prev It Happened Today next

Cocran Heard a Voice Telling Him to TURN and Seek the Lord

Methodist evangelist Philip Bruce witnessed an ingathering of souls in 1802 Virginia. A native of North Carolina, he fought in the Revolutionary War. Afterward, in 1781, he entered the Methodist ministry as a traveling preacher, laboring until 1817 when age sidelined him. As a founder of the Virginia Conference, he was highly esteemed. He died in 1826. 

In a letter dated this day, 12 December 1802, he described the effect one revival had. 

The meeting we had the pleasure of opening at Rockingham, continued nine days, that is, until the Sunday week after it began. During that memorable week, business was wholly suspended, both merchants and mechanics shut up shop, and nothing was attended to but waiting on the Lord.

People streamed in from the surrounding region. At the close of the meetings, one hundred and seven locals joined the church and news of the movement inspired a similar wave of revival in New-Town where the church took in about fifty converts.

Bruce’s account mentioned one conversion that especially stood out to him.

But to return to Rock-Town [Rockingham]; there were some particular cases that deserve a place in my letter, especially the work among the professed deists, among whom was young Mr. Cocran, merchant, Major Harrison, and a companion of theirs.

A deist, in loose Methodist usage, was anyone who denied dogmatic Christianity. 

Cocran, on the Thursday, determined to satisfy himself as to the work; took his stand in the gallery, where he could have the whole scene under his eye. He felt unusual and, concluding it was from the heat of the crowded house, determined to walk out and take the air. As he slipped out of the house, he felt an impression like a voice speaking to him—“Turn and seek the Lord,” he turned, but concluded it was the force of imagination. He went to the door a second time and the impression came more powerfully than at first, “Turn and seek the Lord.”
He turned into the congregation, and soon fell helpless on the floor; he continued in that helpless state until next morning: while prayer was making for him, the Lord set his soul at liberty; his companions as mentioned above, were struck about the same time.

As we have mentioned in other stories, it was common for people to collapse helplessly under conviction during revival services. (See “‘Don’t Join Unless You REALLY Mean it,’ Warned Brodhead” and “McKendree Heard the Plea, ‘Lord SEND Some of These Preachers.’”) Although falls most frequently happened in revival assemblies, farmers might be struck while alone in their fields and shopkeepers might collapse in their shops.  

[N]ext morning, Cocran’s friend at his request supported him to meeting, that he might tell the people what God had done for his soul. He met the Major and their companions, witnesses of the same salvation, rushed to each others' arms, and such a shout of Glory! Glory! was seldom heard.

Similar reports from Methodist ministers of that period can be found in Lorenzo Dow’s Extracts from original letters to the Methodist bishops.

—Dan Graves

- - - - -

The Great Awakening: Spiritual Revival in Colonial America. Watch at RedeemTV

You can purchase The Great Awakening at Vision Video.


Christian History magazine has done several issues that mention eighteenth and nineteenth-century Methodist revivals. See for example CH45 Camp Meetings and Circuit Riders; CH114 Francis Asbury: Pioneer of Methodism; and CH151 Awakenings.

Other Events on this Day