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