Saints, I wanted to give the accounts of some of the early Methodist circuit riders. I plan on going through about a dozen or so of them on this thread. Many of these boys died in their mid-thirties, burnt out for God. Their names may be forgotten on earth, but in heaven they have crowns of glory incomprehensible.
JOHN TUNNELL
John Tunnell was received on probation at the Conference of 1777; a name fragrant to the Methodists of that early day, though familiar to few of our times. "He was truly an apostolic man; his heavenly-mindedness seemed to shine on his face, and made him appear more like an inhabitant of heaven than of earth."
He was appointed one of the original Elders at the Christmas Conference organization of the Church in 1784, though he was not at the memorable Christmas Conference. He had gone in quest of health to the West India Island of St. Christopher's, where he was offered a good salary, a house, and a slave to wait upon him, if he would remain as a pastor; but he declined the offer, and returning, was ordained, and resumed his travels in the states with great success.
"His gifts as a preacher," says Lee, "were great." He was sent in 1777 to the famous Brunswick circuit, Va., where he labored with much usefulness; the next year he traveled Baltimore circuit. After several years of indefatigable labors in the middle states, he was sent, by the Conference in 1787, with four itinerants, among whom was young Thomas Ware, beyond the mountains, to the "Holston country, now called East Tennessee." He thus scaled the Alleghenies, and, though comparatively forgotten by us, takes historical rank among the founders of Methodism in the great valley of the West, its most important arena.
A sailor was one day passing where Tunnell was preaching. He stopped to listen, and was observed to be much affected; and on meeting with his companions after he left, he said, 'I have been listening to a man who has been dead, and in heaven; but he has returned, and is telling the people all about that world.' And he declared to them he had never been so much affected by anything he had ever seen or heard before. True it was, that Tunnell's appearance very much resembled that of a dead man; and when, with his strong musical voice, he poured forth a flood of heavenly eloquence, as he frequently did, he appeared indeed as a messenger from the invisible world.
His last appointment was in this frontier, (1789,) where he fell at the head of a little corps of seven itinerants, who were on four circuits, after thirteen years of faithful services, a victim of consumption -- a constitutional tendency developed by his exposures and fatigues.
Of Tunnell one said, that "he was a man of slender habit, who, early in life, wore himself out in the work of God, and went home to glory. He was a preacher much beloved and greatly blessed. A sweet singer in Israel, he had a soft, clear voice; and his demeanor was humble, meek, and gentle. He was a son of consolation and of affliction."
The sister of Patrick Henry, wife of General Russell, was saved after hearing a message by John Tunnell. On the occasion he preached an excellent sermon, which produced great effect. His discourse was followed by a number of powerful exhortations. When the meeting closed, Mrs. Russell [Patrick Henry's sister] said to one who was there: 'I thought I was a Christian; but, sir, I am not a Christian --I am the veriest sinner upon earth. I want you and Mr. Mastin to come with Mr. Tunnell to our house and pray for us, and tell us what we must do to be saved.'
After spending the afternoon in prayer, still neither of the Russells had gotten through. One of the company wrote:
"Being much exhausted, the preachers retired to a pleasant grove, near at hand, to spend a short time. On returning to the house we found Mrs. Russell praising the Lord, and the general walking the floor and weeping bitterly. At length she sat down, quite exhausted. This scene was in a high degree interesting to us. To see the old soldier and statesman, the proud opposer of godliness, trembling, and earnestly inquiring what he must do to be saved, was an affecting sight. But the work ended not here. The conversion of Mrs. Russell, whose zeal, good sense, and amiableness of character were proverbial, together with the penitential grief so conspicuous in the general, made a deep impression on the minds of many, and numbers were brought in before the Conference closed. The general rested not until he knew his adoption; and he continued a faithful and an official member of the Church, constantly adorning the doctrine of God our Saviour unto the end of his life." No name is recorded, in the biographies of the pioneer itinerants among these mountains, with more grateful affection than that of General Russell. His house was long their asylum, and Asbury always entered it with delight."
John Tunnell died near "Sweet Springs," in July, 1790. His brethren bore his remains over the mountains, about five miles east of the Sweet Springs. Asbury preached his funeral sermon at Dew's Chapel, and interred him there, among the hills of Western Virginia, where he sleeps without a memorial; but his name will live forever in ''the record on high," if not on earth. The Minutes of 1790 record in three sentences his obituary, and testify that he was "a man of solid piety, great simplicity, and godly sincerity; well known and much esteemed by ministers and people."
He had traveled extensively through the states, and "declined in much peace." Lee say, "he was greatly lamented." "In the Conference of 1787," says Thomas Ware, "I volunteered, with two other young men, who esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than earthly treasures, to accompany Tunnell to the Holston country"-- words, though brief, yet pregnant with volumes of history. Tunnell was one of the most eloquent preachers of that age; and, though bearing about with him the infirmities of incurable pulmonary disease, he traveled and labored without faltering till smitten down by death, and the hardships of the frontier fields.
Alas! that our imperfect records admit of so slight a commemoration of such saintly heroism. Asbury, in laying him in the grave, wrote: "I preached is funeral sermon; my text, 'For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.' We were much blessed, and the power of God was eminently present. It is fourteen years since Brother Tunnell first knew the Lord; and he has spoken about thirteen years, and traveled through eight of the thirteen states; few men, as public ministers, were better known or more beloved. He was a simple-hearted, childlike man; of good learning for his opportunities; he had a large fund of Scripture knowledge, was a good historian, a sensible preacher, a most affectionate friend, and a great saint. He had been declining, in strength and health, for eight years, and, for the last twelve months, sinking into a consumption. I am humbled. O let my soul be admonished to be more devoted to God!"