1848 Letter from a Home Missionary in Northern Indiana Condemning the Temperance Lecturer Augustus Littlejohn as "a most unprincipled character.
1848réf. List38119Lima LaGrange County Indiana 1848. Autograph letter signed "D. C. Meeker" to Rev. Charles Hall Secretary of the American Home Missionary Society New York City. 3 pp. on a folded 8 x 10 inch sheet. Near Fine. A letter from Rev. D. C. Meeker a Presbyterian home missionary in northern Indiana reporting to the American Home Missionary Society on the state of his church at Plymouth Indiana and on the recent temperance excitement caused by the itinerant lecturer Augustus Littlejohn. Meeker reports no conversions or additions to the Plymouth church but devotes much of the letter to Littlejohn's appearances in Plymouth and Lima. Littlejohn had drawn large pledge-signing crowds including some "hard drinkers" but Meeker doubted the durability of the excitement and sharply condemned him. In Lima where Littlejohn had also stirred a temporary temperance movement Meeker writes that the cause seemed "not only dead but also laid out & buried" and that Littlejohn's career if stopped would benefit "the cause of morality & religion." Full text follows. "Lima Lagrange Co. Ind. Feb. 29th 1848 Dear Brother "A Statistical Report for the church of Plymouth will be rather bare. No conversions no additions either by profession or letter. In regard to temperance I think there has been an advance. Our County Society was moving along slowly but I think rather more surely than in former times. Mr. Littlejohn came to Plymouth by invitation of the Society & it was stated that he obtained 400 subscribers. But this I do not think was true. There may have been 400 names on his list but many of them were in the Society before he came. We obtained many names however & some of them were those of hard drinkers. I would have but little hope of these were it not that they have united with the Sons of Temperance possibly they may there have such restraints thrown around them as will keep them sober. The excitement was still very great when I left Plymouth. Weekly meetings were held in P. & frequent meetings were appointed at various places a few miles out. What the result will be when the excitement wears off I can't tell but I hope for the best. "In this place there was a somewhat similar excitement raised by the same man but it has long since passed by & the subject of temperance seems to be not only dead but also laid out & buried. There is not perhaps more intemperance than in Plymouth but there is no society & the people are saying 'it is not time yet to form one' or 'if we do form one it will be like the rest short lived'. If Mr. Littlejohn's labors are followed everywhere by the same deadness to the matter of active efforts in the temperance cause as they have been here they are a curse to the country & so they are now considered by many intelligent or rather by most intelligent men here. If his career could be stopped while the cause of temperance would not in the main suffer the cause of morality & religion would be greatly benefitted. What I have heard here of the man & what I saw at Plymouth has given me a feeling of loathing toward him as a most unprincipled character. "Yours in the Gospel D. C. Meeker" A strong Indiana temperance letter especially for its contemporary criticism of Augustus Littlejohn's revival-style methods. Meeker's account is useful for showing both the short-term power of temperance lecturing in small Midwestern towns and the suspicion it could provoke among more settled clergy who saw pledge-signing excitement as unstable and morally dangerous when separated from church discipline and local organization. . unknown
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