News has just reached me of the death of the venerable
brother and minister, Isaac Ellege. If he had lived to the 16th of this month
(April, '97) he would have been 86 years old, having been born in Knox County,
Tenn., April 16, 1811.
Brother Elledge [sic] had been a minister of the
gospel sixty-four years, continuing to preach right on almost to the very time
of his death. He was licensed to preach by Pawpaw Hollow Church, Sevier County,
and was ordained in Alabama, at the age of 27. His ministry was in East and
Middle Tennessee, North Carolina, Alabama and Mississippi. He was the faithful
pastor of Nails Creek, Crooked Creek, Sulphur Springs and Laurel Bank churches.
He is a valuable witness to the stirring events of the
"antimission war" from its beginning, in his section of the country,
about the year 1834. He knew personally the leaders on either side of the
question. He knew Joshua Frost as a tower of strength to the cause of "the
missionaries," and Dr. Thomas Hill, with his "iron-jacket" views
of predestination, proclaiming the "decrees" and making war on
missions. He knew "Sam Love," and heard him preach with such unction
and melting tenderness and Holy Ghost power that a good deal of ice had melted
from about the hearts of Baptists and their "hard doctrine" had
largely disappeared.
April 20, 1897, I overtook Brother Ellege on the roadside
near his home, one mile from Ball Camp. I took him up in the buggy with me, told
him who I was and what I wanted, asked him some leading questions, and
"took notes." I knew his mind had failed some of late, but his
recollection was good. His view of the atonement was that Christ "died for
all alike," that the gospel was for "all the world," and that
"whosoever will" might come to 'the feast and, be filled." He
challenged "discussion" on those points. He told me he had just
preached the day before on his favorite theme - the doctrine of election; its
two sides - at New Salem Church, near Clinch River, in Anderson County, where,
more than sixty years before, the Tennessee Association had split on the rock of
missions. With remarkable memory' he recalled the controversies, divisions,
methods, misconceptions, and reconstructions of those early times, and of the
wonderful revivals that attended the labors of the missionaries everywhere.
Brother
Ellege realized he could not remain in the harness long, and was anxious to do
what he could. One part of his mission was, as he told me, to "get his anti-mission
brother back into the fold." He had just recently preached at Cave Creek,
and called on a hardshell brother, to pray, and he "prayed all right."
