This Week in Texas Methodist History September 8

Gipsy Smith Begins Aldersgate 200^th Commemoration Texas Tour at Wichita Falls, September 1937

As the 200^th anniversary of John Wesley’s heart-warming experience at Aldersgate neared, the Committee on the Future Work of Methodism in Texas planned a statewide evangelistic campaign.  The Committee for the Future Work of Methodism in Texas was an outgrowth of the 1934 Texas Methodist Centennial.  The conferences came together to celebrate the founding of McMahan’s Chapel, and decided to continue working together.  The members as of September 1937 included Walter Fondren, Bishops Boaz and Smith, A. J. Weeks, H. E. Jackson, Glenn Flinn, and H.I. Robinson---names well known to students of Texas Methodist history. 

The Committee decided to sponsor a statewide tour of the perhaps the most famous evangelist of the era, Rodney “Gipsy” Smith.  Smith had recently highlighted a statewide gathering at First Methodist Fort Worth.  Events from Amarillo to Harlingen were planned, and other denominations were invited to participate.

Gipsy Smith’s real name was Rodney but since he was Romani by ethnicity, adopted the nickname “Gipsy”.  Born in a tent in England in 1860, Rodney never had more than few weeks of school.   When he was 16 he heard Ira Sankey sing and visited the home of John Bunyan.  By age 17 he was preaching on the streets of England under the auspices of the Christian Mission of London.  The CML developed into the Salvation Army and Rodney caught the eye of its founder, General Booth, as a “comer.”  

He married one of his converts in 1879 and the couple took several Salvation Army assignments, and built large congregations wherever they served.  One of the congregations gave Smith a gold watch in appreciation of his ministries.  Receiving any such gift violated Salvation Army policy so he was expelled.

The expulsion sent him into a 70 year evangelistic career throughout the world.  He made headlines after his wife died in 1937 and he married the 27 year old Mary Alice Shaw.  He was 78 at the time.  

Most of the Texas tour was conducted between January and April, 1938. He spent two weeks in Waco, ending his revival on Palm Sunday.  He preached at First Fort Worth, Amarillo, and Harlingen where the revival was co-sponsored by the Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Episcopal, and Christian Churches and held in the Municipal Auditorium.  

Smith died in August 1948 of a heart attack on the Queen Mary on what was his 45^th Atlantic crossing. Walter Vernon wrote his obituary in the Southwestern Advocate.  Vernon summarized Smith’s message:

1.      impatience with sectarianism  (Smith considered him British Wesleyan)

2.      sincerity among church members

3.      condemnation of drinking, smoking, movies, bridge, jazz, and divorce.

4.      a demand for sincere discipleship

The same issue of the Advocate that carried Vernon’s obituary of Smith also carried the obituary of Bishop John M. Moore.  While Smith had less than a year of schooling, Moore was probably the best educated Methodist preacher of his era---having studied theology at the Universities of Leipzig and Heidelberg, and receiving a Ph.D. from Yale.  –Methodist preachers of the era embraced the full spectrum of educational experiences.