have been living away up the river in a wild sort of place. I believe he is a wildcat distiller. He is a professional gambler. He spends much of his time following the courts around when they are in session plying his trade. He is a dangerous man and keeps the worst sort of a crowd about him. Decent people never go near his home. If he is converted in the meeting it will be a great blessing to us all."

The next morning Harris was back at service at the altar. He seemed much troubled. At the close of the service I had another talk with him. Among other things, I advised him to go to town and get a license and let me marry him to the woman who was then only his common-law wife. He wanted to know if that would do any good, that they had four children. I explained to him that it would be complying with God's law.

That night we had a great crowd. During the preliminaries some one handed me the marriage license. I stated the nature of the document and requested the parties to come forward, and Harris from the men's side and the woman from the women's side came to the altar. I proceeded to marry them and the congregation certainly craned their necks and looked at each other in astonishment. I preached from the text: "How camest thou in, hither not having on the wedding garment?" Harris and his wife were the first to prostrate themselves at the mourner's bench. I have never seen greater anguish. The people prayed and we talked to them until late. By and by Mrs. Harris came through with a long, loud shout of praise and it electrified the congregation. We had quite a scene. Harris struggled on and about midnight he sprang from his knees and made the welkin ring with his praises. It was the old-time religion. The audience went wild and I stood in the pulpit and watched them. It was hardly safe for me anywhere else. It was a glorious scene.

At the close Harris came to me and said: "Preacher, you must go home with me and spend the night." He mounted his horse with his wife behind him and we started up the stream, winding in and out along the many curves and indentures. When we reached his residence it was situated in a natural basin among the hills with a goodly section of open land around him. It was a log house with two rooms and a loft. I went in while he cared for the horses. He entered and stirred the fire and seated himself and proceeded:

"Preacher, this is the first time that a good man has ever been in this hut. Your sort are strangers here. Now I want to wake up the kids and have 'em baptized. Then I want you to dedicate this home. We've gone into this business and we want to go the whole hog."

I baptized the four children and then in a prayer dedicated the home. He took me up the ladder to the loft where there was a strange sort of bed; and with all sorts of covering over me and a fine opportunity to study astronomy through the cracks, I never slept more delightfully in my life. The next morning he gathered up several decks of cards and threw them into the fire and he dumped three or four ugly-looking old army pistols and a few savage knives into the stream. He went at the new life in the most business-like sort of way. He told me much of his past life, and it was as thrilling as a romance mixed with the dramatic and the tragic. It would make a book within itself and it would read like a yellow-back novel, except it would contain the truth.

 

[rockytopva]

Camp Meeting in Virginia around the old, Methodist Episcopal Church South mourners bench! Dear to me is this chapter of the book because I experienced so much of the wonderful things the author talks about in this work! The Life of George Clark Rankin and beginning on page 239...

I passed my examinations and that year I was sent to the Wytheville Station and Circuit. That was adjoining my former charge. We reached the old parsonage on the pike just out of Wytheville as Rev. B. W. S. Bishop moved out. Charley Bishop was then a little tow-headed boy. He is now the learned Regent of Southwestern University. The parsonage was an old two-and-a-half-story structure with nine rooms and it looked a little like Hawthorne's house with the seven gables. It was the lonesomest-looking old house I ever saw. There was no one there to meet us, for we had not notified anybody of the time we would arrive.

Think of taking a young bride to that sort of a mansion! But she was brave and showed no sign of disappointment. That first night we felt like two whortleberries in a Virginia tobacco wagonbed. We had room and to spare, but it was scantily furnished with specimens as antique as those in Noah's ark. But in a week or so we were invited out to spend the day with a good family, and when we went back we found the doors fastened just as we had left them, but when we entered a bedroom was elegantly furnished with everything modern and the parlor was in fine shape. The ladies had been there and done the work. How much does the preacher owe to the good women of the Church!

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.

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.

At the close of that year in casting up my accounts I found that I had received three hundred and ninety dollars for my year's work, and the most of this had been contributed in everything except money. It required about the amount of cash contributed to pay my associate and the Presiding Elder. I got the chickens, the eggs, the butter, the ribs and backbones, the corn, the meat, and the Presiding Elder and Brother Stradley had helped us to eat our part of the quarterage. Well, we kept open house and had a royal time, even if we did not get much ready cash. We lived and had money enough to get a good suit of clothes and to pay our way to conference. What more does a young Methodist preacher need or want? We were satisfied and happy, and these experiences are not to be counted as unimportant assets in the life and work of a Methodist circuit rider.

 

[Donnyboy]

I don't actually have much to add except that this is a fascinating story. Thanks for sharing this!

 

[brinny]

i agree.

 

[rockytopva]

I believe that there were seven churches that would befall us in ages.

1. Ephesus – Apostolic – Leaving the first love… “All they which are in Asia be turned away from me…” – II Timothy 1:15
2. Smyrna – Martyrs – Persecutions ten days… Foxes Book of Martyrs describes ten Roman persecutions.
3. Pergamos – Orthodox – A pyrgos is a fortified structure – Needed for the dark ages.
4. Thyatira – Catholic – The Spirit of Jezebel is to persecute, control, and to dominate. This spirit can invade any church!
5. Sardis – Protestant – A sardius is a gem, elegant yet hard and rigid. Doctrine in the head, little in the heart.
6. Philadelphia – Methodist – To obtain sanctification was to do so with love.
7. Laodicea – Charismatic – Rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing? From hot ---> lukewarm ---> cold?

There is a beauty in the Phildadelphian church like none other, in which John Wesley is the brightest star within the Philadelphian cluster. The marks of Philadelphia...

1. They were not rigid on the doctrine like the Sardisians.
2. They were not materialistic like the Laodiceans.
3. Philadelphian - An enormous weight on loving one another.
4. Character! As you would get sanctified you would pick up Christian character!
5. Tragedy - Unfortunately enough, there was also a good deal of tragedy within the lives of the Philadelphians (Wesley would divorce).
6. Revival - John Wesley once prayed, “Lord send us revival without its defects but if this is not possible, send revival, defects and all.”
7. Sweet - This would carry down to through the Methodist church down to the Pentecostal Holiness church to what I belong. They would not let you profess sanctification unless you had a sweet spirit!

There was much death and tragedy in the early life of George Clark Rankin and Robert Sayers Sheffey. They would both be orphaned as boys. Robert Sheffey would also endure the death of his first wife..

...Quote (Excerpts beginning on page 42 on the Life of George Clark Rankin)...

It was on a beautiful morning in May when I had just returned to grandma's house from the river, where I had been fishing. What a splendid morning it was! In my mind and heart it will live with increasing interest as long as memory survives. Nature, like an Oriental queen of the olden times, was clad in her vernal robes of richest hue. The atmosphere fresh from the circumjacent hills, was redolent with the fragrance of foliage and flowers. Feathered songsters, exuberant with the joy of early springtime, were making the wildwood and the meadow vocal with their sweetest melody. A brighter sun never rolled up the eastern sky in his chariot of flames. Even the crystal stream, instinct with life, offered its tribute of joy through the music of its limpid waves. The far-off mountains, tinged with a mellow azure, sent forth their deep-toned praises from native harps of hemlock and pine. All sights and sounds and motions were expressive of universal peace and happiness.

It was then that a rider on a foaming steed came dashing up to the gate and his face was pale and his manner nervous. Without uttering a word of preliminary warning he said: "George, your father is dead and you must go home at once." Grandma appeared in time to hear the announcement, but before she could ask for particulars he had turned and ridden rapidly away. Never did a blow fall with duller thud upon the heart of a boy. "Can it be possible?" was the first question that addressed itself to my mind. Only a few days before I had left home and he was in his usual health. But the announcement could not well be doubted, and it was not long until grandma and myself were hastening toward the scene of affliction and sorrow. All along the journey I could not restrain the hope that on arriving at home we would find the message untrue. How could it be true? Thus for several miles my heart drifted between hope and despair. After awhile we came in front of the house and groups of men were seen standing in the yard. This was confirmatory of the intelligence. We alighted and entered the home, and the first thing to greet my eyes was the outstretched linen underneath which was the body of my father. Close by the side of it sat mother, stunned with grief, for the death had come suddenly. She instinctively threw her arms around me and said: "Poor little boy, you have no father to love and care for you now." Her grief was inconsolable.

The night was a long, sleepless night and when the morning came it brought no light of hope to that stricken home. The sun moved as usual up the sky, and toward the noontide the silent procession moved out toward the hill. How often we had gone there before to offer love's token upon the pulseless mounds, but never before under circumstances of such grief and bereavement as these. The man of God offered a touching prayer for the young widow and her three orphans, the coffin was lowered by strong hands, the dirt soon filled the gaping wound in the earth and the cruel grave had swallowed up our hope. With hearts bleeding we lingered a moment and in silence dropped hot tears upon the new-made tomb, and then wended our way back toward the place we called home; but it no longer felt like the home that we had once known. The circle was broken and a portion of the light had gone out forever. There was an aching void that no human presence could fill. To the great busy world these scenes and experiences did not amount to much; but to us it was big with ominous significance. For the first time in my young life the world looked cold and cheerless and words of human comfort seemed like a hollow mockery.

I shall never forget the first night in that home of distress and loneliness. After the frugal meal of the evening, of which we had partaken but little, we gathered in the front room. It was a silent place, except for the broken sobs of mother and the sighs of my own breaking heart. She lighted the old tallow candle and sat it upon the table and took down her old calfskin-covered Bible. She turned to the twenty-third Psalm and read through tearful eyes and faltering voice: "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want;" and on to the end of the chapter. And then she opened the book in the New Testament and read: "Let not your heart be troubled. Ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my father's house are many mansions; if it were not so I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you; and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am there ye may be also." We then knelt down in our family devotion, and she poured out her heart into the ear of him who had said: "I will be the husband to the widow and the father to the orphan." And we found comfort.

In a few days the old administrator came around and settled up the affairs of the little estate. When the debts were paid there was but little left for the support of that once happy family. There was no homestead law in those days, and it was not long until what my father had accumulated was disposed of to pay security debts, and we were without even a home. But my mother's faith failed not.

What was she to do? Grandma told her she must come home, but my uncle and family were living with her and and mother did not care to take my brother and myself there, as it would place two families of children under the same roof, and that would not be for the best. So she resolved to accept the invitation for herself and my little sister - to send me and my brother to my Grandfather Rankin. I was nearly twelve years old and my brother five years younger. The old gentleman said he would be glad to have us, and that was the disposition made of us.

I was no stranger in that home, as I had been there a number of times, but not as an orphan boy; and that made all the difference. Grandfather was far advanced in life and he was living with his second wife. They had four grown daughters. My father had been forced away from that home when he was in his 'teens by his disagreeable stepmother. She was a very peculiar old lady even when I knew her. The only serious mistake that my grandfather was ever known to have made was when he married her. She was not in his class. She was a Dutch woman and not one of the best types of her hardy race. She was not religious, had no taste for books, spoke broken English, and she was brusque and petulant. But she was the most industrious woman I have ever known. She was a slave to work. It was against her nature to see anybody idle about her and she could find more for a boy to do than any human being of my knowledge. She was a model housekeeper and kept everything about her as clean and shiny as a new pin. And she had brought up those four daughters in her footsteps. Two of them were just like her for the world in their dispositions and appearance. The other two were like grandfather. I soon learned to love them, but not the other two and the old lady. They were very repugnant to me and I was to them. The dislike was cordial and mutual.

Think of a boy, brought up in my mother's and her mother's home, having to come under the government of this new regime. It was something terrible. They soon began to pick at me, to tell me I had not been half raised, that I was lazy and trifling. My hat was never in the right place, my shoes were never cleaned, my hair was out of order, and my manners sloven. They were constantly finding fault with me. It mattered not how many cows I had to drive up and look after, how many hogs to feed, how much wood to chop during the morning and evening, nor how hard I had to work all day in the field, they expected me to look like I had come out of a bandbox all the time. They taxed their ingenuity to find something to keep me employed and then fussed at me for the way it was done. I heard my own name called so much in that old Dutch twang until I learned to hate it. It was nothing but "Shorch, Shorch!" every time I appeared about the house. They made no effort to cultivate the better side of my nature. They treated me more like a servant. At night when I was tired and sleepy in the winter time they had me to sit up until nine o'clock and tack carpet rags. They made life miserable for me on all parts of the ground.

 

[Yoseft]

hmmm I will research this. Thanks.

I think of Charles Grandison Finney, who dared to share
he left the masons, after a born again experience, and an encounter with
the Spirit of the Most High. Another person of the past to study, and His results.

He is not popular in modern times for his revelation of masons.

 

[Jonathan95]

Why don't you take a picture of each page instead (if one can read the text then), or scan them (if possible), then you don't have to put so much effort into writing.

 

[rockytopva]

The Saint of the Wilderness - The Introduction
------------------------------------------------
Page vii - The Introduction - Well... After two years I post the introduction... I admittedly cannot lay it to rest!
===============================

The birth of this book, viewed in retrospect, seems almost a circumstance of fate. The chain of events leading to the final writing, viewed singularly, at first appeared of no particular consequence; but viewed as a subject that seemed always to be unfolding before the author’s eyes over a period of forty years an, element of continuity is present which rightfully denies dismissal.

I heard first of Robert Sayers Sheffey at the feet of my maternal grandmother and grandfather. At the same time thousands of other children like myself were hearing the same story, just as our own mothers and fathers and grandmothers and grandfathers had before us. How much this old saint of the wilderness captured my imagination! How I longed even as a child to meet him, rejecting every thought that for nearly half a century he had lain rotting in his grave.

The subsequent years of my growth were spent in part by trying to grasp the person and personality of a man reputedly so kind that tears were known to drip from his cheeks at seeing the broken wing of a bird. And what must someone be like who stayed in the saddle twelve months of the year, in all I kinds of weather, doing good at every opportunity? Every child could understand this man’s great love of humanity, learning, further, that his favorite sheep of earth’s great flock were the poor and downtrodden.

Not even in Sunday school had I been exposed to a lesson that taught a greater message than this true story of a person who not only preached and taught, but who lived the example I of what he preached and taught. That he demanded of others to put the teachings they allegedly believed into practice was a thing later to be marveled at.

A man usually becomes a legend in his own time only if he deserves it. Talleyrand’s statement that ‘The reputation of a man is like his shadow – gigantic when it precedes him, and pygmy in its proportions when it follows,” is true only if the subject has failed to do a greater good for humanity than was sought for himself.

 

[rockytopva]

More on Roberts first wife, Elizabeth Zwecker Sheffey

BJU's 1977 film "Sheffey" leaps lightly across the protagonist's marriage to Elizabeth Zwecker, a union which spanned more than a decade, allowing her just five nameless seconds of the two-hour movie: "I did have a wife," the Sheffey character allows, "but she died ten years ago."

Elizabeth Zwecker was born in 1817 and spent her entire life near Cripple Creek in Wythe County, Virginia. Elizabeth had little education. She was apparently introverted and sensitive, probably illiterate, a melancholy temperament, perhaps? Life wasn't easy in Cripple Creek, but the Zweckers were a large family (four girls, five boys) and Lizzie was especially close to sisters Leah--an "old maid" in her thirties--and Sarah, who was just two years older than Lizzie. After being abandoned by her first fiance, Elizabeth was in her mid-twenties and gun-shy when Robert Sheffey proposed marriage. She turned him down at first, then reconsidered his offer. Elizabeth was 26 when she married the schoolteacher, three years her junior. In February, 1854 Elizabeth suffered a massive hemorrhage and bled to death in her bed. She was 36 years old.

This is the only other additional information I could get on Roberts first wife. I have traveled around, met members of the family, and could not get a hold of pictures.

Gems out of the George Rankin Book....

 

[StephenWorrell]

Hi!

I see you had read a copy of Birth Of A Book by Jess Carr.

Do you still have it, and are you interested in selling it?

I am giving my parents some Sheffey materiel for their birthday in July. I have found a few copies online and they are ridiculously expensive.

Any consideration is greatly appreciated! Thanks

Sorry I didn't know how to message you directly.

The Saint of the Wilderness Chapter 16
------------------------------------------------
Page 344- I am reading "Birth of a Book" or the day to day writing of the Saint of the Wilderness by Jess Carr. Robert's children served the Lord all their days. Eddie Sheffey had a son who would serve as a missionary in Africa. Jess Carr credits Robert with winning about 25,000 souls to the Lord in his lifetime. And this after not saying a word about the Cripple Creek revivals / camp meetings.

===============================

It was a pleasant December day when he reached the small West Virginia village and he rode to the home of the Ellis Bailey family, with whom he had been invited to stay.

“The Lord has certainly smiled on us this year,” Ellis Bailey greeted him. “The weather is little worse than early fall, and the extra room on the schoolhouse gives us more space than we’ve ever had before.”

Robert felt uplifted by the enthusiasm of his friend. And with a happy heart he sat at the generously laden table and there held a devotional service before anyone took the first bite of food. There was no less enthusiasm demonstrated when he finished the final prayer and piled spoon upon spoon of honey on the freshly made bread.

”Brother Sheffey, why do you eat so much honey all the time? Every time you’re here you put honey on your bread and even on your vegetables,” the youngest of the children present asked.

“Bless your little heart, child. No one across all these years has asked me that.”

He took another bite of the honey and bread and let it roll across his tongue before attempting to answer her. His dancing white whiskers soon slowed from chewing and he patted the girl’s hand.

“Child, a long time ago I had a taste for sweet things, like all children; but I love honey in particular, for it is a balm to my soul of another kind also. When I was growing up I used to drink a lot of whiskey and brandy, and when I came to love my sweet Lord so much, I could still taste the ungodly nectar in my mouth even years after I no longer touched it. The honey in my mouth takes the old taste away and helps me give testimony.”

This one answer seemed to give birth to other questions that, before long, were coming in all directions from his host family and other guests who honored him with their presence each time he came into the community.

“The most unusual worship service I’ve ever had, you say? That won’t take much thinking on,” Robert said, stroking his white beard. “I can’t remember the year it happened for sure but I’d say about eighteen-sixty. It’s funny how the sweet Lord shows us a need sometimes by the oddest sequence of events.”

“Where were you at the time?” one of the guests asked.


“I was traveling through Tazewell County and I stopped at a plantation home and asked if there was food enough for me to share. The lady of the house smelled of perfume and her hands showed the whiteness and tenderness of disuse, but she started telling me all the food she didn’t have. It was in the final weeks of winter before garden time and she kept complaining that she didn’t have fresh asparagus and snap beans and that she was sure I wouldn’t like dried apples rather than fresh applesauce.”

“And did you finally eat there anyway?”

“No, I didn’t,” Robert answered his hostess. “She did not seem thankful at all for all the food she did have, and I rode away up the road a piece, and went into a house that I later found out was the plantation owner’s tenant house and ate there. The tenant family didn’t have anything except potatoes, but when the woman of that shack asked me in, she was more thankful for those potatoes than any king has ever been over his banquet table.”

“Did you ever go back to the plantation?” one of the children asked.

“No, and I found out later I wouldn’t be welcome. But anyway, I’m getting away from the experience I wanted to tell you all about. The woman at the house where I did eat had a husband and several children. Her man had never accepted Christ – and had no intention to, she said, until a goiter he had on his neck grew bigger and bigger, so he could hardly breathe. If you could have heard him wheeze you’d have thought what he was thinking: it was doubtful whether he could live out the winter.”

“In any event, the sinner wanted to be baptized before he was to trod through the great beyond. The rest of his family were Baptists, and when he said baptized he didn’t mean sprinkled on the head: he meant under the water.”

“But how could you submerge him in the cold of winter?” Ellis Bailey said.

“That was part of the problem,” Robert replied. “The man insisted on immersion, and he seemed to have no doubt that he would die before spring so there was no putting him off, in spite of the fact that there was ice frozen over the creek from one bank to the other.”

“You could have cut a hole in the ice with an ax,” an older child said.

“That’s what we did finally do – but not right then. We hoped it would warm up a little the next day and make it easier on the poor brother. That night two old Indians who lived nearby brought the family some deer meat and were told by the sick mail of his conversion. I’ve never heard a more touching testimony, and right under my nose the man converted those two Indians and they too wanted to ‘go down with the fish and be clean for the Great Spirit.’ I couldn’t understand the Indians well, but I was convinced of their sincerity and knowledge of what they were doing. The Lord be praised. We all knelt there on the floor together with our arms around each other and the sick man’s wife and children crying over him so happily. The Lord may never show me for certain, but those old Indians were just as much a part of that fellowship as any man who ever stood at the altar.”

“Did you baptize them all together?” an anxious child tried to speed him along.

“Yes, but Jet’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Robert said. “We agreed that the baptisms would take place the next afternoon at the creek below the house, and the Indians promised they’d be there. They not only showed up on time but each one had his squaw, and one of them brought his two daughters. We chopped a hole in the ice about the size of a washtub and baptized the white man first. He wouldn’t go back to the house – he wanted to honor his red brothers with his presence – but we wrapped him good in a quilt. The strangest thing of all happened when I baptized the first old Indian. I let him down through the hole in the ice while holding onto his hands in the same manner I’d submerged the white man. When I got the Indian under, hands and all, he wrestled free from me and disappeared from view under the ice. I was beside myself to know what to do, and I’d about made up my mind that trying to save him was futile. However, I grabbed the ax and started chopping a bigger hole to find him and effect a rescue. The white man, his family, and I seemed the only ones upset, for the Indian families showed no fear or excitement.”

“I’ll bet the old Indian thought it was time to die, and be figured that going through the hole in the ice to the Great Father was as good a direction as any,” Ellis Bailey said, half seriously.

“No, they don’t think like that,” Robert said, ‘’but you’re nearer right than you think. As I chopped away at the ice I heard a gurgling sound to my rear and the head and body of the old Indian popped up out of the water behind me. I couldn’t understand his chattering words but the tenant family said he was asking me if he had stayed down long enough to please the Great Father. I still didn’t understand, until they explained to me that the Indian had thought the longer he could stay under the water the better baptized he was, I, and that it would be more pleasing to our sweet Lord that way. Well, we got them all to understand that endurance had nothing to do with it and baptized the rest of them quickly and wrapped them in blankets they had brought. It was a grand and glorious day to bring seven new sheep into the fold, and not a one of them suffered any sickness from the cold!”

The next evening at the appointed hour the Bailey family and a handful of friends accompanied Robert to the school building for the opening night of the revival. A half hour after the announced starting time, only two additional people had come. Robert, in his sadness, asked those present if they would join him in prayer and then go out with him to visit some of the people whose hearts had obviously hardened since his last visit.

The reception each received and reported was on was a remote one.

“Why have they grown so cold?” Robert pleaded for enlightenment.

Not one could tell him for sure – other than to guess the recent prosperity of the area had something to do with it and he insisted that the school doors be opened again the following night anyway. But the result then was no different. Robert stood before the improvised altar and pulpit with tears streaming down his face. He looked out over the handful of loyal friends without really seeing them, for his heart was so heavy and his eyes burning with disappointment. He spoke more to himself than to his meager audience, but they came closer to listen.

“It is an abomination to the Lord, their disobedience,” he whispered intensely. “A great calamity will befall this community. I will pray God’s wrath upon these people who turn from their Creator. Deliver my sheepskin to me, Brother Bailey, and depart from me – all of you – and I will join you for family prayer at home when I have finished.”

At daylight the next morning, with a winter fog obscuring the rays of the morning sun, he and Gideon left the village.

“It’s a sad day, Gideon, but somewhere else our sweet Lord will have a job for us. Perhaps we shall never know whether our prayers were heard or whether they are in accord with our Father’s will. But woe unto these people if their disobedience is untimely in heaven.”

Not until the year of 1885 did he hear of the smallpox epidemic that had a few months earlier engulfed the village, taking entire families in its terrible wake. For days upon days, he was told, stricken people had lain undiscovered until the spreading stench of the village became so widespread that travelers would detour for miles. He told Eliza about the background of the matter, but he found his real peace alone down the hill from their home, by the waters of Walker’s Creek. When the power of God seemed especially manifest, he felt both an inward peace and an awesome fear at exactly the same time. He sat on a creek rock near the edge of the stream, with some of the villagers watching him, and raised his eyes to the heavens.

“Dear Father, we will never know, for it will not be Thy will that we know, whether this scourge has come because Thy servant asked it in Thy name. Whatever the true answer may be, let this and all things be to Thy honor and glory, that we, Thy people, may not shut out the presence of Thy Holy Spirit ever again.”

 

[rockytopva]

Hi!

I see you had read a copy of Birth Of A Book by Jess Carr.

Do you still have it, and are you interested in selling it?

I am giving my parents some Sheffey materiel for their birthday in July. I have found a few copies online and they are ridiculously expensive.

Any consideration is greatly appreciated! Thanks

Sorry I didn't know how to message you directly.

My definition of a Saint is that he is a guy that loves in his spare time. The two names at the top of the list are Robert Sheffey and Saint Francis.

I have did much research in this story. Robert Sheffey attended many camp meetings in a year. There was also a camp meeting he would attend in Wythe County called the Cripple Creek camp meeting in which was said.... "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.

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." -https://www.christianforums.com/threads/the-life-of-george-clark-rankin.7757196/

 

[StephenWorrell]

I see you had read a copy of Birth Of A Book by Jess Carr.

Do you still have it, and are you interested in selling it?

I am giving my parents some Sheffey materiel for their birthday in July. I have found a few copies online and they are ridiculously expensive.

Any consideration is greatly appreciated! Thanks

Sorry I didn't know how to message you directly.