THE OLD UNIONVILLE CHURCH.
By J. O. Knott.
The old brick Methodist Church, with its attached graveyard, situated on the turnpike leading to Shepherdstown, and in the midst of that scattering group of houses formerly known as Unionville, but now Uvilla, is redolent with historical associations. Not far from this church, on the opposite side of the road, is the Lutheran Church. Both of these structures have been repaired and enlarged within recent years, but each stands up the ground on which it formerly stood and has many of the features it formerly had. The existence of the two churches in this community center is a monument to a long-ago split in church circles. While I shall write more particularly concerning the Methodist Church, because I knew it better, still, the existence of the Lutheran Church in that neighborhood served to accommodate persons of that faith within a wide circle of territory. The people of Lutheran inclinations went from my own neighborhood to Unionville to attend service there after the Reinhart schoolhouse church center was merged in the Bethesda Methodist Church, now at Moler’s Cross Roads.
In days farther back than I care to say, the Unionville community was an aristocratic, highly intelligent one, of a social standing that had far more of Old Virginia about it than the Reinhart school-house neighborhood. The latter community was decidedly colored and flavored by Maryland and even Pennsylvania ideas and manners; but Unionville was more like the old community life in and about Charles Town. In the days of which I write the B. & O. Railway station was at Duffields, with Shenandoah Junction unknown, as was also the present Norfolk & Western Railway. Unionville and Duffields were closely associated and formed what might be called one distinct church and social section of the county, although there was in those days a very strong Presbyterian Church at Duffields.
Some of the old families of the Unionville community were the Molers, the Melvins, the Decks, the Hendricks families, the Striders, the Links, the Kepharts, the Nichols family, the Morrisons, the Engles, the Henkels, the Snyders, the Dusts, the Ryders, the Maddox families, and for a time a family of Reinharts. This is by no means a complete list, but serves to indicate the caliber of the people that gave tone to the entire community.
The Unionville store did quite a thriving business in the days when I was a child. It had no rival even as far down as the Rhinehart schoolhouse neighborhood. The Duffields center had the Melvin and Wysong stores. The road from my own community to Unionville was one of the most finest and best kept of any in the county. It was shaded by woodland for almost the entire way, and was a favorite drive for both old and young. Young people from the “lower” neighborhood, as ours on the Potomac was called, would drive to church to Unionville in the morning as we had afternoon service only. In those days church attendance served as about the only public meetings which gave folks opportunity to see each other in “their good clothes,” and gave young men a chance to use their new buggies to advantage with their best girls. The church at Unionville therefore, was pretty sure to have a good congregation on Sunday mornings. The entire roadside was lined with horses and vehicles, even up in the woods where the Lutheran Church stands. When service was over the dust of horses’ hoofs and flying vehicles suggest a camp-meeting crowd. In the old church yard before and after service friends from far and near would chat and pass courtesies for they would see little of each other from one service to another.
In this old Methodist Church took place weddings and funerals. A wedding in appearance suggested a funeral, as did long lines of carriages drove in attendance. But the abiding and perenniel attraction was the preaching, with its church music. The choir in the old church was in the gallery at the rear, and at certain periods in the life of the church the music had decided revivals, and at became the outstanding feature of the service. This was particularly true when Prof. Jake Reinhart, whose choir was instructed by the famous singing-school teacher, Beamer, made the Unionville Methodist Church known for miles around for its music. There was no such thing as an organ to be even thought of. The writer later undertook to secure an organ for the new church at Bethesda and had quoted at him by a pillar of that church: “He that offendeth his brother had better have a millstone about his neck and drowned in the midst of the sea.” The brother who objected to the organ said that in presence of such an instrument in the church would drive him from worship. He quoted, to sustain his argument, that previous to his conversion he had played the “fiddle,” but after his conversion he had thrown the fiddle in the hen-house. He intimated that the hen-house was the place for all musical instruments. With this sort of spirit abroad in Methodism, it is not to be wondered at that choirs sang without musical accompaniment. The tuning-fork served in best trained musical circles to “pitch the tune.” I have actually known in those days as many as three attempts to “pitch a tune” or get the right meter to a hymn, and all of them fail. One man in desperation, as well as persistence, went out behind the church aisle whistling and beating time, and taking his seat proceeded with the music of the sanctuary. But Prof. Jake Reinhart did not have to resort to this. Pretty much all things are valuable only by comparison. But at the time I heard the Unionville choir sing in the old Methodist Church I thought I had never heard such perfect music.
The following circumstance occurred at this Unionville Church in the days of my mother’s youth. The presiding elder was conducting service and a great crowd was in the church and in the church yard. The elder in an exuberance of feeling asked the choir in the gallery to sing to the hymn, “Alas, and did my Savior bleed,” to the chorus, “We’ll all be gathered home.” There was so much whispering and commotion in the choir, and at last the leader in desperation called out to the preacher: “It won’t go.” But the preacher, not dismayed, replied, “If you can’t sing it, I can.” Now, those who understand the beats in music and recall the tune of this old-time chorus, will appreciate the difficulty the choir leader would have had to sing the hymn announced to the chorus requested. All was plain sailing in the first line, but storms and waves would be met in the second. But the determined presiding elder launched forth, and this is what he made of it:
“Alas, and did my Savior bleed,
We’ll all be gathered home;
And did my Sovereign die–wy-wy,
We’ll all be gathered home.”
By the time he had thus sung his first stanza the audience was in paroxysms of laughter, and the elder concluded that it “wouldn’t go,” and suggested that the audience “sing a more familiar tune.”
It was in this old church that my grandfather, John Kephart, who was in the early days a pillar in the church and whose home was the preacher’s main stopping place, gave in a remarkable experience at a love-feast on a quarterly meeting occasion. He was a very tall, slim, straight man, resembling both Henry Clay and the pictures we now have of Uncle Sam. He was sure to say things as no one else said them, and was known for miles around as incisive in his sarcasm and sure to hit the bull’s eye in his criticisms. Standing at the close of a long life and with humidity he said: “When I was younger I had ambition to secure a high place in heaven. But in my life I have backslid, and foreslid, and all other kinds of slid so much that I now stand as a poor sinner saved by grace.”
The love-feast of old-time Methodism suggests something that has now practically gone out of use, at least in its picturesque features. The quarterly meeting occasions, when the presiding elder would pay his visits, were times of great throngs at church, and times also of great feeling in the love-feast that was held just before morning preaching. The bread and water were handed around, of which all partook who desired, as the preacher was careful to say that this was no sacrament. The pastor or elder would then, after reading some appropriate Scripture, give in his own testimony and would at times how much emotion. After he had spoken, the general invitation was given for all present to “tell what the Lord had done for their soul.” While the invitation was given to all, it was pretty well understood that only certain men and women would talk, and persons present had come largely to hear them do so. The pillars of the church, particularly those who could “talk to edification,” would one after another speak. The atmosphere became surcharged with emotion. Those who spoke often broke down either in uncontrolled emotion or in shouts. The time for the particular service often ran into the preaching hour, because there was no stopping the flow of feeling. It would have been “quenching the Spirit” to have said: “The time is up.” With cheeks bedewed with tears, and handkerchiefs well saturated, the love-feast closed at length, a short recess being given before preaching began. With mellow voices and subdued manner church people greeted church people after this time of great feeling. What has present-day Methodism substituted for this distinctive feature in their old-time worship? I do not pass on the matter of the retention or disuse of this well-established custom with its attendant results. But this and the revival of the Methodist sort made Methodism distinctive in those days.
The old-time Methodist sermon, particularly on quarterly meeting occasions, was sure to be long, and sure to be oratorical. The preacher knew what was expected of him and the audience waited to be thrilled by oratory and pathos. The conversational style of today and the practical teaching-like methods used by our preachers, would have shocked the old-time audiences who came to church to be lifted out of themselves. The preacher began slowly and almost dryly. His voice arose as he gathered momentum, and for the last twenty minutes of his sermon he walked the heights and men and women shouted and wept and sat in rapt attention, hanging on his words, obedient to his every mood. At times, usually at the close, a thrilling anecdote would be told, with many vivid details. The popular preacher, Rev. Sam V. Leech, described the loss of a certain ship with many on board in mid-ocean, with such realist touches that men and women never forgot the sermon or the circumstance. Dr. Alpheus Wilson, afterwards Bishop in the M. E. Church South, never resorted to anecdote, but help his audience by the truth as he conceived it from the Scriptures, but clothed in oratory the like of which is no longer heard in our country.
After a sermon of this sort the people went to their homes to talk on the way and for days after about the wonderful sermon heard on the quarterly meeting occasion and to measure their experiences by what they heard at the love-feast. Whatever we have done in the Methodist Church, there has been a long drift from what the fathers felt and did. The world is undoubtedly better. The earth is the Lord’s in a sense in which it was not in those days of little acquaintance between nation and nation. Denominations are now coming together and Methodism is forming a basis of union. Preachers do not take up so much time now in “digging at” others who do not believe as they do– a habit that the old preachers had and which was sure to make the audience smirk with pleasure. Preachers do not now take occasion to “preach a sermon on dancing” just after a dance had been held in the neighborhood. But, in many cases, the church is not largely patronized, save in cities and with famous men in the pulpit. The country church of the other days has lost something of its community influence. The problem with the country preacher is to regain something of that loss and once more make the rural church a power for highest good to all concerned.
J. O. KNOTT