Rev Absolom Ogletree

Rev. Absolom Ogletree

We would like to present our readers with a picture of the great soul-winner - Rev. Absolom Ogletree. Bro. J. G. Phinazee described him as “a little stout, weighing about one hundred eighty pounds with hair and eyes black, nose prominent and a little aquiline, beard thin and a countenance on which Nature had unmistakably stamped the seal of honesty. It was just such a face as those in trouble and distress were glad to meet, so full of human sympathy. His voice was manly and his appearance distinguished and winsome.”

Absolom Ogletree was born in Wilkes County, Georgia in 1811. In the winter of 1814-15 his father moved to Monroe county. Rev. Ogletree continued his residence of that county till his death July 21, 1861. His widow, Mrs. Matilda Ogletree, and his daughter who is the wife of Brother C. G. Harper, continued to live at the old home from which he went so peacefully to Paradise that Sabbath morning when opposing armies were massing for battle on the field of Manassas.

Rev. Ogletree was a successful farmer, though he never craved or accumulated wealth. Most of his time and means were invested people. He realized that "the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof," and that we are not our own and are stewards of the manifold grace of God. He believed that the principal business of every saved person was to be a soul-winner.

In early manhood he began his ministerial career as a local preacher in the Methodist Episcopal (M.E.) Church until the the organization of The Congregational Methodist Church in 1852. While a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, he served faithfully and uncomplainingly. Through his experience as a minister, he began to sense the disadvantages under which a local preacher labored under the Episcopal system. This led him to study church government carefully and to consider apostolic principles and practices. The conviction grew that the Episcopacy was not thoroughly in accord with the New Testament principles and practices and that it interfered with the free moral agency both of preachers and laymen and concluded that this system of church government often “hindered and grieved the Holy Spirit”. Becoming thoroughly convinced that another organization was needed, he had the courage of his convictions and the determination to take some practical and immediate action. Bro. J. G. Phinazee declared that it is altogether probable that the Congregational Methodist (C.M.) Church would never have existed but for Rev. Ogletree. He also observed that his strength, patience, kindness, tact, great prudence, determination, experience and knowledge of church government gave him great weight in the separation from the Methodist Episcopal Church and the and formation of the new denomination. "He was so careful that he made but few mistakes. He served the church with a zeal and courage that never faltered and lived to see it spread to other states and died no doubt assured of its ultimate triumph."

Though a social and genial man endowed with wit, he never jested or told anecdotes in the pulpit. So impressed was he with the solemnity and sacredness and responsibility of the preacher's mission that when he arose to preach his first sermon, “he trembled from head to foot and in a few moments fell as if dead in the pulpit”. The congregation was greatly alarmed. After he was resuscitated, solicitous friends insisted upon taking him quietly home, but no, he insisted on being about his Father's business. Pale as a corpse, he reentered the pulpit and with the intense earnestness of a messenger from the grave, he thundered the truths of the Gospel till God honored his labor. Men, women and children wept, trembled, repented and shouted.

Bro. Phinazee said: "The essential characteristics of his sermons were characterized by strong common sense, earnestness, sincerely, faith, and the were always well prepared and presented.

He indicated that “...the first time I heard him preach, when I was quite a youth, was from Matthew 3:12: Whose fan is in my hand, etc. Looking at him and hearing him, my youthful mind was impressed with the realities of his theme..... With but little knowledge of the rules of rhetoric or the laws of logic, this unpretending man when thoroughly aroused could lash the very deep to a storm. I have had the pleasure of hearing some trained orators, both pulpit and forensic, and my opinion is that when all his latent energies and powers were called into active exercise he had but few superiors. He recollected that on one occasion at camp meeting at Rehoboth in l847 in an exhortation he became enthused and inspired, with powerful appeal after appeal. As he reached his conclusion, he quoted Rev. 19:6 with such tremendous emphasis that the whole arbor seemed full of the sound of his voice. It was perhaps the greatest display of pulpit oratory ever witnessed at that consecrated plat of ground."

“....Yet he never attempted display or thought of being eloquent. He had the power which the mere orator or eloquent speaker fearfully lacks. He was full of faith and the Holy Ghost. No wonder that years after this godly man's peaceful and triumphant death, some holy women, being reminded of his sacred triumphs and the glorious revivals he had conducted - by seeing one of his old coats they were inspired and filled afresh with the Spirit and began to shout. It reminds on of the biblical reference that ‘...even dead men arose from the grave at the touch of Elijah's bones’
May God give us a host of preachers in the Congregational Methodist Church whose very garments will preach when death has stilled their tongue.”

from "The Founders of the Congregational Methodist Church" by Rolfe Hunt , published in 1902. Edited by James T. Pennell - June, 2003