Connecticut western news., 1884-11-26
CONVERTING MANY SOULS.
CAREER OF ELDER SWAN, A GREAT
 EVANGELIST OF CONNECTICUT.
Riding 25O Miles on HorsebRckItO Enter Madison University-GreHt Power ms Preacher and Anti.SIRvery ARitRtor.

Riding 26O Miles on HorsebRckItO Enter
 Madison University-GreRt Power ms
 Preacher and Anti.SIRvery AEitator.
 The funeral of the Rev. Jabez Swan, the famous Baptist exhorter, took place at New London, Conn.,, Friday, and was largely attended. The ending of Lis notable life was peaceful and pain less. His age was eighty-fve. He was better known to the people of southern New England and New York State as Elder Swan, title the Baptists were wont to confer upon their preachers years ago. Elder Swan was native of Stonington. When the British fleet bombarded that place in 1914, he served as powder monkey to the oannoneers that defended the town. At twenty-two he was licensed preacher, but, think ing himself insufficiently educated for his work, he determined to take theo- logical course at Madison University, then in it's infancy. To reach the col lege he rode 25O miles on horseback. He had at that time S100 saved from hard work, and young wife, earnest and active as himself. They leased a cabin for So year and began housekeeping. Every Sunday, while at college, the young student rode twenty miles to preach before a congregation that paid him fifty cents a sermon. On other days he earned 37t cents a day by work at felling trees and cutting timber. In 1927 he was graduated.
 In such school of heroic self-denial he was fitted for the work to which dur ing the next fifty years he applied him. self with almost unexampled devotion. He was then settled over the Baptist church in Stonington, Conn.,, at a salary of $25O 8 year, and there began an evan- gelical career more remarkable and suc- cessful, counting its known results, than that of almost any other American preacher, except Lorenzo Dow, or the equally famous Elder Knapp, with whom he was contemporaneous. Fifteen thou sand persons have been converted under his preaching. In one of his earliest pastorates, covering a period of three years, he baptized ], 800 persons. This evangelical work covered field embrac- ing nearly all of southern New England and portion of the State of New York. The greater part of his life has been passed in New London, where he was pastor of the First Baptist church until few years ago when he retired from regular ministration. He has since fre- quently supplied churches in the neigh borhood and in remote quarters of the State. Three years ago he became insane through religious excitement and since then his mind has been under cloud.
 The now historic Elder was true Yankee in looks. He was more than six feet in,height, well proportioned, and even in later years his tall form was but little bent. His voice was resonant and ringing, and his face expressive. He belonged to a class of preachers that be- lieved in personal God, personal devil, and raging hell. His sermons were extemporaneous, and he always re. ferred to hell as a roaring furnace of fire and birthstone. He gave no thought as to what he should say. Once in a pulpit, with Bible before him, the thoughts and words came fast enough. Ii was as an exhorter, character almost unknown in the religious life of to-day, that Elder Swan was at his best. The scenes at revivals instituted by him are almost indescribsble. The great shout. ing, weeping throng, the rapt face oi the preacher, his resonant pleading with those "out of the kingdom" to come into the fold, the glad hosannas of those who felt they were saved, the walls of those who believed they were lost, left an abiding impression. Many and many 6 time at these revivals has the Elder prayed two hours without pause. He was ready to pray at all times-in the street, on the housetop, in the tempest and in the calm. Sometimes he preached in his shirt sleeves, and in other ways unheeded the conventional, isms of the pulpit. But it was more ir speech than in manner that his eooen. trlclues appeared.
 With him baptism at the font meant nothing, the baptismal rite was ineffec- tual, ill his belief, unless the one tc whom it was administered received il standing in the flowing waters, just as he believed the Lord and the disciplel did ages ago. It mattered little to tht elder what the season was, so he should lay baptismal hands upon any one who would unite himself to the Church Often in the dead of winter, when cakes of ice were floating in the Thames , River, and the country around was white with snow, has he walked waist deeI into the frigid stream, and, standing ! erect, severe and grand in the unfriend ] Iy waters, with impressive manner and a dignity fitting the sacred hour, con ferred upon the convert the right, by this symbol of the faith, to membership in what he believed was the one true church. Thousands used to gather a ) the water side on such occasions, anC r their silence and their tears bore witness } to the solemnity of the scene.
 The Elder was an original Abolitionist and all his life he fought against rum
 Hard Experiences of Whalers.
 The crew of the whaling bark ElizE