(A seemingly rare book. Samuel Porter Jones (October 16, 1...)
A seemingly rare book. Samuel Porter Jones (October 16, 1847 - October 15, 1906) was one of the most celebrated revivalists of his day, at the close of the 19th century. Famous for his wry wit and masterful story-telling, he is credited as a principal influence on Will Rogers.
(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
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Sermons
Sam Porter Jones, Samuel White Small
Scammel & company, 1886
Religion; Christianity; Methodist; Evangelistic sermons; Methodist Church; Methodist church; Religion / Christianity / Methodist; Religion / Sermons / Christian; Sermons, American
Samuel Porter Jones was an American lawyer and businessman, who became a prominent Methodist revivalist preacher across the Southern United States.
Background
Samuel Porter was born on October 16, 1847 in Oak Bowery, Alabama, United States, son of John J. and Nancy (Porter) Jones. Both parents were of pioneer Methodist-preacher stock: one grandmother, who much impressed the child, had "read the Bible through thirty-seven times, on her knees" and ofttimes at church "gave vent to her feelings by shouting the praises of God".
In 1856 the family moved to Cartersville, Georgia, where, the mother having died, the father remarried and engaged in a successful but unregenerative practice of law until he entered the war as a captain.
Left head of the family in his father's absence, he began to drink (because of nervous indigestion, his wife asserts); and when the family fled the approaching armies, he somehow became separated from them and was swept into Kentucky.
Education
In the local schools of Georgia the child Sam was deemed bright and fun-loving and clever at reciting pieces.
Career
Jones set up as a lawyer in Cartersville. He began well as a lawyer; but the new and flattering associations increased his inebriety. He moved to Texas, then to Alabama, then (at his father's request) back to Cartersville. Here he lived in a cabin and, having abandoned the law, worked as a day laborer. Neither the descent of his wife from affluence to penury nor the coming of a child, whom he adored, could stop his drunkenness.
In 1872, however, having promised his dying father to reform, he became an itinerant preacher of the North Georgia Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, equipped with "a wife and one child, a bobtail pony and eight dollars in cash". During eight years here he improved his economic condition little but kept sober and won a wide reputation because of the fire, force, and overflowing humor with which he attacked the inconsistencies of Christians. Then he was made agent of the Methodist North Georgia Orphans' Home and charged with raising funds, in which task he was eminently successful.
Called, because of his Georgia reputation, to Memphis for evangelistic work in 1884, he succeeded so well that he was engaged by T. DeWitt Talmage for similar work in Brooklyn, in January 1885. In that year also came a "memorable meeting" in Nashville. Thereafter until 1900 he was a national evangelist operating in almost all the large cities for from three to six weeks, speaking several times daily, often to ten thousand or more with many others unable to obtain seats.
After 1900 his evangelistic energies were given entirely, but unreservedly, to the South. His funeral in Georgia was an affair of state.
(A seemingly rare book. Samuel Porter Jones (October 16, 1...)
Personality
The secret of his speaking mastery seems to have been in part his physical and moral courage and in part his intuitive apprehension of the common man's dislike of sham and hypocrisy and delight in hearing them exposed and condemned in homely words and epigrammatic style. Though his exaggerations and his crudities always offended the sensitive and often made him a target for the secular press, the sentiment which he was able to evoke among the rank and file crushed all opposition and eventually compelled an almost unanimous approval from all classes.