How Dr. Akers received spiritual power, he relates himself, “I, Peter Akers, was born Wednesday, Sept. 1, A.D. 1790, in Campbell co., VA; went through a collegiate course of education; then studied law, and practiced law four years. I then, under deep conviction, as a seeker of religion, joined the M.E. Church on the 29th. Of March, Sunday, 1821; got religion on Sunday the 24th. Of June the same year; began to preach Friday, July 20, the same year. Then on Sunday, the 4th. Of April 1824, I received the baptism of the Holy Spirit; was ‘filled with all the fullness of God.’…Immediately, as I believed for it, I was filled with such a sense of Christ’s fullness and grace as overpowered me, and unable to speak or stand, I sat down. I felt that the power working in me was able to raise all the dead from Adam to the last man that dies, and said to myself, ‘This is the power of Christ’s resurrection.’ The congregation was affected at the same time in a similar manner. Believers wept and shouted for joy, while the impenitent trembled and fell to the floor, crying for mercy.
“At last I got to my room and lay down, unable to sit up, overwhelmed with a sense of the infinite grace and glory of God. In some ineffable way there came to me a consciousness of the presence of the triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost—a view of the Holy Trinity as related to human redemption and my own need, which filled me with joy unspeakable and full of glory. But mortal man could not long endure such visitations of the living God, and at length I asked Him to stay His hand, and let me live to declare His glory.
“Under my first sermon after this, forty persons were awakened, and most of them were soon converted; and under almost every sermon I preached for years similar results appeared. Nearly half a century has passed since then, but the power is with me still, and I trust will abide with me for ever.”
Dr. Peter Akers’ father died when he was but 13. At 16 he began to teach school and continued to teach and attend schools in Va. and N. C. Soon after reaching his majority he “went west,” following the example of Daniel Boone and other Bryan connections. He taught at Mt. Sterling, Ky.; took “A. M.” at Transylvania Univ.; studied law at Flemingsburg, with Maj. W. P. Fleming, and practiced with him; edited a Whig paper “The Star,” as he was accustomed then to say “to make money as a lawyer and fame as an editor.”
After the death of his first child he refused to join the church at the request of his wife, but seeing that consumption had seized her after the birth of his second child, he was awakened, and at the close of a sermon by Rev. A. G. Houston, the physician in charge, they both joined the M. E. Church on March 25, 1821. He joined Conference in the fall and was sent to the Limestone Circuit; and to Little Kanawha circuit in 1822. Ordained August 14th.1823; to Fleming circuit; Lexington 1825, Russellville 1826; appointed agent for Augusta College 1827; to Danville and Harrodsburg 1829; to Louisville 1830, and agent for Conference in 1831.
In 1832 he sought and obtained a transfer to Illinois Conference to remove his family from the influence of slavery; President of Lebanon Seminary in 1833; served as President of McKendree College three times, 1834-36, 1845-46 and 1852-58. In 1835 he had charge also of “The Ebenezer Manual Labor School,” which he had established on his own farm 4 miles northwest of Jacksonville. It was also under his superintendence while at the Beardstown Mission in 1836, and while at Springfield in 1837. He was Presiding Elder of the Quincy District in 1838-40, of Springfield District 1841-44, and of Jacksonville in 1846-51.
McKendree College conferred the degree “D.D.” in 1884; while there he published his only book “Aker’s Chronology,” a “masterly work,” in which he claims a much longer time from Creation to Christ than the Chronology of Usher, based on the Hebrew Bible, allows. Adlai E. Stevenson, Vice President, attributes his success in life largely to his influence and teaching.
“His personality,” says Rev. Chauncey Hobart, a member of his Conference, “was such as to command attention at once. He was full six feet in height, well developed, shoulders broad, with head well poised, his attitude erect, limbs well proportioned, complexion light, eyes blue and clear, large head, high forehead, straight Saxon nose, chin indicating firmness minus stubbornness, lengthened upper lip, and a mouth rather large but remarkably expressive. The whole contour of his face was indicative of intelligence, kindness, benevolence and firmness, the whole constituting a presence that would at once attract attention and could not be easily forgotten.
“As a preacher he was ‘sui generis’ in several respects. It always seemed to me that he took a text merely as a starting point, and then he began to circle around it, and to sweep wider and wider, to rise higher and higher until the whole theological world seemed to stand out in full view glowing with love and burdened with salvation; and then with a heart all melted with tenderness and a face frequently bathed with tears he would seemingly lay his whole congregation at his Savior’s feet and plead with them by all that heaven had to give to be reconciled to God.”
The pre-eminence of Peter Akers and Peter Cartwright is unchallenged in Ills. Methodism. Both were born in Va. on the same day of the same month, the latter 5 years earlier. Both moved to Ky. and later to Ills. Cartwright was the greater organizer, Akers the greater preacher. Both were fit contemporaries of Webster, Lincoln and Sumner. Dr. Akers was indeed a mighty preacher. His sermons were marvelously grand in richness of thought, pathos and power. Abraham Lincoln said of them, “They are beyond my conception of preaching, it is a marvel that God has given such power to man.” He has sometimes been called a prophetic preacher, but he never posed as such and no man would be further from such a claim. After his conversion he was remarkably modest, fearless and retiring. He declined the editorship of “The Christian Advocate” when elected to it by the General Conference, to which he was elected a delegate eight times. In the slavery contest of 1844 he was one of the important Committee of Nine. At one time in that conference he lacked but one vote of being elected Bishop. He sought no honor from men. The offices he held in the church were not of his seeking, but were imposed on him by his brethren. He shrank from nothing he believed to be his duty, and dared to carry out his convictions of truth and right in the face of the strongest opposition. On most moral questions he was in advance of his age.
He was of a prophetic type, a strong vein of mysticism ran through his nature bordering on that of the old Hebrew prophets. He was a kind of seer, a psychologist, a man of second sight. On one occasion he believed that by some kind of telepathic act of his will he went to his old home in Va. and met an old colored servant of the family. The old colored woman declared to the family the next morning that she had seen Peter and talked with him the night before. In “The Guide to Holiness” of Jan., 1876, he records a Providential interference at Russelville, Ky., in 1826, which may be classed here: “A number of horses were tied to a fence running from opposite corners of the church in which the congregation were engaged in prayer. A noted Deist, the teacher of the High School, a man of learning and of much influence and an active opposer of Christianity, stood on the portico of his own house about midway the hill south of the church, watching the lightning play from a dark, angry cloud. He saw a tremendous lightning bolt go directly from the cloud towards the west end of the church and, within 2 yards of the building he saw it part into two prongs, one killing a horse at each side of the church. At night we had to enlarge the mourners’ bench, for he that had been an infidel was led to the altar, crying out mightily under pungent conviction, that nothing short of the power of God could divide the lightning that pointed directly at the church and make it kill two horses at equal distances north and south of the praying congregation. That night 27, including the Deist, were happily converted.”
In his discourses Dr. Akers gave himself up to what he believed to be influence of the Holy Spirit. This fact, perhaps, justifies the statement that he was a prophetic preacher. In a sermon of this description preached at a camp meeting on the old Salem camp ground, six miles west of Springfield, Ills., he predicted the civil war and the overthrow of slavery, and added, “The man is now living, and may be within the sound of my voice, who will be God’s instrument in the destruction of slavery.” Abraham Lincoln was in the audience. He had driven out from Springfield with a company of divines, lawyers and doctors to attend the meeting. On the return trip Lincoln was very quiet and some one twitted him with his silence as they discussed the sermon. He answered, “Gentlemen, while Mr. Akers was preaching about a war and the overthrow of slavery, I was deeply impressed, and could not rid myself of the feeling that in some way I should be mixed up with it all.” Often afterwards he repeated this conviction concerning the effects of this sermon on himself, and naturally, for Mr. Lincoln was a man of second sight and a mystic of the same prophetic type as Dr. Akers.