Communion Seasons and Tokens in Early American Presbyterianism

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What has been like a revelation to me in my research was, finding out the extensive use of Tokens in the United States. All the early Presbyterian churches appear to have used them. — Robert Shiells, The Story of the Token as Belonging to the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper (1891), p. 150

Colonial American Presbyterianism, utilizing the Westminster Directory of Presbyterian Worship until 1788, relied much on Scottish Presbyterian traditions which included both communion seasons and tokens. These important features of simple Presbyterian worship were also associated with notable revivals, including both the Great Awakening and the Second Great Awakening. “The communion seasons in Virginia, as wherever the Presbyterian Church was planted, were seasons of revival.” (Mary McWhorter Tenney, Communion Tokens: Their Origin, History, and Use (1936), p. 87). Leigh Eric Schmidt writes:

With the transplantation of Presbyterianism to the American colonies came Old World ways of organizing worship and devotion. The sacramental occasion, as one of the most prominent features of the evangelical Presbyterian tradition, was soon re-created in America. In New England, for example, enclaves of Presbyterian immigrants almost immediately staged sacramental occasions fully reminiscent of Scotland and Ulster….

In the middle colonies, where Presbyterian immigration was much heavier than in New England, sacramental occasions were proportionally larger and more pronounced. The communion seasons — prevalent, powerful, and well attended — figured prominently in the religious life of the Presbyterian immigrants throughout the region [Schmidt, Holy Fairs: Scottish Communions and American Revivals in the Early Modern Period (1989), pp. 53-54].

Julius Melton also notes this important feature of early American Presbyterian worship as well as its transatlantic nature:

One especially prominent aspect of the Presbyterian’s worship experience in the colonies was the “sacramental season.” This was the practice, inherited from Scotland, of placing the infrequent celebrations of the Lord’s Supper within a series of services — days of fasting, sermons, examination of communicants and singing for which crowds would gather from an entire region. After dwelling at length on their sins and Christ’s work of salvation, Presbyterian drew near to receive the sacrament with great awe [Melton, Presbyterian Worship in America: Changing Patterns Since 1787 (1967, 2001), p. 16].

The Great Awakening was at least in part built on the foundation of sacramental seasons of revival. This was true for the Tennents (William, Sr., William Jr., Gilbert, and John included), some of whom contributed to a famous collection of Sermons on Sacramental Occasions by Divers Ministers (1739).

Gilbert Tennent was born into a family of Scots living in Ulster, in the northeast of Ireland. By the close of the seventeenth century, Ulster had become an enclave of dissenting Presbyterians, rebels against both the English crown and the Anglican Church, who were forced by the government to settle there. These dissenters kept alive the Scottish Presbyterian tradition of field communion, or sacramental occasions, a distinctive practice that helped to maintain ties to their heritage [Kimberly Bracken Long, The Eucharistic Theology of the American Holy Fairs (2011), pp. 83-84].

Gilbert Tennent wrote in 1744 of revival that took place in his congregation at New Brunswick, New Jersey:

I may further observe, that frequently at Sacramental Seasons in New-Brunswick, there have been signal Displays of the divine Power and Presence: divers have been convinced of Sin by the Sermons then preached, some converted, and many much affected with the Love of God in JESUS CHRIST. O the sweet Meltings that I have often seen on such Occasions among many! New-Brunswick did then look like a Field the Lord had blessed: It was like a little Jerusalem, to which the scattered Tribes with eager haste repaired at Sacramental Solemnities; and there they fed on the Fatness of God’s House, and drunk of the River of his Pleasures [Thomas Prince, ed., The Christian History (1745), p. 294].

Neshaminy, Pennsylvania was the site of a sacramental occasion in June 1745 where David Brainerd assisted Charles Beatty administer the bread and the wine to “three or four thousand” in attendance which Brainerd described as a “sweet melting season.” Brainerd went on during the following year to build on this experience, along with counsel from those who commissioned his missionary labors — the Society in Scotland for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge — to host his own sacramental seasons among the Native Americans to whom he ministered.

Brainerd followed the Scottish pattern basically to the letter: Friday was “set apart for solemn Fasting and Prayer”; Saturday was given over to further preparations and exhortations; Sunday brought the Lord’s Supper and more sermons; Monday concluded “the Sacramental Solemnity” with praise, thanksgiving, and calls for sustained moral discipline….This sacramental season proved to be among the most satisfying events in Brainerd’s life; indeed, the “sweet Union, Harmony and endearing Love” he experienced there was “the most lively Emblem of the heavenly World, I had ever seen” [Schmidt, Holy Fairs, p. 55].

Brainerd spoke similarly of a sacramental occasion that he participated in at Freehold, New Jersey just a couple of months later (June 1746) which was hosted by William Tennent, Jr., describing it as “a season of comfort to the godly, and of awakening to some souls” (ibid., p. 56). These sacramental seasons are a running theme throughout his ministry, especially to the Native Americans. Yet, as Schmidt notes, “No one, as far as I know, has ever taken stock of Brainerd’s sacramental revivals and seen just how thoroughly Presbyterian in this matter he had become” (ibid., p. 235).

The first Covenanter communion in America took place at the “Junkin Tent” in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, on August 23, 1752, and was administered by John Cuthbertson. This was also the first instance of the use of communion tokens in America. It bore the simple abbreviation “L.S.” for “Lord’s Supper” on one side only. These tokens were used to signify admittance to the Lord’s Table.

Commemorative 1752 communion token (photo by R. Andrew Myers).

In colonial Virginia, even before the arrival of Samuel Davies, a sacramental occasion was held by William Tennent, Jr. and Samuel Blair, where it was reported that “The Assembly was large, and the Novelty of the Mode of Administration did peculiarly engage their Attention….It appeared as one of the Days of Heaven to some of us; and we could hardly help wishing we could with Joshua have delayed the Revolutions of the Heavens to prolong it” [Samuel Davies, The State of Religion Among the Protestant Dissenters in Virginia (1751), p. 17]. A few years later, a paper communion token was used by Samuel Davies in Hanover County, Virginia. Note the sacramental poem written by Davies himself.

Samuel Davies’ communion token held at the William Smith Morton Library, Union Theological Seminary, Richmond Virginia (photo by R. Andrew Myers).

John Todd, John Wright, Robert Henry, John Brown and John Craig were among other Virginia Presbyterian evangelists who observed sacramental occasions and found them to be “special outpourings of the spirit” (John Wright, January 20, 1757 Letter found in John Gillies, Historical Collections (1845 ed.), p. 520). David Rice, who grew up under the ministry of Samuel Davies and John Todd, also helped to bring the practice of sacramental seasons to Kentucky.

The importance of communion gatherings in Davies's practice and Rice's conversion reveals that both men stood in the long tradition of Presbyterian sacramental seasons dating back to seventeenth-century Scotland. From the beginning, these "holy fairs" were protracted religious celebrations, sometimes attracting thousands of participants, which included not only the celebration of the sacrament but also fervent preaching. Such seasons were centers of religious renewal and revival, and the practice was continued by many Presbyterians in North America. In particular, this tradition can be traced through the family history of the Tennents, the Log College and its offshoots, the work of Samuel Davies, and Rice himself, who conducted similar communion seasons throughout his ministry. These gatherings would continue to be central to religious life on the frontier, though they would also become centers of controversy as the frontier context and new religious trends took the communion seasons in new directions [Andrew M. McGinnis, “Between Enthusiasm and Stoicism: David Rice and Moderate Revivalism in Virginia and Kentucky,” The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, Vol. 106, No. 2 (Spring 2008), pp. 172-173].

Robert B. Davidson notes that communion seasons and tokens were part of the Kentucky Revival:

The sacramental meetings, or sacraments, as they were called, were held at long intervals, when several ministers attended and took part; tokens were distributed; a long Action Sermon preached; the tables duly fenced; a succession of tables served; a fresh minister assigned to each table, and a fresh exhortation to each company; and when the communicants were numerous, (many coming from a distance,) the services were protracted till sunset, and became extremely tedious and fatiguing [Davidson, History of the Presbyterian Church in the State of Kentucky (1847), pp. 103-104].

James McGready was a pioneer Kentucky evangelist who seemed to be most in heaven while on earth at the communion table. Hear how he speaks in “The Believer Embracing Christ”:

The believer sometimes meets with Christ and embraces him in the arms of faith when he is seated at a communion table, then by faith, he sees a mangled, bleeding, dying, rising, triumphant Jesus, heading his own table, and feasting his blood-bought children with the bread of life and the milk and honey of Canaan [McGready, The Posthumous Works of the Reverend and Pious James M’Gready (1831), pp. 134-135].

As colonial Presbyterianism became less oriented towards traditional Scottish worship and more distinctly American, communion seasons and communion tokens began to fade away from the 19th century mainline American Presbyterian experience, and even, more slowly so, from the experience of Reformed (Covenanter) and Associate Reformed Presbyterians. John M. Mason was among those who argued for more frequent communion, and in this he was followed by James W. Alexander (see The Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper [1840]), and others, until the communion season was no longer found to be the norm in the American Presbyterian experience.

THE LORD’S SUPPER. This sacrament, although celebrated infrequently, was still probably the high point in the worship experience of an Old School Presbyterian, as diaries and autobiographies of the period indicate. The high value placed upon the Communion is seen also in the effort that was made to bring about more frequency in its celebration and to separate it from the cumbersome appendages of the sacramental season. This idea had been advanced by the revisers of the Directory [of Public Worship] in 1787, but was overruled by the 1788 synod. A harbinger of change was the decision by a New York congregation of the Associate Reformed Presbytery to “discontinue the custom of observing a fast day before, and thanksgiving day after, the administration of the Lord’s Supper.” This change, which prompted much discussion in that Presbyterian denomination, had been promoted by the New York pastor John Mitchell Mason, author in 1798 of the book Letters on Frequent Communion [Melton, Presbyterian Worship in America: Changing Patterns Since 1787, pp. 39-40].

Nevertheless, to hold a communion token in one’s hands is to hearken back to that bygone era when sacramental seasons marked perhaps the pinnacle of an Old School American Presbyterian’s spiritual pilgrimage on earth. If one listens closely, one might almost hear the faint sounds of a psalm sung, “Perhaps Dundee’s wild-warbling measures rise, / Or plaintive Martyrs, worthy of the name; / Or noble Elgin beets the heavenward flame” (Robert Burns, A Cotters’ Saturday Night).

Planted on the hillside here the ‘Banner of Blue,’
And worshipped God in simple form as Presbyterians do.
Upon this very ground was heard the voice of prayer,
And ancient Psalm to solemn tune they sang. —
’Do good in thy good pleasure, Lord, unto our Zion here;
The walls of our Jerusalem establish Thou and rear.’
Thus prayer and praise were made to God,
Nor dread of any foe
Dismayed our fathers in their work
So many years ago.
— Paraphrase of William McCombs, Two Hundred Years Ago (1842) in Mary McWhorter Tenney, Communion Tokens: Their Origin, History, and Use (1936), p. 59

The Protesters of 1741

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On Monday, June 1, 1741, a protest authored by Robert Cross and signed by him, along with eleven other ministers and eight ruling elders, was submitted to the Synod of Philadelphia, with Jedediah Andrews serving as Moderator, which led to the great Old Side-New Side split of the colonial American Presbyterian Church. The signers were mostly from the Presbytery of Donegal, representing the Old Side party. D.G. Hart writes* that “This division in American Presbyterianism has been the most difficult one to explain in the history of the church…” The protesters, for one thing, referred to their opponents (the New Side) as “protesting brethren,” which certainly clouds the issue for those removed from the controversy by centuries.

It is not the purpose of this post to attempt to explain the circumstances and motivations of either party, which would require an essay of great length, and the tragic story is told elsewhere in church histories by Charles Hodge, Richard Webster, and others. but simply to alert students of church history to the fact that all twelve ministers who signed the Protestation are now found on Log College Press. As William Tennent’s Log College did play an important role in the events leading up to the 1741 split, it is a matter of great interest to us at Log College Press to read what the Old Side had to say, as well as the New Side.

The twelve ministers who signed included 3 Roberts, 3 Johns and 2 Samuels, and most were born in Ireland:

• Robert Cross (1689-1766) - The Protestation’s author served the First Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia alongside Jedediah Andrews.

• John Thomson (1690-1753) - Thomson was the author of the 1729 Adopting Act.

• Francis Alison (1705-1779) - Alison was a scholar and educator, as well as a leading voice among Old Side presbyters. He preached the opening sermon at the 1758 reunion Synod on “Peace and Union.”

• Robert Cathcart (d. 1754) - Cathcart ministered in Wilmington, Delaware from 1730 until his death.

• Richard Sankey (1710-1789) - In church records, his last name is often spelled Zanchy. He was the son-in-law of John Thomson, and — after a rocky start in which he was accused of plagiarizing his ordination sermon — later served Virginia Presbyterians under the jurisdiction of the Hanover Presbytery.

• John Elder (1706-1792) - The “Fighting Pastor” is known to history as the founder of “Paxton Boys,” who were involved in the Conestoga Massacre in the aftermath of the French and Indian War, and then marched on Philadelphia. In the American War of Independence, he recruited patriots to the American cause.

• John Craig (1709-1774) - Craig, about whom we have written before, later served the Hanover Presbytery in Augusta County, Virginia as the first settled Presbyterian minister west of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

• Samuel Caven (1701-1750) - Caven’s tombstone at the Silver Spring Presbyterian Church Cemetery in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania indicates that he was 44 years old when he died on November 9, 1750; however, other sources indicate that he was born (in Ireland) in 1701.

• Samuel Thomson (1714-1787) - Although some have thought that Samuel was the son of John Thomson, the latter’s biographer, John Goodwin Herndon, makes the case that this was not so. Samuel Thomson served as pastor of the Great Conewago Presbyterian Church in Hunterstown, Pennsylvania from 1749 to 1787.

• Adam Boyd (1692-1768) - Over a 44-year pastoral career, Boyd — a man “eminent” for piety — help to organize 16 “daughter” and “grand-daughter” churches.

• James Martin (d. 1743) - Martin left his mark as pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Lewes, Delaware, where the house that he once owned remains an historical landmark.

• Robert Jamison (d. 1744) - Jamison, after arriving from Ireland in 1634, ministered in Delaware until his death.

These names are worth getting to know. The ministers who signed the Protestation played an important role in a tragic chapter of American Presbyterian history, and some of them were part of the reunited Synod 17 years later. Ezra Hall Gillett writes of some of these men in The Men and Times of the Reunion of 1758 (1868). That was a happier year than 1741. The rupture that happened after the Protestation had been building for years, and both sides were to blame, as Gillett says. In reviewing the protesters, on both sides, we are reminded that all men fall short of the divine standard of holiness, love and long-suffering that ought to be characteristic of believers. The history of the Presbyterian church affords many examples of division; happily, in this case, a great reunion followed.

* S. Donald Fortson III, ed., Colonial Presbyterianism: Old Faith in a New Land, p. 158

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Psalms for special occasions as selected by John Craig

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Howard McKnight Wilson describes what regular Presbyterian worship looked like in the mid-18th century in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia in his enduring and valuable study of a noteworthy historic congregation. The congregation is Tinkling Spring Presbyterian Church in Fishersville, Virginia, and the pastor to whom he refers is John Craig.

The singing of Psalms was a regular part of their worship. The book from which they sang was, of course, the same as the pastor’s copy preserved by a descendant. His Psalter might have been the only copy possessed by the gathered congregation, since the clerk lined out each verse before it was sung. His book is The Scottish Psalter about 3/4 inch thick, measuring 2 X 3 1/2 inches. It is bound in leather and has the Scottish form of his initials “I.C.” stamped in gold on both front and back. It contains the 150 Psalms of the Old Testament “IN Metre.”

Shown here is a 1763 edition of the 1650 Scottish Metrical Psalter. John Craig owned a 1729 edition published in Belfast.

Wilson continues with a note of interest that gives us an insight into the piety of this frontier Presbyterian minister.

Some of these Psalms were favorites of Mr. Craig’s and therefore may have been chosen more frequently. In his handwriting on the flyleaf of his Psalter, Mr. Craig records the following:

Ps’ms to be sung upon particular times & occasions as in ye morning Pms 3: 5: 16: 22: 144
in ye evening 4: 121: 141
for mercy after a sin Committed 51, 102
in Sickness or heaviness 1, 13, 88, 90, 91, 137, 146
when recovered 30, 32,
on ye Sabbath day 19, 9, 95
in time of joy 80, 98, 107, 145, 136
before Sermon 1, 12, 119 — 1 & 5 part
at ye communion 22, 23, 103, 111, 116, 45, 72
for spiritual solace 15, 19, 25, 46, 67, 112, 146
after wrong & disgrace received 42, 69, 70, 140, 144

Source: Howard McKnight Wilson, The Tinkling Spring, Headwater of Freedom: A Study of the Church and Her People, 1732-1952, pp. 102-103

The 4th century Church Father Athanasius once wrote:

It is possible for us, therefore, to find in the Psalter not only the reflection of our own soul's state, together with precept and example for all possible conditions, but also a fit form of words wherewith to please the Lord on each of life's occasions. (Letter to Marcellinus on the Interpretation of the Psalms)

John Craig found this to be true, and so may every Christian today in the singing of God’s Word. There is a Psalm for every condition and occasion in human life, because it is, as John Calvin says, “an anatomy of the soul,” which is, if we may say so, part of the genius of the Psalter.

Freedom's Cost

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That is which sometimes known as “the Presbyterian Rebellion” — the 1776 American War of Independence — had many actors who played their parts in leading the colonies to resist the actions of King George III and Parliament along Augustinian-Calvinistic principles of interposition by lesser civil magistrates against tyranny. The roll call listing heroes of the faith includes such as:

• Alexander Craighead was the first Presbyterian minister to advocate the necessity to take up arms against the mother country back in 1743 (the tyrant-king then was Charles II). It was his patriotic influence (even after his death) that is largely credited for the May 1775 Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence.

• John Craig was the “spiritual guide and minister” to 5 out of the 15 freeholders who wrote the January 20, 1775 Fincastle, Virginia Resolves, which stated in part: “We assure you, Gentlemen, and all our countrymen, that we are a people whose hearts overflow with love and duty to our lawful sovereign George III. whose illustrious house, for several successive reigns, have been the guardians of civil and religious rights and liberties of his subjects, as settled at the glorious Revolution; that we are willing to risk our lives in the service of his Majesty, for the support of the Protestant religion, and the rights and liberties of his subjects, as they have been established by compact, law, and ancient charters. We are heartily grieved at the differences which now subsist between the parent state and the colonies, and most ardently wish to see harmony restored, on an equitable basis, and by the most lenient measures that can be devised by the heart of men. Many of us, and our forefathers, left our native land, considering it as a kingdom subjected to inordinate power, and greatly abridged of its liberties. We crossed the Atlantick, and explored this then uncultivated wilderness, bordering on many nations of savages, and surrounded by mountains almost inaccessible to any but those very savages, who have incessantly been committing barbarities and depredations on us since our first seating the country. These fatigues and dangers we patiently encountered, supported by the pleasing hope of enjoying those rights and liberties which have been granted to Virginians and were denied us in our native country, and of transmitting them inviolate to our posterity. But even to these remote regions the land of unlimited and unconstitutional power hath pursued us, to strip us of that liberty and property with which God, nature, and the rights of humanity, have vested us. We are ready and willing to contribute all in our power for the support of his Majesty's government, if applied to constitutionally, and when the grants are made by our own representatives; but cannot think of submitting our liberty or property to the power of a venal British parliament, or to the will of a corrupt ministry. We by no means desire to shake off our duty or allegiance to our lawful sovereign, but on the contrary shall ever glory in being the loyal subjects of a Protestant prince, descended from such illustrious progenitors, so long as we can enjoy the free exercise of our religion, as Protestants, and our liberties and properties, as British subjects. But if no pacifick measures shall be proposed or adopted by Great Britain, and our enemies will attempt to dragoon us out of those inestimable privileges which we are entitled to as subjects, and to reduce us to a state of slavery, we declare, that we are deliberately and resolutely determined never to surrender them to any power upon earth, but at the expense of our lives. These are our real, though unpolished sentiments, of liberty and loyalty, and in them we are resolved to live and die.”

• The freeholders who wrote the February 22, 1775 Augusta County, Virginia Declaration were also influenced by John Craig, when they wrote: “Placing our ultimate trust in the Supreme Disposer of every event, without whose gracious interposition the wisest schemes may fail of success, we desire you to move the Convention that some day, which may appear to them most convenient, be set apart for imploring the blessing of Almighty God on such plans as human wisdom and integrity may think necessary to adopt for preserving America happy, virtuous, and free.”

• James Caldwell, the fighting parson who cried, “Give ‘em Watts, boys!” lost his wife to the British before being shot by an American sentry before the war ended.

• Jacob Green, the father of Ashbel Green, was known as “Parson Green.” He authored Observations, on the Reconciliation of Great-Britain, and the Colonies by a friend of American Liberty in early 1776, and did much to both preach the gospel and defend the cause of civil liberty in colonial America. He also declared in a 1778 sermon: “Can it be believed that a people contending for liberty should, at the same time, be promoting and supporting slavery?” He saw American slavery as completely incompatible with the principles of freedom for which the colonists were then fighting.

• Hezekiah James Balch, a leading architect of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, died just a year after its signing.

• Ephraim Brevard - The reputed author of the 1775 Mecklenburg Resolutions and the scribe who penned the 1775 Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence spent time in British custody as a prisoner of war at Charleston, South Carolina, where the unwholesome air and diet crushed his health. After his release, he reached the home of his friend John McKnitt Alexander, in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, only to breathe his last shortly thereafter in 1781.

• John Witherspoon preached a sermon based on Psalm 76:10 on May 17, 1776 titled “The Dominion of God Over the Passions of Men” which is credited with helping to prepare the colonies to embrace the Declaration of Independence which he signed (making himself a marked man) later that year: “If your cause is just — you may look with confidence to the Lord and intreat him to plead it as his own. You are all my witnesses, that this is the first time of my introducing any political subject into the pulpit. At this season however, it is not only lawful but necessary, and I willingly embrace the opportunity of declaring my opinion without any hesitation, that the cause in which America is now in arms, is the cause of justice, of liberty, and of human nature.

  So far as we have hitherto proceeded, I am satisfied that the confederacy of the colonies, has not been the effect of pride, resentment, or sedition, but of a deep and general conviction, that our civil and religious liberties, and consequently in a great measure the temporal and eternal happiness of us and our posterity, depended on the issue. The knowledge of God and his truths have from the beginning of the world been chiefly, if not entirely, confined to those parts of the earth, where some degree of liberty and political justice were to be seen, and great were the difficulties with which they had to struggle from the imperfection of human society, and the unjust decisions of usurped authority.

  There is not a single instance in history in which civil liberty was lost, and religious liberty preserved entire. If therefore we yield up our temporal property, we at the same time deliver the conscience into bondage.”

Many more names could be added to the ranks of those colonial American Presbyterians who proclaimed by word and deed their devotion to the cause of religious and civil liberty, and who were willing to sacrifice all for the sake of God and liberty. But one of the more poignant testimonies is found on the tombstone of the unknown Revolutionary War soldier at the Presbyterian church in Alexandria, Virginia. This epitaph speaks volumes about freedom’s cost.

Tomb of the Unknown Revolutionary War Soldier, Old Presbyterian Meeting House, Alexandria, Virginia

The Poetic Prayers of John Craig

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The 1769 autobiography of the Rev. John Craig (1709-1774), the Irish-American pioneer Presbyterian pastor who ministered in Augusta County, Virginia and elsewhere was originally titled “A Preacher Preaching to Himself From a Long Text of No Less Than 60 Years: On Review of Past Life.” The full text of this manuscript was included in Lillian Kennerly Craig’s Reverend John Craig, 1709-1774: His Descendants and Allied Families (1963), a valuable genealogical history, which was recently made available to the public domain via the Internet Archive, and recently added to Log College Press. It is a rich treasury of material, historical and devotional in nature, including Craig’s 1764 Farewell Sermon addressed to the congregation at Tinkling Spring of Fisherville, Virginia..

The editor has noted that Craig’s recorded prayers are poetic in nature.

Not intended by him to be blank verse, but that is what his beautiful prose really is. Reverend Craig was a gifted writer. I suggest that you rewrite aIl of his prayers in the form of blank verse.

Two particular prayers were rendered in blank verse by the editor.

O my God,
Perfect what Thou hast early begun in me.
Oh, let me lean upon Thee! Thou, Thou alone art the only
beloved of my Soul!
Keep my love stead to Thee,
and be Thou ever near me.
Drive away all my fears; give me true and saving faith in Thee,
and in Thy promises.
Strengthen, help and uphold me in life, and thro Death,
by the right hand of Thy Righteousness.
Forsake me not, or I am undone forever!
Save me or I perish! Oh grant these to me
for Christ’s sake.
Amen

And another:

Eternal and Almighty God, the Creator of the Universe,
who rules and over rules all the events therein,
Thou art my God by creation, and by dedication,
by preservation, and by personal covenant relation.
Make me Thine by renovation and sanctification.
And thro faith in Christ, make me one of Thy children,
precious in Thy sight.
Oh Heavenly Father in Christ,
I now praise Thee with all my heart!
Thou early won my love, and Thou hast been
the Guide of my youth. Thy love, care and bounty
never failed. And as a loving and tender parent,
Thou took notice of my pride, vice and folly,
chastised and corrected me, yet took not
Thy loving kindness from me. Ye delivered me
from the Gates of Death, from the grave’s cruel
and devouring mouth. Thou sanctify’d the corrections,
and brought me to a sense of sin. Thou humbled me
in mine own sight, brought me to repentance
and to a cheerful resignation to Thy will.

Thou brought me to serve Thee
how, when, and where Thou pleas’d to call me —
with a firm dependence on Thy promise of the Holy Spirit
to guide, support and comfort me.
Glory in the highest to my God!
who not withstanding all my shortcomings and backslidings
from Thee, hast not left me to myself,
but by various chastisements and kind restraints;
with many comfortable providence, and constant striving
of the Holy Spirit still calling after me,
”This day return, my backsliding child,
I will heal thy backslidings!”
O my God, for Christ’s sake, give, O give me a heart to say
”Behold I come unto Thee, for Thou art the Lord,
Thou art my God!”

Oh leave me not now when old age steals in upon me,
but hold me up with the right hand
of Thy Righteousness.
Wean my heart from the world and all its sensual pleasures!
Dearest Lord,
Arm me to meet the king of terrors with courage;
he is Thy captive, and Thy messenger.
Let his sting and terror be taken away;
let him be the welcome messenger at Thy command
to call me from a world of misery
to Thy kingdom of Glory, purchased by Thy Blood —
for all that believe in Thy Name!
There I shall be one monument of Thy richest mercy,
to the eternal Glory of Thy free Grace,
of Thy unmerited Grace to sinners of whom I, even I
am Chief. But yet I am Thine!
O, Save me for Thy Glory’s Sake
Amen.

The present writer has taken it upon himself to follow the editor’s precedent and to put another of Rev. Craig’s prayers into blank verse (without changing the spelling) as follows:

O Father of Mercy,
ye Foundain of all Good, make me truly thankful to thee
for that mercy, goodness, and care thou hast taken of me --
especially in my days of foolish childhood and youthful vanity.
O remember not the errors of my youth,
but forgive them all for Christ’s sake, and in Him now
accept me a poor, guilty sinner.
Oh give strength and courage now, when Nature fails,
to fight the good fight of faith and to finish my course with joy;
not fearing even the King of Terrors thro Christ his Conqueror,
the Captain of my Salvation, the foundation of all my hopes,
and the Purchaser of present comfort and future joy and Glory for me,
and for all that truly believe in his name!
Make me faithful unto death so that I may truly expect life from thee!
And to ye, Three-in-one, thro Christ,
be all Glory, now and thro Endless Eternity.
Amen.

Further editing of the poetic prayers of John Craig might result in a devotional work not unlike the Valley of Vision on a smaller scale. For now, this brief introduction to Craig’s personal writings — indeed, the soliloquy of a soul crying out to God — may serve to whet the appetite of those who share Craig’s spiritual hunger for his beloved Christ.