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REMARKABLE: OCCURRENCES 
 
 BY 
 
 BEVERLY CARRADINE 
 
 Author of ‘* Golden Sheaves,” ‘‘ Gideon,” ‘““Jonah,”’ ‘* Pen Pictures,” “‘ Pastoral 
 Sketches,” ““A Journey to Palestine,” ‘* Soul Help,” ‘‘ Heart Talks,” 
 “ Sanctification,” ‘The Second Blessing in Symbol,” ‘ The 
 Better Way,” ‘* The Old Man,” “* The Bottle,’’ ‘Church 
 Entertainments,” “‘ The Lottery,” ‘‘ The Sanc- 
 tified Life” and ‘*‘Revival Sermons.”’ 
 
 CHICAGO 
 CHRISTIAN WITNESS COMPANY 
 1902 
 
CopyrIcHT, 1902 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 THE STRANGE CASE oF Dr. BrRoap 
 A PRINCE IN ISRAEL 
 
 THE WARMED SERPENT 
 
 THE Two LETTERS 
 
 THE RESTORATION OF A PREACHER 
 A DrvoTep WIFE 
 
 A CLERICAL FRAUD 
 
 A REMARKABLE CONVERSION . 
 
 A SUDDEN RECOVERY 
 
 THE FAT OF THE LAND 
 
 He Took THE Wrone Roap 
 
 A SKETCH OF A CHILD 
 
 A BRAND PLUCKED FROM THE BURNING . 
 
 THE FALL oF PRIDE 
 THE MAN IN A Bog 
 
 A LIFETIME MISTAKE . 
 ili 
 
 397143 
 
XXVII. 
 XXVIII. 
 
 Tuer BULGER FAMILY . 
 
 A Human CycLone er 
 
 A STARTLING CONFESSION 
 
 Tue History oF A PRAYER — 
 
 A MIRACLE OF GRACE . 
 ; 
 
 Tue Last WARNING . 
 
 THE Upwarp Loox r 
 
 THE Power oF A DREAM 
 
 A Nigut VISITOR . a 
 
REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 I: 
 
 THE STRANGE CASE OF DOCTOR BROAD. 
 
 HE title “Doctor” as used above was not a medical 
 
 but a theological designation. The subject of this 
 sketch was a preacher. He had been D. D.’d and 
 LL. D.’d and was about forty years of age-when we 
 first saw him. He always wore the regulation clergy- 
 men’s coat with its single row of buttons and long 
 skirt, carried an ebony cane in his right hand, or 
 hooked with its curved handle to his arm, while the 
 left hand clothed with one glove held its mate folded 
 up nicely in the same palm. 
 
 Black-haired, black-eyed, with glossy Burnside 
 whiskers, and fine erect figure, he was a man who im- 
 pressed everyone by his very presence. When in addi- 
 tion we mention that he had a superior intellect, and 
 whatever he said on platform or in pulpit was thought- 
 ful and well worth remembering, it can easily be seen 
 how and why he took a prominent position speedily and 
 naturally in the assemblies and conventions of his 
 
 Church. The chairmanship of committees seemed to be 
 
 397143 
 
2 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES, ee 
 given to him as a matter of course, and when he arose 
 to speak in the annual gathering of the preachers on ~ 
 matters of church business, it was noticed that not only 
 the delegates listened but the president or chairman of 
 the entire body always fixed his eyes upon the speaker 
 and heard him silently and thoughtfully to the last 
 word. 
 
 Besides the man’s intellectual and linguistie gifts, he 
 possessed a ihost gracious and ingratiating manner. He 
 was cordial to everyone alike, seemed to know every- 
 body, and from the frequent handshakes that he gave 
 and received, it was seen why the right glove had to 
 be carried in the left hand. Meantime, while open 
 and kindly to all, there were different shades of treat- 
 ment given to those of different ages and classes and 
 characters, which showed the discriminating eye and 
 mind of the man. To the old he showed that respect 
 and attention which is so grateful to people in that time 
 of life; and to the young an affability and interest which 
 was not less pleasing and delightful to them. His bear- 
 ing to rich and poor, to the scholarly and ignorant, was ~ 
 just what it should have been, and was in the judgment 
 of many beyond criticism. 
 
 As we are writing of a very strange case, one of life’s 
 mysteries in fact, it is well for the reader to note care- 
 
 fully each expression we use. 
 
THE STRANGE CASE OF DOCTOR BROAD. 3 
 
 As a preacher he was always edifying; as a pastor 
 diligent and attentive. His congregation was devoted, 
 we came very near saying worshipped him. His lead- 
 ing members were simply wrapped up in the man. He 
 baptized all their babies and married all their sons and 
 daughters. He was continually “dined” by his friends, 
 graced all their state occasions, and never seemed 
 blander and more delightful than at such times. 
 
 At these great dinings, where the company sat at 
 the board from two to three hours, where there were 
 seven or more courses and wine throughout, Doctor 
 Broad drank one or two small glasses without any scru- 
 ple and never dreamed of denying the fact. Afterwards 
 he would retire to the library with the gentlemen and, 
 while smoking a cigar with them, would enter into dis- 
 cussions concerning the leading questions, problems and 
 events of the day. 
 
 The Doctor also smoked at home in his Study, and 
 likewise at his Conference. He was a man who never 
 concealed anything he did. He did not, indulge the 
 weed to what is called excess, but smoked as a rule 
 three times a day. On social occasions he increased 
 the number to the fourth or fifth cigar. It was also no- 
 ticeable that he used the best Havanas. 
 
 “He was repeatedly seen in attendance upon the 
 County and State fairs. He seemed deeply interested 
 
= er aul 
 
 4 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES, 
 
 in the products of the farm and factory, and all the 
 works of human skill and ingenuity. Once he was 
 seen watching a horse race near the grand stand. 
 
 Doctor Broad was a great lodge or fraternity man. 
 He had gone as far in Masonry as possible and stood 
 very high in the estimation of that body of men. He 
 seemed to take a genuine pleasure in these associa- 
 tions, and when he was in his regalia, and figured 
 prominently in one of the uniformed and brass-banded 
 processions, while he always conducted himself with 
 great dignity, yet it was evident that he was delighted 
 with the whole thing. He seemed to be in his element. 
 The portrait of himself which he most prized, and 
 which was hung up over the mantel in the parlor of the 
 parsonage, represented him all covered and glittering 
 with the showy dress of some high office in the Ma- 
 sonic fraternity. 
 
 He never opposed any of the fairs and festivals which 
 his leading lady members saw fit to have in his ehureh. 
 He attended, them all, and beamed pleasantly and gra- 
 ciously on everybody present. 
 
 It was commented on freely that Doctor Broad never 
 had what is called a real revival in his different charges ; 
 and yet he always brought up every collection in full, 
 and had such additions each year that the church kept 
 up its financial and numerical strength. Moreover, 
 
THE STRANGE CASE OF DOCTOR BROAD. 5 
 
 the leading society people of the town always came to 
 hear him, while prominent professional men, lawyers 
 and doctors, and the gifted and brainy tribe of the com- 
 munity thickly sprinkled his congregation. For another 
 preacher to arise in Doctor Broad’s place on some Sab- 
 baths was the signal for a number in the audience to 
 withdraw. 
 
 And so the Doctor went on his way until he was a 
 eray-haired man of sixty. The Burnsides were white 
 but the expressive black eyes glowed the same and the 
 fiery end of the cigar continued to gleam from the 
 mouth. 
 
 If possible, Doctor Broad was blander than ever, 
 more popular with the people, and had greater influ- 
 ence in the Bishop’s Cabinet and on the floor of the 
 Conference. 
 
 He was received without a question by his different 
 flocks as a whole, who were always glad to have him 
 returned; but he was also a puzzle and a problem to 
 certain individuals, and did not take with the deeply 
 spiritual of the membership. 
 
 This last fact never seemed to affect him, however, 
 and never caused him to cut them or be unkind in any 
 way. Indeed, he was peculiarly courteous and gracious 
 to these non-admirers. 
 
 One Sabbath a young preacher filled the pulpit of 
 
6 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 Doctor Broad at the latter’s urgent entreaty. The 
 Doctor’s health had been failing for some months, so 
 that the request was not surprising or unprecedented. 
 He sat in the pulpit, however, while the young preacher, 
 with his heart on fire with the Holy Spirit, preached 
 from the text, “It is appointed unto men once to die, 
 and after that the Judgment.” It was the Communion 
 Sabbath and the table, with its white cloth covering the 
 bread and wine, was before him in the altar. Doubt- 
 less the subject of “Death and the Judgment” was not 
 appropriate, but nevertheless the Holy Ghost came upon 
 the Word in a solemn and even awful way. The whole 
 audience became as still as death, and conviction as deep 
 as it was unusual fell upon the people. The congrega- 
 tion, unused to such preaching, looked not only uncom- 
 fortable but disturbed and offended, not to say out- 
 raged. 
 
 At the conclusion of. the sermon the preacher sat 
 down with the conviction that while God was with him, 
 other forces which he could not understand were against 
 him. Doctor Broad arose and, leaning against the 
 Bible stand, proceeded to give a soothing talk of ten or 
 fifteen minutes. A sigh of relief seemed to go up from 
 the congregation the instant he opened his mouth. He 
 said “That it was true, as the preacher had said in his 
 sermon, which he had greatly enjoyed, that Death had 
 
THE STRANGE CASE OF DOCTOR BROAD « 
 
 to come, and after that the Judgment with Christ upon 
 the throne; but before those two solemn occasions, the 
 blessed opportunity of salvation was granted us; and 
 that, while Christ was to be the Judge, yet thus far he 
 was the Friend of sinners, the Savior, Advocate, Inter- 
 cessor and Comforter of us all.” He then drew a pic- 
 ture of Jesus upon the cross, talked of His love to us, 
 and our loyalty to Him, and then invited the people to 
 the altar to take the Supper of the Lord. 
 
 The transformation of feeling was speedy and com- 
 plete in the mental and spiritual realm of the audience, 
 and the change was wrought by the speaker not only 
 without reflection upon the young preacher, but even 
 with complimentary references to him. Still the effect 
 of the pulpit message was wiped out, and the messenger 
 could not but feel that he had been politely but certainly 
 stabbed. The congregation, now restored to ease of 
 mind and its usual good-humor and self-complacency, 
 did not give him another thought; and he, after the 
 
 ‘service, walked away unnoticed by the throng which 
 
 surged about the chancel to shake hands with Doctor 
 Broad. 
 
 A few months after this the Doctor was stretched 
 upon his dying bed. Always kind and courteous in life, 
 he was considerate and thoughtful of others in the sick 
 room. He said nothing about his spiritual condition, 
 
8 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES, 
 
 but said ‘““Amen” very heartily to the prayers offered 
 at his bedside by different ministers for his recovery, 
 and for the blessing of God upon him and his family. 
 On the twentieth day of his sickness he died. He 
 had full possession of his faculties to the last, and spoke 
 quietly and cheerfully to those sitting or standing near 
 him up to a few minutes before he passed away, when 
 suddenly, a kind of mental shock seemed to take place, 
 and his great black eyes became fixed on something be- 
 fore and somewhat above him, as though in wonder 
 and even horror. Mixed with the astonishment and 
 fear was an expression seen upon faces when an unex- 
 pected turn of events or an undreamed of catastrophe 
 has broken upon them. No one versed in spiritual 
 things could look upon the convulsed face and startled, 
 dilated eyes of Doctor Broad without seeing that a 
 strange new light had broken in upon the man; that 
 discoveries were taking place or disclosures being made ; 
 that in a word he was going through some tremendous 
 and fearful experience, and yet had passed the line 
 where the tongue is allowed to declare the mysteries 
 of the other world. And so, without another word, but 
 with that amazed, shocked look in his eyes, to which 
 the dropping chin added in startled appearance, the 
 soul of Doctor Broad left his body and went, as shall 
 
THE STRANGE CASE OF DOCTOR BROAD. 9 
 
 be the case with us all, to the place prepared by the 
 life and character. 
 
 The church had very little to do with the funeral of 
 the Doctor; for the various fraternities. to which he 
 belonged pushed in and took entire charge of the final 
 melancholy arrangements. There were two brass bands 
 in the long procession, while white aprons, flashing re- - 
 galias, beribboned wands, and waving banners abounded. 
 Fulsome speeches and addresses were made over the 
 flower-covered coffin in the large city hall; the bands 
 wailed their dirges along the streets; and after con- 
 siderable ceremony at the grave, the earth was thrown 
 in, the head-board set up, the floral wreaths and crosses 
 laid on the mound, and the great crowd dispersed and 
 left Doctor Broad six feet under the sod to await the 
 sound of the trumpet ushering in the morning of the 
 Resurrection and the Great Day of the Final Judg- 
 ment. 
 
 A group of five men lingered a few moments at the 
 gate of the cemetery before taking their departure for 
 home, store and farm. 
 
 One said, “If they realize in the other world what is 
 going on in this, then Doctor Broad is a happy man; 
 for if he knows that his funeral procession was a half 
 
 mile long, had two brass bands and four fraternities ~ ; 
 
 in line, then he is glad, I don’t care where he is.” 
 
we 
 
 10 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 The second man said, “I never heard Doetor Broad 
 say an unkind thing about anybody in all the many 
 years I have known hin.” 
 
 The third, individual added, “While Doctor Broad 
 smoked cigars and drank an occasional glass of wine, 
 I would far rather have his kind spirit and risk his 
 chance in the other world, than to be like some people 
 who criticized and abused him all his life. I think it 
 is less harny to smoke a cigar, than to burn up the repu- 
 tation and usefulness and happiness of a man or a wo- 
 man by a caustic, bitter tongue, which is itself set on 
 fire of hell.” 
 
 The fourth person remarked solemnly, “I believe that 
 in the moment of death Doctor Broad saw he had made 
 a horrible and irreparable mistake; that he had missed 
 the real Christ life; in a word, that he had lost his soul.” 
 
 The fifth man said, “If the false prophets and shep- 
 herds whom the Bible speaks of are lost, then Doctor 
 Broad is lost. If the people who cry for merey at the 
 Judgment Day, saying ‘Lord, Lord, did we not preach 
 in Thy name in the streets, and in Thy name do many 
 wonderful works,’ and yet will hear Christ declaring, 
 ‘IT know you not,’ and shall straightway fall into an end- 
 less Perdition; even so I believe that Doctor Broad on 
 
 that day will stagger backward from the face and words 
 
THE STRANGE CASE OF DOCTOR BROAD. sal 
 
 of the Son of God and fall headlong into a bottomless 
 hell.” 
 
 The men parted; the gate was closed; the sound of 
 the last wheel died away in the distance; and the ceme- 
 tery with its fragrant breath of Cape Jasmine and Mag- 
 nolia blossoms, with its sighing willows, and vacant seats 
 and walks, was left silent and solitary once more, with 
 the latest addition to its white-faced sleepers in the 
 pulseless, rigid form of Doctor Broad. 
 
Si 
 pad 
 7 
 
 ~ 
 
 i 
 A PRINCE IN ISRAEL. 
 
 OULS are said to be equally precious on account of 
 
 being made in the likeness of God, redeemed by the 
 
 same Blood, and with immortal natures susceptible of 
 endless development and improvement. 
 
 Yet just as true is it that some souls are worth more 
 to humanity and God than others. Two brothers are 
 converted and both gain heaven, but one simply saved 
 himself and the other brought a great company with 
 him. Two members of a church, and in the same social 
 plane, receive full salvation, but one exerts only a small 
 influence in his community, while the other affects his 
 entire neighborhood or town, and hundreds will rise 
 up and call him blessed at the last day. Sometimes one 
 person’s conversion or sanctification means more to this 
 world than a revival which swept a thousand into salva- 
 tion. The one accomplished more in after life than 
 did the entire ten hundred. 
 
 In addition to immortal and Christ-redeemed na- 
 tures, there are such things as boundless energy, a vig- 
 
 orous intellect, a refined nature, good breeding, gentle- 
 12 
 
A PRINCE IN ISRAEL. 13} 
 
 manly instincts, a high sense of honor, character, stu- 
 dious habits, and a life of prayer. Such men or women 
 move easily and naturally to the front, and they stand 
 out from amid their fellows as did the patriarchs in 
 their day, the prophets in their time, the disciples in 
 the first century, and that devoted band of men who 
 gave to the world the Wesleyan Revival. 
 
 The longer we live the more convinced we are as 
 we see narrowness contrasted with broadness, laziness 
 over against energy, helplessness assisted by helpful- 
 ness, that there is a great difference among souls. 
 
 With the profoundest belief in inbred sin and total 
 depravity, with all the contradictory and confusing 
 facts and figures along the line of the ancestry argu- 
 ment, yet it remains that some men are born gentlemen, 
 and as far back as we can trace them in childhood pos- 
 sess noble, trustful, manly characters. 
 
 Among this latter class was a country boy, in one of 
 our Southern States, whose baptismal name was Ed- 
 ward. He started life with a sound body, a splendid 
 mind, a noble heart, excellent business gifts or qualifi- 
 cations, and a spirit full of industry and perseverance. 
 Crowning and beautifying all was a blessed Christian 
 experience, which he retained through a life of over 
 eighty years, and which we have never doubted, in view 
 
 of his deeds, was one of full salvation. 
 
14 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 The first time his wife ever saw him he was driving 
 a team of oxen yoked to a large wagon. She was taking 
 a horseback ride with a party of young friends and 
 dashed past the loaded vehicle, little dreaming that the 
 youth walking by the side of the steers and popping his 
 whip as he stood on the big wagon tongue, was her 
 future husband. - She galloped on out of sight with her 
 merry companions, but Edward,even then with his mind 
 full of noble, grand thoughts, came quietly and steadily 
 after, driving up the road in a deeper sense than the 
 literal one, and not only approaching the mission of his 
 life, but entering upon its blessed accomplishment so 
 as to win the favor of men and the blessings of heaven. 
 
 It is wonderful what he overtook on that road. He 
 soon passed in trueness of living the young men, who 
 loped by him that morning. He left many others beside 
 them behind. He overtook the girl who became his 
 wife. He overtook fortune. He caught up with public 
 honor and general respect. He swept on to still greater 
 wealth, and possessed broad plantations and a beautiful 
 mansion home. At the same time he walked unbrokenly 
 with God. His earthly abundance failed to come in 
 between him and his Savior. The remarkable thing 
 soon noticed by everybody was that the more he pros- 
 pered financially the more he gave to God. 
 
 He did not do like a man we know who, as he made 
 
A PRINCE IN ISRAEL. 15 
 
 money, would invest it in partial purchases, so as to 
 say to seekers after his bounty that he was in debt. He 
 _ did not let the money which flowed in metallize his 
 soul, as it has done to many; but as God prospered 
 him he gave. The more his business increased, the 
 greater swelled his streams of gold and silver in gifts 
 to God, and benevolence to men. 
 
 It looked like God had found a man he could trust 
 with riches, and so he smiled upon and blessed every 
 enterprise of His faithful servant. The Almighty 
 fairly rained wealth on him, and he showered it back. 
 It looked to heaven and to spiritual observers that a 
 kind of love and trust struggle was going on between 
 the two. God would seem to be saying: 
 
 “Here, my son, is more money for you. I know you 
 will not worship it; nor let it make you cold and 
 haughty to your fellow-beings; nor cause you to cease 
 leaning on Me. Here is a large amount for you.” And 
 the true follower of Christ, who had not lost his head 
 with his great successes, nor surrendered his love for 
 the Savior or his fellow-creatures, would let the dollars 
 fly in thousands to help the bodies of men on earth, and 
 their souls on the way to heaven. 
 
 He put sixty thousand dollars’ in one church. He 
 gave one hundred thousand to a college. There was 
 
 scarcely a house of worship within a hundred miles 
 
16 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 of his home but had his means in it from fifty to one 
 thousand dollars. The preachers knew where to come 
 when financial help was needed for the sick and the 
 poor. His purse was ever open to the ery of want. 
 
 Not a minister of the Gospel in that Southern State, 
 or from any other State, but was assured of and always 
 received a cordial welcome in the elegant, hospitable 
 home of the subject of this sketch. Sometimes these 
 clerical and lay guests were poorly clad, and unpolished 
 and awkward in manner, but their noble-hearted enter- 
 tainer never seemed to notice it, and treated the poorest 
 man who accepted his hospitality with the same cour- 
 tesy and cordiality that he did one of the neighboring 
 wealthy cotton planters. 
 
 On one occasion an humble guest, in tilting back his 
 chair on the waxed floor of the parlor, came near losing 
 his balance and falling on the floor. Two of the daugh- 
 ters of the household gave a little snicker peculiar to 
 the senselessness of youth, but the grave, rebuking look 
 _ of their father settled them instantly then and there. 
 Then, as if nothing had happened, the courtly, noble 
 man, who had been a poor boy in the beginning of his 
 life, said to his confused guest : 
 
 “These waxed floors are a pet idea of my wife and 
 daughters. I have pleaded in vain for carpets all the 
 
 year round for safety’s sake; for even now, after the 
 
A PRINCE IN ISRAEL. ee 
 
 practice of years, I walk over these slippery floors al- 
 most in terror of my life. But they are the queens of 
 the home, and I submit to their superior taste at the risk 
 of a fractured limb or a broken head.” 
 
 The relief of the guest was immediate, while the 
 speech was so kind and pleasant as to inflict no wound 
 on the family, in coming to the deliverance of the friend 
 or acquaintance. 
 
 A number of preachers who at different times spent 
 the night at this home famous for its hospitality, would 
 leave next day with an experience which was made up 
 of equal parts of surprise and pleasure, and caused a 
 general laugh over the neighborhood when it was found 
 out. If any of them came on a poor, broken-down horse 
 and left him tied at the rack, this was the last he 
 ever saw of the animal, for next morning, in taking 
 his departure, there, at the hitching place where he had 
 left a bundle of skin and bones with an old saddle upon 
 it, was a handsome, well-kept steed, and freshly capar- 
 isoned. 
 
 “Why, where is my horse?” he would say in aston- 
 ishment. “Some mistake has been made.” But the 
 servant told him that there had been no mistake; that 
 “Ole Marster” had made him this present. 
 
 Then the next words would be, “I want to see your 
 
 ‘marster’,”’—“this is too kind”—or, “I want to thank 
 
18 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 him,” ete., ete. But by this time Judge M., for this was 
 the title given him after middle life, was not to be 
 seen ; he had vanished. As for the old animal which 
 had disappeared, the Judge superannuated him, and set 
 him free, letting him eat, graze and roll out the balance 
 of his days without work, in view of what he had done. 
 
 When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Judge M. 
 greatly helped the Confederate cause. His factory sup- 
 plied blankets, and his broad acres yielded food for the 
 soldiers. It was said by one who knew him well that he 
 took care of the family of every poor Southern soldier 
 in a radius of twelve miles of his home. 
 
 “Sich was his powerful help in various ways to the 
 cause of the South that, when a Federal raid swept 
 through that part of the State where he lived in the 
 latter part of the war, he was arrested and taken out in 
 front of his house to be shot. 
 
 A file of soldiers was selected to do the shooting, and 
 Judge M., now silver-haired and eighty, was placed 
 before them, sitting in a chair because of his feebleness, 
 to receive their bullets. 
 
 The gzand old man, with his gray hair falling upon 
 his shoulders, looked like a patriarch, as he sat quietly 
 facing the Union soldiers. He was as calm as when 
 he had entertained his guests upon the gallery or in 
 
A PRINCE IN ISRAEL. 19 
 
 the parlor, and dispensed the hospitality for which he 
 
 was famous. Even now he looked more like a prince 
 receiving visitors than a condemned man facing a death- 
 guard and executioners. 
 
 Three times the eight men raised their guns at the 
 
 99 66 b) 
 
 command of their officer to ‘Make ready,” “Aim,” and 
 “Fire!” And three times their Enfield rifles dropped! 
 They could not pull the trigger; they could not fire! 
 
 Would the reader like to know why ? 
 
 It was not only because of the kind and noble face 
 shining upon them; but there was something between 
 them and the victim. Something that they could not 
 move away, nor shoot through. This something was the 
 Word of God! 
 
 The special passage was Psalm 41, verses 1 and 2, 
 
 “Blessed is the man that considereth the poor; the Lord 
 will deliver him in time of trouble. The Lord will pre- 
 serve him and keep him alive; and he shall be blessed 
 upon the earth; and thou wilt not deliver him unto the 
 will of his enemies.” 
 _ The man before them had cared for the poor all his 
 life; he had won God’s promise of protection and deliv- 
 erance; and now, according to God’s own Word, they 
 could not do him any harm. He was as safe from their 
 bullets as though he was in heaven. 
 
sf ea REMARKABLE OCC 
 
 Judge M. lived a few years aft 
 away into the skies in great peace and t 
 Jacob he was old and full of days; like En 
 
 with God and was not, for God took h 
 he being dead yet speaketh. 
 
TL 
 THE WARMED SERPENT. 
 
 N one of our Southern States there lived a prosperous 
 | farmer. He had a pleasant cottage home, with or- 
 chard, garden, yards, and barns, while stretching be- 
 yond these possessions were twenty-five acres of cotton 
 and corn. 
 
 He was a married man with one little girl. He had 
 protessed religion at some protracted or camp meeting, 
 and joined the Methodist Church. The life he lived 
 was a quiet and simple one, but he had the necessaries 
 of life, with comforts besides, had his church associa- 
 tions and privileges, with pleasant neighbors, was fairly 
 prosperous and a contented man. 
 
 One night he heard a knock at his front door. On 
 going to the steps he found a tramp standing in the 
 dark, who asked for his supper and a night’s lodging. 
 Mr. K. told him to come in.. The man did so, and 
 instead of spending one night, he stayed thirty-three 
 years. He passed the rest of his life in that home, and 
 only left it as a corpse a generation of years later. He 
 not only did this, but, fearful to relate, stole away the 
 
 Christian faith of his entertainer; morally and spirit- 
 2 
 
22 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES, 
 
 ually ruined him, and landed his soul in perdition. 
 
 The man was a tramp, but no ordinary one. He was 
 bright, brainy and well-read, but without the inclination 
 to make his own living; a character that is not infre- 
 quently met with in society, where the shiftless indi- 
 vidual is smart and entertaining, but reluctant to work 
 with hartds or brain for daily bread. Such men be- 
 come hangers on of families, spongers upon friends, 
 making themselves agreeable and even desirable by their 
 quick wits, and only requiring in pay that they get their 
 ted and board. Many of these persons are not harmful, 
 but are simply barnacles clinging to those who will 
 allow them to be such social attachments. 
 
 In the case mentioned in this sketch, the man who 
 knocked at the door and stayed thirty-three years was 
 abad man. He was a skeptic dyed in the wool, and had 
 the writings of Paine and Voltaire at his fingers’ ends. 
 
 It took some time, but he accomplished his infernal 
 work at last, and utterly destroyed the Christian faith 
 and experience of the man who bade him come in out 
 of the night. He was the serpent warmed at the hearth 
 that returned the kindness of his benefactor by stinging 
 him to spiritual death. He made a horrible return for 
 the kindness shown him in his need. 
 
 Mr. K. gave up the church, worked about his farm 
 on the Sabbath, became a tobacco worm, and developed 
 
THE WARMED SERPENT. ey 
 
 into a gloomy-faced, sour-spirited, bitter-tongued man. 
 Many of his acquaintances and friends fell away from 
 him, and he was thrown mainly, and finally almost en- 
 tirely, upon the infidel for company. 
 
 At last the skeptic died, and the gray-haired man in 
 the coffin in the wagon was followed by a gray-haired 
 man on horseback as the solitary mourner. 
 
 After this Mr. K. became still more morose and bit- 
 ter, hardly ever leaving his farm and so almost literally 
 dropped out of public sight and notice. 
 
 Four years after the death of the tramp who had 
 ruined him, he himself was taken down with a desper- 
 ate sickness. He lingered in great suffering for several 
 weeks. The writer arriving at that time as the pastor 
 of a church in a neighboring town, was sent for to visit 
 him. The summons came on the day of the old man’s 
 death. Not having a horse, and unable to borrow one, 
 and realizing the urgency of the case, we trudged on 
 foot four miles along a muddy road to the house of 
 death. 
 
 The sick, or, rather, dying man, was conscious, but 
 refused to talk. We knelt and prayed for him, and the 
 prayer seemed driven back in our face. Arising from 
 our knees, we begged him to accept Christ, and he with 
 a black and horrible look rejected Him. In a few min- 
 utes more he was a corpse. Two days later he was 
 
24 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 buried in a country graveyard, and near the church 
 which he had attended in his happier days. 
 
 It was the custom of the neighborhood to remove 
 the coffin lid at the graveyard and let the people pass 
 in akind of procession by the casket and take a farewell 
 look at the deceased. On that day there happened to be 
 two burials, and both occurring at the same hour. One 
 was that of Mr. K., and the other the funeral of a 
 saintly lady aged about eighty. 
 
 Separated by about twenty yards, the two coffins were 
 placed on the ground and the lids removed. Several 
 hundred people looked at the two silent forms and will 
 never forget as long as eternity rolls the striking and 
 even fearful difference between the two death-touched 
 countenances. The glory actually lingered on the face 
 of that Mother in Israel who had walked with God 
 without a break for over sixty years. 
 
 Scarcely a soul that day looked upon the calm, sweet 
 and all but smiling face without tears springing to the 
 eyes. God’s seal was on His own, even in death. 
 
 The crowd, after the burial of this Daughter of the 
 King, went over to Mr. K.’s grave lot, where the casket 
 lay upon the grass with its silent tenant inside. The 
 cover was removed, and the people marched by its side 
 and, glancing in, instantly averted their eyes with looks 
 of pain and distress, and some even with low exclama- 
 
THE WARMED SERPENT. I 
 
 tions of horror. The face had on it the very same black 
 scowl that we saw a few minutes before death. It 
 Was an expression so dark and hopeless and hard that 
 we do not believe a single one doubted that the man was 
 lost. The soul in quitting the body seemed to have left 
 its own terror and despair upon the face as it fled away 
 into eternal night. 
 
 The question asked by some would be, why did God 
 allow such a being to come to that house and forever ruin 
 the man who was kind to him ? 
 
 The Bible plainly answers all such questions, while 
 life is full of similar instances, and the word Probation 
 contains in itself a perfect explanation to any thought- 
 ful and sensible man. 
 
 Judge Longstreet, a prominent educator in the South, 
 tells of a gifted young man who married a fashionable 
 girl at a time when his prospects were brilliant and ste- 
 cess assured. The woman was a mere butterfly of 
 fashion, had no idea how to keep a house, preside at the 
 table, or save money. The husband brought his friends 
 home to dine with him, as he was a public character, 
 and his mortifications were so deep and frequent on 
 these occasions, and his bills became so great, run up 
 by the thoughtless, giddy, foolish woman he had 
 married, that he finally took to drink, and in a few 
 
26 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 years, after having lost all his practice and property, 
 landed in a drunkard’s grave. 
 
 Again the question comes up, why did not God pre- 
 vent all this by removing the weak, vain, useless girl be- 
 fore she met the young and gifted lawyer? And again 
 we are answered by the word, Probation. 
 
 We look at the silly marriages of godly women to 
 worldly, sinful men, and the senseless matches made by 
 preachers with women who are neither companions nor 
 helpmeets to their husbands, and we wonder what they 
 were thinking of at the time. Such ill-assorted rela- 
 tions mean not only unhappiness to both, but often- 
 times backsliding and moral shipwreck. We have 
 known good men to go to ruin through an unhappy mar- 
 riage. An unspiritual woman stood on the doorstep, 
 knocked, was admitted, took possession, and drove a 
 man of God to desperation, sin and the grave of a back- 
 slider. She herself followed the body of the man she 
 had ruined to the tomb. Maybe she sat in the carriage 
 behind a black crepe veil and wiped her eyes with a 
 black-bordered handkerchief. But she was the murder- 
 ess of the man in the coffin, just the same. 
 
 And God allows all this, because it is a part of our 
 probation. We are on trial. We are being tested in 
 many ways. If we cannot stand temptation, we ought 
 
 to know it. If we cannot rise superior to wrong influ- 
 
THE WARMED SERPENT. Di 
 
 ences, how can we be rewarded, much less saved? If 
 people have to be killed, or we must be caught up into 
 the skies, from the presence of every man or woman who 
 comes along, how can we be tried and tested, how find 
 out what is in us, and how develop the spiritual powers 
 that lie all dormant and unknown within us. 
 
 So the mistakes in marriage, business, and other mo- 
 mentous matters are permitted. The man or woman 
 who is to injure or ruin us is allowed to knock at the 
 door of the life. And this is partly to test us, but also 
 because there is no need for us to stagger and fall. He 
 that is for us is greater than the person who knocks at 
 the door and comes into the life. If we look to Christ, 
 no one can pluck us from His hand. 
 
IV. 
 THE TWO LETTERS. 
 
 N our early ministerial life we had a member of our 
 | church who was a steward and trustee, the friend of 
 the preacher, prayed well, paid well, was a good leader 
 of a prayer meeting, and stood high as a citizen and 
 Christian in the small town where he lived. 
 
 He had a very wild, wicked son, and two superior and 
 attractive daughters. These two last undoubtedly made 
 a bright home for the father. Both were handsome, 
 intelligent girls, but he seemed to be especially fond of 
 the elder of the two. This preference was evident to 
 everybody, and the daughter herself felt that she was 
 the favorite. 
 
 Meantime the son gave nothing but trouble in his 
 short visits home, or in his long absences, no one knew 
 where. One thing was clearly demonstrated in his ease, 
 and that was that locality and surroundings failed to 
 affect him for good; he was a transgressor of human 
 and divine law wherever he went. 
 
 The daughters seemed in a measure to take the son’s 
 place and greatly brightened the home, so that it was a 
 
 pleasure to visit the house and listen to the cheerful 
 28 
 
THE TWO LETTERS. 29 
 
 conversation of the father, who was quite a reader and 
 thinker, and unquestionably a superior man. It was 
 touching to see his love and fondness for his daughters, 
 _and especially noticeable how his eyes shone in approval 
 and admiration of the elder girl. He had gotten in 
 some way to lean upon her, and she had willingly be- 
 come a stay to this man of sixty. 
 
 One morning the village was shocked at the tidings 
 that his favorite daughter had eloped with a young man 
 of most trifling character, and utterly unworthy of her. 
 Tt was also known that the father, through the knowl- 
 edge of the youth’s worthlessness, had forbidden him 
 from visiting the house, and had first requested and 
 then commanded his daughter never to see him again. 
 And yet here she had run away with him. 
 
 One will ask, was she and the young man of age? 
 We believe they were, and this gave them a legal right; 
 but what of the Fifth Commandment, which says, 
 “Honor thy father and thy mother.” Then there is a 
 wrong way of doing even a right thing; and further 
 still, there is a right way of doing everything. They 
 did not pursue the correct way. The father had done 
 everything for her, and even now was endeavoring to 
 protect her from future misery; but in her infatuation, 
 the devotion and kindness of a lifetime was forgotten 
 
 and she fled from her girlhood’s home in the night. 
 
30 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 One of the most painful experiences of the writer’s 
 life was undergone in visiting this parent on the recep- 
 tion of the distressing news. As we approached the 
 home, it looked like a house of death. The mother was 
 prostrated, the younger daughter, with red, swollen 
 eyelids, appeared only a moment and vanished, while 
 a servant silently opened the door and led us without a 
 word into the sitting-room, where the father sat in a 
 large rocking-chair, looking twenty years older than 
 when we had last seen him a few short days before. 
 
 He was the soul of courtesy, and arose at once to re- 
 ceive us, and tried to assume his old, pleasant manner, 
 but it was a complete failure and sinking back in his 
 chair with his face buried in his hands he groaned out, 
 “Oh, Brother C., my heart is broken.” 
 
 In another moment almost, and before we could fin- 
 ish speaking some words of tender sympathy, he recoy- 
 ered his composure, and his face assumed the same stony 
 look which had struck us on entering. 
 
 After this the hard, set expression never left him. 
 No matter what was said to him in any way about his 
 great sorrow, the look we have mentioned remained 
 unaltered. 
 
 A letter came a few days after the elopement from the 
 daughter begging for forgiveness. He sent it back to her 
 with the words, “As she had made her bed, she must lie 
 
THE TWO LETTERS. 31 
 
 upon it.” She wrote another, but he returned it un- 
 opened. She became sick, and we doubt not mainly from 
 remorse at her own conduct, but he refused to go to her, 
 or allow anyone of the family to visit her. The wife 
 and second daughter begged with tears that she might 
 be forgiven and brought back, but he was inflexible. 
 
 Just as he had known and said, the man who mar- 
 ried his daughter was trifling and unable to support his 
 wife; and again the family besought that she might be 
 brought home and properly cared for. His reply was 
 that ‘“‘she had chosen her way, let her walk in it. She 
 had laid down with dogs, and must expect to be afflicted 
 with fleas.” 
 
 A more miserable man than he was at this time we 
 never knew; for while he would not forgive his daugh- 
 ter he still passionately loved her and was endeavoring 
 to throttle and destroy the affection. 
 
 After six or eight months the sad-hearted young wife 
 got better in health for the time being, and moved with 
 her husband to.a distant State, where he obtained some 
 kind of humble occupation. The contrast between her 
 eramped comfortless quarters, and poor unnourishing 
 food, with the sweet, glad, well-protected and bounti- 
 fully provided life of her girlhood made a most heart- 
 breaking contrast. 
 
 Still other months rolled by, but the father allowed no 
 
ya 
 
 32 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 letter to be written to her by the family, or received 
 from her. News, however, struggled through in some 
 way that she was in great poverty, and in wretched 
 health. 
 
 If pity for her touched his heart, he never expressed 
 it. His own face seemed as if carved out of marble, 
 
 and his eyes had a burning look of misery in them, as 
 
 if a hidden flame was consuming his soul, or the undy- 
 
 ing worm had already commenced its everlasting work 
 of spirit torment. 
 
 By and by they heard that the wild, wayward son 
 had drifted. into the very neighborhood of his sister. 
 In one of his rare letters he said that “she looked like 
 the wreck of herself.” 
 
 Still the father gave no sign of yielding. 
 
 One day he went down to the village postoffice. Two 
 letters were handed him. One was in the handwriting 
 of his prodigal son. He opened the envelope in front of 
 the office and read the crushing tidings that his daugh- 
 ter, the wife of scarcely twenty months, had just died. 
 
 With a face as white as a corpse, and hands shaking 
 as if with an ague, he took up the second letter, which 
 was dated a day later than the other, was addressed in 
 a strange hand, and had the words “In haste” written 
 in one corner. Literally wrenching it open the 
 wretched man read the astounding information, from 
 
THE TWO LETTERS. 33 
 
 an utter stranger, that his son, the very one whose letter 
 he had just read, had been instantly killed that same 
 day by the explosion of a steam gin boiler, before 
 which he happened to be standing. 
 
 Some in the postoffice heard a loud groan, and then 
 a heavy fall on the pavement outside. Running to the 
 place they found the doubly-bereaved man stretched 
 full length and unconscious on the brick walk, with 
 the two letters grasped in his hand; one announcing 
 the death of the daughter written by the son, and the 
 other telling of the shocking end of the son himself, the 
 very day after he had written the sorrowful news about 
 his sister. 
 
 The above sketch is not fiction, but an actual occur- 
 rence. Truly we do not need to go to books, or to 
 the drama, to see and hear remarkable and sorrowful 
 things. The darkest tragedies are taking place around 
 us in life all the time. Men and women are continu- 
 ally meeting us on the street, sitting by us in the car 
 and in the church, who are actually staggering, faint- 
 ing, falling and dying under burdens and sorrows that 
 are too great for human strength to bear. The most 
 heartbreaking things do not always appear in the 
 papers; and greatest griefs remain forever unknown. 
 
 How pitiful we ought to be to that procession of life 
 constantly filing past us, with loads heavy enough al- 
 
34 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 ready; and yet to them far sadder things are coming. 
 A yellow envelope marked “Telegram” is delivered, 
 but it proves a lurid lightning bolt to the heart! A 
 letter is received at the postoffice; and it means when 
 
 opened that the sun of earthly happiness has set 
 forever ! 
 
ie 
 THE RESTORATION OF A PREACHER. 
 
 E was a Methodist preacher and had been for years 
 H a very useful one. He obtained the Baptism of 
 the Spirit and became much more useful, getting not 
 only his own church blessed, but holding meetings for 
 his ministerial brethren and having gracious revivals 
 on their works wherein many souls received free and 
 full salvation. 
 
 The subject of this sketch, whose name was D., had 
 the double gift of writing religious verses or hymns, 
 and composing melodies to wing them on their flight. 
 He collected a number of his own composition and had 
 them published in book form. God honored this little 
 volume of Gospel song, as He had already blessed the 
 ministry of His servant. Among these hymns was one 
 he called “The Prodigal Boy.” The chorus ran, 
 
 “ But for one far away there remains a place, 
 For his father doth love him still; 
 
 And he ean come back to his loving embrace, 
 Yes, he can come back if he will.” 
 
 This hymn seemed to be peculiarly honored of heaven. 
 
 The author scarcely ever sung it without seeing some- 
 35 
 
36 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES, 
 
 one leave his sins and backslidings, and come home to 
 God. 
 
 By and by something got in between the disciple and 
 his Lord. Then followed a gradual loss of joy and 
 power, later a greater drifting, and at last a heart- 
 sickening distance from the Saviour, which the man 
 perfectly realized in himself and which was equally 
 manifest to others. 
 
 What bent led to the commencement of the back- 
 sliding is not known. The man may have been be- 
 trayed into the habit of scolding, fault-finding, unkind 
 suspicion, and harsh judgment. Many go this way. 
 
 He may have unconsciously presumed on the pre- 
 rogative of the Pope and became infallible. He may 
 have spoken where God has been silent, set up a stand- 
 ard of Christian living according to his own ideas and 
 notions, and insisted that his brethren adopt it or be 
 excommunicated if not actually run out of the ministry 
 and country for nonconformity to his opinions. 
 
 It may have been a grosser though not a more hard- 
 ening sin that led him astray. Anyhow, his face 
 clouded, his voice got rasping, his shouts ended, his 
 songs ceased, his testimony was no more, and soon he 
 was out of the ministry. 
 
 News came that he had taken up some kind of secular 
 
THE RESTORATION OF A PREACHER. aif 
 
 work, and then had moved to a large city. After that 
 he was lost sight of for several years. 
 
 At this time the writer was sent to the same city as 
 the preacher in charge of one of the churches. He 
 was conducting a meeting in his own charge, and had a 
 singer employed to assist him in that part of the work. 
 
 One night after the sermon had been preached, the 
 altar call made, and many were coming forward, the 
 leader of song, who was at the organ rendering hymn 
 after hymn of invitation, suddenly saw Brother D., the 
 subject of this sketch, sitting in the back seat of the 
 crowded auditorium. The singer, whose name was R., 
 knew D. and his history well, and seeing him thus 
 suddenly after the lapse of years, felt like one behold- 
 ing the face of a man looking at him from the crest 
 of a sea wave, who was supposed to be at the bottom of 
 the ocean. 
 
 Calling the writer quickly to his side R. told him 
 that D. was present, and where he could be found. 
 After a few moments we turned our eyes in the direc- 
 tion which had been whispered, and saw one of the 
 most melancholy faces we ever beheld. The man had 
 black hair and eyes, and possessed a striking face 
 naturally, but the deep-settled sadness on his counte- 
 nance would alone have attracted attention in any 
 
 assembly. It was not simply grief that had left its 
 
38 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 stamp, but the dull, dead look of a hopeless sorrow. 
 
 The initials of the man’s name were S. A. D., and 
 if ever we saw a face that measured up perfectly to 
 these initials, it was the countenance of D., the man 
 pointed out to us. 
 
 As we were looking at the wanderer, who had been 
 washed up by a billow of God’s providence from the 
 great Deep of the world outside and thrown on the 
 strand of our meeting, we noticed that R. was playing 
 the organ with one hand and busily turning over and 
 looking at a number of different song books that were 
 piled up on a shelf in the instrument. At last he 
 seemed to get the one he wanted. Glancing at the title 
 on the back we saw it was a copy of D.’s own song book. 
 
 Opening quickly at a certain page, R. deftly placed 
 the book before him and began playing and singing 
 “The Prodigal Boy.” We never heard him sing better, 
 and when he came to the chorus he fixed his eyes on D. 
 and fairly poured forth the words: 
 
 “But for one far away there remains a place, 
 For his Father doth love him still; 
 And he can come back to His loving embrace, 
 Yes, he can come back if he will.” 
 
 The instant R. began singing the hymn D. gave a 
 sudden start, and cast a look at the singer that was 
 indescribable in its mingled surprise, pain and despair. 
 
THE RESTORATION OF A PREACHER. 39 
 
 But R. sang on through each stanza, and reaching the 
 chorus he would repeat it again and again, throwing 
 his very soul into the words, until we saw D.’s head 
 going down, his face buried in his hands and his form 
 shaking violently; when he suddenly arose and, al- 
 most staggering up the aisle, fell down at the altar with 
 groans that went to every heart. The song which he 
 had composed and had often sung with the result of 
 bringing sinners and backsliders to salvation, had been 
 used by the Holy Spirit to draw the author himself 
 back to God. 
 
 R., with his face shining with joy, left the organ, 
 ran to D., and, throwing his arms around him, wept 
 and prayed aloud a marvelous prayer in his behalf. 
 
 D. was reclaimed that night, and before the week 
 ended swept back into the blessing of full salvation. 
 He then joined our church. 
 
 In the course of a year the writer gave up the pastor- 
 ate and became an evangelist. He left a strong Holi- 
 ness church behind him; but the Great Adversary laid 
 his plans and secured his human abettors to discourage, 
 silence, divide and scatter this wonderful band of 
 sanctified people. 
 
 In a return trip to the city, after an absence of a 
 few months, a great change was plainly observable in 
 the church. There was little or no response under 
 
- ye 
 
 ra Le kaa 
 
 AM) oy aaa: 
 we 
 
 40 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 preaching. The altar was empty. The prayer meeting 
 preceding the main service at night was thinned out, 
 and had but little glow and vigor. In the testimony 
 service there seemed to be a studied avoidance of the 
 word sanctification. 
 
 We were told in explanation that the pastor had re- 
 quested there should be less noise in the prayer meet- 
 ing, and that the obnoxious word should not be used, 
 as it was offensive to some church members, and was 
 not understood by still others. 
 
 With a closer attention after this side light, we 
 observed that a number of faces we had last seen all 
 ashine with holiness, were now in shadow. With a 
 thrill of pleasure we- noticed at the same time that 
 D.’s countenance was far brighter than we had ever 
 seen it. 
 
 A later visit showed a greater thinning out in the 
 Holiness ranks. A number had lost the experience 
 and were repossessed of dumb spirits, others had gone 
 elsewhere for spiritual food, and a few had undertaken 
 various kinds of mission work in the city, in a spirit of 
 self-preservation and to feed and rescue souls they saw 
 starving and dying around them. 
 
 In the little band left in the church who were still 
 true to Full Salvation we saw the bright, joyous face 
 of D. He seemed to have passed out of the rank of the 
 
THE RESTORATION OF A PREACHER. 41 
 
 “thirty” and entered the still higher grade of the 
 “three.” 
 
 A still later visit to the city and church brought a 
 crowning wonder. The very individuals whom we 
 expected to keep the Holiness Band together and be 
 leaders and protectors in the time of adversity, had 
 failed to do so. But, lo! at this trying moment D. had 
 come forward and quietly taken the front rank, and was 
 the comforter, counselor, helper and leader of the mis- 
 understood, despised and opposed little company of the 
 sanctified. 
 
 This was the last time we saw him. He possessed the 
 respect and confidence of his pastor, enjoyed the love 
 and trust of the Holiness people, and was flourishing 
 under the smile, favor and constant blessings of God. 
 
 The curtain, so to speak, drops on him here, for we 
 have not seen him for many months. But he is still 
 true to God, uses his song book, and, above all, possesses 
 the Spirit which makes his talks, prayers and hymns 
 effective. 
 
 Among the large number of religious songs he has 
 written, he has not given to the world a sweeter and 
 truer one than “The Prodigal Boy.” The chorus alone 
 has in it the sweetness and fullness of the Gospel. Not 
 
 only many wanderers brought back to God can testify 
 
42 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 to this, but the author himself of the hymn and chorus 
 can say, I know it is true. 
 How his heart must swell with love and gratitude 
 
 as he stands before an audience to-day and sings: 
 
 “ But for one far away there remains a place, 
 For his Father doth love him still; 
 
 And he can come back to His loving embrace, 
 Yes, he can come back if he will.” 
 
VI. 
 A DEVOTED WIFE. 
 
 E have known parents who were tender, sacrific- 
 ing and devoted to their children, to be re- 
 warded by ingratitude, disobedience, neglect and gross 
 insult. On the other hand, we have seen fathers and 
 mothers who were cold, exacting, selfish and at times 
 eruel to their offspring, who had in return for such 
 unnaturalness as faithful, loving and self-denying chil- 
 dren as ever blessed a family circle. Reason, analogy 
 and everything else would have prophesied and expected 
 different results in each case, and yet here were the 
 granite facts before one as described. 
 
 Again, we have seen a man who provided well for his 
 household, denied his wife nothing, had not a single 
 offensive habit like tobacco or whisky to make his pres- 
 ence in the house disagreeable, and yet in face of all 
 that, was treated to the day of his death as a mere 
 cipher, or figure-head, in the family. He never knew 
 a whole day of pleasure and happiness in his entire 
 married life. 
 
 Remarkable to say, we have beheld the opposite pic- 
 
 ture, where the man reeked with tobacco, was scarcely 
 43 
 
by 
 
 oe i Si aes ; 
 wa 
 
 44 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 ever from under the influence of liquor, was blustering 
 and profane, was insulting and cruel, never made a 
 plan for the pleasure of his household, and fairly ig- 
 nored the presence of his wife and children; and yet 
 she and they clung to him with an undying affection 
 through everything, and when the poor moral wreck 
 and life failure was in his coffin, the woman flung her- 
 self upon the pulseless clay with a heartbroken wail, 
 and was carried to her room unconscious. 
 
 Men may try to account for these cases, and give 
 sapient reasons for the remarkable unnatural results, 
 but the facts remain the same after all the learned 
 explanations. 
 
 When a lad of twelve we first saw Colonel and Mrs. 
 J., as they were paying a brief visit at the residence 
 of a married sister of the writer. They owned a large 
 and beautiful cotton plantation and were wealthy. 
 They were both brunettes, he about thirty-five years 
 of age and she twenty-eight, and a finer-looking couple 
 it would have been hard to find. 
 
 Two things impressed even the careless at once about 
 them; one was that Colonel J. was a dissipated man, 
 while Mrs. J. was perfectly wrapped up in her hus- 
 band. When he spoke, her ears never lost a word, and 
 when he was not speaking her eyes would dwell upon 
 
 his face with such an expression of tenderness and 
 
A DEVOTED WIFE. 45 
 
 fondness that print could not have been plainer. It 
 mattered not what he said or did, whether he noticed 
 her or not, whether he was polite or rude, the beautiful 
 brown eyes of the woman fairly baptized the man with 
 her rich, overflowing affection. 
 
 No sun plant ever followed the great orb of day 
 with a more devoted gaze than this woman attended 
 with unchanging and glorifying love the man of her 
 choice. As some flowers can only live in the sunshine, 
 she seemed only to exist for, and in the presence of her 
 husband. She seemed to be filled with a great inward 
 joy when he was around, and drooped or grew restless 
 when he was absent. 
 
 Colonel J. was a fine-looking, dashing Southern gen- 
 tleman, but was absorbed in himself, and being nearly 
 always under the influence of liquor, had no eyes to 
 observe the devotion of his wife, and if he did, took it 
 as a matter of course. 
 
 The steady drinker is compelled at last, through the 
 abuse of brain, nerve, and every other power, to become 
 moody, irritable, and fault-finding. All this naturally 
 came first on the wife; but she bore it without a mur- 
 mur. Later there were dreadful outbursts of wrath; 
 and some said, who were best acquainted with the 
 family, that there were acts of physical violence, and 
 
 that they came upon the body of this faithful woman. 
 
46 REMARKABLE QCCURRENCES. 
 
 If it was so, such a statement never fell from her lips: 
 indeed, at this time she became, if possible, more de- 
 voted to her husband. 
 
 One day a physician was suddenly summoned to the 
 residence, with the information that Mrs. J. had 
 swooned. The doctor, who was a very observant man, 
 bent over the unconscious woman and saw at once that 
 it was no ordinary fainting spell. His hand was busy 
 searching for contusions and fractures, while Colonel J. 
 paced restlessly up and down the front gallery. 
 
 When consciousness was restored the physician asked 
 the sufferer how a certain large bruise came upon her 
 face. She replied without a moment’s hesitation that 
 “Tt was likely she had fallen and inflicted it on herself.” 
 
 _ The doctor fixed his gaze steadily upon her and said: 
 
 “Mrs. J., has it occurred to you that the boot-heel of 
 Colonel J. made that mark ?” 
 
 And the woman, with the great, pathetic brown eyes 
 fixed unwaveringly on the doctor, and protecting her 
 idol to the last, said quietly: 
 
 “No, sir; it has never so occurred to me.” 
 
 The physician gave a heavy sigh, left her side, and, 
 walking past Colonel J., on the gallery, refused to 
 speak to him and, mounting his horse, rode away. 
 
 A few months after that Colonel J. got into an alter- 
 cation with the overseer on his plantation, and shot the 
 
A DEVOTED WIFE. 47 
 
 man down in cold blood. The murderer was at once 
 arrested, brought to the town where the writer lived, 
 and lodged in jail. 
 
 Mrs. J. immediately came to the same community, 
 took board at one of the hotels, but spent most of the 
 time with her husband in his dark and unattractive 
 little cell. As the murder was so foul and pitiless, the 
 court refused the prisoner bail. 
 
 The trial came on after several months, and dragged 
 its way along for days and weeks. The Colonel had 
 money and made a hard fight for his life. But elo- 
 quent and skillful manipulation of the case by able 
 men could not alter the ghastly facts, that a cruel 
 murder had been committed. And so the verdict was 
 brought in one day by. the foreman that the prisoner 
 was guilty in the first degree. The Judge put on his 
 black cap, and, looking at the pale man before him, 
 pronounced that on a certain day he should be hung 
 by the neck until he was dead, closing with the usual 
 words, “and may God have mercy on your soul.” 
 
 At this moment there was the crash of a falling 
 body, and Mrs. J. was carried almost lifeless from the 
 room. All the summer she had stayed by her husband’s 
 side in the poorly-lighted and worse ventilated jail; 
 nor had she left him through all the painful scenes 
 
 and experiences of the court-room ; but now, on hearing 
 
48 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 the words of doom, she seemed unable to bear up an- 
 other moment, and fell with a breaking heart to the 
 floor. 
 
 On being borne to the outer air, she recovered im- 
 mediately and begged to be led to her husband. With 
 a calmness that impressed all with wonder she went 
 by the doomed man’s side to the jail. A number who 
 observed her face that day were struck with a strange 
 resolute look, which gleamed in the eye and declared 
 itself in lines of the countenance, and which they trans- 
 lated into a determination never to leave him again, 
 until he walked upon the scaffold six weeks from that 
 day. How completely they misread that look on her 
 face! And how little they dreamed of the depths of 
 devotion in a woman’s heart when she really loves! 
 
 At this period the writer saw Mrs. J. a number of 
 times at his sister’s house. She still remained a very 
 beautiful woman, but her face was deadly pale, and she 
 had an abstracted expression in her eyes that was alto- 
 gether unusual. She would have to be spoken to sey- 
 eral times on some occasions before she seemed to hear; 
 then would say, “Oh, I didn’t hear you. I was think- 
 ing of something.” 
 
 Of course all hearts ached to see her look so, and 
 answer as she did, for we imagined that her thoughts 
 
A DEVOTED WIFE. 49 
 
 were with her husband in the cell, and anticipating the 
 last dreadful scene on the scaffold. _ 
 
 She visited no one else save our sister, whom she 
 loved very much, and explained even these brief calls 
 by saying that she took this little time from her hus- 
 band in the way of exercise and recreation, simply to 
 keep up health and strength for his sake. Three or 
 four times she paid hurried visits to her plantation, 
 but would return the same day. As she had left her 
 two little daughters, aged eight and nine years, at the 
 country home, and as her temporal interests naturally 
 demanded her presence on her place once in a while, 
 nothing was thought of these occasional trips. 
 
 One afternoon, in saying adieu to the writer’s sister, 
 Mrs. J. said, “Good-by, dear; I may not see you again.” 
 
 “Why, where are you going?” cried our sister. 
 
 Mrs. J. became crimson and seemed confused; but 
 only for a moment. She replied quietly: 
 
 “Oh, nowhere; but in these times when war has com- 
 menced, we don’t know what will take place.” 
 
 The very next morning the town was electrified with 
 the news that Colonel J. had escaped from the jail! 
 The sheriff, deputy and possés sworn in as assistants, 
 searched the swamps in every direction, but the rescue 
 and flight had been too well planned and carried out 
 
50 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 by the devoted wife, and so Colonel J. disappeared 
 forever from his native country and State. 
 
 That resolute look on her face that day at Court 
 meant that she was determined that her husband should 
 not hang, but be rescued. So while she visited him, 
 going in and out of the jail, she took the impression 
 of keys and locks upon wax. Her trips to her plantation 
 were to have her own blacksmith make the iron skele- 
 tons which were to free her husband. It took several 
 journeys to get them fashioned exactly right. Then 
 she had a faithful servant to station himself with a 
 fleet horse in the edge of the swamp near the town on 
 a certain night. It lacked then only a week to the day 
 of the execution. And it was that afternoon when, in 
 her restlessness, Mrs. J. paid her last visit to the home 
 of our sister as described, and came doubtless to be 
 reassured that there was no suspicion existing as to 
 the proposed break and dash for liberty. From that 
 last visit she went to the jail, sat with her husband 
 until nightfall as usual, gave him the keys, a pistol, 
 and money, and then returned to her room at the hotel. 
 
 At midnight, when all was still, Colonel J. quietly 
 unlocked the door of his cell, and then the outer gates 
 with the manufactured keys, went to the edge of the 
 swamp where the faithful negro was awaiting him with 
 
 a horse, and was forty miles on his way to the Missis- 
 
A DEVOTED WIFE. 51 
 
 sippi River before he was missed. He reached the 
 shore, took a steamboat going northward, crossed the 
 lines, and was lost to view of friends and enemies in 
 the South forever. 
 
 Mrs. J. retired to her plantation, and became a 
 recluse for months. She may have been waiting for 
 something. Perhaps a message. 
 
 Meantime the Civil War raged, and the fleets of the 
 North filled the Mississippi River and her armies 
 penetrated the State. Maybe the summons came then 
 from the absent one; for suddenly Mrs. J. disposed of 
 all her property, and, with her two little girls, took a 
 swift and almost unnoticed departure, got across “the 
 lines” somewhere, and disappeared in the far away 
 North as had done her husband. 
 
 We have never heard of him or her since that time. 
 Whether they rejoined each other, and whether they 
 are alive or not, we do not know. We do know, how- 
 ever, that if ever an unworthy man was blessed, en- 
 riched and actually glorified by the perfect love of a 
 noble woman, Colonel J. was that man. 
 
 We never think of her devotion without recalling a 
 couplet of Tom Moore: 
 
 “ As the sunflower turns on her god when he sets, 
 The same look which she turned when he rose.” 
 
re 
 
 52 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 As we also recall the deep melancholy of her face, which 
 had become so through the coldness and unkindness 
 of her husband; and remember how it deepened into a — 
 Lopeless look, as through the faithlessness of one man 
 the whole world had become black and empty to her; we 
 have thought of still another poem of that same match- 
 less poet of the heart, as he described the despair of a 
 woman whose heart had evidently been broken in an 
 identical way. 
 
 This is the last verse, 
 
 “Do I thus haste to hall and bower, 
 Among the gay and bright to shine, 
 Or deck my hair with gem or flower, - 
 To flatter other eyes than thine? 
 Ah, no! with me life’s smiles are past, 
 Thou hadst the first—thou hast the last.” 
 
VIt. 
 A CLERICAL FRAUD. 
 
 HE individual spoken of in this chapter made a 
 sudden appearance at one of the Southern 
 Methodist Conferences, bearing with him the credentials 
 of a traveling preacher of that denomination, and also 
 having in his possession several letters of introduction. 
 He was a man of about thirty or thirty-five years 
 of age, fairly good-looking, with decided intellectual 
 and oratorical gifts, and having what might be called 
 an ingratiating manner. He seemed desirous of pleas- 
 ing. 
 
 The Bishop took to him at once, and begged of his 
 Cabinet a good appointment for the stranger who was 
 knocking at their gates. He especially desired that he 
 should not be sent to a town in the swamp country, lest 
 his health be injured. Accordingly he was appointed 
 to one of the strongest churches in one of the pleasantest 
 and healthiest cities in the bounds of the Conference. 
 
 In taking charge the Rev. Mr. H., who was a 
 widower, as he reported, was boarded in the sumptuous 
 and hospitable home of Mrs. L., a leading and wealthy 
 
 member of the flock. Mr. H. had with his other lug- 
 53 
 
54 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 gage a large lady’s trunk, filled with the clothing of 
 his deceased partner. Mrs. L. aired the really rich 
 and beautiful garments every few weeks, and as H. 
 would pass along the back gallery and view the dresses, 
 shawls, mantles and other articles strung upon the 
 banisters, he was observed repeatedly to put his hand- 
 kerchief to his eyes, and seemed nearly overcome. Dead 
 though the wife was, her memory evidently was very 
 precious to. the bereaved husband, and his emotion 
 gained him great credit with Mrs. L. and other 
 observers. 
 
 In his pastoral and congregational relations Mr. H. 
 took mainly with the old and the young. He made 
 special efforts to win these two classes by grateful atten- 
 tions to the former, and a delightful friendliness and 
 familiarity with the latter. The middle-aged class of 
 the church did not take to their new pastor. Among 
 them were a number of spiritual people, who said that 
 his sermons were fine but did not reach the soul; that 
 his manners were agreeable, but they left the impres- 
 sion after contact with him, that he was not sincere, 
 and that his politeness was affected or put on. 
 
 Meantime the congregation increased, worldly peo- 
 ple flocked to hear the brilliant orator, the choir was 
 
 magnified, much singing talent enlisted, great bunches 
 
A CLERICAL FRAUD. 5 
 
 of roses bedecked the pulpit, and charming entertain- 
 ments were provided for the young people. 
 
 While the elderly members of the church as a rule 
 were delighted with their preacher, there was an excep- 
 tion in the person of old Brother C., who was down 
 en “the whole innovation,” as he called it, and was 
 especially sore about the flowers in the pulpit. He 
 said it was an abomination. Of course the preacher 
 had these remarks repeated to him by his special 
 friends. 
 
 One Sunday morning Mr. H. met Brother C. in the 
 vestibule. The pastor was loaded down with some elus- 
 ters of roses and several large bouquets which had just 
 been given him in front of the church. Desiring to 
 speak to some ladies in the porch he turned to Brother 
 C., and, laying the flowers in his hands, begged him in | 
 his most bewitching way to please place them on the 
 pulpit for him. The venerable old trustee looked like 
 he had received an electric shock, but grasping the 
 roses in his hands he marched up the aisle and de- 
 posited them on the rostrum stand in full view of a 
 most intensely amused congregation. The pastor him- 
 self seemed to be bathed in smiles, though Brother C. 
 was not affected one particle in that way. This was 
 patent to all. 
 
 The preacher’s success in filling the pews, and build- 
 
56 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 ing up certain social departments of the church drew 
 some of his ministerial brethren to look at his audience 
 and study his methods. One of these visiting preachers 
 (now a Bishop) was invited to preach. He did so, 
 while H. led in prayer, abounding in striking expres- 
 sions as he did in his sermons. This time the memor- 
 able sentence which the Bishop to this day quotes was, 
 “We thank God that when man went astray, Merey fol- 
 lowed him.” 
 
 Among the Bishops of the Southern church at the 
 time of which we are writing was one who had a re- 
 markable faculty in scenting sin and discovering im- 
 postors. The writer once heard him say he could tell 
 a fraud by his shoes. This badge of guilt, however, 
 was used by him as a corroboratory rather than a pri- 
 mary sign. He refused to explain the telltale feature 
 of the shoes, and will doubtless carry the secret to his 
 grave, as he is now far advanced in years. 
 
 Some kind of rumors reached this Bishop, whom we 
 will call X. We do not know but they came from let- 
 ters of Bishop X himself asking for information about 
 the character of the new preacher’s work. Evidently 
 the answer was so unsatisfactory that the Bishop wrote 
 to one of the leading stewards that he was coming up 
 on the next day’s train to look into matters. The stew- 
 ard, gratified at the reception of a letter from such a 
 
A CLERICAL FRAUD. ow 
 
 high quarter, told it to his wife, who repeated it to her 
 special friend, who whispered it to her crony, and so it 
 went until, in a few hours, the information came to 
 the ears of H. himself. It was told him on the street 
 hy one of his admirers, who saw nothing but a compli- 
 ment to H. in the episcopal visit. 
 
 The news, however, had a very strange effect on H.., 
 who instantly became deadly pale, excused himself, 
 looked at his watch, and soon after was seen in a hack 
 driving up the street. A few minutes later he appeared 
 at Mrs. L.’s residence in a very agitated condition, and 
 telling her that he had received distressing tidings call- 
 ing him away for a while, he departed with his baggage 
 and his dead wife’s trunk, leaving Mrs. L. weeping on 
 the front gallery. An hour later the Rev. Mr. H. was 
 on the train with his two trunks, flying northward at 
 the rate of forty miles an hour. 
 
 The next day Bishop X. arrived to find his bird 
 flown; while on the northern mail came a letter to a 
 prominent citizen asking if a man answering to H.’s 
 appearance was figuring as a preacher in one of the 
 churches, and stating that the writer of the letter was 
 the wife of H., who had deserted her and carried her 
 trunk away with him. 
 
 Of course this was all a great shock to the commu- 
 
 nity, and the cause of Christ was wounded, while the 
 
58 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 children of God mourned. Many in the church said, 
 “T told you so.” Brother C.’s stock went up at once 
 with a bound. Some ardent friends of H. refused to 
 believe a word of the exposure, while Mrs. L., good old 
 soul as she was, made the most remarkable speech of all. 
 Confronting an excited group, she cried out, “What 
 made them find out all this about him; he was doing 
 well and giving perfect satisfaction; why didn’t they 
 let him alone ?” . 
 
 As for H., after going northward several hundred 
 miles he took another road and returned south, and 
 twelve or eighteen hours afterward rolled into New 
 Orleans, still a preacher, but this time a Baptist min- 
 ister. His credentials and letters of introduction all 
 purported that he belonged to that denomination. 
 
 In a few days he became pastor of a congregation, 
 began to draw at once, and became the idol of the 
 worldly part of the audience. This time he was a 
 single man, and his name was changed from H. to 
 Copeland. 
 
 In two weeks’ time the lightning stroke of a sudden, 
 unexpected exposure fell upon him, the papers printed 
 it, and the telegrams flashed the sickening news over the 
 country. Some one who had seen him as ‘HH, the 
 Methodist, was stricken all but breathless in listening 
 to him one Sabbath morning as Copeland, the Baptist. 
 
A CLERICAL FRAUD. 59 
 
 The hunted, unhappy being fled again, boarding a 
 north bound train. The young men in the town which 
 he had deceived as a pseudo Methodist heard he was 
 coming by on the cars and prepared to meet him at the 
 depot with a bucket of tar and bedtick of feathers. But 
 their intended victim had taken the lightning express 
 and passed their station six hours earlier than expected, 
 and so again a richly deserved punishment was escaped. 
 
 He next appeared in a Tennessee town as a local 
 preacher, with parchments and all the other necessary 
 papers required to substantiate the claim. He was 
 elected superintendent of the Sunday school, and be- 
 came engaged to the daughter of a wealthy church 
 member. He succeeded in his deception here just three 
 months, when one of those letters in female handwriting 
 arrived addressed to the postmaster, asking if a man 
 of H.’s description was there. Before the owner of the 
 trunk could swoop down on the deserting husband, Hy 
 learned that the inquiring epistle had arrived, and that 
 the postmaster had replied affirmatively; when the 
 wretched being started to run again. This time the 
 young men of the community, who were indignant at 
 the wrong perpetrated against one of the finest girls 
 in their town, caught the fugitive as he was trying to 
 
 board a train, and plastered him with such a covering 
 
60 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 of tar and feathers that his best friend would not have 
 known him. 
 
 After that there came a single rumor that he had 
 appeared in a town in Canada, had begun again his 
 work of deceit, when in some way he was found out 
 and he had fled in the night. . 
 
 These things transpired in 1874 and ’75. Since that 
 last flight H. has never been heard of again. Whether 
 God grew weary of him, and took him from the world 
 which he was cursing; or whether in his next effort he 
 succeeded, and is now the acceptable pastor of some 
 town or city church, we do not know. We only know 
 that for twenty-six years he has dropped out of sight 
 and hearing as though he had toppled over the horizon, 
 and fallen from the world into bottomless space. 
 
 * * * * * * * 
 
 In reviewing this man’s life we have often thought 
 that if his misdirected energies had been projected in- 
 stead into proper channels he would have been a bene- 
 diction to countless thousands and caused a multitude 
 to rise up and call him blessed at the last day. 
 
 We read of a person who spent twelve hours in mak- 
 ing a counterfeit two and a half shilling piece. We 
 also recall hearing of a negro who consumed an entire 
 
 night in stealing three sticks of wood, when the honest 
 
A CLERICAL FRAUD. 61 
 
 labor of a day would have secured him a cord instead, 
 together with a good night’s rest after his toil had ended, 
 and a quiet conscience at that. 
 
 So we have thought of H., that if he had devoted 
 half of the time, and part of the skill and force and 
 labor which he was using to deceive people and do 
 wrong, intoright directions, he would have been as great 
 a joy and comfort to the church and mankind as he had 
 been a cause of distress, confusion and mortification. 
 If his remarkable force and generalship had gone 
 purely into ecclesiastical channels he would have been 
 elected a Bishop; or if the push, energy and devotion 
 to his purpose of fraud had been run in lines of piety, 
 he would have won the white robe and golden crown 
 
 of a saint. 
 
VRE 
 A REMARKABLE CONVERSION. 
 
 E was a heavy-set man, with square face, beetling 
 brows, keen grey eyes, and complexion bordering 
 
 upon the florid. There was nothing in the muscular, 
 almost day-laborer appearance to suggest the idea of a 
 first-class intellect lying back undeveloped in the mas- 
 sive and almost shaggy head; and no one would have 
 dreamed that the man possessed a passion for flowers 
 and exquisite taste for paintings of first-class merit, and 
 
 all real works of art, whether they were the creations” 
 
 of the brush or the chisel. 
 
 Along with this ardent love of the beautiful, was a 
 sinful nature that would assert itself at times, and rush 
 on its reckless, thoughtless way with the sweep of a 
 storm or flood. 
 
 While still a young man he enlisted in the army at 
 the time of the Mexican War, and under Scott or 
 Taylor marched and fought in that land. Having no 
 fear of God before his eyes he had also no fear of man, 
 and gave a vast deal of trouble to the military authori- 
 
 ties. He was a brave soldier, but with cyclonic ten- 
 62 
 
A REMARKABLE CONVERSION. 63 
 
 dencies and movements toward all restraints of custom 
 or law. 
 
 On one occasion he stole away from camp, and scal- 
 ing the wall of a great Catholic cathedral, broke 
 through one of the lofty windows, and descended inside 
 the sanctuary, having used the head of the apostle 
 Peter as one of his stepping stones downward. As we 
 remember the account, he injured the statue and dis- 
 arranged its drapery. But to these misdeeds he scarcely 
 gave a thought, as he almost instantly became absorbed 
 in the study of a number of old paintings that hung 
 upon the walls. Hours fled unnoticed by the enrap- 
 tured man, until he was suddenly discovered by the 
 priests and attendants. 
 
 An arrest followed, and later still a trial which had 
 both civil and military features in the way of punish- 
 ment, and it surely would have gone very hard with the 
 transgressor had not a lady of the nobility exerted her 
 influence in his behalf. Hearing that a common soldier 
 had broken into a cathedral and spent hours in the 
 study of works of art, she insisted he was no ordinary 
 man, and setting in motion strong influences, secured 
 the soldier’s release, and very likely the sparing of his 
 life itself. 
 
 All this failed, however, to operate as a check on L.’s 
 
 wild career. He went onward in the same thoughtless, 
 
64 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 sinful course, until suddenly a simple, touching cir-— 
 
 cumstance brought about the complete change of his 
 hfe. 
 
 A soldier had died and was being buried, while his 
 company, drawn up in ranks, stood around the grave. 
 As the body was being lowered a small Bible was ob- 
 served resting on the breast and near the folded hands 
 of the dead man. 
 
 L. asked what it meant, and was told that the book 
 was the Bible, and it had belonged to the mother of 
 the soldier; that when he was dying he requested that 
 it should be placed over his heart, and buried with 
 him. 
 
 The instant that L. received this simple explanation 
 the tears gushed into his eyes, and he gazed into and 
 at the grave like one fascinated. 
 
 After the platoon firing over the freshly made mound, 
 
 L. marched back to the camp with his comrades, but ~ 
 
 returned a deeply convicted man. The sight of a Bible 
 on a dead soldier’s breast had done the work, when every 
 other effort put forth by earth and heaven had failed. 
 
 His sorrow of heart and agony of mind over his sinful 
 life were pitiful and remarkable to behold. One day 
 he borrowed a Bible and plunging into the woods until 
 he came to a remote place, attempted to read the Word. 
 But it seemed a locked volume to him and only added 
 
 Pyro te 
 
A REMARKABLE CONVERSION. 65 
 
 to his torture. With deep groans he rolled upon the 
 ground and cried aloud that he was lost. 
 
 At last the idea occurred to him of opening the book 
 at a venture and trusting to find direction and relief 
 through the first verse which met his eyes. He did 
 so and the passage which his distracted gaze fell upon 
 was: 
 
 “Kphraim is joined to idols: let him alone.” 
 
 As L. read what seemed his death sentence he fell 
 again upon the ground with awful groans, feeling that 
 he was a doomed man. But seized with a sudden im- 
 pulse he took up the open Bible and, placing the verse, 
 “Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone,” directly 
 over his heart, he rolled over on his face and cried out 
 with a wail which rang through the forest, “O Lord, do 
 the best you can for a poor sinuer,”’ when instantly 
 salvation rushed into his soul, his burden was gone, and 
 the woods echoed with his shouts and hallelujahs. 
 
 When L. returned to his native State, after the close 
 of the Mexican War, he joined the church and entered 
 the ministry. It soon became apparent to his Confer- 
 ence that in the rough-featured itinerant, a preacher 
 bad come in their midst of transcendent pulpit ability. 
 
 Whenever sent to a new appointment his massive, 
 rather heavy face and careless mode of dressing and 
 
 cating were decidediy against him, and first opinions 
 
66 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES, 
 
 apie it was like a king uid his throne, and when y 
 he came out it was like a general and conqueror fresh 
 from a great victory, loaded down with spoils. The — 
 man had glowed like a seraph for an hour, and swept a 
 everything before him with a flood of resistless logic — 
 and eloquence. 
 
 The writer was a young preacher when he first heard — 
 this pulpit giant; and to this day recalls the intensely 
 thoughtful face, the flashing eye, the glow of the counte- _ 
 nance, a peculiar tremulous note in the voice when at — 
 his best, the wealth and aptness of his synonyms, the — 
 wonderful fullness of his vocabulary, and, above all, 4 
 his tremendous power over an audience, which he a 
 stirred and swept as a wind would a field of wheat. 
 
 Two things we never failed to observe about this man 3 
 when he was on his feet speaking; one was that the 
 instant he opened his lips people listened; another was _ 
 that upon all his auditors rested the conviction that the - 3 
 
 spiritual wealth. He had the unmistakable look and — > 
 bearing which comes from conscious reserved force. a 
 Some speakers sit down after a sermon leaving the im- — 
 pression that they, the audience and the subject itself q 
 are all exhausted. But L., after flooding the minds of “ 
 his hearers with new light and enriching their hearts a 
 
A REMARKABLE CONVERSION. 67 
 
 with treasures from the opened up Word, would con- 
 clude, leaving the congregation with the delightful feel- 
 ing that they had been granted, figuratively.and com- 
 paratively speaking, just a crossing over the threshold; 
 just an entrance into the hall or upon the first floor; 
 while galleries, corridors, rooms and upper stories re- 
 mained still for future exploration and possession. 
 
 Many were the sinners he turned to God, and wonder- 
 fully did he build up God’s people in faith and service. 
 The simple announcement that he was to preach at 
 Conference was sufficient to crowd the church to sufto-. 
 cation, while the one predominant feeling of the assem- 
 bly, when he closed the Bible after a sermon of an hour 
 and a quarter, was that of regret that he was ceasing 
 to speak. 
 
 Whether from overstudy, overwork, or something 
 else unknown to the writer, a peculiar disease attacked 
 L. when in middle life, and in the zenith of his useful- 
 ness. His great intellect went under some kind of 
 shadow, a partial blindness fell upon him, and he had 
 to be led about and cared for almost like a child. He 
 eould not recognize faces, and did not know loved ones 
 who were nearest and dearest on earth to him. He 
 could not be trusted alone on the street, and could not 
 find his way from one room to another in his own home. 
 
 The magnificent mind became almost a total wreck, and 
 
68 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 all who knew, loved and admired him in his palmy and m 
 glorious days, could not refrain from tears as they now 
 contemplated him in his helplessness and childlikeness. — 
 
 There was one thing, however, that remained about 
 him of his former life and power, and which, when- 
 ever witnessed, filled all beholders with wonder and 
 praise as well. This strange thing was that the instant 
 the hour of family worship arrived, and the good wife _ 
 placed the Bible on his knee, the strength of a spiritual 
 Samson seemed to come upon him, and, after fervently 
 quoting a number of Seripture passages, he would 
 kneel down and pour forth a prayer so tender and full 
 of unction, so remarkable in its felicity of expression, 
 so towering in spiritual thought, and so torrent-like in 
 its sweep from him upon others, as to fill the hearers 
 with amazement and delight. Grace asserted itself 
 
 Bee SRS Ee 
 
 above all the ruins of Time, as beheld in the mind and 
 body, and behold! the soul was seen to be greater than 
 all. What some thought were dying flashes of a sinking 
 
 sun, was really the glorious beams of a marvelous 
 
 sees Pee 
 
 morning, whose light was even then peeping over the 
 rim of another and eternal world. 
 
 This strange occurrence taught also a most important 
 truth, and that was, that the work wrought by the 
 Almighty on this soul in the forests of Mexico was not 
 only a blessed but a lasting one. When the weeping 
 
A REMARKABLE CONVERSION. 69 - 
 
 penitent fell on his face and cried, “O Lord, do the best 
 you can for a poor sinner,” that prayer was wonder- 
 fully answered. 
 
 Such was the character of the divine performance 
 that day in the southern wilderness, that forty years 
 afterward when the mind was shattered and the body 
 swiftly tottering to the tomb, the beautiful blessed work 
 of grace rose victoriously above all, as a lovely banner 
 has been seen floating majestically and triumphantly 
 
 over a riddled and crumbling wall. 
 
IX. 
 A SUDDEN RECOVERY. 
 
 E was an itinerant preacher in one of the Southern’ — 
 Conferences. In mentally reviewing his various a a 
 
 gifts, talents and general acquisition of knowledge, he pe 
 began to feel convinced that justice had not been done “ 
 him in past appointments. Merit of unmistakable a 
 character had not been recognized, and reward not be- 
 stowed where it was richly deserved. 
 The more he brooded upon these things, his excel- e 
 lences and abilities, with the failure of the Conference 3 
 to recognize his worth, and station him where he prop- 
 erly belonged, the more convinced he was of the wrong — 
 done him, and the contempt shown for eminent fitness — 
 for the best appointment in the State. As there was 
 no contradictory voice within, the preacher, whose a ' 
 was Richardson, carried the motion or resolution unan-_ 
 imously in the invisible legislative chamber of his sole 
 So it was that the brother attended the next session 
 of his Annual Conference fully persuaded of the fore- 
 going facts and highly expectant of a promotion that “a 
 would thrill himself and stir the whole assembly of 
 
 preachers. 
 70 
 
A SUDDEN RECOVERY. vias 
 
 All went well until the last day of the session, when, 
 to his unutterable amazement, the hero of this sketch 
 was read out by the Bishop to the poorest of the entire 
 list of appointments ! 
 
 For a time the man could scarcely credit his hearing; 
 but finally rallying himself, he took up his saddlebags, 
 walked out from the church, mounted his horse, and 
 turning the animal’s head toward his home that was 
 twenty miles away, jogged down the road a stunned, 
 grieved and indignant man. 
 
 After several miles of profound silence he raised his 
 head defiantly in the air and, speaking to himself, said, 
 “T will not go!” 
 
 An inner voice said, “What are you going to do? 
 Will you quit preaching when God called you to do so ?” 
 
 “No,” he snapped in reply, “I won’t stop preaching. 
 JI will go out on an independent line. I will not let a 
 Bishop and Conference treat me in such a way. I'll go 
 home, raise my own corn, meat and potatoes, support 
 myself and preach to the neighbors and colored people.” 
 
 “But this is not what you vowed to dc when you were 
 ordained and taken into full connection in the Confer- 
 ence,” whispered the inner voice. 
 
 Whereupon Brother Richardson became quite exas- 
 perated in spirit, and replied fretfully, “I don’t care if 
 itisn’t. I will not be humbled and degraded in this way 
 
12 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 by men. I'll show them that I am independent of the ‘ 
 
 whole business, and will preach more than I ever did 
 before.” 
 
 “But,” insisted the voice, “you solemnly swore you 
 would go where the Bishop sent you, and your failure 
 now to do this has a moral ney about it, and the dis- 
 obedience savors of transgression.” 
 
 Full of vexation the rider jerked his horse and exiaa 
 aloud to his inner tormentor, “I am no J onah running 
 from preaching. Did I not say I would give the Gospel 
 in full measure to the colored people?” 
 
 So the mental battle raged until he reached the gate 
 of his home, passed through, stabled his horse, and, en- 
 tering the house, threw ‘his saddlebags in a corner and 
 sank with a heavy sigh into a chair. 
 
 His wife’s first remark, as she saw him, was, “Where 
 did the Conference send us, Mr. Richardson ?” 
 
 His grum reply was, “Where I’m never going, 
 madam.” 
 
 “What!” she exclaimed. “Not going to your cir- 
 cuit ?” 
 
 “No, madam, I have not the least idea of doing so,” 
 and forthwith told her of the Hardscrabble appointment 
 so unworthy of him, and his determination not to go, 
 but to remain at home, make his own living, and preach 
 
 to the colored people. 
 
A SUDDEN RECOVERY. te 
 
 As he finished his Jeremiad he said, in a plaintive 
 voice, “I am feeling far from well to-day.” 
 
 The wife contemplated him silently for a few mo- 
 ments, and then, rising to go about her housework, re- 
 marked solemnly, ““You had better go to that circuit, 
 Mr. Richardson,” and left the gloomy man to his reflec- 
 tions. 
 
 His bad feelings increased so rapidly that in a little 
 while he had to lie down on a lounge, where he sent 
 forth a number of sighs and groans. 
 
 His wife, passing through the room an hour later, 
 observed his plight, heard his moans, but failed to be im- 
 pressed with his sickness. Instead of that she dropped 
 the exasperating advice as she walked out, “You had 
 better go to that cireuit, Mr. Richardson.” 
 
 Now all this was very trying to Mr. Richardson, who, 
 miserable in mind, and fancying himself sick, wanted 
 consolation and even anxiety manifested on the part of 
 his wife for himself. If she had come and sat by him, 
 and said he looked badly and rubbed his forehead and 
 said he was wearing himself out and forcing himself 
 into the grave ahead of time, that would have done him 
 a world of good. For many husbands take a peculiar 
 joy in having their wives alarmed about their health. 
 
 But Mrs. Richardson would not be alarmed; but 
 
 moyed serenely about here and there through the house 
 
74 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 in the discharge of her various duties, and allowed her 
 husband to keep up his lonely and restless tumbling on ~ 
 
 the lounge. . 
 
 Finally, as she was passing through on one of her 
 trips, he said to her, “Mrs. Richardson, I am a much 
 sicker man than you think.” 
 
 This appeal so dear to the masculine heart, utterly 
 failed to reach the partner of his joys, who, quickly re- 
 plying, “You will feel better when you go to that cir- 
 cuit,” disappeared from the room. 
 
 As night came on Mr. Richardson’s sickaess and gen- 
 eral bad feelings increased. So that nothing would do 
 but a negro boy should be mounted on a horse and sent 
 post haste after a doctor. 
 
 Now, there are doctors, and doctors; just as there are 
 preachers, and preachers. We all know the difference 
 and prefer the other class in both professions. The phy- 
 sician thus hastily summoned was most ordinary in 
 every sense of the word. As for diagnostic skill, he had 
 scarcely a particle. So, after listening gravely to Mr. 
 Richardson’s groans, feeling his pulse, looking at his 
 tongue and thumping his chest, he pronounced him a 
 very sick man and measured out some white and yellow 
 powders in certain square pieces of white paper with 
 instructions to take during the night. His medical 
 opinion, given before he left, was that Mr. Richardson 
 
A SUDDEN RECOVERY. 75 
 
 had a severe heart attack, at which statement the 
 preacher gave another groan. 
 
 When the doctor left Mrs. Richardson went to her 
 bedroom and promptly retired. 
 
 The next day was spent in groans by the prostrate 
 servant of God, whose mind was filled with pictures of 
 flying Jonahs, deserting Marks, forsaking Demases, not 
 to mention Judas, Ananias, Esau and Cain. The inner 
 voice also was talking incessantly about broken Confer- 
 ence vows, loss of the respect of his brethren, pride get- 
 ting a fall, and other distressing things. 
 
 Late in the afternoon of the second day the wife went 
 through the room of the sick husband with that 
 strangely unconcerned and unalarmed look on her face. 
 If she had just been anxious about him and looked ap- 
 prehensive, the invalid would have felt better, but in- 
 stead she acted as if she did not think there was really 
 anything the matter with her liege lord. Worse still, 
 even after he had been suffering over twenty-four hours 
 on his couch, and his groans had filled the house, she 
 on this second afternoon of his misery, remarked, as 
 she walked through the room, “Mr. Richardson, you had 
 better go to that circuit.” 
 
 This was too much, even for a well man, to bear, so 
 
 he turned sharply upon her and said, “Mrs. Richardson, 
 
76 REMARKABLE OCCURRENC cS. — 
 I would thank you, please, to attend to your own b 
 ” 
 
 fess it.” _ 
 
 To resume the story: The second night was worse — z 
 than the first; so that at midnight the negro messenger 
 was dispatched for the doctor on behalf of the tumbling, “4 
 tossing, groaning patient on the lounge. 4 
 
 At 1 o’clock the physician arrived, and, after another _ 
 study of the ministerial phenomena before him, he 2 
 stated gravely to Mrs. Richardson that her husband was 
 a dying man, and would breathe his last before 10 if 
 o’clock in the morning. He told her he could do noth- oe 
 ing but leave a few powders to partially relieve the a 
 preacher’s misery, and would come back again in the | 
 morning, although he knew he would be dead before he — 
 would arrive. ay 
 
 After the doctor left Mrs. Richardson promptly went 
 to bed again in another room, and the afflicted husband 
 was left alone, save for the company of Jonah, Mark, — 
 Demas, Ananias, Esau, Cain and Judas Iseariot. 
 
A SUDDEN RECOVERY. it 
 
 The unhappy man rolled and pitched ; told God many 
 times that he would preach to the colored people; that 
 he would make his own living and not be a burden on 
 His providence; that he was tired of being discounted 
 and trampled upon by men in authority, etc., ete., ete. 
 
 He heard the clock strike 3, 4 and 5, and still in 
 sleepless misery he sighed, moaned, twisted and turned 
 upon his couch. He wanted to die. He said so aloud 
 in the dark. Evidently he had forgotten the colored 
 people. ; 
 
 Just then the day began to break. Lying on his 
 lounge he saw the first faint beams in the east, when 
 suddenly, in obedience to a sweet, gentle impulse in the 
 heart from the Holy One of Heaven, he rolled off the 
 couch, fell flat upon his face on the floor, and cried with 
 a loud voice, “Lord, I will go to that cireuit !” 
 
 When instantly the Holy Ghost filled him! He was 
 on his feet in the flash of a second, leaping around the 
 room, laughing, crying, shouting and praising God, and 
 well, perfectly well, transcendently well, from head to 
 heel, and from tip to tip of his entire being. 
 
 It was unquestionably a case of Divine Healing of the 
 highest order, and yet it was also a fact that the 
 preacher took some very bitter medicine just before the 
 Lord restored him. The healing, being of the Savior, 
 
 no one need be surprised that it was a sudden recovery. 
 
A few minutes after his instantaneaus restorati 
 health, Brother Richardson was in the backyar 
 ting kindling for the kitchen stove. A little late: 
 was assisting his wife to cook breakfast. At 9 o’¢ 
 he had bidden his wife an affectionate farewell, 
 thrown his saddlebags on his horse, and was mount 
 with the head of the animal pointed towards Hardser 
 ble Circuit. At 10 o’clock he was five miles on the ro 
 to his new work, when the doctor arrived at the house 
 according ‘ to appointment and prophecy, to see th e 
 corpse. : 
 
X. 
 THE FAT OF THE LAND. 
 
 HE was a bright, chatty girl, living in and for so- 
 ciety, when she met the new pastor of the Methodist 
 Church in the town where she resided. He was a good 
 man, and devoted to the work of saving souls, while she 
 had but little of what is called common sense, and not a 
 particle of piety. 
 
 Being bright, however, vivacious and good-looking, 
 she exercised some kind of spell over the plodding 
 young man, and in the marriage which followed another 
 one of those melancholy mismatches was made which 
 abound in the marital world. An eagle and a magpie 
 would have been better mated, or an aerolite and a fixed 
 star. 
 
 Their characters, tastes, companionships and lives 
 were entirely different. The man wanted the solid and 
 she the froth and foam of life. He loved souls and she 
 preferred bodies. He lived for Christ, the church and 
 the spiritual good of mankind; and she liked ritualism 
 and impressive forms on the Sabbath, and doted on re- 
 ceptions, dinings, concerts and gatherings of all kinds 
 
 pertaining to the social world. She had a little income 
 79 
 
80 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 of her own of ten dollars a month, and this she loved to 
 use in giving what she called a “tea,” in which a me 
 indigestible lobster salad, strong green oolong, and light — 
 bread cut into slices of most amazing thinness contrib-— 
 uted the main features. What was lacking in solid 
 nourishing food was made up in painted lamps, tinted — 
 shades, heavily draped windows, portiered doors, and a 
 kind of oriental canopy hung over a rickety lounge. 
 Another substitute for food was the rendering of a cer- — 
 tain kind of music by some females in a very feeble and — 
 quavering manner, but which Mrs. Phipps, the hoses 
 pronounced “divine.” a 
 
 Mr. Phipps, the preacher, took neither to the “teas,” 
 the household draping, nor the home concerts. He tried — 
 several of the entertainments to please his wife, but had — 
 such a forlorn, far-away look on those elegant occasions, 
 and there was such an intellectual and moral chasm be- — 
 tween the friends and companions of his good lady and :: 
 himself, that he was allowed after several trials to at- 4 
 tend to his parochial work, or to labor in his study un- — 
 disturbed. 
 
 After a few years Mr. Phipps was sent to a cireuit _ 
 which consisted of four country appointments, while he , 
 secured board for himself and wife in a town not in 
 the bounds of his work. This necessitated the purchase : 
 
 = 
 
 of a horse and buggy, and occasioned long absences from 
 
THE FAT OF THE LAND. 81 
 
 home of the preacher, who drove over the hills, thread- 
 ing the pine forests, and sought out and visited every- 
 where his humble membership. Many of his people 
 were farmers, a number were lumbermen and wood- 
 choppers, and all were poor. But they all had souls, 
 and their pastor looked at that side of the case, and la- 
 bored for their salvation lovingly and unweariedly in 
 the face of a thousand physical discomforts. 
 
 He slept on hard beds, ate rough fare, walked and 
 rode until his body ached, and braved every kind of 
 weather. But he got near to the people at the family 
 altar, talked religion with them in their corn cribs and 
 by their spinning wheels, prayed by their sick beds, 
 buried their dead, and became the most weleome and 
 honored of guests in hundreds of humble cabin homes. 
 
 Meantime the active, out-of-door life, the nutritious 
 though plain fare, the constant work of doing good, all 
 agreed so well with the preacher that he never looked 
 healthier nor felt better in his life. He gained thirty 
 pounds of flesh, while there was a light in his eye and a 
 ring in his voice which operated like a tonic on the 
 hearts of weary-hearted and discouraged people. 
 
 At the same time Mrs. Phipps was steadily growing 
 
 -thinner and whiter on her lobster banquets and light- 
 bread frolics. Much of her old-time vivacity now spent 
 itself in moods that were querulous and snappish. The 
 
82 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 difficult to please was her soul. ; 
 
 The day finally came that the sight of the pastor’s — 
 wife sitting near her husband would at once suggest _ 
 to the most careless observer the well-known almanac — 
 advertisement picture of “Before and After Taking.” — 
 One morning she said to him, with brow all puckered — 
 and speech acidulous: . 
 
 “Mr. Phipps, there is just no use in talking. You 
 are leaving me here to starve to death in this boarding 4 
 house, while you are flying around among your church — 
 members and living on the fat of the land.” d . 
 
 Such a vision came to Brother Phipps of corn dodgers 2 
 and hominy as his wife said “the fat of the land” that F 
 he broke into a hearty laugh. But the joyous outburst — 
 confirmed the now irate lady in her previous impression, — 
 and she was more than ever convinced that she had — 
 guessed aright. 
 
 The incident led to the pastor’s requesting his wife — 
 to take one of his trips with him, which invitation she q 
 readily accepted. 4 
 
 The first few miles was pleasant enough, but when the ~ 
 
 preacher turned from the main road and penetrated the. 
 
THE FAT OF THE LAND. 83 
 
 residences, Mrs. Phipps’ face began to wear a reflective 
 air. 
 
 Brother Phipps seemed to know everybody on the 
 lonely roads and in the humble-looking dwellings. He 
 stopped to exchange a few words with young and old 
 and informed his disgusted wife that a number of the 
 people belonged to his church. 
 
 An hour before nightfall the sun began to east long 
 shadows from the lofty, sighing pine trees, while the _ 
 whippoorwills commenced their plaintive notes as dusk 
 approached. None of these sights or sounds helped 
 Mrs. Phipps, who by this time was not only tired, but 
 hungry and in the neighborhood of tears. 
 
 They finally reached a creek bottom in which was a 
 farm of ten or fifteen acres mainly planted in cotton. 
 In the center of the field was a log cabin with a pun- 
 cheon gallery and mud chimney, from whose wide 
 mouth a blue smoke was ascending. There was no sign 
 of a gate, but the preacher, putting his hands to his 
 mouth, began to halloo, “Oh, Brother Wills!” 
 
 This was repeated several times, when at last a voice 
 was heard far over in the cotton field near the creek, 
 answering “‘Hee-oh!” Later the tall cotton began to 
 bend hither and thither, and first Brother Wills’ head 
 and shoulders and then his entire body emerged at the 
 
84 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 end of the furrow, and close to the encompassing ten- 4 
 rail worm fence, common to that country. 
 
 Brother Wills’ first greeting to the pair as he turned 
 his sun-bronzed face upon them was: 
 
 eight. 
 
 Brother Phipps, with responsive cheeriness, “lit,” 
 shook Brother Wills’ hand and helped his wife out of 
 the buggy. That good lady came forth with about as 
 much spring and elasticity as there is in a bag of lead. 
 Leaning on her husband’s arm, she whispered : 
 
 “Are we to stay in that rail pen up yonder to-night ?” 
 
 The husband replied under his breath: 
 
 “Tt is the best house in ten miles around. It has two 
 rooms and a gallery.” 
 
 Meantime Brother Wills, who was in his shirtsleeves, 
 began throwing the fence down, and driving the buggy 
 through the gap. After this the horse was taken out, 
 
 the vehicle pushed out of sight in the cotton, and the 
 
 farmer, leading the animal, preceded his guests up a 
 path which wound through the field, with many a curve, 
 to the house. As Brother Phipps stole a glance at his 
 wife on the way, he saw that her face would have won 
 a prize as a model for “Stony Despair.” 
 
 Reaching the humble dwelling, Brother Wills made 
 
 many loud and hearty expressions of welcome, bade 
 
 on 
 ad 
 
THE FAT OF THE LAND. 85 
 
 them come in, take ‘“‘pot luck” and “help themselves to 
 all in sight.” 
 
 As they entered the main room of the cabin, Mrs. 
 Wills was revealed sitting in a hide-bottomed chair card- 
 ing cotton, with a large sunbonnet on her head. She did 
 not rise, but bade her guests in a hearty manner to 
 “come in, take a cheer and make themselves at home.” 
 After a half-hour’s social chat that but for Brother 
 Phipps and Wills would have perished early, Mrs. Wills 
 suddenly laid aside her cotton cards, and with her bon- 
 net still on her head began the preparation of supper. 
 
 Mrs. Phipps was faint with hunger and mental 
 worry, but when she was invited to “draw up and help 
 herself,’ she found she was unable to partake of 
 the food before her. She could not eat fat pork and 
 boiled cabbage; while cornbread was one of her horrors. 
 The bread served up at their evening meal was what is 
 called ash-cake, a hard pone baked in the fireplace. This 
 with some sickly smelling coffee, constituted the ban- 
 quet. 
 
 Poor Mrs. Phipps! The tears fell from her eyes as 
 she pleaded fatigue and loss of appetite, and was al- 
 lowed to withdraw to a corner by herself, and rest in 
 a straight-backed, hide-bottomed chair. 
 
 Meantime Brother Phipps and Brother Wills talked 
 over the prospects of “Mt. Olivet,” “Shiloh,” “Bethel,” 
 
86 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 and the other churches on the circuit, while the b ead 
 
 and cabbage steadily disappeared. 
 
 That night the preacher and his wife were placed to 
 sleep in the small shed room back of the apartment | 
 which had already served for parlor, dining-room and 4 
 kitchen, and was also the bed chamber of Brother and — 
 Sister Wills. After an hour of wakeful and intensely — 
 thoughtful silence upon the part of Mrs. Phipps, her — 
 husband, with none other but a spirit of self-vindication, 
 whispered to her in the dark: 
 
 “How do you enjoy the fat of the land?” 
 
 Whereupon the angry woman turned her back upon 
 him, and, burying her head in the pillow to deaden the 
 sound, burst into tears. ; 
 
 The breakfast next morning was like unto the supper 
 of the previous evening. But Mrs. Phipps could not 
 be persuaded to break her fast. Seated in the buggy a 
 few minutes afterward, and asked by her smiling hus- 
 band if she desired to go still farther on his cireuit, she 
 replied with averted eyes and frozen mouth: 
 
 “Home as soon as possible.” 
 
 Lt; required the soothing influence of several lobster 
 festivals and parlor cantatas and recitals before Mrs. 
 Phipps regained her former equanimity. But with the 
 
 recovery of her lost composure, it was also noticeable 
 
THE FAT OF THE LAND. 87 
 
 that with it had also come an unmistakable change or 
 gain of something. 
 
 One effect of the country trip was the unquestionable 
 dropping of the husband out of all wifely thoughts, 
 plans and caleulations. He was in a sense with her as 
 though he did not, exist. 
 
 A second effect was seen in some kind of mental con- 
 clusion the woman had reached, which, whether true or 
 false, she accepted as incontrovertible, and now rested 
 upon as a Gibraltar. It was revealed in a kind of set 
 speech which after this she was fond of giving on any 
 and all occasions, but especially at one of the salad and 
 green tea banquets. It was to the effect “That as there 
 are monstrosities in nature, so there are men and women 
 born to be coarse in all their tastes and habits. That 
 people drift and gravitate by natural and inevitable 
 law to plain food and uncultured people, if they them- 
 selves are ordinary and uncultivated. That persons 
 are always to be found among those who are most simi- 
 
 b) 
 
 lar to them in taste, temperament and character,” etc., 
 
 ebe!, ebe: 
 
 Her argument made one’s partiality for pork, cab- 
 bage and buttermilk to be unquestionable proof of a 
 vulgar nature, while fondness for lettuce and shrimp 
 salad, with oolong tea, declared just as unmistakably 
 
 the refined, esthetic soul and superior gentleman and 
 
88 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 gentlewoman. Her reasoning, of course, abased her — 
 husband while exalting herself; and, graver still, com- — 
 pletely subverted the sacrificial life of Christ, the self- — 
 denying labors of Paul, and the faithful work of every — 
 true Christian, who is found in the slums and gutters, 
 in dens and brothels, in hard places and poor-paying 
 appointments, laboring with the vilest and most obdur- 
 ate, for the betterment, the uplifting and the salvation 
 of poor fallén humanity. 
 
 Mrs. Phipps still continues to give her little “Teas,” 
 terminating them with a “Reading” or a rendering of 
 musical selections where the ordinary ear utterly fails 
 to recognize a ghost of a tune or a shred of melody. Mr. 
 Phipps is still visiting the sick and hunting up and re- 
 lieving the poor. Mrs. Phipps has solved, to her own 
 obvious satisfaction, a great problem of life. Anyhow, 
 she thinks she has done so. Meantime Mr. Phipps has 
 a much greater problem on hand. It has never been 
 solved, according to latest reports. His problem is Mrs. 
 Phipps. 
 
XI. 
 HE TOOK THE WRONG ROAD. 
 
 N the tangled mazes of a Southern swamp it is a grave 
 thing to take what is called the wrong road. Even 
 in thickly settled communities such a mistake means 
 great inconvenience and delay, but when a like blunder 
 is made in a wilderness abounding in impenetrable cane- 
 brakes, and crossed in every direction with dangerous 
 sloughs, a much more serious state of things exists, in- 
 volving not only loss of bearing, but increasing bewil- 
 derment, a night in the woods, and even loss of life it- 
 self. 
 
 In the realm of character or in the way of salvation 
 the “taking the wrong road” is necessarily far more 
 perilous and disastrous. It means, in the beginning, 
 that a wrong moral choice or decision has been made, 
 which, if persisted in, brings spiritual ruin on earth, 
 and the final damnation of the soul in hell. Some have 
 escaped the last woe “as by fire,” but whole years had 
 been lost, the reputation hurt, the influence damaged, 
 the character injured and the life itself blighted and 
 blasted by the entrance upon and pursuit of a wrong 
 
 course of action. 
 89 
 
90 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 We were attending a large camp-meeting located in 
 the piney woods in the South when we first met the per- — 
 
 son about whom this sketch was written. The writer 
 was a young preacher, and was appointed one afternoon 
 to preach. The text was a double one, “Go thy way for 
 this time”—“Depart from me.” The first thought pre- 
 sented was in reference to the peculiar power possessed 
 by the soul to shut God out of the heart and life and 
 keep Him out. The second point made was relative to a 
 retribution suggested by the text and that was confirmed 
 by the Bible, history and individual experience. We 
 were treated in life as we had done to others, and God 
 dealt with us as we had acted toward Him. If we said, 
 “Go thy way” to Him and His messengers, we could 
 fully expect to hear the Judge say at last, “Depart from 
 Me.” 
 
 We remember in dwelling upon the human side of 
 Retribution to have mentioned several remarkable oe- 
 currences of our own personal now that greatly 
 solemnized the audience. 
 
 Fully fifty to sixty preachers were present, and 
 among them one who was the acknowledged leader of 
 his Conference. He was invariably sent to the best ap- 
 pointments, and had been elected to the General Confer- 
 ence. To the young preacher’s surprise, this prominent 
 minister, whom we will call Dr. Graves, took him aside 
 
HE TOOK THE WRONG ROAD. 91 
 
 after the service, and sitting together on a log in the 
 edge of the woods, asked him, after some random re- 
 marks, whether he really believed that we were made to 
 suffer as we had caused others; and that events of an 
 identical nature came back in punishment upon us. 
 
 We were surprised, not so much at the question as at 
 the troubled appearance of the man. The anxious and 
 even suffering look he turned upon us made a deep im- 
 pression then, but not as much as it did in after years, 
 when other things threw a stronger and explanatory 
 light upon the occurrence. The fact that a much older 
 and a very prominent minister should be speaking with 
 us about the sermon and its effect upon his mind and 
 heart, naturally prevented that closer observation which 
 would have been given under other circumstances. The 
 reply given to him was exactly in the line of the dis- 
 course, that we were treated in this world exactly as we 
 had dealt with others. That it was both justice and 
 mercy combined that this should be so in the providence 
 of God. That the lesson was to make us consider the 
 rights, feelings and happiness of others. That it opened 
 our eyes to consider other people as well as ourselves; 
 and we would never know how we had made people 
 suffer until we had been crushed in a similar manner. 
 
 We felt in talking that we could not be giving light 
 and knowledge to the distinguished man before us, but 
 
92 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES, — 
 
 he most skilfully drew us out, until having fortified our — 
 position with Bible instances and some awful transae- 
 tions we had personally known, we became more than 
 ever aware of his gloomy looks, and ceased to speak. 
 
 ve 
 
 Some one called to him at this moment, and he left 
 with a “Good afternoon” and a grating laugh that we 
 have never forgotten. 
 
 A year subsequent to this we met again, accidentally, 
 in the office of a merchant. This last-named business 
 man was so profane that the writer abruptly quitted the 
 store and remained on the pavement until Dr. Graves 
 rejoined him. We said in explanation of our hasty de- 
 parture that we made it a rule to withdraw at once from 
 the company of a man who would take the name of God 
 in vain in our presence. 
 
 Dr. Graves, who had given uneasy laughs in the pres- 
 ence of the swearer, said in reply to the writer, “That 
 the early Methodists used to act in the same manner.” 
 
 Several years after this Dr. Graves preached one 
 night before a large assembly of preachers from the 
 text, “Oh, that my people had hearkened unto me, and 
 israel had walked in my ways.” It was one of the 
 driest, hardest and most hollow-sounding sermons we 
 ever heard. It had not one particle of unction about it, — 
 and fell flat and dead upon the congregation. 
 
 Two years later a gentleman of high Christian stand- 
 
HE TOOK THE WRONG ROAD. 938 
 
 ing told the writer that Dr. Graves had come to his 
 office in great trouble of mind, and said that he wanted 
 to confess something; but receiving no encouragement 
 from him, he had departed without doing so. 
 
 Ten years later still, the writer, having become an 
 evangelist, was invited by Dr. Graves to hold a meeting 
 im his church. The city was far distant, but we ac- 
 cepted the call, and opened the battle. 
 
 In a few days it was apparent to all that Dr. Graves 
 was in great mental or spiritual distress. Guessing the 
 cause, we preached one night on the necessity of con- 
 fession, and the advisability of taking a whole night for 
 prayer. We argued that just as some things would 
 not be cast out of us except by fasting and prayer, so 
 there were certain spiritual victories that would never 
 come without a mighty and protracted struggle; that 
 the ordinary, every-day supplication of a minute would 
 not answer; that it would require a Jacob-like wrestle 
 running through an entire night. 
 
 Dr. Graves heard the statement, and without consul- 
 tation with any one, acted upon it. He spent the night 
 in prayer. 
 
 Next morning, as the writer and his singer were walk- 
 ing up the street together, Dr. Graves passed them in 
 his buggy. Hus appearance was simply shocking. His 
 
 face had a ghastly, yellowish hue, his cheeks were 
 
94 REMARKABLE cocumataai a 
 sunken, and dark rings were about his eyes. The-loo k 
 was that of a corpse. If the Doctor saw us, he never 
 showed any recognition. We were especially st 
 with the hard, set expression of the man’s mouth. 
 As he passed down the street out of sight, we said to’ 
 _ the gentleman by our side: 
 “He will not make that confession.” 
 He replied, “What do you mean?” ; 
 We answered, “He has had his fight last night and — 
 did not get the victory. He met the duty of confession : 
 face to face, counted the cost of obtaining the blessing q 
 of holiness, and has concluded that it was too much, — 
 that he cannot afford to pay it.” 
 At the morning meeting Dr. Graves appeared with a 
 large theological work under his arm. During tes-— 
 timony, instead of witnessing to the grace of God as did 
 others, he stood up, opened his volume, and read some 4 
 passages adverse to the doctrine we had been preaching 
 and to the experience his own people were receiving. 
 After that Dr. Graves developed into what is called 
 “A Holiness Fighter.” He engaged in endless, bitter 
 controversies, and stooped to loud-voiced street argu- 
 ments against the blessing. He not only preached 
 against it, but would tell the advocates and professors 
 of the experience that they did not have it, and ac 
 company his speeches with a grinding, grating and in- 
 
HE TOOK THE WRONG ROAD. 95 
 
 sulting kind of laughter that was most painful to hear. 
 
 Of course this conduct is not surprising to the one 
 who knows and studies the human heart. If Holiness 
 is true, a man must either obtain it or find reasons for 
 fighting it. It will not do to say that we believe in it, 
 and not seek it. On the other hand, if this great grace 
 of God demands of the soul a complete surrender, a 
 perfect humiliation of self for its obtainment, and that 
 soul in a public place or high position cannot get its con- 
 sent to pay such a bitter price, while friends, acquaint- 
 ances and congregation are looking on at the struggle, 
 what is left such a person but to fall back on some musty 
 old volume of theology, give a flat denial to the blessing 
 and take up arms from that moment against the relici- 
 ous movement itself? This explains the attitude of 
 many to-day who spare not the doctrine of sanctifica- 
 tion with tongue or pen. 
 
 As the years went by, Dr. Graves’ frenzy seemed to 
 increase against sanctified people, and he did his best 
 to destroy their work and prevent their holding meet- 
 ings where his jurisdiction extended. 
 
 One of the last letters he wrote was to the writer, 
 warning and forbidding him to hold a Holiness camp- 
 meeting in a tabernacle that had been erected within his 
 pastoral limits, or boundaries. 
 
 The people pulled up the tabernacle stakes and reared 
 
96 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. _ 
 
 and dedicated the building in the cireuit lines of a 
 preacher who promised them protection, and the meet- 
 ing was held. God came down and many souls were 
 saved and sanctified. 
 
 Meantime Dr. Graves raged on. He even tried to 
 have a revival. But only a handful came out to hear — 
 him, the church was dark, cold and empty, and the meet- 
 ing ended, as it began, without any life, and was felt 
 by everybody to be a flat failure. 
 
 Meantime a few of the Holiness people let slip from 
 their tongues a heart-sickening prophecy. The speech 
 finally reached the ears of Dr. Graves. It seemed to ex- 
 asperate him. A few days later, while in attendance 
 upon the annual convention of his church, he said 
 openly on the streets of the town: 
 
 “The Holiness people say that God is going to take 
 my life very soon. Ha! ha! ha!” he laughed, while 
 striking his breast, “I never felt healthier or stronger 
 in my life!” 
 
 Within a month’s time he was in his grave! 
 
 He took the wrong road early in life, and though 
 God in mercy brought him to fork after fork where 
 choosing aright he might have recovered himself and 
 gotten back to duty and happiness, yet, with a persist- 
 ency that was amazing and horrifying, he would in- 
 
 variably decide against conscience, the Gospel teaching 
 
HE TOOK THE WRONG ROAD. 97 
 
 and the strivings of the Holy Spirit; and so taking the 
 way that was not right, followed a course which led him 
 continually farther and farther from God. 
 
 His friends erected a tombstone over him, and carved 
 upon it a flattering epitaph. But the sentence that 
 many felt would have best described his life is to be 
 found in the caption of this chapter: 
 
 “He took the wrong road!” 
 
b. GUE 
 A SKETCH OF A CHILD. 
 
 MONG the nations of the earth there is to be found - 
 another, whose citizens, while dwelling in every 
 country, speaking the language and keeping the laws of | 
 the land, yet remain not the less a distinct and peculiar ~ 
 people. 3 
 This nation is a commonwealth of sufferers! It is 
 
 a multitude of individuals, male and female, young and — 
 old, that by the inheritance of some mental or physical 
 malady, or by some accident, or through the power of a 
 desperate sickness in time of childhood, have been smit- — 
 ten, wounded and marked for life. It is a company — 
 that by no fault of its own has been ruled out forever — 
 from the active pursuits of the world, and shut in to an 
 existence of painfulness, helplessness and loneliness. ‘ 
 There are few families that have not one of these _ 
 bruised ones of earth; and we have observed that there 
 is a peculiar love and tenderness felt for, and speciai — 
 watchfulness extended over, the little unfortunate who _ 
 may be afflicted in mind, lame or sightless, or doomed oa 
 
 to perpetual silence. 
 98 
 
A SKETCH OF A CHILD. 99 
 
 Very beautiful and pathetic have been sights of this 
 character beheld by the writer. One was that of a little 
 girl who, banished from the world lying all around her 
 by some physical affliction would sit upon the floor and 
 lean her head against the knee of her mother for an 
 hour at a time. The mother on one occasion was at- 
 _ tending some of our Gospel meetings, and her eyes 
 full of love but shadowed with a wistful, sorrowful ex- 
 pression would often rest upon the child, while her hand, 
 as she listened to the word of God, would wander with 
 a gentle, lingering touch to fondle the nestling head by 
 her side. 
 
 Another scene comes to the mind which was beheld 
 many times on the gallery and in the front yard of a 
 neighbor. The gentleman referred to had a child who 
 had some spinal affection, and which required that she 
 should be kept strapped upon a plank. Here she would 
 le not only at night but all through the day; and as 
 the family could not afford a servant, the child did not 
 have the ministry of a nurse, and so of necessity re- 
 mained in one trying position through the long hours, 
 watching the busy mother and waiting for the evening 
 to come when the father would return home. 
 
 The devotion between the two was remarkable; he 
 a great strong man, and she a little helpless mite. How 
 
 her pale face would light up, and how his would glow 
 
100 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 and his eyes fill as the poor tired arms would reach up, 
 entwine his neck and the form nestle against his bosom — 
 as much as the hard stiff board would allow. He was — 
 an overworked man, and came home tired and with — 
 dragging steps, but the sight of the tiny sufferer on the 
 plank would act like an elixir and inspiration to him. 
 In another minute we would see him pacing the gallery — 
 with his precious burden in his arms that she might — 
 breathe the fresh air, or walking about under the trees 
 that she might hear and see the children at play on the 
 pavement, listen to the birds, watch the stirring leaves 
 and catch a glimpse of the quiet beauty of the twilight 
 sky. 
 
 In both of these instances we could but notice as we 
 have in many other cases before and since, how these 
 
 7 
 little sufferers are crowned and sceptered monarchs in e 
 their way. Their rule is wonderful in its sweep and 
 power. Before them selfishness has to depart, while the 
 better, purer, nobler emotions and powers of the soul ‘ 
 are awakened and developed in the highest degree. They 
 are a nation with a mission to other nations. Their 
 reign, if accepted, is one of benediction to the individ- 
 ual, the family circle and to the human race.» 
 
 ¥ * * * + + n 
 
 Marguerite was the baby in the family, and the love- 
 
 liest of those that had preceded her. When she was still 
 
 Cibiee al « 
 
A SKETCH OF A CHILD. 101 
 
 in arms her beauty was widely commented on, and many 
 were the remarks made about her smile, which when 
 overspreading her face, made it one of remarkable fasci- 
 nation and power. 
 
 At the age of six months through a misstep of one 
 who was carrying her along a dark hall, both fell, and 
 the child received a violent blow on the head against 
 a hard cemented wall. There was, of course, the ex- 
 pected weeping upon the part of the baby, but she was 
 soon comforted and the circumstance of the fall forgot- 
 ten; when in a few days it was noticed by an anxious- 
 eyed observer in the household that the little one was 
 carrying her head strangely; that the chin was slightly 
 upraised and the back of the head drawn backward. 
 
 Two skillful physicians were at once called in, and 
 both pooh-poohed the anxieties and fears of the family 
 away, and easy breaths were once more drawn. But, 
 alas for the superficial knowledge possessed by the most 
 celebrated medical men concerning this profound mys- 
 tery, the human body. In a week’s time the child 
 was stricken down with cerebro-spinal meningitis, and 
 her life despaired of. The first physicians of the 
 city attended the case, a nurse was secured, while the 
 sorrowful-faced young mother would hardly consent to 
 be relieved a minute day or night of the precious suffer- 
 
 ing burden on her lap. 
 
102 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 Great and prolonged was the battle for the life of the — 
 little one, and for weeks Death was felt to be not only 
 at the door, but in the room. The fearful experiences 
 
 of those hours, the anxious and grief-stricken faces of 
 the home circle, the grave face of the doctor, the toss- 
 ings and sighings of the baby, the periodic clink of the 
 spoon and glass, the low voiced directions of the physi- 
 cian, the stifled sob in the sick room, the sound of weep- 
 ing from a distant part of the house, and the muffled 
 noise through closed doors and windows of the street 
 outside, all weave themselves into a memory so full of 
 anguish that to this day, after the flight of ten years and 
 more, there are those who cannot bear to summon it 
 back. Like portraits whose faces break the heart to 
 look upon—this recollection or life picture has been 
 turned to the wall. 
 
 Finally, when all hope was gone, and the last breath 
 was expected every moment; the crisis was past, and to 
 the amazement and joy of physician, nurse and family, 
 Marguerite lived! But even while tears of thankfulness 
 were pouring down the cheeks of the home circle, it 
 was discovered that the child had become sightless. She 
 was blind. The beautiful brown eyes saw nothing that 
 
 was held up or moved before them. Then, as the days 
 
 rolled by, other powers were discovered to be gone. 
 Here was bitter sorrow coming right on the heels of 
 
 sua 
 
A SKETCH OF A CHILD. 103 
 
 joy; and the thought with many friends was, would it 
 not have been better far for her to have died ? 
 
 The family moved away to spend the summer on 
 the seashore. It was hoped the sweet, pure, invigorat- 
 ing air of the ocean would help the little one to get 
 back to health and strength. A cottage was secured in 
 Bay St. Louis; and an old French nurse employed to 
 give special attention to the afilicted and all the more 
 beloved child. The two soon became a familiar spec- 
 tacle to the residents of the well-known summer resort. 
 Sometimes the turbaned creole would croon her old 
 French and Spanish songs for hours on the porch that 
 
 “was shaded by great live oaks and rustling magnolias; 
 the child meanwhile lying on her lap almost without 
 motion, but with her hazel eyes open and evidently lis- 
 tening to every note. 
 
 Later in the day the nurse would trundle the sight- 
 less, silent listener in her carriage along the beautiful 
 beach, where the only sound heard would be that of the 
 solemn wash and roll of the blue waves of the Gulf of 
 Mexico, as they swept far up the strand, would retire 
 with something like a sigh, and rush back again with 
 their deep-toned and melancholy fall upon the shore. 
 
 The child seemed to drink in everything of sound, 
 from plaintive ditties, crooning melodies, woodland bird 
 
 songs, to the murmur and call of the ocean whose billows 
 
104 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 rolled and broke near the wheels of her carriage. At 
 this time the breadth of the ocean stretched between — 
 the child and her father, though no distance kept her — 
 out of his mind. 5 4 
 
 After this the family removed to a large city in the — 
 North to live, and then the long silent child began to _ 
 _ sing. With a most remarkable silvery and melodious .: 
 ‘voice she would pour out for minutes and sometimes an 
 hour that which had been gathering in the line of har- 
 mony in her mind and heart. The strains of the old — 
 songs sung in the South to her welled up and out, and 
 there seemed to be touching and tingeing them some-_— 
 thing she had heard from the birds in the woodland and 
 the waves on the shore. 
 
 In addition she seemed ever anxious to hear more, 
 and would lie in her carriage in the parlor, or on the lap 
 of a loved one, listening eagerly to the street ballads 
 and songs, and other musical pieces played and sung 
 by her grown sisters on the piano. 
 
 It was amazing to see how rapidly she learned any- 
 thing that had melody in it; and though only eighteen 
 months to two years of age, her voice not only filled but 
 thrilled the house with a loud, clear, accurate and 
 sweet rendition of all she heard. It was a bird-like 
 voice that penetrated every room, and was all the more 
 affecting as she could not speak a word. It was simply __ 
 
A SKETCH OF A CHILD. 105 
 
 a strain of music she poured forth upon delighted and 
 yet deeply touched hearers. 
 
 When out on the street in her carriage, escorted by 
 her nurse, it was the same. Lying all helpless, with 
 the pathetic brown eyes ‘open, but seeing nothing, she 
 would sing as we have heard the mocking-birds sing at 
 night in the South. She sang as if her little heart was 
 full, while the clear, child-like voice was easily heard 
 one and two blocks away. It was a medley concert she 
 gave, with “Comrades,” “Two Little Girls in Blue,” 
 “Marguerite,” and “Sweet Marie,” together with old 
 French songs that no one knew but the Creole nurse left 
 down South. But every one was delighted just the 
 same, and many eyes filled as they looked down in the 
 beautiful, sightless eyes, and heard the wondrously 
 sweet melody coming out of the lips of the tiny sufferer 
 —one of that mystic band of God’s bruised ones. 
 
 Soon after this period the child began to recover her 
 sight, and later to talk. As vision, speech and other 
 powers began to be restored and exercised, strange to 
 say, the sweet, weird and pathetic singing began to drop 
 off, and finally ceased. It was all in vain to coax and 
 plead; a sudden shyness had come, and the home song- 
 bird stopped its beautiful notes. Perhaps speech, sight, 
 motion, and other enjoyments relieved the burdened 
 
 soul, which thus found expression in other ways than 
 
106 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 in song, but whatever was the cause, the caroling that 
 
 so charmed the family and many others ended. 
 
 As the years slipped by other effects of the dreadful 3 
 sickness passed away, but it placed the child at the dis- Be 
 
 advantage of being fully two years behind other children 
 
 of her own age. With this came a certain kind of tim- 
 
 idity, a fearfulness of loud and bold sports, a shrink- 
 ing from all such play in which she felt herself not the 
 equal in fleetness and strength with her younger sister 
 and other girl playmates. 
 
 This led to her retirement from many of childhood’s 
 happy games; and to one of the most pathetic of spec- 
 tacles; namely, the sight of her little figure sitting aloof, 
 watching the children romping at a distance with an 
 indescribably wistful look in her shadowy eyes and rest- 
 ing upon her thoughtful face. Sometimes, on a cold 
 day, when she could not brave the snow and wind out- 
 
 side, she has frequently been seen perched on a window 
 
 seat, peering through the panes at the laughing, frolic 
 
 some set of boys and girls in the yard and on the street 
 and with that same longing melancholy look that made 
 the heart of the observer fairly ache to see. 
 
 When thus found by some one of the family in the 
 lonely window nook, she would bury her face in the 
 sympathetic bosom of the mother, father or grand- 
 mother, without tears, but with a sigh that went through 
 
A SKETCH OF A CHILD. 107 
 
 the very soul of the hearer. She was bowing to the 
 blow of a cruel sickness which she did not remember, 
 but whose sorrowful effect she still languished under. 
 It had struck her backwards two years of time. It 
 had weakened the limbs, made timid the nature, and 
 caused her to be an exile from the ranks of children of 
 her own age, and banished her in some respects from all 
 of them. 
 
 * * * * * * * * 
 
 Among the stray, cast-off, forlorn animals that tried 
 to insinuate themselves into household relations at the 
 home of Marguerite was a most dejected looking little 
 dog, whose very appearance suggested to most people 
 the thought and desire of administering a kick, letting 
 fly a brickbat, or vociferating the words, “Get out.” 
 
 The dog was a small one, of a brownish muddy color, 
 while his hair of various length seemed to stand out at 
 every angle. One of his ears had a flop or droop as if 
 bitten or cut in some way. He had numerous marks 
 of sealds and burns, with deeper scars that spoke of more 
 dangerous weapons than a pan of hot water. The dog 
 bore a wary, frightened look, shambled along sideways, 
 as if watching all points of the compass, and seemed 
 ready to run at the first faintest signal of danger. It 
 would be hard to imagine a more pitiable object in the 
 
 canine world than the animal now referred to, who 
 
108 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. a 
 
 made surreptitious visits to Marguerite’s home in the — 
 wild hope that he might be tolerated if not adopted by _ 
 the family. 
 
 Of course he received prompt invitations to leave, 
 and broomstick handles and other domestic implements 
 were brought into immediate use to hasten his 
 departure. With a pitiful, despairing yelp he would 
 vanish down the street or alley, only to be seen soon 
 after peeping in at the side gate toward the brick 
 kitchen, or wistfully gazing through the iron fence 
 which skirted the grass-covered yard, where the children 
 romped and frolicked in the shade. It all seemed like 
 Heaven to “Sport”? as the children of the family for 
 some reason had dubbed the dog. Poor, friendless, 
 homeless, hungry creature, he had no sport, and the 
 principal business of his life was to escape missiles of 
 every kind, as, driven by the pangs of starvation, he 
 crept in at back and side gates in hope of finding a bone, 
 or crust of bread. Poor, smitten and chased roamer _ 
 of the street, life was nothing but a hard, painful, bitter - 
 existence to him. z 
 
 Strange to say, the first one of the entire house- 
 hold, whose heart opened to receive Sport was Mar- 
 guerite. No one else could tolerate the ugly, dirty- 
 looking waif of the back alley. It was noticed that her 
 voice had only kind words and tones for him, and her 
 
A SKETCH OF A CHILD. 109 
 
 land was one that slipped pieces of bread to him, se- 
 cured from the table when the meal was over. The 
 bruised creature of the street found his single friend in 
 the bruised child of the home which he tried to get into 
 and in vain. 
 
 No one relaxed toward Sport like Marguerite. The 
 appearance of the dog was so against him that, after 
 the flight of weeks, the resistance of the household was 
 as firm toward him as at the first. At the same time 
 it was perceived that every time he was ordered off, 
 or kicked out, the face of the child was clouded, and a 
 greatly troubled look gathered in her eyes. 
 
 One afternoon the father of Marguerite came sud- 
 denly around the side of the house and beheld a scene 
 in the corner of the yard that not only profoundly af- 
 fected him then, but has remained ever since, a picture 
 in the mind that for pathetic beauty and heart-melting 
 power he has never seen surpassed. 
 
 Marguerite was sitting on the grass close to the iron 
 fence, while Sport, with his body lying on the pavement 
 outside, had pushed his head through the metal rods 
 and bars and had it resting on the lap of the child. 
 She was bending over the half-starved, lonely, de- 
 spised creature, patting his head and smoothing his 
 scarred back, with her fair little hand. He, evidently 
 
110 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 full of an humble thankfulness, was receiving the soli- ; 
 tary act of pity, kindness and love of his beaten and 
 wretched life. The poor, friendless animal, bruised by 
 the hands of men, was being comforted by a little child 
 who had been bruised under the Providence of God. 
 
 There was an instantaneous gush of tears to the eyes 
 of the observer, and a swell and ache filled his heart 
 that he had then, and still has no words to describe. 
 He stole away from the spot unobserved, feeling that 
 he had looked upon a scene which had divine beauty in 
 it, and that he had walked upon holy ground. 
 
 Since then it has been easier with him to see how 
 and why the sorrowing ones of earth come to the Man 
 of Sorrows; why the stricken and wounded of earth 
 creep up to and lay their wearied heads and broken 
 hearts in the lap of Jesus, who was smitten and hurt 
 all his life, and at last put to a cruel death. There is 
 a peculiar understanding among sufferers. The Bible 
 ealls it a “fellowship.” Anyhow we know that the 
 bruised one of Mt. Calvary will never cast off the 
 bruised ones of this earth. He bids the lonely, heart- — 
 sick man or woman draw near to Him. And coming 
 to Him they will find a heavenly lap, where they can 
 weep out every sorrow, feel a tender, pitiful face bent 
 over them, while a hand with a nail print in the palm 
 will with its loving touch lift every burden, take away 
 
pain and fill the soul with a sweet, holy, restful 
 
 which no human force and influence can give and no © 
 
A LEE 
 A BRAND PLUCKED FROM THE BURNING. 
 
 CCURRENCES are continually taking place in 
 the moral world that so break into and over what 
 we call rules and laws in the spiritual life, and so upset 
 certain standards of judgment, that we are for a while 
 left almost breathless, and even after that for quite a 
 season are disposed to be chary of our ex-cathedra ut- 
 terances upon human life and its destiny, and are will- 
 ing to allow God to run the world and manage the 
 church and the nations for at least several months. 
 When we see and hear of people whom everybody 
 thought established in the Christian life, going off into 
 
 false doctrines, into various evil habits and into sin and 
 
 unbelief itself; one of those wondering occasions is at 
 
 once beheld. Great is the clatter and chatter of tongues 
 for a while. The argument of an establishing grace 
 seems to be knocked down. The increased power of re- 
 sistance to evil said to come from the practice of right- 
 eousness appears for a period to be a mistaken idea. 
 And so men are bewildered. 
 
 On the other hand, when we see a man who has lived 
 
 a profane, impure, lawless, godless life for forty or fifty 
 112 
 
A BRAND PLUCKED FROM TILE BURNING ills} 
 
 years, suddenly turn to Christ, get saved and then sanc- 
 tified, and live like a saint, die in triumph and go shout- 
 ing home to glory, another moral wonder has taken 
 place, and another set of laws, oracular utterances and 
 solemn prophecies have been upset. 
 
 The devil of course is around to put his interpreta- 
 tion on both occurrences, and get people to buy his _ 
 commentaries on all such happenings; and yet the prin- 
 ciples by which the two sets of laws were established 
 are perfectly true, and what we see are only exceptions 
 to the rule. In establishing our standards of judgment 
 we simply failed to allow for the presence and power of 
 an Almighty God not only in the world but in each 
 life, and one perfectly able, with his knowledge of the 
 heart and his omnipotence in this world, to amaze us 
 with the dealings of his permissive and positive Provi- 
 dence. 
 
 Moreover, none of these startling things in the spirit- 
 ual life about us, but have been already spoken of, and 
 fearfully and wonderfully illustrated in the Bible. The 
 Dying Thief was snatched from the lowest step of Ruin 
 and caught up into Heaven. On the other hand, Saul, 
 Judas, and Demas, when well up the stairway of Sal- 
 vation, stumbled, slipped and fell with a crash to the 
 bottom of an endless Perdition. 
 
 So Satan it seems steals messengers of light from the 
 
114 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 side of the Lord, while in blessed contrast the Lord’ 
 plucks brands from the devil’s burning, and trans- 
 forms them into great fixed stars of righteouness and 
 truth, to shine forever in the heavenly world. 
 
 The sketch we here present is a gracious instance of 
 the goodness and power of God in the latter case. 
 
 was a steamboat mate on the 
 
 A man named § 
 Missouri River. No one ever remembered to have seen 
 -him at a church, or heard of his attending one. More- 
 over, there was nothing about his life to lead one to 
 suppose that he ever had a religious thought, or sus- 
 pected that he possessed a soul. At the age of sixty- 
 five he was as wicked a man as ever stormed and swore 
 at a set of hands on the deck of a steamboat. 
 One day while the boat was approaching St. Louis 
 on a homeward trip, he, without a single premonitory 
 sign, was stricken down with that lightning flash and 
 thunderbolt of diseases—paralysis. No one thought he 
 would live through the remaining hundred miles of the 
 trip, nor did he expect anything but immediate death. 
 He heard, as it were, the clods falling on his coffin lid, 
 and expected that the bottom of his grave would next 
 break through and let him slide or plunge into hell. 
 
 On arrival at the wharf a litter was made and four 
 men trudged through the silent, empty streets toward 
 
 his home. 
 
 oe al 
 
A BRAND PLUCKED FROM THE BURNING 115 
 
 From the moment he fell on the deck, and with every 
 
 step of his litter bearers, S was praying to God 
 for mercy. His constant ery was, “Forgive me, Lord, 
 for the sake of Jesus Christ.” Before he reached his 
 house, twenty or more blocks from the river, God spoke 
 peace to the tortured soul, and S—— was laid upon his 
 bed in his room a saved man. 
 
 Some ladies, belonging to the church of the writer, 
 who did a good deal of visiting among the sick, heard 
 of the case and called upon the sick man. In the midst 
 
 of their visit they happened to speak of sanctification, 
 
 when, quick as a flash, S asked what they meant by 
 sanctification ; and they replied that it was a beautiful, 
 blessed Grace that God had for His children. 
 
 “What!” said S——-; “is there anything else ?” 
 
 “Yes,” they answered, ‘“‘a second work that purifies 
 the soul and fills it with rest and perfect love.” 
 
 Turning a pair of wistful, pleading eyes upon them, 
 the gray-haired man said, with a broken voice, “I want 
 it; tell me how to get it.” 
 
 They, however, did not feel competent to give direc- 
 tions, but said they would send their pastor to call on 
 him and show him the way. 
 
 The writer, however, was so busy with the numerous 
 and different calls of a city pastorate, that ke did not 
 until the tenth day; when, 
 
 reach the home of S 
 
116 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. — am 
 
 on entering, he found to his surprise and pleasure that | 
 the sick man had obtained the blessing alone, without 
 any more human assistance. Asking the rejoicing per- 
 son lying before us how he did and what he did to — 
 secure “The Pearl of Great Price,” he said, with smiles — 
 and tears intermingled : 
 
 “T wanted it so bad that I couldn’t wait. So I kept 
 saying, ‘Lord, please give it to me.’ Hour after hour 
 for eight days and nights, with every waking moment I 
 would lie here, look up and say, ‘Lord, please, for Jesus’ 
 sake, give it to me,’ and one day, while I was sighing 
 and crying and pleading, the blessing came and I have 
 been full and overflowing ever since. O, yes, I’ve got it; 
 there’s no doubt about it.” 
 
 As the writer stood by the sick bed of this old river 
 man, one who had not attended church, knew nothing 
 of theology, and had spent his life amid hard and sinful 
 men, and yet was here in the possession of a blessing 
 that bishops are denying and theologians wrangling 
 about, he was filled with such a tide of contending emo- 
 tions of wonder and awe of God, and love and praise 
 of God, that words could not properly and satisfyingly 
 describe. 
 
 We doubt not that the man prayed himself to the 
 point of a complete consecration, and we all know that 
 from the end of such a rod will bloom and bud the 
 
A BRAND PLUCKED FROM THE BURNING 117 
 
 flower of a perfect faith in God to cleanse the heart 
 from all sin and fill the soul with the Holy Ghost. 
 Thus, without preachers, sermons, and altar rails, 
 Brother S 
 ing to Jesus, and led by the Spirit, crossed the Jordan 
 
 , a poor, ignorant steamboat mate, look- 
 
 and entered the Canaan of Full Salvation, or Perfect 
 Love. 
 
 After this it became a crowning wonder to visit him. 
 From the hour of his sanctification until his death, six 
 months later, there never seemed to be a cloud in his 
 sky. His joy was not only like an artesian well, but 
 overflowed everything, and everybody. It was a bene- 
 diction simply to look upon the shining face of the man, 
 
 and a privilege to listen to his conversations, or, rather, 
 
 monologues, for one had only to be with Brother S 
 a minute to be perfectly willing that he should do all 
 the talking. 
 
 We were not only surprised but amazed as we listened 
 to the beautiful, blessed things that fell from the lips of 
 the patient and rejoicing sufferer. As we remembered 
 the churchless and sinful life, we marveled at the man’s 
 spiritual knowledge. Where did he get all these 
 gracious thoughts that overflowed in such apt and unc- 
 tuous language was the constant query of the mind? 
 And the only answer was that here was a man who had 
 
 been emptied and filled and was now taught of God. 
 
LS ill REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 In the beginning of our pastoral attentions we went 
 
 down to cheer and help the poor old brother, as we 
 called him. But on the very first visit the tables were 
 
 turned on us. The invalid helped the well man. The 
 gray-haired man we called old had the youth and fresh- 
 ness of Heaven in him. Instead of being poor, he was 
 richer in faith, love, joy and other heavenly treasures 
 than any one of us who entered his sick room. He was 
 a blessing to everybody who called upon him, and the 
 feeling of the visitor at departure was, that one of the 
 windows of Heaven had been opened just above that 
 sick bed, and an angel had been met unawares. 
 
 More than once we caught some of our faltering, 
 fainting members with guile, as the apostle expresses it, 
 by asking them to drop in and see “poor old Brother 
 S——,” who was lying in his room awaiting the second 
 stroke of paralysis to call him home. They always came 
 back open-mouthed and open-eyed, full of wonder and 
 praise, and with their own faith stimulated and Chris- 
 
 tian life strengthened at the miracle of grace they had 
 
 just beheld. 
 
 The second visit of the mysterious disease came as 
 was expected. It found Brother S—— not only pre- 
 pared but yearning to depart and to be with Christ. 
 The first stroke found him a sinner and bade him pre- 
 pare to meet his God; the second blow knocked down 
 
 ef 
 “3 
 _< 
 
A BRAND PLUCKED FROM THE BURNING 119 
 
 the door that separates earth from Heaven, and Brother 
 S justified, sanctified, exulting and triumphant! 
 walked through the open portal, and looked upon the 
 face of his Redeemer. 
 
XIV. 
 THE FALL OF PRIDE. 
 
 Cee of the remarkable ways of the world is to 
 judge some sins with the greatest severity and 
 pitilessness, and with the same mouth condone, apolo- 
 gize for, and even exalt other iniquities that will as — 
 certainly damn the soul in hell. : 
 
 Theft, murder and adultery will put a man at once — 
 outside social and ecclesiastical pales, while pride is 
 tolerated, cherished and defended; and yet the Bible 
 informs us that by pride fell the angels, and through ~ 
 the like sin Adam and Eve lost the Garden of Eden. 
 They desired to eat the fruit of the forbidden tree that — 
 they might be wise and be as gods. In another place — 
 is the statement that God knoweth the proud afar off; _ 
 and still more fearful is the verse that “Pride goeth be- _ 
 fore destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” 
 
 This pride may take many forms; of birth, family, — 
 position, wealth, culture, accomplishments, beauty and — 
 intellect, and can even flourish where there is no reason 
 whatever for its existence except sin in the heart. But 3 
 no matter whether it is the rebellious will which holds 4 
 
 out against God and resists his demands for the humb- _ 
 . 120 
 
THE FALL OF PRIDE. 121 
 
 ling of self, or whether it is the haughty spirit which 
 despises the ignorant and poor; all pride is hateful and 
 abominable to God. 
 
 The face and hand of the Almighty is against such a 
 spirit and life, and hence it is that the Bible abounds 
 in records of the downfalls of this sin; and in history 
 God is still seen in his Providence, intent upon its humil- 
 iation, Judgment and destruction. Even in daily life 
 the irony of circumstance, the exposure of accident, the 
 unmistakable retribution of human events, and the di- 
 rect dealings of Heaven, all agree and point to the fact 
 that pride is certain to meet with crushing downfalls. 
 
 In one of our Southern States before the Civil War 
 lived a very wealthy planter, who owned one of the 
 largest sugar plantations in that part of the country 
 called the Coast. He had but one child, a handsome, 
 Liack-eyed girl, who was eight years of age when the 
 writer first saw her. We met at the home of a relative, 
 where she and her mother were spending the day. 
 
 The child, as the heiress of an immense estate, and 
 possessed of great personal beauty, had been much flat- 
 tered and petted, and so became badly spoiled. She 
 carried, even at that early period of life, an au- 
 thoritative, not to say arrogant air, and assumed the 
 manner of one of the queens of the earth. 
 
 The writer, who was the same age as herself, had the 
 
129 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 misfortune that morning to offend her majesty in some 
 way; whereupon she flashed upon him such a pair of 
 indignant and angry eyes that the lad, overwhelmed, 
 went down ingloriously before her, and actually crept — 
 under a large center table where a heavy cloth covering 
 almost touching the floor hid him from her view. She — 
 walked around the captive boy several times in a 
 triumph of spirit, which he felt, or imagined he felt, 
 clear through the heavy drapery which concealed him. | 
 Finally she said, in a sovereign-like tone: 4 
 
 “You can come out now; I forgive you.” 
 
 And the lad, profoundly humbled, came forth to 
 light and life again. The queen, or empress, was dis- 
 posed to be gracious but the captive was disgusted with — 
 royalty and left the little virago the monarch and soli- 
 tary possessor of the empty room. 3 
 
 A few weeks afterward the boy went with his mother 
 to dine at the parental residence of the sugar plantation — 
 empress ; but while the grown people got along pleasant- E, 
 ly and amicably together, the released captive, with 
 liveliest recollections of his former imprisonment, kept — 
 a wide distance between himself and his former en- 
 slaver. If he could prevent it, he was determined that 4 
 no such exercise of royalty should be visited upon him _ 
 again; so the lad wandered about under the majestic 
 shade trees and over the lawn, and feasted his eyes on 
 
THE FALL OF PRIDE. ZS 
 
 the billowy ocean of cotton and cane that stretched for 
 miles in every direction. 
 Several years aiter this came the Civil War; then the 
 
 “Surrender,” 
 
 and the freeing of the slaves. These oc- 
 currences swept away much of the family fortune, but 
 as Mr. A., the father of the empress, had great land 
 possessions, he was still a very rich man. 
 
 Of course, the daughter, with her remarkable beauty 
 and large wealth, did not lack for attention, and so she 
 swept along her triumphant way looking and acting 
 more like a royal personage than ever. Wherever she 
 went she left a whole string of bleeding masculine 
 hearts behind her, and all more or less broken in reality 
 or imagination. 
 
 Soon after this came a piece of news about her that 
 was so surprising that hundreds of tongues were set 
 going for months. The tidings was that the heiress 
 had become engaged to a prominent and unexceptionable 
 young man of her own set, the marriage was celebrated 
 in the stately old home mansion in the most elegant and 
 sumptuous way, the guests departed at midnight, and 
 the household retired. But the next morning the young 
 and newly-wedded couple parted forever. They never 
 ate a single meal together, and never saw or spoke to 
 each other again. By mutual consent a divorce was 
 
 speedily obtained. And to-day, after a lapse of thirty- 
 
Pr . 
 a4 a3 
 
 124 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. — 
 
 7 
 
 eight years, the world is no wiser than it was then, as 
 to the cause of the unhappy separation. t 
 Both were persons who could keep a secret, and if the 
 father and mother understood the cause of the trouble — 
 they never told any one. The nearest friends and rela- — 
 tives were kept in ignorance of this strange, melancholy — 
 piece of family history. Of course there was much — 
 guessing and speculation, but conjecture is not cer- 
 
 ‘ 
 tainty. The conviction, however, was general that the | 
 man was not at fault, but the trouble lay at the door of — 
 the haughty, hasty, imperious spirit of the empress. | 
 Some years later the young man married again and 
 has to-day, we are informed, a happy home and lovely — 
 family circle; but the empress never embarked in matri- — 
 mony again. : 
 Several years after this the parents died and left 
 the young woman the lonely occupant of the great man- 
 sion where she had so long reigned and witnessed so 
 many of her social triumphs. She became quite a 
 recluse, and it would not be difficult to imagine the 
 loneliness of her heart and the emptiness of her life. 
 One of her sorrows at this time came on the line of 
 retribution. When people saw that she avoided them, 
 they in turn left her to herself. The world has a way 
 of striking back, and does not propose to grieve and 
 break its heart over one of its absentees. When people 
 
THE FALL OF PRIDE. 125 
 
 take the notion to become hermits and draw away from 
 others in a sulky mood, the rule is to let them go and 
 have the spell out with themselves. This, of course, is 
 provoking to the sulker, and especially to one who has 
 had his or her own way for ever so long, but it is cer- 
 tainly good for the sulks itself. It also brings practical 
 and very valuable lessons to the sulker. 
 
 The empress, however, remained a proud woman, and 
 if the Spartan Fox was biting and eating, the cloak was 
 wrapped around the gnawing and the gnawed spot, and 
 no word was uttered. 
 
 Other sorrows still awaited the abdicated sovereign. 
 The lawyers, in settling up the estate of Mr. A., found 
 that the whole property was heavily mortgaged, and 
 for far more than it could possibly bring for its sale. 
 In better times something handsome might have been 
 realized for the daughter, but the period of foreclosure 
 was at a time of general financial depression, and so, 
 after the business settlement, it was discovered that 
 nothing of the great estate was left. The empress was 
 without a throne, and stripped of an income. In a 
 word, she was homeless and penniless. 
 
 She never asked relatives or friends for assistance. 
 We doubt not if she had they would have helped her; 
 but pride came in again and would not allow the humil- 
 
 jation. It is hard for one who has been a queen to 
 
126 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 become a dependent; for one who has sat on a throne — 
 to sit down as a second table kind of guest or hanger-on 
 of some family. The young woman found something 
 in her that made such a course impossible; so she went 
 to a large city and took in sewing for a living. 
 
 But she was no skilled seamstress; she had owned 
 servants who had performed all that kind of work for 
 her, and the littie she had done was not sufficient to 
 make her anything like a swift and accomplished 
 needlewoman. And so she could not make enough to 
 properly support herself. Her comparatively inferior 
 work caused her to lose patrons. Repeatedly she had 
 to walk long distances to collect a single bill owed her 
 by some wealthy woman, who did not dream of her 
 former wealth and station. They were the empresses 
 now, and she had to submit to their fault-finding, high 
 words, and royal way of walking around and over ordi- 
 nary folks. 
 
 She was finally compelled to move to a garret, 
 cold, bleak, ill-furnished and generally miserable. Here 
 she spent the last two years of her life in the vain at- 
 tempt with her needle to keep body and soul together. 
 
 One day she was missed, and then another, and still 
 another. On instituting a search they found her lying 
 dead on her bed. Not a scrap of food, nor a single cent 
 
THE FALL OF PRIDE. 127 
 
 of money could be found in the room. The signs were 
 that she had died in great agony. 
 
 On holding a post-mortem examination, the doctors 
 announced that she had died of actual starvation ! 
 
 When the friends and relatives in their distant homes 
 and plantations heard of this dreadful end, they were 
 profoundly shocked and distressed. But their grief did 
 not alter facts. The empress had perished for lack of 
 the common necessaries of life. She had slowly but 
 surely starved to death. 
 
 Her friends and kindred bought a beautiful casket 
 for the dead young woman, and had a silver plate put 
 on the coffin lid, with the words, “At Rest.” As to the 
 truth of its application we can only hope; but concern- 
 ing the appropriateness of another inscription, and one 
 taken from the Bible, there can not be the shadow of a 
 doubt. The verse is found in Proverbs and reads as 
 _ follows: 
 
 “Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit 
 before a fall.” 
 
XV. 
 THE MAN IN A BOG. 
 
 N the swamps of Mississippi there are bayous and 
 cypress brakes that are crossed by the traveler with 
 difficulty in the best seasons of the year, and that in 
 the rainy period of winter cannot be forded at all. To 
 slip from the low bridge of logs laid over these sloughs 
 means an immediate and hopeless miring down in the 
 black, sticky mud. Even the wild denizens of the forest 
 know better than to venture into one of these marshes 
 to quench thirst; while domestic animals, like 
 horses and cattle, if once entangled in such a quagmire, 
 are doomed. For, while it is true that the “bog” has _ 
 not the depth of the quicksand, yet it is deep enough 
 and strong enough to hold the struggling creature fast, 
 and bring all his frenzied efforts to escape to naught. 
 With strength exhausted after many violent surgings 
 and plungings, the victim seems to recognize its coming 
 fate. So with a few additional feeble struggles, each 
 one weaker than its predecessor, and now already half 
 buried in the black ooze and slime, the unfortunate ani- 
 
 mal lies still, awaiting death, while buzzards perched 
 128 
 
THE MAN IN A BOG. 129 
 
 upon surrounding trees tarry for the last breath before 
 beginning their ghastly banquet. 
 
 Sometimes a human being gets into the toils of the 
 marsh or bog, and finds it to be a grave. One instance 
 out of a number comes up most vividly to the memory 
 of the writer. 
 
 His aunt owned a plantation twelve miles from the 
 county seat. To this place she was accustomed to send 
 much of her cotton by means of ox wagons. On a cold 
 winter day one of her teamsters drove an accustomed 
 load to town in a wagon drawn by three yoke of oxen. 
 After rolling the bales into a warehouse, the driver filled 
 his vehicle with boxes and barrels of groceries, and 
 started back late in the afternoon for the distant planta- 
 tion. At nightfall he came to a place where he had 
 the choice of mounting a long, steep hill, or taking a 
 near cut through the swamp. The fact that the last 
 mentioned road was nearer, was level and missed the 
 lofty hill, decided the teamster, but he forgot how the 
 constant autumn and winter rains had been at work on 
 the turfy, sticky marsh, and had made it a quagmire 
 almost impassable for any kind of vehicle, much less 
 a heavily loaded wagon. 
 
 When he turned his team into this dark swamp road, 
 this was the last seen of him in life. He did not arrive 
 
 at home that night, nor at noon the next day, and so 
 
130 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 a party started out on horseback to search for him; and — 
 a little before dusk they came upon the following ghastly 
 sight : 
 
 All of the oxen were mired down. Two were dead. 
 The wagon was half tilted over, while the wheels on 
 one side were so sunk in the bog that the hubs were out 
 of sight. Several barrels and boxes were on the side 
 of the road, a few fence rails were scattered about where 
 the driver had been trying to pry the wheels out of the 
 deep ruts, and close by, lying flat on the mud, with his 
 face upturned to the sky, was the negro stone dead! 
 
 He had gone to the farther side of the wagon, where 
 the marsh was deepest, and there had stuck fast. From 
 all the signs he had evidently made desperate ef- 
 forts to get released, but, becoming weaker with every 
 effort, found himself unable to pull his limbs out 
 of the sticky death-trap, and so, in exhaustion and de- 
 spair, fell backward and slowly froze to death. It 
 required the strength of several men to draw the corpse 
 from the bog, which seemed to hold the dead body with 
 its black, entwining arms and reluctant to give it up. 
 
 There are worse bogs than those in the Yazoo Delta. 
 There is something deadlier than a Mississippi marsh. 
 There is a morass which not only destroys the body but 
 damns the soul. It is called Sin! In it not simply in- 
 
THE MAN IN A BOG. 131 
 
 dividuals, but nations, are floundering, sinking, and 
 perishing ! 
 
 Men are caught in different sloughs and brakes of 
 iniquity, but it is the same old sticky, blinding, chok- 
 
 ing, 
 
 strangling, murdering bog of Sin. The rule is that 
 he who goes out far, never gets back to the shore of 
 
 safety. He sinks deeper with every oath, with every 
 “unclean thought, with every wrong word and act, and 
 with every glass of liquor. % 
 
 If it is the intemperance slough he is in, he flounders 
 for a while, makes promises, swears off, joins societies, 
 begins afresh on the New Year, and then on his birth- 
 day, but after all these endeavors at recovery, and in 
 spite of all, he goes out farther, and settles down deeper 
 in the bog than ever before. Men wave their hands to 
 lim and warn him, but all to no purpose. Their calls 
 seem to be unheard and anyhow unheeded. 
 
 Meantime the efforts of the victim himself, to escape 
 from his entanglements, become feebler, until finally 
 every eye can see that all struggling has ceased. The 
 man seems to realize that Sin has mastered him, and 
 now lies down in its ooze and slime to die in silence and 
 despair, while devils roosting around wait for the last 
 breath, to pounce upon and fly off with the lost soul. 
 
 We once knew a young man who was a trusted book- 
 
 keeper in a large store. He was the support of a wid- 
 
132 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 owed sister and her three little girls. No father or hus- 
 band could have been more thoughtful, kind and de- 
 voted. In addition to the comfortable home provided 
 for them, he was considerate of their welfare and pleas- 
 ure in many other ways too numerous to mention. 
 
 This young man, whose name was K., was exceed- 
 ingly social in nature, with a leaning towards conviv-— 
 iality. Bright, witty, well read, and good-looking, he 
 was greatly sought after for dinings, receptions and 
 parties, and was indeed one of the first names among 
 the gentlemen written down when lists of guests were 
 being prepared. “We cannot get along without Mr. 
 K.,” was a speech uttered not only many times, but in 
 many quarters. 
 
 In men’s clubs and midnight suppers K, was in equal 
 demand; and so it was that between the two he grew 
 first familiar with the different wines and then fond of 
 their taste and effect. 
 
 It was at this time we vividly recall him as popular 
 with the various social circles in town, he was kept busy 
 answering their invitations and meeting their demands. 
 We saw him whirling along in carriages with ladies, 
 and dashing past in buggies with gentlemen, and to all 
 appearances absorbed and delighted with the life. 
 
 Again, we often beheld him on the street at an even- 
 
 ing hour observed by the society element in the com- 
 
THE MAN IN A BOG. 133 
 
 munity as a time for public promenading. Whenever 
 we saw him in these perambulations with young men 
 and women, he would be talking earnestly, often laugh- 
 ing immoderately and affecting his companions with a 
 like spirit. 
 
 We recall even at this length of time a growing 
 redness in his face, and an _ increasing ner- 
 vousness and abruptness of manner. He presented the 
 appearance, as we now can see, of a man living in a 
 state of highest tension. A certain glassy look of the 
 eyes and tremulousness of the hands, were confirmatory 
 signs of the dissipated life. Already the man was in 
 the bog! 
 
 Several years passed away, and a marked change was 
 observable in the family of Mrs. D., the sister of K. 
 She had resumed the anxious, sorrowful look which had 
 been banished for a while after the death of her hus- 
 band by the devotion of her brother. She not only 
 quit visiting, but avoided company altogether, while 
 the signs of scant living and seedy clothing were unmis- 
 takable both in herself and the little girls. The house 
 was still kept scrupulously neat and clean, but one could 
 not walk through the dining-room and kitchen without 
 feeling in a strange sort of way that both larder and 
 store room were empty. The sideboard had nothing on 
 
 it or in it, but a few chilly white dishes, while through 
 
134 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 the blue wire of the safe not a sign of bread or meat was 
 visible. 
 
 It was also noticeable that K.’s dress was not as it 
 formerly had been; but bore the appearance of long 
 usage and of having been repeatedly mended and 
 cleaned. The seams of his coat were glazed, his shoes 
 showed patches, and the hat was dotted with grease 
 spots. The truth was that K. was parting with nearly 
 all his salary for the privilege of living in the bog! 
 
 It was most pathetic at this time to see how the man’s 
 sister and nieces would meet him when he came home 
 from the store in the evening. The children were de- 
 voted to their uncle, but feeling the change in him, knew 
 hardly how to act; while the sister clung to him, but in 
 a way that has been described as “hoping against hope.” 
 
 During this interval we never knew the man to laugh 
 oftener and more immoderately. Especially was this 
 true as he stood on the street corners with his compan- 
 ions, or was whirling past in a buggy with some chum. 
 The instant he turned his face homeward a change 
 would come over him, and while with those who loved 
 him best and whom he was so cruelly wronging, he 
 would be taciturn and moody. If spoken to, he would 
 break forth in little nervous laughs that were harder 
 to hear and bear than his silence. 
 
 About this time a number of family circles dropped 
 
THE MAN IN A BOG. 135 
 
 him, while others of a lower social grade took him up. 
 While he said nothing, we doubt not that both oceur- 
 rences sank like sharp arrows in his heart. 
 
 Soon after this he lost his position at the store. The 
 merchant told him that he had for quite a while been 
 making grave mistakes in his entries in the books, and 
 in his accounts with customers, and he could not afford 
 to employ him any longer. And so, from being chief 
 bookkeeper at a salary of two hundred dollars a month, 
 he was thrown out in the world without a penny. 
 
 The distress at the home was simply indescribable. 
 The sister, Mrs. D., took in sewing, and the elder of 
 the girls was taken from school and put out at service. 
 The man who had been the support of the household 
 now became the sponge of the family. His sister 
 washed and ironed his linen, prepared his meals, slim 
 enough as they were, and met him at the door at all 
 hours of the night as, hiccoughing, grumbling, fault- 
 finding and swearing, he would fumble around in the 
 dark, unable to find the lock. She always met him 
 kindly; and without a word of complaint or reproach 
 would let him in and lead him to his bed, where he 
 would sleep off his drunken stupor by the middle of the 
 day. 
 
 All this time the man was getting deeper in the bog. 
 
 Everybody could see it, while he apparently did not, 
 
136 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 but went on perfectly oblivious of his present shame, 
 his increasing degradation and certain coming ruin. 
 With crimson face, disheveled hair and soiled and 
 neglected dress, he was one of the most familiar objects 
 on the street corners; and when not so drunk as to be 
 in the gutter, as he often was, he would be laughing 
 immoderately in a crowd of dissipated men like himself. 
 We have seen him almost bent double while giving vent 
 
 to these explosions of merriment, if the hollow, heart- 
 
 sickening sound he made could be called by that name. ~ 
 
 But his laughter on these days was often of a solo char- 
 acter; for as men looked on the moral wreck before 
 them, they had no heart to join in mirth over his jokes 
 which, by the deadening effect of alcohol on the man’s 
 brain, had lost not only freshness and vigor but the 
 point and meaning itself. 
 
 After this came several spells of delirium tremens. 
 No maniac ever looked so terrible as did this man when 
 the awful power of mania potu fell upon him. He 
 raved, screamed, dashed the furniture to pieces, 
 crouched in corners with pleading, staring eyes, and 
 cried: 
 
 “They are after me! Take them off me! Mercy! 
 Mercy! Merey! Oh, horror! horror! horror!” 
 
 And then he would wallow and foam in agony on the 
 
 floor. 
 
THE MAN IN A BOG. 137 
 
 The bog had the man! 
 
 After recovering from one of these spells, and look- 
 ing like a corpse, and shaking like an aspen leaf, he 
 would go right back upon another spree. 
 
 Some of his friends took him into the country and 
 kept him for weeks amid the quiet, peaceful scenes of 
 pastoral life. There, amid tinkling sheep bells, bloom- 
 ing orchards, cooing doves, whistling partridges and 
 purling brooks they hoped to recall him to himself and 
 to a better life. But the instant he returned to town 
 he would rush to the drinking dens, beg, borrow or get 
 money some way, and in a few hours would be picked 
 up insensible out of the gutter. 
 
 Some who recall him at this time will never forget 
 the emaciated figure, the zigzag movements of his 
 body in walking, the sudden stops and startings off, 
 the audible talking to himself, the spasmodic jerking of 
 his head, with periodic pullings of his beard while at- 
 tempting to look grave and wise, followed by a burst of 
 senseless laughter on his part and a louder explosion of 
 merriment from thoughtless boys on the street, who 
 were watching and following him around. It is all so 
 melancholy and dreadful that we pen these lines deserip- 
 tive of an actual life history with the deepest pain. 
 
 The last attack of mania potu came after he had been 
 
 drinking heavily for weeks. It required the strength 
 
138 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 of several men to keep him from leaping out of the win- 
 dow and otherwise killing himself. He thought his 
 tongue was a dog, and tried to cut it out with a knife. 
 He cried out that “Snakes were in the room, and erawl- 
 ing toward him!” And with eyes dilated with horror 
 and screaming “Help! Help! Help!” he would leap 
 and dash himself here and there in the effort to escape 
 from their imaginary presence until the perspiration 
 streamed down his face and body, and he looked as if 
 he would die from fright. 
 
 It was vain to speak to or lay the hand upon him. 
 The slightest touch caused him to spring up in terror, 
 while he did not seem to comprehend anything that was 
 said to him. He was too far out in the bog! He only 
 saw the sights and heard the sounds of the dreadful 
 slough of Sin by which he had been entrapped and fas- 
 tened, and into whose depths he was slowly disappear- — 
 ing from human view. 
 
 With snatches of ribald songs, scraps of jokes, partly 
 uttered oaths, and a horrible laugh that as quickly died 
 away into moans and whines, he passed through the last 
 three hours of his life; when suddenly starting up from 
 his bed he shrieked at the top of his voice so as to be 
 heard all over the house and even on the street: 
 
 “Take them off me! Don’t you see they are killing 
 
THE MAN IN A BOG. 139 
 
 me! Murder Murder! Murder!” And fell back upon 
 his pillow in convulsions. 
 
 In ten minutes more he was dead. 
 
 The bog had done its work! 
 
XVI. 
 A LIFETIME MISTAKE. 
 
 LIFETIME mistake is one, as the words them- ; 
 
 selves indicate, which affects and pursues the chief 
 actor up to the very door of his tomb. It is some mental 
 or moral blunder which stamps its dark, sad impress of 
 
 influence and consequence upon every year of the earth-. 
 
 ly life, escorts the individual up to the cemetery, and in 
 many instances resumes the companionship on the other 
 side of the grave. Of course there are sighs heaved, 
 tears shed, and much suffering endured by the victim 
 all along the weary months and years; but such things 
 do not atone for the misdeed or mistake, and also fail as 
 a deliverance from the peculiar affliction brought into 
 the life by one’s own hasty or deliberate choice or act. 
 
 The patient acceptance of the sorrow may bring about 
 a weanedness from the world, and a corresponding de- 
 velopment of the Christian character, but the peculiar 
 trial remains. The fact that it was brought upon us 
 by our own act adds to the bitterness of the life calamity. 
 
 Among these grave mistakes none seems to be more 
 common than that of unwise marriages. The rushing 
 
 mills of the divorce courts declare plainly in their own 
 140 
 
A LIFETIME MISTAKE. 141 
 
 way how little thought and judgment were exercised by 
 a great multitude of people in entering upon matri- 
 mony; while the unmistakable unhappiness and misery 
 in countless households where the law is not resorted to 
 for relief show as conclusively that the old adage is as 
 true to-day as ever, where individuals are said to “marry 
 in haste and repent at leisure.” 
 
 The birds and animals, with all their inferiority, do 
 not make the blunders of men and women when it comes 
 to consorting; and even on their entrance into Noah’s 
 Ark, did so in pairs of a similar kind that indicated a 
 certain level-headedness and wisdom which human be- 
 ings might do well to imitate. What astonishment and 
 laughter would have been occasioned if the lion had 
 gone in with a cow, a tiger with a lamb, a goat with a 
 monkey, and a giraffe with a rabbit! 
 
 But they did not, and we are compelled to look at the 
 Human Race instead, to see the most absurd, incongru- 
 ous and ill-assorted life companionships that the Fancy 
 and Imagination could create in their wildest moments. 
 The physical contrasts in the long with the short, and 
 the fat with the lean is the smallest part of these marital 
 infelicities. For graver even than Ugliness wedded to 
 Beauty, we behold Refinement joined to Coarseness; 
 Intellect to Ignorance; Character to Weakness; Good- 
 ness to Meanness; and Piety to Sin! Well might we 
 
142 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES, xs 
 
 say what on earth were people thinking of when they — 
 paid a preacher to join a portion of Heaven to a section 
 of Hell, and then ask God in a concluding prayer to 
 bless such a union. 
 
 In one of our large Southern cities lived a young 
 man whom we shall call Alford. He was a member of 
 the Methodist Church, had been clearly converted, was 
 an active worker, and recognized by all as a spiritual 
 man. He had been appointed steward and trustee, made 
 a Sunday school teacher and finally promoted to the 
 superintendency. Wherever he was placed he gave per- 
 fect satisfaction to the pastor and congregation. 
 
 The profession followed by Alford for a livelihood 
 was that of the law. In it he had already distinguished 
 himself as a fluent speaker, cogent reasoner and success- 
 ful practitioner. He was conceded on all sides to be a 
 steadily rising man, and making a fine income was evi- © 
 dently on his way to fortune as well as fame. 
 
 The Cireuit Court in which he did much of his prac- 
 tice was composed of a number of towns in the State 
 
 besides the city in which he lived. Twice a year he 
 "made flying trips to these various communities, accord- 
 ing to his clients and briefs. In one of these localities, a 
 mere village, he met his fate. 
 
 The destiny in this case was a young girl of seventeen 
 or eighteen, with a pretty, doll-baby kind of a face, and 
 
A LIFETIME MISTAKE. 143 
 
 a pair of penciled eyebrows, some flaxen hair on top of 
 an empty skull, which in turn roofed over a shallow, 
 hollow heart. The girl was good-looking but had neither 
 sense nor religion. 
 
 This combination of course is quite unfortunate for 
 a woman, and equally deplorable for the man who mar- 
 ries her; for in the course of time the physical loveliness 
 is certain to depart, and then, if there is neither brains 
 nor piety to fall back on, the absence at the same time 
 of three such desirable things as comeliness, character 
 and intellect makes a most startling and distressing 
 vacuity. 
 
 This is the reason that some men feel so completely 
 undone and bankrupt in the home life. In their delu- 
 sion they fancied they had captured all three of the 
 above-named qualities, when they had simply married 
 a French doll, or one of those highly dressed but most 
 profoundly uninteresting figures we see posing in a 
 milliner’s or dressmaker’s window. The infatuated man 
 mistook pertness for intellect, and innocence, or, rather 
 ignorance of the world, for character and spirituality. 
 By and by, when the beauty of face departed, they 
 looked for the other attributes, and lo! they were not, 
 for they had never been! 
 
 At this interesting juncture men as a rule feel that 
 
 _ they have been very badly treated, when the fact is that 
 
144 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 they are themselves to blame. They swallowed the bait 7 
 
 without stopping to examine the hook and pole, and 
 
 especially the individual on the bank who was angling — 
 
 for a husband. 
 
 Of course there is another side to all this, where a 
 good woman has dropped her line in the stream and 
 instead of catching a fish landed an alligator, which 
 proceeded to eat her up. 
 
 But in the case we are now considering all could see 
 that the wrong and injury came from the woman to the 
 man. The girl was nothing but a little social butterfly. 
 And yet a gifted, sensible man married her! <A lawyer 
 who could unravel criminal mysteries, and read charac- 
 ter in the prisoner’s dock and jury box at a glance, was 
 completely taken in by a simpering, silly miss not 
 out of her teens. He carried to his handsome home 
 in the city, to be its queen and mistress, and to be his 
 life-long companion and the mother of his children, 
 something that under a faithful analysis resolved itself 
 into a lawn dress with some pink ribbons, out of which 
 peeped a small skull that was thatched with some fluffy 
 blonde hair on the outside and furnished with almost 
 next to nothing in the way of brains on the inside. 
 
 At first the man was amused with and interested in 
 the frilled and furbelowed addition to his house; but 
 in the course of a few weeks he had been rewarded with 
 
A LIFETIME MISTAKE. 145 
 
 so many handfuls of empty air in return for clutches 
 and grasps he had made upon his wife for something 
 solid and substantial that a strangely anxious, troubled 
 look began to gather in his eyes and settle in deep lines 
 upon his face. 
 
 At her very entrance upon city life, this only child, 
 petted and spoiled by her family, demanded to be taken 
 everywhere to see the sights. She had been raised in a 
 country town, had never beheld a great metropolis, and 
 now wanted a general introduction to all its stars and 
 lions, and immediate initiation into every one of its 
 amusements. 
 
 The husband firmly remonstrated against going to 
 the theater and opera, telling his wife that he was not 
 only a member of the church but an official as well; that 
 his attendance upon such places would not only be a vio- 
 lation of ecclesiastical law, but a reproach on Chris- 
 tianity. 
 
 Her reply was that he had been in the world and was 
 surfeited ; while she had never been anywhere nor seen 
 anything that was worth talking about. She added that 
 men were down town all day and saw much to interest, 
 divert and please, while women had to be at home all 
 the time, and knew nothing of what was going on in the 
 world. As she had heard a number of her female 
 
 friends say this she repeated it with great assurance, 
 
146 . REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 and with an appearance of being strikingly original. 
 She wound up by saying that she just could not stand it 
 to be cooped up that way; that it would have been bet- 
 ter for her to have stayed at home with papa and mam- 
 ma, and never married at all, ete., ete., ete. 
 
 This style of acting, kept up a few days, with the 
 usual accompaniment of tears, coolness, and positive 
 sulks, won the day at last; and so, starting out with 
 coneerts and socials, Alford, the young lawyer, was after 
 a while beheld with his wife at the opera and theater, 
 then on the ball-room floor, and finally at every ee of 
 worldly entertainment. 
 
 The light soon left the man’s face; he gave up his 
 position as Sunday school superintendent, resigned 
 from the Board of Stewards, became irregular in his 
 attendance upon church, and at last ceased to come alto- 
 gether. 
 
 Things went on this way for several years, when the 
 writer of this sketch was appointed pastor of the charge 
 where Alford and his wife held their membership. He 
 saw with pain the unconverted state of the woman, and 
 the backslidden condition of the man, but planned a 
 protracted meeting and secured their promise to attend. 
 
 The lawyer broke his word and came only two or 
 three times. The wife attended regularly, got under 
 
 terrible conviction, and one night was brightly con- 
 
 Pe 
 Ly 
 
A LIFETIME MISTAKE. 147 
 
 verted. Her husband happened to be present that even- 
 ing, and we saw her with her face all aglow, rush to 
 him, throw her arms about his form, and ery out, “Oh, 
 Henry, I have got salvation! Come and get it, my hus- 
 band! Don’t you want it, Henry ?” 
 
 Should we live to be a thousand years old we will 
 never forget the cold, stony look he turned upon her. 
 Tt was as though she had embraced the Sphinx! In 
 the midst of all her joy she was staggered by the coun- 
 tenance he turned upon her. Her gladness changed 
 into a whimper, and she placed her hand appealingly 
 upon his shoulder; but the man never gave a sign that 
 he recognized her presence or entreaty, while a dark, 
 hard expression on the set face made it appear as if it 
 was constructed out of iron. 
 
 Interpreted partially the look meant this, ‘““Who are 
 you to be talking to me in this manner? What right 
 have you to speak to me about salvation, when it was 
 your influence and life that led me from duty and from 
 God!” 
 
 The silliness, shallowness and ignorance of the woman 
 were to be seen even in this demonstrative rush upon 
 her husband. Here she was expecting to undo in a mo- 
 ment an evil work which had cost her years to accom- 
 plish. She had stolen from the man his Christian faith, 
 
 hope and joy, by a course of systematic opposition as 
 
148 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 well as temptation, and yet expected to restore it all in © 
 
 # moment with a wave of the hand and a chuck under — 
 
 the chin. 
 
 She had led her husband astray; could she not bring 
 kim back? Very likely this question arose in her mind, 
 and we do not doubt that the same query has been asked 
 by countless aching hearts before and since. 
 
 The answer is beheld all around us in hopelessly 
 ruined lives! 
 
 It seems that we are powerless to recover those 
 
 whom we personally led astray. There are exceptions, — 
 
 but the rule is the other way, as presented in this sketch. 
 The fearful fact so constantly revealed in life is, that 
 one can drag another from the light into darkness, and 
 afterwards himself get back into light, but the one 
 pulled down as a rule remains pulled down. Even when 
 they are restored it will be, and must be, by another 
 hand than that which drew them from God into sin. 
 The reason for this must be evident to any spiritual 
 thinker; while the fact itself brings to the breast of 
 the repenting wrongdoer the keenest regret and suffer- 
 ing. 
 
 Alford and his wife are still living, although nearly 
 twenty years have passed by since the scene described 
 in the protracted meeting. The woman is what is called 
 
 an active worker in the church, and has a little spiritual 
 
vr 
 
 A LIFETIME MISTAKE. 149 
 
 life; but she bears upon her face a settled melancholy 
 that is evident to the most careless observer. 
 
 Alford became a prominent man, made money, but 
 has evidently lost his soul. It is already lost according 
 to the Bible. He is a ward politician, is immersed in 
 the cares and business of this world, and living without 
 hope and without God in the world. Foulmouthed, 
 profane, scented with tobacco and bloated with beer, it 
 would be impossible to recognize in the hard-featured 
 moral wreck the handsome, pure-faced, devoted young 
 Christian whom a number of older citizens still remem- 
 ber, and recall with deepest sorrow of heart, because, in 
 truth, he is no more. 
 
 Poor fellow! There are two passages of Scripture 
 that we imagine he can never hear without a pang. One 
 was spoken in the Garden of Eden when the blight and 
 sorrow of sin had fallen, and God was locating the 
 trouble. To the question, Why have you done this? the 
 answer was reluctantly but. truthfully given in the 
 words: “The woman whom thou gavest to be with me.” 
 
 The other passage is in the Gospel. It represents a 
 principle as well as describes a fact. It reads thus: 
 
 “The hand that betrayeth me is with me on the table.” 
 
XVII. 
 THE FACE IN THE CEILING. 
 
 HERE are many strange things taking place all 
 around us, that are as remarkable as any creation — 
 
 of Fancy or labored work of fiction. There are happen- 
 ings at times in human lives which so encroach upon — 
 the supernatural as to defy all explanations of human 
 reason. If narrated by persons of excitable and nervous 
 temperament, we might obtain some light on the pecu- 
 liar transactions, but told by persons of acknowledged 
 level heads, steady nerves and unquestionable character, — 
 the matter reaches a point of mystery beyond all com- — 
 prehension. 
 Once in a meeting led by the writer he had a morning — 
 audience of fully one thousand people, while a half — 
 dozen preachers and laymen of the community sat in ~ 
 chairs upon the platform just behind the speaker. 
 At the conclusion of the sermon in one of these day _ 4 
 services, we left the stand to talk and work with the . 
 seekers at the altar. As we did so a lady literally stag- _ 
 gered toward us and, clutching our arm with a face as — 
 
 white as death, and turning a pair of horror-stricken 
 150, 
 
THE FACE IN THE CEILING. 151 
 
 eyes on one of the persons sitting on the platform, she 
 fairly gasped: 
 
 “Oh, my God, Brother C., God has revealed yonder 
 man to me! Oh, his face! It is all—all—oh, hor- 
 ror! horror!—” And the woman, trembling all over 
 and unable to speak another word, covered her face and 
 looked as if she would fall to the ground. 
 
 We said in reply, “My sister, what on earth is the 
 matter with you?” 
 
 She lifted her face and, casting another look of 
 consternation, amazement and loathing upon a certain 
 man on the platform, said: 
 
 “Must I tell you what I see? Must I tell you about 
 his face ?” 
 
 And again the expression of fear and disgust sprang 
 up into her eyes and voice, while she looked like she 
 would die with mental agony. 
 
 Seeing that her agitation was attracting attention, we 
 replied: 
 
 “No. Say nothing and calm yourself. God can man- 
 age the man who so troubles you.” 
 
 She obeyed tremblingly, but since then we have won- 
 dered whether we did right in checking her. As Peter 
 exposed one character and Paul another enemy of the 
 Gospel, how do we know but that the Spirit of God 
 
152 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 intended confusion, conviction and salvation from th 
 incident ? 
 
 All this is but an introduction to a curious cireum-— 
 stance which took place five or six years ago in one of 
 the Southern States. The main party concerned was a 
 minister of the Gospel in the Presbyterian Church. For 
 years he had been an active, zealous servant of God, — 
 when the great temptation of his life arose, began its — 
 assault, siege and sapping work. 
 
 While no criminality stained his soul, yet an infat- 
 uation had set in, drawing his thoughts and affections 
 in forbidden directions, until a frightful moral peril, 
 increasing daily in danger, threatened his character and 
 salvation. 
 
 The mutual weakness of the two began to be observed, 
 and some, with watch and almanac in hand, placed 
 themselves, so to speak, to note the expected crash and 
 
 downfall. 
 
 a ee 
 
 At this critical time the preacher, now almost van- 
 quished, retired one night to his room. He was sitting 
 in a chair near a center table, upon which rested a 
 lighted lamp, when, happening to look toward the fire- 
 place, he beheld to his unutterable horror, an agonized 
 human face just over the mantel and thrust partly out 
 from the wall! It was the countenance of the man | 
 
 whom he was on the verge of wronging in the darkest 
 
THE FACE IN THE CEILING. 153 
 
 and most dishonorable manner. The face was con- 
 vulsed; the eyes were turned upon him with such fury 
 and hate that they looked as if they would burst from 
 the head ; the veins were swollen and the whole appear- 
 ance that of a man longing to murder the being upon 
 whom he was gazing. 
 
 The spectacle was so horrifying to the guilty con- 
 science that the convicted man drew a large knife from 
 his pocket and drove the blade into his breast just over 
 the heart. As he did so he fell upon the floor, face up- 
 permost, with the blood gushing from the wound, while 
 the knife handle quivered and shook with the beating 
 of the heart just beneath. 
 
 Momentarily expecting death, the unhappy preacher 
 was afraid to look toward the mantel lest he should 
 see again the dreadful apparition there, but, in a kind of 
 mingled despair and supplication, cast his eyes upward, 
 and to his amazement beheld a face, holy, pitiful and 
 yet aggrieved, looking down upon him from the ceiling. 
 
 The lamp from the table threw a ring of light on the 
 wall above, and right in this circle, which seemed like 
 a halo, appeared this loving, melancholy, rebuking coun- 
 tenance. There was a peculiar glory resting upon it, 
 and he felt in his inmost soul that it was Christ who 
 was casting upon him that sorrowful, reproachful gaze. 
 
 The face, while showing compassion, yet had also a 
 
154 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 commanding, protesting expression. Translated into 
 language it would have read, “Do thyself no harm.” 
 
 At this moment the wounded man lost consciousness, 
 and the next morning was found by the members of the — 
 household lying on the floor and weltering in blood | 
 which trickled slowly from the wound, while the knife ~ 
 thrust up to the haft in the breast was still giving that — 
 quivering, oscillating movement in answer to the throb 7 
 of the miserable heart close by. 
 
 The stab was not a fatal one, and in the course of a — 
 few days the subject of this sketch was out again, but — 
 bearing a deeper wound on his soul than the blade had _ 
 given his body. 4 ; 
 
 Up to this time he had been a great ridiculer and op- a 
 poser of holiness, insisting that no man could live with- 4 
 out sin in this world. But there was something in the — 
 two faces that looked upon him that night which made 
 him wish to leave all sin forever. He conceived an un- 
 utterable horror of going to a world where agonized 
 spirits glare on each other, and came into as great a 
 longing for a country where the King’s face, in its love, _ 
 purity and truth, is the light and glory of the land. 4 
 The fight against’ sanctification and sanctified people ‘ 
 was all taken out of him, and he became the most 4g 
 thoughtful and melancholy of men. ’ 
 
THE FACE IN THE CEILING. 155 
 
 _ At this time the papers announced the holding of a 
 holiness convention in a large city not far from where 
 the preacher lived. Without declaring his intention to 
 any one, he made his arrangements to attend, determin- 
 ing, if there was truth in the doctrine and experience, 
 he would find it out, and get rid of a “body of sin and 
 death’ which seemed to be located in his spirit some- 
 where, and that kept him bowed down as with a load 
 almost continually. He had before this received pardon 
 for his sins of thought and desire and for his attempted 
 suicide. It was not forgiveness he wanted now, but de- 
 liverance, freedom, purity, holiness! 
 
 So he came to the city, arriving on the third night of 
 the meeting. As he took his seat in the Tabernacle, he 
 heard the people speaking in whispers around him of 
 the power that had already come down. He found aris- 
 ing in him a strange interest in and desire to see the 
 evangelist who was conducting the services. 
 
 The building began to fill up rapidly, while the hands 
 of the clock were approaching the minute when worship 
 would begin. Preachers and laymen came in and took 
 seats upon the platform, while whispering people would 
 say, “There he is,” “No, that is not the man,” etc., ete. 
 
 At last, just as the hands pointed to half-past seven, 
 a man walked upon the platform from a side door, and 
 knelt for several minutes by a chair, with his head 
 
156 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 bowed low. For some reason the visiting preacher fe! t 
 his eyes riveted on the kneeling figure. He could not 
 account for it, but his interest was almost a breathless 
 one in a person whose face he had not yet seen. He felt — 
 without being told that the man praying was the evan- 
 gelist, and there was a strange thrill upon him that this" . 
 man was to affect his life in some powerful way. . 
 
 Suddenly the evangelist arose and took his seat with © 
 his face toward the congregation and fronting in a ; 
 straight line with the visitor. To the preacher’s un- 
 speakable amazement he saw shining on the countenance 
 of the evangelist the same peculiar light and glory he 
 had beheld on the face which had gazed upon him from 
 the ceiling! 
 
 His emotion was so great that he could scarcely con- 
 
 : 
 : 
 
 trol himself, and but for the opening volume of song — 
 would have doubtless cried out. Little by little, — 
 Lowever, the strange fact translated itself to his mind 
 
 after this manner: 
 
 “God is in all this. There is His servant and he will 
 bring me a message. The light and strange glory I 
 see upon him is the Lord’s endorsement and introduc- 
 tion of His messenger, and is a bidding to me to listen, 
 believe and receive. By the grace of God I will.” 
 
 And he did. As the sermon proceeded and the truth 
 was unfolded, he saw the human need and the divine 
 
 4 
 S. 
 hh aes 
 
THE FACE IN THE CEILING. 157 
 
 supply, the plague and the remedy of sin. He saw the 
 possibility of obtaining a pure heart filled with perfect 
 love, not as a development, but as an instantaneous work 
 of grace wrought in the consecrated and believing soul. 
 
 At the conclusion of the sermon, he came all broken to 
 the altar, and went again and again, until, on the fourth 
 night of his public seeking, he found the pearl of great 
 price, full salvation from all sin. 
 
 This was six years ago; and it was only last summer 
 that we met him and had his story from his own lips. 
 And, judging from the light in his face, the gladness 
 in his eyes and voice, and the unmistakable peace in 
 his soul, he was undergoing no regret whatever, that he 
 had sought with all his heart, and given up all that he 
 was and possessed, and had received in exchange the 
 
 blessing of a restful, holy heart. 
 
XVIII. 
 A LONG-TIME SUFFERER. 
 
 WO remarkable things about human life are bound 
 to impress the observer in the course of a very 
 short time. One is the compensating feature of the di- 
 vine providence. That is when people are seen to be 
 maimed, afflicted or poverty stricken, a second study of 
 the case reveals them in the possession of some talent, 
 gift, beauty of person or possession of wealth which 
 shows that if for some reasons they are to be pitied, 
 there are still other circumstances in the ease that call 
 for admiration and congratulation. The invalid is dis- 
 covered to be an author or gifted musician. The hunch- 
 back has a fortune, ete., ete. 
 
 On the other hand, in the study of the great human 
 procession before us, we find what might be called the 
 drawbacks and discounts of life. That is, we find people 
 of fortune, station, wisdom, wit, beauty and fame fairly 
 borne down and crushed with some kind of malady, 
 affliction, sorrow, trial or physical suffering that dashes 
 with bitterness the whole cup of life. 
 
 Miss Edgeworth, in one of her works, tells of a wo- 
 
 man of fashion and an envied ruler in high circles who 
 158 
 
A LONG-TIME SUFFERER. 159 
 
 would have to retire from her receptions into a private 
 room to hide the paroxysms of pain occasioned by a can- 
 cer on the breast. One of our leading generals, famous 
 around the world, suffered excruciating anguish for 
 years and finally died from the effects of a fearful dis- 
 ease of the tongue and throat. Two of the reigning 
 monarchs of Europe to-day are martyrs to physical pain 
 that amounts to torture. 
 
 The Bible recognizes this state of things without com- 
 ment, in the quiet statement that Naaman, the captain 
 of the hosts of the King of Syria, was a great man with 
 his master, but he was a leper! 
 
 A New-Yorker, standing on Fifth avenue one night, 
 pointed out to a friend a number of elegant brown-stone 
 mansions, and stated in connection with each one some 
 ghastly, grizzly, sorrowful fact of family history that 
 was bound to make the inmates of those palaces heave as 
 heavy sighs and weep as bitter tears as are heard and 
 seen in the abodes of poverty in the slums of the same 
 city. There seems to be some kind of presiding justice, 
 some equalizing agency in life, which divides out bless- 
 ings and afflictions in the human race, preventing pros- 
 perity from running mad in this place, and adversity 
 from sinking in despair over yonder. So a weight is 
 needed for one man, and a wing must be attached to 
 
 another, and an anchor fastened to still another. 
 
160 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES, 
 
 Sometimes the life seems to be all gaiety; but we have 
 
 only to wait to see that the burdens finally come, and 
 those happenings to heart, mind, soul and body take 
 place which give the grave, thoughtful lines to the face, 
 the increasing slowness to speak, the growing pity and 
 charity to men, the weanedness from this earth, and, in 
 a word, that better condition for ertrance upon a world 
 and life where destiny is fixed, character and goodness 
 constitute +the rank, and the King is Immutable! 
 Omnipotent! Eternal! and above all, Holy! 
 
 Tn one of our Southern towns dwelt a woman who was 
 the occasion of envy to many hundreds of hearts. She 
 was beautiful, to begin with, was educated and accom- 
 plished, possessed wealth, moved in what is called the 
 best social circles, married well, had a lovely family of 
 three sons and a daughter, and owned one of the hand- 
 
 somest homes in the town where she lived. 
 
 This lady was a Methodist, but scarcely ever attended — 
 
 church. The temple of worship was only two blocks 
 from the house, and its great bell summoning its congre- 
 gation could be heard even through the thick walls and 
 closed doors of the family mansion. She in after years 
 confessed that the sound disturbed her. She said it had 
 an accent of invitation and entreaty, and seemed to say, 
 with its solemn swing and deep-toned note, “Come! 
 
 Come! Come!” 
 
A LONG-TIME SUFFERER. - 161 
 
 But why go? According to earthly ight and wisdom 
 she did not need to go. Did she not possess everything 
 dear to a woman’s heart? Were not her husband and 
 children devoted to her? Were they not all well? Did 
 she not have friends and money in abundance? What 
 need to go? Churches doubtless were very good for the 
 disappointed, afflicted and heartbroken of earth, but she 
 had suffered no bereavement, lost no fortune or friends; 
 what need, then, for her to attend? Her household 
 circle was unbroken, and she had never known what it 
 was to have a serious spell of sickness. No, the bell 
 might ring on, but she was not going! She had all she 
 wanted right around her. 
 
 It would be impossible to tell how many people who 
 passed down that street, and, glancing over the lawn and 
 flower yard at the stately dwelling, surrounded by large 
 shade trees, felt that they would gladly exchange places 
 with such an obviously blessed and favored woman. 
 
 It would not require much spirtual wisdom for a per- 
 son to see that the things in this hfe which absorb our 
 attention, engross our affection and take up our time are 
 the rivals of God and the enemies of our soul. In the 
 faithful dealing and providence of the Almighty, false 
 deities are struck at and idols have to go. Men would 
 
 be spared more suffering in this world if they did not 
 
162 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES, 
 
 bow down in false worship and make divinities of flesh, 
 mud and metal. 
 
 In the fullness of time the clouds gathered, the winds — 
 arose, and the cyclone fell. The husband, a son and | 
 daughter died; a second boy wandered from home and 
 was heard of no more, and the third became a drunk- — 
 ard. Then the fortune took wings and vanished, the — 
 home went under the auctioneer’s hammer, and the sor- 
 rowing woman took refuge in an humble cottage near — 
 by. For years her health had been going down, and now 4 
 she became a hopeless invalid. 
 
 Her disease was a peculiar form of rheumatism, 
 which horribly misshaped her limbs, drew her wrists 4 
 awry, and twisted her fingers until they looked uncanny 
 and not human like. For the first few years she was a 
 able to do a little crochet work, but as the cramping and — 
 bending of the hands went on, even this simple task 
 - became impossible, and, all curved in body and with two 
 bunches of fingers held before her, all pointing in differ- 
 ent directions, she sat in an invalid chair day after day, 
 month after month, and year after year with nothing to 
 do but to think and suffer, and suffer and think. 4 
 
 When we first saw her, through. the request of her ; 
 pastor, she had been in this condition seventeen years. ; 
 She had been such a sufferer that all of her splendid 
 beauty was gone; while the shock we realized on behold- 
 
A LONG-TIME SUFFERER. 163 
 
 ing the doubled-up form and the glazed-looking, talon- 
 like fingers is remembered powerfully to this day. 
 
 The deeply atfilicted woman lived seven years after 
 that before Death relieved her from her sufferings. She 
 told the writer, on the visit just mentioned, that she 
 never knew a single instant when she was free from 
 pain. To this martyrdom of seventeen years was added, 
 as we have said, seven more, so that she was in the fur- 
 nace of physical affliction a quarter of a century lack- 
 ing just twelve months. 
 
 It is with deep gratification we record the fact 
 that when the great troubles of the woman’s life came 
 rolling in upon her Like the billows of an ocean, she 
 turned to God. Instead of engulfing, these waves under 
 the blessing of heaven, tossed her soul to the feet of 
 Christ. Widowed, childless, beggared, homeless, lonely, 
 wrecked in health and all but friendless, she called on 
 God, was heard in that she feared, and was delivered - 
 and carried from that time like a lamb in the bosom of 
 the divine Shepherd. 
 
 At the time we first beheld her she had been a saint 
 for years. The invalid chair had become a throne, she 
 was the recognized daughter of the King of Heaven, a 
 princess of Royal birth, and exercised a holy rulership 
 which all felt the instant they entered her presence. 
 
 From the wreck of the physical comeliness came up a 
 
164 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 moral and spiritual loveliness which simply defied de- 
 scription. It was the beauty of holiness. It was a 
 benediction to the eye and soul to look upon her rest- 
 ful, shining countenance. 
 
 From the hour she obtained Full Salvation, she rever 
 was heard to murmur or utter a complaint of any kind. 
 Even when she said she was never without pain she 
 spoke so sweetly and quietly that one could scarcely 
 realize the truth of her statement, until it was confirmed 
 by her physician. 
 
 People from all over town came to her for advice, 
 sympathy and comfort in trouble. She never failed to 
 give what was needed, and hundreds went away from the 
 throne-room of this princess of grace renewed, refilled, 
 refired and in some way better prepared for the suffer- 
 ings, toils and battles-of life. They came to the physi- 
 cally weak and she, all powerful through the Lord whom 
 she loved and served, helped them to spiritual life and 
 strength. 
 
 The writer had been asked to call on her and pray 
 with her; but as we entered the room and looked upon 
 her face, we saw that, in spite of the bent and emaciated 
 body, one of Heaven’s Queens was before us. In- 
 stead of praying for her, we felt strongly inclined to 
 bow down at once and beg her to pray for us. We went 
 
 ~ 
 
 ho” 
 
A LONG-TIME SUFFERER. 165 
 
 there to do her good, but God is our witness that she 
 blessed us far more than we helped her. 
 
 After a long and victorious reign of twenty years, 
 subsequent to her becoming a spiritual queen and as- 
 cending the throne, she left the invalid chair, got into 
 a chariot of fire, and went up to her Father’s Heavenly 
 Kingdom. The poor afflicted body was so twisted and 
 bent that it could not be placed in a coffin, so they boxed 
 up with plank the wooden seat, with its silent, pulseless 
 occupant, and buried her thus in the cemetery. 
 
 There the body is to-day sitting upright and waiting 
 for the coming and voice of the Son of God, who will 
 summon her to arise and appear in resurrection glory 
 and perfection, to suffer and die no more forever. The 
 spirit of the released martyr has been in heaven now 
 fully twenty years. We doubt not that face to face she 
 has long ago thanked the King who saw fit to slay the 
 body in order to save the soul, who changed her invalid 
 chair to a throne, and who made her afflictions work 
 
 out for her a far more exceeding and eternal weight of 
 
 glory. 
 
XIX. 
 THE BULGER FAMILY. 
 
 HE household circle that bore the name of Bul- 
 ger consisted of the father, mother and five sons. 
 
 As a rule they had but little to do with their neigh- — 
 
 bors, were counted unsocial, and seemed glad to be let 
 alone. 
 
 Left to and centered in themselves one might have 
 supposed that books, music and bright conversation 
 would explain their independent attitude, and account 
 for the flight of the hours which were spent in each 
 other’s presence. But the Bulger family had no lit- 
 erary tastes, hardly read anything, owned no musical 
 instruments and spoke but rarely and briefly to one 
 another. 
 
 All had stolid looking faces, and would sit for half 
 an hour at a time around the fireside without saying 
 a word while twirling their thumbs and solemnly bat- 
 ting their eyes. They also had a strange way of gazing 
 fixedly at people, as if they were looking upon va- 
 cancy. It seemed as if they were trying to bore into and 
 
 read the very inmost heart of the party before them, 
 166 
 
THE BULGER FAMILY. 167 
 
 when in reality they were doing nothing of the kind. 
 It was just a cow-like gaze they possessed. 
 
 Until one knew the family and its idiosyncrasies 
 better it was quite uncomfortable to feel seven pairs 
 of eyes all turned solemnly on the visitor, while the 
 twirling thumbs seemed to be turning the victim over 
 and over in exhaustive investigation, and the eyelids 
 batted out the few moments left him to live in the 
 world. Sometimes we have seen this household In- 
 quisition keep up its oppressive silence, eye-batting 
 and thumb-twisting for a full hour; the only change 
 being some slight alteration of position in crossing, 
 uncrossing or recrossing the limbs. 
 
 In the beginning of the acquaintance with the Bul- 
 gers, one was impressed with the necessity of breaking 
 into this dreadful stillness and eye inquiry by some kind - 
 of remark. One felt like protesting and proving in 
 some way that he was not as bad as the Bulgers seemed 
 to think. Or humanity itself demanded that the 
 Bulger mind should be relieved and diverted by the 
 utterance of something pleasant, edifying, or even hu- 
 morous. But it was all alike lost on the Bulgers. 
 They either would not or could not be entertained; 
 so that every verbal sally was met with the chilling 
 gaze, fired at steadily with the batting eyelid, and 
 literally rolled out of sight by the twirling thumbs. 
 
168 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 On some of these occasions one of the famil 
 been known to give a little grunt; or the corner of 
 mouth would twitch a moment; but as if to make up 
 for such unbending, an increased gravity would settle 
 in the manner and a deeper stolidity than ever appear ; 
 in the face; so that the unfortunate speaker would be — 
 quite confused and overcome not to say frozen by this — 
 sudden running up against and discovery of the North — 
 Pole. 
 
 The old father was the most restless of the seven, if — 
 such a charge could be made upon any of them. Once — 
 in awhile he would heave a sigh, turn in his seat, throw 
 his arm over the back of his chair and gaze through his — 
 spectacles out of the window, and bat and blink as sol- 
 emnly and wisely as though he was seated on the high- _ 
 est judicial bench, and settling the merits of the pro- 
 foundest legal case in the country. So it seemed, for 
 really his mind at times was as blank as his eyes looked. 
 Some said he was really gazing at something, but that 
 it was an inner history; and this contemplation brought 
 the sigh, and the restless movement in the chair. 
 
 The mother in earlier years had been disposed to be p 
 talkative, and break up in a measure the family silence. b 
 But six household Gibraltars pounded her wavelets of . 
 attempted conversation to pieces, and so she had sub- 
 sided into a corner, where she would knit for hours 
 
THE BULGER FAMILY. 169 
 
 without a word, only stealing an occasional glance at 
 her husband and sons. There was, however, this dif- 
 ference between them; she thought, while the others 
 just looked like they were thinking; they simply 
 batted ! 
 
 The oldest son was the first to die, and almost imme- 
 diately a whisper crept around about a couple of dark 
 deeds attributable to him. This caused a more 
 systematic shunning of the Bulgers, but they closed up 
 ranks without a word and went on as soldiers do when 
 comrades fall in battle. 
 
 In the course of a few years every son save Horace, 
 the youngest, was in the cemetery, and it was curious 
 that with each succeeding death a new whisper would 
 arise and float about relative to some dark and criminal 
 deed that had been committed by the dead man. So 
 there were rumors of a deserted wife, a forged note and 
 other unenviable transactions. If the Bulgers heard 
 these reports they gave no sign, but simply closed up 
 ranks each time, and stared with increasing stolidity 
 at the fire. 
 
 They were reduced to three in number when sud- 
 denly the old man took to his bed, gathered up his feet, 
 turned his face to the wall, stared it out of countenance, 
 batted his eyes a number of times without saying a 
 
 word, and was gone. 
 
170 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 At this time the youngest and now only surviving © 
 son came to the front. He obtained a fine position in , 
 a large store and by steady devotion to business got to 
 be looked on as one of the best young men of the — 
 town. He had the same peculiar grave countenance 
 and silent manners of his departed father and brothers, © 
 but unlike them he seemed to be energetic and indus- 
 trious and so won a certain public regard. In addition 
 to his business punctuality he was courteous in his 
 quiet way to all, careful in his dress, and never seen in 
 a theatre, circus, billiard room or saloon. 
 
 After his mother left him to live with a favorite ; 
 niece in a distant town, Horace Bulger rented a room % 
 over the store where he clerked, and when business 
 hours were over could almost invariably be found in : 
 this apartment. ‘ 
 
 So his stock steadily rose in value in the social and 
 commercial world, as both classes of people counted him 
 a model young man, in every respect. : 
 
 Several years passed and Horace became identified 
 with one of the churches, was made an official member, 
 and also elected librarian of the Sunday school. It 
 was charming to see him in his black suit and immacu- 
 late linen, the pink of propriety, a model of gravity, 
 while his books were as well kept as his Sabbath gar- 
 ments. He formed the text of many a mother’s sermon 
 
THE BULGER FAMILY. ay Gi! 
 
 or exhortation te her wandering boys, ““Why don’t you 
 do like Horace Bulger?’ “If I could see you sober 
 and steady like Horace Bulger I could die in peace,” 
 ete... etic. 
 
 Perhaps of all classes of people, young Bulger was 
 least popular with the wild boys and youths in town 
 because they had been so often tongue-thrashed over 
 the shoulders of his consistent and moral life. 
 
 One day a young man of another church was in the 
 store being waited on by Horace. As the clerk was 
 bundling up an article for his customer, he remarked 
 in regard to some occurrence : 
 
 “That is as hard to believe as that I am a drinking 
 man.” 
 
 To this the purchaser said nothing, whereupon Bul- 
 ger again asserted: “That is as hard to credit as a re- 
 port would be that I am a drinking man.” 
 
 And still there was a painful silence. 
 
 Bulger seemed strangely annoyed at the failure of 
 the young man to make any response, and repeated the 
 third time the same speech, and ended it with the ques- 
 tion : 
 
 “Don’t you think so?” 
 
 And the quiet but firm-faced man before him re- 
 plied: 
 
 “Tf you insist on my speaking the truth, I would say 
 
172 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 that I think you are the hardest drinker in the city 
 The effect of this blunt and honest speech on Bulger _ 
 was amazing. He turned pale as death, and said with — 
 a choking voice: 
 “What have you seen in me that makes you — 
 so?” 
 And the customer replied: = or months I have ob- | 
 served the unmistakable se " 
 
 hie and asked: 
 
 “Do you think any one else has noticed it?” 
 
 “T believe,” returned his rebuker, with a sorrowful 
 and solemn face, “that your employer begins to suspect — 
 you.” “2 
 
 The next. moment the guilty man “went to pieces? 
 as they say in criminal court language, and made the 
 ghastly confession to the man standing before him that — | 
 there was not a night that he did not empty four to six a 
 bottles of strong liquor, and was always under alcoholic 4 
 influence in the day. 
 
 Pursuing his confession he said, in great agitation: — 
 
 “T cannot help myself. My brothers were all secret 
 drinkers, and so was my father before us. He himself 
 inherited the same appetite from his father; so it came 
 to my brothers and myself with a double power. It has 
 got me ! Tam in chains, and can’t break away, and 
 
THE BULGER FAMILY. lites 
 
 don’t want to. I was in hopes that I could drink in 
 secret, keep up in public and attend to my work. But 
 TI see I cannot. I feel now that I am a doomed man!” 
 
 The friend before him offered counsel, encouragement 
 and hope through Christ, but his words evidently fell 
 on a dull and dead ear. 
 
 Bulger was never the same person after this. He be- 
 came reckless and allowed his true character to be seen 
 by the public. In less than three years he drank him- 
 self into a drunkard’s grave. 
 
 His body lies in the cemetery in the same row with 
 his father and four brothers, who in spite of their per- 
 sistent silence became well known to men. 
 
 Evidently there must be another speech or language 
 than that of the tongue by which we declare ourselves, 
 and get to be accurately measured and properly branded 
 at the hands of our fellow men. 
 
 * * * 
 
 Not long after these occurrences two gentlemen were 
 conversing about the strangeness of the circumstance, 
 when one said to the other: 
 
 “To you know the lesson we learn from the ostrich ?” 
 
 “I suppose that little heads and big plumes go to- 
 gether.” 
 
 “No, sir; try again.” 
 
174 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 “Well, then, the smallest of heads may go with the 
 largest of bodies.” 7 
 “No. Your answers are good; but you have not 7 
 given the right one yet.” | 
 
 “Then I give up.” 
 
 “T am surprised at that, for the lesson I refer to is 
 the one that should be the first to suggest itself. I 
 mean the curious habit of the bird when pursued, of _ 
 thrusting its little silly head in the sand and thinking 3 
 its huge body is hidden. Here was Horace Bulger a 
 confirmed drunkard and positively comfortable with 
 the thought that not a soul knew it. He forgot that a 
 man’s actual life is bigger than what he says, and that 
 character is as evident as outward conduct. He 
 also failed to recognize that a small town is the shal- 
 lowest of sand in which to hide the real man.” 
 
 There was a few moments of silence when the speaker 
 added: 
 
 “There are many who are trying to do the same thing 
 to-day. They talk, write, gesticulate and vociferate 
 one thing and are really another. Meantime they are 
 under the marvelous delusion that everybody is ignorant 
 concerning their true selves, when the fact is that 
 the big body of the real man is perfectly apparent to 
 the thoughtful, while it is only the shallow head of the 
 would-be deceiver that is under the sand.” 
 
THE BULGER FAMILY. 175 
 
 There followed a moment of reflection, and the party 
 addressed remarked, with a sigh: 
 
 “The ostrich family is a large one!” 
 
 “Yes,” replied the other, “and quite a number of its 
 members have moved from Africa to America.” 
 
XX. 
 
 A HUMAN CYCLONE. 
 
 HE famous Fourth of July was being celebrated 
 
 in a southern town after the usual order of dis- 
 order, made up of shouting and yelling, brass-band — 
 playing, soldier parading, speechifying, firecrackers 
 by day and skyrockets by night, with cannon-shooting © 
 at all hours. 4 
 Among the patriotic and tireless young men who — 
 managed the ten-pounder on a neighboring bluff, waking 
 up the echoes in the surrounding hills and across the me 
 
 of Charley Hurrekan. 
 
 If ever there was truth and appropriateness in names — 
 our friend Charley possessed the right one in Hurre- 4 
 kan. It is true that phonetics rather than orthography _ 
 brought up the association to the mind in this case, 
 but it was not the less powerfully done, and no one © 
 could be with the man a couple of minutes, and then _ 
 hear his name, without a smile springing to the lip _ 
 
 which had its origin in a lively sense of the fitness of _ 
 176 . 
 
A HUMAN CYCLONE. 177 
 
 certain things, but concerning which fitness no one 
 eared to speak with Mr. Hurrekan. 
 
 One striking fact connected with the breezy, stormy 
 Mr. Hurrekan was his possession of a marvelous phy- 
 sical strength. Tis feats of lifting, hurling, boxing and 
 wrestling had brought him into immediate notice and 
 great fame with those who admire those kind of per- 
 formances. No one cared to feel the force of his iron- 
 like fist. but many considered it a high honor to have 
 been allowed to touch the great swelling muscles of his 
 herculean arm. 
 
 Another notable feature of the man was the fire that 
 fairly gleamed and glittered in his black eyes when he 
 turned them in anger on one; it gave a kind of shock, 
 and as a painful experience ranked next to encounter- 
 ing his sledge-like fist. 
 
 It had fallen to the lot of our friend Charley on the 
 celebration of the “Fourth” to sponge the cannon and 
 ram in the load after each discharge; and he was doing 
 this in his usual! rapid, careless style when the gun went 
 off of its own accord through the heated metal, and 
 the young man lost his left arm and eye. 
 
 He was placed quickly in a litter and borne to an 
 adjacent hotel, where physicans labored to save him, 
 but with little hope. Later.in the night a preacher, 
 the presiding elder of the district, was called in to pray 
 
178 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. = 
 
 with the desperately wounded man. On what was su] 
 posed to be his deathbed, young Hurrekan professed 
 “acing in Christ, pi was converted. 
 
 the ministry. But our convert’s zeal cooled off when he 
 recovered his health and he began to avoid the preacher < 
 who had been such a faithful friend. Nor was he sorry 
 that the district duties of the elder called him away 
 much of the time, preventing the looking up of the % 
 wanderer and his restoration to the fold. , 
 
 Meantime the gigantic strength of the man returned, — 
 and it was said that the power of both members had 
 gone into the right arm. He secured a false eye, and, 
 appearing on the street, looked exactly like his former % 
 self but for the empty coat sleeve swinging by his left — 
 side. 
 
 A few months rolled by, when K——,, the minister — 
 referred to above, was crossing the Mississippi River 
 in a large ferry boat, and saw Hurrekan sitting in 
 a fine two-horse rig driven by a negro in livery, while’ 5 
 blazing sentences on the leather curtains of the vehicle 
 declared the manifold virtues of some kind of patent 
 
 medicine. KK looked gravely at the head and 
 
A HUMAN CYCLONE. 179 
 
 chief of this rainbow affair, and Hurrekan winced and 
 directed his gaze down the river. 
 
 At the Terminal Depot, the newly-fledged doctor 
 _ turned his horses and wagon over to the railroad agent 
 to be shipped to him on the next freight, and then hur- 
 ried away to, catch the passenger train. He and his 
 gaily-dressed servant entered one of the coaches, and 
 after a little began unpacking a nice-looking basket, 
 displaying thereby a luncheon of broiled chicken, beef 
 tongue, pickles, a salad and light bread. Last he drew 
 forth a bottle of wine and glass tumbler. 
 
 Just then, happening to glance up, he saw K—— 
 only a few feet away silently contemplating him. The 
 eyes of Hurrekan instantly fell to the floor, and:a deep 
 red stole into his face. There was also an immediate 
 loss of appetite, and the tempting food was soon given 
 to the ebony attendant sitting just behind him. After 
 he did this, the worried man turned his body slightly 
 and fastened a dejected look through the window on the 
 
 flying scenery outside. 
 
 In another moment K took the vacant seat by 
 his side and, laying his hand on Hurrekan’s shoulder, 
 said: 
 “Do you think that you are treating the Lord right ?” 
 “No, I don’t,” the Jonah answered, striking the bench 
 
 before him a heavy blow with his big fist. 
 
180 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. _ 
 
 “What are you going to do about it?” persist 
 K-——. 
 
 one after another through the open ofan Thal 
 turning to K——, with a resolute look, he said: 
 “T’m going to do the clean and right thing.” 
 
 “T rejoice to hear you say so,” replied K 
 I understand you to be willing to go forth and wee fom 
 Christ on a poor circuit for slim wages?” 
 “Yes, if He will forgive me for my past failure and 
 faithlessness.” And tears sprang into the man’s eyes. 
 “Te will do it,” returned K ; : 
 “He has already done it,” cried Hurrekan, loo king 
 
 up with a beaming face. 
 The hands of the two men met, and propositions were a 
 made and plans agreed upon. 
 
 The result was that Hurrekan promised K toy 
 meet him at his next quarterly conference a week later. 
 He left the train at the first large town, where he sold - 
 his gaudy wagon and richly caparisoned horses, paid off 
 
 and discharged his servant, and then, according to 
 
 promise, overtook K in a town fifty miles away. 
 
 Here he joined the church one day, and was licensed — 
 
 K 
 
 then sent him nearly one hundred miles away as 4 
 
A HUMAN CYCLONE. 181 
 
 a supply to a cireuit which had lost its regular pastor. 
 He said in parting with his late acquisition: 
 
 “T turn you loose on that country. They need just 
 such a man as yourself.” 
 
 Now, in “turning Hurrekan loose” was indeed the 
 loosing of a hurricane; and so the people of that far- 
 away circuit found out with a vengeance. On being 
 asked after the first round how they liked their new 
 preacher, they looked bewildered and strikingly like 
 men who had just passed through a cyclone. 
 
 The first thing that the Rev. Mr. Hurrekan did after 
 devoting several days to the study of his flock and re- 
 ceiving reports about them, was to throw the church 
 register into the fire with the simple and startling ex- 
 planation : 
 
 “Not one of you are fit to be in the church, and I 
 am going to make every one of you join over again and 
 start afresh.” 
 
 And they did; for the pounding of that great fist on 
 the sacred desk, and the blazing of that right eye in 
 the pulpit seemed to leave no other course open for 
 them. 
 
 One day in one of his meetings a couple of young 
 men made a disturbance in the congregation, where- 
 upon Hurrekan closed the Bible from which he was 
 reading, walked down the aisle and deliberately col- 
 
182 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 laring one of them, lifted him bodily from his seat, 
 trotted the amazed man to the door and pitched him 
 
 into the yard. Returning to the second offender who 
 
 sat almost paralyzed in the pew, he served him after 
 
 an identical fashion. 
 
 Of course, all this packed the new preacher’s church, 
 and at the same time secured the very best attention, 
 and a most respectful hearing. Another thing which 
 contributed to the good order was, that Hurrekan could 
 not close his eyelid over the glass eye which he wore; 
 and no one knowing that he had but one organ of sight 
 supposed that he was praying with one eye open in 
 order to catch some transgressor. So the sight of that 
 big black optic staring fixedly on the audience, and 
 backed up as it was with that sledgehammer fist, in- 
 
 spired a stillness in the congregation and a decorum 
 
 that for perfectness had never been known before in 
 those regions. 
 
 In the summer our hero attended a camp meeting, 
 where the order was anything but good. Coming into 
 the service late one day, Hurrekan sat in the rear of 
 the tabernacle and several seats in front of three young 
 men who were acting outrageously. He turned several 
 times and told-them to behave themselves, but they 
 rather grew worse. When suddenly he fixed his blaz- 
 
 ing eye upon the group and started for them. Per- 
 
A HUMAN CYCLONE. 183 
 
 fectly panic-struck and not waiting to reach the aisle 
 they tumbled over the benches, and over one another 
 in their frantic efforts to escape. Hurrekan was so close 
 upon them, however, that there was nothing left them 
 but to make a flying leap over a barbed wire fence 
 which surrounded the grounds. This they just man- 
 aged to do, but not without leaving small portions of 
 their garments on the little spearheads where they flut- - 
 tered for several days to the great amusement of many 
 who had them pointed out while being told the story. 
 
 Just before Conference, K- held his fourth quar- 
 
 erly meeting in wn on Hurrekan’s circuit, where 
 terly meeting in a to Hurrekan’ t, wh 
 
 that clerical gentleman was least known. On Saturday 
 the two preachers were eating dinner together at the 
 hotel and quietly talking about the prospects of the 
 pastoral charge. At another table sat a group of men 
 who were evidently drinking and disposed to be noisy. 
 One in especial conceived, as he thought, a brilliant 
 plan of having a great deal of fun out of two preachers, 
 one of whom had only one arm, while the other was a 
 grave, quiet sort of man. 
 
 So, taking up a bottle of liquor from his ‘able, and 
 pretending to be more intoxicated than he was, the 
 man walked over to the ministers and declared that 
 he wanted them to drink with him, and started to pour 
 
 the red liquid in their glasses. 
 
184 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. __ 
 
 Hurrekan looked up at the man with a dangerous 
 gleam in his eye and said: 
 “We do not drink, sir.” 
 
 “But I want you to drink,” was his reply, “and what 
 
 is more I am determined that you shall.” 
 Tlurrekan, in a voice of suppressed passion and — 
 lightning in his eye, said: : 
 “My friend, if you were aware of it, you are at pres- _ 
 ent in an exceedingly unhealthy place for yourself.” 
 The only notice that the obtruder took of this speech — 
 was to endeavor with an unsteady hand to fill the 
 preacher’s glass with whisky, when, quick as an electric © 
 
 tounded person by the throat, lifted him entirely from _ 
 the floor and shot him through the air for a distance of 
 ten feet and landed him with a crash upon the floor. Be- _ 
 fore the man could arise Hurrekan was upon him again, 
 jerked him up and pinioned him against the wall with — 
 his long powerful fingers about his neck. y 
 
 While he held his prisoner in this garroting style, : 
 the preacher proceeded to address some caustic re- 
 
 other things, he enlarged upon the wisdom of being 
 polite to strangers; and the excceding advisability of 
 letting people alone with whom he had no business; and 
 
A HUMAN CYCLONE. 185 
 
 if he would do such things, then the good sense in 
 finding out their strength before attacking them. 
 
 With this lecture, as Hurrekan called it, and for 
 which he told the man he charged him nothing, he sud- 
 denly shifted his hand, caught him by the back of his 
 neck and propelled him at a two-forty pace through the 
 room, out on the gallery and shot him like a catapult 
 _ down the front steps into the street. The man, now 
 thoroughly terrorized and also sobered, struck the 
 ground running and kept up the gait the preacher had 
 initiated him into, and as far as he could be seen was 
 making tracks for some unknown refuge or asylum 
 of rest. 
 
 At the Annual Conference in December, K——,, Hur- 
 rekan, and the writer were assigned to the home of a 
 sweet-faced elderly lady who was a member of the 
 Methodist Church. 
 
 As we listened to the loud tones and marked the 
 stormy ways of.our demonstrative friend in this quiet 
 family, we were in actual pain for him and our enter- 
 tainer. But to our surprise the lady showed not the 
 least sign of displeasure, but the contrary. 
 
 One morning in our bedroom, something was said 
 of a humorous nature which so tickled our hero that 
 he burst into shouts of laughter and stentorian yells, 
 while striking his fist on a little center table with great 
 
186 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 of furniture, made everything on the mantel jingl 
 and jump, and shook even the house. 
 
 We went out to breakfast feeling deeply mortified 
 over the affair and especially sorry for Hurrekan. So 
 we fully expected to see an offended look on the face of 3 
 our hostess; but to our amazement her countenance 
 fairly beamed on our Boanerges, and she had him to” 
 sit next to her, and kept his plate heaped with the best — 
 on the table. | 
 
 Several mornings after this, we three were walking 
 through the back yard, when Hurrekan, spying a small 
 sharp-roofed coop about four feet high with a big tur-— 
 key gobbler in it, fattening for the table, immediately 
 cried out to us: ; 
 
 “Watch me jump it.” % 
 
 And running towards the little siraeeiee he at-y 
 tempted to clear it, when seeing he could not, he kicked — 
 it over as he arose in the air; whereupon the turkey 4 
 got out with a tremendous amount of gobblings and flut- 
 terings, and then a perfect pandemonium reigned for — 
 several minutes in the yard made up of barking dogs, — 
 squalling chickens, sputtering cats and laughing ne- 
 groes, until the din and uproar were terrific. . 
 
 Feeling genuinely distressed and chagrined for Hur- 
 rekan, who was hallooing at the top of his voice, we — s 
 
A HUMAN CYCLONE. 187 
 
 glanced anxiously at the house and there beheld our 
 hostess standing on the back gallery with her face 
 wreathed in smiles and surveying the noisy scene and 
 ‘the author of it with the highest good humor and ap- 
 proval. 
 
 To crown all, on the last day of the Conference when 
 we were leaving the hospitable home and bidding our 
 and the writer 
 
 kind entertainer adieu, she gave K 
 a friendly clasp of the hand, but in Hurrekan’s palm 
 she slipped a twenty-dolfar bill. 
 
 After this we lost sight of our obstreperous friend 
 for several years. Having been sent to a distant city, 
 not so much as a rumor reached us concerning him. 
 
 One day, while on a return trip, we saw him stand- 
 ing in front of a store, the meekest and quietest look- 
 ing of men. We spoke to him, expecting the old-time 
 loud laugh and stormy outburst ; but nothing of the kind 
 happened. We were in his presence an hour and failed 
 to witness the least particle of the former boisterous- 
 ness and noisiness. We of course could not with any 
 propriety ask him what was the matter, but we were 
 amazed all the same and left him with a deep wonder 
 relative to the silent, meek, and subdued-looking man. 
 
 The next day we met a mutual friend and said at 
 once: . 
 
 “What on earth is the matter with Hurrekan? We 
 
never saw a man as much changed, and as co 
 whipped-out in appearance as he is.” 
 “Don’t you know ?” 
 
 “Of course not, or we would not have aul you 
 
 What is the matter with him?” 
 “Suppose you guess.” 
 “Ts he sick?” we asked. 
 “No.7” 
 “Flas he lost money ?”’ 
 SoINigta 
 “Has he lost a member of his family ?” 
 “No, he has gained one.” 
 “What do you mean ?” 
 
 “T mean, that he is married!” 
 
XXL 
 THE BREAKING OF A BRUISED REED. 
 
 WO evangelists were conducting a meeting in one 
 
 of our large inland cities. One night the speaker 
 
 of the hour had his attention drawn to the face of a 
 
 woman in the audience on account of its perfectly hope- 
 
 less expression. It was a fine countenance, but some 
 
 kind of happening in the past had evidently stolen 
 
 away the brightness, and left it with the appearance 
 of having been turned to stone. 
 
 We have seen a smitten life in the past, whose soli- 
 tariness and silence made us think somehow of waves 
 breaking with solemn sound on lonely, barren shores; 
 or we would have summoned up a human figure stand- 
 ing on a prominent headland watching the sun going 
 down for the last time in the billows of the sea. In 
 some such way the melancholy unexpectant face in the 
 congregation affected us; and yet this stunned, lifeless- 
 looking countenance belonged to a young married 
 woman, not over twenty-four years of age. 
 
 One night as the people were going out of the 
 
 church, she passed near the speaker, when in deepest 
 189 
 
190 EEMAEKABLE OOCURRENCES 
 
 pity for a sorrow-laden soul be reached out iis hh 
 and said: “God bless your heart.” 
 
 bebeld manifested im the look of dmmb brates. i: 
 remembered a dog which be had once stooped over am 
 er nyvthin 
 
 was the same he saw im the woman. 
 
 One night she was not in her place, amd on her re 
 appearance mext day he said: 
 
 “IT missed you last night.” And agaim there sprang 
 up for just a moment the same touched look, as thongl 
 so simple a speech meant moch to her, ¢ 
 
 Tt seems that it is throngh acts of courtesy and-deeds 
 of Kindness that the door of many hearts has to b 
 opened to receive the messages of God; and so it was 
 in the case of Evel G—— A glance of pity and 
 interest where none had been expected, was the first 
 swallow of 2 coming spring. It makes a great differ: 
 ence in the appearance ef this world when we have one 
 person im it who cares for us| And the Gospel itself 
 has a different sound when we are not alone im life 
 but stand enriched and blessed with the friendship 
 and love of others around us. ’ 
 
THE BREAKING OF A BRUISED REED. 191 
 
 Anyhow, a door was opened somewhere in this long- 
 shut-up life, the Spirit of God got in, and one night 
 the young woman came to the altar. Other nights 
 found her there, and it was evident that a terrible con- 
 flict was going on within her soul. 
 
 She asked for no counsel, sought no sympathy, re- 
 flected on nobody, but with set features and groanings 
 of spirit rather than with the lips, she seemed to be 
 engaged in a life and death struggle on some hidden 
 battlefield of the heart. 
 
 One person alone knew her past life, and all unsolic- 
 ited we were told by that individual a history that 
 made the heart ache and the tears run swiftly down the 
 face. There had been sin, but under such circumstances 
 of girlish ignorance, innocence and betrayal of trust, 
 that one could but wonder why the thunderbolts of jus- 
 tice and judgment did not fall from the skies and 
 destroy the man who was the blighter and blaster under 
 the guise of adviser and protector. 
 
 Nevertheless all wrongs of earth must be forgiven 
 if we ourselves would receive the pardon of Heaven. 
 So the day came when the brcken-hearted woman for- 
 gave the injurer and placed the lifelong wound under 
 the Blood, when with a ery of joy that penetrated and 
 thrilled every soul in the audience she flung herself 
 back in the arms of her mother, and with clasped hands 
 
192 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 and radiant face looked like a being just arrived from — 
 the Glory World. 
 
 In the remaining days of the meeting, it was a bene-— 
 diction to see her soul drinking deep at the fountain, 
 and eating of the Gospel manna which was raining 
 upon and around her. She had been thirsty and hun- 
 gry so long! And then she had been hopeless so long! 
 From sixteen to twenty-four she had eaten, drank, 
 walked, slept and awoke under a cloud of impenetrable 
 blackness. And it was growing blacker as the months 
 rolled by! And the whisper of the Devil to commit 
 suicide was getting louder! And her heart was becom- 
 ing harder !—until the meeting came on, which brought 
 Christ to her soul in pardon, peace, victory, and blessed 
 salvation. 
 
 Months afterward when far away across the conti- 
 nent we received letters telling us of the good this 
 woman was doing. She had taken an active interest in 
 church work. Instead of asking for a Sunday school 
 class, she went out on the streets and found or made 
 one. She spent a certain portion of each day in visit- 
 ing the sick and helping the poor. She divided repeat- 
 edly the little store in her purse with the needy; did 
 it with happy tears welling up in her eyes, and then 
 would crown the visit of mercy with a fervent, loving 
 
THE BREAKING OF A BRUISED REED. 193 
 
 prayer sent direct to the Throne from a room or cabin 
 of abject poverty. 
 
 Other letters were written telling how she had or- 
 ganized a mission in a neglected part of the city; and 
 following this news came still another communication 
 stating that she had been elected organist of the church 
 Sunday school. Every succeeding report for a whole 
 year was of this character, and filled the heart with 
 thanksgiving for such a beautifully redeemed life. 
 
 Then came a long silence of months; and one day 
 a letter arrived stating that certain lady members of 
 the church had dug up something relative to the past 
 history of Evelyn G 
 culating it. That when the reports first reached Mrs. 
 
 G 
 
 duties just the same, trying to be bright and cheerful 
 
 and were industriously cir- 
 
 she seemed much shocked, but went on in her 
 
 as before. But the talk had increased to such an extent 
 that a number of the female members had dropped her 
 socially, eut her publicly in the church work and re- 
 ligious services, and their victim was steadily sinking 
 under the treatment. 
 
 Another letter several months afterward reported 
 that the division in the church over the case 
 of Mrs. G—— had steadily increased in grav- 
 ity. That various tongues kept fanning the 
 
 flames and adding more fuel, as if determined to 
 
194 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 destroy the soul which Christ had saved. One report 
 was that she had ruined a preacher’s usefulness; a see- 
 ond that she had deceived her husband; a third that 
 she had always been bad from girlhood, ete., ete. 
 
 The letter said that Mrs. G 
 lips in reply to anything or anybody; that she never 
 
 never opened her 
 
 struck back, but looked like a wounded fawn facing 
 with great melancholy eyes the hunters and hounds 
 who were seeking its death. 
 
 After this came still other tidings through which 
 we learned that she had given up her class in Sun- 
 day school, ceased her mission work, and came very 
 rarely to church. That when she did attend public 
 worship she would sit in the last pew, and would leave 
 hurriedly at the close, without speaking to a soul. 
 
 A whole year more rolled by and once again we vis- 
 ited the city where three years before we had witnessed 
 a wonderful revival, and among the number saved had 
 been made to rejoice over the remarkable case we have 
 just described. We went promptly to the street and 
 number where she had formerly lived, and rang the _ 
 bell. A strange face appeared at the door, and to in- 
 
 quiries replied that Mrs. G no longer lived there, 
 
 and that she did not know where she resided. : 
 Going to the house of a church member in the neigh- 
 
 borhood, we were told by that good lady that Mrs. 
 
 f 
 
THE BREAKING OF A BRUISED REED. 195 
 
 G—’s husband had left her, and that she had gone 
 to live with her mother in a distant part of the city, 
 fully twenty or thirty blocks away. After taking down 
 the address we asked: 
 
 “Does Mrs. G 
 
 “No, indeed. She has not darkened our church 
 doors for nearly a year. She likes other places better 
 than the House of God.” 
 
 “What do you mean?” we inquired. 
 
 ever come to church 2” 
 
 “T mean,” replied the lady with a severely virtuous 
 look, ‘that she goes to theatres on week nights, and to 
 the parks on Sunday. The last time I heard from her, 
 six or seven months ago, she was with a set of worldly 
 people in the largest theatre down town.” 
 
 “Poor dear heart,” we said, with a big ache in our 
 own. 
 
 “T think you are wasting pity on a very bad woman,” 
 was the rejoinder of our Christian friend. 
 
 After a moment’s pause we said: 
 
 “My sister, do you remember one of the most touch- 
 ing descriptions in prophecy about the Saviour ?” 
 
 “T don’t know that I do.” 
 
 “T am afraid,” we returned, “that many of Christ’s 
 followers do not know it.” 
 
 “What is the prophecy ?” the woman asked with some 
 
 interest. 
 
196 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. _ 
 
 “Here it is,” we replied, reading from Tania 
 “<The bruised reed will He not break; and smoking * 
 flax will He not quench.’” Then closing the book we a 
 said: “Here is stated the exceeding tenderness of the — 
 Saviour with those who have been afflicted, injured and r 
 
 all but wounded to death in the battle of life. The per- 
 son in his desire for goodness and heaven may not real- 
 ize a flame in the heart, but have instead a mere fireless 
 
 smoking that is seen in flax when drying. And yet 
 
 even that feeble spiritual state the Lord will not despise. 
 As for one who has been bruised by sin, so that a touch 
 would break the poor reed-like character, even that one 
 is safe with the Redeemer, for instead of crushing what 
 is already nearly ruined by the Devil, Jesus would re- 
 
 store and save every such heart-broken and undone 
 
 man or woman.” 
 
 The lady before us was silent and solemn enorgh 
 now, while we continued: 
 
 “The young woman whom the pitiless tongues in 
 your church drove from duty and the House of God to 
 the theatre, and back to the world, was not the bad 
 character you thought and said she was. We know her 
 history, and the bitter wrongs heaped upon her all 
 through her life to this hour. She sinned, but was more 
 sinned against than sinning. She was betrayed where 
 she had a right to expect protection and safety. She 
 
THE BREAKING OF A BRUISED REED. 197 
 
 never deceived her husband but told him all before 
 marriage. He was a brute to her after he wedded her, 
 but she was true to him. Neither was she the bad girl 
 that rumor said she was. Those who know her past 
 life best declare that she was a bright, happy, innocent 
 girl until the disaster came upon her at sixteen. We 
 wrote these facts to several individuals here in the midst 
 of the tongue storm raised against her, but it seems 
 that truth was not the thing that was wanted, but the 
 heart-break and utter overthrow of a young woman who 
 was trying to save her soul, do better, and gain 
 Heaven !” 
 
 Noticing the increasingly disturbed look on our au- 
 ditor’s face, we added: 
 
 “The difference between Jesus Christ and your 
 church is that He wants to save souls and you prefer 
 to destroy them. He would mend and restore the 
 bruised reed, while your people would break one with 
 every opportunity. You will excuse me, my sister, in 
 saying that your church may have Christianity, but 
 they certainly do not possess Christ. And more than 
 that, if your membership has religion, it is not the kind 
 which the world wants to see, and that it must have, to 
 lift it up from its fallen condition into light, hope, 
 
 faith, salvation and a better life.” 
 25 ss = 
 
198 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 An half hour after this scene we were threading our 
 way along some dingy streets, hunting for the child-— 
 hood home of Evelyn G It stood, we were told, . 
 several blocks back from the river but overlooking the - 
 
 same as it swept with broad and majestic current to- 
 wards the South. eg 
 
 The streets became hilly and broken, and the house i 
 straggling, before we stood before the one we sought. 
 The porch was dusty, the side and back yards silent and — 
 empty, and the window shutters all closed. 
 
 We rang the doorbell, but only got echoes and the 
 barking of a distant dog for our pains. We rang again, — | 
 and a plainly-dressed, tired-looking woman came to a — 
 window of the next house and said “‘Nobody’s at home.” 
 Coming nearer to her, we lifted our hat and asked: 
 “Does the mother of Mrs. G 
 
 “Yes, sir, but she is not at home to-day, and hardly mA 
 
 live here ?” 
 
 ever is. Poor soul, I don’t wonder that she wants to 
 get away.” ' 
 “What is her trouble?’ we asked, with a vague fear o 
 arising in the heart. a 
 “Tt is not trouble, sir, but troubles. Her only son 
 is in the Philippines; then her two oldest daughters 
 are married, moved away and she hardly ever hears 
 from them; and now the last one is gone.” 
 “Does not Mrs. G 
 
 live here with her mother?” 
 
THE BREAKING OF A BRUISED REED. 199 
 
 “She did, sir, but she is gone now, and has been for 
 over four months.” 
 
 “Where is she ?” 
 
 “Nobody knows. Some say she is in Chicago; others 
 say New York. I don’t believe that her own mother 
 knows where she is.” 
 
 A few more words were exchanged which brought no 
 additional light, and the woman disappeared in the 
 depths of her house. 
 
 We returned and sat down on the porch steps of 
 Evelyn’s silent and desolate home, and surrendered the 
 mind up to reflections of the most melancholy nature. 
 
 Some children were playing in the roadway farther 
 down the street. A dog was lazily and dreamily watch- 
 ing them as he was stretched upon a front gallery. The 
 whole neighborhood in the quict, almost pulseless after- 
 noon air seemed asleep. Far across the wide river 
 stretched a landscape of fields shut in by a distant range 
 of purple hills, and beyond them a low misty line of 
 fleecy clouds rested on the horizon. 
 
 As we looked from the doorstep upon the scene we 
 said aloud: 
 
 “And far beyond those hills and clouds, somewhere 
 on the face of the earth, roams Evelyn G 
 broken heart!” 
 
 Just then a hand-organ in the distance commenced 
 
 with a 
 
200 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. —__ 
 
 playing “The Sweetest Story Ever Told.” There 
 a swift rush of tears to the eyes, and we thought: 
 “Ah, well! It was sweet to her once, but it became 
 
 have helped her. What has she to make her seek an 4 
 trust human affection again? Will she ever do so again? 
 And if she is lost at last who is most to blame! A nd 
 when the judgment of God falls, will it come heaviest 
 beat back and down a soul that was trying to quit sin, 
 leave the world, and find its way to Christ, safety, duty 
 and Heaven ?”’ 
 
 The evening came on, the children went away, 2 
 the strains of the organ had long ago ceased. We walked E 
 down to the river bank where the yellow waves broke | 
 
 happy, innocent girl she had many times heard these — 
 lapping waves on the shore. They remained still, but — 
 where now was the injured woman? Far from her — 
 childhood’s home, and farther still from her God, where — 
 was she ? ‘- 
 
THE BREAKING OF A BRUISED REED. 201 
 
 And the question would keep coming up as if insist- 
 ing on a definite and final answer. | 
 
 “Who is most to blame, the bruised reed or those 
 who broke the bruised reed ?” 
 
 Then as if in reply memory recalled a Bible scene 
 in which a woman figured whose history was darker 
 than that of Evelyn G——. In that living picture of 
 old, the guilty one had been dragged before Christ and 
 clamor was made that she should be stoned according 
 to the law of Moses. And then while human tongues 
 lashed and raged around the silent and trembling vic- 
 tim, the Holy One who knew no sin stooped and wrote 
 on the ground as though He heard them not. Finally 
 He arose and said unto the accusing crowd: “He that 
 is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at 
 her.” And once more He stooped and traced that 
 strange, unknown writing in the dust. 
 
 When He stood up again the accusers were all gone; 
 and He concerning whom prophecy said He would not 
 break a bruised reed, spoke kindly to the crushed, un- 
 happy woman, and planted a new hope in her heart, 
 opened up a new life before her eyes, and swung 
 Heaven itself in front of her exultant soul in the words, 
 
 “Go, and sin no more.” 
 
XXII. 
 A STARTLING CONFESSION. 
 
 PROMINENT minister of the Gospel once stated 
 in his pulpit that he had listened in his Study to 
 _ such ghastly life histories from desperate looking men, 
 that more than a dozen times he had been ready to take 
 flight from the scene, and would have done so if the 
 narrator had made the slightest aggressive movement 
 toward him. 
 
 In keeping with this remarkable statement, the writer 
 can say that confessions have been made him in the 
 past of such unusual character and dreadful nature, that 
 he verily believes that nothing in the way of divulgence 
 of sin and crime could now astonish him. 
 
 These revelations of a hidden and unsuspected life, 
 were like lightning flashes illumining a dark forest 
 teeming with creatures unseen before; or like a sud- 
 den vision into another world peopled with beings and 
 characters unknown and unimagined up to that hour. 
 
 We have seen a stately mansion surrounded with 
 lovely shade trees and beautified with lawn and flower 
 
 garden, and were told while admiring it that a hor- 
 202 
 
 : 
 
A STARTLING CONFESSION. 203 
 
 rible crime had been committed inside its walls. As 
 we looked again after that shocking statement, and saw 
 the sunlight falling lovingly upon the balustraded porch, 
 we thought how little there was to indicate the unhappy 
 history which had occurred within. The pigeons were 
 cooing and skimming about the eaves, some happy voiced 
 children attended by their nurse were playing on the 
 lawn, while a large Newfoundland dog stood under the 
 trees gravely and approvingly contemplating the scene. 
 Tt was all so fair and peaceful, that one could scarcely 
 eredit the dark tragedy which had been enacted there 
 only a few months previous, and yet a double murder 
 of a most frightful and unnatural character had been 
 committed in that place. 
 
 Equally startled have we been to find that the grave, 
 quiet, dignified man in the audience was an escaped 
 convict, and that the innocent looking woman with a 
 girlish face had three living husbands, and was stained 
 with an awful crime besides. 
 
 From these things we gather that we know very little 
 of what is transpiring behind the walls of our neigh- 
 bor’s house; and next to nothing about the people who 
 jostle us on the street, and sit by us on the car and in 
 the church. It is only now and then we get a flash which 
 lights up the woods, and we see a panther lying on the 
 
 limb of a tree, a scorpion on a log, and a snake coiled 
 
204 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 up under a bush by the side of the narrow path where 
 we are walking. Or, to change the figure, a door or 
 window blind is suddenly opened, and we mark faces 
 and forms all unknown to the street and undreamed of 
 by us until that moment. ;, 
 
 At a certain camp meeting in the South, one of the 
 preachers in a sermon at night held up the dreadfulness 
 of concealed iniquity. The discourse fell upon the ears 
 of a profoundly awed and conscience smitten audience, 
 although there was but little outward demonstration 
 at the altar. It seemed that a number shrank from 
 coming forward after such a fearful delineation, lest 
 such a movement would be to spot and mark themselves 
 as acknowledged criminals and violators of law in the 
 grossest sense. 
 
 Next morning the writer was in his tent, engaged 
 in preparation for the morning sermon, while the 
 Testimony meeting was in progress at the Tabernacle 
 about an hundred feet away. Suddenly a shriek of 
 agony, ascending from the place of worship, literally 
 rent the air. The scream came from a woman, and we 
 knew from the shocked, horror-stricken accent that 
 whoever gave it was a heart-broken person. We scarce- 
 ly ever heard a cry which so deeply moved us. It 
 carried its own misery with it, and the listener could 
 
A STARTLING CONFESSION. 205 
 
 not but respond in spirit to nature’s wail over the in- 
 coming of a colossal sorrow. 
 
 After this startling interruption there was a pro- 
 found silence of an half hour, and then came the sound 
 of the people leaving the Tabernacle and their scatter- 
 ing along the tent-lined streets. Glancing out, we saw 
 that all were talking earnestly and knew that they were 
 discussing the incident of that morning. 
 
 Recognizing a gentleman, we called him aside and 
 asked why the woman had given that fearful scream. 
 He replied, “Her husband made a confession this morn- 
 ing,” and then related the circumstance. 
 
 It seemed that this husband, whose name was D, 
 was one of the convicted ones in the audience of the 
 night before. Next morning he accompanied his wife 
 to the Experience meeting, to her great joy, as she 
 fancied she saw in his gloomy face signs of conviction, 
 the natural precursor of salvation. 
 
 He took his seat just behind her, and after a number 
 had testified, he arose to his feet as pale as death, and 
 with a faltering voice said. 
 
 “T have kept a load of guilt on my heart for thirty 
 long years. I cannot stand it any longer. It is killing 
 me by inches. I want to say here before everybody, 
 that just after the close of the war I killed a man!” 
 
 Whether he intended to say more or not we do not 
 
206 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 know, for just as these last words were uttered, the wife 
 gave the agonized cry we heard in the tent, and fell 
 upon the ground at the feet of her husband unconscious. 
 
 Something of the shock may be imagined, when the 
 thought rushed over her: 
 
 “The father of my children is a murderer! The man 
 with whom I have been most intimate on earth, who has 
 gone with me through life side by side, has his hands 
 red with the blood of a fellow creature!” 
 
 No wonder she went down senseless in the dust. 
 
 We next asked our informant where the woman was 
 and was told that she had been borne to an adjacent 
 room by sympathizing friends. Our following ques- 
 tion was, “Where is the man?” and the reply was, “He 
 has gone to his tent.” 
 
 In a few minutes we found him there, lying on a 
 cot and looking more like a dead than a living man. 
 Taking a camp stool by his side we laid our hand upon 
 his and found it cold and clammy, while his body was 
 trembling as with a chill. With a heart full of pity, 
 we said: 
 
 “My brother, are you not glad that you made a clean ~ 
 breast of your guilt to-day ?” 
 
 Turning a pair of despairing eyes upon us he an- 
 swered : 
 
 “Mr. C., the law will hang me.” 
 
: 
 
 A STARTLING CONFESSION. 207 
 
 “Hang or no hang,” we replied, “are you not glad 
 that you have gotten that black stuff out of your heart 
 which has been weighing it down for thirty years?” 
 
 Grasping our hand, and with a look of unspeakable 
 relief upon his face, he said in a firm, manly tone: 
 
 “God in heaven knows that I am.” 
 
 It is not necessary to dwell on other particulars of 
 the case occurring at this immediate time. Suffice it 
 to say that D. went home, submitted to arrest, was cast 
 into jail, and underwent his trial. 
 
 The Scripture plainly teaches that when we do what 
 God bids us, He will take us up, fight our battles and 
 deliver us from all our trouble. This was what took 
 place with D. The Lord touched the heart of judge 
 and jury; moved on men here and there; brought 
 first one thing and then another to pass, and com- 
 pletely delivered the man. 
 
 The words of the Psalmist could have been truly 
 appropriated and repeated by him in description of what 
 had been done for him and in him: “He hath delivered 
 my soul from death, mine eyes from tears and my feet 
 
 from falling.” 
 
 There was a strange literal fulfillment 
 of the verse in his case. His feet did not fall through 
 the trap door of the scaffold; his eyes were saved from 
 
 weeping through the pardoning and consoling love of 
 
208 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 Christ, and his spirit as well as body were not given over 
 unto death, but were both brought forth from imprison- 
 ment and bondage, into life and liberty according to the 
 promise of the Almighty. 
 
 Such was the man’s gratitude for the salvation of his 
 soul while in prison, and for the rescue of his life from 
 the law soon after, that he would not wait for the next 
 camp meeting to obtain holiness of heart, but sought the 
 blessing at once, and months before the regular annual 
 encampment he had swept into Beulah Land and was 
 one of the strong ones in Canaan when we next beheld 
 him. , 
 
 Repeatedly the writer and his Singer met this doubly 
 redeemed man during the camp which followed the one 
 mentioned in the beginning of this sketch, and we both 
 had to admit that among the bright, restful faces 
 we beheld in the meeting, that the most peaceful one of 
 all was that of the man who the year before had made 
 such a startling and terrible confession. 
 
XXIII. 
 TH HISTORY OF A PRAYER. 
 
 N a small town in Kentucky lived a godly woman 
 
 by the name of Mary M., whose heart was greatly 
 burdened for the salvation of the people of her com- 
 munity. Very often in secret she poured out, with 
 tears, her petition that God would send the place a 
 sweeping revival of New Testament pattern and power. 
 It is the biography of this prayer which forms the body 
 of this sketch, and a most remarkable history it was. 
 
 We gather from the Bible that God hearkens to our 
 requests, and is pledged to answer them if offered in 
 the right spirit, and we will abide in faith and faithful- 
 ness. One other condition, however, is clearly exacted 
 of Heaven, and that is that the time of fulfillment be 
 left in the hands of the Lord. 
 
 Several facts make this understanding to be impera- 
 tive. One alone which we mention is sufficient to sat- 
 isfy any reasonable mind, viz., the moral freedom of 
 people with whom God has to work in order to answer 
 the petition. The angel told Daniel that he had been 
 
 hindered three weeks in coming to him, by the Prince 
 209 
 
210 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 of the Kingdom of Persia. This Prince in his oppo- 
 sition brings out at once in the most vivid manner the 
 stubbornness, ignorance, prejudice, sinfulness and spirit 
 liberty itself which so often stand in between us, and 
 the coming messenger and message of relief and glad- 
 ness sent us from the skies. In a word, hindrances still 
 exist to our reception of what we are told in the Word 
 we can properly pray for as a comfort and blessing 
 to our own life and that of others. 
 
 In view of the things desired, and the mental and 
 moral constitution of men, God tells us to “wait on 
 Him,” to “patiently wait,” and the promise is that He 
 will bring, what we plead for, to pass. 
 
 If ever a woman had need to exercise faith it was 
 Mary M., after she begged God with strong cries and 
 tears for the revival. For years there was not a sign 
 that the petition had even been noticed by heaven. 
 
 True it was, that a long while after several preachers 
 confessed that during those very years they were deeply 
 moved to hold a meeting in the town where this woman 
 supplicator lived, but they allowed the impression to 
 pass away. The solitary pleader for the community 
 however, did not know this, and so kept on in her pray- 
 ing under an obviously impenetrable sky, and to a God 
 who did not seem to hear, and certainly did not answer. 
 
 In the Bible we read that when the Lord could not 
 
THE HISTORY OF A PRAYER. a ik 
 
 find a prophet in Israel to carry a message of rebuke and 
 warning to His idolatrous people, He reached His hand 
 down in Judah and brought forth a man of God from 
 that country to do His will. 
 
 In like manner there was a scarcity of human in- 
 struments in the land where Mary M. lived, and God 
 looked around in vain to find a man who would bear 
 a message to the town of S., which would make that 
 community to sigh and weep over its sins, and cause 
 at the same time his daughter, who had mourned so 
 long, to cease her crying and go to rejoicing over the 
 fulfillment of her often uttered supplication. 
 
 So the divine eye was turned in the Judah direction, 
 and the divine hand began to prepare other instruments 
 outside of the town of S. and beyond its county boun- 
 daries, and far from the state itself, who were to bring 
 salvation to the people and prove to that grieving ser- 
 vant of His that God was still, as He has always been, 
 One who not only hears but also answers prayer. 
 
 In the State of Mississippi and removed from S. 
 by fully six hundred miles, was a young preacher named 
 H. who was hungry for full salvation, but did not en- 
 tirely understand the nature of his own longing. He 
 prayed much, and even agonized, but there was no 
 Philip passing along this desert portion of his life to 
 ask him as he read and supplicated if he understood 
 
212 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 his own reading and prayers. No Ananias came into 
 those days of spiritual bewilderment and at times 
 blindness and darkness, with the command to arise, and 
 be filled with the Holy Ghost. 
 
 While H. was in this state of mind, a newspaper 
 reporter in the city of Louisville wrote a brief sketch 
 or religious item about a holy woman who lived, as he 
 stated, in a small town in the hill country of Kentucky. 
 He mentioned several things concerning her, making 
 in all an ordinary sized paragraph. But little as it was, 
 it held in its narrow limits, in a strange way, the sancti- 
 fication of the Mississippi preacher, and the long prayed 
 for revival at S. 
 
 Many thousand copies of that issue of the paper, the 
 Courier-Journal, were scattered over the country and 
 lost to view forever. But one sheet of the publication 
 God determined should survive the general destruction. 
 It fluttered South, and like a Messenger Bird as it 
 proved, nestled in the hand and under the eye of H. 
 Carelessly glancing down its columns the preacher read 
 the following words: 
 
 “There lives in 8., Kentucky, a woman named Mary 
 M. She dwells in a small yellow cottage in the edge 
 of the town and keeps the Toll Gate. She claims to 
 have been sanctified, and—” 
 
 This was all he read, but it was all God wanted 
 
THE HISTORY OF A PRAYER. 213 
 
 him to see, and was all indeed that he needed. Like 
 Eleazar when he recognized the hand of the Lord in 
 confirmatory providences which guided him on his way 
 to secure Rebecea for Isaac, so H. stood thrilled, and 
 worshipped God as he felt that in a bit of printed paper 
 he had beheld the directing finger of Heaven. 
 
 He said to himself, “That is just what I need. I 
 want to be sanctified.” 
 
 In his case the instructing Philip was six hundred 
 miles away, and if interview was to be had he would 
 have to seek it, and be the traveler. Distance, however, 
 was not the only drawback, but the lack of funds to 
 meet railroad expenses stared him in the face. 
 
 This naturally brought forth the prayer, “Lord, if 
 this thing is from you, and you desire me to see that 
 woman and obtain instruction from her, grant that the 
 means necessary for the trip will be provided.” 
 
 In a week’s time, a railroad pass and money neces- 
 sary for incidental expenses were placed in his hands 
 without any hint or solicitation on his part. 
 
 A few days later this, seeker after truth alighted 
 from the train at the place of destination and asked 
 for the “yellow cottage” at the Toll Gate. Knocking 
 at the door he inquired if Mary M. lived there, and 
 was answered in the affirmative. Invited in the house 
 
 he told her what he had come for, and as it does not 
 
214 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 take Holiness people long to enter upon business, the 
 faithful woman and her sister began to instruct him in 
 the way of the Lord “more perfectly,” and in a few min- 
 utes were pleading mightily in prayer in his behalf, 
 while he himself wept and prayed and groaned upon 
 the floor. 
 
 On the second or third day the fire fell, the long- 
 desired blessing of sanctification swept into the emptied 
 and completely consecrated soul, and H., full of joy 
 and the Holy Ghost, was on his way back to Mississippi. 
 
 It was after this that the writer began to hear much 
 of H. Of course he was misunderstood by his congre- 
 gation, and Conference, and so became acquainted very 
 soon with the “Fiery Furnace,” obtained a great deal of 
 positive light on the history and experience of Shadrack, 
 Meshack and Abednego. He also received a kind of 
 mental geographical chart of the Island of Patmos with 
 a marvelous amount of insight intothe life of the famous 
 exile on that wave-washed and solitary shore, a man who 
 had been sent there on account of the Word of God, and 
 the testimony of Jesus Christ! We heard that he was 
 “clear off,” “a fanatic,” “usefulness ended,” ete., ete. 
 But at the same time we were informed that he had con- 
 stant revivals wherever he went. We do not know at 
 this time of spiritual greenness and ignorance in our 
 life, how we reconciled the two reports. Perhaps we did 
 
THE HISTORY OF A PRAYER. 915 
 
 not try to harmonize them. The thing was high, and we 
 had not then attained unto it. 
 
 One rumor reached us that he, H., while preaching a 
 great convicting sermon, had thrown a chair off the plat- 
 form. Of course, to some who had never knocked the 
 devil out of their church, nor kicked a sin out of their 
 lives, nor hurled a sinner into the kingdom of heaven, 
 all this was perfectly dreadful. In fact, it was the un- 
 pardonable sin. Preachers could smoke their cigars and 
 pipes, church members could break the Sabbath and tell 
 impure stories, and all that could be readily overlooked. 
 But for a man to overturn a chair in the sacred pulpit, 
 while illustrating some truth under the power of the 
 Spirit; Oh, that was fearful! terrible! sacrilegious! 
 and not to be forgiven in this world nor in the world to 
 come! 
 
 At a session of an annual conference several members 
 became exceedingly violent on the floor toward H. Two 
 were especially bitter. One of them, turning towards 
 the quiet-looking, peaceful-faced victim, shook his finger 
 at him and vociferated to the chairman: 
 
 “Bishop, I would rather the devil from hell should 
 preach on my cireuit than that man!” 
 
 The editor of a Christian Advocate, who afterwards 
 became a Bishop, was present during this stormy and 
 
 heart-sickening scene. His eyes, with the gaze of many 
 
216 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 others, rested upon the accused man; and in comment- 
 ing upon the occurrence when all was over, he said: 
 
 “The face of H. was the quietest and most peaceful in 
 the entire Conference!” ; 
 
 Soon after the scene related, H. was fairly driven by 
 ecclesiastical pressure to take refuge in a distant West- 
 ern Conference. The Spirit, however, followed him, 
 and so, wherever he went, revivals sprang up and salva- 
 tion flowed. 
 
 One or more years passed away in this manner, when 
 opposition similar to that from which he had fled became 
 so great in the West that he turned back homeward 
 again. 
 
 At this time we heard again of him. It was the same 
 old story of revivals and opposition, and opposition and 
 revivals. The man seemed to be on the best terms with 
 God, but somehow he could not please his brethren in 
 the ministry. 
 
 Meanwhile the writer, as pastor of a large city church, 
 was hungry for something in the spiritual life that he 
 did not know the name of, nor its exact nature. He was 
 conscious at this period of desiring two things very 
 ardently; one was a satisfying blessing for his own 
 soul, and second a great, gracious, old-time, old-fash- 
 ioned, Wesleyan, Apostolic, Scriptural Revival in his 
 Church. 
 
THE HISTORY OF A PRAYER. 27! 
 
 While praying about the matter and mentally casting 
 about for human help, the face of H. was quietly and 
 steadily presented to his mind with an unmistakable im- 
 pression, “Send for him.” 
 
 The invitation was forwarded, the invited came, and 
 the meeting opened. The power of God fell on the 
 fourth day. In the eight days’ meeting, one hundred 
 souls were converted, twenty-five sanctified, and four 
 young men entered the ministry. 
 
 While listening to the third sermon of H. the writer 
 suddenly saw not only the possibility but the actuality 
 of the Second Work of Grace. He promptly bowed at 
 the altar, came six times, and, after a complete consecra- 
 tion, unquestioning faith in the Word of God, and three 
 days of almost continuous prayer, one morning at 9 
 o'clock, on June 1, 1889, the Baptism with the Holy 
 Ghost and Fire fell upon, filled and literally over- 
 whelmed him! 
 
 All this may appear irrelevant to the subject of this 
 sketch. It may seem that not only God had overlooked 
 Mary M., but we, her biographer, had also forgotten her. 
 But so far from this being the case, the circumstances 
 just related made the highway along which was to come 
 the long-deferred blessings of heaven to S. God was 
 preparing servants to bring the message of gladness fo 
 the heart of Mary M., who had been praying faithfully 
 
918 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 and persistently for ten years for the community she 
 loved and in which she lived. 
 
 Four years passed away after the writer received the 
 Baptism with the Holy Ghost, which were spent by him 
 in city pastorates. Meantime Mary M. prayed on for 
 the town of S. 
 
 Finally we entered the evangelistic work, and began 
 to circle about the nation. After almost a year had 
 been thus spent, the pastor of Mary M., a devout 
 man, suddenly felt impressed to write to us to hold a 
 meeting in his church. We accepted the call and came. 
 Whereupon a gifted editor-evangelist said in his epi- 
 grammatic and culminating way: “When C. jumped off 
 the train one morning with his valise in his hand, the re- 
 vival had come!” 
 
 What need to speak of that revival, which has gone 
 already into the history of the holiness movement? Suf- 
 fice it to say that the power of God fell upon the people; 
 that salvation rolled; that the meeting had to be moved 
 twice to obtain larger quarters; that the brass band of 
 a traveling troupe played in vain in front of the theater 
 to secure an audience; not a dozen came; while at the 
 largest church in town the people filled the seats, 
 jammed the vestibule and aisles, crowded the chancel, 
 lined the altar rail and sat on the floor in the pulpit to 
 hear the Word of God, while scores and scores, with 
 
THE HISTORY OF A PRAYER. 219 
 
 tears, laughter,shouts and clapping of hands, were swept 
 into reclamation, regeneration and entire sanctification. 
 The revival had come! 
 The prayer of Mary M., ascending for fifteen long 
 years, had been heard at last! 
 
XXIV. 
 A MIRACLE OF GRACE. 
 
 N one of our largest cities a man whom we shall eall 
 Dunlap led for years the life of a criminal. He had 
 a large, muscular body, a great, massive head, and a will 
 power bigger than both combined. He was a bold, bad 
 man and stopped short of nothing in the accomplish- 
 ment of his burglaries, which were usually planned on 
 an extensive scale, and seemed to be enjoyed by him 
 just in proportion to their danger and difficulty. 
 
 Walls were scaled, doors and windows entered, bolts 
 snapped and big iron safes burst open before the crow- 
 bar, chisel and dynamite of this fearless individual. 
 
 Policemen had a wholesome dread of the man, and 
 never dreamed of attacking him single-handed. Detec- 
 tives dogged his steps, and every effort was made to so 
 overtake and fasten guilt upon him as to land their vie- 
 tim in the penitentiary. But successful as he was fear- 
 less, and cunning as he was bold, it was fully ten years 
 before the trap was sprung, and Dunlap, caught in one 
 of his store robberies, was overpowered by numbers 
 
 and dragged to jail. 
 220 
 
A MIRACLE OF GRACE. Daal 
 
 He had been incarcerated a number of weeks await- 
 ing his trial, when one day some godly women who made 
 a practice of visiting the prisons in the city on the Sab- 
 bath passed his cell and handed him a newspaper con- 
 taining D. L. Moody’s sermon on Justification by Faith. 
 
 The prisoner, more from the tediousness of the soli- 
 tary confinement than anything else, took up the printed 
 sheet and commenced reading. Suddenly his eyes fell 
 upon the words that God would forgive the vilest crim- 
 inal and foulest sinner on earth if he would simply look 
 to and believe on His Son Jesus Christ. Then came 
 the Scripture confirming the statement, “Being justified 
 by faith, we have peace with God.” 
 
 It would be simply impossible to describe the actual 
 shock of astonishment that came over Dunlap as he read 
 these words. It was like a lightning flash in his mental 
 and spiritual world. The Spirit poured in light on the 
 Word, and in the man as he sat reading and rereading 
 the transfigured words with a great voiceless wonder in 
 heart and mind. 
 
 Though the personages and periods were widely dif- 
 ferent and separated as to character and time, yet the 
 same thing was taking place in his case that oceurred 
 to Luther when climbing up the Sacred Stairway in 
 Rome in search after pardon. The reader will remem- 
 ber that as the monk was two-thirds up the steps on his 
 
222 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 knees, the Holy Ghost impressed this passage on 
 mind while streaming a flood of light upon it—“The 
 just shall live by faith!” 
 
 In an instant Martin Luther saw the truth, grasped 
 it, leaped to his feet and rushed down the stairease a ; 
 converted man, to electrify the church and Europe with © 
 the restored doctrine that men are not saved by works, 
 but by faith in the Son of God. 
 
 In a similar manner the light came upon the lonely 
 prisoner, and as he read and reread the Bible passage, 
 God helping him, he grasped the truth with a thrill of 
 amazement, and, looking to Jesus was, in an instant, 
 soundly converted to God. 
 
 Of course this made a great stir in the prison, and 
 especially outside among the people of God who heard 
 of it. Some there were who doubted, but the man’s re- 
 markable change in face, conversation, spirit and life 
 left no question with the Christian workers who saw him 
 that he had been truly regenerated. 
 
 A few weeks after the prisoner’s conversion, under 
 the instruction of the Holiness Band who visited the jail, 
 he was led into the experience of entire sanctification. 
 
 Here was another miracle of grace, and caused addi- 
 tional wonder with some, and increased gladness among 
 the people of God. 
 
 As the day for the trial of his case drew near, the 
 
 ak 3, 
 
A MIRACLE OF GRACE. 223 
 
 conviction was general that the sentence would be for a 
 long term in the penitentiary. And because of the 
 changed nature of the man this certainty of the coming 
 verdict intensified sympathy in his behalf. 
 
 Dunlap had been assigned a lawyer by the judge, and 
 this gentleman, conceiving a warm interest in his un- 
 fortunate client, gave a faithful study to the case. 
 
 One day he made an important discovery and went 
 at once to the jail to interview the prisoner. After tak- 
 ing his seat in the cell, he said: 
 
 “Mr. Dunlap, I have made a very important discovery 
 in your case which may result in my being able to get 
 you off clear.” 
 
 “Indeed,” replied Dunlap. “Iam glad to hear that.” 
 
 “Yes,” resumed the lawyer; “I find that through a 
 technical error, as we call it, I can get you free. But 
 in order to use my advantage I will have to obtain your 
 consent to make a statement that is not exactly in accord 
 with facts.” 
 
 “T do not understand you,” replied the prisoner, turn-— 
 ing a steady, searching look upon the man of law. 
 
 “T mean,” said his counsel, “that I will have_to get 
 you to stretch the truth a little.” 
 
 “Do you mean that I must tell a falsehood?” asked ° 
 
 Dunlap. 
 
294 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 “Well,” returned the lawyer, “if you eu in put- 
 ting it in that strong way, you may do so.’ 
 
 yeas I understand you to say,” ag Dene “tha E 
 depends on my telling an untruth—in other words a 
 lie ?” 
 
 “Well, yes; that is about the sum of the matter.” 
 
 “Then,” answered Dunlap, “I prefer to go to the pen- s 
 itentiary !” B 
 
 If the man’s conversion created surprise, the last oc- 
 currence increased the amazement, and Dunlap became ~ : 
 a standing wonder among many, while Christians re- B. 
 joiced over the steadfastness and faithfulness of the — 
 new convert. | 
 
 According to the Bible, it is when a man meets the % = 
 conditions that God requires, and turns himself over # 
 entirely to the divine keeping, that the Lord works not * 
 
 fy 
 
 only mightily for him on the inside, but achieves mar- 
 velously for him on the outside. S 
 Without being able to enter into the history of the 
 matter, we can only say in the brief compass of this 
 chapter that the same God who caused an angel to un- = 
 lock the prison doors for Peter did likewise for the sub-— A 
 ject of this sketch, and Dunlap after a few months’ in- a 
 carceration walked out a pardoned and liberated man. 
 
 He speedily joined the church, secured work down 
 
A MIRACLE OF GRACE. 225 
 
 in the city, and entered upon a new life in every sense 
 of the word. 
 
 There were many, of course, who did not believe in 
 him, and suspected a deep trick and scheme underneath 
 the whole occurrence. Notably this was the opinion of 
 the police and detective force. For years they kept a 
 hawk’s eye upon him, and shadowed day and night the 
 great burly fellow who with clear, honest eyes and 
 bright, happy face, trudged the streets of the city. 
 
 It was not long before Dunlap secured a deputy- 
 ship at the Court House. The men there were not sorry 
 to obtain the services of an individual of such physical 
 _strength and courage; and, having perfect confidence 
 in his redeemed life, they entrusted him with large sums 
 of money. 
 
 It was especially on these collecting days that the 
 police and detectives would watch Dunlap, and he, not 
 slow to perceive this, went on his happy, tranquil way, 
 saying to a friend: “They don’t know I carry a treasure 
 in my heart that all the money of this city is not able 
 to buy. I would be a fool indeed to part with what 
 I’ve got for the few hundred dollars I gather in my 
 collecting tours.” 
 
 As a church member Dunlap was regular in his at- 
 tendance, and prompt in payment of money to meet the 
 
 pastoral and conference claims. In addition to this, he 
 
226 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 would put aside a small amount each month from 
 _salary, in order to attend a Holiness Camp Meeting 
 that was located about two hundred miles from the city. 
 This was his solitary recreation. He said he needed no — 
 other, and cared for no other. 
 
 About this time the writer was sent as pastor to the 
 church where Dunlap held his membership. One of 
 the first things the redeemed man said about the new 
 preacher was: 
 
 “Now I need not go off to a camp meeting for soul 
 food. God has sent me a Holiness preacher, and I ean 
 have full salvation preaching without taking an expen- 
 sive trip to hear it. So from this time I will give as an 
 extra amount to the church that which I took before to 
 pay for my camp meeting trip.” 
 
 After a year’s pastorate the writer was sent from 
 the church where he had been stationed to another in 
 the same city. In leading a farewell prayer meeting of 
 four or five hundred people, he advised them not to fol- 
 low him, but remain where they were and stand by 
 their new pastor. With a few more concluding words 
 of direction and counsel, he sat down. There was a 
 profound silence for a few moments, when Dunlap arose 
 and, with a voice choked with emotion, said: 
 
 “All may stay here that will, but I am going to 
 heaven by way of First Church.” 
 
A MIRACLE OF GRACE. 227 
 
 The church he alluded to was the charge just given 
 to the writer. And here he promptly presented him- 
 self on the next Sabbath and was the first accession of 
 the seven hundred and fifty who flocked to that place of 
 worship as new members. 
 
 One day we were visiting the home of Dunlap, when 
 in the course of conversation he said: 
 
 “Would you like to see two photographs of myself 
 taken at different times ?”’ 
 
 We replied that we would, when he went to a ward- 
 robe and from a drawer within brought out two pic- 
 tures. Handing the first one to us he said: 
 
 “This was taken while I was in the service of the 
 Devil, and when he had me bound hand and foot.” 
 
 As we looked upon the face on the cardboard we could 
 scarcely keep back an expression of disgust. The bloat- 
 ed countenance was not only marked heavily with lines 
 of sin, but was so grossly animal as to arouse in the 
 heart a sense of loathing and in the mind a feeling al- 
 most of horror. 
 
 He saw the look, and with a smile laid the other pho- 
 tograph before us, saying: 
 
 “This one was taken since I entered the service of 
 Christ.” 
 
 As we gazed upon the fine, open, shining face in the 
 
 picture, it fairly staggered faith in one’s own eyesight 
 
228 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 and judgment to believe that these two portraits were 
 of the same man. 
 
 Looking up at Dunlap with an expression of wonder, 
 we saw the tears dripping down his face. ; 
 
 With our own eyes wet, and a husky sound in the 
 voice we said to the deeply moved man: 
 
 “Brother Dunlap, you could not preach the Gospel 
 more powerfully and effectively than to carry these two 
 photographs around with you and show them to the 
 people. They constitute a Gospel and an unanswerable 
 argument in themselves.” 
 
 His reply was: | 
 
 “T have done so many times, and said as I 
 showed first one, and then the other, ‘This is what the 
 Devil brought me to, and this is what Jesus did for me!’ 
 And I have never known it to fail to convict the person 
 who heard what I said and looked at the pictures I 
 showed him.” 
 
 Dunlap has been dead for several years; but though 
 in heaven he still speaks on earth in the memories of 
 men. And if recollection of him should perish, the two 
 pictures that are left would still proclaim what the 
 
 ee 
 
 Devil does in the way of moral ruin and degradation, 
 and what the Son of God can do for the vilest and most 
 
 sinful of men in the way of recovery and full salvation. 
 
XXV. 
 THE LAST WARNING. 
 
 HE Bible, history and observation as well, agree 
 
 as to the facts of warnings being sent to individ- 
 
 uals who were rushing towards and bordering upon de- 
 
 struction. In some instances they were numerous, and 
 
 in others but a single one could be recalled. But whether 
 
 frequent or rare there would necessarily be in each case 
 
 what we call in the caption of this sketch “The Last 
 Warning.” 
 
 A Pharaoh is told by Moses that he is receiving his 
 final eall to do right from heaven. A Paul brings a fare- 
 well message to Felix. An angel stands before Balaam 
 with a waving sword. A David with his harp is provi- 
 dentially placed before King Saul to divert his mind 
 from gloom and his life from ruin. The Christ Him- 
 self stands before Pilate as the remaining opportunity 
 of that Ruler to decide for the truth and escape the 
 destruction which finally came upon him. 
 
 In illustration of the same fact, we see in history a 
 person thrusting a note in the hand of Cesar which if 
 
 read would have saved him from the daggers of Casca 
 229 
 
230 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 and Brutus. And could we but know a little part of “ 
 this kind of history going on around us, and put it in 
 book form, it would be the most profoundly absorbing of 
 earthly volumes. 
 
 Of course after dreadful events have taken place, and 
 fearful ends have been met, people find it easy to re- 
 member certain strange circumstances that transpired 
 then, which they now most distinctly remember and 
 also recall having remarked upon at the time as a warn- 
 ing sent from the other world, ete., ete. 
 
 But leaving the ramblings of these after-date proph- 
 ets out, the truth remains that the Almighty in recog- 
 nition of the unspeakable value of a human soul, and 
 seeing the approaching peril and coming death of that 
 being, will work unusually and startlingly to arouse the 
 spirit from its carelessness and sinfulness, and save the 
 man from present and everlasting disaster. 
 
 It is true that the admission of this very fact opens 
 the door to error; and Superstition luxuriates in this 
 realm, translating the note of the hovering owl, the 
 crow of the cock and the prolonged howl of a dog at 
 night into omens of imminent distress and death. But 
 leaving out all the creations of fancy, we have such an 
 abundance of facts left as to make the most thought- 
 less and unconcerned to be burdened and troubled. 
 
 The truth is that a pitiful God does try to save 
 
THE LAST WARNING. 231 
 
 men who are nearing the grave and a lost world; and 
 that this fact also necessarily embraces the other, that 
 there comes to all such persons the last one of that 
 mystie number of warnings. 
 
 If men who have felt the stirrings of the Spirit could 
 but know that at some moment in their lives God was 
 moving, resisting. striving and speaking for the last 
 time, how full of horror it seems to us they would be. 
 
 We have listened to the deep-toned bell of a great 
 steamboat on the Mississippi as first the minutes and 
 then the moments of departure drew near. A quarter 
 of an hour before leaving there are nine strokes of the 
 bell; ten minutes later three; and just at starting one! 
 As that last solemn peal rings out, the rope is cast off, 
 the plank drawn in, the wheels plunged into the foam- 
 ing water, and the boat is gone. In this illustration it 
 is to be observed that while the warnings are ample, yet 
 they lessen in number as the moment of departure 
 draws near. 
 
 The analogy could be strikingly drawn in the case 
 of the doomed man. The calls from heaven and earth 
 have not been lacking; but their decreasing number and 
 power is the alarming feature of the case. 
 
 When a man is beheld rushing upon a great, unseen 
 peril, it is a human custom to multiply shouts and cries 
 
 accompanied with unlimited wavings of hands and sig- 
 
232 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 nals of danger. On the part of Heaven it is just the 
 other way. The number of calls and efforts to save seem 
 to lessen like the bell tolling nine, then three, and the 
 final melancholy knell-like one. 
 
 They also decrease in power. This last fact arises 
 from the blunting and deadening of spiritual sensibility 
 through long resistance to the voice, touch, and actual 
 strugglings of the Spirit. The man by his own acts has 
 put himself where he cannot hear the message, feel the 
 hand, or recognize the divine effort in his behalf. 
 
 A person near him says something about the Ides of 
 March, but he does not understand. The note is thrust 
 into his hand to remain unread. People near him speak 
 of somebody being in great danger; he wonders who 
 they are talking about. In a Gospel meeting he has a 
 dim consciousness of a preacher saying something about 
 the Dead Line in the Bible, and God’s last eall. But he 
 does not know who he is talking about, and the faint 
 impression soon passes away. 
 
 And yet when the minister was uttering the sentence 
 so meaningless and idle to him, the last toll of the bell 
 was being sounded. Another Moses had said thou shalt 
 hear from God no more, and had left a hardened man to 
 a coming destruction which was to be as sudden and 
 overwhelming as the Red Sea was to the king of Egypt. 
 
 One of these occurrences remains with the writer as 
 
THE LAST WARNING. 933 
 
 vividly to-day as at the time of its happening a number 
 of years ago. 
 
 The closing service of a certain camp meeting had 
 arrived. The audience was large, and the preacher of 
 the evening was delivering a sermon of wonderful 
 solemnity and heart-searching power. The writer sat 
 on the platform with other ministers, in a great spirit 
 travail that God would bless the closing appeal and save 
 many souls. 
 
 To this hour he recalls the stillness of that summer 
 night, the glimmering of the stars through the trees, the 
 song of the katydids in the woods, and the voice of the 
 preacher as he plead with sinners to be saved. Those 
 sights and sounds have become strangely interblended 
 and associated, forming together a picture never to be 
 forgotten of that memorable night. 
 
 In the congregation sat a young man who gave less 
 attention than any one else to what was being said from 
 the pulpit, and yet he of all others should have drunk in 
 every word of the sermon, and acted more promptly on 
 the invitation to come at once to Christ, because he was 
 receiving his last warning. Could he but have known 
 that in less than two hours he would be millions of miles 
 away in a distant world, lost and forever undone, how 
 
 he would have stopped the preacher by cries of agony 
 
234 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES, — 
 
 as he fell backward in his seat, or down upon his face 
 at the altar. 
 
 But the Ides had come and he did not know it. The 
 bell was tolling one, and he did not hear it. With per- 
 sistent attempt to disturb the worship and draw others 
 away with himself into misdoing, he whispered, 
 laughed, or gazed vacantly at the man of God in the 
 pulpit. 
 
 Meantime the few minutes left him on earth were 
 fast passing away; and now as the preacher coneluded 
 his discourse, only a short hour intervened between him 
 and the end of his probation on earth forever. Just a 
 little way up the future, not quite sixty minutes; and 
 now as the hymn ended only fifty; and as the prayer 
 ceased, exactly forty, a corpse was lying outstretched on 
 the ground two miles from the campground with a bullet 
 hole in the forehead, and that death wound made all 
 unwittingly by the hand of a friend. If he could have 
 bent over and peered into the face of the motionless 
 form before him, he would have discovered to his horror 
 that the dead man lying there under the stars was him- 
 self. 
 
 In perfect harmony with what has been written in 
 this sketch comes another occurrence of kindred nature 
 which transpired in a Southern State. We give it as 
 related by a Methodist preacher. 
 
THE LAST WARNING. 235 
 
 There lived in a town where he was stationed as pas- 
 tor a physician who was a moral blight to the com- 
 munity by reason of his skeptical views and sinful life. 
 His influence was especially baneful among the young 
 men, some of whom he led to embrace infidelity, and a 
 greater number to become openly and _ shamelessly 
 wicked. : 
 
 One Sabbath morning the preacher felt deeply im- 
 pressed to preach from Proverbs 29:1: “He that being 
 - often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be 
 destroyed, and that without remedy.” His subject was 
 the swift and terrible judgments of God upon those who 
 resisted His calls and warnings. 
 
 While opening up his discourse and in the act of 
 glancing over the audience he was profoundly surprised 
 to see the infidel doctor sitting in the congregation. 
 No one had ever beheld him, or even heard of his at- 
 tending a church before. So there was not only genuine 
 wonder with the pastor, but among the people at the 
 man’s presence among them. 
 
 When first observed he was about two-thirds of the 
 way back towards the door, and in the following peculiar 
 position: His body was bent forward with his chin 
 resting on his hands that were folded one on top of the 
 other, and laid on the edge of the bench immediately in 
 front of him. He had raven hair, a heavy mustache of 
 
236 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 the same color, and coal black eyes which he fixed stead- | 
 ily upon the minister in the pulpit. As the preacher 
 proceeded with his discourse, enlarging upon the calami- 
 ties that befell men who strove with and against God, 
 the big mustache would curl and the teeth gleam for a 
 moment under the incredulous smile of the infidel. The 
 whole mocking face seemed to say, “Do you think you 
 can frighten me with that kind of talk? Do you imag-— 
 ine for a moment that I believe what you are saying?” 
 
 The preacher said that he could scarcely go on with 
 his sermon, the man’s appearance was so infernal, and 
 his presence so paralyzing. He added that he never 
 looked into a countenance that seemed so Satanic. The 
 horrible thought took possession of him and could not be 
 shaken off that the Devil was in the man and looking 
 at him through his eyes, and mocking him through his 
 hell-surrendered countenance. 
 
 To all appearance the preacher was the more troubled 
 of the two, and the skeptic was having the best of the 
 situation so far as mental burden and spiritual distress 
 were concerned. And yet at the same time, and all un- 
 conscious of the fact, the doctor was hearing his last 
 warning; and he was receiving it from the lips of the 
 very man whom he was jeering at in his heart, and 
 scorning with every line of his sinister face and posi- 
 tion of the defiant body. . 
 
THE LAST WARNING. 237 
 
 When the sermon was finished, the doctor walked out 
 of the church, mounted his horse and rode away. Mean- 
 time the congregation scattered to their homes, while a 
 few of the stewards remained standing by the door 
 conversing with the pastor. 
 
 While thus engaged, suddenly the sharp report of a 
 rifle or pistol rang out on the air from some point sey- 
 eral hundred yards distant down the road. All were 
 surprised at the sound and commented on its unusual- 
 ness on a Sabbath morning and near a quiet country 
 town like their own. They had, however, dismissed 
 the thought, and were speaking of some church matter 
 of common interest, when they saw a man running up 
 the road towards them and crying out, “The Doctor’s 
 killed! The Doctor’s killed!” 
 
 Hurrying back with him they found the physician’s 
 horse browsing on the grass, and close by, lying stone 
 dead on the ground was the doctor with his face up- 
 turned to the sky, his black eyes wide open and staring 
 aloft, as if he was watching the flight of his lost soul as 
 it sped on its way to the Judgment Bar of that God 
 whom he had resisted and grieved and insulted up to 
 the last hour of his life. 
 
 A bullet shot from a thicket had entered the back 
 of the skull and came out through the forehead, pro- 
 
238 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 ducing instant death. The victim evidently did not see 
 his murderer, nor is he known until this day. 
 
 The man led a wicked life, and died as he lived, 
 just as most people do, according to the Bible and his- 
 tory, and our own observation. What possessed him to 
 visit the church that Sabbath no one ever knew. His 
 contemptuous face and manner showed that it was for 
 no good. 
 
 The last passage from the Bible ever read and re- 
 peated in his presence, was, “He that being often re- 
 proved, hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, 
 and that without remedy.” His death warrant and 
 doom were read in his hearing and he did not know 
 it. He crossed the Dead line and did not realize it. 
 The last warning had come, been delivered, tarried and 
 gone; and he to whom it was sent, was oblivious of its 
 arrival and ignorant of its departure. The bell which 
 had sounded nine times in his youth, and three times 
 in his manhood, now tolled its final melancholy note 
 
 of one, and the man arose, and went forth according to 
 
 the words of the Book he despised, to a death that was ~ 
 
 sudden and to a destruction without remedy. 
 
 : 
 
 hn 
 
XXVI. 
 THE UPWARD LOOK. 
 
 E do not know the exact location of the soul 
 in the body, but we are perfectly convinced 
 that it is there. Especially is the thoughtful observer 
 impressed with its nearness to or intimate connection 
 with the face. By an invisible network of spiritual 
 ropes, cords, wires, rods, wheels, cranks and pulleys, the 
 soul from within operates the facial machinery, declar- 
 ing not only its presence, but signaling by every straight 
 eurved or quivering line in the countenance, and every 
 changing light and shadow, and every shifting expres- 
 sion on brow and lip, and in the eye, the whole inner 
 life of the spirit, with past regret, present determina- 
 tion and future intention, so that no manuscript reads 
 clearer, and no book presents plainer print. 
 
 It is this strange phenomenon, which after all is noth- 
 ing but the working of law, that the impostor, deceiver 
 and sinner in general has to continually plan for and 
 guard against. It is this that the statesman and pol- 
 itician has to meet with artificial methods, the manu- 
 
 facture of a false face and the thorough schooling of the 
 239 
 
240 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 betraying eye and tongue. And it is this same tell tale 
 face that good people have to subdue and train to keep 
 concealed private griefs and sacred histories which the 
 public has no right to know. ; 
 
 In this countenance volume we have noticed three 
 distinct looks that could be called the upward, the 
 downward and the straightforward. The downward 
 gaze is the peculiar property of sin. A guilty soul 
 draws the head earthward. All of us have felt it who 
 have sinned, and marked it in others who had and were 
 transgressing. It is the common attitude in the erim- 
 inal dock, and always takes place when a man has crime 
 fastened upon him in the presence of others. The face 
 in obedience to law is hidden by the hand or bowed be- 
 fore the shocked scrutiny of an assembly. 
 
 The straightforward look belongs to the innocent, 
 honest and honorable character. It meets a fellow 
 creature’s eyes, firmly, calmly and kindly, in perfect 
 consciousness of having done no wrong to the one before 
 him. It is remarkable what convincing power is in this 
 quiet, gentle, steady look. 
 
 The upward glance is the peculiar property of the 
 heart cleansed by the power of God. In the prayer of 
 the true worshipper it is felt to be the natural attitude; 
 in soul rapture it is the invariable position; while in 
 
THE UPWARD LOOK. 941 
 
 books and on the canvas the pictures of the saints al- 
 ways show them with the heaven bent gaze. 
 
 In the painting representing the Temptation, the 
 artist has caught this idea, and while the countenance 
 of Satan is lowered, the face of Christ is uplifted. 
 
 We have been repeatedly struck with the sacredness 
 of this moral realm, as indicated by the face and eyes. 
 It belongs to the spiritually clean. No other people 
 ean live in this country. One has to possess the char- 
 acter to abide there. A man may attempt it, but has 
 to emigrate in a hurry if he has not been divinely 
 cleansed. 
 
 We have seen the man with the downward face, in- 
 vade the straightforward look region, in an attempt to 
 bluster, bluff and deceive the people with his brazen 
 forehead and bold, staring, defiant gaze; but we have 
 never known one of this order to attempt the upward 
 look. 
 
 We have observed another class of people endeavoring - 
 to cast the upward glance of silent worship, rapt con- 
 templation and soul ecstacy, but as they say in the 
 musical and oratorical world, it fell flat, and only cre- 
 ated amusement. The upward look is not a belonging 
 of the merely correct and moral man; it is part of the 
 estate of the person and character who has met God, 
 been forgiven of every sin, and thrilled with the gift 
 
249 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 of a heart made new and elean by the blood of Jesus” 
 
 Christ and the power of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 It is very evident, then, that excellent as is the 
 straight vision, the upward contemplation is the better. 
 The first declares proper relations with earth, but the 
 second reveals a perfect adjustment and harmony with 
 heaven. The one may stand for common honor and 
 honesty, while the second is the sign of redemption and 
 purity. One means clean hands, and the other a clean 
 soul. With this light on it, we can understand what 
 was in the mind and heart of a woman we once heard 
 testify in a private circle. She said, “For two years 
 since obtaining a clean heart I have felt a continual 
 desire to look upward. I am willing for God to know 
 every thought and desire of my life. My inmost soul 
 is always open to Him; and many times each day I find 
 myself looking up to Him, with a joy and exultation 
 that I have no words to describe.” 
 
 Of course we do not mean to say that the upward 
 glance exists independently of the other. It necessarily 
 includes the other. It is from the first, through the 
 second, that we reach the third. A man must get right 
 with his brother or fellow creature, before he can find 
 harmony with God. Many in the very act of rectifying 
 matters on the human and earthly side, are fairly 
 
 -- oi" 
 
 {Agee 
 
TIIE UPWARD LOOK. QA3 
 
 electrified with an instantaneous and unspeakably glor- 
 ious adjustment on the divine and heavenly side. 
 
 In illustration of the leading thought of this sketch 
 we give the following incident which took place in the 
 city where the writer resides: 
 
 Among the ten or twelve Methodist pastors located in 
 the metropolis, was one who was greatly given to pas- 
 toral work. His great victories were not in the pulpit, 
 but about the firesides, and in the stores and shops of 
 his parishioners. 
 
 In the membership of Brother L. was a devoted 
 Christian woman, married to a man in the liquor busi- 
 ness. Her husband’s occupation was a source not only 
 of profound mortification to her, but agony as well, as 
 she thought of the harm he was doing to the community 
 and the danger he himself was in, before God. 
 
 Hoping to influence him for good, she persuaded a 
 pastor who preceded L. to take her husband into the 
 church. And there the new preacher found him, an 
 unsaved man himself, and a stumbling stone to many 
 others. 
 
 L. was too wise a preacher to publicly expose and 
 lash an individual in the audience, especially in view of 
 the history of the case. He felt he needed some ground 
 to stand on to accomplish what he desired; and praying 
 
 much for divine guidance, swept quickly through mere 
 
244 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 acquaintanceship into friendly and kindly relations 
 with the man whose soul he was after. 
 
 As it happened,in a few weeks L.’s family went away 
 on a visit for a month, and naturally the pastor re- 
 ceived invitations from his members to eat and sleep 
 at their different homes. The one he was burning to 
 obtain came toward the last, and was cordially ac- 
 cepted. He was to take supper and breakfast and spend 
 the night at a place he was sorely needed. 
 
 The man of God was much on his knees all the after- 
 noon that preceded that important visit, where not only 
 a soul but souls were at stake. Of course the trans- 
 gressor and church law breaker could be tried and 
 promptly cast out from the membership, and this would 
 have to be done if his plan failed. But the preacher’s 
 heart sank at the thought that even this proceeding, 
 right as it was, would mean a lost soul, and the liquor 
 business still going on, and numbers of men falling into 
 hell as a consequence of the continued traffic. Oh, if 
 God would be gracious to him, and anoint his lips, and 
 bless his very manner, and help him to order his case, 
 that the Devil might be defeated, a crushing life burden 
 lifted from a woman’s heart, a man’s feet plucked from 
 the brink of hell and a great victory won for Heaven 
 that would bless not only one family but scores and 
 
THE UPWARD LOOK. QA5 
 
 hundreds of others! This was the man’s constant 
 thought, and equally frequent heart ery and prayer. 
 
 It would be difficult to describe that social and pas- 
 toral visit combined. Taught and helped by God, the 
 preacher made great advances into the esteem and 
 affection of both husband and wife. 
 
 After supper was over, and sitting in the pleasant 
 library the painful subject of the man’s business was 
 brought up so naturally and easily that no one could tell 
 how it had been effected. At once the host took the 
 alarm and threw up his fortifications with the old time 
 worn excuses, and arguments of sophistry; but the 
 guest with quiet manner, gentle voice, heart all warm 
 with the Holy Spirit, and brain and tongue alert and 
 touched of Heaven, levelled every breastwork, spiked 
 every gun, got possession of the flag and quietly sur- 
 rounded the silenced enemy. 
 
 With a husky voice and eyes filled with tears the 
 preacher added: 
 
 “There is something more about the case that I have 
 not yet referred to; and it is bound to come close to 
 your heart, for it will affect the welfare and happiness 
 of those who are nearest and dearest to you. Do you 
 know, my brother, that the Bible says ‘Woe to the man 
 who putteth the bottle to his neighbors’ lips.’. This woe 
 is certain to come, for all God’s warnings and threats 
 
246 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 take place. His word never fails. The ‘woe’ spoken 
 of in the Scripture may fall upon you, or upon your 
 family. If it comes on you, it will crush them; and if 
 it overtakes them, that will crush you. In either case 
 you are doomed. Then above all remember that you 
 are diametrically opposed in your life and business, to— 
 the work and business of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. — 
 He is trying to save men, and you are endeavoring to 
 ruin and damn them.” 
 * * * * % 
 
 The house in which the preacher was entertained 
 was a three-story brick dwelling. The first floor was 
 devoted to the liquor traffic, mainly a wholesale busi- 
 ness; the second consisted of parlor, sitting room, din- 
 ing room and bed chambers, while the guest was given 
 an apartment in the third story looking out upon the 
 street. 
 
 With heart all stirred and brain fired by the con- 
 versation and scenes in the library, the preacher after 
 retiring found it impossible to sleep. He tossed and 
 turned an hundred times, but unable to compose him- 
 self to slumber listened hour after hour to the striking 
 of distant town clocks. 
 
 More than once through the night he imagined he 
 heard strange rumbling sounds in the house, but dis- 
 
THE UPWARD LOOK. QAT 
 
 missed the thought as a fancy and continued his rest- 
 less exercise. 
 
 Just before day, however, he was so certain that he 
 heard a jarring sound on the pavement, and that some- 
 thing unusual was taking place in or from the build- 
 ing, that he arose and glancing downward through the 
 closed blinds of his window, beheld to his amazement 
 several long rows of whisky barrels ranged on the brick 
 walk and in the street immediately in front of the 
 store. As he stood wondering at the sight he saw his 
 host appear at the door with still another cask which 
 he rolled into line with the rest. After this he dis- 
 appeared and was gone several minutes, when he re- 
 turned with an axe in his hand, and took his station 
 at the head of one of the lines of barrels. 
 
 The starlight had that indistinctness peculiar to the 
 coming of the day, but still every attitude and motion 
 of the man was plainly discernible by the preacher. 
 
 Suddenly he saw him raise the axe and with a tre- 
 mendous blow stove in the head of the first barrel, when 
 with a great g-u-s-h, the red whisky poured over the 
 pavement, ran into the gutter and flowed away in the 
 direction of the river. Stepping up to the second cask, 
 the axe again rose and fell, a second barrel head crashed 
 in and sixty more gallons of the crimson liquid of hell 
 
 which impoverishes and beggarizes the household, breaks 
 
248 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 the hearts of women, bruises the bodies of innocent 
 children and damns the souls of men, went on its rush- 
 ing way through the ditch towards the Mississippi. 
 
 The man never hesitated, but went on smashing cask 
 after cask, until five thousand dollars, every cent of his 
 stock in trade, had poured into the gutter, and swirled 
 and swept on its way through the street to the river. 
 
 Day was breaking in the East when the man com- 
 pleted his work, and day.was breaking in him at the 
 same time. He stood leaning on his axe contemplating 
 the scene of havoc before him, ignorant that he himself 
 was being beheld and rejoiced over from the third win- 
 dow. Then there was still another window, much 
 higher, and opening from Heaven itself, that we feel 
 convinced was crowded with angelic and redeemed 
 faces looking on in joy at a man who impoverished him- 
 self for the truth’s sake, and became poor that he might 
 get right and rich with God. 
 
 He stood still for a full minute as if studying his 
 own work, and then looked up to the sky! The light 
 was in the East, and a brighter light was in his face. 
 Pardon and peace had come to him when he struck the 
 last blow on the last barrel; and now for the first time 
 in his life he could give the upward gaze to Heaven, 
 assured that it was received, and thrilled with the con- 
 sciousness that it was returned by Him who dwelt in 
 
THE UPWARD LOOK. QA9 
 
 the sky. It had cost him all that he possessed to obtain 
 the upward look, but judging from the happiness that 
 was beaming in the man’s face, he had come out gainer 
 in the transaction beyond figures in arithmetic to com- 
 pute and words in any language to describe. 
 
 May God in His mercy, grant us all the power, to 
 east The Upward Look. 
 
Be acs a 
 
 Ya 
 
 XXVII. 
 THE POWER OF A DREAM. 
 
 UST how and why dreams come is one of the mys- 
 teries of life. About the time we conelude that 
 
 they are a projection of one’s waking thoughts, comes a 
 midnight vision of the most unique and fantastic pat- 
 tern, and dealing with things that we never thought of 
 before nor had. concerning them the faintest imagina- 
 tion. There is also a difference of opinion as to their 
 moral value. Some may be sent by God; while with 
 others He unquestionably has nothing to do. In the old- 
 en days the Lord evidently made use of dreams for the 
 comfort, direction,and deliverance of His people. In the 
 present time with an open Bible in the hand, and the 
 recognized leadings of the Holy Spirit in the life, we 
 do not need these strange flitting mental pictures of 
 the night to show us our duty, privilege or danger, as 
 was done to men in an earlier dispensation that was 
 far less favored than ours. Nevertheless there are 
 times when the ordinary means of grace seem utterly to 
 fail with certain individuals, and Heaven in its efforts 
 
 to arouse and save the immortal soul, is driven to the 
 250 
 
 *¢ 
 
THE POWER OF A DREAM. Q51 
 
 employment of methods unusual and extraordinary. So 
 we doubt not that there are dreams sent as directly to 
 the slumberer on the bed, as a sermon to the sleeping 
 conscience in the pew, or as a prophet has been directed 
 to a sinful city, with a message of warning or woe. 
 
 In harmony with this thought, we recall the exper- 
 iences related in our hearing of three preachers who are 
 as widely removed in temperament as they are in the 
 localities where they reside. 
 
 One of these men was greatly gifted in speech, pos- 
 sessed charming’ manners, and became a kind of pulpit 
 and social idol with his congregation. The incense 
 burned continually to him, intoxicated his brain, drove 
 the grace out of his heart and finally ascended like a 
 fog around a backslider with a clergyman’s coat on his 
 back and a shining beaver hat on his head. At the very 
 time his gold chain was glittering most, his rattan 
 whirling gracefully in the air, and his people were high- 
 est in their praises of him, he was without Christ and 
 Ichabod was written on the walls of his soul. 
 
 To this man, God sent a dream of the Judgment Day. 
 As he lay one night locked in slumber on his pillow 
 he beheld the world on fire, the rolling flames towering 
 above the clouds, while he heard frantic stricken mul- 
 titudes crying out, “The Judgment Day has come! The 
 Judgment Day has come!” 
 
252 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 At this moment in his sleep he seemed to lift up his 
 eyes and see the Son cf God descending through the 
 Heavens. In his agony he ran, so that the Saviour’s 
 face might be turned upon him, and to his amazement 
 the Lord averted His countenance. Rushing around in 
 that direction to his unspeakable consternation Christ 
 turned His face from him the second time; and this 
 was repeated again with such an unmistakeable expres- 
 sion of ‘displeasure, that the preacher woke up with his 
 face wet with tears, sobbing, “He won’t look at me! 
 He won’t look at me!” 
 
 That vision brought the gifted man down in deepest 
 humiliation, penitence and prayer before God. He was 
 heard in Heaven in that he feared, and the restored 
 servant of Christ has been blazing in a skyward way 
 ever since, 
 
 A second ministerial friend of the writer admitted 
 publicly that in the active life of a pastor, preaching, 
 visiting and flying around generally, he lost God. He 
 continued to go on his rounds, baptized the children, 
 married the people, delivered his sermons, made his 
 announcements and took up the conference collections ; 
 but for all that he was a backslider. A dead man was 
 in the pulpit talking to dead men in the pews. A corpse 
 was driving a loaded hearse to the cemetery. 
 
 At this juncture came the dream. The vision showed 
 
THE POWER OF A DREAM. 953 
 
 ‘him to be in Hell. He was rolling in agony amid bil- 
 lows of torturing fire. With fearful struggles he 
 struck out for a shore which he saw in the distance. 
 As he came nearer he beheld his mother standing on the 
 bank gazing with anguish upon him as though she would 
 help her gasping, laboring son out of his torment. Just 
 as he reached the strand, and stretched forth his hand 
 to pull himself upon the shore, the Devil suddenly ap- 
 peared, coming over the bank, with a look of infernal 
 joy and malicious triumph. He whirled a whip of 
 fire in his hand, the lash of which seemed to be a mile 
 long, curling and flickering like a streak of lightning. 
 He brought it down upon the unhappy man with a 
 sharp detonating crack, and the keen quivering lash 
 seemed to penetrate body and soul alike with an agony 
 beyond any words to describe. With an awful groan 
 he fell back in the billows of flame, hearing the Devil’s 
 
 shout of victory, and the broken hearted wail of his 
 mother, as she cried “My poor boy”! “My poor boy”! 
 
 This dreadful experience was gone through with three 
 times; when the mental distress, and the actual suffer- 
 ing of body became so great through the vivid, life-like 
 dream, that the preacher burst through the gates of 
 slumber with a piercing cry to God for help and mercy, 
 and fell with sobs and tears, face downward, upon the 
 
 floor. 
 
254 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 Today he is one of the holiest men known to the 
 writer, 
 
 The third instance is that of a preacher who after 
 years of diligent, faithful service in the Christian life, 
 began gradually to grow weary of its constant cross 
 bearing and self-denial. The joy once realized in endur- 
 ing the hardness of a good soldier of Jesus Christ sub- 
 sided. The flesh cried out for a letting up, or for more in- 
 dulgence ; while strange inner voices called attention to 
 the drudgery of the work, the prevalence of the com- 
 monplace, the uninteresting class of people with whom 
 he labored, and the many instances of fruitless, result- 
 less toil among them as far as human eye could per- 
 ceive, and human wisdom judge. With all this came 
 fierce temptations to downright fleshliness; when sud- 
 denly one night he dreamed a dream. 
 
 He seemed to be in the outskirts of a large field in 
 what is called a “deadening.” Although asleep he 
 thought in his slumber that he had just awakened and 
 found himself lying on the ground and completely sur- 
 rounded by what seemed to be logs. Some were, and 
 some were not; for as he gazed upon the objects he saw 
 that a number had an almost imperceptible motion like 
 that of aworm. What he had taken for fallen trees were 
 huge creatures eight to ten feet long, shaped somewhat 
 like snails, with broad bands of yellow and dusky red 
 
THE POWER OF A DREAM. 255 
 
 around their bodies. Some were lying on tree trunks 
 not much larger than themselves, and others were 
 stretched on the ground. Most of them were asleep, 
 and but for a slight palpitation of the side would have 
 looked to be dead. A few seemed to be making efforts 
 to arouse themselves as shown in quivering eyelid and 
 lazy stretching of muscle. One had opened his great 
 flabby mouth in a yawn which disclosed a crimson 
 cavity down which a man could easily have disappeared. 
 Others were awake and had a slow vermicular motion 
 toward the preacher that was simply horrifying in its 
 deliberateness. In addition, the eyes of all the awak- 
 ened ones were resting on the unhappy man who, 
 paralyzed with fear, lay helpless in their midst. The 
 moral horror and spiritual loathing felt in the vision, 
 surpassed the physical terror realized in the case of 
 nightmare. The spectacle of a creeping, crawling flesh- 
 liness, with no mind in its dull eyes, no heart or soul 
 in its gross form, but a mere shape of the lowest plane 
 of physical life, moving toward him with an enswathe- 
 ment and accompaniment of fat and oiliness, of lazi- 
 ness, sleepiness and stupiduess, so terrified the slumber- 
 ing minister, that he cried out in agony. He awoke 
 with a staring eyed, open mouthed horror, to find his 
 face bathed in a cold clammy sweat, and his body trem- 
 bling as with an ague. 
 
256 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 He felt as he collected his faculties and tried to 
 think, that God had caused him to look on symbolized 
 materialism; on the carnal mind incarnated. He was 
 convinced that he had been shown in a terrible picture 
 the trend and end of the soul which turns from God, 
 truth, and spiritual things to walk in gross and fleshly 
 lines. That a spirit finally animalized becomes as un- 
 like a man, as a fallen devil fails to resemble one of 
 God’s holy angels. 
 
 The shock that night was terrific, but something of 
 the kind was needed. 
 
 Suffice it to say that the dream accomplished that 
 whereunto it was sent; a delusion was swept away; a 
 faltering soul was steadied; and the adversary exposed, 
 foiled, discomfited and defeated once more by the Son 
 of God. 
 
 So in the three instances related God accomplished a 
 wonderful work through a vision of the night. Recoy- 
 ery and salvation was the result in each case. 
 
 Of course it is easy to criticise these incidents and 
 say they are too realistic, that they are nerve shocking, 
 and also offensive to the best taste. Complaint also 
 might be made that the imagery used is too gross for 
 the proper description of spiritual states, and utterly 
 inadequate to depict conditions in another world that 
 is so different from anything we know in life. 
 
THE POWER OF A DREAM. O54 
 
 In reply we ask what figures and images have we 
 used that are not also found in the Bible. There we 
 read of the Lake of Fire, of unquenchable flames, of 
 undying worms, of a being who has become a dragon, 
 of a worldliness that has become a beast, of weeping, 
 wailing and gnashing of teeth, of Christ coming in the 
 clouds, of the world being on fire, of a bottomless pit, 
 and all enthroned in Hell, a tormenting Devil. 
 
 As for dreams, far more wonderful ones than the 
 three we have related are recorded in the Word of God. 
 So all these objections viewed in the light of Scripture 
 alone, are found to go down. 
 
 Then let it be remembered that this life sketch was 
 not written to defend dreams nor even to explain them. 
 The chapter appears simply to relate three remarkable 
 occurrences; how a preacher was getting off the nar- 
 row upon the broad way that leads to death; and how 
 two others were off entirely and heading rapidly for 
 ruin; when God sent the visions as described and saved 
 the three men. The only point we make is that the 
 
 dreams came, and the men were saved. 
 
XXVIII. 
 
 _A NIGHT VISITOR. — 
 
 HE preacher had slipped away by a s 
 
 him for his sermons, and bidding him fare 
 had regained his room, and, flushed and grat 
 the pleasent things that her been said to him t 
 
 dash off a letter to a certain religious paper 
 posit it in a letter-box before the last round of 
 collector. So, drawing up a small table, and 
 hat tilted backward on his head, he wrote the foll 
 lines with flying pen: _ 
 
 _ “Mr. Editor: 
 “At the meeting previous to this last one, j 
 to-night, I had wonderful victory. It wasa ia A 
 but I poured in Sinai shot and shell after the 
 manner and things went all to pieces. On the fi 
 
 the opposition melted like mists before the mot 
 258 
 
A NIGHT VISITOR. 259 
 
 and the whole community was stirred from center to cir- 
 cumference and went down before the Great Flood of 
 Salvation. 
 
 “From that place I came to this city of three hun- 
 dred thousand inhabitants. Immediately upon my ar- 
 rival I saw that the holiness professed here was of the 
 sloppiest character; so I went for everything in sight, 
 and preached the straight truth. As a result, on the 
 fifth day the people got their eyes opened for the first 
 time, and began to sweep into genuine holiness. Other 
 great teachers and preachers had been here, but nothing 
 has ever been seen like my meeting. 
 
 “The building in which the meetings were held was 
 crowded to suffocation ; thousands of people were in our 
 street services and could not get into the hall where we 
 held forth. The scenes around the altar defied descrip- 
 tion. Gales of Glory, Tornadoes of Power, Johnstown 
 Floods, Waterspouts and a Noah’s Deluge of Salvation 
 swept the audience, while perfect Cyclones of Convie- 
 tion fell on the people at every service. Lawyers, doc- 
 tors. merchants, editors, professors and members of the 
 Legislature and of Congress swept with shouts and 
 eries into the Fountain. The whole city was stirred! 
 The oldest inhabitants say they never witnessed such 
 a revival. 
 
 “Men raged, and the opposition was intense. But 
 everything went down before us. The Devil was sent 
 howling back to Hell. Eternity alone can reveal the 
 good that was done in this meeting. 
 
 “Hundreds were at the altar. Great numbers swept 
 
260 REMARKABLE OCCURR 
 
 into the Fountain, and it is safe to say 
 if not thousands, were turned from the doo 
 get in. Hundreds followed me to the train, a mn 
 me to come again. If I can, I will. 
 
 you from that point. Pray for me. 
 “Your humble brother, 
 “A. Brows 
 
 The letter’ was folded and addressed, and B 
 Blohart, stepping quickly out, dropped it in a letter- 
 box in front of the hotel, letting the iron lid s 
 twice to be sure that the valuable document was ins 
 and safe. 
 Returning to his room, after leaving orders at 
 office to be called at 6 o’clock for the early train ; 
 preacher packed his valise, disrobed himself, and, i 
 getting to pray, flung himself upon the bed and yught C 
 sleep. 
 
 Thought was on fire; the brain cells were surel 
 with blood ; faces, voices, speeches, handclasps, fla 
 
A NIGHT VISITOR. 261 
 
 were so vivid that he was kept awake looking at them. 
 He wanted to go to sleep and didn’t want to go. And 
 so he tossed on, sometimes smiling in the dark as words 
 of praise came back to him, and sometimes sighing as 
 an uneasy, troubled feeling touched his spirit. 
 
 Twelve o’clock had long ago sounded, and the last 
 wheel of belated carriage and wagon had ceased to 
 echo from the deserted street. Now and then only, the 
 distant stroke of the policeman’s club, as it descended 
 with ringing sound upon the pavement, fell upon his 
 ear. The city was asleep. The people who had flat- 
 tered him were locked in slumber and had long ago for- 
 gotten him, and yet here he was, brooding upon their 
 fulsome utterances. 
 
 The hour of one struck from a remote town clock. 
 How solemnly it sounded! A change already seemed 
 to have taken place in the Past. The scenes of the 
 evening had been gone over so frequently in his mind 
 that they were beginning to pall upon him. He feit 
 something akin to disgust creeping in his heart. Then 
 that solitary note of the bell sounded so strangely like 
 a knell. His room seemed to hold the echo for a full 
 minute, and then became silent and oppressive, like a 
 tomb. The sensation was like to the feeling which 
 comes over one when a funeral procession has swept 
 
 past and left the street deserted. 
 
262 REMARKABLE OCCURREN 
 
 fear he glanced up and saw a chyondelll Form s 
 at the foot of his bed and obviously looking 
 
 “Tyo you know me?” 
 
 asked the Figure. 
 “Yes,” replied the man of God, in a a 
 “T have come to have a talk with you.” - 
 The preacher was silent, and his heart sak 
 him. 
 “T have been waiting quite a while until you 
 recover from your excitement, become quiet and 
 
 to me. God has sent me, and I have a message 
 
 thoughtless people to-night; but it will be more 
 able.” . 
 
 “You mailed a letter to-night to a Holiness fp 
 and you wrote it as a Holiness man?” 
 COV ag. 
 
 “What made you tell those untruths in it ?” £ 
 (Profound silence in the room and on the 
 
 “You said in that letter that you came fro 
 
 2 
 
A NIGHT VISITOR. 263 
 
 where the opposition melted like mists before the morn- 
 ing sun, and the place was shaken from center to cir- 
 eumference. Now answer me as God’s representative, 
 what were the results of your whole meeting ?” 
 No reply. 
 “Answer me, as you will have to do at the Day of 
 Judgment ?” 
 “Two young people were reclaimed,” replied the 
 evangelist, in an almost inaudible whisper. 
 “And yet you wrote as though a mighty revival had 
 visited the town!” 
 No word from the bed. 
 The White Figure looked steadily at the prostrate 
 man for quite a while and resumed: 
 “You wrote to-night that on coming to this city, of 
 three hundred thousand inhabitants, you discovered 
 on the very first day that the Holiness professed here 
 was of the sloppiest character. How was it possible 
 for you to know such a thing as that on the first day, 
 unless you were God himself?” 
 No answer. 
 . “You wrote that the hall was crowded to suffocation. 
 How many people could it accommodate 2” 
 
 Continued silence. 
 
 “Answer me; you know I have the power to make 
 
 you admit the truth, and truth is what I want to-night. 
 
264 REMARKABLE OCCUR 
 
 How many people could be accommodat 
 “Two hundred.” a 
 “And yet you conveyed in your letter the 
 
 great audience was listening to you.” 
 “T feel that I did wrong,” said the pre; 
 
 Did you count them?” 
 So.” 
 “Do you know that it is the rarest thing fo 
 
 ligious street meeting to number over two hundred pe 
 
 sons ?”” - 
 
 More silence. a, 
 
 “You stated most confidently that the who 
 
 stirred by your meeting. That is, that a great 
 
 person in two hundred or five hundred knew jy 
 there.” 
 
 utterances.” 
 The Figure looked steadily at the man befo 
 for a while, and said: 
 “God will have to forgive you for the — 
 
 show you where your letter was false. 
 me to speak with you about it.” 
 Some heavy sighs came from the bed. 
 
A NIGHT VISITOR. 265 
 
 - “Who was that oldest inhabitant that said your 
 meeting was the greatest ever held in that city ?” 
 
 “Several of the brethren told me they thought so.” 
 
 “Were they the oldest inhabitants?” 
 
 pio.” 
 
 “So you lied again ?” 
 
 An awful groan from the bed. 
 
 “Did you witness the Johnstown flood ?” 
 
 CONT .?7 
 
 “Were you ever in a real cyclone ?” 
 
 pa.” 
 
 “Of course you have some idea of the awful and 
 widespread power of the things you mentioned in your ~ 
 letter as Gales, Tornadoes and Deluges ?” 
 
 “T have read about them.” 
 
 “You wrote that you had just such things in spirit- 
 ual lines in your meeting; that God worked on such 
 seales and grades of omnipotence.” 
 
 A profound silence. 
 
 “In the Johnstown flood,” continued the Figure, 
 “thousands were killed, millions of property swept 
 away, and the civilized world was moved at the occur- 
 rence. At the Deluge the entire Human Race was de- 
 stroyed with the exception of a single family. And 
 yet you said you’had a Johnstown Flood and a Noah’s 
 
 Deluge in your meeting.” 
 
266 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 A heavy sigh from the bed. 
 
 “How many people were really saved and sanctified 
 in this last meeting? Answer me as you will have to 
 answer God at the last Day.” 
 
 The preacher turned restlessly. 
 
 “T am waiting,” said the Form; “tell me the num- 
 ber that you think in your heart were really saved ?” 
 
 “Between thirty and forty.” 
 
 “And yet you wrote that hundreds were at the altar, 
 and that great numbers swept into the Fountain of 
 Cleansing.” 
 
 More tossing on the bed. 
 
 “You spoke of the Devil being sent howling back to 
 Hell; did you hear him howl?” 
 
 Profound silence. 
 
 “Did you ever hear him howl ?” 
 
 No word of reply. 
 
 “You wrote about Hell raging against you, and the 
 human opposition being so intense. Who opposed 
 you ?” 
 
 No answer. 
 
 “Did the city authorities stop your meeting ?” 
 
 “Now 
 
 “Did the church forbid you?” 
 
 “No.” 
 
 “Did the press say anything against you?” 
 
A NIGHT VISITOR. 267 
 
 “The papers ignored us.” 
 
 “Did any one in the audience cry out against you, 
 and mobs break up your services ?” 
 
 = 
 
 “Well, where was the ‘intense opposition’ you wrote 
 about ?” 
 
 “Several people were overheard talking on the 
 street, saying they did not believe in sanctification 
 and others laughed at my mannerisms, as they called 
 my style of preaching.” 
 
 “But your mannerisms are not Holiness.” 
 
 “No, but another man said that such loud, noisy 
 meetings ought to be stopped.” 
 
 “Ts that all?” 
 
 “Y—e—s.” 
 
 “Do you call that intense opposition ?” 
 
 No reply. 
 
 “Do you know what they did to Paul ?” 
 
 “They scourged and stoned him.” 
 
 “Do you remember what the people did to Wesley ?” 
 
 “They frequently stoned and mobbed him.” 
 
 “What did the people do to Christ?” 
 
 ' “They killed him.” 
 
 “What is there to compare between their sufferings 
 
 and yours?” 
 
268 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES. 
 
 “Nothing—absolutely nothing,” groaned the man on 
 the bed. 
 
 “One striking difference was that hundreds, you say, 
 went to the depot to see you off, while with the apostle 
 and the Savior, hundreds went with them outside the 
 city walls to stone or crucify them.” 
 
 There was a silence of minutes, and then the Fig- 
 ure resumed: 
 
 “With the light of Heaven and Truth : upon 
 you, what are you to-night ?” 
 
 “A hypoerite and a liar!” cried out the preacher, 
 and burst into tears. 
 
 The instant the Figure heard the sound of weeping, 
 his whole manner changed and became full of tender- 
 ness. Going softly to the door he admitted another 
 white Form, and coming back to the bedside with the 
 new visitor, stooped down over the penitent man of 
 God, whose face was covered with his a and whis- 
 pered: 
 
 “Do you know me?” 
 
 > Ves, 
 
 “Who am I?” 
 
 “Conscience.” 
 
 “Yes, I am Conscience, your true friend. I have 
 not desired to pain you needlessly; but to warn you.” 
 
 “You have nearly broken my heart,” sighed the 
 
A NIGHT VISITOR. 269 
 
 man of God; “but I know it was for my good, and that 
 you have done right.” 
 
 Conscience smiled approvingly and lovingly upon 
 the man, and said: 
 
 “God has sent some one else to see you, who bears a 
 blessed message to your soul from Him.” 
 
 “Who is it?’ asked the preacher, looking up. 
 
 And the second white Form bent over him and 
 pressed a kiss upon the tear-stained cheek, and replied: 
 
 “My name is Mercy.” 
 
 And the preacher’s face fairly glowed in the shadows 
 of the room, while happy smiles and equally happy 
 tears strove for mastery on the illumined countenance. 
 
 And so, by and by, he fell asleep murmuring: 
 
 “Blessed Savior! from this hour I will act, speak, 
 write and do all things like Thee.” 
 
 Conscience and Mercy stood a while looking at the 
 tired, slumbering servant of God, smiled upon him 
 and at each other, shook hands, and went to their own 
 places. Meanwhile the preacher had sunk into a pro- 
 found, refreshing sleep, such as God has promised His 
 beloved. Every care was forgotten, the heart was at 
 rest, and the faint reflection of a smile made the face 
 look as if the light of childhood’s innocent, happy, 
 sunny hours had fallen upon him once more. 
 
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