(Lower Lighthouse in Marquette, MI)
The Immutable Kingdom – Part 61
By Scott A. Klaft
“Raccoon” John Smith – continued
Born the ninth of thirteen children on October 15, 1784, John Smith had rugged pioneer parents who had erected their own log cabin on the banks of a river in a valley of Kentucky. George and Rebecca Smith did not have the wealth or luxuries (from which many of the other Restoration preachers came), and the whole family contributed to the work on the farm with very little opportunity for education.
The family, with a staunch Calvinistic Baptist background, was sincere in their beliefs, and the father read to the children regularly from the Bible on Sundays. They taught the children the Calvinist’s belief that none could be saved without a mysterious call from the Holy Spirit. That notwithstanding, the children grew in a home of character, godliness, and arduous labor.
On rare occasions in that time period, a schoolmaster would travel through the wilderness, trying to convince parents to release the children from their labors to attend school. It was in this way that John managed to obtain about four months’ education, but in that time, he learned to read the New Testament with relative ease. His father was soon asking him to read to the family every Sunday.
When his father decided to sell the farm and move west, he took his sons with him to do the farming work before bringing the whole family; and, for this, they needed seed corn. John’s father informed him at the age of twelve that he was old enough to make the one hundred mile journey alone, over swollen rivers, through thick wilderness trails to the nearest town to buy the seed, occasionally staying over night with strangers in their cabins.
Calvinist ideas were deeply embedded in John after a Baptist preacher moved into the valley; John began to listen to every sound of the forest, to every event in his life, for some voice to declare him among the saved. On one trip to see one of his brothers who had married and moved away, John had an opportunity to witness the emotional agitation of the type that occurred at the Cane Ridge Revival. He walked away in disgust, though he continued to hold Calvinistic doctrinal beliefs.
He began thinking more and more on his soul’s salvation. He grew more anxious than ever for the divine call. He went through intense inward struggle; yet, feeling nothing more than a growing concern because he could not realize a “call”; until, finally, a calm swept over him, and his friends convinced him this must be the sign. He was urged to go before the Baptist congregation and tell of his experience. After he did so, he was “voted in” and immersed in water the next day.
The Baptist preacher felt that Smith should become a preacher, and he often called upon John to read scripture and lead public prayer; but, John was now waiting for “the call to preach.” He attended many social meetings and led some studies in the Bible, but he still felt no call to preach.
It was during one of these meetings that he saw a beautiful young lady, Anna Townsend. Rarely having noticed the opposite sex before, Smith was irrevocably smitten with this particular one, paying frequent visits to the Townsend home. In December 9, 1806, John married the first and only girl he had ever loved, and then took her the next morning to settle on his farm in Wayne County, Kentucky.
In everyday events, he continued to look for his call to preach, but to no avail. He once sidestepped a rattlesnake and thought he had been “spared to preach,” but he remained unsure. Finally, during a struggle with an ox in which it appeared as though John would be killed, he vowed that, if he lived, he would begin preaching. He did escape, and he interpreted this as his divine call. In 1808, he took the Baptist’s examination, passed it, and was ordained a full-fledged Baptist preacher.
After two years of preaching in the valley, Smith was convinced by a fellow Baptist preacher to move to the Blue Grass region, but he did not like it, deciding rather to take advantage of a land-deal near Huntsville, Alabama. Although misfortune often plagued John’s life, it was here that the most severe calamity first met him.
(To be continued next week)
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