THE GLORIOUS DALES.

Glorious in physical ruggedness, rising at times to grandeur, Weardale, Nentdale, arid Upper Tynedale, together with Alston Moor, have been glorious in spiritual force and beauty. Both the spiritual and physical aspects of the territory are attractive, but our limitations forbid an excursion among the heather-clad hills, the naked scaws, the wooded bluffs, the brawling falls, the sylvan glens, the expansive fells, and the floral-decked banks of the streams; or to narrate the weird tales and romantic traditions of a sterner day.

And the people! An engaging theme for the physiologist and psychologist: the physique, cast of mind, temperament, and habits of the pure Dalesman. W. D. Judson (“Aldersgate,” 1902) declares that one of the most representative Dalesmen living says: “We are as much Scotch as they are in Fifeshire.” The fact that Weardale at one time formed part of Strathclyde; the prevalence of Scotch names, words, and phrases; the mental and spiritual characteristics of the natives—all spell Caledonia. We agree with Mr. Kendall that John Wenn hit upon a happy description of Northmen, and especially of Dalesmen, when he spoke of them as being “anthracite in temperament.” “Northerners,” continues Mr. Wenn, “are not exactly comparable to carpenters’ shavings, soon alight and quickly extinguished; rather do they resemble anthracite in the slowness of its combustion and the retention of its heat . . . capable of sustained religious fervour could they but once be kindled.” And kindled they have been from generation to generation since George Lazenby, Jane Ansdale, Anthony Race, F. N. Jersey, Thomas Batty, John Oxtoby, and others “ travailed in birth for souls “in the highlands of Durham, Cumberland, and Northumberland. Volumes could he written on several topics hinted at.

It may very easily have been that there were other Primitive Methodist missionaries in the Dales before October, 1821, when George Lazenby preached in a joiner’s shop at Stanhope, or that some of the natives had been converted elsewhere and published the tidings at home. So far We have found no clear evidence of that; but the initial step taken by Lazenby was followed up, as William Clowes, when on his way to North Shields in the March of 1822, found seventeen members at Stanhope. The society is stated to have been formed in November, 1821, “John Dover Muschamp, William Willis and Jane Burns being among the first members.” Now, Mr. Muschamp, of Brotherlee, a man of standing in the Dale, was converted under Jane Ansdale, and it is likely that his membership did not start until the middle of 1822. He was drawn by curiosity to Westgate to hear the female evangelist, and he was stricken an conscience. Subsequently, he attended a camp meeting at Stanhope, and stood bareheaded under the hot sun as the word was preached, and he experienced healing and forgiveness in his room that night. Immediately thereafter he and Mrs. Muschamp gave themselves heart and soul to the new cause. The first recorded camp meeting at Stanhope took place on Crawley Fell, July 14th, 1822, four months after William Clowes had directed “Bro. Jersey to take up Westgate.” Regarding the first revival, one writer claims that “much of the harvest reaped in Weardale was the result of the seed sown by Jane Ansdale.” Of course, Thomas Batty, to whom has been accorded the title of “Apostle of Weardale,” has the premier place among the pioneers of that district. Mr. Kendall justly remarks “What makes the title ‘apostle’ as applied to him so eminently appropriate is the fact that, in the preparatory stages and in the conduct of the revival, we see concentrated and embodied in Thomas Batty the very spirit of the revival.”

The genuineness of John Dover Muschamp’s attachment to Primitive Methodism was apparent to all. He was specially helpful to the Westgate society by fitting up a barn for the services, and also when the first chapel was built in 1824, as will be seen in the account given in the Connexional History:—

“The land for the site was given, and the miners in their spare time cheerfully assisted in the erection. Mr. Muschamp might be seen hard at work among the rest. Thirty days he devoted to stone-getting or walling, and twenty to soliciting subscriptions. But presently the work was brought to a stand. It was alleged that the stones in the bed of the burn served to break the force of the ‘spate,’ and that their removal would endanger the bridge; hence the person in charge of the bridges of the district issued his prohibition against the taking out of any more stones for chapel building purposes. In some way the matter came under discussion before certain magistrates and gentlemen at Durham. ‘Who are these Ranters?’ was the very natural inquiry. Some one well informed as to the facts of the case, and well disposed, too, it seems, stated what had been the moral effects of the entry of Primitive Methodists into the Dale, especially in having done more to put a stop to poaching than gamekeepers, magistrates, and prisons together had been able to effect. On hearing this, permission to take as many stones from the bed of the burn as might be necessary to complete the chapel was readily granted.”

There is another story in regard to this incident, which represents that the bailiff, who had stopped the stonetaking from the burn, had heard that Johnny Oxtoby was praying about the matter, and became so concerned that he asked one of the members to tell Oxtoby that he would not interfere in future. But as the chapel was opened on April 4th, 1824, and as Oxtoby did not reach Westgate until October 2nd of that year, the authenticity of the latter story is hopelessly destroyed.

Mr. Muschamp was circuit steward and chapel treasurer for thirty years, dying in 1858, at Brotherlee, on the small family estate, where he had lived for eighty-three years. During his lifetime he saw his son Emerson rise to prominence and usefulness in the Connexion, and pass away at Redgate House, Wolsingham, in 1849. There were “faIlings” in the cottage prayer meeting, conducted by John Oxtoby, that night when Emerson was converted; and whatever may be said about the extraordinary scenes, the life of Emerson Muschamp as a fervent youth, as a commercial man of integrity in Sunderland, as a politician of progressive ideas, and as a cultured gentleman, showed the actuality of the change he had undergone. He was secretary of the 1848 Conference at Leeds, and was then appointed one of the auditors of the Connexion. He spent the last day or two of his life in the work of that office in London, returning home to expire in the bosom of his family. With numbers more, who lived worthily, John Kirk, a native of Windyside, was brought to a concern about his soul in the same class of meetings, and was compelled to kneel down behind a hedge to pray. John had been a drinker, and he often remarked that his besetting sin hurried him to the verge of hell.” He became a useful servant of Jesus Christ, and did much to establish a society (Castleside, near Consett), which has had a remarkably prosperous career.


MAJESTIC SWEEP OF CONQUERING GRACE.

It was some time after his arrival in Weardale before Thomas Batty saw the arm of the Lord made bare in any marked degree. He passed through bitter nights and laborious days, and he seemed to be spending his strength for naught. Crowds attended the services, but they could not be got to join the societies. There was one night of awful depression. At that time Joseph Walton, leader of the first class formed at Westgate in May, 1822, and one of the mightiest men in the opening era, was fully in the fray, and Batty had returned to the leader’s house from what seemed to have been a fruitless service at Ireshopeburn. The preacher had waded through snow, slush, and water, and was “in extreme gloom of soul.” He could not speak to Joseph; he “could only sigh, and groan, and weep,” so deep was his distress. At last be told his host that if he could not succeed soon, he would have to leave. Walton replied that he must try a little longer, and he was cheered by the conversation they had. A man who kept a tollgate between St. John’s Chapel and Prize, with whom Batty lodged one night, also comforted him. The tollgate-keeper was not at that time converted, yet he said :—“If, you will come and preach about here every night for a week, you will soon have a hundred people in society. . . . You do not know the people as well as I do; they often stop and talk With me at the gate.” The man declared: “The whole country is under convictions.” Batty took the tollgate-keeper’s advice, and the prophecy was fulfilled.

Ireshopeburn preaching place had been closed to the missionaries, but they soon had the choice of other two, as Anthony Race had said they would; and when Batty went to preach at Low Rigg, he found the congregation too large to be accommodated in the house, so he preached in the open-air. Before he had been speaking a quarter of an hour, “a person fell down under the word, and cried for mercy. He was carried into the house, and a mighty prayer meeting commenced.” A small society was formed that night, and the revival started. The magnitude of it may be gathered from the numerical returns of the branch for 1823. In March, when the revival began, there were 219 members on the roll; 308 were reported in June; in September the number had more than doubled, being 625; and in December, when there were five preachers on the ground, 846 members were reported, having multiplied almost fourfold in nine months. In the following quarters further substantial increases were reported, and Mr. Muschamp might well say to Mr. Batty: “I think all the people in Weardale are going to be Ranters.”

Apart from the Stanhope assembly in 1822, it is stated that the first camp meeting in the neighbourhood of Westgate took place in June, 1823. For weeks before the weather had been unsettled, but Batty had “got into faith,” and in one of his prayers had said, with confidence: “Lord, we shall have a fine day.” The report of this prayer spread for miles; some said it was blasphemy, others hoped it would rain, “but many believed in the Lord.” Joseph Walton was very anxious about it. “ Now, Thomas,” he said, “you rise or fall with this camp meeting. If it be a fine day, you will rise; if it be a wet day, you will fall in the estimation of the public.” Batty replied: “Let the Lord see to that.” It rained until the Thursday afternoon, but on the Sunday there was not a cloud to be seen until towards night. Great multitudes attended the camp meeting, the preachers being Emerson, Batty, Young, and Anthony Race. Eleven souls professed to find liberty in the lovefeast. A violent storm broke over the dale that night, and the Wear and its tributaries became so swollen that many persons were prevented from going to their work next morning

As illustrative of the eagerness of the people to hear the gospel at this period, Mr. Kendall gives an incident which occurred at Wellhope. To economise every inch of available space in the room, all the tables and chairs, except one for the preacher to stand upon, were removed,

“and then some stalwart miner would come forward, and stand with his back to the preacher, so that he — the preacher — might find support by resting his arms on the man’s shoulders. There was competition for the honour of fulfilling this office; and who shall say that such a living reading-desk was not as pleasing in God’s sight as the eagle lectern of polished brass?”

The intensity of the feeling prevailing amongst the dalesfolk is further shown by the miles some of them walked to attend a lovefeast, even in the winter time, and over a mountainous country. Two young men tramped nine miles to Westgate to get their souls saved, on November 9th, 1823, and were among twenty-six mourning souls in a ring that day. Batty afterwards preached in the place where they came from, and soon “a blessed work broke out there.” November 10th, at Prize, was a night to be remembered, Batty says. Ten souls were converted, and “it was near twelve o’clock when we broke up.”


“PRAYING JOHNNY.”

After the revival had spread to Nenthead and other places in that direction, Westgate was detached from Barnard Castle, of which branch it had been part, and made a separate section of Hull Circuit. That was in 1824, John Hewson being the superintendent and George Whitfield Armitage the junior minister. In a few months John Oxtoby (“Praying Johnny”) was added to the staff, and the revival got a fresh impulse. Another phase was given to the work: the sanctification of believers as a definite work of grace was now a prominent feature of the revival, as well as the conversion of sinners. “Praying Johnny” — a remarkable servant of God — was the apostle of this new phase. Originally from Warter (Yorkshire), he was vicious in conduct and foul in speech until he was thirty-seven years of age; but in 1804, by the work of the Holy Spirit, he saw his lost condition, and “hell from beneath appeared as if open to receive him.” Confessing his sins, crying aloud for mercy, and exercising faith in the Saviour, he received forgiveness, he regularly thereafter visited every house in the village, and when it became necessary to build a chapel, he gave the land and £10. He and another also visited various places around, exhorting the people to flee from the wrath to come. In 1819 he became the right-hand man of William Clowes at Hull, and a few years afterwards was regularly employed as a travelling preacher. He was a man of extremely slender abilities, of little or no education, very provincial in his dialect, and in his attire a rustic of the rustics; yet his “unaffected address, plain faithfulness, engaging simplicity, and devotedness to the work of Him that sent him,” endeared him to the people, and his prayerfulness, consuming zeal, and faith made him one of the greatest of the pioneers of Primitive Methodism. Men who worked with him, lived with him, overlooked his weaknesses and incongruities, and spoke with warmth of the way in which he was used in bringing believers to realise the higher altitudes of the salvation of God and in bringing sinners to repentance, even the irreligious confessing that no man could speak and act as he did except God was eminently with him.

From the day Johnny Oxtoby entered the Dales, signs and wonders accompanied his ministry. On the second day after his arrival at Westgate, an extraordinary display of saving power occurred at Swinhope Burn — the meeting in which Emerson Muschamp was converted — and two days afterwards he was at Hunshalford. “Held a fellowship meeting; three or four were satictified wholly, and eight justified.” That is all John says about the occasion in his journal; but George W. Armitage, who accompanied him, gives a full and glowing description of the service:—

“While many spoke of the goodness of God, a mighty power came down, It struck one (a believer) speechless; two others fell to the floor in great agonies, and rose praising God for what they felt. Another man began to pray for a clean heart, which he received; and soon after he was so filled with the perfect love of God that he jumped up and down, shouting Glory! with all his might. His countenance testified the reality of what he professed — he was indeed extremely happy. sinners then began to tremble before God, and presently five or six fell down and cried for mercy. . . . That was truly the beginning of good days. . . . The members grew in faith, and, when they began to pray the power came down, and frequently struck one and then another down, till sometimes six or eight lay on the floor together.”

What took place at Hunshalford became a common scene, and the matter got noised abroad. Men travelled distances of twenty miles to get sanctified, and “many devout Wesleyans “attended the services for the same purpose. Two or three months after these manifestations began. Mr. Armitage confessed that he had not received the blessing so many declared they had obtained; but he sought it earnestly, and obtained it, while waiting quietly upon God in “Bro. Watson’s class at Westgate.” “I felt,” he says, “changed more fully into the image of the invisible, and filled with perfect love, perfect joy, and perfect peace.” Several more were similarly affected in that class meeting, some being “so filled with the fulness of God that they lay on the floor speechless. Such days were never seen in Weardale before.”

There is further testimony in regard to this work by the late William Dent, given in the Connexional History. Mr. Dent, who was converted at Westgate in 1823, was called into the ministry in 1827, and, after a fruitful career of thirty-three years, located in Newcastle. Well does the present writer remember “his spare form, ascetic, spiritual-looking face, and his quick bodily movements,” when something the preacher said touched him. In Nelson Street Chapel, in the early sixties, “the fire was down” upon a full congregation. William Sanderson was the preacher — it was an anniversary occasion; William Dent was on the rostrum. Mr. Sanderson had a good time with the great text, “When I consider Thy heavens,” and Mr. Dent’s body swayed like a rolling craft; ever and anon he thrust his arms above his head, his fingers, as they met, moving quickly as if playing upon a stringed instrument, the music for which he himself only knew. By pen and voice throughout the whole of his life, Mr. Dent was a foremost exponent and defender of the doctrine of Christian perfection. In his early days he was a keen observer of the phenomena of Oxtoby’s revival. He says he saw as many as fifteen cases of prostration at one meeting, some of them “sober-minded Christians, as humble as they were earnest.” There was nothing in the voice or manner of the preacher to account for such effects, Oxtoby standing steadily and talking calmly. “But he was fully in the faith, clothed with salvation, having, in many instances, got to know substantially in his closet what was about to take place in the great congregation.” Mr. Dent says Oxtoby did not take a falling down as a certain proof of the obtaining of entire sanctification, but ascribed much to physical causes.

Oxtoby was credited with possessing the faith-healing power, an instance of which is given by Mr. Armitage. It was the ease of a child which had lost the use of its legs. Medical aid had been without benefit. The distressed mother told Oxtoby, and he replied that he would pray for the child’s restoration until he came there again, which would be six weeks. Before half of that time expired the child walked, and the parents firmly believed that the preacher’s prayers had been effectual. A woman at Edmondbyers was said to be “possessed with an evil spirit.” She cursed, swore, and danced when William Summersides and Oxtoby went to pray with her. For hours they pleaded, and still the woman stormed. At length they “set the Lord a time” to deliver the woman from her affliction, and one o’clock was agreed upon. It was then half-an-hour past noon. “And at the last moment,” says Oxtoby, “God turned the storm into a calm, and delivered her.”

John Oxtoby was again in the Dales in 1827, and his journal shows the same results as before. “An inexpressibly glorious day” was experienced at a camp meeting on June 17th. “Individuals were brought to the ground by the matchless power of Deity. Others stood trembling as an aspen leaf.” Thirty were “brought to the ground by the sanctifying influence of God’s Holy Spirit,” at the lovefeast. Eastgate, described as a dark and benighted place, got the blessing; and day after day seasons of power were the order at Westgate, Wearhead, Blackdean, Fieldstile, Brotherlee, Prize, Lanehead, Frosterley, Wolsingham, Sidehead, Burnhope, Killhope, Wellhope, Black Clough, Boltsburn, Daddry Shield, Ludwell, Side-end, Coaldough, Stanhope, Hunshalford, Allenheads, Swinhope, Alston, and elsewhere. So great was the influence at times that persons ran out of the meetings; but some of them were so deeply affected that they fell on their knees on the roadway before reaching home, and cried for mercy.

Subsequently John Flesher was in the branch, and great crowds assembled to hear the eloquent preacher, whose ministry was accompanied with saving power. When William Sanderson and Ann Tinsley travelled there in 1831 — its name was then the Alston and Westgate Union Branch of the Hull Circuit — Hugh Bourne visited the principal places, and his summing up was “The pious praying labourers are diligent and powerful, and the work has been, and is, rather extraordinary.” Mr. Bourne walked twenty miles from Penrith to Alston over the fells, “a tract of country more dreary than any I ever saw in any part of England,” he says. Alston had been suffering from want of employment, and some of the inhabitants had emigrated to America. At Nenthead he preached with liberty to a large congregation, afterwards going to Brotherlee, Frosterley, Stanhope, Daddry Shield, Allenheads, Allendale Town, Wearhead, and Westgate, where multitudes gathered to hear him. At Stanhope and other places there had just been revivals, and though the founder speaks of powerful times and of having had “most extraordinary liberty,” there is no mention of “fallings” in his journal.

“KINGS O’ MEN.”

Weardale has been the theatre of a succession of phenomenal spiritual upheavals since the opening days. Each from the beginning is generally known by the name of the leaders, such as Batty, Oxtoby, Sanderson and Simpson, MeKechnie, Lister, Peter Clarke and John Watson, Rust, Phillips, Lowery, Snaith, and others, not omitting Miss Bulmer.

Lanehead was the scene of the outbreak in William Lister’s time. It began at the usual weekly prayer meetings, at which a young man who had been at a funeral was converted. At a watch-night service, in the same week, and on the following Sunday, when Mr. Lister preached, several more were converted, and for many weeks thereafter crowded services were held nightly, and the society was lifted into a stronger position than it held before. It was William Lister who put Dr. John Watson on the plan as a local preacher. Henry Phillips was his first superintendent when he entered the ministry in his native circuit, and they saw the might of the Most High displayed in transformed lives. The revival during the superintendency of Mr. Phillips commenced at Frosterley in 1861. The society had entered a new chapel (built on the site of present one), and the occasion created widespread interest. People flocked in such numbers to the new place that a complaint arose that it was too small. In about two months the society increased from 68 members to 147. Joseph Makepeace was one of the prominent workers at that time. Like a fire the revival spread throughout the circuit. In spite of wretched winter weather, the chapels were crowded. Men had sleepless nights on account of spiritual distress, some of them were compelled to walk miles to obtain salvation, and numbers were called out of bed in the dead of night to pray with souls in trouble. John Lowery, of Gateshead, and his wife were then labouring at St. John’s Chapel, where a comparatively large chapel had been built in 1852, and for six weeks the converting work went on. As the outcome of that movement over the circuit hundreds of new members were added to the roll. Not long afterwards there was another gracious visitation at nearly all the places in the station, in which Peter Clarke and his colleagues laboured strenuously.

After having spent many years in the ministry, John Phillipson still cherishes in his memory a prayer meeting at Wearhead on a Sunday evening in 1868, after George Race, jun., then in his youthful strength, had preached. Some two hundred people, he says, had gathered in the body of the church:—

“While they sing and pray there was heard ‘a sound of going in the tops of the mulberry trees,’ and the hosts of God were mighty to the pulling down of strongholds. The whole place was moved. The people swayed like the ripening corn-fields in the autumn winds. What a volume of song I What power in prayer What patient waiting I There men and women sing and pray until every heart catches the fire. What a holy fervour, depth of love, strength of faith, and joyous hopes find expression. No wonder that a number of seeking sinners find their Saviour in that prayer meeting.”