Dow, Lorenzo; Dow, Peggy. History of Cosmopolite : or the Writings of Rev. Lorenzo Dow : containing His Experience and Travels, in Europe and America, up to near his fiftieth year. Also, his Polemic Writings. To which is added, the "Journey of Life, by Peggy Dow; Revised and Corrected with Notes. Cincinnati: George S. Blanchard, 1863. Revised Edition. [11495]
Black leather, elaborately blind stamped boards, spine in gilt, 8 3/4 x 5 3/4 inches, light edge-wear. 1865 gift inscription on the ffep, "From the Shop girls." Lithograph portraits of Peggy Dow and Lorenzo Dow. 720 pages, tight, light foxing. Separate half title page for "Vicissitudes or the Journey of Life" by Peggy Dow.
Very good. Hardcover.
"Stereotyped by John B. Wolff, Wheeling, Va." on the copyright page.
No. 1563 in Roberts, Revival Literature: An Annotated Bibliography. "Crazy Dow, as he was called by many, is said to have preached to more people than any other man in his time...A life-long Methodist in his own estimate, [he only had official standing for two years], Dow rejoiced in his own eccentricities and because of them was able to attract multitudes that would never have gathered to hear an ordinary preacher. His itinerations covered not only vast portions of America but Ireland and England as well. In fact, his visits to Britain played an important role in the formation of the Primitive Methodist Connexion. Dow was also credited with having preached the first Protestant sermon in Alabama [1803]. He hated both Romanists and Calvinists. His ditty on predestination still delights a portion of the church: 'You shall and you shan't; You will and you won't; You'll be damned if you do, And be damned if you don't'" - Note for no. 1557.
Lorenzo Dow (1777-1834), b. Coventry, Connecticut; d. Georgetown, District of Columbia. A Methodist itinerant, his eccentricities earned him the nickname "Crazy Dow," and the reluctancy of any Methodist Conference to accept him past the year 1801. He had sailed to Ireland for his health in 1799, returned in 1801, after which he went south to Georgia. As an independent evangelist he preached to vast crowds in America, Canada, and Great Britain. He was a great proponent of camp meetings, and it is said that in some places his were the first ever seen.
[Dow] "adhered strictly to Methodist doctrines. He made frequent applications for admission into the Conference, but because of his eccentricities he was refused. He often preached with great power, and many were awakened and converted under his ministry. He was especially skilled in controversy in refuting atheism, deism, universalism, and Calvinism. He spent many years in the South among the planters and slaves, preaching to vast multitudes as they gathered in the forest or elsewhere. He often rode forty or fifty miles a day, and preached four or five times. His manner and appearance excited great curiosity, and his startling and eccentric statements were widely circulated. He was a pronounced opponent of the Jesuits, and of every form of Romanism. He went to Washington to arouse the government against what he believed to be the plans of the Church of Rome, but died suddenly. His writings were numerous and peculiar." - Simpson, Cyclopaedia of Methodism (1879).
