I have preached in challenging, supercharged moments but none can compare with the moment Samson Occom (1723-1792) took the pulpit at Moses Paul’s execution. A heated argument after drinking broke out at David Clark’s Tavern in Bethany, Connecticut, one December evening in 1771 between Moses Paul, a Native American, and Moses Cook, a European American, and it turned fatal. While Paul admitted to killing Cook (though he claimed it was in self-defense) and was sentenced to hanging, the first Connecticut execution in twenty-three years.
Moses Paul asked Samson Occom, a well-known Mohegan Presbyterian minister, to speak on his execution day. It was customary in those days for a sermon to precede public executions, to transform the spectacle into a moment of moral and spiritual significance. People were eager to hear what “a praying Indian” would say to a dying one, so several thousand gathered at First Congregational Church in New Haven to witness the event.
Samson based his remarks on Romans 6.23, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus our Lord.” He began with the observation that “whether we concern ourselves with death or not, it will concern itself with us.” He focused on two principal themes: the universality of human sin and God’s gift of salvation through Jesus Christ. In his application, he spoke first to “to my poor, unhappy brother Moses.” While “your sins have found you out,” Samson told him, God’s gift of salvation is “good news on this last day of your life.” In his remarks to the white establishment, whom he addressed only as “Sirs,” he reminded them they were all dying creatures and needed, like Moses, to repent and believe the gospel. To his last constituency, “my kindred in the flesh,” he issued a call to temperance. Alcohol was a factor in the murder, which only served to fuel the stereotype of Native Americans as “drunken Indians.” He closed with the appeal, “Break off your drunkenness with a gospel repentance and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.” The sermon was widely distributed and reprinted well into the nineteenth century.
There’s so much more to the story of Samson Occom, who was sent on a preaching mission to England and raise funds to start a school to train Native American missionaries. After investing three years, preaching three sermons, and raising large sums of money, the funds were diverted to start Dartmouth College. One of Occom’s hymns is a prayer of self-consecration upon waking up: