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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister
+of the Gospel, by Frank G. Allen
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel
+       and Selections from his Writings
+
+Author: Frank G. Allen
+
+Editor: Robert Graham
+
+Release Date: June 30, 2008 [EBook #25941]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF FRANK G. ALLEN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Garcia and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Kentuckiana Digital Library)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+AUTOBIOGRAPHY
+
+OF
+
+FRANK G. ALLEN,
+
+Minister of the Gospel
+
+AND
+
+SELECTIONS FROM HIS WRITINGS
+
+
+
+EDITED BY
+
+ROBERT GRAHAM
+
+_President of the College of the Bible, Lexington, Ky._
+
+
+
+CINCINNATI
+GUIDE PRINTING & PUBLISHING CO.
+1887
+
+Copyright, 1887, by
+THE GUIDE PRINTING & PUBLISHING CO.
+
+
+
+
+Dedication.
+
+To all who love the Old Paths,
+This Volume,
+In Memory of One Who Found Them
+And Walked Therein,
+Is Respectfully Inscribed, by
+The Editor.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+By prescription, which often has the force of law, a book should have
+both a _Preface_ and an _Introduction_: the first relating to the
+writer; the second to the things written. I may well dispense with the
+latter, for what is here written the humblest capacity can understand;
+and it would be cruel to detain him long on the porch who is anxious to
+enter the building.
+
+But, dear reader, a word with you (for that is the meaning of
+"Preface") before you begin this unpretentious little book, the joint
+production of an author, an editor, and a publisher.
+
+It is due the first, to say that he wrote what is here called his
+Autobiography in great physical weakness, and without expecting that it
+would appear in this form. This will account for its homely garb, and
+apologize for it, if apology be necessary. Frank Allen had no time to
+spend upon mere style in anything he wrote. He aimed at clearness and
+force of expression, and reached these in a remarkable degree in his
+latter days. If any one, therefore, should take up this volume
+expecting to find literary entertainment, he will have the search for
+his pains; but if he seeks for what is far better, the secret of a life
+devoted to God and goodness, told in plain, unvarnished English, he
+will not be disappointed.
+
+When I received from the gifted author the record of his "travel's
+history," I intended to write his Life, but death came and found us,
+not him, unprepared; and so, under the constraint of other and pressing
+duties, my purpose was reluctantly abandoned. Besides, upon examination
+it was found that with a few changes and additions here and there,
+these memoranda, as they came from the hand of their author, could,
+under the circumstances, appear in that form and do him no discredit.
+
+Such is my admiration of this noble man, and such my deference to what
+I am sure must be the desire of his friends, that I have preferred to
+let _him_ tell in simple phrase the strange story of his struggles and
+triumphs; and if its perusal should give the reader half the pleasure
+it has been to me to prepare it for the press, I shall not have labored
+in vain. The book is intended to be a _Memorial Volume_, and especially
+one to encourage young men who, under adverse circumstances, are
+striving to qualify themselves to preach the gospel. Bro. Allen was
+always in warm and loving sympathy with these--so much so, that he was
+rightly called the young preacher's friend.
+
+It is a pleasure to say that such is the veneration of the publishers,
+The Guide Printing and Publishing Company, for the memory of our
+deceased brother, that but for them this tribute would hardly have
+appeared. With a generosity as rare as it is praiseworthy, they have
+undertaken to publish the work in the best style of their art, at a low
+price, and without any pecuniary risk to Sister Allen; and, indeed, in
+all their transactions with her they have given abundant proof that men
+can carry into business the benevolent spirit of pure and undefiled
+religion.
+
+It only remains to be said that whatever profits arise from the sale of
+this book go to the wife and children of its lamented author, and that
+should sufficient encouragement be given, a companion volume containing
+the letters and miscellaneous productions of Bro. Allen may in due time
+be issued.
+
+THE EDITOR.
+
+LEXINGTON, Ky., May, 1887.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                                                 Page.
+
+PART I.--AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+Birth and Ancestors. Family Circumstances. "Fist and Skull"
+Entertainment. Removal to Ohio and Return. Fight with his Mother.
+Gets Lost. His Father Buys a Farm. The "Improvements." Plenty of
+Hard Work. His Opinion of Work and of Play.                         1
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+His First School. The School-house. The Teacher. The Order of
+Reciting. Spelling Matches. First Sweetheart. Extremes in Likes
+and Dislikes. Fondness for Study. Improvement in Schools.           7
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+His Religious Experience. Tries to be a Methodist. Hopes to Become
+a Preacher. Boy Preaching. Attends a Sunday-school. "Chaws" Tobacco.
+Goes to Love Feast. Mourners' Bench Experience. Is Puzzled and
+Disgusted.                                                         12
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+Fun and Mischief. His Little Cousin and the "Gnats." The Aurora
+Borealis. A Bumble-bee Scrape. Another Bee Scrape. Justification by
+Faith Alone. Readiness to Fight. Love of Justice. No Surrender.    17
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+Given to Abstraction of Thought. Cases in Point. Opinion of
+Debating Societies. Perseverance. Consumption. Endurance. More
+Comfortable Home. Death of his Father. Love of Fashionable
+Amusements. Meets his Future Wife. Is Married. Tribute to his
+Wife. Her Father and Mother.                                       25
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+Goes to Housekeeping. Discussions with Mr. Maddox. Attends Meeting.
+Is Baptized by William Tharp. Double Damages for an Old Horse.
+Begins Trading. Moves to Floydsburg. Description of the Place.     31
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+Tries to Become a Politician. Fails. Last Act as a Politician.
+Tries to Join the Southern Army. Fails Again. His First
+Appointment. Feeling of Responsibility. His Plan. Text. Analysis
+of Sermon. Buys a Family Bible. Rules of Life.                     36
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+Resolves to go to College. Friends Oppose. Wife Decides It. Hard
+Living and Hard Work. Impaired Health. Preaches for his Home
+Church. Father-in-law Dies. "Frank, Be a True Man." House Robbed.
+"Scraps." College Incidents. First Pay for Preaching. Holds Several
+Meetings. Dishonest Preacher.                                      43
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+Leaves College. Goes to Alexandria, Ky. An Adventure in Ohio. A
+Baby _not_ Baptized. Peril in Crossing the River. Opens his School.
+Makes Some Money. Buys a Nice Home.                                52
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+Narrow Escapes. Is Thrown from a Horse. Has Pneumonia. Nearly
+Killed. Self-possession. Almost Drowned. Eludes Angry Soldiers.
+Reflections.                                                       58
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+He Abandons the School-room. Remarkable Meeting near Alexandria.
+Incidents. Establishes a Church. Mischief-making Preachers.
+Long and Severe Attack of Typhoid Fever. Does not Lose Hope.
+Gratitude.                                                         65
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+Sells out at Alexandria. Moves to Crittenden. Preaches there and at
+Williamstown. Low State of these Churches. Plan of Work. Memorizing
+in Sunday-school. Lack of Church Discipline. One-Man System. Moves
+to New Liberty. Visits Mount Byrd                                  71
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+History of the Mt. Byrd Church. When Established. Where. Charter
+Members. Officers. Preachers. Number of Members. Three Things
+Contributing to its Prosperity. New House of Worship. Serious
+Trouble in the Church. How Settled. Method of Raising Money. The
+Church Builds Allen a House. Organizes a Sunday-school. How it is
+Conducted                                                          77
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+He Moves to Mt. Byrd. Debate with J. W. Fitch. Preaches at Madison,
+Ind. Protracted meetings at Columbia, Burksville, Thompson's
+Church, Dover, Germantown, Pleasant Hill, Burksville again, Beech
+Grove, Dover again                                                 88
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+Begins Preaching at Beech Grove. Debates with Elder Hiner. Amusing
+Incident. Holds Many Meetings. Debates with Elder Frogge. Debates
+again with Elder Hiner. Repudiates Miller's Book. Sick Again. Holds
+more Meetings                                                      96
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+Continues to Evangelize. Dr. Cook's Prescription. Incident at
+Glendale. Peculiar Feature in the Meeting at Madisonville. The
+Fractious Preacher at Sonora. Closes his Evangelistic Labors.
+Establishes the _Old Path Guide_. The Bruner Debate               101
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+Visits Midway. Attends the Missouri State Convention. Reflections.
+Annual Sermons. Last Protracted Meeting. Kindness of Mt. Byrd,
+Glendale and Smithfield Churches. Gives up Office Work. Goes to
+Eureka, Ill. Country Home. Takes Cold at the Lexington Convention.
+Goes to Florida                                                   107
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+Organizes a Church at DeLand. Health Improves. Relapses. Starts
+Home. Resignation. Sells His Interest in the _Guide_. Begins
+Writing again. Attends Two Conventions. Goes to Texas. At Home
+again. Works on.                                                  113
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+Reflections on his Fiftieth Birthday. What a Wonderful Being is
+Man! Governed, not by Instinct, but by Reason. Man Lives by Deeds,
+not Years. How to Grow Old. Half of Life Spent in Satan's Service.
+Renewed Consecration. Last Three Birthdays. His Trust in God.     118
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+Conclusion, by the Editor. Tokens of Love from Many. Keeps Writing.
+Controversy with the _Standard_. Last Meeting with His Mother.
+Visited by Professors McGarvey and Graham. Commits His Writings to
+the Latter. Visits Eminence and Lexington. Many Brethren Come to
+See Him. Meeting at Mt. Byrd. Estimate of His Character. The
+Closing Scenes. Farewell to His Family. Dies. Funeral Services.   127
+
+
+PART II.--ADDRESSES.
+
+   I.--Culture and Christianity: their Relation and Necessity.    137
+
+  II.--Self-culture.                                              159
+
+ III.--Plus Ultra _vs._ Ne Plus Ultra.                            175
+
+
+PART III.--SELECTIONS.
+
+NEW TESTAMENT VIEWS OF CHRIST.
+
+   I.--Christ the Lamb of God.                                    190
+
+  II.--Christ the Bread of Life.                                  194
+
+ III.--Christ the Water of Life.                                  199
+
+  IV.--Christ the Son of God.                                     202
+
+   V.--Christ the Son of Man                                      212
+
+  VI.--Christ the Great Teacher                                   218
+
+ VII.--Christ the Deliverer                                       223
+
+VIII.--Christ the Great Physician                                 230
+
+  IX.--Christ Our Mediator                                        236
+
+   X.--Christ Our Mediator (continued)                            242
+
+  XI.--Christ Our High Priest                                     249
+
+ XII.--Christ Our Righteousness                                   254
+
+
+
+
+PART I.--AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+Birth and Ancestors. Family Circumstances. "Fist and Skull"
+Entertainment. Removal to Ohio and Return. Fight with his Mother.
+Gets Lost. His Father Buys a Farm. The "Improvements." Plenty of
+Hard Work. His Opinion of Work and of Play.
+
+
+I was born near La Grange, Oldham county, Ky., March 7, 1836. My
+father, Francis Myers Allen, was born in Brown county, Ohio, December
+7, 1807. He was the son of Thomas Allen, who, in 1812, when my father
+was only five years old, moved from Brown county, O., to Shelby county,
+Ky., and lived on Little Bullskin, a few miles west of Shelbyville.
+
+My mother, Sarah A. Gibbs, was a daughter of James L. Gibbs and Mary
+Ashby, and was born in Loudoun county, Va., April 6, 1808. The family
+moved from Virginia to Kentucky in 1810, and lived in Shelbyville.
+
+My grandparents on both sides reared large families of industrious,
+thrifty children, and both grandfathers lived to be quite aged, my
+mother's father living to be nearly one hundred years old.
+
+My parents were married near Simpsonville, in Shelby county, April 9,
+1829, and to them were born thirteen children--five boys and eight
+girls--ten of whom lived to be grown. I was the fifth child--two boys
+and two girls being older. The oldest child, a boy, died in infancy.
+Being poor, both parents and children had to work hard and use strict
+economy to make ends meet. We all knew much of the toils and hardships
+of life, little of its luxuries. Both parents were blessed with good
+constitutions, and had fine native intellects, but they were uneducated
+save in the mere rudiments of the common school. They thought that "to
+read, write and cipher" as far as the single rule of three, was all the
+learning one needed for this life, unless he was going to teach. If my
+father's mind had been trained, it would have been one of vast power.
+He was philosophical, a good reasoner, and possessed of unusual
+discrimination. He had also great coolness and self-possession in
+emergencies.
+
+In illustration of the latter statement, there recurs an incident in my
+father's life that will bear recital. In those old-fashioned days of
+"fist and skull" entertainments on public occasions, it was common for
+each county to have its bully. Oldham at different times had
+several--men of great muscular build and power, whose chief idea of
+fame was that they could "whip anything in the county." My father was a
+small man, weighing only one hundred and thirty pounds, and of a
+peaceable disposition. Indeed, it was hard to provoke him to pugilistic
+measures. But circumstances caused one of these bullies to force a
+fight upon him at La Grange, in which the man was whipped so quickly
+and so badly that no one knew how it was done. The man himself
+accounted for it on the ground that "Mr. Allen came at me smiling."
+This caused one or two others, at different times, to seek to
+immortalize themselves by doing what the first had failed to
+accomplish; but with the same result.
+
+Being a farmer, my father was never without occupation, and he always
+had plenty for his boys to do; hence I knew nothing but hard work on
+the farm, except a few school days in winter, from the time I could
+pull a weed out of a hill of corn till I reached my majority.
+
+In the fall after I was born my parents moved from the farm near La
+Grange to Brown county, O., not far from Hamersville. There they
+remained a year; but my mother being much dissatisfied, they moved to
+Floydsburg, Ky., and in the following spring, when I was two years old,
+returned to the old place where I was born. Here the memories of life
+begin. The incidents of daily life from this time forward are fresh in
+my memory to-day. Here I had my first and last fight with my mother.
+When I was three years old, my father, one day in June, was plowing
+corn in a field not far from the house. When he went out, after noon, I
+wanted to go with him. He took me behind him on the horse to the field.
+When we got there I wanted to come back. He brought me back. I then
+wanted to go to the field. He took me to the field. I then wanted to
+come back. He brought me back. I then wanted to go to the field, but he
+left me, telling my mother to take me in charge. Because she attempted
+to control me I began fighting her. She whipped me with a small switch,
+and I fought till I fell. Being completely exhausted, I begged my
+oldest sister to fight for me, and when she refused and I had recovered
+a little, I got up and went at it again. But when I fell the second
+time, I lay till they took me and put me to bed, and there I remained
+several days. Though I did not surrender, I never afterwards felt
+disposed to renew the engagement. It was almost death to my mother, for
+she did not chastise me in anger; her firmness, however, saved me.
+
+In the spring of 1840 we moved to a farm some two miles south of La
+Grange, on the road leading from that place to Ballardsville. Here we
+lived one year. Only one event worth naming occurred while we lived
+here. My mother took myself, an older sister, and a younger brother to
+visit a sister she had living in La Grange. It was a beautiful summer
+day, the roads were good, and we walked. My mother stopped at the house
+of a neighbor on the road side for a few minutes, and told us to go on,
+and be sure not to leave the road. With childish perversity we thought
+the green fields better than the dusty road, and were soon into them.
+It was not long till we were completely lost, and naturally wandered
+the wrong way, not thinking to observe the sun and consider our course.
+So, when we did not put in an appearance, the whole neighborhood was
+aroused, and several hours of excitement followed before we were found.
+My sister Bettie, two years my senior, was captain of this expedition.
+
+In the spring of 1841 my father bought a farm of one hundred and twenty
+acres, lying about three miles southwest from La Grange. Most of the
+land was poor, and the "improvements" equally so. The house was a hewed
+log cabin about 18×20 feet, with clap-board roof held down by weight
+poles, and the walls "chinked" with mud. It had a large fire-place at
+one end, and a chimney made of slats and mortar, familiarly known as a
+"stick" chimney. The only window was paneless, with a solid shutter
+hung on leather hinges, propped up with a stick, except when it was
+wanted down. The floors above and below, were of broad lumber, and laid
+loose. The door, when closed, was fastened with a big pin. A narrow
+porch ran along the front, connecting with another at one end of the
+house, between it and the kitchen. This was large and of the same style
+of architecture as the house, but what that style was would puzzle any
+one to tell. These two rooms and porches, with the smoke-house and
+hen-house, constituted the "improvements" in that line. The
+out-buildings were stables and a crib, of round logs. The fences were
+all of rails, and inferior in kind. "Bars" and "slip-gaps" supplied the
+place of gates in some places, and in others the fences had to be often
+pulled down for lack of such conveniences. A fine spring gushed from
+the foot of a hill, one hundred yards in front of this humble abode.
+The location of dwellings, in that age and country, was determined
+almost exclusively by springs. Every other consideration yielded to
+this.
+
+Here we took up our abode in a home of our own in the spring of 1841,
+as above stated. The farm was afterwards enlarged by other purchases,
+and the original still remains in the family. The poverty of the soil,
+its tendency to produce briars, its large amount of heavy timber, with
+the clearing necessary to be done, made it a place specially favorable
+for the cultivation of industry. My father was one of those men who
+never ran short of work; he always had plenty of it for himself and the
+whole family. Recreation was almost unknown, and we had hardly rest
+enough to secure good health. We were not of those who had to resort to
+base-ball and foot-ball for exercise; it was ours to combine pleasure
+with profit, only the profit was more than the pleasure. There is no
+doubt that employment contributes to health of both body and mind. Good
+blood, good thought and good morals are born of industry, provided it
+be not pushed to the extreme of exhaustion. Children and young people
+must have relaxation from toil, that both the physical and mental
+powers may recuperate; but not much attention was paid to this
+beneficent philosophy in my father's family. Had there been, it might
+have been better for at least some of his children in after years.
+There is a golden mean in this, as in other things, which parents
+sometimes miss in their blind adhesion to a false theory. Rest and
+labor are both appointments of God's benevolence.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+His First School. The School-house. The Teacher. The Order of Reciting.
+Spelling Matches. First Sweetheart. Extremes in Likes and Dislikes.
+Fondness for Study. Improvement in Schools.
+
+
+At the age of about seven I attended my first school. The house was on
+my father's farm, a half a mile from our dwelling. It was constructed
+of round logs, and had _five_ corners--the fifth was formed at one
+end by having shorter logs laid from the corners at an obtuse angle,
+like the corner of a rail fence, and meeting in the middle. It was
+built up thus to the square, then the logs went straight across,
+forming the end for the roof to rest on; consequently this fifth corner
+was open, and this was the fire-place. Stones laid with mud mortar were
+built in this corner, extending several feet each way, and wood nearly
+as long as the breadth of the house would be filled in. The seats were
+split logs smoothed on the flat side, and supported on legs put in with
+an auger. From these the feet of the children dangled early and late.
+There was no support for the back. The house had a dirt floor and a
+clap-board roof. Light was let in by cutting away part of two logs in
+the end. A wide puncheon was fastened just below this for the writers,
+with a seat to correspond. During winter they pasted paper over these
+openings, and light for the rest of the school came down the chimney.
+
+The first teacher we had was an old man by the name of Ballou. He lived
+on our place, not far from the school-house, and taught for several
+years. He was very poor, did poor teaching, and got poor pay. He was
+master of only reading, writing and ciphering.
+
+There were no classes in the school, and each one went it
+independently, studying what suited his taste and ability. Some read in
+the Testament, and others in any book they happened to have. In those
+days the rule was that those who got to school first "said first"--that
+is, they recited in the order in which they got to the house. This
+would sometimes get up a great rivalry, and I have known young men
+living two miles away to be at school before daylight. The whole day,
+except an hour at noon, was spent in saying lessons. The old teacher
+sat in his chair, and the pupils went to him one by one, in the order
+in which they got to the house, and said their lessons. When they got
+around, the same process was repeated. Sometimes between turns the old
+man would take a little nap, and then we all would have some fun. One
+more bold than the rest would tickle his bald head or his nose, and to
+see him scratching would afford us much amusement.
+
+Each Friday afternoon was spent in a spelling-match. Captains were
+chosen, and they would "choose up" till the school was divided into two
+classes. Beginning at the head, one of each class would stand up and
+spell, till one was "turned down;" then another took his place, and so
+on until all on one side were down. I began at this school in the
+alphabet, and the second winter I could spell almost every word in
+Webster's old Elementary Speller. If provided with a sharp knife, and a
+stick on which to whittle, which the kind old man would allow, I could
+generally stand most of an afternoon without missing. Strange to say,
+after a few years, when I had given myself to the study of other
+things, it all went from me, and I have been a poor speller ever since.
+
+In this school I had my first sweetheart--a buxom, jolly good girl,
+about six years my senior. To her I wrote my first love letter, and
+when it was done its chirography looked as if it had been struck by
+lightning; and I had to get an old bachelor friend to help me read it.
+Here I am reminded of an early tendency to extremes in my likes and
+dislikes. I had a race one morning with a girl whom I saw coming to
+school from an opposite direction, each striving to get into the house
+first. I clearly went in ahead, but she claimed the race and beat me
+out of it. From this on I had an extreme dislike for her. The spring to
+which we all had to go for a drink, was about a hundred yards from the
+house. The path to it passed through a broken place in a large log that
+lay across this path. In this I would never walk, nor would I pass
+through the gap, but would always climb over that big log.
+
+These school days were only during winter, after the crop was all
+gathered in and before spring work began. After I got large enough to
+help in winter work, my attendance was only "semi-occasional." After a
+while a better school-house was built, a mile further away, and it was
+every way more comfortable, save that we had still the backless slab
+seats. Here I went at odd times in winter for several years. I had
+acquired a great fondness for reading, devouring everything in the way
+of books I could lay my hands upon. Especially I had a great passion
+for history, biography, geography, natural philosophy, and the like,
+and I let nothing escape me that the country afforded. I had no money
+to buy books, and had to depend on borrowing them. I soon went through
+arithmetic, grammar, and the history of the United States. This was
+more than my paterfamilias recognized as essential to a practical
+education, and hence he was not disposed to let me go to school as much
+as the other children, who gave themselves no concern about books out
+of school. The idea of one's going through grammar, philosophy, or more
+than half the arithmetic, "unless he was going to teach," he regarded
+as a waste of time. His conception of life and mine were so different
+that there was frequently more or less friction. It was decidedly
+unpleasant from youth to manhood to be discouraged and opposed in my
+one absorbing passion for obtaining an education. My mother sympathized
+with me, but could not help me. The first dollar I ever made I spent
+for a book, and for this purpose I saved my hard-earned pennies.
+Midnight often found me poring over this book by the light of kindling
+prepared for the purpose. This was opposed; and thus the struggle went
+on during my minority.
+
+I can not forbear, before closing this short chapter upon my school
+life, to allude to the great improvement in the matter of common
+schools since I was a boy. My native State, though sadly behind many of
+her younger sisters, has made some progress in this direction, and I
+can but hope this is only an earnest of what is to come. In a few
+favored localities, chiefly the cities, there is ample provision made
+for the education of the children of the people, but in the country
+districts much remains to be done before we are up with the demands of
+the age in regard to the comfort of the pupils as well as the
+facilities for the prosecution of their studies. We need more and
+better school-houses, better furniture, and more attractive
+surroundings. Well qualified and earnest teachers are not yet as thick
+as blackberries in Kentucky. When as much attention is bestowed on
+these as on jockeys, and on our boys as on our horses, we shall be both
+richer and better.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+His Religious Experience. Tries to be a Methodist. Hopes to become a
+Preacher. Boy Preaching. Attends a Sunday-school. "Chaws" Tobacco. Goes
+to Love Feast. Mourners' Bench Experience. Is Puzzled and Disgusted.
+
+
+My parents were Methodists, as were their ancestors on both sides. My
+mother was uniformly religious, but not fussy about it. I have seen her
+intensely happy, but never heard her shout. Her religion was a deep,
+smooth, current without fluctuation. My father was religious more by
+spells, but still he never went to extremes, and could never "get
+religion" at the altar, in the Methodist fashion. This lifelong failure
+of his discouraged him, causing him at times to become somewhat
+skeptical and indifferent. But he died, rejoicing in the faith of
+Christ as held by the Methodist Church.
+
+When about ten years of age I joined the Methodist Episcopal Church,
+South. A great revival was in progress at La Grange, and over one
+hundred persons united with the church. I enjoyed the services, and
+continued to do so for a number of years. Often in those early times I
+rode to meeting at surrounding churches and private dwellings on
+horseback behind my mother. I still remember, as vividly as if it were
+but yesterday, the texts and treatment of many of the sermons I heard.
+In later years I have frequently thought of the fallacies the preachers
+imposed upon us, and, I charitably believe, upon themselves, in these
+sermons, but which neither we nor they could detect for want of correct
+scriptural knowledge. The thought that I should one day become a
+preacher impressed me, and it clung to me for years. When afterwards I
+grew wild and wicked, this impression possessed me, and many a time,
+when my good wife would rebuke me for my wickedness, I would say,
+"Never mind, dear; I'll be a preacher yet." I had a high regard for
+preachers, and from early life was fond of their company; and since I
+have become one myself, the society of good, faithful men of God brings
+me as near heaven as I shall ever be in the flesh.
+
+It was a common thing with me, when I came home from meeting, to get up
+one of my own by gathering the children together and preaching to them
+the sermons I had heard; and while these were not verbally correct,
+there was in them the substance of what the preachers had delivered. I
+would sing and pray, and go through the whole performance. I improvised
+a little pulpit, and had a church after my own notion; I was a great
+plagiarist, and in this, too, I copied after some others.
+
+I attended the first Sunday-school I ever heard of; it was conducted by
+Floyd Wellman, a gentleman who afterwards became a prominent and
+honored citizen of Louisville. Sunday-schools were then poor things, as
+I fear many of them are yet. Little question-books, with the answers
+supplied, and reading-books, mostly about angelic boys and girls who
+died of early piety, furnished the staple of our reading, while but
+little of the Scriptures was taught, or thought about.
+
+To chew tobacco seemed to me to be manly; so to let the people see I
+was thus far developed, I prepared me a rough twist of "long green;"
+this I stuck in my pantaloons pocket, for the occasion, and when
+everything was propitious in the Sunday-school, I drew out the twist
+and bit off a "chaw." It raised quite a laugh, in which the
+superintendent himself joined; and this ended for life my chewing
+tobacco to be seen of men.
+
+I often went with my parents to "love feast." At the first of these
+which I attended I had an experience of my own. The light-bread was cut
+into slips about two inches long and a half an inch wide and thick.
+Some of these were then divided into small pieces. On the plate which
+was passed around were two long pieces, and I concluded that if there
+was any virtue in the thing it would be enhanced by my taking a long
+one; but when I discovered that all the rest had taken but a bite my
+philosophy failed, and I hid the remainder where Rachel hid the gods of
+her father Laban.
+
+When about fifteen years of age the Methodists had a big revival at
+Mount Tabor, a neighboring country church. In this meeting a great many
+of my friends and companions were "getting religion" at the altar of
+prayer. I became intensely desirous of the same blessing, and in great
+anxiety and hopefulness I went to the altar. Day after day did I go,
+but only to be disappointed. Every time some would "get through," and
+there would be great rejoicing, till only one young man and myself were
+left. The whole power of the church was then concentrated on us, but to
+no purpose. In this extremity I began to reason about it as I had not
+done before. I had been taught that "God was no respecter of persons;
+but that in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh
+righteousness, is accepted with him." My soul ever recoiled from the
+idea of His decreeing some men to salvation and others to damnation,
+irrespective of their own will and conduct. Here, now, I was as
+helpless as a stone till God should do this work of grace for me. Why
+would he send down the Holy Spirit and convert one on my right, another
+on my left, till the "bench" was vacant, and not convert me? The
+preachers were praying for Him to do it; my father and mother were
+praying earnestly for it; the whole church were pleading with Him, and
+yet He would not do it. I knew I was a sinner; that I wanted salvation;
+that I was sincere, earnest as the others could be: but all this
+availed nothing. The preachers tried to explain the failure on the
+ground that I was still clinging to the world and my own righteousness;
+that I had not given my heart wholly to God, etc. This I knew to be
+false. I concluded that if a poor, penitent, agonizing sinner with all
+his prayers and pleadings, with the whole church earnestly coöperating,
+could not induce God to save him, he might just as well be decreed to
+damnation from all eternity. With these reflections I left the
+mourners' bench in disgust, and ever since I have had for it an
+inexpressible contempt. Time and observation have confirmed me in this
+feeling; and while I cherish a sincere respect for those who in
+ignorance think it is a divine arrangement, and that in resorting to it
+they are obeying a command of God, I have none for those who, knowing
+better, still use it as a means of conversion. As often employed by
+professional evangelists, there is so much of clap-trap that it must
+bring the whole subject of religion into contempt with sensible people.
+It is amazing to me that, in view of its entire lack of Scripture
+precept or example, the light and knowledge of this day, and its
+frequent failures, it, and the whole system of which it is an essential
+part, are not laid aside.
+
+Having been taught that Methodism and Christianity were identical, and
+having completely lost faith in the former, it was natural enough that
+I should become skeptical as to the latter. Only a lingering suspicion
+that after all they might be different, saved me from hopeless
+infidelity; and had I not in after years learned such to be the case, I
+should have lived and died in rebellion against God.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+Fun and Mischief. His Little Cousin and the "Gnats." The Aurora
+Borealis. A Bumble-bee Scrape. Another Bee Scrape. Justification by
+Faith alone. Readiness to Fight. Love of Justice. No Surrender.
+
+
+When a boy, I was as full of fun and mischief as an egg is of meat, and
+I have never got rid of it. With a younger brother and a neighbor boy
+of my own age, equally mischievous with myself, there was hardly a
+thing in the way of fun and frolic that we were not continually into.
+Hunting rabbits was our chief sport, and, when we got larger, coons,
+'possums and the like at night. There was not a tree of any
+peculiarity, or a hole in the ground, for miles around, that we did not
+know all about. We knew, also, every fruit tree, from the apple to the
+black-haw or persimmon in the same territory, and the time they were
+ready for company; and we never failed to pay our respects to them all
+in due time. I would not mention many of the bad things of my early
+life; but that is the way the Bible does with its heroes, and the Bible
+is always a safe guide to follow.
+
+About all the money we made in our boyhood days was from the sale of
+nuts and the flesh and skins of the animals we caught during the fall
+and winter. This was my way of getting books, maps, etc., to help me in
+my studies. I was the recognized leader in all the mischief we did, and
+many prophecies were made that I should one day be hanged, and in this
+anticipation my father fully shared. My younger brother and I were
+constantly playing practical jokes on each other, and often upon
+others. We never became offended, though the pranks were sometimes
+exceedingly rough; but we were always watching an opportunity to "get
+even." I will relate a few as samples, while others are too bad to
+tell.
+
+On one occasion some cousins and their children visited us from Shelby
+county. They were considered quite wealthy for that time. Their little
+boy was dressed in very fine clothes, at least, in our estimation, and
+we concluded he was putting on airs. We thought we would do him a
+valuable service by taking him down a little, so we asked him if he had
+ever seen a singular kind of gnat, which we described. He had not. We
+proposed to show him a fine lot--a big nest of them. We affirmed that
+they were nice, harmless things to play with. So we went forth to see
+the gnats. We got him to the nest and stirred them up, and in a few
+minutes the innocent, unsuspecting boy was covered with yellow jackets.
+Of course, he ran to the house screaming, and they had a time in
+getting them off of him. He was badly stung, but we made it appear that
+we had gone down there to fight them, which was a favorite pastime with
+us, and that he got too near the nest. Thus we escaped a well-merited
+whipping.
+
+About the same time in life my younger brother and I caught a rabbit
+and dressed it for breakfast. It was Saturday afternoon, and father and
+mother had gone to her father's, some six miles away, to stay till the
+next evening. That night the aurora borealis was unusually bright, and
+as the excitement of Millerism had not died away, there was much talk
+of the world's coming to an end. My oldest sister, Mary, was getting
+supper ready and was greatly alarmed. She would go out and watch the
+sky, and then go back to see about the supper. Finally I said, "Mary,
+do you really think the world will come to an end before morning?" "I
+do believe it will," said she. "Then," said I, "_we must have the
+rabbit for supper_." I had no notion of losing my rabbit by such a
+trifling circumstance as that.
+
+Later in life, when old enough to work in the harvest field, we had a
+neighbor who was very "close," and we never had any fancy for him. He
+was always boasting of his ability to work with bees. One year he had a
+large harvest, and many hands employed, and we were helping him. One
+day we told him we had found a fine bee tree which could be cut down in
+a few minutes, and that if he would go and take the honey he might have
+it all except what we could eat. He was delighted with the proposal, so
+after supper a number of us started for the bee tree, a mile and a half
+from his house, in a dense forest. He had several buckets prepared to
+secure a large amount of honey. When we began to chop, the bees began
+to roar, and our friend was frantic with delight. Soon the tree fell,
+and he "waded in" with his axe and buckets to get the luscious spoil.
+As he went in we went out, and soon he discovered himself in a big
+bumble-bees' nest alone with all his buckets, etc., a mile and a half
+from home! We saw no more of him that night, and did not care to meet
+him next day.
+
+This reminds me of another bee scrape, in which my father figured
+largely. He prided himself on being able to handle bees as so many
+flies. On a cool, drizzly day we cut a bee tree on the farm. I was
+wearing a brown jeans sack coat. This I laid aside while chopping. When
+the tree fell the bees swarmed forth in great numbers, and my father
+stalked in with his axe, chipping and cutting the limbs, preparatory to
+chopping for the honey, and was as indifferent as if surrounded only by
+gnats. We stood at a safe distance. Soon he came out with a trifle less
+indifference than he went in with, picking the bees out of his hair
+with both hands. They had literally settled on his head and were
+stinging him furiously. He came running to us to fight them off. I
+grabbed up my coat, and with both hands struck him over the head. A
+large jack knife, very heavy, was in one of the pockets, and this
+struck him on the opposite side of the head and came near felling him
+to the ground. We fought the bees off the best we could, but he was
+terribly stung. This was the last of his working with bees as with
+flies.
+
+My father was a firm believer in the doctrine of justification by faith
+alone. All those passages of Scripture that connect justification or
+salvation with faith, without mentioning anything else as a condition,
+he had at his tongue's end. His argument was, whatever may be mentioned
+elsewhere, here salvation is promised on the condition of faith, and
+nothing else is in the text. With all this I had become perfectly
+familiar, and always had a suspicion that there was a fallacy in it
+some where, though I could not exactly expose it. We were clearing a
+piece of new ground in April, about the time the spring fever sets in,
+and my younger brother and I always "had it bad." It was a Monday
+morning, and father was going to La Grange to attend court. At
+breakfast he gave us very particular instructions about our work--what
+to do and how to do it--and a feature emphasized was that we were to
+keep at it. It was getting quite dry, and when he had started to town
+he hallooed back and said, "Boys, I want you to watch the fire to-day
+and not let it get out." "All right," we responded. His two directions,
+perhaps not an hour apart, reminded me of his theology, and I resolved
+at once to test its validity when weighed in his own scales. So we went
+out to the clearing, lay down under the shade of a tree, and "watched
+the fire" all day! Having returned, he asked us how we had got along.
+We replied, "Finely," that we had done what he told us; but when he
+came to "view the landscape o'er," we had to give an account for the
+deeds done in the body, or, rather, not done. I told him that his
+specific instruction was to watch the fire. "But," said he, "I told you
+before that, that you were to do the work." "Yes," I replied, "but the
+last time you said anything about it you did not allude to the work;
+but only to watch the fire. There was no work in the text." However, he
+was by no means disposed to look upon that as favorably as upon
+justification by faith only, which rests on the same principle. Still
+it opened his eyes to a fallacy in his argument that he had not seen
+before.
+
+I generally lived in peace and good will with all the boys in the
+neighborhood, but a few times in my life feeling imposed on, or that
+some one else was, I got into fights, and always with those older and
+stronger than myself. I had learned something of the secret of success
+in that line from what I had heard said of my father. This often gave
+me a victory quite unlooked for. I would fight the best friend I had in
+the world if he imposed on one unable to cope with him. I had a
+companion much stronger than I, and inclined to be overbearing. On one
+occasion, at a corn husking, he tried to force a fight on a boy smaller
+than himself. When I saw he was quite determined about it, while the
+other boy was trying to avoid it, I said, "Jim, you and I are good
+friends. I have nothing against you in the world. I like you, but you
+can't fight that boy. If you fight any body you will have to fight me.
+I don't want any quarrel with you, nor do I want to hurt you, but if
+nothing but a fight will do you, that's just the way it has to be
+done." When he saw I was in earnest, the matter was dropped, and our
+friendship continued.
+
+I was severely tried on one occasion. My older brother had a falling
+out with a neighbor, and we three were alone in the woods. I had a
+dislike for the man, as much as my brother had. He was boastful,
+bigoted and disagreeable. But in this particular case I saw clearly
+that my brother was in the wrong, I felt compelled, therefore, to take
+sides with the other man. At this my brother was deeply offended, and
+it took him a long time to get over it. He did not see his wrong, and
+thought my conduct very strange and unnatural, especially as I did not
+like the man. I deplored this, but could not yield the principle of
+holding justice superior to persons.
+
+One of my difficulties was so peculiar that I will recount it. It was
+in the winter, and the ground was frozen deep. The day was bright, and
+on the south hillsides the ground had thawed to the depth of two or
+three inches. Several boys were together, and one of them several years
+older than I. He was a son of one of our tenants, and entirely too
+proud for one in his condition. He was imposing on my younger brother,
+and I gave him to understand he must not do that. With this he turned
+upon me. We were upon a south hillside, under a large beech tree, and
+the ground was thawed on top and frozen beneath. About the first pass I
+slipped on a root concealed in the mud, and fell on my back, with my
+shoulders wedged between two projecting roots and my head against the
+tree. I was utterly powerless. After pommeling me a while, he proposed
+to let me up if I would say "enough." This I declined to do. Then he
+would renew the operation, and then the proposition. The sun was three
+hours high, no one interfered, and I insisted that they should not.
+Sometimes he would lie upon me and talk for half an hour or more; he
+would argue the case, remind me of my helplessness, and that it would
+be death to lie there on the frozen ground till night. Then when his
+advice all failed, he would renew hostilities. Thus it continued till
+sundown. As the sun got low he changed his proposal. He would now let
+me up if I would promise to make friends, and not fight him. This I
+also declined. Finally, when he saw that nothing would avail, he gave
+me a few parting salutes, and, springing to his feet, ran away. Before
+I could get up he had such a start that I could not overtake him. For
+some time I watched for a chance to pay him back, but he kept out of my
+sight; and soon after his folks moved away, and thus the matter ended.
+
+From my infancy it has been my disposition to stick to my convictions
+till I saw I was in the wrong. I can not say that I am obstinate,
+though it may have that appearance to others. I never could yield a
+point for policy's sake, though my adherence to my convictions has cost
+me a good deal. This led me early in life to be careful in coming to a
+conclusion, and I have always admired Davy Crockett's motto, "Be sure
+you're right, and then go ahead." I commend this homemade philosophy to
+all who may read this chapter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+Given to Abstraction of Thought. Cases in Point. Opinion of Debating
+Societies. Perseverance. Consumption. Endurance. More Comfortable
+Home. Death of his Father. Love of Fashionable Amusements. Meets his
+Future Wife. Is Married. Tribute to his Wife. Her Father and Mother.
+
+
+During early life I was much given to abstraction of thought, and I am
+still down with the same disease. From morning till night, between the
+plow-handles or swinging the maul, I was absorbed in reflection. My
+reading and other studies raised many questions that I sought to find
+out. Natural philosophy and the elements of astronomy were subjects of
+peculiar delight, and would cause me to become oblivious of all
+surroundings. This frequently got me into trouble. It vexed my father
+very much that my mind was not more on my work, and he had but little
+patience with me. When about the house I would often realize that I had
+been told to do something, and I would start at once about it, and
+perchance when I came to myself I would find that I was at the barn or
+spring, wholly forgetful of what I had been told to do. On one occasion
+I was told to go to the lot and catch a horse and come to the crib, and
+my father would put the sack on for me, and I was to go to mill. I went
+and caught the horse, got on and went, but when I arrived the mill was
+in ashes; it was just through burning. On my return I saw that my
+father was not as serene as a May morning. But not till he spoke of it
+did I discover that I had gone off without the sack. I at once taxed my
+eloquence to give a glowing account of the fire, and thus divert his
+attention from my neglect.
+
+Many a time have I acted ridiculously on account of this absorption of
+thought. While at Eminence College, there was a public exhibition one
+evening in the chapel. A few minutes before it began I went into the
+room of Prof. Henry Giltner, just across the hall from the chapel, and
+here I saw McGarvey's "Commentary on Acts" for the first time. I
+thought I would look into it for a moment before the exercises should
+begin; and that was the last I thought of the exhibition till some one
+came into the room just before its close, hunting for me.
+
+One more instance of this nature must suffice. About 1872, I was
+holding a very successful meeting at Burksville, on the Cumberland
+river, and while I was preaching one night there came up a terrific
+thunderstorm, with vivid lightning and hard rain. A young man occupied
+a front seat who had just been reclaimed from a life of sin, and who is
+now a preacher. I had a faint recollection of seeing him leave the
+house. He had become alarmed at the storm and left, but I knew nothing
+of the confusion till the services closed.
+
+Every fall and winter we would have debating societies at the
+school-house, and at these, men of considerable attainments would be
+present and participate--teachers, preachers, and lawyers. In these I
+took a deep interest. My reading enabled me to become well posted on
+most of the questions discussed; and by careful preparation I soon came
+to be recognized as a good debater for one of my age. These discussions
+were of great advantage to me, and I am clearly of opinion that
+debating societies, when properly conducted, can be made useful to
+aspiring young men.
+
+From childhood my under front teeth passed up on the outside, and, when
+a good sized boy, I concluded that that was not just the right thing,
+and that I would bring them into their proper place. By an effort in
+drawing back my under jaw, I could barely get the edges to so pass as
+to make a pressure of any value. But with this slight purchase the
+operation was continued from day to day, till the work was
+accomplished. The teeth became very sore from pressure, and the muscles
+of the jaw very tired from the unnatural strain, but in about ten days
+it was all over, and the job complete for life.
+
+Another case required much greater perseverance. My older brother was
+very hollow-chested, and died of consumption; several others of the
+family were afflicted in like manner, and met the same fate. When about
+sixteen, I had strong tendencies in that direction. My chest was
+becoming "hollow," and I decided upon an effort to counteract it. To
+this end I slept on my back with no pillow under my head, and a
+good-sized one under my chest. I would awake of a morning feeling
+almost too dignified to bend forward. This I kept up for two years,
+holding myself erect during the day, till my chest expanded and the
+threatening trouble was overcome. But for that I should have been in my
+grave long ago. The simple fact is, I have been fighting consumption
+since I was sixteen years of age.
+
+While I was never robust in health or appearance, I was exceedingly
+tough, and had great power of endurance. One of my physicians told me
+long ago that in all his practice he had never seen anything that would
+compare with it. This enabled me to do as much work as men of much
+greater strength. In those days reapers were generally unknown in our
+country, and the grain was all "cradled." At this I was an adept, never
+meeting any one that could excel me. The same was true of jumping and
+running foot races. Hundreds of men could no doubt beat me, but I never
+happened to meet them. I kept up these exercises till I left college.
+
+When I was about twelve years of age my father built a large and
+comfortable house on another part of his farm. It was of hewed logs,
+and a story and a half high, with a large kitchen and dining-room,
+porches, etc. It was subsequently weather-boarded, and it is still a
+comfortable, commodious dwelling, owned by my mother, who never left it
+till her children all married and went to themselves. Father died of
+typhoid fever in 1860, in the fifty-third year of his age. He left my
+mother in comparatively easy circumstances, with nearly three hundred
+acres of land, plenty of stock, and a considerable amount of money on
+interest. By industry and economy on the part of himself and the whole
+family this property was accumulated, and he died in the assurance that
+with prudence on our part we could all make a respectable living. My
+mother now makes her home with her oldest daughter, Mary Crenshaw, wife
+of Mr. O. B. Crenshaw, a few miles north of Simpsonville, Shelby
+county, Ky. She waits in confident expectation that before long she too
+will depart to be with Christ and His redeemed, where the families of
+his saints will be reunited for ever.
+
+After I grew to be a young man, I became very fond of fashionable
+amusements; I liked dancing, and went far and near to engage in the
+fascinating exercise. I gave a great deal of attention to dress;
+priding myself on being a gentleman; hence I found a welcome in the
+best society. In those years of wildness and wickedness, some things I
+was careful to avoid. I never learned to play cards, to gamble, or to
+tolerate the company of immodest women. For the latter I had an
+invincible repugnance that grew stronger with my years.
+
+In the summer of 1855, while harvesting for her uncle, I first met at
+the dinner-table Miss Jennie Maddox, the lady whom I afterwards
+married. I looked as rough and unprepossessing that day as she ever saw
+me afterwards. I was as brown as a Florida "cracker," and my dress was
+anything but elegant. Had I anticipated the forming of such a
+captivating acquaintance, I should have made some preparation, but I
+was caught, and I had to make the best of it. We were married September
+11, 1856; I was twenty years and a half old; she ten months younger.
+From that time to this she has been a loving, faithful wife, prudent in
+all things, industrious and frugal, caring for me and her children;
+and, above all, a consistent disciple of Jesus Christ, whom she had
+obeyed several years before our marriage. When we first met I thought
+her very handsome; she was rather small, had auburn hair, blue eyes and
+fair skin.
+
+    "And to-day you are fairer to me, Jennie,
+    Than when you and I were young."
+
+As to myself, I was six feet one inch in height, weighed a hundred and
+forty pounds, had brown eyes, and was, and am still, of a
+nervous-bilious temperament. My complexion was then, as now, very dark.
+
+My wife's father, G. W. Maddox, was an elder in the Pleasant Hill
+church, Oldham county, Ky., near which he lived. The church is about
+two miles south-east of Baird's Station, on the Louisville & Lexington
+Railroad. He was a man of a firm logical mind, good general
+information, and more intelligent in the Scriptures than any man I ever
+met, outside of the ministry. I have heard several preachers make the
+same remark. He was, however, a timid man, and it was difficult to get
+much out of him in public. He began too late in life, and had no
+training in that direction. But he was a very popular man, both in and
+out of the church, and his counsel was generally taken. His wife was a
+timid, unassuming, good woman, very conscientious and religious. They
+reared a family of six girls and one boy, all of whom obeyed the gospel
+in good time. I myself baptized several of them.
+
+My father-in-law and I soon became very much attached to each other,
+fond of each other's company, and I loved him as I loved few others.
+His fine information, philosophic Christian spirit and wonderful
+self-control first won my admiration, and this ripened into the
+strongest friendship. He, more than all other men, caused me to see the
+error of my way. We spent the first winter of our married life in his
+pious home, and this gave us much time for investigation and
+conversation upon the subject of religion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+Goes to Housekeeping. Discussions with Mr. Maddox. Attends Meeting. Is
+Baptized by William Tharp. Double Damages for an Old Horse. Begins
+Trading. Moves to Floydsburg. Description of the Place.
+
+
+In the spring of 1857 we moved to a place on Currie's Fork, near
+Centerfield, about a mile and a half from my former home and a little
+farther from hers. So it will be seen I married only a few miles from
+home. It may seem a little strange that we grew up in the same
+neighborhood, and knew nothing of each other till a year before we were
+married. But I rarely went to her church, and she as rarely went
+anywhere else. Our religious proclivities led us in different
+directions, and into different society. I had been taught to look upon
+"Campbellism" as the most miserable of all heresies; and till I began
+to visit at the Maddox house I was seldom in the company of "that
+deluded people."
+
+After moving to ourselves, we went nearly every Lord's day to the home
+of my wife's father, and this for several reasons: she wanted to attend
+her church, and this took her virtually home: this she enjoyed, and so
+did I. The old folks could not visit us on that day without missing
+church, and this they would not do. Mr. Maddox and I still engaged in
+the investigation of Methodism, "Campbellism" and Infidelity. I could
+feel the ground gradually giving way under me, but I was resolved upon
+thoroughly testing every inch, and not yielding till I should become
+satisfied as to the truth of all his positions. I would therefore study
+all week and arrange my arguments with the utmost care, and when the
+time seemed propitious I would present them as forcibly as I could. He
+would never say a word till I was through; then he would say, "Well!
+now let us test that." Then he would very calmly and pleasantly pick
+the thing all to pieces, till I could see nothing but shreds. With a
+mere touch, my carefully built structure would tumble like a cob house.
+Thus the work went on for years. In the meantime I attended meeting
+with my wife nearly every Lord's day, and heard much good preaching.
+Every important point in the sermon would be afterward investigated,
+and, like the noble Bereans, I searched the Scriptures daily, "to see
+whether those things were so."
+
+During these years several successful meetings were held at the church,
+all of which I closely attended. One of these was conducted by John A.
+Brooks, and another by the lamented Simeon King. At the latter I came
+very near yielding to Christ, but persuaded myself that all was not yet
+ready. I delighted to see others obey the Lord, and enjoy the blessings
+of his religion, but I could not exactly see the way clear for myself.
+In spite of a more enlightened judgment, I would find some of my old
+erroneous notions clinging to me. I had a high regard for the church,
+and loved the company of its good members, and only a supreme
+carefulness, born of former blunders, kept me in disobedience.
+
+In May, 1861, William Tharp and Wallace Cox were holding a meeting, and
+at this I confessed Christ, and was immersed by Bro. Tharp. My doubts
+as to the truth of the Christian religion and the way of salvation
+therein, had all been removed; and to this day not a shadow of a doubt
+has crossed my mind as to either. I now experienced a peace of
+conscience that I had not known since my thought was first disturbed in
+regard to the right way of the Lord.
+
+I farmed for three years after marriage. The last year, we lived on the
+railroad just below Buckner's Station, and while here I had a little
+experience with the railroad company that teaches a lesson worth
+learning. I had an old horse, of not much value, but useful to me; he
+got out upon the road, and was killed by a passing train. I spoke of
+going to Louisville, to see if I could not get pay for it. The
+neighbors discouraged the idea, saying it would be useless. They cited
+a number of instances where stock had been killed, and in no case had
+any one obtained damages. But I went, found the Superintendent, and to
+him I made my speech of about three minutes' length. At its conclusion,
+he asked me if seventy-five dollars would satisfy me; and on my
+replying that it would, he handed me the money. He then remarked that
+the reason people got nothing in such cases, was because of the spirit
+in which they came and the way they talked about it. I left him feeling
+quite pleasant, for it was more than double the animal was worth. This
+was before I became an adept in Christian ethics.
+
+In the fall of 1859 I began trading, having obtained an interest in a
+country store at a little place called Centerfield. We moved to the
+place, and I began to haul country produce to Louisville. I had a team
+which was said to be the best that came into the city, and I made
+weekly trips, bringing back merchandise. This I continued for three
+years, without the least regard to weather, and with scarcely a failure
+during the whole time. This employment threw me into rough associations
+in the city every week. Many engaged in like business from Kentucky and
+Indiana stopped at the same tavern, and most of them were given to
+dissipation. At home it was predicted that with my inclination to
+wildness this would finish me; and while truth compels me to confess
+that I often had "a jolly good time" with "the boys," the excess of
+wickedness I saw had an opposite effect, and I came out at last a
+preacher.
+
+The next year we moved to Floydsburg, sixteen miles from Louisville,
+because, as I did not stay in the store, but did the hauling back and
+forth, it was a better location for us. It is an old town, in which my
+maternal grandfather lived before I was born, in which I spent much
+time before I was old enough to work, and around which cluster the
+earliest memories of life. It was once a place of large business, on
+the main road from Henry and adjacent counties to Louisville, and in
+ante-railroad times a large amount of wagoning was done through the
+place. At certain seasons great droves of cattle and hogs were driven
+through it, and everything was lively; besides, it had a good trade
+with the country around. But the Louisville & Lexington Railroad, which
+runs within a mile of the town, killed it as dead as an Egyptian mummy,
+because all this through business was taken by the railroad, and the
+surrounding trade went to the stations or to the city. It is,
+therefore, a quiet, undisturbed little place to live in, if one is not
+dependent upon making his expenses there. Most of the old citizens,
+business men of its prosperous days, have passed away, and the town has
+the appearance of being at their funeral.
+
+As far back as I recollect, and I know not how much farther, it had in
+it one church, built of stone, small, and with a roof as sharp as the
+best presentations of Methodism that were ever set forth in it. About
+1850, this ancient structure was replaced by one of brick, of good
+size, but poorly furnished. This is the only church that has ever been
+in the place; and while the people have been unusually quiet and moral,
+they have never been burdened with religion. There is a graveyard in
+the rear of the house, opened, perhaps, when the first building was
+erected, and in this silent spot sleep many of my friends and
+relatives. I have never thought it made much difference where one is
+buried--and in this I suppose I agree with most Protestants--but it is
+one proof of the improved taste of the age to see the care now taken of
+our cemeteries. Such places were unknown when I was a boy and where I
+lived, and even yet, outside of our cities and larger towns, they are
+too rare. Every village should have a neat and well-kept cemetery, to
+take the place of the neglected old burying-grounds where,
+
+    "Each in his narrow cell forever laid,
+    The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+Tries to Become a Politician. Fails. Last Act as a Politician. Tries to
+Join the Southern Army. Fails Again. His First Appointment. Feeling of
+Responsibility. His Plan. Text. Analysis of Sermon. Buys a Family
+Bible. Rules of Life.
+
+
+When I obeyed the Saviour, the brethren urged me to begin at once to
+preach the gospel. I had been accustomed to making political speeches,
+and public addresses of different kinds, and they thought I could just
+as easily preach a sermon as to make a speech on any other subject. But
+I was not thus inclined. I had political aspirations, and was not
+disposed to give them up. My idea was, that I could have a good
+influence on public men, in conversation and association, by being a
+faithful and consistent Christian. I regarded this as a field in which
+the influence of Christianity was much needed; and I decided to make
+this a specialty, while leading a public political life. But it did not
+take long for me to learn that there was at least a strong probability
+that the influence would go the other way. However successfully some
+men may be politicians and Christians both, I soon discovered that,
+with my temperament, the two things would not work harmoniously
+together. I concluded that if I continued in politics I would be a very
+sorry kind of Christian, if one at all. For a thing of this kind I had
+a deep repugnance. The issue, then, as it appeared to me, was finally
+forced upon me: Shall I give up politics or Christianity? Of course I
+was not compelled to give up Christianity in theory, but I felt that I
+would virtually do so in practice; and with me the difference between
+the two was hardly worth considering. While I felt that it was a great
+sacrifice, in a worldly point of view, to give up the golden dreams of
+a brilliant future, I decided in favor of Christ and the Bible. I shall
+never cease to thank God for the decision.
+
+My last act in political life was attending, as a delegate, a State
+Convention at Frankfort, in August, 1861. This was, in some respects, a
+miserable affair, and I became thoroughly disgusted with politics and
+politicians, such as seemed to be pushing to the front, and crowding
+modesty and decency and honesty out of sight. I decided that that kind
+of association, that kind of companionship in the profession, that kind
+of trickery and treachery as food for daily thought, however successful
+one might be, was disgusting and debasing. I went home from the
+convention determined upon a clear cut-loose from the whole concern.
+
+During the convention, Gen. Wm. Preston remarked in a speech that in
+one year from that day, "the stars and bars" would be waving from the
+dome of that capitol. In twelve months to a day, I went to Frankfort to
+see the Board of the Christian Education Society, about assisting me in
+college. The railroad was not in use, and I went by way of the
+Shelbyville pike. When I got in sight of the city, I saw "the stars and
+bars" waving from the dome of the capitol! Gen. Kirby Smith had
+possession.
+
+When the brethren learned of my determination to give up politics, they
+renewed their solicitations in regard to my preaching. But I had become
+intensely concerned about the cause of the Southern Confederacy, and
+longed to take a part in what I then considered her struggle for
+independence and justice. In my misguided zeal, I regarded this a duty
+that patriotism would not allow me to exchange for anything till it was
+performed. Then, if spared, my life-work should be begun. A peculiar
+circumstance, greatly lamented at the time, kept me out of the Southern
+army. But I have long regarded it as a special providence of God.
+
+I was an officer in a large cavalry company under the training of Col.
+J. W. Griffith. He had fought through the Mexican war, was an
+intelligent man, and a good soldier. He also fought through the late
+war, and was several times promoted. We had been drilling for some
+weeks, and the time was set for our departure. I had a good deal of
+unsettled business at Louisville, and went to the city to settle it up.
+During my absence the Federal authorities of Louisville were apprised,
+in some way, of the movements and purposes of our men, and two
+companies of cavalry were sent out to intercept them. Our men were
+notified of this, and went twenty-four hours in advance of the set
+time. Of all this I knew nothing, and when I got home the company was
+gone. I knew not which way it had taken, for our Colonel kept his own
+counsel. When night came I left home, determined upon an earnest effort
+to find the trail of the company and follow them. Twice I came near
+being caught by the soldiers in pursuit, and after a night's fruitless
+search, I was compelled to return disappointed. I had not another
+opportunity, and ere long I gave up the vain idea. But for that
+disappointment I should have gone into the Southern army; and what the
+result would have been will remain a secret till the day in which the
+results of all contingencies are known. But it is highly improbable
+that I should have ever become a preacher of the gospel of the grace of
+God. Thank Him for the providence that overruled me!
+
+I finally yielded to the importunities of the brethren, and allowed
+them to make an appointment. This was in May, 1862, one year after
+making the confession. The meeting was announced two weeks ahead. It
+was a fine day, and through curiosity a great crowd assembled. I had
+never been in the pulpit before, nor made any remarks in the church
+except to pray. The brethren had a Bible-class every Lord's day when
+there was no preaching, and no public speaking was indulged in except a
+few remarks at the Lord's table, by one of the elders. Though I was
+accustomed to speak in public, I felt a responsibility in this matter
+that I never felt before. I decided upon three things as insuring
+success, or at least resulting in no harm:
+
+    1. To select a plain, practical subject, on which I would not be
+    likely to indulge in false teaching.
+
+    2. To thoroughly study the _subject_, rather than the _sermon_.
+
+    3. To make myself thoroughly familiar with the analysis of the
+    subject, and then talk about it, without relying upon memory as
+    to language.
+
+Relying on memory has been the cause of ten thousand failures, and has
+taken all the "snap" out of ten thousand more, that were considered a
+success. The intellect never leaps and bounds with vivacity when it is
+chained by verbal memory.
+
+I selected for my text Matt. xvi. 24: "Then said Jesus unto his
+disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and
+take up his cross, and follow me." I went into the pulpit alone,
+"introduced," as the saying is, for myself, and then spoke for forty
+minutes. While I felt embarrassed by a sense of responsibility, there
+was no confusion of thought in regard to the subject; hence no
+difficulty in its presentation. As it was my first sermon, the analysis
+of it may be of some interest.
+
+I called attention, first, to the universal offer of salvation: "If
+_any man_." Second, to the freedom of the will: "If any man _will_."
+Third, personal responsibility involved in the foregoing. Fourth,
+self-denial as a condition of eternal life. Fifth, the nature and
+necessity of cross-bearing. Sixth, examples of self-denial and
+cross-bearing on the part of Christ and the apostles.
+
+The church in which I preached my first sermon was the same in which I
+made the confession, and near which I was reared. For it I did my first
+regular monthly preaching, while in college, and in it held a number of
+successful protracted meetings, one annually, during the early years of
+my ministry. The old church is dear to me yet; its old members are my
+devoted friends, and I delight to visit them when Providence permits.
+
+Immediately after obeying the Saviour I bought a family Bible and a
+pocket Testament; not that we had none before, but they were not such
+as suited my convenience. At home and abroad, in the city or the
+country, in the store or on the road, I had my Testament. As I drove
+all day along the highway, I would look at it occasionally to see how a
+certain passage read, and then study its meaning. I have never read the
+Bible largely, as some do, but I have studied it every day since I knew
+the way of life, unless I was too sick to have anything in mind. I have
+studied, doubtless, a hundred times as much without the book in my
+hands as with it. The idea that one can study the Bible only as he has
+opportunity to sit down with the book in his hands, is a great mistake.
+Hence many people complain of having no time to study the Bible, when
+the fact is they have nearly all their time, if they only knew it. I
+early learned to study the Bible at any time or under any
+circumstances, and the advantages of this to me have been beyond
+estimation.
+
+As soon as I got my family Bible, I wrote on a flyleaf a few simple
+
+    RULES OF LIFE.
+
+    1. To study this book carefully and prayerfully every day.
+
+    2. To try to understand its teaching, regardless of the theories
+    and traditions of men.
+
+    3. To make it the man of my counsel, the source and limit of my
+    knowledge of divine things, and to speak on such matters only as it
+    speaks.
+
+    4. To measure myself in everything by this standard, and bring my
+    life, in all respects, in subjection to its divine authority.
+
+    5. To strive to grow in grace, and in the knowledge of the truth,
+    that I may become strong in the Lord, be a blessing to my fellow
+    men, and at last obtain a home in heaven.
+
+These rules, in some respects, have been closely observed; especially
+the first three. While in the others I have fallen immeasurably short,
+I feel that, upon the whole, the rules have been of great advantage to
+me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+Resolves to Go to College. Friends Oppose. Wife Decides It. Hard Living
+and Hard Work. Impaired Health. Preaches for His Home Church.
+Father-in-law Dies. "Frank, Be a True Man." House Robbed. "Scraps."
+College Incidents. First Pay for Preaching. Holds Several Meetings.
+Dishonest Preacher.
+
+
+When I fully decided to devote my life to the ministry of the Word, I
+felt an overwhelming desire for a better education, in order to do the
+kind of work for the Master that his cause demanded. I had a good deal
+of general information that I had acquired through years of reading and
+study, but I was wholly ignorant of a number of things that I felt to
+be necessary to reliable, satisfactory work for the Lord. I wanted to
+devote my life to study, and I needed assistance in laying the
+foundation on which to build in after years. I decided, therefore, to
+quit business and go to college. This was vigorously opposed by all my
+friends. The church insisted that I had education enough, and that all
+I lacked was practice, to make me as good a preacher as there was need
+to be. My relatives opposed it, because they could not see the
+necessity, and it promised to wife and children only starvation. I had
+had some reverses, and had got just fairly square with the world. The
+flush war times had just come on. Trade was booming, money abundant and
+prices going up. I was now prepared to make money as I had never made
+it before, by five to one. To quit business just at that time, cut off
+all source of revenue, and go with a wife and three children to
+college, with but little money to start on, did, indeed, in one sense,
+look like absolute recklessness. Indeed, some of the brethren thought I
+was actually going crazy.
+
+It was then argued that I should at least defer it a few years, till I
+should make some money, which was then easily done, and thus provide
+for the wants of my family while going through college. This looked
+very plausible; but I was deeply impressed with the blunders I had
+already made in trying to be a politician, then a soldier, and not
+going at once to the work of the Lord. I was afraid to dally about the
+matter any longer. I laid the case before the Lord and my wife. I knew
+she was to be the greatest sufferer by the change, and her counsel
+weighed more with me than that of all others. Considering what _might_
+result from delay, the brave little woman said "Go." That settled it.
+
+In August, 1862, I wound up my business, and prepared to enter Eminence
+College. I rented an old, dilapidated house near the railroad, a mile
+above town. The place had about three acres for cultivation, and the
+same amount in grass. I kept a horse and buggy, a cow and several hogs.
+My wife raised a large number of fowls. I cultivated the ground, making
+it produce all it would, cut and hauled my fuel from the woods, and so
+managed as to be at no great expense in living. But when going to a
+city market every week, and feeling no embarrassment about money, we
+indulged in a style of living that now had to be discontinued. This
+went rather hard, but we tried to bear it bravely. The plainest and
+hardest living of our lives, by far, were those years at Eminence. The
+self-denial of my wife, for my sake and the gospel's, greatly
+encouraged me to bear the cross.
+
+I did double work during the whole time, reciting eight times a day.
+This required intense application. I allowed myself eight hours for
+sleep, and the other sixteen were given to study. Whether eating,
+walking, working in the garden or chopping wood, I was boring into the
+questions of the recitation room. I would occasionally take a little
+turn with the boys on the playground at noon, but not often. I was fond
+of it, but felt that I could not spare the time. This was a sad
+mistake, confirmed by a life of broken-down health. But, like many
+others, it was not discovered till the mischief was done. A determined
+effort to crowd four years' work into two, under discouraging
+circumstances, resulted in impaired health; which continued labor
+beyond my strength kept impaired for the rest of my life. It is often
+stated that preachers suffer more from overeating than overwork. This
+is doubtless true to a large extent. But it was far from true in my
+case. I was never a large eater after I was grown. And when my health
+first failed me, want of a variety of good, nourishing food had no
+little to do with it. And all through subsequent life, a trouble has
+been to take sufficient food to meet the wants of the system.
+
+I was the first married man that ever attended Eminence College. It was
+considered quite a novelty by some. But a few months later, in the same
+term, Bro. Briney came in. He and his wife boarded at the college. A
+few years later Bro. George Bersot and wife came, and married
+school-boys got to be quite common.
+
+While attending school, I preached once a month for the old church at
+home--Pleasant Hill. The distance was twenty miles, with a good dirt
+road--when it wasn't bad. This afforded my wife an opportunity, during
+favorable weather, to go to see her parents once a month. And her
+father was now getting low with consumption. The church promised me no
+specified amount for my preaching, and, as is frequently the case, most
+of them considered the contract complied with when they gave me a
+hearing. They were not in sympathy with my college enterprise, and were
+not specially concerned about supporting it.
+
+In May, 1863, my father-in-law died. In his death I lost one of my best
+and dearest earthly friends. He was the only one who encouraged me in
+my efforts for an education. While he could give me no material aid,
+being himself embarrassed by years of affliction, his wise counsel and
+deep sympathy helped me even more than money, badly as that was needed.
+When he was gone, I felt as if the only bright spot in my horizon,
+apart from my family, had faded into darkness. By nature he had a quick
+temper, and was very impulsive. By Christian culture he came to be a
+model in gentleness, patience and self-control. He was a wonderful
+example of how men, by faith, "out of weakness are made strong." As we
+stood around his bed of death, and his breathing indicated that the end
+was at hand, he opened his eyes as I was bending over him, looked me
+earnestly in the face, and composedly said, "Frank, be a true man." And
+with these words his spirit took its flight. No other words that ever
+fell from mortal lips ever so impressed me as these. The source whence
+they came, and the circumstances under which they were uttered, gave
+them peculiar significance. My soul, what is it for one to be a true
+man--true to his friends and true to his foes; true to his family and
+to her whose life is dearer to him than his own; true to himself and
+his better nature in all that involves his honor as a man; true to the
+truth, under all circumstances; and true to the Saviour and His cause,
+to which he has dedicated his life? Ever in after years when tempted in
+regard to a faithful discharge of its responsibilities, those sacred
+words came from the sleeping dust of death--"Frank, be a true man."
+Though dead, he yet speaks, and his words have been fruitful of good.
+
+While attending his death and funeral, our house was broken into, and
+almost everything we had was stolen. We had laid in meat and lard for
+the year, and not a pound was left. All the flour, meal, sugar, coffee,
+preserves, jams, jellies, and everything else, was taken. Not a pound
+of anything to eat was left on the place. All the best cupboard ware,
+and part of the bedding and my wife's clothing were taken. This was a
+sorry plight to find ourselves in when we returned from the funeral.
+The country was full of soldiers, and nothing was done towards
+recovering the property. Thus we started on a darker and rougher road
+for the rest of college life.
+
+During the first year at Eminence there grew up a strong rivalry
+between the two leading college societies--the Philomathean and the
+Rising Star. Both were strong in numbers, and each had in it an unusual
+amount of talent. I was appointed by the Philomathean Society to
+criticise the Rising Stars. This was my special business. I prepared
+what I called a scrap-basket. For this I would prepare notes from time
+to time, as something would suggest them, and on the nights of public
+exhibition, which were quite frequent, I would read them. These were
+cuts at the young ladies and criticisms of their performances, as sharp
+as I could make them. The result was, the whole Society soon got too
+much out of humor to speak to me. They called me "Scraps." Even Sister
+Giltner became offended, and was so for several months, till I was
+brought down in sickness, and then her good heart conquered, and she
+came to see me, bringing a load of delicacies to tempt and satisfy my
+appetite. The "scrap" at which she became offended was about this:
+Coming on the stage, the first scrap I took from the basket read: "We
+do not expect many compliments for this dish of scraps, especially from
+the young ladies of the boarding-house, as they are so used to being
+fed on scraps, it will be no variety to them." Sister G. prided herself
+on her good table. I knew it was good, and hence felt free to make the
+jocular remark. Had it been otherwise, I should have felt some
+hesitation in doing so.
+
+President Giltner and I were in frequent conflict, and he came in for a
+full share of notice from the scrap-basket. While I would not assent to
+his views of things, which frequently caused disputation, on the whole
+he was kind and generous, and did much to help me through those hard
+school years. I have since met many of those young ladies in all parts
+of the country, mothers of interesting families, but not one of them
+had ever forgotten that scrap-basket.
+
+Doctor Russell was my teacher in Latin and the Sciences, and Prof.
+Henry Giltner in Mathematics and Greek. The Doctor was a fine moralist,
+but an unbeliever. He was a fine teacher, and very popular with the
+boys.
+
+In the public debates in our society, Bro. J. B. Briney and I were
+always pitted against each other. We were the oldest and the nearest
+equal in our advancement, especially in this line. We had quite a
+number of public discussions.
+
+Here, as elsewhere, many went through on the shoulders of others. As an
+illustration of this, take two young men who were appointed on public
+debate. Soon each came to me insisting that I should write his speech.
+I refused both. The time was drawing nigh, and neither had done
+anything. One evening one of them went home with me from school, and
+compelled me, virtually, to write his speech. He was delighted with it.
+The next morning, while he was asleep, I got up and wrote a reply, just
+"tearing it all to flinders." The negative gained the decision, and
+neither one knows to this day that I wrote the speech of the other.
+
+During the winter of 1862-3 I went to Hendronsville, the old church
+that now composes the one at Smithfield, to fill an appointment for
+Bro. Giltner. I went to dinner with old Bro. Hieatt. On leaving, he
+gave me a dollar--the first dollar I ever received for preaching.
+
+In the summer of 1863 I held a meeting at Hendronsville, with Bro.
+Giltner, for which I was liberally paid, all things considered, and
+this was my first pay for a protracted meeting.
+
+The same vacation, I went to South Fork, in Boone county, to fill an
+appointment for Bro. Wm. Tandy. Bro. Jacob Hugley was to come on the
+first of the week, and join me in a protracted meeting. Something
+prevented him from coming. I soon ran out of sermons, the supply on
+hand being small. In the meantime a fine interest had sprung up, and I
+had no excuse for quitting. So I had either to face the music, prepare
+and preach two sermons a day, or ingloriously surrender. The meeting
+continued two weeks, with some eighteen or twenty additions. During the
+same trip I held a meeting at a church near Walton, at which several
+additions were made to the congregation.
+
+I did but little preaching during the school term. Convenient churches
+could not be obtained, and inconvenient ones took too much of my time
+to be given for nothing.
+
+At Eminence I first met Bro. I. B. Grubbs. He came to preach for a few
+days, and spent a day at our humble home. I then formed for him a
+peculiar attachment, which has grown and strengthened with the passing
+years. Our minds ran close together in the channels of divine truth,
+and they have never materially diverged. A disagreement between us in
+the interpretation of Scripture has been very rare.
+
+Old Bro. T. M. Allen preached for the church at Eminence while I was
+there. His sermons were enjoyable, and possessed considerable power,
+but they lacked logical construction, and I learned but little from
+them.
+
+In a few weeks after going to Eminence, in the fall of 1862, we were
+blessed with the birth of a third daughter, and in the summer of 1864
+the Lord took her to himself, and left us to mourn her absence.
+
+In June, 1864, I went with Willis and Wallace Cox to Daviess county, to
+hold some meetings. Wallace was not able to preach, but went along for
+the enjoyment of the trip. He had labored there before, and was well
+acquainted. We held a meeting at Owensboro, and one at a new church
+some eight miles in the country. Both meetings were moderately
+successful.
+
+As an evidence of what some men can do, I shall speak of a meeting held
+about this time, _without giving place or name_. The meeting had been
+successful, and a fine interest prevailed. The night it was to close
+there came a severe storm, and no one was out. We had to leave the next
+morning, and on the next Lord's day the brethren raised considerable
+money and gave it to the preacher to send to us. Some years after, the
+brother who was with me in the meeting went back there to preach for
+the church, and while there some one asked him whether he and I
+received our money all right. This was the first intimation that any
+money had been sent to us. The case was investigated by the church, and
+the man confessed he had never sent it. The brother got his, and the
+thief preacher promised to send mine, but hasn't done it yet. He is
+still preaching, and on several occasions has come a long way to hear
+me preach. What kind of a face and heart such a man can have, is a
+mystery I have never been able to solve!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+Leaves College. Goes to Alexandria, Ky. An Adventure in Ohio. A Baby
+_not_ Baptized. Peril in Crossing the River. Opens His School. Makes
+Some Money. Buys a Nice Home.
+
+
+Having obtained a sufficient knowledge of Latin, Greek, and various
+sciences, to enable me to prosecute my education without a teacher, and
+my health being bad through close application and hard living, and
+feeling that I ought not to subject my family to such hardships any
+longer, I determined, very reluctantly, to leave college, at least for
+a time. I had now been at Eminence two years, and I shall ever thank
+God that even for this short time I was able to gratify my burning
+desire to acquire knowledge. It was at a great sacrifice we went there
+and remained as long as we did, but we have never once regretted it.
+
+Through the influence of President Giltner, we secured the High School
+at Alexandria, Campbell county, Ky. This had been conducted for some
+years previously by Bros. O. A. and Chester Bartholomew, under the name
+of the "Mammoth Institute." I visited the place, and arranged to
+conduct the school and preach for the church there, which was small and
+financially weak; but there was no other in reach. So I could not do
+better than to give them all my time, at whatever could be raised in
+the way of salary. They had a nice little brick house, and a number of
+good members, and for several years the church prospered; but the
+county filled up with Germans, some of the best members moved away, and
+the cause went down. The house was sold, and to-day we have no church
+in the place.
+
+After completing arrangements to preach and teach, I went over to
+Hamersville, Brown county, O., to see some relatives. A brother and
+sister of my father lived there, besides other relatives. My uncle had
+a large family. I had never visited any of them, and now being near and
+having a little time, I borrowed a horse and rode over. I sent an
+appointment for Lord's day at Hamersville, and got there about the
+middle of the week. I found that an appointment had not been made for
+Sunday morning, but for night. The reason was, the Methodists were to
+have a quarterly meeting in the woods near town--a big affair--and
+everybody was going. Hence I could get no hearing in the morning. I
+went to the meeting, as it was the only place to which to go. It was
+thought that three thousand people were on the ground. There were seven
+preachers. It was during the darkest period of the war, and every man
+from the south side of the Ohio River was looked upon with suspicion. I
+had been there several days, and quite a number knew who I was and
+where I was from. I took a seat near the stand, and when they prayed,
+in conformity with their custom, I kneeled in the leaves. The old
+preacher who "led in prayer" yelled as if his congregation was a mile
+away and God was on a journey. He began by praying for the President;
+then his Cabinet; then the Senate; then the Representatives; then the
+generals; then the colonels; then the captains; then the private
+soldiers. All this I tolerated, but did not say Amen. Finally he prayed
+for the utter extermination of the Southern people. He besought God to
+wipe them out of existence--men, women and children--from the Ohio
+River to the Gulf of Mexico. This blasphemy and contemptible wickedness
+I could not endure, and I arose from my knees. Perhaps five hundred
+people saw me when I got up. The point in the prayer at which I got up
+aroused suspicion, and inquiry was in a moment rife. They learned who I
+was and where I was from, and the excitement grew intense. Numerous
+threats were made to hang me on a limb there and then. The country was
+full of what they called "copperheads," who had kept very quiet,
+because it was to their interest to do so, but now they were aroused,
+and any attempt at violence would have led to the most serious trouble.
+During the intermission at noon, men of different politics congregated
+in different groups, in earnest conversation, and the meeting was
+forgotten in the excitement over a refusal to indorse that prayer. I
+was waited on by a committee to know if it was my political feelings
+that caused me to get up when I did. Without hesitation, I confessed
+that it was. Then they said, "What more need have we of evidence?" It
+was finally decided, so we were informed, that I would not be allowed
+to preach at night--that they would egg me, etc. But at night, not only
+the house, but the yard, was full of "copperheads" who meant
+"business," and I preached without molestation.
+
+They had been holding these meetings at various places throughout the
+country, and at all of them sprinkled all the children that their
+parents could be induced to bring. One lady had a bright little boy
+about eighteen months old, and when the Presiding Elder took him to
+"baptize" him, he said, "Sister, name this child." She responded, "His
+name is Vallandigham." He flew into a perfect rage, handed the child to
+her as if it were burning his fingers, saying, "If you want this child
+baptized you will have to change its name. I will baptize no child
+named for a traitor." The mother took the child and departed. We
+presume that had its name been Jeff. Davis, he would have broken its
+neck on the spot. Such was the "religion" of that class at that time.
+The speeches on the day alluded to were nothing but political harangues
+of the most exciting nature. Previously I had thought they had politics
+and religion mixed, but I now discovered that there was no mixture
+about it.
+
+On my return, I had a little adventure in crossing the river. The ferry
+was at New Richmond. The boat was a small affair, propelled by poles
+and oars. It was just wide enough for a wagon, and had railings on the
+sides. A two-horse wagon went in before me. When we got some distance
+out into the river, one of the horses jumped over the railing, and
+caused the boat to careen so that it was filling rapidly. It was
+astonishing how those river men, who, perhaps, had been reared on the
+water, became excited. They seemed almost incapable of any intelligent
+action, but yelled like so many savages. I decided at once upon my
+course. I got into the wagon, calculating that the water would probably
+not come to my head while standing up, should the boat go down. If it
+should, then I determined to take my horse by the tail and let him tow
+me ashore. But the owner of the team succeeded in cutting the harness,
+thus freeing the horse and allowing the boat to right itself so that it
+did not sink.
+
+We moved from Eminence to Alexandria, and boarded with a gentleman by
+the name of Brown. He had a nice family, a good house, and he was a
+clever gentleman, and a "hardshell" Baptist of the first water.
+
+Our school opened about the first of September, with seventy-eight
+pupils, and it soon increased to 130. Not expecting so many, I had
+secured no assistant but my wife; and the result was, we were both
+over-worked. I had to hear several classes out of school hours,
+especially in Latin and Greek. There were some young men in these
+studies, clerks, merchants, etc., who were not otherwise in the school,
+and these recitations were in the evening after school was dismissed.
+This, with preaching every Lord's day, worked me very hard. The school
+paid well, and for the first time since I gave up business for the
+gospel of Christ, I made some money.
+
+In a few months, as soon as I saw an open road to success, I bought a
+nice little cottage and two acres of ground, from Bro. Giltner, at
+$1,200. He had taken it for a school debt, and let us have it on
+reasonable terms. It was nicely improved, and altogether a desirable
+piece of property. Thus for the first time we had a home of our own.
+This is a luxury that comparatively few preachers can enjoy. Moving
+from place to place as, for example, Methodist preachers have to do, is
+unfavorable to domestic happiness. How few members of our churches ever
+think of this, or make allowance for the discomfort frequent changes of
+residence impose upon the families of their preachers! To own a home
+and have the taste and the means to adorn it, is an educational force
+in any family; its lack, a great misfortune.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+Narrow Escapes. Is Thrown from a Horse. Has Pneumonia. Nearly Killed.
+Self-possession. Almost Drowned. Eludes Angry Soldiers. Reflections.
+
+
+During the Christmas holidays we went down to Oldham county to see our
+relatives. While there, an event occurred, the recollection of which
+brings up a chapter of NARROW ESCAPES hitherto untold, a few of which I
+shall relate in their order.
+
+When about thirteen years of age, a horse on which I was riding in a
+slow walk and on a level road, fell, throwing me over its head and
+coming over on top of me. It broke both bones of my left ankle and
+several ribs, mashing in my left breast, which has ever since been much
+depressed; it never developed like the other, and the lung on that side
+is the one now chiefly affected. This accident occurred at
+Ballardsville, on a public day, some three miles from home. I was taken
+to the home of Dr. Swaine, our family physician, near which it
+happened. He was absent, and a doctor from Shelby county was called. He
+had a carpenter to make a box, reaching from my foot to my knee, and in
+this he put my leg. The box was straight on the bottom, and as the
+break was just in the hollow between the calf and the heel, anybody
+that had any sense should have known that the broken part would settle
+down level with the rest, and a bad job be the result. It was badly
+set, and gave me much trouble for several years.
+
+Following this, in successive winters, I had two severe spells of
+pneumonia in that left lung, in both of which my life was despaired of.
+
+One day I was hauling heavy barn sills. They were swung under the hind
+axle, and the pole was tied by a chain back around the sill. The chain
+caught on a solid rock in the road, and, as I had four strong horses,
+and they all came to a dead pull, the chain broke; then the pole came
+over with force enough to have mashed every bone in a man's body. The
+horses happened to be on a straight pull, and the pole just brushed by
+my right shoulder and side. Had it struck me, I might as well have been
+struck by a cannon-ball. That ended my dragging logs without a block
+under the front end of the pole.
+
+While trading in Louisville, a grocery firm with which I dealt to some
+extent had a clerk who was very dissipated at times. He was a desperate
+character, and, when drinking, was very dangerous. One day I sold them
+a lot of bacon, and this clerk, who almost had delirium tremens at the
+time, made a mistake in weighing it. When I told him of it, he took it
+as an accusation of intentional swindling. Instantly he came at me with
+a large cheese knife, swearing vengeance and his eyes flashing fire.
+There was nothing in reach with which to defend myself, and I could not
+well get out of his way. I decided instantly on the only possible way
+of escape. I stood perfectly still, did not move a hand, and looked him
+steadily in the eye. When he got to me, he hesitated a moment, and the
+uplifted hand with the huge knife dropped to his side. Not a word was
+spoken, nor did my eye fall from his, and he turned and went back to
+his work.
+
+During the summer after I confessed the Saviour, quite a number of
+hands were harvesting at my father-in-law's. On Saturday evening we
+went to a large pond near by to bathe. It was made to supply a saw-mill
+by throwing a large dam across a hollow. It covered, perhaps, an acre
+of ground, and was twelve or fifteen feet deep in places. I never could
+swim successfully, but a number of those present were good swimmers,
+and there were many slabs on the pond that would float several men. I
+told them I believed I could swim across the pond, and if I could not
+there were too many good swimmers present to let me drown. I swam
+across once, and, after resting a moment, started back. When I got
+about the middle, I missed my stroke and went down. I thought nothing
+of it at first, fully expecting that when I came to the top they would
+save me. I came to the top, could hear them yelling like Indians, but
+no one came to my rescue. I took breath and went down again. When I
+came up the second time the result was the same. When I came up the
+third time, and no one there to help me, I began to get a little uneasy
+and considerably out of humor. I was becoming exhausted, and I knew
+that I could not come to the top more than once or twice more. I tried
+to go to the bottom, knowing that if I could touch bottom I could
+spring to the surface without exertion. But I could not reach the
+bottom. I came up the fourth time; still no one gave me assistance. By
+summoning the entire stock of remaining strength, I came up the fifth
+time. As I did so, a strong young man, Sparks by name, a good swimmer,
+caught me by the left arm near the shoulder. He told me to take hold of
+him, but this I refused to do. I thought this might endanger him, and
+that if I would be perfectly passive he could manage me with no danger
+to himself. But when I would not take hold of him, he let me go and
+swam off and left me. Another man was within ten feet at the time,
+coming to his assistance. When I went down this time, I was satisfied
+they were going to let me drown. I felt that I could not come to the
+top again, and could not reach the bottom. I thought if I could reach
+the bottom I could crawl out by springing to the top now and then for
+breath. But I could not touch bottom. I then began to calculate the
+chances of their getting my body out in time to resuscitate it. I knew
+it would not take long to cut the dam and drain the pond; but, when I
+reflected that they had not the presence of mind to do anything, I lost
+all hope in that direction. I saw no chance for me, and regarded the
+end as come. The reflection that I had obeyed the gospel was intensely
+joyous. During the whole time I had not strangled, knowing that it
+would be fatal. A young man named Gipson--Sam Gipson--one of the owners
+of the mill, was some eighty yards away, filing the saw. When Sparks
+swam away and left me, Gipson saw they were going to let me drown, and
+ran to my assistance. He got on one of the large slabs, and came in to
+where I had gone down. I was still making some commotion in the water,
+and, guessing about where I was, he pushed a plank down that came just
+under my left arm. I knew what it was, and pressed it to my side. He
+then bore on the other end and brought me to the surface. He held on
+thus till others came and helped me upon the slab. As soon as I got
+breath a few times I appeared to be all right, and they thought I was
+only playing a trick on them; but in a few moments I tumbled over,
+became black in the face, and suffered intensely for several hours.
+
+On one occasion during the war I went into Floydsburg, on the morning
+after Christmas day. There was a little squad of Confederates there,
+belonging to the command of Col. Jessee, of New Castle, Ky. One of them
+was a boy, named Hall, who went from that neighborhood. The rest were
+strangers. I was introduced to the lieutenant in command, and had some
+talk with him. The main street of the town runs east and west. About
+the middle, the Brownsboro road comes in from the north, at a right
+angle. This comes down a "branch" which crosses the main street. At the
+east end of town the road descends into another hollow. Some of the
+soldiers were inside, some sitting outside, of a blacksmith shop, and
+some on their horses. I had walked near the east end, till I was just
+on the ridge between the two hollows. I was standing at the door of
+Col. Wilson, talking to his wife, when several companies of negroes,
+stationed at La Grange under the command of white men, came marching
+into town. They were a terror to the whole country. A little negro boy,
+chopping wood just at the east edge of town, informed the commander,
+who was riding in front, that the rebels were at the shop. Instantly
+everything was quieted, and a stealthy march for the shop began. From
+my position I could see both parties, and that the rebels were wholly
+unsuspecting. While they were nothing to me, and I had but little
+sympathy with them, for they were not in the regular service, I could
+not stand and see them surprised and shot. I determined to warn them.
+Mrs. Wilson tried to dissuade me, assuring me that it would be certain
+death. I confess I could see it in no other light myself, yet I could
+not decline. I walked down the street with an unconcerned air, about
+forty yards in advance of the company. The lieutenant was sitting on
+his horse sidewise, with his face turned from me, talking to a
+Presbyterian preacher. I could see the eyes of the preacher over the
+shoulders of the horse, but he was looking up into the face of the
+other man, and I could catch the eye of neither. Finally, I had to stop
+and make lively demonstrations in the face of the whole negro command.
+When the attention of the Confederates was attracted, they endeavored
+to escape by the Brownsboro road, and a charge from the other company
+was instantly ordered. Each company opened fire on the other. I was on
+the side of the street next to the Brownsboro road, and hence thrown
+into all of the crossfire. I stood perfectly still till the entire
+colored company passed by me. One man fell within a few feet of me, and
+afterwards died. They had a running fight till they got out of hearing.
+They caught young Hall, the only one I knew, and killed him.
+Notwithstanding the agreeable disappointment at not finding myself
+killed, I concluded that it might not be healthy to stay around there.
+The town contained one of the most unprincipled white men that ever
+went unhung. He was a sneak thief, and made it his business to get
+Southern men into trouble. I saw him watching me all the time. I
+concluded, therefore, that it would be better for me to leave town
+before the soldiers got back. I had not gone more than a mile when they
+returned, and threatened to burn the town if I was not produced. They
+were watching me from the first, and the only thing that saved me was
+they concluded that they could attend to me after they got through with
+the rebels. They were told that I had left town, and were put on the
+wrong road in search of me. I was then notified, and my holiday visit
+terminated suddenly.
+
+When I think now of the many narrow escapes from death before I was a
+child of God, a number of which are not recorded, my heart overflows
+with gratitude for the kind Providence that spared me till I knew the
+way of life and had the precious promises of God. An ungodly man may be
+brave, and face death without a tremor, but only a child of God can
+face certain death as it comes on apace in the stillness of the sick
+chamber, and when the body is wasted with disease, in perfect composure
+and even inexpressible joy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+He Abandons the School-room. Remarkable Meeting near Alexandria.
+Incidents. Establishes a Church. Mischief-making Preachers. Long and
+Severe Attack of Typhoid Fever. Does not Lose Hope. Gratitude.
+
+
+After teaching a year, I decided to abandon the school-room and give
+myself wholly to the preaching of the Word. In the summer of 1865 I did
+some mission work in Boone county, under the direction of the State
+Board. In August, I held a meeting in Campbell county, about five miles
+from Alexandria. The circumstances were a little peculiar. The Baptist
+meeting-house in Alexandria had been blown down, and they were using
+our house, at our invitation, every Lord's day afternoon, till they
+could rebuild. They had a house about five miles in the country, and a
+large congregation. Nearly the whole community were Baptists, and they
+claimed a kind of preëmption. We had not a member in the neighborhood.
+I was exceedingly anxious to hold a meeting in the very center of this
+stronghold, and thought that as they were using our house, they would
+grant me the use of theirs; but they would not. They offered to let me
+have it for one sermon, but not for a protracted meeting. This did not
+suit my purpose; and as there was an old log school-house near by, I
+made an appointment for a meeting in this, which was to begin on Sunday
+afternoon; and a few friends went with me from town. When we arrived at
+the place, not a soul was on the ground; so having waited after the
+time, and no one coming, I decided at once that the Baptists had
+reported the appointment withdrawn, so that when I came and found no
+one, I would be disgusted, and return home. But I was not disposed to
+be defeated in that way. There was no brother in reach with whom I
+could stay, but I told the friends to go back to town and leave me, and
+that I would hold the meeting, "if I had to sleep in the woods, live on
+pawpaws, and drink out of the 'branch.'" So they left me.
+
+There was a man living about a mile away whom the Baptists had excluded
+about a year before, and who had no good feeling for them. Concluding
+that that would be the best chance for shelter, I went to the house,
+and learned from him that the appointment had indeed been
+countermanded, just as I suspected. He promised me food and shelter
+while I held the meeting. A number of neighbor boys were there with
+his, and these were told to circulate the appointment for next night.
+The following day he and I went and cleaned the house, putting in some
+"anxious seats," fixing it to hold as many as possible. He sent his
+boys out through the neighborhood notifying the people, and that night
+we had about thirty present. The next night the house was full; and
+from this on we had large audiences, day and night. In a few days we
+built an arbor in front, and seated it; then, standing in the door, I
+preached to those within and without. The meeting continued two weeks,
+and resulted in fifty-two additions. Twenty-seven of these were from
+that Baptist Church, and the rest by confession. A few of the
+twenty-seven, the man with whom I lodged among the number, were not in
+the fellowship of the church at that time.
+
+Several incidents occurred during the meeting. A very wicked man began
+to attend, and one night he felt that he could stand the fire no
+longer; but as I was in the door, preventing his escape in that
+direction, he leaped out of a window, and ran off into the woods. In
+about ten minutes he came crowding in from the outside, to make the
+confession.
+
+A Baptist man became interested in the meeting, but his wife was so
+bitter in her feelings that she would not attend. He finally prevailed
+upon her to come. Going home, he asked her how she liked it. "Better
+than I expected," was the reply. No more was said, but the next day she
+came without persuasion. When asked the same question, she said, "They
+don't preach what I thought they did." He was anxious to unite with us
+on the Bible, but was waiting in the hope of getting her to come with
+him. The next day she was in the house and he on the outside, and he
+did not know till the meeting was over that she had come forward and
+been received into the fellowship.
+
+At this meeting a gentleman came and asked me to marry him that night
+after the services should be over. I told him I could not, as I had not
+obtained license to marry. He then asked if I would object to his
+getting a Methodist preacher who lived several miles away. That night
+there was a great crowd, and I saw nothing of the preacher, but while
+we were singing an invitation song a gentleman came pushing in, and
+gave me his hand. I thought, of course, he wanted to make the
+confession, and I tried to seat him with the others who had come
+forward; but he would not. He soon became excited, and, tearing himself
+loose, forced his way into the crowd. Just then some one whispered to
+me that that was the Methodist preacher. It was a long time before the
+services closed, and he was still so embarrassed that it was with great
+difficulty he performed the required ceremony. He hurried away without
+speaking to me, and then sent his apology, stating that he was so
+mortified over his blunder that he could not speak to me about it that
+night.
+
+On account of the numbers, the distance from town, and the want of
+facilities for attendance there on the part of many of the converts,
+they insisted upon having a church of their own at the school-house.
+Under the circumstances it was thought best to comply with their
+request. No officers were appointed as such, because of inexperience,
+but several brethren were designated as those who should take a general
+oversight of the flock, conduct their worship, etc., but none had
+authority; and all were exhorted to be in subjection one to another.
+They met every Lord's day and broke the loaf, and had prayer-meeting
+Wednesday night. A large number took part in the worship. They had
+frequent confessions, and a blacksmith across Licking River, who
+preached, met them at the water, when notified, to attend to baptizing.
+They thus grew in a few months from the fifty-two to seventy-five, when
+two mischief-making preachers visited them and insisted that without
+ordained elders and deacons they were no church at all, and finally
+prevailed upon them to have a number of men ordained. I was sick, and
+knew nothing that was going on. These ignorant novices thought there
+was no use in having authority unless it were exercised. So they began
+to crack their ecclesiastical whip, and the peace of the church was
+disturbed. Things went from bad to worse till the whole congregation
+went to pieces. Thus a good work was destroyed by the folly of two
+ignorant, self-important preachers. Much mischief has been done in our
+reformatory work by hasty organization. Like the New Testament
+churches, we should have no ordained officers till we have material out
+of which to make them.
+
+About September 10, 1865, I was stricken down with typhoid fever. I had
+a good physician, and he nursed me with the utmost care. During that
+sickness he came to see me a _hundred and thirty_ times. For over seven
+weeks there was not a hopeful symptom. He allowed no company in the
+room but my wife and the nurses. He appointed good brethren to nurse
+me, each night about. No one else was allowed to touch me, except my
+wife. I did not see my two little children for over two months, though
+they were all the time in the house. After seven weeks he told me that
+for the first time he saw a slight indication of recovery. After I
+became convalescent, he said, in talking over the case, that he could
+attribute my recovery to but two things--my confidence all the time
+that I should get well, and the faith I had in my physician. He
+determined this latter by saying that I followed his direction minutely
+in everything. Theologically, he could not have given a better
+definition of faith. He was a Baptist.
+
+I never gave up for a moment, and would not allow my mother to be sent
+for till I was far on the road to recovery. I got out for the first
+time on Christmas day, but it was a year before I was able to resume
+regular preaching; and even then, and for a long time afterwards, I
+felt the effects of this terrible disease. Had it not been for the
+close attention of the doctor, and the good nursing of my dear wife and
+kind brethren, I am sure that attack of sickness would have sent me to
+my grave. Truly, God has been very merciful to me in giving me friends
+wherever I have lived, and I have ever felt I could not be grateful
+enough or diligent enough in the service of my Redeemer and His church
+to repay Him or them for all this undeserved goodness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+Sells Out at Alexandria. Moves to Crittenden. Preaches there and at
+Williamstown. Low State of these Churches. Plan of Work. Memorizing in
+Sunday-school. Lack of Church Discipline. One-Man System. Moves to New
+Liberty. Visits Mount Byrd.
+
+
+In the spring of 1866, we sold out at Alexandria, and spent most of the
+summer in Oldham county, among our friends, while I was recuperating my
+health.
+
+The meeting-house at La Grange had been blown down in a storm, and at
+the solicitation of the church I visited a number of congregations and
+obtained help to rebuild it. Midway was one of the places visited. Bro.
+Franklin was there holding a meeting. This was my first acquaintance
+with that grand hero of the Cross of Christ.
+
+In September we moved to Crittenden, Ky. I preached for that church and
+at Williamstown, each half the time, for the rest of that year, and for
+1867. The churches were both at low ebb. They had had no regular
+preaching for some time; had not met on Lord's day; had no discipline;
+and everything was in decay and disorder.
+
+I decided upon a plan of work for each church. The first point was to
+get them to meet on the Lord's day and break the loaf, having social
+worship, when I could not be with them. This done, we carefully revised
+the church records, excluding whom we could not induce to attend the
+house of the Lord and to try to discharge their Christian duties. This
+was followed by protracted meetings at neighboring school-houses,
+through which quite a number were added to both churches. Meetings were
+then held in each church. By this time both churches were in a
+prosperous condition. They both had good Sunday-schools, and a number
+of members were taking an active part in the work of the church. We
+disposed of the old house in Williamstown, and got the new house roofed
+in 1867. We also repaired the house at Crittenden, getting it in nice
+order, and putting in a baptistery.
+
+For the year 1868, the church at Crittenden wanted all my time, and I
+gave up the church at Williamstown, devoting all my energies to the one
+church. We arranged a book in which each member promised to pay so much
+a week. Envelopes were given them, through which they were to pay their
+weekly installment on each Lord's day. The congregations were large and
+regular, and double the amount of money was thus collected that had
+ever been raised before.
+
+That was before the days of Sunday-school "helps," and we made
+memorizing the Scriptures a prominent feature in the work. The first of
+January, 1868, I offered a reward to the one memorizing and repeating
+the most Scripture that year. Quite a number started in to win the
+prize, but it was soon evident that the contest was between three
+girls. The amount of Scripture memorized was immense. All the scholars
+memorized largely. Soon it required a teacher's whole time to hear the
+verses of one of those girls. Then we had them recite during the week;
+and, finally, I had them examined on the Scripture committed, repeating
+here and there as called on. This was harder than repeating it all. The
+first of June another little girl entered the lists. On the day they
+were examined they could repeat with ease and accuracy any passage
+committed to memory during the year. They were examined for several
+hours.
+
+Incredible as it may appear, two of these girls committed the whole
+Bible, and another committed Anderson's Translation of the New
+Testament in addition; still another did not begin till June, and
+committed the Bible by the end of the year. I never intended such a
+result, nor can I approve that way of cramming the memory.
+
+While the church at Crittenden was in other respects in a flourishing
+condition (indeed, rather too much flourish), it was difficult to get
+it to act promptly and strictly in the administration of discipline.
+The officers and church generally had more lax ideas on that subject
+than I had. But in this particular I suppose they were about on a par
+with most other congregations in Kentucky, both among our people and
+others. Indeed, I must confess that at that time I was unusually strict
+in such matters. I wanted everything pertaining to the church to come
+square up to the mark in all respects, and I was unnecessarily worried
+over every shortcoming. On account of not having discipline attended to
+as strictly as I desired, I was disposed to resign at the close of
+1868. But the elders promised more hearty coöperation in the matter,
+and I accepted for another year conditionally. I stated publicly that I
+would begin on three months' trial, and if at the end of that time the
+church had not so coöperated with me as to effect certain ends, our
+engagement would close. I did not succeed in getting the coöperation
+desired, and the first Lord's day in April I announced to a crowded
+house that my relation to them as preacher had closed. It fell upon
+them like a thunder-clap from a clear sky. I stated the reasons, which
+they understood, but had not regarded. Thus ended my ministry with that
+church.
+
+My preaching at Crittenden, and the subsequent history of the church,
+impressed upon me a very important lesson, upon which I acted in after
+life. While everything was "booming," I could not teach them
+self-reliance. They depended upon me. I had to take the lead in
+everything. Consequently, when I left, it was just like taking the
+engine off a big lot of machinery. Everything came to a standstill. I
+feared this, and tried to guard against it. The material, however, was
+of such a nature that it was next to impossible to get them to go
+forward in church work without being led. But I was so impressed with
+the virtual loss of my work then, that I made it a special point, ever
+after, to develop the church in self-reliance, and make it largely
+independent of a preacher.
+
+In 1869 I decided that it was not best for the Master's cause for me to
+longer give all my time to the Crittenden church, as I wanted them to
+learn to do without me. So the first of January I engaged to preach for
+the church at New Liberty, Owen county, one-half my time. Resigning at
+Crittenden in April, in May I moved to New Liberty. Here I found a
+good, substantial set of brethren, and did a substantial work. We soon
+had a good Sunday-school, renovated the house, cut off a lot of dead
+material, and got the church in good working order.
+
+In May, 1869, I held a successful meeting in Owenton, and established
+the cause in that place. Up to this time we had no organization there.
+In 1870 I held them the second meeting. The cause continued to grow
+there. In a few years they built a house of worship. The church has
+generally been in a prosperous condition.
+
+In August of this year, I held another meeting for my old home church,
+Pleasant Hill. It resulted in a goodly number of additions. It was
+always a peculiar pleasure to hold a meeting among these old
+associates, and I held quite a number.
+
+In August, 1869, Bro. I. B. Grubbs and I met at Mt. Byrd to hold a
+protracted meeting. It was the first in their new house, after its
+completion. We had an enjoyable and successful meeting. This was my
+introduction to Mt. Byrd, which has since afforded me a home, has stood
+by me through good and evil fortune, has never wavered in its devotion
+and fidelity, and among whose good members my frail body will rest,
+till it rises in the likeness of Christ.
+
+Here I might as well express my views upon the lack of church
+discipline, as they have been formed from an extensive observation in
+this and other States. I must, however, do this briefly. No one can
+read the epistles of the apostles, and especially those of Paul, and
+not be profoundly impressed with the belief that the administration of
+discipline engaged a large share of their attention; and we may infer
+the necessity of this from the very nature of the case. The first
+churches were largely formed of Gentile converts, and these came from
+heathenism; and they had to be recovered from its debasing practices;
+and even the converts from among the Jews had to be reformed from many
+evil ways. Any one who will read even casually Paul's pastoral epistles
+will see these evils and sins exposed. These were contrary to the
+purity and benevolence of the new religion, and hence the necessity of
+self-denial and constant diligence on the part of both people and
+pastors.
+
+"The times have changed and we have changed with them," but the _forms_
+of sin have changed rather than the thing itself, and we have as much
+need to practice watchcare over ourselves and others as ever. It was
+Cain that asked, "Am I my brother's keeper?"
+
+I am satisfied that the two crying needs in our Kentucky churches, and
+I suppose elsewhere, are the faithful administration of discipline by
+our elders and activity in Christian work by our members. I think we
+are growing in the latter, and fear we are falling off in the former.
+The reasons for both these opinions are not, in my opinion, hard to
+find. Had I time and strength I should like to give them in full.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+History of the Mt. Byrd Church. When Established. Where. Charter
+Members. Officers. Preachers. Number of Members. Three Things
+Contributing to its Prosperity. New House of Worship. Serious Trouble
+in the Church. How Settled. Method of Raising Money. The Church Builds
+Allen a House. Organizes a Sunday-school. How it is Conducted.
+
+
+Since the history of Mt. Byrd church from 1869 till my death will be an
+inseparable part of my history, the two being linked together, the
+church is destined to be known, and is known to-day, wherever I am
+known. And as a part of its history will be given, I think it would be
+more satisfactory to all who may feel interested in it, and more
+profitable as a study, if an outline of its career from the beginning
+were known. I therefore insert it here.
+
+In 1832, Isaac Foster, then a Baptist preacher, came into this
+community preaching the principles of reform as advocated by Thomas and
+Alexander Campbell. The people gave heed to his teaching concerning the
+kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, and on the second Lord's
+day in September, 1832, at the house of David Floyd, on the top of the
+Ohio River hill, opposite Hanover College, Ind., a church was
+established. The following were the charter members: James Lindsey,
+Hatty Ann Lindsey, William Maddox, Elizabeth Maddox, David Floyd, John
+B. Floyd, Miss Mary A. Trout, Miss Catherine Trout, Miss Priscilla B.
+Trout, Miss Sally Trout, Miss Saloma Overpeck, Miss Julia Ann Lindsey,
+Miss Artamisia Cooper, Mrs. Minerva Cooper.
+
+James Lindsey and his wife, Hatty A., were formerly members of the Old
+Christian Connection, at Cane Ridge, Ky. William Maddox and his wife,
+Elizabeth, were from the Baptists. The rest were admitted by immersion.
+
+William Maddox and John B. Floyd were appointed elders, and David Lloyd
+deacon.
+
+For a time they met and worshiped in private houses. They then built a
+meeting-house, near the river bluff, on the farm of Bro. David Floyd.
+It was of hewed logs, and primitive in architecture. It was called Mt.
+Olivet. They met every Lord's day to break bread, to worship God and to
+edify one another in love. Much of the long-continued prosperity of the
+Mt. Byrd church is doubtless due to beginning with good material and on
+correct principles.
+
+In that early day the church enjoyed the visits of such men as Isaiah
+Cornelius, Allen Kendrick, L. L. Fleming, Jesse Mavity, Wm. Brown, and
+others. The church increased in number rapidly.
+
+In a short time several families of standing and influence moved into
+the present neighborhood of Mt. Byrd and south of it, from Woodford
+county, Ky. The house was unfavorably located, being on the extreme
+edge of the territory from which the membership must come. It was
+agreed by all parties to build another house, farther back from the
+river, in a more desirable locality. About 1837 this house was built on
+the farm of Bro. Robert Moffett, at the crossing of the Strother and
+Cooper roads, about two and one-half miles from the other house, and
+one and one-half south of Milton. It was a commodious frame building.
+The site is now on the corner of Bro. Allen's place, two hundred yards
+from his house. It was called Mt. Byrd, from the fact that it was on
+part of a large survey of land known as the Byrd survey; and the "Mt."
+was due to its elevation. It was understood that so soon as certain
+obstacles were removed, the two churches were to become one. Hence the
+house was used a year or two before our organization was established.
+And, in one view of the case, Mt. Byrd had its origin in 1832; and in
+another, in 1839.
+
+On the second day of August, being the first Lord's day, 1839, an
+organization was established on the following covenant:
+
+    "We, the undersigned individuals, agree to have fellowship with
+    each other, and to be united together in the bonds of Christian
+    affection according to all the rules of conduct and requirements of
+    God, as contained in His Word--the Scriptures of the Old and New
+    Testaments."
+
+    CHARTER MEMBERS.
+
+    Robert Moffett, Elizabeth Moffett, Lucinda Moffett, Sarah Ann
+    Moffett, Catherine Stipes, Alexander Moffett, Nancy Moffett, Emily
+    Moffett, Harriet Moffett, Jane Moffett, Porter Fisher, Caroline
+    Fisher, Hayden Fisher, Robert Thompson, Anna F. Thompson, Polly
+    Blake, Elizabeth Taylor, Susan Taylor, Zachariah Taylor, Sally
+    Taylor.
+
+Porter Fisher was chosen elder.
+
+In September following, Dr. Curtis J. Smith and Newton Short held them
+a meeting, resulting in forty additions.
+
+The members of the first organization began to move their membership to
+Mt. Byrd, and soon the two congregations were one.
+
+The following is a list of the overseers of the church, in their order,
+from its establishment till 1885:
+
+    Porter Fisher, Hayden Fisher, John B. Floyd, James Jones, Samuel
+    Morris, John A. Bain, Isaac Trout, John S. Maddox, Jacob Trout,
+    George Craig, F. G. Allen.
+
+The following are the names of the preachers who have served the church
+a stated length of time:
+
+    Porter Fisher, Hiram Stark, J. Newton Payne, Dr. C. J. Smith, Henry
+    Rice, Jesse Mavity, Dr. Sadler, J. A. Bain, G. B. Moore, A. A.
+    Knight, J. C. Walden, J. V. Price, F. G. Allen.
+
+In addition to meetings held by the regular preachers, it has enjoyed
+the evangelistic labors of some of the ablest preachers in the
+Reformation.
+
+From its organization to June, 1885, there were added to the church, at
+various times and in various ways, 982 members. At this time (June 12,
+1885) the membership is 350.
+
+In addition to removals, deaths, exclusions, etc., we gave a large
+number to the Bedford Church when it last organized (1874), and our
+colored membership organized to themselves in 1877. Also the nucleus of
+the Beech Grove church went from here.
+
+Three things, that have had much to do with the prosperity of this
+church, deserve special mention--their course during the war, their way
+of choosing church officers, and their method of church discipline.
+
+During the war the church remained in a peaceful and prosperous
+condition. At the beginning they were of one mind in the decision that
+the religion of Christ was more important to them than political
+interests; that the war would end, but that the kingdom of God would
+not, and that they would stand for the things that could not be shaken
+by the shock of arms. A large number of young men of the community were
+in the service, and they wanted to be in a spiritual condition to take
+care of such of them as should return. Though soldiers of both armies
+were frequently in the neighborhood, the church continued the service
+of God and the discharge of Christian duty as if the peace of the
+country was undisturbed. Consequently, when the war was over, they had
+no alienations to adjust, no broken down walls to rebuild, no breaches
+to close up. They needed no reconstruction. Their history demonstrates
+that even cruel war need not necessarily alienate the people of God.
+The congregation was not a unit in political sympathy, but they allowed
+no mixing of politics with religion, in the pulpit or elsewhere, on
+either side. Strong rebels from Kentucky and strong Union men from
+Indiana filled the pulpit during the time, but with the understanding
+that they preach the gospel and not politics--no difference was made.
+
+Till 1867 the method of selecting church officers was by popular
+ballot. They were thus selected according to the feelings, and tastes,
+and prejudices of men, women and children, many of whom are always
+controlled by personal likes and dislikes. At this time a change was
+made that resulted in great good. The change was to this effect, that a
+committee in whom the church have perfect confidence be appointed to
+select elders and deacons. When selected, their names are submitted to
+the congregation, and two weeks given during which objections may be
+made privately to the committee. Should objections be made to any one,
+which are considered valid, and can not be removed, that name is
+dropped and another substituted. It is understood from the beginning,
+by all parties, that the objections are to be kept private, and if a
+candidate is dropped on account of objections, he has no right to
+demand the name of the objector nor the objections. When objections are
+not made, or they no longer exist, it is understood that the selection
+is ratified by the church. The parties are then set apart to their work
+by fasting, prayer and the laying on of hands. In this way a better
+selection is made, and the church is much more impressed with the
+importance of the official work, and of their obligation to those set
+apart, as co-operants in the work. The plan gave entire satisfaction,
+and the church ever after observed it.
+
+When I began to preach for the church, I introduced a plan of
+disciplinary work which I had observed since my labors with the
+Crittenden Church. The leading idea in it was to save the offender, and
+the church was impressed with that fact. The relatives and friends of
+the offending party were enlisted in an effort with the preachers and
+elders to save him, with the understanding that if this could not be
+done, the law of the Lord must be enforced in his exclusion. Such
+efforts rarely failed, and, when they did, those most likely to be hurt
+about his exclusion felt that they had failed in trying to save him,
+and that all was done that could be done. When such efforts failed, the
+case was then stated to the church, and if any one thought that he
+might accomplish something, and wished an opportunity to try, action
+was delayed till he did what he could, and thus the whole moral force
+of the church was exerted. When all felt that nothing more could be
+done, the law of the Lord was executed, the church withdrew its
+fellowship, and the occasion was made as solemn and impressive as
+possible. There was no voting as to whether or not they would exclude
+him. That is a matter of divine legislation on which we have no right
+to vote. The sense of the congregation was taken only as to whether or
+not they had done all they could to save the offender, and had thus
+complied with the law of the Lord in this respect. In twenty years,
+with much attention to disciplinary work, I have never had the least
+trouble or evil consequence result from a case of exclusion.
+
+In 1867 they built a new house of worship, about a quarter of a mile
+nearer Milton than was the old house. It is a large and substantial
+frame.
+
+When Mt. Byrd was established there were several strong Methodist and
+Baptist churches within a few miles. They have all dwindled into
+comparative insignificance, and Mt. Byrd has the controlling influence
+in the county. Her territory extends sixteen miles along the Ohio River
+and eight miles back.
+
+I engaged to preach for Mt. Byrd Church one-half my time, beginning the
+first of October, 1869. It is thirty miles from New Liberty, and at
+that time it was reached by a dirt road terribly muddy in the winter. I
+went back and forth on horseback. I arranged to have my two Sundays
+come together, and spent the intervening week visiting the congregation
+and preaching at some neighboring school-house. I thus made but one
+trip a month. My health was very poor, and each visit I made they
+thought would be the last.
+
+After I began preaching at Mt. Byrd, I discovered a very serious
+trouble in the church, of which I before knew nothing. I saw, from its
+nature and the men involved in it, that unless it was peaceably and
+permanently settled, the church would be effectually ruined. And
+circumstances indicated that it was next to impossible to secure such a
+settlement. I was deeply concerned about it.
+
+The difficulty grew out of a man's making engagements to teach two
+schools at once, and consequently having to disappoint one of the
+parties. They had depended on him, and thereby lost the opportunity of
+getting a good teacher. They felt grievously wronged, and sued for
+damages. The teacher was a poor man, not able to fight the suit, and he
+so worked upon his patrons that they promised to stand by him and
+defend him in court. A large number of good and influential brethren
+were involved in it, and they had worked up a very bad state of
+feeling. Bro. J. S. Maddox, the leading elder, stood by me faithfully
+in the work. We labored incessantly day and night for over two weeks
+before we accomplished our purpose. I preached in the two school-houses
+alternately, day and night, so as to reach all of both parties; for
+they would not go to each other's houses. The rest of the time was
+spent in visiting and laboring privately with the disaffected members.
+The preaching was all directed to the one special end. Sometimes we
+would have it nearly completed as we thought, and then the trouble
+would break out again. One day our hearts beat with joyous hope, and
+the next we were depressed and discouraged.
+
+Finally, they agreed to arbitrate the matter if I alone would act as
+arbitrator. I tried hard to reason them out of this, for I felt almost
+certain that I would sacrifice myself in so doing. I felt that I could
+hardly hope to retain the friendship of both parties in such a
+complicated matter, over which there was so much bad feeling. But,
+finding that there was no other way of settlement, I concluded that the
+sacrifice of myself was a small matter as compared with the ruin of the
+church, and I consented. All parties agreed to abide by my decision in
+good faith, bury all their animosities, and be at peace among
+themselves. I wrote out carefully the whole case, giving my decision on
+each point, and the reasons therefor. I read it at a meeting at which
+all were present. They all signed it, and the trouble was forever
+ended. Both parties kept it in good faith, and I retained their
+fraternal love.
+
+When the church had been "rounded up," and all dead matter cast off, we
+had 240 members on the list. Some new deacons were appointed, till we
+had seven in all. Not because there were seven appointed at Jerusalem,
+but because we needed that number and had material out of which to make
+them. We divided the congregation into seven districts, each deacon
+having his boundary defined. Each had a list of all the members in his
+district, and it was his duty to obtain a subscription from each member
+and collect it. Each child of a family made his own subscription. All
+were expected to give something, unless they were beneficiaries of the
+church. This system has several advantages: (1) More money is obtained
+than when given only by heads of families. (2) Each one feels that he
+is a factor in the church, not an overlooked cipher, and this does him
+good. It stimulates him to do something. (3) In training each one to
+give, however little they may be able, there is developed in them a
+right spirit and a very important principle.
+
+A business meeting was held every three months. At these the deacons
+made their reports, and squared accounts with the preacher. Thus the
+exact financial condition of the church was known. Cases of discipline,
+missions, charities, and everything pertaining to the interests of the
+church, were freely discussed. A record was kept of everything done.
+These meetings were held on Saturday, and the next day a statement was
+made to the church of what was done, and their sanction obtained to
+such matters as it was thought best to submit.
+
+With a thorough organization, systematic working, and the happy
+settlement of the big trouble over which all were filled with anxiety,
+the church took on new life, and ever after continued in an active,
+growing condition.
+
+The brethren soon petitioned me to move into their midst. I jocularly
+told them I would do so if they would give me a good home. The
+suggestion was no sooner made than accepted. Bro. J. H. Moffett gave me
+eight acres of ground just where I wanted it, and he and the rest of
+the brethren agreed to build me a house. I was permitted to plan just
+such a house as I wanted, and they would see that it was built. No
+obligation whatever was required of me as a condition. I was free to
+dispose of it and leave them at any time, if I wished to do so. It was
+all a matter of trust. The outside improvements were also made mostly
+by the brethren. I may say here that in the fifteen years I preached
+for that church, not a man ever charged me a cent for anything he ever
+did for me, and they did everything that I needed to have done.
+
+In the spring of 1870 we organized a Sunday-school. It ranged usually,
+one year with another, from 125 to 150. One peculiar feature about it
+was that a large number of old people attended. In a word, the _church_
+went into the Sunday-school. The teachers have all the time been of the
+older brethren and sisters, and many men and women of middle age and
+beyond have been in the classes. We kept a record of the attendance,
+recitations, contributions, etc., thus indicating the regularity of the
+work. The record shows that there were perfect, in recitations and
+attendance, twenty-six in 1873, thirty-four in 1874, and twenty in
+1875. This is a fair sample for the fifteen years. The school is still
+in a fine condition. Some members have not missed a single recitation
+in five years.
+
+From the beginning we have adhered to the rule of opening on the last
+Sunday in April and continuing till Christmas. The congregation being
+scattered over a large district, and the roads being bad in winter, we
+have been in the habit of dismissing the children for the rest of the
+year; but all the older people form one class, and are taught the
+Scriptures by the preacher or elder of the church from the first of
+January till the last of April.
+
+I am satisfied this is a good arrangement for churches in the country,
+where the membership is much scattered. It works well at Mt. Byrd, and
+I don't see why it may not work well elsewhere under the same
+circumstances.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+He Moves to Mt. Byrd. Debate with J. W. Fitch. Preaches at Madison,
+Ind. Protracted Meetings at Columbia, Burksville, Thompson's Church,
+Dover, Germantown, Pleasant Hill, Burksville again, Beech Grove, Dover
+again.
+
+
+In September, 1870, we moved to the neighborhood of Mt. Byrd. My house
+not being completed, we lived in the lower end of Hunter's Bottom,
+above Milton. We spent here a very pleasant year. I gave a good deal of
+time to the building, helping in whatever I could do, which was quite a
+benefit to my health. I continued to preach at New Liberty half my time
+during this year and 1871. The last of October, 1871, we got into our
+new house. It is about three hundred yards from the church, beautifully
+situated on the main thoroughfare to Milton and Madison.
+
+In 1871 I held two meetings in Carrollton, Ky. The cause was very low
+there at that time. Our band was feeble; and the place almost entirely
+given to sectarianism. We had no place of worship, and the court-house
+in which we met was not comfortable. Some of the prominent members had
+become very worldly. Because I preached against their sins, they became
+much offended, but the offense was to reformation. They afterwards
+built a meeting-house, and they are now in good condition.
+
+Nov. 2, 1871, I began my first public religious debate. It was at Mt.
+Byrd, and with Presiding Elder J. W. Fitch. It came about in this way:
+At a Quarterly Conference in the county, the preachers and prominent
+men present, to the number of fourteen, drew up and sent me a formal
+challenge to meet C. W. Miller, at Mt. Byrd (this being by far the
+largest house in the county), and debate certain designated
+propositions. At that time I had a very bad opinion of Mr. Miller, and
+there was no good feeling existing between us. In reply to their
+communication I said: "You have a number of brethren in Kentucky of
+equal or superior ability to Mr. Miller, whom I can meet as Christian
+gentlemen, and when I have the promise of such a disputant, I shall be
+ready to arrange propositions." They then applied to Mr. Fitch, and a
+correspondence between us was opened. My purpose then, and ever since
+in debating with Methodists, was to discuss the _system_ of Methodism,
+instead of a few isolated propositions. In that way the people see what
+_Methodism_ is; in this, they do not. We finally agreed that each
+would affirm that the polity and practice of the church with which he
+was identified are authorized by the word of God.
+
+An immense crowd attended the debate. The weather was beautiful, and we
+had dinner on the ground. Each affirmed for three days. My affirmation
+closed Saturday afternoon. The President Moderator announced that the
+debate would be resumed at 10 o'clock Monday, on the polity of the
+Methodist Church, Mr. Fitch affirming. Monday, Mr. Fitch declined to
+discuss the polity of his church, giving as a reason that it was of no
+consequence, and he wanted to give all his time to more important
+matters. He further stated that he had agreed to discuss the polity of
+the church simply in order to get the debate, not that it was worth
+discussing. I happened to have in my pocket a letter in which he had
+insisted on the discussion of the polity of the two churches as a very
+important matter. This was read. The President Moderator--Col.
+Preston--ruled that he must either debate the question, as agreed upon,
+or concede that it was indefensible; and he yielded. We learned
+afterward, just what we then suspected, that the preachers present, of
+whom there were about twelve, held a council on Saturday night, and
+protested against his discussing the polity of the church.
+
+The debate created a great deal of interest and investigation in the
+community, and within nine months following, over one hundred were
+added to the church. Of these, quite a number were from the Baptists
+and Methodists.
+
+A rather curious thing occurred during the debate. While on the
+practice of the M. E. Church, I made a raid on the mourners' bench,
+describing its workings and demanding authority for it. Mr. Fitch
+jumped up, very much excited, and called me to order. His point of
+order was that the M. E. Church, South, had abandoned the mourners'
+bench; that it was now countenanced only by a few ignorant preachers
+for whose conduct the church was not willing to be held responsible.
+And as it was no longer a part of the practice of the church, he was
+not there to affirm that it was authorized by the word of God. The
+President appealed to all the Methodist preachers present to know if
+that was the case. The last one of them said "yes." In three weeks I
+went to Carrollton to hold a meeting, and the two most prominent
+preachers at the debate were there in a meeting, and they had the
+mourners' bench out twice a day, and six or eight mourners were
+striving to "get through!" What are we to think of such as that?
+
+By preaching at adjacent school-houses, the membership of the church
+was considerably increased. This plan was continued till my editorial
+work on the _Guide_ interfered with it.
+
+About seven miles back from Mt. Byrd the Methodists had an old house,
+and a weak church where they years ago had a strong one. We had quite a
+number of members in that neighborhood. By our assisting in rebuilding
+the old chapel, we held by written contract a fourth interest in it.
+This gave us the use of the house one Sunday in the month, and at such
+other times as it was not occupied by the Methodists. This we did in
+order to have a place to preach in that community, and especially for
+protracted meetings. We also rented the Presbyterian house in Milton,
+by the year, for the same purpose.
+
+In 1872 I engaged to preach at Carrollton and White's Run, both in
+Carroll county, once a month at each. I held a meeting for each church,
+and got the membership, to some extent, reconstructed.
+
+But in May I was called to preach for the church in Madison, Ind.,
+one-half my time. It being so convenient--just across the river from
+me--and an important field, I got the churches at Carrollton and
+White's Run to release me, and I entered on my work in Madison the
+first of June, 1871. I preached for them the rest of that year. I held
+a protracted meeting in October. The number of additions for the seven
+months was small. Finding that they needed a preacher all the time,
+since they had no one to lead them in the absence of a preacher, and
+wishing to devote half my time to evangelizing, I resigned and induced
+them to get Bro. J. H. Hardin in my place.
+
+In November, 1872, I had a fine meeting at Columbia, Ky. This was
+before the college there was built. Bro. J. H. Hardin was preaching for
+the church. Bro. Azbill has since built up the church, but was that
+year in Butler University. The fruits of my first meeting there are
+manifest to this day. Prominent among these is the efficient work of
+Dr. U. L. Taylor, who was formerly a Methodist, but for years has been
+the stay of the congregation and college in that place.
+
+In 1873 I gave one-half my time to holding meetings. In March I went to
+Burksville, Cumberland county, Ky. The church had had no preaching for
+a long time, and was not meeting on the Lord's day. There were a few
+faithful ones, especially sisters, but the majority had gone to the
+world. We had over forty additions. The membership was organized for
+work, a Sunday-school was established, a preacher secured, and the
+church entered on a long period of prosperity. Two preachers were the
+result of this meeting--C. M. McPherson, of the _Apostolic Guide_,
+and E. J. Ellison, now of Glasgow, Ky. They had been immersed, but,
+with many others, had strayed from the fold. They were reclaimed and
+put to work, and to-day they are faithful ministers of the Word.
+
+As showing what may result from a word timely spoken, a young lady from
+Nashville, now the wife of Bro. McPherson, was visiting a sister at
+Burksville. She was a devoted Episcopalian, talented and accomplished.
+One day she was telling me about her church and preacher, etc., and the
+work she was trying to do for the Master. I asked her if she had ever
+obeyed the gospel. She looked amazed, and remarked that that was a
+strange question to ask a church member. I told her I feared that many
+church members, and even devoted ones, had never obeyed the gospel; and
+in a few words explained the reason why. She soon made the confession
+and was immersed, stating afterwards that that question led to an
+entire change of religious views.
+
+In May I held a meeting at Thompson's Church, in Robinson county. The
+meeting was of no special importance; the number of additions was
+small, and no important results any way. Willis Cox was preaching for
+the church.
+
+At this meeting the wealthiest man in the church was greatly taken with
+the preaching, said he intended to go to Dover, twenty odd miles away,
+to hear me there, had three of his children immersed, and was almost
+too happy to behave himself. He gave a _two cent copper_ to help pay
+the expenses of the meeting! This was all they could get out of him. He
+got so happy that it dried up the fountain of his liberality.
+
+In June I held a meeting at Dover, Mason county. This was an old
+church, and once a prosperous one, but a bad spirit had been engendered
+during the war, and it had virtually gone to pieces. They were meeting,
+and had a preacher employed, Bro. Willis Cox; but only a few members
+were concerned about the things of Zion. They had had no additions for
+so long that the town was full of young people who had grown up out of
+the church. The brethren expected no additions, but wanted a meeting
+for the encouragement of the faithful few. This was the way they put it
+when they engaged me to hold the meeting. The house was well-filled
+from the first, and in a few nights crowded. They paid profound
+attention to the Word. This led me to hope for additions, but the
+brethren hooted at the idea. I preached only at night and on the Lord's
+day. On the ninth night they made a move, and continued to move till
+fifty-seven were added. I baptized fifty. The deepest religious
+interest prevailed that I ever had in any of my meetings. No telling
+what the result would have been, had I not been taken sick and
+compelled to leave. As I was going to the boat to return home, I went
+by the church. It was crowded. I had just a few minutes. I went in and
+explained the situation, and proposed to take the confession of any
+that wished to make it, before I left. Without a word of exhortation
+two came forward. Thus I left them.
+
+Nearly all the young people of the town came into the church, so that
+there was no outside element left to get up mischief, and it is
+gratifying to know how faithfully they held out. The church has ever
+since been in active working order.
+
+In July I held a meeting at Germantown. Bro. J. C. Walden was preaching
+for them. We had a pleasant meeting, but no special results.
+
+In August I held another good meeting at my old home church--Pleasant
+Hill, in Oldham county. I held them a meeting each year for five or six
+years. While they were slow to assist me when I was struggling for a
+start, after I got well under way they were quite liberal in reward of
+my labor. But one dollar at the first would have done me more good,
+because more needed, than five at the time they were given. This is a
+mistake made by many churches.
+
+In October, 1873, I held another meeting at Burksville. This was also a
+fine meeting, but not quite so many additions were made as at the one
+in March preceding.
+
+In November I had a good meeting at Beech Grove, a country church in
+Trimble county, eight miles from Mt. Byrd.
+
+In December I was again at Dover. We had another excellent meeting, but
+there was not material for so many converts as at first. This visit was
+mainly for the membership, to rid the church of some dead material, and
+put it into good working order. On account of getting sick at the
+previous meeting, I had to leave before this needed work was
+accomplished. Thus ended my labors for 1873.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+Begins Preaching at Beech Grove. Debates with Elder Hiner. Amusing
+Incident. Holds many Meetings. Debates with Elder Frogge. Debates again
+with Elder Hiner. Repudiates Miller's Book. Sick Again. Holds more
+Meetings.
+
+
+In 1874 I engaged to preach once a month for the Beech Grove Church.
+
+Beginning January 20th, at a Methodist church near Beech Grove, I held
+a debate with Elder Robert Hiner. The debate continued eight days. It
+was largely attended, though the roads and weather were bad. The
+feeling throughout the debate was good, but hardly so much so as at the
+one held at Mt. Byrd with Elder Fitch. A very amusing thing occurred.
+Mr. Hiner brought all of his books, and, coming through Bedford, he got
+all of Mr. Young's, the preacher at that place. They made a perfect
+wagon load. He obtained a long table, like a carpenter's bench, and
+stacked them up on it. I soon discovered that it was all for a show,
+and the question was how to most successfully burlesque it. I first
+thought of sending to Bedford and getting a large wagon-load of Patent
+Office Reports and the like, and stacking them up on my table. But in
+my room I discovered a little toy-book, about an inch long, called
+"Orphan Willie." This I took to church in my vest pocket, with a few
+leaves carefully turned down. After alluding to his "silent artillery,"
+as I had done before, I drew out "Orphan Willie," and planted it on the
+pulpit in position to effectually blow up his entire battery, with the
+assurance that that was going to be done. I had laughed over the idea
+till I thought I could do it without laughing. But in this I failed;
+and the whole audience, Methodist preachers and all, got into such a
+laugh that I lost half my speech. But the books were put out of sight,
+and thus ended the scarecrow business.
+
+During the debate Mr. Hiner expressed the opinion that I would yet come
+back to the Methodist church. I told him he might as well talk of a
+full-grown rooster, spurs and all, going back into the shell that
+hatched it. For a long time this gave me the sobriquet of "Old
+Chicken." Some brethren use it even now.
+
+While on the design of baptism, Mr. Hiner remarked that if he believed
+baptism was for the remission of sins, he would live on a creek or
+river and be baptized every time he sinned. I gave it as my opinion
+that in that case he would find it a very difficult matter to keep any
+dry clothes!
+
+During this year I held meetings at Louisville, Crittenden, Cove Hill,
+Burksville and Glasgow, with varied success.
+
+In 1875 I held meetings at Glasgow, Carrollton, Campbellsville,
+Burksville, Bedford, Hodgenville and Columbia.
+
+In July of this year I debated twelve days, at Burksville, with
+Presiding Elder Frogge. He was the great champion of Methodism in
+Southern Kentucky. He had had a great many debates, and, while he was
+very ready and glib in his line of debating, I soon discovered that his
+scholarship and reading were both very limited, exceedingly so; and I
+intentionally widened the range of controversy more than was my wont,
+to see what he would do--and he was completely lost. His forte in
+debating is wit and ridicule, by which he gets his opponents angry and
+confused. He tried this hard for three days, till he rendered himself
+offensive to all. It was rumored that his brethren then held a council
+and told him that this must be stopped; that he must debate the
+questions on their merits or quit; that he was bringing the cause into
+disrepute. The county paper, edited by a scholarly Episcopalian, was
+very severe in its criticism of his conduct. This caused much
+excitement among the Methodists. When he had to quit his efforts to get
+me excited, he was no longer himself. This debate was held at the
+request of the Baptists. Mr. Frogge and a Baptist preacher had debated
+near there the fall before, and, the Baptist having failed, had to give
+up the discussion. Mr. Frogge then left a broad and boastful challenge
+for any immersionist. The Baptists were very sore over it, and when I
+went there in the winter to hold a meeting they requested me to accept
+his challenge. I referred them to the brethren, and with their
+concurrence I entered upon the discussion.
+
+In November I held another debate with Mr. Hiner, this time at Bedford,
+Ky. It continued eight days. This created the most intense excitement I
+ever saw in a meeting-house. At the two previous debates in the county
+I repudiated C. W. Miller's book (_Points of Controversy_) as
+authority. It is the book that Dr. Ditzler exposed. Our opponents said
+I would not dare to do that where Miller was. They had him at this
+debate. Mr. Hiner read from it a passage purporting to be from Moses
+Stuart. I asked him what he was reading from. He said, "'Points of
+Controversy,' and you challenge it if you dare." I then asked for the
+page in Stuart's book where the language occurred. He refused to give
+it. I had Stuart, and the inference was that he didn't want the
+comparison made. When I got up I referred to what had passed about the
+quotation, saying I was willing to take Stuart for it if he had given
+me the page, but as for "Points of Controversy," I could take nothing
+on its authority, for I repudiated the book and its author as authority
+in anything. This provoked a personal wrangle with Miller, who was
+close to me, after the debate--for the day was over. The excitement was
+intense as we passed and repassed our compliments. Finally the house
+refused to hear Mr. M. Even his own brethren rose as one man and went
+out of the house. This so infuriated him that he left the place.
+
+January 1, 1876, I went on the _Apostolic Times_ with I. B. Grubbs and
+S. A. Kelley. I had been writing for it every two weeks, by contract,
+for several years. From this time I devoted special attention to it
+every week, and, with the exception of a few months from the sale of
+the _Times_ to Dr. Hopson and Cozine till the establishing of the
+_Guide_, I have been constantly engaged in editorial work.
+
+About the middle of January I was taken down with intercostal
+rheumatism and spinal trouble, and was very low for several months.
+Very little hope was entertained of my recovery. After the intense
+suffering was over, my system was so racked that convalescence was
+slow. The doctors agreed that it was due to nervous exhaustion produced
+by overwork. For years I had known nothing practically of mental rest,
+and the year preceding was unusually severe on me, in my feeble state
+of health. When I held the twelve days' debate at Burksville the summer
+before, I went from my bed to the house and from the house to my bed. I
+was hardly any better in the one held a few weeks before. These labors,
+with those given to my home church of over three hundred members,
+together with holding seven protracted meetings, and writing for the
+_Times_, all the while in feeble health, brought me down very low.
+
+I wish here to emphasize the fact that I have never gone out of my way
+to either seek or shun a religious debate. I repeat this statement
+here, lest some might think otherwise from the fact that I have held so
+many.
+
+After getting up again, I held meetings at Antioch, in Shelby county,
+Glasgow, Burksville, South Elkhorn, and at some other points. This has
+always been congenial employment for me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+Continues to Evangelize. Dr. Cook's Prescription. Incident at Glendale.
+Peculiar Feature in the Meeting at Madisonville. The Fractious Preacher
+at Sonora. Closes his Evangelistic Labors. Establishes the _Old Path
+Guide_. The Bruner Debate.
+
+
+In 1877 I spent much time evangelizing, being called to hold protracted
+meetings at many important places. I accepted work at seven of these,
+and my labors were fruitful in the conversion of sinners and in
+building up the saints in their most holy faith; but I had to be away
+from home a great deal, and my exposure in all kinds of weather, and
+the wear and tear of constant preaching, increased my lung disease.
+
+While preaching at Cynthiana my spinal trouble returned, causing me to
+close abruptly, and I could preach no more till July. On my return from
+Cynthiana, some friends in Cincinnati induced me to visit a Dr. Cook (I
+think that is the name). He was celebrated for his skill in such
+afflictions. He was a corpulent, jolly old gentleman, full of humor.
+When I was introduced, he looked at me for a moment without coming
+near, and said: "Well, sir, you don't laugh enough. You take too
+serious a view of life. Why, sir, at least two inches of your spinal
+marrow is inflamed, produced by nervous exhaustion, the result of
+overwork and no mental recreation. I tell you, sir, all the medicine in
+the world will do you no good till you quit that and cultivate
+laziness. You must take a more cheerful view of life. And you must
+learn to laugh, not giggle a little, but laugh away down to the bottom
+of the abdomen. Then you will get well. I used to be a little, scrawny,
+sallow, nervous, overworked thing like you are, but I saw it was going
+to kill me, and I quit it and went to laughing, and now see what I am?"
+And this was all the prescription he gave me. There is, doubtless, a
+good deal of philosophy in it.
+
+At Glendale a rather singular circumstance occurred. The first night of
+the meeting, I observed a very intelligent looking lady in the
+audience, and she was intensely interested. When we got back to the
+place where I was stopping, I asked the sister who this lady was. She
+gave her name, stating that she was the pride of the Methodist Church
+in that country; that her talk at the love-feast a few weeks before had
+been the topic of conversation ever since. I remarked that she would
+not be a Methodist when that meeting was over. But they would not
+listen to the idea that she would ever be anything but a Methodist. She
+was present the second and third nights, and manifested the same
+intense interest. The next morning early, she sent to ascertain if she
+could have a private interview. When she came, she made her business
+known at once. She wanted to learn if I would immerse her and let her
+remain in the M. E. Church. Without answering her question, I asked her
+what she wanted to be immersed for. She said she had become convinced
+that she had never obeyed the gospel, and she wanted to be immersed
+because it was the Saviour's will, and her sprinkling was not
+authorized. "Well," said I, "why do you want to correct your life in
+some things according to the divine authority, and not in others?" She
+said she wanted to correct it in all respects where it was contrary to
+divine authority. I then told her that there were a number of things in
+the Methodist Church for which there was no more authority than there
+is for infant baptism. She inquired what, and when I told her, she
+said, "That will do," and right away I immersed her. She had been
+brought up a Romanist, and while we were gone to the baptizing her
+sister burnt her Bible. No special persecution followed her change to
+the Methodists, but it was otherwise when she united with us. Her
+relatives, so far as known to me, have never become reconciled.
+
+The meeting at Madisonville, O., eighteen miles from Cincinnati, also
+had a peculiar feature which I think worthy of mention. It was the
+first preaching by our brethren ever heard in the place, and most of
+those who made the confession had never before heard it made. The first
+person called upon to make it answered aloud and distinctly: "Yes, sir;
+I believe with my whole heart that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the
+living God." All who followed answered in the same way. I wish it could
+always be so.
+
+In 1878 calls upon me to conduct meetings were multiplied, but I could
+comply only with those from Vevay, Ind., Sonora, Ky., Dover, White's
+Run, Columbia, Burksville, Glendale, Oakland and Owenton.
+
+At Sonora, a Methodist preacher attended a few times, and he was
+remarkably fractious. Several times he interrupted me. One night, in
+preaching on the "Plan of Salvation," commenting on the case of the
+jailer, I remarked that the fact that the apostles sometimes baptized
+households, was no evidence that they baptized infants, since there are
+many households without infants. He spoke up very much excited, saying,
+"May I ask you a question?" I told him yes. "Well, now," he says,
+"suppose we take a common sense view of that matter. Suppose you were
+to come to town, and start out to baptizing households, and you were to
+go to Bro. Creel's house and mine, wouldn't you have to baptize
+infants?" (Bro. Creel had five little fellows, and he seven.) I
+answered, "Yes, Bro. Campbell, I admit that whenever you go to a
+preacher's house, you are very apt to find them." The whole house
+laughed outright, and they never ceased laughing at that preacher till
+he left the circuit.
+
+These meetings were all successful in the way of additions, except that
+at Vevay. But I have never kept an account of my additions, and
+remember the number at only a few meetings.
+
+This year my regular evangelistic work closed on account of editing the
+_Guide_ and preaching half the time at Portland Avenue Church, in
+Louisville.
+
+In January, 1879, I established the _Old Path Guide_, in Louisville. I
+was owner, proprietor, editor, bookkeeper, treasurer, mailing clerk,
+general agent, and special "boss." This required all my time, except
+what I had necessarily to give to preaching on the Lord's day and the
+preparation therefor. The _Guide_ was a success, financially, from
+the beginning. I put money in bank the first three months of each year
+to pay every dollar of expense to the end. The net profits the first
+year were over $600, and this increased each year for the three years
+that I managed it all myself. The third year would have netted $1,000,
+but in the midst of it I made the change, transferring one-half of it
+to Cline, Marrs & Co., and giving them control of its business
+management. This was the beginning of financial embarrassment. The
+change was demanded by my failing health, and I could no longer do
+everything, as I had been doing from the first.
+
+That year I engaged to preach half my time for the Portland Avenue
+Church. In order to serve the Glendale church, which is fifty miles on
+the Louisville & Nashville road, the Mt. Byrd church released me one
+Sunday in the month. During the year the Portland Avenue Church
+increased 120 per cent.
+
+In February, 1879, I held a meeting for the Campbell St. church,
+Louisville. The meeting proved to be quite beneficial to the
+congregation, in many respects. I boarded in the city during the
+winter, and moved my family down in April.
+
+The church at Glendale had a partnership house--a very common thing in
+all Southwestern Kentucky. This prevented their meeting regularly on
+the Lord's day, and also prevented a Sunday-school, as the house was
+occupied more than half the time by others. Knowing that I could
+accomplish no substantial and enduring good while this state of things
+lasted, I made it a condition of preaching for them that they build a
+new house. This they did. The house is a neat frame, well finished
+inside and out, and large enough for all ordinary use. It was promptly
+built and paid for.
+
+In November I held a debate there--the first use made of the new
+house--with I. W. Bruner, a Baptist preacher. The Baptist church there
+and ours arranged for a debate, on certain specified propositions, and
+each had the privilege of selecting its representative. Consequently I
+had nothing to do with getting up the debate or arranging for it. I
+never challenged a man for debate in my life, and never held one except
+by special invitation. And I have declined more debates than I ever
+held. While I was peculiarly fond of it, I never debated simply for the
+sake of debating; hence, if the circumstances were not favorable for
+good results, I always declined. This debate with Mr. Bruner was, I
+think, the poorest one I ever held, and I lost all interest in it
+before it was half over.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+Visits Midway. Attends the Missouri State Convention. Reflections.
+Annual Sermons. Last Protracted Meeting. Kindness of Mt. Byrd, Glendale
+and Smithfield Churches. Gives up Office Work. Goes to Eureka, Ill.
+Country Home. Takes Cold at the Lexington Convention. Goes to Florida.
+
+
+In October, 1879, I visited Midway, and though I had virtually closed
+my evangelistic labors when I began the _Guide_, I could not resist the
+desire to hold a meeting there. It is the seat of our Female Orphan
+School, one of our grandest enterprises. Bro. Shouse was then preaching
+for the church and Bro. Lucy was president of the school. Their
+companionship was highly enjoyable. What a feast to the soul is the
+companionship of wise, godly men! It has for me the highest happiness I
+expect to know this side of heaven. And will it not be a very prominent
+factor of that which constitutes heaven? Any place in the universe of
+God where my brethren and the Saviour are will be heaven enough for me.
+
+In 1880 I continued at the Avenue Church, Louisville, Mt. Byrd and
+Glendale. The State Board of the Missouri Christian Missionary Society
+invited me to deliver an address before the State Convention, held that
+year at Moberly. In order to justify me in a visit to the State, they
+arranged several meetings for me--one in connection with the convention
+of Audrain county, at a country church near Mexico, called Sunrise; one
+at New London, and one at Slater. These meetings were all enjoyable and
+profitable; but the one in Audrain county was only for a few days, and
+resulted in but few additions.
+
+The address at Moberly was on "Our Strength and Our Weakness." The
+convention was largely attended, and it was a great pleasure to meet so
+many brethren known only by name, and loved for their work's sake, and
+to renew the acquaintance of others known before.
+
+The addresses of Haley, Procter, Jones and others were very able. That
+of Jones was speculative, and the basic principle of it, in my opinion,
+erroneous. Several of those Missouri preachers have done much harm by
+preaching a false philosophy instead of the gospel of Christ. Bro.
+Procter, whom we all allow to be one of our best men and ablest
+preachers, went from this convention to California and held several
+meetings. Within a few months I had several applications to come out
+there to undo some of his work, and I should have been glad to comply
+had my other duties permitted.
+
+In 1881 I resigned at the Avenue Church, as they needed more pastoral
+labor than my other duties would allow me to perform. I gave half my
+time to Mt. Byrd, one-fourth to Glendale, and one-fourth to my old home
+church--Pleasant Hill, in Oldham county. It was a pleasure to visit
+these old friends of my youth once a month. Old memories were revived,
+and the past, in a sense, lived over again. Besides, several members of
+the families related to my wife and to myself were enabled to attend.
+To preach to them, after years of separation, was a great pleasure. Mt.
+Byrd moved on in the even tenor of its way, in a prosperous condition.
+
+In August of this year, and also the year previous, I preached the
+annual sermon at the Clark county, Ind., Coöperation Meeting. The
+county contains sixteen or eighteen churches, including those of
+Jeffersonville and New Albany, and for more than forty years they have
+had an annual county meeting. Representatives from all the churches
+attend, as a rule, and the condition, etc., of each church is given. It
+brings together a great congregation, and the day meetings are held in
+the woods.
+
+In September of this year the _Guide_ was changed to a weekly. While
+the monthly magazine was the most desirable for preservation, it was
+thought that a weekly would best serve the cause of Christ, and
+peculiar circumstances at that time seemed to demand it.
+
+In November I went to Poplar Plains and held the last protracted
+meeting of my life. It was a pleasant one, and attended with some good
+results.
+
+In 1882 I preached at Mt. Byrd, Glendale and Smithfield, that is, I
+engaged to preach for these churches, but my health was such that I
+preached but little to any. At my first visit to Smithfield, the first
+Lord's day in the year, I was taken sick, and I never visited them once
+when I was not sick. I was never able to so preach as to do them or
+myself justice. While this was equally so at the other churches, I did
+not regret it so much, since I had been laboring for them a long time.
+The work at Smithfield was virtually a failure, and early in the fall I
+had to give it up entirely. Yet they paid me for the whole year, and
+made me a present of about $150 besides. They are a noble band of
+brethren, and one of the most liberal I ever knew.
+
+The church at Glendale also paid for the entire year, though I lost
+much time and resigned in October. It also made me a generous present
+in addition.
+
+Speaking of their generosity, reminds me that the Mt. Byrd Church
+continued my salary three or four years when I was able to do little or
+nothing in return. In 1876 I lost most of the year through spinal and
+rheumatic affections; I did very little in 1882; I was in the church
+but once in 1883, and in 1884 I attempted to talk only a few times, yet
+all these years my salary continued. When the _Guide_ was sold to the
+present Guide Printing and Publishing Company, which relieved me of
+financial embarrassments which the failure of C. C. Cline & Co. had
+produced, I refused to longer accept support from the church.
+
+In April, 1882, I was compelled, on account of failing health, to give
+up the office work of the _Guide_. I had been under a physician all the
+year, and grew constantly worse. I allowed the office work to make a
+heavier draft on me than some men do. I always knew every paragraph
+that was going into the paper, and where and how it would appear. I
+stood by the foreman and noticed everything that went in--when it went
+in, what was put in and what was left out--till the forms were locked
+up. I have never been able to get any one else to do it. But that is my
+idea of editing a paper. This thing of giving printers a mass of matter
+and telling them to put it in, leaving them to add or diminish, and put
+in where and what they please, is simply a burlesque on the business;
+and yet this is the way it is largely done. I have had no little
+annoyance over just that thing. Had I been willing to edit in that way
+I could have continued, but I would not consent to follow such a
+course.
+
+In May I went to Eureka College, to preach the baccalaureate sermon. I
+arranged to make the trip as easy as possible, on account of my
+feebleness, by stopping over at Indianapolis for the night, in both
+going and returning. The trip was every way pleasant, and the
+associations there very agreeable. I hoped it would be a benefit to me
+in the way of recreation, but on reaching home I was taken down with
+typho-malarial fever. I was quite low for several weeks. I got up with
+a trouble in my throat, causing a constant coughing and hacking, which
+has increased without intermission to the present time.
+
+In September, realizing that my health was permanently broken down, we
+went back to our country home. I was satisfied that if I should even
+continue to edit the _Guide_, I would not be able to assume the
+responsibilities of the office, and that the best place for me, under
+the circumstances, was my country home. After going back to the country
+I rallied considerably, and attended the General Convention, at
+Lexington, about the 20th of October. Here I took life memberships in
+both the General and Foreign Societies for the Mt. Byrd Church. This
+was the first church taking membership in those societies, so far as I
+am informed. It has since become quite common. Last year (1884) I
+succeeded in getting their constitutions so amended as to provide for
+this.
+
+I took cold at the convention, and relapsed. My physicians were very
+fearful of tubercular trouble, and advised me to go to Florida for the
+winter. We went the first of December, not knowing whither we went, but
+it seems that the hand of Providence guided us. We knew not where to
+turn, but concluded to try DeLand, where we had some acquaintances, and
+there look out for accommodations. In a few days after reaching DeLand
+old Bro. Anderson, who lived two miles in the country, heard we were
+there and came in for us. He had formerly seen a copy of the _Guide_
+and subscribed for it. This good man rented for us a convenient house
+near him, paid the rent, set us up, and would not allow me to pay for
+anything we needed while there if he knew it and could prevent it. His
+wife was as kind as he, and did all in her power to make our stay in
+"The Land of Flowers" comfortable and inexpensive.
+
+The Great Teacher has said, in a well-known passage, "It is more
+blessed to give than to receive." What, then, must not have been the
+blessedness of this pious couple in thus caring for a poor broken-down
+invalid and his family, whom Providence had guided to their hospitable
+home? May God reward them richly for their kindness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+Organizes a Church at DeLand. Health Improves. Relapses. Starts Home.
+Resignation. Sells His Interest in the _Guide_. Begins Writing again.
+Attends Two Conventions. Goes to Texas. At Home Again. Works On.
+
+
+While at DeLand we gathered up the few scattered Disciples in and
+around the town, and organized them into a church. I felt quite
+confident, from the character of the material, that the enterprise
+would be a success. It has thus far proved to be so; they have not
+failed to keep up their weekly meetings to break the loaf and edify one
+another after the apostolic model. They now have a nice house, and have
+employed a preacher and given him a home among them. This is just what
+all churches should aim to do; all may not be able, but they should aim
+to accomplish it. The church is in a prosperous condition. I was able
+to talk to them occasionally while there.
+
+The climate of Florida agreed with me. My cough left me in a few weeks,
+my appetite became good, and I got heavier than I ever was before. I
+went there weighing 130 pounds, and increased to 148. In good health,
+my usual weight was 144 pounds, and it had been many years since I
+weighed that. I should have come home in this improved condition but
+for my own imprudence. I don't blame the country, Providence, nor
+anything else but myself. I was passionately fond of hunting, as I have
+ever been. I hunted a great deal, and frequently got overheated, and
+took cold; sometimes got my feet wet when in the woods. Thus I had
+several backsets. But still I was in that condition when the time came
+to return home. The day before we were to start, I concluded I must
+have one more hunt. It had rained the night before; the sand was damp;
+it was cloudy, quite warm, and a strong south wind was blowing. I would
+get warm in walking (the sand there is very slavish to walk in), and
+would sit down and let the wind cool me off. I should have had more
+discretion; but sometimes people act with very little sense about such
+things. Before I reached the house I felt acute inflammation of the
+mucus membrane, to the bottom of my lungs. In three hours fever set in,
+and I was completely prostrated. I remained there about three weeks,
+and the doctors urged my return as the only chance of recovery. They
+considered that very hazardous, on account of exposure to cold; but to
+stay there was less hopeful. I was taken to the boat, carried on board
+by two men, then carried off at Jacksonville to a hack, taken to a
+hotel, thence to the train. I secured a good berth in a sleeper, and
+got through without the least trouble. I improved, every mile of the
+way; but as soon as I got home I went down again, and was extremely low
+for some time.
+
+My dread of dying in Florida and having my wife return with my body,
+was such that I concentrated all my prayers to that one point. I prayed
+the Lord to enable me to get home, that I might die in the midst of my
+family. I felt and prayed that if He would enable me to reach home, He
+could have the rest all His own way, without any further petition. He
+enabled me to rally, gave a week of the best weather of the whole
+season, brought me home under the most favorable circumstances, and I
+never afterwards felt free to ask Him to restore me to health, and have
+never done it. It may be wrong, but I promised to let Him have the rest
+all His own way, and my prayers have ever since conformed to that idea.
+
+I never could have believed, till I experienced it, that one could
+become so indifferent as to whether he lived or died, I saw many days,
+after my return from Florida, when it was a matter of perfect
+indifference to me; previous anxiety to get home, and the resolution to
+leave all the rest to the Lord, had no doubt much to do with it. I
+observed this, however: that as hope revived, a desire to live would
+arise in proportion. When there was little or no prospect, there was
+little or no concern.
+
+When I was at my worst, I decided, taking my past and present condition
+into consideration, the medicine I was taking, the attention received,
+etc., that if I did not take a turn for the better by a certain day,
+then in three days the case would be entirely hopeless. In the
+afternoon of that day the change came. That evening I took some
+nourishment--the first for fourteen days.
+
+After I sufficiently recovered to be able to do anything, I was anxious
+to get my business arranged, with a view to death. I never expected to
+be able to write another editorial, and I was concerned about making
+some arrangement by which to get rid of the _Guide_ and its
+responsibility. I was not pleased with its business management, and did
+not want to leave it as the property of my family, not knowing what
+trouble it might give nor what expense it might involve them in. And
+without a change in management, I knew it could never be of any profit.
+I wrote for Bro. Srygley to come, and I sold him my remaining
+half-interest. My purpose was to resign, and thus have no further
+connection with it. But he would not buy unless I would agree to let my
+name remain, with a promise to resume the responsibility of chief
+editor if I should ever get able; and the firm would consent to the
+sale only upon these conditions. So I had to sell upon those
+conditions, or not sell at all.
+
+The latter part of September the company urged me to begin to write
+again, if it were at all possible, even if it were only a few
+paragraphs each week. They said the impression everywhere entertained
+that I would not recover, was injuring the paper very much. The people
+were losing interest in it. They insisted that I should counteract that
+feeling as much as possible. Under this pressure, though confined to my
+bed and suffering every hour, I began writing, the first of October,
+and never after missed a week. That winter I stayed at home, and was
+not out of my room for eight months. The last of August I started to
+Midway, to see Dr. Lucy. I got as far as Louisville, and could get no
+further. We dispatched for the Doctor, and he came down. After resting
+a few days I got home, the last of August, and I was not out of the
+door again till the last of April. During that winter I did a large
+amount of writing, besides my weekly work on the _Guide_.
+
+June 10 I went to Louisville to attend the International Sunday-school
+Convention, but was able to get out only a few times. I attended the
+State meeting at Paris, but was able to take no part. I greatly enjoyed
+meeting with the brethren, and hearing them concerning the things of
+the kingdom of God. These convocations are seasons of refreshing from
+the presence of the Lord.
+
+The first of October we went to Mason, in South-west Texas, to spend
+the winter. Here, as at De Land, it looked as if the hand of Providence
+guided us. We knew no one there, but we found some of the dearest and
+best friends of our lives. They had been taking the _Guide_, and, in
+competition with several other places that wanted us, made such a
+liberal offer that our trip cost us nothing. They seemed to anticipate
+all our wants, and find great pleasure in supplying them. The Lord has
+always blessed me with many good friends--more than I deserved. I have
+felt, for a number of years, that I was greatly overestimated, and it
+has been a source of no little humiliation. I should have quit
+editorial work several years ago, and lived in obscurity here at my
+retired home, if I could have done so. I appreciate the good opinion of
+my brethren, to the extent that I think it is merited; but to realize
+that I am not what I am thought by some to be, is a great
+mortification.
+
+I am now at home enjoying the company of my family, the quiet of my
+home, with every want anticipated and supplied by a devoted wife and
+children, pleasantly, though in much feebleness, doing my work on the
+_Guide_, and putting in my spare time in other writing. I find my
+greatest pleasure in being about my Father's business. I must be
+employed. I expect to thus work on till the Master says, "It is
+enough."
+
+MT. BYRD, Ky., June 13, 1885.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+Reflections on his Fiftieth Birthday. What a Wonderful Being is
+Man! Governed, not by Instinct, but by Reason. Man Lives by Deeds, not
+Years. How to Grow Old. Half of Life Spent in Satan's Service. Renewed
+Consecration. Last Three Birthdays. His Trust in God.
+
+
+The seventh day of March has come again. Fifty times has come this
+anniversary of my natal day! Half a hundred years old to-day! What a
+period through which to carry the burdens and responsibilities of life!
+(What a time for which to give account to God for wasted moments and
+opportunities lost!) What a period to be devoted to building a
+character for the skies! What a period of time devoted to the issues of
+eternity!
+
+What a wonderful being is man! Time is but his cradle, from which he
+walks forth into a world where life is parallel with the ages of God.
+An intelligent, expansive being that will never cease to be--what a
+thought! When the sun grows gray with age, his eye is dimmed, and
+darkness reigns, man will still be drinking in the light of heaven from
+the morning star of eternity. The century-living crow doubles this
+period of man's probation, with life as it began. She builds her nest
+the last year, as she did the first, with no improvement sought. She
+rears her young the hundredth time as she did the first, by the long
+experience none the wiser. This is her nature. God made her thus.
+Instinct is wonderful, but it never improves. It grows not wiser with
+age nor the ages. It nothing from experience learns. The sparrow builds
+her nest, and the beaver his dam, just as they did in the years before
+the flood. The little quails an hour from the shell, will hide at the
+danger-signal of the mother bird, when they never saw a hawk, nor heard
+of one's existence. How different this from man! More helpless than the
+stupid beast, and more senseless than the creeping worm, he starts to
+make the pilgrimage of life. But what a change does time produce! The
+child more helpless than the humming insect of an hour, becomes the
+monarch of the world. He bridles the lightning in its home above the
+mountain peaks, and makes it do his bidding. The terror of the ages
+past, becomes his willing servant. He harnesses the steam, that for
+ages spent its power in the open air, and with it moves the world. He
+sends his whisperings through old ocean's bed, where the great
+leviathan sports, as if he talked to one across the room. He leaps
+aloft as if on steady wing, till his look is downward where the
+lightnings play and the thunderbolt leaps to its deadly mission.
+Wonderful development! The heavens declare the glory of God, and the
+earth proclaims the dominion of man. He was made a little lower than
+the angels, and crowned with majesty. Age counts with man, and years
+bring knowledge, but not unfailing wisdom. Did man grow wise with age,
+as a sure result, age should be an unfailing blessing sought. But
+imbecility it often brings and childish discontent. These are the
+blighted sheaves of evil sowing in the spring and summer days of life.
+With right ideas of life, men grow wiser and better, as they older grow
+in the service of their God. Life is not measured simply by the flight
+of time. Men live more now than they did before the flood. Intenser
+now is _life_. Into a few decades, is now crowded the patriarch's
+experience of nearly a thousand years. How to grow old, is a problem
+not to be despised. It should not be left to solve itself. To grow old
+gracefully, is to make a picture on which the world delights to look.
+But, alas! how sadly blurred is the picture by many made! It is sad to
+see one's religion sour with age. While young and strong the loved
+disciple on the bosom of the Master leaned. Then when age had dimmed
+his eagle eye, and time had stolen his elastic step, he had the same
+love for his children in the faith. His was a sweet old age, the
+outgrowth of a life of faith and love. He grew old gracefully. When
+brought, as was his wont, and before his congregation set, his last
+sermons were mainly the touching, tender words, "My little children,
+love one another." O, that his mantle could on many of us fall! But
+oft, alas! we see grow cross, self-willed and sour the shepherd of the
+flock. This, too, when age should give his words both weight and
+wisdom. Lord, give me poverty and affliction, if it be thy will, but
+save me, I pray, from this sad end. Far better that one die young,
+than grow old against the grain. "Is life worth living?" the sages ask.
+That depends on how one lives it. Lived aright, it is worth living, and
+many such worlds as this beside. Otherwise 'tis not. Of right living,
+the more the better; of wrong, the less. The life lived faithfully to
+God, can never be too long; its opposite, too short.
+
+Of the half-century, this day gone, one claim I can safely make--it was
+not spent in idleness. The years to Satan's service given, were well to
+his account put in; and those devoted to a better cause, I have tried
+to give as faithfully to Him to whom they all belonged. For the years
+in Satan's service spent, like Saul of Tarsus, I conscientious
+ignorance plead. O'er eyes unused to heaven's light, sectarianism's
+vail was thick. But no sooner was known the way of life, than in its
+path I tried to walk; and in it have I tried to keep, till this good
+day. Thus equally divided has the time been spent. Except the years of
+childish innocence, twenty-five were in the service spent of him who
+for this life pays the soul in spurious coin, and leaves it bankrupt in
+the life beyond; while an equal number, praise the Lord, have a better
+Master claimed. For the rest of life, be it long or short, the long
+side will the right side be, while hitherto it otherwise has been. The
+periods of service have not before been equally divided, nor will they
+be again. But the sides have changed proportions, praise the Lord!
+Should not this turning-point in life an epoch make? A half century,
+and a half divided life, in one! Surely I shall not look upon its like
+again.
+
+The past few birthdays I have noted as those of former years were noted
+not, and for reasons I need hardly state. The first that deep
+impression on the mind did make since apprehension was that each would
+be the last, was three years ago, amid the orange groves of the sunny
+South. The day was lovely as the Queen of May; and friends more lovely
+than the day, made it a time not to be forgotten. The feasting of the
+outer man was the lesser part of the day's enjoyment. "The feast of
+reason and the flow of soul" was chief. Three of us were seeking health
+in that sunny land. Two have found it, but not there. In a fairer land
+by far than this world can boast, did they find the fountain of
+perpetual health. Beneath the branches of the tree of life, have they
+also sat and plucked its leaves for the healing of the nations given.
+I, the feeblest of the three, and thought the nearest to the other side
+to be, on the shores of time am struggling still. Thus it is with man's
+poor guessing.
+
+Two years ago the day was cold and bleak. It drizzled through the
+dreary hours, freezing as it fell. But to many loving hearts, its sleet
+and rain were not its gloom. On this day was laid to rest in Mother
+Earth the loved remains of one numbered in the health-seeking trio of
+the year before. What a contrast with that day one year before! The day
+and its events, how sadly changed! But such is life. Well do I remember
+on this asking, "Shall I another birthday live to see?" And well do I
+remember, too, the thought expressed in grave response. While, in the
+providence of God, it was possible, of course, the other way were all
+the probabilities. But this so oft before the case had been, it left a
+ray of hope. And that has now been more than realized. As said our
+sweetest poet, how truly can we say:
+
+    "God moves in a mysterious way
+    His wonders to perform."
+
+One year ago, in the balmy breezes of the "Lone Star" State, compelled
+was I by feebleness of frame to miss the sumptuous feast by loving
+hands so deftly spread. And sad, yet happy thought, those as ever ready
+on the poor to wait, are now in those of the Master clasped. And still
+I linger, and the years go by. Such is life. Deep and many are her
+mysteries. God knows it all, but he keeps it to himself. But what are
+now the prospects for the year to come? Better now, by far, than they
+before have been in all these dreary years of pain. Would it not be
+strange, if once again in providence divine I should mingle with my
+fellow men, and tell them, as of yore, the story of the cross? Indeed,
+it would; but stranger things have happened. Stranger things by
+providence divine have come to pass without the aid of "Warner's Safe
+Cure," or other disgusting humbuggery, with its offensive intrusion
+into the reading of decent men. The providence of God is not dependent
+on patent nostrums; nor is He limited in His healing power to calomel
+or blue mass. Prayer is oft more potent than all the noxious drugs of
+man's device. God has promised, when consistent with His holy will, the
+prayers of His believing children to hear and bless. And in numbers
+more by far than this poor life is worth, have these from earnest,
+pleading souls gone up to God. Hence to-day we rest in the cheering
+hope that these have not been in vain.
+
+Should it please the Lord to give the health I need to fight again the
+battles of Christian life, what responsibilities will it bring! That
+strength must all be counted His who gave it. All those years must be
+wholly His, His cause to serve. The interests of His kingdom to His
+children left, must be strictly guarded. Conflicts with men, even those
+we love, will come to him who strictly guards the faith, as Jude
+directs. In all conflicts with fellow men, for two good graces I humbly
+pray--the courage of Paul and the gentleness of John.
+
+This holy Lord's-day morning, the sun rose bright and charming as on
+the seventh day of March it did three years ago in the sunny land of
+Florida. For the first time in many weary months did I a whiff of the
+outside air inhale. Oh! how delicious! 'Twas like a prisoner's whiff of
+the air of freedom. But this was not the best. To sit again with the
+brethren around the table of the Lord and hear again the sweet old
+story that is forever new, what a feast to the hungry soul! Then the
+birthday feast is next to be enjoyed. Loved ones gathered at the dear
+old "cottage home" to celebrate the marked event with music, song and
+recitation.
+
+The birthday cakes and other "dainty tricks" by loving hands prepared
+and sent to grace the festive board, told tales of love. One thing
+alone marred the pleasure of the day and checked the overflow of its
+cup of bliss: Two loved and loving ones were far away and disappointed
+in their hope of being here. These would have made the ring complete,
+the family circle whole. But such, again, is life. Its disappointments
+will forever come. We should expect them, therefore, and be content.
+
+This is my fiftieth milestone along life's rugged road. At this
+half-century mark I set up a pillar, as did Jacob of old.
+
+    "Here I'll raise my Ebenezer,
+      Hither by Thy help I've come,
+    And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
+      Safely to arrive at home."
+
+Thus far in life has a loving Father led me, and in his providential
+care I trust for all the rest. I place my trusting hand in His, asking
+to be led as He sees the way. "Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah," shall
+be my constant prayer. And thus, dear Father, the rest of life I leave
+with thee.
+
+    Dear Lord, should birthdays more be mine
+      To spend on earth to Thee,
+    Thy cause shall claim them wholly Thine
+      As earnest work can be.
+
+    And should'st Thou will the next be one
+      In Thy bright home above,
+    I gladly say, "Thy will be done,"
+      And join Thee in Thy love.
+
+COTTAGE HOME, March 7, 1886.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+Conclusion by the Editor. Tokens of Love from Many. Keeps Writing.
+Controversy with the _Standard_. Last Meeting with His Mother. Visited
+by Professors McGarvey and Graham. Commits His Writings to the Latter.
+Visits Eminence and Lexington. Many Brethren Come to See Him. Meeting
+at Mt. Byrd. Estimate of His Character. The Closing Scenes. Farewell to
+His Family. Dies. Funeral Services.
+
+
+The foregoing autobiography closes with June 13, 1885, while the life
+of the author was prolonged till January 6, 1887, and it remains for
+the editor to record a few of the incidents transpiring in the
+interval; and to bring this remarkable recital to a close.
+
+Midsummer found Bro. Allen in his "Cottage Home," at Mt. Byrd, growing
+weaker in body day by day, but with no very acute suffering. Everything
+that devoted love on the part of his family and church could suggest
+for his comfort was done; and there were not wanting from abroad many
+tokens of undying affection, as it became generally known that he was
+gradually but surely passing away. Many of his friends, and especially
+preachers, came to Mt. Byrd as to a Mecca, to find their pilgrimage
+repaid in the fresh inspiration received by communing with this saintly
+man. The company of his brethren did not weary him; on the contrary, it
+seemed to have a favorable effect on both his body and mind; he greatly
+desired the visits of his friends, and found comfort in them. Still
+many were deterred from going to see him for fear it might disturb the
+quiet which they hoped would contribute to lengthen out his days.
+Meanwhile he kept writing with a diligence and persistence marvelous to
+those who witnessed it, and incredible to others; so much so, that many
+at a distance could not understand how one so near the grave could
+continue to write so much and so well; hence the hope entertained that
+he might survive for years to bless the church and the world. It must
+be remembered that his disease never affected his mind, and that, like
+most persons who die of consumption, he retained the full possession of
+his mental faculties even unto the end. Besides, he was sustained by an
+indomitable will that hesitated at nothing that stood in the way of
+duty; added to which was an unfaltering trust in God and a joyous
+resignation to His will, causing him to cease praying for longer life.
+Propped up in an invalid chair with a convenience of his own invention,
+he continued his weekly editorials to the _Guide_ as regularly as ever,
+and developed abilities as an editor that none suspected he possessed
+till the last years of his life.
+
+It was at this time that the unfortunate controversy began between the
+_Guide_ and the _Standard_ about our work in London, England, causing
+so much regret on the part of many friends of both papers. It was
+feared by some that this controversy would work irreparable injury to
+our mission enterprises, not only in England, but in other lands, for
+we all realized that Titans were engaged in the conflict; men, not like
+those of old, giants in physical strength and daring, but of
+intellectual power intensified by the love of God and his cause. Of
+course the disputants viewed the matter from different angles, and
+both, we must think, were equally sincere in their convictions. The
+present writer was not of those who thought upon the whole harm would
+come of this dispute, though he deeply regretted the asperity with
+which it was conducted. In our present imperfect state we need, I doubt
+not, these conflicts to remind us of our frailty, and if only we have
+grace to profit by them, God will turn them to our good and to His own
+glory. It is a source of devout thankfulness to those who knew Bro.
+Allen's unselfish purpose, that many who censured his course united
+with multitudes who approved it in paying honor to his memory, when the
+messenger who ends all earthly strifes called him to his final account.
+
+In July, 1885, his aged and revered mother made him a visit, and
+remained some time; it was their last meeting; and now that her gifted
+son has gone to his reward, she waits in joyous hope for the day that
+shall reunite them forever.
+
+A few weeks later it was the pleasure of the writer, in company with
+Prof. McGarvey, to spend two days at Mt. Byrd, in delightful fellowship
+with this grand man. He had been apprised of our coming, and was
+prepared for it. Truly, to him and to us it was a foretaste of the joys
+of the future world, and we left him the same resolute, confiding
+servant of Christ he had ever been, wholly resigned to the will of God
+and rejoicing in assured hope of eternal rest.
+
+It pleased his Master to protract his life and usefulness a little
+longer, and so 1885 closed, and we find him still with his family,
+receiving many tokens of love from them and from brethren far away.
+Spring comes, and birds and flowers; the bright sunshine beams into his
+chamber, and now and then he is barely able to walk out to see and feel
+his Father's goodness bathing all things in quiet beauty. He repines
+not, knowing that "our light affliction, which is but for a moment,
+worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory."
+
+He continues to write, and with the rest the preceding chapter of
+"Reflections on his Fiftieth Birthday." He commits it, his diary, and
+other writings to me, with the request that I do with them as I think
+best, for now he is sure that this unequal contest with mortality can
+not last much longer.
+
+Summer comes, and with it increasing weakness, but no diminution of his
+trust in God. He wishes to visit Eminence once more, and to see his two
+younger daughters graduate from the college that had helped himself in
+former years. He attends, and then, unable to walk without help, he
+comes on to Lexington, to spend commencement week among his friends and
+brethren; this done, he returns to his beloved Mt. Byrd, to leave it no
+more till he goes to stand with the redeemed on the Mount of God.
+
+During the fall of this year hardly a week passed that several of his
+relatives and Christian brethren were not found at his home; and did
+not the limit of this chapter forbid, we would like to record their
+names, for in love they came to testify their admiration for him and
+their sympathy with his sorrowing family. For one and all he had a word
+of cheer, and none came away without being deeply impressed with the
+conviction that he had been with one of the purest and best of men--one
+who lived in daily communion with his Maker. His one theme of
+conversation was religion, and if we may judge from his increasing
+delight in it, to no one was death a more gentle transition from faith
+to sight. Narrow, indeed, to him was the bourn that divides the seen
+from the unseen, the temporal from the eternal, and the labors of earth
+from the felicities of heaven. He daily lived upon the boundary of two
+worlds.
+
+In October, Bro. J. K. P. South held a meeting with the Mt. Byrd
+church, and, though feeble beyond measure, Bro. Allen made out to
+attend a few times, and even to take part in prayer and exhortation,
+sitting in his chair. Only twice after this was he able to be carried
+to the Lord's house, but on neither occasion could he take an active
+part in the worship.
+
+In all the relations of life Bro. Allen was a model of all that is
+lovable in human character--kind, gentle, considerate of the feelings
+of others, even the least, and always cheerful. A refined and delicate
+humor pervaded his conversation, which was always chaste and
+instructive. There was in him a moderation that always attends reserved
+power, and a candor that was transparent; these qualities, united with
+an equipoise of intellectual and moral strength, harmony of emotions,
+and hatred of everything mean or unfair, made him revered by his
+friends, and an idol in his household. Wife, children, servants, all
+who came into that charmed circle, were attached to him in a love that
+bordered on idolatry. To draw a portraiture of this remarkable man
+would indeed be a pleasing task did space allow--his logical
+penetration, depth of feeling, strength of will, energy, industry,
+unwavering faith in God and goodness, and, crowning all, his fidelity
+to the gospel of Christ--but it is unnecessary. To us who knew him
+these virtues were conspicuous; by others, they may be gathered from
+the unvarnished story of his life as it is told in the foregoing pages.
+We must hasten to the closing scene.
+
+On New Year's day, 1887, he laid down his pen to resume it again no
+more. He was forced to this by sheer exhaustion; his body was wasted to
+a skeleton, and it was clear to all that the end was near. Having
+suffered much for several days, but without a murmur, on the evening of
+Jan. 5 he requested all his family to come to his bedside, and while
+their hearts were breaking for grief and all eyes were blinded with
+tears, he spoke to them for the last time.
+
+"My dear children," said he, "I want to say a few things to you while I
+can. I may not be able to do it if I put it off longer. I will soon
+leave you, and I know you will miss me. It is hard for you to give me
+up, but it is the will of God, and you must bear up as best you can. I
+am sure I have always had your love, and you have always obeyed me; and
+now I want you to always love and obey your mother. Remember, wherever
+you may be, that you are all of one household. Live in peace, and let
+no strife or discord spring up among you." Taking the hand of each of
+his daughters, he asked them to meet him in heaven, and then kissed
+them good-bye.
+
+Laying his hand upon Frank's head, he said, "My dear son, papa has to
+leave you." "O papa," said the lad, "pray not to die." "We have prayed,
+my dear boy, but it is God's will to take me home, and He knows best.
+You must love your mamma and obey her; be good to your sisters. I want
+you to grow up and become a minister of the gospel. Try to make a
+better preacher than your papa has been. Be studious and industrious,
+and live so that you may at last meet me in heaven. May God bless you,
+my son, and keep you in His care. Kiss me good-bye."
+
+Throwing one arm around his wife, he said, "My dear, my affliction has
+been a blessing to me in having you near me all the time. You have been
+everything on earth that a good wife could be. I have loved you even
+more in my affliction than I ever did before. I want to thank you for
+all your kindness to me and loving care of me. If I have ever done or
+said anything I should not, I want you to forgive me now. I can say on
+my dying bed that I have always been a true husband to you. I have made
+the best provision I could for you and the children, and if there
+should appear any mistakes they have not been of my heart." He then
+bade her a long and last farewell.
+
+He then blessed his three little grandchildren and kissed them;
+expressed a desire to see his "dear old mother," brother and sisters
+once more, and spoke of some business matters a moment, then said,
+"This is too sacred for that."
+
+For two or three days before this he had been able to speak only a few
+words at a time; but throughout this interview with his family, his
+voice was as strong and clear as it had ever been. After this his
+breathing became difficult, and he could gasp only a single word now
+and then. He seemed to have no wish to be occupied with this world. The
+weary traveler had at last reached the goal; and about nine o'clock
+Thursday night, January 6, 1887, his pure spirit left its frail
+tenement to suffer no more.
+
+The following account of his funeral, written by his devoted friend and
+Christian brother, W. K. Azbill, may well close the biography of Frank
+Gibbs Allen:
+
+    "IT IS FINISHED."
+
+    It is finished. The struggle with his fatal malady is over at last,
+    and F. G. Allen is at rest. He sank into a quiet sleep last
+    Thursday night, Jan. 6, 1887.
+
+    A few friends were notified of the end by telegrams, and that the
+    burial would take place from Mt. Byrd Church on Sunday, but the
+    condition of the Ohio River rendered it extremely difficult to
+    reach "Cottage Home." However, in spite of the difficulties and
+    dangers in crossing the river, and the extreme cold weather, there
+    were seven ministers and a very large audience present at the
+    burial. The people came over the snow and through the snow, in
+    sleighs and sleds and buggies, afoot and on horseback, till the
+    large country audience-room was well filled. The presence of such
+    an assembly on such a day evinced the truth of what is now widely
+    known, that Frank Allen was loved best where he has lived and
+    labored for the past sixteen years.
+
+    The services were begun by Bro. A. W. Kokendoffer, who lead in an
+    invocation of divine blessing and strength and guidance. The
+    congregation then sang "Nearer, My God, to Thee." The writer read
+    the following Scriptures; John xiv. 1-4, 27, 28; I. Cor. xv. 51-58;
+    I. Thess. iv. 13-18; II. Sam, iii. 31-39, repeating 38.
+
+    He felt that he should not, because he could not speak on the
+    occasion. He had followed the inclinations of his own grief, and
+    had come as a mourner and not as a comforter. We had not met to
+    tell how much we esteemed our departed brother, or how much we
+    loved him, or how much we should miss him, now that he has gone.
+    The gap is a wide one he has left in the family, in the
+    congregation of his love, and in the larger church; and it will
+    seem wider and wider as the days go by. We had come as his brothers
+    and sisters--as those who loved him--to lay him away in the grave,
+    and to ask God's help and blessing in this time of loss and sorrow.
+    He then led in worship, thanking God for His gift to the church of
+    the precious life that had just been surrendered at His call;
+    praising God for His love of brave and true men like him;
+    expressing the loving confidence of all that the heavenly Father
+    would deal tenderly with our widowed sister and her children;
+    asking especially that the little boy might live to honor the name
+    of his beloved father, and praying that the dear church, that has
+    borne him on their hearts through all this anxious time of weakness
+    and suffering, might forever be blessed by the memory of his godly
+    life in it.
+
+    The song, "Asleep in Jesus," was then sung, after which President
+    R. Graham, of the College of the Bible, addressed the audience on
+    the life and character of the deceased.
+
+    He had thought of how truly it might be said of him, that "There is
+    a prince and a great man fallen this day in Israel." He had felt
+    inclined to derive comfort for the church, and to those to whom he
+    was doubly dear, from the passage in the Apocalypse, "I heard a
+    voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which
+    die in the Lord from henceforth; yea, saith the Spirit, that they
+    may rest from their labors: and their works do follow them." He did
+    not know whether others would be present to take part in the
+    services. But Bro. Kurfees was here from the churches in
+    Louisville, and, as a representative of the _Guide_, Bro.
+    McDiarmid, from Cincinnati, to represent his associates in our
+    other publishing interests, and Bro. Azbill, from Indianapolis,
+    connected with our missionary interests, while he himself brought
+    the sympathies of those in the College of the Bible. He felt there
+    was a suitableness in all this, for all these things were dear to
+    the heart of our brother.
+
+    He then proceeded to give a sketch of his life and career. There
+    were several distinct periods in his history. The first was from
+    his birth, March 7, 1836, to his marriage in 1856, a period of
+    about twenty years. Here he spoke of his early struggles for an
+    education, and of the signs of a useful life manifested even then.
+    The second, from the time of his marriage till his entry upon
+    general evangelistic work, about 1866. During this decade he became
+    a Christian, resolved to preach the gospel, and entered and passed
+    through a course of collegiate studies in Eminence College. The
+    third period began with his evangelistic labors. During this time
+    he became a pastor of the Mt. Byrd church. During this period most
+    of his public discussions were held. It was through these labors
+    that he was revealed to his brethren as a man who was greater than
+    we knew.
+
+    The last period began with his editorial career, and closed with
+    his death. He became first a contributing editor of _The Apostolic
+    Times_, and afterwards co-editor. Then he became the proprietor and
+    editor of _The Old-Path Guide_, which, in the course of events, was
+    consolidated with the _Times_, and became _The Apostolic Guide_.
+
+    President Graham then spoke of his character and his characteristic
+    abilities. He was a sincere man, he was a conscientious man, he was
+    a brave, true man; he was a pure-minded man, he was a godly man.
+
+    His ability was not that of the great scholar, but of the logician
+    of keen, accurate perceptions. He was not an encyclopedia, but a
+    compact volume of naked logic. He was capable of the very nicest
+    discriminations; and he had the faculty of pointing out a fallacy
+    with marvelous clearness, and of turning an objection to his
+    position into an argument in its favor.
+
+    He was sometimes misunderstood; but he was always true to his
+    convictions, and there was no honorable thing he would not do for
+    the truth's sake. He believed in the gospel as the power of God
+    unto salvation; and he made no compromises with doctrines in
+    conflict with his conviction that the gospel must be believed and
+    obeyed by those who would be saved.
+
+    The speaker said many tender and fatherly things to the bereaved
+    family and to the church, one of which was that we who knew of our
+    brother's sufferings, could have had but the one motive of
+    selfishness for detaining him an hour longer than he lingered with
+    us.
+
+    Bro. M. C. Kurfees followed the remarks of President Graham with
+    some comforting reflections on Bro. Allen's views of death and of
+    the future life. He spoke of his willingness "to depart and to be
+    with Christ, which is far better." Heaven is not a far off place,
+    but an actual spiritual presence with God. He spoke of the
+    blessedness of being always ready for this change from our life in
+    the body to our life with God in the invisible world.
+
+    Bro. McDiarmid closed the services with suitable remarks and an
+    earnest prayer. After the singing of the song, "Jesus, Lover of my
+    Soul," came the final leave-taking, and the departure from the
+    church to the grave. Not the least touching of these scenes was the
+    breaking down in grief of the sturdy yeomen of the congregation as
+    they stood around the bier of their dear brother and former pastor,
+    and looked on that manly face and form for the last time.
+
+    Finally we laid him to rest in the burying-place near by. At the
+    grave the closing prayer was offered by Bro. Wm. Buchanan, who
+    referred tenderly to his aged mother and absent relatives. And thus
+    the final scenes closed.
+
+    His resting-place is a lovely spot, overlooking the city of
+    Madison, commanding an extended view of the river valley, and in
+    sight of the stream and of all the vessels that go by. It is near
+    to his "Cottage Home" and to the church he so much loved; and the
+    spot will be all the dearer now that he sleeps in it.
+
+    Only four days ago the writer said in a letter to the family: "I
+    linger on the eve of taking a long voyage, and he may soon go on a
+    very short one; but which of these shall be made the occasion of
+    saying 'good-bye,' I hardly know." Even then the solitary voyager
+    was on his way. The breakers dashed about him as he launched; the
+    great billows roared beneath and around him as he went out; the
+    waves broke over each other in ripples as he passed on; and the
+    ripples hushed into whispers as he neared the other shore. At last
+    he took the adorable divine Guide by the hand, and passed beyond
+    our view.
+
+
+
+
+PART II.--ADDRESSES.
+
+
+
+
+I.--CULTURE AND CHRISTIANITY: THEIR RELATION AND NECESSITY.
+
+[An Address Delivered Before Eminence College, June 8, 1877.]
+
+
+There are periods in our history which form the oases in the desert of
+life. In one of these our spirits are to-day refreshed. Its dark shade
+and cooling fountain strengthen us for the onward pilgrimage. From its
+green sward we pluck bright flowers, whose fragrance will linger with
+us till the end of life's journey. From these let us to-day weave fresh
+garlands, which shall ever exhale the sweetness of these associations.
+
+This is ever a proud day for Eminence College. Annually on these
+festive occasions do the hearts of the many thousands who have gone out
+from these classic halls turn to them again with longing. Memory,
+unfettered by space, walks again amid these lovely bowers and responds
+unconsciously to the greetings of other days. Though separated far, and
+mingling in the busy scenes of life, how their souls revel in these
+delights! These college associations are the golden links which bind
+many hearts in an unbroken chain. The chords so exquisitely touched in
+our hearts to-day will vibrate for an age. Ere these sweet strains die
+away on the distant air they will be caught up by responsive hearts and
+reëchoed round the earth. These are times in our college life that must
+ever be linked with the future. Memory will ever delight to lift the
+heavy curtain of material life, and behold again these visions of
+beauty, and paint in fancy these rose tints of youth. Then let this day
+be one whose brightness shall shed a ray of celestial light along the
+path of life. Let our spirits bathe in the fountain of living waters,
+while the chords of our hearts are swept with entrancing melodies.
+
+    "Then th' inexpressive strain
+    Diffuses its enchantment. Fancy dreams
+    Of sacred fountains and Elysian groves,
+    And vales of bliss; the intellectual power
+    Bends from his awful throne a wandering ear,
+    And smiles."
+
+As a theme worthy of your consideration to-day, I have selected
+
+    "_Culture and Christianity: Their Relation and Necessity_."
+
+The Greek word for man, [Greek: anthropos], signifies etymologically to
+_look upward_. Man is the only terrestrial being capable of looking
+inward and upward. In this there lies between him and the animal
+creation an impassable gulf. Man alone can look into his inner nature,
+and thereby make his very failures the stepping-stones to a higher
+life. God designed that man's progress should be upward; hence his high
+destiny is attained, not by creation, but by development. The ladder at
+whose foot he begins his immortal career rests upon the eternal throne.
+This is not a development _into_ man, but a development _of_ man. The
+theory of development into man is of the flesh; but the development of
+man is of the spirit. Since man is destined for eternity, it is not
+befitting that he should attain perfection in time. Hence he does not
+develop as the beast of the field, or the fowl of the air. They soon
+learn all that they ever know. They soon enjoy all they are capable of
+enjoying. They soon attain to the perfection of their being, and
+fulfill the end of their creation. The swallow builds her nest and the
+beaver his dam precisely as they did in the days before the flood. Nor
+can it ever be otherwise. But it is not so with man. This life is too
+short and this world too small for his development. He but begins to
+live in this world. This life is simply a state of probation. Our
+faculties but begin to unfold on the things of time when we are called
+hence. This unfolding of our faculties, this development of our inner
+self, is the result of culture--a culture not of the flesh, but of the
+spirit; not of the outer, but of the inner man.
+
+Culture and Christianity, properly considered, are inseparable. He who
+relies on culture apart from Christianity misconceives the end of his
+being. He appreciates not his high destiny. Animals have minds
+susceptible of a high degree of cultivation, but not of a culture which
+reaches beyond time. Their culture is wholly a thing of this life; but
+not more so than is the culture of men unsanctified by the religion of
+Christ. A culture that terminates with death is in harmony with the
+nature of a horse, but contrary to the nature of a man. What is
+culture? This is a question on whose solution man's eternal destiny is
+largely suspended. Our age prides itself on being an age of culture;
+but do we know in what true culture really consists? As a whole, I
+think not. A smattering of sentimental literature, a superficial
+refinement of manners, a few borrowed phrases and appropriated customs
+of "society," the rendering of a few pieces by rote, and fashionable
+dress, constitute with, alas! too many the standard of culture. How
+unworthy of their race are those who entertain the thought! All this
+may be but the gilding of barbarism; beneath this external glitter
+there may be a heart and character steeped in moral rudeness and
+degradation.
+
+True culture consists not in the cultivation of outward accomplishments.
+It consists not in intellectual acquirements. It consists in the
+development of the triune man--body, soul and spirit--in their divine
+harmony. Without a cultivation of the spirit in harmony with its
+immortal destiny, all that this world calls culture is but the gilded
+tinsel that bedecks the putrefaction of death. The truly cultured man
+is developed in harmony with the laws of his being. This being is
+compound, having a fleshly and a spiritual side. Hence, to cultivate
+one to the neglect of the other is to disproportion him whom God
+created in His own image. As we exist first in time and next in
+eternity, that culture which loses sight of either state misconceives
+the full mission of man. Man's conception of his present mission and
+ultimate destiny determines his standard of culture. He must have an
+ideal, and if that ideal be low, his life will be correspondingly low.
+Nothing but Christianity can furnish man an ideal worthy of himself;
+and nothing but Christian culture can develop him in the direction of
+that ideal.
+
+Classical antiquity never conceived a destiny worthy of man. It never
+contemplated him in that relation of Christ-likeness to his God, which
+the Bible reveals. Even Aristotle, the most cultivated of all heathen
+philosophers, thought that only a part of mankind possessed a rational
+soul. With such a conception man is incapable of the highest culture.
+It is degrading to his dignity. All culture based on such a hypothesis
+must be a culture of the flesh, and not of the spirit. It is the
+culture of materialism, not of Christianity. Between modern materialism
+and the cultivated heathenism of the ancient Greeks the difference is
+not worth the naming. "To assume the existence of a soul," says Vogt,
+"which uses the brain as an instrument with which to work as it
+pleases, is utter nonsense. Physiology distinctly and categorically
+pronounces against any individual immortality, and against all ideas
+which are connected with a figment of a separate existence of the
+soul." "Man," says Moleschott, "is produced from wind and ashes. The
+action of vegetable life called him into existence.... Thought consists
+in the motion of matter, it is a translocation of the cerebral
+substance; without phosphorus there can be no thought; and consciousness
+itself is nothing but an attribute of matter." This deification of the
+flesh, this "gospel of dirt," makes man consist simply of what he eats.
+The missionaries of this heathen gospel have no need to address the
+reason of men; only feed them on the right kind of food and their
+regeneration is accomplished! Materialism is a religion of the flesh, a
+deification of matter; its laver of regeneration is the chemist's
+retort; its new birth, phosphorus! Give the brain plenty of phosphorus
+by high living, and you develop the _soul_ of materialism! Yet the
+heralds of this soulless gospel talk flippantly about culture!
+
+Man's fall was due to an attempt to acquire knowledge at the expense of
+heart culture. Here, amid the bowers of "paradise lost" is found the
+root of all false culture, and from that root the world has ever been
+filled with a noxious growth. True culture consists in a correction of
+the process which
+
+    "Brought death into the world,
+    And all our woe."
+
+Man in his spiritual nature must be educated back to the divine image
+from which he fell. No culture comprehending less than this has ever
+proved a permanent blessing to the race. The highest culture hitherto
+attained apart from Christianity was incapable of saving its devotees
+from ruin. Greece and Rome were never more cultured, in a popular
+sense, than when they began to go down in death. Materialistic culture
+was their winding-sheet, and "A Religion of the Flesh" should be their
+epitaph. As Christlieb has truly said: "Wherever civilization is not
+made to rest on the basis of moral and religious truth it can not
+attain to any permanent existence, and is incapable of preserving the
+nations possessed of it from spiritual starvation, to say nothing of
+political death."
+
+It is idle to boast of Liberty when the foundations of her temples are
+not laid in divine truth. Of this, Greece and Rome have furnished the
+world examples. In Greece freedom had a field peculiarly her own; she
+breathed her inspiration into the people, and her spirit into their
+literature; she lived in the deeds of their youth, and was sung by the
+muse of their bards. This spirit was diffused in Rome. Plato, Aristotle
+and Homer were transplanted to the Rhine, the Seine, and the Thames.
+Their land was full of liberty and culture, but not the liberty nor the
+culture of the soul. When we learn from Tacitus that "in the first
+century, in a time of famine, all the teachers of youth were banished
+from the city, and six thousand dancers were retained," we have an
+example of that culture which made Rome a sink of iniquity. It is not
+impossible that the fatal mistake of Greece and Rome should be repeated
+in our own country. We are venturing to some extent on the slippery
+places from which they fell. The evil star of their national ruin is
+that on which the eyes of many of our political leaders are fixed. The
+godless spirit that animated the Roman senate is being nursed into new
+life in American politics, and this nursing is not simply in the halls
+of legislation, but in the homes of the people. Here lies the trouble.
+If the American republic ever goes down in ruin, the power that hurls
+it from its high position will be enthroned in the family circle.
+
+We complain that those in authority have not the fear of God before
+their eyes. We lift our hands in holy horror at the public corruption
+which brings our nation into dishonor before the world. But who is to
+blame? One political party is ever ready to ascribe all the corruption
+of the country to its political rival. But this godless disregard of
+national honor and national interest is confined to no party. Neither
+is it confined to party leaders; but it controls the people on whom the
+leaders rely for support. Here is the seat of the disease which is
+gnawing at the vitals of the republic. The man who now refuses to cater
+to the depraved tastes of the masses, can not, as a rule, be promoted
+to office. How many men can sit in the halls of legislation, or even on
+our benches of justice, who persistently refuse to influence men's
+votes by money, or inflame their passions and sway their judgment with
+strong drink? When a man of a high sense of moral honor seeks promotion
+by the suffrage of his fellow-citizens, he soon learns that he must
+come down from his "stilted dignity" or be defeated. In the excitement
+of the canvass he yields to base motives to prevent defeat. He
+compromises his high sense of honor, deadens his conscience, and sells
+out his manhood to secure an honorable (?) position. We should not
+expect men to manifest a high sense of honor in public places as long
+as we require them to compromise their honor in order to secure such
+places. The thing is both unreasonable and unjust. As well expect sweet
+water to flow from a fountain which we have made bitter!
+
+Party spirit is hostile to moral purity. As one becomes filled with the
+spirit of party, to that extent does he surrender the freedom of a man.
+He can neither think nor speak impartially. He stifles the convictions
+of conscience and shouts the shibboleth of party. With him the triumph
+of party is infinitely dearer than the maintenance of principle. Hence
+the conflict becomes a struggle, not for principle, but for victory.
+The people are distracted and the nation brought to the verge of ruin
+over the most trivial matters. The Eastern empire was once shaken to
+its foundation by parties which differed only about the merits of
+charioteers at the amphitheater.
+
+This ruinous party spirit is fostered by ignorance. The masses who are
+controlled at the ballot-box by the basest influences, because they
+will not be controlled by any other; and who in turn control the
+ballots of our country, are, as a rule, the uncultured part of society.
+The better class of citizens are not approached with the influences
+which control the ignorant. Therefore, the remedy is in the _correct_
+education of the masses. The emphasis is correctly made; for any kind
+of education will not accomplish this end. Only as people are _truly_
+cultured do they cease to be tools of politicians. Then their
+intelligence, not their passions, must be addressed. When the masses
+are thus cultured they will refine instead of demoralize our public
+men.
+
+As a remedy, then, for the demoralization of all classes we need a
+better system of education. We must have a free education if we would
+have a free people. Our children must be educated in just principles,
+if we would perpetuate a just government. To make this remedy
+effectual, when the means of education are provided for the ignorant,
+they should be required to appropriate them, or forfeit their right of
+suffrage. No man should have a voice in determining the destiny of our
+nation, who rejects the means of that culture which alone can qualify
+him to act intelligently. A man who has not spirit enough to avail
+himself of the benefits of an elementary education, when placed within
+his reach, is not worthy of being a citizen of a free government.
+
+Not only must the ballot-box be elevated by culture, if this government
+would number its centennials, but it must be purified by Christianity.
+We need to erect a high standard of moral qualification for positions
+of trust and honor. Those in authority will ever be about what the
+people require of them. When ungodliness and moral corruption are at a
+discount among the people, and party spirit can not atone for the
+darkest crimes, then may we expect more purity in high places; not
+before. This standard must be erected at the ballot-box or our
+liberties will find an untimely grave.
+
+This government was established on a false idea--the idea that man is
+capable of self-government. God never intended that man should govern
+himself. Consequently, in the strictest sense of the word, he is
+incapable, both individually and collectively, of self-government.
+Since, by his own wisdom, man is incapable of governing himself he is
+likewise incapable of governing others. The men and the nations, in the
+ages of the past, that attempted this, failed of the high destiny for
+which God gave them being. The ultimate prosperity of men and nations
+depends on the government of God. Only He who created man fully
+understands his ultimate destiny and the laws of his being to attain to
+that end. Therefore, only when man is thus governed is his life a
+success. All sacred history shows that God rules in the governments of
+men; and only when this fact is practically acknowledged may nations
+expect permanent prosperity. That nation whose laws are framed and
+executed regardless of the law of God will eventually fall under the
+divine chastisement. No more can the statesmanship of this world,
+unsanctified by divine wisdom, save a nation from the wrath of God,
+than the wisdom of man can save a soul from eternal death, regardless
+of Him, "who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and
+sanctification, and redemption." For the disregard of God's will,
+nations are punished here, because as nations they do not exist
+hereafter. On this the Lord has clearly spoken: "At what instant I
+shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up,
+and to pull down, and to destroy it: If that nation against whom I have
+pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I
+thought to do unto them. And at what instant I shall speak concerning a
+nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it: If it do
+evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the
+good, wherewith I said I would benefit them." Thus it is that nations
+are in the hands of God as clay in the hands of the potter. Only,
+therefore, when they purge themselves from ungodly legislation, will
+they become "vessels unto honor, sanctified and meet for the Master's
+use."
+
+The voice of God, then, must be heard and heeded in our nation, and if
+the people rule, and the nation prosper, the voice of God must become
+the voice of the people. _In this sense, and this only, are any people
+capable of self-government._ To this end we need more extended culture,
+and that of a higher order. Our politics must be purified by our
+religion, and our religion must be a religion of the spirit, not of the
+flesh. We need more religion in our politics, and less politics in our
+religion. The history of other nations fully confirms the language of
+Goethe: "All epochs," says he, "in which faith prevailed have been the
+most heart-stirring and fruitful, both as regards contemporaries and
+posterity; whereas, on the other hand, all epochs in which unbelief
+obtains its miserable triumphs, even when they boast of some apparent
+brilliancy, are not less surely doomed to speedy oblivion." Liberty is
+the twin sister of Faith. In the language of Seneca: "To obey God is
+freedom. A nation that desires to be free must believe, and a nation
+that will not believe must be in servitude; only despotism can dispense
+with faith, but not liberty."
+
+History clearly proves that national prosperity depends on an
+appreciation of the intimate relation existing between culture and
+Christianity. Of this relation Christlieb truly speaks: "No one,
+indeed," says he, "will wish to deny that in our modern culture there
+is much that is false, egotistic, and selfish; much that is misleading
+and exaggerated, and consequently opposed to true culture. Against
+these untrue elements of culture, Christianity will and must always
+take the field; it must not oppose progress, although it is at all
+times bound to show itself hostile to the _sins_ of progress, just as
+from its very commencement it has always testified and striven against
+such sins. Between Christless culture and Christianity a bridge of
+accommodation can no more be built than between light and darkness, and
+woe to him who undertakes this! But whatever in our modern culture is
+thoroughly _Christless_, and therefore Godless, is unworthy of the
+name and can, therefore, claim from us no further consideration; it is
+mere naked rudeness and selfishness, ill-disguised by the gaudy rays of
+outward decency; a mere cherishing of the sensual nature which, left to
+itself, would soon degenerate into monstrous barbarism, of which we
+already see many indications."
+
+Intellectual, at the expense of moral, culture is one of the curses of
+this age. By such culture man acquires power without the principles
+which alone can make that power a blessing. Intellect is deified; but
+intellect unsubdued by Christianity is a remorseless god. True culture
+would lift man above this low conception of his own nature. It would
+give him a more comprehensive view of himself; of the infinite
+development of which he is susceptible; of the rulings of an all-wise
+Providence, whose loving care
+
+    "From seeming evil still educing good,
+    And better thence again, and better still,
+    In infinite progression."
+
+True culture consists not in an accumulation of facts or ideas, but in
+developing a force of thought that is ever a ready and willing servant.
+To educate is to lead out and develop the faculties, not to break them
+down with the endless rubbish of other minds. The collection of facts
+amounts to but little unless with those facts we build towers from
+which to take higher and wider views of truth. Thus it is that culture
+demands them as a means, not as an end. To build up the mental and
+moral faculties, so as to comprehend and appreciate the great
+principles which control the life that now is, and that which is to
+come, is the highest culture in our probationary state. This can be
+accomplished only by an education in which the Bible and the _authority
+of Christ_ are made paramount. On this, as we have seen, our free
+institutions and the perpetuity of religious liberty depend. This is
+the secret of Roman Catholic opposition to the Bible in our public
+schools. And it is not simply the Bible in the public schools that Rome
+opposes; she is opposed to the existence of the schools themselves; to
+the system of free education. No people understand better than the
+Catholics the power of religious teaching in connection with education.
+Hence they are the foe to all religion in connection with education
+that is not Catholic. Rome is the friend of education and religion when
+that education is priestly and that religion Romish; otherwise she is
+the enemy of both. Hence those who support Catholic schools foster the
+deadliest foe of our religious liberties. There will ever be,
+therefore, an irrepressible conflict between Roman Catholicism and
+Christian culture. Let him who doubts this study impartially the
+history of Catholic countries. We ask no more.
+
+The idea is fast passing away, and it can not pass too rapidly, that
+the mass of the people need no other culture than that which fits them
+for their various vocations. The world is beginning to learn that
+culture is due to our _nature_, not to our _calling_. It is not the
+calling nor the place of residence that makes the man. It is what a man
+_is_, not what he does, that makes him great. True greatness is in the
+man, not in circumstances. True greatness and worldly fame are two
+widely different things. The greatest men of earth may be but little
+known. As force of thought measures intellectual, so force of principle
+measures moral, greatness. There is more true greatness in the huts of
+poverty than in the palaces of kings, only it is undeveloped. Here,
+therefore, is where we need true Christian culture. I can not better
+express my appreciation of obscure greatness, which culture should
+develop, than by repeating the words of Dr. Channing: "The greatest
+man," says he, "is he who chooses the right with invincible resolution,
+who resists the sorest temptation from within and without, who bears
+the heaviest burdens cheerfully, who is calmest in storms and most
+fearless under menace and frowns, whose reliance on truth, on virtue,
+on God, is most unfaltering; and is this a greatness which is apt to
+make a show, or which is most likely to abound in conspicuous stations?
+The solemn conflicts of reason with passion; the victories of moral and
+religious principles over urgent and almost irresistible solicitations
+to self-indulgence; the hardest sacrifices of duty, those of
+deep-seated affection and of the heart's fondest hopes; the
+consolations, hopes, joys, and peace, of disappointed, persecuted,
+scorned, deserted virtue; these are of course unseen, so that the true
+greatness of human life is almost wholly out of sight. Perhaps in our
+presence the most heroic deed on earth is done in some silent spirit,
+the loftiest purpose cherished, the most generous sacrifices made, and
+we do not suspect it. I believe this greatness to be most common among
+the multitude, whose names are never heard." Most beautifully has the
+poet expressed the same fine thought:
+
+    "Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
+      The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear;
+    Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
+      And waste its sweetness on the desert air."
+
+These pure gems need to be discovered and polished, and these sweet
+flowers cultivated and utilized by Christian culture. It is idle to
+talk of developing these hidden resources of intellectual and moral
+wealth but by true culture, and this can never exist apart from
+Christianity. Christianity is the spiritual power that vitalizes the
+culture of our age. So evident is this that even a Fichte was compelled
+to confess that, "We and our whole age are rooted in the soil of
+Christianity, and have sprung from it; it has exercised its influence
+in the most manifold ways on the whole of our culture, and we should be
+absolutely nothing of all that we are, if this mighty principle had not
+preceded us." Culture and Christianity can not now be divorced. Those
+who would array culture against Christianity are themselves under the
+influence of that which they oppose. The very imagined imperfections of
+Christianity must be discovered by the light of Christianity, "just as
+he who seeks to discover spots in the sun, must for this purpose borrow
+the light of the sun itself." Culture and Christianity are so
+interwoven that we may never expect either, separate from the other, as
+a blessing to the world. The very fact that the Protestant nations of
+the earth, where God is honored by a free Bible, are the chief
+exponents of true culture, attests this connection. So vital is this
+relation that, "United they stand; divided they fall."
+
+Another important end to be attained in the culture of the masses is
+independence of thought. We need to cast off the yoke of human opinion
+and cultivate the individual judgment. We are too much the slaves of
+fashion. We are disposed to dress our minds as well as our bodies,
+after the fashion of the times. This destroys originality and
+independence of thought, and renders our lives tame and insipid. We
+need connection with other minds to excite our own, not to enslave
+them. We want the thoughts of others that we may think; and without
+correct modes of thinking, all efforts at education and culture are
+failures.
+
+But it may be argued, the masses are denied the privilege of
+association with the cultivated. This is not true. They may deprive
+themselves, but they are not denied. This is peculiarly an age of
+printing. The best of literature may now find its way into the most
+humble homes. There is not a roof in the land under which the prophets
+and apostles of God will not enter with the glad message containing the
+promise of the life that is and that which is to come; not one under
+which the poets will not come to sing to us of that far-off land; not
+one too holy for the habitation of the great minds of earth which
+inspire us
+
+    "With thoughts that breathe,
+    And words that burn."
+
+With these for our companions, we may have the best society that this
+world affords, and, by such association, fit ourselves for the
+companionship of the cultivated.
+
+Is it argued that the poor have not time for self-culture? This is one
+of the greatest mistakes of life. It is not _time_ that we want; it is
+_inclination_. Generally, those who have most time profit by it least.
+An earnest purpose will either find time or make time. Nor is it
+necessary that much time should be taken. The spare moments, the mere
+fragments of time, often worse than wasted, will, if carefully
+improved, make both mind and heart a store-house of the most precious
+treasure. It is said that Spurgeon read the whole of Macaulay's History
+of England between the courses at dinner. I would not advise that these
+golden opportunities for social culture be devoted to reading; but the
+circumstance shows how much may be accomplished by gathering up the
+crumbs which fall from the table of time. When Martin Luther was asked
+how, amid all his other labors, he found time to translate the Holy
+Scriptures, he replied, "One verse a day." A small amount of daily
+reading, of the right kind, will furnish food for thought; and it is
+thought, after all, that enriches the soul.
+
+A proper improvement of the most slender opportunities for self-culture
+creates new capacities for enjoyment, and saves the leisure moments
+from being dull and wearisome. More than this; it saves them from being
+devoted to ruinous indulgence. The soul-culture for which these
+fragments of time provide, lifts humanity above mere brutal enjoyments,
+and implants pleasures worthy of their race. Christian culture is
+essential to the subduing of sensuality, and the subduing of sensuality
+is essential to the permanent prosperity of both individuals and
+nations.
+
+But, it may be said, any considerable degree of culture will lift the
+masses above their vocations, and cause them to become dissatisfied
+with their lot; that the cultured mind despises drudgery. The very
+reverse of this is true. Culture dignifies labor and destroys drudgery.
+The man determines the dignity of the calling; not the calling the
+dignity of the man. Let men of culture carry their culture into their
+vocations, and their vocations will become honorable. Let cultured men
+plow and reap, and plowing and reaping will become as dignified as the
+"learned professions." Because a man can not wear as fine a garb at the
+forge as he can at the desk, it does not follow that his thoughts may
+not be as fine. A man may wear a polished intellect and a cultivated
+soul under a coarse garb as well as under a fine one; and he should be
+respected the more, if circumstances have compelled him to develop his
+intellectual and moral forces; if at all, under a rough exterior.
+
+While in these thoughts I have spoken of men, I have used the term
+generically. The principles apply with equal force to the women of this
+country. One of the great evils of our land is, that among the ladies,
+domestic labor is not sufficiently dignified. The number of mothers in
+the ordinary walks of life, silly enough to think that ignorance of
+domestic duties is an accomplishment for their daughters, is by no
+means small. This results from a want of true culture and common sense.
+There is no just reason why a young lady should not knead her dough and
+conjugate a Greek verb at the same time with equal skill. True culture
+will dignify domestic labor among women of all classes, and this will
+result in more domestic prosperity, and more domestic happiness. The
+rich and the poor will be brought into closer sympathy, unnecessary
+distinctions will be broken down, and the people will become one in the
+essential elements of good government and pure religion.
+
+Young ladies, you above all others should appreciate the blending of
+culture and Christianity. One glance at the history of the world must
+convince you that the highest culture, unsanctified by Christianity,
+has never elevated your sex above disgraceful servitude. Certainly you
+can not entertain the thought, that the culture which does not elevate
+woman can ever bless the world. Only Christianity has exalted the
+gentler sex to that position in the esteem and affections of men that
+God designed she should occupy. Hence, of all the friends of ancient
+Christianity, woman should be the truest and most lasting; and of all
+the enemies of modern Rationalism, she should be the most bitter and
+unrelenting.
+
+In conclusion, allow me to repeat the thought of the beginning, that it
+is the nature of man to _look upward_, and he who does not look upward
+is untrue to his nature. But in the flesh, we can only begin to ascend
+the heights of God. Here we are weighed down with infirmity, with our
+frail, decaying bodies; but our souls long for the power of incessant,
+never-wearying, glorious activity, awaiting us in the upper world. One
+of my highest conceptions of Heaven; one that thrills me to
+contemplate, is a life of no more prostration from labor; no more
+weariness of over-wrought brain; no aching head nor pain-racked body;
+but incessant labor, unincumbered by frail mortality; growth,
+development, expanding visions of God, among pure intelligences, and
+amid the celestial splendor of eternal worlds. But in the flesh, I can
+not bathe in those fountains of celestial light. Then let me leave this
+frail tenement of clay, as one steps out of the vehicle that can take
+him no farther, and leaving it behind, ascends the lofty mountain to
+gaze upon the unfolding wonders of God. Let my liberated spirit not
+only look upward, but mount upward, as on eagles' wings, till rising
+above the Pleiades, and leaving the Milky-way to fade out in the
+receding distance, it walks with God on the ever-ascending plain,
+reached only by culture and Christianity.
+
+
+
+
+II.--SELF CULTURE.
+
+[An Address Delivered Before Columbia Christian College, June 7, 1878.]
+
+
+_Ladies and Gentlemen:_--I am happy in the privilege of again
+addressing you in the interests of the great work in which you are so
+nobly engaged. To-day many of you go out from under the fostering care
+of this institution, to engage in the ceaseless battle of life. That
+you have been well panoplied for the conflict is not questioned. And,
+if I can second, in some degree, the efforts of your faithful and
+worthy Faculty in directing and encouraging you to that success that
+should crown their efforts and yours, I shall feel that I have labored
+to no trifling purpose. The theme selected for your consideration is
+
+    "_Self-Culture_."
+
+Man, though fallen, is in his ruins grand. His powers of development
+are little less than infinite. They begin with the cradle, but do not
+end with the grave. No other being begins so low and ascends so high.
+In his beginning, he is "crushed before the moth;" in the fullness of
+his power he shall "judge angels." In this world he scarcely begins to
+live. This life is too short and this world too small for the
+development of his God-given faculties. Here he scarcely learns the
+alphabet preparatory to God's grand university from which he is never
+to graduate. He simply begins the study of an unending book. He but
+gathers a few pebbles on the shores of the river of time, then sinks
+beneath its wave.
+
+But while in this world we scarcely make a beginning, yet everything
+depends on the character of that beginning. As is the beginning, so
+will be the conclusion. In the direction taken in time will we progress
+in eternity. We may repent of our mistakes here and correct them, but
+there is no repentance beyond the grave. There are no mistakes
+corrected in eternity. Hence the necessity of a proper use of time.
+
+I have selected the word culture to express the idea which I wish to
+convey, and yet I must confess that it does not express it as happily
+as I should desire. Where the Greeks had their _paideia_, the Romans
+their _humanitas_, we have the more elastic and accommodating word
+culture. I use it in this address in the sense of drawing out and
+developing the nobler powers that are potentially in fallen humanity.
+It is not so much the development of all the faculties in man to their
+highest extent, as the directing and training of the better ones to
+their true end. We are dealing here with beginnings, not endings. The
+perfection of man in all his capacities is not a thing of time. In
+time, the character must receive its mold; in eternity, its highest
+polish.
+
+By self-culture I mean, of course, the power that one has, and ought to
+use, of cultivating himself. "To cultivate anything," says Dr.
+Channing, "be it a plant, an animal, a mind, is to make grow. Growth,
+expansion is the end. Nothing admits culture but that which has a
+principle of life, capable of being expanded. He, therefore, who does
+what he can to unfold all his powers and capacities, especially his
+nobler ones, so as to become a well proportioned, vigorous, happy
+being, practices self-culture." This may apply to those who have not
+the advantages of schools and colleges, and to the after education of
+those who have.
+
+We hear much in this age about a "finished education at college." There
+is, alas! too much truth in the expression. Generally, the more
+superficial our collegiate education, the more completely is it
+"finished" on the day of graduation. How few young ladies and gentlemen
+meet the expectations raised by their educational advantages! How few
+years sadden loving hearts with disappointed hopes! How many stars
+shine brilliantly within college walls, then go out to be seen no more!
+And all this the result of a "finished education!"
+
+Most of these failures are the result of wrong views of education. Our
+school days are but a beginning of our earthly education, as this is
+but the beginning of that which is to come. It is not what we learn in
+school, but what we learn after leaving it, that determines our success
+or failure. These advantages are but for the purpose of laying the
+foundation; the building is the work of after years. And he who does
+not build, does not even preserve the foundation. Alas! how many
+well-laid foundations have moldered into ruin! No sooner does the plant
+cease to grow than it begins to decay. Therefore, he who would live
+must grow, and he who would grow must be active. There is no success to
+him who stands with his hands in his pockets. This is an age of intense
+activity. Competition in every calling is sharp; the professions are
+crowded, and there is room only at the top. Therefore, the path to
+success is not strewed with flowers and tinted with the rainbow's hue.
+As Carlyle truly says: "The race of life has become intense; the
+runners are treading upon each other's heels, woe be to him who stops
+to tie his shoestrings."
+
+Many a young man fails because he thinks himself a genius, and
+therefore does not need to study. The sooner you get rid of the idea
+that you are a genius the better. The old idea of a genius that never
+has to study is the pet of laziness and the ruin of manliness. Sidney
+Smith truly says: "There is but one method of attaining to excellence,
+and that is hard labor; and a man who will not pay that price for
+distinction had better at once dedicate himself to the pursuit of the
+fox, or sport with the tangles of Neæra's hair, or talk of bullocks and
+glory in the goad! There are many modes of being frivolous, and not a
+few of being useful; there is but one mode of being intellectually
+great."
+
+It is common for those who have not the wealth to afford them a
+luxurious college course to bemoan their misfortune and content
+themselves with being nothing. If culture were attained by complaining
+of misfortune, many would soon reach perfection. To some, extreme
+poverty is doubtless a misfortune, but to many others it is a blessing.
+The world's grandest heroes and benefactors have struggled with
+poverty; and, but for this, they would have died unwept and unhonored.
+The great men and women of earth were not dandled in the lap of luxury.
+Lord Thurlow, Chancellor of England, when asked by a wealthy friend
+what course his son should pursue to secure success at the bar, is said
+to have thus replied: "Let your son spend his fortune, marry and spend
+his wife's, and then go to the bar; there will be little fear of his
+failure." The Chancellor well knew that, with his wealth, the young man
+would not do the work that success demanded. How many men, and women,
+too, were never anything till they lost their fortune! Then the world
+felt their power. What a fortune, then, to have no fortune to lose!
+True, poverty brings difficulties, but difficulties develop men. They
+show the material out of which one is composed. While they dishearten
+the irresolute, they stimulate the brave. The wind that extinguishes
+the taper only intensifies the heat of the stronger flame. Gnats are
+blown with the wind, but kites rise only against it.
+
+All culture is, in a large degree, self-culture. Our teachers are only
+helps. They can teach us, but they can not learn us. We must do our own
+learning. Wealth can not buy it, nor luxurious surroundings impart it;
+it must be made ours by personal application.
+
+I am not contending that all may or should be scholars in the proper
+sense of that word. There is a difference between culture and
+scholarship. A man of culture may or may not be a scholar. I plead more
+especially for the training of the mind, for the development of the
+nobler faculties of our nature, that we may fulfill the true end of our
+being.
+
+I do not mean that all should be great, in the popular acceptation of
+that term. This is neither desirable nor possible. If all were great,
+then none were great. But God has designed us all for positions of
+usefulness and happiness; some in one direction, some in another. These
+positions we should seek and fill to the full extent of our ability.
+And it is with reference to this ability that I am making the plea for
+self-culture. It is not simply preparation for a position, but
+development in it, for which I plead. There is much said in this age
+about education for a position, and this education is all right; the
+more thorough the better. But the trouble is, too many seem to think
+that this is all. Here is the ruinous mistake. There is a world of
+difference between being educated _for_ a calling, and being educated
+_in_ it. That may be obtained in schools and colleges; this is a
+work of subsequent life. That is important; this is indispensable.
+Without that, this may be a grand success; without this, that is next
+to worthless. Many men are highly educated in their calling who were
+never educated for it. This is self-culture in its true sense.
+
+Nor is the culture for which I plead derived simply from books. These
+we need, but we need them simply as helps. We should make them our
+servants, not our masters. A "bookworm" is sometimes a very inferior
+kind of a worm. Some men that the schools call highly educated rely so
+much on books that they are nothing in themselves. They have no mind of
+their own. They deal altogether in second-hand goods. We need to lay
+aside our books, and study men and things--commence with God and
+nature. We must learn to _think_. To think much. To think accurately.
+To do our own thinking, not have it done for us. Without this, we shall
+make but little of our advantages; with it, we rise superior to
+advantages.
+
+Neither am I contending that we should all strive for the "learned
+professions." It is just the reverse. We want to elevate and ennoble
+the _un_learned professions. The American people, at least, should
+learn that the calling does not make the man. We need to dignify all
+the honest and legitimate vocations by intellectual and moral culture.
+We not only need to dignify labor by culture, but, by so doing, we need
+to dignify the mass of our common humanity. Personal worth consists not
+in what one does, but in what one is. Better be a good barber than a
+poor doctor, a good shoemaker than a poor lawyer.
+
+I would not be understood as claiming that men and women in all the
+vocations in life should be cultured in all directions. In this age of
+short and intense life this is not practicable. It might have done
+before the flood, when men lived a thousand years, but it is not
+adapted to the nineteenth century. Remember I am speaking with
+reference to the masses. Men can not know everything, neither can they
+do everything, and do it well. All knowledge may be made useful, and I
+would urge the obtaining of all possible; but it is a mistake to try to
+do too much, and do nothing. A few things well understood are of more
+value than a smattering of much. By all means avoid being
+"Jack-of-all-trades." Decide what you want to do and do it. I would
+urge the training of mind and heart and hand as a specialty in that
+which you select as a life work, embellished and perfected by all the
+general knowledge that a life of intense application will enable you to
+possess. Difference in occupation demands a difference in special
+culture, but not in general. This is culture, not of the schools,
+simply, but of life.
+
+But the difficulties and the means of self-culture need now to be
+considered. In doing this, the first essential element to success to
+which your attention is called, is
+
+    SELF-RELIANCE.
+
+No man ever amounted to much who did not rely on God and himself. The
+young man who whines around, waiting for some one to help him, instead
+of helping himself, ought to be sent back to the nursery, clothed in
+enlarged baby-gowns, and fed with a spoon. Men of independence are the
+men that move the world. The living rarely walk well in the shoes of
+the dead, and he who waits for them ought to go barefooted all his
+life. God helps those who help themselves. Self-reliance toughens our
+sinews and develops our manhood. "It is not in the sheltered garden or
+the hothouse, but on the rugged Alpine cliffs where the storm bursts
+most violently, that the toughest plants are reared." The man who does
+not rely on self, soon ceases to have any self. He becomes a zoological
+parasite, instead of a man. He is a lobster that waits for the sea to
+come to him, instead of going to it, though its waves may be dashing at
+his feet. Should the sea accommodate him in time, well enough;
+otherwise he dies. These men make the subjunctive heroes of the world.
+They always "might," "could," "would" or "should" do some great thing;
+but they never get into the imperative mood to do it. They have never
+learned self-reliance; and, the result is, they never learned anything
+worth knowing. They can never appreciate this saying of the immortal
+Burke: "I was not rocked and swaddled and dandled into a legislator.
+_Nitor in adversum_ is the motto for a man like me."
+
+Those who are afraid to move without the arms of a rich ancestry around
+them, will never learn to walk erect. They will never have a firm,
+elastic step, nor make the world feel the weight of their tread. The
+man who thus shrinks from difficulties and responsibilities, refuses to
+be a pupil of the best teacher the world affords. They should learn
+that repeated failure, if wisely used, is but a means to grand success.
+As Dr. Mathews truly says: "Great statesmen in all countries have owed
+their sagacity, tact and foresight more to their failures than to their
+successes. The diplomatist becomes master of his art by being baffled,
+thwarted, defeated, quite as much as by winning his points. Every time
+he is checkmated he acquires a profounder knowledge of the political
+game, and makes his next combination with increased skill and increased
+chances of success." Ease and luxury may make the butterflies of
+society, but difficulties make men and women. That was a wise saying of
+Pythagoras, that, "ability and necessity dwell near each other." It is
+astonishing how difficulties will yield to one who will not yield to
+them. They tip their plumed caps to his dominant will, and politely bow
+themselves out of sight. They not only clear the way for self-reliance,
+but give him the encouragement of their parting salute.
+
+"Every person," says Gibbon, "has two educations--one which he receives
+from others, and one, more important, which he gives himself."
+Archimedes said, "Give me a standing-place and I will move the world."
+But Goethe more happily says, "Make good thy standing-place and move
+the world." Circumstances may afford a standing-place, but
+self-reliance alone can give the leverage power. We must learn that
+character and worth consists in doing, not in possessing. Not resting,
+not having, not being simply, but growing and becoming, is the true
+character of self-culture. This thought is most beautifully expressed
+by Rogers--
+
+                            "Our reward
+    Is in the race we run, not in the prize,
+    Those few, to whom is given what they ne'er earned,
+    Having by favor or inheritance
+    The dangerous gifts placed in their hands,
+    Know not, nor ever can, the generous pride
+    That glows in him who on himself relies,
+    Entering the lists of life. He speeds beyond
+    Them all, and foremost in the race succeeds.
+    His joy is not that he has got his crown,
+    But that the power to win the crown is his."
+
+Another important item in the attainment of self-culture is the
+
+    ECONOMY OF TIME.
+
+Time is a divine inheritance that no man has a right to squander. The
+antediluvians might have afforded to be a little profligate in this
+direction, but the man who would fulfill his high destiny in this age
+has no time to lose. Lost time is forever lost. There is much useless
+complaint in the world of a want of time. It is not more time we need,
+so much as a better use of that we have. I do not mean that we should
+deprive ourselves of requisite sleep and rest. On the contrary, the
+regulation of these constitutes a part of the economy of which I speak.
+Rest is necessary; but all rest is not idleness. We should learn to
+rest by changing our employment, not by its abandonment. The man whose
+mind becomes weary in his study, finds the most invigorating rest in
+manual labor. The physical and intellectual have a happy reflective
+influence on each other. The moments wisely taken for intellectual and
+moral culture by the laboring man are fountains whose refreshing
+stream, like that from Horeb, follows him through his daily toil. They
+are a ceaseless pleasure, both in remembrance and anticipation. Those,
+also whose lives are disconnected with manual labor should have such a
+variety of work that one kind prepares the way for the enjoyment of
+another. There are both pleasure and health in a change of diet. To
+happily manage this variety requires a training of the mind essential
+to self-culture. We must learn to do the right thing at the right time.
+The happy influence of one thing upon another depends on their
+arrangement and the manner of their execution. It may not be well to
+have too many irons in the fire, but it is certainly best to have
+enough for some to be heating while others are cooling.
+
+In order to do the right thing at the right time, and do it well, we
+must learn to think about the right thing at the right time. This is
+one of the most important features in mental training. We can think
+well on but one thing at a time. Therefore, the mind that is filled
+with various kinds of thoughts can prosecute none of them successfully.
+We must learn to select the guests that we would have sit at our
+intellectual banquets, summon or exclude them at will, and never permit
+the intrusion of a promiscuous crowd. When our work is arranged for the
+day, the week, the month, the year, we should set apart the time to be
+devoted to each item, both in work and in thought; and then never allow
+the thoughts of one to encroach upon the time allotted to another. We
+should so train the mind that we can think about the thing only of
+which we wish to think, concentrate our whole mind upon it till the
+time comes to put it away; then dismiss it in a moment, turn to
+something else, and think no more about it, till its proper time. The
+mind is soon trained to pass from one subject to another in a moment,
+with all its powers of concentration. This mastery of the mind, once
+attained, will enable us to study at all times and places regardless of
+circumstances. The man who can not study amid the wild shouts of the
+excited multitude is not his own master. He who can command his time
+and his talents only when no surging billows beat against his quiet
+retreat, has necessarily to spend much of life in which he has neither
+time nor talents which he can call his own. A very important item,
+then, in the economy of time, is to learn to labor under difficulties,
+till we rise superior to external surroundings. To keep the reins of
+the mind well in hand when there is a stampede all around us, is
+absolutely essential in the great crises of life. This is attained only
+by training the mind to instantaneous concentration under all
+circumstances. This, then, I would urge you to persist in until it is
+accomplished. Without this you will lose much time in acquiring
+information, and, what is of vastly more importance, you will be
+unprepared to use what you have at the very time, it may be, when it is
+most needed.
+
+Another important element in the economy of time we learn from the
+great Teacher who said, "Gather up the fragments, that nothing be
+lost." If He who had the power to create as well as to preserve, was
+such an economist of the remnants of loaves and fishes, how much more
+should we save the fragments of time, which we can not lengthen out a
+span?
+
+Many people seem to think they can make garments only out of whole
+cloth. If they have not an abundance of uninterrupted time in which to
+accomplish a thing, they think they can not accomplish it at all. Such
+men accomplish but little, not for want of time, but for want of its
+economy. To avoid this waste, we must learn to weave whole garments out
+of the mere ravelings of the fabric of time. But some complain that
+they can not "get up steam" for intellectual labor in these fractions
+of time. We don't need to "get up steam." The "steam" should be already
+up. We only need to change the gearing. "There is a momentum in the
+active man," says Mathews, "which of itself almost carries him to the
+mark, just as a very light stroke will keep a hoop going, when a smart
+one was required to set it in motion. While others are yawning and
+stretching themselves to overcome the _vis inertiae_, he has his eyes
+wide open, his faculties keyed up for action, and is thoroughly alive
+in every fiber. He walks through the world with his hands unmuffled and
+ready by his side, and so can sometimes do more by a single touch in
+passing than a vacant man is likely to do by strenuous effort."
+
+Let no one conclude that nothing important can be accomplished by these
+scattered fragments. It is said that "Hugh Miller found time while
+pursuing his trade as a stone-mason, not only to read but to write,
+cultivating his style till he became one of the most facile and
+brilliant authors of the day." Also, that Elihu Burritt "acquired a
+mastery of eighteen languages and twenty-two dialects, not by rare
+genius, which he disclaimed, but by improving the bits and fragments of
+time which he could steal from his occupation as a blacksmith."
+
+With these examples before us, then, let no one conclude that he can
+not get time from his daily vocation, whatever it may be, to cultivate
+his mind, and develop his moral and intellectual faculties. Another
+essential element in self-culture is
+
+    SINGLENESS OF PURPOSE.
+
+"A man," says Emerson, "is like a bit of Labrador spar, which has no
+lustre as you turn it in your hand until you come to a particular
+angle; then it shows deep and beautiful colors." There is no adaptation
+or universal applicability in man; but each has his special talent; and
+the mastery of successful men consists in adroitly keeping themselves
+where and when that turn shall need oftenest to be practiced. The
+successful man in every calling, whether literary, scientific or
+business, is he who is _totus in illo_--who can say with Paul, this one
+thing I do! With the exception of a few great creative minds, the men
+whose names are historic are identified with some one achievement, upon
+which all their life force is spent. "Whatever I have tried to do in my
+life," says Dickens, "I have tried with all my heart to do well. What I
+have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself to completely. Never to
+put one hand to a thing on which I would not throw my whole self, and
+never to affect depreciation of my work, whatever it was, I find now to
+have been golden rules." The fact is, the range of human knowledge has
+become so extensive that the man who would know some things well must
+have the courage to be ignorant of many others. There are many things
+for which one is wholly incapacitated; for which he has no talent, and,
+as a rule, time spent in this direction is time lost. Goethe justly
+says: "We should guard against a talent which we can not hope to
+practice in perfection. Improve it as we may, we shall always, in the
+end, when the merit of the master has become apparent to us, painfully
+lament the loss of time and strength devoted to such botching." Sidney
+Smith condemns what he calls the "foppery of _universality_--of knowing
+all sciences and excelling in all arts." "Now _my_ advice," he says,
+"on the contrary, is to have the courage to be ignorant of a great
+number of things, in order to avoid the calamity of being ignorant of
+everything."
+
+I do not mean that you should try to learn but one thing, or be a man
+or woman of one idea; far from it. I simply mean that you must be
+select. Select your calling, and then bend all your energies in that
+direction. Let those branches of knowledge that bear most directly on
+your vocation be mastered first, then widen the circle as opportunity
+affords. Do not scatter your powers over so much territory that they
+are felt nowhere. It is only when the sun's rays are brought to a focus
+that they burn. The man who is one thing this year, another next;
+studies medicine a while, then law, is next a school-teacher, and then
+an insurance agent, will, in the end, be nothing. Men who are always
+changing, never learn enough about anything to make it of any value.
+Men who are eminent in their professions have stuck to them with a
+singleness of purpose. Men talk much about genius, when, generally, the
+genius of which they speak is but the result of unremitting
+application. The genius that blesses this world is simply a talent for
+hard work. They are men who have the resolution to try, and the courage
+to persevere. Idle men of the most eminent natural ability are soon
+distanced in the race by the mediocre who sticks to his purpose and
+plods. Then, I repeat, if you would succeed in life, in whatever
+calling you may select, divest yourself of the idea that you are a
+genius and do not need the application demanded by common mortality;
+rely not on the caprices of fickle fortune; but rely on God and
+yourself, economize your time, apply yourself with diligence and with
+singleness of purpose. With these you will be a blessing to the world,
+and fulfill the high and holy purposes of God in giving you being.
+
+Self-culture looks not simply to time, but to eternity. No man is truly
+cultured who is not cultured for eternity. His culture is but
+one-sided, and that the most inferior side. The well-rounded and
+perfected culture, though it may be only partial so far as the culture
+of this world is concerned, is the culture that prepares one to
+matriculate in the great university over which God presides, and sit
+forever in delightful appreciation at the feet of the great Teacher.
+Let this, then, be the ultimatum of all your efforts.
+
+It is for this reason that you should so highly appreciate this
+institution from which you go out to-day as honored students. While the
+various branches of the arts and sciences that pertain to this life,
+have been carefully and accurately taught you, the great Science of
+eternal life, if I may so term it, has been, I trust, indelibly
+engraved on your every heart. A college whose faculty is composed
+exclusively of Christian men and women, and in which the systematic
+study of the Bible by both ladies and gentlemen is made one of its most
+prominent features, will ever be most highly appreciated by those who
+appreciate true culture, and know in what it consists. I think I
+appreciate a high standard of education, and I want, if possible, to
+give my children its advantages; but I should infinitely prefer their
+never going beyond the common school than to be graduated with the
+first honors from the most renowned colleges or universities of Europe
+or America, in which the authority of Jesus is not held as supreme, and
+the Bible honored as our only divine guide. Other things being equal,
+we should always honor those institutions most that honor God's word
+most. For this reason, then, as well as for many others, we delight to
+honor this institution from whose fostering care you this day go forth.
+
+In conclusion, let me entreat you to be what this world now most
+needs--MEN and WOMEN. The world is now burdened with "gentlemen and
+ladies;" but it is perishing for the want of MEN and WOMEN. The world
+needs men and women that are true to themselves, true to each other,
+and true to God--men and women who know what manliness is, and what
+womanly virtues are; who delight in the real, and scorn the
+counterfeit; who have the courage to do right because it is right; who
+would rather stand alone on the side of truth, than with the world on
+the side of error; who are governed by high and holy principle, not by
+selfish policy. We need men and women that will create a healthier
+public sentiment, rather than to float on that which exists; who will
+frown out of countenance the fraud, dishonesty and meanness that now
+lifts high its head in society; who will not live in fine palaces,
+drive fast horses, and occupy the first pews in the sanctuary, at ten
+cents on the dollar. The world needs men and women who have hearts and
+consciences, as well as brains; who realize that they have a soul as
+well as a body; who live for eternity rather than for time.
+
+God grant that you may all make such men and women. That you may not
+only be a blessing to the age and generation in which you live; but
+that your influence for the "true, the beautiful and the good," may be
+felt like the gentle dews of heaven upon the earth, generations after
+you are gathered to your fathers! May you be diligent and faithful in
+the cultivation of your nobler powers of mind and heart till the world
+shall bless God that you have lived in it; then laying aside the body,
+in which you have fought the grand fight for righteousness and truth--a
+fight on which God and angels have looked with interest and delight--as
+you would lay aside a worn-out garment, and passing through "the gates
+ajar," enter on a higher plane of culture, where you will not have to
+rely upon self, and struggle against adversity as here; but where you
+will have all the facilities of Heaven, and be forever pupils of the
+great Teacher!
+
+
+
+
+III.--PLUS ULTRA VS. NE PLUS ULTRA.
+
+[An Address Delivered Before Eminence College, June 10, 1881.]
+
+
+LADIES AND GENTLEMEN OF EMINENCE COLLEGE:--It has ever been a delight
+to me to meet with the faculty and students of Eminence College on
+these festive occasions. It is but natural that the hearts of those who
+have gone out from these classic halls should turn on these gala days,
+and in feeling if not in fact, renew the fond associations of the past.
+They are oases in the desert; well-springs to the thirsty soul in the
+journey of life. I should, therefore, be untrue to myself, and unjust
+to you, were I not to confess to a pardonable pride in the privilege of
+addressing for the second time one of the graduating classes of this
+renowned institution. The subject on which I shall to-day address you
+is
+
+    "_Plus Ultra vs. Ne Plus Ultra._"
+
+Spain is the great southwestern peninsula of Europe. It juts out
+between two seas as does no other country of that continent. Before the
+discovery of America by Columbus, the Spaniards prided themselves on
+the supposed fact that their country was the last point of solid land
+on the earth westward. Beyond them, they thought, there was nothing but
+a vast expanse of water--a shoreless ocean--a mystery never to be
+solved. Consequently the early coins of that country, in order to give
+prominence to this idea, were indented with a picture of the pillars of
+Hercules, the two great sentries on each side of the straits of
+Gibraltar. Encircling these pillars on their coins was the inscription,
+_ne plus ultra_--nothing beyond. They imagined, therefore, that they
+constituted the limits of creation; that beyond them there was nothing.
+Consequently, as in creation the last is the best, they gave to
+themselves the preëminence. In this proud idea they rested and praised
+the Lord. In their own estimation, therefore, they constituted the _ne
+plus ultra_ of God's favored people. Thus they constituted another
+proud monument of man's folly and ignorance, from which it is well to
+take warning. In course of time, however, Columbus conceived the idea
+of another world west of Spain. After long years of discouragement,
+sufficient to crush the spirit of all but those of noble impulses and
+high resolves, he was permitted, with a small fleet, utterly
+insignificant in this age, to sail westward. He thus discovered the
+_new world_ whose existence, if ever known before, had faded from the
+memory of man. On his return, when the Spaniards became convinced that
+a great continent lay to the west of them, they were compelled,
+humiliating as it was, to change the inscription on their coins,
+encircling the pillars of Hercules, to _plus ultra_--more beyond. This
+the demonstrated truth demanded. Thus the discovery of America took the
+_ne_ off of their proud motto, thus teaching them a lesson which should
+be a lesson to the world. Their negation was changed to an affirmation.
+Their boasted limit of creation was changed to an acknowledgment of the
+unknown beyond. Thus it has ever been in man's proud history. Thus it
+will doubtless continue to be till we know as we are known. "Whether
+there be knowledge, it shall vanish away; for now we know only in part,
+but then shall we know even also as we are known."
+
+The first thought with which I would impress your minds to-day,
+especially the minds of those who go out from this institution with the
+honors of graduation, is that there is something beyond--the _plus
+ultra_ of a collegiate education. One of the most fatal mistakes in
+securing a collegiate education is, that this is all. If one of you
+entertains the idea to-day that your education is "finished," you will
+be a failure. We hear much in this age about a "finished education" in
+college. Alas! there is too much truth in it. The education of many is
+thus "finished," and their progress in life is also _finished_. A
+college course is not the end, but simply the means, of an education.
+This is simply the foundation, not the structure. On this you are to
+hereafter build; otherwise the foundation will be worthless. Without
+the after building the foundation itself will decay. This is alike the
+teaching of the history of man and the Son of God. On this foundation,
+therefore, I would urge you to build, not for time only, but for
+eternity. On it you should erect a noble structure, at once an ornament
+and a blessing to your race. This can not be done in a day. Patience
+and perseverance are the price of success. You must learn to "labor and
+to wait."
+
+How often do we see the scintillations of genius within college walls,
+of which we see or hear nothing after the day of graduation? On that
+day the sun of their brilliancy seems to set forever. Why is this?
+Simply because they think their graduation is the _ne plus ultra_ of
+their literary life.
+
+It is not what we learn in college, but what we learn after leaving it,
+that makes us what we are in after life. The value of a collegiate
+education consists not in the amount of information it imparts, but in
+a preparation for the accumulation and use of information. Not simply
+the best minds, but the best students are those who win the prize in
+the end. Not the best students in college, but the best students after
+leaving it, are those who make the world feel their power. Many study
+hard for the honors of graduation, and beyond this seem to have no
+aspirations. If this is their _ne plus ultra_, then it is worthless.
+This institution does not educate you for graduation; it graduates you
+for education. Without this end in view, its labors would better cease.
+An institution is honored not by what its students know on the day of
+commencement, but by what they know and do ere they matriculate in the
+great university of worlds. It is, therefore, young ladies and
+gentlemen, to this end and not to this hour, that your teachers have
+faithfully labored to bring you. Without this in view, you will miss
+the grand purpose of your education thus far.
+
+Doubtless many of us know men and women who have not grown an inch
+since the day that they went out from these or other halls of learning.
+They may have promised much at the beginning. On their success high
+hopes were built. Loving hands were impatient to wreathe their brows
+with the garlands of victory. But, alas! those hopes have been blighted
+and those garlands have withered. We see them in the pulpit, at the
+bar, and in all the other vocations of life. They are failures, not for
+want of mind, but for want of application. They have not followed up
+their victories, and their victories have turned to defeat. They have
+been resting on the honor of faded laurels, that in their freshness so
+become you to-day. To gather these was the _ne plus ultra_ of their
+efforts, and hence the end of their success. Therefore, if any of you
+to-day look upon your graduation as the consummation of your literary
+struggles, let me exhort you to change your motto, and, like the
+Spaniards, on the birth of the new world, discard the idea of a
+possessed _ultimatum_, and imprint upon your banner _plus ultra_--more
+beyond.
+
+As most of the graduating class are ladies, I feel the necessity of
+speaking especially of their hopes and prospects. Till recently, the
+hindrances of woman's education and literary position have been great
+and discouraging. But, thanks to the religion of Jesus, her
+disabilities have in Christian lands been removed. Woman was the
+crowning workmanship of God, and she has received the crowning
+blessings of Christianity. By the blessing of Christianity, the
+intellectual and spiritual powers of woman are encouraged. The world is
+often dazzled by her genius, astonished at her resources, and subdued
+by her spirit. She has stood in the halls of learning, walked in the
+groves of science, and gathered laurels on the mountains of fame. She
+has stimulated the world's genius, soothed its passion, and strewed her
+pathway through it with the sweetest flowers. Women have ever been the
+world's brightest angels of mercy--
+
+    "Whose company has harmonized mankind,
+    Soften'd the rude and calmed the boisterous mind."
+
+There are positions in the world for which woman was not made. The
+finishing touches of creation's wondrous works were too delicate to fit
+her for the political arena, the command of armies, or the founding of
+empires. She was made for higher and holier ends than these. She is
+adapted to a work more noble and more enduring. Her empire is in the
+heart, and her scepter one of spiritual dominion. Here she is a queen,
+and reigns without a rival. While there is a limit to her appropriate
+field of action, there is no limit to her power. Some one has said:
+"The current of female existence runs more within the embankments of
+home." This is true, but her influence overflows those banks and
+inundates the world. Her influence may be compared to the sparkling
+rivulet that bursts from the mountain peak, then winding its way to the
+valley below, it flows gently onward for thousands of miles, through
+rugged hills and fertile plains, bathing the feet of great cities and
+slaking the thirst of great countries, augmented by its tributaries,
+till, bearing upon its bosom the commerce of a nation, it pours its
+flood of waters into the world's great ocean. As our grand Mississippi
+will readily yield to an infant's touch, and yet bear upon its bosom
+the proudest vessels of man's invention, so is the tenderness and the
+power of woman's influence.
+
+I have spoken of woman being the "last of creation." This expression is
+generally used in a false sense. She was last because God created on an
+ascending scale. She was, therefore, last in creation and first in
+redemption. She gave to the world its Saviour, and first proclaimed His
+birth from the dead. She was His best friend while He was here, and has
+been most devoted to His cause during His absence. Hence where
+Christianity goes woman's power is felt. The extent to which woman is
+honored marks to-day with unerring certainty the extent of a nation's
+civilization.
+
+Young ladies, you have before you a field of golden opportunities. Only
+thrust in your sickles and reap. In this age and country there are
+great potentialities to every young lady of a good mind and a pure
+heart. Let no one, therefore, be discouraged. Remember that there is
+something beyond--the _plus ultra_ of a well-begun life.
+
+Having urged the necessity of _plus ultra_ as your motto, as against
+_ne plus ultra_, I may drop some profitable hints as to the
+attainment of success. You know that one may give good advice, though
+he may not have profited by it himself.
+
+In the first place, everything depends on work. Intense application is
+the price of success. The world's benefactors are the world's hard
+workers. "Tickle the earth with a hoe, and it will laugh at you with a
+harvest." But it closes its fists against those who extend to it an
+idle hand. Many people contend that the world owes them a living, and
+grumble that it does not pay the debt. What have they done for the
+world to bring it into their debt? The world owes every man a living
+when he earns it by honest toil, and not before. Those who sow with a
+stingy hand may expect to reap a scanty harvest. You should, therefore,
+in whatever vocation you may elect, strive to succeed on this
+principle; otherwise you will not deserve success.
+
+You should not be discouraged because surroundings are not favorable,
+and hope seems long deferred. Be not impatient of results. Do your
+whole duty, and leave the consequences with the Lord. Never strive to
+be great. Few men become great this way, and they never deserve it.
+True greatness comes as a result of devotion to principle and duty. The
+highest and noblest success comes through a spirit of
+self-forgetfulness.
+
+Learn to be indifferent to surroundings. You need not catch the "spirit
+of the age" unless the "spirit of the age" is worth catching. When you
+contemplate Marquis de Condorcet, in the dark days of the French
+Revolution, hiding in a lonely room in the city of Paris, while its
+streets ran red with noble and innocent blood, quietly writing a book
+whose subject was, "_Man's Certain Progress to Liberty, Virtue, and
+Happiness_," you will understand what I mean.
+
+You must learn to _think_; to think regardless of surroundings; to
+think only of the thing of which you wish to think; and on this to
+concentrate the whole power of your mind. This requires careful
+training; but this only is _education_. With this you have full command
+of all your resources; without this they avail but little. The great
+motive power of the world is thought. Information without thought is
+simply a peddler burdened with stale wares on a dead market. It is not
+what one knows, but what he can produce, that makes the world feel his
+power. Hence one must be a producer as well as a receiver. The world's
+thought must be regenerated in his own mind. He should turn the world's
+dead facts into living thoughts--"Thoughts that breathe, and words that
+burn."
+
+Avoid fickleness of purpose. Decide to do something in harmony with
+your endowments and the will of God, _and do it_. Many people of fine
+attainments and intellectual powers are spending their lives trying to
+decide for what purpose the Lord made them. Before they determine what
+they are good for, the world is certain to decide that they are good
+for nothing. Life is too precious to be spent in hesitation. He who
+vacillates will do nothing. Concentration is power. The rays of the sun
+that would hardly warm an infant's hand will, when concentrated by a
+lens, blister the palms of the hardiest sons of toil.
+
+If we would make life a success, we must live for a purpose. He who
+lives simply for the sake of living, has no just conception of life.
+Those who live for the gratification of the flesh should remember that
+the goat lives for the same purpose. How humiliating the thought, that
+so many of the cultured, as well as the ignorant; the rich as well as
+the poor; the "cream of society" as well as its dregs, are thus living
+on the low plane of animal life! The grand distinction between man and
+the brute creation is in his _spirit_ nature. Without spiritual
+culture, every thought, every aspiration, every gratification, is of
+the earth earthy. How sad, then, to see the gaudy "butterflies of
+society" spending their lives without a thought above that which alone
+can lift them forever above the plane of animal life! It is sad thus to
+think, but sadder still 'tis true. The enjoyment of "society,"
+therefore, must not be your _ne plus ultra_, else life will be a
+failure.
+
+In order to the highest success, you should live fast, but not in the
+world's bad sense of that word. I simply mean that your life should be
+intense. Mere existence is not life. Life is action. Life is not
+measured by time, but by experience. It is our duty, therefore, to live
+all we can in the time allotted us. The patriarchs lived longer than
+we, but we may live more than they. This is a grand age in which we
+live. We may now live more in fifty years than Methuselah did before
+the flood. The time is short. Hence if we would live much we must live
+fast.
+
+But here I anticipate an objection. You say, "We shall shorten our days
+by fast living." Not by _this kind_ of fast living. The world will
+never be troubled for burying ground for those who kill themselves
+simply by hard work. It is not work, but worry, that wears men out. We
+have too much friction in our lives. This must be stopped. An hour's
+passion will tell more on the constitution than a week's work. The
+largest amount of action, with the smallest amount of friction, is the
+problem before you; and he is the wisest philosopher who gives to us
+its best practical solution.
+
+I wish now to invite your attention to mistakes that men have made in
+supposing that their knowledge was the _ne plus ultra_ of human wisdom.
+Time was when the alchemists thought they possessed the _ne plus ultra_
+of human knowledge, and that wisdom would die with them; yet their
+knowledge is now to chemistry what astrology is to astronomy. It is a
+superstition on whose claims no scientist would dare to risk his
+reputation. Now chemistry is the _ne plus ultra_ of human wisdom, and
+every man is a fool who does not hold the key to the secret chambers of
+its hidden treasures! But how long till we shall have a new chemistry
+that will render the old a bundle of laughable folly? The fact is, by
+the advancement of human knowledge we demonstrate that our ancestors
+were a set of fools, and our posterity will doubtless pay us the same
+compliment! The philosophy of history should teach us to be modest, and
+to keep as our motto _plus ultra versus ne plus ultra_.
+
+Modern science has demonstrated that of all unreliable things, ancient
+science is the most unreliable. We should, therefore, expect to
+eventually see modern science remanded to the same category. One of the
+greatest inventors of the age, Mr. Edison, whose inventions have had to
+do wholly with modern science, tells us that he has been constantly
+thrown off the track and misled by the frauds of science. He thus
+expresses his estimate of the authorities in modern science:
+
+    "They [the text-books] are mostly misleading. I get mad with myself
+    when I think I have believed what was so learnedly set out in them.
+    _There are more frauds in science than anywhere else_.... Take a
+    whole pile of them and you will find uncertainty, if _not
+    imposition_, in half of what they state as scientific truth. They
+    have time and again set down _experiments as done by them_,
+    curious, out-of-the-way experiments, _that they never did_, and
+    upon which they have founded so-called scientific truths. I have
+    been thrown off my track often by them, and for months at a time.
+    You see a great name, and you believe it. Try the experiment
+    yourself, and you find the result altogether different.... I tell
+    you I'd rather know nothing about a thing in science, nine times
+    out of ten, than what the books would tell me--for practical
+    purposes, for applied science, the best science, the only science,
+    I'd rather take the thing up and go through with it myself. I'd
+    find out more about it than any one could tell me, and I'd be sure
+    of what I know. That's the thing. Professor this or that will
+    controvert you out of the books, and prove out of the books it
+    can't be so, though you have it right in the hollow of your hand
+    all the time and could break his spectacles with it."
+
+Thus it is that these authorities have been weighed in the balances and
+found wanting. This is a marvelous age, an age of unsurpassed invention
+and discovery of truth, but it is not the _ne plus ultra_ of human
+wisdom--if we are to take any lessons from the past ages.
+
+The wave theory of sound, which has been regarded as a settled
+scientific fact since the days of Pythagorean, is now vigorously
+attacked, and the adherents to the orthodox ground will have to rally
+their forces and reconsider their proofs, if they save the theory from
+slumbering among the follies of the past.
+
+In the past few years the world has been startled by the bold theory of
+evolution, as advocated by Darwin, Haeckel, Huxley and others. Many
+have felt uneasy about the foundations of our faith. But such alarm is
+all premature. The glaring contradictions of one another of these
+modern apostles of a "gospel of dirt," and their self-stultification,
+are enough to convince any thoughtful reader, that if the race has not
+developed from apes, a few of them bear marks of descent from asses!
+The credulity of this class of men is simply marvelous. They can
+believe that a moneron can be developed into a man, but can not believe
+in a miracle! Their wonderful development of a moneron into a man
+terminates with the boundary line of time, and thus the _ne plus ultra_
+is reached of their "infinite progression!"
+
+In order to a proper appreciation of the present life, we must be
+deeply impressed with the nature of that which lies beyond. No one can
+well spend the present life who does not spend it in view of the life
+to come. Man must properly appreciate himself before he can live in
+harmonious relations with his being. No man can have that appreciation
+of himself essential to a true life, who believes that his ancestors
+were monerons and mud-turtles!
+
+While there are many striking resemblances between animals and man,
+just such as we should expect to find from the hand of the same
+Creator, who began farthest from himself and worked to his own divine
+model, yet there are striking differentiae which demand profound
+consideration. Animals come into the world with the knowledge of their
+ancestors. The beaver knows just what its ancestors knew before the
+flood. It is born into the world with that transmitted knowledge. Its
+posterity will know no more during the millennium. On the contrary, man
+is born into the world an intellectual blank. However wise his parents,
+he inherits not one idea. He knows absolutely nothing except what he
+learns--learns from teachers and by experience. It would be
+incomprehensibly strange if man in his development from a mollusk,
+should accumulate inherited knowledge till he reaches the _ne plus
+ultra_ of terrestrial life, and then by a sudden break in the chain of
+nature lose it all, and come into the world a born fool!! This would be
+"development," "natural selection," and the "survival of the fittest,"
+with a vengeance! Here is a chasm between man and the lower animals,
+made by the hand of God, that human wisdom can never bridge.
+
+In his intellectual, moral and spiritual development, man starts from
+zero. God has thus ordained it. He is dependent on progression for all
+that he is and all that he is to be. God simply gives him a start in
+this world, with the numberless ages of eternity before him for
+infinite advancement. The idea, therefore, that "death ends all" nips
+in the bud this grand conception of man's greatness, and blights
+forever that which is noblest and truest in his nature. To regard this
+life as the _ne plus ultra_ of man's development, is to charge nature
+with a freak of folly, and an abortion in her best works. Men may laud
+human virtue for human virtue's sake; but if man is but the moth of a
+day, the fire-fly whose phosphorescent light flashes for a moment and
+then goes out in eternal night, his virtues are but the tales of the
+hour that have their value in the telling. If this life is all there is
+of man, then he is the most unmeaning portion of the creation of God.
+There is for him no perfection, no satisfying of his inherent wants,
+and the whole of his existence is a sham and a fraud. As Young has
+beautifully said:
+
+    "How poor, how rich, how abject, how august,
+    How complicate, how wonderful, is man!
+    How passing wonder He who made him such!
+    Who centered in our make such strange extremes,
+    From different natures marvelously mixed,
+    Connection exquisite of distant worlds!
+    Distinguished link in being's endless chain!
+    Midway from nothing to the Deity!
+    A beam ethereal, sullied, and absorbed!
+    Though sullied and dishonored, still divine!
+    Dim miniature of greatness absolute!
+    An heir of glory! a frail child of dust!
+    Helpless immortal! insect infinite!
+    A worm! a God!--I tremble at myself,
+    And in myself am lost. At home, a stranger.
+    Thought wanders up and down, surprised, aghast,
+    And wondering at her own. How reason reels!
+    O, what a miracle to man is man!
+    Triumphantly distressed! What joy! what dread!
+    Alternately transported and alarmed!
+    What can preserve my life? or what destroy?
+    An angel's arm can't snatch me from the grave;
+    Legions of angels can't confine me there."
+
+It is only when we thus look beyond this life, and contemplate his
+relation to the Deity, that we realize the true dignity of man.
+
+It is natural that you should desire power--power to bless the race and
+bring it nearer to God. Do not be discouraged if you do not find this
+power clothed in the world's pomp and parade. The most God-like power
+comes not in this way. God works by quiet forces that man may scorn but
+can not equal. Behold that mountain of ice in the polar sea held by the
+relentless grip of a winter's frost. All the engineering power of man
+could not shake it upon its throne. All the locomotives in the world
+could not move it an inch. But nature unveils her smiling face when the
+springtime comes, the sun sheds upon it his gentle rays, noiseless as
+the grave, too mild to hurt an infant's flesh, and soon these mountains
+of ice relax their grip and glide away into the great deep! This is
+power. This power you may possess, and should strive to possess,
+through the gentle forces of a regenerated nature, till the quiet
+influences you exert for God will pass beyond the bounds of time and be
+expended on a shoreless eternity.
+
+In conclusion, then, let me urge you to live for eternity, and let the
+life that now is be with reference to that which is to come. Then will
+you progress from the low plane of our terrestrial sphere to
+association with God, and eternity alone will mark the _ne plus ultra_
+in intellectual and spiritual development toward the Divine Being.
+
+
+
+
+PART III.--SELECTIONS.
+
+
+
+
+NEW TESTAMENT VIEWS OF CHRIST.
+
+I.--CHRIST THE LAMB OF GOD.
+
+    "Behold, the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world"
+    (John i. 29)
+
+
+The New Testament presents a many-sided view of Christ. From each point
+of view he appears in a new relation, and we study him in a different
+character. We can see but one side of a mountain by approaching it from
+only one direction. We must view it from every point from which it
+presents a different aspect, before we have seen it as it is. So we
+should study Christ in the many characters in which He is introduced
+upon the sacred page, that we may understand more of the many dear
+relations He sustains to us. The more we know of Him in His various
+relations, the more we will love Him and the better we will serve Him.
+
+We therefore purpose a number of articles under the general title of
+"New Testament Views of Christ." They will appear, we trust, with as
+much regularity as the press of other matters will permit.
+
+After the temptation, Jesus returned to where John was baptizing, and
+began the work of gathering about Him His apostles. On different
+occasions, as Jesus moved among the multitudes during this visit, John
+pointed Him out as the Lamb of God. And John said, "I knew him not; but
+he that sent me to baptize in water, he said unto me, Upon whomsoever
+thou shalt see the Spirit descending and abiding upon him, the same is
+he that baptizeth with the Holy Spirit. And I have seen and borne
+witness that this is the Son of God" (John i. 33, 34). Both before and
+after this statement, John calls Him the Lamb of God. John knew that He
+was to make the Messiah manifest to Israel by His baptism, for God had
+told him so. He did not know Jesus to be the Christ till after His
+baptism, yet he shrank back from the idea of baptizing him, and pleaded
+his unworthiness. He was worthy, and specially appointed of God, to
+make manifest the Messiah, but gave way under a sense of unworthiness
+at the thought of baptizing his cousin, Jesus of Nazareth! What a flood
+of light does this pour upon the private life of the Son of Mary! John
+knew Jesus as a _man_; and while he doubtless had hopes that He was the
+long-promised One, he did not _know_ it, and could not base his refusal
+of baptism on that ground. John was baptizing for the remission of
+sins, and required those whom he baptized to confess their sins, and
+his knowledge of the spotless life of Jesus caused him to shrink at the
+thought of administering to Him such a baptism. Thus impressed with the
+purity and innocence of Jesus, it is not strange that he should call
+Him the Lamb of God.
+
+But innocence is not the only prominent feature in contemplating Jesus
+as a lamb. The idea of sacrifice to which innocence and purity are
+essential has pre-eminence. The first accepted offering on the earth,
+of which we have an account, was a lamb. It was offered in faith; hence
+by divine direction. That Abel saw anything in it beyond an act of
+simple obedience to God in an arbitrary appointment, we have no reason
+to believe. He did what God directed, and because it was directed. This
+is the essential element of obedience in all ages, regardless of the
+thing required. Nothing else can be the "obedience of faith."
+
+What different conceptions had God and Abel of that sacrifice! Abel saw
+in it only a "firstling of his flock." God saw in it His own Son--"the
+Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world." Not only so, but on
+this account was it directed. The fact that this was not revealed to
+Abel, shows that God intends us to obey Him in what He directs, without
+being concerned about the reasons He has for the requirement. He who
+sees the end from the beginning makes the first in execution conform to
+that which is to be last. Hence, the first act of worship, and every
+subsequent act, from the divine point of view, harmonizes with the
+perfection which in the fullness of times, was given us in Christ
+Jesus. The lamb of Abel borrowed all its value and significance from
+the Lamb of God. While we are enabled to see this through the
+development of the scheme of redemption, he was not; and the fact that
+his act of simple obedience in ignorance of God's far-seeing purposes
+is recorded as an example for us, is of unspeakable value to the child
+of faith.
+
+During the four thousand years in which God was preparing the world for
+Christ, both in patriarchal and Jewish worship, a lamb without spot or
+blemish was the most prominent offering for sin. In every case the
+offering was made as directed, and when made, the worshiper was assured
+that his sin was forgiven. Christ is our sin-offering--the Lamb of God
+that takes away our sins--and we must present Him before God as
+divinely directed. We may build no strange fire on God's altars. We may
+substitute nothing for Christ as an offering for sin, and no ways of
+our own for God's way, in His presentation.
+
+In viewing Christ as the Lamb of God--the Lamb slain from the
+foundation of the world--the prominent feature of His saving
+relationship to us is His _blood_. Hence we are redeemed, not with
+silver and gold and perishable things, "but with the precious blood of
+Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." As a Lamb,
+Christ is sin-atoning. His power to save is not in the innocence of His
+life, but the merits of His death. The sacrifice of an innocent life is
+God's wisdom and power to save the world. Let us remember it was for
+_us_ He was led as a lamb to the slaughter; that _our_ sins were laid
+upon Him; that He was bruised for _our_ iniquities; that He bore _our_
+sins in His bosom on the tree; that by His stripes we are healed; that
+in His innocent life and sacrificial death, we behold the Lamb of God
+that taketh away the sin of the world.
+
+
+
+
+NEW TESTAMENT VIEWS OF CHRIST.
+
+II.--CHRIST THE BREAD OF LIFE.
+
+    "I am the bread of life. Your fathers did eat the manna in the
+    wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which cometh down out
+    of heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living
+    bread which came down out of heaven; if any man eat of this bread,
+    he will live forever; yea, and the bread which I will give is my
+    flesh, for the life of the world" (John vi. 48-51).
+
+
+When the Israelites came out of Egypt and started on their wilderness
+journey to the promised land, they found themselves without sustenance.
+The land furnished no supplies. In this respect they were cut off from
+earthly resources. In their emergency they cried unto the Lord, and God
+gave them bread from heaven. Each day they gathered the necessary
+supply. The amount for the Sabbath was gathered the day preceding.
+Beyond this there was no collection for future use. An effort to save
+it proved a disgusting failure. Forty years did the daily supply of
+manna fail not, till they reached the land that God had promised.
+
+The bread on which God fed His people from the land of bondage to the
+land of Canaan was a type of Christ. This is asserted by both Paul and
+the Saviour. As such it is worthy of careful study.
+
+1. The Israelites were wholly dependent on the daily bread which God
+gave. This was a want which the world could not supply. They must feed
+upon the heaven-supplied food or die. So is every one thus dependent on
+the bread of life. The world can not supply the wants of the child of
+God. He needs a daily food which the world does not produce. The world
+is to him a spiritual desert. He can not look to it to meet the wants
+of his spiritual nature. Being born from above, he has to live from
+above. When he seeks to gratify the cravings of his carnal nature by
+turning back to the flesh-pots of Egypt, he languishes and dies.
+
+Be it remembered that this bread of life is Christ. It is not some
+theory about Him. It is not some system of theology of man's
+formulation. Men may feed upon systems and theories till their souls
+are dwarfed and starved. Such feeding makes partisans and cold-blooded
+sectarians, without imparting divine life to the soul. We must come
+directly to Christ. Through His holy word we must study Him, assimilate
+our lives to His, feed upon Him as the bread from heaven, and drink in
+of His gracious spirit. The world took knowledge of the saints of old,
+that they had been with Jesus. And so it may now easily decide as to
+those of such holy companionship.
+
+2. Christ is the bread of life. As such He has to be appropriated.
+There is no virtue in bread to sustain life until it is appropriated
+and assimilated to the system. Men may starve within reach of
+abundance. God supplies the bread of life, but He does not compel men
+to eat it. They are urged to eat and live, but they may refuse and die.
+Oh, the millions in our land who are starving for the bread of life,
+when it is offered them day by day! Unless we eat the body of the Son
+of God we have no life. Our salvation, therefore, depends upon eating.
+Yet there is no virtue in the act of eating. The virtue is in the thing
+eaten. It is not putting on your coat that makes you warm, but the coat
+after it is on. Faith is a condition of salvation; but there is no
+power to save in believing. The saving virtue is in the thing believed.
+So we may substitute nothing for that which God has given. We must eat
+the bread which God provides, else all our eating will be in vain.
+
+3. It is well understood by all classes that the wants of the physical
+man need to be daily supplied. To meet these demands, is the chief
+concern of the great mass of humanity. Observe that young man. He is in
+the vigor of robust manhood. He has just enjoyed a night's refreshing
+sleep and a hearty breakfast. His system seems to be overflowing with
+an excess of vitality. He goes forth to his work boastful of his
+strength. But how many hours is it till nature cries aloud for the
+replenishing of his strength? How long can he live on the boastful
+supply of his physical manhood? A few days finds him as helpless as a
+babe. So essential is physical food to physical life.
+
+Nor is spiritual food less essential to spiritual life. As new-born
+babes we need the unadulterated milk of the word, that we may grow
+thereby. As men and women, we need the strong meat adapted to our
+maturity. The great mistake is in trying to live the spiritual life
+without spiritual food. The strong men in Christ are the good feeders.
+Those who feed upon the bread of heaven will develop in that which is
+heavenly. No man has religion enough at the start to take him through
+life, unless he dies early. The foolishness of the five foolish virgins
+consisted in their not taking an additional supply of oil. So it is now
+with every one who does not daily replenish his supply of spirituality.
+He who tries to live without communion with God--in reading, in
+praying, in meditation and obedience to the divine will--will end in
+shameful failure.
+
+Christian character is a growth, not a divine impartation. God does not
+give spiritual strength in an arbitrary way. He provides the means to
+that end. If we use them, strength results. If we neglect them, we die
+in feebleness. The means in the figure before us is the bread of life,
+and the bread of life is Christ. There is an absolute necessity,
+therefore, for feeding upon Him. From Him all spiritual strength is
+derived. He is the source of all life. He said to His disciples:
+"Without me, ye can do nothing." As the branch draws its nourishment
+and fruit-bearing qualities from the vine, so we draw all spirituality
+and fruitfulness from Christ. We are fruitful in proportion as we abide
+in the Vine; and we are strong in proportion to our feeding on the
+bread of life.
+
+4. God permitted Israel to gather manna for one day only at a time. So
+in teaching His disciples to pray, the Saviour said: "Give us this day
+our daily bread." Our bread of life is a never-failing supply. There
+was no need of laying up manna, for God gave a fresh and abundant
+supply every morning. This daily supply never ceased till their
+pilgrimage was over. Of this they had assurance. Hence an attempt to
+lay up a supply for future use was to distrust the God of their
+fathers. The true bread of heaven is as unfailing as was the typical
+bread of the wilderness. God's people will ever have an abundant supply
+of that bread of which, if a man eats, he shall never hunger. Hence the
+Saviour says: "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the
+world."
+
+5. The world has been greatly concerned about food for six thousand
+years. The gratification of the appetite has both blessed and cursed
+the race. Life has ever depended upon food; hence food has been the
+chief concern of man. During the history of the world the race has been
+ignorant of the processes of digestion and assimilation. They have
+known nothing of the chemistry of this source of life. They have gone
+on from age to age building up their bodies by taking food, wholly
+ignorant of the process by which it was done. The value of the thing
+eaten has never depended on a knowledge of the process by which it was
+assimilated. We thank God that it is thus with the bread of life. We
+may never expect to comprehend the "mystery of godliness" in this life.
+Just how the bread of life enables us to live forever, we are not
+concerned to know. It is enough for us to know that it is so. Let us,
+then, appropriate this rich provision of God's grace, and the blessing
+will be ours.
+
+
+
+
+NEW TESTAMENT VIEWS OF CHRIST.
+
+III.--CHRIST THE WATER OF LIFE.
+
+    "Jesus answered and said unto her, Every one that drinketh of this
+    water shall thirst again: but whosoever drinketh of the water that
+    I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall
+    give him shall become in him a well of water springing up unto
+    eternal life" (John iv. 13, 14).
+
+    "Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and
+    cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink"
+    (John vii. 37).
+
+    "And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of a
+    spiritual rock that followed them: and the rock was Christ" (I.
+    Cor. x. 4).
+
+
+Twice was a rock smitten by Moses in the wilderness to supply the
+Israelites with water. The first was at Rephidim, in the wilderness of
+Sin, during the first year of their Exodus, before they came to Mount
+Sinai. The second was at Kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin, in the
+fortieth year of the Exodus. It is evident that the apostle refers to
+the first of these, though we can hardly think, with most commentators
+known to us, that he does so exclusively. The fact that the rock
+followed them, as a type of Christ, in their wilderness life, demands
+that it be from the beginning, rather than the end, of their journey.
+And the fact that many who drank of it fell in the wilderness, requires
+the same conclusion. But for reasons yet to appear, we think the two
+are considered as one. The miracle was in all respects the same in the
+second as in the first. There was the same dependence for life on the
+second as the first. There was the same necessity that the second rock
+or stream should follow them as there was of the first; for they were
+yet a long way from Canaan, with a waterless desert before them. We
+can, therefore, see no reason why the first should be a type of Christ
+and not the second.
+
+Was it the stream or the rock which followed the Israelites? Paul says
+the rock. But commentators seem generally to agree that the "rock" is
+here put by metonymy for the water of the rock, Barnes says, "It would
+be absurd to suppose that the rock that was smitten by Moses literally
+followed them in the wilderness." Just why it is more "absurd" to
+suppose the rock followed them, than the stream from a stationary
+fountain at Horeb, we are wholly unable to see. Let us look at the
+facts and probabilities in the case.
+
+We must keep in view the important fact, as mentioned in the last
+chapter, that these people were _dependent on God_. They had seen the
+mighty hand of God in their delivery, and now they were to be taught
+dependence on Him, as the only source of life. They had, therefore, to
+be sustained by miraculous food and miraculous drink. The country
+supplied neither food nor water. The miraculous supply of water was as
+great a necessity as that of bread. For two or three millions of
+people, with their flocks and herds, a large stream, even a small
+river, would be required. It is also true that their cattle had to have
+food, as well as themselves. Just how this was furnished, we are not
+told. Here is a large field for conjecture. It is generally held that
+the river continued to flow from a stationary source at Horeb, and that
+it irrigated the country in its following of the people, and thus
+caused vegetation for the flocks and herds. But in the fortieth year
+they are again found without water. Why was this? What had become of
+the river that had followed them from the first year, if it was the
+river, and not the rock, that followed them? On this point we can not
+refrain from quoting Macknight and Barnes, as examples of how learned
+commentators, led by a theory, sometimes drop their readers into a
+perfect abyss of darkness. Macknight says: "For as Wall observes, from
+Horeb, which was a high mountain, there may have been a descent to the
+sea; and the Israelites during the thirty-seven years of their
+journeying from Mount Sinai may have gone by those tracts of country in
+which the waters from Horeb could follow them, till in the thirty-ninth
+year of the Exodus they came to Ezion-gaber (Num. xxxiii. 36), which
+was a part of the Red Sea a great way down the Arabian side, where it
+is supposed the waters from Horeb went into that sea." Barnes says:
+"Mount Horeb was higher than the adjacent country, and the water that
+thus gushed from the rock, instead of collecting into a pool and
+becoming stagnant, would flow off in the direction of the sea. The sea
+to which it would naturally flow would be the Red Sea. The Israelites
+doubtless, in their journeyings, would be influenced by the natural
+direction of the water, or would not wander far from it, as it was
+daily needful for the supply of their wants. At the end of thirty-seven
+years we find the Israelites at Ezion-gaber, a seaport on the eastern
+branch of the Red Sea, where the waters probably flowed into the sea
+(Num. xxxiii. 36). In the fortieth year of their departure from Egypt,
+they left this place to go into Canaan, by the country of Edom, and
+were immediately in distress again by the want of water."
+
+These comments involve several objectionable features. (1) The
+Israelites were guided in their course by the pillar of cloud and fire;
+not by the stream of water on its course to the sea. (2) Paul says the
+rock followed them; not that they followed the river. (3) We can not
+allow that when God sets out to work a miracle, He is defeated by
+natural causes. The idea that the river ran into the sea, and left the
+children of Israel without water, just because the situation would
+naturally lead to that result, is to let go the miracle and have God
+defeated, because the surroundings are not favorable! The idea that God
+could cause a river to flow from a flinty rock, and then have to leave
+it to seek its natural way to the sea, leaving His people destitute
+when the surface of the country would be in the way of its natural
+flow, is equaled only by admitting that God created the heavens and the
+earth, but could not give sight to the blind or call Lazarus out of the
+grave. We, therefore, repeat the question, If the river followed the
+people, what became of it when they came into the wilderness of Zin?
+
+On the hypothesis that it was the rock which followed them, just as
+Paul says it was, there is nothing unreasonable in the supposition that
+for some cause, not given, God withheld the flow of water to chastise
+them for their wickedness, as He did in other ways, and make them
+realize their dependence. As favoring this idea, when they were
+destitute the second time, and cried unto Moses in their distress, God
+told him to gather the people together and speak unto _the rock_. Not
+only was there a suitable rock present for the second river of water,
+but it seemed to be a particular rock. Hence designated "_the_ rock."
+Our conclusion is, therefore, that the two rocks were one; that it
+followed the Israelites during their entire journey to Canaan,
+supplying the people with the _fresh_ out-gushings of its crystal
+stream. That rock was typical of Christ, and the blessings of Christ
+are never stale or stagnant, as the water from a fountain in Horeb
+would have been, after winding its sluggish way through the parched
+desert of Arabia.
+
+"That rock was Christ." That is, it was a type of Him. All those
+transactions were typical. "Now these things happened unto them by way
+of types; and they were written for our admonition."
+
+"A dry and thirsty land where no water is," well represents this world
+to one who has not an ever-present Saviour as the fountain of the water
+of life. As the Israelites would have perished without the crystal flow
+from the flinty rock, so perishes the world without Christ. There is no
+appetite more distressing than thirst. There is nothing more delightful
+than the cooling draught to the parched throat. Oh, to those who thus
+"thirst after righteousness," how delightful it is to be "filled"! "As
+the heart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after
+thee, O God." Only the thirsty can appreciate drink; so only those who
+first feel the need of a Saviour can experience the joy of salvation.
+Not only shall the thirsty soul be satisfied that drinks of the water
+of life, but it shall "become within him a well of water springing up
+unto eternal life." This refreshing and ever-present fountain of life
+flows for all. "If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink." To
+slake one's thirst at this fountain, is a foretaste of the river of
+life that flows from beneath the throne in the eternal city of God.
+Many who drank of the typical water of the wilderness, fell under the
+displeasure of God, and died short of the promised land. Hence we
+should be careful to live ever near to the water of life, that our
+thirsty souls may be continually supplied, and our strength renewed.
+Only by being constantly refreshed can we be saved from perishing in
+the wilderness and kept unto the land of God beyond.
+
+
+
+
+NEW TESTAMENT VIEWS OF CHRIST.
+
+IV.--CHRIST THE SON OF GOD.
+
+    "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matt. xvi. 16).
+
+    "Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God abideth
+    in him and he in God" (I. John iv. 15).
+
+    "And who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth
+    that Jesus is the Son of God?" (I. John v. 5).
+
+
+In one sense all men are sons of God. In a much dearer sense all
+Christians are sons and daughters of the Almighty. But the relationship
+of Christ to the Father is infinitely above this. He is _the_ Son of
+God. God is His Father by direct production, without the agency of a
+human father. The same divine power that can create life through the
+agency of man, can create it without such agency. Hence there is
+nothing to stumble over in the idea of the miraculous conception, to
+one who fully accepts the God of the Bible in the character in which He
+is revealed as a divine creator. To accept God as the creator of heaven
+and earth, and then stagger at His performance of any miracle is a
+logical absurdity.
+
+Jesus claimed to be the Son of God in the high sense that involved
+equality with the Father. He said: "I and the Father are one." On
+account of this relationship, "He thought it not robbery to be equal
+with God." His enemies understood that this equality was involved in
+His claim; hence they charged Him with blasphemy in making Himself
+equal with God.
+
+This was a high claim on the part of the Nazarene. He claimed to be
+more than a man. When some said that He was John, or Elijah, or
+Jeremiah, or some one of the prophets, they underestimated Him
+according to His claim. The greatest prophet, or inspired teacher, that
+had ever appeared among men, _even if raised from the dead as the
+special messenger of God to His people_, could not meet the demands
+involved in the claim of Jesus, that He was the Son of God.
+
+This high claim had to be sustained by two distinct lines of
+testimony--miracles and a sinless life. The purpose of miracles is to
+establish the claims of the miracle-worker and to glorify God. The
+miracles of Jesus establish His divine mission and claim to the
+Messiahship. No man could do the miracles He did "except God be with
+him;" and God would not be with one who was advocating false claims.
+The enemies of Jesus understood this; hence they said: "God heareth not
+sinners." Miracles are the substratum of the foundation underlying our
+faith.
+
+While the divine claims of Jesus are attested by His miracles, the
+evidence is crowned by His sublime character. His life is itself among
+the most wonderful of miracles. As a child of poverty and a son of
+toil, He lived thirty years among men. When He afterwards claimed to be
+the Son of God, He had many bitter enemies. They persecuted Him even
+unto death, and yet not one of them ever pointed to an act of His
+private life as inconsistent with, or unworthy of, His divine claim.
+This simple fact speaks volumes as to the purity of His life. The world
+has contained but one such. The very life which His claims require is
+the life revealed on the sacred page.
+
+Infidels have ordinarily contented themselves with mere negations. They
+seem not to realize the fact that in denying some things they are
+logically bound to account for others. If we deny the claim of Jesus
+that He is the Son of God, then we have to account for His miracles,
+His life, the disposal of His entombed body, and the establishment and
+development of His kingdom. These are facts. As such they have to be
+accounted for. On the hypothesis that Jesus is the Christ, all
+difficulty vanishes. On any other, it is more than the world has yet
+been able to meet. Skeptics laud the character of Jesus as a model of
+purity, such as the world has never elsewhere found, and yet deny the
+claim on which was based His mission to men and on which He built His
+church. How the establishment of a religion upon a known falsehood can
+harmonize with a life of faultless purity, they do not pretend to tell
+us, for it is a palpable absurdity. How His disciples could testify on
+a point of fact in regard to which they could not be mistaken, and
+surrender all worldly position and comfort, and life itself, to
+establish a known falsehood in the hearts of men, in which they--the
+witnesses--could have no personal interest, they leave in the Egyptian
+darkness characteristic of their system. How can he account for
+American history and American institutions who denies the existence of
+Washington, or claims that he was a disreputable impostor? How, then,
+shall he account for the history and institutions of civilization who
+denies to Jesus of Nazareth existence as a man of that age and country,
+or makes Him a base deceiver and vile impostor?
+
+That Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, is the fundamental, pivotal
+fact in the Christian religion. It underlies every other feature of the
+Christian system. On it turn the value and significance of every other
+item of the faith. Everything takes position with regard to this, and
+derives its value from it. With this, all else stands by divine
+appointment, and bears the seal of heaven. Without it, the whole system
+is but as the chaff which the wind driveth away.
+
+When the proposition is established that Jesus is the Son of God, every
+other feature of the Christian system rests upon _authority_. Nothing
+else has to be proved as this does. Before establishing this proposition,
+the word of Jesus settles nothing. After its establishment, it settles
+everything. When we accept Him as the Christ, we accept all else on His
+authority. Hence He says, "Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not
+the things which I say?" "All authority hath been given unto me in
+heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all
+nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son,
+and of the Holy Spirit." The making and baptizing of disciples rests
+upon the authority of Jesus, and that authority is based upon His
+Messiahship. So of every other item of the Christian system of faith.
+
+The great inconsistency and consequent weakness of the religious world,
+is in not accepting the simple authority of Jesus as conclusive and
+wholly sufficient on any matter on which He has expressed the divine
+mind. As the Son of God and coronated Lord of lords, His authority is
+supreme, and His word is law. What He says is to be accepted as
+infallibly true, and the end of all controversy. Whatever He directs is
+to be done, simply because He directs it. Whatever else we may consider
+a corroborative reason, the direction of Jesus alone is to determine
+our action. Only this can be the obedience of faith. And in regard to
+what He directs, there can be no compromise. The King speaks to be
+obeyed, not to be argued with. It is His prerogative to command; ours
+to obey.
+
+Jesus made His authority the controlling principle in His religion.
+Where this is maintained, the religion of Christ is preserved in its
+purity. Where it is disregarded, anything follows that the tastes and
+follies of men may demand. The religion of Christ is pure or corrupt in
+proportion as His authority is observed or ignored.
+
+The authority of Jesus can not be separated from His appointments. His
+entire authority is embodied in each of His appointments. Hence he who
+disregards an appointment of Jesus Christ, disregards His authority.
+And he who disregards His authority, ignores His Lordship. The man who
+deliberately refuses to do what Christ directs, ignores the authority
+of his Lord, and dethrones the Son of the living God. Yet how much of
+this do we see among men! Not only in the world, but in the church as
+well. It seems strange that one should make a profession of the
+religion of Christ, and yet thus ignore His Lordship. The authority of
+Jesus against a life of indifference in the church, of non-attendance,
+of want of coöperation in the work of the Lord, against carnality,
+pleasure-loving, worldliness, the lusts of the flesh, want of
+spirituality, and such like, is as direct and positive as that against
+rejecting the gospel of Christ; and yet how many church members, all
+over our land, are disregarding the authority of Jesus in these
+matters. Those who make a profession of religion and live in the church
+without continuing to honor the Lord Jesus by regarding His authority
+and complying with His will, would better have never known the way of
+life. The authority of Jesus follows us to the grave, and is never
+relaxed for a day. His will, not ours, is to rule in our life. Our
+desires, however strong, are to be subordinated to the mind of Him who
+gave His life for ours, and said, "all authority in heaven and on earth
+is given unto me."
+
+It is the height of inconsistency, therefore, to exalt the name of
+Jesus in words and professions, and speak lightly of, or disregard any
+one of His appointments. It is not only inconsistent; it is disloyal
+and wicked. This is the great stumbling-block in our way to the
+indorsement of Mr. Moody and such men. We care not what else he may be,
+we can indorse no man who tears in two the commission of Jesus Christ.
+He who refuses to "speak as the oracles of God speak," in order to
+promote his work, is not doing the work that God would have him do. We
+can not honor Christ without honoring His teaching, and we can not
+honor His teaching by withholding a part of it from those inquiring the
+way of eternal life. We can honor Jesus as the Son of God only by
+declaring His whole counsel, and yielding submissively in all things to
+His divine authority.
+
+This acceptance of Jesus as an infallible teacher, as one whose every
+word is to be believed simply because He said it, and whose every
+direction is to be observed simply because He directs it, whose spirit
+is to be possessed and cultivated to the transforming of the life, till
+we grow into the divine image and become partakers of the divine
+nature, is all involved in the "good confession": Jesus is the Christ,
+the Son of the living God.
+
+
+
+
+NEW TESTAMENT VIEWS OF CHRIST.
+
+V.--CHRIST THE SON OF MAN.
+
+    "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the heaven have nests; but
+    the Son of man hath not where to lay his head" (Matt. viii. 20).
+
+    "Who do men say that the Son of man is?" (Matt. xvi. 13).
+
+    "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must
+    the Son of man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth may in him
+    have eternal life" (John iii. 14).
+
+
+It is a matter of profound gratitude that our Saviour was a man. "The
+Son of man," as well as "the Son of God," was essential to His great
+work of bringing salvation to the race. In one sense we are all sons of
+man, but not as He was. He was not simply the Son of Mary and her
+ancestors. He was the Son of humanity. He was equally akin to the race.
+He touches humanity at every angle and on every side. While He was the
+Son of David according to the flesh, He is the kinsman of the race as a
+partaker of our common nature. "Since the children are sharers in flesh
+and blood, he also himself, in like manner, partook of the same." He
+ignored all accidental relationships closer than this shared by the
+race. The members of His own household obtained not a blessing which He
+did not as freely bestow on others. The fact that He did not manifest
+greater partiality toward His mother has been a matter of comment. The
+simple fact is, that the relationship with which we are concerned, and
+of which the inspired record treats, is to the race; hence it is not
+concerned about His personal family affections. His brothers and
+sisters and mothers are those who hear His word and keep it.
+
+The world has ever had too far-away ideas of God. It has contemplated
+God at a great distance. It puts Him beyond the stars. Indeed, the
+stars fade away from view in the distance behind us, as we ascend in
+imagination to the dwelling-place of the Most High. The world can never
+be suitably impressed with God's presence while it holds Him at a
+distance. He can never be sensibly near unto us while we keep Him
+beyond the stars. Nor can we be influenced by the idea of His presence
+till we learn that "he is not far from each one of us."
+
+God tried to impress His people anciently with the idea of His presence
+by various visible manifestations. Abraham realized time and again that
+God was his present companion and friend. When Jacob saw the ladder
+reaching to heaven, and angels ascending and descending on it, he said,
+"Surely, the Lord is in this place." And when Moses drew near to see
+the burning bush, a voice from its flame demanded the removal of the
+sandals from his feet, for the ground on which he stood was holy
+ground.
+
+God impressed Israel with the awfulness of His presence as a Lawgiver,
+whom the nations were to honor, by His voice from Mount Sinai which
+"shook the earth." The glorious manifestation of God's presence at the
+tabernacle, in the midst of the camp of Israel, impressed them with the
+fact that the God of their fathers was with them; that He was in their
+midst; that He had not forgotten His covenant; and that He would be
+with them to sustain them in every emergency till the end. With all
+this, they often forgot God and went astray. What would they have done
+without it?
+
+In the person of Jesus, God perfected the divine purpose of bringing
+Himself into a realized nearness to the human family. He clothed
+Himself in our humanity, and became one with us. We are thus enabled to
+look upon Him, to contemplate Him, not as a great, self-existing
+Spirit, incomprehensible and awful, but as a _man_. Jesus was a man;
+and "in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." He is God
+manifest in flesh. And as God is thus manifest, would He have us
+apprehend Him. Just, therefore, as we can appreciate the nearness of
+Jesus as a loving and sympathizing kinsman, may we appreciate the
+nearness of His Father and our God.
+
+It is evident that men need a God to whom they can get sensibly near.
+There is no profit in the worship of a God of abstractions. There is in
+it no food for the soul. What is there to satisfy the languishing soul
+in a prayer to the "Great Unknown and Unknowable"? They that come to
+God must believe that He _is_. And that "is" is a personal divine
+being, into whose arms we may cast our helpless selves, and on whose
+bosom we may pillow our weary head; instead of a great, bewildering,
+incomprehensible abstraction, "without body, parts, or passions."
+
+We are brought into a sacred nearness with God in the life of Jesus.
+From His bed in the manger to His rest in a borrowed grave, we have a
+life of abject poverty. He was the friend and companion of the poor.
+The world is full of poverty, and ever will be. But the poorest of
+every age and country find a companion and friend, of like sufferings
+with themselves, in the person of Jesus. The cares and sorrows of life,
+resulting from poverty, of which the world knows most as a daily
+burden, were fully realized by Him; and in it all He is a deeply
+sympathetic friend.
+
+Jesus was a man of labor. The hands so often extended to bless
+humanity, and through which the cruel nails were driven, were hardened
+by daily toil. He never did a day's work with which His employers found
+fault. Long after He had built mansions in the skies for them that love
+Him, were the houses of His own workmanship standing in Galilee; but
+when He laid aside His tools to do the work of His Father, no man ever
+pointed to an earthly house and said, "This job is not in harmony with
+His claims to be the Son of God." He knew what it was to be tired and
+hungry. He doubtless knew the meaning of hard work and low wages. It
+follows, therefore, that every son of toil, every burdened and weary
+life, has for a gracious Redeemer and providential Saviour one who was
+"a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief."
+
+Jesus was a man of temptation. He was tempted as no other man was ever
+tempted. The devil is the author of temptation, and he had a peculiar
+interest in the temptation of Jesus. Through temptation comes sin. Sin
+is the yielding of the will under temptation to do wrong. The devil had
+a special interest in inducing Jesus to sin. He was the representative
+of the race. Their fortunes were all involved in His. The consummation
+of His work as a Redeemer required a sinless life. Hence if Jesus could
+be induced to yield to temptation, the world's hope of salvation was
+forever gone. It is evident, therefore, that the devil exhausted his
+resources to accomplish that end. Consequently He was "tempted in all
+points like as we are," and infinitely beyond what we know of
+temptation. And He who withstood Satan in every onset has promised to
+be with us to the end, and suffer us not to be tempted above what we
+are able, if we only keep Him between us and the enemy of our souls. It
+is a source of profound gratitude that we have a Saviour who has felt
+in all its forms the tempting power of sin, who is full of sympathy for
+us in our temptations, and who has promised to ever be in such our
+faithful friend. Hence the great apostle to the Gentiles, whose life
+was full of temptation and trial, gives us a reason why we should "draw
+near with boldness unto the throne of grace," that "we have not a high
+priest that can not be touched with the feelings of our infirmities;
+but one that hath been in all points tempted like we are; yet without
+sin." This very fact in the character of our Saviour gives us humble
+boldness to approach the throne of grace that nothing else could give.
+When we have given way under temptation, and our souls are burdened
+with a sense of sin, we can come to God through the mediation of Jesus,
+with a confidence that His sympathy for us has been perfected by the
+experience of His own earthly life. For Christ was perfected for the
+special parts of His work by His mission among men. "For it become him,
+for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing
+sons unto glory, to make the author of their salvation perfect through
+sufferings." "And having been made perfect, he became unto all them
+that obey him the author of eternal salvation."
+
+In order to accomplish the great work of redeeming the race, Christ had
+to be a _man_. He had to be human, as well as divine. Hence it was just
+as essential that He be the Son of man as that He be the Son of God. He
+had to make an offering for sin, and that required a human body. Hence
+he says, "Sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not. But a body didst
+thou prepare for me." He had to be human in order to die, and divine in
+order to conquer death. Hence, while we exalt His divinity, we must
+none the less appreciate His humanity. We must not cease to contemplate
+our Lord and Saviour as the Son of man.
+
+
+
+
+NEW TESTAMENT VIEWS OF CHRIST.
+
+VI.--CHRIST THE GREAT TEACHER.
+
+    "We know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do
+    these signs that thou does, except God be with him" (John iii. 2).
+
+    "And it came to pass, when Jesus ended these words, the multitudes
+    were astonished at his teaching: for he taught them as one having
+    authority, and not as their scribes" (Matt. vii. 28, 29).
+
+    "Never man spake like this man" (John vii. 46).
+
+
+On "the great day of the feast"--the feast of the tabernacles--in the
+second year of His ministry, Jesus was performing many miracles, and
+there was great commotion among the people as to whether He was the
+Christ. The chief priests and the Pharisees sent officers to take Him.
+But they returned without Him. Then the chief priests and Pharisees
+said, "Why did you not bring him?" They simply reply, "Never man so
+spake." These were, doubtless, resolute men who were accustomed to
+obeying orders. But in this case they did not obey orders, nor even try
+to do it. Their excuse for not doing so was peculiar. They gave no
+ordinary or natural circumstances as hindering the execution of orders.
+They made no plea to exculpate themselves. They simply said, "No man
+ever spake like this man." How, then, shall we account for this? There
+was simply an unearthly majesty in the person, the manner and the words
+of Jesus, that awed them into inaction. The very fact that such men
+were so unnerved by the presence and words of Jesus, gives us an idea
+of His majesty as a teacher, and of His power over men. Thus it was
+that He could cleanse the temple, overturn the tables of the
+money-changers, drive out the whole crew who were making merchandise of
+the house of God, and no one resisted. When did the world produce
+another man whose presence alone awed bold officers of the law into
+disregard of duty, and the chastised multitude into non-resistance?
+
+Jesus was the world's great teacher, and yet He was never taught. This
+fact was recognized by those who knew His history. "The Jews therefore
+marveled, saying, How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?"
+Jesus explained it by saying, "My teaching is not mine, but His that
+sent me." This is the only satisfactory explanation that can be given.
+That Jesus was a man of unequaled wisdom, surpassing infinitely all the
+great philosophers of renown, is freely admitted by the best informed
+of modern skeptics. That the world has been influenced by His teaching
+infinitely beyond what it has been by that of any other man, is not
+denied. That the world regards His teaching to-day, after eighteen
+hundred years from the day of His death as a malefactor and His rest in
+a borrowed grave, as it has never regarded the teaching of another man,
+is also an admitted fact. How shall we account for such
+teaching--teaching of such accumulating power over ages and generations
+of men--when He Himself was untaught? The world can not answer the
+question except as Jesus answered it: "My teaching is not mine, but His
+that sent me."
+
+Christ was the only teacher among men who never made a mistake. After
+nearly two thousand years, during which His teaching has been subjected
+to the severest scrutiny, He stands without conviction as to a single
+error. Its ethics, its morals, its righteousness, its philosophy, its
+wisdom, its accuracy, have stood the test of the most rigid investigation.
+How can this be accounted for on the hypothesis that Jesus was only a
+man? The greatest of all other men, with the advantage of the world's
+best facilities, and under teachers of renown, have furnished the world
+with teaching full of mistakes and imperfections. If Jesus were only a
+man, how came it that He was so infinitely superior to all other men?
+And if thus superior in wisdom, righteousness and purity, how belie
+Himself in claiming to be infinitely more than a man? It were
+impossible. The two things are mutually destructive. Jesus furnishes
+the only explanation: "My teaching is not mine, but His that sent me."
+
+Jesus is _the_ teacher of the science of salvation. Others before Him
+taught the things pertaining to salvation, but their teaching was all
+by the Spirit of God, framed with reference to what His was to be.
+
+Others, after Him, taught the way of life, but they taught it as they
+received it from Him. When He ascended to the Father He sent the Holy
+Spirit as His advocate. The Spirit imparted to the apostles what He
+received from Christ. He took the words of the coronated Christ and
+gave them to the apostles, and they spake as the Spirit gave them
+utterance (see John xvi. 7, 15). It follows, therefore, that the
+teaching of the apostles is as infallible as that of the Christ, for it
+is simply His.
+
+It was not the purpose of Jesus to teach the wisdom of this world. He
+was not of this world, and His teaching was not with reference to this
+world. He came from another world, and the things pertaining to another
+world were the ultimatum of His teaching. The way of salvation is
+purely a matter of revelation. Man knows nothing about it except what
+God has revealed through Christ. The same is true as to that from which
+we are saved, and that to which we are saved. We know nothing of God,
+heaven, hell and eternity, except that which is revealed. All that we
+know of sin and its remedy we learn from the great Teacher. The nature
+and the consequences of sin we learn from the same source. The
+revelation of God is at once the source and limit of our knowledge of
+sin and righteousness, and their consequences. In the whole scheme of
+redemption Christ is the central figure; and on it He is the great
+teacher and supreme authority.
+
+Christ, as a teacher of law and morals, legislates for the heart. Men
+can take cognizance only of deeds. They can not know the heart. Hence
+they can judge it only by outward manifestations. But Christ knew what
+was in man. Hence He could legislate for man's thoughts, as well as his
+deeds. Hence He says: "Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt not
+commit adultery: but I say unto you, that every one that looketh on a
+woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his
+heart." Even the law of the Ten Commandments legislated against
+adultery only as an outward act, but Christ legislates against the
+thought. In this respect, as in many others, He is unique as a teacher.
+
+Finally, He taught by His own authority. This was the cause of the
+astonishment at the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount. "The
+multitudes were astonished at His teaching; for He taught them as one
+having authority, and not as their scribes." The scribes taught that
+which "was said to them of old time," and the traditions of men, but
+Christ said, "I say unto you." Mark this feature in that discourse. A
+dozen times does he say, "_I_ say unto you." This was in harmony with
+that which was predicted of Him as a teacher. "Moses indeed said, A
+prophet shall the Lord God raise up unto you from among your brethren,
+like unto me; to him shall ye hearken in all things whatsoever he shall
+speak unto you. And it shall be, that every soul which shall not
+hearken to that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the
+people." And in the presence of Moses and Elijah, the great teachers of
+the past, the divine Father said: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am
+well pleased; hear ye him." All this recognizes one of the fundamental
+principles in the Christian religion--the supreme authority of Christ.
+The world seems slow to learn that what He said He said by His own
+authority, whether personally or through the apostles and prophets;
+that it needs no other support, and that it is the irrepealable
+_law_ of the kingdom of God. Because we are not under the law, but
+under grace, many conclude that we have a religious latitude in which
+we may legislate for ourselves, forgetting that Paul says we are "under
+law to Christ."
+
+In our supreme ignorance we need a teacher--an infallible teacher; and
+that we have in the person of Jesus. In order to become wise unto
+salvation, we must hear and learn of Him. In believing what He says,
+and doing what He directs, we have His divine assurance of salvation
+from sin and a home in heaven.
+
+
+
+
+NEW TESTAMENT VIEWS OF CHRIST.
+
+VII.--CHRIST THE DELIVERER.
+
+    "And he [Jesus] came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up; and
+    he entered, as his custom was, into the synagogue on the sabbath
+    day, and stood up to read. And there was delivered unto him the
+    book of the prophet Isaiah. And he opened the book, and found the
+    place where it was written,
+
+        The spirit of the Lord is upon me,
+        Because he anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor:
+        He hath sent me to proclaim release to the captives,
+        And recovering of sight to the blind,
+        To set at liberty them that are bruised,
+        To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.
+
+    And he closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant, and sat
+    down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fastened on him.
+    And he began to say unto them, To-day hath this scripture been
+    fulfilled in your ears" (Luke iv. 16-21).
+
+
+This sublime passage is a quotation of Isaiah lxi. 1-3. It contains
+several words indicating a character in which the Messiah was to
+appear, strikingly appreciated by the Jews at the time of the prophecy.
+Especially from the time of the Babylonish captivity did the Jews make
+prominent the idea of a deliverer in the person of their promised
+Messiah. "_Release_ to the _captives_" and "_liberty_ to the
+_bruised_"--ill-treated by their captors--was to them a precious
+proclamation, looked forward to with great anxiety, when deliverance
+should be proclaimed and Israel should again be the free and favored
+people of God.
+
+Since this characteristic was so long appreciated as a matter of
+prophecy, and Jesus announced its fulfillment in Himself, it is a
+befitting occasion on which to briefly notice the relation of Christ to
+prophecy. The understanding of this relationship is important at any
+time, because it furnishes a valuable class of evidence as to the
+Messiahship and divinity of Jesus. It is especially so at this time,
+since infidels are making a special effort to destroy the value of
+prophecy in this respect; and some from whom we should expect better
+things seem to be assisting in the work.
+
+A great deal of importance was given to Messianic prophecies during the
+days of the Saviour and the apostolic age of the church. Indeed, this
+was the main source of evidence to the Jewish mind that Jesus was the
+Christ. And the use made of it by Christ and the apostles shows that it
+was abundant.
+
+When Jesus talked with two of the disciples on their way to Emmaus, on
+the day of the resurrection, He said to them: "O foolish men, and slow
+of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Behooved it
+not the Christ to suffer these things, and to enter into his glory? And
+beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, he interpreted to them
+in all the scriptures the things concerning himself." Here Jesus
+Himself states that Moses and all the prophets prophesied of Him. And
+when He had returned to Jerusalem, and stood in the midst of the
+eleven, He said to them: "These are my words which I spake unto you,
+while I was yet with you, how that all things must needs be fulfilled
+which are written in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms
+concerning me." Thus the books of Moses, and all the prophets, and the
+psalms, contained teaching concerning the Christ, according to Jesus'
+own statement; and it was all in the form of type and prophecy. Indeed,
+types are but forms of prophecy.
+
+Jesus charged the Jews with not believing Moses, and gave that as the
+reason why they did not believe on Him. He said: "For if ye believe
+Moses, ye would believe me: for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not
+his writings how shall ye believe my words?" Like modern skeptics, they
+did not believe the writings of Moses concerning the Messiah--did not
+believe that they referred to the Messiah; hence their value was
+destroyed, and they did not believe in Jesus. Had they believed these
+prophecies they would have believed on Christ.
+
+On the day of Pentecost Peter convinced the three thousand by argument
+from prophecy concerning the Christ. In his sermon in Solomon's porch
+the argument was likewise based upon prophecy. Paul's manner of
+preaching (see Acts xvii. 1-3) was to show the prophecies of the Old
+Testament concerning the Messiah and then show that these were
+fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth. Therefore the conclusion was
+necessitated that He was the Christ. As this was Paul's method, he
+evidently attached to prophecy the highest possible value. That all the
+apostles did this is evident from the statement of Peter. Speaking of
+their being "eye-witnesses of His majesty," and of the infallible signs
+He gave of His divinity, he says: "And we have the word of prophecy
+made more sure; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a lamp
+shining in a dark place."
+
+How are we to determine the Messianic prophecies? We unhesitatingly
+reply, by the example of Christ and the apostles. Three important
+points are established by their testimony: (1) They teach that such
+prophecies are numerous, and made by Moses, David, and all the
+prophets. (2) They quote or refer to specifically, and thus apply,
+quite a number. It is evident that these are Messianic, because so
+applied. (3) Since Christ and the apostles designate a large number as
+Messianic, we are safe in concluding that others are so that are of
+like character. They are infallible judges, and they furnish us a
+criterion by which to judge.
+
+It is not true, as claimed, that in order to a Messianic prophecy, the
+prophet making it must so understand it at the time. On the contrary,
+Peter tells us that they searched diligently to ascertain the things
+and the time of them referred to in their own prophecies concerning the
+sufferings of the Christ and the glory that was to follow. (See I. Pet.
+i. 10-12). They, therefore, did not understand the things or the time
+referred to. Since they did not know these, they did not know that the
+prophecy referred to the Messiah. The same Peter did not understand
+some of his own utterances on the day of Pentecost. His language here
+makes the promise of salvation to Gentiles as well as to Jews. But he
+did not so understand it till he had a special revelation at Joppa and
+the house of Cornelius.
+
+Nor is it true, as claimed, that a Messianic prophecy must have been so
+understood by the people before its fulfillment. Many of the Messianic
+prophecies were not understood as such in Old Testament times. The
+Saviour charged this want of understanding upon His disciples, and told
+them that if they had correctly interpreted Moses and the prophets, in
+this very respect, they would have known that His death was required by
+such prophecies, and they would not have received the story of His
+resurrection as an idle tale. Moreover, He charged the Jews that this
+failure to understand Messianic prophecies, as such, was the ground of
+their not believing on Him. (See John v. 45-47).
+
+In regard to types, which is a feature of prophetic teaching, and a
+strong chapter of evidence as to inspiration, Clark Braden says: "There
+are but few real types in the Bible; that is, there are but few things
+that men devised and acted with the intention of symbolizing or
+typifying anything future. There are exceeding few that were devised or
+acted with that as their sole object." It would be difficult for one to
+crowd more flagrant error into the same space than the above contains,
+if he were to make it a specialty. It contains the following positions,
+all of which are false: (1) That there are but few types in the Bible.
+(2) That types are _devised_ by _men_. (3) That types were "devised and
+acted" by the same party. (4) That they were "devised and acted" by men
+with the intention of typifying something future. (5) That this, in
+order to their value as evidence of inspiration, should have been
+"their sole object." This will do quite well for five lines. We would
+suggest that _God_ devised types, not men. While men were the actors,
+they were not the originators. While men may not have intended to
+typify anything in the case, God did. While types were intended by God
+to typify something future, this was not "their sole object." God had
+in them a purpose for the actors in addition to their typical
+significance. The purpose they then served detracts not from their
+value as types. As to the comparative number, we prefer Paul as
+authority. Speaking of the wilderness life of the Israelites, from
+their baptism in the cloud and in the sea, he says: "Now these things
+happened unto them by way of types [_tupoi_], and they were written for
+our admonition." This history contains numerous types, Paul being
+judge. Indeed, the patriarchal and Jewish religions were mainly
+typical. When Noah built the ark to the saving of his house, it is not
+probable that he thought of anything typical. Certainly that was not
+the only purpose, nor the main purpose. But Peter says it was a type,
+all the same.
+
+The fact that God's people did not understand the full significance of
+their worship, did not destroy its character or its value. The same is
+true now. While God's oppressed people worshiped in types and symbols
+which foreshadowed the perfection to come, they were taught by the
+spirit of prophecy to look with longing anxiety to the coming of a
+deliverer. While, in debate, we may not rely on a large number of
+prophecies as Messianic, because the proof is not conclusive, it does
+not effect the fact that many of them have that character.
+
+To appreciate Christ as a deliverer one must realize his own
+bondage--the slave of sin, and sold under its power. There is no
+appreciation of the Deliverer till there is a longing for deliverance,
+and no longing for deliverance till there is a hatred of bondage. Hence
+one must have a just sense of the heinousness of sin before he can
+appreciate Christ as a Saviour.
+
+In coming to this world to deliver us, Christ had, in a sense, to come
+within the dominion of Satan, and under the assaults of sin. This is
+typfied by Moses going into Egypt to deliver his brethren. He had to
+place himself under the reign of Pharaoh, and in order to deliver his
+brethren he had to deliver himself. The Son of God took upon Him our
+humanity. This He had to do to make a sacrifice and be a mediator for
+us. In doing this He placed Himself under the tempting power of sin,
+and was tempted in all points as we are. He had to save Himself from
+this condition before He could save us. This was done through death and
+the resurrection. With Him the old life ceased at the cross, and the
+new one began from the grave. He conquered Satan--dragged the captor
+captive--and was forever delivered from his tempting power. "He died
+unto sin once," says Paul; and we die to sin just where He did, being
+put to death by the cross. We are buried with Him, and rise with Him to
+walk in newness of life. Thus the new life begins with us just where it
+began with Him--from the grave--the grave of baptism in which we are
+buried together and rise together. The denominational world want to
+make the new life begin from the cross. But it did not thus begin with
+Jesus, and Paul says it does not thus begin with us.
+
+
+
+
+NEW TESTAMENT VIEWS OF CHRIST.
+
+VIII.--CHRIST THE GREAT PHYSICIAN.
+
+    "They that are whole have no need of a physician; but they that are
+    sick. I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to
+    repentance" (Luke v. 31, 32).
+
+        "For this people's heart is waxed gross,
+        And their ears are dull of hearing,
+        And their eyes they have closed;
+        Lest haply they should perceive with their eyes,
+        And hear with their ears,
+        And understand with their heart,
+        And should turn again,
+        And I should heal them" (Matt. xiii. 15).
+
+    "He hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted" (Luke iv. 18).
+
+
+Several times, either directly or indirectly, Christ alludes to Himself
+as a physician. In this character He is worthy of careful study.
+
+The first thing in order to appreciate a physician, is to realize that
+one is sick. The Saviour says the well need not a physician. It is
+equally true that the well care not for a physician. Sin is the disease
+of which Christ, as a physician, is the healer. The disease is deadly.
+The smallest amount is fatal. The Great Physician alone can heal it.
+There is no other remedy. When a man is once affected, however much he
+may keep it under control, and prevent its increase, there is never a
+diminution of the disease till the remedy of the Great Physician is
+applied.
+
+There is much senseless talk about depravity that necessarily implies,
+though its advocates may not so intend, that sin has comparatively
+little condemnatory force. The idea so often expressed that one must be
+"a great sinner in order to need a great Saviour;" that if he is only
+"partially depraved, he needs to be only partially saved;" that he must
+be "totally depraved in order to be totally lost;" that he must be
+"totally depraved in order to be wholly dependent on Christ for
+salvation," and such like, necessarily puts a light estimate upon sin.
+The idea is, that if one has but a comparatively small amount of sin,
+he is not wholly lost and utterly helpless, and wholly dependent on
+Christ. When the simple fact is, that sin is so heinous in its
+character and condemnatory in its consequences, that any amount of it,
+whether much or little, renders one as helpless and hopeless and
+dependent on Christ as if he were totally depraved by nature and doubly
+defiled by a life of sin. There is, therefore, no necessity for total
+depravity, in order that man be in an utterly lost and helpless
+condition without Christ. A grain of strychnine is just as fatal as an
+ounce, without an antidote.
+
+In order that we appreciate a physician, and avail ourselves of the
+benefits of his skill, we must have faith in him. Without faith that
+his skill is superior to ours, and that he can help us, we will not
+call upon him. If we have faith in him we will do as he directs. The
+highest evidence of faith in a physician, and the surest way of being
+benefited by his skill, is in going precisely by his directions. Some
+years ago the writer had a long spell of typhoid fever. His physician
+came to see him one hundred and thirty times. After he became
+convalescent, his physician said to him one day, "In looking back over
+your case, I can attribute your recovery to but two things--your
+unyielding resolution and confidence, and your faith in your
+physician." What did he mean by faith in my physician? What had that to
+do with it? He explained. "For," said he, "you followed my directions
+minutely in everything, and for more than seven weeks the least wabble
+would have turned the scale against you." This was a fine illustration
+of faith, but theologically he attached to the word a very different
+idea.
+
+Such must be our faith in the Great Physician that we apply to Him for
+the treatment of a sin-sick soul. And having called upon Him, we are to
+follow His directions. On one occasion He said to the Pharisees, "Why
+do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?" So in
+this case He would say, "Why do you call on me as a physician, and do
+not as I direct you?" As well apply to an earthly physician and expect
+to be healed by faith in his skill, without taking his medicine or
+following his directions in other respects, as to expect the Great
+Physician to heal you in the same way. This illustrates the absolute
+folly of expecting to be "justified by faith only" in the Great
+Physician of souls, before and without doing as He directs. Our faith
+in a physician is valuable only as it induces us to take his remedies.
+When it leads to this, it has fulfilled its only office. When it does
+not lead to this, it is worthless. So of our faith in Christ. The only
+value of faith is in its leading to the observance of the divine will.
+The faith that does this saves, because it leads us to where God saves
+us. God promises salvation in the doing of His will. "Not every one
+that says unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven;
+but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven." Faith leads
+to the doing of the Father's will. In this it performs its only office,
+and in this it saves. Faith can have value only as it leads to the
+appropriation and use of the remedies prescribed.
+
+It is often the case that a physician is stationary, and his patients
+have to come to him in order to get the benefits of his treatment. In
+such case, the acts necessary to take us to him are essential to our
+recovery, though they have no virtue whatever except as means of
+reaching him. So of coming to Christ. Christ does not come to the
+sinner, as orthodox prayers at the mourners' bench imply; but He
+invites the sinner to come to Him. "Come unto me, all ye that labor and
+are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." "And you will not come to
+me that you may have life." Believing on Christ is one thing, and
+coming to Him is quite another. One must first believe before he will
+come. Yet, in addition to believing, the orthodox world, so-called,
+utterly fails to tell us how to come to Christ. They cry, "Come, come,"
+but tell us not how. Christ plainly teaches that we come to Him in
+obedience. We are baptized into Him; into His body. We put Him on by
+baptism. Being baptized into Christ is Paul's explanation of how we
+become the children of God by faith. "Ye are all sons of God, through
+faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ
+did put on Christ." We come to Christ, then, in baptism. This is the
+first overt act in the "obedience of faith." Our faith, repentance and
+baptism bring us to Christ; then He, as the Great Physician, heals our
+sin-sick soul. There is no healing virtue in these things that bring us
+to Him; but they are conditions of our healing because they are means
+of our reaching the Physician.
+
+The remedy for sin is the Physician's own blood. That is the only thing
+in the universe of God that can heal the disease of sin, and remove the
+ruinous consequences. "The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses
+from all sin." The blood of animal sacrifices could not take away sin.
+"For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take
+away sins." Since animal sacrifice could not meet the demands of the
+law, God prepared a body for His Son in which to make a sacrifice.
+
+    "Sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not,
+    But a body thou didst prepare me."
+
+Hence we are redeemed from the curse of sin, not with corruptible
+things, "but with precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish and
+without spot, even the blood of Christ." "And without the shedding of
+blood there was no remission."
+
+It is plain, therefore, that the blood of the Physician is the only
+remedy. This remedy is freely given when we come to Him.
+
+Jesus said: "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so
+must the Son of Man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth may in him
+have eternal life." The Israelites were commanded to look upon the
+brazen serpent; and they that looked were healed. They had to have
+faith, in order to look with a view to being healed. Looking was the
+thing commanded. It was the result of faith. In looking they were
+healed. But there was no virtue in the looking. Looking, in and of
+itself, had no power to heal. Still it was essential to the healing.
+Neither had the thing looked upon any power to heal. There was no
+virtue in the serpent. The healing power lay back of that. It was in
+God, who had promised. God did the healing. But while there was no
+healing virtue in the look nor in the thing looked upon, they were
+necessary to the healing, because to this end were they commanded. They
+were, therefore, necessary to bring one to the point in the obedience
+of faith where God promised to heal. So it is with the Great Healer of
+souls. They that believe shall _in Him_ find the healing power. Their
+faith leads them to Him, where the healing power is applied, as the
+look brought the Israelites to the healing power of God. Our obedience
+that brings us to Christ is the outgrowth of our faith, just as their
+look was the outgrowth of theirs. There is no healing virtue in the one
+nor the other, but they were and are necessary to bring the believer
+where the healing virtue is.
+
+After all that is said about being saved by faith, and by other things,
+it is simply true that _Christ_ saves us. _He_ is our Saviour. And He
+saves us by means of His own blood.
+
+    "There is a fountain filled with blood,
+      Drawn from Immanuel's veins;
+    And sinners plunged beneath that flood
+      Lose all their guilty stains."
+
+It is thus that Christ is precious to us as the great Physician of
+souls. We should give heed to His inviting voice, place ourselves under
+His continued care, follow His directions, and we shall enjoy a healed
+and healthful state of the soul.
+
+    "The great Physician now is near,
+      The sympathizing Jesus;
+    He speaks, the drooping heart to cheer:
+      Oh, hear the voice of Jesus."
+
+
+
+
+NEW TESTAMENT VIEWS OF CHRIST.
+
+IX.--CHRIST OUR MEDIATOR.
+
+    "For there is one God, one mediator also between God and men,
+    himself man, Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all; the
+    testimony to be borne in its own time" (I. Tim. ii. 5-6).
+
+
+A mediator is one who comes between alienated parties to effect a
+reconciliation. He must be the friend, the advocate and equal of both
+parties. Failing in one of these, he is incapacitated. No one would
+accept a mediator whom he believed would be wanting in any of these
+respects in his relations to him. No one is fit to mediate who is not
+qualified to do justice to both parties. This he can not do unless he
+knows the rights of both and is the friend of both. He must be unbiased
+in his judgment and impartial in his friendship. He must be considered
+the equal of both, in so far, at least, as his knowledge of them and
+his ability to judge between them is concerned.
+
+A mediator between God and men implies alienation between them. The
+history of the race shows this to be true. The time was when they were
+one; when not a feeling or a shadow came between them. The bliss of
+Eden reached its daily acme when the footfall of God was heard amid its
+bowers. The hour that He joined their company was that of supreme joy.
+But man sinned, and then the presence of God was shunned. That which
+was delightful before is painful now. Such is the principle of
+congeniality; and such the consequences of sin--to make of heaven a
+hell. This fact alone should teach us that it lies not within the
+limits of divine power to make a heaven for sinful men. Separation from
+God is hell; and with the soul defiled by sin, union is worse than
+separation.
+
+After the fall of man he could no longer stand in the immediate
+presence of God, as he was wont to do before. Sin can not approach the
+divine presence, hence he needed a mediator, one to stand between him
+and an offended God, through whom he might again be heard and blessed.
+Mediators of an imperfect and typical character were had in that age of
+preparation for the coming perfection. But where could a perfect
+mediator be found to stand between an offended God and rebellious man?
+Where in all the universe could one be found the friend and equal of
+both parties? Where could one be found that could stand on equality
+with God, know what was just and right in regard to Him, and, at the
+same time know the weaknesses, the wants and the rights of man? Where
+was one who could poise with one hand the scales of God's justice and
+gather fallen humanity to his bosom with the other? The boundless
+dominions of God contained not such a being. Man could not thus act,
+for the best of men are themselves sinners, and can approach God only
+through a mediator. The best of men know nothing of God's side of this
+matter, and they fall below equality with Him, as the earth is below
+the stars. An angel could not stand between God and men, for he can not
+descend to equality with fleshly natures, to know their weaknesses and
+their wants; nor can ascend the heights of divine perfection till he
+knows the mind and the rights of God. In the Divine Logos, and the
+Divine Spirit we find, in a sense, equality with God, but no equality
+with men. How, then, is this great problem, that on which the world's
+salvation turns, to be solved? The human and the divine must be
+blended. They must meet and dwell in one. This is accomplished, not by
+lifting the human up to the divine, but by bringing the divine down to
+the human. God glories in condescension.
+
+The Word that was in the beginning with God, that was God in His divine
+attributes, became flesh and dwelt among us. In the person of the babe
+of Bethlehem we have a being that never before existed--a being both
+human and divine. He brought from the skies the divinity of His Father,
+and dwelt among men with the humanity of His mother. Hence the mighty
+chasm between man and God, between earth and heaven, is bridged over in
+the God-man, Christ Jesus. His divinity reaches half-way from heaven to
+earth, and His humanity half-way from earth to heaven, and the two
+unite in Him.
+
+In the life of Jesus we see His two natures constantly manifested. As
+He hungers and thirsts and sleeps; as He weeps over the sins of men,
+and sorrows over their afflictions, we see His humanity. He seems to be
+only a man. But when He stills the tempest on the Sea of Galilee, or
+calls Lazarus back to life, we see His divinity. It is interesting to
+study His life with a view to the manifestation of His two natures in
+each event--their distinctness and their blending.
+
+We may never know in this life the reasons for the blending of the
+divine and the human in the person of the mediator. These things are
+doubtless beyond the ken of an archangel, in all their fullness. Yet
+from our point of view, obscured by our fleshly weakness, we may see
+some reasons lying on the surface why this was a necessity. Some of
+these let us consider.
+
+Man fell through the weakness of the flesh and the power of temptation.
+Satan works through the flesh to pollute the spirit. In order to be one
+with us in our temptation, and perfect Himself as an experimental
+sympathizer, our mediator must be tempted in all points like as we are,
+that He may know how we feel under temptation. This demanded that He
+take upon Himself not the nature of angels, but that of the seed of
+Abraham. He must, therefore, be a man. But this temptation is to be
+successfully met. It is to be without sin. No man had ever successfully
+withstood the assaults of Satan. Our mediator was to do this. Hence the
+necessity of divinity. He must be human to be tempted; He must be
+divine to resist it. And to make His victory the more complete, He had
+His flesh put to the sorest test. After a fast of forty days, when His
+long pent-up hunger rushed upon Him as a lion upon its prey, Satan
+approached and exhausted his strength to overcome Him. Not only did He
+give Satan this advantage, such as he had never had nor needed over
+men, but He even went out of the flesh, into the citadel of which Satan
+held the keys, and came out a triumphant conqueror. Hence His humanity
+in order to enter in; His divinity in order to come out.
+
+The scheme of redemption contemplated a sacrifice for the sins of the
+world. Men must get rid of sin. They had no power of themselves to do
+this. Sin must be remitted. This demanded a sacrifice for sin. "Without
+the shedding of blood there is no remission." The blood shed must be
+the blood of humanity. It must contain the life under condemnation.
+Hence the "blood of bulls and of goats could not take away sin." It
+could not reach and cleanse the conscience. It was used as an imperfect
+type, but the perfection required the blood that courses in human
+veins; but the victim must be innocent. It must be absolutely free from
+sin. Only a sinless offering can meet the requirements of the divine
+government. Hence, in order to offer the blood of the condemned race,
+our mediator must be human; in order to offer it in innocence, He must
+be divine.
+
+The completion of the preparation of our mediator for His work as such,
+required His death and resurrection. It is shocking to the mind of some
+to speak of Christ having to be educated and perfected for His office
+of mediator, but this He asserts Himself. "For it became him, for whom
+are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons
+unto glory, to make the author of their salvation perfect through
+sufferings." "Though he was a Son, yet learned he obedience by the
+things which he suffered; and having been made perfect, he became unto
+all them that obey him, the author of eternal salvation." This
+officiating for man as mediator and high priest, is the only thing, as
+we now remember, in which Christ is said to have been specially
+qualified by His life among men. This is significant. The reasons for
+it are easily seen in the foregoing. He had to become a man, and these
+things peculiar to humanity He had to learn.
+
+In offering Himself a sacrifice for sin, our mediator had to die. In
+order to His work as such, of which His death was only preparatory, He
+had to live again. His death was voluntary. He said, "I have power to
+lay down my life, and I have power to take it up again." In order to
+lay down His life, He had to be human; in order to take it up again, He
+had to be divine.
+
+Having accomplished His preparatory work, Christ returned to the Father
+to make an atonement, and to sit henceforth as a mediator between God
+and men. He was equal with God before He left the heavens; He became
+the equal of man in His sojourn in the world. Hence He is now perfectly
+qualified for His work. But we find that we can not dispose of this
+subject in one chapter.
+
+
+
+
+NEW TESTAMENT VIEWS OF CHRIST.
+
+X.--CHRIST OUR MEDIATOR.--CONTINUED.
+
+    "But now hath he [Christ] obtained a more excellent ministry, by
+    how much also He is the mediator of a better covenant, which was
+    established upon better promises" (Heb. viii. 6).
+
+
+Having considered Christ's preparatory work, His earthly mission, we
+wish now to consider His office and work as mediator between God and
+men. Christ sought no additional honor because of His message to men
+and suffering on their account. On the contrary, He prayed: "And now, O
+Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had
+with thee before the world was." But while He sought no additional
+glory, He found additional work. The office He now fills existed not
+till He ascended to the Father from an empty grave. He descended into
+the dominion of death and robbed it of its power. He dragged the captor
+captive, and gave gifts unto men. Ascending, as a conquering king, His
+angelic retinue raise the exultant shout: "Lift up your heads, O ye
+gates, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory
+shall come in." "Who is this King of glory?" the guardian hosts shout
+back. "The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle." Again,
+the gates of the eternal city are shaken with the shout: "Lift up your
+heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the
+King of glory shall come in."
+
+Christ was coronated King of kings and Lord of lords. He began at once
+His work of mediation. Through the Holy Spirit, sent as His advocate,
+He convicts men of sin, and brings them into harmony and union with
+God. His mediatorship involves a work of reconciliation. This is His
+fundamental work. The old theology was that Christ labors to reconcile
+God to men. Indeed, the world is not yet as free from the thought as
+the truth and the honor of God demand. Whatever may be true of the
+atonement, one thing is certain, it grew out of the love of God. "God
+so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever
+believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life." Any theory,
+therefore, that does not harmonize with this is false. God already
+loves the world. He loves sinners, even, who are not penitent. He is
+not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to
+repentance. How dishonoring to God, then, to represent Him as unwilling
+to save agonizing sinners; so that the protracted prayers of the church
+are necessary, and often unavailing! Paul says that God was in Christ,
+reconciling the world unto Himself. The world had transgressed, had
+gone away from God, and Christ's mission as mediator, is to bring it
+back in agreement and submission to the divine will.
+
+The importance of the mediatorial office of Christ is very improperly
+apprehended. The necessity of a mediator between us and God can never
+be fully realized in this life. This belongs to that association of
+deep and profound mysteries emanating from the mind of God, that angels
+intently desire to look into. We are permitted to see only the surface
+in this life. But we know enough about the general character of His
+work, to know, that it has a value far above the world's comprehension.
+
+When one stands as our intercessor we are favored in proportion to his
+standing with the other party. When one seeks a favor at the hands of
+the chief executive of the nation, if he has no standing of his own,
+all depends on the standing of his advocate. If the one interceding for
+him stands high in the president's favor, and has great influence with
+him, his request is favorably considered on account of his advocate.
+When we consider the standing of the Son with the Father; that through
+Him the Father has sought the reconciliation of the world; that He is
+the "brightness, the Father's glory, and the express image of his
+person;" we have perfect confidence that His pleadings will prevail.
+But when the Father "so loved the world as to give his Son to die for
+it;" when He so loves sinners that His great loving heart goes out in
+yearnings for their salvation, why should His loving, struggling
+children need an intercessor with Him at all? This has been one of the
+questions of the ages. Theories more curious than satisfactory have
+been promulgated concerning it by the different schools of theology. We
+shall not presume to answer it, beyond the simple suggestion that this
+was the special work for which the divine Logos that was in the
+beginning with God, had to qualify Himself by special education. Hence
+it is a matter not of difference between the love and goodness of the
+Father and that of the Son, but of qualification by _experience_ in the
+trials, temptations and weaknesses of the flesh. The consideration of
+this fact would have saved the world from much vain speculation.
+
+When Paul argues the importance of a mediator, it is not on the ground
+that the Son loves us more than the Father, but on the ground that He
+knows us by experience. "For we have not a high priest that can not be
+touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but one that hath been in
+all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us, therefore,
+draw near with boldness unto the throne of grace." The fact that our
+high priest, or intercessor, was "tempted in all points, like as we
+are," is the reason why we may approach a throne of grace with
+boldness. This boldness is simply a profound confidence based upon the
+humanity of our mediator.
+
+When we approach a throne of grace, conscious of sin and imperfection,
+how little can we trust ourselves. We realize that we come empty-handed
+before God. With the poet, each can sing:
+
+    "Nothing in my hands I bring,
+    Simply to Thy cross I cling."
+
+We can plead no merit of our own. We have no legal claim on the
+store-house of God's boundless mercy and love. But we remember that we
+have a Friend; that this Friend has suffered the same trials and
+temptations; that He knows by bitter experience just how we feel; that
+He deeply sympathizes with us, and that He loves us with a devotion and
+faithfulness beyond human experience or expression. Remembering this,
+how can we feel otherwise than confident that an already loving Father
+will hear our petitions in harmony with His will, and bless us as His
+believing children? The efficacy of prayer, therefore, grows out of the
+mediatorship of Jesus, and the confidence in prayer grows out of our
+appreciation of the mediator and of His work. Hence a light
+appreciation of the mediatorial work of Jesus leads to a prayerless
+life.
+
+Jesus Himself taught that there is no way of approach to the Father
+except through Him. "I am the way, the truth and the life; no man
+cometh unto the Father but by me." No man can approach God _in his own
+name_. God does not look upon men in their own personality. He looks
+upon them only _through their mediator_; and what He sees to commend,
+is seen and commended only through, and on account of, their mediator.
+In other words, God sees the mediator only, not them. Hence the man
+that does not accept the mediator cuts himself off from God. He rejects
+the only way of approach to God. He prevents God's considering his
+case; for God considers us only through the mediator. It is this fact,
+that God considers the mediator through whom the petition is made,
+rather than the petitioner, that gives significance to the fact that
+our prayers are to be _in the name_ of Jesus Christ; and that we ask
+that our petitions be granted for "Christ's sake." At a throne of grace
+we present the name of our intercessor. We ask in _his name_, not our
+own. We present Him, not ourselves. We hide ourselves behind Him, put
+Him in our place, and ask what God will do for Him. He authorizes us to
+thus use His name, and the blessings bestowed are just to the extent
+that that name prevails with God. Should Vanderbilt grant you the legal
+right to use his name to the full extent of your desire in presentation
+of checks, etc.; with his pledge to redeem all paper bearing his
+signature in your hand, his whole fortune would be pledged to meet the
+demands of your drafts upon him. Bankrupt financially, as you are
+spiritually, you present your check for a large amount and it would be
+rejected. But add to that the name of Vanderbilt, and your check is
+honored. You draw the money not in your name, but in his. The bank sees
+not you, but him. Now, just as you would thus present the name of
+Vanderbilt, with full assurance of your request being granted to the
+extent of his fortune, you to-day present the name of Jesus at the
+court of heaven, and a heaven honors that name; its resources are
+pledged to meet your petition. The name of Jesus, therefore, when thus
+presented, means to us all that it signifies in the government of God.
+To the extent that His name is honored are heavenly blessings secured
+to us.
+
+In the light of these sublime truths, we see the significance of the
+Saviour's requirement that henceforth all prayer should be offered in
+His name. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, if ye shall ask anything of
+the Father, he will give it to you in my name. Hitherto ye have asked
+nothing in my name; ask, and ye shall receive." What is called the
+Lord's Prayer, is not in His name, because His mediatorship had not
+then been established. But now it would be sinful to repeat that
+prayer, as thousands do, and omit to offer it in the name of Christ.
+The custom of Masons, and other secret orders, of having a form of
+religion that ignores Christ, that does not recognize His mediatorship
+and that is not offered in His name, is supremely wicked. It is a gross
+perversion of the religion of Jesus. And how Christian men, even
+preachers of the gospel, can find it in their hearts to acquiesce in
+such a thing, is to us a profound puzzle. The institution that has no
+place for my Master has no place for me.
+
+The only way of approach to God is through Christ as our mediator; and
+the mediatorial office of Christ is in the church, not in the world.
+Hence, as God can be glorified only through Christ, He can be glorified
+only through the church. Paul, recognizing this, says: "Unto God be
+glory in the church, by Christ Jesus, throughout all ages, world
+without end. Amen."
+
+
+
+
+NEW TESTAMENT VIEWS OF CHRIST.
+
+XI.--CHRIST OUR HIGH PRIEST.
+
+    "Now, if there was perfection through the Levitical priesthood (for
+    under it hath the people received the law), what further need _was
+    there_ that another priest should arise after the order of
+    Melchisedec, and not be reckoned after the order of Aaron? For the
+    priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also
+    of the law. For he of whom these things are said belongeth to
+    another tribe, from which no man hath given attendance at the
+    altar. For it is evident that our Lord hath sprung out of Judah; as
+    to which tribe Moses spake nothing concerning priests. And _what we
+    say_ is yet more abundantly evident, if after the likeness of
+    Melchisedec there ariseth another priest, who hath been made, not
+    after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an
+    endless life, for it is witnessed of him, Thou art a priest forever
+    after the order of Melchisedec" (Heb. vii. 11-17).
+
+
+Each dispensation has had its priesthood. Each has had its priests and
+its high priests. Each has had its priests, its altars and its
+sacrifices peculiar to itself. Only priests in any age could worship
+God; and acceptable worship must ever be in accordance with the law of
+the priesthood.
+
+During the patriarchal age the father of the family was priest. He
+offered sacrifice for the family. The grandfather, great grandfather,
+etc., was high priest over his posterity for all the generations
+descending from him while he lived. Adam was high priest of the whole
+race during his life. Then the high priesthood descended to each of his
+sons for the posterity of each. So Noah was high priest of all the
+post-diluvian world during his life. Then it descended to each of his
+sons. Each son was high priest of his branch of the family, in all its
+generations, during his life. In that age, therefore, as in this, there
+was a universal priesthood. The priesthood of the Christian
+dispensation is, in a certain sense, modeled after the patriarchal and
+in contrast with the Jewish. It is after the order of Melchisedec, and
+not after that of Aaron. Melchisedec was high priest of that division
+of the human family to which Abraham belonged, and this distinguished
+patriarch paid tithes to him. If we do not misinterpret the law of the
+priesthood of that age, this could have been none other than Shem. Shem
+was then living, and Noah was dead; and Abraham belonged to Shem's
+posterity. Hence no one else could be high priest while Shem lived.
+Many have thought that because it is said he was "without father,
+without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor
+end of life," that he could not be a man. But they fail to observe that
+he was without these things _in the Aaronic priesthood_. For it is said
+that he had a genealogy, but that it was not in the priestly family.
+"And they indeed of the sons of Levi that receive the priest's office
+have commandment to take tithes of the people according to the law,
+that is, of their brethren, though these have come out of the loins of
+Abraham; but he whose genealogy is not counted from them hath taken
+tithes of Abraham." Shem had neither father nor mother, nor beginning
+of days, nor end of life, in the sense that the Aaronic priests had
+them; and this is all that is affirmed of Melchisedec.
+
+When God called His people out of Egyptian bondage, and gave them the
+law, He gave them a new priesthood. The priests were now all confined
+to the tribe of Levi and the family of Aaron. Men could no longer build
+their own altars and offer their own sacrifices. On the contrary, they
+had all to bring their offering to the priests appointed of the family
+of Aaron, and have them make the offering. With a change of the
+priesthood came a change of the law. "For," says Paul, "the priesthood
+being changed, there is made of necessity a change also in the law."
+The law thus changed was the law of worship through the priesthood. And
+as it was through this worship that pardon was obtained, the change of
+priesthood changed the law of pardon. Hence the law of pardon under
+each priesthood has been different from that under either of the
+others. After the establishment of the Aaronic priesthood, a descendant
+of Jacob could no longer build his altar and offer his sacrifice just
+as he had done before the change. And now a priest under the Christian
+dispensation can not offer acceptable worship as did either the Jew or
+the patriarch. The worship that once brought to one the divine blessing
+would now bring upon him a curse. How strange it is, then, that the
+denominational world in large measure go back to a different priesthood
+for their ideas of religion and salvation.
+
+Under the law the kings and the priests were of two distinct tribes.
+These were of the tribe of Levi; those of the tribe of Judah. Hence it
+is written: "The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a law-giver
+from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the
+gathering of the people be." Christ was of the tribe of Judah; hence
+He, like Melchisedec, is both priest and king. He could not be a priest
+of the Aaronic order, for he was of a different tribe--a tribe of which
+Moses spoke nothing concerning the priesthood. Hence all the efforts to
+make Him a priest of that kind are refuted by that simple fact. Many
+insist that Christ was inducted into His priestly office at His
+baptism, and many vain speculations are based thereon. But this can not
+be. Christ was not a priest while He was on the earth, says Paul in
+these words: "Now, if he were on earth he would not be a priest at all,
+seeing there are those who offer the gifts according to the law" (Heb.
+viii. 4). He could not be a priest on earth, because the Aaronic
+priesthood was then in force, and He was not of the Aaronic family.
+Since He could not be a priest while on earth, it is folly to talk of
+His becoming a priest at His baptism. He could not become a priest till
+the law of the priesthood was changed, and that was not changed till
+after His death. The Aaronic priesthood was in full force till His
+death. He was made high priest, not by the legal ritual, but by the
+oath of God; and this oath was "_after the law_," not while it was in
+force. The law continued till His death, hence it was after His death
+that He was made high priest by the oath of God. He was a sacrifice
+when He died, not a priest. He could not be priest and sacrifice at the
+same time. After His ascension He, as high priest, made atonement with
+His own blood which He shed as a sacrifice for the sins of the world.
+Hence a number of facts show the utter folly of claiming that He was a
+priest among men.
+
+It is through Christ as high priest that we worship God. We can worship
+acceptably in no other way. There are no other means of access to the
+Father. Only through and by the priesthood can God be worshiped. Hence
+the worshiper must become a priest, and then worship through Christ as
+high priest. All pretensions to approach God in worship, without
+recognizing Christ as our high priest and mediator, is only an
+exhibition of an infidel farce. It is an insult to God, because a
+rejection of His Son. Hence those who do not accept Christ as their
+high priest cut themselves off from access to the Father. Christ
+Himself says, "No man cometh unto the Father but by me."
+
+Paul makes it a matter of rejoicing that we have a great high priest
+who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; one that has
+been tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin. Such a high
+priest knows how to sympathize with us, and to make for us all just
+excuses.
+
+The earthly high priest went once a year, on the great day of
+atonement, into the most holy place, with the blood of others, to make
+atonement for the sins of Israel; but Christ, as the high priest of the
+good things to come, has entered the holy place on high, with His own
+blood, to make atonement for the sins of the whole world. The offerings
+made by the priests under the law pertained only to the cleansing of
+the flesh; but the blood offered by our high priest "cleanses the
+conscience from dead works to serve the living God."
+
+
+
+
+NEW TESTAMENT VIEWS OF CHRIST.
+
+XII.--CHRIST OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.
+
+    "But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who was made unto us wisdom
+    from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption:
+    that, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory
+    in the Lord" (I. Cor. i. 30, 31).
+
+
+In this language Paul affirms that Christ is our righteousness. This is
+a momentous thought. It goes to the heart of the scheme of redemption.
+How is Christ our righteousness? What does Paul mean by the
+affirmation? The very life of Christianity is involved in the answer.
+By one's answer we know just where to place him in regard to the vital
+principles of Christianity.
+
+That one must be righteous in order to be prepared for heaven, must be
+conceded by those who accept the Bible as authority. "Know ye not that
+the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God." And this must be
+a positive, not simply a relative, righteousness. Men may be
+comparatively righteous, and yet be wholly unprepared for the presence
+of God. The righteousness required in order to a home in heaven is
+absolute. All unrighteousness is sin, and one must be perfectly free
+from sin to be accepted in the Beloved. No sin can enter heaven. One
+can not stand in the presence of God, accepted through the
+righteousness of Christ, with the least taint of sin upon his soul.
+Hence perfect righteousness is required. One must be righteous even as
+Christ Himself is righteous. Knowing this to be true, and knowing our
+own imperfections and shortcomings, even in our best estate, it is no
+wonder that the way is described as narrow. One can not but see at a
+glance his utter hopelessness if he has to depend on himself. If Christ
+has made any provision by which this righteousness can be attained then
+one can not but appreciate what Christ has done for him and his
+absolute dependence on Him for salvation.
+
+Two distinct kinds of righteousness are clearly defined in the Word of
+God. They are in striking contrast. One is approved; the other
+condemned. One is of God; the other of men. One is of faith; the other
+of law.
+
+God's righteousness is not only a divine, holy principle of justice and
+mercy, but is also a system or plan of salvation. When Jesus applied to
+John for baptism, John declined. He was preaching the "baptism of
+repentance for the remission of sins." He also required a confession of
+their sins. They were baptized of him in Jordan, "confessing their
+sins." While he did not know Jesus to be the Christ, he knew Him as his
+kinsman, and he knew enough of the purity and sinlessness of His life
+to think that He should not confess His sins to be baptized for their
+remission. Besides he doubtless hoped that Jesus would be the favored
+one on whom he was to see the Holy Spirit descending and abiding upon
+Him. He, therefore, felt himself unworthy to baptize his cousin Jesus.
+But Jesus said, "Suffer it now, for thus it becometh us to fulfill all
+righteousness." No matter what John's personal feelings were, or the
+sinlessness and purity of Jesus, it became the duty of one as the
+administrator and the other as the subject to observe this divine
+appointment. Had their idea been that baptism was to be administered to
+those free from sin, such an objection could never have been raised.
+Here the word "righteousness" evidently refers to God's appointments in
+the divine economy--the plan of salvation.
+
+When Peter went to the house of Cornelius to break the bread of life to
+the Gentiles, he said: "I now perceive that God is no respecter of
+persons, but in every nation he that feareth God and worketh
+righteousness is accepted of him." Here "righteousness" is something to
+be "worked." It is, therefore, something to be done. In it men are
+active. It is not, therefore, a quality in God or man, but something
+that enlists the activities of men. It is a plan by the observance of
+which men are accepted of God.
+
+Speaking of his own brethren according to the flesh, Paul says:
+"Brethren, my heart's desire and supplication to God is for them, that
+they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for
+God, but not according to knowledge. For being ignorant of God's
+righteousness, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit
+themselves to the righteousness of God" (Rom. x. 1-3). Here the
+righteousness of God is contrasted with that of the unbelieving Jews.
+They rejected God's, and set up one of their own. They did not submit
+to God's righteousness. Here it is clearly a religious system, a plan
+of salvation. They rejected God's plan and tried to establish one of
+their own. In this they were zealous, but it was a misguided zeal.
+
+In harmony with this idea of righteousness we understand the expression
+in the first chapter of this epistle: "For I am not ashamed of the
+gospel: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that
+believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is
+revealed a righteousness of God by faith unto faith: as it is written,
+But the righteous shall live by faith." Here we understand God's
+righteousness to be God's plan of saving or justifying men by faith;
+the plan to which the Jews would not submit in the tenth chapter.
+Hence, in the gospel, God's system of justification by faith is
+revealed in order to faith. Faith comes by hearing the word of God. In
+the gospel God's plan of saving men by faith in Christ is revealed, and
+this is the only place in which it is revealed. Consequently the truth
+herein revealed produces faith. This results in the acceptance of God's
+plan of salvation.
+
+We have "the faith" as a system of salvation through Christ, and faith
+as a personal state of the mind and heart. So, also, have we
+righteousness as a plan of salvation which we accept from God, and
+righteousness as a personal quality--a state of personal freedom from
+sin. And the one leads to the other, as a revelation of "the faith"
+produces personal faith.
+
+This leads us to consider how we obtain that perfect righteousness,
+without which we can not enjoy the blissful presence of God.
+
+Paul's teaching in regard to the personal righteousness of the saints,
+makes salvation by a mere reformation of life, an impossibility. The
+importance of this fact can not be over-estimated. Many people seem to
+think that a reformation in regard to moral conduct, is all that is
+necessary to prepare to meet God. If they can only break off their
+sinful practices, and practice morality, they think they have done all
+that is really essential. In this there are two fatal mistakes. First,
+no reformation is perfect. The best of men whose lives have been
+moulded into the divine image, and are most conformed to the divine
+nature, have their imperfections. The ripest saint upon the earth feels
+that if his salvation depended on his perfect sinlessness in conduct
+for the rest of life, the chances of heaven would at once become dark
+and hopeless. The cheerfulness and bright assurance of the child of God
+are not because he hopes to live a perfect life, but because his
+imperfections will be taken away in Christ. And second, the most
+perfect reformation would avail nothing. Could one so reform his life
+as to never sin again, and practice virtue in place of the former vice,
+it would fall far short of securing the end. However free from sin one
+may live in the future, the sins of the past are upon him. These will
+forever condemn him, unless they are removed. Our ceasing to sin will
+not take away the old ones. The fact that a man refuses to contract any
+more debts, will not pay a dollar of his old ones. So no amount of
+reformation will make amends for the past. Our past sins must be taken
+away, else they will condemn us in the day of eternity. We can not
+remove them ourselves; we can not atone for our own sins. Here we are
+utterly helpless. To what source, then, shall we go? Christ is the only
+refuge. He alone can take away our sins; His blood alone can cleanse
+from sin. "If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have
+fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son,
+cleanseth us from all sin." This is the "fountain opened in the house
+of David for all manner of sin and uncleanness." "Though your sins be
+as scarlet, he will make them white as wool." "He will put them as far
+from us as the east is from the west, and remember them against us no
+more forever." Thus it is that Christ is our righteousness. We are
+righteous because He has made us such. He makes us such by taking away
+our sins. When our sins are pardoned, we are as free from sin as if we
+had never sinned at all. Hence as regards the guilt of sin, we are
+perfect. We are made perfect in righteousness because Christ removes
+all unrighteousness. We are, therefore, absolutely dependent on Him
+for salvation. We have no righteousness of our own. Our robes of
+self-righteousness are but filthy tatters in His sight. Those clothed
+in the righteousness of Christ, that is, the righteousness which Christ
+gives them, shall have right to the tree of life, and shall enter
+through the gates into the eternal city. Their right is not one of
+merit, but one that Christ has given. He is our righteousness, and
+apart from Him none is possibly attainable.
+
+Since we have to be perfectly righteous in order to be saved, and since
+this is impossible on our part, when relying on ourselves, but is
+obtained only by being pardoned through Christ, it follows that all
+boasting is cut off. No man has occasion to glory except in the cross
+of Christ. Hence the apostle concludes his argument by saying: "He that
+glorieth let him glory in the Lord." It also follows that he who would
+obtain personal righteousness, must submit to the "righteousness of
+God"--God's plan of salvation. Through the one "righteousness," is the
+other righteousness obtained.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Autobiography of Frank G. Allen,
+Minister of the Gospel, by Frank G. Allen
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