Hugh McAden's Missionary Journeys
The Southern Presbyterians Part 4
Like an Old Testament prophet, the young minister appeared of out the whirlwind, and rode across the Potomac river into Virginia.
It was the summer of 1755, and Hugh McAden had been licensed to preach the Gospel by the same presbytery that Samuel Davies was licensed in. The diligent evangelist kept his journal full of dates and details from his missionary journeys across the South.
It was the middle of June when he rode up the Valley of Virginia forty miles in a single day. He continued to ride until he arrived at North Mountain where he preached the following Sunday.
His horse became impaired and he stayed to preach the next Sunday. When met with another setback, having to stay into July, his fervor for the Gospel did not diminish. He preached again.
These were the times of the French and Indian War. On the next Friday, McAden preached at Timber Ridge. In the journal he recounts that he “felt some life and earnestness in alarming the people of their dangers on account of sin, the procuring cause of all evils that befell us in this life or that which is to come; encouraging them to turn to the Lord with all their hearts, to wait upon him for deliverance from all their enemies, the only sure refuge in every time of difficulty; and exciting them to put themselves in the best posture of defence they could, and endeavor, by all possible means in their power, to defend themselves from such barbarous and inhuman enemies.”1
At the end of July he crossed over into North Carolina. Wherever McAden went and found people gathered, he preached. It was at Fishing Creek, near Tar River, that “the power of God appeared something conspicuous and the word seemed to fall with power.”2 When the Word is preached, the Holy Spirit attends to it and blesses it.
McAden traveled from town to town preaching and meeting with the local Presbyterians. This imitator of the Apostle Paul went into South Carolina for a time becoming the first ever Presbyterian minister to preach in Greenville. But not long after he returned to North Carolina, preaching and visiting every home in the towns in which he stayed.
Hugh McAden would continue his journeys in North Carolina until 1759, when he became the pastor of the Presbyterians in the counties of Duplin and New Hanover, of which he would be for ten years.
Following the ten years he became the pastor to the people of Hico River, who he first met when he crossed into North Carolina. At the Red House Church, Hugh McAden labored for the Gospel another 12 years until his death in 1781.
It was said that he “always spent one or two dats every week in private study, and if he walked into the fields he always carried his Bible with him. He visited with his elders, once a year, all the families within the bounds of his congregations and he would exhort and pray with them during his stay. He would collect all of his congregations once a year at his churches, and hold an examination of those present. He administered the sacrament at each of his churches twice every year. He spent his life in attempting to convince all of their sins, and in rendering happy those who were members of his congregations.” 3
Here is Part 3 of the Southern Presbyterians Series, if you missed it:
Southern Presbyterian Leaders: 1683 - 1911 by Henry Alexander White. Banner of Truth. Page 69
Ibid. Page 72