"For Five Years I Even Buried the Dead": Meta Chestnutt's Ministry, 1889-94 (1)

In a brief retrospective piece she wrote near the end of her life, Meta Chestnutt Sager spoke about her thirty years of work as an educational missionary in Indian Territory and Oklahoma: "Christian work was always paralleled by the intellectual and social training, for five years I even buried the dead."[1] The "five years" ranged from 1889, when she first arrived at Silver City, Chickasaw Nation, until 1894. By then, several more preachers affiliated with the Stone-Campbell Movement had come to the area and sometimes visited the congregation at Minco, the town along the railroad that replaced Silver City in 1890. Around the same time she penned those words, she also wrote her own funeral service. The document details the order of her funeral, Scripture selections, prayer leaders, the songs to be sung and who should sing them. It also includes five pages of her life story, a eulogy of sorts. It even provides specific directions for the committal service: "The three ministers standing at the head of the open grave, Brother Smith give the words, The others join him in the 'Amen'."[2] (Even in death, the old school teacher and college president would direct everyone and everything). In the eulogy section of the service, she wrote, "In that early day, beginning September 8, 1889, I taught school, I taught the Bible, I buried the dead, I set the Lord's table. There was no man to do it then."[3] There is no record of her officiating at a wedding or baptizing a new believer.

Notes

[1] The two-page document written in her hand is titled "Meta Chestnutt Sager," box 3, folder 12, Meta Chestnutt Sager Collection.

[2] "Funeral Arrangements Written by Mrs. Meta Chestnutt Sager before Her Death," box 3, folder 13, Meta Chestnutt Sager Collection.

[3] Ibid.

Meta Chestnutt Sager Genealogy and Early Life

By her own account, Meta Chestnutt "was born on a plantation near Kinston" in "Lenoir County, North Carolina, September 8, 1863."[1] Her earliest experiences included being "taught the Bible around the fireside in a Christian home."[2] Wiley Nobles, her maternal grandfather, was a planter and physician who served as a preacher among the Disciples of Christ. He became acquainted with Alexander Campbell during his visit to North Carolina. Her mother, Almeda Nobles Chestnutt, was "a charter member" of the Bethel church, a Disciples congregation.[3] Eventually, every member of Meta's immediate family became a member of that church, her father "being the last of the family to come in."[4] Her father, Lemuel Allen Chestnutt, was a believer who had perhaps been immersed before he became a part of the Bethel church. Meta notes that he entered the church "having dropped his denominational name."[5] At the age of twelve, in August 1876, she was baptized by a "Dr. H. D. Harper" in Contentnea Creek, while those gathered on the shore sang "On Jordan's Stormy Banks I Stand."[6]

Notes

[1] Meta Chestnutt Sager, undated manuscript, Meta Chestnutt Sager Collection, box 3, folder 12.

[2] Meta Chestnutt Sager, "Funeral Arrangements written by Mrs. Meta Chestnutt Sager before Her Death," MCS Collection, box 3, folder 13.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

Spreading the Lord's Table: History of an Idiom (3)

Naturally, the language of well-known hymns made its way into the common speech of people who sang them. For example, in his series "On the Breaking of Bread," published in 1825, Alexander Campbell quoted an English translation of John Calvin's monumental Institutes of the Christian Religion to the effect that "Every week, at least, the table of the Lord should have been spread for Christian assemblies; and the promises declared, by which, in partaking of it, we might be spiritually fed."[1]  In 1861, Isaac Errett noted that Restoration Movement congregations in his time would typically "spread the table in the name of the Lord, for the Lord's people, and allow all to come who will, each on his own responsibility."[2] According to David Lipscomb, the Lord's Supper is "a board spread with the food our Father has prepared for sustaining and developing the spiritual life of his children." In response to the Lord's intention, it is the duty of the church, "our mother," to "spread the table with the life-invigorating viands provided by the Father, and invite the children to partake of them at the regular interval."[3]

Notes

[1] Alexander Campbell, "A Restoration of the Ancient Order of Things. No. IX. On the Breaking of Bread. No. IV," Christian Baptist 3, no. 4 (November 7, 1825), 85.

[2] "Letter from I. Errett," Millennial Harbinger, Fifth series, 4, no. 12 (December 1861), 711.

[3] David Lipscomb, "The Lord's Supper," Gospel Advocate 10, no. 9 (February 27, 1868), 200.

Spreading the Lord's Table: History of an Idiom (2)

Two more hymns indicate that the language of "spreading the Lord's Table" remained current among the Churches of Christ and Christian Churches in America up to the dawn of the twentieth century. "Shepherd of souls, refresh and bless," was composed by James Montgomery (1771-1854), a Scottish poet and hymn writer. It appears in The Christian Hymn-Book (1865), The Christian Hymnal (1871), and The Christian Hymnal, Revised (1882). Its lyrics include the two following stanzas:

Be known to us in breaking bread,

But do not then depart--

Savior, abide with us, and spread

Thy table in our heart.

Then sup with us in love divine;

Thy body and thy blood,

That living bread and heavenly wine,

Be our immortal food.

Edward Henry Bickersteth (1825-1906), an Anglican clergyman, composed "Till he come, O let the words," which was included in the New Christian Hymn and Tune Book (1882). In this song, worshippers are reminded of the eschatological feast as well as the present one:

See, the feast of love is spread:

Drink the wine, and break the bread-

Sweet memorials-till the Lord

Call us round his heavenly board-

Some from earth, from glory some,

Severed only - "Till he come."

Spreading the Lord's Table: History of an Idiom (1)

Whatever the source of the idiom, British hymn writers popularized the language of "spreading the Lord's table" as a reference to preparing and serving the Lord's Supper. A number of hymns contain this language, including two by Isaac Watts (1674-1748), a nonconformist minister and one of the greatest of all composers of English hymns. "Jesus is Gone Above the Skies" expresses the greatness of the exalted Christ and refers to the experiences and the hope of his followers. In the third of six stanzas, worshipers sing,

The Lord of life this table spread,

With his own flesh and dying blood;

We on the rich provision feed,

And drink the wine, and bless our God. 

The song appears in at least six Stone-Campbell hymnals of the nineteenth century.[1]

Watts also composed "How Sweet and Awful is the Place," clearly in an age when awful did not mean what it means now. The hymn highlights the experiences of the gathered church, including their observance of the Lord's Supper:

Here every bowel of our Lord,

With soft compassion rolls; 

Here the new cov'in his blood 

Is food for dying souls,

While all our hearts and all our songs

Join to admire the feast

Each of us cry, with thankful tongues,

"Lord, why was I a guest."

"Why was I made to hear thy voice,

"And enter while there's room;

"When thousands make a wretched choice,

"And rather starve than come?

'Twas the same love that spread the feast,

That sweetly drew us in.

Else we had still refus'd to taste,

And perished in our sin.

The song appears in the 1815 and 1829 editions of The Christian Hymn-Book. Above all, Philip Doddridge (1702-1751), an important Independent minister, writer, and educator, composed a hymn titled "The King of heaven His table spreads." The first stanza reads:

The king of heaven his table spreads, 

And dainties crown the board;

Nor paradise with all its joys,

Could such delight afford. 

The final stanza calls believers to participate:

All things are ready, come away,

Nor weak excuses frame;

Crowd to your places at the feast,

And bless the founder's name."[2]

In time, this song would appear in dozens of hymnals, including no fewer than eleven published by adherents of the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement during the nineteenth century.[3] Naturally, the language of hymns like this one made its way into the common speech of people who sang them.

Notes

[1] The Christian Hymn-Book (1815); A Selection of Christian Hymns (1818); The Christian Hymn-Book (1829); Psalms Hymns and Spiritual Songs (1843); Psalms Hymns and Spiritual Songs (1853); and Fillmore's Christian Psaltery (1867).

[2] This wording appears in The Christian Hymn-Book, 3rd ed. (Cincinnati: Looker and Wallace, 1815), 167-68, hymn number 187.

[3] The Christian Hymn-Book (1815), A Selection of Christian Hymns (1818), The Christian Hymn-Book (1829), Psalms Hymns and Spiritual Songs (1834), Christian Psalms and Hymns (1839), Psalms Hymns and Spiritual Songs (1843), The Sacred Melodeon (1848), The Christian Psalmist (1850), Psalms Hymns and Spiritual Songs (1853), The Christian Hymn Book (1865), The Christian Hymnal: Revised (1882).