W. B. Godbey - Enter His Rest

them, knocking them down on all sides, and causing them to jerk in a really phenomenal manner. The long hair
of the women amid these jerks would become disheveled, and crack like whip lashes. At that time the pioneers
were very sparsely dispersed throughout these western states, but the phenomena of this campmeeting were so
extraordinary as to attract the people from far and near, in order to witness scenes hitherto unknown and unheard
of in the memory of the existing generation.
James Finley, living up in Ohio at that time, aspired to be the champion athlete. As the news of this wonderful
campmeeting spread through that country, that every one going got knocked down, many of the pioneers,
wicked and unbelieving, went through curiosity, actually defying the power of that meeting to knock them
down. But it became a paradoxical fact that all going thither had to fall under the power. Though the meeting
was pitched for a few days, according to custom, it went on two or three months, actually continuing till the on
coming winter broke it up.
Eventually, as so many people had told this young man, James Finley, that he would get knocked down if he
went to that meeting, he therefore made his boast that there was one young man they could not knock down. So,
mounting his fine horse, he rode away to the camp, a hundred or more miles. On arrival, hitching his horse, he
went to the scene. When looking around he saw twenty preachers here and there on stumps, logs, rocks, wagons,
and mounds of earth, preaching with all their might, manifesting physical demonstrations such as he had never
seen before, and meanwhile the people falling all around them and crying for mercy, rising with shakes, and
jerking as if convulsed by epileptic fits; while gazing around upon the scene, such as he had never before
beheld, a strange weakness begin to creep over him, worse and worse, till he found himself in the very act of
falling, when catching himself he ran away from the scene to where he had hitched his horse.
There he endeavored to recover his equilibrium as best he could and bolted himself up on his boasted
championship, reviving his energies and recuperating his prowess, fostering afresh his boasted claims to the
championship of the world. So, having taken a rest, he went back, determined to stem the tide, as he had boasted
to all his neighbors that they could not knock him down. Again having reached the Situation and looking
around, he saw that the tide had gone up and the power was sweeping everything before it. Despite all he could
do, bolstering up his prowess, he found that same strange weakness coming on him and rapidly increasing and
permeating his whole body. His knees knocked together like Belshazzar's and he found himself actually falling,
and so hurried away, with great difficulty making his escape.
This time he made a special effort to enlist Satan more efficiently in his behalf; riding away about a mile to the
tavern where he bought some brandy, and drank it, thinking it would settle his nerves; then returning to the,
scene of conflict the third time and looking around he saw that the tide was much higher, -- having decisively
gone up since he left. His attention was especially directed to a crowd of about five-hundred – who had just
arrived on the scene, therefore he soliloquized, “I will look at them and see how they get along; probably will
learn from them how to stand it better. While making them the especial object of his attention he saw the whole
crowd fall simultaneously on the ground suddenly as if a battery of a thousand cannons had been turned on
them. As he saw them rolling, floundering and jerking, and heard their loud wails and shriek ejaculatory prayers,
he almost fell to the ground. Taking fright, he made his escape with great difficulty and, though the most active
young man in the world competent to actually leap over his horse, like a kangaroo, he found himself just too
weak to mount him and, with great difficulty got on him from a stump, and had to hold to the saddle-horn to
keep from falling off.
Riding away he was surprised and disappointed when that strange weakness still stayed with him.
Having with great difficulty ridden for ten miles, he fell off his horse, finding himself utterly unable to walk;
thus he realized that the very thing they had all told him about, in reference to the knock down power which
would come on him, had already been verified.
Meanwhile the awful conviction of his lost estate settled down on him like a nightmare, -- and he saw Hell open
and the devil after him. I have often seen the spot where his physical powers so utterly failed that he could hold
on his horse no longer, and tumbled down in the middle of the road.
The people gathered around him, gazing on him from a distance, afraid to go near lest he might have some