Encouragement

Encouragement

He traveled to every hamlet in Essex County. His passion was to start churches, encourage the saints and teach people the word of God. Cyrus Comstock was born in December 1765 and lived his life in the Champlain valley.

Cyrus was also an inventor. Are you familiar with the "buckboard wagon?" It was originally designed as sold as the "Comstock Wagon" and was the most comfortable method of transportation across the rocky terrain of the North Country.

The tall, somber man was a school teacher by trade and his passion to see people learn made him a natural for ministry. He bought a farm in Lewis Center and used it as his home post as he preached in the school houses and remote settlements of the county. He eventually planted and pastored a church in Elizabethtown.

Father Comstock preached and pastored long before Sunday School was invented but, being a teacher in his early years, he knew the need for children to be educated properly and the Word of God seemed like a natural tool to him. So he published a book on Religious Instruction for Children and each page carried the motto "Feed my sheep." In 1827 he published a second treatise for adults.

(Source: From Lewis N Powell's book, "Out of the North Country: Christian Pioneers of Northern New York")

Father Cyrus Comstock was a man of love. Love for God and love for his neighbor. He considered everyone in Essex County to be his neighbor and parishioner. He would probably have echoed the famous words of John Wesley, "the world in my parish."

Father Comstock was a missionary. He visited every hamlet in the county and planted churches to boot. The people lived in hard times (this was immediately after the Revolutionary War) and people needed encouragement. Father Comstock felt that the Gospel and Christ's church were the two proper mediums for giving such encouragement.

From a sermon by Ken Pell, "THE GREAT COMMANDMENTS AND THE LOCAL CHURCH (Part 1)" 8/4/2008