Vol. 39, No. 10    

Lorenzo Dow (1777-1834) referred to himself as "cosmopolite" because he traveled across much of America, as well as Europe. He played a role in this country's Second Great Awakening and in the creation of the Primitive Methodist Church in England. An eccentric revivalist, Lorenzo was also known as "Crazy Dow," but his preferred nickname was "Son of Thunder," and, "Cosmopolite."
 
In the preface to The Life, Travels, Labors and Writings of Lorenzo Dow: Including His Singular and Erratic Wanderings in Europe and America (Saxton, 1859), written by Lorenzo and his wife, Peggy (1780-1820), who often traveled with her husband, we read:

Since the days of George Whitefield, it has not fallen to the lot of another minister of the gospel to enjoy as great and widespread a celebrity as that of the late Lorenzo Dow. In England and Ireland, in the United States and the Canadas, there are probably few persons now living who have reached adult age to whom his name is not familiar. There is not a State in our Union that he has not visited, and there is scarcely a town in the older States in which he has not been listened to by hundreds, if not thousands, of the present generation (The Life, Travels, Labors, and Writings of Lorenzo Dow, preface).

Was this opinion of Dow grandiose? Perhaps, but in his time what Dow accomplished was impressive, even though it was not always appreciated.
 
Dow had a flair for the dramatic. It is true, not unlike Whitefield, he sometimes spoke to open air audiences of 10,000 people or more, holding them spellbound. However, his unkept appearance and lack of personal cleanliness often worked against his eloquence. The only clothes he owned were those he wore on his back. When they became worn beyond repair, someone would take notice and donate a replacement, though seldom the right size for Dow's scraggly body. But such a life suited he and Peggy, for they cared nothing for material possessions. Their only luggage, when they had luggage, was a box of Bibles to be given away. Most of the money the couple ever collected was used for their daily sustenance, but chiefly to give away to the poor, or to purchase Bibles.

Though his lifestyle was something of a handicap, Dow was greatly admired by most people wherever he traveled, to the extent that many thousands of baby boys in the 19th century were named after him, including the Mormon leader Brigham Young's brother, Lorenzo Dow Young. Dow's autobiography was, at one point, the best-selling book in America, exceeded only by the Bible. Further, despite being barred from most churches, it is said he spoke to more people than any other man of his day.

Lorenzo Dow's links with the early Mormons is the subject of academic research, but unlike the contemporary Stone-Campbell movement of the time, and most of the established churches, although Dow was open to receiving further divine revelation through such things as visions and dreams, there is little evidence he shared any of Mormonism's heretical beliefs, such as Joseph Smith's polytheism. Those who may doubt Smith's polytheism should know that in one famous sermon in 1844 he announced:

I will preach on the plurality of Gods [three distinct Gods]...I have always declared God to be a distinct personage, Jesus Christ a separate and distinct personage from God the Father, and that the Holy Ghost was a distinct personage and a Spirit: and these three constitute three distinct personages and three Gods" (quoted by James Herrick, Scientific Mythologies, IVP Academic, 2008, 219, from on Joseph Smith, "Sermon on the Plurality of the Gods," in History of the Church, 7 vols., Deseret Book Co., 1991; 6:473-479).

One of the many exceptions to the widespread admiration in which Dow was held was when he came to Jacksonboro in Screven County, Georgia, in 1821. As two of the county's historical markers phrase it, when he attacked "the wicked element" of the community in his religious zeal, he himself was physically attacked by "the rowdies of the town, whom he denounced for immorality." Dow found temporary refuge in the home of Seaborn Goodall, "a godly man" (Goodall House marker and Dow's Bridge marker). However, before shaking the dust from his feet, he placed a curse on all of Jacksonboro, with the exception of the Goodall family.

This kind of activity (pronouncing a curse on a community) was in keeping with Dow's eccentricity, which included exiting (jumping) through windows in town halls or other buildings when he was finished speaking, but, in his defense, this was only if he happened to be preaching indoors and in a one-story building. Or, equally as exciting, Dow would often appear unannounced and unexpectedly at public events and announce he would speak on the exact spot exactly one-year later, which he often did, to crowds who remembered the prediction and came and waited to see if Dow would return.
 
In the early 1800s, especially in the southern States, Dow's sermons were often unpopular because he was a fierce abolitionist. Although his hearers may have agreed with much of this theology, they did not share his ideas on slavery. But whatever the reason for people's dislike of him, Dow shrugged off physical violence, being pelted with rocks, eggs, and rotten vegetables, as well as being jailed, by simply moving on to the next town to preach again.

Dow sensed his conversion and call to preach in 1791, about the time John Wesley died (March 2, 1791). He was thirteen years old. According to his The Dealings of God, Man, and the Devil, 1850, as well as the 1859 The Life, Travels, Labors, and Writings of Lorenzo Dow, supplemented by his wife Peggy, Lorenzo was born in Connecticut and grew up without any formal education. He began preaching at the age of eighteen.
 
Dow recounted his dramatic conversion as taking place because of a dream or vision. In the dream an old man came to him one mid-day, carrying a staff in his hand, and asked, "Do you ever pray?" Dow answered, "No," and the man re-sponded, "You must," and then went away, but soon returned and asked him again, "Do you pray?" Once again, Dow answered, "No," and the man left again. After he left, Dow said he went outside and was taken up by a whirlwind and carried above the skies, reminiscent of the way Elijah was taken to heaven in 2 Kings 2. After moving through a gulf of darkness, he came into "a glorious place" in which there was a throne of ivory overlaid with gold (cf. 1 Kgs. 10:18; 2 Chron. 9:17), with God sitting upon it and Jesus at His right hand (cf. Luke 22:69; Acts 2:33; 5:31; 7:55; Rom. 8:34; Eph. 1:20; Col. 3:1; Heb. 1:3; etc.), and angels and "glori-fied spirits," accompanied by joyful music (Dow, Dealings of God, Man, and the Devil, 10).

In the same vision or dream Gabriel came to the edge of heaven where he was standing and holding a golden trumpet, and asked if he desired to join their number. Dow said he did, but Gabriel told him he must go back to his world and, if he was faithful to God, he would return in the end. With reluctance, Dow returned. Soon the old man returned to him and asked him again, "Have you prayed?" Dow said he had, to which the old man responded, "Be faithful, and I will come and let you know again." Dow was surprised to awaken and discover it was all a dream, but he was impressed that this particular dream must be from God.
The way he discerned the dream must be from God was to tell his father what he had seen when they were together feeding the cattle in the morning. When he did this, his heart was suddenly seized with conviction, and he knew he was unprepared to die. He wept, and resolved to seek God's salvation, praying in secret, but hardly knowing how to pray or what to pray for. Dow was hampered in his seeking of salvation by Calvinist theology. He wrote in his journal:
 

I at once broke off from my old companions and evil practices, which some call innocent mirth, which I had never been told was wrong; and betook to the Bible, kneeling in private, which example I had never seen. Soon I became like a speckled bird among the birds of the forest, in the eyes of my friends. I frequently felt, for a few seconds, cords of sweet love to draw me on; but from whence it flowed, I could not tell. I since believe this was for an encouragement to hope in the mercy of God....at length, not finding what my soul desired, I began to examine the cause more closely, if possible to find it out; and immediately the doctrine of unconditional reprobation and particular election was exhibited to my view - that the state of all was unalterably fixed by God's "eternal decrees." Here discouragement arose, and I began to slacken my hand by degrees, until I entirely left off secret prayer, and could not bear to read or hear the Scriptures, saying, "If God has foreordained whatever comes to pass, then all our labors are vain."

Feeling still condemnation in my breast, I concluded myself reprobated. Despair of mercy arose, hope was fled, and I was resolved to end my wretched life; concluding the longer I live, the more sin I shall commit, and the greater my punishment will be; but the shorter my life, the less sin, and of course the less punishment, and the sooner I shall know the worst of my case. Accordingly I loaded a gun, and withdrew to a wilderness (Lorenzo Dow, The Life, Travels, Labors, and Writings of Lorenzo Dow, 15).

As he was about to follow through with his plan, a sudden thought came to him: "Stop and consider what you are about to do. If you end your life, you are undone forever, but if you put this off a few days longer, it may be that something will turn up in your favor (Ibid., 15). This idea gave him some hope.
 
It was soon after this that Dow encountered the believers called Methodists, who had recently come to the western part of New England. Despite the fact that some Christians viewed the Methodists as the "deceivers" who would come in the end times (cf. Matt. 24:24; 1 Tim. 4:1), a circuit rider named Hope Hull was invited to come to a nearby town, and Dow went to hear him. Hull is familiar name to Georgia Methodists who know their history.

In 1771 John Wesley appointed a young assistant, Francis Asbury, to be his lead minister in America. At the Annual Methodist Conference in 1785 Asbury met Hull, who, it is said, "if he cannot be viewed as the father of Georgia Methodism, was the man who was second to none in fostering it" (Robert C. Wilson, Methodism in Athens - An Historical Sketch, University of Georgia Press, 1953, 1). In 1785, Hull, a Revolutionary War veteran, was ordained and accepted into membership in the Baltimore Conference of the Methodist Church. Hull worked and traveled with Asbury, serving in Georgia as his personal representative. Before Hull moved permanently to the Athens (Georgia) area about 1802, he had initially come to Wilkes County. Hull had a major impact on Lorenzo Dow. What Dow heard from Hope Hull made sense of the Bible's teaching and his own experience.  

In 1796, at he age of nineteen, Dow petitioned the Connecticut Conference of the newly formed Methodist Episcopal Church to accept (admit) him, but the Methodists refused. It is said the Methodists never "officially" acknowledged him as a minister, although Dow considered himself a Methodist. However, two years later, in 1798, he was finally admitted on trial, and in 1799 briefly licensed to preach as a circuit preacher under appointment to the Cambridge circuit in New York. During that year he was transferred to Pittsfield, Massachusetts, then to Essex, Vermont, but remained at each for only a very brief time. In late 1799 he felt called to preach to the Irish Catholics and sailed for Ireland.

The Methodist officials, in light of Dow's erratic behavior and perhaps a few complaints, dropped his membership. Although he was not officially connected with the ministry of the Methodists again, Dow remained essentially Methodist or Wesleyan in his doctrinal emphases and teaching.
 
The times in which Lorenzo Dow lived were the years in which America was developing as a nation. Dow was born just after the beginning of the American Revolution. The ratification of the United States Constitution took effect in 1789. In 1795, while Dow was in his early years of preaching, Daniel Boone, with his wife Rebecca, were moving back to Kentucky from Virginia. Our first president, George Washington, entered office on April 30, 1789, and left office March 4, 1797. The French Revolution began in the summer of 1789. In 1799 Napoleon staged a coup and crowned himself as the First Consul (his Waterloo was in June 1815). President Washington was followed by John Adams in March 1797, Thomas Jefferson in March 1801, and James Madison in March 1809. Dow witnessed the early westward expansion of the United States with the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, giving Western settlers the use of the Mississippi River. He also lived through the War of 1812, which firmly established the United States as a sovereign nation.

In his autobiography (The Dealings of God, Man, and the Devil), written together with his wife - who was as colorful as Lorenzo himself - Dow provides the reader with his take on these and many other historical events. Often he recounts dreams that impacted his life. In the dream that led to his conversion, as noted above, he saw the angel Gabriel with a golden trumpet in his hand. In another dream two devils with chains sought to consign him to hell.
Dow was very unpredictable in his preaching and appearances. He might simply preach a straightforward sermon, question a member of the audience, dialogue with hecklers, or - according to one report - smash a chair to pieces as an object lesson. At the time, his oratorical man-nerisms of shouting, crying, begging, flattering, insulting and challenging people's beliefs were relatively unknown.
 
Together with his wife and ministry partner, Peggy, who also recorded her experiences and travels in her own journal, together and apart the Dows traveled continually, perhaps hundreds of thousands of miles, Lorenzo preaching thousands of open-air sermons, and traveling to Ireland and England in 1799, and several more times to England between 1804 to 1807, throughout Canada, once to the West Indies, and through the countryside of early America.

Dow was one of the persons credited with introducing camp meetings to England and he helped to lay the foundation for the Primitive Methodist Church there. When he returned from England, he headed south for his health, and was among the first to preach in the territory of Alabama.
Unlike his contemporary Methodist circuit riders, Dow's usual mode of travel was on foot, perhaps because of his finances. However, quite often, when a benefactor would provide one, he rode horseback, and he and Peggy regularly made use of carriages, etc. Like many modern preachers and evangelists, Dow told stories and jokes. He clearly knew how to keep an audience's interest, but he never preached for their approval.
 
His travels abroad and at home, together with his skill to "read" people, often caused Dow to reflect on the strong possibility of a civil war taking place in the United States (see particularly Lorenzo Dow, Biography and Miscellany, 1834). For a person who described himself as "uneducated," Dow's ability to quote men like George Washington and Daniel Webster, make accurate reference to Cleopatra and Julius Caesar, Mark Anthony and Augustus, write "analects" on natural, social, and moral philosophy, is indicative he made up to some degree in self-education what he lacked in formal "schooling."

Perhaps one of the most well-known episodes in his life, from Dow's own perspective, was being brought up on criminal charges in the state of South Carolina for libelous comments he made about a deceased person in Charleston in his History of Cosmopolite, also known as Lorenzo Dow's Journal, Concentrated in One. On May 24, 1821 he was found guilty and sentenced to twenty-four hours in jail and a fine of one dollar. This was the same year he cursed the community of Jacksonboro in Screven County.

The previous year (January 6, 1820), his wife, Peggy, who often "took sick" during their travels, had died at the Dow home in Hebron, Connecticut, at the age of thirty-nine, which for that period was not uncommon. Lorenzo and Peggy were only partners for fifteen years, but fifteen "glorious" years.
 
Thankfully, considering all she went through and endured in their travels (including an infant child dying), and in light of her strong love for Lorenzo, who she often referred to in her writings simply as "L.D.," she was spared the duress of her husband being brought up on criminal charges in Charleston. During her long sickness before her death, at 2:00 a.m. one night she awoke and asked Lorenzo to gather their family. He asked her if she was in pain, to which she replied, "No." As Lorenzo held her in his arms, she then added that only one thing on earth attracted her attention, and she pointed toward her husband. He prayed, "Lord, thou gavest her to me! I have held her only as a lent favor for fifteen years, and now I resign her back to thee, until we meet again beyond the swelling flood!" Peggy replied, "Amen," and soon breathed her last, without any struggle, "contraction," or even a groan. She was buried in the Methodist cemetery in Hebron, the location of Lorenzo's family home.

Although it is clear from the couple's writings that they deeply loved each other, the same year Peggy died, Lorenzo married Lucy Dolbeare.
 
Lorenzo himself died at the age of fifty-six, in Georgetown, District of Columbia, on February 2, 1834. His remains lie today in Oak Hill Cemetery, near Georgetown, in Washington, D.C., having been later moved there. He traveled and preached for some thirty-eight years. His obituary appeared a few days later in the Washington D.C. National Intelligencier. It said that Dow was one of the most remarkable men of the ages for his zeal and labors in "the course of religion...his eccentric dress and style of preaching attracted great attention, while his shrewdness and quick discernment of character gave him no considerable influence on the multitudes that attended his ministry." The notice added that Dow had been a "public" preacher for more than thirty years, a Methodist in principle, although not connected with the society.

At this point, perhaps a quotation from Dow's many writings is in order, one which will at least partially provide the reader with a sense of Cosmopolite's theological per-spective. For this we go to the early pages of one of his polemic writings, A Chain of Reason and Reflections, contained in The Dealings of God, Man, and the Devil; As Exemplified in the Life, Experience, and Travels of Lorenzo Dow, In a Period of Over Half a Century: Together with His Polemic and Miscellaneous Writings Complete. To Which is Added The Vicissitudes of Life by Peggy Dow (Sheldon, Lamport and Blakeman, 1854):
 

Neither can I believe all will be saved; for in Mark 3:29, we are informed of a certain character, which hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation, which they could not be in danger of, if there be no such thing; and in Luke 16 we read (not in parable, but a positive matter of fact related by Christ himself, who knew what was transacted in eternity, as well as in time) concerning a rich man, who died and went to hell; and there was a separation between him and the good place; and if one be lost, universalism is not true. We feel in our breast that we are accountable to God, and if so, then rewardable or punishable, according to our behavior and capacity; and of course a day of accounts must take place, when the rewards, or punishments, are given. Some say we have all our punishment here. In reason I deny it; for the benefit of religion is to escape punishment, and if so, none have punishment but the vicious; but as many of the virtuous have suffered the most cruel, tormenting, lingering deaths, as may be said, for years, in matters of tender conscience; while others have lived in flowery beds of ease, and thus die; from this I argue that the punishment is to come hereafter (Dow, A Chain of Reason and Reflection, 10-11).

The fact that Lorenzo Dow traveled as much as he did, during his later years, in poor health, much of it on the frontier of civilization, often encountering Indians, both peaceable and violent, not to mention the worst dregs of society, who themselves had sought isolation away from sociable people to practice their vices; the fact that early in his ministry he was little encouraged, either by his father or by the Methodists, who never ordained him, serving for over three decades without any official affiliation with any church body or organization; together with the times in which he lived; perhaps contributed to his eccentricity. There can be little doubt that Lorenzo was a bit odd, parting his hair in the middle of his head and wearing it hanging down his neck and shoulders.  It is true, he had little formal education, but he was able to read, and he was a keen observer of men. When he first met Peggy, he told her honestly that people called him "Crazy Dow," while he called himself "Son of Thunder."
 
While Dow started no churches, and preached in relatively few church buildings, those who heard him met the Lord and went on to establish churches. There is no question Lorenzo Dow did much good in his ministry.